Here's the (penultimate??) part of the Champ storyline...it wont go on for much longer I promise! ;o)
So we all get ready to go and pick her up. The plan is pretty simple. Farthing and Wuppass go get her whilst me and Doker get some provisions in for the stay. Top of the list is getting Farthings suit of HARD back from the repair shop, ammo and food. We have a brief argument about who gets the girl but Farthing wins as he's way more diplomatic than I am.
Me and Doker pick everything up and make it back to Farthings for around 15:00. Our side has gone without a hitch and we are running 15-20 mins ahead of schedule, there wasn't even that much traffic. Whilst I prepare the room, Doker says he's going to check the net for 'stuff'. I know what site he's going to though, the FEN site, he loves looking at the stats for firearms. I onced likened him to a Train Spotter but the joke was lost on him as he asked which company made trains and if they had stats he could view, for "tactical considerations".
About 20:00 me and Doker are getting a little worried about the other two, they are meant to back here by at least an hour gone but there's been no word from them. I pick up the headset and switch to a squad channel.
"Farthing....Wuppass....If either of you are receiving this then get in touch with us. We've been ready for hours and Dokers looking at guns again."
We wait for another hour and there's still no reply.
"Doker?" I say standing in the doorway.
"Yes Champ?" he doesn't even turn round and all I can see is his massive frame lit from the vid screen by an eerie sick green.
"Has either of the other two spoken to you on the squad channel only I've not heard anything off either of them for a while and they're way overdue now by a few hours"
He turns round after disconnecting and rolls his neck from side to side with an enourmous crack. I'm not sure that it sounds too healthy but he smiles like it's better. "Not a thing Champ, I've had it on squad frequency the whole time and haven't heard anything since your broadcast. Should we go looking for them?"
"I'm not sure, if they're hiding for some reason then I'd doubt we'd find them but I'd like to think that they'd get back to us if there's been a problem." There's a few images floating round in my mind and none of them are nice. "Wuppass is good at his job though and Farthings not a green 10.A Op, they'll be OK"
Doker smiles a hideous grin, a full row of Karma Sharps catch the light from the main room. "Right. We wait them out. Have you tried his mobile?"
The damn mobile. I lost mine after the incident with the Shaktar and never thought to check it. "Uhh, yeah but he had it turned off so I might give it another go now"
I wander out into the hallway and pick up the phone, I dial Station Analysis and ask for Farthings mobile number. I notice he's got ours on a white board on the wall above the phone, alongside someone called Felicity. I make a mental note to ask him who she is when the operator comes back and reels the number off. I pen it to the board and dial him up. 'Service unavailable' flashes onto the screen so he's either had it smashed to pieces or he's out of network range.
"The networks knackered" I shout through to Doker. "Service unavailable" I add to clarify.
"OK....." He mutters through from the other room. He's probably on the net again drooling over a new variant on the FEN range.
It gets to about 01:00 and there's a rapping at the door that wakes me up from the nap I'm having. A dream about a new train tunel from here to New Paris evaporates as I come to life again.
"Who is it?" I shout, purposefully making my voice sound scared.
"A friend" comes a cocky reply from the other side. "I'm here about Farthing."
Doker is alongside me so fast and so quiet I could've mistaken him for a ghost. It still spooks me that he can move so quietly when he's built like he is. I go to the door and Doker motions for me to step aside. He clips his helmet into place and opens the door slowly after killing the lights.
The man on the other side is still oozing confidence and as he raises a 10-10 Bully Boy he steps forward and says "Come on out. We don't want any drama now"
He clearly has no idea who he's dealing with as Doker rips the door back and bowls into him like a train. The shotgun goes off and I hear the ricochet as it pings off a door down the corridoor. The shotgun goes off again as someone else shouts "Oh fuck!" and then I hear a sickening wet crunch and a slapping noise that I know has got to hurt. I inch my way around the door after it goes quiet again. The sound of Dokers heavy breathing is the only noise breaking the silence.
"Got 'em both. One's dead and the others out cold" Doker reels it off like a report on the weather as he starts to drag a body into the room. The mook that knocked on the door missing a large part of his head and I'm gratefull for the dull lighting for once. The other mook is slung over his shoulder like a hunting trophy, a large red welt covers the right side of his kneck. We get 'em both indoors and lay a towell over the dead man. A quick search of his wallet reveals a train ticket from the station near where Farthing is working and about 200U in cash. Doker ties the unconcious mook to a chair and says that he'll interview him when he wakes up. I don't want to argue with him as it looks like he means business.
I step back into the room after "Why did you kill him Doker? He looks about 70Kilo's of useless ganger but he could have had information"
Doker looks up and pulls back his coat to reveal an almost closed gunshot wound to his hip "He didn't want to come peacefully..." I nod in agreement. That wound would've killed me.
After a few minutes, the mook wakes up and is quite groggy. At first he doesn't realise where he is and asks me for some chips as he's feeling hungry. He tries to get some money out of his pocket and gets no-where as his arms are tied behind his back.
"I think I'm stuck" he says
Doker meanwhile has got some smelling salts out of an old medkit that he found bewhind Farthings couch and wafts them under his nose to bring him round. I'm not sure if it's the smell of the salts or Dokers face that snaps him into the here and now.
"Oh my god...." he whimpers...
"You are under arrest." Doker says as he sits on the chair in front of him. "You are also going to answer a few questions, aren't you"
The mook thinks he's a hero as he spits in Dokers face and shouts "Fuck you! You Bio piece of shit!". Dumb move. Doker leans forward and calmly takes his foot in one massive taloned claw and twists it 180 degrees without breaking eye contact. Our 'hero' lets out a high pitched scream and tries feebly to break his bonds but as Doker is holding his foot in one hand and he's been tied up with about five rolls of duct tape his chances of escape are pretty slim.
Once his screaming dies down, Doker tries again "As I said, you are going to answer some questions."
He nodds furiously and has started to cry.
Doker lets his foot down gently and pulls out the mooks Sector Wall Pass "I want to know why you came here tonight. Who told you to come here?"
He puts on the face of a victim and pathetically starts to blab "Some bloke, I never met him before and he gave me 200U to come and scare you."
Doker leans forward and picks the mooks foot up pushing it into the fractured mess of bone in his leg with a noise that makes my skin crawl.
"Which man?"
In between screams he tells us "OH GOD! It was Larry Milou!! Larry Milou!!! He's a member of a Soft Company and I used to know him before he went rogue so he still asks me to do things for him! Please!! I'm telling the truth!"
Doker lets the foot go and it smashes to the floor with a crunching sound that doesn't sound healthy at all. "Do you know where he is now?"
"234 Brandon St Downtown.....in a bar called Redline....he asked me to meet him there after scaring you off......" he's sobbing now and his face is beetroot red with the pain. I know that he's still not telling us that 'scaring us off' is a polite way of saying 'killing you both' but Doker either lets it slide or doesn't make the connection.
"Lets hope you're not lying. As you wont be able to travel back through the wall without this" says Doker waving the fake pass pulled from his jacket "You're going with the Shivers till we get back. I WILL come back. Do you know if he has met Operatives recently?"
With nothing to gain from lying he opens up once more "He says he's got some Ops captured and he wants to screw you over aswell, I don't know if he's lying but that's what he told me I swear"
"Thanks" I say ending the interview. Having seen Dokers attitude during the interrogation I'm glad he's my squad mate and make a mental note to never piss him off.
Doker calls the Shivers and I stay watching the mook till they get here. They arrive in thirty mins and Doker fill sour guest in as a suspect in a possible double Op murder. The Shiver nodds as he takes it all down and they decide to wheel him out on the chair rather than untie him.
Doker is running through a weapons check when I join him in the main room and has just finished stripping and assembling his shotgun. "Lets go find them then Champ" he says as I enter. Slapping the weapon to his mag plate down his spine.
I look at my watch, the display reads 02:03 "Er, OK then..." I'm not too happy about visiting this place at this time of the morning but the sooner we act the better the chances are that we'll find them alive.
The ride to the area takes us forty mins and as we step out onto the street the rain is beating down pretty hard. There are a few lights glowing feebly down the road and sounds of music can be heard faintly, masked mostly by the rain.
I turn up my collar and make sure my helmets visor wont get fogged up again. I pull the NAV map from my mag plate and punch in the address, it churns for a minute and then displays the local area. The screen is filthy and I hold it in the rain for a few seconds before wiping it clean. I note our position and plot the course to the bar.
"Let's get moving Doker." I say as I duck into the entrance of a walkway.
Doker nodds revealing a puposefull menace in his eyes and I know that this isn't going to be pretty.