Draco Cronnoc II
You make a desperate leap to the side, and you hear the man's gun go off. Fortunately, no pain rushes through your body, so you conclude the shot missed you. You pull out your gun and fire from near point-blank.
Your bullet hits its mark. You tried not to hit anything vital and succeeded. The man falls to the ground in pain. But he'll live.
And now to complete your plan. You purposely let the man live so he could hopefully be captured and questioned. What you're trying to do is to hide inside the enormous factory, in one of the larger rooms, and wait until help arrives. Even though you brought no one with you, not expecting any combat, you are in a city and someone must have heard the shots and called the police.
For good measure, just as you slip out of the room and deeper into the building, you fire three blasts that bounce harmlessly off a metal pipe. They make a good deal of noise, just as you'd hoped. This could work.
You sprint as fast as possible into the gargantuan room behind the computer room. You breathe a sigh of relief. There are numerous boxes for you to hide in, and many machines to shield your body. He's not going to find you.
You move to the opposite corner, behind some turbine-like thing and crouch down to wait. In approximately two minutes you can hear the steps of the man come closer and closer.
His breathing is severely labored, and as you glance over from your hiding spot you frown. Perhaps the shot you gave him was lethal. He is gripping his still-bleeding arm tightly, but he does manage to hold his gun in his injured arm.
The minutes pass by slowly. Sometimes the man goes into other rooms to search for youl sometimes he comes back. Probably fearful that you're deep in the factory by now, he never thoroughly checks the room. Occassionally he bandages his wound with his shirt.
You notice with some surprise that the man is neither Arabic nor Vietnamese. He is white, around the age of thirty.
You are getting very worried. Perhaps no one heard the gunshots and the police aren't coming. In that case, you'd need to kill the man and lose an interrogation. Right now you don't have enough evidence to bring a case against anyone. You would need that computer in your hands, and something tells you the man would be able to shoot you by the time it would take to drag a computer out of a warehouse.
So your only option is to wait.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And, after almost a half-hour, you are rewarded for your patience. You hear the outer doors opening and breath again.
"Dover police!" you hear. "We've gotten reports about gunshots near this building! Come out with your hands up, no weapons!"
The man whips around, causing his gun to tumble out of his arm and onto the cement floor. Echoing throughout the building, the sound most definitely reaches the policemen.
You hear them sprint through the small computer room and into the room you and the man are presently located. Five uniformed police officers enter your view, and you leave your hiding spot, putting your gun back in the holster.
"Who are you?" the men demand of you and the man.
The other man is looking at you increduously, obviously thinking, "He was there the whole time?"
"I am Draco Cronnoc of the Richland Harbor Police Department. I'm here investigating the attacks on my city, and this man tried to kill me. Here's my ID." You toss the head officer your cards and point at the man who attempted to kill you. "Treat his wound properly. We're going to need to ask him a few questions."
After verifying the authenticity of your identification, the officer frowns. "Do you know who he is?"
"Nothing beyond the fact he's a member of the Red Exterior, a radical neo-communist group from Vietnam."
The man clears his throat in a professional manner. "I am sorry I tried to kill you. But I am not a terrorist. My name is Argus Minnerit. I am an assassin, working for the US Army. Apparently our confrontation was just a very dangerous mix-up."
You are shocked into silence. One of the lesser officers cuts in, "What do you mean?"
Argus Minnerit looks as though he isn't allowed to disclose what he's about to say, but then shakes his head. "Three months ago I was given the details of a very important mission my superior, Wesley Johnson. He described a very volatile situation to me. There were five rogue soldiers from Vietnam who were about to endanger the safety of American troops worldwide. Some secret truth or something, he wasn't too specific on what they were going to do. Anyway, he sent me to get information on the five men.
"It was peculiar that we couldn't just get the information ourselves, considering it was us who classified it. But they sent me in to get it covertly. And no one could know. Unfortunately, it was impossible to find the desired information without turning to Cindy Delhaf, who I later had to kill. She was an innocent victim.
"Wesley Johnson told me that I did a good job and would continue on with this mission. I would be the only person involved in contacting an operative of the mission, a man using the code-name Runner.
Runner said he'd meet me here today, outside the building. He made sure to tell me that if anyone else was here for whatever reason, he'd have to leave and that I should kill that person. If there happened to be someone outside (who would probably be him) I should approach that person and say, 'Could you direct me to Searg Avenue?'
"Well, I found Mr. Cronnoc in here and assumed he was someone we were fighting and tried to capture him. I don't like killing. I used to. But not since Cindy Delhaf...killing an innocent woman wasn't cool."
You close your eyes. The man was telling the truth. It was too unbelievable he was telling a lie. In your mind, it is clear both the Army and Red Exterior had something sinister to do with the attacks, but you have no proof except the email. And that's inconclusive. FMackenzie@army.gov could be anyone with enough knowledge about computers. At least, you think so.
"Mr. Minnerit, turn on the central computer in the room going outside," you order of Argus.
He does this and stares at the screen.
"Does this mean anything to you?" you demand.
"No. And it's obviously fake. I don't have a clue how it got here, or even what the importance of this building is, but I've never emailed an FMackenzie@army.gov, and I've never heard of Red Exterior."
"I thought so. Well, the importance of this building is that it's the headquarters of Red Exterior, yet no one's here..." You now know as much from Argus Minnerit as you'll ever know. Definitely, both the Army, at least a part of the Army and this Red Exterior are up to no good. A man named Runner is controlling a lot, he's probably the Red Exterior's man, and this Wesley Johnson is heading the Army part...
"Mr. Minnerit. Do you know where Runner lives?"
"No. But I know his cell phone number and email address." You know that that's enough to find anyone in this day and age, and you just need to ask the right people. So, you have two choices. Go after Wesley Johnson, or try to find Runner.
Your bullet hits its mark. You tried not to hit anything vital and succeeded. The man falls to the ground in pain. But he'll live.
And now to complete your plan. You purposely let the man live so he could hopefully be captured and questioned. What you're trying to do is to hide inside the enormous factory, in one of the larger rooms, and wait until help arrives. Even though you brought no one with you, not expecting any combat, you are in a city and someone must have heard the shots and called the police.
For good measure, just as you slip out of the room and deeper into the building, you fire three blasts that bounce harmlessly off a metal pipe. They make a good deal of noise, just as you'd hoped. This could work.
You sprint as fast as possible into the gargantuan room behind the computer room. You breathe a sigh of relief. There are numerous boxes for you to hide in, and many machines to shield your body. He's not going to find you.
You move to the opposite corner, behind some turbine-like thing and crouch down to wait. In approximately two minutes you can hear the steps of the man come closer and closer.
His breathing is severely labored, and as you glance over from your hiding spot you frown. Perhaps the shot you gave him was lethal. He is gripping his still-bleeding arm tightly, but he does manage to hold his gun in his injured arm.
The minutes pass by slowly. Sometimes the man goes into other rooms to search for youl sometimes he comes back. Probably fearful that you're deep in the factory by now, he never thoroughly checks the room. Occassionally he bandages his wound with his shirt.
You notice with some surprise that the man is neither Arabic nor Vietnamese. He is white, around the age of thirty.
You are getting very worried. Perhaps no one heard the gunshots and the police aren't coming. In that case, you'd need to kill the man and lose an interrogation. Right now you don't have enough evidence to bring a case against anyone. You would need that computer in your hands, and something tells you the man would be able to shoot you by the time it would take to drag a computer out of a warehouse.
So your only option is to wait.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And, after almost a half-hour, you are rewarded for your patience. You hear the outer doors opening and breath again.
"Dover police!" you hear. "We've gotten reports about gunshots near this building! Come out with your hands up, no weapons!"
The man whips around, causing his gun to tumble out of his arm and onto the cement floor. Echoing throughout the building, the sound most definitely reaches the policemen.
You hear them sprint through the small computer room and into the room you and the man are presently located. Five uniformed police officers enter your view, and you leave your hiding spot, putting your gun back in the holster.
"Who are you?" the men demand of you and the man.
The other man is looking at you increduously, obviously thinking, "He was there the whole time?"
"I am Draco Cronnoc of the Richland Harbor Police Department. I'm here investigating the attacks on my city, and this man tried to kill me. Here's my ID." You toss the head officer your cards and point at the man who attempted to kill you. "Treat his wound properly. We're going to need to ask him a few questions."
After verifying the authenticity of your identification, the officer frowns. "Do you know who he is?"
"Nothing beyond the fact he's a member of the Red Exterior, a radical neo-communist group from Vietnam."
The man clears his throat in a professional manner. "I am sorry I tried to kill you. But I am not a terrorist. My name is Argus Minnerit. I am an assassin, working for the US Army. Apparently our confrontation was just a very dangerous mix-up."
You are shocked into silence. One of the lesser officers cuts in, "What do you mean?"
Argus Minnerit looks as though he isn't allowed to disclose what he's about to say, but then shakes his head. "Three months ago I was given the details of a very important mission my superior, Wesley Johnson. He described a very volatile situation to me. There were five rogue soldiers from Vietnam who were about to endanger the safety of American troops worldwide. Some secret truth or something, he wasn't too specific on what they were going to do. Anyway, he sent me to get information on the five men.
"It was peculiar that we couldn't just get the information ourselves, considering it was us who classified it. But they sent me in to get it covertly. And no one could know. Unfortunately, it was impossible to find the desired information without turning to Cindy Delhaf, who I later had to kill. She was an innocent victim.
"Wesley Johnson told me that I did a good job and would continue on with this mission. I would be the only person involved in contacting an operative of the mission, a man using the code-name Runner.
Runner said he'd meet me here today, outside the building. He made sure to tell me that if anyone else was here for whatever reason, he'd have to leave and that I should kill that person. If there happened to be someone outside (who would probably be him) I should approach that person and say, 'Could you direct me to Searg Avenue?'
"Well, I found Mr. Cronnoc in here and assumed he was someone we were fighting and tried to capture him. I don't like killing. I used to. But not since Cindy Delhaf...killing an innocent woman wasn't cool."
You close your eyes. The man was telling the truth. It was too unbelievable he was telling a lie. In your mind, it is clear both the Army and Red Exterior had something sinister to do with the attacks, but you have no proof except the email. And that's inconclusive. FMackenzie@army.gov could be anyone with enough knowledge about computers. At least, you think so.
"Mr. Minnerit, turn on the central computer in the room going outside," you order of Argus.
He does this and stares at the screen.
"Does this mean anything to you?" you demand.
"No. And it's obviously fake. I don't have a clue how it got here, or even what the importance of this building is, but I've never emailed an FMackenzie@army.gov, and I've never heard of Red Exterior."
"I thought so. Well, the importance of this building is that it's the headquarters of Red Exterior, yet no one's here..." You now know as much from Argus Minnerit as you'll ever know. Definitely, both the Army, at least a part of the Army and this Red Exterior are up to no good. A man named Runner is controlling a lot, he's probably the Red Exterior's man, and this Wesley Johnson is heading the Army part...
"Mr. Minnerit. Do you know where Runner lives?"
"No. But I know his cell phone number and email address." You know that that's enough to find anyone in this day and age, and you just need to ask the right people. So, you have two choices. Go after Wesley Johnson, or try to find Runner.