ROACH RISING: Requisition

Moderators: Shroom Man 777, Ford Prefect

Post Reply
User avatar
Shroom Man 777
Global Mod
Posts: 4637
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 7:09 pm
Contact:

ROACH RISING: Requisition

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

ROACH RISING: Requisition



It was night, and the scene was that of Portharbor City – Skyhaven. The cityscape was lit up like a Technicolor constellation, with spotlights illuminating the towering Art Deco skyscrapers as rotoplanes flew betwixt them and the advertisement zeppelins that loomed above.

The Valen Technologies building was on the outskirts of the city, on a hill with a great view of Portharbor, as it was strategically located to be inconspicuous. The polished glass and steel architecture, the surrounding electric fences, and the security patrols on Segways were not so inconspicuous, however.

Still, the facility was mostly hidden from prying eyes, being relatively isolated. A plus for those at ValTech who wished to go about their business uninterrupted. Likewise for those at the EVIL Corporation who wished to go about their business uninterrupted as well.



Number 13, albino arch-henchman of the Corporation, raised his visor and regarded his men with cold hard eyes. Arranged before him were some of the EVIL Corporation’s finest employees – a core cadre of his black-armored Elites, supported by an equal number of henchmen in gunmetal-grey hardhats. The Elites had reflective visors to conceal their identities, while the hardhats wore thick goggles and respirators.

“We move on my mark,” 13 said before turning to survey the excellent view of Portharbor offered by their vantage point. “Three minutes.”

The Elites performed a final weapons check. Most, if not all, of their old gear had not been sanctioned for the mission due to their employer’s specifications, and they had little time to familiarize themselves with their new kits - specialized equipment custom-tailored for the job at hand. It made the job a challenge, but the Elites were nothing if not professional, and so they relished in it. Nonetheless, the veterans amongst them were still wary of their new gear, and the ‘customized parameters’ of their latest job.

13 checked his chronometer and adjusted his own tactical harness, noting that everything was in place.

“Two minutes.”

The hardhats were slower in finishing their preparations. Like the Elites, they too carried specialized weaponry, but they were also bringing other equipment stowed in large portable containers, equipment designed to aid the impending operation. They would not see direct combat, but were relegated to no-less important supporting roles. The leading hardhat gave a thumbs up.

“One minute.”

The Elites and the hardhats began clipping cables on to their tactical harnesses, which doubled as climbing gear. The cables went into winches.

13 tugged at his line, making sure that the carabiner was securely in place. Then he turned away from the edge, and once more regarded his men.

“Mark.”

He slid on his visor and leapt.



The ValTech private security contractors patrolled the perimeter of the facility, well within the boundaries of their electrified fence and the coverage of their external security grid. Their defenses were well-organized and well-equipped, to prevent and dissuade corporate espionage and sabotage, and theft. The fences themselves were only superficial layer of this grid, with succeeding layers composed of multi-spectrum security cameras and motion-detectors linked to automated defenses – armed drones and sentry guns. There were also the highly-mobile security patrols, armed guards encircling the place with their personal transporters, Segways.

But this was all a ruse, linked to an alarm system that would, once tripped, immediately alert the proper authorities and promptly lockdown the facility, preventing any attempt at sabotage or espionage or theft, or any attempt at escape. It was an efficient and cost-effective solution.

Or so the corporate executives at Valen Technologies thought.

They wouldn’t even know what hit them.



The black-painted EVIL zeppelin loomed directly above the ValTech building. Its coloration belied its stealthy nature, as not only was it undetectable to conventional radars, but it was also invisible in the low-light conditions and inaudible due to sound-suppression. It was more than just stealthy, as its smooth and oblate form was interrupted by a blister on its aerial abdomen – a projector radiating an invisible cone of electronic interference, which called ValTech’s ruse. It silenced the facility’s alarm system, and played quiet havoc on its external security grid.

The corporates over at Valen Technologies had not anticipated such an audacious attempt at their assets.

Now, those in the inside were now blind, deaf, and mute.

And those on the outside were fair game.



The Elites and the hardhats rappelled down the side of the zeppelin, and as they made their descent, they targeted the patrolling security guards from above and neutralized them. It was clean, efficient, and bloodless.

The specialized weaponry the Elites and the hardhats had been armed with were non-lethal weaponry, as per the specifications of their current contract.

Tranquilizer darts, constrictor foam, shock gel, and gas canisters rained down on the unsuspecting guards. The darts stabbed through light head coverings and injected undeadly neurotoxin directly into skulls, while specialized grenades airbursted and covered faces and upper torsos in thick immovable (yet breathable) foam, or incapacitating liquid tasers. The gas canisters then comfortably anesthetized them of these inconveniences.

With a whirring-sound of cables and waist-winches, the EVIL employees touched down and immediately formed a ring, pointing weapons outwards towards any potential threat.

“Activate IFF,” Number 13 commanded as he pressed a transponder on his belt.

The others, Elites and hardhats alike, followed suit, their own devices beeping as they were activated. IFF, Identify Friend-or-Foe. Their employer had kindly provided them the codes in use by the ValTech employees for that day. The codes would make them non-targets for the automated defenses, like the target-seeking shotguns and miniaturized miniguns that were coming out of the ground all around them.

The shotguns and miniguns swiveled side-to-side in sync, and then promptly went back underground – disappearing without trace beneath hidden panels.

13 holstered his weapon.

“Set up.”

“Setting up,” the leading hardhat nodded as he turned to his men and relayed hand-signals. The hat-clad, goggles-wearing, respiratored henchmen immediately began assembling their equipment – taking tech-com gear from their containers and assembling them as quickly as possible. “Thirty seconds… done.”

“Good. Go.”

The hardhat tapped a couple of his peers on the shoulders, and they went over towards the entrance of the ValTech building. 13 and his escort of Elites were not far behind them.

“Gotta give them credit,” the hardhat said as he examined the doors. “They locked themselves down pretty fast.”

“Any problems?”

“Nope. It’s all in the schematics that’s been provided to us. We can run a limited bypass of their systems,” the hardhat looked at a team of henchmen who were gathered around a portable computer hooked up to a miniature satellite dish, and then he looked at his immediate partners who were taking out demolition charges. “And we can blow the doors open.”

“Do it.”





[Part 2 forthcoming or something.]
Last edited by Shroom Man 777 on Sun Aug 24, 2008 10:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Image

"Sometimes Shroomy I wonder if your imagination actually counts as some sort of war crime." - FROD
User avatar
Peregrin
Posts: 573
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 7:56 pm
Location: Denmark

Re: ROACH RISING: Requisition

Post by Peregrin »

I can't wait to see part 2, even though I think the nuts-and-bolts quality of your prose is getting a bit too clunky in places.
"You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you." - Heraclitus
User avatar
Shroom Man 777
Global Mod
Posts: 4637
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 7:09 pm
Contact:

Re: ROACH RISING: Requisition

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

What do you mean mang?
Image

"Sometimes Shroomy I wonder if your imagination actually counts as some sort of war crime." - FROD
User avatar
Malchus
Posts: 1257
Joined: Wed May 21, 2008 7:05 am
Location: In a chibi-land, eating the brains of H. P. Wuvcwaft.
Contact:

Re: ROACH RISING: Requisition

Post by Malchus »

Hey, this really brightened my day! Especially since I woke up feeling like crap today due to a runny nose and a bad head cold. It's interesting, and I'm looking forward to the rest as this will establish how Roach gains his suit. But, mang, this reminds me that I've been in a slump regarding the second chapter of Roach Rising myself. I gotta get off my ass before I end up letting it die.

Per has a point though, there is something clunky about the prose. Maybe it's the shortness of the paragraphs or the comma splicing? It isn't that distracting to me, though, but I can't speak for others.
Image
I admire the man, he has a high tolerance for insanity (and inanity - which he generously contributed!). ~Shroom, on my wierdness tolerance.
User avatar
Heretic
Posts: 1750
Joined: Wed May 21, 2008 4:45 pm
Location: IN AMERICA

Re: ROACH RISING: Requisition

Post by Heretic »

This reminds me of that skyscraper mission in Kane and Lynch for some reason, maybe because it had the word rapple in the story. Still, I like it.
Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
-Joseph Campbell
User avatar
Ford Prefect
Posts: 957
Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 11:12 am

Re: ROACH RISING: Requisition

Post by Ford Prefect »

Ah, it's good to see this come about, definitely. We've discussed it enough. :)
FEEL THESE GUNS ARCHWIND THESE ARE THE GUNS OF THE FLESHY MESSIAH THE TOOLS OF CREATION AND DESTRUCTION THAT WILL ENACT THE LAW OF MAN ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
User avatar
Shroom Man 777
Global Mod
Posts: 4637
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 7:09 pm
Contact:

Re: ROACH RISING: Requisition

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

The explosion tore the doors open, ripping them off their hinges and sending them flying inside the building. Smoke billowed from the blast site, and in response, fire-suppressing Halon gas came forth from ventilators while climate control systems worked to unequalize the air pressure.

Suffocating smoke and Halon flowed out of the building, rather than into it, obscuring the black-suited Elites in an unbreathable mist as they made their entrance. They fanned out, forming fire teams, and swept their surroundings with their rifles. Normally invisible laser sights were made visible as they reflected off the particulates in the air.

Their advanced was a fast yet measured one.

“Bypass completed,” reported a hardhat technician over the radio. While the alarms and long-ranged communications were jammed with interference, short-ranged radios were still operable – as were the facility’s internal networks. “We can see with their cameras. You’ve got company.”

The Elites crouched and quickly arrayed themselves behind various forms of cover and concealment, behind pillars or tables or chairs, in anticipation. They did not wait long, as the muzzle flash and the distinct noise of gunfire soon filled the air.

“ValTech security, three of them.”

The trio came on their Segways, which weaved between the pillars and columns and obstacles in evasive patterns as their drivers opened fire with submachineguns and auto-carbines. One of them would move forward while firing, before stopping behind cover and allowing the second to follow him as the third laid down suppressive fire for the both of them before proceeding to the forefront – performing both fire and movement simultaneously and lethally on their modes of transportation.

“Put them down,” 13 commanded.

In response to the lethal fire, the Elites reciprocated with their own non-lethal weaponry. Gas grenades were of no use as, with the smoke and Halon still circulating, respirators and rebreathers had become the order of the day. Neither could darts and rubberized shotgun buckshots penetrate through cover, or body armor. Half of the Elites simply had ineffective weaponry.

The other half were undeterred and continued to fire with their 25mm canister rifles – which detonated midair to spread constrictor foam and liquid tasers indiscriminately. However, the ValTech mobile security guards were elusive targets, as their Segways came with pre-set evasive patterns calculated to minimize their target profiles and maximize their offensive capabilities and firing angles. They would glide forward and backward, and even sideways, and ceased fire only to reload their weapons.

The Elites kept on firing and the lead ValTech security guard ended up with a face full of liquid taser, which reduced him to a convulsing yet still-standing invalid while his Segway continued its evasive maneuvers. His two compatriots, bruised by the ineffective yet still painful rubber buckshots, and partially smeared with constrictive foam and electrified fluid, decided to fall back in a fighting retreat.

They would not stop the Elite advance, and they themselves knew it. Their purpose was to reconnoiter and gauge their enemy’s force composition, and report their findings after the brief engagement.

13 got out of cover and fired his pistol. A stream of tranquilizer needles imbedded themselves on the back of the nearest ValTech guard, stitching up his body armor until a single needle eventually found his exposed neck and stabbed into his spine. The guard collapsed to the floor while his vehicle continued his retreat for him.

The other guard was still facing and still firing at 13 and the Elites, but he was going backwards on his vehicle, and soon he disappeared into a corridor.

“There’s a concentration of them down the hallway. From what I can see in the cameras, I count… twenty of them.”

13 and the Elites reassembled themselves – noting that none of their number had been felled. They reloaded their weapons and proceeded into the corridor.



Twelve ValTech security guards, armed with submachineguns, auto-carbines, and tactical shotguns. They were waiting for the Elites and had positioned themselves accordingly, behind tables and other obstacles they had quickly arranged to form makeshift barricades.

The corridor was not narrow, but neither was it wide, and an advanced through its confines and through the arranged defenders would be a slow and arduous one. The ValTech defenders knew it, and so too did the Elites.

But the Elites had a job to do. So they waited, behind the corner leading to the corridor, waited for 13’s signal.

“Go.”

Ten hand grenades were thrown around that corner, and they bounced off the walls and went above the nearest guards’ heads – and they detonated. Some exploded with flashes and bangs, others with hundreds of rubberized buckshots flying in every direction, a few with obscuring smoke, and a pair with liquid tasers.

The first Elites came with automatic shotguns that unleashed a fusillade of non-lethal but very painful and very incapacitative projectiles. Tranquilizer dart flechettes, rubberized buckshots, disintegrating semi-solid slugs, and miniaturized flashbangs, entire eight-round magazines were emptied at the disoriented and distracted ValTech security guards and at those immediately behind them.

The guards returned fire, but the first wave of Elites had already taken cover behind the very barricades the defenders had arranged against them.

In such close proximities, despite the confusion, the ValTech personnel were nonetheless hesitant to spray their weapons blindly – their co-workers were incapacitated, but still alive, and friendly fire was still a factor. Their weapons could and did overpenetrate, ripping through the flimsy barricades, and the Elites had to lie low amidst those they had disabled to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.

For the Elites, ditching their non-lethal weaponry and picking up the incapacitated security personnel’s firearms was definitely an option, especially considering the fact that they had bullets whizzing right over their heads.

“Go.”

The leading Elites threw their last grenades, and once more the corridor resonated with the flashes and bangs and crackling sprays of non-lethal weaponry while subsonic pellets flew everywhere.

They unsheathed their tesla-staves and lunged over the barricades and went for the ValTech guards designated for them individually by 13 and the hardhat monitoring the surveillance cameras.

Crackling coiled lances stabbed and burned through light protective clothing and sank into flesh, into non-vital organs, and then the tesla-staves sent thousands of volts coursing through their bodies. The middle line of the ValTech defenders were wracked by spasms and electrical burns, and the Elites held them up as human shields against the final line.

To stop them, the remaining defenders would have to shoot through their own comrades. It was a difficult choice.

“Go.”

13 and the Elites who were not otherwise preoccupied walked up behind their compatriots, who were themselves preoccupied but protected by their human shields. Then they aimed their dart guns very carefully.

Before the remaining ValTech guards could make their choice, 13 and the Elites made it for them.
Image

"Sometimes Shroomy I wonder if your imagination actually counts as some sort of war crime." - FROD
User avatar
Peregrin
Posts: 573
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 7:56 pm
Location: Denmark

Re: ROACH RISING: Requisition

Post by Peregrin »

Though I continue to find that your prose has become a bit clumsy and overtly verbose (okay, this is probably the pot calling the kettle black :lol: ), I quite like that the Elites' high-tech stuff initially works against them and that the chapter ends with some rather grisly imagery.
"You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you." - Heraclitus
User avatar
Shroom Man 777
Global Mod
Posts: 4637
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 7:09 pm
Contact:

Re: ROACH RISING: Requisition

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

It is verbose because it's a heist and I am meticulously covering their methodologies :P
Image

"Sometimes Shroomy I wonder if your imagination actually counts as some sort of war crime." - FROD
User avatar
Booted Vulture
Posts: 965
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 9:33 pm

Re: ROACH RISING: Requisition

Post by Booted Vulture »

Nice action, Shroomz. Although I have to admit ignorance of where the tale is going.

The only flaw i can see in the first chapter is the over use of the word 'superficial'
Ah Brother! It's been too long!
User avatar
Malchus
Posts: 1257
Joined: Wed May 21, 2008 7:05 am
Location: In a chibi-land, eating the brains of H. P. Wuvcwaft.
Contact:

Re: ROACH RISING: Requisition

Post by Malchus »

That was short but sweet, mang. I like how badass 13 and the elites still seem even when constrained by contractual obligation to use non-lethal weaponry. And I'm assuming that while their tesla staves were set to high voltage, they were set to low amps. In essence, painful but non-lethal?

Too bad our MSN convo last night cut off before we could really discuss this (damned iffy connection).
Image
I admire the man, he has a high tolerance for insanity (and inanity - which he generously contributed!). ~Shroom, on my wierdness tolerance.
User avatar
Shroom Man 777
Global Mod
Posts: 4637
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 7:09 pm
Contact:

Re: ROACH RISING: Requisition

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

You also had connection problems? I thought I was the one who was screwed.


The internets returned at 3AM.


Boots, I know. I re-wrote the first half... let me edit my post.
Image

"Sometimes Shroomy I wonder if your imagination actually counts as some sort of war crime." - FROD
User avatar
Ford Prefect
Posts: 957
Joined: Tue May 20, 2008 11:12 am

Re: ROACH RISING: Requisition

Post by Ford Prefect »

I must admit that I'm slight dissappointed that this basically makes EVIL security on Segways impossible. ;)
FEEL THESE GUNS ARCHWIND THESE ARE THE GUNS OF THE FLESHY MESSIAH THE TOOLS OF CREATION AND DESTRUCTION THAT WILL ENACT THE LAW OF MAN ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
User avatar
Shroom Man 777
Global Mod
Posts: 4637
Joined: Mon May 19, 2008 7:09 pm
Contact:

Re: ROACH RISING: Requisition

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

The performance of the Segway security was formidable, and I think 13 himself would recommend outfitting EVIL hardhats with them!


The story will still continue, though.
Image

"Sometimes Shroomy I wonder if your imagination actually counts as some sort of war crime." - FROD
User avatar
Heretic
Posts: 1750
Joined: Wed May 21, 2008 4:45 pm
Location: IN AMERICA

Re: ROACH RISING: Requisition

Post by Heretic »

MOAR!! Dude, I just can't get enough. This serves as a substitute for Dino Eater, until you haul another chapter up.
Computers are like Old Testament gods; lots of rules and no mercy.
-Joseph Campbell
Post Reply