Chapter I: The Gates of Heaven

[Sacremas]

The joint Homeland Security, FBI, DEA and National Guard base camp was bustling with activity as usual, as it had been since it had been set almost a month ago, when the first real military action against a target on American soil was taken for the first time in a long time and yet not nearly long enough for the sakes of all involved. Mister I and his army of super-powered thugs and criminals had completely taken over a small American city, and despite their best efforts there was so far very goddamned little the government forces could do about it. Team after team of heavily armed special forces had been sent in previously to try to sneak and fight their way in through the city to it's center, the former downtown area where Mister I was now holed up in one of the skyscrapers there, cranking out more and more of his Ambrosia drug to keep his city under control. Since all projections about sending in the troops had ended in absolute disaster scenarios including a 75 % loss ratio at the very least and the likely deaths of every remaining civilian in there the option was finally fielded to bomb Paradise City to a crater and blame it on Mister I.

But first there was one last option, and that is where Agents Ella Steel and Jack Cromwell came in, as they at that moment literally did, entering the command tent of General Nickolas Powell, supreme commander of the surrounding area and of the joint task-force struggling to take back Paradise City. Inside the tent was filled with tables showing maps of various city blocks, the power grid, sewer system and so on along with geological surveys, sat-images and so on. Several computers were set up around the tent as well, feeding direct satellite images and telescopic surveillance of the outlying area.

General Powell, a heavy set but strong built man in his 60s looked up at the newcomers. "Ah, Agents Steel and Cromwell is it? Your respective agencies say you're the best they got, and that if there's any chance of this last act of desperation on our part to save as many American lives as possible is going to succeed it's going to be up to the two of you. Not to put too much pressure on you, but not only does about a million civilian lives rest on your heads, but so does the international good name of the U.S. of A. This Mister I character has humiliated us in the eyes of the world and shown just how vulnerable we are to attacks from within, and this is by far the greatest one we've ever seen. So pretty please with sugar on top, bring me the bastard's head on a silver platter. Or just slot him like any good black ops agent and bring me some nice blood-splattered pictures for me to jerk off to!

"Your objective is simple to that end, but it's still probably going to be the most complicated mission you've ever undertaken. Get in there and take out Mister I if you can, but most important by far is that you disrupt or preferably destroy his Ambrosia supply, then get the hell out. Without a steady supply of that damn drug the hordes of addicts that is Mister I's greatest strength will start having some serious withdrawals, studies on captured subjects show death is almost guaranteed to take place merely days afterwards. So once you've disrupted the supply all we have to do is to wait another few days--" one of the nearby suit-clad and bespeckled advisers from the NSA interrupted the bombastic general with 'a week', making the general level the advisor one of those fabled killing stares before continuing "--a week then, before sending in the clean-up crew to take care of any survivors. Problem solved.

"Now exactly how you're going to accomplish this, well I'll leave that up to your discretion. Allying yourself with whatever resistance may remain within Paradise is probably going to be wisest, that way you'll have a few extra bodies for diversionary tactics at least. In the past both brute force and stealth has come up empty-handed against Mister I's forces, his guards are just too strong for normal humans," he glanced at Agent Steel, evident distaste in his face, "and the same will probably go for a single non-human as well. If you can then bribe, trick or threaten some of those suckers in there to throw themselves infront of you, because you're gonna need whatever help you can get.

"As you may have realized by now, I don't give a shit about your methods. As long as you don't come walking out and smile to the foreign journalists clad in human skin and chewing on a roasted baby you can do whatever the fuck you want and be pretty sure that we'll cover it up without a second thought as long as you get the job done. There's a much bigger picture at stake here people, and we intend to be the grinning bastards hailed as heroes within it's frame, not some sorry little cunts who got run over by a goddamn drug kingpin! You got that?!"

By now the General's assistants eyes had grown to about three times their normal size it appeared to, and one of them dared to sneak up to the General and start to whisper about his heart condition or something of the kind before General Powell just showed him aside, straightened his already immaculate uniform covered with decorations and continued.

"Now then, a few basics. Once inside you'll have no outside support I'm afraid, no calling in air-strikes or the like. Those bastards got some sort of jamming system going on that disrupts absolutely all forms of communication unless you get about 50 yards outside of the official city limits. Shit we can't even accurately see past that point as you can note on the screens, our most powerful telescopic lenses just comes up all blurry and even the sat images can't make out more than the fact that the buildings are still there at least! It's probably some freak addict's ability doing it as our top eggheads just can't figure out what the hell it is, so unless you can find that freak and put him, her or it down you're on your own. Now we have a single contact inside, a retired marine named Sargent..." he glanced down at his papers, "Hackett, Jeremy Hackett. He's been on site since the beginning and helped coordinate one of our other teams, for whatever good that did them. He can provide you with Intel at least, but watch him, if you think he's a drug-head or even worse a freak, take him out. Beyond that you're probably on your own, but you knew that.

"Now unless you have any questions you can proceed to supply tent and pick up your gear where it's waiting for you, it was flown in yesterday, you can also pick up whatever other supplies you think you'll need, because you're gonna need them."

[Radical Dreamer]

Typical military blowhard.  Surprisingly well informed, given the non-huamn comment, but a blowhard all the same.  That was Ella's impression of General Powell.  Not an ounce of sophistication in his body and likely to advocate the use of an atom bomb to remove a threat than the single sniper bullet that would be required.  It nauseated her to think that he was in charge of the cordon around city and that someone of his kind was in charge of any measure of power.  Still he had his uses.  No doubt if they did need to bomb the city it was his career that would be served to the public on a plate should there be a public backlash to the action.

"You're dealing with a professional general.  I know my job and am more then willing to do what is necessary to accomplish it.  Just maintain your quarantine of the city.  Mister I's days of running his empire are numbered." Ella stated in a calm, detached tone.  "All I need to know is what method of insertion has been decided upon."

[Sacremas]

"Your legs." General Powell's lips twisted into a sardonic smile as he looked Agent Steel up and down a bit before continuing. "Parachuting you in during the dead of night isn't gonna work, even if you could pull off a HALO drop over such rough terrain as the inside of a city. We tried that with one of those special forces teams I mentioned, bastards were dead before they even hit the ground! No a slow and methodical approach is the only one that's gonna work according to the 'experts.'" Powell glanced at a few of the advisors surrounding him. "And obviously you can't go in by car either, because then you'd get spotted much more easily and you'd find yourself riding a gasoline-filled grenade instead once those damn energy blasters start showing up. A tank or an APC could work but that'd be announcing your presence to the whole goddamn city, leaving us with the simplest of transportation methods left."

One of the advisors whispered in Powell's ear and he added, "Oh yea, and just to clear up the communications block that's surrounding the city won't affect your gear when inside, so feel free to grab half a dozen commlinks when you stop by the equipment tent. Just don't go handing them out to just about anyone...

"Once inside you'll have one week to solve the situation. If we haven't heard from you by then about your remarkable progress we're sending Paradise City off to meet it's otherworldly counterpart, hell itself that is, so if you're still in one piece and not an Ambrosia-craving addict by then get yer asses out pronto. If you are, stay in there, it'll be preferable to what's waiting on the outside without an available supply, not to mention the whole court martial and execution squad of course."

It was quite obvious by now that the General didn't really have much faith in the two agents and was already settled on how he wanted to solve the situation.

[Radical Dreamer]

"Then please do something useful and tell us where your contact, Mr. Hackett is operating out of so we can plan where to enter the city or at the very least provide us with a method of contact him.  You should be able to help with that much since he did help coordinate your failed assaults." Ella added.  If they were dropping any pretences of civility then she would be sure to remind him that it was his inability to handle the situation that they were being called in the first place.

[Sacremas]

The General looked directly at Ella for a few moments, his jaw clenched shut and eyes wide open as his face slowly started turning red. For a moment there it almost looked as though his head was going to pop right off or something.

Then he opened his mouth and let out a hearty laugh! "BWAHAHA! She's a feisty one isn't she? You're gonna have your hands full with this one Cromwell!" He continued laughing for another few moments, and an obvious sense of relief seemed to wash over his aides, although at least one of them was eying Agent Steel with some worry and what appeared to be... respect.

"Hackett," Powell said after another few guffaws. "Right. Once inside the city you can just contact him via radio. He's got both a shortwave transceiver and some simple walkie talkies, and he's transmitting usually on a rotating frequency interval per the hour of the day. He used to have a safe-house around... here," the general pointed out a district on the city map lying spread out over the table. "Last we heard however that got hit by the freak squad and torched, although in the end it was the freaks who ended up burned instead as our boy had firewalled the entire place and set off a thermal charge, there wasn't even bones of them! We presume he's moved somewhere else but as of yet he hasn't told any of our people. Haveta warn ya about him though, he may not exactly be all there if you know what I mean. He got blue slipped out of the marines a few years back due to shell-shock mixed with some underlying schizophrenia according to the shrinks who checked him out, a virtual time bomb waiting to go off. Truth be told we'd rather not be using him at all but he's the only one we got. As I mentioned earlier keep your eyes on him and his crew if he got any at all times, and if you think for just one moment that he's up to no good, slot him. Still, he could be useful, he's managed to survive this long in that hell hole after all."

[Cyclone]

"We've worked together before, sir," Jack replied coolly.  "Part of that VX gas mess in Syria; you've seen my jacket.  Speaking of which, I'll need a copy of Hackett's.  I'd like to know just who we're dealing with here."

[Sacremas]

General Powell nods to himself. "Right, right, that's all good. I was fearing that I'd be sending two wildcard agents who had no idea who their partner were, but now I guess I'll be sending two wildcard agents who may or may not even be on a first-name basis with each other, so that's all peachy." He chuckles a little bit then wanders over to a field cabinet and grabs a file lying ontop of it. "Let's see here... Our man's been busy in his fairly few service years. Fairly high marksmanship scores in boot camp, distinguished himself in close combat exercises, and proved to be pretty much the hardiest bastard in the camp after a drill instructor decided to take him under his wing, which naturally meant giving him ten times the hardship his fellows got. That and a good tactical head earned him a squad leader position. On his first tour he was sent on a retrieval mission deep behind enemy lines, details get sketchy here because the records are classified, but in the end he was the only one to make it out alive, although his report and later findings made it clear he did all he could. Even so he never really got over it and went kinda gung-ho afterwards. Voulenteered for all the worst kinds of missions and actually even survived it despite taking way too many risks, but a tendency to get the job done made the brass overlook it, and even earned him a quite a few medals and commendations, leading to special forces training, and so on. He'd probably be here in this room with you guys if he hadn't been pulled aside for a routine psych eval with the headshrink in question realizing quickly our boy had some really deep-sated issues of a revenge-slant. Which we were fully aware of naturally, they just suited our purposes, but with it out in the open it became another matter and Hackett got sec-eighted. A few agencies tried to snatch him up afterwards but before anything got finalized Mister I decided to take over Hackett's home town, and he's been fighting a private war since. A good soldier overall, but with issues. Hell I heard he even has a little girl working for him! Far as reliable people inside city limits go he's the best you got... but that doesn't really say much. Just watch him okay, and if you think he's gone over the edge completely make sure he doesn't compromise you.

"Okay, if that was all you're dismissed. Now bring me back some good news saying that I don't have to reduce one and a half million Americans to slag to save the rest of the country."

[Cyclone]

Jack nodded.  Survival guilt and suicidal tendencies, he thought, then smirked.  I can work with that.  After all, he was intimately familiar with the symptoms himself.

"Are there any intact land lines we could tap into to communicate with base camp once we're in the city, sir?"

[Sacremas]

Powell gives Jack a slant-eyed view. "Didn't you hear me boy? The comm-scrambling bubble just distorts it all! Sure there's landlines aplenty, everything from emergency lines to telephone lines to a goddamn telegraph line left over from whatever godforsaken hole Paradise City was put down ontop of, but whatever it is that damn fields just messes it up beyond recognition. Best we got was one of the special forces teams sending out a transmission somehow via that telegraph line, but even that was distorted enough that we only understood half of it. Unless you take out whatever is scrambling up communications and everything you're going to have to walk back over across No-Man's Land and the minefields every goddamn time you want to deliver a report or just pick up supplies, a journey that takes half the night if you don't want to risk blowing yourself up or getting spotted.

"Now unless you got any more harebrained questions making me repeat myself I want to see you out there on the double nailing freaks! Present company excluded of course."

[Radical Dreamer]

Ella was finished with the General the moment they got the report on their contact.  It was clear that he didn't know much beyond the basic info that they all had.  She didn't even bother to ask him about the abilities that he had observed in the criminals in the city.  The vast majority of Ambrosia addicts developed strength and toughness and not much else and the rest could be anything, like herself.

"I'll see you when the situation is handled General Powell.  Try not to let any of them through when Mister I is taken care of.  I suspect they will desert the city like rats from a sinking ship with whatever Ambrosia they can carry."

With that the female agent whirled around sharply and made her way out of the command tent and over to the supply area.  Most of her equipment was unimpressive.  There were no custom trigger jobs and other than the silencer on her 9mm or the recoil buffer and sights on the .45 sub-machinegun you could say that they were just basic factory equipment.  She didn't need anything fancy, never had, and needed it even less so now.

[Cyclone]

"Thank you for the clarification, sir," Jack nodded, not letting his own annoyance creep through.  He had to remember that Powell was regular Army, not Intelligence... which the general was making abundantly clear.  He saluted smartly and left behind Ella to gather his equipment.

Unlike Ella's, Jack's personal sidearms -- which he already had with him, as they were his personal property -- were heavily customized.  Threading on the flash suppressor and sound suppressor completed the weapons.  The M4A1 carbine he took, while standard, was mounted with an assortment of SOPMOD gear.

Ella may have favored quick, clean, and quiet, but Jack was of the opinion that you didn't need to sacrifice firepower for it... and grenades would always come in handy when the $#!+ hit the fan.

[Radical Dreamer]

"I see you're still using those Colts." Ella commented as she saw the custom weapons.  They were no doubt supperior guns but in her line of work using the same weapons over and over again was a liability.  It was too traceable.  She had no doubt that somewhere, on some computer in every government that took an interest in Jack, there was a growing file of every mission those guns had been used in.  "What do you think of our approach?  At night is obvious but I don't trust they will let us walk in."

[Cyclone]

"We won't know until we try," Jack said, "but I doubt they're overly worried about it.  Everyone else is trying to get out, not in, and even if they are watching, we can enter through the sewer line."

[Radical Dreamer]

"We barely know what's living on the surface streets.  I don't even want to know what might be growing underneath them.  Lets leave that as a last resort option." Ella said as she tucked away the last of the flash bang grenades and magazines for her guns.  As an assassin's general rule of thumb she always took as much ammo as she thought she needed to get the job done, then doubled it.  Bullets were cheap, injuries not so much.  Of course in this situation there was no telling how much she needed but she was sure that it would be a lot.

"Lets get going then.  We've got a week to save the country and I intend to use the last few of them for a vacation." she said confidently.

[Cyclone]

"Sounds like an excellent plan," Jack nodded, slinging the M4A1 on his shoulder.