Winnowwill, Part 4

-Douglas Dam, Tennessee. Officially classed under geographic terms as part of the nearby, southward Sevier County. Which was about 20/25 miles north of ‘The Crayon’ give or take a mile or two-

The funny thing about some structures; you could run them smoothly with fewer people than you’d expect. Such it was with Douglas Dam; a few phone calls and you could shut it down for a day and no one would notice. And move your people in to do what was needed, just as long as you didn’t break anything.

Well, as long as it was a simple thing like a meeting. Still, in terms of neutral ground, Hudson had seen worse.

And she expected worse. That was why this time, she’d actually brought some muscle. Forvale hadn’t wanted to be called in, but Hudson’s authority exceeded her own, and she’d brought along Vici and an assortment of goons to begin the process of clearing and securing the surrounding area. Being disappointed in the security of others had underlined to her that their own forces were the only ones she could really depend on to do their jobs and be competent at the same time. The rabbit-eared commander had been appraised of the situation and taken to her role without any words of complaint no matter what Hudson had taken her from, too professional to gripe.

And for her personal guard, Cole. Who honestly might have been overkill, but Hudson had spread out her own forces too much around the area to have any other real choice, and Cole hated guard work and observation work; she was either ‘give me action or don’t bother me’. Mannifred, having much more in the way of gun toting goons, criminals drawn from various walks of life, all seeking the easy money that being part of Benedictine’s kingdom could allow them access to, and in some cases, even more, as Creed showed (his recent disappointment aside, he was a good earner and more subtle with the use of what he’d been granted than you would think), would provide virtually all of the on site security. Between Cole, and the driver of her SUV, she figured she had enough people on that ground as she arrived in her personal vehicle.

You’d think it would be the opposite, that she would want all her people here, watching and combing and waiting to see if they spotted anything out of the ordinary. But in Hudson’s mind, she was one step away from just washing her hands of this. The attempts to figure out who Winnow was had only eliminated who she WASN’T working for, not who she was, which meant her motivations were still a complete wild card. Oh, she’d sounded like she was in this for altruism, but if you believed everything that was told to you the first time out, Hudson had a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. If Winnow showed up, Hudson would just leave, Cole protecting her and the 3T. Winnow had demonstrated a fair degree of skill, but Hudson was 80 percent sure that 1) She wouldn’t engage in a straight up fight with Cole, and 2) She’d lose if that was forced. After all, while she’d made a fighting retreat from that party, she hadn’t exactly left a trail of bodies the whole way out. And Hudson actually knew math, so she had concluded that those odds were good enough.

Her driver, Hudson thought her name was Emily something (and she had been checked to make sure she was not Winnow in disguise), got out of her driver’s seat and opened the special doors built into Hudson’s vehicle; having wheels for feet meant that getting out of small spaces could be a little tricky, and if Hudson activated her ‘grip’ feature she’d tear up the car’s inner floor over time, and she hated that sort of gradual damage. She’d had a great aunt who’d smoked like a chimney and seemed ‘the picture of health’ to several accounts until she’d developed cancer; A seven year old Hudson, pulled along on a visit, had been rather terrified of how frail and decayed the woman had become in the space of three months. She’d died soon after, and as she’d grown up, Hudson had come to conclude that the damage she had actually been inflicting on herself with her poison had been so subtle that it had finally resulted in a complete collapse when it finally got too much to bear, all at once and ‘out of nowhere’. You had to take care of things; even small, seeming unimportant damage added up, especially if you dismissed it.

Cole hadn’t used a vehicle: she knew how to drive (several kinds of vehicles, actually), but why waste gas and cause pollution when you were faster and more agile than most any vehicle on the planet? She’d beaten Hudson there and was waiting by the parking area; judging from her bored expression, she’d also done a sweep beforehand.

“All clear, boss.”

“Right.” So then, Winnow.

What were you planning?

—

“The problem with this insertion is that we don’t have the time we did for the first one. Based on how we’re handling this, we can’t use the Land Lark again. Too much needed setup. Trying to drive up or fly up, or drop in via parachute, probably too risky. I suspect they’ll be paranoid and alert, and checking people. Barring a really good distraction or two…so. We’ve decided that the best way to get in is the old fashioned way, along with the slow and steady way.

“No Log Togs this time. This time, we’re going with something borrowed from another master of insertion. Evolto, quit snickering, that’s far too easy for you. This is OctoCamo.”

Oh joy, a skintight bondage esque outfit, in terms of what the material looked like. And she barely had the figure to pull it off, Vesper mused.

“I see the sour look. Trust me, this is worth it. Put it on, activate it, and…”

The long glove on Dawn’s arm, applied so she could demonstrate, shimmered and completely took on the texture of the table she’d laid it on. When moved, it took on the texture of the wall it was laid on in turn.

“Complete adaptation of the surrounding space, color, depth, all of it. It also fiddles a bit with light to make your form have less depth, ie, you’ll stick out less if you press yourself on a wall or floor. It comes with a full face and head mask, of course. It can also hook up with your glasses to sense nearby movement, because otherwise you’re somewhat blind while wearing it. But, plant yourself fully against something and don’t move, and as long as no one normal gets a close look, you can probably walk right past them, or have them walk right past you. However, it won’t foil anything that detects heat, or motion. But considering this is likely going to be a makeshift meeting place, I doubt it will have anything fancy like that in place.

“But, two problems. One, again, the battery is limited. You can’t wear it for hours. Not even AN hour. So you’ll need to be slow and steady in a fast way. “ Vesper gave the woman a look. “You know what I mean. Also, it gets hot after some time. Hot enough to risk heatstroke. So, again, we’re on a clock here. But as things are now, it’s your best option for getting in undetected. Blasting your way in, well…if I thought that would work, I know blunt instruments. This is going to require both stealth and the quick problem solving you’ve demonstrated, Vesper.”

“The jammer, mother.” Vent said, speaking up a reminder.

“Oh yes. Another small piece of gear. That Hudson woman has technopathy. You caught her off guard the first time, but she’ll be expecting trouble now. We need to keep her from accessing your tech if she tries, and perhaps more importantly, not noticing there’s a ‘cold spot’ that she can’t access, hence warning her you’re there. It doubles as a hacker type device, if for some reason you need to access a radio or phone, but the primary purpose is to keep Miss Crete out of your tech and not have her notice that fact.”

“Anything else?” Vesper said.

“Beyond that, a simple wrist grapnel to pull yourself places. Don’t use it with the Octocamo active, it will cause rapid attempts to camouflage due to you moving so fast and burn the battery out more or less immediately. Beyond that, well…just Immiserate. And your exit; the pilot and gunner have been hired and are ready and waiting. If we’re lucky, you won’t need the gunner. But I don’t like working around luck. I guess I’ll have them carry some stuff, just in case. Hmmm, all things being equal…we might be able to allow one or two other items, depending on this and that. But we’d have to choose those extras very carefully. And I’m not liking the logistics of taking a gun in. Any kind of gun.”

“Understood.” Not liked, but understood. “So, you want me to…crawl in?”

“Unfortunately, the timeframe isn’t wide enough for that. We’ll need more information to decide on the best option.”

That ‘more information’, when it came, pleased Dawn.

“Like I said. There’s something we can do here that I deemed carrying too much risk with the party at that mountain home. But a place like this, a neutral meeting place…it lacks aspects that prevent me from just doing this…as we tend to.”

—

As said, driving up or walking up to the dam was probably not going to work: even if Vesper did somehow sneak in via that, she wouldn’t benefit from the ‘just part of the background hired masses’ this time; if anyone saw her, the unknown element of her presence could well put people on alert, and if they knew something was off, the game might well be up right then and there. The Land Lark would take too long. Insertion via the air carried the same risk of being spotted. Insertion via the water was possible, swimming inside the dam via the mechanisms used to process the water’s movement for the hydroelectric dam’s, well, hydroelectricity, but Dawn concluded that Vesper possessed neither sufficient swimming strength or things like underwater breathing that reduced the risk of such a process going badly wrong and resulting in the insertee’s demise, or, if they were hardy enough to survive being sucked into a dam’s turbines (like say, Tenshi would be), causing such obvious chaos that the inserted person might as well have just gone up to the dam with a full marching band. And between time and battery life, Vesper couldn’t set down a mile or two away and crawl over hidden by her camouflage; maybe she wouldn’t be spotted, but she wouldn’t get there in time either.

But luck was in their sails today. Both in terms of chosen location…and the weather. It was gray and rainy, at least for now. It would be passing swiftly, but the key words there were ‘for now’. It meant that the guards outside were more uncomfortable and were paying less attention as they walked around the top of the dam.

Vesper, two miles away, settled on a spot via some scan-in binoculars, waiting. Then it was just a matter of the best timing, when the patrols were going a certain way, when the clouds rumbled in some thunder…

To cover the VROP noise as Vesper was teleported from her perch onto the dam. THIS, Dawn was willing to risk a ‘Sift into’ for; the Monastery/Crayon might have had security that would have detected that, but this was just a normal dam with makeshift security.

Vesper immediately went prone, the Octocamo shifting and making her blend into the stone ground, the cameras also catching the water as it fell on her without adjusting the pattern that would have caused a notable shimmer. Okay. She was in. And there was no way back out; Dawn had basically used a ‘zap gun’ technique to move Vesper, as the distance was very short (well, short compared to the distances Sifter teleportation normally travelled); she had no Sifter token to get her back. She’d have to get out on her own, whether via her transport or some other way.

She held her teeth to prevent chatter, her body cold despite Dawn’s warning that the Octocamo would actually be hot, as she crawled along towards the staircase she’d picked out. Her first trial was one of the dam-top guards walking her way. She laid herself face down flat, her glasses’ interior lenses showing the dot as it moved towards her.

And past her. No comment, no sound that indicated she’d been spotted. Vesper waited for it to move a little further, then resumed crawling, her neck prickling: if the guard happened to look behind themselves and saw a moving patch of ground…

Someone else coming, same direction. Vesper put her face down again. It went past her at a quicker pace. Vesper tried to keep her breathing slow and…stayed still.

Good instincts; the two ‘dots’ came back the way Vesper was heading. The second dot had run over to retrieve the first, it seemed. If she’d started crawling again, odds were high she would have been spotted. But both sets of eyes passed over her as the dots moved on. Vesper thought of her mother; “The issue with security systems is always the people.” It seemed true: they were actively looking for intruders and yet they still weren’t alert or aware enough to spot her. Yeah, she was wearing fancy camouflage and had literally teleported into their lap, but still. How many eyes were here, and yet all were blind? For now. She’d best not gloat.

A few minutes passed as she crawled towards her chosen entrance into the dam: a small ‘box’ on the top of the dam that had stairs leading down into it. The door was almost in her reach, but Winnow kept alert, flipping through her glasses’ settings to see what lay beyond. Man, these were becoming the MVP of her gear…and kept being so as she was able to use their crude ‘x-ray’ function to tell that someone was at the top of the stairs and about to come out.

The man who did looked damn unhappy to do so; he was soaked to the skin already, though via what method, Vesper didn’t know (he had neglected to bring any sort of rain gear, just wearing a gray sweater, pants, and shoes with some tactical pouches). He stepped out from the staircase ‘box’, moving a flashlight around, cursing as it flickered, slapping at the light to get it to function properly, then doing a scan that took about 1 ½ seconds before turning back around and heading back into the stairwell, slamming the door, wanting out of the rain. He went down the stairs…not noticing the spreading pool of water on the nearby floor as it ran off Vesper’s suit, her camouflage unable to disguise it.

Right then…okay. Vesper peeled herself off her spot against the wall right next to the door, and as quietly as possible, began going down the stairs after the guard.

He never even looked up or around, struggling to first get his flashlight back into his belt and then get out a cigarette. When he stopped in the door that would lead to the hallway beyond, Vesper crept up behind him, went into a kneeling stance, and leaned against the wall again. There was no sound from the shifting camouflage, thankfully. This was the big risk…

Which didn’t happen; The guard took a few puffs on his smoke, and once again headed out into the hallway, not even turning around. Vesper noted on her glasses which way he was going, and then slipped out after confirming he wasn’t looking her way, leaned against the wall of the hallway, and went the other direction.

—

Despite being behind and within thick stone walls and guarded by plenty of bodies, Hudson didn’t like being as exposed as they were. It put her hackles up to have to depend on Mannifred’s security no matter how many they were or how they were armed, because they weren’t directly Benedictine's own forces (and she’d chosen to have those forces be elsewhere, so it was ‘her own darn fault’, but that didn’t mean she had to like it). Walking past the ranks and the patrols might have given someone else some confidence, but no matter how many men (and a woman or two) with guns she saw it still wasn’t enough to keep the hair on the back of her neck from prickling.

It wasn’t that they were lacking in some way, or that they didn’t inspire any confidence, but they were a step removed from Her People and that meant ultimately they couldn’t be trusted implicitly. It had already been proven to her that numbers couldn’t stand in the way of true interference no matter how big the numbers were, assuming things went according to the enemy's plan. Equipment and dispersion weren’t the issue, it was something bone deep. Waiting for Mannifred and tapping the tips of her claws against one of her wheels to distract herself instead of pacing, every now and then she’d glance over to Cole, who had taken her side and then stood still. The fact that out of everyone she was banking on the knife that walked like a woman in an approximation of a nun’s habit was maybe the clearest sign that no matter what, there were layers to the security that were obvious. Trust wasn’t quite the right word, but out of all the armed guards she knew Cole was the only one she could really depend on with any real certainty. The sooner this was said and done, the better.

She also didn't like that this room had two entrances and exits; she would have much preferred one.

How right she was, Vesper having crept her way through the hallways, sneaking past the guards, though the sweat on her brow wasn’t just due to the heat of the Octocamo, which HAD kicked in, big time. She knew she was almost out of battery time for this sort of action to work.

…one last useful side effect of her jammer. It not only made it so Hudson couldn’t pick up her ‘vibe’, but it also gave her something of an idea where Hudson herself was. Which, if she was right…was right through that door in this last hallway she’d turned down, after moving through the depths of the dam for the last fifteen or twenty minutes.

Said door was guarded by two men, with two more patrolling the hallway. That was far too many eyes to sneak around, especially considering 1) She needed to open the door still, and 2) Her glasses told her there were multiple people inside there as well.

Mannifred, as it turned out, had entered through the other door in the room, bringing a few more guards of his own (Heidi among them) and a large briefcase.

“No pleasantries. On the table.” Hudson withdrew the 3T and placed it down first. Mannifred, with some resigned concern (and oh she didn’t like what that indicated), put the briefcase down and opened it.

Okay…time to put up or shut up. She was at the most important part. Dawn said she thought well on her feet, under pressure, and quickly. Now she needed to prove all that could be true in a high pressure situation. All the talent in the world didn’t matter much if you cracked or froze up when it mattered most. So. She had been limited in what she could carry in, very limited. She hadn’t taken a gun. She had to get inside, AND deal with the people in there, as well as the guards outside the door. If she waited too long, her suit was going to run out of power. Never mind who might be inside the room. Though based on her memory, she was pretty sure one of the rough shapes was that darn Heidi woman who had punched…

…yes.

Based on what she had…she now had a plan.

It would have a lot of risk, but that was this world.

This would NOT do. Hudson could count very fast, and had confirmed it within seconds.

“...this is not the agreed upon amount. And you’re too short for me to look past.” This was, at best, 65 percent of the agreed on price.

“I need more time.”

“You had…”

“It was NOT ENOUGH. You can’t get blood from a damn stone, Miss Crete. Maybe your boss never gave you a near impossible task, but I am not going to set my house on fire for the damn insurance money.”

“Oh, look who’s grown a spine. That sounds like a refusal.” Cole said. “Let’s take a look.”

One of the patrolling guards had stopped to talk with the two at the door. The fourth was approaching. Now or never, she wasn’t going to get a better opening.

Vesper withdrew her pen.

Click click click.

The guards, those who saw it, would have thought that they’d seen a pen just come flying out of an empty hallway and roll to a stop between them.

“DAMN IT, STOP! I EXPECT BETTER THAN THIS!” Mannifred said, a strange mix of defiant, angry, scared, and sickened as Cole started for him.

“Do you? Cole, wait.” Hudson said, holding a finger. Cole halted but didn’t look away or blink, hands on her swordhilts. “Do you really? Damn near a week, and you couldn’t fulfill your end of the bargain? I expected better from you, frankly. You said you had the funds, you invited me in to make this deal, and now at the moment of truth it’s all of a sudden an impossible task and we’re not playing fair after you dropped the ball? Mannifred, you’re either screwing me around or you’ve forgotten your position in the pecking order. It’s one or the other, it can’t be neither, so let me put this as clear as possible; Do you have our money, or should I just go ahead and let Cole cut pieces off you until you die? Because once she starts she isn’t going to stop.”

Cole slowly tilted her head, only now narrowing her eyes and taking another half step forward to be in position for a lunge. She was clearly waiting for the signal to start bloodletting, like a hunting dog waiting for the point.

“Look, when we were arranging this, I was looking to do a mix of options. Having to solely do it for cash…”

Mannifred was saved from having to give any further explanation when the door to the room they were in literally blew off its hinges.

Heck, more than that. The explosive that was used to destroy the door more or less reduced said door to scrap and kindling, the blast shockwave knocking most everyone over and the closest guards inside the room outright flying; it even knocked Cole over, and she was not easy to knock off her feet. Hudson, her ears ringing so loud she wondered if she’d suffered overt hearing damage, tried to get her senses back.

Her eyes happened to be on the entrance, now afire, when the form stepped into it.

Not THROUGH it. Just into the space it now represented. Peering over some thin sunglasses, having removed the hood of the Octocamo so Hudson knew exactly who it was, Winnow locked eyes with the major domo, before she stepped back out of sight and moved on, like she was just casually strolling by and peering into the room.

Hudson knew when she was being mocked.

She was also long, long past any point in her life where it would affect her.

“Ugh…” Hudson shook her head to clear it and her ears before pointing at the space. “Every one of you that can get up, go after that girl and take care of this right now. I want her dead as soon as possible, and that means get to it!”

“Cole, you stay here.” She said as she’d started that way too, the inquisitor stopping and looking over her shoulder to check she’d heard right. “I’m not playing every card in my hand, you’re the ace I’m holding back. She’s tricky enough that just because a couple of these guys could handle it doesn’t mean they will. If they don’t, you’ll get your chance.”

“As you wish.” She bowed her head before drawing her ornate blades to stand ready, taking Hudson’s side. Hudson crossed her arms and sighed in frustration, not liking all the wrinkles in the plan that had developed in so short a time.

“And where are WE going?” She said after a bit: Mannifred had been knocked flat, and had spent the last twenty seconds trying to crawl away from where the explosion had been.

“Uggrgghhhhh…”

“He blew it again, boss. She tracked him down.” Cole said.

“Actually, that’s not correct.”

Hudson’s head jerked as the voice came over her phone. As in, her personal smart phone. Winnow had found a use for the hacking function as well.

“That whole party crashing?” Vesper’s voice continued, before it was briefly interrupted by the sounds of combat. “Never wanted to find anything there. Just stir you up. Make you make a move. Watched you closely. Not him. You. I gambled that you’d fail to cover your six if you felt that it was someone else who had compromised things. And you did. And I followed YOU. I don’t really care what happens to him, but I’d hate for someone to get murdered on the wrong infor-”

The voice cut off again per the sounds of more combat, and the connection broke a few seconds later.

Staring down silently at the phone in her claws, Hudson felt what most any person would at the revelation; Outside of taking it personal because it was personal, however, there were a few other little gleaming pieces to be raked over. The only reason to reveal something like that was because it no longer mattered in the slightest, especially that Winnow could access her phone in the first place. Things were either going to come to a head here or they weren’t, but as Winnow was in the building she could guess at how that was shaping up already. Whoever she worked for or served wasn’t as important in the moment, but it would be afterward since it directly would point to where she’d gotten her information in the first place.

Hudson thoughtfully put her phone back in her pocket, debating about telling Cole to decapitate Mannifred there and then just to tie up the loose end, but deciding it would be too much work to set up a successor as of yet. She believed Winnow about not caring about his life on the surface, since that response had been to get her goat, but there would be a tomorrow after today no matter what else happened. Besides, it pointed to pride, and pride could always be exploited… Her’s certainly had.

“I’m hoping one of them puts a bullet in her, but that’s about it for hopes. Whether or not that happens, when she makes her way out of the mess and back towards us, I’m going to have you handle her.” Hudson said, biting down on her irritation to sound calm. Cole was watching her, and she asked “Handle?”

“I’d prefer her alive afterward, but we’ll see how things shake out.” She allowed, Cole starting to smile at the possibilities.

It seemed, though, that Hudson and Cole were going to get the best of both worlds.

Three minutes later, the pair of forms appeared.

Heidi was a mess. Her clothing, already ripped up by the explosion, had been further torn by combat, both her eyes starting to swell shut, and the hand she wasn’t using covered in blood. But as the saying went, ‘you should see the other guy’, or girl, in this case. Which Hudson could, as Heidi dumped the woman on the floor in front of the two (and Mannifred).

“She got my gun. But I got her.” Heidi mildly wheezed through a split lip. Vesper’s hands had been zip-tied behind her, and her own face was a mess of bruises, even as terrified eyes darted around. “So, now you do.”

Vesper made loud mumbling noises. Things had gone very, very poorly, it seemed.

“Though, I think I broke her jaw bad. Dunno how well you’re gonna get her to talk.”

Vesper thrashed around, until Heidi kicked her upside the head and limped past her, moving over to where Mannifred was leaning on the table they’d been sitting around not seven minutes before.

“...like I said. Heidi the Hammer.” Mannifred said.

“Well, fantastic. I’m not griping about her shape, I’d have taken her dead or alive.” Hudson said aside to them, leaning down a little to peer at her. “Wish I had some zip ties handy.”

Partly unable to believe that Winnow had been taken down by a human after the mess she’d made of Creed, Hudson kept a little distance while she assessed her condition. Both to avoid being grabbed and because she knew trickery was still very in play, she was a second away from using her crown to scan Winnow for the particulars of her tech before Cole gripped one of her swords and started toward her, raising it to her shoulder for a lunge-

“Stop, what are you doing?” Hudson asked. Cole responded slowly, with clear intent.

“If she’s alive, she has a chance no matter how small. I want this to be her last chance.”

“So do I, but let’s hedge our bets anyway. Let me take a look over her and then I’ll decide if she’s more trouble to bring back without a pulse.” Hudson said, Cole glancing at her but acquiescing. “You know as well as I do taking her lightly at this point is an advantage for her. Last time we had her dead to rights everything went to hell in a handbasket, and I’m not going to lose this chance again.”

“Do you think she planned to end up half dead, with her jaw broken?” Cole asked. Anyone else Hudson would have snapped at, but Cole’s simple, matter of fact question wasn’t loaded with anything for her to take offense at. “I think I’m not going to assume anything until it’s as black and white as can be. Now let me scan her and see what all she’s packing, hard tech or otherwise.”

Hudson, as it turned out, didn’t have to use her crown to assess…certain tech.

The ‘drone board’ came in through the blasted door clear as day, though in terms of sound, as silent as a stalking cat, slashing liquid smooth through the air. Later, Hudson was fairly sure there weren’t any weapons on the front of the thing, but if it had slammed her upside her face, it would have been real bad for her, the board summoned to try and mitigate the bad situation Winnow was in, just like on the lake.

But this time, Cole was there. And Cole was faster.

Not fast enough that she managed to draw one of her swords, though. Maybe she shouldn’t have put them back away.

Still, her fist served, as she slashed out a punch and sent the ‘drone-board’ spinning off to the side in a spray of sparks and a few pieces of broken metal: in the back of her head, Hudson equated it to one of those crude robot combat shows when one of the vehicles took a bad hit. The board hit the wall, its jets snarling as it tried to re-adjust, and then Cole was on top of it, punching down on it like it was a wild animal she was trying to disable. It went down easy, hitting the ground, broken pieces emitting more sparks. Fragile, these things tended to be.

Despite being disabled, it managed one last blast of fire from its ignition system, perhaps purely by accident, that ended up giving Cole a glorified hotfoot. For Cole, it was just an irritation, but as she stepped back and slapped at her ankle, Hudson knew full well what happened when the woman was irritated.

“I’ve had enough. This ends now.” Cole stalked over to one of the nameless guards, violently relieving him of his firearm.

“Cole, just what are you doing?” She asked.

“Rectifying the situation. It’s only fair.” Cole said tonelessly, stalking over to Vesper and promptly putting a bullet in her knee.

The broken jaw muffled the woman’s scream of agony, turning them into low moaning semi-wails as Cole stomped on the wound, grinding her foot in.

“Did that hurt? Not so clever now, are you? Are you happy? Is this going the way you’d imagined? Go on, smile, grin, and laugh- I want to see it!” Cole hissed, eyes starting to dully shine like buttons. “Let me watch you smirk through the pain and the blood!”

“Miss Cole, really, I must…” Mannifred, speaking up. Hudson was a bit surprised at that. There was no surprise when Cole snapped around and aimed her stolen gun at him.

“GET. ON. YOUR KNEES.” Cole snapped. Her eyes were blank again, and that meant things could get very violent very fast. “Don’t speak to me, when every breath you’ve taken since this mess began has been a gift.”

“Cole.” Hudson said, in a tone of mild warning.

“Do it right now! On your knees and bow your head!” Well, Hudson was good at estimating some things, and in this case, not getting a reply was ‘best’, here. Things had gone completely out of control, and she didn’t feel like expending ‘capital’ to get them back on track.

Mannifred, trembling, did just that.

“Now then. Let’s clear the table and simplify things. We’ll be starting at zero, every one of us, and that means a reset in the status quo.” Cole said, and then turned and emptied the firearm into Winnow’s fallen form.

The woman jerked under the assault, one last wheezy gasp of agony coming from her, and then her form slumped, dead, Cole twinning the last of the gunshots with a big smile.

Which died off when Winnow’s form…sparked. Shimmered.

It hit Hudson as hard as the ‘drone-board’ might have, even as the hologram distorted and then faded away. Not Winnow.

Heidi. Her mouth taped shut. Hudson snapped her head towards where ‘Heidi’ had been. She was gone.

So was the 3T, forgotten on the table. Swiped by the spy.

…the same damn hologram trick, done in a new way. The damn board had been another distraction. This woman might well have been a magician during her day job; she had a REAL talent for misdirection.

And reading the room, it seemed. Because this misdirection had relied on outside factors. Like knowing how someone would react, it seemed. Or making an educated guess. And it wasn’t something she’d been predicted to do.

“...Cole.” Hudson said, her voice low and dangerous, only vaguely aware of Mannifred expressing sorrow over the death of his prized minion.

“...Yes?” She asked slowly, like a clockwork toy running down. Staring silently at the body, she’d lost some of her killing edge.

“You done? You had all your fun? Great. Now go get her, whole or in pieces, and this time I want no mistakes and no sloppy excess. Consider this an order from Benedictine, and not from me; You get your fucking hands on her and bring her back here, with the 3T, or so help me there’ll be a reckoning no amount of prayer will save you from.” Hudson said, the hard edge of her statement making Cole bow her head.

“...Yes. Yes, as you wish. Consider it done.” Cole said flatly, the bloodlust fading a little more to be replaced and refilled with her normal dead eyed bearing. She was gone an instant later, just the sound of her habit reacting to her speed as it flapped around her. Hudson let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose, glancing over at Mannifred.

“Good help is getting hard to find, huh?” She asked sourly.