Day in the Life

The glob of phlegm landed with an inevitably wet sound and took a moment before letting gravity begin to drag it down Nathan's cheek, over his split lips to pool at his chin. "And I don't give that for your precious D, V, fucking A "Nigel 'the pitbull' Desmond, a once obviously thin, meager man, now a six and a half foot wannabe terminator slapped Nathan's face. The clawed metal hand gouging down to the bone. One auged arm, two legs, both eyes, and who knew how many internal organs... The man had not just drunk the kool-aid,, he'd bought shares in the company. "Frequency... The balls on you, trying to take me down. Beacon..." He clicks his finger at one of the other men in the room, a nerdy-looking packet of fidgets and twitches with a tablet, " we got a name yet on this piece of shit?" "Facial recognition's coming in now" A few more taps..."Trevor Franks" "See, you fucking sups think you're amazing. Won't be so amazing when I sell your spleen on eBay Trevor" "Fingerprints put him as Trent Frank, must be a mistake in the records..." "I don't care," a metal hand gestures dismissively at Beacon, "Mr. Franks family will be joining him on the auction block." "Ah... Frank Tryton" "What?" "His dental records... He's Frank Tryton..." "Give me that!" Pitbull grabs the tablet and taps away... "DNA never lies... Here we are. You think you're so fucking clever Tom Jones, but we have you." Blood seeps as Nathan smiles redly back... "you got me"

It had been a good morning, Daniel had come through, dropping the info in his usual place. Nathan watched from the cafe as he slunk unhappily away. "Well, if you will have affairs with your wife's sister I will use it against you dickhead." Half an hour later, after the "Darknet's best coffee" is finished, Nathan left and ambled by the drop, snagging the info and returning home. Home for Nathan was an unassuming little two-bed ground floor apartment, nicely lived in by a single working man about town. The secret basement had more of a nicely lived-in by a tech super vibe about it. Nathan deactivated the security, both tech and "primitive" (a crossbow bolt through the chest kills just as well as 50,000 volts does) Sitting at the console he added the data to his research, collating it and confirming the location, defenses, crew complement and load out of "Pitbull's" hideout. Pitbull, he thought, honestly some people just try too hard... Mind you if I had a name like Nigel Desmond I might do the same.

Later that evening, after the place was recon'd and several plans and contingencies had been made, discarded and remade, Frequency stood, armor blackened, on the building opposite Pitbull's den. There was a sentry lazily scanning the area with built-in bionics, but Frequency could tell his heart wasn't in it.

"Frequency to Dispatch" "Go ahead Frequency" "In position, going to breach now" "Roger Frequently, good luck" "Frequency out"

A small run and a quick firing of the jump-jets had him clearing the distance, landing surprisingly softly behind the sentry, but not softly enough. Spinning the guard brought up his gun, all clenched teeth and spittle, but with a swipe of his vibrating fist the weapon fell to the ground in three uneven pieces. A discombobulating blast of distortion and a strike from an electrified baton had this down for the count. The rooftop door was locked by a keypad. Of course it was, everything here was tech-based regardless of the need, it was one of the reasons he liked it here so much.

On the top story, he only met two guards, both easily taken down, and the layout was as he'd expected. Pitbull's penthouse apartment, gaudy even to Nathan's complete lack of sensibilities, held what he needed. Nathan stood over the computer looking at the blinking cursor that begged for a password. "Hey dad..." "Yes Nathan" came the still modulated voice over his internal coms. "Refresh my memory, the Deadlight series X201 had the old FireWire connection that could be used to bypass motherboard protocols..." "That's the one, the X330 was so much better." "Yeah, thanks"
He hooked his embedded computer to the pc and in less than 30 seconds had the contents downloaded.

It was on the stairs up to the roof that he rethought the plan. The info was retrieved, minimal intrusion, but he knew there were bodies in the basement and a tenuous link to the shipments of children. Pitbull's name had cropped up in an intercepted communication... It was only once and as a side note, but... The source had been sound.

He was heading onto the 4th floor as he relayed his actions to dispatch. "Affirmative Frequency" was the expected and received response. On the fourth and third there were 4 auged gang members. Nothing too tough, but most were up to date with the hack-resistant firmware patches. It only slowed him a little but enough that the last of the goons on 3 had gotten a few shots off.

As he rounded the corner out of the stairwell on the second floor he ran into four gang members, or more correctly, they ran into him. All had been heavily worked on. Two had inbuilt arm weapons one clearly had internal work and multispectral eyes and the last, six and a half feet of armored tank. They fired on him with pistols, peppering his armor and one shot fire at him from an arm flame thrower. "Small arms fire, cute" A blast from his chest cannon at close range took out the tank, buckling their armor and sending them skittering back down the hall. He hit the others with a keyed frequency to induce vomiting. The only problem with that at this range was the time he have to spend later cleaning his suit. The tank was climbing to his feet as Frequency knocked out the last of the vomiting goons and a grenade rolled gently to a stop at his feet. It went off before he could react, blowing him down the corridor towards the waiting tank and showering everyone and everything in globules of flaming flesh. "Balls," he muttered, as he was picked up bodily, "leg armor's shot to shit" The tank raised him high, a tucking laugh coming from their deformed helmet, readying him for a suplex, when Frequency discharged his electric defense, causing the huge goon to spasm and drop Frequency as they collapsed unconscious. More grenades landed beside him and he fired his jump-jets clearing the space down the hall to the pair of gang members, one holding a grenade, the other holding a surprised expression. "Lights" Frequency muttered, and as he had already hooked himself into the building's smart tech, all the lights went out. "Shit" one of the goons muttered, and then like the lights, he put them out too.

The ground floor though was quiet and he cycled through the building's internal cameras, having already locked them to feed only to his HUD, but they were showing empty halls and rooms. Still, he quartered the floor, checking as he went before making his way to the basement.

Frequency checked basement door, again breaking the lock code in seconds and surveying the stairs before going down. That second step though... The explosion fractured and broke the already compromised leg armor and he fell, rolling and sliding down the stairs, slightly dazed and trying to climb to his feet. The hiss of the gas grenades was a background static and all he thought was, "I'm safe, the rebreather will take care of that". His head swam and his hand missed the wall as he tried to steady himself. Coughing his knee hit the ground and his broken armor let in more of the gas. "Mother fuc... Fu... Fff" and he collapsed.

When Nathan came to he was unarmoured, very nearly unclothed, and fastened into a high-tech restraint system, hands and feet enclosed in tubes locked to a wall, spread like a partly finished Vitruvian man. The room was a mess of operating tables, filthy equipment and discarded tech to complete the scumbags lair cheche. And speaking of scumbags, there was Pitbull with two of his, standing over Nathan's armor.
"He's awake," one of the men said and Pitbull turned, smiled a mouthful of silver, sauntered up, and spat in Nathan's face.

..."You got me""Fucking right we do" crows Pitbull, "now tell us how that fucking armor works Tom, boys can't turn it on, or I'll start the flaying" So saying he picks up what could once have been a sharp scalpel and moves to Nathan, placing it on his chest and dragging it slowly downward. Blood wells and runs as another scar is added. "Wait, wait'" Beacon shouts, "I don't believe it..."Beacon taps the pad, and again, "Scan says he's got nanites, unprogrammed, in his blood, fucker's worth millions."Pitbull smiles broadly, "Gonna bleed you, Tom Jones," fetid breath nearly gagging Nathan, "going to bleed you good" "I like your legs." "What?" Pitbull asked. "Your legs. TravisTech SR515's. Couple of years old now of course, advanced movement, jump capabilities, immersive armor plating, better than the nextgen SR550 in lots of ways... except one" "What you shitting on about Tommy?"

Suddenly the high-tech manacles deactivate, popping open with a high pitched 'ping' sound."No EMP protection" Pitbull, quicker than he looks, swipes a slash at Nathan's chest with the scalpel. Ducking, Nathan slaps his hands against Pitbull's legs, and the everpresent underlying hum of servos disappears as Pitbull crashed to the ground. Sidestepping another wild swipe Nathan moves to a table to pick up a dirty, cracked knife in time to parry a blow from one of his own batons. The larger of Pitbull's men swung for him again, thankfully unable to operate the baton fully. They trade blows, the big man able to hold his own, but as the weapons slash, between one blow and the next, Nathan's knife transforms from dull metal to a beautifully crafted blade, and strikes that had bounced off the henchman's kevlar, now cut... deep. It doesn't take long after that for him to drop, leaving only Pitbull, trapped under the weight of his own useless legs and Beacon.

"Sit down and shut up Beacon," gestures Nathan with his red blade, "I need a moment with your boss" "Your mistake Tom," grins the nerdy-looking man, "I'm not like these auged-out wannabes" The tablet melts in his hands as Beacon begins to live up to his moniker, the little man beginning to glow, his skin cracking and shucking away, flaking and burning to reveal the molten man beneath. Heat radiates off him, peeling the walls and boiling the jars of liquid lined on one wall. Glass shatters. The ground cracks. "I'm a super you fool!" he crows. "You're a twat"... and the room cools, instantly. 'What?" Beacon, looks at his now naked form, too thin arms and legs shaking. "Twat."Face contorting, Beacon rushes Nathan, screaming wild fury, fingers as claws he launches himself and gets a pommel to the temple. As Beacon crumples to the floor, Nathan glances at Pitbull and sees the shocked expression he wears. Nathan says, "I guess you didn't know he could do that... interesting. "Nathan starts to get dressed back into his armor, fitting it on one piece at a time, all the while Pitbull yammering and stammering, leading him down the road to fully-fledged begging.

'Now Nigel..." Nathan's voice, hard and modulated, "we need to have a have a chat about those children...""Tom, Tom, come on man, look I don't know what you're talking about, I just... man come on Tom, I... I..." "Shhhhh," a synthetic hum, "and please, call me Frequency"