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The Assignment

Chapter 5: Dangers Unveiled

Alastair closed his locker in the hallway and slung his bag onto his shoulder. The other residents of the hallway were slowly trickling away as his fellow students filed out of the building and towards the parking and bus lots, all heading back home to their friends and family.

'And thus the fourth day comes to an end.'

It was still the first week, but the tediousness of schooling was already starting to annoy him considerably. It all seemed so pointless to him considering he had learned everything he needed in his training. Not only that, but it made it harder for him to do his real job. Today, he had to watch over his charge until she made it back to her home, and then he had to do his homework for math, astronautics, and advanced lylatian. After that, throw in his hours of monitoring the area around her home with his equipment at his safehouse, and he hardly even had time to sleep.

It has been less than a week and he could already feel the deep-set exhaustion in his bones. But, it was his solemn duty to ensure the Phoenix girl's safety so he did not have much choice in the matter. He could not afford to fail any of his classes. That would only seek to further complicate his already intensely strained situation.

With a tired sigh, he made his way out of the school and to his bike. He had a long night of work to look forward to.

'And tomorrow will bring the same...'

After ensuring that Phoenix made it back to her home safe and sound, and then examining the surrounding few blocks for any suspicious activity, Alastair checked on his monitoring equipment and headed on back to his safehouse.

Once inside he finished his homework and started to sift through the freshest batch of data transferred to his computer from the Cornerian Intelligence division. It was frustrating as while he searched through recent police reports for anything that could possibly to connect or reveal NVR activities, he kept getting distracted by absent thoughts on the intricacies of the vocal frequency modulations needed to speak the lylatian tongue.

Shaking his head and clearing his mind of memories of his advanced lylatian course, he focused himself on his more important task.

'Stupid distractions...' He thought to himself with a slight grumble.

As he did so, something caught his eye. Curious, Alastair clicked on the link for the report and opened the main document, scanning it with growing intrigue. Apparently, a few days ago there was a report of suspicious activity and movement a few kilometers from the Phoenix family estate, accounts of strangely garbed individuals carrying unmarked crates in the direction of an abandoned storehouse in the nearby industrial sector. The CDF had yet to respond since they did not have enough solid information to authorize the enactment of a raid. That was why it had been forwarded to him; he could check it out with minimal effort and manpower while still remaining inconspicuous.

With his duties for the rest of the day mostly complete, he decided that he could make the effort to investigate the strange occurrence. Alastair downloaded the street address to his device and slipped into his set of discreet gear.

After double checking his security systems, he took his hoverbike out of the garage and onto the streets. It was a short drive to the storehouse, since most of the populace was undoubtedly home with their families at such a late hour. He parked his ride around the corner so as not to attract any attention to it and walked into sight of the building.

At a first glance, he didn't see anything suspicious. But he still felt as if something sinister was going on inside. The street around the building was dead, except for the stray pedestrian. Since he had no plans on being recognized as the only human planetside, he pulled up the hood on his leather jacket, letting it conceal his hominid features.

Alastair cased the building, casually strolling a practical distance around the perimeter of the warehouse and once more searching for any signs of illicit activity while simultaneously getting a better look at it. The warehouse had three levels, with an ovoid rooftop. He guessed that it was roughly 800 feet in length and 150 in width. Judging from the unpleasant smells in the area he also summarized that it had not been in use for a very long time. For all intents and purposes, it looked like any other abandoned warehouse that he had laid eyes on.

Perhaps it looked too abandoned.

If he knew anything about city life, which he admittedly knew very little, squatters would leap on the chance to have such a large secure building to call their own. Which meant that he should have at least seen signs of it; i.e discarded cans, recent tracks, and the customary refuse items. This place however, was too clean to him.

After making sure that no one was looking, he easily hoped the gated fence and moved closer to the building. Almost immediately his comms device started to emit a soft beeping. The human backed up and checked his device.

Surveillance equipment detected...lift device to highlight locations. He studied the softly illuminated blue text as it scrolled across his screen.

"Hmm...not so abandoned it would seem." Alastair lifted his device and it switched functions. The screen flashed and displayed the immediate area, a thin bar wiped across it and several spots on the warehouse lit up, displaying the hiding places of at least a dozen cameras and concurrently showing their makes and models. He hypothesized that his device must have picked up on their residual electrical emanations.

Series-A _Warden_security monitoring system...Manufacturer - Eladard Technologies

From the extensive information of his mission brief, he knew that to be one of the many front companies that supplied the New Venom Revolutionaries...otherwise known as the NVR.

_'Looks like I stumbled across the real deal.' _

He ran a software utility and it showed the paths of visibility each camera was responsible for tracking and observing. With its help he had little trouble in circumnavigating their detection grid and arriving swiftly at the back door.

Of course it would be unwise to enter through the back. No doubt whoever was inside had every entrance monitored, more than likely with better equipment than the cameras. He instead looked around and spotted a small fire escape to the side of the building that would take him to the roof. A quick climb later and he was standing on the paneled rooftop. There were a few paned windows spread out across the roof, all pointed directly at the interior of the building. Not wanting to attract attention to himself, he slowly and quietly traversed the roof and towards the closest window. As he got closer he started to see a faint light emanating from inside and the sound of several muffled voices crept its way into his ears.

Alastair kneeled by the fringe of the large window and after making sure that there was no detection system installed on it, he slid it open just enough to listen in on what was going on down below. Once he was able to hear unfettered words he peered into the warehouse.

"So, Miller...when do we take the target? We've been here for days now. If we don't act soon someone is bound to notice us eventually."

There was a small room below him with five cornerians of intermixed species spread around. Three were lounging near the back while the one who just spoke stood next to the final resident. The room was decked out in electronic surveillance equipment and unlabeled boxes. The front wall had a screen erected on it that was currently filled with streams of data and pictures of unfamiliar locations. There was a door to the left and he could detect faint sounds of movement on the other side, which meant that more of them were spread out across the building.

"We can't do the snatch and grab until we receive the go order from the boss. If we do it too early then the whole plan'll be fucked. Boss says he's got the entire operation planned out; all we gotta do is go when he tells us. So...till then we do fuck all."

The first speaker, who looked like some sort of canine, shook his muzzle angrily.

"I don't like this one bit. Just yesterday we received a tip that there might be an unknown operative on the prowl. If that's true then we could be found out at any moment. That don't sit right with me."

"Don't be such a bitch Morris, if there was some guy lookin fer us, then the security system would pick them up long before they could get the drop on us. You should head on downstairs and get something to drink and calm your nerves. I'm sure that the boss'll clear the mission soon."

"All right, Miller...if you say so." The canine replied uncertainly as he stepped out of the room.

Alastair processed the new information with a frown. They were farther along in their plan then he or his superiors had anticipated. From the sound of it they were extremely close to launching the attack. They needed more Intel on their enemy which meant that he had to act. He surveyed the room in greater detail. The four remaining individuals (now designated as priority targets), each had a small carbine in or around their paws with additional weapons on a table near the door of the room. He also knew that there were more of them spread out through the building. He would have used the tech in his bracer to get a better understanding of what laid down below, but he didn't have the building's schematics downloaded. All he had to go on was his proximity alert system but the model he was using only went out a few meters.

Even with his enhancements, there was no way he could take out four hostiles without making any noise that might attract further reinforcements. Nor did he currently possess any equipment on him that would make a breach-and-clear prudent. No. Entering from this room seemed tactically inadvisable. The best option available to him was finding another point of entry that was less noticeable and preferably at one of the building's corners. That way he would know that his rear was protected.

Alastair stepped away from the window and made his way to the edge of the building at the east corner. Eyeing over the edge he spied a window large enough for him to slip into and he did not hear or see any signs of movement therein. Grabbing the roughly textured rooftop, the human slid himself over the side. He held himself up as he used his boots to look for a ledge to support himself on. Soon, he felt the tips of his boots scrap against a slim outcropping, no more than a few centimeters long, it would be more than sufficient. Alastair wedged his boots against the extension and let go of the rooftop. A burst of queasiness hit his gut as he temporarily lost his balance, but he easily recovered it, pushing himself forward and pressing up against the cold wall of the building and right next to the window.

As he was about to reach or the window, his augmented ears picked up a low scraping sound inside the room he planned on breaking into. He hesitated, millimeters distant from the lever for the window and froze stiff, unwilling to make a sound that might give him away. He hunkered against the wall silently as he waited for the sounds of movement to dissipate. When they finally did he allowed himself to exhale quietly in relief. To be discovered in such a vulnerable position would have been...problematic.

Alastair quickly used his break to open the window and slip inside, closing it softly after him and looking around the darkened room. The lights were currently off and the door at the far end of the room was slightly ajar, casting a soft yellow glow from the threshold. The light and his augmentations allowed his eyes to easily pierce the dim veil of darkness and scan the room's contents. It looked much like the room he had observed from the rooftop despite a few exceptions. Instead of a table and large screen on the wall, there was a plentitude of the same unmarked boxes he saw before and heard about in the report. That made the human very curious as to what their contents were.

He pulled out his blade and approached one of the crates in the corner of the room by the windowsill. He slipped the blade into the crack on the side and leveraged it open with a soft crack and it popped up a few centimeters. He pushed his gloved fingers into the open space and opened it as quietly as he could, staring inside.

'.....fuck.'

The crate was stacked full of weapons and explosives along with countless gas cartridges for cornerian laser weapons. It by itself was more than enough to support this group in the building. And by the looks of this room, the one he saw from the roof, and the size of the warehouse, he easily calculated that there were enough munitions here to supply a decent portion of a full scale invasion. 'That doesn't make sense.' From what he had been told all the NVR were here for was to kidnap Fara Phoenix, all of this was unnecessary additional firepower.

'What the hell is going on here?'

Alastair opened a random assortment of crates in the room and was met with similar results. All had variable amounts of military supplies and equipment. That meant that both Aegis and the good General were not being transparent with him on the mission and the NVR, or things were even more serious than they had anticipated.

Yet he could not worry about that just then, he still had a warehouse to deal with. Once the immediate terrorist threat was eliminated he could call in the general's men and they could lockdown the warehouse and search for any further indications of the NVR's intentions.

Alastair went to the open door and after seeing that there were no people present, he stepped outside. It was a small hallway with three branches into separate areas of the warehouse. Two went left and right while the last one was straight ahead of him. He could hear voices' coming from the way to his left and to his right is where the room he had spied in on was located. Judging by the size of the building and size of this particular cell, there could be anywhere from twenty to thirty terrorists present in the compound.

Alastair reverse flipped the hilt of his blade and headed in the direction of the voices.