[b]Extra-Office Communique from the Bureau of Unresolved Terrestrial Threats to Advanced Surveillance Sector[/b]
[hider=Transcript]
Be advised that the Threat Category Ten (10) URE RefNo 9W72248SC12 is currently en-route to Fortitude City via cargo ship, agenda unknown. Cultist elements are present in the Shipping Authority and the Harbourmaster's office, and have obfuscated the exact ship being used and its ETA. It is expected that the ship will arrive between 0300 Thornday and 2200 Linday however.

This information was obtained at a great cost, and the Bureau was unable to neutralize the URE prior to its transit. We lost four predominant assets in our attempts to do so, and the URE is likely aware of our knowledge regarding its movement. Exercise C&D. We are insufficiently mobilized to provide any further assistance at this time.

Naduir preserve you.[/hider]
"The URE is likely aware of our knowledge regarding its movement." There was a brief pause punctuated by laughter from multiple people, clustered around a terminal in the darkness of a cargo hold. "Well, there are only so many cargo ships going in and out of Fortitude between those times. What's our current speed?"

"Twenty knots. ETA is 0700 Thornday." Another voice replied.

"Well, the boss did give us leeway with the schedule. We can either sit and play chicken, maybe try a game of monty, or we can try to rush before they're expecting us."

"This scrapheap can't go any faster than 25 knots. I don't think rushing is an option unless the bossman pours humours into the engine, and that would probably give us away."

"We also have to assume they can remotely monitor each ship heading for Fortitude, especially since they have a narrow timetable. They know which group of ships we're in, just not which specific ship. We can't pull a turn or play chicken. They'd know."

"Well, if the enemy knows we're going to be coming, there's no sense in hunching over and sticking to the shadows. Tell the boss to pour some humours, and to make it [i]thick[/i]. In the meantime, let's see what kind of trouble we can get our little helpers to wreck in the city proper, anything to keep them busy."

"Sounds good. How fast can the humours get this hauler up to? 30 knots? 35?" The question is met with grim laughter.

"The engine won't survive. We'll be dead in the water. But the city will come to us."

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[u][b]Estria
Fortitude City
Warehouse District 16D[/b][/u]

[i]"Good evening everyone, this is channel six with the eight-o-clock weather. I know we promised you a clear night just five hours ago, but a surprise storm front came down nearly thirty minutes ago from the ocean, likely due to some unexpected heat blowing in from the East and starting convection cycles in a number of weak drafts we missed earlier. It looks like they've all come together to form a multicellular storm cell. Looking at the rate of intracellular dispersion and cohesion, there's no reason to think the storm will get any worse, but it's definitely going to hang around a while. Everybody get ready for light rain through the night and tomorrow morning..."[/i]

Charis watched the forecaster on her wrist-screen as he gestured and motioned at the CGI background of the storm rolling towards the city, restraining the urge to tug on the collar of her suit-coat. They had to be out and about tonight, and while she did not dislike the rain per-se, it made her job harder, especially with the need to wear formalwear over her ballistic armor. Worse yet, the call she had been expecting from HQ hadn't come in yet, already four hours late and counting, which meant there would be complications, and in the meantime she was left to babysit all the idiot coffin stuffing being paid overtime to loiter around doing nothing but asking questions.

"Both you and I have signed nondisclosure agreements. Not only can I not tell you what's in the crates, but you can't [i]ask[/i] me what's in the crates. Despite the fact that they are clearly labeled with their assigned lot numbers, and the manager at least [i]does[/i] know what's in them, and you don't see him making a fuss." She didn't even glance away from his wrist-screen as she spoke, trying not to grind her teeth together in irritation as she flicked between news sites, trying to figure out if there was some local event or incident that was resulting in the delay. Another thing to curse in this thankless job - the mandatory communications blackout with HQ. Which made coordination and logistics a nightmare. Everything had to be done by word of mouth and a lot of fake paperwork filed, and either way a lot of everyone's time was getting wasted.

"Look, two of my workers have said they heard pounding from the inside of some of them, and a bunch of others have noticed these strange stains on the lids. We don't know where they've been, and even if we don't know what's inside them we're responsible for the contents if there's a surprise inspection." The shift supervisor was a reasonably trim if weathered man, straddling the thin age line where both strength and wisdom were briefly equal. "If you can't tell us what's in them, at least tell us where they came from?"

"Each of these crates was packed up in Letona and shipped directly here by air." Charis said almost automatically, her voice clipped and rehearsed, clashing with the narrow set of her brow and her tightly clenched fists. "I've been with them the whole time, so if anybody is held responsible for them, it's going to be me."

That was when her wrist-screen cried out with a soft chime, and a simple text message rolled across the screen's lower bar.

[i]Buyers en-route, have gained heat. Initiate turnover, leave them with the product to worry about.[/i]

"About time." Charis grunted. "Looks like the recipients are finally getting in. Let's go to the main floor, get this over with."

"I'm afraid not miss, I actually clocked out two minutes ago. Just thought I would see if I could pry anything from those pursed lips of yours that might make the others feel better."

"Wait, so you're leaving now?" Charis asked expectantly, switching her wrist-screen off and looking up at the supervisor for the first time while casually reaching into her coat.

"Yeah, I-" 

Charis drew her flechette gun from her concealed holster as a lazy smile visited her lips. The supervisor's eyes barely had time to dilate before hundreds of metal shards had torn through them. He didn't even have time to scream, and the soundless weapon had no report to give the murder away.

Charis hauled the body over to the corner so the blood wouldn't pool near the door, which she closed firmly once she had left the room. She walked down the hall and onto the main floor catwalk, where she called down to a number of haulers who had been patiently browsing the internet on their own small wrist-devices while waiting. "Hey, recipients are finally coming in, get all the crates ready to move and ready for inspection!"

Of course, that was all just part of the facade. The crates contained indentured slaves, three to a crate, sweltering in the cramped and hot interiors for nearly sixteen hours straight. Their original owners had no further need for them. In the past they had just dumped them onto the streets; but opportunities in the past few years had led to the current arrangement of selling them on the black market, double-crossing the buyers, and then calling in law enforcement to raid the exchange site immediately afterwards. The sellers got paid, and the Estrian government got lumped with the cost of putting the slaves into either foster care or protection services. All neat and tidy. It had the added benefit of reducing the number of organized criminal operations staged from warehouse districts, which was something the sellers, being rather logistically minded, found preferable - and it reoriented local law enforcement to cracking down on organized crime, drawing their attention away from other areas of concern.

Once all the crates had been moved, and the lids unbolted save for the thick padlocks holding the doors shut, Charis silently disposed of the haulers. Only a faint hissing noise accompanied the flechette gun's emission as Charis turned it on the haulers while their backs were turned, and so they didn't even realize something was wrong until four of them had fallen to the ground with shredded torsos and limbs, with viscera and blood splattered everywhere. Thanks to all their heavy lifting, they all merely died tired, leaving no witnesses on top of the nonexistent paperwork trail.

"Hey guys, nice job with all the handling. Five stars, would work with you all again. In your next lives." Charis said dryly as she replaced the vacuum-chambered clip for the flechette gun, pocketing the emptied one in her suit. Having already deactivated the warehouse security footage hours beforehand, the only evidence she would leave behind would be the thousands of steel flechettes embedded in the floors, walls, and bodies. When S.W.A.T. inevitably raided the warehouse with the buyers in it, forensics would likely conclude they had been responsible for killing all the workers, nevermind that a flechette gun hadn't been found on the premises. If they had pursued a few intensive cross-investigations with precincts in the next few cities over, they would have discovered the disturbing trend that Human Traffickers had picked up involving the use of mysteriously vanishing flechette weapons to kill warehouse employees.

Charis left by the rear entrance, heading for the chain-link fence that surrounded the warehouse perimeter. The sounds of wailing sirens and the distant whopping of police helicopters coming from the opposite direction informing her that the buyers would probably be arriving any minute now. Before she could go any further though, her wrist-screen chimed with another message.

[i]New priority. Head two districts East and start a fire near Warehouse 19B, then head to the meeting spot.

Please remember to wear formalwear this time.[/i]

"Fucking control freak." Charis muttered as she dismissed the message. Commit arson while police and S.W.A.T. and backstabbed traffickers turned the whole place into a warzone, without being caught, and without ruining the suit. She turned East, to the warehouse districts directly adjacent to the city docks, just as the previously almost paltry drizzle escalated into a light shower.

"They should be asking me to burn the whole word." Charis growled angrily as she started to hurriedly jog towards the chainlink fence.