If there was one thing that all the mercs in London did have in common, it was their phones. Not that their phones were the same model, because they weren't, but because all mercenaries had access to the secure MercServ database. MercServ was a London-based hiring organisation for those who had more guns than they did money and wished to change that rather rapidly. On this system, a message would be sent out to all interested parties. Now, a message would buzz out through each one's, alerting them that there was something new for them to perhaps earn some money in

Sure enough, there was the notification, across dozens of screens. Attention [Pale Horse] Mercenary Outfit is looking to hire mercenaries for a job. Details as follows: CDA 2 str/No rspct 4 us/need 2 tk dwn a ntch. £xlots involvd/STOP// The strange, contracted language and textspeech was pretty typical for those hiring, as the server charged an exorbitant fee per letter to give out those details. Still, if they were looking for people to sign up, and promising a lot of cash, it could only mean that something was about to go down, and that was always a cause for interest.

Camille, who had been enjoying a quiet pint at the King's Head pub, on the outskirts of the shanty town, looked at the message on her phone. Whenever Pale Horse hired, the CDA would inevitably be hiring soon afterwards. Normally they didn't offer quite as much cash... Hm. Pale Horse it was for this job. A few button presses- she used a damn-near indestructible dumbphone rather than something fancy that would crack if she fumbled it and accepted the job, where a message would pop up on the screen. Accept video message? Huh. How could she disagree? Two clicks to get to the 'yes' option, and then she would listen, a rather gnarly London accent growling out.

"Fuckin' MercServ charging so much. Alright, thanks for accepting the job. The basic plan is that we think the CDA's getting too big for its boots. We gotta show them that we're still in this game, and for that reason we'll be needing you to launch an attack onto one of their secure facilities. The front door is reinforced and the whole thing is locked up tighter than a duck's arse, but we have a plan. If you accept, more detail's will be on the way. £10 grand per for this job."

Almost as soon as she had finished hearing his message, another one popped up on her phone. Attention. [CDA] Mercenary Outfit is looking mercenaries for a job. Details as follows: You'll be defending a secure site against Pale Horse. Matching £. Ooh. Well, in that case... She'd be taking the CDA job for sure. She always worked better when she was letting her enemies come to her rather than going to them, so without hesitation she cancelled the Pale Horse job and tapped down on the CDA one. Accept video message? Cropped up again. Two clicks again, yes again and the new video popped up, this time with a more pleasant woman's voice.

"Pale Horse is launching an attack on a secure server of ours. You'll be deployed by helicopter to defend the area and ensure that they don't start getting uppity. We're matching their price, so you can be sure of £10,000 transferred to a secure account of your choosing once the job is complete, with £2,000 transferred once you get on the chopper."

Well then. That seemed like it'd be the job for her. She'd just have to be aware for when the pickup'd be so that she could actually get paid. If the pair were going at each other again, she was going to be more than happy to profit from both of the idiots doing their thing. Hell, the more they fought, the more cash she made.

Monika sat in a boot with her boot up on a chair and shook her head in minor amusement as she surveyed the King’s Head pub; it wasn’t the first time she’d remarked to herself that the current clientele was probably much rougher than it had been at one time.

Cadpat from all corners of the globe, and nearly as varied a selection in weaponry, filled the pub from wall to wall and she was no different with her surplused Polish camo and guns. Working her way through a semi-decent lager and a not so interesting Fisherman’s Pie, she grunted in annoyance as her phone chirped.

Digging into her vest she dragged out her battered CAT S41 to see what the message was, at the same time as pretty much everyone else. <PL>”Now, what do we have here?” Seeing the job offer from Pale Horse, she considered if for a moment before binning the message; she was still a little sore at them for trashing a data extraction job she’d spent three weeks on. Looking up from her phone she tried to do a quick scan to see how may said ‘yes’, though that was interrupted by her phone going off again, this time with CDA’s counter-offer.

<PL>”Oh matching pay, must be worried.” A couple of taps and the CDA video began to play as she stuck an earbud in her ear. 20% up front? Eh, I’ve seen better, but there seems to be plenty of takers… After another moment or two of thought, she hit the [ACCEPT] button and set about finishing her meal.

---

Ali was awoken from her dozing from her phone vibrating. A specific kind of vibrating. With a grin she pulled out the device to see who was looking to hire.

Mhmm. Pale Horse. She liked their jobs, normally, and the promise of a decent payout was definitely up her alley. She waited a few moments, however, because the CDA practically always made a counter offer. Sometimes it was more lucrative for her personal skill set. Mostly it was crap, though, in her opinion. But a job was a job.

Sure enough her phone vibrated again with a counter offer. Same pay, either way, but the CDA was offering 20% up front.

Things just got interesting. She had a choice this time. Attack or defend, the money was the same.

But.... Having the advantage of defending from a secure location was the better option for her. Plus that 20% up front was a little more tempting. She tapped to accept the job from the CDA, pulling herself to her feet and pulling out her single earbud. Best not to make it clear who she'd accepted in a situation like this.

Slinging Lisa over her shoulder, she went to get ready for departure.

Zhao sat at home, playing some first-person shooter he’d rented for five dollars. Right as he was about to kill the boss, he heard a shrill cry coming from his desk. He groaned, paused the game, and opened his drawer, revealing a sleek black phone. An older model, but it got the job done nevertheless.

Smartphones. They were annoying as hell sometimes, but in the professional world, they did come in handy. Zhao squinted at the darker-than-usual screen, and he saw a notification from MercServ. Pale Horse. Looks like they were going to sabotage some CDA facility. Typical. Seemed like the CDA and Pale Horse were the only big players in London, and as with all corporations, they got competitive.

He accepted the job immediately, even though he knew CDA was going to make a counter-offer. Attacking, assaulting, raiding, whatever people called it, that was his forte. And plus, as a defender, he assumed he had to worry about the whole “not blowing shit up” thing, which just didn’t sit well with him. Typically, the most optimal defense was to kill the enemy before they got to the target, and Zhao knew he wasn’t much use as a tactician or a sniper. He’d leave those privileges up for the smarter folk.

He examined his bandolier, which had one of every shell he used, plus backup bags around his waist. His trench gun, cleaned and prepped from the downtime of the last mission, cocked without a snatch. Holstering his pistol, he tightened his shock armor and adjusted his helmet.

But no matter how smart someone is, a bullet still kills them the same.

Jan received the message as they were dragging a whole car battery out of a car that had been half-buried under a house, and took their time to check the battery for damage, twisting it round in the claws of their suit. 'Aw yeah, that is legit,' they eventually muttered, placing the heavy object down on their cart before grabbing their phone. By now, they actually had two messages, one from Pale Horse, and the other from the CDA. Both were... eh. Firefights. The same firefight, actually. The idiots thought they were both doing some reasonable things, but in the end, it all came down to money.

Jan, frankly, couldn't really care less. Ten thousand could be a lot of money, but they knew they would get better pickings from the bodies they looted. The grand irony was when you could sell an organisation's guns back to them... but actually, if they were going to be there anyway, they might as well go in on one side or the other and get the money *as well.* What, were they gonna get them killed, in the sort of armour they were wearing? Not likely. But which would be preferable... both paid the same, and the CDA offered £2000 in advance... buuut, Jan would have more guns to loot if they were on the ground, and if all went well, they'd wind up getting the guns inside too.

The claws of their suit tapped back over to the Pale Horse's message, and accepted the mission. After that, they grabbed their cart, and continued on their merry way. There was always more stuff to appropriate, after all.

"Gie'za pint mate." The Scotsman leaned forward across the bar and indicated with two fingers. The barman looked up at him and nodded, putting down the cloth he had been using to wipe down the surfaces.

"Sure. Foster's alright?" The man indicated to the taps in front of him. Lager, mostly. No good local stuff anymore, microbreweries had been the first to go after the nukes. He supposed that at the very least it cut down the number of hipsters.

"Nah, nae having that shite. Stella." He pointed to the white tap, the bartender leaning over and filling it up, trimming the head off with a quick swipe before handing it over. A quick draught of the stuff to quench that tickling in his throat, and then the man would slide across a plastic fiver, watching as it was gobbled up. He needed a job soon, someone to shoot.

Speak of the devil, there was his phone. Messages from Pale Horse. A raid on a CDA facility. Sounded like his kind of job. A CDA counteroffer would crop up, but he didn't care about that. He'd already accepted the PH job, no need to bugger around. A few swiped got him across to the conference call app he'd set up with his squad, sending them a ping. Two minutes later, and half a pint of Stella in his gut, and he would start the call. "Alright boys. Get set up, we'se got a job to do." That was all that he needed.

Polishing off the pint, he would listen to the message as he left the bar, nodding slightly. Bang boom crash. Seemed exactly what he liked to do. Just hoped the call to action would start quickie sharpish like.

Chris received the call before the message from Pale Horse even hit MercServ. His phone began to vibrate as he walked through the deserted streets of inner London, the cloak around his shoulders making him near invisible from the back even if the sniper rifle in his hands and the open front gave him away otherwise. He answered the call.

“Mr Walton. We’ve obtained information that Pale Horse have discovered the location of one of our secure servers and are planning an attack; I’m sure they’ll send out a recruitment message on the MercServ soon and the CDA is planning to make a counter offer to defend the location instead. Can we count on your services as usual?”

Since this whole fiasco had begun Chris had worked for the CDA several times, worked for them exclusively in fact, which made his situation a little different from most of the mercenaries in the city. His loyalty didn’t depend on who was willing to pay the most at the time and that was something that was well known, even if much else about him wasn’t. He was essentially on retainer for CDA at this point, something that would end if he ever so much as considered working for Pale Horse for any reason, but for the moment it came with certain benefits; they sent information to his goggles while he was in the field, they gave him a discount on ammunition or equipment purchased from them…

“We’re offering to match what Pale Horse is paying, with advanced payment, plus a small loyalty bonus if you agree.”

… and they paid him more. It meant he could never accept an offer from Pale Horse, even if the pay was better, but that wasn’t something Chris cared about anyway.

“Send me the location. Transfer the money to the usual place.”

The next message from the CDA came just twenty minutes afterwards. “Alright, we have a helicopter on standby. Please come to the Second CDA Response and Refugee Centre.” Fair enough. With her rifle acquired and slug over her back and a pocket of RFID chips to allow those who were fighting beside her to get the full benefits of them, she sauntered through the streets of London with a collected calm. Open carrying like this was rarely seen- guns were still a somewhat taboo element of life, but she didn’t care. She was going to make bank right now.

The Second CDA Response and Refugee Centre was a busy busy place. Forklifts and trucks rumbled back and forth, marked with the CDA’s distinctive triangle signange. White and yellow was everywhere, shouts and commands mixed in with the noise of machinery. A squat helicopter sat on a cleared out space that, if one was generous, could be called a helipad, a woman with a clipboard and earpiece rapidly coming to the gate where Camille stood.

“FOR THE JOB?” She shouted over the roar of the facility.

“YUP,” came the response, equally as loud. The woman consulted her clipboard for a second, then swiped an ID card through a door and lead her through. From there they went to some sort of reception, where a few details were tapped into a computer and a plastic lanyard was handed over to her.

“Wear that on your persons whenever you’re in this facility. If you don’t, security is going to have words with you. Wait here for more mercenaries, and you’ll get a briefing before you’re up in the air.” It seemed like she was the first one here. Poking around in her pocket she would get out a set of headphones and jam them into a MP3 player, scrolling through her playlists until she got to her favourite. Shuffle play on, and then it was go time.

People everywhere/A sense of expectation hanging in the air/Giving out a spark/Across the room your eyes are glowing in the dark../ How was every one of their songs an absolute banger?

---

Those that had accepted the Pale Horse job got a much less friendly meeting. "PH meeting at {)(!"*DJ£$%." Came the message. Decryption software could handle it fairly fast- and anyone that had worked with PH before would know what they needed to do such a thing. The encrypted message would lead operatives to a ruined multi-story carpark, where a spray-painted white horse head was the only indication that they were, indeed, in the right place.

She’d powered through her meal and gotten out fairly quick; jobs usually started not long after the call went out and she wanted to run by the place she’d ‘appropriated’ a few months back. At one point before the bombings it must have been a nice little place, tucked away over the once high end tailors shop.

She’d found the place purely by chance, breaking in to the abandoned shop to sleep off a serious drinking binge. The next morning while fighting the hangover, she’d stumbled up a set of stairs in the back to the locked door of an abandoned flat. After forcing the door, she found the place absolutely untouched and still fairly weather tight. A quick root around showed that whomever had lived there had left rapidly, most likely just after the bombs went off.

Since that day, Monkia had moved out of the iffy place she’d been renting, and into the old flat; along the way beefing up security and laying a few traps to keep scavengers away. Now she hustled through the streets, ducking into an alleyway that led to a hidden entrance; in this day and age, a civvie ducking into an alley was asking for trouble, but the local gangs knew better than to fuck with a woman in combats, carrying a GPMG. Dodging her traps, she slipped into the building and up the stairs into her place.

She dind have a whole lot there, a few changes of clothes both work and civvie, a few personal mementos, bits of gear, and a stash of ammo. Snagging her mask, a couple of extra belts that she tossed into a pack, and a full water bladder, she locked up and headed for the CDA base she’d been messaged about just as she’d gotten home.

----

Gear all strapped down and ready, Monika strode through the bustling facility towards the helipad. Waiting at the gate was a woman with a clipboard, waiting for CDA’s newest contractors. “HERE FOR THE JOB?” The woman shouted over the noise.

“NO, JUST WINDOW SHOPPING.” She shouted back with a smirk. The other woman merely rolled her eyes and made a mark on her clipboard before ushering Monika into the holding area. Once she was outfitted with her new temp ID, the ‘greeter’ headed back to her post and Monika went to find somewhere to sit and wait for whoever else was coming along.

Dropping into a seat near Larson, she began doing a gear check, looking for faults (real or imagined), before hefting her UKM onto her lap to do a field strip and clean, even though the MG was spotless.

Arriving not long after the others did, practically right on the heels of Monica, Chris approached the woman with the clipboard as she was exiting the building and introduced himself. She marked something down on her notes after checking something and Chris wondered if she actually had a roster of everyone who signed up or just a headcount; probably the latter, since she didn't ask his name, though he really hoped that the CDA was smarter than to just let anyone with a gun into their base just because they answered 'yes' without a proper vetting process.

She ran her ID through the scanner and the door opened to allow them access. He followed her down the corridor to a reception area where some people were already waiting. While the woman filled out the relevant information, with some input from Chris where necessary, he took a closer look at the mercenaries he would be working with on this assignment. Both women, both heavily armed of course, one with a belt-fed machine gun that she was currently field stripping and the other with some kind of rifle he didn't recognise. He didn't recognise either of them either, but given his lone operator style of doing things he was more likely to recognise the Pale Horse mercs than his own side.

Finishing with the computer the woman with the clipboard turned back to him and held out a plastic lanyard for him to take. "Wear this at all times so the guards know your supposed to be here. Wait here with the others and we'll begin the briefing once the rest of the mercenaries arrive."

Taking the badge with a short 'thank you' Chris took a seat a few places down from the other mercenaries before leaning his head back and closing his eyes. Might as well try and get some rest while he waited.

The weight on his back was an old familiar friend to him. Thumbing the strap of it, he let the ammunition inside rattle and clink about. It made stealth near impossible, but who needed stealth when you had 35 5.56 rounds and one more in the chamber. The long, slightly curved magazines were neatly tucked into the many pockets of his rig, whilst his appearance was covered by the balaclava. A set of ballistic goggles, tinted to cover his eyes, were fitted neatly there.

He was ready. The laser designation, a polymer rifle-styled stock with a trigger hooked up to an electronic device one of the artillerymates had cooked up. He looked down at his phone where the message had been sent out, running it through the software that PH had instructed him to get when he had first worked with them. It was important, since strictly speaking they were probably a terrorist organisation, but really England's counter-terror organisations hadn't been a threat to Pale Horse since the nukes.

No matter though, he had turned up. The area around here was crumbling, with vines and grass starting to sprout up between cracks in the asphalt. The only sign that he had, in fact, turned up to the right place was a stencilled design on the wall. Other than that... Didn't look like anyone else had cropped their heads up. Waiting game, he supposed.

The mercenary business was ruthless, unforgiving. Zhao knew this, and kept on his contracts. A benefit to working for Pale Horse, at least for him, was that they were honest about this. No comfy meeting halls, no fancy helicopter rides. “Here’s your job, now go do it.” It was so simple.

As usual, as he neared the meeting ground for the Pale Horse mercs, the place was abuzz with friendly chatter and intense brooding alike. Although he was more of a loner, he knew the importance of having a team. From pulling off tactical maneuvers to just being great bullet-shields, a team could do so much more than a single soldier. However, with more people came more mistakes. And a mistake in this environment could cost lives; Not that Pale Horse or the CDA actually cared that much about lives lost, as each death meant one less paycheck to pay. On a personal and moral level, though he was a mercenary, he did care about his fellow human beings. As long as they were on his side.

As he scanned the surrounding mercs, he looked for any that caught his eye. One did, mostly because he looked like a human rucksack with all the gear he carried. He wore a standard baklava topped with tinted ballistic goggles. He did not look like the stealth type. Supporting fire, probably. Good, Zhao wasn’t much one for sneaking around. Walking up to the lone man, Zhao gestured to him with his shotgun.

“I’m good for breaching doors. You look good for firefights. Want to form a fireteam?”

---

Ali arrived a mere minute after the last two mercs coming for the mission, reading in the view in front of her as she walked up.

The Second CDA Response and Refugee Centre was a busy busy place. Forklifts and trucks rumbled back and forth, marked with the CDA’s distinctive triangle signange. White and yellow was everywhere, shouts and commands mixed in with the noise of machinery. A squat helicopter sat on a cleared out space that, if one was generous, could be called a helipad, a woman with a clipboard and earpiece rapidly coming to the gate as Ali approached. Business as usual, really, for the few times she worked with them.

“FOR THE JOB?” The woman shouted over the roar of the facility.

“Aye," Ali replied, equally as loud. The woman consulted her clipboard for a second, then swiped an ID card through a door and lead her through. From there they went to some sort of reception, where a few details were tapped into a computer and a plastic lanyard was handed over to her. All official like. Ali accepted the lanyard quietly, winking at the woman

“Wear that on your persons whenever you’re in this facility. If you don’t, security is going to have words with you. Wait here for more mercenaries, and you’ll get a briefing before you’re up in the air.”

Stepping forward, it seemed that she was the forth one to show. Not a bad looking team, all things considered. What interested her, however, was not the dozing guy or the girl cleaning her weapon for what looked like the millionth time. No, it was the woman with one fancy looking rifle and the earbuds.

Setting herself down next to the woman, Ali pulled out her own rifle for a quick spot check. Making sure her scope hadn't shifted or been knocked out of focus, a quick check that she was good on ammunition. A check off her pistol. She nodded to herself, holding her sniper close as she leaned back and settled in to wait.

If her guess was right, it looked like she wasn't the only sniper to accept the job. A grin slipped across her face at the thought.

The good ol' CDA facility. At this point, Elias was used to it. It was his workplace away from his workplace, after all. All the noise was a sure-as-hell better alternative to walking the streets. All of the hellspawn known as "children" would saunter over to his cool ass robot and kick it, throw rocks at it, and run away. It probably would have helped stopped it if Elias open carried. He didn't, though. He had a cool ass robot that carried his guns for him. Why would he carry his own guns? He ended up waiting at the gate until the lady with the clipboard popped up and asked him about the job.

"Yea," Elias replied in his not-famous-at-all cool tone before unloading two finger-guns directly at the woman's heart, "and your next line is 'Wear that on your persons whenever you’re in this facility.'"

The woman didn't even pause. "Security is going to have a problem with you if you don't wear that at all times while you're in this facility. Wait here for the other mercenaries, briefing will start when you're all in the helicopter."

"Cool cool cool coolcoolcool..."

He noticed his compatriots for this mission. A woman with a machine gun (boring!), another nerd (judging by actually using a P90), and two (TWO!) snipers. His face instantly distorted into one of displeasure. The last time he worked closely with a sniper, the fucker friendly fired his best friend!

"What's up, what's up?" He greeted the others, pulling his gear off of Laelaps for a quick field strip.

It was a good thing the meeting place for Pale Horse's mercs was a carpark with ramps. Otherwise, Jan reflected, they may have had trouble hauling their wares up to the actual location - with the sign flipped up and hidden, of course. Nonetheless, decrypting the message to find it hadn't been troublesome at all, and now they were there - with not that many other people present. Two men wrapped up like stereotypical soldiers, one in particular looking kinda knightly, with the old-timey weapons to match. Grand... but, Jan could still take advantage of this.

'Wotcher, lads,' they introduced themself, their voice cheerily chavvy, if muffled beyond recognition as any particular gender. 'I've go' a buncha stuff 'ere. Ya need more guns? I 'ave 'em, if yer payin' fer 'em tha' is.'

Dancing queen... Young and sweet only seventeen... She turned off the song and looked at everyone. "Alright folks, call me Valkyrie. I'm a marksman and a long-range medic. Take one of these, put them as close to your centre of mass as you possibly can." The sniper would reach into a pocket and pull out a velcro-secured wallet, handing out the RFID chips that would set her darts to non-lethal. "Also, those chips will mark when you get healed. Payment should be given promptly- if you don't want to pay, I will remind you that I have lethal nanobots in your bloodstream." She let out a 'comforting' smile, and once they were all handed out she would tuck the wallet back into her pocket.

A few more minutes (and the rest of Dancing Queen) later, the woman with the clipboard would come back around and address the lot of them. "Well then folks. Let's load into the chopper please." She would guide the way to where the squat thing sat, urging the mercenaries to load in before doing so herself. The agent would then hand out a number of earpieces, taking a larger headset out for herself and fitting it over. "Testing, testing," would crackle through the transport hold. "Excellent. Slide those doors closed and we'll be taking off shortly." Once the doors were locked up, she would continue. "Pale Horse operatives are launching an attack on a secure location. The deal here is simple. In order to access any of our secure locations they will need to get through the blast-proof doors. There are a very limited number of ways to get through, the exact one we can't yet be sure of, but do not, I repeat, DO NOT let them get through those doors. If they do... Well, you'll receive further instructions depending on the site. Any questions?"

---

The same rough voice that gave the transmission would crackle out from a hidden speaker in the car park. "'Ello there mercenaries. My name is Quartermaster- QM if your brain cells can't remember such a long word, and I'll be your liaison. At the moment, a vehicle is driving itself to the front of the building. Inside that vehicle are several pounds of thermite, with an adhesive- sticky to you folks surface on one side." The rumbling of a large-sounding truck could be heard from out of the parking lot.

"The secure facility we want to bust into is protected by a blast proof door. Thankfully for us, blast-proof don't mean thermite proof. Once you've got it stuck, pull the little blue tab and it'll self-ignite and start to burn through the door. You need to put it on the locks. I'll repeat that. Put the burny sticky thing on the lock. Now, this stuff takes time to work, and someone could theoretically dislodge it- that means knock it off by the way, so you have to make sure it doesn't get knocked off." There was a pause.

"Once that's done, you need to get through two stories of reinforced offices, likely dealing with a number of enemy mercenaries and defensive staff, and get access to their servers. You need to physically remove three of their servers and take them with you out of the building and out the back- the Thames is there. Chuck them to a boat and fight your way out. Any questions?"

A few more faces entered the waiting area, more mercs looking for a (semi) legitimate payday. Unless pressed, Monika had little intention of introducing herself; odds were that at least some of the folks here would be dead before tomorrow.

”Monika, support.” She replied, accepting one of the RFID tags; shifting her rig about so she could get under all her stuff, she attached the tag to the tank top she wore under her milsurp cammo. ”If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not find myself owning you any money.” She added, giving her gear one last check.

A few moments later Monika found herself on an outbound helo, while the mission brief went on in her ear. Hold the line, smack anyone who tries to get in. Easy enough...in theory. She had an old American made 'Claymore' anti-personnel mine that'd be good to limit access, and depending on local scenery she might be able to make a barrier or two with her shape charges.

'Oi, mate,' Jan called out, evidently unimpressed by the speaker's over-simplification of words, 'we ain't dippy. We know wot those words mean, bruv.' Anyway, the mission seemed simple: stick the thermite to the lock, make sure nobody knocked it off before the lock melted, then find the servers and nick them. Jan could do that just fine.

'Yeah, tha's cool, though,' Jan proclaimed lightly, adding 'An' it'll be easy as fer me, since I 'ave all these guns 'ere an' all!' to try and entice somebody to purchase a weapon from them. Somebody always needed a new gun, and Jan wasn't one to avoid an opportunity when it arose.