Archie's eyes narrowed at the fourth candidate, and his failure to comply. No matter. He would be taken care of by other agents of the Employer. Archie had other business to attend to.
"Good morning," He began politely, maintaining the plastic smile,
"My name is Archibald Mercer. You may call me Mr. Mercer, or sir. My companions, whom you shall meet presently, are Dowle Fenn, and María Buscadora del Sueño. As I'm sure is evident, none of these names can be linked to our own origins, for security's sake." He took another sip of coffee and beckoned his partners over.
"Well, looks like we're on, sweetheart." Dowle grinned wolfishly at María, as he got up to go and greet their new, unwilling team mates.
"How's the form, folks? I'll bet the Brit took the liberty of introducing us for us, in true form." He held out his hand to shake, as María crept up more slowly, more anxiously.
"Hi." She nodded curtly.
"Yes, well I'm sure you can tell who is who." Archie mused briefly, before turning back to the recruits - specifically, to Laneya.
"Please. Don't worry about that. There will be no such conflicts. Now, if you don't mind, follow me. We have a train to catch. I shall explain everything on board."The walk to the platform was short, and the train was already there - as usual, everything was timed perfectly. None of the willingly Employed made any more communication until they were all sat down in the 1st Class carriage of a pristine Virgin train, bound for Cambridge via Whittlesford Parkway. The air was cool, but only pleasantly so, and the food being served - complementary to 1st class - was of unusually high quality for any sort of travel food.
"I do hope you didn't eat before you got here. The Virgin breakfasts are especially good when they're hot - thank Queen and Country for Richard Branson." Archie gave the crew a thin grin as he tucked a serviette into his collar, and dug into what appeared to all the senses to be a miniature full English breakfast.
"Queen and Country indeed." Dowle finally returned Archie's scowl at the mention of the Queen.
"I'm sorry. These two are always fighting like this. You must have many questions.""Mm, yes. I imagine - so let me start with the basics. Each of you was, one way or another, forced into performance in this scheme against your will. This holds the potential for great rewards, should you fulfill your role well, as well as grave consequences should you try to abandon the mission - as the fourth conscript, Vincent Carini, has by now likely discovered. Let me reassure you, however, that you shall come to no harm as long as you take this seriously, do as you are told, and don't piss off the Employer." Archie explained briefly, whilst cutting a piece of sausage, dipping it in brown sauce, and eating it.
There was then an uncomfortable silence as the train pulled away from the station.
"I... suppose you must have questions?" María asked hesitantly.
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The breeze was cool and the air clean on the balcony of the penthouse apartment you had been taken to. It was refreshing, there was no doubt about that, but no matter how calm the city was around you, and no matter how at peace the rest of Cambridge seemed, the world remained a prison to you. You now knew your first task, and you knew the face of the target - Johannes Markand, a young looking, moderately handsome, well bearded, vaguely Scandinavian immigrant working for LS3 Security, in particular on their special protections projects. It was a lucrative business - one that you were going to play a big part in robbing him of.
But you had no choice in that regard, and you knew it - whether the idea of crime had ever appealed to you anyway.
All that mattered now was formulating a plan with your unwilling co-conspirators, a task that you'd been mostly left alone to complete too, with only the rough knowledge of the capabilities of your three superiors, and what roles they could play - Archibald, the Officer and Soldier, Dowle, the Chemist and Terrorist, and María, the psychoanalyst and beauty queen. Sure enough, the first two were more than capable of violence if it was required, but that presented other problems too - ideally, the data could be obtained without tipping anyone off that it had ever been taken, so that LS3 couldn't try to adapt their plan in response. María was good for reading people, monitoring the situation and such, but she was just about well enough known that one of you had practically recognised her from the get go, and that's a risk that possibly isn't worth it. Then there's the data storage itself - intentionally bulky, not very portable, and hard to access, it's also airgapped from the internet physically, making remote hacking entirely unfeasible for the simple lack of a connection - and what physical connections there are on the data crate itself are unique to Lockheart branded hardware, so simply plugging a flash drive in was mostly out of the question, unless a new one that fits the slots could be created. Could you do that? Could one of your new unwilling team mates? You didn't know, because you barely knew each other.
And then, finally, the ultimate variable - the Employer.
No word had yet reached you on the fate of the fourth employee, who had failed to obey the text messages back in Liverpool St. Station, but it was unlikely to have been pleasant, or quick - if it had
been yet at all. The Employer was unpredictable, and also the single most critical factor in influencing your lifespan from that moment forwards. Even doing your job perfectly didn't guarantee survival, much less the 'rewards' that had been promised. People lie, and there was no reason to suppose that the Employer was any different - certainly, it would be safer for the Employer to just kill you at the end of it all.
So many uncertainties, so much to go wrong.
Mr. Markand plans to host a party, as it has been mentioned that he likes to do, in just a week. That is likely to be your best window of opportunity to seize the data needed by your Employer.
The rest of the heist plan, though, is entirely up to you.
Good luck.
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