[HEADING=2]Chapter 3: The Break of Dawn[/HEADING]
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The light glowed through the plane window onto the faces of the passengers along the side of the aircraft. While somewhat weak, it was enough to make one of the passengers open his eyes slowly. A slim built man who looked like a few solid meals wouldn't do him any harm, he sat up more straightly in his seat stretched and unconsciously scratched the scar that ran along his jaw. Looking around in his seat he couldn't have helped but notice that the crew and many of the other passengers appeared both restless and agitated. Clearly he had missed something, but nobody near him was seemingly inclined to speak to him, although perhaps that wasn't too surprising considering his relatively dishevelled appearance.
One thing that was quite obvious was that many people seemed to be watching the television screens built into the seats. Most of them seemed to be watching the same channel which from all accounts looked like it was a news report. Slowly placing his earphones onto his head, he flicked through the available channels until he turned onto the one that everyone else seemed to be watching.
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"-while the immediate area outside the offices have mostly been cleared of all large debris, the damage can still be seen clearly through the surrounding area and buildings. The list of casualties is thankfully smaller than initially feared due to the time of the attacks when most workers had left for the night, however there are as many as 40 people rumoured to have been injured or killed in this attack. When you combine those numbers with the similar attack occurring at the CyCorp headquarters we are looking at closer to 100 wounded or dead. Most of these are employees or visitors to the buildings although some of the victims were passers by on the street or even further away at the time of the attacks.
No group has come forward as of yet to claim responsibility for the bombings, but the fact that the two most well known companies in Human Augmentation were the sole targets, along with the rumours of corporation employees being murdered at the City Of Apex Hotel only hours earlier, speculation has already begun as to whether an Anti-Augmentation terrorist organisation is to blame.
Representatives from both organisations have already come forth to promise they will provide all the assistance they can to both the family and friends of the wounded and deceased. As well as any help they can give to the police to help with their enquiries. This is somewhat surprising given the normally quite clandestine nature of the corporations, whose fierce rivalry often causes them to maintain as much distance from outsiders.
We go live now to Jeremy Hawkins who is live at CyCorp headquarters-"
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The news was certainly unexpected. He'd only just left Budapest, a city ravaged by war, hoping to find something new and without painful memories. London had seemed like a good choice, it was doing better than most places, largely due to it's heavy investment into the Cybernetics and Augmentation industry. So to come at almost exact moment something like this happened could not have been worse timing. Unfortunately for him, he was sitting in an aeroplane, so had no choice but to at least land in the city before deciding what to do. As he considered this, the plane tilted downwards slightly, it would seem it was soon time to land.
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The man was close to the edge now. One event after another was slowly driving the ground from underneath his feet and he needed to to act fast. The bomb that went off wasn't about to destroy the company, but it could certainly end his position there if he didn't regain control of the situation.
A constant stream of data and digital conversations flowed in front of his eyes as he walked, details of the attack and his responses about how to deal with it. He already had a public announcement to make for the news and his best people working on damage control for the companies reputation.
Now what he needed was a solution. The attacks came far too soon after Ryan Greys murder to be a coincidence, the fact that the H.A Dynasty suffered the same fate in both cases were proof of that among other things.
So now he was on his way to visit Wolf for the second time, a trace of anger at the thought considering he'd attacked yet another one of his colleagues. It would seem that tougher action would need to be taken to get this particular man in line.
To start with the man chose to do away with the politeness of knocking on the door and walked straight into the Doctor's room.
"We meet once more, Doctor. It seems another chat is due, don't you think?"
Wolf was sitting at the edge of his bed with his back to the door and looking at the white wall in front of him. Something was turned off inside his mind. All he could hear in his thoughts was white noise. Static. He was empty. He was dead inside, and in a way special to him, he was finally happy.
The world was colored grey and black, brown and red. He couldn't bear to look around at what he had done, so he chose to follow the movement of white paint. He couldn't remember why he was there or why he was needed in particular. He increased his doses two-fold, some drugs he consumed in a rate as high as 400%. He had done enough damage to the world and those around him. It was time to rest, away from the world and the voices in his head.
Seldom did flashes of memory creep inside his skull, his hand wrapped around a woman's throat, his hand slicing through the meat of German aristocracy, like murdering a unicorn. What was her name? What was his name? He couldn't recall. They were all distant figures in the mist.
His medication, a collection of anti-psychotic, anti-depression drugs and his regular pills to keep his blood from clotting and murdering him in his sleep. He hadn't moved from his position for the past two hours, and he would move again only in an hour to take more of his medication. Wolf didn't hear the man speak as much as he heard his own thoughts. It was all an empty void, a happy silent moment of everlasting nothingness.
The man looked warily at Dr Wolf. He didn't seem particularly responsive, in fact he barely moved a muscle as he walked in. That did not necessarily mean much, Wolf had various implants and drugs working inside of him so even if he wasn't showing physical signs of acknowledgement, at the very least he'd be able to hear what the man had to say, even if he couldn't process it it right at that moment.
He breathed deeply before announcing
"I am not sure what you know of current events Doctor, so I will quickly brief you. One of our employees was murdered in a hotel in the city. They were killed using an unknown form of firearm, most likely a completely unique prototype. Not long afterwards, as you know doubt have heard yourself, a bomb went off in our main offices," the man paused for a moment.
"What we need is answers Doctor, most specifically what kind of weapon was used and why. You have a very... unique kind of mind, and we want you to use your considerable intellect on solving this problem. Why would you do this? Well, I'd hope you understand that we have other people working on this as well, and as you mentioned last time we spoke Doctor, we own you. You are still here, despite causing us no shortage of issues because you still have use to us. We are willing to overlook Malcolm, we are willing ignore your attack on one of our nurses, but you will give us a damn good reason to do so Doctor.
I have all of the necessary files for you here, they should provide all of the information you need to begin coming up with some theories."
With that, the man turned on his heel and left. Granted, he probably needn't have come to speak to Dr Wolf in person, but he wanted to make it clear how seriously CyCorp was taking his insubordination. A gang probably would have just had him roughed up or punished in some way, but that wasn't the kind of thing that would work on a man like Dr Wolf. No, he was too stubborn for something like that, not to mention the combination of his physical augmentations and state of mind.
The man didn't know if he had gotten through to him, but he wasn't bluffing when he said other people could be solving this issue, which was where he was headed onto next. He activated his contact list and called his secretary. The moment he answered the man briskly said
"Get me Karl Adler from our Research and Development Team. Now."
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Elise Pitt was understandably livid. She was in the headquarters when the bomb went off, but fortunately for her she was nowhere near the blast. Her office was still shaken to pieces with many priceless items now lying on the floor, but none of that concerned her right now. She was a driven and ambitious woman, but she wasn't heartless. She didn't know the exact list of deaths and injured so far, but she recognised some of the names and felt her gut wrench at the through of them.
PR had already spoken to the press, and some other representative's were dealing with the police. They were trying their damnedest to put themselves in a good position with the public. People generally supported augmentations, naturally considering how much good they'd provided the country, but when the dirtier side of the industry showed it's head people were often quick to forget how much they relied on corporations such as the H.A Dynasty and (as much as she was loathe to admit it) CyCorp.
With her subordinates dealing with those matters, Elise was working on something more practical, something that she'd be keeping very quiet from the police, despite the corporations pretence at full clarity on all matters. While it seemed natural to blame CyCorp for what had happened, the fact they'd just taken a bombing, with even more casualties than H.A, was a very compelling argument for some outside force being involved. As much as she despised them and the way they did business, they were not so callous or stupid to destroy half their headquarters just to put themselves above suspicion.
No, this was something else and Elise needed to find out what. For that she needed her best agents and while Ms. Anderson may have earned herself a break, this was not the time. She would need to be briefed in person, along with some other select agents. This mission must not be known outside of a select few, it was far, far too risky.
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The police officer still at the entrance to Liam Vaughn's garage gazed warily at Ira Soni as he responded. The fact was, this was private property and despite the officers misgivings, Liam Vaughn didn't seem to be afraid of his companion, so even though it was unusual, it seemed unlikely that he was under any kind of duress.
The other officer was walking through the garage slowly. Nothing seemed to be amiss, there was no stash of drugs or weapons lying around, no suspicious blood stains or anything else that would indicate a reason for police assistance. He sighed softly with relief, while it was a nuisance to have his time wasted, he was privately hoping for a nice, quiet shift before going home. He made to turn back towards the entrance when his boot brushed something on the floor, causing it to roll away.
The officer shone his torch down onto the ground. Shell casings, clearly from a weapon but not the kind the officer had ever seen before. So much for a quiet shift... The officer rested his hand on is firearm before calling out
"Sir, do you mind coming in and explaining this?"
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