After almost falling into Emma Child's trap, Simon is now getting out of the cab he's driving and onto the street of Westminster Square which is in front of Big Ben, he then talks on the comms.
Simon: "What. A. Dick."
Sabine: "F*ck him. We don't know who's behind Zero-Day now, we don't need him. We just have to find her."
Bagley: "As it happens, when I was getting intimate with the MI6 server, I came across a list of SIRS houses scattered throughout the city. There are quite a few, though."
Simon: "It's ok, we already know who her people are, so just track the GPS against the safehouse list. Let's see where she hangs out."
Sabine: "Brilliant. Prioritize them by likelihood, Bags. Let's go get this bitch."
Simon nods and he gets to the tube to head to the location of Emma Child's hideout. The location is revealed to be in lower Lambeth, there, Simon arrives at the nearest spot of the Location which is Brixton. From there, he then takes a car and drives to the location of the hideout. He arrives and there, Simon gets out of the car and hops over the wall to get in.
Bagley: "You're nearing Emma Child's hideout. Poke around to see if you can find a clue."
Simon: "Seems simple. Alright, let's do this."
He then cracks his knuckles and heads towards the hideout entrance which is closed by a garage door. He pulls it up only to be met by 2 Albion officers armed with Vectors.
Simon: "HOLY SHIT!"
Albion officer: "Mark-mark-mark! Don't move, don't move!"
Simon: "OH SHIT, OH SHIT!"
Albion officer 2: "Hands up!"
Simon: "HEY! HEY! I SURRENDER! DON'T SHOOT!"
Simon puts his hands up and a black van arrives and an Albion officer in the van grabs Simon by his mouth to prevent him from screaming and the 2 other Albion officers get in and shut the doors quickly, driving away with Simon in it. In the van, an Albion officer grabs a cloth with chlorine and stuffs it over Simon's mouth and nose, knocking him out.
Simon: "MMMHH!! MMMMHHH!!!!! MMmmhh...mmm..."
Albion officer: "He's down."
Albion officer 3: "Alright, inform Mrs Child that we got him. We're bringing him in."
Meanwhile...
In the borough of Nine Elms, Apatite is there with Serpentine and some other gems which are friends with Simon.
Andesine
Blue Topaz
Kunzite
Agate
Citrine
Champagne Citrine
Peach Beryl
Apatite: "And that mall over there, the Battersea Mall was once a power station during the industrial revolution. Now, it's turned into a mall and a hotel too. And-
Then her phone starts ringing and it's Bagley.
Bagley: "Terribly sorry, everyone, but one of your teammates has been kidnapped."
Everyone: "WHAT?!"
Then, Sabine joins in.
Sabine: "SIRS has got to be behind this. That was way too clever for Albion acting on their own. The question's why?"
Bagley: "Well they're being tortured for information about Malik of course. I thought that was obvious when we saw that meeting where Emma Child said, and I'm paraphrasing, "Kidnap someone and torture them for information about Malik"."
Sabine: "F*ck! We have to find Malik. Bags, there's got to be some way to get him a signal."
Bagley: "Sure. I've marked a location for you. In his eagerness to leave in a huff, Malik failed to encrypt his last message. It was almost too easy to trace it back to his safe house."
Kunzite: "So?"
Bagley: "Malik has a stick far up his arse it controls his thoughts-by now he'll have noticed his error and moved, but there's no way he isn't monitoring that safe house computer. If we use it to send a message like "Return our calls or we tell Child everything", I'm sure the stick will compel him to listen."
Citrine: "I suppose we can give it a go."
Apatite: "But what I want to know is, who's been kidnapped?"
Serpentine: "Let me check, I'm sure there was a ctOS drone there, maybe if I can hack into it I can find out who- Oh shit."
Agate: "What's wrong?"
Serpentine: "It was Simon."
Apatite: "No, no! Serpentine, tell me you're joking."
Serpentine: "No, no it really was. Look."
She hands Apatite her phone and she watches in shock as she sees Simon being taken into a black van by Albion forces and it drives away.
Apatite: "Bloody hell, if they lay a finger on him, I will hunt them and slay them!"
Agate: "But we have to search for Malik's hideout. And the coordinates are near the London Eye at County Hall in upper Lambeth just near the river."
Kunzite: "Right. Don't worry, we promise that we'll get Simon back."
Apatite: "Alright, fine. Come on!"
They start moving to Lambeth by taking the tube up to upper Lambeth and near the London Eye at the Waterloo station. They arrive and they then take 2 cars to get to the location, they arrive there too, and everyone puts on their masks.
Kunzite's mask
Agate's mask
Champagne Citrine's mask
Peach Beryl's mask
Serpentine's mask
Citrine's mask
Blue Topaz's mask
Andesine's mask
Bagley: "Malik's safehouse is somewhere around here, but it will be well hidden. Maybe have a look for a slightly off colour brick or an inconspicuous lever."
Andesine: "Sounds simple."
They walk into an area where there's a small brick tower and they climb the pipe on it and get to the top, there, they're on the rooftop of the County Hall, and there are dozens of Albion guards.
(They're in the middle bit)
Up there, Kunzite spots a lever.
Kunzite: "Hm, there's a lever."
Bagley: "That lever does seem a bit dodgy, doesn't it?"
Then a guard spots the group of gems.
Albion security guard: "HEY! PUT YOUR HANDS UP!"
Then, Andesine quickly shoots the guard's foot with her electric pistol, injuring him and he falls over and onto the ground below.
Albion security guard: "AAAHHH!!!!"
*THUD*
Andesine: "Ooohh...damn."
Citrine: "No time to be grossed out by his death, more Albion guards in the area, guys."
Apatite: "Come on, let's go!"
They then get up and they use their electric pistols, SMGs and shotguns on them. Kunzite uses her electric shotgun to destroy an Albion chase drone and Citrine shoots 3 Albion guards. Apatite shoots a security guard and then all the Albion guards in the area are down, then a large riot drone arrives, only for it to get shot down easily from behind by Peach Beryl.
Peach Beryl: "It's down!"
Then Apatite moves to pull the lever only for nothing to happen.
Apatite: "Nothing happened. Bagley?"
Bagley: "Right. It seems Malik's made some upgrades to security. And since he's both a security expert and a paranoid lunatic, I don't know if you can handle this one..."
Citrine: "So, how do we do it?"
Then a ctOS drone arrives at the area and it's revealed to be Bagley who's taken control of it.
Bagley: "...but I can! Ha-ha! Did you like that? With the drone? Pretty good, right?"
Agate: "Nicely done our talking robotic friend! Alright Bagley, do your best."
Bagley: "Thank you. Look, if we know anything about Malik, it's that he thinks he's much cleverer than he is. Which means as soon as I start, some drones or something is going to come after me. So just watch my back, alright?"
Apatite: "We got it, Bagley."
Then, Bagley starts to mock Richard Malik as he does his job of hacking into the infrastructure to deal with the security system of the hideout.
Bagley: "Hah! Drone bays. I knew it. Oh come on, Malik, make it hard at least. All that big talk and security drones are all you've got? You hack."
Apatite laughs a bit and then Bagley starts to mock Richard again.
Bagley: ""Ooh I'm Malik, and I think I can analyse SIRS dossiers faster than Bagley but my idea of heavy security is automated proxy jumping". PUH-lease... Alright, you ready?"
Everyone laughs and Apatite gives Bagley a thumbs up.
Bagley: "Lovely jubbly."
Then, some Albion drones are arriving on-site to terminate Bagley. Apatite and the others shoot the drones.
*BANG*
*BANG*
*BANG*
Albion Chase Drone: "Engaging target!"
*BANG*
The drone is then shot out of the sky by Apatite and Blue Topaz covers her by shooting down another drone and Bagley is still busy hacking in.
Blue Topaz: "I got you!"
*BANG*
*CRASH*
*BANG*
*BANG*
Bagley: "Really, Malik? Do you really think I'll be fooled by this... Thing. Whatever it is. I'm sure it'll work out soon."
He keeps hacking and more drones arrive. Then, some Albion riot drones arrive and some CT drones.
Albion CT Drone: "Engaging hostile target!"
Albion Riot Drone: "Neutralising hostile target!"
*BANG*
*BANG*
The riot drone is then shot down and the CT drone begins to fire its machine gun. Then, it's turned off by Kunzite and Champagne Citrine shoots down another riot drone.
Champagne Citrine: "Bloody hell, how many of these buggers are there?!"
*BANG*
*CRASH*
Then, Bagley finishes up and the last drone is destroyed shortly by Agate.
Agate: "They're down!"
Bagley: "Ah hah! You just thought I'd get obsessed with the brilliant little details and miss the larger structure, didn't you malik? That's actually pretty clever. But not cleverer than me!"
Apatite: "Alright, I'll pull the lever."
She pulls it and the door to the hideout opens up. In the room are 2 servers, a desktop and lots of CCTV video streams. Kunzite, Apatite and Serpentine walk in and look around while the others wait outside. Kunzite then picks up a SIRS badge belonging to Richard Malik himself. Then Appatite types on the desktop to contact Richard Malik.
Bagley: "Message encoded using the same cypher he used earlier, set to repeat every 15 seconds."
Sabine: "Good job everybody. Now we just have to convince Malik to help us get our friend back."
Apatite: "Yeah! Finally."
Sabine: "And... Thank you. I know this is getting scary, but you're all brave as f*ck. I'm proud to call you my friends."
Apatite: "Alright everyone, let's go get Simon back."
They leave the area and they get away from the building and the London Eye, to avoid the incoming drones to see them. Then, Bagley's on the line.
Bagley: "Incoming connection from an unknown encrypted source."
Andesine: "Oh dear, must be that Malik man."
Apatite: "Bagley, put him on."
Then, Malik starts speaking with the group through their phones.
Malik: "You had better have a very good reason for threatening me, or this conversation will be very short."
Apatite: "Emma Child kidnapped my boyfriend. She's probably waterboarding him or worse, picking his nails off to get information about you."
Richard: "I see. As it happens, I have been keeping tabs on Emma. But I have a condition. The semtex is still missing, and if I have any hope of recovering it, I need you to take Emma alive."
Apatite: "Fine."
Richard: "Right then. SIRS uses construction sites to interrogate short-term arrests--they're isolated, and it's easy to hide bodies. And my sources tell me Emma just turned up at one."
Kunzite: "And?"
Richard: "If your operative hasn't turned already, that's probably where she'll have him."
Apatite: "Got it."
Richard: "The longer your operative is in captivity, the longer Emma has to work on him. Find your friend before they talk, and capture Emma. Good luck."
Apatite: "Right. Let's get him back."
They rush to the tube to head to the US Embassy in Nine Elms as it's nearby the construction site, which reveals to be a bridge that was destroyed during the London bombings. They arrive at the borough of Nine Elms and they grab a van to drive to the bridge. They make it and everyone gets out.
Bagley: "This is the construction site where malik thinks Emma Child is holding our operative, which checks out. Security's tighter than a rubber glove on a bowling ball."
Apatite: "Say no more."
She grabs out her electric pistol and everyone else grabs out their electric guns.
Bagley: "I have a call from-- strange. This isn't what--
Then, it's Emma Child talking directly to the gems on the comms.
Emma: "--stop, you f*cking idiots!"
Apatite: "Let me guess, are you-
Emma: "Emma Child, director of SIRS counterterrorism. You are making a terrible error here. You cannot--
Bagley: "Get off my voice channel! Apologies everyone. Took a moment to work out how they hacked us."
Apatite: "It's alright."
Bagley: "On the plus side, it seems Malik's lead was good. It's likely she'll keep our operative close to use as leverage. You should find him wherever you find Child."
Apatite: "Right. There are dozens of Albion guards."
Kunzite: "I say blow 'em up. Gun and run again."
Apatite: "Sure."
Serpentine: "Or we can just do this."
She hacks into an Albion officer's phone and downloads the access key from it, unnoticed.
Serpentine: "Just get it, and no one will be killed today."
Apatite: "Brilliant. I guess Simon's in there, in that small Albion container, being tortured. I'll get him, keep an eye out."
Agate: "We got your back."
Apatite hops down and walks into the container with her electric pistol at the ready. The room has a chair with cuffs on it and tables with torture tools, Apatite walks inside and looks around for a second. Suddenly, the door behind her closes and she looks around in the torture room and sees Emma Child standing behind bulletproof glass. Apatite then aims her pistol at her.
Emma: "I could've left a f*cking bomb in there. Do you want to know why I didn't?"
Apatite: "Because you want to torture me, too?"
Emma: "Because we have something in common. Richard Malik stabbed both of us in the back. Watch."
She then projects a video on the glass and it shows Richard Malik in a car with the CEO of Albion, Nigel Cass. In the video, he's seen handing Nigel a file.
Richard: "Albion's new policing contract, as promised. Everything set at your end?"
Nigel: "Oh it will be. But first, you're going to tell me what this is really about."
Richard: "Alright. I'm infiltrating a terrorist group called DedSec. I'm setting up a meeting with them, and your men will capture me before DedSec arrives. So it has to look real. They can't know it's a setup."
Nigel: "Hmm... You are a piece of work, Richard."
Apatite watches in shock as she's seeing Richard speak with Nigel.
Nigel: "What the hell are you getting out of this?"
Richard: "Dead terrorists."
Richard then leaves the car and the video ends.
Emma: "I can't prove it yet, but I think Malik was involved in the bombings-and the cover-up. What's more, I think he and his conspirators are planning to do it again."
Apatite: "He told me and my friends that it's your goal."
Emma: "He would. It's basic tradecraft. You want to sell a lie, weave it into the truth."
Apatite: "So now what? We're going to have to trust you?"
Emma: "I had something more transactional in mind. I have your operative--help me kill Malik, and you get them back. That door will unlock in 30 seconds."
She leaves the container and Apatite sighs in annoyance and the door unlocks. She walks outside and sees her friends sitting down on the site.
Andesine: "Apatite, you alright?"
Apatite: "Bloody Malik!"
She then kicks an empty can and it goes into the River.
Kunzite: "What?"
Apatite: "That son of a bitch is going to set us up! He's with Cass, Nigel Cass. He's a bloody liar and he betrayed us!"
Blue Topaz: "What the hell! I knew something was off about him! So could this mean that he's with Zero-Day?"
Bagley: "Impossible to say for sure, but it does look that way. We do know for sure that he's trying to set us up for the next attack."
Sabine: "You know how I feel, but this is risky. It has to be your call."
Apatite: "I don't care anymore, Malik just wants us all gunned down. We're going to have to take him down and get Simon back."
Champagne Citrine: "Ok then, so what's the play?"
Bagley: "If you're seriously asking how to kill Malik, I have ideas. A lot of ideas."
Citrine: "I know, how about we lure him out and one of us shoots him, there, it's easy!"
Bagley: "Yes, that would work but it's not very much fun. Don't you wanna poison him, at least? We haven't poisoned anybody yet."
Apatite: "Oh for goodness sake, Bagley, what's wrong with you? A single shot to the head is enough."
Bagley: "Noted. I'll contact Child and tell her DedSec has agreed to help."
To be continued...