Start new topic
Brand New Bag
Posted: Jun 5 2009, 05:54 PM
PMEmail PosterUsers Website
 
The black-clad freedom-fighter shouldered in the door to the darkened Aeronautics office. Quickly he pointed to the right terminal - Valens had given him a map, and a USB key. While three men covered each exit, the last man began to tap his codes into the computer, and transfer the relevant files.

On the other side of the island, in the vast, dingy industrial city of Holton, Quicksilver sympathisers eased Farrell Cormix, the legendary burglar, out of the sewer hatch. Within fifteen minutes, and with no sound other than the scrape of picks in a lock, he was leading Jory Georgo back down into the sewer, to freedom.
Falcania
Winging It Since 2004
******
Posts: 776
Quote Post
 
Top

,
Posted: Jun 7 2009, 06:09 AM
PMEmail PosterUsers Website
 
The backroom of a dusty countryside tavern was the venue for the handover. Farrell Cormix nodded to Cockroft as he brought Jory Georgo through. Cockroft smiled at Georgo. "Has Farrell filled you in, Jory?"

"Indeed he has, sir."

"Oh you don't need to call me sir, Jory. Just call me Smith like everyone else does. Now, there's a rental car out back with false plates, that's our ride. You go and wait for me there." Jory nodded, and left, leaving Cockroft alone with Cormix. "Farrell, we go way back. You sure I can't tempt you into joining us?"

"After you threw me in Cornerstone*? You're lucky I did this for the usual fee. Speaking of which-"

Cockroft held up a hand to silence him, before passing over a brown envelope stuffed with used Talon notes. "Don't spend it all in one place," he sighed, before leaving out the rear.

Farrell Cormix took the money out of the envelope, briefly counted the notes, then folded the wad of notes into his pocket. He flitted out of the door behind Cockroft, saw him get into his car, and then went to the car park and turned the keys in his own.

-

"That's cute," Cockroft noted, looking in the rear-view mirror.

Georgo peeled his gaze away from the hazy night sky. "Hmmm?"

"Farrell. He's following us to Mathdon."

"Should we be worried?"

"I don't think so. Farrell Cormix used to work for me. He was incredibly talented at concealment. We trained him to be an infiltration expert. He was found with his hands in the till, so to speak, so we had to arrest him, which wasn't easy. He knows how to stay hidden, so catching him was like holding onto a greased piglet. But I caught up with him and arrested him myself. He broke out of Cornerstone six weeks into his life sentence and has been a professional thief ever since."

"And he's following us?"

"Let him. I knew he'd never admit it but he does want to help us." Cockroft sighed. "Besides, we're all fugitives now."

*Cornerstone Maximum Security Penitentiary, the jolly institution that is the most famous building in the Provincial capital of Cornerstone
Falcania
Winging It Since 2004
******
Posts: 776
Quote Post
 
Top

,
Posted: Jul 17 2009, 01:40 PM
PMEmail PosterUsers Website
 
"This is beautiful, Michael." Valens was poring over the files back at headquarters. "So it seems, anyway. But we need a password to open them and I only have half of it." He sighed. "Without Jory Georgo these are useless."

"Good thing I'm here then, sir," called Jory from the entrance of the dimly-lit room. He saw Valens sitting at a computer. "It's good to see you again, sir."

Cockroft followed him in, leaning against the door frame and nodding to Aran, Benila, Hack and the Bazalonian agents. As the two friends embraced behind them, he spoke in a muttered whisper to the senior Quicksilver members. "Farrell Cormix followed me here. He's probably in the building as we speak. He'd never admit it but he wants to help. What shall we do?"

Aran, on his guard, looked to the shadows of the room - Quicksilver headquarters was merely an old building in the south of Mathdon, near the loading docks, far removed from the affluent marina further along the coast. They had no protection other than their anonymity - and eighty armed, wanted criminals. And everybody had heard of Farrell Cormix. Could he be in this actual room?

"We let him, then," replied Hack. "He's a uniquely skilled man, and we could definitely use him. He's hidden from the law for seven years, not so much as a rumour of a sighting. That's the kind of lesson we could learn. And of course to Cormix there's no such thing as a locked door."

"28 days. When this ridiculous situation's over, I get a month before you start chasing me. Say yes and I'll work for you."

All eight people in the room turned to look as the ninth occupant detached himself from a shadow.

"Would you be open to a better offer if the opportunity arises?" asked Cockroft, unfazed.

"Sure," replied Cormix, after pausing for a thought.

"Welcome to the team. Now," Aran interjected, sitting at the computer terminal at the grubby desk, "If our guests would provide the password for the Starling plans?"

"Certainly," replied Valens. "The first half is rdltnSD8."

"The second is ydkmBF7," continued Georgo.

Aran tapped in the password and sat back as a world of models, plans, diagrams and charts unfolded before his eyes. "So, ladies and gentlemen, what do we do next?"

This post has been edited by Falcania on Jul 17 2009, 01:40 PM
Falcania
Winging It Since 2004
******
Posts: 776
Quote Post
 
Top

,
Posted: Jul 29 2009, 12:40 PM
PMEmail PosterUsers Website
 
"It seems... that we have a problem."

Lord Tarrick was looking slim, gaunt and positively neutral. "Mr. White, I'm not quite sure that you realise the implications of this incident."

Ralph White gobbled the last spoonful of the milk and treacle pie the trembling tea-lady had provided as refreshment. "It's surely not that bad, your lordship," he grunted, eyeing the untouched slice across the desk from him. "The Enquirer is toothless since that smear campaign. Nobody reads it anymore apart from the diehard, old-money tories up on Diamond Hill, and they're too old-fashioned to do anything about it. The Union Icarus is the last word. You seen the figures? 80 share this morning, to the Enquirer's 13 and minority papers 9! That's unheard of! You're a godsend, milord."

"All very well and good," replied Tarrick, each syllable like an icicle. "However," he continued, pushing the slice of pie across the ruined desk to White, "Quicksilver have stolen the plans for Starling. The original blueprints were scheduled to be requisitioned by the government mere hours after they were copied from that mainframe. And, in the same night, Jory Georgo escaped from a police cell in Holton. He was definitely not working alone. You must understand, Mr. White, that I have some very sensitive ears, very close to the ground. And they've told me that Farrell Cormix had a hand in that escape."

The mention of the name caused Ralph to choke on his pie. "Farrell Cormix?" he spluttered, coughing pastry crumbs all over the desk. "He's not real, is he?"

"I recall the then-Daily Icarus ran a two-page exposé on him three months ago."

"Yeah, but..." Ralph paused, muttering to himself in calculation of his next words. "The journalistic process is very complicated, my lord."

"Of that I have no doubt," replied Tarrick, sinking to his seat again. "Nevertheless, if these plans reach the wrong hands, the Protected Union will be in a severe bind."

There was a pause.

"May I ask why, my lord?" asked a puzzled Ralph. "Surely they merely reinforce the findings of the enquiry?"

"Of course they do."

"Then what's the problem?"

"The problem is that they may fall into the wrong hands."

"And what happens if they do?"

"Then, Mr. White," replied Tarrick icily, "The Protected Union will be in a severe bind."

Ralph took a little while to cotton on, but once he did, his hack's nous kicked in. He may not have been bright, but you didn't rise to tabloid editorship without a grab-bag of instinctive guile and primal cunning. He changed tack.

"So, what do we do about it, my lord?"

"Well, the solution is obvious, Mr. White." Tarrick smiled a humourless, grim little smile. "I think it's time Quicksilver are revealed as the criminals they are."
Falcania
Winging It Since 2004
******
Posts: 776
Quote Post
 
Top

,
Posted: Aug 5 2009, 02:25 PM
PMEmail PosterUsers Website
 
"Have you seen this?"

"Don't bother reading it," Aran advised. He threw down his own copy of the Union Icarus, and the headline emblazoned across it shone under the cheap bulb.

QUOTE
PUBLIC ENEMIES: 1 THROUGH 81
Inside: the full scoop on Quicksilver, the 81 most dangerous people in Falcania


The rest of the page was a plastered montage of Civil Service personnel photographs - the top five were on the front page.

"81?" inquired Hack.

"They've included Farrell. Look, he's just under you, Mike."

Hack looked and indeed, just under his bored-looking Office of Defence official photo, was the aged mugshot of Farrell Cormix, taken three weeks before he'd broken out of Cornerstone.

"Corruption, murder, theft - every one of us has a list of crimes attributed to us that'd make Cormix blush."

"To be fair, they haven't embellished my record," Farrell replied, from the shadows.

"This is totally ridiculous. Look, they accused the work experience lad of raping his teacher a year ago! He'd have been 15!"

"Surely nobody would believe this," piped up Benni.

"You'd be amazed," replied Georgo, who'd ceased flicking through the channels, and settled on Airwave News. "There's a protest march in Palace Square. They're baying for our blood."

"Palace Square?" replied Aran, worriedly. "Cockroft has been there all morning!"

"Oh no."

"What is it?"

"It gets worse than that." Georgo had switched to Skyranger 24/7, and the camera showed more than the aerial view of Palace Square. A scene, in fact, that filled the room of the Quicksilver Resistance with sheer, unbridled horror.
Falcania
Winging It Since 2004
******
Posts: 776
Quote Post
 
Top

,

Topic OptionsReply to this topicMake a quick replyStart PollStart new topic
Pages: (2) 1 [2] 

 



[ Script Execution time: 0.0174 ]   [ 13 queries used ]   [ GZIP Enabled ]

-->