Tuesday 1.7 - Mission Orders

[pichi.livejournal.com]

While the other three settled themselves in the mission room, Omi woke up the computer and printed Sato's e mail, along with the attachment of the image of the disk. It was strange, standing in front of the television instead of sitting on the couch or in the poofy chair along the wall. Like there was suddenly an invisible barrier between them, and now he was on one side, and everyone he cared about was on the other.

He didn't like this at all.

None of it showed. Omi closed his eyes and took a final couple of breaths to gather his thoughts. They were still slightly fuzzy after the scramble from waking up.

"I'm sorry for the short notice, everyone. I didn't get the notice myself until late last night. I should have told everyone this morning but..." Man this was going to sound so unprofessional. He ducked his head and ashamedly averted his eyes. "I fell asleep and only just woke up a few minutes ago.

"I've prepared us as much as possible for everything already. I'd appreciate having as many of you as I can... This isn't going to be an easy one. A compound for Gold Corp Research, Inc is performing research on humans for hostile purposes. Their names and the location is on this paper."

Omi handed the sheet to Aya, simply because he was closest. "Kritiker wants us to carry out the mission at 8 pm tonight. The security varies within the building, but I didn't find anything we haven't faced before. The catch is... that disk in the picture. We have to retrieve it."

And that still simply did not seem fair to Omi. Why couldn't Kritiker send someone actually trained to do that kind of work? As if it wasn't delicate enough to orchestrate a triple homicide without playing fetch? Omi could only brood silently about his own frustration and confusion-- and the nagging understanding that something was missing besides a secretary in red. Something even beyond the standard procedures and job description.

Details. Niggling at the edge of his mind, details and the distinct lack of them. Omi had asserted to them all human research was taking place for hostile purposes. What if they asked for what kind of research? What kind of hostile purposes? He didn't know. How were the victims dying-- they were dying right? He didn't know-- could only assume that they actually were. What if they asked where the disk was? He didn't know. Why is it so important for Kritiker to have it, they'd be well entitled to ask. He didn't know. He didn't even know for certain-- suspected to be in building at 8-- that they would find all three of the targets in the building that night. He didn't have any clearer definition for hostile but terrorist, and it made him extremely uncomfortable to have so little information. Current awkwardness aside, the less you knew, the more that could go wrong.

And it really didn't help that Kritiker completely endorsed this lack of knowledge. Down beneath the faith Omi had in them, a very intelligent mind argued that something here simply was not adding up. There ought to be a clear connection between research and terrorist activities. A clear reason that so much had changed over the last month without explanation, that all their familiar liaisons with Kritiker had been reassigned and removed from their contact, that Sato had chosen to introduce himself with a surprise break-in and Omi STILL felt uneasy from that... That Manx-- reassignments be damned-- had a very good, very solid reason for not visiting him anymore even to... say hi. Tell him everything was okay.

Off the top of his head, Omi couldn't come up with one.