Slumrat Rising

A Hairspray Job

Mission: Provide security for the Danger! Scry production crew and talent as they film a segment in Kofi, Fariziland. Security detail is to be five people with experience handling personal protection. Protection period is two weeks, including a week in the city with the advance crew, three days of main recording, three days with the B unit recording location and supplemental footage, and one day for packout.

Budget: 100,000 credits, five vials of Icy Veins, Fiery Blood elixir.

The Kofi job wanted a five person detail, so a five person detail they would have. Truth tapped Privates Rezepi, Keller, Boloud and Nobu. Not because they were Prager’s gift to soldiering, but because they could be cool and none of them were notable horndogs. These, to Truth’s way of thinking, were crucial qualifications for a security detail for a scry special starring some very attractive talent in a very tense situation. Nobu, in particular, had the ability to stand almost perfectly still in a corner for hours and not get bored or distracted. Top woman for the job, Truth felt, and well worth enduring her penchant for eating fermented fish with almost every meal. Boloud and Keller had both passed their combat driving courses, so they were pretty obvious pickups, and Rezepi was certified as a field medic. It was a solid crew.

Kofi was a nine hour flight, and that was the once a week direct flight from Harban. The giant spellcrafted vehicle was shaped like an albatross. The passengers and luggage were loaded into the “belly,” they endured the jolting run up the field, then vast wings spread and powerfully pushed! They were off! It was so quiet. Even the rushing wind outside was silenced by the runes carved into the “bones” of the giant bird. A Starbrite S901XL Flyer, naturally.

Truth watched the city shrink out the window. It was so… clear, from a kilometer up. He could trace the divisions of the city, watching trees and parks slowly fade away as the bird moved south. The steam rising from the alchemist’s hulking laboratories. The seemingly endless clusters of tower blocks that made up the hive of the slums. The sleek, needlelike glass and steel towers that housed offices or private homes for people so rich, their bank accounts were strictly for walking around money. The factories, the warehouses, the slithering snake of the river and the canals that jutted out of it. Like spears stuck in a dragon. He turned to his mission briefing material. Time to get his head in the game.

There was less of a contrast than he thought there would be as they flew into Kofi. The slums weren’t towers here, but endless hectares of one room shacks surrounding a city center of highways and skyscrapers. More of the glass and steel towers, but also more cement. The palm trees were an exciting novelty. The incredible, and not always in a good way, smells were another. Strange body odor, strange deodorant and perfumes, strange smelling foods. Strange, strange, strange. Visiting a foreign city stretched a film of unreality over everything, but the scents of the city poked tiny holes through the membrane.

The sealed chest with their combat gear, including a wide array of murderous talismans and fetishes, was stamped by customs and passed through without comment. Truth knew how that went.

The Kofi International Hotel was the hotel for those traveling on business. High polish chrome pillars held up twenty meter high ceilings in the lobby; off white synthetic marble floors turned every footstep into a clatter. Hotel rooms were furnished in wood veneer and plastic, but housekeeping kept the sheets crisp, clean, and curse free, daily. No matter how badly, or well, a deal went. The restaurant was simultaneously some of the blandest food in the city, and some of the most expensive. At least here you could be reasonably sure that no one was doping your soup with an aphrodisiac, or worse, a truth potion.

Foreign business people were the main clientele of the hotel, which is why the main bar was one third or more sex workers come evening. Wealthy foreigners on expense accounts would come down to the bar and order an expensive glass of something to sip. Locals, in their seductive best, would sit next to them, make polite conversation for a minute or two, and move on quickly if unwanted.

The bolder guests would simply crook a finger at those they wanted, hot eyes staring over a neat whisky. (Never rocks- only a rookie got ice overseas.) The jaded would skip the conversation and pretense of interest entirely, and simply have the concierge send someone up.

What Truth saw in the hotel didn’t match what he remembered seeing growing up. This suggested that either there was a much healthier environment for sex work here, or the gangs were built into everything. As a wealthy woman in silk and charmed jewelry crooked her finger for a strapping young lad, Truth guessed it was the latter.

The scry production went more smoothly than he imagined it would. The Production Coordinator had worked with a local fixer to speak with the victims of the Godchild Freedom Army, a major rebel organization with a penchant for terror attacks. It was going to be a combo tearjerker/moral-outrage/our-country-is-better-than-their-country piece. Lots of amputated limbs wrapped in gauze, lots of twisted but horribly still alive victims of mass curses, and ideally a photogenic doctor or local leader calling for an end to the violence.

The first two things were easy to come by. The latter was more of a challenge, but they had leads. It was kind of interesting- the research and coordination didn’t stop. Ever. Right up until the moment of principal recording, and then again when the B Unit rolled through to get good footage to cut into the story.

Rezepi was surprisingly adept at negotiating heated situations despite not speaking the language, and turned out to be God’s own scavenger. So Truth was feeling fairly optimistic about the mission when the talent and main production crew flew in. Yoo Sung, the hostess, was as gorgeous as advertised, though almost silent and hidden behind large sunglasses. She quickly cloistered herself in her room, and besides asking for Nobu as her personal bodyguard, had little contact with security.

The whole thing was refreshingly low on drama (the Production Coordinator looked ready to commit suicide, but on his end it was low-drama) until they started interviewing victims.

“What did you do in the village?” Yoo Sung asked calmly.

“I was a miner. Red River Mining Company, Pit #23. We dug out the ores. Irra-something. It didn’t matter. You were told to dig and load the ore onto the crusher belt. So I dug and loaded the ore onto the crusher belt.”

“I see. Was it a good job?”

The miner’s one good eye looked at the beautiful young lady and her delicate hands and painted lips. Then closed.

“It was a job.”

“Can you tell us what happened that day?” Yoo Sung asked.

“We were loading the belt. All the rocks got loaded on. They looked more silvery than usual, and some even shimmered like… oil in water. Like a rainbow. Usually they just look like gray rock.”

“Go on.” She nodded encouragingly.

“Supervisor made a big fuss. Stopped the line. Had to get them checked, he said. Don’t know how long that took. An hour, maybe two. We spent most of the time wondering if we would get paid.” Some of the words sounded off- tinny or garbled. The bound spirit handling the translation did its best, but it was far from perfect. The spell bowl holding it seemed to vibrate with frustration.

“We had no warning. Green demons, like smoke, with long claws that left cuts like acid. They passed through the walls, but could cut you. They tore us apart. None of us can fight demons. I have a spell that makes me strong, helps me heal a little from cuts and scrapes. Most of us have the same spell. What could we do against demons?”

“It must have been terrifying.” Yoo Sung cooed.

“I was so scared. So scared. Then the Rebel shamans turned up. There were dozens of them. Maybe a hundred. Fifteen hundred of us miners. Didn’t make no difference. They didn’t tell us to surrender or nothing. Just started killing. If you could run away fast enough, they didn’t chase. Anyone trying to get away in a wagon, they killed bad. Demons tore them apart. Blood, guts. Saw the supervisor get tore into seven pieces. Never liked him, but he didn’t deserve that.” Tears leaked from his remaining good eye. The scry crystal operator zoomed in, making sure the light hit the tears just right to emphasize the tragedy.

“I tried to run too. Not fast enough.” He threw an arm without a hand over his ruined face. “Not fast enough.”

“Well damn! That’s a wrap I think.” The director chuckled. He looked tired, but happy. “Drinks at the bar for everyone.”

The production crew cheered. The security crew (who had already been informed by Truth that they would be stone-cold sober this entire trip, or else) did not. They piled into the hotel bar, a large rock dropped into this little tidal pool of global commerce. Yoo Sung didn’t noticeably lighten up, drinking a vodka tonic (extra tonic, hold the vodka) to be polite. The production crew, on the other hand, crushed beers like they were mad at them. The first round lasted, at most, five minutes, then they were on to the second. Then the third. The hotel lights flickered, but stayed on.

Then it happened again. And again.

“Does anyone else hear a thudding noise?” A barfly asked. Screaming started breaking out from the lobby.

“Everybody out! To the employee exit behind the bar!” Truth snapped, shoving the crew into action. Screaming green spirits started raking through the lobby and into the bar.

“Prager! It’s an attack! Move, move!” Truth was shouting now. An explosion went off in the lobby, rubble flying, smashing open the guests.

“Corporal! The power to the elevators is out! Ghosts coming up from the stairs.” Rezepi shouted.

“Fuck. Keep ‘em moving towards the exit, we’ll breach a wall if we have to. LOAD FOR GHOST!”

The security team pulled their fetishes and talismans, channeling cosmic energy into anti-spell wards and generally trying to become combat effective while herding buzzed civilians. There was a piercing shriek from behind them.

The ghosts were coming up from the floor. One had gutted the Production Coordinator, another was going for Yoo Sung. She screamed, adding her voice to the Production Coordinator. She lashed out with a brilliant lance of purple flame that melted the ghost down to nothing. She fell on her ass, sobbing, holding her head. “No nonono no! No! NO! Noonononononono” she was mumbling and crying.

The purple flame seemed to have gotten the attacker’s attention. At the edge of his vision, Truth saw a glimmer. Then more, and more.

“Contact!” He brought his needler into line, thinking “Load Shockwave!”

Shockwave Loaded. Pre-paid in mission budget.

Truth started firing downrange. More explosions racked the lobby. He was sure he was scoring hits, but with the invisibility effect up, it was hard to tell. The dead guests were starting to twist and deform. Some were even rising up from the ground and slowly peeling open, like flowers blooming. New green ghosts burst from the remains.

Heehehehehe! Finally, a bit of fun. Come, come, it’s time to play with the little clay dolls!

Truth blinked. He thought he heard something. A hissing spell flew towards him, and he forgot whatever it was. Time to kill.

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