Isonphis, Tertania

4 in the afternoon, The Bank of Tertania, the day of the Powers ultimatum

“Something about this whole thing stinks. Early morning, Isonphis Police Department gets a call about some ‘Paul Brannigan’ – sounds of a struggle in his apartment. They get there – Paul Brannigan is as dead as a doornail. Police go through personal belongings; turns out there’s good reason to believe he was some sort of spy. Large rack of unregistered firearms and loads of ammunitions of different calibers. Driver’s license is a forgery. Birth certificate’s the same… We get called in. Then some pizza delivery guy reports in an assault; we piece together that the dame who attacked him is likely the same as who killed ‘Brannigan.’ Receptionist from a ritzy hotel uptown calls in; recognizes the face from the police sketch on TNN. What do we find? Gunpowder residue. A stolen credit card, belongs to some Jonathan Morley, big financial muggins… And scattered photocopies… Of some spy document out of Ridnez. My brother, the Imperial Senator for Tertania, was shot… nearly killed… on the orders of the head-honcho of Ridnez just yesterday… Still don’t know if Keith’s gonna pull through… Now this… I don’t know who’s behind this, but god help him… or her… when we find ‘em.”

Colin Thornton went through the motions, getting statements from everyone on the scene at the time of the murder and asking the standard questions, “So let’s take it from the top, Ms. Vickers. What was your relationship to the deceased?” Nora replied, trying her best to choke down her anxiety about the situation, “Uh… We were… just co-workers. That’s all.” Thornton looked down at his notes, “Hm-hm. Says here you were both members of the Board of Directors. Do you have any idea of who might possess a grudge against Ms. Vickers… Or a motive to see her dead… Either on or off the Board?” Nora shuffled around nervously, “Er, no, not really? Why, do you think this might have been an inside job or something?”

Thornton continued to flip through his notes, “Well, ma’am… Anything’s possible. I’m just running through the list of possibilities, that’s all.” Governor Stevens approached, “Now, see, look here. We are less than 24 hours away from being thrust into a potentially devastating war with an alliance consisting of several other, militarily capable nations… And today is the day that Ms. Vickers arranged for the Bank to undergo emergency security inspections in case anything is to happen to this institution. While I admit to having my reservations about the way Ms. Vickers has chosen to go about this… the fact remains that the security consultants are due to arrive in an hour, and unless the work gets done by tomorrow, then who knows how much more damage might be caused to the Bank or its employees?”

“You mean, ’or its hard specie,’ right, Stevens?,” thought Nora to herself as the scene unfolded before her. Nora spoke up, “Governor Stevens is right, Agent Thornton! The fact that something like this happened to one of the Directors in the middle of broad daylight is only more proof that these security inspections need to happen tonight. If not, then for all we know, more people could die! So, please, tell us, Agent, how long does the NIB intend to stay investigating this crime scene?” Thornton finished writing something down on his notepad, “I suppose under the circumstances, it’s only fair to tell you… Seeing as you are members of the Board, and all…” Stevens roared impatiently, “Fair to tell us?! Of course you should tell us anything relevant to the Bank! Janet’s dead, you fumbling lackwit! Out with it, now!” Nora put her hand on Stevens’s shoulder, “Now, Governor, we should hear Agent Thornton out… You were about to disclose some information germane to the Bank’s security, Agent?” She shot Thornton a slightly questioning glance, as her gaze met the agent’s suspicious eyes. “Over the better part of the past 24 hours, the NIB have been tracing an enigmatic woman, whom we believe to be connected to the Zendirist regime of Ridnez. She is currently wanted as a suspect in conjunction with at least one previous murder, and we have reason to believe that her target is the Bank of Tertania. You are all in more danger than you know.”

A wave of muted inner panic sets throughout the room. Nora Vickers’s blood runs cold as she thinks to herself, “He… He means me, doesn’t he? He knows! But then why isn’t he--?” Thornton produces a photocopy of the police sketch of the Ocelot, “None of you happen to have seen a woman with roughly this appearance around, have you?” Alone out of the whole room, Nora Vickers breathes a sigh of relief. Stevens takes a closed, studied look at the picture, “Hmph… I don’t believe I have, no…” Thornton secretes the sketch inside his coat pocket, “Then it appears all we can do for now to keep you safe for now is maintain a close watch over you for the rest of the day… And advise you not to leave the building until a secure transport has been prepared. Now, let’s see here…,” Thornton goes back over his notepad, “It says here there’s one more Board member unaccounted for… A ‘Samuel Whittaker’… Do you have any idea where he might be?”

At a tenement block elsewhere in the city…

A grungy-looking man is barely roused by the splash of cold water on his face, “cough cough W-where am I?”

“Well, it isn’t heaven, sunshine…,” acerbically states the Ocelot, standing before the man as she casually discards of a bucket, “…and it isn’t ‘the other place’ either, so what I advise you to do…”
The man, a MultiStrat agent, struggles to reorient himself so his head stops spinning, “H-hey, am I on a… rooftop? What am I tied to? Is this a…?”

Suddenly, a pistol cracks harshly across his face. “Hey, pay attention to what I’m saying!,” says the Ocelot. The captive spy gathers his thoughts, “Oh, yeah… Now I remember how I got here.” The Ocelot grabs the spy by the throat and pulls him upright, pressing the barrel of her handgun against his forehead. The agent defiantly snarls, “You want to shoot me? Get it over with… Whatever you have in store is nothing compared to…” The Ocelot interrupts, “Hold your horses, cowboy. I’m not going to do anything…” She picks up the agent’s communicator and holds it in his face, “…So long as you cooperate here.” The agent spits blood on the ground next to him, “Ptui… And what do you want me to say to my… uh, cohorts?” Ocelot cocks the hammer of her handgun, “I’m going to set this communicator to all frequencies. You’re going to tell your pals that you’ve tracked down and eliminated the target Sam Whittaker. Got that?” The spy thinks upon revealed to him, “Target? Were we given orders while I was out?”

The Ocelot broke her captive’s stream of thought, “On three, I’m turning on the communicator. Either you deliver the message or your head turns into salsa… One… Two…” The Ocelot turns on the communicator. The captive spy hesitates several seconds, then… “Enemy agent at my location! I’m tied up at the…!” Suddenly, the MultiStrat agent’s summons is cut off by the sound of a gunshot, and the line goes dead. “Idiot!,” Ocelot yells at the now-headless body of the MultiStrat agent, as she kicks at it in frustration, “…Why did you have to go and do that? Why did you have to go and make me do that? Grr… It’s not safe here. Got to find Whittaker.” Ocelot stepped on the dead man’s communicator, breaking it, and headed down to street level using the fire escape.

On a busy city street…

“Oh god! Dear god!,” a frenzied Sam Whittaker thought to himself as he ran through crowd after crowd, “It could be anyone! Any one of them! Any one of these people!” Whittaker’s eyes darted across the faces of countless strangers, wary of all of them, probing them for murderous intent. Meanwhile, another thought echoed throughout Whittaker’s mind, “Why me? Why me?” Whittaker ducked into an alley and collapsed into a whimpering heap amidst the piles of rubbish. Once again, the phone in his pocket began to buzz. Whittaker weakly picked it up the phone and answered it. “Whittaker, where are you?!,” called out the Ocelot’s voice from the other side. “I… I don’t know! Janet’s dead! The others are going to be dead! I’m going to be dead! There’s no escape! I give up!,” Whittaker pitifully whined. The Ocelot yelled out, “Get a hold of yourself, man! Look at the nearest street sign!” Whittaker rose to his feet and stumbled into the open to follow Ocelot’s instructions, “I’m at… the intersection of West and Redford… Please, hurry.” The call was abruptly cut off as a sniper’s bullet shattered the glass box of the phone booth that Ocelot was calling from. Ocelot ran out into the street, let loose some cover fire, and rounded the nearest corner.

5:15 in the evening, The Bank of Tertania

NIB Agent Chase Dale notified his superiors of an urgent development in the unfolding situation, “Agent Thornton, there’s a group of people waiting in the lobby, claiming to be security consultants hired by the Bank. Do we turn them away, or…?” Nora Vickers objected, “You can’t just turn them away! This is the Titan Group!” She turned to face Governor Stevens, as if trying to persuade him as much as the NIB, “We need them to make those upgrades! Without those security checks, we might all wind up like Janet, at the hands of that… that terrorist you told us about.”

Stevens reluctantly backed Nora, “Agent Thornton, I cannot help but agree that the exigent nature of the circumstances justifies the risks. I strongly encourage that you allow the specialists into the building to begin their inspection.” Thornton groaned to himself, “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all…” Stevens pressed the matter, “Perhaps a pecuniary incentive would suffice to expedite matters?” Thornton snapped at the suggestion, “Now look here, Governor Stevens, the NIB is here because this assassination of one of your Board members may be linked to an issue of national security. If it were only your bank that were at stake, then frankly, I’d let you take the plunge, but you’re just one piece of a puzzle that I intend to solve.”

A frustrated Nora Vickers left for the nearest ladies’ room as Stevens and Thornton argued with one another, splashing water on her face. After several seconds, she cautiously activated the communicator within her cufflink, “Ludovico… The NIB are here at the murder scene, obstructing the Titan Group from entering the building. This isn’t how things were supposed to go…” Tetra snarled into his communicator at the other end, walking down a congested city street, “You feel the need to tell me? I told my operatives to make Whittaker and Dixon ‘disappear’… Not to blow this up into a fiasco of unbelievable proportions! The entire operation has potentially been compromised! We might miss our timeframe… lose our entire window of opportunity… unless the Titan Group is allowed access to the building!”

Nora continues after a momentary pause, “…Ludovico. I saw… what happened to Janet. Is it really necessary…?” Tetra screamed from the other end, “Nora, you understood what wrecking this decadent tower of mammon would require from the start! Lose your nerve now, and you stand not only condemned to your present life of monochrome insignificance, but you will be disgraced… imprisoned… if not worse!” Nora stammered, “I… I just-“ Tetra took a more pleasant tone with her, “Love, listen to me… In the new Zendirist order, you and I… we will stand above the dronelike masses of this country like gods… The majesty, the radiance in you… Will run wild and free. And as for ‘Janet,’ well… That was just a materialistic sack of flesh, waiting to be liberated from the oppressive burden of its own existence. ‘Janet’ had no dreams, no feelings… She was not of Ridnezite blood, as we are. So understand, conscience is a weakness… And it behooves you to surpass it… In order to truly unleash the shining will that you harbor within you… Director, out.”

Left alone to her thoughts, Nora reflected upon her decisions, "Heaven help me... There is no way out, is there? I'm too deep in... Janet... Murder... Dear lord... There is no way out... I have to see this through... to the end."

“Huff… huff… Can’t… For much longer,” Sam Whittaker pushed his entire body to its limits as he evaded gunfire coming from virtually every angle, every vantage point, “I can’t stay in any one place… They’ll kill me… Nowhere to run… Nowhere to hide…” Whittaker ducked into another alleyway, roughly 6 blocks away from the location of his last stop. “W-won’t anyone… help me?,” Whittaker murmured to himself through his panting. A rather unwelcome answer came from right behind him: “No.” Whittaker had hardly turned around to face his attacker when a pistol crashed down onto the bridge of his nose, causing a profuse nosebleed.

“End of the line, Tertanian,” growled the MultiStrat agent standing over Whittaker. The terrified Whittaker scuttered backwards until hitting the wall of the building to his rear, “N-no, please! I-I’ll pay you off! Whatever they’re paying you, I’ll double it! Triple it!” Whittaker scanned his surroundings; out of nowhere, three other armed assailants seemed to have materialized out of thin air. “Hah! He thinks us to be common assassins! Or maybe he tries to bribe his way out of this by reflex! No wonder the Director hates these Useans so much…,” mocked one of the MultiStrat agents. The agents grab Whittaker and throw him against the wall. Whittaker hears the hammer of a pistol click into place and feels the barrel against the back of his head.

While Whittaker quivers helplessly, anticipating the end, he is surprised to see and hear as the agents accosting him are bowled over by the Ocelot. She arrives by drop-kicking the agent manhandling Whittaker, breaking his neck, followed by roundhouse kicking another of the agents against the brick wall. The third assailant rushes Ocelot with a switchblade, but Ocelot breaks his arm and throws him at the second assailant against the wall, knocking the latter unconscious. The fourth and final attacker reaches for his gun, but Ocelot beats him to the draw and shoots him 3 times in the chest, before pumping two more slugs in the remaining hostile with the switchblade to take him down. The Ocelot then grabs a communicator off of one of the downed attackers.

Whittaker’s whimpering gradually dies down as he realizes that he’s not going to die. “You’re safe now,” the Ocelot reassures, “But we don’t have the time to dawdle…” A cabbie waits by the sidewalk, chewing a stick of gum by himself, when he is disturbed by the sound of the door of the passenger seat opening and closing in back. The cabbie objects, “Hey, I’m on my break! Come back in thirty-” But then he looked behind him to find a pistol aimed in his face. The Ocelot commands, “The Bank of Tertania. Now.” Whittaker complains, “I don’t get it. You intend to stroll up to the front steps of The Bank? That’s the hottest place in this entire city for us right now. For both of us!” Ocelot explains, “Do you expect that there’s anywhere better to have it out with these MultiStrat goons? They’re trying to kill us to stop us from interfering with their plans for the Bank. Ergo, the Bank is exactly where we’ve got to be… The rest of Isonphis is crawling with snipers and killers anyway…”

As if on cue, a sniper’s bullet pierced through the window of the cab, spooking Whittaker and the already frightened cabbie. “Get down!,” yelled out the Ocelot as she pushed Sam Whittaker to the floor of the backseat. The cabbie scrambled for his life out of the driver’s seat, leaving his keys in the ignition; the Ocelot immediately reacted to these events, taking the driver’s seat for herself and veering dangerously around the traffic and onto the sidewalk. “…At least the audacity of these agents to gun for us in broad daylight has driven most of the people off the street…,,” Ocelot says as she takes a sharp turn around a corner, causing the centrifugal force to slam Whittaker against the door, “So… How many blocks would you say the Bank is from here?!”

7:30 in the evening, The Bank of Tertania

“No, that’s correct. Sam was against the Titan Group proposal; Janet was in favor,” explained Matthew Parkes. Colin Thornton sat with Parkes alone in the boardroom and was taking down more detailed notes of each Board member’s account of their last meeting. “Hm-hm… And you think that this disagreement might have had something to do with the murder of Ms. Dixon?” Parkes shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, twiddling his thumbs. “Um, well… I don’t know… I just think it’s interesting that on the eve of a war where the Bank stands to be a key strategic target of the other side… The guy who votes against emergency measures for improving security goes missing, after he’s last seen with one of the ones who voted for… is all,” explains Parkes.
Thornton asks, “…So in your opinion, Mr. Whittaker’s absence is circumstantial evidence of his guilt? But Ms. Dixon was shot through the window… By an armor-piercing shell.” Parkes continues, “Look, I don’t know, okay! All I know is that Tertania might be at war with Ridnez in less than a day… You said Ridnez dropped in a professional to maybe kill all of us… who’s suspected for at least one murder already… And now Janet’s added to the tally! I like breathing, and saying whatever convinces you to let the Titan Group upgrade the security of this building is conducive towards that… Got it?” Thornton finishes taking notes on the encounter, “sigh… You may go now.” Thornton takes a minute to think to himself while twirling his pen about his fingers, “What to do, what to do… Let the Titan Group in, potentially compromise bank security…. Don’t let the Titan Group in, potentially compromise bank security… Can’t bother Director Cooper about this… Have to make the right decision myself here.”

Chase Dale receives an order from Agent Thornton via earpiece, “Agent Dale, I’m authorizing you to let these professed security consultants past the lobby and into the building… But you’re to have men on them at all times, understand? They don’t get away with anything that we don’t have a detailed report on… That is, what they’re doing, when they’re doing it, and why they’re doing it… I’m holding you responsible for this, Agent Dale.” Dale addresses the gathered Titan Group team, “Alright, the supervising agent on scene has given you guys the all-clear…” The visor-clad specialists, numbering about 2 dozen, begin to walk past the checkpoint and towards the main elevator. Dale interrupts them, “But…” The specialists turn their heads to face Dale almost unanimously. Dale continues, “…But… You are to be accompanied by NIB agents… And kept away from the ongoing crime scene investigation. My advice, gentlemen… Make it quick… And then get out.”

As the Titan Group lined up into the elevator with 4 accompanying NIB agents, they were watched from afar by a figure with binoculars and a black leather jacket: Ludovico Tetra himself. “At last, the critical phase of this operation is proceeding… Perhaps not as planned, but proceeding nonetheless. Nora, my dear, prepare for extraction… T-minus 30 minutes.” Nora silently processed Tetra’s statement, buried in her own thoughts. She remained seated on one of the upper floors nearby the executive staff elevator, now guarded by an armed NIB agent, and she was frequently making nervous glances in its general direction. However, her mind was preoccupied with other matters. “30 minutes,” Nora Vickers thought to herself, “30 minutes before my treachery is revealed to the world… Before I do my part collapsing the ivory tower of these… greedy, entitled leeches… and bring the whole rotten framework down. But still… is this what they deserve? To be blown to bits? And what Ludovico says… About being part of a superior race… How can I believe that? It’s… insane!” Nora stood up weakly and stared out the window over the city skyline, “…But Ludovico was right about me. All my life, I’ve just been a face in the crowd, a suit in the smoking room. Unlike the rest of these… these things that act like people… I want to exist. I need to prove I exist to the world… Or so help me, I’ll drown in this sea of gray… 25 minutes now… 25 minutes, and my face will be on every TV screen in the country!”

At bottom floor, in the lobby

Agent Dale approaches another agent on duty in the lobby, “Agent Sean… Woods, is it?” The other agent replied, “That’s me, Agent Dale. We must have sat in the same conference room for mission briefings at least 4 dozen times by now…” Dale struggled to respond, “Ah… I see…” Without warning, Dale and Woods were startled out of their wits by a cacophonous crashing sound, as a taxi cab going approximately 60 mph smashes through the glass windows of the Bank lobby. As the cab suddenly tries to decelerate, it barely misses the two agents, ramming through row upon row of office desks.

Stopping short of a wall in the spacious lobby by a hair’s length, Ocelot exits the driver’s seat of the cab and drags a nauseous Whittaker out from the back by the collar of his jacket.“C’mon, we don’t know how much time we have left… if any!,” Ocelot urges. Dale, Woods, and the other 2 dozen NIB agents in the room pull their guns on Ocelot and Whittaker. Dale takes the lead in making the arrest, “Freeze! Raise your hands up over your head! Don’t move a muscle or I swear I’ll blow you away!” Before making any positive identification, the NIB agents close the distance, throw Ocelot and Whittaker against the hood of the cab, pat them down, and handcuff them.

The Ocelot pleads with the NIB agents, “Please, you have to listen to me! If a group called the Titan Group has by any chance been given clearance to enter this building, you have to stop them! They’re Ridnezite terrorists!” Sam Whittaker adds pleas of his own with tears in his eyes, “Sh-She’s telling the truth! I-I’m Sam Whittaker, one of the Board of Directors… Ridnezite spies tried to have me assassinated… Like they had Janet… Just please, I’m begging you! Stop them now!” Dale mutters to himself, “Today is all kinds of messed up.” He then contacts Thornton by his mouthpiece communicator, “This is Agent Dale. You’ll never believe what the cat dragged in. Some woman and a man claiming to be Sam Whittaker, one of the Bank Directors, just crashed through a window in a taxi cab, saying that the Titan Group that you just authorized to access the main elevator is a front group of Ridnezite terrorists!”

Thornton corresponds from the empty boardroom, “No kidding. I don’t suppose that this woman with the alleged Mr. Whittaker happens to match the description of the suspected murderer in the ‘Brannigan’ case that was given to the Isonphis PD?” Dale responds, “Actually…,” taking a second to match Ocelot’s visage with the police sketch, “…Yeah, it’s the one, Agent Thornton.” Thornton pinches on the bridge of his nose in exasperation, “Dear god…” He switched to the line used to communicate with the 4 agents sent to accompany the Titan Group, “Team Delta, come in… I said, report Team Delta…

Meanwhile, in the Bank of Tertania’s vault chamber…

“Team Delta, come in… I said, report Team Delta…,” emerged the faint sound from the earpiece, now attached to the cold, dead body of an NIB operative. In the vaults containing the Bank’s reserves of gold bullion, safety deposit boxes, rare and expensive jewels, and other hard physical riches, the so-called Titan Group were already hard at work, planting remote-detonated charges all over the floors and walls, each individually powerful enough to knock down a wall of solid steel. The specialists received their own set of instructions in real-time: “This is the Director, coming in. Something is developing on the ground floors, and whatever it is, I don’t like it. Once you’re done planting those explosives, set up the sentry turret in the only hallway facing the opening of the main elevator… You’ll be boxing yourselves in, but I’ll have someone else facilitate your… withdrawal from the area.”

Back in the empty boardroom…

Thornton grew aggravated, “No answer… Damn it, damn it, damn it.” The supervising agent burst out into the perpendicular hallway and into the proximal lounge area where the Directors were seated in waiting. “Nora Vickers…,” Thornton exclaimed, “You are under arrest on charges of treason, criminal conspiracy, and being accessory to murder!” Nora stood up out of her seat, “M-Me? You should be out there arresting the real terrorist you told us about… Not me!” Thornton responded, “There’s a time and a place for that. You by the elevator, book her.”

As Vickers was handcuffed, she reacted indignantly, “Hey, ow! You’ll be hearing from my lawyers, Agent Thornton!” Thornton scoffed, “We’ll see…,” switching back to his line to Dale on the ground floor, “Agent Dale, I want you to gather half of the men down there in the lobby area and secure the vault room, ASAP! The 4 men you assigned aren’t responding to their communications… I think they may be dead… Proceed with utmost caution!” Dale inquired, “Uh, sure, but what about the man alleging to be Whittaker and the police sketch woman?” Thornton barked into his microphone, “What do you think?! Have the remaining 12 agents look after them! But hurry, go, go, go!”

Dale and his men entered the elevator and took it up to the level of the vault, only to be cut down by automated machine gun fire almost immediately. Thornton heard the gunfire through his earpiece, “Agent Dale? Agent Dale?!” On the ground floor, the remaining NBI agents also heard the gunfire and began to lose their composure, giving Ocelot the opportunity to somersault over the roof of the cab, bring her handcuffed wrists back to her front, and reach her discarded duffel bag, throwing a flashbang in the air before any of the agents could react. Shielding her eyes from the effect of the flashbang, Ocelot physically subdued the 12 NIB agents in just as many seconds, rendering them all unconscious.

“My eyes! I don’t know what’s happening!,” complained Whittaker. Ocelot used a key grabbed off one of the downed agents to unlock the cuffs. “Hey! Get me out of these things! They’re really tight,” Whittaker continued. Ocelot ignored Whittaker as she grabbed one of the communicators off an unconscious NIB agent and stole his semiautomatic. Although of a different manufacture than the one she lifted from the apartment of the deceased MultiStrat spy from earlier, Ocelot found the handgun equally familiar in her grip. Without looking back, she tersely ordered Whittaker, “Stay here! You’re as safe here as you’re going to get anywhere!” Following this, she ran out of the building into the street and looked upwards, at the top floors of the neighboring skyscraper. “Of all the buildings in the vicinity… Only that one is close enough and tall enough for Tetra to be monitoring events at the Bank from… Maris, I hope I’m right,” she reasoned to herself.

Back on the same floor as the boardroom

Colin Thornton was at his wit’s end about the developing situation, furiously shaking Nora Vickers as the other Board members observed the scene playing out before them. “Call them off, damn you!,” demanded Thornton, “Call them off, or… Or I swear I’ll…” Nora defiantly cut Thornton off, “Or you’ll do what? I know my rights, Agent.” Thornton threw Nora violently to the ground, “To hell with your ‘rights’! If any more of my men are sacrificed because of whatever this is that you’ve planned, I’m of half a mind to shoot you down right here. And I could justify it too, in the interests of the national defense!” Nora pushed herself off the floor, still reeling from the force of Thornton’s throw, “Y-you’re bluffing…” Thornton grabbed Nora by her hair and threw her into a chair, “Am I? The NIB don’t like to be taken for fools, Ms. Vickers… And I don’t like listening helplessly as my men get chopped down by some spooks.”

The Ocelot’s voice came in through Thornton’s earpiece, “She can’t do anything to stop this now. She’s just been a pawn from the beginning.” Thornton reacted with anger and surprise, “What? Who is this? Is this the suspect from the ‘Brannigan’ case? Is Vickers working with you?” Ocelot replied, “Not a chance. I’m here to stop this from going down as it was planned.” Thornton only grew more irritated in his confusion, “What?! So if you’re not a part of this… Then who are you?” Ocelot responded after a couple moments of radio silence, “…I’m afraid there is no simple answer to your question. Just know that your first priority should be evacuating the building on the double!”

Thornton stiffened all at once, “…W-what are they planning to do here?” Ocelot provided the answer Thornton was afraid that he already knew, “They’re trying to blow up the building and take the Board with it. When the Bank of Tertania goes down, they figure, then the rest of Tertania follows.” Thornton grappled with the information, “B-but their men are holed up in the vault! And Vickers is under NIB custody now on the upper floors! Surely they wouldn’t!” Ocelot cut Thornton off, “Yes! They would!” The line cut out, leaving Thornton to his own resources. “Alright, people, this is an emergency we have on our hands! We have to evacuate this building, pronto! Top floor to bottom floor! Use the stairs; the elevator was probably tampered with! Protect the Board members!” Thornton and Nora gave each other a long, hard stare as the latter was hauled off in handcuffs. As Thornton supervised the madness, one perturbing observation came to him, “Where in the bloody hell is Matthew Parkes?!”

From one of the upper floors of an abandoned skyscraper nearby the Bank

Tetra viewed the chaos develop through his binoculars. Several stories below, miscellaneous office workers spilled out onto the streets of Isonphis. Tetra growled into his communicator, “This farce has gone on long enough. Titan Group, report, are the charges primed and ready?” Unexpectedly, Tetra heard the ring of a gunshot in the empty room, followed by the sound of breaking glass. “…I was wondering when our destined meeting would come to pass…,” Tetra remarked as he calmly turned around and faced his attacker, “So you hold the distinction of laying waste my predecessor… I’m not impressed.”

Ocelot kept her sight aimed at her quarry, finger virtually itching at the trigger, “Call them off.” Tetra grinned, “You know, one of the things you learn as an information analyst: Anything can be quantified. Including human action. Everyone has their capabilities and limitations… And those values can be definitively measured and used to generate behavioral predictions…” Ocelot repeated her command more loudly, “You’re not taking me seriously, are you?” Closing the distance, she slammed Tetra against the nearest window and pressed the gun against his head. “I’m giving you one last chance. Call your butchers off now. Or I’m going to paint the room red with the contents of your skull!”

Tetra disregarded the threat, “…None of the data we had… Suggested that you could accomplish something like this alone. It was that slime Oberto, wasn’t it? The Felons of Magnifico strike again, eh?” Growing increasingly frustrated, Ocelot threw Tetra against a desk in the room. Tetra’s only initial response was to silently chuckle through the pain, “]i]Heheheheheh[/i]. I know you can’t kill me… You won’t kill me… If you did, then there would be no way of stopping what’s about to transpire. But unless you make me crack, then those people are as good as dead, just the same…”

Ocelot punched Tetra in the abdomen and jaw In quick succession, causing him to collapse over the desktop, “Regardless… So long as your underlings get the message that you’ve been captured, I can force them to stand down… They wouldn’t risk endangering their Director. I’ve got to say, Tetra. It was stupid, showing up here in person. Real stupid.” Tetra retorted, “Only… if I hadn’t prepared for the possibility of being cornered….” Appearing from behind the Ocelot, 3 MultiStrat agents fired live-wires out at her, causing her to seize up and crumple onto the floor in convulsions of agony. Tetra produced a pistol from his jacket and aimed it slowly and deliberately at Ocelot’s head for a point-blank shot, “Now… Where were we?”

Tetra and the 3 MultiStrat agents were cut off by an NBI S.W.A.T. team, tossing tear gas grenades and flashbangs into the room. “Freeze! Drop your weapons now!,” barked out the S.W.A.T. officers. Without a second’s hesitation, Tetra issued his own desperate order through his communicator, “Detonate the charges, now![/i” In the span of less than 5 seconds, one of the S.W.A.T. officers retaliated by putting a bullet into Tetra, and the Bank of Tertania building exploded from the middle levels, emitting enough sound, heat, and concussive force to shatter all the windows of the surrounding buildings. Ocelot, the NIB S.W.A.T. team, and the 3 MultiStrat agents in the neighboring skyscraper were blown off their feet and rendered insensate by an irresistible wall of force. As Ocelot collapsed into the dark of unconsciousness, she fixed upon only a single thought: “[i]I’ve… failed.”

On television sets across Tertania, a TNN special broadcast is aired to reassure thousands of terrified Tertanian citizens. An anchorwoman flashes on screen and begins to read off the teleprompter, “Good evening, Tertania. This is Shirley Adams tonight, bringing you this special broadcast! The NIB have just about finished rounding up suspects in the terrorist attack committed against the Bank of Tertania, in the nation’s capital of Isonphis earlier day. From the official press release, the perpetrators are strongly believed to be connected to the New State of Ridnez, one of two governing entities claiming to represent the Ridnezite nation-state, which has been the target of hawkish rhetoric as of late by King Maximus Powers of New England INC. The suspected ringleader of the terrorists has been tentatively identified as Ludovico Tetra himself, the New State’s Director of State Security. The individual believed to be Tetra is currently recuperating from a non-fatal bullet wound under NIB protection and custody. One of the members of the Bank’s Board of Directors, Nora Vickers, has been arrested on charges of colluding with the terrorists, while another suspected conspirator on the Board, Matthew Parkes, seems to have gone mysteriously missing during the incident. In related news, according to trusted sources that would care to remain anonymous for the time being, ongoing investigations into the terrorist incident have inadvertently exposed over a decade’s worth of fraud and embezzlement in the recordkeeping of the institution. Only time will tell how this story unfolds. Until next time, this has been Shirley Adams, reporting for TNN News!”

In a secure location, a gray interrogation room, a week later

The Ocelot sat in an uncomfortable metallic chair, her hands and legs cuffed together. A man in a three-piece suit entered the room and curtly asked, “Do you have any idea who I am?” Ocelot sized the man up before giving her answer, “…No. Should I?” The man sat in a chair across a stainless steel table and faintly scoffed to himself. “Do you smoke?,” asked the mysterious interrogator. The Ocelot responded with lack of enthusiasm, “…No.” The man shrugged and placed a cigarette in his mouth, “My name is Andrew Haines. And you and I…” He paused as he removed a lighter from his pocket and lit his cigarette, “…are going to be very well acquainted.”

Ocelot piped up at the implication, “Look, Haines. I gather that you’re some type of government spook for Tertania, but I was there to avert that catastrophe.” Haines exhaled smoke from his nostrils and removed the cigarette from his mouth to speak more clearly, “We know… In fact, we know exactly who you are and exactly how you got here, Ms. Drakos… Or should I call you Bianca?” Haines waited to see Ocelot’s shocked expression and chuckled to himself, “The Mayor-Protector of Magnifico says, ’Hello,’ by the way.” Ocelot’s widened eyes narrowed into slits at Dominic Oberto’s mention. “You… You’re not NIB, are you?” Haines rose from his seat, “You catch on quickly, Ms. Drakos… But President Lane won’t. Not if the agency has anything to say about it.”

Haines flicked a TV set on with the press of a button on a remote control. A live press conference called by the President of Tertania was being simultaneously broadcast by TNN. “I have called this press conference to reassure the citizens of Tertania that there is no cause for alarm. Yes, it is true that preliminary investigations by the National Information Bureau have revealed that the Board of Directors both gave and received patronage from my predecessor, Christopher Staveley – not to mention a host of former and a few current Senators – in exchange for access to virtually unlimited lines of credit from the Ministry of Finance, and to influence the ratification and strengthening of certain anti-competitive regulations in the finance sector. However, my Cabinet and I have been working on a solution to-“

The TV monitor flicks off. Haines picks up where he left off, “Staveley, bad eggs in the National Assembly, and influence peddling from the Board, but no mention of-“ Ocelot finished the sentence for him, “Magnifico.” Haines continued his thought, “Magnifico. And Madam President neglected to mention Magnifico because we didn’t want her to. And we didn’t want her to, because the Bank of Tertania approved of that loan to Magnifico… Because we guaranteed their investment… Because Tertania needed a beachhead… Because we needed a platform to operate in Ridnez.” This caught Ocelot’s attention. “Who… are you?,” she asked. Haines smirked and threw a folder onto the table. “You finally asked. I mean, really asked…,” Haines stated. Ocelot opened the folder and flipped through the contents inside. Haines continued, “You can either get abandoned in some hole in the ground and forgotten about, or you can come work for us. Your choice, kid.” Ocelot noticed a circular logo in the corner, containing a representation of Tertania’s borders and geography and bearing the words “International Affairs Agency.”

“Welcome to the IAA, kid.”