Living Easy/ Living Free/ Season ticket on a one-way ride
WHO: Jack Bauer and the people signed up here, minus Frank and Shiva
WHERE: A nondescript basement in a nondescript building.
WHEN: The following takes place between 7pm and 8pm. Events occur in real time.
WARNINGS: I’m reasonably certain that there isn’t going to be any violence yet, but with this group it’s hard to tell for sure.
SUMMARY: Recruitment, briefing, and planning: convincing over a dozen of the deadliest people on the planet to participate in a possible suicide mission.
FORMAT: paragraph or quicklog as you see fit, separate threads will be posted for asking questions/planning, and getting to know your teammates
An hour before, the basement room had been bare, dusty, and abandoned. Jack had worked like a fiend to get it into shape as a makeshift briefing room without drawing undue attention to what exactly a senior police officer was doing there. There were chairs set up for the prospective recruits. Maps and photographs had been put up on the bulletin board Jack was standing in front of. Beside it was a screen with slides being projected. On the table in front of him were two laptops and several file folders. He had not come lightly to the conclusion that this was a necessary step, and had come prepared to make his case. He had gone over it again and again, and couldn’t avoid the conclusion that this was the only way. He had to convince these people to see this in the same way, or at least to keep quiet about it if they weren’t in. If necessary, he was willing to go to Mexico on his own.
“Thank you for coming,” he said, leaning on the table once everyone who was going to show up had shown up. Jack was dressed casually in jeans and a brown jacket- it was important that these people not see him as the police officer tonight. “We don’t have a lot of time to waste, so I’ll make this fast. I have a contact in the United States government, someone highly placed, who’s alerted me of a threat to this City that no one is doing anything about.” He clicked a button, and a map appeared on the screen: a resort, a beach, a small nearby town, patches of forest.
“This is the ‘El Zorro Azul’ resort, in Mexico. It went out of business a year ago, but was recently purchased by suspected traffickers for ‘renovations.’ Over the last month the government has been intercepting chatter about a meeting taking place within the next week at this resort involving several criminal organizations. In addition to the local cartels, individuals from Russian, Colombian, Albanian, Chinese, Brazilian, Italian, and American groups have been linked to this meeting, including members of the mob here in the City. There’s also evidence that several professional mercenaries have been hired to provide security, and that a lot of bribes and threats have been given to local law enforcement to keep anyone from interfering.”
“This is a major event, and it is directed at us. There are multiple pieces of evidence to suggest that this meeting is a reaction to the success of Import vigilantes and police against crime, and that its purpose is to cooperate on some kind of pre-emptive strike. I am talking about informants, witnesses, tips, intercepted communications, captured documents, FBI, NSA, Interpol. I have spent weeks following up on this, verifying everything I’ve got. It’s all here on the table for you if you want to see for yourself, but I am telling you, this is real.”
Jack took a breath, then picked up a few thick folders from the table and handed them out to his audience. “These are copies of an intelligence report by Hans Sully, a CIA agent in the area. It’s a long read, so I’ll save you some time: he’s telling the government that this meeting poses no threat to the United States or the City, that it’s just a glorified underworld party, and the government is buying it. That’s why my contact leaked this information to me, they think that Sully’s been bought and that this threat is real. I agree.”
He retook his place behind the table and advanced to the next slide, a chart of details about the meeting- known weapons on the site, known corrupt police officers in the area, known travel arrangements of the attendees. “None of the superpowered teams know about this; they could stop the meeting, but if there’s evidence of costumes or superhuman abilities left behind they’d be proving these people right about the City posing a threat to them, and this would all happen again.”
“So this is why I’ve called you here. I’m going to Mexico within the week to find out what these people are planning and stop them, and I’m hoping I won’t have to do it alone. The plan is to check into a small hotel in the town near the resort and use that as our base while we take this thing apart. We’ll use private transportation for ourselves and our equipment, use alibis and aliases, avoid leaving any kind of trail that could lead back to the City. Whatever we do will be blamed on these people turning on each other, and any other criminal groups will look at this and think that this kind of cooperation is too big a risk to try again.”
Meaningful pause time. His eyes surveyed the room. “It’s your call whether you want to do this. If you don’t, I’ll trust you to keep this quiet. If you do, then let’s get to work.”
WHERE: A nondescript basement in a nondescript building.
WHEN: The following takes place between 7pm and 8pm. Events occur in real time.
WARNINGS: I’m reasonably certain that there isn’t going to be any violence yet, but with this group it’s hard to tell for sure.
SUMMARY: Recruitment, briefing, and planning: convincing over a dozen of the deadliest people on the planet to participate in a possible suicide mission.
FORMAT: paragraph or quicklog as you see fit, separate threads will be posted for asking questions/planning, and getting to know your teammates
An hour before, the basement room had been bare, dusty, and abandoned. Jack had worked like a fiend to get it into shape as a makeshift briefing room without drawing undue attention to what exactly a senior police officer was doing there. There were chairs set up for the prospective recruits. Maps and photographs had been put up on the bulletin board Jack was standing in front of. Beside it was a screen with slides being projected. On the table in front of him were two laptops and several file folders. He had not come lightly to the conclusion that this was a necessary step, and had come prepared to make his case. He had gone over it again and again, and couldn’t avoid the conclusion that this was the only way. He had to convince these people to see this in the same way, or at least to keep quiet about it if they weren’t in. If necessary, he was willing to go to Mexico on his own.
“Thank you for coming,” he said, leaning on the table once everyone who was going to show up had shown up. Jack was dressed casually in jeans and a brown jacket- it was important that these people not see him as the police officer tonight. “We don’t have a lot of time to waste, so I’ll make this fast. I have a contact in the United States government, someone highly placed, who’s alerted me of a threat to this City that no one is doing anything about.” He clicked a button, and a map appeared on the screen: a resort, a beach, a small nearby town, patches of forest.
“This is the ‘El Zorro Azul’ resort, in Mexico. It went out of business a year ago, but was recently purchased by suspected traffickers for ‘renovations.’ Over the last month the government has been intercepting chatter about a meeting taking place within the next week at this resort involving several criminal organizations. In addition to the local cartels, individuals from Russian, Colombian, Albanian, Chinese, Brazilian, Italian, and American groups have been linked to this meeting, including members of the mob here in the City. There’s also evidence that several professional mercenaries have been hired to provide security, and that a lot of bribes and threats have been given to local law enforcement to keep anyone from interfering.”
“This is a major event, and it is directed at us. There are multiple pieces of evidence to suggest that this meeting is a reaction to the success of Import vigilantes and police against crime, and that its purpose is to cooperate on some kind of pre-emptive strike. I am talking about informants, witnesses, tips, intercepted communications, captured documents, FBI, NSA, Interpol. I have spent weeks following up on this, verifying everything I’ve got. It’s all here on the table for you if you want to see for yourself, but I am telling you, this is real.”
Jack took a breath, then picked up a few thick folders from the table and handed them out to his audience. “These are copies of an intelligence report by Hans Sully, a CIA agent in the area. It’s a long read, so I’ll save you some time: he’s telling the government that this meeting poses no threat to the United States or the City, that it’s just a glorified underworld party, and the government is buying it. That’s why my contact leaked this information to me, they think that Sully’s been bought and that this threat is real. I agree.”
He retook his place behind the table and advanced to the next slide, a chart of details about the meeting- known weapons on the site, known corrupt police officers in the area, known travel arrangements of the attendees. “None of the superpowered teams know about this; they could stop the meeting, but if there’s evidence of costumes or superhuman abilities left behind they’d be proving these people right about the City posing a threat to them, and this would all happen again.”
“So this is why I’ve called you here. I’m going to Mexico within the week to find out what these people are planning and stop them, and I’m hoping I won’t have to do it alone. The plan is to check into a small hotel in the town near the resort and use that as our base while we take this thing apart. We’ll use private transportation for ourselves and our equipment, use alibis and aliases, avoid leaving any kind of trail that could lead back to the City. Whatever we do will be blamed on these people turning on each other, and any other criminal groups will look at this and think that this kind of cooperation is too big a risk to try again.”
Meaningful pause time. His eyes surveyed the room. “It’s your call whether you want to do this. If you don’t, I’ll trust you to keep this quiet. If you do, then let’s get to work.”