9 AM - Local Time

Seth had called it, they'd gotten through customs without a hitch with the vouchers. Good thing, because these days, it's not a good thing to go waving guns around in an airport. It was a beautiful day in Moscow, though cold, and Jackson was glad he'd thought to bring his parka. He made sure his watch was set to Moscow time, as well. Time zones always threw him off, no matter how much travelling he did.

To him, it seemed peaceful, but he'd developed a sense for these things, and it seemed far too peaceful. They still hadn't heard from Agnes, and that had him worried as well. She wasn't one to miss calls to begin with, much less not return them. He only hoped the safehouse hadn't been compromised, but if something had happened to her...it was a damn good thing they had gone to Moscow instead.

He stopped off at one of the airport kiosks to buy cigarettes and a newspaper and to get some of his dollars changed over. He also got a cup of coffee, black, like his soul, he always joked, but he wondered how much of that was true after all this time.

He shook off the worries and focused on the problem at hand. What WERE these things, these...zombies? Were they even human anymore, or had the virus stripped them of everything? It was a question he'd have to answer later, however, as it was time to get moving.

"What do you say, boys? The safehouse isn't far. Do you want to walk to take a taxi? You know how these people drive..."

"I'm saying walk. My nerves are strung, I'm tired, and I have a gun. If some russian speaks his hissing language at me while driving terribly, I'm likely to shoot him."

Seth shouldered his pack, and made sure his gun was somewhere he could easily reach. They met terror in the States, and now they were in the country that was the heart of the terror. The chances were extremely good that there would be thousands of those things to fight here.

"Colton, get the map. We at least need to know where we're going."

He pulled his field jacket closer to him. He had donned a warmer hat, the kind with fur and two flaps, and it did wonders at keeping his head warm. But this jacket wasn't cut out for this type of weather. After pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, he lit one, and offered to the other two.

"Anyone need something to calm them down?"

Colton shook his head, he was a slightly more upscale smoker. He pulled a cigar from his pocket and lit up up. Looking around he noticed how out of place he looked. He was a white haired man wearing sunglasses and a tuxedo in the middle of moscow smoking a foreign cigar.

He shrugged.

"Map, gotcha...", he looked around and saw a kiosk. The sign read it cost several U.S. Dollars for a map...money Colton couldn't afford to spend. He slipped by and lifted a map gently from the kiosk, melting away back into the crowd.

He returned to Seth with it folded open, he had allowed an ash from his cigar to land on it, and it had already accumulated a hole.

"oddly enough,that hole looks like a 'you are here' sign." Seth pulled on his cigarette, letting the nicotine absorb into his lungs. After exhaling, he said "Okay. So if the safe house is here, we should be able to walk about 5 blocks down, then turn right and go 8 blocks. Not too bad."

Then his phone rang again. From Agnes.

"Hello?"

An unfamiliar voice came on the line.

"I am sorry to inform you that the transfer to your account has been cancelled, Mr. Dancer. We well be sending an active duty military squad over to do your work."

Seth was outraged.

"We're already here! Jesus! And where's Agnes?"

"Agnes Eisig-Kalt is permanently out of commission. And if you press on, we'll consider paying your acquaintances."

Click.

Seth threw his phone down.

"I just got fired. Agnes is gone. Dead I'm presuming. If we accomplish this before the team they're sending, they might pay you two. But I'm S.O.L."

Colton grew angry. Why was it that every woman he ever found even mildly attractive always died.

He started moving, and the the other two followed. He drew more than a few unpleasent stares from the locals.

He spoke without stopping or turning around, taking the cigar out of his mouth a letting out a ring a smoke.

"So, with Agnes presumed dead, you fired, and possibly millions of those freaky infected things running about...we're pretty much in the hole."

"That's how it's looking guys. We're screwed. Even if we somehow survive, how are we getting out? Those vouchers weren't round trip? They didn't expect us to survive. Why waste money? They probably placed such a high reward to lure us in. But honestly, that's not what I'm worried about. Why Agnes? She was following business protocol, so they killed her? Or maybe just fired her for jeapordizing the mission. Or possibly killed her for the very same reason."

Seth finished his cigarette and stomped it out.

"Either way, I'm sorry I got you guys dragged into this. I made the call. I'm responsible."

"It's like they used to say in football, you play the game, you take the hits. Even though she was a suit, she knew the risks, just like us. We're still behind you, no matter what," Jackson said, patting Dancer on the arm. He lit a cigarette and blew the blue smoke out into the cold air. He had a thought, one that was mildly terrifying after flying thousands of miles to one of the most unfriendly locations on the planet.

"If they killed Agnes, and told you the mission is compromised...they probably know about the safehouse here. That means it probably won't be safe. If we go there, we'd better be careful. At least I could check for bombs in the place, but since we don't know how Agnes died, we don't know what to look out for. There could be snipers around there, and that could get us real dead, real fast."

"We need a new plan. I know a guy, Ivan, lives close by here. We should be able to hole up at his place for a while while we think of something. We should also work on figuring out where the good doctor is so we can get there before the boys in green."

He pulled out his cell phone, dialed a number, and started up a conversation with Ivan. It was a short conversation, and it obviously ended well.

"Looks like Ivan's away on business, we'll have the place all to ourselves. And if I remember right, it's the next building here."

Jackson punched in a code to the lock on the building's door, and it opened like a charm. The three walked up to the apartment and Jackson picked the lock, since he didn't have a key. That worked out well, too, and the three settled in at the kitchen table to plot out their plan of action.

Colton drummed his fingers on the table, gently scratching his chin with the other hand. He wasn't sure he wanted anything to do with this, but it was too far to back out now. The best he could do was hang on for dear life and hope he survived.

He stood up and pulled out the MP-5 from his suit jacket and moved toward the kitchen window. He gingerly pulled the cutain aside and scanned the rooftop across from them. He repeated the process with each window in the apartment.

"Better safe than sorry, if we're gonna be here long, I suggest we make a habit of that, I've lost plenty of good partners from a sneaky sniper." he sat down at his chair and placed the MP-5 gently by his side. He took out the map and threw it on the desk, along wth a pen and some scrap paper from the bowels of his endless jacket.

"Whats the plan..."

"Alright boys. Plan of action is as follows: Locate Erkovitch, but don't kill him immediately. What are the chances of him being the head? Interrogate him, then execute. Jackson, we'll need you to figure out how to construct some IED's. Think about the things that guy who used to be in the IRA taught you. What was his name, O'reilly? Colton, see if you can get ahold of some assault rifles. You'll probably need power and lots of ammo. I've brought a few tools from my combat medic days. I can handle cuts, gunshot wounds, and impact wounds. If we get bit by one of those, we have to race to find that anti-virus." Dancer had been sparring an invisible foe with his bowie knife. He studied jiu-jitsu as a child and teenager, and it proved very helpful in some cases.

"What we need is a computer and some way to access the security cameras left over from the USSR days. That should give us eyes around here and on the rooftops."

He laughed at the memory of his old IRA buddy.

"Jack O'Reilly! I remember that guy. Fun one, that guy. Always drunk though. Not a good attribute in the business of making things go 'boom.' Still, I remember a few tricks he taught me. I'll get a few pipe bombs worked up at least. Oh, I almost forgot."

He withdrew a small box from his coat, it was labeled C-4 in stencils.

"Never leave home without it. Should come in handy. I think Ivan has some guns stashed here too, if we can find them. Maybe he has something I can play with to make another kind of IED."

He walked over to the fridge, "And...most importantly, he said help ourselves to the fridge."

He started making a sandwich and popped open some soda.

We could use a good hacker though. I imagine the old science place the good doctor hangs out at has some pretty fancy security. We definitely need someone like that. Too bad you can't look up 'hackers' in the yellow pages. Or whatever the hell color pages they have in the phone book around here."

Colton smiled and stood up. He wandered around the apartment for some time before stopping in front of cabinet. He opnened the cabinet and removed the sparse occupents residing inside. When he had managed to throw the last can of diced tomatoes from the cabinet he raped on the back panel with his fist. Hollow.

He reared up and punched right through the weak back board. The splinters of wood flew into a hollow chamber behind it. Using brute strenght he tore out the rest of the plywood. A cache of Assault Rifles and ammunition lay behind the barrier. Colton removed all of them and returned to the kitchen to see Seth looking at him dumbstruck. Colton turned to Jackson.

"Tell your friend Ivan to hide his weapons in some place less obvious next time. That was pretty pitiful."

"How?" she asked herself aloud. When she was boarding the return plane from Boston to South Korea, Park Mi-Kyeong never suspected an innocent layover in Moscow could be anything but innocent. How was she, a twenty-four-year-old Korean woman, to know about the horrors she would encounter here? She was just finishing off her exchange year at MIT and going home to graduate.

"O.K. Time to stop feeling sorry for myself. Inward thinking won't change the situation. I have to get somewhere safe. Now."

With that, Mi-Kyeong flipped open her laptop, and began to search for an operational network. The search almost seemed a lost cause, until she found a military network still operating. "Strange. Wouldn't the Russians be cutting off communications to avoid exposing this?"

She decided to test the theory, and pinged for the IP address of the network mainframe. The IP address told her everything. The IP address was american, and the signal was piggybacked onto the equipment. Someone was listening.

If they could piggyback a signal, so could she. She ran her signal through the pipe, and found an anomaly. There was a building without functioning cameras. Either they were broken, or someone didn't want anyone to see what was inside. Either this showed intelligence at work, or the place was destroyed.

"Phones, maybe?" She searched for a phone.
"Finally, I get a break." she ran a phone patch. Her heart racing, she began to hear the phone ring from her end.

Seth was looking at the rack of guns before feeling his phone vibrate. SO far, this has not proven to be a good thing.

"Hello?"

His voice sounded concerned. He never liked these phone calls since he had taken this job.


He ducked down below a window sill, making sure to stay out of the way of possible snipers. That would be the last thing he needed.

Hearing the voice on the phone, Mi-Kyeong breathed a sigh of relief.

Thinking carefully about what to say for what seemed like an eternity, she finally spoke.

"I know you're not Russian. I can tell you now that piggybacking your signal over the Russian military net is no easy feat, and detecting it once it is accomplished is even more difficult. Based on the fact that I did both, as well as the fact that you're the only one of us on a phone, I can tell you it will be worth your while to meet up with me. I am not interested in your money, nor in job. I want to be home in Seoul, and I know you can make that happen."

Her plea spoken, she waited breathlessly for the reply.

OOC: Ammended to eliminate continuity errors(the reference to her name when, in the next post, she calls for a delay in introductions).

"Lady, you just might be a godsend. Tell us exactly where you are, and me and two other men will come and find you. You just have to do us one favor. The soviets left security cameras all over Moscow. We need you to hack into the feed and warn us of snipers."

Dancer walked over to where Colton was, holding his phone to his ear with his shoulder, and grabbed a dragunov rifle with a 4x scope. He also grabbed a short barreled, pistol grip shotgun he could keep under his jacket.

He motioned everyone to the door. They would be ready when it was time to move.