Season Two
Vincent was still pretty new to it all, but he was getting on. He turned the handle of the door and stepped into the briefing room of the base he had been living at for the last two months. As a new addition to SA's forces, he had been receiving some training and education. He had to admit, SA made the Triads look like kids playing in the sand despite being thousands of years younger. He only knew pieces of it, but the flows of money, technology, and information that the shadowy organization brokered were staggering.
Inside the room, he nodded at the other two who had been sharing the compound with him: Lady Scarlet and Emily Nigma. Scarlet he enjoyed his time with; Nigma was a pain in his ass. One was a professional soldier and he got on well with her. The other was a narcissistic, know-it-all who, unfortunately, knew pretty much everything. The woman had only to look over a set of information once and it was locked away inside her skull. Both women had been at this base on the island nation of curacao, which might as well have been SA's private government, as one recovered from injuries and the other plotted with Dieter. They were two of his fellow lieutenants. Even as he greeted them and took his seat at a terminal, one of two screens on the back wall lit up and Mr.BLack joined them via a secured darknet signal a second before the other screen lit and the red headed madman grinned at them all. Mr. Black was the lieutenant in charge of North American operations out of Boura for now, since the real agent was imprisoned, while Redcap was contracting with them in Asia. An empty chair was meant to designate where Mr. Green should have been seated.
They were all situated so that they faced a bank of five monitors. Exactly on time, the center monitor lit and Dieter's visage, far from incarcerated as the world suspected, looked calmly out at them. He might as well have been downstairs as anywhere from the view behind him. The man was calling from a sound-proofed, blank, gray room.
"Lady Scarlet, status report. How are the upgrades?"
The woman shifted and then rolled her neck. She had been subjected to some of SA's best technology and techniques these last two months to repair the body a certain loud-mouthed ITSDA agent had shattered. Healing that might normally requires years of treatments and therapies had taken just two months. Additionally, she had been testing and refining a new type of exo-skeletal armored combat suit,
"Sir, the dry run in Gaultown was a great leap forward in it's design. At least The Smith was good for something. It is combat deployable at will, sir. As for me, the medics have me at 99% recovered."
She knew better, like they all did, than to embellish. Dieter hated extraneous information. He cared for his subordinates but not for needless banter in these meetings. Dieter and the rest of SA had been mourning the massive loss of manpower in Gaultown after all.
"Excellent, I may have an assignment for you coming up. At least that mess in Gaultown provided some information as well as a smokescreen for the blunder Smith caused us. Mr. Gray, how are the recruitment operations going?"
That was Vincent's new designation. They all used colors in SA hierarchy. He snapped to his own screen in front of him and pulled up the numbers from the last week,
"Of the 30% North American manpower losses in Gaultown, we have recovered approximately 45%." No need to mention that even in a hiring boom, SA's standards for its soldiers had not been lowered. So, finding eligible men and approaching them quietly was going slow. There was also the restructuring that incorporated Redcap's strange cult into SA rank and file.
"We recruited two more Banshees this week and Mr. Black found us another squad of ghouls. They are being trained in now." Since Gaultown, Vincent and Mr. Black had been put in charge of recruiting new soldiers as well as training them alongside Lady Scarlet.
"We have also identified and sent to you information on a possible addition to the Sidhe. Recommendation?"
The Sidhe were SA's coordinators, tactical officers, and represented significant investment in training, resources, and talent. They were extremely hard to recruit as the requirements were narrow and unforgiving. Dieter pulled a file in front of himself and the most left screen lit up with the dossier of an Indian boy barely passed his eighteenth birthday. His academics were listed as well as several other parameters. The boy was an off the radar genius as well as a physical prodigy. They had lost two operators at the battle, which was a true blow: Peggy and Laura would be missed. Dieter nodded and spoke,
"Make the preparations to approach him with the standard deal. Gray, I leave it to you. Miss Nigma, how is the plan formulating?"
The super genius shifted in her seat. She had been eying the dossier with a strange look in her eyes,
"Well, finding the location wasn't hard. Hiding massive submerged prisons isn't as easy as it is cooked up to be. Information beyond that... has been more than impossible to find. We'll be flying blind in there." Dieter made an angry sound. Nigma was still one for commenting when unnecessary. Dieter seemed to tolerate it from her when he would reprimand others. In the last two months, Nigma seemed to have climbed SA's organizational structure into a new, if unconfirmed, position of sub-commander to Dieter alone. The woman was impressive. It had been her who suggested the piece of technology now wired into Redcap's head after all. Dieter raised an eyebrow at her,
"Yes yes, quite it with the commentary. Anyway, we have taken what little we could find and formulated a plan that will require my presence to enact but should work. It requires too much tactical flexibility and adaptation for anyone else to do it. As long as the scenario we spoke about is still in play?" Dieter nodded at her then shifted his attention to Redcap who was seated in a posh office with a distinct Asian decor.
The man didn't wait but started to speak,
"The device was installed two weeks ago and has increased my ability to produce my particular brew and refine the recipe a bit. I have a 25% increase in stocks and a 10% yield of the refined product. Increased sales in Macao, Hong Kong, across India, and Singapore. Street level penetration is at all time highs, we are letting many Run Wild and maintaining a few. Penetration of higher level markets is slow. My product is pretty high profile. Nigma has been essential in securing a few, key clients. With the help of SA science a new version of Redcap's drug was on the market. It was diluted and produced a less severe physical reaction while the addiction was even more potent.
Dieter took in the information then nodded,
"Prepare Operation: Atlantis for implementation. Gray, Scarlet, Nigma: your are leading the operations. Mr. Black, continue recruitment. Redcap, prioritize Hong Kong and Singaporean penetration. This meeting will be designated Echo-Lima 1483 and saved in the harddrives here as per usual." Vincent still didn't know why Dieter logged and saved everything in some mysterious place, but it was the signal that the meeting was adjourned. He stood and walked out with his fellows. SA had been recovering, licking its wounds for some time now. It had let the world think that Dieter was incarcerated and had moved slowly. Nigma had put forward a plan to make it look as if they were chaotic and unorganized while the restructuring and resupplying went on quietly in the shadows. But now was the time to strike and remind ITSDA just how hard this war was going to remain for them. among their first tasks was recovering lost assets and maybe even acquiring some news ones from a certain prison.