[Scenario Seed] Clean Up - a Misfit Mob assignment.

[Catsmate]

Clean Up.

My phone shrieked at 3AM. My work phone that is. Never a good sign.
Oddly it wasn't the Captain on the other end but sergeant O'Neill. He sounded annoyed and tense, which was even more worrying that a work call at this hour.

"We have a job on. A clean up" he said.
"Huhh?", I replied, my natural eloquence dampened by the slow boot cycle of my brain when powered on after less than three hours of sleep.

He now sounded annoyed; "We're needed for a clean up operation. A raid went slightly wrong and UNIT needs some people to hold the site, deal with some stray employees when they arrive for work".
"And maybe move a few bodies", he added.

"Why us", I was irritated. This wasn't our usual line but sometime the Mob is UNIT's dumping ground for crappy problems.

"We're available" was his reply. He then told me where to rendezvous with the rest.
He didn't tell me to bring my go-bag, even I don't need that reminded anymore.

I climbed out of bed, glad for once that Simon was away on business. I sat on the bed and fumbled with my phone,  tapped on an icon and entered a PIN. Then I stumbled to the wardrobe and dragged out the heavy ballistic nylon backpack on the floor. Given that that wasn't followed by an alarm and CS gas I evidently remembered the PIN.

I hauled the bag on my bed and got dressed, no time for a shower.
There was work to do.

Sometimes people meddle with technology they shouldn't and problems happen.
Sometimes UNIT has to intervene. Forcefully.
Sometimes those interventions go wrong. Messily.
Then someone needs a clean-up crew.



To be continued.

[grinch]

They always get the most glamorous jobs, don’t they? Personally, it wouldn’t surprise me if one of the members of the Misfit Mob has experiences in PR or at least had one as a consultant.

After all, you need someone to come up with a credible excuse to the public while the others are sweeping up the remains of deactivated Autons.

[Catsmate]

Part 2
I arrived at the specified location after just over an hour, without too many breaches of the law.
It was a logistics centre in an industrial park, far enough from anywhere for the land to be cheap but with reasonable road links.
I recognised a few of the vehicles outside, most of the Mob has been drafted in. There were five black SUVs, with heavily tinted windows that screamed "Unmarked Government Vehicle", too. No flashing blue lights though.

I could feel being watched as I got off my Duc and walked to the entrance; cameras, sniper, professional 'invisible men'....
Or maybe all three.
The heavy at the door checked my pass and my face, I gave him my best fake smile but he didn't react so I went in. In addition to the sidearm and baton at his belt there was a carbine slung over his shoulder and his LBV bulged. No name patch or insignia on his gear or helmet.
Broadsword.

Inside I saw the Boss, in combat gear, talking to Doctor Horne and two others, one I vaguely recognised, the other was a stranger. She saw me and waved me off. Not surprising, I could almost feel the weirdness in the air, something was still happening.

I looked around the foyer. It wasn't set up for the public, so whatever materials the company (International Specialist Logistics according to the signage) moved must be brought here for sorting and dispatch.

Sergeant O'Neill came out of one of the interior doors with two Broadsword ops in tow. All three were armed for bear. He came over to me while the others went into another door. I counted seven doors visible from where I stood impatiently in my wet leathers. Over he came.
"Evening Chyou, as you see we have a situation on and the team is needed to hold the fort while another raid is organised. I'm afraid Broadsword is stretched tonight".

"That's putting it mildly". The voice came from next to me and I jumped involuntarily. How had she gotten so close without me noticing?
The woman was of average height, short brown hair, tanned skin. She smelled of gunsmoke and death. She had a major's crowns on her uniform and as much hardware as her subordinates.

Captain Sandford came over and acknowledged the major with a curt "Ma'am" before addressing me.
"Parks the situation is this. ISL was a cover for someone meddling with temporal technology, UNIT was tracking the signals intermittently for months. It took that long to differentiate the signature from the background, triangulate and filter it".
She sighed.
"Ninety minutes ago Broadsword moved in and it got rough. ISL was supposed to be a tiny independent company but it had decent security. There are nine bodies in a back room, awaiting collection".
I suppressed the urge to suggest parcelling them up and sending them off. I go smartass when I'm nervous.

"In about an hour the day shift will start arriving. We need to get rid of them without causing a fuss or getting media attention. So the cover story is that the management here was engaged in embezzlement and you're part of the new team from Head Office, staff will be put on paid leave for a few weeks and told to go home".
I got the distinct impression that I wasn't being told the whole truth. Most of UNIT isn't as open about information sharing as the Mob.

The major spoke, "We've taken six prisoners off-site for interrogation, there are two more downstairs with the.....device. Other than them, and a couple of my people you'll have the site to yourselves for the next twelve hours at least".

The boss resumed, "The device they were working on in the basement appears to be a form of Barrlyght Oscillator. And it's running. Worse, it's holding a temporal standing wave".
I winced. The oscillator was a dangerous bit of Edwardian technology, and easy to build contraption that offers the potential for easy time travel. It rarely works well, but often creates temporal weirdness. Maybe the impression I got wasn't just my nerves.
"Doctor Horne will attempt to deactivate the device, or at least stabilise it until specialised assistance can be arranged".

For the first time since I entered the building I spoke, "Oh joy, several hours on top of an unstable time machine".
The captain smiled without humour, "ISL is connected to Rubicon Technologies, so that's where Major Purcell and her Broadsword team is headed".
Well, well, that's a name that even someone as junior as me has heard off. Oft suspected of breaches of the Resolution but never convicted.
I wondered if a short-sell on their stock would be considered unethical....

"OK boss I brought my Corporate Executive costume with me, so I'll grab my gear and get changed and set up". I had my full kt with me, three days worth of emergency supplies and more.

"Put your bike around the back of the small building on the east side", Major Purcell gestured with her thumb as she spoke, "it'll be out of sight of visitors".

I nodded and headed out. After moving my bike and covering it from the rain I hauled by go bag, suiter and computer backpack inside.

[Catsmate]

Part Three.

Twenty minutes later and I was all set. Hopefully. Sitting behind the reception desk, over-dressed for the part in an business suit and low heels that cost over five grand and look it. Perception isn't everything but it helps, and I'm supposed to be an annoyed senior manager dealing with matters, and people, far beneath her.
Hopefully all the active participants in the insanity underneath me are either dead, in custody or running and the staff due to start arriving soon are what the seem, not-quite-minimum-wage worker drones. The probably are.

But "probably" isn't enough in this business so I have a suppressed Glock 26 loaded with heavy hollowpoints under the counter, alongside the chronal radiation counter to see if they're contaminated.
Though given the semi-regular spikes from the display that could be difficult to tell.

I considered the rather hurried briefing that I'd been given. A not uncommon story; brilliant researcher determined to prove her peers wrong and her theories correct despite academic resistance. An offer of funding from a mysterious source, she may have even believed it was official. A quiet base of operation with a cover story.
And now Doctor Sanna Griffith was dead, with eight others. Four in hospital, two of them UNIT.

I had few regrets for her death, given that the pattern of disappearances of staff from ISL was one of the two oddities that attracted our attention in the first place. At least eight, too many for security breaches so she was using human test subjects.
Not surprising, Barrlyght had killed at least six people himself in his later days and left a hell of a mess in Glasgow to be cleaned up. Something about the oscillator seems to drive people mad, though the doc says it doesn't actually damage the brain.
There were still temporal hotspots around the university today.

In addition to the disappearances UNIT had noticed an unusual, if weak, Artron energy signal. It took time to differentiate this from background effects, triangulate and then localise it. A ‘sniffer’ equipped verti pinpointed it to an operation run by a logistics company yesterday. No, the day before now.

In the back offices the company’s computers are offline and being systematically ripped apart by Alex and Rachel.
The Captain is supervising a physical search, with  Julie, Caspian and Malyk; Sadie is speed-reading, looking for clues while Percy and Hugo are scanning through the files.
Dem is prowling, looking for whatever is hidden. So far he's found three caches of weapons and two of cash, plus a box of personal belongings that seem to match our disappeared. And a few more.
Eugene is lurking close enough to me to provide back-up if needed. If only to loom menacingly as he does so well. Or flash a warrant card.
If that fails, well he's got a baton, stun-gun and a bigger pistol than me.

Down in the basement the doc, Angela and Daisy are busy dealing with the oscillator. Hopefully before something finds it and pops out.
I look around and reassure myself that the strips of duct tape that cover the bullet impacts are almost unnoticeable.

I have a good cover story for the worker drones; the previous management were engaged in embezzlement ( I considered smuggling but that might suggest police interviews to come) and are now either under arrest, fired or missing.
I’ll be offering them a reasonable pay-off for a couple of weeks off-work for the "investigation". Thanks to Alex we have over two million pounds to play with, and no need to account for it to UNIT yet, plus Dem's pile of cash. But too much corporate generosity tends to breed suspicion and interest. And social media posts.

The repeater screen for the outside camera shows movement, someone's coming. I tap the radio headset and murmur "Curtain time".

[Catsmate]

Part Four.

Even before the trio walking across the tarmac had gottten within fifty metres of the door the AI through which the camera feeds were running had recognised their faces from the employee ID database and pulled up a datasheet for each on my tab.

• Catherine Cotton, age 26, single mother, one minor conviction for affray.
• Justin Matthams, age 21, unattached and with no known offspring. Several minor drugs offenses and the PolInt database had him flagged as a very minor figure in the local drugs scene.
• Dion Pugh, age 43, recently widowed with three children. No criminal record but her former husband had plenty. The PNC noted that she'd been questioned regarding the circumstances of his death
  
  

All three were in what’s politely called ‘straitened circumstances’ and needed the job and it’s regular income, not least to keep the DWP happy. Hopefully the prospect of a few weeks of unpaid leave with the promise of a job afterwards would silence any questions about what was going on.

Matthams would be the one to be careful with, he might be tricky.
The ISL record on him had a confidential page that noted he may have been stealing small packages and that he was overly curious about the processes for international shipments. The former security officer speculated that he's taken the job to examine the site for either a robbery or an attempt at drugs smuggling.
I sighed, as if we didn't have enough problems. Common criminals too.


Behind and too my left Sergeant O'Neill coughed discreetly, reminding me, as if I needed it, that he was there. Just in case.
He spoke, "Got you  story ready Chyou?".
I snorted and replied, "Of course I do".

The door opened, with Cotton entering first and then Pugh, while Matthams held the door.
The trio slowed noticeably when they saw me, a new face, and processed the way I was dressed.

Game time.

"Good morning", I spoke. It's always wise to initiate things, basic psychological dominance.
"I'm Janice Marriott and I'm from ISL head office. I'm afraid this office is closed for a while. Apparently your previous boss, James Standish, and some of his colleagues were engaged in a fraud. We have the police and accountants in, checking things over. So operations here are suspended for the immediate future".

Words carefully chosen to imply a temporary shut-down. In all probability the company was toast, unless a sell-off could be arranged somehow. But that really wasn't our problem. We needed time to deal with the thing downstairs.

"I know you're probably a bit shocked at all this. However we take our responsibility to our employees seriously, and after all this isn't your fault. So you'll continue to be paid until matters are resolved. Your benefits will also continue".

"Oh" was all that Pugh said. She seemed a bit shocked.
Pugh on the other hand seemed more shocked. "Fuck, mister Standish was up to something?"
I replied, injecting a mix of regret and disappointment into my tone, "I'm afraid so".
I sighed, "it seems like he and a couple of the other management staff were engaged in systematic embezzlement on a serious scale. The police, and our own accountants are investigating".

"But the company is safe?", Pugh spoke. She seemed concerned. Not surprisingly, given her age and lack of marketable skills another job as well paid as this would be difficult for her to find. Perhaps impossible.

"Oh yes" I lied brightly. "ICL is a large company and this....issue is just a blip".
They'd find out about the connection to Rubicon eventually, and the raids starting in a few hours would be too large to hide in the era of mass communications.
But we needed time to manage matters.

"Now if I could ask you to fill out and sign these", I picked up three of the clipboards from the desk beside me and passed them over. "Just to cover us for HR purposes you know".
I took the forms Alex had printed off, pre-filled with the employee details and found the ones for Cotton, Matthams and Pugh and handed them over.

Matthams remained silent, and watchful, and that was beginning to worry me. That was not the behaviour I expected from his bio.
But Cotton spoke and interrupted my thoughts.
"This says I'll be on exceptional leave for up to three months. And I'm getting paid more than I usually do".
I spoke, willing her to accept it and leave, "That's to cover us in the event that matters take longer to sort out than we think at the moment. the shutdown should only take a week or too but you know HR types, always careful. You're being paid at a rate based on averages over the past, again HR determined it".
Ah, HR, the perfect excuse for anything.

I decided to poke her very gently, "I can ask for someone from HR to contact you to discuss matters if you like".
As I'd expected this had the desired effect. She rapidly backtracked, "Oh no, there's no need to bother anyone. I'm sure they're very busy".
I injected a sigh into my voice as I spoke, "Yes, I'm afraid they are".

Matthams spoke for the first time, "I never thought Standish was the sort to do anything dodgy. Seemed too...,well, corporate. But you never can tell."
I smiled wryly, "No you really can't tell what someone will do".

While they filled the forms, I tapped at my tablet. Then Matthams spoke again.
"What about our stuff, you know in the lockers?", he asked.
I was prepared for this.
"Unfortunately the police are still in possession of that part of the building and they control access. Do you have anything important there?"

He shrugged, "Eh, not really, just a few odds and ends. Spare clothes and stuff. But I'd like to get them."
I didn't want him wandering around back there, even escorted. There were signs of s fire-fight that hadn't been camouflaged.
"Well I can ask one of the officers to bag up your locker's contents and get it for you? Would that be OK".

There was a just perceptible delay as he thought about what was in his locker. But evidently there was nothing incriminating as he agreed.
I spoke to the other two, "Do you ladies want your stuff too?"
Pugh agreed but Cotton wasn't interested in hers.

I picked up the desk phone and tapped 18 for the extension in the office that we'd agreed to use. When it was answered I spoke, "Excuse me inspector, there are some employees here who'd like the contents of their lockers, as they'll be  at home for a while. Now I know they can't get in there themselves, but could one of your officers empty the lockers for them?"
The boss was on the other end, "Sure, I'll send O'Neill, get their keys. Any problems?"

A silly question, and unlike her, she must be getting frustrated.
"No, thank you very much".

I asked Pugh and Matthams for their locker keys, and two bunches were passed over. I took them back and gave they to O'Neill. He opened lockers 41 and 19 and rapidly emptied their contents into a pair of sturdy bin bags, which he handed to me with a grin. He put the bunches of keys down on a table and rand a scanner wand over them while I watched the reception camera feed on my tab.
You never know when copies of someone's keys will come in handy....

I took the keys and the bags back out reception and handed them over. I took the clipboards with the filled out 'HR' forms and put them on the desk

I handed over business cards with my assumed name, the ICL logo, and contact details. Jim Rockford eat your heart out. Compact micro-printers and embossers are very handy. And the phone and email work too, though it's an IA behind them.

"Again I'm sorry for this but hopefully everything will be sorted soon and you'll be back at work".
I injected just a tinge of dismissal into my voice and it worked. After handshakes the three left, with Cotton and Pugh gossiping about the turn of events.
Matthams remained thoughtful. Outside he paused to look around for a moment but headed off towards the main road and the bus stop. He was pulling his phone out as he left.

I tapped the headset in my right ear, "Alex it might be wise to monitor Justin Matthams' phone. I got a vibe off him".
She replied cheerfully, "Checking up on him? Looking for a date are you?"
I snorted, "Not my type. But he was far too quiet and thoughtful for my liking".
"OK, one dubiously legal phone tap it is" she replied.

I sighed and checked the radiation counter. It hadn't registered much beyond background but the sensors on the clipboards had. Small elevated levels for Pugh and Cotton but notably higher for Matthams. Perhaps he'd been nosing around where he shouldn't.

Oh well not really my problem, yet.
The tablet chimed and checked the camera to see the next group arriving.

[Catsmate]

Part Five.

I sighed and it turned into a yawn. I was tired and rather bored. Join UNIT and protect Earth from the scum of the Universe.
Of course no-one ever actually said that. But most of our work was boringly commonplace, investigations, administration, liaison meetings and the ever present cover-ups. Blended with a soupçon of bowel loosening terror involving collapsing pocket universes, marauding cyborgs, temporal echoes and similar oddities.

And sewers, they seemed to be an ever-present element of life too.
Maybe I was getting cynical in my old age. I’ll be 25 next year.

Things were going pretty well. I’d successfully fobbed off nineteen people with our cover story. Several of them seemed to be less surprised than might be assumed; they’d probably suspected something was going on.
One had been nervous to the point of twitching when spoken to and had the highest chronon signature of any of them. He was currently in a quiet room talking to Malyk and the Captain about what he’d done and seen.

Suddenly my headset chirped and Hugo’s gravelly voice spoke into my ear “Heads up we have police incoming”.
Bugger. What was up?
I checked the display, no sign of anyone, I headed in back where the break room had become an impromptu headquarters.

“What’s up?” I asked, “why are the cops getting involved?”
Hugo replied, “One of the managers had a partner who got worried when he, ah, didn’t return last night or this morning. Apparently they have, had, holiday plans for later today”.
And he’s not likely to call her because he’s currently a bullet shredded corpse in an impromptu morgue.

“She called his phone but didn’t get a reply”, Alex continued, “because it was damaged in the gunfight”. She displayed a late model smartphone. Evidently Gorilla Glass doesn’t stop a 5.7mm bullet.

“Why didn’t she call here? Or the police?” I asked. “I’ve heard no calls”.
“One of the Broadsword team arranged to have the incoming landlines diverted to Marianne”, said Captain Sandford with a grimace, “And didn’t inform us”. She disliked inefficiency and mistakes, especially when she had to fix them.

Double bugger. The AI is good but not good enough to fool someone with detailed knowledge. Right.
“We need to know exactly what Marianne told the partner, uhm, what’s her name?” I asked.
Alex replied staccato, “Her name is Bree Easton, US citizen, 32, works in publicity, was involved with Adyan Trejo, now deceased. He was a physicist.”

“I’m getting a dump of the conversation from Marianne” Alex paused as she listened to the calls on her headset.
“OK, she sounds concerned when she’s talking to the cops. Ah…”, there was a pause in Alex’s flow as she, I assumed, digested Easton’s supposed calls to here.
“Yep, the AI wasn’t given the details and Easton wasn’t fooled. She sounds very pissed. I wouldn’t be surprised if she heads here in person”. Alex referred to her tablet, “Luckily she’s at her place over three hundred klicks from here”.
“Or about three hours away”, Daisy pointed out.
“No, she was there when she called the police an hour ago. I’ll get a real-time track on her phone” Alex tapped away for a moment and spoke “She’s on the motorway and moving fast. ETA is less than two hours, she’s moving fast”.

Too fast I thought and then had an idea, “Can we get the traffic cops to stop her? Speeding, dangerous driving or something?”
The Captain inclined her head and nodded, “Julie, get on to the CMPG¹ liaison and fix it. Discreetly”.
“OK, I’ll suggest she’s may be involved with a major fraud and might be attempting to flee the country. With luck the highways people may find something to hold her on”, Julie replied, and pulled out her phone.

“Right, said Captain Sandford, “That’s one problem sorted, for a while. Now for the actual police”
My tablet chirped and I looked at the screen. A marked police car was heading in the gate.
“Boss, they’re here, one car. ETA is less than one minute”, I warned her.

"Fuck", The Captain can compress an amazing degree of annoyance into two syllables.
"OK, Chyou back on the desk. Greet our visitors and bring them in to me"

I nodded and headed back to reception. More complications...











1. Central Motorway Police Group