[color=green]The City hums with an odd sense of electricity. Members of The Flock bergin to encircle in the skies, sending lightning down in brilliant, jagged arrays, one of the few beautiful natural phenomena leftover from the fall of the Earth, appropriated by the creatures conscripted to be at odds against the City's denizens. Time and space seemed to distort, hazily, and where the epicenter of the activity was, the sky above seemed to shimmer an unnatural hue in comparison to the City sky's usual faded blue complexion, a color that could arguably be considered a shade of green, perhaps turquoise. The buildings beneath the halo began to shift uncontrollably, in odd positions and at odd angles. The decor, like empty newspaper stands, traffic lights, and streetlights began to shift, too, replaced in strange and sometimes implausible places, like on the walls of the buildings. Even parts of the ground had shifted, moved, even hovered, positioned almost as if in mid-fall, far above the City ground. Then, in a single instant, all the unnatural anomalies in the City corrected themselves, an action that the City rarely cares to do unless it wants a street to look unassuming. The decor, ground, and buildings, tossed about haphazardly as if pushed to the sides to make way for some new piece of scenery. The ground that had levitated fell in an instant, crumbling against the ground and, in seconds, being absorbed into the street itself, refilling the craters it left behind. The only thing left were the crows, the glow, and the new addition to the City intersection.

In the center of the intersection lay a grate, such a shade of sterling silver as to stand out against the rest of the scenery like a shining gem. In the center of one of the edge was a pronounced handle, through which the hatch would lift, allowing those who came across it to descend. This was the site of a Cache, and given the amount of redecorating and changing that had occurred, it was immense. From the corners, shadows moved and watched with pinpoint eyes and grinned with slit smiles in an almost grotesque anticipation. In one of the windows came a steady [i]crk-crk-crk[/i] as something not quite fully human shambled its way. Slit purple eyes, not quite catlike but not quite serpentine as well, glowered out over the City, coming to rest on the grate, knowing its purpose and the creature's purpose for being brought there. It would do its duty well.

The Cache is located almost the exact same distance from Sectors Three and Nine, although the window of opportunity while the surrounding buildings and people relocated by the will of the City would cause any such action to be a gamble on when exactly they would get there.[/color]

---

Bertram Connelly saw the halo of green, felt the disturbance, and watched as the erratic lines of lightning danced across the sky. He knew what had happened even before the crooning blares of of one of the walkie-talkies began, and a voice, high and squeaky came out. "Councilman," the voice came crackling, "A Cache has been formed within 24 blocks of the northern edge of our Sector.

Bertram closed his eyes, sat back, and mulled. While to an outside observer it would seem he was dozing at an inopportune time, in reality he was filing through an endless cavalcade of candidates on Retrieval teams, but almost all of them were out scavenging in lesser caches, and all of them were between ten to twenty two blocks in a southeastern direction, hunting down a cluster of smaller Caches formed not even two days before. There were very few candidates he could select from quite in time, although he knew some wandering City mercenaries may be amicable enough to do the job for a cut; however, he wasn't so sure if this was the route they were supposed to go. The mental rolodex was filed, and other than politicians, repairpeople, medics, and a number of non-combatative jobs, he could name the number of Retrievers in the Sector at the present time on one, maybe two hands, and everyone listed was either injured and still on leave or hopelessly inexperienced for a job of this magnitude.

"Sir?" crackled the voice again. Bertram grunted, hoisting himself forward and pressing hard with his ring finger on the talk button of the walkie-talkie.

"I read you," replied Bertram. He paused for only a half-second more, and said, "I don't know anyone we have on-hand that we can send out on such short notice."

"But, sir, if Sector Three gets to this Cache--"

"I know," Bertram replied, slowly resigning to the inevitable conclusion, the only possible conclusion. "We'll have to assemble some sort of team quickly. At this point we only need one, maybe two combat experts in the group. The rest would only necessarily be support of some kind, and extra hands to haul more equipment."

"Sir... we can't possibly allow that."

Bertram grunted, "In any other time, in a better economy, when we're not in danger of annihilation, I would ignore this Cache or send in my best and, if my best weren't on the line, I would have some choice words for the City and let the damn treasure hole rot. But we need this Cache. I'll send out an open request. Hopefully we can get people together. Otherwise.." Bertram stopped. he wasn't going to finish that train of thought for the person who surveyed his cooperation as the Councilman in charge of Retrievers. [i]'Otherwise, I'm going to have to get out of this nice comfy chair and have to go back out there.'[/i]

The surveyor, much to his surprise and chagrin, seemed to already guess the line of thought Bertram was going by, and replied, "Sir, no Cache is worth that much to this Sector."

"...you're right," Bertram said, his voice weary. "You're right. You got me. Just please send out the recruitment request to the people. Maybe some people will be crazy enough to give this line of work a shot." The voice quickly affirmed and carried out Bertram's decisions, leaving the middle-aged former mercenary alone in his office, with no radio blaring and no thoughts in his head but the one that would not let itself go. He knew that whatever was inside the Cache, it was meant to be a catalyst, brought there by the City. But no matter the outcome, the City's end result would be the same. He knew the truth. He knew how valuable that Cache really was. And he wouldn't be standing on the bylines watching war break out.