"Enough," Peterson said. "I didn't invite you here to fuck around and--"

Void had a smug little grin on his face, Stardust looked about ready to snipe him through the eyeball, and ET found himself wishing to god that he'd just gotten himself suspended when Captain Ong had come calling. He could have been four shots into his happy place back at Midwest Multibar and Grill, or shooting the shit with Andrew and his wife. Instead, he was playing babysitter to a bunch of people who could kill him as easily as blink at him.

All this for a fucking dick measuring contest between Houdini and a walking plasma storm. ET reached out with a sudden vehemence, and before he knew what was happening, he'd sent an executive order down the nightclub's throat. TONDE collapsed. A sudden failure in the power management system sent sparks sizzling across the dance floor's lights. The music crashed altogether, and every light except the one above their table went out in a crackle and a hiss. The robot-controlled bar spun into a haywire fit, shattering the glass bottles on the countertop. Every tuxedo-clad server drone in the building screeched once, and then dropped, lifeless, to the floor.

"Look," he hissed, and pointedly reached out to Stardust's hand holding the book. He plucked it out of her fingers, and leaned back stiffly. "I don't think we have a fucking choice here. We'll have to try and raid Carolex. But it is three in the god. Damn. [i]Morning.[/i] Since nobody seems willing to contribute to the mystery of why we almost died, I'd like to get some sleep." The caffeine in his veins would not make that easy, but he was determined and foolhardy. It'd work.

Peterson's carefully crafted face of neutrality slipped as the chaos unfolded around them. His eyes flicked from ET to Tower to Stardust, then back to ET. The four of them were now quite alone in the room. The man's eyes slid down to a ring on his finger, and he relaxed somewhat, but nodded. "Two doors down the street, there is a hotel that I use. Excellent service. I'll put in a request for you all to get separate rooms. Should be ready by the time you get there. We'll reconvene at A Morning Cup in eighteen hours. Will that be enough?

ET did the math. Nine PM. "Yeah. That'll work." He stood, then paused and glanced at Tower and Stardust. "Look," he said. "This is not ideal. If y'all disappear overnight, I won't blame you. I'm gonna see this through, though. For Addison." [i]And so that Captain Ong doesn't excommunicate me.[/i] He left without waiting for them.[hr]
"Captain, what the fuck have you sent me into here?" He folded his hands in front of him and looked down at the smartDesk in his hotel room. Captain Ong's impassive face looked back at him. He'd just finished recounting everything that had happened, including his probable breach of cover in the nightclub. It wasn't like either of them had actually expected him to keep the cover of being non-powered. It would have come out eventually. But still, maybe they wouldn't notice.

ET snorted. Right.

"Turner, your guess is as good as mine." A shiver of emotion flashed across Ong's face, and she brought a hand to her forehead. "A missile? A coverup? [i]Carolex?[/i] You know I can't give you a green light for that, right? Not only are you out of your jurisdiction, we put you under an assumed identity. If it gets out that a MCPD officer was going on raids across the country--" she held up a hand as he opened his mouth. "Look, I'm not arguing the importance. This is a secure channel, isn't it?"

ET nodded. One of his many talents: totally secure, end-to-end-encryption that only he could process properly. Ong smiled tightly. "Right. You almost got nuked out of existence, and clearly whatever was in that bunker was worth risking another regional war between corpos. I just can't given you an official go-ahead. Do whatever you can. I'm not ordering you to, and you can come back if you want. I don't think it's worth the risk, but you're already there. Just know that if it goes south, nobody will be able to cover for you. Remember those old Mission Impossible movies?"

"Yeah." They'd been an old precinct favorite.

"That's you now." Ong nodded curtly, then cut the link.

[hr][center][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaVv-vKh6Ac]P R E L U D E   T O   L A R C E N Y[/url]
CURRENT DATE -- 24/05/2047, ~9 PM[/center][hr]
A Morning Cup was, ironically, another nightclub, though it was more accurately a jazzhop-bar. It was infinitely more white-collar than TONDE, being near the industrial complexes populated by infinitely more white-collar employees. Having rested, shaved, eaten, hydrated, and not had any alcohol through sheer muscle force of will...ET liked the place.

He settled down at an outside table, waving away a pretty, young waitress with an easy smile. She actually blushed, and for the first time in days, ET felt almost like a man, instead of a sleep deprived lagoon monster.

[color=7ea7d8][i]Honey, you are [b]always[/b] a man.[/i][/color] Gabbie's voice was thin, refracted through ice. She and Dave were parked near the Carolex Industrial complex in one of the apartment lots. It was public parking, and they had the cloaking engaged. ET had figured it would be safe enough to keep them there.

He'd been the first to arrive, but he liked being punctual. It was time to get this show on the road.