Orena, Royal Palace
The huge bedroom was empty and barely lit - the only light came from a small lamp standing next to a laptop on a desk, squeezed in the corner of the opulent room almost as an afterthought. The plush carpet bore the marks of a child living there - blocks scattered around, with various noisy and colorful toys between them. The bed wasn't made, there was dust slowly gathering on the ancient cupboards and other furniture.
Paul was sitting near that desk - the only clean one - working on his laptop. Lots of paperwork managed to accumulate itself during the time when he was worrying about his daughter and spending most of the day at the hospital with Agatha.
Not that doing the paperwork helped. Paul always seemed a calm man - some even thought unnaturally so. But in reality, he simply quashed anger and bottled it up, untill it could find a release of some sort.
The door opened slightly, letting in a sliver of light. A lithe silhouette of an aide slipped in.
"Sire?", she said cautiously. The King surprised her, by bolting upright from his chair.
"Did they find him? Did they find the bastard?!"
"Uh...no, sire. It's the former president of the USCR..."
Paul felt an icy spike grow inside his heart, "Yes?"
"He died an hour ago, sire. We just received a note from the embassy..."
Paul sighed, surprising his aide once again. He put the chair upright and sat down heavily, saying nothing.
"Sire?", the aide said, breaking the heavy silence.
Paul motioned heavily, "Draft a letter of condolence and send it to Stasograd. See to it that I attend the funeral..."
He turned back to his laptop, seemingly unmoved, "And leave me."
The aide closed the door and left. Paul opened another document, his hand shaking. The computer spit out an error message and hung up.
With a scream of rage, the King grabbed his computer and smashed it against the wall.
Cairo Regional Common Air Defence Control Centre
"Station one requesting supervisor, sir"
The officer of the watch nodded to his assistant and walked out into the floor. He found the correct station in the cavernous room, filled with Japanistani electronics equipment - and operators.
Station one was charged with monitoring a CATO carrier battlegroup performing excercises some two hundred miles off Egyptian shores.
"What is it, sergeant? Everything seems normal."
"Please see here...", the operator swiftly called up a replay of radar tracks, and pointed to a single airplane, identified early as a Shinra P-3C, "...two minutes ago..."
The contact enlarged slightly, then slowly returned to its former radar cross-section. The officer thought about it for a minute, then made a decision.
"Must've been a system error. Disregard it."
"Shouldn't we send a fighter in to check?"
The officer glared at his subordinate. He should've just confirmed the order.
"No. Enter a system glitch into the log."
"I still think..."
"What possible threat could a single P-3C be? Carry out the order, sergeant."
Three hours later, Nippon Telegraph And Telephone server hub #32, outside Cairo
"Hi.", the shadow said, after locking the man's arm behind his back. The knife's blade touched the victim's skin ever so lightly - just enough for the man to know it's there.
How come I didn't see the goggles?, thought Agio Arakida, NT&T maintenance technician - Fiszerski's first victim that night. He went out to the second floor balcony to have a smoke, and a little break from his shift supervisor - and somehow, the man managed to surprise him there.
Twenty metres above a heavily patrolled courtyard. What the hell?
"Uh...hi", he managed to groan in response when his tormentor applied pressure to a certain part of his hand, "What...what do you want?", he added, in Japanistani.
To his surprise, the man had no trouble answering in his own language, "If I wanted to get someone inside the building, how would I do that?"
"What?", Arakida spat, only to receive a spasm of pain in reward.
"I think that was a pretty straightforward question."
"Uh...you'd need to...bypass the guards..."
"Okay. How do I do that?"
"There's a biometric check, and you need a photo ID..."
"Well, we won't need to bother with that. How many guards?"
"Three dozen on duty at any one time...they patrol the courtyard and perimeter fence."
"I see. The fence is probably loaded with sensors?"
"Uh...yes..."
"Where are they operated from?"
"They're routed through a separate internal network, ending in the main control room."
"Thank you. You've been very helpful."
Before he could reply, Arakida's world went black.
Result:
NINJAS!
