In media res - INCURSION (All players in Team Bravo)

[Dave Syrinx]

Getting all the way over to Weiss (South edge of 142) the three UBCS and two civilians take ten seconds to breathe. They lay Sanchez down and they secure the stairwell. Collins checks the sample taken from the director. Hale uses the tracker again to get a pin on where Smith´s body is located. "One level up. Next to the McD Restaurant. Grey area. Should be a computer area - controlling the whole mall."

Weiss checks the corners of the stairwell. A small security camera follows him as he moves around. "You sure he´s dead?"

Kim has an access card for the computer area on her key holder.

The viral scanner has completed the sample test. "Sample infected with unknown strain. Abnormal tissue mutation in process. Test inconclusive."

**********************

C.L. and Crawford reaches the parking garage level. They see the shot-up Lamborghini by another emergency stairs door, across the parking area. About forty other cars are parked in the garage. At regular intervals support pillars reinforce this lower level to the upper level. No movement can be seen here. An exit ramp leads up to the street on their left side twenty meters away.

*********************

Larsen and Heather move up the stairs methodically and soon reaches the door to the roof.


Time: 104

[Airbornexo]

"I have an access card for that computer area," she fumbles in her bag and waves her key wallet.

[ImpInTraining]

Collins steps back from Sanchez and asks, "How are you feeling, ma'am?"

He puts the radio ear bud back in and activates the radio to speak to the group, "Be advised... Smith has a case with him. Very dangerous material inside. Dr. Sanchez suggests it be destroyed." He deactivates the radio and speaks his opinion, "I'm inclined to agree."

[Iggy_Pop]

OOC-Syrinx,With the C4, given I am personally not a bomb expert, can I be assured that placing the charge in a single large piece will do enough structural damage to bring down the mall or will I need to split it up and place more smaller charges on structural keypoints such as the support columns?

[Dave Syrinx]

OOC:

Spoiler:

The charge will be sufficient if placed in the approximate middle of the parking garage. (In for instance the 9/11 disaster, the garage level remained intact as the upper floors stacked on top of it.) When demolishing houses, multiple smaller charges are placed to implode the structure -this C4 charge is an U7 batch and it will be sufficent to take the mall down in one charge. Cheers!

[Mr. Handy]

Larsen reloads his MP5, noticing that the magazine is mostly empty. "Stay behind me and watch our backs," he whispers to Heather. Then he tries the door and peers out onto the roof, weapon at the ready.

[Dave Syrinx]

Larsen checks the door topside. It opens easily - unlocked. Heather waits by his side. He peers through a slight crack between the door and the frame. He spots a reflection from a laser sight from a higher location on a distant high rise.

Two floors below-
Dr Sanchez coughs heavily and spits up blood. Suddenly her breathing increases and she exhales abruptly. Then she turns still. The scanner beeps as Sanchez´ profile turns flat line.
The doctor had been living on borrowed time. The drugs induced to her system have caught up with her with a vengeance. Normally, the efforts to save her life would have been sufficient. But these are not normal times.

Weiss starts up the stairs. "This way?" He looks at Kim, Collins and Hale for directions.

Down in the basement-
C.L. plants the bomb in the center of the parking garage. As he flips the switch the Umbrella logo spins alive on a display. Enter code!

[Mr. Handy]

Larsen closes the door again and speaks to the team via his radio: "We're at the top of the stairs at the exit to the roof, but there's someone on a nearby high-rise with a laser sight. If there's one sniper, there might also be more than one. Seems like someone may not intend for us to leave here alive. We need to come up with an alternative way out, just in case. Hale, see if you can locate something with your tracking device. There could be a way into the sewers or something. I'll keep an eye out." He monitors the areas that the other groups are passing through, bringing up multiple windows showing what's on the surveillance cameras. He also brings up the schematics and checks for other potential exits that might not be guarded.

[ImpInTraining]

Collins sighed, "She's gone. With those wounds, reviving her is unlikely." Looking to Weiss, Collins nodded, "You guys move on ahead. I'm right behind you."

He turns his attention to Dr. Sanchez' pockets and checks her for anything of importance before turning away and following along. She had been infected, however, so he is not expecting her to remain down for long. He hoped to be out of there in time not to see her reanimation. In fact, just to make sure, he pulled out his pistol and let loose a couple rounds into her head.

[Dave Syrinx]

At the west stairwell-
Collins fire two rounds from the .50 to the forehead of the dead doctor. The deed is done with no problems.
Meanwhile, Weiss, Kim and Hale move up the stairs and get to the second floor landing. Hale stops to consult the tracking device to find an alternate route out of the building.
She searches for exits and comes up with two possibilities. "There´s the elevator we left in the maintenance room. And the level below the garage...The subway. I think there´s a hidden level between the subway and the garage too. Other than that - it´s just the emergency exits and the normal entry- and exit-ways. Should we need to use the sewers, we could possibly..." She hesitates for a while. "... need to use the garage draining system to get out. It´s larger than the one at the first floor. Every restroom has a drainage but they are too tight to escape through. The water display is wider though. At the entrance, diagonally from the maintenace area towards the main entry... Advice! We´re holding at the second floor landing. On route to the computer centre. Is that plan gone? We´re detonating the bomb and leaving, without the samples? Roger."

Kim realizes these guys are running around like headless chickens.
Airbornexo:

Spoiler:

To get out as fast as possible they should head to the main service intake and use the waste disposal shute to get to a sub level the city´s garbage trucks use to fetch their bins. Away from the public eye. They use a ramp on the other side of the street and would get all of you guys out of this pickle. For a while at least. Down the shute and up the ramp. They´d be on the other side of the street. At least half a problem solved.

The south stairwell-
Pulling the doors shut, Larsen access the laptop. The scematics he gets up comfirms Hale´s suggestions. The drains from the garage, should be the best way through the sewers. But, the bomb will go off right there. However in quite some time...
The subway should be the obvious route. One extra level down. Then straight towards the Hive. The origin point of the virus, and towards the Red Queen.

In the garage-

Crawford surveys the garage, watching for motions. Finding none, she checks C.L.´s progress.

C.L. smiles as he puts the device towards one of the pillars. When he enters the code, suddenly his face turns pale and his smile disappeared in terror. He brushes his hand over his face, looks at Crawford, white in the face. "Guys, Guys! We have a problem ... Apparently I was to set the time of detonation, but it seems that we are being played by Umbrella. The load has been activated since the moment we came here. They don´t give a shit if we live or die! The bomb is going off in 40 minutes. Sorry guys but I can not do anything.2" C.L. lowers his head, a gesture of being defeated. He sits on the floor and checks the magazine to the HK5.

[ImpInTraining]

Collins holsters his pistol and takes up his rifle again, leaving the dead doctor right there where he shot her.

ooc,Apparently, nothing useful in her pockets, right?

He rushes to chase after Weiss, Kim, and Hale, looking over his shoulder a couple times to make sure nothing was on his tail.

[Mr. Handy]

"If Umbrella wants us dead," replies Larsen on the radio, "I'm less enthusiastic about completing the mission. However, those samples might be our only leverage with Umbrella if we do manage to get out of here in one piece. We do have some time before the bomb detonates, but not much. How long do you think it would take you to recover the samples, and how risky would it be? Something must have killed the other director. It's possible he died of earlier wounds, but I wouldn't bet on it. If in your best judgment you don't feel it would be a good idea to go after the samples, then we'll all rendezvous in the garage. Based on how much time we have left at that point, we'll decide whether to take the sewer or the subway route. I don't fancy going into the Hive with the Red Queen determined to kill us, but we may not have a choice. If you decide you are going after the samples, I'll try to meet up with you and join you. Over." He turns to Heather. "Follow me." With that, he leads the way downstairs.

[ImpInTraining]

"Screw the samples," Collins says over the radio. "We don't need this shit leaking out into the general public by accident. That's not something I could live with on my conscience." He asked off the radio, "Which way to the garage?"

[Dave Syrinx]

As the decision to head to the garage is made, Hale clarifies the way to the garage. "Down these stairs again, all the way down." She puts her index finger in front of her mouth. From below, the four of them hear a man muttering. "...none of you is quiet alive, right? Guess not..."
There´s a distinct banging on the doors to the mall, from both this floor and the one below.
The door to the access corridor is shut. Footsteps are heard coming upwards...

Collins: Dr. Sanchez had a key card holder, but it was empty.

[Mr. Handy]

"Roger that," replies Larsen on the radio. "We're heading down to the garage too." He speaks to Heather as he descends. "Stick with me. I'll get you out of here."

[Dave Syrinx]

Meanwhile in the Beehive-

Team Alpha reaches its destination.

Abernathy and Kaplan carefully enter the control room of the Red Queen, a room of glass and aluminum.
Behind them, the automated doors begin to close again. Kaplan looks distraught as the door closes again, but Abernathy urges him to continue. Leaning against a wall, Kaplan accesses his laptop. After a few seconds, a metal column rises in the middle of the room - the central unit of the Red Queen.
Kaplan asks Abernathy to help him and together they begin to add demolition charges around the central unit.

Having just finished priming everything, up pops a holographic image in front of them. It´s a girl of about ten years, formed by beams of scarlet light.
"Out! Get out of here. You can not be here."

Abernathy looks at the image and is hesitant.
"Don´t listen to anything it says..." Kaplan mutters. "It´s a representation of the Red Queen. Modeled after the daughter of the chief programmer."

"You have to leave." The girl continues.

"It will attempt to deceive, to confuse ..." Kaplan says.

"I beg you." The girl implores.

"Beg all you want." Kaplan responds, holding in his hand on the power switch.

The girl turns her face toward them. "All will die down here."

Kaplan pulls the switch and a click followed by a singing electric purr. All the lights go out.

********************

In the mall-

All the emergency lights wink out. From the doors the red lights fade away. A clicking sound can be heard. The only thing visible in the corridors and the stairwells are the flashlights mounted on the HK5 rifles. Weiss who has started downwards towards the voice coming from below flips the beam on. "Hold it!" He scans the stairwell after the source of the voice.

[ImpInTraining]

Collins calls over the radio in the blackout, "Uh guys... just out of curiosity, what happens to the electronic locks to the secured section when the power goes out?" He trains his flashlight and weapon up the stairs behind him to cover the descending group's rear flank.

[Dave Syrinx]

"Fuck!" Hale gasps and rushes up the stairs to the doors. She reaches the doors and jams the HK5 through the loops of the handles. She uses the strap for the rifle to tighten the hold. She unfastens the flash light and beams it upwards. "Guys, are we really heading down there? The locks will have been nullified."

[Mr. Handy]

"Good point," says Larsen as he hurries down the stairs, "but I don't see that we have any choice. Unless you want to take your chances with snipers, our only ways out are through the garage. We just have to move quickly before they can enter the stairwells in large numbers. Be ready, people. It looks like when Alpha Team took out the power in the Hive, it went out here too. They've already run into the Red Queen there according to the data I received on the laptop." He shines the light on his MP5 around as he descends with Heather in tow, prepared for trouble.

[Dave Syrinx]

In the garage-
C.L. reports from the garage. "We´re securing the escalators leading down to the subway. Should be just about between you guys. Moving north east. " Crawford scans the darkness below with the flashlight attached to the HK5. From the bottom of the stairs come two Rottweiler dogs running. They more gnarl than barks and are gaining fast. "Got dogs!" Crawford comments over the radio. "Just great..."´She mutters and quickly checks with C.L. "If we shoot we may attract the infected, right?" She goes for her switchblade and assumes a low point of gravity, waiting for the first dog to arrive. The two dogs take one aisle each, so they arrive simultaneously, almost, to C.L. and Crawford.


The West Stairwell-
The light from Weiss´ flash light hits the man below in the face. It´s the masked suit from the garage.

The South Stairwell-
Having passed the second floor doors Larsen and Heather is about to pass the doors to the first floor when they start to swing open and 10-20 infected mill out in the stairwell. Slipping out of the hold of Larsen, Heather escapes close to the railing and down towards the basement, before Larsen and the sixteen infected customers.

Handy:

Spoiler:

Roll against DEX on a d20 to get past the mob before they get to the two runners (low is good). Should that fail, Larsen and Heather may fire at the attackers. OR back up to the second floor again. Mind that should they be too slow to pass the infected they won´t have the opportunity to ward off all the attackers.

West stairwell