¢ Three flower pots 


Inspection of the area surrounding Site-731 revealed four mass 
graves, believed to date from 1900-1917. These graves contain 
skeletal remains from a variety of animals; however, due to the 
apparent systematic dismemberment of the organisms interred in 


She picked up her beer and took a sip. Not as good as the real 
thing, but then again, it was impossible to find a real Guinness 
anywhere outside of Dublin. 


"So," she asked. "How's the new girl working out?" 


"Spider? Not bad. She's got a lot to learn, but she learns quickly. 
Probably one of the best mages I've had the pleasure of working 
with." 


"Really? Think she'd consider a career in Strike?" 


"Hey, | didn't drag you out of that cave in Argentina so that you could 
headhunt my wizard away from me." 


"As | recall, it was me dragging you out of that cave, not the other 
way around." 


"More like we were dragging each other," Bullfrog chuckled. 


"True, true." Fox finished off the rest of her beer and stood up, 
stretching her arms over her head. "We've got to catch an early flight 
back to Ireland at 0600. Want to join me in my room for a nightcap?" 


"Our flight's at 0400," Bullfrog pointed out. "| should probably get 
some sleep too." 


"C'mon, Bull. It's been months since we last saw each other. We've 
got a lot of catching up to do." The petite redhead smirked at the 
larger man as she ran a finger gently across his shoulderblades. 


Bullfrog smiled. "All right," he said, with a sly, Knowing smile. "One 
drink." 


"Sequence" 
« "Assessment" | Return to GOC Hub | "Special Observer" » 


"Trauma" 


Breach 


"... and then, fifteen minutes later, the Strike Team breached and 
entered,” Bullfrog concluded. "And that was that." 


"Was it?" the woman in the blue sweater asked. 


The big man stared down at the cup of coffee in his hands for a 
long, silent moment. 


"Agent," the woman said. "| want you and your team back in here 
tomorrow morning for another debriefing session. Until then, I'm 
taking you off the active roster." 


"If you feel it's necessary." 
"| do. And Agent?" 
"Yes?" 


The woman in the blue sweater sighed. "Try to get some rest." 


Bullfrog drove straight home to his apartment after the debriefing, 
walking wearily up the stairs with his kit bag over one shoulder. He 
unlocked the door and stepped inside, to find himself surrounded by 
candlelight. The scent of perfume was redolent in the air, which was 
permeated by gentle sounds of smooth jazz music. 


There was a beautiful, diminutive redhead woman sitting on the 
couch. Fox grinned at him as she stretched her arms out over her 
head. "Hey, big guy!" she said, cheekily, sauntering up and taking 
hold of his tie. "I've got a week off, so | thought I'd surprise you!" 


She reached up and tenderly kissed him. 


Bullfrog felt the bile rise. He pushed her away, raced into the 
bathroom, and threw up in the toilet. 


"... sorry," he said later, after Fox had snuffed all the candles, turned 
on the lights, and put on some more sensible clothes. 


"Apology accepted," the Strike team leader said, "provided you tell 
me what the shit is going on, Bull." 


"| don't want to talk about it," Bullfrog insisted. "It's work-related. 
Security clearances and all. Need-to-know basis." 


"Bull," Fox said sternly. "It's me. Kate. I've got the same security 
clearance you've got. And considering that I've flown twelve hours 
from Ireland, not to mention shaving and trimming myself for 
tonight... | think I've got a bit of need-to-know." 


"Kate..." 


"And more than that, Jerry... you look like you've got a serious 
need-to-tell," Fox said, picking up her teacup and taking a sip. "So 
talk." 


There was a long moment of silence before Bullfrog spoke once 
more. "You know | just got back from the field, right?" 


"Yesterday, yeah. Some op downtown? | didn't hear the details, but 
the front-desk guy told me your team had it rough. Which was why | 
thought you could use some cheering up." 


"Yeah. Downtown," Bullfrog muttered. "Luxury hotel. Fancy place. 
We got the call after PALISADE interrupted a really weird 911 call by 
the concierge. They scrambled us, put us in isolation suits, and sent 
us in. The first thing that happened was that this old fat dude came 
after me with a beach umbrella... " 


"Jesus Christ!" Bullfrog shouted, as the old-timer lunged at him with 
the heavy piece of pool furniture. "Calm down! We're the good 


guys!" 


"Get the hell away from me, you commie bastard!" the toothless old 
man screamed. He continued to swing the umbrella at them wildly, 
his shriveled dick swaying gently back and forth with each swing. 
"You'll never take me alive, Ivan!" 


"Skunkboy, tackle him!" Bullfrog shouted. 
"Screw you! You do it! | ain't grabbing that guy!" 


Kitten calmly walked up to the naked old man, caught the umbrella 
in one hand, and casually reached out to punch him in the jaw, hard. 


"Jesus, Kitten! You coulda killed him!" 


Kitten looked down at the unconscious naked old man in her arms, 
checked him for a pulse, and shrugged. "He'll live." 


"Wonder what the hell that was about?" Skunkboy asked. 


"Maybe he had a bad night at the bingo hall," Bullfrog quipped. 


The team stopped laughing when they found the main ballroom. 
"Bullfrog?" 

"Yeah?" 

"Is this hell?" 


"If it's not, it's about as close to it as we're ever going to get," 
Bullfrog grimaced. He leaned down and ran his fingers over the eyes 
of the naked man lying on the floor of the ballroom. His skin had 
been peeled back from every inch of his body and was staked to the 
carpet with sharpened pencils. A severed penis and testicles rested 
next to his head. The bullet wound in the middle of the forehead 
hadn't been there when the team entered the room: Bullfrog had 
done that the moment he realized that the man was still alive (as 
well as removing the man's severed genitalia from his mouth). 


"Skunkboy, toxin analysis?" 


"Nothing | can see." The young man waved the sampling wand in 
the air and studied the readout on his screen. "No psychoactives. 
Lots of adrenaline, blood, shit, urine, saliva... that's expected given 
what we're seeing here. 


Bullfrog looked up at the rest of the conference room. The entire 
place was filled with them: hundreds, if not thousands, of men, 
women, and children in brightly colored vacation garb slumped over 
in death. Here, a young man had grabbed a young blonde woman 
by the throat and throttled her to death before being stabbed in the 
back by another woman with a penknife, who lay on the ground 
lifelessly staring into oblivion, her eyes glased over in death, the 
hem of her skirt stained with shit and piss. There, a forty year-old 
woman had punched a grey-haired man's face before smashing in 
his head with a bar blender. Over there, a young boy sat huddled in 
the corner of the room. His severed arm lay in his lap. 


"Well, if it's not a toxin... Spider, Thaum analysis?" 


"Tending hard Flat, intensity around one hundred kilocaspers... hue 
Sapphire, Tight weave," Spider reported. "Not sure if this is because 
of the sheer number of dead people around here, or what caused it. 
Just to be safe, | recommend we all keep buttoned up. Just in case 
this thing turns out to be cognito or memetic." 


"No arguments there. Kitten? You've been quiet," Bullfrog said. 


"... |say we leave and burn this place down," Kitten said curtly. She 
looked down at a young man slumped in the corner with his arms 
and legs all blown off, checked him for a pulse, then casually, coldly, 
put a bullet in his head. "It's the only way to be sure." 


"It might be better if we just do that. There's no way that any level of 
steam cleaning is going to ever get these carpets sanitary," 
Skunkboy pointed out. "You know what they say about the smell of 
dead bodies." He shifted his weight on the sodden carpet. It 
squelched under his feet. 


"So that's two votes for burning the building down. Spider? Your 


opinion?" 


"Wait one." Spider said. She stared into her computer screen, 
swallowing hard, as she fiddled with her monitor. "Bull? I've uh... I've 
got a lot of VERITAS signatures on the top floor penthouse suite," 
she said. "Looks like we could have a bunch of civilians or hostages 
hiding out there." 


"All right. Let's go rescue them," Bullfrog said. "Find an override, and 
let's get into that penthouse suite." 

"Hey, Bull?" Skunkboy asked on the elevator ride up. 

"Hm?" 

"Doesn't this place get a lot of Japanese tourists?" 

"What are you, a fucking racist? Apologize to Spider." 


"Shit, sorry, Spider, it's not that. It's just that... well, this place gets a 
lot of Japanese tourists this time of year, right?" 


"| think so. Guest register had a lot of Tanakas and Kims in it, yeah." 


"But half the dead guys in that ballroom weren't, right?" Skunkboy 
pointed out. "In fact, | think most of them were white or black or 
hispanic. Isn't that a bit weird?" 


Bullfrog frowned as he rubbed his chin in thought. The reinforced 
glove of his iso suit made a hard, metallic clink against the faceplate 
of his suit. "Spider?" 


"Yeah?" 
"Show me that ARAD reading again." 


Spider passed the tablet computer to her team leader, who cocked 
his head to one side for a moment and stared at the pattern of colors 
and lines on the screen. Suddenly, Bullfrog swore, dropped the 
computer, and thumbed his comms circuit open. 


"Central, this is Sparkplug!" he practically shouted into his mic. 
"We're going weapons free and assaulting the penthouse suite! 
Case Bixby, | say again, Case Bixby!" 


"Fuck!" Skunkboy shouted. He fumbled with his DMR as he 
attempted to rack a round into the chamber. "Fucking shit!" 


"Oh gods," Spider whispered. She began scrabbling through her 
tactical webbing. 


There was a cheerful ding! sound, and the elevator doors opened 
onto... 


The starshells exploded overhead, casting the entire jungle in hard 
white light. Jeremiah felt the cold, hard knotting in the pit of his 
stomach as he saw the gooks in their black pajamas crawling 
through the wire. 


"CARTER" his lieutenant screamed. "Get that Sixty up!" 


He fumbled with the charging rod of his machine gun, finally 
managed to get the weapon locked and loaded. He raised himself to 
the lip of the trench and opened fire, screaming in terror and rage. 
The weapon chattered and scattered hot brass and steel all over the 
red jungle mud as the muzzle flashes lit up the night. 


He could see the gooks falling, he could see them dying, and he 
wanted to laugh at the sight. "Get some, you stupid fucking 
slopeheads!" he screamed. "COME AND GET SOME, YOU 
FUCKING GOOK BASTARDS!" 


He saw the second set of starshells go up, and he saw his lieutenant 
rise up from the trenches, pistol raised over his head, grey-bearded 
face twisted in fury. "ASSAULT THROUGH" the lieutenant was 
screaming. "We got them on the run! Get em'! Put the steel to them! 
Kill those fuckers!" 


Jeremiah rose to his feet and screamed in triumph as he continued 
to fire his machine gun from the hip. He could see his brother 
marines rising up from the trenches, cutting down the fucking VC 


like wheat before the scythe. The machine gun's bolt slammed back 
as the belt ran out: he handed the weapon to his A-gunner and drew 
the .45 from his belt. He fired into the mass of the fleeing, black-clad 
bastards, fury rising in his heart. How dare they! How dare they drag 
Ma Carter's little boy out of his home and take him to this fucking 
stinking jungle? How dare they? 


One of the gooks was screaming at him. He put two into his chest 
and the pistol locked back on an empty chamber. He could see two 
more of his men holding the fucking chink down. He thought about 
reloading his pistol, but it would take too much time. He smacked 
the fucker across the face with the hilt of his gun, knocking that 
stupid straw hat off his face, was surprised to see that the goddamn 
slanthead was a girl. Fucking bitch. Fucking VC whore. 


He remembered poor Hawkins. Good kid. Just turned 18. Hired a 
hooker for his eighteenth birthday. Hooker brought a grenade into 
the tank where they fucked, left it behind. Blew his fucking guts out 
all over the inside of the entire vehicle. Good fucking kid. Nice guy, 
everyone liked him, and he died in the middle of a fucking Saigon 
street because he wanted to get his dick wet for the first time. 
Fucking waste. Fucking gook whores. He'd get this bitch for him. 
He'd do it for Hawkins. 


He could feel the other gooks trying to pull him off. He fought them 
off of him and continued punching the fucking whore in the face. He 
was screaming, he could see the bruises rise... and then she swung 
something at his face, and he could see that it was some kind of 
rabbit foot on a chain... 


And then Bullfrog found himself laying on the floor of the penthouse 
suite, and he was grabbing Spider by the throat. Her face was 
covered in blood and bruises, and her left hand clutched the rabbit's 
foot on a chain she always wore around her neck. 


And Bullfrog screamed even louder. 


There was a sudden scream of alarm, and he spun around to see 
Kitten coldly, methodically, and violently grabbing an old, grey- 
haired man in camouflage by the face and slamming his head back 


against a granite countertop. Her face was a mask of fury as she 
smashed the man's head into a pulp. 


Bullfrog looked around silently at the bloody room, at the men and 
women and children laying in broken, bloody piles on the carpet, at 
the bullet holes riddling the walls and spidering the glass, at his 
broken, bruised, and bloodied teammate, and at the empty box 
magazine of his weapon. 


It seemed to him that it would be a good idea to just go away. 


So he did. It took four large men to carry him out of the room. 


"... Jesus," Fox whispered. Her tea had gone cold, as she sat at the 
breakfast nook, watching Bullfrog tell his story. 


"Yeah," the big man said. He laughed bitterly. "My team is a fucking 
mess. Spider's in the hospital with two broken cheekbones and a 
whole mess of smashed teeth. She's lucky to be alive. Kitten went... 
mechanical. Just kept pounding the guy against the countertop. 
There wasn't nothing left of his head by the end. They had to sedate 
her. About the only one who seemed to get through it okay was 
Skunkboy... at least, that's what | thought before he tried to punch 
me in the face." 


"Lance took a swing at you?" 


"Cussed me out, too,” Bullfrog admitted. "Called me every fucking 
name in the book. Said I'd nearly gotten them all killed. And the 
thing is, he was right." 


"Bull..." 


"No. Don't interrupt me, Kate. | fucked it up." The big man smacked 
his fist into his open palm. "Racial profiling in the targets. That 
meant that whatever the hell was doing this was filtering by race. 
That implies agency. Sapient controller, not an autonomous effect. 
And then there was the VERITAS pattern." 


"Bull..." 


"| should have checked the pattern before we got in that damn 
elevator," Bullfrog went on. "Spider's a newbie. She doesn't have the 
experience in reading VERITAS signatures like | do... like Beagle 
did! She's barely been on the team for a year! She doesn't know 
how to pick out a mindbender. If I'd known there was one up there, 
we would never have gotten in that damn elevator!" 


"Jerry..." 


"And THEN!" Bullfrog shouted. "Me, the fucking DUMBASS, decided 
to breach that fucking room with FOUR Assessment guys! The 
moment | realized we were walking into a fucking mindbender's lair, 
| should have stopped the fucking elevator: slammed the emergency 
stop, called it in, and sent in Strike... but no! | had to BREACH! And 
| sent all four of us in to become that goddamn psychopath's 
playthings!"