Safe Dimension 001-----

Building 013, Residential Zone

Four people sat in a haphazard circle looking blankly at what the fifth person had just said. The only other person in the room did not seem to be part of the conversation and continued to play a game on the computer in front of him.

Rashida spoke first, "Are you going to say that the rumour is true or what? This is complete bul..............."

Gemma chimed in next,"Seriously? You dragged us all the way here for this? Do you like playing ..................."

Tut eventually gained enough mental clarity to start asking, "What are you guys talking about? What's so special........."

Only Bink remained silent and seemed to to be looking at the the isolated gamer with a weird expression, which was saying something, because Bink had spent a lot of time developing his poker face. Eventually, he turned his full attention to Azisa who sat there smiling at all the bickering.

He finally held up his hand and three streams of bickering stopped at the gesture.

He looked at Bink for a moment before saying, "Thats fair, I guess, So here's what I'll do. I will give you a quick briefing on the on the rationale and background of this division and then I will ask you one last time whether you're interested or not."

Rashida immediately asked, "And what if we decide not?"

He replied,"Why nothing bad of course. Ok, maybe a little bit. We'll just wipe half a year's worth of memories and put you into a dead-end assignment."

That shut her up. thought Tut. He was still smarting all over. He kept sending glares at both females whenever he remembered what had just happened to him. But he was much more curious about the topic of their discussion and said, "So tell us already."

Azisa looked off into space and started speaking,

" For the last year, give or take a few weeks, many squads sent for a variety of objectives and responding to many threats have been red-lit at the last possible moment of their mission. This has always been a result of a directive from their superiors ordering them to stand down. Many members of these teams have felt unsatisfied with these proceedings, as they have been putting in quite a lot of prep work only to see the actual mission not materialize.

Eventually, many of the team leaders had an impromptu conference about this and found a superior who would give them the time of day. He told them that in every case of being red-lit at the last moment,he and the other superiors had been ordered by their bosses to hold back the team as Counter Intel had been sent into the same mission. As the team leaders looked at each other in disbelief, the superior also added that every such mission had been a complete success with zero complications.

By the way, that superior is now on a desk job in the sanitation department.

All of which has led to a idea that has been floating around about a division named Counter Intel which has been sniping various missions. A division whose' members have never been seen till now. Many teams have tried to find out if these rumors are true but failed to find anything of note. And that, dear Tut is why Gemma and Rashida reacted this way."

Tut looked at the two women in a questioning manner. Gemma said, "Three of my missions." Rashida added, " Six of mine."

"Long story short, It's mostly all true except the members never being seen."

They waited as he paused for a moment.

"There were no members. It was just one person. I haven't seen him either, apparently he's going to be my boss and I will be your team leader."

"NO, STOP, you mean all those mission were sniped and completed by one person? Stop bullshitting!" Gemma exclaimed as she stood up. "Those missions needed loads of prepwork........." She paused as she considered the information she had just been given.

"I think what he's saying is that this guy used the prepwork laid by the teams to complete the missions, right?" Rashida spoke slowly.

"Actually no, you didn't think it through, the prepwork the teams laid were for teams, not for solo operatives. No, this person did everything alone; more often using a completely different plan"

Rashida sucked in deep breath as she considered the few missions she had lost to the rumored Counter-Intel. Even with her abilities, most of them had been extremely difficult, but to say that one person completed them alone and without any complications. Her natural curiosity began to burn deep inside her.

She hesitantly asked, "So if we join, will we have access to the mission reports?"

Azisa chuckled, " Not likely as this folder is here has all the paperwork produced by Counter-Intel over the last year." as he brought out a 3-inch thick folder from behind the sofa.

Tut cleared his throat and queried,"How many missions?" thinking about how big individual mission reports used to be from his previous assignments.

Azisa gave him a look and said, "Numbers don't mean much but, its 394 mission over 376 days. Aaaand that's all the background I got. The only other information I got was the rationale and that I got through a chat box from him." and jerked his thumb towards Ron.

They all glanced at Ron before looking to Azisa again and Tut asked,"So what is the rationale?"

"Before I explain it, let me ask you, what is the number one rule for our operatives?"

There was a brief pause before Tut answered, "Don't involve civilians?"

"Correct, and our second objective?"

Rashida responded,"Complete the mission's objective is, of course."

"Right. And as you all know, our opponents have no such restrictions. They often use civilians to change the rules as and how they please. This has been a major point of vulnerability for us throughout our history and only one elder I know is able to acknowledge that this might be a mistake in our philosophy. However, he is not enough to change this protocol and so this division has been created to experiment and test the viability of another protocol.

The idea is simple enough, we change the priorities."

There was utter silence in the room, apart from the clacking of the keyboard.

"Specifically, our first rule will be to complete our assignment as a primary objective. The second rule is to be attempt to reach absolute discretion. How we choose to do so is up to us. The third rule is to prevent civilian damage as far as possible. That's pretty much it."

Gemma was trembling with rage as she considered these rules. She spoke in cold, low voice," If you think, I'm going to disregard people who could be saved instead of doing the mission, you are sorely mistaken."

Azisa calmly replied,"I'm sorry you feel that way but now I WOULD like to rely on numbers just a little. May I ask if anyone here knows about the Crunchers division? No? Well, they are very small division of just three people who report directly to the Head of Grey Matter. They do statistics. Apart from the six of us here, the rumored Counter-Intel operative and the Head of Grey Matter, nobody else knows about this venture. So what the Head did was to compare the statistics. He requested them to create 4 sets of 394 missions and compared them against the 394 missions done by .... well, my boss, I guess.

The 4 sets were differentiated by potential for high or low collateral damage and chance of success.

Long story short, set 1 reported high success rate and low or minimal collateral damage, set 2 reported low success rates....... well whatever, the results ranged from Okay to Bad with the occasional good. That's the gist of it. but there was no comparison to the missions Counter-Intel did. As is said before, perfect success rate and zero collateral damage."

Gemma still scowled while Tut and Rashida's mouth hung open. Bink was expressionless as usual though there was a tinge of admiration in his eyes.

"The rationale is very basic, complete the mission as fast as possible and do not anyone else see how you do it. The idea being to focus on objective and prevent collateral damage from happening in the first place. Of course if you feel that this is not worth a try, I will understand. This model of approaching missions does not allow for self doubt, at least not for very long."

Azisa clapped his hands together suddenly starting all four of them. "So? who's in? There is no huddle but if you feel like you can make the choice to join in, drop all forms of ID into the trashcan in the kitchen. If not.... just stay where you are I guess. You have half an hour to make you decision."

Having said this Azisa slumped back onto the couch like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Alongside this, sound emerged from him that sounded exactly like a machine powering down. Despite this they could still see his chest heaving as he continued to breathe.

Rashida got up immediately and went into the kitchen. She came out after a minute and went and stood behind Ron watching him play. Tut looked at Gemma and Bink before slowly walking over to 'Azisa'. After checking for a pulse, Tut looked around at everyone in the room and wordlessly went into the kitchen. He came out five minutes later and looked strangely at Rashida and then went over to the dark green box Bink had popped out from and began looking over it. He came to understand that is was some type of stasis capsule and tried to lie down inside it. He continued fiddling around with it.

Gemma stared at Bink and wondered what she should do. She had been raised in an orthodox family who had all belonged to Sharp End. The idea of not protecting civilians as the first rule was alien and abhorrent to her. But the assignment in front of her seemed to provide a better path. Granted, it was a completely unknown path.

As she struggled over her choice, Bink took out his lighter and looked around slowly. Deciding against it, He closed and put away the lighter and got up from his seat to go into the kitchen. He came out just in time to see the lid of the dark green box close while Tut was still in it. As he moved closer to the box, he noticed that the compartment that held his backpack earlier now had other stuff inside it. As he crouched down to take a better look, he noticed that it seemed to be some type of body armor and tonfas. But the tonfas were extremely heavy and he could barely move them. As he stood up, he noticed the timer was working again and counting down from five minutes. Shrugging to himself, he went back to his seat and began using his tablet to look at the news.

As time continued to run out, Gemma began to feel the pressure and took out her ID. As looked at the details on the card, she finally reached a decision and went into the kitchen slowly. In front of he dustbin, she hesitated for a moment before flinging her ID into it and stormed out and sat back on the sofa in a huff. despite her angry exterior, she felt relief as she had made her choice.

-------------------------------------------

Riyadh, In a certain hotel room

"How was the tournament, my friend?" Sheikh Tariq asked his Irish colleague.

"Nothin' special. Kind of a let down, really." Nate Wilson replied.

"Oh dear, Well I do hope the speech was good. Who was it this time?" the sheikh continued in his cultured British accent.

"It was that Jester fella. He nattered on about somethin like 'commitment' and such."

The mention of that person instantly brought a grimace to the sheikh's otherwise impeccable visage. As he suppressed his anger, he coughed discreetly and responded,"Really? Well lets hope others thought so as well."

The sheikh did not particularly like any Westerner but found that he did like the Irish man sitting in front of him. If he had not been an ally he might never have discovered how they shared a penchant for drinking, cigars, whores and all three at the same time. He admired the Irish man for his achievements, if nothing else.

Nate Wilson had been a petty criminal in his early youth before joining a certain organization which opened up his world view. This world view allowed him to soar through the Irish and eventually, the international underworld. He even managed to get himself instated as a Baron of the Irish nobility through his usual combination of 'trickery and skulduggery' as he liked to call it.

"In any case have you considered how your organization will align itself?" the sheikh came to his agenda of the day.

Nate Wilson's criminal empire was also unique for one reason. He had never fully aligned it with the either of the two sides even though he had been shown the truth of modern society by one of the sides. This was mainly due to one of his most important rules:'Always know what you're missing.'

And even though various aspects of his empire had dealings with the both side, he had constantly kept his empire as neutral as possible. Today however, he had decided to break that rule.

"Yes, we will join you." he spoke gruffly. He had slight mental itch as he broke that rule of his but put it out of his mind as he thought of what he would be able to gain.

Sheikh Tariq's smile widened and he picked a glass of scotch from a waiter who was hovering nearby.

"To the dark ones." he toasted and the Irish crime baron half-smiled as he followed suit.