DAY 15 continued...
And so, our hero Jim, his friends Tam and Carole, along with his boss's former aid Lisa had arrived in Topeka in the early hours of the morning.
The joint they were in was quiet and serving breakfast. While some ate, others went into the toilets to cut their hair short as a sort of disguise.
How much good it would do, remained to be seen. They watched the TV in the diner, they were all over the news. Two of the worlds biggest names in tech were dead and there was a hunt on for Jim, Carole and Lisa. Not quite calling them murderers yet, but certainly people that the police wanted to talk to!
While they watched, Lisa checked her e-mail on her phone. It looked like Nigel
'Mazzie' Bates was wasting no time.
There was already a company wide message in her inbox:
'In this trying moment...' it read, and went on to mourn his brother (that he himself had killed!) then talked of setting up a 'transitional group of managers' with him taking the seat at the table in place of his brother.
Tam muttered that maybe it didn't matter now, but they were likely being tracked by their phones. Jim agreed and they all smashed up their mobiles to be on the safe side.
There was a Radio Shack in town and after breakfast they went to get new ones.
After that they rolled up at the gates of the Bates Kentucky mansion where young Mercedes Bates was sheltering. There were two guards at the gates (Mr Badger and Mr Finkelstien) but Lisa knew them and persuaded them to let her and her companions in.
They found Mercedes in the main room of the mansion, crying and watching TV.
'We didn't murder your father,' said Lisa as they entered. She went on to explain what had happened.
It was now ten in the morning. Jim went straight to work, locking the place down and checking the defences. As well as the two gate guards there was the Central Control Room guard - a hefty woman called Sally and Glados the very sophisticated AI.
She had control over two SAM air defence launchers, each with 4 missiles each and 8 more in the armoury.
Glados also had a 2 mile area warning system on the ground.
Jim thought that while the air defences were good, the ground defence was not so hot. They had a lot of interesting, experimental non-lethal weapons in the armoury, but nothing else much beyond a few hand guns and SMGs.
Sally asked him nervously what he expected to happen next? He didn't know for sure, but he assumed some kind of attack. They had 95 days before Mercedes turned 18. Until then she was in danger.
Glados had a housekeeping fund of $35,000 a month with $56,000 on hand. Jim used some of it to arrange express deliveries of Metal Gear suits, ammo, grenades and two mono katanas.
Once he had done that he went back to the main room to discover Mercedes talking to Mazzie on the TV! Jim and Mazzie shouted abuse at each other then Mazzie cried 'my men are on the way!' and hung up.
Mercedes was upset, but for now believed Lisa's version of events over her uncles. To Jim, Lisa seemed a bit manic, as if she was not coping with all the murder and mayhem very well. Her mania was not having a good effect on Mercedes either. He wasn't too sure what to do about it at the moment, but kept an eye on things.
Jim decided it might be an idea to have everyone make statements proclaiming their innocence and have Glados send them to the press. Mercedes's was the best one, the others not so much.
They spent the rest of the evening sorting out the defences and living arrangements. It was arranged that anyone that wasn't on guard duty would sleep down in the large bunker below the Control Room.
DAY 16
At four in the morning the express delivery arrived. After checking everything seemed legit the aerodyne was allowed to land and all the boxes were taken in. The goodies were unwrapped and distributed. Bubble-wrap was everywhere.
Deena the cook, Magnolia and Carla the maids and Gareth the gardener were terrified at the idea of wearing MetalGear and carrying pepper spray and tasers and decided to leave. Jim didn't stop them and even ordered them a taxi.
And so they waited. At five in the evening Glados reported four armoured Landrovers entering her surveillance area. At the gate Bella Witchelm got out of the lead car, lit a cigarette and spoke into the intercomm.
'Can I speak to someone? Who have we got in there?
Glados replied with a standard 'please go away' message.
'I want a human. Have you got Wee Jimmy in there? I just wanna talk. Get this sorted out.'
Jimmy spoke, telling her to back her cars up a mile then walk to the front door.
They spoke at the main entrance.
'So your in charge then are you Jim?'
She looks up at cameras and said 'can we talk away from the cameras?'
'No!' he replied.
'Come on Jim, I'm not gonna bite you.'
Jim compromised and told Glados to turn everything off. Up close, in a low whisper she told him; 'I've no intention of attacking this place properly. I know how strong your defences are. It would be madness. Listen, Mazzie will only be in charge for a few days before Tesla sneaks control off him somehow. You'll be hit with everything then. For just now though, I'll attack in 24 hours, but it will just be pretend. We'll just shoot the windows and stuff then fuck off.'
Jimmy wasn't sure if he believed her, but nodded anyway.
'If you want my advice, just leave. It's the girl they want. It's what I'd do.'
Jimmy said he'd think about it, but he had no intention of betraying his bosses final wishes. Bella left, her last words being, 'We'll attack tomorrow at six at night then. Just shoot a few tracers about the place for the cameras. There's no reason we have to kill each other over this.'
Jim didn't know what to make of her plan. It didn't make much difference if he believed it or not he reflected. He wasn't going anywhere.
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