~ two

~ chapter three ~ part two ~

Lucretia stares over the last clearing from the amusement park map on her display. 

She flips it to the general's armor display, extracting maps, removing memory details as they pass.

Overlays with a series of other map grids, locking over a globe surface turning beneath.

Nocturne - On comm, "Lucretia ... ?"

Lucretia - "Already said no, Nocturne ..."

Nocturne - "No !  Look !"

Lucretia moves the map load aside, backs up to the last time she fired ... streaming assassins fading in and out across a field of lightning ...

Nocturne - (still display) "I ... Have ... the Fisticuffs !"  Lightning crackles from the gridworks and polygons and strikes her fist.
________________

Lightning in the distance as Priest and the Guardsman crouch another rooftop with their scopes, high wind.  Below a nazi clown squad flees a bouncing front end, caught in Guard crossfire.

Priest - "Damn.  They gave them a bunker."

Guardsman - "Yeah ... guess that's fair given all the ass kicking they got set up for.  So this is like a nightmare for them ?"

Priest - "Cold sweat.  Remember when everyone had all those zombie dreams a few years back ?"

Guardsman - "No shit."

Priest - "Welcome to Middleton."
________________

Lucretia checks the data-stream from the game cartridge, sub-file 'Cartridge in a Care Tree' ~

A readout of all the players absorbed, game names, sub-sequenced to individuated specialty moves spiking a from a stream of consistencies between.

Nocturne - On comm, "Yah !  Activate that !  ! Activate !"

Lucretia furrows a brown and turns it live ... the readout wave shows the players online, some in, some out, the waves and spikes adapting ...

Lucretia - "Are you near a hot-zone ?"
____

Nocturne and Doe stand over the field, distant gamers hopping around shooting at each other. 

Nocturne - "Yes I am ..."

She adjusts her goggles overlaying all the existent players in the same map from all servers, becoming densely populated.

Nocturne - "Five hundred thousand in the world ... seventy thousand mine, fifty thousand strikes in a six second event."

Lucretia - Overlays the server locations on a globe.  "So strike."

('Hazy Shade of Winter' by the Bangles)

She turns on the Game-Brick, through the goggles the texture wraps remove from the game world, black and white, noir shadow, pale plasma traces along the polygons, strike arcs, time slows to bullet speed.

(a six second event, spread over time)

She walks to the edge of the field, watching the motion, then points her left hand across.  A blast of lightning stretches across the world, Nocturnes flashing in and out in their strikes in real time against the slow.

The distance between polygons begins to spread ...

~ Lucretia watches the connecting pattern across servers creating a network while the data compiles the event.

Across locations while the lightning spreads, player time speeds individually align, death strokes becoming simultaneous.  Normal speed, she walks to the center.

~ Lucretia watches the servers distribute signal traffic ...

The lightning assassins populate in and out across the map, through locations, times between the other avatars shifting and compressing to a singularity. 

Polygons begin overlapping their like types.

~ Lucretia watches the network globe spread ...

The time displacements shift across regions as the locations begin overlapping, a map averaging their structures, polygons collecting and reforming simpler shapes.

~ It continues collapsing into a simpler and simpler forms, Nocturnes still striking through in their own time, network stretching around the world.

The collapsing game-world becomes more densely populated, time displacing all until all align into a moment, a one on one fight compiling all, three dimensional shapes fall to a line, then a point, her fist. 

Pumped high to discharge, polygons collecting around her, the last, an armor.  She jacks her fist to a wave of destruction / creation into a rebuilt world, as before untouched. 

A second wave returns to her, texture returns.  One by one gamers log back in.

(end of song)

~ Network Mapped ~

Lucretia - "Fine.  Next mission."

Nocturne and Doe - (comm) "! Yes !"

Lucretia - "Still not a valentine."

Doe - "We've been fucking between the maniacal outbursts for like two days now.  We're spent !"

Lucretia - Annoyed at the display, "You're fucking right now."

Nocturne - "So !?"

She moves the display back to the general's armor, maps overlaying ... she taps her finger then overlays Nocturne's grid, disconnected.
________________

Guardsman - Setting his silencer, "So are you ghosting on me again or are you going in ?"

Priest - "We're going in for nazis now, gear's set to automatic.  You'll feel the pull.  Nautilus for the beast, guns for the clowns."

They return to their scopes ...

Priest - "These guys are idiots so I'm guessing their command's on the top floor feeling proud, while the hostages are in the basement."
____

Angry nazi clown - Into a comm, _"Whoop !_ whoop whooo. - honk -".  Slams down the comm, looks across the cityscape.
____

In the basement nazi clowns honk and whoop gathered near a heavy door, two guarding.
____

Guardsman - "Morons.  Like a fucking movie."

Priest - "You get low floors."

Guardsman - "You get high."

 ('Dr Greenthumb' by Cypress Hill)

~ bunker assault goes ... ! here ! ~

...

Door to door ops is brutal by the way. 

~ Downstairs Guardsmen ~

Hallways covered, kick it in, another pops the smoke and or flash bang, go in shooting on the edge of the smoke, full back up taking out the panickers down the hall.  A crawl and clear to the hostages.

~ Upstairs Warriors ~

Door to door rush, one to the next, a pile at a time.  Execution to execution style, panic created, drawing all out to fire, to the control room.  Fast moving, greater likelihood of something behind, back covered.

The scene will blend these as such.

Hear the song and use your imagination.

...

In the command center, a knock on the door (shave and a haircut)

Two latches, the heavy door opens.  Priest smiles and pushes the doorman back by the face, a wad of C4 lands in the middle of the floor. 

The door slams shut.
____

The Guardsmen kick the wine cellar door open, dead nazi clowns strewn around the room, wine bottles everywhere.

"We're ... ! Rescued !"

(the uselessly drunken cast of the blacklist tales laying around)

The bunker shakes from the upstairs explosion.