Chrisstan
29-05-2005, 00:12
OOC: Just a secret IC reference to my nation's activities.))
Fifteen miles North of Vientiane
The Black Hummer skidded a few feet in the wet mud, spraying earth up across the radiator grill as the vehicle took the turn off from the muddied trail. They had left the main road a mile back and where travelling into the outer edges of the jungle. The rains had started earlier that day and pounded onto the canopy layer above, pouring down at a much gentler rate onto the track they travelled upon.
Jake sat in the back of the middle vehicle, between two other Hummers carrying soldiers from the 1st Infantry. He stared out the window at the passing trees, streaked blurry from the pouring rain that hammered on the roof. A whip-crack of lighting, followed by the angry roar of thunder made him glance at the sky.
Michael sat across the cabin from him, glancing up nervously from his papers. He was always a little tense whenever his brother was in a sombre mood such as this; he had seen men killed because of a change in Jake’s mood. He tried to distract the President to the matter in hand. “Apparently, the tests have been successful so far,” he said, looking down at his papers.
Jake made a non-committal noise. Michael leafed over a page. Another whip-crack. A roar. The storm was getting closer.
The Hummers took another turn and slid around a bend before their headlights picked up the building in the murky light. The old concrete structure had been an Ammo dump during the last government, and still bore the cracked and stained emblem of the Laos People’s Army on its front. To all intents and purposes, it looked like an Ammo Dump.
The vehicles stopped under a tarpaulin by the entrance, and the Squad of soldiers disembarked from the escorts and moved to protect the perimeter. Inside the middle Hummer, Jake sighed and wrapped his coat around him before opening the door to the blasting chill of the storm winds. Jake looked either way as a soldier closed the door behind him, and then walked the few steps across into the building, the other door held open by a second guard.
The first room was little more than a whitewashed cell; with a metal mesh over one end of the room. The soldier behind the mesh saluted the President, leant across and turned the key his control panel. An alarm buzzed, a light switched from red to green and the lock clunked. The group stepped forward and moved further into the complex.
The corridor after that was dim, the whitewashed walls here notably stained and chipped after years of standing against the weather. The windows along the left wall flashed, illuminating quartered rectangles momentarily on the doors that ran along the opposite wall. The soldier that was escorting the group stopped at the third door, and turned the handle.
Jake stepped into the room first and paused in the doorway. The rectangular concrete box contained a large machine along the right wall that hummed to itself quietly. This machine fed into a large 1-kilolitre tank opposite the door, which in turn piped into the left wall just above a large wall-length window that was shuttered off. An air vent whirred around on the roof. A pair of Scientists was working on the equipment, and one looked up and moved quickly across to the group. “Mr. President,” he said, clearing his throat.
Michael leant to his brother’s ear. “This is Major Hinn, he’s the lead operator at this facility.”
Jake smiled at the Army Scientist in a friendly manner. “Major.” He looked across at the machinery and it’s piping. “Care to tell me what this machine does?”
Hinn nodded, cleared his throat again; Michael noted this with slight concern. “Well, Mr. President.” He walked across to the machine’s controls, followed by Jake. “This machine is basically a large tank with a Titanium Anode and a Liquid Mercury Cathode.” He pointed at a dial. “This shows the electric current being put to both electrodes. The gas,” Hinn pointed at the top of the tank where the piping connected, “is collected at the top and moves along into this tank here.”
Jake looked across at the tank. “How much so far?” he asked after a moment’s silence.
Hinn checked his indicators. “So far, we’ve managed to collect two full kilolitres of gas, not counting this one.”
Jake nodded. The storm lashed and thundered outside; a muffled sound in the reinforced walls. “I want a demonstration,” he said a moment later.
Hinn nodded. He walked across to the left wall where the piping from the tank fed into the next room. Hinn reached for a switch on the wall, and the large window shutter slid aside to allow them to see the next room.
It was just like the room they were standing, with two notable differences; there was no air vent in the roof, and the door into the corridor was sealed over with a plate of steel. The occupant crouched in one corner of the room, looking up at the window through a curtain of hair. It was a woman; about eighteen years old, her clothes dirtied with mud, her cheeks shining with the trails of tears. She stood up, leaning against the wall unsteadily, staring defiantly out through the three layers of glass with as much dignity as she could muster.
Jake smiled and held out a hand to Hinn, who dropped a key into his open palm. “I like her,” The President said. He leant over to the control panel Hinn had used to open the shutter and fitted the key into a lock. He twisted the key clockwise and listened to the hiss of airflow. “It’s a pity she got picked up."
The yellow gas began billowing out of the end of the pipe like small clouds, hanging in the high air of the other room and floating around the ceiling in an eerily peaceful way. The woman had seen this by now, and the defiance had turned into an expression of horror. She ran across to the door and struggled with the lock on the metal plating, banging at it with her fist as gas continued to pour into the enclosed space.
Hinn glanced at Jake, who was watching this calmly. He cleared his throat. “Of course, in open air usage, the effect won’t necessarily be as quick or lethal depending on the weather factors and the amount of gas used.” He glanced back into the room as the woman continued to kick at the sealed door. He faltered a little. “It wo-would be best used in situations for crowd dispersion and guerrilla combat.” Hinn then looked at his assistant. “However, with the correct importation of materials, we could generate Phosgene, which is a more effective Chemical substance in combat situations.”
Jake nodded. The woman had given up on the door and was now banging her clenched fists on the glass window, her mouth shouting silently, her scared expression betraying her words as pleading for her life. “What’s her name?” he asked suddenly.
Hinn blinked. “Sir?”
Jake leant forward against the glass and looked directly at the woman. Her fists were leaving bloodied smears on the glass from where she had cut her hands hammering on the metal plate. She was pressed up against the glass, her eyes filled with such terror that they overflowed into tears down her cheeks as she began to cough, bringing one hand to her throat. “What’s her name?” He repeated again.
Hinn licked his upper lip hesitantly. “Ro Li, Sir.” He paused a moment, then continued. “She was-is,” he corrected himself, “a prostitute from Vientiane. We picked her up a few weeks ago.”
Jake nodded half-heatedly, as if he couldn’t hear the man very well. He leant his forehead against the glass and stared at Ro Li, who had stumbled back and fell to her knees, clutching her throat and heaving in wracking coughs that shook her entire body. Jake tilted his head a little to the left and continued watching, frowning as if carefully considering the actions of a small animal. A lightning flash lit his face from the doorway in a moment of bright shock, and Michael intently watched his brother’s face for any sort of emotional reaction, but seeing nothing except the calmness that disguised any thoughts.
Ro pushed herself to her feet and threw herself at the window. The muffled thump surprised the onlookers, and Jake leant up from the glass and watched from an upright position. Ro ran at the window again, harder, this time drowned out by the angry roaring of thunder, as if the storm was centred just above the building like a monster.
Hinn winced, turning away from the window. Ro tried again, this time jumping at the glass and rebounding onto her back. Hinn’s assistant quietly retched in the corner of the room. Ro arched her back, both hands around her throat, her body shaking with heaving coughs and splutters as he pushed herself back with her feet, a thin trail of liquid seeping from the corners of her mouth and creating a trail on the floor. The yellowing air was all around her now, making the view opaque and distorting her frame in waves of gas that billowed by aimlessly, silently, deadly. After a moment’s further retching, Ro gave on last cough that seemed like it would displace her innards, and lay still on the floor.
The room was silent for a moment. Only the quiet sound of rain on the roof, eerily peaceful, interrupted with a flash of lighting and a quieter rumble of thunder as the storm moved off. Hinn was comforting his assistant, who was sobbing quietly to himself. Michael was staring into the opposite room quietly. Jake did too. After a moment, he took a breath and exhaled through his nose. He then glanced at Hinn and nodded. Then he smiled and turned away.
“You’ll get your materials, Major. In the meantime,” he glanced over his shoulder as a soldier in the corridor opened the door at the sound of his voice. “In the meantime, continue stockpiling the Chlorine Gas.” He nodded at Michael, who glanced once more at the dead body in the other room, and followed Jake and the rest of the group out. Hinn walked across and closed the blind. Ro Li, an eighteen-year-old Prostitute from Vientiane, randomly picked up by who she thought was a client, had just become the first civilian victim of the President of the People’s Republic.
Fifteen miles North of Vientiane
The Black Hummer skidded a few feet in the wet mud, spraying earth up across the radiator grill as the vehicle took the turn off from the muddied trail. They had left the main road a mile back and where travelling into the outer edges of the jungle. The rains had started earlier that day and pounded onto the canopy layer above, pouring down at a much gentler rate onto the track they travelled upon.
Jake sat in the back of the middle vehicle, between two other Hummers carrying soldiers from the 1st Infantry. He stared out the window at the passing trees, streaked blurry from the pouring rain that hammered on the roof. A whip-crack of lighting, followed by the angry roar of thunder made him glance at the sky.
Michael sat across the cabin from him, glancing up nervously from his papers. He was always a little tense whenever his brother was in a sombre mood such as this; he had seen men killed because of a change in Jake’s mood. He tried to distract the President to the matter in hand. “Apparently, the tests have been successful so far,” he said, looking down at his papers.
Jake made a non-committal noise. Michael leafed over a page. Another whip-crack. A roar. The storm was getting closer.
The Hummers took another turn and slid around a bend before their headlights picked up the building in the murky light. The old concrete structure had been an Ammo dump during the last government, and still bore the cracked and stained emblem of the Laos People’s Army on its front. To all intents and purposes, it looked like an Ammo Dump.
The vehicles stopped under a tarpaulin by the entrance, and the Squad of soldiers disembarked from the escorts and moved to protect the perimeter. Inside the middle Hummer, Jake sighed and wrapped his coat around him before opening the door to the blasting chill of the storm winds. Jake looked either way as a soldier closed the door behind him, and then walked the few steps across into the building, the other door held open by a second guard.
The first room was little more than a whitewashed cell; with a metal mesh over one end of the room. The soldier behind the mesh saluted the President, leant across and turned the key his control panel. An alarm buzzed, a light switched from red to green and the lock clunked. The group stepped forward and moved further into the complex.
The corridor after that was dim, the whitewashed walls here notably stained and chipped after years of standing against the weather. The windows along the left wall flashed, illuminating quartered rectangles momentarily on the doors that ran along the opposite wall. The soldier that was escorting the group stopped at the third door, and turned the handle.
Jake stepped into the room first and paused in the doorway. The rectangular concrete box contained a large machine along the right wall that hummed to itself quietly. This machine fed into a large 1-kilolitre tank opposite the door, which in turn piped into the left wall just above a large wall-length window that was shuttered off. An air vent whirred around on the roof. A pair of Scientists was working on the equipment, and one looked up and moved quickly across to the group. “Mr. President,” he said, clearing his throat.
Michael leant to his brother’s ear. “This is Major Hinn, he’s the lead operator at this facility.”
Jake smiled at the Army Scientist in a friendly manner. “Major.” He looked across at the machinery and it’s piping. “Care to tell me what this machine does?”
Hinn nodded, cleared his throat again; Michael noted this with slight concern. “Well, Mr. President.” He walked across to the machine’s controls, followed by Jake. “This machine is basically a large tank with a Titanium Anode and a Liquid Mercury Cathode.” He pointed at a dial. “This shows the electric current being put to both electrodes. The gas,” Hinn pointed at the top of the tank where the piping connected, “is collected at the top and moves along into this tank here.”
Jake looked across at the tank. “How much so far?” he asked after a moment’s silence.
Hinn checked his indicators. “So far, we’ve managed to collect two full kilolitres of gas, not counting this one.”
Jake nodded. The storm lashed and thundered outside; a muffled sound in the reinforced walls. “I want a demonstration,” he said a moment later.
Hinn nodded. He walked across to the left wall where the piping from the tank fed into the next room. Hinn reached for a switch on the wall, and the large window shutter slid aside to allow them to see the next room.
It was just like the room they were standing, with two notable differences; there was no air vent in the roof, and the door into the corridor was sealed over with a plate of steel. The occupant crouched in one corner of the room, looking up at the window through a curtain of hair. It was a woman; about eighteen years old, her clothes dirtied with mud, her cheeks shining with the trails of tears. She stood up, leaning against the wall unsteadily, staring defiantly out through the three layers of glass with as much dignity as she could muster.
Jake smiled and held out a hand to Hinn, who dropped a key into his open palm. “I like her,” The President said. He leant over to the control panel Hinn had used to open the shutter and fitted the key into a lock. He twisted the key clockwise and listened to the hiss of airflow. “It’s a pity she got picked up."
The yellow gas began billowing out of the end of the pipe like small clouds, hanging in the high air of the other room and floating around the ceiling in an eerily peaceful way. The woman had seen this by now, and the defiance had turned into an expression of horror. She ran across to the door and struggled with the lock on the metal plating, banging at it with her fist as gas continued to pour into the enclosed space.
Hinn glanced at Jake, who was watching this calmly. He cleared his throat. “Of course, in open air usage, the effect won’t necessarily be as quick or lethal depending on the weather factors and the amount of gas used.” He glanced back into the room as the woman continued to kick at the sealed door. He faltered a little. “It wo-would be best used in situations for crowd dispersion and guerrilla combat.” Hinn then looked at his assistant. “However, with the correct importation of materials, we could generate Phosgene, which is a more effective Chemical substance in combat situations.”
Jake nodded. The woman had given up on the door and was now banging her clenched fists on the glass window, her mouth shouting silently, her scared expression betraying her words as pleading for her life. “What’s her name?” he asked suddenly.
Hinn blinked. “Sir?”
Jake leant forward against the glass and looked directly at the woman. Her fists were leaving bloodied smears on the glass from where she had cut her hands hammering on the metal plate. She was pressed up against the glass, her eyes filled with such terror that they overflowed into tears down her cheeks as she began to cough, bringing one hand to her throat. “What’s her name?” He repeated again.
Hinn licked his upper lip hesitantly. “Ro Li, Sir.” He paused a moment, then continued. “She was-is,” he corrected himself, “a prostitute from Vientiane. We picked her up a few weeks ago.”
Jake nodded half-heatedly, as if he couldn’t hear the man very well. He leant his forehead against the glass and stared at Ro Li, who had stumbled back and fell to her knees, clutching her throat and heaving in wracking coughs that shook her entire body. Jake tilted his head a little to the left and continued watching, frowning as if carefully considering the actions of a small animal. A lightning flash lit his face from the doorway in a moment of bright shock, and Michael intently watched his brother’s face for any sort of emotional reaction, but seeing nothing except the calmness that disguised any thoughts.
Ro pushed herself to her feet and threw herself at the window. The muffled thump surprised the onlookers, and Jake leant up from the glass and watched from an upright position. Ro ran at the window again, harder, this time drowned out by the angry roaring of thunder, as if the storm was centred just above the building like a monster.
Hinn winced, turning away from the window. Ro tried again, this time jumping at the glass and rebounding onto her back. Hinn’s assistant quietly retched in the corner of the room. Ro arched her back, both hands around her throat, her body shaking with heaving coughs and splutters as he pushed herself back with her feet, a thin trail of liquid seeping from the corners of her mouth and creating a trail on the floor. The yellowing air was all around her now, making the view opaque and distorting her frame in waves of gas that billowed by aimlessly, silently, deadly. After a moment’s further retching, Ro gave on last cough that seemed like it would displace her innards, and lay still on the floor.
The room was silent for a moment. Only the quiet sound of rain on the roof, eerily peaceful, interrupted with a flash of lighting and a quieter rumble of thunder as the storm moved off. Hinn was comforting his assistant, who was sobbing quietly to himself. Michael was staring into the opposite room quietly. Jake did too. After a moment, he took a breath and exhaled through his nose. He then glanced at Hinn and nodded. Then he smiled and turned away.
“You’ll get your materials, Major. In the meantime,” he glanced over his shoulder as a soldier in the corridor opened the door at the sound of his voice. “In the meantime, continue stockpiling the Chlorine Gas.” He nodded at Michael, who glanced once more at the dead body in the other room, and followed Jake and the rest of the group out. Hinn walked across and closed the blind. Ro Li, an eighteen-year-old Prostitute from Vientiane, randomly picked up by who she thought was a client, had just become the first civilian victim of the President of the People’s Republic.