Storming the castle

[crude4gone]

Eeio could clearly hear Riahans voice over the comm: Port Loriah out, now!

He immediately executes the nano program, and feels the familiar cold take him over as his emergency override converts his body into pixels in miliseconds.
As always, the program leaves him incredibly weakened, and barely able to move. He quickly checks his immediate surroundings and is relieved to see the familiar upside-down pyramid next to him, indicating that his "passenger" had also made the transition into the grid. After a few seconds pause to get his senses back after the evac, he starts following Loriah through the grid. They head towards the exit to Harrys as per the plan they had quickly thrown together, while Riahan addressed the crowds outside the ICC complex.


Eeio had arrived at the complex ahead of time by request from Riahan. Earlier he had received a call from Riahan as soon as he hooked up his comm to the net ,after his trip to Scheol;

[Riahan]: Hello. Are you ready to kick some Sentinel behind?
[Eeio]: Hi there Riahan. Yes I am almost ready.
[Riahan]: I will meet you in the ICC meeting hall at 20:00 RKST so... in around 25 minutes.
[Eeio]: roger that, see you there.
[Eeio]: oh question. Do you need me in combat gear, or something not con****ious?
[Riahan]: Combat gear definitely. Some idiot clanner tipped the Sentinels off, expect heavy resistance.
[Eeio]: oh?
[Eeio]: change of plans then?
[Riahan]: Yes, all out assault on the tower. We'll throw everything at them.
[Riahan]: I'll give you more details in the ICC hall. Bring anyone you can.

And then there was the quick call a bit later:

[Riahan]: Do you have the ability to port someone out with you?
[Eeio]: Yes
[Eeio]: It will tax my own systems severely for a short time, but everyone i take with me will be in the grid and free to move
[Riahan]: Great, I will have a special mission for you. I'll tell you in private later on.
[Eeio]: roger, strapping on the armor. I will be with you shortly


When he entered the meeting hall he immediately noticed another person was already in there. Eeio cautiously approached the other person, and saw when he got closer it was a woman, sitting alone at a bar. Eeio was immediately su****ious.
Before any of them had any chance to say much besides hello however, Riahan entered the meeting hall and walked directly over to the two.
"Hi there, glad to see you made it" Riahan said smiling. The woman emptied her beer and looked at Riahan. "Guys, before we get to talk to the Omni-Pol outside I need to ask you to do something for me." Riahan continues. "You both are here for the same purpose."
Eeio nods and extends a hand to the woman; "Eeio, pleased to meet you" The woman slowly accepts the outstretched hand: "Cathleen. Also called Loriah"
He looks back at Riahan "What do you need us to do"
Riahan starts explaining: "Eeio, I want you to, when I ask you, port out of the tower together with Loriah. Nobody else.", she looks Eeio in the eyes "Can you do that for me?".
Eeio slowly nods "Yes I can do that but... would that mean leaving you behind in the tower? I am not sure I like that plan"
"Don't worry about me, I have a history with Simon, I'll be fine, no matter what happens."
Riahan turns towards the woman "Loriah, if I find something in the tower, I will give it to you. I want you to keep it safe, especially from the Sentinels and Bahirae goons".
Eeio looked from one woman to the other. This certainly wasnt what he had planned for, but he was in over his neck now, and he had to see things through. "You can count on me Riahan, but they will quickly track the connection to the grid. Do you have a safe place for us to go?"
"Hide somewhere, keep Loriah safe. And keep whatever I manage to find safe too."
Riahan turns around and heads for the exit "Come on, lets go meet the crowd"
Eeio hesitates a moment but quickly follows Riahan and the other woman out. On the way out he opens up a secure commline to Loriah "ok this is what we are gonna do..."


When Eeio rematerializes at Harrys he immediately turns towards Loriah "I didnt wanna say this earlier, but Harrys is not our final stop." He quickly activates his modified grid-nano program and walks towards the grid terminal "Take the crystal that materialized in your hand and use it on the grid terminal please, I will explain in a second" Eeio used his own crystal and feels the familiar rush of being digitized. But instead of appearing in the normal grid where they came from, they both end up as upside down pyramids in a strange looking grid, with a series of rings stacked upon each other hovering above them.
"Welcome to the unicorn grid. Or the fixer grid as its being called by most. Sorry for not letting you in on this part of the plan, but I saw no reason to risk anyone finding out where we where going" He quickly continues "Please follow me. We are heading for the 7th ring. " They move to the teleporter in the center and quickly ascends the rings. "This way" Eeio says and vanishes into the blue light of an exit node.
The two of them materializes on the side of a hill, with what looks like mantis nearby below the hill. Eeio turns towards Loriah and smiles "Welcome to southern foul hills. so far so good. we should already be relatively safe. I have some friends nearby that even the sentinels would think twice about, before coming to cause trouble with." Eeio pauses "we only have one more obstacle. Normally the entrance is guarded by a whole den of mantis. I am not one hundred percent certain we can sneak past all of them".
Loriah looks around "Well this certainly is out of the way. Oh and do not worry about the mantis. I have some very effective nano programs that will keep them passive if they try to attack us. Lead the way"
"Follow me" Eeio says and starts heading west. Once underway he opens up a secure textbased-only connection to Riahan. "We are safe" he writes. She quickly replies; "Good, stay safe. I'll join you when I can"

While heading for the den, Eeio finally had time to think back to what had happened in Tir and in the tower.
The initial assault on the tower had been very brutal. Because of the warning, the Sentinels had had time to setup some very strong defenses, including several heavy cannons, and many sentinel soldiers spread out amongst them.
They had slowly fought their way to the tower entrance, and eventually Riahan barked the order. "Into the tower now!! Before the reinforcements arrive!"
Once inside the front door, they had proceeded to the locked security door leading into the tower proper, where omni-pol had cleared a small circle in front of the door so Riahan could get to it. She walked up to the door, examined it a second and then turned around. "Eeio, can you help me with the security systems?".
"One second", he said. He had half expected he would have to help breaking into the tower, but he had hoped she could have done it herself. He treasured his anonymity
Eeio pulled up to the door and pulled out his trusty lockpick of eight. He had yet to encounter anything that wouldnt give in those picks. The lockpick did its magic, and soon Eeio was busy trying to circumvent the security.
"There, that should do it" he announced, as a large click could be heard coming from the door.
Once inside the council chamber, Riahan moved to the central platform and asked everyone to take a step back. The former omni-pol members that had come with them into the tower took position around the entrance in preparation for any sentinel reinforcements arriving. When everyone was in Eeio checked the door was locked again, and followed the others to the council chamber.
He saw Riahan standing alone on the central platform looking out at everyone. "I imagine the Sentinels have searched the tower inside out by now." She started saying.
"There is, however, something they can't have found." she went on, "There is a nanoprogram that is ideal for hiding things. It dissassembles the molecules of a given object and hides it within the tower itself." She paused and looked around the place "You just need to know how to trigger the reassembly. "She closed her eyes and mumbled "please stay at distance" and then;
"Xeavier, it's Ruth. Do you have something for me?" Eeio quickly had time to think "Ruth?" But then the air around Riahan started humming, and suddenly a small object appeared out of thin air in front of Riahan.
Eeio tensed as Riahan picked up the object floating in the air, and he quickly fired a msg to Loriah "Tell me as soon as you have the object secure". He saw Riahan examine the device when she looked up and said "This is not adressed at me. Its.. For Tarkhan Zora"
Eeio could see the look of mild surprise on her face, when she brought it up to her comm unit and hooked it in.
Riahan looked like she was listening to something distant, with her eyes closed, when she whispered "Thats why you had to die". She reopened her eyes and walked over to Loriah with a resolute look on her face. Riahan discreetly handed over the object to Loriah, and the two women nodded to each other, and then both of them turned towards Eeio.
"Now" came the immediate call from Loriah, quickly followed by Riahan sending "Port Loriah out, now!".

Eeio stops at the entrance to the cave and turns towards Loriah. "Ok this is the entrance. I know it doesnt look like much, but trust me theres more here than meets the eye. We could just stay inside, out of mantis way, or we could try to move further in, towards the actual base"
"lets go in" Loriah says "I can calm whatever comes at us"
They move inside, and proceeds towards the smuggler base built into one part of the large cave complex. On their way Loriah executes one of her nanoprograms several times, when a mantis gets too agressive.
They make it to the smuggler den entrance, and goes down an unused side corridor.
"We are safe here. You can relax" Eeio says to Loriah. "Now we just have to wait for Riahan to contact us again". He sits down and leans against the cavewall.
Almost immediately his com signals an incoming line from Riahan but when he opens it up, all he can hear is static. Then Riahans voice can clearly be heard as she almost yells "Hello Simon" Then a male voice can be heard "What the hell, Ruth?".
Eeio scrambles to his legs all the while yelling at his comm: "Riahan? Riahan please respond" He tries to focus the signal, but nothing but static can be heard, and then the connection abrubtly ends. He immediately tries opening up his own line to Riahan, but his comms says she disconnected from the system.
"whats going on" an alarmed Loriah asks
"damn it, I think Silverstone might have caught Riahan. The connection was terminated on her end, and she wasnt even talking to me". Eeio quickly explains what he had heard.
Eeio walks up to the wall and starts thinking for a while but finally turns around "ok ok. We have the information we came for, thats the most important part right now, and we need to make sure that it stays safe, no matter what"
Loriah nods and Eeio continues "Then we need to find out what happened. Someone must know more about where Riahan is"
Loriah pads her pocket "I agree. She never told me what she intended to do with the information, or who she planned to show it to, we need to contact her somehow"
Eeio nods "She didnt tell me either. I will try to talk to some of my contacts, see if anyone has any idea who can be trusted and who cannot. In the meantime I suggest you lie low"
Loriah looks around "Well we cant stay here, but I think I know a place I will be safe".
"Ok that settles it. I have been discreetly monitoring the news outlets and other information sources, and it seems no one knows about the two of us, so we should be able to move around" Eeio pauses "Once we are back in the grid we go our seperate ways but stays in touch. I have set up a secure line between us that no one will be able to hack hopefully"
Eeio looks at Loriah for one last time, "We can get to the bottom of this, I will start removing all our tracks, and then contact my sources for any kind of information that can help us, I suggest you do the same"
Loriah looks at Eeio while she checks her pocket once more "I will. Good luck out there Eeio, and thank you for all your help"
Eeio just nods and prepares to activate his grid-nano "Hang on to your knickers"