The day prior to the mission, Rana Amirmoez had arrived at the office to find an envelope lying on her desk, containing a recorded mission brief and a wireless flash drive. It didn't surprise her that it was nearly twenty-four hours before the other assassins would receive their mission data. H.E.A.R.T. knew very well that she might be late, what with her business outside of assassination. They didn't know that said "business" was work with the police as a consultant. They probably wouldn't trust her if they did. Regardless, they conformed to her unpredictable schedule to the best of their ability.<br/><br/>The brief was on what Rana recognized as a cassette tape, an old form of audio media from a bygone age. Normally, she'd have just downloaded the mission data onto the computer implant in her brain, but she lacked the specialized equipment to do that with a cassette tape. She easily reached the conclusion that somebody wanted to make sure that the mission's information would be even more difficult to retrieve.<br/><br/>The mission itself seemed simple enough, though unusual as far as H.E.A.R.T.'s standards went. Go after Whisperer's last target, inside of a warehouse which acted as the hub of his drug business, and bring him in alive for interrogation. H.E.A.R.T. didn't deal in kidnappings. They were assassins - their business was in killing. The most unusual detail, though, was the client for this particular mission.<br/>It wasn't coming from a rival organization, or a wealthy but lazy assassin seeking to safeguard his career. It was coming from H.E.A.R.T. itself, and it warranted three field assassins and Iris (Rana's assassin persona) on recon. It was rare enough for two field assassins to go on a mission, and Rana almost always worked with one assassin. Clearly this wasn't just about money, or the suits would've only sent a small group. They seemed to think that the fate of H.E.A.R.T. depended on how Rana and her allies handled this mission.<br/><br/>The contents of the flash drive, fortunately, were a standard affair; on it were profiles on her allies' equipment and skills, blueprints of the warehouse (though her own blueprints, straight from the police database, would make a good cross-reference), a list of the known guards, and GPS coordinates that would lead her to the getaway vehicle. She quickly browsed through these files, attempting to commit as much as possible to memory before encrypting them. The only way anyone could gain access now was with an eight-character alphanumeric code that only she knew.<br/><br/>With that out of the way, she sat down at her desk, connected to the wireless webcam mounted on one end, and began her usual maintenance check on her eyes. She wanted to be in top condition in preparation for tomorrow...<br/><br/>----<br/><br/>As it turned out, Rana WAS busy on the day of the mission, and thus couldn't be briefed with the others. She had been called in by the police, ironically enough, to help investigate the murder of Whisperer. She hadn't discovered much more about the case, but would probably get called in the next day for further investigation. The police were like that. On top of all that, she had to take a long and convoluted route through the city, swapping disguises more than once, before she was completely certain that she wasn't being followed and could safely change into the signature clothing of Iris - gray pullover hoodie, gray jeans with knees covered by patches of black fabric, combat boots, gloves, a ski mask, and orange eyes as opposed to her usual emerald.<br/><br/>Being paranoid was both a blessing and a curse sometimes...<br/><br/>By the time Iris arrived at the getaway vehicle, the operation was well underway. A quick infrared scan showed that the vehicle was still running and the keys were still in the ignition, despite it being left unoccupied by Shark. With nowhere better to go for now, she opened the passenger door and slipped inside, quietly shutting it behind her before making her way into the back of the vehicle. She'd relax here until she needed a better angle. She promptly tuned in to the audio network that her allies were on, remaining silent for a moment to catch up on what was occurring with the mission.<br/><br/>Iris was momentarily shocked to discover that there was an extra party member present - Smiles, a bloodthirsty acrobat. Iris hadn’t received data on Smiles, but fortunately she didn’t need it - Iris had worked with Smiles once before, and knew exactly what to expect. She was also pleased to know that Wasp had made it onto the team - they, too, had worked together on a previous mission the previous year. As risky and uncommon as teamwork operations usually were, Iris was a safe partner for most assassins due to her tendency to avoid stepping into the crime scene when it wasn’t necessary, so she almost exclusively worked with a partner when she wasn’t doing solo recon missions. The other two assassins were unfamiliar faces - Ghost, whose ability to summon spectral doppelgangers using nanomachines, and Shark, who struck her as more of a classic assassin than the others. It seemed that they were preparing themselves to storm a room that might contain the weapon that they had used to take out Whisperer, and that they were aware that she would arrive shortly.<br/><br/>She flipped open her phone and put it to her mouth. She didn’t have any vocal cord adjustments, so she was stuck communicating with her allies through audible speech. To hide this, she used the phone as a prop, as well as various codewords. She waited approximately half a minute, to give the illusion that the phone was going to voice mail, before talking. “Yeah, hi. Sorry that I’m late - I had some IRL business to take care of. Parents. You know. Outside this weird warehouse or whatever. If you guys could let me know where you’re all at right now, that would be swell. Gonna hang up now - just holler when you’ve got an answer. Thanks.” She flipped the phone shut and waited patiently inside the car for a response.