<b>Spook</b><br/><br/><br/>The man snorted in contempt of Spook's chosen terminology.<br/><br/>"You live in the Tiger Queen's jungle, you live by her rules." The woman responded as they entered the building. "You break the rules..." She let the tip of her curved wakazashi blade drag along the wall so that it sang in a scratching, metallic ring. "You die."<br/><br/>"Shut up." He told her flatly. "Focus."<br/><br/>They hit the elevator's glowing up oriented arrow and filed in as the elevator doors slid open. They filed in with Spook, standing in the cramped space. They stood, waiting as the magnetic rails began their accent. Tiger 1 tapped his auto pistol against his leg, looking at the increasing number above the door indicating what floor they were on. The big Tiger coughed slightly, cleared his throat. A quiet tune played, punctuated by the light<i>bing</i>the elevator made as it passed each floor.<br/><br/>"You, uh, you new to the Dreg?" The woman asked Spook absently, her right eye covered by the apparatus on her head. She nodded to Spook's answer, looking down at the swords in her hands. "Cool, cool... yeeeeup..."<br/><br/>"Hey..." She said quietly to Tiger 1. "Hey, you got somethin'..." she looked down at his leg nodding. He threw her an annoyed look, but after a moment curiosity drew his eyes down. "There. Near your boot." He rolled his ankle to look at the smudge on his pants. He sighed, looking at the stain. "Sorry." She added before staring ahead an shifting uncomfortably.<br/><br/>The elevator binged again on the right floor. "Oh thank god."<br/><br/>Around Spook guns clicked off their safeties.  The woman started bounding on her toes, rolling her shoulder as the elevator came to halt and the doors started to open. Her swords raised, Tiger 1's auto pistol pointed and over Spook's shoulder came the barrel of the big Tiger's gun.<br/><br/>The elevator doors opened, revealing the myriad of weapons. The hallway was empty. The elevator chimed 'thank you.' Tiger 1 and the woman lead the way out of the lift, aiming themselves down the two hallways. The lights shone overhead, a large black and white painting of a Tiger spread across the wall. The big guy followed them out.<br/><br/>"Hey," she waved. "This way."<br/><br/>The information displaying to her eye read like a 3D heat map of the floor, punctuated by the utility lines glowing in a flickering shade of pale blue. The lens on her headset reflected the hallway as she moved forward. "I got... two. Two ahead, four doors down." She told them quietly.<br/><br/>The big man frowned. "...Two?"<br/><br/>"Yeah. One pacing, second one's sitting... uhh, same room, I think. You hear anything, Z?"<br/><br/>Tiger 1 answered, "No."<br/><br/>The question, had it prompted a peculiar thought in Spook's head and drawn her attention to the man's ear, she would have realized, peering at them, that there was a glint of metal in his ear canal, and a half ring of metal around the back of his lobe. Some kind of augment, she suspected.<br/><br/>"Shit..." The big man muttered as they neared the door in question, slowing their approach. "Could be a hostage, maybe?"<br/><br/>"Could be the neighbor this guy supposedly popped." The woman postulated. She panned her head around. "I don't see any bodies. That person's lunch is fucked, though." She added, looking at a wall.<br/><br/>"I hate complications." Tiger 1 muttered. "You three, hang back. They start acting up, or if they look like their aiming a piece my way, you yell."<br/><br/>The woman nodded. The big guy looked at Spook, his eyes ending up on her right hand. His eyebrow went up, he tapped her with his bulky mechanical claw of a hand and nodded. "Hey, is that the Tenzou VX 3? The one with the alloy -"<br/><br/>Tiger 1 knocked on the door with the butt of his gun. It got the big guy's attention back on the door. He flexed his industrial claw hand. Spook could hear the servos and drives moving it. Tiger 1 waited, looking at the Tiger woman. She watched the two through the wall attentively.<br/><br/>"That woke 'em up. They're watchin'... Lookin' at each other. Hang on..." The big guy looked at her as her tone changed. "chair guy's reachin'... Fuck! Down, down, down!" She yelled jumping back down the hall.<br/><br/>Tiger 1 bolted from the door the other way, big guy couldn't move quick, but put his arm up in front of him as he back peddled. For one tense moment nothing happened. The moment became chaos. The door buckled, shattered and exploded, its frame warping violently as debris and heat filled the hallway. It scorched the walls and turned the air black with smoke. Then came the rain of steel as the thunder of automatic gunfire followed the blast, spraying into the hall from the black hole of a doorway.<br/><br/>A figure jumped through the doorway, a dozen black eyes glistening from his helmet. He held a pair of sub-machine guns akimbo. He fired down the hall toward Tiger 1 who dove around the corner to get clear. He aimed the other gun the other way. He was wearing armor, carbon black. This was no domestic disturbance.<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>