<div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/thumb/0/0f/Benedictcasual.jpg/400px-Benedictcasual.jpg)</div><table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td><strong>Character name:</strong></td><td>Eric Cavendish</td></tr><tr><td><strong>Location:</strong> </td><td>Behind a large rock</td></tr><tr><td><strong>With:</strong> </td><td> Zhuhao </td></tr><tr><td><strong>Doing:</strong> </td><td> What are they doing</td></tr></tbody></table><br/><hr/>Eric's abortive efforts at socialization on the ride to the ambush site had not gone well, leaving him inevitably to withdraw into the comforting clarity of cyberspace for most of the transit. The coverage was sparse here in the forest but certainly adequate to his needs for connection. It would take some effort to mask the comparatively dense nodes of the team's implants, but he doubted that their target would be scanning for such things in any event.<br/><br/>Eric surveyed the landscape. Out here away from the rich electronic topology of the city he felt exposed. There were no convenient datastores in which to hide, and few repetitive carrier signals on which he could piggyback. A few environmental sampling stations were scattered through the forest, a smattering of communication towers, one long-abandoned gas pipeline with half of its monitors still active. A bit further physically, but only milliseconds away for signal traffic, there was an electrical transformer substation, four private residences (two of which had laughable excuses for security). And, of course, the usual blanket of satellite and terrestrial communications, and the sprinkling of disposable electronic devices tossed out of car windows, but with enough juice left to still whisper their identity into the void.<br/><br/>There were also a bunch of trees, rocks and animals. And insects. Eric did not enjoy being outside.<br/><br/>The lanky sys-op followed Zhuhao up the hillside. Their jobs did not require line of sight, affording them a better selection of hiding places. All of the information that he required would be collected electronically, dissected and displayed on his internal monitors in a range of colors beyond what the human eye could discern. Effortlessly he filtered the required data and forwarded it to the implants of the rest of the team, providing a tactical 3D wireframe map of the area with all relevant data sources streaming appropriately.<br/><br/>Also, he hid behind a rock. It was a big rock. It was sort of gray-ish.<br/><br/>The decoy car hummed to life at his command. Its electric engine added only slightly to the background noise of the forest. He smoothly drove it into position, parking it on a small dirt access road a few hundred meters away.<br/><br/>"Sys-op in position, decoy prepared. No unexpected electronic signatures in proximate area."<br/><br/><br/>