"Hole in the Wall"

A Blue BPN by James Fullerton

Colour Designation: Blue (Street Maintenance)
Minimum SCL: 10
Training Package Recommended: Any
Consolidated Pay: 100c per Squad
Contact: Lt. Bradise, Gateway 658
Coverage:3rd EyE News

Extra Security required to guard a section of the Wall that has collapsed. Operatives to report to Gateway 658 for transportation to the affected section. Repair is estimated to take 16 hours.

BPN Briefing

On arrival the duty officer will politely inform the Operatives that Lieutenant Bradise is far too busy to see a low level group of Operatives about a Blue BPN. He will direct them into an interrogation room and ask them to wait while he finds someone to brief them on their important mission

Within a few minutes a woman officer walks in and introduces herself as Sergeant Jill Mounthouse. She is in her early thirties, medium build with a muscular body apparent underneath her uniform. She has green eyes and short cropped blonde hair which almost hides an inch long scar by her right ear. While she briefs the Operatives she will come across as slightly gruff and aggressive, finding it slightly amusing if any male characters try charming details out of her.

The section of wall has been attacked by a bio-agent that has eaten its way through the concrete structure. There is a repair team on site and there is currently a squad of Shivers guarding the section. The BPN is to replace the Shivers as they are needed elsewhere. There is an APC heading past the location which can drop them off on route. Sgt. Mounthouse will provide them with a 300 page manual entitled 'Perimeter security and breech prevention guideline volume one' and require lots of signatures on various forms from the whole squad. These forms include 'Assigned Protection of Company Assets', 'Health and Safety in Hostile Territory Confirmation' and 'Contamination Procedure Protocols' all of which refer to other manuals (equally as large) that the players can ask to see if they want. Sgt. Mounthouse will let the Operatives know that she expects them to find her after the completion of the BPN so that she can sign off their BPNs. She has contacted 3rd Eye who replied saying that unless there were DarkNight Terrorists trying to blow up the wall, they aren't interested. She will give them the contact information nonetheless.

The APC is a Sleeper Shiver that is on its way out to the depths of DownTown. The Shivers are a very close knit squad and will almost completely ignore the Operatives. There is limited space inside the APC and the Shivers will be moving around quite a lot checking equipment on the journey. Most of the equipment they want tends to be where the Operatives are sitting. Sharp eyed Operatives may notice several illegal weapons amongst the Shivers, although it would be a brave Operative that tries to confiscate them. If the Operatives aren't polite and helful, chances are they'll have to walk the twelve miles to the section of wall.

At the Wall

After being dropped off by the APC the Operatives will find themselves at a section of the wall that has been damaged. There are two Department of Architecture, Construction and Planning trucks which used to be white, but now have a heavy layer of rain soaked dirt, grease and dust all over them, parked to the side of a three metre hole in the wall. There are eight workers milling around, carrying boards through the hole from the trucks as well as scaffold poles and other equipment. There are also three Shivers who notice the Operatives. One of them beckons them over and asks to see the BPN card. As soon as he has confirmed the BPN details (by running the barcode through the armoured oyster at his side) he will replace his helmet and contact the remainder of his squad from the other side of the Wall without saying another word to the Operatives. The eight Shivers head away from the hole and can be seen heading towards a guard house about 500 metres away.

The supervisor of the construction workers wil introduce himself as Mike Sportak and will happily describe to the Operatives what has happened and the steps that they will be undertaking to repair the hole. The concrete in the wall was eaten away by a DarkNight bio-agent. The bio-agent rapidly converts localised sections of the wall into powder. The Shivers found the hole in the early hours of the morning, just after a group of people were seen close by the wall on the Suburbia side, running into the nearby factories. The Shivers gave chase but didn't capture anyone. Checking the area of wall they found the hole and a modified Tek Trex Vito which has been powered down. The Vito had a spray nozzle and a canister on its back and it appears that it was planted by the wall so that it could create a tunnel through the wall. The bio-agent turned the concrete into a powder which covered the bottom metre of the tunnel but it looks as if the Suburbans who were trying to get through to DownTown were seen by the Shivers before they could pass through. The repair stages area as follows:

What now?

During the daytime the Operatives should have an easy time of it. The drilling work wil be very loud and will produce more dust (which when mixed with the rain will cover the Operatives nice new armours). During this time it is likely that DownTowners wil hear the noise and come to investigate. They will all find it funny that they can look through the wall that separates them from a life of luxury. Wary of the Shivers on the wall above and the Operatives (assuming they are on the DownTown side) they will watch from a cautious 100 metres or so away. The crowd will grow throughout the day as it makes a change from daytime teevee. Several fights may break out in the crowd, but according to 'Perimeter security and breech prevention guideline volume one' the last thing the Operatives should do is intervene, even if they see illegal weaponry amongst the crowd.

Towards the end of the drilling time, one of the workers will be injured, semingly by an accident that shoots a chunk of rock into his leg. On closer examination they will find it is a CAF rifle round. Someone wil be taking sporadic pot shots at the group. Anyone wearing armour is probably not too worried, but besides Padquil (which it is too hot to work in) the workers have nothing. If the Operatives manage to identify where the shots are coming from, they will find that instead of a DarkNight Sniper it is just a group of ten year old kids having fun with a CAF hunting rifle. The Operatives will have to be careful in stopping the kid as the crowd will quite happily riot if the Operatives come into DownTown and act heavy handed. The crowd knows that the Shivers wil not venture out from the Wall to help the Operatives. If a big riot starts up it is likely that a push wil be made to go towards the hole, although the Wall Shivers will open up on anyone who tries it (even if the Operatives are in the firing line).

Whilst the protective spray is applied the crowd will change to groups of people in gang colours. They will know what is happening at the Wall and will decide that they want their gang colours (red and black) on the new section. They'll start off by using CAF paint rounds and 'tagging' the workers equipment, the workers and possibly the Operatives. They'll then start running in to the kill zone with paint buckets, whilst their is a break in the patrolling Shivers and try to throw the paint in the area. If this becomes too dangerous they may use a few scrounged smoke grenades to give them cover to mark the wall.

As the night starts to descend and just before the shoring is finished on the DownTown side ready for the concrete, a group of drunk DownTowners in a battered old car may try to break their way through the tunnel to get to Suburbia. If the Operatives don't stop them, they'll damage the shoring equipment (scaffolding and boards) causing the workers to take longer. If they should make it through the tunnel, the Shivers on top of the Wall will stop them with excessive amounts of 10mm. Once the shoring is complete, the only way to the ther side is through the gate house which is about 500 metres along the Wall. The Operatives will have to make sure that any workers get back to the Suburban side safely, whilst stil lguarding the shoring from any attack.

Just as the shoring is completed and the workers are about to start pumping in the foam-concrete, the shoring on the DownTown side will start breaking. Although it initially looks as if part of it has just collapsed, the sound of a small eplosion can be heard as another section goes. Anyone working on the shoring will find themselves with an 8mm rifle round embedded in their leg. With minimal cover on the DownTown side of the Wall, the Operatives will have to contend with a very experienced DarkNight Sniper; Gill Blakeney. He will be situated about 600 metres away and will toy with the Operatives. His main purpose is to stop the hole being sealed up, so he won't be shooting to kill, merely to hinder the work in progress. It is at about this time that the Operatives might start hearing bursts of static on the Head Set Communicators. If they are sensible they'll be calling 3rd EyE News about now...

Incoming...

The hole was created in the early hours of the morning by a DarkNight Infiltration team. They were expecting to go through the GateWay but two corrupt Shivers who would have let them through were arrested by Cloak just beforehand. The back up plan was to use a bio-agent to break open a chunk of the Wall. This was delivered by a IR-negative Tek Trex Vito, that moved undetected at night to the Wall before spraying the agent and walking through the resulting hole to create a tunnel. The group of 'suburbans' seen running away from the Wall was the DarkNight Infiltrators disappearing towards their objective. Having assassinated several Karma scientists at the Core Projects facility they are currently travelling as fast as they can towards the hole. The Sniper has been sent to help their retreat and is trying to prevent the sealing of the hole. If he is unable to he will start taking pot shots at Shivers to make sure they keep their heads down when the DarkNight team arrive at the Suburbia side of the Wall.

The Infiltrator team still has a few canisters of the bio-agent left, which would probably be enough to eat through any new foam concrete that has been inserted in the tunnel, unless the exposed ends have been covered by the protective spray. If this happens one of the Infiltrators will still have a few rounds left for the grenade launcher he carries, and will use that to damage the Wall enough for the bio-agent to work. The Infiltrators have radio jamming equipment, so if anything happens near the tunnel, the Operatives will find it difficult to communicate to each other let alone get any Shiver back up. The Operatives will find it especially hard if half of the squad is being pinned down by the Sniper on the DownTown side.

The Infiltrators will fight to the death to get through the Wall, using smoke grenades, suppressive fire and the bio-agent to get past. However, they will have to pass through the kill-zone areas either side of the Wall, which the Operatives can use to their advantage. The Operatives will have to be careful that none of the workers is taken hostage though.

Final Outcome

The sniper is likely to retreat before he is detected by anyone, but the Infiltrators don't have that option. If any of them are taken alive the Operatives will be paid a bonus by Cloak Division (100c per Infiltrator). The Department of Architecture, Construction and Planning will be appreciative if all of its personnel are alive at the end of the day as will the Department of Shivers if none of the Shivers were killed by the Infiltrators or the Sniper.

If the Operatives called in 3rd EyE, they will get a media bonus depending on how photogenic the confrontation was. If any workers were taken hostage, only to be rescued minutes later by the Operatives, they may even find themselves being interviewed.

Sergeant Mounthouse will have left by the time the Operatives drag themselves back to GateWay 658 (the workers will give them a lift once they have finished). No-one else will want to sign the BPN so they'llhave no choice but to return the next day. On their return they will find out that any Infiltrators they captured have been taken elsewhere and that any injured workers have healed okay. Sgt. Mounthouse will grudgingly be impressed with them if they stopped the DarkNight team and may even have another BPN for them if they want. It is likely that the squad will now have an improved Reputation when dealing with the Gateway Shivers.

Other things to consider