Lou's plan - Team black part 1

         Lou walked to the assembly hall, the three teams had left to make the trek across the wasteland a while ago, of course most didn't know that he had planned a fourth, and he hoped that he could get enough other people together to make the trek possible.

         He opened the door and saw three other teams sitting in the chairs, obviously wondering what was going on. He paused for a moment to take in which teams showed up. It was a cryptic message that he sent out to the teams that had failed to join another group in time, or just couldn't gather money for a bus to transport everyone. But Lou had a plan, and he didn't want the press to know about it, because the government would most likely try and stop him, and that would be an inconvenience.
         
         The first team he saw was the archangels, not that any straight male could miss them. There are six of them, two guys, and four girls. The girls are very beautiful, at least three of them are. The fourth is always wearing a mask or a helmet, so no one knows what she looks like, but she has an incredible body and loves to show it off. The guys are quite handsome also, one would think that they are the luckiest guys in the world, until you realize they are more interested in each other than the women on the team. While all of them are skillful drivers, they have a really poor win rate. They don't make a concentrated effort on winning. They make most of their money in photo shoots and endorsements, and they are the richest team in the circuit.

         The leader of the archangels is a women who goes by the name of Maryana Rufina. A Tall Brunette, Maryana is statuesque with a voice and face that make most men think of one thing only when talking with her. She one of their drivers and is their spokesperson. Her gunner is Inga Roza, a fiery red head with a foul mouth. Like all the archangels she is gorgeous, although a bit short, Rumor has it she is a bit of a pyromaniac. The second driving team consists of Agata Pelagiya, she is a petite blonde, with the most perfect face one had ever seen. She is also the one that wears the most clothing, not that that is saying much, and has confessed her virginity on several interviews, highly religious and said to be a very sweet individual. Her gunner is the masked Masha Inna, Never talks, appears to love the attention the men give her, communicate mostly through hand gestures. The guys are Vsevolod Vasiliy and Lavrenti Prokopiy, they also make money posing for magazines, just not the same ones that the rest of the team pose for, they are the mechanics, while they too wear the white suits the rest of the team wears, theirs is mostly smeared with oil and grease. Both blonde, muscled and blue eyes, one would almost mistake them for twins, but they are not related.

         The Archangels generally stick with the angel theme, often wearing small wings when dealing with the public, the outfits are all white, at least what there are of them. Their vehicles are agile and weapons shoot fire. Flamethrowers, flaming oil jets, incendiary rockets, anything that deals with fire. Many have hypothesized that anyone could take a fire resistant vehicle and the archangels wouldn't be able to do anything about it. But no one finds them a big enough threat to go through the trouble. That, and most guys don't want to be the one to scar are kill one of them.

         The second group is the Rowdies. A group of five men who are known for their love of alcohol, and a good fist fight. Their leader is Egill Johan, a bald, burly man, who often smokes cigars. He has a cybernetic eye and is the team's Mechanic. Known for his smack talk, and aggressively friendly demeanor, he is generally well liked and respected. Arnor poorir (The first letter in the last name is pronounced like a p) is the one of the groups drivers, he skinny, short and mean. He may be small but is quite a handful in a fight. If you want to get in a fight with him, calling him puny, short, midget or anything suggesting that he is small will get you one. His gunner is Asbjorn jortur, the most talkative one, he is known for non stop talking and love of the ladies. Even now he is hitting on Inga, who is just ignoring him. Not very attractive but well muscled, his black hair is short and greasy. Eiríkur Stefan is the groups second driver and muscle. Eiríkur is physically the most impressive, of the group, he has many scars across his worn face,he is the least talkative of the group. Eirikur is tall and his hair is the most long and wavy brown, much like you would see on the bad romance novels, but it then mixes with his equally long beard and the picture is lost. The final guy is Kristjan Jonatan the groups financial adviser, he is the proverbial nerd. Glasses, uncoordinated, easily intimidated, but somehow he manages to keep the team from wasting all their money on booze and women. Which was what they were doing before he joined.

         The third group is Red heat, a group of five schwartzenarians. One female and four guys, The girl is the groups mechanic and she is named Hanna Natalka. She has cybernetic arms and her hair was replaced with metal tendrils that move in an almost hypnotic way. She is average looking, but some find her hair to be exotic and enticing. She is known to be a bit of a psychopath. She used to be a gunner, but was fond of shooting guys in the genitalia if they got out of their vehicle. So the group found her to be a bit to scary on the track. The Leader and head driver of the group is Daniel Yuriy, he is the most human of the group, he only has one cybernetic eye, which he can cause to give off light when he wants, often he uses it for theatrical effects, but rumors has it that he has some other things in the eye also. He is not very eloquent, but compared to the rest of the group, he is Shakespeare. Known for his luxurious long brown curly hair, he if the best looking of the group, and the only one that one can get a smile out of. Erwann Alexei is the groups second driver, he has metal skin, displays no emotion, and talks very little. He moves stiffly when out of the vehicle, but drives very well. His skin is said to be bullet proof, but no one had attempted to test it. He does not appear to have any other enhancements. His gunner is a guy who goes by the nickname Talon, he has a couple blades built into his cybernetic arm and hidden compartments, built into both legs. The compartments hold more knives, and the legs allow him to run fast and leap long distances. He is a big talker, and a big whiner when he looses. The back up is Yann Yannick, he can drive, shoot and even knows how to work on cars. Most of his face has been replaced with cybernetics, he is a bit of a showoff, and loves the camera. While his face doesn't show emotion, his voice modulator reveals all his feeling, he is the most friendly of the group, and the most distract-able.

         The group is skilled, they love hidden little surprises and big explosions. The cars are often outfitted with expensive metal armor, machine guns and rockets.

         Lou took one last look at the group, he smiled to himself satisfied with the response. He walked up to the podium and tapped on the mic to get their attention.
         "You are all probably wondering why I called you here. Well as you know three groups of races set out across the wasteland yesterday, and they are all competing to get the prize for getting across the wasteland first. I know that you all wanted to go, but couldn't find a group, or just arrived to late. Well, I have a plan, I can help you get across and get us registered for the for the race, both races, the one that began yesterday and the auto-duel. But you must keep this secret, I cannot allow you to tell anyone what we are doing. Any questions?"

         "So, what is the plan? We don't have a charger, and we are a very late already. Let alone a bus to carry our supplies." Egill asked as he stood up.


         "I have a bus we can use, as far as the time, we will make that up. As I said I have a plan"

         "And what is this plan?"

         "I will tell everyone who agrees to join my group. Otherwise, I can't risk others finding out about it."

         "Alright Lou, I know you have connections, if anyone can pull this off, you can. The Rowdies are in."

         "We will join you also, we have several appointments to keep, and we would rather not miss them." Maryana said.

         "So, Lou is it?â Daniel started as he stood up, â Look I don't know who you are, and I don't care. I need to see that bus of yours before I will commit to anything."

         Lou thought for a moment, then shook his head, âFine, meet me at the Crayston airfield in four hours, bring anything you will need for the trip, I will have to take you to the bus from there. Don't tell anyone what we are doing. If you are unsatisfied with the bus, there will be quite a drive home. So prepare accordingly."

         "How long of a drive?" Daniel asked

         "a long drive, I will have a spare charger on hand, I suggest you bring a small trailer with you , just in case."

         The teams looked at each other questioningly, then nodded in acceptance.

         Everyone started leaving and Lou took out his com, calling up his team.

         "Alright guys and girls, it's on. Get to the Crayston airfield in four hours, and don't be late, or you will get left behind. "

* * * * * * *

         Lou arrived at the Crayston airfield shortly there after and went into a building. The building was a bit ramshackle and looked like it had been unused for several years with a layer of dust on everything. Everything except one man sitting in the corner, asleep.

         "Hey, Peter, wake up!" Lou yelled.

         The man sprung out of the chair and looked around uncertainly, he looked at Lou then relaxed.

         "Hey, Lou, been waiting for you. So how many do you need?"

         "It looks like three teams, with two vehicles apiece and two more for supplies and one for the special delivery"

         "You aren't going to tell me what that is are you."

         "Nope, I am just a delivery man, I don't even know what is in the crates.â Lou lied. âAll I know is that my employer wants it before the race begins."

         "Al right, I will call in the fleet. Lets start getting set up."

* * * * * * *

         The first team to arrive was the Rowdies, they had brought with them several containers of beer, and had started to set up the container for distribution among the team. Lou quickly suggested that they wait for a better time to begin drinking, which they looked downcast, but started following his instructions on where to place the vehicles.

         While they were waiting him and Peter had placed several large nets around the airfield and told each team to drive their vehicles onto the net.

         Shortly thereafter a large transport arrived, in it was three more people an a lot of crates, which the men running the transport began to unload.

         Lou looked at the three, one was Benny Grundben, an old friend of his, he was what was unaffectionately called a roach, a Roach is a guy who takes a war robot and alters it so that he can fit inside and operate it. Roaches are generally anti-social and uncomfortable outside their bot and Benny is no exception. Outside his vehicle he is a fidgety, small, weaselly looking man. His unkempt hair and his unshaven look, only serve to emphasize his uncomfortable looking appearance. The second is a woman with dark skin and long black hair tied in a ponytail. She has a number of weapons attached to her clothes in various places, most of which Lou couldn't identify. Her name was Shaka Assim, a bounty hunter my employer wanted me to transport. She said she tracked her prey to this town and knows he left with one of the teams, she is keeping tabs on him via the Cube. Lou knew very little about her, but she looks scary. The last is Garry Charge, he is an expert on the wastelands, Lou had used before, he will help get them though unharmed. Garry was a scavenger for a big company for a long time, and has seen everything the wasteland has to offer, including things he wished he could be unseen. Lou directed them over to where they could sit, until they were ready to go.

         The next two teams arrived shorty thereafter and were similarly instructed where to park. The Archangels however showed up in a far more conservative outfits, clearly when it was time for business, they were serious, the wings were gone and they were wearing racing suits, with body armor clearly poking out from the edges.

         The schwartzenarians arrived and took out all their over sized weapons. Showing off to the others and bragging about how much damage each can do, many of the weapons looked completely unusable, but Lou felt that perhaps their cybernetic implants would help them out a bit.

         While the rest of the group was showing off their weapons, Daniel walked over to Lou.

         "So... Where is the bus?"Daniel started.

         "It's not here, I have to take you to it. As I said it's a ways away."

         "Why are we parking on top of those platforms, do they lower down somewhere?"
         "Nope, look to the north."

         Daniel turned and looked, at first he cast about obviously not seeing anything, but he eventually saw it.

         "Are those... Skycopters?"

         "Yup, they will be taking us to the bus."

         "Why do we need those? Can't we just drive?"

         "We could, but we are already behind, need to catch up someway. Besides, we would attract to much attention if we all drove out one of the front gates. I need to be a bit secretive, at least at first. The Skycopters are very quiet. Considering they are a variation of the Helicopters using in some of the arena fights, it's surprising how much the technology has manged to silence them."

         "How did you get enough money for so many?"

         "Let's just say, some people owe me some favors. Right now the race officials are aware of our team, but haven't announced our entry to the race. They will wait until noon tomorrow, unless we get spotted before then. It's amazing what a little cash can do."

         "So we are cheating?"

         "Not in the least, the race was just to see who can get there first, there was no mention of how. Plus I don't think that anyone will complain since everyone else has a head start." Lou lied.

         "But, If we fly all the way there, they will complain. They will raise hell."

         "It's unfortunate , but the skycopters don't have enough fuel to make the full trip, it will just take us to our bus, from there we have to use the vehicles. It will save just enough time to make up most of it."

         "Ok, so where is this bus?"

         "That you will see in about an hour. As I said, I can't tell you where it is. But I can show you."

         Daniel nodded, and walked back to his team, to await the arrival of the copters. It didn't take long before the copters arrived and started to hook up the platforms carrying the vehicles. One other copter arrived to carry the people, it was a bit cramped, but no one was complaining. After several minutes they took off.

* * * * * *

         After about an hour, with some attempt at small talk the pilot called back to Lou.

         "Hey, we have a warning coming from the site you want to land at. It's an automated defense system, it's threatening to shoot us down if we don't turn back.â The pilot said, quickly followed by several curses and groans from the rest of the passengers.

         "Calm down everyone, repeat these numbers. Five, Seven, Three, One, Zero, Eight, Nine, Three."

         "The system says it's been deactivated."The pilot replied after repeating the numbers.

         "So where are we going exactly. The place has a hostile automated defense system, that you somehow know the code to." Arnor asked, with several of the passengers looking at Lou expectantly.

         "I guess it's okay to tell you now. About two decades ago my father, Heath Brango, worked at a military station out in the wastelands. The government abandoned it and locked it down, setting up an automated system to attack anyone who got to close. They want to keep it secret, they don't want anyone getting in and messing things up. So when we land, stay with the group, the bus should be in the courtyard and all we have to do is install the charger and load up the equipment. I am the leader of this expedition, if I tell you something, you listen and do as I say. Garry is our expert, if he tells you something, you follow. When it comes to survival, his orders countermand mine. I have no use for people who can't follow instructions, if you are one of those people, you can leave once we open the gate. We will be landing shortly, be ready, there is a lot we have to do, and we need to move quickly, the copter ride helped us catch up a bit, but we are still a little behind."

         There was a general murmuring, several people didn't like how he just appointed himself leader, that sort of thing never goes well. But, he funded this operation, and in all reality, the teams are mostly just cheap body guards for him to get his package across the wastelands.

         The copter landed, the only one that would be landing. The rest would be delivering the goods then heading back. They had one hour, after that the copters were leaving even if things weren't unloaded. Should be plenty of time, but Lou wasn't certain how the teams would work together.

         Everyone got off the copter into a large walled facility, looking more like a prison than a military facility. The Walls were a good thirty feet high, and made of reinforced concrete. There was a large military transport sitting not far away from the copter, and many started walking over to it.

         "Ok people,â Lou yelled, âWe have just an hour, get the vehicles and the crates off the platforms. No more than three of the copters can get in here at one time, so you will have to move quickly."

         "Is that the bus you were talking about?" Yann asked, "That thing couldn't take us anywhere. The tires have all eroded away, you can't be serious."

         "Get the crates unloaded first, then we will deal with the bus. Get moving!" Lou yelled,

         Several of the people jumped as You yelled the order, but then got moving. Several of the people had nothing to do, since there were so many people, a few were bound to either not know what to do, or just have no place to help. Lou knew this would be the case, but he hoped they would be smart and stick around. There are things in the facility that no one should mess with, and Lou didn't want anyone wandering around.

         The crates were unloaded in a mere 45 minutes, then everyone started looking at Lou for further information.

         "Ok, open the crate marked 324, that has the knew tires for the transport. There is a couple high-powered jacks in the crate 128. There should also be some jack stands, get the tires on a fast as you can, then there is the charger in Crate 92, that needs to be hooked up to the transport after the tires are on. " Lou informed everyone.

         The groups moved pretty efficiently, each team took a job or two and worked on it, so there wouldn't be any group conflicts. The tries got put on and the charger got installed quickly, then he started instructing them, where to load the supplies, which crates needed to go where and what each contained. Including the ones that were not to be opened, unless Lou said so. During the loading of the supplies, Lou notices two people missing, Arnor, and Yann. He had noticed them chatting quite a bit, finding a common ground. Hopefully they didn't go anywhere they shouldn't.

         "Shaka," Lou called out to the bounty hunter, " Arnor and Yann, have gone missing, bring them back if you would."

         The woman nodded and gracefully sprinted away.

* * * * * *

         Two figures were walking in the dark alleyways of the military compound, looking around for something of interest.

         "This place is great, we can find all sorts of weapons in here" Arnor said.

         "Yeah, can you imagine the looks on others faces if we showed up with a few military grade weapons. If we have time to install them, that would make our vehicles pretty much the best on the track." Yann said

         "Yeah, if only your team had the driving skills to back it up."

         "Ha, we will destroy you, just wait and see."

         "Not likely, I doubt half of your team will make it out of the wastelands, probably food and decorations for the locals."

         "Wait, look at this..." Yann said, noticing some blinking lights next to a panel on a large metalis object.

         Yann touched a few buttons on the metallic object and suddenly it sprung to life. Yann jumped in surprise, but a large grin started spreading over his face.

         "Hey Arnor, this place has war robots, imagine what we could get for one of these, and there are at least fifty, here."

          Arnor started to head to Yann, who was just around a corner, when there was a hail of bullets, and a mist of blood was carried out from behind the corner.

         "Yann!" Arnor yelled,

         
         He didn't know why the war robot attacked him, but Yann had little chance of surviving anything from that close range. He heard several sounds of activating war robots. He figured this might be the reason that they were to stay with the group. One of the war robots turned the corner, it's weapons quickly finding their focus on him. He turned to run, but knew his life was going to be over in a second. When suddenly a bolt of blue electricity shot over his head, and struck the war robot, sparks played over it's casing and it slumped down as if in defeat. Arnor saw Shaka holding a strange weapon in her hand.

         "Get back to the group, my gun only has five shots, and it's not permanent." Shaka said to him, seemingly unaffected by what just happened.

          Arnor didn't argue as he ran hearing a couple more shots ring out behind him, and hearing several of the jump packs on the war robots flare to life.

         "You are slow" Shaka said as she ran past Arnor, "Must be your short legs"

         Those words would have started a fight in normal conditions, but in the current situation, he didn't fell a fight was the best option.

         As they got back to the group Lou was yelling at everyone to get in there vehicles, and that they needed to leave now.

         Benny had donned his Battle suit and was launching rockets into the air. Arnór figured that the group knew about the war robots by now. The sky looked like several large fireflies were flying though the air. Only then rockets started raining down on them.

          Arnor ran for his vehicle, quickly getting in and starting up the vehicle. Asbjorn started up his rocket launcher and a rocket flew into the air striking one of the war robots and sending it spiraling to the ground. One of the crates exploded from a stray rocket, sending wooden shrapnel all over, luckily unable to penetrate the armor on his vehicle, but they made a racket on the metal sounding like an empty bucket in rainstorm.

         One of the Archangels cars got hit with a rockets, luckily it was armored enough to stand the blast, but in an instant it traded in the nice white paint job for a battle worn look. A horn sounded, and suddenly the wall opened up. Arnór was shocked for a moment, but quickly realized that there must be a gate somewhere. There was another explosion behind him and the head of Garry flew over his car, it's half scorched face landing on the hood of his car, almost mocking him.

         The vehicles quickly started out the gate, Arnór saw Shaka leap from a platform at the edge of the gate, apparently where the gate controls were, and land on the transport. Luckily the vehicles were quickly able to outpace the war robots. After a brief head count only two people were dead, Yann and Garry. They drove for several hours in the night, it was rough and several people had little sleep, but they managed not to have an accident. They finally made camp in the morning tried to get a little shut eye.

* * * * * *

         
         Lou strode to each person and woke them up, they only had about four hours of sleep, but they couldn't afford to sleep now, they had to get moving and there was one other thing he had to do before they got moving.

         He gathered up everyone and had them all stand in line, he walked up and down the line talking.

         "Well, you are probably wondering what happened back there. Well first a bit of history, several years ago, the government placed a military outpost here with the intention of finding something in the wasteland that might be used as a weapon, so they built the Crag, that's the base we were at. They were open several years and they used war robots to gather specimens, those of you who rode the bus may have noticed the mostly decayed body of a mutant in there, I have named him Grabby, since the hands of it will most likely touch some part of you as you try and squeeze your way past him. Well during an upgrade, there was a problem noticed, a virus was downloaded into the upgrade. This virus was dubbed the quick draw virus, it would turn any war robot it infected into a malicious killing machine. The mere presence of a living being would activate it and whatever being it sensed would be obliterated. The best programmers they had had tried to disable the virus, but to no luck. They were able to keep the war robots off, so that they wouldn't attack everyone in the facility. But without the war robots, the project was a failure, and they couldn't risk on of the things getting turned on, so it was abandoned. I didn't tell you about it because I know the value of a fully operational war robot and was afraid that someone would try and take a couple with us. We didn't have the room for it, and they are way to dangerous. Plus they were all interlinked, it was meant to allow them to work together more efficiently, but the virus would use that to infect all of them quickly, and as a added bonus, when one war robot was turned on, it would send out the codes to activate all of them." Lou looked meaningfully at the group.

         "But there are those who didn't heed my warning. One of them is no longer with us, I understand he was killed by one of the war robots. Due to the actions of these people, our Wasteland expert is no longer with us, and we have lost a good third of our rations. So we are now on a strict rationing." There were several groans around the group.

          "I see everyone stayed with the group, so everyone here has agreed to continue forward, excellent. We have along road ahead of us and we cannot afford any more mistakes. If you can't follow my instructions, you do not belong here. If you cannot follow instructions, you will be a hindrance to this group. If you cannot follow instructions, you are worthless to me! "

         Lou finished the sentence by drawing a pistol and shooting Arnór in the head with one quick move. The body slumped to the ground, its eyes showing shock and confusion from the sudden action.
The remaining rowdies started moving in unison, grabbing weapons, when a large shadow loomed over , Benny's battlesuit had it's weapons primed and ready to go, aimed at the group.

         "You know understand my dedication. You don't follow my orders, I will kill you. Because out here, not following my orders can get several people killed. I don't want to loose anyone else, but I will gladly sacrifice one of you for the benefit of the entire group. Do you understand?"

         The group stared in silence at Arnor's corpse, it's blood seeping into the sand, and making a grotesque inkblot shape on the ground.


         "Anyone want to leave now, do it. You may make it home alive. Otherwise you are with me, and make no mistake we are in the fight for our lives here."

         There was a little buzzing sound, Lou looked and saw two small camera drones, flying away from a couple missiles. The missiles were very agile, but the drones were a bit more agile, and the missiles ended up missing, after a short period of time, the missiles ran out of fuel and sputtered and flew to the ground. The little drones picked up the group of vehicles and started flying around above them.

         "Well people, it looks like we got our audience now, the press will call us team black, well, because that's what I told the right people to call us. So let move."

         With more than a little hesitation, the group moved to their vehicles and started to move out.
Lou knows there is a long ride, and Arnor death will weigh on them, he only hopes they will learn from it and not try and take revenge. He has a few more tricks up his sleeve for the foolish who try that...