SUITS ch. 2: Data Hunting
 

His house stood there in front of him. Nothing could have been a better sight. It had been a hard day at work, and he couldn't ask for anything more than a good night's rest. He couldn't wait to see the smiling face of Naomi, his wife. They had been married for ten years, and were still in deep love. As he walked toward his house, he was stopped by a strange man wearing black. He was about to break away when the man pulled out a cloth, and stuck it against his face. He could smell the strange fumes from some weird liquid on the rag. It was making him black out. He was getting frantic. He managed to wriggle out of the man's hold, and made a last ditch run for the door. His hand was reaching for the knob, but his mind was slowly going to sleep. Before his vision turned to darkness, he thought of his wife. His Naomi.

Thomas woke up in a cold sweat. The dream was horrible, and so real. It wasn't a memory of his. He had never been married, and the man in the dream was much older than he was. Before he could contemplate the dream, the alarm was beeping next to his bed. There was another mission. He pressed a button, and a view screen popped up.

"Agent Thomas. Report to SSF headquarters immediately. We need you and your group to go on a data retrieval mission. We're going to find out what those Elite SUITS are."

Thomas rolled out of bed, and pulled on a clean pair of jeans and his leather jacket. He ran out of the building, and within minutes, he was zooming along teh Skyway Highway in his zoomer.

A loud beeping sound was heard waking Rick from his slumber. When he awoke he found himself right next to his SUITS. "Well that was an odd rest." He goes to the comm and patches in. "Well my old friend, looks like the game is about to start."
<Sometimes I wonder if you can truelly tell the difference between your games an reality.>
"Haven't you figured it out, when it comes to SUITS there is no difference."
<Just remember we dont have a reset button, mistakes can't be undone.>
"Thats why I dont make them"
Rick went to the elevater and was lifted to the briefing room. His thoughts remained on that elite. "No way he was a normal elite, and no matter how much I try to convince myself. My gut keeps saying he is alive, and waiting."

"Hey, Jack. Wake up, time for work." An artificial, but very familiar, voice cut into Jack's light sleep.

"Ugh... Damn it, Cham. I keep telling you that work for me only counts when it involves something important."

"Yes, Jack, I know you're a slacker. Of course, slacking on a mission debriefing isn't really a bad thing now, is it." The last part of Cham's statement snapped Jack completely into consciousness.

"A debriefing? Geez, we had a mission just yesterday and they already have us going? Busy week..." Jack got up and stretched, only to see Ben sound asleep in a chair at his workbench. He'd worked the whole night on Cham, as was obvious by a coffee mug that showed evidence of being refilled multiple times. "So he really worked that hard while I was out like a rock?"

"Yeah, look at me! I feel like I was just made yesterday!" Jack couldn't help but hold back a whistle. With a whole night of work, Ben had worked out all the dings and dents, and it was obvious that some things he was still working on, but what he was finished with was coated in heavy doses of new camo paint, much more than ever before.

"Wow, can't wait to see which one of our suggestions he took up if he's working that hard."

"Believe me, he's done a little more than just take a few suggestions. I won't spoil the surprise, but just wait until he's done."

"Aw, c'mon! You know I ha--"

"Debriefing."

"--te it when you keep reminding about this kinda crap... Gah, I guess I'll see you later. Tell Ben I was impressed, would you?"

"Will do, Boss."

Walking out of the small workshop, Jack proceeded to slowly make his way to the elevator up to the debriefing room. On the way, he grabbed a cup of coffe along with a couple of snacks. When he reached the elevator, he found it was already being used and taken up, so he sat in a nearby chair and chowed down on his light breakfast.

While he was eating, he would get a few stares from people as they looked at his black eye, which was a lot more obvious than it was before. Some of the people that knew him were even wondering why he even had a black eye, but many dismissed it, considering his line of work. Jack was just wishing the others in the SSF wouldn't really notice and save him from his embarassment.

The knife whistled through the air, falling sideways in an end-over-end tuble until suddenly it hit the board with a resounding thwock, burying itself halfway into the pinewood surface.

Damien flipped the next one into the air, then turned away without catching it on its way down and whipped out his pager as soon as he heard the beeping noise. Breaking into a jog that geared up into a run, he pushed the doors open and was out. Behind him, the knife thudded into the wooden counter.

******

The door to the briefing room swung open, and Damien insinuated himself into the place, pulling up a chair and taking a seat.

Nobody else was around, so he folded his arms, and waited.

Lee walked into the briefing room in his normal dragging fashion. He slumped down into his seat looking as down as always. He had the black eyeshadow around his eyes today. He was always a pain when he wore the black eyeshadow. You could tell just by looking at him he was going to be arguing with everything he could.

On the way to the briefing, Ben swung by the hanger to see how the repairs on Phalnax were doing.

He found his sister-in-law on the ground, leaning against the leg of Phalnax...asleep.

<That can't be very comfortable.> Phal said in a whisper. <You're not going to wake her up, are you?> the AI said in an accusing voice.

Ben shrugged. "She needs a goodnight's sleep...and I assume your system picked up the beeper signal."

Phal gave a very human sigh. <I barely get patched up, and now they want me to get torn up again.>

"Such is the life of fame." Ben said, he walked over to Abagale, and put his hand on her shoulder. "Abbey, wake up."

Abagle groaned. "Michael?" she said, then she opened her eyes. "Ben? I thought you went home."

"I did." Ben said. He pulled out his beeper. "They called us back in."

"What?!" Abagale said, standing up. "You just had a mission last night! I just barely finsihed patching Phal up!"

<Actually, you got done two hours ago. You've been asleep since then.">

Abagale groaned. "No wonder my back is sore."

Ben frowned. "You should go home. Michael is probably worried about you, and you'll probably have to come back in soon to patch us up again."

<Thought, hopefully, not quite as much this time around.>

"What time is it?" Abagale asked, then looked at her watch. "Ahhhh crap. Michael's going to be pissed."

"You can blame me if you want." Ben said, giving Abagale a wry smile. "He hates me enough already, it wouldn't hurt to add this onto it."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

As Ben walked into the briefing room, he looked at everyone else. He groaned as he saw Lee.

"For the love of Pete." Ben muttered as he sat down. "Why do you even show up when you're in this kind of mood?"

Kuro was sitting on a corner, cleaning some sort of stick. "Well, let's see what we're going to destroy today." He stared at the others, who were getting in. "Took an extra period for your rest?"

Gordon sits in a chair in the debriefing room
"Yeah, I am ready for some action" he replies to Kuro's remark

The secretary on the video screen said, "Agent Leon. Report to SSF headquarters immediately. We need you and your group to go on a data retrieval mission. We're going to find out what those Elite SUITS are."

"Got it. I'll be there in a jiffy." Leon replied, turning it off. He was about to step out the door when he asked, "Alexis, is Ziltal ready to go?"

"Yeah. You might want these before you go, however." Alexis handed him a pair of pants.

"Where would I be without you?" He asked, putting them on.

"Probably in jail on several accounts of public indecency." She laughed, walking with him to the garage.

"Babe, I feel funny."

"Huh? What is it?"

He shook his head, and it passed. "Must be headrush or something. I'll be fine."

"Ok. Don't die today!"

When Leon sat down in the car, he fell over to the other seat. "Honey? Leon! Wake up!" Alexis cried. "I'm taking you to a hospital. Zephyr, alert the hospital that we're en route, then start recording a message."

<Hospital alerted. Recording in 3 >>> 2 >>> 1.>

"HQ, this is Alexis Tira. Leon's concussion is worse than we thought, and he's now unconsious. You'll need to do your mission without him. I'm taking him to the hospital as we speak. End recording."

<Message recorded. Playback?>

"No. Send the file to the SSFHQ, level 3 priority. Access code 1053827."

<Message sent.>

The Windrunner sped above the highways along the medical access route.

Replying to Kuro's remark, Damien said, "Didn't feel tired. I spent the time throwing knives downstairs until the recall came. My tech said she had a surprise waiting for me... don't know what that little minx has been up to."