'Wraith'
 

A tall man walks through the parking lot, looking thin and somewhat bony, with long blonde hair and a flowing black trenchcoat over dark pants and shirt and nondescript boots. His tight, brooding, and piercing face looks up at his destination's second story windows, then the third and fourth, panning widely back and forth to take in the view. There's where he'll be given his new assignment, and where he'll meet his new boss: Jade. That was all he knew at this point was her first name, 'cause he'd forgotten her last.

Having spent his last five years working for a cell that'd had him taking out drug cartel leaders, this assignment was looking fresh and exciting; he'd spent the whole plane ride over here daydreaming about harder targets, actually. It seems that he's been getting sloppy lately, fumbling some pretty easy tasks and making mistakes, although he'd still been fulfilling his objectives. That was probably part of the reason he'd been transferred...that and his passive whining. All speculation aside, he scans over from his right and goes left, then hums satisfactorily: nothing on the roof. His long career of assassin work had made him a suspicious guy, so he's looking out for potential snipers and traps, too. It's a bad habit that he's had a hard time breaking.

He finally breaks his gaze and walks towards the front door, already trying to figure out what he'll say to the receptionist...or the guard, or his new boss, or maybe an old friend, or maybe an old enemy, or a quick apology if he should bump into somebody accidentally, or...

"Piss on the ashes? But you need Park Place to complete your collection, so I doubt you'll be ready to burn the board just yet. Besides, not with the set up you have right now. Now are you ready to shell out what I want or is your collection gonna remain incomplete and hotel-less?"

He holds up a can of gas and an unlit match. "This what your looking for? Or this?" the can changes to a gold ingot and the match to a fist full of dollars.

Well, that certainly made things obvious. The board is cyberspace, burning it down means he'll destroy cyberspace with his doomsday device. As for pissing on the ashes...maybe that means he wasnts to establish a Coyote-Run digital republic out of the empty real estate...or something. But...the gas can changing to cash and gold confuses me. Does he mean to pay us off and keep his weapon...or is the weapon represented by both?

While pondering the implications of the shape-shifiting payoff, Wolf's PDAP beeped. He answered it, and noticed an anthropomorhpic timber wolf dressed in urban combat fatigues was on the screen.

"Sorry to bother you, but your friend has just left his room." the wolf said in a Gaelic Scottish accent

"Thanks, Beowulf." Wolf responded.

Beowulf was an AI program Wolf had liberated from Mastermind's clutches about 6 months prior to joining the Cyber Force. The AI had become attached to its savior, and basically became Wolf's assistant in both the RW and CW. Beowulf had been a U.K. Military AI, but Wolf had managed to expand on the programming a little bit. Beowulf was capable of surveillance, tactical analysis, and brute force subversion of securtiy systems. Wolf had added a search program into that as well, and was working on trying to make Beowulf the primary AI of Daishi, the OTAV Wolf had been given by the higher-ups. Unfortuunatley, the factory-built AI the OTAV had was proving resilient.

"Right now, he's walking the hallways in a kind of a daze. Better go check on him." the AI continued.

"Okay, I will." Wolf said. He took the time to transfer the negotiations over to his PDAP so he could keep an eye on them, and then he walked out of his quarters, searching for Monk.

He's probably still working through his head on what he needs to do. I'm pretty sure he tried to get out of the team. I know I might've questioned my stability after almost killing two teammates.

He eventually found Monk walking slowly, looking down at his feet.

"Good to see you're up and about." Wolf said.

Monk turned and looked at him.

"What's on your mind?" Wolf asked.

"Good to see you're up and about." Wolf said.

Monk turned and looked at him.

"What's on your mind?" Wolf asked.

Nothing? No... that won't pass. He knows me too well. He fumbled around for an answer, when he thought that he would try and avoid the topic all together. "Yeah... it feels good to be on my feet. I got up from bed, and almost forgot how to walk, if that's at all possible?"

It look like Wolf was going to say something, but Monk continued his story, "Yeah... but now that the bones are all back in their place, I just decided that I would walk off all the ones that weren't, then train a little more. You know, make sure that I still know how to fight. I wouldn't be much help if I couldn't even fist-fight." He let out a weak chuckle. Again wolf stepped foward to speak, "Yeah... off the gym, let me know when we're leaving, all right? I don't want to miss this job," and he was off. To somewhere.

Uh... where is the gym? Do we have one?

Wolf knew his friend was hiding something. He had mixed emotions about this.

On one hand, I'm mad he can't tell me whatever it is that's bothering him. On the other hand...I too am hiding something about my past. If I press the issue, things won't get resolved easily. If he wanted to tell me, he would. I'll just let it go for now...

"Well," Wolf said "If you think of anything you feel the need to tell me, or anything that you have to let someone hear, let me know. I mean, that's what friends are for, right? Anyway, I think the gym is down the hallway, in that direction." Wolf pointed behind himself.

Monk stopped and turned around. "I knew that." He said matter of factly. "Yeah... I did, really!" He walked around his friend towards the gym. "Go away!"

At Monk's sudden outburst, Wolf knew all was not right with his friend.

He's definetly holding something back...and he's hiding the truth...something is not right here.

Wolf's hand gravitated towards the M9 tranq pistol, but he didn't draw it. He decided that right now, Monk was not a threat to himself or others, so sedation was unecessary. Wolf decided to try and talk to Monk later, but for the moment he turned and headed back to his quarters to continue his observation of Jade and Coyote's exchange.

"Ah fuck this, man." Andy got up and started out of his office. He rounded a bend and walked right into Monk. "Oh, sorry, wasnt wa...Hello Monk." Andy looked the newly on-his-feet monk up and down. "Going somwhere? Maybe i can point you in the right direction."

"I await your response." He crossed his arms in front of his chest in the shape of an X. "End of line." The screen went black.