![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Company
Time: May 12, 2009.
Place: Raleigh, NC, USA.
Last Event: None.
After long drives in some cases and even longer flights in others, Company recruits Vincenzo Calliente, Jean-Baptiste Dieudonné, Anabel Windsor, Xiang Wen, and Zhu Zhang find themselves not in an air-conditioned war room lit by glowing flat-screen displays, or even the conference facilities of a high-end business hotel, but a crummy motel meeting room . . . and not in Beijing, London, New York, or another world-class city, but in Raleigh, NC. The furniture consists of plastic chairs and folding tables. In front of the assembled Agents, a well-dressed East Indian man fiddles with his PowerPoint presentation and portable projector. On a side table is some astoundingly greasy Tex-Mex food. Only Xiang seems to be eating – rather odd, considering she's also the tiniest (all of five feet and 90 lbs.) and doesn't look like the sort who would enjoy refried lard with extra fat.
The man up front eventually introduces himself as "Mr. Chaturvedi, your handler" and reiterates the briefing that all of the new Agents received during indoctrination. To paraphrase: The Company is a privately run extra-national organization that aims to defend human rights and bring justice by any means necessary whenever generous donations from its rich, anonymous directors can't solve the world's problems through conventional channels. This makes the Company's operations illegal, and thus necessarily highly secret. Agents are clandestine operators, not legitimate cops or soldiers – or even quasi-legitimate intelligence personnel – in somebody's national service.
Chaturvedi concludes this part of his presentation by reminding the assembled Agents of the Company's ground rules:
• "Blacker than black." – Secrecy is paramount at all times.
• "What Company?" – To this end, there is no home base or headquarters . . .
• "Don't call us, we'll call you." – . . . all communications with the Company are via chip-encrypted smart phone . . .
• "Don't get caught." – . . . and the Company will not extract or legally defend Agents who get caught.
• "You are ghosts." – Agents can't own property, start families, or otherwise put down roots. To do that, retire and collect your pay.
• "It's only money." – Similarly, equipment is issued, not personal. Anything that could be identified later will be replaced between operations.
• "Weapons are free." – Deadly force is authorized, but collateral damage is to be avoided and unnecessary deadly force means dismissal.
He adds one further note that's less a rule than a request: The Company is new and the Agents present are among those in the Company's first cohort. They should be aware that there will be far more jobs than there are teams until the Company builds up manpower. To this end, the Agents should always have their eyes open for potential recruits. They aren't to approach such people, only to pass along word to their handlers.
Chaturvedi then proceeds to introduce the team:
• Jean-Baptiste "JB" Dieudonné (black man in his late 40s, with a Caribbean accent and an air of authority): Command, intelligence, and team medic.
• Vincenzo "Vinnie" Calliente (Italian-American chap in his late 30s, wearing an expensive suit that fits his back better than his manner): Entry man and team driver.
• Anabel Windsor (white woman in her mid-20s, with a British accent and a sexy demeanor): Languages and social liaison.
• Xiang Wen (tiny Chinese woman in her late 20s, seemingly made of sinew, with a military haircut): Weapons and demolition.
• Zhou Zhang (extremely fit Chinese man in his late 20s, with the unmistakable air of a cop): Criminology and investigation.
Chaturvedi goes on to note that the team represents an experiment – one of several that the Company is undertaking as it learns the ropes. Specifically, the Agents will work undercover with an intricate cover story supported by skills for which recruits aren't normally chosen: JB plays sax, Vinnie is a drummer, Anabel sings and plays piano, Wen is a bassist, and Zhang plays trumpet. Their cover will be that of a jazz band. Chaturvedi asks the squad members to work out their band's name and repertoire as soon as possible.
After that interesting aside, Chaturvedi lays out the next step for the team: A trip to a training camp operated by Blackline Tactical, up near the Virginia border, for testing and qualification. He explains that training weekend warriors is merely a lucrative sideline for the private military corporation. Blackline's main business is as a security contractor in Iraq, and the Company suspects that Blackline is up to no good there.
The plan: The team will spend a week at Blackline's facility posing as corporate employees from Charlotte. Their primary task is to complete a number of one-hour training blocks from a "sampler menu" arranged ahead of time by the Company's desk brigade. Blackline's programs are for real, and its instructors will be operating under the assumption that the group are corporate security staff being sent for training and evaluation by their boss. And in a way they are! The squad's secondary goal will be to learn whatever they can about Blackline.
With that, the group is shown to a van that already has the Blackline facility marked as a destination on its computer GPS. Vinnie takes the keys and the Agents head northeast. They soon reach the Blackline camp, which is in a swampy, isolated area off the main highway. It's set up like a cross between a prison and a military camp, with high fences, barbed wire, and bollards in evidence, and a bulletproof security booth out in front of a substantial gate. It certainly looks like the sort of place that trains couch commandos.
The Agents are expected and admitted. They drive past numerous shooting ranges and obstacle courses, and eventually reach the private "barracks" the Company has arranged for them: a utilitarian aluminum hut with a concrete floor. They're met there by their liaison, Hannah, who epitomizes the female redneck. She seems friendly enough, though, and fills in everybody on the schedule that their supposed bosses back in Charlotte chose for them. It looks to be a busy week.
And indeed it is. The week is one big blur of field-stripping, shooting, crawling around in swamps, pounding on CPR dummies, and a whole lot more. Many boxes are ticked and numerous tests are passed. For JB and Wen, it's like being back in boot camp . . . minus the time or depth of training to learn anything useful, and of course with better food and no hazing.
There's little to be learned about Blackline, however, other than one curious event on Saturday, May 16: JB notices a limousine pull up in the fenced-off administrative portion of the facility. A man in Arab garb gets out, and several obviously trained bodyguards escort him into a low building with many antennas. After a while, he and his men come out again, followed by some Blackline employees, who load up a couple of Hummers with very illegal weaponry: heavy machine guns and antitank missiles. The limo and two Hummers then drive off the site. When JB tells the others, Wen surmises that he might have seen one Sheik al-Shaba, the supposed CEO of the company that runs Blackline via several cutouts, who has recently gone to ground to avoid the latest charges against his company.
The Agents' stint ends on Monday, May 18. That afternoon, they receive a phone call from Chaturvedi, who says that it's time to meet again so that he can equip the team. He gives Vinnie the address of a warehouse in Norfolk, VA and e-mails a map to the van's computer. The group then signs out of Blackline and drives up to Norfolk. The warehouse isn't hard to find, and Chaturvedi directs Vinnie to park the van inside so that nobody will see what's going on. A second, identical van sits nearby; Vinnie notices that it's riding low, and suspects that it's filled with the squad's gear.
In a small office off the loading area, Chaturvedi has more greasy food waiting – Creole fare this time around. Once again, only Wen is really interested in eating. JB in particular is shocked at the quality, and vows to cook the real thing once the team is finally on its own time. Chaturvedi steps out for a moment to see to business. A moment later, the Agents hear a commotion and the muffled sound of suppressed gunfire!
Zhang and JB run to the door Chaturvedi used, only to find that it's locked. Zhang then dashes to the other door – which leads to the loading area where the van is parked – and can only get it open a crack. He can see that someone has rolled the van up in neutral to barricade the door. With Wen's help, he manages to bend the upper corner of the door outward, over the van's nose. Then he skillfully wiggles his way through the tiny opening and onto the hood of the van. A few moments later, he has moved the van and opened the door.
The Agents fan out into the loading area but encounter nobody. Everybody's first thought is to raid the second van for equipment – hopefully including weapons. On reaching it, though, Vinnie spots something very, very disturbing: There's a very large, very complex-looking bomb inside! Spotting an equally complicated security system on the warehouse's exits, he cautions the others not to head outside until he can verify that the two aren't linked. Wen joins him and they proceed to look over the bomb.
Meanwhile, Zhang heads up into mezzanine to check it for enemies, weapons, or more bombs. He finds nothing like that, but he does find bags full of a suspicious white powder. His police instincts tell him that it's probably drugs. Why there would be drugs locked in here with a bomb escapes him for the moment.
Anabel and JB examine the two other doors out of the loading area. Listening at one, Anabel hears a distant voice shouting in Arabic: "The truth can't leave this building!" This is followed by more shooting, further away than the earlier shots, and the sound of flash-bang grenades. After that, she hears someone yelling in English: "For God's sake, hel—". The speaker is cut off abruptly.
JB calls the others over and the entire group moves through the interior door. They sweep through office after office, with Zhang taking point and listening at each door in turn. The rooms beyond are suspiciously empty, containing only decrepit furniture and empty desks. Nobody can find any weapon much better than a snapped-off broomstick. JB opines that either this is a test by the Company or something has gone very, very wrong.
To be continued . . .
no subject
I think I will have a lot of fun with this character, looking forward to Tuesday.
no subject
no subject
The "bass" that Xiang Wen plays is an upright bass, yes, rather than a bass guitar as it would likely be in a rock band?
I'm reminded of my Gods and Monsters campaign, where during the first scenario the team leader decided that the other PCs were not covering their tracks carefully enough, and talked to them about it, saying something that became the campaign catchphrase: "Let me explain it again: Secret. Organization."
Do you know the concept of the Five Man Band, as discussed for example at the TV Tropes Web site? It sounds as if your team may fit the pattern fairly closely: JB as the leader, Wen as the big guy (in an ironic sense, but she apparently IS the combat monster), Zhang as the smart guy, and Anabel as the chick. Vinnie is not so obviously the lancer, but his sociodynamic function is harder to judge from the writeup.
no subject
Well, it could be something like that (see here), but in this case it's just a cool-sounding surname. (Although I just noticed this, heh.)
The "bass" that Xiang Wen plays is an upright bass, yes, rather than a bass guitar as it would likely be in a rock band?
Correct – a "real" bass rather than a bass guitar. It's one more aspect of the tiniest team member having a role bigger than she is. Bonnie plans to have fun with that: big appetite, big guns, big musical instrument, etc.
"Let me explain it again: Secret. Organization."
Hopefully we won't have to have that moment. I have run secret-agent campaigns before, though, and they generally hit that place where people think they can do a James Bond, reveal their real name, cruise around in fast cars in broad daylight, etc. I'm doing my best to make clear that this won't work.
Do you know the concept of the Five Man Band, as discussed for example at the TV Tropes Web site?
I think that "if it isn't a Five Man Band, it isn't a Five Man Band" applies here.
It sounds as if your team may fit the pattern fairly closely: JB as the leader, Wen as the big guy (in an ironic sense, but she apparently IS the combat monster), Zhang as the smart guy, and Anabel as the chick. Vinnie is not so obviously the lancer, but his sociodynamic function is harder to judge from the writeup.
Things are far too mixed-up for that, I think!
• JB is the Smart Guy – he's even the medic – but he's unusually old, not surprisingly young. Moreover, despite being the Smart Guy and not the Hero type, he's the leader. Indeed, he's far too understated to be the Hero, and has a lot of that grizzled veteran thing going on; he could even be a Lancer of sorts.
• Zhang is much closer to being the Hero in many ways, as he's an upstanding workaholic and former super-cop. He has the whole bold, clean-cut thing going, too. However, he isn't the de facto leader unless by "leader" you mean "point man." And as he's a fit, strong, no-nonsense cop, he could even claim to be the Big Guy.
• Vinnie could be the Lancer by contrast to Zhang – where Zhang is an ex-cop, Vinnie is an ex-mafioso. However, Zhang isn't in command and Vinnie isn't the second-in-command. Vinnie also has all the street connections that the Smart Guy is supposed to have. And being a former criminal heavy, he could carry the Big Guy banner.
• Anabel is the second-in-command, but not Lancer material. She doesn't contrast strongly to JB (the actual leader), because both are cerebral social creatures, and she doesn't contrast strongly to Zhang (the point man), because both are young and emphatic. While female, she isn't token and is far less likely than JB to be the group peacekeeper; Chick only suits her by virtue of chromosomes.
• Wen fits the Big Guy role in the sense that she's skilled with the biggest guns and also the only trained martial artist. But she has a lot more trickster in her than people realize, and is vocal and outspoken. Moreover, inasmuch as she's female, she qualifies as the Chick as much as Anabel does.
I actually think the team fits the traditional special-ops model better:
• Communications: Anabel has both good hearing and a great voice, knows many languages, and is skilled with radios.
• Demolition: Vinnie, thanks to mad-bomber tendencies that haven't come up yet. (Wen is also qualified, but better for Weapons.)
• Intelligence: Zhang, being a trained detective. (JB is every bit as qualified, but the only one who can do Medical.)
• Medical: JB, because he's the only medic. And he's a seriously good medic, too.
• Weapons: Wen, who can in fact shoot anything that shoots – pistols, SMGs, rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, LAWs, mortars, SAMs, even flamethrowers.
no subject
I'm surprised at the link Smart Guy/street connections; I had thought of the Smart Guy as book smart, not street smart.
no subject
no subject
no subject
The enjoyment for me though is to read the summaries. I love reading how other people run their games.
no subject
no subject
no subject
I remember I asked him how to get one because I wanted to have one too.
Actually, perhaps I could do it this time so it's not always his turn .... unless he likes it and really want to do it that is.
We can ask him during the next game.
no subject
no subject