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Blackwater; SOG application part 1

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fitzink84

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« on: <12-30-12/0625:42> »
Please tell me what you think! where I could improve, where it is strong, where I got lingo wrong etc. I look forward to your input!

Year:Day;Hour.Minute:Second
2065:156;20.31:00

Boring, that was the one word that really described her job with the Knight Errant, some others were monotonous, tedious, mind numbingly dull. Naomi pulled up the AR calender to her main screen and flicked it away in disgust. Five years and sixteen days she had been employed by the Knights and aside from a kick ass dental plan, a shitty little flat in a rough neighborhood and a phenomenal craving for something more, she really gained nothing from her job. Just under three more years of hell until her contract was up.

The job really wouldn't be so bad if they let her do what she was good at, coding and cyber-security. She improved the firewall during her first year and her supervisor took the credit and wrote her up for personal use of company resources.

Naomi ensured that the asshole's wife received his private account's records showing quite a bit of activity in the red light district. He was divorced within the year but was still her problem at work. So the district manager received an anonymous tip and some supporting evidence that an employee was using company resources for not only personal use but illegal activities. After a thorough investigation her supervisor was fired and charged with selling company security codes to third parties.

That was the most fun she had at work in the last five years. All she did now was monitor com traffic and ensure the nexi didn't crash. Boring.

As she was pondering how she could liven things up and hate the 14 hour shifts just a a little less her cube-mate Lydia poked her. "Hey Blackwater, check out SOG 6. They're about to hit a novacoke dealer, they're unloading now."

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2065:156;20.31:45

Forgetting her melancholy she left her meat body, went in to VR and connected to the mission feed from SOG 6, the special operations group tasked with narcotics enforcement. Technically nobody was supposed to view this stuff but the SOG commander but since her division kept all Knight com traffic up and secure there was no way to stop them and stay within authorized corporate channels.

The commander of SOG knew they did this. He also knew if all the tech nerds were watching his teams like their own personal action sim and if anything went wrong tech side that it would be fixed faster than a cramhead heartbeat. She connected to the mission feed just as the group was getting out of a Roadmaster parked a couple blocks from the raid. Actually it seemed it was parked right outside her shitty little flat.

Suddenly a little worried she double checked the raid location and the location of the team. She knew the "dealer" they were hitting. Two blocks south of her building, she passed it every day on her way to the subway. She checked the roster and cursed. They were going in with only a five man squad with air support five minutes out. They would likely all be dead in five minutes.

The place they were getting ready to hit looked like it was a simple tattoo shop but she knew better. The building shared walls with the apartment complex on the left and the stuffer shack on the right, to the rear was a small alley that Naomi had never had the courage to walk down at night. There were never fewer than three local toughs hanging out in front of the building and another two or three in the stuffer shack. A week ago, just for fun, she hacked the tattoo parlor's system to see if she could find what a tattoo parlor needed so much firepower for and what she found surprised her to say the least.

The node connected to another that was running hidden with cutting edge encryptions and had some seriously mean security. Once she made it in and poked around a bit she saw the true scope of the operation. The entire first floor of the apartment complex had been turned into a novacoke packaging warehouse. Cybered out goons and automatics to spare, not to mention a few roving drones packing seriously nasty heat and enough nova to stay high for the rest of your life.  She had dropped an anonymous tip to the Knights (the programs she was using weren't exactly legal and with her past  explaining that would be uncomfortable to say the least).  She had given them all the information she had and this is what the assholes send. Five guys. Somebody had fucked up, bad.

She jacked out of the Knight Errant system, grabbed her comlink and her favorite new toy, a simsense accelerator, and jumped back into the matrix. This time she was running hot, which meant that she was faster and more effective but it also meant that damage perceived virtually could translate into damage to her meat body, in the form of brain damage if you took too much. She started with her own home node since she knew they were close and located the team network.

 Logging in using the access ID of a regional communications manager in Detroit, she activated her stealth program and quietly took a look around. The team's network virtual topography looked like the inside of an armory with each of the team member's linked hardware in lockers bearing their callsigns, written on olive drab duct tape with black magic marker. The lockers each had an archaic combination lock like what they used during the turn of the century. There was a beefy looking version of a Doberman sentry drone patrolling and a cat sitting on top of the lockers. She didn't want to test her luck with the Doberman which was most likely the security program and moved quietly around it to the locker marked "Steamer" and turned the lock's dial a few times. It popped open and she breathed a sigh of relief, The guy from Detroit was high enough up the food chain that he had access to the SOGs security measures. As fast as thought she unlocked all of the lockers and took inventory of what was available to her. She looked through Steamer's cyber eyes and listened through his ears.

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2065:156;20.32:15

The team moved down the deserted street toward the tattoo shop. It didn't feel right to Axel, an Orc whose facial tattoos and brow spikes were definitely out of regs who was the teams demolition specialist. Even in neighborhoods this rough there should be some sign of life after dark. "Hey Sarge, this feel off?" 

Steamer scanned the rooflines with his rifle, "Yeah, they must of made us. Must have watchers. Lets get this show started before they can clear out. Axel, you're up in twenty."

Axel moved to the front of the stack and unfolded the door charge, a plastic frame the size of a door filled with C-12 explosives and remote detonated. Sticking it to the steel door he hurried back to his place in the stack and as the 20 second timer in his AR dropped to 0 he blew the charge. One second later a flashbang was hurled into the room by Red 1, the team's troll and pointman. One second after that it detonated and the team burst into the room looking for targets. Nothing.

Then steel shutter doors dropped from the ceiling behind them. A collective "fuck..." floated through the air. Steamer then took charge of the situation, "Nerd, get in and find out what the hell just happened, get these goddamn doors open. Helix, Red 1, cover the Nerd. Axel, what can you do about this?"

"Nil, I got two water booms, nothin that would cut that. Sorry boss."

"K, come with me we're gonna properly clear this shop."

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2065:156;20.32:28

Nerd dropped into hot sim VR and logged into the tattoo parlor's node. It looked like a hundred other crappy tattoo parlor nodes across NYC, decade old graphics, buggy interaction, a security program that fell with one hit from his sword. He looked around and it was soon clear this was not the node from which those doors were dropped. The shop's security cameras weren't even controlled from here, nor were the locks or the shutter doors. Then he found it, a hidden door under one of the parlor chairs. Going through he gasped at what he saw. The place was a fortress. The firewall appeared as a beach laden with mines and rotting corpses. There was a 16' chain link fence beyond that with machine gun towers every 30 feet or so and barghest patrolling just beyond that.

This was going to hurt. A lot. Not for the first time he regretted taking up the role of team hacker after Jade Dragon died two months ago. He was a trigger man first a hacker second. Of course as soon as he took up the role his team gave him the handle "Nerd" and he forever lost the hard earned "Deadeye".

Running his stealth and exploit programs he waded through the minefield, narrowly avoiding the sweeping spotlights. Once to the fence he found a small gap between the ground and the fence and wiggled through it.

As he emerged on the other side there was a tall figure dressed in a voluminous black robe of smoke with an eyeless head, skin stretched taut and decaying. On either side of him was a hellhound and a drake with fire in their eyes and blood dripping from their maws.

"Hello pig"

He definitely regretted it now.

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2065:156;20.32:40

Going through the trap door under the parlor chair Naomi, or rather Zer0 History, as she was wearing her cybercombat skin now, slipped onto the beach. While Naomi was a 130 pound elf girl with red hair Zer0 History was 10 feet of muscle and death. She looked like a razor toothed, hornless troll with a mean streak a mile wide.

Ahead of her she saw Nerd's icon squeezing under the fence. Idiot! didn't he see it was an obvious trap? She looked down the beach, the backdoor she had left herself a week ago was still there. Running at the speed of thought and dancing through the mine field she made it there, and seperated the links she had "cut." As she emerged she saw a hellhound and a drake pounce on the Knight (which was also his icon, the guy must really love the Knight Errant).

She loaded her own Black IC, two beefy looking humanoids with grey skin and battered armor, and charged. She commanded the two blackout programs, "Dead Soldiers" to attack the ghostly figure that was watching Nerd get ravished by the hellhound and drake and  she jumped into the fray. The drake spat a gout of flame at the knight, turning him black, just before her huge fist connected with it's head, cracking it sideways and redirecting the remainder of its flame harmlessly away. The drake turned on her leaving the knight to just deal with the hell hound. It snapped at her tearing a chunk out of her forearm. Goddamn she could feel it, this wasn't a blackout program, one designed to render the target unconscious.  This was black hammer, designed to cause physical damage through overloaded simsense signals. She had to beat this thing fast if she didn't want to end up dead or worse, brain dead.

She slammed both of her fists down on the beast's head with a satisfying crack and kneed it in the face, sending it sprawling. Behind her she heard the knight scream and dared a glance back. The hell hound had Nerd pinned to the ground with it's jaws clamped around his throat. She had other problems though and the drake rushed her again, it's flames turning her skin to charcoal and raising blisters the size of fingers all over her body. She moved lightning fast, dip right, right uppercut, left cross followed with a spinning backfist. The drake started to glitch out and as she dove on it it burst into a spray of harmful digital gore.

Skin smoldering she turned back to the knight and the hellhound. The hellhound was still worrying the knight's armored neck but the knight was stabbing it weakly with a dagger in the side. Good, he was still among the living. She tackled the hound off the knight and proceeded to pommel it into non- existence, which didn't take long due to the injuries it had already sustained at the hands of the knight.

She got off the ground and prepared for another attack. The ghost figure was pinned by her orc-like warriors and unconscious. They were doing there job, holding his link open and hitting him in the face any time it seemed he was coming to. When no other attacks came she checked on the knight.

"Who are you?" he gasped through bloody lips and split teeth.

"Zer0 History. Will you be able to continue, your team needs you."

"Heh, are you kidding me? I couldn't fight a vending machine's security right now."

"They're slotted right now, now know that right?"

"No they're fine. They got you. Watch their backs Zer0. You screw them and I'll find you. I'm going back to the meat now."

"K, you gonna be all right?"

" I'll be fine. Now take care of the team, I'll tell them you're coming. Gimme a sec though."

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2065:156;20.32:15

Lydia looked around the feed.  Naomi was nowhere to be seen. Had she not heard her? This was about to kick off and was pretty much the only part of the job either of them enjoyed. She jacked out and looked over to her cube-mate. She was jacked into a personal comlink! Not only that but had a strange little device between her and the link. Goddamnit! She was really slotted now. The camera's would have seen that she saw. If she didn't report it she would be out of a job. She shot an urgent message to her team leader and he was at their cubicle in less than a minute.

By then her nose was pouring blood and she was convulsing. The two of them lowered her to the ground and a small crowd started to gather around the cubicle.

"I'm gonna unplug her." Mr Jackson said in a voice that dripped rage.

 Lydia was shocked at his stupidity, "Nooooo! She's obviously using illegal hot sim and is already hurt. If you unplug her the dumpshock alone could kill her!"

Rodrick from two cubicles over spoke up,"She's right sir. It's best to see these things through. She'll need medical attention if she comes back. Where did she go?"

Lydia looked up fearfully, "I think she's in the SOG 6 raid."
« Last Edit: <01-02-13/0536:15> by fitzink84 »

fitzink84

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« Reply #1 on: <12-30-12/0627:00> »
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2065:156;20.33:05

Nerd came back to and woozily wiped the blood from his face. The troll smiled wide showing a mouth full of sharp teeth and bellowed, "Sarge! The Nerd's back!"

Steamer rushed over to his teammate, "You alright son? What happened?" rarely did he get fatherly with his unit, but Nerd was clearly on death's door.

"We're slotted omae." Nerd slurred, " This aint no tattoo shop. I don't know what this is, but it aint a dealer. I got seriously beat down in there. Some wiz motherfucker with some hez to spare saved my hoop. Name's Zer0 History. He'll take care of you now, I know it aint no Deadeye but this guy's good." and with that Deadeye slipped into unconsciousness.

Steamer kicked into action, "Axel, cover the entry, if it opens and whoever's on the other side isn't wearing black, geek the bastards. Red 1 cover the back of the shop. Helix see if you can't pull up this Zer0 History and find out what's going on!"

**I'm here Steamer, What do you need?** Zer0 history appeared in their AR.

"I need to know what happened to my man for starters! And what the hell did we walk into?!?!"

**He got hit with a lot of black ice, you are in a packaging facility way bigger than you were led to believe . Look sharp, there are three goons about to bust out of the bathroom with automatic weapons.**

With that last statement four Ares Alpha assault rifles turned toward the rear of the building and three gangers rushed right into their death. one managed to get a shot off before being put down but the spray went high and no one was hit. With the SOG's controlled precision bursts the whole thing was over in less than 6 seconds.

"Zer0, do you have eyes past the tattoo shop?"

**Roger, looks like 5 studio apartments, makeshift doors between them except for the first one which is steel. All of the doors to the hallway look to be reinforced and bolted shut. Except the last one, that one looks like an employee security checkpoint. There is nobody in the first Apartment. Second one has, hold on... 6 goons all pointing heat at the door to the first. One is hiding in the bathroom to the left as you enter.**

"Can you open this door behind us?"

**Negative, it's manual control only. Probably activated from the security checkpoint.**

"Alright gentlemen, lets get moving then. You heard the man. At least we don't have to worry about anyone sneaking up behind us. Zer0 get on the line back to SOG 6 and tell them to cordon off this block. Nobody in or out. And get medical on hand. My authorization code is 159b..."

**I did that 30 seconds ago Steamer. ETA 5 minutes, 45 seconds.**

Red 1 and Helix exchanged a grin, "I like this guy" they said in unison.

The team moved into the first room like it was occupied, cleared it and stacked on the door to the next. The door was a home made steel number with a mail slot, presumably for passing packages to the guys in the tattoo parlor. Axel put a "water boom" also known as a water impulse charge, on the steel door and moved back to his place in the stack. A water impulse charge was great for heavy steel doors like this since it would rip it off it's frame. Against thinner steel like the shutter door or  wooden doors it would just punch a hand sized hole straight through it.

**These guys are all cybered out and all but one of them are running smartguns give me 30 seconds before you blow that door and I'll make this a lot easier for you.**

Steamer didn't like entrusting his team to a stranger but knew how useful a skilled hacker could be in a firefight, "OK, We will move on your mark but lets keep this moving fast."

**Also activate the filters in your helmets, there is a lot of navacoke in there and the air will be saturated once things start going boom.**

25 seconds later Zer0 history had admin control of all of their cyberware and the guns that were computerized with smartgun systems. She waited 4 seconds and turned off their eyes, dropped the clips from their guns, locked up any cyberlimbs and finally fired the chambered rounds from their weapons.

**Mark!**

The door blew into the room, knocking over a table covered with digital scales and several kilo's of novacoke. The fine white dust filled the air, as did several shots then screams. The team moved through the room, kicking weapons from arms reach and ziptying those who were still alive. As they were getting ready to stack on the next door the man in the bathroom burst into the room and spayed the team with his AK. The rounds were fortunately not armor piercing and most of them pinged ineffectually off of their powered carapace armor. Again four rifles turned in unison and 3 rounds from each hit the thug center mass.

"Damnit, I forgot about that guy." Helix cursed.

Red 1 checked himself for new holes and satisfied turned back to covering door. "Everyone ready to rock this again?"

Steamer had blood dripping down his left arm, took note of it and got back to the job at hand. "Wait one, everybody reload. Anyone else hit?"

Three "Negative"s sounded in unison. When they were all ready to breach the second door Red 1 pointed his under-barrel shotgun at the chip-board door's lock.

**DROP!!!**

All four of them dropped to the ground as the wall where they had just been standing disintegrated in a hail of bullets.

"Zer0, What do you have?!"

**I'm a bit busy right now steamer! They must have called in an off site spider, bastard got the jump on me. you're on your own for a bit.**

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2065:156;20.34:12
 
Back in the office Naomi's body twitched again and blood started to seep from her ears. The paramedics who were giving her oxygen and had her strapped to a spine board with a neck brace exchanged a worried glance. The rest of the coms division were all engrossed in the ensuing action and didn't even notice. Except for Mr. Jackson who was staring at the wall, wide eyed, trying to figure out how to run damage control on this clusterfuck and keep his job. He knew he never should have accepted an ex-con into his office. Even if she did have a guaranteed contract with Ares there were plenty of other place this trouble maker could have worked. But her test scores had been so high... too late now. He would have to fire her and bring charges against her and even then he might lose his job. Divert blame, deny complicity, beg forgiveness. It had worked so far, but never on anything this big. He was absolutely slotted.

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2065:156;20.34: 13
Zer0 recovered from the blow and dropped an elbow on the shadow boxer's nose. The program crumbled. Now all that was left was the hacker, his icon looked like an overly muscled English gentleman with a handle bar mustache, a monocle, big red boxing gloves and black shorts. He ducked and weaved, his feet doing that little shuffle step you only see in cartoons as he made his way toward Zer0.

She didn't have time for this yahoo, her team was getting shot up and she was dealing with this idiot. She called one of her blackout "Dead Soldiers" back to her and ordered it to attack the boxer and  she launched both of her agents, loaded to attack. the number of programs she was running was slowing down her system she could feel it but there was nothing to be done for it. The agents may only be autopilot programs meant to do simple tasks for you to concentrate on another more pressing matter, but in this case they worked wonderfully. The agents appeared as smaller more bestial versions of the dead soldiers.

As the four of them converged on the boxer he tried to jack out but the dead soldier had already gotten his claws in and trapped him in the matrix. The four of them pummeled the boxer into a bloody pile of broken digital body. To his credit the boxer almost destroyed the dead soldier before he went down. Zer0 called back her agents and sent her medic program to fix up the dead soldier and got back to the physical fight.

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2065:156;20.34:10
Helix pulled a grenade from it's pouch and threw it through the hole in the wall above her head. She waited 2 seconds and remote detonated it while it was in the air. There was a satisfying scream but the number of bullets tearing through the wall didn't seem to decrease. Red 1 had dragged Axel to a corner and was applying Synth Skin to his many bullet holes to try to stabilize him. Steamer stuck his assault rifle through a hole and laid down some suppression fire.

** I'm back. Barely. Oh shit! Is Axel OK?**

"He's tough, what can you do for us? We're kinda pinned in here." Red 1 answered, though he didn't quite believe himself, the orc had lost a lot of blood.

** 10 seconds and I'll have that room cleared, keep to the left side there's a bathroom there to give you a little extra protection.**

Helix couldn't help herself and rolled her eyes, "Right, and how the hell will she do that?!"

Seven seconds later the bullets stopped coming through the wall, though gunfire could still be heard. Three seconds later there was an eerie silence.

**Room's clear. Don't shoot the doberman security drones. Their under my control now, and if you could reload the one with the orange stripe.  There are some ammo bins on the south wall.**

"OK, give us a minute. We can't leave Axel here. Helix, Red get him mobile. Zer0 what does the rest of the place look like?"

** All but two gunners are down. One is watching the workers in the fourth room, one is watching the last room and the exit.**

"K, how many drones do you have?"

**Three.**

"Grab the ammo, bring them in here and I'll reload them. You take them into the last two rooms and waste the last of the guards. Keep the 'employees' where they are." for the first time since the wall erupted with bullets, Steamer thought they may actually get out of here alive.

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2065:156;21.28:07

Steamer stormed into the Com Division of Knight Errant. He hadn't had time to clean up since the mission. Backup arrived, they loaded the wounded, Nerd told him that he tracked Zer0 History back to the ComDiv while they were still busting heads. Steamer, Red 1 and Helix took the Roadmaster there at 120 KPH, sirens wailing the whole time. He was covered in blood, his armor had several bullet holes in it and he was holding a loaded Ares Alpha. His helmet was off, exposing his scarred face and old gang tattoos. Nobody in the office breathed and all looked at him in open awe and terror.

"WHERE IS THE GODDAMN CHUCKLE HEAD WHO HACKED MY OP?!?!"

Terrified silence.

Red 1 picked up the nearest fat-bodied tech and held him nose to nose, three feet off the ground, "Does my boss need to repeat himself?" he growled.

A svelte black haired girl named Lydia spoke up and pointed, "Sh-sh-she's in the manager's office."

The three blood soaked, battle scarred warriors stormed through the cubicle maze and back to the office. They could hear a man screaming at Zer0 from here. The door was unlocked and Helix stood outside as the troll and Steamer barged in.

The entire 6th floor of the Knight Errant Bronx division went silent.

Mr. Jackson looked up in terror as the troll and the human burst into his office, the blood draining from his face. Red 1 slammed the door behind him, stressing the frame, not to mention the hinges.

Both of the techs in the office had spines board strait. Steamer moved behind Mr. Jackson and Red 1 put his gigantic mitts on Naomi's shoulders holding her where she was.

"I - I - I - I'm sorry. ThisKindOfThingHasNeverHappenedBefore. I'mFiringHerNow.I..."

"SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!!" The troll bellowed across the desk, Mr. Jackson lost any color he had left and started shaking, but at least he stopped talking. Red 1 started to gently massage Naomi's shoulders and she loosened up a bit.

Steamer hissed into the desk jockey's ear, "Here's the deal. You threaten a member of my team ever again and I will break all of your fingers before cutting them off and feeding them to you. You downloadin' what I'm uploadin" omai?"

"Y-y-yeah"

"Now here is the deal, I'm going to scream a lot. Then I'm going to take this young lady out of your office in cuffs. You will tell everyone that she has been arrested for her transgressions and that matters are out of your hands. Then I will never see you again, if you are lucky."

"K-k-kay"

"bla bla bla bla PROTOCOL! bla bla bla INTERFERENCE! bla bla bla bla bla OFFICIAL CORPORATE OPERATIONS! bla bla bla bla LIFE IN PRISON! bla bla bla bla DEATH PENALTY FOR HER AND EVERYONE INVOLVED! bla bla bla bla"

Then he looked to Naomi and said in a low voice, "I expect your application in my inbox within the hour."

They led her from the com center in cuffs and none of the com nerds ever heard from her again.
« Last Edit: <12-30-12/1738:49> by fitzink84 »

Hellion

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« Reply #2 on: <12-30-12/1157:56> »
I like it, two thumbs up
Its not the victors who write the history books, its the suvivors

SkullLord

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« Reply #3 on: <12-31-12/0259:47> »
Good stuff boss.  It sounds like the story is in the sixth world for sure.  I liked the whole team and how they handled the weasel boss in the end.  Where are your character statistics?  Are you going to field these characters in game? 

fitzink84

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« Reply #4 on: <12-31-12/2111:49> »
...    Are you going to field these characters in game?

The main character, Naomi, is a 600 bp runner that will be running a game parallel with another game that my GM is running, 7 years after this story takes place. her and another former knight errant magic detective (also 600 bp) . Axel is a contact  who works for Blackwater Security consultation, the company that Naomi established after leaving the knights. the other characters I didn't have the BP to buy as contacts so I'm not sure if ill say they're dead, had a falling out or just simply lost touch over the years.
« Last Edit: <12-31-12/2121:39> by fitzink84 »

Hellion

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« Reply #5 on: <02-26-13/0715:35> »
An excellent and enjoyable story +1 to u
Its not the victors who write the history books, its the suvivors

Deepeyes

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« Reply #6 on: <05-24-15/2114:34> »
An excellent and enjoyable story +1 to u

Make that +2 :D