Hannah wrote:

Cybermancer wrote:Does this mean that Nemesis is still in the DC area?

You should ask her, even my father has gotten past talking about her like she isn't even there.

Seriously, why is everyone here so rude today?

Considering that someone fired two .338 LM rounds at me this morning and a young woman with short red hair was reported leaving the area, I would appreciate independent confirmation of her where abouts.

The shots were accurate enough to cause me a great deal of alarm. If it were not for my own personal security measures, I wouldn't be discussing it right now.

That having been said, I never saw her.

There was a young man taking his little sister to guitar practice that spotted her.

But you're right, Nemesis would have disguised herself.

A set up then.

Which makes me wonder if they expected me to survive? Or was it a contingency in case I did?

I will have to investigate this further.

Well Cyber, I'm not sure why you'd suspect me. I have no grudge against you and gave up hunting people for profit quite a while ago. I'm kinda curious what personal security measures would work against a .338 LM that was still accurate enough to 'cause a great deal of alarm'. But I don't suspect you'll tell me.

I would agree that it's a setup. I can count with my nose the number of red headed female assassins are running around North America. There are very few female ones, for that matter. There are slightly more males who could pull off such a disguise. Could be someone very new.

There's been no 'publicly' posted price on your head that I could find. So either the assassin was directly chosen by whoever wants you removed or else you pissed off a group of people with their own pool of assassins.

I would expect more attempts, if I were you.

Good luck.

Thank you Nemesis.

They did try again. They rigged my rental vehicle to explode when started. Obviously they were less than successful.

Your welcome, Cyber.

Now, if everyone is quite done derailing my thread, I'll try to get it back on the tracks.

With Ron and Slayer both providing cover, I had only one job. Dash out, grab Azrael and then drag his sorry but back into the back of our truck. Once our target was secure, we were then able to begin our exit strategy.

I believe Slayer has something to say about that.

As soon as we had Az loaded I threw the truck into reverse and went back out the sizable hole we had made in the wall. It only took me a few seconds to get into position under the fire escape to pick up Ron, and two seconds after that I heard the thump of him landing on the roof of the truck. In the time it took me to throw the truck back into gear, Ron was sliding into the passenger seat from the window.

It was as we started to pull away from the building Nemesis called into the cab from the back. “We have company! It looks like they turned loose the dogs on us.”

I looked in the side view mirror and saw our pursuers. Behind us four of the ugliest Chimera that anyone has ever seen. They resembled a mix of far too many breeds of dogs to list, and they were gaining on the relatively slow Mac truck. Nemesis began to fire at them using her baby, an HK53 with a 6.5 mm barrel in place of the standard 5.56 mm one. Her aim was dead on as the first one went down in a heap, one of its front legs blown nearly clean off.

The truck was slowly gaining speed, but nearly fast enough. One of the beast hounds leapt high into the air and we heard the thump of it’s weight landing on the roof. A large dent in the roof told us that it was trying to get into the cab. Ron turned his weapon upward and started to fire on full auto through the roof of the cab.

One of Ron’s rounds must have hit a sensitive spot as I saw it fly off the top of the truck, and roll into one of the others sending both sprawling on the pavement.

Nemesis shouted at me from the back, “Slayer watch out you have one on the left.” I looked out my window and saw the last of them running at top speed along a low roof. As I mentally willed the truck to go faster, it leapt and latched onto my door.

As the glass from my window sprayed into the cab, I over steered right and sideswiped the wall of the alley. This gave me an idea. I swung the wheel left and heard the scream of this beast hound in my ear as I pinned it between the truck and the other wall of the alley. As I pulled away, it lost it’s hold on the door and fell away from the truck, landing in a pile of trash.

The truck had finally reached a speed that they could no longer match, and the three of us watched them fall behind until we turned a corner and saw them no more. That was when Ron and I started to relax. My mood turned a little sour though, as Nemesis called to me from the back.

“I am impressed Slayer, I didn’t have to even look for a closet to put you in.”

Hannah wrote:More proof it's not Nem. She said over in War Stories that my dad needed to defuse, remove and reset the explosives in her vest because she didn't know how.

She's not a bomb maker, so no big booms.

She can push a button however and has been known to subcontract out work. As you go onto higher education, try to remember to hold your definition of proof to a higher standard. It will save you a great deal of frustration.

I understand that she is your friend and therefore you are defensive of her. So be assured that I have dismissed the possibility of her involvement in this matter.

Now back to the matters of this thread.

Slayer wrote:The truck had finally reached a speed that they could no longer match, and the three of us watched them fall behind until we turned a corner and saw them no more. That was when Ron and I started to relax. My mood turned a little sour though, as Nemesis called to me from the back.

“I am impressed Slayer, I didn’t have to even look for a closet to put you in.”

I see you have come to appreciate her sense of humor as much as I have.

So how is Azrael?

You have to have a sense of humor in this line of work Cyber, it's an effective way to deal with the stress of the job.

Azrael was a little banged up when we found him. Bad enough that he thought I was someone from his past. But he got better. I'm sure he'll be posting again when he feels ready.