SRT: A new day

Polar express

It had taken David two years of searching every corner of the world for the remaining blinds bosses. He and general Cox had made an unspoken deal with both each other and their conscience. If they took out the blinds, they could forgive themselves for what they allowed to happen. Or at least, that's what they hoped. Perhaps it would also take the eyes of internal investigations off of them. David was already in hot waters with them. If not for the vouching of various special operatives and the general, he would have likely already been reported to interpol.

Right now however, he couldn't let those thoughts get in the way. He had other problems. Like the fact the train he was on was plummeting down a broken bridge. His hands were tightly clamped on the side of a red velvet seat bolted to the train's chassis. A burning Blind's gang member fell past him, down into the freezing river below. Her head slammed against the doorway of the coupés forward end, creating a sickly thump as her skull visibly cracked open. Struggling to keep himself from the same fate, David clasped at the velvet to get more of his mass on the seat. But not before taking a last look back down, witnessing that gang member finally hit the cold water far below. The fire finally sizzling out in the snow, ice and water that seemed hundreds of metres away. As David got himself on the seat, he made himself comfortable. Crossing his pistols as he looked out blankly. He sighed as yet another blinds member fell down past him, sounding a brief passing scream.

"Well... Fuck."

-

David entered the familiar office of general Cox. An office he'd visited time and time again as he worked on the blinds case. Due to the eyes that were on both of them, ranking up had gone a lot slower for David than he, or anyone in SRT, wanted.

"We've finally got a lead on Pike. Named both after her choice of weaponry and the card. She is heading exploitations of refugees between SPR territory and Russian territory, as well as smuggling all over Europe and Siberia." Cox re-arranged some files, before opening up a file containing a picture of Pike. A woman, most definitely a high elf, judging from the ears and arian-like looks. "She has repaired abandoned train tracks across former soviet territory and using it to move magical refugees from SPR territories over to UAF and SRT territory."

Before David could ask the question, Cox jumped in. "I know what you're thinking. If she is helping people escape death camps in the SPR regions, then why stop her? Well, let me put it like this. Those workers in their weapons and drug factories don't come from nowhere." Cox took the file back as he looked David in the eye one more time. "You'll be going under cover for this mission. There is a train taking off some godforsaken spot in east Russia. Lots of rich snobs on this one, using the train like a sort of vacation, funded by Xerna to remind them who their friends are, as well as keep checks on all their puppets in politics."

A flight and a car drive later, David was boarding the polar express 2.0 under the name of Jacobus Wayne. Supposedly an influential millionaire from Brazil with a pharmaceutical company under his name. What better way to get the rare materials for making drugs than to funnel them from companies that were able to get them legally?

His two-day travel to the utter reaches of Siberia would come with every luxury spent on the likes of their upper-echelon classes. Champagne, high-end sex workers on call, and Lacerta steak. David told himself it was for the sake of his cover when he enjoyed these luxuries during the first part of his travel, but he could not let these distractions get the better of him. Come night-time in the barren wastes of Siberia, David made his way out of his cabin towards the bar at the centre, leaving an unfinished bottle of champagne and scantly dressed woman behind.