Incident Report
2:00 am
KEM operatives gain access to the Lair by climbing through a section of the wall which had been damaged earlier in the day.
2:05 am
KEM operatives encounter Knights, but are not recognized as outsiders.
2:22 am
KEM operatives enter non target building, search abandoned structure from top to bottom.
3:09 am
KEM operatives capture, interrogate and execute a Knight, obtaining a detailed map of the area, along with up to date knowledge of their target’s location.
3:32 am
KEM operatives split into two sub groups, due to dissension over appropriate target.
345: am
KEM splinter group A infiltrates Adder’s living unit, killing a number of other residents. Adder confronts and destroys them.
355: am
Security forces abandon the central area in their haste to arrive on the scene at Adder’s residence, attracted by the explosions and gunfire of that battle.
4:02 am
KEM splinter group B enters the central area (devoid of guards due to earlier distraction), proceeds to Snitcher’s living quarters and terminates him.
4:21 am
Knight forces encounter KEM splinter group B as they are exfiltrating, but mistake them for fellow guards and do not engage.
4:44 am
KEM splinter group B escapes the Lair, and exits the surveillance zone.
Somehow I doubt they actually got Snitcher. That would be too nice for the poor bastard.
Hey, good to see that you are still reading!
Can’t speak to the guess, really depends on who’s surveillance log we are reading as to whether they could have got something like that wrong.
I don’t know if you read comments this far back, but why were Adder, Subtracter and all the other non-Fist inner circle guys ever Linked? Especially since it seems like She has a soft spot for Adder that goes beyond appreciation of strength and brutality.
I get the comments for all the replies. WordPress let’s me know when someone leaves one.
There are a number of factors that go into that answer (I’m assuming you meant, ‘never Linked’). They are a bit spoiler-y for Prevailer’s character, so only read on if you really want to know.
I’d say the three biggest factors that played into that decision were as follows.
First off, Prevailer has never really been able to admit that she might need someone else. Her usual mentality is that all of her followers are disposable and replaceable, admitting that she valued them for anything beyond their rote utility would grant them a kind of power over her, which she has no intention of granting anyone. She tells herself that she values their gifts, rather than admitting that the people attached to those gifts make up the closest thing she has to a peer group.
Next, Prevailer doesn’t want to have to kill them all if one of them steps out of line. Her circle didn’t form up instantly. It sort of coalesced by fits and starts over the years, and she never had any guarantee that new Ultras would stick.
Lastly, Prevailer’s perception of battle is a rigged game that she always wins. She doesn’t like to think about people close to her coming off second best, or getting caught up in one of the assassination attempts on her, because she doesn’t admit that she’d care.
There are some other factors, tying into Answerer’s stuff, her level of trust in Snitcher/Linker and the different ways that Remover/Refiner behaved after they got Linked, but the three above get at the general picture. Think of it like the person who never goes to the doctor so they don’t find out they are sick and you’ve got the gist.
Thanks for reading!
But it has been mentioned before that Adder gets all the (Regime) state of the art medical attention and that Prevailer threatens to kill a huge amount of people, should Adder ever die. Based on that, shouldn’t someone, maybe even Adder himself, have thought to get him Linked somehow? I mean he could even have been Linked to 4 disposable dudes that then get locked away in the bunker or wherever, thus ensuring that she can still kill Adder without losing any other assets/friends.
I don’t get how she can openly wish for someone to be functionally immortal and threaten the world over it while she is the one with the easy to use immortality tool. She seems smarter than that.
Much of that, I guess, applies to Subtracter too.
You may be typical mind-ing Prevailer a bit too much. Threatening to kill people if they don’t obey and ordering her slaves to do stuff is something she does all the time and is comfortable with. It doesn’t, in her mind, signify that she is deeply invested in someone. (To be clear, she WAS deeply invested in Adder, but never admitted that to herself.)
She also doesn’t see the Link as an immortality mechanism. It just changes how annoying it would be to kill someone from one punch to five punches. It is more about making sure that she doesn’t have to replace Fist level minions as often, saving her some hassle. She was much more interested in Snitcher as a recreational device than for his LInking power.
Adder, by contrast, definitely had the thought a time or two, but he never acted on it. Adder was like one of those guys who is about to start dieting tomorrow. He was always *just* about to give up on redeeming her and become a rebel, and when that time came he had no desire to condemn whoever was Linked to him to his fate.
Subtracter basically worships Prevailer, and is dumb as a stump besides. If She hasn’t told Subtracter to get Linked, then there must be a reason.