I shouldn’t have been surprised, but the place where the crates were being held was right next door to the Crosses’ hideout building.

And given their underground base, it was definitely connected somehow by a basement tunnel.

Patches landed us on a roof a few buildings away. We hadn’t seen any combat cars or mecha suits anywhere, but my first trip down here had been

The buildings here were brightly lit, but catering to basically nobody. The gang war had scared most people into their homes, leaving the place derelict. The only ones out were holographic gigantic chibi style anime girls winking at us and trying to get us to try this mascara, that hair dye, or the other swimsuit.

The effect was sadder than it was creepy; the Crosses had ruined everything. The result was a frightened city.

A timer had started while we were speeding across the city on a mechanized, giant version of my dog. It was currently at 39 minutes and 40 seconds, and flashing red. The label over top the timer read ‘CRATES WILL COMPROMISED IN:’

“That is some hefty security,” Ice commented. He sounded bored.

“The Cross’s underground complex, or the crates?” Dragon asked.

Ice shrugged.

“Scout around a bit, but keep it on the down low,” I said. “Go in pairs. I want Sug and Dragon together. Patches and I will head to the right. Ice, you stay up here and do the sniper thing. Get Phil back here as soon as his power armor is operational. We’ll need some of those miniguns. Have him bring Beer Pong.”

Several ‘yes sirs’ and ‘copy that, Poombahs’ followed, and we split up. I also called up Eric while we headed down to ground level and had a look around.

“Boss?” Eric asked.

“You’ve got that children’s park playground all set?” I asked.

“Cleaning up now,” he said.

“I need you and Nolan at my position ASAP. We may need some heavy artillery, so get Nolan’s people to ship some over, or craft it double time.”

“Any specifics you want me to relay?”

We landed on the ground and I had Patches abandon ship. The mecha suit would make too much noise, and it was all neon colors. We needed a hint of stealth.

“Something to punch through a building wall to create a breach. I want unconventional entry points.”

As I spoke the line we noted a series of clown cars just outside a loading dock at the building across the street. This being fake Japan, the loading dock was just tucked into a little alcove, right next to a hole in the wall bar and a hairdresser’s. A handful of people were milling the street, but I’d be willing to bet they were either suicidally confident young people, or on the Cross payroll.

A portal opened up, about the size of a basketball, right in front of my face. I nearly put seventy plasma blasts into it, but I noted Doug’s smug face before I pulled the trigger.

“Special delivery from Nolan,” he said, and tossed me what I first thought was a live grenade.

Turned out it was a sleek little camera system. I detached the one half, which gave me the instruction to attach to my phone, while I put the other half on Patches’ armor.

This made sense: the Crosses would know I was the asshole with the dog, so they might be on the lookout for just such an asshole.

I got down and gave him some extra scritches behind the ears.

“Okay, boy,” I said, before starting in with the baby speak. “You ready to go run me some recon? Are you ready? Yezyouare! Youza gooboy whoza…”

Then I got myself together and cleared my throat.

An extra treat later, Paches headed off to do the job. I had a perfect view of everything Patches was seeing. While he sniffed around and made instant friends with literally everyone, I mapped out the extent of this place. The clock had fallen to 33 minutes.

I soon also discovered I was getting some sonar pings or something similar, because periodically Patches would beep, and I’d be given heat signatures and basic outlines for the surrounding area: through the floor or the nearest wall.

The count ended up being ten guards roaming hallways underground at various intervals, in a place the size of my old high school. I stopped counting after the fiftieth room, and instead focused on anything out of the ordinary.

Exhibit A: the interrogation room, where several prisoners were tied up and presumably tortured.

Exhibit B: an obstacle course and exercise room, where some crosses worked out to presumably gain extra skill points and maybe even experience points. I made a note to check on that later.

Exhibit C: the garage. A dozen Cross vehicles were stored here, along with several armored trucks. These had, and this was difficult to tell from the sonar picture from Nolan’s device, but I’m pretty sure these had bloody upside-down crosses affixed to the sides, from which sprouted rocket engines and rocket launchers. The front’s of these truck also sported coaxial machine guns.

At least, that’s what I got off a half-second glimpse as the device pinged for the hundredth time.

Black Betty was also in the garage, and she was a definite side quest if all else went well. I was still pretty pissed at Doug for not telling me how the time clone spell was going to end, but if I got the crates and the souped up hover car, I’d forgive him.

I had the red flashing dot from the crates, but it was far enough in the center that Patches couldn’t get a ping on the room. No idea how many people were in that room, or how they had it defended. Well, once you had all the information you could get, you took the acceptable risks.

With 27 minutes on the timer, I called the boys up and relayed intel back, and asked if they had anything.

As it turned out, Ice had seen roving patrols, and two mecha suits he’d had to hide from, flying overhead. One had flown down into an entrance near the garage, but it was replaced a minute later.

“Good, good. We’ll create a diversion and draw them away.”

Eric hustled up to join me, along with Phil, Beer Pong, and several crafters lugging crates.

“Dragon, what’ve you and Sug got?”

They confirmed what Ice had spotted from his sniper perch, and added that the crosses had another entrance in an ice cream shop. A patrol of mimes had been spotted heading in there, and hadn’t come out. Instead, they were replaced by another trio of jesters.

“Great, good,” I told them.

“You want to punch through there and go in guns blazing?” Dragon asked.

I looked over at the crates the crafters were opening up and smiled. “Actually, I do not.”

It took another two minutes to explain the plan, the one that had Dragon shaking his head at me. Head shaking or not, he took the ordnance with that sort of giddy excitement you only saw when little kids opened Christmas presents.

“Keep comms open. When you’re set, give me the signal.”

My phone beeped. Strangely, it was Nolan. “Boss?”

“Poombah.”

“Yeah, hey, listen, some of the crafters are telling me you need to get an encrypted channel. They’ve been blocking people from getting your communications for the last five minutes, but it’s been touch and go..”

My smile fell a bit, and I replaced it with a determined frown. Then I got another idea. “Let them in.”

“Poombah?” Nolan asked.

“Make it seem realistic, okay?” I had very little psyops training, but in war you sometimes made stuff up as you went along.

“Oohhhkayyy,” Nolan said. “You’ve got it.”

“Okay, we’re go in ten minutes.” I winked at Dragon, and held up five fingers. “Get into position, but nobody goes until Dragon gives the word.” I then pointed directly at myself and gave an exaggerated nod.

Dragon nodded; he got it. “Ten minutes, wait on my signal, copy that.”

I turned a look on the confused crafters with us. “We’ve got the secret weapon loaded up onto the mecha suit?”

Dragon and Sug both stared the guy down, nodding over and over.

“That’s right,” the crafter said. “Operation, uh, CrissCross is a go.”

“Ten minutes people,” I said, and again showed five minutes with a single hand. “Let’s do this right.”