Redacted

[TOP_SECRET]GALACTIC COLONIAL CONFEDERACY
SECURITY ASSURANCE GROUP, LAVENDER BRANCH
MISSION ARCHIVE
PHASE I, OPERATION "39", AUTHORIZED AND COMMENCED

AGENTS TAM, ORBISON, RAMSEY, AND DALTON ON GROUND:
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, EARTH
2127.10.28, 18.39HR (00.39Z)
>>>BEGIN RECORD>>>

The van carrying the Lavender Branch agents turned onto the darkest of rural residential roads, its headlights cutting through the rainy blackness. Phillipe Tam and Andrew Dalton donned adaptive-camouflage suits, while Jim Ramsey and Clarke Orbison appeared as clean-cut Mormon missionaries. They hashed out last-minute details of the forthcoming operation, Phase I of what was dubbed Operation "39", an ultra-black mission to neutralize an anarchist hacker group called "Descendants of Anonymous", which attempted to hack Lavender Branch's central mainframe in February. Since then, SAG had continued to feed the group information in order to track down all of its affiliates, revealing sixty-seven identities, mostly on Earth, and this operation was conceived to disappear all of them.

"There's the house, but there's not much else to this road," Orbison said, pointing to a driveway that squeezed through the thick pines. "We'll drop you off about half a kilometer ahead, then turn around and make the diversion."

"Sounds good," Dalton replied.

The agents drove past the target house for a minute or two, then pulled over into the darkness to let Tam and Dalton out. They were armed with "shockers", air rifles that fired powerful electrodes that could bring any human being down in seconds. They also had silenced pistols, but none of the agents saw much threat in the young adults and teenagers that were targeted. It never hurt to be careful, though.

"We'll ping when we're in position," Tam said.

Ramsey nodded and shut the doors as the van turned around and headed back south toward the target house. Tam and Dalton activated their adaptive camouflage, blending in almost perfectly against the pitch-dark trees.

"How much time?" Dalton whispered, picking his way through the flooded field.

"Minute forty-five," Tam said. "Keep careful."

The rain was constant, masking their pace to the side yard of the house. It was light-colored and two stories with a large fenced backyard and a circle driveway. A light was on in an upstairs room facing the yard.

"That's it," Tam whispered.

Meanwhile, headlights swept across the house. It was the van with Orbison and Ramsey. Doors opened, and Dalton watched as the two Mormon missionaries crossed the drive toward the front door.

"Over the fence, go."

Tam and Dalton climbed the fence and quickly made their way across the backyard, taking advantage of their camouflage while being as fast as possible. They were at the top of a staircase leading to the second floor when either of the distractors clicked their earpiece once.

Showtime.

Tam produced a small transparent card and used it to swipe a reader next to the door, which immediately admitted them entrance. Once inside the warm confines of the home, they heard the front door open and Ramsey make his introduction to the parents. Dalton didn't quite agree with that method of distraction, but it had proven to be extremely effective, especially late on a Tuesday evening. He gritted his teeth, hoping they would buy the distraction.

"May we come in?" he heard Ramsey ask politely.

"Please," a female voice said. "Come in out of the rain. Would you like some coffee?"

"No thank you, ma'am."

Dalton let his breath out through his teeth, listening as people moved around downstairs. He felt Tam pat him on the shoulder. Go. They moved toward the light-rimmed door silently and quickly, Tam taking the left while Dalton took the right. His earpiece clicked twice. Whoever comes out first, take him. I'll take the other. He saw the blurred displacement of the background as Tam went to press the door-open button on the wall. The door slid open. Loud music poured out of it.

"What the fuck?" a gravelly male voice said. "Hang on. . ."

Footsteps approached the agents. Dalton extended his weapon slightly. The man who entered the doorway was tall and overweight, with the appearance of someone who showered rarely and never left the house. Robin DeVore, target number one. Dalton squeezed the trigger, striking the target in the upper right thigh, bringing him down with little more than a gasp of surprise. He grabbed his arm to pull him down quickly enough for Tam to take out the smaller boy, Timothy, who could barely open his mouth to yell out when he went down in convulsions. His earpiece clicked again. As he went to pick up Robin DeVore's unconscious form, he could hear Ramsey and Orbison praying with the family, their escape cover. As quickly as possible, the two agents exited the house, no camouflage this time, their charges draped over their backs.

It was another four minutes or so when the van returned to their dropoff point, where they loaded up the DeVore brothers. With everyone inside, the van left at top speed.

"Signal: Stork, stork, stork," A successful extraction. "Say again, stork, stork, stork."

"Is the plane ready?" Tam asked.

"It will be when we get there," Orbison replied.

En route, Tam and Orbison changed into the Mormon missionary getup and the brothers were placed in black bags. It was about an hour before the van stopped next to a private plane at the very far end of the Memphis airport complex, where additional agents helped them load the brothers onto the aircraft. One of them handed Tam his pistol. The aircraft taxied to the runway and took off into the wet sky.

>>>RESUME RECORD>>>
PHASE I, OPERATION "39" 90 PERCENT COMPLETE, INITIATING PHASE II
AGENTS TAM, ORBISON, RAMSEY, AND DALTON
INTERROGATING TARGET #45 BEFORE ERASURE
ARK-LA-MISS TRANSPORT HUB
WEST MONROE, LOUISIANA, EARTH
2127.10.28, 20.16HR (02.16Z)
>>>RESUME RECORD>>>

"Which one is he?"

"I think that one."

"Open him up, strap him to the chair."

Timothy DeVore, still unconscious, was removed from the bag and bound to one of the aircraft's seats. Tam, pistol in one hand, removed his tie and pulled his shirt loose slightly before sitting down in a seat facing DeVore and placing the pistol in his lap.

"Wake him."

Dalton pulled a syringe from a metal case and injected its contents into DeVore's neck. The effect was instantaneous. The young kid gasped and struggled against his restraints, screaming and cursing.

"What the hell? Let me go! Let me go!"

"No one here is on your side, kid, so I suggest you save your breath," Tam said quietly. "In fact--" he waved his pistol hand slightly "--I'm the only one here who doesn't want you dead."

Dalton sat down between Tam and DeVore. "Do you know who I am?" he continued.

"Pig!" DeVore screamed.

"Some would call me that."

"We brought you down! We know everything! The world knows everything! You can't do this anymore!"

"No, not really. Five thousand documents your group stole. Five thousand fabricated documents. Fabricated events, fabricated agents, fabricated atrocities. We were feeding your group that information ever since we caught wind of the attempted hack, used it to find every single member of Descendants of Anonymous. And here we are now. By the time I'm done with you, that organization will be little more than a last breath in the wind."

DeVore forced a laugh, banging his head awkwardly against the seatback. "But you don't understand! We control the world! It's up to us whether you wake up in the morning! Us!"

"No, not really. See, there are things I do, that my colleagues here do, that decides that. All your group consists of is a bunch of degenerates, serving little other purpose but to take up space where space is needed and steal information as if that gives them power. Your group wants to take over the world, yes?"

"We already have!"

"How were you going to do that?"

"We already have!"

"No, you haven't. How do you expect to take over eighteen planets, some fifteen billion citizens, when none of you have held employment, when your only knowledge of the system is what you tried to delete from our archives. Your group may think that you hold the codes to save or end the world, but that's simply not true. My organization decides that."

He took a moment to occupy himself with removing the silencer from the pistol.

"I mentioned that the other members of your organization were going to be no longer by the time this day is over. But I'm going to spare your life. I'm not going to kill a fifteen-year-old kid who did little to contribute and was simply on the dossier because he edited some code. Now, our whole reason for this operation was to avoid the worsened resolve that would undoubtedly come from imprisoning the lot of you instead of disappearing you like we're doing, but I don't put my pants on before a mission before I know everything there is to know about my target. I know that you have neither the skill nor the charisma to continue this organization, so I don't think I'll have any 'worsening resolve' to worry about, now will I?"

DeVore's jaw had slackened and the fire in his eyes had burned out. "Is that a challenge?" he asked weakly.

"No, because I know it's not a challenge you'll step up to take, so I'm not wasting anything else on you." He turned his attention to the other body bag at the floor next to him. "I assume you would know who this is." He kicked the side of it and, after a gasp of pain, the person inside immediately began screaming and squirming. DeVore's eyes widened.

"W-what are you going to do to me, then?"

"I am teaching you a lesson. You do at least have the fortitude to make it on your own, I hope. I'll be keeping an eye on you, to confirm what I already have come to suspect, though, but the lesson I'm going to teach you tonight is simple." He pointed his pistol at the squirming form. "Play with fire--" He fired four times into the body bag, immediately silencing its movement. "--and you're going to get burned."

DeVore screamed, but fell silent when Tam pointed the pistol at him. He shook with terror and tears glistened in his eyes.

"Our meeting tonight is over. Let him go."

Dalton undid the restraints and forced DeVore to stand up.

"This is where you get off."

Dalton gave the kid a firm push, and he gingerly made his way toward the exit, shaking the entire way and looking at no one. Tam lowered the weapon.

"Let's get out of here," he said.
///END RECORD///
[/TOP_SECRET]