https://moelane.com/tag/operation-joe/
There were four of them left. The site was supposed to have about a hundred or so regular people around, which meant that this was indeed a standard Binah-Halav-Resh scenario, which translates out of occult bureaucratese as Something Ate One Of Our Super-Secret Facilities. Again. Yes, we have paperwork for that. By now we damn well ought to.
Unfortunately, none of the survivors were Illuminati: we had a couple of Templars (great guys, credit to this thing of ours, love them to death, no that was not supposed to be literal), somebody from one of the smaller groups that orbit the three (or four, or five) big ones that run the show — and somebody from the Council. That was going to be a problem, because the Council is convinced that they’re in charge and they make their underlings toe that line. But it was only a small problem, because my bosses have always made it clear that I get to ignore that in an emergency, and I figured that most of the base being dead qualified.
Which is why I wasn’t being excessively deferential. “Look, Observer …Reynolds, was it?” I said nicely enough to the Council flunky. “I know you’re having a bad day, all of your friends and coworkers are dead, it feels like the end of the world. But the world’s still out there, and it will show up just as soon as I can call in reinforcements. So I need you to tell me where I can find the backup radio.” I didn’t ask if it could be moved; I figured that I could find out when I finally found it.
“But we need protection!” hissed the Observer, yet again. “We’re all down to our last bullets and too many of those things are still out there! We won’t hold out for more than a couple more firefights. And I don’t come back after I sting, ape.” That last word reads worse than it sounds; she pronounced it ‘ap-ey,’ which is the way the Council says their nickname for us annoyingly unkillable immortals when they’re feeling polite. The Council saves the one-syllable ‘ape’ (yes, as in gorillas) for those rare times that they think they can get away with rudeness.
But she had a point: they were almost all mundanes, except for one of the Templars, and he was using a magic sword that would work miracles right up to the point where he got rushed by six monsters at once. Fortunately, the way that these facilities are set up it’s really easy to hold rooms; two at each door could do the trick, provided that they had enough bullets. Let me assure you: bullets always work on monsters. At least, our bullets do.
So if I wanted them to live — and yes, I wanted them to live; I’m not a monster (you can tell because our bullets don’t work on me) — I’d have to get them restocked for at least long enough to let them fort up while I found a working radio. I’d have to figure out what to do after that, but one step at a time. Carthage wasn’t burned down and its farmland sown with salt in a day, after all.
I stood, coughed, and spit out that bullet the Council Observer had shot at me earlier. Always go for the dramatic, I say. “Fine,” I said. “You need bullets. So where can I find the armory in this building?”
“toe that line”
Aside: thank you.