Operation JOE, Part 6.

https://moelane.com/tag/operation-joe/

The armory door was locked, of course.  It looked like it could be unlocked with a four digit number put into a standard keypad, only the numbers skittered around the keypad and changed color every time you touched them and the wrong combo would throw you across the room and up against a wall, moderately bruised and slightly on fire.  Also: 1234 was not the right number.

God-damned puzzle locks. 

Oh, I get the point of them.  We have a lot of enemies in this business who are bright enough to use guns, but not bright enough or well-versed in mortal culture enough to figure out even the simplest riddle or puzzle.  Fine. The problem is, They don’t get people like me to design the puzzles or riddles.  Oh, my, no. They get antisocial geniuses with obsessions on their obsessions to create the most ridiculous conundrums possible.  And then people just write down the answers and post them by the lock anyway, because who has time to learn Enochian well enough to do acrostics in it?

Unfortunately, the damn piece of paper by the armory lock had been ripped off, then bled on.  That meant that I actually had to work out the problem myself. Or I could finesse the problem.  Human beings are great at bypassing our own security systems, so all I had to do was… ah, there in one desk drawer: a photograph of the armory keypad with some of the buttons crossed out.  Since this facility was run primarily by the Illuminati, I assumed that the three numbers 1,7, & 6 that had been crossed out were the ones that I wanted to use: and since obviously you were supposed to put in the 7 twice (I said to myself, as I picked myself up from the floor again) to get 1776, from there on in it was just a matter of watching what numbers on the pad stopped glowing and punching in other significant years from Illuminati history.  I had to wonder why the people in this facility didn’t just use a doorstop, or just tape over the locking mechanism.  

I also had to wonder why I didn’t bring along my ‘walk through walls’ magic gadget, because it’s small and really: why wouldn’t you want to walk through walls all the time, on general principles?  But I can’t carry everything around, all the time. This isn’t some kind of video game. Besides, that gadget has been known to scream blood in high-magic conditions. Not really a great choice for visiting the JOE’s home dimension.

But!  The door clicked open, and I started grabbing ammo boxes.  And a couple of grenades for the launcher on my rifle (the question is, why don’t you have one?).  And whatever looked useful: I grabbed it all, turned, and immediately laid down a barrage of automagic bullets.  Didn’t even bother to aim, which probably pissed off mightily but briefly the monster that was sneaking up on me.

Again, the question is: why don’t you do this?  I’m a professional.  I know how this shit works.  Something was gonna try to ambush me in this room, because monsters are predictable.  And OK, in this case so was I. But that was just me being experienced.

Anyway, back to the survivors.