Talk:Where Legal Eagles Dare: An Opco Boone Adventure: Difference between revisions

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 Kurzweil clocked the counter. Not good. ''Precious seconds to lose now.'' If he was to get all the way into the Settlement, release the payload and then make it out again before it blew, things would have to be perfect from now on. He knew: he would not make it out of that forensic rat-hole on foot. He knew: this could be his Waterloo. ''I do this for the cause'', he thought. ''For all operations people, everywhere''.
-Boone moaned and shifted woozily in the foot well. Kurzweil baffed him again. Boone collapsed into psychedelic visions of Georgie and Algernon, in hyper-rainbows, floating joyfully amongst a flock of cute, fluffy green KPIs. ''It’s fine, Opco! Come on over! You will never look back! Everything is beatiful!''
+Boone moaned and shifted woozily in the foot well. Kurzweil baffed him again.
-An insistent horn sounded behind. Kurzweil checked his wing mirror: relief! The remaining gunship, smoking and shuddering, was coming back up beside him. Suddenly, Kurzweil saw a path out of this. He could escape after all! He waved at the gunship, urging it forward.
+''The counter ticked past 3:42.''
-Kurzweil set about converting the rig into a guided missile. He locked the steering on the acquired target, set the trailer to autopilot, threw the engine into a high gear and jammed a brick on the pedal. The motor screamed.
+Boone collapsed into glamour-glow visions of Georgie and Algernon, holding hands, astride pink unicorns, in a forest of hyper-rainbows, floating joyfully amongst a flock of cute, fluffy green chatbots that were nibbling delicately and licking at their glistening faces. ''It’s fine, Opco! Come on over! You will never look back! Everything is — so beautiful! Operations Officer Kurzweil walked serenely towards him in a silken toga, with a ball of pearlescent light before him. “It is all true, Opco.” Behind him Georgie and Algernon nodded blissfully. “We have solved it. Everything. There is enough management information to satisfy every [[stakeholder]]. You don’t need to worry. There’s an app for e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g...”''
-Boone moaned. Kurzweil re-baffed. Kurzweil cursed the unconscious hulk for even putting him in this position. ''This is just business, you self-righteous berk.'' Then, at 70mph, on a desert track heading straight into the jaws of destruction, Kurzweil knew what he had to do. ''Yes. This is right. This we should do.'' He reached over and grabbed the unconscious Eagle Squad Leader by his lapels. “Let us make your last ride the one they remember you by, Opco Boone.”
+The last thing Boone remembered was trying to move his arms and his legs, but he could not. His tongue lolled. He dribbled into the carpet in the footwell. Then everything went black.
+''The counter ticked past 3:41.''
+An insistent horn sounded behind. Kurzweil checked his wing mirror: relief! The remaining gunship, smoking and shuddering, was accelerating back up beside him. Suddenly, Kurzweil saw a path out of this. He could escape after all! He waved at the gunship, urging it forward.
+As it drew level, Kurzweil set about converting the rig into a guided missile. He locked the steering on the acquired target, set the trailer to autopilot, threw the engine into a high gear and jammed a brick on the pedal. The motor screamed.
+Boone moaned. Kurzweil re-baffed. Kurzweil cursed the unconscious hulk for even putting him in this position. ''This is just business, you self-righteous berk.'' Then, suddenly, on that desert track, barrelling straight into the jaws of certain destruction, Kurzweil knew what he had to do. ''Yes. This is right. This we should do.'' He reached over and grabbed the unconscious Eagle Squad Leader by his lapels.
+“Let us make your last ride the one they remember you by, Eagle Squadron Leader Opco Boone.”
 ''The counter ticked past 3:45.''
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 “Cover me, George!” he barked, and ripped hard on his throttle. The Kawasaki surged forward along side the trailer, mounted the ramp and caught ''big'' air. As the bike sailed over the trailer, he kicked out of his stirrups, let the handlebars go, and back-flipped — he hit the trailer roof with the regulation Eagle-Squad three-point landing.
-The Kawasaki kept flying. It prescribed a flat parabola over the trailer and fell into the path of the oncoming gunship. The pilot and gunner bailed. The gunship exploded on impact.
+The Kawasaki kept flying. It prescribed a flat parabola over the trailer and fell into the path of the oncoming gunship. As the pilot and gunner bailed the gunship exploded on impact.
 ''The counter ticked past 3:30.''
-Boone was a heavy bastard. Kurzweil hauled him up and into the driver’s seat, but he was flaccid and it was hard to shift him. Eventually he flopped him into position and groped around for the seatbelt.
+Boone was a heavy bastard. Kurzweil hauled him up and into the driver’s seat, but he was flaccid and hard to shift. Eventually Kurzweil flopped him into position and groped around for his seatbelt. He opened one of Boone’s eyes. He was out cold. ''Good.''
 ''The counter ticked past 3:15.''
-Algy shinned down the access ladder from the trailer roof. To his surprise, the trailer’s main back doors were not locked. He popped the latch and it swung open. Algy dropped in and onto the deck.
+Algy shinned down the access ladder from the trailer roof. To his surprise, the trailer’s main back doors were unsecured. He popped the latch and swung them open. Algy dropped in and onto the deck.
+“Holy hell,” he said, and whistled. The trailer’s entire forty foot length was packed with server farms of [[key performance indicator]]s arrays, RAG indicator clusters, target operating model monitors and other whole banks of various dials, meters, LED displays that Algy couldn’tg becgin to comprehend, winking away.
+Algy inspected the KPI arrays. Each was fitted with a crypto-locked switch marked “ARM”. ''Every single one was lit''. Over the transom, a digital display carried the detonator count-down.
+Algy clicked into his wrist comm, “Georgie, this is bad. There must be 40,000 KPIs here. They’re all armed. We got three minutes. I couldn’t switch them off in that time even if they weren’t encryted.”
+Georgie said, “Copy that, Algy. We have to turn this truck around. It is the only way.”
+''The counter ticked past 3:00''
+The truck rolled on. Kurzweil almost had the meddling Legal Eagle where he needed him now. He wrapped his fingers round the wheel. Now for the last touch: his Eagle Squadron cap, set at that irritating, rakish angle. This was going to be ''perfect''.
-“Holy hell,” he said, and whistled. The forty feet length of the trailer unit was packed with server farms of [[key performance indicator]]s, RAG indicators, and banks of dials, meters, LED displays and a bank of cooling firms.
+''The counter ticked past 2:55''
 executed Putting his head through the British Army blanket that hung down between the seats and the hold, an improvised shield at best, he reversed the Webley in his grip. The old Webley that had belonged to his father during the First War.He.