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It's a peculiar turn of events. This call for war isn't being initiated by the Brotherhood's shapeshifting leader sort. Rather, it's the strung out, occasionally confused, and entirely temperamental Domino who's reaching out for the team's muscle. She's already setting up shop on a heavily used table, a roadmap laid out on the table with bits of loose paper, pencils, and a lonesome looking Zippo lighter all laid out.
Naturally, the map's held flat by two pistols and two loaded magazines for said pistols. Presentation, and all that.
Not everything is going swimmingly, however. She flicks the pencil onto the table, letting it fall however it may as she buries her forehead in both palms and breathes out a sigh. "That's it. I've officially lost it."
*
Cain sits in the corner, puffing on an overlarge cigar, no symbolism here, Dr. Freud, as he blows a thick cloud of smoke up towards the roof of the place.
"Nah, I still think ya got a shot at findin' a man t'settle down with. Yer gettin' older, but I don't see nothin' saggin'," he says with a wry smirk, his eyes dancing a bit at his own joke.
"Fred, c'mon, I think Dom's got somethin' she wants t'say and you have a hard enough time hearin' with all that bacon fat in yer damn ears!"
*
Thmn, thmn, thmn, thmn- kshk-op!
Fred rounds the corner from the kitchen just as he's twisting the top off of a beer bottle, the cap tucked away into the breast pocket of his overalls just as soon as he pries it from the lip of the bottle. "Ahm comin', ahm comin'!" he snarls as he lumbers closer to the table, features already twisted into a sour scowl, "Bacon grease m'ass. You beef-padded brick shithouse." he utters even as he turns one of the chairs surrounding the table around, his front pressed against the backrest as he whips a leg around to straddle the thing an' drop down.
He eyes the map, piggy eyes flitting to this point or that as he tips the bottle to and away from his lips. "Whazzis?" he wonders with a vague gesture of the brown glass, "We takin' a trip?"
*
With perfect nonchalance Domino mutters "Haven't found anyone that can keep up with me yet" to Cain's jab. It might even be an honest response! "Or -put- up with me."
One hand blindly reaches out for the first bottle she can find that still has something left to drink in it. A quick sniff is given to make sure it's something she actually wants to drink, then drink she does.
"You two keep ribbin' on one another like that and we'll have to open a steakhouse. Alright, here's tricks. I'm about to kick Uncle Sam in the jewels and you're both looking way too damn bored." To Fred, she asks "Unless you have more pressing matters to tend to?"
She reaches out and points to three different locations on the map, all of them quite isolated from any populated areas. One in the Appalachians. One on the Atlantic coast. One out in bumfuck nowhere. "Off the top of my head these are our best bets for an easy score without much opposition."
The spot in the middle of nowhere is pointed to first. "'Thistle' is prime for gathering small stuff. Firearms, munitions, explosives, light armored vehicles, stuff that's easy to store and transport."
Then pointing to the mountains, "'Hightree' is prime for getting us some aircraft to play with. Easy enough to escape with but storage might become a problem. Likewise…"
Last she points to the spot along the coast with a somewhat grim smirk. "'Turtle Beach.' Tank storage. Probably not the most up to date models but Sam's never been keen on throwing away anything that can still hold its own in a fight. Be a real bitch to get any out of there but it's still a viable option."
Folding her arms across the table and hunching forward, she looks between the two. "There's today's specials. What'll it be?"
*
Cain snorts and leans forward, draping his tree-trunk arms across his knees, "Not that it makes a difference to me, but you check with Blue 'fore you figurin' out jobs for us? Again, won't make much difference, I just wanna know if I get to watch her kick yer ass when we get back. Fred and I might wanna lay money," he says.
"Noww, beyond that, I ain't see much need fer planes. We're mostly a city operation right now, unless yser big plan is to just drop me an' Fred out the belly of a B-52. In which case…well, hell, that might work. We already got a Fat Man, but I don't qualify no way, no how as Little Boy. I do know a little bit about Strange Love, though, I'll give ya that," he winks.
*
"'hell's that mean?" Fred wonders in a muttered tone when the matter of steak houses comes up. He regards Cain for just a moment to see if the other man had any idea before returning his attention to Domino just in time for her to stick him with a question. His shoulders rise and fall beneath the straps of his overalls, a indication that his schedule is wide open!
Cain does bring up a fair point though. Fred considers it, folding his arms over the back of the chair as he eyes the points on the map, resting his chin into the pillowy flesh of his limbs. "Sell tickets maybe." he mused, "Worse shows'n that have made a wage."
"Always wanted one of them big truck what like they got in them war flicks." he added as he straightend, fixing Cain with another look, brows screwed up curiously as he took another drink, "You talkin' 'bout them what we dropped on Nagasaka and hereoshima?"
*
"Normally..yes," Domino admits to Cain's inquiry. And with a rolling of blue eyes when he talks about betting on her getting into a fight with Raven. "Whatever. After our last talk I made the offer to get us some hardware upgrades. She told me to get on it. I am now 'on it' as hell."
Not to mention she's apparently familiar with secret military storage facilities! She's still got a few cards up her sleeve.
Dom pauses, looking thoughtful. "Not..that she knows -exactly- what sort of upgrades we'd be bringing home..or where from, but it's time I started pulling my weight around here." Glancing between the two, she thinks aloud "Not that I have quite as much of it to pull." Then to Fred's question, "It means you have impeccable culinary taste."
"Now as tempting as it would be to kick both of your sorry asses out the back of a military transport at several thousand feet, I'm not talking about bringing home something big enough for us to comfortably live in. Choppers are where it's at. Quick, nimble, and very, very useful for urban assaults. And timely exits."
Then she motions to Fred with the idea of the trucks. "Bingo. It'd be a bit of a drive across empty country but those rigs oughta be able to haul even you two, given enough of a running start." Then a nod, "Not sure on the Strangelove thing, but yeah. Fun fact, with enough mass and velocity you don't need a chemical reaction to get a proper amount of devastation. You two probably -are- reuseable bombs."
She'll have to suggest that one to Raven later.
"And for as much fun as it would be to tear down Manhattan in a tank we may want to backburner that hit for now. So..we're probably looking at Thistle. Be good if we could find another driver or two, you guys might have some trouble fitting up front."
*
Cain nods, "Most everything has trouble fitting us," he says. "Stealin' and rippin' some hardware sounds like fun to me. And I always like fightin' soldier boys. I never much liked 'em when I was one and I don't much like 'em now," he says.
"Anyway, probably rather be fightin' us here at home than fightin' some strange fellas in the jungle out in Vietnam," he says. "An' I can definitely see Fred here drivin' one o' the big rigs. Just need to get him a ball cap an' a wifebeater t'go with."
*
The other two got to talking shop. Fred had the general jist of it. Go somewhere, break heads, get stuff. Sounded good. He listend, eyed the map. took a moment to scratch himself just above the ass… and of course, drink a bit more. "Mm." he'd grunt along in near-mute agreement to make it seem like he had some complimentory knowledge of the topic… but honestly, he had never been in a plan and didn't trust the skinny, little spinning blades to get him anywhere up in the air. Wheels worked, busses, trucks, trains. "Boss' alreadfy talkin' about bringin' more people in, I think." he reasoned in answer to their driver issue. "Ah already know how to drive those damn trucks an' I don't need none of them g'damned accoutrements for it neither!" he snapped to Cain in time.
*
The albino passes a sidelong look to Cain. "You were a soldier? Didn't see that coming." That..could actually be helpful at some point. This piece of information is filed away for later.
In the next moment there's a thin, bleached-out grin taking form as Domino glances Fred's way with Cain's trucker comment. "No doubt there. Might turn out to be a second home for the guy. Alright, 'Thistle' it is."
Another drink is claimed while she looks over the map once more. There's also a soft sound of confirmation when Fred mentions knowing how to drive a truck. "Perfect. You've just doubled our payout for this run. Even better if we can get a few more in. A few we can actually trust."
"Our best bet here is that we'd be takin' the ladies offroad for several miles. We won't be bringing the bigger toys back here, too high a profile and downtown parking's a little much for that many axles. I'll be tracking down another safehouse for us that's closer to the playground so we have somewhere to mothball 'em. Whatever we can load them up with on our way out the door, that's ours to move around however we please."
That said she reaches way off to the side of her chair and snags a wastebasket, setting it close then reaching for some of the notes she has scattered about. Then the Zippo. Like hell she's leaving any of this evidence behind!
With the first few pages folded and lit in her hand she adds "Here's the deal, kids. I can't tell you what our opposition is going to be like. Ground troops occasionally breeze through some of these places. Could be deserted. Could be Armypalooza. This won't be coming for free but we could potentially be getting the deal of the decade. Either way, I have some more prep-work to do before I'm greenlighting this op. Gonna be counting on you both to make this shit work. Cool?"
*
Cain snorts, "Two years in North Africa, playin' footsie with the Reich in the hot sand," he says, kicking up his huge boots. "If Fred can drive, I can certainly make sure anybody who thinks about pursuit takes a second thought about it. I can be a pretty effective roadblock - an' I can break my way through a few, too, if it comes down to it," he says.
"Who exactly are all these weapons gonna be for? I got no problem if we're startin' a little army, but the four o' us ain't exactly about to take on the whole army, if only cause I only got so many fists to go 'round."
*
"Th'fuck they going to be able to do to the likes o'us?!" Fred posed the rhetorical question, leaning up right and clapping a hand against his chest for emphasis, sweet, jiggling emphasis.
It is a fact that most of this world's jiggle physics have gon into the anatomy of Fred Dukes rather than the bustier, curvier, and more comely of it's residents. "Guns, grenades, maybe they get uppity an' they roll out a tank. We feed it up their assholes so far that the gun's comin' out their nose." he prattles.
"Fuckin' cake walk written head to toe. Buncha idjits even disbanded The Avengers. s'prised this ain't already happened."
*
"Doesn't that just sound like a lovely tour," Domino grunts to Cain in what might be her format of sympathy. Then she barks out a laugh at Fred's sudden spike of enthusiasm. "Nailed that one on the fuckin' head, Fred. I'm -counting- on you both for that. You're both remarkably bullet-resistant and you're both really good at stopping things and making exits. Jobs like this are..quite simply, made for you. Now if anyone's up for a fight down there they'll first go for their issued rifles, then they'll hoof it to the motorpool. The key here will be control. Chokepoints."
With Cain's next question she flicks out the flame with nothing more than a tiny burnt corner left over. "They're going to be for us, in whatever capacity we deem necessary. We won't be going toe to toe with the military so much as sneaking in, sucker-punching them, then stealing some of their lunch money. These are storage facilities, not active grounds. As for what we'd do with a thousand pounds' worth of explosive material and five hundred M-16's..who the fuck knows. But if we ever need the gear we'll be set for life. Think of it as securing the team for the future. Any excess we can turn over to the black market for a nice chunk of change, too."
"And..if we play our hand right..we can cut their contact with the outside world, kill them all, and never be linked back to any of this."
*
Cain snorts, "Worst case, we can always sell 'em on the market and probably pull in a pretty penny. I still have a few guys from my merc days we could lay shit off on if we feel like we got too much stockpiled," he says.
"Yeah, like you say, all sounds pretty simple. Long as they don't have some secret stash of super-soldiers hiding out somewhere. Not that I'm afraid of a punk with a shield or none o' that crap, but they do tend to get publicity, if nothin' else."
*
"That's gotta be some dumb hoax." Fred piped up as he angled himself off and up from his seat, "Some super hero back from the dead like the nickle comics. Bet it's just some yahoo in a suit tryin' to sell more bonds or somethin'." Fred prattled, tipping his bottle to his lips for the final time. He was about to toss it in the trash but.. fire. With a sour look to the flaming bin, he strode off to drop it off in the kitchen… maybe they should start thinking about recyling as some minor point of revenue.
*
"Yeah," Domino flatly agrees with Cain. This time there isn't any need to elaborate, he sums it up just fine.
Another note is reached for then lit up over the wastebin. "I've got some logistical crap to sort out but I'll be tapping you both on the shoulder before long."
When Fred talks about beefed-up soldiers being a hoax she releases a gentle sigh, once more replying with a noncommittal "Yeah."
It's all just a dumb hoax.
*
Cain shrugs and shakes his head, "I never saw the old one, but I heard from a few guys in the unit who'd seen 'im, he was pretty much the real deal. I mean, he was probably an asshole, but he could fight like a bastard, from what they said," he shrugs.
"Still, I don't care how good he throws a kick, I'll flatten his red white and blue ass if he gets in our way," he says. "C'mon, Fred, let's see if we can get some grub. Some cart down the street had a whole barrel full o' chili cookin', I bet we can talk him into donatin'…"