COIL No Longer Exists

Soon after the Power Plant mission, I worked throughout the day in my lab, breaking for a moment to help Sandcrab with a test at Homestead, but then returning quickly afterward — attempting to build a new DarkR FOB for Beth Schroeder, my contact at the Department of Defense. But I couldn’t shake the feeling of dread. The memory of blaster fire and the Black Talon mech we had faced just the day before was too fresh.
 
“Dammit!” I yelled, soldering through a second busted FOB. Pausing for a moment and standing up from the desk in the vault-lab. “I need a drink,” I muttered in frustration.
 
Walking slowly to the cellar, I pulled an 18 year Macallan off the shelf. This one was a gift from the President almost ten years ago. Then pausing with the bottle in hand, “Twenty eight years ago...things sure are different now.” I poured the glass half full and turned to face the walk-in cigar closet.
 
Looking for a “King” [King of Denmark], I find one on the top shelf, removing the gold foil wrapper and revealing the imprinted name “Sharpe”.
 
Now walking up from the cellar, drink in hand and cigar alight, I make my way back to the Vault.
 
“Third time’s a charm...” I say hopefully, getting back to work a third time on a new DarkR FOB, hoping to get one successful build for Beth. Smoke fills the room mixed with the aroma of aged scotch splashed onto the workbench. After an hour, the glass is empty and the cigar reduced to ash, but a new FOB was completed and online.
 
Maybe a little influenced by the stress...and the scotch, I pulled up my DarkR FOB messenger and sent a note to the team, securely, informing them that I intended to add Beth to the comm network.
 
But the response from Sandcrab was less than enthusiastic — and probably, reasonably so. The group’s security is now interconnected and could be potentially jeopardized by carelessness or even by unexpected threats.
 
Backtracking a little, I nixed the idea of adding her to the network — saying out loud and typing it in response to the secure group chat, “I haven’t burdened Beth with knowledge of my powers up to this point. I may be ready to share that with her eventually, but I can’t just think about myself...now that we are all connected.“
 
I definitely have every reason to trust Beth, but trust isn’t the only ingredient. Thinking to myself,”She doesn’t know me as Runeforce and I’ve not been willing to burden her with that knowledge up to this point. Of course, we’d not engaged in a fight amongst coil agents and armored mechs before now, either. Things have changed, but how will that affect my relationship with Beth?”
 
Later that evening, I placed a call to Beth, using a DarkR FOB. Because she doesn’t have a FOB, the call appears as “Unidentified” and is untraceable. The phone rings several times before a calm female voice answers:
 
“How is it that I am receiving a telephone call from an unidentified number?”
 
Recognizing her voice, I stated calmly, “Beth. It has been a while since we last danced together at the gala. But I don’t think I can wait to see you again. Will you meet me tonight for a drink at the old tavern on the corner of Park and Montcalm?”
 
“Sure. Meet me there in thirty minutes.” she responds, quietly.
 
Jeremy was downstairs in the den with the other house staff watching the evening news when I asked him to bring the car around.
 
“Jeremy, I’d like to you to take me to the Town Pump Tavern, downtown. I am meeting a friend there in thirty minutes, but I’d like to be there a little early.”
 
After driving me to the tavern, I instructed Jeremy to wait outside the bar. “This shouldn’t take very long. Probably only twenty or thirty minutes.”, I explained.
 
I walk inside the tavern, looking for a table near the back, but am immediately recognized by the bartender...whom I *do not* know.
 
Walking up to the bar, I eye the most expensive vodka on the shelf ((knowing Beth will order it, for sure)). Then I order two drinks, “I’ll have one Macallan eighteen, one Magnum Grey Goose on the rocks with a lemon twist and a splash of water, and...a few minutes of privacy from the paparazzi, please”, placing a roll of $100 bills on the counter. “My guest will arrive soon, and I’d prefer for no one else to come to the back section of the tavern. ”
 
The bartender takes the roll of money slowly and smiles. “Yessir, Mr. Sharpe, we’ll make sure no one comes around. Do you want me to clear the entire building for you?”
 
“No, thank you. That won’t be necessary.” I respond sincerely. “I just want to have a nice quiet drink with my friend, no questions asked. I’ll take the scotch now on my way back to the table. You’ll know my friend when she arrives...she’ll order this drink, exactly. Don’t let anyone else come back.”
 
((Not wanting to reveal my alternate identity to Beth, waiting for her to arrive, I make up a story about an Xplore Corp Operations teams having just had to bribe some agents to get through to a power supply station, of all places.))
 
Beth arrives after a few minutes, taking longer than expected. But then I see her walking slowly toward me from the front of the building, carefully dressed in a grey pantsuit and lavender blouse. Her hair is neatly parted down the middle, though obviously tussled from a day of work.
 
She sits at the table, drink in hand, and smiles. “You got my drink wrong, Sharpe.”
 
“I doubt it.” I respond, laughing.
 
“The poor guy almost didn’t let me come back here. I ordered my drink with a lime this time, but you must’ve told him I’d want a lemon twist.”, she chided. “You don’t know *everything* about me...” she adds, continuing to smile.
 
“Noted. I’ll make sure we get plenty of lemons for the next gala.” I promise, wryly.
 
Beth gets quickly to the point, taking a sip from her drink — “What is so urgent that you would call me from an untraceable line and ask to meet in person, in public? And without Jamie? What’s going on?”
 
((Sharpe typically meets with Beth once per month at a regular gala held at his house, meeting secretly in his vault along with Jamie Richards, his assistant.))
 
I pause, considering my fabricated story...and, for a moment, consider telling her the truth about the DarkR web, and the FOB I made for her, but won’t give her tonight...out of fear for her safety *and the team’s safety.* But instead, I lied to her:
 
“My guys were trying to enter a local power station, intending to buy some recycled parts for a confidential program I’m developing, something even Jamie doesn’t know about. But they were stopped by agents with COIL insignias on their weapons.”
 
I pause again, trying to read her facial expressions. But after a second, continued on:
 
“So now I’m trying to head off any surprises for my company in the future by hiring some extra security. For that matter, I’m interested in hiring some of the supers that you might know of who don’t mind giving Destroyer’s puppets the quiet middle-finger?”
 
Beth looks straight at me, still taking sips from her drink without breaking eye contact. “COIL doesn’t exist anymore, Sharpe. Whatever your team saw, whomever they bribed, it wasn’t COIL.”
 
“Who was it then?”, I asked impatiently.
 
“How should I know?”, she pauses, frustrated. “I really don’t know, my dear.”, smile returning to her face.
 
I was disappointed, but I know Beth well enough to see that she doesn’t know more, and is probably frustrated about it.
 
“And what about any candidates I might want to hire, to give Jeremy a run for his money as my personal security?” I said, picking at himself a bit, “Surely I don’t really need a driver anymore in our ‘city of the future’, and Jeremy is good people, but he’s no match for mobs running around with COIL blasters.”
 
“Be careful out there, Sharpe.”, she says, standing up slowly from her finished drink. “All our recent ‘shipments’ have already arrived at their far-off destinations.”
 
Beth walks away and back toward the front of the tavern, leaving me alone at the table where I sat for a while in silence.
 
Then, picking up his phone, I typed a secure message to the team. “COIL no longer exists.”