Aliandra

	Aliandra came to Kitsune's shoulder, and wasn't exactly sure she should be
there at all.  Sh was on the verge of pouting, but she always wanted adventure, and 
she wasn't getting anywhere in dance classes, or trying to channel back at the PT.  
She looked over at him.
"I sure as hell hope you know what we're gonna go, cause I sure as hell
don't."


Roegen

	"Well, looking for someone to join you? Might I do? I have extensive
background knowledge in the fine arts of sneaking about, I've been known to
dabble in the Power a bit, and am always looking for a good fight." Roegen
then begins to look around and wonder what kind of trouble he can get himself
into this time. Everywhere he goes he ends up getting attacked by anything
from a common thief to Dark Hounds. "Besides, the Waste sounds like it could
be fun. Go there often?"


(D)

	D stared out of the car's window. It was supposedly a Suburu, but it had the
unusual distiction of being the only Suburu capable of flight. The thought
appealed to D's sense of humor. She didn't share it with her partner, though,
because as far as anyone could tell, S didn't have a sense of humor. The jokes
ran that "S" stood for sour, or maybe somber. Beta had found him to be a
perfect pairing for D, who was suspiciously unsomber, and had a very good
sense of humor. D thought Beta's sense of humor had been involved, too. Beta's
sense of humor was decidedly odd.
	So D was stuck with a weird ass asignment that might have been fun with any
other partner on - or off - the planet, but with S was sheer hell. A large
part of the problem was that S veiwed the Purple Tower, where their subject
resided, as a bed of Darkfriends, and was well on his way to convincing Beta
that this Kitsune person must therefor, logically, be one as well. It pissed D
off royally. Before D had found her true calling, she'd been an excellent
singer and painter. She doubted that a group of artists as diverse as the PT
*could* be Darkfriends, artist's minds just didn't work that way, not *that*
many artists. And they all were artists, she was sure of that. Even the WT
spies had been chosen because they were at least passingly good at art. That
fact alone had cause more fights between D and S than D had had with all her
previous partners combiened. Then there was everything else they fought about,
ranging from D's earings to what they would have for lunch. D was very
seriously considering murder.....
	Her current conflict of duty and desire didn't help, either. One part of her
was firmly Agent D, dedicated to protecting the ordinary people from the
things they didn't need to know, and doing so in a matter invisible to all but
other Agents. But another part of her remained Diedre Mulden, with her
painting and her singing, and her strong sense of right and wrong. The
conflict lay in the fact that their subject was increasingly falling on the
"right" side of that sense, and Agent D was more and more falling into the
"wrong" side of that sense. So just what was she supposed to do? Because in a
very real sense, Dierdre Mulden didn't exist anymore, except very possibly as
an entry in the database at headquarters, and then under the heading of "Agent
D, past history". Angent D only resembled Dierdre Mulden, and since everybody
knew Dierdre Mulden was dead, that didn't matter much. Agent D didn't even
have fingerprints, and her teeth had been changed to eleminate that
possibility of detection. So if Agent D stopped being Agent D, who the hell
could she become?
	So she sat in a flying Suburu with Agent S, driving through the Waste at
breakneck speeds, because their quarry had gone to it for unfarthomable
reasons. Except they weren't unfarthomable to D, another problem. She shifted
uncomfortably, and not from the seat. She was withholding information from her
superiors, and D didn't want to think about the possible consiquences. But
Dierdre Mulden, dead or not, wouldn't let go, and Agent D wasn't strong enough
to override her. She knew that her wish to leave was hopeless, but holding
back information, at least for a little while, let her have some hope, even if
it was false hope.
	In a real sense, D couldn't leave the Agency. They would never let her, their
most succesful experemint in cybernetic implants. T could onloy recieve radio,
and F had to plug in, but D's nice little implant was celular as well as
radio, which meant she could do almost anything from the comfort of her own
mind. If S wasn't so prissy, she probably be driving the car mentaly while
surfing the net. S seemed to think she'd wreck if she even tried it, and Beta
backed him up. Whimps.
	She reached up and scratched the implant a little. It was located just behind
her ear, and while not precisly itchy, was.....itchy. D smiled. She could
access every langauge ever recorded, but she couldn't think of the right word
to describe "itchy but not". Very few people knew just how limited the
implants really were. Her last partner had....
	She was suddenly fighting back tears. ~Damn you, R, for not living.~ she
thought angrily, dashing the tears away. S appeared not to notice. R had been
her partner for 6 years, in more ways than one. They were to get married three
months after he died. Unfourtunatly, the Shadowspawn who killed him hadn't
cared. ~Whoever, whatever, did that, someday I'm going to kill them.~
And her best chance for that did *not* lay with the group. Agent D was
wavering, and Dierdre Mulden was getting louder. She knew it, and knew that
someday, someday soon, she was going to have to make a choice.
The car slowed, stoped. "There he is," said S. 
	"Where are we?" D asked. She hadn't been paying attention, she was sure to
hear about that later.
	"Samel Steel."
	D hid a smile. So her data was right. That meant the other groups would 
be in Caemlyn and Tear. A quick check of hotel databases found the Tear group, and
the Andor group appeared to be trying to hack into Tedroni's security system.
~What on earth made them try......~ her thought broke off midsentance. They'd
gotten in! ~How....~ she began, but this time it was S who inturupted.
"Time for some foot work." They got out of the Suburu and got moving.


Kitsune

	"Well, looking for someone to join you? Might I do? I have extensive
background knowledge in the fine arts of sneaking about, I've been known to
dabble in the Power a bit, and am always looking for a good fight." Roegen
then begins to look around and wonder what kind of trouble he can get himself
into this time. Everywhere he goes he ends up getting attacked by anything
from a common thief to Dark Hounds. "Besides, the Waste sounds like it could
be fun. Go there often?"
	"As a matter of fact," the shapeshifter began, "I have never even heard of it
before, and have a few questions.  But we shall let everyone gather before
planning our actions."  Eventually they were joined by another, but that
seemed the extent of their party.  
	Aliandra came to Kitsune's shoulder, and wasn't exactly sure she should be
there at all.  She was on the verge of pouting, but she always wanted
adventure, and she wasn't getting anywhere in dance classes, or trying to
channel back at the PT.  She looked over at him.
"I sure as hell hope you know what we're gonna do, 'cause I sure as hell
don't."
	Kitsune's face twitched, sending a checkerboard pattern skittering over his
features.  "I have no plan for the moment.  Since we seem to have gathered all
the people we are going to, I have some questions before we go.  What is this
'waste' we are going to?  Who are the Aiel?  And, more importantly for the
mission, how can we gain their support?"
	A brief and unhelpful discourse followed, involving comments such as "well,
it's this big, dry......waste, to the East..." and "The Aiel are...well,
they're these people who used to live in the Waste....that is, they still do,
but only now other people live there, too, and the Aiel don't like that
fact....."  Abandoning his hope for useful information, he decided to assess
what he could of their own situation.  
	"What skills do you each have?  We will likely need all the ability we can
muster for this....  I want to know what we have to work with." 
	Discovering that the two joining him were an overeager trainee and a novice
who couldn't control her channeling yet, he almost puddled.  Well, better than
on his own, at least.  "Very well.  Before we go, some ground rules, however,"
he said, poignantly not darting a glare at the trainee.  He had to remember
that he, too, was only a Stude.  "We will try to avoid direct confrontation.
There will be no leaping out into the midst of everything screaming and waving
our weapons.  Additionally, we will try to avoid channeling at all costs,
which shouldn't be a problem for the two of you.  And finally," he said
slowly, looking back and forth between the two of them, "There will be no
reproductive activity on this mission.  It is my understanding that stressful
situations make this a difficult demand to follow, you both being of different
gender, but in my limited observations human procreation and its accompanying
rituals are unnecessarily distracting and time-consuming, neither of which we
can afford, by what the human Eddie has told us."  The pair of them turned
crimson, a trick he had noted before but did not understand, and stared at the
ground.  Ah, well.  He was resigned to not understanding humans, for now.
Time enough later.
	For now, the mission.  Three trainees against a foundry did not look good,
and none of the three of them seemed to know any better how to approach the
Aiel.  So they would go in with just the three of them, and hope to defy
probability for the time.

	meanwhile.......

	The man with the greasy hair smiled his thin nasty smile.  He might be the
real Samael, sure, but more likely he was just some big-shot darkfriend.  Not
that it made a difference--the orders came from the same place, whoever they
came through.  Avorel bowed meekly, diverting his grimace toward the floor.
He who served best would serve longest, after all, and once this project was
complete that would be all there was to life--serving the Great Lord.  All the
Forsaken seemed to have forgotten that in their petty self-interests.  He, on
the other hand, still had that absolute servility in his blood left over from
his grandmother's side--no one could humble themselves like the Seanchan of
Old. 
	So for now, he would bow and scrape for this pea-head who was jeopardizing
the Project.  To the letter.  But he would also keep a back-up plan running,
for the inevitable interference they would experience, from the Aiel if not
the Aes Sedai.  How did that idiot expect anything to remain a secret for so
long in an Information Age like this one?  Especially when every Darkfriend's
lips were buzzing with rumors about it, if somewhat less than accurate ones.


Roegen

	"Kitsune, you have nothing to worry about. All my attention will be on 
the mission at hand. The last thing we need is to be jumped from behind and
killed. I plan on seeing this on through to the end. Besides, I kind of have
my mind set on a fiesty young Nila, but she seems to have an obsession with
froggies for some odd reason."            
	Turning to Aliandra, "I think he's right though. Maybe it's best if we
describe our abilities. Ladies first. Wouldn't want to be rude and jump in any
more than I do."


Aliandra

	After blushing from her hair to her heels over that reproduction comment,
Aliandra set back to try to figure what to do.  "Um,... abilities?  I can do a 
neat split jump, I'm a whiz at the time step, but this is a little out of my league, 
tell me what to do and I'll join, I'll work hard, but I'm,.. not,... really,...  
I'm sorry."