Welcome to Gaia! ::

((Sorry, I couldn't help myself, I had to start. If you want me to change anything just tell me and I will.))

The dim glow of the flat pannel tv's was the only light that greeted Fisher as he walked into the situation room. Taking a seat across the glass topped table from his boss Colonel Irving Lambert, Fisher asked, "What's going on Lambert?"

The colonel looked up from the folder in front of him and said, "Hold your horses Sam, we are waiting on someone."

Sam looked around the room, all the usual players were there. Anna Grimsdóttir-the technical operations manager-sat on the right of the colonel, and William Redding-Sam's unofficial field runner-sat on the colonel's left. Sam then noticed someone he had seen before, but never in the situation room. He had seen her around Third Echelon before, but behind an accountants desk not in the main HQ. She had short black hair and light brown eyes that were framed by black square rimmed glasses. Actually she looked a bit like Grim, though younger and with darker hair. Sitting in front of her was a folder, her hands were folded over it, and she was looking right at Sam.

"What's going on Lambert? I didn't think it was time yet for my yearly psych evaluation."

The colonel chuckled, "You're right Sam, it isn't. Her name is Moe Aleksei."

"That name sounds famaliar," Sam said as he heard the girls last name.

"It should," Moe said, "But don't worry, no relation." She was of course refering to the Aleksei Fisher had tangoed with before, the one that was a crime lord and terrorist. Of course her reasuring him that there was no relation between the two of them still didn't answer the question of what she was doing here.

It was as if the colonel could read the question on Fisher's face, and after working together so long it wouldn't have surprised Sam if Lambert really did have that ability. "She is a field runner Sam," was the explination the colonel offered.

Fisher looked from Aleksei to Redding, and then back to Lambert. "I already have one of those, and he isn't broken yet, why replace him?"

There were a few quiet laughs from Sam's usual support team across the table, and then Redding replied, "She isn't for you Sam, and before you ask, don't. Everything will be clear soon enough."

Sam hated the waiting, but with no alternative he crossed his arms, leaned back in his chair, and waited for the mystery person to show. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like the outcome of this. An extra field runner could only mean one thing, and Sam had spoken out about this kind of thing before. He could now only trust in the colonels judgement, and hope that it didn't mean what he thought it did.

((Wow, third to first person, that was kind of... different. May I ask that you just stick to one please? Possibly third seeing as I don't want to have to work with the NPCs all the time. With that said please feel free to use Lambert, Grim, and Redding as much as you want. You have a better idea of what the plot is going to be like anyway.

Also, I am not really sure where our plot is falling on the main Splinter Cell timeline, so I am going to use something from the 360 version of Double Agent in my post. It isn't anything major [kind of], but we should probably find out or decide when it takes place. There is another Double Agent reference I want to use, but I will wait until you tell me when it takes place before I use it.))

Sam tilted his head back as someone else entered the room, and saw a young woman enter the room. Turning his head back to Lambert he raised his eyebrows. He obviously wasn't exactly sure what was going on, though he did have a very good idea. She sure didn't fit the usual profile of a splinter cell, but what else could she be.

"Fisher, I would like you to meet Agent Weissmann," was what Lambert began with before dealing what would be the K.O. move on Fisher, "She is going to be your partner for your next assignment."

No words formed in Fisher's mouth for a second, and he blinked a few times before he was able to find what it was that he wanted to say. That isn't exactly true, before he could find the appropriate words to say. He had plenty of things he would have liked to have said at that moment, but none of them would have been kosher, and Sam really didn't feel like causing a huge scene.

"Lambert, you know I don't work well in groups," Fisher started. "You remember what happened the last time you sent me out with someone, we came home with a body bag and a family received a lot of unanswered questions." He was of course refering to the time he had taken a rookie with him, and that rookie had made a mistake that had cost the kid his life.

The colonel sighed, he of course did remember, but he knew this would not happen again. Of course nothing in this business was ever for sure, and the tides could change out of their favor in a heart beat. but somewhere in the back of his mind he knew that would not happen this time. "Fisher, no arguments. In order to complete this mission you will need each other. Trust me."

Sam wasn't convinced, but he knew better than to argue the point further. "If you say so."

Lambert then turned to Adaliz, "Weissmann, please take a seat," he said to the other agent. "I would like to introduce you to your new field runner, Moe Aleksei. She will be your way in and out of your next assignment."

Fisher was now very confused. "I thought we had established that there was nothing wrong with Redding."

"You are correct, he is perfectly capable," Lambert replied. "But every once and a while you have to try out someone new."

"Hurts my feelings too, Fisher," Redding said with agrin that proved he wasn't being serious at all. Of course Redding being serious would have been something new. "I will be on back up call should anything dire come up that Moe can't handle."

"Don't worry, there isn't anything I can't handle," Aleksei replied to Sam and Redding. Moe then pushed her glasses up with her index finger, bushed a strand of hair out of her face, and then extended a hand towards Agent Weissmann. She didn't say anything to her, though she wanted to, for she couldn't find the right words to say and she really didn't want to make a wrong first impression with the agent. They would be working together for hopefully a long time, and being able to get along was very important in Moe's eyes. What good was having a field runner if you couldn't trust them.

((Where I work during the day doesn't have paper, so I wrote out all my notes for the next two of missions on a piece of paper towel. I just now measured it at my other job, and I wrote out 6 1/4 feet of notes and post... I got very into it, and it made me sad when I would have to help people and stop writing.))

With both agents behaving or the time being, Lambert began to tell them of their current mission. "As you both are aware we have been slowly gathering facts about the arms dealers that call themselves 'the shop'.

"As of recent we have uncovered the location of one of their largest warehouses. We need you to infiltrate their warehouse and get us their lists of buyers, shipping manafests, and place trackers on all of their weapon crates."

"Sounds easy enough, why do you need both of us for this?" Sam asked as soon as the colonel had finished.

"It is a big job, Fisher," Lambert told the senior agent. "The warehouse is extremely large, and time is of the essence here. The quicker you can get in and out the better."

Sam wasn't completely convinced. "Still," Fisher said, "it seems rather dangerous to send two agents in where only one could do the job."

"We know what we are doing, Fisher. Besides, you will not be the first splinter cell team that we have sent out into the field, and I'm not just talking about your little fiasco either," Lambert said as he saw Sam get ready to bring it up again.

"All the other times we have used two agents they have been successful. Besides, we are not sending you out alone with a rookie. Weissmann has proven herself on the field as a competent agent. Also you will probably be working as a team for quite a while. You would be surprised how much more can be done when there are two of you."

"Also how much more dangerous it is to have two live bodies in a friendly free zone," Sam said under his breath.

Lambert chose to ignore Sams remark and said, "Now, with that said, Grim."

Grim stood up and walked over to one of the larger touch screen moniters, and brought up plans of the warehouse. "The warehouse is located in Xia He, a small monestary town in China, Moe will give you any information you require on the physical town. You are in luck though, because of its remote location in a fairly small town you don't have to worry about a whole lot of tech in your way. Get past the tech outside and you will have very little in your way inside.

"The front door is a no-no," she said as she used both her hands on the touch screen to zoom in on that area of the blueprint. "Every inch of it is covered by security cameras," she pointed out as she touched each of the locations of the secruity cameras and the light up bright red on the screen, "that includes the driveway up to the front of the building. Not to mention that motion detecting lights cover everything as well," she added as she touched each one of those as well and they turned bright orange. "There is a guard booth at the front gate, and constant patrols up and down, and around the front of the building. Also, the loby is camera covered, and there is always a guard watching the vid feeds."

"How do you know that?" Sam asked, though he was sure he knew the answer already.

"Hacked their camera feeds of course. But because of the constant movement of the guards it would be almost impossible to make a loop of the feed without them noticing that there was something going on.

"The back of the building is a much better bet," Grimsdottir told them while zooming out from the front of the building and moving the map, and zooming in on the back of the warehouse. "All six loading bay doors are key pad protected," she said as she touched each of them in turn on the blueprint, and they became highlighted in red. "There are two security cameras that cover the grounds, and one motion sensor light right in the middle with average range," she light up the cameras and the light, and the range of the motion sensor was highlighted in light green. It covered at most the four middle doors. About 100 foot radius from its location on the wall. "From what we can tell as well there are very few guards sent to potrol that area as well. We have caught at most two at any given time."

Sam interrupted Grim, "There is only one reason there would be fewer guards in the back," Sam said. "Because there is something back there that they think will stop people from being able to get back there successfuly in the first place. What aren't you telling us?" he asked her.

"The warehouse is at the very edge of town, behind it is quite a bit of space, about a foot ball field worth, but in order to get to that space one would have to get over the old monestary wall. You see one of the monestaries shares a parimeter wall with the warehouse. It is forty feet tall, and The Shop has added barbed and electic wire to the top of it. Not to mention that around the whole of the warehouse is an electic fence topped with barbed wire that stands an impressive twenty feet."

"How do they get away with all of this security and no questions asked?" Fisher had to know, for a set up like this was sure to draw attention even on the outskirts of town.

Redding replied to this question, "To keep the locals and police out of their business they also store and sell a very high quality and rare kind of tea that is only grown in an area directly north of them. So along with their stock of weapons they have a fairly large quantity of tea. You see that is their front, and because it is so rare and so expensive people just assume that it is the tea the guards are protecting, and they thus keep their real intentions under wraps. Just make sure you track the weapons and not the tea."

"Anything else we should know about?" Fisher asked Grim.

Anna smiled, "Just one more thing. Once you are inside you are in the clear of tech. From what I was able to get off of scouting their video feeds they don't have any cameras inside the building besides the one in the front loby. This gets you in the clear from cameras, but you know what they but where they don't have cameras."

"Guards," Fisher replied.

"Exactly, and we have never been able to get an exact calculation on how many men they have on their payroll, and it would be foolish to assume they only have men guarding the exterrior."

"Sounds fun, an unknown number of baddies that without the aid of cameras will actually be paying attention," Sam said with a grin.

"Exactly," Anna replied, "Any more questions?"

((That was kind of long... sorry, but I wanted to get us ready to go, and knowing what we are doing, kind of. I have secondary objectives that I will have Moe introduce as we get closer to go time.))

"All blue prints were recieved from Xia He city hall. Before you say anything," Grim said, "I know they are not the most reliable, and the interrior has probably been modified since the building was updated.

"Also, everything having to do with the exterrior of the building is up to date from satalite photos. Though studing those I have been able to give you an accurate picture of what you will be facing on the outside.

"Like I said before," Grin stated, "There are no interrior cameras except for the one in the loby. Of course those were only the cameras on that grid. There could be another camera grid that I am just not finding. They have a surprisingly good firewall, so as of right now I have not been able to find it. Should you incounter interrior cameras just splice into it, and I will be able to get right into their system, and keep you updated," Grim told the younger agent.

"It would also be foolish on our part to think that they are not hiding something. There are never any lower levels mentioned in the blueprints, but there have been several construction crews in the building over the last years, so modifications like that wouldn't surprise me.

"Now, if that is all of the questions Moe will update you on infiltration," Grim said before leaving the air clear for questions.

Grim shook her head, "It wasn't like they could open up the roof and reveal the inside of their warehouse. Besides," Grim went on, "we have not made it our job to watch it for very long either. As soon as we got the information that it was possibly The Shops main storage facility we got on it and started doing research. But no, we don't have any pictures from the construction, and the work orders had no real detailed information in them either.

"If that is it I will pass the floor over to Aleksei," Grim said as she sat down.

Moe opened up her folder and handed an envolope to each of the agents. "These are your new identities," she told them. "Because of our lack of knowledge of how far the shop has infiltrated the Chinese government you will be taking an international flight on a civilian plane. You will be posing as tourists, and continue to take civilian transportation during the duration of your stay. Detailed itineraries are located in your envelope. They list travel times, and where you shall be staying. Memorize it, and then distroy it. You will be picking up any ticket you need from the ticket booth, they are already reserved under your new identity."

"Even with our lack of knowledge a trip on the Ospry shouldn't be ruled out of the question. It is fast, and no one would even know we were there," Fisher said as he looked over the documents in his envelope.

"You are correct, it would in fact be a lot faster, but when dealing with a small town like Xia He someone would be bound to notice the Ospry. Not to mention that we are not sure of all the locations of The Shop members, and there are countless small towns around Xia He that could be, and probably are filled with some baddies."

Fisher nodded in understanding, and then went back to looking though his documents.

Moe let out a soft sigh of releif, she had been warned that Fisher would not be all to happy about working with her, he had never been a fan of the field runner program in the first place, and apparently after his first field runner died, and then his second decided to switch jobs he had become a bit bitter about the whole process. She had always assumed that Redding was his field runner, but after talking with him she found out that he was only unofficially field runner to Sam, and that Sam usually worked things out on his own, or had help from people Lambert put him in contact with over in whatever part of the world he was currently working in. Rather impressive, but when it all boild down it still left her as an outsider to a man that all ready probably loathed her for being new, and part of a profession he didn't see eye to eye with.

"Flight leaves tomorrow morning," Moe said as she, Redding, Grimsdottir, and Lambert stood up. "Be there two hours early, and ready to go. As I said, information on transportation and lodging is in your packet."

Sam stood up as soon as the other had, and as they were leaving he fell into step with William Redding.

"Are you going to behave?" Redding asked Sam as they passed though the doors.

"Don't really have much of a choice now do I," he replied.

"Trust me, it will be fun."

"You would know from experience wouldn't you, Will?" Fisher said with a half laugh.

"Exactly. Now go home and spend some time with Sarah," was all Redding said before he headed off into the interior of the building to do whatever it was that he did all day, leaving Sam standing in the hallway.

((If you don't want to you don't have to read past here. I am going to have him go home and talk to his daughter for a little while. Because it is set around O.B. time I will assume that most/all of the things that happened in D.A. have not happened yet. Really, the thing I talked about could have happened anytime, so I will just leave it at that.

Oh, and I just thought of this, if you should have anything you want to say to Fisher, feel free, and I can cut this bottom part off, and put it in another post. That wouldn't hurt my feelings at all.))

Fisher paused for a second to get his thoughts in order. His daughter, Sarah was back from college for a long weekend, and was crashing at his house. Not that he had seen much of her the last couple of days, but she was still there nevertheless, and any time seeing her was, in his mind, time well spent.

Jumping in his range rover he drove off towards his farm house on the outskirts of town. He had purchased it of late as something to do, for it was a fixer-uper and gave him time to clear his head after missions, and something productive to do. Not that what he did for a living wasn't productive. Besides getting out of the city had been good for him. He was never one to go out and about on the town, and with very few neighbors, and most of them far from him, none of them worried about him if they didn't see him for extended periods of time. Of course there was one neighbor who did come around. An old widow who lived half a mile away often walked to his house to check up on him, or to get his mail for him when he asked her to. She never asked questions about what he did, and when Sarah was in town, like she was now, Doris (the old woman) would often come and keep his daughter company when Sarah wasn't out with her friends.

As Sam pulled up the long drive towards his home he saw Sarah and good old Doris out on the porch. Sarah smiled as she saw him, and waved, but didn't move from the railing of the covered porch.

"Hi dad," she called to him as he made his way towards her.

He just smiled in return and gave her a half hug as he stopped next to her. "Good to see you, kid," he said to her before turning his attention to his elderly neighbor. "What can I do for you Doris?" he asked her.

"Haven't seen you around much Sam. And Sarah and I were just catching up. I think I see her around more often than I see you, and you shouldn't leave little miss Sarah here to fend for herself all the time," the old woman said clearly joking.

"Work, it gets in the way," Sam replied. "Speaking of work I need to talk to you," he said to his daughter, his arm still around her shoulders from when he had hugged her.

Sarah looked hurt, "Not again dad."

"For goodness sake Sam, your daughter is going to be gone before you know it, and you are going to wonder where it is that the time has gone," Doris said.

He knew Doris was right, and it did bother him to no end that he never got to spend any time with his daughter, but Sam really didn't want to talk about this in front of his neighbor so he was quick to excuse he and his daughter, "Sorry, Doris, Sarah and I need to talk."

The old woman said nothing in reply, just nodded and headed off towards her house half a mile down the road. It still surprised Sam every time she did it for she was getting on in years, and her house was a good distance away as well.

As soon as the older woman was on her way Sam led his daughter inside. Once the door was closed she said, "Dad, I hardly ever get to see you, and every time I am here you are always rushed off on some urgent business. It isn't fair!"

"I know sweety, but this is very important." Sarah just rolled her eyes, so Sam asked, "When are you heading back to school?"

"Two days dad, and then I won't be able to come back until summer break," she told him.

That actually made Fisher rather sad. He had seriously hoped he would have been able to spend more time with the only family he had left. Quickly he came up with a plan. "How about this, tonight we do whatever it is you want, and then tomorrow you can see me off at the airport."

Sarah smiled, "Ok, sounds good. I've never actually been able to take you to the airport before. Always was so secrative."

"It is a special case," he told her as they began making plans for the rest of their day and evening for it was the last time father and daughter would probably have to spend together for quite a while, and when you only have each other every second counts.

((Ok, that isn't as much as I thought I was going to write... Anyway, if you decided to read it, cool. I hope you write some home time for yourself as well because I want to know a little more about your character, and I like reading stuff like that. Anyway, I am done typing, I swear.))

Sam's time with his daughter was short, and it wasn't long before he found himself waking up on the couch with a half finished bowl of popcorn on his lap and the disk title screen singing the same annoying song over and over.

Looking over he saw Sarah asleep in her favorite chair, currled up on the large cushion with the blanket pushed off of her, and crumpled at her feet. Sam smiled, it was nice to have her home, to had their time together was already coming to a close.

Walking over to the tv, he turned it off, took the disk out, put it back in its case and left it by Sarah's purse so she wouldn't forget to take it back. That was the last thing he needed, a month or more late fee.

Quietly heading up the stairs he got his things together for his trip, and made sure to replace all of his current documents with those that Aleksei had given him. That was the last thing he needed, to have controdicting pieces of identification. Nothing says I'm not supposed to be here like two names.

Once his things were packed and placed by the door he hopped into the shower, got cleaned up, and then went to wake up Sarah.

"Hey, Sarah," he said as he rubbed her back. "Time to wake up."

She groaned as she rolled over and rubbed her eyes. "My neck hurts, why did you let me sleep on this thing?" she asked her father.

"Why did you let me pass out like an old man on the couch?"" he asked in reply.

"Because you are an old man," she said with a smile.

Sam put his hand on his heart like he had just been shot, "Ooo, that hurt!"

"The truth usually does," she said while she stood up. "I'm going to take a shower, then we can head off to the airport," she told him before climbing up the stairs.

"I'll make some breakfast," he told her back before moving into the kitchen to see if he even had anything to make them before heading off. There was cereal, no milk, and that did it for things he had for breakfast. "We'll eat out," he told himself as he put his things in Sarah's car.

Sam was finishing cleaning up the mess from the night before when Sarah made her way down the stairs. "Where is breakfast?" she asked with a serious look of puzzlement on her face.

Fisher didn't say anything for a few seconds, and just looked at his daughter, "... You have been here more than I have, you should know there is no food in this house."

The Splinter Cell's daughter laughed at him. "Sorry, I forgot. I guess I should have picked something up from the store."

"You will have to if you want to eat for the next day and a half," Sam told her as they walked out the door, and got into her car.

It was a short drive from Sam's farm house to his and Sarah's favorite diner, and after a quick breakfast they were off to the airport.

Fisher made sure to have Sarah watch his carry on luggage as he picked up his ticket under his false name. He really didn't need her asking questions, especially around airport personel.

After everything was taken care of she walked him to metal detector, and then had to say her goodbyes. With all the new security measures that was as far as she could walk her dad, so it was hugs before he was off once again doing whatever it was that he did, while she wondered if she would ever see him again. There had been one scare where Lambert had actually contacted her telling her that there might have been a problem, and that they (whoever they were) had not heard from her dad in a few days, and that she should fear the worst. Of course it had turned out to be less serious than they had originally thought, but it was then that Sarah realized that she might also lose her father, but this time, she wouldn't know what had happened to him.

When Sam passed through security, and was on the other side of the glass wall he looked back and waved at his daughter one last time. He mouthed, "I love you kid," and she repled with a heartfelt, "I love you too dad," and a wave.

Turning away from his only family he made his way towards his gate, took a seat, and waited for boarding to begin. 'This is why I hate civilian travel,' he thought to himself as the chair suddenly became very uncomfortable after only a few seconds, and the time began to drag.

((What time zone are you in?))

Sam made note of Weismann's arrival, but said nothing to her. As he had been going over the information Aleksei had provided he noticed that though they would be working together they would be traveling alone. There was to be no sign that the two knew each other for if one of them were to be found no one would be able to say they saw them with the other. It was fairly clever planning for a new field runner, and Sam was more than happy to comply.

The wait seemed gruling, but soon enough the flight to Hong Kong had arrived. It was now just a plane ride and a trip on an over crowded bus before they finally arrived in Xia He. 'I really miss the Ospry,' Sam thought to himself as he climbed abord the plane and got himself situated for take off.