Chapter 6: Cinema Extraction Part 1

L’ielit sat in the office of Tribune Whitefeather again, talking about the currently planned extraction. As always, the Tribune had a steaming cup of coffee in his hands. L’ielit had been a bit nervous because the planned extraction was L’ielit’s first extraction of sponsors. It was one thing to plan an extraction at Vandergast. It was something completely different to present the plan to someone who had as much experience with extractions as the Tribune. It had helped that earlier in the day the Tribune’s team had again supported L’ielit and her team with intelligence and leads.

“I was first surprised when you said you’ll bring in two Marine companies for extracting around two-hundred sponsors, but I can see the benefit. I sometimes wish I had more Marines,” the Tribune said. He carefully sipped at his coffee. “In the last year it became nearly impossible to do big extractions from big cities. It would be nice if your plan works and you can keep the mob from building to a stampede and you can sort out Earth First terrorists.”

L’ielit had arrived in the morning with the Mammoth-3, the third transport ship of Vandergast that was built with outdated technology, and the Bendigo, a Tarawa Class Marine Carrier. The Mammoth-3 had enough space for over two hundred sponsors and their concubines and dependents. The Bendigo carried six hundred Marines, including the two companies L’ielit wanted to use during the extraction. It had enough space that the Marines were allowed to bring one concubine each, just like naval personnel.

L’ielit smiled at the Tribune. She had a nice little offer for the Chief of Targeted Extractions. “Sir, if you need more men, you can get them. The Bendigo won’t leave with the Mammoth-3; it will stay. On board are six hundred Marines that are eager to help on extraction missions. They are downsized to better merge with normal citizens. They are trained and fully equipped for this type of mission. They will be on an eight-week rotation with two weeks of traveling time to Vandergast. You don’t even need quarters or entertainment for them. They all have one concubine with them. In addition, they can visit Earth in their free time. The six hundred concubines on board are also trained and willing to help at extractions, but more on the support part, less on security and armed missions. Vandergast is offering these Marines’ service for extractions. Are you interested in them?” L’ielit already knew the Tribune’s answer from the broad smile on his face.

“Okay ladies and gentlemen, this is our target,” L’ielit said, pointing at a holographic map. Eight platoon leaders of her extraction team were present at the meeting.

“This is the AMC Theatre, Empire 25 at 234 West 42nd Street, New York City. This will be our very first extraction of sponsors. Therefore we will try to keep a low profile. The plan is to isolate the topmost two floors of the cinema with interdiction fields when the last film of the night has started and we want to be finished before the films have finished. Currently, ‘Sex and the City 3’, ‘Swarm Attack 5’, ‘Desperate Housewives’ the fourth movie and a movie about Einstein and his Theory of Relativity are on the marquee for those four auditoriums, which guarantees both a high female quota and a good amount of Confederacy-compatible sponsors.” The platoon leaders grinned.

“First Platoon of Bravo Company will infiltrate the cinema one day early. They’ll convince the cinema’s personnel to cooperate with the help of hypnotic devices. They also will silently mark Earth First activists. If there are too many of them we’ll change the location. Thanks to the AI’s we already have the staff list and the duty roster. First Platoon will also check which of the staff members are worth taking with us.”

“Second and Third Platoon of Bravo will be split into six teams. Each team will occupy one of the marked roofs and watch for incoming trouble. You will go in and out through transporter disks. Fourth Platoon will wait as a rapid deployment force in this garage. We have bulletproof vehicles for you which look like vans that have seen better days.”

“The First and Second Platoon of Charlie Company will stay on board. They will help with dependent extractions as soon as we get the first people on board. In case of serious trouble they can be called as reinforcement. Third Platoon of Charlie will also stay on board and control the armed drones.”

“Fourth Platoon of Charlie and sixty concubines will be with me and organize the crowd at the extraction. The cinema’s auditoriums we want to clean out have twelve hundred seats alltogether. It’s a Friday night show and it’s the first week for two of the films, so we expect a full house. The Lieutenants Sneider and Webber, Sergeant Harper and I will each be extraction leader for one room. So each of us will have nine Marines and fifteen concubines to do the work.”

Sergeant Potter looked around in the lobby of the cinema. He was standing near a snack bar, drinking a hot chocolate. At this early time on Thursday there were not that many patrons so his men had had plenty of opportunities to prepare the staff members of the cinema with hypnotic devices. Those little gadgets made sure that the people would follow the Marines’ orders and wouldn’t ask too many questions as long as the Marines managed to keep a low profile. They had introduced themselves as a security team that the media company had hired to check their cinemas. A phone call by the manager to verify that story was redirected by the AI to the Bendigo in orbit.

All the staff members had been checked for connections to Earth First and they had found three, one of them the manager of the cinema, himself. Tomorrow they would each stay at home because of a sudden illness. The Marines had also checked the staff members for sponsors. They had found two. One of them was Peter Ford, a projectionist, who had a pre-pack. His women were working at the snack bars of the cinema. It was good to have the projectionist included in the extraction since he was one of the very few people who would have tried to look into the auditoriums regularly. The other one was Rashid Clark, a member of the cinema’s security. Until now Peter Ford and Rashid Clark were clueless.

For Rashid, the security check, ordered by the parent company was just a pain in the ass. Of course, the cinema was as safe as it could be. They had few problems with troublemakers, vandalism or stealing. Now those detectives were interviewing everybody and were generally disturbing the established routine. On the other hand, it was satisfying to see one of the ticket sellers getting really nervous. Rashid had suspected her of stealing money but had never been able to prove it. Rashid had to admit that those detectives had better intimidation techniques to scare a petty criminal. They were all muscular athletes, while Rashid was rather short and slender. Suddenly that fact sprang to his attention. For an ordinary team of detectives they looked too similar. Rashid was more of an observer, not the investigator type in the cinema’s security team. He had an idea and wanted to check it out.

Sergeant Potter saw Rashid Clark approaching his position after ordering a café latte.

“Hello Mr. Potter, are you satisfied with the test results so far?” Rashid asked.

“Yes. We’ll see how you work under the stress of a Friday night, and then we’ll be gone. Right now I see no problems for your cinema,” Sergeant Potter answered.

Rashid looked at the Sergeant. “I wonder where you got all those men. They all look like trained fighters of an elite corps. Bulky muscles, all nearly the same height. I wonder if this is your normal work. You are not working for somebody else by accident, maybe the Confederacy?”

Sergeant Potter froze for a split second. “What would you do if I said yes?” the Sergeant asked.

Rashid sipped on his coffee. Then he looked in the sergeant’s eyes. “I would try to figure the right time and place and then be there. Is it the whole cinema?”

“Would you try to spread the word?” the Sergeant asked.

“Hell, no!” Rashid answered. “I’ve seen people dead from a riot outside an extraction. Maybe I would make sure that one of the hostesses is on the duty roster at the right time. I think Amelie is a nice girl.”

Sergeant Potter thought for a few seconds and then he said, “She is already.”

Rashid raised an eyebrow. “Okay, if you need any help...”

“Thank you,” Sergeant Potter smiled, “just do as you said.”

Friday night the situation at the cinema was completely different. Probably a thousand people were in the lobby at any given time, buying tickets, snacks or soft drinks. From seven PM there was continual movement. The Marines were somewhere among them but Sergeant Potter wasn’t able to spot them without the help of the AI. “If this doesn’t work, it will get really messy,” he thought. Shortly before nine o’clock, Sergeant Potter spotted L’ielit. With her height of nearly two meters she was a prominent sight among the film-going public. L’ielit just got her pre-ordered ticket from a booth and vanished into the depths of the cinema.

Those who had been Earth First suspects had called in sick. It seemed they all caught a sudden cold, maybe even the flu.

‘Sex and the City 3’ was the last of the four films shown in the auditoriums at the two topmost floors. L’ielit waited for the commercials to be over. Currently there were still people floating in from the lobby.