Balance of Harms

Alright, so, update time, or something. I dunno if anyone reading this (if anyone is still reading this) has heard of the Free Market, but if not, fret not, for here beginneth the lesson: they're something of a rival organisation who serve the tall dude through freelance contracts rather than the organised cell structure we adhere to. For reasons that remain unclear to me, because neither Tempest, Justice nor Turtle has seen fit to tell me why, we had been tacitly tolerating their presence on our turf as long as they didn't interfere with our operations.

At some point along the way, this relationship broke down (allegedly the tipping point was a request on the part of the Free Market's "leader", Fracture, to observe a husk called TE-119H, with whom Justice has a personal connection) and Justice thought it appropriate to go all Iran-Contra on the Free Market's ass and sent Theta and Nee-chan to free two of their enemies, Picasso and Moth, which resulted in the loss of two of the Free Market's agents, as well as eight husks.

Note that Justice decided to do this without consulting either Cardinal or me, which probably plays some part in how amazingly fucked up a simple covert ops mission became. I can't say for certain if having Cardinal or me on mission control would have helped, but I can guess with a reasonable degree of credibility that yes it fucking would have. For one thing, I definitely wouldn't have let Moth spill the fucking beans on our involvement.

This last bit is the most pressing. Fracture was not happy to discover what we did. So displeased was he, in fact, that he sent over some of his own agents to the husk warehouse, where they proceeded to murder Verde and Mockingbird, as well as eight husks, and left weighing scales hanging around their necks to let us know exactly who the retribution was aimed at. Sufficed to say, I am now somewhat less than pleased, especially since I know I'm the one who's going to have clean up Justice's mess.

I feel that I may have to go have a chat with Ol' Blindy.