Deep Seven : #8

Disaster.

#0 was, sadly, quite correct. They've moved quickly.

It has somehow been revealed that I care deeply about the well-being of my henchpeople and as such the Hit Squad- more of a small Mercenary Company really-  have captured and subdued the staff of Auxiliary Lab/Listening Post #5.

They have a female member, these mercenaries. I am not pleased with them as a whole, but it is good to see a woman getting into such a traditionally male-dominated field.

I have been issued an ultimatum. I am to surrender myself to their custody or they will kill every last of my employees, each execution broadcast over the communications network.

Oh, if only I could have somehow predicted that a team of people motivated purely by greed would be willing to stoop to such lows.

Obviously, my hands are tied. I have made arrangements to turn myself over at a neutral location, with a necessary caveat. I do not trust these people to release my henchpeople. I believe they will be tempted to kill them all simply to 'tie up all lose ends'.

As such I have ordered one of the engineering teams to render an exosuit prototype ready for immediate deployment.

They look not dissimilar to this artist, flyingdebris', work, albeit without the weaponry and with various means of aquatic locomotion.

If death wasn't assured, this would be insanely reckless. These suits were devised primarily for use in deploying personnel outside of Deep Seven for experiments, deep aquatic expeditions and so on. Simply to make it capable of carrying it's weight on land required nearly tripling it's power supply and that of various relevant servos.

There is another problem though. The power supply will be dangerously exposed in the form of a small barrel-like structure on the rear right thigh. It is... necessarily volatile. It would be a trick shot and the mercenaries would have to know it was there- so the odds of ignition are relatively small- but if they did find out about it somehow, a single armor-piercing round could turn the suit into a vaguely humanoid crematorium.

Still, highly unlikely- and the rest of the armor is well beyond the capability of the weaponry we've determined them to be carrying to pierce.

I am not a violent man by nature. I abhor it. I have ever stood against hatred. My aims have ever been to advance humanity, not reduce it's numbers. But if my employees are harmed, I will make an exception.

If they release my henchpeople, I will simply set a self destruct and vacate the suit to accept my fate. If they do NOT release my henchpeople or kill ANY of them, I will undertake a terminal field test of some very experimental weaponry from which my successors will gain valuable data and the mercenaries will learn YOU CAN'T ENJOY A PAYDAY WHEN YOU ARE SPREAD ACROSS THREE COUNTRIES AS A FINE MIST.