The clock's display buzzed slightly as it counted over to 02:23, it was the only source of light in the room, other then the bleak glow of the monitor, casting its light onto the just as bleak face of Frog.
He idley twirled a small voice-recorder pen between his fingers and sighed. He liked shooting things, and he liked sneaking around being stealthy, he was good at those things, he'd been doing them for most of his life. And while he saw the point in slicing, and saw the need for it on the battlefield, he most certainly did not understand why he should be sitting here, in a dark storage closet, in front of a screen staring at random patterns of characters for days on end.
But unfortunately, Jester had plentiful psycho-maniac-killers, and very few of the actual skills needed to perform its job properly, such as a slicer, and a medic. And seeing as could only stand blood so long as he was spilling it, and not when he was poking around in it, Merrick had insisted he do this instead.
Reaching out, Frog touched three symbols on the screen, and was rewarded with a high picthed buzz, and another failed attempt.
"There is no way I'm going to be able to get through this like this," Frog mumbled to himself, "There must be another way."
Flicking to another program, he began scanning through the server's open ports again, he'd found a few extra ones open, but had no idea what to do with them. He could probably have read the training manual Merrick supplied him, but the damn thing was thicker then Hashi after a few ales, and at the moment he'd have trouble focusing on the back of his hand.
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Frog awoke to a hand on his shoulder, shaking him to conciousness. Looking up blearily, Frog squinted until Hashi became focused enough to recognise.
"Maybe its about time you took a break, eh?" Hashi inquired.
Frog sighed, "Merrick will just shove me back in here, if she catches me out and about, I'm surprised you managed to get in actually."
Hashi raised an eyebrow, "Merrick left on a mission like three days ago, all the SLs and ASLs did, we've had run of the base for a while now."
Frog looked blankly at Hashi, "She what? She's been gone for how long?" Frog glanced at the date on the clock, "That means she would've left just after shoving me in here, oh for feth's sake," which gained a slight chuckle from Hashi.
Frog stumbled to his feet, "C'mon then, lets get some decent food for me then, and see if we can contact Merrick, so I can tell her I'm sticking to slicing throats."
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Corporal Thomas "Firefrog" Phennir
TRP/CPL Firefrog/1SQD/2PLT/1COM/1BAT/1RGT/VEA/VE [LoR]
The stupider people think you are, the more surprised they'll be when you kill them.