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The FBI task force begins making their way through the streets of Vitraan, going from street to street on their way to where they know the Underground's base is located. The people of Vitraan watch them going, tapping their fingers along their thighs the entire time. It seems to be some sort of behavioral tick for the people here. But for now they aren't doing anything in response other than the tapping so there is no reason to really respond to them in any way. They make their way quickly to the location that the terrorist group is supposed to have their main headquarters and where they'd be able to find the ring leader. They easily could go after the handlers and likely will go pick up that tiger tonight if he shows up, assuming they don't run into him in the base. But it was decided if a few of their scouts were to escape the raid that'd be acceptable so long as all the major players are caught. Removing the head of a snake and all that. As they reach the entrance they see no activity from the people and then break through the door finding a rather empty room. There is no equipment or anything, just a room full of pipes.

They aren't able to find any circuitry or sign of any opening even after a rather thorough look of the building. On top of that thermals wasn't showing any sign of anyone inside the building. As far as they were able to discern it was just a maintenance building for the local sewers even though their tips did show that the Underground were frequently going into this building. But their scans were unable to detect any sign of a hidden door or entrance. And when they check the satellite feeds it looks like it was the result of them having evacuated the building a few hours before the raid. There is footage of entire trucks pulling up to the building and then a bunch of people loading things up and then leaving, but without any other indication of them being in the area. This informs them that the Underground was able to get the drop on when the raid was coming. That or they were aware of a potential raid and moved bases. Either way the odds were extremely good that the group were still in town as they had never shown any sign of being anywhere else. It's just a matter of being methodical.

They started walking around the city, probing for any other building that may have fled too. They're also checking the city's camera network to try and figure out where any of them might be. For even grabbing a few of them would be enough to pressure a response and potentially take out the entire cell. But to Agent Torr, they likely would have only moved a short distance. They were only Morphs after all and not capable of having the full tactical capabilities of a real person. They had been given the full dossier on the leadership of the organization and nothing any of them did was all that impressive. They did have a skilled hacker and that is the only thing the agent would grant them. They had proven time and time again being able to just circumvent the justice system by hacking into the police's own computers, which is all the more reason for such a raid like this.

"Report," he says into their radio.

"No sign of them. All of their homes have been cleared out. All secondary sites are completely vacant."

Agent Torr curses, but they couldn't have gotten too far away. He only has to think rationally. When an animal is pressured they go to ground. So they simply have to be thorough and find where the group has holed up for the time being. Likely every single one of their group will be in the same location, they have only to find it. And the justice is on their side. There's no way they'll be able to fail.

"Target spotted at eleven," one of the other agents next to him says and when Agent Torr looks up he sees the squirrel stare at the group with a look of utter disinterest before she disappears into the crowd. Having at least one target in their sights he's not going to let her get away and has his full unit give chase.

Unfortunately, it is not easy going as the general public don't make any motion to get out of their way, instead just standing in place in seemingly greater and greater numbers, all tapping a rhythm on whatever they can find. But they weren't going to let this target get away, no matter the cost and already they sent out some drones to keep track of her. Agent Torr rationalizes in his head that her walking away could very easily constitute resisting arrest and should he be able to he will just take the shot to take her down. They were authorized for the use of such force. But with the animals blocking the way as much as they are they'll never be able to catch up with them. Animals they may be, this is still the territory of those animals and they will have knowledge of all the right locations in get into and out of a crowd, let alone do so much more discretely and smoothly than an armed force. But feeling the need to bring justice to the terrorist group the agents begin using a bit more force to get through, not really caring if they knock anyone over in their chase of the squirrel.

Unfortunately, the animals don't understand justice and as they try to make their way through they find themselves being pushed back by the morphs, impeding their progress more and more. And unfortunately despite them having no training, the fact remains that the morphs are naturally stronger than a human would be of a similar build, so they can't exactly make all that quick of progress forcing their way through a resisting morph mob. And they're left with a somewhat difficult situation in that they have to either let her go and attempt another route that may or may not be blocked as well or try to fight their way through the civilians. He continues to push forward and calls it in, attempting to get some clarification and seeing if they can manage to make some headway. After a moment he gets a response saying to proceed and use of force is allowed on the civilians, but lethal force is not. Agent Torr accepts that as probably the right course of action. There'd be too much backlash if they just started murdering people in the streets for getting in their way, animals or otherwise. There is no justice in killing the innocent for just being in their way. Even still, force was authorized and so he orders for some tear gas to be thrown into the crowd to try and get them to disperse. But when he does so, he doesn't end up getting the response he was expecting.

The canister he had thrown doesn't even land onto the ground but is grabbed and thrown back. When the agent turns he sees that it was a bird morph of some kind, quite possibly a jay that had thrown the canister back. They're also wearing an outfit with the large U that the terrorist group use as their insignia. The jay immediately turns around and runs away. And even more strangely than before the crowd actually disperses, leaving them with a very clear route to chase after the bird. But with an opening through the crowd they give chase, pushing the crowd further apart in the process to get more room. Agent Torr's first inclination that something is wrong when he notices that as they push past the crowd it started to close in from behind him. But he isn't so much concerned about that as he is on making sure they're able to get at their target. The drone has lost sight of the squirrel as well, which is more frustrating than anything. He's also lost sight of the jay that had thrown the tear gas grenade back at them. Leading him to try and figure out where to go from here. Though the animals crowding around him is definitely not something he can really tolerate that much. They must be made to know their place and to accomplish this fact he has a few more tear gas grenades thrown into the crowd, noting this time there aren't any being thrown back.

There is a bit of satisfaction when the crowd opens up a bit after the grenades and there's a lot of crying and dispersing, though the drum beat doesn't actually stop. But with the way opened up they're able to chase after their culprits. They did see the squirrel in this direction and though she has a pretty big head start, she would have simply gone to ground and thus all they need to do is look for an empty building in that direction. Further the bird had also headed in the same direction, further alluding to there being some sort of structure they're heading to in that direction. When they get to the intersection he immediately heads in that direction as well, looking for anything that may be out of place. They make a good deal of headway for a few moments before the rabble start crowding in on them. Though this time they're all wearing masks over their faces and eye protection, meaning that they won't be able to break them up again by the same manner. They try and push their way through nonetheless, and even throw a few punches in their way but are unable to make much headroom. Though they don't full encase the task force but rather only block them from going the way they want. Meaning they'll just have to try and get ahead of the group and circle around. He calls it in to try and find another route through the city as well as also try to find what building in particular they might have gone into. It is entirely possible if they could conclusively find which one it is they could simply call in a drone strike and call it a day.

Unfortunately, as they are running through the streets they find that more and more of the animals out and about, getting in their way. It's no longer just random people out on the street. It's very obvious at this point that the people here are deliberately trying to interfere. If they had the personnel it might be important to just start arresting them all with interfering with the arrest, but doing that would allow the ones they are actually after get away and go into hiding, making it far harder to catch them in the future. But the animals are certainly still far more than just a nuisance and they are authorized for the use of force so when at all possible he just throws a punch or tries to shove someone aside with his shield. For the most part they do slowly back up but it's not like it's all that easy going, especially with how strong they are. Perhaps they should have contracted a few Nants to help bolster their forces.

But as they start making some decent headway and are getting some information about abandoned buildings or ones that either have abnormally large or small traffic going through them they find themselves at another impasse as their way is blocked by another mob of the animals. And they're stacked far too deeply for them to push through. Having no real choice they're forced to detour again and this time they end up running into another group that had been approaching the city from another angle. The warning sings are starting to fire off in his brain. There can't really be any way that they would just happen to run across the other group. This is made even worse by the fact that their way isn't being completely blocked. There is always at least one way they can still move. Their retreat is never blocked, just the way forward and that makes him think more and more that they are all forming a barricade of flesh to try and protect the terrorists. But that doesn't sit quite right to him. Though there are naturally a lot of the animals in this town, the fact remains that there couldn't possibly be enough here to form a complete barricade around an area, inhibiting the motion of multiple groups at once. Meaning they are moving and actively repositioning to continue their blocking. Not only that they aren't all always going in the same direction. There are times when the road straight ahead is blocked and they have to make a turn, sometimes even towards a direction they were just being blocked from.

The agents are finding more and more of their way being blocked as it seems like the entire town is out to protest their actions. They try to push their way through but the problem is that morphs are naturally stronger than they are. Agent Torr begins to notice that they aren't being just blocked, they're being steered, maneuvered to where the people want. And to him that must mean the Underground is orchestrating everything. To think a terrorist organization would be so skilled at manipulating its populace to such a degree. And it doesn't look like they're being pushed out of the city entirely but rather moved to a location that is selling a lot of monitors. And the entire time every single Morph is just tapping out that one pattern, just with more and more intensity. He assumes it must be either a gang sign or the signature phrase that the Underground uses to identify themselves. But for the time being there is simply too many morphs for them to deal with without it becoming extremely bloody and him losing the entire task force. And he finally realizes what they've been doing this entire time. It wasn't a case of just happening to come across one of the key members of the terrorist cell. She exposed herself to them deliberately, knowing full well that he would try to catch her again. She was the bait and they went after it hook, line and sinker. And with that hacker of theirs it is no wonder the drone wouldn't keep up, they could easily interrupt its feed or even send it on a wild goose chase. Agent Torr resolves himself even more fully to make them all pay for embarrassing his unit and himself in such a manner, especially when they decide to fight dirty by throwing innocent civilians, animals or otherwise into their path as meat shields.

But then, the mob somewhat stops and some of the crowd starts bringing out their phones to play audio as every television inside the store changes to static for a second before all of the screens suddenly turn into a large white hexagon with a large, blue U spinning slowly in a circle. After a moment there is a warped voice coming from the monitors. "Well hello, everyone. Welcome to Vitraan and the corporate corruption that is Black Industries." The video changes to show a few moments ago of the FBI starting to push back against the morphs of the city before it became clear that there were simply too many to fight. "And I'd like to personally welcome the FBI into our fair city. And greetings to everyone in the entire country that is now watching this very video. Now in the past the FBI had always held the official stance that groups like ours should always be handled on the local level as we do not ever break state jurisdictions. But a month before the FBI formed this task force to take out a group that has never broken any laws that crossed state boundaries, Black Industries met with the head of the FBI and a donation of over five million dollars was given to the FBI. And that is apparently the cost of bringing our city back to lawlessness. Five million dollars to round up the group whose sole mission is to return Vitraan to the era where a human could just come in and do whatever they wanted and face no more of a penalty than a small fine. Where every decent and otherwise innocent morph had to live every day fearing that this day someone might come for them and they'd never be seen again. Five million dollars to sell out over a hundred thousand morphs. That is what we mean to them. Our freedom is worth only fifty bucks. So, FBI, what's it going to be. In front of the entire country what is your next action. The people here are easily going to protect the one group that strives to keep them safe and protected and will see to it that justice is served when the police will not do so. So will you attack them, and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt to all Morphs that their government sees them as something without rights or liberty. Or will you turn around and run with your tails between your legs and go back to cower to your Black Industry masters?"

As much as Agent Torr hated to admit it, the fact remained that they weren't in any real situation where they had much of any choice from a tactical standpoint. The terrorists managed to outmaneuver them so thoroughly to make them look like children, which might explain why the officers of that precinct and Black Industries has such a sense of derision for this terrorist group. It's a choice but it's a non-choice. If they ignore the ultimatum and carry out their mission, it's almost guaranteed that there will be a riot, not only in this city but in every city with a large concentration of morphs and everyone in his unit will likely die. If he retreated, it'd be the end of his career and they'd have been made fools of, but the situation will be de-escalated and another, more well thought out attempt can be put into action. And faced with the choice between a total loss and a minor setback Agent Torr makes the only rational decision and makes the call for the entire group to back off and withdraw for the time being. They need to assess how it was that the terrorists figured out they were making their raid and acted so swiftly in response.

Meanwhile, the two detectives were watching unfold from a television monitor in the breakroom. Most of the other officers were also watching, though the anger coming from most of them is increasing more and more. It even goes so far as for some of the officers discussing whether or not there should be some sort of retaliation against the citizens of Vitraan for making a mockery of them all. To all of them the message that was being delivered, the one that overrode the feed they were watching and even took over every channel, was complete propaganda and lies. Things that could never be true. But to Detective Ryan, it isn't so simple of a conclusion to be made. As he thinks of the accusation that Black Industries was funding the entire operation, he remembers that earlier Black Industries seemed very insistent that he hand over the one they had found earlier, even knowing who she was even without them listing any information other than her deformity. If they were completely uninterested in the group they wouldn't have been so adamant about them turning over one of the Underground to them, especially if they really should be in prison instead. Add to the fact that he remembers hearing that there have been a lot of attacks lately aimed at Black Industries. It is entirely likely, then that they are at the very least interested in getting the government to help take out that group and stop these attacks. But then he has to wonder why make that move of letting herself get arrested in the first place.

"You know, I think I just realized why she allowed herself to be caught like that," Detective Matthews says out of the blue.

"Pardon?"

"That squirrel. She could have fled when those two men attacked but instead chose to simply beat them up and then allow herself to be arrested and put on trial. Considering how aware they clearly were about the FBI being there, it is entirely possible that they knew when the FBI was going to strike. I would imagine when she was captured she might have been able to have a bug hidden on her person somewhere and if there is an informant or a spy for the Underground working in the precinct, she would have been able to slip them the bug to be placed in the room the FBI was setting up its operations. Thus, they knew something was going to happen but not when and so she allowed herself to be captured so as to find out exactly when the attack would take place."

"I suppose, but it's not something we can personally do about it. It would be something for IA to handle and would do nothing but bring mistrust."

"I know, but there is clearly something going on here and I fully intend on trying to figure out what. I need to be able to believe in the system. I need to know where the rabbit hole leads and there is something we do not yet know. There are pieces at play that they both know about but we do not. I think I'm going to go and talk with that undercover again. There are things I need to know about what is all going on. And only then will I fully understand just how complicated things are and who is in the right and who is on the wrong side of the law in this case."

"Did they ever give you the papers yet?"

"No, not yet. But I imagine they were more busy getting things set up to deal with the FBI, and they did say it may take them a little while. But I remember what you said. I'm going to keep to my word and keep you out of all of this. If things are as bad as I'm starting to suspect it may be something where losing my job will be the least of my worries. And I'm not going to go and drag you into all of this just to sate my own curiosity."

"Just this once I think I'll still accompany you. I think it'll raise too many questions if you just go off on your own into Vitraan again, especially so soon after this raid. We'll just stop by it on our way to something else."