Transparent Deception
"Act only when you must, and then, hesitate." ~Credo of the Second Foundation
<<June 5, 1999>>
You crouch lower and press up against the wooden beam, making sure your clothing protected you from splinters, trying to prevent yourself from being seen.
You hated these observation assignments.
Your goal this time was to figure our where the enemy had hidden the flag, and you had "all the time in the world" to do it. You'd think that would be easy, but because failure cannot even be risked, you have to figure it out by watching the guardian they had placed and trying to infer its location. It would be nice if he would move over some place and clearly check to make sure the flag was still there, but no such luck. He just sat there, shouldering his CPS 2500, and glancing at the three doors into the room. You had considered shooting him and searching the room, but he was out of range of your 25 while you stayed in your elevated hiding place and you were clearly no match for him in a straight fight.
The guard was becoming irritable. At least that much was on your side.
Suddenly the guard gets up and nervously looks out one of the doors and you spot the flag - he was sititng on it! Now that he is within range, you prepare to fire, when a sudden voice startles you.
"Finally!" the guard says excitedly. "I was wondering if you were going to show up!"
You shoulder your weapon - if there are several enemies down there, you couldn't take them all out, and because you couldn't easily move out of your position you'd be dead meat.
"Sorry," someone outside mumbles. "Preparations took longer than expected. Our observers have eliminated all guarded positions. Their flag has to be in one of the two unguarded base locations."
Your shock would have been evident if they could see you. There were a certain set of general base locations where the flag could be hidden - they had already figured out it was at one of the two that were unguarded?
The guardian grins broadly. "Excellent! I'll call everyone back to the armory to prepare an assault, you stay here and guard. I'll send someone back to help you."
You watch as the guardian moves out of view and a shorter fighter with an XP 150 walks in and adjusts the flag slightly to conceal it better and takes up a guard post a few feet away from it - out of your range again.
Your mind begins racing frantically for a solution, before the opponents capture the unprotected flag and win the battle . . .
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