You tell yourself you are going to bring the Core to its knees, but that's easier said than done. A shadowy organization, from what you have seen, the Core has connections in the highest echelons of government, and even beyond that. After all, who wouldn't want to be able to consult a think tank that could create better simulations than the most advanced computers, especially when it would be better to leave no evidence?
You decide sometimes the simplest tactics are the best ones. Someone has to finance the Core, and the Core has to rely on payment to others for certain basic services, such as electricity, phone access, even water and sewage. Therefore, the best place to start would be to follow the money.
After various stints as a powerline repairman, a cellular company customer service representative, and even a water treatment plant employee, you manage to identify certain bank accounts associated with the Core, and finally find an accountancy firm that is involved with the finances. You begin investigating various employees of the firm, narrowing down the prospects of who could be working with the Core's accounts.
This evening, you're staking out a house where one of your suspected accountants lives. Apparently, she's a 40-year-old single mother, Kate Hirwin, her sickly son being in the hospital for treatment. Well, when you say staking out, you're actually impersonating a contractor working late on a neighbor's renovations, which you happen to have actually completed in record time, although your employers, who are staying with relatives, do not know that yet. Luckily, that house has a perfect view from the second story into the accountant's home.
You see Ms. Hirwin return home late to a dark house, no one else being home. The neighbors have long gone to bed, and you have turned off all the lights in the house in which you are hiding. However, something strikes you as odd. After waiting a few minutes, no lights turn on in the accountant's home. Suddenly, you realize what might be happening. You race downstairs, out the back door, and carefully scale the fence into Ms. Hirwin's backyard, approaching the house.
You sneak inside just in time to see the accountant on the floor with a man and a woman in suits standing over her, one with a handgun pointed at her.
"You shouldn't have asked so many questions," the man with the gun sneered. "Just move the money and do as you're told. Now what's going to happen to your kid?"
Before you can reach the man and woman, the gun fires. An instant later, you have knocked out both of them. You don't know if this scene has a connection to the Core or not. Quickly, you decide...