#That team is smaller so a van would fit everybody

[sarifel-corrisafid-ilxhel]

A tree house would be amazing!

I once considered a secondary base being a large, broken down van or RV out in the middle of the woods, surrounded on all sides by new growth trees that make you wonder how the van got there. Something off the beaten path on some old forgotten dirt road - possibly also on Cassie's farm, actually, or maybe out in the national forest Tobias and Ax live in. Something sturdy enough to keep out the wind and rain, something that could be filled with sleeping bags or quilts and lit with glowsticks.

This wasn't for any tactical reason - the treehouse is way better for that - but I love the idea of a small group of teens having an abandoned van they've fixed up into a little clubhouse. I like picturing Marco sitting in the driver's seat, pretending to drive, while a couple other members of the team are in the back reading books or doing homework. Jake brings PBnJs along. Pre-nothlit Tobias would love it, but post-nothlit Tobias would hate it because it's a confined space, and Ax would hate it for similar reasons.

My initial thought was an old 1950s delivery van, but the more I think about it, the more an abandoned RV that still has a bed in the back would also work. Especially for David or Marco or whoever else might have the Yeerks looking for them at one point or another.

Here's an interesting AU idea: What if the Animorphs DID have a tree house base?

I feel like it'd have to be Cassie's backyard still. Jake's is too close to Tom, Rachel's would necessitate keeping her little sisters out, Marco doesn't have a backyard, and Tobias and Ax kind of already live in tree houses.

What would be awesome is if it's waaaaay off the ground, like not feasible for most humans to access. These are kids who can't be hurt or killed by a fall unless they insta-die, and who can easily go bird or chimp to get up there fast. And that way there'd be massive advance warning if someone (e.g. the controller cop, Cassie's dad, Estrid) did try to drop in on them.

Also, tree houses have the advantage of easy hork-bajir access but difficult human access and near-impossible taxxon or andalite access. That means Ax has to go to meetings in morph more, which we know he hates, but it'd let people they do want (Toby, Jara, Erek) in while keeping out those they don't (Gonrod, random controllers, civilians).

This requires somewhat more negligent Aniparents to pull off (there's a difference between "my son's at a friend's house" and "my son's off somewhere") but it'd be awesome if it's hidden in the woods and no one but them knows about it. Not sure how these kids in particular would do at making something structurally sound — Ax's idea of construction is to prop up a piece of plywood with wires he stole from utility poles, Cassie's is to dig a hole under a fridge, and none of the others shows a shred of building ability. But assuming they did get it up and working, it'd be a great safe haven.

Speaking of havens, is it better or worse if they stash David there? He'd still have Ax and Tobias babysitting him, and he's not much better off than in the barn, but maybe they could frame it as a cool adventure for him. And if given enough time, I bet Ax could get him a space heater and a wifi hookup there.

Other thoughts?

[blockgamepirate]

So we were talking on Discord about a DSMP superpowers AU, specifically Syndicate as an anarchist superhero team who are perceived as villains by pretty much everybody. (There were a bunch of people involved in the brainstorming but I wanna particularly credit @macachee for the idea for Techno’s superpowers, even though I ended up using a slightly different version than theirs.)

Anyway I know I don't really write fanfic anymore and I'm extremely rusty but uh... my hand slipped?

(CW: nothing major but there are repeated mentions of fire and some pretty tame violence)

×××

"Professor Underscore, I presume?"

The distinctive deep voice of an infamous supervillain was really not something anyone wanted to hear after 14 hours of last minute bug-fixing on a prototype superweapon in a secret laboratory. Especially when all your assistants had already called it a day and gone home.

Without even looking around, Tubbo reached for the gun in his desk drawer but before he could pull it out, a blade smashed into the wood right next to his hand.

"Nope", said the voice, "you don't get to have weapons, I get to have weapons. And speaking of weapons..."

Tubbo carefully turned around on his chair to face his attacker. As expected, it was a huge, hulking pigman dressed in flashy red and a golden mask.

"You are Protesilaus, aren't you? From the Syndicate?"

Protesilaus blinked at him. "You're a LOT younger than I expected, professor."

"Yeah, I get that a lot."

"I mean it's very impressive though, good for you."

"Thanks."

"So anyway, I'm here for the weapons."

"The weapons are kinda reserved already. You know, for the military."

"Don't give a shit", said a voice from the door. "Gib."

Protesilaus sighed. "Zephyrus, you're supposed to be the secret back-up."

The man hiding by the door frame laughed. "We already took care of the guards. There's nobody here but him, it's fiiine."

"But what if HE has his own secret back-up? What then? Well, it's too late now so just keep a look-out, alright?"

Zephyrus laughed again. "Sure."

"Alright." Protesilaus pointed his sword at Tubbo. "Show us to the weapons."

×××

There wasn't much he could think of doing to stall except try and tap in the pin codes on the doors as slowly as humanly possible. To be fair he didn't even really know what he was stalling for exactly. Secret back-up would have been nice but if they’d really taken out all the guards then none was likely to come.

Protesilaus was following him, sword in hand, making random small talk on the way as if he didn't know how to deal with the silence. Tubbo had only caught a few glimpses of Zephyrus, the winged man, in the background or in reflections. He seemed to be tampering with the security systems on the way, meaning that Tubbo really might be completely alone on this if the sabotage was successful. Zephyrus was also pulling along a big wheeled container of some sort that was probably intended for the weapons.

The two of them were the known members of the Syndicate, a team of anarchist terrorists who gave nightmares to the local police forces, the national guard and occasionally the military, but it was also widely theorized to have a secret third member with fire powers. Nobody had ever managed to catch them in the act, the only evidence of the secret member's existence was the trail of smoking ruins following the pair, their targets always burned down in a blaze of extremely memorable pink flames.

Tubbo had a theory that there were actually two secret members in the Syndicate, because if you're going to have one secret member you might as well have two, right? Maybe even three! It just made sense.

His assistants hadn't seemed convinced by this logic.

They arrived at the large hall leading up to the main vault where the prototypes were hidden and Tubbo finally had a plan. Somebody (probably him, honestly) had left the remote control of his battle bots lying around on a sidetable. He took advantage of his captors checking the space for surprise guards and inched slowly towards the remote.

"Everything good up there?" Protesilaus called out to Zephyrus who had flown up to the rafters.

"All good."

"Alright, seems safe enough", said Protesilaus. "Now, open the vault."

Tubbo just needed to stall a little bit longer until he could grab the remote undetected. "Actually, maybe I just won't be able to live with the fact that I let you guys get your hands on superweapons? What if I'd rather die than let you have them?"

Protesilaus sighed. "Look, don't worry, it's for a good cause, I promise."

"I mean, you guys are supervillains."

"Oh yeah sure, you're literally making weapons for an imperialist government but we're the villains?"

"What about that orphanage you burned down?" Tubbo kept moving towards the sidetable, trying to make it look like he was just pacing nervously.

"I have NEVER burned down any orphanages, I do NOT have an irrational hatred of small children, in fact I LOVE orphans in particular, you can ask anyone."

"You did, though! That was like two years ago, back when you were part of the Sleepy Bois Inc!"

Tubbo actually knew quite a lot about the Sleepy Bois, the infamous villain team who were particularly known for conning people into taking part in some sort of strange experiments, like that time they somehow transported a hundred people to the moon and told them to terraform a random area. The group had broken up a while back and two of the four had since reformed. Well, more or less reformed anyway. Actually not really reformed, but they were at least sticking to smaller crimes these days.

Anyway Mr. Business was now one of Tubbo's best friends, although nobody was supposed to know that. And Dirty Crime Boy seemed like a surprisingly nice guy. He was out there running what seemed to be some kind of a drug van but Tubbo had chosen not to worry about it too much.

The other two members, however...

"Sleepy Boys? Doesn't ring a bell." Protesilaus' face was suspiciously blank.

"You know, back when you called yourself the Blood God."

"Nah nah nah, I'm Protesilaus, not the Blood God."

"Come on, you're OBVIOUSLY the Blood God."

"I've never even heard of that guy."

"You're LITERALLY a pigman with superhealing powers and a shiny magical sword, you wear a crown AND you're hanging out with a blond guy with wings who looks just like the Angel of Death."

"Wow, wild coincidence", said Protesilaus

“Not gonna lie, the Angel of Death is a really cool name“, said Zephyrus.

Tubbo ignored them. "And you sound exactly like the Blood God."

"I don't hear it", said Protesilaus.

"You said you don't even know who he is!"

"Exactly."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN 'EXACTLY'??? THAT DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE!!!"

"Well I can't hear it if I've never even heard him speak. That's just logic."

Up in the rafters Zephyrus was cackling like a madman.

"You annoy me so much", said Tubbo.

"Aaaanyways, just give us a little peek into the vault, alright? Just out of curiosity, you know."

Tubbo had made it to the remote, he just needed one more distraction to cover for him grabbing it. "Uh..." Then he had an idea: he just took a quick sudden glance at the exit, as if he'd seen something over there and sure enough both of the criminals immediately turned to check. It was just long enough. He got the remote. "Okay fine, you can see the vault."

"Nice, nice." Protesilaus was still glancing around suspiciously but he had no idea what he should have been suspicious of.

Tubbo was more than happy to open the vault now. It might be holding the prototypes but it was also filled with a small army of robots.

All of which came to life with the press of a button.

"Ah", said Protesilaus. "There's his secret back-up."

"Oh Jesus", said Zephyrus. "I think we fucked up."

"You could say that", said Tubbo. "If you just leave peacefully I might let you go", he added in a sudden fit of uncharacteristic levels of confidence.

Protesilaus raised his sword. "Well you see, I really want those weapons, though."

"I guess you'll just have to fight the robots for it then", said Tubbo, configuring the targetting system.

"Mate, they've got guns on them", Zephyrus called out from above.

"Take cover then", said Protesilaus, very much not taking any cover at all himself.

Tubbo, pretty sure the bots knew which people to fight, released them on the criminals.

Protesilaus immediately managed to dodge the first few lazer bolts from the bots, but the third hit him on the arm. He flinched a bit but didn't seem too bothered. "Ouch. Okay so they can actually aim."

Still dancing around the shots, he held his hand to the wound and once he took it off, only the singed hole on his sleeve remained. The Blood God had been known for some kind of healing powers and coincidentally Protesilaus of the Syndicate, who apparently definitely wasn't the Blood God, just happened to also have healing powers. This fight was going to be hard even for thirty robots.

The pigman finally took some cover, hiding behind a pillar. The robots would have to move closer and Tubbo could already tell that if he'd manage to single them out, Protesilaus would easily take them down one by one.

Even worse, Zephyrus had hidden behind a different pillar up near the ceiling and was sniping the bots from above. They were supposed to be bulletproof but the man was absolutely cracked and managed to keep hitting them in the joints and in the eyes.

But at least the bots had given Tubbo some room to work with. He bolted into the vault and headed straight for a very specific section.

"So I just wanna know, professor", Protesilaus called out from the hall, "how are you NOT the evil mastermind here? You have a LITERAL horde of robots in your control that you can just let loose on people!"

"What do you MEAN? They're for fighting people like you! In this exact kind of situation!" Tubbo found what he was looking for and quickly unbuckled the huge harnesses holding it in place. He had to get a stool to reach the highest ones and nearly tripped on it in his hurry.

"Oh and how many of these have you sold to the government? And what if they just decide that they'd be very convenient for taking care of dissenters?"

"Well if the dissenters are literal supervillains, that sounds great." He climbed the ladder on the wall up to the platform by the mech suit and jumped inside.

He couldn't hear what Protesilaus responded after he pulled down the dome of the suit over his body. The sounds of fighting and the bulletproof glass drowned it all out from this distance, and the sound system wasn’t turned on yet. Now the odds should be a lot more even, though. Let’s see how they deal with this, he thought. He settled in and launched the mech--

... and then maneuvered awkwardly through the mess of secret weapons and machines inside his vault. He was pretty sure he didn't break too many things on the way, it was fine. In the corner of his eye he thought he saw a flash of pink and for a second he worried that the pigman had followed him into the vault where it would be almost impossible for him to fight in the suit but luckily he could still hear the sound of sword clanging into metal from outside.

He moved over to the vault door as sneakily as he could while piloting a 12-foot-tall machine in a tight space and looked out into the hall. The floor was littered with broken robots, and there were several blinded ones aimlessly wandering around and getting in the way of the ones that still functioned properly. Protesilaus was towards the back of the hall, stabbing a bot in the armpit and tearing off its arm, Zephyrus on the other hand, still perching on the rafters, had moved around the pillar he had hidden behind, now aiming away from the vault. Neither of them were looking at Tubbo. He took aim and shot at one of the huge grey wings.

"Ah! Fuck!" Zephyrus spun around. "You little shit!"

"Zephyrus, are you okay??" Protesilaus immediately looked over to his ally and took another hit himself.

"I'm FINE, dude!" Zephyrus sounded exasperated but fond. "Look out yourself! Also the kid has a fucking mech."

"A what?"

Tubbo slammed the vault door shut. Good luck getting in there now, Syndicate. Then he tossed aside some robot carcasses to clear out the floor and threw one at Protesilaus who dodged it easily but in the process took another hit from a different robot. He was starting to look tired and he was obviously distracted by Zephyrus getting hurt. That was promising.

Tubbo started climbing the pillar up to the ceiling. Zephyrus cursed again and tried to hop around the pillar to run across to the other side but his hurt wing didn't open properly so he lost his balance, slipped up and fell. "Shit!"

"ZEPHYRUS!"

The man managed to open his wings and soften the fall but the injury made him veer dangerously to the left and crash into a pile of broken robots. Protesilaus leaped over to him, dropping his sword and laying his hands on his friend's wing and back. A faint red glow emitted from the touch points.

Tubbo jumped back down to the ground and stormed at them. He punched the pigman right in the chin, sending him flying across the room. He then tried to grab Zephyrus but the man had already slipped away and had apparently managed to pick up his friend's sword. "You motherfucker", the man said, "I'm going to take that fucking suit apart and then it's your turn."

"Zeph!" Protesilaus called from the side and Zephyrus tossed the sword to him without taking his eyes of off Tubbo. Then the man pulled up his sniper rifle again and Tubbo quickly covered his weak points with his armoured arms and jumped behind a pillar. He needed to disarm Zephyrus ASAP.

Behind them, Protesilaus was taking care of the last few robots. Tubbo didn't have much time, but he couldn't do anything until Zephyrus would have to reload, the guy was just too accurate...

"Oh fuck", said Zephyrus suddenly. "Prot, the door!"

They all turned to look at the exit.

There, at the door, was Ranboo, widened eyes flicking between Tubbo, the broken robots and the Syndicade. He was holding a bowl of biscuits and a cup of tea. "Uh... hello? Hi?"

Ranboo was actually NOT allowed in the vaults but how do you stop someone who can literally teleport anyway? Tubbo was glad to see him sneaking in, though.

"Ranboo! Help! They're trying to steal the weapons!"

"I..." Ranboo seemed frozen in place.

"Ranboo!" Tubbo was starting to get worried. His husband wasn't even taking any shelter. He drove the mech over to him to at least give him some protection.

"I just came to bring you cookies? Coz I thought maybe you were staying late to make the deadline and I thought--"

"Ranboo, I'm being attacked by supervillains right now!"

"Look, what if we just talked this through? I'm sure everybody here would rather not kill each other, right?" Ranboo was tall enough to lay a hand on Tubbo's shoulder even when he was wearing the mech suit which kind of pissed Tubbo off to be quite honest.

"Sure", said Protesilaus, "I love negotiating. Give us the weapons and their blueprints and we're more than happy to go."

"See? That's good, right? Tubbo, we can just let them have the weapons."

"Ranboo, sometimes you're a bit too quirky for my liking. Stop being quirky, help me fight them. You can use your... T-E-L-I-P-O-R-T-A-T-I-O-N powers."

Everybody just stared at him for a second.

"Shouldn't it be T-E-L-E?" said Protesilaus.

"Tubbo, you realise they can spell words too, you know, like most people who graduated elementary school?" said Ranboo.

"I'M SORRY! I'M TIRED, OKAY?"

“You could have just said ‘use your powers’, I mean, I know what my powers are.”

“IT'S BEEN A REALLY LONG DAY!“

"Zephyrus, I think this guy might be too much for us, I've never met such intimidating intellect", said Protesilaus. Zephyrus seemed to already be dying of laughter and his ally's words did not help.

"Now that's just rude," said Tubbo.

He'd barely finished his sentence when a horrible whistling sound hit them all like an invisible cargo train. After a second Tubbo managed to reassemble his braincells long enough to figure it out: "The fire alarm!"

Then he noticed the grin on his enemy's face. "Well, good job, everyone! Let's go home, Zephyrus", said Protesilaus cheerfully.

"Sure, mate."

The secret third member of the Syndicate, Tubbo suddenly remembered. The container they'd brought with them was gone too. Well, fuck. "This whole thing was a diversion??"

"Yep." The Protesilaus was already at the exit and Zephyrus was following right behind him. "See ya, losers!"

Something inside the vault exploded, making a muffled bang through the door, as if just to prove where exactly the fire had been lit.

"Oh man..." Tubbo flopped down on his seat. "I spent SO LONG building all those things!"

"Tubbo, we need to get out." Ranboo took him by the hand of his mech suit and pulled him along.

"No, we could still go in and save the--"

"No, Tubbo. Let's NOT run into the vault full of dangerous chemicals that's literally on fire, actually."

×××

By the time the fire department showed up, pink flames had enveloped the entire lab complex. The terrorists presumably had at least one of the prototypes now and all the remaining ones were a lost cause.

It's not like all the work was gone to waste, they'd made some backups at least, but it would be a pain to find a new lab and order all the extremely volatile chemicals again. So much paperwork. Tubbo was really not good at paperwork.

"Well, there goes my summer holidays I guess", he said.

"Yeah", said Ranboo. "There they go."

×××

"So... Lethe", said Techno at the next Syndicate meeting, "you never happened to mention you were friends with Professor Underscore."

Ranboo shifted nervously in his chair. "I mean... in my defence, you never said you were going to raid his lab?"

"True, true. It didn't seem like relevant information at the time I suppose. You know, because you're kinda more in the group just for the book club and Bake Off Fridays and not so much for the vigilante thing."

"How do you know Professor Underscore, Lethe?" asked Niki gently.

Ranboo looked around the table. He was fairly certain that the others wouldn't kill him for fraternizing with the enemy. He was pretty sure anyway. At least 70% sure.

Also they were all staring at him now.

"Uh... he's my... husband?"

The staring continued.

"Oh!" said Niki.

"Well", said Techno. "This is awkward."

"Uh huh?" Ranboo responded, his entire body tense and slightly wobbly.

"Techno", Phil said softly. Techno brushed him off.

"So uh, are you attached to him, Lethe?"

"Y-yes?" Ranboo straightened his back. "Yes." he said again, more firmly.

"Alright. I guess in the future we should try not to kill him then."

[bangkokjacknews]

Vietnam's never-ending bomb disposal problem

Vietnam's bomb disposal squad. It has been estimated that it will take 300 years to clear the land of Vietnam of all the weapons dropped and left behind so many years ago. Disposing of deadly munitions on the former frontline seems an impossible task, but there may be hope. Somewhere in a village in the central province of Quang Tri, a muffled yet powerful explosion erupts, followed immediately by another, shaking the ground beneath us. Sparks shower from the treetops like arrows aimed at the sky, then a black plume of smoke. Several American bombs have just exploded, more than forty years after the end of the war. Local people are used to these controlled detonations, which are carried out at least twice a week. The war is long over, but the fight seems never-ending for the dozens of mine-clearance experts who struggle every day to clear the region from the millions of bombs, landmines, grenades, shells, mortars and other unexploded ammunitions that were dropped on the region. In this part of the globe, these deadly devices are still killing people on a daily basis. The bombs that the team from the Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) have just destroyed are no longer a threat. But here, everybody remembers a man named Ngo Thien Khiet, who was killed by one of the devices at the age of 45 while trying to disarm it. He left behind a wife and two sons. In its 15 years of clearing the former battlefield, the NPA had never suffered a single accident, so what happened to Khiet shocked everyone working on the project and was a costly, painful reminder of how dangerous and indiscriminate these weapons are. Khiet’s partner, Nguyen Van Hao, who was also hit by the blast, recently recovered from his injuries and immediately decided to return to this insidious, hot and humid battlefield that seems to refuse to forget the tragedy that took place between 1955 and 1975. Twenty years of atrocities that nobody can forget: the central province of Quang Tri was the front line during the Vietnam War, or “the Resistance War against America”, as we call it here in Vietnam. Its marshy land was plowed for over a decade by a deadly rain of metal and fire, and 80 percent of the province is still a minefield. Quang Tri is the place to go to understand the madness and the violence of the American bombings during the war in an era when the region was split in two by the “demilitarized zone” (DMZ) between North and South Vietnam. Hemmed between a 1,000 miles of Annamite mountain range and the vast South China Sea (which Vietnam calls the East Sea), Quang Tri is only 30 miles wide: a tiny piece of land that is the most heavily bombed place in history, even compared to Germany in World War II. War victims in a country at peace Ho Van Lai, 26, was not even born when the war ended, but he suffered its vicious backlash. It's written all over his body. Every missing part of him tells the cruel story this conflict left behind. At the age of 10, one of those unexploded bombs detonated and ripped off his right arm and leg, as well as his left hand and foot. He has only one eye left, and his one good eye continues to deteriorate as time goes by. Doctors say there is no cure. In a humble house in Gio Linh Town, Lai lives with his mother. “I stepped on a bomb and it exploded when I was playing in the sand with three friends. Two of them died and one is still alive,” he simply says. This is what happens when you live in a “polluted area”, as the NGOs call the region. No one really knows how many people have been injured or killed by UXOs in Vietnam since the war ended, but the best estimates are at least 105,000, including 40,000 deaths. Most of the victims are poor farmers -- perhaps not surprisingly, since most of the fighting and bombings took place in rural areas and rice paddies: the most common sites of explosions. “Farmers here often find pieces of metal, sometimes bombs or ammunition, and they simply toss them aside and continue their work,” said Le Van Minh, Community Liaison Officer at MAG Vietnam. It's not necessarily because of the lack of awareness, he says. Many local farmers admit that they still very much fear of the risk that one day they may accidentally swing their hoes into one of those leftover clustered bombs, or "bombies" as they call, even after all these years. But for people who were desperate for farm land to make a living, though barely enough, they would defy all the risks to reclaim it. Nowadays, the pattern of victims has changed, from those who stumble on munitions accidentally to the scrap-metal scavengers who go out looking for them in full knowledge of the danger. And in recent years, the casualty numbers have steadily declined thanks to the relentlessness of several NGOs specialized in mine clearance, such as the NPA and the Mine Advisory Group (MAG). Day after day, in the muddy rice fields and in every corner of every village, they seek out and destroy these lethal pieces of rusted metal. Peace fighters In the early morning, a dozen young men and women are standing by the side of the road in Cam Lo Township. All dressed in beige uniforms, they listen to the supervisors, armed only with shovels, ropes, colored stakes and metal detectors. This is their security briefing, where everybody has to give their blood type and listen to the security rules under the surveillance of a paramedic. On this battlefield, a single mistake could be fatal. Slowly, the sun is rising as the team quietly walks in column to the polluted site. In the distance, explosions break the silence: “That's probably the NPA team destroying something,” a teammate says. Today’s clearance area covers about several square kilometers of paddle fields in a rural town of Cam Lo, right in the middle of Quang Tri. Around here, the team has already found one mortar and two cluster bombs. No doubt that today, they will find more. As they comb the field, detectors make a rhythmic, high pitched chatter. Regularly, one of them gives a loud squawk: “It may be a bomb, or may be just a piece of shrapnel,” says one of the officers. The smallest one that the team has just found after an hour of searching is among the worst. It takes a kind of perverse ingenuity to design such things: an airplane drops a mother pod, an elongated canister that springs open in midair. As many as 600 individual mini-bombs, smaller than a baseball, fly out in all directions, blanketing an area the size of three football fields and story first shared by Bangkok Jack, come over and join us, shredding anything in their path. As the unexploded ones rust away in the ground, some become inert, while others become unstable. You never know. “There’s a footprint to a cluster-bomb strike pattern that’s different from any other kind of blast,” Resad Junuzagic, NPA country director, explains. “If you find one or two bombs, you can assume there are others in the immediate area.” It helps, he said, that the U.S. Air Force has turned over many of its maps tracking the planned bombing runs, although pilots had discretion to drop bombs wherever they saw fit. Time is slowly passing by in the field. A few cluster bombs have been found. They are too instable to be removed, so they will be destroyed on site. Alone in the middle of the ground, a bomb disposal expert is setting explosives on the UXOs and covering the holes with sand bags, while the rest of the team evacuates the area and warns local people of the impending explosion with megaphones. “4…3…2…1… Fire!” shouts the team leader, before the deadly devices explode under the indifferent gaze of a few cows. Members of the MAG international clearance team destroy a stockpile of ammunition in Cam Lo District, Quang Tri Province, Vietnam. Photo by VnExpress/Xavier Bourgois Organizing the counterattack… for the long term. All the experts agree: it will be nigh-on impossible to remove all the remnants of the war in the region. But to organize the response, the different NGOs working on the ground, local people and the authorities have to work together. This is how they came to start the “RENEW” project in 2001, mostly funded by the NPA and the U.S. State Department, who coordinate the all the organizations involved and manage a huge database where all the clearance operations are recorded. But this is also a matter of risk education, especially for children, who visit every day the small Mine Action center museum, where they will learn the different types of explosives and how to react in front of those, while doing role-playing games. On the ground, these kinds of initiatives have had clear results. You just have to follow one of the emergency response teams. In some villages in the region, cluster bombs and mortars are buried just a meter from the road side and when the men in beige turn up, they are quickly joined by locals with numerous reports of suspicious devices buried under bushes, sand and even cemeteries that are still waiting to be cleared. It has been estimated that it will take 300 years to clear the land of Vietnam of all the weapons dropped and left behind so many years ago. And just by following the MAG and NPA teams for a day shows the incredible amount of work that still need to be done. "We are very confident with our approach and progress... and we expect to finish our job by 2020, so it's a five-year-period," says Junuzagic, the NPA director, as he was talking about the plan of getting rid of the UXOs entirely from the fields of Quang Tri. "It's a big difference when hundreds of years could be reduced to five, or even six or seven years." For very long time, people have spoken of removing every last piece of ammunitions and ordnances from the fields of Vietnam - an idea that largely remains, until at least the couple of years ago, a wishful thinking, an impossible task. Now, perhaps there is hope. NPA, MAG, and other NGOs have destroyed more than 370,000 UXOs over an area of 5,600 hectares (13,838 acres) in Quang Tri since 1998. No one knows how many war remnants still lie under this war-torn land, but for Junuzagic, he knows that it's time for him and his team to finally finish their supposedly "never-ending" job. Read the full article

[sevens-evan]

this is not a fucking love song

author: daisys-quake

rated: t i guess?

pairing: daisy johnson/jemma simmons

word count: 2114

summary: Sometimes Daisy wishes she never met Jemma.

a/n: i wrote this in half an hour at like two in the morning instead of working on my skimmons full length because i have no self control. daisy's characterization in here is a pretty big departure from canon, though, because i was working on my full length before this and daisy in that is way different from canon, and my version of her definitely came through in this. some things: this is pretty much entirely canon compliant in terms of fitz and jemma's relationship, which is where the unrequited love tag comes from. there's also mentions of miles/skye and daisy/lincoln, but i didn't cover skyeward because we pretend ward doesn't exist in this house. there's even a little bit of quakerider because honestly, we deserved more robbie reyes than we got. anyway. i hope you enjoy.

read on ao3 here

You run away six times before you turn eighteen.

Every one is a new mark in your file, another strike against you, a drop in the chances of you ever being adopted, ever even being fostered in a good home. No good home will take a girl who can’t stay in one place. But you gave up hope of any home a long time ago, so you run. And every time, you get a little better at it. It takes them a few more hours, a few more days to find you. And then you pack your clothes in a garbage bag on your eighteenth birthday and buy a bus ticket to Texas with all the money you have, because there’s nothing for you here, nothing for you anywhere, and you think that if you’re going to be doomed you might as well be doomed far away from the dirty streets and polluted air of LA.

Dallas isn’t much better, but the time moves slower and the people are smaller, so you stay. You meet a boy named Miles who tries to give you a purpose, and it doesn’t work, not really, but since you’re just killing time before you die you decide to stay with him, get high in his bedroom and hack government agencies for the fun of it and talk about changing the world.

(You cannot change the world. You are small and powerless and there’s a timer above your head, counting down the seconds until you fade into nothing. Miles is the same, but he cannot see it, and his stubborn obliviousness is comforting. So you stay.)

You stay in Dallas until you can’t bear it anymore. Time moves slowly and you used to want that, used to want nothing but more time, but you’re doing nothing with it and you find yourself praying it would move faster. So you leave Miles and leave the apartment that’s supposed to feel like home but never has, and this time you have a van full of things instead of a plastic bag, but it still feels empty and you still feel meaningless. You go back to LA with a vague hope that everything will be over soon.

You join S.H.I.E.L.D. with the sort of half-hearted purposelessness you’ve done most things with. You have a faint idea of finding your parents; it’s as good a way as any to kill time. You tell Coulson you want to be a field agent, because drugs have stopped making you feel anything and meaningless adrenaline would be better than nothing.

Simmons is the most intensely alive person on the Bus. You watch from a distance without looking too closely, because she’s bright bright bright, all color and sound and feeling, and you’re pretty sure you’ll go blind if you meet her eyes.

And somehow, you survive. You shoot a teenage boy in the forehead from hundreds of feet away, and you don’t feel anything. You watch Simmons run across the deck of a ship, and somewhere inside of you, you desperately, fervently hope that she makes it through this, that she still glows with life when she comes home.

(She does.)

Simmons comes home and you find your parents and there’s a moment, sitting across from your father at dinner, that you think maybe. But Cal is still a psychotic murderer, and Jiaying turns out to be just as insane, and you end up with two evil parents instead of none and a power that makes your skin crawl, because Simmons looks at you with fear in her eyes and you cannot imagine what you could do with this power but destroy.

In the end, Jiaying gets to die and Cal gets to start over, and it’s beautiful and horrible and destined that everybody has peace in the end except you.

You change your name because you don’t feel like Skye anymore, because Skye was a broken and empty orphan who loved nothing, and you are still hollow and lost but you love Simmons and you wanted to love your parents. You kind of do, somewhere inside you, so you tell your team to call you Daisy and ignore the way the name makes you flinch for the first few weeks.

Simmons disappears into the monolith, and you always knew how Fitz felt about her but now it’s more evident than ever, because she’s gone and he’s broken glass, and you think you would be too if you hadn’t been shattered and swept up and thrown to the wind years ago. She’s gone for months and you keep going, and you take the hardest, most dangerous missions and use your powers recklessly and relish the feeling of your bones cracking beneath your skin, because at least it’s a feeling. Because if you’re lucky you’ll get killed, and surely that will feel like something.

Fitz drags Simmons back out of the monolith, and she’s beautiful but she doesn’t glow anymore. You bring her flowers and somewhere between making eye contact across the deck of a ship and setting daisies on her nightstand she had become Jemma, not Simmons. She takes the flowers and smiles at you, and it’s weak and scared but not scared of you, and you decide right then that if she can’t glow the way she used to, you will find it in yourself to stop just surviving and live, live until she sees you doing it and learns how to live all over again.

And you do it. You kiss Lincoln and you feel something, and it isn’t much but it’s there and that’s more than you’ve ever had before. You drink with Bobbi and Hunter, and Mack after they’re gone, and you listen to them talk about the things they’re fighting for and for the first time, you feel like something matters, like what you’re doing is real. Bobbi tells you at some point between fourth and fifth beers that she wants to be remembered, and it strikes a chord in you.

You keep putting yourself in danger, keep killing, but now you’re fighting. You’re fighting to live, not to survive. You blow through walls and shatter windows and shake the earth with your hands, and you look at yourself in the mirror one morning and you see a person looking back. Not a half-withered skeleton wrapped in skin, not a broken toy, but a person.

And the whole time, you’re doing it for Jemma. You’re learning to live, learning to feel, and the entire time, she’s falling in love with Fitz.

And God, that’s some kind of irony, isn’t it?

Hive takes you, and you could fight it, probably. But you’ve taught yourself to feel and all you’re feeling now is a bitter pain that you have no right to, because you’re so goddamned good at lying that Jemma has no idea that you’re in love with her. So you let Hive take you, because he turns the feelings off and you don’t know how to do that yourself anymore.

Hive takes you and Lincoln dies because of it, and he tells you he loves you before he dies. You don’t know if you feel more guilty for his death or for the fact that you let him fall in love with you, because that was never going to end in anything but a tragedy.

So you run away. You’ve always been good at running. And for the first time, it feels like running away from home.

You’re starting to think your life is some sort of cosmic joke. Someone has put a lot of effort into filling it with irony. The first time you realize that you have a home is when you lose it.

You rob a bank and collapse a bridge and get labeled a terrorist, and it’s all for a good cause because you can’t stomach hurting people senselessly anymore. Because you feel now, and you can’t make it go away.

(Some days you wish you never met Jemma.)

You meet a man named Robbie Reyes and you think that maybe, in another life where you don’t love a girl who you ran away from, in a life where the lines are blurred and the morals are clear instead of the other way around, you could love him. But maybe it’s good that you met in this life, because he’s far too much like you and you two together could destroy the world.

You reunite with Jemma in an apartment you bought for her and Fitz, because she’s glowing again and you don’t want her to ever stop, and if that means breaking your own heart a thousand times over you’d do it in a heartbeat. Because it’s Jemma, and she still looks at you like you’re worth something.

You go back to S.H.I.E.L.D. eventually. You hurt just as much there as everywhere else, but Jemma looks happier, so it doesn’t matter. You watch Jemma and Fitz be in love, and Mack gives you sympathetic looks when they’re around. He never says a word, but he doesn’t have to.

You kneel beside Jemma as robot versions of your friends hunt you down, and you tell her everything you can think of to convince her that she can do this, that she can fix this, and you almost tell her the truth right there.

You say something about Fitz, instead of saying I’m in love with you.

You fall into a world where you work for Hydra and Ward is a good man, and Jemma tells you that she crawled out of a grave when she got there. You find that more fitting than you probably should. Not even death can stop Jemma from living.

The Framework is a nightmare, but while you’re there, Jemma looks at you like you’re the most important thing she has. You know that it’s because you’re the only thing she has there, but that doesn’t stop you from letting her gaze chase some of your ever-present pain away.

Of course, the moment she has the real Fitz back, it all comes pouring back. You don’t blame her, not even a little bit; she loves him and not you. She has never loved you and that is not her fault, and maybe it’s not yours, either. Maybe you were built to love her and she was built to love him, and whichever deity has a grudge against your soul decided to write you into a tragedy.

(Either way, whether it’s fault or fate, it hurts the same.)

When you’re kidnapped into the future and Deke calls you the Destroyer of Worlds, you’re not surprised. Not even a little bit. You run away from everything. It’s fight or flight, and you always, always run.

You must’ve found something you couldn’t run from.

Jemma asks Fitz to marry her, and it shouldn’t surprise you, it doesn’t surprise you, but your heart still feels like dust inside your chest.

When you make it to the Zephyr, on the surface, you sit across from Robin and only one question springs to mind.

“Jemma?” you say softly, almost in a whisper. Robin stares at you, simultaneously wise, hardened by tragedy, and childishly innocent. “Jemma?” you repeat.

“Daisy loved her until the end,” Robin says, not even aware that you are the one asking the question.

“But does she love me?” you ask. You already know the answer, but you ask anyway. You were never good at avoiding things that would hurt you.

Robin stares at you, blankly. You get up and walk away.

(Somewhere behind Robin is a drawing of a gauntleted hand holding a bare one, a bare hand with no wedding ring, no tan line where one would rest. You don’t see it.)

(Someday, you think, you will tell her. You will sit across from Jemma and tell her about a broken toy in a human body and a glowing girl who showed her how to live. Jemma will hold your hand and tell you that she’s sorry, and she will mean it because she’s Jemma and for some reason she’s always looked at you like you matter, and you will feel the cold metal of her wedding ring against your fingers, and you will feel more than you were ever supposed to, and the world will crack and shatter beneath you, because you are selfish and broken and trying to fix yourself with a vague notion of love and a few friends was like putting band-aids over bullet holes and praying for a cure.

You don’t know why you ever thought you could be saved.)

a/n: hope you liked it! likes and reblogs are much appreciated. my fic requests are open, so if you want me to write you something, just send me an ask :)

my ao3

[thisdaynews]

Emiliano Sala: A year on from plane crash, his family speak of 'pain that will never go away'

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/emiliano-sala-a-year-on-from-plane-crash-his-family-speak-of-pain-that-will-never-go-away/

Emiliano Sala: A year on from plane crash, his family speak of 'pain that will never go away'

Sala’s first football club was San Martin, in the small town where he grew up – Progreso

On a typical Saturday afternoon in Progreso, the streets seem completely deserted. As the summer sun blazes outside, most of its 2,000 inhabitants are sheltering indoors.

The only human presence is at San Martin football club, where a family is celebrating a baptism. It is the same place where the town mourned its most illustrious son, Emiliano Sala.

Located in Argentina’s agricultural heart, six hours’ drive from Buenos Aires, Progreso sadly became better known in the tragic story of Cardiff’s record signing, who died in a plane crash in January 2019. When his casket arrived back home, those empty streets held more people than they had ever seen before.

A year later, the pain is still palpable. BBC Sport visited between Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve, a time of reflection for most of the town. Here, Sala was not only a football star. He was El Emi, the kid everybody knew. He was a friend, a neighbour, a former pupil, a former team-mate.

For his mother, Mercedes, and his 24-year-old brother, Dario, it is not easy to speak about what happened.

Mercedes says she takes comfort from the many messages of support her family has received

When Dario opens the door of their home, Mercedes is sitting in the dining room. “Thanks for coming, it means a lot to pay homage to my son,” she says as she instantly offers a glass of water.

A smiling picture of Emiliano, Dario and sister Romina lights up the room. Sala’s father Horacio also died last year. He suffered a heart attack at the age of 58 in April, three months after his son’s death. He and Mercedes did not live together.

“When Emi was 15, he sat in the kitchen at our old house and told me: ‘Mummy, I want to be a football player’. He wanted that so much, and to pursue that dream he had to move to San Francisco, in Cordoba province,” says Mercedes.

“He was just a boy, and it was so difficult to see him leave, but he was so resolute, so convinced that he would make it. It was his dream, and he did make it. He loved football. And now he was so excited to play in the Premier League.”

Sala, who was 28 when he died, was on his way to join Cardiff City, following a £15m transfer from French side Nantes, when the plane he was travelling in crashed. He had signed for the Welsh club two days before. Cardiff and Nantes have since been in dispute over transfer payments. Sala’s body was recovered from the wreckage in the English Channel, but pilot David Ibbotson has still not been found.

The Nantes supporters loved Sala, who moved there in 2015. Some have come to visit Progreso since his death. Even his hairdresser travelled across the Atlantic Ocean to see where he lived and meet his family.

Mercedes’ living room is now home to many of the gifts her son received during his three and a half seasons at Nantes. Collecting and sorting his belongings was another of the very painful experiences the family had to endure last year.

“Every year I’d go to France in October for his birthday, and I’d stay with him for a month,” says Mercedes. “The first week was always a celebration of the food he loved. In my luggage, I would pack the ready-made pastry circles to make empanadas, and also breadcrumbs for Milanesas, because the ones in France were different.

“‘Mummy, please make all the dishes I love,’ he would tell me. I’d also make homemade pasta. But after this one week he’d quickly switch back to his football diet, with lots of fish, because he was so focused on being fit. He was a hard worker. On top of training for the club, he also had a personal trainer and set up a gym in his house.”

After home matches, supporters would gather, waiting for his car to go past on the way out of the stadium.

“He was shy, but he would always stop, open the windows and start signing autographs and taking selfies,” Mercedes says.

“All those fans, today, are the ones that I want to thank, because they are still sending me pictures I had never seen before.

“I receive so much stuff from France, from England, from the rest of Argentina.”

Dario says: “It was beautiful to see how much the people loved him. I remember when he was in talks to renew his contract and people would just ask him to stay.”

Cardiff City announced Sala’s signing on 19 January 2019 – for a club record £15m

Sala was looking forward to his move to the Premier League and he dreamed of getting a call-up to represent Argentina.

In November 2017, he was Argentina’s most prolific striker behind Lionel Messi. His brother Dario, and many people from Progreso, still cherish the image captured from TV: Messi had scored a goal every 95 minutes; Sala every 98.

A photo depicting France and Paris St-Germain striker Kylian Mbappe, the man who ended Argentina’s chances at World Cup 2018, going to hug him is still treasured. Sala was so shy he would hardly ask for a jersey swap.

“We’d talk a lot about the national team, as two fans do,” says Dario. “He knew it was very difficult to be part of the squad, with the calibre of the strikers that we have. But I’m sure he never lost hope, not my brother. He wanted to be a footballer and he’d achieved it. He wanted to play in the top flight and he made it. He wanted to go to the Premier League and he’d just achieved it.

“Playing for Argentina was the natural desire. We would imagine him scoring after getting a pass from Messi, for instance. Who wouldn’t?”

Growing up, Sala admired Gabriel Batistuta and Carlos Tevez. He was a fan of Independiente, because of his friend Colito’s influence.

Dario says: “I’m five years younger than him, so growing up I would always end up going in goal and he’d get all the shots.

“We didn’t have many of the things that other kids might have had, but thanks to my mum we never had a meal missing from our table. That’s where we come from. From sacrifice. And we are all very alike. Emi was the oldest of the three and he was shy.”

Mercedes says: “It’s still so fresh. I can still see them playing outside. I would have to call them in to have dinner or take a shower. There were no toys for them, just football.

“He didn’t see himself as famous or anything, that’s why when he came back to the town. He was just an ordinary citizen… and what a son he was.”

She starts crying.

“Do you know that we would talk two, sometimes three times a day? Every day? That was my son. He would tell me everything – the food he’d eaten, the things he’d done. Sometimes he’d complain about his performance, and perhaps he had scored a goal or made one, but he was always trying to progress.”

Dario adds: “We had a WhatsApp group, the four of us: mum, Emi, Romina and me. He’d speak to mum and if he couldn’t call me, he’d write at night saying that it was late in France and we’d speak the next afternoon. There was distance, but it was like we were all together. He’d ask me a lot about football, about the team, about his performances. It was a joy to be able to watch him live on TV, too. It wasn’t the case with some of the first clubs he played for.”

One year after leaving home for Cordoba, Sala made his first trip to Europe to have a trial with Bordeaux. He signed for them in 2010, a move made easier by him gaining Italian citizenship. Before his transfer to Nantes came in 2015, he had been loaned out to some smaller French sides: Orleans, Niort and Caen.

“He was completely focused on getting better,” Mercedes says. “He learned French, had become extremely fluent, and now he’d surely have been taking English courses.”

Mercedes’ home holds many gifts to her family from the football world

On the date of Sala’s birthday last year, a giant mural was unveiled at San Martin, where it all began. The club’s small stadium – which holds about 2,000 people – was also named after him.

“It’s a very nice mural, very realistic, and very touching, too,” Dario says. “I go often to the club and I take a moment to pass it.”

San Martin also play with Sala’s image on their black-and-red jerseys, while the regional league they compete in was renamed the Liga Emiliano Sala. For Mercedes, each homage and every gesture acts like a valve releasing something of the pain of losing her first son.

“As a mother, seeing all this love, all these messages, feeling the comfort of so many people, it is touching. But what can I say? I just want to have him here with me.”

Cardiff’s fans paid emotional tribute to Sala following news of his death

Two days before Sala’s plane crashed, Progreso had celebrated its traditional Fiesta del Queso – a cheese festival showcasing producers from the local area. The main square, Los Colonizadores, was filled with joy. Through the speakers it was announced that El Emi would move to the Premier League, becoming Cardiff’s record signing. It felt as the town itself had earned that distinction.

That same square would soon be overcrowded with TV vans, cameras, journalists from all over the world. After they left, the candles and prayers remained.

“I can’t say I found peace, unfortunately. I’m still fighting,” Mercedes says. She pauses for a long time.

“I am practically dead while living. It’s been a terrible, terrible year. I loved him so much. I would tell him every day,” she says in tears.

Sala’s funeral in Progreso was held at the football club, San Martin. His father Horacio is pictured here, next to his son’s coffin, with his hand to his face. Mercedes is to the far left of the image

Outside, three dogs are barking in the back yard. One of them is Nala, the five-year-old dog Sala had rescued as a puppy in France. She became famous for a picture in which she was seen waiting for her owner to come home.

“She knew us from all the times we’d been in France, but when she came here, she found all the stuff from Emi, and I’m convinced that she also recognised his smell,” Mercedes says. “We decided to take her to the wake, so she could also be with him.”

The family had a private wake before going to San Martin’s main hall for the public funeral in February last year. “There was a whole town wanting to say goodbye,” Mercedes says. “We understood it was the right thing to do.

“Since that call at six in the morning…” she sighs deeply. “It seems as if it was yesterday, and it’s already been one year. The pain is intact and it will never go away.”

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[dovebuffy92]

https://www.fanbolt.com/113909/line-of-duty-season-6-episode-4-recap-unknown-relations/

In Line of Duty Season Six Episode Four, directed by Gareth Bryn, AC-12 finds a possible witness; former wealthy solicitor Jimmy Lakewell was imprisoned in Season Four.

Episode Four begins with Jo telling her team that she is now the Acting Detective Superintendent for Operation Lighthouse. The team will go back to square one since they now know Gail was robbed.

After the briefing, Jo gives Kate the go-ahead to look into the armed weapons used in Gail’s murder and the armed robbery.

Kate and Ted secretly meet to talk about Ryan. He wants to pull Ryan into AC-12 because he’s dangerous. However, Kate doesn’t think AC-12 will get anything out of the calm and collected constable. Instead, she thinks Ted should monitor Ryan to see if they can track down the institutional police corruption that put a former delinquent in a place of authority.

Chloe, Steve, and Ted interrogate Ian about police corruption. Ian acts squirrely during the interview. He calls himself the victim even though he slept with Deborah then dropped the assault charges against her. Ted calls him a “decision dodger.” Ian takes no responsibility for Operation Lighthouse. Not even for ignoring other possible revenues of investigation. Ian gets charged after saying he doesn’t know anything.

DCC Andrea tells Ted that since he refuses to play politics, they are forcing him into retirement. He will get his full pension, but she will dismantle his team. So Ted has one more month in AC-12.

Chris and Kate figure out that the cartridge and bullets found at Gail’s murder site were from a non-registered “workshopped” gun, meaning homemade. But none of the weapons from the armed robbery of the bookie shop were workshopped.

Kate and Chris interrogate one of the robbers they arrested Jake Kilorgan. Jake tells them that they were given guns in a crate in front of the “workshop.” None of the robbers took any of the homemade guns. Jake doesn’t know where the unlicensed firearms are.

Chloe and Steve find out that the forensic team located a lot of DNA material and prints. So, if Jo was at Farida’s flat, forensics will identify her. Jo watches Steve and Chloe talk from the bushes.

The surveillance team has been tracking Ryan’s movements. Ryan has been following Jo around. Kate wants to warn Jo, but Ted says she shouldn’t. Jo could still be the leak to Organized Crime. Later, Amanda updates Steve and Chloe about how cybercrime found an audio recording from Gail’s devices at work.

Chloe, Ted, and Steve listen to the interview recording from her work laptop. Gail’s subject talks about how the authorities covered up police shootings in Operation Trapdoor and about another case involving racism. Steve recognizes the interviewee’s voice belongs to Jimmy when he says, “Balaclava Man.”

Kate talks to Jo alone about how Ryan has been spying on her. She lies, telling Jo that she saw Ryan at the pub where they met several times. Jo doesn’t say anything but rubs Kate’s arm.

Jo calls Ryan into her office. The acting D.S. tells Ryan that she will be submitting the paperwork for his commendation but will order his transfer to a different department. Ryan stares intently at Jo without smiling, but then he thanks her and leaves. Their conversation is charged with double meanings.

Chloe and Steve talk to Jimmy at the Blackthorn Men’s Prison. At first, Jimmy denies speaking to Gail, but under pressure, the former solicitor relents. Steve and Chloe ask him about the “racist” case he was talking to Gail about. Again, Jimmy refuses to answer, implying that he is worried about safety because of corrupt correctional officers.

Chloe and Steve share with Ted that Jimmy won’t open up because the prison staff is in cahoots with Organized Crime. They all know Farida was silenced inside the jail. Steve tells Ted he has a plan.

Later, a Firearms Unit drives three vans up to Blackthorn. One is a large white van, and the other two are smaller black vans. When they arrive, Steve steps into the back of the white van. A few minutes later, he pulls a handcuffed, confused Jimmy inside. Steve orders all the vans to head out. The van’s sirens ring as they rush out of prison. Steve tells Jimmy that if he testifies today at AC-12, he will get immunity and a new life.

The two men argue back in forth about Jimmy’s willingness to talk to the police because prison doesn’t fit his former “high life.” Steve thinks he was testing the waters when he spoke to Gail. However, Jimmy seems to tell Steve about the mysterious police corruption case that got Gail murdered off the record.

In another van, Chloe notices a Range Rover following the police envoy. PS Ruby Jones checks the vehicle’s registration. Suddenly another Range Rover pulls up in front of the envoy. Gangsters attack them from all sides. During the fight, a sniper shoots Ruby in the head. Thankfully everybody else survives.

Back at AC-12, Jimmy, terrified of another attempt on his life, refuses to speak. Jimmy believes he will be safer in prison.

That night, Ryan pulls a gun on Jo right outside her flat. Ryan forces her to listen to him explain why she can’t re-assign him.

The following day, Jo threatens Kate by stating she would hate to lose another senior detective. Then, she implies that if Kate keeps on pushing about Ryan, Jo will raise questions about her following the patrol car taking Terry home the night he almost drowned.

Ian pretends to be Jimmy’s new prison bunkmate allowing Carl’s brother Lee Michael Banks to garrot him. Lee orders Ian to watch what happens to “rats.” Is Ian involved with Organized Crime after all?

The episode ends with Steve learning that Jo is related to somebody in the system. Who is it? A “bent” cop or a criminal? Watch Line of Duty Season 6 on Britbox!