Prey (audio story)
Prey was the second story in the audio anthology Master!, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Robert Whitelock and featured Eric Roberts as the Bruce Master, Chase Masterson as Vienna Salvatori and Laura Aikman as Lila Kreeg.
Publisher's summary
Impossibly glamorous assassin Vienna Salvatori has a new target. Crossing time and space, Vienna takes one final job to free her from this life.
But when the Bruce Master is hunted through the slums and ganglands of London, the line is blurred between predator and prey...
Plot
Having travelled through a warp tunnel, Vienna Salvatori is on the edge of Earth's mesosphere and dives towards the ruins of Canary Wharf, ready to deploy an anti-grav chute after passing the planet's proximity sensors.
The Bruce Master, who has been posing as Magnus Drake for several months, observes his sharks and wonders if he could make them any more interesting by introducing a shark-eating creature into the tank. Lila Kreeg sets up a video connection to Chancellor Li Zhao of the Zhongguo Alliance to discuss the Alliance's supply of promethium, which the Master claims is inadequate for Drake Interplanetary's needs. Threatening to go to another supply chain, he demands more than half of the Alliance's total output a month at the same price, an arrangement which she has no choice but to accept.
Vienna arrives at her destination, communicating with RTPL54777 and freeing him from a freezer to assist her in her mission. After she decides to call him Artie, they head to the main Limehouse sewer outlet to access a weapons cache.
The Master tells Lila that he wants the promethium to maintain an advantage over everybody else on the planet, reminding her that Drake was at the top of the food chain before he was killed. They are aware that Li Zhao will be unhappy with having lost her profit margin and the Master says that, in her position, he would be ready to kill.
Vienna and Artie arrive at the sewer outlet and descend into the tunnel to the weapons cache where Vienna arms herself with a bazooka. Artie informs her that the headquarters of their target, Magnus Drake, are at Ludgate Citadel and they depart.
Lila informs Cutlass Leader that the delegation from Zhongguo will be arriving at Limehouse Spaceport and that they will be in his protective custody upon landing. The Master, distrusting of everybody, orders him to arm himself and head to the spaceport immediately.
Artie scans the penthouse and detects two life forms there, deterring Vienna from going through with her plan to take out Drake with her bazooka. However, she wonders if she might be able to use her rifle.
The Master plans to treat the Zhongguo delegation well until after they deliver the promethium, at which point he will withhold payment from them, which Lila determines is to force them to negotiate from a point of near bankruptcy. The aggressive takeover of the last of the world's major power blocs to stand against Drake Interplanetary would leave the Master as de facto emperor of Earth.
An impact sensor is set off in the office below the penthouse. The Master sends Lila to investigate and, once she is thirty metres from the Master, Vienna fires her bazooka at the top floor. The Master spots the projectile and hides under the table, leaving with Lila in his penthouse flier when she came looking for him. Artie informs Vienna of the flier, which she damages with her bazooka, sending it on a crash course for the slums of Notting Hill with an 82% likelihood of the passengers' survival. Vienna and Artie steal a skimmer and head there.
At the crash site, the Master and Lila are largely unhurt and prepare for a siege from the people of Notting Hill. The Master makes contact with Cutlass Leader and orders him to come and collect him, an order which he is hesitant to comply with but eventually agrees to. The Master believes that an assassin paid by Li Zhao is after him. He and Lila exit the wreckage when Sassparilla threatens to set it aflame and are taken to King Muggy.
Vienna and Artie arrive at the Notting Hill gate, which Vienna successfully flies over in the skimmer using the sloped roof of a recycling plant.
to be completed
Cast
- The Bruce Master - Eric Roberts
- Vienna Salvatori - Chase Masterson
- Lila Kreeg - Laura Aikman
- Sassparilla / Li Zhao - Susan Hingley
- Artie / King Muggy - Andrew James Spooner
References
Animals
- Geronts are violent, mutated boars which tripled in size after the Dalek plagues. They have terrible digestion.
Individuals
- Cutlass Leader works for a corporate militia.
- Jexie Reagan is Vienna Salvatori's business partner.
Locations
- Vienna lands in the ruins of Canary Wharf.
- Notting Hill is run by gangs and off limits to the rest of London.
- The Zhongguo delegation are due to land at Limehouse Spaceport.
- The London Underground is inhabited by human mutants called Trogs which have incredibly good night vision.
Science and technology
- Vienna mentions Earth's mesosphere.
- The Master makes promethium alloys.
- Artie is a fully-equipped war droid with rapid fire plasma guns, timed limpet mines, EMP charges and electroshock wraps. He is disguised as a menial bot.
- The cache contains anti-grav packs, flash grenades, a sniper rifle and a short range surface-to-air laser-guided bazooka.
- Vienna requests a thermal lance and comes across an anti-grav pack.
Notes
- With its reference to Jexie Reagan and Vienna's retirement plans, this story continues directly from the 2018 Vienna story Retribution.
Continuity
- Sassparilla mentions the Dalek plagues which mutated wild boars. There were two types of plagues used around the time of the Dalek invasion, the one sent by the Daleks through meteorites at the start of the war (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth) or created by the Monk. (AUDIO: Lucie Miller / To the Death)
External links
- Official Prey page at bigfinish.com
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