- Location
- England
Woah woah woah. Hold up there, the Tyrants don't report to Oversight. Like, at all. If they did we'd be panicky as fuck, because Oversight is headed by Clock. The Tyrants report to Bastion, head of the NWO.
Panopticon: A Game of Posthumans, Perniciousness, Paranoia, Politics, and Plasmaguns
Oops.
Edited.
Hmm. As a general thing, Jamelia herself is handling trying to liaise VE contact with Elsa and co. She may well be... ahem, 'terse' with Donald if he jumps the gun. And just as a note, again, remember that the party her e does not know everything 'Melia knows about the Tyrants, because she's a habitual secret keeper. They just know they're NWO spec ops, and Rose suspects they're a NWO equivalent to Ethical Compliance.
Hmm.
Hmm. I think a good lead-in we might have, actually, is... hmm. I have Henriette and Wufan checking through the looted documents and the QC. If among the documents there's enough to suggest that the Anathema is hunting down the remnants of LaCroix's enterprise, then given that the Tyrants claim they're going after the same goal... well. Maybe a Henriette Plan [1] might be to frame this as the party trying to get to this evidence before the MUSCOVITEs can do it - and she was in Moscow and saw how they managed to compromise all the HITMarks. Which means that they may need to take a risk, because if the NWO Tyrants are genuinely internal affairs, them stumbling into MUSCOVITEs might go very poorly for everyone - which means the party should keep up their own appearance of looking for revenge and wanting to beat LaCroix until the answers come out. And if they're compromised - well, considering how close they are to Bastion, it's really the responsibility of the party to find out because if the MUSCOVITEs have compromised NWO internal affairs then shit is serious indeed.
... well, fuck. I need more time to think up a plan which doesn't put Wufan on a hair trigger for starting the Technocracy Civil War.
[1] They sometimes resemble Jamelia Improvised Plans, except they're done by someone with much less experience and more reliance on high tech. About the same levels of tsun, but less hidden.
Hmm.
Hmm. I think a good lead-in we might have, actually, is... hmm. I have Henriette and Wufan checking through the looted documents and the QC. If among the documents there's enough to suggest that the Anathema is hunting down the remnants of LaCroix's enterprise, then given that the Tyrants claim they're going after the same goal... well. Maybe a Henriette Plan [1] might be to frame this as the party trying to get to this evidence before the MUSCOVITEs can do it - and she was in Moscow and saw how they managed to compromise all the HITMarks. Which means that they may need to take a risk, because if the NWO Tyrants are genuinely internal affairs, them stumbling into MUSCOVITEs might go very poorly for everyone - which means the party should keep up their own appearance of looking for revenge and wanting to beat LaCroix until the answers come out. And if they're compromised - well, considering how close they are to Bastion, it's really the responsibility of the party to find out because if the MUSCOVITEs have compromised NWO internal affairs then shit is serious indeed.
... well, fuck. I need more time to think up a plan which doesn't put Wufan on a hair trigger for starting the Technocracy Civil War.
[1] They sometimes resemble Jamelia Improvised Plans, except they're done by someone with much less experience and more reliance on high tech. About the same levels of tsun, but less hidden.
This is why we should have left Wufan with Jamelia or Harlan to ride herd and treat him like a mushroom!
Anyway, so far the party knows/thinking the Tyrants are:
- NWO Internal Affairs / Cyborg unit with a Belltower
- Investigating the Camarilla attack on the LA Construct
Rose (and probably now Donald) knows:
- Tyrants know there's some internal faction of the Technocracy that's working against the Union's interests
- Tyrants (also) know that the group that attacked the LA Construct replaced them with clones
The key there is that Wufan knows those two above facts too but he doesn't know the Tyrants know, which may push the threat meter over the line given how suspicious the VEs are of NWO. Especially since ostensibly, Splinter Team Jamelia is there to find Serafina instead of investigating the 'Muscovite' attack.
I thought any connection would go LaCroix => SPD => Threat Null, but IIRC, there was never any direct link between TN and LaCroix except perhaps for the part where Anjin threw a tantrum (? although that might have been with the Giovanni). In fact, didn't Clock just leak info that Jamelia was there and roll up both Camarilla and the Construct once the Camarilla had finished acting like ablative minesweepers / meatshields? If so, there might not actually be much, if any, info on the Muscovites directly although the SPD HD might have LaCroix and SPD connections.
So, to Wufan, we could sell it as giving them info on the SPD connections where the Camarilla wanted revenge for Moscow and the SPD revenge for the London werewolf thing. Meanwhile, Team Jamelia wants (more) resources and this'll get the NWO group off our back. They'll probably investigate whoever's in the LA Construct as well, but DC will probably take the lead on that and that's sort of inevitable after the plan to get clone Serafina out of the way. Wufan would probably think Panopticon would step in on that investigation pretty soon and take it away from DC (and Tyrants if they happen to be in it), and if they did, it'd just be tension between NWO and Panopticon, which probably isn't terrible from the VE perspective.
As for Team Jamelia, I guess this is just to find out what the Tyrants (think they) know, keep a good relationship / line going (because having the Tyrants chase Team Jamelia all over would be unhelpful), and perhaps have them take the lead on these matters while Team Jamelia tracks down Serafina. Maybe the Tyrants can help with that or just give the team more resources. And if the Tyrants manage to get to LaCroix and his info first, well, we'll just keep that a secret from Wufan.
Anyway, so far the party knows/thinking the Tyrants are:
- NWO Internal Affairs / Cyborg unit with a Belltower
- Investigating the Camarilla attack on the LA Construct
Rose (and probably now Donald) knows:
- Tyrants know there's some internal faction of the Technocracy that's working against the Union's interests
- Tyrants (also) know that the group that attacked the LA Construct replaced them with clones
The key there is that Wufan knows those two above facts too but he doesn't know the Tyrants know, which may push the threat meter over the line given how suspicious the VEs are of NWO. Especially since ostensibly, Splinter Team Jamelia is there to find Serafina instead of investigating the 'Muscovite' attack.
I thought any connection would go LaCroix => SPD => Threat Null, but IIRC, there was never any direct link between TN and LaCroix except perhaps for the part where Anjin threw a tantrum (? although that might have been with the Giovanni). In fact, didn't Clock just leak info that Jamelia was there and roll up both Camarilla and the Construct once the Camarilla had finished acting like ablative minesweepers / meatshields? If so, there might not actually be much, if any, info on the Muscovites directly although the SPD HD might have LaCroix and SPD connections.
So, to Wufan, we could sell it as giving them info on the SPD connections where the Camarilla wanted revenge for Moscow and the SPD revenge for the London werewolf thing. Meanwhile, Team Jamelia wants (more) resources and this'll get the NWO group off our back. They'll probably investigate whoever's in the LA Construct as well, but DC will probably take the lead on that and that's sort of inevitable after the plan to get clone Serafina out of the way. Wufan would probably think Panopticon would step in on that investigation pretty soon and take it away from DC (and Tyrants if they happen to be in it), and if they did, it'd just be tension between NWO and Panopticon, which probably isn't terrible from the VE perspective.
As for Team Jamelia, I guess this is just to find out what the Tyrants (think they) know, keep a good relationship / line going (because having the Tyrants chase Team Jamelia all over would be unhelpful), and perhaps have them take the lead on these matters while Team Jamelia tracks down Serafina. Maybe the Tyrants can help with that or just give the team more resources. And if the Tyrants manage to get to LaCroix and his info first, well, we'll just keep that a secret from Wufan.
I think we're past the point where we can keep mushrooming everyone. TN leaves evidence every time it acts, we're dealing with Genius investigators and we don't have need to know authority over them. When the shit hits the fan I don't want our bullshit adding to it.
The VEs could be a problem - that's why I want Wufan to give the briefing because that makes him complicit - and he does have the expertise.
The VEs could be a problem - that's why I want Wufan to give the briefing because that makes him complicit - and he does have the expertise.
So a hint here.
Wufan is Judge/Traditionalist.
This means that if you suggest something radical like coming clean he has to spend WP to do it-and in fact regains WP if he sticks with the good old ways even if they're dumb.
So he's gonna try to silence you if possible.
Unless... you have to appeal to his Judge virtue, which rewards him if he solves a problem by uniting dissenting parties or coming to a correct conclusion via the sheer weight of evidence.
So... there's your in.
Wufan is Judge/Traditionalist.
This means that if you suggest something radical like coming clean he has to spend WP to do it-and in fact regains WP if he sticks with the good old ways even if they're dumb.
So he's gonna try to silence you if possible.
Unless... you have to appeal to his Judge virtue, which rewards him if he solves a problem by uniting dissenting parties or coming to a correct conclusion via the sheer weight of evidence.
So... there's your in.
Donald is a negotiator at heart. Well, that's what he wishes he was, at least. It'd be nice to be the sort of person who exists to get people into a room talking to each other. He'd quite like to get a thrill of success every time that happened. No such luck. He's a much worse human being. He knows that.
But he is a pretty good negotiator. He learned the black arts of the trade trying to get Traditionalists working together, and then the Syndicate just polished him up. And he's been keeping an eye on Wufan. Looking for his levers, looking for his buttons and what to press to make him do what he wants him to. It's all about give and take. You don't ask something of someone they don't want to give - not without some larger compensation in return. No, what you try to do is frame things so both of you win. And sure, if you win more than they do, that means you've really won. But the fact is, if you go into a deal wanting everything and refusing to compromise, you're going to get nothing.
So as he moves his very limited assets around, waits for his retroprojections on Rose to come through, and goes through the scans of the property documents they just stole - and promptly organises some mortgages on them to help turn them into liquid assets for immediate use - he's thinking of a way past the stick up Guo's ass. And it's a real and present stick. He reminds Donald of a Verbena witch he briefly knew years ago. Incredibly rigid about the "right" way of doing things and obsessed about the formal way of doing things. He's not as hot as she was in a MILF-y way, though. Though that's not important.
That's probably why he was assigned to Jamelia. She's good at bending the rules, at coming to compromises and doing favours for people so they do favours for her. Someone who could keep her at arm's distance and not let her dislodge the stick from his ass is what you'd want there.
But everyone has their levers. The witch had her pride and liked an Ecstatic crawling to her, admitting that he needed her help to identify an ancient ritual. Guo, on the other hand, doesn't have pride. No, it's the flip-side of that obsession with rules he has. He wants harmony. He wants people to sit down and be reasonable people and just listen to the evidence. He's willing to change his mind, but only if he's given good justification and the right evidence for it. He really doesn't like gut feelings - he wants decisions to be made with the brain.
So as he packs up his gear and prepares to meet up with Langley and Guo in the backroom of a cafe, he's developing a plan. He'll have to talk to Rose once he finishes vetting her.
The backroom of the cafe is one of Donald's carefully prepared meeting places. He put money in this place as an angel investor and kept it off the Technocratic books, because it helps to have a place to meet up with people it's not necessarily quite kosher to do. Also, they do really good subs here. He's ordered for ten. One for him, two for Henriette and Wufan each, and five for Rose.
When Rose shows up to the meeting, she's wearing new clothes and a new appearance
"Don't worry!" she says brightly to Henriette. "I got the blood by scratching someone on the bus in passing. I changed when I hopped over the fence around a transformer Donald found for me and flushed all the trackers from my system - also, levered open a manhole so they'll think you used the sewers to drop off the radar. And I stole the new clothes. I hope you didn't like the old ones. I dumped them in the sewers."
Henriette looks not at all heartbroken over the loss of the valley girl clothes. "I'll live," she says brusquely. She glances at Donald. "Is she safe?" she says.
"As far as I can tell. Although she had some hyperpsych used on her, her own defences held strong," Donald says. "I retrocasted looking for all influences - and stat forecasts tell me that we want to have her along. There's a 21.4% chance that someone may try to ambush us here, which falls to 9.3% if Rose is here."
Wufan nods. "Good enough," he says, waving his scanning wand over her. "I'm not reading any active abnormalities in her."
"That matches my own self-testing protocols," Rose says. "I'm checking my own actions for abnormalities, though. You shouldn't worry about me. Just keep an eye out just in case. Don't use any standard sedatives on me if I do go rogue - I'll have countermeasures prepared," she adds helpfully. "And... are these all for me?"
"Yes," Donald says, gesturing to the Extra Large Meat Feast subs. Rose immediately grabs one, slathers it in mayonnaise, and starts stuffing it in her mouth, barely pausing to chew. Henriette has to look away after a little bit and even Wufan seems a little setback with the sheer ferocity that Rose digs into the meal.
"Full body reconfigs burn through energy," Rose manages through her mouthful. "And they only fed me like I was you. So my last proper meal was last night."
"I see," Henriette says faintly. "So, Donald. What'd you get from the documents I sent you? Still taking it slower with the QC, like you said. Once we get this over and done with, I can get back trying to find a hardware vulnerability in it."
Donald leans back, a look of earnest and genuine concern on his face. "I didn't think I'd wind up worried for the NWO spooks as well as worried of them," he says bluntly.
"Uh… what?" Henriette says vaguely.
"I crammed the documents you scanned," he says. "I… I think the thing. The MUSCOVITE machine from LA. The one which chased Rose and me. I… I think it's clearing house in the haemophages. Going after LaCroix's assets and anything and anyone in the Camarilla structure who was involved in the attack. It's not revenge. It's not an example. It's a cover-up." He doesn't have to conceal the fear in his voice. It's real. That thing was fucking terrifying. He sometimes wakes in a cold sweat thinking of the moments in the restaurant where it could have killed him in a heartbeat if it hadn't wanted to gloat at Reina Lior.
And it won't make that same mistake twice. He's sure of that. People don't get so lucky twice in one lifetime.
"You're sure of that?" Guo says, voice dead.
"Not one hundred percent, but the markers are there," Donald responds. "It's too efficient to even be a Shock Corps team. Too perfect."
"I'll want to take a look at that."
"I'll give you all my notes," Donald says, flipping open his briefcase, and passing a folder. "I hope I'm wrong. I really hope I'm wrong. But I don't think I am. And the thing that scares me is that from what Rose says? The NWO Tyrants are going to blunder into it. If we assume they're not already compromised, they're investigating the attack on the construct. They're going after the haemophages. And that means that if they find any evidence on who was behind it, they become a target too."
"They're cyborgs," Rose says softly.
"I hope they're secure against being compromised by it," Donald continues. "After all, they're probably NWO internal police, and they wouldn't want to be vulnerable to VA or rogue ItX compromise. But… God, that thing's a monster. If they're blindsided, the odds aren't in their favour."
Wufna hunches over. "What did they say?" he says to Rose. He listens, brow furrowed as she clinically reports the interactions back to him. Donald primed her before, gave her a few pointers on how to best present the information "Hmm. I think they were telling enough of the truth. They played very hands-off and cautious on the exfiltration from Mallion." He glances at Henriette. "They wouldn't pass over a change to eliminate Langley if they were directly subverted by the MUSCOVITEs. Or have released her alive."
There's a quiet grumble from Henriette.
"It's true."
"I know it's true, all right! I just don't like being reminded of it!"
His fingers drum against the folder Donald passed him. "I've been passed information on the possible unit classification of the hostile you encountered previously," he says to the other man directly. "It's a MUSCOVITE ultraheavy man-sized combat unit, codename ANATHEMA. It uses repurposed human organic matter. That stabilises their extradimensional technology. It's inhumanly clever and has a psuedo-Enlightened intellect. From its design - same thing as the units seen in Moscow. Some kind of development of Iteration X technology by alien forces - maybe related to HITMark VIs."
"This time I don't have a giant mech close to hand. Or even a small one," Henriette says, worry clear on her face. Which means it's worry she wants people to see.
"We can't engage it with this team, so I'm not planning to," Donald reassures her. Her lips remain in a thin line.
"Sensible. And… you're right." The words are almost pained escaping from Wufan's lips. "That means the risk of compromise of a NWO cyborg IntSec unit is unacceptable. They have to be made ready to face it, if they've got a risk of running into it." He raps his knuckles on the table, almost like a gavel. "I'll talk with my people. See what briefing documents I can get them. Maybe even some heavy specialists to work with them if they have a risk of being exposed to it. Can't promise anything, but with what happened in LA and in space, the MUSCOVITEs are taking direct moves. If they have an ANATHEMA operating Earthside, it needs to die. Quickly. And if they're deploying it to cover up what happened here, it must be important to them."
Oh, and that's the other thing, Donald thinks to himself on the drive back. If you really want someone to do something, one of the most effective ways to do so is to have them think that it's their own idea.
It didn't go all his way. The 'heavy specialists' might be people there to attack the Tyrants if they see too much or find out the wrong things. He really hopes this isn't a Technocracy Civil War in the making. But damn it, if the 'Anathema' (catchy name) really is out there then a combined NWO-VE heavy kill team has better chances against it than either separately.
But he is a pretty good negotiator. He learned the black arts of the trade trying to get Traditionalists working together, and then the Syndicate just polished him up. And he's been keeping an eye on Wufan. Looking for his levers, looking for his buttons and what to press to make him do what he wants him to. It's all about give and take. You don't ask something of someone they don't want to give - not without some larger compensation in return. No, what you try to do is frame things so both of you win. And sure, if you win more than they do, that means you've really won. But the fact is, if you go into a deal wanting everything and refusing to compromise, you're going to get nothing.
So as he moves his very limited assets around, waits for his retroprojections on Rose to come through, and goes through the scans of the property documents they just stole - and promptly organises some mortgages on them to help turn them into liquid assets for immediate use - he's thinking of a way past the stick up Guo's ass. And it's a real and present stick. He reminds Donald of a Verbena witch he briefly knew years ago. Incredibly rigid about the "right" way of doing things and obsessed about the formal way of doing things. He's not as hot as she was in a MILF-y way, though. Though that's not important.
That's probably why he was assigned to Jamelia. She's good at bending the rules, at coming to compromises and doing favours for people so they do favours for her. Someone who could keep her at arm's distance and not let her dislodge the stick from his ass is what you'd want there.
But everyone has their levers. The witch had her pride and liked an Ecstatic crawling to her, admitting that he needed her help to identify an ancient ritual. Guo, on the other hand, doesn't have pride. No, it's the flip-side of that obsession with rules he has. He wants harmony. He wants people to sit down and be reasonable people and just listen to the evidence. He's willing to change his mind, but only if he's given good justification and the right evidence for it. He really doesn't like gut feelings - he wants decisions to be made with the brain.
So as he packs up his gear and prepares to meet up with Langley and Guo in the backroom of a cafe, he's developing a plan. He'll have to talk to Rose once he finishes vetting her.
***
The backroom of the cafe is one of Donald's carefully prepared meeting places. He put money in this place as an angel investor and kept it off the Technocratic books, because it helps to have a place to meet up with people it's not necessarily quite kosher to do. Also, they do really good subs here. He's ordered for ten. One for him, two for Henriette and Wufan each, and five for Rose.
When Rose shows up to the meeting, she's wearing new clothes and a new appearance
"Don't worry!" she says brightly to Henriette. "I got the blood by scratching someone on the bus in passing. I changed when I hopped over the fence around a transformer Donald found for me and flushed all the trackers from my system - also, levered open a manhole so they'll think you used the sewers to drop off the radar. And I stole the new clothes. I hope you didn't like the old ones. I dumped them in the sewers."
Henriette looks not at all heartbroken over the loss of the valley girl clothes. "I'll live," she says brusquely. She glances at Donald. "Is she safe?" she says.
"As far as I can tell. Although she had some hyperpsych used on her, her own defences held strong," Donald says. "I retrocasted looking for all influences - and stat forecasts tell me that we want to have her along. There's a 21.4% chance that someone may try to ambush us here, which falls to 9.3% if Rose is here."
Wufan nods. "Good enough," he says, waving his scanning wand over her. "I'm not reading any active abnormalities in her."
"That matches my own self-testing protocols," Rose says. "I'm checking my own actions for abnormalities, though. You shouldn't worry about me. Just keep an eye out just in case. Don't use any standard sedatives on me if I do go rogue - I'll have countermeasures prepared," she adds helpfully. "And... are these all for me?"
"Yes," Donald says, gesturing to the Extra Large Meat Feast subs. Rose immediately grabs one, slathers it in mayonnaise, and starts stuffing it in her mouth, barely pausing to chew. Henriette has to look away after a little bit and even Wufan seems a little setback with the sheer ferocity that Rose digs into the meal.
"Full body reconfigs burn through energy," Rose manages through her mouthful. "And they only fed me like I was you. So my last proper meal was last night."
"I see," Henriette says faintly. "So, Donald. What'd you get from the documents I sent you? Still taking it slower with the QC, like you said. Once we get this over and done with, I can get back trying to find a hardware vulnerability in it."
Donald leans back, a look of earnest and genuine concern on his face. "I didn't think I'd wind up worried for the NWO spooks as well as worried of them," he says bluntly.
"Uh… what?" Henriette says vaguely.
"I crammed the documents you scanned," he says. "I… I think the thing. The MUSCOVITE machine from LA. The one which chased Rose and me. I… I think it's clearing house in the haemophages. Going after LaCroix's assets and anything and anyone in the Camarilla structure who was involved in the attack. It's not revenge. It's not an example. It's a cover-up." He doesn't have to conceal the fear in his voice. It's real. That thing was fucking terrifying. He sometimes wakes in a cold sweat thinking of the moments in the restaurant where it could have killed him in a heartbeat if it hadn't wanted to gloat at Reina Lior.
And it won't make that same mistake twice. He's sure of that. People don't get so lucky twice in one lifetime.
"You're sure of that?" Guo says, voice dead.
"Not one hundred percent, but the markers are there," Donald responds. "It's too efficient to even be a Shock Corps team. Too perfect."
"I'll want to take a look at that."
"I'll give you all my notes," Donald says, flipping open his briefcase, and passing a folder. "I hope I'm wrong. I really hope I'm wrong. But I don't think I am. And the thing that scares me is that from what Rose says? The NWO Tyrants are going to blunder into it. If we assume they're not already compromised, they're investigating the attack on the construct. They're going after the haemophages. And that means that if they find any evidence on who was behind it, they become a target too."
"They're cyborgs," Rose says softly.
"I hope they're secure against being compromised by it," Donald continues. "After all, they're probably NWO internal police, and they wouldn't want to be vulnerable to VA or rogue ItX compromise. But… God, that thing's a monster. If they're blindsided, the odds aren't in their favour."
Wufna hunches over. "What did they say?" he says to Rose. He listens, brow furrowed as she clinically reports the interactions back to him. Donald primed her before, gave her a few pointers on how to best present the information "Hmm. I think they were telling enough of the truth. They played very hands-off and cautious on the exfiltration from Mallion." He glances at Henriette. "They wouldn't pass over a change to eliminate Langley if they were directly subverted by the MUSCOVITEs. Or have released her alive."
There's a quiet grumble from Henriette.
"It's true."
"I know it's true, all right! I just don't like being reminded of it!"
His fingers drum against the folder Donald passed him. "I've been passed information on the possible unit classification of the hostile you encountered previously," he says to the other man directly. "It's a MUSCOVITE ultraheavy man-sized combat unit, codename ANATHEMA. It uses repurposed human organic matter. That stabilises their extradimensional technology. It's inhumanly clever and has a psuedo-Enlightened intellect. From its design - same thing as the units seen in Moscow. Some kind of development of Iteration X technology by alien forces - maybe related to HITMark VIs."
"This time I don't have a giant mech close to hand. Or even a small one," Henriette says, worry clear on her face. Which means it's worry she wants people to see.
"We can't engage it with this team, so I'm not planning to," Donald reassures her. Her lips remain in a thin line.
"Sensible. And… you're right." The words are almost pained escaping from Wufan's lips. "That means the risk of compromise of a NWO cyborg IntSec unit is unacceptable. They have to be made ready to face it, if they've got a risk of running into it." He raps his knuckles on the table, almost like a gavel. "I'll talk with my people. See what briefing documents I can get them. Maybe even some heavy specialists to work with them if they have a risk of being exposed to it. Can't promise anything, but with what happened in LA and in space, the MUSCOVITEs are taking direct moves. If they have an ANATHEMA operating Earthside, it needs to die. Quickly. And if they're deploying it to cover up what happened here, it must be important to them."
***
Oh, and that's the other thing, Donald thinks to himself on the drive back. If you really want someone to do something, one of the most effective ways to do so is to have them think that it's their own idea.
It didn't go all his way. The 'heavy specialists' might be people there to attack the Tyrants if they see too much or find out the wrong things. He really hopes this isn't a Technocracy Civil War in the making. But damn it, if the 'Anathema' (catchy name) really is out there then a combined NWO-VE heavy kill team has better chances against it than either separately.
- Location
- England
Hmmm. And I think we have it? Well, we'll see soon enough.
Now, I already said why I wanted yes, but we have two write-ins. On the basis of the fact this incorporates the advice MJ12 gave, I'll go with the second one I guess.
[X] Yes
The Wufan Problem
[X] Plan Making him think it was his idea to do it.
Now, I already said why I wanted yes, but we have two write-ins. On the basis of the fact this incorporates the advice MJ12 gave, I'll go with the second one I guess.
[X] Yes
The Wufan Problem
[X] Plan Making him think it was his idea to do it.
[X] Yes
The Wufan Problem
[X] Plan Making him think it was his idea to do it.
The Wufan Problem
[X] Plan Making him think it was his idea to do it.
Katsuragi
The 1%
Hm. Just lost 5 days of my life reading this and most of the comments.
Fantastic story. Makes me really miss my old MtA LARP, even if the system was watered down greatly from TT and the ST was less than subtle about the Abrahamic god being the one true God due to ooc personal religion.
Fantastic story. Makes me really miss my old MtA LARP, even if the system was watered down greatly from TT and the ST was less than subtle about the Abrahamic god being the one true God due to ooc personal religion.
Update CLXXV: Conspiracy Matryoshka
JB CLXXV: Conspiracy Matryoshka
In a hotel room that's been converted into a mix of an office and a workshop, Donald Sykes sits at a computer, worrying. The midday sun streams through the gap in the curtains and he paces over, twitching them shut. Then he returns to fret. His job is to worry. Well, not his actual job-job. He's not quite sure of his current employment status. What do you say when a clone of you has taken over your businesses? He guesses that probably makes him unemployed. He hasn't been unemployed in ages. Maybe he should go prepare his CV to apply for a new role, he thinks darkly.
At the moment, there isn't much he can do. Langley and Guo are still in transit, and he can't contact them without risking compromising their security. And Rose has done exactly what he told her not to do and gone out of contact. He has to hope - hope perhaps beyond rationality - that she knows what she's doing and that she's going to be okay. He has to hope that because he can't do anything to help her. From the cursory briefing papers he read on the Tyrants, there's no way he can rescue her if they're hostile. Not with the assets he has here, and honestly not reliably with the sum total of the amalgam's assets as it stands.
And he can't contact Home Base and Director Belltower. No, not can't. Won't. It's not out of petty pride, that she'll think he can't cope with independent operations if she comes running to him. It's that if the Tyrants already know where he is - something he's justifiably concerned about - then they'll be wanting him to try to contact Director Belltower. After all, they have a Belltower in charge of them too, and that's what she'd do.
So. They're on their own. He's not even having Langley and Guo return to this field base. They have their own new temporary accommodations sorted, just in case they've been tagged with a radioisotope tracker or something else that could provide a clue.
Donald sighs. His experience as an ex-Traditionalist is really showing. He's gone straight back into that full-on paranoia about Operatives. And worse, now he knows that it's not really paranoia. He's up against Senior Operatives who are literally as good as they say.
An hour later, a cold and sullen Henriette Langley wrapped in a man's jacket eases her way out of the back of a fish van parked in a warehouse near the Los Angles docks. The driver of the van is taking a short nap, thanks to Wufan. There are lockers against one of the walls, and rummaging through them Henriette finds a dark blue mechanic's jumpsuit. It's too big for her, but it's better than what she has at the moment. The boots are like clown shoes on her, but they'll do.
She's just finished getting her third pair of oversized socks on when Wufan re-appears. "I have their phone," he says, offering it to her. "Can you access it?"
"Yes," she says shortly. The hacking tools built into her hands are enough to extract the PIN, and she inputs it. "7328," she says out loud, before she gets to work turning off all the Technocratic backdoors hidden in it. "Okay," she says after a minute's work. "It's secure now. And-"
A phone rings in the warehouse. It's next door. Weapon drawn, Wufan advances on it. He lets it ring to voicemail.
"One call at 13:16. Call from NUMBER WITHHELD. The message will begin after the tone." The tone sounds, and an anonymized bland male voice comes on the line. "Take the van to 424 Gulf Avenue. It's a rented house. Park it in the garage, and unload it. I've had deliveries made there - stuff to check yourselves for trackers and bugs. ROBOT, don't examine the QC until STICK can check it for Echo-Delta-Echo influence. Take care and treat it as potentially compromised by hostiles. Auth code: Seven Red Snakefist."
"That's Sykes," Wufan says. "Or at least his codes." He deletes the message from the wall phone, and then smashes open the phone and takes the memory out, crushes it underfoot, and then puts it in his suit jacket. "Help me unload the fish and then we'll move. Also, unload the driver."
"Do I have to go in the back again?" Henriette whines.
"Yes. They recognized you. We can't risk that happening again." Wufan pulls a compact make-up kit from his pocket. "I'll change my appearance too and drive."
Blinking in the sunlight, Rose emerges from the custody of the Tyrants. She has to assume that they're tracking her and following her. She can't guarantee that they're not. And she can't automatically shake whatever tracking they've put in her.
Stopping by a vending machine, Rose examines her biology. Radioisotopes in the food they gave her. Pheromone markers from the air. Tracking nanites in the water. All of those she can eliminate. But if that's what she's catching, what is she missing? She briefly contemplates stripping down and throwing herself in the ocean while she runs a flush on all those intruding bodies, but doing so would give away who she is.
So instead she sits down on a bench in a nearby neighborhood park, making sure she's in view of the CCTV. Donald will find her.
... admittedly, there's also the risk that some of their enemies may find her, but a) she strongly doubts they're looking for a blonde Henriette Langley, and b) hopefully the Tyrants will be willing to step in to stop her being abducted twice in one day.
Anyway, it's a nice day in LA despite the fact it's winter. And there are no mirrors around so she can relax for a little bit without Thorn harping on at her.
"Found you," Donald mutters to himself, looking at the tap on the Los Angeles CCTV network set up by Henriette before she went out. That's either Rose in disguise as Henriette in disguise as a perky blonde LA teenager, or it's a duplicate in disguise as Henriette in disguise as a perky blonde LA teenager.
Either way, he needs to get them moving before anyone else snatches them. He makes some calls, and a taxi pulls up by Rose, on behalf of 'Mr No'. He'll get her moving so no one else can pick her up if she's the real Rose.
He drums his finger on the desk. He's going to have to be a little bit naughty. He's talked with Aristide about Kirlian photography, and the old man seems to consider it to be acceptable fringe Technocratic science. Donald dabbled in it too, back in his Traditionalist days. It's a way to take pictures of someone's aura. Now, he's not meant to do that kind of pseudoscience - but Aristide is a NWO Director specializing in psychic phenomena, which means logically it's not pseudoscience if a NWO Director does it. After all, the Union would censor Aristide for doing it if it was not acceptable for Donald to do it. And since Aristide hasn't explicitly told him that he's been censored for it, then it must be okay for him to do it.
Logically.
Donald nods. He's got it all worked out in his head. Very logical. Very sensible. He's not being RDish when he sends maybe-Rose to a location and pays someone else to take a Kirlian photograph of her with a modified camera which can pick up her bioelectric field from a distance. And then has them scan the image and put it on imgur for him to check.
Very logical.
And then it's back to worrying and waiting. It's a relief when the image is uploaded, because it gives him something to do. Something other than worrying and waiting. Even if it's pseudoscience. And at least this way he's being useful. The Tyrants scare him. More than the NWO did when he was batting for the other team, because back then he didn't know about people like this. Back then he didn't know any senior Operatives and thus could tell himself that their reputation was made out of horror stories solely to scare people like him. But he's worked under Jamelia Belltower for a year. He knows how dangerous senior operatives are. He knows that the stories are only somewhat exaggerated. And in many ways, the Tyrants are... he'd hesitate to say 'better' or 'more dangerous' than Jamelia. You judge a woman by the enemies she makes, and when her enemies include "a superhuman god-machine in the form of the Computer" and "a literal evil clone" and "an entire Convention of the Technocratic Union" you're in pretty good company. But he'll admit that they're more directly lethal. Being able to toss around a small car or wrestle a shapeshifter in warform to the ground via brute force helps with that.
And they haven't lost any of the subtle touch either. He didn't even know they were around until they revealed themselves-and he has a nagging feeling that they've let him know who they are. So he's glad that the question of Rose gives a distraction from worrying about them.
Henriette is relieved when the garage door closes, hiding the fish truck. Clambering out of the cold back again, she helps Wufan unload the loot into the rented house. And then she looks around with an enhanced eye. It's not a prepared safehouse, she decides. But she also doesn't think it's a trap. It's a generic, Masses-technology home. She disconnects all the electronics apart from the phone, and lowers the blinds. There's a blender in the kitchen, and with a bit of work and some tools from the garage she manages to rejigger it to make jamming white noise to stop people from Van Eck phreaking them when she turns some of the electronics back on.
At least it helps her put her mind off the fact that she stinks of fish, she thinks as she opens up the telephone and begins to work on the landline to give her a backdoor to bypass the standard listening channels. Normal human beings couldn't do it, but then again normal humans can't sing ultrasonic broadband messages down a line to inject code into the standard protocols.
Wufan just stands behind her, watching. Being his usual self, which is basically the worst mix of an Operative and a Void Engineer she could imagine.
"Are you done?" he asks when she starts screwing the phone back together.
"Should be," she says casually. And smugly. "That's the phone set to a bypass - it should slip past all the usual wide array net checks."
He passes her a scanning wand. "Go to the bathroom and check yourself over for bugs and trackers. I've done myself and I'm clean. Do your clothes separately from yourself and-"
"Yes, yes, I know," she says. What does he think she is, stupid? "Cross-check each other after the self-scans."
"Of course." He pauses. "Also, have a shower. You stink of fish. I've already had one." His hair is still damp wet, she notes.
"I hope you didn't use all the warm water," she mutters.
She does feel rather better after the shower. She washed her jumpsuit too after she checked it, and then dried it with the hair-drier. She wants her own damn clothes back. And her hair is a bleached mess, but she can't fix that now.
By the time she's done, Donald is back in contact.
"They took Rose, and released her," he says tersely. "I've confirmed it's not a clone, and they didn't hold her for long enough for an extensive reprogramming."
"You don't know that," Wufan says bluntly.
"She agrees, for what it's worth. She doesn't think she's compromised, but she says that that's what she'd say if she was," Donald says. He takes a breath, and then seems to change his mind. "I'm going to work on verifying whether she's safe. In the meantime, the two of you extract data from what we got our hands on. From what she can tell, they're NWO internal affairs. I think we'll want to know what the data is from our plundering and whether we can use it as a bargaining chip to distract them before we make our next move. And quickly."
"Guo. That's hardware that's been in the hands of the SPD. I want you to check it with everything you've got before you let Langley near it. The last thing we want is an EDE eating her brain. Langley, don't get your brain eaten and treat it with full paranoia. I'll be in touch."
"Roger." He says, hanging up. He pulls a pair of shades from his pocket and glances at it. "Looks like there's some EDE security. Nasty piece of work. I can neutralize it before it goes active, though." He fiddles with his sidearm, reconfiguring it into some sort of energy weapon, and blasts the computer with a pulse of blue light. Nothing seems to happen. "Neutralized."
"Nothing happened." Henriette says dubiously.
"It's neutralized. You're free to connect. It probably has secondary defenses, so don't get overconfident."
"I don't." Henriette brags. "I should be done in a day." She plugs the machine in and links to it, attacking its electronic defenses. They're competently designed and coded-and it's a powerful quantum computer, which helps run self-patching self-modifying software. But a network's only as strong as its weakest link, so she starts with the rest of LaCroix's data trail. On them she finds a lot of boring business documents, but something more. There's images of the aftermath of a disaster where someone or something turned an office into a charnel house. Video clips from police sympathizers which show what happened to LaCroix tower. Some correspondences about what might have happened. It's not much, but it's enough to start sending to Donald. He needs to know if LaCroix has made an enemy like that.
She has to keep him in the loop. And the quantum computer makes her uncomfortable enough that she wants the excuse to avoid it for a while. She can't articulate it, but there's just something off about it all. Something wrong and broken and incorrect about it all, something which makes her uncomfortable but she can't articulate. The computer in her head doesn't notice anything, but there's just this feeling, this oily-slick feeling of corruption, strong enough that it overwhelms even her trained skepticism. She suspects it might have something to do with its owners-or whoever had it.
But he is a pretty good negotiator. He learned the black arts of the trade trying to get Traditionalists working together, and then the Syndicate just polished him up. And he's been keeping an eye on Wufan. Looking for his levers, looking for his buttons and what to press to make him do what he wants him to. It's all about give and take. You don't ask something of someone they don't want to give - not without some larger compensation in return. No, what you try to do is frame things so both of you win. And sure, if you win more than they do, that means you've really won. But the fact is, if you go into a deal wanting everything and refusing to compromise, you're going to get nothing.
So as he moves his very limited assets around, waits for his retroprojections on Rose to come through, and goes through the scans of the property documents they just stole - and promptly organizes some mortgages on them to help turn them into liquid assets for immediate use - he's thinking of a way past the stick up Guo's ass. And it's a real and present stick. He reminds Donald of a Verbena witch he briefly knew years ago. Incredibly rigid about the "right" way of doing things and obsessed about the formal way of doing things. He's not as hot as she was in a MILF-y way, though. Though that's not important.
That's probably why he was assigned to Jamelia. She's good at bending the rules, at coming to compromises and doing favours for people so they do favours for her. Someone who could keep her at arm's distance and not let her dislodge the stick from his ass is what you'd want there.
But everyone has their levers. The witch had her pride and liked an Ecstatic crawling to her, admitting that he needed her help to identify an ancient ritual. Guo, on the other hand, doesn't have pride. No, it's the flip-side of that obsession with rules he has. He wants harmony. He wants people to sit down and be reasonable people and just listen to the evidence. He's willing to change his mind, but only if he's given good justification and the right evidence for it. He really doesn't like gut feelings - he wants decisions to be made with the brain.
So as he packs up his gear and prepares to meet up with Langley and Guo in the backroom of a cafe, he's developing a plan. He'll have to talk to Rose once he finishes vetting her.
The backroom of the cafe is one of Donald's carefully prepared meeting places. He put money in this place as an angel investor and kept it off the Technocratic books, because it helps to have a place to meet up with people it's not necessarily quite kosher to do. Also, they do really good subs here. He's ordered for ten. One for him, two for Henriette and Wufan each, and five for Rose.
When Rose shows up to the meeting, she's wearing new clothes and a new appearance. She's an athletic brunette now, with sun-kissed skin and wearing a new outfit made out of trendy but not particularly expensive brand-name apparel. Henriette notices that she rarely disguises herself as anyone ugly. Progenitor vanity, she supposes.
"Don't worry!" she says brightly to Henriette. "I got the blood by scratching someone on the bus in passing. I changed when I hopped over the fence around a transformer Donald found for me and flushed all the trackers from my system - also, levered open a manhole so they'll think you used the sewers to drop off the radar. And I stole the new clothes. I hope you didn't like the old ones. I dumped them in the sewers."
Henriette looks not at all heartbroken over the loss of the valley girl clothes. "I'll live," she says brusquely. She glances at Donald. "Is she safe?" she says.
"As far as I can tell. Although she had some hyperpsych used on her, her own defenses held strong," Donald says. "I retrocasted looking for all influences - and stat forecasts tell me that we want to have her along. There's a 21.4% chance that someone may try to ambush us here, which falls to 9.3% if Rose is here."
Wufan nods. "Good enough," he says, waving his scanning wand over her. "I'm not reading any active abnormalities in her."
"That matches my own self-testing protocols," Rose says. "I'm checking my own actions for abnormalities, though. You shouldn't worry about me. Just keep an eye out just in case. Don't use any standard sedatives on me if I do go rogue - I'll have countermeasures prepared," she adds helpfully. "And... are these all for me?"
"Yes," Donald says, gesturing to the Extra Large Meat Feast subs. Rose immediately grabs one, slathers it in mayonnaise, and starts stuffing it in her mouth, barely pausing to chew. Henriette has to look away after a little bit and even Wufan seems a little setback with the sheer ferocity that Rose digs into the meal.
"Full body reconfigs burn through energy," Rose manages through her mouthful. "And they only fed me like I was you. So my last proper meal was last night."
"I see," Henriette says faintly. "So, Donald. What did you get from the documents I sent you? Still taking it slower with the QC, like you said. Once we get this over and done with, I can get back trying to find a hardware vulnerability in it."
Donald leans back, a look of earnest and genuine concern on his face. "I didn't think I'd wind up worried for the NWO spooks as well as worried of them," he says bluntly.
"Uh… what?" Henriette says vaguely.
"I crammed the documents you scanned," he says. "I… I think the thing. The MUSCOVITE machine from LA. The one which chased Rose and me. I… I think it's clearing house in the hemophages. Going after LaCroix's assets and anything and anyone in the Camarilla structure who was involved in the attack. It's not revenge. It's not an example. It's a cover-up." He doesn't have to conceal the fear in his voice. It's real. That thing was fucking terrifying. He sometimes wakes in a cold sweat thinking of the moments in the restaurant where it could have killed him in a heartbeat if it hadn't wanted to gloat at Reina Lior.
And it won't make that same mistake twice. He's sure of that. People don't get so lucky twice in one lifetime.
"You're sure of that?" Guo says, voice dead.
"Not one hundred percent, but the markers are there," Donald responds. "It's too efficient to even be a Shock Corps team. Too perfect."
"I'll want to take a look at that."
"I'll give you all my notes," Donald says, flipping open his briefcase, and passing a folder. "I hope I'm wrong. I really hope I'm wrong. But I don't think I am. And the thing that scares me is that from what Rose says? The Tyrants are going to blunder into it. If we assume they're not already compromised, they're investigating the attack on the construct. They're going after the hemophages. And that means that if they find any evidence on who was behind it, they become a target too."
"They're cyborgs," Rose says softly.
"I hope they're secure against being compromised by it," Donald continues. "After all, they're probably NWO internal police, and they wouldn't want to be vulnerable to VA or rogue ItX compromise. But… God, that thing's a monster. If they're blindsided, the odds aren't in their favor."
Wufna hunches over. "What did they say?" he says to Rose. He listens, brow furrowed as she clinically reports the interactions back to him. Donald primed her before, gave her a few pointers on how to best present the information "Hmm. I think they were telling enough of the truth. They played very hands-off and cautious on the exfiltration from Mallion." He glances at Henriette. "They wouldn't pass over a change to eliminate Langley if they were directly subverted by the MUSCOVITEs. Or have released her alive."
There's a quiet grumble from Henriette.
"It's true."
"I know it's true, all right! I just don't like being reminded of it!"
His fingers drum against the folder Donald passed him. "I've been passed information on the possible unit classification of the hostile you encountered previously," he says to the other man directly. "It's a MUSCOVITE ultraheavy man-sized combat unit, codename ANATHEMA. Biomechanical design, perfect integration of engineered biology and cybernetic augmentation. It's inhumanly smart-G-level intellect is literally off the charts-and has a psuedo-Enlightened intellect. Heavily redundant systems, capable of downshifting to preserve limited function in hostile terrestrial environments. From its design - same thing as the units seen in Moscow. Some kind of development of Iteration X technology by alien forces - maybe related to HITMark VIs. The notes you have on the initial attack-those are new though. Some sort of spatial format field, unknown power source but no signs of heavy duration limits. This is concerning. If it could operate at full combat capability for an entire engagement, rather than being limited by terrestrial conditions, an Anathema could be a terminal threat to even a heavy unit."
"This time I don't have a giant mech close to hand. Or even a small one," Henriette says, worry clear on her face. Which means it's worry she wants people to see.
"We can't engage it with this team, so I'm not planning to," Donald reassures her. "In fact for everyone's sake I'd like to plan on avoiding it if at all possible." Her lips remain in a thin line.
"Sensible. And… you're right." The words are almost pained escaping from Wufan's lips. "That means the risk of compromise of a NWO cyborg IntSec unit is unacceptable. They have to be made ready to face it, if they've got a risk of running into it." He raps his knuckles on the table, almost like a gavel. "I'll talk with my people. See what briefing documents I can get them. Maybe even some heavy specialists to work with them if they have a risk of being exposed to it. Can't promise anything, but with what happened in LA and in space, the MUSCOVITEs are taking direct moves. If they have an ANATHEMA with significant upgrades operating Earthside, it needs to die. Quickly. And if they're deploying it to cover up what happened here, it must be important to them."
Oh, and that's the other thing, Donald thinks to himself on the drive back. If you really want someone to do something, one of the most effective ways to do so is to have them think that it's their own idea. It didn't go all his way. The 'heavy specialists' might be people there to attack the Tyrants if they see too much or find out the wrong things. He really hopes this isn't a Technocracy Civil War in the making. But damn it, if the 'Anathema' (catchy name) really is out there then a combined NWO-VE heavy kill team has better chances against it than either separately.
At a red light, he drops the business card the Tyrants gave Rose onto the floor and realizes that his hands are shaking. He's scared. And he should be almost hopeful-he's managed to figure out some common ground that everyone cares about, Jamelia's lonely crusade might have some actual allies who can operate via official channels and work without suspicion, and everyone is safe. They even have a clue to why LaCroix is in hiding. But the Anathema-that thing scares him in a fundamental way. It's like gazing upon the face of divinity-and then realizing that the Creator wasn't some all-knowing all-loving God, but a malevolent Demiurge. And knowing it's still there, that it wasn't defeated in the Spy's Demise like he had hoped, that it might still be stalking nearby, makes him jumpy and paranoid.
He barely manages to steel himself when he gets back to the hotel. He needs to meet them. They need to exchange intelligence. Guo has information ready, which he'll pick up from a dead drop. Rose and Henriette can meet him there. They need this. Having some official cover will give them discreet access to tools and protection which he's sorely missed these days. Intelligence analysis, combat assets, the ability to divert traffic or get government records with a simple phone call rather than hacking into an alphabet-soup agency, the perks of being a Technocrat like comfy chairs and five-star hotel rooms and armed security-he misses all of it. In the end, he tells them to come. Rose can steal herself a fancy dress or something, Guo probably has a few spare suits, and Henriette can disguise herself as to not get particular notice. He puts thoughts of Brighton and his first real date with Rose and all the other disasters out of his mind. He has to do this for the good of the world, and if it scares him a little-or even a lot-that doesn't matter.
He'll make that sacrifice. It's who he is.
A Question of Trust:
You're going to trust the Tyrants:
[ ] Not at all.
[ ] Enough to give them vague hints about what Lacroix owns from the papers you've taken.
[ ] Enough to let them look at the ownership papers.
[ ] Enough to mention you may have some blackmail information and personal correspondence.
[ ] Enough to talk about the more sensitive data you've recovered, including the quantum computer.
[ ] Write-In.
Cavalry or Cleanup Squad?
Wufan's specialists are:
[ ] Delayed, there's a Subjugation Corps Base that needs to be assaulted and assaulted now.
[ ] Out of contact.
[ ] Already here, and set up to ward off a direct assault.
They've got knives, they've got sharp sticks, they've got phased plasma guns, sonic electronic ball breakers, powered armor-they're loaded for bear and might be a bit of good news in these trying times.
In a hotel room that's been converted into a mix of an office and a workshop, Donald Sykes sits at a computer, worrying. The midday sun streams through the gap in the curtains and he paces over, twitching them shut. Then he returns to fret. His job is to worry. Well, not his actual job-job. He's not quite sure of his current employment status. What do you say when a clone of you has taken over your businesses? He guesses that probably makes him unemployed. He hasn't been unemployed in ages. Maybe he should go prepare his CV to apply for a new role, he thinks darkly.
At the moment, there isn't much he can do. Langley and Guo are still in transit, and he can't contact them without risking compromising their security. And Rose has done exactly what he told her not to do and gone out of contact. He has to hope - hope perhaps beyond rationality - that she knows what she's doing and that she's going to be okay. He has to hope that because he can't do anything to help her. From the cursory briefing papers he read on the Tyrants, there's no way he can rescue her if they're hostile. Not with the assets he has here, and honestly not reliably with the sum total of the amalgam's assets as it stands.
And he can't contact Home Base and Director Belltower. No, not can't. Won't. It's not out of petty pride, that she'll think he can't cope with independent operations if she comes running to him. It's that if the Tyrants already know where he is - something he's justifiably concerned about - then they'll be wanting him to try to contact Director Belltower. After all, they have a Belltower in charge of them too, and that's what she'd do.
So. They're on their own. He's not even having Langley and Guo return to this field base. They have their own new temporary accommodations sorted, just in case they've been tagged with a radioisotope tracker or something else that could provide a clue.
Donald sighs. His experience as an ex-Traditionalist is really showing. He's gone straight back into that full-on paranoia about Operatives. And worse, now he knows that it's not really paranoia. He's up against Senior Operatives who are literally as good as they say.
***
An hour later, a cold and sullen Henriette Langley wrapped in a man's jacket eases her way out of the back of a fish van parked in a warehouse near the Los Angles docks. The driver of the van is taking a short nap, thanks to Wufan. There are lockers against one of the walls, and rummaging through them Henriette finds a dark blue mechanic's jumpsuit. It's too big for her, but it's better than what she has at the moment. The boots are like clown shoes on her, but they'll do.
She's just finished getting her third pair of oversized socks on when Wufan re-appears. "I have their phone," he says, offering it to her. "Can you access it?"
"Yes," she says shortly. The hacking tools built into her hands are enough to extract the PIN, and she inputs it. "7328," she says out loud, before she gets to work turning off all the Technocratic backdoors hidden in it. "Okay," she says after a minute's work. "It's secure now. And-"
A phone rings in the warehouse. It's next door. Weapon drawn, Wufan advances on it. He lets it ring to voicemail.
"One call at 13:16. Call from NUMBER WITHHELD. The message will begin after the tone." The tone sounds, and an anonymized bland male voice comes on the line. "Take the van to 424 Gulf Avenue. It's a rented house. Park it in the garage, and unload it. I've had deliveries made there - stuff to check yourselves for trackers and bugs. ROBOT, don't examine the QC until STICK can check it for Echo-Delta-Echo influence. Take care and treat it as potentially compromised by hostiles. Auth code: Seven Red Snakefist."
"That's Sykes," Wufan says. "Or at least his codes." He deletes the message from the wall phone, and then smashes open the phone and takes the memory out, crushes it underfoot, and then puts it in his suit jacket. "Help me unload the fish and then we'll move. Also, unload the driver."
"Do I have to go in the back again?" Henriette whines.
"Yes. They recognized you. We can't risk that happening again." Wufan pulls a compact make-up kit from his pocket. "I'll change my appearance too and drive."
***
Blinking in the sunlight, Rose emerges from the custody of the Tyrants. She has to assume that they're tracking her and following her. She can't guarantee that they're not. And she can't automatically shake whatever tracking they've put in her.
Stopping by a vending machine, Rose examines her biology. Radioisotopes in the food they gave her. Pheromone markers from the air. Tracking nanites in the water. All of those she can eliminate. But if that's what she's catching, what is she missing? She briefly contemplates stripping down and throwing herself in the ocean while she runs a flush on all those intruding bodies, but doing so would give away who she is.
So instead she sits down on a bench in a nearby neighborhood park, making sure she's in view of the CCTV. Donald will find her.
... admittedly, there's also the risk that some of their enemies may find her, but a) she strongly doubts they're looking for a blonde Henriette Langley, and b) hopefully the Tyrants will be willing to step in to stop her being abducted twice in one day.
Anyway, it's a nice day in LA despite the fact it's winter. And there are no mirrors around so she can relax for a little bit without Thorn harping on at her.
***
"Found you," Donald mutters to himself, looking at the tap on the Los Angeles CCTV network set up by Henriette before she went out. That's either Rose in disguise as Henriette in disguise as a perky blonde LA teenager, or it's a duplicate in disguise as Henriette in disguise as a perky blonde LA teenager.
Either way, he needs to get them moving before anyone else snatches them. He makes some calls, and a taxi pulls up by Rose, on behalf of 'Mr No'. He'll get her moving so no one else can pick her up if she's the real Rose.
He drums his finger on the desk. He's going to have to be a little bit naughty. He's talked with Aristide about Kirlian photography, and the old man seems to consider it to be acceptable fringe Technocratic science. Donald dabbled in it too, back in his Traditionalist days. It's a way to take pictures of someone's aura. Now, he's not meant to do that kind of pseudoscience - but Aristide is a NWO Director specializing in psychic phenomena, which means logically it's not pseudoscience if a NWO Director does it. After all, the Union would censor Aristide for doing it if it was not acceptable for Donald to do it. And since Aristide hasn't explicitly told him that he's been censored for it, then it must be okay for him to do it.
Logically.
Donald nods. He's got it all worked out in his head. Very logical. Very sensible. He's not being RDish when he sends maybe-Rose to a location and pays someone else to take a Kirlian photograph of her with a modified camera which can pick up her bioelectric field from a distance. And then has them scan the image and put it on imgur for him to check.
Very logical.
And then it's back to worrying and waiting. It's a relief when the image is uploaded, because it gives him something to do. Something other than worrying and waiting. Even if it's pseudoscience. And at least this way he's being useful. The Tyrants scare him. More than the NWO did when he was batting for the other team, because back then he didn't know about people like this. Back then he didn't know any senior Operatives and thus could tell himself that their reputation was made out of horror stories solely to scare people like him. But he's worked under Jamelia Belltower for a year. He knows how dangerous senior operatives are. He knows that the stories are only somewhat exaggerated. And in many ways, the Tyrants are... he'd hesitate to say 'better' or 'more dangerous' than Jamelia. You judge a woman by the enemies she makes, and when her enemies include "a superhuman god-machine in the form of the Computer" and "a literal evil clone" and "an entire Convention of the Technocratic Union" you're in pretty good company. But he'll admit that they're more directly lethal. Being able to toss around a small car or wrestle a shapeshifter in warform to the ground via brute force helps with that.
And they haven't lost any of the subtle touch either. He didn't even know they were around until they revealed themselves-and he has a nagging feeling that they've let him know who they are. So he's glad that the question of Rose gives a distraction from worrying about them.
***
Henriette is relieved when the garage door closes, hiding the fish truck. Clambering out of the cold back again, she helps Wufan unload the loot into the rented house. And then she looks around with an enhanced eye. It's not a prepared safehouse, she decides. But she also doesn't think it's a trap. It's a generic, Masses-technology home. She disconnects all the electronics apart from the phone, and lowers the blinds. There's a blender in the kitchen, and with a bit of work and some tools from the garage she manages to rejigger it to make jamming white noise to stop people from Van Eck phreaking them when she turns some of the electronics back on.
At least it helps her put her mind off the fact that she stinks of fish, she thinks as she opens up the telephone and begins to work on the landline to give her a backdoor to bypass the standard listening channels. Normal human beings couldn't do it, but then again normal humans can't sing ultrasonic broadband messages down a line to inject code into the standard protocols.
Wufan just stands behind her, watching. Being his usual self, which is basically the worst mix of an Operative and a Void Engineer she could imagine.
"Are you done?" he asks when she starts screwing the phone back together.
"Should be," she says casually. And smugly. "That's the phone set to a bypass - it should slip past all the usual wide array net checks."
He passes her a scanning wand. "Go to the bathroom and check yourself over for bugs and trackers. I've done myself and I'm clean. Do your clothes separately from yourself and-"
"Yes, yes, I know," she says. What does he think she is, stupid? "Cross-check each other after the self-scans."
"Of course." He pauses. "Also, have a shower. You stink of fish. I've already had one." His hair is still damp wet, she notes.
"I hope you didn't use all the warm water," she mutters.
She does feel rather better after the shower. She washed her jumpsuit too after she checked it, and then dried it with the hair-drier. She wants her own damn clothes back. And her hair is a bleached mess, but she can't fix that now.
By the time she's done, Donald is back in contact.
"They took Rose, and released her," he says tersely. "I've confirmed it's not a clone, and they didn't hold her for long enough for an extensive reprogramming."
"You don't know that," Wufan says bluntly.
"She agrees, for what it's worth. She doesn't think she's compromised, but she says that that's what she'd say if she was," Donald says. He takes a breath, and then seems to change his mind. "I'm going to work on verifying whether she's safe. In the meantime, the two of you extract data from what we got our hands on. From what she can tell, they're NWO internal affairs. I think we'll want to know what the data is from our plundering and whether we can use it as a bargaining chip to distract them before we make our next move. And quickly."
"Guo. That's hardware that's been in the hands of the SPD. I want you to check it with everything you've got before you let Langley near it. The last thing we want is an EDE eating her brain. Langley, don't get your brain eaten and treat it with full paranoia. I'll be in touch."
"Roger." He says, hanging up. He pulls a pair of shades from his pocket and glances at it. "Looks like there's some EDE security. Nasty piece of work. I can neutralize it before it goes active, though." He fiddles with his sidearm, reconfiguring it into some sort of energy weapon, and blasts the computer with a pulse of blue light. Nothing seems to happen. "Neutralized."
"Nothing happened." Henriette says dubiously.
"It's neutralized. You're free to connect. It probably has secondary defenses, so don't get overconfident."
"I don't." Henriette brags. "I should be done in a day." She plugs the machine in and links to it, attacking its electronic defenses. They're competently designed and coded-and it's a powerful quantum computer, which helps run self-patching self-modifying software. But a network's only as strong as its weakest link, so she starts with the rest of LaCroix's data trail. On them she finds a lot of boring business documents, but something more. There's images of the aftermath of a disaster where someone or something turned an office into a charnel house. Video clips from police sympathizers which show what happened to LaCroix tower. Some correspondences about what might have happened. It's not much, but it's enough to start sending to Donald. He needs to know if LaCroix has made an enemy like that.
She has to keep him in the loop. And the quantum computer makes her uncomfortable enough that she wants the excuse to avoid it for a while. She can't articulate it, but there's just something off about it all. Something wrong and broken and incorrect about it all, something which makes her uncomfortable but she can't articulate. The computer in her head doesn't notice anything, but there's just this feeling, this oily-slick feeling of corruption, strong enough that it overwhelms even her trained skepticism. She suspects it might have something to do with its owners-or whoever had it.
***
Donald is a negotiator at heart. Well, that's what he wishes he was, at least. It'd be nice to be the sort of person who exists to get people into a room talking to each other. He'd quite like to get a thrill of success every time that happened. No such luck. He's a much worse human being. He knows that.
But he is a pretty good negotiator. He learned the black arts of the trade trying to get Traditionalists working together, and then the Syndicate just polished him up. And he's been keeping an eye on Wufan. Looking for his levers, looking for his buttons and what to press to make him do what he wants him to. It's all about give and take. You don't ask something of someone they don't want to give - not without some larger compensation in return. No, what you try to do is frame things so both of you win. And sure, if you win more than they do, that means you've really won. But the fact is, if you go into a deal wanting everything and refusing to compromise, you're going to get nothing.
So as he moves his very limited assets around, waits for his retroprojections on Rose to come through, and goes through the scans of the property documents they just stole - and promptly organizes some mortgages on them to help turn them into liquid assets for immediate use - he's thinking of a way past the stick up Guo's ass. And it's a real and present stick. He reminds Donald of a Verbena witch he briefly knew years ago. Incredibly rigid about the "right" way of doing things and obsessed about the formal way of doing things. He's not as hot as she was in a MILF-y way, though. Though that's not important.
That's probably why he was assigned to Jamelia. She's good at bending the rules, at coming to compromises and doing favours for people so they do favours for her. Someone who could keep her at arm's distance and not let her dislodge the stick from his ass is what you'd want there.
But everyone has their levers. The witch had her pride and liked an Ecstatic crawling to her, admitting that he needed her help to identify an ancient ritual. Guo, on the other hand, doesn't have pride. No, it's the flip-side of that obsession with rules he has. He wants harmony. He wants people to sit down and be reasonable people and just listen to the evidence. He's willing to change his mind, but only if he's given good justification and the right evidence for it. He really doesn't like gut feelings - he wants decisions to be made with the brain.
So as he packs up his gear and prepares to meet up with Langley and Guo in the backroom of a cafe, he's developing a plan. He'll have to talk to Rose once he finishes vetting her.
***
The backroom of the cafe is one of Donald's carefully prepared meeting places. He put money in this place as an angel investor and kept it off the Technocratic books, because it helps to have a place to meet up with people it's not necessarily quite kosher to do. Also, they do really good subs here. He's ordered for ten. One for him, two for Henriette and Wufan each, and five for Rose.
When Rose shows up to the meeting, she's wearing new clothes and a new appearance. She's an athletic brunette now, with sun-kissed skin and wearing a new outfit made out of trendy but not particularly expensive brand-name apparel. Henriette notices that she rarely disguises herself as anyone ugly. Progenitor vanity, she supposes.
"Don't worry!" she says brightly to Henriette. "I got the blood by scratching someone on the bus in passing. I changed when I hopped over the fence around a transformer Donald found for me and flushed all the trackers from my system - also, levered open a manhole so they'll think you used the sewers to drop off the radar. And I stole the new clothes. I hope you didn't like the old ones. I dumped them in the sewers."
Henriette looks not at all heartbroken over the loss of the valley girl clothes. "I'll live," she says brusquely. She glances at Donald. "Is she safe?" she says.
"As far as I can tell. Although she had some hyperpsych used on her, her own defenses held strong," Donald says. "I retrocasted looking for all influences - and stat forecasts tell me that we want to have her along. There's a 21.4% chance that someone may try to ambush us here, which falls to 9.3% if Rose is here."
Wufan nods. "Good enough," he says, waving his scanning wand over her. "I'm not reading any active abnormalities in her."
"That matches my own self-testing protocols," Rose says. "I'm checking my own actions for abnormalities, though. You shouldn't worry about me. Just keep an eye out just in case. Don't use any standard sedatives on me if I do go rogue - I'll have countermeasures prepared," she adds helpfully. "And... are these all for me?"
"Yes," Donald says, gesturing to the Extra Large Meat Feast subs. Rose immediately grabs one, slathers it in mayonnaise, and starts stuffing it in her mouth, barely pausing to chew. Henriette has to look away after a little bit and even Wufan seems a little setback with the sheer ferocity that Rose digs into the meal.
"Full body reconfigs burn through energy," Rose manages through her mouthful. "And they only fed me like I was you. So my last proper meal was last night."
"I see," Henriette says faintly. "So, Donald. What did you get from the documents I sent you? Still taking it slower with the QC, like you said. Once we get this over and done with, I can get back trying to find a hardware vulnerability in it."
Donald leans back, a look of earnest and genuine concern on his face. "I didn't think I'd wind up worried for the NWO spooks as well as worried of them," he says bluntly.
"Uh… what?" Henriette says vaguely.
"I crammed the documents you scanned," he says. "I… I think the thing. The MUSCOVITE machine from LA. The one which chased Rose and me. I… I think it's clearing house in the hemophages. Going after LaCroix's assets and anything and anyone in the Camarilla structure who was involved in the attack. It's not revenge. It's not an example. It's a cover-up." He doesn't have to conceal the fear in his voice. It's real. That thing was fucking terrifying. He sometimes wakes in a cold sweat thinking of the moments in the restaurant where it could have killed him in a heartbeat if it hadn't wanted to gloat at Reina Lior.
And it won't make that same mistake twice. He's sure of that. People don't get so lucky twice in one lifetime.
"You're sure of that?" Guo says, voice dead.
"Not one hundred percent, but the markers are there," Donald responds. "It's too efficient to even be a Shock Corps team. Too perfect."
"I'll want to take a look at that."
"I'll give you all my notes," Donald says, flipping open his briefcase, and passing a folder. "I hope I'm wrong. I really hope I'm wrong. But I don't think I am. And the thing that scares me is that from what Rose says? The Tyrants are going to blunder into it. If we assume they're not already compromised, they're investigating the attack on the construct. They're going after the hemophages. And that means that if they find any evidence on who was behind it, they become a target too."
"They're cyborgs," Rose says softly.
"I hope they're secure against being compromised by it," Donald continues. "After all, they're probably NWO internal police, and they wouldn't want to be vulnerable to VA or rogue ItX compromise. But… God, that thing's a monster. If they're blindsided, the odds aren't in their favor."
Wufna hunches over. "What did they say?" he says to Rose. He listens, brow furrowed as she clinically reports the interactions back to him. Donald primed her before, gave her a few pointers on how to best present the information "Hmm. I think they were telling enough of the truth. They played very hands-off and cautious on the exfiltration from Mallion." He glances at Henriette. "They wouldn't pass over a change to eliminate Langley if they were directly subverted by the MUSCOVITEs. Or have released her alive."
There's a quiet grumble from Henriette.
"It's true."
"I know it's true, all right! I just don't like being reminded of it!"
His fingers drum against the folder Donald passed him. "I've been passed information on the possible unit classification of the hostile you encountered previously," he says to the other man directly. "It's a MUSCOVITE ultraheavy man-sized combat unit, codename ANATHEMA. Biomechanical design, perfect integration of engineered biology and cybernetic augmentation. It's inhumanly smart-G-level intellect is literally off the charts-and has a psuedo-Enlightened intellect. Heavily redundant systems, capable of downshifting to preserve limited function in hostile terrestrial environments. From its design - same thing as the units seen in Moscow. Some kind of development of Iteration X technology by alien forces - maybe related to HITMark VIs. The notes you have on the initial attack-those are new though. Some sort of spatial format field, unknown power source but no signs of heavy duration limits. This is concerning. If it could operate at full combat capability for an entire engagement, rather than being limited by terrestrial conditions, an Anathema could be a terminal threat to even a heavy unit."
"This time I don't have a giant mech close to hand. Or even a small one," Henriette says, worry clear on her face. Which means it's worry she wants people to see.
"We can't engage it with this team, so I'm not planning to," Donald reassures her. "In fact for everyone's sake I'd like to plan on avoiding it if at all possible." Her lips remain in a thin line.
"Sensible. And… you're right." The words are almost pained escaping from Wufan's lips. "That means the risk of compromise of a NWO cyborg IntSec unit is unacceptable. They have to be made ready to face it, if they've got a risk of running into it." He raps his knuckles on the table, almost like a gavel. "I'll talk with my people. See what briefing documents I can get them. Maybe even some heavy specialists to work with them if they have a risk of being exposed to it. Can't promise anything, but with what happened in LA and in space, the MUSCOVITEs are taking direct moves. If they have an ANATHEMA with significant upgrades operating Earthside, it needs to die. Quickly. And if they're deploying it to cover up what happened here, it must be important to them."
***
Oh, and that's the other thing, Donald thinks to himself on the drive back. If you really want someone to do something, one of the most effective ways to do so is to have them think that it's their own idea. It didn't go all his way. The 'heavy specialists' might be people there to attack the Tyrants if they see too much or find out the wrong things. He really hopes this isn't a Technocracy Civil War in the making. But damn it, if the 'Anathema' (catchy name) really is out there then a combined NWO-VE heavy kill team has better chances against it than either separately.
At a red light, he drops the business card the Tyrants gave Rose onto the floor and realizes that his hands are shaking. He's scared. And he should be almost hopeful-he's managed to figure out some common ground that everyone cares about, Jamelia's lonely crusade might have some actual allies who can operate via official channels and work without suspicion, and everyone is safe. They even have a clue to why LaCroix is in hiding. But the Anathema-that thing scares him in a fundamental way. It's like gazing upon the face of divinity-and then realizing that the Creator wasn't some all-knowing all-loving God, but a malevolent Demiurge. And knowing it's still there, that it wasn't defeated in the Spy's Demise like he had hoped, that it might still be stalking nearby, makes him jumpy and paranoid.
He barely manages to steel himself when he gets back to the hotel. He needs to meet them. They need to exchange intelligence. Guo has information ready, which he'll pick up from a dead drop. Rose and Henriette can meet him there. They need this. Having some official cover will give them discreet access to tools and protection which he's sorely missed these days. Intelligence analysis, combat assets, the ability to divert traffic or get government records with a simple phone call rather than hacking into an alphabet-soup agency, the perks of being a Technocrat like comfy chairs and five-star hotel rooms and armed security-he misses all of it. In the end, he tells them to come. Rose can steal herself a fancy dress or something, Guo probably has a few spare suits, and Henriette can disguise herself as to not get particular notice. He puts thoughts of Brighton and his first real date with Rose and all the other disasters out of his mind. He has to do this for the good of the world, and if it scares him a little-or even a lot-that doesn't matter.
He'll make that sacrifice. It's who he is.
***
It doesn't surprise Donald that their meeting is in a steakhouse with private rooms. They tend to be nice and dark, and the poor lighting gives those with enhanced eyes an advantage. Except their hunters also have enhanced eyes. It also doesn't hurt that they can actually fuel their enhanced metabolisms and complex arrays of cybernetic implants this way. Donald walks in, Rose on his arm wearing a red dress. Henriette's in front of him, also dressed nicely for the occasion-he's surprised she can look this good when she wants to, even though he saw her in Brighton. And Wufan is Wufan. The Tyrants-some of them-are already there. He recognizes their faces from London.
"Good to see you again, safe and sound." Julianna starts. She looks like any other spoiled trophy wife, as she did in London, but her movements, accent, and mannerisms then made her read like some high-class British twit. Here, she reads like a native Los Angeles airhead. She's good at this social chameleon work, and it helps that most people don't notice where she looks or how she moves. If Donald didn't know from the Tyrants' dossiers, he would have underestimated her as well. Sitting next to her is Juliet Baxter, who has adjusted her facial features just enough that she could be Julianna's less gorgeous-but still attractive-sister, pulling a more classical NWO look. Jaron Belltower is at the head of the table, his black suit immaculate. "Take a seat. We've already put in an order for you. Do you mind?" He repeats it, and Donald wonders if the Tyrants have read all their restaurant receipts. Probably, Donald concludes. It seems like a thing the NWO would do. The rest of their agents are missing. They're probably running overwatch, Donald thinks. Or working on something else. Maybe both. It wouldn't be impossible to remote a few synthetic bodies if you had the right neural augmentation.
"First, we've secured this place. So we can talk business. The Void Engineers have forwarded some very interesting reading to us recently. I think reading up on this 'Anathema' unit has been enlightening." Jaron starts. "It explains certain incidents which have happened to LaCroix and it rules out a few possibilities as to what happened to him after the raid. It means we're going to have to work carefully but knowing we're under threat from this thing is going to make our life a lot easier. Thank you."
"You're welcome." Donald says politely. "Now, why are you here?"
"I'll tell you the same thing I told Lieutenant Langley. We believe that these... MUSCOVITES, as you've been calling them? We believe that after their defeat in Moscow they've been working through more covert means, including suborned agents in the Technocracy, false flag attacks, and RD sympathizers. And they've been paying a lot of attention to you in particular. We're here because we believe we could pool our resources and get to the bottom of this more quickly. Juliet?"
"We've been investigating LaCroix for a while." Juliet says. "What we think is that he's cutting and running, trying to find someone, or something, which can protect him. He might no longer have easy access to most of his assets-especially if the Anathema is methodically killing his allies, but he still has a lot of assets and knowledge, being an elder hemophage. And that makes him valuable in and of himself, even if he's made this mistake. The question is, as usual, who he's run to and where he is now. I suspect, given residual EDE-taint in a few places where I've visited, he was consorting with hostile EDEs which may have been allied with the MUSCOVITEs for pragmatic reasons. Can you tell us anything about that?"
"That's classified need-to-know, Operative." Wufan says mildly. Donald glances at him. He doesn't look like he's about to call down a missile strike or anything hostile, which is progress at least. "We have been containing these outbreaks as best we can with our limited resources."
Juliet nods. "I understand that everyone has their secrets, but things seem to be falling apart recently. Moscow, LA, and Mexico City? It feels like we've stepped back into the hottest times of the Ascension War recently, except we don't even know what our enemy actually is. And we're not on the winning side."
"Nevertheless," Jaron says, "we must focus on the mission. Right now, our job is to root out whichever actor targeted a senior NWO agent and her subordinates and make sure this won't happen again. Right now, I suspect you want LaCroix dead, want his connection with the MUSCOVITEs found, and want to find whoever's keeping you in hiding and leave them dead in a shallow ditch somewhere." Henriette nods enthusiastically. She's always up for revenge, especially given how much she's lost from LaCroix's actions.
"And why do you think these two goals align?" Guo asks. Donald is surprised that he hasn't called in an orbital strike or something yet, but maybe he's realizing that at this point, all he can do is damage control rather than keeping everyone quiet. Or maybe he's looking for new recruits. Hopefully his good mood lasts.
"Our one fresh lead is LaCroix. We've interviewed the personnel on site at the time of the attack. They have confirmed that internal defenses and systems were sabotaged, which means that LaCroix acted with the benefit of agents in the Technocratic Union. I suspect they would have found ways to hide themselves-but LaCroix may have clues to who they might be. Clues which we can act on. Unfortunately," he glances at Henriette, "we seem to be lacking in actionable intelligence. Certainly, we have enough evidence of LaCroix's actions that a kill order would be trivial, but we would need to find him. And I don't particularly feel like posting his face on a milk carton and waiting for someone to call. Not when we don't know how long we have before the thing taking out loose ends."
"So." Julianna says. "We need to find Lacroix, or anything which might lead us to who he's met with. They wouldn't have used real names and identities, and our friend is a centuries-old hemophage. I doubt he's left this information lying around."
"So how do you think we can find him?" Henriette asks.
"Well. You told us what you've picked up. Wealth, liquid and non-liquid. I think he'll have found somewhere safe to work from in his holdings. I think if we can find out where he's holed up, we can bring him down. We've been mapping his financial and personnel assets and I think you might have a few more pieces of the puzzle. Once we get a critical mass to do predictions we can start narrowing down where he is. Are you in?"
"Good to see you again, safe and sound." Julianna starts. She looks like any other spoiled trophy wife, as she did in London, but her movements, accent, and mannerisms then made her read like some high-class British twit. Here, she reads like a native Los Angeles airhead. She's good at this social chameleon work, and it helps that most people don't notice where she looks or how she moves. If Donald didn't know from the Tyrants' dossiers, he would have underestimated her as well. Sitting next to her is Juliet Baxter, who has adjusted her facial features just enough that she could be Julianna's less gorgeous-but still attractive-sister, pulling a more classical NWO look. Jaron Belltower is at the head of the table, his black suit immaculate. "Take a seat. We've already put in an order for you. Do you mind?" He repeats it, and Donald wonders if the Tyrants have read all their restaurant receipts. Probably, Donald concludes. It seems like a thing the NWO would do. The rest of their agents are missing. They're probably running overwatch, Donald thinks. Or working on something else. Maybe both. It wouldn't be impossible to remote a few synthetic bodies if you had the right neural augmentation.
"First, we've secured this place. So we can talk business. The Void Engineers have forwarded some very interesting reading to us recently. I think reading up on this 'Anathema' unit has been enlightening." Jaron starts. "It explains certain incidents which have happened to LaCroix and it rules out a few possibilities as to what happened to him after the raid. It means we're going to have to work carefully but knowing we're under threat from this thing is going to make our life a lot easier. Thank you."
"You're welcome." Donald says politely. "Now, why are you here?"
"I'll tell you the same thing I told Lieutenant Langley. We believe that these... MUSCOVITES, as you've been calling them? We believe that after their defeat in Moscow they've been working through more covert means, including suborned agents in the Technocracy, false flag attacks, and RD sympathizers. And they've been paying a lot of attention to you in particular. We're here because we believe we could pool our resources and get to the bottom of this more quickly. Juliet?"
"We've been investigating LaCroix for a while." Juliet says. "What we think is that he's cutting and running, trying to find someone, or something, which can protect him. He might no longer have easy access to most of his assets-especially if the Anathema is methodically killing his allies, but he still has a lot of assets and knowledge, being an elder hemophage. And that makes him valuable in and of himself, even if he's made this mistake. The question is, as usual, who he's run to and where he is now. I suspect, given residual EDE-taint in a few places where I've visited, he was consorting with hostile EDEs which may have been allied with the MUSCOVITEs for pragmatic reasons. Can you tell us anything about that?"
"That's classified need-to-know, Operative." Wufan says mildly. Donald glances at him. He doesn't look like he's about to call down a missile strike or anything hostile, which is progress at least. "We have been containing these outbreaks as best we can with our limited resources."
Juliet nods. "I understand that everyone has their secrets, but things seem to be falling apart recently. Moscow, LA, and Mexico City? It feels like we've stepped back into the hottest times of the Ascension War recently, except we don't even know what our enemy actually is. And we're not on the winning side."
"Nevertheless," Jaron says, "we must focus on the mission. Right now, our job is to root out whichever actor targeted a senior NWO agent and her subordinates and make sure this won't happen again. Right now, I suspect you want LaCroix dead, want his connection with the MUSCOVITEs found, and want to find whoever's keeping you in hiding and leave them dead in a shallow ditch somewhere." Henriette nods enthusiastically. She's always up for revenge, especially given how much she's lost from LaCroix's actions.
"And why do you think these two goals align?" Guo asks. Donald is surprised that he hasn't called in an orbital strike or something yet, but maybe he's realizing that at this point, all he can do is damage control rather than keeping everyone quiet. Or maybe he's looking for new recruits. Hopefully his good mood lasts.
"Our one fresh lead is LaCroix. We've interviewed the personnel on site at the time of the attack. They have confirmed that internal defenses and systems were sabotaged, which means that LaCroix acted with the benefit of agents in the Technocratic Union. I suspect they would have found ways to hide themselves-but LaCroix may have clues to who they might be. Clues which we can act on. Unfortunately," he glances at Henriette, "we seem to be lacking in actionable intelligence. Certainly, we have enough evidence of LaCroix's actions that a kill order would be trivial, but we would need to find him. And I don't particularly feel like posting his face on a milk carton and waiting for someone to call. Not when we don't know how long we have before the thing taking out loose ends."
"So." Julianna says. "We need to find Lacroix, or anything which might lead us to who he's met with. They wouldn't have used real names and identities, and our friend is a centuries-old hemophage. I doubt he's left this information lying around."
"So how do you think we can find him?" Henriette asks.
"Well. You told us what you've picked up. Wealth, liquid and non-liquid. I think he'll have found somewhere safe to work from in his holdings. I think if we can find out where he's holed up, we can bring him down. We've been mapping his financial and personnel assets and I think you might have a few more pieces of the puzzle. Once we get a critical mass to do predictions we can start narrowing down where he is. Are you in?"
A Question of Trust:
You're going to trust the Tyrants:
[ ] Not at all.
[ ] Enough to give them vague hints about what Lacroix owns from the papers you've taken.
[ ] Enough to let them look at the ownership papers.
[ ] Enough to mention you may have some blackmail information and personal correspondence.
[ ] Enough to talk about the more sensitive data you've recovered, including the quantum computer.
[ ] Write-In.
Cavalry or Cleanup Squad?
Wufan's specialists are:
[ ] Delayed, there's a Subjugation Corps Base that needs to be assaulted and assaulted now.
[ ] Out of contact.
[ ] Already here, and set up to ward off a direct assault.
They've got knives, they've got sharp sticks, they've got phased plasma guns, sonic electronic ball breakers, powered armor-they're loaded for bear and might be a bit of good news in these trying times.
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[x] Enough to talk about the more sensitive data you've recovered, including the quantum computer.
My instinct is to extend some trust, the NWO really needs to know what they're doing with this.
[x] Delayed, there's a Subjugation Corps Base that needs to be assaulted and assaulted now.
Counterproductive maybe, but a Subjugation Corps operation that is left clear sounds very bad.
My instinct is to extend some trust, the NWO really needs to know what they're doing with this.
[x] Delayed, there's a Subjugation Corps Base that needs to be assaulted and assaulted now.
Counterproductive maybe, but a Subjugation Corps operation that is left clear sounds very bad.
- Location
- England
I want to give them the info, but I equally want to keep the QC on the down low. Who knows what could be inside it. Probably some very interesting material. I just want to keep something in reserve, I guess.
As for the VE heavy assault team, hmm....
That's a rather more difficult choice to make. All have their up sides and down sides, but in the end I think I'll choose
Trading immediate benefits for benefits to the overall war effort. They're delayed rather than gone, and I don't think the Anathema or LaCroix are about to attack. A risky bet I know, but with the Tyrants here we can take light assaults, and...
Hmm.
Does anyone think we're actually under threat from the Anathema for the duration of this operation? If so I'll have to change votes.
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A Question of Trust:
You're going to trust the Tyrants:
Hmm. Before I vote for this, what's the level of progress that Wufan and Henriette have made on the Quantum Computer? I'm not demanding to know what's on it, but in broad terms have they got things off or is it proving too tough? Because if it is too hard for them to decrypt on their own, we might have to risk taking it to the Tyrants to get the information off in actionable time. I don't want to send it back to the IBM to look at, both for fear that they might not have enough counter Spirit measures (as they are Iterators, after all - and even if they can deal with Autopolitans, SPD spirits are going to be a different ballpark) and also out of the worry that either the Tyrants track its transit back or, more alarmingly, there might still be some Resident backdoors in it which they might be able to use to trace it back to Moscow and unleash the Anathema on the IBM.
(If those backdoors exist, I don't think they'd be set off by being moved mundanely around LA, but a transport to Moscow? Where Threat Null suspects the IBM might be because Henrietta observed some of them there? Yeah. Alarm bells.)
Cavalry or Cleanup Squad?
Wufan's specialists are:
[X] Out of contact.
Let's put them in the Quantum Box and see what happens when they're observed. Maybe they'll all wind up dead (possibly because they were mauled to death by the quantum cat that's currently also in the box). Maybe they'll appear just in the nick of time. Who knows? But I'm willing to take trouble and uncertainty from this direction because with both the party and the Tyrants getting involved, it makes things easier to run without a third party around.
You're going to trust the Tyrants:
Hmm. Before I vote for this, what's the level of progress that Wufan and Henriette have made on the Quantum Computer? I'm not demanding to know what's on it, but in broad terms have they got things off or is it proving too tough? Because if it is too hard for them to decrypt on their own, we might have to risk taking it to the Tyrants to get the information off in actionable time. I don't want to send it back to the IBM to look at, both for fear that they might not have enough counter Spirit measures (as they are Iterators, after all - and even if they can deal with Autopolitans, SPD spirits are going to be a different ballpark) and also out of the worry that either the Tyrants track its transit back or, more alarmingly, there might still be some Resident backdoors in it which they might be able to use to trace it back to Moscow and unleash the Anathema on the IBM.
(If those backdoors exist, I don't think they'd be set off by being moved mundanely around LA, but a transport to Moscow? Where Threat Null suspects the IBM might be because Henrietta observed some of them there? Yeah. Alarm bells.)
Cavalry or Cleanup Squad?
Wufan's specialists are:
[X] Out of contact.
Let's put them in the Quantum Box and see what happens when they're observed. Maybe they'll all wind up dead (possibly because they were mauled to death by the quantum cat that's currently also in the box). Maybe they'll appear just in the nick of time. Who knows? But I'm willing to take trouble and uncertainty from this direction because with both the party and the Tyrants getting involved, it makes things easier to run without a third party around.
- Location
- England
I figured, which is why I didn't think
was great reasoning. But the problem is, will the Anathema attack anyway? Because it might, and that would be awful.kellanved said:
Hmm. I've almost convinced myself into changing votes. Not quite though.
On the bright side, assuming we don't get jumped this might be a tipping point in the conflict. If you can really call what's going on a conflict, I suppose.
- Location
- UTC -6
A Question of Trust:
[X] Enough to let them look at the ownership papers.
The ownership papers would help the Tyrants scry LaCroix, but not assist in scrying us. Offering anything less seems inconsistent with our revenge motive and is antagonistic right before we ask for help.
Cavalry or Cleanup Squad?
[X] Out of contact.
ThecleanupVE team would have gotten a more candid report from Guo than our heroes may have liked. Between that and what happened the last time we faced ANATHEMA I think the VEs are trying to hold the initiative by not letting any signals out. Hopefully ANATHEMA is a higher priority than silencing us. I expect the ideal outcome for the VE would be for the Tyrants and Rose to actually be killed by the robot cat and to nab Donald, Henriette, and the wreckage for themselves without suffering noticeable losses.
Another reason for the Void Engineers to stay quiet could be them mustering non-Technocrats for the fight. They may just want to avoid explaining to the Tyrants why they aren't gathering Technocrats.
[X] Enough to let them look at the ownership papers.
The ownership papers would help the Tyrants scry LaCroix, but not assist in scrying us. Offering anything less seems inconsistent with our revenge motive and is antagonistic right before we ask for help.
Cavalry or Cleanup Squad?
[X] Out of contact.
The
Another reason for the Void Engineers to stay quiet could be them mustering non-Technocrats for the fight. They may just want to avoid explaining to the Tyrants why they aren't gathering Technocrats.
- Location
- Southern Virginia
Much as it might be risky as all hell, maybe we should consider taking out the Anathema here a secondary objective? With the Tyrants and Void Engineers working together there's probably sufficient muscle available for a kill-team with a good chance of success if we can lure it into a trap. Bringing in IBM assets might be a possibility if we can disguise where they came from; they're pretty eager for some payback on the Computer. Admittedly one might feel a bit more comfortable if Kessler were on hand to coordinate, but we really do need to take this monster out and dangling LaCroix in front of it might be enough to get it into a position we want it in. And well, the Tyrants and Void Engineers would be providing the muscle so they'd be taking the losses.
Of course, the catch is, as always, maneuvering a godlike intellect into a trap. It didn't really work out last time. Oh, and also making sure the kill team really is killy enough to take it out. And also dodging whatever retaliation it probably has set up in case of termination. So there's a lot of catches.
But it really, really needs to die.
Of course, the catch is, as always, maneuvering a godlike intellect into a trap. It didn't really work out last time. Oh, and also making sure the kill team really is killy enough to take it out. And also dodging whatever retaliation it probably has set up in case of termination. So there's a lot of catches.
But it really, really needs to die.
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
Finally caught up again after the better part of a year behind. Ye gods, I missed a lot. >_<
I'll withhold my voting for now while I mull things over. Apologies in advance for any future votes working on outdated/not entirely absorbed information from my archive binge.
I'll withhold my voting for now while I mull things over. Apologies in advance for any future votes working on outdated/not entirely absorbed information from my archive binge.
Henriette thinks she can crack it fully in a day or two. She's gotten surface-level data about LaCroix's uses (mostly business predictions to keep his financial empire afloat) but the more sensitive data on it is proving very stubborn.
