Oportune Obstruction
13th of January 2007 A.D.
The coffee tasted sour and metallic the way it always did when it was pissed out of a metal spigot, but Andrea Von Trier was a professional, she would as she had done these past three centuries persevere. More than that she would smile, men in power always reacted to a woman's smile, even an old woman, one who in another age might have been called a hag. "Thank you for seeing me on such short notice Senator, especially considering the unique considerations of my organization."
Larry Cockrell the Third nodded and harrumphed at the same time, giving the impression of nothing so much as an very well endowed bullfrog overseeing his pond. "Well, you said you knew what
it was."
"Your 'green flash' or what did the Daedalus people call it 'intermittent psycho-luminescent signal'? For people so dubious of the arcane and esoteric they certainly have a love of esoteric vocabulary..."
Time rippled before her like a curtain woven from ten thousand threads rippling in a gale. Once it had been the vision of madness and damnation, the world tearing apart before her gaze, but that day was long past, that girl was gone, sure as if she had been buried with her brothers in the cold Rheinlander soil, here and how she could pluck from three
one, the approach that would gain her the most success.
Honesty, how unusual. "It was a
soul, specifically it was a soul so engorged with inner fire that it manifested as light, given what the recordings show, it was a reflexive reaction to the attack, like shielding your face with your arm, though considerably more effective."
"And the rest of it, this magical cloaking" He pronounced it almost like 'clucking', though fortunately Andrea had heard her fair share of entertaining New World accents not to laugh at this one.
"The girl did not wish to cause a panic, more of a one than was already happening at least. And yes, I know what you are about to ask, she likely removed the perpetrators from the scene. It does not at this point look like any government assets are under threat..."
"But they might be," he interrupted picking up a long spiraled pasty of a kind unusual to see in such briefing rooms, perhaps provided by the senator's staff for just this kind of culinary conducting. Really the man could do well in theater, which Andrea guessed did
also make for a good politician. "She could just walk into Nelis Air Force Base."
"And the cameras there would catch her just as these have," Andrea pointed out calmly.
"Well in coordination with one of those
cyber-strikes we wouldn't have any cameras now would we?" he pressed, pasty still swinging.
"Yes if this young woman in a cowboy costume in Vegas had the means to organize a major cyber attack that would be quite troubling. There is no indication that she can or indeed that she is so inclined. In fact that we seem to be looking at here is gang violence, pure and simple. Perhaps before sending in other operatives it would be prudent to simply put out a warrant on the two men with the shoulder mounted weapons. I suspect the police will find them alive and none the worst for wear..."
Or they will find those people never existed, or that they have been declared dead years ago, the important part was not to send those cretins from Daedalus into a powder keg that now had a Freeholding Lord in all but name smack dab in the middle of it, Andrea thought inwardly. "More to the point I do not think it is wise to do eqipment field testing in a city that has already seen a major incident. Senator if I may be blunt how do you think someone who has lived their whole lives under a veil of secrecy and who has the power to deflect rockets with a hand weapon would react to a successful test of this...'Franklin' Esper Detector?"
"You just said she was not a threat!" Senator Cockrell huffed back.
"I just said she did not mean to cause a panic, that is not the same thing as saying she would react pacefully to an attempt to expose her and anyone else veiling over the entire city. The US Gouvernment has never deployed such technology, the natural disinclination of those spiritually aware not to draw negative attention from the authorities would do little in this case. Doctor Jeffiries has compared this thing to sonar yes, like was used to hunt sumbarines? How do you think sapeint and
armed whales would react to a sonar pulse going on near them?"
At that the Senator seemed to deflate slightly. "Very well we will postpone the test, but I expect an account about what the Devil is going on in Vegas from your colegues and from Project Daedalus."
"Understood," Andrea replied. Fortunetly creative writting was one of her strong suits.
OOC: You guys got pretty lucky on this one.
