Phoenixflame's Eclipse Phase, Episode 1, Frosted Glass.

[PhoenixFlame]

Local Time: January 13th, AF 10.
Location: Kupier Belt, Sol System, Fenris Habitat
Observation Unit: Camsat 9021; Fenris Mining 001

All was silent in the deep black, as it always was, and always would be. Myraids of tiny lights glistened in the darkness, backdropped by the far out reaches of the Oort cloud, casting a dull purple sheen between the dim flickers of rogue KBOs and the stars far beyond them. In the foreground, a number of vectored-thrust work drones piourette in a silent dance, casting their invisible lances of EM fire agaisnt the surface of a small glazed asteroid. Shards of crystallized ice break away and change state into globules of water, held together by surface tension as small orbs for collection.

In the distance, lit with hundreds of individual points of light, is a bright ring, dougnut-shaped and rotating like a desktop toy. This torus was Fenris Hab, a hastily erected but relatively wealthy extrasystem colony that took advantage of the Kupier belt's vast supplies of crystallized water. It holds perhaps five thousand individuals, well over two-thirds of them synths or infomorphs. Still, it is a bastion in the vast expanse.

Local Time: Unchanged
Location: Kupier Belt, Sol System, Fenris Habitat
AR Conditions: Sterile White
Resleeving Facility Gamma

*Click* A bright, handheld flashlight blinds Johanna Radtsford, slowly panning from one corner of her vision to the opposite. A muffled voice is heard through her ringing ears, but she is unable to determine what it is saying. Calmly, but without coordination, she raises her right arm and bats at the flashlight, missing by inches due to the unfamiliarity with the smaller morph.

"M'wake... No tests." She mumbles in a higher pitched, girlier voice than she is traditionally familiar with. "Guh... Neo?"

"Welcome back, Colonel." The voice fades into english, and her eyes open to slowly focus on the doctor standing over her. At first, it appears to be a human female in traditional medical white scrubs, but Nyx soon picks out the discrepancies in the texture. Skinjob, but not unusual for a temporary morph. "You are indeed a neotenic, Fen doesn't have the widest selection of top of the line slyphs or mentons, you know."

Nyx sighed, rubbing her forehead softly. "Mel, we're not in the Air Force anymore."

"Alpha, eh? I figured asmuch." The robotic doctor replied with a coy, well-synthesized voice.

Nyx snorted, insofar as a 13 year old could snort. "I said no tests. You know it's my policy to greet new sentinels in-the-flesh."

"You're too old fashioned, Jo."

["Systems online. Integration successful and stable at 83%. We are currently onboard Fenris Station in the Kupier belt. Local time is 7:32 AM. Ambient temperature, 82.28 Degrees. Atmosphere within parameters. Your current morph is 2.32 feet shorter than your previous. We have farcasted 30 minutes past our scheduled arrival time."] Morrigan, Jo's muse, promptly booted up and rattled off a number of pertinent facts.

So much for bumping the farcaster line. "I'm aware. We'll make the time up in integration, ping everyone and ensure they're alive and onboard." Nyx replied mentally, swinging her legs over the end of the table and awkwardly sliding off onto the floor, wobbling for a moment as she struggled to retain her balance. The synthetic doctor reflexively moved to support her.

"Clothes, Mel, pronto. Let me fall if you have to."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

((So here's the intro, where you are, what you're doing on the station is currently up to you. I want everyone to intro where and how they got here before we have you recieve the meeting information and all that.))

[Aerozord]

Henric rarely had difficulty adapting to a new place, or to be more exact fitting in as well as anywhere else, which wasn't much. This station was no exception. His contacts from the argonauts had little issue vouching for him and getting him in, but that alone wouldn't keep him alive out here. There was a reason he became so well known, not simply his knowledge, but his fervor. Passing the time crawling through the maintence shafts, maintaining and modifying everything he could, which was useful in a habitat developed faster then engineers could design. Meaning he spent about as much time in crawl spaces as outside in the open walkways.

(hope I got the setting right)
There was a low and loud banging on a nearby wall and with a snap a panel pops out and a young looking morph pops out. Rubbing his neck, only 4ft tall, with short dark hair and blue-green eyes. Getting his barings as his eyes scan the area. "Hmm just the resleeving area, BOOOORRRRIIIIIIINNNNGGGGGG" he casually says outloud. He had been exploring the station, something they mostly put up with because of his technical skill and argonaut connections.

Then he took notice of Nyx, smiling he ran up to her, and looked her over. "ooo another Neo, so rare I find another, so what are you doing here, were you just decanted? Hmm must be new to it, seems you are abit awkward. Never got that, neotenics are so much more economical" his mind and voice going a mile a minute as he looks the apparently young girl over.

[Overcast]

"It is time to wake up sir. We have arrived."

Three minutes. It was that awkward quantity of time it took to shake off the reduced metabolism of hibernation. Entering or exiting it was this time that you were at your most vulnerable. It was a period that he didn't like having to take, but sometimes entering the state was better than trying to wait out the journey.

This wasn't a matter of time though, more a matter of cost. He wasn't looking at any credits in his accounts because once again he had pushed too far on some of his dynamic additions to his biomorph, and while the flight was relatively low in cost he had offered to take up a storage space with no food, no air, and no water. Essentially he had paid to be cargo on a proper transportation. The cost was pretty much trivial then, and he called up a friend to make sure it got paid for.

He didn't like having to ask for anything too drastic unless the day called for it. Perhaps that was why the request to work with Firewall seemed so tempting, aside from the genuine interest in what they may know this might also gather him some new funds to work with. Getting his mind and his body out of the Kuiper belt was a bit costly, and it was just good luck on his part he'd already been in the area they planned to meet. Then again if he hadn't been around other Immortals he might not have lost track of how much he had on him and wouldn't be living on fumes. Life always seemed to lead him around in circles.

The man shaking him noticed awareness slowly creeping back into Daniel's body and almost immediately took off. Obviously he was not being paid enough to do anything other than make sure the cheap customer didn't miss his stop and complain. This was fine enough for Daniel, you get what you pay for.

Stretching out, he felt the energy of his rising metabolism slowly spreading through his body. The augmented materials all making good use of the increase in energy to make sure it was all efficiently used, and along with awareness came a familiar voice,

["Welcome back to the living bro. Temperature is pretty warm, 82.28, but nothing to be worried about. Half gravity so we can do everything twice as good now. We're sitting at Fenris Hab, it is about 0600 and I'd say we're still about an hour early for the meeting. Good enough to grab yourself something to eat and breath some good air so that if you gotta re-enter hibernation you can get that full 40 day warranty."]

Anthony(or Ants as Daniel typically called him) was a bit different from your everyday muse, Daniel had asked for a few little things to make it special and the biggest change was in the vernacular. He wasn't sure he would have felt just fine if he had to deal with that partially stoic way most muses went about speaking. Still at the very back of his mind he knew that it was still rattling off the same information most would have given him, just in a special way,

"Did I really spend that much in hibernation?"

["Not nearly, percentage-wise you only used up a quarter. You could still spend about a month in vacuum with no issue, but if I know you you're gonna grab a little something as a precaution. It's just your style."]

"Right. Might even get a chance to look up some proper spots to slam while I get acquainted. Keep an eye on the time for me. I want to start heading toward the meet point about fifteen minutes early."

["Right on."]

He crept out of the storage and made his way off the ship. Going through all the security measures the place needed without any real struggle, it was the cost you paid for going in the flesh rather than egocasting, but it was cheaper this time to fly than to flash his mentality here and get stuffed inside of an inferior and by extension more difficult to get used to biomorph. Or maybe even worse a case.

No use being negative though, in the end he had arrived on time and in once piece. What else could you ask for?

[Krylo]

[The barge has docked with Fenris station, Lind. It is currently roughly 28 degrees aboard the station. Might I suggest something 'sporty' and breathable for your smart suit?]

The vid game that had been taking up Lind's AR slowly slid into a window off to the side where it wouldn't obstruct his 'vision', though he continued to play it in his mind's eye as he slid to a standing position. 'Oh, thanks, Riza,' he replied mentally as he blasted another Nazi in his game and grabbed is small pistol, attaching it quickly to his wrist via the arm slide, and ordering his smart suit to grow a sleeve over it.

[Oh, and Lind? Your firewall and exploit software has been getting slightly out of date. You should update them soon if you're going to be in an unfamiliar station.].

The vid game shunted closed as Lind pulled up a pair of new programs and headed toward the axial dock, floating by 'neighbors' preparing for their performances and setting up their merchant stalls--less than half of which were strictly legal, though that was rarely a problem this far out of the system.

It wasn't long before he floated down into dock, where security didn't give him too many problems. A light chemical projectile weapon like his was, after all, merely considered standard--if a bit lacking--personal protection on stations this far from the more regulated inner system and he was in relatively good standing with the anarchists and autonomists.

He popped open another program in his biomesh and began pulling up information on the Fenris station as he grabbed one of the handholds that would speed him through the 0 G Axial environment to the outer ring, where the gravity reached 0.5 gs.

(Mental actions toward--Updating Firewall, Updating Exploit, Researching Fenris station)

[krogothwolf]

Desmond had arrived at the station a day before. The team of scavengers he was with before he had gotten here had already headed out again. They had wished to head out right away and find something to wash away the feeling of failure after coming up with nothing big during the last outing. Desmond had stayed behind having accepted another job as he had felt it was time to move on. He had felt restless on with that crew, they didn't really find anything and had also kept going to places he had been around before.

[“Dez, you seem to be getting restless again. Perhaps you should get the latest Vidgame of the Earth Quest series? The reviews on it seem to indicate it is a step up from the previous one.”] Larson informed him.

“Not now Lars, I’m not sure when this meeting is suppose to take place and I’d rather not get absorbed into Earth Quest again, you know how bad it gets.”

Desmond continued to wander around Fenris habitat, he checked himself and relaxed slightly feeling the agonizer and vibroblade still on him. He felt naked without his weapons, but such was the way of things though for some reason people didn’t trust a man that was armed to the teeth to have access to the weapons. He had spent some time watching a few vids and catching the game of low-gravity lacrosse game. He really was bored today; he was antsy to get out and about again, being in one place always bugged him, and all he was doing right now was waiting.

“Was there actually anything on when the meeting will be taking place?”

[“Regardless of how many times you ask Dez, the answer stays the same, we will be informed of when it will happen, though it should be soon.”] Larson replied in a slightly exasperated tone.

“Well, I hope it happens soon, or I may end up having to get the new Earth Quest, this waiting is driving me crazy.” Desmond sighed as he kept wandering, throwing a quick glance every now and then. He was pretty much wandering aimlessly around trying to keep him somewhat occupied so that he didn’t go stir crazy.

[“Honestly Dez, this pacing will really only make it seem like things are dragging out. You really should do something more productive to pass the time.”] Larson nagged at him again.

Larson was right of course, but it didn’t change anything. Desmond wanted to start this job as soon as he could. He was starting to go stir crazy and was dying for getting out there. Plus he was feeling somewhat poor lately; the scavenger job was unrewarding this time. He looked around again before heading off to an area he hadn’t really seen yet.

[Dracorion]

Local Time: December 15th, AF 9.
Location: Mars, Sol System, Elysium Habitat
Private Residence

Ellen was fussing over her image. Making sure every strand of long black hair was perfectly in place, her earrings weren't too big, her wrap was perfectly positioned, and her dress was perfectly smooth. She still thought that her newest, ahem, asset was noticeable (it wasn't) and keep running her hands over the spot to try and smooth it out. As the elevator reached it's destination, however, she stopped and put on her confident smile. She still wasn't happy with her appearance, but her time was up. Her entrance now had to be flawless.

As soon as the elevator doors opened, everyone in the room took notice of the slender, stunningly beautiful young woman stepping out. All eyes, male, female, both, or neither were on her, watching her strut into the party and mingle, and though they all soon caught themselves, their first thought was how they'd like to see that dress off. Ellen kept up her pace, her tail swaying back and forth smoothly and slowly, even though all she wanted was to step back into the elevator and redo her entrance. It was half a second too quick. She couldn't, though. There were no do-overs here. And besides, she still got everyone's attention.

The night went on, and Ellen was practically bored out of her morph. It was your usual rich bastard's resleeving party. The wealthy and popular came to compare penises while being served by sex pods of all kinds who they could take off to a private room and enjoy for the rest of the evening. Ellen spent hours talking to all the partygoers, and as she expected, she didn't find anyone wealthy or well-connected enough for what she wanted. Not that she expected to, but she had to make sure. Still, now that she was done with business, she could have some fun.

She approached a male sex pod about joining her in one of the private rooms in exactly an hour, then she scanned the room. Perfect. Her prey was a petite young blonde female Exalt. The girl was obviously young in mind as well as body, standing awkwardly near a wall, as if she were trying to shrink into it, and not talking to anyone. She was probably the daughter of one of the wealthy industrialists present. Ellen approached her from the left while the girl was looking at something to her right and got perhaps slightly closer than was considered normal.

"Would you like to join me in one of the private rooms?" Ellen asked low and seductively.
The girl turned and saw that an unbelievably attractive woman had just propositioned her, and she was seriously considering saying yes. There was just something about this woman, she practically exhuded lust.
"I'm sorry, I don't know you." She said indignantly, although Ellen could tell from her kinesics that she was nervous, confused and aroused.
Ellen moved in much closer now, so that their bodies pressed together, their lips almost joined, though Ellen stopped an inch away. Wait for it...
Just as she expected, the girl moved in, their lips meeting and ensuring that the girl was in her thrall.
Ellen parted the kiss and the girl leaned in closer trying to get more, panting heavily. "I'm Ellen. What's your name?"
"I'm... I'm Rachel."
"That's a beautiful name, Rachel. It's a shame you don't want to join me. We could've had a really good time. Oh well." Ellen said, beginning to turn away. Rachel's hand quickly grabbed her wrist.
"I changed my mind."
Ellen simply smiled her confident smile, took her hand and led her to one of the rooms. It was a dimly lit and sparsely decorated room, with a large four-poster bed in the middle.

"Now... you will call me Mistress, and I will call you pet." She said, as soon as the door was closed.
"Yes Mistress."
Ellen kissed her again and pressed their bodies together, making sure her asset rubbed against the girl's thigh.
"Do you know what to do, Pet?"
Rachel gulped and nodded, getting down on her knees.

Later, Ellen was holding the panting girl against her chest, caressing her hair. "You've been a very good girl, Pet." She said, gently putting Rachel down on the bed and walking over to the door. "... yes Mistress."
"And good girls... deserve a reward."
The door opened, and the sex Pod that Ellen approached earlier walked into the room.

-------------------------------
Local Time: January 13th, AF 10.
Location: Kupier Belt, Sol System, approaching Fenris Habitat

Clockwise, five minutes. Counter-clockwise, ten minutes. Pump-action, five minutes. Repeat.

Ellen was currently inside a large candle-lit room. The atmosphere was hot and humid, the light was juuuust the right dim, and she was currently on a large round bed, having just started taking care of business.

An hour later, her business was concluded and she was joined by two large Olympians who thought they could dominate her. She was about to prove them wrong.

-------------------------------
Local Time: Unchanged
Location: Kupier Belt, Sol System, Fenris Habitat

["We have arrived, Mistress."]

"It's about time." She said irritably as she logged out of simulspace. After a while, her Olympians had gotten boring even after adding a third, but she didn't have anything else to do for the ride. Still, a long uncomfortable shuttle ride was better than egocasting over and getting put in some god-awful second-hand morph. Ellen shuddered at the thought.
["My apologies."]
Butler omitted any details about Fenris station, having already told Ellen all she wanted to know before coming.
"My neck feels like someone tried to drive a nail through it. I am talking to Firewall about securing more comfortable accomodations for their sentinels on long-distance trips." She complained, fussing over her dress, making sure it wasn't crumpled and double- and triple-checking.
["I am sure they will understand what a valuable asset you are once you point it out, Mistress."]
"They should already know that!" She said indignantly, now straightening her hair.
["They are not the brightest bunch, Mistress. Nor do they pay much attention to others, as they should."]
"Hm, yes, I suppose."
The muse obviously knew how to keep it's Mistress appeased.

Ellen floated past the axial dock and into the station proper, turning in her handguns before entering. She wouldn't need them for a simple meeting. "Well what now?"
["I am afraid Fenris Station does not offer much in the way of entertainment. I would suggest that you attempt to find you contact, and perhaps voice your suggestions on travel accomodations."]
"Yes, I suppose I'll do that." Ellen sighed, and proceeded to look around the station, ignoring the fact that she didn't know who she was supposed to be looking for.

[Arhra]

Local Time: January 13th, AF 10.
Location: Kupier Belt, Sol System, Outside Fenris Habitat

In front of Tyrfing was a lumpy, dust caked crystal wall. It bulged out unevenly towards her, wobbling almost-spheres of water glistening in the space between them like floating raindrops.

Extending a manipulator arm, she waved it like a butterfly net and scooped them up. Another arm pulled out the chunk of dirty ice her cutting had freed from the comet, slick with moisture.

It pulled back slowly, so as to not dislodge any loose chips or droplets and sealed it in the last of the empty storage bins the mining drone was equipped with.

Tyrfing enjoyed the chance to be alone with her thoughts that comet mining involved. It was mainly simple tasks that let her mind wander where it wished. The time lag on the mesh and limited bandwidth available on the drone comms gave a rare sense of isolation.

Pushing on a manoeuvring thruster, she spun on the spot, looking up to see a vertically aligned torus high above her, tiny lights twinkling over its surface. It was merely a few thousand kilometers away, the high magnification cameras could handle the distance easily.

It was home to five thousand people and around half that number of bodies. Fenris Habitat.

She zoomed in further. There was a scum barge docking with one of the high throughput airlocks. The market had come to town. She would have to remember to take a look if they had any interesting (virus and bug free) software, data or blueprints available.

More unusually, there was a shuttle docked on a low transit port, not one of the regularly scheduled supply runs. The time of a certain meeting was close, perhaps it would pay to run a check.

Aligning her tight-beam emitter with the station's receiver array, she broadcast the XP snippet to station before firing off on a minimal thrust orbit back to the station with her payload.

* * *

Local Time: January 13th, AF 10.
Location: Kupier Belt, Sol System, Inside Fenris Habitat

Tyrfing was enmeshed in a project. The Firewall offer had gotten her thinking about the likelihood that she'd be working with a number of people who, unlike her, used a physical body. Something to enable increased interaction with physical entities would probably be a very good idea, and so she was working on augmented virtual presence software.

To be perfectly honest, it wasn't anything new. It was simply repurposing elements of simulspace design and AR interfacing. But it should be novel enough to be useful she hoped. Psychological analysis suggested yes.

She was interrupted by a message. This wasn't anything unusual - she jumped between tasks with appalling frequency, taking breaks to handle quick research tasks or customise standard item templates for others, just chat, or to work on her other projects. Right now the other main one was updating her exploit software.

She had a feeling Firewall wasn't interested in her for her good looks.

Hervor, her muse, tended to work in a secretarial role. She filtered messages, prevented interruptions if Tyrfing was very deeply engaged in thought and was her first point of call for receiving a second opinion on anything.

Tyrfing loved her dearly.

This message was definitely not one for the discard pile, since it had been sent by Tyrfing. More accurately, it had been sent by her beta-fork (forked off this morning) who was currently mining a comet in space.

Taking a moment to appreciate the view in the snippet of XP embedded in the message, she decided to follow through on her fork's suggestion.

Hervor requested the passenger lists for the shuttle and the scum barge, adding it to the running list of people coming in and out of the habitat that she customarily maintained. It was useful to have the information on hand.

Switching into anonymous mode, Tyrfing dug a little deeper for information on one "Ellen Windsor". Given Hervor's list was probably complete now, she started a pattern matching search on the basic profiles assembled in her private thoughtspace to see if she could identify any possible Firewall candidates.

OOC: Current projects are the Augmented Virtual Presence software I've discussed with PF and improving exploit software.

[rapter200]

Local Time: January 13th, AF 10.
Location: Kupier Belt, Sol System, Inside Fenris Habitat

Damian had arrived at the Fenris Habitat days ago, he abhorred being late and would gladly wait. He generally didn't like to be around others and usually kept to his research but out of the blue one day while waiting for the meeting he decided to set up a stall in the market place selling his miniature sculptures of what he though people throughout history must have looked like. He loved to sculpt, and he decided that he might as well earn some money off of it.

His miniatures were fairly well detailed and made from random pieces of rock he could buy off anyone who for some reason or another had some. He wished for a large slate of marble that he could carve out a master piece from. But sadly he was stuck with what he had. Which wouldn't be much of a problem, if the damn things sold at all. Each and everyday he would come to the same spot and pedaled his wares, but other than a Bush sold here and a Caesar sold there nothing sold. This fact confounded him, he had no competition in the area, its as if no one wanted to purchase something from him. People these days must not appreciate real art.

Today was different though, for it was the day of the meeting. He didn't exactly know when it was but he was told he would be contacted with the information he needed. Today was a day to stay inside and read while waiting for the much needed information. The Wealth of Nations seemed like a good read today. He had already read the book a dozen or so times but he loved it so much that it did not matter. Physical books were a commodity that Damian valued over everything else. Digital books were ok but nothing could beat the feeling of actually flipping through the pages of a real book. Though virtual reality came really close. Then there was also the worth in the books themselves, most information came digitally these days. Digital information is worth very little, he could easily find almost anything he wanted digitally. But a physical book was hard to get, and actually worth something. Especially to collectors like him. The funny thing about this whole situation was that he was an uplifted so very interested in Human history. A history not of his own people but of those who only a few centuries ago would have eaten him, or put him in some viewing area for entertainment.

Humanity was an interesting subject in and of itself, they were so good at killing each other. Years, Decades, Centuries, Millennium filled of war and its consequences. Hell they also destroyed Earth. But such a topic was neither here nor there. While reading Damian started to wonder about a certain topic that had been bugging him. Why did Firewall want him. Damian is a historian and social scientist. Not a fighter. In-fact he would rather run and hide in some dark corner than fight. He would only fight if he was backed into a corner, and even then he wouldn't be all that effective. Hopefully the meeting will clear his head.

[Geminex]

...somit besteht der Unterschied zwischen gewoehnlichen und aussergewoehnlichen Streitkraeften nicht in deren Wesen, sondern in den Entscheidungen und Strategien des Gegners. Streitkraefte werden durch ihre Rolle definiert, und die Rolle einer beliebig strategischen Einheit im Gefecht is stark von der Gegnerischen "Position" abhaengig."

Spectre paused for a while, considering. That was... concise. He'd further refine it later, have it translated, and connect the appropriate thoughts and emotions to it, but what he'd done so far was enough, for now. He paused another few moments, reviewing what he'd worked on so far... and it seemed quite good. 40000 words' worth of strategic discussion, he was pleased that he had managed it in just 8 days. Though, of course, his mental speed implant had helped. He didn't like over-using it, but it let him think and write extremely, extremely quickly. Efficient, that. And he liked efficiency.

He hadn't been here for just 8 days, of course, that was just the total amount real-time he spent on his treatsie on complex strategy. He usually tried to arrive at a location at least 30 days before a meeting (or any operation), if he could; if only for the purposes of stake-out and observation. Probably superfluous now, but he had been trained, and training didn't wear off quickly. He hadn't know when the meeting would take place, but he'd been in a habitat fairly close to the gate when he was first contacted, and he'd managed to call in some favors, for quick transport.

He'd been here for 34, quite uneventful, days. The first four had been primarily spent with stake-out and research operations, scouting out locations and potential escape routes; from then on he had either stayed in a small rented room, working on his discussion, or he'd gone on discreet patrols through the habitat. These had a variety of purposes, partly to further acclimatize himself to the habitat, partly to get a picture of the comings and goings, partly to gather more relevant information, make connections with locals, or, quite simply to investigate the forms of architecture used in this habitat's construction. It was a very utilitarian style, of course, streamlined and made to maximise use while minimizing danger and maintainance. Still, it had been a skilled designer, parts of it were quite elegant. Perhaps he'd do some research on the exact material they used, later. For now, he'd see if there were any new faces in the habitat.

He returned to consciousness, opened his eyes. It wasn't the safest option, but when he did work like this, he preferred not to be distracted by sensory input. And besides, his muse would usually keep a lookout. Speaking of which...

Kerrian. All in order? All in order. You were out for 287 minutes. A barge arrived 142 minutes ago, on schedule. Several passengers were disgorged, their identity is as-of-yet uncertain, doubtful if they'd trust their identities to a passenger list. One is, however, using a morph last used by an Ellen Windsor. Glitterati.

Spectre frowned as he left his room, nodding to a security Synth, controlled by an AGI, who'd done him some favors. Mostly, he'd been allowed to keep his handguns (handing in his rifle for safekeeping and storage), and he'd got some information on the habitat as well. But back to Ellen. From what he (or, rather, the mesh) knew about her, Windsor didn't switch bodies frequently. Thus, it was reasonable to assume that whoever was using that morph, was, in fact, Windsor. And since a colony like this was about as unattractive to Glitterati as you could get (after all, where were the legions of adoring fans to marvel at your every action, however superficial, and where were the icons whose every whim you mimicked?), it was again reasonable to assume that she was here for the same reason as him. Fun times ahead. But perhaps a way to dispose of her efficiently would present itself.

[PhoenixFlame]

The 'doctor' departed the room for a moment, presumably to find Nyx's clothes. Their muses in contact wirelessly, there wasn't any worry about getting the size or type wrong, though scarcity and the class of morph did limit the latter's options beneath her liking. The little girl walked up to the floor-length mirror in the corner of the room, and glanced at her new body. It was a typical twelve year old, blonde with decently long hair, blue eyed female, obvious not biosculpted yet, as it kept all the identifying marks of immaturity.

"Been awhile since I've worn a training bra." Johanna snerked softly to herself, but was abruptly cut off by the sound of a breaking panel.

Another Neotenic crawled out of the broken hole with a too-cheerful cry. Immediately, it ran up to her, wearing a doofy, lost smile. "Ooo another Neo, so rare I find another, so what are you doing here, were you just decanted? Hmm must be new to it, seems you are abit awkward. Never got that, neotenics are so much more economical." It spoke like it's mind was going a mile a minute, much like someone who'd OD'd on Drive, and possibly Klar too.

Like a reflex, Nyx's hand grasped at her side, feeling only her naked flesh where her pistol would have been. Squeezing her eyes shut with a very frustrated growl for a young woman, she managed "I don't have time for this." through clenched teeth. She glares at the little boy while he runs his mouth, and being a perfect storm of naked, embarassed, and very cranky, agaisnt her better judgement, Nyx balls her tiny right fist and swings at him.

Despite the dizziness from integration and the fact that none of the morph's primary systems had come online, years of hand to hand training don't simply vanish. With a fleshy "crack!", she connects with Henric's face, leaving a red welt on his right cheek.

"What the hell is your problem? Don't you have any decency?"

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(65 +5 (Morph) -10 (Integration) rolled agaisnt 60, roll was 54.)
(Aerozord's target fray is 65, but rolled 90, failing.)
(Damage is 1d10+2, rolling 3, for 5 damage.)

((Soon as this is resolved, we can have the meeting.))

[Aerozord]

As usual Henric completely missunderstands the situation and is hit flat on his face by her tiny fists. Doing a tumbling roll he stands back up and laughs it off. "Sorry about that, I forgot there are some people that are touchy about the whole nudity thing." Dusting himself off. "Not something I really get to be honest but I hate causing problems". Turning around he faces the other way so she is out of view. "Still its a nice morph, just adm-" at that moment his muse chimes in on why it would be a bad idea to finish that sentence.

"Anyways, I'm Henric, please accept my appology and allow me to make it up to you. Probably not too interested in even talking to me, but where I come from a man makes retribution for his mistakes. So if I can lend you a hand with something let me know" He takes the whole thing in stride. Despite the pain in his cheek he is ignoring. Last thing he needs is another enemy

[PhoenixFlame]

Fortunately the boy, Henric's, expression clears and he begins resuming lucid speech. Realizing that he was probably not drugged, Nyx's expression softens, and she rubs her fist and the mild stinging sensation, not certain she'd just hit him as hard as she had. "No, it's alright... I just get a little cranky after resleeving, that's all. l'buy you a drink later, excuse me."

Maybe Mel was right. Privacy or space wasn't exactly the most common thing in an orbital hab anymore, or had ever been, and perhaps she was too old fashioned. It was a cute body, after all. The girl exited the room via the same hatch her decanter had taken, only to run into the synthetic doctor halfway through and barely avoid colliding with it. Within a minute, she'd donned the new smartmaterial tunic /w emergency vacsuit, and modified it to appear as a businesslike charcoal longcoat with few identifying markings.

How very mobsterish. Ah, how she longed for the days of dress uniforms.

"And sidearm." Mel finished, holding out a compact, ergonomic folding pistol by its barrel, insomuch as it could be construed as a barrel, being a weapon that hardly looked like anything found further in-system.

"You don't think they'll come armed, do you?" Nyx raised her eyebrow, tenatively reaching for the handle of the weapon and taking it into her small hands. Unconciously she flipped the slide open, ensuring the smartlinked weapon was safe the old fashioned way. Trusting computers had never been a strong suit. "What's the load?"

"Fun."

"That bad, eh?"

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Location: Universal Room 3.
AR Settings: 23rd century Boardroom.

The room was a long, rectangular affair, the floor slightly bowed with the curve of the concentric habitat, but otherwise familiar to those who'd lived back home. Lighting was pristine, and the 'windows' displayed a holographically simulated commercial skyline. Only the lack of music gave any forboding air to the place. Nyx stood alone at the end of the rectangular meeting table, setting down a folder of eyes-only hardcopy data, dossiers on her new prospective sentinels, on the chair where she would sit.

"Well, that's setup. Morrigan, ping the new recruits, and order us some refreshments... Water, cookies... Make em feel at home."

["Chocolate chip, I assume?"] Morrigan always asked her if she wanted chocolate chip cookies, because they were her favorite.

"That'll be marvelous."

["Define identification sign."]

"Afternoon. Countersign is 'Midnight'."

["Confirmed. Sending now."]

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

((Message recieved.))

From: Nightengale@AllSeeingI
"Congratulations on your acceptance to our organization. As part of an optional protocol, you will be interviewed by your assigned contact at Fenris Station Universal Room 3, at 0800 hours today. Upon arriving, you will be greeted by a blonde neotenic, whom will greet you with 'Afternoon'. You will respond 'Midnight'."

"Failure to respond properly will cause you to miss your interview. We hope to see you shortly!"

[Overcast]

["We have message bro. Meeting is at 0800, Fenris Station Universal Room 3. Seems their going all spy talk on us, when you get there you'll see a little blond chick, neo. She says "afternoon", your line is "midnight", fuck up and we miss out on all the cool shit we'd get with them."]

He was sucking down some kind of noodle, so he wouldn't respond out loud. Really it was a bad habit responding out loud, but he couldn't help it. He liked actually talking when it came down to it. It was nostalgia, a little weak point for him. He blamed it on his age, some things just got lost in the blastwave of progress,

"Alrighty, how are we looking on time then?"

["Finish your food, we should be just fine getting there on time. Still want to leave off fifteen minutes early right?"]

"Yep, hand me the alert when it comes around."

Soon enough he finished his food, did a little labor to pay for it. A little kindness here and there. Out here you couldn't pay for much, even his credits were mostly just an excuse, they usually had to come with a story of how he'd helped out a bigger picture that actually mattered to them. Reputation was everything, even that short term kind.

He made his way off, step by step. He was letting himself get a little lost, he had the time to. He'd been told he had a childlike wonder, he wasn't shamed by it, it had helped him through the ages. Without it he might have gotten bored like so many others, instead he could still find pleasure in these simple seconds. Life was good. Immortality might be better.

His arrival was slow, his timing almost uncanny to the time he was supposed to arrive. Punctuality was something he was unusually good at, he had no concept of fashionably late. He saw the blond who spoke her line just as she should, he didn't disappoint,

"Midnight. Daniel-forgotten surname. Might get that rectified someday. Glad to meet you Nightengale."

He hadn't gotten her proper name yet, so he went by the screen name he had gotten used to recently. He was given a proper name to speak of, and remedied to call her Nyx from then on. He spoke on the classic build of the room, small talk was easier when you shared interests. He helped himself to some cookies, and got a little look on the group he'd be working with...

[krogothwolf]

Desmond was getting bored, impatient and starting to get a little distracted by things. If things didn’t pick up soon he was sure he’d go crazy. He looked around the area he was in and realized he had been by here before.

“Am I walking in circles?”

[“No Dez, you’ve just been walking for the last little while that you’ve lost track of time, I told you to settle down.”] Larson replied.

“Oh.” He kept walking, ignoring most of the area as he kept on his task of taking time away while wandering. A couple more minutes passed before Larson interrupted him.

[“Dez, just received notice. 08:00 is the meeting, Fenris Station Universal Room 3. The contacts a blonde neo and is going to greet you with Afternoon, you reply midnight. If you don’t you’re going to be out looking for yet another job so don’t mess up. When you get like this it is very aggravating.”]

“Well” Desmond said as he started grinning, “It’s about freaking time, let’s go now then.”

He was eager to get things going, eager to get ready for this job. He enjoyed the idea of something completely knew, plus it should give him a chance to finally get rich. Though he harboured no delusions on that after how his last few jobs had gone, but you never knew. He check to make sure he still had his gear on him before heading off. He arrived at the room a few minutes and entered.

“Afternoon.” The blonde neotenic greeted him.

“Midnight” Desmond said as he nodded to her, “Name’s Desmond, though called Dez for short. Nice to meet you”

He then sat down and grabbed a handful of chocolate chip cookies to munch on as well as a glass of water. Didn’t normally drank water but he took what he could get. He waited patiently as he could, though he kept quietly tapping his foot every now and then, for her to get down to business.

[rapter200]

Damian was entranced in the book he was reading when an annoying sound brought him back to reality... that damn muse.

[“ Notification received, get your head out of that book. Our contact just contacted us. Redundant I know. Here let me read it to you. "Congratulations on your acceptance to our organization. As part of an optional protocol, you will be interviewed by your assigned contact at Fenris Station Universal Room 3, at 0800 hours today. Upon arriving, you will be greeted by a blonde neotenic, whom will greet you with 'Afternoon'. You will respond 'Midnight'.""Failure to respond properly will cause you to miss your interview. We hope to see you shortly!" Sounds like some real black ops shit. Now get your tentacles moving, don't want to be late do you.”]

Damian hated his muse but it was too damn important to get rid of. Maybe he would replace it one day. With that thought in mind he got off his bed and started moving toward the contact area. Fenris Station Universal Room 3 was that far away and he got there in just a few minutes. There were two others already here and the blonde Neo. “Afternoon.” The blonde neotenic greeted him. “Midnight” Damian replied.

“My name is Damian, it is nice to finally meet you.”

Damian then quickly sat down in a seat, and watched what the others were doing. He seemed really out of place, what with a being an uplifted and all. He soon decided to greet the others currently in the room. “Hello, uh well I guess you two know my name so I guess I should get to know yours.” He was never all that good with talking to others especially non uplifted. He never knew how they would react to him.

[Krylo]

The glamorous market district of Fenris station was anything, with the entire station housing a mere 5000 souls, and most of them intent upon keeping the station running but; however, it still gave Lind something to do while waiting for contact from his proxy. As well as a chance to socialize with the people of the station, and see the social climate of the station. Of course, as luck would have it, his own scum barge being docked left the market much busier than usual as his own ship mates had set up shops, or danced and sang in the street of the district.

This made things much more lively than they would normally be, but made finding authentic fenris station regalia a bit more difficult. Though he did manage to trade a copy of the vidgame he was playing to a neoavian musician who did some wonderful things with his own, unsurprisingly, birdlike voice. The bird was pleasant enough and even made a small joke about how it was ten years after the apocalypse and people were still killing nazis in video games.

Lind figured he must've been rather old--probably not even a true uplift, but he was still smiling when Riza's voice came through in his head.

["Lind, you have a message. It appears to be from your proxy, shall I summari..."]

'No thanks, Riza,' came Lind's reply as he popped open the letter and read it almost instantly.

-------
Lind was fidgeting with a fold in his smart suit as he approached the blonde neotenic, obviously a bit twitchy as he approached her. His ADHD always got a bit worse when he became nervous, and Lind had never actually had to interview for a job before. Things were so much more... relaxed on scumbarges after all.

"Afternoon," the small girl greeted him as he entered the room with a calmness that Lind couldn't quite match. Or match at all really.

"Um... Midnight?" he asked as he reached up to scratch his face, "Um, yeah midnight was it, right? Right. Of course it was. It's right here, I still have it. You must be our proxy? I was going to track the ping back here on my way over and check your name and maybe some other information but I thought that might be rude. Then again, maybe it would have been a good test for my skills? But you shouldn't need a test right? I mean you called me so you must already think I'm good, I guess? I am good right? I mean, I guess I'm good. People say I'm good... hey, is that a neotenic? I wasn't really expecting one, I mean I guess they're economical right? But I would have figured on something like an exalt or maybe a ghost. Ghost seems fitting for the job, I think, but I don't really know what the job is. Do you actually do the job, or do you just tell us to do the job?" he rambled on jumping from one subject to another at a mile a minute before looking over to the table in the room with the cookies and three other operatives whom had arrived before him.

"Oh hey, cookies!" he suddenly blurted out as he walked into the room to grab a couple, "Chocolate chip. You know they always say 'just like mom used to make' but I'm too young to really remember anything like that. Did mothers actually bake cookies that often? Mostly I just eat pre-fabbed foods, I wonder if foods taste different baked by hand?" Lind asked just before shoving a cookie into his mouth bringing a blissful respite from his questions, though he still fidgeted about a bit in the chair.

[Aerozord]

Henric was resting in one of the station crawl spaces. Atleast what he called resting. Really he was carefully accessing structural designs of the habitat and seeing how to space the fork of a slave trader he kil... that had an unfortunate accident while his back up was coincidently erased. Slavers are like cockroaches, no matter how many you kill one always slips throught the cracks. Cassandra chimes in "incoming message".

"Of course, but I still haven't figured out-"

"its from, them"

Henric sighed. "Right right, greater good" reading the message. While he enjoyed doing everything he could to curb AGI slave trading he knew he was mostly just being spiteful. hell this fork hadn't done anything since he was split off, apparently just meant to be a walking back up. In the end he knew that if it was Firewall, more then the fate of some infomorphs were in danger.

He began making his way through the shafts and suddenly stopped. "Ooo next time he uses a transport maybe"

"Time is now 7:43"

"Oh yea, the meeting". Most muses were on the passive side. But Henric intentionally made it so that Cassandra ran slightly contrary to his desires. Knowing it wasn't too hard for something to slip his mind he made sure someone kept him on track. Besides growing up as an AGI he's spent enough time with his own thoughts. Doesn't need someone pointing out what he wants, he needs another point of view.


Henric made it only a few minutes early, a big smile growing on his face as he spotted the neotic, once the call word "afternoon" was uttered he replied with "midnight", in a clearly unnatural way. Laughing abit as he walked in "wow honestly did not expect this". Not sure how to feel after meeting the fellow Neotenic

[Dracorion]

Despite the fact that she hadn't been wandering for very long, Ellen was annoyed. Her irritation with Firewall had subsided, but now she was annoyed with Fenris Station itself and it's lack of anything at all interesting. And even though there was nothing going on, she had been unable to find her proxy!

She was thinking about giving up and going to look for the items she needed for her bodyguards instead. The Station was mostly populated by Synths and Informorphs, so getting what she wanted shouldn't be that hard. Just then, Butler piped up.

["You have a message, Mistress."]
"My contact?"
["Indeed. Nightengale@AllSeeingI is the sender. The address belongs to your proxy. Shall I summarize it for you?"]
"No, read it."
["Congratulations on your acceptance to our organization. As part of an optional protocol, you will be interviewed by your assigned contact at Fenris Station Universal Room 3, at 0800 hours today. Upon arriving, you will be greeted by a blonde neotenic, whom will greet you with 'Afternoon'. You will respond 'Midnight'."]
["Failure to respond properly will cause you to miss your interview. We hope to see you shortly!"]
"Congratulations? As if being a low-grade mook is actually a good thing." Ellen remarked.
["It is 7:43, Mistress. Would you like me to direct you toward the meeting room?"]
"Yes. And while you're at it, find out if there's a Ghostrider Module and a Security AI we can acquire around here."
["Are you aware that credits are not very valuable this far out system, and that services are the usual form of cur-"]
"Yes." Ellen snapped. "You told me that."
["My apologies, Mistress."]
"Now take me to the meeting room."

Eighteen minutes later, Ellen walked into Universal Room 3. The blonde Neotenic girl greeted with with "Afternoon", to which she replied "Midnight". She took a moment to glance at the other people in the room and took a seat. Even sitting, Ellen's tail would still sway side to side. As much as Ellen would hate socializing with rabble like the people sitting across from her, she decided she would have to get to know then and determine what usefulness they would have. "So, you're all sentinels too?" She asked kindly. "Nice to meet you, I'm Ellen."

[Geminex]

That makes... 4? Kerrigan, your estimate?
Likely 4, possibly 3-7.

Spectre had received the message halfway through a yet another of his patrols. It was good to recieve it, further time spent here would offer little more stimulation of any kind and be of little value. But rushing into meetings organized by an unknown body, possibly not even an ally, that was unlikely to yield a good result. He'd spent 34 days on stake-out already, it would be of little further significance to spend another half hour waiting to see who else would attend. It didn't seem necessary, but at worst he'd gain nothing but an idea of whom he'd be meeting, and at best the time spent here would save his life.

So here he was, close to the entrance of universal room 3. Not close enough to actually see anyone enter, but close enough to see who seemed to be heading there. That, coupled with Kerrigan's ability to filter out new faces (i.e. those morphs whom he hadn't come across yet) gave him an idea of who'd be there. Standard procedures, but effective. Of course, time was getting short, and belatedness would also be counter-productive.

3-7... that's sufficient precision for now. None of them seemed heavily armed or inclined to threaten us. Location's likely safe, if not secure.
Agreed. Let us approach.

Approach Spectre did, though slowly. The walls of the habitat were difficult to penetrate with x or t-rays, and, while he heard voices from within the room, he found it difficult to distinguish between them, evaluate how many potential targets were present. He stopped next to the doorway, paused for a second, considered activating mental speed, decided against it, though. He did make sure that his pistols were at ready, but rail slides were usually reliable.

Spectre entered at just past 8, scanned the room for possible enemies, found nobody aiming their weapons at him.

"Midnight." he responded to the blond Neotenic. "Introduction... I am designated Spectre 3. Demolitions specialist, infiltrator, sniper. But you're with allseeingI, you know that already. I didn't ntoice you arrive on-habitat... I take it you egocast."

[Arhra]

The meeting started in one minute.

Tyrfing acknowledged Hervor's reminder, mentally shelved her work with a dump of her thoughts to pick it back up from where she'd left off and then relocated instantly to the hallway outside the room it was to be held in. A creepy rounded the corner and skittered down the hall, moving like a bizarre hybrid of ferret and snake, en route to meet up with its mistress.

Tyrfing told the door her business and it opened for her.

She walked through.

None of this was necessary. What walked through the door was merely an entoptic image streamed into the local mesh of everyone in the room as part of the consensual hallucination that was Augmented Reality. But there were people who considered it rude to damage the visual continuity of others by having imaginary things materialise in plain sight.

Tyrfing had decided to play it safe and pretend to be real. Everyone would know she wasn't, but there were niceties to follow. Thus, her bare feet touched the ground, just like a real girl's would do, and her self image generally obeyed the whims of gravity and air currents.

Her outfit was still blatantly impossible though, barring a swarm of oddly shaped and carefully programmed flying drones.

The single creepy at her feet gambolled along like it normally did because no-one cared whether it was real or not.

"Afternoon." the blond neotenic girl (morph hired out this morning) at the head of the table said.

"Midnight." Tyrfing replied with the countersign. "I'm pleased to meet you all." she said, nodding her head at the table at large. "I am known as Tyrfing."

In another feat of digital trickery, the infomorph pulled a chair out from the table and sat down.

"I am," she paused briefly to pick a description that would avoid an exhaustive list, "a maker, a maintainer and a finder of things."

[Overcast]

He put a cookie into his mouth and chewed slowly as he began a point by point analysis of all the other Sentinel hopefuls as they arrived.

Point A, Desmond, relatively muscular and a mug made for radio. A fairly unique thing in this day and age where getting yourself to at least reasonably handsome was a pittance. It said something about his character, as did the sword. He might just take pride in his ugliness. A grand thing. He might just like him. Though he assumed he might have to save his ass from time to time if the blade was his only weapon.

Point B, Damian, squidman. If he knew him better he would refer to him as such all the time, for now though it would remain just a moniker in his head...he was an octi anyway. Seemed a bit nervous being around non-tentacled fellows, which meant he was probably an uplift from birth. Strange psychologies, but not bad folks. He seemed mostly harmless, just a little stiff.

Point C, crazy eddie. That was what he was getting from him, the man seemed completely unable to slow himself down, and he wasn't sure if he was ADHD or if he just had a bad case of motormouth and left it on autopilot as his nerves seized up. At least until the cookie moment, after that he was pretty sure it was ADHD. If he had heard right about his skills and how they might apply to trying to dig up background info on a proxy he would be their tech guy. Twichy tech guy, he might be one hell of a hoot to have around, he did find something adorable in excitable fellows. He'd be sure to ask his name, because crazy eddie was just rude.

Point D, stumble-on-neo. He was giving off an atmosphere of showing up by accident and not exactly one of someone who was signing up for a job where regular morphic death was a possibility. Not to say everyone else was caught up in serious business, but he just seemed one notch more...naive to what he was getting into. Then again that could just be the neo morph talking, he was sure once he actually found out what he was giving to the team he'd be able to take him seriously.

Point E, Ellen, strike polar opposite with point A. Face made for an early 21st century magazine cover, and not much in the way of self defense as he could gather. If he had to guess he would give her the face position, just because out of everyone around she seemed the most occupied with her appearance. This was all just assumptions though, for all he knew she had the personality of a wet towel, but she seemed kind enough to start with, he just hoped it lasted.

Point F, Spectre 3, stoic. Either this one had a bad childhood, was a special kind of AGI, had a dampener on, or had a little psychosurgery done. His name gave small evidence to a few of those wild guesses. He had the eyes of someone who was trying to weigh the defensibility of the current location and he had a skill set not unlike an old school US inspired terrorist. He'd be useful, of this Daniel was sure, but he would like to know his motivations so he could see the doublecross coming.

Point G, Tyrfing, infomorphic. She broadcast herself through the mesh and into the room, with perhaps an unusual amount of effort making the scene look genuine. It was touching in a way that she would want to appear so properly rather than just being here in spirit. She sold herself off as a maker of things, which was useful enough because he was sure there had been more than one time he was in need of something, but had no means of getting it. These stories usually ended with him hibernating in the vacuum of space with his emergency signal blaring until a ship picked him up. He liked knowing he wouldn't have to use that old anticlimax so often in the future.

And so this was it, the team, he figured it was good manners to properly introduce himself,

"Daniel, wayward mercenary and relatively well known Slammer under the pen name STAIN. I shoot well, paint well, and have been told that I'm absurdly difficult to get rid of. Hence the pen name. I'm looking forward to whatever madness that this job is going to bring."

[Dracorion]

Ellen took a moment to size up her new, ah... teammates. She gave the slightest grimace when she caught sight of the guy carrying the sword that had the ugliest mug ever, but she quickly composed herself. She needed more information about these people to determine their usefulness.

She put up a kind smile and addressed Daniel. "That's very impressive. I'm sure your knack for staying alive will be very useful to us."

"As I told you all, I'm Ellen. Ellen Windsor. I'm a negotiator, and something of a performer as well. I like to think that I'm not as shallow as other people with my background. My father died during the Fall, and I joined Firewall to help transhumanity, pure and simple. I... wish I had more to offer for that purpose, but if we stick together I'm sure we can handle anything that comes at us."

"Well, that's me. What about the rest of you?" Ellen felt rather pleased with himself. Being so forthcoming and open was sure to earn her these people's trust.

[PhoenixFlame]

Nyx shook everyone's hand, met them with a smile, and let them get situated. The team seemed everything she'd come to expect from their dossiers, but the eccentricity tugged at the hairs on the back of her neck. Then again, this was normal in this day and age, but her expectations had been slow to change. The young neotenic didn't say much as everyone filed in, unwilling to repeat introductions that didn't require it. She slowly made her way towards the head of the table, near the faux holographic 'whiteboard', and gave the edge of the table one last, nervous caress with her new morph's finger before collecting herself.

"Lights."

They dimmed. The word carried with a sense of gentle, serious authority, unwarned of and demanding attention. The young neotenic hopped up in her chair, and took a seat, leaning over the table with her arms folded.

"Welcome, everyone. I understand you've all made sacrifices and concessions to be here today, and I thank you. You've trusted us with a lot of your lives already, so I'm going to trust you with mine now. I'll try to hit everyone's questions as quickly as possible."

An old holograph of a paper-and-ink dossier popped up onscreen, with a mid-30s portrait of a brunette, a flat judging from the mild scarring and coloration.

"Radtsford, Johanna, A. Colonel, United States Air Force, killed my first 'alien' at twenty-four, been with Firewall ever since. For those of you who're from the states, ooh-rah. For everyone else, sorry for breaking our planet. I'm your proxy, your coordinator, your guardian angel and your merciful reaper when some TITAN bastard scrambles your brain beyond recognition."

The screen changes to a picture of earth, as it was before the fall. An old "Total Information Tactical Awareness Network: Brought to you by Paradigm Dynamics" logo is present in the top right of the field.

"Pay attention, because I'm not going to say this twice. We're Firewall. We are a multi-national, multi-factional conspiratorial paramilitary group self-tasked with the location, determination and neutralization of existential threats to mankind as a whole. I'd ask if anyone here knew what an existential threat was, but if you didnt, you've probably already looked it up. Nukes, Nanoplagues, Worms, TITANs, Factors, ETs and Unknowns are all out there ready to wipe our little pathetic asses right out of the stars." She punctuated the last word by drumming her fist on the table, and the picture changes to a post-fall apocalyptic orbital photo.

The previously friendly neotenic's eyes narrow to points as she glares from seat to seat, making eye contact with everyone in the room.

"Some of those aren't very far from here, out in the Kupier belt. I need to know if you're all up to task. Any questions?"

[krogothwolf]

Desmond listen to everyone talk and figured he might want to introduce themselves and figured he should do the same.

"Names Desmond, or Dez for short, I joined because I felt a need for change and figured I might be able to get rich trying, or at least it'll keep me excited. I also like to break things, people usually." He grinned big when he said that, "I also duel enough to know a thing or two on how to use this."

He then quieted down as Johanna started to talk and explain the situation they were getting into. Should be an exciting job to say the least. He hoped everyone could hold their own if shit hit the fan, but wasn't sure if that was possible from the looks of things. He shrugged that off though and thought of a few things to ask. He scratched his chin as he stared at earth. A longing to head their and explore the place filled him but with he shook it off.

"Just a few things Colonel." He said with a nod, "Curious to know what our mode of transportation for this will be and how much leeway we have with dealing with things when given a mission. Do we have to follow it by a specific path or are we allowed to improvise and utilize any special talents we may posses. Also, if we need to get our weapons into a habitat or station that normall frowns on that, to deal with something, is there a way for that? Not sure I can handle everything with what I can get through normally."

He couldn't really think of much else to ask, he knew others would have more helpful questions.

[Overcast]

Their Proxy presented herself with a degree of professionalism he found a good deal of respect for. It was organized and precise to a degree that he found proper to anyone who was going to guide his hand. Her introduction was small, showing her age above the little neo, when she called out the little battle cry he unconsciously let out a little,

"Hoo-yah."

Before listening on. It wasn't so disruptive, just responsive. The summary was engaging, and really gave you a feel of what you were getting into. It excited him, like a prologue to his next great journey. In his mind dramatic music played, and in his eyes flashed a thousand little dreamscapes. He had to be falling into mania, because he was losing control of his grin. He'd have to watch himself, bad decisions tended to follow him around when he was up like this,

"When can we start?"

Impatience was one part of the mentality, a bit like hyperactivity but more like anticipation. You are amped up about the whole universe and your genius needs a milking so all your ideas can stain the sheets of reality. He had a desire to fire his gun, but was not yet stupid enough to pull it out. Desmond's questions gave him a sharp ping of reality so he could get a better grip on where he was again. He pulled himself together and tried to be normal,

"I have a preference when it comes to morphs and I can assume that while we may be able to take physical transport here in the belt that eventually we will have to egocast. How readily can Firewall cater to such preferences?"

There that was a constructive question, down to earth. Down to earth. Two centuries and wild advances in technology and bipolar still crops up. Madness.

[Dracorion]

Ellen stared intently at the picture on the screen. Earth. There it was, the place it was rumored the TITANs left a Pandora Gate. If- when transhumanity died, despite Firewall's best futile efforts, from any of the threats the girl listed, the Factors, the TITANs, nanoplagues or, most likely, themselves, it was the Earth Gate that would be Ellen's way off the sinking ship. She could gain access to any of the other Gates, of course, but that would mean debasing herself in ways she would not accept.

No... Earth was what she wanted. And if she could clean up the little toys the TITANs left there, all the better. Earth was what everyone wanted, and she would take it for herself, and use it as she pleased. People would come to inhabit her planet, and she would lord over them forever, or until transhumanity took it's last breath.

It wasn't going to be easy, not by a long shot. She currently had no idea how to locate the Pandora Gate, much less how to restore Earth, but she knew Firewall was the place to start. Their resources and anonymity would be indispensable to her. But for Earth... she would do anything. Even socialize and befriend those who were below her. They were tools. Tools to be used and discarded as soon as their purpose was served.

["Mistress, are you making an ominous resolution again?"]

Butler's question snapped Ellen out of her trance. She concentrated again on the room, the dialogue and the people around her. Yes, I have in fact.

"I must admit, I share the same concerns as Daniel. I too have some preferences when it comes to morphs. But before all that, I want you to know I'm ready, Colonel. And I'd like to know what our first mission entails."

[Geminex]

Kerrigan. Background checks on all squadmates.
Aknowleged.

Spectre looked at each individual at the table in turn, considering. What were they to be? A squad? The neotenic had described Firewall as "paramilitary", so they'd likely be something of the sort. But Spectre had fought in squads, and the composition of this one did not seem optimal in any way. There were few clearly defined roles, and when an individual did seem to accept a role, he had no guarantee that they would be competent, or synergise with the rest of the team. And in addition to that was wealth of personality that each member brought with them. Personality, individuality, they would prevent success. Or, at the very least, hinder it hugely. That much was certain. And that Socialite was worst.
Kerrigan, prioritise background checks on Windsor.
Aknowleged.
But he had a purpose here, social problems could be dealt with, the squad could be rearranged later. Questions came first.

"It seems that our queries can be summarised under two groups." He began in a curiously toneless voice. "The first being questions regarding the details of our coming deployment, the second being questions regarding the status of our employment. The second category is of most interest to me. What will be required of us? What range of missions will we be employed in? What resources will be put at our disposal to most effectively complete these missions? Forgive me for asking also, but how will we be reimbursed? Simple access to Firewall's resources through Rep?
I also have some interest in the primary group: What details can you give us on our coming mission? Transport? Objectives? Possible dangers?"

-----

And Kerrigan's making a research check on Ellen Windsor and her morph.

[Krylo]

Lind washed down his cookie with a large gulp of water, leaving the nervous hyperactive, unfortunately, quite capable of speech once more.

"I don't really have any questions, Johanna," he started, shifting his chair to look at her while absentmindedly drumming his fingers on his leg, "Can we call you Johanna? Or should it be Ms. Radtford? Your rank? Rank seems odd. You aren't in the military anymore right? I mean the military doesn't really exist any more. Just private contractors like Medusan Shield. Unless Firewall gives ranks like Colonel and Captain too. Does firewall give ranks? Oh, can I be a captain. Captain Lind, I like the sound of that," he babbled out as he reached for another cookie, taking a much smaller bite of it it.

"Mmmph deshe cookiesh are delishus," he said through bits of cookie, "Did you fab them yourself? Do you still have the program? Could I have a copy? They're really good... oh or did you just get them from someplace else? I wonder what they'd want to barter for it. I guess I don't really have my own CM, and it'll be a bit before I can get back to the barge probably with them traveling about the system and all... unless we're staying here on Fenris and the mission will be short... will the mission be short?"

[Lind...]

Lind blinked twice as his muse carefully drew his attention to his rambling, and then his cheeks reddened just slightly, "Umm... Sorry I've been a bit... um... twitchy since the fall. It gets worse when I'm nervous... or not doing anything, but I'm doing things, so it's the nervousness right now and I guess I'm pretty much just babbling and I'm sorry I'll shut up now."

He quickly shoved the rest of his cookie into his mouth and took a very sudden interest in the ripples in his glass of water, attempting to calculate the exact forces at work on them.

[Arhra]

It had not gone unnoticed by Tyrfing that she was the only non-biomorph in the room. Unless the creepy counted.

Clearly, it did not.

From her private storage, Tyrfing plucked the others' basic, public records out of the dozens of Firewall candidates her search before the meeting had turned up. She had discovered 'people who look suspicious' was not a good search criterion for narrowing down the traffic in and out of the habitat.

She began adding her own notes, applying her medical diagnostics to some of the telltales that she could spot with the creepy's sensors and the spimes scattered through the room.

Daniel considered himself hard to kill. The reasons behind that were definitely worthy of investigation. His other reactions suggested a thrill-seeker mentality.

There were minor discrepancies between Ellen's speech and some of her actions, but Tyrfing did not have enough information to speculate why at this point.

So far Desmond's motives seemed fickle.

Spectre 3 defintely showed traces of extensive behavioural modification.

Lind was extremely ill at ease, running off his mouth to compensate. This was in turn making him more embarrased, causing a nasty feedback loop to develop.

As a result of being one of the last people to arrive, Tyrfing hadn't yet seen much from the other Sentinel candidates. Perhaps she should have tried to be early for this meeting.

On one Johanna Radtsford, she definitely was still heavily influenced by her time in the Air Force. Tyrfing resolved to modulate her own behaviour accordingly.

With a mild feeling of disbelief, Tyrfing found many of the opening questions involved morph preferences and reimbursement. It seemed an odd way to start.

"You have nothing to apologise about." Tyrfing told Lind with a smile, hoping to put him more at ease.

"Up to task." Tyrfing said, echoing Johanna's last lines. "I fear more information is needed on the nature of the task before I could come to a definitive answer. If there is an existential threat in the Kuiper Belt, it can't be an immediate one, or else existing forces would have been mobilised instead. For this reason, I would also like to ask about expected time frames."

"Relatedly, I could not help but notice you listed Factors and extraterrestials as existential threats." Tyrfing commented mildly.

[rapter200]

Damian sat in his seat quietly letting everyone else talked after he said hello. He didn't really know what to say to these people.

They may be his future team members but he just didn't get a good vibe from a few of them. Specifically this Ellen character, there was just something off about her.

When it came time for questions he didn't really have any questions to ask because any that he had were being asked by everyone else.

Earth, the former home of his people and well everyone else here. But it was their fault that it was a desolate wasteland no one could live on now.

Damian held a small grudge against humanity when it cam to the subject of Earth, the place they called since the beginning. Where all their history took place and then they blew it all to hell.

Irresponsible jackasses.

[PhoenixFlame]

"When can we start?"

"Immediately."

"I must admit, I share the same concerns as Daniel. I too have some preferences when it comes to morphs. But before all that, I want you to know I'm ready, Colonel. And I'd like to know what our first mission entails."

Ah, Windsor... The socialite was quick to do what they did, and repeat questions. Best placate the media whenever possible, despite the annoying tendancy they had to mess up everything.

"Your preferences are well documented, and we'll deal with them as best as possible when that time comes. Most sentinel groups are deployed locally to keep farcasting to a minimum, though I apologise we had to pull some of you from so far away. On that note, I'd like you to stay at least nominally together... Please." Nyx carefully tried to put this in as calm a manner as she could, but could already feel the tensions between some of them cropping up. "Who knows? You might even learn to like each other."

Spectre's question was mostly ignorable, seeing as it would either get resolved in the briefing, or was evidence that he wasn't paying attention. The most pertinent point that caught her ear however, was the part on reimbursement. This guy had a unique air about him, much like some of the more independant military 'contractors' cropping up in the outer rim these days. Nyx calmly opened the folder in front of her and pretended to peer at the files within.

"Rep, yes, in addition to the most reliable backup insurance you can't buy. More importantly, some of you have some serious problems. Spectre, you in particular seem to have a lot of people wanting to kill you. Windsor and Tyrfing on the other hand, both scored questionably on your last month's psychological examinations."

She looked up with a calm, emotionless gaze at the expected startled expressions. "When was the last time any of you had corrective psychosurgery? ... Spectre-3 NOT included. These are not scores I am accustomed to seeing."

Then, she smiled happily at Lind. "The cookies are classified. Call me Nyx, and we'll see if I can find you a set of captain's bars."

"So... Ready for your briefing?"

[Overcast]

The bit about psychological evaluations amused him to a degree. He could still feel the tingling of his own mental dysfunction messing about his ego from time to time, his only saving grace was his own personal defenses he had built up years ago. He was told he was quite unshakable, and perhaps this was true. Though it had taken years of fighting the shifting tides of bipolar and his own mind numbing fear of death to build it. It took many years, and to be honest it still wasn't perfect. Though good enough to pass a psyche eval. He perked up again when she asked if they would like their briefing,

"Absolutely."

Daniel answered. He ought still be examining the team he would have to work with, but it was beyond him right now. He didn't really care what sort of people they were as long as they got the job done, beyond that they didn't matter much at all. Except Lind of course, but that was just because he had caught Daniel's enhanced eyes to a degree. He was a bit more amused by him asking to be Captain than perhaps Nyx was, it was one of those awful things that the Navy that made them different. A Captain would be about Nyx's rank if he could remember right. He'd enjoy seeing him with a bird on his lapel.

MIND POINT GET.

He was getting sidetracked again. His willpower screaming out for him to pay attention because he had just requisitioned from their leader that she brief them right now. Matters of information were always important, often the difference between glorious success and radical failure. And to be honest his universe was the kind that tended to only choose between those two extremes.

[Dracorion]

"On that note, I'd like you to stay at least nominally together... Please. Who knows? You might even learn to like each other."

"I'm sure we will, Colonel." Ellen replied confidently.

Ellen was rather alarmed when Nyx drew attention to her psych evaluation. "That's... interesting. I've never had any problems that needed psychosurgery. Could you elaborate on our scores, please?"

Ellen smiled kindly at Lind. "You've nothing to be sorry about. The Fall affected us all deeply. I've been different since the Fall as well." She said softly. It was true, she had changed after the Fall. She was no longer content with living a hedonistic socialite life. She became ambitious. She started worrying more and more about her appearance and actions being perfect, which she soon found out to be OCD. She didn't mind though; there was nothing wrong with striving to achieve perfection. It was around the same time that she discovered her... abilities. She could read people's body language better than most. With a touch, she could instantly make herself to seem more persuasive and likable, plant messages in peoples' minds that they would think were their own ideas, and perhaps most alarming of all, she could actually read their minds and take information she wanted.

Unfortunately, unlike her other abilities, the subjects were aware of their minds being invaded when she used the last one, so she didn't use it very often. And when she did, she had to make sure to plant an idea into a disgruntled employee to kill the person she had taken information from and to destroy their cortical stacks.

She had often wondered if there was a connection between the changes to her personality and her abilities, but she had no way of making sure. However, with Firewall's resources, she may be able to find out.

"So... Ready for your briefing?"

"By all means, go ahead Colonel."

[krogothwolf]

Desmond was a little sad his questions got ignored. He really wanted to know those things. Oh well, he figured he'd find out that information later. He again looked at the team, hoping each could hold their own. Looks could be deceiving after all. That Lind guy was quite a character, he was fairly sure if he got going you probably could never actually shut him up.

Well, he would learn more about his team mates in time. They may not seem like a solid bunch but that just meant they probably had wide range of skills to call up on. He would have to be observant around them so he didn't seem to rude, he had a habit of being rude to people he just met so he would need patience if he was going to be stuck with the team for a while.

"When was the last time any of you had corrective psychosurgery? ... Spectre-3 NOT included. These are not scores I am accustomed to seeing."

"Never thought it was needed. To be honest it didn't seem to be necessary for myself" He said slightly quietly. He thought it was funny about that and the test scores. He stroked his chin again, before nodding to Nyx.

"So... Ready for your briefing?"

"Ready and anxious Colonel."

[PhoenixFlame]

"Well, alright." Nyx folded her documents back up, and gave a brief smile. "On to the fun part, then. As I mentioned, our organization tasks itself with locating, determining, and eliminating existential threats. It works in about that order. As much as you and I might wish we could eliminate threats before we knew about them, sadly technology isn't that advanced yet."

The screen turned to a comical picture of a stylized UFO flying over a stylized radar dish, with a circle and slash through it.

"Sadly, most existential threats aren't easy to find. They don't come down in flying saucers and hover ominously at high, unshielded altitudes where primitive sensors like standard radar can easily detect them. I guess they could, but damned if I've seen it happen in thirty years."

The screen flicks to a slide of what the mind might conjure at the thought of the word "Scientist". An unshaven man in a dirty white lab coat, with goggles and a mad smile on his face. A green arrow hovers over him.

"In general, man is his own worst enemy. The largest number of extinction-level events in the last century are his fault, and the majority of those were caused by these guys. Beaker-heads are smart folks, but always keep an eye on them."

"This is where you come in. Sentinels are deployed, or rather recruited, along the length and bredth of the solar system to watch, as the word Sentinel infers, for signs of dangerous or unsafe activity that could threaten a massive scale. It may sound simple, but we live in an age when Bob could screw up ordering coffee and create an odorless, colorless mist that eats human flesh, because Joe sabotaged his coffee machine."

Flick. The visual slideshow ends, for what little help it actually contained, beyond amusement.

"You're here on Fenris for a reason. I want to test your intelligence gathering abilities, and see if you can locate something that I suspect is going to heat up shortly. I'm sure a lot of you were expecting a briefing, with intelligence, and maps, and battle-boards. That's a job for grunts who aren't paid to think."

[Aerozord]

The neotic watched as his female counterpart went over what is expected of them. The slide show was actually alot less, professional, then he was anticipating, but it got the point across. It was when she finished that a thought occured to him "wait? we are getting paid?" Well she did say grunts aren't paid to think, so them not being grunts would mean they were. Atleast that was his conclusion.

"But more importantly, dont you atleast have some suspects, some idea of what form the threat may take? Or are you expecting us to hopefully just stumble over it?" Attempting to sound serious and unoffensive. Worried his point might come accross as condecending.

[Dracorion]

"You're here on Fenris for a reason. I want to test your intelligence gathering abilities, and see if you can locate something that I suspect is going to heat up shortly. I'm sure a lot of you were expecting a briefing, with intelligence, and maps, and battle-boards. That's a job for grunts who aren't paid to think."

Ellen's controlled her reaction to Nyx's words. Inside, however, she was outraged. A test! They were putting her through a test! She had half a mind to jump on the disrespectful little Neotenic and rip out her throat. Who were they to treat her like this? She could understand interviews, background checks and psychological interrogations, but her record ought to speak for itself!

["Mistress..."]
I'm not going to rip her throat out... yet.

"Will we have access to any resources beyond what we've brought with ourselves in order to find... whatever it is we're supposed to find?"

---------------

PF: Butler's still doing a Research check for Security AIs and Ghostrider Modules.

[Overcast]

The slide show was relatively surprising, the typical idea that he was going to be executing a planned evolution with a degree of background information seemed to be just about dead after it ended. It was amusing though, and had it had any particularly important information it might have been able to convey it properly. Though it didn't. This wasn't a brief, it was an indoctrination,

Still he wasn't lost yet. He'd been around this part of the system for a hot minute and he had at least one idea of where to start with this. Dr. Syren, proper scientist and a damn good immortal, had been pestered for mental implants up to the point of having to blacklist the creep. Now sometimes customers were bothersome, but it took some REAL dick moves to get yourself blacklisted for being an annoying bastard. He remembered thinking about looking into it for the safety of his fellow, but he'd tossed it aside since he was broke enough and wasn't getting paid to do that...

"Ants, get a hold of Syren. I need to figure out where those requests had come from for mental implants. Don't try to sound too desperate though, he might expect something from me, make it sound like I am doing him a favor by checking the guy out."

["Dude...I'm not exactly fitted for major deception."]

"It is a matter of linguistics dammit, just...look over all that junk you have stuffed in there on psychology. You won't be lying to his face, just send him a mail. Alright?"

["I'll do what I can."]

He stood up from his seat, he might try some asking around town about anyone who was interested in the same type of thing, just in case Syren was being his typical self. A bit prideful and difficult, but ultimately helpful if you could get past his bullshit. He hoped people would just tell him, but if they didn't he did have his pistol and had learned through Slamming a few good ways of scaring people(it was just a bit better than trying to convince someone not to rat on you or convince them you weren't ACTUALLY defacing the property). He took a moment to think though, he was essentially running off now, and he hadn't been told the magic word yet. So he looked off to Nyx with a slight grin on his face that might have betrayed his eagerness,

"Dismissed?"

[krogothwolf]

Desmond really wasn't overtly pleased with this turn of events. Not that he couldn't help gather information, but he had nothing to go on. He had just arrived here yesterday and had been out of touch with things for a while before that. He suppose he could go skulking around looking for things but without anything great to go on it would be like looking for a datachip in a derelict.

"Is there anything worthwhile we got to go on Lars?"

"Sorry Dez, I'm in the dark about as much as you are.

"Rats..."

Desmond looked up and around at the others, then back to Nyx.

"Nyx, do we have a slight lead that's followable up to this point?" He asked to her, "I've been out of touch for a bit to long that I'm not sure I have anything remotely worthwhile to go on at this point."

He wasn't lying at all, he also did hate seeming to be useless, which is how he felt at this point.

[Aerozord]

Henric thought back abit, Cassandra giving abit of help.

"Will we have access to any resources beyond what we've brought with ourselves in order to find... whatever it is we're supposed to find?"


The small boy laughed at her like a little kid just heard another ask a dumb question. "come now certainly a woman like you has heard a few things. Even I've heard of something, a recently a nanofabber went missing. Certainly you've heard of something that might point you in the right direction." She of course knew behind that friendly smile, was a snarky and condecending responce. Almost insulting her ability to gather information without litteraly being handed it

[Dracorion]

Ellen quickly shot a dirty look at the male Neotenic before composing herself. It had to be something about Neotenics that made them piss her off. Butler, make a note. When I control Earth, ban all Neotenics.
["Would you like me to put it in the permanent archives or the temporaries, Mistress?"]
Permanent.

"As a matter of fact," she replied calmly, "I have heard something. Three news stories about dissappearances on Fenris in the last two weeks. Strange, don't you think?"

"The victims were all biomorphs. One of the stories was never published, but the guy who wrote it is my friend. He won't publish it because he's afraid of being the next to dissappear, though he's always been paranoid. Still, I wonder if there's some truth to it."

[Aerozord]

He smiled widened at her dirty look. Happy that he provoked her in just the way he wanted. Best way to get someone with a superiority complex to shut up and help out, is point out how little they have actually done.

"See, I knew you weren't all show and could get things done. So we got a nanofabber and some missing biomorphs. Cant really piece much together from that, however it does seem to indicate that something is going on here. Perhaps you can find out more about these biomorphs. I can help if you'd like but, well I'm no beautiful socialite"

[krogothwolf]

Desmond stroked his chin as he heard what Ellen had to say.

"If your friend is nervous about being the next victim, he could have seen something noteworthy that would make him worried, we could drill him for the information he has pertaining to that. If it does have anything to do with what we are looking at it could be helpful. Chasing every lead isn't a wise idea, but if we get a few good ones and hunt down information, splitting up into teams of 2 or 3 if needed, we might be able to piece enough together to get more data on this."

Desmond looked over at Ellen and grinned.

"As I have nothing to go on myself I'm more the willing to assist in anyone needing help with theirs if needed."

[Dracorion]

This time, Ellen had no problem keeping up her farce. She knew the Neotenic was just trying to provoke her. Her anger subsided, for the most part. But she wasn't about to strangle a teammate on the first day. I will not strangle a teammate on my first day.
["Would you like me to make that a constant reminder?"]
Yes.

Ellen smiled back at him. "Yes, indeed. The Colonel said things might be heating up soon, and I doubt whatever's going to happen is limited to nanofabricators and missing biomorphs. We should keep our eyes open for any strange happenings. What about the rest of you? Have you heard anything strange?" She asked the rest of the team.

She smiled at Desmond. "Yes, I think so too. But I would rather not have to resort to hurting or scaring my friend. If it comes down to it, I'm sorry, but I'd rather bring someone a little more... subtle. He's already paranoid, no need to give him a heart attack." Really though, Ellen just didn't want anything to do with Dez if she could help it. There had to be better meatshields than him, and better-looking, too. "What about... Spectre 3, is it? Could you help me with my friend?" She asked, turning to Spectre.

[Krylo]

"Well I don't really know much myself, but I guess I could start asking around the barge to see if anyone's noticed something out of the ordinary," Lind said, while sliding his half full glass of water back and forth on the desk between his hands, watching the water splash. Obviously having some trouble keeping his concentration on any one thing.

Though he did still notice when Henric mentioned the missing nanofabber in his little verbal spat with Ellen.

"Wait... wait wait wait," he said suddenly looking up, "A missing nanofabber? Why would anyone steal a nanofabber? Or, well, anything... Fenris Station has a communal cornucopia machine that's pretty unregulated. You could just use the CM to just make whatever you wanted... unless it was something people frowned on making in the communal CM, like heavy weapons... maybe a nuke, or an antimatter bomb!" he quickly rattled off, stopping for a second to pantomime an explosion with his hands and say 'boom!' "But wait, even then, why steal a nanofabber... you could just have one made with the communal CM and lie about what it's for... unless you didn't want anyone to know you had the ability to nanofab at all..."

He stopped for a moment to scratch the side of his head as he altered his actions slightly, and mentally spoke to his muse, 'Riza, could you get me the laws regarding the communal CM?'

['Of course, Lind. I'll begin looking into it immediately.']

With a satisfied nod Lind looked up again, "Or maybe the nanofabricator was altered in some way that the thief couldn't replicate, or was programmed with some specific blueprints... we should see what it was used for."

It seemed that Lind, though still giving quite the block of speech was staying uncharacteristically on task, of course that was only because he was still working on programming two separate programs in the background... and only lasted until he reached out to grab another cookie, sticking it into his mouth with a happy grin that only lasted for a second. "Waish, why ish da cookish classhified? Dey're okash ta eash, righ?" he said around chunks of chocolate chip. "They aren't poisoned, or made out of missing biomorphs or anything are they?"

----
Riza: Researching the station's exact laws concerning the CM.
Lind: Still working on upgrading firewall and exploit programs.

[Geminex]

Spectre nodded curtly. "I support Lind's deductions. It is of importance to discover whether the stolen nanofabricator was optimised or modified, and, if so, in which way. It would also be relevant what type of morph each biomorph posessed, and which ego inhabited each. If we assume that these kidnappings were done by the same individual, or group, and for the same purpose, then there is another question to consider: Was their target to gain a certain morph? Or a certain ego?"

He paused. His task had not been deduction or information analysis, that had been Spectre 11. Regrettably, 11 had also been primarily responsible for research, and was now most likely either temporarily or permanently dead, which meant that his own skills were regrettably lacking. But he knew strategy. He looked at Ellen.

"I would generally allocate tasks dependent of maximum utility, not alleged friendships. If my skills can be most effectively utilised by escorting and supporting you, I will join you. But before allocating, we should plan ahead...

Our first approach should be to compile what we know. We already have some information, perhaps some of our number know even more that could be helpful. If that offers insufficient leads, we can then attempt to do some basic research. When we have something to go on... I am uncertain, but my initial instinct would be to set up a static research force, and several more mobile teams. The static squad would be responsible for mesh-based research and analysis. The mobile squads would physically meet their contacts, or otherwise do their research in person.

We must assume that our opponent can threaten us, and that they, eventually, will become aware of our inquiries, regardless of our subtlety. As such, we should minimize the amount of team members which are at risk, while maximising individual effectiveness. I think the division into static and mobile teams should achieve this, particularly if we put our combat-oriented units into the mobile teams.

But that is merely a general strategy. Before allocating roles we should compile what information we already have. I, regrettably, have none, but I will attempt to provide... perspective."

[Arhra]

The briefing had an unexpected humourous tone to it. Oh. Nyx was trying to put them at ease, Tyrfing realised.

"You're here on Fenris for a reason." Nyx concluded. "I want to test your intelligence gathering abilities, and see if you can locate something that I suspect is going to heat up shortly. I'm sure a lot of you were expecting a briefing, with intelligence, and maps, and battle-boards. That's a job for grunts who aren't paid to think."

"But more importantly, dont you at least have some suspects, some idea of what form the threat may take? Or are you expecting us to hopefully just stumble over it?" Attempting to sound serious and unoffensive. Worried his point might come accross as condecending.

"A test is not a test if you are told the answers." Tyrfing noted.

Daniel stood up, eager to be off. "Dismissed?" he asked Nyx

"You know something." Tyrfing said. It was not a question, it was the only explanation for why he was so quick to try and run off. "What do you know?"

She raised a hand and one of the semi-transparent orange panels floating about that arm fanned out into a number of sheets, text inside the frame. A virtual whiteboard. She made a small tossing motion and they slid across the surface of the table like hockey pucks, drifting to a stop in front of each person.

Tyrfing put her spread fingers on the one in front of her, moved the hand up to move it to virtually float in front of her, and then resized it with both hands. She ran through the items summarised on the whiteboards, using a pen-like object drawn from another of her satelites as a pointer.

"Here's a compilation of what we, as a group," she gave Daniel a sidelong glance. "know so far. We cannot currently know if any of these events are related. Keep that in mind. We must look deeper and see if there are any connections to be made.

"With respect to the missing people, we need to assemble a picture of their actions and behaviour before their disappearance. Any commonalities such as lifestyle or morph type. We need their appearance and ID tags as soon as possible, so we can search the spime records. Ellen, could you send me the news articles you saw so I can begin on that?" she asked the socialite.

"It's possible that they're now running around in different morphs now, so we need also data on their mannerisms and body language. If we can find them on the spimes, perhaps you would be able to do that, Ellen?" Tyrfing said.

"Myself, I can report that there has been a surge in mesh use over the past week, 5% over what would be expected, even with the temporary increase in population from the barge. It needs to be analysed. The spike suggests there is a large number of forked egos onboard or some very large downloads and uploads going on. Could even be egocasting. We should see if any of it originates from the same area or set of network IDs. Lind, would you be able to help me with that?" He seemed the technical type.

As an aside, she asked Hervor to run an initial search for areas of interest.

"You're right about the nanofabricator." she added. She turned to address Henric. "Size, make, specialisation, time of theft, owner; what do you know and what can you find out?"

"Finally, if we can get an idea of what this person or group is looking for, we could put out information on the networks that one of us has it to lure them in."

OOC: Priority is getting info on the missing biomorphs, so people can start asking around. RESEAAAARCH CHEEEEECK. Muse is doing a preliminary search on traffic patterns.

[Overcast]

He laughed a bit as Tyrfling shot him that damned gaze along with her baseless(yet entirely accurate) accusations. He gripped at his heart in theatrical dismay and shot her a bemused sort of grin,

"Alas I am caught, indeed I do know something. In fact now that I am forced to pitch in I know a few things. Firstly, while I am entirely bunk in my knowledge of fabbers I am rather well versed in the kidnapping of individuals. The kidnappers are not taking these people for their egos. The biomorph community here is small enough that it is a bit high profile to do such actions, it shows they are desperate for bodies. If they wanted egos they would certainly delve into the high concentration of infomorphs in the region."

He waved his hand simply as if brushing away some dust, keen to the idea that he was cutting off the useless slack in this line of thought. He reminded himself that he had already admitted he knew more than one thing so he continued on,

"I myself have heard from a friend(doctor with a pension for bioware typical of immortals) that there was a sudden(and fairly annoying) request for some good ol' mental implants. Now my friend doesn't work in these for their instability so he denied. Now it takes some seriously abusive posting to get you blacklisted from a board for a request like this but the creep pulled it off. This combination of desperation and partial connection to biological needs seems to imply a bit of a connection. Then again this is just an assumption on my part. Still I wanted to chase it since I didn't have much else to follow."

He shrugged his shoulders slightly as he stared sidelong towards the doorway, taking into account what was said by Spectre as he tried to reason out the situation,

"I can take care of myself without much of an issue. Spectre, Ellen, and Desmond you three do well to cover each others weak points. Spectre you got the look of light infantry defensively and have the personality of a brick, but if you can get a gun then you should do well as fire support. Ellen you seem to have the combat readiness of a wet paper towel but you got the glitz and the gab to get people moving. Desmond...well you are ugly. I can assume it is because you are damn tough though and every good situation can use someone who can take a beating. Together you can do anything."

He shot a look off to Tyrfing to finish the situation up nicely, still quite set on getting the hell out before anyone even tried to break up his solidarity,

"If you can try to get some information on any major purchases of bioware based mental implants. I figure that should be all the help I need, my maneuverability on the mesh is a little bit woozy."

[Dracorion]

"Yes, of course. I'm sending them to you now." Ellen replied. Butler, send her the news articles. Butler immediately sent the files to Tyrfing.
"Unfortunately, I only have two of the three. My friend is keeping the other one. Of course, I can acquire it from him, as well as any other information he might have. After that, I would be happy to gather data on their mannerisms. Although, perhaps my skills would be better put to use helping Lind gather information from the people on the barge instead."

Ellen instructed Butler to do a background check on her teammates.

Ellen listened calmly as Daniel said his bit, then spoke up once he was finished. "That's interesting. If this person acquired the implants in some other way, that might be what they're kidnapping biomorphs for. That plus the spike in mesh activity that Tyrfing reported seems to suggest that they were either egocasting some friends into the morphs or simply forking themselves. Could you find out exactly what implants they were looking for? And perhaps, could you get a description of what this person looked like from your friend? And if he has any recordings, acquire them too. That way, even if they've changed morphs I might be able to identify them based on body language."

"Like I said, my friend is paranoid. Bringing one person along is going to scare him enough: if I show up at his door with two thugs he's going to bolt. I'm sure we three would make a good team, but for now I'd rather only bring Spectre."

[krogothwolf]

"Like I said, my friend is paranoid. Bringing one person along is going to scare him enough: if I show up at his door with two thugs he's going to bolt. I'm sure we three would make a good team, but for now I'd rather only bring Spectre."

"Fully understandable, if a paranoid man see's someone with a mug like mine he might jump to conclusions about why I am there." Desmond said with a grin, "Of course, if only you and Spectre are needed for this, it does mean a few of us should follow a few other leads so we can cover more ground."

He looked over at the others in the group.

"Tracking a Nanofabber after it's been stolen can be somewhat difficult, we would have to find more information on it as Lind suggested to figure out what we'd be actually looking for. Of course, if the area it's been taken from has been cleaned up significantly the chances of actually tracking it down shrink. It might be wise to keep an eye for more information on it at this point then to head off searching for it. The Doctor though, seems to be a good idea to follow up with. Do you need any assistance from one of this? If we head out in groups of 2 or 3 it'll give each person a backup and also allow us to cover more ground."

[Krylo]

As the completely non-physical whiteboard slid to a stop in front of him, Lind wiped his clean, and picked up a completely non-physical marker and started drawing completely non-physical stick figures and smiley faces on his white board along the sides, with a little outline of his thoughts in the center.

"Lind, would you be able to help me with that?" Tyrfing asked him, apparently sensing his skill with that type of thing.

"Kay," came his response as he scribbled on his virtual white board. "I've got some decent tracking and sniffing programs. Haven't added any new features myself, so they're pretty much factory standard, but it hasn't stopped me from finding anything before. I should probably upgrade them, though, might need to do this kind of thing more often," he continued, making a small note of it on his little AR whiteboard without really thinking.

Lind listened, scribbling down notes and doodles as Daniel talked, until he finally finished, "Oh well that's good to know. I can probably ask my friends on the barge to keep their ears to the ground and let me know if anyone's buying anything..." he started before setting his marker down for a moment and looking up, "Oooh, we could set up a sting! You know, put out information on the networks that we're selling some high quality mental implants, and then watch the people who come through. Get their facial features, run them through facial recognition through the spime database and follow their day to day activities on the hab! If our target shows up it should be easy enough to find him then!"

He quickly wrote "Set up a sting," by his information on mental implants.

Ellen, of course, had her own ideas on what she should be doing, most of which Lind paid little attention to. It didn't really concern him. Up until she said, "Although, perhaps my skills would be better put to use helping Lind gather information from the people on the barge instead," anyway.

"Oh, they're my friends and neighbors, after a fashion. I don't know that I really need help asking them to keep an eye out for me, but I guess if you want to come along you can. I don't have any problem with the company... and a few of them might like to meet you. You have some non-standard biosculpting and a few folks on the barge are really into that kind of thing, you know. Like Jackie barely looks human, anymore, for instance. Like some kind of weird... thing, I don't even know," Lind babbled on as he drew a picture of Jackie.

As he finished he held up his whiteboard to show her:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/krylo/whiteboard.png

[rapter200]

Damian sat back during the entire briefing without saying a word. It seemed that Firewall wanted us to find something... sadly he had nothing to go on. Here he was not being helpful to the group at all.

He had hoped that maybe Firewall had picked him for a reason, but it seems like he was very out of place in this group of criminals and socialites. He just hoped that his knowledge would be useful one of these days. Everybody was splitting off into groups when he finally decided to talk.

“Well I don't even have a single clue as to where to begin searching, but I would gladly help someone who needs it. Though if we get into any sort of fights you can't depend on me all that much.” Damian hated getting into fights with others mainly because he wasn't all that good at it.

He could talk for hours on end about the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, or British Empire that kept its hold by using whatever means necessary but when talk turned into action he was good at running away to live in this biomorph another day. Natural instinct or something.

[Overcast]

Daniel listened to Ellen deconstruct his hopeful suggestion that might have gotten him away to start skulking around the locale and chasing after whatever he could get out of Syren. Now Desmond was asking to skulk with him and really if he was going to work with anyone it would be to work the sting idea that Lind had. He was about two inches away from trying to reject him softly when the voice in his head butted in,

["Danny. You gotta take the guy with you."]

"What? Why, I don't need his help. I need someone with some medical implant knowledge, the best he might know is a little bit from having to stitch himself back together every time he gets into a back alley brawl."

["Man, it ain't if you need him, it is a matter of teamwork. These guys are your crew now, and you gotta keep your crew working. If he gets isolated and knocked out of the situation he won't do well later."]

"...you aren't going to drop this will you?"

["I'm looking out for your psychology bro, it is kinda my job."]

"Fine. Figure he is better at looking threatening than I am anyway."

He shook off that sort of extra-mental feeling that came when he talked to Anthony and tried to organize his words so he didn't babble like he had earlier,

"Desmond you're up with me. I also need someone with some medical experience in implants. Combine that with Lind putting the rumor out around the barge boys that we are selling some brain boosters and we may be able to tempt them out. Get connected, have a little confidence meeting, meet the meat. If we are lucky we'll get ahead. If not we might be able to grab one of them and take the information."

He caught view of the image that Lind had conjured up and he face palmed, in a good way though. It was absolutely ridiculous, it organized things a bit but was definitely outrageous. He loved the way this guy's brain worked, he wanted to just creep into there and start exploring the chaos,

["Stop being a fag."]

"Shut up dammit."

He said that last part out loud, not disruptive just reflexive. His brother had a penchant for being a prick, but it had all been in good fun. It was one of the qualities he just had to have installed in the muse. It was good for his psychology, kept him even.

[Geminex]

Spectre frowned, in a rare display of emotion. Social dynamics could have their uses, but right now the one called Daniel seemed to be employing them to slingshot himself into an alpha position. And while there were surely many skills he had, Spectre doubted that leadership was among them. So what to do? Using said dynamics in his own favor would be most effective, but he did not specialize in manipulating those around him emotionally. Spectre 1 had taken care of that, quite effectively. He had been quite open to her suggestions, as had most everyone. Like Ellen, really, but more efficient, less inherent personality. But those times had passed, and he sat here, caged in this weak body, trying to get them back. So, in absence of any other option, he did the only thing he could think of: Express his ideas as precisely as possible.

"Daniel... Let us not get ahead of ourselves. We should not allocate tasks hastily. I agree with Ellen that we should... minimize our presence in this habitat. We must assume that our foe is watchful, and our inquiries should certainly be... discreet. When possible at all we should use mesh-based communications, and if we travel physically, we should go individually. I think your intention to take Desmond as well as yourself would attract undue attention. One heavily armed individual is far less likely to get noticed than two. Not to mention that I doubt that physical interaction is necessary in your case. I am uncertain how willing Lynd's or Henry's associates would be to divulge information via mesh, but by my estimation, only Ellen should have to physically meet a contact. Partly because we would, most likely, be getting the most sensitive information from her, partly because her physical presence is going to increase chances of success. In any case, I would accompany her. I should be sufficient to head off any ambush, and my ability at... blending in should prevent me from attracting undue attention." He glanced at Ellen, but his eyes were glassy. His decision was utilitarian only.

Asides from us two, the rest of us should remain static. Tyrfing, engaging in sniffing and research. Lind contacting his Scum allies, attempting to gain information, supporting Tyrfing if necessary. Daniel should be able to get what information he needs via mesh, if not, he should be able to meet his contacts phsyically, without needing backup, meaning he could head out alone. Henry also to remain with the static force, trying to learn about the missing nanofabricator. Damian to remain behind and act as a consultant, maybe to lend a hand with research as well. Desmond to stay behind as a defensive force, and, if necessary, our light cavalry, so to speak. Myself and Ellen to leave our center of operations to meet unobstrusively with her contact. Once we have what information we need, we can pull a few more squad members into active roles and, if it seems advisable, set up a sting. I was, of course, not hired as a tactical consultant, but from my experience with similar operations, this course of action has, I think, a high probability of success.

One thing I would also recommend is that we set up a tactical network, to share information as it comes up. I have the necessary software, I am willing to share it. Unless anyone else has a better version?

And Lind, I take offense to your depiction of me. I very rarely attack an enemy from the front if I can help it. If you are in front of them, they can see you. In my line of work it is paramount to learn how to not be seen."

As precisely as possible. Over-eloquence be damned.

[Krylo]

Lind placed his white board down and looked at Spectre for a second and scratched his cheek. Maybe it was living his entire life on a scum barge, maybe it was his ego's youth, or maybe it was just the weird emotionless way Spectre acted or the blaise manner in which talked about killing, but Lind didn't particularly enjoy the idea of the way he seemed to be taking authority. And beside all that, he kind of got the idea that the other people at the table might see him as something of a child.

So he decided to poke holes in the splicer's suggestions, and attempt to prove his worth as a tactical mind at the same time.

"Um... Well, I don't really do this kind of thing often... but I'm pretty good with the mesh and hacking, and I'm guessing you're not really an expert?" Lind asked, giving Spectre an almost pitying look. "Cause, well, if I and Tyrfing were to subvert the spime system or research mental implants, and the fate of the three missing morphs from here, I guess you're working on the assumption that whoever we're after knows someone is after him, or her, or them, right?" he asked, speaking quickly as he placed everything together in his mind with exceeding alacrity, his mouth merely attempting to keep up speaking his stream of consciousness.

"Well if they know someone is after them, they'll almost certainly have someone watching for people looking into the missing morphs, which is a lot easier to do over the mesh, so if they noticed us working it they could potentially track our signals back here. There's all kinds of extra steps we could take to make that harder," he continued, lifting his hands and counting off the various examples on his fingers as he went. "Embedding our searches in lots of other searches that have nothing to do with any of this, spreading them out so it doesn't look like mesh spike in that specific area, using proxy servers, or multiple proxy servers if we want to be particularly paranoid, BUT" he stressed, "None of it is perfect, and if they track us here, well, Boom!" he exclaimed pantomiming yet another explosion," Game Over! ...Especially if there's more than one of them."

He took a second to glance over at Tyrfing, "Though I guess she's not even here, but I'm not sure if that's better or worse. They could stilll track her to her server, and delete her files, and we don't even know where she's really broadcasting from, and finding two locations isn't much harder than finding one so it really doesn't remove the threat of them finding this room. They could even surreptiously bug this room with nano devices! I know I don't have a detector, does anyone else have a detector? Someone should have brought a detector..."

He stopped for a moment and looked over at the small robot that had followed Tyrfing in, his mind changing gears back to Tyrfing quickly, "I guess she could be ghost riding in that, in which case I guess she's here, and that's possible... but that's not really even the main thing. All mesh transmissions are wireless, and can be easily spoofed and snooped in on by someone with the proper know how. So, really, if you want to assume they know that someone is on to them, doing all our work over the mesh is actually a bit less secure, and I don't know about all of you, but I know I arrived with around 5000 other people. The population of the Habitat effectively doubled, which means that even IF our unknown person is watching, I'm effectively invisible so wandering about the habitat is entirely safe for me 'cause of all the scum here. I wouldn't stand out in the least... well unless someone in firewall sold out our identities, but that seems pretty unlikely, and it doesn't really matter because even if they know who I am, I can actually do all the other mesh work while on the move, which means that if I make a mistake and get traced--or followed, he'd find a moving signal far from our base of operations, and if he tried to make any kind of move on me I would be with friends that could help defend me, as I'd be talking to scum and they mostly like me on the barge--or else I'd have been shoved out the airlock months ago. We don't really have laws there, you know."

"But really, I guess the main thing," Lind said as he turned back to his whiteboard, drawing a face on the stick figure being shot by spectre--facing away from him, "is that all this talk of being extra secure is pretty much pointless if they don't know that we're after them--and it hinders our ability to work effectively. It's basically wasted time and effort, so we should just let everyone do their thing however they want, though sticking in small groups of two at the most is probably a good idea, as is splitting up Daniel and Desmond as they both seem to be wearing some pretty high grade armor that kind of sticks out, though again with all the scum here probably not as much as it normally would."

As he finished he held up the white board again, showing that the man being executed by Spectre was looking the opposite direction, "Oh and I fixed the picture, better?"

[Dracorion]

Ellen giggled playfully when Lind showed her his whiteboard. "I'd love to meet your friend Jackie, Captain, but I think it'll have to wait. That seems a very accurate depiction of Spectre, however. Though I must say my ears aren't quite as pointy."

She listened to the conversation for a bit before finally deciding on a plan. "Captain, Spectre, you both have good ideas, so how about a compromise? I do agree that if this person knows someone is after them that it would be better to conduct our inquiries in person, so they can't be tracked as easily. Henric can find information on the missing nanofabricator, physically, preferably, in case whoever stole it is keeping an eye out on the mesh for anyone asking about it. Daniel, meet with your friend and ask about the implants. Tyrfing and Damian should stay here and look into the mesh spike, see where it originated. Tyrfing, can you tap into the grid and find out where there's been a spike in power usage? That could give us the location of the missing nanofabricator."

"The Captain's sting idea is brilliant. He can go meet with his friends from the barge and put the word out. Desmond, you could go with Henric, the Captain, or stay here and provide protection for Tyrfing and Damian. I think you should do the last one. If whoever we're looking for finds out about someone looking into mesh spikes and power usage, your protection would be invaluable. As for Spectre and myself, we can go meet my contact. We can all use Spectre's tactical network to keep in contact with each other."

Ellen thought her plan was good enough. Covered all their bases and all that. Still, she wouldn't have come up with it without people like Spectre and Lind. They could cover the areas that she didn't have much knowledge in. It was imperative that she gain their support. "What do you think?"

[Geminex]

Spectre nodded curtly. That would be sufficient. And this discussion was dragging on.

"An... adequate summary. I would prefer that Henric make contact virtually, rather than physically, since, in my experience, physical interactions are easier to track than virtual interactions. But I will leave this up to him. Additionally, I maintain that Daniel should also make contact via mesh. In this case, particularly because it may make his request for information easier to track. If we intend to set up a sting later, he could easily contact his associates, ask whether they know any parties which may be interested in mental implants, and justify this by adding that he's met a few people interested in selling some. Lind could do the same thing, though in person, perhaps adding that he's in this with an ultimate. Assuming that our unseen enemy gains this information, which would, I think, be likely, we would not only have justified some of our inquiries, but also set up some groundwork for a sting operation, since we would have established that there exists certain supply. Of course, these are all simply... recommendations. I trust that you are not only competent, individually, but also best able to employ this competence in a beneficial manner."

He felt this disclaimer was necessary. His squadmates had far too much personality, and with personality came strong ego. And strong ego usually resented being told what to do. Though it could be guided, if you had the talent. And Ellen certainly seemed to... He'd have to observe her more closely, lest she become a threat. But back to business.


Kerrigan. Copy and prepare transfer of TacNet software.
Aknowleged.

"Additionally, I am ready to share tactical network software with the team, if you aknowlege the transfer. Oh, and that's much better. I usually prefer to be further off and armed with a sniper rifle, but I understand the concept of artistic freedom."

[Dracorion]

Ellen nodded in agreement. Spectre was definitely a tactician. Useful, but he would need to learn some things. She would have to start grilling him before they met with Milo.

"That sounds good, but there are some things you've missed. Physical interactions are indeed easier to track if you know who you're looking for. But we have no reason to believe that our culprit knows exactly who is after them, even if they know someone is. And I think Daniel should meet his doctor friend in person. If the culprit is indeed monitoring the mesh, Daniel asking the doctor about the implants and the person who was asking for them would achieve the opposite desired effect. The person would not only know for sure that someone was after them, they could track down Daniel. After he gets the information, then, as you suggested, he should contact his associates through the mesh."

"Does that sound good to you?" She asked. It had better. This discussion had gone on long enough.

["Mistress, we are recieving a transfer."]
Make sure it's clean, then accept.

Spectre so far seemed overly cautious. She wouldn't put it past him to have put some kind of bug in the transfer.

[Overcast]

Spectre made some personal suggestions to his plan that he wasn't entirely okay with, and just about when he was going to correct a few things he seemed unaware of Lind was able to jump in and not only say what he was going to say but compound it with things he was incredibly dense about. Like all that heavy mesh stuff. He was impressed, he wouldn't take it to a degree of calling him Captain yet, not until they got a ship, but he definitely showed the versatility of his mind. He just kept getting more interesting by the moment. In particular Daniel ran his hand across his scalp in a slight embarrassment as his plan to walk with Desmond was being picked apart for the two of them being too obvious, to be honest that was why he had chosen it,

"The idea of heading out with him was one that hinged on an old stereotype of hired muscle. You hire two, two reliable and threatening individuals who play off each other kindly, it shows that you are aware of how weak you are and are compensating for it with the money you have made from your own success. It would make the deal seem more genuine. If you are up for a single bodyguard that is fine by me though."

Then they were going over his own lead, but there seemed to be something lacking in the conversation of whether or not he should meet Syren in person. The lacking element was who exactly he was meeting with, he felt it would be better if he clarified the item,

"Ellen you are assuming that prick will actually meet me in person. The man is one of science, he keeps to his work and doesn't get out much. The possibility he will drag himself from it so that he can meet me in friendly conversation when he can do the same thing from his laboratory seems to be undermining his pride. I had begun contacting him as soon as I pieced that this may have a connection, just a moment before I was trying to leave. The possibility I would be able to contact him in person without leaving the hab is an illusion, so if they are looking they can find me."

He grinned a bit as he began moving towards the door, his pathway had been laid out now it seemed, until the sting came about(if they even really needed him for it) he was keen to isolate himself just in case. Or at least that was his excuse, it wasn't a bad one,

"I'll be off. Continue communications with my friend, ask a few questions around town, perhaps even attract attention to the fact that I am a biomorph of fairly high quality with many high quality implants inside him who has shown off such implants in many an XP. They'll also know about my Immortal connections, and since I have basically no Firewall ones as of yet they will likely tie my activity around here to them instead of you. With luck they will try to capture me. With more they will fail. It was nice meeting with you all, I'll be in touch."

Spectre had told him earlier not to get ahead of himself. On more than one occasion he would have followed on that, but his psychology was sending him reeling down a pathway of bad ideas that might just cure his boredom. Manic depression had captured his soul.

[Geminex]

Spectre shrugged mentally. This individual could suit himself, he was not Spectre's responsibility. For that matter, none of them were. They could risk their own morphs however they liked. And so, he stood.

"Very well then, let us begin this operation. You should all have the software by now, I'll set up a network once you're all running it, we can stay in touch through that. We've agreed on tasks for everyone, I hope, but how you go about completing said tasks is your own responsibility. Provided that you can indeed complete them, it does not fall into the purview of my business. Good luck."

He turned to face Ellen, flicking his wrists in the same motion, causing his hand rails to eject his pistols. He spoke as he checked his weapons, made sure they were loaded and functioning. "Proceed slowly towards our target. I'll remain five to ten metres behind you and shadow you unobstrusively. Tell me everything I need to know now, we shouldn't communicate when I'm shadowing you, unless in times of emergency. What route do you intend to take? How well can you defend yourself? Most importantly, what's our procedure once we've reached the target?

[krogothwolf]

Desmond was annoyed. Extremely annoyed. Spectre 3 or whatever he called himself was pissing him off. His attitude and the air of superiority Spectre seemed to have about him had finally worn thin on him.

["Come on Dez, now is not the time."] Larson said to him, knowing full well what was on Desmond's mind

"If it isn't now then when is?" He responded curtly.

"Hold on there mate," Desmond said before Spectre left, "You're commanding attitude is started to rub me the wrong way. If you want to give suggestions, give suggestions. ut don't act like you're the one in charge of this operation. Also, you should start by showing some respect to your new teammates. If we're going to be working together and function as a team, we have to work as one. Acting like your team mates are beneath you and don't have the ability to compete tasks is a serious no-no, just so you know"

Desmond had remained seated during his little spiel. He was angry, but not angry enough to get threatening.

"For someone who has Tactical Network Software, you certainly act like someone who doesn't really understand the basis of team work."

He then shook his head and turned away from Spectre.

["Nice going Dez, anyone else you feel like pissing off?"] Larson said sardonically

[Dracorion]

Ellen rose from her chair and moved to the door in confident strides, all the while keeping up her smile. She was, however, slightly dissillusioned. She had hoped to be able to get some information out of Spectre on the way, but she couldn't deny that his suggestions made tactical sense. Oh well, there'd be plenty of time for that later.

"I'm taking the direct route," she told Spectre, "and I'm afraid I have no weapons other than Eelware. I'm sending you his address now. As for proceedure, once we get there you should stay hidden a respectable distance away while still keeping an eye on his residence. I'll go in and talk to my friend, and I'll contact you if I need assistance."

Butler sent Milo's address to Spectre, then Desmond voiced his dislike of Spectre's attitude. Ellen simply kept smiling and said, "He's right, you know."

[Arhra]

There was definitely some friction here, despite Ellen's attempts to make nice and act as social lubricant. Tyrfing elected to simply stay out of it for the moment.

"Research is taking up most of my attention, so I've forked myself to accompany you and provide information on implants for your attempt at a sting." Tyrfing told Daniel. And to keep an eye on you, she thought to herself. Daniel seemed to be worryingly willing to run off on his own. "She should be contacting you now." the infomorph concluded.

It wasn't that she didn't trust him... Wait, no: she didn't trust him to not do something foolhardy. Self deception wasn't healthy.

Her beta fork was now loaded in the ghostrider module loaded into one of the two automechs she owned. It was still in a storage bay, but ready to move out when needed. Tyrfing released two of her creepies to her fork's supervision as well.

Daniel received a new call. "Good morning, I'm Tyrfing (Secondary). Pleased to meet you."

Tyrfing had an extremely esoteric sense of humour.

[Overcast]

Daniel had calmed a bit when he left the room, his mania being overcome by the simple logic that stated he had no idea what he was chasing after yet and that he was better off just calming down before he did something silly. Sillier. So he let himself drift a bit, escaping his desires a moment in a meditative stare and everything faded away in the moment, it was just him even if he was sharing a mind with his brother and through the mesh nearly every other sentient being with a connection. For a moment he felt like it might be nice to shut all of them out too, and he almost got to the order to turn off his connection when the signal came through,

"Research is taking up most of my attention, so I've forked myself to accompany you and provide information on implants for your attempt at a sting. She should be contacting you now."

He felt a bit robbed of his solitude for but realized this was getting him a bit closer to actually achieving some kind of progress so he tossed off the thought quickly. In his head came a fairly similar, if not almost perfectly the same, voice in introduction,

"Good morning, I am Tyrfing(Secondary). Pleased to meet you."

"You as well."

Daniel didn't get the joke himself, a part of Immortal ideology was the treatment of most consciousnesses as their own person, this was slightly corrupted by their own treatment of minds that have been uploaded as the same person, but it was a bit of a psychological thing. Whatever is best for the mind would be given to it. In his head this was Tyrfing II, her own thing, even if eventually she would likely become part of the greater consciousness,

"As I told Tyrfing I'm going to be about for now. The situation on the sting is best kept around Lind, who will be spreading the word for us. I may not be able to participate in it if I end up high profile due to a failed kidnapping or lost from a successful one so keep an eye on Desmond in case I need a relief. I'm sure once it is all set up we'll both be contacted, until then I'm sure you are someplace far safer than you would be if you hung around me. I'd suggest staying there if at all possible."

He left it at that, he wouldn't let any of his teammates walk about with him and risk themselves unless they had a damn good reason to be hanging around and moreover the means to carry their own weight. He wasn't the kind of guy who, in the fray of battle, would risk his life to save one of them. This isolation was about the most selfless he were going to get, and considering how much of it was selfish anyway that isn't saying much.

There was still much to do, and he wouldn't like to be hindered.