Cyber Wars 2.0 Chapter 1: Just when you thought it was safe to log back on...

[MC43]

Monk grinned, pinning her to the couch. She may have nano-augs, but Monk could still overpower her. "Hm... the question is... what do I want to do? Shall I... keep you pinned down to prove that I can control you...? Should I... stare into your eyes so that I could keep control? Should I... let you go...? Or... should I..." leaning in, gently kissing her neck. "Show you just what kind of control I do have?"

[batgirl]

That control that Jade thought Monk couldn't handle was slowly melting with his kissing. Jade pulled Monk to her more and gave him a kiss and a small bite on his neck. She put up a false wall, "think you can control me?"

[MC43]

"Look where you are Jade..." Monk softly said. "I have you in my grasp, your struggling is fading... and you are pulling me deeper into you. If I had to guess." Monk wrapped an arm around her neck. "I'd think you were giving up." He leaned in and met lips with her, gently, but full of passion.

[batgirl]

Jade returned the kiss deeply, the stresses of the day leaving her. "I'm not giving up, I'm reworking my strategy. As you can see I have you right where I want you..." Jade's snide comment trailed off as she was engaged in another kiss.

[MC43]

He quickly pulled off. "Really? I think not." He stood up, hand still firmly down on her shoulders. But when his feet touched the floor, he picked her up in his arms and moved to the stairs.

"Where? Where are we going?"

"Does it matter? I'm in control..."

"We'll see Monk... We'll see..." and the door to the bedroom door closed behind them.

[Zephie]

(( She's got him wrapped around her finger like a band-aid. ))

~Moscow~

Wraith was alone in the conference room, studying all the data before him on the monitor.

A cup of coffee gave him some company, but it had long since grown cold on the desk. The more he looked at it all, the more he could see some correlations and coincidences, but it was all circumstantial at best. He needed to get onto the scene before he could be certain what he was seeing was true.

A twinge of pain hit his left temple and he winced, then rubbed it as he sat down at the head of the oval table. First things first... I take some Aspirin and then get my teams together...

His teams. Suddenly he had thoughts that his current teams -- though good -- had no real experience against Mastermind... and if he'd truly returned, he would need somebody who could watch his back, who knew Mastermind and his minions. He trusted his people, sure, but only to an extent as far as Mastermind was concerned.

He went back through his list of friends from the war... Wolf... Jade... Kaitlin... Monk... but they were all retired. Devin, too. And Scrya had just disappeared along with Tia somewhere in L.A. They couldn't give him any help even if he asked... though there was one other person who was still employed in a military post...

Wraith stopped massaging his head and tapped a button. "Natalya? I need to place a call with the U.N. Security Council."

"For what reason, Major?" replied the heavily Russian voice.

"I need to talk to an old friend..."

***

A few hours later, Angel -- now Azrael -- received a call from the U.N. Security Council. In the subject header was one word -- "URGENT".

(( And I'll leave it to SS to start the call. ))

[Wolf99x]

OOC: Apparently the rookies need some more prodding.

BIC: The searches weren't going well. Despite combing the attack sites, there wasn't much data to go on. It also didn't help that much of the secuirty networks were down onsite.

But apparently, the London search teams were experiencing minor success utilizing spyware sweeps to unearth the trapdoor and subversion coding.

This tip was relayed to the other search teams at the other affected cities, and the spyware search programs were activated.

Green ray fields swept across the devastated cities. Seemingly innocuous objects suddenly began to glow green as the code was identified as not belonging to the construct's standard programming.

As unit commanders began to issue orders to their troops to download the codes and take them back for analysis, the affected objects spawned squads of AI controlled soldiers in battle armor, who began spraying gunfire at the Cyber Force troops.

Apparently, this data was not going to be gathered quietly.

OOC: I'm guessing you all know what to do when you're under attack. I figure we could do with a bit of action now.

[Darth SS]

Azrael glared at his PDA, then glanced back up at the ERT team. They were in an assault course now. He could spare some time.

"Azrael here."

[Zephie]

Azrael...

"Hey, what's up?" Wraith said, sitting forward once the call finally got through.

First thing he noticed was Neil's change of appearance. For one, he looked mean... meaner than last he knew him for sure. Second thing he noticed was that he realized he'd been informed of Neil's change in codename, to Azrael. He'd almost forgot about that.

[Darth SS]

"Okay, what in the god-damn hell do you want? I'm busy, so this had better be one of the most important phone-calls you've ever made."

Azrael glared at Wraith. Part of him wanted Wraith to make a joke and make everything better. Another part wanted Wraith to see how much Azrael had changed, and be afraid enough to hang up.