Jacks

IC: Katerina, Hotwire, and the two synthfigs hurried down the hallways to the briefing rooms. They didn't pass very many agents on their way; it seemed that most of those inside the base were occupied elsewhere, probably with the hunt for the mole. They soon reached the room where the camera footage had shown Loop, and burst inside.Loop was sitting in the wheeled office chair at the far end of the room, spinning idly."Lupus Schattenberg, this nonsense has come to an end," Katerina barked. "Executive override: basalt. Now stand and follow us out."Loop made a halfhearted attempt to rise from the chair, but then sat back and plopped his feet up on the desk. "Whoops, looks like I don't have to do what you say anymore. How about that?""Impossible," hissed Katerina. Hotwire began to draw his handgun, but Katerina shook her head."Isn't it, though?" Loop said, amused. "You'll love this bit, then. Executive override: seventh. Restrain them."Swerve, stripped of his balaclava, goggles, and gloves, stepped out of the shadows behind them with a length of rope and, in the blink of an eye, had it looped around Hotwire, pinning the DINO agent's arms down. Swerve pulled the rope tight and knotted it securely."Septimus?" Hotwire exclaimed, shocked. The drone pulled out a strip of cloth and tied it around Hotwire's mouth to silence him.Katerina assumed a combat stance. "Wolfgang, take the drone. Rainer, with me. We should be able to overwhelm him." Wolfgang took a step back but did not move. Katerina turned towards him, annoyed and incredulous, and in that moment, Loop tossed a small bolt of electricity towards Rainer. The synthfig caught it, gently placed his hand on Katerina's back, over her spine, and released the energy in a pulse. Katerina felt her entire body from the neck down become numb. She found she was completely frozen. She tried speaking and managed, "How--?"Now Loop stood, smirking, and sauntered over. "Cane was quite a bit more clever than you gave him credit for, as am I. Did you really think you had him fooled all this time? No, he knew from the start, five years ago, that you were neatly tucked away behind that cheerful 'Kat' mask. And of course, once he realized you'd survived, he decided that death was too good a fate for you. All the time I spent following you -- when I shot you dead, for znap's sake -- all we wanted was for you to come back out, to reveal yourself. Because the next part would only taste sweetest if you were awake to experience it.""All this just for mutiny?" Katerina spat."Oh, no way," Loop said with a chuckle. "This isn't mutiny. This is vengeance. You assumed, for decades, that Canis Schattenberg was brimming with gratitude for taking him under your wing. After all, why wouldn't he be? Mom dead in childbirth, dad dead from TB, and then in swoops Auntie Kat to make his life a perfect sciencey paradise? Of course, with the disdain you held for old RW, you never even considered the possibility that Cane held his father in high regard." Loop paused. "Frankly, Rainer Wolfgang Schattenberg was the man's idol. And that idol didn't think any more highly of you than you did of him. Oh, he knew you were going to sell those mines, and on his deathbed, he made sure his son wouldn't rest until he saw you ruined.""That's ancient history," Katerina snapped. "Don't tell me you actually care about that old feud?"Loop laughed. "Me? Of course not. I only agreed to this because it's fun. The only score I had was settled months ago when I made Swerve back there my pet." Katerina didn't react to this, but Hotwire did, gasping. Loop laughed again. "Small world, isn't it? Anyway, that 'feud' wasn't all that ancient to Cane, which is why he managed to hijack your plans completely. Your little executive override trick only works on me once, and your two friends over there are acting solely on instructions Cane left in their heads." He paused. "If I heard you correctly, you named them after their grandfather. How fitting.""I've heard enough," Katerina said, her voice full of fear masked with venom. "Kill me then, if that's what's you're here for.""Have you even been listening at all?" Loop grumbled. "Cane said death was too good for you. Besides, the past five years have proved that you'd find some way to survive. Your mind is far too tricky, so that's what we're after." He stood facing Katerina and placed his hands on her temples. "I've been practicing this quite a bit for the past few years. You'll live, I can promise you that...but you'll be a vegetable. Mindless and immobile. The only brain functions you'll retain will be the ones necessary for keeping your body alive." He grinned malevolently when he saw the terror that now showed in Katerina's iron eyes. "Nighty night, Auntie Kat."After that, the only thing that existed in Katerina's personal universe was pain. The insides of her eyelid seemed to her to shine brighter than the sun, and every bone in her head was white-hot. She tried to scream but could not make her brain send the command. The only thing to do was get lost in the agony until she felt herself slipping into oblivion.

OOC: Well crazy, I believe it's now afternoon, but considering the fact that it was morning a month and six pages ago, you probably won't miss too much.Also, given that I already have an NPC who has a knack for 'coming out of the woodwork' at the most opportune moments, feel free to bring Mort in to verify their identities; chances are they would have met at least once or twice in 2008.I'd do it myself, but I have a flashback to take care of.Finally, Ben Gunn. I for one never believed he was really dead. Still clinging to my unspoken theory of his true identity...IC: April 27th, 2010Swerve sat down gingerly on the side of the road and tried to remain calm. That lasted for all of seven seconds. He cursed in frustration. The mission was a failure.At least Spectrum, Talon, and Hotwire were safely on their way back to HQ. The road to Mt. Bricklake was too narrow for his Iron Predator, so he and Spectrum had set off on foot to try and raise the alarm personally. Unfortunately, a rockslide and a sprained ankle put an end to that quickly, separating the two of them and immobilizing Swerve. The PDAs and radios were still dead -- for all of Talon's promises of her brother's skill, that rookie Hotwire couldn't seem to keep the comms online for more than two minutes at a time.The Alpha Team agent could hear the pteranadons overhead. So much for saving Mt. Bricklake, he thought to himself, fighting off despair.This was interrupted when he heard footsteps behind him, and a voice that was all too familiar."Small world, isn't it? I hope you didn't think I'd forgotten about you."Swerve turned with some difficulty. The speaker was a broad-shouldered minifig with three eyes. "Loop," he growled. But...the uniform was wrong. The last time he'd confronted this mad mutant, he'd been fighting a servant of Ogel. Now, Loop was dressed in the orange garb of the henchmen of Dr. Inferno. "Can't even stay loyal to a competent villain, huh?"Loop laughed. "I'm loyal to nobody you know about. Fighting for Ogel served its purpose in time...and that's why I'm here now." He began circling Swerve. "You can do a lot of interesting things with electricity, you know." He snapped his fingers and sparks began to buzz up and down his arms. "Fry a person's mind to a crisp while leaving their body functioning perfectly, destroy software programs in the blink of an eye...or create a field to cancel out radio waves..." Swerve's eye's widened, and Loop grinned. "Yeah, I don't mean to brag, but that was all me. That Hotwire seems to be exceptional with wiring -- you can bet I'll be keeping an eye on him -- but it's all useless if the signal dissipates in seconds. But that's not all you can do with electricity. I've experimented quite a bit, you see, and one of my very favorite things to do," he said, walking around behind Swerve, "is paralyze someone." He placed one hand on Swerve's spine and emitted a jolt of electricity. Immediately, the Alpha Team agent went completely numb. "Much classier than ropes," said Loop. "Even when you tie someone up they can still struggle. Unfortunately, this is not a trick that will ever work on you again, old friend, because in a few minutes, you won't have any nerves at all. Literally."Swerve couldn't even move his eyes, so when Loop walked around behind a nearby boulder, the only evidence of the Inferno hechman's presence was his voice. "You should be flattered to know that I specifically selected you for this task, and suggested it to my commanding officer." He desperately tried to pick up the mutant in his peripheral vision. Within seconds his captor had returned, and Swerve gasped when saw what Loop had in his hands.The three-eyed minifig smiled darkly."Like I said, fighting in Ogel's army had its advantages."Loop was holding a Mind-Control Orb.

OOC: Really? I seem to recall Loop attacking Frozeen and some other agents in an evacuated Ogel Undersea HQ. Maybe I'll have to dig through the old thread myself.IC: Katerina waited for several minutes before Agent Hotwire finally handed over three wires with the insulation stripped away for about four inches. She nodded in gratitude and carefully grasped the wire between her palms. Immediately a flood of data raced into her mind, and she absentmindedly stared at the ceiling while she began sifting through it. First she narrowed her field to security footage from the day so far. Blackouts over the deaths of the Second Headquarters Squad, Trigger's violent outbursts, Zelda and Nazareno sparring, and so forth. She raised an eyebrow when the timestamps of two bits of footage revealed Specs to have been in entirely different areas of the building simultaneously. Most likely a glitch. It wasn't important, anyway. What mattered was Lupus Schattenberg: where he'd been and where he was. She was rewarded quickly as she located the mess hall footage during her confrontation with Bogart. And there was Lupus, now unmistakable despite the DA uniform and the bandanna. She focused her mind's eye on him, and when he exited, she sorted through the footage that followed it chronologically, narrowing her field even more to track his movements throughout the building. Once satisfied, she handed the wires back to Hotwire. The entire process had taken approximately seven seconds."So where's he get to?" Hotwire asked as he re-insulated the wires as best he could."The most current footage revealed Lupus Schattenberg near the interrogation rooms," said Katerina. "He appeared to be confronting a masked figure dressed in the uniform of an Ogel Drone."------------------------Swerve was beginning to feel a bit more like himself -- or at least less like not-himself. The thick gloves did a fairly decent job of obscuring the skeletal thinness of his hands, and the balaclava and dark goggles concealed his bare skull completely. He still had to get rid of the horrid uniform, though. If memory served him properly, the barracks were this way. Perhaps there'd be a spare uniform that would fit a skeleton.The oddest thing by far about the last several months since his transformation --and that bit was still something of an enigma -- was that he'd experienced only positive emotions while oblivious to his past life. A defense mechanism, perhaps? Or perhaps not, as negative emotions had been commonplace enough for the last hour or so; he was choking some back at that moment, as the memory of Mort's look of utter disgust popped into his mind.This was what took his mind off of his surroundings, and this inattentiveness was what allowed him to be grabbed by the arms from behind and hauled into an empty briefing room. He tried to struggle, but his multiple cracked bones made this difficult. Within seconds he was tied to a chair."Calm down. I just want to talk," his assailant said, walking around to where Swerve could see him. The Alpha Team agent-turned-drone stiffened in recognition. The face was familiar, though he couldn't see the third eye due to the grey bandanna tied around his attacker's head, but what tipped him off was the subtle buzz he felt in the air, as though the minifig before him were a live wire."Been a while, hasn't it, Swervy?" said Loop.

OOC: Hay guise, sorry I haven't posted in so long; it's just that I had writer's block all last week and then on Friday went off to a music festival at which, during a jam, I participated in the rendition of a song called "Amanda" in which a man thinking of his beloved realizes that he's not as young as he thought he still was, which made me think of Rex, except that the parallels ended fairly quickly because the man in the song was a travelling guitarist rather than a body-swapped dinosaur/scientist/wheelchair-bound pacifistic war hero.Welcome back, crazy! Reading your dramatic reveal reminded me that the potential exists for something of a Continuity Snarl to form between our characters; namely, that Loop was in Ogel's Army in 2008, but B didn't recognize him in any of the encounters they had in this RPG. So, for safety's sake, was there any point in Alpha Team: Ogel's Last Stand that you can recall where the two met? I can't remember.Though I do remember distinctly that Loop and Frozeen met once...given that Loop is currently somewhere inside DAHQ, that could make for an interesting confrontation. You could call her Andrea. If I'm not mistaken that's the female equivalent of Andrew so the reference would still work.To be honest, between the initials and the surname, I was rather hoping for Applejack. I suppose that was a coincidence, though. I see what you did there ...Well, I was about to suggest that we move the discussion of orientation to the wiki before it gets too political/theological for BZP rules, but it seems that PeaSam has abruptly leapt out of the shadows to protect the RPG we all love so dearly from controversy. Still, I feel somewhat compelled to say that if anyone cares to continue the topic off-BZP, I'm all in; issues of gender, orientation, etc. are something of a passion for me, and now that subject has been broached, I'm rather curious as to your opinions IC: Once Demoman and Pyro had been escorted away and the firefighters departed, the corridor calmed down a bit and the various agents dispersed. Hotwire was soon left alone, and he began walking away. As the adrenalin faded, he became aware of an intense ache in his left foot -- odd, given that he no longer had a left foot. Phantom pains. So it begins, he thought. Can't be much longer before the psychological trauma hits. His musings were interrupted when he rounded a corner and saw Katerina Schattenberg walking purposefully along, flanked by her two three-eyed Loop lookalikes. He couldn't help but feel a twinge of mourning for the woman he'd befriended months ago, especially since she shared the exact appearance of this...stranger. Hopes that she wouldn't notice him survived only the briefest of moments as she quickened her pace. Now just hoping that the resentment he felt wasn't visible in his eyes, he slowed to meet her."Agent Hotwire," Katerina said smoothly, but with an undercurrent of urgency in her voice. "Perhaps you can be of assistance. I have reason to believe that Lupus Schattenberg survives and is now in this very building.""How's that possible?" said Hotwire skeptically. "He went down aboard the Talon outside Hotep's temple." He listened carefully as Katerina related her encounter with Detective Bogart, and the odd bandanna-wearing figure she'd seen skulking at the edge of the room. By the time she finished he was beginning to feel worried as well. "But how do you expect me to help?" he asked.Katerina gestured towards a security camera a few feet away. "If you could grant me access to the right wires, I will be able to connect with the system and view all the recent footage, which could help us to locate him.""Why not just go through the proper channels?"She shook her head. "Too inefficient. Lupus is a rogue element -- an agent of chaos, if you will -- and must be dealt with as quickly as possible. I will be able to resolve the situation with ease and rapidity on my own."Hotwire raised an eyebrow, but moved towards the wall panel under the camera. It would be easy enough to expose the proper wires without knocking the camera offline or triggering any alarms. Rather tedious, though -- an infiltrator would undoubtedly be much better off with EMPs. He pried the panel open, slipped on a pair of insulated rubber gloves, and began sorting through the array of cords.After several minutes, the feeling of Katerina's iron stare as he worked became slightly discomforting, so he attempted conversation. "So how'd Loop get free? I thought you reprogrammed him or something."Katerina sniffed. "I cannot be sure." She sounded slightly embarrassed by this lack of knowledge. "I can only theorize that the chaotic events of the battle somehow allowed him to break away from his psychological conditioning. Still, as I said, it will be an easy enough matter for me to reassert control once we locate him."Hotwire couldn't help but find this somewhat unnerving. Sounds like straight-up mind control, he thought, and decided he'd rather continue working in silence.OOC: I'd appreciate it if nobody finds those two until after my next IC. Thanks all.

OOC: Given that XERRD wasn't formed until 2009, I am very curious as to who was planning the Dino Attack in 2008.Unless there are serious objections, I would like to stick with Brikman's idea regarding the explosives.IC: When Firecracker hit the button on the detonator and nothing happened, Hotwire almost laughed with relief. Demoman hiccupped."Well," said Firecracker, glancing around the room, "looks like he wired these all up perfectly but forgot to synchronize them with the detonator itself. Lucky, otherwise half of this building might have gone up in a cloud of dust.""Then why in MEGABLOCKland did you push the button?" Vinyaya snapped. "You could have killed us all!" Firecracker simply shrugged.------------------------Trigger had returned to the mess hall again, fuming as usual. The room was empty for the moment, though the lunch shift would be starting before long. He glared up momentarily as Wright and Shiller sat down across from him."Listen, we just want to say that this is nothing personal, yknow?" Wright said. "We'd like to leave you alone just as much as you'd like us to leave you alone."Shiller nodded. "Orders are orders.""Oh, so now we're all friends?" Trigger said coldly. "Am I supposed to shake your hands and go 'Aw shucks, I like you guys too!' ?""Nah, nothing like that." said Shiller. "We just wanna make sure you don't find any reasons to hunt us down and try to kill us after this is all over."OOC: EDIT, THE FOLLOWING MORNING: I don't always use silly emoticons, but when I do, it's to observe seven years of awesome. I tip my hat to you, my comrades.

OOC: Actually I have to say I really like Brikman's idea.

OOC: I checked again and it seems that PeaSam didn't exactly specify how powerful the explosives were, just that the room was filled with them. Given the reactions of PeaSam's characters plus the sort of explosives Demoman is known to deal with (wreck Fort Legorado with only enough to fill a mine cart) I assumed it was probably some pretty serious stuff.I guess your solution struck me as a bit too quick and easy, but then again I only spent one post solving the Pyro situation, so I'll roll with it unless someone else has objections.

OOC: Hang on, did you just detonate enough explosives to level half the HQ without harming anyone? I don't understand how that works.EDIT: It's just occurred to me that, in addition to being the last survivors of the SHS, Pyro and Demoman were the first to be introduced. I wonder if that was deliberate?

OOC: Ah, now that's more like what I expected after watching PeaSam write for seven years. I have to say I'm quite enjoying this.Also, that guy, I think Saran would definitely be useful with Pyro and Demoman.And I just realized that the HQ, like any large building, should probably have fire extinguishers on the walls. I don't know how it took us so long to think of that.IC: While they waited for the return of Vinyaya and the arrival of the firefighters, Zach, Minerva, and Anubis dashed about the corridor and those nearby, gathering all the fire extinguishers they could find -- all two of them. Minerva and Anubis stood as close to the door as they could stand and squeezed the handles of the extinguishers. It had little effect on the inferno inside, but it did make it somewhat easier for Vinyaya, who sprinted back down the hall in full Space Police armor minutes later, to effect an entrance. She paused for a split second to ensure her suit was sealed, and charged into the room, directly at Pyro.As the two of them grappled, Hotwire cursed. "There should be more extinguishers around here."Zach shrugged, peering through the flames in the room and then recoiling from the smoke with a cough. "Perhaps the mole has been stealing them," he said once he had his breath back. "You never know what he or she might have had planned."Vinyaya stumbled out of the burning room, hauling a disarmed Agent Pyro with her. There was the faint sound of sirens outside, a shout from down the hall, and then a troop of firefighters rushed in, dragging hoses with them."One down," said Hotwire, turning away from the scene, "one more to go." A drunken yell from Agent Demoman in the next room punctuated his sentence.

IC: "So...which one of them do we take care of first?" asked the Egyptian agent, who had introduced himself as Anubis.Hotwire was slightly overwhelmed by the whole situation, but, realizing that he was the highest-ranking agent in the group, did not let this become apparent and forced himself to think clearly. "Demoman's probably not quite as urgent, since he did say he wouldn't detonate those explosives as long as we stay away from him. But, left to his own devices, Pyro's likely to burn this whole building to the ground. And I think this place has been razed more than enough times over the course of the war. Too bad none of us are fireproof. Ideas?""I could get to him easily if I still had my armor," Vinyaya grumbled.

OOC: I seem to recall that guy described her as black when she was first introduced. That's how I've been picturing her this whole time, at least.EDIT: Found the posts in which Naomi first appeared. She's black. Yes.At least, that's how I understand it.

OOC: Atton, I feel very strongly that you ought to wait and see what PeaSam and that guy have in mind for what was about to happen before pulling something like that.PeaSam, before you kill off Pyro, please, please try to throw in something based on the "Meet the Pyro" video? (Though I'll admit it's some rather disturbing stuff; we may need a lot of redshirts)IC: As they passed the armory, Hotwire and Vinyaya nearly collided with Zach and Minerva, who were quickly exiting the room loaded down with weapons."Have either of you seen Pyro and Demoman?" Zach blurted."No luck so far, but it couldn't be a bad idea to track them down," Hotwire replied. "I just hope they aren't dead when we find them."

OOC: Not so much more interesting, Atton, as more sympathetic, at least in my opinion. All your NPCs are fine as they are, so unless they already have backstories you'd like to share, you needn't make any up.that guy, I had the same realization about Hotwire years ago. IC: Hotwire, Vinyaya, and Mort assisted the rookie agents in transporting the corpses from the safe room to the morgue. Mort very determinedly stayed for the autopsies; Vinyaya and Hotwire were predictably less enthusiastic about this particular stage of the proceedings -- "I saw enough of those poor stiffs sprawled across the safe room," Hotwire muttered as they left. Word was spreading rapidly about the mounting evidence against Amanda, and it was not long before the Space Police officer and the one-legged elite agent learned of it as well."Well, that rules out my theories about Rex," Vinyaya remarked as the group of agents claiming to have overheard the information from 'that detective who must have walked here from the 1940s' moved on down the hall."I have to admit, I hope they're wrong about Agent Claw, for Rex's sake as much as hers," Hotwire said. "He's had a rough enough time as it is without his girlfriend turning out to be a traitor."

OOC: Atton, just hafta say that this whole series of flashbacks was just what Trigger needed in terms of character development. She didn't; the implication I was trying to convey was that Bogart had been led to suspect that Katerina was the mole, thanks to "Agent Spiral." I imagine that once Bogart found that there was no evidence to support this suggestion, their conversation would not have lasted much longer anyway.

OOC: Eh, nobody really knows her that well, to be honest, since I have a hard time articulating what she's like in ICs. Essentially, she has the same mannerisms as Kat did, just add fifty extra years of imperiousness and elitism. Plus the ghost of a German/Barron accent. If you're not comfortable writing her, it's not a big deal at all; send Bogart wherever he needs to be and I can take care of their conversation in a flashback sometime.

IC: The group crowding around the television hadn't managed to notice Helm, and that was just fine with him. After a few minutes of watching them applying situational wit to Dino Cop, he finally got up and walked out of the rec room.OOC: Okay, I'm mainly posting to let all of you know that I'll be away again until Sunday night, and this time I can pretty much guarantee I'll have no internet access. Atton, feel free to continue the interaction between Bogart and Katerina if you so wish, and please don't forget that Wright and Shiller will probably continue to shadow Trigger until such a time as all this business with the mole is over with. that guy, I wouldn't be against Helm having a talk with Saran if such a thing seems plausible to you. Heaven knows he could use some help and empathy right now. Still, if that doesn't work out, don't give it a second thought. Brikman and PeaSam, feel free to keep Mort involved with the autopsies and investigations and all that fancy jazz if you think he'll be at all useful.And I'm out. See y'all in about 96 hours.

Honestly, I don't think this looks all that genuinely feminine. To me, it looks more like you took a sleek but masculine body and added high heels and a watermelon. Still, I fully understand that custom torsos are tricky, and feminine ones doubly so. To start with, I would definitely recommend that you take Kosdan's suggestion of narrower shoulders; either that or wider hips. Also, I've found that a single Nuva breastplate is very much preferable to two shoulderplates for female torsos -- sleek and vaguely curvy, rather than the aforementioned watermelon. And high heels are just not a good look for a warrior.As for the colour scheme, I can't tell if the secondary colour is black or Metru blue.The hair is also kind of ingenious. Well done there.

OOC: I see what you did there, Andrewnuva...Atton -- Well, that guy did specify that Pharisee is the new head of Internal Affairs, so your scenario may indeed be the case. Of course, now that the team has seen that hiring mercenaries so often leads to infighting, it makes perfect sense that they would bring in someone with Templar levels of Lawful Good oozing from every sinew to clean up their act a bit.IC: Greybeard, Hotwire, and Vinyaya had spent several minutes trying to make sense of the grisly scene in the safe room before the other two agents returned with stretchers. As they prepared to begin loading the corpses, however, the sound of someone clearing their throat came from the shattered doorway, and Agent Mort limped in. "You might benefit from leaving those where they are for the time being. I may be able to glean some details concerning what happened here." The two agents, both rookies by the look of it, nodded and pulled the stretchers back. Mort glanced around the room briefly, and then knelt and began examining each of the bodies more closely. After about a minute of working silently, save for some very quiet muttering, he spoke up again. "Agent Hotwire. I see that whatever deity is in charge of legs has been less kind to you than to me. You have my condolences. Did you find your friend?"Hotwire was so taken aback by the first remark -- unable to figure out if it was sympathy or condescension -- that the question barely registered in his mind. He struggled for a response. "I -- yes, we did. We -- thanks for your help back then, by the way -- we found her. But...things have changed..."Mort waved dismissively in response to Hotwire's gratitude, and when the latter stopped speaking, he responded with "Interesting. A striking parallel to my own recent experiences." He then fell silent. The five DA agents waited expectantly, but he did not speak again.Greybeard leaned towards Hotwire and muttered, "I take it ye be acquainted with this odd fellow?"Hotwire nodded. "He helped B and I pick up Kat's trail after Agent Cane showed up again and captured her." It seemed so long ago; he could hardly believe it had only been about a month.Eventually Mort stood. "Agent Sniper has been dead the longest, but he was not killed here. His corpse was carried in by someone else -- possibly one of the other victims, or by the killer themself. Of those who entered this room alive, Spy died first, then Scout, then Soldier, and lastly Heavy. Two things are out of place. First, Soldier was knocked about quite a bit before he was killed, which would make more sense had he been the final casualty. Second, assuming that your mole is responsible for all this, I don't think Spy was killed by the same individual who killed the others. Weapons powerful enough to explode a man's skull are usually not the preferred fare of infiltrators and assassins. Perhaps Spy was killed by whoever beat Soldier to a pulp; clearly they relish a bit of violence.""Perhaps they were fighting amongst themselves," Vinyaya suggested.Hotwire nodded in agreement. "That has been becoming dangerously commonplace over the past weeks, and today especially."Mort frowned. Such lack of discipline wouldn't be tolerated for even a moment in Alpha Team. Aloud, he said, "Was anyone else present at the time of these killings?""Aye, there was one," Greybeard responded. "Elite Agent Rex. He be alive yet, and they've taken him to the infirmirary.""Good. Hopefullly, if he was conscious at the time, he will be able to tell us how all this happened.""Unless, of course, he is the one responsible." Vinyaya said."Doubtful," said Mort. "Scout was stabbed to death, and Heavy had his throat cut. I understand Scout was known for his speed and agility, so the most likely explanation for his death is that he was taken by surprise. Conversely, it would have taken someone of incredible speed and agility to get close enough to Heavy to slit his throat, given that it appears he was preparing to fire his machine gun when he died. It does not strike me as likely that a cripple would be able to sneak up on someone, nor perform a veritable feat of quickness and athleticism.""That still doesn't explain why Rex was left alive," Vinyaya countered."The killer may have heard you coming, or perhaps they are taunting us," Mort theorized. "Still, I agree that it is somewhat suspicious." He turned to the two Rookie Agents standing by the door with the stretchers. "Go ahead and take them to the mortuary. The autopsies might provide us with more clues." And inwardly, he added, And you can bet your bricks I'll be right there. A distraction like this is exactly what I need.

OOC: Well yes, I could tell from the beginning that Scout was a red herring, as I think I may have mentioned previously. What I was actually asking was whom he was calling, but now you've answered that too. And what an answer I think I can guess how that'll play into the eventual Trigger/Amanda confrontation....And I've edited my previous IC now that I have more knowledge concerning which agents were entering the safe room.

OOC: Atton- Oh, certainly there should be some degree of realism in terms of human behavior and so forth, and of course bringing in a detective when people get killed under mysterious circumstances does make perfect sense. The only objectionable bit was the detective solving the matter in seconds. So I guess we have an understanding now. All's well that ends well?And now I must catch up with all of my characters at once. That's what I get for not posting in so long, I guess.IC: As Trigger finished his phone call, Shiller muttered "Ya think that counts as funny business?""I dunno," Wright replied quietly. "I think we can let that slide unless this Montoya guy actually shows up in person for a killing spree." They followed a short distance behind Trigger as he stalked away from the telephone, hanging back far enough to grant the mercenary his personal space, but, true to their word, never letting him out of their sight. He shot them glares occasionally, which Shiller answered with a sarcastic salute, or a smile and wave.Wright snickered and sharply jabbed Shiller in the ribs with her elbow. "Stop it, you'll just make him madder," she whispered."I don't think that's possible," Shiller whispered back, punching her shoulder.------------------------Loop crept through the halls of the DAHQ, expertly avoiding most attention. Sneaking about, however, would attract the attention of any security cameras, so he was forced to appear nonchalant. His third eye was beginning to itch. Not for the first time, he cursed the superfluous visual organ -- an accidental development, but one that Cane had decided to keep for the menacing appearance it provided, or so the explanation had gone -- and resisted the compulsion to pull off the strip of cloth he'd tied around his forehead to conceal it. He got a few odd looks from passing agents, but this owed mostly to his torn and ragged black uniform, which was fortunately in enough disarray that none of the passersby realized at a glance that it was not the uniform of the DINO team. Even more fortunate was the fact that he did not run across anyone who would have recognized him.He was also able to quickly ascertain the dire situation which now engulfed almost the entire headquarters. Loop grinned slightly -- this could be advantageous...He soon reached the barracks and located an empty room, moving quickly to one of the closets. Time for a wardrobe change.------------------------Hotwire was familiar enough with Shiller's tenacity to be certain that the man would follow Trigger like they were chained together, and from the impression he'd gotten of Wright, he felt pretty certain he could say the same of her. He chuckled slightly. Those two are too perfect together.So...no worries on that front. The only other matter of concern at the moment was the Second Headquarters Squad, and the identity of the killer who was hunting them down. After finally retrieving his crutch from the mess hall, he asked around concerning the location of the various remaining members of the squad, and then headed in the direction of the 'safe room.' As he approached, he saw Amanda, Greybeard, Frozeen, and Vinyaya rushing toward the broken doorway...out of which was billowing thick, black smoke. He hurried over and joined the group."Any idea what happened here?" he asked the Space Police officer.Vinyaya gave him a grim look. "Nothing good, that's all I can tell." Amanda led the way into the room, and a shocking scene met the eyes of the agents present.------------------------Helm walked through the corridors in a daze, eventually reaching the rec room. Larson was sprawled in a chair, draining a coffee mug and flipping through the news broadcasts from Antarcica on the television. He glanced over as Helm walked in. "Morning. You found Jason yet?"Helm fought to keep his voice steady. "He's -- I'd...rather not talk about it now." He sat down heavily on another chair, off in the corner, staring at the floor."Oh...I'm sorry..." the pilot responded awkwardly. He glanced down at his empty coffee cup, then got up and walked out of the room, nodding as Andrew entered.------------------------"Excuse me? I think I might know who the mole is."Bogart and Pierce both turned at the new voice. A DA agent stood behind them, having somehow entered without them or any of the other doctors and medics noticing. The agent wore a grey bandanna on his head, pulled all the way down to his eyebrows."Who are you?" the detective demanded."Standard Agent Spiral," the minifig said, with only a moment's hesitation."Talk," said Bogart. "I need a lead, and I'll take any help I can get."------------------------Though his face didn't betray it, Mort was engulfed by inner conflict. The man who'd been his best friend for years was back from the dead...as the very thing they both had once sworn to destroy. He stared at the drone through the two-way mirror of the interrogation room; his identity had indeed been determined.It was, of course, completely impossible for Swerve's face to betray any emotion at all, but he'd begun to feel that same conflict himself as his memories returned, as well as many of the same puzzling questions that had occurred to Mort immediately. How can I remember any of this? That's just not how Ogel drones work. He glanced over at the mirror on the wall and, for the first time, experienced a wave of revulsion at his own appearance. He tore off the black cap affixed to his head and tossed it away in disgust, covering his face with his skeletal hands. I hope the DA uniforms include masks or hoods or something.------------------------Katerina entered the mess hall. She sent Wolfgang to fetch some food and sat down at at table with Rainer on her left, and lay her ShadowTech uniform's jacket across the seat to her right. She looked up and noticed a man in a dark suit, beige trenchcoat, and fedora walking quickly towards her table. "May I help you?" she said evenly as he sat down across from her."Katerina Schattenberg?" the man said, flashing a badge at her. "The name's Bogart. I'd like a word with you. I'm told you may know quite a bit about the strange deaths that have been occurring this morning..." Katerina's attention drifted over to an agent who'd entered behind Bogart, and now stood in the doorway watching her. He looked familiar...impossibly familiar.It cannot be, she thought. He fell on Adventurers' Island. Still...that grey bandanna concealed his entire forehead, and you never knew what could be underneath.... The agent noticed her watching and gave her a grin and a wink. And then she noticed that Bogart was looking at her impatiently. "Excuse me?" she said.The detective sighed. "I said, what do you know about the strange deaths that have been happening? I've been informed you may have...extra knowledge on this matter, so choose your words carefully."

OOC: Forget laptops, PeaSam, I flipped my whole desk. Or I might have, if I hadn't already had the inkling of an idea that just maybe you're crazy enough to pull something like that. Now I just want to know what the deal was with those long-distance phone calls Scout was making from Gold City...Atton, I have to agree with avmatoran; your IC strikes me as decidedly unrealistic. It seems to me that the person running the team would be so far above everyone's suspicions that he wouldn't even cross anyone's mind as a possibility. Someone like Rex or Hotwire or Andrew would be more likely to fall last on the list of People They'd Expect, but the founding members probably wouldn't have been on that list at all. PeaSam may have stated it outright, but he stated it to us, not to Bogart and Pierce, so having them figure it out so quickly is nothing more than metagaming. Characters oughtn't be able to see beyond the fourth wall like that.

OOC: Atton, don't forget that Wright and Shiller are sticking to Trigger like glue. You could at least mention that in your previous IC.

OOC: Okay, so not much of an IC since I spent most of my energy poring over that video. Good stuff. Almost makes me want to give LDD another try myself...almost. Maybe in another three years. :PAnd I'm not sure what to do with Hotwire, since the Second Headquarters Squad isn't really in a position to be 'checked up on' at the moment.IC:Trigger and Snake had made it no more than twenty feet when a voice came from behind them. "So where you boys off to in such a hurry?" They turned and saw the sandy-haired agent who had accosted them earlier lounging in a doorway."None of you znapping business, punk," Trigger snarled.Shiller detached himself from the doorway and sauntered towards the two men. "I'll take that to mean you're off to find Silencia Venomosa again, because if there's one thing your actions have showed us all, it's that you just can't take a hint." He absent-mindedly pretended to examine his fingernails. "And I suppose you think you'll still kill her even though all your weapons have been confiscated. And maybe that's something you really are capable of...but I doubt you could do it quickly enough for the deed to go unnoticed. And then you get kicked out, branded as an enemy, and then guess who doesn't get paid?"Trigger scowled angrily. "That's my business, not yours. What the megablock do you think you're doing anyway, following us around?"Shiller sighed. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that you weren't paying attention at the time, after that tap on the face my nice lady friend gave you, but O'Neal did say that we weren't to let you out of our sight, and he is an elite, so despite the huge number of times I've flaunted his advice in the past, I do kinda hafta actually listen to him this time.""Well you'd have to kill us before we submit to 4+ like that," Trigger snapped."Oh, we won't do anything like that." The voice made Trigger and Snake whirl around again. Agent Wright had the pecular ability to crack her knuckles simply by making a fist, and she was doing so now, as she leaned against the wall behind them. "Shiller and I, we're idealists, you see." She looked up at them with a menacing grin. "You try any funny business, and we'll just make you hurt."

OOC: that guy, minor issue with your post: He can't exactly do that. Maybe by sometime in 2011, but right now he's been on a prosthetic leg for hardly twenty-four hours.I'll try to have an IC tonight if I can get to this computer again.

OOC: If it makes you feel any better, Brikman, Tracer actually became Helm's son posthumously, when I needed some reason to bring Helm back from Antarctica. So even though Helm's son is now in a state of having-been-killed-by-Zelda, you could claim that Zelda technically did not kill him. Does that make any sense? Barely? Okay. Suffice it to say, I definitely intend for Zelda and Helm to meet.And that guy, you forgot 'IC' on your post.IC: "I think I'll have to agree with that, sir." Hotwire said.Digger nodded. "And as for your question about Engineer, the autopsy should reveal the time of death, but failing that, the security cameras might allow us to estimate. Still, it could be extremely helpful if you and your friends could list everyone you saw in the mess hall anyway."