Log:Wasp Venom, Scene 15

Wasp Venom 2013/09/25 	 Mage Malcolm Ebon Star Porter Interface

15

Champions Mush - Wednesday, September 25, 2013, 10:04 PM

Mage arrives at Steel's Gym at Regan's request. Since he is arriving to work, he is dressed appropriately, if a bit flamboyantly in blue shirt, black tights and red cape.

Doctor Reynarde is greeted by a smiling attendant who hands him a sealed envelope that is addressed to him and has instructions on the outside that it is not to be opened within line of site of the gym. The other members of the team receive similar envelopes, as do a number of other walk ins. The teams envelopes contain the time and location of a rendezvous on the north shore of Sandy Bottom island.

Mage says, "Oooookay." but follows the instructions, assuming Regan has her reasons."

An envelope arrives for Malcolm while he's in the motorpool, toiling under a troop transport partially damaged by all of the mayhem that happened at Star Guard HQ. He eyes the instructions on the outside, pulls up some information on his HUD, and slinks off to a secluded corner to examine the contents.

Hours later, Malcolm arrives at the designated coordinates. Malcolm's wearing comfortable, relatively light-weight clothing and carrying an replica Indiana Jones satchel. Presumably Malcolm's headset is tucked away in there.

A diminutive figure in a hooded cowl flies in from across the water to settle softly on the sand. Hands loosely clasped in front of it it bows its cowl in an attitude of contemplation and waits in silence and stillness for the others to arrive, the fabric of its robe flapping softly in the wind.

Mage's instructions feature an extra clause that Porter is to be contacted and teleported by surprise, bearing in mind that he may well be under close surveillance, physical and mental.

Mage arrives at the designated place and seeing somebody he doesn't know, asks, "Care to explain why I'm engaging in a kidnapping of a friend?"

The robed figure looks to the new arrival. "I'm guessing there's a concern the bad guys are watching us in general and him especially." The distorted voice vibrates slightly, an effect od the winde. "But it's just a guess."

Mage calls Porter on an ordinary phone, but tells Porter where to meet him instead of just gating him to destinations unknown.

"Are you guys going to bicker the whole time," inquires Malcolm. He quirks an eyebrow as he looks over both the robed figure and Mage. Adjusting the lay of his satchel, Malcolm watches the other two thoughtfully.

Porter gets a call, which he was expecting at some time. He just wasn't sure when. Now he does. Once he knows where, that solves the last of the mystery. A few moments later, he just appears on the beach with the snap of displaced air. On the sand, not above or in it. Even a broken watch is right at least once a day, though Porter does blink in surprise when there is no falling or digging involved afterwards.

The darkened cowl turns to regard Malcolm. "He started it," It warbled unconvincingly. After a moment of silence it adds. "Are we there yet?" Cowled hood turning left and right. "At Porter's sudden appearance there is a small start before it observes. "Nice trick."

"Nice entrance, Porter. You even stuck the landing, man," enthuses Malcolm. He grins and makes a 'join the club' gesture to Porter as Malcolm moves to close distance with the others assembled.

Mage says, "I believe I have been asked to send you ... three? - I thought there were five - across the planet into danger. Since I do not know what you will be doing there, I believe you have your own way home?"

"Probably because it wasn't me, this time.," Porter shrugs. He's still used to less reliable transportation, obviously. He also quickly notices the count. "Huh... are the rest coming?"

The cowled figure nods. "That's what my love letter tells me too, I guess we're using transmat or walking or something." She looks at the other two. "You guys are a bit big to ride ostriches, so that's at least one escape route cut off already."

Finally, after spending some time up north, Interface has what data she can get out of her trip... though she -does- feel that it is entirely useless and meaningless information... which is rare, because to her, information is almost always the most important weapon to use. She lands out front of the gym and strides in, fully armored up though less bulky than before for several reasons.

"Before anyone goes anywhere... I have some stupid junk messages that contain some nonsensical information that may or may not be of any use to anyone. But... Jules... play."

And Julius projects the first image into the air, playing the message Interface saw in New York.

The image is of a black muscular male silhouette without features, except for a white cowboy hat. Although it doesn't have a mouth, the jaw moves as the image says, Two executives for the same corporation, in two hostile countries, both ask local superheroes to aide them with problem they have. Both executives get some very good people to work for them and both get some people that, well, not so good."

"Both tell their own people a story that makes them the good guy and the other executive bad. Both think their executive is the good one because they know her and don't know this other person. Problem is, I think both executives are telling - how you say? - not telling the *whole* truth."

"If you are the one Regan called technopath, you will have no problems retrieving device that will play rest of message back in hometown. If you are not that person, please be warning that device is booby trapped and tampering can be hazardous to health."

Mage frowns, "If you believe it is nonsensical why play it? Is this the person we are skulking about to avoid?" Liam looks like he does *not* approve of skulking.

Ebon Star's facial expression is completely unreadable. "Well, if he wanted to give us a message why leave it in home town, why not include it with this message?" the figure shrugs. "But I guess we will find out. So... where are we headed?"

"No," Porter answers Mage, "I think that's one of those execs we're avoiding. The one we don't really know and that's a telepath. Maybe that's why there's so much mind gaming going on? I think she's just trying to stall us."

"Because it might mean something to someone who has a very specific bit of info. I don't have any other information to make it useful to me. Plus... even if it's useless, it's information and might mean something -later-." says Interface. "However, I -did- get access to the followup message. It is audio only so here is a playback of that."

PLAYBACK: A male voice says in accented English, "These facts I have confirmed. One: Hive liquid is destroyed by pasteurization and breaks down within twenty-four hours of production, so is reasonable that machine that makes it kept in sealed microbe free unit. Two: neither American or Zu executives identify themselves to public as *assistant* manager, but as lady in charge. Three: prior to malfunction of liquid production unit, Johannesburg branch of Hive make greater profits than any other branch, including Tokyo main office. I can also confirm outer container for production unit in Saldanha was not authorized by main office and not paid for with Hive money, but was ordered by Zu executive. I can also confirm production unit sent from Tokyo to Johannesburg is reported to be inoperative."

"What I cannot confirm is whether mechanical Johannesburg production unit was, in fact, sabotaged by jealous executives or if non-mechanical occupant was shipped with "broken" unit to Tokyo. I cannot confirm if faulty mechanical unit was shipped to Johannesburg or if occupied unit was rerouted to Saldanha. I cannot confirm if American executive was promised Johannesburg branch for crippling Zu executives attempts to keep operational after her mechanical unit was sabotaged."

"Given how little both know, I suggest we both finish our missions. You keep collateral damage knock down for your team while I police mine. You see if Saldanha unit is machine or person and rescue person to keep safe. If person, I rescue Colonial Bay person and also keep safe. If machine and you break anyway, I also break Colonial Bay machine."

The robed figure shakes it's head. "Well good work recovering the messages..." She says brightly, electronically distorted voice very chipper. "this is going to be an interesting trip."

Porter looks confused by the message, not that it's a rare expression. "Huh... Where did that message come from? If it's legit, there's something going on... but there's still a lady that needs rescued regardless."

"Personally, I think we should just destroy the hives and be done with it. They're more dangerous than just about anything else I can conceive of in this world." offers Interface, "So, what's the consensus then?" she asks as she gestures about, "Are we going? Or are we just going to stand around?"

"If I understand the situation, we have no idea where our target is and they know exactly where theirs is. SO I guess it's nice of them to wait for use to catch up. Maybe we should warn Silver Spider and Obsidian Butterfly but yeah, let's hit the road... or the ether... or whatever we're doing." The robed figure urges.

Mage says, "I was told Zu, but that is a big country. Care to be a bit more specific?"

"What -is- the specific mission? I thought that it was going to be a stealth insertion and a long term investigation on the ground, not some strike team going in to just hit someone or something." suggests Interface.

"My briefing suggests that wer're trying to recover a HIVE executive called Sato Katsumi who lives inside some sort of vault and there's a vault of exactly the right sort in Saldanha which we're to locate and investigate. If she isn't there then we try the vault in Johannesburg." Ebbon Star asserts. "And yeah, it could take a while, Want me to drop costume for the trip? I was going to do it once we got there."

"We're looking fffffffff- Or Ebon Star could cover it," intones Malcolm. He is thoughtfully stroking his chin and largely staring at the space where the hologram was moments before. Ponderous Malcolm is ponderous.

Porter nods and points at Ebon Star. "Yeah, that's the one I was talking about. So we've got two places to look, and one to start in. What's wrong with that? There's also the Creep and his face to kick in, so there's some fun to look forward to, too."

"Right, I thought I was going in first to try to crack the vault's schematics. So, we're just going in... smash'n'grab style? Do we even know if we can get -into- the vault?" asks Interface.  says Julius, and Ally's digitized voice murmurs, "Sorry, don't mean to sound negative, just confused."

"We need to investigate Saldanha to see if the vault there contains Sato Katsumi," intones Malcolm. He seems to have broken from his pondering. "If it doesn't, then we need to investigate the Johannesburg vault for her presence. If we find her, we need to carefully extract her because of unique medical needs."