Log:Wasp Venom, Scene 9

Wasp Venom 2013/09/10 	 Regan

9

As if from a Japanese period piece or possibly nature documentary the scene is one of a waterfall high in the mountains. Coniferous trees surround the small hidden valley as water cascades from the clifftop, crashing onto rocks beneath and forming a deep plunge pool. A small stream forms at the far end of the pool running away into the surrounding forest while a hokura stands at the side of the pool with a small offering of rice and sake placed before it.

It's not often that one has to deal with genuine honest to goodness debris in the simulation room. Now seems to be one such occasion. The scent of antiseptic cleaner is heavy on the air as a suite of cleanerbots spin industriously on the floor. Regan places a syringe and some alcoholic swabs and cotton balls in a garbage bag.

Debris? Porter only just walked in. The opening doors are proof of that. He is well-equipped with coffee that stops on the way to his mouth when he sees the cleanup. "Uh... everything Ok?"

Regan looks up at the new arrival and smiles. "Absolutely, cleaning up after a small medical procedure but I'm reliably informed it all went smoothly."She holds out the bag of stuff and makes a clicking noise which summons a nearby cleaning bot who pops oopen its lid. Reagn drops the bag inside. "I think we're just about done.

"So now people are playing doctor in here, too?" Porter quirks a brow. "It wasn't because something happened is it? And have you seen Bee lately?" He looks up at the observation windows. Just in case.

"For some procedure this is a vastly more secure location than a hospital for people in our line of business. This was one such occasion and that's about as much detail as you're going to get. Everyone is hale hearty and healthy so there's no need for concern." In answer to the question Regan nods. "Yes, I saw her just yesterday evening but not so far today."

Porter nods and now gets to swallowing some coffee. "Ok. Just wanted to check. Somebody was out claiming to be her, but since she tried digging into my brain, I was pretty sure it's the other lady."

Regan turns her attention more squarely on Porter. "So... where and when did this take place, I'm going to assume she tried using mental powers and not some sort of shovel."

Porter smirks. "Yes, brain power and not a shovel. It was over at a little curio shop in Nicholston. She hired some local college girl to track me down... at least I think she was a girl." He thinks a moment longer and shrugs. "Anyway, she was trying to keep me busy while the Bee-looking one tried to pick my brain. I'm pretty sure she didn't get anything, since all the mental stuff got another mentalist's notice. She helped out alot."

"So let me get this straight. You were approached by one girl who kept you occupied while someone who looks like Bee tried to read your mind but a third girl, this one also a mentalist, turned up and helped a lot?" She blinks. "Is that right? Because I can recite it all but I still have no idea what actually happened."

There's a WHOOSH and a bit of a blur from the direction of the suddenly open door, and Marathon's standing right there. "Hiya Regan! Hiya Mister Porter!", she says, waving a hand at the latter before turning back to the former. "What happened with that Allison girl and the big needles and the tiny robots and the talking computer person and the biobed and all that?", she asks, all in a rush, blurring away to a nearby spot to gesture with her hands as if outlining the 'biobed' she mentioned, as she finishes her sentence, before blurring to right back where she'd just been standing.

Regan's head swivels to follow the progress of the teen speedster, blinking slowly but her expression remains unchanged. She pauses a moment before answering Marathon's question. "So, if you recall, the door of the simulation room was locked to try and limit access to the procedure to only a few . It follows that Allison might not have wanted an indiscriminate public announcement about what was going on. Can you see the direction my line of thinking runs to here or do I need to be more explicit?"

Porter blinks and looks around several times before fingally spotting Marathon. She stayed at the doorway, his eyes expected her to keep moving, it looks like. He then blinks again and looks to Regan; mouth opening and his empty hand reflexively lifting with his index finger pointing out. All the classic telegraphing of a question on its way. Somehow, he manages to hold it in. Mouth closes and arm lowers without anything asked. "Um, yeah, there were three. One was the muscle, I guess. One was trying to pick my brain. The last one helped stop the picking.

Marathon glances over at Porter and lifts her hands to cover her mouth, but instead just ends up slapping the visor she's wearing that completely conceals her face-- with a 'thwack' sort of sound. "Oh man!", she says, sounding embarassed. "I /still/ sometimes forgets about this thing!", she adds, using both hands to 'adjust' the helmet on her head. Then, a little sheepishly, a finger going back and forth between the other two. "Uhm... I didn't interrupt y'all or anything, did I?"

Not really." Regan answers, shaking her head. "Porter was just telling me about a swarm of women vying for his attention, apparently the evil Hive executive from Zu Nation has gone on the offenseive and enlisted some help. From the sound of it she's assembled a team, one of them came here to threaten me." She blinks. "It was quite tragic really, the tractor beam projectors malfunctioned and he received an injury to his wrist."

Porter snickers, "Yeah, I think you said something about that. He's lucky... Did he tell you about the others hiding in the city, too. She really wanted to get out the warning that there's a bunch more here waiting to see if we go to Zu. If we do, they're going to trash CB."

Marathon actually remains quiet for a bit, listening, then puts her hands on her hips in a defiant sort of pose. "They're trying to hold my hometown hostage?", she says, her tone of voice as not-happy sounding as her posture seems to indicate she's feeling.

Regan nods. "Ok, that's an odd tactic." Her head tilts. "She has to know we can muster superior forces and we can track them down and neutralise the the threat they pose." Her eyes narrow slightly. "So this is more like she's playing for time. Did you get any more detail by any chance."

Porter does his best to recall. Judging by the effort, it could either be a great mystery or very obvious how the mental attacks on him failed. "Stellenbosch... Penetrator... Rewind... and the Diamond Twins." A few more seconds pass before he explains, "The twins are guarding Stellenbosch, which is where she thinks we're going? The others are here, I think."

"So... this Stellenbosch is a place, not a person?", asks Marathon.

Regan head tilts. "Both, but from context I'm going to guess Stellenbosch University." She lifts her voice. "Data search Stellenbosch university." A holographic display flickers into existence. "the guy who threatened me muttered something about a university. I thought it was an attempt at misdirection..." She looks over the various images and text files. "Located near the Great Drakenstein mountains. Great name..." She frowns. "It's a fair way from Johannesburg."

Regan's eyes widen. "Shit-balls!" She lifts her voice to the computer again. "Get me a list of researchers from Stellenbosch University who specialise in the anaylsis and synthesis of complex organic compounds."

"That's the one," Porter looks at the holograms that pop up,"but that wasn't where we were going, is it?" He starts thinking again, as dangerous as that can be. "Wait. Is she telling us where to go, daring us since she has people here?"

Marathon stays quiet, listening, watching. "This place is in Germany? I betcha I can go there and come back quick enough... want some recon?"

"It's near the East coast of Southern Africa." SRegan answers absently and she scans the reams of data the computer produces. "No wonder she's playing for time... She doesn't need forever, just long enough for the research to be complete."

"... What research? ... and it's not THAT far away. I can get there pretty quick, myself.", Marathon comments, then says, "Uhm... computer, can you show me a military-style land-nav map of where that university place is at?", looking up as she says it, clearly not used to trying to speak to the room's computer system.

Porter looks between them, confused. "Research? What research? The meta stuff? It just sounded like a dare or a trap to me."

Regan blinks. "Bring up pharmacology, industrial chemistry..." Her lips compress. "University's make a habit of publicly acknowledging grants and endowments in fact researchers are obliged to make those records public. Get a list of Private funds received by departments and researchers over the past eighteen months." She turns to Porter. "She's trying to weaponise the honey or mass produce it on an industrial scale."

At Porter's words, the computer goes *bttzt* and a random web page opens on top of all the research queries:

Marathon puts her hands on her hips. "Hey! It listened to /him/", she says, gesturing at the web page it opened up at Porter's words. "Why didn't it show me the map *I* asked for?", she petulantly complains. Then the petulance is gone, just like that. "Waitaminit... a Military Academy...?", she wonders aloud.

Regan looks at the web page and her face screws up. "What the..." She throws the Academy web page to one side. "Every department of Stellenbosch University will publish an annual report. In that report they will list grants and endowments they have received. Extract a list of grants and endowments received by Stellenbosch, remove government agencies and publicly traded companies that have existed for more than five years. Display Results, crosscheck against the financial records Bee gave us for the Zu Nation Hive branch."

"That doen't look like pharmacology..." Porter blinks. "And I didn't ask it for anything. Uh, wait... didn't it say that academy was /part/ of Stellenbosch?"

Regan says, "The Australian Defence Force Academy is affiliated with the University of New South Wales, the two are about 300 km apart"

"Lemme lookit all this stuff... what kinda things are you looking for, specifically?", she asks of Regan.... "... and how fast can your computer show me stuff?"

Regan says, "You can set the speed yourself manually, by adjusting this nob." She points it out to Marathon. "No, it said they're affiliated, but they are in different locations. Stellenbosch is in Stellenbosch, the academy is in Saldanha."

Marathon nods, and turns the knob... turns it again... then again. Eventually, she has it up to about ten times normal human reading speed, per the readout. "What kinda stuff're we looking for?", she asks, again. "Anything in particular?"

Porter thought he saw something, or that is was more important than it is. "Oh. Ok. Guess that doesn't help. Um..." He looks at the stuff flying by and has to look away before he gets a headache. "Damn. Glad you don't talk that fast..."

"I could", replies Marathon. "... but then no one'd understand me, right?"

Marathon goes from page to page to page... then drags one out to stand alone as she keeps going, a page about Lockheed Martin shipping records. She 'taps' in the air over that image as she keeps at her high-speed reading.

Regan brings up the data for the Zu Nation branch of Hive that was given to her. "This is the data we've been given about the bad guys." She then brings up the publicly available data for Stellenbosch University. "This is what they say they're protecting. We need to bear in mind that it is quite possibly misdirection."

Someting not whizzing by. That means it's something Porter can look at. "What do they need survival capsules for? Are they going to shoot temps into space or something?" He guesses that could be a sales pitch: hire from them, and we'll air mail the workers there in minutes.

Regan looks at the transaction Marathon brings up. "Hive's senior executives require specific environmental conditions which can only be achieved inside the survival vaults." Her brow furrows. "Do we know where the vault is now? Which particular department paid for it?"

"Is that what those vault things're for, going into space?", Marathon wonders aloud. Then her hands blur as she goes back, back, back... and then drags out another page, this one some 'press release'-style technical readouts about the vaults themselves. "I saw that a while ago, but didn't really understand it. Maybe this can tell you what those thingies are about?", she asks of Regan. "That Lockheed company makes stuff for spaceships and stuff, too, by the way, just like they make those vaults for Hive", she adds, hands-blur web-surfing until she drags yet another page out to stand alone, showing that last fact. More hands-blurring for a dozen seconds or so, and Marathon pulls out another page, this one with a manifest showing that the Academy got the Vault itself... with another showing that the money came out of the Academy's budget for food.

Porter does his best to take one and one and one and get three. "So if they've got one at the university, that's where she has to stay? So she was giving it away." Now he's a little more confident about his guess before. "Like I said, she's daring us."