Log:A Breach in the Case, Scene 7

A Breach in the Case 2015/11/05 Siege Rick Indira Quiet

7

Quiet wouldn't miss a chance to roll out with the increasingly familiar crew. She merely had the annoying need to change into something more appropriate for the occassion. Not too different from her previous arrival, she bounds and floats in, arriving at the tunnel before they group descends, this time. She offers a salute to the boys and a casual wave to Indira.

Indira waves back gently to Quiet, smiling softly at her arrival. The impromptu team is all here this time, now that Rick is back. Even if they haven't officially been called a team.

Quiet's salute is returned, and raised with a grin from Griffin. "Good to see you, Q." he says quietly as he checks his weapon again before they get ready to penetrate the bases defenses. "These poor computer dorks aren't going to know what hit 'em." He says with a chuckle.

TEAM EARTH-SPACE COWPEOPLE EIGHT IS A GO!

Breach salutes to Quiet as The Merc Without a Mouth arrives to see Griffin interdicting Indira from doing her level best to lead the team. He has his thumbs hooked in the suspenders of his combat harness as he watches the scene unfold at a significant remove from their proposed entry point - presumably because of the brilliant work lights and suspected enemy activity thereunder. Nothing more than a simple, cornfed, country hyper-chicken grenadelawyer waiting for his "clients" to sort out their differences over how to proceed with their legal* action.

After Indira and Griffin seem to have collected themselves and decided that returning, post-haste, directly to the tunnel/hole that Indira dug during their previous trip is perhaps not the best course of action, Breach steps closer to the group and waves Quiet in as well. There's no reason not to include Quiet in planning their -BREACH- of the compound. Nor is there a compelling reason for Breach to stop making these terrible, self-referential puns. He offers a small smile and intones, "So we all agree that we want to get to that computer lab you guys found first time through? Most likely place to find the answers we want, yeah?"


 * - Nothing about this action is at all definable as legal in the United States of America. Please do not attempt this or anything like this in your own lives, kids. You could get hurt, arrested, or killed!

Quiet steps up close to Breach and the Ambassador for the review miniature huddle. Her helm dips in a nod of concurrence.

You have voted for Griffin.

Indira nods in agreement. "I believe that is a plan to recover information," she agrees quietly. She glances about the area cautiously as she ponders this idea of stealth.

"Alright. So we'll want to enter from a different angle, maybe make a beeline, underground, directly for the lab instead of trying to come in through that hallway you guys described. Sound good?"

Breach's helm pans left and right to check yea/nay from his compatriots. He also continues to thumb tug on his suspenders. What the hell is with him and his combat harness' suspenders tonight? Weirdo.

"That's exactly what I was thinking." Griffin nods. He ignores the suspender manipulation, instead he focuses his mind on the task before them. The plan is solid. He's confident in his allies and it shows in every smile, spoken word and step.

Indira isn't exactly a point person or lead. "I could get directly there with another tunnel." She lightly taps her foot on the ground, feeling through the soil and getting a feel for where the lab might be.

Quiet tilts her head at Breach and reaches over to pinch one of the suspenders, pull it out a few centimeters, and then let it snap back. She then taps out her query on her arm. A NEW TUNNEL STRAIGHT DOWN?

Breach does not yelp when the suspender *SNAP*s against his armored chest. He frowns slightly at Quiet and offers a derisive grunt at her, unhooking his thumbs from the suspenders. This may be a moderate victory for team safety.

"I was thinkin' we go in at an angle from beyond the perimeter they seem to be securing. Just tunnel right in at a comfortable angle, walk in through a wall, and go to town on downloading from their servers."

You guys have not yet -BREACH-ed the security perimeter. Indira can tell because she feels some kind of sensor probes in the ground nearer to the sump now. She can tell they're sensors because they are transmitting some kind of gentle ultrasonic pulse. The facility is where it was before, though the previous tunnel seems to be swarming with troops... And the facility may be growing to expand along its walls? You're pretty far away from it, but Indira's pretty sure that the walls of her tunnel, within a couple of meters of the facility, are starting to feel like the walls of the facility itself. Can buildings grow like that? Is it a trick of the mind?

Indira seems to be preparing to harness and focus the power to tunnel their way down, feeling a path to where they need to be. Suddenly, Indira loks confused. VERY confused. "Something is very strange about this place. More than I can explain. It feels like this place grows," she says with another light tap of her foot on the ground.

Quiet nods to Breach, as that sounds more prudent, then looks to Indira expectantly. This changes to curiosity or concern when Indira turns confused. Her helm tilts and she types. GROWS? IT'S GETTING LARGER?

Quiet has partially disconnected.

"It grows?" echoes Breach of Quiet's text. He scratches the side of his helmet in puzzlement, casting a thoughtful glance toward the warehouse overlooking the fringe of the industrial park. Slowly Breach looks back at the others, an unseen eyebrow arched upward in curiosity under his mirrored helm.

"I think that is the word," Indira doesn't sound all that certain that it is. "I did not know your planet had this technology," she murmurs to herself in confused surprise. "They are always guarding the other tunnel. I feel many people there."

Caleb has connected.

Indira can also, just barely, feel people moving about around/inside of the previously automated sewage filtration plant under the sump. She thinks they're trying to repair the damage from that Breach Bomb - resetting the trap, perhaps? - though it's sort of difficult to tell at this distance and through all of the man-made materials that keep the plant from spilling sewage into the surrounding soil.

Quiet nods to Indira. GUARDS AND ACTIVITY COULD WORK TO OUR ADVANTAGE. IF WE FOCUS ELSEWHERE. She stops afterwards, head tilting again, though in the other direction. She may now be in thought.

"This place startles and amazes me constantly," offers Breach, "Why should you be any different?"

Shrugging, Breach looks over toward Quiet and watches her as the Merc Without a Mouth falls into apparently deep thought. He sets his lips into a straight line and observes for the moment, apparently waiting for a new plan to arise from the ladies' psychic gestalt. That's how women work, right?

Indira crouches down to the ground, puting her hand on the ground to feel for tremors. "What place, Breach? Do you remember more of this lab?" Her head turns towards him questioningly. "Why should I? I don't understand."

There may or may not be some sort of psychic communication going on as Indira feels out the area around them. Finally, she rises up. "I think stealth and the computer room is a good idea. To avoid the many below." She looks for a good place to start digging their way there.

Quiet finally breaks her silence... so to (not) speak. She taps up her thoughts. THE FACILITY WAS SECTIONED MODULES WITH INDIVIDUAL BULKHEADS AND HATCHES, LIKE A SHIP OR STATION. THIS COULD BE TO KEEP DANGER IN, OR OUT. THERE WAS TALK OF DIMENSIONAL... ODDITIES. IT COULD BE GROWING. A SPACE STATION. IN ITS OWN CREATED SPACE.

Quiet then nods to Indira, still favoring that plan. It's just a matter of the details, where the devil lies. SHE CAN GET US ACCESS. I CAN REMAIN UNDETECTED. HOW DO WE BREACH THE SYSTEM?

"This place," starts Breach, pausing at Indira's follow up question. He smiles thoughtfully and shakes his head at her. "This place, Earth. Earth surprises me every day. Why shouldn't it surprise you?"

Shrugging, Breach looks over at Quiet and considers the text. He smiles faintly as he makes a deferential gesture and replies, "Don't ask me. My tech expertise is bombs and electrical systems, not operating systems."

Indira smiles softly at Breach's answer. "You speak truth. I'm a stranger here. Many things should surprise me," she chuckles lightly. "I think maybe it surprises you too, for both different and similar reasons." Being time displaced, or space displaced, could leave them both surprised in their own ways.

"Actually- I think I have an idea on how we get access, but to be honest it's a stretch." Griffin chimes in mysteriously.

He taps a button on his headset and mumbles something about 'horseshoes and hand grenades.'

Quiet offers Breach a reassuring shrug. Is it supposed to be reassuring? MY EXPERTISE IS CREATING HOLES IN DANGEROUS OBJECTS. As Griffin chimes in, she looks and listens, while also reaching out a hand to claps Indira's shoulder. That could be more reassuring than a shrug.

"What've you got in mind, Griff?" inquires Breach, looking toward the other man. He may still be smiling at Indira, sideways, as he looks to the Griffin to her right. Breach shrugs back at Quiet, when he gets a chance to read her message.

Indira begins to focus on trying on if there are any minds she can sense below to gain some intel on what's happening. Chemicals microscopically exude from her, spreading around her and sinking into the earth and atmosphere. She smiles up at Quiet. "I hope not living dangerous objects," she comments with probably a hope that is going to get shot down like so many alien bugs.

Her attention turns back to Griffin, keenly interested. "What is your idea?" She looks puzzled at the suggestion to stretch. If she could see Breach's smiling towards her, she may be even more puzzled, but smiling back.

"Well, after dangerous holes are made... I figure we'll need a password. And I think to myself, these guys are quite obsecessed with sundials. Everywhere you look- there's some reference to sundials. It's also the most outstanding difference in battalion sigils. I know it's a long shot... but what other choice do we have?" Griffin replies as he looks at Rick. "Well besides grabbing a computer nerd and holding him hostage of course. But that's plan B." He shrugs.

After looking at everyone he says, "Unless you all have a better option, of course."

Quiet gives Indira's shoulder a light squeeze in vague response, then releases her and leves her be so that she can ...do... her mind thing.

It takes a little time for the psychic static to clear. Eventually, however, Indira can sense a multitude of voices in her head. Sorting through them takes more time, of course, but fortune smiles kindly upon her. She's spying on a group of reinforcements - personnel transferred here after their prior break-in - and they're loudly complaining, possibly in their real voices as much as in their mental voices, about how stupid it was to set up a bomb trap over top of this sewage plant.

"Who does something like this?"

"Idiots! IDIOTS!"

"You don't see any other ops groups setting traps like this."

"Pole Theta's gonna be pissed about Pole Rho wasting resources like this. Breaking tappable infrastructure to boot!"

"Security Code 9817OscarMikeNovemberIndia779."

Indira listens very patiently to the thoughts. "Names...they're names," she murmurs. "'Pole Theta's gonna be pissed about Pole Rho'....'Security Code 9817OscarMikeNovemberIndia779...'" she quietly recites thoughts she picks up that seem relevant.

Breach automatically performs a Beavis & Butthead snort when Indira keeps mentioning 'Pole'.

Griffin really tries hard to ignore the B&B and near-gratuitious usesage of the word 'pole' when Indira starts reciting a security code. He tries to remember it.

"0917..."

Quiet glances to Breach and taps out, THEY MUST ALL BE GREEK MEN. A shame that they are not the ancient, muscled, and oiled variety.

"I was kidnapped by Greece and held hostage in an electroshock chamber on American soil?"

Breach does not sound convinced by this. He shoots a look at Griffin that he realizes after-the-fact Griffin cannot see through that mirrored visor on the front of his helmet. Stupid visor.

"Maybe we could try that security code first, Griff? Then we'll try the sundial thing?"

"...N-I-7-7-9...... mmhmmm..." Griffin says to Rick, clearly preferring the use of this code as he is still trying to keep this security code in his head.

He starts reciting the code over, "9-8-1-7-0-O-M..."

There aren't very many names for Indira to intercept. She could keep mining, seeking deeper secrets of these unknown men... Who knows what terrible secrets might reside in the deepest, darkest recesses of these men's minds?

"God damn, Jenson's hot. Who knew someone could rock an armored suit like that?"

"This is going to take all night. I just want to go back to my bunk, make a few trades (OTM, WE, OXY, VRN) and log a couple hours on *STATIC* before I pass out."

o/~ I've been workin' on the sewer all the live long day o/~

"... then I'll pull out his hot, hard little..."

"Is Ramirez checking my ass out again? God damned lech. I hope he enjoys it while he can because I swear I'll put a pick through his eye if he tries anything at the Christmas party this year."

"... carry the four, applying that on vector b, i should be able to torque the debris loose without contaminating the site..."

o/~ *instrumental break* o/~

"Signs of corrosion anyhow. Rho probably expedited a maintenance schedule."

"Too bad she also failed to gank The Subject's friends."

"Yeah, yeah. Any way you dice it, Theta's going to have a fit about this crap."

"(heh heh. crap. heh heh.)"

Indira's thoughts are still elsewhere, trying to dig up helpful information. What she receives as she digs deeper into the random stream of thoughts below is not what she expected. There's so many thoughts to pick through. Some make sense. Some are embarrassing by the look on her face. And then there's that looks of confusion.

She filters out what she can and repeats the thoughts that seem relevant and are not about how hot Jenson looks in an armored suit. "I'm still hearing things. The name Rho, and Theta. Someone is making trades: OTM, WE, OXY, VRN. Hmmm. 'Too bad she also failed to gank The Subject's friends.'"

That last thought has Indira concerned. Is 'The Subject' Rick? She tries to probe deeper as the others strategize, trying to focus on The Subject and this she. "Does any of this help your stretch plan, Mr. Freeman?" she asks.

There is a lot of sex on the minds of the people fixing that sewage plant. Hyoomons are gross and weird. Especially the one called Ramirez, who is very lecherously eyeballing Jenson's butt.

It takes a lot work to focus in on that one mind, but it does fill Indira's mind's eye with an image of a tall, redheaded human woman somewhat older than Violet, but not as old as Orlan. She has very sharp features and a very severe expression on her face. For some reason, Indira can't seem to fill in what color this woman's eyes are, though her skintone seems to be remembered as "startlingly" tan. This appears to be "Pole Rho" or, at least, one person's mental image thereof.

'The Subject' does not appear to have any particular mental image attached to the term. Rather there are a series of alphanumerics mentally attributed to 'The Subject' - some kind of filing system designation? - and a block of text that Indira can't quite clearly picture. Alongside the text, however, resolve a number of file photos of Indira, Griffin, Quiet (in armor), Violet, Orlan, Grimm, Justiciar, and Copycat.

There may or may not be a note to the effect of 'For being an insufferable angry bastard, he has a lot of women in his life.'