(BACKDATED) DAY 36

[decommission]

[ Hello, friends - have a polite knock on your mental doors. ]

( Sam and me did some more digging on Ngozi trying to work out her angle in all of this. Pretty sure we can rule her out as a secret H+H1 fanatic - whatever's making her act extra shifty seems like it started around the first bombing at the warehouse.

That's about when Ven started acting awfully cagey too. ) [ But they couldn't get past his security to find out what he was hiding thanks to the second bombing.

A pause. ]

( Anyway - I've got the holo-things and articles on a screen out in the living room if you wanna take a poke at them. )

(( OOC: More detailed info is here! ))

Comments

[adamance]

( I have a plan. Our focus should be on Ven and not his systems.

If anything, we should begin to rely on our other talents. We've wasted a great deal of time. I've asked Nirad to begin to trail him to find means to access him more privately. )

[decommission]

( Nirad's working alone? )

[adamance]

( Just to survey and report back. Less people will mean less attention drawn to us. )

[decommission]

( Makes sense.

Got a plan for what we should do if we can corner him? )

[ Steve has been literally cornering people he's been trying to interrogate.

It's been about as successful as you'd expect. ]

[adamance]

( Give him no room to dodge our questions. If things are adding up this way, we can't allow room for error. )

[But also make sure whoever is cornering him isn't likely to fly off the handle if it does turn out he did the bombings or is behind the bombings—so you know.

Not Ren.]

[decommission]

( He's gonna have security at his fingertips - or in his head through an implant even if we can get him alone. ) [ Faram kept threatening that public security would show up in a second if Steve tried anything funny, and he wasn't a guy with a mountains of money at his disposal who probably plans for this sort of thing. ]

[adamance]

( A good point. We'll have to have someone on hand who can bypass that. )

[A point she hadn't considered, because Lexa only knows so much about technology.]

[decommission]

( Who're you thinking of bringing? )

[adamance]

( Ideally, Angel will wake and it can be her and Petre. ) [The combo is purposeful. As is this following one:] ( If not, I believe we'll have to rely on Kylo Ren and Sam Anders. Is Sam able to restrain him? ) [It's the duo that's most likely at this particular point in time, but she'd prefer Petre (and Angel, but for other reasons as well).]

[decommission]

[ He supposes Petre must act better when Angel's around. ]

( He could - but I don't know if that's a good idea. ) [ The Ren part, anyway. ] ( Better off with Sam and Ilde, or finding out if the new folks got any ideas. )

[adamance]

( We'd need someone with the ability to influence minds. Some people fear that I mean to hurt these people, but that would be foolish. We can't be delicate about every approach, not when we've bypassed those conditions before. ) [She knows of Ilde's power, but doesn't think it's the best. Ilde also told her of her ability to seduce, but it's not something Lexa would ever direct someone to do, and she thinks that Ilde would be too obvious of a choice for such a thing given her public persona.]

( Do you know if Petre has any other friends in the Nest? ) [She mostly keeps an eye on him for Angel's sake. He is certainly more harmless than Kylo Ren.]

[decommission]

( I'm not sure. ) [ Petre spends a lot of time playing Bout It Out by himself, or talking shit on the Extranet.

There's resistance to her explanation even though he has little disagreement with what she's actually saying. He works through it before responding. ] ( If it comes down to Ren, I want to be there with Sam. )

[adamance]

( If it comes to that, I can trust that the two of you handle him well. He's seeking a target. ) [And as much as Lexa has promised him one, she can't help but think that he might decide that someone is a target to satisfy his bloodlust. Even without her promise, he would have sought one, and he doesn't know if their arrangement is one with any meaning.

She's not foolish to believe she has any real influence over Kylo Ren. But an attempt is an attempt.]

( There are poisons my people use to temporarily stop someone. There may be something similar here. ) [A tranquilizer. She is suggesting a tranquilizer if he decides to kill the woman.]

[decommission]

( Poison? ) [ A flicker of confusion, then - ] ( You'd probably have to go down to Subspace to get something like that, but last I checked the security sweeps were still going on there. ) [ It'd be risky, not to mention he doesn't particularly like that idea even as a last resort. Best to use the tried and tested method. ]

[adamance]

( It's an idea. Assuming they have something here that isn't lethal. )

[Risky is something she can manage. She hasn't done anything here that would require her to be subtle, and admittedly, she hasn't done anything like that at home. Lexa has the training, yes, but the Commander is often unable to shroud herself in secrecy.

(Then again, that's why she's sought to employ those who can do that.)]

[vocalis]

Don't worry, he won't be alone.

[ Maybe Steve wasn't worried, but... Aoba was. ]

[decommission]

( You're going with him? )

[ If it's tailing from afar he's not too worried. ]

[vocalis]

Yes. In case he's caught, I can cover our tracks.

[ He doesn't think they'll be stalking too closely, but he figured it would be better to have an escape planned. ]

[decommission]

[ Huh.

With interest: ] ( How? )

[vocalis]

Um, well... first I'd try to use the job I'm under cover with here.

[ He doesn't elaborate. It's kind of embarrassing. But if they're caught in a public place, maybe he can use his being an escort as an excuse. A couple innocently looking for somewhere private in place they don't know they're not supposed to be...

Aoba has to snap himself back out of it before getting too lost in that scenario. ]

But I can also control people with my voice... and I can destroy parts of another person's mind, like memories.

[ Somehow discussing this is much less concerning to him than the first plan. ]

[decommission]

[ AND YET it's deeply concerning to the person on the other end of this link. The connection hums, agitated. ]

( Destroy permanently? )

[vocalis]

Y... yes.

[ That's usually what destroy means, especially in the context of minds. Brain damage is irreversible. Aoba doesn't like thinking of it this way, but that's ultimately what his powers are.

Destructive. ]

[decommission]

[ He needed to hear it again just to be sure he's understanding right what's being proposed here, as though it's difficult for him to wrap his head around. His side of the link is silent at first, a thin, humid thread of nausea slipping through.

There's a hard edge to his voice when he responds. ]

( I know we've gotta avoid being seen, but you can't just dig around in someone's head like that. )

[ Destroying parts of them. ]

[vocalis]

[ Aoba mentally balks. As someone who can dig around in someone's head - anyone's head - he hardly thought of a little memory erasure as such a drastic move. ]

I- I'm not digging around-!

[ He takes a moment to collect himself. Jumbled thoughts and instinct reactions stop, rewind, pause. Now play it back. ]

I know my ability is pretty harsh, but I don't want to use it to hurt anyone. Like I said, it's a last resort thing kind of thing.

[decommission]

[ Another long pause before the link between them settles on his end, the hard edge and troubled focus steadying back into its normal base line. ]

( Alright. ) [ I believe you, is the undercurrent there. He's been given plenty of reasons not to trust certain folks around him lately. Letting those reasons cloud his ability to judge other people individually, allowing himself to jump to conclusions - that wouldn't be right.

There's not much else to say after that, though, and from his side he lets the conversation stop there. ]