Constraints: Follows 'Qualification'
Synopsis: Three Legionnaires infiltrates the headquarters of an evil company, but not in close co-operation.
Investigation.
Content: Mild swearing, implied sexual activity.
Legal: Daria = MTV, Legion Of Superheroes = Warner Brothers, Legion Of Lawndale Heroes = Roentgen & Brother Grimace.
[img] http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:F5AEJGelUc4k3M:http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mgrabois/toys/lshpinback.jpg [/img]
[img] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png/275px-US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png [/img]
Tina Dandrel looked around the party venue in the Luther building, Lexcorp's corporate headquarters.
The party was being held to celebrate the success of a charity project Lex Luther had commissioned in order to make his company look good.
The reality was that Lex Luther was an assaholic that caused more havoc than he fixed, and now he was up to something else, something involving Syria.
They didn't know what, but Syria was still fairly hostile towards Israel, and Israel was a US ally.
Tina frowned a little for a second when she thought about how much of a nuisances Israel was, the only reason the US was their ally was to stop Israel from panicking and cutting loose with nukes. The result was that there was nothing the United States could do to discipline Israel, and, for example, when Israel carpet bombed Lebanon, all the US could do was smile and restock Israel's magazines.
That side of the situation was out of their hands, but Tina did have an opportunity to do something about Syria, and this was it.
"Tiffany?" asked a familiar voice.
'Damn it,' thought Tina, well, Tiffany actually, but NO one here was supposed to know this.
Tiffany turned to face Daria and Charles and said "Sorry, you have the wrong person, I'm Dandrel. Tina, Dandrel."
"No, I can tell-" started Charles.
"Sorry, my mistake," said Daria, "Come on Charles."
"What?" asked Charles.
Daria grabbed his elbow and turned him away from Tiffany saying in a strained voice "You're here with me! Now, come on!"
Charles looked somewhat confused but eventually complied.
Tiffany briefly wondered what Daria and Charles were doing here.
Tiffany headed towards the buffet table located towards the back of the space.
The Luther building reception area was this big space extending up two stories, there was a walkway around it leading to a number of offices where some of the logistics were done.
Some of the logistics, the kind you'd be okay with LEOs looking at.
Ground floor had a number of security stations and security resting areas so that anyone who had broken in trying to break out would be more likely to be intercepted in force. Another similar station was located around the back near the large/heavy goods receiving area.
And Tiffany had to get to the CEO's office located right next to the helipad. The office had thick diamond/polycarbonate composite windows with liquid crystal shades to create privacy when desired, there were also a number of pneumatically actuated adamantium panels that would rapidly enclose the outside and inside of the windows at the push of a button or the ping of a detector.
The helipad was up a flight of stairs which had an accompanying wheelchair ramp snaking around, whole thing surrounded by pink granite topped with planters with exotic flowers and ferns, it met the legal standards of e helipad, but looked kind of nice.
The reception area was different, the ceilings were a pattern of star shaped mirror panels with powder white spaces between, the mirror stars had emerald or emerald looking sea urchin like things in the centre, the walls had mirror rhombus shapes and black granite between, the reception desk which had had a podium stage temporarily constructed over it for the party, there was a live music stand off to the left.
A live music stand occupied by Mystic Spyral.
'What the ... ?'
They were dressed in tuxedoes and looked well expensive. None of them seemed to have their mikes positioned for any of them to be vocalists, Trent was on a violin, Jesse on cello, Ma ... was it Max or Nick? ... Other two sax and oboe.
They were doing a tune right now.
Tiffany listened.
The melody was ... ... Icebox Woman?
Tiffany almost burst out laughing.
After she suppressed it, she made her way to the buffet table and put in the appearance of mingling at the party, she couldn't simply make a beeline for the toilets as soon as she got there, it would look suspicious. Also she wanted those in security to get a bit bored and a bit complacent.
Bit of line hypnosis and they'll probably dismiss instances where things float or computers function as if being operated by an invisible person as imagination figments or something.
[img] http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:F5AEJGelUc4k3M:http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mgrabois/toys/lshpinback.jpg [/img]
[img] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png/275px-US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png [/img]
"That's Tiffany," whispered Charles.
"Yes, but she's here as Tina, so go along with it. ... Oh here's a thought, what if she's here to aid Lex instead of investigate him?"
"Why would she do that?" asked Charles.
"I don't know, we lost track of her after she joined the Navy, what the hell is she doing here under an alias?" said Daria.
"So ... What do we thing? She's helping Lex?"
"If she is, she'll have nothing on us anyway, Lex asked for Legion reps, and that's what we're here as, we're still go. I'm going to start getting into the security goon's heads now, as soon as I make my selection I'll have him hand you his documents and go to the toilets, five minutes later you also go to the toilet, make like him, and proceed with infil."
"Okay."
'Trent, how's the view?' thoughtcast Daria.
'View's nominal, what's Tiffany doing here?'
'Unknown, track her, but also watch out for anyone else following us, we'll begin our infil in ten minutes.'
'Have that,' thought Trent. Trent knew he wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but even he was concerned about the fact they had been INVITED to the place they were investigating. The rest of his band were here as support (A gig's a gig, well worth learning classical music for,) but Trent was the only band member who knew the Legion was here to spy. Jesse would probably be alright knowing this, he had a natural poker face and was calmer than his mom, but Max and Nick were likely to screw up and compromise them all. It was like they had an internal gland that produced a steady stream of angel dust.
Hmm.
Gotta be a song in that, surely.
Still, Lex might be expecting them to attempt to infiltrate the building.
[img] http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:F5AEJGelUc4k3M:http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mgrabois/toys/lshpinback.jpg [/img]
[img] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png/275px-US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png [/img]
Tiffany went to the toilets and entered a stall. After she locked the door, she checked the spacers under the seat. There was a gap around the base. Probably a quantum pill in there, so she'd have to do something here. She pulled a number of hairpins from her purse and sat on the toiler seat. With her pressure squeezing the quantum pills she suspected were there, she phased the pins through the seat and the spacers and left them merged in place. Tiffany had a microtorch lighter powered blowtorch in her purse, she could use that to heat the pins to remove them when she returned, she'd then use an emery board to file the bumps down.
Now it was time to go to work.
She left the toilet through the wall behind her stall and started to make her way upstairs.
[img] http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:F5AEJGelUc4k3M:http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mgrabois/toys/lshpinback.jpg [/img]
[img] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png/275px-US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png [/img]
'Ready?' thought cast Daria.
'Ready,' replied Charles.
'Okay, exit the toilets and go to the ground floor security office, we need to dope the camera guys, or they may spot your character's not on station, don't knock them out, just make them stupid,' thoughtcast Daria.
'On it,' replied Charles.
Daria looked around the dance floor. Her usually irritated appearance could easily be explained by "My date's probably screwing that Tina girl in the broom closet while I have to stand around like a dork," so she just ran with it. The real source of her irritation was that they had been invited here right when they were trying to investigate apparent problems USAES cadets had described on their exchange visits to the Legion, missing time, apparent symptoms of rohypnol dosing, but none of the tests came back positive for rohypnol, even though the sample was drawn well within time.
Their investigation had led them to conclude that Lex Luther was involved, and now they were trying to find out.
The fact they were being invited to this event concerned the crap out of Daria.
Daria recalled the conversation they had had, it was now Brittany and Stacy as prez and veep respectively.
"I'm concerned about the fact we've been invited to this guy's office," said Daria.
"Daria, please, this isn't the time for your doom and gloom crap," said Quinn.
"Errr, yes it is, and this 'Doom and gloom crap' you hate so much is how we anticipate problems-" started Daria.
"Dar-" interrupted Quinn.
"AND FIX THEM!" finished Daria. Now she had an opening Daria asked "Which is worse for morale? Anticipating and fixing problems, or wandering around with your head up your ass until something goes spectacularly cataclysmally wrong?"
Eventually Quinn asked "Well, what do you suggest I do?"
"Send me," said Daria. "And Charles."
They looked somewhat apprehensive.
"We're the only two in the group suitable for this mission, I can pull security codes and other things out of Lex's security forces heads, and guide Charles, disguised as a guard, as he infiltrates the building."
"Won't the security boss notice the guy's not where he's supposed to be?" asked Brittany.
"Yeah ... Maybe we can drug him," said Daria.
"Won't they notice he's asleep?" asked Jane.
"We won't knock him out then, just make him drowsy so he can't remember what's supposed to be going on," said Daria, "See? Doom and gloom not so bad after all. Now, what else is wrong with the plan?"
[img] http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:F5AEJGelUc4k3M:http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mgrabois/toys/lshpinback.jpg [/img]
[img] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png/275px-US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png [/img]
Daria and Charles were fairly prominent Legion members, and they were even wearing Legion badges, so they had to be there as legion members with Lex's knowledge. As soon as Tiffany Exfils, she'll have to request some leave and find out what's going on.
Tiffany arrived at Lex's office.
No one here.
Okay.
She sat herself down under his desk next to his computer and felt around for the hard drives. There were two of them.
Okay, no problem, her makeup compact looking data stick could carry all of it. Aside from that, people rarely use up all of their hard drive on their work computer anyway.
This guy might, though, because he was the boss, he could get away with filling his hard drive with all kinds of frivolous crap.
She unplugged the ribbons and pulled the ribbon out of a concealed part of her purse and she turned the computer on.
The computer would have trouble loading without the hard drives connected but that was okay, she just needed the power to be on in order to allow her to operate the hard drives.
She connected the compact make up kit with a USB and she phased her arm and the ribbon through the chassis and hooked up the first hard drive. She couldn't remove her arm until she heard the compact click that it was finished, or the ribbon would be irretrievably fused with the computer chassis.
[img] http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:F5AEJGelUc4k3M:http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mgrabois/toys/lshpinback.jpg [/img]
[img] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png/275px-US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png [/img]
Charles entered the office at the top and looked around.
He then looked at the computer under the desk.
It was on.
'Daria, Charles, computer's turned on, Lex might be running something, gonna find out what before I proceed.'
'Have that,' thought Daria.
He turned the monitor on.
The computer was stalled mid start up, the apparent problem being that the source of the OS was missing.
'Daria, Charles, the hard drives are missing, computer's stalled mid start-up, I think Lex might have removed them, I'm going to start looking for them.'
He turned a finger into an endoscope and slid it into one of the drawers.
Each drawer turned up nothing.
He then heard a chirp from under the desk.
He looked again at the screen.
No change.
"Charles, what are you doing here?"
Charles turned around to the source of the whisper he just heard.
There was nothing there. "Tiffany? What are you doing here?"
"I'm guessing the same thing as you, I'll be done in a minute."
"The hard drives are missing."
"No, the hard drives are disconnected, I'll reconnect them before I leave."
'Daria, Charles, Tiffany's here to spy too. She'll be done soon.'
'Tiffany? ... Okay, since she knows what we're here for already, I guess we have to trust her. ... Encounter many guards on your way up?'
'No, hardly any, in fact, I hardly saw any on the roster when I entered the security room.'
'Yeah, the guy you're replacing seemed a bit confused about the low strength they're in tonight. I don't think the intel's where we're supposed to find it. In fact, his office bothers me: The windows and adamantium shutters may protect the office from all kinds of attack, but if someone uses a laser, the adamantium shutters won't react quickly enough, and ABLs no longer use a guide laser to calibrate the mirror now, the office is a decoy.'
'And so's the guy who works in it,' thought Charles.
'Right, When Tiffany's done, give the appearance of going for the information, but then I want you to start exploring, try to locate Lex's true work station.'
[img] http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:F5AEJGelUc4k3M:http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mgrabois/toys/lshpinback.jpg [/img]
[img] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png/275px-US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png [/img]
Tiffany headed out with her bounty.
The actual space used was 25% of her potential payload, so she wondered if she should get more.
In case the stuff on Lex's hard drive ... ...
That's the nagging feeling that something was wrong with the whole thing, Lex's office, too grandiose, too obvious, it's a god damn flare!
'Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID! ... ... ... ... Ho-kay, now what? Where the hell is Lex likely to hide his Evil Deeds files?'
[img] http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:F5AEJGelUc4k3M:http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mgrabois/toys/lshpinback.jpg [/img]
[img] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png/275px-US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png [/img]
'Daria, I've been looking at all the workspaces, and NOTHING'S jumping out.' Thought Charles.
'Okay, maybe I can find their IT support manager or someone who regularly sees him in their office, if he's never at the same workstation twice then that either means he stores the files on the building's servers or he stores it offsite, if he stores it offsite, maybe we can work out where by going through the internet logs, find out what he accessed.'
'Hey Daria, you know who might, just possibly, possibly might, know where Lex Luther possibly keeps his evil files? ... Hmmmmm? ... LEX LUTHER!!!'
'Yeah, if we get that desperate, I will go in his head, what I'm concerned about is that he might have some form of countermeasure and we will have, to, run, like, intercourse. It's possible he doesn't, but I don't want to run that risk if I don't have to.'
"Miss Morgendorffer?"
'Excuse me Charles,' Thought Daria before she turned towards Lex and said "Hi Mr. Luther. Nice buffet here."
"Glad you're enjoying yourself. I thought two Legionnaires were coming," said Lex.
"Yeah, but the other legionnaire's hornier than a rabbit on Viagra and is most likely shagging another of your female guests as we speak, leaving me to balloon on snacks, how's your evening going?" responded Daria in this really fake non-chalant tone.
"Wow ... ... Well, my evening's going fine ... do you think your partner will be around in time to say a few words on the efforts of the charitable achievement's and efforts we're celibrating tonight?"
"We can but hope," said Daria.
"Okay, crossing fingers and moving on, enjoy the party," said Lex before he moved on.
Daria turned away from him and thoughtcast 'Okay, beginning search.'
[img] http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:F5AEJGelUc4k3M:http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mgrabois/toys/lshpinback.jpg [/img]
[img] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png/275px-US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png [/img]
Tiffany had seen Charles far enough away from the decoy office to determine that Charles hadn't even uploaded one of the hard drives.
They know.
They also don't trust her enough to fill her in on it.
Fair enough, she couldn't let them know what she was up to either, she had an obligation to keep the secrets she knew.
She couldn't just tell them she's a Navy SEAL.
She wondered briefly if Daria would believe it anyway. Daria was undeniably smart, but Stacy mentioned that Daria had moments of unbelievable gullibility, like on the Outlast exercise. Armalin said there wouldn't be any flags in the trees, and Daria decided it wasn't worth looking in the trees anyway. That was just painful. She might also buy the Navy's statement that they don't allow women to become Navy SEALs.
Was it Daria or Charles that decided that the grandiose office was a decoy?
[img] http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:F5AEJGelUc4k3M:http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mgrabois/toys/lshpinback.jpg [/img]
[img] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png/275px-US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png [/img]
'Multiple stations, okay, give me one,' thought Charles.
'Workstation 34 S, 03, 10, five days ago, 13:00 to 15:45,' thought Daria.
'Okay,' Thought Charles. He made his way to the 34th floor and entered south room three.
He disconnected the computer and reconfigured it so he could access the ethernet logs without it being recorded.
'Daria, I'm at the workstation, by the way, what are we doing about the video recording of the evening?'
'I had the security boss hit play instead of record when he changed the tapes just before we got to the party.'
'Niiiiiiice. ... Okay, powering up.'
After about a minute, Charles thought 'Okay, found the drive designation, what I don't know how to do is access it without it's access being recorded. There's about twenty drives, nothing describing their content in their names, just drives E-W, and the one Lex was accessing was L.'
'I would like to corroborate that, but we're going to start running out of time, go to their server room, see if you can find it, bear in mind that they may have mislabelled their drives specifically to evade us,' thought Daria.
[img] http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:F5AEJGelUc4k3M:http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mgrabois/toys/lshpinback.jpg [/img]
[img] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png/275px-US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png [/img]
Tiffany followed Charles down the stairs.
She knew he was looking for a server, but she didn't know which, because whatever Daria and Charles was talking about, he wasn't vocalising.
She looked at her watch.
Then she grabbed Charles and phased them both through the floors.
"What- ... Tiffany?" Asked a stunned Charles.
"You're taking too long! Server room, right?"
"Right," said Charles.
'Tiffany's with you?'
'Yes, apparently we're taking too long, she doesn't trust the data she collected either.'
'Okay, I guess we're trusting her again.'
They entered the server room.
'Okay, looks like they're not labe- ... ' "hah!"
"What?" 'What?' asked Daria and Tiffany Simultaneously.
'1101001, here we go,' thought Charles as he drew his Padd and an Ethernet cable.
'K in ASCII code, gotcha,' responded Daria.
"All I see are binary strin- ... Okay, with you now," said Tiffany.
'Okay, I have a matching access window, give me some more times and workstations just quickly so I can corroborate.'
Daria did this and Charles was eventually satisfied.
'Okay, Downloading now.'
There was silence from Daria.
Eventually Daria said 'I've been called on stage, I have to stop thought casting or the whole room will see my eyes glow, I'll resume at earliest convenience.'
'Have that,' thought Charles, not sure if Daria received that. "Okay, Tiffany, hack away," said Charles as he stowed his gear.
"Thank you. By the way, how's Daria explaining our absence?"
"Bad case of the shits."
"We both have the shits at the same time for the same duration?" asked Tiffany.
"Well, what do you suggest?" asked Charles.
[img] http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:F5AEJGelUc4k3M:http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mgrabois/toys/lshpinback.jpg [/img]
[img] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png/275px-US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png [/img]
"And so, the struggle continues to correct a situation nthat should not exist anyway. It's good that we've gotten this far, just be aware there's more to do. Thankyou," said Daria as she wound up her speech. It had been matter of fact, but not out and out rude. She wanted to have a dig at all the corporate heads in the room, but this was also on camera and none of them would put up with all this being pointed out to them anyway, they were all aware of all this, all that would happen is she would get bounced before Charles could exfil.
Before anyone could applaud though, a broom closet burst open and Charles and Tiffany fell out, Charles's trousers and pants around his ankles, Tiffany's skirt raised, but both fell onto the floor and none of their bits came into view.
Tiffany Looked shocked and eventually the two of them sheepishly fixed their attire and stood up.
As Daria looked around, Lex gave a sympathetic wince, and Daria moved to meet Charles as he and Tiffany descended a staircase.
"I think it's time we were going, don't you?" said Daria, sounding characteristically annoyed.
"Err, yes dear," agreed Charles.
"Bye," simpered Tiffany, waving.
As Daria and Charles left, Daria whispered "You didn't really, did you?"
"Jealous my dear?"
Daria frowned.
"Nah, just an act. Cleaned out the drive, got a look at some of the data as Tiffany downloaded her copies."
"Yeah?" asked Daria.
"Imagine Hezbullah with ranks and ranks of people with Betty's capabilities."
"Damn! That ... ... Okay, what do we think of Tiffany?"
"Some point she said 'The only easy day was yesterday,' you don't think she's a SEAL do you?"
"Picture her making it through hell week?" asked Daria.
"Good point."
[img] http://tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:F5AEJGelUc4k3M:http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mgrabois/toys/lshpinback.jpg [/img]
[img] http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png/275px-US_Navy_SEALs_insignia.png [/img]
End.
