xp_logs | LOG: Remy/Xavier

Remy makes his way to his meeting with the Professor.

Remy swung the laptop bag out of the way as his opened the door to the Professor's study. The flu was still raging through his system, despite the best efforts of Amanda and Lorna. Jake, on the other hand, was referring to his sickness as 'Cake Kharma Disease', and Remy had made mental notes to make sure that was retaliated to in kind.

The Professor was sitting behind his desk, but had set out the projector like Remy had asked and simply waited as the other man pulled out the laptop and collapsed into the chair beside the desk. Remy's look forestalled the offer of tea for once, not sure whether or not the sickly cast even allowed for the possibility of keeping it down.

"Bonjour Professor. Sorry if we make dis briefing a short one? Remy got an appointment to die in a half hour or so."

"I would hate to keep you from your scheduled expiration," Charles replied with a grin as the Professor sipped at his tea. "I believe you have some new information to share?"

"More of an update, really. Jake and I finally got de projections put together, and think dat we might have a game plan for de future. Least, assuming no new disasters suddenly crop up." Remy's scowl was proof that he considered it likely that they would. "'sides, if we just keep running 'round putting out fires, den we never going to catch up wit' anyone."

Remy quickly plugged in the laptop to the projector and started bringing up files. "You mind if we start from de beginning, Professor? Remy not sure how much you involved before."

"Mr. Wisdom tended more towards the neatly-written report, rather than direct explanation," Xavier admitted, "but I am no stranger to the subject. Sometimes a fresh perspective, however, brings new directions to proceed. By all means, continue," he insisted, dimming the lights.

Remy brought up the first slide; a map of the world with a series of interconnected lines, converging in places like London and Berlin before splitting and fragmenting all over the globe. Beside each continent was a box filled with scrolling names, and a percentage bar.

"Dis is a graphic representation of de mansion's worldwide intelligence prior to Wisdom leaving. It hardly captures de real complexity of it, but its 'bout de best we can do to understand it in a few minutes." Remy used the pointer tool to point out different places. "Each of dese lines represents an intelligence source, and de route dat it takes to us. De sidebar indicates de actual coverage of each source, so location, area of intelligence, and importance."

Remy highlighted the node for London, where a vast number of lines intersected. The program brought up a stripped down map of the city, with a dozen smaller nodes inside it. "De intelligence goes into a node, where it is linked to us. Some of dese agents handle a single contact, others handle dozens, and some nodes are physical things; drop boxes, dummy servers, dat kind of thing."

Charles nodded, keeping up. "Yes, Pete and I handled the establishment of most of these contacts. He oversaw the, how do you term it, 'direct' relations, while organizing the information gathered and presenting it to me."

Remy nodded, and circled a few points. "Dere are also contacts from my old network, some from Gavin, Braddock, Frost; bits and pieces dat have cropped up over de past several years." He clicked the box and the screen zoomed back out to the world map. He tapped a button, and a large number of lines and nodes disappeared, others now blinking red.

"Dis is de current state of our intelligence net." Remy's face was grim, and the combination of sickness and exhaustion was telling. "Wisdom's defection to de Hellfire Club, and de intelligence dat we've gathered suggests dat de majority of our network has been compromised. Dere were moves within days of Pete's joining to switch de networks outside of our control, and de information dat we have suggests strongly dat Wisdom used the idea of his contacts, and the information he gets from them to broker his acceptance into de Club. He's keeping watch for dem, now."

Xavier pondered for a moment, then shook his head. "The network was run by a cell structure, for precisely that reason. Each lead is self-contained, connected only by their interaction with Pete. As per your advice, I have put in motion a plan to sequester the connections I maintained separate from Mister Wisdom's, those selfsame connections that I have provided to you. The loss of Pete's contacts is substantial, yes. But neither crippling nor putting us in immediate danger."

He turned to Remy, looking into the young man's eyes. "What I need from you, Remy, is not so much intelligence, but vigilance. To keep the well from being poisoned, so to speak."

"It's not dat easy, Professor." Remy clicked two buttons, to strip away the overall structure and leaving the nodal points. "Here's where de danger is. De overall net has suffered a thirty to forty percent hit. In some places, like Europe, it's de better part of sixty percent. De strength of de net is based on de coverage in all areas, a sort of quality verses quantity. What's happened is dat de major nodals in some key areas have been removed."

Remy typed for a moment, bringing up the European map, with just the nodes highlighted. About half glowed red. "As of now, dese nodes are officially offline. I know dat some of dem are still actively moving intel, but de entire operational procedure has been shifted over to a new receiver. And based on de structure and de blind sources, once you cut out key nodes, dere is no way short of blowing de network to regain dem. I suppose dat we lucky dat a decent percentage of de net was built out of your personal contacts, because Wisdom can't touch dem."

"Then we rebuild," Xavier said calmly. "It has happened before, and we survived. You may not be aware of this, but Mr. Wisdom was not the first person I enlisted to aid me with intelligence gathering, Remy."

"Remy well aware of dat, Professor. But it's going to take time." Remy touched a few more buttons, and some lines came on to the map. "Dis is where we're at right now. Remy be honest, Professor. Wisdom is way ahead of me on dis. I figured dat I could salvage at least a quarter of de net away from him, but now... even ten percent is a hopeful projection. He's moving like he knew how Remy was going to react. Guess I'm easier for him to read den I thought."

Remy pointed out new lines, some in blue, green, and orange. "Wit' my old network on line, de network dat Jake was building in your name before... uh, remembering to pass de information along, and a recent transaction wit' Jake's pare, we been able to at least repair some of de damage. Europe is still down around sixty percent of what it was, de US closer to two-thirds."

The Professor pondered, then nodded calmly. "You have recovered in less than sixty days what took Pete almost two years to rebuild," he said after a while. "I may not be a trained operative like yourself or Mr. Wisdom, or have the family connections to the business like Jacob," Xavier deadpanned, "but do trust in my ability to gather people close to me who possess the abilities I lack. And believe me when I say I would be hard-pressed to find your equal in this particular field."

Remy paused, the remark throwing him off balance. Over the last month, the only thing in his mind was how far behind Wisdom he was. The sudden praise was the last thing he expected, since all he could see was how much he'd seen lost under his care. "Uh, merci..." Remy mumbled, covering his astonishment with a cough before going on.

"De, uh... de biggest problem is dis, Professor. We lost one truly key source of intelligence. All of tertiary elements dat Wisdom built to track Magneto are gone." Remy looked up. "As of right now, I don't have de slightest clue where he is, what areas he's looking in, or whether or not he's active. De same goes for de Brotherhood."

Charles actually laughed out loud at Remy's pronouncement. At the look of consternation from the Cajun, Xavier politely coughed into his hand. "Remy, if not having track of Magneto is your biggest concern, you have nothing to worry about. You see, the reason that even Pete was never able to track Erik Lensherr... who do you think developed the first intelligence network I utilized?" Xavier smiled cryptically. "As gifted as you and Pete are, Magneto has had the sum of both your lives to work behind the scenes. Were you able to unravel his methods so swiftly, I would suspect duplicity on his part."

Remy took that moment to rub his eyes tiredly. He was working Magento's original network... fuck. "Dat's not exactly comforting, Professor. Of all de threats to de school, he's not only de largest, but de one dat we don't have any clue 'bout. He could show up on de front lawn before Remy'd know--" LeBeau cut himself off.

"Dat actually leads to my second point." Remy clicked off the laptop and placed it on the desk. "I need more people. Even wit' Jake, dere's too much to do and watch, and not enough hours in de day for either of us. Remy was talking to dat Braddock de other day, and I want to bring her on board."

"Elisabeth?" Xavier arched an eyebrow. "Are you certain now is the best time, with recent events happening in her personal life, are you convinced that she is a suitable candidate?"

"Professor, I'm an ex-monster and Jake's a mercenary. If you looking for suitable candidates, neither of us should be anywhere near it." Remy shook his head. "But de fact is dat femme is a fully trained operative. Hell, she likely got both Gavin and me beat on de analysis. She wants back in de mansion to help, and putting her in de X-Men is a waste of dose skills. I'm not saying dat de X-Men aren't effective," Remy held up his hands to forestall Xavier thinking that he was somehow putting down the teams. "but dey have different needs den intel. And while you can get your trainees up and working on de team in months, it takes years to properly train someone in dis field. I need her."

"Then I trust in your discretion, Remy," Charles answered with a nod. "But I need not remind you of the old aphorism about too many cooks spoiling the broth."

"Not when dey got Lorna's standing behind dem watching." Remy grinned tiredly as he collected his laptop and notes. Xavier chuckled lightly as Remy slung the laptop over his shoulder and opened the door.

"Oh, and Remy? Try to get some sleep."

"See, it's like people think dat Remy's sick or something..." He mock groused as he nodded to the Professor and left.