Phalanx: "Flashed all their plastic spathas bare / Flash'd as they turn'd in air"

[x-cable.livejournal.com]

At the briefing, Forge delivers the technological solution to the Phalanx implants and advice on how to use it. It's all very straightforward.


This was new. He was in a room, with the majority of the X-Men in uniform staring at him from around the table. A 3-D representation of the Greek island of Youra slowly rotated on the table, and Forge managed to tear his eyes away from it to steel himself and deliver the briefing he'd been asked to give

He took a deep breath, cleared his throat, and opened the small case he'd brought into the Situation Room. Carefully, he took out what looked like a sword, about two and a half feet long, but constructed of hard olive-green plastic and dulled at the edges.

"The Phalanx system," he began, "is a small coin-sized implant at the base of the skull. It works by sending short-range radio transmissions into the brain and overriding the subjects instincts and ingrained responses. In this case, military training. Good news is, it's technological, it can be shut down. Bad news, we can't just do it all at once with a big electromagnetic pulse because it'll likely send all these people into massive seizures and they'll probably stroke out. Good news, we have these." He raised the sword up to eye level, looking down the flat plastic blade.

Nathan, who had been staring flatly at the representation of Youra, pulled his eyes away from it as well and stared at the gadget. "These, plural?" His voice wasn't so much cold as simply expressionless.

Forge reached into the case, producing an armload of the swordlike devices, sliding them across the table towards each of the X-Men. "You'll each be armed with one. They put out a counter-signal to the implant that'll shut it down harmlessly. Thing is, they've only got a range of about, oh, two inches. So you're going to have to..." he looked sheepish, then shrugged, "I suppose the technical term is 'whack them in the noggin'. You don't need to be swinging for the fences, mind you. Once the implant shuts down, the implantee SHOULD pass out from minor neural shock."

"So, let me get this straight. We're going to jump into an island held by highly trained and regimented armed military squads, and our strategy is to run up somehow ahead of the machine gun fire and hit them on the head with an Eaton's toy department sword?" Garrison looked at the table and suddenly smiled manically. "Great plan! I love it! Nate, you're a lawyer, right? Can you give me a hand with my will before we leave on this mission?"

"Do we know how psychologically invasive the programming is?" Jim asked. "I mean, are we looking at technologically infiltrated personalities, psychic sublimation, what? Telepathic fishing's probably not insanely useful as long as the implant's there to block their responses, I just want to know what brand of imposed personality we're talking about. And what kind of potential damage these people could be looking at afterwards." He was also attempting to ignore thoughts brought on by the pile of plastic weaponry like At least Davey's going to enjoy this mission and My defense is a what? Wow, welcome back to the team. I'm definitely going to die.

Forge nodded and tapped out a command on his laptop, watching a hologram of a skull x-ray pop into life over the table, the bright silver disc of a Phalanx implant attached at the base. "According to the information the Greek government sent over, and this is some seriously freaky neuroscience here, these little implants send out a signal that kind of drowns out the brain's normal learned impulses. You could try and wrench it about telepathically, but that little device is going to keep putting out its signal. You know how I always send out those little tech support reminders to shut down your computers properly and not just hit the power button, because bad things can happen? Yeah, imagine doing that to someone's brainstem." He poked at the hologram with one of the 'swords', and the implant dimmed, going from silver to a dull grey. "This scrambler signal will basically tell it to power off, then you can just remove them and the implantees should be... well, I don't know. Probably really confused with a hell of a headache. I'm an engineer, not a doctor."

"Seriously freaky neuroscience," Scott muttered. "Well, we'll have medical personnel standing by, from what I understand - once the situation's secure the implantees will get the help that they need."

"Really confused sounds like something of an understatement," Jean said, nodding. Looking for permission from Forge, she picked up one of the little swords, turning it about and hefting it for weight. "But I'd say you're right, we won't have to worry much about one of them if you land a hit," she added. "We're going in alone, right? So the medicos won't be able to come in until after we've secured the base." She might need to overstock the bird, just in case.

"Right. We signal the Greek Navy once we've stabilized the situation on the island," Scott said, the corner of his mouth tugging upwards sardonically at his own euphemism. "Admiral Milios will be waiting for our call."

Nathan reached out and picked up one of the swords. "Anything else we need to know about these things?" he asked Forge brusquely. "Are they likely to break if anyone winds up having to do more than just tap one of our targets on the head?"

Forge picked up one of the swords, hefted it like an axe, and brought it crashing down on the steel table. Papers and communicators jumped, but he just smiled and held up the unblemished device. "You could run over these things with a tank and they won't break. Takes a licking and keeps working. Or... something." He shrugged, sliding the sword back into the case. "As for Garrison's concerns, your newly-designed uniforms should stop anything but a direct hit from a bullet so... yeah, try not to get shot. Generally a good rule to follow."

"Yeah," the telepath murmured. Jim reached across the table to take a weapon of his own. He raised the sword in front of his face, blade pointing towards the ceiling, and couldn't help but think that as bludgeons went this was much lighter than anything he'd have chosen to swing at someone's head. Or wouldn't have once, anyway. The weapon was set onto the conference table with a soft tmp as he looked askance at Scott, then Forge. "Is there anything we can do other than just individually hit people?"

"Our options are fairly limited. But we train for non-lethal takedowns," Scott said. "If we can't reach them with these things right away, we should be able to take them down and then tap them on the head." He spared a glance for Nathan and Jean. "Still, you two are going to have your hands full. I don't want Amelia complaining about having to deal with gunshot wounds."

"Yeah, I was assuming," Nathan replied neutrally, his eyes flickering to Jean. "Good thing we got in some practice with the bullet-catching recently, Red." He turned an odd, tight little smirk in Kane's direction. "I for one was getting rusty."

"You for one are insane." Garrison shot back immediately, although not in anger. Nate was awfully cavalier for a man about to be shot at a lot in the next few days. The weapon was a heavier than his police baton, and a little front weighted. He turned it over a few times. "So, not to be the assault pooper here, but how many soldiers are we looking at on the island? Bad-ass telekinetics aside, if the rest of us are going to play Little Rabbit Frou-Frou on them, it's going to be easy to get overwhelmed pretty quick, eh."

"Over sixty," Scott said, "between the 'Spartans' and the special ops team they co-opted." He made eye contact with each of the X-Men who had been at Youra the first time, in turn. "So, fewer than we had to worry about the last time, and no hostile mutants in the mix... but on the other hand, we're going in alone, and we're not taking the whole team. We're going to have to be more... precise than we were the first time."

Forge nodded, passing out the last of the 'swords', then walking across the Situation Room to take a spot by the communications nook. Folding his arms, he smiled as the X-Men leaned over the table to discuss strategy. "Have fun storming the castle..." he mumbled to himself, then began preparing the communications suite.