xp_logs | Fifth Column: The Mole (Reply)

Left to help provide security at the Parliament building, a small group of X-Men find themselves playing a pivotal role.

The Hungarian officer assigned to watch security cameras with Forge had been introduced by her captain as Lieutenant Kecskeméti, but as soon as said captain had left, she'd told him to call her Csilla, saying something about taking pity on English-speaking tongues. Her English, like many of the officers the X-Men had come into contact with since arriving in Budapest, was extremely good. As she helped Forge set up his equipment, it became obvious that she shared something with the visitors, as she telekinetically shifted aside unnecessary furniture without the slightest hint of being self-conscious about it.

Wincing slightly, Forge sat in one of the large chairs, leaning over a nearby desktop as the lieutenant levitated a matte black case over to him. "Many thanks, miss," he muttered, pressing his thumb against a sensor to open the case. "And they said I was crazy for carrying backups."

With his one remaining hand, Forge reached into the case and removed a solid-steel replica of the prosthetic arm that Lil had punched into splinters less than an hour ago. Idly, he set it on the desktop and began prodding at the still-sparking mess of his left elbow, testing various connectors and servos. "All right, Csilla," he intoned as he continued working, "give me the quick rundown on what we have to work with here."

"The security system is newly updated, as of January," she said, even as she continued setting up. Her eyes flickered briefly towards what he was doing with his arm, but she had the courtesy not to stare. "We have views of every entrance, and the critical floors require a passcard to enter." She leaned over the keyboard, bringing up some of the relevant images. "They're trying to set up a perimeter outside, but as always, the river is more of a challenge. Another fifteen minutes, the captain was saying, before they could get more boats out there."

Forge nodded absently, removing a section of damaged prosthetic and adjusting the replacement in its place. A few mechanical hisses and clicks preceded the telltale hum of an electronic diagnostic before his left arm shot out straight from his shoulder, the fingers rapidly twitching, touching metal fingertips to each other in a rapid pattern.

"Active security, that's good - ooh, new fingers, that's always weird - okay, give me eight-second panning on all our monitors, by floor and not by corridor," he demanded briskly. Rapidly, the bank of monitors jumped to life, showing a constant scroll of all the security feeds. Interlacing his hands and cracking both sets of knuckles, flesh and metal, Forge leaned over the keyboard like a virtuoso pianist preparing for a performance.

"Csilla, if you please, give me still images of all card-access doors that have been activated since the assault on monitor two," he asked, typing in commands as he proceeded.

"Give me just a moment... there," she said, and one of the screens began to flicker through a series of images. "We've had more coming out than going in, obviously... and they're still evacuating." They hadn't simply been able to evacuate the massive building all at once. The possibility that the Preservers had agents on the inside was all too likely.

Forge nodded. "All right. Now, Trask came behind me... here - " he froze one of the screens and enhanced the image to show Tara Trask opening a door behind where Forge had stood over the unconscious Amber Hunt. "That's a card-access door, so she had to have either stolen a card or cloned one. If I run a check on other uses..."

Three images on the screen flashed, and rearranged themselves in chronological order. Two of Trask, and one that was most definitely not Tara Trask. "There. Use of the same card within forty-five seconds of Trask coming up on me. If I cross-reference with the duty roster..."

He typed in a series of commands, then cursed under his breath as a string of random gibberish filled his screen. "Bastard's good, he already corrupted the file. It'd take hours to make sense of this mess... Csilla, grab me the security feeds from..." he checked the image again, then looked down to a map. "...corridor 4-B, right after this mark. Any solid image we can run through the facial recognition software will do."

"Wait, you're looking at the footage from the university?" Csilla said, sounding mildly confused for a moment as she looked in his direction. But she was working a moment later to pull up the requested feeds from here in the Parliament building. "What are you expecting to find?"

"Someone gave Trask access to secure areas of the university," Forge explained. "That's how she snuck around while her Preservers made the frontal assault. If it was someone on the university staff, well, then we have nothing to worry about here. But think about it -rumor of a possible attack gets 'leaked' to your authorities. Law enforcement personnel are given access to the university in order to coordinate. Trask gets a hold of that access - Csilla, you have a mole. Someone in your command structure is working with the Preservers."

News of Zoltan Benedek's involvement in the attacks had been kept to a relatively small circle of people. Until the other terrorists were safely contained and it was decided how to proceed with the man who'd set it all up, they hadn't wanted to tip off said man, who was after all a telepath.

Lightning-quick, Forge hunched over the keyboard, fast-forwarding through security footage on one monitor, and personnel files on another. Facial-recognition software was running scans every time he paused the feed, but seemed to turn up nothing.

Finally, the feed stopped on one image of a man in a police uniform, his file report scrolling alongside it. "And I think... we have a match..." Forge mumbled as he began checking off details. "Assigned to the university security team... check. Security card signature matches the one Trask used. Quickly, do you know this man?"

Csilla was silent for a moment, staring at the screen. "I know the name - a recent assignment - but that's not the face of the man to whom it belongs." She looked sideways at Forge, her expression shading towards edgy. "I realize that you may be privy to information I am not - do you have any idea why the state secretary for education would be masquerading as one of our officers? That's Zoltan Benedek. The man who set up the Psionic Arts Centre."

"Zoltan Benedek," Forge repeated, "okay. Okay. Let's cue up all the cameras in the Parliament building, run them through the facial recognition software, give me anything Benedek pops up on."

He tapped his X-Men communicator, fitting the earpiece in as he perused the monitor. "This is Forge to all X-Men on site - our mole is here. Zoltan Benedek. He may be using a police uniform as a disguise. All comms are wired through my station on my mark... mark. Where are we at, team?"

---

There were many serious drawbacks to stalking a telepath, when you didn't want that telepath to know you were after him and didn't have a telepath of your own to mask your intent. The stress and uncertainty in the air as the Parliament building continued to be evacuated would maybe help, but maybe was a chancy proposition, given the stakes.

Since there was no recalling Jean, Nathan, or Haller from the strike team, that left increasing the turbulence in the psychic atmosphere as the only available tactic.

And fire - or the threat of a fire - was a good way to do that. Amara had been even more quiet than usual following her panic and power flare-up, and when she'd been asked to start a diversion, she'd just nodded. Now she was on the move, moving to the best position to set off a fire.

She paused in position, glancing down at her hands. She'd already started up the powering up process, but she'd only gotten as far as her hands lighting up. All she needed to do now was to complete the process, flaring into light and heat so she could start the fire. But for the moment, all she could do was stare at the flames that wreathed her hands.

The Parliament building was well-equipped with sprinklers, moreso than might have been expected in such a historical building. One police officer, on his way somewhere else - most of the officers actually inside the building were busy evacuating the remaining civilians as quickly as they could while making sure that none of them were holding onto any nasty surprises - stopped, seeing Amara's burning hands and approaching cautiously.

"Something is wrong?" he asked, in uncertain English.

Amara looked up, surprised to see someone else here. She shook her head, determined that nothing would go wrong. Nothing.

"No. It's fine, thank you." She looked up, a brief smile on her face. "If you're the only one left in this area, it would be best if you moved away quickly."

With only that as a warning - and Amara not entirely sure how much he understood - she finally lit up, shifting from the pretty blonde in leather to a creature of light and heat.

"It will not be safe here for much longer." As it was, the floor underneath her feet started to smoke, and it would be a lot more of that soon.

The police officer gaped at her, backing away. He said something sounding very confused in Hungarian, then flinched as the changes swept over Amara. Civilians being evacuated at the other end of the hall reacted more violently, shrieking and running in the other direction.

Amara sighed, her gaze moving down the hall as the people panicked. It was inevitable, given the situration, but she couldn't help but feel bad. Her hands out, she sent a burst of fire down through the empty part of the corridor, careful to avoid the people still milling about. It didn't take long at all for the sprinkler system to go off after that, water raining down on her as the fire alarm rang.

---

Elsewhere, Zoltan Benedek looked up sharply from the computer where he sat, wincing as the already chaotic telepathic atmosphere. What had already been difficult to sort though now was almost painful in its intensity. Fire, where's the fire? and Is it them? Are they attacking? and Have to get out, don't want to die here! were like repeating motifs, echoing through the tumult in countless different voices.

Surely the attack hadn't come yet. They were supposed to let him know, and give him sufficient time to do what he needed to do before they hit the building. There were files that needed erasing, and he couldn't trust that they'd be safely destroyed. None of this made any difference if he wasn't left behind, his reputation undamaged by the tragedy, to help pick up the pieces.

He started to wonder, for the first time, about the evacuation. What his "fellow" police officers had been told was that it was precautionary. The university was so close, after all. Everyone whose mind he'd come into contact with had believed it, and yet...

There was one mind he hadn't even touched - or, more likely, had simply slid over as if it wasn't there. After all his years of training with Nathan and others, Angelo's shields were as good as they could possibly be given his lack of helpful powers, when he was trying, and he was making a special effort now. Standing in the doorway, the young man picked his moment, then lashed out with both handsful of skin at Benedek's ankles, yanking hard as soon as he had a good grip.

Benedek sensed the flicker of intent, sharp and forceful like a knife through the telepathic fog, but not in enough time to react. Something pulled the lower part of his body out of his chair, and before he could grab at the desk in front of him, he hit it face-first, then smacked his head on the floor as the pull continued.

Spitting blood, he looked up through the haze, seeing a young man in black leather, his skin a strange shade of gray. One of the Americans, he thought, then concentrated. #LET ME GO.# The telepathic suggestion slammed into Angelo's mind, hard.

It hit the wall of shifting thought-patterns Angelo was maintaining, making him stagger, but didn't penetrate. "No", Angelo retorted in basic Hungarian. "You're coming with me."

Fine. Well-trained, was he? Benedek had had some training himself. Snarling, he pushed something else entirely at the American's mind -the image and sensation of fire, closing in on him.

That got through, at least partially if not enough to convince Angelo it was altogether real, and he had to focus hard on pushing the impressions away before they took hold. His grip on Benedek's ankles lessened and dropped away, just for a moment.

The telepath scrambled back to his feet, swaying at the dizziness that hit as he tried to straighten. The American was still on his feet, he saw, and teeth bared, Benedek smashed at his mind, knowing that he could break through those defenses. No non-psi, however well trained, could stand up for more than a few minutes to someone with his abilities

Angelo knew it, too, and did the only thing he could to stop Benedek winning. He threw himself bodily at the older man, skin slapping over his nose and mouth and tightening there in the trick he'd used many times before.

Zanne slipped into the room as Angelo launched himself at Benedek. While Angelo seemed to have the advantage, the mole squirmed in his hold, managing to twist himself such that he was able to rear back and solidly plant a foot in Angelo's midsection. Benedek pushed back at Angelo with one hand, while the other scrabbled panickedly at his waist. With a horrified realization of what he was going for, Zanne watched as a gun appeared in his hand and closed a freeze over the pair before as his finger began to tighten on the trigger.

Benedek panicked completely. Everything around him seemed to freeze, yet his mind was free, and he lashed out wildly, both at Angelo and at the other psi-pattern that approached - the one that was moving freely towards him, as if it was immune to whatever had frozen the world around them.

The psychic attack was like a lightning strike, flashing across Zanne's brain in a streak of white-hot pain and dropping her to her knees. A rivulet of blood dripped from her nose and she wiped it away in a ragged movement, fighting to hold onto the freeze. She could feel it struggling around her, trying to break free and rejoin the timestream. Breathe deep, you can do it, just a little more. That's it.

The freeze stabelized as she slowly pushed herself to her feet, and stumbled over to the desk and pawed through the items strewn agross it, finally alighting upon a small brass lamp. Gripping it in both hands, she brought it down on Benedek's skull as another psychic bolt hit her and she laspsed into unconsiousness.

The freeze vanished instantly, as both Zanne and Benedek slumped to the ground. Leaving Angelo the only one on his feet, with two unconscious bodies in front of him where there had only been one very angry telepath a moment before.

The vicious and panicked attacks had broken through Angelo's shields at the last moment despite his best efforts, and he was swaying on his feet, ignoring the blood from his nose. Shakily, he reached for his radio. Someone had to be told to come get Benedek before he could let himself collapse.

Forge watched the entire event unfold on the monitors, the sudden glitch in the feed's time stamp - has to be Suzanne, he thought - and then watching Angelo collapse and hearing his teammate's voice weakly over the communicator.

"Angelo?" Forge shouted, leaning forward. "Ange, stay there, we've got people coming. Stay with me here." He began relaying calls through Csilla to the Hungarian medical personnel.