xp_logs | Doug, Marie-Ange and Cammie in various combinations

Backdated to before Red Letter Day, Cammie, being bored goes looking for something to do, and ends up being actually useful. By accident. Also, Marie-Ange has been replaced by an alien who is capable of being nice to Cammie.

As usual, Doug Ramsey was sitting in a swivel chair in the midst of several monitors in his server room, doing his best impression of a information-gathering spider at the center of its digital web. Not for the first time, he idly wished that his mutation could have been something along the lines of the sensory input and processing power of several people combined. Or failing that, enough funding for a staff to gather and analyze the sheer volume of information at his fingertips. Pattern recognition only went so far, after all, when your bosses wanted the 'moon on a stick', as Pete had told him so long ago.

At least it kept him busy, though.

Cammie was really good at shaking things up, even if that wasn't her intent, at least she was really good at coming out of nowhere, "I'm bored. Fix it."

Oh for crying out loud. "Look, Cammie, I'm kinda busy right now, I can't exactly knock off for half an hour to play Halo." Not that he wouldn't mind doing that, but work was piling up, and they were all still on edge trying to find Remy.

Well, there went that idea. "Fine, I was tired of kicking your ass at it anyway. Still, give me something to do. Anything."

Doug ran a hand through his hair. He could see how sitting at the front desk on a slow day would be boring. But having Cammie sitting over his shoulder bugging him was going to start being very annoying. He waved a hand at a file folder sitting off to the edge of one of his desks. "There's some crime scene photos of one of the last of our contacts who got killed," he said. "Take a look at them."

She took the folder, "Okay then. I'll do that. Nothing quite like a bloody murder," she said, taking the folder in question back to her desk. It wasn't until she actually started going over it that something started to really not sit right with her.

Walking it over she dropped it down on the first desk that actually had someone in it, "Found somethin'." No, she wasn't smug at all.

Okay, yes she was.

Marie-Ange's eyebrow went up sharply. "You have found a file folder, we have many of them, yes." She had kept the office door open, and while she was not strictly speaking 'busy', she did have a pile of tarot cards on her desk and her laptop closed.

"Oh. I am burned by your cleverness and shall never strive to bring something to your attention again," Cammie said dryly, "Why don't you look inside before you write it off."

Oh, if only that were true. Marie-Ange did open the folder though, and her skeptical expression very slowly shifted to one of curiosity as she peeled off the post-it notes Cammie had affixed to the various print outs of police reports and crime scene photographs. And she couldn't help but smirk at the few that had expressions like "BULLSHIT!" and "Too many donuts not enough CSI" scrawled on them. "You think the crime scene was staged?" she asked, rhetorically.

"I've knocked over places before. If this wasn't staged, I'll eat, I don't know, a live cat or something," Cammie said with a shrug. Live animals tended to not want to be eaten. And fur was gross and stuck in the throat.

"With anyone else I would assume they were being facetious..." Marie-Ange said. "Please do not tell me if you are being literal." She closed the folder after replacing all the post-it notes. "You are right, it was staged and before I say this, no, I am not a pod person, good work." They'd assumed, but it was nice to have someone look at the reports and confirm it.

Cammie gave the red-head a look, "No, I still think you're a pod person now," she said, "Because you don't compliment me."

"Fine, I am a pod person." Marie-Ange shrugged. "I could take back the compliment and treat you like I do Jubilee and just give you free food when you do something right? Or maybe your own coffee pot? Or blender... do you even drink coffee?" Maybe Cammie drank hot motor oil instead. Marie-Ange wasn't sure. "I have leftover packing peanuts from shipping David his clocks if you want those?"

"Hey, I was just happy with you admitting you're a fucking alien," Cammie said flippantly, "Though I'll take the packing peanuts."

It was not good to tell your teammates to go play in traffic. It was not good to tell your teammates to go play in traffic. Marie-Ange kept reminding herself of that as she reached under the desk and pulled out a cardboard box. "Ah. Well, you get a new blender anyway, since I seem to mysteriously have one in the box of packing peanuts." She'd meant for it to just appear mysteriously in the breakroom with Cammie's name on it, but this would do in a pinch. "And if you tell anyone I was nice to you I will deny it."

"Don't worry. No one would believe me anyway," Cammie said, taking the blender, "So I think we're safe."

Marie-Ange goes to find Doug, in her continuing attempts to not be a total bitch, and sort of manages it in that she offers to buy him lunch, but also totally weirds him out by asking him to teach her to shoot and loan her a gun. There is also precog spookiness.

Marie-Ange had the printouts and photos in her hands when she knocked on the open door to Doug's server room. "Doug? Did you give Cammie the police reports from Mr. Maddow's murder?" She looked tense, hair in a tight bun and lips thin and the marks of lack of sleep - even covered with makeup - on her face.

"Um, yes?" Doug looked up from a keyboard, confusion written across his face. "...am I in trouble?" he asked, trying to figure out just where the line of questioning was headed.

"Oh my goodness no!" Marie-Ange actually sounded a bit surprised he'd ask. "I suppose perhaps if you wanted me to yell at you I could make up something about how it caused Cammie to actually step foot in my office, but there are two very important problems with me making up something just so I can have a fight with you."

"Okay, I'll bite," Doug replied after turning to actually face Marie-Ange and seeing that she didn't look mad. "What are the two important things?"

"There are two things. The first thing is that Cammie was unexpectedly brilliant." Marie-Ange stayed just inside the doorway, as though she was nervous about actually entering the room. "I think any of us would have seen it, but she did first, she is certain that the robbery was staged." Which they had suspected, but it was nice to know. "And the second is that even if I wanted to pretend to yell at you, it would be a lie and is there ever a time I have been able to lie to you?"

Doug's eyes narrowed briefly. He could think of several ways that Marie-Ange could lie to him, and had in the past. Granted, most of those weren't in person, but still. He shook his head, breaking off the train of thought. That type of conversation would head to unproductive places, places they'd already visited a few times. "Well, yay for inadvertently giving her the right thing to keep her from bugging me with 'I'm booooored'?" he said.

Marie-Ange nodded. "I gave her a blender. It has her name on it, so we will not have to worry about her poison milkshakes making everyone else sick." It was just so interesting how Cammie's power worked and Marie-Ange almost regretted the animosity between the two. Almost. "Do you want to go to lunch?" It was astoundingly abrupt, but she just was not sure how to make the offer gracefully.

"I...don't know." On reflection, that seemed to be Doug's response quite often where Marie-Ange was concerned. Mostly because ever since she had returned, their relationship (and in his mind he hesitated to call it that, even though the word didn't have to automatically connote romance) confused the hell out of him. "I guess so?" he said, only slightly less hesitantly and indecisively. "I mean, I haven't eaten since..." He frowned and thought.

"Yes, because that is healthy." Marie-Ange said dryly. "How can you forget to eat when Jubilee eats sixteen times a day?" It was not exaggeration on the days the Asian firecracker used her powers heavily. "We will go get you a burrito, and then you can teach me how to shoot a gun." she said, already waving Doug towards the door. "I think a productive day out of the office is perhaps a good idea, no?"

"Jubilee needs to eat...wait, what?" Doug asked, partway through standing up and gathering his keys and wallet. "Teach you how to what now?"

"Would you like the very convoluted explanation about a very confusing reading about the Eater of Death and the Queenless Men or would you just take it at my word that I believe I may need to know very soon how to shoot someone and not kill them?" Marie-Ange was already fumbling in her bag for the decks of cards. If she had to explain this, she would but it was already so strange.

"No, I...believe you." He'd almost said 'I trust you', but that was a different animal since her return. And to be fair, she probably didn't trust him as much these days either. But when she spoke of things related to her precognition, he did still believe her. "Do you want to purchase your own gun, or take one of mine to the range?"

Marie-Ange laughed a little, dryly. "I do not want to own one. If I have to be honest, I want as little to do with them as possible." And besides, if she'd wanted to buy one, she could've hinted to Wade and he'd probably have gotten her the most fashionable and yet powerful gun in the city. He seemed like he was good at that sort of thing. "One of yours? You have more than one now?" Wait, when had that happened. Oh, probably during the six months when she was in New Orleans. Drat.

There were a number of pithy responses he could make to that question, but Doug went with the literal. "Yes. I keep two." He'd more or less had to come to terms with the use of them, because he didn't have any real offensively-capable power like the rest of the team did. He crossed to a locked cabinet, and pulled a small lockbox out of it, keeping it under his arm. "Lunch first?" he asked.

"God, yes." Marie-Ange rubbed her eye tiredly. "At the risk of sounding like you, I think I may need to light my mouth on fire, because I do not think anything else is going to wake me up." She hadn't been sleeping, clearly.

Doug blinked and looked sideways at Marie-Ange. Lack of sleep was a usual thing with her precognition, but this looked like she'd been pushing herself much harder. Of course, they all had. "Yeah, let's do something about that, because the last thing I want is you being half-asleep while holding a gun."