Christian's Angels: Party in the Clouds

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

With the help of Knightwing Restorations, the team infiltrates a party at one of LLL's partner's homes in Macau in search of information.



The estate in Coloane was one of the privileged few - an original villa dating back to the early 19th century. Once the home of a prosperous Spanish shipping tai-pan, it had fallen into the hands of Landau, Luckman and Lake before the turn of the 20th Century, and the managing partner of their Macau office used it as their official residence ever since. Its carefully manicured grounds were a rarity in the small city, and the building could only be properly called a mansion. The main lobby and the adjacent dining room served as the main floor for the party, but it was easy to see small groups slipping off for one reason or another; business and pleasure never stopping. Harold Chang, the current managing partner of LLL Macau, greeted his guests jovially, his expansiveness meant to reflect that of his firm's success. SHIELD had provided most of their cover identities - good enough to pass even rigorous investigation for at least a day, giving them plenty of time to get in and out.

It was the first time that Bobby's skills as an accountant were being called on during a mission, but Drew had stressed that if there was proof of a link between the flight Kane had identified as Corrigan's and Sublime, it would be with LLL as the intermediary. However, their financial records would be carefully stored behind excellent security, which would need a master thief to even hope to sneak past. Jubilee's youth had made Jessica dubious of her skill level, but she agreed to trust them and let the woman take the lead as they slipped away from the party and into the interior rooms of the house.

Jubilee adjusted the short skirt on her party dress, aware of the eyes dropping from her face to take in the view, were anyone to ask for a description of her later on it would probably not be her face they would be remembering. Even so, she'd covered her currently purple and black hair with a long black wig that had curls brushing her shoulders. She'd already explained to both Bobby and Jessica that they would need to be seen at the party for at least a half hour or more before they tried to duck off anywhere.

Even then it was better that they slip away individually in order to assuage any suspicion of what the group of them might be doing if somebody were to notice them being gone for any length of time. She laughed, and placed a delicately boned hand upon the shoulder of the man she'd been speaking to for the past few minutes, giving him the full smile and flirt routine she'd perfected on the streets of Madripoor.

Being at a party seemed to be like second nature to Bobby Drake at this point. Being at Cassidy Keep for any extended period of time meant that you would doubtlessly be subjected to private donors and collectors that never could get over not being able to touch things in a museum, so they thought that their pocket book would allow them such privilege at the Keep. Most of the time Bobby just left it to Terry or one of the other staff members to entertain them, but there was the occasion that he would slip downstairs in a tux, trying to pull of his best James Bond impression. Tonight was one of those nights. But as he did his best to stay near the edge of the party, looking as relaxed as possible, he couldn't help but smile to himself. This would show some of the X-Men for laughing at his accounting skills. He quickly went over his check list. Reading glasses... check. Calculator.... check. Bad abacus jokes... check. He was ready.

And as Jubilee seemed to be building up their alibi, he couldn't help but check on his two associates, purely to make sure they weren't in trouble and not because of their chosen attires for the evening mind you, and waited for the sign for him to slink off and go all Pythagoras on the books.

Jessica met Bobby's eye, her red dress showing off her back. Her long, straight black hair was up in a elegant ponytail that was almost perpendicular with her spine. The dress hit the floor and she seemed to move with a grace that almost made her float as she walked, plucking a champagne flute from a tray as she took a sip.

It'd been far too long since she'd been to a good party, not to mention be able to break out a dress. At the last one she was stuck in the van with Colleen while Misty lived it up.

Their small team was doing well so far to blend in. Hopefully that'd stay the case.

There was a buzzing of Jubilee's cell phone as the guard watch switched upstairs. They had carefully monitored the movements on the second floor prior to the party, mapping their movements until there was an opening they could use.

Thankfully Drake and his "arm candy" hadn't encountered too much of a resistance on their way up, and were already beginning to push the doors open to the office behind his former classmate, a smile on his face as he did so. "Honey, I'm home." His smile only widened as he moved forward, holding his hand open for the spreadsheets he was sure to be going over in a peaceful bliss in a matter of moments. "What are we looking at here?"

"What we're looking at is you staying there till I'm done," Jubilee retorted, bending over the target's desk to look at the drawer. She supposed it was her training that made her suspicious that this had all been too easy, but when it took mere seconds for her to pick the lock, and then place the book they'd been looking for in Bobby's hands, she had to admit that sometimes it was just that easy. "Now, go do your thing so we can put it back and get the hell out of here."

"Yes ma'am." Bobby gave a little salute before sliding into the chair behind the desk, quickly opening up the book and beginning to thumb through the pages. But after punching in a few things into his calculator on his phone, he quickly slid back in his chair crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Just as I suspected. These guys are hiding huge amounts of porn outside of their books, I'm sure of it. Oh, and they're taking illegal tax breaks." He smiled before continuing, putting his thumb down across several lines. "Oh, and you might be interested in this little note here where it says that Landau, Luckman and Lake and a few other companies that magically opened and closed funded a flight for Corrigan." He smirked. "Or is that not that interesting?”

"Interesting? Love..." Jessica said as she propped her arm across the back of his shoulders, peering over his shoulder. She grinned broadly.

"I may be starting to rethink that getting a room business."





Garrison and Paige stood near one of the doors leading to the expansive veranda. Misty Knight had refused a cover identity, explaining that LLL knew her face too well for it to work, but she had her own ways past security and would meet them at that door. If she made it. It wasn't the best put together plan, lashed up in the short time they had, but there wasn't much choice.

"If Knight can get us into the files, do you really think you can figure out from those what Sublime is up to?"

Leaning on the other foot, Paige placed her hand on Garrison's shoulder for balance as she crossed her ankle around in the other direction. Short, slinky dress and very tall shoes had been part of the required party attire, but she had at least begged off for pumps that she could kick off if required to run, as opposed to the strappy sandals the shop boy had handed to her. Apparently the majority of her business casual suitcase contents were... well, she hadn't translated exactly, but was pretty sure at least one of them meant "for an old, married hag who knows her husband is getting it elsewhere".

"Sure, why not. We're clever." She still thought he had been exaggerating and she could have got away with trousers, though. "The problem is if we need to prove it."

"I'm not that worried about it holding up in a court of law. I want to know if they are responsible for the attack, why they did it in the first place." Kane said. Behind him, there was a light tap on the door, and he eased it open to allow Knight access into the house.

"Thank you, honey," the tall woman said, giving him a slow smile as she slipped past him and inside. Misty was dressed in black jeans and a dark t-shirt, her hair tied back in a long, if messy, braid. "Lookin' good, kids. Very nice. C'mon, Chang keeps his files this way."

"Lead the way." Kane nodded, as they fell into step behind her. The house was immense, and they would have been quickly lost without Misty Knight in charge.

"You get the feeling that she's been here before?" Kane whispered to Paige.

"Busy concentrating on walking, now," Paige hissed, tightening her grip on his shoulder as he tried to stride ahead. "You wanted me to look like arm candy, you stay in arm's reach."
Holding them back a little, Paige let Misty get ahead, before tilting her head conspiringly towards Kane, a bit of hair falling over her ear. "It also looks very suspicious if three people go running off at once towards top secret things. So pretend to like me, would you?"

"If anyone asks, I promise to say that we totally are planning to do it and are just looking for a place." Kane nodded, waiting for the all clear from Misty. Their initial suspicion was that the main security would be on the financials and the mainframe, but the research would have to pass through LLL's patent and liability departments to determine insurance and business considerations, making it far more likely that the files would be secure, but in the regular mainframe and far less difficult to access.

Misty had paused ahead of them, peering around a corner to check the way was clear. She waited, holding up a hand to get them to stop as well, and then waved them on. "Chang's staff office is the second door on the left," she murmured to them. No guards on it, but there are cameras, plus the security code on the door."

“Hmmm…” Kane took a look at the walls. “Want to bet there’s no camera on the room next to it?” Garrison tested the door and with a grunt, snapped the lock and pushed in. They all followed him, and he closed the door after. The building was old, but it had been remodeled numerous times. Kane walked over to the wall and tapped it a couple of times. Drywall.

“Well, here goes the undetected escape.” Kane muttered, as he knelt down and pushed his hand through the wall like it was cardboard. With a gesture as light as waving away smoke, he tore a square hole in the wall large enough for them to crawl through. The staff office wasn’t richly appointed, although all of the furnishings were antique. Paige slipped into a chair behind the computer while Kane stood near the door.

She tapped at the keyboard idly, frowning faintly, more than just the subject matter. A few more taps, and another window popped up, and another… Paige toggled between them, reaching into her cleavage for a small thumb drive with her other hand and plugging it in. “Alright, I found your anomaly,” she announced. “It wasn’t too hard, given we knew when to start. Look here. August, they’re working on, well, I won’t bore you, but let’s say, a wooden peg leg. And here, next month, they’re working on the equivalent of a fully robotic limb, with living tissue covering, with nothing in between. There is a huge gap, a leap, in progress and nothing explaining it.”

“Like someone gave them a bunch of research right after my team was ambushed.” Kane said, muttering angrily. “But why? Why were they worth the payoff?”

“Whatever they were up to, you’re gonna have to figure it out later.”Misty’s voice sounded tense from where she was keeping watch. “Security’s been tripped and we’re about to have a whole lotta ugly come down on our heads.





Luke Cage stood by the stairs, holding a flute of champagne and watched Hank lead Marie-Ange over towards him. They weren't able to disguise Hank's bulk with an image inducer and hope to pass through security, but by limiting it to his head and concealing his hands under gloves, Hank's size didn't immediately betray him as a mutant.

The trouble with being undercover was that you never got to wear the shoes you wanted to buy, you ended up in the ones that looked good with the dress but that you could run in if you had to. The dress cut both up to and down to the mysterious 'there' helped - people would look at her, and her legs and the impressive amount of skin and hopefully not pay quite so much attention to the fact that her "date"'s posture was slightly strained, as though he was not quite comfortable standing up straight.

Marie-Ange offered Luke a smile, mostly genuine, he was an attractive man. "Mister Noble. Henri was just telling me about you."

"Charmed. Can I show you both to the gallery wing. It has many paintings from the time when Macau was the main terminal for the West with China trade?" He said, slipping the code for the mainframe easily into his statement. He'd already tracked down the room that held a way into the databanks. Now all they had to do is reach it quietly.

Hank nodded, but behind the false face of his image inducer he was grimacing- the technology had- since his transformation- made his fur itch, which was why he rarely tried to rely on it. 'Henri' followed behind Marie-Ange trying to stay calm as they entered the proverbial lions den- hopefully his luck would be as good as Daniel's had been so many years ago. On another trip, he may have wanted to take in the gallery's exhibits, but passed them quietly, staying silent to not betray his disguise.

On the other hand, Marie-Ange was unusually chatty, letting out a stream of comments on the artwork as they followed Luke through the gallery wing. Pointing out interesting techniques, or pieces she found particularly interesting - or the rare piece that was interesting not on its own but because it was supposed to be in museums in Europe and the Americas. It wasn't hard to feign interest, because she was actually interested, it just also helped to maintain cover.

Cage stopped at a door and pulled out a blank card, which he slipped through the reader. A panel opened up with a hand print monitor set into it, and the SHIELD agent pulled out a small tube from his pocket. From inside, he carefully withdrew a piece of acetate film, placed it over the reader, and then pressed his hand against it. The panel lit up green and the door opened. He hustled them inside, closing it behind them. "Here we are."

Hank shut off the image inducer and quickly went to work on what, if the room layout were anything like his own data-store, was the main terminal. In fact, there were several in the room, but all seemed to be networked to a single work station. "This is an impressive amount of hardware for an operation this size, but then again, perhaps our hosts simply enjoy keeping copies of their artwork on back-up." In all likelihood, the servers contained a great deal of banal information that he'd need to cut through before he found the drives he was looking for, but it wouldn't take very long to accomplish for someone of his skill. Locating a USB drive Hank plugged a thumb drive in and went to work finding chinks in their security system.

Marie-Ange glanced briefly at Hank. For all that Hank was blue, broad-shouldered and furry, what he would be doing was all too familiar. A hacker doing his thing was a hacker doing his thing. They needed space, and more importantly, uninterrupted time in order to get in and get out without being detected. Which meant that now, it would be up to her and Mister Cage to keep anyone from noticing.

Cage stopped dead, pointing up at one of the small household security monitors in Chang's main office. "Sweet Christmas..." He said with a low whistle. "We've got trouble." He pointed to the monitor, and in it, tthey could all see LLL's security forces in a group conferring with Oyama - Lady Deathstrike - who was speaking rapidly and handing out assignments. "Something other than our distraction must have triggered the alarm. We've got minutes at most.

"Fortunately," the blue doctor smiled toothily and unplugged the thumb drive from the hand port he'd discovered, "Most of these drives are empty, or contain nothing more than a few characters repeated over and over, we're clear."

"Then we should leave very quickly. I imagine they may recognize a SHIELD agent, if not myself or Doctor McCoy?" Marie-Ange said as she took the thumb drive and tucked it into the tiny handbag that went with her dress. "Even with the image inducer, your posture is recognizable." She passed the gloves back to Hank. "And I doubt that Lady Deathstrike is going to be quite as distracted by my dress as some of the other security."

All three of them quickly exited the room. Unfortunately, none of them noticed the tiny lens set over one of Chang’s monitors, and the red pinlight that clicked on the second they came through the door.





In the centre of the party, Angel and Callisto had been left with Colleen Wing. Their job wasn't the most glamourous, but it was essential to be ready to draw security's attention away from the rest of the house while the others went to seek out more information on the connection with Sublime. Also, since losing sight of Oyama earlier, there was a chance that she would be at the party, protecting her interests, and she was far too dangerous to risk her surprising them.

The last few times Angel had been in a dress had been for school based parties - prom being the big one. This, she thought with glee, was not a prom kind of dress. She smoothed down the black silk she was sporting, almost petting it, and thought she was Never Going to Take This Off. This was way better than her leathers. Angel glanced over at Callisto and bit her lip slightly. "You kinda look like you're going to strangle someone with your dress," she said quietly, amazed that they'd even gotten Callisto in a dress to begin with.

Callisto herself was in dark blue, a long halterneck affair that hung perfectly from her sparse frame - an inch or two taller and she could be on a catwalk. Somehow, [SOMEONE?] had managed to tame her hair, straightening and styling it into a 'touseled' look that was for once artful rather than careless. There was no hiding her elaborately tattooed arm, and one could still catch flashed of the scarring across her face from beneath her carefully styled bangs, but somehow, coupled with dramatically dark eye makeup and deep red lipstick, simple drop earrings and high-heeled shoes, she passed for 'rebellious aristocrat' rather than 'street kid'.

Or at least, she would have if it wasn't for the sour expression on her face.

"I don't need to strangle anyone," she muttered through clenched teeth. "Do you have any idea how many knives I can hide on myself under this thing?"

Distractions weren't exactly Colleen's forte but she knew enough to know that if you drew attention to yourself before the distraction you'd never manage to pull it off. Smiling, she slipped an arm around the complaining Callisto. "If you keep it up people will get suspicious before we can do anything worthy of keeping people occupied. You wouldn't want to do that, now would you?" She looked for all the world like she was just gossiping with a friend in confidence. "I'm not particularly fond of pretty satin and lace dresses either, but we all much play our parts and if you keep scowling someone's going to think one of us just broke up with you."

Callisto's expression softened slightly at this, albeit only far enough for her to raise a skeptical eyebrow. "You think they have that much imagination?" she said with a dry smirk.

"I think they might. Though if you'd like we could play faux lesbian card and see how that serves as a distraction." Colleen grinned. "It would be very untoward in such company, after all, and I'm sure abiding by it wouldn't happen for long." The PI turned her gaze to the caffeine loving redhead. "Or there's always the classic chick fight. Or the chick fight over the girl since we lack any appropriate male counterparts."

Angel's eyebrows had been climbing at each suggestion. It wasn't that they bothered her, only just that she'd been expecting something a little bit more show boat-y. Maybe she'd been spending too much time with the X-Men. They didn't generally tend to start with explosions but things always seemed to end up with explosions.

Callisto's expression flickered briefly at Colleen's words between her current somewhat sullen face and one a little less readable and more conflicted. It was gone again in a moment, though, and replaced by something a little more businesslike and, mercifully, a little less petulant. "I don't think fake dyke drama will be necessary," she said. "Just, uh... when do you want this distraction?"

"Ah, good, I hate going so low brow." Colleen was grinning quite happily now. She even resisted suggesting someone get caught on fire. After all, Angelica was more than capable of surviving that. "I believe we need a distraction in the near future, my dear. We need you to figure out if you and our companion are the only mutants in here and if not who the others are."

"Yeah. Um... Yeah." Callisto frowned slightly, trying not to sound nervous. Her 'mutant detection' abilities were... not very rigorously tested. She'd mentioned it once in passing to Kane, and as far as she could tell it seemed like people now thought she had some sort of... mutant-radar, when really it was more a sort of vague intuition. But she wasn't about to own up to that right now, even if she did know the word 'intuition'. Which she didn't.

For now, at least, there was the 'distraction' to attend to. Callisto sidled - apparently while she'd never been on heels before to anyone's knowledge she had no trouble moving in them - toward one of the buffet table. She moved her hand a little, subtly, and it was a moment before Colleen noticed that she had palmed a well-worn looking zippo lighter. Callisto turned the lighter over a few times in her hand, nimble fingers flipping the lid open and shut a few times, the clicking noise lost in the hubbub. But then something on the buffet counter seemed to get her attention, and the lighter disappeared again, apparently into some hidden pocket in her dress, or perhaps inside the thick wrist-cuff that she wore (and in which one suspected she might also have secreted one or more small knives). Instead, she picked up an hors d'oeuvres - something that looked like caviar and cream on a tiny tiny pancake, and turned to favour Colleen a look that was almost too blank, too innocent, before, with a neat flick of her wrist, throwing the canapé straight toward Colleen's face.

Dodging wasn't particularly hard from this distance and the PI side-stepped the flying food in a smooth motion. Unfortunately, that meant it hit the man behind her in the back of her head. He, of course, spun around and glared at her. She gave him an innocent look and scooted closer to Angelica. "Sir, are you well? You look quite red. Shall I call for a doctor?" she said to him in Cantonese, which he didn't seem to understand. Her tone must have been good enough to get the point across because now he was storming over toward the buffet table, eyeballing guests in an apparent attempt to discover the culprit.

To Angelica Colleen whispered, "Somehow, I think a food fight is rather lower brow than faux lesbian drama in the midst of conservative Chinese. Perhaps I should have vocalized my discarded thought to set you on fire?" Undercutting her disapproval was the slightly amused note that ran through her tone.

"It's a perfectly good waste of food," Angel replied. It was, actually, in her opinion and she mourned the appetizer that went uneaten. She grinned slightly at Colleen, taking care to hide it behind her hand least she be fingered as the one throwing the food. Her eyes crinkled with delight. "The fire thing might not be a bad idea - how much of a distraction are we going for anyway?" She kept an eye on Callisto just in case she decided to take it up a notch. She was all about following the two older ladies leads and she had a feeling if she let one of them out of her sight, she'd never be able to play catch up.

"We need to draw out shady people hiding in the crowd or shadows," Colleen whispered back. "So a decently distracting sort of distraction. Perhaps bordering on 'uproar.'" She watched as the man started to interrogate the servers by the buffet table. He wasn't even near the real culprit. "If the impending food fight doesn't do it then I vote we set you alight just as any attention to that is beginning to die down. Don't let them completely go back to what they were doing before setting off another domino." She grinned and kept her eyes on Callisto and those clever hands of hers.

Callisto for her own part had located another nibbly thing, and was now hefting it delicately in one hand, casting a questioning expression in Colleen's direction.

Collen looked from Callisto to the hors d'oeuvres and back again. With a little shrug and tilt of her head she conveyed her opinion of Why not? and let a ghost of a sneak onto her lips.

With a subtle shrug, Callisto then launched the food once more - at Angel, this time, and faster than before, with a last-second feint that anticipated the instinct to duck.

As something spicy and delicious dribbled down Angel's cheek, her eyes widened with not really that much mock indignation. Still, she resisted the urge to set something on fire and, instead, let out the most lady like shriek of protest that she could do. Eyes immediately turned to her as she gathered her skirts and marched past Callisto, right up to the guy she'd nailed with the food before.

"How dare you!" Angel screamed and the guy looked far too startle to respond - to either that or the open handed slap she laid on him, hard enough to leave a scarlet hand print on his face.

Being one more for sneaking in and stealing things out from under a person's nose, the raucous beginning wasn't precisely Colleen's forte. She slid further into the crowd, lifting wallets and keys from pockets and making her way to the buffet table herself. The man Angelica has slapped looked like a blubbering fish in his indignation and confusion, which Colleen used to slip a couple wallets in his pocket before backing off and pelting him with yet another canape to the back of the head before ducking behind one of the men whose wallet was now in the man's pocket.

If Callisto was aware of Colleen's movements, she did not react, instead firing off another couple of quick rounds of hors d'oeuvres before slipping away from the main scene of activity and beginning to sidle through the crowd of people who were, probably in spite of themselves, gravitating toward the action, if only to see what was going on.

Mutants... they'd want to know what was happening over here... unless they already knew 'cause they were mutants and could... see shit? So basically I know nothing... Her sharp eyes scanned the crowd, ears listening out for any conversation that would give her a clue, all the time brushing arms and hands with those she passed, waiting for that familiar little tingle that told her she was near one of the own.

When the man Angel had slapped had started to move forwards, his intent fairly obvious what with the grabbing hands, another man behind him grabbed him firmly by the arm. He started to say something soothing but then stopped, gaze fixing on the ground as something fell out of the first person's back pocket.

Angel wasn't quite sure what he said but she was willing to put goooood money that it was along the lines of "My wallet!" With the attention diverted from her and her scene, she turned on her heel and flounced away, looking like she was simply storming off.

With Angel clear of the scene as well, Colleen ditched her last set of keys into an open purse. A few more hors d'oeuvres managed to find themselves landing against cheeks, backs, hair or - in one particular case - in the middle of a woman's cleavage. Each assault managed to get pinned on someone else thanks to Colleen continuing Callisto's work now that she was out doing her mutant detector thing. The PI quickly got out of dodge as well once she was sure things had reached a point of taking on a life of their own and sought out the tiny redhead who had gone storming off into the sunset.

Callisto, in the meantime, was looking a little... worried wasn't the right word. But she didn't seem happy, or even her usual brand of quietly sullen, looking to the other two women as they caught her intense expression with slightly widened eyes and lifting a hand, one finger pointed, with which she gestured in a quick circular motion, the universal language for, 'all around'.

Colleen cringed when she cause Callisto's signal. She swore under her breath. "I think it might be time for us to split," she whispered to Angelica. Security, the sort that was clearly marked by uniforms anyhow, were making their way toward the commotion at the buffet table. She grabbed the kid's hand and caught Callisto's gaze before nodding toward the exit. It was time for their retreat lest they find out what the mutants in the audience could do. She was willing to bet it wasn't pleasant.

Nodding slightly in return, Callisto headed in the same direction, picking her pace up a little to get there before the other pair lest there be any security that had to be dealt with quickly.

Angel didn't protest, just kept a firm grip on Colleen's hands while she hiked up her dress just enough to allow for a high-speed getaway. The evening had been fun but she really didn't want to stick around for what was to come.

Besides, she thought, tongue darting out to lick at her cheek where she had food drying, she was starving and the faster they left, the faster Angel could score some food that wasn't going to get thrown at her.