xp_logs | Genosha: The Unwritten Alliance: Going to Work (Reply)

X-Force and X-Factor discuss their plans to move in.

X-Factor and X-Force combined at the same table, and it wasn’t even crowded. Remy pushed the grim observation away as he poured himself another cup of coffee and took a seat. They’d worked out a reasonable rescue plan at the mansion with the X-Men, but now it was time to figure out how to deliver them to the prisoners, and they were still at step one for the most part. As the door swung shut behind Nico and Amanda, Remy finally rapped on the table for quiet.

“By now, you’ve all read de summary of what’s happened. Any questions?” The red on black gaze stopped on each person, moving around the room.

Amanda dropped into a seat and shook her head. “Seems like a straightforward enough highly dangerous infiltration mission,” she remarked, although even her usual wry humour was subdued. The fact her little sister was one of the captives and her ex-boyfriend another had her in the mood for nastiness, although she was trying to remain professional, aware the personal elements could likely sabotage the mission for her. “‘M not sure if I’ll be able to do a straight ‘port in, tho’. Genosha’s not that big and it’s not like we’ve been introduced.”

"This is worse than a nightmare." Marie-Ange looked tired, unusually so with dark smudges under her eyes. Her typical 'can't sleep, won't sleep' habits had gone into overtime. Tired, and angry. "I cannot see a damned thing, except for bits and pieces." She frowned down at the deck of Tarot cards she'd brought into the room with her, and then shook her head. "In and out, and changes, and that is all I get."

“Better than not getting anything at all, I suppose,” Wanda responded, though she knew the reassurance wouldn’t bolster much. Not much would at this point. She looked as tired as the others, though more rumpled, as Remy had used X-Force’s resources - meaning Emma’s - to get her on the first red eye he could. There hadn’t been much time given her to get back to New York, so she’d left Stephen behind to finish following up on that particular lead on Agatha with the knowledge that he’d follow when he could.

She flicked quickly through the paperwork in front of her and resisted wincing at the names of the missing. Her heart clenched, though, at Garrison, Adrienne, Marius and then she had to look away. “Currently I am unsure if I have any contacts in Genosha or even any contacts of my contacts. But I can see what I can drum up for any inside information.”

“We might be better off if we try to keep clear of using our mutations as a solution for any of these problems. They’re clearly an anti-mutant nation. We might be able to catch them off guard if they spend all their time thinking about how to deal with mutants... then we don’t do anything they’ve planned for.” Bishop offered, gauging the reactions of the room. Everyone seemed to be feeling everyone else out.

“Most of us are adept enough at passing off as regular civilians,” North agreed, just loud enough to be heard from the corner he had taken up post in. Having noted the toll this was taking on some of his colleagues, the reclusive man appreciated the emotional distance his anti-social nature was affording him. “That wouldn’t be a problem.”

The problem, as Marie-Ange and Wanda had pointed out, was the lack of information they were working on. For one, North wanted to know if the kidnapped were even still alive. Unfortunately, it was a given that at this stage, that all practical avenues of information gathering had already been exploited and wrung dry. “But we’d need ‘legitimate’ reasons to enter the country.”

“The more disparate our methods of entry, the better,” Ororo said then, relieved that no one seemed to be advocating rushing in headlong but still wary that the personal nature of the mission would cloud many people’s judgement. “Small groups, no more than two or three in order to avoid undue attention. It may make creating covers more difficult, but we must be aware that they could well be looking for a rescue team to come after those who have been taken.”

Jubilee had been quiet to this point, that more than anything giving voice to the disturbance she'd felt over the list of names of the taken. She was a regular visitor to the mansion, and knew almost everyone on a nodding acquaintance at least.

"Nico and I can probably pass ourselves off as Japanese tourists, splash enough colour and makeup about and most people don't look close enough to spot the difference."

Wade stayed quiet as the discussion began, eyes moving slowly across the room to each person as they spoke in turn. Arms crossed, shoulder blades planted firmly against the wall near the door, the mercenary kept his face impassive.

Doug could read Wade’s body language well enough to see the coiled tension in the man’s shoulders, and didn’t really need to think too hard to come up with why - the tally of the missing had more than a few names on it that Wade considered his people. For that matter, Doug had more than a couple himself that were varying levels of personal - Artie, Madelyne, Cammie, Angelo, Adrienne... But really, it didn’t matter how many. One would have been enough reason to go and find them. You couldn’t let people think that kind of crap would stand.

His features solidified into something very like the expression on Wade’s face. “Private terminals of airports are usually more lax in their security than the main public ones. It should be easy enough for Emma and I to ‘disappear’ off a Frost Enterprises jet that happens to stop in Genosha to refuel.”

So this was, as one could say, it. The kind of thing she had been supposedly being trained all this time. In the midst of people feeling terrible, tired and slightly desperate, Nico had managed not to have a panic attack just yet. She couldn’t lie to herself; as much as she was scared of what was going on, and the fact she could have been in the list as much as anyone else, there was...eagerness inside of her. Eagerness, and rage. “Going by the fact Genosha is receiving large amounts of attention as of late, and the influx of tourists, we shouldn’t have a hard time entering in small groups, yes. But as much as we plan, we are going in relatively blind.” They could be all dead by now, although it didn’t seem like the kind of thing to happen. No, whatever was going to happen to them was probably worse, and that meant they had to hurry.

Leaning back on her chair, Nico sighed. “What a mess,” muttered under her breath as she took a hand to her face.

Callisto, though another rather antisocial type, wasn’t hiding in a corner. She didn’t need to - Callisto could emanate ‘don’t talk to me’ vibes from anywhere in a room, and that’s just what she was doing now, slumped in a random chair with her usual careless grace. At Nico’s declaration, her expression flickered, just a little, her brows briefly gathering together a little more tightly before returning to her trademark thoughtful frown - the one that said her concentration was on some difficult internal task, like thinking and breathing simultaneously.

“So we move on in groups,” Remy said now. “Easier to pick us off but ‘ro is right. De best way to filter through security if dey aren’t waiting for us.” He nodded. “Marie-Ange, North, put together de new personas. Use our normal routes for de easier pieces. ‘Ro, can you see if Wakanda might be willing to look de other way for a couple of fake passports?”

“We have saved T’Challa’s life on more than one occasion,” she muttered, with less humor than she’d normally afford such a statement. “I am sure he will be happy to repay the favor with illicit documents.”

Wanda massaged the bridge of her nose for a moment at the absurdity of her life. She’d met T’Challa when he’d “visited” the manor after the attempt on his life but it still made her pause that they had royalty to call upon when the need presented themselves. “I will reach out to some of my own contacts. They might be able to help with moving our people if we need alternatives and if we need to shuffle people out quietly, they can help with that, too.”

Marie-Ange nodded in agreement. "Out will be much harder than in. In, most of us look normal and can pass as legitimate entrants to the country. Out, unless we have the full resources of all of the teams... even with that, I am not sure how we could get people out of the country." So many of the kidnapped could not pass as normal without extreme measures, it would not be easy to get them out of Genosha without being noticed.

“By ship maybe, the ports might not have the level of security an airport would,” Jubilee replied, it was uncertain though and she sighed at the end, rubbing a hand against the back of her neck and sitting up a little straighter in her chair.

They didn’t know enough about the situation on the ground, and it felt like any speculation now would simply be wasted time until they had more intel.

“We need to get in there.”

“Yes, we do,” Emma echoed. “There’s no Frost Enterprises outposts on Genosha, but I do have a number of contacts from the Hellfire Club that can provide Doug and I with cover identities once we are in.” She shrugged at the look she got from a number of people at the table. “If business can’t get you in, sexual perversion, blackmail and money is always an excellent back-up plan.” She closed her eyes for a moment, calculating where various Frost Enterprise assets were at the moment and how quickly they could all be gathered in New York to start the not inconsiderable journey to Genosha. “It’s probably going to take about thirty-two hours for us to get there using the Gulfstream.” Emma had let no emotion slip into her words at any point, no change from what she had demonstrated since the events of January. Beneath the table though, where no-one could see them, diamond fingernails slowly drew crescents of blood across her palms. “Getting out, I suspect, is a problem for another time. At the least, I can run the switchboard and keep us all in contact while we are in there.”

“We’re forgetting the part where we know a bunch of people with a big military-style plane,” Amanda chimed in. “The leather brigade obviously won’t be much help with the infiltration stuff, which is why we’re doing it, but once we’ve got information on where people are and we’ve gotten them out, it’ll be a matter of meeting up somewhere less obvious and having them ship out.” She shrugged.

“If it comes to it, coordinating getting out won’t be difficult. If we can get in safely, den disappearing long enough to get extracted shouldn’t be a problem. It’s a big risk, but I don’t see any other way around it.” Remy shook his head.

“We can’t figure out getting out until we know what’s going on anyway,” Vanessa put in, voice softer than usual. “We all know we’re flying blind, we know we’ve got friends with a jet and among them are teleporters who don’t have to rely on city energy like Amanda. LeBeau is right, we shouldn’t have trouble disappearing long enough to coordinate extraction once we know what we’re dealing with. Enough of us should be able to get out much the same way we got in, which means realistically we only have to worry about those who can’t pass.”

Vanessa’s eyes had been fixed on the pages of the summary report until now, but they finally moved up and around the table. Almost everyone here had been at her back at some point. At least everyone she trusted hadn’t been grabbed. “I started a list of tourist groups that regularly go to Genosha that some of us might be able to exploit for entry, possibly for exit. It’s not complete but I don’t sleep normally anyway so it should be soon. I’ll make sure everyone’s got a copy the second it’s done so we can plot out more avenues for getting into the country. Blending in with an unaffiliated group will keep suspicion off more than just going in together will.”

“Vanessa, you and North coordinate wit’ Marie-Ange and Doug on de covers. I need full dossiers and records set up before de end of de day. Jubilee and Callisto can take dem down to Leonardo’s and get dem properly aged. ‘ro, why don’t you get T’challa on de line, see if he won’t mind you bringing Bishop to fake a non-connecting origin flight between Wakanda and Genosha.” Remy said, sketching out duties for everyone. “‘Manda, you and Nico start setting up de travel arrangements. Use Vanessa’s list where you can. We’re going to need a couple of clean safehouses to operate from. Wanda, take Wade and disappear over to Europe. Find some boring, clean covers you can pick up some space wit’. While Emma is sorting out her business trip, Remy going to shake some of our less pleasant contacts and see if anything dat can help us falls out. Questions? Non? Den’s let’s move.”