X-Factor Case File: The Triskelion Files - Log 6

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

Adrienne and Warren go through the information Sue and Arthur obtained for them.



The list of names, titles and interlocking shifts was depressingly long in the files that Sue and Arthur had been able to acquire. Like most agencies, SHIELD used a mix of employees, contractors, and temporary labour in their day to day operations, creating a vast and shifting network that was confusing to anyone who wasn’t familiar with the hierarchies of modern administrations.

Which was exactly why it had fallen on to Adrienne and Warren to vet the information. SHIELD was no different to a major corporation in terms of the setup of the non-classified and low classified staff, making them perfectly suited to try and narrow down the potential leak.

"Is there any more of the veggie dim sum?" Adrienne asked Warren, straightening up from where she'd been resting with her head pillowed on her arm at the board room table. The power nap had been much needed, as she no longer felt that her brain was going to throb right out of her skull.

Warren gave a nod as he leaned back, rubbing his eyes. "Somewhere near the reject pile." Stretching, he sighed and looked at the many piles of paper. "Wait, which one is the reject pile..." After several hours, he felt like he was no closer to understanding this task than he was earlier. That being said, it was obvious that they were managing to get through it. This was the detective work that the pulp novels gave a mere sentence or two to. Boring stuff. "I think we might have our top contenders though," he said with a smile. "There's only like ...200 in that pile." It was a joke. Kind of.

Adrienne grabbed one of the cartons but wrinkled her nose. "Nope. Moo shu pork. That means... yes! This one. Which means this is the reject pile," she told Warren with a gesture to the pile of paper next to the dim sum carton. It was a small victory but it made her feel slightly better to have figured out that, at least.

She popped a dumpling in her mouth and rolled her chair over to the 'top contender' pile. "Okay, ninth inning of the ball game. We're so close now. Let's do this thing," she said to energize them both. "C'mon, quinjet on-board camera. Who had access to you? Who's this person?" Adrienne picked a personnel file off the 'top contender' pile and rolled herself back over to her copy of the list of names, job descriptions, and shift rotations for the suspected time frame of the leak. "An archivist? Yeah, archivists are super shady. I think it's this one." She leaned over the list to search for the person's name and see if she got any hits.

Warren gave a laugh. "An archivist? Really? Even the word is boring. I highly doubt they'd have the balls to do it.". Grabbing a folder off his own pile, he tossed a picture towards Adrienne. "Here's a technician who was passed over for a pretty important promotion. Simmering anger. Look at those beady little eyes. He would have access to the camera, and probably even edited the material."

Snorting at Warren's comments, Adrienne found the archivist's name on the list and digested the particulars of their schedule. "Huh, yeah this archivist would have access to the hard copies of the footage. I'm putting them in the 'maybe' pile." She rolled her chair over to get a closer look at the picture Warren had tossed her way, squinting hard at it. "Definitely a suspect, yeah." She rolled back over to the pile of folders from the 'top contender' pile and grabbed another one. "So, how many of these people have you slept with?" she teased.

He pointed to the pile by his feet. "By the end of next week, I'm hoping these ones." Warren gave her a grin. "Don't worry, it won't happen during an interrogation.". Unless they wanted it that way.

Rifling through his earlier pile, he gave her another nod. "And back to your archivist. There's a few actually. Here's some more. Maybe we need to look into the background to get a better sense of it. Just because someone has access doesn't mean they will. I hear other people have something called 'morals'," he said, air quoting with his fingers.

"More archivists?" Adrienne asked, cocking an eyebrow, "or more people you wanna sleep with?"

"I've never slept with an archivist before," Warren mused. "I bet they're very meticulous." Getting back to the task at hand, he sifted through his piles until he had about five or six folders in front of him. "Right. So these people all had the opportunity. I think you have a few too. What's our next step, boss? I defer to your larger brain."

Adrienne eyed him skeptically, trying to figure out if he had some kind of angle behind his comments about her being the boss and about her brain. "Gimme," she told him, making grabby hands since she was the one who was sitting in front of the list of the people who had been on-duty at the time of the incident. "Okay. Out of the seven archivists in SHIELD's employ, two process the reports and reference material, one's been on mat leave, one does something called 'migrating' electronic data, one works exclusively in the accounting section, one works in legal, and one in records retrieval. That one could technically have access to the footage from the camera, though. So we take out the mat leave, the accounting, and the legal. Oh, and the reference material one," she added, squinting at the list as her headache returned. "That leaves us with three of them who could potentially have seen the footage, though I'm willing to rule out the one that does reports if we can find out whether that footage was used in any reports that were submitted. Do we know that yet?" Once they figured that out, she would have Warren run background checks on the remaining ones. And then they'd move on to the technicians, the assistants, and the IT people.

Warren hummed as he looked through his laptop for the answer before going "A ha!" He turned the computer around so that Adrienne could see. "Look at these boring, ugly people. Honestly, how do some people live like this?" Looking up at her, he grinned. "Oh wait, I'm looking at other things. Right. Reports."

Several minutes later, he made another discovery noise. "Okay, you're right -- we can rule one of those people out. In fact, I think we might even be able to rule two of them out." Clearing his throat, he pointed to his screen. "I'm emailing this to you. Basil Homes. Horrible name. No wonder he's leading an evil life. Anyways, time stamps on the footage directly match to a security report taken at that time. We missed it the first time, because he did it during a maintenance sweep. He's an assistant to a technician, so he actually has the knowledge he needs and the security clearance to boot. Plus, unfortunate name and a terrible nose. Low self-esteem is rampant in this one."

"That sounds like a fake name," Adrienne scoffed, frowning. She was doing some research on her own computer, running through some database compilation programs XFI had access to. "This archivist has a sick kid. Expensive medical treatments. Could be motive." She put the archivist who was in charge of migrating electronic data onto a clear spot on the table, essentially starting a new pile. She read some of the material Warren had just emailed about Basil. "Huh. Mr. Low Self Esteem has also got three mortgages on his house. Put Basil here with this archivist. I'm making a 'follow up on these ones cuz they are our best suspects' pile. Could you hand me your other technician? Mister Simmering Anger And Beady Eyes?"

Warren dug around before finding the one Adrienne was referencing. "Here you go. I hope he used some of that money on a chemical peel, although," he continued, eyeing the picture critically, "that probably wouldn't help him any.".

Stretching his arms behind him, he rolled his shoulders. His wings were aching and he wondered for the umpteenth why he bothered covering up when Adrienne knew about his wings. ‎"I need to take my shirt off," he said bluntly. "And Kane would punch me if he knew I did it here. Are we finished? Is it naked time yet?"

"Yeah I think we're finished," Adrienne nodded. "It's definitely naked time. I really need to take mine off too, although I think I'm going to call Kane in here once you're gone and do it here, cuz I'm pretty sure I won't get punched."

Comments

[xp-blackcat.livejournal.com]

An archivist? Yeah, archivists are super shady.

That's it, you have now won the award for most meta comment of 2015. *hands trophy*

(Also, great log. It's hard to do interesting research logs and this was great.)