OPERATION: SALT THE EARTH - Log 1
Mar. 3rd, 2018 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsEmma comes to Snow Valley to discuss a potential WMD being stolen from her company.
It was unusual for Emma Frost to call a meeting. Actually, it was unusual to see Emma Frost in the Snow Valley offices at all, normally spending her time at her office in Frost's corporate headquarters and dropped by on request. However, she'd turned up early, summoning the available members of the team to the conference table. A few of them were on assignment or out of country, but the bulk showed up and made their way to their unofficial normal seats. Kevin dropped a second cup of coffee by Frost's hand as he went past. The office practically ran on coffee, and cups were handed out whether requested or not.
Emma looked at the coffee and realised it had been far too long since she'd been at Snow Valley. Setting the cup slightly to one side, she leaned forward, drawing the attention of the people around the table. She didn't bother with any preliminaries. "We have a problem and I require your assistance. As you all know, Frost Enterprises has quite a number of subsidiary companies. One of them... well, more than one, but the one that matters... researches agricultural soil rehabilitation techniques. Removing heavy metal contamination, residual radiation, things like that. One of their lines of investigation involved genetically modifying bacteria to try and get them to process the soil and clear out all of the contaminants." She raised one perfect eyebrow. "Unfortunately, it turned out they had a very broad definition of contaminants. The soil was rendered utterly sterile. The kind of sterile that can take anything up to several hundred years to come back from. Obviously, the research was immediately terminated and the bacteria and all information about the experiments was destroyed."
"I'm going to take a wild guess here-" Kevin said, as he paused to irish up his own cup from his flask. "but you're here this morning to tell us that this soil killing... thing isn't as terminated and destroyed as it should be?"
"The bacteria is. The knowledge - possibly not." Emma sighed and rubbed at the skin between her eyebrows for a moment, stopping herself briskly. "I employ a number of extremely paranoid people, because that is what any sensible rich mutant does these days. And one of my extremely paranoid people thinks that there may have a mole inside that particular company who may have passed some of the relevant information on to people that I'm highly unlikely to approve of."
"The Martian lied to us, and we cannot make soil fit to sustain life with our toilet waste?" It was not quite a question, since Marie-Ange had already been subject to a few passionate rants about the flawed science in that movie, but it sounded enough like a question that she had to wave a hand to cut off the answers. "I know, it would spread out of control and destroy all the bacteria in all the soil before anyone could stop it and then we all starve to death. When you say unlikely to approve of, which horrid dictator do you mean? Or are we yet unsure."
"Our best information suggests Russia," replied Emma. "It's not completely confirmed, but there are a number of things that point in that direction."
“That you say ‘may’ have a mole means you have not yet apprehended the person in question,” North pointed out, fingers tapping a silent rhythm against his already empty coffee mug. He had a strange suspicion that they would soon be headed to where he had just returned from. “Do your people have any leads on suspects?”
Emma shrugged. "Not really," she replied. "Suspicions, of course, but no actual leads. Which is very unusual, because Frost Enterprises has a number of unusual advantages in being able to identify those who may betray what are, after all, a myriad of secrets. But the subsidiary that did the work is very small. Enough work on the information available in the various systems should enable identification of the mole. It just requires some tedious paper-pushing."
"But that's just the first step," Wanda chimed in, looking over at Emma. "Or else you would be tapping your extremely paranoid people to take care of this." She cast a quick look around the room and spread her hands. "Well, your other set of extremely paranoid people. So, we find the mole and then I have a feeling we'll be on an all-expense paid to the Motherland? Also, we need more missions in the tropics during winter. It's just a suggestion."
“I will suggest that next time I’m talking to rich, murderous dictators located in the tropics who wish to hold the world hostage using Frost technology,” replied Emma, dryly. “I think the first step is to narrow down the list of suspects. There is little chance that they could have got the information out using any Frost Enterprise IT systems, so it’s likely they needed to physically take the data with them. Possibly even be so old school as to write some of it down on a piece of paper and carry it out. Which means that we will probably need a few someones to go around to a few homes and see if they can find anything written down or on a USB stick or in someone’s hard drive, once we’ve reduced the number of people we need to… investigate more fully.”
”I’ll do whatever scutt work needs to be done from here,” Jubilee replied before anyone could volunteer her for anything more physical. She was back because she was needed, that didn’t mean she was finished with what she’d been doing and the less seen of her here, the better. “Any other information you have that we could use to narrow them down before the leg work?”
"I think I should assist with narrowing down that list." Marie-Ange offered. "I can call in some favors, if holes in that information need to be filled in, and once it is past the post for data gathering and pattern analysis, precognition is as good of a tool as any and better than average, yes?" Besides she wanted nothing to do with scut work, and she was being entirely petty about it. "Tedious paper pushing is rather a lot like tedious card shuffling, after all."
“I’ll shake the trees, see if anyone is talking about a new acquisition. Russia is a bit of a sieve these days. Lots of players in their military R&D. Maybe we’ll get a name or a location.” He nodded over the table. “North and I can start with the local players and then follow it up across the Atlantic as needed.”
"I'll assist Marie-Ange. Between a pre-cog and a telepath, we should surely be able to find a spy," said Emma. "Those who can work at the same time, see what you can turn up." She nodded at Kevin and North. "I will keep you all in the loop and when I need some houses turned over, I shall let you know. I think we shall need to move quickly on this one. This kind of technology will be worth a lot of money to people who are too stupid to understand that it really is mutually assured destruction. Death by starvation has never appealed to me, so let us get moving."
It was unusual for Emma Frost to call a meeting. Actually, it was unusual to see Emma Frost in the Snow Valley offices at all, normally spending her time at her office in Frost's corporate headquarters and dropped by on request. However, she'd turned up early, summoning the available members of the team to the conference table. A few of them were on assignment or out of country, but the bulk showed up and made their way to their unofficial normal seats. Kevin dropped a second cup of coffee by Frost's hand as he went past. The office practically ran on coffee, and cups were handed out whether requested or not.
Emma looked at the coffee and realised it had been far too long since she'd been at Snow Valley. Setting the cup slightly to one side, she leaned forward, drawing the attention of the people around the table. She didn't bother with any preliminaries. "We have a problem and I require your assistance. As you all know, Frost Enterprises has quite a number of subsidiary companies. One of them... well, more than one, but the one that matters... researches agricultural soil rehabilitation techniques. Removing heavy metal contamination, residual radiation, things like that. One of their lines of investigation involved genetically modifying bacteria to try and get them to process the soil and clear out all of the contaminants." She raised one perfect eyebrow. "Unfortunately, it turned out they had a very broad definition of contaminants. The soil was rendered utterly sterile. The kind of sterile that can take anything up to several hundred years to come back from. Obviously, the research was immediately terminated and the bacteria and all information about the experiments was destroyed."
"I'm going to take a wild guess here-" Kevin said, as he paused to irish up his own cup from his flask. "but you're here this morning to tell us that this soil killing... thing isn't as terminated and destroyed as it should be?"
"The bacteria is. The knowledge - possibly not." Emma sighed and rubbed at the skin between her eyebrows for a moment, stopping herself briskly. "I employ a number of extremely paranoid people, because that is what any sensible rich mutant does these days. And one of my extremely paranoid people thinks that there may have a mole inside that particular company who may have passed some of the relevant information on to people that I'm highly unlikely to approve of."
"The Martian lied to us, and we cannot make soil fit to sustain life with our toilet waste?" It was not quite a question, since Marie-Ange had already been subject to a few passionate rants about the flawed science in that movie, but it sounded enough like a question that she had to wave a hand to cut off the answers. "I know, it would spread out of control and destroy all the bacteria in all the soil before anyone could stop it and then we all starve to death. When you say unlikely to approve of, which horrid dictator do you mean? Or are we yet unsure."
"Our best information suggests Russia," replied Emma. "It's not completely confirmed, but there are a number of things that point in that direction."
“That you say ‘may’ have a mole means you have not yet apprehended the person in question,” North pointed out, fingers tapping a silent rhythm against his already empty coffee mug. He had a strange suspicion that they would soon be headed to where he had just returned from. “Do your people have any leads on suspects?”
Emma shrugged. "Not really," she replied. "Suspicions, of course, but no actual leads. Which is very unusual, because Frost Enterprises has a number of unusual advantages in being able to identify those who may betray what are, after all, a myriad of secrets. But the subsidiary that did the work is very small. Enough work on the information available in the various systems should enable identification of the mole. It just requires some tedious paper-pushing."
"But that's just the first step," Wanda chimed in, looking over at Emma. "Or else you would be tapping your extremely paranoid people to take care of this." She cast a quick look around the room and spread her hands. "Well, your other set of extremely paranoid people. So, we find the mole and then I have a feeling we'll be on an all-expense paid to the Motherland? Also, we need more missions in the tropics during winter. It's just a suggestion."
“I will suggest that next time I’m talking to rich, murderous dictators located in the tropics who wish to hold the world hostage using Frost technology,” replied Emma, dryly. “I think the first step is to narrow down the list of suspects. There is little chance that they could have got the information out using any Frost Enterprise IT systems, so it’s likely they needed to physically take the data with them. Possibly even be so old school as to write some of it down on a piece of paper and carry it out. Which means that we will probably need a few someones to go around to a few homes and see if they can find anything written down or on a USB stick or in someone’s hard drive, once we’ve reduced the number of people we need to… investigate more fully.”
”I’ll do whatever scutt work needs to be done from here,” Jubilee replied before anyone could volunteer her for anything more physical. She was back because she was needed, that didn’t mean she was finished with what she’d been doing and the less seen of her here, the better. “Any other information you have that we could use to narrow them down before the leg work?”
"I think I should assist with narrowing down that list." Marie-Ange offered. "I can call in some favors, if holes in that information need to be filled in, and once it is past the post for data gathering and pattern analysis, precognition is as good of a tool as any and better than average, yes?" Besides she wanted nothing to do with scut work, and she was being entirely petty about it. "Tedious paper pushing is rather a lot like tedious card shuffling, after all."
“I’ll shake the trees, see if anyone is talking about a new acquisition. Russia is a bit of a sieve these days. Lots of players in their military R&D. Maybe we’ll get a name or a location.” He nodded over the table. “North and I can start with the local players and then follow it up across the Atlantic as needed.”
"I'll assist Marie-Ange. Between a pre-cog and a telepath, we should surely be able to find a spy," said Emma. "Those who can work at the same time, see what you can turn up." She nodded at Kevin and North. "I will keep you all in the loop and when I need some houses turned over, I shall let you know. I think we shall need to move quickly on this one. This kind of technology will be worth a lot of money to people who are too stupid to understand that it really is mutually assured destruction. Death by starvation has never appealed to me, so let us get moving."
