Kevin Sydney (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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xp_logs2018-06-04 01:23 pm
xp_changeling) wrote in xp_logs2018-06-04 01:23 pm
OPERATION: MAD MEN - The Briefing
Members of X-Force 'meet' Kevin in their roles from his past as he outlined why they've been selected for this case.
The CIA field office looked like, well, an office. It had relatively cheap government issued furniture, a scattering of utterly dull art and most of the space was taken up by filing cabinets, light tables and chalkboards. Officially, the office was part of the US Geological Survey group, reporting to the Department of the Interior. The only possible option less boring than making them an accounting group. The board room they'd been led into was equally basic; an overhead projector at the front set up to face a white screen, several large cards on a stand, scattered ashtrays and a small coffee station in the corner.
Being undercover was, all things considered, rather old hat for Wanda at this stage in her life. Putting on a new name, new history, new personality was nothing new at this point. Being undercover and inserted into someone's subconscious, well, that certainly added a little spice to things. She just had to hope that her body wouldn't have any powers issues, she hated to think what havoc that might cause. She glanced around the room and said, "Ladies, lets hope the coffee is better than the decor."
"It is nineteen sixty-five and a thousand years before color television, if the coffee is terrible one of us is to blame." Marie-Ange pushed at the catseye glasses on the bridge of "her" nose, and then pulled them back down. "Curious, I wear glasses here, but I do not need them? Or this theater stage set with Kevin's memories cannot affect us beyond our surfaces?" It was an idle question, and she waved off the speculation from her teammates. "So who has made this possibly awful coffee?"
"Me, probably." Jubilee put down her own cup with a grimace, trying to get used to the subtly different body she found herself in. Also, the fact that she was wearing a dress and high-heels, some of her least favourite accoutrements. They made fighting a pain in the ass and while she could run in high heels, it was just asking for a turned ankle. "I think I'm the youngest here at the moment?"
"We can fight over it," Felicia commented, whether on the coffee or ages uncertain, as she gently twisted the ends of her distinctively Raquel Welch hair, drifting down to smooth down the hem of her distinctively mini skirt. At least in any timeline she had great legs. "Who else votes when we get back we have a drinking game where you tell one embarrassing story about yourself and one about this personality because shit do I have a list."
"Well it is a good thing we all have livers of adamantium then because either list will be quite extensive," Wanda responded with a slight smile. "And may I remind everyone that it is never in the best interest of the youngest in the room to remind everyone that they are the youngest in the room?" Though, honestly, the lack of any silver hairs on this body was a plus, she had to hand it to Emma.
"If your coffee skills do not improve, I am going to send you into... " Marie-Ange pointed at Jubilee and then had to think for a moment about what countries did and did not exist in the nineteen sixties. "Cuba. Oh, yes, Cuba, with only adequately forged hundred dollar bills and a dress directly off a runway in Paris." She paused. "And pamphlets about the Revolutionary War." It was an idle and ridiculous threat, no matter what decade she was talking about. "Though I will have to refit an entire printing press off of Korean Won. Apparently I have a printing press making North Korean money." She tilted her head, considering this, and pushed the glasses back up her nose. "Well, it is not my printing press, of course. But I named it. It is named Gracie."
“Given how eager I am to impress, I’m sure I’d take it as a challenge.” Jubilee had tilted her head slightly as she accessed the memories and personality of this body. It wasn’t needed of course but it made her happier. “She’s determined to be CIA director by the time she’s finished. Way to go me.”
"Oh, sweetie," Felicia said with a grimace, giving Jubilee an awkward pat on the shoulder. "I mean. It's. Good to have goals?"
"Ladies, welcome to the field office that doesn't exist. Grab a seat. We have a lot of material to cover." Kevin said as he came in, the conversation with Mrs. Brinson still echoing in his head. "There's notepads on the credenza. If you don't have a pen, consider yourself already cut."
"Yes, sir," Wanda murmured, cover/persona she was wearing slipping over like a comfortable skin. Snagging a notepad, and a cup of the horrible coffee because everyone drank it, she grabbed a seat next to Marie-Ange.
This body - this Muriel - had one of the same quirks Marie-Ange did, or she had overlaid her own tendency to roll a pencil over her knuckles onto this memory-person. "I miss my steno-type machine already." She muttered.
Jubilee pulled a pencil and pad of paper from the pockets helpfully situated in the front of her dress, possibly for just such an occasion. Obviously the lady who she was currently inhabiting was all about going that extra mile in the forethought category. Frankly it would have made her exhausted to be that extra constantly. Still say what she might about this backwards decade, but at least they'd sometimes thought to put pockets in dresses. She picked up her own cup of coffee and placed it on the table in front of her chair before sliding into it quietly.
Gently tapping her pen on the corner of her notepad which she'd grabbed on her walk over, Felicia crossed her legs, foot bobbing along to an invisible beat. "Sir?"
"It's Agent Sydney, Mrs. Page. Sir is for the people I have to report to." Kevin said, as he checked his materials. "What do you need?"
"Nothing, just eager to get started. Agent Sydney," Felicia forced out after a beat, not perfect but remarkably smoother than her obvious discomfort earlier would have suggested.
"Same," Wanda responded. "We are all eager to assist in the assignment, though the details we were told on the way here were scarce." The tone indicated she was not surprised by that.
"Alright, we've got a fun one, which is why you've all be temporarily re-assigned here. Part of the reason you've been chosen specifically is because all of you have been through Peg Carter's SHIELD combat training program for woman." In front, looking at them, the joke name 'Dyke Camp' was a lot less funny. "There is a risk of violence, as you were warned about. It's not a small risk. If that's an issue, you're free to leave without any impact on your service records."
He waited for a moment, but none of them moved. "That answers that." He pulled off a cardboard rectangle to reveal a set of coded wires, certain parts blacked out. "SIGINT intercepted a coded Soviet transmission from a suspected KGB signals station in London, sent to New York. Crypto cracked it a day and a half ago, although not all of the transmissions were intercepted. The wire stated that approval had been given to implement HELIOS. Get into position and bury deep before waiting for more orders. We're not sure what HELIOS is, but chances are they're looking at planting or activating either a deep cover agent or surveillance gear here in New York. The reason you four are seeing this is because COINTEL was able to identify the wire's intended recipient; Dotty Underwood."
He pulled away the card to reveal a forward and side facing mug shot of an attractive blonde woman in her 30s.
“Interesting.”
Jubilee had nothing in particular to add to the conversation, nor did she recognise the name. She suspected that Wendy, the body she was wearing might, but as far as she was concerned it could be anybody. It seemed like Kevin expected some sort of reaction however and she figured going for neutral interest would be enough.
"Underwood has been a Soviet operative infiltrating the US since just after the war. I'm told the SSR captured her a couple of times and managed to lose track of her. Underwood is aware of the make-up of the FBI's counter-intelligence units and has realized that thanks to Director Hoover's paranoia and ego, they have no female officers involved. As a result, she relies almost exclusively on woman as contacts and moles for her work. That, not surprisingly, is why you four are here. Through our intel, we think that a Brooklyn dispatching company is part of her network for moving information and coordinating activity. Problem being, of course, all the dispatchers are women. So priority one is to get ears on the place and look for irregularities that suggest a less then legitimate use of the services. We've had some success tapping some of their clients and have been able to rule out about seventy-eighty percent of the volume of calls as suspect. It's going to be the smaller operators we want to focus on."
Kevin paused as he switched the card over to a photo of the dispatching business. "For right now, this is information gathering only. We need to find out just what HELIOS is and the when and where of their putting it into service. This operation is completely illegal on US soil, so you won't be issued any identification that connects you to the Agency in any way. Your backup is what you see in this room. Nothing more. So, let's focus on the job and not take any extra risks we don't have to. Any questions?"
Jubilee resisted the urge to quote 'Aliens' and ask how they got out of this chicken-shit outfit, if only because she was almost positive that most of the people in the room would murder her for it, even if it didn't break their sojourn in Kevin's head with paradoxes of movies that wouldn't be created for some time.
"Agent Sydney, given that this operation is quite clandestine, what exact resources can we expect to be able to draw upon? Will we be infiltrating this Brooklyn dispatching company in order to follow these women, or will we be investigating their movements during their off hours in order to find any connections they might have?"
"Resources are fairly basic. Again, we can't investigate legally on US soil, so we're going to need to keep our footprint small. First job is to identify potential connections in the dispatching building. We'll follow up on them as we need to. I'd say it's good old fashioned shoe leather, but I've never been a cop and am not interested in trying." Kevin tapped the board with his knuckles. "Mrs. Brinson will have your ID and intel packages. Go over the materials. We'll talk about deployment in two hours."
The CIA field office looked like, well, an office. It had relatively cheap government issued furniture, a scattering of utterly dull art and most of the space was taken up by filing cabinets, light tables and chalkboards. Officially, the office was part of the US Geological Survey group, reporting to the Department of the Interior. The only possible option less boring than making them an accounting group. The board room they'd been led into was equally basic; an overhead projector at the front set up to face a white screen, several large cards on a stand, scattered ashtrays and a small coffee station in the corner.
Being undercover was, all things considered, rather old hat for Wanda at this stage in her life. Putting on a new name, new history, new personality was nothing new at this point. Being undercover and inserted into someone's subconscious, well, that certainly added a little spice to things. She just had to hope that her body wouldn't have any powers issues, she hated to think what havoc that might cause. She glanced around the room and said, "Ladies, lets hope the coffee is better than the decor."
"It is nineteen sixty-five and a thousand years before color television, if the coffee is terrible one of us is to blame." Marie-Ange pushed at the catseye glasses on the bridge of "her" nose, and then pulled them back down. "Curious, I wear glasses here, but I do not need them? Or this theater stage set with Kevin's memories cannot affect us beyond our surfaces?" It was an idle question, and she waved off the speculation from her teammates. "So who has made this possibly awful coffee?"
"Me, probably." Jubilee put down her own cup with a grimace, trying to get used to the subtly different body she found herself in. Also, the fact that she was wearing a dress and high-heels, some of her least favourite accoutrements. They made fighting a pain in the ass and while she could run in high heels, it was just asking for a turned ankle. "I think I'm the youngest here at the moment?"
"We can fight over it," Felicia commented, whether on the coffee or ages uncertain, as she gently twisted the ends of her distinctively Raquel Welch hair, drifting down to smooth down the hem of her distinctively mini skirt. At least in any timeline she had great legs. "Who else votes when we get back we have a drinking game where you tell one embarrassing story about yourself and one about this personality because shit do I have a list."
"Well it is a good thing we all have livers of adamantium then because either list will be quite extensive," Wanda responded with a slight smile. "And may I remind everyone that it is never in the best interest of the youngest in the room to remind everyone that they are the youngest in the room?" Though, honestly, the lack of any silver hairs on this body was a plus, she had to hand it to Emma.
"If your coffee skills do not improve, I am going to send you into... " Marie-Ange pointed at Jubilee and then had to think for a moment about what countries did and did not exist in the nineteen sixties. "Cuba. Oh, yes, Cuba, with only adequately forged hundred dollar bills and a dress directly off a runway in Paris." She paused. "And pamphlets about the Revolutionary War." It was an idle and ridiculous threat, no matter what decade she was talking about. "Though I will have to refit an entire printing press off of Korean Won. Apparently I have a printing press making North Korean money." She tilted her head, considering this, and pushed the glasses back up her nose. "Well, it is not my printing press, of course. But I named it. It is named Gracie."
“Given how eager I am to impress, I’m sure I’d take it as a challenge.” Jubilee had tilted her head slightly as she accessed the memories and personality of this body. It wasn’t needed of course but it made her happier. “She’s determined to be CIA director by the time she’s finished. Way to go me.”
"Oh, sweetie," Felicia said with a grimace, giving Jubilee an awkward pat on the shoulder. "I mean. It's. Good to have goals?"
"Ladies, welcome to the field office that doesn't exist. Grab a seat. We have a lot of material to cover." Kevin said as he came in, the conversation with Mrs. Brinson still echoing in his head. "There's notepads on the credenza. If you don't have a pen, consider yourself already cut."
"Yes, sir," Wanda murmured, cover/persona she was wearing slipping over like a comfortable skin. Snagging a notepad, and a cup of the horrible coffee because everyone drank it, she grabbed a seat next to Marie-Ange.
This body - this Muriel - had one of the same quirks Marie-Ange did, or she had overlaid her own tendency to roll a pencil over her knuckles onto this memory-person. "I miss my steno-type machine already." She muttered.
Jubilee pulled a pencil and pad of paper from the pockets helpfully situated in the front of her dress, possibly for just such an occasion. Obviously the lady who she was currently inhabiting was all about going that extra mile in the forethought category. Frankly it would have made her exhausted to be that extra constantly. Still say what she might about this backwards decade, but at least they'd sometimes thought to put pockets in dresses. She picked up her own cup of coffee and placed it on the table in front of her chair before sliding into it quietly.
Gently tapping her pen on the corner of her notepad which she'd grabbed on her walk over, Felicia crossed her legs, foot bobbing along to an invisible beat. "Sir?"
"It's Agent Sydney, Mrs. Page. Sir is for the people I have to report to." Kevin said, as he checked his materials. "What do you need?"
"Nothing, just eager to get started. Agent Sydney," Felicia forced out after a beat, not perfect but remarkably smoother than her obvious discomfort earlier would have suggested.
"Same," Wanda responded. "We are all eager to assist in the assignment, though the details we were told on the way here were scarce." The tone indicated she was not surprised by that.
"Alright, we've got a fun one, which is why you've all be temporarily re-assigned here. Part of the reason you've been chosen specifically is because all of you have been through Peg Carter's SHIELD combat training program for woman." In front, looking at them, the joke name 'Dyke Camp' was a lot less funny. "There is a risk of violence, as you were warned about. It's not a small risk. If that's an issue, you're free to leave without any impact on your service records."
He waited for a moment, but none of them moved. "That answers that." He pulled off a cardboard rectangle to reveal a set of coded wires, certain parts blacked out. "SIGINT intercepted a coded Soviet transmission from a suspected KGB signals station in London, sent to New York. Crypto cracked it a day and a half ago, although not all of the transmissions were intercepted. The wire stated that approval had been given to implement HELIOS. Get into position and bury deep before waiting for more orders. We're not sure what HELIOS is, but chances are they're looking at planting or activating either a deep cover agent or surveillance gear here in New York. The reason you four are seeing this is because COINTEL was able to identify the wire's intended recipient; Dotty Underwood."
He pulled away the card to reveal a forward and side facing mug shot of an attractive blonde woman in her 30s.
“Interesting.”
Jubilee had nothing in particular to add to the conversation, nor did she recognise the name. She suspected that Wendy, the body she was wearing might, but as far as she was concerned it could be anybody. It seemed like Kevin expected some sort of reaction however and she figured going for neutral interest would be enough.
"Underwood has been a Soviet operative infiltrating the US since just after the war. I'm told the SSR captured her a couple of times and managed to lose track of her. Underwood is aware of the make-up of the FBI's counter-intelligence units and has realized that thanks to Director Hoover's paranoia and ego, they have no female officers involved. As a result, she relies almost exclusively on woman as contacts and moles for her work. That, not surprisingly, is why you four are here. Through our intel, we think that a Brooklyn dispatching company is part of her network for moving information and coordinating activity. Problem being, of course, all the dispatchers are women. So priority one is to get ears on the place and look for irregularities that suggest a less then legitimate use of the services. We've had some success tapping some of their clients and have been able to rule out about seventy-eighty percent of the volume of calls as suspect. It's going to be the smaller operators we want to focus on."
Kevin paused as he switched the card over to a photo of the dispatching business. "For right now, this is information gathering only. We need to find out just what HELIOS is and the when and where of their putting it into service. This operation is completely illegal on US soil, so you won't be issued any identification that connects you to the Agency in any way. Your backup is what you see in this room. Nothing more. So, let's focus on the job and not take any extra risks we don't have to. Any questions?"
Jubilee resisted the urge to quote 'Aliens' and ask how they got out of this chicken-shit outfit, if only because she was almost positive that most of the people in the room would murder her for it, even if it didn't break their sojourn in Kevin's head with paradoxes of movies that wouldn't be created for some time.
"Agent Sydney, given that this operation is quite clandestine, what exact resources can we expect to be able to draw upon? Will we be infiltrating this Brooklyn dispatching company in order to follow these women, or will we be investigating their movements during their off hours in order to find any connections they might have?"
"Resources are fairly basic. Again, we can't investigate legally on US soil, so we're going to need to keep our footprint small. First job is to identify potential connections in the dispatching building. We'll follow up on them as we need to. I'd say it's good old fashioned shoe leather, but I've never been a cop and am not interested in trying." Kevin tapped the board with his knuckles. "Mrs. Brinson will have your ID and intel packages. Go over the materials. We'll talk about deployment in two hours."