xp_logs | Nathan and Pete, early Tuesday evening

(OOC: Set before Alex's call for help.)

After speaking with MacInnis, Nathan immediately heads down to talk to Pete about what the ORB (Old Rat Bastard) had to say. The two of them come to the conclusion that yes, they're going to do something about it. And no, it probably isn't going to be pretty.

"Oswald's defence lawy-aar! Oswald's defence lawy-arr!"

Pete looked up, wondering if that was a knock he'd heard over the music, or if he'd just imagined it.

He reached for the remote, and turned the stereo down a few notches.

"Come in?"

Nathan came in, barely registering either the music or Pete's mood. "You didn't get my email?" he asked restlessly, already in mid-pace across the room. "Of course you didn't get my email. I just sent it. Why did I even email you? Not like I wasn't going to come right down here anyway." He waved a USB drive at Pete. "I'm going to kill the old rat bastard, I swear to God. If he ever shows his face to me again, I'm going to put a bullet in his head. I am not his fucking puppet!"

Pete killed the music with a scowl.

"Make sense would you, old son? I've had a shit day, and I'm not in the mood to attempt to translate from addled old man into english, as well as look at whatever it is that's got you foaming at the mouth."

Nathan took a deep breath. Settling down would be good, he told himself. Near-hysteria was not helping the situation. "I'm sitting on IM, waiting for Dom to appear, when up pops this little window from 'Simonides'. MacInnis apparently has a little job he'd like me to look after." He waved a hand again, still agitated. "I should have known. He never answered me in September when I asked him if he was going to leave me alone. I should have known this was coming..."

"One day, someone is going to come charging down here with good news. 'Pete, Pete, we've just found out that you've won the bloody lottery!'"

Pete shook his head, as if to clear it.

"One - why are you still fucking using an IM name that the cunt knows? Do I have to explain basic good sense to you all over again? Two - assuming that just leaving him to go fuck himself and ignoring it entirely is out of the question, what exactly is it he wanted?"

Nathan sputtered at 'one', but 'two' brought him back to his senses quickly enough, and he took a deep breath. "Six, possibly seven kids eight weeks into the first-gen conditioning in a facility in Vermont," Nathan said tightly. "Apparently, he can't do a damned thing about it for weeks - no resources in the area, or so he claims."

Pete drummed his fingers on the desk for a second.

"What're the odds he's lying? Just trying to get us to do the dirty work for him, save him risking his own people?"

"If it's a set-up, it's a damned detailed one." Nathan stared down at the USB drive for a moment, then came over and handed it to Pete. "Plans of the facility, full details on what security we can expect - pretty light, really. Surveillance pictures of the facility being set up. They're scattering the new program, Pete, splitting them up into smaller groups and putting them in safehouse all over the fucking place. Just in case the home facility gets hit, I'd bet."

Pete shoved the drive into the laptop sitting open on his desk, and started copying the files over.

"I'm not too worried about a set-up. Charlie was sure he was on the level about having no interest in feeding you back to Mistra, and I can't see an angle he'd want to work on you himself right now." He paused, with a wry smile. "Give me time, though, and I'll come up with something."

He started to page through the files, skimming them.

"I'm just wondering - if we sit on our hands, will he suddenly magaically find the resources? I don't mind doing a job that needs doing, but like you said, I'm not in the business of being a puppet for him whenever he's got a dicey job that he doesn't want to risk his own people on."

"I can't tell him no." Nathan finally went over and sat down. Better than pacing. "I'm not being smart about this, I know that, and I know damned well he's yanking my chain and yanking hard. But if he's telling the truth... the oldest any of those kids can be is fourteen, Pete, and eight weeks in means they'll be in the middle of the worst of the empathic work. This is around when that eighty percent death rate starts coming true."

Pete frowned and looked at the ceiling for a second, then looked back at Nate, with the wry smile back on his face.

"You know, this sick urge I have to be able to look at myself in the mirror is going to be the bloody death of me one day. OK, here's what we do: we assume that what we've got here is lies, and we go in anyway. We do as much of our own recon as we can, and we take no-one into the base with any urge to play nice."

His expression turned serious.

"And if it looks even slightly too dicey, we fuck off and feel bad about the kids later. Are you going to be able to do that, once we get there?"

Nathan opened his mouth, then closed it again. That deserved a serious answer. "Fuck," he muttered. "My shrink would be throwing books at my head if he was listening to any of this... yes. I can back off if we have to."

Pete looked at him carefully, then nodded.

"Good. I'd feel a lot better if we could get Culley over here as well, but if you're right, then we don't have time for him to get on a plane." He pulled the USB key out of the computer, and handed it back.

"Get your brain in gear, go through this again, and see if you spot anything that rings obviously false. In the meantime, I'll get someone to cover our classes tomorrow, and ask around to try get some intel of our own."

His hand drummed on the desk.

"What state are the kids going to be in, if we get them out?"

Nathan's hand clenched around the USB key. "They'll have been in sensory-deprivation cells for the whole eight weeks. Except for conditioning sessions, which they probably won't be aware of, because they'd be drugged to the gills before they're taken out of the cells." He thought. "We need a doctor along - I'll ask Madelyn, she's got the best sort of background for this. MacInnis doesn't have any details on the kids, so we don't know what their powers are. If they're not well-drugged when we get there, they could be..." He paused, his jaw tightening. "Unpredictable. Swinging from numb to hysterical, if they get the chance."

"Then we need someone deeply fucking damage resistant with her." He frowned. "Bollocks. Shinobi's gone and fucked off, and there's no way I'd trust Rasputin to keep his head. Can you think of anyone?"

Nathan thought about it. "The Guthries," he said finally. "Actually, that works... I might be able to get us a decent helicopter, something big enough to hold us and the kids when we get them out, and Sam's a pilot. Saves me having to fly. He's got his blast field, and Paige can use one of her metal husks."

Pete's frown deepened. "I don't like it one bit, but if they stay with the transport, then I'll live with it. You, me, the Guthries, and Bartlett. Anyone else?"

"Oh, trust me. Them staying with the transport would be the idea. After what happened the last time..." Nathan paused, then shook his head. "The three of them stay with the transport, you and I go into the safehouse. If security's as light as MacInnis claims, we can handle it. If there's a conditioning team in there, that could be four or five empaths or telepaths. I don't want anyone who'd hesitate to put them down the minute they felt any sort of mental poke."

"Yeah. Right then, we've got a start. Give me a shout when you've had a chance to go through that properly. I'll go let Charlie know the score."