xp_logs | Remy and Nathan, Friday early afternoon

Remy stops in the medlab to ask Nathan a few questions about the mission, now that he's cleared for unrestricted visitors.

He wasn't sure what had woken him up. It was very quiet in here, quieter now that he was properly shielded and things weren't leaking in through his own patchy shields. There was movement in his peripheral vision, on the other side of the window, and Nathan frowned, trying to watch.

Madelyn and Remy. What were they doing? Well, arguing, certainly, from the body language... not to mention the gestures Maddie was making. He couldn't hear a damned thing, though, not with his ears or with his mind. Madelyn turned towards the window for long enough for him to get a quick read on the movement of her lips. Lizards? he thought a bit sluggishly. Lizards and beachballs? Why were they arguing about lizards and beachballs?

He wondered if his morphine drip needed turning down.

Remy made a gesture like he was trying to flag down a cab, and Madelyn turned bright red with anger. Her soundless yelling was animated, and Nate thought he read 'Harvey Korman' from from her mouth before she stormed past Remy, who made a rude gesture at her back.

The door opened, but LeBeau paused in the doorway long enough to lean out and yell at the departing Bartlett, "-and I'm not telling you 'gain! Seven pm is Remy's time!" He shouted, before pulling the door shut behind him.

"You sound like an old married couple," Nathan muttered, the words coming out a little slurred. Then it hit him just how disturbing an image that was, and he raised an eyebrow, staring up at the ceiling. "Forget I said that? Or blame it on the drugs..."

"Hate doctors. Hate cops. But doctor-cops? Dat's something dat just shouldn't be allowed, homme." Remy said sourly as he walked in, dropping into the chair across from Nate's bed and taking a good look at the battered man. "So, twenty years of operational training and combat experience, and de best plan you could come up wit' is beat dem to death wit' you face?"

"Had my stick, thanks very much..." Nathan managed a weak glare as Remy moved into his line of sight. "If you came down here to... critique or something, go away. Can pick my own fucking tactics apart nicely without your help."

"Could, but got another job to do first. Oh, and based on de look of you, next time keep the stick in front." Remy said smoothly, ignoring Nate's irritation. Frankly, anger was better than anything right now for him. Would make him think clearly. "Dis is de official intelligence debriefing, yadda yadda. Had a talk wit' dat MacInnis earlier. Catching up wit' de other team leaders later. But right now, since you got time, figure I take care of you."

"You talked to MacInnis." Nathan would have laughed, but his ribs were still really not liking quick movements. "Lucky you... he was down here this morning. Filling me in on what's been going on since..." He trailed off, trying to reassemble his thoughts into some semblance of a business-like pattern. "Fire away. Promise I'll keep my finger off the morphine button until we're done..."

"De operational end is more de Boy Scout's territory, but 'bout you insertion. Any indication dat dey had you marked prior to a reasonable radar reading?" Remy had pulled out his palmpilot, and was making notes on the screen.

"None. They have... had, maybe," Nathan corrected himself, wondering just how many were still alive, "flyers who could have taken out any of the helicopters, if they'd had even a few minutes warning. Maybe not the 'Bird, but the helos..." He tried to think back to those last few minutes on the Blackbird. It was harder than it should have been. "Didn't see any reaction on the ground at all until Cain hit the comm tower."

Remy made an assenting noise as he made notes, working quietly. "How 'bout on de ground. Any unusually adept resistance? Power or team specific countermeasures?"

"Some of the security forces had EM weaponry," Nathan murmured, thinking about the short space of time between Nash and his people deciding to seize the moment and the mess at the training barracks. "Meant they were prepared for me, maybe Morgan... we both have... had the same vulnerability." He tried to take a deep breath, wincing as he did. "Resistance... not as bad as it could have been. Between Nash's people switching sides, and the commtower being taken out... the rest of the first-gens didn't get orders. Loopholes. So they weren't coordinating."

"Any indication dat dey were expecting you sooner rather den later?" Remy said quietly. Part of his job was to assess whether there might have been an intelligence breach prior to the mission, and to narrow down the chances. So for, nothing in the post-action reports or the debriefings indicated that, but it was important to make sure.

The heart monitor jumped a little, and Nathan swallowed, his hands, just about the only part of him he could move easily, clenching almost instinctively. "They knew to be prepared for something telepathic," he said hoarsely. "Don't know how long they knew... suppose it wasn't a big leap of logic. They could have had it ready..." And now he was rambling. Remy, however, just waited quietly for him to come up with something more coherent. "They were jamming... the Trojan Horse. Not actively... something passive. Kept trying to trigger it and it wouldn't work."

"You sure dat de mission was meant to be a straight takedown? Not MacInnis cleaning shop in de most dramatic fashion." LeBeau held up a hand as Nate reddened. "Not saying it is, but thinking 'bout dese things is what Remy has to do. MacInnis crooked enough to walk through a corkscrew and not duck. You sure dat he's not playing a third side?"

He needed to calm down, or Moira would be in here scowling and turning the morphine drip up again. "I've been inside his mind," Nathan muttered, trying to slow his breathing down. Focus. "All the way in... when he came clean back in January. He's a bastard, Remy... but this was a conscience thing."

Remy just nodded, made a couple new notes and closed the palmpilot. "Bein. Dat's all I need for now. Just looking at it, with the preliminary intelligence dat I've run down from outside sources, seems dat de initial estimate is right. No other allies, no internal leaks. Looks like de Mistra op was a clean right. Going to be some stragglers and survivors, but none of de dangerous ones seemed to get out."

"Sort of inevitable, with the casualty rate..." Nathan swallowed again, trying to stay focused. "You got access to all the files, right? The whole Mistra section of the database? Know that a lot of it doesn't matter now... but at least it'll give you all the back history you need."

"Still getting access issues cleared up. What I don't have, I will in a bit. 'sides, already a couple of groups looking hungrily at de void Mistra leaves. Going to have to do some dissauding during my Europe trip." Remy lounged back in his chair. "You did good, homme. Op like dis, and you got most of you team back. Dat's pretty amazing."

"Leonidas-A532-indigo," Nathan muttered, flinching at the compliment. Maybe Remy was right, but he couldn't quite process that right now. Not when his dreams were still full of the ones who hadn't come back. "For the historical files. In case... would've given it to you before, if I'd known you were going to be talking to Mac."

Remy nodded. "I'll take a look. Gives something to do while we get things sorted out. How 'bout you? De doctors figured out how long you going to be in here?"

"Few weeks." Three or four weeks of nothing but this damned room. Even the drugs weren't taking away the urge to swear a blue streak at the very thought. "Then probably I'll get to play Charles, for another few... wonder what he'd do if I challenged him to a wheelchair race." Okay. That had been a rather odd thing to say.

"Maybe Remy get you a skullcap. Den you can wheel 'round yelling 'To me, my X-Men!'. Maybe get Moira one of dem leather outfits and a name like GenetiX or something." Remy joked, chuckling at the image.

Nathan couldn't help a tired smile. "Don't make me laugh? The spine's not the only thing that's not intact..." He trailed off, something occurring to him. "I don't know if you want to, or need to talk to Anika," he said more slowly. "Just... be careful, if you do. She's feral, and she watched her lover go down right in front of her on Saturday."

"Might have to. Maybe not." Remy shook his head. "To be honest, Nate, dis one seems pretty straight forward. Unless something doesn't fit wit' de updates from de others, I don't see a reason make her go back dere. 'specially not wit' a stranger. Got 'nough X-Men going to be doing de nightmare circuit over de next few weeks."

"Dropped in our laps," Nathan said a bit faintly. "Perfect opportunity, all the intel we needed... except that little piece no one ever anticipated. Not even MacInnis." He had looked absolutely sick to his stomach when he'd been down here earlier, talking about it. "Masada," Nathan said, softly, viciously. "That bitch Ruiz and her fucking sense of humor..."

"Don't follow." Remy said, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. "You talking 'bout de kill factor dat de director initiated?"

"That's what she called it. Masada. Apparently they left Mac alone in a room with her this week and she told him all about it." The heart monitor was sounding more agitated again, Nathan reflected dimly. "She had it added to all the second-gens' conditioning. You can't add to first-gen conditioning once it's done, but you can with the younger ones... she did it. It was all her. She did it to cover her own fucking escape... dozens of people dead, couple dozen more with their minds broken -- " Only that was as much his fault as hers, Nathan's conscience pointed out nastily. " -- just so that she could get out. Almost all those kids, too..."

"Dat sounds like de type. Just assets." Remy said, processing the information. "Still, you got upwards of fifty out. Dat's something."

"Hopefully they'll shoot her." The anger was racing like his heart rate, washing over him like an insistent ocean and distantly, he heard the furniture in the room rattle very slightly. "They should. Technically she worked for them, then took Mistra rogue..."

"Hit de morphine drip, Nate. Twisting de chairs into pretzels and blowing out your brain not going to solve anything." Remy said mildly, seeing the rising anger. "If dey don't take care of her, maybe someone else does. Only thing dat matters is dat she never going to get a chance to do it to anyone else again, and dat's cause of you."

He didn't want to hit the fucking morphine drip. Drug himself back into near-insensibility so that he couldn't tell the past from the present or the living from the dead... but he could sense Moira starting to react to his agitation, worriedly, and that neatly undermined his anger. She'd been upset enough this week.

"Sorry," he muttered, and hit the button. "All over the place this week..." He stared up bleakly at the ceiling. "Just can't... get it out of my head. That trigger... then the Trojan Horse smashed what was left of their minds. It felt..." He stopped, his jaw clenching. "Can't tell you what that felt like."

"Probably not. Guess dats a feeling dat too many people have right now." Remy's mind drifted back to his conversation with Lorna. The feelings of loss and grief unlike anything she had known before. "Agencies getting a little too fond of suicide last measures dese days. Not a good trend, Nate."

"Disposable assets. Like you said..." The drugs were definitely starting to kick in again. "Wish they'd gotten more of the directors alive. MacInnis said only three... took the databases intact, though."

"You got in and got out, with a lot more den you should have hoped for. Been nice to have dem all locked up in a war crimes trial, but dat's not always possible." Remy stashed his palmpilot back in his jacket and stood up. "Focus on what you did, Nate, not what you wish you could have done. Dere's no answers dat way. Trust de mass murderer on dis one."

"What happens when you finally decide to want something... you want it too badly..." The words were definitely getting slurred, and Nathan closed his eyes. Remy could let himself out.