Logs:(Don't) Hit The Mark

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Cast
Setting

River barge Prospero, office of Lloyds & Lewiston Shipping

Log

Events continued apace after the Seers withdrew their demonstration of force (if that's indeed what it was) from the consilium's grounds. Epiphanius was in tears, nearly inconsolable about what happened to the tree, blaming himself and shutting himself away for about an hour before returning to work with the others on cleaning up the wreckage and the mess.

Research and scrying teams set to work, tracking the Spokesman as he's come to be called before he disappeared from sympathies and all attempts at magical tracking somewhere in central New Jersey. He was found to have been operating from a shipping yard in Trenton along the river, one Simon was able to deduce was used for black market smuggling, drug, arms, and human trafficking. The compound is heavily guarded, at least conventionally, reasonably well warded, and likely home to reams of evidence, if not Seer operatives.

With further research by Simon's team of operatives, they located a single river barge headed to that very port. The Prospero, a shallow draft river barge that hauls containers in from the deep water ports and out again.

Cloaked from sight and detection, the team was portaled from the arboretum to the Prospero's aft deck. The running lights are on, and floods light the river ahead while the old diesel engines churn below decks with a sound like an elephant with emphysema playing steel drums with a shotgun.

The cockpit is lit, and two men are visible up there, one on a radio, the other at the wheel. No doubt there are more crew about.

Simon doesn't look particularly pleased to be here--but maybe that's just his... normal expression. He's not exactly.... used to missions like this, so had dressed the best he could manage--all black clothing that looks more designer than broken in. He has a large rifle strapped to his back, a kevlar vest on, and a pistol in a shoulder holster. He tenses as the group is portaled, sharp-eyed gaze flitting about as he gets his bearings. He'd never get used to that shit...

He looks around at the shipping containers, looking for one they can easily slip inside to hide out until they get to the shipping yard.

Wherever the others go, Fox follows, her fingers moving to form the mudra for Web of Life. Suddenly -- and possibly really disconcertingly, if someone isn't used to this sort of magical intervention -- the group is just, you know, kind of aware of where every single human is around them. She whispers to herself in that strange language the Awakened use.

Fox is dressed in black clothing that she stole from one of the other Firebirds, and her eyes catch the light every so often in a way that human eyes don't.

Hearth had a balaclava pulled down over her face and was sporting black leggings and a long sleeve grey shirt. Comfy sneakers that she'd sacrificed to a quick coat of black lipstick over the white and reflective bits. She went still when they arrived on this ship, waiting patiently for the others and to trying not to fiddle with the gun she'd been loaned and hadn't known how to use two hours ago.

The black-clad Kotahitanga has her rifle slung across her chest as the group portal onto the ship, keeping it in easy reach but not actively held. Fox's granting them Web of Life gets a nod of gratitude, but the Scion doesn't say anything. They might have all manner of cloaking spells up, but there's no sense inviting trouble you don't need to.

Before Philadelphia, Leta Abbott was a scholar not a soldier... but when you're a Mind master, you can be nearly anything with just a few doses of acid, and a 6 hour ritual.

So in that spirit, Anthelion is dressed in a stealth suit and black mask, wearing a modern flak jacket, and sporting a dark, hooded cloak draped around her shoulders. In addition to the Iron Rod strapped to her thigh, she's also carrying a pair of pistols in shoulder holsters, and wearing a bandolier of shotgun shells. Y'know for the Benelli M4 shotgun that she loves so goddamned much.

Oontz Oontz bobs in the air, crackling and pulsing in twilight. It begins to skulk about curiously, in the manner of all little spirits in new places that have little source of their resonance about.

The shipping containers are stacked six atop six in two sections with a promenade space amidships. The doors face the cockpit, however, meaning the only remotely safe containers to try would be the bottom three containers of the fore section. They're also locked, but that's more inconvenience than impediment, really.

Oh, yes. Masks sound like a great idea! Especially when you're a fairly well known man of interest in smuggling circles. Simon also has a balaclava on...

Simon heads towards one of the bottom three containers then--pulling out lock picks to get the lock undone and open the door for the others to slip inside.

Leta leans in beside Simon, providing assistance with tools and leverage when necessary.

The massive steel padlock looks tough, but proves a simple matter to Simon's deft hands. The lock opens, the chains slip away-- a normally noisy process made far less worrisome for the roaring of the engines --and the container is then opened easily. It is front loaded with produce from Central America. Which probably means there's something else entirely behind the fruit and such. There's not much space in here, and it'll be cramped. But it's a serviceable hidey-hole until they reach port.

Once they're inside and the doors are closed again, Fox solves some of the space problem by just crawling up the wall and hanging from the ceiling like she's some sort of monkey. Or Orphan of Proteus. This doesn't seem unusual to her, apparently. This is just what normal people do, when their version of 'normal' is the version of normal that Fox lives in.

Cramped conditions are never fun, but given the circumstances they're endurable. Especially when you can just imitate your Sibling and perch on the ceiling like a bat. Even if you're not actually a bat right now.

Simon glances towards Leta as she offers to help, nodding to her and letting her help keep the chain from jangling too much while he works. He slips inside after the others, squeezing into a nook and... looking up to stare at the weird hanging Orphan for a moment. He shakes his head, and settles in to wait, listening to the roar of the boat engine and waiting for them to get to the port.

Hearth just hugged to the edge of the fruit and waited patiently. There was nothing to do until they got there, unless it all went wrong early.

Leta piles in at the end, trying very hard not to touch anyone, or anything. Which is a very hard task to accomplish when you're cramped into a storage container. She gives Fox a little wink.

Oontz Oontz stays outside. Which may be concerning, given it's Oontz Oontz. But so it goes.

The journey doesn't take too awful much longer, about forty-five minutes more of river travel, and the engines begin to shift in tone and direction. Everything in the container lurches towards the back as the ship begins to slow, then the deck lists portside as the ship steers in towards the river pier. Eventually the sounds of crew above decks can be heard over the quieting engines, and finally the ship stops entirely and the sound of debarking begins. It's quite noisy out there, what with cranes and forklifts and people coming and going and the like.

Simon listens as they come into the port, then glances towards the others. "Shall we wait for the container to be delivered into the ship yard with us inside it, or slip out now and try to make our way from here?" he whispers.

Contentedly, Fox hangs from the ceiling, like this is very normal. She smiles contentedly, because right now this isn't so bad, and winks back at Leta. When Oontz Oontz stays outside, Fox frowns just a little, but doesn't call him in, not yet.

"Let's wait. If we get locked in, it's not a big deal. I can get us out." And they just know where all the people are, so.

"Better to move once the activity of the arrival has died down," Hearth agreed softly.

He nods, and remains settled in, listening to sounds outside.

Kotahitanga nods to Fox and Hearth. "We don't have any chance of blending in if we do move now, so best to wait until there's less people around to spot us."

It takes about another hour for the unloading process to complete. Included in that number is their own container, which by dint of being on the bottom of the stack winds up being on the top of another container when it is set down. It's a rather frightening affair bobbling in the air at the end of a crane, but once they're on the shore, that passes.

Eventually the commotion dies down, many lights go out on the yard, and the only thing that can be heard is the river, the traffic on 95 in the distance, and the occasional footsteps of one of the sentries that seem to come and go at fairly regular intervals of every five to ten minutes or so.

She seems fine, really. Just chilling on the ceiling, like a Fox do. Once the commotion has died down, Fox slowly turns her face toward the footsteps, waiting and watching the patterns of the sentries. "Not perfectly regular, but fairly regular. I think we can move soon, yes?"

"Yes," Simon agrees, having also seemed to note the rhythm of the sentries. He waits until the guards have passed by and the footsteps are a fair distance away before quietly opening the door to let them climb down.

Kotahitanga gestures for those who'd stayed on the floor of the container to leave first before she drops down, exiting in turn.

Hearth moved slowly, slipping out of the container but not moving away from the edge so she didn't provide any eyes with an unnatural silhouette.

Leta nods before taking the first opportunity to escape the cramped quarters. To be perfectly honest, this isn't really her show, so she's content with following someone else's calls. Normally she's an observer, not an operative, but when Yoshitsune calls for shinobi -- and you're able to just go ahead and turn into one -- you do it.

When the door swings open, there's the small problem of a twelve foot drop to the ground. Not a huge deal, just do the old hang and drop. Or turn into a sugar glider, or something, if you're Fox. Once down, though, they find themselves in a stack of crates inside the security fence of the compound near a pole barn that's filled with pick up trucks, forklifts, and other industrial freight gear used for loading and unloading cargo and performing routine maintenance on the machines involved in that process. Typical freight yard, really. Most of the lights are dimmed, save for the halogen floods that hang from the top of giant 40' towers. Think highway style fog lights and you've got the right idea. There's a row of six warehouses at the end of the yard as well as a large concrete and steel office building, six stories tall, that bears the name Lloyds & Lewiston Shipping. With a logo that looks rather like this:

"Office is where we're more likely to find intel," Simon offers as he looks around once on the ground.

"Office to start with, warehouses if that doesn't turn up anything, then?" Kotahitanga asks only mostly rhetorically, walking down the wall and onto the ground smoothly.

"Cinnibar," Fox whispers, nodding toward the logo with her chin after she just casually walks down the wall. "That's the alchemical symbol for cinnibar. That's a mercury sulfide. Used as a pigment in antiquity - it's a good red." Because Fox has to infodump, give all the info. "Mercury is the base for hermium. Add that to orichalcum and lunargent and you've got thaumium. But most importantly, I think it is a symbol of how they think of themselves. It gets into the smallest of cracks." A small frown. "This will be important, I am certain."

He glances back towards the logo. "Interesting." Then off he goes towards the office buildings. "I assume you lot are going to keep an eye out for wards?" Simon whisper-asks as he looks the building over as they approach, trying to gauge where the safest way in is, and any security they're going to have to get past.

"Mmmmhm," Leta offers quietly as she touches ground, and passes Simon. Being able to climb walls is super fulfilling, but there's no time to truly enjoy the experience, unfortunately. The Mastigos peers up at the office building, shifting her weight so that the shotgun can hang from it's shoulder strap as she fetches a notepad from an interior pocket of her cloak. "Ring ring, motherfucker. It's me, from the past." She mutters under her breath. "Alright," she turns to the group. "This may seem like an incredibly unhelpful answer to a question you didn't ask, but we should check both. Offices first, then warehouses. Future Leta says it's worth it."

The office building is typical of its kind. Glass facade for the lobby and the mezzanine above it, probably reinforced glass to look at it. Good locks that drop into the ground and up into the door jamb, surely. There are fire exit doors at four locations around the building, steel fire doors with no handles or locks on the outside. Then there's a loading dock with heavy garage doors at the back, another exterior fire door on that side with a deadbolt key entry. It's doubtless all wired for security. Above the second floor, the brick and steel takes over, interspersed with narrow slit windows reminiscent of the brutalist architecture of the 50s and 60s. The roof looks to have the AC units and air circulators and the like, and probably have roof access up there, since there's no ladders on the exterior.

Most of the lights appear to be out inside, though the track lighting is on, the exit signs are lit. A pair of the sentries are walking the perimeter of the building, though they pause under the light at the front of the building to light cigarettes and start some chit-chat.

"Do we wanna enter from the roof? If they're Sleepers they won't be expecting that."

"If they're sleepers, they won't see us at all. We could walk through the front door with Incogneto Presence and Machine Invisibility."

Simon looks over the building for a long moment, eyes flitting here and there. "We probably shouldn't assume there's only sleepers here."

"That's not to say they're all sleepers," Hearth warned. "Or that other measures aren't in place. A moment..." She pulled a small kitchen size mortar from her pocket and began chanting softly, and Prime's supernal vision unfurled for them all to reveal the flow of power around them.

"We could, but the roof's not a bad idea just in case they're, you know, not. Because they won't just be, I don't think." Fox tips her chin up at Simon when he speaks, in total agreement. Her eyes turn up toward the roof and catch those fog lights in the way people's eyes just don't. That's got to be creepy. "Mmm. Thank you," she sighs as another layer of reality is laid over her vision.

"I agree that the roof is probably our best point of entry."

Leta tucks away her notepad with a nod, and readies her shotgun. "Shall we, then?"

"Let's," Kotahitanga nods, walking towards the wall. And then up it, because Magic.

Simon follows up the wall after making sure the guards aren't in a position to see them. Once on the roof he looks for the roof access door, checking out what the security system is like there--they can avoid electronic security, but it still likely is locked, yeah?

There are traceurs who would give just about anything to just walk up a wall like Miles Morales. The team gives the guards some space, just to be extra safe, and ascend the walls at a brisk clip. No big deal. The first two floors are clearly the public face of the firm, where the facilities are shiny and marble and brass features heavily into the interior design. Above those floors, things get a little harder to gauge. The slit windows are silted over and yellowed, and it's hard to just casually glance inside. The roof is well maintained with tar and tarpaper, white bands marking out the areas safe to traverse for load bearing purposes. Probably the whole roof is fine for them, but people move about heavy machinery up here. The roof access is another steel fire door with a door knob and a deadbolt, a single dim bulb flickering in a naked socket above the door.

The door is marked very clearly:

"We don't even need to take the door necessarily. I'm an Adept of Matter, the roof doesn't necessarily need to exist. Or a wall, for that matter."

"If you don't think it would tip them off." Simon shrugs.

"Let's check what's going on inside," Fox offers on the way up, clearing a segment of the silt on one of the windows on each floor via the Matter Attainment. "I'd rather not walk in without knowing." Not that they don't have echolocation and Web of Life and all that, but... Fox has learned an abundance of caution from Vasha, apparently.

"I can veil it. Better to spend my mana reserves keeping us unnoticed as long as possible then save it and have it all go to shit before we get anywhere."

"Anyone it'd tip off would know to expect Mages, honestly," Kotahitanga shrugs one shoulder.

Oontz Oontz bobs up over the top of the building and floats on over to the others to wait near Little Fox.

Along the way up, Fox used an attainment on the window silt and sees the following:

The third floor room she saw contains bedraggled office equipment. A storage room, maybe? Or maybe they just don't use that particular section of floor and it's gone to disrepair.

The fourth floor window contains lab equipment of some sort. Phials and decanters and all the strange esoterica of chemistry along with centrifuges, computers, autoclaves and the like.

The fifth floor is blacked out behind the window. Removing the silt reveals a coat of paint.

The sixth floor looks to contain row after row of computer servers, large metal safes, vaults, and other high end security and information technology.

"Mmm. What's on the fifth floor, you little shit?" Fox mutters to herself, wandering up the building. The information she receives is passed on to the others, along with a fair dose of muttering about how the Spokesman should lick her butthole. (Oh man, she really hates that dude.) Once she gets up to the roof, she crouches comfortably, resting her forearms on her knees, and frowns thoughtfully while other people look at things.

Kotahitanga glances at Fox. "There's an alarm, we need Oontz to hold the circuit shut so it doesn't pick up on us opening the door."

Simon looks over the door a moment, then glances to the others. "There's a magnet that keeps an electric current going. It'll go off when the door opens and the circuit is broken. There's not really any way to pick it from this side."

Oontz Oontz buzzes eagerly when spoken of, bobbing on over to Kotahi and offering a very enthusiastic, if monotone and digitally altered, "yeyeye gogo circuit buzzzzt" There's a brief issuance of essence into the tapestry, and then Oontz Oontz states, "gameovermangameover make bishop go"

"Good grief," Hearth said with a quiet little sigh.

"Good job, Oontz," Fox agrees, offering him a wrinkle-nosed smile as she pushes up from her Slav squat. "Vasha will be proud." She tucks her hair behind her ears, and tips her chin toward the doorway. "Go on. I've got the tail end." There's some sort of fox joke there, but she's not making it.

Simon is oblivious, but when Fox gives the go ahead he seems to trust that well enough--opening the door to slip past it.

Kotahitanga follows Simon in, keeping low to make sure she doesn't block sightlines for those behind her.

... and Leta takes up the rear. Tragically the time for being a spider is over.

The door opens onto a small service landing. There's a butt can up here, probably used when it's raining. The red exit sign shines, and the white running light mounted on it offers enough light to walk with but not much more than that. The stairs descend down in a double-back column, six floors down to the ground level, exiting at one of the fire doors on this side of the building. Each floor has a key card access lock on its numbered door.

Oontz buzzes happily. It got to tinker with current, which it clearly enjoyed, and resumed bobbing along beside the Thyrsus.

When the notepad comes out, you know it's time for some silly 11th Question nonsense. Leta removes the cap from a pen with her teeth, and scribbles a few notes while muttering under her breath. It's not easy to make out what she says, but the group can just barely hear the words "Where is the most useful information up in this motherfucker?" and "Shut up, Past Leta. I'm on the goddamned phone." followed by "Fuck it, just check both." before she caps the pen and pockets the notepad and turns to the group. "Let's go top down. Future Leta says everything on the top four is good to know, but the fifth floor has the prize."

"That's where the windows are painted over," agrees Fox, apparently not bothered by Leta being, you know, Leta. But also, Fox lives with Leta and like kisses her on purpose, so she's probably used to this 11th Question nonsense. "Oontz Oontz can probably trigger the panel for us," she murmurs. "But we have to expect things might go to shit as soon as that door opens."

Triggering the badge pad is a pretty simple matter. It does make one wonder what the security logs will show swiped in, if it registers the interaction at all. But the alarms don't sound, so far as they can tell, and everything continues as normal. The door opens onto a hallway flanked by two elevators, one for personnel, one for freight. There's also a pair of bathrooms that have been repurposed as omni gender. There's a water fountain, too. Typical office tower affair.

Of note, there are motion sensors up at the seam of the ceiling and the wall, their white sensor pads and green indicator lights suggesting that Machine Invisibility extends to motion sensors, too. But it also means they have to be real careful about what they brush up against, the currents they cause as they move about, and whether or not any doors they might open are in the line of a motion sensor.

This isn't Fox's wheelhouse, and so she stays back, holding open the door and following the experts. "Oontz Oontz, don't touch anything unless I tell you to."

Simon frowns at the motion sensors when they're past the door, walking veeerrrrry carefully once they're spotted. "Be very careful how you move and what you touch. We aren't setting off the sensors, but if we move something else within their fields, they will go off."

"If we absolutely need to grab something, let us know so we can hide it from the sensors first," Kotahitanga adds, careful not to knock against anything as she enters.

The hallway comes to a T intersection which spans the length of the building with office doors on the side they're coming from, each "requiring" badge swipe entry. The doors have windows, though, and it's easy to see what's inside of each office if they care to. A pair of steel double doors lead onto the floor with the heavy technology Fox saw on their way up. That door has tons of sciency warning signs, the gist of which is that they require clean room gear, that the room has negative pressure, no photography beyond this point, touch here to equalize your static electrons, etc.

"Good to remember," she murmured. "Too bad they haven't put a 'evil plans' signs up with all the rest."

"Finding somewhere with computers might be best?" Simon says, eyeing the lab areas cautiously. "If we can find somewhere to download information to look through later, when we are somewhere safe?"

Wordlessly, Leta points at the mainframe-ish computers in the clean room with a deadpan expression. "Is it just me, or does this level of security from -- the fuck is this shit, a shipping? -- company seems wild, right?"

"Obviously it's not just a shipping company," he says dryly.

Leta sticks out her tongue.

In silence, Fox waits. "This isn't where I'm good at things -- so I'm following the rest of you," she explains out loud, after the exchange between Simon and Leta.

"Anyone object to us going in there?" Kotahitanga asks, glancing between the others.

"No. Have at it." Simon gestures to the door. "With your... Ounts thing or whatever."

"I had a computer light itself on fire when I turned it on, once," Hearth said with a faint smile. "Which could be an idea here but please get what you can."

"No need," the Obrimos replies, hands flashing through the mudras of Forces as she steps up to the door, before reaching out and tapping the pad. "We're in."

"Anyway to keep the sensor from noticing the door opening?"

"I'll make the door invisible to the sensor," Fox offers quietly. "That's easy."

The double doors open onto an antechamber for donning clean room suits, lockers for storing whatever you need to store before heading inside, and all the various accoutrements they would need if they wished to abide the room's security requirements. Some of the coveralls have names and pronouns on them, implying there's a crew that works here on the regular. Another door with another card-entry pad actually leads into the room beyond. Notably, they can all sense the presence of two human life forms beyond those doors.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Leta mutters under her breath as she pulls out the notepad. "Any traces of hair, spit, prints, etcetera that we leave behind are going to be very obvious in a clean room." A beat. "I don't like that."

"One of us could put on one of the suits and go in? Or would the suit not be covered by the magic once we put it on?"

"We have two Matter Adepts with us," Fox points out quietly. "It won't be hard to clean up if we go in. Or, you know, we can put on the suits."

Oontz Oontz bobs near the door to the clean room, "they will see us waving from such great heights come down now"

"Yes, Oontz, there are clean room suits in the video. Oontz Oontz thinks we should put on the suits, but that might just be for the visual," Fox offers as an aside.

"The suits should be covered by the magic, but yeah, we can probably rely on the Matter Adepts to handle that," Kotahitanga agrees.

"I can make myself very good at computers, but I am not currently that kind of trans." Leta bites her lower lip as she considers. "... anyone good at this shit by way of their default configurations?"

"I am that kind of trans," Kotahitanga grins.

"Dope!" Leta toasts Kotahitanga with an invisible glass of wine. "Sounds like this is your gig, then. Please do me a favor and say I'm in really close to the comm mic when you've successfully computered."

Oontz Oontz once more lets out a gravelly, "no one can hack a gibson," followed by, "i'm in", followed by, "enhance enhance enhance"

The doors open, and there's a sucking hiss of air that compels them all inside. A bit like walking out of a dome stadium, really. Just not that much air pressure. Once the door closes, the pressure regulates again.

Inside, it's not at all humid. The hiss of moving air is fairly constant, as well as the cooling fans of the massive computer banks set up in row after row along one side of the room. Lab equipment abounds. Silicon plates, chip engravers, laser etchers, CAD machines, die cutters, laser cutters, pressure molders, you name it. Each piece of equipment has barcodes on it, each piece has tacked on station numbers with esoteric designations like 'SRE Engraver' and 'AAP Assembler' and so on, which must mean something to the people who use them. The room takes up the majority of the top floor.

From outside the door, Fox watches carefully. If something goes wrong, she's waiting. Her fingers are even curled in front of her chest, in the beginning of a mudra.

Now that they're inside, they can make out lights on at the far end of the room. There's a man and a woman in clean suits down there, seated on rolling stools, bent over something or other on their tables, clearly wrapped up in some fine and detailed work, whatever they're up to. Naturally, they pay no mind to the intruders.

While out in the locker room type area, Simon slips out his phone to snap pictures of the name labels. Might be something to look into later.

Leta stands awkwardly in the hallway beside Fox and Simon holding her shotgun half-ready with all the firearms safety training that 5 dots can afford. She peers down the hallway, keeping an eye out like a good Watcher.

"They're making something in here," Hearth said. "It's an assembly line up here." She was rather impressed by the caliber of equipment. "I'm going to go a bit closer on that end to see what they're putting together. You might have better luck finding a place to muck around over there too."

In the hallway, Leta grasps her iron rod and does some little wiggly hand gestures before casting Telepathy on the group.

"Boop! Hello yes, I am Anthelion and we all have a mental link now. Please don't think about anything weird, we'll all know."

The workers pay no mind to the people milling around their workspace because they're being magically compelled not to. Once Hearth gets closer she comes to the rather chilling revelation that they appear to be assembling mechanical human bits. Cybernetics, possibly, or robots. There are fully articulated hands and arms, ocular orbs, artificial organs of various sorts and designs. Racks of them hang on what are essentially wheeled coat racks, each tagged with a bar code and an operator ID. A digital 'Inspected By #7' as though these were underwear rather than artificial human bits and bobs.

As she's down there, the woman connects the arm on her table to the network and begins poking at a tablet with various readouts and controls. It flexes, rotates, drums its fingers, bends its elbow, makes a fist, and goes through a series of diagnostic tests. One involving picking up an egg, one involving compressing a steel can. Once that's done, she scans a tag, scans her badge, and attaches the tag to the arm before wheeling over and hanging it up on the rack with a sigh.

Her desk has little achievement coins on it that their HR must give out for meeting certain milestones. One reads 'HERMES PROTOCOL -- MAKING TOMORROW BETTER TODAY' It has a little image of Hermes on it, and everything, conspicuously red on the otherwise sleek and mirrored metal coin.

Hearth pulled out her phone and began taping the lab- making sure to get the two workers for a bit. If there were any robot bits that were easily pocketable- like a hand- she'd abscond with it before retreating back towards Kotahi.

There's a rack of fully assembled arms and a cushioned platter containing eyeballs. Or what must be intended to be eyeballs to look at them. That's what the man is working on. The latter would be easier to pocket, surely.

The team retreats, leaving the pair of engineers to their work, and their hair and tissue scattered over everything until Fox eradicates it all.

The walk back to the stairwell is uneventful. Likewise passing through the security doors, descending a floor, and entering onto a fifth floor that, but for the number on the wall, is laid out largely identically to the sixth. Two elevators, two omni gender restrooms, the water fountain, and so on. The T intersection, the offices on the near side, and double doors on the far side. Here, however, the antechamber has three armed security guards in full body armor, two carrying bullpup rifles. Cameras abound. Security is way more intense down here, apparently.

The third guard sits behind a ring desk with numerous monitors showing the security footage both on other floors and, no doubt, what's beyond the security checkpoint. He's got coffee, which he's sipping, while chatting up the pair at the door. The current topic appears to be who would win in a fight: Bon Jovi or Bruce Springsteen. Which is about the most Jersey conversation to have.

This is where it gets fun, thinks Fox. Lots of people on this floor. Indeed, Web of Life betrays many, many human figures on this floor.

"Alright, let's go around the guards. No point messing with them," Hearth muttered, and moved to detour around to reach a wall that should have the guarded space on the other side. She took a moment to get in tune with the others, and then carefully reminded the wall that it was only a shadow of the Supernal, and no more real than an illusion. It looked the same, but it was completely insubstantial. "We've got a couple minutes before the spell ends. If we could be in and out, that'd be fabulous." "Don't forget where this portion of the wall is."

"Fabulous indeed," Leta readies her weapon, and then steps through first. Like she's gonna miss the first opportunity to be Kitty Pryde...

It's hard not knowing what you're walking into, but probably nobody was really expecting what they do walk into once passing through the now illusory wall. They enter a cell, of sorts. A sterile room with bright, omnidirectional lighting that flatters precisely no one. There, on a slab in the room, is what appears to be a fully assembled cyborg chassis. The eyes are in place, the arms and legs are attached, it even has cyborg genitals. Because why not? The door is solid and closed, locked from the outside with no interior controls or interface whatsoever. As though this were a prison cell, rather than a storage or experimentation room. There then comes a quiet chirp and lights begin flicking on inside all of that metal and wire. The eyes whirr, and the head slowly turns to face Leta, though if it actually sees her is unclear.

"Oh, that's... bad."

Quietly, Fox follows after, having assisted with mudra. She closes her hand around her weapon, holding it close to her side, and murmurs, "Stay close, Oontz Oontz." As if she's more worried about losing the spirit than almost anything else. She sticks close to her cadremate, frowning mildly. And when the thing starts to move, Fox just... stares at it.

Simon also slips through, pausing to blink at the thing.

People think they can hear conversation of a more confused and urgent variety coming from the security antechamber. It's muffled by the walls and baffling. But a few lucky people friends of an Acanthus can clearly hear one of them say, "Number One has activated," and something about pressure and temperature differentials.

Simon moves around slowly to the side, and a little closer to the cyborg, waiting to see if it keeps its eyes on Leta's direction.

The eyes follow Simon, if a bit slower than his actual motion. And this causes the thing to sit up and swing its legs over the side of the slab before looking back towards Leta and then back towards Simon. In a perfectly human sounding voice it inquires, "Who are you? Why are you here?"

The muted thumps of the approaching guards toppling over in the hallway reaches everyone's ears. Including the machine man's. "Did you harm them?"

"No. They're asleep." Fox's fingers move in the mudra for Life, and she blinks slowly, like a stressed cat. "I didn't hurt them." She turns her head to look at Leta, and then back at the cyborg. "I'm the woman whose home the man in the trenchcoat tried to destroy. I am here because he attacked and tried to destroy my home, and he and his people have tried to kill my lovers and my friends. I want him to stop."

Treating machines and animals like humans seems perfectly natural to the Matter Adept Thyrsus -- she's fused a shotgun to her own arm before, why would a cyborg be so strange. "Who are you?"

"Do you want them to be hurt?" Hearth asked. "This place seems built to contain you by force."

"Would you like us to get you out of here?" Kotahitanga adds.

The cyborg doesn't answer. It just keeps glancing left to right in confusion, looking between two points. Apparently whatever is making it think someone might be present can't see through the measures they've taken to escape notice. It stands up, then, and walks towards the wall, reaching forward to touch it and finding it, obviously, missing. Its hand draws back, after which point it just walks right through the wall to the other side. "Changes in temperature and air pressure caused by the wall not existing. This answer provides more questions," it can be heard to say from the other side.

"Well... shit." Hearth said, looking a bit stunned and at the same time trying not to laugh. "Let's, ah, see if there's anything useful we can take from here? Besides him."

"I'm going to go check on something with the terminals upstairs," Leta's voice fills everyone's heads as she slowly backs out of the room through the ghostwall. "I'm going to see if there's anything about cyborg interfaces and controls? Plus, I need to be ready for when Past Leta rings me up. I'll be on comms if anyone needs me. Just... think really loud."

Simon stares after the cyborg, and for a moment his eyes glaze over as he stares--then he gasps loudly and staggers backwards, eyes wide and wild. For a moment he doesn't seem to know where he is, just looking around, then looks back to blink wide-eyed at the robot. "Good God... There's a soul inside him. He was a person."

"Is a person," Kotahitanga corrects gently.

He rolls his eyes. "Not the point I am making. He used to just be a mortal man."

"You know, the last twenty-four hours of my life has been really, really weird," Fox mutters, inaudible to everyone save the people under the shared Incognito presence. "Consider. First we went to the Astral, and we flew to Mercur-- "

She stops in the middle of the word, and stops short. Her eyes glaze over briefly, and then? Fox looks genuinely annoyed.

"Oh, motherfucker," she scowls, as her fingers twist the well-known (to her) mudras for Remote Control, and she puts the cyborg gently to sleep.

"Let's get him out of here. Get us out of here."

The cyborg completes a step, finds a balance point, and cycles down. The lights begin to wink out one by one, joints lock up, and the chassis assumes a sort of parade rest stance. This lasts for perhaps three seconds before it begins to power back on again. "Unexpected interruption. Interesting." The cyborg turns about and walks back through the wall again into his cell and hops back up onto the slab. It presses a panel on its chest and pulls out a digital tablet, tapping at it with inhuman alacrity with those metal fingertips that manage to register on the tablet somehow. Running a diagnostic, to look at the read outs. It stops mid diagnostic and looks to its door, then to the wall, hops down, and walks back out the wall again, heading towards the front door to the antechamber.

"If he's a person, I -- " It's very surprising to Fox when powering the cyborg lasts only a handful of seconds, and she frowns again. " -- Do they want one of those fruits to try to awaken this person or something? Like, is that the plan? Or do they think the tree is standing in the way of Awakening this person?" The only thing to do is to follow for the moment -- shutting him off only limited him for a second. "Look, it would be kidnapping. I -- don't -- I mean, maybe -- uhhh."

"I can sense that this thing is definitely meant to be a threat to the Consilium. I'll see if I can sense more." Simon watches this, puzzled, then closes his eyes and seems to zone out briefly again.

"They're Seers," Hearth pointed out. "Whatever they're doing isn't going to be sunshine and rainbows. They're probably ripping people's souls out and sticking them in a cyborg chassis in order to turn them into weapons. If we take him with us we're either liberating him or capturing him, depending on where his brainwashing is at. Either way, it's a positive."

The cyborg pulls the door open and looks about the antechamber. Hard to say for sure if he's familiar with it or not, given his face lacks the ability to express emotion in a way human eyes can understand, lacking as it does a proper face. He considers the second door, and walks instead to the computer terminal abandoned by the third guard.

He begins typing on it with stupid fast fingers.

"We should probably find out if there are more already assembled," Kotahitanga points. "I don't-" she cuts off, moving to watch over the cyborg's shoulder and see what he's typing. And be in a good position to shut the terminal down, if necessary.

The maybe he's a nice cyborg, you don't know! fades on Fox's lips when Simon says that the cyborg is meant to be a threat to the Consilium, rather visibly so. Sometimes she wears her big stupid soft heart on her sleeve, thankfully not literally. Gnawing on her lower lip with sharp teeth, she pauses to remove all trace of the party from the room via a specific Matter scrub before following out into the foyer, where she snatches a radio from the sleeping guard sitting in a chair, taking note of any names on badges or the like.

The cyborg seems to be disabling the security on the fifth floor. The security displays begin winking out on the monitors showing 'No Signal'. The display of the motion sensors and other security functions begin going from green to red in each sector of the floor. When this is done, the cyborg wheels back, rises to its (his?) feet and turns back to open the now unsecure door to the rest of the floor, walking in to crouch down and inspect the sleeping bodies of its (his?) prior captors. It waves a hand over one of their faces, snaps its metal fingers, then looks up and down the hall.

"We could just follow and see where he wants to go on his own. Could Incognito Presence him too..."

Simon's eyes fly open and he breathes heavily a moment, again his eyes flitting around through the slits in the mask. Then he takes a deep breath, fingers flexing.

"They have done many experiments like this. Trying to implant souls into cybernetic bodies. At least... seventy-one. They're being made by a... bald androgynous person in a white suit. I was able to gleam that this cyborg isn't the only surviving test subject... They aren't trying to get them to Awaken, I know that. But they are, as we've seen, very resistant to Awakened magic. So useful as weapons. Some of the experiments have control of themselves, and some even remember that they were human. And the souls they are using are not being stored here."

"Do you know where they are being stored?" Kotahitanga asks, glancing at Simon

"No," he says, shaking his head.

The cyborg gingerly rids the guards of what appear to be remote controls that are stored on their hips, cleverly disguised as pepper spray. Once it has them collected, it carries them all in its left hand and continues down the hallway deeper into the facility. The problem being, there's a lot of humans down that way, according to their senses.

"... well if you're going to invisible him, then do it. Or if we need to just get the fuck out of here, let's do that. I'm not the Guardian in this operation," Fox mutters, rubbing her hands over her face as horror shudders through her body at the implications of what Simon says.

Simon pulls out his phone and starts typing on it. Then he runs ahead and leaves the phone on the ground in front of the robot and backs away from it--maybe the magic doesn't stick once their equipment leaves them???? He doesn't know how it works, but hey, trying it.

On the screen is a notepad app that reads: Hello. We would like to help you. Will you let us help you escape here?

"Just because I'm a Guardian doesn't mean I'm some super assassin who's in charge of everything here. I'm a freaking art conservationist." She sighed, but started chanting to cast Machine invisibility on the cyborg.

The cyborg stops advancing when the device appears before him. His head cants like a curious animal's and he bends down to pick it up. He begins to type on the screen after reading the message, but then it stops registering his key taps. Because Hearth was smart.

After several more attempts the cyborg stares at its own fingertip. If a machine could sigh, it would have sighed. Surely the body language made that sort of motion. "Sophist, if this is another test, please say so. I am feeling deceived and uncertain about reality." When no answer comes, he sets the screen back down it reads: Hello. Who are you? Did you make my w

Simon moves to pick up the phone again and types:

My name is Lee. We are not from here. We are making you invisible to machines and people so you can escape with us unnoticed. Sorry to distress you.

Then he sets the phone back down.

"Sophist? Really? Fucking Seers," mutters Fox. "... his fingers won't register on the keypad anymore," the Thyrsus groans.

"Anyone have a pen and some paper?"

When the phone reappears a second time, the cyborg looks down, picks it up, and tries to type to no avail. So he tries speaking again. "Hello Lee. I am Mark. Mark One. Where are you from? That is very kind of you. What of the other Marks? Will you free them, too? I do not advise that you do so."

Simon crouches and continues this method of communication:

We are from a better place. I'm sorry, but I would prefer to answer your questions when we are somewhere safe, in case you are caught and information about us is gathered by the people who made you. Are the other Marks dangerous? Are they in this building?

"Danger is subjective, Lee. I would like to be in a better place. Mary is expecting me for dinner. I intend to propose. Your precautions are sensible. The other Marks are here. Some are in the cells. Some patrol the corridors. I disabled the security protocols on this floor, but they will notice sooner or later. I wanted to verify the guards were not hurt. They are asleep. How can I trust you? I have been fooled before. Sophist was angry with me. I do not want to anger Sophist." The cyborg looks back up the corridor, and his eyes whirr briefly. "Humans are coming. If they see the guards are unconscious, I will be in trouble. If they see the guards are not at their stations, I will be in trouble. I do not want to be in trouble, Lee."

Simon looks to the others. "Any plan on how to get out of here quickly?"

"Back up to the roof? I can lower Mark to the ground once we get there."

"Good enough!" Hearth agreed. "Let's retreat up and scoot."

He types: I don't know how to convince you to trust us. But I promise when we are away we can answer your questions. We don't want you to get in trouble. We are going to go to the roof. Once we are up there, we can get away. Please go to the stairwell, and we will open the door. Go up once the doors are open.

Fox sort of reels back a step or two. One can be horrified that something is made and still amazed by the artistry of it, and that's the face journey that the Thyrsus is going on right now. "... holy shit." The perfection and the composition of Mark plays through the telepathic link, and she shudders in amazement and horror.

Hearth lit up with fascination, admiration, and complete horror. The craftsmanship... incredible. Doing it to a human soul? Someone had better die for it.

Simultaneous fascination and horror is probably the appropriate response here, yeah. At least for anyone who isn't a monster. Or a Seer, not that there's often a lot of difference between the two.

The cyborg stares at the screen for several seconds. Then it looks around itself again, bends down, and sets the phone down again. "Do not forget your phone, Lee." Mark then crushes the remotes in his left hand and walks back down towards the dozing guards. He crouches down and tucks the ruined remotes into the breast pocket of the guard which had been manning the desk.

"David. You were always an asshole and I never liked you very much. I want you to know that before I escape. Fuck you, David. Fuck you and fuck Jon Bon Jovi." He then slides over to the next guard and relieves the man of his bullpup rifle, tucking it under arm. "Everything he wrote after 1987 was awful and everyone knows it, David." That parting shot given, Mark proceeds into the antechamber, pauses at the security console to re-arm the internal security and disable the external security and the access to the roof.

He looks around the desk for a moment, checks under the keyboard, and authorizes it with David's codes. Because fuck David.

"If we listen to anything once we are out, I will shoot you if it's Jon Bon Jovi."

"That was a joke, Lee. I won't really kill you."

Simon stares, watching all of this. "...Well, guess we can just--go, yes?" He does in fact pick up his phone. The joke makes him stare another moment, then just shakes his head and moves to the door to the stairwell, opening it for the others to head out.

"Seems so, yeah," Kotahitanga agrees, heading up the stairs once the door's open.

With one of the guard's radios in hand -- that might be useful, until they replace them -- Fox hurries up to the roof. It's time to go, and Fox is really ready to go. It's been an exceptionally long day for the Thyrsus, and she wants to go crawl into bed next to her partners and have a good cry, maybe.

Then up to the roof they go, and once up there Simon types after a plan has been discussed telepathically, and leaves the phone on the ground.

We are going to use magic to portal ourselves to safety. Please do not resist. We will be somewhere safe soon and can talk properly.

Dropping Machine Invisibility, Fox makes a quick phone call, explaining to Yaroslav that they have acquired/liberated an aware machine person from a Seer facility, and could she please get them a location to take this person to?

Then Fox flings the radio down off the roof, and washes her traces of touch off of it on its way down, because those things aren't good outside a small area anyway.

"Will I be able to meet you, Lee? When we get there? I would like to meet you." Mark says this upon reaching the roof top. When the machine invisibility drops, Mark reacts by reeling backwards and looking at each and every one of those present in a state of alarm, raising his rifle. "It is a logical improbability that you are all Lee. Identify yourselves, please."

Simon blinks as the cyborg goes into defense mode, his hands lifting. "I'm Lee. These are my friends."

She's on the phone, but Fox offers the cyborg a wink and spells out via ASL -- guessing that he might have had that downloaded or something -- F O X. She follows it by making the symbol for 'F' and putting it around her nose. You know. Fox.

"Rīpeka," the Obrimos in question adds, fingerspelling it for Mark as well. In both ASL and NZSL, just to be extra safe.

"Getting in there was a team effort," Hearth said calmly. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Hearth." She didn't know sign language. "Now let's get out of here."

Everyone's peripheral mage sight picks up on the incoming portal. Yaroslav stands on the other side holding a shotgun. Man and Gardener are likewise present and step out of the portal. Gardener gives Hearth a wink that, in Guardian circles, probably means a lot more than it might under other circumstances. "We'll take the scene from here. Good work, all of you," Gardener offers.

Once the party steps through the portal, it winks out and they are all safely back in the Consilium once more. Along with Mark. "Hello," he offers to Yaroslav, "this is Lee, and..." Fox in sign language, then Ripeka likewise. "And Hearth. I have just escaped a secure facility. No one was harmed. Do you know where Mary is? I am late for dinner."