trans_9 | All work and no play [Closed to the Major, and John.]

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All work and no play [Closed to the Major, and John.]

John could have been at the party, but he wasn't. It wasn't because of sour grapes either. He simply had important business to take care of. Business for the Major, and John had done exactly as she had requested, and then some. It had been easy for him to find what she'd requested as he'd already stolen half of it on his first visit to the armory. Of course it was much easier this time as he had the proper access. He'd even managed to dig up a Seburo C-25A submachine gun, and one of the cMN-23 assault rifles for her. Keeping the submachine gun supplied with ammo might be a problem due to the odd round, but it couldn't hurt to impress her a little. It did take him a few days however to move the hardware quietly to the city, but he didn't mind. By not using the armory computer, and moving it himself it was far easier to make them simply vanish.

Once he'd finished securing everything he contacted the Major so she could come inspect some of it. Hopefully she'd approve of his efforts, and the new location. It was some kind of large fallout shelter with one hell of a blast door, and enough room to shelter plenty of the crew should any disaster strike. There wasn't any alternate exits that he had found yet, but they could certainly make one if they had to. Exploration of the place turned up that it was called a Vault, and had been built in some universe's America around 2070. It would take a bit of work to clean out, and make completely ready for the team, but it would be well worth the effort. They simply couldn't have asked for a better base of operations.

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That Motoko was pleased with the outcome of the voting would be an understatement. Frankly, it was optimum— Nathan Petrelli had always been ineffectual enough to suit her needs, and with Kennedy in charge...

Well. It'd sure as hell make a few things simpler.

Speaking of which, not the least thing was the issue of Connor. John as a subordinate was vastly superior to a John that she'd be forced to ignore, or even work against. She liked her minions relatively docile— in her direction, at least.

His taste in defensible forts was at least adequate, for now. The Metro was a decent layout, with a few good fallback positions, and enough secure entrances that it wouldn't become a trap, so long as they kept a tight ship. Best of all, it looked quite a mess, and would lend itself well to the extra layer of security that came with having to hide not only from potential enemies but from so-called allies as well.

She disengaged the thermoptic camouflage and picked up the Seburo, examining it with an expert eye for flaws. She wasn't the kind of person who grew attached to guns, like Togusa, but she'd always favored this particular weapon. Saito had been talking, that much was for sure.

"Good work, Connor," She pronounced, knowing he hadn't seen her come in, knowing she had gotten behind him. It was good to keep 'em on their toes, "Keep this up, and you might work out, yet."

John didn't jump, he was far too controlled for that, but he was surprised. It wasn't comfortable having somebody get the drop on him ally for the moment, or not. Thankfully his mother wasn't here for this, her response would have been to shoot Kusanagi on principle. "I always did have a knack for logistics, and most of the things on that list weren't too difficult to find, especially with the proper access this time. I'm still looking for a comms solution, but I didn't know what sort of crypto you wanted to run."

Obviously she had knowledge of more advanced communications equipment than he did, and he was willing to let her direct him on that particular acquisition. Once she decided what she wanted he'd get it with minimal difficulty. "Otherwise I've kept the calibers, and ergonomics as common as I could. Mostly 5.56, and 7.62 NATO chamberings. A couple of the sniper rifles are in more exotic rounds, but I have enough of an ammo stockpile for them we won't run out of those anytime soon."

"Good," And the way she said it was like patting a dog on the head as she replaced the gun where it belonged, "I'll notify the primary candidates. For the comms, just provide the hardware."

If she'd learned anything on this ship, it was how to make her barriers even more impenetrable and deadly than before. Stacy's systems were frustratingly elegant in that field.

"I'll install the rest myself."

"I'll see what I can find. There should be something sufficiently advanced in the stores." Preferably lightweight as well, since they needed to shave ounces where ever they could. A small team like this probably wasn't going to have much in the way of additional ground support whenever they deployed, and that meant they had to carry everything they'd need on their own backs.

"That's fine," She was in a good mood. Actually having something to do was good for that— one could only watch lines of barriers chew at each other for so many hours before needing to hurt someone.

And Bruce...wasn't around.

"I'm sorry, but I can't stay to help," And here Motoko did something that was very rare; she hesitated, "What do you know about GLaDOS?"

John took note of the hesitation, but felt no need to comment on it. If she was willing to talk, then all the better. He wasn't stupid enough to go ruining possible trust down the line by drawing attention to that fact. "Only as much as the rest of the crew has told me. It's an AI that kidnaps crew members. It forces them to run mazes, and offers them cake if they do, but it never delivers. Possibly quite dangerous just for disruption to the command structure alone. Would all of that be accurate?"

"Correct," But he hadn't quite begun to impress. Anyone would tell him that, without even being asked, "On some occasions, it also keeps them, as far as I can tell, permanently."

She didn't have to say aloud that she was fairly sure of the fate of those particular persons. This wasn't kindergarten, and John knew more than anyone about the way uncontrollable AI could act against human beings.

Go on, ask.

"It would be nice if those people were still alive, but even if they were I doubt they'd be in any kind of shape to help out the crew." He avoided asking why the hell the crew hadn't dealt with this menace yet. It would just be the same answer as always, the leadership was incompetent. "Does it have a hub we can attack, or we are going to have to hack it to bits, and flush the systems?"

"In theory."

She inclined her head slightly, and hoped the map she had of Stacy's perception was accurate. One could never tell, in the city, "The additional complication is that it's capable of traceless hacks, even on all-natural crew members. It's impressive, but it could also cripple any defense against it, if one were mounted."

Edited 2010-07-30 02:24 (UTC)

"There is always a hole, no system is perfect." He had no idea what that weakness might be at the moment, but he knew it was there somewhere. " Wouldn't it have to use the ship's systems to kidnap these people? If we cut off its access to those systems it needs then we won't have to worry about finding it."

"The main AI is protecting it, no doubt on what it perceives as our behalf,"Stacy's half-false benevolence was irritating.

"I've been working on hacking it for months with no real success," Motoko didn't count the gravity incident as more than incidental. It meant nothing meaningful for their situation, "Most people aboard don't even seem to be aware it's happened to them, despite repeated abuse. It's a clumsy, direct memory-pull."

Her tone conveyed all that was needed for such a thing- namely that she found it pathetic. But still, the bitch had taken her subordinate that way, then thought to erase his presence from her memory.

"I wouldn't mind doing some reprogramming on the main AI either, but one target at a time." Stacy was really starting to piss him off. The crew really did have to have something wrong with them to be so protective of it. He ran a hand through his hair, and tried to think. Damn AIs on this ship had been running free for too long, and not enough people had cared to keep tabs on them. Because of that here they were running almost blind. There had to be a way, he just wasn't seeing it. It was frustrating.

She could tell from his expression that he understood just how screwed they really were. It was a benchmark she had come to value in people here- those that figured out how shackled they really were did so quickly, and were to be considered at least competent. Those that sided with whatever they were told, whether out of altruism, naivete, or inexperience were best left to their own devices, or avoided.

It really was a war on three fronts.

"I'm taking it up with Kennedy, now that he's Captain," she informed him, though she if she knew her superior, now her Captain, at all she knew what his answer would be, "But if you can, be ready. When and if we move on GLaDOS there probably won't be any warning."

"Hopefully he'll listen." John had his doubts about that though. The man's current track record didn't inspire much confidence. A lot of this had happened under his watch, and that made him responsible for it. Of course even if he didn't approve John had a feeling that wouldn't dissuade the Major in her course of action, and he hoped he was correct in that assessment. "I'll be ready either way. Anything special you'd like me to have prepared for the mission?"

Motoko was turned away, whether to more fully scout the Vault or to leave, it was hard to say. At any rate she half turned, and with an ominous finality made a her last request before flicking on the camouflage with a soft hiss and moving off into the shadows, undetectable.

"Explosives."

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All work and no play [Closed to the Major, and John.]

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