Mav's Mavericks Hideout
Formerly a subway maintenance station, this abandoned subway terminal has been converted into a makeshift fortress, complete with gunports and security cameras. A massive Einhorn Crowd Protection Mecha stands guard at the front pier, between the foot-path stairs and the vehicle ramp. To the north past the mecha is the giant garage where entire subway cars can be lifted off the track by a crane and transported into its cavernous depths. West is the front of the terminal where loading doors used to open into a supply bay, now sealed shut to protect the armor, and the lobby can be seen through a glass-front door.

It's lunch time and Jason, Tracy, Cadena, and Inari have returned from their various errands-- not empty handed in Jason's case, as he bears a package with Tracy's military sneaksuit (obtained from Mav's Mavericks), a Tesla coil, and batteries thereof. His powered armor is further testimony that he's better equipped now than he has been in some time. Inari carries her laser sniper rifle slung over her back.

The old-fashioned flatscreen TV mounted up in one room corner shows security camera footage of the outside, which is at present just the Einhorn mecha swiveling its gaze to and fro. Inset into the camera view is an infobox showing the latest news headlines. Apparently Dantech is continuing to search for the purported 'high technology spies' that made off with industrial secrets. Legal actions are pending between Avatars LLC, currently recovering from its outage, and Dantech and Arcadia Developments, something to do with the aircar that went down on the Avatars LLC campus, shot down by Dantech forces.

There isn't exactly a lot in the way of gourmet cuisine in the base, but the white-furred dog 'morph works with what he's got, improvising with emergency supplies and outdoor camping gear from the armory. It's amazing what one can do with frozen chicken and reconstituted dried vegetables.

Cadena is still sporting the security guard "disguise" that Tracy rigged up for him, consisting of flexible bullet-resistant armor (not quite as heavy as his modified "boomhound" armor) and a tail-concealing overcoat with a few stains in it. He busies himself with tidying up the kitchenette area after fixing up lunch.

"I think someone was able to use the Emergency Broadcast Channel to activate my bracer and send me a text message," Tracy notes to Jason and Inari. "I haven't fiddled with it for fear of losing any forensic data trail - but the message was 'Within the seed a flower waits to be born' and 'The Godslayer brings the Fimbulwinter.' I think the latter is a reference to the ZEUS system."

"I'm thankful you haven't put him in a French maid's outfit yet," Jason remarks after a casual glance towards the dog-domestic. The comment about the message, though, gives him pause. "That sounds like some cryptic comment by a quest AD; my guess would be the WHITE. I'll have to look into it. The 'Godslayer' comment is directed at Andrei, though; that much I'm certain of."

"Land sakes," Cadena mutters quietly to himself, as he digs through the break room fridge. "Didn't know they were growing bio-weapons here, too." He calmly disposes of some greenish, fuzzy leftovers from the back of the fridge.

"Not Jason Zero?" Tracy asks, and hands over her Crystal Bracer wrist computer. "If it was over the EBC, then it would have to have been transmitted line-of-sight for just me to have gotten it, right?"

The news reporter of the hour says, "In other news, the search for the missing Inari enters its second day. Voya representatives have asked all Inari fans everywhere to report should they see the famous rock star; she is believed to have been attacked by some kind of cyberhypnosis and may be under the control of some foreign agent, identity as yet unknown." The camera cuts to a gathering of Inari fans at a pseudo-Japanese shrine, burning incense and praying for her safe return.

The golden vixen glances up at the camera and snorts. "What surprises me is that I put up with their bull for so long," she says.

"Maybe they had you under cyberhypnosis the whole time?" Tracy suggests with a smirk.

"Nope. Pretty certain it is Andrei. Hand over the bracer and I'll ... so I'm some sort of foreign agent with mind control powers now? Going by that logic I need a shark tank with lasers attached to their head, a ridiculous accent, and a thin mustache," Jason comments after a roll of his eyes. "And oh, it's probably important to know, but we have another ally, sort of. The General. It seems Dantech has been playing them too."

Cadena walks past Inari to get some cleaning supplies from the cabinet. "That's show business, ma'am," he comments. "Making a mountain out of a molehill is just part of the game. Wouldn't be half surprised if they invented some colorful villains to come on screen and take responsibility, just to keep the story fresh."

RIU perches on Jason's shoulder. It would make an ideal video game nemesis's pet! (preens, pose)

"This just gets more complicated ... and you would so have a shark tank if you could, I'm sure," Tracy notes. "What does having the General on our side give us?"

"An inside channel to information about some sort of portaling crap the government is doing with Dantech out in California," Jason notes.

"And speaking of colorful villains, I'm half-motivated to create a video showing Inari captured and in chains while one of plays up some stupid cartoony villain and send that to them anonymously. Or maybe Inari in a French maid's outfit..."

"You mean the Government really knows what ZEUS is for?" Tracy asks, sounding scared. "If that's true, then trying to expose Dantech's skeletons would be even more dangerous.."

Jason pokes around on Tracy's bracer for a bit, prodding this and that ... then ending it by licking the screen. "It was HECATE that sent you the cryptogram," he concludes.

"Ah, Mr. Edwards, I reckon you shouldn't be so familiar with that bracer," Cadena advises. "We just got out of the sewers."

"Why did you do that?" Tracy says, making a face at the licking. "Oh, HECATE ... then it's some sort of message from Miss Arcadia?"

"To make you blink," Jason comments as he tosses the licked bracer back to Tracy. "And I doubt it is from Arcadia directly; too poetic and cryptic. It was just her system."

"That doesn't really help us understand what it means though," Tracy notes, using her sleeve to wipe off the screen of her bracer. "Seed growing into a flower could mean an atomic bomb is going to go off, or just about anything.."

"Or it may have to do with Arcadia's daughter," Jason points out. "It's unlikely to be destructive as the metaphor is one of life and growth. Haven't you ever read any poetry?"

"I'm inclined to go with Mr. Edwards's interpretation," Cadena notes, in the middle of taking inventory of the shelf-stable goods in the break room stocks. "The apocalyptic imagery of the Fimbulwinter seems to go right along with that 'Godslayer' business. And the Palmdale community logo. That points to a particular place or hints at a specific event."

"Barely," Jason notes. He leans his chair back and looks over to Inari. "So, do you want to do anything about your ... employers and their current crazy stuff? They're probably secretly liking it as I bet sales of all merchandise related to you have shot through the roof. On the down side, I bet online auctions are inundated with really disturbing things that are claimed to be related to you or your disappearance."

"Does Dantech have a facility in or near Palmdale?" Tracy asks, once her bracer is disinfected and placed back on her forearm.

The Palmdale comment nearly causes Jason to topple over backward! He only barely averts disaster by hooking his foot around a table leg. "Palmdale? That's where the General is headed for the Government/Dantech project," he says. "You left out the most useful part of the whole message!"

The golden vixen noses Jason, draping her arms around him. "They can suffer for now. We should take care of this other business... Then we can deal with them at leisure." She draws out the e in the last word, smiling fangily.

"Well, I figured we'd be heading there, out west, next," Cadena says, while stooped over and digging through one of the lower cabinets. "S'why I'm looking for what we can use for rations, and cleaning up to cover our trail."

"I can think of other things I would rather do as leisure ... " Jason remarks to Inari; very obviously distracted from the current topic for a moment.

"Can we securely contact Randall? He's out that way now.." Tracy asks, waving a hand to try and get Jason's attention back.

"What? Abduct Randall? He wouldn't like that very much; nor would Akiko. Well, unless it was like the episode of his favorite show where. .. eh-heh. What were we talking about?" Jason asks.

The vixen rests her chin on Jason's head, causing RIU to beep jealously. "Those other things come afterward," she points out. "Avatars LLC does maintain a site in Palmdale, it's where we Avatars-made-real go to summer and recharge our batteries. In a manner of speaking. Something about that location allows us to gain our magical energies back."

"Do you think the Government wants to tap in to magic?" Tracy asks. "And how can we get across the country.. oh, right. HECATE.."

"One way we get across is with a plane ticket," Jason notes, "And some doofy disguises."

"Or we just pretend to be some of the General's group and go with them in a military escort," Jason adds.

Tracy stares are Jason for a moment, then slowly pans her gaze to the giant talking fox and dog. "If the General is our ally, why can't he just take us along without some pretense?" she asks.

"How about a chartered flight?" Cadena asks. "You could bypass all that security. I don't rightly care for airports."

"Because Dantech will quit 'trusting' him if they know we're working together and I rather like having an inside line," Jason points out.

"Speaking of inside lines," Cadena asks, "can we get any sort of world-net connectivity while we're here? Something that won't bring all manner of trouble on our heads by giving away our position? I used to live in Palmdale, after all. ... That is, you know, before I got assigned and all. But things've likely changed. I don't head back there to 'summer' as Miss Inari says."

Inari grins. "Well, just remember we have to avoid thousands of screaming fans looking for the golden fox," she says. "Your disguise worked for a while last time, but do you want to risk getting bagged and brought to Voya this time if you can't slip 'em, Tracy?"

"I still think the most secure means to get there is to walk via portals," Tracy notes. "You can't be shot down!"

"If portals open, then we use 'em," Cadena says. "But since we don't have them at our beck and call, it doesn't hurt to have another route handy. And the same preparations would be useful either way." He continues packing some shelf-stable rations into his "go bag."

"I could probably rig something up. We've got tin cans, some chewing gum, and a turnip, right?" Jason asks. "Or .. I can just go the boring route and make use of the military-grade communications gear in 'Mister Stompy' out there."

"If we use portals, we can take Mister Stompy with us, too," Tracy points out, probably as incentive.

"In other news, the Avatars LLC outage continues to extend as the embattled company works around the clock to restore critical systems," the news reporter says. "Dantech as its major market competitor reports the Gloamings has reached a new high score for simultaneous users logged in, and other VR games report similar gains. It remains to be seen whether Avatars's users will be ready to return once the major VR game does."

"I hate the news," Tracy mutters. "I guess we're all decided at least that Palmdale is the place to be, however we get there?"

"You know, as much as I dislike Avatar's game in general, it annoys me that Dantech is benefiting from the problem they caused," Jason remarks. "I'd love to completely shut down Gloaming for a bit."

Cadena hmms. "I don't reckon HECATE can open portals point-to-point from here to there. We'd have to pass through some virtual realm. Now might be a prime time to use those Diadem lands as a pass-through point. Not likely to be much traffic to give us trouble, especially since they're minus a BLACK to give us any challenges there."

"And I guess at least two of you don't stand out in there. I do because, well, no fantasy persona and all that," Jason notes.

"There's also Sasha's back-door into the Gloaming," Tracy points out. "That was just a stroll from an entry HECATE opened to the base in California."

"You've got a pet dragon," Cadena notes. "And a gauntlet o' power. That'd satisfy much of anybody who'd care. But, remember, we won't have any pesky heroes who would care." He hmms, then adds, "Of course, I'd like to stay around here, or even camp out at the Arcadia estate, so I can see it through that little Miss Margie gets back to this world in one piece. But with HECATE's warning, I think that clearly says to me - as much as any riddle has a right to - that we've got trouble first. That Dantech fellow wants to kill the 'gods' - or the ADs. No ADs, no healing magic. No healing magic, and that winter is going to make sure that flower doesn't bloom. So I figure we've got to pull up stakes and head west and deal with that first."

Jason rocks his chair back upright and has to detangle himself from Inari. "I'm going to go see if I can get the link you wanted working. Any special requests? Like ... having a Mime interface?"

The golden vixen murmurs, "Bring me back some croissants from the corner store, dear?"

"I'm just going into the next room, sorry," Jason tells Inari as he slips out of the room to go borrow Mister Stompy's communication system.

"I'm ... not familiar with that particular interface, sir," Cadena admits to Mr. Edwards in passing. "I'm not up on all that computer jargon. I'm just a casual user, you might say."

"Hey, Inari.. can I ask you something personal?" Tracy asks, once Jason has gone to the other room.

Cadena walks over to do some noisy cleaning near the doorway, turning and nodding casually to Tracy.

The golden vixen looks over at Tracy, draping herself in a flowing motion to sit in Jason's chair. "Yes?"

"The whole Brian Montagne thing.. do you think he really loved you?" the girl asks.

Inari pauses. "He was good at making me think he did," she says after a bit. "But he wanted me to change. To be his housewife, to give up singing. How can you love someone and still want to clip their wings?"

"Too keep them from flying too high and getting burned by the sun I guess," Tracy says. "Are you going to go back to all that celebrity stuff again?"

Cadena quickly finishes up whatever noisy cleaning task he was doing in this spot, and migrates through the doorway after Jason, noisily finding other things to clean, a little further out of earshot of Tracy and Inari - and closing the door after himself.

The golden vixen shakes her head. "Not... Not in the same way. I still love getting in front of an audience, don't get me wrong, and giving 'em a show they can tell their kids about. But the rest of it... The staged lifestyle outside the show, the cameras following me around, the hints that I really should do something extreme just to maintain my image... I could do without that."

Tracy nods. "One more thing though: what will you do if we bump into 'Brian' again? Are you angry with him or anything?"

Inari grins. "If it were just me, honey, I'd just claw him up a little... But since he messed with my Jason..."

"He sorta is Jason though, and... well, what if the 'self destruct' mechanism in his implant is still functional? We don't know what he's doing of his own free will or on threat of head-explosion from Dantech."

The golden vixen leans forward toward Tracy, looking her in the eyes. "Do you really think him trying to make me his wife is part of some kind of Dantech plot, sugar?"

Jason is in the maintenance bay upside down with his feet sticking out of the back of the huge robot. "Almost there," his voice remarks rather muffledly. "Good thing no one broke the relay system. Should have random hopping active; then you should have a generally untraceable link."

"I have no idea," Tracy admits. "I can just ask myself, 'Would the Jason I know do that?' And I can't even answer that half the time."

"Maybe facing my nemesis and learning that she wasn't out to get me has forced me to rethink a lot of things," the teenager admits.

Cadena works his way out to the maintenance dock, pausing occasionally to make sure he can hear the murmur of voices - but once satisfied that there's little danger of the particulars carrying all the way out here, he sets aside the cleaning for now and strolls over to observe Mr. Edwards at work. "You look right at home up there, sir! I commend your ability to make do with the oddest things."

"She's just.. in custody," Tracy notes. "I don't really care what she does anymore." She slouches in her chair a bit, and looks to the door where the men went. "But if I was wrong about her, and about Penny Arcadia, and Jason was wrong about the General.. then how can I not think we might be wrong about Jason Zero too? So.. please, don't do anything to him until we know for sure if he deserves it?"

Inari says, "That depends on what he does. Tracy, you do realize if he is as smart as our Jason, he is insanely deadly and dangerous and could probably kill us with an unseen boobytrap if we let down our guard for even a second?" The slim black-jumpsuited vixen eyes the teenager.

"You make do with what you have on hand. Necessity is the mother of invention; the father is laziness of course," Jason comments from halfway inside the machine. "Plus it helps pass the time when you're home on a Friday night without much to do or anyone to visit."

The golden vixen shakes her head. "He has his traps, but he won't kill." She looks Tracy in the eyes. "But can you say the same thing about Jason Zero? Wasn't there a little incident involving some explosives in the comm room?"

Cadena laughs heartily at Jason's comment. "Makes me sorry I never learned to be a proper handyman." He strolls over to the Capricorn motorbike, and glides a gloved hand over it, then takes another look, pulls out a cloth, and wipes a smudge off the finish. "This here bike is still in working order. I suppose once I get a chance, I'd like to make sure there's nothing untoward with this model. You know, like, being discontinued because of improper rad-shielding that made the riders grow an extra pair of legs." He taps on the "Fusion Power" logo on the engine casing, designed in such a way to make a warning label look more like a boast, in a nice PR spin. "If we have to take the low road, it seems like I've got some ability to ride rattling around in the back of my head. Sort of comes and goes, though. I have to concentrate on it. I guess on account of that sort of skill not getting much use in lands of floating islands and sky ships."

"I don't know what to think, is my point," Tracy says. "Maybe I'm just curious about him." She seems to be sinking into one of her funks again.

The girl blinks, then grins and rubs her nose. "So, you're the one teaching Jason weird new tongue-using habits, eh?" she notes with a grin.

Jason waves his arm out of the cavity he's half-submerged in, screwdriver in hand. "If it worked perfectly, where would be the fun? Half of enjoying something is getting a chance to figure out how it works and tinker on it; then improve it. It's ... gratifying to be able to say 'I built that'. Plus, it also usually means you appreciate it more." His arm and the screwdriver disappears back into the frame for a few seconds before he adds, "Besides, you often appreciate it more if you really worked for it instead of just bought it."

The golden vixen winks. "Or maybe I wanted to see what you tasted like. Chin up, you're a smart girl, I'm just reminding you, don't underestimate Jason's evil twin."

Inari laughs. "If he were, he would totally have turned you in for the bounty," she points out.

Cadena nods absently to Jason. "Right you are. Of course, makes it all the sadder if you have to part with it. But life's like that." He walks closer to where the techno-wizard is working. "Another thing I want to check on is the Palmdale vicinity. I know a little bit about some properties near 'Ground Zero,' but I haven't been in touch for years. Might be still on the market, might have been bought up by Dantech or Avatars LLC, might be abandoned - but if we're lucky, we could find a place to hole up in the area if everything goes south on us and we can't pull in divine favors to get a fast portal out of town."

Tracy nods. "He suggested it a few times," she admits. "I think he was just getting back at me for being a little flirty with him."

Jason tosses a ported cable out of the body of the robot. "There, that should work with your collar-thing and let you use the communication relay in this thing. "And you're suggesting we buy some land? Or basically squat on some?" he asks as he squirms himself back out of the machine he was tinkering on.

The golden vixen smoothes her neckfur down in the pretense of combing out her hair a bit and doing it up into a ponytail. "That's good, because I'd have words for someone if things ever got a little bit more than 'a little flirty'," she says pointedly.

The robot whirrs as Jason gets off, adjusting its stance to compensate for the shift in weight.

"I'm just a dumb teenager, remember," Tracy points out. "I don't know any better."

"Depends on what it's going for, and who has it," Cadena admits. "If it's inhabited or demolished, then that's right out, unless you're willing to hole up in one of the deluge-worn caves." He takes the end of the cable and takes a moment to try to find the direction connection on his K-9 collar, since he usually just deals with wireless. "All right. Think I've got it here. I hope."

The golden vixen smirks at Tracy. "I'm just reminding you which of us actually has claws, kitten." She gets up, tail floating behind her in a swoosh. "So are you actually thinking about whether Jason Zero can be reformed... If he just needs the love of a caring woman?" She drapes her arms around the teenager's shoulders this time.

"The worst that could happen is it fries your brain," Jason claims, straight-faced.

"I'm more concerned about what mind-games he might employ," Tracy claims, going a bit tense at the shoulder-drape. "I'm pretty insecure after all, and you've met my last boyfriend.."

"He was a bit of a mental case," Inari admits, whispering into Tracy's ear. "Which is why I wonder if you've got a taste for the 'bad boys'. The ones who just need a little changing."

"Hmm," Cadena muses, as he ponders Jason's warning. "Been there. Got the shirt. Here we go." He fires up the K-9 collar connection, and checks out the connection, then starts poking around, using the holo-screen interface. Any casual observer can see, however, that he's far from adept at modern computer information-collecting, as he's just checking publicly available sites, frequently referring to search engines to find the sites he's looking for.

"Maybe a little," Tracy admits. "And it's partly Jason's fault for the teasing, since he didn't warn me about the security cameras.."

The white dog-morph seemed to be closing in on a specific tract of land... But then a miskey sends him stumbling into a database of groundwater contamination and earthquake predictions!

Cadena shakes his head. "I guess the addresses aren't good anymore. Thanks for letting me try."

Jason rubs his hands over his face to try and mask the pain that wants to express itself from watching someone botch using such a simple thing. Finally, he just can't take it anymore. "What are you trying to look up?" he asks.

"Not important." Cadena closes the session. "I suppose I could try sending a message to Ms. Arcadia to see if she got the package, but I might just blow everything to Perdition at this rate. Maybe I just need some rest." He reaches up as if to rub his head, but hits the helmet instead. "It's been ... it's been a day."

Inari tucks a coldwetnose into Tracy's ear. "This is your wakeup call, Miss Trudeau," she says pleasantly.

Tracy jumps at the nose. "What? What's that mean?" she asks nervously. "Is that like the kiss of death? Nose of death?"

"Well, let's say, just for the sake of argument," Cadena drawls, "you happen to remember a few houses that used to be next to the Avatars facility where you were holed up for several years - the first years of your unnatural-born life - and then you go and do a simple Google search on the address, and it AIN'T THERE, never was, and such forth. It either means, first, you can't be trusted with these 'newfangled computer thingies' without hurting someone, second that you can't trust your own recollection and maybe it was all just part of your deluded imaginings and calls into question whether any of it was real, or third, that you just can't get your act together, which is plenty humiliating in its own way. Not a one of those prospects puts me in much of a good mood, sir."

The golden vixen shakes her head. "No, but I wanted to get your attention. Sweetie, think back to your old boyfriend, Mark. Wasn't he always telling you that you needed to change to be what he wanted?"

"I'm not sure Mark ever saw me as I really was in the first place," Tracy notes and frowns a bit. "I sure didn't think he needed me so strongly. Too bad Cadena is crazy too, otherwise he's the nicest guy I've known."

"Street names change, industrial parks are built, so on and so forth. You're reading too much into being unable to locate a couple addresses," Jason points out. "As for the 'newfangled things' you just have to take time to learn them; read a manual, that sort of thing. You aren't just 'born with knowledge' after all. Getting frustrated and giving up is the easy way out. You should channel that into deciding to beat it instead of letting it win." After all that is said, Jason's brow does a little dance. "Hook up that link again, please. I want to check something," he requests.

"Of course, you're right," Cadena says, sighing. "Please pardon me. Everything's so confounded ... murky sometimes." He disconnects the K-9 collar and sets it on a table before hooking it back up, so as to spare them both the awkwardness of leaning in close to try to see a holo-screen projected in front of Cadena's face.

Jason taps the side of his head for a moment for whatever reason. "Give me a second, I want to check some patterns," he remarks as he plops his butt on the edge of the table that supports the collar.

Cadena steps back, giving him space to work. He stands over next to the motorcycle and watches curiously.

In the break room, Inari explains to Tracy, "Would you have wanted to change for Mark's sake?"

Weird spectrometric data spirals up from the holoscreen, moving in oscillating patterns. Cryptic abbreviations and acronyms speckle the charts here and there.

"No," Tracy says. "I was just in the dumps and wanted someone to agree with all the feelings of worthlessness I had. Then I got better and Mark was still Mark so.. I broke it off."

"Well now!" Cadena says, looking confounded. "There you have to go and make it look so ... easy!"

"Well, I have some good news and bad news," Jason says, "And unfortunately which aspect is good and which aspect is bad is ... probably dependant on which way you were hoping it to go. And ... well, if you really want answers about yourself or not."

"I think you've gone and lost me now," Cadena admits to Jason. "So if you could just try reeling it out slow, I'll try to figure out what's good, what's not, and what's middling."

Inari points out, "Then why do you expect Jason Zero to be happy with your efforts to change him? What if he enjoys exploding things?"

"What makes you think I'd be trying to change him?" Tracy asks. "I just don't want to hurt someone without all the evidence."

"To quote an old story about a wooden doll that became real," Jason remarks, "You're a real boy, not an artificial construct. Well, you could be a girl, I guess. Hard to tell that from just neural patterns and we don't have any normal women around here to cross-reference."

Inari smirks. "Well, all right then," she says, taking the teenager at her word. "But I've already given him all the chances I want to give him. And from what we've learned so far, we're playing with high stakes here."

"Careful, Mr. Edwards," Cadena says in a mock chiding tone. "Tracy might be listening in. You could hurt her feelings. But please, do go on."

"So.. any preferred method of cross-country travel?" Tracy asks Inari next. "Do you think we should try to sneak into the General's airlift?"

"Either you once had a fetish for motorcycles or maybe it's leaking radiation and warping your brain, but whatever the cause is being in here around it is causing what looks like an original pattern to appear in that odd brain of yours. The base pattern. I can actually make out what are the NPC Cadena aspects; they all follow a specific pattern that has to do with environmental reactions. The baseline pattern is more, well, organic. Or put another way, the main track of the song that is you is on the center chanel and all the little chorus bits the producers add on have been attenuated."

"Mmm-hmm. And ... you got all that from me punching in keys on my holo-screen?" Cadena asks. "Or did you sneak some sort of neural capability into my K-9 collar when I wasn't looking? If so, well played! Didn't see that one coming."

"The device is synced to you and it monitors your vitals," Jason points out. "How do you think it knows if you're hurt, other than a spike in brain activity and hormone levels? There is also the matter of the NPC patterns; it has to get data from somewhere. I'm not digging into your brain here, I'm just looking at the electrical patterns. I kind of have experience in this." He thumbs back towards the room where Tracy and Inari are.

Inari shrugs. "I'm not too particular... Though I do want to avoid public airports if we can help it," she admits.

Cadena's body posture eases up a bit. "All right. I can't say as I ever got too acquainted with the nuts and bolts of that gizmo. So ... where does that put us, then? And if you're good at finding stuff, maybe I should just give the addresses to you and see if you can find a better angle on what happened to them? Of course, it could still be barking up the wrong tree."

"Beyond maybe creating a virtual bridge-world for creating portals, I don't have any other resources to put towards transportation," Tracy notes, pursing her lips. "Do you even have enough mojo left to disguise yourself?"

The news reporter changes to another subject. "UNE announced today that construction has been completed on all installations of their new Zeus Weather Administration Program. While environmentalist groups around the globe have brought various lawsuits against them, charging them with intent to manipulate the weather for profit and sabotage corporate rivals by engineering disasters, their spokesman appeared at a news conference to assure the public that the risks of calamities were incredibly low, and should an issue arise, aircrafts around the world are standing by with radical weather alignment devices on board, ready to deploy."

Inari nods. "I should be able to manage, though I won't be able to do more than disguise myself," the vixen says, getting up to let Tracy have her personal space back.

"And to try to clarify it a little more. I doubt you know much about signal theory ... so I'll explain. When data is transmitted it is actually composed of two parts: The data stream and the carrier signal. The carrier signal is usually some sort of sinusoidal wave at a specific frequency. It is that frequency you tune to when you adjust to a 'station'. The amount of data that can be carried on it is then dependant of the band around that carrier wave that is dedicated to be the data channel. Anyway, basically at this moment I have actually been able to lock onto your original pattern because your personal carrier waveform is more pronounced right now. It's also allowed me to identify the second carrier wave, that which is the NPC Cadena personality. I can basically see your overlap. Kind of like the whole Inari and Akiko overlap from back when," Jason rambles on. "And maybe the addresses you remember are the places you used to live before, well, you became what you are now. Which

Which would also imply that perhaps they were deliberately built-over/erased to hide what happened. Anyway, it wouldn't hurt to check."

"I don't think we have a lot of time to figure out another mode of transportation," Tracy admits, glaring at the news report. "We've got armor and stuff, but it's all Eagle Security branded. I have faked the Irongrip logo before though.."

"Is there any way to ... suppress this 'second carrier wave'? Make sure it doesn't mess with me anymore?" Cadena asks, measuredly. "I mean, you said it's just this 'NPC' personality, so it's nothing real, right?"

"Real is a very subjective thing," Jason notes and thumbs at the dragon on his shoulder. "It's more a question of who you want to be; what you are now, what you were, or something else."

"Well," Cadena says, "that's a big question. I think I've got a few ideas, but it's hard to reconcile it with me ... well ... looking like a dog. I think it might complicate things, even, when we've got a lot on our minds. Maybe we ought to just keep this thing between you and me for now. I mean, Tracy, she's a nice kid. I think she might be at least a little attached to that talking pet dog. I wouldn't want to give her something new to stress out over."

Inari smirks. "Well, if you want to get there quickly, portals might work better... It still takes an hour or two to fly across the States on a personal jet."

"On the other hand, traveling in armed company might be nice if we're going to face some heavy opposition," the vixen points out.

"It also takes us directly where we want to be.. I think," Tracy notes. "Do we want to be right in the middle of things? We still don't really know what's supposed to happen, do we?"

"Well, there is nothing inherently bad with looking like a dog," Jason notes. "Trappings do not completely define you. But in any event, all right, I won't mention it to her. Not even if she does something to really annoy me."

"Well now! I'd hope your decision-making processes wouldn't depend on that!" Cadena laughs good-naturedly. "I'll try not to get on your bad side, either. Now then..."

"We should probably get back and finish planning before the two start doing each other's hair," Jason notes. "Unless you really want me to look up those addresses still."

Cadena reconsiders. "No ... no, I get the feeling they're probably bulldozed and gone by now. First the deluge, then a plague of monsters ... Palmdale has had more than its share of apocalypses. I can't expect much to stay unchanged. You're right - we should get back to the others. Miss Tracy might have use for the connection - and even though I've got a feeling Palmsdale is our next stop, I can't honestly say as I have the slightest idea what we're supposed to do when we get there, unless Dantech has some conveniently centralized infernal contraption, just waiting for us to blow up and save the world."

Inari shrugs. "In the middle of things is where I generally prefer to be," she says with a smirk. "But it seems to bother Jason... Especially if there's shooting involved."

"Only when you aren't the one doing the shooting I bet," Tracy claims with a smirk.

Jason pushes himself off the table. "When do we ever know what is going on?" he points out as he heads back towards the 'dining room'.

The golden vixen points out, "If I'm shooting something... There's usually something shooting back." Her ears perk up. "It sounds like they're on their way back."

Inari laughs, so when the doors swing open, it sounds like the two women have been comparing notes on the men.

"I don't want to know," Jason remarks rather dryly. "The lookups were not terribly useful, so I hpe you two did more productive things ... or at least decided which route you want to take to cross the country? The simplest way is probably hitching a ride with the General."

Cadena pauses a moment in the doorway, casting a look to Tracy as if to check for the all-clear before entering.

"Yes. Do you happen to know what model of air transport Irongrip will be using?" Tracy asks.

The girl waves to Cadena as if he'd been gone for ages and she's welcoming him back.

"V-12 VTOL Valkyries for troups and a ES-4070 VTOL Eagle Security Transport for the big stuff. Not luxury liners by any stretch of the imagination," Jason answers as he walks back to his chair and flops into it.

Cadena takes that as his cue, and returns to packing, organizing, and cleaning up. "When we're clear to leave, I'm going to run the compactor on any waste we leave behind. It won't be proof against forensics picking up on the fact that we've been here, but it should at least slow down any casual discoveries that might put word of our whereabouts on networks where government-connected entities could get highlights of our whereabouts."

Tracy opens her chip wallet and pulls her VR model database, which she then plugs into her bracer. "Okay, I'm guessing we want whichever gives us the best privacy.. so probably the cargo transport right?"

"So ... are you suggesting we crate the canids?" Jason asks, amused. "And yes, the cargo transport would probably have less prying eyes.

A holo representation of the aircraft appears above Tracy's wrist. With a few gestures of her other hand, Tracy changes it to a semi-transparent exploded view.

"Ah!" Cadena remarks. "So, we're abandoning the portal plan? Just as well. They're bound to have a way to get a bearing on such things by now." He meticulously goes around the room with all the care of investigating a crime scene (and methodically scrubbing away the evidence).

"Well, if I can talk to HECATE, I can see about having a portal-based escape route set up," Tracy notes. "Once Jason changes the IFF transponders in the Eagle armor we've got here to Irongrip IDs, we should be safe from being noticed in the bustle - and I think it keeps their guns from shooting at us too, if there's a Friendly Fire failsafe in them."

Inari comments, "We'd have to cut a hole in the back of one of the armor suits to fit my tail in. I am not doing a whole continental flight with my tail stuffed in my pantleg."

"Note to self, forget to change Tracy's," Jason faux-whispers. "I guess I need to pack up things too, and decide on what tools to bring and what to work on during the flight." He pauses that comment only to ask another question, "What's wrong with your tail stuffed down a pantleg?"

"Backpacks," Tracy suggests. "Your tail can go out and up into your backpack okay, can't it?"

The golden vixen looks skeptical. "And when I have to take it off for the flight?"

"By then we should be the only ones in the cargo bay. Which probably won't be pressurized.. so we should bring respirators and stuff," Tracy notes.

"I'll make my camp in a barrel if I have to," Cadena says soberly. "I'm fine with breathing canned air for the duration. Just don't lose me in the luggage."

"We've already tested your ability to pass as human in armor though, Cadena," Tracy points out. "Nobody suspected you were a bipedal talking dog."

Snapping her fingers, Tracy says to Jason, "Oh! Can't you find out if any Irongrip officers collect vintage motorcycles?"

"I appreciate your confidence in me," Cadena says kindly, "but at the construction site, I didn't have to sit down, and I wasn't in a cabin for a couple of hours. Keeping my mask on for no good reason would practically scream, 'I've got something to hide!'"

"We could be a special squad escorting his favorite atomic-powered motorcycle that he likes to ride into battle," Tracy suggests.

Cadena shakes his head. "Much obliged for the sporting try, but we need to travel light. If the bike presents any more uncomfortable questions to answer, it's more hazard than help to us."

"But wouldn't a grunt believe an officer is crazy enough to do that?" Tracy asks.

"I can just have Mister Stompy sit on it and protect it like it's his egg," Jason suggests.

The news reporter leans forward. "Federal investigators continue to be perplexed as the Palmdale Murders continue, now on its twentieth reported death. Victims, usually in outdoor environments but sometimes indoors and in one memorable case, within a locked and sealed office complex after hours, have been found mutilated and even partially eaten. Thus far the only traces of the murders have been piles of black goo, which some agents theorize are the remnants of some experimental advanced nanotech weapon, designed to shut down after use. What perplexes officers is that there is thus far no evidence of any connection between the victims, despite the highly advanced nature of such a weapon."

"Well.. you guys come up with a cover story then," Tracy notes. "We've got a sneak suit, a pale skinny dude and two soldiers with tails.."

"Aww," and then Cadena says something muffled that sounds vaguely not-nice. He walks over to turn the volume up. "Fellows, we've got something here."

Inari shakes her head. "If you intend to ride along with General Irongrip, perhaps it would be best to call him and let him know to expect us," she points out. "He seemed to be in some haste to get the expedition together."

"I'll go make the call then," Jason notes and heabs back into the main bat to use the rigged comm system to do just that.

"Something is leaking portals and letting monsters get through, it sounds like," Tracy says of the news report.

The news report cuts away to a map of the incidents. The attacks appear roughly clustered in the area surrounding the Palmdale Weapons Testing Ground, which appears as a 'nature reserve'. The surrounding tracts are marked 'Private Property'.

"Does this have broadcast capture? Who's got the control?" Cadena fumbles about, trying to find a remote.

"Little dragony-critter! Can you record that map?" Cadena calls out to RIU desperately.

RIU beeps distracted from following Jason into the other room! It sounds as if Jason's managed to get through to the General, however.

"No, wait, what'm I thinking?" Cadena suddenly thinks. "If I record with the device, I'm just going to leave an electronic clue as to what I was interested in, and maybe where we were going." He gives up on finding a way to record the broadcast, and just watches the rest of the story play out, even the gratuitous interviews and commentary that don't really add much to the report.

"What's so special about those areas?" Tracy asks. "It's all part of the Rupture Zone isn't it?"

A plain looking woman, elderly around the temples with long brown hair done up at the sides into buns, in a farm dress, addresses the reporter. "It was terrible! I drove up to the ranch and knocked on the door, and when he didn't answer, I looked inside to find his body. His body! We were going to be married..." She bursts into tears.

"I wonder if the official cover-up will claim an outbreak of flesh-eating bacteria or Spontaneous Human Digestion," Tracy mutters.

Inari smirks. "Faulty Amaranth implants," she theorizes. "The devices gain sentience and cut their own way out."

"I wonder.." Tracy says quietly. "When you're in VR, and you eat VR food, it gradually replaces your real matter with virtual matter, right? What if some VR creatures figure they can do the same thing by eating real people to become more stable in our reality?"

Inari shivers. "What a terrible thought! But the average virtual creature wouldn't last that long," she points out. "Unless you think those piles of goo are bits dropping off, replaced by 'real' matter."

"Why is it happening again at all though?" Tracy asks. "WHITE and BLACK are both gone, so who is driving the Convergence? It is some sort of echo effect because of what happened at the Avatars building?"

"If we could find out where that 'closed-room' murder happened," Cadena ponders, "we could narrow down one of the weak points ... but then, I don't know if that'll do us any good, since lightning might not strike twice ... and I don't have those ... er ... portal-finding powers here."

"We don't know where those portals would go though," Tracy points out. "Maybe there are Light zone ones.."

Jason finally returns from the other room. "Transport arranged. We have an hour, no more than two, to get there. We'll also have the option of 'stealing' an armored transport and explosives if we want. Heheheh," he declares.

"And it is pressurized, so we don't have to endure the horror of seeing Tracy in a scuba mask," Jason adds.

"All right. I'll round up my equipment and some rations for the trip," Cadena says. "If someone could wipe the security footage here, I'd be much obliged; I wouldn't trust myself with the controls."

"I'll replace with videos of Tracy crying inside her sneaksuit," Jason promises.

"See, they're both evil," Tracy whispers to Inari, before getting up to help pack.

The news reporter cuts out in mid-feed. The screen switches to display a simple (in Jason's view) programmed countdown. When the countdown elapses, the systems will complete their wipe and reboot, good as new from the factory.

About mid-way through packing, Cadena bangs his helmet melodramatically against a wall for no particularly good reason ... but then stops right as soon as Tracy walks in, and feigns just having been clumsy. Oops.

"Are you okay, Cadena?" Tracy asks. "Did you find out what you wanted to, assuming Jason got you your data link?"

"Aw, I'm just fine as I've ever been, Miss Tracy," Cadena says, trying to sound cheerful. "Just right as rain. Don't worry yourself over it. We've got a coach to catch. California, here we come!"

"I expect you to behave yourself around all those weapons of destruction, body armor, and the dangers ahead, Inari," Jason remarks as he goes to pack up his stuff (again). "Otherwise ... you might traumatize Tracy! Or the interior of the armored transport ..." That last bit was added right as he fled the room to pack.