"No reason to be sorry. I understand perfectly. But I do have a question for you, if you had to choose between the life of one child or the well being of many which would you choose? As for death being death, thats all it is. It's not like I haven't died before." Build said towards the Ryatt unit.
"On to our current business, I put in my vote for gathering our information on the way to our destination," Build said the rest to the rest of those assembled.
I do not know my reasons for posting, but post I must. ~~Build
"We can't stop here, this is bat country."
--Johnny Depp
"I ain't bi-curious, I'm a man. Why do you think I'm wearing this tight spandex and got all these muscles?" Meatwad
Ryat99's reply was simple.
"I'd do my very best for both. It's a fool that believes there's only that one choice in such a situation."
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
Dr. Phillis nodded, more than a bit relieved to hear that these were actually scientists who think things through. The last thing he wanted was to be the only sane person in a convention of madmen. That seemed to happen all too often when dealing with those who actually labeled themselves as heroes and villains as though a title can accurately portray what is truly right and wrong. There was an inherent good and evil in every act, but there were limits Dr. Phillis wasnt willing to cross, and so he refused to call himself either. He had simply said Villain to the assembly because he was too hurried to explain himself and get into the inevitable argument, which seemed to be occurring.
He sighed deeply. To think he could be doing some mundane experiment at home instead of getting a headache here.
In a small attempt to derail the conversation, the doctor spoke up. I can easily supply scouting Phillisbots to investigate and send a direct feed back to us, given permission from West. The distance is no object as long as I have a location. The Grigoris base can transport them there in an instant, and tracking them back will be nigh impossible, considering Haven is contained in a foreign plane of existence. The robots have no minds, obviously, and thus cannot be controlled by our anonymous adversary, one threat we cannot rule out when it comes to sending human troops. I dont mind losing a few scouts for our greater good, but as of yet dont think my armies are behind this operation.
As I have already stated, there is still skepticism around the source of this information, and starting a brawl between ourselves over whether the line between morality and depravity is thick or thin would be an unwise choice at best. We all know each of uses different methods to reach our differing goals; otherwise we would not have been called here. Comprehending the fact is easy, accepting the fact can be just as simple if youll push your egos aside for one damned operation that could possibly save the world, one that millions of lives could possibly depend on. Even your own livelihood could very possibly be in danger at the moment, so Im going to, for once, ignore the obvious unadmirable qualities of the lot of you and do my best for the people I one day plan to bring salvation to. I suggest you do the same.
There are many hypothesizes here, all of them well put together and plausible. It would serve us best to compile our collective data into a list of possibilities to keep readily available for all of us. This way, as we gain more data and make more observations, we can eliminate and add more as needed until we reach the most likely reason.
"Okay so lets get the facts down. We have some unknown power manipulating minds and creating meta class 'soldiers'. This power is operating in secret so information will be difficult at best to gather. Finally, we may have to act soon on principle to belay this blokes agenda." Build said counting off the things he listed on his right hand.
I do not know my reasons for posting, but post I must. ~~Build
"We can't stop here, this is bat country."
--Johnny Depp
"I ain't bi-curious, I'm a man. Why do you think I'm wearing this tight spandex and got all these muscles?" Meatwad
Something suddenly hit Klaus. "Vait a second, but vere did zis information come from?" The look on the German's face was of great curiosity. "Videos of madmen testing zeir super soldiers don't just get put on YouTube."
Years of mistrust suddenly came flooding back into his mind. Klaus may have had his misgivings about the meeting before, but something in the back of his mind was making him reconsider coming here. Maybe it was just an irrational fear, but Klaus had to consider the circumstances. If M were to try reading Klaus's mind right about now he'd find it as mixed up and confusing as the codes for programming Windows Vista.
"Is zere somesing you haven't been telling us Doctor Vest?"
West chuckled at Klaus a little.
"The field isn't entirely from my line of study, you see."
Nessie piped up from the front. "What Ocky means t'say is that th' Russian military found out 'bout 'is Rogueside days an' blackmailed 'im into doin' their KGB dirty work. Ye can thank me later, Ocky."
Daniel facepalmed. "Yes, thank you, Vanessa, for putting it so...succinctly. Regardless, let us say since the experiments in Siberia I have kept a special eye on the area."
Standing at the podium, he made a sort of 'settle down' motion with his hands.
"Listen to each other. I have said it before and I have said it again, I did -not- bring you here as heroes and villains, but as men of science."
"A-HEM, lad."
"...And women, yes."
"Thank ye."
"Regardless, I am glad that all of you are thinking of valid concerns. Vern, M, I have transports, but sadly they are small and would not suit our needs properly. If we could utilize a ship from you I would be in your debt. Dr. Phillis, the surveillance robots are a capital idea."
West stroked his chin. "This is certainly a classic situation - brains versus brawn, and all that. However, the 'brawn' has something we have yet to understand fully, and...well, we have a little brawn of ourselves to command."
Daniel smiled a little from behind the podium. "I look forward to working in conjunction with every one of you." he said, bowing his head a little. "Perhaps I have been around the S-6 unit for too long, but I am really starting to enjoy the times when people stop arguing for long enough to get along."
Essex, in the meantime, was quite occupied with Felix. "You're such a cute little fellow." she cooed, hugging it affectionately.
Japancakes.
Art - Theme 005 - Seeking Solace
Toy Dispenser was a wee bit out of his element. And he knew that. Sure he was extremely intelligent, he was a mastermind-class android after all, but his brilliance did not easily extend itself into the realm of true science. Sure he was practically an expert on all things AI, sure he was very competent around a machine shop, but he hadn't been made to heavily analyze things and regardless of how much he had changed since he was created, he still carried around that "Do, not say" mentality. That said he was also a mercenary, one who was very used to operating by himself but with the vast majority of the information supplied by his employer. The fact that he and his 'team' had to do most of the legwork unsettled him. But he would have been a poor android if he hadn't thought of such contingencies beforehand.
"Dr. Phillis," Toy said, addressing the man as he turned around in his seat to look at him. "Are your Phillisbots prepared for such scouting? I'm sure that you have dedicated scout variations for just such a purpose, but reports I've read on your technology leads me to believe that I may have something that would work better.
"I'm sorry if I sound disparaging," Toy said as he hopped over the seats to sit down next to Midas. "But my line of work encourages me to make extremely specialized models for certain tasks. Such as my Stickmen."
Toy flipped open the panel on his left wrist and tapped a few keys, causing a small holographic image of an extremely thin robot to appear in the air. Curiously enough, the robot looked almost exactly like M did. Or at least M's current form, if he was who Toy thought he was.
"The beginning of a new line of combat droids I've been working on for the last little while," Toy said as he punched up specifications of the robot. "The Stickmen are equipped with a unique system that keeps them permenantly phase shifted, much like the ability that some metahumans have. The only weakness of that system is the fact that gravity would normally drag the Stickmen down into the center of the planet, which is prevented by a single molecule wide, virtually indestructable, slip of metal located on their feet. It's undectable to the naked eye and shows up as a mere anamoly on most sensors. Furthermore, the Stickmen are equipped with an unbreakable, undetectable link-up to my HQ, allowing them to transmit everything they see or hear as long as they remain in contact. It can only be one or the other, though, which is I deploy them in pairs."
Throughout his explanation, Toy made sure to talk just loud enough to get everyone's attention. If he couldn't help much with the hypotheses floating around then at least he could offer up what he was good at. It also didn't hurt that he enjoyed showing off every now and then.
*************************************
In response to the construction orders, the manufactory revved up and began constructing a pair of Stickmen recconasaince droids. It would take half an hour for them to finish making the pair, as all of the parts had to be highly miniaturized, and then the droids would not be activated until they had been deployed to where they were needed. The limit of the phase shift system was that once started it could never be turned off until all power was drained from the Stickman. This drain, combined with moving about and transmitting information, gave each Stickman a life of 45 minutes at the most. Upon shutdown, miniscule charges throughout the droid's body would ignite, melting the whole thing down to slag as it shifted back into the material world for the first, and last, time.
The Stickmen had been used several times before and Toy had been quite pleased with their usefulness. He had never sent them on such a task as this, however, and the data of their success or failure would be well recieved either way.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
"Those look like they'd suit the occasion perfectly, Toy." Jake said, looking upon the hologram with a bit of intrigue. "If you don't mind my asking, what exactly is the molecule-wide metal made of?" Jake seemed to be asking out of pure curiosity, and if one could detect his motives right now, they'd notice that it was for nothing but the sake of knowledge.
A vein in Dr. Philliss forehead seemed to pulse as toy explained his own inventions. He clenched his left hand into a fist. He pushed his blast goggles onto his forehead and looked Toy up and down, examining the mercenary with irritated interest. He was obviously bothered, but his mind was racing as well.
The scouts seem ingenious. He replied with what was obviously forced politeness. Though Im interested to know what powers something to stay phase shifted for the entirety of its existence. Could we rely on it for a long surveillance, or would they need to recharge often? Though, that seems impossible if they always remain untouchable
.. Perhaps it would be best for the both of us to send our scouts down, this way we could not only assure that we have the best option chosen, but we could perhaps gather more data through our differing methods.
In a quieter voice, he quickly added. And perhaps we can even have a
friendly competition between ourselves to see whose models are superior.
Igor shrugged. It was normal for him to be ignored when he offered help. He was an Igor, there to serve and to listen and not much else.
He shuffled out the door again. Might as well do something moderately productive.
"A composite of impervium and orichalcum," Toy said in response to Jake's question. "I was able to convince an archmage that I know to render a small supply of the metal maleable through non-magical means."
"You have indeed hit upon the greatest limit of the Stickmen," Toy said, turning back to Dr. Phillis. "The longest amount of time they can remain active is 45 minutes, at which point they self-destruct as they phase back into the real world. I do have versions that are capable of being recharged but considering the target's location, I've ruled those versions out."
Lowering his voice as well, Toy added something more. "I would be quite willing to do that as long as we coordinate our minions in such a fashion so that they don't interfere with one anothers' work. My only concern with sending two groups of scouts is that it raises their chances of being discovered and I'm fairly certain any mission we undertake would be much easier if the enemy was unaware they had been found out."
**********************************
"Where the hell're you going?" asked Solid of Igor as the blaster followed the surgeon out.
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
"I think he's going to call his sister, Igor," Ryat99 intoned to the combat droid's back.
"Sister?" Sheldon asked, then shrugged before leaning near Essex, "If you think he's cute, Katie would probably make you blow a fuse."
Felix grunted a little at Sheldon. It was derisive and agitated. Sheldon chuckled and gave the little mutant a pat on the head. Felix "smiled" and made a happy whine before nuzzling Essex's cheek.
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
West seemed to be thinking about the logistics of transportation.
"...Vanessa's the one whose surveillance picked this up in conjunction with my own." he murmured thoughtfully. "She would know more exact coordinates than I."
Piping up, Nessie regarded Vern. "Aye, we could very well take th' train. Th' Russians are always shippin' scientists out there anyway, so another batch will nae seem so suspicious."
To Midas and Toy, she barked a laugh. "Well, if ye two lads have Scissors and Paper covered, I've got rock. We could use all th' surveillance we could get to give us th' best picture o' what to do. If ye both want to send in somethin', I can send a distraction their way - a bot model a li'l outside their border with a scrambled GPS signal. It'll cause such a fuss, they'll nae even notice surveillance bots. 'Specially if I dinna put any surveillance equipment in me own."
Leaning forward in her seat, the woman let loose another jagged grin. "An' this looks like a grassroots movement t' an extent - well, ice-tundra, as it's in Siberia. If I plant a wee bit o' false information about an 'idden weapons cache, we can even get some o' them out of th' way for th' moment."
Essex looked up at Sheldon, wide-eyed. "Katie? Who's that?" As Felix grunted, she chuckled a little in false admonishment. "Oh, don't get jealous." she cooed as she nuzzled it back. "It doesn't suit you, little guy."
Japancakes.
Art - Theme 005 - Seeking Solace
"Katie's a smaller, cuter version of Felix, based off mouse DNA and the same genetic alteration formula I used to make Felix, who was originally a gerbil," Sheldon chuckled, "Also... Doctor Vanessa? If that is the method you propose to gain internal surveillance of the site, I'd be willing to volunteer. I have some, unfortunately involuntary, experience with such work, and it would be a dereliction of my duties if I were to let this go without offering my support or experience."
"I could probably help the other effort," Ryat99 volunteered, "Perhaps in scout recovery, in case things hit the fan, or, in all surveillance attempts, with data sifting. My multiple processors and synaptic transistors run parallel, almost like a human brain, and it enables me to multi-task efficiently, superbly so. Just plug me into a monitor, and I can relay various bits of information at alternating speeds for your perusal. Huh... I'm feeling more useful by the minute."
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.
"It's a pity the only drones I make are infiltration and battle drones. . . then again if things go south I may get a chance to use them," Build mumbled under his breath.
"I may be able to help with processing the information. This place have WIFI or atleast an interdimensional knowledge base I can run through to hook into the DWC mainframe?" Build asked to West.
I do not know my reasons for posting, but post I must. ~~Build
"We can't stop here, this is bat country."
--Johnny Depp
"I ain't bi-curious, I'm a man. Why do you think I'm wearing this tight spandex and got all these muscles?" Meatwad
"I'm going to fikth the Rocket Carriage." Igor said in a calmy voice as he stepped through the portal. "Altho get a few more gumbo-headth up."
"Blargh." Said half a dozen Arachnos corpses as Igor passed by.
"Although, ith there anything I can do for you? Do you require athithtance in any matter? Ith there thome materialth or thomething elth you need? Thall I get thome doomthday devith componenth? Do you need any thpare parth for a ten thtory tall mechanical monthtrothity? Maybe thome mobile rapid-fire artillery? A back-pack ICBM mithile? I livth to thervth, mathter."
"Yeah, it's me." M answered Toy's unspoken question with a short glance to the robotic mastermind, "Didn't I say that? Hm, guess not. My bad."
"Not sure about you guys," Vern picked at the plans being laid out, "but I for one would prefer if our friends had no clue anyone was on to them until the last possible moment. I can't say I'm fond of anything that would cause them to take note, especially a mechanoid. Don't exactly find those running wild in Siberia, ya know?"
"I have to agree." M added, the spindly mechanoid standing up from its seat, "Never underestimate the enemy. They may be only human, but until we know for sure what they can and can't do, I'm going to give them every trick in the book, just in case."
"That much might not be warranted." the Krayten considered, but fell in with his friend nevertheless, "Still, if we're just nice and careful, we should be able to manage not drawing any attention quite well."
Figuring any inquiry to Toy Dispenser about his covert methods superfluous (the mechanoid probably knew how to run an observation op better than most here), he then turned to West and Eirene, "Scientific expedition I can do no problem. I've even still got a model on file. If all the rails are still there where I remember, we should be able to get reasonably close without raising any suspicions at all."
"I've already sent word to the Labtower's mainframe." M informed them, "It's making the conversions as we speak - and it's good. Very good. I dare say that even if it's boarded, nobody will have a clue that train isn't what it's going to look like."
"So now that just leaves one question." Vern finished up, "Everyone good with going by teleport or should I have M call a ship...?"
"If I had Force powers, vacuum or not my cape/clothes/hair would always be blowing in the Dramatic Wind." - Tenzhi
Characters
[ QUOTE ]
"Blargh." Said half a dozen Arachnos corpses as Igor passed by.
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
He looked back at the group of soldiers he had, counting three Crab Spiders, five Bane Spiders and roughly ten Wolf Spiders.
[/ QUOTE ]
((Just making sure, but is that to imply that I still have 2/3 of my Arachnos forces left?))
((I'm implying that half a dozen OF THE ZOMBIES THAT ARE THERE said 'Blargh.' But it is very possible some of the troops may have run off after they figured out that the members of the party who kept going missing when nobody was looking wern't going to come back.))
((Ah, alright then.))
I prefer portal travel to teleportation, but I will do what I must to get this over with. Dr. Phillis said, but his tone said that he was clearly not done speaking. A small smile spread across his lips, pulling gently on the two scars that marred his face. His hands were no longer clenched, but his fingers were twitching rapidly with a mind of their own.
Whos to say that there arent mechanoids running around Siberia? the genius asked fiendishly. While we might not want our unsuspecting foes to think theyre under attack, we could distract them in another way. Surely Siberia can be the home of more than one organization that demands secrecy? What if a neighbors experiment were to, say, go berserk and rampage, murdering its creators and going on a mad killing spree? It isnt as though it has never happened. We could simply disguise a mech as a nearby organizations model and send it out as a distraction.
Of course, that could mean extra guards either way. The base could think they could be under attack. Perhaps we could find data on nearby groups of undesirables, maybe even kidnap a few of the troops to be chased and killed by our disguised creation? With the guard distracted, perhaps with even more of this enemys troops running out of the base to reinforce, surely several survielance bots could slip through and collect data?
Yes, it could raise suspicion, but by the time it can be brought into account, will we not already have what we need? Id think wed be sorely underestimating our opponent to the point of foolishness if we were to believe any of us can stay under their radar without the proper scenario to do so. With the amazing abilities weve already seen the test subjects in the video possess, it doesnt seem likely even our near perfect models could get through undetected.
The genius rubbed his hands together absentmindedly, not even realizing his stereotypical movement. And, of course, Id be more than happy to assist in perfecting our model. Ive been working on a magnetic gyro defense system that Id love to implement and test in the field. And, of course, the rampaging mechanoid could allow us to see the true combat abilities of our enemy.
"Well if it's a mechanoid you need I have one named Decoy that is handy in these situations. Give him a trigger, wind him up, and let the bot go. He's a patchwork between Clockwork and Malta. So it should be fun to see what it'll do to Siberia." Build said looking around at Dr. Phillis with a grin.
He dropped a wink and added, "Then again we could always kidnap one of Paragon's own big nasties. All we would need is a stasis feild and a quick method of transport."
I do not know my reasons for posting, but post I must. ~~Build
"We can't stop here, this is bat country."
--Johnny Depp
"I ain't bi-curious, I'm a man. Why do you think I'm wearing this tight spandex and got all these muscles?" Meatwad
Experiment was aghast.
Killing people was not in the job description- And he damn well said so. "I don't see killing people as necessary, Phillis- I'd understand if there were no other way, but we've hardly planned beyond scout 'bots. Could we keep the mortality rate of BOTH sides as low as possible," 2.0 sighed, "At least for now?"
Experiment 2.0 hated the idea of killing, not only of innocent citizens, but of the enemy if it could be avoided. So far, this didn't sound like killing would even be needed at this point, so he preferred the 'let everyone live, just capture' mentality.
Hence the reason his spikes were usually coated in a knock-out poison instead of a lethal one.
"Hmmm... Where in Siberia is this base, Dr. West?" Toy asked as he shut his wrist panel, shutting off the small hologram. "An ally of mine may or may not be close enough to them for us to simply borrow the usage of his teleporters. And since he uses those teleporters frequently to get his men to his base and ours I think the target would be used to the energy discharges by now, if they even detect them."
"Why don't we give the name already?" asked Solid Shot as he walked back into the room. "Call them the Thralls or Bionic Men or something. This 'target' b.s. is kind of annoying."
Statesman said let there be heroes, and there were heroes.
Lord Recluse said let there be villains, and there were villains.
NCsoft said let there be nothing, and there was nothing.
Sheldon sighed as the age-old strife between heroes and villains waged yet again. It bothered him slightly that some of the greatest minds in the world (likely not the best, but then, the best didn't bother with more mundane things like keeping fit and beating up thugs and punks) couldn't get past an imaginary dividing line between "right" and "wrong."
"Why can't they just figure out that it's alignment by degrees?" he thought sourly, "If a person's good deeds outweigh his bad, then history remembers them fondly. bad deeds just carry more weight than good deeds. What the hell was Felix doing in my trench coat? Why's he hanging out with that girl-shaped android?"
Ryat99 turned to Build.
"The act itself is not the significance. Death is death. It's the results of the event that are important. We would gladly give our lives to protect the potential of the innocent. Your potential has been used, you have found your niche. You'd go on doing the same thing tomorrow as you did yesterday if you could. As would many civilians, but they're just as likely to wind up inspired by our service."
He turned to Experiment 2.0.
"Still... He has a point about needlessly throwing away your life. Every hero has to weigh the total cost of every action they take... I think the only lives held above and beyond any such triage are the lives of children. Everyone should be prepared to give their life for the life of a child."
He turned to Build again.
"If such thinking is alien to you, then I am sorry you are unable to understand."
My Stories
Look at that. A full-grown woman pulling off pigtails. Her crazy is off the charts.