[Day 7, EM, Open] Back to the Drawing Board

[Dapper Dog]

<Cardinal - Offline>

<BishopTakesRook - Offline>

<SamediJ> Well that got heavy, peace out kid, you see Iris, tell her to keep that bootie warm.

<SamediJ - Offline>

[Babble]

He logged off and turned to Markus. "What do you think?"

[Markus Reed]

"Who exactly were we talking to? That is what I want to know," he said.

[Babble]

"The only one I'm certain of was Samedi Jackson." He answered. "But, I doubt anyone in Pantheon would use the name Cardinal lightly. I don't know about the third one."

[Markus Reed]

“It could have been Bishop, I mean <BishopTakesRook> is pretty on the nose. Like it screams pretentious,” he said chuckling.

“What’s this Samedi Jackson like?” he asked. “Guessing dangerous, murderous thug?”

[Babble]

"Arrogant and self-centered." He replied. "He had no qualms about blowing up the ship with crew and technicians on board. But, he didn't try to stop us from warning them, either. He was just annoyed that we were wasting time."

He reviewed the chat log.

"They raided the ship to get ELSI. I don't think they brought the container with them. I'm assuming Infinite Horizons was keeping her in a faraday container, allowing them to physically limit what she had access to. I removed the other protocols that were in place to control her.. we were working together to disable or take control of the ship when she went offline. I don't think she was expecting that to happen."

[Markus Reed]

"Well what's your play here?" he asked.

[Babble]

"I don't know." he admitted. "I don't have much choice but to wait and see if ELSI reaches out. I'll talk to Dr. Patel, but I have a feeling that all of my questions will have classified answers. I could talk with ADINA, I suppose, but the same limitations would apply."

"I do have to finish going through the data on those hard drives from the ship." he added. "See if we can figure out what they were working on that night."

[Markus Reed]

“Want some help with that, the drives I mean? I know Dr. Patel is a good resource but she is kind of bound to what she can share with us. Don’t mean we can’t snoop on our own,” he responded.

[Babble]

"Yeah. Let's take care of the drives. I need something else to focus on for a bit." he nodded.

[Markus Reed]

"Nice, let's hook them up and get to work," he said assisting Arturo.

[Babble]

He set up a few security protocols before connecting the drives.

- - -
[Day 7, EM, Open] Back to the Drawing Board, Expertise: Computers | 1d20+17 ⇒ 27

[Dapper Dog]

The hard drives once connected have data on several contracts and missions around the globe, the mercenary group was doing work for various gov’ts usually off the books black ops that required precision and violence. These contracts were making them quite a bit of money, including providing security work for Infinite Horizons and a compound they maintained on the Null Zone.

The Null Zone compound was an off the books server farm but it seems to have been decommissioned a few months ago, in fact it looks like the mercenary company was downsizing up until the 31st of Halloween, selling much of their interests off to Infinite Horizons and other high bidders.

There are also some emails, mostly dealing with the downsizing but there is an oddity from a scientist named Milton Baduro to Nuani Kagumbo:

Corrupted data…. But despite the changes made, she maintains your intelligence and focus. The inserted memories seem to have taken, I have had her under observation for the last month and there seem to be no issues. ELSI has done a wonderful job manufacturing a public presence, we should be ready to move forward within the week… corrupted data.

[Babble]

"Well, all of that is a bit alarming." he sighed. "I wonder who the Manchurian candidate is."

[Markus Reed]

"No idea, but it sounds like they were doing some real shady shit," Markus responded. "Any of this useful for you?"

[Babble]

"Not in regard to our concerns about whatever Nuani Kagumbo is doing, other than that corrupted message. But, it gives some hints about the history of all of this." he said. "Maybe Pantheon was rescuing one of their own."

[Markus Reed]

"This just feels more and more complicated, to me," Markus admitted.

[Babble]

"Oh, definitely." he agreed. "But, it's helped me figure out my design problem."

[Markus Reed]

"Wait, what, really?" he said with mild confusion.

[Babble]

"I was trying to make it modular and easily adaptable to different emergency situations." He explained. "However, that will also make it easy to use against people. I had even considered self-defense measures. But, I'm not trying to design a weapon. I need to limit how it can be used more, which will limit some of the functionality and should help with the power distribution issues."