Session 12: City of Dreams

Pearl shoves Tony aside and looks closer. "Crud. Be right back." She gallops out of the room once more.

"This does not make any sense. It is like children drawing on the walls. Look at the big scary distraction and don't mind us while stab you in the back. This would be a great plan if the "aliens" were infiltrating by pod person."
Ceffer mutters.
"Dot in San Fran? This is not good news."

Tony turns to Ceffer as if to ask what the message says.

"Lies and bad grammer. Accounting linguistics it approximately says WHO SAVE YOU! NO PERSON HOPE TO YOU NOW. What I believe they were trying say
जो तुम अब बचा लेगा? वहाँ आप आशा देने के लिए कोई नहीं है। Who will save you now? There is nobody to to give you hope. They are beginning to make me angry."
Ceffer replies crisply without emotion.
"There is no reason to spread this around. It will only cause panic. Of course it still will be translated by them."

Ember seems lost in thought.

Pearl returns again, bustles about with paperwork, then leaves. A minute later she comes back and sits herself at an operations terminal. She opens and starts editing a media filtration program. "By the way, Ceffer. As you guys were about to leave this morning, Dr. Wells told me to arrange a full-disclosure meeting between himself and the press; I did arrange for one, but they should have been here an hour ago. I just got a call that they won't be showing up after all. Apparently there's something a little more interesting going on."

"Knight to B7 blocks queen. Check."
Ceffer mutters disgustedly.

"That sounds like a chess reference," Pearl says absently.

Ceffer starts checking news sites and their twitter accounts. He also reaches out to his military contacts and the Mercenary Overwatch.
"Drat!"
Ceffer draws an interface on the computer. He starts opening multiple call windows to people all over the world. When the people he was calling pick up windows pop up on the the desk and computer showing their faces. Using his Helmet mike Ceffer tells them.
"Ahem! Heads up Super code named Siren is about make a talk. Assume Aural and visual mental influence counter measures. I suspect that he is way better at it than me. Lucky having a super power like that. Overwatch since you are new to this I will send you a file your eyes only. Anything we can do to manipulate the frequency of his voice and image will decrease the amount of damage he can do. I know you have questions about the alien attack. It was a false flag operation. Linguistics and ship types don't match up with known formations. Most of you are familiar with my previous work. This my announcement I am officially requesting your assistance. Deadline estimate 4 months."
Ceffer is furiously manipulating the drawn interface respond in to messages and sending files to everyone and payments to Overwatch.
"SCVs to surrounding space to threaten knight. "

"Will this help?" Pearl beckons Ceffer over to her work station. She has edited the 'leakage' filter (what keeps knowledge about supers from leaving on the local social media lines) to also filter out the face, maybe even the voice of Phillip Argo. "That jerk nearly ruined my life all over again; there's no way I'm just going to sit back while he tries to ruin it once more. Unfortunately, this can only be used here in Wells Hills, unless you have access to all the world's media receiving stations."

Ceffer Draws a line between his interface and one of her USB ports.
To Overwatch:"Overwatch here is our filtering program if this helps Great!"
To Pearl:"Can you Grab Order. His assistance would be greatly appreciated. Also any cyberpaths would be nice."
Ceffer commented summoning G'mbet invisibly. Pearl has never seen Ceffer look so energetic. He is practically vibrating.

"Yes, You can help with questions and answer in these boxes here."
Ceffer turns on a second workstation and links it to several of the chats.
"After you grab your Dad. Be quick.
Marines on the way."

Pearl gallops out, searching for Ceffer's requested persons. Soon the Observatory is humming with activity.

Those Present:
Ceffer
Tony
Dr. Wells
"Ember"
Smith
Pearl
"Order"
"Nicole" cyberpath
and Wally cyber-manipulator

Pearl smiles. "Looks like the program did its job... mostly." She looks over something really quick. "Now that our friends know the gist of what's up, they can come here to find out more." She pulls out her phone and taps on the screen.

Suddenly all the big screens in the room black out and a cyan beacon lights up in the center of the ceiling, circling the room.

Dr. Wells sighs at Pearl. "There are less dramatic ways to issue a blue alert, Miss Tompson."

"But none so fast, you know it." Pearl puts her phone away and activates a transcription program on one of the few remaining workstations. She gives it a clearance code before the computer does anything.

Ember stands up suddenly, but relaxes when she sees what happened. She comes over to Pearl's workstation.

"Knight tried to cross board and become a Queen to hijack our base and put us in checkmate. With help I arranged for SVC support and some marines counter attack. In other words Philip Argo just tried to influence entire country to follow 4S. Using the "Alien" attacks as a false flag operations, they now have a reason to mass recruit people into their program. Unifying the planet under their control. And I used some friends to sabotage his broadcast so that it was not as effective."
Ceffer replies verbosely off hand.a
"By the way would be willing to foot the bill the Mercenary's Overwatch. she would like to be paid and her bill is coming to $35,000?"
Ceffer asks sheepishly.

Several locals start arriving at the observatory, a couple of security looking for the unauthorized transition, and about a dozen civilians curious about both the blue alert and what Phillip Argo was starting to talk about.

A lab technician redirects people to terminals where they can chat with Tony, who is answering questions 1 on 1 as fast as he can.