System Crash

[legionnpcs]

[After Brainy and Babbage disappear, cameras start broadcasting from where they were taken to. The entire encounter is shown to the team and the rest of the UP. When Earth is taken through the portal, Legion World lurches, and at the end of it all, when the traps are tripped, it lurches again. Lights all over the ship go out, fires starts, systems fail. Only lockdown procedures that Brainy himself put in place, to protect Legion World’s most vital systems if he were ever compromised by telepathy or other influences, keep the viruses from self-destructing the ship or turning off life support -- but they’re certainly trying to.]

[The network goes back up again fairly quickly, however, but it’s using a much older, inferior form of networking. Something a little more distance-based and analog, a little less hackable.]

[They’ll be able to communicate again, but there’s a lot of interference. Sometimes the video goes out during video calls and sometimes audio cracks up. Text seems to be the only form of communication that’s guaranteed to go through every time.]

[ooc: People can react and start planning things on this post. This is also where information about the Spectre's attack will get dropped.]

Comments

[unrecovered]

[It takes a bit of time for Wash to sort through everything he wants to say. Most of it is...unhelpful. Inefficient. Infuriated. Things that can wait until later. The one pertinent question he does come up with is:]

The way we are now, are we able to contain a Brainiac?

[He is absolutely asking for permission to use lethal force.]

[relativityspeaking]

Brainy maybe could -- he managed to secure Patient forty-- [She stops. They don't need to use her patient number. They'd done it for Brainy's sake, to keep things impersonal but he's not here.] -- Brainiac 4, but there's still no guarantee, and it looked like she'd already managed to design a weapon while in custody.

[She thinks back and almost looks fond, but the fondness is tinged with worry and sadness.]

Brainy got taken to prison one time for illegal time travel and apparently just...walked out later when he felt like it. He only stayed to take a break from work and get some peace and quiet. Another time, when we were facing the Progenitor and captured, he'd already disarmed his restraint lock by the time most of us woke up. And you all saw how fast he got out of his power restraints when we faced the Legion of Supervillains.

That's what we're up against. The other Brainiacs are just as smart.

That said, while Brainiac 8 is enough of a threat that containment might be impossible, I want Brainiac 6 brought in alive. His age and that emotional inhibitor means he doesn't even have the capacity for proper judgment.

[unrecovered]

Well, we're down Brainy and most of our tech, so I'm going to take that as a hard no on Brainiac 8. Don't be surprised if your Brainiac hunting team brings back her corpse. [It's flat and terribly pragmatic - he's not privy to anyone's private conversations, but he seriously doubts he's the first person to ask for a license to kill here.]

Brainy had issues when his inhibitor got fried - that might be our key to taking down Brainiac 6. If we can snipe it off his face or hit him with an EMP or something-

[Which is about when his brain, already running a hundred miles a minute, clicks a few very disturbing pieces of information together, and he shakes his head and jumps conversational tracks entirely.]

Wait- please tell me we have failsafes on the Joker and War.

[relativityspeaking]

I ran a security check. We confirmed they're still in their cells and I posted quadruple the usual guard rotation.

Brainy went heavy-duty with security on their containment units. They're closed circuit, in a way the rest of Legion World can't be, with redundant power sources. Due to destructive power surges, eleven of the power sources got shorted out on War's cell and fifteen got shorted out on Joker's, but Brainy set up fifty independent backups for each cell, and fifty for other security measures and areas of the cell-block, as well as multiple redundant power converters to switch from one unit to the next.

[Good ol' Brainy.]

This is all still a disaster but all of his security backups, system lockouts, and shutdown protocols still saved our necks. The attacks on Legion World were meant to be catastrophic enough that the ship could've potentially self-destructed or lost all life support. Instead, it's still intact enough for us to rebuild and regroup.

[unrecovered]

[The sigh of relief Wash breathes is probably the only one either of them will hear until this disaster is over, but it's there nonetheless.]

Thank God. The last thing we need right now is space Cthulu's minions up our asses.

[A beat.]

We really should get Brainy something better than a mug for his birthday.

[BECAUSE WE'RE GETTING HIM BACK, GOD DAMMIT.]

Either way, let me know where you need me.

[relativityspeaking]

I think we're pushing beyond mugs and chocolate and almost into "his own private island" territory.

And I will. Gear up and await orders.