[locked to Legionnaires] Meta-plot (heh)

[steelandtemper]

[ooc: This is the kickoff for the Meta's escape player plot, so it's backdated to fall in the lull before the current plots. Participation in the recapture/rescue log is limited to people already signed up, but anyone can respond to this post.]

We've got a problem.

[It's Cortana's voice, but the video doesn't feature her. It's security camera footage. Some of the team will recognize it as Takron Galtos. Everyone will recognize it as not how things are supposed to be in any well-run facility, penal or otherwise, smoking holes in walls being against building codes generally.

The recording freezes and highlights a figure caught mid-stride in a dead run through the chaos. After a moment, the other objects, then the background, then the smoke obscuring the figure disappear from the frame (courtesy of the UNSC's finest data analysis software--you're welcome) leaving only the escapee.

The Meta.

Should Cortana have that footage? Probably not. Still, the Legion has a compelling interest in making sure the nastiest people in the galaxy stay locked up, and the Meta is kinda personal for quite a few of the team.]

Something interesting, though.

[Because super-powered jailbreaks aren't interesting to Cortana, apparently.

Back to the video, frozen again on a frame that doesn't look noteworthy, but it runs through a series of graphical transformations that emphasize what seems to be noise until overlaid on a grid, which Cortana then thoughtfully translates into human-readable format for the non-AIs in the audience: four rows by ten columns of numbers, all falling between 0 and 300.]

This sequence recurs throughout the recording at intervals corresponding to the first hundred prime numbers. It's the complete scoring record for the AI bowling league right up until we disbanded. Odds against a random occurrence are so high I'd expect to see the heat death of the universe first.

North, get your ass in gear.

Comments

[nofortunateson]

[By the time Cortana gets around to the interesting part of her narrative, North's expression is already drawn and tight. It's the first time he's seen the Meta since... well. Since home. And everything that entailed.

Cortana's point dissolves much of that pensive grimness out of his expression, but he's still tense under his bewilderment, already on his feet and on his way to his put-up armor and weapons when he replies.]

What- how did Theta end up there? When we captured him the Meta wanted him.

[steelandtemper]

You skipped ahead a few chapters. My guess would be so did they.

[nofortunateson]

. . . makes sense.

[Just like it makes sense that, coming from after a point, Theta would go for the sure thing and send out a distress signal that Delta or Cortana would be more likely to intercept. After all, he'd have no way of knowing for sure that North was even still here.]

I assume you're already working on tracking him down. Anything I can move on yet?

[steelandtemper]

[If you're trying to sneak out a message, you aim it at the ONI cyberwarfare AI, not the human.]

Yeah, a couple copies of me are on it while I chat.

[Even with FTL comms, bouncing back and forth from other systems to Legion World while the humans get their sentences out is more juggling than she really wants to do.]

Not much for you do to but wait. It could be a few hours.

[Every soldier's favorite activity.]

[unrecovered]

[Dammit, and he had just started to sleep at night again after the whole "half-formed nightmare creatures trying to suffocate him in his own memories" thing.]

So the Meta is out, and he's got Theta.

[Because Cortana and Delta are here, and "Babbage" is dead and wouldn't be trying to signal them anyway.]

Great. Do we have any way of tracking either of them?

[It's heat signatures in the desert all over again, except Cortana is more competent than anyone in that situation had been, and Wash is a big enough person to admit that.]

[steelandtemper]

Sure. The way we do cyberintrusion is different from the way the locals do it. The traces are distinctive unless you know how to cover your tracks, and Sigma's not as clever as he thinks he is.

[She would never have let those bowling scores slip by, for instance.]

Or, we swat a fly with a Pelican and use the Anywhere Machine.

[unrecovered]

Cortana, I wouldn't be surprised if you could track them with the digital equivalent of your eyes closed.

[It's the truth with a nice side helping of flattery. The Alpha in his prime might have been able to give Cortana a run for her money; the amalgamate of desperate, half-mad fragments that is the Meta can't even come close.]

We're already in overkill territory; let's not open that can of worms unless we need it.

[steelandtemper]

[Flattery works better than Cortana is willing to admit.]

A couple instances of me are running down leads. I'll have a better idea what the target is up to after they come back and we reintegrate. We already found a pretty complex money-laundering scheme on Daxam, but it's not connected. I think it's just Coluans moving assets around ahead of criminal charges.

["Just."]

[thedreamisdead]

Send your findings on that to my inbox.

[No crime goes unpunished. Even if she's already busy.]

[steelandtemper]

Due process might not entirely have been followed.

[Warrants are for squares.]

[unrecovered]

[Making sure your boyfriend's life partner will tolerate you is a good romance strategy, okay.]

Might want to toss that one to the SciCops - I'm sure they'd love to know about it.

[Something something team unity, working together with allied forces, all that fun stuff. It's a fun and interesting fact, but he's definitely more interested in the Meta.]

Let me know when you have a lead. From what I know about the Meta, he'll lie low until he can get back on his feet, but when he does, he'll be singleminded in pursuit of his goal. If we can figure out a way to bait him, and make it look like leaked information on our end instead of a trap, he might come to us.

[Private to Cortana]

If I give you the data I have, can you make a facsimile of Epsilon? He's kind of the one that got away for the Meta, which makes him our best option.

[steelandtemper]

You know who'd leak something? Those anonmeme idiots.

[private]

Up close a dummy isn't likely be convincing unless Delta can give me some details you wouldn't be able to provide, but if Epsilon uses that same Mjolnir hologram as the rest of them, tell me what his color scheme is and I'll have very convincing footage of you with an AI on your shoulder ready to go in seconds.

[How do you feel about being bait, Agent Washington?]

[thedreamisdead]

Still less dramatic than Stan Lee, but you'd think the Science Police would have alerted us about a breakout right off the bat.

[Unless Cortana's beat them to it. Which wouldn't surprise Beeny.]

So. Sigma. Theta. How many AIs does one man need to function? Most of us get by eithout any. Then again, most of us don't wear our tanks.

[steelandtemper]

Hey, the SP are very responsible. They should be getting to it any minute now.

[Nothing against the Science Police. Cortana's just better. (Just ask her.)]

Those Freelancer implants can't support a full smart AI. Cramming as many fragments in there as they've got right now has probably done enough damage to the guy's brain that Sigma's in the pilot's seat.

[thedreamisdead]

[America grunts at Cortana's estimate. She figured as much.]

Might explain why his knifey little friend isn't with him. If the AI's in charge, they probably see things a little more... logically.

[And in terms of pure numbers, a weasel like Felix would be a liability during a surprise escape.]

I take it we don't have the luxury of waiting for the AIs to burn his brain to a crisp and collecting them afterwards?

[steelandtemper]

That idiot. I didn't see him on any of the security recordings, so as far as I know, he's still in his cell.

[And is less of a concern to her because he's not made of like nine traumatized AIs in a trench coat.]

The Meta is probably stable--in the technological sense--right now. That might change if they decide to start experimenting with local tech, but otherwise, the only bar to them going on indefinitely is psychological...which is a major bar, don't get me wrong.

[The are so crazy, America.]

[thedreamisdead]

Probably smarter than some of our teammates.

[Junkrat comes to mind. Also Grif. And Jason. And Wash.]

So. How'd the Meta get off the station? Some kind of teleporter? Hijacked a vessel? Launched himself into space with the organics put into hibernation until some well-meaning citizen comes to the rescue?

[steelandtemper]

Someone wised up and took down the surveillance systems, so that video I showed is almost everything I've got. I'm sorting through the prison's internal comms chatter, but it's mostly people asking each other what's going on.

[Organic eyewitnesses are the worst.]

[unrecovered]

Not entirely - he's got physical limitations. The power drain from running as many armor mods and AI as he does means his armor needs to be recharged pretty frequently. Maine was a fucking tank, but the Meta is still human. We killed him once, and that was just me and the Reds and Blues. It's doable.

[This is partly for Cortana's benefit and partly because Wash needs to wrap his mind around the fact that he has to fight the Meta again for about the seventh time. Give him a few minutes to come to terms with his increasingly shitty day.]

[unrecovered]

It has. Sigma started burning Maine out long before he became the Meta. There's nothing left of Maine.

[goddamngrenades]

Well shit.

[ He'd heard the roughest shape of whatever the hell went down and honestly? Wasn't looking forward to dealing with round two of the Meta even in tangent. But this is- D's younger brother, their problem, and they've got to do something. ]

We have any idea where he's headed?

[steelandtemper]

Depends if they're far enough back along their personal timeline that they're still looking for Delta.

[Yeah, she has a general understanding of what went wrong when with you idiots.]

If they are, they'll come to us.

[And isn't that a pleasant thought, Delta?]

If not, they'll probably make for AP or non-aligned space and try to go to ground. They're not a match for the Legion squad that'll go after them and at least some of them have to realize it.

[the_civilian]

I've gotten Kid Quantum's permission to take a team out to deal with this. Though if you want to take point, Cortana, I'm not going to fight you on it.

[steelandtemper]

[He asked permission. That's either adorable or stupid and she can't decide which.]

You can come, but it's looking like you're gonna be the only one not in armor, so try not to stop any bullets.

[It's almost like she cares.]

[the_civilian]

[It's Tadashi. By Cortana's standards, the answer is probably 'both'.]

Believe me, I know I'm the person -- er, sentient -- here with the least amount of experience and the least amount of bullet-proofing. I just want to help where ever I can.