<> (haha. That's right. I scared the green agent guarding us.) (skeery) <> <> * Hestia has been spending her time on the ship, in the lounge, looking into stuff. Over the past couple days the bottle of expensive wine has dwindled and dwindled. She is currently on the last glass, with the empty bottle next to her. * Zeke klonks in, and he's out of fancy fancy suitage. Into normal Zeke-like suitage, although the suit itself is a little shinier, and he is carrying the suitcase-o-bots. * Tomas arrives. He is also no longer wearing his fancy pants, but instead his standard issue blue jumpsuit with the embroidered Dunno logo clumsily pulled out. "T. Z." <> Look what the cat dragged in. How was your dinner? * Tomas jerks a thumb over his shoulder as he enters, "We have GalReg protection now. Seems to have gone well." It was... very interesting. * Hestia raises an eyebrow. "Do tell. I've had a busy few days." * Zeke puts down his big case. "There is a strange network of tensions between GalReg and the corporations." The corps are using the Duekti incident to argue that they should be in charge of chain jumping. * Hestia leans forward over the counter, presses her fingertips to the bridge of her nose, and breathes out. "...funny story." * Kyle walks in, wearing the usual and not looking much for the wear. "Really now? I figured that was something like that." * Tomas raises an eyebrow at Tia. * Kyle hasn't been at the ship in the meantime, instead spending some time with his family. "Good to see we have some protection now. Any other good news?" * Hestia looks between Tomas and Zeke. "So the corps had representatives at this thing?" * Tomas nods. * Zeke's birdsect is looking at Tia oddly as he says, "Ah. I was waiting for you to explain." A pause, then, "Yes, that was an expected component." A couple of other GalReg officials were there as well. * Hestia grimaces and looks at the ceiling for a moment. "Well, it doesn't surprise me to hear it, since there's a good chance at least one of them is one of our mysterious bidders." * Zeke tilts his head slightly. "That idea became more possible to me as well." * Tomas hrms. "Why hire us if they have their own team already?" Why hire us in such a cloak and dagger way, you mean? Good question. And why's that, exactly? * Hestia turns to Zeke at that last part. I dunno, but the prof's gonna have a field day with this. It was... due to the way they talked to and of us. * Hestia gives him the Yes Fine, Now Explain That blank stare. ( I can't. c.c; ) (... you could tell him what they said!) (No, (I can't.) (I don't have the log up in my brain.) (I got nothin') (Zeke: "I JUST KNOW YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER UNIT" then he runs out the side of the ship leaving a Zeke-shaped hole in the hull.) * Zeke stares back at her for a bit, then says, "The reactions of the corporate representatives indicated significantly different interests. ATC's significantly aggressive posture was expected, but their arguments were strangely weak." Calhoun's representative was extremely calm, except where ATC's attempts at gaining control were involved. * Zeke finishes, "And Dunno's was... somewhat sedate. All of them indicated familiarity with Red New York City, unsurprisingly." Thankfully, Noelle was in agreement with our position, and arguments, and will likely be announcing a reduction in our suspension today. * Hestia can't suppress a smirk at this. "'Noelle', now." * Zeke tilts his head. "Director Antina, yes." * Tomas eyebrows the smirk. She has been in contact with me regarding the suspension, which is why I am aware early. * Hestia sighs and leans back, finishing off the last of the wine. She seems a little sad that it's gone. "Well. I found mostly information from Preston on four bidders. One is the jerks who tried to off us, but the other three... I'm pretty sure one is ATC. I don't know for sure. I didn't want to take... further steps... without telling you all that." (Four?) (Four.) (I mean, I can tell you my OOC guess on the other two, but Tia hasn't done that math yet.) (I ask, because I could have sworn my initial scan said three.) (Tomas: there were three main bidders but Tia has isolated at least four winners.) (ahh.) Don Goatee hired us? For which mission? It wasn't the one where we encountered them, was it? * Zeke mms, then says, "Espionage would make a certain sense, although it is... saddening others would know before us." * Zeke looks at Hestia. "ATC hiring us seems most likely to be further masking their actions." It's all spy-tastic. * Hestia shrugs. "The people who tried to kill us on the Bug asteroid wasn't one of the three common bidders... and remember, it's pretty likely whoever was bidding on us *also* has access to... sensitive info, and the Orchid is one of the other ships benefitting from their 'largess'." She fingerquotes that last bit. <> Yes. Masking intentions seems to be a significant problem. <> <> Why do you think one of them is ATC? It's all circumstantial right now. Mostly because the guy behind the duckblind for those bidders is sitting in Red Boston, and there's no other potential bidders in that city that could have done it, or at least no obvious, public bidders. (Aren't we in Red Boston?) (Yes.) * Zeke mms at all this 'data', then says, "Seperating the anomoly from the rest is an interesting and reasonable result." He looks to Hestia. "Red Boston does not seem an... ATC unique option." I never said it was conclusive. Finding out if it IS conclusive is going to be both risky and illegal. <> (Getting to that!) * Zeke frowns. "The evidence any way seems extremely weak for the risk." * Hestia waves around a pad. "Way I see it, we have two options. Try and determine if ATC is indeed our mysterious bidder B, or try to find Preston's equivalent for the Orchid and the Supernova, and get the same data for them, then triangulate." ...well, there's also option 3. This all goes down with a little shell game using prepaid phones and spaceports. Hard to trace, but I've got the numbers. We could try and trap one of them. One of which? The bidders. Unless one of you happens to know a Gene Ashwell. (Do we?) <> (You're a bad man.) (Ha ha.) * Tomas shakes his head, "You weren't able to turn anything up on him?" Feel free to look up any of the tens of thousands of Gene Ashwells on Mars. * Tomas snorts, "A trap with proper precautions sounds like it should work." (There were 14 episodes? Really?) Maybe. The spaceport thing was very... weird. (HOW WEIRD WAS IT, TIA?) * Hestia looks down at her pad. "They'd call a number at a spaceport, which would get answered, but not by someone on camera. It could be a lot of things... an invisible 24, someone who can control machines, hacking the phones, you name it." * Zeke tilts his holohead again. "Who is 'they'? Gene Ashwell?" (All of them, actually, wasn't it?) (Just Gene.) (*eats lime and salt popcorn* Okay, shockingly good) Very weird. Yeah. Wonky like what. (Okay, your wording suggested the other bidders were doing the same, so good thing I asked.) Weirder when you add in the butterfly. Could they have just hacked the feed to display an empty--butterfly? (Sorry. Was super super tired last week. Now only super tired.) Butterfly in the frame. Every time. * Zeke pauses, then replies, "That... seems most like a signal." (Note: Butterflies basically do not exist on Mars.) Unusual, certaintly. Hence my suggesting the trap. In... what circumstance did this appear? The suggestion of a trap is unusual if this is when they are bidding. (NURTURE MY PIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIG) (...) (Song on RFM.) (sorry, carry on.) * Hestia just... looks at Zeke. "I... don't know? That's the whole point?" (I think she's talking about our trap.) (No. I'm asking when did this 'calling a number at a spaceport' thing happen?) (How did she get this butterfly information? In what circumstance did it appear?) (Too many pronouns.) (err, ok.) (In... a spaceport, like she said? I don't understand the question.) ('They' would call a number at a spaceport. Who is they? When is they?) (I... some guy? 5pm? I don't... where are you going with this?) (Suddenly spaceport.) <> (I'm not _going_ anywhere. I don't actually understand what Hestia said. The 'they' pronoun is lacking.) (Gene is calling people and getting butterflies?) (Or someone is calling Gene and getting a butterfly?) (I wasn't confused but now I'm confused.) (This is why I hate being the exposition bot.) <> * Hestia tosses a pad to Zeke, who can hopefully catch it, with the security camera footage she got. "See for yourself." (Oh. You actually got camera footage.) * Zeke sees for himself! (Tia is good at her job.) (Ugh, sorry. I just... am not up to "Here is everything that got said in my mini, coming out of my mouth" right now.) * Kyle takes a look. Camera footage ahoy! (Nod, so sleepy.) * Zeke nods at it, then says, "Ah. That is... even stranger than I previously believed." <> <> (So the goal here would be to formulate a future plan.) (Yep!) * Zeke finishes looking at it, and then looks to Tia. "I... still believe triangulation is the most likely approach to provide us useful information." We have 'Mr. Ashwell's number. If we're not suspended anymore, we can set up a fake bid through Preston and stake out the spaceports involved. * Zeke shakes his head. "There is still a month of suspension. Of which almost a week has passed." (That doesn't mean you can't try to line up work.) We could still try to arrange something. * Hestia sighs. "Might look suspicious... the problem is that I'm not sure that the Prestons of the other two ships, whoever they are, are going to have any more information than we do. We could risk a lot getting that info out of them and have it be a carbon copy of what we already know." * Zeke nods slowly, then replies, "Is it that significant a risk to pursue the information of the other teams?" I dunno? I mean, what they've already found should be easy enough to find. And where they've gone. But I don't think that'll tell us who hired'em, right? We already know where they've gone. It's who hired them and for how much we want, and there's no legal way to get that unless they're feeling very, very generous. * Zeke looks down for a moment, then back to Hestia. "Are any of our options... legal? It does not seem so." No? Why do you think I waited instead of just going ahead and doing them. I don't know, you guys might be the kind of saps who'd go "Well, I'm being played like a violin but I get to see space so that's alright" and wouldn't do anything. * Zeke frowns, then replies, "I asked because you keep reminding us it is not legal. It does not seem like there's an alternative." * Kyle mrrs and scratches his head. "We should get Lexi and the prof in on this too before we really do anything. And we probably should boost our image somehow in case we DO get caught. Right now we're the 'bad guys', and if we get caught doing something illegal there's gonna be a call for a hanging." Unless we catch someone else doing something even more illegal that framed us, in which case they'll be hanging someone else. * Zeke replies, "Amadeus did not want to be aware if something were to happen." (Okay. Need to wrap up, I am falling over.) Nod. Zeke's kinda already said what he thinks. Still. ^^;) (I suggested the plan. It's up to the others if they want to give it a go or not.) (Let's do it and exclude the prof, then. I have stuff for Amadeus to do anyhow.) (Good?) (The real question is 'directly look towards ATC and such or triangulate'.) (Trap is the easiest, for any of the bidders. Figuring out who actually runs the other teams is extra work.) (True.) (If you want to wait and ask Lexi we can.) (Trapping this random jerk seems reasonable and justifiable.) (Zeke's reasonably pro.) <>