Group Email to CONDOR Personnel

[nothinbut_therain]

 
Are we planning on doing anything about the joker posting on The Watch about wanting to collect materials from the UCLA sinkhole? I know we haven't had the tightest security on it so far, and I can't say I'm complaining about not having to babysit a hole in the ground. But now we have some anonymous "man of science" hellbent on collecting as much shit from the hole as possible. 

The phrase "as a man of science" never leads to something that altruistic. 

-- Thrace 

Comments

[missinterference]

Ms. Thrace, did you intend to include me on this e-mail chain?

Regardless, this will probably lead to some sort of worldwide epidemic--will civilians be granted superpowers upon contact? Will our intrepid and hapless explorers activate an alien signal beam and bring an extraterrestrial apocalypse down upon this Earth, again? I for one am dreadfully curious.

Or, a novel thought: we could avoid disaster through common sense.

Sincerely,
Flora Poste

[nothinbut_therain]

[Starbuck would schedule another talk with Charles about putting civilians on confidential mailing lists, if she wasn't utterly certain that it was useless at this point. If Flora Poste wanted to read an email, Flora Poste was probably just going to read the damn email.]

Ah. Ms. Poste. A pleasure, as always.

Since I already have enough headaches without more superheroes to babysit, I'll bite -- what particular bit or bits of common sense do you think would save us so completely from ruination?

[missinterference]

[No truer words.]

Ms. Thrace--I might suggest the relatively lax security around the sinkhole be increased; though of course, what do I know. I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason CONDOR is behaving in such a manner--perhaps so as to facilitate Plot rather than Safety? Indeed without clever oversights, drama would never happen.

Or the anonymous 'man of science' could be apprehended. He has very neatly outlined the means. Simply reply to him expressing interest in a rendezvous, and when he shows up--well, you get the idea. There are infinite variations. Infinite ways of cajoling him into a meeting!

Sincerely,
Flora Poste

[nothinbut_therain]

Most of the looting happened within the first three hours, and we were busy pulling people out of there. I don't think anyone's bothered to go back down. I'm more worried about the people who snatched shit while the whole thing was going down.

As for the other part -- not a bad plan, honestly. I would have done something like that by now, but I don't exactly keep my identity a secret, and I doubt anyone being this secretive is interested in meeting with CONDOR personnel. The prize would have to be pretty enough to lure him out.

[missinterference]

Oh, I doubt we would have much luck with confirmed and uncautious CONDOR personnel.

I'm sure someone trustworthy could be found.

Sincerely,
Flora Poste

[Ms. Thrace surely will not interpret that as Flora's offering to volunteer, ugh. Surely. Surely she knows her too well to expect any such thing.]

[nothinbut_therain]

Riiiight. Thanks. As always, you've been a tremendous help.

[Well, you can't blame a gal for trying.]

[missinterference]

[...........Well, Flora thought she'd at least be asked. So that she could explicitly refuse.]

Surely not a tremendous help. It is only the easiest trick in the book, as it were.

Sincerely,
Flora Poste

[nothinbut_therain]

[Starbuck just sort of quietly throws up her hands. Ms. Poste always manages to be aggravating in the most precise ways.]

Well, thanks anyway then.

[missinterference]

I suppose you don't have anyone in mind?

-Flora
Sent from my iPhone5

[nothinbut_therain]

Not in particular, yet.

[missinterference]

Perhaps one of those Trailblazers would be ever-so-kind. A teenaged 'civilian' would not attract undue suspicion; and yet this person would be under your supervision.

-Flora
Sent from my iPhone5

text

[chapterfiveversenine]

Psychological assessments of scientists are irrelevant. No criminal charges can be brought against him.

[Legion doesn't bother signing their emails. That's what the address is for, right?]

Re: text

[nothinbut_therain]

I'm not interested in pressing charges. I'm interested in making sure that if there's weird shit that we have no idea what it does or how it doesn't, some unaffiliated and unknown figure or figures doesn't go rounding up a bunch of it.

He could be TRIDENT. We need to know more.

[chapterfiveversenine]

You wish to confirm his innocence.


We were under the impression that human legal systems considered any given person innocent until proven guilty.

[nothinbut_therain]

[Starbuck just rolls with it. She doesn't know/care about the legal implications, but whatever boosts your thrusters.]

If he really does just want all this junk for legit scientific research reasons or altruistic purposes, that's fine, sure. But I want to make sure of that before I just let it go.

[chapterfiveversenine]

We do not believe CONDOR has the legal power to prevent trading of samples not currently in its possession. We will attempt to confirm this.

Do you have a suggested plan for locating him if you receive approval?

[nothinbut_therain]

If those samples pose a significant risk to the civilian population, one that falls outside the realm of normal military and police control because of its weird bullshit factor, then we have a responsibility to keep those away from people with malicious intent.

If the crystals and all the other crap at the bottom of that pit end up being just so many sparkly pebbles, then it doesn't really matter. Look, I just wanna check it out, alright?

And I might. But I don't think you'll like it much.

[chapterfiveversenine]

Specify.

[nothinbut_therain]

It involves deceit.

[chapterfiveversenine]

You believe we have an opposition to deceit?

We do not. We have employed the tactic ourselves to gather information.

[nothinbut_therain]

Huh. Well, maybe we can get through this all right, then.

We bait the buyer-in-question with some merchandise, arrange a face to face meetup using a person unaffiliated with CONDOR in an official capacity or someone who is not easily recognizable as CONDOR personnel, and see what happens. If nothing seems shady during the buy, we go through with the deal. Of course, there'll be a tracker on whatever package we give him. We can trail him back to wherever he keeps this stuff, and check things out.

Just to make sure everything's on the level.

Not the most brilliant or original plan, but better than just sitting on our asses.

[chapterfiveversenine]

Your plan is functional. Do you suggest we offer real samples or artificial?

[nothinbut_therain]

Real samples might be less risky in the long run -- if we blow the dropoff cause they're obvious fakes, we won't get anywhere.

I don't know how replicable those crystal things are, though. Would depend on whether or not we could spare a few.

[chapterfiveversenine]

Of the seven we collected, four were distributed to analysts. We can offer two of the remaining three to your operation; risk of permanent loss suggests we should keep at least one.

[nothinbut_therain]

Well that sounds fair enough to me.

Now we just have to set the trap.

[chapterfiveversenine]

Most available candidates have yet to graduate from Trailblazers. Are these acceptable choices?

[nothinbut_therain]

I'm in.

[chapterfiveversenine]

We will select a candidate and begin the operation within a week. Would you like to be present?

[nothinbut_therain]

Preferably, yeah. I'm a hands on kinda person.

[chapterfiveversenine]

Candidate recruitment in progress. You will be kept informed.