Aberrant Pt. 04

"Well it's not like a VR chair is that expensive compared to our future earnings." Sean noted as he had his nose buried in his phone, tapping away commands and messages.

Vanessa snickered slightly, "FUTURE earnings. I've still got a decent debt to that dragon after-all.."

"Like that will be that hard. You helped him meet his love bird and got him his job back." Sean teased.

Vanessa Stacks: Vanessa frowned, "Except she made it clear we didn't do a hell of a lot in the long run. They were already going to give him his job back.."

"Speakong of which," Alexa said. "Vanny I'd like to apologize for freaking out on you earlier. It was immature of me. I was just so...mortified. And I didn't know what to do."

Vanessa sighed, "I'm fine with you freaking out, it's just.. I wanted you to understand while it was totally shitty on Utopia's part, it is something that in the future is potentially avoidable. And.. Alaska was trying to help, so.. targeting issue.." She smiled.

Sean nodded as he finished with his phone. "If you ask I'm sure she will forgive you. Tensions were understandably high."

Alexa nodded...blushed...and then threw Vanessa into a huge, spine cracking hug. Very tight.

And so, it was a quiet pair of days that followed...a pair of days that ended when, on Tuesday, the first of July, the phone call came in to Vanessa Stacks.

"I've got a place reserved in the Cheetah Nightclub, on Arques Avenue. It will be just us and my associate, though you can feel free to be as paranoid as you wish. I know I shall," he said, sounding quite amused.

And so, the group had a few hours to meet, discuss...to plan...before the fateful meeting with Takai and their first real...well...mission, a mission they had chosen, as opposed to a crisis dropped in their laps.

Each arrived at Vanessa's apartment - which still seemed to be the best place for meeting without the families getting involved and bugging them.

Vanessa sighed, checking the little platter of food she had set out for them, "So.. how paranoid DO we want to be?" She said curiously. "Also.. who wants to see my new power?" She grinned.

Gillian arrived in all black: Jeans, shoes, a hoodie. She even had a metal mask she fiddled with in her hands, "Uh, I'm probably already pushing that. And sure, go for it Vanessa."

"Is...is that mask?" Tavi asked, leaning over the table to look at Gillian with excitement. Meanwhile, Alexa was literally vibrating in the corner with excitement.

Vanessa looked at the mask curiously, frowning slightly, "I'm a bit curious about the mask too.."

"Uh, I mean. I don't want them to see my face?" Gillian shrugged, looking down. "It's an old ballistics mask. Not perfect, but eh? I don't have eufiber."

Tavi gasped. "Oh my, but how can you keep up with haught culture if you don't wear some fine Benudia eufiber!" She said, grinning slightly. "Plus, uh...uh..." She giggled, then looked faintly dreamy.

"OH! I thought you'd gone elite on us or something." Vanessa snickered slightly, then smirked, "So.. my new power. It's a bit of an example of how I'm a horrible, horrible twink monster." She snickered, snapping her finger and a small, fluffy kitten appeared in Gillian's lap, mewing and begging to be petted, nuzzling her hand.

Gillian jerked at the kitten in her lap, dropping her mask out of reflex. She swore under her breath, holding her hands up in the air before looking at Vanessa. "Did you just fucking 'God-up' in my lap or is this just a really good illusion?"

Tavi looked proud as a button, beaming at the kitten and at Gillian.

" 'God-up'?" Vanessa snickered slightly, "Not exactly how I'd put it, but it is a genuine, if temporary ball of fur and claws." The kitten mewled, pawing Gillian in annoyance, pushing it's head at her stomach.

"What the fuuuck," Gillian whispered before carefully reaching down to pet the kitten. "That's impressive but I'm still sort of...thrown."

Sean was wearing a business formal suit and tie, something that looked odd on him compared to the matter he always wore jeans and t-shirts before. He was wanting to make a good impression, and with practice he had gotten the effect down from a dirty haze that blackened his clothes to a firm and crisp carbon fiber look. Almost made him look like he was wearing a race car bent into a suit. "Now- that is impressive. Now what would have had Tavi looking so dreamy?" Sean teased.

Tavi blushed. "To be fair, it's not actually a bunch of fur and stuff. It's holograms and force fields..." She stuck her tongue out at her girlfriend.

"Well if you cannot tell the difference, then is there a difference?" Sean asked with a smirk.

"Oh. Okay. I literally thought you just...made temporary life." Gillian laughed, relaxing a little before petting the floof.

"But it is super cute and fluffy holograms!" Vanessa giggled as Gillian felt it WAS indeed the fluffiest hologram ever. Vanessa shrugged, "It is an extension of my will, not full life, so you don't need to worry about that." She snickered. "Just a bit of Dr. Manhattan fun times. BUT, if I do a better job I can make people or.. well, not REAL novas, but a decent facsimile."

"They also don't last forever," Tavi said, nodding seriously. "That's the other downside. They can last a long time, though. Hours, e-even! Like...uh..." she coughed. "S-So, uh...yeah, my girlfriend is cool!" She beamed.

Vanessa snickered, "So.. at this point are you trying to give people dirty thoughts, dear?" She grinned playfully at her lover.

"Yeah, they fucked with holograms," Jay announced as he sauntered in. Khakis, a button-down shirt with sleeves rolled up neatly to the forearms. Looking good. There might have also been a gun in his jacket, but... who knows?

Tavi blushed. "N-No!" she said, quickly. Very quickly. "We really didn't!"

Sean chuckled and commented "Hey, I don't have any room to judge with myself."

Vanessa snickered, "You would have too if I had managed a slightly sexier one." She said as the kitten rolled on it's back, doing it's best to be the cutest ball of holographic fluff ever.

"It's fine Octavia, really." Gillian waved her hand, "It's a pretty thought honestly." She continued to pet the kitten with her other.

Jay snorts, entering the room properly and reaching down to give the not-cat a pat on the head. "We gonna invite Takai to the orgy?"

Tavi blushed. "If we're done discussing...stuff, uh, maybe instead, we should...definitely not do that. I don't want to sleep with a gangster."

"You sure? He matched your accent and everything." Jay grinned again. Jerk.

"I don't want to sleep with someone who uses their power over others to force them into despicable acts against their will." Vanessa said, shaking her head.

Tavi glared at him. "Can I blast him, Vanessa?" she whispered, playfully.

Vanessa snickered, "Be good, honey." She said.

"Yeaah, hard turn back to 'What do about Takai situation'." Gillian said aloud after a firm cough, "I want to send a clone over right now to scout the place out while we form an idea."

Vanessa nodded to Gillian, "Sounds good. Give us an idea if he's actually going into this with good faith or he's going to be an example to whoever we actually need to talk to."

Sean nodded in agreement. "Still, be safe about it."

"And of course don't be seen." Vanessa said, smiling.

Jay flashed a thumbs up, further supporting his friend's idea. "Though, can you make the clones look different from you?" asked the lucky nova a moment later. "That way if he sees you snooping, he won't know it's you right away."

Gillian waggled her mask from the seat after picking it up. At that, Jay shrugged as if to say 'that works'.

After a moment Gillian's phone went off and she reached around to check. She let out a 'huh' and then clicked a few buttons, "Sean, you got a better think than my PoS nokia brick. Can you show people the pictures in the file I just sent you?"

"And, cool thing about the power: if I focus when I make the clone I can change tiny details. The mask is a different color than this," She added, nodding to the plain black mask. "My hope is they just think you guys have a fuck load of masked muscle."

"Well, I think I have the hot thing on the market." Sean teased as he pulled out his phone, and a thin metal slab. Touching an unseen button on the slab had it open a holographic screen and keyboard, as though it was a microsized computer compacted harder than the latest models. A few commands and the image was displayed above the table.

"Pretty nifty trick!" Vanessa said, clearly impressed. "I thought they were all color coded, didn't realize it was a conscious choice."

As Sean brought up the image, they saw a series of images - the Cheetah was a fairly nice looking strip club, though it wasn't running any shows. Takai - a handsome Japanese man with a white fringe dyed into his hair - was sitting next to a tall, thin, curvy nova with an expression as cold as the arctic, long black hair, and pale blue skin. She was dressed in a form fitting eufiber jumpsuit, with some extra armor plating sewn into the shoulders and arms. No cape.

However, the next shot showed several rooms near the edges of main floor of the strip club. There were...about...twenty men and women dressed in sleek, armored body suits, with face covering helmets with tri-camera lenses, holding a mixture of sleek pistols and strange looking rifles with dual prong barrels, rather than normal barrels. Several had sword hilts sans swords.

But the bigger danger were the five kept on the roof, crouched low: Heavily muscled men wearing armor that was far thicker. Rather than sword hilts, they had what looked like sledgehammers on extendable poles.

"This is what we get when we fuck with a blacktech smuggler," Gillian said with a toneless voice.

Alexa popped the collar on her leather jacket. "I think I'm gonna blend right the heck in, boys and girls."

"Can you dorm down?" Gillian asked, shifting to point out the other Novas.

Vanessa frowned, "So.. I'm thinking we should send a message. Hit the roof first, fast and silent as possible, then come rushing into the club, take out the men with those lightsaber looking deals and then explain we're simply reacting to his lack of proper hospitality, not looking to start a fight. ..also, steal one of those in case it IS a lightsabter." She snickered.

Jay's eyes flicked across width and breadth of the image. "Laser pistols. The good ones, with stun and high-power. Rail shotguns. ... and shit, mono-swords. Those aren't cheap." Then his gaze homed in on the likeness of that icy nova...

"I want one of those sledgehammers," Alexa said, practically drooling.

"I think that Nova is a telepath, so she'll be reading our minds Vanessa, and relating what she picks up, I bet." Gillian said, frowning. Sean was doing a running tally of what he was seeing, crafting another mental list.

"Mitiods on the roof as well." Sean added to Jay's comment. "He did say he was being paranoid. So this may not be an active attempt to grab us."

Tavi bit her lip. "So, we go there, the telepath points at us and goes: They're going to betray you, then...bzzzabababapapbabapa..." She paused. "That's not what railguns sound like, is it?"

"I think... I should do the talking for this one," Jay offered, still focused on that image. "Nobody's gettin' inside my head, even Rachel Lacroix. Which is her name, byyyyy the way." He grinned at the rest of them.

"IMO, I vote we send Sean and Vanessa in and we all hang back as support if things go south." Gillian said, holding her hands up. "I think they'd be the best to either school their minds to stay on a topic that keeps the telepath confused or misdirected."

"Just my personal opinion that it seems JUST a bit too much muscle for a threat, AND we are trying to make sure he knows not to fuck with us, so a powerful, nonlethal show of force does still feel like a good starting move.." Vanessa snickered at Octavia, "Well, more of a loud hum and metal ripping through the air logically.."

"Well, if we want to fuck with him then we don't go. We could knock over every contact his ring has in the city while he has collected nearly all of his firepower into that one room." Sean commented. "But my bigger priority is making sure neither of us go the nuclear option- I don't want my family involved."

Tavi snickered. "I don't know, six novas?" she asked. "Even newbie ones? Sounds like twenty dudes with railguns and five mitoids is juuust enough firepower. Barely."

"I don't think he's got all this set up just for us. I think he's making sure that coming out into the open for us doesn't leave him open to whoever else he's on the bad side of," Jay said. "Takai's a big name in the Yakuza. Even I've heard of him. He's got enemies."

"It's a reaction to dealing with novas," Gillian blew out a breath, "We need to figure out what WE'RE going to do, not speculate on what the force is for. We know WHAT, we need to know HOW, then go and do it."

"Oh, I'm not saying we go nuclear. That's why I was very careful to say nonlethal." Vanessa said, sighing softly, "But I AM of course willing to go in pretending I believe this is good faith. If you'd all prefer that we can do it that way. Though I'd prefer one of Gillian's clones go in in case things go shitty, then we can warp out of there."

"Hey," Jay said abruptly, looking up at Sean. "Can you tweak my phone to completely wipe a couple texts after I send them? Regular delete ain't gonna cut it if they've got a tech nova hiding somewhere."

"Why not just use a burner phone?" Vanessa asked Jay curiously.

"Oh- that- right." Sean said with a nod. "The tech nova was Synapse in the end, so no worries about that. But I still can if you are paranoid." He offered.

"It'd make me feel better," Jay said to Sean, fingers already flying across the touch screen of his phone. To Vanessa he answered, "Gotta come from my number. Guy I know."

"Part of the reason why I made this fun toy." Sean said as he tapped the hard metal shell of the projection unit.

Gillian let out a frustrated sigh and fell into her seat, focus turning to the hologram.

"I don't- " Jay sighed. "I don't wanna keep secrets from you guys. But there's a lot of rumors about Lacroix. If half of them are true, anything we all know, she can find out."

The kitten wrapped it's paws around Gillian's hand, trying it's best to be cute and comforting. Tavi frowned. "Well, um...you have a plan, and you don't want us to know, in case she reads our minds?" She asked.

Jay nodded once, then flashed his ever-bountiful thumbs up to Tavi.

"I do agree with Vanessa. A non-lethal takedown of the mitiods would be an option. But doing so may cause things to go south before they otherwise would." Sean commented as he held out his hand for Jay's phone. Jay handed the phone over in short order, after sending one last text.

Gillian blew out a breath, petting the kitten. "Reading our minds is rough, but if you keep your head focused that shouldn't be much? It can't be like reading an open book, she has to focus to get results. I want to have an MP3 and some earbuds so i'm blasting music so loud I can't think straight."

Sean worked his magic, a few quick taps bringing up a dev console and a few lines of command clearing the memory blocks related to the text, even the logs they were sent. Finished he handed it back.

Tavi sighed. "I don't actually know...Utopia claims novas don't have telepathy, but..." She bit her lip. "I can see why they'd want to not panic people, but still."

"Honestly, I want Takai to know what is in my mind, if he can. Would make things far easier about the underlying threats." Sean noted. "But I am all for taking a step of good faith."

"What if?" Alexa said. "I thought really hard about having sex with David. Would that do anything?"

"Takai wouldn't bring her on if he didn't know she could do what he wanted. I'm not saying we're bad-but I'm saying she's got more practice than us." Jay said, grinning at Alexa.

Gillian groaned and laid her head back on her seat, eyes closed.

Tavi bit her lip. "You, uh, okay, Gillian?" she asked, nervously, remembering how her friend had been on a somewhat short fuse last week.

Vanessa sighed, "So.. we call go in then?" She said curiously, biting her lip. She shook her head, "Maybe we should all go in. We're pretty badass and if we get overwhelmed Gillian can get us out and I can hit us with forcefields to keep us safe, so logically going in to talk is the best. If he's honest, we're fine. If he needs a display of power, beating all his men without the element of surprise is MORE intimidating, and if things go bad, we can bug out. It seems like the optimial plan."

"We're not figuring a plan out, we're just speculating or coming up with 'what if's. And it's starting to get to me." Gillian said without closing her eyes. "I want to get a concrete concept of how we're going to work tonight."

"Is Vanessa's plan good for you, Gillian? And the rest?" Tavi asked, looking at the others.

"Sounds good to me," Alexa nodded.

"That's what I was thinking. We see if we can't find a good way to make a deal and bail Mark out-and if it goes bad, we get out together."

"But: Who deals with who, how do we fall back, what is our plan if we're separated. How do we deal with the railguns and their firing formation if they HAVE one, or have counter-nova tactics. We're all just winging it on fucking 'we're gunna be gud' when one of us could possibly die. Or kill somebody ELSE on accident." Gillian let out a sigh, "I'm thinking about EVERYTHING that could go wrong, I guess. And I am scared fuckless why nobody else isn't."

"Alright, sure." Sean said with a nod. "We are going to walk into the tiger den, into the middle of that potential trap and treat it like nothing. We are going to explain to him how being hostile with us is a really bad idea, set down ground rules for what he is going to need to do to not get ripped out of the city, we are going to get some info on some of the criminal elements giving him trouble, he is going to get his tech back. We will all leave happy, because the nuclear option is the worst thing for him." Sean spelled out. "I can shut down the lasers and railguns. Mitiods are a bit harder for me to do anything about." He offered. "So that would be between Gillian and Alexa. Van, Tavi, and Jay run fire and support. If we get overwhelmed, we go defensive to give Gillian a moment to warp us out, then we crush every foothold he has in the city." Sean added.

"Well, I'm not scared because I used quantum energies to alter my mind so I don't panic anymore. I feel scared, it's just incredibly easy to push it aside." Vanessa said honestly, "But if you want a plan.. okay, we walk in, if they start firing, we run, that's easy. If they let us get to him, we all duck, I buff Alexa with a force field, she runs in with Jay, while Tavi provides cover fire and Sean shuts shit down, Gillian can grab Takai and port him out of there. The goons won't be motivated to fight without their boss there, either out of fright he'll be in danger or the more likely idea without a guaranteed payday they'll lack motivation." She said, offering up an alternate combat plan.

Sean nodded to Vanessa. "That works too."

"Yeah, force fields!" Alexa said, pumping her fist.

Gillian sucked in a slow breath, and then let it out after a few moments, opening her eyes. "That is all I was hoping to hear, if not more. Sean, Vanessa; Thank you." She finally said, reaching for her mask. "I'll have another five of me on stand-by to work as a distraction so I can get in and out with everyone and Takai more easily." She sighed. "Though, uh, Sean, shutting those weapons down will make a note to Takai as well, so I'd say do it out of principal. It'll work with the idea still."