[PRP] Discussing Discovery

[Blood_Goddess]

Faleen remained in silence for a good portion of the beginning of the conversation, and clover started the discussion and stated the reason they were there to begin with, as well as give lead as to why an Executive would be interested to hear what Agents and grunts had to say.

The agent glanced over at Tambrey as she spoke, and tried to high light the events from the mission that brought the Legendary of Keldeio.
"I believe that it would be unwise to assume that Galactic isn't a threat anymore, As Tambrey said, with the encounter of Yveltal, and the woman who commands it. as I recalled Elite Claire had identified the two as Galactics themselves, thought reports from the team claimed that they denied involvement."
She finished speaking that in an air that suggested that the women's word shouldn't be trusted.

"With as little as we know now, I'm uncertain of a proper way that I can offer a suggestion on how to respond to whatever level of threat they might be." Faleen folded her fingers together over the tablet she had sitting on the table in front of her.
"Ma'am- has our team yet been able to analyze the information from the hard drives we brought back? Some of the information we gathered looked to be from a room that recorded missions that they ran. any information about Tethys, or Galactics involvement with Yveltal. I'm assuming that these have been looked into, since we're under the impression that Tethys' is in Kodo? Or did you come by that information another way?"  

[Tinnunculus]

It took some time for Hayes to speak again. First he had to digest what Executive Clover was saying, and then he had to collect his thoughts, a process that was like scooping handfuls of sand together. By the time he'd completed it, the others had spoken, and he had to start all over again. Meanwhile, the promise of a headache had formed, and the air had gone tense around Aulus.

The elite pulled his glasses off and ran a hand over his eyes, setting the folded frames on the table between himself and the scarred agent in the next chair with a quiet 'click.'  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"If a Galactic was causing problems for Tethys," Claire pointed out at Lex's conclusion, "she would simply take care of the root of the problem. I highly doubt she would ground the ship instead, let alone completely destroy it. It wasn't detonated until after you all had gone in and explored for a while, after all."

Claire's gaze shifted to each of the team in turn, pausing to stay on those speaking, or those with odd reactions - Aulus received a raise of her brows and a polite, pointed cough. "What Agent Aulus said is correct. The pink haired woman was definitely a Galactic, but it appears at some point that changed, and she is now ex-Galactic, if what we've heard and discovered during both missions is to be believed. The other woman with her may have been a Galactic as well, or she may not have been - on that point we're uncertain."  

[Suudonym]

As the Rockets began to speak, Clover extracted a handheld touchscreen from her uniform and began to type. Once everyone had said their piece, she gave her response, "So there were questions after all, then. The prisoner who identified himself as Daniel," she said, addressing Aulus first, "has not been able to give us a great deal of information regarding the events that led to the airship's current state, though he has been willing to answer any question about the organization's previous activities - the interrogation is still underway, but little of the information he has given thus far is of much relation to today's discussion. Most relevant is his insistence that the organization known as Team Galactic no longer exists. He claims in all confidence that the group has disbanded entirely."

She continued, addressing questions raised by both Aulus and Faleen, "Little of the hard drives' contents were of great interest, unfortunately. One, for example, was dedicated to the organization's various legal endeavors through the years. Most were cleaned of all but an operating system, and one contained a database that seemed to have been used to alter access permissions around the base. We were able to extract a list of operatives who were connected to Team Galactic presumably at the time directly preceding the airship's grounding, but we are still investigating ways that this information could be utilized to our benefit.

"Installed on one hard drive was a software that, according to our evaluation, was used to create and add mission reports to their local network. There was one such report in still in progress that indicated that Tethys had been dispatched to Kodo on a mission for 'investigative purposes,'" she raised one hand to perform half a set of air quotes to emphasize that the words weren't paraphrased. "The mission started in February, however, so it's difficult to imagine that she's been in the region ever since then without our knowing - not impossible, but difficult. Naturally, we will continue to consider the organization a threat until we can confirm the status of its commanders, and even then there are certainly plenty of non-commander Galactics with good reason to begrudge us and wish us harm. Yveltal," she said in response to Faleen's question about the pokemon, "was not mentioned in any of the retrieved information, but that isn't to say that that means Galactic had no involvement with it. The full, complete mission reports, unfortunately, seem to have been stored elsewhere.

"As for the symbol, that was one thing that I wanted to know all of your opinions on." She paused to manipulate her touchscreen device briefly, bringing up the picture of the symbol in question on the projector screen - cropped out from its gory surroundings. "It's obvious that it was drawn deliberately, but we're having a hard time discerning its meaning. So far the closest match we've been able to find is the Greek capital letter delta, which has a numerical value of four and is used for various purposes in mathematics and science. Efforts to identify its potential meaning are ongoing."  

[Gwennythe]

Tambrey followed along, after speaking, nodding a little to what she heard and trying to pay close attention.
All of this was... disappointing yet interesting all at the same time.

And then...
"Delta?" Her brows worked slightly as she shifted in her chair to prop herself up a little more...
Had the weird... blood-symbol really looked like Delta? She frowned and dug from her memory, glancing to Kailee, knowing that she'd have likely picked up on the significance too...
"We, uh... We use that in some sciences- Chemistry, and that, but, um, more specifically, importantly, to me... We use that symbol in genetics."
She paused, considering the meaning and the potential translations regarding it.
"When we, uh... remove a gene from a sequence, we use it to symbolize, in a kind of a code that we've, uh, done that, or, at least, that it's happened..." She waved a hand awkwardly.
"I'm not saying that the crazy hieroglyphic is referring to genetic engineering but what if the symbolism retains, um, meaning in a similar way? Like," she glanced around to see if she was making any kind of sense "the 'removal' of something?"  

[TawnyAngel]

At the light click of the glasses Aulus started very slightly and glanced quickly across at Alex to see why they had been removed; there was always a good reason for Alex taking off his glasses and that went double for setting them down. Alex wasn't looking at him though, the elite was running a hand over his face and he didn't look well. Concern flashed across Aulus' scarred features but his attention was quickly pulled back to the meeting by Claire's throat clear and subsequent explanation. Even so his focus was now fairly firmly divided between the discussion at hand and Alex. If his friend started looking worse he was taking him back to the infirmary and the Executive with her smart comment about there being questions after all could shove it where the sun didn't shine. b***h.

As all appeared to be well for now however, or at least not terrible, he paid attention to what Tam was saying; it brought a thoughtful frown to his face. "Well... it's pretty safe to say the guy was removed, and deliberately. That wound," Aulus swallowed slightly despite his best efforts to avoid showing that the sight had disturbed him, "that was certainly no accident... and I guess it must have been what killed him? Or done when he was alive anyway, or very soon after? I'm not a medical expert or anything but I know that blood doesn't flow once you're dead so... so a ritual killing to remove- what? A perceived rot within Galactic? I wonder if that guy was Fenrir."

It was a shame that not much had come off the drives... and now he pondered it - having been focusing on Alex before - it was worrying. Tethys, here in Kodo. He did not like that thought. He did not like it one tiny bit and... and....

Interrogation.

The word made his blood run cold and he wondered that he hadn't registered it instantly.

The man was a former Galatic of course but- but-

Aulus swallowed again and tried not to think about it, or to look as thought he was thinking about something that bothered him for that matter. Maybe they weren't doing anything awful to him. Maybe he was just locked up and bored... and alone, perhaps in solitary confinement. Aulus lent back in his chair a little, fingers curling in to his palm and hand coming up to rest against his mouth. Realizing what he was doing he quickly changed the gesture to a rub at his jaw and then rested his arm back on the table again. His heart was beating faster than it should be. Interrogation. What were they doing to that poor b*****d? She said he was willing to give information but.... No, just don't think about it. Maybe he was okay.  

[Tinnunculus]

Well.

That little of value had been left behind came as no great surprise, in part because concussions tended to slow the world down such that change registered slowly and murkily. Hayes' expression, which was blank and tired, only flickered as the executive relayed the news about Tethys' likely presence in Kodo. It, like the rest of the meeting, seemed a layer removed from 'real.'

Delta, though, had been hammered into his head a long time ago, in the same way as basic data structures and never using malloc() or gets() in C.

"It's change," the elite added to Tambrey and Aulus' musings, closing his eyes for a moment against the overhead lights. "In calculus, it's change, or difference. If it's delta. It's too round on top."  

[caffeinecraving]

Kailee had been listening. She was allowed to have an opinion. Faleen had told her that. But on the same level, she had nothing intelligent to add so she was here.

Well nothing intelligent until of course the symbol was brought up. "Delta in math is 'a change in' something. The final minus the initial... Was the dead guy below it identifiable as anything other then another dead body? Or it could just mean 'a change' in Galactica... " She frowned. "I wonder if he was the first to die... a warning sign to the others?" It was an idea.

She glanced to Tam. "Or of course Agent Tambrey is also very correct in that its how we mark a deletion of any kind... including natural deletions." She was backing her up... this was completely Tam's idea, she was just adding. "So maybe just a sadistic tick to say the man was now 'deleted'?" She shrugged offering her voice to back up Tambrey in that.

 

[Shaddaling]

"Or the fourth wave of leadership," Lex hummed softly, thinking over it. "Tethys would be the fourth, if one wasn't counting her stint as actual leader to Deimos figure head." Well, to his calculations. "She is also cold logic. I wouldn't say rational, but it could be her symbol. Or perhaps the symbol of the new fraction of ex-galactic members."

He glanced at Claire and decided to ignore her. Tethys was likely not thinking straight. And who says she didn't want a fresh start away from everything that reminded her of Deimos. "On a separate subject, did the fur on the clothes turn out to be viable for cloning?"

He wanted something to come out of this mess, even if it was merely clones of Shaymin.  

[TawnyAngel]

"Tethys wouldn't paint the walls with gore like that," Aulus put in quietly, numbly, fixing his eyes on the tabletop. "If that man was a rival she'd just have removed him and moved on; she's nothing if not... efficient." Having been on the receiving end of said efficiency he was all too painfully aware of it.  

[Suudonym]

The executive hummed quietly in thought at the possibilities that were offered, continuing to type on her device. "That's true," she said with a nod to Hayes. "As feasible as it sounds from all your suggestions, we're not 100% positive that the symbol is meant to represent delta. If it is, it's a very clumsy depiction.

"The prisoner has asserted that the man beneath the symbol was the individual identified as Fenrir," Clover confirmed. "Of course, we only have his word on the matter. The decomposition was too advanced to hope for any kind of chance at facial recognition. I agree with Agent Aulus, though," her eyes turned to Lex in address of his statements. "That kind of behavior is inconsistent with our understanding of Tethys's behavior. If her mental and emotional state has deteriorated so severely, then I suspect that she would actually be less of a threat than she was in the past - although that's nothing to base a course of action on.

"On the subject of the fur samples," she continued, "yes, there was enough information that we should be able to reproduce a live Shaymin.

"To return to the topic of our discussion, as Agent Faleen stated earlier, it's difficult to find the best way to act when we have so little information. All of you in this room right now saw the state of Galactic's headquarters and, by property of association, the state of their team. For several of you, this was not the first time you were personally impacted by the organization. So, there is something I'd like to ask of each of you. From your experiences, knowledge, and personal understanding, if the decision were yours to make, how would you choose for Team Rocket to proceed in matters pertaining to Team Galactic?"  

[TawnyAngel]

Aulus blinked. What? Their opinions meant that much? Really? An executive was actually asking them how they thought the whole team should proceed in this matter? The scarred Agent's mind wheeled as it attempted a rapid recalculation of the Executive while simultaneously trying to come up with an intelligent response to her heavy question.

"We need more information."

Well that was obvious, well done Einstein.

Aulus rubbed his forehead as he silently cursed himself for speaking prematurely; he didn't know what he was going to say next! Oh well, he'd just have to keep talking and hope for the best.

"I know that's sodding-" woops "I mean, I know that's extremely obvious and has been said but we do," he continued, leaning forward again as he re-engaged with the meeting. "How to get it though, well, that I don't know. What I do know is that those two women from Paladin island were looking for legendaries too, specifically for Mesprit I think?" With his brain not yet working at full capacity he was definitely open to correction on that point and glanced over at Tam, who had been on the mission too, and then at Claire who'd been leading it from the ship. "I.... Mmh, I don't know if this would work or not - I'm just thinking aloud at the moment - but could we consider trying to bait a trap using what little we do know about those two? If we can capture them perhaps we can find out more about the state of Galactic, or whatever might have replaced it." Going up against that death bird again did not especially appeal but at least this time they would be prepared and could mount a defense.  

[Shaddaling]

"It might not fit Tethys but we do not know how much was left as is or how much was the work of Crazy Dave and associates." And that was his permanent moniker now. He lost an eye, he was completely allowed to refer the mad man that nearly blew them up as that. ... It was certainly a lot more politer then he wanted to say.

"What would be bait a trap with?" Lex questioned, interested. "We could attempt to bait Tethys. If we have gotten all the information from Deimos, dumping him in front of the league champion or officer and then stake out the place for Tethys or some one else to spring him."  

[Gwennythe]

Tambrey nodded.
She, in fact, however poorly he thought he'd worded it, agreed with Aulus; they did need more information.
"Mesprit." She repeated, and nodded a little. Not without a little wince of annoyance. Stupid Ditto.

But, that gave more scope to Aulus 'trap' idea.
"Well... Maybe," She half-muttered as she listened to Lex, but spoke up with, what she'd thought, she'd understood the 'trap' idea to mean...
"Um. You see, there is definitely a Ditto we have that knows how to mimic Mesprit..." Stupid Ditto.  

[Tinnunculus]

It was slightly easier to concentrate when only hearing had to be processed, like squinting through a fog. Keeping his eyes closed, Hayes pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. The others' voices ebbed and flowed around him, close in time with the beat of blood in his temples. Shaymin, then Mesprit.. before that, there'd been an idea.

"The women," he spoke up. "Someone said they were Galactic." Maybe Claire. Probably Claire. The blond elite opened his eyes for now to look at the assembled group. "We have a list. If they're on there - if they store real names like us, or.. something else." His eyes closed again. "Any little thing. We can cross-reference other sources, find out more. Past activities. Personal data. A picture for facial rec. Organization's only secure as its users, and tech knowledge isn't.. uniform across payroll." It was usually especially bad in management, but a concussion didn't rid you of some basic instincts. He said something else.

"We don't know if they're making new tech. I mean the women. They could just be using stuff from Deimos. He's not easy to copy. Or understand. They had maybe.. one person who did it." A special engineer for it, in fact, and Star was one of those people you didn't forget however much you wanted to.

Putting those thoughts together had taken some effort, and Hayes now lapsed into silence.