@prom.argentum

[mercurio]

hey, guys! prompto here lol

i know there's a lot of information to go through after everything that happened. can you believe it's just been ten days since the UNA soldiers? sure feels like longer! that and we got some newcomers literally in the middle of NAEXPO which i think is the nicer of scenarios. (omgs speaking of is anyone else cosplaying? i don't think i've slept the past day, it's been a lot of fun!! if anyone's here or thinking of coming Hit Me UP there's so much to do.)

consider this your C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER for serious posts

mostly i just wanted to say that i got my camera back from home! and the best part is? the SD card was INTACT. all you earth dwellers be making faces at how ~weird~ the fauna is like in eos, but now i can finally show it to you. that and the adventures me and my friends had while we took a roadtrip out of the city and into the great unknown!

i've made a happy slideshow for you guys to check HERE. i've captioned everything too heh

you know
photography
just a lil hobby of mine no big deal

not that i think i could use it here without people getting all alarmed on my ass for it 😔📸

ADDITIONALLY

i know we're trying to set up something more comprehensive like a guide of sorts for what we know, and there's a couple of great people pushing towards meeting at least once a month to touch base. i think we're going for birthday celebrations as our incognito excuse? help me fill out this calendar with your birthdays. it's not gonna be a real party if you don't want it to be, and some of you don't actually have birthdays? whaaaaaaat... but like, what does your ID say? share your life story with me, etc. or don't lol

anyway plz look at my pix and have a look at what CHOCOBOS are! i miss having chocobos

Comments

[retravel]

Huh. Fancy dress is new. Seems like they're trying to hone their tactics. I wonder if they're hoping we won't find them, or if they have other concerns. Worrying over our involvement seems at odds with the rest of their MO.

[ When the drop-offs follow pretty consistent patterns, he means, both in style and dates, as Prompto has neatly charted out. Why not scatter individuals or order them to disperse? Why even release them in the first place? Could be they aren't yet worried about the displaced catching on. ]

If we get out ahead, I reckon we could manage a headcount. Hell, we could get eyes on those doing the dropoffs. And with Morningstar short-staffed, it might be that some of our own can access and watch the cameras or lines of intel, in the long term. Depends on what we propose and what El makes of it all, in the end.

[ do they have the skills to hack cameras themselves? does morningstar trust any of them enough to hand over covert channels? ultimately, could they tail the unmarked car dropping the lot of them off? maybe. fitz has been here for three bloody months (following six in solitary, which marks nine without jemma and counting).

time to get a bit more audacious. ]

As for the drug, I do. A drug like that requires money, facilities, resources, expertise, human trials — all of which tend to leave a trail. We know our third party is scrupulous about covering their tracks, but no one's infallible. Their own operative waving at bloody camera is what gave us a lead in back in July.

[strove]

I've done some chasing on the drug, but I haven't come up with anything. Morningstar's tech has given me the same answer several times over. I know it has to be someone corporate, but that's something we already know.

[Clarke doesn't think the drug is a lead right now. It's as much of a lead as anything else: a hanging piece of information that she hasn't successfully chased.]

If it's corporate, it'd be based here in New Amsterdam. Easier to make it so it's not documented, with travel being so monitored. Would that make Giles Bell the most likely culprit? They deal in pharmaceuticals, right? I've dismissed them before, but that's when it came to the monster. This isn't the same.

Or maybe someone at Giles Bell. How likely is it that we're the only ones falling through the cracks with some help?

[retravel]

By chasing do you mean further testing? I trust Patil's work, so what any of us have received from the lab techs will be the beginning and end of it from that perspective. However, while we know the drug's effectiveness and stability are indicative of professional expertise, I'd hesitate to call it corporate in nature. Yet, anyway.

[ he's hopeful. as ever, nothing is a lead here in the traditional sense (no fingerprints on the body, no smoking gun), but there are threads worth tugging on again and again for how they might weave a clearer, more vibrant picture. ]

You're right about the travel restrictions and Giles Bell's pharmaceutical specialty, under their overarching work as a biomedical conglomerate. [ added detail for anyone reading along from newer waves. ] We already know our MS lab techs test substances at corporate labs on the sly, so our third party operatives can do the same, at the very least.

That all to say, I agree that the odds are on Giles Bells' involvement, likely a few individuals using their professional facilities for side projects, as you say, or even a group under a subsidiary.

One such subsidiary went into lockdown during the outbreak at the end of July. Its VP demanded that security shut down all exits to the building and insisted on employees being searched. Could just be the virus (or spores) at work, but it's stuck with me. We'd do well to ask our local Giles Bell employees to do some preliminary internal investigation, if they're up for it (@katelin.philips, @rey.nolo).

@katelin.philips

[covertness]

i can keep my eyes and ears open and see if anyone at the watercooler's feeling chatty
unless you had something else in mind with preliminary internal investigation?

@rey.nolo

[forcevisions]

[ trying to dive in based on what she's seen around elsewhere, ]

You're in the labs, right? Does maintenance come through often?

I could try to get the addresses for some and try to slip in. If I tell them I have to work on something, no one really bothers looking my way. I'd need to know what I'm looking for, though. I don't know much about medications or viruses or any of what Fitz is describing.

[retravel]

[ volunteering to go in. that's the best, brave space gal!! ]

I think an on the ground move like that is what we'll ultimately want, Rey, and it's a clever suggestion.
The rest's admittedly not my area of expertise, either.

[ @jemma.simmons pls show up ]

So, forget the medications and viruses, for the moment, if that's alright.
We don't know much about Giles Bell as a corporation, in the first instance.
Watercooler chat, as Kat's said, and general organisational information could help us narrow our gaze.
More information on its board, leadership, hierarchy, and pharmaceutical subsidiaries to start.

[ shield style. ]

At least that'd be my suggestion. Could be that I'm pointed in the wrong direction entirely.

[ fitz is 50% hunches and 50% marvel science experience. kind of a mixed bag, ideas-wise. ]

[forcevisions]

The ... board?

[ she's gonna assume that has to do with leadership. ]

I don't know where to look for that. That base we're considering sells caf to rich people, doesn't it? They're probably the sort of people who know about that.

[ every day rey is in this city is a day closer to becoming fujioka haruhi. goddamn rich people. ]

[retravel]

[ surrounded by foolish men... a true heroine. ]

That they are. And likely to reveal information to Kat.
You and I can bounce some ideas around during one of our lunch meetings, if you want. Or out here.

[ """lunch meetings""" it's called hanging out. look it up. ]

Talk about what you've noticed so far and figure out where will be best for you to loo based on that. With a hands-on job, you probably know more than you think.

[ about their facilities, sites, tech. ]

[forcevisions]

A lunch meeting would be fine.
Honestly, just tell me where you need me.

[ spy lessons in addition to surviving with reading difficulties lessons ? ?? but also seriously there's a good number of people here who just seem much better at strategy than she is and rey is fine taking the L on that one for her pride and letting them maneuver her, just as she had done for the resistance. #teamplayer. ]

[covertness]

yeah, i'm in the labs
and we get maintenance every so often

i've been getting more leeway with unfettered access to some of the lab equipment, too
doesn't tell me what anyone else is working on, but at least it means i can test blood samples and such without the company knowing

[strove]

The same testing. Don't forget that I'm the one who first sent off the samples. The lab tech couldn't identify a source. Is that Patil? [At the time, they were nameless for Clarke. They're still nameless, though she knows that Fitz likely identified her specifically the night of the attacks. Clarke doesn't bother to look back right now.]

If that's where she's been testing, then we know that whatever the drug is, it isn't on a known market. That points to actions done on the sly. I think any of the systems she'd use would be able to find the compound that was identified. I wanted to look at corporate because that's how it was done back in the day. Everything we had on the Ark growing up had a label on it. Just ... all of it was rationed. I never knew what the labels meant beyond that they were for brands that were long gone. And I never learned much about capitalism because our society was inherently trade-based. Rationed all the way down.

I'm explaining this because I'm afraid I missed something. Perhaps in writing it off as corporate because Patil's labs are good enough is the wrong way to look at it? Tell me if I am missing something.

Do we have a reason to believe the VP wasn't infected? Do you think they faked it?

[retravel]

I haven't forgotten, Clarke, and I hope that none of the first wave has. I only meant to ask if anything more had come of it.

[ clarifying her work up to this point, not doubting her (fitz doesn't do that; even when they disagree, she articulates her reasons, and he respects her for it). he just wants to be sure he hasn't missed anything, either. ]

And Patil was our chief lab contact, yes, though several others helped. She didn't have her own facilities, as far as I'm aware, however. It seems like most Morningstar techs use their day jobs to test samples. Or they did, before the raids. Regardless, you're right about the findings. As I said, I'm with you on corporate facilities being the most likely source, with expert work done there on the sly.

[ they're on the same page, he thinks, but he wouldn't want anyone reading along to think they have definitive evidence when they don't — yet. ]

Not surprising that something like this would be kept off the known market, is it? When it's so bloody horrifying.

As for the VP, I think they were infected, but that the infection itself enhances genuine emotions, however small or insignificant they are without the virus' interference. [ hurt, as in the case of Daisy; pissed off, like his coworker; or paranoid, in this potential suspect. ] That's based on my own anecdotal experiences with the affected, of course.

[ he's not convinced of the subsidiary's involvement, either, but he's not one to leave a stone unturned. ]

[strove]

Unfortunately not much more. I haven't known how to follow that lead more, but knowing that this is common and possible, that means that any records may be deleted. But you're right in thinking they might slip up. If they have before.

We have to think about the scale, though. If they can erase and scrub identities, why would they need to work off to the side in a lab? That's assuming that we're a side project.

Can we be?