@leo.fitz

[retravel]

Hi everyone,

It's time again for the irregularly scheduled update on the shadowy conspiracies surrounding our spacetime displacement.

If you don't already know me, I'm Leo Fitz, one of the arrivals from the first transport. Prior to being here, I was an engineering and technology operative at SHIELD, an American extra-governmental military counter-terrorism and intelligence agency. Myself and several others have been investigating the circumstances of the fire and the nurse's death, with the generous aid of Gaby, El, and Morningstar's contacts.

Debris samples from the apartment site collected by Kylo (@kylo.ren) and I contained the expected signs of fire damage as well as a significant oddity: Residue left by an organic material. While the residue was too insubstantial and damaged for a full chemical analysis, it showed matching markers to the samples of the smaller creatures of unknown origin (designated 084s), previously tested by Kylo through Morningstar.

At great personal risk, Katelin (@katelin.philips) and Marcos (@marcos.diaz) also questioned the morgue attendants. In doing so, we learned the following information:

1. Our nurse suffered blunt force head trauma, noted as his cause of death prior to the fire reaching his body. Such an injury occurs most often by accident, as in the case of a car crash, or when an object is used to bludgeon the skull, as in the event of a homicide.

2. I'm inclined to classify this cause of death as suspicious, and it seems the local authorities agree, with a group of individuals in possession of NAFD Forensics identification having carted off the corpse before we arrived. Additionally, records of the nurse's collection and autopsy have been scrubbed, much to our morgue attendants' surprise and alarm.

Further investigation shows that all of the nurse's data has been wiped, as if he never existed in the first place.

Maybe this only confirms our suspicions of foul play and establishes a concrete link between the fire and the creatures. To me, it guarantees that we are dealing with an organization capable of using, coercing, and erasing individuals, even those who have proven useful to them in the past. Everything we do in pursuit of answers is a risk, so please be careful as we work together to solve this.

— Fitz

Comments

@hafid.alghul

[batricide]

That's the problem with everything being digital.
Do we know any information about the deceased whatsoever?

[retravel]

[ oh, the smart boy. ]

We have a physical description: Male, tall, dark-skinned, hazel eyes, short hair, five o'clock shadow. Might be worth having a sketch drawn up, actually (@markus.manfred).

His apartment building was owned by AJJ Holdings, a real estate company that specialises in mid-to-high range apartments in New Amsterdam. Most occupants have cushy jobs and higher salaries, so our nurse or his backers had the funds to foot the bill.

AJJ has no records of his recent rent payments, his rental application, or anything, for that matter. They were pretty unsettled when they realised there was a gap in their data and preferred to believe I'd made an error, suggesting that the man was never a tenant in the first place.

@daisy.johnson

[evite]

[ sure, there's important information here... but priority #1: ]

leo, huh?

[retravel]

Don't start.

@loki.odinson

[selfimage]

I don't think he likes Leonard.

[ this isn't what this is about, Loki. ]

@loki.odinson

[selfimage]

This isn't the first occurrence of data wiped from the broad inclusion of the term "systems."

[ that was a bad joke, but he's running with it. ]

But it certainly displays the wider extent of it.

[retravel]

[ a distinct take, the loki special. ]

It's impressive work, even if I hate to admit it.
But I hadn't thought of it like that.

[ put that acknowledgment on the fridge 'cause it doesn't happen often. ]

@noctis.sky

[fessus]

Hey Leo, I'm Noctis

[ Pleasantries first and foremost, amazing. ]

Think there's any chance of backup records? With everything this connected you'd think they'd have extra data stored somewhere, or at least a satellite trail. Maybe that'd be useful, but I'm not a computer expert so I can't track it. I wish.

Anyway if you need any more people looking into anything lmk, just not the super tech stuff, like I said.

[retravel]

[ wow someone interested in helping... how wild... ]

Good to meet you.
Even those of us with prior experience in the area can't keep up with these advancements, unfortunately, but your idea may still be worth pursuing. @daisy.johnson, thoughts?

[ deferring to the expert... ]

Course there are plenty of skills beyond tech that we need. What's your background, if you don't mind my asking?

@connor.resnik

[cyberlife]

Excellent work, Agent Fitz.

(yeah, the full title drop. we're going ham. and because no one praised them all yet.)

You and your team have been working tirelessly; it's showing.

Did anyone question the nurse's neighbours or any of the businesses surrounding the building itself? The CCTVs may have been wiped, but the memories of those crossing his path wouldn't be. We could cross-reference the location of El's video footage and work backwards.

I want to know where - exactly - he was coming from.

[retravel]

Thank you, Officer Connor.

[ he'll forgive the upthread betrayal just this once!! ]

I believe @kylo.ren pursued leads in this area and turned up more bloody dead ends, [ wee bit frustrated oops ] so he likely knows where to find the other tenants. Your approach would be a distinct effort and a worthy one, I think, for retracing his steps.

[ a timeline of events before the crime! wouldn't that be a christmas miracle. ]

@marcos.diaz

[claro]

[ after browsing the rest of this hot mess, ]

Looks like you made this announcement at great personal risk.

[retravel]

Hysterical.
Give over your medal of honour, then.

@richard.grayson

[preceded]

[Hi honey, you've been busy. He's gonna start small and work his way up]

first off.
i feel like i need to apologize.
on behalf of my brother.

private.

[retravel]

[ just gonna work up... to replying to the other message... 😳 ]

Malone's your brother.
Seriously.

[ hmmm seems scientifically improbable given the all the data ]

But he's the worst.

[ and by worst he means "incorrigible" and "mildly irritating" ]

@bellamy.blake

[deployed]

So we're back to square one, for the moment.

Did our people cover their tracks?

[retravel]

Katelin's ability makes that easy, so we're cleared at the morgue, and Kylo and I were careful to avoid detection at the apartment site.

My name's on record as an inquiry to AJJ Holdings about the building, but they seemed keen to forget I'd ever been there, so that's the worst of it.

@rey.nolo

[forcevisions]

If someone murdered him, they probably saw him before that night at the apartment.




How hard would it be to erase data like this? I'm not familiar with any systems like this. Everything in my galaxy is hard disks.

[retravel]

I'm inclined to agree, unless our suspects outsource their homicides.

Given that video footage was seamlessly covered near simultaneously to its stream, I'd say it's highly sophisticated, clearly above the government and Morningstar's capabilities.

@kylo.ren

[warfares]

While I've yet to track down everyone, the vast majority of the people I have spoken to recall little of the evening in question much less of the nurse.

So, either the nurse was incredibly discreet or they're lying.

[retravel]

Of course they don't recall any damn thing.

[ FRUSTRATED DOT COM DOT ORG DOT CO DOT UK ]

Good on you for checking. If the nurse worked for the people who erased him (*if), I should think he was capable of discretion.

@ciri.lla

[persists]

Looks like you've been busy.

[ I mean? She's super proud. ]

It's clear this loose end had some kind of risk. Even if it was a small one, it was something worth the hassle of scrubbing. Yet... knowing our luck, this person may have been chosen because they have no ties. Lonely line of work, you know. Instead of family, perhaps friends may be key?

[retravel]

[ ciri!! this support 😊]

I hadn't considered that angle. A risk worth using time and resources on total erasure and arson, potentially, to cover the murder. And I'd wager the hit was professional, given the apparent success of the blunt force trauma.

[ "success" being the death of the nurse... they did murder good ok]

I agree with you. Organisations with questionable aims tend to target isolated or disenfranchised individuals.
Still reckon any type of connection would be worth pursuing. He must have associates. Hell, we know he does, since we witnessed multiple people in every transport of human cargo.

@clarke.griffin

[strove]

Sorry I'm a little late to this. A woman at work was sick because of the heat, so I covered for her.

[Plus, work means money which means a lot of things, like the freedom to move about this city without worry. Clarke doesn't know that she'll ever get there, but she's trying. It would be easier if she and Bellamy had gotten that third roommate.]

I've read through some of this. If you don't mind me asking, what are your current theories?

[retravel]

Hardly missed a thing.

[ deadeyes everyone not taking this Seriously. ]

On what? [ given that there's a lot going on, theories spiderwebbing out of every thread of information. ] I have a few regarding these developments.

Chiefly, the residue is compelling evidence of a bioweapon linked to the same lab/point of origin as the creatures and potentially our modified selves, as well as an indication of arson. Ergo, the fire led to the rage outbreak. It also leads me to believe we came from that lab, given that we were both a means of spreading the disease and curing it. A weapon and a failsafe in mobile packaging.

[ everything is connected, so they need to think bigger and stop getting mired in the details. not an easy thing, for leopold james fitz. ]

@cassandra.cain

[cassassin]

[ oh this is a lot of words. it's coming in pretty directly without her having to process a lot of it, at least, but... well, taking it all in is still some effort. ]

👍

hi. i'm cass.
so what's next

[retravel]

[ CUTE CONTENT ]

Thanks, Cass 👍
That depends on what you think and what you can do.