Frozen Shadows (IC)

[Electra]

"Well then, Su Li," Lady Laser drawled laconically, a deeply Southern twang creeping into her voice, "why don't you tell us more about what we're going to find when we get to New Freedom? I get the feelin' it's not the sort of place where they roll the welcome mat out right away, even for superhumans. We gonna have to make our bones here right off?" She smiled, revealing too many teeth for it to be entirely friendly. "It's been awhile since I've had a good throwdown, so I'm ready if you are. Got anything to drink on this flight?" She relaxed in her seat, her pose lazy but her eyes still quite watchful.

[Fox]

[bg=#222222]"'Make our bones'...sound like a thug,"[/bg] Gateway dryly observed. She sincerely, sincerely doubted she could pull off any kind of accent without being seen through, so instead Mara put her mind to sounding as humorless and businesslike as possible. Considering the heresy she'd had to commit in reshaping her armor, it wasn't hard. [bg=#222222]"No drink for me. Would rather keep my mind sharp. Would like the information, though - always ready to 'throw down' -"[/bg] - she used the word with a tone that implied she was purely humoring Lady Laser - [bg=#222222]"- but it never hurts to be prepared."[/bg]

[Avenger Assembled]

"Oh, you do not have to prove anything to me," said Sui Li with that huge flight attendant's smile. "I am here to serve you in any way you wish until we reach New Freedom. I would never think to challenge someone with advanced metapowers," she said with great distinctiveness, eying the TV screen on the bulkhead wall behind her for a moment as if speaking to her reflection. Turning back to the others, she said, "When we arrive in New Freedom, you will be tested to prove you have the power and skill to enhance our community, and if you succeed you will meet with our officials. Perhaps even with the Patriotic Colonel," she added, folding her white-gloved hands in front of her. "If you brought resources of your own, you will be able to move them into your new residence, or construct that residence yourself if you wish. For example, one of our recent arrivals, Emperor Sojin of the Ameratsu people, has used his solar powers to construct a residence in his own likeness out of native rock." She smiled again, her hands folded tight in front of her.

From the cockpit, with the plane now safely on autopilot for the trip in, Sandstone strutted out, eying the two women a little skeptically as she towered over the flight attendant. Sharl had kept himself discreetly hidden in the onboard computer as they went, not even tampering with the plane to avoid causing problems too early. "You ladies picked quite a time to show your faces around here. Better be worth the visit." She grinned, her skin shifting slightly, revealing the particulate beneath. "Either of you spend any time in Europe lately?" she added, giving the others a hard look.

[Electra]

"Why the hell would we want to do that?" Lady Laser drawled dismissively. "Nothing over there but a bunch of dusty castles and rude baselines without the sense to respect their betters. At least in America they appreciate metahuman powers, even if it ain't enough. Why, you want to show us slides from your vacation?" She snorted dismissively. "What kind of tests are they going to want us to take? I got better things to do with my time, and I thought this place was supposed to be real friendly to people like us."

[Fox]

[bg=#222222]"Where I've been isn't anyone's business without good reason,"[/bg] Gateway coldly offered, for her part. It helped that it was true; she had been to Europe recently, as it so happened, but she wasn't about to go sharing that with Sandstone. [bg=#222222]"Go where my...skills...are useful and valued."[/bg]

She tilted her head, something in the visor turning to focus on the (former?) villain for a moment, as if analyzing her. [bg=#222222]"Interesting phrase, though - 'picked quite a time'. Something we should be aware of?"[/bg]

[Avenger Assembled]

"New Freedom's a paradise if you've got superpowers and the smarts to use them right," agreed Sandstone, walking up and down the aisle as she gave the two mercenaries a closer look. "But some people don't like paradise. 'Specially the ones who can't hack it there." She gave them both sharp, piercing looks, but seemed satisfied with what she saw. "We've been having some problems with Europeans lately. You may hear about it, if you make it in." She shrugged, her massive shoulders making a shifting sound beneath her uniform like two sandbags. "As for what tests you take, that's up to Colonel Harper. She and her family have kept the riff-raff out of New Freedom as long as most of the locals have been alive. They have a pretty keen eye." And with that, she went back to flying, leaving the edgy Sui Li to tend to the needs of the passengers.

New Freedom didn't look particularly glamorous from the air, even once they'd touched down at the nation's only surface airport: most of the buildings, they knew, were built deeply underground to take advantage of the geothermal heat available thanks to the nearby volcano. Sandstone led the way down the plane's walkway, escorting the mercenaries down onto the black runway where their Jeep escort was waiting for them. The biting Antarctic winds were kept dimmed by weather control powers and machines here; it was no worse than Freedom City in February as they headed for the jeeps.

Before they could quite reach them, though, suddenly a group of people exited the Jeeps in a hurry: a contingent of armored guards surrounding the bereted, eyepatch-wearing figure of the Patriotic Colonel in her familiar gaudy-decorated fatigues, and another, smaller group carrying a terrified, struggling man in prisoner's fatigues. Sandstone snapped to attention with respect at the sight of the Colonel, who nodded for her to be at ease.

"So. Gateway, Lady Laser, and assistant," said Lian Harper, her voice an accented hiss as she looked the two women up and down. "Your files both say you're the best at what you do. That's good, because this is the best country there is. We're standing on the new age," she went on, a messianic look in her good eye, "a place where men and women with superpowers never need to fear the censor, the bluenose, the coward, the baseline. What can you give this place?"

[Electra]

"Well, first off we can rip your technology into the 21st century," Lady Laser told the dictator laconically, glancing towards the decades-old vehicles. "If this is heaven for metahumans, you can't be piddling around with inferior tech. It's goddamned insulting. For the rest of it..." She vaulted suddenly into the air and began firing, prudently aiming in the opposite direction of the welcoming committee and towards an empty patch of land. Black laser beams spewed from her fingers, creating steaming holes in the frozen ground. "Best defense is killing the hell out of the offense," she opined, crossing her arms over her chest as she floated back to the ground.

[Fox]

[bg=#222222]"But that doesn't mean defense isn't important,"[/bg] Gateway added, a flickering force field wrapping around her armored body. [bg=#222222]"Offense can't - won't - stop people from trying. Defense will make it so it doesn't matter if they do."[/bg]

She crossed her arms, the force field disappearing again. [bg=#222222]"And good intelligence can beat both,"[/bg] she said...only this time, she didn't say it; the voice came - a bit corrupted - from most of the radios and visible cell phones she'd been able to reach while Lady Laser had been showing off. almost didn't think that would work - like trying to run a modern game on a calculator [bg=#222222]"Know what your enemies plan, and you can counter, or defend, on your own terms."[/bg]

[Avenger Assembled]

"Offense and defense, and strategy to go with them. Hmm." Harper paced, or rather swaggered bombastically, as she went up and down the runway, her eyes on the two women. Sharl had made an appearance, more so no one was suspicious of the missing man than anything else, but the humble holographic projection was something anyone on the runway was focused on thanks to the spectacular displays from Lady Laser and Gateway. Having considered carefully for a moment, she finally cocked her head towards her guards, who dragged the terrified prisoner onto the runway to join the new arrivals.

"You're right, Lady Laser," the colonel conceded gracefully, "we've had to hold much of our best in reserve these last few days. This man you see is a traitor," she said, indicating the prisoner who was shaking his head vigorously in denial, "A man who betrayed his nation, betrayed his people, betrayed our _cause_ in the name of a foreign terrorist group. He has told us nothing, and denied it all, but we have the evidence we need. How would you suggest we deal with him?"

"Please," the man begged, "I am no traitor! Those discs were forged, whatever the camera says! I sent no message!"

[Electra]

Lady Laser sent a long and supercilious look at the wretched man, her face betraying nothing but cool contempt for his fear. "No way for me to tell what to do with him less I know the whole story about what he did," she decided. "Y'alls tech is so outdated that my friend here could forge a security disc with a pad of white paper and a camera phone. If he's guilty, you gotta get rid of his sorry ass, but if he's really a dupe, then you might have a serious security problem. You damn well better know for sure before you toss him out the door in his skivvies."

She turned her full and considerable attention on the prisoner. "So which is it?" she demanded sharply. "You think you got a defense, you spill it, honey. I'll know if you lie, and you'll start your arctic vacation with my boot wedged so far up your ass that you'll eat snow and still taste leather." In an instant, her face transformed, becoming sweet and so oddly beatific that she seemed like a heavy-browed angel. "Tell me the truth, though, and we'll see y'all get treated right. I always treat my friends right," she all but purred, then waited for him to start talking.

[Avenger Assembled]

"The, the, security discs in the Patriotic Colonel's private study, they showed me laying hands on her things, and entering her private space to carry a message from..." The prisoner, even amid his terrified and sincere babbling, shot a look at the Colonel who nodded fractionally, "from the terrorists who seek to destroy New Freedom. But I know nothing of these people!" he insisted. "I only learned about them during my interrogation. I know nothing of politics, I am a geological technician! I was not even in the city when those things happened!" He gave Lady Laser a hopeful look, his voice full of earnest sincerity. "I am innocent, and I am loyal. I do not want our country to be destroyed by terrorists!"

[Fox]

Gateway crossed her arms, mostly to keep them still; she didn't particularly like this situation, and she was liking it less by the minute. no - focus - detach? - think of it like a problem to solve - variables? [bg=#222222]"Dangerous to punish on suspicion only,"[/bg] she finally observed, analytically, after the prisoner said his piece. [bg=#222222]"Practically speaking, I mean. Inspires fear, fear can be used to control, but the control is unstable. Inspires rebellion, too - makes people feel like they'll be punished no matter what they do, so might as well resist. Not saying you should take his word for anything, but can't afford to be too reckless. Bad PR. Video's easy to fake - making you poison your reputation is as effective as passing messages and...'snooping'."[/bg] never understood that word [bg=#222222]"Any possible evidence or proof he was not in the city? Better to know about it now, than have it used against you later if you kill him."[/bg]

[Avenger Assembled]

"He claims he was in the Othello Range," sneered Harper, "the very place where our spies have detected anomalous thermal readings, like the ones a terrorist camp might have." She spat on the runway. "I would simply bomb the land flat, but the _Americans_ have complained whenever we have exercised our lawful and sacred rights of self-defense in the past." She hmmed, eying the two women. "I had thought to do so anyway, but now that you are here, perhaps we can reach other arrangements. Come, if you are done with that scum, we can go below and I can show you what our nation truly represents. This has been a poor showing," she conceded grandly, "but these are poor days indeed for our besieged nation."

[Electra]

"Well if he is a terrorist, claiming t'have been in the Othello range would just be bone-stupid," Lady Laser pointed out, giving the miserable prisoner another once-over. "But if he really was there, maybe he saw somethin' that some real terrorists didn't want seen. Maybe somethin' he didn't even recognize right off. If that's how it was, all it'd take is a little frame job from them, set the guy up, and then they've got rid of the witness and played you for a fool to boot."

She furrowed her brow. "Seems to me the thing to do would be to keep askin questions till you're dead sure you've got a handle on what really happened. But yer right, that's business for the hands to take care of. We got bigger fish to fry." Turning, Lady Laser prepared to follow the dictator into the compound. If you can slip away, she sent to Sharl, keep an eye on the prisoner. Talk to him if it's safe.

[Avenger Assembled]

Harper looked thoughtful at Lady Laser's words, surprisingly so given the swagger the dictator had displayed so far. "All right, Lady, Gateway, we'll try it your way. Take him back to his cell," she said with a dismissive wave to her guards. "And get a psychic ready to interrogate him. Perhaps we can get more out of him if we squeeze him hard enouh. I'll give our guests a personal tour of the city." For his part, Citizen signaled his assent to Miss Americana and began a slow, careful hop from computer to computer that kept him close to the geologist-turned-prisoner. The technician, who the guards now addressed by name, Karl, certainly looked inordinately relieved: whatever cell he was going back to was better than whatever dire fate had been in store for him out here. Sharl and Karl wound up in a concrete blockhouse on the surface with iron bars in the windows of all things, Sharl himself in an old desktop computer a room away from the prisoner. He kept his ears open, the system around him reading to his eyes like standing in rooms full of dusty Earth filing cabinets, waiting for his chance to step out through the attached screen and explore the room beyond.

For Gateway and Lady Laser, accommodations were far more pleasant inside the heated jeep-cum-limo that was the Patriotic Colonel's choice of transportation. If you were light on conscience, New Freedom did look like a fine place: private homes were mansion-sized and more as they drove beneath them, the Colonel assuring them how deep each went, while even the proles had access to hovercars and jetpacks overhead, with the powered people flying around under their own power like lords of the air, given a wide berth by the black-clad humans in the sky and on the ground. The hospitals and computer centers proved more advanced than the rest of what they'd seen there; the people were certainly in good health, looking well-fed and strong, while in the schools children learned from holographic teachers amid starscapes, projected laboratories, and a dozen other scenes designed to entertain and educate children.

Truthfully, even the proles didn't seem to have it that bad: they all had access to technology not available to most people in the outside world, and they looked healthy too: it wasn't until one saw a street full of people ostentatiously look away as their lords and masters (notable because they didn't have to wear the black jumpsuits everyone else did) passed by, that something of the reality of the place began to sink in. For her part, Harper was eager to interrogate both women as much as she could get away with.

"Now, as far as what we can do for you as new arrivals, there's plenty of space. If you can clear your own land and build your own house, anything you want is yours; if not, we can give you people for it, you'll just have to find your own ways to pay the nation back. We have our ways." She winked at that, and added more seriously, "Bring in what you want; no one's going to bust you for some coke or max here. As far as what you produce here, whether it's from scientific studies or anything else, you have total license to do as you please. We can arrange equipment, test subjects, anything else that's necessary for you, without having to get approval from some bureaucrat. All we ask is that you be there to defend the country when necessary, and that you put ten percent in to keep the operation going."

[Fox]

[bg=#222222]"Ten percent is less than expected,"[/bg] Gateway admitted, watching the streets go by through her emotionless visor, several slightly-brighter spots behind the red glow sliding to focus on scenes as they caught her interest. Not that she was keen on the idea of staying here any longer than necessary, but up until the 'test subjects' part of the speech there was some part of her multi-threaded mind that had a level of appreciation for the things that could be accomplished in a place like this.

'Test subjects', though...that brought her back; a quick sequence of uncomfortable memories ran through the back of her brain and pulled her attention back to their host. [bg=#222222]"Must have...impressive success, here, to support all this generosity on ten percent."[/bg]

[Avenger Assembled]

"We do all right," said Harper with a hard smile. "Most of the kids, they make their bones in merc work, whether it's in costume in the States or in uniform for flatscan goosesteppers. But I suppose I don't have to tell the two of you that," she added with a wink in Lady Laser and Gateway's directions. "I put my time in the Middle East, keeping pretty boy thugs on the throne, then taking them down when the opposition boys had more money." She leaned back in her chair, looking perfectly relaxed as they drove past a widespread park dotted with holographic, ever-changing sculptures and genetically-engineered trees blended together in a pleasing pattern, the biggest statue of all a clearly recognizable image of the Colonel's late mother and predecessor as dictator of New Freedom.

[Electra]

"Ten percent is less than the goddamn flatscans back in the USA want to peel off, that's for damn sure," Lady Laser agreed, her keen gaze focused on their new potential home. Even as she spoke, her busy mind recorded, mapped, analyzed. "But it's the civil defense bit that I wanna know about. You got some decent security, I can see that well enough, but the world is full of bastards who want what ain't theirs, including us and our powers. I see all the time about how this place is being threatened by one place or sanctioned by someplace else. How often do folks actually have to up and defend New Freedom? Is this terrorist thing just the latest threat?"

[Fox]

Gateway nodded, sharply, her attention shifting from Harper to Lady Laser and back again. [bg=#222222]"Good question. One I'm keen to hear the answer to, also. Not that I'm not willing to do my part, but would like to not be interrupted from research every two days when some idiot steals a bag of fertilizer, or something."[/bg]

She shrugged, but her focus was still keen and on their host. [bg=#222222]"Would appreciate knowing the extend of your...problems, if we might end up involved. Not expecting details of national defense, but an outline or recent history would be useful. Better for planning. And better to know what to expect."[/bg]

[Avenger Assembled]

"Not all of our neighbors are friendly," Harper confessed after a moment of decision-making. "And yeah, we do have neighbors. Bastards hiding up in the mountains like they own the place, like they haven't shed blood and treasure to keep UNISON and the F****** League from sniffing around our home." She shot a glance towards the mountains and went on, "A couple of weeks ago, one of the groups up there, we think, made some threats. We're looking into it. The hard part is, my hands are tied," she confessed. "If we go up and bomb the hills, we'll probably kill some UNISON spooks and that'll be all the excuse they need to come in and kill us all." Her lip curled. "I bet UNISON's behind it anyway. Sneaking UN bastards, Freemason Grue every last one of them." She spat discreetly into a tin cup provided by her servant, the acidic odor a sharp tang like cleaning solution for a moment.

"When we don't have that on our heads, things are pretty good. Most mercs know better than to come down here and cause trouble; best they'll get is a permanent ban, worst they'll get is getting left out naked and power-cuffed in the hills. National supers only cause trouble if we're not paying off the right people in their governments. And the League respects our sovereign right to exist," she parroted mockingly.