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Under a weirdling sky; Tag: Bishop, Jottun
Topic Started: Sep 24 2011, 05:48 AM (357 Views)
Mastermind
Unregistered

Date: August 7, 2011
Time of Day: mid-afternoon
Location: Prior Art Inc. corporate offices, Manhattan



"Miss Wyngarde? There are two, er, gentlemen here to see you... they say they're agents of SHIELD. They're quite insistent."


A month ago... (July 13, 2011; Boston Mass)
Regan lounged invisibly on a couch in the back of the smartly appointed conference room as the five major shareholders of Nieman Technology filed in for their regular monthly meeting. Marcus Nieman, chief scientist and company founder -- and not incidentally the primary shareholder -- opened with typical efficiency: "I'll dispense with the formalities and get right to it. As all of you know, Prior Art has been attempting an unfriendly takeover of Nieman Technology for the last week. They now own 13% of publicly traded Nieman Technology stock. That's 89% of the shares that aren't held by someone in this room."

Nieman paused to drink some water from the glass in front of him, and Regan masked the taste of the doctored water with a moment's concentration. When he put it down, she slipped on a latex glove, got up and replaced his glass with a new one. As she did so, the man continued speaking. "You're all just as capable of counting to 50 as I am: for their takeover bid to succeed, either I have to sell, or two of you have to. I'm sure you're all wondering who they think they're going to convince to sell... who the traitor in the ranks might be."

What happened next depended a great deal on who you were.

As far as Nieman was concerned, he began a rousing speech about how all the people in this room were long-time friends of his and all committed to the company's success, and he was confident that not a single one of them would betray his trust, and no doubt the folks at Prior Art were running some kind of ill-conceived bluff... and was interrupted before he'd hardly gotten started by a mass exodus from the room.

As far as the assembled stockholders of Nieman Technology were concerned, Nieman went on to deliver the shocking news that he himself was selling out, and that he encouraged them to do so as well while the stock price was still artificially high, before walking out of the room as they sat in stunned silence. A moment later, they were all leaving the room themselves, frantically calling their stockbrokers.

Regan saw both versions, the latter being an illusion of her own creation, and nodded with satisfaction as Nieman's puzzlement gave way to panic as he was suddenly unable to take a breath. A few minutes later he'd collapsed twitching to the floor, foam gathering on his lips, and Regan wrapped his hand around the bottle of pills she'd brought with her, two of which she'd earlier crushed into his glass. A few minutes after that she was on her way to her favorite cafe for an early lunch, where she appeared pleasantly surprised by the news that Prior Art, Inc. was now the majority shareholder of Nieman Technologies.

A few weeks ago... (July 20, 2011; SHIELD HQ)

Agent Ellison stared at the report on her desk with a combination of incredulity and profound frustration. No matter what the Massachusetts Police Department's Medical Examiner's findings were, she knew beyond question that Nieman's death had not been a suicide, and no matter what his fellow stockholders claimed to see, she knew he hadn't been about to sell out... not of his own volition, anyway.

She knew this, because she knew something very few other people knew: Marcus Nieman had been working for SHIELD. Not as a field agent, but as a researcher. Sure, he was no Tony Stark, but he'd done good solid work for them developing robotic defense drones. She'd been his handler, and now he was dead, and she was going to find out why.

Her first theory had been the stockholders were lying, and they'd conspired to kill their boss for some reason. But that investigation had gone nowhere, and she'd had to discard the theory. Well, she thought, if they weren't lying, then he really did say what they reported. And since he wouldn't do that willingly, that meant he was being manipulated some other way. And since she'd eliminated all the usual forms of manipulation, that left unusual forms. Which meant it was time to bring in some unusual agents: SHIELD's mutant division.

The present... (August 7, 2011; Prior Art, Inc. corporate offices)

"Miss Wyngarde? There are two, er, gentlemen here to see you... they say they're agents of SHIELD. They're quite insistent."

SHIELD? Well, that was interesting. Regan was used to having law enforcement in her lobby, but SHIELD was a whole new level of play, and she couldn't think of anything she'd done lately that would interest them. Well, nothing she'd done as Regan Wyngarde, anyway; Mastermind and the Black Rook were a whole different matter. But she was fairly certain her criminal identities were still isolated from her civilian one.

Well, only one way to find out, I suppose. "Send then in, Andre, send them in! Let's see what these fine agents want to talk about. And bring in some coffee, and some of those pastries I like... you know the ones."

She considered augmenting her appearance with illusion, but ultimately decided not to; for all she knew, the agents were recording the whole conversation and would notice any discrepancies later. So she simply posed herself and waited for Andre to usher them in.
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Harold Logarrson
Unregistered

Waiting in the lobby had not been too much of a trial. True, none of the seats fit, but the ceiling had been high and the air conditioning was to Harold’s liking, unlike this mission.

He had understood from the first that transferring to SHIELD meant taking on duties he previously hadn't been. It meant stepping away from most normal, everyday matters of crowd control, peacekeeping, and he had been able to accept that. It meant having to submit to the Authorities of the United States of America, a nation who whilst not horrendously evil, wasn’t particularly well thought of globally either. To tell the truth, the USA was a bit of a joke, especially with its rash decision making relating to mutants. He had accepted that he would be working full time in America, that his duties would extend beyond the military and more into a form of Policing, he had accepted that he would have to work alongside the hardened Lunatics of the Thunderbolts project, an endeavour that he was entirely moronic. He had accepted all this.

But putting him on a mission like this, snooping round and enquiring about things? That wasn't the most efficient use of human resources.

It was no secret amongst SHIELD that Harold was a head cracker, first and foremost. He loved to deal with citizens, and he followed directives like they were gospel, which made him an excellent peace keeper. But he wasn’t a Peacekeeper anymore, he was a cop. And that meant nosing around sometimes.

It wasn’t as though the huge Swede lacked intelligence. But nor had he any training or experience in any form of espionage, or, in fact, social subtlety of any form. Even in his policing duties back in his home town of Vargstan, the sneakiest he had ever got was waiting in an alley for some youths to come and spray-paint the front of a library. And that had been a failure; he was simply too big and too pale for any form of stealth.

In Serbia, his comrades found that they could often get the jump on hostiles by having (well, letting) Jottun scream as he entered battle, drawing their attention. The Guerrilla fighters of the Sudan had night vision like no Conventional Human Harold had ever seen, but it was partially their superstitious fear of him that kept them away from the villages, so he made no attempt to hide.

Harold had never been deceptive. If he didn’t want to share his thoughts, he would hold his tongue. This was new to him.

He inwardly sighed. At least his partner, Bishop had roughed it in the US cops before. Maybe that was the Idea, some on the job training. Find the murderer, save the day. Or perhaps just don’t...how do the Americans put it? Don’t put your ridiculous clown foot in your stupid mouth.

The young Secretary appeared, with a brilliant smile (faked, she was worried, little bit afraid. Service in the military had made Harold more aware of such things).
"Miss Regan will be seeing you now."
Harold responded with his warmest smile, his pitch black orbs searing her soul as he rose to his full height.
Yes. Yes she will.
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Bishop
Unregistered

He was going over some paperwork at his desk when Agent Ellison popped up and dropped a manilla folder on it, telling him he'd be very interested in it's contents. And it turned out he was interested, very interested to say the least. He'd never had any interactions with Nieman personally, but anyone who "supposedly" committed suicide under such murky circumstances meant that until he found proof they did commit suicide...they didn't. He felt his detective skills could come in handy on this case, and his superiors agreed so they let him head it; at some point Jottun got assigned to the case as well.

Lucas had no problem with the white giant, although his strict adherence to the handbook he'd probably read no less than 12 times was a bit, not annoying, but a lesser word still meaning annoying that he couldn't think of. The transition to the ground and the drive to the office was a bit of a hassle if only because they had to drive a vehicle fit to his size standards. After they arrived, he took a seat and began scrolling through his phone, reading a book he'd been hooked on for a while.

The perpetual look on his face combined with him focusing so intently on his phone gave him an air of annoyance at waiting, and he was sure it intimidated the secretary, even if that wasn't his intention. When they finally got word that they would be seen, he stood up and straightened his jacket; giving them a slight nod. "Thanks." He followed their lead until he found himself in the rather nice office of the lady in charge.

"Ms. Wyngarde, I'm SHIELD Agent Bishop, and my associate is Agent Logarsson. You wouldn't mind if we asked you a few questions would you?" He'd left out what sort of questions they wanted to ask, that way she was kept slightly off guard, then he took a seat without waiting for her to offer one; that showed he was in control of the situation. He and Harold were going to get to the bottom of this case, there was no doubt in his mind.
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Mastermind
Unregistered

Andre hadn't mentioned that one of the SHIELD agents was a literal giant, though knowing that made his initial hesitation more understandable. The man had to be a mutant; that kind of bulk simply wasn't natural. And while his partner didn't show any obvious signs of mutation, despite being quite impressively massive himself, the "M" tattooed over his eye was certainly suggestive. Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice Regan thought as she got up to greet the two agents. Why in the world are mutant SHIELD agents coming to my office?

"Of course, Agent Bishop, Agent Logarsson, I'm always delighted to cooperate with SHIELD." Bishop, who was clearly the agent in charge, took a seat without waiting for an invitation, and Regan walked over to the plate of pastries and coffee that Andre had brought in. "Can I offer either of you anything to eat? Some coffee, perhaps?" She poured herself a cup of coffee, black, no sugar, and leaned casually on the edge of her desk. "Anyway, as I said, I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have, but I must say I don't have any idea what SHIELD might be interested in that affects me or my company. Perhaps you could give me a clue?"

There were several possibilities, granted, but the truth was Regan had been keeping a relatively low profile ever since the Nieman Technology acquisition; she'd been extremely busy taking inventory of everything her company had assumed control of. The technology patents had already been handed over to her legal and strategic relations divisions, who were hard at work closing deals with potential licensees for them, which had already proven extremely lucrative. But there were also a number of research facilities that Regan had been overseeing the dismantling of, and one lab that she had discovered the existence of only by accident. Thus far, she had been unable to either get into that lab or find any records related to it in Nieman Tech's databases, which led her to suspect that Marcus Nieman had been involved in some secret research of his own.

Which, now that Regan thought about it, put this visit from SHIELD in a whole new light. Could Marcus Nieman's secret research have been for the U.S. government? Well, well... now isn't that interesting? I wonder what he has brewing in that lab? It was beginning to look as though this acquisition was even more lucrative than she'd originally believed.
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Harold Logarrson
Unregistered

Harold was about to ask if the coffee was free trade, but stopped himself. That wasn't good police procedure. He decided to just remain quiet, let Bishop do his job and keep to himself. He poured his fellow agent a cup of coffee, before emptying perhaps twelve tea spoons of sugar into the coffee pot and stirring it. He picked up a pastry and dipped it in, before consuming the thing whole.

He could tell that this woman, whilst a little surprised, wasn’t at all intimidated by him. He took a slug of the scalding coffee, his temperature resistance allowing it to be pleasant rather than unbearable, and inwardly sighed. He missed being some sort of demon before which insurgents would tremble and flee. Not for the first time, he pondered going back to the borderlands where civilisation had yet to set in. He could probably serve out his contract with SHEILD, hand in his resignation, go back to his farm. He could see how the money he regularly gave too his tribe had affected the village; hearing of the joy of having fresh water, farming equipment and top of the line combat shotguns in letters was alright, but no one in the village wrote or read that well, and their native tongue didn’t have a written form...

He snapped back to the task at hand. Interrogate subject. Discover truth. Enact justice.
"The previous, how is it said, proprietor of Niemen Technologies which you recently acquired was of special interest to SHIELD."

He stopped himself. So much for not speaking. Now what? We think you murdered him; we will find out and then bring you to justice? How stupid! Come up with something...

"We would like to...examine the property under the new management. SHIELD takes its contractors very seriously; we want to see how you are handling these assets and whether we can partner with you."

That should do. That would have to do.
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