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Mob Rules, part two Wednesday, 15-Sep-1999 09:42:40
Chapter Two Cheryl watched as Jarvis/Visionary closed the bedroom door and turned up some music on the clock-radio. “This room checks out, and the music should mask our conversations from the bugs downstairs” he said. “Bugs?” Cheryl asked, raising an eyebrow. She didn’t seem to be in the best of moods, and he noticed that she kept the taser close at hand. “Someone’s been spying on the Lair” Jarvis answered. “We found bugs planted in every room, and apparently whoever’s responsible has been spying on your condo as well.” Cheryl’s eyes swept the room. “Who would want to bug our condo?” “We don’t know yet” Jarvis answered. “That’s part of the reason for all the secrecy.” He sighed. “The whole thing is rather complicated...” Cheryl crossed her arms in front of her. “I’ve got time” she assured him. “Right” Jarvis said with a nervous glance towards the taser. “I suppose that it wasn’t until this morning that things really went to hell...” “What could possibly go wrong?” Jarvis asked as he threw the switch. There was a bright flash. The next thing he knew, he was strapped to a chair and his forehead was tingling. “Oh, dear” Tina said as Jarvis saw his body topple face-first onto the floor. “Well, this can’t be good” she noted as she hurried over to help his body off the floor. “What?” NTU asked, rushing over. “What happened? Visionary’s brain pattern came out distinctively... odd.” “And this is a surprise?” Hallie asked from the mainframe. Jarvis watched his body stand on wobbly legs. “You were right” it said in a daze, “That would have been a cruel thing to do to an animal.” Tina simply looked back and forth from Jarvis to his body. “Oh dear” she said again. “What?” NTU asked. Tina whispered something into his ear. Then the inventor looked back and forth from Jarvis to his body. “I’d just like to take this moment to say, that...” he looked directly into Jarvis’ eyes, “...this wasn’t my fault.” ----- “See, the circuitry was designed to mimic Tina’s telepathic abilities” NTU was explaining quickly, “In fact, I’m quite proud of it, and the applications for such technology are nearly limitless... why, in the medical fields alone...” “Yohoo, NTU?” Hallie called from the computer. “You’re running off on a bit of a tangent, there.” “Hmmm? Oh, right...” NTU began pacing. “So, anyway, what happened was that the particle flow into Visionary’s skull was absorbing psionic energy, which is really the most thorough way to do it. Zebulon suggested using the electrical impulses of the brain to map out a binary code, which seems like an adequate method until you take into account that the rate that the neurons fire interferes with the encoding...” “Tangent” Hallie said again. “Er... right. Um... apparently the psionic energy produced a decaying feedback loop, which overwhelmed the data processors and...” “Will you just get to the point!” Jarvis barked, still strapped into the chair. “It was caused by a bad part” NTU answered quickly. “Blew a fuse.” Jarvis sighed and hung his head. “Rest assured, I plan to write a scathing letter to the manufacturer.” the inventor informed them. “So...wait...” Jarvis’ body (Visionary, he reminded himself) said, “What was that middle part again?” “Forget it” Jarvis snapped. “Let’s just undo this” NTU looked uncomfortable. “Well, see... here’s the thing...” Jarvis stared at him long and hard with Visionary’s eyes. “Yes?” Tina stepped in front of NTU. “Your neural synapses are flooded with psionic energy right now” she explained. “It’s kind of like static on a radio signal. If we were to switch your minds back, the static would interfere with the signal transfer, and not all of your mind would get through.” “I don’t like the sound of that.” Visionary noted. “I didn’t think you would” Tina said. “The good news is that the energy will gradually dissipate, and then NTU should be able to reverse the process.” “How gradually?” Jarvis asked pointedly. NTU checked his watch. “About seventy-two hours.” Jarvis swallowed back some choice oaths and bit the inside of his lip in frustration instead. “Ouch!” Visionary exclaimed, his hand going to the side of his jaw. “What the hell was that?” Tina started and gave them both a curious look. Then she casually picked up a ruler, casually walked over to Visionary, and casually whacked him on the back of the head. “OW!!!” Jarvis and Visionary cried in unison. “Well,” Tina said clinically, “that’s pretty interesting.” “Oh dear.” Cheryl said, casting a rather guilty look towards the taser in her hand. She prudently set the taser back in her nightstand drawer, then turned back to the man occupying her husband’s body. “So... what does all this have to do with bugs?” “Well,” Jarvis explained, “we knew we were being spied on, but the spies didn’t *know* that we knew, so...” “I’m not so sure about this” Visionary said dubiously. “Why don’t we just tell everyone?” “Because whoever is spying on us knows too much for my tastes” Jarvis explained. “I want to force a confrontation with our mystery observer, but currently he knows all about us, and we know nothing about him... or even her.” He sat back and grinned. “But this way, if we flush him out, we’ve got one hell of a surprise up our sleeve, and that’s better than nothing.” “If you say so” Visionary conceded, sounding thoroughly unconvinced, “but why do I feel like a giant bull’s-eye is being painted on my back?” “Just paranoid, I guess” Jarvis answered with a shrug. “After all, I *do* plan on repossessing that body.” “But why don’t we just bring everyone down here...” Visionary asked, referring to NTU’s lab, where Hallie was still generating a fake signal to fool the surveillance devices, “... and tell everyone what’s happened? I’m not sure I can fool our teammates.” “Ah, but one of them may not *be* our teammate.” Jarvis answered. “Someone had to plant those bugs. If there is an impostor bouncing in from time to time, spreading this news is a sure-fire way to inform our Peeping Tom about what’s happened.” Visionary turned to Tina. “Can’t you sort out the real team members from the fakes?” “It depends” Tina answered. “I can’t monitor everyone at once, twenty-four hours a day. If the impostor is stupid enough to walk up to me, however, than... yeah, sure... but I wouldn’t hold my breath.” “If that’s settled, can we move this upstairs?” NTU asked. “We’ve been down here a suspiciously long time, and Hallie is running out of virtual experiments of mine to blow up.” He cast a dark glare at the computer screen. “Nonsense” Hallie answered good-naturedly. “Anyone who’s been spying on you must know that you’re an unlimited source of catastrophe.” “Let it go” Jarvis cut of the inventor’s angry retort. He turned to lead them to the elevator. “Let’s take this show on the road.” As the doors opened he took one last look at himself/Visionary, standing next to him. “Does my chin always do that?” he asked NTU. “Pretty much” Visionary looked at him. “What?” “Nevermind” Jarvis answered. They stepped into the waiting elevator and pressed the button for the main level. Jarvis rubbed the tips of his fingers together. “What the hell do you have on your coat sleeve, anyway?” “So then we went upstairs and tried to go about our day as if nothing had happened.” Jarvis explained. “Tina relayed messages between us telepathically, so we were able to avoid too many mistakes... I don’t think anyone’s suspicious, anyway.” Cheryl listened to his story intently. “I see” she finally said. She looked rather pointedly at her silk robe which was once again concealing her nightgown. “And when were you planning on telling me all this?” “I was beginning to think that it would be best to wait until it was all over, actually...” Jarvis replied. “Until *what* was ‘all over’?” she asked, arching an eyebrow. “What...? No!” Jarvis answered quickly. “No! Nononononono! That’s not what I meant! Visionary asked me to come here and check on you, and I was going to tell you what had happened, and suggest that you simply avoid the Lair for a few days, but then the portable scanner detected a bug... I wasn’t expecting that, and so...” “Wait,” Cheryl said, holding up her hands and surpressing a smile, “take a breath before you pass out.” Jarvis gave her a sheepish look. “Er, sorry. Anyway, I didn’t want to blow our cover just yet, so I tried to play the role until I could figure out what to do... That’s when I was thinking of not telling you... but then you wanted to go... um...” He coughed delicately. “Anyway, while you were in the bathroom, I scanned the upstairs and found it was clean. I was going to tell you when you came out, but, uh... I got a little... distracted.” “I noticed” Cheryl said wryly, then chuckled. “If the upstairs is free of bugs, then I suppose you can sleep on the sofa-bed in the spare room.” She pulled a pillow off her bed and tossed it to him. “So how did Lisa take all this?” she asked curiously. Jarvis looked pained. “Well, uh... actually...” Cheryl froze and stared at Jarvis. “You *did* tell Lisa what happened... didn’t you?” Visionary’s nerves were shot. Even with Tina relaying instructions from Jarvis, he felt like he was living with perpetual stage-fright. Once Tina had gone home, Visionary had locked himself in Jarvis’ office and didn’t plan on coming out anytime soon. For the most part, he thought that they had pulled it off. No one seemed suspicious, anyway. Although the way Lisa had been staring at him for most of the day hadn’t helped his nerves any. It vividly reminded him of a cat watching a... The phone rang, and Visionary nearly jumped out of his chair. “Get a grip” he muttered to himself, conscious of the hidden surveillance devices in the room. He set aside the paperwork that he had been pretending to study and answered the phone. “Hello” he said, “Lair Legion, Jarvis speaking.” “Just the man I was looking for” a female voice said. “This is Akiko Masamune... I trust you’ve heard of me.” Visionary swallowed hard. “Yes... yes, of course. Your... assistance during the incident with the Japanese was quite beneficial.” “I’m so glad to hear that” she responded. She seemed to be able to do the same thing with her voice that Lisa could do with a look. Visionary was pretty sure that he was developing an ulcer. On the plus side, it would be Jarvis’ problem in a couple of days. If they lived that long. “The opportunity has come where you could do something ‘quite beneficial’ for me.” she informed him. “Uh... now’s not really a good time, Ms. Masamune...” “I’m sorry” she said dangerously, “I’m on a cellular phone. These things can be so unreliable at times... could you repeat that?” Visionary sighed. “I... was wondering if noon tomorrow would be a good time to discuss how we may be of service?” “Ah, that was much clearer” she answered. “Yes... that will be fine, see you then.” Visionary hung up the phone and looked at it as if it had just bitten him. What else could go wrong today? That’s when he felt the mace in his eyes. “Gah!” he cried, reeling back and clutching at his face. He felt a hard blow to his ribs which sent him spinning in his chair, followed by a series of electric shocks. Finally, he slumped against the chair-back, unable to move. He heard a key in the lock and was barely able to focus on the door as Lisa entered the office. “So here’s where you’ve been hiding” she purred. She leaned seductively over the desk. “You poor thing, you look absolutely exhausted. We’ll have to get you to bed so that you can sleep...” She gave him a wicked grin. “... Eventually” “O-o-oh c-c-crap.” Visionary stuttered under his breath. Richard Bartek examined the videotape and swore. “Brother Colin, you’d better take a look at this.” “What is it, Brother Bartek?” Colin asked as he walked over to the monitor station. “We may have to recommend that His Holiness speed-up the time table. I was going over today’s tapes” Bartek explained, “when I noticed this...” He played the entranceway tape. One could clearly see the stunner guns deploy from the wall and spray the Legionnaire known as ‘Visionary’ with some form of dark liquid, staining his coat. The camera angle switched to show the stained Visionary and the one known as Jarvis enter the elevator. The doors closed. The next shot was of the two of them entering the laboratory sub-basement, past the smoldering remains of what looked to be a toaster with legs. Visionary’s coat was clean. “We’ve been found out.” Brother Bartek noted. Brother Colin nodded grimly. “Steps will have to be taken.” Visionary, celebrating the birth of the BZL. Yeah... that's it... |
| Mob Rules, part two (Visionary, celebrating the birth of the BZL. Yeah... that's it...) (15-Sep-1999 09:42:40) |
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