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War Witch     The City Planner's office at City Hall in Atlas Park has contacted various heroes in order to investigate a strange and worrying incident. A young hero named Flower Knight, recently emerged from the Outbreak crisis where some sort of mutagenic drug was stolen from a Crey Industries building and made its way into the local street gangs turned an entire neighborhood into a warzone as super-powered lunatics began to run wild. Flower Knight, along with other new heroes called into the quarantine zone, helped put an end to that.

    But now, the young Korean-American heroine has been caught trying to hack into the central City Hall database and upload a computer virus that would have compromised security on all records of heroes, all identifications, all of the powers they've identified, everything. While heroes tend to use secret identities when registering so there wouldn't necessarily be their civilian selves on-file, the other information could be used by villains to identify standard patrol areas, prepare counter-measures against a hero's powers, and then ambush them.

    And that's just ONE example.

    The thing is, Flower Knight is a gadgeteer, but not a computer hacker. She's in that registry too, she uses a mystical bow, and she has given no sign whatsoever of villainous behavior before now. She's being held for questioning presently, and some heroes have been called in both to talk to her and to examine the computer systems -- and the virus that almost infected the system -- to see what they can find out. Though Flower Knight has probably already been questioned, maybe others can get something out of her that the police couldn't.

    Right now, Horus, a super hero in Ancient Egyptian-themed gold and blue power armor, is standing in City Hall with other responders, and may infact have contacted some of them. He's waiting while the upload device is retrieved from storage and the heroes are cleared to go down to the branch of D.A.T.A. where Flower Knight is being held.
Ainsley     Ainsley may or may not have been called in for this. She is actually not the first choice for things like this; she expects she won't be needed here, but she did bring her sword in case things get weird or violent. The way people reacted to her on the way over was refreshing, in any case. It's hard to find worlds where reptile people don't get stared at, so she's in a fairly good mood. She hovers there, waiting for a briefing or something along those lines. As 'the new girl' to these Paragon City problems, she doesn't have much to say. 'Listen and learn' is her current mentality.

    "Excuse me?" she speaks up toward Horus, her voice gentle, "I am Ainsley, of the Union. Could I get some time to speak to Flower Knight about this incident? I have some abilities that, with her permission, could shine light on this problem... or at least eliminate some of the scarier possibilities. It's magic, if that matters at all." She smiles cordially while she awaits an answer to her request.
X With Ainsley and her strange, STRANGE abilities helping with Flower Knight, X has decided... to turn his attention towards the computers. This isn't yet a good opportunity to enter cyberspace itself, so he'll be stuck with the interfaces and privileges he's given... for now.

    The blue robot materializes at City Hall, beaming down through sky and ceiling to manifest near the meeting point... and strolls Horus' way.

    "I've been briefed about Flower Knight. Someone's needed to investigate the computers?"
Blurr Well who better to help take a look at a computer than another, far more advanced, computer who has thoughts and feelings of its own and is thus capable of entering cyberspace so to speak. Entering a computer system with his own mind and manipulating it is something Blurr, or really any well-traveled Cybertronian is familiar with--since that is how many of the larger battlecruisers are handled.

    So here he is, having heard the call and responded to the request, the Autobot pulls up into the City Hall's parking lot in his -slightly- less conspicuous vehicle form (though it is still pretty slick looking), and searches for whomever it is who called for help. He recognizes Ainsley talking to Horus (he -thinks- he's probably seen her before?) and quickly activates his holoform avatar to come up beside her so as not to scare anyone too silly. They're probably used to seeing weird stuff but...this is a pretty tense situation already. Smaller species tend to be wary of people who are that much larger than they are.

    "Right, someone asked for help, not sure if it was you or not but I thought I might be able to take a look at your computers or at the virus?" The avatar says, which by the way looks for the most part like a normal human being.
Zwei     This isn't Zwei's first time sending out to a superhero disposed world. It's also not a routine occurrence. Being what it is, the Armiger learned more than enough last time about how to handle this kind of thing. That involves not dropping in as an extremely alien and obviously superpowered individual that totally clashes with the general tone of what people are used to, while everyone else is making at least half an effort to remain identifiable.

    So the war half stays figuratively at home, leaving Weiss the usual option for the more social touch, though the difference is more like changing hats; if one were usually disposed towards wearing two at once, that is. Without full knowledge of what monitoring and security City Hall is using, and not immediately wanting to burn the bridge of repeat visits under different identities, Weiss is dressed up to the teeth, going past the basic skin, hair and eye tones, contemporary trendy fashion, and deliberately imperfect and characteristic vocals and walking gait, but up to simulated heartbeat, regulated body heat, fake brain waves; the works. It might be overdoing it, but you never know what sort of super genius set up retina scanners everywhere.

    She's sold herself as a tech expert right off the bat, which is pretty much true at least, presenting forged (but not local) credentials if necessary. Zwei isn't going to be questioning a local superhero first before it knows anything about the place they're from. Horus isn't too much better, but she doesn't have to try and hash anything out with them. "Hey hey!" she presents in a deliberately eccentric, 'genki' type tone. "Sorry if I'm late! I heard you needed someone's pet virus deconstructed? I mean, I'm pretty sure it's some script kiddy horseplay, but I'm not gonna turn down a big contact like this! City Hall and all!" She looks around as if she expects to see a computer virus walking around the lobby. "So, where is it? Gimme gimme!"
War Witch     Horus looks over as Ainsley approaches. The semi-surprised blink he gives her goes unseen behind the lenses of his helmet's eye-plate, but he adjusts quickly enough. Sure, the majority of heroes in Paragon City look mostly human, but non-humans are becoming more and more common. Some of the ones he's been fighting alongside already are pretty non-human infact! "Oh, uh, just waiting for someone to get back with us about if it's okay to go down there. That's part of why we were called in though. I mean, to help with investigation. So you'll probably be welcome to! And don't worry about magic, one of my team mates uses it, and M.A.G.I. has a branch office right downstairs with D.A.T.A. I don't use it myself, but plenty in Paragon City do."

    He tries to smile reassuringly. Then some security officers come upstairs and signal it's safe to head down. Crime scene and all, so they have to be careful, even if there's quite a lot of hero traffic backed up in the main lobby.

    Likewise, as X and Blurr's holo form approach, Horus waves them over. "We're headed down right now. I know how to use a computer, and how to make Tech stuff, but I'm not exactly a programmer. More electrical engineer than computer engineer. I'm sure you two will have a better chance of figuring out if anything was done to the computers before Flower Knight was caught than I will."

    As Weiss approaches, cheerfully presenting herself as the virus investigator, Horus smiles with something like... Relief? "I plan to study the upload mechanism itself, but someone will probably also be needed to examine whatever malicious code makes up the virus. I'd make sure any devices of your own are properly protected if you're going to try to quarantine it for study, but otherwise, the ball is in your court when it comes to analysis."

    He walks as he talks, leading everyone down stairs into a long hall with five open, spacious office areas. Two on each side, and a fifth at the end. Each office has a large placard above the entrance with the name of the branch and what the name stands for underneath.
War Witch     The one most of them will be headed towards is labelled 'D.A.T.A.', the two sets of double doors open, and what looks like some kind of tech laboratory on the other side. Underneath the title is 'Department of Advanced Technology Application'.

    Ainsley, on the other hand, is lead towards a different office, where Flower Knight was apparently moved. There's the same double double-door entrance, but the interior is quite different. There's a large vault (closed for once, thank goodness) for a walk-in storage area, various shelves with books, a skull, and other such things, a big glowing green crystal floating above a pedestal in the back, and other mystical trappings. A woman in a blue top and long purple skirt stands in this second office, the placard above the entrance indicating it is called 'M.A.G.I.' or the 'Modern Arcane Guild of Investigation'. Nearby, is an asian woman in a blue martial arts top and puffy white pants, kneeling in a circle of runes on the floor. While she probably isn't a 'prisoner', they do seem to be taking security measures just incase.

    Azuria greets Ainsley when she approaches, apparently discerning her purpose here, either by magic or by logic since someone to help was requested. "I am keeping any outside mystical interference from influencing our young friend here with this defensive circle. She can neither influence nor be influenced until she leaves the circle, and she can not do that unless I allow her to. There is definitely some sort of spirit influence I've sensed that clings tightly to her, so I have also had to isolate communication. When you are ready to question her, let me know, and I will open a channel to permit speech and communion, but until we discern the nature of the spirit, I will have to focus my efforts on warding it away."

    Meanwhile, as Horus, X, Blurr, and Weiss head to DATA, X and Blurr are directed to the computer terminal that Flower Knight was found accessing, while Weiss and Horus are shown an odd black cylinder about the size of a laser pointer, with a glowing-red display terminal inset. It has a vaguely... Insectoid appearance. Almost arachnid in design. This is the device that holds the virus.
Ainsley     Ainsley shines some appreciation by brightening her smile at Horus. "I was just being polite," she explains concisely, before they start moving. The presence of X, Blurr and Weiss get her attention, her brows both lifting because of the high tech nature of at least two of them. She looks at Weiss with something approaching recognition, but she can't quite place who she is until she starts talking. The confusion melts away very quickly.

    Ainsley floats along the floor, staying a couple inches in the air, which doesn't do much more than put her on eye level for most people. She's a small lady, and it shows when she's floating in the air like that. She hovers into the M.A.G.I. office without much worry to her face, a mellow smile on her features when she's greeted with an explanation from Azuria. That smile fades to a neutral expression when she's told there is a spiritual presence. She knits her brow and finally lands, and approaches the circle to stand at a safe distance.

    Her eyes lower to the circle itself, and then rise to look at Flower Knight's face.

    "I'm ready," is all she says, her mellow smile returning. Her tail sways with ominous energy, as if she's hiding her nervousness under her calm demeanor. She pulls a large tome out of her coat, something with metal plating, and flips through it softly, a gentle blue light flowing out from the inside of the book as she searches for relevant spells to reference without actually looking away from Flower Knight.
Blurr Blurr examines the terminal once he is directed over to it, attempting to assess how advanced it is at least for human technology. Should be like a walk in the Helix Gardens right, most Earth tech is pretty far behind that of Cybertron. And this doesn't even look current, either. He turns to whoever was escorting them. "This thing have any kind of subspace transponder or uh...other wireless comm hardware? I need an uplink to get into the system."
Zwei     "Eeexcellent~" Weiss croons with only semi-artificial pleasure at hearing that. Quietly, she quickly synthesizes a throwaway smartphone, tablet, and computer watch into some pockets to fork over later. "Don't worry, I'm basically the best genius ever at this kind of thing. And at really competitive rates too!" That could be taken as a joke. Maybe. It's not like Horus is paying her out of pocket, if at all. The mechanism itself intrigues Zwei at the mention, if it's so unique that it needs examining. It would have just expected a flash drive or something.

    Equally surprising is the fact that 'D.A.T.A' turns out to be a perfectly sensible acronym, and not a tortured backronym someone came up with to fit the theme of the other departments. Despite being ostensibly forward focused and springy-stepped, Weiss is doing a pretty thorough assessment of X through the figurative back of her head. Figuring he's a pretty sophisticated robot, she doesn't use anything as gauche and intrusive (and easy to detect) as easybake infrared scanners or the like. It's a pain, not being able to just blast radiation at things, but Zwei can wait for a better chance to fill in details.

    Besides, the weird little black cylinder is definitely of note. She starts tossing those burner electronics onto a desk immediately before clustering around it like a schoolgirl admiring a cute kitten at a pet store. "Whoa! They couldn't have just used a standardized jack or something? What does this even plug into?" She pokes at the thing as if prodding it will reveal its secrets, or at least make it react somehow. "That basically screams 'super dangerous data inside, do not touch unless you are a supervillain'".
X X approaches the terminal... but he does cast a sideways glance at the black cylinder that Weiss is given before settling in at one of the keyboards.

    He immediately sets about tapping away at the keyboard or whatever other interface (touchscreen?) is available, giving Blurr a somewhat sheepish look.

    He's built at the right scale and style to do human things at least!

    "What I'm going to hunt for is what files were recently modified, all access logs after that date... and everything it's trying to talk to. The only point in uploading a spy virus is having it talk to something after the fact."
War Witch     As Ainsley announces she is ready, Azuria makes some mystical gestures and the mystical communication channel opens just wide enough for messages to go back and forth. However, something odd happens. In a cloud of green smoke that Azuria does not seem to notice, a spirit appears. A ghostly warrior stands nearby, a bow and arrow at his back. He is gazing in upon Flower Knight with a frustrated expression. And he seems... To look a bit like Flower Knight herself. An ancestor perhaps?

    He doesn't seem to be trying to get inside the warding circle, but clearly he's here for a reason. Should Ainsley communicate with Flower Knight first, or the spirit that is standing right there, and might have answers about why he's hanging out outside a warding circle?

    Rick Davies, the DATA contact nearby and one of the first heroes to use power armor, is on his cellphone, but holds it away from his mouth and ear to hear Blurr's request. "We have wireless internet, yeah. We're still upgrading our computers, but legislature is being wishy-washy about even the most basic Rikti technology. So some stuff is modern, others is selectively enhanced with alien technology, and the REALLY good stuff we're waiting on back-order for the permits and such. Need to make sure we don't hook up a hybrid computer and find out it allows Rikti remnants to take control of our network." He shrugs helplessly.

    Retrofitting something that's probably still running Windows XP with hyper-advanced alien tech that people are still trying to disassemble and understand is a time-consuming process. It's actually amazing they've figured out as much as they already have. Medi-porter? Reclaimators? The tech that Vasilikos Laboratories was experimenting with before the lab got blown up? Based off Rikti devices.

    As X sits down at the keyboard, he'd find, simply through a more efficient computer brain, that he can search quickly through the files (or as quickly as a 2004 computer with pure Earth tech, compared to some of the more advanced technology scattered around this same office, can process his requests), and find that attempts have been made specifically to hide modifications. A program was uploaded already, and is retroactively inserting itself into various registries, creating files and modified-on dates, and other records as X watches. It's been doing it for awhile now, it seems, between when the incident happened and now.

    If they hadn't brought in specialists when they did, the program might have finished running in an hour or so and there'd be no evidence it wasn't originally there. But what's it doing it exactly? What's its purpose? Communication, like X suggested?

    Horus frowns when he sees it. "Whoah, yeah, that's no design I recognize. And it's pretty conspicuously 'villain' like you mentioned. Like, suspiciously so. If Flower Knight is innocent and someone was trying to frame her, giving her something that looks like a villain would use it is just way too obvious." Despite that, he still has to look at it. He tries scanning it with his armor, but aside from a thermal signature from its power supply, there's not a lot to go off of. So he picks it up cautiously and examines it directly while Weiss gets set up. "There's a magnetic contact on one end, and some kind of generator inside. It might use an energy discharge to physically write computer data to the target. It kind of sounds like that runs the risk of frying the computer if that's the case. But if has safeties... And this red light up top is some kind of sensor, I think? It might evaluate the computer it's being attached to so it can calibrate properly. That's a lot of stuff to put in such a compact device... But it doesn't require a USB port. Meaning it could hypothetically work on just about anything."

    He holds out the machine to Weiss, if she/it wants to take it to get the virus itself off of storage.
X "The technology I'm working with is so old I don't even have much more than stubs of files on them." X remarks at one point of the search, particularly responding to Horus' observations. he's quick to discern discrepancies in logs and the moment a date changes on a refresh that he was looking at his eyes go wide and a new flurry of tap-tap-tapping has him bringing up a console, testing out some commands... and working to isolate and restrict the responsible processes, shifting them to COMPLETELY unprivileged. Which might not be enough, depending on how severe the infection even is.

    "This thing's so badly infected we should shut it down right NOW and access the data in a quarantined environment!" He concludes. "It's the only way to professionally stop it for certain."
Blurr "So, no subspace, got it." Blurr chuckles. "Not a big deal I guess. I can use your uh, 'wi-fi' to get into the system." He takes a quick look at the computer in order to identify the wireless access point, then uses it as an uplink to interface directly with the system. The screen flickers and oscillates slightly as he enters the machine and begins searching for any evidence of the intruding code potentially left behind in cyberspace.
Zwei     "It would look /really/ obvious." Weiss agrees, more than concedes. "But then why would she bother trying to make it look that scary if she was hoping to pull it off without getting caught? What I think of, is that either some guy who makes scary electronics pawned it off on her not really caring what happened to her, maybe even because she asked, or the less likely case that she built it as insurance to frame a villain if she /did/ get caught."

    Realizing she's getting a few too layers deep for the presentation of a tech geek, Weiss remembers to outwardly exress fairly genuine excitement at the description. "Zero interface! I know this stuff! It universally breaches electrical transistor circuit-based computing technology by skipping the software step altogether! If you can read the charge state of all the transistors on the board, and simulate what they all mean, you can manually change them as well! It's /really/ complicated stuff!" Zwei would know. It abuses that kind of method with irresponsible frequency.

    "The fact she pulled that off on this tiny dongle really says something though." Weiss says, for a change of pace, not playing a significant role in filtering the verbal expression of what goes through Zwei's consciousness. "No matter how on the nose it looks, that's some serious high-concept sci-fi stuff going on." She takes possession of the device eagerly though, setting it down next to her burner laptop.

    "If it has similar hard storage though, we can read it without having to inject it into an OS environment. I don't really want to see what kind of sandbox would be needed to isolate it through trial and error. I'd rather have a model to examine, so check this!" She then sets the villainous USB next to her throwaway laptop's infrared port, and begins an elaborate and totally unnecessary deception. Zwei is utilizing Weiss' intelligence gathering sensors to read the tiny traces of heat from the energy storage inside the virus storage device, piece them together as a simulated hard disc containing the same simulated data, and then wirelessly connecting to the disposable laptop and BSing up a display to make it look like the laptop is running the scan.

    "This is a trick the FBI developed a little while ago. Normally, you need an entire, identical motherboard to absorb the trace radiant energy from the one you want to examine, and the copy overwrites the existing MOBO state, but I came up with a little something better~" That is, in reality, all objectively true. The only real deflection she's doing is pretending not to be a hyper-advanced puppet shell.
Ainsley     Ainsley looks between Flower Knight and the mysterious apparition, the ghostly warrior's annoyance apparent to the reptile woman. She stares for several long seconds, because she almost expected Azuria to explain it... but because Azuria has completely failed to acknowledge the spiritual presence beyond his general vicinity, she decides to skip over trying to talk to Flower Knight herself.

    "Hello," she speaks in a gentle voice to him, "Are you, perhaps, Flower Knight's guardian or ancestor spirit?" His appearance gives her the impression that is the case, ancestry is a big deal for families in some, or most, countries. "I am Ainsley. May I have your name? I apologize if it is rude to ask you directly, but this situation is unusual and you may carry answers to this that we do not currently have."

    She glances aside at Azuria, wondering if she was ignoring the spirit for some purpose. Any reactions she has may be indicative of the danger she may have stumbled into. Ainsley is curious but she sure isn't stupid. She maintains her supernaturally solid smile toward the spirit, hardly betraying anything approaching doubt or worry, if she has any to sense at all.
War Witch     Rick Davies hears the report from X. Obviously, they'd disconnected the computer itself from any form of internet connection after the discovery of it being accessed illegally, and the wi-fi is only on now because Blurr is using it. But quarantining it completely sounds like the next step, according to the expert hero, so he nods and says, "Alright. We'll go with your recommendation then. Do anything you feel is necessary."

    As X locks off the authorizations on the computer to keep more changes from being made, Blurr navigates inside the computer via his abilities, and discovers the original infection site for the virus and how it has spread throughout the mainframe via the device that Weiss and Horus are examining. It bypassed the software, as-described, and wrote itself directly to the hardware. Well, at least they have confirmation the computer was compromised before the young heroine was caught...

    Horus nods in understanding to the parts of what Weiss says that he gets, and just listens quietly to the parts he doesn't. "Well, this sounds like it's your area of expertise. So I'm sure you'll figure it out! Just be sure to let me know when you do, okay?" he jokes. Then adds on. "But no, seriously, we should definitely inform the authorities if you get any hints or anything. Also there's something about the design that's just... Tickling a memory. I can't quite recall..." He strokes his chin, since his helmet doesn't cover the lower-half of his face and thinks on it.
War Witch     Meanwhile, Weiss gets a copy of the pertinent information and discerns that the device uses some very, very strange technology. Definitely far removed from the 'standard' level of tech in the area. Even with the fact that technology from an advanced alien species is gradually being integrated into the existing stuff, this is advanced in a different way. In some areas more so than the Rikti, in most areas put-together in a way that implies it is experimental.

    There's also something else. The power supply used is wholly different from every other energy source in the area. Not electricity exactly, but some other form of energy. A caustic sort of... Liquid energy. Not like gasoline, but like, 'someone took radiant energy like fire or electricity or nuclear radiation and then made it fluid'.

    It's unclear if it's more efficient than a conventional power supply, but it's at least distinctive. Which means they have a way to trace it and identify other technology that uses it... Inspecting Flower Knight's confiscated gadgets and gear might be a good way to compare designs and technology and see if a 'maker's mark' of sorts, anything distinctive or unique, is shared between the two.

    The virus itself seems to designed to take over an entire computer system, rewrite everything so that it looks like nothing was altered, and then essentially turn that computer system into a tool for transmitting any pertinent data that passes through it. The computer itself will spy for a third party while seemingly continuing its normal functions.

    When Ainsley addresses the spirit, he turns to look towards her. Azuria is momentarily confused about who Ainsley is speaking to, but then pieces it together. Apparently something was keeping her from detecting the entity until now.

    The armored man says in a somewhat archaic dialect of Korean (which Korean? 'not-present-day-Korean'), "I am Jun-tak, warrior and archer, and as you have surmised, the ancestor of this heroine. This is a time of great trouble, and it must be met by all righteous warriors. The mystic bow she wields is one that has been passed down for generations." He turns his attention from Ainsley to Flower Knight. "A fiend with abilities similar to and yet different from my descendant temporarily took control of her. Both magic and the tools of the current era, together, to create a device that can turn both living and machine to the crafter's will."

    He frowns deeply. "He is dangerous. And yet I can not say with certainty that this villain was acting alone. At the place Flower Knight was attacked... There were two shadows."
Blurr "Hm, looks like this foreign code got into all the hardware already." Blurr updates Davies. He searches for anything that might shed light on what exactly it was after, if anything in particular. "Any idea what whoever was behind this might have been after?" he asks. "Specific data packets, or control of something? Maybe both?"
Ainsley     Ainsley provides a fairly customary bow of respect to Jun-tak, using what little she knows of Korean culture to do so, when he introduces himself. As he explains, her confident and cordial look turns to one of tense unhappiness, because it becomes clear very quickly that what she feared was the case has turned out to be true. She turns her gaze back to Flower Knight and then to Jun-tak, not quite surprised but still having to process the weight of something like this. It's clear mind control bothers her quite a lot.

    "You have been very helpful, moreso than should be expected of the dead, and for that you have my deepest gratitude." She gives another respectful bow and turns to regard Azuria now. "He's no danger to us, as you can see. What we need to worry about is the device itself and whatever lingering effects it has had on Flower Knight. It's clear that whatever it is, it's magitech, and that in itself is dangerous. I'll need to get a look at the device later to see if I can find a way to squelch its effects in the future, but my purview has a limited overlap with the world of the mind and may not be able to create a complete counter-measure. I may have to rely on bricking the devices themselves when I find them, or... I'll think of something..."

    She turns away and starts scribbling in her book, with a feather quill she pulled out of her coat. It's the same color as her own plumage. Maybe it's one of her own feathers.

    "Can you tell us what you saw, before you lost control?" Ainsley asks of Flower Knight directly.
Zwei     "Damn right it is!" Weiss replies, at a record low of lying for today. "/Do/ tell me if you remember though! That could be important!" Having told too much truth for the day, she then studiously busies herself with making it look like the laptop is the main actor here; or that it has anything installed on it. She deliberately makes a lot of the data obtuse and hard to read, thoughtfully chewing on her artificial lip in carefully expressed thought.

    As she suspected, but said nothing of in order to avoid being insulting, the device looks almost like a Kardashev level above the preexisting Earth infrastructure here. The fact they decided to power something the size of a USB drive, ostensibly meant to interface with computers, with something that exotic strikes Zwei as either being an indicator of coming from a totally different technological paradigm, or that the device is meant to work on things much different from regular Earth computers as well.

    Both of those make her doubt that Flower Knight came up with it, so that seems to rule out framing a villain on purpose. If she had access to that kind of power supply in building her general equipment, someone should have noticed, and it'd seem odd to make something that experimental to install a backdoor, even if it seems to be a very elaborate and difficult to detect one.

    Of course, Weiss saves a copy of all that data, just in case infosec wants to confiscate the laptop, on which she will leave mostly complete, mostly legitimate results, just fragmented enough to leave some believable gaps in a normal tech geek's understanding of something so alien, and also to hopefully prevent people from reproducing it just yet.

    "So, hey, weird question. Where are you keeping all of Flower Knight's stuff? Because I'm finding some really distinctive stuff here. The virus itself isn't something I'd say you should crap your pants over, but it's really, really thorough. You're going to want to look over this, or else if someone actually succeeds in sticking one of these on one of your computers, you're never going to know."
X Not a lot for X to do here, as there's plenty of people with far more.. exotic skills at work now. He's mostly a tinkerer with computer systems, not a systems engineer!

    "My guess is the virus was meant to monitor the computer's usage. It's about the only reason you'd want to infect this specific machine... once Blurr's done, we shut it down and get it to a lab."
War Witch     Flower Knight's quietness and stationary position have apparently been meditation, rather than catatonia or something. She's aware, and listening. The spirit clinging to her is a friendly influence, according to Ainsley, so Azuria alters the wards she has in place to allow full communication. The Korean-American heroine answers, "I was responding to a break-in. When I got inside, there was a man in red leather and a hood there. He electrocuted me a bunch with what I assume was magic, but paralyzed me rather than trying to knock me out. I think he was trying to keep me from activating my medi-porter. Once he had me... I guess 'shackled' is the word to use... He seemed to be chanting over a device I didn't recognize. I think I saw someone else there. A man in a hat and a long coat, in the shadows. But then everything went red and the next thing I knew I was being held down on the floor and told not to move by other heroes, over in the D.A.T.A. offices."

    Flower Knight shakes her head. "I didn't recognize either of them. I'm not even sure if there was really a break-in or if it was just a trap to lure me there."

    X and Blurr get confirmation their instructions will be followed, and thanked for their help, as technicians come in to start working on quarantining the computer. Blurr is answered with the fact that this computer is right in the middle of the D.A.T.A. branch office in City Hall. There's all kinds of technology, super hero records, other files and records on other systems in the area, and who knows what else that could have been the target. Maybe all of it. And if it's magi-tech, well, M.A.G.I. is right across the hall. Making the 'jump' to 'actual magical items' with a vault full of the most powerful and dangerous confiscated relics and artifacts in the city sitting right there would be equally bad as 'all the confiscated tech, all the experimental stuff being worked on to increase security or help out heroes, all the Rikti stuff they're studying, etc.' being compromised.

    Both at once would be a catastrophe.

    There's too many valuable things that could be targeted to determine what specifically the virus may have been after. But the fact the computer could have given ALL of that information to someone else without it even 'going missing' or showing anything was wrong could have meant an open door into everything heroes are doing, every mission, every report, every personnel file... Indefinitely.

    "That's scary," Rick concludes as he explains, after getting briefed on what Ainsley has discovered, and what Weiss and Horus have determined, and pooling all the information together with X and Blurr's analyses. "Something bothers me though. To have that degree of subtlety, this degree of planning, this kind of tech, and even being able to fuse it with magic... And then to just send a hero in acting oddly and hope that no one would notice? Is anyone else seeing a discrepency in planning here?"

    Horus listens in, but asides in response to Weiss's question, "Probably storage, or the evidence room at the police station. We can ask to get permission to examine it when we're done here. But it's seeming more and more like Flower Knight really is innocent. And this might be a whole lot bigger than we thought."