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Lilian Rook     Since cornering the 'unfortunate' miner scab; his starry dreams of a larger-than-life living somewhere else, shattered, after finding out he'd already been abandoned; and dealing with the ensuing leukemia rearing its head not long after for his cooperation, the trail has all but gone cold. The specific testimony he was able to give would be all but completely worthless to even the best detective, only able to specify a name that turns out to be completely fake, a face that could blend into an entire country, some contacts that are dead ends, and a line that has been professionally burned months ago. The only physical evidence is an intensely ionized piece of metal with no serial markings at all.

    This is why, before, what little there was to get had been put through the obvious local who is 'a diviner' (the sheer comedy of that description still being unapparent) and whose entire family is as well, with a sufficient number of high society connections to verify and scout for supplemental facts. This is a long and difficult process because, as Lilian has relayed, every step of this is little but extremely obstinate resistance, involving forged documentation at very high levels, leads at levels of government access she technically isn't supposed to ethically use magic around, and what can only be extensive, stringent countermeasures against magic in particular. That is to say, whoever has their hands in this had expected to potentially see heat from Enlightened, should their asset fail to die of blood cancer first.

    She doesn't reestablish full contact on the matter until she is certain of what she has, which amounts to an unfortunately anaemic dossier, on one 'Emmanuel Tromm', real name 'Damian Kent', legal age 36, actual age 92, currently employed in the Eastern Seaboard Urban Center's Second Circle as something similar to a civilian security consultant and data analyst, for four years, under a falsified social certificate dated for the post-Onslaught period of shakily resurrecting a century of destroyed civil and federal cataloguing. The cover story involves having been born in Somerset, moved with now-deceased parents to the Western Seaboard Urban Center some 34 years back, then 'transferred' east with a genuine work visa, via some headhunter for the small Nottingham Pledge Contractors company, founded 9 years back, which is owned through several layers by Leopold and Hektor Metalworks, someone in that line having transferred from from the Atlantic Washington Urban Center in take-a-guess.

    All she has is his place of work, in the Second Circle of the city, at a purchased block in a twenty storey business complex building, wherein he spends nine hours a day, broken up by a handful of favourite, modestly priced, family-owned immigrant eateries within tram distance, the pub to which the whole shift ritualistically heads to every weekday, and a home address in an equally modestly ranged apartment complex ten minutes away. There seem to be no family connections, no records of travel, no relationships, no friends outside of work, exceedingly few records of social outings, and no signs of ever traveling alone.

    Take that as you will, because you have to get something from him somehow, somewhere, at some time of day.
Tamamo     Tamamo says, when it comes time to look over the dossier, "Though it is a needless reminder, I shall say, there are many dangers inherent to such confrontation. One should not be unconcerned that the difficulty in tracing this suspicious fellow mounted as high as it did. Should they become worried for discovery, they may do worse than refrain from cooperation."

    Getting a read on a person from written descriptions and copied documentation is beyond her talents. There's no sympathetic magical connection between a person and a print-out of their work visa, unfortunately. If they're not planning on doing anything, at the moment, then she can't seek out where such an event would occur. An incident that she intends to create, herself, is difficult to roundabout prophesy. Relying on the list of places--for work, for eating, for sleeping, with 'for living' still uncertain--is about all she can do.

    "Perhaps, one may consider, it would be best to look toward more than one location, though should he flee from one, I have doubts he would would flee toward another that could be readily discovered."
Tony Stark A name and a face and a place of business? May as well given up home address and social security number. You have an excuse to leave home for broad stretches of time, but work? Someone would know, have a clue, some lead to connect them.

Tony Stark, black collared shirt with the top button left open under a matte-grey-front-silver-back vest, sits at one of the Likely Cafe's, sleeves rolled up to forearm.

The rather overwrought watch on his left wrist projects a holographic screen up to hover over the 'overwrought athletic wristwatch ver ka, metallic' he's selected over a much more sensible thirty thousand dollar Rolex.

He talks like a jackass on Bluetooth, because he is.

"Of course, Coordinator, I'd love to have dinner with you sometime." Beat. "You don't say." He chuckles. "My company will begin the infrastructure analysis shortly, at two minutes from..." Tony glances at his watch. "Right now, actually. Just so nobody is alarmed. Once we finish the scan, we can start the planning for step two of the infrastructure project and release the second lot of support materials." Beat. "Alright." Chuckle. "Alright, take care."

Tony slaps through the holoscreen to dap the face of the watch, which ends the call. Pulling an earpiece out of his ear, he places it on the cafe table in front of him and grimaces. "Politicians can't end a darn phonecall without three tries at it. Sheesh."

Lifting the local health drink to his lips, he sips dead-eyed, mentally resetting and popping his ear automatically. Finally, placing the earpiece back in and gamefacing up.

"Alright kids, roll call."

His glasses light up with backlights as his augmented reality lenses spin up.

<<Prepared for scan sweep, sir.>>
<<On standby at workplace, boss.>>
<<Tactical uplink online. Establishing battlefield control.>>

A twinge of a frown tugs at Tony's face. "Bastion, we talked about this."
The AI cycles for a moment. <<Understood. ...Area of Operations secure.>>
"Heyy, my boy likes playing with action figures." Tony jokes, largely to himself and the nearest three people at the cafe he reclines at.

The tactical network of AI-guided weapons platforms and support drones that hover invisibly around the major culinary and workplace locations in preparation for the 'infrastructure scan sweep' - which is totally legitimate, but also far more broad in spectrum than just checking the state of repairs and stability of local buildings and getting an accurate zoning map - that Tony had planned to run alongside the breach of the suspect's home.

A total information dragnet towards the other likely two areas of interest.
Gawain Gawain hangs out near Arthur, wherever they're meeting, in a dumb-ass plan for the do-gooder knight to perform a breaking and entering to collect evidence. Gawain was hesitant about the idea in his head, until he realized that he was the least expected to do it. He was charming! It'd be fine.

"Alright, Arthur, gate me in- wait." As Gawain prepares to get gated into the suspect's home, he pauses, and moves to take off his shoes.

"Don't want to track dirt, right?"
Maya The scab had told them everything they had, sadly? Whoever was behind this had covered their tracks well. Not only would cancer likely take the man's life sooner rather than later? They'd covered their identity very well. Maya had found some sort of drug injector in the mine. However, she'd left that in Arthur's care as he's better at looking at things like that. The information Lilian had got had given a good idea someone very well connected had their hands in this with how musth resistance Lilian was dealing with. While the intel was meagre she had faith in what Lilian was able to get was accurate.

So it was something to work with. Maya thinks about how best to go about dealing with this. She throws out several methods that would work on Septerra but not here.

The person in question was like a Ghost, it was fortunate they had anything to work with.

Maya had stopped at one of the eateries to get something to eat and hopefully not arouse as much suspicion when she shows up. She's even got a plan in mind. Oasis her home city had a massive smelter complex and its out-laying complexes needed security. So going to get someone from the outside as a consultant might be very useful. It would also make a decent cover for why Maya had shown up at the business in the first place.

Well so long as Gawain gets the time he needs that's the important thing. Maya was not wearing the normal post-nuclear style, she normally wore about the multiverse.

She was clad in what would be considered fairly nice business attire. With that she would go to enter the business and see about looking into arranging the possibility of a security consulting job for Oasis. Hopefully, this would help buy time for Gawain in the end.
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Get something from him somehow, at some time of day

    You gotta be more specific, homie!

>Arthur: Get Gawain into the home

    Arthur can do that. Ya boy Arthur Lowell (not to be confused with any of ya other boys, plural, throughout the multiverse) is here to provide some help, and has picked out a random backroom in a building nearby as a good starting point. It's totally legitimate as a spot to start, please ignore the state of the door's lock or the way Arthur has picked out somewhere closed.

    He uses local maps, hopefully helpfully provided by Tony Stark, to chart exactly where he needs to place the other end of the Gate he summons.

    Ideally, this can get Tamamo and Gawain where they need to be, and, if done carefully, won't trip wards that aren't sufficiently dedicated. Arthur himself is still figuring his intended approach, though ideas bud and prepare to blossom in his insolent skull.
Tamamo     Stealth operations, in general, aren't much of Tamamo's strong suit, although, perhaps, for different reasons than Gawain's. She's certainly capable of wearing things other than those eye-catching robes, and here used it to change into the same obviously-custom-tailored Winter coat as she'd been so fond of a full year ago, but there can't be that many people in these Western Isles with ears like hers. One can only hope that Arthur's means of transportation cuts out the need for effective stealth altogether.

    Arthur was right, of course, that Tamamo has 'that psychometry.' While she has concerns about the appropriateness of entering a strange man's room, it's hard to argue that it would be at all better to sneakily steal items to be read at some other location.
Lilian Rook     Gating into 'Emmanuel's house isn't hard for Arthur. Despite the extensive anti-divination measures smeared all over this whole operation (whatever those look like), the mythical anti-*teleportation* measure once again does not make an appearance. Tamamo and Gawain are neatly dropped off inside an apartment of a size that would make a modern spoiled North American cringe, but would probably qualify as a clean, low income flat in this same country a hundred years ago.

    It's a significantly far cry from the larger yet more barren dwelling of their colonial contact. It looks exactly as if someone has lived here for several years. A small closet filled with unremarkable folded clothes no more daring than faded jeans, three pairs of shoes and a spare duvet. Cheap shelving filled with old paperbacks, hand-me-down home ornaments from a previous house, and a row of potted cacti. A guitar left by the bed, tuned but slightly dusty. A vintage stereo and small pile of tapes. A number of shoeboxes stuffed under the bed, and a chest of drawers cluttered with an impenetrable mess of odds and ends. A tiny bathroom that smells heavily of aftershave and the semi-recent use of harsh cleaning supplies, with mild peeling from overuse of extremely hot water. A desk covered in paper clutter between neatly stacked binders and one of those black glassy projector nodes, a vestigial keyboard left unplugged next to a fifty year old laptop, under which is a sleek portable safe.

    Looking back, a thumb tack-sized optical sensor has been put behind the plain white door. Another is across from the blinded window, behind a picture frame of a woman and small girl. An unfortunate inevitability is the fact that there is at least one *visible* camera on the desk, which could be checked at any moment. The room also has a faint plasticy smell that bodes somewhat ill. An old military satellite phone is placed on the desk as well, at odds with the fact that there aren't satellites anymore. The room also tingles intensely with a vibe that ordinary people wouldn't feel, but reeks strongly of magic to the sensitive pair . . . except 'off'. It's much like biting into a bar of rich dark chocolate only to experience the acidic aftertaste of cheap and mediocre milk chocolate, somehow felt as a magical experience.
James Bond OHMSS

CLASSIFIED

Mission: Caelton Sabotage Investigation

Background: A thriving satellite settlement on an Earth (see file: NIMUE) recovering from extradimensional attack has recently suffered an act of industrial sabotage. A mining operation in the area, serving as the community's main source of revenue, suffered a disruption. Operations have resumed, following Elite investigation uncovering evidence of outside actors.

Objectives:
- Locate and investigate 'Damian Kent' in the Eastern Seaboard Urban Center's Second Circle
- Determine identity of outside actors in Caelton mining concern
- Ensure independence of Caelton settlement

     There is a man on the rooftop dining areas of one of those family-owned restaurants in range of Mr. Kent's living facilities. His face is obscured by a book which seems to have engrossed him utterly, and the wafting blue-grey tendril of a lit cigarette slowly drifts upwards from an ashtray. It isn't a real cigarette; the smoke is cleverly colored wator vapor, the glow an LED light.

     In truth, it's a highly miniaturized, sophisticated combination parabolic microphone and video recorder, displaying, in real time, a feed of Mr. Kent's residence, broadcast to a screen hidden in a compartment cut into the book's pages. Bond's chosen a spot where he can close the book easily, should any waiters come to check on him, or patrons come to join him.

     His disguise is fitting, for someone so seemingly idle; definitely one of the better-off residents of this urban center, his clothes crisp, clean and finely made, without being ostentation. Wealthy or influential enough to have plenty of free time, and probably old-money enough not to flaunt it. Beside him, on the ground, is a suitcase.

     Stark... Gawain, Lowell, Tamamo... and someone else he doesn't recognize. Looks like Lowell's gotten them inside. Bond picks up the cigarette and pretends to take a pull, still not lowering the book. Subtly, his wrist turns, panning the view over to Kent's workplace. Any signs of him there?
Lilian Rook     Tony's scan of the business tower gets him a lot of data which is, as these things go, mostly completely worthless, and has to be sorted through by high density information algorithms. Three thousand employees on payroll, most in mediocre social credit standing, several small sections of building paid in full by holders who definitely don't live in the Urban Center, of which Nottingham Pledge is one that blends in. Floor plan up to a robust number of disaster codes, with some rather interesting mechanisms for what appears to be emergency soundproofing and visual blackout. Only fifty employees on record where 'Emmanuel' works. Mildly profitable, but mostly in that esoteric credit system to which material wealth is technically useless but just as often very tempting.

    Camera access indeed verifies he is there. A man roughly Tony's height, in white collar attire so typical it's like it's trying too hard, though not unusual for the handful of other men still at desks. Brunette, blue-eyed, slightly unshaven, lightly slouched over a holo screen with his fingers folded, dictating something out loud to the computer as he scrolls a list that checks out as a municipal paramilitary inventory, clicking a pen over and over again in one hand. He looks bored and tired, ready to go out for a drink.

    He looks exactly like Tony would look, were he to try to earnestly project an air of being bored and tired and ready to go out for a drink. Dragging his work computer for info shows that he's already completed ninety-five percent of his workload hours ago, and has been looking busy for the past two hours. He could call out at any time now. Scanning from outside, there are also a great deal of extremely densely packed electronics in that pen; a classical black ballpoint with a name engraving, definitely not from work. There's no 'exoenergetic' reading from it. No Enlightened Station on his ID either.

    None of the restaurants are anything special, nor are his orders. Worth noting is that all of them have been bugged, however, at some point in the past. Discreetly and professionally. Tony will have already had the chance to deal with ones near him before entering. The electronics have been in place for years, going by pulled dates, and never in need of removal or maintenance, meaning a wireless uplink somewhere, though not kept on permanently.
Tamamo     Tamamo walks through a portal, going from one dusty old room to another.

    "Oh, my. For a room holding such..." She looks over the potted cacti, the little-used guitar, and the paperbacks, "'ordinary' tastes, there are a few items out of place, no? Perhaps they were meant to be put away, and he had simply forgotten. One can hardly expect the unexpected visitor."

    She knows what cameras look like, broadly speaking. They're useful devices. "I suppose we had best hurry. I do expect 'surprises,' should we tarry long."

    She sniffs at the strong scents from the restroom, but doesn't comment, instead turning a slow circle in her hunt. "Were I to place a secret, to appear as dull as can be, to fade into obscurity, where would I..." And she reaches for the safe, not quite touching it, but looking into the threads that tie it to its owner. *Is* it important? Did he care for what was put in here? It's not, precisely, 'obscure.' Is there a reading, here, of any ritual of its opening?
Gawain As Gawain appears in the apartment, he begins looking around. His first thing he does is step out of line of sight of the visible camera, wearing only socks. His second thing he does is head over to the mattress, and move to lift or investigate under it. If it's just the shoeboxes, he begins opening those to look through them. Shoes? Magazines? Or...something nobody would expect in them?

"What do you think this type of magic is?"
Lilian Rook     Taking the elevator up, dealing with inevitably garbage elevator music of a genre she's never even heard of, Maya enters a central hall that is spinal to the relevant floor, with Pledge to one side, through a lot of ripple glass panel walls, and from there, to a reception hall with the kind of obnoxiously over-polished, open plan, all-round-shapes hotel lobby derivative commonly utilized by PMCs and 'culinary experiences' attempting to impress, with a professionally dressed, professionally bored, professionally blonde, secretary looking up at her as she enters.

    Her cover checks out well enough, as do her first round of credentials, mostly on account of not really being a cover and largely just being real credentials. She tabs up a phone line, with a little holographic [SOUND ONLY] window, and actually gets a 'bring her in' from a 'Sir Allan will see you'. Possibly calling her bluff by inviting her into a conference room. Possibly an eccentric who likes entertaining the odd foreign charlatan. She can see Kent from the entry.
Arthur Lowell >==>

    Arthur wanders out of the designated room, leaving the door closed behind him. The others can get back on their own, through his Gate again. Time to work on his own. But what can he do?

>Arthur: Where can you find the rads?

    Well, that's unlikely. Arthur could detect the radiation because it was at a high level, but that was from the used pen. So, he wouldn't be able to trace radiological signatures.

>Arthur: Can you go find him? Beat an answer out?

    No dice, Arthur can't do that. Maya's on this, and the gang have collectively decided to mostly avoid overt danger and alert like that. The workplace is covered by Tony too. And he doesn't spend any time alone, or outside of a relatively strict routine.

>Arthur: What about the routine? Can you figure something out about that?

    What would you like to use to figure something out about the routine?



>Arthur: Examine geometry throughout the entire route from the workplace, to the tram, to the eateries, to the apartment, judging by optimized monitoring positions and sorted by viability of long-term observation

    Now we're talking.

    Every clandestine organization is a circle of accountability. Sometimes the circle is closed and involves nobody with the best interests of real people in mind, but it's always a circle. Someone no doubt monitors this man to keep tabs on him and make sure everything's okay. Hidden cameras disguised among normal CCTV camera barrage, secret spots to observe hand-offs, and other possible means of monitoring have to be considered. And those places will leave their own records, hidden only by their obscurity. Obscurity provided only by geometry's lenient offerings in urban zones, geometry that Arthur understands well.

    He heads out to run his search.
Maya Maya has found if elevators exist? The music tends to be garbage, the only credit it gets it's a new genre to Maya. She at least seems confident form how she carries herself as the elevator opens. She'll step out and take a look around it's fairly nice all things considered. She'll take note of the place, she's seen this style before. Maya is pleasant and polite as she interacts with the bored out of her mind. She will take the bluff after all the Smelter complex and related faculties /do/ need to be kept secure and with there being multiversal trade? Outsiders who think in ways local problems wouldn't but off worlders might would be useful. So hopefully this legit need will help keep the cover-up.

She does take note of Kent being there, good he's away hopefully she can get him made busy with more paperwork to keep him at the office just a bit longer.

Maya will enter and greet Sir Allan.

"Greetings, I am Maya. I'm glad you have the time to talk."

Once she has a chance to speak further she'll note. "I am from a city-state which has a large smelter complex and given the amount of multiversal trade we do engage in? There is a need for keeping our security up to date. An outside perspective can always be very useful in such matters I have found."
Lilian Rook     Tamamo finds immediately that the safe is obviously very important, for the sheer lack of what she finds about it. Looking into the weave of past and future threads that tie into it, she can metaphorically taste the butyric in the back of her metaphorical throat. Nothing about it seems very magical; there are no runes, no talismans, no enchantments, and it shows no signs of having been subject to any kind of ritual or blessing in the past. Trying to discern what its owner did with it, or who its owner even is, even though she knows for a fact, just gets her the same thing over and over however: the blurry image of an ugly, off-white portable safe.

    Something about it has been designed to intentionally mess with magical espionage. This would make one very discrete instance of what Lilian had complained of. It means something localized and tangible can, and does, interfere, rather than some broad grip upon the skein of fate. It also means that Damian here has Connections, and is some degree of professional when it comes to counterintelligence, which isn't a great sign.

    Gawain finds nothing importance under the mattress. The shoeboxes are largely stuffed with aux cables and chargers, folded ties and cufflinks, packed in old sweaters, photo frames and fragile shelf ornaments in styrofoam packing, duct tape and spray lubricant, and other things that are seldom accessed or never unpacked.

    One of them appears to be a travel kit, immaculately kept, tiny electric toothbrush and empty wallet and all. One shoebox has a thin stack of bearer bonds, printed with treasury authentication, underneath layers of boring tax forms. One of the shoeboxes only contains a slightly smaller, locked box, with a faintly stenciled, half-faded sequence of letters on the front: SERE. This one also tingles with mild, magical, chocolately vomit aftertaste.
James Bond      No one appears as though they're on the way to the residence. That could mean any number of things. It could mean that the place isn't bugged. It could mean that it was bugged badly--but given the trouble MI6 had tracking down any information on Kent, both of those seem unlikely. The mic didn't pick up any kind of commotion there, so it doesn't sound like there were any guards posted. Either that, or they're really taking their time. That isn't something Bond commonly does.

     True to form, he doesn't do it today, either. The book is closed. The briefcase is pulled up, set on the table, snapped open. Manila folders are scanned through, photographs, transaction reports in paper. His choice of seat ensures anyone coming from downstairs will only see the back of the briefcase. A still is taken, spliced from one of the cameras by the nascent ECM division. It's damn good work... he wonders, idly, as he stares at a photo of the target, how long there might still be men like him.

     Twenty... perhaps even ten years ago, this is the sort of thing you'd have to do in person to get a hold of. There are several such shots in the file, which taken collectively, allow him to piece together and confirm the location of the building. Given the time of day... he's got to be in there.

     A flip through the rest of the dossier. No apparent Enlightened status, work habits mined from behavioral anlysts and an incomplete psych profile suggest that the job is easy for him; he typically completes most of his workload well in advance of his end-of-shift. This doesn't seem like an hourly type of job... so it's likely he's only staying there to keep up appearances. To stick to a routine. He searches through the dossier for any clues about how long Kent typically keeps his office hours.

     In the course of his investigation, Arthur is certain to spot Bond, sat atop his perch. His disguise today is only effective for those who don't already know him, the agent's short black hair and slightly dimpled chin a dead giveaway. His game interface will likely point this out, if Arthur doesn't spot him just on looks alone. Bond has already taken the liberty of searching out and removing any surveillance equipment which isn't his own--meaning that if Arthur wishes, the two can have a conversation and coordinate in relative peace. Relative, that is, because any peace is relative when Arthur YA BOY Lowell is around.
Lilian Rook     Urban Center planning is a boon for geometry-minded nerds such as Arthur. The Second Circle being all new construction built to be efficiently planned for several purposes at once makes his job very easy. The fact that Damian's cover identity lives close to work, never goes out far, never goes by himself, and lives a pretty boring life, save for the usual amount of post-work socialization so as not to raise suspicion, means his search can remain limited to a small area.

    It'd strike him as fairly intentional. Any Second or Third Circle is automatically a panopticon, it usually seems, but there's logically only so much space an outside actor could gain unofficial slash extra unethical control over before it rubs other unofficial slash unethical actors the wrong way. There's one very low traffic train station along the work to home route, little more than a platform where the rail dips underground for a twenty block stretch of tunnel. All other locations would be well-monitored by the government, to the point that even if they were prevented from interfering, any rival could look it up.
Tamamo     "Something... interferes. Ahh. Yes, this we encountered before, no? Something wishes not to be found. Now, how shall we deal with this..."

    Tamamo has an idea of what to do, but it depends, first, on where this interference is coming from. She continues trying to find 'something' out about the safe, turning a broader array of magical senses and technique of analysis onto it, and after Gawain's discovery, gives the smaller lockbox the same attention. The important question is this: Is the interference coming from something inside the boxes themselves, or is it linked to something external?
Gawain Gawain takes his phone out of his pocket, and starts taking pictures of this stuss. Travel kit. Shoebox. SERE lockbox with horrible magic.

When Tamamo comes to him, he hands the lockbox to her to scan. He wants to crack it open, but he needs her analysis first.
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Who's this guy?

    That guy? Over there? Arthur remembers! That's JAMES BOND. He has a number of INTERESTS, all of which seem to be CLASSIFIED TOP-SECRET and buried beneath BLANKETING LAYERS OF PROFESSIONAL ESPIONAGE DISTANCE. He possesses a number of POWERFUL FIREARMS and a keen POLITICAL INTELLECT. His space is--

    No, wait, we're not switching the prompt to someone else, that's illegal. Anyway, Arthur looks to him, staring keenly out of the crowds, but with a quick nod and a wink rather than any menace. He flicks out of the crowd and appears nearer Bond subtly, without bright flickers of light or suchlike.

    "WHAT UP, dawg." He rambles as he slides into a cool lean on a rail, looking away from Bond and flicking a pair of sunglasses on. "Guess who got TWO THUMBS and a FULL SEARCH OF ALL SPACES WHERE YOU COULD KEEP AN EYE ON YA BOY WITHOUT STEPPIN' UP IN SOMEONE'S GRILLE?" Is it this guy? "THIS GUY." He declares, with a quick laugh. "Check that TUNNEL. I'mma GET UP IN THAT BIZ, homeboys gotta keep their EAR on the GROUND and keep track of their ASSETS or whatever, right? I bet they got HELLA RECORDS on some RECORDING SHIT or whatever."

    He'll be right over on the way to that tunnel, in fact, unless James Bond tells him to leave it alone or anything like that.
Lilian Rook     Last name Allan gets a Sir instead of a Mister, Maya can already tell, due to having some five generations ago landholder title that he likes very much, and he looks like it. Fancy placard. Degree on wall. Family crest framed. Numerous antiques. A globe dated enough that Africa still doesn't have all the countries on it. A mustache he must think is very proper, a hairline that indicates he was running an office shortly before the locals cracked the telomere, and an instantly interested attitude the minute Maya sits herself down.

    It's doubtful this guy is responsible for more than being the sociable, appealingly traditionalist face of the company, to gold with rich potential clients who would rather not talk to anyone who grew up with a smartphone face to face. His response to Maya is largely that of immediately telling her to not be so businesslike, complimenting her appearance, asking her twenty questions about where she comes from, and then winding back to what she hopes to get out of a partnership, rather than getting to any gritty details.

    Presuming she is shared any information about Damian Kent at all, she can recognize that the moment she's in the room with Allan, Kent finishes up his work and excuses himself early for the day, taking the elevator down and heading out to the train. On his way in the hall, he stops to check a screen projected by the smart device mounted in his collar pin, invisible from the reverse side.
Tamamo     Tamamo is ultimately confounded by these obstinate, yet inanimate, objects. Like a 12th century lady of the court asked to program a VCR that keeps blinking 12:00, she is simultaneously at a total loss, sure that something here is wrong, and inclining toward taking it as a personal slight.

    With a noise very suspiciously sounding like a huff, the talismans come out of her sleeves. They're spread around the room seemingly at random, but probably not. Arthur could probably appreciate the geometry in her geomancy, but the red-inked strips of paper plastering themselves over the windows, doors, walls, ceiling and floor might still evoke the feeling of guttering candles and sickly-rasping voices heard through paper screens. The feeling of othering of a place, a room becoming somewhere else, the familiar into the unfamiliar--is more likely to be lost on Gawain, since this wasn't his room, in the first place.

    Tamamo turns as she works, slowly, feet etching out a design on the floor. It fills with wavering, golden light. The paper seals clack shut, like so many sliding doors and shuttered windows. There's a wealth of both practiced finesse and natural grace in her motion, but this isn't a subtle spell. Having some time since given up on doing this without being noticed, she's instead decided to steal the room itself, to overcome its defenses through sheer power.

    At the least, if anything here requires a trigger from outside, that will be the first option lost to any opponent.
Gawain As Tamamo moves, Gawain steps over towards the sunlight, and moves to crack open the box. He points it away from them. His hands grind it open like a can-opener, moving to release whatever's within. If it's dangerous...

He immediately dives to the ground and cradles it within his arms, trying to protect Tamamo first, the surroundings second, and himself last.
James Bond uncheckedImperialism: Lowell.

     Wait, we're not doing that, either.

     Bond nods at Arthur. "Good," he says. He sees no particular reason why that would be a bad idea--in fact, a tunnel like that would be a great place for... Subtly, Bond slides a single photo across the table, revealing to Arthur what he's concerned about without saying it.

     It's that pen. He cracks open the book again, maneuvering the cigarette in time to see Kent through the windows of the building, exiting the lobby. "Go on ahead--but make sure Stark gets this and tell him it's from me. If Kent's got it on him, see that Stark disables it." The folder, save the photo of the pen, is set ablaze by a lighter procured from his coat pocket. It vanishes in a manner of moments, leaving only ashes which settle nicely into the ash tray.

     The book is hidden in the briefcase, the cigarette 'turned off' and placed into his pocket. The briefcase is closed, and he makes his casual departure from the rooftop dining area.

     Bond adjusts his wristwatch as he exits the building, setting into place within its complex mechanisms a tranquilizer dart, ready to fire with three minute adjustments of the minute hand. He times his departure, specifically, so that he can 'just happen' to arrive at the nearest tram exit in time to look like he was already waiting there. Sitting on the bench, he waits for Kent and the tram to arrive.

     There, he'll board, keeping to himself, eyes down, checking the time. Here, he maintains a character, too--that of a man slightly too successful for this circle, who is eager to avoid contact with those he sees beneath him, and more eager still to be out of this place. But all the while, seemingly avoiding eye contact, he's watching Kent, waiting for the moment where he'll depart that tram.

     Bond tails him, keeping always just around the corner, waiting for the right moment to spring that dart--the moment in which they're both as free as can be from the eyes of passers-by and electronic eyes alike, carefully watching for the restaurants on Kent's path and public surveillance apparatus alike, all while keeping that 'anxious old money' act up.
Tony Stark Tony, still rather openly just hanging out a totally meaningless cafe and watching the data process like every other armchair dronestrike operator.

Except, as a private single citizen, there's some fraction of a fraction of a percent of a chance that several billion dollars in heroing hardware and support mechanicals playing Pop Goes The Predator Drone in a civilian center could even remotely end without a missile going the wrong direction.

And James Goddamn Bond is on site.

<Inteligence Asset Detected, Escalating Threat Analysis.> Rumbles BASTION, and Stark takes a moment to resettle himself and order an espresso.

The strange mirage-like outline and the non-strange and very real sound of hypertech flight exhaust approaches Bond's position as one of the primary suits - in optical camouflage - scoots right up to the Double-0 Agent and...

Places a spare set of AR 'plastic' large-framed glasses into his hand, before vectoring off.

When (not if) he puts them on, his world becomes one of bright colors and sequentially telescopic views in X-Ray, Thermal, and augmented structural visioning.

In his ear, over the loop of the frame, is an earpiece. "Mister Bond, I presume? I'll have my suits clear the way and roll out the carpet. However you'd like to take it."

A very intuitive minimap populates itself in the upper right hand corner of his vision.

MEANWHILE, at the coffee shop, Tony is served his espresso and settles in with a holographic keyboard to work.
James Bond      Just as they cross into the path of the sun, Bond frowns in wholly affected irritation, slipping on Stark's glasses from a cherrywood case he'd hidden them in, on the rooftop. With their aid, he checks his angles, making certain there's no surveillance equipment, private or public, which might catch the act. The moment he's got a clear shot, Bond fires the dart. A tiny titanium needle flies like an agitated wasp towards the back of Kent's neck, an autoinjector dosing him with fast-acting and powerful tranquilizers. To the naked eye, it seemed like one man checked his watch, and the naked ear will hear only a slight whistle, like the chirp of a bird.
Maya Maya does seem interested in the mans' collection it's full of a number of interesting relics of this world's culture. Something Maya has long been interested in she would catch on to Sir Allen's. Lucky for Sir Allen, Maya never grew up with a smartphone in her face.

She does catch notice of Damian Kent leaving. So she'll start asking questions She can't flake out but at least she's given a warning. So she'll reach into her purse and pull out a small core rune. A small one-shot magical battery and offer it to Sir Arthur as a gift. It's dark orangish gold in colour and has a blue glowing rune in the center of the small tablet looking item.

However, at the time she got the core rune? She also pressed her phone to send the warning as she was retrieving the gift.

She has done what she can now for team sneak. Hopefully, she can at least learn some more or get some networking done which could come in useful later.

She takes the compliment well and would answer the questions. Her people were forgers and artificers, with experience savaging magical devices and getting them working again. She also would mention he would hope that the possibility of expanding trade might be a possibility as well. Given the amount of salvage that gets reprocessed into its base materials.

She will continue with speaking on the interesting possibilities of sources of magical related materials and the like also access to building materials for various large scale projects
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Acquire PHOTO

    Arthur captchalogues the PEN before he heads out. "SURE SHIT, bro. I'mma get this to T-STANK on the HIGH-SPEED." He assures Bond, before making his way to that tunnel segment. It's time to extensively *search* that place, top to bottom, for Secrets and Clues that he might be able to use for tracking down the source. He'll also get this photo to Tony via his digital links. No, he doesn't have a scanner or anything, he just puts the captchalogue card on his phone for a bit, that's all!
Lilian Rook     A few related things happen in sequence. Kent stops at the tram station, checking his personal window. Given the number of other people doing so while waiting, this is very much a smartphone type of situation. Spotting something, he fishes his pen out of his pocket again, twists the cap slightly between his thumb and forefinger, and clicks it like a nervous habit. Precisely twice, in quick succession. Warning codes flash through Tony's software: DETONATION SIGNAL.

    In his apartment, Tamamo plasters the walls, floor, and ceiling, with sealing talismans, delineating the space inside as completely separate from the space outside. A light disappears from the desk mounted camera, though it remains recording on a closed circuit, as no doubt do whatever others are hidden around the room. The safe loudly beeps, makes a whining sound --and abruptly shuts off again.

    Gawain is able to brutalize the kit, not built specifically to withstand gratuitously superhuman strength working at it. It cracks open to reveal a bottle of pills, what looks like an epipen, a blank keycard, a blank ID card, a tiny communicator, what might be plastic explosives, laid out in strips like a pack of gum, an analogue knife, compass, map of the area, physical cash, a length of wire, a number of unmarked silver cylinders, and a loaded handgun, with the markings denoting a plasma chamber. An alarm bug begins squealing as soon as he opens it, but cannot be heard outside the room now, allowing him to crush it.

    The source of the off-magic feeling is also easily found; it looks like a polyhedral die, black onyx, with pictographic markings instead of pips. It's oddly heavy and cold, and extremely hard and durable. It's also obnoxiously difficult to get a fix on with even his basic Servant senses --no doubt another one is fixed inside that safe somewhere.

    Kent out on the street looks agitated by something, and boards the tram. Unfortunatly for Bond, the success of other groups means that his mark is now very much suspicious. Bond is also in the unique position amongst the group to recognize very specific choices of movement from him. The way he moves around crowds, the corners he takes, the broad streets he uses, and the circular diversions he goes down, and the frequent use of looking into reflective windows behind him while staring ahead.

    It's field operative training. Old school at that. No tech. No magic. Well worn handbook tactics and situational awareness. Things that don't fail because of superpowers. Ones that must be in especially short supply in this world now. Tony's scans can see that he's armed under his winter coat, but any reads of his vitals, or trying to even find his pen, is bizarrely pixellated and murky. If Tony cares to try and analyze it from multiple angles, there's a subtle distortion that spreads from roughly the man's breast pocket.

    Bond has zero good chances to dart him. It's hard to tell whether or not he knows for sure that Bond is tailing him, but he knows that someone is out for him, and that's apparently enough. It's not going to be plausible to pick him off and question him later. He'll be home long before then.
Tony Stark As a courtesy to James, the Smartglasses reveal a number of flying 'chunky discs' with twin-mounted 'things', be they some form of launcher, an energy blaster, or some form of electronic emitter for more technically oriented forms. Among them are two soaring missiles of metal, similarly cloaked, on a high ready point.

Both main suits converge on the escaping Kent, outflying any man merely trying to use old cloak and dagger techniques to avoid detection. The kind that a scan wouldn't pick up. The kind that scrying would be baffled by. Just good old fashioned clean esionage and counter-tailing.

The man he is trying to escape, however is James Bond. The man playing Q for James bond is Anthony Stark.

No chance in hell.

A detonation signal from the click of the pen is scrambled as a jet black-and-red heavy tactical suit halfway to a War Machine expy with a trapezoid Arc Reactor window, and a sleeker rosegold and gold armor with sleeker lines and more trimmed and silent landings de-cloak just meters away from Kent, dropping out of the sky with loud thunks. Both spread their stances out, the threatening 'brrWEEEEE' of the palm blasters spinning up putting their posture extremely clear.

Tony's voice is piped out of them, clear as crystal.

"Emmanuel Tromm, real name Damian Kent, other aliases unknown, under the Commonwealth Code and the power of the Round Table you are ordered to stand down immediately and submit yourself for questioning. You have a whole lot of rights, and I'm a whole lot of not-a-cop, so we can skip all that:"

"You're not shooting your way out of this one, and we have secured evidence of premeditated gruesome murder and conspiracy to commit the same which will be rendered, with you, to Pendragon authorities."

"You and the local branch of the pollutioneers really need to rethink your priorities. I'm using loud words and speaking softly so your bosses know too. Line's open, Rad Radiationist and company, make me an offer. But you, Kent?"

He can probably break for it. He can absolutely flee. He can play dumb. But Tony was ready to flip over this card last week.
James Bond <J-IC-Scene> Tony Stark says, "Bond, left breast pocket has a baffler. You should be able to see it. He's armed, but that's all I can get you without flying in and punching him in the face myself."
<J-IC-Scene> James Bond says, "We don't have an option to do it quietly unless we catch him at home. He knows the Game."
<J-IC-Scene> James Bond says, "I'm breaking off."

     Bond waits outside a storefront, checking his watch as if he were waiting impatiently for a meeting. Then...

<J-IC-Scene> Tamamo says, "He will not be returning to *this* home, I expect."

     Of course. It makes sense now. There weren't any handlers because he works alone. This whole part of town might as well be his nest, for everything that's been set up here. He'd have preferred not to do it this way. But there's little choice--it's act now, or risk him pulling up stakes and jumping town. If someone sees him, that's one thing--but the surveillance network, that'll be flying blind. Not permanently. But long enough.

     Bond's hand, casually resting in his pocket, comes out. Concealing what's in his palm from view, he leans against the nearest public CCTV camera. Something adhesive is pressed there and held in place by his leaning. A lazy twitch of his thumb activates a button. That button begins a countdown. Thirty seconds pass--long enough for plausible deniability--and then every recording device on the block suddenly goes on the fritz, microphones picking up hissing, deafening static, cameras recording only snow or black solid screens. The device having done its work, Bond pulls it free and stows the spent thing.

     That should keep the heat off of Stark.
Maya Maya will in time finish up with Sir Arthur and depart. She doesn't expect it to go anywhere, to be honest after all. Still, it's present and somewhat enlightening to get some more ideas about things here. When it's over she'll exchange contact information and other things and once it's finished? She will depart, there's much more work to do.
Gawain As Gawain investigates the lockbox, he relays the contents to the others, and gives the call to arrest their guy. But when the portable safe starts beeping, and Tony moves to jam it...

Gawain rushes over. "No, no!" He moves to grab it, crack it open like a walnut with big meaty hands, and get the crunchy evidence center out.
Lilian Rook     The section of tunnel Arthur is searching for isn't too hard to find. It's also barely more than a ledge long enough to stand on at a safe distance away from an autopiloted train, and broad enough to begrudgingly handle a trickle of people at odd hours. It feels like a footnote, dutifully included in the construction due to an excess of manpower, a demanding supervisor, and the nearby area falling just out of tolerances from anywhere important enough to be serviced with a main station. There's just one double set of bare concrete stairs that lead up and down, a few bright lights, a laminated map and timetable, and a single half-empty vending machine, humming loudly enough to be annoying.

    If Arthur knows anything about tech nerd superspy bullshit, it's that something plugged into a high capacity power outlet that nobody touches is going to be where you put anything important. Unfortunately, it seems like whoever does is far too competent to leave a nice USB full of info --likely paper orders that are promtly burnt by match-- but he finds a listening device that would easily pick up someone deliberately talking to themselves while using the vending machine that nobody bothers to use or restock. It isn't of the same make that Kent has bugged the various eateries and his workplace with either.
Tamamo     From the sound of it, though Tamamo had wished otherwise, the spy they chased won't be leading them back to anyone, nor even to another safehouse. It would have been helpful, most likely, but talking about missed chances wouldn't be. Putting that out of her mind, she goes to work on the safe. She can't divine anything within it, but that doesn't mean she can't break it open. Now that she's commandeered this room as her personal domain, it would be stranger if she couldn't.

    Her method involves less pure strength than Gawain's, and more precisely applied ice magic supercooling the metal to make it brittle enough to crumble against lesser degrees of force, but the general idea is not too different. If it was trapped against, say, sudden changes in air pressure, she could probably do something about that if she were very careful... and if she'd thought about it ahead of time, which she hasn't.
Lilian Rook     Bond's scrambling of all of the panopticon's local surveillance grid goes off flawlessly. No doubt there are moderately underpaid men sitting around not paying attention to them, or moderately overpaid men already trying to diagnose it but too far away to matter. It means when Tony drops his suits in, there are only a scattering of people to fall back, making a lot of loud noise and running off. Normally, there'd be a lot of gawking lookie-loos. There doesn't seem to be a pressing reason there shouldn't be a crowd. The most reasonable explanation is probably that a regular civilian here is trained to vacate the area immediately when something that they don't recognize suddenly appears out of thin air.

    Kent reacts even less typically. Between Tony's obviously leveled weapons and clearly declared intent, he doesn't so much as look over his shoulder. Slowly, smoothly, he removes his hands from his jacket pockets, leaving the pen, brings one to his pin, squeezes the tinted smart device it's a part of, and projects a screen that has been mirrored for Tony to see. It has a photograph of someone who at least looks similar to him, followed by a serial number, personal data, a symbol comprised of an alpha and an omega inside opposite ends of a lamniscate, and the sequence: Cipher/Messenger Chalice Black. Kent grins faintly, and replies to Tony in a perfectly generic Washington accent.

    "I apologize for making you come out all this way, Mister Stark, but I don't report to the Reclamaitonists. My orders, as interpreted and delegated, are in line with the highest power in the land you see." He holds up one finger. "That'd be the U S of A. The Letter Agency, to be precise. With that out of the way, I assume you'll believe me that if anyone was supposed to be dead, they would be. I'm sorry to say that you're getting involved for nothing here. In fact, you're even on the wrong side. No hard feelings of course. The knights and castles are all very romantic. Doesn't that idea of a wonderful little commune on the hill just tug at the heart strings when you throw in a 'freedom' here and there?"

    "You want to talk? We can talk over a coffee. If you want to shoot me, that'd be your best chance too. I'm a little shocked you were able to find out anything at all, but that doesn't change that you and your friend aren't in a position to get anything from me like this." He then, equally slowly and obviously, pats down his jacket, waist, and pockets. "I don't carry a gun, you see, Mister Stark."
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: Examine LISTENING DEVICE

    This looks like what Arthur's after. But it's been rendered anonymous. No convenient info drops and it's relaying what it has elsewhere. Can he figure something here? How can Arthur Lowell approach this with no capacity to hack, to intercept transmissions, or to track a receiver? Hmmm...

>Arthur: Go back to doing what works. Estimate angles.

    If it's transmitting from belowground, it has to be either relatively *powerful,* or a receiver must be nearby. It probably isn't really powerful, if it's meant for espionage. So the receiver must be somewhere nearby -- either now, or later. If this has any storage at all, it probably transmits to a passing train, but if it doesn't...

    It's either something he can find in an improbable line of sight, or something he can find in a reasonably accessible backroom or back-counter that this can transmit through concrete to. That means slicing any basic employees-only locks and looking for reception equipment, and hopefully finding more breadcrumbs to follow. Come onnnnn, *something* he can identify here! Or something he can stake out to ambush! He's gotta climb past this rung.

    But he reports in the position of the device. Maybe Tamamo's powers can find more, or maybe Bond can follow up on this, or something like that!
Lilian Rook     The signal to the room is intercepted by Tony's jamming effort. No radio waves make it to their destination. The bleeping that comes from within is something very separate. Something that seems to have been activated, yet unable to confirm going off. Tamamo has the intended warning that something had done something adjacent to 'crossing over' her sealed barrier by half. That is, something outside tried to reach in, and something inside tried to reach out, but weren't able to connect.

    Pulling the safe open like that also destroys what looks like a thick wad of explosives and metal bearings meant to tear the head off of whoever opened it incorrectly. A paranoid professional has rigged analogues inside as well, to destroy its contents, which go off the instant Gawain's hand is inside, his big buster palms shielding his prize, but absorbing the full brunt of several strips of plastique compressed around the inside of a safebox.

    In his hand is another one of those polyhedral hieiroglyphic objects, like Inca lines rendered onto ominous black dice. Alongside it, many fractured shards of something sadly fragile, but also three silver canisters similar to the device found at the mines, but all of significantly different weight and balance in his hands. There's a papery sort of microfilm object which he can spy countless tiny circuit board-esque etchings in with his enhanced vision, and finally, a perfectly disposable and undetectable paper envelope, now scorched at the corners, thick with informations on names he doesn't recognize for the most part, but include the Caelton treasurer and Reclamaitionist missionaries that he does.

    That, and himself, Tamamo, Tony, Arthur, Maya, Lilian, and several smaller files regarding Rhongomyniad, Spider-Man, Xion, and Damocles. People involved, tangentially involved, and who have been involved here.
Lilian Rook     The listening device has no storage capacity because that would be an unacceptable risk were it found. It also isn't high enough frequency to pierce through so much concrete, as that'd make its signal very obvious to someone who knows how to look. Arthur's deduction is correct, finding something similar to a radio wire running through the hollowed inside of the cheap metal hand rail for the stairs, up to the surface street, surrounded by small, semi-industrial shipping workplaces, and run through the ground into a public phone, in its sci-fi incarnation, coopting its transmitter rather than inserting one that can be found.
James Bond      >You and your friend aren't in a position to get anything from me like this.

     That's one he's heard before. And often times, they're right. The difference between a rookie agent and a veteran is in how you handle them being right. The young ones, they'll try and make it a matter of spite. Shoot whoever it is that pulled that card, pat yourself on the back for 'winning,' and leave with nothing. But the ones who've been at the Game for a while know it's the 'like this' which counts.

     The disguise is altered. The shirt untucked, the jacket reversed so that it now resembles a windbreaker, the ring removed and stowed away. From the suitcase, he retrieves the book and the cigarette, tucking one into his jacket and the other into his pants pocket. His body language changes, too, and the suitcase, absent any more useful information or devices, is thrown away.

     Now, he's not some old money fellow with a suitcase waiting on a contact that never came. He's strictly middle-of-the-road, probably just got off of work, looking to kill some time before he returns to a quiet and likely boring home life. The glasses Stark gave him are removed, too. That book is creating a hefty outline in his jacket, throwing the disguise off slightly.

     So he solves that issue by sticking to the persona he's made for himself, wandering into the nearest appropriate store to purchase for himself a duffel bag, not unlike the kinds you'd see on your everyman-about-town in populated places like this. Stark's glasses and the book are placed into it, and it's slung over his shoulder casually. That's better.

     Of course, the professional that Stark is dealing with will know who he is, when he approaches--but he isn't the point. The point is for that old-money fellow to Not Be There when the cameras come back on. If they come back on. So. It comes back to 'Like This.'

     "I think we can work something out," says Bond, coming around the corner to speak with the agent. He points to one of the restaurants. The one which he already de-bugged. "That place makes a decent cup of coffee. We can head that way now, you, my friend and I. You can leave that baffler of yours there," he says, nodding to a nearby trash receptacle. "And when we're finished, you can come and get it. After all," he says, quoting the agent's earlier words, "If someone were meant to be dead, they would be."
Gawain Gawain's hand explodes, ash blackening his fingers as the blast causes discomfort and some pain...but his hand is otherwise fine. Buster palms.

Gawain moves to carefully remove the evidence, even the broken stuff. He then moves to Tamamo. "Can you check this broken object, and try to find out what it was?" He rubs his hand. Ouch.
Tamamo     Tamamo covers her mouth in shock, though delayed from properly reacting to what's happening. Once Gawain's removed his hand, she proceeds to fuss it over far more than is strictly necessary, not getting on to the immediate matter of his request until after (politely) demanding to see his hands and then removing both charms and ointments from her secret sleeve compartments.

    Once that's done, she moves on to checking what she can make out of the broken parts, removing the obfuscating artifact far away from them and wrapping it up in a new set of sealing talismans to isolate its influence. Noticing the files, and her own name, she glances through her own file before touching the remains of the safe's contents to repeat the previously-stymied Fate reading.
Tony Stark For a moment, while James Bond's Double-Oh Gadgets have hold of the area's transmittals, blacking out the area from surveilance and communication, the pair of Iron Man frames split in their overall attitude, one rather ready to stand down at the clicking of the pen into the palm.

The other, the far more heavily armored and armed one, practically bristles at the opportunity, immediately taking a more aggressive stance, clearly following the whole thing like a bulldog with automated turrets for eyes.

And then contact is re-established, both frames regaining their unity as the heavier frame stands down.

<Tac-Paladins> 4 Tony Stark with the most genuine venom in his voice possible. "God I hate the CIA."

With a spitting anger that comes purely in the form of Aggressive Compliance With Being A Good Customer And Resetting His Table, Tony steps out into the street his cafe is on, his empty espresso cup sitting on a few crisp high-denomination bills.

He disappears turning down an alley like Batman, stepping into his third invisible suit and cruising off to the area where James and his assistants had cornered the spy.

For more coffee. "Yeah, pick up the coffee place's bathroom policy, because I may want some combination of its services, to swirly a federale for fun, or to let James Double-Oops them Casino Royale style on the porcelain." Stark deadpans into his helmet, tracking the cityscape as it rockets past his view.

IN MOMENTS--

The heaviest 'extra frame' re-activates its optical camouflage as Stark arrives in classic hotrod red and gold, his own cloak dropping.

All of the spies are aware of the heavy frame lifting into the air and just sort of idling there ominously.

Stark's helmet opens, but the suit remains. "I'm really hoping the coffee's good because you're catching me after the pregame for exposition, guy."

Stark raises his Iron Wrist to his unmasked head, the bending only mildly awkward. A little 'I'm on a call now' visual pops up. "Hey, Maya, Gawain, Tamamo, Arthur, I've got Mister Alphabet over here, sending you the Google Maps. Show up, you can help me drink coffee." Stark speaks clearly, doing the whole call while staring pointedly at Kent.
Arthur Lowell >Arthur: What do you remember from your sci-fi books?

    Robots, primarily.

>Arthur: Anything else?

    Mostly robots. Partially spaceships.

>Arthur: Okay, narrow it to telecommunications

    Arthur remembers... phreaking? That was the word, right?

>Arthur: Does anything here look like it's going to do that?

    This probably isn't a tone-based system, since it's the Far Future. But maybe an electronic authentication? It would need to use some ROM, some custom firmware stuff to authenticate that.

>Arthur: Do you know what that looks like?

    No.

>Arthur: Okay, just captchalogue the thing, Tony can pull the ROM and Tamamo can read the past.

    Sounds good! Arthur pops it into a card, and then he's off through a Gate to the others, bearing the fruits of his labor!
Maya Maya is pleasant she's not been bored by her host at all he's been far more interesting than some of the higher society people she'd had interacted with on her homeworld. So she's not been put off by the whole affair, it's too bad she wasn't able to delay the target longer. Still, she was able to give her allies a good warning so she's been mildly useful today and she might be able to follow some of this up later.

She may also think to look more deeply into the consulting business. There might be something else.

Lilian's world leaves more and more of an impression on her. She will ask him if he has travelled at all and the things he has if he has.
Lilian Rook     Maya's excitable old friend for the evening tells her a fair few stories of traveling around Africa in an excruciatingly stereotypical 'thinks he's a colonial English gentleman' sort of way. Given that this would have to have been well of forty-five years ago, he probably wasn't at the time, but he has enough genuine souveniers to make it seem a plausible fascination, rather than a brief fad. He expresses some considerable ruefulness that it's impossible to travel anywhere now, before checking the time, realizing he's wasted it all, giving her his number and excusing himself.

    Arthur puts the phone in his inventory. There's nothing the phone can do about this. It would probably be upset if phones had feelings. He arrives just in time for the tail end of the 'standoff'.

    Kent smiles with the look of someone who knows exactly that the person he's talking to knows that he's right and he knows it and knew they'd know. "Aren't many of us left, are there?" He says to bond. It takes him just a moment, though, to figure out what he means by 'baffler'. His eyebrows raise slightly. "Ah." He fishes out a third object identical to the bizarre one that Tamamo and Gawain had found, holding it up so that the two men can see it now. "Incidentally, this is how it should be impossible for your divination specialist friends to learn anything. I should have a talk with my contacts in the Civil Administration sector about those paper trails, I guess." He flicks it into a garbage receptacle across the street, landing it neatly inside without looking, just to show off. Not in the way that Lilian would, certainly being more understated, but a wordless note about what goes on between those eyeballs and that brain. "By the way, if I find that sensitive state information or belongings have been stolen or compromised at this moment, I'll have a very different opinion of sitting down to talk."

    Though he doesn't *really* have much of a choice about it, he gestures with both arms under, raises his brow just enough for shallow wrinkles to appear in his forehead, tips forward slightly, and says "Shall we?" when Stark arrives, effortlessly putting back on the fake accent before heading within earshot of the place. Arriving, a south Indian woman in a uniform recognizes him immediately and shows him to a usual table, which, predictably, is back to a wall, facing a window. He sits down and orders three coffees, only having to ask how Bond takes his, then asks if the two want anything off the menu.

    In the meantime, Tamamo doing her best to reconstruct the object (metaphorically) on short notice, what she puts together is some sort of totem-looking object, obviously carved in a way meant to be mystically auspicious, but largely filled with disgustingly fine and dense clockworks. She couldn't imagine a watchmaker in the world putting it together, though the marks don't indicate machining. She gets the idea it was meant to be a countermeasure against something, but after being determined useless, thrown back in the safe to be tuned by someone else later.

    Her file is fairly dense with many known appearances, including some footage pulled off the panopticon of her around town, but much less information about her activities in Japan, and none about Fuji or the Dragon's Garden. She's listed as a 'Messenger/Supplicant' threat, and 'presented: Mirror, Crimson' but with a 'projected: Blade, Black'. Her relations to Lilian are noted and heavily speculated on, being the local that someone would obviously have data about, and the point of entry into the country, though it seems she enjoys the benefit of considerable information privacy safeguards.

    The file rules out behaviours stemming from magical compulsion first, and advises non-interference, with something about 'mutual neutralization of operational threats', and mostly lists precautions about Eastern-style divination magic and how to detect and purify curses for someone who isn't themselves any kind of priest or broadly magically learned.
Gawain As they move to leave, Gawain storing the evidence in a bag, he moves to read his own file. Once he has done that, he'll send a call to Arthur to hopefully reopen the gate and store the evidence away. He regretfully radios Tony

"I need to confirm the evidence is secure. We already left evidence of our passing, no use playing CIA games."
Lilian Rook     The safe, psychometrically, has obviously been used by him, but only a handful of times over a year. There were previously four cylinders, all of which are accounted for. Some other objects are no longer present, and can be presumed disposed of. Since he physically comes back with updated documents, it can also be presumed he gets them from dead drops specified by the subway station.

    Then, back at the restaurant, while Bond and Tony are seated and orders have arrived (coincidentally, they've lucked out in terms of coffee quality, being the shade-grown premium variety from India that he orders 'from under the shelf'), Kent produces something like a poker chip, stenciled with designs similar to what one would find on those hokey old ESP testing cards, taps it down on the table, and then says "Now we're free to talk. Everyone else will just hear whatever sounds normal. Flip the table if you want; they'll interpret it as some kind of accident."

    Then he reclines again, sipping his drink. "Courtesy of the Letter Agency. Which one, I can feel you asking? There's only one. The primordial alphabet soup. Circa 1820, not all that important until 1950, let's admit." Finally, time to tuck into lamb biryani, talking between bites. "So let's get to the point. What they're digging up at Otherworld point T-1N0-G. Isotopes on element 113 and 133. Leo buys it up, processes them amongst other things, and sell them to people who need them. You know what those two are used for?" He tilts his knife in a direction outside, towards city limits.

    "Walls. Other stuff, but mostly walls. Inherently imperishable, dense, hard, can be alloyed into all types of properties, mostly resisting encroachment, reconfiguration, absorption, and corrosion vectors. Isle of youth right? Leo isn't much for talent as Enlightened go --not in jolly old-blooded England especially-- but there's those kind of things he can do to contribute to a lot of important people. Not just people who care about Antegent. People who have other problems. You don't have to be a seven times seven generations sorcerer of wherever who cares to have some cards on the table if you're smart. People nowadays tend to forget that."

    He then laughs, tapping his temple. "Mostly because we make sure to tell the opposite. The culture war is half the battle. Best for everyone the old guard thinks they're on another playing field and have the lower classes agree. Like what we did with communism back in the day. Same procedure, opposite purpose. Except nobody really gave a shit about that."
Tamamo     "Some manner of... totem...? Filled with gears... some odd device was here, among the others." Tamamo says this distractedly, fingers moving slightly, as if tugged by strings. Presently, she finishes her work, gathers everything together to help Gawain take out, with one more, temporary exception of another file.

    "There is little we may do to long hide the truth of our presence, and there is much in this place we should expect to miss, were I not to carefully search it. Even less could hide from me, given time, in my own domain. And yet, for now, let us away. I must have words with this man, as well, and see the question is posed to him."

    And then she skims quickly through the file, and reads aloud into her Tac-Pal channel anything that could be reasonably expected to involve 'strategies to deal with' or 'things un/known to' Tony Stark. Preferably, in time to be useful to his side of the conversation.
James Bond      There is a dry smile on Bond's face, lopsided. Stark's irritation seems to amuse him. What is it with the inventor types and getting so cross? His eyes settle briefly on Stark's face. 'Don't let it get to you,' says his seemingly good natured amusement.

     Hands in his pockets to keep up the disguise, he maintains a posture where he can keep Kent in his field of vision, casually removing one of his hands to gesture towards that restaurant in a 'shall we' kind of way. Him first. "It's depressing," says Bond with a nod to Kent. "I imagine in twenty years the computers will be eighty per cent of the workforce."

     He follows. Everyone knows how Bond takes his martinis. But his coffee? Black, no sugar. Blue Mountain, if they have it. Anything's fine, if not.

     "It's not state information we're after," says Bond. The Americans are ostensibly allies, at least in his world. And if they're not on this one, he can make the effort to hearken back to those days. If Kent is as old as those files claim, then maybe he even remembers what that was like. "Unless motives are state information. There was a man--American," he says, in that way that implies, yes, he knows who it was. "He spoke to another man. Asked him for a favor. We know what that favor was. We know there's little chance it's going to be repaid."

     Bond's eyes study him for a reaction. "What we want is an end to the Caelton sabotage. What do *you* want in exchange for that?" The question is asked flatly. Let's play, his tone says. This isn't his favorite part of the Game. But it is an important one. "What is it the Americans want that the center, or the Pendragons, won't play ball for?" It's never been their style to ask when they can take. But often... if you can catch them in the act...
Tony Stark Stark sits down in his booth, fully visibly power armored, and slides awkwardly in besides James. The agent already knows the way he takes his coffee - with cream and a dash of cocoa powder on top, which he's surprised happens in the neat little shaker pattern and all - and so by the time he's all settled with his buldging mecha-nechline squatting over the table making a table spoon look very stupid.

"I want to know if they do a good hashed browns here. None of that canned crap, right? If you come here it must be good. Perfect hangover food. I'll have that and the french set, thanks."

Tony, literally sitting in a suit that visibly had a retractable helmet, slides on his smartglasses again just so he can look down his nose at the Alphabet Douche across the aisle.

Bond talks. Stark sits stonefaced until his food comes, which he begins demolishing to begin proving how Cowboy American the Iron Man was.

Kent, to Stark, was like Captain America wearing Nick Fury's slime and a Sean Connery chip on his shoulder.

It was totally comedic. Finally, with Bond setting an excellent set of engagements, Stark can just sit there, chowing away after having two espressos and superheroism adrenaline for brunch. The lunch course was deeply welcome.

"Because, as proud of Steve Rogers' ability to read after sixty years in the ice and five in the Army as I am, I really don't care which flag you fly if you're going to act like some HYDRA blue laser buffoon."
Maya Maya does find the stories enlightening to get a bit on his world view and she also gets this was some time ago as well. It's useful to know and he reminds her a little of some Chosen Nobility she's had to work with in the past. She does get the mindset at least the basics of it but she also sees that the collection she has means it something he was honestly interested in rather than a fad.

She can understand being unhappy about being able to travel. She's done a lot by need and want. She will accept his number and enters it into her phone. With that done? She will depart from the office now with her work there done.

Maya will take a look at the files in more detail later. She's sure it won't go much anywhere with the current Mayor. Still, it's useful to get feelers out regardless. For now but for now, she needs to leave. She takes in the place one last time on her way out of the building before she'll hit the street again.

She will take a lookout at this as she'll head for one of the restaurants enough time has passed for her way she knows there likely something going with Tony and the others out there.

She also knows crashing in on Tony might wreck what else is going on. So she chooses to wait for food and explore the area to see if she might be able to catch any more useful information. Given she is a foreigner who has finished up her business. She will check out what other business of note that might be operating here, she'll also duck into shops where appropriate. She needs to be alert in the event other teams need some more help or she finds anything else of note going on.
Lilian Rook     Tony, through Tamamo, will know that the Agency knows, predictably, everything about him that he has ever permitted to be public knowledge, and some considerable second hand analysis of the gear he's brought around. It, of course, lists his station as 'null', having an entirely separate subsection regarding 'powerful state actors', but it has a projected column about 'in these circumstances, treat as if:' listing several different 'virtual Stations', ranging from Mirror to Crown. The sheer volume of sparkle that he flexes all the time, constantly updating, has kept their data analysts apparently a little too busy.

    It also contains a few things they shouldn't --couldn't-- know. Small details. No eleven herbs and spices. But enough to be actionable. The priority here is to not let him near any terminals and presume he's already potentially watching or listening to anything while in the country, but with more actionable (and thus less-detailed) countermeasures for dealing with a digital or physical attack. There are some project notes about the viability of securing his cooperation with American interests, and blank boxes on his knowledge of 'paramagic'. It paints the picture that Kent should already be ready for some of Tony's favourite tricks, not likely to stack up in a fight, and more likely to want to case him out than drive him off, unless he probes any black boxes.

    "Glad you'd say that in a country that can't seem to pin their flag the right way up half the time, but insists there is a wrong way." he replies to Tony. "Let's stick to organizations we both know then. Are we talking Nazis, or the Nazis after we rewrote them? I want to know whether to laugh that off or take it as a backhanded compliment."

    Bond is asking the direct questions though. He must have a lot of confidence in that utterly zeerust thing on the table to reply so frankly to him. "What I want is the preservation of the free world, American prosperity, and to be able to drive my damn cadillac again. Nothing special. I know it's hard to believe, but what the Reclamationists are doing, well-intentioned as it is, is a threat to that. Don't blame them of course. Starry-eyed for ancient history, maybe, but they got where they are because of it. Worked for them. And that whole code they love insists that this is charity and valour and virtue and those are all good things. So we don't talk about it."

    He taps his fork. "You know a Knight of the Round Table. What do you think your odds are of convincing him to abandon a bunch of people because it'd be a sociopolitical threat in 30 years? How about a hundred of him? And you can't just ignore them."

    "It looks nice now, but our global situation is built on a tower of cards that is a thousand big and small groups who mostly hated each other collectively not rocking the boat too hard. The longer we go on, the further we move on from the big disaster, the less people think about it, and the more that collective consensus and camaraderie fades. We're starting to see 'em born too young to even remember it at all; and they want things. Other people's things, or at least, things other people don't want them to. Getting some funny eyes to see if the coast is clear to put just a little knife in an old enemy's back without someone noticing. But we all know what happens when it falls apart. The problem with people is they all think that it won't fall apart just because of them."
Lilian Rook     "That little satellite colony idea. It's a mistake. Not resettling in general, but the noble idea of setting them up so they're all independent communities; real salt of the earth, living the life, et cetera et cetera. Outside of the fact that you're asking for a return to feudalism by then, fact is that we still need to support what we have, and what we have doesn't work if people get the idea it's fine to leave en mass, plant their little flag, and start refusing to do what they should be unless they Get More."

    "Caelton --cute idea-- had a role, and they were off the radar up until they hatched that plan to try and cut ties, home grow, and tell L&H that they get what they get at the price they set. That whole mining operation --our idea. Codependent. Interlinked. The colony is an extension of the Urban Center. They're monitored, they work, they provide, they're provided for, they delegate. Colony becoming a hippie commune where everyone gets what they need from their neighbours though: memetic hazard. Cultural suicide. People see it can be done, they see it's safe, they see it's comfortable enough, they leave, get big britches, unionize, and now a million people's lives hinge on what a hundred people demand."

    "Now you might want to say that if it were that easy, there's not much of a threat anyways. Why not do it? If a striking colony can do fine, anyone should. But there is and they won't. They still need the backing. They'll need a hell of a lot more than what Caelton has if they want to settle outside of areas that perfect. So there's another problem. Our happy tapestry of secret societies isn't built to handle that. The Phantom Circle, as people call it, is really better compared to two separate nations living under the name of the same country."

    "One of them is like the Reclamaitionists. Purists. Independents. People who have history, lineage, accumulated resources and knowledge, secrets, power, all condensed into a few people. Short of the world burning down again, they'll do as they've always done no matter what happens. The other is the collectives and coalitions. The new guard. The material Traditions. The world orders. The eleventh hour opportunists. The peace money. Your Knights of the Round Table versus your Illuminati. Those people need society to be as powerful as they are, and they don't often get credit for just how powerful that is. They're ingratiated to the first camp. Convenient. Comfortably situated. But they do a lot of little things and not a few big things."

    "What happens if we solve our population problem by throwing our hands up and balkanizing into a machine gun of anarcho-communist townships is that all of the Big Blood is going to have a limited sphere of who they can materially back, and it's going to be their favourites. They have few demands, can be liberal with their power, and soon their pet project gets big. The Big Brain though is what's going to be left trying to hold ninety percent of everything together, and it's not going to work. That state of cooperation fails. Big Brain needs Big Blood out of the picture to safeguard nine times the people."

    Finished with his meal, he begins flipping through an old-fashioned wallet. "Right now Big Blood thinks that Big Brain is just like them. Fellow Enlightened. Comrades in arms and discovery. That's what they need to think. Once they get those old-fashioned ideas in their head --that N thousand year concept of not needing anyone else-- then it all comes crumbling down, and the monsters get us."

    "Put simple, King Arthur needs to think George Washington is his equal and let him make some decisions about ruling his people. Hard decisions. Ones that aren't chivalrous. Who do you want to be in charge of a few hundred million souls? The magic king on the hill and his court wizard, or people who take a car to work?"
James Bond      Bond's expression is one of incredulous amusement. Is this man serious? He shakes his head, pushing his coffee aside for a moment. "Today you're fighting communism," says Bond. He makes a conciliatory nod. "Or rather, fighting against the balkanization of this place into communes. Okay." He pauses. Glances towards the coffee. "You're old enough to know that what passes for conservatism here today might very well have been called communism before the Onslaught--and men like you and I would have been told to go and fight that instead--especially with what happened to organized religion." He folds his hands across the table and leans in.

     "You've got to be getting tired of that. Of there always being a reason why you should have to travel across the world to kill men you've never met. You keep telling yourself that it's for a greater good. Well... where is that greater good for Afghanistan? For that matter, where is it for *you* people? You haven't meaningfully changed at all, except to double down on what you were doing before." He smiles bitterly.

     "The Urban Centers are overcrowded. Here, and in your backyard. There's not enough work to go around. You can sabotage all you want, but there comes a time where the answer *isn't* men like us. At least... not in the direction you're being pointed. We change regimes, not public opinion." His eyes harden. Yes. That means exactly what Kent thinks it does, and the eye contact is his formal notice--a sign of mutual repsect between professionals.

Objectives:

- Locate and investigate 'Damian Kent' in the Eastern Seaboard Urban Center's Second Circle Complete
- Determine identity of outside actors in Caelton mining concern Complete
- Ensure independence of Caelton settlement

          "My orders are clear," he says, scooting back from his seat to leave a tip on the table. "And you've been made. Pack up, or try another day, if you want. But my people will have someone there--and yours are good enough that I'm going to suggest that person be me."

     "Stark," he says with a nod, before turning and leaving. A black Aston Martin V8 Vantage is waiting for him around the corner.
Tony Stark James has a moment. He took the lead, so he gets to take first violin.

And it's a virtuoso performance. Moving, in the way old films focus solely on the character, the moment, the feeling of the grain of the film, the way an old record has a pleasing sound in the pops and crackles and imperfections of, simply, a man with a gun and a radio.

Tony pushes a last bit of crunchy potato into his mouth, chasing it with the dregs of his coffee. He casts a pair of armored fingers back at Bond.

"Bond." He offers back, a 'heh, that's funny' smirk-and-snort.

"Alright Kent. That really was a stirring speech. I'm glad you can make it. I'm glad I can sit here, and eat corned beef, and look in your eyes, and see a person who *actually* gives a shit about what he's doing with the world. In the world. I can hear it."

His lips smack, finding some bit of food stuck in his teeth. "And that's on top of my very fancy biometrics readers. Real interesting."

Tony lays a hand on the table. "You live in a world that has to compromise. You're asking me to move the line, that the line is really over wherever you say it is. It's not."

"The line was way back before some people got radiation bombed. I don't have to compromise. I'm Iron Man. Your file probably has some really cool theories on my line in the sand and what I can do to you. You the group."

"I move in the resources you want, in the quantities you need, at a price you can afford. This is because you want a hand up not a hand out. I get it. We can speak the lines. But not asking isn't acceptable any more. Now you've seen the Bible and go to Hell when you die."

His handpiece retracts and his human hand offers a business card to Kent. "Here's Jesus' card. Schedule an appointment, or start thinking up creative countermeasures."

The card is just the contact info for the Outreach department of Stark Industries.

Tony gets up to go.
Lilian Rook     Kent takes the card, he taps his chip down on the reader and slides Tony's in with his credit card. Tapping it straight, he slides it back into his pocket, stands up, and on the way of Tony out of the 'controlled area', says "I'm sorry to hear that you're used to people who don't care."

    His lip twitches at Bond. "But I can't afford not to. Desert Storm was a different me. Back then, when it was war, I was tired of manilla envelopes with photos of dead men walking inside. Then the wars stopped, and we all became dead men walking." He scoops up his zeerust token as he leaves as well, holding the door. "It was a pleasure speaking with you gentlemen. I'll be giving some things some additional thought."

    "But don't compare that to this ever again. If you'd been there, you'd know. Everyone is an acceptable casualty when you're looking at hell."