lung, meet rewind

[msrewind]

She gets the note just before lunch. She's in the PHQ in less than twenty minutes, then she knocks on Piggot's door politely.

Comments

[msrewind]

"It can't be friendly, if he's trying to recruit me he can't think I'd go willingly."

[thinkering]

"Yeah, but eventually he needs to give you some level of freedom to operate or you're no use to him. He has to have some plan for how to get you on his team."

[msrewind]

"Probably just to threaten my parents and get me to just do what he says. If he really believes I haven't told the heroes he might want to make me a secret agent or something."

[thinkering]

"Indefinite parent storage. Brilliant human resources management, Lung..."

[acanofworms]

"It will not do to underestimate him. It might be just what he wants us to do."

[msrewind]

"Fear of the unknown..."

[thinkering]

Lorica paces.

[acanofworms]

"Focus. Glam, can you conjure more eyes where they're not looking?"

[mxglam]

"I'd need Rewind to look somewhere that's not being watched so I can see it, but that might make them look."

[thinkering]

"Strategic bored eye-rolling?"

[mxglam]

"Do it once, they might get startled by the sudden movement but then they won't the second time."

[msrewind]

She sighs heavily and unfolds her arms, which, as predicted, causes some alarm from the thugs. This alarm is short-lived when they notice it's just an expression of a fifteen-year-old's boredom, and then she manages to roll her eyes at a dark corner of the building-

[mxglam]

And Glam fully expects her to see the soft reflection of a camera there, transmitting the scene to the bot network.

[thinkering]

The bots add another view to the projections of the room.

[peterxy]

It is merely another angle on the scene copy-Rewind's eyes are already transmitting. There are apparently no hidden thugs or traps, and nothing they hadn't previously noted.

[thinkering]

Still, it's nice to have a backup vantage point.

Bots tick down a timer.

[msrewind]

Nothing interesting happens until the ten minutes are up.

When they are, two thugs detach from the rest and walk to her. She takes a step back. "What do you want?"

"We are taking you to Lung," one of them says. The other is silent.

"Lung's not coming here?"

"No."

[thinkering]

"Dad, get ready to be re-pathed..."

[acanofworms]

"This has just gotten more complicated. Miss Militia, I need you and Dauntless to come closer to the target. Don't make it obvious, make it look like a natural detour from your patrol route."

[msrewind]

Rewind waits patiently to be escorted, then, throwing the thugs dirty looks. They approach and hold her by the arm-

-and suddenly the bots start receiving a large and shifting number of identical transmissions, new ones appearing and the old ones disappearing after a few seconds, all of them with the exact same parametres but increasingly far from the warehouse.

[thinkering]

"What the hell -" Lorica says, as the base station tries to keep up with its projection.

[acanofworms]

"Lorica, what's happening? Are your bots defective?"

[thinkering]

"They are not! We've got unexpected cape on the scene -"

[mxglam]

The camera they left on the ceiling of the warehouse, however, catches exactly what's going on when the Rewind-copy and one of the thugs dissolve into white dust.

"It's Oni Lee! Lung must've recruited him. Lorica, can you unscramble the feeds?"

[thinkering]

"I'm working on it!"

Eventually the bots figure out a protocol to deprecate information from a temporary duplicate and provide a moving update of where Oni Lee is taking the fake Rewind.