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]

"See, there are ways to not have my parents tortured and killed by the maniac! Can't we at least, like, have a meeting? Before just dismissing my parents out of hand? They didn't sign up for this, and it works just as well to make our point if we kick that fucker's ass when he tries to blackmail us. I already did the clever thing and actually told you guys about it instead of doing what he wanted."

[alicornucopia]

"The robot cannot, I believe, control a copy of you outside your suit, which Lung may well demand to see."

[msrewind]

"I'm sure Glam can deal with that, right?" she asks the shoulderbot.

[thinkering]

"Copies can do body language. Long as the suit's there to feed video."

[msrewind]

"There you have it, then," she says, as if the matter's settled.

[thinkering]

"I will hear a proposal," Piggot says. "More detailed than 'continue to use Glam for everything'."

"My workshop," shoulderbot tells Rewind, "we'll hammer it out."

[msrewind]

"Fine. Thank you, ma'am."

[alicornucopia]

Piggot nods stiffly.

[msrewind]

She makes her way to Lorica's workshop.

[thinkering]

Lorica's got a shoulderbot-view of the note and box up on the wall and she's scrolling through information that's going past on the wall. "Glam'll be here in a sec. Might want to tap Dad too."

[msrewind]

"Should we get Armsmaster? I know technically Piggot outranks him but..."

[thinkering]

"For strategic purposes or because you've got an idea for deploying him or because he's got more practice arguing with her?"

[msrewind]

"...the last part."

[thinkering]

"Any point to bringing him in before we have something for him to argue, then?"

[msrewind]

"I guess not."

[thinkering]

"Glam, hurry up," Lorica adds, and their shoulderbot relays that, "we're on a deadline."

[mxglam]

And with the speed of narration, Glam shows up.

[thinkering]

"Okay, so, I've got as far as 'how not to ignore the message nor actually send Rewind in person to Lung', shoulderbot should've told you, but I need some exciting bullshit for what to do after that, what've you got?"

[mxglam]

"Um? Well, what's the actual goal here? Rescuing Rewind's parents, right?"

[msrewind]

"Right."

[mxglam]

"So... we need to figure out how to get Lung to show us them."

[thinkering]

"Well, he probably has to produce evidence they're alive on demand if he wants her to cooperate on anything."

[mxglam]

"Yeah. Okay, let's see, you know Lung best, what can you tell us about him?" they ask Rewind.

[msrewind]

"He's... all about fear. He says, fear of the known and the unknown, something like that, and you have to balance them? But he's not really very smart, and he's really proud and kinda relies on being the scariest motherfucker around."

[thinkering]

"So he might try to hold out on you if he's having a 'fear of the unknown' day, but there's 'not smart' and then there's 'kidnap parents, do not deploy them as leverage'."