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

[acanofworms]

"Not all," Colin says. "There are some slight changes I wish to make. Namely, if enough Wards and heroes suddenly stop patrolling right before the appropriate time, that might tip Lung and the gang off. We will need to adjust their patrolling schedules and routes together in order to seem to not have been notified."

[thinkering]

"I'll email you a proposal?"

[acanofworms]

He shakes his head. "I'm already here, we can do it now and get this over with in time for everyone to know what they'll do and be rested before the operation tonight."

[thinkering]

"Okay..." A bot projects onto the table the current schedule and she starts suggesting swaps.

[acanofworms]

Colin makes some other suggestions and asks questions about certain Wards.

[thinkering]

And eventually they should have something worked out that doesn't look weird.

[mxglam]

That evening, close to the appropriate time, the heroes are inconspicuously patrolling or in hidden positions far enough away from the meeting point that the thugs-failing-to-pretend-to-be-civilians keeping a lookout don't notice them.

Glam conjures a Rewind-copy inside her armor, connected to the bot network.

[thinkering]

And the bot shows Rewind, hanging back safely, a projection inside her helmet of what she'd be seeing if she were in the copy suit; and bounces her body language to the copy suit.

[mxglam]

And Glam does their part in expecting that the copy will act like Rewind does, because of course it will. They also have access to several screens, most of them blanks, that are meant to become occupied by appropriate feeds when need be.

[msrewind]

Rewind arrives at the arranged meeting place (well, her copy does) in her suit. There are thugs waiting for her, all of them with covered faces and pretty well-armed.

"Get rid of the suit," one of them calls.

"But wh-" she offers some token resistance, and the thug points a gun at her and she says, "Alright, alright." The suit is gone, pretend-booped ten minutes into the past.

"Now we wait."

"For what?" Rewind asks.

"Ten minutes."

[thinkering]

The bots have a lot more trouble helping like this.

[mxglam]

But Glam of course fully expects them to still be able to do a whole lot with that copy that's still networked to them, and also fully expects it to act exactly like Rewind wants it to.

[thinkering]

And the copy "is" "an android", so the bots can at least still send Rewind visual data.

[mxglam]

No, it "isn't" "an android," it just is an android. Clearly. There's no doubt about it. Yup. Totally.

[msrewind]

"Where are my parents?" she asks.

"Alive."

"I asked where."

"You see them after we know you don't escape," another thug spits back, in a very heavy accent.

"How do I know they're alive?"

"You wait."

[thinkering]

What helpful thugs.

[msrewind]

"What am I supposed to do, then?"

"Wait," the thug repeats, sounding very pleased with himself.

[acanofworms]

"Wait," Armsmaster agrees, guessing the question's true recipients.

[msrewind]

"Hm," she says, and folds her arms, and glares.

[thinkering]

"Timing out your power's definitely not suggesting they were planning on this being a friendly exchange," mutters Lorica.

[msrewind]

She purses her lips.

[mxglam]

"You can talk now, your copy won't repeat what you say," Glam says, guessing from their view of Rewind's face inside the helmet.

[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."