Halstead Dataworks: Electopian Branch

Camillia easily caught the alert Lydia's attention. The business woman looked up and immediately answered her. "My Navigator is among the missing. There is no way I will leave without him." She smiled. "Frankly, if he wasn't, I'd be helping my employees with the trouble shooting efforts. But, since he is missing, I'm sitting quietly out of their way." The technicians in the room, oddly, did not seem to be overly tense due to her presence. They were more worried about the situation at hand as their chatter and mannerisms indicated. "Besides, I have to be here to run interference for my employees when the reporters show up. They can be pests if someone doesn't give them a little attention." Her tone was slightly derisive by the time she finished speaking.

"It's just this one location." Lydia sounded relieved, then smirked wryly as she continued speaking in a frank tone. "Let's be real: if a Cybeast hit every branch of a company at once, that company would be filing for bankruptcy the next day." She shook her head as if to dispel her darkening thoughts. "I'm thankful that that hasn't occurred at least."

With Lucia sent down into the network entry zone to meet with what he assumed would be Jeff's Navigator, Vincent was free to look about the I.T. room and get a good feel for what sort of support the company itself might have on hand to be of service. Though a glance at his PET's holoscreen seemed to bring a frown across his lips as he watched Lucia and her antics. The navi seemed to be having far more fun goofing around and causing trouble then actually paying attention. So with a faint sigh he closed his pet which caused the holoscreen to wink out, cutting out the net side of conversations for the moment.

It was Lydia's comments to his fellow mission partner that brought Vincent's attention back to focus, "Your personal Navigator is missing? Was it corrupt or simply lost in the chaos of the initial attack?" Addressing their current guide, Lydia, Vincent offered a sympathetic smile, though it was obviously not something he'd given too often. At least his words were no less genuine, "I'm sure we'll find him as the navi's venture into the mine, so don't worry too much about him."

Vincent would have offered a reassuring pat to the woman's shoulder, but thought it best to refrain from such actions. Instead he opted to change the subject, once more glancing about the room. "Well, can we speak with the tech staff, or maybe find out where Mr. Jeff works from so we can get some information straight from the source, there are several questions I'd like to ask him."

Thomas, meanwhile, got up and started to look around the room. His eyes glanced over towards the door, where Jeff had been. Was he still there?

If he wasn't, the teen would then give the whole room a once-over, trying to find the IT guy in question to inquire about a Class T. If even that failed... well, Thomas would go from there, he supposed, but it couldn't hurt to at least look for him first.

Lydia looked up from the holo-screen of the ultra thin tablet PC she had been reading from once she realized Vincent was talking to her. "Yes, I believe that is what I said." She laid the tablet PC down in her lap and folded her hands atop it. "My Navigator went missing after it came into contact with the Cybeast. I was not operating my PET at the time, so I cannot tell you more..." She looked thoughtful for a moment, then added: "Though, if you do happen to find him, his name is Jack.EXE." Lydia nodded at Vincent's clumsy attempt at setting her mind at ease while managing not to react to his terrible attempt at a reassuring smile. Instead, she simply said, "Thank you."

Thomas got up from his chair, and slipped by Vincent on his way to find Jeff while the latter stood where he was and scanned the room. Lydia responded to Vincent's inquiry about Jeff's whereabouts a few moments later. "Jeff? His desk..." She collected her tablet computer, stood up, turned, and pointed at a workstation that sat nearest the large panel holo-screens mounted on the back wall. "...is that one over there." The chair at the desk was empty. "Hmm, if he's not over there, then you'll probably find him over in the corner. He's either at the coffee machine, or sitting at one of the round tables in the break area." She turned and pointed to an area that had been walled off and turned into a break room. Much brighter light spilled into the dimly lit NOC from the partially open doorway into the break area, showing it was likely occupied. "I'd call him for you, but his comm is off."

Lydia sat back down, powered her tablet back on, and resumed her reading as Vincent walked away.

----

Thomas, meanwhile, just up and checked around the NOC for any sign of Jeff. The administrator was not by the door, and near as the young man could tell after roaming about the room, neither was he in the NOC. However, there was an open door of in the corner that Vincent was headed towards....

----

Vincent arrived at the break room door, and pushed it open.... The overly bright light coming from the room was courtesy of two commercial 2-bank LED light arrays. These were the kind of lights used in lieu of 4-tube and 6-tube fluorescent lighting installations used back in the 21st century, only the LEDs were much brighter than the obsolete fluorescents they replaced. Indeed, two of them running the length of the room was almost too much light after being in the dimly lit NOC, and was certainly overkill for the size of the room being lit. Luckily, there was a dimmer right next to the door that could be used to remedy the light level issue....

The room itself was quite small, though well appointed for what it was. Along one wall was a food prep area complete with cutting boards hanging on the wall, a sink, some counter top space, and a pair of large microwave/convection ovens stacked on top of one another. There were drawers and plenty of cabinets for storage of utensils and dry or canned goods. There was even a was a standard sized refrigerator(right)/freezer(left) unit with a built in filtered water dispenser and ice maker/dispenser on the freezer side. The floor area of the room had all of two round, laminated cafeteria tables of decent size within it, each surrounded by a half dozen of what were obviously surplus desk chairs from the NOC.

And those chairs looked comfortable.

A testament to this fact was the sleeping form of one Jeff, the NOC administrator, passed out in one of the chairs against the back wall-- or not. The moment the door opened about halfway, the hinges squealed just ever so slightly, and the administrator sat up in his chair. He blinked once or twice, then reached for his still-steaming cup of coffee that sat on the table next to his muted PET, and took a drink as if he'd never been asleep. He rested the mug on the arm of the chair, and turned his head to see who was coming into the room. He then took another sip to buy himself a few seconds to wake up properly... in case he had to speak to them.

"Knowing where he is, is enough, if you'll all pardon me for a moment." Vincent gave a slight nod as he excused himself from Lydia and the rest of the group, making his way to the break room he'd been directed too. Giving the door a firm push as he stepped forward, only to scowl and turn his gaze away, suddenly wishing he had kept his sunglasses to shield the bright light.

Though once his eyes adjusted, Vincent took a slow look around the well lit room and its amenities, nodding approvingly until his eyes fell upon the lone occupant. Watching Jeff as his head shot up with the door being opened, Vincent frowned at the obvious sleep deprived look of the Administrator. Still there was nothing to be done about it as Vincent stepped into the room and gave a slow nod. "Sorry for the rude awakening, my name is Vincent. Myself and three others were sent by the GNA to give you a hand. Lydia gave us a basic rundown, but not enough solid information to go on. So I'd like to ask you a few questions if I may."

Stopping to collect his thoughts and give his words a chance to sink in, Vincent waited for Jeff to at least seem awake enough to give a thoughtful response before speaking again. "First and most important, has the server been disconnected and isolated so the damage can't spread and keep the beast trapped?"

Lifting his hand to bring two fingers up into view, Vincent kept his gaze on the Administrator. "Secondly, Have you determined what drew the Cybeast to attack and discovered what it's after?" Raising a third finger to join the first two, Vincent carried on quickly. "Lastly, what is the Cybeast's current location in the data mine?"

Thomas gave the place a good thorough look-around, and yet he still couldn't seem to find Jeff anywhere; he wasn't half-passed-out at the wall, he wasn't at what seemed to be his desk... that was when he saw Vincent slipping away into what looked like the break room. The first possibility that flickered into his head was that Vincent was actually a mooch who was headed into the break room to get some (relatively) free coffee; the second was that he'd had the same idea, and was looking for Jeff.

Banking on the second possibility, as well as the fact that it actually was a break room and not a bathroom or something, Thomas followed along... to find Jeff and Vincent already having a sort-of conversation. He stopped at the door, leaning against the frame, and waited for Jeff to answer Vincent's barrage of questions... before adding his own. "Can I get a Class... P? Z? Ah, right, Class T, can I get a Class T certification for Regalia?" He queried.

Jeff nodded at Vincent's introduction, and took another sip of his coffee. He sat the mug down. "Sure, ask away," he said in a tone that sounded more awake and alert than he actually looked. Jeff then sat there quietly listening while chugging down the rest of his cup of coffee. He looked at the empty mug quizzically, then got up and walked over to the coffee machine while responding to Vincent's first question: "Yes, the server farm is off the net. The Cybeast can't get out. I know because I pulled the cables out of the NICs myself." He poured himself another strong cup of coffee while muttering to himself: "Plugging them all back in will be... 'fun'."

Jeff took a long swig from his mug before answering the second question in a frank tone. "...Nope. Not a clue." He stood there rubbing the sleep out of hi eyes while Vincent asked another question. His initial reply was more of a mutter than a response, and somewhat less than helpful... "That's a good question..." With that, the system administrator walked over to his PET with his third cup of hot coffee, picked it up with his free hand, and tapped some keys with his thumb while he took another big gulp of industrial strength coffee. A few seconds later, he arched an eyebrow at whatever it was his PET told him. "It's currently moving through server cluster 91. Hmm... I need to go back to my desk." The latter part of his response seemed to just be the tired admin absent mindedly thinking aloud. Regardless, he did refill his mug (again) on the way towards the door.

On the way out, Jeff heard Thomas' request and paused for a moment to answer. "...A Class T for your Navi...? Eh..." He stood and thought about it for a moment, then spoke again. "Follow me, and we'll see what we can come up with, k?" With that, Jeff turned away from them and walked towards his desk. He turned the lights down on his way out the door while muttering something about the light level being more offensive than helpful.

Burt had a conundrum as serious as that of the corporate bigwig they were working for... The other guys had gone off to look for another guy, which frankly sounded like an awful time. On the other hand, the room they'd just run off to looked to have comfortable seats AND Net Cola. If he left, however, it would mean sacrificing his monopoly on two of the major moe food groups, and he had to keep his priorities straight: little girls first, rest later. A vending machine would sit in one spot and wait for him... a person would never willingly do that for him.

So he planted his slippers firmly on the floor... although if this took too long, he figured he might snag the absent Jeff's seat, even if it was at the back of the room. "Hey Lids, I'm woooondering," he drawled, trying to think up some good small talk. "What are the odds of this anyways, huh? You've got this big secure data mining facility and Winny the Cypooh gets his belly stuck in the hole? I mean, A, Cybeasts aren't all that common, and B, why the heck would he rummage down in there? Sure, there's stuff to corrupt or eat or whatever, but Cybeasts don't normally seem to want to go out it their way for it. I thought Cybeasts had dens that they almost never left. Just how astronomically unlucky are you guys? Or uh, maybe it is looking for something?"

It sounded a bit more like complaining than small talk once it was out of his mouth. "I mean, huh... Wait, now I've got it! It wants to use your company resources to spread manifestations of evil throughout the net! I nearly forgot that Cybeasts don't need a reason to cause destruction because they're just pure evil. That was close," he laughed, placing both hands on his hips. "Hey, you want to know anything about Counterinfectualism? My mind is an open book!"

Thomas followed along after Jeff, neatly side-stepping around Vincent as he headed through the door. He wondered why the tech hadn't just given him a simple yes-or-no answer, but he ordained to keep his mouth shut until they reached Jeff's desk. He knew what he wanted, he had asked his question-- really, all that was left at this point was to wait for Jeff to do something with it.

Not that the uppity sophomore planned to let him get away without doing something with it.

Vincent gave a soft, slow nod as the tech Administrator gave quick, simple answers. Just what he'd hoped for, though perhaps not the exact answers he wanted to hear. Still Vincent looked up as Jeff moved to get himself more coffee, "Shame then, was hoping we could lure it to a trap."

Shrugging his shoulders, Vincent rose from his chair as a fellow operator posed his own question, which seemed to spark the conversation to change locations. A quick glance towards the coffee pot got him to linger a moment longer, only to sigh faintly and grab his briefcase to follow the two men into the main room.

Keeping up with Jeff and Thomas was easy enough as he joined them in the main room, glancing back towards the others before giving a simple shrug of his shoulders as he steps up beside Thomas, "Well, with the Cybeast trapped, wouldn't it have been just as easy to get everyone's navis out and purge the data mine?" Shrugging, Vincent flipped his PET back open to bring up the hollow screen, parting his lips as if to speak before he paused and instead looked up towards Jeff once more, "I don't suppose you'd have a few extra headsets we could link with our PETs do you?"

Lydia looked up from her tablet as Burt began speaking to her. "My name is Lydia, if you would, Mr. Blanchard," the businesswoman chided. Still she was obligated to work with him, so she left her reprimand at that and continued to listen to what he had to say. "Yes, the odds of this happening spontaneously are very low. And yet, here we are." Her tone was neutral. She had no idea where he was trying to go with this line of talk. "I honestly do not know what motivates a Cybeast to do whatever it decides it wants to do. I wouldn't think any of the data we handle would attract one, and yet one is indeed prowling our mines at this very moment." Lydia shrugged. She was completely at a loss with regards to the Cybeast. "The only thing I know for certain is that one is here, and it is wrecking my company. It has to be dealt with before the damage spreads."

Lydia blinked at the sudden change in Burt's tone and direction. Near as she could tell it was almost a reversal, but not quite. Pure evil? Cybeasts? That was a bit of a stretch, though they were the product of malicious coders. Lydia finally settled on it being a point of view issue, and avoided voicing her own opinion. Instead, she cautiously replied to the last of Burt's questions with: "I have never heard of it."

----meanwhile....

Jeff took a sip from his mug, then answered Vincent's question. "Purging the mine would basically destroy the company. I know you probably meant something more like sealing off the Cybeast in one server, then purging the server, but we already tried that. And if we kept right on doing that, we'd end up purging enough of the mine that the company would fail anyway." Jeff sighed. "If it were as easy as deleting it from my terminal, I would have done it. I really wish it had been that easy, but...." He sighed, took another drink from his mug, and kept walking.

A minute or two later, and Jeff, followed by the two volunteers, arrived at the admin's desk. The desk, itself, was L-shaped and included two sets of three drawers, one at either end. The top of the desk was made of a thick laminated material, and had a couple of holes in it for bundles of cable to run through. These cables ran up to a bolted-on stand that held a trio of clear glass panes in black plastic frames, each of which was about the correct dimensions for a 30 inch wide/flat panel display (minus the TV, as that part seemed to be absent), and all 3 were arrayed to face the desk chair. A quick glance around showed there to be no projectors nearby either. Curiously, there was no keyboard, mouse, or microphone anywhere on the desk. Instead, there was a trio of flat, dark gray objects about the thickness of a mouse pad, but all roughly as long and wide as a decently sized keyboard. Behind the middle pad was a PET docking station, and what appeared to be a blue and silver robot model miniature stood next to it. Aside from this one decoration and the curious gray pads and glass panes, the desk was devoid of anything except unused space... save for the coffee mug he just set upon it.

"Give me a few moments." Jeff said as he sat down at his desk and plugged the PET into the docking station, which seemed to be custom made to accommodate his PET only. He then turned his chair towards the desk, scooted forward, and double tapped one of the gray pads with his index finger. As soon as he did, the back of the glass panels darkened as they polarized, and the front side of the panels lit up to reveal that they were actually computer monitors. The trio of gray pads lit up to reveal they were smart touch tablets, and each had a different interface displayed upon it. Parts of the touch screen interfaces lit up as the admin's fingers tapped at them, and cursors moved across the screens whenever he swiped his fingers across them. Sometimes, the interface displayed on one of the pads would change entirely in response to a command, and Jeff would just keep right on working with it without skipping a beat.

"Let's take care of that user class access issue first." Jeff said as he bought up a window containing his e-mail. The inbox was crammed with message titles that seemed to pertain to the current crisis. Jeff scrolled through a few pages of them until he came to an e-mail among the mess titled 'contractor help arrives today'. He opened the mail, and sure enough, the names of every member of the mission team were in it.

"Alright, then," Jeff muttered to himself as he changed screens and opened a new program window... and left it sitting there. He then opened another new window on the third screen, and selected an option to connect. Soon enough, the figure of Minah.EXE appeared within it as she walked along inside the network. She turned her head to look at the window, but kept right on walking. "There you are, Jeff. I've been trying to message you for the last ten minutes." Minah's tone became more mischievous as she pointed at the two people standing behind Jeff's chair. "Tell me, did they have to pull your head out of the coffee pot to get you to come back to your desk?"

"Something like that." Jeff replied with a wry grin.

"Be sure to thank them, Mr. Zombie Man."

"Mmmhmm, and on that subject, are you with their Navigators?"

"Yes."

"Thanks." Jeff replied as he switched back over to the window he'd opened earlier, but never used. A search dialogue opened after a few keystrokes, and Minah's name appeared in it shortly after. The window populated itself with a list of programs running on that server, but Jeff opted to ignore it in favor of the e-mail screen. He highlighted the list of Navigator and Support Program names in the message, and copied them back to the server administration program. Jeff opened another search dialogue box within the program, pasted the names into it in one go, and hit enter. All of the mission team's Navis and SPs had their names highlighted in the list now. A minute's worth of menu surfing later, and Jeff declared the job to be "Done."

Jeff pulled open one of the drawers of his desk. "And here are some spare headsets. They should be fully charged, so feel free to make use of them." Sure enough, there was a charging station inside the drawer with space for three headsets. One was missing from the charger as Jeff was now wearing it, but there were still two units laying on the charger. There also appeared to be a couple more spares stuck in the back of the drawer, and one that had been taken apart. "There's an instruction card in there for linking them up, if you are unfamiliar with how they work."

"The world has no coincidences, Lids! If that malicious Cybeast rolled himself into your ditch, he certainly has some diabolical intent in mind, mark my words!" the evangelist/school teacher warned Lydia, again neglecting to use her proper name. "Let me give you the scoop on the enlightened religion, Counterinfectualism... Born from a vision! Toppling all of theology with the grandness of its scope and the all-encompassing promise of paradise that it offers!"

Burt made a mental note that his potential seat had become a staging area for that Jeff guy and his two compadres. After flipping them the mental bird, he reset his smile, flipped his scarf into a vogue position, and continued. "Counterinfectualism is the belief that viruses are crystallization of evil that find themselves trapped on the net, like a fly in a spider's web. The top minds of yesteryear were unaware that even as they toiled for modern man's convenience, they provided him the means to cleanse the world of evil! By deleting viruses, we destroy evil in its most basic form. By ridding the net of its contamination, so too do we bring the world toward the fruition of a new utopia!"

He finished this exclamation by spreading both arms, like he was expecting a hug. Maybe he was? At any rate, he eventually stopped and pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. "All viruses are inherently evil, cybeasts specially. He certainly wants to use your resources for some evil... that is theological fact!"

He rested one hand on the wheelchair girl's shoulder in an overly familiar way. "Even those navis who do not know they're doing it may contribute to the cause of Counterinfectualism. Isn't that great? This whole mission is like work service for the glory of the one true religion!"

Vincent followed along behind Thomas and Jeff back to the Administrator's desk, during which he listened to the correction he was given over a previous statement, making him stop a moment before eheming faintly, "Er, yes that is what I meant, but if you've tried such already then I suppose it's better to learn what you have yet to try. Then again you did call us in."

Taking a brief moment to compose himself again, Vincent finally joined the two at Jeff's desk and watched both in surprise, and a little bit of awe at the setup he had. Nodding his approval as he watched the tech work.

Once Jeff had pulled the draw with the headsets into view, Vincent smiled as he leans down and takes up one along with the instruction card, promptly glancing through it as he takes out his PET to get the two of them synced up. Tapping upon the headset to get it activated, he'd smirk as he glances down to his PET before speaking. "Lucia, can you hear me?"

"Master? Wait where are you, I don't see the screen.."

"I'm borrowing a headset, seems to work really well, may have to get one ourselves after this."

"Oh oh! Did you ask if I can keep the vest ye-" Lucia suddenly cut out, and for a few moments, Vincent thought it might have been the headset, until he noticed what was going on in the network and simply shook his head and waited.

As Lydia grows awfully wary of Burt, Camillia frowned at the way the man was presenting himself-- not entirely professional-like, and very much like a preacher. Not that she had anything against arguing for your own ideals, but what he was trying to push out...

"enlightened religion, ..." sounded suspiciously like some form of cult. Yep, atta girl. Also, "theological fact"? That's a pretty huge paradox right there. Camillia decided that she should just be nice and move along-- after all, there's nothing much anyone would expect of someone in a wheelchair. Rudely arguing would've looked entirely silly from others' perspective, the redhead assured herself.

Then the man very comfortably placed his hand on her shoulders, her illusion of a comfort zone immediately shattered by one single move from Burt. The redhead visibly sweated, forcing a diplomatic smile as she attempted to pry off his hand with one of her own, from below the layer of blanket. "W-well, Mr. Blanchard, based on your theory then, aren't you just using poison to fight poison? Since viruses and Navigators and the sorts are... essentially... similar?" Camillia offered without the normal degree of grace that she could give in a no-privacy-intrusion situation.

Not that she knew alot about all these techie stuff, of course. If anything, sometimes she had to take pointers from Rhea on certain geekonomies or vocabularies.

That's like saying that humans shouldn't eat meat because we and animals are both living things inhabiting the same world," Burt laughed in response, ignoring the fact that many vegetarians avoided meat for that reason. "Navis are useful creatures of an intelligent design, you know? We made them to be that way and lo, it was good! Everyone loves navis! Viruses, on the other hand... who really knows what made them? All they do is wreck crap and occasionally pretend to have culture and so forth to catch navis off their guard."

The evangelist felt Camillia's hand moving beneath her blanket over his own. How small and girlish it seemed... So cute! But aggravated. He took the hint and lifted his hands back up to his hips.

"Now, I'm not trying to demean navis and call them tools or anything, but you know we made them to help us do things. Have you ever considered... and this is just the realm of speculation," he continued, as though everything so far had been fact rather than opinion, "that maybe the net doesn't exist for the reason we think it does? Lately I've begun to suspect there are other Counterinfectualists out there! The net could have been created by them specifically to grab those viruses and allow them to be destroyed! Think about it!" he hissed, grinning with excitement. "Is that any less likely than some troll programmers making the things just for kicks?"

Thomas' ears prickled at Burt's constant rambling, seeming more self-assured and egotistic every time he opened his mouth. Thomas didn't particularly mind those kinds of people-- they were pretty easy to figure out, at least-- but it was getting them to shut up that could be a problem. He reached into the drawer and grabbed both a working headset and the disassembled one (to poke over), then headed back to his PET to get the two connected.

When he got there, Regalia was frozen in place, a not-as-regal blue beam standing where the armored lord had been just moments before. Thomas pulled up a few diagnostics in a half-reflexive response, trying to figure out if Regalia's program had bugged out-- but then he noticed the other navis entrapped the same way, and took a look at the little loading bar that said 'upgrading permissions'. He breathed a relieved sigh.

...Then there was Burt, still yapping away about Counterinfectualism. Thomas hadn't picked up the word because he wanted to-- Burt just repeated it so many times, enunciating each syllable as if telling people it /had/ to be said that way, that Thomas had picked up the proper way of saying it.

Not that he planned to use that.

"Hey, Butt. Does your Coontaheenfectiality take into account the fact that SPs are not only built out of viral data, they eat it?" thus came Thomas' cynical, half-sarcastic retort. Was it childish? Probably. Did he enjoy it? Yes. Plus-- it might even have the unexpected benefit of getting him to leave what's-her-name over there alone. Thomas hadn't picked her name up properly the first time she'd said it, and she didn't seem much for talking, either-- so he hadn't had a second shot to make it stick in his head. "Because, you know, it seems a little hypocritical to denounce all viruses when you've technically got two of them walking right next to your navi."

In the past, student age folks positing their own ideas on theological debates, even controversial opinions, would have sparked a passion for debate inside Burt Blanchard, prodigy professor of religious studies. With present day Burt Blanchard, that fuse was blown; a little service light blinked on and off beside it, reading "what a cute misunderstanding." "That's a cute misunderstanding," Burt started, pressing two fingers to his forehead and then flipping his greasy hair back, "but you're thinking inside the box. That's human ingenuity right there! We've honed our technological skills so far as to repurpose the tools of evil and use them against our enemies! Brilliant stuff... I'd like to find those secret Counterinfectualist scientists and shake their hands! I can't be the only one who was given the gift of vision, after all."

Thoroughly satisfied, Burt breathed in deep and then crossed his arms across his chest. Suddenly he remembered a critical error on Thomas' part. He freed up his arms and shook one finger critically, grinning again. "Poor boy is a slow learner," the teacher thought to himself. "It is pronounced Cooooount....EEEEEER.... infect-uuuu-a-liss-um! Now you try!" he urged his fellow operator.

Lydia frowned at Burt's behavior. She was just about to chew him out over invading Camillia's personal space, as the young lady clearly didn't like it, when she handled it herself. In fact, Lydia was spared from the need to respond to him at all by the other contract workers, and decided that was a good thing judging by Burt's own words. The man was clearly screwed in the head, and the less reasons one gave people like that to spin their wheels the better. With that thought in mind, the businesswoman simply pretended she hadn't heard the religious nut, and went back to working with her tablet computer.

"Cuuntaheenfectooalihsem." Thomas said, overplaying every syllable in a thick, thick Electopian accent. "There, Butt. Now, moving on--" He turned to face his PET, and his hands became a flurry of activity. First was the headset, which was the easy part; a few keystrokes and a held button later, and the thing was all synched up... or so it said. Never being the type to take that sort of thing, Thomas ran a mic check program, and said the same, overplayed "Cuuntaheenfectooalihsem." into the mic. A second later it played back over the headset's speakers, and so he turned the test prog off.

Satisfied with that, Thomas flipped the view to Regalia in time to see him tripping over his own feet, and started to snicker as he sat there flabberghasted. It took him a few moments of fumbling around before he finally stood up, cane in hand, but that didn't stop the teenaged operator from still chuckling under his breath, amused by the sight. "So an elevator's next, huh..." he said, talking to himself.

"It would seem that way."[color=5A6351][/color] Regalia fumed, a stately anger filling his voice.

((editing for pally :3 ))

Adrian tipped her hat up as she stared at the building before her, music blaring through the headphones around her neck like portable speakers. Her left hand moved to her side, lifting the PET from her belt only to play with the touch pad until the music slowly began to fade away. A few more clicks brought sylk into view on the monitor, who seemed to be lounging around and relaxing for once.

"This is the place, right? I mean I can see it's Halstead, but it's the right building and location? Last thing I want to find out is there was another building and we screwed up before we even got started..." Adrian rambled as she looked back and forth at the surroundings. It was clear she was a bit nervous being such a big job for the pair. She never would have expected that in the near future she'd be working on an S-class mission, it was starting to overwhelm her the closer to the building she got.

" Checks out with the co-ordinates from the e-mail and I don't think there's another location. Not that i can find anyways." The spider lazily replied with a yawn. It seemed as though Sylk was saving up her energy for the job as best should could, and ended up putting her in a lethargic mood. "you know we'll be fine, after all this is me we're talking about, Hmmhmmhmm. Plus I have all these new upgrades to play with, so relax." Her words carried with them an air of confidence followed by a toothy grin.

" Yeah, I guess you're right. It's not like we've failed before." A sigh escaped her lips as she gave into the arachnids advice. " We're still going to tread carefully though." She added, before slowly approaching the double doors as she pulled her hat down tighter.

Just as Adrian walked into the building she seemed to just stop as she took in the scenery, a professional yet fancy lobby with a certain beauty as far as a corporation goes. Being an entrepreneur herself, she could really appreciate the work put into it for the business.

" I can't wait to get started. We should find that reception desk quickly, don't you think?" Sylks voice called out through Adrians headphones, noticing that her Operator was taken in almost immediately at the surroundings. "Oh, right. Sorry. I think that's it over there." Her eye's drawn to the desks near the back. She was impressed by the lobby however, her sight wandering to the fountain as she began making her way through the room. Wonder if I can get a company like this someday... She pondered, before letting out a small sigh at the slow business of the shop lately.

"Good day" Adrian politely started as she approached reception. "I'm Adrian Nancy. I'm here about a mission contract."

The man slowly looked up from what he was working on with a sigh. He didn't really give a response, but instead gestured towards the security door where the guard seemed to acknowledge it as well. Adrian blinked a few times at the lack of interaction, but shrugged as she tried to chalk it up to a rough day from the problems they'd been having.

"Uh... thanks." A hint of unease as she headed off.