Summary:RESCUE puts its heads together to solve an albino's paperwork problem. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Ava leans back in her chair with her eyes closed, seemingly asleep if not for the occasional flick of her hand through the air to interact with a non-existent screen in front of her face. Setup in one of the Spire's smaller conference rooms the cyborg's in front of a broad table ringed by more chairs than she'll need and barren except for a metal water bottle and a few cables to patch into the display on the wall. At the moment the screen is off, conserving power, and rightly so. The Chief of Security showed up twenty minutes early.
Meanwhile, elsewhere on campus…
"This is exactly why I don't play for anything of value" Karl flatly states as Neena Thurman wins yet another card game between the two. "Don't you ever get tired of winning?"
"Not even remotely" the albino replies with a pointy-toothy grin. "Wanna go for one more?"
"Don't you have a meeting I need to shuffle you off to?"
Dom glances at her watch with a slight shrug, "Still got plenty of time to kick your butt again."
"Funny," Karl cuts back with a chuckle. "Come on now, best not to keep the good folk waiting."
Another round just might have resulted in the albino arriving right on time. Instead she arrives with escort a few minutes early, passing through the door with a quick parting hi-five to Karl before claiming one of the many available chairs. Fingers lace together as she leans forward on elbows, now grinning broadly at Posse. "We here to discuss my long overdue raise?" she teases.
Toni is more or less on time for once, wandering in right after Neena and Karl as she yawns, covering her mouth a bit as she heads over to plop down in a chair, waving idly to those present as she promptly pops open a diet cola and chugs several swallows before letting out a soft *pah* and leaning back in her chair. "Hey." she says, rubbing her eyes a bit.
"You will have to pardon me, Director. I have another meeting scheduled. I will contact you again when I can to arrange for a continuation." That said, Dr. Veronica Kelsey ends a video conference call, and then locks up her computer workstation in her office, scoops up her phone and other stuff, and rolls out of the office, heading down the hall to the conference room. She may be the last to arrive, but even she tries not to be more than a minute or two late. Thankfully, with her ID card and her phone, the systems of the Spire open the door ahead of her arrival by a few seconds, making rolling inside easy for her. "Hi. Sorry I'm late."
Ava cracks an eye open as Neena arrives first. She wasn't expecting that one. "Yeah you've started to sag in the front. Figure Roni can fix you up," she casually retorts. A chuckle is given when Toni arrives as well and the cyborg studies her choice of drink, as well as the scientist's heavy eyes. Looks like the inventive doctor isn't sleeping much again, but that conversation might have to wait for later.
A momentary glance is given up and left when the cyborg opens her other eye to dismiss her virtual displays fully and focus on the assembled trio. Rather than leaving an empty chair for Roni the white-haired vet left her an empty space. "You're fine," she assures curtly before moving straight to business, "the order of this meeting's unchanged from my note: how do we get Spot officially on our roster and cleared for work?
"Haven't heard any complaints from you about it" Neena verbally jabs back at Ava with obvious amusement.
The pale one can't help but smirk while giving Toni a completely casual and in no way serious salute in greeting. Soon to follow is "Hey Doc" when Roni rolls on in.
For a change Dom's looking kind of upbeat while in the presence of the other three. "Yes. It is quite dull camping out around this place without having better access — heck without having -standard- access. I wanna be a real girl, Geppetto."
"Mm. My argument is still paying for a replacement birth certificate from a suitable country, with her registered as being an orphan. Normally I'd prefer a more legal route but under the circumstances short of SHIELD pulling strings, and considering that Neena's background is illegal enough that trying to be official would draw attention from people she'd rather avoid, it seems best. We might have to arrange a green card though if it's another country, which can be its own hurdle." Toni comments idly. "But enough money will solve the problem. Though Neena or you might have better ideas how to do that quietly without it tracing back to RESCUE." She sips from the can she has open, frowning thoughfully. "Really, a work history thing would be the next step."
Veronica considers for a bit, and then asks, "Would it be worth enlisting Io to help convince the various systems that the records should be there, and real?" Io is always saying that she just talks to the computers and convinces them to help her, so why not play along? It seems silly, but whatever.
"Officially, no. Unofficially… the databases she changes aren't our responsibility," Ava agrees. "As long as all the paperwork that comes to RESCUE passes our normal tests and our background check requests come back clean we're okay. Foreign citizenship can get you in the door but you can't get DoD clearance off that, and the Limited Access Auth exception for that is a PITA. A US national ID would be better if we can execute on it."
"Work and credit histories," the cyborg adds to Toni. "The bigger the paper trail the better. Madripoor might be easiest - or east Europe." Here Ava sighs both in thought and frustration. She's been pondering the matter for a while before the meeting started. "Perfect outcome is to get you Secret level but I'm with Toni. If we asked Uncle Sam to /actually/ do a full check on you we'd have spooks hiding in every tree on campus with tazers and butterfly nets waiting for you."
Toni pauses a bit at Roni's suggestion, turning it over in her head. "I'm a little hesistant to involve one of our semi-interns in crimes." she admits after a moment. "But Neena got screwed through no fault of her own and that shouldn't hold her back. So…if we can identify a reasonable way to create an effective identity…I mean, we're the ones vetting her, not the DoD. So we have some leeway. DARPA is the only one who gets really shirty about people's backgrounds for their projects."
"Forged documents won't be too much hassle," Neena suggests. "I know some guys. Heck, -everyone- should know a guy in that biz."
Roni's suggestion of getting Io involved has her suggesting "Hey, now that seems like a real no-brainer. I'll bet a Benny each that she could have this all taken care of in ten minutes or less." Then to Toni, "Have you -seen- Io? I'm pretty sure she couldn't follow the laws even if she had her WiFi terminated."
"A domestic ID would probably be the path of least resistance as far as what you're all doing around here. Not sure how to keep it out of the CIA's reach, though."
"…well then we should have her here for this." Toni says, pulling out, then sending a text to Io to have her meet in the meeting room they're using in the Spire as soon as she can. She's not sure what she's working on at the moment, but it doesn't usually involve things that explode if you drop everything to go to a meeting, anyway."
Somewhere along the way, someone in the room gets a mental image of Io giving a mentally exhaustive sigh just as Toni hits the 'send' button.
It's a good ten to fifteen minutes or so before the blue-haired pale girl clomps with her huge boots and mis-matched kneesocks into the room. With her, she's carrying what appears to be a toaster with several camera lenses embedded into it's shell, along with a pair of rabbit-ear anntane and a walkie talkie attached to the shell as well on either end. In her other hand, she's carrying a bag of tools. She looks for an empty seat, sits, without so much as a greeting while setting the contraption onto her lap and moving a hand through the toolbag.
When Io arrives Veronica waits for her to sit before saying, "Hello, Io. Thank you for joining us." SHe waits a bit, then, as if trying to pick the right moment to speak up and say something more. "I have a hypothetical question for you: If we help with the planning of where to go and what to do, do you think you could create a suitably complex, realistic, and relatively undetectable digital paper trail for a new legal identity for Neena? We would need to create birth certificate, home records, phone records, employment records, school records … it would be a lot."
Ava smirks when Neena mentions knowing someone and sends the mercenary a knowing glances before turning and nodding over to Toni. "Be advised we're enterin some murky water with anything domestic." Her green eyes shift and a separate, cooler look is passed to Veronica.
Neena's not entirely sure what to add as the others mull over the situation. She falls back to some encouragement. "Hey, I appreciate you all going through so much trouble for me."
Io's given a greeting which amounts to two fingers coming up from the table in an arc, even if the techinetic doesn't happen to notice because she's ..cuddling a toaster..?
Toni nods as Io arrives, glancing at the toaster with a raised brow but doesn't ask, sipping from her Diet Pepsi as she lets Roni fill her in. "It's not something we'd ask lightly. But Neena's background means that there's no legal way to do it without drawing people she'd rather avoid. And there's the problem that a facial recognition program will pop up with her as she looks now too."
Tinker tinker tinker tinker. Io pulls on a pair of goggles, adjusts the lenses and opens up the toaster to reveal a strange, hodge-podge mess of circuit boards and recycled parts from other devices. Enough so that, even with Toni and Roni's genius, it'd look like, on the surface, something like a five-year old might sodder together for the sheer fun of it and playing 'pretend' rather than it having any sense of functionality. But, likely enough everyone here knows better. Io's tech? Only makes sense to Io, when looking at it. It's just another Gift of hers.
She frowns, as she pulls out a few tools to touch up a connection here, or there, or attach a wire here, with intense focus.
"… a lot? More like a shitton," mutters Io, half under her breath, and half to everyone gathered. "It means hacking into multiple federal and privately owned databases, everything from the IRS to military, police, state, and others. All the credit bureau's. All her old job sites. All her new job sites. Credit bureaus. Any place she's ever applied for, or has had, credit or accounts at. All utility companies. Agencies. Cities. Townships. Any bill she's had in her name, ever. Schools. Awards she's won. Everything."
Io frowns, though not at what she's saying, but at the 'toaster'. "Hey. What did I tell you?" She snarks at it, flicking it on it's shiney surface with a fingernail. After a pause, she says, "Better." Then goes about her business again.
Her mouth twists. "SHIELD. And, any agencies or people that she's worked for before that would keep records, too that we can get intel on. I'd need a complete list of everything. It won't be quick. But, I can do it. Real problem will be SHIELD. Even if I had access to their database, which I'd need, they'll have offsite backup servers."
Veronica nods to Io. "You're right. It will be a lot. And if you don't want to do it, or don't think you can manage it undetected, then we won't do it. We'll think of something else. But given that we have ongoing DARPA contracts, getting Neena approved to work here on even a nominal basis is going to require giving her an identity that can check out to a background check run by DARPA." And that's not going to be easy at all. Roni knows this. But she does not - currently - have a better plan. So she waits for her answer. For now. "I do not think we need to worry about changing her existing records. This is about making a new identity. Also, we should probably generate photographs for those records without the albinoism and without the spot."
"Why do we need SHIELD? Seems like we want to keep them as far from this as possible," Ava opines. "A new ID doesn't need her real work history."
"Mostly because they're one of the organizations we work with most likely to notice if we made an error on her identity, and consequently a gropu best suited to create an airtight identity. I just don't know if they would." Toni says, shrugging. "I'd prefer to keep it in house though, yeah. The more people who know, more chance it'll leak."
When Io goes on a full shopping list of all of the details necessary Neena slowly holds up a hand. It falters slightly as Io pauses to discipline the toaster or whatever but returns to its 'hey look at me!' position soon after. Then it points to Roni in silent agreement.
"So… Yeah. No tax records, no official jobs, no filed applications, no bills, no schools, no — look. I've been living off of the grid my entire life. I have an alias and an alter ego for everything. I make connections and pay cash under the table for all accommodations. You are looking at a literal ghost. A total blank slate. Nothing exists until it's made to exist."
The idea of 'going spotless' has the albino canting her head to one side. "So, uh. That whole 'let's have Martin remove the spot' idea that Hank mentioned a while back. I mean maybe it IS possible that there's some weird tracking signal voodoo mixed into that ink so maybe having it replaced wouldn't be such a bad thing. And if the tattoo -does- get redone then maybe we could snap some of those photos while it's not there."
"Well. I mean, it is pretty identifiable. But easy enough to redo without any weird ink if you want to keep it after." Toni notes thoughfully. "I mean…we can fake some of it up here too. Give her easy background stuff, working at McDonald's or something, then we can say we trained her as part of our security on site, to explain why she's security. That way she doesn't have to have a previous job we hired her from. I mean, people get hired retail and such constantly, i doubt anyone would remember who worked someplace two years previously and they're probably a bit easier to get into. The tax stuff might be more challenging."
"Building an identity is easy. Erasing the facial recognition much more complex. Both can be done," Io states, with her focus still on her odd device. Finally, though, she closes the opened lid and attaches it, squinting at it and holding it out in front of herself, looking at it from one angle then another. "But if we're forging her a new identity only, I can have that done in a week or two. Data insertion is far easier than data deletion or rewriting in the format we're talking about. It's all about redundancy." Io smiles, briefly, smugly. "Just let me know the name, and I'll get on it."
Veronica nods. "These will only be digital images. Whether we actually remove the Spot, Neena, will be up to you. But we're going to alter the shape of the face enough that facial recognition won't match up closely to the real you. If we also make this fake you not an albino and not have the spot, then your background check will likely go through clean. It won't solve everything. At some point, given especially our missions with the Cyberian, we will have to deal with SHIELD and others. But if we can keep DARPA out of it, then that's enough for me. We'll cross the rest of the burning bridges when we get to them."
Ava sets her jaw firmly as she thinks while listening. Her vibrant green eyes flit to Neena at the mention of going spotless and she adds, "We also need a place of birth and birthday. Anything else?"
"I've considered deleting it but it's rather become a part of me," Neena admits in a tone which might suggest she's still having some reservations about the idea. It disappears soon enough when Toni mentions "McDonald's?! -Seriously?-"
Roni's description helps to bring the albino back down. "Slapping on some peachy foundation before we go on a field trip is always an option. It's not the most pleasant option but I can look way more normal with some prep time."
Returning Ava's look, she asks "Would using my actual birthday be too risky? Place of birth…" she trails off with a thin frown. "Not Florida or Illinois. I, uh..might have gotten in trouble for shoplifting in Chicago once or twice. Jessica Marie Costello," she reminisces with a gentle head-bob. "I wonder if CPD still has that on file…"
"It's the American dream job for a teen." Toni says dryly to Neena. "It should be someplace you know well enough to reasonably answer questions about what's there, so a town you've been in enough to know the landmarks at least."
"I'll make it all work," Io says with a mild hand-wave, pausing, blinking, looking at Domino. Her mouth twists. "Depends. On how much you've used other IDs you've created. There's pros and cons to do that, meaning that while it'd be good to have a couple people who, if pressed, could say legitmately they've met you in your other persona - cops having a record on file might make it more difficult for what Veronica wants. Among other things. Creating a new trail, with a couple dead relatives, a large city where nobody would have noticed you, a huge corporation that has a high turnaround, those sorts of things are far easier to create and far more difficult to 'track down'. Depends on how thorough you want it to be, and what you want out of it. Either way, I need a name, and I can go off the rest. I figure you'll want something in your background about your skill with firearms. Any other requests?"
"Try to keep things reasonable. Let's avoid any supposed military background, and instead go with something else that suits. Other than that, let's build a plan before Io starts creating data to back it up." That said, Veronica sighs, glancing through her smart glasses at her latest message. "Unfortunately, I need to go. If you need any input from me, just send me a message." That said, she rolls most of the way out, then turns to face the room again just before the door opens in front of her. "Thank you, all of you, and especially Io for agreeing to take this risk to make this work. Much appreciated."
"Later, Doc. I'll keep minutes for you," Ava assures with a curt nod to Roni as the doctor departs before turning to Neena. "You got caught?" She asks incredulously with an upward quirk of her lips that doesn't quite become a smile. The cyborg shakes her head. "Not Illinois, use Indiana. The Indianapolis City-County building had a fire in the late 80s that burned up a lot of papers and Midwest hospital records are screwed up like a football bat."
"-That's- the American dream?" Neena asks before muttering "Dodged that bullet." Next she suggests "Then that kinda would be Chicago. Anything else that I have familiarity with would be in Madripoor and having any documented link back to that country is likely to get me flagged in a New York Second."
What Io explains is met without argument but it does leave her glancing to Ava with brows sitting at opposing levels. Soon enough this turns to a sheepish smile about getting caught. "Can't win 'em all. But maybe focus more on security related matters than strictly firearms? A name, though… Damn, you're asking me for an alias that will be connected with me for a potentially -very- long time. An actual identity that -isn't- me. ..This is more difficult than it should be…"
As Roni leaves some parting suggestions and heads out Neena dips her head in agreement. "I think this needs some time to hammer out the details."
"We have time to think about it, this is mostly to plan out what we need to do once we've figured out the niggling details, and presuming Io is good with doing it." Toni says simply. "I mean, something you could shorten to Neena shouldn't give things away too much, maybe?"
Io sighs. "Sure, take away all my fun." She taps the toaster-device, twice, nods in a satisfied manner, pauses again, and as if remembering something, hands an envelope to Domino in a very dissmissive sort of manner without saying anything about it even as she mentions, "Let me know what you all want, I'll take care of the rest. I'll let you know before I do it if anything you've decided won't work. Otherwise, like I said, about a week to complete once we get off the ground."
INSIDE the envelope? Those pictures she managed to dig up on the dark web, of Domino, and her husband. Isn't Io nice?
Toni's thoughts has the albino reconsidering the naming idea. "You know what, when I got married it wasn't a large or well documented ceremony. It was also far outside of the States. The odds of anyone having made the connection back to me are..surprisingly enough..in my favor. Huh."
Then Io's handing her an envelope, prompting a look of confusion which soon turns into something a bit more grim as she sets her jaw. "Though not impossible to find, apparently."
Toni smiles faintly, then mmms. "Well, if you need any help from me, though I'm not sure what I can offer other than some funding maybe….just let me know?" She gets to her feet. "If you'll pardon me then, I have a project to get back to. Thanks for being willign to help Io." she says, patting the younger woman's shoulder as she walks past, and heads out the door. Mysterious projects await!