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Trip brushes herself off a bit and waves at the man in the suit with friendly intent seeing that he has spotted her. "I wouldn't call it porting but hey whatever words you wanna use to describe it. Anyway since your friend is being kinda.. well not straight forward we'd like to ask a bit more directly. Where Prae's little brother is, we know he's been through here and it's only a matter of time before we find him."
She folds her arms and glances about the room, "So I'd really like to do this the kind and easy way if you don't mind."
"Well, Mr. Hillman, I don't believe anyone stated that he is here only that this is where the trail has lead us so far, and if it is all the same to the others would you be able to actually walk me through the visitor sign in and out process, you know from the gate to getting a picture taken, any forms that would be filled out," Rory asks still trying to get handle on Mr. Hillman.
The big man scowls. He seems like someone who is used to his size getting people to back down. "Listen, miss..?" he says, though he's a little uncertain about Trip's gender given her androgynous appearance, "the 'easy way' is for you to go back to wherever you poofed from. You're friend's brother ain't here."
============
Mr. Hillman nods graciously at Frostbite. "I can arrange that, certainly. Let's get out of this boring old building and I'll take you to the security station. We'll go through the visitor sign-in logs and see if your friend came through here."
He starts to escort the Sentinels back outside.
Shin hesitated to override Praetoria now that she had gotten access. It was perhaps a little frustrating, but he could see merit in not arousing suspicion by running off immediately. So he went with the rest of the tour for now.
Shin wondered where Triplight was. She hadn't replied to his comm either. Perhaps he should reach out to her again? Hopefully she was just chatting up the locals.
Once Rory had Mr. Hillman agreeing to let them review security, he felt that was a good place to step in. "Could he have hitched a ride out of this place? Maybe sneaking onto a private shuttle bus going out?" Shin asked Mr. Hillman. Wondering if he would lie.
Hillman turns to Horizon, thinking. "Well, if he came during one of our youth nights, he probably would have left on one of our shuttle buses. We offer transportation for young people who aren't old enough to drive." He smiles.
He takes the group to a small room with lots of computer screens and a pair of guards. They move over once Mr. Hillman explains what they're there for, giving him room to access one of the computers. With a few clicks, he pulls up the guest lists under a folder marked, "youth night." Then he lets the team peruse the names at their leisure.
Calling up the names of the visitors on the night in question, the Sentinels are able to find a picture of Shane but with the listed name of Lee R. Jenkins. There's an arrival time and a departure time roughly three hours later, that same night.
Keeping an eye out for Vannillapsychadilla, you catch that as an email address name for Skyler Worrell. Her picture shows a girl with half her head shaved and the other half dyed a cotton-candy pink. Her listed address is on a street in Northside. Her arrival and departure times match up perfectly with Shane's. Records also show that she's been coming to these youth nights regularly all summer.
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Andressa folded her arms, "Look I know that you are just doing your job but, I've gotta have some proof that you aren't lying about him coming by." She strolled about the room a bit, seemingly unhindered by the man's size. "I mean come on, the Praetorian family is kinda like Terran nobility right? Or would it be celebrity... hmm words aside, I know that they don't move around without people knowing for sure. I've seen my fair share of inter-galactoc celebrities to know that for certain. So please just work with us here."
She dropped her arms to her side and looked at him in the eyes though it was hard to tell behind the helmet, "Was Prae's little brother here?"
"Well I think that doesn't for now. Thank you for all of your assistance in this matter, I hope we weren't too much of a hassle," Rory offers his hand to Mr. Hillman, "you wouldn't happen to have a card or a way to contact you if we need any further assistance?"
The big man looks at Trip for a while, clearly thinking -- which seems to be a chore for him. Finally, he shrugs and says, "Yeah. I'm pretty sure he was here. Not here any more, though."
Outside, Mr. Hillman nods politely and reaches into his pocket. He pulls out a business card and passes it to Frostbite. "Here you go. And I mean it, feel free to join us for our youth nights in the future. They're wholesome fun."
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Trip stays silent for several moments, "Alright, then we can search somewhere else. Thank you sir."
With that she steps back and dips through a rift appearing back with Inquiry. She keyed her comms "Hey so I talked with the guy that was spying on us and it seems Prae's brother was here but isn't anymore so if we've got any other leads, Shin I think you said you had one. We should start looking there."
”Alright. Let’s go. Thank you for your time, sir,” Praetoria says to Mr. Hillman.
She turns and nods to Horizon in agreement with his lead before walking out in front of the rest of the Sentinels, holding Tiv’s hand. ”Sorry for all this. I swear, if he’s not in trouble after all of this, he’s gonna be...”
Shin waited until they were out of earshot of Mr. Hillman to speak to Triplight, quietly as he could. "The kids I talked to mentioned a place called the Estate. It's where they apparently send all of the people who come to them that have powers. It's upstate - I'm sure that Isaiah could find out its exact location. I figure it wasn't a good idea to announce that was where we're looking next to our host..."
"I can look up the address. If they're at least pretending to be legitimate it should be public. And really, I'm more worried about who that guy was reporting to than anything else. Means somebody was expecting us to come here... and will probably be expecting us at the next stop, too."
Hmm, whoever he was, he was using a cell phone. Those signals were less secure than most people seemed to think they were...
Inquiry tried to tap into the signal and determine what they were saying, and where the other end of the call was.
The signal is bounced from a nearby cellular tower, off a satellite, and to a remote villa in northern Italy.
"--eem to be leaving now," says a voice with a deep, male register.
"That is fine for now. We will watch for signs of the Facilitator's further involvement," replies an androgynous voice.
"We should take steps."
"Unnecessary at this time. You handled this admirably. Have Hillman report to Grant."
"Understood."
The connection ends.
As the team gathers back together, Tiv looks rather lost. He leans toward Praetoria. "What do I do now? Did you find your brother? Should I keep looking here?" Then, under his breath, he asks, "Am I safe here?"
What do you do??
Psyche, who had been quietly and politely following along, occasionally murmuring polite nothings when appropriate, suddenly returned to her body with an ear-popping shift of pressure.
"Sorry, I was busy with-" A squeal of psychic static sounded in the minds of those around her as she clenched her eyes in sudden agony, a trickle of blood running from one nostril.
"...maybe have Psyche probe him a bit. But don't be too obvious about it, or whoever he's reporting to might catch on..." "Psyche, I don't think Shane is here. There was a bus ferrying kids with powers up to a place called the Estate that's upstate. No idea what's up there, but I'll bet my last nickel that's where we'll find Shane. Side note - do you notice every time I'm rubbernecking you?" "...There are visitor logs here listing Shane as having visited..." "...I've heard stories of incredibly powerful terran psions..." "...that really her?.." "...she really does have a nice..." " Shane shane..."
An opaque telekinetic cocoon flared to life around her and the psychic pressure on her surroundings abruptly eased. After a moment or so she emerged, the blood from her nose gone without a trace, but a look of barely leashed frustration stamped across her normally placid features.
"The shard I left in charge of conversation couldn't work as a relay in the middle of all of that. The whole campus is rigged to act as an amplifier. Hillman's shields were too good to slip past without breaking them anyways, but with everyone else, it was a matter of skimming the surface for him without giving too much juice and liquifying their minds.
So I just got all of that at once. Shane's not here, but you already knew that."
A touch of her presence brushed across immediate memories that she hadn't focused on when first coming back online, and she responded to Tiv's question with a somewhat terse bite to her sending. "Find a good fiduciary who can make certain that you can't easily decide to give away your money, just in case the idea suddenly pops into your head. They weren't thinking about it, and I wasn't looking, but it's really how you should handle cults in general. Any sort of spiritual satisfaction comes with its pricetags."
"So, the Estate. I know what it looks like, but where is it?"
"Oh yeah, an address would have been a good thing to grab," Frostbite says with a shrug and a chuckle, "but, if you know what it looks like we might be able to figure it out using satellite images or aerial recon."
Praetoria turns towards Tiv and answers ”No. I haven’t found him yet. And he is going to regret it when I do. But, if you don’t feel safe, why don’t you go to my place? We can figure something out later once we sort all this out.”
Tiv shrugs. "I don't know! I thought it all seemed pretty above-board, but I'm not a super-detective or anything. That's why I asked, should I go back? Should I try to get my mom out of there? What?"
”If I were you, I would try. But be careful. If you need help, call me and I’ll come back as soon as I find my brother.”
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Trip remains with Inquiry while the others regroup, "So what do you do here when you aren't helping the others fight off crime and venture through the galaxies?"
She took a seat in the space craft opting to relax a bit while they chatted as her helmet and Hux removed themselves from her face and suit respectively.
"I caught the last bit of out watcher's conversation. Reporting to somebody in Italy, of all places... but sounds very much like they're with whatever the Church of Psyche is calling itself now. Be warned that they probably will know we're coming, and that relatively few of us have substantial resistant to psionic effects. Try not to get mind controlled, everyone."
”Italy!?!?” Praetoria asks exasperatedly.
Fortunately, the Estate is not in Italy, and is only a relatively short flight for the Sentinels to reach.
From the air, the place looks like a stately manor house, with manicured grounds and a well-tended courtyard. It has all the looks of an ivy-league school, only a fraction of the size.
What do you do??
”Looks simple enough. Let’s not beat around the bush...” Praetoria says before floating down and landing in the courtyard. She waits for the rest of the Sentinels to land before approaching the front door and knocking.
"This definitely seems suspect. I'm going to scout around, look for anything out of place," Shin says. The team might have noted that his flight was relatively low to the ground, cautious in how fast he was going. Once they get there, he lands quickly and takes a look around for anything incongruous. Feeling out with his powers and seeing if there were any kind of strong energy sources he could sense.
The Sentinels' arrival draws a fair amount of attention. Kids' faces are pressed up against the glass of the exterior windows of the side of the building where Inquiry lands.
Horizon flies around and tries to get a sense of energy sources, and definitely detects something underground, but whether it's simply a powerful modern generator or something more than that, he can't tell.
Soon, an upper-middle-aged woman in a tweed suit and hair in a severe bun steps out of the building and approaches the Sentinels. Several paces behind her, a diverse collection of children ranging from around seven to fourteen fight for a view of the team of young heroes.
The woman asks in clipped tones, "Can I help you?"
You get a regular susurrus of thoughts, mostly the excited, frantic thoughts of youth who are seeing well-known superheroes. Nothing unexpected there.
Except one mind is trying deliberately to get your attention.
"Psyche! Psyche! Psyche! Don't let my sister know I'm here!!!"
What do you do??
"Why?" Psyche sent back to Shane privately, "Are you afraid she'll cause a scene?"
There was plenty of interference, and she didn't want to delve too deeply into what could be a Mind Snare, but the urgency of his sending carried a lot of his true intentions along in the current. She should be able to skim through those in relative safety...
"Yes! I'm undercover! I'm trying to find out where Grammie is-- you know, Eternia! But if she tears the place apart looking for me... just, you gotta stop her!"
Praetoria smiles and says in reply ”Yes. I’d like to see my brother please.”
Psyche let out a breath of annoyance that would have been louder if her autonomics had kept her lungs better supplied. "Well that sounds stupid and dangerous. Do you have a plan that changes the fundamentals of this situation? You do realize that you're talking about tracking down an immortal super-being possessed by a psychic event horizon?" Her exasperation sharpened to a needle's point, and she felt his sudden yelp as he pinched himself, hard. "I know you have some training Shane, but a half-trained Blunt should not be doing this alone! Eternia could easily do far worse." Me as well, but that's not the point.
"Ow. I have a plan! Look, I'll tell you, but you can't blow my cover!"
Praetoria smiles and says in reply ”Yes. I’d like to see my brother please.”
The woman arches her eyebrow severely. "You are being quite presumptuous. First, that I would know who you are; second, that I would know who your brother is; and third, that I would have some means of allowing you to see him."
She pauses and looks Praetoria up and down. "I take it you are one of the heroes from Halcyon?"
Praetoria narrows her eyes at the woman’s incredulous answer. ”Yes. I am Praetoria, daughter of the P-...the late Praetorian. And I have it on good authority that my brother Shane is here.”
The woman gives Praetoria a disappointed look, but she quickly replaces it with a formal expression. "Good afternoon, Praetoria. I am Headmistress Gwendolyn Price. Condolences on the passing of your father.
"Now that proper introductions are through, may I ask, on what authority? I was unaware that a child of the late Praetorian is here at the Estate." Her tone is one of a grammar instructor or teacher of etiquette giving a lesson.
"She's messing everything up! Stop her!"
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Trip waves to the kids making a few poses with Hux, but it's clear she has no idea what's 'cool' for Earth kids.
"Come on this is so cool you guys actually have schools for psychics, this is way better than other Earths. I don't even think the Nuvoans did this they were all just ya know naturally gifted or whatever."
"Did you happen to have a recent arrival by the name of Lee R. Jenkins?" Shin asks the woman. "That's the name he used here, we believe."
He looks over the estate and then glances at Psyche, wondering if she feels the presence of psychic power from the children here.
If he's possessed or compromised, this might be a mistake, but I have to do this fast.
"Fine. Hold on and I'll give you the time to explain."
Telepathic communication was normally a little faster than words where tongues and teeth could get in the way, but the stronger the connection, the faster thoughts and ideas could flow. A stronger connection normally came from time and closeness, but when those were lacking, Psyche could fill in that lack with power.
She opened her mind to Shane's, allowing his thoughts to come pouring through like a torrent. "Make your pitch Shane. I'll keep any secrets I hear, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop Kayla for you without a damned good reason."
"Sorry for the abrupt intrusion and any disruption we have caused, Headmistress. I am Frostbite and these are the rest of the Sentinels," Rory goes around the group introducing everyone in a tone conveying his irritation at Kayla not introducing everyone, "We at the main campus searching for Shane and with the help of Mr. Hillman we found a picture of him with an assumed alias, and a group of children said they believed they saw him leave on a shuttle heading hear. He left home without informing anyone that he was leaving or where he was going. We mainly need to insure his safety." He the produces Mr. Hillman's card as proof of his story, while doing his best to keep his mind guarded.
Inquiry mostly remained quiet for the moment. They really needed to get their Isaiah node out of lockdown for these kinds of situations.
Psyche gets a torrent of thoughts from Shane. They're rather disjointed and panicky -- certainly because his alias has just been revealed and his hopes for continuing his undercover mission were dying. Psyche can quickly ascertain that he planned on infiltrating and rising through the ranks of this "church" in order to get access to Eternia. As for how what he planned on doing once he got there, he expects to wing it, using his powers that he's hidden from everyone thus far: the ability to modify technology on the fly. He's currently wearing a device that mimics psychic powers.
Along with all those thoughts are an undercurrent of desperate need. The need to help out. The need to do something that no one else seems interested in doing. The need to get out of his sister's shadow and prove himself.
Triplight gets a sense of varying levels of psychic energy from the assembled students. Some flickering with a low level of power while others have some raw but uncontrolled power. Several of the students give Triplight an odd look at her strange points of reference.
Ms. Price looks at Frostbite much more favorably, given his display of something approaching manners. "Thank you. I can certainly understand your concern." She half-turns to look at the group of youth gathered behind her. "Mr. Jenkins? Step forward, please."
A youth that bears a strong resemblance to Shane steps forward, though his hair is cut short and neat, and is dressed sharply in a school uniform. He looks nervous, eyes quickly moving back and forth between the headmistress and the Sentinels.
What do you do??
"This plan is still stupid, Shane, but it will work better if you have help on the outside. Let me tell Kayla, and we'll handle this together. I'm sure whatever information you've gleaned will be useful, but I'm not going to leave you here alone. I don't have to tell her your plan, I just have to let her keep poking around."
"All right, fine! But hurry! I don't know how we can talk our way out of this anyway! It's all falling apart!"
"Kayla, Shane's here. He's looking for your grandmother and he has a plan that's not... terrible. If we just accept 'Jenkins,' and go away as if we were fooled, then we'll buy the time to do this smart. Otherwise this situation will explode."
Kayla narrows her eyes at “Leeroy,” as she receives the telepathic message. She clenched her fists and sighed and said ”This isn’t him. They lied to us. But he could still be here.”
____________
She turns back to Ms. Price and says ”I’m going to need you to arrange for us to search these facilities, no restrictions. Full clearance.”
Rory casts a confused look between Praetoria, Psyche, and "Leeroy" but just shrugs and rolls with it. ... Please, if you'd be so kind Ms. Price," Frostbite added.
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Without knowing what Shane actually looks like Andressa and Hux were searching for a very specific needle in a stack of them so when Prae proclaimed that he wasn't in this group she shrugged. Shifting away from the group a bit, but no closer to the building she keyed up Inquiry.
(Comms Inquiry)"Hey so I did a small scan and these kids are all pretty diverse in terms of potential. It's a good thing they've got trainers. Is Prae's little brother a powerful Psychic?"
Psyche's thoughts burned into Kayla's mind like dark clouds shot-through with lightning. "Of course. Why would I bother pointing out a chance to do things safely for all involved unless I was hoping you'd do the exact opposite."
"He wasn't one the last time I met him, Andressa, but it wouldn't be utterly uncharacteristic of his family to have made developments along those lines."
"Mr. Jenkins" gets a relieved look on his face and steps back in with the other students. Puberty has caught up to Shane; much of his baby fat has left his cheeks in the weeks he's been gone and is showing clear signs of the handsome man he'll become. He gives his sister the barest hint of a nod once he's ano ng your with the crowd.
Headmistress Price presses her lips together tightly as she regards Praetoria's request. "This is highly unusual. But I suppose I can arrange a full tour -- not immediately, mind you. You've dropped in unannounced, disrupting class, and making all sorts of demands."
She plants her hands on her hips as she thinks aloud. "I'll have to clear it with the Board, of course. I'll see what I can do. I'm sure you understand."
What do you do?
Shin didn't know what to think about this. He certainly didn't know why 'Leeroy' was pretending to be who he was, or why he was infiltrating this Estate. But it definitely seemed like he wanted to be here for some purpose.
"Thank you, Headmistress. We want to apologize for interrupting your daily routine," Shin spoke up, playing the honor student part of himself. "This has been stressful for all of us. We're worried and jumping at ghosts because of it." He nudges Kayla's arm with the back of his hand to get her attention. "There's nothing more for us to do here today. Let's regroup and figure out what we've missed," He urges Kayla.