2013.06.27 - Required Orders

A day, a day and a half, shouldn't seem like much... But it is. Jack Marlowe, Hadrian, Spartan, whatever name he's called, what's left is not recognizable as 'friend' when viewed. The sight never gets easier either. There is no skin left covering the chassis of their friend, and so nothing but shining steel and the occasionally blinking light is all that can be seen. With the skin removed, it's clear the design of the bot is alien in origin, for instance, there isn't a metallic skull so much as a smoothed over dome with a glass like plate behind which rests what one assumes are sensors, or Jacks 'eyes and ears' since he doesn't actually need the organs themselves. In fact, seeing the bot like this reminds one how fully cosmetic his 'eyes' are or how useless it is for there to be a 'nose' on him at all. The smooth curving plate of glass is cracked, like a phone that's been dropped, and the things behind it are distorted, hard to make out. The shoulders are not articulated like a skeleton, the joints obviously designed to be fully rotational, swiveling in odd ways, or they would if anything was attached to them. The 'ribs' are more like steel conduit and piping under what should have been armor plating that's obviously been peeled away by main strength. Whatever did it had claws that carved through the armor slowly like it was made of cold butter. Now, suspended in the glowing suspension field, with dozens and dozens of tiny spider like robots crawling over it, it's impossible to see the man they know. Shocking reality of his humaneness staring them in the face.

"Disconcerting isn't it?" says a voice behind the group that stares at the hanging torso, Void's silvery image shimmers into being as she walks over, trailing fingers through the field and over the peeled back armor plates of Spartan's chest, "He initiated security protocols, scrambling and encrypting his neural pathways when he was taken. They were damaged when the Daem attempted to gain Intel from him, decryption is taking longer then I would like."

Rose is there, she is just standing back, remaining by the door with arms folded across her chest, hands gripping around her biceps in something that might even be more of a self-hugging motion. She doesn't like these parts... Of anything. Not a fan of labs; not scared of them, but more a hatred of them and seeing Spartan laid out like a sci-fi humpty dumpty was no better as the droids crawled over him and wires connected.

One booted foot is propped against the wall, as if she will shove off and leave out the door she is beside in a heartbeat, leather fitted pants tucked beneath the ankle height of boots, a large and tattered (for appearances) top hanging off a shoulder and in bits along bared abdomen. Long white hair veiled either side of her face so unless making eye contact with her, her expressions are hidden as drilling starts - only give away is the slight tension.

Kon-El stands just to the left of Rose with a banana in hand the peel already half way back around the fruit (looks like he is several bites in).

"Honestly better him like that than any of us but yeah, it's super weird." Another form of disconcerting no doubt. "Will he be just like we knew him before? He's not going to have a stutter now or something is he?"

Jeffrey has only known Spartan as an enemy, even though secondhand knowledge and briefs have given him some expectation that the others look up to this...so its just a little easier to disassociate from the carnage of metal and ceramic that is suspended before him. Or maybe he really does have a switch broken somewhere...difficult to say. Whatever he was doing before, it happened recently enough that he has barely had time to change out of tactical gear. He does have enough presence of decorum to remove his sunglasses, although his cigar remains lit, pausing to blow clouds of smoke as he watches the reassembly. "What is the estimated reassembly time? I assume that is what we are waiting on, given the absence of further leads?" Clinical, precise. Sometimes its hard to know just which act is which, or how deep it goes.

Void turns to eye Superboy, "I could reconstitute his back up immediately, however doing so would wipe the memory of the current incarnation, and we need the information it possesses." she frowns at the Kryptonian, or as close to frowning as she ever gets, which is just slightly more intense then a blank empty stare, "I am certain he will wish to spare with you to test himself upon his return." that might have been a joke. Maybe not. Impossible to tell. Void walks across the lab as she speaks, leaving the small technical bots to their work and comes before a lit pad around which is a waterfall of information pouring in glyphs that are not human in origin. "Unknown. I have recovered bits." she flicks a wrist and '01110011 01110100 01101111 01110000' appears in the air, "That is his most favorite tidbit he likes to drop." she almost sounds wry. "I am not certain he is aware that it is me and not Helspont trying to access his core. He fights me even now, as if it were all he had left."

Nope, still not a thing to say, though when Kon spoke up her head tilts towards him and the dagger-like glare is very evident from her, unlike that of Void's vacant one. Rose exhales then and leans even more solidly against the wall, raising her head up now to watch more intently towards the painstakingly slow process that is making her antsier by the minute, finally giving Siege a small nod in acknowledgement though nothing more.

"What? No I don't mean to erase him. He is kind of more than just a bunch of data or whatever. Rather he comes back the way he was." The clone responds quickly as if there is a chance Void may just wipe and start fresh. "I've grown kind of fond of the original version. Binary? What does that mean exactly?" Kon has an amazing gift for picking up new languages when he applies himself. Lazy seems to be an affliction the Super teen indulges in, however. "Did they learn anything they can use against us from him? Is there a way to know that somehow?"

It does seem to be the test amongst these folks who can be the most edgy, the most alternative. Technically, since it seems almost like Spartan's wake, that seems to make Siege the old man of the group. Well, not counting Void, but thats more because she always seems to very above the fray. "IT was never my thing, but I guess I can try to learn some of it. Just another means of breaking down or redirecting walls right?" Says he who shapes the Earth...surely data can't be that much harder, can it? Then again we are speaking of a several millennial old robotic super soldier. "Hubris aside, knowing what to use against us is kind of useless. You'll do whatever needs to be done because its right, Kid Steel. The ninja'll do it because the few things she cares about she does so with a passion. The Russian'll do it because she needs to Be Good. Me? You paid me, so I'm good for it. Can't speak for the others, but we all got our reasons. So let 'em find out. We either win or we die, right?" Pep talk aside, he blows another plume of smoke up into the air. Tattooed arms then fold as the stub moves in his mouth. "Probably doesn't. See the same thing in biological interrogations. You poke 'em long enough their friend or foe goes right out the window.

"Stop." she says, answering Kon's question, "It means stop. It's repeated over and over and over again, endlessly, like a wall guarding me from accessing the information we need. I imagine it was one of the firewalls he built to halt the Daem incursion into his core." she continues to wave her fingers through the waterfall of glyphs as if seeking something in them. "You have never met the original version. The man you know is, by my count, the eleventh Jack Marlowe, but every backup that is activated, the previous incarnations are destroyed to negate the possibility of multiples, which could be harmful. However, any backup only possesses the information that was available at the time of it's creation, in this case, the instant before the trip to Paris when he vanished. It would know nothing of Helspont and activating it would destroy our most likely source of intelligence." she pauses, and stops, spotting in the air a single blinking section of alien code, the waterfall stops and zooms in on the code, a strip a few hundred lines long, made from odd shaped glyphs.

"I have reached the limits of my allowable interference." she states after a moment. "Exceeded them in fact. I require a decision." She steps aside from the wall of floating code, "My orders are clear, this choice is not mine to make. Do we reactivate the backup and lose what information this Spartan yet holds, or," she waves at the blinking code, "using this minute crack in the otherwise impenetrable firewalls of Hadrian's core, do you wish me to begin the search for useable Intel in earnest? I have no guarantee there will be anything to find, or how long it will take." her body flickers and vanishes, and her voice comes from all around, "I require an order."

"Let me know when -he- wins, I am going to go /passionately/ drink my vodka in the War Room Lounge." The only thing Rose has to say, and it is on her exit strategy of obvious. She wasn't comfortable here, seeing Spartan like that, and hearing there is nothing to do about any of it but wait. No one to stab for it or for the hell of it. Though as a hip shoves into the door and aids in sending it open one hand grips the door frame as she peers over her shoulder back at the dispersing Void. "Exploit the crack... It's what we do to save our friends." And with that being said Rose is gone to sit in silence and wait outside of the lab where things were... warmer.

"You know what I mean, Void. The guy we know." Kon glowers at the entity as if she was choosing to be difficult also this situation isn't a light one. Got to direct that somewhere. "You know also...Spartan is kind of like our very own Doctor Who." Boy of Steel watches far too much television.

"So we can only reboot him to when he was taken and if we do that he won't have any information on Helspont but if you try /after/ that it could take forever and it's not certain he will have anything for us at all?" His attention averts from Void towards Siege then to Rose, "Yeah. Weaknesses as a team we got each others back... Rose... this is important you... " And she is gone. A heavy sigh escapes Superboy and he looks back at Spartan, no Illyana, Nate, Carin or Shen around either. "She is right, lets get our robot back. We need him and if Helspont managed to capture him once or Spartan somehow found them and ended up like this he can do it again. Maybe this time he just needs a babysitter." A grin appears - Kon will make sure to tell him that when he is back. Besides, maybe he misses his sparring buddy! Clearing his throat he motions towards Void, "Make it so, number one." Authority figures are in abundance to take example from.

"Throw my vote for preserving him. I still have to kick his ass for trying to kill me. Besides, the rest of ya'll seem to like him the way he is." Not that it matters of course since the team seems to be in agreement on this, but maybe some solidarity is called for. He is after all now on the Watch. Siege mumbles behind his cigar as he takes a seat, removing his tactical vest and returning to all of his wife beater glory. Right. There is probably some rendition of 'You can take the something out of the something' reference that a better wordsmith could come up with, but Jeff is either too tired or lazy to come up with it. "Can't shake the feeling this is going to invoke Hard Mode, but few things worth gettin' that come easy. Just means I earn my pay again. An' save some for the rest of us, Rose. Friends don't hog the bottle."

Void eyes the door that Rose walked through, then each person in turn. "As you wish." she says, waving a hand and the big wall of code reappears. She reaches in with a hand and seems to pluck the blinking code free from the wall of glyphs, crumpling her fist so that the symbols fall to the floor and vanish. "We have an opening. Seeking anything of val-" she stops, her whole body freezing in that unnatural 'so not human' sort of stillness only dead things can have. "23.806078, 11.288452" she says, turning to eye the others, "GPS coordinates for the center of the Sahara Desert." she blinks, as if confused. "I think th-" she pauses, turns to eye the torso, "His radio transmitter is functioning once more. It is sending a garbled communication." she seems confused. Kon joins the ship sailing around the ocean of confusion as he watches what is transpiring, "What?" Also Void is kind of creepy.

Jeffrey squeezes his hand, rolls his neck, as he looks at the shrugged off vest. "Desert." There is a slight grin ghosting his features. The possibility of land war. Maybe the fight on the cruise ship has lingered with him. Then, he turns towards the same direction in which Void looks. "So what do you got for us then, Machine Goddess?" A bit casual perhaps, but still deathly earnest. The job doth call, as it were.

She turns to Kon, "The most prominent thing in his mind, that which he most readily gave up were coordinates that make no sense to me. We have no installations in that region of Africa, nor is there any known civilization with a city there. It is, for lack of a better term, the middle of nowhere." she turns back to the hanging torso, "And he seems to be sending a small signal, a simple string o-" red lights and a soft claxon sounds then and she turns to eye them, "I've made an error." she says as Spartan's torso seems to come alive. Small vent like lids pop up on it's shoulders and pink light flickers to life behind the cracked 'glass' of it's facial dome, and even the twisted metal of it's chest armor moves, snapping to the side, opening, and showing an array of very small bullet sized nodules. "Run." she says to Kon and Siege.

The word never fully escapes her mouth before dozens of tiny rockets flying in random directions explode and rock the lab in blossoming fireballs that rip the tools and robots that inhabit it apart, turning them all into small bits of hurtling shrapnel. Before the pure unchecked full power energy blast of Spartan's usually toned down eye beams lances out in all of it's pink fury in a straight line hot and potent enough to vaporize steel and slag titanium. Before an expanding force field of energy bubbles out like a great pink wall, traveling at the speed of an exceptionally fast moving car, crumpling floor, ceiling, and anything unlucky enough to be caught in it's path.

The violence last only a fraction of a second before it's over, and in the smoke and debris, after the deafening roar of destruction, the torso of Spartan lays at the bottom of a spherical 'force field' made crater, the majority of it is a puddle, slagged during the uncheck output of energy that far exceeded it's design parameters. A melted wax mockery of the torso they fought so hard to bring back, ticks and tinks as it cools, the super heated glowing metal slowly turning dull gray and lifeless once more.

Any kind of response Kon is about to have towards Void, Siege or Rose and the decision he was over-ruled in even after tossing out a very 'stylish' Picard imitation. Bullet time occurs for the Kryptonian and he is moving in what is to him almost like slow motion but Siege will be grabbed and jerked out of the room along with Void at speeds impossible to attain unless you're Kryptonian status or similar (unless they somehow beat him to the punch and find their own way to escape the sudden rocket barrage inspired explosion). Super is as super does.

"So yeah... and then that happened."

Siege doesn't hear it initially, and perhaps that is why he is a little late drawing upon the floor of the lab...only to be picked up by Superboy and unceremoniously dumped outside of the lab. Which is a fortunate occurrence, because shifting and /then tunneling out may have cost precious seconds. He exhales hard, lifting up his....oh. His cigar has been unceremoniously snuffed and cauterized. Spartan owes him beg for this. Two attempted homicides and the loss of a cigar. Oh, and this Hellspont guy. Because fuck that guy. He cracks his knuckles, makes sure he has all his fingers and toes, and then looks over at Kon. "Should be the motto for this team. Bit long for a shirt though. Also, now we kind of know where to go to kick the fucking door in." He breathes again, thumping his chest and...yeah, that isn't supposed to be spit out. Probably bit his tongue or something, unlucky bastard. "'Sides...nothing says you're a badass like springing the other guys trap. We'll have a new Spartan soon enough, and he thinks we've either been annihilated or a bit screwed. Don't worry Kon, we /got/ this." Optimism, gotta have it every now and again, right?

"I am gone for almost three weeks and you've already managed to blow up part of my home." says a familiar and seemingly bored voice, "Connor, I assume you have a very good re-" pause, "Siege is it? You're on fire." says the hologram of a rather handsome fella in a white suit as it appears in the hall. A finger extends, pointing at the small licking flames on Siege's elbow. "So." he looks almost mournfully into the wreckage of the lab, "What did I miss?"

Holograms don't need saving. Kon isn't even sure why he made the attempt; instinctual probably or just simplicity. He's a poster child for blunders. No words to be spoken in response to Siege or the exploding lab, his body and reactions may be moving at superhuman speeds even his awareness to keep up with it all but his actual mind and thought about the entire ordeal is eons behind.

"Uh, I..."

Jack/Spartan's voice has Superboy spinning about and springing to snatch up Spartan in a very un-macho yet macho supermanbearhug. "Spartan! You're back." Mind blown. Kon is just here now and completely out of focus. Something about Africa and smashing Helsponts face.

Spartan eyes Conner as he throws his arms around-and through-the hologram. "Okay." Spartan says before stepping through Kon and out the back of him to stare at the smoking ruin of his lab once more, "Appreciated, but I think hugging yourself is a sign of madness." he turns back around to eye the pair, "Siege, we've never met, however your file is being downloaded to me as we speak. I can see why you were approached. Welcome aboard. And Conner..." he offers a smile, "I will be up and fully operational once the final start up is complete on the new me. I take a while to warm up, but once I'm going I never sleep." which is true. "But don't hug that one either. It's new and we don't want it all bent out of shape. You ding it, you buy it."

"Not the first time, won't be the last." Siege groans. Though usually, he's a lot more fireproof in these situations. He does manage to put himself out. "You must be the one who is supposed to be signing my checks. I'd shake, but you sort of aren't real at the moment. Also, thanks. Hope you get what you are paying for." Also, the robot tried to put his hand through Jeff's skull last time. Yet bygones be bygones though, right? "As for the lab...lets just say we needed some information and old you, or whoever tampered with it objected to that. So rockets and lasers all round." He remarks dryly, dusting himself off. You'd figure a terrakinetic would be less fastidious about such things. He doesn't say anything about Conner's attempts at hugging. We've all had days like that.

"Hologram Spartan... yeah... I meant to do that, just combat testing is all. Seems to meet expected standards of intangibility." Twice in one day! Superboy really is getting this whole technology thing down. Standing there patting himself down he releases a grunt and straightens up. "Yeah, what he said." Siege more or less summed it up.

Spartan is quiet for a moment as he seems to absorb all of this, then his expression hardens, "Helspont." the word is hissed through his teeth with such venom as to make one think holographic acid would begin to eat the floor. "Void!" the woman shimmers into exsistance, "Maximum armament on the chassis, call in the team. All of the team." he turns to Conner, "We leave in an hour, after I am fully operational. See to it as many of the others as can be are gathered. I need to... catch up." and then he's gone, simply vanished from sight. Something in his expression wasn't like him though, it wasn't normal. It was rage and hate things Spartan's never shown before, not even the smallest inkling of. Something primal etched into a face made of advanced evolved technology.

"Uh, aye aye, cap'n?" Kon says before Spartan blinks out of sight. "He's angry, this should be fun. I'll team gathered. Sounds like we're going to Africa." No more words spared the young man is already on his way to assemble the rest of Stormwatch for Operation: Payback.

Jeff looks morosely at the remnants of his cigar before he flicks the cigar away, grinding it out with his boot. The resistance is fractional. He shrugs as if to say 'you heard the man'. "Gathering the chief doesn't act like that often." He seems pensive maybe a bit concerned, but its easily brushed away. When the client says jump, he shall ask how high. "I'm going to see what ya'll got in the way of munitions. Rose isn't the only one who appreciates a good gun or sharp pointy thing." Also, its quantifiable things. Resurrected super robots, alien warlords, this is all getting a bit heavy for him. "See ya on the other side, Kid Steel."