7947/Got Them Digits

Got Them Digits
Date of Scene:	23 September 2021
Location:	SR-77 Blackbird
Synopsis:	Following a the digits from Remy's call to Rogue, a few of Xavier's baddest of the badasses (The WOMEN of course) get one step closer to finding the Cajun.
Cast of Characters:	Remy LeBeau, Kitty Pryde, Rogue, Jean Grey, Negasonic

---

Remy LeBeau has posed:
    There's a lead to follow. That's the good news. The bad news is that said lead? Well it leads directly to the front door of a U.S. Senator. Perhaps a bit of a complication. How exactly does one corner a Senator *alone* to squeeze information out of him?

    It's a question to be proposed and answered on the way, isn't it? Still about half an hour out, just enough time for just such planning and for exchanges of information to happen.

    The Senator, by the way, resides in Boulder in a luxury, secure, penthouse apartment.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde had prepared a briefing before the Blackbird took off. It had all sorts of graphics, and truth be told she'd been watching Leverage lately and was borrowing a bit from Hardison's style.

"So Remy was abducted on Sept 1st, outside of a bar in Hell's Kitchen," she had said while the screen played video from a store across the street from the bar. "He was hit in the neck with a tranquilizer dart. These two men grabbed him and pulled him into the van that pulls up," she says.

Another window zoomed to maximize on the screen, showing various photos of one of the two men. "The ugly one on the left we have identified as one Ralph Sorenson. He has connections to the slave trade," Kitty said as the screen displayed what is known about him and more detail given on his connections.

"So," Kitty continued, "Remy made a call to Rogue before he was interrupted. The number led me back to Albert Westford, the US Senator from Colorado. I did more digging to try to find what he might be up to. He's on one or two watch lists, suspected of connections to Hydra. Now I don't know if he's actually Hydra or if they have gotten to him. Or even if the intel is correct," Kitty explained. "Could be it's wrong or he was being coerced. We should keep our eyes open on this one. But, he was obviously connected. Potentially we could be looking at Hydra kidnapping mutants. Though, that's just one possible scenario that fits what we have so far. So, I figure it's time to head to Colorado and see if we can get some answers. Hopefully without tipping our hand too much."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue hadn't been pleased about any of this. After she had found out about Remy's abduction she'd had her fears answered. She hadn't seen him since August and this was explaining why.

Now Kitty was explaining the How...

Dressed in one of the generic black X-Men jumpsuits, Rogue has it unzipped down over a white tanktop she's wearing beneath it, her gloved hands crossed over her stomach through the briefing. "This is nuts." She says after hearing what all Kitty had laid out. "How does this kinda crap keep happenin' to us? Can't we go even a month without somethin' like this goin' down?"

She huffs out a sigh and uncrosses her arms before she adjsuts the black leather belt around her waist and then takes hold of the zipper on her suit to start to pull it up. "Lets get goin' then. I wanna get some damn answers outta someone, before I punch a hole through someone's stomach..."

Without any further lingering, the Belle turns and starts to walk on booted feet toward the door leading to the Blackbird.

Jean Grey has posed:
"It's pretty bold, just taking him off the street like that." Jean's demeanor, as she sits on the jet, is decidedly less cheerful than usual. In many ways, it reflects the same sentiment Rogue expresses on the topic: How many forms of mutant kidnapping have they dealt with in the last year? How much do they have to put up with? It all speaks to patience wearing thin, and forgiveness likewise. Still, she had kindness for her friends, reassuring Rogue: "We'll find him."

Like her teamate, she's dressed for a mission, with her typical light body armor worn over the more skintight underlying layer. Broadly speaking, it doesn't even matter WHAT she wears, but there's a familiarity to it.

Otherwise, her attention stays with the rest of Kitty's briefing as it goes into greater detail. "I can't say I'm thrilled having to get involved with all of this stuff, the government, espionage, Hydra, SHIELD? But I suppose it's inevitable if they can't keep from hassling us." She shakes her head. "Well, we'll find out whatever he knows."

Aside from supporting one of her closest friends, that highlights another reason she's along, the ultimate backup if it turns out the Senator isn't in the mood to share what he knows.

Negasonic has posed:
Ellie doesn't like very many people, so when one of the few she actually like goes missing? There's ain't a whole lot that could stop her from being involved in finding him. Not that she knows very much about a HYDRA or where to find one, what she does know a lot about is sneaking around. Which is precisely how she got aboard the Jet.

Wearing her usual clothes, she'd boarded while everyone was off doing other things and crawled into one of the bench seat compartments with a bag of cheetos and a few Capri Suns. And of course her phone. Which she used to keep herself entertained until the food stuff ran out about 10 minutes into the flight.

That is literally the only reason she gets out of her hidey hole: To go to the galley area to grab some more food. At this point it's too late to send her back anyays, so she doesn't even try to hide. "Sup." Up nodding to Kitty and Rogue and Jean. Plopping down in a seat near the trio with a water bottle and one of those neutrigrain bars.

Despite her reasons for being here, that she actually gave a crap, she plays it off as just a casual thing that she'd stowed away. "It keeps happening to us because flatliners are stupid. It's like Akira.. they try to weaponize anything and everything. They literally tought the chess master program how to analytically /cheat/ to win. That is the resolve of humans. If they'll teach a program to cheat to weaponize it, they've long since stopped giving a fuck about kidnapping us."

Remy LeBeau has posed:
    The trip itself is uneventful, of course. But decisions as to where to land and what to do once landed might prove a momentary problem considering the Senator's home being in the middle of the city.

    ...then there's the what to do once there? Break down the door? Hold a gun to his head? The building, once they reach it, is a towering fifteen stories and the penthouse, of course, is on the top floor. It's not unlikely that the man has personal security, definitely staff milling about, family? Yes, he has family, two kids and a wife. The right decisions should make this an easy in and out, the wrong ones? Well, it could turn this information quest into raging inferno of a mess.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde commiserates with the others. "Was a bit of a flashback for me, seeing him get tranq'd," Kitty says, remembering when she was nabbed by cohorts of Emma Frost. That Emma got caught up in it as well didn't make it sit any better with her, of course.

Kitty works one of the consoles in the plane, and is about to say something, when Ellie strolls past. Her presence draws a surprised look, but it quickly passes into a chuckle and a shaking of Kitty's head. She doesn't remark further other than to give Negasonic a head nod back.

The Jewish girl goes back to what she was doing, and soon one of those wireframe models of the fifteen story building comes up. "He's got the penthouse," she says, rotating the building to show the layout from each side.

Kitty looks to the others. "So what are we thinking here? Land elsewhere and get some transportation to the building? Put the plane on hover and fly down? If we get near to it I can check if they have wireless networks I can get into. And, well, Jean has ways after all?"

Rogue has posed:
Rogue got in to the pilot's chair and had the jet up in mere moments out of the long runway tunnel toward the water exit of the hangar under Breakstone Forest. Once in the air, the Belle performed the speed-boosting maneuver known as the 'Dipsy Doodle' causing the Blackbird to go in to super sonic speeds at very high altitude. Its a downward maneuver that slopes back upward like a roller coaster ride, and it leaves long streaks of green in the sky from the Triethylborane enriched fuel that the jet uses.... not great for stealth but its sure great for speed!

During the flight she's mostly quiet and keeps her eyes on the controls before she looks over to Jean and just shakes her head. "I feel bad too, part of me anyway. I figured he just ran off with some other gal, or ya know... long standing party boat or something. But nope..." She looks back to the controls. "Adultnapped. By... whatever the hell HYDRA is."

It's not her best subject of knowledge.

When Ellie appears, Rogue looks back at her with a surprised expression but then softens some... too late to do anything about it anyway.

"You... got another one'a those?" The Belle asks of the Nutri-grain bar, then looks back to the controls.

"I say we just land the bird on the roof='a this place. It'll save time." Rogue says while controlling the jet in toward Colorado. "What is with this State and weird shit bein' always the center of it..." She mutters too.

Jean Grey has posed:
Jean is the one person who doesn't look surprised when Ellie emerges, but that sort of goes to figure. It leaves a handful of questions to be considered: how long did she know? And why didn't she do anything? Any answer is bound to the realms of speculation. But they've been working on expanding the training program and perhaps knowing how strongly the normally closed-off teen felt was part and parcel with knowing she was there in the first place.

They all have to start somewhere.

As for Ellie's analysis? Perhaps the biggest surprise is that she doesn't have a Charles Xavier-esque quote to bring out in argument against it. For the moment, her silence is a kind of agreement with the notion.

---

"There's no way you could have known what happened, that it wasn't any one of those things," she quickly reminds Rogue, later in the flight as they've made their rapid flight across the country. "He's always been like that, coming and going as he likes and vanishing for extended periods. The fact that you're both people who enjoy your freedom, that you can give him the space, is probably the reason you work together." It's a break in her otherwise grim demeanor, to offer her friend a bit of reassurance. As for the plan of action?

"There's all kinds of ways to do this subtly, but I don't think we're in a position to take a more roundabout approach to this. If we get other transportation, it's time we spend in the area, chance of tipping someone off if he's got people working for him." However, Rogue's outright boldness earns a certain smirk. "I don't know if the building is rated to support the jet, he have a helipad or something? But we could put it on auto, like Kitty suggested. Go in quick from above."

Negasonic has posed:
Ellie was unaware Jean was there. She should have figured, and probably did, so it's fairly safe to assume she'd have snuck aboard regardless. Truth is, she really is closed off. Taking an initiative is growth and denying her helping could set back several years worth of progress. If anything, it's a kudos to Jean's silent teaching method.. but it never really occurs to the teenager.

Who instead holds out another nutrigrain bar to Rogue.

"Like six, yeah." Because she took all of them.

One step forward, two steps back. At least it was just snacks though?

"Got to keep your energy up when you're going to interrogate a Senator of the United States who likely has secret service protecting his estate." Munch, slurp, swallow. Leave it to the kid to point the gravity of the situation right? "What's a little casual terrorism, right?"

Remy LeBeau has posed:
    Rooftop entry doesn't seem to be the worst way to go. At least it doesn't appear that there's anyone posted up there standing guard. The penthouse spans the entire upper level of the building. Four bodies present inside, should heat signatures be checked, none of them small enough to be a child; either Westford's kids are teenagers or they're not home.

    Any mental scans of those inside would easily enough reveal general surface thoughts, those of a bored trophy wife, one of a man who hates his job or at least his current assignment, one that shares the assignment but is dedicated and loyal to a fault and the last that must be Westford himself. That's a mind tangled with twisted greedy thoughts of money and power and how to achieve more of both.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
"Yes, Professor would probably be upset if we punctured a tire or broke a landing strut having it fall through the roof," Kitty agrees about landing on the penthouse roof. "So, aerial insertion then?" she says, checking with the others.

Shadowcat checks her gear quickly. She's in her X-men uniform, and Lockheed rises to his feet from where he was curled up in a seat by himself for the flight. He flaps over and lands on her shoulder as Kitty runs a thermal scan. "Well, doesn't seem he's likely here, unless it's elsewhere in the building. So information gathering then," she says, a glance over to Rogue is sympathetic. "We'll get him back, AM," she tells her friend. "No reason for you to have thought anything of not hearing from him. Don't put it on yourself."

Rogue has posed:
The Jet is put in to hover mode and stealth field is activated to keep it nice and dark in the sky just above the building they've flown half way across the country to find. Rogue stands up then and takes the offered energy bar from Ellie with a quick smile. "Hey, this guy is as nasty as they come, if only we could expose that to the rest'a the country too... maybe he'd... ya know, get sent to one'a those vacation prisons." She says with a clear level of disdain.

Moving along with the others toward the exit, Rogue keys it open and takes a bite out of the energy bar. "Well, lets try and be swift with this one... especially so if this place might have bunches of secret trip wires and alarms'n shit..."

She looks back to the others and offers Ellie a hand to help her get down to the building safely, should she so desire it, a nice lovely ride down to the roof top via Rogue-air-lines.

Jean Grey has posed:
As the plane goes into hover and they approach the exit, Jean takes a pause, touching a hand to her temple in the familiar gesture of psychic concentration as she takes stock of those present below.

"I don't sense him on the premises," she admits, with a touch of disappointment indicating that she's talking about the person they're out to rescue rather than the one they're looking to interrogate. "Seems like it's just the Senator, his wife, and two others, secret service or other security. At least on the top floor. I'll try and keep them unaware."

Approaching the back ramp of the Blackbird, open over the gulf of air beyond is almost a too-casual activity. She just steps out, and hangs there in the open sky, before rotating back. Since Rogue scoops up Negasonic, she extends a gentle telekinetic force toward Kitty, just enough so that she can feel it and know that Jean has her.

And then she drops, more quickly. There's no reason to risk exposure loitering about in mid-air, a position that is fairly high up on the scale of 'unusual things that make people call news stations' if any random bystander should happen to notice them. With whatever schematics Kitty pulled up before, she floats down toward the most likely rooftop access; they could force their own, but again, it's a matter of how much of a splash they want to make, and how much evidence they'll leave behind.

Negasonic has posed:
"Whatever." Ellie pushes up from her seat as Rogue approaches offering a ride down to the roof. With a clipped nod, she accepts the hand helping her up onto Rogue's back for the short trip down to the roof of the target house. Popping her jacket a little once they land, she reaches for her phone in her pocket and scrolls the screen with a flick of her thumb. "Since we're here already, you think it'd be cool if I use their wi-fi?"

What on earth she could possibly need wi-fi for...

"Pretty sure we can get the floor plans for the house off the state website. They have to upload these things-" Super quiet clicks of her thumbs tapping the screen as she expertly navigates the interface, the website, and finally she gives a brisk nod. "Got it." Widening the image with spreading thumb and index finger. "I could get into this..." Pointing out at the air conditioning vent. "Slip down into his office and do a karate chop to the back of his neck to knock him out."

Casual, dismissive even, tone as she glances at older gals.

She pantomimes the chop.

"Like that."

Remy LeBeau has posed:
    One moment he's on a call, speaking *Russian*, the next Westford is on the floor in his office out like a light. Good job ELLIE! Go girl! The commotion of the fall and maybe the young Mutant actually getting excited about the win draws a bit of unwanted attention though.

    Do they all dress like that? Like straight from the MiB movies? All black suits and those little wired buds in their ears? This one does. Shadowcat better be on her game, lest Ellie wind up with a few new bullet holes.

    It's minor inconvenience really, getting the Senator out of his home wasn't too terribly difficult and it's unlikely anyone was recognized in the chaos of it.

    A cheap hotel room, pay by the hour, no questions and the Senator himself brought in through a back entrance, it works. It's what Remy would have done, so it's fitting. He's just now coming around, bound to a chair by whatever means the girls thought feasible. Why? Because taking him on board the jet, likely NOT a good idea.

    A groan, a moan, a fluttering of the eyes. It'll be seconds now before the man's aware of his surroundings.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde had briefly proposed blindfolding him, though a glance to Jean was all Kitty needed to know there were better methods of concealing their identity from the Senator.

"I dropped a signal booster on the roof. Will work on their network while you guys handle this," Shadowcat says as she moves around behind the Senator before he wakes, and starts in on all the devices and computers connected to the Senator's network back at home, with the Blackbird helping relay the signal to them.

Kitty chews on her lip as she works her way into the pethouse's wifi-enabled refrigerator. Which didn't even really take any hacking. The password for the model was cracked and on the dark web within a few days of it first coming out. She shakes her head at the shoddy security which lets her into the Senator's computer without even needing to run any of her hacking algorithms.

Jean Grey has posed:
Technically, there are less injurious ways to make them unconscious.

Nonetheless, Jean does not argue with 'karate chop them in the head' part of plan. Sometimes people need to wake up with a swollen lump on the back of their heads, and it's more field experience for Negasonic. That said, the woman holds tighter control over things than she lets on, in their heads from the moment she first detects them. She keeps the wife oblivious, distracted by some idle thought that already holds her interest. The guards she doesn't make totally oblivious because everything works a little more smoothly if they get to keep most of their own memories. Less trauma, less trips to therapists about missing hours and frightening gaps in memory. When they come rushing in, it's to deal with a mundane threat drawn from their own minds: business (or criminal?) rivals of the Senator. Hydra goons. Communists. FBI corruption probes. ANTIFA. Whoever THEY fear, whoever they expect to see bust in when a quiet night goes sideways, that's who they see, ripped from their own subconscious and projected back at them.

It's also probably needless to say there's zero chance of them actually shooting anyone. To use the metaphor, Jean's finger hovers on the mental 'off' switch. A part of her reflects on how easy all of this could be.

--

When the Senator returns to consciousness, it might be accurate to say he never gets quite all the way back. Suffering from the disturbed nightmares of someone sent to slumber through violence, when he makes his return, she holds him at the threshold of full awareness of his surroundings, so that reality still feels something like a dream. He can see the hotel room, and he can see them, but again, they're all cast as dreamlike figures from his own mind.

To Rogue, who gets the 'honors' of the interrogation proper, she explains: "Go ahead and ask him whatever you want, get him talking. It will help me get at whatever truth is underneath." Perhaps, they're Hydra agents, and he's been subjected to some post-Nazi, post-KGB truth serum. So Rogue will question, while Jean mentally ransacks him, working backward from whatever pops up in his subconscious reactions to the questioning.

Rogue has posed:
With the Senator in position now, Rogue looks over to Ellie and nods softly to her once. "Nicely done." She says with a quick smirk before she looks to Kitty and Jean. "Dream team, I say this group is." She tells them all before she approaches the Senator now.

Rogue stands in front of him then and puts her gloved hands upon her hips. Once she gets the go ahead from Jean she just shakes her head side to side at the man.

"Where's Remy LeBeau?" She just asks him outright. "Some'a your goons took'im and we're here t'get'im back. So, do yourself a favor and fess up to it here'n now, fast'n easy and this'll all just be like a bad dream that ya get t'wake up from."

Rogue takes a step forward then and puts her boot on the edge of his chair between his thighs with a thud. "Play games with us? And this dream is gonna get way way worse..."

Negasonic has posed:
Kitty phases her down into the office where Senator Ke-err, Westford, is speaking Comrad. Ellie doesn't crouch or go all Splinter Cell. She casually walks the distance to the back of his seat and snaps her hand down on his carotid with enough force to knock him lean tf out. He slumps over in his seat, phone dangling from his grip. Just as casually she leans over and grabs the phone, puts it to her ear, and murmurs, "V telefone net makaron, perezvonite noyabr'..." She doesn't try to be intimidating, an award winning action movie star she is not.

After hanging up, she slips the phone into her pocket so as not to leave evidence, does a quiet little upper cut style fist pump, and eyes Kitty. "Star Trek." Indicating where she learned to do the chop manuever.

"Fuck Star Wars."

The escape is a lot less harrowing than it could be. Kitty phases through walls and they have a highly advanced stealth grade Jet hovering above to escape in... so shortly enough they're in a pay by the hour hotel room with a captured senator. She's sitting in one of the threadbare arm chairs with her cellphone up casting a dull glow on her face. With her contribution contributed, she's fulfilled any morale obligations with regards to getting Remy back.

She can instagram guilt free now.

Feeling cute, might kidnap a Senator.

Remy LeBeau has posed:
    Westford makes a first attempt at words and it comes out all garbled like a mouth filled with marbles. His second attempt is better than the first with, "Remy what?" That rings true, seems he doesn't recognize that name.

    It only takes a second for him to become haughty and indignant in the face of it all though. "Do you know who I am?! All of you will rot in jail for this." Seems even in his 'dreams' the man's full of himself.

    ...but in the back of his mind his thoughts are racing. Who are these people? What do they want? I can't have anything to do with the mountains? Remy, is that *his* name? Cajun, the one that took my phone? Subject 0023? They said they caught him before he did anything with it.

    No doubt now, the Senator is in the middle of the bed with whoever it is that has Remy.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
The security on the database actually is pretty well done. Clearly whoever is behind it put some time and effort into it. But when the good Senator uses a password protected Excel spreadsheet to hold his passwords, that security layer doesn't really do the database any good.

Kitty is reviewing files on her phone, standing behind the Senator so he won't know what she's up to, or even that she's there yet. She resorts to skimming, but once she finds a thread relevant to Remy the connections between files and entries lets her start digging into some meat.

She looks up and over to the others, and sends her thoughts to the group via Jean. <<There is a project called X Soldat that is connected to Remy. Though they are not referring to him by name. That's German for X Soldier. There's something about power amplification here too. I'll keep digging.>>

Jean Grey has posed:
Telpathy is a powerful tool, although to those who don't use it, it can be a very abstract one. Terms like mind-reading, brainwashing, and psychic surgery are all crude simplifications of complex and alien processes into familiar terms. But the human mind is vast and almost incomprhensibly complex. Three pounds of organic matter store a lifetime of experiences and knowledge. All of which is to say: for all the fancy terminology, finding what you want can be hard. There is discipline and technique behind those powerful outcomes.

Working from Rogue's stimuli, Jean expands single thoughts into their context, follows threads that represent both conceptual groupings and physical neural links: the mountains. Images, memories. Wider context. Subject 0023. An index in a larger whole. See the scope, the bigger picture. Refine, via Kitty's input: Subject 0023, Project X Soldat. Mutant abilities. Purpose. Weapnization? (Does that echo from Negasonic, earlier?)

In a way, Jean is in two places at once, in the hotel room and on this mental journey. "Ask him about the mountain," she tells Rogue, speaking aloud. In his dreams, their speech is more ominous. "Yes, we know about the mountain. This will go easier if you're just honest with us." Maybe it's not just what she's doing in his mind. Her voice sounds a little scary for realsies. "Is that where the X Soldat program subjects are being contained?"

Negasonic has posed:
Every here and there, Ellie glances over at the Senator putting on his big boy voice, but she's got confidence in Rogue and Jean to get him talking. Which leaves her with plenty of time to fiddle around in her seat. She is not, at least not usually, an anxious person. Not fidgety or full of energy. If anything, she seems permanently drained.

Once she's slammed a few people on twitter, down voted an anti-mutant post so far you couldn't find it on Myspace, and watched a youtube video on how easily clean black eyeliner out of white sheets, she gets bored. Head laid back on the seat cushion... fingers drumming her tattered black jeans.

Another scroll of her thumb brings up the app store until she catches the app she's looking for and downloads it. Popping up from the seat in the moment that it finishes, she throws the comforter back to cast a purple lit glow across the sheets in long sweeping motions of her hands.

"Holy fuck den... It's like a sex worker crime scene in here." She murmurs, not quite loud enough to be intrusive, but this is a motel room, so it's not exactly spacious. "How did they get on the wall..." Sounding absolutely... well not disgusted, so much as casually interested. A couple tissues cover her fingers when she moves the trashy painting above the headboard to one side so she can shine the light across the wall behind.

"It's on the /back/ of the painting... This is why humans are doomed, this. This right here. Someone... these mother fuckers need Jesus."

Rogue has posed:
Rogue glances around at the others with her on this mission, three people she trusts more than really anyone else out there, except ... wait, does she trust Remy? Sorta? It's complicated.

She looks back to the Senator and just keeps her foot where it is for now. "Yeah, LeBeau." She repeats. "Soldat Cajun, whatever helps ya pull those memories outta that degenerate strewn minefield ya got up there..."

A glance is given to Jean before Rogue looks back to the man. "What mountain?" She asks then. "What's this mountain place? This where ya got one'a your weird mansions that ya do your creepy shit at?" She further asks before jamming her heavy boot forward against his crotch.

"Spill it, Scumbag, before we drown your ass in the city sewers that ya hide your dead enemies in."

Remy LeBeau has posed:
    Westford's mind's eye flashes to the day... that day, the day Remy took his phone. It was only the third time he'd been there in as many months. Definitely a lab, but the details are a little fuzzy as mind's are wont to be sometimes. Two others, in - not exactly cells, more like small pods, barely room to sit down in let alone lie down - but Remy's the focus of the day. He's restrained on a table. A woman stands at his head.

    Voices...

    A man, Westford maybe? Sounds like, "I thought you said you could control him?"
    The woman, "He's not making it easy. I'm so sick of static and him singing 'I'm a Little Tea Pot' that I could scream. I don't know how he's doing it, but it's like he's hiding the important things away."
    "Well, try *harder*. None of this does any good if he's still *him* when we're done."

    The memory sort of pans out... out... out... to show the mountain range known as 'The Rockies'. Mt. Elbert... the name of the largest of its peaks flashes bright and clear.

    "I don't know what you're talking about!" No longer all arrogance and bravado, more scared. He's more scared of the people he'd be ratting out than he is of Rogue and the others.

    More racing thoughts. I knew we shouldn't have trusted that fucker. Figured he'd pull in an asset that would be *missed*. But that kid's the best we've had yet. If he doesn't wind up dead like the rest of them before the process is finished.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde keeps an ear on the conversation, not privy to what Jean is reading from his mind, but then Kitty has own avenues of investigation to address.

A section with a lot of medical details gets a quick glance and downloaded for forwarding to Hank. Though Kitty gets a few things out of it. <<Using viruses to affect the mutant gene. Ah, be careful how you word things or he's going to figure out his mind is being read.>>

She goes back to digging deeper, trying to find more hard information within the database. More of the medical files lead to a series of reports. <<It looks like reports are being sent to someone code named Dr. Frankenstein. They seem to be authorizing the experiments so some kind of higher up.>>

Kitty stops sending her thoughts as she starts watching a video of Remy in a cell. Though after watching a bit of it, <<Crap, I think they are using holograms to manipulate them. Don't know if they are actual hard light yet or not. Hope not.>>

Jean Grey has posed:
In his mind, Jean continues her exploration, isolating details, expanding thhem in their fractal complexity, pruning the useless.

The woman. Jean regards her in greater detail, a construct of memory built through the filter of his eyes. For all that they'll deny it, men like the Senator tend to have a good memory for women, even if their view isn't always flattering. She also allows herself a little smirk: good on Remy, exercising some mental defense drills.

Outward. The mountain. A detail she files away, the imagery as he experiences it, and shuffles the more pertintent basics across to Kitty. << This might be where they're working from, Mt. Elbert in the rockies. That's serious terrain, though, I imagine any facility would be pretty well hidden. >>

There, in the room, she walks a short ways, closer to Rogue, though drifting in such a way that she circles behind the chair. "I don't think he understands who we are," she says in what is that same mildly ominous voice. "Don't think he's taking this seriously. He's still holding something back."

There are other tricks she can apply, some of them verging on cruel. Fear is a very basic, physiological response. It has intellectual constructs layered over it, but they're only filters, only human attempts to control the primal. She plays with those, amplifying existing anxieties, sidlining coping mechanisms, and refocusing everything the other woman, the more immediate, present, physical threat bearing down on him.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue is aware of Ellie's searching the room, which is another great reason to always have a set of gloves on-hand.

She looks to Kitty who speaks of holograms and more strange shit that is tough for the Belle to sort through in this moment, before she watches Jean move around the man's chair.

"We should take him with us." Rogue says to Jean then. "We can bring him back here once he's shown us the way." She says quietly, but obviously loud enough for everyone to hear, including the man in the chair himself.

"I don't want t'play these kinda games any more. Time is of the essence, Remy's bein' put through hell for this prick's sick governmental games. I'm tired of the crooked sonsabitches doin' this kinda thing."

In fact, she's getting more angry now and when Jean speaks of him not taking this seriously, Rogue pushes her foot up and kicks him and his chair over to slam down on to the floor. "I'll drag his ass to these mountains if I gotta."

Remy LeBeau has posed:
    And there's the truth of it, it might have to just be the way Rogue wants it to be, because Westford? He knows *where* the place is and yes, it's in those mountains, on that range, but as far as telling them how to get there?

    "Okay, Okay! I'll show you!"

    Did the man just piss himself? It smells like he pissed himself? There's another stain for Ellie to examine?

    His mind, still racing. They'll kill me if I do, but I'll die if I don't. I'll figure a way out of it before. Yeah, I'll escape. I don't know why they think it matters, kid's as good as dead in about four weeks anyway unless they can get the virus to stabilize. Can't tell them that, they'll kill me for sure.

    Take him along, leave him behind and try to find the place via other means? Either way, Westford's probably given all of use he has to give.

Jean Grey has posed:
As the man collapses, Jean scourges his final thoughts for everything of value, those things that race to the surface in self-preservation...

...and then she flips the off switch, snending him right back out. Because they have some business to handle. Everything of value, like those last details on the virus, she passes on to Kitty to put with everything they've compiled, although those particulars are really for Hank.

"Being pragmatic, I don't think we can take him, or even hold on to him much longer. This is already a very serious federal offense, and no matter what sort of scumbag he is, if we hold on to him, it won't be long before people come looking. Not his people, but the US Government. SHIELD." She looks down at his fallen form, contemptuously. "We drop him back off, and- who knows. Maybe he thinks this way a bad dream, or maybe he realizes something happened, but he won't be able to put the pieces together, or do much about it if he does. At least not via official channels. What's he going to tell them?"

Jean shakes her head, and then, with a little gesture, jerks the chair back upright and starts undoing the knots with her mind. Because she's not making ANY of them suffer the indignity of touching him, at this point.

"We have a general location and we can use other tools to do the rest. Get some satellite intel off our allies, or even use Cerebro to pinpoint the mutant minds. Or I-" Could just do it herself? "-can probably manage, if we get closer."

For now? They have an unconscious and mildly damp Senator to drop off.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue's desire to take the man with them was born out of her desire to get to Remy as quickly as possible. She knows he's being tortured wehrever it is that they're keeping him, and the thought of getting it 'wrong' and having to do more and more research to locate the right place?

It just makes Rogue huff a frustrated exhale as she turns around while Jean goes to righting the man and freeing him from his binds.

Rogue goes over to where Ellie is. "Start lookin' at those mountains would ya?" She asks the teenager with her phone. "See if ya can find anything online connected t'this bastard and those areas?" She asks the kid, to give her something more to do than look at funny funk from the years and years of this places' history.

"I'll go bring the Jet around and we can get this sack'a shit back to his penthouse..." Rogue starts toward the door then and unless stopped she's out and up in to the air without much more than the slightest whisper of wind in her wake.

Remy LeBeau has posed:
    Of course there's no big breaking news story about a Senator being kidnapped. Hell, he even smooths it all over as some sort of practical joke played by his former Frat Bros. He can't *afford* to let anything get out about any of this even if he does remember it.

    So, the Senator makes it home and tries to pretend it was all a dream, tries to not look over his shoulder every second, waiting for those three terrifying women to snatch him up again. He says nothing to the other end either, nothing to HYDRA, because that would mean certain death.

    ...and in the end, he was too weak to bite down on the capsule in his rear molar, the one that's supposed to be the end of any threat of HYDRA secrets being revealed.

    Somewhere in the Rockies, along Mt. Elbert, Remy LeBeau's switched it up a little bit. That telepath will rue the day. She'll be singing Mahna Mahna in her head for the rest of her days by the time she gets finished trying to completely break that Swamp Rat.