(( OOC: continued from Flower Shop, a couple of days later.

Action is at one of the mutant processing centers, doesn't matter where exactly, where mutants were tagged before being sent to the Camps. It's still active, though the throughput rate has dropped dramatically since the first few days.

Sonya is wearing the body of Tony Faraguzzi, an IT specialist who consults for the police department. Tony and his wife Elaine are in their apartment, heavily sedated; I'm not bothering to do the "Sonya KOs two unarmed normal humans" scene on-camera. No details about Tony's body unless somebody really wants them; he's a one-shot. ))

Sonya/Tony takes a deep breath as he walks past the two guards on outside duty, past the single Stalker perched idly near the gates, and casually through the metal detectors, glad she'd left her guns stashed elsewhere though feeling increasingly naked without them. She shows "his" badge and ID to the security guard, then stops for a retinal-pattern check with just a little bit of grumbling, before retrieving her cellphone and moving on past the lobby.

You aren't going to hurt my wife, are you? The voice is tentative in the back of her mind, but nevertheless startling... she's not used to her templates "talking to her" quite so directly. Of course, none of the rest of {them, us, me, you} have anything at stake. Tony's genuinely afraid for his wife. Which is a fair point, she realizes... but she has no intention of hurting him or his wife. And you should know I'm not lying, right?

The grudging silence in her own mind she accepts as agreement, and she settles in to what resembles an ordinary day's work for Toni. Rummaging through his memory retrieves the necessary passwords and procedures more easily than she'd anticipated -- this really does get easier every time she does it, and Toni seems to be cooperating.

It doesn't take very long for her to set up the preliminaries... unfortunately, there's no way to actually initiate the off-site download of the Registered Mutants Database without setting off at least a dozen different tell-tales. Which is where her new partner comes in. A quick trip to the men's room later, she dials Shade's cell-phone number. "OK... I'm ready. Give me two minutes to get into position, then do your thing."

Shade sat on a bus stop bench exactly one block down from the mutant processing center, his invisible eyes staring at the monstrous machine. It was to be his instrument of chaos and confusion. Although the lines were extremely shorter than several months ago, a small cluster of mutants was still being processed. They would just add to the confusion. Other than that, they were just in the way.

As he felt the vibrations of the phone go off in his pocket, Shade quickly answered it. Given the go, the hooded mutant quickly stood and began to make his way towards his target building. On his way, Shade began to make several spots of darkness that would allow him to make a quick escape. He took up a position closer to the building as he talked back to the phone.

"Alright, just wait for the turmoil."

> "Alright, just wait for the turmoil."

"Check." She hangs up the phone, shifts back into Tony's body, and returns to the workstation she was poking at earlier.

Three other employees are sitting in the monitor room, mostly not doing anything. Registrations these days are pretty uneventful... mostly people volunteering themselves, and the occassional evader brought in by police or Stalkers... so there's not a lot for the security forces here to do. Which nobody really complains about; they just take a lot of coffee breaks and draw their paychecks... but, still, they aren't stupid and they aren't asleep.

So Sonya is careful not to do anything out of character for Tony. Instead, she goes through some semblance of a normal routine, and waits for a distraction.

The Stalker robot remained a machine-like stillness as Shade watched the scene. The two minutes of time ticked quickly away as a small amount of fear creeped into the back of Shade's mind.

Why was he suddenly scared? That hulky piece of tin didn't have a chance of catching him. He was a shadow...how do you touch a shadow? The hooded mutant tried to calm himself as the waiting came to a close. Shade pulled himself together as he face set into a stone-cold stare. Moving quickly, Shade moved into a brisk walk as he moved a little off center of the robot. He could already feel the hard blackness of the daggers underneath his hoodie. Taking one last deep breath, Shade pulled the knives from their hiding place and unleashed a fury of five black objects as the spun towards the robot.

Despite having been anticipating it, Sonya/Tony startles when the Processing Center's alarms go off. "Holy #!@#!! We're under attack!" shouts one of the security guards (Oliver, her borrowed memories offer).

Sonya's actually pretty impressed with Oliver... he's clearly frightened out of his skull at the prospect of a mutant riot, but he keeps his head together and starts barking sensible orders almost calmly into a microphone. He even thinks to deploy a defensive detail for the handful of mutants in the registration queue, which Sonya was definitely not expecting.

Not that it's a huge deal, but after dealing with all the undiagnosed psychopaths working at the Camps it's rather nice to know they aren't all like that. Yeah. Of course there's one fewer now that you lot "disappeared" the real Doug. Her mind skitters around that observation -- it's had a lot of experience at that lately -- and she looks around the room quickly to confirm that nobody's paying attention to Tony before initiating the upload.

OK, here goes nothing! She'd worked through the procedures a dozen times with Tony's manuals and memories, and is pleasantly surprised when everything works the way it's supposed to and a progress bar appears on her monitor. "Data transfer in progress... 1%"

Come on, come on, come on! She watches impatiently for what feels like minutes before the indicator ticks over to 2%... then 3%.... then --

"Toni, what the !@#!$ are you doing?" She whirls around to face Oliver standing about three feet behind her, his right hand hovering anxiously near his holster. "Shut that down, right now."

Oh boy. I really need to learn to watch my back. At least this time she'd gotten some warning, rather than just being shot unexpectedly like last time.

"Oh... hey, Oliver. No, no, it isn't what it looks like... I'm just running some diagnostics on the database exchange security interlinks, is all. " She's pretty sure what she just said didn't actually make any sense, but the only person likely to know that for sure was Tony himself. Still, Oliver isn't an idiot, and it's pretty obvious from his expression that he's skeptical about Tony's reasons for doing an unscheduled diagnostic in the middle of a mutant attack.

"Tony, I don't have time to argue with you. I'm telling you, shut whatever you're doing down, or I'll shut it down myself and put you in a holding cell with the mutants until this is sorted out."

Sonya nods slowly, stalling for time. "OK, OK... geez, I'm on your side, remember?" She measures the distance between them, estimating her chances of reaching Oliver before he can draw his weapon. Her first instinct is that there's no chance at all, but she remembers her unexpected kung-fu-fighting moves back at the hospital and wonders. Maybe I could...?

But wherever those moves had come from, they seem to have gone back there... or, at the very least, she can't seem to figure out how to initiate combat more sophisticated than taking a swing at Oliver. And given Tony's embarassing case of swivel-chair spread, Sonya is fairly confident that that will get her nowhere good.

So she turns her back on Oliver and faces the computer, where the progress bar has just ticked over to 5%. OK, genius. Now what?

She hopes her new partner is having more success on the outside part of this mission...

The small grin that had appeared on Shade's face quickly disappeared as the pathetic knives to nothing to the heavy-armored robot. However, that was not the only surprise. The surprising speed of the machine, the animal-like charactistics, this was something Shade had grossly underestimated. Backing away almost in fear, (Almost, Shade told himself) the hooded mutant turned and broke into a run as he knew the machine was on his heels.

Sonya sits down in front of the terminal she was hacking, moving slowly enough to stall for time. "I have to tell you, Oliver, I’m hurt. We’ve been working together how long, now? I thought we trusted each other. Now you’re pulling a gun on me?" She opens up the Construct Query window and messes with it pointlessly for a few seconds, then closes it, mutters something unintelligible, and returns to the main menu.

Meanwhile, Oliver has obviously lost patience, and Sonya decides she’s stalled far enough. 17%, huh? Sorry, Syn, guess you’re going to have to settle -- which is when the receptionist comes charging in the room.

“There’s some crazy kid out there throwing knives at the Stalker! It’s gonna kill him!”

Sonya takes advantage of the distraction to shut the monitor off, then reaches under the counter to pull the plug out of the computer right next to the one she was actually using. Waving the plug in the air, she starts swearing inventively at Oliver. "There! Happy? I just wasted an hour’s worth of preptime and quite likely corrupted the database’s hash tables, and meanwhile there’s a kid out there about to by killed by our security systems!" She continues ranting, while making no effort whatsoever to approach Oliver or the exit, and as she expected he eventually dismisses Tony as no longer a primary concern.

Meanwhile, she keeps an estimated countdown going in her head. Probably about 25% done by now…

Even at a dead sprint, the machine had easily caught him. It was like he was standing still. However, Shade didn't have much time to think as he tried to avoid the attacking robot. As the c;awed hand sliced into his side, Garth inhaled sharply as blood started to flow from the wounds. The figure stumbled into fall causing him to end up on his back. Groaning slightly, Shade looked to see the robot creature unmoved from where it had stopped. Shuffling with his hands, he tried to get into the shadows just a few feet away.

Crap, I am so screwed! Shade thought as the huge robot dragged him up. Suddenly, he was flying in the air. The cold feeling of invisiblity fell over him as he passed into the shadow of the building. However, it didn't stop the pain of slamming into a brick wall. Shade felt like his back had just broken in two as the wind was knocked out of him. He tried hard not to breathe too hard as the invisiblity had him shaded from the creatures sight.

Sonya/Tony walks around the office rather aimlessly, doing her best not to look like she’s anxious about the download. Eventually she joins the crowd at the window anxiously watching that Stalker thing beat the stuffing out of Garth. Aw, geez… he said he’d be able to distract the damned thing; I thought he meant safely!

But there’s really nothing she can do… even if she were still armed, bullets would bounce off that thing like popcorn. And she doubts it would be too impressed by her martial-arts moves, even assuming they conveniently chose to kick in at the right time.

"So… what if he just turns out to be a stupid normal kid on a fraternity hazing ritual or something? That thing’s gonna kill him, and the department’s gonna get its butt sued all the way to next Tuesday!"

As if on cue, the Stalker takes that moment to send Garth flying against a wall, and he vanishes from sight in a pool of shadow. "Oh, hell… I can’t even see the kid anymore, the thing must’ve knocked him into a doorway or something." She hopes that’s enough to confuse the immediate witnesses, though of course the Stalkers probably have camera recordings and stuff.

What Sonya ought to do is start looking for a way to sneak out of the building… she expects that trying to just leave now that she’s under suspicion will have Oliver on her case again. What she wants to do is find some way to give Garth a breather. And after a second she realizes there’s a way to do both, with just a little bit of luck.

"Oliver, you know as well as I do that this kid deserves to be thrown in jail ‘till he grows a brain, but he doesn’t deserve to be gutted by a cut-rate extra from Aliens. I’m going out there to bring him in, and you’re gonna cover me with that gun you’re waving around so eagerly, right? Come on!" Without waiting for an answer, and ignoring Oliver’s shouts, Sonya rushes to the front door.

"You want to bet..." Shade coughed back as he managed to get some of his breath back. Struggling to his feet, the mutant raised his fists in a somewhat pathic attempt.

"Come make me." Shade said with a smile. Of course, he wasn't going to fight this beast.

Sonya/Tony can’t hear what the robot is saying, but it’s pretty clear from the way its attention doesn’t waver that Garth’s invisibility isn’t working on it. Works just fine on me, though. I’m guessing on Oliver, too.

"Geez, " she wheezes over her pounding breath – whatever other talents Tony may have, endurance running isn’t one of them – "now the damned thing is… getting ready to… shoot a wall. " She’d have shouted the last part if she had the wind for it, which she doesn’t.

“Either that,” replies Oliver, “or the kid really is a mutant… and the robot’s the only thing that can see him.” Oliver, of course, has no trouble breathing, and is still holding his gun, looking around warily for any other threats. Right this moment, Sonya would happily throttle him.

Instead, she wheezes her way to the side of her car and leans against it, breathing heavily. "Sorry, I… just need a second… to catch my second wind. " It’s embarrassing how little she has to fake it, even though she’s only wearing this body transiently, and for once Oliver doesn’t seem suspicious. “Sure. You stay there, I’ll check out what’s up with the kid.”

OK, good. By the time he gets back the download will be done. My part of the job is over. She looks down the block at the Stalker for a moment, feeling bad about leaving her partner behind, but shakes off the feeling. He can teleport, after all… he can take care of himself. I just need to get out of here.

She’s got her key in the ignition before anyone sees her, but once the engine catches she hears Oliver’s voice behind her, telling her to stop. She floors it, then screams out load when a bullet comes smashing through the rear windshield, and screams again when a second bullet hits her shoulder.

(ooc: Will be controlling the Stalker with proper permission for remainder of this thread..)

The Stalker clicked fiercely as it took in the mutant through its infra-red vision screen. In a wild, animal-like scream, the robotic death machine sprang towards the pitiful mutant, tail arched to neutralize the threat.

Shade was again taken off guard by the surprising speed of the mechanical beast. The dangerous tail was aiming straight at Shade's heart. It took all of the split second that Shade had to teleport to the shadow-casted alley across the street.

A loud crunching sound rumlbed through the street as the Stalker literally destroyed the street where Shade had been moments before. The tail was a good foot into the ground, and as the Stalker looked for its escaped prey, it ripped it was the ground. The metallic roar of the Stalker echoed through the streets as the machine shouted to the skies its anger.

Across the street, Shade cast a quick glimpse on the Stalker. A rather evil grin crossed his invisble face as he watched the show. In another instant, the mutant was gone from the alley as he teleported far away from the mutant registration center. After a while, Shade retrieved his phone from his pocket and dialed Sonya's number.

"Did you get the files?"

Fortunately for Sonya/Tony, the Stalker continues to concentrate on Shade as she drives away, and it doesn’t take long for her to get out of Oliver’s pistol-range.

It takes her no more than a second to heal her injury by reassuming Teresa’s body, and she chuckles briefly at the bullet that pops out of her shoulder and falls into her lap when she does so. Good thing he wasn’t shooting tranks, she thinks idly… though of course, tranks would never have penetrated her windshield. Anyway, I guess we’re done, then… just need to – The thought is interrupted by her phone ringing.

> "Did you get the files?"

"I sure hope so. I had to bail out before the download finished, but unless somebody in there has more brains than Tony gave them credit for, they won’t have interrupted it before it was done. Won’t know for sure ‘till I check the server, but either way the mission’s done for now. Nice distraction, by the way – you got away safe?"

Shade groaned slightly as he inspected himself. Besides the several cuts along his adobomen, the mutant a rather large bruise from where the Stalker had hit him and his back still felt like crap.

"Yeah, I got away, allthough I did take a nice beating." Shade winced slightly as he placed his hands on the cuts.

"Should be alright though. Just need some rest."