Open to All Investigators [At the beginning of the Bomb Disposal Plot]

[earlybird]

Attention, Investigators.

[ The boy's pure, cool professionalism, even if his voice has the bossy ring of someone who's used to command. ]

We've found a Recognizer missing half its payload.

[ He's not about to blab about what they're doing in the Recognizer in the first place; he trusts the other Investigators nowhere near as far as he could throw them. ]

Ship records suggest the inventory logs were tampered with -- according to them, it should all still be here.

Somewhere on the ground, someone is carting around some major firepower, and they likely intend to use it. Keep an eye out.

Comments

[leftbehindagain]

...oh for Izanami's sake. [Well, at least getting the damn thing out of there will probably be enough of a distraction.]

You guys be careful.

[earlybird]

We're professionals.

[ His answer is prompt, crisp, and completely fails to confirm anything they'll do anything of the sort.

(They will most definitely not be careful. Not those two.) ]

Try not to let this distract you. Whatever's happening with those mines, it's out of our hands for the moment.

[ A mission pep-talk from Robin, delicately phrased. The infiltrating team's just got one thing they need to focus on: getting in, defusing, getting out. ]

[leftbehindagain]

[You could at least pay the idea of caution a little lip service here...]

Yeah, I know. Something to figure out later.

[earlybird]

[ Hmmm... nah. Damian wants to see if this thing can pull off any spins. ]

If we've still got the chance. No idea if and when those mines will be used.

[ The timing might not be a coincidence. Once they're done here, he plans on chase down that missing payload as soon as possible. ]

[leftbehindagain]

There's two options, as I see it. Either the Defenders are up to something fishy, or the Automata decided not to wait for us to drop the tower.

[If it's the latter, Naoto's not going to be happy.]

[earlybird]

Still can't believe people think the zombies might have a noble goal.

[ The childish grumble is a little less than professional, bordering on peeved. But he'd listened to the reports and the back-and-forth, and personally thought too many Investigators were drinking the metaphorical Kool-Aid. Then again, he hasn't met an automata who hasn't been actively trying to rip his throat out.

He may be biased. ]

Let's hope they're not brainless enough to screw us all over by trying to drop it now.

[leftbehindagain]

I really don't think anyone who was corrupted and derezzed has any reason to say something other than what their actual motives were. The truth's probably somewhere in the middle, Naoto always says it usually is, and it's more of the story than we had before. Now we just need to get Green Team to speak up.

[Well, there's monsters and then there's the people who managed to keep their heads while being corrupted, that's for sure. The chimera the first week didn't want to do anything other than stomp on the intruders on its territory.]

Yes, let's do, considering I'm in the basement of the damn thing right now. At least they're in agreement that the bomb going off is a bad idea, so that should help.

[earlybird]

-Tt.- No doubt they were lied to. Fed a great story about doing the right thing and brainwashed into swallowing it.

[ There's a sneer in his voice; kid's too cynical by half. ]

There's no such thing as being right when innocent bystanders are killed because of it. 'For the good of the many' doesn't apply here.

[ The heroes he knows, his father, would never take this path. It stinks of Ra's al Ghul's line of reasoning: high-minded goals and lofty philosophies masking bloody practices and a deceptive grab for power.

There's a pause in his side of the conversation, attention drawn away, before he pipes back up. ]

Heads up, there's some suspicious activity here. We're going to recon first to make sure all's clear for the go-ahead.

[leftbehindagain]

Hey, I'm the first to say every Trump around here looks like an asshole at the moment. SAGE did something bad enough the others thought trapping him was necessary, ROSE stole us out from under the others' noses to try and sneak in a rescue mission, and even if Lovers and Devil left SAGE alive, they still decided the best means to their end was a forcible corruption agent. Don't blame the people who got caught in their pissing contest, blame the ones having it. It's still an important part of the story.

[Honestly, Naoki doesn't know who's right, if anyone. But they might well have screwed up a lot if they'd never found out this information.]

All right. Be careful.