Changing Channels
Llyron and Channel (Lesslie Carter)
Lesslie Carter
Lesslie sat in the situation room, sifting through all of the information that she'd found on the child Alexandra Hawthorne. Just as she'd suspected, there wasn't anything concrete...no smoking gun...but alot of strange coincidences... In the same school that the girl had attended a lunch lady had inexplicably shoved her entire arm into a boiling hot pain of beans....later a teacher had thrown herself down a flight of stairs. A couple of the stories had confirmed that Alex had been present at both occurances, though neather hinted that she was the cause. They both treated the accidents as examples of yet more tragedy that the girl had been subjected to. God bless the tireless men and women of the press....always snooping for the hidden connections.
She sighed, leaning back in her chair, crystal blue eyes scanning the computer screens while she absently rubbed the hand Scathe had resently healed.....the hand that this child had made Lesslie stab completely through...
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Llyron
Llyron came into the situation room ... formerly the Avengers Assembly room. He LOVED stealing their thunder ... though he had nothing personally against them. He walked up behind Lesslie and looked at the screen then put his hand down on her shoulders ...
"Yeah, I'm getting the same stuff you are. Was hoping you'd find more ..."
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Lesslie Carter
She looked up at Llyron as he enteres, flashing him a warm but somewhat weary smile. Spinning her chair around she stood up, stretching her back which eched through out the room in a series of pops. With a relieved sigh she slumped back, leaning against the assembly table.
"Yeah. T'be honest I was hopin' for a bit more mahself. But she's covered her tracks really well. Jeremy's out sniffin things out with the local ghosts...see if they know anything. He said that there are rumors about a large number of poltergeists hauntin' around NuGen for some reason...hopefully one of them has enough presence o' mind to talk to him rather'n try and start a fight.."
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Llyron
He chuckled
"We're without our chaperone then?"
He rubbed her shoulders
"Don't worry. I'll do my best to remain a gentleman. I wish I'd had more time to investigate but I've been a bit busy this week. Multiple clique battles and one rogue symbiote. But don't think I've forgotten my friends. I am still entirely at your disposal. What is our current plan A?"
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Lesslie Carter
She groaned pleasently as he began rubbing some of the tension from her shoulders. She surveyed the monitors which made up the walls of the room, watching as they each scrolled by their seperate news stories, tyring to find some chink in the girls' armor.
"I appriciate that Llyron. Nice not to be goin in solo." she said with a sigh.
"So far your idea appeals to me the most. Jack's workin on a holo projector thing for me, one that will make me look like Heatseeker. Once that's ready we can look at infiltrating NuGen...if I can get close enough and keep control then I can use her Mama's ghost to burn her...and we can make it look like Heatseeker did it..."
She frowned slightly at that...not really comfortable with the idea of foisting the attack off on someone else...even someone like Heatseeker..someone who she knew had commited horrible crimes.
"Part of the problem is...if the stories about the 'geists are true then it might be to risky for me to go in there.....ghosts know what I can do...and I dunno if I can stand up to an assault from several angry spirits...Jeremy'll be there with me, but still there's only so much that he can do..."
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Llyron
He nodded, considering. This was out of his area of expertise.
"I worked up some alternate costume ideas for you also. Best to have your features covered, in case of an EMP discharge or the like. I ran into that a couple days ago myself."
He reached over and typed, VERY quickly, with one hand, bringing up an image from data file. A set of armor designed for her. If she needed it.
"Theres always the option of creating some short lived clones for mom and the gang to borrow. In case, timed clone bio breakdown is EASY. Many geneticists have trouble getting beyond the problem ... ie: the Jackal and the various spiderman clones."
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Lesslie Carter
She looked up at him, incredulously.
"Clone me....is that what ya' talkin about? Clonin' me and having them take over the clones?"
She shivered slightly at that thought....the idea of what someone could do by cloning her powers....without the ethical training that Mama Serenity had given her.
"I think that'll have ta' be a last resort." She said, looking over the screen where he'd pulled up the armor.
"That looks alot like the stuff Jack wears." She said with a small grin. "I caught yall's fight on the news the other day...at least until the power outage.
That could work. I have a feelin that she's gonna know who I am, even with this psion blockin trinket ya gave me....but I'm not crazy about gettin caught...no court in the world would understand..."
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Llyron
"I have a question. Are these 'ghosts' actually the spirits of the deceased, or physic afterimages left behind? Or some of each?"
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Lesslie Carter
She turned around, looking at Llyron and leaning against the table again
"It depends. Not an exact science so I've just got what I've found over the years. Most of the time a spirit is just an after image. Like...shadows yah seen in ya vision when someone flashes a light in ya eyes. A little smudge of ectoplasmic energy that usually can't even hold a shape and dissipates after a little while.
But once in a while when someone dies they have a reason....or the strength of will to remain here...kinda stuck on the underside of the 'real world'...never crossin over to the otha side. Emotion seems to be the key...someon who dies with extremely powerfull love...anger..sadness..it gives them enough strength ta hold their ectoplasmic form together...and in some extremely rare cases they can actually controll it well enough to interact with the real world on their own."
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Llyron
He nodded.
"We atlanteans know about ghosts. When the founder of the Atlantean empire rediscovered the ancient Atlantean capital, he was greeted by the spirit of the last king of Old Atlantis. That's where the Sword of Kamuu gets it's name. It was the royal weapon of the last king, who bestowed it on the New Kingdom's founder. I still wonder if he still haunts the ancient thronerooms."
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Lesslie Carter
Her eyes widdened slightly at that.
"d**n...I've never met any royalty...but then I've never been to Europe....Probably could stir up a King or Queen if I evah went there.
Hell of an honor...to meet the ancient King or ya people..."
She trailed off, her eyes looking over Llyron's shoulder, a small gasp escaping her. Unseen by Llyron, Jeremy had just staggered into the room, dripping trails of ectoplasm from several wounds all over his form.
"Jer!"
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Llyron
"Well, the cloning thing is available if we need it. And we can design the clones to keel over dead after a certain amount of time, if we need to."
He slid up onto a desk, looking relaxed. He of course could not see Jeremy enter.
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Lesslie Carter
"Jer!" She gasped, pushing past him to where her brother had staggered through the wall. Cloying glops of ectoplasm dripped from numerous rounds over his etheral form, the substance quickly evaporating into nothingness when it was no longer connected to the whole of his will.
He looked up at her, eyes sunked, one cheek torn open. He looked visibly thinner, wasted as if he'd drained himself during whatever had happened.
You...you can't go there Les......there are monsters there..not just human....geists that are to strong...
She knelt beside him, holding his invisible form up from the floor.
"Jesus Jer....what happened? What are they doing there?"
She looked up at llyron, eyes pleading
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Llyron
He looked at her ... it looked for all the world like she was doing a mime act, holding something that wasn't there. But he knew she was serious.
"I assume you're talking to Jeremy. I have limited information on Nu Gen myself, other than as possible research sources."
He looked, d**ned if he could see anything ... but he'd had the boys working on something. People usually reported a chill when a ghost was in a room. He himself was so resistant to cold, he couldn't tell, but he'd had some glasses made up. He put on his glasses, and looked in Jeremy's direction, seeing if he could see anything.
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Lesslie Carter
Tears were standing in her eyes as she cradled her brother, watching in confusion as Llyron pulled out the strange eye pieces and put them on. Through them he could see the shimmering outline of a male human form, dripping some substance onto the floor.
Turning her attention back to him she listened as he relayed what he'd found, his voice stuttering as he struggled to put the words together. A relieved sigh escaped her as she saw that his wounds were already healing. Being around her did that...refreshed him, restored his strength...which is what made hims so dangerous to other spirits when he was fighting them in her presence. She provided him with some sort of endless energy supply...
"He says that NuGen is crawling with Geists.....some of them are even strong enough to affect things through the energy field surrounding the labs...abmiant energy that's put off by that much technology...
He says that NuGen's been doing some really horrid expirements...genetic engineering....feeding people to the monsters they create... ghosts that aren't even human anymore... He found the ghosts to two scientists that were killed...one in a lab accident, the other intentionally...by the girl's father. He used .....Dr. Spyncer for expirimentation before he...died..."
She frowned, brows furrowing as she considered the implications of this news.
"I'm not sure I can go in there...that many angry ghosts...Jeremy and I might not be able to fight them off...."
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Llyron
He frowned, nodding.
"What of the other options would you consider our next best then?"
He looked at the figure ... d**ned if there wasn't something there.
"But remember ... we must be discrete. The grassy knoll?"
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Lesslie Carter
"We could try." She said, stepping back and helping Jeremy pull himself to his feet. He shook his head as if trying to clear it and patted her on the shoulder.
Let me talk to him sis. He said.
Lesslie nodded, closing her eyes and bracing for the merge. She felt him step forward, stepping into her. The icey chill flowing through her veins as if her blood had been replaced with glaciers...the electric tingle as her nerves began processing a new set of sensations. The calming voice and angry emotions that filled her head.
Before Llyron her body changed...glowing subtly, Jeremy's ectoplasmic form pushing through into the real world, reforming Lesslie before his eyes. The resemblance was uncanny, so much like Lesslie...only male.
"Hello Llyron. Sorry about the dramatic entrance." S/he said.
"I don't think Lesslies plan will work. I can't allow her near that many angry spirits...there are to many for me to fight, even with her there...and if even one of them were to merge with here it could create a monster the likes of the Hulk. These things....they aren't even human anymore. Most of them anyway. The father is as bad as the daughter. He has no regard for human life if he needs to sacrifice it for his experiments. He's been feeding one of the monsters...a thing called Spyder..human flesh for months..
The girl...Alexandra...she's obsessed with Lesslie...and she isn't going to stop until she's killed Lesslie and that's not something I'm going to allow."
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Llyron
He looked at the girl, fascinating ....
"Nice to finally talk to you, Jeremy. Too bad you don't have yer old body handy, I could make ya a new one. Yes, I was thinking the same. I've done some investigating ... there's a german psychic who captures or kills ghosts, but I don't know if he'd be up for a whole nest of them."
He looked
"You didn't get any information as to where we might intercept this girl, did you?"
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Lesslie Carter
S/he smiled ruefully at the comment about his old body.
"I doubt it would do me much good now. I died in the womb...my old body wouldn't really be of much use to me now."
S/he walked over, sitting one of the chairs. He could feel his strength returing, but he didn't want to take a chance of weakening suddenly and falling out of Lesslie
"We've met him I think. Gestalt I think he said his name was. He was very interested in Les...had a bunch of ghosts with him.
Honestly he could be usefull...if we have to make a frontal assault any help we could get would be much appriciated....but I'm hoping we can find a way to do this without risking frontal confrontation.
The only ghost I found that was semi coherent was this Dr. Spyncer....turns out that the Spyder creature escaped..ate a bunch of people. As punishment Hawthorne used him in some experimentation then fed him to the creature...he's been haunting Hawthorne since.
The girl is a psion..we already know that. But she's unstable. Her powers are reinded in by a mutant inhibitor....a bracelet she wears...without it she can't control her power and it apparently causes her some pain. Unfortunately since her Mom attacked her on the train Hawthorne has had her under constant guard...she hasn't even left the building.."
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Llyron
He nodded, mulling it over.
" 'Spyder' creature. I assume that's some sort of genetic experiment. Hmmm. Jeremy .... ghosts tend to move about in patterns they did in life, correct? So, might I assume that they seldom dive deep into the earth itself?"
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Lesslie Carter
"No. Unless they were burried somewhere on the property, which is unlikely. They're above ground...either haunting where they died or haunting the specific person they consider responsible for their deaths.
What do you have in mind? It will be difficult to sneak Lesslie in. We....ghosts can sense her. We know instinctivly what she can do if she gets close enough to us Usually it isn't a problem because the spirit isn't strong enough to over power me and her. But these are.
So taking here in there would be like having a homing beacon on for every nasty in the building, and not a one of them would think twice about killing her if it ment that they get their revenge."
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Llyron
"What is the range that ghosts can sense Lesslie from? What is she went DEEP into the ground, then came up directly under the CENTER of the installation? And there's a possibility that the FLOORS of the installation are not energy charged like the outter walls and ceiling ...?"
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Lesslie Carter
"It's hard to say. Depends on the spirit...how coherent they are. One that's caught in a rage, it might take a minute for them to notice. The girls' mother for example, she didn't notice Lesslie until we were right next to her. So some of the more monsterous ghosts might take a bit longer to catch on.
The energy field is around the whole building. It has to do with all of the technology in the place. Technological things send out all kinds of...interference. EMP fields, electrical fields, radio waves, infradred waves...all of them create interference which CAN block even a powerfull spirit from manifesting through to the real world....that's why you don't hear of many hauntings in high tech labs and such. It's to hard for the spirit to push through that gauntlet and still interact with the 'real world'. But the fields won't stop them from following her, and if they manage to merge with her then they can do anything they want. She's a bridge, crossing all of those gauntlets..."
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Llyron
He nodded, thinking. This was not his forte. He was better with hard science than the mystical.
"Sounds like it's down to an assault. Which, unfortunately, is exactly what they would expect. The difficulty in keeping a low profile."
He sat upon the desk again
"Perhaps we take out the father. Kidnap him and use his knowledge of the facility to shut down the defenses. As a business man, he must leave the compound."
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Lesslie Carter
S/he propped a hand up on the table, resting hi/er chin on the upraised palm.
"That could work. He makes almost as many public appearances as you do. Public relations for NuGen, putting all of their medical and technological advancements in the news...making people think that NuGen is about nothing but healing people and clean fuels... He usually has a body guard with him, but that shouldn't be to hard to get past. He'll have a few spirits around him...but I think most of them will remain at the NuGen building....
I think that might be the route we need to go. If we get him and can make him talk then we might find a better way to get to the daughter. It's just to bad we don't have any telepaths on the staff......do we?" S/he raised an eyebrow, questioning.
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Llyron
"We have a few but not powerful. Supernalia is capable of hypnotic suggestion, but as far as I know, not capable of deep mind probes or control. Sealeopard has telepathy, but he's a wild card. The princess of monaco is a telepath that we are on good terms with, as is ... I've heard ... her assistant. But, again, the wild card factor."
He thought
"Perhaps an old fashioned abduction."
He brightened ... it was almost like the movie the Grinch, when he had his idea.
"Kidnap him ... blame the clique ... they've been abducting rich men lately ... we mindwipe the father, and make him our pawn ... he tells the authorities that his daughter is being held by the clique in the Nu Gen building. They either raid it themselves or call in the Redeemers or Champions for aid. We collect the girl FROM the authorities."
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Lesslie Carter
Her eyes widdened slightly, a feral grins spreading across hi/er lips as S/he leaned forwards the glow around hi/er body increasling slightly.
"Now that sounds like a brilliant plan. Bring her to us. We'd have to make sure that the authorities sent to retrieve the girl are protected. She could just over run their minds and make them all shoot themselves. We're not sure how wide of a range her powers have, she might be able to read minds as well as implant suggestions..
Once we have them both in our custody how will we explain them both dying? Hawthorne and his daughter are in the public eye to much lately to just make them dissapear."
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Llyron
"You don't see the beauty of it. The SCHEMER has her. The government will HAVE to use agents with telepathic protection. Possibly even Sentinels. We have the old man publically announce that his daughter has been taken hostage by the clique. AND that she is a powerful telepath ... which is WHY the schemer wants her. Once she is captured, we lobotomize the telepathic centers of her brain, and give her a whole new set of memories. Return of the stepford kid."
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Lesslie Carter
"You can do that? Remove her telepathic abilities permanently and give her a new set of memories?"
Jeremy wa a little bit uneased by the discusion they were having...kidnapping and lobotomizing a child....but then he reminded himself that this 'child' had killed her mother, and was anything but an innocent.
"That sounds like the best idea Llyron. It will eleminate her as a threat, get the authorities on the Clique even harder. Plus it will make us look even more like heros.
Count me in." S/he said, extending a hand.
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Llyron
He nodded.
"It can fairly easily be done. As for the memories, how do you think our new population gets their memories? They're computer generated. A process I myself oversee. Though now we are phasing out the repopulation program since we are back up to optimal numbers. Our new goal is recruiting skilled immigration for the inland areas of Atlantis."
He extended his hand and shook his/hers.
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Lesslie Carter
"I've read the fliers in the lobby, but I have to admit, I didn't know how much of that was just something to attract mainlanders.
I'm going to release control back to Lesslie now. It's been a pleasure speaking with you Llyron."
S/he smiled, the glow fading as he pulled himself out of Lesslie, her body returning to normal once more. Blinking her eyes she looked around the room as if she was trying to get her bearings.
"Sounds like we have a plan. I want in too. I have to much at stake to take any chances and if we are going to let this little monster live then I want to make sure she can never hurt anyone again."
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Llyron
He smiled
"YOU are in charge of it. Consider me as your liason officer. And don't worry about the agents and techs we use. They are what I call 9-5ers. Their memories are wiped at the end of each day. They report to work, and they end work. No memory of what they do in between. Until it is reloaded the next day."
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Lesslie Carter
She nodded solmnly. It was a big responsibility. If things didn't go well then it could end up as a HUGE mess in the Redeemer's laps. Not to mention that alot of perfectly decent people might get hurt if the girl was tipped off and decided to go on some kind of a rampage. They couldn't protect everyong in New York from the girl's psionic projections.
"It's gotta be strange....erasing and replacing people's memories like that. A little close to playing God for my comfort....I dunno if I could keep my self honest with that kind of power."
She looked up at him, smiling mischeviously.
"You ever 'flashie thing'd' me K?"
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Llyron
He chuckled
"Flashied or flashed? Nope, neither one. Though I have made a few Lesslie harem girls, just for lonely thursday nights ..."
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Lesslie Carter
"Oh really?" She said, her voice both amused and chilly as she stood back, arms crossed over her chest. Her brows dipped, eyes narrowing slightly.
"Sweetie, don't ya know that imitations never stand up to the origional? You've got me on your team, why waste your time playing with a cheap rip off?" She said, flashing him a grin as she turned away.
"I need to go put some thought to the plan Boss. You know where to find me if ya need me."