Xaviers!

When Ashlie had finally regained full control of her systems due to the technopathic presence suddenly disappearing from this plane of existence, her immediate concern was that the Blackbird's engines appeared to be taking on salt water and various other things that shouldn't be inside delicate machinery. The back ramp was jammed but considering it had been floating int he ocean that was probably a good thing. While the British Navy was courteous enough to salvage the plane they had seen no reason to do anything else about it and thus Ashlie is currently elbow deep in algae and the occasional fish as she works on saving as much as she can of the jet engines. Occasionally people stop and stare at the one-woman maintenance crew in the British hangar that they'd dragged the plane to but for the most part they leave the crazy civilian alone.

Unlike the phonelines and various other means of communication built right into Ashlie's head, which are filled to capacity. About half of them are her running the school at a distance while the rest is taken up by various people yelling at her. Mostly for losing a billion dollar warship she'd promised to save but also for numerous complaints coming in about spy satellites and international incidents. None of them were what Ashlie would consider a serious threat and obviously just Major Briggs flexing his muscles, but she had to deal with them none the less, which is what she figures was the intent. Still, it couldn't have come at a worse time and she is mostly just listening to three different phone-lines of people yelling at her, offering them the occasional sound of acknowledgement or canned phrase while the bulk of her attention is elsewhere. This would be so much simpler if she could just write her own separate sub-routine to deal with these things, but that would fall under producing another AI, a hardcoded taboo that even with Rob's tinkering she still found herself unable to break.

"No, I still don't know where exactly it disappeared to." she directly answers one of the lines. Her liason in the British government deserved at least some of her full attention and an actual conversation. "Look, it's a dimensional tear. If people stopped yelling at me for 5 seconds I might be able to go back out there and get a better reading but... No, yes, I understand that everyone is hesitant to put the issue in my hands again. I'm not asking them too, i just want a chance to get on site again."

"Okay fine. But then tell them to stop asking me questions I can't answer, Rebecca. I'll help them replace it, or at least manufacture some of the high-tech components."

"Well I don't have a shipyard, so that's what I can offer."

"What do you mean? How many?"

"Impossible. Look, I said I would try to provide a place to anybody who asks, but this is unfeasible. And this is just inquiries from the US?"

"No. Do NOT redirect anybody to Eastern Europe. I know they've opened the doors and I can't stop anybody from accepting an open invitation like that but they are walking into a trap."

"No of course I don't have proof for that. Just try to work something out with Germany and France."

"I'll try. There's only so many accommodations we have and it is still an University. I need to be able to run the school."

"If you can find me someone to supply... Hang on, let me draw up some blueprints. Here, find me someone who can crank those components out on short order and deliver them to the school and I'll have room for maybe 500 more mutants."

"I know that's just a fraction of requests, figure something out. Or hope the situation in the US stabilizes."

"Right? It's ridiculous."

"Wait what?"

"You mean the disturbance at the embassy?"

"That's one hell of a rumor. I'll look into it."

"Thanks. Take care."

With an unnecessary sigh. Ashlie disconnects one call and instead brings up several more processes.

Housing project for mutant refugees, permits and scheduling, phone call to Maldon's city council, emails to contractors, shuffle some money around.

Pull up some schematics for the military, remotely fire up the nanoforge and robot arms back in the Point to slap together some things to soothe the upset navy.

Also, pull up a wide search of events surrounding the Security Summit, sort through all the non-sense, bunch of mutant arrests, protesters, someone from the school, altercations, scanning all arrests made within 24 hours. And endless cascade of information unfolds and flies past faster than any person could even glance through. Connections light up, some mutant terrorist cells here and there, many first time offenses, cross-references and filters, endless streams of data filter down and get sorted.

Altercation at a club involving Chase Delacroix and an unknown assailant. Clearly false identity, released from custody after contacted by a spoofed phone-call. Tracing... Paris, Munich, Budapest, Ankara, Riyadh, Mumbai and dead. No known aliases or collaborators. Police report mentions one other unknown assailant. Calculating travel routes throughout London, tube schedules, tickets bought, security camera feeds begin feeding into the algorithm. Endless streams of people shuffling across tube platforms. Time windows narrow and adjust as Ashlie sifts through the data. Several routes, consider typical evasion patterns, switching tube lines, pull in cab reports, Uber activity. Endless lines fill a map.

Cellphone data is filtered down by disposable devices, unique signatures only active in 48 hour timeframe, couple of blips, several devices utilized, too many possible patterns. Isolated 27 possible routes between Club and Embassy, cross-referencing with cellphone data. 3 possible routes remain. Cross-reference with subterranean tube disrupting cellphone signal. 1 possible route. Pulling location data, security camera footage. The remaining line on the map is filled with dots, each on representing video feeds. Constructing time-line, reducing video footage to relevant frames. Bit by bit what can only be called a short movie of an Asian man making his way through London is assembled while a separate algorithm takes the numerous angles and constructs a three-dimensional model of the target.

Positive Identification in terrorist database. Black Lotus connection confirmed.

With hands still pulling out seaweed from the Blackbird's engines she dials Chase's number.

Chase answered on the third ring. "Something I can do for you Miss Minamida?"

"Ah, Chase. You wouldn't happen to know anything about an altercation that happened some time back in a London club? Apparently your friend Basil and one suspect were taken in by the Police and he mentioned you were present for the fighting?" she skips straight past any niceties and gets right to the point. To many irons in the fire to work up to it, apparently.

After a brief pause, he said, "Yes. I was."

"The police report mentions a possible associate to the person that was arrested. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that?"

"I tried to catch up to them but they gave me the slip... I'm sure they got themselves caught for something else by now," he answered cagily.

"Possibly. Would you be able to confirm their identity from a reconstructed image?" she asks just as Chase's phone receives an image depicting Yin Dao. It looks slightly off and appears to be a sophisticated 3D render that's not 100% accurate, but it's clearly him.

"That's him alright. Why?" he asked. It wasn't that he was playing dumb, but that he was taught to assume phones were being tapped.

"Because I have just traced his movement throughout London to the US embassy that night and he's listed as having connections to Black Lotus."

He was quiet for a long moment, clearly not comfortable talking about that on the phone. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you... I just... can we talk somewhere not on a cellphone?"

"I'm up near Swansea at the moment, I'm afraid. I can reassure you, my phone-lines are secure though. If you'd feel more comfortable you can go down to the point and talk to me through one of the consoles there."

"That...would be better. Gimme a few minutes to get there."

He hung up. A few minutes later, the console registered his login.

"Okay."

Ashlie's voice comes form the console as clearly as it did from the phone.

"I take it from your hesitance that you were involved in more than just the altercation at the bar?"

He sighed and told her the entire story; how he broke into the embassy to foil the assassination of President Oswald and fled before the Americans could detain him.

"Probably a wise decision, considering they seem to have opted to hush the whole thing up, though this is something that would have been good to know. Do you have any idea what could have motivated the attack?"

"I can't even really begin to guess who could have hired the Lotus. But a target that protected with that high a profile would have cost the client a fortune."

"This doesn't sit right with me. International tensions are high and there are too many people meddling. Peaceful protests devolving into violence, warships disappearing off the coast, assassination attempts, all in our backyard. We need to find out who hired him. And even if he talks to the Americans they won't tell us if they won't even acknowledge the incident."

"My memory is getting better all the time, but even if I could find it I'm sure the safe-house the Lotus had me use closed up shop the second I 'defected'. I... might spot something useful if I take a long walk through Chinatown but it's a long shot."

"Keep your eyes open. You might also be interested to know that the one you apprehended was released from custody on bail. If there is an expected behavior after a failed mission I suspect she's going to follow it."

"I should have expected as much. She's probably already out of the country unless there's more to the mission."

"You were one of them once. Would she try to complete the mission? Return home? Attempt to rescue Yin Dao? Are they going to send somebody else?"

"Oh they'll definitely try again. I can't say whether she's still involved. I would have been replaced but I got the impression she was a true believer rather than a puppet. She might have more autonomy."

"Okay, thanks. And if you can think of any way to determine who hired them for this, please let me know."

"I'll be sure to."