Need Will in a Haystack

[Ashlie Minamida]

Clean records would probably fool most automated systems. After all, a program would be tuned for perfection and not stumble over it's absence. But Ashlie isn't a simple program. And she knows how hard it is to make records look real when they're faked because her own are similarly spotless, so she starts looking for signs of fabrication, like entries popping up in bulk or long after the dates they are supposedly labelled as, possibly masked as only now being digitally entered, a trick she heavily leaned on herself.

[Narrator]

That doesn't appear to be the case at all -- as far as the digital records go, they appeared to be mostly uploaded when the various agencies went to digital record keeping. They are not all new forgeries or uploaded in a big batch post-dated or something of that nature.

[Ashlie Minamida]

Ashlie frowns and continues digging through the man's records while she waits for Sam to finish. In the background, after not bringing up any initial hits, her facial recognition sub-routine continues to parse through increasingly unlikely pools of people in search for a match.

[Narrator]

Eventually, the records do dry up -- the Sackvilles apparently immigrated to England sometime in the 18th century, and now we're talking very old records from multiple countries and that's a nightmare to deal with, even for ASHLIE.

If anything, the most noticeable thing is a lack of branches on the family tree -- not a lot of siblings in the Sackville line, apparently. Almost a straight line back.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Samantha. Why are you focusing on this man?" Ashlie's voice echoes through the inside of the Cerebra chamber. The liquid mutes it a little but it still comes through okay.

[Samantha McManus]

"He's... there's something wrong with him. He's not normal," her voice comes through the speaker.

"He didn't even bat an eye when I called out to him."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Some people have experience with telep--" her voice processing program immediately stops when the facial recognition software finally finds a match and immediately starts flashing all kinds of alerts.

"It's him. Or one of his descendants. Fionn mac Cumail."

[Samantha McManus]

"...bloody hell. Finn McCool is... a saucy butcher?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Or so it appears." she says while phonelines flare to life as they route a call through to the butcher shop.

[Roland Sackville]

"Hole in the Wall butcher shop, can I help you?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Yes, hello, my name is Ashlie Minamida. I am looking for a very old acquaintance of mine." she sends through the phone-line, prepared to gauge the man's reaction for any kind of recognition in his voice while simultaneously comparing his vocal signature to her memories recordings of Finn.

[Roland Sackville]

"Well, I hope they're not here, or they'd be being sold by the pound," the man joked on the other end of the phone. "Are you sure you have the right number, miss?"

The recordings didn't match exactly -- but it was close. Very close.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Sam, we need to go." her voice echoes through Cerebra while simultaneously answering 'Roland'. "I'm afraid my sense of humor needs some work, so I'm sure you'll understand if I take your word a little too literally. I cannot thank you enough for giving me enough probable cause to act though."

[Roland Sackville]

"Ma'am, we're very busy today. I don't have time for crank calls."

[Samantha McManus]

Sam doesn't need to be told twice, disengaging from the machine and starting its draining process. As she emerges it's apparent that the changes she experienced within the tank aren't receding. She's tall and imposing, her shoulders mantled with black feathers.

"I'm ready."

[Ashlie Minamida]

Ashlie raises her eyebrows slightly when she gets a good view at Sam's shape emerging from the capsule. If her physical shape is any indication then this might have gotten closer than she's comfortable with in amplifying Sam's telepathy. "How are you feeling?" she asks semi-diplomatically as they walk towards the door leading out of the room.

[Samantha McManus]

"Angry, but we're going to get Will back even if I have to beat the location out of that man."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"That's a very peculiar way to pronounce 'apprehend and interrogate him' but I'll let it slide." she says with a noticeable and very mechanical twitch of her head.