The Skrull Threat
Tempest Renroir ~ Oliver Sulivan
The Hub: 12 PM - February 12th, 2021
Human. They all were human, so it appeared. The problem for Oliver, then, was how far he could trust that information. He had to make a series of assumptions, chief among which was that, even if some Skrull were capable of copying people down to their DNA, this team was not important enough to merit a Skrull of that capability. This was, however, an assumption, and what'd he'd learned over his time as a mathematician was that assumptions were where things started to break down. He had to, at least until he assessed this threat further, minimize people besides him that knew what he did.
He'd assume that any member besides Tinley, and maybe Raynor had an equal probability of being a Skrull, however low, and so whether or not he should share this information with any member of the team besides those two depended solely on the utility they could provide. There was no room for emotion in this decision for now, too much could be at risk if his suspicions were correct. Tempest, he thought, then, would be able to best help him determine whether or not there was anything they all should worry about.
Grabbing the laptop he'd been working on for the past few days, he stepped out of his room. He looked like he hadn't slept much since Christmas Eve, because in all honesty, he hadn't. Most of his waking moments were spend obsessing over this new mystery, and it definitely was starting to get a bit unhealthy. Making his way over to Tempest's room, he knocked on the door, saying, "
Hey, it's Oliver, if you're not doing anything, there's something I need to talk to you about." His voice sounded shakey, like he was nervous about something, but trying to hide it. He wasn't exactly in the best state right now, but such was the nature of the situation he'd found himself in.
Tempest hadn't been doing much other than playing World of Warcraft and responding to emails when she heard the knock. Her heart fluttered a bit at hearing Oliver's voice, and then she remembered his paranoid nature and how they all had to get tested. The fact he did not trust her hurt, but she could also not blame him. He was attacked by a Skrull. So she could put it aside for now.
She stood up quickly, checked herself out, and then opened the door.
"Hey Oliver! Sure, I'm not doing much other than pwning noobs in Warcraft. Whatcha need?" Oliver blinked, trying to compose himself for a moment, before saying, "
Can I come in? There's something I need to show you, it's about the... incident on Christmas Eve." He seemed to be clutching his laptop tightly, for a moment, before saying, "
This is some pretty sensitive stuff, it's all on here, but I need you to promise to keep it to yourself for awhile before I let you see it." He cleared his throat for a moment, before holding the computer out to her.
Tempest smiled warmly,
"Course, my dude. Lips are sealed. Come on in." She took the computer and stepped back to allow Oliver to enter her room. Oliver would see her computer system, full of the latest tech, along with her new gaming rig she got on Christmas. Multiple monitors, each doing their own thing, along with World of Warcraft on the main screen.
"This is your baby, Oliver. What do you need from me?" Oliver scullied in, and took a moment to appreciate Tempest's set up. He loved the entire aesthetic of multiple monitor set-ups. Something about the density of information they could hold just made him so happy. The organization, information, and presentation were accentuated by them, and he had a deep appreciation for all of those things. Looking back at her, he said, "
Was my baby." He corrected, speaking quickly, "
It'll go back to being that at some point soon, but for now, I've gutted it too much for me to call it that. It's totally air-gapped now, no network connections in or out." He was sure of that, at this point. Realizing that made him sound a little unhinged, and ran his hair through his hair for a moment, and took a breath, before saying, "
I know that makes me sound crazy, but just... read through what's on there. I think you'll understand. I set the password to "Illuminati"." He explained and leaned against one of the walls, waiting with baited breath to see what she thought.
Tempest shrugged, setting the computer down and logging in with the password. Her hands glided over the keys quickly as she found the information Oliver discovered. She read quickly, making mental notes of the things she considered important. She was impressed with his work on this.
"So you think these members of the Illuminati, points for the name, may be Skrull in disguise? If that is true, then that's a big bad, because those are some powerful names and could do a lot of damage. So what do you intend to do from here? Investigate them one by one? That'll take a while and you already got chewed out by Iron Man once. If that really was Iron Man." Oliver nodded, "
That's precisely my thought process." He said, glad to hear somebody else came to the same conclusion. It made him feel less crazy, and even calmed him down a little. "
The Skrull had said, "Your planet is lost, the secret invasion has already begun." before it died." He explained, "
So I got to thinking, well, if I were an alien race with the ability to shapeshift, that wanted to invade the Earth, how would I do it? I'd replace people in power with my own kind. Soooo, I think the Illuminati never actually returned to the planet, but they came back as Skrull in disguise." He exhaled and crossed his arms. "
That's why I'm coming to you. I figure that, if we want to find out if this is true, the best we can do is investigate them, but I'd bet that any information they have has been secured by Stark, or the skrull that's impersonating Stark, or whatever. So hacking them would be a big risk. It's my go-to plan, but if you have any better ones, I'd love to hear them." He then pursed his lips, trying to think of any possible alternative.
"I mean, there's only so much the two of us can do. We aren't like the others that can sneak into places stealthy-like and find out through that. We are the techies, so hacking is our go-to. If Stark really is one, it makes sense why he was so adamant you stop the first time, but he could also be paranoid. I think the best first step is to confirm whether or not Stark is one and go from there. If he's safe, we can see about maybe getting his aid on the others. If he is, then we can work out how to take down his system to investigate the others so he is unaware." Oliver nodded in agreement. "
That's fair, but if we're gonna hack Stark, we're gonna need to be careful. I really don't wanna end up in The Raft. I figure that, between the two of us, we should be pretty safe." Thinking for a minute, he said, "
To me, we should assume that we're going to be detected if we intrude on one of Iron Man's systems, therefore, we need to make sure that once we're detected, it can't be traced back to us. Keeping our identities away from the devices we use for this is paramount." Those were his initial thoughts, anyway. "
The other things we should consider, is when, or if, we should tell the rest of the team about this. In my experience, the more people that know something, the harder it is to keep a secret."
Tempest understood and agreed.
"The one person we should tell is Tinley. She's kind of the one we need permission for anyway, but even then, if this does get out, she's the one who takes the heat. If we're going to do this, we also need high caliber tech, which means we will need access to SHIELD's stuff. My stuff is dope, don't get me wrong, but I can only do so much, especially if we are going to remain untraceable. After we figure out if Stark is one or not, we can move on to letting the others know. They'll need to know eventually, especially if the invasion has already happened." Oliver flinched for a moment at the notion of telling Tinley, he was afraid she was going to say that. To him, if any of them would be replaced by a Skrull who could copy people down the DNA, it would be Tinley, but if this was risk they needed to take, so be it. "
I agree, telling Tinley is the only way forward. Should we let her know now, or what are you thinking?" He asked. He didn't want to hold off on anything here, every second wasted, to him, was a second that could be used to stop an invasion the likes of which the Earth had never seen.
Tempest caught the flinch.
"Tinley is not a Skrull, my guy. We all did the DNA test thing and came back fine. Granted, she's the head of the team and could easily fake the results, but she's also one of the most trustworthy people on the team and she looks out for her own. I say we tell her sooner rather than later. If we do anything without her say so, we're likely to get creamed."
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