Samantha Dalton AKA Chaos
Raven HQ
Samantha found herself smiling at Xander. She enjoyed his sense of humor. Sam found that she enjoyed spending time with him. She laughed at his response to her question about Sophie.
“What the doc doesn't know won’t hurt her, and I don’t plan to tell her as long as you don’t.” She shook her head as she replied before heading into the rec room.
“If she hears about it, it won’t be because of me.” She grinned as he offered to cook for her.
”Heh. Deal. I’m sure there’s something in the kitchen we could scrounge up. Though it might take me a bit, given the arm and all.” Samantha had the fleeting thought that a man had never cooked for her before. She was a little jealous that he seemed to have more mobility than her. She had to be honest with herself, the soft tissue damage combined with the cracked ribs, not to mention the full scope of bruising from being hit by the blast had left her whole body achy and swollen in places. She never handled inactivity well.
Xander accepted his glass of port and offered a toast to Skye.
“Cheers, mum!” Samantha looked over at Xander with curiosity
“Why do you call Skye Mum?” Her eyes followed him into the kitchen as he began to look in the refrigerator. She snickered as Xander protested that he was always a professional.
“Hey. I am always professional! Isn’t that right, fridge?” Sam couldn’t believe that he continued to mess around with the fridge as it nodded as if agreeing with him. She would have to look at how he had done it later. She nodded as he proposed burgers for dinner.
“Burgers sound great. I do not want mine to moo or pass for charcoal.” She looked around at the team that were in the Rec room. She listened as Xander replied to Mateo’s question about how they were feeling. She nodded thinking that was exactly about how she felt.
“Well me arms busted, it hurts to walk or even stand for too long, and worst of all the doc has ordered me to ‘behave’ until I’m back in top shape. So you lot are safe for the time being. But mark my words, soon as I’m outta this thing, I’m gonna have something planned for all of you.” Samantha just shook her head laughing as Xander promised to prank everyone after he was feeling better.
Her eyes were pulled back to Skye as began to share information with them. In a rare moment, Skye shared how she was doing.
"Not so bad. Surviving, I guess, I had a couple of ribs hit but it's....well, just inconvenient. I was just saying to the others, combat effectiveness on that one was good. I saw what you got up to, and as always, it's impressive." She paid attention as Skye went on to tell her.
"Sounds rough, but you'll heal up. Bones break, but so long as your head's intact, that's the main one. Aye, and that intel would be useful. Much appreciated, Sam. Food wise, that'll be on that man over there tonight." Samantha grinned as her eyes lit up with the challenge.
“I will start digging through the data tomorrow. Hopefully it will give us a few more leads. I also would like to work with Xander to build us some new hacking toys. I can’t believe I have to rebuild my rig all over again.” She frowned as her custom computer set up is part of what let her be so good at what she did. On the positive side, now she could see what was new and see how she could improve it before their next op. She gave a mischievous grin as she looked at Skye,
“I will have to chat with Tahlia to see what kind of parts she can source for me. I heard rumors that there is a new quantum computer core small enough for a laptop.” She would have rubbed her hands together like a greedy miser but well her right one was strapped down at the moment.
Samantha couldn’t help but laugh as Skye picked on Xander some.
"Professional, my arse....and aye, burgers sounds good. I'll come and help yous in a second. Tahlia tells me the beef is straight from her farm so I'll be impressed to see it. Real farm to fork and all that!" Samantha didn’t know that Tahlia’s family raised beef. She should have known, Australians are known to have some big ranches. Skye sat up and began to give them more information about their next target.
"Anyway....not sure about you lot, but I find recovery works best when you have targets. Like, who to punch the lights out of that caused it in the first place. So let me introduce you to that target. It's no brief, just a starting point." Samantha paid attention as a slick augmented-reality device came on. An image of their target came up. It was someone that Samantha was aware of, that caught her attention. The image was tech CEO Pavel Andros.
"That is Pavel Andros, Slovenian-Cypriot billionaire, or as you might know him, the founder of Vale Systems, tech firm that is currently the wet dream of every Silicon Valley frat fuck there is, yadda yadda, you know the type. The sort of guy who goes on about AI whilst planning some mental geo-engineering a way out of our fucked up state of affairs. Self-entitled prick, if you ask me, but even worse, his fingerprints are all over Aralsk.” Samantha nodded following along. As a tech junkie, she was aware of all the major and minor players who were on the cutting edge of breaking new technologies. Vale Systems had a hand in numerous industries. She had heard rumors that he was close to a breakthrough that would allow him to use AI controlled sensor systems on satellites to find rich ore and rare mineral deposits. Many didn’t realize the rare minerals used in cellular and miniaturized computer technology were worth more than gold in most markets.
"The hack was messy, but it points to the fact whoever did it was using something high level, with way more computational power than Artemis would have. Something only this man would be able to pull off to break our encryption, or someone he knows. There's nobody hijacking his network. This is his...and we don't know how."
"None of this makes sense currently. So, given what we know, I'd like an audience with him because of the fact he tried to fuck us up, yeah? A wee one-to-one he wouldn't normally agree to getting, given he thinks he's above everything. Raphael's found out he has a party at his offices in Singapore in two weeks, and it's not an internal thing, if you were curious. Looks like he wants to invite lots of his other shareholders, and a few subsidiaries too. Quite the list, and surprisingly, no Kazakh arms dealers. More esteemed members of society, if you can believe it..." Samantha could only smile as Skye’s snark and sarcasm.
"It's being hosted at his residence on the roof of the Tsai Wen Tower, right in the CBD of the city, but he's got exclusive use of the whole top floor, with a bar, penthouse, and then some above the Asian offices of Vale. Like I said, he's the kind of arsehole who lives this idea of putting his home on top of his workplace. It's impressive really. But quite not a fortress. Just very, very high up with a few towers around it to keep it company. Not many ways in, not many ways out." Samantha reviewed the layout briefly following along as Skye took them through what was already available. "Which from that, leads to our little job. To start with, I've got some tasks to keep you all occupied with while you heal up. No rush, but I'll leave the finer details to you." Samantha perked up as Skye began to hand out assignments.” @Awesomoman64@PerfectThought
"First, I need an invite to his party. Stafford, Xan, see if you can get me one, or make me one. We'll also need you in the party too but I'll leave that up to you how you do it...Raphael might be of help there. You'll also need to figure out a way to get in yourselves along with Stafford and Mateo, either by invite or other means. Working, or perhaps infiltrating. That, and a way to get out. Parachutes, ropes, whatever gets us out of there as a contingency. Come back to me with some ideas and we can take a look at it."@BigPapaBelial
Second, Freya, you're with me. He has security and if I'm going in there unarmed, I'm going to need backup in case things go south. So you're my plus one...and at the least, it gives me some air of legitimacy if they realise you're someone who would go to something like this. They know you. But if Pavel's security is as tight as it is, I can't take chances- I could use some help on what the security detail is, so Sam and Xan can probably get you that. And whatever you need to do to keep them occupied, do it."@LadyAmber@Theyra
Third, once we're in, there's more to do. A server farm would be a good hit, but I need more intel goings on that we can extract from the site....and that'll come from our last mission, because there's a lot of connecting information. Sam, Mateo, I'll pin you with those. Figure out what secondaries we can find, just so we can back whatever bullshit I might get from big Pavel to figure this mess out." Samantha nodded accepting her orders. She wanted to feel bad for Pavel knowing Skye was going to break him. But she couldn’t summon up the sympathy. Skye’s chuckle meant bad news for Pavel.
"Lastly....anyone got anything else to add, or ask? It's a social occasion, so I'd hope we have no gunfights....because I feel like we've certainly hit that quota already for this month. We can look at this better tomorrow. But have a sleep, get some ideas, and we'll start when ready." @fourtytwoSamantha looked disgusted because she didn’t like Pavel. He was everything she detested with large tech companies. She took a sip of her port to moisten her mouth.
“Rumors on the dark web say that Pavel has invested heavily in a new satellite-based sensor system to find rare minerals and ores that is supported by AI technology. He is looking for new mines to source the raw materials he needs for his products. They say he paid a Russian space tourism company to put the satellites in space in secret because he didn’t want his competitors or certain governments to know about it. It is possible that with his own satellites and altering that technology, he could pick up on encrypted communication systems and tap into them using cellular satellite networks. Pavel has a history of walking over others to make a buck. While his company appears to be environmentally conscious with equitably sourced materials, he hides the ties to his company through multiple shadow cut out companies.” Skye had started helping Xander cook. She smiled as Skye joked about calling in a lot of favors to get them prime ingredients. The smell coming from the grill was making her mouth water. Her stomach rumbled in protest. She patted it with her good hand. It would get fed in good time.
"Pepper's on the far side, Xan. Those burgers are smelling mighty fine. You don't want to ask how many favours I get the logistics teams to run for us. Won't someone think of the taxpayer...." Samantha’s eyes gleamed and a bright smile lit her face as Skye shared her last bit of information with them.
"Ahh, that reminds me! Right, Tahlia was by earlier. She's headed to the armoury and I think she's gotten you some upgrades. Suits, equipment, that kind of thing. Cutting edge research, so it might take some time to get used to, but I recommend you play with it when you're feeling more fighting fit." She raised her glass to Skye.
“Thanks for the new toys boss.” 
Member
FourtyTwo
wintersoldier
Pen Name
Lunamaria Hawke
Eventua
Snowdrops
Ivar
Sky Blue
Triantafyllo