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Summary: Quetzal and Corrin pool knowledge to come up with a few answers in regards to Mutant Town.
Date: December 27, 2010
Log Title: AIM for Teamwork!
Rating: PG-13
Barnes Academy - Staff Foyer
This open space has a holographic sculpture in the middle where the orderly's desks would be for the student wings. Apparently, teachers don't need hall monitors. Nobody seems quite sure who programs the hologram or why it changes day to day but the subject matter ranges from quirky pop art to downright /weird/. Between each set of green-tinted ports looking out into the bay, there is a passage that leads off to various modular quarters for the teachers, each a bit larger than the student's and built for a single person as well.
Corrin is trying not to tear out his hair. "KOZ! Stop playing with the holoprojector! You're already in deep dutch with the bosses and you're not going to improve the situation!"
Agent Kozlowski pops up from behind the light sculpture, grinning. "I've almost got it figured out," he says, and he ducks down again, as his office partner facepalms.
Coming out of his room wearing his jacket over his SHIELD issued blue pants is Quetzal. He slowly walks down the hallway with his usual limp and cane in hand. He has his sunglasses in his pocket and is thinking about heading outside for some fresh air, a smoke and to view the snow. Verde sits on his shoulder as a chipmunk at the moment and seems to be almost lazing there. He stops when he sees Agent Kozlowski fiddling with the projector and looks over at Corrin. "Is he the reason that we get some of that weird art that seems to pop up?"
Corrin peers out from behind his facepalm. "He's the reason why we get memos from Operations about not separating trash in the hallways, or signing out vehicles before dissassembling them." He lets his hand fall. "Koz, you're doomed. You have more than one witness now."
"Got it!" Koz replies, and the holoprojector changes to a bright Santa Claus face and a dozen prancing reindeers, flying around his head. Koz comes around the front to look. "Hmm. I don't think I got it," he says, and he ducks around back again.
Quetzal lets out a chuckle and shakes his head. "What is it you're trying to set it to?" He asks as apparently Santa Claus isn't the goal. "Well witness or not there is a camera up there." He says nodding to the ones in the corner. He then turns to Corrin and puts out his hand. "Agent Quetzal, I don't believe we've actually met." Sure he may have run into Corrin in passing but the introduction has never been there.
Corrin sighs. "He's already shanghaied those for other purposes." And no, he doesn't know what Koz did with them. He does extend his own hand for shaking. "Agent Kelly. You can call me Corrin. I'm pleased to meet you, Agent Quetzal." A sudden buzz and a yelp from behind the holoprojector make him wince. "That's Koz. He's the one who jammed up the recycler conveyers yesterday."
"Pleasure Corrin, you can just call me Quetzal." Though no other name is given at the moment. He looks over at Kozlowski and shakes his head. "I don't know much about electronics but I would assume that changing what the hologram is is just some code. If you need some help reading it, let me know." He says before looking up at Corrin. "I figure him changing the image will be less damaging then blowing it up." He says quietly. "Besides I am already in a bit of hot water with doing more in the field than I should."
Corrin shakes his head. "He's more likely to turn it into a teleporter or a death ray than he is in simply changing the image." His tone is resigned.
He does do a double-take on Quetzal regarding his field activity. "You didn't go against orders, did you?" He pauses, because that was just too blunt. "I'm sorry. That's really rude of me. What I meant to say was 'You were pursuing a lead, right? Did it pan out?'"
There's a bit of a shrug. "Well not exactly against orders, but yes, about what's been going on in mutant town. They don't think it's smart of me going out since I have the issues with the leg. Not exactly one hundred percent physically." Nor will he ever be. "But I found out some things that were interesting. I just have to do some research on AIM. I haven't had any exposure to AIM in about four or five years."
"Mutant Town." Corrin frowns. Koz yelps again and he doesn't flinch this time, because he's looking at Quetzal. "And AIM." The frown intensifies. "Actually, that makes some sense. Some of the armament seemed a bit over-the-top for the average mutie hater group. Someone had to have had a connection, and lord knows, AIM is willing to sell if you have the cash to buy."
"I traced the weapon to an older AIM model but that's about where the trail seemed to end. I don't know if it's just a gut instinct but I don't feel like this MacBeth fellow is the one who is really behind it." Quetzal says but then that could be the fact that he's a paranoid agent whose used to uncovering fronts and intertwined dealings. "It makes sense why he would hate mutants so much, it makes him the perfect person to manipulate into this. So was a mutant, his powers accidentally killed everyone in his family but him, he's rich….but what normal rich guy knows about AIM weapons and how to get them? Even if they are old AIM weapons, the contacts and the knowledge had to come from somewhere.
"That would depend on where his money came from, wouldn't it?" Corrin crosses his arms. "And old AIM weapons… I was part of an attempt to infiltrate the Irish arm of AIM, about two - three years back. It… blew up in my face." His mouth twists and one hand rises to rub the faded burn scars on the left side of his head. "Part of the Irish trade was cycling old weapons out of stock as new models came into production. AIM generates a lot of their cash through arms sales."
"I'm not sure if AIM is behind this persay, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're making a bit of money off of it." Quetzal says as he does feel a bit sympathetic about the 'blew up in his face part'. "My dealings with AIM were very limited. My team's goal was to gather information and get out. Sometimes things got hairy but most was very covert. With me being a mutant with my linguistics, it proved helpful in intel gathering. But with this, I need to know more about who the link between MacBeth and these AIM weapons could be."
"Did MacBeth have a SHIELD background check done on him? I betcha he has one now, if he didn't before." Koz leans into the conversation, a streak of black grease across his nose. Corrin jumps, and then visibly forces himself back to stillness. "Oh, hey, Corrin. Sorry. Startled you again." He turns back to Quetzal. "But seriously, I bet there's stuff there. What did MacBeth do, anyway?"
Quetzal takes a small note of how Corrin got startled but files that away in his mind and doesn't bring it up. "I didn't check, I think I assumed that they already did that but I'll look into that. See if there is anything before now." He says as he makes a note to do that later this evening since he doesn't have to be up early to teach tomorrow. "He's supposably the one behind this Game, where there are rewards for each mutant someone kills. I don't know how one joins but that'd be another thing worth looking into. Memberships."
Corrin gives Koz a sideways look. "Koz, be a help. Go look up the SHIELD profile on MacBeth." Which the other man cheerfully agrees to do, absenting himself from the conversation again. Corrin does watch to make sure he's actually sitting down and focused on his wireless datapad before turning back to Quetzal.
"Is MacBeth the only one behind the Game? I was there in Mutant Town when everything hit the fan. There was a lot of armor being used, and a lot of ammo. That's big bucks, and lots of teams of people 'playing'. I hear MacBeth funded the thing, but surely he couldn't run it. Not by himself."
"I don't think so, I think he's a front but I'm trying to figure out who is behind him and such." Quetzal says grateful for Corrin and the help from him and his partner. "I wanted to be there but the higher ups gave me another job to do that night. It's just after years as a field agent it's not easy to sit still." Meaning a desk job. "I got a lot of information from a mystery man, and where I'm glad this 'party' got us a few leads I'm not happy on how it went down. Not like we had a choice though."
Corrin would love to ask who the 'mystery man' is, but that's something one field agent just doesn't do when talking to another field agent. Confidential informants are confidential. "If MacBeth is someone's catspaw… who could do that? I don't know much about MacBeth except that he's a businessman…"
"Arms dealer!" Koz pipes up. "And… yeah! Offshore accounts!"
Corrin jumps again. He shifts so that he can watch Koz, who is happily typing away on his datapad. "Arm dealer. There's your AIM connection. MacBeth knows a guy who either is or is in contact with AIM."
"I don't know if this links to Friends of Humanity or any of their offshoots but..he's an arms dealer…interesting." Quetzal says looking at the chipmunk on his shoulder. "I'm getting some ideas…" He says quietly before looking back t Corrin and Koz. "I'd love to find out where one of his bases of operation is. I've been trying to figure it out but no luck with that. What I really don't want is another attack on mutant town again, there were too many people who were effected by that. Nor do I want someone making a game about hunting people."
"That's the point, though. MacBeth and people like him don't think of mutants as people. They think of them as…" Corrin pauses, looking down at his hands, as if they might have the right words clutched in them. "They think of them as obstacles. As vermin. As… diseases." He looks up again. "They think of them as things to be removed, gotten rid of. In many ways, I think they think of them as the reasons the world isn't exactly the way they want it to be." He blinks. "They think of mutants as scapegoats."
"That I do know." Quetzal says as he reaches up and strokes Verde's head. "I'm lucky though, I've never really been faced with as much of the problems that most mutants seem to face now-a-days." He leans on the cane a bit and nods. "It's also very personal to this MacBeth. I think he blames mutants for the reason his family is dead. Not just his sons but mutants as a whole. It's a horrible thing that happened to his family but it's not an excuse."
Corrin sighs. "That's just transference. It's illogical and it's destructive, and MacBeth is old enough to know better." He shrugs a shoulder and looks over to Koz, who is burbling about an account in the Turks and Caicos having a regular transfer of funds to an account in Boca Caliente. "Wait, what? Koz, are you serious?" He heads over to lean over Koz's shoulder. "Good… grief. Quetzal, MacBeth has an automatic withdrawal going direct to AIM central!"
The chipmunk stands up quickly at those words and loses it's footing falling off of Quetzal's shoulder. He makes a wince as he 'feels' it but yet the Chipmunk is showing his shock. "Are you serious? AIM Central…well shit." He says pushing his hair back. "I honestly didn't think it went this deep into AIM." He mutters. "Besides being an arms dealer, what is his connection with AIM. And who else could he be dealing weapons to."
Corrin points at Koz's screen. "Click on that." To Quetzal, he says, "There's … yes. There's shipments out of Boca Caliente to Belize. Koz, see if you can see where they go from there." He looks up at Quetzal and smiles. "What do you want to bet that MacBeth makes part of his income out of AIM resales?"
He straightens. "This isn't a direct link to any of the anti-mutant organizations, but AIM did have that AGM subsidiary - Advanced Genocide Mechanics. Maybe the links through there."
Quetzal returns the smile to Corrin and is happy that they're getting somewhere. "AGM…that would just be, well, at least something is finally making a bit of sense if not for all horrid reasons." Who wants to think AIM is involved with this. "Though, I do want to chat more about this. Maybe meet up for drinks or something here, I need to step outside for a bit. Gotta have my smoke and I gotta call my sister since it's almost noon over there. Thanks a lot Corrin."
Corrin nods and smiles in return. "I'll keep looking into this, and keep Koz on it." He lands a hand on Koz's shoulder, which earns him a grunt. Koz is completely engrossed in what he's doing. Corrin says, "And this is better than organizing three-year-old invoices for towels in the gym. —That's my desk work, post-Ireland." A wry smile and a wave. "Good luck with your smoke and your phone call, sir. I'll look forward to seeing you again."
