#moar math

This time, the problem was one of the very people they were here to protect. 

“Cacāta Carta!” Cobalt was staring at one of the documents the organisers had delivered, blue eyes narrowed down to slits and teeth clenched in cold fury. 

“Cobalt?” Xanthic, wisely, was the one to speak, approaching him with the care usually given to unexploded ordinance. 

Cobalt shoved the list at Xanthic and strode out of the room, every line in his body taut with barely controlled emotion. The only reason why the door didn’t slam after him was the gas-piston arm that kept it under control. 

“Blue!” Xanthic pointed at the door and there was genuine concern as he ordered “follow him, make sure he doesn’t murder anyone!” 

“Right!” Blue headed off after Cobalt. 

Xanthic looked at the list and groaned. “OH Poseidon preserve us, he’s one of the speakers.” 

“Words, Guppy, use them.” Grey peered at the list over Xanthic’s shoulder but not seeing anything that warranted a reaction like that. Xan cleared his throat. “Right, uh - so this is about one of the speakers - Dr. Matthis Carbonneau, and don’t forget the ‘Dr.’ He, um - well, he’s Cobalt’s nemesis.” 

“Cobalt has a nemesis?” Scarlet’s eyebrows vanished under his cap. 

Xanthic nodded. “Yeah. Cobalt wrote a paper on, “ he thought for a moment, “three-dimensional trilateration. Carbonneau challenged the proofs, which you’re supposed to do with peer review, but he was a condescending jerk about it. Cobalt refuted the challenge and - um, I'm still not too sure how, but they became sworn enemies because of it. Cobalt was right, his math was correct, but - uh… yeah.” 

“Is there a chance he’ll recognise Cobalt?” Scarlet asked, glancing towards the door that Cobalt had stormed out of. 

“Unlikely,” Xanthic reported. He completely understood the question. Being recognised by someone while on a mission was a specter that haunted all of them. “They’ve never met in person. I’ve met him once - I was picking up Thunderbird Five from a conference - and Carbonneau doesn’t pay attention to you unless you’ve got a string of letters behind your name.” 

“Ah, one of those.” Scarlet made a face, then got back to business. “We can adjust our deployments easily enough.” He thought for a moment. “Magenta, you’ll stay set up here with comms and cameras. Ochre, go get your civvies, you’ll join Rhapsody and Symphony on the close up protection detail. Grey, you’ll move onto the inner perimeter with Blue. Cobalt, Xanthic and I will take the outer perimeter. We’ll reassess at dinner and redeploy as required from there.”  

A chorus of “S.I.G.s,” answered back as the others acknowledged the changes. Scarlet tapped the list. “Is there anyone else we should know about?”

“There’s a bunch of people here that know Cobalt under his civilian name, but I don’t think they’ve ever met in person either. Lots of emails back and forth, but - our old jobs kept us pretty busy.” Xanthic’s mouth twisted into a sad shape. “Be warned, he’s going to be listening to the talks and that’s going to set off his math brain. He starts talking in math without numbers and only Thunderbird Five and Brains can keep up with him. He even leaves Two behind.” Scarlet nodded. “What was his paper about? Because I got lost after ‘three-dimensional’.” 

“He had to translate it for us too. Well, not Five, but he’s the one that gave Cobalt the idea. For the love of Tethys, don’t quote me, I’m going to get it wrong, but I think it’s a way to find the positions of things. Usually in orbit, but you can use it to find other things too. Flying is one of them.” “It’s going to be a long three days isn’t it?” Magenta looked resigned. “We knew that going in.” Xanthic grinned, “But that’s why they sent the best.” 

“Indeed it is.” Scarlet grinned back, then sobered. “Now to work. I’ll find Blue and Cobalt and update them, then it’s to your posts for security sweeps while the staff set up. Everyone gets checked with the C-38 and rechecked later on. We’ve also got the new D-20 long-range detector for field testing, Grey, that’ll be yours today. Magenta, go nap once you’re in the hotel’s  systems, you’ve got the first shift overnight.”  

P(A)

 Blue had to stretch his legs to catch up to Cobalt. The other man had slipped through the nascent security cordon with ease and was outside the conference center in the garden, staring up at the cloud scuffed sky. He’d been briefed enroute - a quick call from Grey - so he knew what to expect and already had an approach in mind as he finally located his quarry.

“Cobalt?” Blue kept his voice soft but he didn’t want to surprise him either, Cobalt’s punch reflex was faster than his own. 

A long, slow, exhale of breath was his answer. Blue came to a halt beside Cobalt and waited. He was good at waiting for others to find their words. He’d been partners with Scarlet for over five years. 

“I’m off the detail, aren’t I.” Cobalt kept watching the sky. 

“I don’t know. I’m just supposed to keep you from murdering anyone.” 

“Heh.” Cobalt’s eyes were tracking the swallows as they flitted around the humans doing weird things, as usual. 

Blue waited but when no more words were forthcoming he sighed. “Do you really hate that guy this much?”

“Enough to shoot him, you mean?” “Yeah.” “Ab-so-damn-lutely. In front of witnesses and cameras.” 

The vehemence shouldn’t have surprised him, Adam realised. When Scott loved someone, it was deeply and fiercely. That he could hate with the same intensity was only natural. ‘Note to self: don’t leave him with Paul, ‘cause he’ll want to help.’ He reached out and put a hand on Cobalt’s shoulder. “You going to be okay being in the same building as him for three days? We can get you back to base if it’s going to be too much.” 

“I - I don’t know.” Scott crossed his arms over his stomach and bent his head in thought. “You ever hate someone? I don’t mean dislike, or be annoyed by, but actual, full on hate? Someone you wouldn’t go out of the way to spit on if they were on fire?”

“Other than our neighbors?” The euphemism nicely hid the Mysterons if anyone was close enough to overhear. 

“Yeah, other than the neighbors.” 

Adam thought about it, it was a good question. “High Command.”

Scott nodded. “Yeah, they fit. I’ve got three. High Command, the Hood, and Carbonneau, and of those, High Command and the Hood are the reasonable ones.” 

Adam’s eyebrows shot up, that was quite the statement. “What did Carbonneau do?”

“Tried to embarrass me in front of our peers, insulted my math skills, and wouldn’t answer my rebuttals. Which can be normal in an academic environment. I can take all that, I’ve taken that and worse,” a muscle in Scott’s jaw flexed, “but then he made it personal and said things about my mom I won’t repeat. I’ve wanted to beat his face in ever since.” 

Now it was Adam’s turn to need some time to find his words. That was a damning list of crimes against the man, and Adam was finding himself hard-pressed to find a reason to put his life on the line for the guy that wasn’t ‘The Old Man said I had to’. Sometimes it was easy, like when a target was a leader or an important person with skills that the world needed. He hadn’t voted for President Roberts or Younger and he loathed the CIC of SHEF, but he'd still done his duty. Other times… well… he did his duty and that was it. 

And that was the sticking point: duty, responsibility and his innate desire to be a decent human being warring with his very human desire to help his friend and stop the thing that was hurting him. 

“...I’ll contact base,” he said at last. “You shouldn’t have to put yourself on the line for him if he’s done that.” 

“Don’t.” Scott brought his head up. “Unless Scarlet sends me back, I’ll stay. As long as I’m not around him, I should be okay.” He looked at Adam. “I can’t leave you guys short. Too many people, too big of an area. If we didn’t need all of us, the Colonel wouldn’t have sent all of us.” 

Approaching footsteps made them both turn and look to see Scarlet jogging up. "There you are," he said as he came to a stop. "Are we good? I've changed up the deployment." He quickly outlined the changes he'd made. 

Blue nodded his agreement then looked at Cobalt for his input. 

"...I'll manage." Cobalt said at last. "Thanks, both of you." 

P(A)

The team gave the hotel a walk through, noting ambush locations, the worst (best?) spots for bombs, lines of sights, obvious escape routes, and not so obvious ones. A task helped by Magenta slipping into the hotel security network, giving them sight, some sound, and in 4D colour. Not that the hotel or convention people would ever know that - 'I'm a professional, Ochre!' - then they got into their positions, overt and covert, to stand guard and keep watch against the danger aimed at innocents whose only crime was being human.

The event started with a welcoming dinner, which meant that people started arriving as soon as they could check in: guests, attendees, and a veritable flock of assistants and grad students trailing their professors like apprentices with their masters. It was something of a tumultuous affair; barely half an hour in and there had already been one shouting match between a pair of physicists, and going by the glares levelled by others, at least another three were pending.

Xanthic, part of the group observing goings-on in the main foyer, shrugged when eyes turned to him for answers. "It's a professional conference, Cobalt isn't the only one with a nemesis."

“So I see…” had been Scarlet’s murmured comment to that, followed by a quick conversation with the conference organisers for any intel they could offer. Overblown egos, professional jealousies, and their ilk were fertile soil for the games that the Mysterons played.

The afternoon check-ins and distribution of academics to assigned quarters continued to proceed with the usual dusting of chaos that not even the most seasoned event organisers could entirely avoid, and intermittently spiced up by sparks as the owners of conflicting opinions met and clashed with varying levels of respect for social norms. Without saying a word, everyone marked and noted Doctor Matthis Carbonneau and his much harried assistant, Amand Baume, their rooms, and the most direct path that they would have to take to get to the main conference areas. Finally the last person was checked in, the last welcome pack and lanyard was handed out with the attendees’ names emblazoned with the academic heraldry of degrees and universities, and the shuffling herd proceeded down to the ballroom for the sumptuous dinner that had been laid on.  

Up in the suite, Ochre, Magenta, Cobalt and Xanthic were quickly wolfing down the dinner that the hotel had delivered. Ochre and Xanthic had the evening shift, on the inner perimeter keeping an eye on things along with the hotel’s own security team, and Cobalt was going on the outer cordon. All three of them were watching over Magenta’s shoulder as the first of the speeches began, delivered by the guest of honour: Dr. Sir Terance Tao, FAA, FRS, OBE.

Rick finished a mouthful of asparagus and shook his head. “The longer I listen, the dumber I feel,” he remarked. “Like… I know he’s talking in English, but it might as well be Hungarian for all I understand.” 

“It’s a new variant on the S.Q.R.T. equation used to calculate satellite motion, taking into account the disruptions caused by high-occupancy orbital paths,” Scott began, giving a little shrug as he chased the last piece of salmon on his plate. “It’s a growing problem, especially with the new, high-mass fuel cells they’re using these days.” He finally speared the last bit of fish. “You see, Newton's form of Kepler's third law is the base equation…” 

“Wait.” Rick interrupted, pointing at himself with his fork. "Dyslexic with a high school diploma. I only do math with numbers, so if you want me to follow what you're saying use smaller words." 

Scott blanched, clearly mortified. "Oh, damn, I'm so sorry!" “You do math in your head all the damn time Rick,” Gordon stepped in, waving half a breadroll to illustrate his point. “Stop selling yourself short.” Rick’s head tilted. “I do not. High school diploma, remember?”

In the meantime, Pat wisely stayed out of the crossfire going on above his head. His speciality was computer numbers, that was enough. “Gordon’s right though,” Scott jumped in. “You’re a sniper.” He nodded to the long gun case in the far corner of the room. “One of the very best. You’re doing trigonometry and plane geometry every time you shoot. You’re just doing it at such a deep level, it’s reflex and instinct. I have to think when I do math, you just do it.”  

That got a blink out of Rick. “...huh. Okay then.” He put down his plate and cutlery on a nearby side table, then pointed at the still-going speech, which now included equations being sketched out on a holoboard wheeled out for the occasion. “This. Can you translate it for me?” 

  “Sure.” Also setting aside his plate, Scott dragged over a handy notepad, took a pen from his pocket, and came over to Rick’s side of the table. "Okay, uh, so it's like this…" he sketched a globe, then plotted out an orbit. “We’ll start with the known - mass of the satellite and mean distance of the central body, i.e. earth…” 

As the lesson began, Pat absolutely noticed the small smile on Gordon’s face as he watched his brother start playing with numbers… but that smile was sad, and the reason why was something that he just couldn’t decipher - yet. 

The dinner and talks finished up about half an hour later, which led to the meet and greet - their signal to go down into the ballroom and be both obvious and not so obvious. 

Taking one half of the ballroom, Ochre wandered through the crowd, not recognized by simply wearing civilian clothes, and not truly paying attention to anything being said, but listening for anything that didn't ring true. Even in a setting like this, which was so far over his head as to be level with Cloudbase, he could tell when something was off kilter. 

On the other half of the ballroom, Xanthic stood out like a beacon in his uniform and was taking a fair amount of perverse enjoyment of throwing sci-speak back at the various attendees who tried to snub him, talk over his head, or in the rare case, treated him like an actual human instead of mobile furniture. Spouting facts about lunar movement and the effects on king and neap tides, migration patterns and more, he very deliberately cross-pollinated pure mathematics with marine biology and revelled in every minute of it as he shocked them with the undeniable evidence that he was more than just a dumb grunt with a gun and a fancy uniform. 

Up above them, for once, Cobalt was glad to be on the outside, looking in - and this time quite literally, he was up on the catwalks used to hang lighting rigs when the ballroom was used as a venue for shows. The door to being amongst the crowd one of the attendees had closed a long time ago for him, but that didn't stop him from fan-boying a little bit over Sir Terance, even if it was just in his head. ‘But if I do get a chance…’ There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do to get just five minutes with the most brilliant mathematician alive. Scott huffed a laugh and shook his head. ‘I’m just as bad as Virgil getting to meet Kip Harris or Gordon getting to meet the Pendergasts and Doctor Shelby. Ah well, dreams are free, and it’s nice to have some heroes who actually do measure up.’ Shaking off what could have been, Cobalt returned to his duties. He had another dozen-odd areas to cover and a handover to give before he could seek out his bed. 

(P)A

Day Two of the conference dawned crisp and clear. After word of the little translation lesson spread, a quick, late night confab between the team had decided it was both safe enough and amply beneficial for Cobalt to be in the thick of things, as it were, and he was reassigned to the inner cordon so he could linger, lurk, and soak up as much as he could. Of course no one said as much - ‘we need your ear for things that aren’t on the up-and-up’, Symphony had told him - but he didn’t call them on their transparent falsehood and they didn’t elaborate further.

But while last night had run relatively smoothly, day two began with an early snag.

Symphony was the first to have a run-in with Doctor Matthis Carbonneau. She was walking the inner cordon and checking the rooms before breakfast when she found him writing formulas in different colours on the blackboard. Despite her reluctance to be around the guy, just from his reputation alone, she still had to give the room a check. "Excuse me, Doctor."

He jerked, sending a line of yellow chalk across a blue formula. "Damnit!" He snarled and twisted to face her. He blinked several times at the lovely woman in a fashionable pantsuit and not whatever staff he was expecting. "What do you want?"

She raised both eyebrows at him. "I need to check the room and make sure it's secure." He plastered what he no doubt thought was an engaging smile, but in reality was a somewhat creepy leer. "I wouldn't mind being secured by you."

Symphony narrowed her eyes at him. "Only if you've broken laws, Doctor. But I'd make sure to wear gloves." She spun on her heel and stalked out. She was exceedingly impressed by the fact that she hadn't shot him. 'I have to warn Dianne.'

The warning was passed on in short order, the attendees and their guardians broke their fasts, and the first part of the morning was spent with the conference-goers splitting up into smaller groups based around their specialities and spreading out amongst the many other halls and meeting spaces to debate and confer over their challenges, or attend mini-lectures and talks. 

Magenta’s tap into the security feeds made the team’s lives that much easier, and when the attendees broke for morning tea, the Captains and Angels swept through the venue to make a discreet check to ensure that everything would continue to go according to their plan, not the Mysterons’.

Between the Clark Kent effect and the uniform, not one person paid the least attention to Cobalt as he moved through the crowd. Well, other than some sneers, which just made him shake his head. Their opinion of him didn't matter in the slightest, he had far better brothers and sisters in arms that respected and cared about him for just being himself. Something he was still working on accepting, but the convention goes didn't need to know that. He traded patrol paths with Symphony and headed back to their base of operations, it was his turn for a tea break. 

The staff hadn't stinted in the tea cart for the team, which made for a lovely change of pace, and he was filling a plate with morsels when there was a knock on the door. 

The knock was followed by the door opening with a certain level of care (because startling a group of special agents was never a good idea) and Scarlet stalked inside, trailing proverbial thunderclouds behind him. He shut the door, cast about and picked up a stray paper napkin. A rummage in his tunic pocket produced a pen, he scribbled out a short message, then without a word he handed the napkin to Cobalt and left, going in the direction of his, Grey’s and Blue’s room. 

No one followed. They all recognised the signs of a Scarlet so emotionally taxed he’d lost his words, he’d be back once he’d recharged somewhat. 

“What did he say?” Magenta asked, trying to see over Cobalt’s shoulder. 

Cobalt turned it to show him: ‘Give me an alibi and I’ll shoot him for you’. 

“Oh. I guess that means he met Carbonneau.”   

“Yeah.” Cobalt’s voice was flat. He shook himself. “He’s gonna be okay?” Scott nodded in the direction that Paul had gone. 

“He will be. Give him a bit and he’ll be back out when he’s feeling less murderous.” Magenta turned back to his various screens. “I’ll see if I can find the when and where, just in case the POI makes a complaint.” 

“S.I.G.” Cobalt nodded, reapplying himself to his tea so he could relieve Grey. 

P(A)

To everyone’s relief the tea break passed without anything more dangerous than a shouting match between two mathematicians, who headed back to their breakout room and started writing on the light board at high speed.

Roaming the halls during the lunch break - because Magenta was tracking Carbonneau and after his encounter with him Paul wanted to make sure that Scott was well away before that person came back this way - Scarlet finally found Cobalt in one of the smaller lecture rooms, hands clasped behind his back as he studied the equations written on the blackboard that had been brought in specifically for the occasion, notations and numbers scrawled over it in different colors of chalk. The fact that they were using chalk had surprised him, it was something he personally hadn’t seen since his own university days. Obviously some special brand, it hadn’t escaped any of the team that almost every attendee carried their own chalk in little boxes or cases.

“Is it interesting?” Paul squinted at it, trying to tease out some thread of logic that he could follow. Seeing an original Chaucer manuscript had been less confusing. 

“I think so. They are trying a variation of the two body problem to predict movements of NEOs. But I think they aren’t allowing for enough scalar potential.” 

“And what do you know about that,Capitaine?”  A blond woman stood behind them in a suit and had a raised eyebrow at Cobalt. Her lanyard was back to front, so at their best guess she was either one of the conference organizers or part of the event staff.

Scarlet suppressed the flinch and swore at himself for not watching their six. Cobalt just turned. 

"<That they aren’t allowing for enough of a gradient on the gravitational points.>"

Scarlet kept the grin on the inside at the look on her face at the perfect French and whatever it was Cobalt told her - he didn’t understand the words, but he did know the language and he was fluent in the tone, that was enough. "<Not to mention, they’ve forgotten to take the vector of gee into account.>" Cobalt turned back to the board. "<But they should be able to figure that out after lunch.>" He looked at Scarlet. “We need to check the other lecture rooms before they come back.” 

“S.I.G.” Scarlet flashed his best smile at the woman. “Ma’am.”  Cobalt gave her a nod as they left the room. They were three rooms away when Cobalt sighed. “I wonder sometimes, what it would be like to have not gone into the WAAF. If I’d stayed and gotten my doctorate.” Personally, Scarlet considered that to be a crime against humanity, considering all the good that Scott and his brothers had done for the world. But then again, who knows what Scott could have solved if he’d followed that path. 

"Would you be able to try to do your doctorate part time?" he asked as he led the way through a discreet door into the service areas and the maze of storage and plant rooms that kept the massive conference centre functioning. 

Cobalt made a thoughtful noise. "Not with my old job no… but funnily enough I've got more time now." 

"You should look into it," Scarlet encouraged. "We've all got our little side projects to keep us engaged and sane, and you clearly enjoy this. I haven't seen you this chirpy since the Old Man threw you into a room with Blue, the Angels and the new Interceptor plans." 

"Huh." Cobalt turned as he walked to check their six, then turned back. "I think…" he stopped, instantly on alert as the senior officer suddenly wobbled and leaned on the wall for support. 

"Yes, it's them," Scarlet gritted out in response to the unasked question. Raising a hand to his 'cap he quickly radioed the alert. "S.I.R., something near the…" 

"Hospitality storage," Cobalt quickly supplied. 

"Hospitality storage," Scarlet relayed, giving him a nod of thanks. "Cobalt and I are investigating." 

“Roger S.I.R. at hospitality storage. If we don’t hear back from you in ten, we’ll start evacuating the attendees.” Grey’s voice was calm in both their ears.

“Confirm, check back in ten.” Scarlet pushed off the wall and fought the nausea down. There was a small twitch from Cobalt as he resisted the urge to help. He drew his sidearm instead and started to ghost his way to the door. Scarlet noted with a bit of annoyance that Cobalt took the entry position, which left Scarlet with opening the door. He was going to have words with him about that, but that would wait until later. Scarlet placed his hand on the door, made a fist with the other, and counted out three, throwing the door open on the last finger. 

Cobalt bolted through the door, making sure to slam it back to ensure that anyone behind it was very unhappy - and the 'oof' and yelp as the door hit the person hiding behind it proved it was a very good idea!

Cobalt whirled, gun coming up as he started to bark out 'Spectrum!', but he barely got past the first syllable before there was a metallic click, the door was shoved back and Cobalt found himself making the 'oof!' as Scarlet tackled him to the ground, rolled onto his back, and fired off a volley of shots at the figure that’d been behind the door. 

A heartbeat, their ears ringing from the gunfire, then what had once been one of the kitchen staff, going by their white uniform, dropped the compact submachine gun and crumpled. 

Scarlet was already back on his feet, kicking the gun away from the replicant's limp hand and quickly scanning the rest of the room. 

"Still sensing something?" Cobalt asked as he got up, every sense on high alert. With the dozens of stacks of tables, chairs, boxes and trolleys, a crowd could have hidden here and they'd have been none the wiser. 

"Affirmative." Scarlet sounded like he was trying to swallow back bile - whatever this was had to be bad if he was still affected and to this level. "Cobalt, over there, what's that?" He nodded to an oddly shaped lump by a stack of steam trays, partially covered by a black tablecloth. 

"Not sure." Cobalt carefully edged towards it, trusting Scarlet to watch his back while he investigated. 

A cautious lift of the cloth, and he swore under his breath. "Scarlet? Something's wrong here, they've built a fake bomb." 

"A fake?" Scarlet made his way over to look. 

Sure enough, it was a classic Hollywood bomb with a timer (currently off), lots of colour coded wires and a big brick of what a poke with a boot knife showed was modeling clay wrapped in thick, olive green paper. While they’d all had the training to recognise the real thing and deal with it, to the general public educated on movies, it looked very real. 

"...they're wanting an evac," Scarlet realised. "The chaos and confusion would be the perfect cover for something else!" 

“Shit!” Cobalt triggered his ‘cap. “Don’t evac! Repeat: Do Not Evacuate the building! Suspected trap outside.” 

But even as Cobalt sent the warning, a fire alarm started to shrill. 

“No!” Scarlet quickly cuffed the replicant to an exposed steel pipe, just in case it got up to cause trouble again. “We need to move!” 

“S.I.G.” 

P(A)

“No! Nononono!” In the suite, Magenta scrambled to crack into the hotel systems and squelch the alarms, but to no avail. He slapped his microphone down as he threw himself out of his chair “Magenta to all points, system's just gotten an encrypt, 64-bit! Not a chance of silencing it!”

“Ochre, Blue, get up and high!” Scarlet ordered. “We need eyes and a sweep for snipers! Mags, comms to the hotel, tell them it's not a real alarm, to keep as many people inside as possible! Angels, locate Doctor Tao, stick to him! Everyone else, outside, we have to get them back in!”

“S.I.G!” Magenta answered as he went for the door. They had identified the elderly academic as a high-value target very early on. Magenta ran for the facilities office and grabbed the first person he saw with a radio. "It's a trick! The bad guys got into the system! We have to get everyone back inside." The Spectrum uniform working wonders on identifying who Magenta was.

The man spat a curse and triggered his radio. Or rather he tried to trigger his radio, it squealed like the grandfather of all pigs. He swore again and shoved a key card at Magenta. "The fire riser for the hotel is off the lobby. You'll need that and the code to get in and kill the alarms, code is 2957. I'll get the conference areas."

"Copy." Magenta turned and ran back the way he'd come, repeating the code to himself several times before pulling down his mike. "Trying to get the alarms shut down, heading to the hotel fire riser room." 'S.I.G. Mags, hurry, I've got a bad feeling."

Ochre's 'bad feelings' were right up there with Xanthic's 'squid sense'. Magenta tried to run faster. 

P(A)

Outside, it was chaos. The irony of using years and years of fire drills and training against them wasn’t lost on Rhapsody, but there wasn’t much she could do about that right now as she fought against the current of humanity obediently filing out through the marked exits, fire stairs and emergency exits into the open-air carpark beside the hotel - which, surrounded as it was by fences and hedges, made an unnervingly perfect kill box.

“Rhaph, on your three!” Symphony shouted over the wailing sirens and robotic, multi-lingual announcements of ‘Please make your way to the nearest emergency exit’. 

“S.I.G!” Rhapsody scanned to her right and found the elderly Doctor Tao. “Doctor, I’m Rhapsody Angel, come with me,” she said as she found her place next to him… only to be pinned by a sneer. 

“And who, exactly, are you?”  Dr. Matthis Carbonneau asked from the academic’s other side. 

‘Of course he’s attached himself to the most important person here, probably so he can play hero,’ flashed through her mind as she considered her options. “Spectrum, that’s who,” was what she shot back with. “Doctor Tao,” she turned her attention back to her charge. “We need to get back inside.” 

Doctor Tao blinked, confused. “What do you-!” 

Bang!Bang!Bang!Bang!

P(A)

Cobalt and Scarlet burst out of one of the side doors into the sunshine just as the bullets cracked through the air, people screaming and ducking for whatever cover they could find. 

“Small arms, two directions, there and there!” Scarlet pointed to the two road entrances into the carpark alongside the hotel - and the evacuation assembly area. “Over the wall, go!” He bolted for the nearest wall, trampling through the garden on his way to scaling the six foot concrete wall like a gecko. Cobalt ran the other way, gun out. "Shooters! North and east access points. Scarlet and I are going to intercept. Get them back into the building!' "Copy." Symphony sent back, "we're trying."

Cobalt felt sorry about being abrupt with Symphony, but none of them had time for niceties.

Bang!Bang!Bang!Bang! Bang!Bang!Bang!Bang!

He crouched down and crab walked his way closer to the sounds of the shots. Peering over the edge of a large planter box, he could just see what looked like one of the dozens of assistants or  junior mathematicians tucked in the emergency stairwell. He finished reloading the gun in his hand and pointed it at the dirt in front of him. 'Distraction and keeping them in one place!' Cobalt had already sighted for a head shot. 'I don't think so.' He fired, the sharp bark of his pistol being far different from the replicant's. "Shooter down. Going to clear." He stared forward carefully, just as another shot rang out. ‘How many of them are there?!’ Scott had a brief flicker of grief for all the families who’d lost someone today, innocent victims of a callous enemy, but that was all he allowed himself. 

He had a job to do: keep that awful pain from spreading any further.

P(A)

Rhapsody moved like she had a dozen times before and pushed Dr. Tao into what scant cover there was, covering what she could with her own body. She'd looked the mathematician up the afternoon before and totally understood why Cobalt got a bit starry-eyed over the man. The only award he didn't have was a Nobel, and that was because there wasn't one for Mathematics.

"How dare you!" Carbonneau shouted as he tried to push her away from her protectee. He had about as much luck as trying to shove the wall. 

She was stressed, worried, and not a little scared, so one could excuse her for bringing her pistol up and centering it on Carbonneau's nose. "I'm an Angel of Spectrum, I dare every damn day and you seem to be threatening my protectee." 

There was a rather undignified squeak from Dr. Carbonneau and he vanished into the swell of humanity. 

"Sorry about that Doctor…" "Don't be, I've wanted to do that for years with that man.” Tao honoured her with a brief smile. “Now tell me what's going on?"

“There’s been a terrorist threat, the fire alarm was to get everyone outside into an ambush, but we’re taking care of it,” she assured him, while at the same time hoping this wouldn’t turn into a run. Doctor Tao was spry, but he was 90. 

“What do you need me to do?” Tao asked. 

“Keep low and stay with me,” Rhapsody told him, flicking him a brief, reassuring smile. “For us, this is Tuesday.” 

That got a laugh just as Symphony joined their huddle. “Mags should have the hotel systems shut down and the fire doors open any second now, the Captains are neutralising the attackers, and Cloudbase is sending reinforcements,” she reported, head on a swivel as she scanned for the next attack. “As soon as it’s clear, we’re moving.” 

Rhapsody nodded once. “S.I.G.” 

P(A)

A brief pause to check the lanyard on the replicant he’d just taken out -  a woman this time, one that he was certain he’d glimpsed trailing one of the senior academics yesterday - Scarlet frowned as the pattern he’d noticed was proved. “Scarlet to all points, they’re using the assistants and PAs, repeat, check all assistants.” 

He tuned out the acknowledgements so he could concentrate on slinking forward and searching out the next one. Fighting down the nausea and headache was so much easier with a proverbial tsunami of adrenaline blotting out all unnecessary feedback and a situation to distract him from it. 

“Scarlet, on your six.” 

The whispered warning came just before he sensed more than heard Xanthic slip up to join him. 

“There’s at least two more up ahead,” Scarlet murmured back.

"Pincer?" Xanthic breathed the word softly as he got down on his stomach to look under the car. So many people forgot there was an empty space there.

"Good as plan as any," Scarlet checked his clip. "I go right and you'll - "

"Go port." He pushed himself up right. "Feet, passenger side, two vehicles over, two rows up on your side. There's a pair about the same location on mine."

Scarlet nodded. "Crossfire set up." He looked toward the building. "Funnel the attendees right into a kill box."

"That's what they think. Good hunting." Xanthic slipped around the car they were crouched behind. 

"And you." Scarlet went the other way and did his bloody best not to throw up.

It was the nausea that saved him. He'd leaned on a car at the same moment the replicant on his side had popped up to shoot at him. He fired back just before the proverbial horse kicked him in the chest and he crumpled to the ground. "Scarlet!" Three shots snapped out, followed by thuds, the scuff of feet, a fourth shot, and footsteps coming his direction. 

Still a little stunned by the hit, Scarlet looked down at the two holes in the suede outer layer of his vest, right over his heart, and gave a breathless little half laugh. “Bloody thing did its job for once!” 

“You okay?” Xanthic grabbed him by the shoulder and peeled him off the ground. 

“Cracked rib or two, I’ll be fine as long as no one hits me there.” It was already itching with healing. Scarlet shifted his shoulders under his tunic to resettle it back into place. “Let’s move.” 

“S.I.G.”

P(A)

Up on the roof, Blue looked through the spotting scope, hunting out anyone who was armed and not theirs. “West gate, Asian male, blue jacket, red shirt underneath. 22 yards.” 

“Got him.” Ochre adjusted his sniper rifle. The hotel staff had baulked when he’d lugged the case into the hotel yesterday, but it was worth its weight in gold right now. A pause as he waited for a gap in the wind, then a gentle pull on the trigger. 

BANG

“Centre mass.” 

“Magenta to all points, I’ve got the system disarmed!” crackled over their radios. “Security are clearing the exits, get everyone inside!” 

“Rhapsody, Symphony!” Cobalt’s voice broke in, tight and sharp, “Move! Walking bomb headed your way!” 

Blue quickly refocused his scope, first finding the flash of white and gold, then the unassuming man moving towards them, smoke pouring from his collar. “Confirmed, replicant enroute to you and smoking!”  

“Not for long,” Ochre murmured as he moved his rifle to point that way. 

Blue watched anxiously as Ochre lined up the shot. This was something they’d debated time and again: could they shoot a ‘walking bomb’ and thereby neutralise the threat, or would it just make things worse? Without a way to test it, they’d reluctantly come down on the side of ‘shoot it and pray’ - if they did set it off early, at least it wouldn’t be as close to its target. Ochre let out an easy breath - then jerked the rifle skyward! "Son of a -" "What!" Blue looked through the scope. "Civilian in the way!" He focused and swallowed. "It's Carbonneau, I think that was his assistant."

"Oh bloody HELL."

P(A)

"Amand! What are you doing?" Carbonneau stared at his assistant in fascinated horror and took a step closer - 

Only to be tackled to the ground as "Take the BLOODY shot," was roared into his ear. 

There was the crack of a weapon, followed by the person being shoved into him even more, an explosion muted by the body of a van, and his ears popped. 

A cacophony of noise, names being shouted, generalised screaming and chaos, then Carbonneau found himself being manhandled off the hot concrete by one of the security people, a scowling man in a red tunic. “Are you okay?” the man half-shouted at him. 

“I’m,” Mattis swallowed, then tried again. “I’m fine. Amand?” He tried to look past the man, but was blocked by a wall of muscle in red suede. 

“That wasn’t him,” the man informed him, still talking far too loudly. “It was an imposter pretending to be him.” 

“What?” Carbonneau blinked. “But…” He stopped, a thousand possibilities flashing through his mind. “Was he trying to kill me?” The wind picked up just then, and Matthis realised he could feel air moving where it shouldn’t be - specifically, on his leg and elbows. A glance and he saw the reason: great big rips through his clothes, and blood as well! “My suit! You’ve ruined my suit, you oaf!” 

Already mentally drafting up the absolutely scathing email he was going to send to the hotel, the conference organisers, and whatever outfit this primary-coloured clown belonged to, Carbonneau turned to stalk off and completely missed one of the female security people placing a restraining hand on the man’s shoulder and utter a warning of “Paperwork. Paperwork and witnesses.”  

Thankfully Carbonneau was far enough away he completely missed the replying snarl of "I agree with Cobalt, it would be worth it." 

P(A)

Now sequestered inside the hotel lobby with her charge, Rhapsody kept a weather eye on the door and let some of the tension leave when there was a flash of red seen through the crowd of people.

"A friend?" A slightly bemused voice asked.

She fought down the blush and turned to face her protectee. "One of my regular partners." She saw no reason to explain how 'regular' Scarlet was.

Tao nodded. "Good friends and partners make any job easier." He looked around at the barely contained chaos. "Would you mind horribly taking me back to my room? This is a little more excitement than I'm used to having."

She focused on him and ran a careful gaze over him, checking for injuries. 

"I'm mostly fine." Again she was graced with that slight smile. "It's just I'm in the way, I'll be safer in my room, once you've checked it, and that will free you up to help deal with the aftermath of this. I'm fairly certain that conference has ended for this year." His lips twitched. "I do expect this one to live on for quite some time in stories yet to come."

Rhapsody blinked at his astute observation, then remembered that Dr. Tao was possibly the smartest person on the planet. "That would be helpful, but we really can't leave you alone, Doctor. The chances of there being more terrorists is just too high."

"Ah. Probabilities on probabilities. Always the bane of a good theorem."

She had to smile at that, then she caught a glimpse of dark blue. "Cobalt!"

The summoned officer eeled his way through the crowd. "Yes, Rhapsody Angel?" His eyes widened just a bit when he saw who was next to her.

"Can you take Dr Tao to his room and stay with him? I need to check with Symphony Angel."

"I'd be glad to, Rhapsody Angel."

She turned, "Dr. Tao, this Captain Cobalt. He's one of our best and will take good care of you." "Doctor." Cobalt inclined his head. "Pleasure to meet you."

“The pleasure,” Doctor Tao smiled, “is all mine.” 

P(A)

Doctor Tao’s prediction was proved correct in short order. 

Within the hour, the organisers announced that the conference was over, but all persons were requested to remain at the hotel while Spectrum and the local police made sure everyone was accounted for, one way or another. Of course the announcement was met with protests and objections, but with Captain Ochre leading the investigation, flanked by the absolutely stone-faced Captains Grey and Xanthic, 99.999% of complainees decided to voice those objections at a later time. 

With their ranks swelled by a team from the regional office, the taking of statements, searching of the hotel, and locating the cache of hidden bodies went much quicker than they anticipated. Spectrum Research sent a team as well - there were multiple dead replicants for them to collect, once, of course, they’d been treated to ensure they wouldn’t get up again. 

The hotel was kind enough to continue to provide food for the team, and dusk was falling when the Cloudbase team at last got the okay to hand over to the local unit and started dragging themselves back to the suite so they could have one last quick meeting to consolidate their information before packing up and going back to base. 

“Total of fifteen victims.” Scarlet thumped into one of the chairs. He wasn’t sore any more, thanks to the retrometabolism, but he was shattered. This had been a very long day, and he’d be very, very glad to see the back of this place. “Five staff, ten assistants. The first replicant was one of the housekeeping staff. She got the other staff members this morning, before breakfast, then they took out the assistants one by one, hauling the bodies away in laundry carts. Initial look says they were picked at random, just whichever unlucky soul happened to cross their paths. Local unit is canvassing out there,” he waved in the direction of the city, “to trace what happened to that first replicant.” 

“Makes perfect sense,” Magenta said as he uploaded everything he’d skimmed out of the hotel cameras to Cloudbase. “Place like this? Housekeeping are all but invisible.” 

“Mm.” Blue, also sprawled in a chair, rubbed his eyes and grunted his assent. He looked around for their missing members before asking “has Cobalt stopped grinning yet?” 

“Nope.” That was Xanthic, lying on the floor with a broad smile on his face. “He’s walking Doctor Tao to the airport shuttlebus, they’re still talking.” He tipped that smile towards the two Angels. “Thanks for that Rhapsody. I know he’ll say it later, but you’ve just made all his Christmasses come at once.”

“You’re welcome. I’m just glad the chance came about.” Rhapsody smiled back. “If he wasn’t nearby, I’d have called him.” 

“What about…” Scarlet fished about for the name, decided he was too tired to pronounce it, and settled on “that obnoxious twit?” 

“Already on a different airport shuttlebus.” Gordon’s smile vanished. “And complaining about not having his assistant to manage things for him. That the poor guy’s on a slab isn’t the main problem, it’s that he’s inconvenienced him by being dead.” 

“Charming.” That was Rhapsody, delivering the word with the particular disdain only possible with an upper-crust accent. “Do we have any avenues for doing something about him? Like that other delightful example of humanity from Copenhagen?”

“No.” That was Blue, grimacing. “He hasn’t officially done anything to one of us, just been rude and irritating, which is apparently par for the course for him. He’ll probably get cold-shouldered at the next big conference or two, but he’s a tenured professor at Yale, he’ll have a shiny new assistant by next semester.” 

“So he gets away with it?” Scarlet was looking profoundly miffed about that.

“Yeah, he gets away with it.” Blue wasn’t too happy either. “We can try to make some calls, but I don’t think it’ll get very far. I don’t think any of us have strong enough connections on that side of academia and tenured profs are almost bullet-proof.” 

“Speaking of calls,” Ochre walked back into the main room, “I’ve just called Cloudbase for our ride. Destiny’s going to pick us up. Let’s get packed and go before something else happens.” 

A chorus of agreements and ‘S.I.G.’s, and people heaved themselves back onto their feet to stow their gear and get ready to leave. 

P(A)

Night had fully settled in, the SPJ was cruising over the Atlantic, and in the passenger section, Scott was the only person awake. It’d taken less than a minute after reaching cruising altitude for seats to go back, ‘caps to be pulled down, and jackets to be laid over laps as blankets as people did the smart thing and ‘checked for light leaks’ after a long, tiring day. 

But while he was physically tired, right now Scott was feeling far too awake to sleep. Getting to talk with THE Doctor Terrence Tao, to throw around theories and numbers with him…  it’d sparked something, no, it’d reawakened something long dormant. 

His personal phone on the tray table in front of him, it took a couple of minutes to get into the files on his private server, back at the house in New Haven, and most of that was waiting for the security checks. Finally he was into it, the hologram projecting up from his phone showing a list of files and archives. He flicked his way through it, finally settling on one he hadn’t touched in literal years.  

He hesitated, his hand poised to touch the words ‘Doctorate thesis’, etched in blue-tinted light, then screwed up his courage and tapped it.

The file obediently opened, and Scott scrolled through the notes he’d made just before that fateful decision to give up this dream and join the WAAF. Memories teased at him, good ones, of learning, the comradery of fellow students, and the elation of breaththroughs, and Scott sat back in his chair and propped his head up on one hand as he mapped out the path ahead.