September 20th, 2020, Freedom Force HQ, Maryland USA

Price didn’t count on any of them reading his text messages (which he sent at five o’clock in the morning), so he called each and every one of them.  Personally.  At sunrise.

‘An important meeting at HQ today.  Make sure you come on time, and be prepared for overnight travel.  All other details will be provided at the morning briefing’

That was barely three hours ago, and now they were all sitting comfortably for said briefing at the meeting room at Freedom Force HQ.   Price was already there, of course, and was antsier than the usual.  He checked the time on his watch every time one of the agents walked through the door, making note of the time they have arrived.  Once they were all finally there, he sat down his big mug of coffee on the table and stood up in front of the big digital screen

“Alright people, listen up”

“We got fresh intel on one of the Brotherhood mutants that participated in the assault on Nomans Island three weeks ago.  Goes by the name of Michael Thornton”

He clicked on his remote to display the picture of a rather aimable man in his early thirties on the monitor behind him.

"We got warrant for his arrest.  Our mission is to capture him, and interrogate him about the whereabouts of the rest of his cell. Questions so far?"

New mission thread.  Time is about one week after 'A better version of you' (which is still ongoing),  and three weeks after 'prison break'. 

Newton had years of experience about Price's methods. He attended the meeting looking well rested and ready.

"What will be the nature of this operation? Are we here to simply capture the target or do we need to find out his current location? Also information about his powers would be nice, and how does he operate if we have records on him."

"The guy goes by the name 'Legion'," Frank explained, suppressing a sigh. This guy. Why did it have to be this guy again? "He can duplicate himself into hundreds of bodies. Maybe more. There might be no limit.

"Which means he doesn't fear anything we can threaten him with, up to and including death."

Danny had been prompt:  joining Freedom Force was an awesome opportunity for him, and he wasn't going to just screw it up.
As he sat listening, he was also taking notes.

The first two guys had asked some good questions, and added to the overall understanding of the situation: which looked to Danny like it was going to be a dangerous and difficult task.
So, for now, he sat quietly and listened some more.

Ana Sofía echoes Frank's sigh. "Frank's right, and it's even worse. While he technically has an original body, any one of his bodies can spawn or absorb others. It's somewhat like asking us to arrest one ant from a colony of ants. Any one on its own is no big deal, but it's Sisyphean. The one thing we might have going for us is that each of the duplicates is its own individual with its own interests, so any given individual probably won't want to be locked up. I supposed we could try to find the original; maybe he's still on the tropical vacation he was on a few weeks ago while the rest of him was raiding the island."

“What if we could ...”, Danny offered, tentatively as he still hadn’t thought this fully through, “use that against him?  Punish him via his clones?
Like, I dunno, a virus or something ... that could be passed through the network ... ?”
This message was last edited by the player at 11:50, Fri 04 June 2021.

"Is it really Sisyphean though? If the what we want from him is intel about the Mutant Brotherhood cell, any copies of him would work. If we want to remove the target, I am not sure what to do. Deploying a bio weapon can certainly work but it also can go sour really fast, and it needs to be developed. Though I assume you have skills in that area Danny since not many people think about unleashing a virus as a first course of action. Hehe. It also assumes that he is going to contact with his duplicates before he realises something is off with them. Do we know how does he communicate with his duplicates?"

OOC: It is a rule that everyone uses blue for speech and orange for ooc text for this campaign Danny, you might want to fix that message.

"As long as the information is old enough, we could get it from one of them, yes. But once a duplicate has been created it has its own memory. It's only when that duplicate is reabsorbed that that duplicate's memory is absorbed into the other one. As for communication, outside of the reabsorption they communicate as any normal person would. Other duplicates have no idea if some of them are off-task until they observe it or are told, for example."

"I don't think we need to discuss the feasibility of a virus," Frank said, shaking his head in disbelief. "Anything that we could possibly use to infect him would be transmissible. He'd be a walking pandemic. The idea is to interrogate him, anyway... not punish him."

He was more than a little disturbed to hear that kind of idea coming out of their medic. Whatever happened to 'First, do no harm'?

"Thank you, Ana.  We were working under the assumption that all the clones shared a ‘hive mind’ of a sort.  If each of them has separate memories, it certainly complicates matters"

He scratched his beard as he thought some more.  This wasn't good.

"Here's what we know about ‘Michael’: He currently resides at Kalispel, Montana.  Owns a floral shop.  Married.  Two children.  We got records of him being there, at Kalispel, going back six years.  This means that whatever information he does have might be out of date.  On the other hand, interrogating him could still yield valuable intelligence, and we can’t afford to miss out on the opportunity.  Not when we know the Brotherhood are still out there, planning their next move.  So lets start putting a plan together on how we go about capturing him, without endangering civilians"
This message was last edited by the player at 17:32, Wed 02 June 2021.

Danny smirked at the quick judgement and condescension of his fellow.
The guy obviously didn't understand what could be done: what a virus was ... and could be.

But now wasn't the time to try to explain the possibilities.
For now, Danny would sit quietly, and hear what the others had to say ... and learn a little more about those he'd be working closely with as the days and weeks went on.

"There is a way to use his power against him. His copies are basically separate entities from what I've gathered from you Ana. I bet there is at least one copy entertaining the idea of a life where can he his own instead of a mere copy. If we can find and cut a deal with such copy, it would help us to dismantle the terrorist cell."

"Yes, that may well be a good approach."

"I wouldn't mind giving him an offer, but that's assuming he wouldn't bolt the minute he sees us, or creates more clones.  I don't know if this is a chance I am willing to take"

"I could knock him out with some gas" Mistress leaned forward on her elbows "If we can somehow get him into a confined space, it wouldn't matter how many clones he creates.  They'll all be affected just the same"

"About creating about more clones... That is a good question. Can his clones create clones or can this only be performed by the main guy?"

"The clones can create new clones, unfortunately. In essence, they're all originals."

"Great"

This was becoming worse and worse by the minute.  Their man can create as many clones of him as he desires, and they don't have any guarantee he has the information they need to begin with.  This mission has the potential to become one huge clusteruck.

"Our man is wanted for the attack on Nomans land Island.  And I got warrants for him going ten years back for drug possession, larceny, breaking and entering,  assault.  He belongs behind bars" he takes a deep breath "BUT - seeing this one is of no threat, I will be satisfied with getting the information we want"

"That ought to be tough enough, without trying to capture or kill the entire... whatever you want to call him. Species, maybe." Frank was glad they weren't going to try anything stupid, like unleashing a plague on the guy. "Hopefully he'll be willing to talk, or open to a little light persuasion."

"I'm not against trying to talk with him, but what guarantee do we have that he wouldn't split the moment he sees us?" and he meant that in two different ways
"Do we know anything about what he's like, at all, from our encounter at Nomans land?

"Each copy of him seems to be somewhat unique, somewhat how identical twins are different individuals, though notably closer than that. They don't seem to be anything special as individuals. The island's guards were able to kill many of them. Similarly, the ones we faced were not difficult to handle. The problem is the multitude of them. In some ways, I wonder if targeting him financially so he cannot afford to feed and house so many of himself might be one of the most effective ways of containing him."