Ana Sofía doesn't respond immediately to Frank's comment, staying silent a little too long as she blushes some, eyes fixed on Kate. Then she scrambles for a late recovery, "You know you just nullified my no-cookies threat, right Frank?" She smiles at Frank with that, clearly not upset. "If I'm more mobile, your mother and I may have to trade recipes."  Ana Sofía looks back at Kate and gets redder than she had been, eyes wide.

In reply to Windtalker (msg # 50):

Kate pouted at the threat.  It was... mildly effective.  If only because they had been awfully busy recently so there hadn't been any cookies anyway.  "Wait.. what?"  Kate asked as Frank went on about the threat of cookies into the too long pause.   And then took a moment to stick out her tongue at Ana, ostensibly when Frank wasn't looking but making sure he would catch her at it all the same before giving him a big wide smile.  "It seems like you had better invite Ana over to meet them, or maybe they can stay with us?  Do they have a place to stay yet, one with a big kitchen and oven?  You know one that could hold the whole family?"  This was fun and Kate's mood was definitely impressively raised now.

Ana Sofia was turning red. At first, Frank wasn't sure why. Then he realized that some of the conversation was still going on telepathically, and he wasn't privy to it. Some might consider it rude, but Frank just decided that he'd probably walked in while they were having a private conversation. He assumed they were finishing whatever it was they'd been talking about before his arrival, and it had nothing to do with him.

"My folks can stay with me," he answered Kate. "I've got plenty of space. I've rented a townhouse. I was going to have the team over for a housewarming party, but when exactly would we have had the time, right? Anyway, the kitchen is pretty big."

"You're not giving up, are you?" Ana Sofía rhetorically asks Kate. She sighs. "Well, I did just come pretty close to dying, so maybe I should let go those youthful feelings of invulnerability. (Frank aside.)" She turns from Kate to Frank as she implies his true invulnerability. "Kate's been intercepting my thoughts because my walls are still a little weak from the remnants of the morphine, and she's being una entrometida... a busybody. But in our profession we see waiting is a good way to lose things. So while this is the worst I've ever felt or looked, no time like the present." The air seems to prop her up as she levitates suddenly from the bed, she reaches forward to hold Frank's head, and she kisses him. She has a moment afterward when she looks into his eyes before letting go, and then she falls back to the bed. "¡Ow, ow, ow, carajo, hijo de la chingada que duele!" Whether or not the language is understood, it's pretty clear from how she says it that those are pain-filled expletives.

When Ana Sofia floated up out of her hospital bed, Frank had a second to form the question of Why? but not enough time to ask before he found out directly. He was so surprised by the kiss that he almost forgot to kiss back. Ultimately his brain regained control of his facial muscles, though, and he returned the gesture in kind.

He hoped he did it well, but he didn't have a lot of practice.

When she broke contact, it again took him a few seconds to catch up. He blinked and shook his head like he was trying to get his brain to settle into gear.

"Why... I mean, I guess I know why, but... when? I mean, how long...? That is, um...." Holy crap, I sound like an idiot! "I had no idea!"

He hadn't seen any sign that Ana Sofia thought of him in that way before now. Had he missed signs? He was kind of clueless when it came to women.

His brain reached second gear, and he realized that Ana Sofia had hurt herself in the process.

"Are you okay?"

Frank's phone buzzed at the worst possible moment.  As did Shiva's.  And Kate's, had she had one:

"Agents, I got your message.  I need you all back at HQ so we can talk things over"

Before her grimace and swears, the look in her eyes had been happy that he kissed her back. His further comments help snap her back from the cursing. She smiles through the pain and is about to answer him when his phone buzzes. She gives the phone an are-you-kidding-me look.

Shiva was heading back to the lab. He had insured the info had been sent to the team and Johnson via the safest method-Ana's telepathy. As a result he was no preparing the most invasive virus he could make into the terrorist's devices. Once Johnson got the warrants anyways.

He signaled he was on his way, and proceeded to go. He wanted to stay below the radar, as he was still scanning his environment for watchers. A little paranoid, but he needed to be now. He was in his civilian ID, and the armature was retracted into his body. As far as anyone else was concerned, he was normal.

"Gah." Frank pulled out his phone and saw that it was indeed Johnson, just as he feared. "Ooookay. Johnson wants all hands back at base. Except you, of course," he added to Ana Sofia. "C'mon, Kit. I'll give you a ride."

He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Maybe you and I can talk later?" he asked Ana Sofia. It felt like a lame question, but he didn't really know what to say. They'd jumped right past the first date, right to the goodnight kiss, and Frank didn't really know what to say about that. The part of his brain that was jumping up and down yelling 'Yippee!' was not going to be granted access to his voice. Unfortunately, that part was almost the most coherent he'd likely to be for at least the next few minutes. "Or... something."

They're not restrained. Well, of course they're not restrained. She had only a vague understanding of how badly Agent Tank had been beaten up but knew enough that one does not just restrain that kind of power. That makes what she was planning to do just a little bit more dangerous. She tries not to let her nervousness show.

"Haven't you had enough fun for one night?" Gwenyth asks Harpoon. She thinks that's his name, anyways. He didn't seem to have a harpoon so she is not sure where that name came from. "I understand one of you beat up Agent Tank and somehow didn't end up with your skeleton in three different zip codes. Very impressive. Was it..." She glance at the blue giant questioningly; his jaw looked like it had been thoroughly Tanked. She nods, as if answering her own question.

"I don't suppose you would be willing to tell me why you went through all this trouble. Surely there are easier ways to get my autograph..." In reality, Gwenyth had signed very few autographs. For some reason, no one ever asked for it. And now, for equally inscrutable reasons, Harpoon was becoming desperate for one.

Kate just grinned at Ana's rhetorical question, cat ears slowly perking up through her hair to join the tail slipping out of her skirt.  She actually gives a little hop and skip clapping her hands at the kiss.  'Go sourceofcookies!' her thoughts poured over both of them full of approval and support.  Ana wasn't the only one who approved of Frank's abs and Kate wasn't the jealous type.

"Poor guy, what timing.." Kate commented when the buzzing ruined all their plans.  She was actually a little surprised to notice the odd ear piece in her hand humming slightly and it took a little bit for her to figure out how to stick it into her ear.  Disappointed to find it was apparently inert at that point, till Tank spoke up and she checked her actual phone to find a text.  She just got that phone two hours ago... how had Shiva already gotten it bluetoothed to the headphone?

Stepping over to Ana she gave her hand and arm a hug, careful not to hurt her any more than she already was, and leaned forward to put a kiss on her cheek so she could wink and whisper... her words just loud enough for Frank to hear a rather obvious failure of subterfuge for a pair of telepaths as she said, "Nice job, I'll keep an eye on him for you."

"Aargh..." That is clearly frustration dominating over pain. She rolls her head and eyes back on her pillows. Knowing she must forfeit the moment to Johnson Ana Sofía softens her face and rolls her head and eyes back forward and a little sideways to look at the two of them, mostly Frank. She welcomes the arm-hug from Kate. She says, "Yes, we'll talk soon... Stay safe, you two."

Frank stood there longer than he should have before leaving the room. Heading back to base felt like the longest drive in the world, somehow, but it was really just a few minutes. Halfway there, he turned to Kate and said, "So... what exactly did you do, anyway?"

Kate went along with Tank, certainly there wasn't a point in doing it in any other way so traveling together just made sense.  She also had a perky attitude as evidenced by her ears and how they twitched and turned the whole way.  "What do you mean?  I didn't doo anything."

Johnson was waiting for them, as always, in the meeting room, together with the complimentary mug of black coffee

"You all got the message from Ana, so I will make it brief.  Our servers, and your phones, have been hacked.  All personal information about you was retrieved by parties unknown.  Same about the files about the Mutant Brotherhood, and any other criminal we were tracking.  Agent Ohm handled the security breach, and also tracked the Hacker to Brooklyn.  I'm waiting to get the official warrant for the trace, then we can arrest him.  It will probably take a few days.  In the meantime, I need you all here in HQ guarding the prisoners"

"So, we need new phones?" A hacker from Brooklyn was at least better than state-sponsored cybercrime from Russia or China. Brooklyn, they might be able to do something about it. "Or has our security been improved?"

Being bored just leaves Ana Sofía thinking about the interruption. She needs a distraction. She needs to get up and about, but she can't really. But her body doesn't really need to get up and about for her to see some sites. She could go hunting the bad guys, but she doesn't have a warrant, so... She opens a world map on her phone, doesn't look at it, and presses... Egypt! She lays back and closes her eyes to help her focus. The she starts off eastward for a sort of trans-Atlantic flight.

"Cybersecurity stuff is all the way over my head," Gwenyth says. It isn't clear exactly what she had done to the prisoners to try and get them to talk, but she had been very desperate for a cold shower after, and her hair is still wet. "I guess it is a good thing I did not use my phone for very much, huh? The PR guy has been doing most of my social media for me and I never got around to downloading the weird app that opens the weird files that weird Agent Shiva keeps sending us. Weird us."
This message was last edited by the player at 01:18, Fri 06 May 2022.

"Best to lay off the phones for now, which is why I want you all here, in HQ.  Once we secure the warrant we will all fly directly back to New-York and deal with the hacker.  In the meantime, I want you to pair up when guarding the prisoners.  They look too comfortable for my taste..." he tapped his finger with annoyance over the table
"We're going to have to bring them in front of a judge by tomorrow and formally charge them"

Kate just shrugged, but did have one question to ask.  "Were they listening in on our phone calls or just stealing all of the whatever was on them?"

Then after Johnson talked about guarding in shifts she asked, "So who's with who?"

Shiva seemed unhappy that the team had to wait. "Sir, I would stress again the time we are giving this terrorist is helping them. I know we are bound by the rule of law, but this person is very capable and cunning. They won't waste the time we are giving them."



"They had hacked the system of FF HQ. They knew our location, and when we would arrive at the fire. I have found that virus and neutralized it." He answered.



"I said I would set that up for you if you wanted...and they did not hack our phones, just the locations via our main servers in the HQ." Shiva sighed.

"Oh, good, that's waaay better."  Kate admitted after Shiva explained a little bit better.  "So um, with this ear thing... can I still make calls without my phone? or do I need it too?"  It would occur then that he hadn't ever actually explained how it works to her.

In reply to Kate Messer (msg # 73):

He grinned when she asked. "Its totally press activated. It can link up to a phone, even one that's not on you! Plus, to turn it off, you just lightly touch it with a finger or paw. Its smaller than a normal ear piece, but it has special skin cling properties which means it wont fall out due to movement or water." He seems very happy she planned on using it.

"There is no 'buts' here. Just because a criminal is clever doesn't give us the right to break the law in order to capture him.  We're going to have to out-fox them" Johnson said with finality, not anticipating any further discussion on the subject

"Valerie is arranging for a judge to come here, to HQ, rather than transporting the prisoners to court.  We have more than enough evidence to hold them until their trial, and their crimes are severe enough that none of them are going to make bail. But we need to go through this formality.  I'll need your written affidavits first thing tomorrow morning.  Eight o'clock.  "

"We're going to hold them here... until trial?" Frank tried to voice this with some respect, but he sounded incredulous anyway. There was only a handful of people on the Freedom Force team to begin with. Guarding three super-powered mutants 24/7 seemed like a herculean task for them. "How are we going to manage that?"