At the mention of Shiva, Illya's mood grows sullen again and he makes inadvertent and no so furtive glances at Ana.

Kate was about to respond to Gwen when the meeting itself sort of rolled over her chance.  So instead she just gave the actress a little shrug and the agency woman her attention.  Valerie had earned at least that much from her.  Moving to sit down muffled some of her youthful energy but not nearly as effectively as the news that Valerie gave them.  She knew it had been bad but not that bad exactly having tried to stay away from that part of the operation.

However once past the bad news she did perk up at the rest.  Happy to see that the government wasn't quite as slow or annoying as Agent Johnson as a whole.  Really glad now that she had gotten the rest of the details from John for Johnson instead of trying to keep things all secret from the jerk.

Perhaps out of turn Kate spoke up a little at Tank's question.  "Well given how slow things are going with Zoey probably nothing yet.  Her trial hasn't even really started yet.  I bet he's super bored.  We should probably take turns calling him to keep his spirits up while he waits.  Oh, and call Zoey too.  I should do that again." 

After handing the backpack of clothes to Kate, Ana Sofía is more focused on the others. She seems surprised at Ilya's reaction to her. When Frank walks in she says, "Hi. How'd you sleep after that return to the island?"

After Valerie's comment Ana Sofía says to everyone, "I hate that people were killed. That's what we try to prevent. But that's a lot of explosive that would have kept them going and have killed a lot more people. For my own sanity and spirits, I'm going to say that was a win, but one we could improve upon... As for John, he's done things he should answer for, but hopefully it can end up as a sort of slap on the wrist as they were for a good cause."

How had he slept? It might have been a better question to ask if he'd slept at all. He'd slept poorly, and in short fits, getting little to no actual rest. Mostly he blamed that on Slab and the collapsed brownstone, more than on the return trip to Noman's Land. Their first time there had been bloody and traumatic, but he'd come to grips with it over the subsequent months. While the return trip might have torn open old wounds, Frank wasn't sure that it had. The fresh wounds took up too much attention to be sure.

Not wanting to draw any attention to all of this in the middle of a team meeting, Frank was glad that the conversation moved on from there.

Gwenyth takes an oat milk latte and sips it quietly while Valerie speaks. She listens to the others, too. Seems like no one wants to be the one to bring up the obvious problem.

"If this were a movie," she says quietly, "it wouldn't be a neat and pretty Hollywood production. Yeah, we saved thousands... but the camera is panning over the bodies of those kids, and the people we saved are probably the same ones shouting us down. Fickle, ungreateful little..." She looks up, frowning. "I saw Davis' popularity polls. Is Freedom Force in trouble?"
This message was last edited by the player at 10:02, Fri 15 July 2022.

“You’re all going to move to the FBI office in Washington until HQ is rebuilt, and continue our work from there.  As for Shiva – you are all aware he was arrested.  The charges are serious, and the White House is extremely concerned about his decision to share Essex’s technology with parties unknown”  she didn’t tell them that she was the one being blamed for the leak.  Freedom Force was her brainchild, and she was the one who recruited most of them.

“He still refuses to let us know who he shared it with, and the evidence has all been scrubbed from the web, which makes charging him with the crime difficult.   At any rate, he is no longer a member of Freedom Force, and I am asking you not to contact him in any way.  He is being interrogated right now, and none of you want to be charged with obstruction of justice, witness tampering, or worse”

She hasn’t missed Black Hole reactions every time Shiva name was mentioned, and made a mental note to talk with him later. She nodded silently as Gwyneth talked.  This was textbook selection bias.  It was hard getting credit for preventing horrible things from happening, because most people had no knowledge of the fact, or ability to grasp how terrible the situation could have been without intervention.

“Yes, Davis is down at the polls” she confirmed, trying to be as forthcoming about the situation

“The early vote is the only thing that can save her right now.  I don’t know what would happen if she loses.  Freedom Force might be disbanded, but more likely we would be reporting to someone else.  Senator Kelly, perhaps…”
This message was last edited by the player at 13:15, Fri 15 July 2022.

"Now there's a weird thought," Gwenyth quips. "A Kelly-directed Freedom Force. Haaaa~." A zillion scenarios run through her mind, all farcical.

"So Essex is supposed to be, like, a civilian company right? Where did they even get nine tons of C-whatever without anybody noticing?"
This message was last edited by the player at 10:03, Fri 15 July 2022.

"I hope it won't come to that, and I can understand if you will reconsider your options if it does.  Let's not worry about it for the time being; there's not much we can do about it anyhow" Gwenyth was definitely on a roll today.  One perceptive question after another:

"The explosives were produced in-house. They had access to the chemicals, and C9 isn't that complex to make"

"Oh, okay. I guess if they could brain transfer dead mutants into new bodies then brewing some boom would be easy for them."

Kate spoke up with something that would probably make people question their own hearing.
 "Senator Kelly wouldn't be so bad.  He's a lot more reasonable in person.  I think politics just makes everyone act stupid even if they aren't.  Like Johnson.  I mean, I'm not even sure that John did anything or if he was just needling him."

Dropping that subject she's quiet for a bit before asking.  "So, if Essex is done with and blown up in Brazil and arrested in Britain what are we going to be doing next?"

"He means well, and he certainly doesn't hate mutants.  I'll give him that" She too preferred to drop the subject, though she wondered how Kate would know how the senator was like 'in person'.  She made another mental note to herself.

"Yes, Essex is done.  We don't have any other identifiable threats at the moment, other than Magneto. We don't know where he is, and what he is up to, and even though he has been awfully quiet for almost a month now, I'd rather we looked for him rather than be caught off guard if he ever decides to make a comeback"

"I thought Gambit blew his butt sky high," Gwenyth says. "His super secret sea base is boom and we nabbed a couple of his guys, plus whoever was in the sub has their inside parts all over the Atlantic. I know he turned the Statue of Liberty into a big letter X-" she crosses her index fingers to illustrate, as if anyone present doesn't know what an X is, "- but that read to me like a flex more than anything. 'Hey world look at me and how totally relevant I still am.' No threats or demands or anything, just 'when the world can accept us you can have your statue back.' Doesn't that seem like the act of someone who is totally out of ideas? Or... or am I forgetting something?" She shyly taps her fingers together.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:11, Fri 15 July 2022.

"Magneto did deliver an Ultimatum" she reminded Gwenyth "He wanted his coconspirators released, and the people responsible for the experiments in Camp-X brought to justice"

"Magneto was not on that submarine when Gambit blew it up. And, as Ms. Cooper said, the 'X' came with a demand." Ana Sofía sighs. "Looks like we're back to hunting Magneto. Hopefully that will be much less violent right now. I think we could all use some calm and rest."

"We were already doing that second thing though. As for the first, he has not been shy about releasing his men by force in the past, so the demand suggests he's all out of manpower right?" She looks at Valerie with big, proud-of-herself eyes. She seems a lot more confident without Agent Johnson around! "So is it really an ultra- ultim- ultimatum if he can't follow through on that?"

"Not saying we don't have to find the asshole, but... yeah, a night by the lake, roasting marshmallows and telling silly stories sounds like a heckin' good way to recharge. You should join us, Director~!"

"There's a lake?"  Kate asks guilelessly in curiosity though she dos manage to mostly keep focus.  "He may not have lots of men right now but it won't be hard to find more willing to help.  Especially if he doesn't ask them to do violent things for him.  He's pretty um.." She tried to figure out he right word, charming, impressive, leaderlike... nothing really worked so she sent her impression of the man to the others 'charismatic' being the best word her thoughts about him invoked in the minds of the others.  "And with how much people dislike us right now it probalby isn't hard to find them."  The us in question certainly being Mutants, not Freedom Force.

"If Magneto is our next priority, then we should figure a way to draw him out." Frank wasn't sure that he had any suggestions on that topic, though. What would attract one of the most powerful mutants on the planet? "It's not much of a plan — or a plan at all, yet — but it beats waiting for him to come to us. Any ideas, anyone?"

"We know next to nothing about Magneto, which makes it hard to formulate a plan to draw him out.  Maybe we'll have something if Wax agrees to talk.  Or the Legion. In the meantime, I wholeheartedly agree with Gwenyth - you need some time to rest and recuperate after everything that happened these last couple of weeks.  If you keep on going like that you'll be burnt out before the year is over" the same also applied to her, she knew, but she wasn't going to take any day off anytime soon

"Unless there isn't anything else, I'd like to announce something" she gave Frank a knowing look, and waited for him to stand up

"Me and Johnson came to the joint conclusion that Johnson's presence on the field is a deterrent to the performance of the team.  You would have spent more time fighting Essex's Mutants if you didn't have to worry about rescuing Johnson from getting hurt. Therefore, we decided that from here on Frank is going to assume tactical leadership of Freedom Force operations. Johnson would still retain overall command, but will focus more on strategy, coordination with the Justice Department, and mission priority. "

Illya frowns despite himself at the description of Shiva's removal and incarceration, "Do we know where he's being kept?"

And listening to Valerie speak about the fate of Essex, a perplexed looks crosses Illya's face, "How do we know that the facilities in London and Brazil have been eliminated? I mean do we really know? And what if Essex has other locations we don't know about. It seems that we are taking a lot on faith. What if we're being misled?"

In reply to Kate Messer (msg # 30):

"I'm sure there's one somewhere!"

---

In reply to Tank (msg # 31):

"Please, no more plans unless they involve s'mores!"

---

In reply to Black Hole (msg # 33):

"Norman's Island, remember? Jeez~!"

---

In reply to Valerie Cooper (msg # 32):

"Oh wow! Congratulations Tank! It's about time!" Although she certainly seems enthused about the prospect, she also finds himself just scooting the ever-so-slightest bit away from their new field leader...

"I could certainly use some R&R. I still haven't fully healed from since leaving the hospital." Ana Sofía looks relieved that Ms. Cooper has said something about this.

After the leadership announcement she says, "Congrats, Frank! You made a good choice, Ms. Cooper."

Kate can only nod in agreement with he rest about Frank's promotion.  Really she had thought he was already in charge, but maybe that was just because he had that kind of aura about him and Johnson was always an ass.

"I'm not sure trying to draw Magneto out is a good idea.  So far he has at least tried to avoid killing people, unlike Essex, but if we push him isn't he a lot more dangerous than they are?  I mean, the scale of his power is waaay bigger."  She doesn't mention that she's going to talk with wax, but tries to make a mental note about it, if she can figure out what that means.

"We're lucky that he accepted.  It's not an easy job, but I'm sure that if there's anyone who could do it, its him" Valerie went on with the accolades until she made Frank's cheeks turn a deeper shade of red.  Or at least to get him to lower his gaze.  Only then did she address the other questions.

"To be honest, if I knew for sure we would never see Magneto again, I would have been happy to let him be, America's most wanted man or not. The problem is that we don't know if he IS planning a comeback, and we can't afford to be caught with our pants down"

She did agree with Kate that Magneto's power level vastly exceeded any one Essex Mutant.  That didn't make them any less dangerous, however.  An entire army of murderous clones were worse than anything Magneto did so far.

"As for Essex; we're going to seize the company's assets. Interrogate their managers, their board of directors, and James Essex himself.  We're not going to leave a stone unturned" which was the best they could do.  They'll never be sure the technology won't ever be used again - especially after the leak they had
This message was last edited by the player at 16:09, Sun 17 July 2022.

A rare smile appears on Illya's face at the announcement about Frank.

But the confirmation that Shiva was being held at the same location with the Marauders quickly removed it, "That can't be right! Shiva's not a murderer! You're keeping him with people that he helped but there! They'll try to kill him!

Frank said a few Thank You's as people congratulated him on his promotion, not wanting to turn the conversation into one about himself. Essex, Magneto, and Shiva were the more important topics.

"I'm pretty concerned for Shiva's safety, too," he added. "Is he being held in protective custody?"

If he was being kept isolated from the other prisoners, maybe he could be kept safe from them, too.