10280/Forum of Felons

Forum of Felons
Date of Scene:	02 December 2019
Location:	Belle Reve Penitentiary, Houma, Terrebonne, Louisiana
Synopsis:	The newest iteration of the Suicide Squad is briefed for a mission: recovering deadly virus samples stolen from the CDC. Many questions abound.
Cast of Characters:	Rick Flag, Yokai (Callaghan), Killer Frost

---

Rick Flag has posed:
BELLE REVE PENITENTIARY - BRIEFING ROOM

In a small room arranged theater-style, with several tiered rows of seats, a motley crew of roughly a dozen figures attends to a figure at a wooden lectern next to a projector screen.

Amanda Waller clears her throat and the projector begins its boot-up procedure.

"I'd thank you for coming," she says in a flat tone, "but, frankly, I don't care about any of you enough to appreciate your presence. You're here, though, and we got work to do. So let's get to it."

A few of the seated individuals mutter quietly to one another. Most in the group are wearing orange inmate jumpsuits. A handful wear costumes of some kind.

In the front row, Rick Flag--dressed in olive drab--turns around and barks. "Hey! Shut the fuck up!"

Waller steps forward, her nostrils flaring for a moment. "No. No, this is a teachable moment. We should all introduce ourselves officially. You know me. I'm Amanda Waller. I run this outfit. And if you don't pay attention, you pay for it."

She presses a button on her phone and one of the inmates muttering suddenly goes rigid for a long moment before sputtering and coughing. "I ... I ... fuuuuuuckkk you," the man says with a harsh shake of his head.

"Why don't all of /you/ introduce yourselves to one another?" Waller asks. "You should know who you're working with, after all."

Yokai (Callaghan) has posed:
    Well. That's certainly one way to make an impression.
    The man in the kabuki mask tilts his head ever-so-slightly, seeming to look towards the...volunteer for the demonstration. Hard to tell where he's looking, really, what with the way the mask covers his entire face. If body language is any sign, though, he's tense, and after a moment, even reaches up and under the thing to rub at his face.
    "Christ," he mutters, mostly to himself. He's not sure what he expected, really. Barely visible past his hand is his frown, deep and unamused by any of the display. And when his hand lowers, that goes back to being obscured, the angry lines of the mask seeming almost annoyed with the situation.
    To be completely fair, it's not the worst icebreaker he's ever attended. At least it's...interesting enough, as he scans the room once again, taking in those still in their jumpsuits and those - like him - who somehow managed something else. His eyes rest on those in particular for a few moments each before moving on.

Killer Frost has posed:
On the periphery of the Briefing Room, Killer Frost leans against one of the doorways. She's keeping a low profile for a few reasons, hood of her jacket uplifted, hair a platinum shawl over her blue-toned features. One of those reasons is that appearance, but *another* is bound up entirely in the way she's regarding Waller, shouting from her lectern at this coerced bunch of fools, rapists, and supervillains.

One by one, names are offered as a means of waylaying whatever punishment Waller's made clear she's all-too-willing to inflict on her 'team'. Frost observes the man offered up as a sacrifical lamb and considers her own scenario for a moment, lips downtwisting in a slight frown. Yeah. This isn't really worth the trouble of making some overblown political statement. Waller's well in control here, and besides, Flag *owes* her.

"Killer Frost," she offers, voice a garbled mess in the way it tumbles through a frigid voicebox. She's understandable, but those who've spoken to her before will note that her enunciantion is markedly different from her more personable days. She doesn't offer any more than that, instead lifting her chin to make clear that she's paying attention to what Waller has to say.

Rick Flag has posed:
The man who'd been affected by Waller's device grits his teeth and sneers. "The name's Angle Grinder. I'm good at destruction."

A woman to Grinder's right scoffs and shakes her head. "Yeah. No shit. We all are, or else we wouldn't be here. Here," she says, waving her hand, "and /here/." She punctuates the statement with a finger pointing down at the floor. "Anyway, call me Mrs. Fahrenheit. I'm good at destruction," she adds mockingly, "through fire." Fahrenheit offers a side glance in Killer Frost's direction.

Several others introduce themselves as well, each sounding more disaffected than the last, although not all make a convincing case of it through their tone and posture.

In the front row, Flag stands before turning to look at everyone. "I'm Colonel Rick Flag. I'll be your field commander pretty much every op we run. But that makes me Number Two, all things considered."

Half the group snickers.

Waller chimes in. "Alright, then. Everybody all BFFs now? Let's move on."

She presses a button on her clicker and a map of the Atlanta area appears. "Reliable sources have informed us that some incredibly dangerous virus samples have been stolen from a seemingly secure CDC facility. We've got to track the thieves down, retrieve the samples, and return them to the facility."

As Waller speaks, Flag passes out a sheet of paper with some basic details about the heist.

"Number Two," a squat man who introduced himself as 'Boll Weevil' snorts.

Yokai (Callaghan) has posed:
    A few remain quiet throughout the introductions; the masked man is among them. When they aren't pressed, one or two look like they think they've dodged a bullet, however temporarily. Hard to read Mr. Kabuki over there. Either he's very, very good at hiding his thoughts, or he simply, honestly doesn't care for much of this. Possibly some mixture of the two.
    His head does turn back towards front and center as the 'meeting' gets started, though. Though he wordlessly takes his paper, there's a roll of his head that's suggestive of one with his eyes at Weevil's rather...juvenile attitude. And after another moment?
    There's a light thwap of rolled-up paper on the back of Boll's head, accompanied by a quiet rasp of, "Shut it."

Killer Frost has posed:
Destruction through fire? Mrs. Fahrenheit's going to find her gaze returned, though Frost's visible reaction is limited to flared nostrils and the slip of a blue tongue over cobalt lips. The rest of the introductions are as interesting to her as any other wasted breath, and Frost finds her attention wandering back to the front when Flag speaks up again. Brusquely, she crosses her arms over the padded cloth of her jacket.

Dangerous virus samples? The CDC had -virus samples- stolen? Frost consults her memory of biochemically-oriented villains, but otherwise remains quiet. She lifts her chin and regards the screen when the map's put on display. As Flag passes her with the handouts, she'll take what she's given - it's fairly yanked from the man's hand.

"Effort for effort, right?" She speaks quietly, but not without implied threat; the paper she pulls from Flag's hand snaps where his thumb grasps the material, chilled frigid. It's a dumb threat, but even supervillains need to entertain themselves somehow - and nobody pays that much attention during a lecture.

Rick Flag has posed:
"That's right," Flag replies to Frost. "But the timetable for this is much shorter than the one you agreed to. So let's work on /this/ while our people are working on /that/."

"Colonel Flag will head up this particular show," Waller proclaims. "And while I'll let him provide more details of his plan, I can assure you of this much: your primary goal is to recover the samples. Do that and I'll make good on our deals."

Flag rubs his finger and thumb together from where the paper had grown cold, but he turns and walks down to the front of the room.

"Thanks, Waller," he says, clearing his throat. "I know it might seem either obvious or ludicrous to say this, but--we're going to keep collateral damage as low as possible. These samples are almost certainly delicate, and the 'destruction' everyone's raving about is as much a risk as a resource."

"To that end," Flag continues, "we're going to try for multiple points of interception. If all goes as well as it should, the redundancy means a lazy day out for most of the team. If not, then there'll be opportunities for additional support to arrive."

The map on the screen is updated to show a few target points that reflect different potential routes around the city.

"What kinds of concerns stand out immediately for you? Information is key, and I stand by a statement that a man I respect deeply once told me: knowing is half the battle."

Yokai (Callaghan) has posed:
    The gathered crew has their own opinions about keeping damage to a minimum, clearly; some snort or scoff. One or two actually seem a little disappointed, in their own way. A few others seem to have picked up on the 'virus' aspect and are looking at each other with dubious expressions.
    Nonetheless, the first to speak comes from right behing Boll Weevil. "Risk of contamination?" the man questions, cocking his head. "Or outbreak?" The dryness in his tone suggests that he has half a clue, but clearly wants more of one.

Killer Frost has posed:
Flag's reassurances don't fall on deaf ears, but they don't justify a response from Frost. She's instead reviewing the paper she's been given, expression a frown chiseled into that frosty visage. Her attention seems to be on the map, though the question from Yokai does have her ears perked. It's... not a bad one, though the logic behind Waller and Flag's 'project' becomes abundantly clear.

"Redundancies," she comments, voice loud enough to be heard, a sussurance of syllables that don't quite leave the way they should. She stands taller, steps out of her alcove to better project her voice, and indicates the paper in her hand - the plan.

"Couldn't have picked a better group. Criminals stealing high-risk cargo from criminals? Nobody looks bad when we fuck things up and deploy it, huh? This is a clever little operation." To Yokai, Frost asides, "I'm sure it doesn't *matter* what's in the vials, since we're dead if we don't get the job done, either way."

Rick Flag has posed:
"Outbreak?" Boll Weevil mentions, still rubbing his neck from the paper strike. "More like break/out/..." He pauses, eyes growing wide, and then licks his lips. "Uh, you know, the destruction. It'll break out past the mission site."

Flag stares at Boll Weevil for several beats before looking at the man behind him. "That's definitely a possibility. The last thing we want--even more than the prospect of collateral damage--is an epidemic that we definitely can't contain. There is no scenario where placing the Atlanta metro area in quarantine is a possibility."

"Plus," Flag adds with a sigh, "for all we know, we wouldn't be able to outpace it."

Angle Grinder cackles. "Suicide Squad is a bit off, then, isn't it? More like Genocide Squad."

"Not /quite/," Flag says, holding up a hand. "But then, Frost's right. This is a mission that, in our best case scenario, involves plausible deniability rather than public praise. Anything less ... well, as you noted, it only goes downhill from there."

"No chance we can opt out now?" asks a timid woman who called herself 'Tumbler'.

"We're past the point of no return on that," Waller says. "Besides, a lock-picker is a necessity."

Tumbler sighs and looks down.

Yokai (Callaghan) has posed:
    So much for the idea of warding against it, then. The man grunts, briefly glancing towards Frost at her declarations. She's not...completely wrong. Still, he seems more thoughtful than anything, even with the mask; leaning back slightly as he looks over the paper. None of them exactly signed up expecting laurels and rewards, short of reducing their sentences, but this...well. Has so many ways to go wrong.
    Which means it's up to the people who don't specialize in destruction to try and make it go right. Wonderful.

Killer Frost has posed:
"What do we know about the containment unit for the samples? Are they seperately secure such that our target's carrying a box they can't open?" Frost's attention is on Waller and Flag, for the most part. Weevil and Tumbler aren't really impressive, and Yokai's doing the right thing in watching rather than talking. Really, it's what Frost should be doing, herself.

She let Fahrenheit get her temperature up, so to speak. Ice has a way of growing brittle before it starts to melt. The notion of being toyed with is one at the back of Frost's mind, but suppressed by a riot of emotions. Ugh.

"We aren't trained or inclined to care about collateral. What kind of damage *can* we do without setting these off? And what's the lockpicker's role in all this supposed to be?"

Rick Flag has posed:
Nodding at Frost's question, Flag turns to look at the projector screen. A few images cycle through before a diagram of a container is displayed.

"This is the model of container that's missing from the facility. Assuming that the thieves haven't moved them--unless they have a locksmith of their own--then here you go. Half a dozen samples fit in each container." Flag chuckles mirthlessly. "It's believed that ten containers were taken."

Groans echo throughout the room.

"The good news is that these containers are pretty sturdy. A wide range of temperatures, some severe jostling, and supposedly even conventional saws. Or angle grinders," Flag adds.

Angle Grinder responds with a middle finger.

"That's a good thing, you moron," Flag replies. "Otherwise it'd be that much easier to get access to these /deadly virus samples/."

"So. Any other questions?" Flag asks, looking around. "No? Okay."

Boll Weevil begins to speak, but Flag stares at him, and the Weevil stops.

"Great," Flag says. "Read up. Learn it. We'll move as soon as we get a lock on the target location."

Yokai (Callaghan) has posed:
    Sixty samples. In another situation, he might have been inclined to compare this to students 'misplacing' certain samples - but now he just shakes his head. There's plenty more questions, but not the sort he's willing to ask in front of this group. Not for want of withholding information - far from it. But the general attitude - aside from Kuiller Frost - seems to be of the kind to want to cause that damage. Which means, honestly?
    They're better served as a distraction than actual extraction. That should be left to the ones with an inkling of just how serious this is. He glances back towards Frost again, giving her a second look-over and a slight tilt of the head.
    Acknowledgement, question- could be any number of things, really. Easy to brush off, worst case scenario.

Killer Frost has posed:
Frost isn't doing much by way of emoting, Yokai will notice. Her eyes remain on Waller for a moment or three after Rick finishes speaking and the assembled convicts - the Suicide Squad - begin griping about the impossibility of the task before them. Her attention leaves the warden only when The Wall shifts to begin her own disassembly of the presentation.

Yokai gets a mild lookover, but nothing more. The rest of the Squad seems to be more concerning to Frost. Fahrenheit gets another lookover, seems to elicit a bracing breath from the frostbitten outsider, but a decision is made and further actions delayed. The door is instead her immediate goal - unlike those jumpsuit-clad prisoners assembled here, Frost gets to *leave*.

As she does, the chip implanted at the base of her skull sends a signal to a monitoring room within Belle Reve, one designed to track the movement of all prisoners and ex-cons, even those with 'deactivated' deterrence implants. Frost scratches at the implantation site, cognizant enough of her own flesh to feign irritation at some noxious stimuli - maybe it'd itch, if her body worked like that anymore.

In any case, her own prorities were beginning to coalesce into something actionable. She'd partner with Fahrenheit, ideally -- and Boll Weevil if that didn't pan out. In the first case? Guilt-free dinner. In the second?

Well. He seemed pretty useless, all told. Nobody would miss him. A casualty of war.