Message #310279

[Flipz]

==Regulus Office==
Regulus froze.  He quietly pressed a button under his desk, one that one of his more paranoid previous host had had installed.  Perhaps he should listen to that part of him a little more closely in the future.  "It does, does it?  I wonder when you were approached about it."  The way he said "approached" would leave no doubt as to what he meant, at least to another of his kind.  "If what you say is true, then you now have even more reason than I to want this monster--not dead, but alive.  You know as well as I that the dead cannot suffer."  He paused for effect--something he had picked up from his host.  It occurred to him that he had probably said more than he should have, if the director was not, in fact, joined to a symbiote like mihself.  He would have to work on suppressing this host a bit, lest his melodramatic tendencies get them both killed permanently.  "If you think you are truly...suited...to the task, you may call the constellation."  He hoped this symbiote was old enough, and experienced enough, to know of the practice of converting stars to numbers...and to know of the constellation noticed only by his kind, and perhaps the few who had seen them.  A message to the world, hidden in plain sight...and potentially, too difficult for the director to solve.  A symbiote stupid enough to choose that idiot as a host--clearly a sign of inexperience.  He decided to drop another clue.  "If you are...unprepared...but still have our best interests at heart--" Nice implication of common interest, he thought idly, I should use that in a novel "--then I may allow you to hold my coat.  Have a nice day, sir," he finished, his "farewell" dripping with venom.

He sat back in his chair, brooding.  Worst case scenario, he's not one of us, and I have to somehow murder the entire upper division of MI5 and wipe out the computer databases for the past three months--there was no dangerous data there last time I hacked.  Best case scenario...I'm dealing with an inexperienced rookie with a bad taste in hosts, who is in a prime position to accidentally expose us all to the most dangerous people on earth--the covert intelligence community.  And I won't be able to insult the director anymore.  He sighed once more.  Neither scenario really appealed to him.  He hoped there was a third option.  "Jarvis?"

A young, thin, light blonde-haired man, not much older than Zagrene but with the voice of a 60-year old, walked in.  "Yes, sir?"

"Trouble," Regulus said in Demotic.  "Someone not only found the line I used to contact Infinitus, but MI5 got a hold of it, and the director knows something.  About us."

Jarvis inclined his head before replying in the same language.  "Shall I cancel the Colorado meeting?"

"No.  But have people posted.  Even if Infinitus has betrayed us, there is no way he could know about us...unless..."

"[Regulus' true, unpronounceable name]?"

"I have to check something.  Get me Infinitus' CEO's visitor list for the past three days."

"Yes, sir."

Half an hour later, Jarvis returned with a partial list of the past 24 hours' worth of visitors, promising to bring the rest in later.  Regulus began Googling them...