The EMP had hit, but luckily the Gustav was still pretty much alright, and the zoids were onbaord. Mark brought the Gustav online, and headed off at the maximum speed, ignoring the fact that he had O’Cella Piarte still onbaord the Gustav. He was heading to the whale king port to go to AIZDAT.
As he was piloting, he called ahead to AIZDAT, calling the number he had gotten.
"Hello, AIZDAT. This is Mark Zwei. I ahve a big problem. Atta, the sentient zoid, went nuts in the peasant cup. I don't know what happened to cause him to act this way, but I am worried, I am heading striaght to you, okay? I don't know what to do and am coming in to you for help."

Fixed title n' spelling for ya. ^_^

His hands tucked behind his head in a leisurely pose, O'Cella wasn't even paying attention to whatever was going on around him or where he was going. In fact, to make things worse, he had closed his eyes and by all appearances fallen asleep. However, the young pilot had merely ignored the things that he could not influence and started thinking about the computer controlled Zoid and where he could get his Saberlion repaired.

"Hello, AIZDAT. This is Mark Zwei. I ahve a big problem. Atta, the sentient zoid, went nuts in the peasent cup. I don;t know what happened ot cause him to act this way, but I am worried, I am heading striaght to you, okay? I don't know what to do and am coming in to you for help."

Although not the type to listen in on other peoples conversations, O'Cella found it hard not to hear what Mark was saying. After all, Gustav's weren't known for their large spaced cockpits. Without opening an eye he spoke, quietly enough to force Mark to pay attention to his words or miss them completely.

"Sentinent huh? So which story's a lie?"

MArk jerked, having forgotten about O'Cella in his haste to get Atta to AIZDAT.
"One moment , please," Then turned back otthe AIZDAT speaker.
"We heardthe news about the Cup. The ZBC had called before to ask what we thought should be done with Atta. I suggest you get here as fast as possible." With that, the connection was severed.
Mark sighed, then called the Silverhamemr base. "Steve, Mark. PRoblem with Atta, big time. Going to AIZDAT." With that Mark cut the conneciton.

He now answered O'Cella as he continued on his way.
"Atta was a sentient shield liger. STeve Wlasch foudn him first. Now though, the computer unit, which is a caleld a Gamma Unit and was providd by people at AIZDAT, house's Atta's personallity and consicneiouncess. It also lets him transfer between zoid bodies. As for the decpeiton, well, Steve adn I decided that the world is most liekly not ready for sentient zoids to be public knowledge."

O'Cella did open one eye at Mark finished speaking, seeking the pilots face as he tried to figure out if he was being serious or not. ...Wow... He is! Closing the eye once again, the tall pilot remained quiet as he thought about the consequences of a sentient Zoid. A war machine that had its own mind, tons of metal with weapons that could level buildings in a single blow.

"Okay, that's kind of cool. Dangerous as 'eck, but cool..."

A small, lopsided, grin gave O'Cella a wierd appearance as he opened both of his eyes and turned his head to look at Mark.

"Anymore hanging about?"

Mark continues driving, but looks at O'Cella, starign at him, before turning his attention back to the road adn continuining.
"I woudl not know, but I am glad you can understand the reason for lieing about Atta. AS for others out there, I don;t know. Atta seems to have evolved on his own, but right now, well, he went nuts. Steve, the lteam leader and the one who foudn Atta, thinks tha tby copying Atta's data, you migth be able to transfer sentience, but Atta does not want that. He is afriad, as am I and steve, that senteint zoids migth be misued or abused."

MArk pulled up at hte Airport, jsut as a Whale King was gettign ready to leave for the Eastern continent. Mark paid for it, paying for both himself and O'cella, then driving in the Gustav and, with trailer and all, then guided O'Cella to a seat.

"Sorry to take you like this, but well, sicne you know the sercet, I'm afraid can;t take any chances at hte moment. In the wrong hands, I don;t want to think what Atta's revlelation could bring."

"You do realise that kidnap is a crime pretty much everywhere you go... Right?"

Although he used the word kidnap, O'Cella hadn't really put up much of a fight. He had no where to be at the moment, his Zoid was currently in less than working condition and besides... This whole talk about a sentinent Zoid was making him feel a little nosey.

"So... We going anywhere sunny?"

Using his hands as a pillow, the calm pilot merely looked bored of waiting for whatever was going to happen. The material of his gloves was stretched to breaking though, his hands clenched so tightly, and his eyes darted from one point to another. He was... Excited?

Mark laughed ast hte comment about kidnapping.
"Of course I do, I am a cop, although I'm giving you a lift. We ar egoing ot AIZDAT, post haste. If atta has gone berserk, well, your whereabouts are second place to Atta's wellbeing. "

That said, Mark sat down next to O'Cella, and tried ot relax, but was unable to do so. He foudn himself willing the Whale King to move faster, to hurry up and leave, fly, and land so he coudl get to AIZDAT as soon as possible.

*Prods RP into action.* What? I wanna see where this is going! :D

Captain Walter Schnepp strode across his bridge, looking over the various techs and crew prepping the Whaleking's systems for launch. She was a good craft, an old craft, but he was a nostalgist to the core. He was a shortish man, with a round face and tanned skin. His captain's uniform concealed a well-muscled body despite his age; he was nearly sixty-five, with a slight paunch around the midsection.

A tech looked up. "Captain, we're nearly ready for launch. Would you like the mic, sir?"

Captain Schnepp ran a tight ship, but he was relaxed with military decorum. Especially since it had no real place in a civilian vessel such as this. He was also famous for remembering each and every crew member by name. "Yes, that would be good."

His announcement over the Whaleking's PA coincided with the rumble of the engines warming up. From either side of the whale where Alpha and Mark sat, a low whine overtook the rumble. And a gruff yet relaxed voice overtook that.

"Welcome to Athens flight 1042. I am your captain, Walter Schnepp, wishing you a safe and relaxed journey. Conditions are optimal and we should be there in three-point-fiver hours."

The usual "please be seated and listen to the safety instructions" broadcast followed as the passengers settled into their seats. In the hold below them, the techs were going over the safety inspections and anchoring procedures to ensure the cargo didn't shift around in flight.

Captain Schnepp relaxed in his seat. Takeoff was his favorite part, even after nearly forty-five years. The great whale smoothly lifted off and four bright blue ion turbo-engines lanced from beneath her pectoral fins. Cutting above their din, the whale sounded her departure call, a deep, haunting resonance not unlike the whales of ancient Earth.

They were on their way.

Once the Whaleking had lifted off, Mark turned ot O'Cella.
"I know it is a bit rude, but well, would you be interested in joining team Silverhammer? I will not be letting Atta be free for a while, at least not until we are sure he is sane. Yes, he is fully sentient, not AI. And don;t ask me how that happened. At neart as Steve, his wife Jessica, and I coudl determine, it was a freak occurence."

The engines rumbled through the thick bulkheads of the hold. The odd tech moved here and there, checking on the condition of the many zoids and various types of cargo stacked in hulking blocks around the floor.

One particular tech made the rounds. Molga, check. Braced in and strapped securely down.

Command Wolf, check. Kneeling comfortably in transport posture. Gojulas powered down and standing idly. Check. She clamped a heavy mechanic's fist on the side of the Gojulas and screwed her face up, twisting around. Crack! Ah, that felt good. Back to work.

Shield Liger, head, strapped securely down.

Nervously, she glanced left and right. Her mouth, dry from the recycled air of the Whaleking's cabin, felt parched. Really fucking dry. She swallowed and her throat felt like gravel.

Eve's light. Better get this done.

The tech set her mechanic's satchel down and unpacked a few pieces of equipment. A few were standard equipment - screwdrivers, the odd wrench or soldering iron - but then came a pair of distinctly different apparati. One was a black plastic case with two wires snaking out of one side, each with a different head on it. The second was a softball-sized object covered in plugs. A faint blue light shone from one side.

She connected the two as the deal echoed in her mind. We'll teach you what you need to know. Your target is Shield Liger #017546. You will not fail us. At this last bit, her sweaty fingers fumbled for the plug and almost dropped both.

You will NOT fail us.

Mark finished answering O'Cella, then graoned as he realized something. He had forgotten to see if Atta was still online, which coudl be a big problem. He unbuckled himself and stood up and decided to head to the cargo area, wanting to check up on his teammate.

A pair of bored-looking guards, young kids in their early twenties that looked like they'd much rather be out gawking at zoids, barred the door leading down to the hold. "Afternoon," said the one on the left, a sandy-haired if wiry youth with glasses.

"Only registered owners are allowed into the hold, and only for -" -checking his watch- "about fifteen more minutes. Proof and license of ownership?"

Mark pulls out his zoid liscence, that he carried with him. "Mark Zwei, of team Silverhammer. Want to check out my zoid please."

The one on the right took it and brushed his long black hair out of the way, where it fell in a disorganized lump on the side of his head. He studied it for a bit.

"Looks good," he drawled. "Remember that we'll need all y'all to clear out in fifteen minutes flat."

"Fourteen and a half, Wal," said his partner, peering down his long nose.

"Sure, whatever. Just head out when that alarm sounds," said the first, opening the door.

Down below, the tech was cursing the complexity of AI. Weird shit, she figured. She'd never understand it, all that stuff going on inside a computer. Nah, her forte was mechanics. Hydraulics. Myomers. Stuff that moved.

56% COMPLETE

Which, she noticed, the little display was doing a serious lack of at the moment, moving. Gorram stupid computers.

The clang of a heavy bulkhead door opening caused her to snap her head up so fast she nearly whacked it against the Liger's cheek. Whoever it was prolly wasn't going to look for this piece of junk, but you never can be too careful.

62% COMPLETE

"Goddamnit, hurry up!" she hissed, under her breath.

Mark entered the hold, then headed straight for Atta's head, then noticed the tech there, and headed over. He figured that hte tech was just looking over Atta. It was not often that one saw just the head of a zoid.
"Excuse me? May I ask what you are doing?
Mark asked as he neared Atta.

The Whaleking's engines rumbled around her, almost completely masking the approaching footsteps.

89% complete

She steeled herself and put her best repair-bay face on, straightening broad shoulders with that cocky you-talkin'-tah-me slant.

She stood up, a tall woman with a plain round face, streaked with sweat and engine oil. The product of a working-class family as far as any of them could remember, working a blue-collar job, she was well-muscled with a short dirty-blond ponytail. A namepatch was sewn over the left breast-pocket of her rumpled mechanic's suit, reading "Sally "Beetle" Kurtis."

"Excuse me? May I ask what you are doing?"

She shot the guy a get-lost look, the kind they teach you in mechanics' tech school. "Routine maint'nance."

Nevertheless, she couldn't quite hide the tension creeping into the corners of her voice. If this chump was a perceptive one, she'd be in a lil' trouble.

Mark noticed hte tension, and wondered why that was.
"Routine Matience? I kind of doubt that. I must ask you to leave the zoid alone though. It has some are modifications done, and as you can see, it had a very rough time. I'm takign it to AZDAT and at the moment, I would like to check the computer. "

Kurtis placed her hands on her hips, standing casually between Mark and her equipment. "I told you," she said, expression unchanged, "routine maint'nence. I work here, hun," she said, with a look that clearly meant so get lost.

She looked to the equipment, then to the charred remains of the Liger's head, then back to Mark. "'Sides, that Liger's toast. Why're you flying its junked carcass halfway 'cross the world?"

"It is an special liger. If you can keep a secret, AZDAT helped install an AI into it. It had some problems, and well, has not been behaving as expected, and heading there to have it inspected. It went berserk adn tried ot kill something. So I must ask that you leave it alone. Thank you."

Sally Kurtis sniffed. "Huh, a 'special Liger,' then." She eyed the charred remains of the Shield Liger's head. What was with this guy, going around telling everyone he had a piece of equipment like that? No wonder her, ah, 'employers' had acquired the information so easily.

Unbeknownst to Mark, what she was really eyeing was her equipment.

98% COMPLETE

Damnation! What was taking so long? She'd have to stall for another few moments.

"Look," Kurtis said matter-of-factly. "I've got a job to do, and this here Liger -what's left of it, at least- requires a few diagnostics 'fore it leaves the hold. Won't take too much longer. Now why don't you just run along back to yore seat?"

Mark was shocked. This was not good.
"Sorry, no diagnostics. I must insist. AZDAT gave me very specefic instructions."

"Well, standard procedure sez I run 'em," she said. Kurtis stretched boredly, flexing her well-muscled frame beneath the jumpsuit. It was obvious that she wasn't going to move.

Matk pushed past her, tryign to get into Atta. If a diagnostic was being, run, it ocudl be bad.

Mark felt a hand grip his arm like a vise. Sally's arm pistoned forward and Mark was reminded precisely what lifting Zoid-scale sheets of armor, crates of vulcan rounds and otherwise did to a human's muscle tone. Even the female body.

The mechanic had a hand on the right side of Mark's neck. It wasn't clamped or anything, nor was it on any pressure point. She was just holding him back with superior physical strength. "Wouldn't try that again if I was you," she said, her weight balanced comfortably in a fighter's stance.

Kurtis figured he'd see reason and git, so she looked back to the little screen. It read 98% COMPLETE.

Well, she still had a few moments to kill. And even though whatever that thing did had slowed down, Sally Kurtis would be damned to let this guy mess things up now. She swallowed lightly and a momentary bit of fear edged into her eyes.

You will not fail.

Mark did not like this. He ran back to his gustav and retrieved his badge and gun, then walked back, then sowed the badge ot Sally, while also holding the gun.
"I'm afraid I will have to ask you to step away from the zoid. The advanced sleeper program went nuts, and has to be preserved to fix any flaws. I am afraid that I will have to ask you to stop any diagnostics you have done and to leave the zoid alone."

Sally figured she had the measure of Mark right now. He was a cop, sure, but he wasn't going to shoot her. In the time it took for him to run back and grab his stuff, the meter had ticked again.

99% COMPLETE

"I figure you'd better put that thing down, before someone gets hurt. Last I checked, I wasn't breaking no laws, copper."

Sally looked up, above Mark's head, to the security camera mounted on the bulkhead. "I think, in fact, you'll have all of a few seconds to put it down before Security shows up."

"Look. That zoid is part of an investigation. I must ask that it not be tampered with. The sleeper program almost kileld someone. We need to know why that occured, so until I get to AZDAT, there shoudl eb no maintainance. I am sure you understand."

Sleeper program, she thought. That was a load of tripe; her 'employers' wouldn't be so keen on just a sleeper program. And it wouldn't be taking such a long time to do whatever it was doing.

Eve's light, she wished the damn machine would hurry up. Sweat beaded her forehead despite the cool recirculated air of the Whaleking's hold.

"Sleeper program, huh?" Sally said, feigning ignorance. "Last I heard, they don' flip out like that. 'Sides, I ain't tamperin' with the blasted thing. But routines're routines, and I don't get paid to stand around and shoot the breeze with the passengers."

She shifted her weight, sticking both thumbs in the lips of the jumpsuit's pockets. "So I figure you'd best hurry along to that seat of yores, hm?"

"It's a new sleeper program. Almost an AI in its own self. An experimetnal model. As fo rwhat made it flip out, that is why heading to AZDAT to find out. It woudl make their job easier if it was not touched or had maintaince done with, to reduce any chance of the bug being hidden or obscured."

Sally sighed. "Look. If I haven't gotten the point across yet, this diagnostic goes through whether yore likin' it or not. You can file a complaint with airport staff once we land."

She checked her watch, getting a little cranky. "Speakin' of which, in a minute or two I won't be the only person tellin' you to beat it. We're gonna land soon, so keep yer hair on and head on back."

Folded arms. "Got it?"

MArk pointed the gun at her, then headed towards Atta, keeping the gun trained, heading to the cockpit to check it out.
"Again, I must inist that no maintaince be done."

Sally just...moved to the side, slumping dejectedly against the crate next to her.

Well, sort of.

Her hand shot backward and slapped his gun hand, hard, to the side. That's when her weight shifted and she threw a right hook straight at his cheek.

Sally had long since discovered that life in her blue-collar job required a little 'additional training.'

POW. Her fist, honed in more than a few barroom brawls, slammed the side of his face. Mark saw stars; it was like getting hit by a brick. The hand that had slapped his gun away gripped his wrist as the one that punched him shoved him in the upper chest. Mark reeled off balance.

"My dad was a cop," she said, with a crushing grip on his gun hand, "and he'd have yore badge in an instant if he saw you pointin' that iron around like that. Now give it here and you'll go back to yore seat, nice and calm like, without any permanent damage."

Mark was not liking this, but he got up and headed to his gustav, hoping to access the communications and talk to AZDAT. The fact that there was this fight was not good in hi sopinion, and he was loath to fight back.

Sally let him up, after relieving Mark of his firearm. At least, taking the clip out and firing the chambered round into Atta's seat cushion. He did get his gun back, though, but Sally kept the ammo.

She glanced back at the controls, breathing hard. She was sweating - all this tension was getting to her, despite that tough-girl facade.

100% COMPLETE. THANK YOU AND HAVE A NICE DAY.

Fuck you and the rest of these mis'rable computer things, she thought. After this, she wouldn't have to work in these gorram places, dealing with people like this crazy cop. She stuffed the instrumentation into the satchel, yanking the cord roughly out of its socket.

When the warning lights came on, and Captain Schnepp's voice came over the intercom, advising all passengers to return to their seats and all staff to prepare for landing, there was no sign anyone had even glanced at Atta.

Mark heard the announcement and headed back to his seat, a bit steamed, but there was nothign he coudl do at the moment.

"Good afternoon, passengers. This is Captain Schnepp speaking. We will begin the landing process soon. Thank you for flying with us."

Soon after, the Whaleking approached the landing strip, and the passengers were treated to a vista of Athens through their viewing windows.

Ground crews scurried around, clearing the area for the massive ship. She came in smoothly if slowly, inching towards the ground with landing gear deployed. The ship's techs had run one final checklist to make sure everything was bolted down and ready to go before strapping themselves in.

The Whaleking touched down, venting a few streams of white mist from various ports. It wasn't long before the unloading ramps opened, and techs began off-loading the freight.

A Gustav pulled up to the massive ship, towing a passenger trailer behind it. It extended up to the door to unload the passengers.

Mark headed to his Gustav and hooked up the trailers and then drove it down, heading through the port, and teh city then out towards AZDAT. Once outside of hte city, he headed twoards AZDAT at top speed, truely worried about Atta.
He also radioed ahead to AZDAT, to let them know he was coming in post haste.


********

Senses Down.
Gamma Unit operational
Zoid Status: gone

Atta was still there, his 'self' being in teh gamma unit that was in the cockpit. Atta was not happy, and some rationalization was takign place.


Ivy: Reason for loss of Zoid.
Recommendation: Payback.
Options: Kill.
Killing wrong. Must not disappoint Steve and Jessica.
Other options: Destroy Zoid.
Wrong. Zoid innocent. Ivy is target.
Option: Cripple Ivy.
Can eb done. Best option.
How can be done?
Working.....

(OOC: Yes, Atta has gotten a bit of a vedetta on Ivy. At least he is not plannign to kil her, jus maybe break an arm or a leg, that should heal soon as it were.)

((Dude, you're more than welcome to go all out in Atta's little Hunt For Red Ivestober. It'll make for good RP, and I'm sure Ivy will appreciate the attention. That said, this RP is probably over to Sol now, as AIZDAT's his thing.))

(Well, IF ATta declares full vegenace, most liekly will accomplish what he does not. Get people fully against hte idea fo sentinent zoids. And okay, thanks.)