Thread: Clues and Mysteries Characters: Kitty Pryde and Pete Wisdom NPCs: MI-13 Analysts Location: MI-13 HQ Timeline: 3/14 (foward-dated) Description: While investigating Europe's mutant-nappers, Kitty gets a clue that means nothing to her and something important to Pete. Rating: PG-13
Kitty knew she was getting some looks she was getting from the MI-13 analysts as she wheeled a freestanding whiteboard over to the small space they'd provisioned for her. Her research had taken a productive turn during the last week, and while she mostly preferred to work digitally, sometimes it was just easier to free scrawl her ideas. She caught the eye of a woman openly gawking at her. "Oh come on. There's nothing wrong with using all available resources. Going analog every once in awhile is fine."
"'s not that, luv. It's just..." She made a gesture towards her own head, but she was referencing the tiny crown perched on her head. "...rather fanciful for a Monday."
"Oh. Right." She blushed a bit in embarrassment. One of the techs (who she suspected of having a crush on her) had apparently gotten wind of her birthday, and the tiny hat and a cupcake had shown up on her desk that morning. She had forgotten she was still wearing it. "Well, there's nothing wrong with being festive either."
She pivoted the whiteboard at the last second, using it to cordon off her workspace. She went to work scribbling out the trafficking network as she understood it. These guys weren't amateurs. They covered their tracks. They diversified their methods of communications. They subcontracted much of the dirty work to low level thugs (like the charming men she'd met at the bar) so that someone unconnected could always take the fall if a deal went back. That was why Kitty had decided to make a shift in her approach and start looking more closely at the buyers rather than the sellers.
On the side of the board, she began to tape up one pagers she'd developed about the major players purchasing mutants on the black market, but in the middle of the list, she left a blank space. It represented one buyer she had been able to pinpoint as having a notably large spend with this criminal network. Maybe even the largest spend of anyone on her list. This group as remarkable in that she hadn't yet been able to identify just who they were. Every time she thought she was getting somewhere, she kept getting circled around to the same thing. She had no idea what it meant, but her gut told her that it was worth pursuing. She grabbed a red marker and scrawled out the only clue she had to the buyer's identity.