"Well done, Samantha." Xavier said to his ghoul appreciatively as he studied the Brightstone protest site he put together via an express site building server; for the purposes he intended it to serve, it would be sufficient. Almost immediately he started getting hits from all over the city and even other parts of the state. Sam's input, along with what Gomez had to say was working wonders; all the more with Deb's encouraging commentary. "You've helped set things in motion in an exponential way."
Samantha beamed. "Do you mean it?"
Xavier glanced away from his monitor at her. "Yes" he said. "Now I need you to get back down onto the floor. I have a few things to do up here."
"Okay" she said, turning and almost skipping out of the office.
Xavier flipped on the television. He almost expected to find it tuned to the music station he usually favored, but it wasn't. It was already on the news channel he meant to turn it to. He was, of course, treated to the anchor; his hair parted on the side, mustache waxed and shaped, his suit tailor-fit, his bowtie matching the suit; yet his eyes seemed to betray a slight sense of panic which was made just a touch more emphatic by the tones in his voice. Xavier couldn't help but feel mildly amused; this guy had been doing this for at least a decade and still got stage fright.
"Local authorities indicate that the worst of the carnage stemming from the bizarre blackout in downtown Los Angeles has past and that they fully expect things to return to normal by dawn. Amongst the places apparently the hardest hit has been Anti-Terror Facility. Speculations abound as to what precisely happened, but no clear answers have been given yet. Of particular interest is the number of the city's homeless population that are reported to have been seen evacuating the building during the melee..."
With an amused snort, the Toreador switched his gaze to the monitor of his computer which was still viewing the site he made up in regards to the whole Brightstone affair. He clicked on the tab that would send a user to a live forum page.
The page was lively. Most of it was light-hearted enough; pretentious babble of the late night sort. There was also a substantial amount of running commentary on the news bulletin that just played out. There was Go-Mez! Saying that he knew that government building was bad news, and that he sure that those homeless men and women were being held prisoner in order to set up for Martial Law in any number of major metropolitan cities.
Using his user name, Xavier replied to Go-Mez! He agreed that the mass exodus from the Brightstone building certainly gave the rumors and speculations a lot of credibility. As an afterthought, he added a second reply; this one claiming he heard rumors of some kind of experimentation going on. No harm in adding a little fuel to the fire, he figured. Perhaps he could persuade Marko or Jeanette, or some other Malkavian to convince one or more of the rubes that his new rumor was true. The worse that Brightstone looked on a humanitarian front, the more likely it was they would be forced to shut down.
In any case, the rumor had one desired effect; droves of people began posting and ranting about the evils of that kind of testing- whether on humans or animals. The rights activists were out in force now. There were at least two or three talking about organizing an actual protest; saying this online lobbying was great, but the real impact is when the protest action is visible. Xavier replied that he absolutely agreed, and that was the real purpose of the site; to coordinate a real-life, visible protest like in Seattle.
Someone else added an interesting insight; there should be provisions provided for the people who got out of the building. A new entrant using the name Tye-D replied to that one; saying he and his girl were already on top of arranging for that.
Whoever would have thought we'd be the good guys here?
Xavier had to chuckle a little at the thought; the undead and the damned coming out smelling... well, like roses in any circumstance. Even if it was an illusion, it really was something. Even if, given the Masquerade, the mortal world would never know any of it; the whole idea had a certain ironic charm to it.
HOLY SHIT someone wrote.
IT'S TRUE! That same someone continued. They advised everyone to look at the news now.
Xavier did.
"We have a breaking update on the fallout from the blackout incident in Downtown Los Angeles," the anchor announced. "One of the individuals that came out of the building has claimed that the agents that ran the facility had them quote: 'Strapped down to machines for some kind of blood transfer experiment.' This man was scuttled away by Navy officers before he could give his name or elaborate..."
It wasn't ideal; the blood element could prove to be problematic, but it still gave them something to work with. Fortunately it sounded like the Brujah 'Navy officers' got to the whistle blower first; which would mean that he was probably going to be taken into whatever it was that Tyler and Damsel had started to arrange.
For once, it seemed like all was going according to plan. In fact, that seemed to be the case ever since he had his little palaver with Russell. Even the snag he hit on his way back was resolved easily enough. Part of him seemed to be warning him that it was only a matter of time before the other shoe dropped. Nothing ever came together this easily anymore. Maybe that by itself should be a warning that he was being set up...
