Internal Affairs

Nicole Taylor

Sofie Derde

`*Our database contains limited intel on this mission. If you were assigned to this mission, please deliver your report to your supervisor, and report to room 101 for a friendly briefing on the importance of timely mission reports.*`

Antwerp Construct received disturbing news; citing necessary oversight and previous losses, the Syndicate would send a representative to the construct to liaise and provide necessary checks and balances.

That alone might not be that big of a problem, but their choice was - the VP of the SPD, an organisation that the construct had serious issues with in the past, and which it seriously suspected to be a corrupted element of the Union.

On a more personal level, it was disturbing for Nicole Taylor; the freshly minted VP of the SPD was her ex-husband, Michiel Bloemers, who, following an earlier Enlightenment, seemed to have had a meteoric rise through the ranks of the Syndicate. His relatively fresh appointment made matters unclear - the main theories was that he either joined the SPD fully and was used here now to destabilize the construct, or that he was an unwitting pawn kept in the dark by the SPD and used *by* them to destabilize the construct.

While the precise motivations for the move was unclear, it was suspected to be nefarious, as the team had information that the SPD was aware of their suspicions. Therefore, the construct prepared - bugs were placed, mental training was sharpened, coffee was brewed (a day in advance), and Franklin Salisbury replaced all reading materials with copies of "Das Kapital".

The arrival, on a saturday afternoon, was unsurprisingly cold (and not a little bit awkward), but Bloemers seemed to take it in stride, quickly settling in his office. Indeed, his demeanor seemed helpful and friendly, which did nothing to alleviate the construct's suspicions.

Soon, a situation rose, as it turned out Bloemers was not the only Syndicate employee in town. Following it's destruction in Touches of corruption, Blizzard had re-opened an office in town, staffed by at least one member of the Syndicate. The offices had a distinct resonance of Entropic enlightened science. Bloemers was called to report to Levi (as the Syndic had not yet reported to Levi, as was protocol). Bloemers acknowledged it as an oversight, explained the entropic resonance as caused by the advanced experimental computational models employed there, and went to Blizzard's offices to discuss the matter with his colleague.

Shortly after his departure, however, the offices were struck by a plane - a favored move by Levi. Sofie Derde confirmed that the order from the strike came from the command hub at Antwerp, but Levi claimed that (for once) he didn't order the strike. Futher investigation by Salisbury determined that the orders were re-routed from a Syndicate base in Paris; once returned, Bloemers contacted the Paris construct and confirmed that they were behind it (following a rivalry between the different agents; the Paris Syndics had ensured the offices were cleared). After Bloemers raged at the construct for operating with such blatancy, the matter seemed over for now.

Still, Bloemers' motivations remained unclear. He had given no reason to mistrust him, which to the construct was enough reason to assume the worst - he acted exactly like someone who had something to hide. The previous personal links didn't help matters either.

That's when Bloemers came with intelligence on a sensitive matter. It seemed that, just over the border with Germany, a factory was set up to produce consumer goods tainted with entropic EDE's - similar to what the construct faced in Patterns from the Past. The intel, Bloemers claimed, came direct from his intelligence officer, and seemed to him to be a relatively easy clean up operation. The construct didn't trust this at all, of course, but it seemed a good way to determine Bloemers' intent - plus, since they knew it was a likely trap, they could prepare for it.

After a exceedingly uncomfortable ride there, the team arrived to what, indeed, appeared a trap. The factory was empty, but open; Life scans turned up noone present, but entropic and dimentional scans shot through the roof. Something very powerful was in there. Not one to waste time, Franklin decided to see *what* was in there - by destroying the walls between the team and it. What turned out was a massive EDE; a "Watcher of the Deep", as encountered before, but quite a large one.

The team sprung into action; defensive measures were employed. Salisbury started to charge his cannon, while Nicole took a shot - the Dimensional Science-charged projectile hit it's mark squarely, but only dented the EDE. Bloemers, who joined in to fight the EDE, also got a sizeable blast of energy off that only mildly weakened the creature. Still, this proved the opening for Salisbury to finish charging his blast, and it was massive indeed - quickly overwhelming the creature and putting it down.

Having fought along the team, Bloemers' allegiance was increasingly uncertain. Once he let loose that he knew about Threat 0 - which was supposed to be a closely kept secret by the Void Engineers - it was decided to stop beating around the bush an confront him directly.

Once confronted, Bloemers agreed with the team that the SPD was a corrupt organisation - something that surprised everyone. He claimed, however, that he wasn't a member - he was only posing as one, as part of a secret subdivision called the SISD that was acting to mitigate the damage the SPD could do after discovering their actions. The earlier strike on Blizzard was indeed his doing - knowing the identity of the member there - and the intel on the factory was sound (although, as it appeared, out of date). His division decided to send Bloemers to Antwerp, since the construct had contact with the SPD before, and they wanted to find out what, exactly, was going on.

This, for now, settled the matter - while suspicions would continue for a while, it seemed the team found a new ally in their intermittent battle against the SPD. With the worst gone, even the interpersonal conflicts seemed to lighten up, with Bloemers telling Taylor that, at last, he understood why she had so many secrets for him long ago.