Rogue. Asset. Red. 14.
Any guesses?
Probably not too hard to guess.
I’ll be leaving Maui in a few days, and my pet sit in Benicia was cancelled. So instead, Bella and I will be on the road towards Southern California for a few days before sitting in another small town, Tehachapi. Any Kick-fans, Java-fans, or Real Superheroine fans living in Tehachapi, California?
While I’m traveling, hopefully I won’t fall behind on updates.
Wondering if that’s a self destruct code for the battery, generating a taser field that could and probably will knock Polly for a (DC) loop.
The line that Grayhawk is saying “Rogue Asset Red Fourteen”, with each word being a separate sentence, like he’s enunciating for some kind of voice-activated device. This “code” is specific to Paulina: if he were activating some kind of device in room, it would be more generic, like “Rogue Asset Protocol Three”. I checked back, and the very first thing that the Kick-Team emphasizes in Kick Training Camp (Counterintellignce 06) is to “Keep your mask on at all times”. Therefore, if they had some kind of “kill” switch for rogue assets (maybe with tracking components so that they can’t swap it to an identical-looking mask), it would be on/in the mask, as that is something they would be called out on not wearing by both the rank-and-file and the Kick-Team. That only leaves the mechanism by which the mask would disable Paulina.
I can only think of two ways to do that (unless Grayhawk is concealing information, which he absolutely could be). The first is a “big enough electric shock”. While possible, that sounds like something that would be hard to conceal in just a mask, even with shenanigans of super power technology, as Grayhawk’s grapnel gun’s capacitor is of substantial and noticeable size and its implied that it would be capable.
However, I think it would be reasonable, even for Kick-Team’s limited resources, to conceal a very low-range emitter of a radio signal (or something similar) in the mask. Which would be entirely useless… unless it transmits a code/signal that triggers the nullification implant (Criminal Minds #8) that Paulina has implanted in her as a former inmate of the Super-Villain Prison Annex (SPA). We don’t know the mechanism by which the nullification implant works as far as I can tell, other than by a “power dampener field” (Kickman Returns #15). So this explanation might not be correct due to the limited resources or something else, but that’s my best guess.
I agree with you: the code is for activating something specifically on Paulina. Since the precaution was designed for regular people (Kick Boys are recruited from general populace of the city), so power damping field is unlikely. I’d guess some other, more universal way of incapacitating a person. I’d place my bet on a small capsule of some knockout gas in the mask or something similar.
Considering she’s been imitating Kickboy captain Red 14, you’ve most likely hit on the answer. If not the mask, specifically, perhaps something in the uniform itself?
Your outlining that two of the codewords refer to Paulina’s position in the troops makes me wonder if it’s a code phrase designed to trigger a specific psychological reaction, possibly implanted during the loyalty test. Or simply a tracer in the mask, which would neatly give a double meaning to Grayhawk’s answer to her intent to “run and hide”.
Wait, I just re-read the previous pages and it can’t be something implanted during the loyalty test, since Paulina never passed it. My bad.
Nicely deducted!
Depending on how long Polly’s been on the team, Matt could be trying to “drill sergeant”. If it gets Polly to pause then it’s a good stall.
…But I think evacuating the militia was part of the plan. Hmm..
Which can be explained by the fact that Greyhawk and Kickman would NOT want to advertise the suits being rigged. Given Greyhawk’s penchant for non-lethal responses whenever possible, that very shock he described is looking like the next page.
I really like how Grayhawk is smart *and* we can still see his line of reasoning without him having to explain everything (unlike fellow investigative geniuses Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot). And I can see myself coming to like Paulina at some point. All this “I can’t” points out to a mindset hardened by what she has suffered from society, or to psychological conditioning from Luthor Alexander. Or both, naturally, one strengthening the other.
Also, Grayhawk WAS her psychologist for a while…. so he has some insight into her thought process.
One important note: I agree that Sherlock Holmes stories did not give enough information for the reader to deduce things themselves. On the other hand, every book Agatha Christie DID give all the clues that the main protagonist used to reveal the murderer. She never made it easy, but it was never unfair. If you like crime puzzles, her works are the best.
I fully agree that Dame Agatha (*bow*) always gave the reader full disclosure on the information available to the detective. And I concur that she was, and still is, the reigning queen of whodunit. (Even my master Asimov didn’t do better, though I can’t recommend his Black Widower short stories strongly enough. They don’t always give full disclosure, but they’re so much fun and the detective is so brilliant.)
But I also have to state that she made it awfully hard to find out the solution. As it should be. And that is why the detective had to explain what was going on (because it isn’t enough to know who did it, we also need how and why).