Electra
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Koshiro was still busy working up his nerve about being this close to a dead body when the whole place suddenly went dark. Visions of the murdered guy jumping up and grabbing at their ankles was enough to have him stepping back, teetering on the edge of the bin for a second. As he caught his balance, he could see, barely, the outline of the dark figure. "Couldn't get out if I wanted," he muttered to Sage. "Dark as hell up there, I'd just hit a wall. Anyway, we've got him outnumbered. What's the plan?" He hoped the senior student had a plan, because he most certainly did not. "The others might be in trouble too, I don't think we can count on getting any backup."
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Gina sat crosslegged on her half of the couch, hands folded self-consciously in her lap when she wasn't grabbing the occasional handful of popcorn. Part of her wished they'd decided on beer and pretzels instead of popcorn and cokes, but look what had happened last time they'd done that. As uncomfortable as it made her, she was going to be clearheaded about this. Besides, sitting on a couch with Murdock and silently comparing her own issues with his made her neuroses seem even more ridiculous and pathetic than usual. Knowing she was pathetic and doing anything about it were two very different things, but sitting on the couch feeling pathetic and uncomfortable instead of running away and hiding was a more proactive step than she'd taken in a long time. "Yeah, that sounds good," she told Murdock, twisting her fingers together. "Miss A's pretty booked up, but I'll carve out some time when the transfer is scheduled. If it would help, she can accompany them on the trip. I've already spoken a bit with the administration at Nicholson, they've installed several new staff members at the dormitory for the new students."
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"Well if he is a terrorist, claiming t'have been in the Othello range would just be bone-stupid," Lady Laser pointed out, giving the miserable prisoner another once-over. "But if he really was there, maybe he saw somethin' that some real terrorists didn't want seen. Maybe somethin' he didn't even recognize right off. If that's how it was, all it'd take is a little frame job from them, set the guy up, and then they've got rid of the witness and played you for a fool to boot." She furrowed her brow. "Seems to me the thing to do would be to keep askin questions till you're dead sure you've got a handle on what really happened. But yer right, that's business for the hands to take care of. We got bigger fish to fry." Turning, Lady Laser prepared to follow the dictator into the compound. If you can slip away, she sent to Sharl, keep an eye on the prisoner. Talk to him if it's safe.
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"Happens to the best of us," Wander murmured to the computer voice, her face deadpan. "At least if you're lucky." She raised her voice then, speaking to the Russian supers. "When we encountered that man, he seemed to be out of his mind, nonverbal, violent. And from the autopsy, he'd been dead and preserved for quite awhile. It doesn't seem like he could've gone undetected for years or decades as crazy or possessed as he was, so he must have come from somewhere. Could he have died way back then and been preserved for some reason, then inhabited by this... whatever it is, alien color pattern, a lot more recently? Those tattoos are so weird, maybe they mean something."
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Gina studied him for a long moment, neither speaking nor moving, till it almost seemed as though she'd fled her own body to find shelter in some hidden computer network. After a pause whose length would've made most people very uncomfortable, she finally blinked and pursed her lips. "The world out there's a mean place," she agreed softly. "Maybe everybody deserves a little escape, however they can get it." She scrubbed her hands over her face, then went to shove them in her pockets, only to remember she wasn't wearing her typical blue jeans or sweatpants. Instead, she laced her fingers tightly together in front of her. "I'm not going to promise you anything," she told him. "Not even that I'm not going to bug out in five minutes and run the hell away, not because I'm scared of you, but because I'm a seriously screwed up person. But I've got popcorn in that cupboard over there if you wanna make some."
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Fleur took a deep breath, looking as though she shared some of Supercape's trepidation. After a moment, though, she squared her shoulders and looked at the others. "I can move it," she told them with a fair approximation of confidence. "If you can go on ahead to the right universe and take one of my plants with you, I'll open a portal underneath the prison and it should fall right through." She took one of the seeds she was still holding, rolling it between her fingers until it sprouted and grew into a bushy little marigold with three cheerful orange flowers and no roots to speak of. She handed it to Supercape. "Just make sure you put it down and then move away, since the prison will fall out of it at a pretty good clip. How long do you think you'll need?"
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Papercut joined Sage on the roof, collapsing the large plane into a sheet of paper with a careless shake of his hand. He frowned as he looked to the body, then to the assembly line it traveled on. The corpse seemed to be an old man, and though Koshiro was baffled by Tronik fashions, the clothes didn't seem at all appropriate to a place like this. They looked more like something Sharl would've put on to get dressed up. "Not a good sign," he agreed. "We need to get a better look. If we sneak in here, we can get onto that catwalk and get a closer look before the line workers get to it." Matching word to action, he slid through the narrow ventilation opening at the edge of the glass, then dropped to the catwalk a few yards below. He teetered for a moment, wishing for a little of Sage's agility, but managed to right himself on the narrow walk. "That guy doesn't seem like he belongs here. He might have been killed somewhere else, but if it was here, we better be careful."
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Gina flexed her fingers nervously, making the chocolate wrappers inside the bear crinkle with the pressure. "I..." she began, then stopped, regrouped. "There's nowhere for this to go," she told him flatly, trying to keep both fear and regret out of her tone. "I like you, and I admire you for what you've done, and Jesus, I let you into my house twice, which makes you the rarest creature in Freedom City." She took a deep breath, set the bear aside. "But what could possibly happen here? This is my place," she told him, glancing around the rooms without moving. "For good or bad. Maybe we could do something or have something in here. But all I can give you out there is Miss Americana, and trust me, she's a fake bitch who isn't worth your time."
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"Your memory's cloudy," she pointed out, her voice low enough that he had to strain to hear, even from just a few feet away. "Took you this long to find your way back." She glanced toward the front room at his words, with its picturesque view of the front lawn behind one-way privacy glass. "Robot dog's pretty close. Sentry droid patrols at night, the feet look less weird than treadmarks. Decent camouflage, too." She looked at him again, then after one false start, reached out and took the bear, snatching her arms back as though she were afraid he'd bite her fingers. "People around here notice unusual things. I try not to give them too much gossip."
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Koshiro makes the stealth check automatically. Should've gone with SM for the Notice, but I didn't, so he gets a pathetic 15.
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Again there was a long and echoing silence over the intercom, only this time it wasn't broken by reestablished communications. Instead, Murdock's well-honed ears eventually picked up the sound of soft footsteps from the back of the house, hesitant, stopping completely a few times, but eventually coming closer. After far more time than such a short trip should've taken, a shadow fell across the doorway and Gina stepped in. She'd changed up her look a little from last time, when Murdock had seen her rumpled and in pajamas, well past tipsiness if not falling-down drunk. Tonight she'd obviously thought about her appearance before inviting him in or at least while talking to him remotely. She wore a forest green sweater and brown slacks that were far kinder to her figure than a ratty sweatsuit, and she'd brushed her hair and done something to reduce the frizziness. It fell loose around her face, partially concealing her features, but it was a start, anyway. "Hey, Steve," she said quietly, not leaving the doorway.
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"All sorts of things." That was certain to be true; with Gina's enormous intellect, it was doubtful she could constrain herself to one train of thought at a time. "I was ashamed for awhile," she admitted candidly, made bold by the shreds of anonymity the intercom gave her. "I worried that I'd used you because I was so lonely. Christmas is just the worst, isn't it?" she asked rhetorically. "But maybe we used each other. Maybe it was something we both needed. You know now that you can, ah, be with another person, even an unaugmented person, and be all right. And up until Christmas, I hadn't touched another human being in more than a year, more than five years if you're talking about sex. And it didn't break me, or hurt me. Maybe it taught me the same thing it taught you, so maybe we're even."
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There was a moment of silence over the line, long enough that he had to wonder if he'd gone too far with the gift. Finally, though, she came back, though her voice was a bit fainter. "Thanks," she told him. "It's cute." The robot had slipped away while Murdock had been looking in the fridge, so now they were alone, or he was alone with her voice, anywhere. "I'm sorry I've avoided your calls," she admitted after another moment's pause. "I had a lot to think about after what happened at Christmas. And it's hard to do that and be Miss Americana at the same time." A beat of silence, interrupted by the fridge humming into a cooling cycle. "I hope I didn't hurt your feelings."
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"Having you wandering around for days was causing enough commotion with the neighbors," Gina's voice echoed over a subtle intercom panel set into the kitchen island. "Sending Miss A out to fetch you would just make things worse. That one's still a prototype, but he's passable with enough clothes on. Still gotta work the bugs out, then contour and skin him." Even someone as socially unskilled as Murdock could hear the strain underneath the easy words, but she seemed to be trying hard to speak casually. "Help yourself to whatever you like in the kitchen. There's a coffeemaker on the counter if you're cold." The robot helpfully opened the refrigerator for him, revealing a varied stock of foods that was heavy on salt and chemicals.
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The peculiar stranger seemed comfortable with the silence, walking next to Murdock while still directing their path of travel. Several people in the neighborhood were out in their yards today, but two people walking together didn't draw the attention that one large man walking alone did. The emissary's walking action was not perfect, with a slight limp to the gait and a hesitation when stepping off curbs and over piles of slush, just enough to make Murdock suspect that Gina was not practiced with this particular model, or perhaps not piloting it herself at all. It was certainly not the polished finished product that was Miss Americana, but seeing a superhero in this neighborhood would surely draw attention that Gina would like to avoid. Somewhat gratifyingly, Murdock's calculations were not far wrong. A short walk of one block west and another south brought them up in front of a moderately-sized white house that he'd passed several times in his travels. Murdock had discounted it on previous visits because of the pet tracks in the yard, when he knew Gina didn't have a dog. Despite that, the emissary led him up the driveway and in through a door beside the garage, which contained a familiar car. "Remove your shoes, please," the emissary told him. "You may place them on the mat. Even as it spoke, Murdock's guide matched words to action, removing coat and shoes and placing them in a closet alcove off the garage. It was a bit of a shock to see that underneath those items of clothing, the robot had no skin at all, just plastic bones and bundles of tubing for blood vessels and tendons. It made subtle hydraulic noises as it moved, stepping into the house and gesturing him to follow.
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After the incident with the police, Murdock might understandably be wary about being approached, but the individual who came up to him today wasn't the threatening sort. Shorter than Murdock by several inches, and with a fair, unlined face, it could've been a man or woman bundled into the puffy green overcoat with matching hat and mittens, perfectly appropriate attire for the weather. It was only when the person approached him and stopped that Murdock could see the subtle wrongness in the face, something that was too smooth about the skin, green eyes that didn't quite slide smoothly in their sockets. All the same, though, the person seemed perfectly friendly, giving Murdock a pleasant smile. "I know what you're looking for. Will you come with me, please?"
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Koshiro made a gradual spiral towards the ground, the paper plane lazily circling to land while he staunched the blood from his forehead with the edge of his already-ruined shirt. He looked up to give Kimber a faint smile, even as he was careful to steer wide of her acrobatics. "Yeah, we did all right. Next time I'll make it bigger so you can get in there and do your thing easier. She'd have got out if she wasn't frozen." By the time he reached the ground and jumped off the plane, his head had mostly stopped bleeding, even if it still hurt like hell. "Um, what do you want me to do with her, sir?" he asked Summers diffidently. "I mean, should she stay in there?"
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Lady Laser sent a long and supercilious look at the wretched man, her face betraying nothing but cool contempt for his fear. "No way for me to tell what to do with him less I know the whole story about what he did," she decided. "Y'alls tech is so outdated that my friend here could forge a security disc with a pad of white paper and a camera phone. If he's guilty, you gotta get rid of his sorry ass, but if he's really a dupe, then you might have a serious security problem. You damn well better know for sure before you toss him out the door in his skivvies." She turned her full and considerable attention on the prisoner. "So which is it?" she demanded sharply. "You think you got a defense, you spill it, honey. I'll know if you lie, and you'll start your arctic vacation with my boot wedged so far up your ass that you'll eat snow and still taste leather." In an instant, her face transformed, becoming sweet and so oddly beatific that she seemed like a heavy-browed angel. "Tell me the truth, though, and we'll see y'all get treated right. I always treat my friends right," she all but purred, then waited for him to start talking.
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Koshiro paused on the ramp, halfway to his paper plane. If he was at all worried about sitting on a bridge made of a single sheet of paper, hundreds of stories above the ground, he didn't show it. Instead, his brow furrowed in concentration as he looked after the rest of the team. "I think Templar's got a point," he admitted. "That chick didn't get out to Prime and handle herself there by being stupid. She had to know that bringing the fight here would unbalance Sharl, get him messed up. We better have his back and watch for the ambush. Sage and I can hit up the oxygen recyclers, and CT, you go for the militia HQ. That at least covers most of the locations. We'll stay in touch and hope we can spot where the real attack is going to hit." He climbed into the paper cockpit of his plane and waited for Sage to get the all-important map.
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It took a few moments, but eventually one screen of the intercom flickered to life to reveal Miss Americana's lovely face. She'd pulled her hair back into a braid for lab work and had goggles pushed up on her head like an odd ornament. She smiled through the video feed, even as she continued inputting data from her current batch of experiments with one hand. "Hello Protectron, Supercape," she said affably, if a bit curiously. Protectron wasn't exactly standoffish from the other denizens of the Lab, but his communiques were more often delivered in the form of fruit baskets and picnic hampers. "What can I do for you?"
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"We can stand guard for you," Wander offered, "but you have to tell us a little more about what we're looking for. If this is a place where time travelers intersect through, wouldn't there be people coming and going? How will we know who to look for before the theft happens?" She furrowed her brow. "And if we don't know exactly when the theft is going to occur, doesn't that mean we might be waiting a long time? I mean, even if you put us right back when we left, it's still time we have to live through ourselves, right?" The mechanics were starting to give her a headache, but the idea of returning to Prime as senior citizens held little appeal.
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Koshiro blinked and stared for a moment as his teammates leapt through the window and away. "So, guess the low profile thing is shot to hell," he muttered aloud. "Whatever. We better catch them before something stupid happens. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a piece of paper and folded it with a look of great concentration. It was an airplane, but quite different from the simple platform he usually rode. When he launched this one out the window, it grew into something that looked a lot more like a paper puddle-jumper, with an enclosed body and a ramp that stretched to the open window. He clambered up, then looked back. "Come on, we can catch them if we hurry."
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"Well, first off we can rip your technology into the 21st century," Lady Laser told the dictator laconically, glancing towards the decades-old vehicles. "If this is heaven for metahumans, you can't be piddling around with inferior tech. It's goddamned insulting. For the rest of it..." She vaulted suddenly into the air and began firing, prudently aiming in the opposite direction of the welcoming committee and towards an empty patch of land. Black laser beams spewed from her fingers, creating steaming holes in the frozen ground. "Best defense is killing the hell out of the offense," she opined, crossing her arms over her chest as she floated back to the ground.
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Wander listened to the proceedings with one ear, glad that Redbird was translating so she'd know what was going on. Most of her attention was concentrated on the massive open space around them, looking for any sign of movement. The People's Heroes were ostensibly allies to the heroes of America these days, but there were decades of bad blood and old grudges that could make these meetings very touchy. She didn't want to be surprised when their host's allies started showing up, especially if they showed up in a bad mood. And yes, maybe she was a little jumpy after hearing the autopsy results, but she wasn't going to let that affect her performance on the mission. She just hoped the room wasn't going to get any foggier.
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"It's not wonderful, it's sad," Fleur countered, frowning as she walked up towards the house. "Someone who cared enough to get a nice house like this must have taken care of it once. The fact that they can't anymore is a shame." Even so, she resisted the urge to rearrange the lawn as she stepped onto the porch, just to avoid an argument. "Hopefully he's willing to talk to us. I eventually have to let Madam Zero out of my dimensional bubble, and someone is still out there watching us. We might not have much time." She pressed the bell.