Bomb's Away! (IC)

[Supercape]

Professor Quill was at Freedom University when he heard Liebniz gabbling over the phone "no sir, I have absolutely no expertise in the matter. This is a job for the army, the police, not me. I can't help you defuse a Grue Bomb in Hanover!" Liebniz looked genuinely frightened. "How dare you appeal to my sense of patriotism! I pay my taxes! this is your job!!!" he shouted, and slammed the phone down, followed by some profuse swearing in German and mopping of the brow.

Liebniz was half right. He was a brilliant man in physics and technology, but he was no hero. True, he had helped rescue Quentin and Fleur from their recent submarine escapade with his mind, but defusing a bomb was more than his fragile nerves could handle.

Rushing down the Corridor, Quentin undid his bow tie and with a sparkle of light transformed into Supercape. He burst through the doors of the university and sped off at top speed to the Skies.

Hang on a minute. He reflected. I cant defuse bomb's either...

Fortunately, he knew a lady who could. Thanks to the recent braniac conference he had attended. Slowing slightly, but not stopping, he reached for his Supercape phone and punched in the number of Miss Americana...

[Electra]

Gina was deep in thought when the call came in, sitting in her easy chair with a book open and unread on her lap. The insistent ring shattering the lovely four-dimensional latticework of electrochemical interactions she was building inside her mind. She shook free with a growl of frustration, ready to throw something at the phone, but then realized it wasn't her normal telephone. It was Miss Americana's phone! Hastily, she reclined her seat and closed her eyes, letting her consciousness race across the room and into the body of the statuesque superheroine.

A moment later, Miss Americana picked up the phone with one perfect hand. "Hello, this is Miss Americana," she said, her tone dulcet as usual. "What can I do for you?"

[Supercape]

"Hello My dear" replied Quentin. He wasn't quite sure how the ultra glamorous Miss Americana could possess such an intellect, but put this down to his fuddy duddy old fashioned prejudice. He couldn't remember any graduates like that at Cambridge. Of course, he always wondered if the constant radio contact she maintained with, well... who?... might help with the appearance of intellectual prowess. Phone a friend, as it were. Nice little symbiosis if that was the case.

"Crisis here, remember the Grue Invasion earlier this year. Turns out they left some big presents that aren't exactly wanted. One of them is in Hanover. "

He banked slightly towards Hanover.

"Now I know you are a bit of a technical whizz. Bit of a boff and all of that. How are you with bomb-disposal?"

[Electra]

Miss Americana raised one eyebrow as she listened to the voice on the phone. She knew there weren't any superheroes named Crisis currently operating in the city, so she suspected that it was a description of the situation, rather than a salutation. And she'd met too many people lately to recognize most of her acquaintances by voice alone. "I've disarmed a few bombs in my time," she replied, "I'm sure I can probably lend a hand. With whom am I speaking?" she asked politely.

[Supercape]

"Sorry about that, my dear. " Supercape fought off a completely irrational urge to call her "toots". Because it was so completely inane and inappropriate, it became almost impossible to stop himself from blurting it out. Obsessive thoughts he mused must see analyst. Cognitive dissonance. Overt idealised sexuality (female origin?). High intellect.

"Supercape here. Named after my cape. Which is super." Musn't babble.

Toots

"How soon can you get here?" he said, landing in Hanover, where the police, ambulance, and fire services had already sealed off a two block area.

[Electra]

"Luckily, you're right in my neighborhood," she told him easily, not seeming to notice any oddity to his speech patterns. "Just give me the cross-streets and I'll be there in ninety seconds or so." That was the nicest thing about having a robot hero body, she didn't have to worry about things like changing clothes or fixing her hair to go out. As soon as she had the coordinates, Miss A opened the porthole that led into the backyard and blasted off, describing a few large spirals to cloud her exact origin point before arrowing down on the bomb-disposal situation.

The scene was busy, but she just looked for the man with the most superlative cape, assuming him to be her contact. Touching down as lightly as a feather in her sensible yet stylish red boots, she tucked away her phone. "Supercape, I assume?" she asked pleasantly.

[Supercape]

Supercape once again looked at the blue eyed, blonde haired tall beauty with a raised eyebrow. Once again, he detected the constant stream of radio communication beaming from her. Something just peculiar about her, he decided.

Or about me he conceded.

"Yes, anyway" he continued, oblivious to the fact he had not, in fact, been talking out aloud. "Supercape is indeed my name. That's may name. On account of it being Supercape."

Get a grip man!

Toots

"It seems the Grue left an unexploded bomb - well, I hope its a bomb - can't tell with non-terran technology I suppose - here in Hanover square. Half buried it seems. Found behind a dumpster, an old clapped out VW, and under a thrown out mattress. Not exactly public spirited of said mattress owner I suppose. "

[Electra]

"Mmm, that's a tricky situation," Miss A mused, looking towards the roped off area. "The easiest thing might be to dump it in the ocean or create an impact shell around it for a controlled detonation, but I'd love to get a closer look at the tech inside it." She gave Quentin a speculative look. "By the way, how did you get my number?" she asked. He looked and sounded a little familiar in person, but she couldn't quite make him through the gaudy costume.

[Supercape]

"Easy yes, but potentially risky. What if it explodes on movement? or in contact with water for that mater? and how big is the explosion? or does it even explode? maybe its biological? radioactive? who knows?"

"I mean, I have some rather novel senses that can help. And I know a fair bit about physics. But I cant wire up my toaster to be honest. "

He looked at Miss A with an arched brow. "Lets just say a good friend gave me your number and leave it at that eh?"

He looked at her very closely. "After all, I am sure a beautiful lady like you gets asked for her number all the time..."

[Electra]

Gina resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the insinuation. Miss A was nothing if not nice. "That's sweet of you to say, but I don't give this particular number out except for professional reasons," Miss Americana told Supercape blithely. "But if you prefer to cloak yourself," she smiled at her own joke, "in mystery, I'm certainly not going to stand in your way. What we need is a way to transport the bomb safely away from all these civilians, so we can get a better look at it. I don't suppose you have access to an impervium crate or anything like that."

[Supercape]

No blush response Quentin noted, having carefully studied her cheeks.

He felt his own hotness. At least not in her.

Damnnit what do I pay that analyst for. Time to go Jungian. No more Freudian nonsense.

"Well as a matter of fact I do, my dear lady!" he replied, regaining some of his composure. Yes that was the answer! old fashioned gallantry and plain ignorance. Denial! Denial!

He held out his hand, and with a moments focus created a small orb of sparkling white crystal material. "Quantum matter. Tougher than steel, quite light. It doesn't, in many aspects, actually exist. Its best not to think about it too much. Makes your brain hurt. "

He took his hand away and the crystal remained floating. "Can be created to ignore gravity, see?" he nudged it a little and it bobbed off in one direction.

"Should do the trick, I can create plenty of it. Not sure how long it will last, haven't put it through experimental process for long enough. But it will last long enough. Here, have a play." he pushed it towards Miss A.

[Electra]

Miss Americana took the bit of floating metal, turning it over in her hands and observing it. "Fascinating," she murmured, wishing like hell she'd brought along just one scanner. "Speaking of things I would love to get in my lab..." She pressed the specimen between her hands, nodding when it didn't instantly pancake under her strength. "This should do fine for a container, though. Let's go see what we're dealing with." Leading the way, she floated over the caution tape, giving a dazzling smile to the police officers who stepped aside for her.

[Supercape]

Supercape floated over behind Miss A.

"Umm... do be careful. I'm really not sure what we are dealing with here..."

As they approached the epicentre of the roped off area, the small spherical object, about the size of a soccer ball came into view. It was bulbous and had an ungainly shape, with symmetry and an odd beauty nevertheless. Subtle green vapours and lights emitted from deep within it.

"They don't know much. Very powerful energies." He concentrated amount. "Which I can confirm. Feels a bit quantum to me. "

He concentrated again "Quite heavy. Must use heavy metals. Possibly unstable high end periodic materials. Around 87 Kg, despite its size. "

He looked at Miss A "by the way, I don't know exactly what you can do?"

As a precaution he activated his own quantum lattice forcefield "I know one thing I can do, and that's start with this force field. Quantum power's my game. Nudging a few atoms this way and that. Boom, bang, whizz wham, and all that. "

[Electra]

Miss A floated close to the bomb, giving it an intense look without actually touching it. She turned horizontal to do so, a few strands of blond hair falling around her face as she studied the problem. "We need to get this contained as quickly as possible, no matter what kind of device it is. I'd say a box with about thirty-five centimeters interior diameter should do it. We need to fit those projections, but I don't want to give it a lot of extra headspace to rattle around. If you can build it without a top and front wall, in a scoop shape, I'll roll it in, and then you can put the other two sides on. I have a flight stability of ninety-nine point seven three percent, so once we're airborne, we should be fine. It's obviously able to handle a minimal amount of jostling, it did survive for months on the street without detonating."

After delivering her recommendation, Miss A backed away from the bomb a little way to give him space to work, turning herself upright and folding her legs under her like a floating genie as she looked at him for consensus.

[Supercape]

"Very well madam! I like your statistics!...err...I mean the ninety nine percent thing statistics thing... that statistic. "

Supercape cracked his knuckles and peered very closely at the bomb. Good sensible instructions from the blonde bombshell.

Hehe. Bombshell.

Hmph. Anyway. With very careful concentration he started nudging key wavestrings this way and that. With a flash of reflected light, the crystal quantum matter formed itself in a scoop shape just too one side of the bomb.

"There we go! Stage one complete!" He beamed at Miss A.

[Electra]

"Perfect," Miss A told him with a nod, her face intent as she once again lowered herself to the level of the bomb. Not even touching the ground for fear of a missed step, she floated in the air as she ever so carefully maneuvered the bomb into the super-strong housing. "We'll feel pretty silly if this turns out to be nothing more than a piece of Grue rubbish, but better safe than sorry..." She let out a breath as the bomb slid into the housing. "All right, finish it up, and we'll get it out of here," she told Supercape.

[Supercape]

Supercape realised he was holding his breath. And sweating. He forced himself to breathe normally. Not much he could do about the sweat he realised, other than reform his costume.

"Right ho! Well, indeed. But to be honest I hope it is nothing more than Grue rubbish!"

With another moments concentration he sealed the container with the quantum material.

"Just a quick word about quantum material. I don't know if you know much about observer entanglement, false vacuum states, and all that. I just wouldn't look to carefully at it, or examine it to carefully. Technically, it dose not actually exist. Sort of. But don't think about it not existing. Because it might not. In fact, forget what I told you and just pretend it does exist. "

[Electra]

"Don't worry," Miss A told him blithely. "I have a fairly strong grasp of quantum mechanics. I'm sure I can keep the box in existence long enough to get to my lab. I'll just try not to think too hard about cats and light waves." Holding it firmly in both hands, she lifted off without a wobble, soaring over the buildings and high enough to mitigate the danger to civilians. "Follow me!" she called to Supercape. "It's not far!"

[Supercape]

Supercape took off after Miss A, but soon realised she could easily outpace him "Slow down a little! he called out to the heroine. I can't keep up!"

As he drew level with her, he gave her a wink "its the cape, its so super, but it causes a lot of drag!"

Scanning the skyline he carried on "your own lab? very impressive! errr... I hope it is suitably resilient...in case of..umm... accidents..." he glanced at the encased bomb.

[Electra]

"It's fairly resilient," Miss A told him, flying at a leisurely pace alongside her caped counterpart. He still looked familiar, maybe the face and name would click for her later. "Though I wouldn't say no if you wanted to erect a quantum blast shield around the area where we'll be defusing the bomb. Not that I'm not totally confident in my own abilities, of course," she added with a rich chuckle, "but it never hurts to be prepared. Down this way."

She circled carefully lower, down to a nondescript office park on the edge of Hanover. Landing behind one of several equally anonymous office buildings, Miss A cautiously tucked the box under her arm and walked up to the back door, keying a complicated series of at least thirteen digits into a pad by the door, then applying her hand to a pad beneath it. The door opened obediently onto a narrow hallway with an airlock door that opened as they approached. The lab itself was not large, one good-sized room, but it was full of all sorts of interesting equipment, much of which appeared to be homemade or substantially altered. "I'm going to put this on the table in the middle of the room," Miss A told Supercape, "and get some waldoes in there to manipulate it. If you can rig a shield, that would be lovely."

[Supercape]

Supercape was in heaven, barely listening to Miss A, and almost forgetting the Grue bomb they had.

"Goodness me! is that an ultimascope you have there? and calibrated for seven dimensions! extraordinary!"

He kept mumbling through the treasure trove of scientific goodness like a child at yuletide, until Miss A yanked him back to reality.

"Blast shield, yes, of course, good lady. Wouldn't want that parametrabolicalyser damaged would we?" and, taking careful heed of the dimensions of the room he proceeded to layer up the characteristic crystal-like sheets of quantum material.

"I'll take them down after crisis is over. " with a sardonic grin he continued "If I don't make it and you do, just look at it really hard and it will go away soon enough. "

[Electra]

"If anything happens, I'll shield you with my own body," Miss A promised with a wry chuckle. "It seems only fair, since it would presumably be a serious error on my part that would lead to such an outcome. Not to mention the fact that I'd rather not have a few thousand pounds of unstable quantum matrix sitting in my lab with no one to take charge of it." Before Supercape completed the diameter of his shield, she wheeled in a strange-looking machine that seemed to be nothing more than a set of cameras and waldoes suspended from a steel lattice, along with a box of tools.

"I'm going to work remotely," she explained, stepping back out of the danger zone and sliding on a pair of goggles that covered most of her face, then a pair of thick gloves studded with contact points and metallic chips. "It's much safer than actually going in there with my tools. and I don't need to worry about the opacity of the blast shield." She sat down in an ergonomic desk chair behind a console that didn't even face the shield, and took a noticeably deeper breath.

"All right," she told him. "This is all going to involve what's going to look like no more than infinitesimal muscular twitches, so don't expect to see much from me. If half an hour passes and I'm not up, I've probably gone to sleep, so feel free to give me a little shake. She grinned to show she was kidding, then leaned forward in an almost prayerful posture over the desk and let her body slump. A moment later, the cameras in the blast chamber began to move and refocus, and the waldoes began to move.

[Supercape]

"Goodness!" exclaimed Supercape, rather excited despite himself. "Excuse me if I just maintain this force field round myself"

Despite himself, in this forest of delightful scientific equipment and with alien technology being finely dissected in front of him, he was really rather enjoying himself. He peered over Miss A's shoulder looking at what she was doing, and straining his superhuman sensory perceptions to further elucidate the nature of the device.

[Electra]

As promised, Miss A was motionless while doing her work, instead the waldoes and cameras worked for her, performing an intricate and dangerous ballet. One waldo selected tools from the bag and laid them out, while another ran a scanner over the bomb, observed carefully by a camera. After several minutes, the waldo picked up a slender tool and carefully inserted it into one seam in the bomb, causing the whole side to pop off suddenly!

The entire operation froze for a second, but nothing else happened, and it seemed okay. Very carefully, the second waldo brought out what looked like a very tiny arc welder. While the first waldo's tool lifted a single chip just the slightest bit free of its housing, the second tool vaporized it in a small puff of flame and smoke. The waldos ran the scanner again, its whirring loud in the quiet lab, and then, oddly enough, they put down their tools and began to roll the bomb around on the table like a toy. Apparently, it was defused.

[Supercape]

"Careful!" blurted out Supercape "It's not a ruddy football!... I mean, um... soccer ball!"

He was visibly alarmed at an alien bomb rolling and lolling around the laboratory.

"Is it disarmed? is it safe? I can't tell. Too weird for me. What's going on? don't keep a man in suspense, madam!"