Just In for a Check-Up (IC)

[Raveled]

2:54 PM

October 8th, 2011

ArcheTech Corporate Headquarters

Hanover, Freedom City

Brian Harris landed a few hundred feet away from ArcheTech's headquarters, eying the large, pyramid-like structure uneasily as he approached it on foot. After the fight against the cosmically empowered Megastar, the young hero had talked to Headmaster Summers about the revelation that his powers might be from the Terminus. He'd heard of T-babies of course, who hadn't these days, but he had never considered that he might be one of them! But counting back from his birthdate, the math fit; his mother had been pregnant at the right period. And there was the unmistakable coloration of his powers, which never really struck him as light-and-happiness.

Brian wasn't eager to confront his possible origin, but he knew it was better to find out now and learn the dangers than let any complications sneak up on him without warning. While he had suggested talking to Doktor Archeville about it, the Headmaster had steered him instead to another scientist, Miss Americana. Apparently she worked at ArcheTech too, so from Brian's perspective it was all as one. He'd made an appointment and now here he was.

The interior of the lobby was expansive and a little humbling. He walked up to the front desk, moving a little faster than was strictly necessary. "Excuse me," he said to the man behind the desk. "My name is Brian Harris. I have an appointment with Miss Americana?"

[Electra]

Although the corporate headquarters of ArcheTech had escaped the substantial damage and destruction wreaked on some of its satellite facilities (including the literal satellite facilities), substantial remodeling of the lobby area had been done to erase the traces and memories of the drone invasion. Under Miss Americana's leadership, the main lobby was now smaller and softer-edged, with soothing blues and silvers making up the bulk of the color scheme and a comfortable waiting area featuring power stations, televisions and beverage dispensers for anyone not yet called to go up in the sleek glass-tube elevators. Security in the lobby was subtle but tight, with a few uniformed guards strolling around and cameras keeping an eye on all the entrances.

The young man behind the shiny new reception desk gave Brian a practiced shiny smile. "Yes of course, Mr. Harris. Just a moment, let me see if she's ready for you." He turned away for a moment, murmuring into a concealed headset before picking up a security card on a lanyard. The card said "Guest" and his name on it, and it also had a copy of the photo from his school I.D. "Just step into the elevator," the young man instructed, pointing to one that was now opening its doors, "and follow the arrows to Miss Americana's lab. Enjoy your visit to ArcheTech!"

[Raveled]

Somehow Brian wasn't surprised to find a badge with his picture on it already waiting for him. He took it with a smile and thanked the receptionist, hanging it around his neck and adjusting it while he walked towards the bank of elevators. He stepped inside and scrutinized the wall of buttons for a moment, until one began glowing with a soft blue light, all on its own. After a moment Brian shrugged mentally and pressed it; a self-directing elevator was hardly the weirdest thing he'd seen in the last year or so.

The car ascended swiftly and before long he was deposited on a floor near the top of the building. The walls and floor were a sterile white, aside from the line of blue arrows that pulsed across one wall, leading him down the corridor. He followed the markers until they stopped at a door, seemingly identical to all the others in the hall. The young man tugged at his badge to make sure the picture was laying face-out and knocked on the door. "Miss Americana?" he called out. "Is this the right door?"

[Electra]

Even as he spoke, the doors slid open to allow him to enter Miss Americana's lab. It was a huge room, seemingly half the size of a football field, with ceilings that vaulted up two or three stories. Clusters of equipment were dotted here and there for various purposes, with more suspended from an intricate flyrail system overhead. Technicians worked here and there, but in the center of it all, the boss herself was unmistakable. Miss Americana wore a white lab coat the way some women wore sable, shrugged casually and elegantly over a crimson and navy pantsuit. Her hair was up in a scholarly bun today, but it still glowed like a golden flame in the white lights of the lab.

As Brian walked into the lab, Miss A looked his way and broke off the conversation she was having with two of her lab techs. Holding up a hand for them to wait on her, she walked over to the young man, offering him a warm smile and an extended hand. "Hello, Brian," she said genially. "I'm Miss Americana. It's a pleasure to meet you."

[Raveled]

Brian's eyes flicked up and down Miss Americana almost without his consent and he became acutely aware that he was just wearing a Raygun's jersey and old jeans, with clunky work boots. He smoothed his shirt as best as he could and stood up straighter. "Yes! I'm Brian Harris. It's a, uh, a pleasure to meet you Doctor. Miss. Um, how should I call you?" He brushed a hand through his hair, wishing that he'd spent some time on it before coming here.

[Electra]

"You can call me Miss Americana or Miss A, whichever you prefer," she assured him breezily. "Why don't you come into my office with me and we'll talk for a few minutes before the examination? I have the basics of your file here, but I'd like to go over with you exactly what your concerns are." She led the way to one end of the lab, past a rather startling-looking work area filled with lifelike human prostheses, some of which were moving while attached to various computers and machines. A small humanoid robot, all plastic and wires and synthetic musculature, was standing silent and still on a pedestal, waiting for skin to make it look like a person and programming to make it come alive.

Another door took them into a small office, not much more than a desk with a computer, a minifridge and a few ergonomic chairs. "Welcome to my lair," Miss A told him with a chuckle, sitting down behind the desk and gesturing him to another chair. "I have something ten times this size on the twelfth floor, now that I'm nominally in charge of the whole shooting match, but this is so much more convenient. Would you like something to drink?"

[Raveled]

Brian eyed the unskinned robot anxiously. There was a human skeleton in Claremont's science lab that similarly unnerved him; he always made sure to sit somewhere so he could see the teacher and keep the skeleton in view. The fact that this was an almost perfect human replica, just missing the outer layer, made it all the worse. He kept it in view for as long as he could without it being too obvious, then purposefully put it out of his mind.

Brian followed the science hero into the office, settling himself in the chair -- then half-standing and settling himself again. He wasn't used to something that tried to conform to his body. It was a new experience. "No, thank you," he said in reply to her offer. "I don't really drink anymore. Like, any kind of liquid. I don't eat or sleep, either, and a couple of times I've found myself forgetting to breathe. That's part of the reason I'm here."

[Electra]

Miss A nodded, picking up a tablet that looked like an iPod with four or five extra years of technology on it and jotting a few notes. "No need for traditional sustenance or respiration," she repeated, "no need for sleep. Nice perks," she commented with a small smile, "but nothing we haven't seen and cataloged before. Why don't you tell me a little bit more about your powers and what you're hoping to learn about them. I imagine you have specific concerns that bring you to my lab today?"

[Raveled]

"Not sleeping can be nice," Brian agreed. "It really helps me catch up on my schoolwork.

"My powers basically all revolving around blowing stuff up," he said. "I can shoot out a bunch of energy beams that all hit a target and explode it, or I can shoot out a more focused blast that can punch through armor and force fields. Um, I can make a huge explosion but I don't like to do that because it's a lot of collateral damage. In the last few months I've figured out how to make this energy field that I can use to lift stuff. Oh, can I can do this!" He summoned a glow of red energy around one hand and touched the arm of his chair with just one finger. After a few seconds the leather turned dry and brittle, splitting apart and revealing the foam padding. He plucked a bit of that out and it dried into a particulate dust almost immediately. Brian dismissed the energies with a thought and dusted his hands off. "So, yeah. Super-aging touch. My skin's tougher than it used to be, too, and I can fly. Pretty standard stuff, that.

"The reason I'm here is... well, you heard what happened at Claremont? When the 'herald' of the Gorgon attacked? I was kind of in the middle of all that." Summers generally frowned on students revealing the school's secret, but Miss Americana was apparently a superhero herself so it was probably okay for her to know that there were heroes at the school. "He -- It called me out for being 'tainted by the Terminus.' A week or so after the Gorgon got kicked out of here, I fought a couple of prototype robots that called be a 'Terminus energy source.'" He sat forward, hunching his shoulders; the young man's eyes roamed over the office, unable to settle for long. "I guess I'm just looking for some confirmation. Am I a T-baby? If I am, is there... is there anything I should do?"

[Electra]

Miss A listened carefully and made a few notes as he spoke, then watched Brian's little display. "We have any number of lab specimens and testing devices if you feel compelled to demonstrate your abilities," she told him, mild annoyance in her voice. "Those chairs are not cheap." She let it go, though, in favor of his question. "Looking at your age and background, while it's very unlikely you yourself were affected in utero, your mother's body may well have been contaminated during your early embryonic development. We can run tests to determine whether your powers produce any of the distinctive markers of Terminus radiation. Is that something you're interested in doing right away?"

[Raveled]

"I... wouldn't know much about specific tests," Brain admitted. "Science class isn't really was my best subject. But if there's something you can do real quick, like a blood test, that would be great." He paused and spoke his next few words. "What I really want to be sure of, is my using my powers going to be a big problem? I mean, if this is Terminus radiation... you saw what it did to your chair. Am I a danger just to be around? Am I going to be flying around or even saving someone's life, and just rip a hole into the Terminus by existing?" He was sitting forward on the chair and his eyes were now locked on his face; apparently he'd blown through the preliminaries and gotten to the big question.

[Electra]

"The short answer to that," Miss A said briskly, "is no. You are a danger to my chair because you decided you were going to dissolve the cover, not because your body is brimming with dangerous Terminus radiation. The danger of "T-Babies" is largely imaginary, a construction of the media to scare the populace with when they don't have a new flu strain or celebrity wardrobe malfunction to worry about." Her tone was dismissive, nearly chiding him for buying into the hype. "In the most extreme cases, children whose powers are linked to the Terminus Invasion of 1992 release detectable amounts of Terminus radiation even when they are not actively using their powers. If the most contaminated of those children were to be duplicated a thousand times, then locked in a small room together, the ambient radiation might come close to matching the radiation signature of a single Omegadrone. You may be a danger to society, I have no way to determine that, but it won't be because you're a T-Baby."

[Raveled]

Brian breathed easier, a smile twitching at the corner of his lips. "I'm working on the whole 'danger to society' thing, actually," he said wryly. "I was just making sure I wasn't going to drop through to the Terminus one day and drag the city with me." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, sitting up a little straighter in the chair. His fears had been put to rest by Miss Americana's authoritative answer, but that wasn't the only reason he was here. "I still want to have those tests done that you mentioned," he said. "I want to know why I don't need to sleep, or eat, or even breathe. And I want to know if these changes are done with me, or if it's going to continue to... some weird end, I don't even know."

[Electra]

"All right," Miss A told him, her voice gentling a little. "We can do that. I have some tests I can run that should give us a little better idea where your powers come from and how they're progressing. Every metahuman is a little bit different, but thanks to Dr. Archeville and some other talented researchers, we can often make very informed speculations about how a particular power set is going to develop and progress. Go on down the hall to the men's room and put a gown on, and come back out when you're ready. Don't worry," she added with a quick smile, "the gowns here have back and everything."

True to Miss A's words, the hospital gown Brian had to don, while drafty, at least covered him in a comprehensive fashion. The tests Miss A and her team of assistants ran on him involved plenty of bright lights and beeping machines, plus an uncomfortable trip through an MRI machine, but no actual injections or real pain. When the half-hour exam was completed, a couple of orderlies helped him up from the table and sent him off to dress and wait for results.

[Raveled]

Brian submitted to the test with stoicism, if not good humor. Some of the tests were disorienting, some made him uneasy (he'd held his breath inside the MRI machine -- not a tremendous feat for him, but still), and some were just confusing. What did they learn by sticking him in a bare room and playing tones that went off the register, or ones that made his guts quake?

Some time latter they sent him back to the bathroom to change back. He found himself vaguely dissatisfied with the whole situation and wondered why. Certainly he couldn't find any fault with Miss Americana's knowledge or the skills or thoroughness of ArcheTech's employees. Maybe it was simply that there were still questions to ask; they hadn't been able to produce a magic wand and solve all of his problems just like that.

The young man straightened and caught himself in the bathroom's mirror. He leaned on the counter, staring at his reflection. After a minute he called up an aura of red-black energy over one hand and brought it level his his face. "I'm stuck with you," he said quietly, almost whispering, "aren't I? Miss Americana's not going to sit me down and tell me how to get rid of all this. I'm just going to have to learn to live with it, like cancer or something." He stared his reflection in the eye for a few more heartbeats, then stepped back from the counter. He sighed and ran his hand through his short hair. "Time to go face the music," he said to his reflection, and turned to the door, making the quick walk to Miss Americana's office.