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Post by Bixir on Sept 3, 2024 3:46:29 GMT
Jenkins cleared the way, aggressively, as Planetary medical personnel barreled down the corridor with a cart heavily laden with supplies, machinery, and one Herman. The man was subdued, if not from his rapidly worsening condition then certainly from what he had been given when the Ray had touched down at Tesladyne's helipad. The same Ray was running alongside Jenkins as they continued to escort the man to their destination. None of them had had any breakfast yet, and the Tesladyne building was already buzzing with activity as everyone was on deck to respond to the crisis. And that didn't mean Herman. The resulting event from... whatever had happened at Brighton Beach had plunged all of Manhattan into a city-wide blackout. Response teams had already been out across the island to address the most serious cases, though one of those included Planetary headquarters. Tesladyne was the largest distributor of electricity in New York by far, to say nothing of the subsystems that had been knocked out. With some help from the Justice League, the worst had been dealt with already, but it was going to be like this for a while. It was a miracle that this had happened before 6 A.M. A mid-day outage like this would have been disastrous. This was not the kind of stability that Tesladyne's CEO had been hoping to show off to their new employee. It was his third day here, and their operation was dealing with an incident that he hadn't seen since... well, that was a story for another thread. The first thing that Atomic Robo did when he realized something was wrong - not through any communication, mind you, but that the lights went out while he was playing a very serious game of Minesweeper on his company computer - was to find the purple menace Xerox and bring him along. No one batted an eye at their CEO running around in nothing but a pair of cargo pants, nor at seeing the alien's natural form skittering about the place. They had gotten used to much worse during the Cold War, and before even that. Robo just hoped he didn't get any ideas while they figured out what the fork was going on. Xerox knew as well as he did that he was still on a tight leash. "Alright, just stick with me, okay? I'm sure Sue and Herman have a perfectly good explanation for all of this. Hermie's never let me down - mostly." He paused. His optical lenses narrowed. "Sometimes." They squinted. "You know what, just forget I said any of that. Happy thoughts, Robo..."The two of them would eventually run into Susan and Astra outside the doors to the repurposed lab space that Herman had been carted off to. They could go in... but Robo hoped he could ask some questions first. He flagged Susan down, positioning himself a little too close to the door in an effort to discourage her from just barging in. This usually didn't work, but maybe the twenty-seventh time was the charm. "Hey, before we go in there, d'ya mind telling me what happened out there? I dunno what you got up to on the beach, but things are pretty screwy around here!
"Hey, Astra." |
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Post by Beriadan on Sept 3, 2024 12:06:57 GMT
Astra has followed Sue in a quiet daze, from the beach to here. She was aware that nothing was as it should be. Lights were off across the city of Manhattan, and the worried chattering on the radio and from her colleagues affirmed that. She simply kept quiet, trying to piece together what she had seen, and what she had experienced.
Whatever it was that Sue had used, it had done something. Astra didn't know what. Something had happened in the fabric of the universe. Whatever it was, she could feel that it was incredibly, utterly wrong.
As she walked behind Sue, regaining her active thoughts with each step, Astra grew more and more worried, but coherently so. Less blind panic, and more analytically fearful. What had gone wrong? What could she do to help? As they aimed straight for Herman's hospital room within Planetary's headquarters, she stopped short when Atomic Robo attempted to block their path. Whether or not Sue simply barged path wouldn't change Astra responding to an authority figure before her.
"Hi, Mr. Robo."
She gave him a weak smile, but her eyes betrayed the truth behind her feelings. She glanced behind him, glimpsing a flash of purple. For a moment Astra's mind was diverted, as she cocked her head to peer around Atomic Robo, spying the alien form behind him. She had been across the galaxy, and wasn't phased at all with seeing non-human life. Astra gave Xerox a small wave.
"Hi."
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Post by BijuuGuy on Sept 3, 2024 20:49:17 GMT
It was rare for Susan Storm to be visibly shaken. The woman was usually a model of composure and calm. However, the events both she and her team had experienced, summoned such a variety of reactions in a short amount of time that neither her body or mind could keep up. And even then, Sue was more or less at the top of her game as her Quick Travel Portal materialized her and Astra at the very same helipad where part of her team landed as well. The pair were still locked in their embrace, with Sue gently pulling free as she began to follow their most critical patient.
Herman was laid on a gurney, his condition deteriorating by the minute. Planetary's medical team were already examining him mid-run, exchanging stats of his condition to one another. Susan wasn't a medical doctor, but she knew enough to translate their words into "this is not good." A conclusion that seemed obvious by mere visual inspection. Nevertheless, it instilled a further layer of fear into the good doctor. It was one of those times where she wished she had gotten a medical degree as well. She would've known what to do. How to prevent it from getting to the state it was now. Those musings were stopped by a burst of logic. Even if she had the know-how, in her current state, Susan wasn't of any use. That wouldn't have stopped her from trying though.
She was keeping the pace with the medics, Astra in tow just behind her. Sue had already been made aware of the blackout through her earpiece, which she kept at the back of her mind, knowing Robo would handle it. Yet another wrinkle in their already terrible situation, even if she trusted the robot wholeheartedly.
The guilt kept piling up with equal amounts of determination to try and solve the situation. It was during such moments where she resembled Reed the most. She didn't think of that consciously. But it was always there regardless.
Susan's hurried steps towards the lab were stopped by Robo, who had just let the gurney and the medical team pass. The doors flung shut, very little sound coming through the room she was eager to get into.
Robo and Susan had been friends for a long time. They shared ideals, ideas, and most importantly, the desire to discover. It was perhaps a stroke of luck then, that this very friendship did indeed stop Susan in her tracks, instead of slipping past him as her stubborn nature typically compelled her to. Robo could jot that down as an achievement.
"Tesla. Please, get out of my way."
Despite that achievement, Susan's tone carried a demanding note. It wasn't particularly intentional and it was given further shades with what laid underneath. Concern, guilt, helplessness, anger. Something which her eyes would clearly tell Robo, as his met hers. She had almost decided to push past him anyway, but stopped herself. She had to trust her team. There was so much she wanted to do, so many possible solutions. But none of them were complete solutions. So she reluctantly decided to stay put.
Stepping back a step or two, Susan took in Robo's question. She wasn't sure where to start as she put her hands on her face, sliding them upwards, as if trying to wipe away any possible tears. An exasperated sigh accompanied that motion. She was frustrated. She was disappointed. But mostly? She was exhausted. Sue looked back towards Astra, giving her best assuring expression. Turning to Robo again, the doctor tried to give him as quick a rundown as she was able.
"We thought the rift was stable. We sent a drone in, it crashed, so I tried to go in instead. Then... it all went to hell. Someone came out of it. And then creatures, making these awful sounds. I tried to protect us. Herman got hit..."
Sue took a breather. Her emotions were getting the best of her. She felt her eyes well up. Something she couldn't afford right now, so she looked upwards, trying to contain them. A brief motion of her hand wiped away the ones that were about to emerge. Her head lowered, back to focus on Tesla's mechanical frame.
"I used the Nullifier... And I'm trying really hard here to not start yelling, because where did he get it? Why do we have it? Now he's goddamn dying, Astra saw someone or something as she was projecting and... I put us all at risk. That thing did not want to be touched and I just decided to throw us all directly into it."
She became something close to erratic. Her hand motions pointed both towards the room Herman was in and to nowhere in particular, but they helped her point come across. Stress was perhaps understating it now though she still needed time to calm down. Many things had happened at once. But it made Susan wonder why this was affecting her so much. Situations like these weren't unfamiliar to her. Was it her leadership? Or something else? She couldn't put her finger on it right now. Though it was clear she blamed herself, as her phrasing had changed from "we" to "I."
It was during this brief moment that Susan finally took note of Robo's alien companion. Must've been an interesting display, since this was a side of Susan that wasn't seen all that often. There was an innate sense of politeness that couldn't help but force Susan to address the alien itself. It was the cordial thing to do. To their alien guest, it would perhaps be another sign of how nonchalant Planetary was about extraterrestrials. They had dealt with enough of them to immediately know who was one and who wasn't. Besides, Sue had seen weirder looking ones.
"I'm sorry, you've caught us at a bad time. Dr. Susan Storm, Chief Scientific Officer. This is Astra Zappon, my research assistant."
Her introduction was brief and was said much closer to her usual professional manner than what she had said to Robo prior. She didn't offer him a hand, but instead directed a curt nod towards him with an apologetic tone in her words. Sue expected either Robo or the alien to introduce themselves. Until that, she still had one more plea to direct at Robo.
"He cannot die."
There wasn't really anything she expected Robo to do. More than anything, Susan was looking for reassurance. She was just about to start coming down from her hurricane of emotions, her logic returning, her composure gradually fixing itself. They had a lot to discuss and little time to waste.
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Post by swapgo on Sept 3, 2024 22:26:16 GMT
Why did they turn off the AC? And what was all that noise?
Xehem's lidless eyes drifted back to wakefulness, reaching into their chest for their phone to seek for answered. It was quite early, and also they were getting telephone signal from an unprotected hotpsot in New Jersey rather than the Wi-Fi, which is awful for latency reasons. Sounds like an outage, blegh. The alien put away their phone, readjusted their snarls around the rafter on the ceiling he was sleeping on, and decided to go back...wait, isn't this, like, a super advanced high tech facility or something?
The alien climbed down through the wall and stood at the door before what seemed like a very agitated and hurried Robo opened it first for him. They didn't say anything and stood there in silence, but their curled wrists and soft-white, uncurled snarls suggested that they wanted to scream 'It wasn't me', but weren't sure if that would just make the situation worse. At that point, they just took their freshly served breakfast """apple""" from their perfectly normal bonsai tree at their desk and downed the thing before scrambling along.
Xehem kept pace while skittering in the wall, taking their time to pace through their phone to see what the headlines said, this 3-legged gait was somewhat inefficient, but it was enough to keep up with Robo, and he's the one that knows where to go. There was a lot of sensationalist stuff, mostly from Not Manhattan, so it must be Not Great outside. "I will-, ask you to-,be specific,-later", Xehem put their device away to be at more comfort. There's at least 3 Hermans and 5 people that could be called "Sue" in the logs of this complex, and just the ones he had been given access to (poorly encrypting sensitive information is basically being given access, right?)
Xerox quickly backpedaled skittered down the wall and stood behind Robo as he came to a halt to meet some strangers, though they were a bit more skittish about using him as cover with the tone Sue brought to the table, inching to the side that wasn't covering the door. They latched a bit more onto her assistant, who seemed shaken, but at least not as stirred. "Hello~", they waved back with one hand and one snarl, presenting a tone with a higher pitch, as they weren't capable of whispering. A combination of interest in all this development and indecision on how them, Xehem Vistera-Xi, and not one of the 9 human personalities they keep in their back-snarl, should work in reasuring someone, if at all, kept them mostly silent, though at the very least they could return the earnest greeting. "Hi, I'm Xehem, Interned Security...something we'll figure it out", they spoke in skewed pink, before moving around and positioning themselves closer to Astra, they'll let the C-Suite sort things out for a spell.
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Post by Bixir on Sept 8, 2024 7:58:15 GMT
Now that Robo had a chance to take in the other team, his eyes "squinted", then went wide like saucers. Susan looked... terrible. More than anyone he knew at Tesladyne or Planetary, Susan was someone who took her presentation extremely seriously, especially when she was on a mission, or coming back from one. He still didn't quite know what went down at the beach, but clearly it had been more than any of them had bargained for. ... The what."Are you serious?! I had no idea he had it... there's only one of those, right? Shouldn't it be, I dunno... at Baxter?" Robo almost lowered his voice at the mention of the old facility. Not only was it taboo to bring them up here, he was keenly aware of Susan's history with all of that. None of this could be easy, to say nothing of whatever insane plan Herman must have cooked up to involve the goshdarn Ultimate Nullifier. Now the panic to his friend's demeanor made sense. Which was to say, none of this made sense. Robo himself was at a loss for words. He couldn't afford to dawdle in his confusion. Robo eventually nodded at Astra and Xehem. "Look, you can come in... but even I dunno what we're going to see. It might get hairy. I don't think any of us are going to be ready for whatever happens. I won't hold it against you if you wanna wait out here. I'm sure there's plenty of people here who..." Mid-ramble, Robo's eyes came back on Susan's face, staring through him like Mister Tesla did whenever he was about to get super mega quadruple grounded. Right. Shutting up. Robo turned and opened the door, motioning for Susan to go in first, then followed in behind her. The door had been swung wide, leaving enough time for Astra and Xehem to slip in if they so desired. Inside, the lab was a mess. All kinds of nonstandard equipment had been carted in to account for the patient. Dozens of medical staff were moving about the room, performing numerous tasks that now required manual input without a reliable power source. Generators lined the floors, their wires stretching into a labyrinth of plastic and carbon among the machinery. For all the activity in Lab B, however, there was only one person attending to the figure lying on the gurney. Figure, because it was difficult to describe them as a human right now. Their body rippled with cerulean and white-hot energy, fluctuating between phases of matter every few seconds, though still seeming to maintain a relatively cohesive form. They let out a low roar, reaching up with one of their arms before it grew limp, dangling over the side. The person seeing to them quickly caught the arm, moving it gingerly back into place. Because of the protective suit that they were wearing, whatever effect that Herman's current status surely had with physical contact appeared to be dispersed. The attendant looked up, her distressed visage and unkempt blonde locks mirroring Susan's. "Ogh... Susan." Angela Ziegler promptly rested her hands over Herman's chest. Several pulses of energy shot out of her gloves, coursing into Herman's form. By the way his colors shimmered and shook in response, it had some kind of effect, though what sort was unclear. He seemed stable... for now. If things got worse... well, her staff was resting on a nearby surgical table. Robo hoped it wouldn't come to that. Angela turned her attention to Susan and her entourage, limited though it may be. Though Planetary's chief medical officer's Swiss accent was palpable, her words - and their concern - came through audibly enough. "What happened to him? No one is telling me anything." |
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Post by Beriadan on Sept 8, 2024 17:38:28 GMT
Astra looked around Xehem, who seemed as out of place here as she did. Amongst the panic, the two of them seemed to have managed to get in here as tag-alongs. She wasn't going to waste the opportunity to find out more answers, not when she had seen Sue react like she did.
She followed in, close behind Sue, moving to get a good view. Astra winced. Dr Hughes was in bad shape, and getting worse. Yet... she had been thinking over the situation over and over in her mind. The creatures from the rift had attacked, but... she frowned.
Herman had started running to the truck when it all started to fall apart. She and Rose had covered him where they could, and Sue's powers had taken care of the rest. Herman had got to the truck unharmed. So...
"This wasn't from the aliens."
She spoke quietly, but clearly. Dr. Hughes behaviour, to her and Dr. Storm, had made Astra feel a certain level of distruct for the man. He hadn't liked her from the get go, but had he liked anyone? It was hard to tell. Astra was fairly sensitive to people who showed her contempt. In her line of work, with her abilities and her personality, it was pretty much guaranteed.
Astra turned to Sue. Had her mentor realised it? She had been so focused on the rift, on the creatures, but Astra had been tasked with focusing on Dr. Hughes for his own protection. Her eyes were wide-eyed as she made the realisation.
"S-Dr. Storm. Dr. Herman... he made it to the truck without even being touched by one of those things. I was covering him the whole time. He... he might have got this way from that thing."
Astra wouldn't speak the Nullifier's name. Not after what she had seen. She was speaking so brazenly out of turn, but fear was turning into energy within her rapidly beating heart. The danger of the beach was over, but whatever happened... next time... it wouldn't be the last.
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Post by BijuuGuy on Sept 30, 2024 19:25:12 GMT
Sue barely registered Xehem's introduction, her eyes laser-focused on Robo. But she was weirdly glad that there was someone else present other than just her, Astra and Robo. An outside perspective could prove useful, though she didn't vocalize that thought. She didn't realize just how disheveled she looked and right now, she didn't give a damn. Her mind was in so many places at once, but mostly on Herman.
She was snapped out of her temporary haze by Tesla's surprise at her mentioning the Nullifier. So he didn't know either. Great. Another unnecessary mystery. But frankly, one that could wait until Hughes was confirmed alive and free of his ailment. Sue caught Robo's tone at mentioning Baxter. Yes, it was a sore subject. Had it been any other day, it would've bothered her much less. In fact, a lot of people made it into a bigger deal these days than it really was. She couldn't entirely blame them, however. Back then, she was a veritable celebrity. It was a life she thought she'd be in forever. But Robo mentioning Baxter now... it made her immediately wonder. Her mess of emotions couldn't help her settle on a single one. Fitting, as she was thinking of Reed and whether he had something to do with this.
Susan wasn't particularly religious, but faith had had a place in her family before, as a kid. Right now, she silently and very quickly half-assedly prayed that he wouldn't be anywhere near this.
"It should. But I wouldn't put it past Reed to make copies. Nevermind, we'll figure that out later."
She continued to try and regain composure, achieving it semi-successfully. At least until Astra drew her attention with a sudden realization. It was a theory still, though one that wasn't too far-fetched. Whatever Astra had seen clearly left her shaken. Susan scolded herself for the millionth time for not taking care of her protege. At least that's how she viewed it. But again, that could be solved later. Though she needed to ease the young assistant somehow, either way.
"Right... right. We need to give you a full evaluation and piece together the details of what you saw. Once we help Dr. Hughes, you'll sit down with me and Tesla and we'll get to the bottom of this."
Turning back to Robo, Susan was about to argue against his suggestion, but he thankfully realized that keeping her from this wasn't a good idea. Her gaze looked indeed through him, but she had another thing to say before they would enter the room proper. Susan turned to Astra once again, taking a step closer, gently taking Astra's hands into her own. A motherly look adorned her face, as best as she was able.
"You've been incredibly brave. I'm sorry for this mess. But don't, even for a second, think that any of this is your fault. You did everything right, thank you. Now let's help Herman."
She took a moment before letting go and entering the lab. What unfolded was chaos with Herman's bulbous form at the center of the storm. Was he... changing? The sound he made was similar to those of the creatures they fought. Next to him, a familiar face met her weary eyes with a similar look. Angela Ziegler was a valuable asset and an intellectual peer. She was also one of Susan's closer colleagues, aside from Tesla and Astra. And aside from her powers, Dr. Ziegler's medical expertise made her a no-brainer when considering people for the CMO position.
Susan stepped close to the table and Angela, but far enough that any unwanted effects wouldn't reach her or her companions. She began to put her messy hair in a ponytail as she addressed Angela's concerns.
"Angela, good to see you. He was struck by... something in the field. An extradimensional force. We tried to run scans, but we were pinned down, so I'm not sure how accurate the readings are. It's safe to say that he's probably being affected by dozens of types of radiation and god knows what else. See if you can make sense of this."
Finishing her hair, Susan used the computer in her suit to relay the data they had managed to get over to Angela. The readings presented would be limited, but Sue was confident that the doctor could make sense of something at least. She glanced over at Herman, who continued to pulsate with energy, a strained groan accompanying it every other time.
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Post by swapgo on Oct 1, 2024 0:06:47 GMT
Mystery or not, Robo is probably going to feel less stressed with Xehem's at arm's reach, so he shrugged and followed along, what to do without power anyways. He entered the room through the top rim of the door to survey the dim-lit laboratory before descending upright.
The scene looked grim, maybe, Sue and Robo exchanged words about some strange device and some unknown mad scientist that manufactured them, Astra was recounting some terrible experience that she had just gone through, and here they were, feeling...vexed, mostly. Technically they have a job at this place, though given the current nature of the emergency, it made them feel both indecisive and frustrated. Xehem threw their head back and pantomimed a sigh with their flat mouth, though no sound came of it, might as well do something to try and not think about missing the event reset. The alien pulled their hands into their chest, equipping what seemed to be rings attached to a sleek, gray needle of bark, briming with neon energy. They moved their hands back as they stepped forward, pulling out two small, featureless screens, he joined them together and unfolded them into a singular, larger interface, and finally moved their hands across its bare rim, decorating it to ressemble a Tesla-standard tablet. Xehem paced towards the overworked medical staff, cautiously placing the tablet on the snarls on his back, lighting up with the Tesla logo as it booted to desktop in a less than a second.
"Oi", Xehem address the closest, least occupied employee, shoving a smartphone sized deviced onto their chest for them to hold. "It's a 2 AM backup, same with this one, everything you want is here, probably", they said, motioning to their back-mounted screen. The alien reached towards someone using their phone for light, poking it with its ring-branch, establishing some sort of connection. The light of the device shone brighter as the phone went from 13% charge to 76, and started to play a video of some colorful desert feline flying through space. "I can provide power and input to your tools, just be efficient about it, got it?", they reiterated, clapping a few times to snap the stupor out of any stragglers, stretching their fingers as they prepared to be a living telephone operator.
"Can't even have a proper breakfast today..."
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