10035/A Mysterious Transmission, Part II

A Mysterious Transmission, Part II
Date of Scene:	14 November 2019
Location:	X-mansion, Computer Labs
Synopsis:	The transmission begins again, and more research is done on Site-13!
Cast of Characters:	Dragonfly (Armenteros), Shadowcat, Spider-Man, Samuel Morgan, Nightingale, Triage

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Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
It's been seven days since the broadcast from the past started. A plea for help from a science facility, seemingly from the past, in a location that did not exist according to the satellite images from a few weeks prior. Something that very much should not be seems to have sprung into existence. It has been intermittnent, the broadcast, cutting in and out - even going missing for a few days, leading people to fear the worst, before it popped up again, like nothing happened. The same message. A plea for help on an AM radio.

BEGIN TRANSMISSION

Hello,

My name is Doctor Mohammad Scott, and I am a researcher within the AIM Foundation's Site-13 Temporal Studies division.

Myself and my team were abandoned within Site-13 during a recent catastrophic event, the full details of which we do not know.

We are currently surrounded by hostile entities and other hazardous anomalies. Of the original thirty members of my team, only twelve remain.

To any AIM operatives listening on this channel, we are asking for assistance. Our supplies are dangerously low, as is our ammunition. Without aid, it is unlikely that we will last more than another month.

Following this message will be an encrypted, adjusted VMS transmission, decipherable by standard 1980's AIM technology. The information within that transmission will contain our location, as well as we can describe it.

The transmission is wired by dead man's switch to myself, and will be played on a continuous loop until such time that I die.

Please help us. Thank you.

ENCRYPTED INFORMATION

END TRANSMISSION

Satellite images of the Big Bend National Park in Texas show a facility that could have been plucked from a 1980's industrial park, plunked down in the middle of a valley in the middle of nowhere, with a small nuclear power plant providing power stationed nearby. The thing is...those live images, from satellites known to be trustworthy and accurate, flickr, from time to time. The Terrain changes. The buildings vanish and return. It may be a software glitch but...who knows?

Shadowcat has posed:
At first Kitty had figured it had been just a prank. There were several mutants capable of pulling off simulated radio transmissions, not to mention those with the technical capability to do it the old fashioned way.

She hadn't gotten around to checking into it very deeply yet, just set up a few programs to monitor for the transmissions so she could determine the source. At present Kitty is in the computer lab, having set up some new upgrades there. Most of the computers in use by the school are of her design, along with others at the school, and likely a lot of work on the OS by Doug as well.

Her phone beeps and she checks a message, seeing a summary of results. "Hrm," Kitty says with a frown. Rather than head down to the X-men base, she starts up pulling up the results on one of the computers there. She takes a sip of her MOuntain Dew, or tries to but finds it is empty. Frustrated she sets the can down, it making that little hollow thud that empty soda cans make. Mocking her.

Mocking her!

Spider-Man has posed:
A savior appears mounted on a noble steed.

That savior is Peter Parker and that Steed is his feet.

But does a hero by any other means or name taste as sweet as the delicious citris delight of a crisp cold can of Mountain Dew?

I think not, noble reader.

"Brought you something." The can is held down over her shoulder, as he kneels down to look over the other at the work she's doing. "Anything new?" He wonders, blue eyes shifty shifting across code lines as if he can read that stuff.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    When dwelling in computer labs, there is the chance of encountering wild technopaths. One in particular has been haunting the place for the last few days, as evidenced by the post-it stuck to one system saying 'Bean's project. Hands off (that means you Tommy)'. The area around that system is scrupulously clean, as if most students are afraid to even approach it. Sometimes a fearsome reputation works to your advantage...

    So, after classes, after homework, after gym and after most people have decided they had enough of this computer malarkey, Bean enters, flanked by his trusty companion Bear. The pattering of paws might give him away long before he gets there. Both teachers get a nod. "Miss Pryde. Mister Parker. How are you?"

    The system he has claimed comes to life... that is to say, the monitor springs to life, as he approaches. On screen is the fourier transform of a certain wavelength, running through a program that is decidedly last generation.

Nightingale has posed:
     Where there is thirst, there is also bound to be hunger. Where there is hunger, there is bound to be the delight to end all delights--mac 'n cheese! A covered sheet cake pan is ferried in by a familiar winged figure, along with trivets to rest it on, and a bag containing some disposable cutlery and flatware.

     Yes, mac 'n cheese could heal all things, and make a long night of research seem but a minute, and this was a fact of life that Shannon knew all too well. There was not so much she could do well, but this, she would do, and share the results gladly.

     She finds an empty table somewhat central to the rest and makes room to set down her tasty payload, along with the bag and its contents. Removing the lid of the pan, she lets the smell begin to waft throughout the room. A long night this might be, but perhaps a more pleasant one for some fuel for the research.

Triage has posed:
Knowing that Shannon would need multiple trips to deliver everything, Chris volunteered to help. He follows, armed with a cart laden with a cooler and a tower of plastic cups on the top shelf, and a coffee pot with boxes of various coffees on the bottom shelf. He waves to Kitty and Peter, and then to Bean. "Any news?" he asks before wheeling the cart to a corner and then starting to unload his bounty.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
It's not a joke, as far as Kitty can tell. All analysis has shown that it's really a broadcast in the AM radio range - something that, in today's world, would have easily been ignored or passed over as a prank. All of her monitoring programs show that, for all intents and purposes, the signal appears for 18 hours every two days - perhaps while Dr. Mohammed is hiding - and then reappears, just like clockwork. The satellite images, too, tend to flicker right about then, the facility vanishing, replaced by desert for a two day stretch before flickering and...voila, message begins again, facility appears again, like it had never left in the first place.

Bean's computer has been working diligently over the past few days, when it could find a signal to latch on two. When it only exists for eighteen hours, it's hard to get a fix on what was broadcast but, when you know exactly what to look for and a decent idea of when it'll appear again, then locking on should be fairly trivial. The wavelength he's monitoring jumps noticably at something when he arrives, the broadcast beginning again, with Dr. Mohammed's calm, collected voice intoning out his request for help. A carrier signal from the facility starts anew.

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty glances up as the new can of bubbly caffeine appears over her shoulder. Her face lights up, and if there were a scoreboard handy, the tally with Peter's name atop it would have just climbed by a few points. "Thank you," she tells Peter, touching his hand for a moment before she takes the soda.

"Yeah, definitely not a joke. Or if it is, it's broadcasting more than just locally. Plus the attenuation is consistent for the range it triangulates to," Kitty says to Peter. "Just going to pull up some stuff from work," she says.

"Hi Sam," Kitty says to Bean. "How's Bear doing so far?" she asks. Kitty opens the soda and takes a sip, then smiles to Shannon and Triage as they arrive. "oh good, was going to head to the kitchen," she says, but won't have to now.

Kitty opens a window with the Stark Industries logo on it. There's a password, then a fingerprint scan on her phone and a retinal scan before it lets her login. She starts pulling up sensor readings from Stark satellites over the last several days. "Bean, please don't access this computer," she asks him.

If he tries he might find something shuts him out, even. That something pops up a window a moment later. "Good evening Miss Pryde. I noticed you were accessing some data outside of your normal projects," says the mild-mannered voice of JARVIS. Kitty fits an earpiece to her ear and replies, "Yes JARVIS. Looking into a radio transmission which claims to be from AIM. I imagine Tony will probably approve. I'll leave a copy of my findings on the communications hub for him."

JARVIS replies, "Very well, good luck in your search," and the window closes up. Kitty is just refocused on the satellite data, one might assume such talks with JARVIS are not an unusual happening.

Spider-Man has posed:
"Kitty want soda, Kitty get soda." Peter chims in a caveman like voice as he peers at the data on her computer over her shoulder. His arms fold across the back of the chair, but his attention is fully on the primary screen until JARVIS chims in. "Augmented Intelligence is the dopest." Murmured, quietly, with a hand running along the back of his neck to drum out a count.

His eyes though...

They're ticking back and forth while his brow furrows inward thoughtfully. "This is from 1989 or it's using 1989 tech? I'm a little confused if we're looking at someone using out dated hardware or someone out dated using software that might be top of the line where they are... Regardless, this is some spooky Twilight Zone stuff."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Not planning on it." Bean comments as he jumps into his seat, taking one full spin before coming to a stop in front of his screen. "Bear's having the time of his life. You should see him chase a ball all along the back yard, it's his favorite thing, ever. Until we do something else, then that's his favorite thing, ever." A soft 'whurf' from the Shepherd as he lays down next to Bean's seat, currently devoid of his working jacket. Oooh, yummy smell. More friendly humans that are friendly to human. Friends! My most favorite thing, ever! There is a lot of tail thumping. That is one happy pup.

    When JARVIS comes on, Bean can feel as much as hear the AI. It gets a look, obviously, but then it's studiously ignored. Mostly for the information that's coming up on his hastily repurposed SETI program. Hey, it was freeware, it was on the net... But the data gets a low whistle, and even mac 'n cheese fades from his mind. "Yeah, gotcha... Miss Pryde... you're going to want to look at this." The calculations are complete, referenced with every other broadcast that had been run through the sequence... "I've ... I think I've got a hit on something that shouldn't be there." Because the data is consistent. Point of origin? 0 degrees north.

Nightingale has posed:
     Shannon's eyebrows shoot up when she hears JARVIS. "Ummm, okay, that's the first time I've heard that one... do I even want to know?" She tilts her head, smiling some at Kitty, and then Peter. "Yeah, you can kind of see why I flagged Kitty down, and got another pair of eyeballs on this one as well. This was some weird stuff, figured another opinion couldn't hurt."

     She smiles over at Bear, and checks to see if he's wearing a vest or no, glancing up at Bean with her eyebrows raised in query. However, unless something is said otherwise, she does leave Bear alone, pending permission from his human to approach.

     Without much else she could do at the moment, she heads on over to Triage, and the cart he wheeled in, and starts rooting around in the cooler. Haha, yes! Jackpot! There it is--root beer! While she cracks open the can, she glances between Kitty, Peter, and Sam, observing and listening for the time being.

Triage has posed:
Chris looks up from the cart when he hears JARVIS briefly from Kitty's workstation. Then he glances to Shannon and grins when she plucks a bottle from the cooler. "I tried to think of everyone's tastes," he explains. "The coffee but will keep well enough if we don't resort to it." Then he nods to Peter. "AM had a pretty wide range back in the day," he recalls thoughtfully. "Still, it has limits. Are all of the signals on the same frequency? If so, I wonder if it's some kind of relay or network, whether natural or artificial." He looks to Bean as if thinking that the young man might have a theory about that question.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
Chris is actually right. AM, when in use, had a massive reach, since it was bounced off the atmosphere - which is how, on clear nights, one could listen to signals from across the hemisphere with a simple wireless set. It explains why AIM, for this emergency broadcast, used it. They wanted to make sure people got the message that they needed help and quickly.

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty nods at Peter's statement. "Yeah. I figured, if it was real it's a recording that's being triggered on some old equipment. Which, if we take it at face value and he had a dead man's switch on it, would mean he's still alive. But why didn't it start transmitting until now?"

Kitty rises to go over and get some of the macaroni and cheese with a grateful smile to the pair of healers. "Thanks Shannon," she says. Kitty nods in agreement with Chris. "Doesn't seem to be relayed. And weather can cause AM to bounce back and forth between the ground and atmosphere and really extend the range," she agrees.

She returns to the computer, pulling up a copy of what Bean is seeing on his. He'll be able to tell she has full sys admin access on the system. "Take a look at these too," Kitty says, and selects a few clips of the Stark satellite scans of Big Bend National Park. They flicker and distort, showing differences as one goes back and forth through them in time.

"Something is definitely going on there," she says. Kitty looks at Peter. "Twilight Zone stuff." She looks back at the data from Bean. "Um, Sam, what is this other broadcast?" she asks.

Spider-Man has posed:
There's some smart ass people in this computer lab right now.

"Cool... cool coolcoolcoolcoolcool..." Because these are things he should absolutely know, no question. Also no excuse for why he doesn't know it, we're all collectively looking at you noble writer.

"Anybody want a slice of pie or something? I feel like this is all well in hand.."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Bear is looking up as well now, paws on the computer desk and looking intently at the screen. If his human is interested in it, it must be amazing. His new most favorite thing ever? Bean briefly puts and arm around the Shepherd and pats him on the flank, then nods over to Shannon. "Go say hello to my best friend. Go on, go have some fun." Which could be taken as an indication that Bear is off the clock right now.

    "Something was bugging me about the original transmission..." Bean begins, as much to Chris as to Kitty, and anyone else who might be interested in a bit of serious tech talk. "The coordinates it gave are for Texas, which is well to the south. Supposedly, that's the origin of the majority of the signal, right? But the doppler effect of this signal was all wrong. It indicated that the signal actually came from the opposite side of the transmission source..." and here he quickly drags open a window with the frequency analysis of the first signal. "Notice how it has this weird echo in the background? Doppler shift indicates a message from a northern latitude, but the echo is clearly opposed, indicating a source to the south. That got me thinking... and I remembered something from way back when."

    More windows are opened, known satellite tracks, both commercial and declassified intelligence birds. "What if they were bouncing the signal off a satellite? But looking at the timing, and the frequency shift, none of these would do. Then I remembered..." a new window, with different satellite tracks. "... they're expecting to be in the last century, in the eighties. But nothing I found, and all of these are either declassified or decayed by now, actually matched up with the signal modulation." More windows, and a whole lot of calculations, all of which are just slightly off.

    "So, on a hunch, I looked in the one place where a bird was supposed to be back then, and supposedly still is now. Geostationary zero degrees north. The Black Knight. Pure conspiracy theory nonsense, right?"

    So he pulls up the final screen.

    The one with the signal source calculated to 0° N. Deflection zero. Angular transform zero.

    "It's there. And it's active."

Triage has posed:
Chris nudges Shannon to come with him and then steps toward Bean's computer to look at the graphs and calculations that fill window after window. When Bean comes to the last, climatic one, Chris's eyebrows rise. "So ... it wasn't just fodder for late-night talk shows and crack-pots looking to sell books?" He glances to Shannon, Kitty, and Peter. "Are any of that team still alive? If so, can we help them? Even if they're mercenaries working for the other side, they should live to account for what they did. If not, someone should help them."

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon is all agog when she listens to Bean talking, about half of that going right over her head. "Wow. Okay, that's some next-level stuff. Mind breaking some of that down in layman's terms for us lame-brains over here?" She chuckles softly, about to say something else, when...

...there is suddenly a furry face very, very close to her hand, a young German shepherd sitting close by, his tail wagging a mile a minute. Her eyes light up and her expression softens, the young healer offering her hand to the pooch to sniff. "Well, hello there, handsome! Nice to finally meet you!"

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty is looking at the results from Bean. "Hrm," she murmurs. She's still multi-tasking though. A bite of macaroni. A belated answer for Shannon. "That voice was JARVIS. Tony's AI that manages a lot of Stark Industry systems. And the Avengers stuff too. I get a little extra leeway via the Avengers and X-men working together, but I'm still a regular Stark employee too." Kitty motions to her window that's connected to the Stark systems. "JARVIS isn't in the school systems, he only was in here because I'm remote logged in to his system." Yes Kitty calls JARVIS him, not it.

Kitty leans back in her seat and, thoughts whirring. She looks over to Peter, and without thinking reaches a hand over to rest on his side as if drawing comfort from his presence. "Bean, have you already pulled up information on Black Knight? We might as well review it all," she says. She looks to Chris and says, "I'm not sure. This is... I mean they were probably alive when the transmission was sent. Not sure about when it's being received though."

Spider-Man has posed:
Peter is still here, listening or whatever. Doing things that smart people do when they're trying to figure things out. Yeah, that's it. Thankfully, his presence helps Kitty, since he's totally staring at stuff with number facts and figure proofs.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Snuffle, snuffle. LICK. Bear says hello with his tongue, running a full circle around Shannon afterwards. Is it can be play time nao? Happy pup is happy.

    "So, you ready for the really interesting bit?" Bean actually grins. Something a lot of people forget about the technopath, and something he doesn't often showcase, is that's he's also a certified genius. He's not done. Oh no. "If we discount the signal as having originated in Dallas, as now proven, we can take a look at that odd echo. What goes up must come down, but in the case of satellites, we can reverse that logic. What comes down must, at one point, have gone up. So, knowing the exact location of the transmission relay, the frequency modulation of the signal, and the exact time interval between broadcasts, as well as the original wave variance of the echo caught in the original signal...." Say what? Google maps, he's opening google maps.

    "... we can triangulate, within a few hundred yards given the resolution of this program, the actual transmission source. Which is..." and the coordinates are entered. At no point have his hands gone anywhere near the keyboard.

    The location is revealed. A blink, and his data double checked.

    "Alaska? There's ... nothing there on the public map. Miss Pryde? Anything on the live feed?"

    And only now does he seem to come out of his flow of oration. "There's no information on Black Knight, miss Pryde. Nothing public anyway. It's supposed to be space debris, not an active satellite."

Triage has posed:
"But if you wanted to send a transmission from a location that's hard to reach, literally in the middle of nowhere, Alaska or a remote place like that fits," Chris agrees, nodding to the map. He looks to Shannon and suggests, "Remember waves from physics class or geometry? They have a high, a low, and a midpoint. If the ground is the low point, and if you know the angle and strength, you should be able to predict the high point." He looks to Bear and grins. Then he looks to Kitty, waiting, like Bean, for any better answer about what might /be/ at that location in Alaska.

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon doesn't even bother trying to suppress the fit of giggles that erupts from her as Bear greets her so enthusiastically. If there is a pause in his quest to turn her into a maypole, she reaches down and scratches him gently behind the ears. "You keep taking good care of Bean there, he's a really good person. Better than he himself realizes, I think. But maybe you see it. Maybe he'll listen to you, hmm?"

Okay, maybe math wasn't Shannon's strongest suit, but even what Bean was describing made a vague sort of sense. "So pretty much we're looking at one of those godawful word problems on a math test, a little basic algebra, a touch of ye olde A squared plus B squared equals C squared, and... wha... Alaska??" She looks equally as surprised, pursing her lips slightly. "Okay, so... one thing I still wonder, is how does the aurora come into all this, or is that even a factor now?"

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
They may never find out if the Aurora was a factor. It certainly was the herald for when this whole thing started and it has been going on fairly constantly, thanks to the solar storm hitting the upper atmosphere fairly constantly. Bean's figuring finds where the signal should be coming from, Stark Sattelites find the satellite that the signal is supposed to be hitting, and with the basic analog transmission, it might be possible to intercept and decode what's going up and coming back.

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty Pryde looks over Bean's data. "Alright, so let's get to capturing the signal from multiple vectors," she says, tasking a few of the satellites to being recording on frequencies they don't normally scan. Kitty sends off a brief update to JARVIS explaining the changes though they amount to little more than some extra processing.

"Sam, I'm opening a socket to pipe these through to you on port 6123," she says. "Of course you probably just feel me doing that and I don't need to tell you, do I? I really need to spend more time with you and learn the details of your power," she says.

Kitty glances to Triage and Shannon. "The worrisome thing is, what's been happening with these... things that had AIM worried, all of this time. I mean, is too much for us to hope old age set in on whatever they are?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Opening the port on his system, Bean loads in the data to review, letting his right hand dangle next to his chair. Bear, having done his best to make Shannon dizzy by running rings around her and rolling over onto his back to present his belly, sees the gesture and breaks off the play almost immediately, hurrying over to nose against that hand and sit down so his human can stroke his fur. It's a grounding motion, it keeps the technopath from getting too consumed in the data. "Thanks. I did, but... keep talking, there's a lot of clutter right now." Hmmm. Encrypted transmission...

    "I'm going to try the decryption key we used on the other data packet. If it's the same facility, they might be using the same key still. And if not, hopefully we're looking at an iterative rather than a full developmental change." Honestly, he knows that Shannon and Triage are in the same room, and he gives them an apologetic smile. "Sorry guys, being a bit anti social here, aren't I?"

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon shakes her head. "No, you're not. This whole thing about iterations is making me think of the way chords have different inversions, yet they're all the same notes. Just arranged differently. Then there's minor variations, major, augmented, diminished..." She laughs a little bit, smiling ruefully. "Pretty much, you've got a lot of stuff to look at, is what it boils down to, and find the right chord."

Triage has posed:
"If it's an old signal and the people are dead by now ..." Chris shrugs. "We've spent time and resources on chasing a wild goose. But if there's a chance. If something caught them before they could complete the mission, and if that mission could have far-reaching impact, it could be extremely important. We won't know until we get more answers." Then he looks to Sam and shakes his head. "You're fine, Bean. This matters. It might matter more than any of us knows. So an antisocial moment is worth the payoff in the end." He glances to Shannon and nods. "Like Bach but with numbers and patterns of wavelengths," he says.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
Encryption, in the 80's, was high tech, high end type stuff. Today, use of multiple codes that changed on a per-hour basis happened often, but back then? Twenty-six alphanumeric characters was enough to keep most script kiddies out of the system, and those that did discover it, somehow, were smart enough to not go digging into this too terribly much. People tended to disappear if they started looking at this too closely. Now, though? The same key fits and the data changes. A black rectangular window appears with a menu, offering options of things to explore and examine.

AIM Site 13 - Main Menu

AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS WILL BE MET WITH LETHAL FORCE

A) Status of Site

B) Security Cameras

C) Records - Sigma Access Required

D) logout

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty watches what comes up. She double checks a few safety measures and then says, "Hang on, Sam. Let's transfer everything over to one of our secure offsite systems before accessing it further, one more level of safety for the school to avoid it tracking back to us," she says.

Kitty powers up not a computer, but a number of drones. They zoom off to their predesignated locations, each carrying a communications relay to link the school to an offsite computing cluster used for moments like this. The cluster comes online and Kitty transfers things over to it. When done, the drones can be recalled, leaving not even signs of the network used to connect to the remote system.

"Ok, let's take a look at the site status and cameras," she suggests.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    The moment the main menu comes up, Bean takes his remaining hand away from the keyboard, holding it up to show that he's not going any further without authorization. Although he's reasonably certain he'll be able to detect someone tracing the connection back to the terminal, he doesn't even want to run the most remote chance of exposing the school to that kind of risk. "All yours."

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon shakes her head slowly. "Thing is, though, we may or may not be on a wild goose chase. If these people were dead, then I have my doubts about there being any transmission at all. Especially if a dead man's switch was involved. But it's still going on. So, somehow, across a few decades, someone is managing to reach out. It was known they were doing something messing around with time, so I prefer to hold out hope that they're still alive." She glances at Triage, Kitty, and Bean, with a wry little smile. "Sort of makes you wish there was a madman with a blue box hanging around, doesn't it?"

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
GENERAL NOTICE

Site 13 has experienced a gross breach of containment systems.

41 6e 67 65 6c 20 31 34 0a has breached containment during testing.

On-Site nuclear device is non-responsive. Thresher Protocol has been activated.

Life Support Systems: Online

Electrical Systems: Offline

Fire Control Systems: Offline

Flood Control Systems: Offline

Reactor Status: Critical

Class Containment Status: Critical

Triage has posed:
Chris nods to Shannon. "My hope is that we can help," he answers. "I'll cling to that until someone shows me why it's a moot point." He looks to Kitty and then Bean. Knowing that he and Shannon will need to wait, he goes to the table to grab two plates, "Anyone up for mac 'n' cheese?" he offers.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
The security camerasm though? Those contain windows into the world that once was. Selecting that menu brings up dozens on top of dozens of feeds. Most are unreadable static or black, but the ones that do work show, in grainy black and white, what has happened, or what is happening, depending on your point of view.

Seemingly live feeds show ruin and destruction, images of a pair of legs laying face down, the rest hidden by a corridor wall. Empty holding cells, the gates flung wide. Sterile-looking labs with a mad scientist's cornucopia of...things...in rust-stained tanks.

Whatever went on here was very, very wrong.

Large, blinking letters at the bottom of the screen catch readers' attention. "ALL RECORDINGS WILL BE DELETED AT 00:00 LOCAL TIME TO SAVE DISK SPACE"

Shadowcat has posed:
"Maybe you can have a hand with Doug and Forge and I come with protective measures, Sam," Kitty says to him. "We get occasional needs for offsite systems like this for the school's protection," she adds. "Somewhere we can, run an 1980s AIM command program. Or investigate a captured Sentinel head inside a Faraday cage while we shut down its communications so it can't be tracked further to us."

Yeah, that happens.

Kitty activates the menu and looks at the result. "So, this isn't a message made in the past being sent now. Or a message coming through from the past. This... whole facility, is appearing in Texas," she says, shaking her head. "And... it has a nuclear reactor whose status is listed as 'critical'. That's what we tend to term a 'Bad Thing'," Kitty says, making air quotes around the word.

"And with empty cages. Why does it always have to be empty cages?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Of course Bean is looking at the site status as much as he is looking at the camera feeds. One string pops out at him, considering everything else is in plain text. "That's... that's a hex code." Onto the trusty hex to text translator...

    "Angel 14 broke containment? That does not sound good at all." Nothing truly good has ever been called 'Angel 14', not when you're dealing with an organisation of evil scientists. "What's Thresher protocol? And I agree... a nuclear reactor listed as critical is probably something we're going to have to deal with sooner rather than later."

Nightingale has posed:
     "Hmmm... don't know what 'Thresher' protocol is, but if it's of any help, 'threshing' relates to harvesting wheat. It's the process by which wheat is separated from chaff by beating the living daylights out of it with sticks, if you're doing it the old-fashioned way. So... I can only guess it's pretty nasty and violent, especially if something escaped containment, and did all that damage." She gestures towards the screen, and then frowns, seeing the blinking letters. "Ummmm, someone better get that recording before it goes poof on us...."

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
One of the cameras is panning, slowly, back and forth, in a hallway that's halfway lit by flickering flourescent bulbs, and catches movement. A scientist, with an M-16, dressed in cold-weather gear with a helmet and goggles on, hiding his face. He's moving with a limp from right to left down the hall when suddenly, he stops, lifts his rifle, and fires several shots in the direction he was going. He's firing wildly, the brass flying out, bouncing off the walls in shining sparks of light, and then dancing on the floor as he backs away, turning to run from /something/ that stays just outside of the view of the camera until it's reached the apex of it's arc.

A blur flashes across the camera, too fast to really be seen as anything more than movement, and where the man was, a lone boot remains in frame, kicking, before the camera pans away.

When it pans back, the boots are gone.

Triage has posed:
The part about reactors going critical provokes a deep, worried frown from Chris. "Even if it's a small reactor, this could be an international headache," he comments. "Both Texas or Alaska are near borders with other nations." He looks to Shannon. "I remember reading about Three Mile Island and Chernobyl."

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty is watching the output of the control program, eyes flitting about at the various information. "We're recording all of it, Shannon," Kitty says. She picks up the Mountain Dew can, holding it but not drinking it as the camera feeds rotate through, and one comes up with the warmed man in it.

As she sees him firing, Kitty says, "Shannon, you might want to look away." There's nothing they can do from where they are though, but watch as the events on the screen play out.

Rather than fixate on what they just saw, Kitty says, "If we're communicating with the base in real time like this, it definitely seems like it's here. In our time. Or enough so, yeah, whether it's nuclear bad stuff or biological bad stuff... it's a serious matter we need to deal with."

Kitty says, "Let's get everything off this we can before try to get into the records, just in case it brings about a lockout."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    There are clues on the footage. Clues which, Bean believes, others might miss if he doesn't give it his full attention. And indeed, he can spot two straight away.

    "The facility is actually in Alaska. Supposed to be anyway. Look at the way he's dressed. You don't dress like that in Texas, not in the middle of the desert." Then there's gunfire. He watches with a look of detached inquiry, as if this doesn't bother him. Bear knows better and rears up, laying his chin into Bean's lap and whining softly until both hands come down to stroke his head and ears. He gives a cold, factual run down of the next clue he can see. "That's an M16A2. Neither the original nor the M16A1 were capable of firing in three round bursts. But it's not a military issue rifle. I count fifteen shots. That means it's actually 1989 as far as we're watching. The M16 was upgraded to the M16A4 in '96, and this is most certainly not one of those. Wrong carry handle, no rails, wrong hand guard and shroud."

    All of which leads him to an inevitable conclusion. "They're not just displaced in time, but in space as well. As if the facility exists in two places at once. This if now officially outside of my expertise."

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon does not even flinch as she watches the recording, but her brows do furrow, and she shakes her head to Kitty. "No." Pure, simple, a very stoic response. This girl is willing to stare death right in the face and do what it takes to make sure lives are saved, if possible. "Is there any way to slow that recording down at the point that gunner becomes a pair of boots, maybe see if we can get a look at whatever it is that took him out?" She's got that deadly calm about her, that perhaps one or two have seen or heard hinted at before. It was all business now.

"'Thresher', indeed. Very apt analogy there." Her detachment is almost clinical as she separates herself from the emotional impact of the moment, in the interest of taking care of business.

Triage has posed:
Shannon might be stoic about the gristly scene, but Chris's breath catches in his throat. Then he sighs and shakes his head. He looks to Shannon and frowns, not angry, but worried. He steps closer to her and murmurs something to her. His eyes are fix on the screen and he nods. "I don't know about the weapn, but those clothes ..." He shakes his head. "Not in a dessert, not even at this time of year."

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
One of the cameras, a static image, flickers and fades, a face staring into the camera for a second that zooms quickly in, where all that can be seen is an unblinking, bloodshot eye. The flashing text on the bottom stops blinking, the letters fading out, one by one. Rearranging themselves into a simple message.

WE SEE YOU.

The cameras all start turning into a mirror of that first image - single eyes - the same one - all focused straight through the screen at the people looking at it.

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty motions to a monitor beside Shannon. "The video is pretty low quality, given the bandwidth. But we can pass it through some image enhancement programs, let it try to get the best image it can from it," she says. "It'll take a minute or two, but will pop up there when done."

She turns back then in time to see the eye appearing on all of the cameras. "Yeah, well you don't know John Cena," Kitty mumbles aloud. She backs out of the cameras. "Bean, lets see if we can get into the records," she says. "Your power doesn't work this remotely does it? If not we'll have to try to hack it the old fashioned way," she says as she tries the records option.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    By the time the eye is staring into the camera, Bear has decided that it's full on lap-cuddle time. So, by the time Bean even has a chance to be distressed about what he's seeing, he has a lap full of German Shepherd who absolutely must be petted right now. It sure takes the sting out of the otherwise very unpleasant moment. "See me, seeing you, coming for you.... whosagoodboythen?"

    When Kitty asks the question, there's a moment of silence. "I... don't actually know. Never actually tried it, but I'm guessing that without full admin access, best I can do is brute force it. Or, y'know, assist in the old fashioned hacking by providing extra processing power. That's how I got the decryption done on the original data packet, just linked every terminal in here together to form a supercomputer."

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon frowns deeply. "That cinches it. I don't think this is a wild goose chase. Opinions?" Briefly, there is a flicker of... fear... in the young healer's eyes, as a chill runs down her spine. "That was just too real. Too immediate. Scheisse!!! If that thing knows we're looking, just how much is it seeing of where we are?" Various colorful oaths pepper her speech as she tenses, her eyes dancing between the screen Kitty motions to, and the baleful eye with the ominous message written below the recording on the screen.

Triage has posed:
Still frowning, Chris looks at Shannon. "At the moment, we're just observers. We should leave them alone to tackle the tech. Take a break," he suggests.

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
Backing out of the screen with the camera feeds does the trick - the eyes all vanish along with the feeds they are on, but the text remains at the bottom of the screen, glowing ominously red, right where it can be seen and not easily ignored. Selecting option C brings you to a simple username and password screen - a secondary login for those with Sigma access, apparently, hiding the good things behind a hard password.

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty Pryde checks a few systems and says, "I don't think anything is seeing us. No signs of anything making it back to us but the output of the remote cluster. Doesn't take much to know a camera is being accessed though and, well, do something like that."

They get backed out and to the login screen. "I don't know how many tries we're going to get at this. I don't want to lock us out. But we also can't sit on it too long. Thinking it would be best to hold off trying to get in until we think we at least have something to try here," she says. "Given how the signal is coming in, and the age of the system, it's not going to be an easy hack if we can't go in normally. Sure we could brute force it, but at these network speeds?" Kitty shakes her head.

Nightingale has posed:
Shannon frowns slightly. "Is anyone getting all this onto some sort of storage device here? Because I'm wondering if it's time we get another pair of eyeballs on this again." She looks meaningfully at Bean and Triage. "If it's not out of line, Kitty, my thought would be to have you get the data to folks on your end, let me relay this latest update to the Captain, and between all of us, we might come up with a solution. The last time we spoke with the Captain, he mentioned potential SHIELD involvement, and this sounds like something he might want to pass on up."

Triage has posed:
"I'm sure that they're recording every keystroke and every pixel," Chris assures Shannon. "The other eyes could be a great help, especially if the Captain and his colleagues are among them."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Typical fear tactic." Bean agrees, although his confident statement is possibly undermined somewhat by the necessity of rubbing Bear's belly at the same time. "But you're right. Most of the blackhat tools I know don't work that well on a connection this slow. We might have to go oldschool on this. So, either we lift a combination out of an old database, or it's down to the real professionals." At which he gives a meaningful glance to Kitty.

    "But after what I've just seen? I'm with Shannon, this is one to spread as far and as wide as we can. Because if we're going to go there... we're going to need some big guns."

Dragonfly (Armenteros) has posed:
The 'I SEE YOU' message at the bottom starts to multiply. Exponentially. One. Then two. Four. Eight. Sixteen. Obscuring the screen until, with a blink...

<CARRIER LOST>

The satellite images, too, change. Where there was once a dilapadated building and a nuclear power plant? Only prairie. Two days until the next appearance for eighteen hours. Two days, eighteen hours to plan. To research. To find out who Dr. Mohammed Scott was. What AIM was. And what they may be facing.