10079/Into the Deep End (pt 2)

Into the Deep End (pt 2)
Date of Scene:	17 November 2019
Location:	A deli shop half a block from Central Park
Synopsis:	Caitlin and Roxy meet up at Central Park to discuss a possible kidnapping attempt. It turns out that the attempt is going down *now* and it takes both women's talents to manage the threat of kidnappers, a bomb, and a mysterious government program called Project: REUNION.
Cast of Characters:	Freefall, Fairchild

---

Freefall has posed:
RECAP: Roxy has just met Caitlin Fairchild, who is NOT the gawky supernerd Roxanne remembers from their time at a CADMUS facility - Cait's now a bonafide superhero, rich, famous, well-connected, and everything Roxanne could never be. Self-centered jealousy battles with a sense of responsibility as Roxy carries a secret with her... she knows that she and Caitlin are related, and that their father died delivering Roxanne from the same facility mentioned earlier. While the years have passed in dramatically different fashion for both girls - trailer parks and juvie versus front-page news and penthouse science labs - some things never change. The Gen-Active children from Project Genesis are drawn to one another, embroiled in a shared fate, and this meeting just so happens to be *orchestrated*. Two threatening-looking utility men camp in a van outside of the bagel joint occupying our heroines, and listen in on their conversation via Roxy's shitty bugged TracPhone.

"Well, somebody's been watching you drink mondo protein milkshakes for the last FOREVER," cries Roxy, who doesn't seem to equate somebody like Caitlin with an allowance to feel self-pity. Cait doesn't get to cry about anything! Cait's perfect! Don't you dare step into Roxanne's private little fortress of secret emo bands and startlingly dark makeup.

*SLAP* goes Roxy's hand on the table, a clatter of leather and spikes and salt/pepper shakers drawing more than a few eyes the pair's way.

"And I think I know why. Like... uh. I..." Roxanne swallows. Cait's just got one of those faces she can't really deny. Big green eyes and a particular earnest interest that can't be replicated, couldn't be tattooed on anything but the most intent desire to know and do well. A hero's eyes, really. How can you lie to those? Roxanne leans forward, violet eyes trailing sidelong, lips parting in a whisper.

~VAN OUTSIDE~

Two men shift in their seats. One had fallen asleep and jerks awake, the other claps a hand to his ear.

"Can't hear. Did you hear that? She whisperin' or somethin'?"
"Wuh--? Ah! We miss it? Was that the signal?" Dave is just waking up, but the pair have been waiting on the signal for a solid half-hour now.
"Shit! We missed it? We're going in? You got the Enervator with you? We ain't supposed to be like... killin' 'em."

Two men tumble out of the back of that van and flip on their body-cams - it's important to make sure that their experiences are relayed to their minders.

~BAGEL SHOP~

"..." This was harder than Roxy figured. She doesn't even know how to say it. It sounds ridiculous. 'Cait, our dad's dead.` She doesn't even know a THING about the redhead other than she's a hero. Awkward stretches into *supremely* awkward as a question of intentions comes up - why is Roxanne lingering? Why is she swallowing so loudly in Cait's ear?

Is this a *confession*?

Luckily, the door to the shop crashes open with a heavy kick, glass shattering as the frame impacts the store's wall.

"EVERYBODY SIDDOWN AND SHUT UP AN' NOBODY GETS HURT! WE'RE HERE FOR THE GIRLS IN THE BACK!" The goons have arrived. They have guns. One of those guns is a netcaster, which is - swiftly - leveled at Caitlin and Roxanne.

Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin is an open book in many ways. Either she never learned how to be duplicitous or it's an act so offensive to her core nature that she's incapable of it. People more capable of misdirection and manipulation can play her fairly effortlessly. But it does lend her a strong sense of empathy for people who're suffering, and -something- is clearly weighing so heavy on Roxy that it's burdening her shoulders down.

Besides, there's that *thing* between them. Not quite camraderie, or espirit de corps. Sorority, perhaps? A sense of a deep personal connection, no matter how long ago and far away (or virtually implanted) those memories are. Though this Caitlin is not the one who actually escaped the facility with Roxy, she is in some respects the same woman. Same core beliefs and values, right down to a love of Warcraft and an obsession with geekery in all forms.

So she's leaning forward when Roxy speaks and so focused on the punky young woman that she almost misses the motion near the door. It's the heavy crash that alerts her and Caitlin's eyes go wide as dinner plates at the sight of the gunmen storming towards her.

No speedster, is Caitlin, but the genetic enhancement that makes her able to shoulder buildings and throw tanks lends her phenomenal reflexes and rapid cognition. Adrenaline floods her veins and a familiar sensation of tachypsychia sets in.

Rather than shift around the furniture Caitlin grabs the table and yanks it out from under Roxy's arms. It's a big sturdy old table, made of butcher block wood and welded iron legs. Industrial. Meant to see years and years of use and it weighs at least seventy-five pounds or more.

Caitlin flicks it onehanded neatly as a frisbee toss at the lead gunman. Almost simultaneously she breaks into a sprint with such shocking acceleration that the tiles underfeet crack and tear with the force she puts into her toes, a shoulder-first charge that'd do a professional linebacker shame.

Freefall has posed:
~GOONS/CAIT~

Fairchild shouldn't be this much of a surprise to the gunmen. She's got a *file* for christ's sake. Super-strength and speed? Sure. The two goons breaking into the bagel shop like to think they're ready for this, and in fairness, they're heavily trained. Crack, you'd say. Equipped with the best weaponry villainous tech has to offer, and the sort of gear that might make a charging redheaded heroine think twice about engaging.

Caitlin's table *soars* through the air, emitting the sort of low tones that bring to mind wrecking balls and national disasters. Unfortunately for the good guys, it shatters against a crackling, prismatic wall of *something* before the jumpsuited pair - portable forcefield generators, likely. That butcher's block explodes into so many shards of wood, catapulted through the air towards cowering bagel shopgoers like ad hoc javelins. Dangerous, but ultimately unavoidable collateral.

More importantly, the impact of that table is *just* enough to leave a cascading, crackling afterimage in the air before the pair of gun-toting goons No batteries nearby, Cait will notice, and what with the sheer amount of kinetic energy absorbed? No more shield. It leaves the air between Cait and Hench #1 dramatically unencumbered, which means that Hench #1 gets *BLASTED* by Fairchild's shoulder. She impacts Kevlar and durasteel alloy with enough force to punch a hole in it, and Hench #1 goes flying like a sack of hateful potatoes.

~ROXY/WOODCHIPS~

Frankly windblown by Cait's incredible reflexes and years-honed instincts, Roxy's ass-over-teakettle against the booth her secret sister had just been occupying, and watches Fairchild charge down a pair of hoods like something out of the comic books. Expression wide-eyed and upside-down, Roxy's so caught up in watching the violence that she barely notices the spray of jagged wood launching outwards like so much shrapnel. One such shard is angled squarely for Roxanne's tum, prompting a SHOUT from behind.

"Gyeeee!!! SHIT!" It's like the room's slapped by a hand, the weight briefly absurdly heavy. Heavy enough to buckle knees and cause a surge of nausea, heavy enough to punch every wooden spear into the floor, but not quite heavy enough to knock Hench #2 off of his feet. In fact, Hench #2's just about finished arming that netcaster, and whirls around on his feet to face down Caitlin...

Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin really doesn't like hurting people. The sight of blood in particular nauseates her to no end. But when she fights, she goes to the wall, and holds back only enough to make sure she doesn't kill the guy with the force of that impact. It's hard to calculate the sheer momentum in that blow from the outside. Caitlin moves like a professional athlete and with three-hundred-plus pounds of well-honed muscle and indestructible bones, the effect's like getting hit by a motorcycle.

Roxy's gravitational manipulation makes Caitlin stagger also, but just once as she adapts to the higher gravity. It looks almost comical, the ginger girl in the cute purple dress who's standing and moving like a professional fighter. Fortunately she recovers from the change in mass very quickly-- plenty of time spent in high-gravity environments give Caitlin a significant tactical edge.

When that gun swings up Caitlin snatches a fistful of his grip and forces the gun barrel to the ground. Fingers curl into a convulsive fist and there is a sound of cracking bones and snapping steel as the gunman's hand is crushed in her grip. He screams, because it hurts like hell. She pulls him off balance with a tug and turns it into a clothesline across his chest. Two ribs and one collarbone break, and the other is dislocated. He goes down. Hard. And stays down, knocked out by the tremendous shock to his system.

"Is anyone hurt?" Caitlin asks. She's breathing with a controlled but rapid pace from the exertion and adrenaline rush, and looks to Roxy with a worried expression.

Freefall has posed:
The manipulation's instantaneous, a knee-jerk reaction more than a calculated effect to truly alter the regional gravity. Enough to punch the dozens of negligible-mass projectiles to the ground, enough to leave a few five-to-nine year olds puking into their plates, and enough to cause an older woman to faint, but ultimately temporary, fleeting, and exhausting.

Caitlin will look up from her grisly work - both goons are handily incapacitated - and find Roxy attempting to right herself, a one hand to her head, the other held out for balance, her knees wobbly as she finds her feet. Still, she's not down by any means, and she's able to make her way across the blasted restaurant before anybody *else* is able to move, save Caitlin.

"Holy CRAP that... was... THE BOMB. You were completely brutal! Like, I read stories, but, like... that was dope! Damn!" Roxy comes to stand beside Caitlin, tugging her shirt down and rearranging her jacket to be appropriately half-length and cool. She frowns at the pair of hoods laid out on the ground, frowns at the guns near them, and looks up to frown at the Ominous Van across the street.

"...But how do you think they found us? Seems kinda... COINCIDENTAL, like... these guns are some Mr. Wizard shit, and that van's TOTALLY an extra from Law & Order." Wind blasts her hair against her face, framing squinting eyes and a generally confused expression.

In the restaurant, survivors are already talking as though Fairchild's done it again, and police sirens can be heard in the distance. Time's a wastin'.

Fairchild has posed:
Speaking of guns-- Caitlin goes to the other thug, the one she'd tackled, and gives him a rapid patdown. Another one of those sidearms is evaluated with a scowl. "LexCorp munitions," Caitlin says. Her brain's moving as rapidly as her feet had, and a little trick of the light seems to place a yellow glimmer in her left eye. "Huh," she muses. "Bioinductive ammo. Stun rounds," she tells Roxy. "Wouldn't have done much to me, I don't think, but you..."

The gun is unloaded. She seems to know what she's doing, and for good measure Caitlin casually crushes the frame into inoperability. The man's backup gun and a pocket knife suffer the same fate. She goes to the other guy and repeats the process.

Caitlin winces at the 'damn' reflexively, but otherwise doesn't mention it. It'd be easily lost in the excitement of the moment. "I don't think it's coincidental at all. I think you're being tracked," Caitlin tells Roxy. "Just using some deductive logic here. There's no way they're hacking my phone remotely, and I never leave it somewhere a person could get at it in person. They must be using yours somehow. What encryption software are you running on it? Are you bouncing the call through a black box virtual machine or just using 512k standard?"

Freefall has posed:
"LEXCORP?" Roxy's incredulous. "They make curling irons!" She steps forward and over one hood's body, to stand beside Cait while she investigates the scene. Her lips are set in a tiny but defiant frown, and she drops to a knee to do her OWN patdown. There are no tricks of the light, here, and Roxanne's quick to make her own roll on the Investigation check. She'll utilize her Knowledge > Street Smarts skill, thank you much.

"One guy smokes! Score." Roxy pulls a crumpled pack of Marlboros from the hood's jumpsuit, and slips one between her lips before withdrawing an old Bic lighter from the battered pack. In seconds it's fuming smoke and Roxanne's finally caught her breath.

"Why do these frikkin' dweebs have curling iron guns and ammo? Stun rounds? Like, they wanted to-" Her eyes widen when she makes the realization that this was a capture patrol. Wordlessly, Roxy hands her phone to Caitlin, and flounces vanwards.

"My phone's totes Fort Knox! Password's <3." The password is literally <3. It has two-digit identification. It is a shambles. Cait will have to navigate a bevy of background applications that Roxanne downloaded for no reason, but it's a standard OS and has a battery usage program.

MEANWHILE AT THE VAN:

Roxy pokes her head into the back of the van. Eyes widen.

"Cait. CAIT! You gotta come look at this~"

Fairchild has posed:
"The password is--" Caitlin stares at Roxy, utterly dumbfounded. For one, the girl is -smoking a cigarette-, and Caitlin's not even 100% sure that Roxy's a legal adult. Second, the password is so laughably simple that a child could crack it with a brute force protocol. It's barely a step above '1234' as a PIN.

"Roxy, this phone-- what the heck.... this is a stopwatch app, and it's sending 5 megs per second to a server in... India?" Her brows lift, but she follows Roxy outside after making sure neither of the attackers are going to get up in the immediate future.

"There's nothing secure about this. You've got apps you don't need and no root protection." Rather than go through it any more, Caitlin simply turns it off, then elects to remove the SIM card as well. At least that'll keep it from being able to handshake any local towers. She moves to look into the back of the van, peering over Roxy's shoulder.

Freefall has posed:
"I got the phone from the mall, duh. It's a burner! Can't be tracked or whatever. Why do I have a stopwatch app?" Roxy clearly doesn't have any understanding of what's installed on her phone and what isn't. Caitlin's explorations are as much a revelation to Roxanne as they are to Caitlin. In either case, the smaller girl has stepped into the van.

The van's been stripped out entirely in its back. A monitoring station has been rigged up to a portable generator, and consists of a pair of workstations with a communications array between them. On the opposite side, a pegboard has been installed and features a variety of nefarious-looking implements - tasers, body armor, heavy pistols, sniper rifles. A table nearby is covered in paperwork.

Roxy hears herself echoing in the vehicle's cargo bay, only to have the 'echo' stop so soon as Cait turns her phone off. "Cait! They WERE buggin' us. I can't believe it! How'd that happen? Was it that Snapchat guy, maybe?" She puffs on her cigarette, and *wisely* leaves the technological components of the van up to Caitlin's investigation. She's more interested in rifling through the papers on the other side.

"Wonder what kinda info we can find..."

Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin knows precisely what she's doing. Wires are followed and the first thing she does is damage the transciever array. Not enough to give the system some kind of automated alert, but enough to corrupt data packets and keep any operating programs running in a futile attempt to upload to it. "I'm almost certain of it." Once that's done she nods, grimly. "I bet you it was a ruse. I'm in danger. Go find me. Get both of us on tape. I'm just trying to figure out why they decided to do a brazen daylight attack with just two mooks. Is their file on me out of date, or what?" she says, baffled. "What could be worth the risk of attacking us--"

A light dawns and she looks sidelong at Roxy. "The, uh, that gravity shift. Was that /you/?" she asks with a tone of wonder.

There's a small chair in front of the computer. Caitlin ignores it and kneels carefully in front of the machine. From her purse a little oblong disc, colored milky white, is extracted. She wires it into the terminal and puts a bracelet on to produce a holokeyboard in the air. Fingers flicker as she starts running some sophisticated semi-sentient hacking software through the local machine to see precisely how much was capture, and more importantly, where it was being sent.

Freefall has posed:
The computer's really no match for this combination of brute force and tech-wizard hackery. While the security's presumably ironclad in the virtual world, having its capabilities quite physically dismantled disrupts its primary defenses - alerts. Caitlin's work with the A.I. hacking program will be paying dividends, shortly. Already the air in front of Caitlin's holokeyboard is filled with a display of flickering text, brute-force algorithms and learning processes intended to rapidly bypass whatever protections are in place.

"Gravity thing? Yeah. I do it sometimes when I'm in trouble. I can make stuff go up or down, but it makes my head hurt. I don't, uhm. I don't like doin' it. You got the whole Superwoman thing, right? Or didja work out loads and loads between now and then? You're BUILT..." Roxy trails off, thoughtful, browsing.

Roxanne is pushing through papers, chewing on her cigarette while she futilely scans report after report. PROJECT GENESIS. Team 7. Blah blah. GEN-ACTIVE, PROJECT: REUNION, MULTIDIMENSIONAL PARITY - it's all nonsense to her, and likely unrelated. It's only when she happens upon the SOLE picture-aided piece of documentation in the truck that Roxy exclaims.

"Shit! SHIT!" She's startled, forgive her. "Is that my frikkin' YEARBOOK PHOTO? How'd they even find it? Who're these people? Why're YOU on this?" Cait doesn't need to ask to see what Roxy's found - her probe's pulling up the same documentation. A photograph appears above the holo-keyboard. Details follow:

"GEN-13 SUBJECTS STILL IN OPERATION. BEST LIKENESSES FOLLOW. PROJECT: REUNION TO COMMENCE. RECORD ALL ENCOUNTERS. CAPTURE BUT DO NOT KILL."

https://imgur.com/a/30IhMxX

Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin pinks a bit at the 'Superwoman' comment. "Her name's Power Girl," she corrects, a little defensively. "And she's awesome. And no-- well, not all of it. I've got some Kryptonian DNA spliced into my genome. But I can't fly or do the heat beams from the eyes," she clarifies. "On the plus side, I don't fold like a cheap chair if I get hit with a little magic, so."

Her eyes stay on the video feed, mostly focused on the transfer of data. The picture's given just a sideways glance. It's obvious Caitlin doesn't recognize any of the other GenActives.

"The rest of it was just working out. When this--" she gestures at herself "-- happened, when I went all floppapotamus, I shot up a foot and a half and my muscle mass metamorphized. But I could only lift, like, five tons." She keeps focused on the screen. "I got into working out after I met Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman. Once I had access to some variable gravity weights I could really get into it. I can squat-clear a hundred and five tons," she says, proudly. "And at least I've got some body fat back now. The day I popped my powers, my body fat dropped to about three percent. It took me months to get any back."

Freefall has posed:
Caitlin's still talking about body fat and other superheroes and Roxy's already lapsed into School Mode - which is to say, no, she isn't paying attention. She's sort of paying attention. Eyes widen while she reviews the photo presented, and a few furtive puffs on that cigarette give her a particularly thoughtful halo of smoke.

CAITLIN: NERD NERD NERD NERD Power Girl DORK NERD SCIENCE NERD heat beams MATH NERD ALGEBRA PHYSICS floppapotamus? DORK ALERT DWEEB NERD variable gravity weights BOOKS LECTURE LECTURE 3 percent body fat holy shit what?

"You met Power Girl AND you can shoot heat beams? What's a floppapotamus? THREE PERCENT BODY FAT? Like, stop wellin'." Roxy continues looking over the photo.

"Well HE got cute... and HE looks like a poser... and SHE'S a babe... and..." Roxanne's face sets into a hard frown, eyes flaring. "How DID they get this picture? Mr. Montgomery was the one taking shots and HE'S too lame for this sorta thing..."

At the computer, Caitlin's datamine is getting places! Files begin to download to the device, though this trips a final failsafe on the van. It's not difficult to note the way the workstation terminal's gone distinctly red, nor is it especially challenging to determine what that 'click' from within its body might mean.

There's a bomb in there. Luckily for Cait, 'a bomb' doesn't mean that the download stopped -- the transmitter's out, and the brute force protocols are more than enough to overwhelm the protections in place.

Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin's eyes go wide. "Oh crabapples," she breathes. From her lips it sounds like sulferous vulgarity. "I think there's an explosive charge on the van. It's probably a burn vault." Her motions become frantic and a tight edge enters her voice. "I'm pretty sure whatever's in here can't hurt me, but you better run," she warns Roxy. "I'm going to try to disarm the bomb. But just in case--" she unplugs her portable computer and tosses it to Roxy. "Please don't lose her, it's an experimental AI and that chassis alone is worth a quarter million dollars."

Caitlin starts looking around the van, doing mental math. It's less automotive knowledge and just good spatial cognition. Where could someone hide an effective bomb that'd be guaranteed to destroy the computer systems? It doesn't take her long to find the concealed access panel. With a borrowed screwdriver and a torn aluminum can serving as a shim, she starts trying to break into the bomb's storage area to see if that Engineering degree can be parlayed into disarming a demolition charge!

Freefall has posed:
"What? Uh- uhm. You're friggin' indestructible, too? How'd you fall down the tree and hit all the right branches, girl?" Roxy's not really able to comment much further on this development as Cait is pushing $250,000 (and more) into her hands. She's carrying more money than she's ever had in her entire life, and it's enough to push the entirety of the situation out of her mind. Bomb? She's forgotten already.

Roxanne catches the computer and gingerly slips the device into a jacket pocket. Her jacket's pretty secure, right? Roxy's stepping out of the van - there is a BOMB in it, after all - with a furtive look back at Cait, a growing frown on her lips.

ALTERNATE VERSION OF THIS SCENE: Level 82 Roxy uses GRAVITY BARRIER to contain the explosion!

CURRENT VERSION OF THIS SCENE: Level 1 Roxy says, "Like, that DRESS ain't, but are your PANTIES explosion-proof? Do I gotta get you... I dunno -- oh! Your coat's in the restaurant!" Roxy trots off to the restaurant to handle that.

Police cars arrive on the scene! The van is already getting a side-eye from several officers, but they're more interested in the restaurant and its witnesses.

IN THE VAN: Cait will find that the bomb is more complex than she thinks. A traditional shaped charge is rigged to detonate, but this is attached to a capacitor tied to the computer's hard-drive. It's not hard to suss out the way the bomb's sort of hooked up to an EMP via a 'dead man's switch'... Cait can very well save the physical evidence, but the computer will be fried in the process. Or does she have time to disable both??

Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin turns an alarming shade of pink when Roxy mentions disintegrating panties. "*These* ones are," she assures Roxy. Which raises some uncomfortable questions about other eventualities-- but for the moment, Caitlin's playing amateur EOD specialist.

"Roxy, tell the cops to stand clear, I don't know how big this boom is gonna be!" she yells at the punk girl.

The bomb's evaluated carefully. The shaped charge is disarmed by the field-expedient method of just removing the conical blasting cap. At least it won't form a penetrating projectile once it goes off. But the explosive is still armed, and the EMP attached to it. Wires are traced and she starts looking for microcontrollers or secondary timers.

It's a clever design but not a complicated one. Simple designs are often the best, because designs that are too complex tend to end a lot of bombmaker careers.

Caitlin goes for the simplest decision. A piece of wire is looped around the leads to the EMP. Her hand is soaked with water and she grips the wires loosely. With her other hand, Caitlin poses it above the detonator.

"Three... two... one," Caitlin breaths, and her hands convulse on both. The wires are pulled tight to short out the intense electrical circuit, and the detonator is pulled away and clenched tight inside her near-indestructible grip.

Freefall has posed:
"Cops? Where?" Roxy runs OUT of the restaurant, with Caitlin's tarp-sized coat in hand (this is not true, but it is the closest descriptor our flourescent-haired friend can manage). She tosses out her completely legal cigarette so soon as she sees the flashing red and blues, and is in the process of grinding out the smoking butt when an NYPD officer approaches.

He immediately glances downwards at Roxanne's shoe and the smoking... drugs. Suspicion is writ plain across his face, but there are bigger fish to fry. Still, Roxy's an idiot, let that be known.

"Miss, is anybody hurt? We heard there were gunshots."
"Yeah, blue-dude! Two Melvins on the pavement, and my sis- friend's in that van trying to keep a BOMB from going off." Roxanne does not say BOMB indelicately. People hear her say BOMB. Panic ensues, but it's a quiet panic of twenty or thirty people and a handful of cops.
"...You said a bomb's in the van? Is your friend qualified to handle bombs?"
"She's tellin' me it's more like the BOMB needs to be able to handle HER. You know Fairchild, uh, right? Chewbacca-sized redhead, looks like a supermodel, a total Steve Hawking?" Roxanne lifts her chin towards the van.

IN THE VAN:

ELECTRICITY DOES NOT FEEL GOOD. Caitlin may be invulnerable, but the sensation of lethal voltage rolling through the body at a current sufficient to turn Caitlin's bulletproof skin into a veritable livewire is... a lot like being on fire without being on fire. Certainly her clothes feel that way - the dress Fairchild wears ignites along its straps and hem, anyplace where the fabric is too sparse to continue supplying the current a pathway to follow. Her goal of utilizing the EMP detonation charge to effectively short the physical explosive's detonator is *genius*... and works flawlessly, past all that *pain*.

Fairchild has posed:
Ow. Ow ow ow.

Ow.

Caitlin's jaw clenches hard enough that it'd make her ears pop if the world hadn't been reduced to a painful buzzing and singular strobing white light. It's a peculiar sensation, hammering against the back of her eyeballs. Caitlin's skin is redoubtable as it gets, but that's a *lot* of amperage and she is deliberately drawing it away from the explosive charge.

Yeah, it hurts. But pain won't kill ya, and that's what Caitlin keeps telling herself for the forever it takes to get through that minor eternity.

From outside, there's two peculiar noises right next to each other: the intense humm-snap of an electrical circuit shorting out and a *pop* like a M80 going off.

A split second later, a WHAM! that rocks the entire van as Caitlin's convulsing reaction flings her backwards into the side panel. It's not quite a comical Wily E Coyote imprint in the steel, but she hits hard enough that two of the sidepanels are ripped apart and the van rocks hard onto its shocks.

"Oww," Caitlin wheezes, and tumbles out of the back of the vehicle. She grabs the front of her dress and rips it away like it was made of so much tissue paper, leaving her smoking and singed, but otherwise unharmed. She's wearing what looks like grey bandages around her chest and hips. If there was any doubt about how Caitlin's built, it's definitely dismissed by her attire. Genetics for a build like that are just not humanly possible. She coughs twice and gestures vaguely at a small fire in the van. "Someone please put that out?" she rasps, and gets to her feet.

Her attire looks more like minimalist sportswear than underwear. A hidden tab is adjusted and the outfit starts to loosen and shift colors. In ten seconds, she's wearing what looks like modest knee-length yoga pants and an athletic top that exposes just an inch of her midsection, both in green with a light purple trim.

"Darnit," Caitlin grimaces. "I liked that dress." She rubs her right hand vigorously with her left. The hand's stained black with soot from the detonator but she looks otherwise unharmed. "It's all... pins and needles. I /hate/ that sensation."

Freefall has posed:
The response is immediate. Comical, almost. The duo of sound effects prompt a collective shout from still-cowering bystanders, a synchronized perimeter of huddled strangers and grim-faced coppers. Even Roxanne and her interviewer flinch - the latter brings his notepad up before his face as though it would do *anything*. Roxy winds up a half-foot in the air, shriek happily muffled by the sound of her half-sister's body slamming into the van's chassis.

When Fairchild comes stumbling out? Yeah, the cops gawk. Sorry. A few wives slap their husbands. Roxy and a few of the policemen are past it, however, and they're quick to come to the heroine's aid. Those wit-enabled boys in blue rush the van with a fire-extinguisher pulled from a nearby squad car - Roxanne's glided through the air like a miniature Joan Jett hopped up on pixie-dust and thoughts of anarchy. Of course, once she realizes this she's come to ground and adopted a floppy-armed jog. She'll stop a few feet away from Cait, panting, wide-eyed, and utterly, totally-

"FRICKIN' MIND. BLOWN. Did you take down a BOMB? Like, your clothes are all screwed up and you totally MERLINED them back!" Roxanne's fussing over nothing, a lip caught between her teeth. Is this a hug moment? A hi-five? An autograph?

"...So you're like, INVINCIBLE, too? I... uh. I guess you weren't gonna be in trouble at all, huh? Like, maybe I really messed this thing up."

Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin very carefully takes Roxy's arm in her grip and turns the girl slightly so they can speak without someone overhearing them. Smoke and ozone cling to her skin. The lack of footwear looks like more social embarassment than inconvenience; Caitlins' standing on rough asphalt and some broken glass like it's nothing. "I try not to advertise what all I can do," she murmurs at Roxy, carefully. "Captain Marvel always says, 'leave 'em guessin'." Roxy's arm is released with a gentle and apologetic pat for manhandling the shorter girl.

"'nyway, I just pulled the detonator and shorted the EMP fuse," Caitlin says, more audibly. "Bomb detonators are usually just a minor explosive that activates a triggering element," she clarifies. "Detonators are easier to isolate and protect than an explosive core. Otherwise you'd blow yourself up the first time a spark or an ember hit the explosive compound."

Caitlin sounds like this is something she runs into a lot. She glances down at her outfit and a bit of pink shows on her cheekbones under the soot and smoke. "And .... yeah, I had an issue with um... wardrobe malfunctions when I first got started," she confesses with a lower murmur. "All I could afford was lycra and old jumpsuits. I almost robbed a thrift shop after I got set on fire a while back. This..." She frowns. "This kind of thing kinda happens a /lot/, come to think of it. I just finally stopped wearing flammable undies."

Freefall has posed:
Armgrab? Rox puts on her most pensive face when she's pulled into Cait, and furrows her brow astutely while the hero sotto-voces some words of wisdom. There's no question as to whether or not Roxy understands exactly what Cait's saying to her - she's got a hand in her pocket while the redhead speaks, idly rolling a thumb over the chassis of the hyperexpensive computer she's supposed to be guarding. It is SO expensive. Anyway, the sound of amateur fire extinguisher use drowns out Cait and Roxy's convo, which is nice.

"Advertise what you can do? Y'just walked out of a van like 1.21 gigawatts doesn't actually send you back in time! Like, I don't know what you're talking about." Defensive? No, she's legitimately confused. This close, Cait can feel Roxy's arm tensing in frustration - she's fit, but she's absolutely not strong. It's good that Caitlin's so gentle in her touch -- and painfully apparent that Roxanne doesn't actually *recall* flying around like a dipass in front of all the police.

Luckily, they were distracted.

"So you're gonna get me one, right? The clothes-zapper or whatever it is. I can save up for a few weeks and pay you back, easy." Roxanne nods a few times while Caitlin explains her clothes situation. She's definitely paying attention to that, considering it's got to do with, you know, clothes. Unfortunately, there's not really much else left to talk about. Clothes - check. Bombs - check. Powers - sorta check. Check enough.

A cold wind blows across the crime scene. The cops are leaving Caitlin well enough alone, considering her status. It leaves Roxy and Cait a few moments to sit there, awkwardly, hands in pockets. Roxy shivers a bit, now that the adrenaline's died down.

"...I'm sorry. Didn't mean to, like. Lead these guys to you. All my fault, huh."

Fairchild has posed:
"I, uh... I think they were using me. To get to /you/." Caitlin shivers and hugs her bare arms. It has nothing to do with the cold air. Probably immune to that, too. "I'm not hard to find. I mean heck, I've got a social media page and a condo in Queens. But..." One hand lifts and she flexes her fingers at Roxy in demonstration. "You were in hiding. No one knew where you were, 'cept for... Snapchat, right?"

She hesitates, then continues. "I mean you were hiding real well. No one was gonna come find you. You could have run away if they did, or whatever you needed to do. But they sent you a DM saying 'someone needs your help, it's someone you know'. I mean, golly-- that'd work on /me/," she admits, quietly.

Another shivering moment passes in the quiet, and then Caitlin swivels her shoulders towards the cops, then back to Roxy. "Listen, I'm gonna give a statement to the cops, then I think we oughta get out of here," she suggests. "You can crash at my place tonight while we.... while we figure out what the /heck/ is going on." Caitlin makes the h-word sound like a sulferous vulgarity.

Freefall has posed:
~Using me to get to /you/~ mouths Roxanne, squinting into the crowd while Caitlin continues explaining herself. It doesn't make any sense to her - Cait's always been the one in the news, the one with the powers, the one with the fame and the everything. And...

"I didn't really know you guys," she admits. "You were cooler than me and hung out together. Bobby and Sarah and you and Eddie and it was like you guys were all my, uh. Family. While we were there. But I just kinda hung out. I remember and stuff," she admits. Roxy's lavenders track towards the van, where the police are finally finishing with the flames.

"...Nah. I saw -them- in there. You were too busy with the computer to see it, but it was like... everybody else. They looked good. Older. Like they were livin' their own lives too. Like *I* was livin' my own life, 'till that creeper-skazz staked me out on Snapchat." Roxanne tucks a colored bang behind one ear, and reaches into her pocket to remove the phone she'd presented previously. Her lips form a brightly-painted line, expression set while she browses to Snapchat.

Snapchat deletes all of its messages, sure, but friends are friends. Minuteman88 has been deleted.

"Ah, fu- *heck*." Roxanne slumps against Cait, familiarized to the other girl by the offer to crash at her place. Forehead crumples to solid shoulder. "...Maybe you're right. His skeezy ass is like, splitsville. Let's go before the cops try to make me take a drug test or somethin'."

Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin just... listens. What else can be done? She's guessing here and is no more an expert on espionage than Roxy is. There's a smouldering van, a bunch of cops, witnesses, two mooks facing a lifetime of medical debt, and a stranger in her arms that she feels an inexplicable need to *protect*, at all costs.

The names ring hollow in Caitlin's chest. She doesn't know them. Not any of them. The faces might as well be strangers, from the lack of expression on her face.

But Roxy's frightened and uncertain, and Caitlin can't shake a niggling sense of danger. Like eyes are on them. Whomever Roxy is, she's real, she's here, and she's someone Caitlin can protect.

"I think you're OK. The police are good guys. They're not out to get you," she says, with a stunning display of privileged naievete. Caitlin probably donates to the Policeman's Ball every year. "But yeah. Let's get off the street. We ... we need to get some things figured out. Can I have my computer back?"

She holds a palm out for the device and attaches it to a hidden belt in her shorts when it's handed over. "Dial Motorpool," Caitlin says aloud, and lifts her wrist to her mouth to speak into it. Her eyes scan the middle distance, focused on something only she can see. Light glimmers in her eye. "Hi, Mike? It's Caitlin. I had a little, um..." she glances at Roxy. "Crisis. Can you send a towncar for me? I'm on 5th and Vine, near Central Park. Tell the driver to, uhm... look for the flashing red lights. I'll explain later. Thanks!"

With that, Caitlin disconnects the call, and for some reason automatically slips an arm around Roxy's shoulders. She seems unaware she's doing it. "You ready to get out of here?" she inquires, still warily surveying for any more interlopers.

Freefall has posed:
Roxanne dumps the computer into Caitlin's hands in a continuity-enabling gesture. Easy come, easy go. While the world-famous superhero arranges a pickup, the machine continues processing what it was able to pull from the computer - fragmented data is reconstructed at unheard-of speeds, data is copied and dismantled, a process set to endlessly repeat in the event that files self-destruct upon botched access. Whatever was downloaded *will* be accessed... and already, the details of PROJECT: REUNION are waiting to be reviewed, what little there is to find.

Five test subjects. Gen-active genes. Memetic inheritance, biologically 'programmed' codependence. How would the natural offspring respond to separation, how would increasing proximity effect their so-called 'independent' behavior? How would the clone respond to the same?

Basically...

It's weird that Caitlin feels the way she does, but it isn't her fault. She isn't sick. Like Lady Gaga famously tells it - girl was born that way. Roxanne feels the same, though she's able to blame the fondness on half-buried memories. When that brawny arm finds its way around slender shoulders, the redhead will have her newfound, fey friend fairly sinking against her, willing to be supported by this gallant stranger without so much as a one-liner in her own defense. Roxanne's tired. Too tired to think, really. It's been a long day.

"I don't think you know the cops like I do, Kat," comments Roxy. Even tired, she gives a crowd-control officer the side-eye, but a thought occurs to her. Eyes widen. Fairchild's pad? Money. Luxury. Big rooms. Bigger beds. Holy SHIT the FRIDGE she must have.

"Can we stop on the way and get ice cream, too? You ever had triple-fudge? There's this Swayze marathon on tonight and he looks SO dreamy in Roadhouse, and I swear to GAWD the pottery scene in Ghost gets me all shivery, and there's Dirty Dancing after that, and the Outsiders, and..." The two move out of earshot of the stranger listening in on their conversation.

"-icked up at Main and Guthrie. I've lost them. Yes. They were walking together and entered the vehicle together. Yes." A young crime scene analyst speaks quietly into a 'personal recorder', otherwise wearing a pair of wireless commercial earbuds. After he receives a response, the man goes back to his crime scene investigation, where incriminating evidence is being carefully, painstakingly sorted into the appropriate sort of containment for its later evaluation. None of it's going to make it to its destination.

On the bright side, there's a sale at the grocery store, and it is -three for one- Blue Bunny half-gallons.

Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin does some fast-talking. An Alpha-Flight ID is flashed. Promises are made. But frankly, no one's going to stop a 350lb superheroine from leaving if she feels like it, particularly as she's moving with a lot of momentum and a polite but utterly unimpeachable self-authority.

She looks down at Roxy, then laughs once. It's a merry sound. "You don't know me super well," Caitlin tells Roxy. "I /always/ have ice cream at home."

With that, the two girls climb into a sleek black SUV that bears the Stark Industries logo on the sideplate, and it veers off towards Queen with the strange sisters safely aboard.