13869/I got Gadgets and Gizmos a'plenty

I got Gadgets and Gizmos a'plenty
Date of Scene:	10 October 2021
Location:	St Michael's Hospital - Chicago - Illinois
Synopsis:	Lab beneath Chicago secured against prying eyes by John Constantine, the consequence of touching Rogue skin to skin is mercifully unobserved. It seemed small, but the data is huge.
Cast of Characters:	Sinister, Rogue, Constantine

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Sinister has posed:
It isn't often seen just how far the spider's web of Doctor Nathaniel Essex influence actually extends. Nobody ever gets that full picture, sees all the levels of that particular dungeon and absolutely nobody has beaten the end boss, that's for sure. It's known that he has laboratories all over the world, on every continent of the Earth no less. Different strokes for different folks, what he can do in one country with ease, he cannot do in others. But if you want the top line of infrastructure and power lines to tap, boost and sink into, America tends to have the best. World power and all that and one that wanted to be the top of the world. It's arguable whether it totally succeeded or not. Anyway, with clinics here and there, the Tri-state area was not the place he wanted to be doing anything, right under the nose of the X-men and others that might want to poke at his activities, particularly not when he persuaded one of their own to /voluntarily/ submit to a few pokes and prods.

That's right. Most people don't exactly have a choice as to whether mister Sinister is looking at them in close detail, but Rogue... did. She's here of her own free will, being escorted through the high-tech laboratories and corridors of the Teaching hospital of St. Michael's, Chicago, with a human looking Essex in a white labcoat. As to Constantine? He has a way of showing up to things, but in this instance, a message regarding de-eyeballing an operation mystically with the promise of fine dining (or rather, drinks) afterwards. In recent months, Nathaniel's gotten a little more paranoid about the mystical world and what might be eyeballing his privacy from the other side. A consultant specialist and one of the admin team is escorting the trio toward the basement of the hospital, where rather like at the pentagon, insertion of a couple of keys into ordinary holes on the elevator panel makes a secret sub-basement level reveal itself with a sliding panel that looked like a maintenance hatch.

Rogue has posed:
For most of her life, Anna Marie has wanted answers to some pretty personal questions. Why can't she control her powers? Why does it work on any one, regardless of if they have powers or not? If it's a metahuman or anyone really with some sort of power, she takes a portion of, as well as memories and emotions, habits and thoughts...the whole bag of wax. It's caused her to be rather sheltered in her twenty-five years on this planet. Suffer some powerful losses, but also a few gains depending on how one looks at it. So yes, she agreed to let Sinister poke around, maybe find something out. Something that no one else on this whole planet could do for her.

She trusts him...to a point.

And maybe a little bit of this is her being a bit of a rebel. If certain people knew she'd struck up some sort of even working acquaintance with Doctor Nataniel Essex, she'd never hear the end of it. In some ways she hasn't due to whispers within the walls. She doesn't care. This is her life. She'll do with it as she pleases.

And if that means being able to bite her thumb at a certain heartbreaking Swamp Rat to boot? She's all for it. Following the Doctor along like a good little rabbit, not really caring how far down the hole she's about to travel.

Constantine has posed:
John lets out a whistle of appreciation as he walks in and steps aside. "Who's the owner of this high security kitchen?" He takes a long sniff, pouts. "Smells like hospital and loneliness." He takes a slow tour, his gait not unlike the one of a trained detective on a crime scene. Look, don't touch. Absent-mindedly, one of his hands found his pack of silk cuts and fixed one at the corner of his lips. About to light it with his cupped hands, he stops himself and grunts. Great care is taken to return the coffin nail to its sarcophagus.

"I'm still not clear on what's my play here. Well, dinner was clear but... What do you need exactly, Doctor?" He glances toward the other, the stranger. John has been extra careful all this time to not break the ice or even make eye contact. This time, his well trained hands bring a flask to his mouth and the offering is swiftly accepted. "Cheers."

Sinister has posed:
Whatever it is that's stuck the thought in Rogue's head, it certainly would make eyeballs pop in certain circles.

The descent from the basement, where most of the guts of the hospital are, to beneath it, is slower than above. There's a white light that shifts in the lighting of the elevator as it descends this last level beneath and a wave of faint vibration that can be felt through the body as whatever is going on, is going on. "Just a sterilization field. I've given that technology to most hospitals now, that have a higher-end budget. Adapted it so that they can sterilize all manner of equipment in light baths." Sinister observes matter of factly as he squints up at the corner, for when the camera light blinks off and smiles. The doors slide open to a very bright, clean corridor with a reception desk and a pretty young lady sitting behind it. "Welcome Doctor Essex," is cordially greeted, as Sinister gestures forth. The rest of this sub-lab seems very much like it's an ordinary, if high-tech ward in a regular hospital, but refined for 'high paying' clientelle. All private rooms and state of the art. "We will be in the physio labs, Jessica." "Very good, Doctor."

In a quieter tone, he converses "John, this is Rogue. Rogue, this is John. I want you to check if anyone is watching this place. I know that there's eyeballs in some of my other institutes and I leak things specifically in them, on occasion. I do -not- want this witnessed by anyone."

Rogue has posed:
As Sinister explains the vibration she felt at some point, there's a nod of her head given. "I mean, place like this, ya gotta make sure everything is as clean as it can be, right?" She asks this as they move forward, Nathaniel addressing the lady behind the desk, letting her know where they'll be and then they move further along still.

When she's introduced to John, a yellow-gloved hand is offered in greeting. "Pleasure to meet you. I think." She says with a smirk before looking Sinister up one way and down the other. "You really think someone would try to play peeping tom to your work here?" Thinking a bit further on it then. "Also, whether it matters or not, people think I'm in Mississippi for a little bit tending to personal things." Unlike Nathaniel's Celestial Lover, Rogue is not ashamed in giving a little white lie every now and again.

Constantine has posed:
"Regards to you, Miss Rogue," John says back, polite but not at all enthusiastic. "Can't place that surname. 'sthat a placeholder for something else?" Just because he's not eager to make friends with potential lab projects - yes, he's been around Sinister for a bit now - doesn't mean he's lost his interest in names, places or history. He glances at Nathaniel then takes a sharp breath through a tired grin. "This one's for free. My associate and his associates, through some personal, hem, transactions? They got the attention of people of power from several venues. People who have reach through time and space, if you will. That makes me what... the concierge or sommit. Please give me just a second."

The Man Who Smells Like A Campus Frat Crib turns to the receptionist. He speaks to her on a low tone but there's no way to really keep his words secret. "Jessica, ain't it? Tell me, where's the place where I can, you know, partake in tobacco?"

Sinister has posed:
"I probably wouldn't have at all, if not for who /I/ associate with." Sinister muses, but nods to Rogue's summizing. "As clean as possible, yes. There have been a couple of times that that's been exceptionally life-saving, inadvertantly for other people at any rate. I don't so much care, but we've had a least five zombie contagions that never quite made it to the mainstream news. Pathogens of alien origin and the like..." he clucks his tongue, pauses as John heads back to the receptionist, who blinks at him curiously. "We have suppression fields all through this level. You can smoke anywhere, sir."

There's a chuckle from Sinister at that, pausing to lean in to a retinal scanner by a set of sliding doors. Human eyeball. The doors slide open after he also gives a DNA sample by licking the end of a lollipop-like projection and FWOOSH.

Cue: this looks more like it ought to be in the medbay of the starship enterprise. There are tanks filled with a gel-like liquid, vast banks of scanners and all manner of treadmills, weights, holographic projectors, computers and all else besides. Inside one of the tanks, there's a figure floating. A teenager by the looks of things, conscious given that his gaze is tracking them, but also comfortable looking, floating there. He looks like he ought to have been in P.T Barnam's travelling freakshow though, sporting lobster hand syndrome and a few other genetic mutations, though.... it isn't unilateral at all.

Rogue has posed:
"That's cause it ain't any type of name but my own." Rogue offers to John after a moment. There are only a handful of people who know her real name, and only a few of those can get away with calling her by it. Doctor Nathaniel Essex is not one of those people, and he likely knows it. Best way to piss off the southern belle even if unintentionally. No one needs to know her real name, and that's the full stop of the matter.

As they walk into that medical lab once Sinister has given eye and tongue samples, she looks around and gives an appreciative whistle. "Quite the place you have here..." Eyes fall on the kid in the tube floating in liquid but she doesn't say anything. She does, however, avert her eyes rather quickly. "So that mean we can smoke in here too?"

Constantine has posed:
John looks over his shoulder to get the last half of Rogue's answer. He clicks his tongue in disappointment. "Thanks, luv," he adds for Jessica. Old habits can resume and are as he lights up with great familarity and need. The first drag is chased down by a pull at his flask, even.

He's stopped in his track by the sight of subject in levitation. "Holy Balls of the Roman Pope... is the kid alright?" Ash falls from the ciggie's tip as he speaks, brushing against the lapel of his never laundered trenchcoat. "That's what she said, Miss Rogue. Can't have mine, sorry. Hope you're packin'. Plenty of fire though." He stares at Sinister for a second and half. "Now I see why you want privacy. What you're asking for is... complex. Many simple things, layered. They musn't cross so... Okay. I brought candles and bones. Please tell me you have salt?"

Sinister has posed:
"Strangely enough, this being a medical institution, salt is something that is /not/ lacking," Sinister replies, nodding to Rogue's question. He however, walks to the tank where the youth is floating and checks on a variety of readings on a data pad secured in the side. A hand is lifted, placed on the thick glass infront of the boy fingers spread -- the gesture is returned from inside by the kid, with his un-mutated hand. Sinister nods, gives a thumbs up gesture and after a brief touch to the data pad, walks away. A few tubes that snake from the kid's neck up into the tank's roof, fill with a slightly different coloured fluid and the teen's eyes close in what looks like comfort. "He'll sleep well," Nathaniel says with a smile. "But to answer you, no, he is not alright. But he will be. Jason was born with a considerable amount of mutations and was surrendered by his mother who could not cope. He's been in my care for the last decade and a half almost and his treatments have come along well. Then puberty distorted a whole lot of other things and I'm working through those now. An interesting case. But he'll be fine in the end." Smile. Smile smile smiiiiiiiile. Oh, he must have learned so much about physical mutation out of that kid.

"So, smoke away." An orderly comes by with a bag of purified salt, setting it on a nearby desk. "Rogue, can you tell me what kind of scans you've already had in the past?"

Rogue has posed:
One of Rogue's eyebrows lofts up as she looks at John for a lingering moment before shaking her head. She procures her own pack of smokes from somewhere on her bodysuit clad person and makes a gesture. "I didn't ask for one'a yours now did I?" This and then she's lighting up a cigarette while still glancing around the lab. It's when Sinister asks her a direction question that her attention turns to him.

"I suppose your fair share of the regular kind. MRIs, CTs, I've been poked and prodded a few times too but nothing ever come of it, obviously." She likely rattles off a couple of other genetic-based tests and/or scans she's had in her young life and then shrugs. "Didn't seem to make a lick of sense or good, but here we are." A pause, a drag off her smoke taken. "What d'you plan to do?"

Constantine has posed:
"This spot okay?" John asks, homing for an open space where there's a lot of floor to work with. The dude in the tube is no longer his concern, he's got work to do. He kneels, a piece of green chalk pinched between thumb and pinky of his left hand. "Omaye omaye. Petite ombre grande ombre. Omaye omaye." Scritch sritch, he draws circle in short strokes, pausing to repeat the mantra at specific moments. A little flourish here. There, he adds a birthday candle, having melted its foot at the ember of his cigarette. "Just outta curiosity, do you need light to work with if you can see in the dark? Science-wise, I mean?" And he resumes doodling and chanting.

Sinister has posed:
"No, you do not, Constantine. I sometimes work exclusively in the dark, as some things I've done require that there be minimal to no photons," Sinister replies quietly, though now he's moved from the tank and is simply lightly touching one of the computers. Data nevertheless flies across the screen just by his fingertip touching it. "Rogue do you happen to know the names of the hospitals you attended?" - and even if it's no, subliminal memory may pop up images and data is streamed from records, so it's all compiled in one place - "I dislike repeating failures. There's likely no point in the more mundane scans, although an Electron Encephalograph may produce some interesting results at times. ANyway...."

Taking a moment, he looks over at her as cigarettes and ritual magics are being done, glancing from her to Constantine and back. "I'm going to measure your electro magnetic field, with and without power usage, so we have a control and a documented recording of in-action."

Rogue has posed:
"Can you really call them failures if the ones looking at the charts didn't likely know what they were lookin' for?" Rogue offers and then shakes her head. "Ain't no matter anyway. It was never a hospital I got scanned at, if you follow me." The Brotherhood has facilities, and the X-Men have their own medlab. Rogue didn't have to go to hospitals to be scanned, and most her life avoided everyone and everything just so she didn't risk using her powers again. She wasn't going to risk another life, not unwillingly anyway. "So you can probably do what all it is you think needs doing and you got your smarts to figure out more ins and outs than most others right? Said it yourself... you know more about genetics and mutations than likely anyone else on the planet. Ain't that one of the main reasons why I'm here?"

Constantine has posed:
John is now working at a second circle outside of the first, this time in salt. "Please do not cross the lines. Not now, not later," he warns as he pours. "I'm working with spirits and demons and ghosts... and they're not liking it." His mutterments and murmurs turn to some kind of throat singing. What tongue he speaks in is for anyone to guess. Something foreign and most likely dead for ages. He only pauses to light another cigarette. "Why are you here? Why are we here. Indeed. Some doors open, some close, Miss Rogue. Clever are the ones who can see them, godly the few who can work them." Time to decorate: rat skulls. One, two, three... seven rodent heads, all looking inward. In each of their eye sockets, John adds a penny. "There. Just one more circle... and an enchantment, Nathaniel. Should be safe from most scryers right now but if you want a hundred percent I have to continue."

Sinister has posed:
"You go for it, John. I don't know what it is that you're doing, but it's making my fingers tingle, so quite clearly it's working." Making his fingers tingle? Yes, he said that, did Sinister. And so he watches the rat skulls a moment, then turns to look at Rogue, then up at the ceiling. Tiles light up, brightly and he indicates a platform that looks a little like a treadmill, only without the actual conveyer. Instead it simply has a platform surrounded by a railing at hand height. "If you'd step up on to that, take your gloves off and put them on the railing. It will tingle a little, as there'll be a mild current, but it should simply feel like static electricity." One of the large computer screens lights up on the wall, showing nothing in particular but a representation of the platform.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue is completely ignoring the man working with magicks and demons. "Nightcrawler would have a field day..." She mutters mostly to herself before giving Sinister her attention as he gives her his. When he speaks about the platform that he wants her to step on and use she nods her head. "Alright..." Gloves off though? That's asking a bit, but she does remove them one at a time and places them aside. It's not like she has weird hands or anything. Physically she looks as human as the next one...but her powers...they're something else entirely. So she walks to the platform and looks at the bar for a moment before reaching with both hands to touch and hold.

Constantine has posed:
John gives Nathaniel a nod. Turning in a direction that an Eagle Scout would swear to be south, he kneels. He draws a small knife, very shiny. In silence, he extends his free hand to clear his wrist from all clothing and - unlike in cheesy Hollywood where they go for the palm of the hand - he cuts. Blood spills from the wound, splashing the ground with multiple drops. Soon there is a tiny pool before the sorceror. "Augwaun!"

Lights dims for a split second. Not each source of light... the whole level of lighting drops. At the same time, the blood on the ground lights up with flames unlike any other. The mother of all fires, so bright, so pure, so hungry. Hellfire. How can so little a fire feel so intense? It also sprouts out of John's wrist, growing into a whip, a pencil-thin tendril. Where he points his knife, the fire limb goes to lick the laboratory floor, drawing pyrographically complex and intricate symbols. No need for incantations this time, just willpower. The drawing progresses at a rate of an inch a second.

Incidentally, the candles of the inner circle are lit too.

Sinister has posed:
This is when you do not want your fire suppression system to kick in. As Rogue steps up to the platform and places her bare hands to the sensors in the bars at hand height, the flames lick forth their runic protection circle out over the lab (and beyond) and Sinister lifts a hand, clicking fingers. Once. Loudly.

On the screen, the electricity level dims, then brightens considerably, as the Electromagnetic field bounces back, the outline of Rogue can be seen as a mostly human-shaped green-to-white aura on the screen. If it were IR cameras, she'd have heat spots in her core where the greatest energy is being dispersed. In this technology, the core is white, progressing to the green spectrum of light with a variety of yellow and white in between and a faint nimbus of blue at the edge. And then, beyond her, there are blotches of dark blue-green that vanish as the runes flow further out and several pieces of lab equipment either switch off or blow a fuse.

Either way, the recording of this base reading is then interrupted by Sinister coming up beside Rogue and lightly poking her on the ear with a fingertip, rather too quickly.

The image spikes when he does so, the blue-green blob of shape connecting to something beyond what is being scanned for a microsecond. At the same time, other data streams.

Rogue has posed:
It's all a big ball of energy fluxes of prying eyes being cast off. Though some of it might just be how Rogue's energy manifests on the playing field. That moment when Sinister walks over and even briefly touches her ear at a sudden random moment - something hits. What no one will see, but the machines will pick up, is that sudden onslought of memories. Nathaniel Essex has been alive for quite some time, has had a lifetime of memories several times over. A life, a family, too many losses to count. Era after era of humanity rising and falling in various moments and all the while there he is with a finger on the pulse of it at the most pivotal times. Or...so it would seem.

It's a flash though, but it's a big enough one that Rogue will do all it takes to let go of the railing and stumble back until she's up against a wall. Breathing heavily, eyes fleeting around a moment until the last of those memories fade and then her gaze lands on Sinister himself. "...Fuck..."

Constantine has posed:
Almost there. It's often when it's 'almost there' that John Constantine's stronget rituals fishtail into catastrophe. Only an inch and half to go. In the Hellfire light, John's face seems whiter than white with beads of sweat coalescing at his forehead. Almost... there. The tendrils vanishes, the whole drawing lights up bright white like an Arc Generator. Sue me, Tony. "Huuuh," John moans as he rises slowly. He moves like a drunk man. Well, drunker than usual.

"Are you alright, Miss Rogue?" he asks, seeing her against the wall. He switch focus between the patient and the doctor, back and forth, questioningly. "That should be it. Better be meat on the table, Nathaniel... lost a pint or two in there." He steps out of the outter circle with great care. "I can't do the enchantment. Some kind of force pushed at my fire somehow and I need to rest." He looks to Rogue. "She needs a drink."

Sinister has posed:
Reeling back from the contact, but only fleetingly as he had complete control over his movement, Sinister shakes his head vigorously for a brief moment. Fuck, indeed. "I apologize," he says this with a tone that actually does sound genuine. "Genuine response, requires unexpected stimulus. Part of your gift is controlled actively." Only a moment of contact and still it was zingy enough to let him stumble back and reel a moment from the experience, when not actively 'switching off' the talent. Sin clutches the wall, not that he can dig his fingers in, without a bit more concerted effort, but the impression is there. "John, are you ok? Rogue?" Concern for -both-?? If the mississipi native were to report that, nobody would believe her. "Either way, that's enough for one evening." Barely touched the surface but that's the nature of a particularly dangerous talent and the fact that recent endeavours have garnered extra-planar interest. "John, I owe you drinks. Rogue, I owe you an explanation."

He inhales, then waves a hand to the side, almost in a back-hand gesture. It promotes the smell of ozone in the laboratory. "It will take my equipment some time to analyze what just occured. I think drinks are in order." A ring of electricity above their heads manifests. The sounds of semi-distant pub activity can be heard through it. Like listening from a back room of elsewhere.

Rogue has posed:
Rogue blinks. That's it. One zing and they're done. The southern belle gives a little smirk and then shrugs her shoulders. "And I thought this was gonna be hard..." She talks, but it's not *quite* her voice. There's a bit more...lilt...in her words. Like she's suddenly gained an accent. Looking over herself, she shakes her head a bit and then waves a hand. "Think I'll pass on drinks this time. I should go..." She weaves a little as she walks. "Sleep this one off."

Constantine has posed:
The accent didn't escape Constantine's trained ear. He only rises an eyebrow, keeping his questions for later. "As you wish, luv." He looks up at the ring formed above head. "I'll be damned. Music to my ears." He might have said 'step in my office' on that same tone. "Miss Rogue, if you notice /anything/ out of the ordinary, reach for us first. I don't care how. You don't want to drag friends into our kind of mess and you don't want to go it alone." He pauses to light up a Silk Cuts. "That includes weird dreams too," he adds in that dimmed kind of voice that fights its way through smoke.

John looks up again. "After you, Nathaniel." After all, he has no clue how this 'pub portal' works...