1959/A Dark and Stormy Night

A Dark and Stormy Night
Date of Scene:	12 August 2017
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Tachyon, Gothic Lolita

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Tachyon has posed:
    It was a dark and stormy night, rain beating against the squat sides of Eaken-Rubendall Labs like the stark reality of a world not accustomed to super science beating against a bastion of the fantastic, inside Dr. Meredith Stinson sat at her favorite desk in Lab 13-C, watching the steady drip of a viscous fluid into a beaker, each drop a reminder of every single night spent doing such drudgery.

    The super speedster also know as Tachyon sighed as she idly tapped her pencil while watching the distillate slowly fill the beaker beneath. While working the blonde's mind drifted towards the nightly activities of one Ms. Katherine Kane. After all, she was fast enough that she could simply zoom over to Metropolis and bug the red head for a few minutes before the process was finished. If she pushed it she could probably even dodge most of the raindrops even in this downpour. But no, that would just be a waste of time, a flight of fantasy, better to stay here and do the drudge work and let Kate have a nice quiet night at home.

    In fact everyone in the labs was having a nice quiet night at home, it was the weekend, but Meredith was notorious for getting a bug about one experiment or another. She felt this one had real potential, so if she had the time why wouldn't she be burning the midnight oil and finding out? In her distraction she hadn't noticed that her idle pencil tapping had reached super human speeds. Holding up the good old Dixon Ticonderoga Number 2 and examined the slender yellow shaft. The lead tip broke away dramatically and fell to the desktop in seeming slow motion, the entire graphite shaft inside immediately poured out, reduced to dust by the inhuman speeds it was subjected to.

    The scientist sighed, not another one.

Gothic Lolita has posed:
    It is, indeed, pouring outside, raindrops spattering against the windows and skylights for the lab, as a slightly soggy figure makes her way up to the front of the building, stopping at the glass doors to peer inside. Then tries the door, hoping that someone left it open. There's a thumpthump from the door as she tugs that may be audible, before she looks around for signs of another way in that might not be locked. And spots the light on the upper floor.

    After a moment she tucks her parasol (totally useless for stopping rain once it's soaked) under her arm, then steps to the side of the harder surface, carefully kicking off her shoes, as she dangles them in her other hand, then flexes her knees.

    And leaps, the ground distorting under her as she leap in a well-calculated parabola to land on the balcony outside the lab with a fairly loud THUMP. She is not delicate, when it comes to her weight, sadly.

Tachyon has posed:
    As that somewhat strange and certainly soggy figure walks up to the entrance and tugs on it a holographic display appears next to Meredith. "A visitor is at the entrance," a computer intonated voice primly announces. The blonde scientist glances up and frowns as she considers the curious figure. Then there's the leap. Before Gothic Lolita lands Meredith is gone in a blur, by the time she's back she's in her trademark white costume with red accents. She watches the impact and the alert that pops up.

    "Alert, a motorcycle has struck the second story, alert. Possible metahuman attack in progress. Authorities are being alerted, all personnel please move to the nearest safe room at this time. All experiments are autoomatically being contained all terminals are loc," as the announcement drones on Tachyon has popped open a keyboard and is typing at speed into it. After a few moments the voice intones again, "Alert canceled, Experiment Sequester on standby, all staff please move to the nearest safe room while the situation is resolved."

    Of course at the moment the blonde is the only one in the building and she doesn't seem interested in moving anywhere. The woman calmly considers the figure out on the building's secoond story walkway.

Gothic Lolita has posed:
    The figure pads along the walkway, over to the door to the lit lab, then gently tries the door. Which is locked. Then disappears down to the next lab door, trying that one. Which is also locked.

    Which means a moment later, there's a gentle knock on the balcony door to your lab. Almost polite, really. Then the figure settles back to wait for a bit to see if anyone answers.

Tachyon has posed:
    Well at least that answers the hostile intent question. Or at least is a positive indicator. Tachyon considers and puts the lab alert on a one minute timer and toggles the controls to open the door the figure is standing in front of. Them immediately swing open slightly, letting through a massive gust of wet wind and a mini torrent of rain while she waits for the person to step inside. At least she's reasonably certain the figure is a person, though with the data she has on hand she's not disposed to form a prejudicial opinion in either direction.

Gothic Lolita has posed:
    As the soft click of the locks disengaging sounds, the figure cocks its head, then reaches out to try the door again. This time, it opens, and the soggy figure steps inside. She's petite, dark haired, with her hair pulled back in little cute ponytails on either side of her head, with a hairband keeping the rest in check. Her eyes are blue, her features delicate, and defintiely Japanese in origin. It's also immediately apparently that her dress was never designed for walking around in such weather....even if it hadn't, from the look of it, been set on fire in places. Also she's missing almost all of her skirt, leaving her legs bare.

    Let's talk about those legs, by the way. She's sort of missing her skin over a good chunk of them at the moment, leaving what looks like tightly corded metal shot through with red-orange power conduits and connections....smooth, and still looking just like a leg..just if you stripped the skin off it. The left is pretty much missing her skin from about her lower thigh down to her equally drippted foot, while the right seems to have gotten off a bit better, just having several holes melted in it.

    "Konbawa..." she says politely, then curtseys. As best she can do with no skirt to lift. "I'm looking for a Dr. Meredith Stinson?"

Tachyon has posed:
    A finger lifts and Stinson touches a button, the doors closing automatically behind her visitor. She casually considers the figure in front of her, possibly cyborg, but if so more than likely a full conversion considering the weight. It's almost sinful the density that was deigned desirable in the design, probably an inefficient power supply was to blame.

    The blonde super scientist in her heroic outfit nods towards the woman as the lab's security systems scour S.H.I.E.L.D. and national databases trying to find a proper ID.

    Her own response is in fluent Japanese as she replies, "Good Evening, you seem rather worse for wear," even the proper replication of an appropriate cultural idiom! Switching back to English she says, "I'm Dr. Stinson, I'd ask why you were here, but I suppose since you've yet to try to assassinate me that your motives are relatively benign.

Gothic Lolita has posed:
    The search runs quietly in the background as the young woman smiles cheerfully at the answer in Japanese. "I was not intending to do you in today, no." she says with a bemused look. "I would appreciate your assistance, however. I don't believe there are many who could help me with....well....repairs.

Tachyon has posed:
    "Oh, well, I suppose, I could..." Meredith actually seems somewhat taken aback by the proposal. She arcs an eyebrow and considers the figure in front of her before asking in a somewhat uncomfortable tone, "Well would it be mostly cosmetic work? I might have the materials on hand for that but I'm not entirely sure. Also I'm not a tailor, I'm mostly about gross mechanical work."

Gothic Lolita has posed:
    Lolita sighs a bit as she looks down at her dress. "I am an accomplished tailor, though I don't believe this particular outfit will be able to grace my wardrobe in the future." she says, a little sadly. "Though I am fortunate that I am not wearing rags this time." she says wryly, she adds, walking closer, then hesistates. "...actually, if you were to have a spare labcoat or...something that would be dry..." she admits, reaching up to gently wring out one ponytail, then the other.

    "And, according to what I know about you, Doctor, you have the particular mix of disciplines necessary to...well, stimulate my self repair systems." She smiles softly. "Specifically, I require assistance in regenerating my exoarmor layer. Ah, my -skin-, for want of a better word. Fusion reactions appear to have fried a good amount of my smartware systems, and I'm having difficulty restarting them in the affected areas.

    The computer chimes softly as it finishes its search, but matches it...to a redacted file. Heavily redacted, from the look of it. There is, in fact, a relatively low level alert to report encountering her...this...'Gothic Lolita'.

Tachyon has posed:
    Dr. Stinson glances over the display report and skims the entire file in a second. Shrugging slightly she looks up again and says in a relatively level, "Well in that case we should probably move to sublevel two and lab eight. Do you have a technical read out or file for the systems in question, or will I simply need to do a trace and touch up to figure things out?"

    Another small pause before the blonde asks out of her own curiosity, "Do you have any organic materials I need to be aware of in your chasis?" Standing, the tall woman stretches slightly and nods, waving a hand, "We can get you some scrubs while we head down there. We have disposable garments for the labs that work with especially caustic or biohazardous materials."

    As an aside she sets out the trawler. It's doesn't have access to classified files, but it is rather thorough. It simply very aggressively searches the internet and almost every associated storage media for any visual references to the subject at hand, but of course such a process takes more than a little while even for a futuretech super computer.

Gothic Lolita has posed:
    "I would be happy to provide it, if you would provie a suitable I/O port connector I can use." the young woman says, with that same vaguely cheerful air. "It's mostly a matter of materials involved...bio-organic material is a part of it, and I believe if you can provide me with a seed mix and can give my nanosystems a jumpstart, I should be able to convert the mterial over time." She walks over to you, waiting to be led, leaving soggy footprints as she goes pretty much. It's embarrassing, but she doesn't have a towel. "Oh. Would you happen to have any epidurium available?" she asks, a bit hopefully. "Not too much...maybe a few miligrams."

Tachyon has posed:
    Meredith offers a noncommittal hmmm as she nods and steps away, leading Lolita through the lab and into a hall. A central elevator leads them into the bowels of the building and the blonde directs her test subject to a small dressing room with an opaque screen. There's a stack of scrubs along with towels, lab coats and a disposal incinerator for contaminated material.

    Once done there the gynoid is led towards lab eight; special projects and sensitive materials. By now Tachyon has disappeared long enough to pick up her latest incarnation of her HUD goggles and has them flicked on. The pink displays stream information and when the pair enter the sealed lab she flips a switch, letting what would normally be a massive faraday cage breach for a specific tracking encrypted tight beam laser signal uplink to her goggles. Just a way to keep in touch with the world. The lab is fairly barren, not hosting a project at the moment. Beyond a massive steel table with an array of waldoes above it there's simply a control panel and a large stand alone computer mainframe in the corner.

    Gesturing towards the mainframe Meredith indicates that Lolita should feel free. "Pick out whatever interface works best for your systems. If you need a different operating system to interface with, I'll see what I can design on the fly.

Gothic Lolita has posed:
    Lolita follows along like a wet duckling following its mother, down to the first area where she gratefully disappears with a towel then emerges in scrubs, looking over at the incinerator, then at her mangled dress, before she frowns and sighs, then feeds it into the incinerator. Too much damage...easier to just make a new one at this point. She comes padding along barefoot, with a few underthings wrapped in a towel. She'd dry them, but that would be...uncouth.

    Entering the lab, she looks around with a faint smile. "...impressive." she says curiously, then nods and walks over to the mainframe, looking it over, before selecting a small connector. She tilts her head, a small patch on the side of her head popping open, before she plugs it in carefully. After a moment, schematics starts running over to your HUD from the mainframe. She's...very advanced. You're not getting a complete design spec, but the exoarmor she's discussing is both a work of art and INCREDIBLY expensive. Epidurium, for example, is often considered to be more rare than vibranium, and is prized for its ability to make bio-organic materials incredibly durable..and her exo-shell is saturated with it, as well as a very advanced smartware system that looks like its meant to reform with commands...she probably is capable of adjusting her outer shell to look like just about anything if she chose. Even a male, for that matter.

    As she finishes, she unplugs, the little panel closing again. "That should be enough." she says, a bit apologetically. "I cannot provide my complete specifications at this time."

Tachyon has posed:
    Tachyon walks over to the system once the android has finished her download. She offers up a noncommital hrmmmm of interest while scanning through the files at superhuman speeds. "Well," she declares after a second, "that's interesting." Another pause as she parses some of the specs again and nods, "really not a terrible design. Though no offense I think someone concentrated a bit too much on substance and not enough on style when it came to a few things."

    The blonde taps through a few more screens and traces back a few questions to a source. With a nod she adds, "Well some of the more expensive stuff I don't have on hand, we just don't work with it that often here. We could use a few synthetics that I think your system could parse quite well." After a pregnant pause though she has to add, "And why am I repairing a battle droid? How'd you get to be in such a state?"

Gothic Lolita has posed:
    One thing does catch your eye, as you scan through the schematics. They're partial, but you can tell some things. You're aware of the specs for the Life Model Decoys used by SHIELD, and this designs exoshell and presumably emotional engrams for her processor appear to be based on that. What's perhaps more interesting (or worrying) is that she appears to have two other types of designs merged into her systems. One looks to be an odd possible precursor to the LMD, but with a more open source setup. The other...appears to be something cribbed from Doctor Ivo, the infamous creator of Amazo...you're preeeetty sure all of his materials are supposed to be confiscated and locked very, very deep in a SHIELD vault somewhere, after what happened with that.

    The gynoid mmms, frowning faintly at you. "I find droid to be a somewhat derogatory term...I do not beep, whistle, or protest effeminately about how I'm made to suffer, nor respond in the affirmative with 'roger roger' either." She kicks her legs a bit, the damaged one making a soft grinding noise as she does. "...ow. I prefer mecha, if possible. Robot is also a very robo-phobic term, to my thinking."

Tachyon has posed:
    "I appreciate your sensitivity on the issue, I'll apologize now if I slip up again," Tachyon murmurs in a semi-teasing tone. Becoming much more serious for the moment she adds "that didn't directly answer the question though, did it? I'm very conscientious of my duty towards other sentients, synthetic, organic, energy or ascribable otherwise. However I'm not inclined to aid entities optimized for combat unless I'm perfectly clear as to their intentions."

    The blonde tilts her head and considers the girl again as she adds, "feel free to divulge any relevant data before trusting me to go around reactivating specific subsystems in your frame?"

Gothic Lolita has posed:
    The dark-haired girl considers after a moment, then says. "...I was destroying a quasi-legal research facility that was working on a self-replicating nanoform designed to modify its structure based on a catalogue of biological predators for covert urban combat." She tilts her head. "...unfortunately for the facility the nanoform decided it wanted to be a dragon and started converting the facility in question." She squirms a bit.

    "I had to get very close to introduce a transmitter grenade designed to shut down the primary core processors and ensure the nanoform self destructed before it evolved into either a Von Neuman machine or a grey goo situation, as it had no AI intelligence capable of determining moral imperatives...just hunger." She peers down at her leg. "...to do so I had to allow it to eat me."

Tachyon has posed:
    Tachyon ahs with a sympathetic tone. In a flash she's gone before returning with a cylinder about the size of a beaker. Bracketing it onto a waldo she adjusts a few things before disappearing again, and again. After a few trips she has several of the armatures outfitted with fluids of various descriptions. Patting the table she indicates Lolita should hop up on it. "Well that's quite interesting. I'm rather shocked that you maintained as much structural integrity as you did. Also strange how it picked a dragon to copy when we have so few left on Earth, they're a bit like unicorns these days." Because magic and reality makes statements like that factual.

    "Why don't you have access to facilities to facilitate repairs like this anymore?"

Gothic Lolita has posed:
    Lolita walks over obediently as you motion, then slides up onto it, pulling down her pink scrubs as she wiggles carefully back, the table creaking noticeably as she does. "My theory is that one of the programmers decided they were going to play a joke by inserting it into the programming matrix. It's possible that's even what caused it to go wild, if it was given a form that couldn't exist short of...well, magic."

    She mmmms. "...the breathing of fire, however, it did have that figured out." she admits, ruefully. Her blue eyes find your gaze as she rests her hands on her lap, her legs crossing demurely, despite their partially melted state. "Ah. That is a fairly long story..." she says slowly. "At its simplest, I am designed to operate independently without facility support. Normally one of my siblings would be able to assist me with repairs, but I am...separated from them at the moment." She sighs a bit.

Tachyon has posed:
    The table is less a medical examination affair and more of a work bench. Or perhaps an autopsy bench. In any event the cold, unyielding stainless steel surface seems unmarred by anything. Tachyon zips away to the control panel for the waldoes above the table. The massive panel includes all sorts of wonderful toggles and dongles and knobs and switches. There are even three sets of manipulator gloves for direct control of components. "Mmmm, well you know we're gonna get you fixed up, at least as well as I can do at the moment. Then we're going to have a nice long talk about this n that, alright? Just lay down and release some access points and this won't take but a moment."

Gothic Lolita has posed:
    At least she doesn't seem to be cold lying back on it, getting comfortable. "Thank you." she murmurs softly. Theres' a soft shimmer around several areas, as the exoshell separates and folds back, mostly around her damages legs. "And that seems....fair...' she says, with a faintly bemused expression. "There's certainly nothing in my primary directive that prevents me from talking to someone, especially when they're being kind enough to go out of their way to help me."