5656/Changeling: A friendly debriefing

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Changeling: A friendly debriefing
Date of Scene: 26 October 2018
Location: An Interrogation room in the Triskelion.
Synopsis: Miss Cranston helps SHIELD with their inquiries.
Cast of Characters: Melinda May, Shadow, June Connor
Tinyplot: Changeling


Melinda May has posed:
A number of days has passed since SHIELD conducted a mission based on some intel brought to them in a less than above-board manner. The intel was good, the mission was a success... for the most part, and now -- far later than preferred -- Agent Melinda May is sitting down with one CEO Natasha Cranston to debrief her on the events surrounding recovering Skye.

The Triskelion is an impressive and grandiose compound, with multiple buildings, employees and agents of all sorts moving about non-stop, and security. ALL the security. Simply to get to this sparsely appointed room with the slightly over-bright lighting, over-aggressive climate control, and the overwhelming decor of 'institutional concrete' had involved no less than four security checkpoints, visitor badges, and two sets of metal detector-like scanners.

Less than three minutes after being shown into the room that could just as easily be used for hostile interrogations, Agent May arrives and offers a nod of greeting.

"Thank you for agreeing to meet here." She's as deadpan and businesslike as ever.

Shadow has posed:
    Natasha Cranston looks a lot better than the last time May saw her; of course, no one looks at their best when they've just been fished out of the water by a SHIELD rescue team. Her dress - a new one, which looks almost as understatedly expensive as the previous one - is once more well tailored, and her makeup is impeccably applied... And her "Polite CEO" smile is professional quality. If May hadn't seen her use it to fool Argos' HYDRA representatives into dismissing her as a useful but harmless CEO, she might even have taken it at face value herself.

    "Oh, it's no problem at all; your invitation was quite compelling." She waves a hand, vaguely indicating June. "I hope you don't mind Janet's presence? I'm afraid my legal team insisted, you know how it is... At any rate, how can I be of assistance?"

June Connor has posed:
    The young woman with the brown pixie cut doesn't look like she could have finished college yet, but then, some people just look young. small holes in her ear lobes indicate that she may normally wear gauges, and there is a certain apathetic air about her. She wears a woman's business suit, carrying a small briefcase in her right hand.

    "Hi," 'Janet' responds, reaching out with a dry businesslike hand to shake. She stands straight, professional, it'd be hard to tell that she is as far out of her normal appearance as is possible.

Melinda May has posed:
May takes a second or two to study Janet, making mental notes of how the young woman has seemingly put effort into making herself loo professional. It's almost too much effort. In this day and age, she would have expected a young professional to fly her individuality flag at least a little bit -- say, leaving in her piercings despite the business suit. She doesn't turn down the handshake, though, and returns is briskly enough. Her own hands are NOT those of an administrator, strong and dry and with callouses that would speak to the knowledgeable of proficiency with weaponry.

Does this legal assistant seem wobbly in her shoes? May would totally empathize.

After gesturing to the bare table in the room, May settles into a chair there and sets the tablet in her hands to one side as she looks at Natasha. Yes, she can see right past that polite CEO facade to the sharply intelligent mind behind it. And now she'll be paying more attention to Cranston. Maybe she'll let something else slip. Though really, that's not why May's here. This woman was a huge help to them, and she's not looking to bust her for anything untoward. Though... if either of them carried even the faintest aroma of tobacco or 'wacky tabaccy' she might use that to poke a bit of fun.

Maybe.

"We're hoping to finally put the entire mess with that underwater base to rest, Ms. Cranston." Is that a royal 'we'? Likely not. "We already have most of the information we need, but we were hoping that the events of the mission from your point of view might help us complete the picture."

Shadow has posed:
    Natasha nods. "Of course," she replies, steepling her fingers in front of her as she looks steadily back at May. "More perspectives are almost always useful. Where would you like me to start?"

    She seems entirely at ease, although how much of that is a typical billionaire's casual arrogance and how much of that is just the mask she uses to keep people from seeing her sweat is hard to tell. "You were there for quite a bit of it, as I recall..."

June Connor has posed:
    June actually doesn't seem wobbly at all, but then, it appears she also chose to wear dress flats rather than heels. They may not be as fashionable, but they are far more practical. Her hand is surprisingly warm, contrast to most people who might have cold hands when in a stressful situation. Her own return handshake also reveals callouses, but is given with less force, as if someone who has a delicate approach to things. Despite her cold appearance, there's a certain calmness, and an evaluatory edge to her own eyes, despite the apathetic expression.

    She goes to the table, finding a seat next to Natasha, and placing the briefcase on the table. She doesn't open it. Instead her eyes shift casually to the different edges of the room, gauging the distances, ventilation, and possible surveillance. Vocally, she keeps quiet.

Melinda May has posed:
"I was," May acknowledges. "However, the way you observe a situation is different from how I would. The details about the rooms we were in, the people we spoke with, the things they said, you very likely noticed details I did not, and vice versa."

She reaches over to tap at the tablet, apparently starting a recording or something similar. And then she confirms it. "I'm recording this for documentation purposes, but if you decide you would like a copy or a transcript, something can be arranged easily enough."

"Now, Ms. Cranston. I know it's been several days, but describe for me as well as you can remember entering the underwater laboratory complex."

Shadow has posed:
    Natasha nods again. "I believe a transcript would go a great deal toward pacifying my Legal division, wouldn't you agree, Janet?" She gives June a quick smile, then returns her attention to May. "It's hard to get an accurate sense of speed and direction underwater, of course, but the impression I got was that we'd gone at least ten to thirty miles from the surface platform, which..."

    Natasha's recounting is... Mostly accurate, although nowhere near as concise and precise as a SHIELD Agent's would have been... And her observations are an entirely different aspect.

     "... And to be honest, Judy's explanations were a bit concerning. The profit projections she was citing didn't add up -- or at least, they wouldn't add up if you factor in the standard time the EPA would need to certify an entirely new type of fuel as safe for use in seafaring vessels. Even if I called in some favours to fast-track the certification process it'd be a year at the /minimum/, but her projections implied the first ships could be up and running in as little as five months."

    She frowns. "I didn't exactly want to call attention to it at the time, but I just don't see how she could expect to pull that off unless she was planning to bribe the officials. And then there was the lab's position..."

June Connor has posed:
    "It would indeed," June agrees. We like to keep all of the corporate entities happy, and governmental. Authorizing such new measures would require government approval before such upgrades would be permissible, and depending on several factors, that alone can take more than five months."

    Sounds good to her, at least. June's full focus seemed to zero in on the conversation for just that long, and then returns to her evaluation of the room, trying to move her eyes back occasionally to the conversation. She's listening, but her professional appearance of attention seems to lack something.

Melinda May has posed:
A bit unlike June, May has been watching the young professional quiet alertly, but without her eyes moving to the woman beyond when she spoke up. "Consider it done, then." They'll receive a copy of the recording along with a transcript of everything said.

She appears to pay the entirety of her attention to Natasha's relating of the events in the laboratory, though when the CEO starts pointing out the discrepancies she'd heard in the presentation they'd been given, she reaches over to the tablet again to tap in something. Possibly a note to double chec the information given.

"Perhaps it was for the best that you didn't point that out at the time. And our analysts have also pointed out the oddity of where the lab was placed on the ocean floor. Can you tell us more aobut that, please?"

Shadow has posed:
    Natasha smiles, becoming slightly more animated as she's invited to explain something in her field of expertise. "Of course; it's not the kind of thing people are expected to know unless they've a strong degree in ecology, marine biology or seafaring, but the short of it is that, much like the jetstreams in the upper atmosphere, there are several documented very powerful undersea currents that the entire underwater ecology is dependent on. The North Pacific Drift is a split-off of the Kuroshio current, which is..." She trails off as she notices the 'get-on-with-it-please' look on May's face. "Imagine a more or less circular current running along most of the West Coast, the Phillippines, Taiwan and most of Japan at a speed of more than a meter and a half per second."

    She smiles briefly. "I realize that might not sound like much, but it's almost twenty times as fast as the regular currents, so anything that gets into it will cover a great deal of distance faster than you might realize..."

Melinda May has posed:
May nods as Ms. Cranston explains, and does give her a 'get-on-with-it' look because she's been told pretty much the same thing by the R&D boffins she had checking up on the hystrionics from the analysts.

"That all agrees with what our science division has determined," she clarifies. "What happened when the lab started taking damage?" THis is the part where she separated from Natasha, and where her observations are likely more important as they will corroborate with Lumley or not.

Shadow has posed:
    Natasha's shudder is well suppressed but easily visible to May. "To be honest, I wasn't sure what was happening myself, at first. I mean, only a lunatic would build a stationary undersea lab in an area that wasn't geologically stable..."

    "I'd just raised the issue of the currents with Dr. Winters, and when she realized that we were looking at a potentially catastrophic containment breach she immediately headed for the control room to make sure emergency lockdown procedures were enacted. We were still there when the lab ruptured, but fortunately the emergency floats were properly marked and I managed to get us to one of them... I'm afraid the rest of it was something of a blur - a highly unpleasant one, to be honest..."

Melinda May has posed:
And May cannot begin to express how much of a relief it had been to learn that someone had managed to safely lockdown the chemicals in the lab. "Thank you for reminding Dr. Winters about the lockdown protocols. You likely kept a very large number of toxic chemicals from getting into the ocean." Especially as they were all IN said ocean for a good amount of time before the SHIELD recovery teams got to them.

"Was there anything else you can remember that might be useful, even if it seems small or trivial?"

Shadow has posed:
    Natasha frowns, searching her memory. "... I admit, I was mostly looking at Dr. Winters when I mentioned the currents, and she seemed genuinely unaware - not surprising, as her fields of expertise are biochemistry and biology, and marine /biology/ is an entirely different field than marine /ecology/ especially when you're coming from the biochemistry angle. Judy, on the other hand..."

    She trails off, trying to think of the right way to put it. "I have a lot of board meetings. There is a very distinct twitch when you ask a question that they had been hoping wouldn't come up because they already know the answer and that you won't like it. I'm not sure what it means, but I'll stake a custom-tailored Armani and any one car of your choosing that she was well aware of the location..."

Melinda May has posed:
"Tell us more about Judy." To most people, May would seem as Vulcan-like and calm as usual, but for a keen observer, her expression sharpened ever so slightly. THIS, apparently, is one of the things she really wanted from Natasha.

"SHIELD doesn't engage in gambling, but I completely understand the sentiment behind it." Translation: Armani suits, even tailored, are crap for range of motion, and the car she'd choose isn't for sale. Not to mention her fellow senior agent whose car it is would be VERY annoyed.

Shadow has posed:
    "If I had to sum her up in one word... Professional," Natasha replies. "Her reaction to that question was perhaps the first actual tell I can honestly say I'm sure about. And that shouldn't have been surprising - after all, Argos clearly intended to pull out all the stops to make a good impression on me..." Clearly, Natasha has heard about this thing called false humility and decided it was for other people.

    "... Except she claimed she was the primary manager of the Deep Star facility. Which doesn't make sense, because her posture and personality didn't strike me as research administrative management -- more along the lines of public relations. There's a very wide difference in terms of skill and aptitudes for those two jobs; one calls for the ability to wrangle a wide variety of personalites -- all the best scientists are eccentric to some degree, and they tend to have very strong personality traits -- and the other needs to be able to read a room at a glance and arrange things so that each member of her audience thinks they see what she needs them to see..."

Melinda May has posed:
"... so why was a PR person claiming to be the facility manager? Interesting." And that one word is enough of a cue for those listening in to start REALLY digging in to Judy's past, present, and everything else.

"Well, I think that's about all we have time for, Ms. Cranston. I know you have a busy schedule, and I appreciate your taking time out for us again." She reaches over and taps at the tablet again, presumably stopping the recording. "If you think of anything else, or if there is anything we can do to assist, please use the contact information as established."

Shadow has posed:
    Natasha offers another professional smile to May. "Thank you, I shall. And likewise, if I can be of any further assistance... Well, you know how to contact me."