6792/Sentinels: Safe Safehouse

Sentinels: Safe Safehouse
Date of Scene:	07 March 2019
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Steve and Jessica talk to the Sentinel 'scientist'.
Cast of Characters:	Bastion, Captain America, Spider-Woman (Drew)
Tinyplot:	Sentinels

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Bastion has posed:
    After a harrowing mission and a lengthy trip, the three men that were 'acquired' during the mission were delivered to a safer facility where they could be spoken to (interrogated?) more safely, in case they were followed, or exploded, or any number of problems.
    The arrival was the previous day, and there has been something of a holding pattern: feeding the men, helping with their wounds, and waiting for direction to come from those with the authority to make those decisions.

Two of the men were found to be mostly uninteresting: Russians intending to visit the united states for various reasons. And then there's John Doe, who is now the one all the attention is on. He gets his own room: cot, chair, meals, in his isolated, highly protected, area. He has been treated as a mixture of threat and victim: he has assassins after him, but what else is he?

Captain America has posed:
Standing outside of the holding cell's glass floor-to-ceiling window, Steve considers a print-out of one of the latest scans of John Doe. He's got the manila folder spread across his palms and a day's worth of shadow on his face that merits a thought of shaving. While it's hard for the man to sport shadows under his eyes, he's close. There's a weary focus projected towards the pages.

He glances up again at the man being held in relative comfort behind the safety glass. He knows about the hidden technology within the man and some extent of its capabilities, but the threat of inevitable discovery is difficult to weigh vs continued safety of all involved. The Captain sighs.

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
Jessica approaches quietly, with a drink caddy carrying three cups of coffee - paper, with paper heat sleeves. She has the shadows beneath her eyes, but carries a perk in her step that belies her fatigue.

"Steve...I brought some coffee. Get it while it's hot..." But her attention is quickly focused on the other side of the glass. "How are things here?"

Bastion has posed:
The pages are a mess of discrepancies. The scans disagree with each other. Each scan seems to have a different maze of readouts. One of the scans believes John to be entirely human. Another suggests he has cybernetic limbs. Another seems to suggest just one of his limbs is that way. It is clear, from the various attempts, that the 'scan equipment is insufficient' to get a proper read on whatever John has/is. In notes, a technician has suspected that John something inside him that is directly causing the scans to get strange and inconclusive results. They can't even tell if ET is phoning home initially, but the most recent report confirms that a signal may have been going out. Is it now? Probably not. But the lack of reliability in the readouts makes that hard to determine.

Tech that isn't as fancy simply shows that John's human: it's the very fancy items that seem to pick up on something unusual.

John himself is currently having a meal that was brought to him, quietly seated in his chair. He's been given a gray change of clothing, and he looks very military at a glance: a muscular guy, 6'1 probably, with his very short platinum hair and strong profile.

Captain America has posed:
At the sound of footsteps and accompanying offer, Steve glances up from the papers detail the results of the various scans. "Thanks," he replies as he reaches over to claim one of the cups of coffee for himself. "Appreciate your forethought. Things are quiet here...for what that's worth." He sips at the steaming drink and winces as it burns his lips, though he doesn't seem to linger on the feeling of it.

"Scans." He then offers out the material to Jessica, apparently intending to swap her pages for coffee caddy in case she wants to read over them. "They're pretty straight-forward: he's anything but. There're positives, false positives, negatives...nothing can pin down what's inside of him. He told me and Carol that his cybernetics were better than the Sentinel robots themselves. Claimed he reacted instead of thinking. Why he hasn't attempted to bust his way out of here..." Steve squints at the man eating his food. "I'm going to be very irritated if he brings down those bots on us."

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
Jess does, indeed, swap out the tray for the readouts, and puzzles over them the way that Steve did. She quickly glances up from the pages to the guy eating his dinner in the seclusion of his exhibit. "So. has anyone yet made the one obvious observation that the guy with cropped platinum hair is /always/ the villain? I mean, I've seen all the movies...I know a villain when I see one, and I'm looking at one /right/ now."

Bastion has posed:
John can't see them. He does look at the wall, though, in a thoughtful and unreadable way as he's talked about. He is taking his time eating, and offers no answers by way of his manner at all.

The man has been relatively polite, and seems interested in answers: but since he's mostly been alone, he has addressed his questions when he's been given food, and those technicians aren't much for chat. He has been well behaved: nobody has been shot, no walls are scorched. He hasn't shown anything interesting.

Captain America has posed:
"The movie villains can't all have cropped platinum hair..." mutters Steve as he glances over at Jessica and away from the man apparently eating quietly. He still smirks. "The villain in Die Hard didn't have cropped platinum hair." John is eyed again, however, and the Captain's bland joviality fades away again to stoicism yet again.

"He hasn't done anything wrong. Hasn't given the techs any guff. I wanna trust him, but..." Again, the soldier shakes his head slowly in denial. "You wanna go talk to him? Maybe he'll say something else to a new face." He holds out the coffee caddy again in proposed exchange for the paperwork.

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
"That's only because there wasn't a guy in Die Hard with cropped platinum hair," Jess observes, making the trade again. "If there had been, he would have been the villain." She tilts her head, as if to crack her neck, but there is no sound. "That's substantially more effective if something pops," she observes, then scans a clearance badge. "I'm going in." And she lets herself inside, leaving the door open to Steve if he is following.

Jess has unassuming attire. A black leather blazer. Boots, and a black bodysuit with jeans. I mean, how many times can that mind melting thing happen to one person, right?

Bastion has posed:
John pauses in his meal to look up to Jessica as she enters. He pauses, and gestures towards the other vacant stool that's in the room, as if offering her seating in his home. It's all rather dignified, really, despite the surroundings, as if it were just his barracks.

"Hello," John says, evenly.

Captain America has posed:
The door closes behind Jessica as if the Captain were a butler intending to keep all tidy and under control. He then walks over to the one-way window and stands before it with his arms loosely crossed. A flick of a nearby switch on the wall turns on a feed of the room's sounds, including conversation. He's curious to see how John holds up verses the newly-minted Avenger, given she's not only a new face, but in possession of some very interesting abilities.

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
"Hi," Jessica offers in a friendly and easy manner. "I'm Jess." She has a seat where the man has indicated. "I've got fresh coffee, if you'd like some. I didn't mean to interrupt your dinner, I didn't know what kind of schedule they were running on this ship. Please, don't let my arrival stop you. A man's gotta eat, after all." She sets down the coffee near his dinner, and looks around the room. "I like what you've done with the place..." she remarks offhandedly. "Have you been treated all right here?" Not knowing his tech, or his abilities, she wonders if he will have any way of recognizing her from the day she snatched him off the plane. Then dropped him on the ground.

Bastion has posed:
John doesn't seem to recognize her; he did have a hood on during most of the dropping and webbing sequence, though. "They're calling me John Doe, so there you have it from me," says John, nodding to her as she takes a seat. He lifts his brows a little when she says she likes what he's done, perhaps he didn't get the joke, but gives a vague smile anyway. "Coffee? Is it any good?" he asks, accepting her request to have him continue to eat: he does continue.

"So far, yes. But I'd like to know about test results. Am I going to explode?" he asks, deadpan.

Captain America has posed:
Papers rustle as Steve flips through to a certain page on the scan results. He reads over it again and frowns at it, his lips drawn into a thin line as he continues listening to the nonchalant conversation in the room.

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
Jess furrows her brow, looking down at her own cup of coffee. "I got it a few moments ago at the Coffee Bean. Their coffee's always good...." she trails off thoughtfully, shaking her head. "Were you /planning/ to explode?" she counters. "Because they didn't say anything about it. And honestly, I'd kind of rather you didn't. I just wanted...I mean, I don't understand all that scanning mumbo jumbo. I'd rather just talk to you in person. I feel like you've been used, and the last thing I want is to perpetuate that. You're a human being, and being used, weaponized..." she winces even at the word. "Yeah it's just the worst. It's not something easy to deal with. I thought maybe we could just talk, instead of me reading all the stuff that tells me nothing about who you are..."

Bastion has posed:
"No, but I didn't plan to harm your friend, either. I hope my apology reached her," John Doe says, with a serious tone. He doesn't show a lot of emotion, but some of it might be there in his brow or light gray eyes. He didn't mean to harm her, the expression says.

"I'd like to see what the scans are, if possible. Maybe I can make something of them. I'm willing to talk, though. I just don't know much about what I was brought here for, or why I was a target to be killed, supposedly. I do know I was going to a facility where more Sentinels were. I was hoping I'd get answers there. Unless you have some for me."

Captain America has posed:
The Captain slowly sighs again and momentarily looks away from the unknown man and the brunette. His jaw grit-grits back and forth in a flash of introspective guilt at Janet's injury before he dismisses it for the betterment of his focus on the task at hand. The manila folder containing the scan results is closed and shoved beneath his armpit so he can fold his arms yet again.

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
"I'd be glad to see what I can get for you in the way of scans. Maybe they'd tell you more than they tell me. Actually, I'm SURE of that." Jess glances idly around, and toward the window where she's guessing Steve is, with a significant look. Of course, she's wrong, he moved, and she's looking at a vacant space. "I believe you didn't intend to hurt her. But someone used you to try, and that's what we're trying to figure out. Me, personally? I know that it has something to do with those sentinels that were out on the tarmac. I sort of felt like maybe you had something to do with their design, or their AI. But how much, I can't be sure. They know more than I do." She leans in a little with half a smile. "I've always been of a mind for helping people, not analyzing them."

Bastion has posed:
"Right now I think analyzing to figure out what happened to me is the same as helping me," John answers, watching as she leans in, somewhat curious, but his manner remains stoic. He followed her gaze to the wall, though, in a sharp way, and gazes over that way, as if thoughtfully looking back at Steve. But probably not, it's a wall.

"Are there any Sentinels here? I agree there's a link. I want to know what it is, same as you," John says, and continues to eat. He's on his vegetables now, most of the rest is gone.

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
"There aren't any here, no," Jess replies. "I haven't gone to look at them, myself. I'm not a scientist. I'd probably just poke one with a stick, and there's not much to learn from that." She shrugs. "So do you even know what the link is? Do you know if you had anything to do with the creation of the things? It was my understanding that you are a scientist...and I know someone wants you dead." Hydra. Jess fumes silently for a moment. "I know that you don't need to die because you know something...or have something. Any idea why someone would want to kill you?"

Bastion has posed:
John looks at the wall another long moment, and sits back in his chair. It creaks; John weighs a lot. He looks down at his hands, as if trying to penetrate them with his gaze, and shakes his head, rubbing one wrist with the other. "They're interested in me. I don't know. I was at a facility for them in Russia. I mean, they're robots. I saw some there. I was asked about them, just like here. Why do you think I'm a scientist? I guess I could have invented them, I don't know my history. I was there. Then I was being transported. I don't know much of anything to tell you about this. I don't know how I shot the other person. I'm just doing a day at a time."

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
Jess furrows her brow. "You don't...know your history? You don't remember, then? Do you think the cybernetics are a way of altering you? I kind of wondered...if you had any idea what all was in you. I don't know if it was done to save you...to enhance you....or maybe to neutralize or control you. Any gut feeling on which way that goes? It's clear there's something in you, but I don't know where it came from, or why."

Bastion has posed:
John lifts his hands, and looks down at himself, and then at her. "I don't think anyone knows exactly. I thought I'm just.... ordinary. I mean. For the most part. I'm strong. But I could always have been strong. The shooting wasn't expected." But John also doesn't seem alarmed by it. Or excited. He seems to have accepted it as much as any of the other facts on his blank slate.

"If you have a suggestion to figure it out, I'm interested, Jess."

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
"Well, if they put something in you, to weaponize or otherwise, they would have likely wiped out your memory. Conscience and morals are a bit of an inconvenience when it comes to weaponizing someone. Do you remember anything? Flashes, even? Any memories at all from before?"

Bastion has posed:
"No," John says, without much trouble about it. "Should that bother me?" he asks, and starts to frown, reflective, looking down at the emptied plate. He picks up the coffee she'd put near his plate, and has some. "I want to know what happened, but I don't have anything. That's why I just... stayed with them. Maybe they were right, to bring me here for answers. I don't know why I'd be targeted, as Carol said before. There /was/ some talk about surgery or similar if I didn't go along with things. I went along with things."

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
"So, what part did you go along with? Just the coming here? They had a hood over your head. I don't know if that was to throw people off or to keep you from knowing what was going on. Or seeing anyone. Who is 'they,' anyway?" Jess pauses, adding, "To the best of your knowledge..."

Bastion has posed:
"Oh. Trask Industries," John says, surprised, and then seems to listen to himself. But then he nods, confirming the thought. "The hoods I didn't understand. I was told to sit still and be quiet, they were going to move me off the plane to a secure place. Then the hood, and gag. I got... really alarmed by that. And I fell, and someone grabbed me, and..." John shakes his head. "I'm here with you now, instead of them. To be direct, I'm not sure this is better. Is a cell better than a hood?"

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
"There was someone trying to kill you. That's why we extracted you," Jess replies. "Hoods don't do much to deflect death, really. But in here? No one can get you. And this is just temporary until we figure out what's going on. I mean, you sort of did try to kill one of us." Jess shifts in her chair and takes a sip of her coffee. "I was the one who snatched you out of the plane. I had you someplace safe, but for some reason you seemed to propel yourself toward the ground. Maybe an escape tactic. Two of us tried to catch you, but it was all so fast. You were too heavy, and moving with too much momentum."

Bastion has posed:
John considers that, but not with disbelief. His grey eyes are intelligent, weighing. "Did the Sentinels come towards me? I know there were some there. They're loud and obvious," John asks. "I know you said there weren't any here...."

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
"The sentinels tried to protect you, and the plane you were on. There were people trying to get onboard, presumably to kill you. But the sentinels wiped them out. But they also attacked us for trying to extract you. They treated you as an asset and attacked accordingly. They didn't differentiate between the mercenaries trying to take the plane and the Avengers. Equal-opportunity assassins, those things."

Bastion has posed:
"I want to look at one," John says, after a pause. He's being careful. This wasn't a new idea, but he possibly has waited until now to bring it up. "I want to know if something clicks. Or if I'm a scientist like you seem to think. I don't really have any other leads."

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
"I think perhaps that might be something I can arrange," Jess replies noncommittally. Letting this man near an armed Sentinel is a very, VERY bad idea. But by now, Tony may very well have one totally disabled so that John can safely examine it. "I'll talk to a few people and see if I can pull some strings. I feel like maybe you're right. Maybe something will click. Then you'll have more answers, both for us and for yourself. But for now, I'm sorry - if they were willing to try to hijack your plane with armed militants in public view, they wouldn't hesitate to off you on the sly, if we just released you."

Bastion has posed:
"I lived through falling on concrete tarmac, maybe I'm bulletproof," jokes John with a soft laugh, and a slowly released breath. He finishes his coffee and sits back in the chair, hands resting at his thighs, and gives her a patient, but weighing look. "I'd prefer to not feel like a prisoner. I'm fine with being protected. I understand your hesitation because I seem to be able to do some odd things. But I don't want to sit here with no answers either. I want to be part of my own investigation."

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
"That's more than reasonable, John. And I don't like calling you John, either. You have a name. You have an identity. A life. Somewhere. And I want to see it returned to you. We just have to figure out who took it, and why." Jess looks thoughtful for a moment. "First things first, I'll try to get you in contact with a Sentinel one way or another, and see what, if anything, comes back to you. Then maybe we can figure out more suitable accomodations. I'm on your side, here. I have been since the beginning, and I'm still there. I just have to be cautious. If you kill one of the Avengers, we're trading lives, and that's not an option at this point." Direct. Blunt, maybe. But there has to be a line somewhere.

Bastion has posed:
A blink follows. "Why on earth would I kill an Avenger? You're heroes. I know that much, and I know very little," John says, thoughtful. "I do think there might be a mutant in your group, though, to warn you," he adds, much more quietly, leaning in a little bit. It is an honest warning, a return for her offers and agreement to help him in return.

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
"You very nearly DID kill an Avenger. You attacked her along with the Sentinel that was trying to keep her from extracting you from the hijackers." But Jess is taken aback by the warning that John seems to offer her in earnest. She arches a brow. "A mutant? In the Avengers? What makes you think there's a mutant in our ranks?" Jess asks, looking concerned.

Bastion has posed:
"I meant, on the plane, that I was in before this. I don't know. Maybe a pilot. I can't explain this to you. It's like having a feel for something off." John shakes his head, and extends a hand in a calming manner towards her, "Maybe mutant or mutation isn't the word. Someone untrustworthy. Something strange. Like a mole in a system. A catch in something that works otherwise."

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
"Oh...Right, that makes sense." Jess' brow is still furrowed. The sense is something that will bear looking into. "Yeah, we'll definitely have to figure out what's going on there. I appreciate your observation, and the fact that you shared it. If something was missed, we'll find it," Jess says, standing. "I think I'll go see about getting some of this arranged. The sooner we can do that, the sooner we can restore you back to your life. And hopefully...restore it back to you, too."

Bastion has posed:
"I'd like to see those scan results, though," John presses again. His manner adjusts a little, into a more firm, assertive one. He's still friendly, but there's a quality of military leadership that flows to the surface naturally.

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
"It's on my list of things to arrange," Jess replies in a manner not completely flippant, but more to the point of letting him know that she's in charge here, not him. "That. The Sentinel, too. But I have to put my hands on things before they can be handed over to you. Is there anything else I need to look into? Besides the possible mole, or mutant, of course..."

Bastion has posed:
John shakes his head. He gets up, as if he'd walk her to the door. In some way, it's a method of retaining some semblance of a normal thing with this situation. That he can take a little bit of control over what's happened by creating a feeling like he has a say by inviting her to sit. How much is illusion?

"I don't think I can offer much in exchange, so let's leave it at those," he chuckles.

Spider-Woman (Drew) has posed:
"Fair enough," Jess replies, as she reaches the door. "I'll be in touch with you as soon as I can get the information and arrangements into place." She looks back at John, somewhat sympathetically. "Hang in there, till then. It's gonna get better, one way or another."

Bastion has posed:
"I think it may get worse before it gets better," John replies without explanation, but nods, and steps back. He then turns away - a dismissal of her in the same way she could do by leaving via the door.