7232/Crimson Warehouse

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Crimson Warehouse
Date of Scene: 14 April 2019
Location: Gotham City
Synopsis: Skye visits Galina at her 'home'.
Cast of Characters: Crimson Dynamo, Quake




Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    Gotham is, well of course rainy and sticky and generally terrible as always. Down on that -ever- so lovely waterfront, but a few miles from her fight with the old team? Well it's nothing special to look at, one empty warehouse amongst many. Dim flatscreens set over the windows, portraying false images of desolation. This though is where tons worth of munitions where dropped off just yesterday, The dynamo's abode.

    People expect it to be homey inside, to be a warm and comforting safehouse. It's not of course, Galina had been granted a largely free hand and she was apparently a simple sort. Shipping containers welded together and cut apart to form a little house within the warehouse and set along the far war. Heavy shelves stacked with racks of ultra high voltage cable, neat boxes of capacitors, bolts, hydraulic rams, bits salvaged from T-72s and T-88s on the open market. Stacks of fanblades and spare jet engines, rockets, cannons, endless crates of ammo. Racks stuffed with rifles, handguns, RPGs, machineguns.

    The Crimson Dynamo is here, the suit of course. It's brilliant white exoskeleton exposed amidst a sea of enormous electrical cables and synthetic muscle strands making it look all the more monsterous, if such a thing is even possible. The Ultra Dynamo stands nearby on it's own rack, amongst a few of those undersuits, body armor, helmets and well all of it? It's exactly what people expect, it all fits flawlessly with the sort've image she puts out there.

    The open floor space between that container unit home, and this sea of armor? Well with care she's constructed a raised enclosure for soil, and with the help of some diffused skylights above? Well nothing is growing much beyond little sprouts, but she's constructed quite the little garden in here. In the center of this little green space, well that's where we find Galina.

    Legs crossed, content to sit in the dirt. Laptop set off to one side, as she pages through a trio of spiral bound notebooks, stacks of black and white photos and heavy manilla folders stuffed to the gills with cyrillic. Head bopping in time to that soviet era pop music she's left on the speakers, cigarette dangling from her lips.

    See Galina has a secret superpower, beyond the armor. Super-chilling.

Quake has posed:
Skye really wasn't everyone and anyone else. She'd lived in a van for years. She'd haunted all night coffee shops with free internet. It had taken her a year of living in the Triskelion to do anything with the place making it look like anyone lived there (beyond her every present laptop and other devices).

She knew what it looked like or meant when a place was like this. It wasn't a home, or a place where you put down roots. It was just a place you existed.

Which, she supposed, was all Galina was ready for right now, and that was okay too. She'd meant it when she'd said the woman didn't have to trust them, or to even like them. It was more than baby steps she was offering.

The music: https://youtu.be/7kJ9iGPa_zc

Skye peeks her head in - well, she knocks first, and if bid enter, or the door is unlocked, she peeks her head in. Regardless, she calls out, "Hey! I heard there was pizza." Of course she did, she comes bearing pizza. And beer. From Gino's of course. Galina had extended an invitation to come visit, and Skye didn't come empty-handed.

Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    "Welcome."Comes the immediate response, as Galina peers yonder. "I would have made something, had I known you were coming."Carefully restacking photographs and folders, before sliding them and those notebooks right back into that cardboard box. Only then, and well a pause to collect her laptop does she roll slowly up onto her bare feet. Peasant skirt and a ratty old hoody bearing the logo of the Winter Guard, who knew she even owned a skirt right?

    "Come, you will have to excuse the mess. I am afraid I was not expecting company, but I will not be called a poor host."And well she snuffs out that cigarette into her prosthetic, and just turns to head on in. She's careful to leave the door to that little "house" open mind, she isn't completely rude.

    Inside theres no shortage of second hand furniture, A living room stocked with bookshelves full of well worn novels and photographs of happier days. The Winter Guard assembled, the dynamo posing with police officers, guys in military gear, many in the old MK.5 armor no less. An Army academy photo of a very young Private Nemirovsky standing beside her father, both wearing smiles warm enough to heat this small space.

    She was pretty then, shockingly so. Then again getting shot in the head has an decidedly poor effect on your looks. Anywho she sets out a pair of pint glasses full of ice and douses the pair in an unmarked milk-jug of vodka brewed in some old woman's bath-tub.

    Prosthetic fanning wide to motion to that threadbare bright red couch, as she takes an old folding chair for herself. "Please, make yourself at home."And well she does pluck that frag-grenade and the AK-47 off the coffee table to make room, because of course she does.

Quake has posed:
Skye grins as she not only comes in, but holds up pizza, "You invited me. I figured first time I bring the food. And besides, I drop in on you, pretty much my own fault you don't have anything if I don't bring the food, right? Oh! And beer. I brought beer. Sorry, I got almost here before I remembered not everyone orders teh frou-frou stuff and it's kinda habit now. Long story. Mostly a joke, but yeah. It's still beer?"

She makes her way over, taking in a good look of the place. "Hey, you're doing better than I was at this point. Maybe even better than I currently am." She can't help a small laugh there. "Clint and I aren't exactly beacons of domesticity. He's got his bows. I have my computer gack. We're kinda a mess. Most of the furniture came with the place - we rent it."

The picture does make the young woman draw up short and stare a moment or three. "You know what's weird? We forget people have stories, you know? It's like they come into our lives and they're jsut the story we know from then." Then she adds, "I like you. The you you are now."

And of course Skye takes a seat on the red couch, and tosses her satchel beside her. You just know she's got a laptop or a notebook or a tablet in there. Beer and pizza are set down where the grag-grenade and gun formerly sat - notably without comment.

Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    Galina peers after Skye for a long moment, before clearing her throat. "Yes well, that makes one of us."and a pause to drain her vodka, before moving after the beer. "I have been living out of foot lockers and connex containers since I was little girl, about eight I think. Then as the dynamo, I mean we had the citadel for short time. Big pyramid hovering in clouds, was very beautiful. First time I had my own bathroom, but then that was ripped into the space between dimensions."

    She snags a slice ever so casually before nodding in affirmation, yep pizza was good. "Is true, did invite. You are certainly welcome here, food and alcohol is always welcome after long day of digging through old files."and a little nod there as she cracks that brew open and takes a heavy pull right out of the gate.

    "Back in Russia, early after the team all died I started running into a criminal known as "Cometa". Venezuelan man or so I was told, very dangerous man. He left before I could kill him, and I forgot all about him for years."Theres a little shrug there "Been going through SHIELD database to look for him, well him and the Duchess. I expect I would have been warned, had you already encountered her though. Not many escaped me, but a few..."

Quake has posed:
"I had Gretel," Skye says quietly. "I like her. She's a good van. Was my entire world for years. Nobody really understands why I don't want to get rid of her, but how do you throw away the only place you knew?" Her shoulders rise and fall in a negligant shrug. "Before that, it was the street. And before that, the group home. And before that the Orphange at St. Agnes. And before that a bunch of failed adoptions." A thing that makes her lips tug downwards in a frown.

"Man, this is why people don't revisit their past, isn't it?" Because she had a lot of bad memories of it all, and unlike Galina, there wasn't any pretty in the mix to make it okay in places. It had been dreary, and uncomfortable, and soul-wrenching - making the streets preferable.

"Anyway, what's this about.. Cometa?" She makes a reasonable pass at the accent. "And the Duchess?" Knowing that Galina had some lower level clearance - just enough to make these sorts of cursory searches. If this was leading to something bigger, they'd have to figure out next steps... Preferably after they got rid of Zola.

Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    "Cometa, The Kite. Worked for Venezuelan intelligence, supporting socialist rebels operating in Colombia. One day they couldn't find him, went to his house to find his father, wife and son all dead. They had shot themselves with the same gun, one after the other. No signs of struggle, nothing of sort. His powers were never fully defined, but he was classified as a level two by the KGB at their last contact in 87'."She sniffles some, casually pulling after that beer. "He would show up in little siberian towns, logging camps and the like. When they would be discovered, everyone would be dead. Suicide, through whatever means were available. He began to pick up followers, believing he was to usher in the coming of christ. I was never very close to him, never saw him with my own eyes. One day though, it all just stopped. I have never been satisfied with this."

    And a lean from her chair, before she can snag a spiral bound notebook off the shelf. "I never got to see father very much, never had a place of my own. He was always deployed. Direct from academy to Army, then direct to VDV, then direct to Dynamo program."And she pauses to offer over the notebook. "I have decided I dislike being civilian."

    The notebook page is covered in cyrillic, there are strange symbols scattered across the top. The item of interest though is on the opposite page, a single dim photograph. A woman in a great flowing, well almost victorian affair. Her head tilted back and twisted around at an unnatural angle, but it's the bottom that calls. Beneath the ruffles of that skirt though ankles and slippers are visible, visible in numbers that can't possibly make any kind of sense. Lovecraft spoke of fearful symmetry, and this is what he was talking about. From there all the other little quirks almost burst to life. The red flecks on that dress, the yellowy corpse white of her skin, the unnatural shapes coming from her mouth like they're trying to escape.

    "That, is Grafinya Sorokonozhka. In English this means Countess centipede, she has been around for a very long time. Nobody is very clear what she wants, or what she is. All we know is that she did not like Rasputin, or the Hitlerites, and we believe her to be a murderer of children."Theres a pause and a sigh. "We, well I suppose now it is just I or they...not We anymore."

Quake has posed:
"Dislike being civilian, huh?" Skye is almost amused. " I gues SHIELD is a kind of non-civilian? Hadn't really thought about it much." She does add, "I decided I didn't want to be the hacker I was. I thought I was doing good, but really I was just.." A shrug. "It was a lot of talk. Lots of bullshit. Everyone talks about this code we have, and we do, but push comes to shove most everyone of the lot would sell one another out to save their own ass."

"Got to see it in Tidepool. The whole how everyone was just in it for their small piece of the thing. It wasn't about exposing anyone. Or making the world better. It was about power as much as anything else."

She, too, grabs a slice and cracks open a beer. "I guess SHIELD has power. I don't know. It doesn't feel the same. I mean, we literally put our lives on the line for people every day. And we take shit for it, too. Like badmouthing shit, and we just smile and nod and do the thing because there isn't anyone else to do the thing. It's not even close to who I thought I was."

When the notebook is offered, she leans and takes it. "Gotta say, I don't do whatever this is. I code, I don't break codes." Not that she has to with Galina's story. "So, this guy made people kill themselves, and she.. These are the people you were assigned to take out?" Trying to follow what she's being offered here.

Crimson Dynamo has posed:
    "The Dynamo does not take prisoners, I was asked to unmake them completely."Galina waves dismissively "I killed all but a very few. I never found the Kite, and the Duchess never showed herself when I was in position to do her harm. She never harmed me however, or threatened."Theres a little shrug there. "They are people I worry about, and I worry about few. Neither show up in the SHIELD database, so I obtained paper copy of OSI reports during great patriotic war. Have been going through to see if they were ever mentioned."

    "In Russia Hackers are mostly mafia. They pay them very well and generally treat them very nicely. It is why when Russia begin tampering with elections, they make nice with the mafia. Now the FSB is full of Mafia, who in turn use their badges to protect their hackers. It is madness, and obviously corrupt. Is one of many reasons they wanted me to die."And a little nod at that.

    "SHIELD has power yes, which is what makes me concerned. It is also full of unusual people, who have a varying degree of ethical constructs within which they frame their world. It is civilian agency, commanding warriors. It hunts terrorism, so that it may destroy it."And a pause to sip after her beer. "It justifies it's budget by arrests made, which furthermore grants incentive to make a lot of arrests. It is an agency tasked with treating symptoms, not causes."

    "This is concerning thing, which is easily turned to something bad. It can be very tempting, when too many civilians are involved in such affairs. Too many decisions made by people far away, to be carried out by people they have never met."and a shrug. "but I am paranoid woman, I know."