7455/Bored Room Debriefing

Bored Room Debriefing
Date of Scene:	10 May 2019
Location:	Medical Ward - The Triskelion
Synopsis:	Coulson reports in about the speedster that's been bothering Gotham, and he debriefs to May in Skye's room in Medical, mostly to keep Skye IN Medical.
Cast of Characters:	Melinda May, Phil Coulson, Quake

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Melinda May has posed:
It's been a fair bit of time since May tasked Coulson with locating and talking to the speedster that Batman told them about, and as she's finally heard back from her fellow senior agent she scheduled a debrief with him. But, of course, life in SHIELD being what it is the debrief's scheduled time has landed shortly after the team including Skye returned from infiltrating a Hydra base and made off with not only a treasure trove of intel but the plane belonging to one of the evil organization's top level people.

So, because of this and the injuries that Skye returned with, May has moved the location of the debriefing to the medical ward, partly so that the younger agent is read in on the situation with the speedster but mostly to keep Skye from trying to escape Medical. Again.

Phil Coulson has posed:
It's been a relatively busy time for Phil with this assignment. Not because of much action... but because the entire process of tracking down Impulse required a lot of legwork. A *LOT*. There was a lot of ground to cover to find a good place for the checkpoint that the youngster would be willing to check out, and not appear threatening. In the end, he had decided on a Manhatten based soup kitchen that Impulse was known to deliver to every few days, and was willing to clear out the place for a day for them to wait for the Speedster.

The end result was a fairly decent evaluation... along with a souvenir: a one inch red button with a yellow lightning bolt in the center on a small half inch thick, two inch wide square. Phil is holding it when he walks in, it plainly visible in his hand.

"That was a bit of a trip." Phil quips, "I can see why Batmans frustrated with the kid."

Quake has posed:
Skye has been making a right royal pain in the ass of herself to the medical staff. Since she can't type for at least a day or two more, and since she still couldn't move quickly without being dizzy, and because someone couldn't be trusted to behave herself, Skye hadn't been cleared to leave medical yet. Not even with Clint's assurnces he'd take good care of her.

Given Clint's record in medical, it's likely a good thing they didn't trust him on that one.

So she sits, hands and forearms in the immobilizing casts that Jemma Simmons has crafted for her, and scowls at the button. "So, who is he, and what's he do?"

Melinda May has posed:
May looks at Coulson from where she's standing to one side of Skye as much to keep the younger agent from doing anything ill-advised as to monitor the rest of the room. "I'm guessing he gave you a run for your money, then." Well, up until they were able to use his habitual movements to catch up with him.

"I have to agree with Skye. What can you tell us about this speedster? I can already guess he's a lot younger than you were expecting." After all, he did just call Impulse a kid.

Phil Coulson has posed:
"He calls himself Impulse. He's like the Flash or that Speedster we saw in Mexico. Lots of lightning when he runs, and he's faster than you can blink." Phil sits down, the button placed on the table next to him. "He claims to be from /a/ future, around the 30th or 31st century." He taps the table next to the button, "with the way he created this out of his suit munching on the burner phone I had prepared for him? I'm inclined to believe him."

He leans back, getting into lecture mode, "his entire demeanor is that of a teenager who was puffing up his chest to appear tougher than he actually was. Real macho stuff until I hit a nerve with the Batman conversation. He has a real sore spot about people telling him about how he shouldn't be in this era. He went into this length lecture about Temporal Mechanics, which he claims to have learned from high school."

He gives a gesture back to the button, "This is apparently using one megabyte encryption, and he says not to tamper with it, or 'Gideon' won't recognize it as legitimate." A pause... "he considers it an 'emergency call' button."

Quake has posed:
"Damn. And my hands all messed up," Skye quips. Though really, R&D would be better at looking at it solely on a tech basis. Her interest lies only in the possible code and data on it.

"He's not shitting you, though. Encryption is a finicky thing. You put your signature code into things - usually it's benign. More like an I'm here. But sometimes you use it to mark things specifically. Or to act as a trigger. Peopel get careless folling around with that stuff and figure it's just loose code. You have to be fairly decent to start thinking of shit like that, though. Most people never get that far."

She should know. She helped wean out the tiers of hackers at Rising Tide. With tricks like that.

"So he calls his computer Gideon? Did he say more?"

Melinda May has posed:
May nods slowly at the information Coulson has shared thus far, her eyes studying the small device that was apparently made from the remnants of a burner phone. "If he really is a teenager relying on appearances and bravado, that's going to run out on him sooner or later. And it could get ugly for him when that happens." She paces a few steps away from Skye and back, more of a 'moving helps thought processes' than anything else.

"Giving you an emergency call button is one thing, but were you able to convince him to accept a way to get in touch with us in return?"

Phil Coulson has posed:
"No." To Skye, "I didn't press the subject, as I didn't want to scare him off with questions that I didn't think he wanted to answer. I was trying to treat him like a citizen brought in for some minor questioning, not a subject for interrogation." Coulson notes, before he turns to regard Melinda, "And no. If he wanted to get in touch with us, I suspect he'd just run right up to the Triskellion. I can setup another meeting with him via the soup kitchen method again, if you want me to get in contact with him again, at least."

He sighs, "I'd estimate him to be around... 16 or 18, no more. He might have been putting up the brave face because he didn't know who he was dealing with. He did knock out one of my teams before he came to me." Phil points out, "He brought them to my other team for medical transport after I asked him, so I don't think he's malevolent."

Quake has posed:
"Ah bummer," Skye says. Not that she's surprised. Most people don't want to get into the nitty and the gritty of those sorts of things the way she does.

Listening, "So he's really actually young? Does have people who are acting as his guardians or anything?" Because young, and from another time or place didn't spell a very good scenario for fitting in or grokking current society. With an added measure of defiant 'I'll do as I please' to boot.

Ask her how she knows.

Melinda May has posed:
And now Skye is voicing May's concerns before she can. This might possibly be something to be concerned about. Later. "Agreed. I want to be sure that he's not putting himself or others around him in unnecessary risk. Coulson, reach out to this young man again. Find out what you can about him. I suspect he would not be willing to officially ally himself with SHIELD, but if he can at least see us as friendlies and people he can approach if he needs, that might be the most we can hope for."

She glances at Skye then. "In two weeks I want to you start seeing what you can figure out about that Gideon computer system." And yes, she emphasizes the 'two weeks'.

Phil Coulson has posed:
"I can do that. Though I can't guarantee he'll be interested in more questions." Phil concedes, before he taps the table again, "I got the impression he's less interested in talking about the details, but I'll take the risk." He looks back to Melinda, "The way he explains it, he's 'meant' to be here. He explains his time travel as 'jumping between timelines'. If he went back in time and say, stopped me from being born, I would still be alive here... but coming back to this era would mean traveling in a timestream where I did not exist." Phil shrugs, "it's sort of like multiverse theory, and a self-correcting one at that."

"I'll press for more details about it... but one thing I can say for sure; if this Gideon can read one megabyte based encryption? It's way ahead of us technology wise." There's a pause, and Phil visibly does some calculations in his head, "... wouldn't you need something like a quantum computer to handle that?" Phil glances to Skye with the question.

Quake has posed:
"Huh," Skye mutters. "One of those loop theories. You change on place so you can't change the other again. Just shifted how things go from here." It made sense in her head at least, and she was happy with that.

"Think she meant less questions and a little more courting him to our side." Skye mms at the Gideon thing. "And I might have some help for that." Not just her little protege, but another ace up the sleeve she had, though Oracle had been rather more out of touch than less of late.

Melinda May has posed:
May again nods, but this time toward Skye, indicating that the younger agent has the gist of her idea. "Precisely. If it comes to it to show him that we're only trying to offer an alliance of sorts, have him come talk to me. If that doesn't convince him, nothing will." Well, maybe food would. If the two super soldiers are anything to go by, this kid's metabolism is likely even more ridiculous than theirs.

"Remember, Skye, I don't want you even thinking about starting work on the Gideon computer for two weeks. Not a minute sooner." She's fully expecting grumping and pouting in response to that.

Phil Coulson has posed:
"I was given the impression this was meant to be a follow up evaluation initially. I'll amend my approach then." Phil nods, taking the new parameters of the assignment to heart, before he looks to Skye, "Trust me. I know all about going stir crazy... but being hurt is nothing to scoff at. Potential permanent damage from overreaching is something I've had to deal with myself." Phil offers in consolation.

Then, he grins to Skye, "I'll be sure to bring you as many details as I can back about Gideon, and see about getting you a voice activated computer. How's that?"

Quake has posed:
"TWO WEEKS?!?" There are people down the hall who know Skye is unhappy about this latest state of affairs. "I'll be better way before then." Lips pursing into a crooked line of disappointment knowing May's next comeback is likely going to be a calm 'care to make it three?' and there is no winning this, even if her hands will be okay in a couple days.

Which means this isn't about her hands at all...

Coulson gets a slow, thoughtful nod. "Actually, that would be great." Not that Skye had worked with any before. Ms. Paranoid didn't precisely trust anything you could cheat your way into that easily. But it was, she had to admit, a hell of a lot better than doing absolutely nothing, which was her other prospect. She'd just keep it to things she wasn't too worried about being caught out at.

It did, however, put a small litle kink in their current mission project.

Melinda May has posed:
May simply raises an eyebrow and watches Skye's expression as she completes the entire exchange in her own mind. See? Her work here is nearly done. At Phil's offer to being her a voice response computer she nods to her fellow senior agent. She'll approve the requisitions for that if it'll help give Skye more time to heal properly without trying to rabbit.

"Is there anything else we've not touched on yet?" she asks Coulson. You know, just in case.

Phil Coulson has posed:
"Not off hand. As I said, I didn't pry too much. I didn't want the kid to feel like he was being interrogated... just questioned. Fine line there, especially with teenagers." Phil points out, before he stands up. "I'm gonna leave the button here for our tech people to take a look at, unless you want me to keep it with me?" Phil looks to Melinda for confirmation, a question in his tone as well.

Quake has posed:
Skye, knowing when she's beaten, and pondering what might also be behind this all, settles back on her bed. She has some good behaviour to pretend to be doing so that they'll let her out of this forsaken place.

Melinda May has posed:
May takes a moment to consider before replying to Phil. "Keep it with you. He created it for a reason, and I know you won't be tempted to misuse it. And keep me posted with what you find. I get the feeling that we might be asking him to help us as some point rather than the other way around."

She gives Skye another look, mostly because she's inwardly just a bit surprised that the younger woman has relented with only the one outburst. Maybe she's finally catchign on?