7893/Sentinels: Elusive Scientists

Sentinels: Elusive Scientists
Date of Scene:	15 June 2019
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Captain America and the Wasp sneak into a Sentinel facility to rescue Hank Pym.
Cast of Characters:	Captain America, Bastion, Wasp (van Dyne)
Tinyplot:	Sentinels

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Captain America has posed:
//Pym - Code Alpha, time to pony up - Rogers.//

The text pinged back to him on his phone with: //The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected.//

Unfortunately, both Stark and SHIELD personnel confirmed that the number is shut off entirely. Steve's phone goes away into his jean pocket and he stares off across the New York City skyline from the roof of the Avengers mansion. He reaches up and rubs at his scalp behind his ear, glowering at a crack in the low wall bordering the roof. Of all the times that the hard-headed scientist could go completely under the radar, it had to be now. His eyes flick to one side, focusing on nothing in particular as he thinks. What would Pym do? Where would he go? What would someone involved in the biochemistry of subatomic particles do if other scientists were being...

At a brisk speed, the Captain runs back into the mansion. "JARVIS, bring up the data dump that SHIELD acquired last night," he asks of the mansion's AI even as he skids into his personal office on the second floor, having to grab the lintel of the door in order to make the turn inside. Thank god the architecture holds.

On the holographic screen, pages upon pages of information pops up. Hurriedly, Steve flicks through them with fast gestures of his hand, muttering as he goes. "No...no...where is it, come on..." He stops, fingers semi-extended. There it is, nestled in a listing of names of underneath a scheduled transfer date in the past, people sure to have been kept uncomfortably in cells:

Pym, H.

"...sonnuva bitch," the Captain whispers to himself. At a louder voume, he asks, "JARVIS, please bring up the information regarding the transfer of these individuals." Given the cooperation between the Avengers and the X-Men, the location is quickly retrieved. Steve stares at the coordinates and the mapping imagery that comes up before him. He sighs.

"This'll be a walk in the park," he tells himself drily even as he downsizes it all to the corner of his office work-screen. "Nothing to it at all. Like storming the facility in Rouen. I'll be yawning."

Sneakily, a bundling of what he looked at is sent off to Janet's phone as a...just-in-case.

That being said, it looks like the suit and shield are coming out for a little star-spangled espionage.

Bastion has posed:
The yawner facility is marked as one of the oldest of Trask's American facilities. It previously was a robotics workshop, but has been since converted into a full-on Sentinel production facility, with huge land-grabs on both sides. It isn't a secret, that the place is making Sentinels, and making them for the American people.

There is ALWAYS a group of protesters parked outside. There's always a row of guards in the front staring at those protestors. Sometimes things are thrown, sometimes not.

Sometimes a Sentinel will walk out the front and the protestors will scatter, or try to hold their ground. There isn't any aggression from the side of the Trask facility: just a show of indifference and power.

A few times, protestors have tried to sneak in to shut the place down. Marion Mills has led those, mutant rights activist. She's been arrested twice. The sentinels always immediately just found her, or her other mutant friends. Otherwise, the facility is loud: booming sounds all through the day, as Sentinels are made.

The structure is the large warehouse, and then the factory building itself. Smaller buildings are next to the factory, leading to some basemenet areas, presumably. Most security is on the factory: that's where the targetted attacks have been.

Captain America has posed:
It's been a task reaching the area even around the facility. One can't just ride a motorcycle up to the front gate -- at least the protesters are there. But how to get past security...?

By riding in on a Sentinel robot, of course! It's a solution, abeit a fool-hardy one, but one half of Team Took All the Stupid has no issue with this at all. That being said, it wasn't difficult to find a Sentinel patrolling nearby and with the old assassin-like one-two of a few well-placed punches, it finds itself in dire need of repairs.

Having wrenched up a portion of the metal sheeting at the robot's shoulder, Steve huddles beneath its shadow in a desperate crouch that is doing nothing good for his lower spine and the bend of his left knee. Clinging like a spangly burr, the man watches the approach of the facility in his airbourne perch. Thank god for the cloaking technology shared between the Avengers and their fellow parties: at least the Captain won't be sensed by the sweeping of the robotic monstrosities.

Just a quick look-over, he thinks to himself while on approach -- see how the factory's functioning and if anything new and squirrely appears to be in the works -- then, over to the subbasement of Building C and to the cells. Nothing crazy!

Bastion has posed:
The Sentinel wasn't interested in fighting Captain America in the first place. It actually attempted to retreat when it was engaged. It was as if it had some rule in its programming to not fight the major American Superhero. It wasn't hart to beat up, due to that: it was mostly nonaggressive, just defenisve.

The damage, eventually, drove it back, and it flew into the air to try to retreat. That it also lost track of Captain America due to the cloaking tech against the sentinel's sensors made the ride possible. For now.

The Sentinel flies very high, enough to tear the air from a lesser person, and then arcs down steeply, starting to hover, and then begins to come straight down at the factory. It has to wait for two other sentinels, before it begins to more fully descend towards the clear landing pad at the center of the factory facility.

Below, there's a variety of rooftops, and more sentinels. And more Sentinels. Building C isn't really in jump distance, and there's a pile of sentinels there. Commence yawning.

Captain America has posed:
It's harrowing, that drop down towards the factory building from on high, and Steve in his hiding spot grips his handfuls of metal and wiring hard enough to stress them before he catches himself. No need to accidentally gut his ride in and send them both plummeting down to earth like Icarus with his waxy wings. The rooftops, however, those...despite the distancing between buildings (wise, he ruefully admits to himself), that'll be his drop-off point.

Timing his disappearance from the Sentinel's shoulder, he launches himself like a squirrel from the robot's shoulder once he can judge a landing on the surface within minimal impact sound and assured success. Going splat on the ground below would not only be loud, but ignominous. With a series of momentum-controlling sommersaults, Steve comes to a stop in a very low crouch on the rooftop, his shield curled beneath himself to keep sunlight from glaring from its surface.

He remains still, listening for the sound of alarm, before making his way in a brisk, prowling travel towards one of the skylights. Squinting, he looks down into the factory from above. Anything new and terrible going on not reflected in the most recent dossiers shared between the superhero teams?

Bastion has posed:
It's loud. But the whole factory is REALLY loud, so it's just more banging amidst a lot of banging.

Even so, from the ground, a Sentinel suddenly hovers, coming up to rest eye-level RIGHT THERE next to Captain America. It stares over the roof, clearly scanning. With a watchful focus, it checks for life forms. That fuzzy area that the tech is creating makes it pause, and scan a second time. Another sentinel, attracted by the scans, comes over to scan with a hand: a reddish beam passes back and forth over the roof.

It must feel like two T-rexes from a movie inspecting for him, yet somehow not seeing him.....

Captain America has posed:
It's like the time when Dernier snapped a twig not a dozen yards from a mounted machine gun turret. The horrid sensation of tingling in his spine means the upwelling of 'fight or flight' and a break-out of sweat. Steve lets his eyes slide over towards the Sentinel staring him dead in the face. He forces himself to breathe evenly, to remember the mantras of the sniper shared with him by Barnes -- mind the heart-rate, flow through the fear, let it pass and let it be strength and not weakness -- don't let adrenaline ruin the edge.

And the Captain does pray, silently and fervently, that the cloaking tech continues to buy him enough time that the Sentinels get bored or move on to something more interesting than him.

Like the flashbang grenade he whiffed off towards the entrance of the factory while leaping to the roof, timed to go off just about...

...now.

Bastion has posed:
The sentinel that just arrived to scan with one palm turns and orients towards the flashbang. The other one is less impressed, and finishes the scan it was doing before following.

On the ground, a few shouts happen: human guards spotted it, and yell to ask for status updates, heading over to the area, weaponry drawn. They're sick of the protestors climbing in or, worse, appearing with their weird powers, and it's made everyone very jumpy and trigger-happy.

Fortunately, there's just arguing and annoyance from the senior officer about 'just a prank'. They've had their share of those, as well. Even so, he's not a poor commander, and orders a sweep throughout the facility, RIGHT NOW. Sentinels take the order seriously, and a sweep of all areas begins, in a combination of Sentinel scanning and ground security.

Captain America has posed:
Drat: the ground forces do put a kink in things. Realizing that his rooftop is finished being scanned for now, the Captain rises to his feet and does a quick dash for the nearest corner. He stays low to the surface and peers over its edge cautiously.

Damnit again.

He ducks as a grouping of security swings by the bottom of the building and squints at a passing Sentinel robot in the air. Espying what must be a...oh god, some sort of laundry bin for personnel on-site beside a white van parked and now abandoned in the momentary frazzling of the security.

Fortune favors the bold. Down the Captain jumps...

...into the laundry bin and immediately buries himself beneath the sweated, grimed clothing. The intent is to wait for the fervor to pass and then borrow a uniform. Or at least attempt to, those shoulders are broad.

Bastion has posed:
It isn't as bad as it could have been, these uniforms. Most of the guards are brawny types. This is outside of a factory, though, so it's not so much uniforms as it is towels with various liquids on them. This bin is probably destined for an incinerator, not a wash. However, it isn't moving right now, so there's no danger of being flung into a trash compactor. The search is on, as the Sentinels do a sweep. One of them stops by the bin to scan it, and then moves on. The ground troops nearby are clearly backup for the Sentinel, watching it scan, and peeking around areas that the scanner can't clearly

The laundry bin gets shoved physically into the laundry area, to get it out of the way. They have sweeps to do.

With the tech keeping Steve blind to Sentinels, and the arrogance of the guards in assuming that the Sentinel has the best equipment, there are holes in their defenses.

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
There's a lot of noise and clatter in the area around the laundry room. Someone walking back and forth, moving, cleaning, tidying stuff up. "Oh, look at all these nasty old uniforms," the voice says. Female, a hoarse alto. "I'll just run these down to the incinerator," she announces, and starts to push the bin around. "All covered in nasty. Stinky, body odors, fluids, god knows what else, you'll probably get pinkeye just sitting in there, /Steve/," she says.

Someone kicks the side of the laundry cart. "Because it's gross in there, /Steve/, why are you even hanging out in a /laundry bin/? This is not an episode of Spy vs. Spy."

Janet stands in the laundry room, wearing a set of black-dyed fatigues worn by the contractors who secure the facility. Officer's rank on her shoulder, and she wears a smart looking black beret to go with it.

She's not all talk, she's busy scanning insignia on uniforms and making adjustments to her own uniform so it replicates the morale patches and markings needed to help her blend.

"Well? Are you coming along or not?" Janet asks Steve, and tosses a black leotard at him that looks like it *might* fit an adolescent teen. A skinny one. "If you're tagging along, you're gonna need a better disguise than 'Hi, I'm Captain America'," she quips at him, and steps back to the door to make sure it's locked.

Captain America has posed:
Once he hears the sound of the door locking, Steve pops up from the laundry bin like a disturbed groundhog. He pulls a dirtied towel from overtop his head and brushes off one from his shoulder before he clambers out.

"Look, if you had two choices to land and this was the softer one? You'd take it," he fires back with little venom. "Besides, I've smelled worse things and had worse things on me."

The imagination is always more awful than the stories.

Steve catches the leotard tossed at him by allowing it to wrap around his forearm free of the vibranium shield. He looks from it to Janet with a disapproving squint. "...this isn't going to fit overtop my suit, Janet."

Bastion has posed:
There's a sudden alarm blaring, and yelling outside. A group of armed guards rush past the window and door of the laundry. Something else is going on. "Is it eggs AGAIN this time?" growls a guard loudly as he passes the laundry door, flinging in his egg-covered jacket one-handedly at it before heading back to respond. It probably will just land on the floor outside the locked door. The protestors are starting to whoop outside, but the facility itself starts to also make sound.

It is a low, horrible sound of crushing metal on metal, as if the largest license plates in the world were being stamped. Everyone inside, and out on the lawn, can feel the pulse of force through the floor.

The whooping outside stops.

And the printing, slamming sounds, those continue. That's what the Sentinels are answering with: celebrate now while you can; we will drown it out.

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
Janet reaches for Steve's shield and touches a red disc to it. It shrinks down to something the size of a thumbnail and she reaches under her uniform for a little golden necklace with a loop built into it. The shield is pressed to the necklace with a *click* for safe storage and she tucks it out of casual view, though it's easy enough to get to.

"If you'd /asked/, I would have flown you in with me," Janet tells Steve. "A building this size has more mice holes and roach warrens than you'd believe. Except you snuck off her by yourself," she says, and kicks the laundry basket again. "And then emailed me an 'oh shit' message with a data dump, and then I had to bully JARVIS into telling me how to find you. It's a good thing you weren't far away. Now put the leotard on," she scolds him, and moves to the door to glance through the window.

She draws down the doorshade. "It's mimetic polycotton. Same thing I use for my travel suits," she clarifies. "I configured it to look like the fatigues they're wearing," she says, and plucks at her own outfit. "So no, it won't fit over your uniform."

She turns and rests her shoulderblades against the door, hands at the small of her back. Janet arches her back very subtly. "Don't worry, I won't let anyone in while you're changing," she promises, and gives him a thoroughly unreptentant smile. Does she look away? Of course not. She did pay for a show, after all.

Captain America has posed:
"...thanks." Janet gets a roll of Steve's eyes. The change-over between uniforms is swift and certain, though the leotard takes a bit longer to get on. Once the Captain's wearing it, he winces as he shifts in place and adjusts the lay of the material around his hips.

"I didn't miss these things," he mutters to himself. Between his knowledge of the uniforms and Janet's knowledge of the material, they're both looking rather fatigued (in the most inconspicious way) within a handful of minutes. Steve plucks two hats from the laundry bin, plants one on his head and then sticks the other on Janet's head. "Just pretend it's clean," he murmurs with a wry little grin. The spangled uniform is easy to stash away as well once shrunk down and out they emerge from the laundry room.

Steve speaks again quietly. "Game face. Like you will be shot if you smile." Their strides take them quickly across the grounds and towards building C. In the fury of the kicked anthill, they're just two little ants disappearing into it.

Bastion has posed:
A sentinel is passing by, they'll need to pause for a moment to let the long strides of the Sentinel carry it towards the main factory zone. There are two more coming, but the little ants can run their way into Building C without too much issue. In fact, someone coming out of there will hold the door for them, taking the moment to get a breath before running up towards the gate.

The building they enter is very clearly for administrative purposes, but it is also clearly an area where the human guard often occupy space. It makes sense to put the human security, here, instead of in the larger warehouse or factory locations. This level is mostly office-like areas, including some guard rooms, and access to the basement zones. There's a few high security doors to the basement, and some annoyed looking administrative workers. A television is on: they're watching news footage of their own front gate.

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
Janet makes a face at Steve. They're walking and moving, and she dials in his patches as they go so he's wearing appropriate rank and unit markings. "Okay. I'm Jamie Heida, officer first class. I'm from the Bronx and I've been with the Company for six years after finishing a stint as an Air Force intelligence officer."

She looks Steve up and down. "You can be Private Joe Smith," she says. "From, uh. Brooklyn."

Janet's not exactly the Black Widow but she gets her game face on as well as anyone else, and moves to a side entrance. The presence of the Sentinel requires that they dodge its path; Janet stalls by berating Steve for his uniform being somehow askew in a miniscule way, and then stomps across the field towards the other buildings like someone lookking to kick a person's teeth in. It also hustles them over to the next building quickly but discreetly, and she waves her ID commandingly at the guard. "My RFID chit's dead," she says. "Can you please wave me in?" She flashes a pretty but polite smile at the guard. Most people respond favorably to Janet's charms. Double down some rank over the security, the fact the'yre inside the perimeter security, and that he probably saw her bawling Steve out, and she seems pretty confident he'll just buzz her into the building proper.

Once they're inside she glances at a wallmap and keeps going forward, with that I-Will-Kick-You-In-The-Teeth stride that moves folks out of her way. With Steve in her wake like a tugboat hauling a cruiser, she moves along until they're deep enough for a quick confab.

"Okay. Labs or archives?" she whispers at Steve, glancing both ways along the intersection they're at. "We might have to sneak into those, I don't know how high this clearance is good for," she says, wiggling her ID card vaguely in her fingers at him.

Bastion has posed:
Janet's disguise works. It works /really/ well.

Four officers come over to her and start to hammer her for leadership and questions. She's the transfer? Great. They have a rat's nest of hellish stuff that has to be dealt with right now, and Mr. Hailey just got attacked at the gate, and she better come right now, because Mr. Trask won't be happy----

While it's overwhelming, it also leaves Steve Rogers entirely ignored, and able to sidestep right downstairs. The lower area isn't a laboratory: it's a few more offices, and some secured storage areas. A glance through the storage windows reveals more doors past those, though, that lead into a more medical area. Looks more like a morgue.

Captain America has posed:
The extra ID card with chit is put to good use. 'Private Joe Smith' steps downstairs with the same well-practiced air of cutting through the area like a shark through a reef, all subtle menace about it. Nobody asks questions, not in the hurry-scurry state upstairs, and thank god for it. Miss Jaimie Heide can field the insanity up there with far more aplomb and make headway, even if it contains elements of subversion here and there.

Once downstairs, he steps briskly towards the windows of the storage area. A squint and a glance down at the card reader and the Captain errs on the side of caution. An ID card from someone who visibly works on this level is sure to allow him entry without setting off alarms. It looks like good ol' McKultzky is going to let him borrow the ID card, whether the man at his desk likes it or not. With chin tucked as he walks past office one, all the better for the bill of his hat to hide most of his face, he walks in and barely gives McKlutzky time to act.

It's not pretty. Barnes would be rubbing his temple in embarrassment. However, after some sudden and controlled asphyxiation by a hand over the mouth and nose and an arm around the neck, the poor guy slumps. There goes the ID card, clipped to the lapel of his shirt, and there goes Steve, still walking briskly after he closes the door to McKlutzky's office. He swipes it across the card-reader at the door and slips into it without missing a beat, sure to close this door behind him as well.

Inside, it's still and mostly quiet save for the ambient hum of moving air and electricity. Cool. Close. It makes the hair on Steve's neck stand up. He pauses and listens.

Bastion has posed:
To make matters worse, McKlutzky is a fan! There's some clippings of Avengers items on his bulletin board. Then again, he might not be a fan exactly: those articles also talk about the Sentinels. Could be he's rather on the opposite side of the fanbase: so the hit serves him right. On his desk are a few old articles about original Avengers activity, and the founding members. Most of the founders are pictured. He was looking into something.

Still, there's a mission to complete, and rooms to access. Steve slips into the colder, air-controlled lower storage room. A server room seems to be down here, one of the closed types that just runs the administrative zone, would be a good guess. So there's a computer room. Next to that, is something that looks like medical. It's empty at the moment. Adjacent to that, is what's best just called a morgue. The door is heavy, recently added to the old facility. The keycard will open it.

There are some weird things in there. Two Cyborgs-like things (if they were just the cyborg parts: there's no human flesh here), most specifically, are on the immediate right, on long trays. Neither has legs attached, and they're wired to two large computers. Past that are two long beds, with oval-like apparatus hanging over them: they're probably a style of stasis pods often used for, say, cyborg part harvesting, or just keeping someone unconscious. They appear occupied, but it's hard to see what's in them from the door.

Captain America has posed:
Near-silent boot steps mark his travels through the storage area, brisk and readied for any sudden motion or sound. Steve lets his eyes travel and he notes room assignments and implements as he goes.

The morgue is eerie. His skin already feels to crawl along his arms and again, the ticklish sensation at the small of his back is gut-deep revulsion at the twisted nature of the medicine practiced. He warily eyes the half-formed technological skeletons on the metal trays. If anything, his travels have slowed now until each roll of his boots is pensive and silent.

Almost dreading what he's going to find in the stasis pods, the Captain makes his way towards them, reaching for a shield that isn't there on his back. A flinch of teeth -- that's an odd feeling nearing nakedness, not having it -- but he still commits to the approach, now with a slight bend to his knees in order to react.

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
Abruptly one of the deactivated cyber-skeletons sits upright and rattles at Steve. It's less clanking machinery and more... cheap Halloween decoration. Partially finished arms extend and wiggle at Steve, and it bobbles back and forth with a jittering laugh. And it giggles.

Janet peeks out from behind the dismantled cyborg, an unrepentant grin on her face. "Oh, my god, your faaaace," she whispers loudly, and sets the deactivated unit carefully back down against the table. The power pack is pretty visibly missing, in hindsight.

She walks around the table laughing softly but with wild sincerity, tugging her hat back on. "That was so worth it," she says, with a happy sigh. "Ahh. Anyway."

She digs under her chin for the pendant she's wearing and pops Cap's shield loose. With a raps of a nondescript ring on her finger against it, the shield *whumphs* into full size. Janet walks up to Steve holding the shield betwen them like, well... a shield, and gives him her most doe-eyed and wildly unchastised look as she hands it over.

"I dealt with the other floor guard," Janet explains, while Steve gets himself in order. She looks around, hands resting on her hips. "Ugh. Full cybernetics. I /hate/ cyborgs," she says, making a face. Janet beckons Steve along. "Okay, enough screwing around, mister. We got work to do."

Bastion has posed:
The hup-huss, hup-hiss of machines make for an uncomfortable sound of the room as well, like breathing in and out, but not exactly. Something's off about it, really. It's not breathing, but some sort of other thing.

The stasis pods probably shipped something here, they look like they're mobile. Looking into the long occupied stasis containers reveals, not people, but TINY containers, like you'd put leftovers in, but higher tech. They're opaque, seeing what's in them isn't happening. They're using the pods to refrigerate the containers and vaccuum-sealed plastic bags of red and semi-clear stuff. They're labeled, but just with various codes on them; they don't say 'eyeballs of Joe' or similar. Just 'B1-07-33' and the like.

The stacked containers and medical equipment hid a final door just next to them from view from the entryway. Skillful, in a way, that it was clearly there, in plain sight, yet how the apparatus of the container was draped made the door easy to overlook.

A little panel on it is flashing, though, in a subtle way. There's no window to see in, but there's a little console outside the door giving status update on two living persons, #02 and #06.

Captain America has posed:
Steve will not be telling anyone how he clears the floor when the skeletonized cyber-thing decides to shake, rattle, and roll at him. He grabs up a nearby metal surgical tool tray and is ready to throw that thing as hard as he can manage like a malformed shurikin through the half-formed ribcage when the Wasp appears. The Captain's mouth moves and then he levels a blistering hiss of words in Gaelic that is admittedly impolite and unhelped.

"Thank you," he says curtly of having his shield returned to him, still glowering as he works his heart-rate back down. "No more of that bunk." 'That bunk' being pranks in a work zone. Steve looks away from her in order to peer at the contents of the stasis pods. "If you can slip inside these pods and tell me what's in those bags, we can get out of here all the faster."

Sweet and subtle revenge.

The blinking of the console outside of the well-placed door catches his peripheral attention. Turning with shield readied, the Captain walks over to it and peers at the screen.

"Subject...two and six," he murmurs to himself, looking up at the door. "We gotta see." He sounds as if he's still dreading it. He lifts the keycard purloined and swipes at the pad next to the door's frame.

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
"Yeah, I'm not gonna do that," Janet tells Steve. She glances over her shoulder, eyes narrowing at the door. "Sounds like security's still dealing with that electrical fire over in the common area. Whole bunch of ants plugged the refridgerator exhaust. Should keep the leadership busy for a while trying to figure out who to blame. No one likes a fire."

She vanishes in a *puft* of air and lands on Steve's shoulder, priming a little fistful of bioplasma. Portable insect artillery!

t "I've got insects coming but they're having a hard time getting into here," she murmurs at Steve, and cranes her neck to look at the pods along with Steven.

Bastion has posed:
A "hard time" about the insects is an understatement. It's like somebody sprayed specifically to avoid having insects. They must not like them. Or have a good reason.

There are two medical style cots in the room, and they are pushed right up side by side on the right side, as if there were a lot more in the room. And unconscious people just don't care how tightly stacked they are. They're dressed in some ugly bleached-white scrubs, and covered in thin sheets. Each cot has a full face mask with tube system. The two people are clearly in temporary stasis, maybe recently awakened; they appear comatose.

The first person is a woman of maybe forty of possibly Indian descent; she normally probably has a warm light brown tone to her skin complexion, but now she looks more like a wax character. Her weight isn't too bad, but she has a sick sense to her: like someone that was overweight who lost maybe too much weight recently in a burst. Her hair is tightly bound on her head in braids, nicely colored with honey highlights, but they've grown out, untreated. Her face is obscured by the breath mask. One of the expected scientists was Dr. Sandhu; it could be her, though.

The second is a very pale Caucasian adult male. It's 'prison' pale, like he's been in Solitary. He's in somewhat worse shape, entering a 'too skinny' category. Blonde hair is apparent, as is a few months of facial hair growth. His face is similarly obscured, but as a potential match for Hank Pym, it's very likely.

Captain America has posed:
"That's insubordination, Shortcakes," Steve reminds her sotto-voce with a lilt of wry amusement in his voice. Still, that faint smile dries up quickly after they both enter the room beyond the medical facility. "As long as the bugs are on your side, I've got no complaints."

The sight of the people on the two gurneys is enough to make Steve's stomach wrench -- a brief flicker of memory takes him back to Zola's laboratory, with its sulferous lighting and metallic sterility and Barnes lying there and -- back to the present with the smallest hiccup of a gasp at shedding the horrifying flashback. Then, he shakes the freeze of shock from himself and steps forwards, looking between the woman and the man.

"Oh - my god," he says quickly. He knows the man's facial structure beneath the lack of care and loss of weight; artist's memory is a double-edged sword. "Let's see, um..."

The Captain quickly looks over the machinery keeping the flow of oxygen to the individuals and finds the dials to adjust the amount of coma-inducing chemical to nearing zero.

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
"You can discipline me later," Janet sallies back at Steve with a flirty airkiss.

She peeks into the chamber and the color drains from her face as Cap starts trying to assess the situation. Janet's already flying off of Steve's shoulder, rushing to Hank's side with a look of terrible concern on her face. "Hank! Oh fuck, Hank!" she exclaims, worry in her voice.

She resists the urge to rip off the medical equipment, even though it takes her the point of fingertips resting on the cluster of tubs and hose. Steve's being more practical about it by adjusting the chemical admixtures to wake them up.

Despite the beeping of medical gear, Janet presses fingertips to Hank's throat and peels his eyelid back to examine his pupil response. "Comatose," she informs Steve. Her tone is terse and tight with stress. Janet rests a hand on Hank's chest and forces herself to clamber up and examine the other subject. "She's in the same boat. I don't know what they're giving them."

Her head tilts towards some sound Steve can't hear. "Damnit. I don't know how heavily they're dosed," she says, fretting her lip. "But if we're gonna exfil under cover we need to move fast. Um... more oxygen?" she hazards at Steve. "I don't know how to reverse an induced coma. Uh... adrenaline, modafinil, Nalaxone if you can find some," Janet suggests, and starts casting around for a pharmaceutical cabinet.

Bastion has posed:
There's an alarm system very clearly set on Hank Pym's stretcher, left arm has two leads stuck to it, as well one on his neck.. If any of his levels change for more than a few seconds, it's going to set off something, is a very reasonable guess to make, because it's a lot of monitoring, not life supporting. The woman doesn't have the same amount of apparatus on her, at all: he's the security problem, though she does have one simple monitor for her heart.

The machines are pretty well labeled, and adjustments aren't difficult to make, to reduce the exposure to the chemicals that they're being flooded with. The system prompts Steve, from a console, if they should be made ready for transport, as he begins to unplug things.

Hank Pym's signals immediately begin to show improvement; the woman's don't seem to respond as quickly. There's plenty of gear out by the creepy Cyborgs for Janet to dig around in, and the computers contain good information on care for the two 'patients' in case they do need to be awakened.

A log, if there's time spent to skim, goes over the procedure for awakening them once Project 1 is available. It's dated mid-March, though. They've been waiting a while.

Captain America has posed:
"I don't want to jam anything into them if I don't know what they're on in the first place." Steve grits his teeth and belatedly looks over his shoulder out of paranoid, long-earned habit after the fashionista appears to hear something. "I'm not sure about waking them up so fast -- if there's a chance to give them something like the bends, like surfacing from down deep."

Taking a handful of seconds to skim over the instructions as to post-waking care, the Captain lets out another soft expletive in Gaelic. "We move 'em, that alarm system goes off. Think you can go shrink the guys in the offices and we'll swap 'em?" A light enters his eyes. "'nd then, we can shrink these two after we bundle 'em up carefully. There's got to be a small bag around here somewhere, you can stay in the bag and keep an eye on 'em?" he asks of Janet.

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
"No. Maybe," Janet says, a beat later, and eyes the medical equipment. "It's really dangerous just shrinking people willy-nilly without proper equipment or genetic modification. Hank did it all with prosthetics," she explains, resting a hand on Hank's sallow, sunken chest. "There are issues with oxygen transfer, heat dissolution..."

She frets her lip. "I... Fuck," she snarls, and pushes her hands through her hair. "I don't know. If we ..." She starts scrambling around, retrieving oxygen masks and spare medical gear. "Okay. One of us will need to shrink down with them. Hold them stable and make sure the medical gear stays in place. I ..." She looks at Steve. "I think you should shrink with 'em," she says, voice a little small and uncertain. "I can walk y'all out of here in a shoebox. No one's gonna mess with me," she says ,trying to sound braver than she is. "You can keep them stable and I'll head for the exits as fast as I can. We've got... minutes. Maybe minutes," she says. "If you've got some brilliant other idea, I would find it /incredibly/ sexy," she says, with a desparate hope. But she's still pulling medical gear.

Bastion has posed:
As Steve ordered the machines to stop drugging them, the life signs are still looking better. Over time, they're improving more and more; the woman's signs are still dragging a little, but then she starts to improve. The machines give a guesstimate on how long they'll have until there's any shred of conscuousness, and warns about transfer. If they awaken, they'll need to wait for a period before they can be put under again, the console warns.

Captain America has posed:
"Since you're the sexier between the two of us, we'll go with your plan. You're right. Bet you already got half the staff upstairs charmed enough to ask you to drinks." It's a painful attempt at humor, but hey, Steve tries. He glances back at the estimatation until the two captives regain consciousness. "If you're gonna get the guards, you better do it quick. I don't want to bring down the ant hill on us. I want to bring the ant hill down on them. Bet they didn't prepare for a sudden swarm of hornets, if you've got any of those up your sleeves." He gets ready to do whatever is necessary to facilitate the swap.

Bastion has posed:
The gambit to shrink both comatose people while they are... comatose and hooked to equipment is exceptionally dangerous. Shrinking a person without the proper suit and protection and equipment is already very deadly, let alone people that are weak and unconscious, let alone (again) hooked up to a variety of machines equipment going into their bodies.

Perhaps worse, someone has crept up on them while they are trying to decipher how to get the woman safely into a position to even take the procedure.

"I /knew it/ breathes the guard from the door. He's using the door as part of a shield, and has a gun in his other hand. It's Mcklutzky, he woke up.

He suddenly realizes what he looks like, and he lifts the gun, turning it in his hand to show he won't shoot them. "He is an Avenger. You all are," the guard says. It isn't hostile, it's in awe. "...What are you trying to do?" he asks, voice quieting.

Captain America has posed:
Immediately upon hearing the foreign voice, Steve turns in place and blows his cover entirely with the spangled shield on full display in guard before himself and the others. McKlutzky has it correct: there are definitely Avengers present and accounted for.

The Captain errs on honesty, given what he can see is honest confusion in the guard's expression. "This scientist is one of ours. He's beyond date for rousing, both of 'em. Got an issue he needs to address. McKlutzky, is it? We need to get 'em back to our facility before they deteriorate further. We've got state of the art medical tech to get 'em back where they need to be."

Bastion has posed:
"It's Richard." He gestures to himself. "---They were brought here months ago," McKlutzky answers, with some measure of hero-worship evident, but he's also not a fool about the situation. He comes in further, closing the door a little bit more behind him. He's probably not a guard, based on his attire: looks more like science, himself. "We weren't given any names, just to keep them in stasis. But I agree they're dying. We told them." He gestures vaguely above him, with some sudden fear.

But also resolve. "I won't sound the alarm," Richard says. He look uncertain. "But I don't know what else I could do."

Captain America has posed:
"You're a good man, Richard." With the shield lowered now in display of faith in the not-quite-guard, Steve looks at the two comatose scientists. "Help us get these two stabilized. They're coming up from it, but we need them stable before we move them. Nobody's gonna rat you out, Richard, not for this. We can get you into the Witness Protection program -- or hell, you come work for us. Guarantee you no one's looking to do anything like this."

And the way Steve says it drips with disapproval as he looks back at Pym and who could be Dr. Sandhu.

Bastion has posed:
"I'm not sure I'm confident I won't make this worse," Richard says, honestly, but approaches, to the terminal full of information. "But I know there's procedures here. It's fine." It's like he's partially talking himself up. There's pressure when Captain America is looking right at you, maybe. "I'm more of a mechanic, I work with the equipment." Not a doctor.

Still, his hands race over the console, and he's able to help Janet and Steve towards stabilizing, following the directions he reads to them. "Sentinels is one thing, but this...." Richard met a limit, as his eyes move over the scientists.

He's able to help stabilize them fully, and also picks up on what their problem is, as Janet and Steve talk over what they intend to do. "If you can extract us this evening, I think I can get one of them out, with my coworker Alisa helping; she doesn't approve of this either, but we could hide one of them in a cyborg shell. But we both need protection, if we help you."

Captain America has posed:
"Anything you can do to help. It takes a pebble to start an avalanche," the Captain reminds him even as he doesn't step immediately aside. Only once the mechanic has holstered the gun is he let past and to the comatose patients. Steve follows the instructions listed and between him and Janet, stabilization occurs.

The true-blues flick up from Pym's mildly sunken features to Richard again. "Dunno that they'd let you out easy after this. Made some noise coming in." Steve's smile is wry and uncomfortable. "Think you can hide her inside a cyborg shell, like you said, while we get him into a uniform? Mark it up as an incident. Cyborg attacked him, both need care? Two birds with one stone."

Bastion has posed:
Richard looks overwhelmed, but brave. "I... let me text Alisa. I won't leave without Alisa too, and she knows these shells. We can try," Richard answers, removing his phone. "Too bad he's not mutant-looking; we've thrown a bunch of them outside, I think. I don't know how they get in here. Mutant powers, I guess. One got shot, sent to a hospital," Richard says.

"I don't get signal here, I'll be right back." The man, if allowed, will go back out into his office area, looking at his phone.

Captain America has posed:
Steve nods. "You have a minute," he instructs the man. As soon as Richard's out of immediate earshot, the Captain asides to Janet, "Trail him. If he turns, rock him." The Wasp nods, her face pale but set, and shrinks down to zip after the mechanic in a near-silent whirr of wings.

It leaves Steve to mind the gurneys with the patients. "How'n the hell'd you get into this mess, Pym...?" he asks the unconscious man, letting the nausea he feels in the pit of his stomach show on his face. Still, he momentarily leaves the rolling beds to go look at the cyborg shell'd, seeing if it's correctly sized for the woman to fit within.

Bastion has posed:
Janet will see that Richard is on the up-and-up, though his texts are a bit agitated. There's some conversation on their texting of 'I think I've figured out who the scientists are' and 'shut up, richard, you'll get us killed' from prior that Janet can read on their chat history as he launches into, 'Come to your office RIGHT NOW and talk to nobody'. She replies with 'I'm busy', and they have a little conversation about that he's not joking, and similar. Finally she says she'll come, and Richard comes back to the door to relay that Alisa is coming to help. He's only partially lying: Alisa might not know what she's coming down for.

She does come, though, and the team is able to very quickly convert her. She's excited, brave about it. She's a cyberneticist, but didn't sign up to work with body parts of unknown people. She'll help them prepare the Cyborg shell. She does tests with them often, she can walk fully outside with it. That's one down, for sure.

Pym didn't give any answer to Steve's questions, but is very stable, if still unconscious from his bad condition. Richard, able to shut off the alarm, helped in his own way. Both people are sort of wrapped up in the excitement of a mission with Captain America and the Wasp. Richard's more cautious, Alisa's fiery about it. She's ready to rock.

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
Janet slaps a hand on the table to interrupt the two technicians as they start bickering, and curses then both down with a sulferous amount of cursing. "Oh my god! I will COMP YOUR PENSIONS if you get fired," Janet snaps. The situation's making her particularly tense and aggravated. "This is bigger than your damn careers! You're complicit in kidnapping!" she reminds them. "And unlawful detention! You're looking at life in prison without the GLOWING character reference I'm going to write for you two," she snaps.

Janet puts a hand on Richard's arm, then Alisa's. She's stronger than she looks, glancing from one to another. "I get it. It's big and scary world and you've got mortgages. It's hard to focus on doing the right thing, even when the Avengers ask," she says, her tone sweetly mollifying. "So if it helps grease the skids a bit, the *second* we're clear, I'll cash you out for the full value of your pension and personally find you work at least fifteen percent over your current wage, modified for COLA by zip code. But you have to /help us/."

Patriotism, morality, bribery. Janet knows how to hit that holy trifecta of convincing reluctant people to help her.

"Okay. Soon as they're ready to go, we're gonna hit the ground running," she explains to the others. Her eyes twitch a little as she tries to process an uncomfortable amount of external sensory data. "Now in a minute, shit's going to go fucking nuts. There are about a million ants that are going to swarm up from the earth and every wasp and nesting hornet inside a city mile's coming here looking for a fight. Once we get out the main doors, do not get more than fifteen feet away from me. You're probably gonna get stung once or twice. Don't panic," she warns the others, and glances out their exit path again. "If you panic and run, you're gonna need an ER treatment. I figure we'll have twenty minutes of free travel before they wise up and deploy some kind of countermeasures. So we move fast, commandeer a vehicle, and haul *ass*. Anyone got any questions?"

Bastion has posed:
".... I need to use the restroom," Richard admits, when asked if there's questions. He moves towards the offices to do that, in a sudden rush. It looks like he's going to vomit, not that he needs to pee.

"I have a question," Alisa asks, though. "I don't think the stinging insects will help with the Sentinels. They're not programmed to hurt humans, we were told, but I don't know what they'll do, honestly."

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
"Alisa-- can I call you Ali?" Janet puts an arm around the woman's shoulders in a comraderly fashion. "Have you ever heard of Japanese honeybees?" she inquires. "They're awesome. Huuuge, big nasty suckers. No stingers. They kill their prey by swarming it and making it cook itself to death."

"So don't worry about the Sentinels. Let me worry about Sentinels. You worry about Richard, and making sure these two cucumbers--" she waves at the coma patients-- "make it out of here in one piece. Okay? Consider it your /personal responsibiility/." Fingers tighten pointedly.

"And if it helps, try thinking about what color of Lexus you'd like. I'm a fan of eggshell white, but you look like the kinda gal who'd rock a custom Tiffany Blue paintjob." She disengags from Alisa and finishes up her end of the preparation.

Bastion has posed:
"I don't have a Lexus, I don't know that I /need/ a Lexus. My kids trash cars. ....But I do have a van," Alisa answers. "Outside, I mean." Alisa's less interested in the monetary promises: she's been pretty eager from the start to have this adventure of a lifetime.

Captain America has posed:
Steve watches Richard go with a frown of concern, but makes no move to follow him. He knows the nervous nausea of looking down the barrel of danger well enough, has seen it thousands of times over the years.

"Van'll be what we'll use then. Get 'em both in the back while the place deals with the swarms." He gives Janet a glance. "I'm glad you're on our side. This'll probably look biblical," he comments with the barest hint of a dimpling. "Once Richard's back, we move."

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
They're set. No more delaying. No more talking. Janet eyes the last door to the exterior with a scowl and waves a hand sharpyl, dismissing dozens of insects fluttering around and wriggling through the door cracks.

"God. This always gives me a migraine. Fucking /cicadas/," she gravels, and puts her hands against her temples and squeezes.

The doors are opened and a cacophanous din greets the rescue team.

Biblical's an understatement. It's a warzone. Wasps and yellowjackets are harassing anything on two legs. Beetles and ants are crawling onto Sentinels, into them, jamming up exhaust and air intake manifolds. Even Sentinels need heat discharge. People underestimate how many insects are under their feet. Interesting fact: the biomass of insects outnumbers that of humans by 200 to 1. The family Hymenoptera is one of the most visible, but far from the largest. Coleoptera-- beetles-- make up a full quarter of that mass.

And every insect inside of Janet's range is responding to an imperative call centered around her person: Protect the Queen! Protect the nest!

Forcing herself to push past the migraines, Janet beckons the others along and walks with a steady pace towards the motor pool/parking lot so Steve can hotwire a vehicle for them to commandeer. All around here is a bubble of free space the insects seemingly miraculously avoid.

Bastion has posed:
There's chaos. Loki would be proud.

There is a mess outside, as Sentinels stomp about. Many of them experience difficulty, others attempt protect the humans by laying down heavy heat blasts. Many insect lives will be lost this day, but the facility has bigger problems than a group of people crossing through the middle of it, looking just like anyone else running because there are crazy insects everywhere.

At first, the protesters cheered, thinking this was one of their own mutants causing it, but it has rapidly turned to screaming there, too, as they quickly flee from the sentinel facility.

Because BEES!

Alisa helps bring the cyborg shell out, controlling it, and throws her keys to Richard. He'll bring them to steve, while they load it up.

The Sentinels, acting much like the hive, fall back heavily to protect THEIR queen -- which must be in the big factory.

Captain America has posed:
Steve catches the keys without fail. It's an absolute madhouse now and he ducks now and then as large grasshoppers rattle past; a bumblebee whacks off his cheek like a rubber bullet as he tries to open the doors a little faster -- first the back two and then the driver's side, unlocking the rest with a push of the button.

He slips back to the rear of the truck to check on things and on his way, he can be seen to twitch and jerk to one side, squinting his eyes. Somebody got stung after all through the leotard - ouch.

"They need tending and you're known faces, stay in the back with them," the Captain instructs of Alisa and Richard before he returns to the front of the van, sliding into the cab.

Bastion has posed:
Alisa's van isn't empty. There's car seats and things. Because kids. So there's some time required to move those out of the way. The person in the passenger side might need to share it with a stuffed Kermit.

"Yes, sir. Captain America, sir," answers Richard. He probably has always wanted to say that. Both of the people as they are told, sticking with the comatose people they are trying to rescue.

Wasp (van Dyne) has posed:
Janet's attentiuon is wholly focused on directing the insect horde. She gets into the van and grimaces at everything around her, hands presed to temples to try and suppress the pain from her efforts. "God they're /loud/," she hisses.

"Steve, get us out of here," she tells Captain America, pain in her voice. "I can't keep focusing like this forever. It's starting to give me tunnel vision. Just drive!"

Captain America has posed:
"Yes m'am," replies the Captain to Janet, brisk and on-point. He looks back over his shoulder and after ascertaining that everyone's buckled in -- or at least steadied -- he gets the van into gear and rolling. "I apologize in advance for necessary evasive maneuvers."

Thank god it's only three turns and one sharp swing in order to avoid clots of guards caught in the open and a Sentinel beam swung wide. The van doesn't tip, but it's not something Steve wants to do. Alisa instructs to take the side exit given it is an exit-only scenario. Her ID card blips at the reader and Steve calmly continues driving the van out into the main road. He eyes the rearview mirror and the continuing chaos as it disappears into the distance.

About a minute later, in a lull of silence, he can be seen to shift in the driver's seat. "...got stung," he grumps sotto-voce.

Bastion has posed:
Suddenly, the whole van lurches as the contents inside are suddenly filled with the expanding size of Giant-Man. One leg slams hard onto the back of the van, kicking the back door wide open, and flinging all of the medical machinery off the foot of the cot he was on. One massive shoulder shoves hard up against the passenger seat, which screams in protest against the sudden huge occupant. It was just a pulse, though, Hank drops back to normal size again, but rolls a little bit off of the cot. He was awake just long enough to react to being kidnapped, and attempted to shift, and then passed out again.

Alisa is screaming, Richard nearly fell out of the back, and the cyborg-container is loose and rattling in the back of the van against the flung open hinge of the back door.

But at least they're out of the facility.