Owner	Pose
Doctor Mid-Nite	Word had gone out on the wire, small retro-tech boards in the deep web that are used by the minds of the masked vigilante crowd. It's all done with pseudonyms and hidden connection information, but over time people have gotten to know each other. At times a case study will pop up, information with identifying intel obscured but giving enough for the big brains to get an angle on what's going down. For the most part the user #12AMMD had kept to himself, though some of the people who have met him before could identify who he was, he didn't really hide it too much. Oftentimes he needed another set of eyes to look at something, and what might have drawn a few eyes was his current operation.     #12AMMD: case. toxin vector. possible mutagenic. delivery system medieval. need set of eyes attached to a brain ideally. PM info.     And that was it, but it was enough for the two men to connect, to make the rendesvouz and so the time had been set. Midnight, of course, over Harlem since the cloud cover will be viable for stealth air operations. And at the appointed hour, Dr. Mid-Nite's airship was hovering silently in that cloud bank, its silhouette disguised with the subtle stealth systems. Invisible to air traffic control and even to sensors, if only obscured to the naked eye... it held its position high above, the upper airlock open and ready to receive a visito.     Meanwhile, inside, the good Doctor has his cowl tossed back and is busy poring over a multi-function display that feeds him data on the side of the research chamber on the main deck.
Ted Kord	As silently as Mid-Nite's own ship was the Blue Beetle's 'Bug' craft, a portal opening on its underbelly to allow the pilot to lower himself via skyhook toward his colleague's ride. User #%317336.40F was not going to miss the request provided. And if there was one thing he knew, it was that he had a set of eyes attached to a brain. "Knock knock," the Beetle says as he enters Mid-Nite's ship cabin. "I've got to say. The 'medieval' qualifier /really/ sold it for me. I trust we can use modern equipment to analyze it, though, right? Not sure how big you are on anachronistic dissonance. I only ask because I've got a, uh, friend who won't shut up about it."
Doctor Mid-Nite	"Kord! Come in." The voice lifts and once Beetle's made the clambering climb down the ladder and into the main research area, the Doctor turns around to offer greeting. It's not the usual fare that Ted's probably used to, considering a good chunk of the displays, equipment, and sensor are geared for an individual who does not have eyesight, but when guests are coming over adjustments are made so the data can be granted in a dual-presentation.     "Ah, as to that." He steps over and there's no hesitation, hand's extended for the other man to find and grip, then they shake a few times and the man with the dark glasses nods his head a few times. "Medieval in that... well, it's barbaric." He turns his head to the side slightly, as if looking over Ted's shoulder. "Let me give you the storyline, and I'll bring up the data as we go. Alright?"     He pauses then turns his head aside, "Crap, you want a drink? I think I got tomato juice." He grimaces, "Don't do much entertaining."     But if the offer is accepted he'll step over to where he keeps the mini-fridge (no frills there) and pulls out the drink, offering it before moving on.     "Alright, you know the whole thing with New York, Gotham. Each side of the river."     His hand gestures to the side and the gauntlet he wears flares a small light slightly and then the display behind him springs to life to present a map of the two cities so close together. "Russians on one side, Ukrainians on the other. Bad news. Constant hate."
Ted Kord	"No need for a drink, please," Beetle responds. "Especially not anything that might look like the gore I anticipate you showing me." He follows his host and pauses to look at the map. "Sure, sure. I mean, I /want/ to say 'it's all Greek to me,' given the barbaric nature of the situation..." He pauses a moment, pursing his lips. "But I have the feeling that you might look down on such a tasteless joke." Blue Beetle rubs his costumed forehead. "Sorry, sorry. I've just been spending too much time recently with a complete moron, and now I feel like it's rubbed off on me. Russia. Ukraine. Bad blood. Got it. Please, continue."
Doctor Mid-Nite	A snort comes from the Doctor as he shakes his head, though to be fair, that is close to a laugh at the comment. But then he presses on with the presentation at hand. "There'd been a balance for the last three years, both sides had their territories, things had been going well, all of them being complete bastards not withstanding."     He taps the display and it shifts showing the Russians making inroads into Gotham, "Something shifts the balance. Boom, Ukrainians start dying. High ranking monsters who are untouchable normally, guys who are so paranoid that they don't even go to the bathroom without four bodyguards just in case their peckers attack them."     There's a flicker on the screen showing four separate big wigs all with big Xs. "I got hands on with one after the fact," Images of the fallen are displayed, they all have elements of utter toxicity marked on their forms. There are small electronic swirls over points of importance. "All of them showing total organ failure in a window of say thirty two to thirty eight minutes upon introduction of the toxic compound."     "After the first one, they start to key to it. Somebody poisoned their buddy, they take steps. These aren't idiots. They go full hard core hands on food screening, inebriants, dwellings, family members. They even went whole hog on only using the most meticulous of female companions, as it were."     He coughs a bit out of politeness' sake.
Ted Kord	"I see," Beetle responds, eyes narrowed in focused attention. He folds his arms across his chest, listening to his companion while closely scrutinizing each image displayed. "And you've made sure it wasn't their genitals that murdered them?" He glances sidelong at Mid-Nite for a minute before chortling. "Couldn't help it." Then, he shakes his head and his smile vanishes. "Oh, God. What's happening to me?" the Beetle asks quietly. After a moment of a seemingly crushing realization, Ted shakes his head and clears his throat. "Game face, game face," he mumbles. "So ... when you say /medieval/, are you thinking some sort of dormant disease or poison or the like?"
Doctor Mid-Nite	"When I say medieval... was when I found the first group of corpses." Dr. Mid-Nite's tone shifts a bit as he frowns, but he turns his head slightly to address Ted more directly. "Long story short," He says as a plethora of images flash by, showing at first some women, a few are dead in a hospital.     "I found that some women had been reported with similar symptoms, one was brought in still alive then died while the ER team tried to administer treatment. Did some digging, they were all prostitutes. All with connections to the Ukrainians."     He pushes a button on his gauntlet again and shifts the display to a chemical formula with an unknown element in a chemical cocktail, he points towards it and says. "It turned out that the Russians would be dosing groups of women with several extremely toxic compounds coupled with this... carrier element I am calling it. They would apply this mix to a group of women. Most of them it would kill, one of them would have the necessary genetic makeup to endure the introduction of the compound. From that point on she would be extremely toxic to anyone she would trade bodily fluids with. Eventually their immune system would fail and they would suffer the fates of the marks they were aimed at."     Another click and a display shows the sequence of events from start to finish, all of the one woman who had made it to the hospital. It starts at arrival via human trafficking, introduction of the compound, then her introduction into the gang as a 'present' of some kind, and then her mark dying with her passing several hours later.     "What is stymieing me is the unknown element. What is the carrier that ensures the delivery? I am starting to think it may be metahuman in nature."
Ted Kord	"Ah," Beetle responds. "I ... see." He tilts his head slightly to one side as he says that, and he looks to Mid-Nite. "I've got to ask--how do you put these presentations together? I can't imagine there's useful alt text for these particular images..." Blue Beetle trails off. "No, never mind. Sorry. I'm distracting." "Okay," he adds with a sigh. "Do you have any indicator that it's definitely bodily fluids? What about something even more innocuous, like a perfume or other pheromone?" The Beetle begins slowly pacing back and forth. "That said, we can't necessarily rule out bodily fluids, either. Could be some sort of sudden-onset obliteration of human immune systems. Mutating bacteria? Something radioactive? Hell," he adds, throwing his hands up to emphasize the speculative nature of his statement, "the invading cells could have gained sentience."
Doctor Mid-Nite	A nod is given as he tilts his head at the comment, then smirks. "Actually I post on Reddit asking for help under my alt account, 'IRLGurl'." He gives a nod as if that solves many of the world's problems, and hey it might.     But then he gives a grunt a he motions towards the display to the side of the room, where a toxin screening of several of the victims are on a monitor. He touches a hand into the 'display' that he uses, holding it over the series of variable height icons that allows him to perceive a series of information fairly rapidly. "Airborne would have had a higher exposure rate. At least once it's introduced to one of the young women. I feel like... like there's a step before to prime them as a delivery system. Now /that/ step." He turns to the side to look over Blue Beetle's shoulder, "That step could very well be airborne. I am just missing that particular part of the puzzle."     He spreads his hands, "If we find that, then we could put a kibosh to the whole thing. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get to far into the compound, it's confounding me. I thought maybe you could take a sample back with you and examine, tell me what you come up with."     He takes a deep breath, "I had thought it might perhaps be some sort of... meta power of some kind? A defense mechanism? I don't know. And honestly I am getting close to being exhausted. I'm going to need some downtime."     He tilts back towards Ted, "I thought you could maybe come at it with a fresh point of view while I finally get some sleep."
Ted Kord	In response to Mid-Nite's social media revelation, the Beetle nods. "Makes sense," he says as if immediately able to accept this explanation. "Doc," Blue Beetle says with a smile, "you don't have to worry about the hard sell. You know I've got your back." He pats Mid-Nite's shoulder and nods again. "I'll certainly see what I can do. I know my specialties are more in the 'engineering' spheres than those of the 'medical sciences,' but I may have a few pieces of equipment that could help." "What kinds of guinea pigs have you been using for your previous hypotheses? Are symptoms only apparent in humans?" he asks. "Or mammals of a broader sort?"
Doctor Mid-Nite	"From what I can tell, the carrier is immune to whatever toxins are introduced to her body so long as she's affected by the carrier compound. It's once that is flushed from their bloodstream that the hindered toxins become volatile again." He rubs the back of his neck absently, frowning as his brow furrows. "Sorry, fuzzy headed. But all my research is..."     The blind man turns and extends a hand behind him to one of the storage racks, counting from the top and then the left until he finds the small drive he's looking for. "Here, feel free to make a copy if needs be. Also some really sweet cat videos are on there."     He turns back and holds the drive out in the palm of his hand, waiting for Beetle to take it. "You can make use of the facilities here, but I figure you'll be more comfortable in your own lab."
Ted Kord	The blue-clad hero nods. "Yeah. No offense, but you know how it is. Everything's just more comfortable when it's your stuff, and you know where to reach for a particular item, and so on, and so on." Beetle begins assembling a set of samples and relevant data to take with him, but he pauses to stare at Mid-Nite for a moment. "Let me ask you something, Doc...how long have you been feeling so tired. Would you say 'tired'? Or perhaps 'unwell'?" He clears his throat. "Let me ask even more plainly, actually. Should we be quarantined?"
Doctor Mid-Nite	"No." But there's a pauses as he can probably /see/ the gears whirring in Dr. Mid-Nite's mind, but then he adds with sureness. "No. The toxins are non infectious and the carrier has a short life span. No evidence of a dormant state." He gives a short sharp nod with a grunt.     "My tiredness is pure weakness of the flesh. I've clocked..." He touches a hand to one of the displays, but then says simply, "Too many hours without rest." Instead of the number. He furrows his brow and then turns back towards Ted, "Are you all set? Sure you don't want that tomato juice?"
Ted Kord	With a nod, the Blue Beetle gathers up the materials in his arms. "I'm set, I think. You should definitely get some rest." He walks back toward the airlock, but stops to turn around for a moment. "Doc, it still might be safe to stay locked in here for a bit. Just in case ... whatever this is ... got airborne. At least for however long it's supposed to run its course. I promise to do the same in the Bug." Beetle grins. "Even if I would love to get Booster sick as a dog."
Doctor Mid-Nite	"Hah!" The Doctor smirks as he turns away from his guest, starting to feel his way along a table and then towards a portal in the back of the ship. "Give him all my love and kisses and all that crap, and tell him he's still verboten from the airship. Right? Right."     But having said that the older man stops in the portal, tossing a nod towards the man. "See this is why I need a sidekick. Could get some sleep and put the lil bugger to researching. I'll see if Bats can spare one of his." Another wave is given, and after that he disappears from view.     "Fly safe, Kord!" And then the door closes behind him, leaving Blue Beetle the run of the airship.