Summary:A new sculpture summons a swarm of rats. Good thing heroes were on hand Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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The Japanese American Association of Staten Island is a charitable organization, more or less. It's one of the many sorts of civic organizations that provide networking opportunities for its members and philanthropy for the communities they live in. And tonight they're hosting an event coinciding with the traditional timing of various Rice Festivals in Japan and though that may sound quaint the roster and events are very much standard for sort of middle-to-upper crust society functions. There's a charity auction. There's a dinner. There will probably be some dancing both traditional and not and there may even be some Noh. The stated purpose of it all is to raise money for the Hokkaido Earthquake Relief Fund, though of course as with all events of this nature the real purpose is to talk to be people and be seen in a favorable light. Some folks come here to drum up business. Others to make or reinforce connections. And some have been invited because someone who can pay $350 a plate was suitably impressed with them and wanted them here.
Events are very much in the 'Mixer' phase right now. There's cocktails and appetizers and people are generally floating around a rather nice space in one of Staten Islands nicer hotels exchanging pleasantries.
While Kelly Dehaven doesn't make much of it, she comes from an affluent family back on the West Coast. Her dad had plans to visit and had gotten a ticket to the event and then it ended up he couldn't make it. So he sort of guilt tripped Kelly into going in his stead, which is why she's here, dressed to the nines, and feeling oh-so-out-of-place. Her slinky evening gown comes complete with gloves to hide her chrome-silver arms and she's plastered a smile on her face to go with a lot of nodding.
Usually Selina is with him at events like this, but tonight Bruce Wayne is alone. The man is a known quanity at these things, the unmarried multi-billionaire that comes with his own buschel of issues as he makes his way along in the reception line, greeting others. The smile on his face at least looks genuine as he goes through the lastest trial by handshake.
Noticing Kelly, he makes his way over. "That's quite the fashion statement." he points out on the young woman's arms as he takes a sip from his glass of wine. "I take it this isn't exactly where you would like to be tonight?"
Of course McCabe Industries has purchased tickets to this shin-dig. It's an important part of business to see and be seen. Mari McCabe circulates in a dress of her own design, of course, one of the leads from this seasons line.
She's known to many here, if not as the CEO for McCabe Industries, then as the model who took New York by storm several years ago. She's not wearing any jewellery except that unusual pendant about her neck, the one in the shape of a foxhead.
Snagging a glass of champagne from a tray as she enters, quite close to where Wayne and Kelly are standing, she takes a moment to get her bearings and then smiles at Bruce and the redhead. "Mister Wayne." She doesn't interrupt more than that. It looks like they're talking.
Also in a suit is someone that Kelly will know. Someone who had been invited to this sort of by surprise? At least as far as he is concerned. But hey he'd been free for the evening so here he is. Koa Turner does clean up rather well, though there is something peaking out from under the collar of his shirt that's black and silver and ever so slightly odd. Might be something personal, or some other manner of ornamentation.
"Doctor Dehaven. Fancy seeing you here. You must be Bruce Wayne? Koa Turner, pleased to meet you. Hello Miss McCabe." Hello indeed. He'd been speaking to her earlier. It's possible he arrived with her.
"Ladies and Gentlemen we are getting ready to unveil the art piece for tonight. This one was done by one of our local sculptors in bronze whom we asked to create a symbol of enduring friendship and affection as the bonds we share with our families overseas. And really, he outdid himself."
The woman speaking is the president of the JAA here, and as the cloth is pulled from the sculpture - a 4 foot tall thing on another 4 foot pedestal… it's a dog. A rather heroic looking dog, it must be said, if dogs can be heroic. It's seated and looking out over the audience."
"Ah. Hachiko, that's gotta be it." Agent Turner murmurs.
Kelly gives Bruce Wayne her canned smile and nods, holding her drink. "Thank you. Though I might be regretting it in a bit, given it's mid-June." She jokes. And then continues to smile at him for a long, almost vacant moment. Clickwhirrclickwirr"Ohmygod, you're Bruce Wayne." It comes out all in a rush, moss-green eyes gone wide in recognition. Answering Bruce's question? Yeah, completely forgotten.
It takes a moment for Kelly to recognize her own name and then she's blinking blankly at Koa before pointing at Bruce and sharing. "That's Bruce Wayne." She hasn't even noticed poor Mari, but it doesn't look like she'd be interrupting. Kelly is clearly having her own little starstruck moment.
"A pleasure, Mister Turner. I'm sorry, I didn't realize you had known the good Doctor already, I was just introducing myself." Bruce starts to say, when he notes the piece of interesting jewelry that Koa wears. It's not the first time his eyes have noticed a collar like that - and now somewhere in the back of his head, he's putting pieces together.
"Yes, I believe that's what it says on my driver's license." he offers to Kelly in amusement. "And you must be Doctor Dehaven." When Mari comes over to join them, there's a warm smile for her. "Mari, how're you this evening? I believe you know Mister Turner. This is Doctor Dehaven. I'm afraid I don't know what she is a doctor of, but perhaps we can coax that out of her."
When the statue's unveiled Bruce glances over to Koa, and a brow lifts. "The same from the Shibuya Station?" he asks with a curious lift of his chin. "An example of undying loyalty."
Mari smirks at Kelly's starstruckness and offers the redhead an encouraging smile. "He doesn't bite, Doctor Dehaven. Or make his soup from the bones of his adversarys." she murmurs holding her hand out to the woman "Mari McCabe. We've not met, I'm just a good listener." She winks, hoping the light teasing will help the woman recover.
"It's a pleasure of course, Mister Wayne. And yes I do, we met at a darling little art exhibition the other week." Did Koa come with him? It's possible.
Her attention turns to the statue when it's unveiled, eyes widening at the display. "I believe you're both correct and most apt if it symbolises friendship and affection. I wonder who the artist is, that's a rather remarkable piece."
"Yes. Yes that's Bruce Wayne." Koa says, smiling a little. He doesn't know Kelly well or he might be more amused. Still it seems impolite to needle her about it, so he just lets her reboot her brain. She might need a minute he thinks. That looks a bit like hero worship. Just a touch.
"She's a neruoscientist. Terribly smart, I'm afraid." Koa stage whispers. That's not the whole of what she does. "We work in the same place though I can't say I know her well. Nor can I say I know Miss McCabe well." Because yes they've met too, but only the once.
Talking Kelly up may embarrass her slightly. Mari may pick that's the intended result.
What happens next, Koa doesn't notice. As people start gathering around the statue to admire it there's a high pitched vibration. Well out of the audible hearing range, but Kelly can feel it in her hands. Bruce can feel it in some of his old injuries and Mari can feel it on the pendant. No one else seems to notice. Koa is still admiring it.
"They very same yes. Shibuya Station. It's a wonderful bronze piece too. Looks like it was chiseled and worked rather than cast." Koa does statues. Mostly old ones but this is well within his wheelhouse.
The others might not be paying attention though because that high pitched whatever it is, is getting more intense. And it's coming from the statue. From the pedestal specifically.
Being a redhead, when Kelly blushes it is so very easy to tell. Especially as her black dress cuts down *quite* low and she just knows it's going to show. « I am never letting my mother buy me clothes again. » She does manage to reboot her brain in a moderately reasonable amount of time and she reaches out her gloved hand to shake Mari's "So sorry. Yes. And just Kelly is fine, thank you. Pleasure to meet you."
Since Koa's explained her doctorate, she doesn't feel the need to dig into the laundry list of things that go with it. Instead she just shakes her head at both Mari and Bruce. "Just lucky and, I like to think, dedicated." She gives a small frown, rubbing at one arm and looks around. "What in the world is that?" Her hands flex and then fist as she tries to shake off the odd vibration.
"Ah. A pleasure to meet you both then." Kelly's placed in a SHIELD file in Bruce's mind - since he's not met Koa as Bruce, he can't bring that up in person. However, any thoughts on the matter are lost as he feels the vibrations- between the L6 and 7 of his spine, and there's a grit of his teeth for a moment. "My apologies. Back acts up sometimes since the accident."
The well publicized car accident in Morocco that put Bruce in the hospital for weeks a few days after the Blitz happened. "If you'll excuse me for a moment?" he asks the others. "I should probably find my butler and get some medicine before it acts up worse." After excusing himself, he heads towards the exit.
"Your dress is quite lovely, Kelly." Maris' is rather more form fitting and whilst it doesn't have so low a neckline, it's … flattering. "Given your dress style, I would be honoured if you'd consider something from my next season line." It's always business at events like this.
Koa's teasing of Kelly gets an amused shake of her head. The amusement fades though when the vibrations start, Kelly rubs her arms and Bruce walks off. Mari touches that pendant with one hand and touches Koa's arm with another, drawing his attention hopefully. "Somethings happening Agent Turner. It's affecting my pendant." she murmurs.
Slowly she turns trying to see where the vibrations get worse before taking a step two towards the statue.
"Is something wrong?" Bruce is then making his exit and Koa's eyes have narrowed. With one person leaving and two more complaining of 'something', Koa looks around for magic… but sees nothing.
"I'm not catching anything in my field of expertise. Why don't you tell me-"
The far end of the room COLLAPSES in as the wall gives way beneath an immense weight. People scream and an unholy chittering fills the air. Rats. There must be thousands of them. A veritable tide of vermin surges forward as party goers scramble out of the way. They throw themselves at anything and everything, biting and chewing madly.
Koa's eyes widen and he reaches into a pocket, flipping a chain into his hand. The stone on the end of it glows and with a gesture a barrier springs into being, blocking the rats about a third of the way up the room - only about twenty feet away from where he, Mari and Kelly are standing.
The chewing noises begin immediately. The rats climb over one another to get to the ceiling and floor and start chewing on both.
"Uh, okay. We're on a timer here…" Koa says, assessing options.
The pedestal pulses. Both Mari and Kelly (and perhaps other unnamed nearby people) can feel it.
Kelly squeaks and scrambles behind Koa's broad form as the rats start to flood into the room. Luckily, he also has another solution to go with things. Well. A temporary solution. "Why are there rats?!" Kelly's tone has climbed up an octave in a strangled shriek.
Kelly's hair swishes around her shoulders, brushing Koa's back as she looks around rather frantically for inspiration. "I can call for back-up, but I don't think SHIELD is going to be terribly helpful!" Why is she making it sound like it's Koa's fault?
It's several minutes since Bruce Wayne swept out the doors of the exhibit. It takes a little while to change, though he's got that down to an art. As the rats are washing over the group, there's a hiss of a pneumatic line, and from the skylights, a figure descends. The black and grey armor of Batman should be familiar to Koa at least as the vigilante looks over the situation and frowns.
"The source of the vibrations seems to be the pedestal." he comments as he brings up his cape to shield himself from some of the rats, before he reaches into his belt for a small device - and starts to transmit a frequency of a bat in counter to all the rats, hopefully driving them back slightly, or at least clearing a hole.
Mari doesn't hesitate, and moves forward with surprising agility despite the dress and heels she's wearing. Heading directly towards that pedestal.
"We need to destroy the statue. Well, the pedestal." She hopes the company insurance covers this because there's about to be a number of pissed people and the ex-model is about to do something very, very visible. So much for rumours.
Trusting others to deal with the vermin, the pendant at her neck pulses as she channel, the glowing outline of a … beetle … appearing on her shoulder. Her arms rise, hands clasped together, before she brings them down on the base in a hammer hit.
It's going to take more than hit, she's sure.
Batman's device clears him about a six foot hole. The rats move about him, scuttling away from him wherever he moves to maintain that circle. That does give him room to work and it means he can plug a gap. There are several opening up above and below Koa's barrier.
BANG!
Mari's strike rips away the pedestal paneling and exposes (and damages) a rather complex machine inside. It's even louder now. Something is oscillating and now sparks and arcs are coming from exposed wires. Mari has also exposed what looks like some kind of control terminal, though of course there is only a screen and a pair of USB hubs. No integrated keyboard. But the screen says 'Core Status: Critical. Catastrophic oscillation likely.'
At that moment the rats penetrate over the roof in two places.
"Mari!" Koa calls. The rats have to be held back and she can see something green glowing around his arm.
"Doctor is there anything you can do with that machine?"
Koa does not ask Batman to do anything mostly because he's sure Batman already has a better idea of what he can do to help than the shield agent does.
There are SO many rats out there.
Kelly takes a moment to turn her head and *stare* at Koa. Then she says, articulating very carefully. "Agent Turner. There are *rats* over there." She's just about glaring at him, deep green eyes sparking as she waits for him to say 'oh, yeah, I was just kidding'. But that's not forthcoming.
Tearing her glare away from Koa she squints over at the exposed machinery. "I might, but I'm going to need to…" Oh. Batman. Wow. She reaches up to pull down one of her full-length gloves to expose a chromed-silver arm. There's a shiver along her flesh, and then what looks like a USB drive is held in one hand. She lifts it up and waves it. "Help! Mr. Batman! I need you to plug this in!" If she can get his attention, she'll try to throw it over to him instead of trying get all the way over to the pedestal in her dress and heels. She doesn't have Mari's agility and is likely to break a leg and maybe her neck trying to get there.
The sound system for the event was Batman's focus. As he heads over to where the band was playing for the event, he hijacks one of the sound systems, and feeds the repellant signal into it, turning it up - while the frequency is too high for most human ears - he's not sure if Mari can hear it or not. That's when someone's yelling at him to his his attention.
Glancing to Kelly when she throws the small USB drive, he moves from the stage, snagging it out of the air to try to brave the piles of rat swarms to try to get it plugged into the pedestal so that Kelly can get to work on it. Though he does note as he glances at it that it's not quite a USB plug. Something tio check later.
"I'm no good with tech…" Mari calls back when the machine inside is exposed. "You want I should destroy it?" She glances back at the call, eyes widening at the silvery arms that are exposed. "Mister Batman then …" She steps back, looking at Koa's arm for a moment as the glowing beetle on her shoulder fades from view.
A few more moments that the rats push closer before the outline of python appears about her …. Go away rats.
"Pretty sure it's Mister Man. Bat is a first name, right?" Koa can't help but mutter mostly to himself. It's possible he's loud enough that someone's going to hear him though.
The rats hiss and chitter and shy away from the python, and then from the asp that rears out of Koa's left arm. That'll hold them but not forever.
The device is rather simple. Off and on and overload. Kelly wants off. Obviously. It's already nearly on overload. It's not even password protected. But it IS… rather oddly programmed. Definitely not off the shelf.
The moment Kelly gets the machine off the rats start to flee. It's far from instantaneous though. Some of them are still trying to attack, angry or frightened. Bruce's plan with the sound system might still be necessary, but the danger to the party goers is lessened sufficiently that Koa can drop his barrier and begin using his asp to start trying to clear the vermin out.
This is going to take a couple of minutes. He could probably use Mari's help.
There's a CLUNCK near Kelly's feet. A small bar of metal - hot but not burning - rolls out of the machine as it shuts down.
Kelly's eyes are green. Unless you look very, very closely and the light hits them just right. Then there are radiating lines of silver through her irises. As she pushes the connection between herself and the 'usb stick' that the Batman plugged in, those silver lines bleed outwards. Her gaze fixes in some middle distance as she connects up to the system and luckily there's not a lot to comb through. Switching it to off, she's already dropping the link and blinking back to herself.
As the rats start to disperse, Kelly pulls her glove back on and then looks down at the metal bar. Sweeping her skirts to the side, she crouches down to look at it, but doesn't touch it.
Noticing the remote connection between the stick and Kelly, Batman watches the interaction and the way that she's able to connect. There's a slight hngh in his thought process as he takes out the USB drive to return to Kelly, but not before subtly breaking off a small piece to put in his belt for further research. With the others dealing with the rats, Batman joins Kelly in studying the bar that popped out.
"Whatever they were trying for seemed to have malfunctioned." he offers with a small grunt of thought.
Hey! Mari's done this in heels and a dress … and the dress hasn't been damaged. Amazing.
As the vermin retreat, Mari moves forward, letting the snake that she's channeling 'herd' them. When she's they're clear, the ex-model returns and looks at the group.
"Well done Doctor Dehaven and Agent Turner, you've been holding out on me …" she eyes his bracer before looking to Batman "I would concur but what have we got here?"
Once the rats are clear… well, the talking starts. Fortunately Batman and company are not immediately accosted by socialites so there is time to look at that metal bar.
It looks like steel but it's still vibrating. It's humming to anyone who gets close enough to it. All in all it may remind Batman specifically of an unusual metal he's been exposed to in other circumstances. One that a man named 'Steve' knows a lot about. Or at least a bit about.
As for Kelly and Mari? It's clearly unusual. Kelly may have slightly more idea what it is than Mari.
And both of them have more idea that Koa.
"Wait until you see me do laps in the pool…" Koa murmurs to Mari and stands back a respectful distance from the Doctor and the Batman while they look at that metal.
"Whatever it was, it was at the core of that machine. It has to have been essential to it's operation. Which I suspect means it's not steel." No Koa suspects it's rather exotic.
Because these things always are.
"You've got an interesting set of talents there, Miss McCabe." Because if he's been holding out, she was too.
"Is anyone hurt?"
Thaaaaats mostly for Kelly's benefit. Koa doubts Batman or Mari are.
As though waiting for Koa's cue to ask if anyone's hurt, the Batman breaks off that little piece of the chromed-silver metal and Kelly yelps, sucking in a breath. She rubs at one of her arms vigorously, her expression set in in a frown as she's distracted from the bar on the ground.
Then Batman is offering her the 'USB' back and she rises carefully to her feet and takes it, a bit distracted from the pain by the metal and well, Batman and all the crazy goings on. "Thank you." She shakes one of her hands, that lingering pain from the psisteel being broken lingering with her. "We should uhm, take that back with us."
Ladies and gentlemen, we present certified genius: Kelly Dehaven.
That reaction is noticed as well. Batman says nothing, though, instead, he's studying the bar. "It's vibranium." comes the response after a moment. "It was being set at a frequency to attract the rats - but they didn't expect the resonance wave to be self-replicating and causing it to echo in itself - causing it to build and overload." he says with a frown as he studies the device.
"What information did you get from the internals of the machine when you were linked to it? It's language, or documentation."
All Mari knows is that metal reverberates with her pendant "Vibranium?" The knowledge of Vibranium isn't wide spread and Mari isn't in the circles that would know what that was. "I take you know what that it is?" Kelly's observation gets a soft snort of humour "Agent Turner, will you be calling in a clean up crew? Seems your techs might like to investigate this. Why would someone want to attract rats?"
Mari's worked with SHIELD on the odd occassion.
Koas murmurs gets a decidely wicked look from the model "I think Agent Turner, I'd like to see that. Very Much." She shrugs at the rest of his comment. "What can I say? You show me yours, I'll show you mine. I'm sure if you looked though, there's a file on me in your systems."
"Don't know. I think someone wanted to disrupt the party and I don't know why anyone would want THAT either." Koa gives Mari a slight smirk. Maybe she'll get to see that. There is a file on her in the SHIELD systems but he's only skimmed it. "But yes to answer your question I'll call in the cleaners."
The announcement that the metal is Vibranium gets a frown. "There's been too much of that circulating recently for comfort. Someone needs to do a chemical analysis on that."
Kelly is right. They SHOULD take that back with them for the labs to get a look at and SHIELD might be upset if they did not. BUT the Batman is also here and Koa might… be distracted while he leaves. And he might take something with him.
Maybe they can share, somehow.
"I'm going to make that call. Thank you for coming, Batman though I imagine you don't need to hear that. SHIELD will probably have a team out here in twenty or so minutes and the cops will be here sooner."
So, that's his window to move on. Which Koa knows he will.
Because he is the God Damn Batman.
"Doctor DeHaven if you'd rather not answer questions about this…" He'd definitely understand her making herself scarce as well.
And with that Koa steps a few feet away and pulls out his phone.