Summary:Roy brings in a Pet for Jemma. It stinks. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
Related LogsTheme SongNone |
    |
Roy left town on a mission several days ago. When he came back, he had put in a priority call to the lab, which is where he is heading to now. He's in his field garb, which is dusty, stained - and he probably needs a good hosing down since he hasn't had a chance to grab a shower since he left the country.
His bionic arm is carrying what looks to be a pet carrier of some type, as he makes his way into the lab. "Jemma? Kelly? Honey I'm hooooome." he calls out, trying to find anyone to help out as he pushes on the baseball cap on his head.
Kelly Dehaven has been distracted and irritable while Roy was out of her telepathic range. Luckily, she mostly works alone so it was herself that she was griping at. She's managed to get up some solid walls in the metal link too, so unless they're *trying* to contact another their surface thoughts stay in their own head. There's still that underlying sense of someone 'there', like someone else moving around in the house, and touches of emotion, which was harder for Kelly to screen out but they're alone in their own heads. Mostly. Jemma still might have picked up on that anxiety from Kelly, especially if she 'listened' for it.
When Roy gets back in her range though, she wraps up what she's doing and is heading towards him, getting to Jemma's lab just after him. She opens the link between just the two of them to let her relief touch him. It's only as she goes to hug him does she catch the smell, and pulls back a bit. "Oh. Oh, Roy. That's…" What a wonderful smell you've discovered!
Jemma is in her lab today, she's got a lot on and the 3D display above her worktable slowly rotates with a molecular display. On the workbench though, is an urn that was bought in early this morning. One that was covered in runes and other such hieroglyphics. The lid is on and Jemma is frowning at it - she's waiting for an answer to the consult she'd requested not too long ago.
Through the link shared with Kelly the information is patchy as the biochem works to limit her own broadcasts. She's only somewhat successful.
"Roy? I should put you in my containment room for that smell alone."
"Do not open that ye- what is that smell?" Agent Turner arrives, arm in a sling and eyes sliding from blue to violet as he walks in like he's wearing some kind of freaky mood lighting contact lenses.
"Ah. Doctor Dehaven. Mister Harper. Nice to see you both." Beat. "Diiiiiid you guys call me for the urn or the pet carrier?"
Totally could go either way in Koa's head. Animals get really freaky, especially when they get into some of the wild weirdness out there.
That relief is welcomed and embraced, but when Kelly pulls up short of hugging him, Roy sniffs. "What? I uh.. well, it's not me!" he offers quickly as he glances between the two women. Okay, it probably is /him/. But not wholly. "Look, I was on a field op, and came across a processing plant. And I think I have the answer we need so that you can start to work up an antidote for the Thunderbolt pills."
With that, he sets the animal crate on the table, and moves to unlatch it. "Come on, Chester, come say hi to the nice ladies…" he tries to coax. Just to get a faceful of feces and a screaming howling noise as a small orange spider monkey comes racing from the crate, grabbing Roy's hat and leaping onto the nearest high cabinet.
"Augh!" Roy reaches to grab as his face. "You little asshole, I'd skin you but there's not enough for a pair of gloves on you!" he fumbles backwards, heading towards the sink to wash out his face. Again. This is not the first time this has happened.
The monkey sits on the top of the cabinet, biting on the bill of Roy's cap.
A monkey, that by all means, should be extinct. Koa can feel the presence of magic on it - as if it's been pulled from somewhere, or somehow.. resurrected.
Oh. Oh god. That is nasty. And while Roy may have gotten used to it over the past few days, Kelly *hasn't* and she fights hard not to have her lunch come up, hand over her nose and mouth and she backs even further away. Gah!
"Roy, why do you have a monkey?" She certainly doesn't recognize it beyond that. Of the many fields she holds accolades in, animals is *not* one of them. "I hope you're *burning* that uniform. In fact, it is *not* coming into the apartment."
"I wasn't going to, Koa." Jemma answers, glancing at the WAND agent as he enters and Kelly gets a degree of relief from the biochem. "That's why I asked you drop i-" beat "Don't open tha-"
Funny how her words reflect Koa's of not minutes before.
"—- here." she says with resignation as the spider monkey escapes. "I suppose I should be thankful, this one hasn't eaten a teleporter."
This creature is going to make a mess of her lab and Jemma quickly starts to move tests and experiments so they don't knocked over. "Uh. I have a sandwich in the fridge, if you think you can coax him, it, down." Which reminds her of a wager she'd taken with the WAND agent.
"Various gods that thing stinks…" Koa says waving his good hand in front of his nose. He peers up at it. Then peers a little closer as it starts to chew on Roy's hat.
"Roy… that thing's dead." Beat. "Well. It's not dead at the moment but it's been dead recently. There's a whiff of something about it that isn't Eau de Charnel House."
Reaching into his pocket the Agent pulls out a small pendulum and - right in front of two scientists - uses the stone on the end of it to start making gold markings in the air in some kind of odd language.
"You can try the sandwich but I'm not sure how likely it is to be violent. Sure as hell doesn't look pleased with Harper there."
|ROLL| Roy Harper +rolls 1d3 for: 2
"I didn't bother to take the damn thing through customs, okay. And it sure as hell didn't want honey-roasted peanuts, or those little pretzels." Roy washes his face off - again, and turns to face the little bugger. "Yeah, he was in a lab, chained down and they were draining his /brain/." Theres a shudder at that. "Then some crazy guy in HYDRA looking robes would come over, do some mumbo jumbo - and boom, monkey zombie."
The monkey scowls again at Roy, but when it hops down, it makes a beeline for Kelly, and ends up on her shoulder and starts picking through her hair, looking for bugs. Like a normal monkey.
A normal monkey that stinks of decay and reanimation.
Kelly Dehaven *shrieks* as the monkey makes a beeline for her and, like the well-trained combatant she is </sarcasm>… she freezes. And closes her eyes as she cringes because one: strange animal on her and two: OH MY GOD THE SMELL! Anxiety spikes through the mental network as she does her best impression of a statue. "« Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff! »" She might be totally curious about Koa's cool toy there (because it's totally the 'tech') but y'know. MONKEY.
The gold markings in the air has Jemma's eyes narrowing slightly. She's worked with WAND agents enough to not be too surprised but still, it's offputting. "What is it you are trying to do, Koa?" She tries to remember what happened in the gym - did he use that?
"Wait, what? He was alive and then made a zombie?" she's not sure she heard Roy correctly in the small fracas that ensues.
When Kelly's anxiety spikes, Jemma jumps a little, knocking two beakers of liquid over on the sink. The contents combine, a gaseous cloud starts rising and the smell… If they thought the monkey was bad, this is far, far, worse. The biochem throws herself at the switch to drop the fume hood over that area.
"A quick anti intrusion ward should disable it for a few seconds if I do this right. Just be ready. Hopefully this works." That's for Jemma. Koa did not do whatever this is in the gym. The way his hand is moving it kind of looks like a form of tortuous algebra. Which, in truth, is kind of what it is. The symbol set completes and the WAND agent presses his hand to it. There's a brief glow and then it bursts into what the other three will likely call pixie dust. A ripple goes out from it, focused on that necromantic residue. That SHOULD be enough to knock the monkey from Kelly's shoulder and if Koa is lucky, stun the damn thing long enough for someone to get it contained as well.
"HYDRA made one of these?" It's not that Koa isn't disturbed or grossed out. It's that for him this is the expected kind of disturbing and gross. It's in his wheelhouse. This is what he does. "And they were using it for… where exactly did you get this thing?"
Why does he think that Roy is going to say 'Madripoor'?
"Doctor, you okay?" That shouldn't have affected her but if she got residue on her then she might have felt a slap from the ward as well.
The clattering of the two beakers gets Koa looking in genuine alarm and he seems to tense. "Doc? Everything under control there?"
"A little lab outside of Madripoor." Roy responds, as he is about to notch an arrow to fire at the creature, when Jemma makes a /new/ stink in the lab. "Oh god, Jemma! Tell someone when you cut the cheese!" he cries out, feeling his eyes water as he waves his hand. "Someone light a match or something. Gah." he grunts.
The monkey bats at the sparkles, and then it connects, and the creature falls off of Kelly's shoulder, onto the ground and starts twitching. The spell apparently worked.
"They were using it's brain juice to make the pills." he finally calls out, pinching his nose in mild disgust.
Kelly Dehaven has more than one kind of residue from the poo-slinging monkey, stumbling a bit as it falls from her shoulder and then she's pulling off her labcoat and rubbing at her hair. "Ohohoheww." And things are not helped by the even worse, and maybe even toxic, smell. That's it. Kelly's never coming to this lab again. It is cursed
Jemmas coughing and her only good eye streaming as the fumigation hood starts to work. It stops the smell getting worse, at least, then the lab fans kick in and start to cycle the air. It's slowly getting better. "Kelly? Are you ok?" She won't mention it was Kelly's momentary alarm that caused her to flinch. "I glitched for moment…" because technically? That's true.
"Why would anti intrusion … wait, don't answer that till later." Jemma manages between coughs "Roy Harper don't you shoot an arrow in my lab!" the biochem voice kind of squeaks as she speaks to the Archer. All her equipment - and most of it couldn't survive an arrow shot.
When the monkey falls, Jemma passes Kelly a spray bottle to spritz herself with "It will help with the smell." she murmurs, slipping out of her own lab coat to throw over hapless, zombie, creature so she can … "I can pick it, can't I, Koa?" There's her workbench, all ready to receive the poor creature.
"Brain? Well, we'll know more in a moment." she asides to Roy.
Koa is also falling back, coughing at this point and covering his face with his arm. He finds one of the eye wash stations and jams it on, taking the water into his metaphysical grasp as it comes out and forming a thin 'sheet' of it that he uses to try to 'herd' the gas back toward the fume hood. It's not the world's most elegant solution but hey, gas doesn't usually go through a solid water barrier so there's that.
It takes him a moment to realize that the monkey is covered and he nods while coughing. Yes. Please. Secure that damn thing.
"Careful. It'll probably wake up in about thirty seconds and be pissed so whatever you do, do it quick."
He doesn't want to know what was in those chemicals that Jemma spilled.
It takes him a moment to get his breath again. "So. Madripoor. Didn't a read that the drug you've been dealing with is made with monkey parts?" That there's magic involved… well that had been mentioned as a possibility. Seems confirmed now.
"Necromancy is serious stuff by the way and not just because it'll earn you a night on the couch…"
Yes. Koa hasn't forgotten interrupting 'board game day'.
"Yeah, it's like how you get all curious about the Colonel's 11 herbs and spices and find out there's a 12th herb that's 'brain stem juice'." You know, cerebrospinal fluid, but for Roy, brain stem juice. "Look, I plan to /soak/ in Lysol when I get home." he grumbles as everyone else is complaining at him. "But you know, Kelly would have killed me dead if I'd brought that thing home." he points out.
"It's not like /I/ cast the spell."
Kelly Dehaven is paying attention. Really.
OK, she's not. Did anyone see pets at Kelly's place? (Roy doesn't count) No. No there were not. There were especially not ickymessy pets and Kelly is trying to make sure she's got all of the ick off, and with the help of the bottle from Jemma to try to get the stink off. Someone is *so* sleeping on the couch tonight.
"Oh, oh I so would." Kelly agrees with Roy. OK. Maybe she's paying attention a little.
She's gonna be *awesome* at field work.
"Oh." Jemma answers as she gently picks the creature up and puts it on her bench. "I uh … I'm not equipped to deal with live creatures here. Or even whole ones." Which just ups the ick factor more, she's sure. "Can you help me restrain it, please?" That's to all three of them - who knows who's going to respond but that pet carrier is probably the best option till Jemma can get a cage in her.
While she waits, she works quickly - taking a quick skin and hair sample. If she's got time, she'll get a blood sample as well - but Koa's warning rings in her ears. She doesn't want to be dealing with a pissed off zombie spider monkey.
"Did you manage to retrieve anything else from the facility, Roy? Data or anything?" It will help. Really, she's going to have read his mission debrief, but she'll take what she can now.
As for Kelly, the redhead gets an empathetic look. "I remember what it was like in my early days. They threw me at all sorts of things."
Koa comes over with a chain to wrap it in and once that's done stands well back again. That thing STILL stinks. He stops to listen as the other three go back and forth. Okay, well, other two.
"So they have necromancers but they only use them to raise monkeys? That means they're not very good, not very powerful OR there's a portion of this we haven't seen yet. Magical sorts don't usually get embroiled in this kind of thing because drugs are usually a vehicle for money, magi don't tend to value this as much. If you're hitting this kind of black magic we really need to start questioning what the HELL is going on here."
"Money.. or they're testing something. You know, like.. how Cap has that whole.. buff super soldier thing? What if they're trying to make a pill version of it?" Roy asks, unsure of it all himself, shaking his head at Jemma. "I had like twenty soldiers on my ass, and pretty sure I pissed off the Madripoorian police, such as they are." he admits with a grunt.
"But the pill's killing people, so they're field testing it, and when they finally find the version that works…?" he shrugs his shoulders at that.
The monkey is restrained, and when it comes around, it starts howling and making all types of noises - becasue it's an angry monkey that's currently trapped.
Kelly Dehaven gives Roy a frown as he talks about having to evade soldiers and the police, however corrupt. It might be worse because they were corrupt. Less likely to say 'halt'. "Trying to come up with a controllable version of Cap does seem to be a hobby for certain groups of bad guys." She notes, looking over at the screeching monkey with a wince. "Hopefully SHIELD has somewhere to put this thing that's out of smelling range?"
"Thank you." Jemma asides to Koa, canting her head to the urn that she asked for him to visit about. Maybe he'll be able to inspect it while they talk. If not, it's probably their coffee catch up day.
"Now I have the source, I can do some testing." The looks she gives Kelly at the other doctors last comment says a lot "I uh. We don't keep creatures like this. Normally when they come to us, they're dangerous and supernatural and we need to contain them. This … I guess now it's a Zombie, it falls into that category. I'll get a cage in here in the meantime."
Which means her lab is going to stink. So unhappy is Jemma.
"We've been conjecturing, Koa, about the efficacy of the pills that we recovered. The compounds I was able to detect shouldn't do that. What do you know about magic and chemistry? Is it a thing?" To say it's out of her experience, is an understatement.
Kelly might be onto something though and she gets a considering look as Jemma wrangles the monkey to see what they might have been doing with the brain. "What do you think, Kelly? Brain Juice? Pituary gland or amygdala?"
"I think the version of Cap we have is pretty controllable. At least from what I hear." Koa says dryly to Kelly. "And yeah I mean when Doc Simmons is done with this we can just burn it. That should get rid of the smell quite nicely. Er. Assuming it doesn't get up again when we're done."
It PROBABLY won't do that?
"Alchemy, yeah. Usually associated with the quest for eternal life. The thing is that necromancy isn't really the magic that you'd typically use for that. Making people stronger, faster, and so on is usually a blessing. When it IS a curse - think werewolves and vampires - it generally comes with some serious downsides. On the other hand, if you just want to use someone as a meat puppet, necromancy is REALLY good for that."
So, you know, it's definitely possible that they're trying to make an army with little blue pills. But clearly Koa thinks that if they are, there's an angle to this they haven't considered. It's not just about making supersoldiers. It's about making unfailingly obedient supersoldiers.
"Yeah. But you get hour long supersoldiers that are incredibly addicted to what you give them." Roy responds as he takes a seat. "And trust me, when you have that addiction…" he shrugs his shoulders. This is officially out of his scope. He's just the one with the bow after all.
"So. We have the monkey secured. We have a plan. And I'm probably going to use the decontamination shower before taking a real shower. And then a soak. And then another shower. And then maybe Kelly will let me come home."
Kelly Dehaven blinks at Jemma. And then stares at Koa. "You're going to burn it? Like… in an incinerator? But! It's… alive. Kind of?" She frowns. Well that got sort of complicated. It *looks* alive but it sure as heck smells dead. Yeah, it's gross but… Little monkey!
Something occurs to Kelly then. "Maybe I missed it before but… Did you say it was alive and then some.. mages," She's still dubious on the idea of that. "Brought it back to life. But aren't they presumed extinct?" She's had a *really* bad day, and it's rattled her memory of the facts. "So.. Was it actually alive or do they keep reviving it or something to get its brain fluids?"
Belatedly, she seems to remember that Jemma asked her a question. "Mmmm, pituitary? Those that take it don't seem to go into rages or anything like that." Despite the fact that Roy still sort of smells, she steps over to squeeze his shoulder. And them spritzes him with the bottle from Jemma. Liberally.
"Burn it?" Jemma actually looks horrified. "OK, Koa. That's one to you. You've freaked me out." She's going to have to up her game if she wants to win their wager. "I … suppose we can. Do we have to?" Kelly can feel the horror from Jemma as she processes that. The woman who, happily, dissects things.
"I imagine that the process kills the donor. So yes, Kelly, I think you're right. Poor thing." Jemma muses, looking to Roy considering. Pity he couldn't retrieve any data it would be so useful about now. "Presumed extinct, yes. Because, you know, Madripoor. It's not like we've got a heap of information about there. Maybe they've got some in captivity."
Though it does have her thinking whilst she turns her attention to Koa "So you create a drug, add some form of necromantic routine to the production cycle, and you get an army of Captain American's that you can direct, exactly as you like, yes?" beat "The question is, are the sideeffects, really sideeffects or part of the design? Use them and let the process kill them when you're done?"
Seeing Roy looking like he wants to leave, Jemma looks at the monkey again. "I can run the tests I need and get you an update, Roy." Really, the smell in the lab is just … ugh.
"This is how you get monkey-zombie plague. Do you WANT monkey-zombie plague? You've seen Outbreak, right?"
"You could use necromancy to maybe enhance the addictive effect…" Koa says looking at Roy speculatively. "There's few greater rushes than inhaling stolen life. Believe me." That sounds like someone who knows. And his eyes shift again to a deep red. Like blood.
"Side effects? I mean you three are the experts. I can tell you that you can do some nasty things by slowly accumulating magic in a person, but that MIGHT not be the intent." He'd have to get a LOT more of the drug to know that and then get WAND's Churigons to run some tests. Which is definitely possible.
"If you need the extra heavy duty cleaning we've got some pholgiston down in WAND."
Roy probably doesn't want to use that to scrub up though.
"If they've actually called these things back from extinction then there MIGHT be side effects that even they don't intend. Magic never gives something for nothing and waking something up phyiscally often… echoes. I'll get a report on what's going on around Madripoor metaphysically and let you guys know if there's anything that's worth flagging."
"No. But I've seen 12 Monkeys. Far superior movie." Roy responds with a smirk. "But that's because of Bruce Willis." Who knows, maybe HYDRA only has twelve.. well, eleven monkeys now.
Then Koa gets all weird. "Dude. AB Positive, my blood's no good for anyone but me. And my soul? You'd do better with.. shit, anyone else." he self-defers. It's his own defensive mechanism.
"I'm gonna go scrub off the top layer of skin and then see if I'm still alive after that. Uh. Mind getting me the blanket for the couch?" He asks Kelly. Because he took that seriously.
Kelly Dehaven gives a huff of amusement and eyes Roy. He gets the mental equivalent of a swat on his backside. "Just clean up and you can come to bed. I know *I* need a shower. That thing had it's poop-hands in my *hair*." She shudders again at the memory, sticking out her tongue a bit in a 'gleh' manner.
The redheaded scientist heads out with Roy. Because he's been not only gone but 'off the radar' for *days* and she might be a big clingy for a bit. Even if he smells awful.
He might get doused in perfume or something.
"Keep the bottle, Kelly and return it when you're done but you might want to consider the … pholgiston from WAND." Poor Kelly, she never expected all this when she joined, did she.
Jemma frowns as Koa's eyes change and touches his shoulder "You with me, Agent?" It's quiet but firm. She's not sure what it means, but it's not good.
"Run along now that you've me bought me a pet. I've tests to run and possibly a carcass to incinerate." Oh joy. She's so looking forward to that.
"Yeah I'm here." Koa shakes his head. The eyes don't change. "Don't worry I'm not going to suck your blood or anything like that Harper."
He'll leave that to Kelly. The WAND agent perhaps very wisely doesn't say that as the two depart. He ALSO doesn't add that he wouldn't need the blood. Their life force would be so much more delicious. Fortunately none of them have any magic to speak of so it'd be a bit like eating rice cakes. Not much in the way of flavor and he'd want more almost immediately.
"Good luck with the smell Doctor DeHaven." Koa calls out and then turns to Jemma seriously. "If I'm not around when you're ready to incinerate it, call WAND before you do. We'll send someone to make sure it doesn't take offense, get back up and try to kill you. Now. Let's talk about that urn you've got there…"