Summary:Jeriah doesn't appear to be the mole, which Jemma is. Doctor Hank McCoy is called in to examine the EMJ. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Hank McCoy got a call in the early hours of the morning. It's probably surprised him that the only message was Be at SHIELD and despite the questions he's had, no answers were forthcoming.
When he arrives, he's briefed by Agent Harrison and one the SHIELD orderlies Patten.
Jemma Simmons is leaking information to AIM. A recent test showed that someone is accessing her research and potentially her, and acting on it. The access to the databases is being worked on but … Jemma herself?
"The problem is Doctor McCoy that she a blackout on a mission recently. Not passed out, just a stopped … processing." Patten had told him. "We need someone with biochemistry and engineering knowledge to go over her systems."
When Hank is let into the holding cell, Jemma is a … mess. Her face bruised, left armed bandaged and when she moves, clearly her leg is sore as well. "Hank?"
Hank is a little surprised, yes, but the very brevity of the message is sufficient unto the day to spark his concern. He dresses professionally, even picks the black on black suit, with a white shirt and black tie. Sure, he's still fuzzy and blue, but at least he looks PROFESSIONAL!
Once he checks in and gets that briefing his concerns are realized and then some.
"Complete shut down? Or just her networked systems? In other words - did she shut down entirely, or did her cyberware stop talking?" It is important to know. Either way, he nods firmly. "I'll need whatever files you have on her specs, please." All business and every iota of his considerable intellect focused on the task. Only after he reviews the files, does he go to the holding cell. "Thank you."
Once inside he moves immediately to Jemma, concern evident. "Hello Jemma." He says gently. "It seems it is my turn to help -you- in a personal medical issue."
The person who comes in behind him looks less professional. He's in a black tee shirt and tactical cargo pants and he's got a rolled up issue of People's Magazine on him. It's three months old. He opens his mouth to say something and then sees the blue fuzzy mutant in front of him.
"Now there's something you don't see every day." He comments mostly to himself. "You a friend of the Doc's? I'm London."
He doesn't look like the british capital.
"Oh hey, Doc. Brought your magazine back. I take it they haven't let you out of lockup yet, seeing as how you're still here." Beat. "There are fifteen thousand two hundred and seventy six words in that magazine, by the way. Counting the captions."
Beat. "I had a really long night."
Patten coughs a little at the question. "Mental blackout. From the diagnostic, her memory and cognitive functions were affected. Let me get you the diagnostics we could pull from her systems. And uh specs …" That gets the strangest of looks. "It's … experimental technology she's using. Here's what we have though."
The Death Lok implants themselves are fairly normal, though there's some mention of them being used in previous hosts. It's the serum that was used to bring her back from the edge of death that is fascinating. Centipede Serum it's called.
"Hello Hank. I'm glad it's you they called." She looks terrible and not just for the injuries. The guilt and worry that's written on her face likely speaks volumes. "… and here's London. You two haven't met have you? Mister Jeriah London, Doctor Hank McCoy. He's been working with me on the bioweapon. A reknown scientist in his right, Hank is."
And yes Hank. This is the one that calls her Jemma-of-Nine.
"No, Mister London, they have not. Not since that data was leaked to AIM after we both were. Are you here to help? And … did you count the number of words?"
Hank looks up as the door opens again, and studies the approaching man as he enters. "Ah, yes, Doctor Simmons and I were in school together, and have been working as colleagues on a few things recently." He offers a clawed hand that probably needs its own zip code to Jeriah. "Hank McCoy."
A little bemused by the word count, Hank just looks back to Jemma. "Jemma, I quite literally may owe you my life, and I rather cherish our friendship. When Agent Patten briefed me lets just say he had me at 'Jemma has a problem', mm?"
He smiles as she introduces him to the other, and nods. "The infamous blush-inducer of legend and myth, the namer of Jemma-of-Nine. Your reputation precedes you, sir, an honor to meet at last."
And then he looks back to Jemma, expression thoughtful. "Since we can't leave the cell, we'll need some few items to do this right." He glances upwards, assuming every word is being recorded and that his list of needs will be heard. "I'll need a laptop with these specs, minimum…" He names something that only a government agency, or super scientist could possibly have. "If you have the Frost International series nine medical field kit, that would be good, a series eight will do in a pinch. I'll need a Stark Industries diagnostic scanner, preferably the mark III or later. Also, a lot of coffee, very strong, black, please."
Clearly it is going to be a long night!
"I can help you with the computational power, Doctor McCoy." Jeriah says, shaking his hand. "I can beat pretty much any laptop out there." The rest someone will have to go get. So Jeriah raps on the edge of the door and sends an agent scurrying. First thing back is the coffee, it was the closest. The rest follows in relatively short order. Someone probably has to go down to the med bay to get the kit.
"Blush inducer?" That has Jeriah grinning and looking at Jemma. "Yes well. I suppose that is me. I didn't realize I had a reputation." Clearly she's been talking about him.
The soldier's statement about the computational power becomes clear when one of the screens in the holding area lights up and displays… oh. Jeriah IS a computer. Well, an augmented cyborg to be specific.
"So, what's the plan doc? Docs? Oh hey there's two of you here. You know what that means…?"
He's getting that look like he needs to eat soon. Jemma knows what that look means.
"Hank!" Jemma blushes as he mentions Jemma-of-Nine. Jemma's thankful that Hanks phone isn't visible at the moment - Jeriah would *laugh* at the wallpaper. "You have a reputation, London, it's all bad." she mutters with a baleful glare at the contractor.
Has she been talking? Um. Maybe.
"No, no… London don't say it. We are not a pair of docs." The biochem goes to rub her forehead and looks between the two men. "I assume Hanks going to connect into me and run some diagnostics. At least your clean now, London."
"Paradox, of course." Hank says without missing a beat.
A smile when the man offers up his own computational power. "Oh handy, indeed." He looks a little closer at the tech involved, and Jeriah would /see/ the man's rather spicy brains -click- in recognition. "Well well well, impressive…about five or six generations more advanced than the voicebox weapons." The man is having a little trouble restraining the urge to disassemble the Packrunner, nope, no time…not the mission. With a visible wrench he gets his brain back on track. "Hank, if you please, Mister London."
Once the gear starts arriving Hank will get it all networked together, and then takes a few moments to code up — on the fly — a program to get everything talking to each other. Pretty fly for a biochemist!
A grin at Jemma's blush, and then he smiles. "Oh yes, terrible terrible rep, most evil man in the world. We should do lunch sometime, compare notes, come up with a proper plan to permanently en-crimson Jemma." Oh dear oh dear! Poor Jemma. What's funny? Hank is quite deliberately doing this - in his estimation Jemma's miserable, fussing, and scared. THIS will distract her, and that might just help.
"Yes, Jemma, once I finish this bit of code…we'll be running as thorough a set of diagnostics on your systems as we can, and hopefully find out what caused your blackout, for starters."
"Paradox, yes." Jeriah grins as Jemma groans. That had been the aim. It's not really surprising that Hank gets it. If he's as smart as they say he is, simple word games shouldn't faze him at all. And indeed, they do not.
"Voicebox weapons?" Jeriah quirks a brow. "Uh, no, I don't Fus-Do-Ra or anything like that." He does produce disruption fields and electro-plasma but shhhhh…
About that time an enormous mechanical dog, four feet high at the shoulder, wanders in and nudges Hank's hand. It's looking for pettins'. Jeriah doesn't seem to notice it.
"I'm sure this can be arranged." Jeriah's smile is now positively wicked. "And you can call me Jeriah, if you like. Hang on there Simmons I'm going to log into you. Now that I'm cleared and all. I'll link you to Hank's kit…"
And he'll provide the processing power.
"Alright. Whenever you're ready, Hank. Simmons this shouldn't hurt. I hope."
"Fus Do Ra? Let me guess a dragon born…" Jemma mutters, her colour permanently red at the moment. "I note he tells *you* to call him by his first name. Me, I'm just Simmons. Or Doc. Or just hey you…"
The connection by Jeriah is almost seemless and Hank can feel the connections being made. Jemma doesn't wince - not yet, at least.
It's perhaps unfortunate that both men get the image of 'Jemma of Nine' when that happens - the teasing having bought it to front of mind.
"OK. I can sense you, London and you, Hank…" For Hank it's a new experience. The biomechanical connections are second to none and the implants are almost part of Jemma's mind. There is something … otherworldly about them, but it's hard to put his finger on them.
"London, how's your connection? Hank, I'm ready when you are."
A gentle correction. "Fus-Ro-Dah you mean? Force, Balance, Push." Yes, Hank has apparently Skyrimmed! Of course, for all his reputation and experience, he's only twenty-three, it is probably not a big surprise the man has some RPG and MMO experience, okay, a lot. Hank has to admit, against all better judgement he likes this Duke…er…Jeriah!
"Jeriah then, and you're on."
Hank actually snickers at Jemma's perma-blush, checks that off tonight's 'to-do' list. "Well of course." An no, Hank does not explain why. In truth he doesn't KNOW why, but shh.
"Oh…my." Hank is definitely enjoying the interface. "Oh this is very smooth, I've not done much with mind-machine interface, other then the EMJ suite, but that wasn't two-way."
He does not, somehow, laugh at the J-o-9 image. Nope. Not going to!
He is definitely awash with the sensations and mystery of the cyber-gestalt. A blink as Jemma speaks. "Oh, very good. Right."
First he's going to map the entire system, circuit by circuit, pathway by pathway, logic structure by logic structure. His attention to detail and the meticulous approach are almost terrifying.
"What's an EMJ? I… oh." Jeriah actually bites his lip to keep from laughing out loud. "Well. At least she looks good in the bodysuit. That's proper Jemma-of-Nine, that is." That's not going unremarked but he is so very close to just giggling. Or guffawing. Guffawing is more soldierly, surely.
The cyber pooch lays down next to Hank and hopefully doesn't trip him when he moves next. The thing is huge and clearly built for combat. What Hank and Jemma do not know was it spent most of the past 24 hours following Melinda May around like a lost puppy.
"That looks like a sign of access, doesn't it Doc? And you can call me Jeriah if you want, Simmons." He's been using her last name, well… mostly because he's used to it. "I've accessed her a few times but that's… definitely not me. Someone's… remoting in? Simmons do you have TeamViewer installed?"
"Connection is Five by Five, Simmons. You've got a good cache and bit rate." Beat. "That sounds weird and almost inappropriate. But you do. Good hardware. In a technical sense…"
"Stop it…" Jemma mutters trying to dismiss the image of herself in that damn blue starfleet uniform. Well, Jeri Ryan's uniform. It's proving persistent though, each time they mention it. Eventually though, it goes. Not before the biochem is a rosy red.
A red that just seems to get deeper as Jeriah makes his last set of comments.
"Emergency Medical Jemma…" she explains, the frown creasing her brow "… and no, I don't have teamviewer installed, Jeriah… London… Jeriah. What do you mean there's signs of access? I don't remember anyone else accessing me…"
For Hank, the system lays out in it's entirety. It's an amazing set of engineering really. What he notices though, is there are 'black spots' that would correspond to the access times. Jemma's memories simply don't exist at those points.
"Emergency Medical Jemma." Hank provides readily, probably thinking it into the gestalt before the words pass his lips. "I've rigged my lab with hard-light holo-emitters which thanks to her cybernetic systems she can fully interface with. I'm actually rather proud of the results, my assistant, Catseye has super senses so the hologram actually twigs to all the senses, including things like heartbeat, and scent." And yes, he IS proud of the achievement, and his assistant.
Studying the access point, and the system map, Hank nods. "Yes, I think it is an external access." He pulls up an image of the system, marveling at the power of this fusion of minds and tech. "Look…here…here…here…" He limns the black spots with red, and calls up timestamps into the Virtual Render in their heads.
The poor cyberpup's settling by him, does briefly remind him it is there, and then he belated pets the thing. "Sorry…girl." He's going to think of it as a shiny metal Lassie, who knows, maybe she'll save Clint the next time he falls down a well!
"So…Jeriah…cross reference the geolocations at those points, we'll be able to see where she was at each incident, and what she was doing." And if there's any she wasn't aware of, or that don't correlate to a blackout, that could be important to know."
The dog's head comes up just a little at the pat. One gets the feeling it would be waggling a tail if it had one. Alas, it does not. It's really rather cunningly crafted but that's probably an investigation for another time. Jeriah gives the dog a look but doesn't say anything other than to motion for it to 'stay'.
"Don't mind RD-114. Those drones act weird sometimes. Okay let's see…"
Jeriah pulls up the security footage and a rough map of the Tri. "Those all correspond to times that she was in her lab. Often mid access of something. Looks like she just… freezes. But there are corresponding accesses of her lab database to those times… Ah. Look."
He blows up and enhances a still image a few times. "She froze while providing her thumb-print. Why do I suspect the timing was deliberate? That explains how whomever is doing this got around the biometric access denials. She'd only need to do that once and if he had a line in, he could just record the electronic signature of the data and repeat it any time the credentials were requested."
Work explanation done, the Hacker-soldier grins a bit. "That sounds like a hell of a device, Hank. Don't suppose you have any stills of the conversation." He might like to frame on. And put it on Jemma's desk. Or, if he's feeling impish, Clint or May's desk.
Maybe Cap's.
"That one's Shep." Jemma notes as the cyber-pup gets a pat. There's an almost a challenging look to London at the naming of the dog.
"You're saying someone is accessing me? And they did because they captured my biometric read?" Jemma actually shivers at that. "That's … impossible. There's no one able to do that. Not even you, Lond—- Jeriah. You couldn't hack me to do that and you've had the time."
But those protocols are listed. Hank can see them in the data he was given on her implants. The information is redacted but the labels there. Someone has access to Jemma's conversion data.
"Oh, RD-114? Interesting, the canid behavior is spot on." Hank says, and nope—doesn't bug him to be petting a metal drone dog. That's barely on his odd-dar, doesn't even make the top one hundred for the week. "Ah, yes, override Jemma, use her to bypass the biometrics, very clever." Hank frowns a moment. "Can you call up the logs of outbound packets from that time? There might be traceable header information, or even a geo-location tag we can use to track to the source."
And there's a bit of a growl underlaying Hank's words, might be a little shivery, he gets a little (okay a LOT) protective of his friends.
"What I'd really like to do is map the signature of the blackouts and embed a trace program and maybe a few really mean viruses to ride along with the next incident if we cannot backtrace them from the network logs."
A pause as Hank recalls the redacted labeling information. "Jeriah — who has access to the data from when Jemma was Deathloked?"
"I wouldn't have to hack you to do that. I'm in your lab all the time. If I wanted your fingerprint I'd use a piece of tape." Jeriah points out, making a face. "But you're correct. That'd be impossible without a direct line into the Death-Lok hardware which would be impossible if you weren't intimately familiar with it's OS. Which is custom. You'd have to have been on the design or medical team that installed it."
THAT's also likely somewhat chilling.
He sighs and focuses on Hank's question. "Really just the people who were involved in either designing or installing it. It's a very, very small group of people."
He calls up the log and frowns. "Hrm. This is being very cleverly bounced but I can tell you that the nearest point of access is actually IN the Triskellion." Whether or not it starts there, that's an entirely separate question. "I can't trace it through SHIELD's systems without panicking them, so we'll have to get internal security on it. But that squares with the suspicion that we've got a mole." Beat. Grin. "Are you gonna give Simmons a cold, Jeff Goldblum?"
"But even if you wanted to, it's unlikely you could." Jemma says tiredly, sitting on the edge of the bed, looking drawn and despondant. Any embarrassment has faded and the enormity of what's been done is hitting her. "It's Jemma, Lon- Jeriah." People call her Simmons but she prefers to be called her name.
They probably can't blame her for that.
"At least it takes the suspicion off you being the mole, Jeriah." Hank might find that interesting. That Jeriah had been considered that as well. "But it makes me a liability. Particularly if my research is being stolen. I've got most of the reverbium recipe worked out and a way to stabilise it, I think." beat "Maybe I should just stay in here."
Then Hank mentions his idea and Jemma looks up. "Can you do it? The two of you? I … don't want to black out anymore."
"Then arrest them all, no warning, comb their quarters, their homes, everything possible - if you need a telepath I know a few." Yes, Hank's dead serious about that list bit, and deadly earnest about the 'arrest them all' thing. Presumably they all signed papers that would make it possible to do so legally, they had to swear some pretty binding oaths to get their clearances, this is without doubt espionage, and might well be treason as well.
He smiles to Jemma and nods. "Oh, we could pretty easily come up with something that would ruin their day, and I think we should in the event that it was not one of the team members that Jeriah mentioned, but another person entirely who's knowledge and skills aren't known. Don't forget - the access didn't necessarily have to be strictly over the system, what if the person were a cybernetic telepath? Granted, that's a stretch." Hank sighs. "Honestly I don't like the idea of using you as bait, Jemma. I'd rather not have to do this at all, because it mandates your being blacked out again."
And then he grins to Jeriah. "I don't have my MacBook, Wil Smith, but I suppose your quantum computing systems will just have to do."
"Yeah, as he says I think we can get you set up nicely. We could probably block any future access and will want to do so but putting a few bugs in for the next access attempt is a good ploy. We can do something that might make it possible for us to locate them and wreck their drives. Email their grandmothers a bunch of NSFW website links and the like."
That last one… seems a bit far fetched. But Jeriah would probably do it.
"Might want a telepath but I'll leave that up to Jemma and the powers at be. Now…"
The hacker hands in the People magazine he'd been holding. "Why don't you read about J-Lo a bit while we code."
They're gonna be here a bit.
"Alright. We'll need to make a report on this. One that should hand delivered to Agents May and Barton and the Director. Actually, you'll need to do that Jeriah, until we're ready to close this trap - we don't want me having any sensitive information."
As to arresting people, Hanks not wrong. "Make the recommendation on that. It might be best to not tip our hand too early though. I'm not an operative though, so others might have opinions on that."
Taking the magazine, Jemma wrinkles her nose and pulls out the Scientist Monthly she was reading. "I don't need to know how to make my —— forget I was going to say anything. I'll just read this…"
She's good here for a little while.
Hank might need to ask for more coffee though.