Summary:Hank, Jeriah and Jemma combine forces to try and help the captured mutants. Not all turns out as it should. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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It's been a couple of days since the three mutants were retrieved from Iraq. They've been secured in containment 'fields' in the Medbay of The Triskelion. Away from others but still near enough that medical staff can monitor them.
There's little known about them right now, except they're bodies are going through 'withdrawal' now the nanotech they used was disrupted.
Jemma Simmons has finally had time to devote to examining them and has the able assistance of two others. One is a Scientist like herself, the other a generalist who happens to a passable engineer and can lend muscle if the situation warrants it.
Hank is present, he's muscle! Actually no, he's the other scientist, but he does have a few muscles to lend to things if there's a need. Not like Jemma's a slouch in that department either after having been Deathloked and equipped with a cyberlimb and such.
"So…I would suggest we take a sample of the man's blood, and then screen for the nano-tech as we analyze the genetics."
Hank nods firmly. "I do /not/ think we should lower the stasis field during this process." Beat. "Unless there's no other option."
There are three captive mutants. Their names remain unknown; all tests that could have been done, ranging from DNA to fingerprint identification, have proven that these three men essentially don't exist. Their names are not known, nor are their code names, but for the sake of storytelling ease, they are named Bullfist, Silverlock, and Shift.
Bullfist is the largest of the three, a beastly man who more closely resembles an ogre than a human. Silverlock is slender, of average height, with a shock of white hair in odd juxtaposition to such a young face. This was the time-slowing mutant, and both of them seem to hail from Slavic regions.
Shift, the ringleader and the one presumed responsible for the terror attacks in America, seems to hail from central Africa.
The stasis fields have kept the three mutants essentially in a comatose state, but their vitals show troubling signs. Everything seems to be out of whack and unstable; from pulse to brain wave patterns. The nanotech that their gunmetal gray skin suits are made of remains offline, having been baked by an EMP.
Jeriah London, not a mutant, is the one who is hanging back. This is partly because he's less useful for scientific endeavor and partly because he needs to keep an eye on everyone. This is why all three of his (rather large) robotic combat canines are in the room and it's also why he's in full tactical gear with an electro-plasma shotgun resting in his hand on a sling.
"Don't mind me. I'm just here for the food." He murmurs.
And okay, maybe to compute something. Like Pi to a billion places.
"Lowering the stasis field is a risk, I agree." Jemma answers, casting Jeriah a look when he comments on the food. He didn't bring her any, after all. "We know little about these men, except they've been tampered with. I'm just pulling the results up from the first set of tests we conducted." Those results will appear on the 3D hologram above the workbench to the side of the room.
"The stasis field is supposedly keeping them alive but we don't know enough about the nanotech to know it's *not* doing something else while they're out." Jemma's seen a lot in her with SHIELD. "But draw the blood, Hank - the system over there will let you operate remotely. Jeriah, have you seen anything like this in your time in the field?"
It's the sort of thing Genosha would do, after all.
A nod from the fuzzy blue guy, and then he gets to work on the blood draw. He takes exquisite care, follows all the safety protocols to the letter and in some cases beyond that point as he does so. "I have an energy bar if you're peckish, Jemma." Hank offers with a briefly flashed toothy grin.
Once he gets the blood drawn he very VERY carefully takes the sample vial to run the blood panel, tox screen and genetic scan.
"Huh..interesting." He puts the output up on a screen, moving over to mark several points. "These are the so-called 'X-factor', the 'mutant gene'. HOWEVER…the very structure has been altered, each individual is unique, of course, but these points…" He finger marks them knowing Jemma's stuff will register his hand movements just fine. "…these points are artificial, and they appear to be tied into the nano-tech in a symbiotic, almost parasitic, fashion…ABSOLUTELY ingenious and equally vile…Jemma, could you confirm? The subject's DNA is /bound/, in fact the nano-tech seems to be holding it together."
"Can't say that I have." Jeriah says as he hangs back and listens. There's a lot of interesting tech at play here and he's seen a fair amount in his time. But this? This is beyond his experience. The people he worked with were largely interested in cybernetics and reverbium based weaponry. This is what amounts to witchcraft in his view.
Which it KIND of is.
Jemma takes her time to assess the results, zooming in on the points and turning the model. "Almost Hank. Look …" gesturing to the points "These aren't artificial, these are organic and see these markers … those suggest this is secondary mutation that has been triggered by the tech."
"Jeriah. I've managed to pull some of the nanites for the samples. Engineering hooked up a system to access them. Are you able to decode them? Tell us what they were doing, apart from regulating their systems?"
That seems to be the key here.
"In a way, the nano-tech is holding their systems together, but it's because their bodies have become dependant on it - incorporated it."
"Oh my stars and garters, missed the secondary mutation entirely - some expert /I/ am." Hank moves to study the image, and studies closely. "Hrmph…you're right, it is a secondary mutation and the signature seems to indicate it was what would have happened 'normally', if there's such a thing. What is interesting…I can't quite determine what stimulus was used to /trigger/ it." And that lack on his part clearly bugs the man.
He looks to Jeriah and Jemma both, and thoughtfully asks. "The nano-tech, perhaps? It might have been trigger AND binding agent…"
One of the consoles begins to chirp. It is a console that is monitoring the nanotech, and the console is displaying that the devices are beginning a reboot cycle. The reboot cycle starts slowly at first, but after about two seconds, the speed at which the technology reboots grows at a rapidly exponential pace.
Inside the stasis fields, something strange begins to happen. The gunmetal gray skinsuits begin to peel away and reform, a truly remarkable sight to see; millions of tiny machines moving back and forth as part of the rebooting cycle, resembling a literal wave of motion up and down the captive mutants' bodies. While this might be troubling, the medical monitors actually show that the three mutants' vitals… are stabilizing.
"Yeah I can take a look." Jeriah says stepping over to the workstation. He connects up and frowns. "Starting analysis. These things are definitely talking. The dampeners in the room are definitely working well though."
Then there's something that makes him take a sudden step back though neither of the other two feel it. "Woah, hold on. Something just happened. The nanites are adapting. They're rotating signals… they're through the interference. The suits are synched up. They're exchanging information VERY quickly. At petabyte-per-second ranges."
That's a LOT to be doing wirelessly. Just what the hell is going on here?
"Secondary mutations aren't unknown and we know that several agencies have been working to trigger them, Hank. I was thinking a dependancy. Those suits seem to control their abilities, in a way …" Jemma looks to Jeriah to see how he's progressing just as the alarms start to sound.
"A petabyte-per-second… That's impossible over wireless." the biochem exclaims. Clearly it's not.
"Get a TAC team positioned in the corridor." She says to the orderlies. If these mutants breach containment, they could be in trouble.
"Jeriah, can you tell what they're doing? And can you shut them down? If you need more processing space … use … me."
"This is interesting…the nano-tech seems to be unrelated to the mutations." Of course then the blue guy notes the increased activity, and blinks. "It shouldn't be able to communicate at all with the suits in the chamber." He moves to the controls for the stasis chambers, and starts trying to counter their adaptions. He's not a computer, but he's really smart.
"I don't suppose the chamber has the ability to deliver an EMP if needed?"
Because if he can't at least slow it down, that is about all he can think of to suppress it!
Again.
One by one, the captives' eyes seem to be trying to open. Adrenaline levels on the biomonitors begin spiking, as do very specific areas of the brain, as reflected on the neural scanning consoles. They are the areas of the brain responsible for communicating pain, and they're spiking. Hard.
Bullfist's body begins thrashing about on the ground, locked somewhere between a violent seizure and enraged gestures. His eyes flutter, and an alarm warns them that the stasis field may not hold.
Silverlock's face tightens, his teeth grinding together, hands curled into trembling fists. Though his eyelids pry open, his eyes seem distant, as if they weren't there, somehow not connected to the suffering his body is feeling.
Kwabena suddenly releases a vicious howl of agony, but it's cut short when his body transforms into a black goo. There is some bubbling where the head ones, but soon enough he reforms, writhing about on the floor, only to transform into a cloud of black that batters against the containment field to no avail.
This time, their vitals begin spiking, but it isn't due to the withdrawals Simmons had registered earlier. Now, it's because of the transmissions Jeriah has detected; the nanotech is inflicting physical pain somehow, and it's causing the mutants' heart rates to skyrocket. Of all of them, Silverlock is the most at risk; his heart rate is already pushing 140 BPM, well into the potentially lethal range.
"Yeah but I am going to need some help. Hank you need to stop them from breaching containment or…" The hacker-soldier's eyes narrow as he pulls Jemma over and starts to work on the technical end with her, getting her to translate when it's interfacing with biology in ways he doesn't understand.
"Whatever the files are, they're massive. But they're getting something in from outside. It's probably not radio. Someone's doing something a little bit… unnatural."
And then his eyes widen.
"It's a kill command! The nanites are terminating their hosts!"
Jemma allows Jeriah to interface with her, it's easier to share information that way and not worry about words. "I'm going to knock them out, I've tweaked our dendrotoxin formula for this. Aerocilised delivery into each room." It takes a moment before a mist fills the rooms, it should sedate the now waking mutants.
Which doesn't fix the issue their bodies are going into overdrive.
"Get the crash carts ready." She snaps to the orderlies "We might well need your dogs, London." London, not Jeriah. Jemma's in field mode. "Hank. You too. Not your dogs, but your strength. I won't these men die on my watch."
"This is interesting…the nano-tech seems to be unrelated to the mutations." Of course then the blue guy notes the increased activity, and blinks. "It shouldn't be able to communicate at all with the suits in the chamber." He moves to the controls for the stasis chambers, and starts trying to counter their adaptions. He's not a computer, but he's really smart.
"I don't suppose the chamber has the ability to deliver an EMP if needed?"
Because if he can't at least slow it down, that is about all he can think of to suppress it!
Again.
One by one, the captives' eyes seem to be trying to open. Adrenaline levels on the biomonitors begin spiking, as do very specific areas of the brain, as reflected on the neural scanning consoles. They are the areas of the brain responsible for communicating pain, and they're spiking. Hard.
Bullfist's body begins thrashing about on the ground, locked somewhere between a violent seizure and enraged gestures. His eyes flutter, and an alarm warns them that the stasis field may not hold.
Silverlock's face tightens, his teeth grinding together, hands curled into trembling fists. Though his eyelids pry open, his eyes seem distant, as if they weren't there, somehow not connected to the suffering his body is feeling.
Kwabena suddenly releases a vicious howl of agony, but it's cut short when his body transforms into a black goo. There is some bubbling where the head ones, but soon enough he reforms, writhing about on the floor, only to transform into a cloud of black that batters against the containment field to no avail.
This time, their vitals begin spiking, but it isn't due to the withdrawals Simmons had registered earlier. Now, it's because of the transmissions Jeriah has detected; the nanotech is inflicting physical pain somehow, and it's causing the mutants' heart rates to skyrocket. Of all of them, Silverlock is the most at risk; his heart rate is already pushing 140 BPM, well into the potentially lethal range.Jeriah London
"Yeah but I am going to need some help. Hank you need to stop them from breaching containment or…" The hacker-soldier's eyes narrow as he pulls Jemma over and starts to work on the technical end with her, getting her to translate when it's interfacing with biology in ways he doesn't understand.
"Whatever the files are, they're massive. But they're getting something in from outside. It's probably not radio. Someone's doing something a little bit… unnatural."
And then his eyes widen.
"It's a kill command! The nanites are terminating their hosts!"
Jemma allows Jeriah to interface with her, it's easier to share information that way and not worry about words. "I'm going to knock them out, I've tweaked our dendrotoxin formula for this. Aerocilised delivery into each room." It takes a moment before a mist fills the rooms, it should sedate the now waking mutants.
Which doesn't fix the issue their bodies are going into overdrive.
"Get the crash carts ready." She snaps to the orderlies "We might well need your dogs, London." London, not Jeriah. Jemma's in field mode. "Hank. You too. Not your dogs, but your strength. I won't these men die on my watch."
Seeing the spiking vitals, and the sheer amount of data that is being transferred - literally the only thing Hank can think of is an EMP. After donning a gas mask, into the stasis chamber Hank goes, manually rewiring and rerouting the stasis field into an implosive EMP generator. "Jemma…tranq them unconscious if you can, pain killers too…it will take me a few more moment to rig the EMP…"
At least it is /inward/ focused, of course…being ground zero at such a thing, not a great place to be, even for a fellow as sturdy as Hank is.
Bullfish and Silverlock thrash about for another few moments before the dendrotoxin fills the room and rids them of their consciousness. The black cloud that was Kwabena continues battering against the stasis field, but something interesting happens - when it transforms, the vitals go away. No heart beat, no pulse, but neural activity remains as do the readings that indicate the black gas as biological life. The dendrotoxin may not affect him in this state, but, it would seem that neither can the presumed kill command. The gas is agitated, and based on the neuroscans, it feels pain. It is suffering, but it is no longer at risk of death… unless it transforms back into human mass again.
Jeriah appropriates one of the room monitors and begins pulling up the local medical and network systems as quickly as he can. "Okay. The nanites are using a very advanced addressing technology. Way past anything I've ever seen. I doubt I can break it. But they still have to communicate wirelessly which means that they're still beholden to the laws of physics, and because they're transmitting right in front of me I have their frequency. So…"
He can't shut them down. Hank's EMP will need to do that. But he CAN fill the room with enough wireless network noise to chug the systems. He starts to do that, invisibly and silently flooding the area with meaningless wifi traffic. This might actually sort of annoy Jemma as she hears repeated in her head over and over 'the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog'.
"Jeriah, WHAT is that code doing?" Jemma can 'read' what Jeriah is seeing but she's not got the training to understanding it fully. "John Doe 1's instructions looks different to the other …. the quick brown fox, really? … two."
The dendrotoxin gas fills the rooms as Hank enters, hopefully that mask he donned will be good enough. "I'll do pain killers when we've got this under control, Hank. I don't know that they won't interact with what's going on there. Be careful."
"Physical laws are broken all the time in this world we live in, Jeriah. Lets hope you're right and they don't have some sort of subspace transmission capabilities…I'd hate to have to try and /break/ space-time." Because that is just so easy to manage and utterly and completely safe! Well, assuming they even could find the means.
Probably better to /not/ even try, though drat, now the math is—-FOCUS, Hank! He drags himself back to the task at hand as the room is flooded with lorem-ipsemium, and is clearly fascinated by the way the gaseous form isn't in affected by kill switch or dendrotoxin.
A little woozy from what's being absorbed through the skin, Hank grits his teeth, a rictus-grin, and then he triggers the EMP.
Man, he is very glad he has cloud-backups of his phone info!
The EMP causes the room to buzz and tremble, and the computers go fuzzy for a moment, but they have EMP shielding. Jeriah's blocking of the cyberpathic signal manages to shut the downloads down just in time to prevent the unthinkable - the last line of code is blocked, and when the EMP once again fries the nanosuits of Bullfish and Silverlock, they're prevented an ugly death. However, the ordeal was just too much for the skinnier mutant. Bullfish lies on the floor, asleep, but when the computers come back up, they'll reveal that Silverlock has gone into cardiac arrest.
Interestingly, however, the cloud that was, or is, Kwabena, ceases its violent thrashing against the stasis field. It recoils back into itself and remains hovered there, a cloud with slowly moving tendrils of a deeper black, but it appears unharmed. The same strategy that has been used time and time again seems to have been at play here; the kill switch code being little more than a distraction to download a particularly unique upgrade into Kwabena - EMP shielding.
His nanotech is still online, but it has also been cut off from the intrusive signal. And the cloud seems to be very much alive, very much conscious, but finally at rest.
"Code Blue!" Jericho shouts out once he himself recovers from the EMP. He's faraday caged of course. The people who made his implants weren't morons, just unethical. But the electromagnetic noise takes him a few to recover from.
"The external signal has been jammed but we need to figure out a way to make that permanent or we'll just be back at square one when I let go of the wifi system." He waves one of the med teams with the crash cart in. That one. THat one needs help.
"Simmons his nanotech is still online and I can't break into it yet. Hope you and Hank have some Science up your sleeves because I've got nothing yet. Maybe you can vacuum him into an air filter? I dunno."
Jemma reels as her own implants are hit by the EMP. "Oh, that's unpleasant…" she mutters, hand grasping a mask to pull it on and enter the containment room with a crash cart. "What Jeriah?" She's been distracted by the cardiac arrest, that shouldn't surprise anyone!
"Oh uh …" Gas. "Hank, I'm tanking the temperature in that room … fortunately the controls haven't been affected and cutting the air filtration. Rewire a filter, like Jeriah says, and get him into that … it might help."
Jemma's splitting her attention as they work on Silverlock.
People often forget that the central nervous system is not just chemical, but electrical as well. It is an Electro-Chemical system, thus, being ground zero without proper protection? Pretty bad for you. In fact for most people this sort of thing could potentially kill them. Fortunately Hank is rather tough, and heals rather swiftly. The reason for the rictus grin was anticipation of having his whole body disrupted like that - Hank drops to a knee, hands braced on one of the pods, and then he rises rather unsteadily as he does so, yeah, NOT feeling well. Not at all.
He starts towards the fallen, the Code call triggering an almost instinctive response…but then there's a crash cart, and he swallows a few times before looking through the glass of the wall, and the resin of his gas mask and tries not to hurl as Jemma suggests a /good/ plan.
"Right…filter…good thought…" On sheer piss and vinegar he pries open a vent and pulls out the filter, rewiring it then hooking up one of the scrubber pumps, which of course he reverses. Hopefully it won't blow, because that would suck a lot.
The medical teams rush in, gas masks worn, and prepare Silverlock for recovery. An injection of adrenaline is given, while one of them works on chest compressions. "Clear!"
The one doing compressions backs off and answers, "Clear."
Click, zap, and the young silver haired mutant's body spasms. "Zero sinus rhythm. Increase by 50."
"Charging."
"Clear."
Again, but the mutant's heart monitor reads a flatline. They'll continue working on him, but the situation for the time-bending mutant looks dim.
Meanwhile, as Hank prepares for this last ditch effort, the cloud that has become Kwabena moves toward the stasis field again. A very odd thing happens… the air in the room seems to move, vibrate, and a whispering sound that is loud as a human voice reverberates in the room. "Stop." The cloud has turned toward the containment field where Hank is working, positioned as such that the mass of black tendrils within the cloud are facing him, and moving, as if they are responsible for the vibrations in the air. "Stop. Now."
Jeriah looks over at the medics. "Pericardial thump!" He calls out. It's an old technique and not often used but if the nanites had gotten lodged in between the paricardial membrane and the heart it MIGHT be the only way to dislodge them and get Silverlock restarted. That's IF that happened. Jeriah has no idea. He's not a medic, only a soldier.
"Hank! Jemma! Is it working?!" The last thing they need while he tries to find a better solution to the signals jamming issue is for the gasseous mutant to escape and suddenly be under the control of whatever outside force is doing this again.
"Jeriah, get yourself and your dogs in that room now." Jemma calls. She's heard the voice and it worries her. As to treating Silverfist, Jeriah's recommendation isn't a bad one. "Out of my way." Jemma clambers onto the bed and raises her cybernetic arm, bringing it down on the poor mans chest.
He didn't need those ribs, did he?
"The gas is talking and telling us to stop … Give Hank back up…"
That's to Jeriah, of course. Hank … she'll worry about in a moment.
The medic in Hank finds it very hard to tune out the coding mutant and the folks trying to save his life. ALMOST he thinks he's hallucinating when the air shimmers and speaks, but then he realizes he hurts too damn much for that to be true - therefore - if you eliminate everything else, whatever remains, no matter how painful - must be the truth! Or something.
"NO idea, London." Hank says honestly enough. Finally, he has the pump reversed to suck instead of blow…and then he IMMEDIATELY regrets having thought that, and is infinitely grateful he didn't say it, or did he?
In fact he did not!
Looking to the wiggly-wobbly tendrils of speaking, he nods. "Why?" If he likes the answer, he won't activate the pump, if he does /not/, he will. This is literally a binary situation!
The pericardial thump was a good idea, but this is not a nanite induced blockage. No, Silverlock's body has simply given out on him. Without any healers in close proximity, it would seem that the mysterious overlords may have one this one part of the battle. One of the medics shakes his head and pulls away. The other one sighs and removes the paddles, putting them away.
As for Hank's answer, it's hard to say just what he might be expecting. "Because they can't hear me." There comes a pause, before the cloud adds, "And sucking me into blender is stupid."
The tendrils of thicker smoke curl. Is it… is it smirking?
Jeriah's actions are… less considered. He comes into the room with a pair of enormous metal dogs with sonic weapons deployed on their backs and a similar one in his hand. He has no idea if it's possible to hurt a gaseous being but at the very least he does have weapons capable of batting the thing around more effectively than the standard bullet. That violet haze from his protective disruption field goes up around him.
"Hank do I need to try to shoot this thing? Because I really prefer to know that it's going to die if I shoot it and I'm really, really not sure about that."
"No…." Jemma continues working on Silverlock after they call it. "… no…." It's never easy to lose someone, much less to lose them like this. It takes for one of the medics to touch her shoulder and pull her away "He's gone Doctor Simmons. There's nothing we could do. They need you in the other room… Come away…"
She makes it into the room much more slowly than Jeriah and lingers behind the hacker-soldier and his dogs for the moment.
"Who are they, precisely?" Hank asks with more than a hint of growl. Normally he'd be a bit more chipper, but he's got a solar-system sized headache right now, and very very little patience left. Still, the suction hasn't been activated, so that's something. He's still willing to listen.
And then Jeriah enters, the sonic weapons aimed. "The sonics would likely be uncomfortable, but I can't say for sure without a greater understanding of the composition of the gas, which I lack. That said, I would hazard a guess to say the most probable result would be an annoyed and stunned cloud, and an even bigger headache for me." Because - super hearing sucks when people use sonic weapons!
Jemma's heartfelt denials turn his head, and he sighs very softly. "Bother."
And then he turns to the cloud, and his voice is rather cold and flat, his expression colder still. "Answers would be rather advisable, about now."
"Prevoshkhodstvo." The cloud doesn't speak with any sort of an accent, but the way in which it speaks the Russian word is almost perfect. The cloud then draws back on itself, the thicker tendrils taking shape of a man. It almost appears skeletal, before the thinner smoke forms around it and is replaced by the mutant they encountered in Iraq, Kwabena. He looks from Hank to Jeriah and those frightening dogs behind him, and the guns, and a passing look to Simmons. Then, he sighs, and raises a gloved hand to touch his head. "Is Russian," he says in a heavily accented and broken English. "De word is, superiority, yes? I hope you undahstand. Dey -" He pauses here, and gestures toward the room as a whole. "Dey cannot heah me. Prevoshkhodstvo. Dey cannot hear." He glances again from one to the other, silver eyes narrowed just so. "Did one of you silenced dem?"
"I'm jamming the signal incoming to your tech but right now that only works in this room. We have to neutralize the nanites or separate you from them for it to work." Jeriah says. His weapon is still at the low ready but he isn't pointing it. Those robo-dogs look nasty though.
"You're talking about a known transnational criminal group." He's heard of them. Never encountered them but heard of them. "Are they behind your tech?" It could be more than just a criminal group of course. If they're secretive enough they might be hiding all kinds of things.
"Docs? Got any way to get this guy de-borged?" That's probably not the question to basking Jemma of Nine.
At least the mutant didn't stare at her. Jemma's getting used to those stares. "Your name?" she asks behind the men, dashing the tears that have splashed down her cheek away. "You were modified by them? Superiority, that is? Were you working for them willingly or ???" She leaves the question hanging.
Jeriahs question is valid though inopportune at the moment and Jemma makes a strangled sound. "Your body has become dependant on the tech, mutating to include it in your make up." The explanation is as much for Jeriah as it is for Kwabena, but Jemma won't talk about the man like he isn't there. "We can't remove it, but London and Doctor McCoy might be able to modify it to disable the comms to Superiority."
She scrubs her face again before adding. "If you permit." If not. Well…..
"Superiority." Hank says after the man manifests from the cloud. "So…" He stands and wobbles a bit, a hand gripping one of the pods hard enough to crack the casing, oops. A moment with eyes shut, and then he nods. "…transnational criminals dabbling in genetic manipulation of mutants using advanced nanotechnology augmented by control and focusing tech in exotic polymerized costumes." A nod. "Did I miss anything?"
He swallows a couple times, and then stands straight once more, rock steady on sheer stubborn.
"De-borged? Not li—-" He nods to what Jemma's saying. "…not without killing him." He looks to Jeriah, then thoughtfully.
"What if we were to modify the nanites' base code? Disable the external communications protocols completely? Modify one single nanite in isolation, then release it back into his system. At the speeds they transfer data they'd probably replicate the code before any warning flags could sound…"
Eyes on Jeriah, Kwabena doesn't seem to be showing much in the manner of facial expressions. He's in a place that he considers hostile; though to be fair, in his perspective, everything, everywhere and everyone is hostile. He nods his head to Jeriah to confirm that they are behind the technology. "Dey ah behind everything," he answers. He then looks past Jeriah and the others, to where the medics are currently bagging Silverlock.
At this point, he does show emotion. It is sadness. It is slow to set in, but it does, and he seems beleaguered by the mutant's death. "Silvahlock," he says quietly. "Dat is his name. His only name."
His attention is drawn away from the deceased mutant by Jemma's words. He stays still, not wanting to irritate Jeriah or his hounds into firing. The question that she leaves hanging causes his expression to transform from grief into anger. Anyone who's looked into the eyes of a mentally scarred war veteran, or a mentally ill patient experiencing rage mania, will recognize that look. It doesn't make sense; it's the kind of look one has in his eyes after witnessing a child being murdered, or a cat being tortured. He does not, however, answer her question, and aside from the curling of a hand into a fist, he does not act.
Instead, he swivels his attention to Hank. "You play dangahrous came, Blue," he says. "I suggest you practice on Bullfist. He is strong, but dumb, and blindly follows Prevoskhodstvo. He does not care of what has done. He is true monstah." While his broken English is heavily accented, likely from the central region of Africa, the way in which he speaks the Russian word is near perfection.
Eventually he turns back to Jemma. "No one works for dem willingly," he finally answers her, and the answer comes with a suspicious note. "You- all of you, you want to help me?" He folds his arms, ignoring the manic thoughts that flick through his mind. Pushing them aside is a feat in and of itself, and most weak-minded people wouldn't be capable. Kill them. Run. Burn the place to the ground. Complete your mission. Wipe them out. Turn this entire place into ash. He hears them, but he closes his eyes tight for a moment, fighting them back.
"Full diplomatic immunity," he finally says, opening his eyes again. "Signed by President of de United States. Permanent Resident Alien status, no criminah chahges, and, yes. Yes, I will help you."
"That's above my paygrade." Jeriah mutters. "But given what you know and what I'm going to guess they used you to do to the power grid, I suspect that's a pitch someone can make." At least while he's in SHIELD detention he's shielded from US prosecution, SHIELD being UN. That will buy time to make the pitch. They should only need a few hours for that, he suspects. They'll need longer to work on this code modification.
"If you want me to help you with trying that, Hank, I think I've got a couple ideas. The biggest trick will be getting INTO them. But I might have some thoughts for that too." He's been studying the communications protocol. It's good. It's advanced. But it's not perfect.
He'll let Hank or Jemma explain why they want to help him.
"Like a virus. That should work. These nanites communicate and will pick up the coding." Jemma agrees. Her face is ravaged by the loss of Silverlock and her eye closes momentarily when Kwabena identifies. "We'll be sure that he is known, sir. I'm… so sorry."
"You haven't given us your name. I'm Jemma." The other two can introduce themselves or not but Jemma is good with people, for the most part. "And yes, we want to help you. For our protection but *no one* should have been subjected to what you have been." says the cyborg woman.
"We can offer you immunity and provide support to lobby the US for a pardon but our agency, doesn't do that. Stay within our facilities, within our purview while that's occuring, and we'll do *everything* we can. But I'm not making guarantees to that level."
Hank gets a look. Jemma is sure there's another group that would be willing to work with them to do this.
"Dammit, I'm a doctor, not a politician." Hank growls at the presidential demand, and then sighs. "You're a victim. Just like your friends, this was /done/ to you, you didn't choose it." Hank shrugs. "That means we try to help." And really, to Hank, it /is/ that simple. Yeah, probably that makes no sense in the Kwabena-verse.
Eyes of blue shift to Jeriah, and he nods. "Protocols can be countered, encryption is only as good as the coder, and we're neither of us slackers in that department. I think together we can make something work, yes. Show me what you have on the protocols and we can work on a cipher-key to infiltrate…" Yeah, Hank's gone to SCIENCE! Land.
He pauses though when Jemma gives him that look, and nods once. "Oh yes, that's a possibility — once we defang the dratted nanites."
"I am Shift," Kwabena tells Jemma after a moment, and after his eyes flick from Hank to Jeriah and back again, a couple of times. Maybe he's studying them, or perhaps looking for weaknesses of some sort. But he eventually comes back to Jemma. "Dat is de name dey gave to me. But, since I am prized possession, and since I did everything dey asked, dey told me real name. Is Kwabena."
This seems to humor him greatly, the name. The name will further identify him as being born in Ghana; 'Kwabena' is the name given to any male born on a Tuesday, a name only children hold until they are old enough to be given their Christian name. "Born on Tuesday." The humor turns into a shadow again, a shadow that his life has been. "Big… fucking… deal."
Turning, he sits down on the floor, legs crossed, and closes his eyes. "Do what you can, yes. But I will only help when I know dere is freedom ahead. Oddahwise?" He opens his eyes, casting them around at the three of them. "Oddahwise, you all, dead to me as I am."
"Well, that makes you our guy Tuesday, I think." Jeriah says. The dogs stand down and he glances at the other two before lowering his weapon and moving to step out of the room. "I'll get to work on something to help with those nanites. Otherwise we're going to have to duct tape a wifi repeater to you and that sounds like it might be a taaaad inconvenient."
This sounds like this is going to turn into a bigger problem… but one thing at a time.
Jemma gives Jeriah and Hank a very flat look. "Now is not the time for lightheartedness." They might argue with her about that.
"I'll get onto the Director and start the process, Kwabena, in the meantime, I want to do a check up while these two work."
"Shift, apropos." Hank murmurs, the prized possession part, yeah, that definitely rubs Hank the wrong way. He looks up then, and shakes his head. "I am sorry for your lost friend, and sorry you've been enslaved and used like this. Trust me, Kwabena, we -will- do all in our power to help you." He even makes a brave effort at a smile. "And who knows, you might even get your presidential immunity."
He frowns a bit at the dramatic ending, but—can't really blame the guy, assuming he's on the level about things.
Which is not out of the question, and very much kept in mind.
Hank moves to the unconscious brute, and takes a blood sample, then nods to Jeriah. "Isolate several single nanites, I think…then see if we can get in, THEN see if we can hack in our changes and put them permanently in Silent mode."
He does look down at the rebuke from Jemma. He was trying to help, but…yeah, levity is not always the answer. He looks to Kwabena. "Doctor Simmons is VERY capable, sir."
Then turns back to Jer. "Shall we get to it then?"
The only other time anyone has ever shown Kwabena any kindness was when he was out in the world, pretending to be a normal human being, hiding his secret because the mission or the job demanded it. A polite smile on a subway train, or someone offering to let him go in front of them at the coffee shop because they didn't have their order ready. Jeriah's congenial remarks, Jemma's empathy, and Hank's attempt at humor, they are mostly lost on him. The last remark, though, about Presidential immunity? That gets a look… and after a few moments, the barest hint of a grin.
He's not the talkative type, by nature. That might change, but, barring a single look at Silverlock, he instead turns toward Jemma. The nanosuit is currently covering all of his body up to his neck, but he extends his right arm, as if he's quite used to the drawing of blood. When he does, the technology peels back and up to his shoulder, revealing his skin. Were it not for the devious and, lets be fair, evil manner in which this technology has been used, it would otherwise likely be considered quite fascinating.
"I will wear anything," he tells Jeriah, going back to the idea about lugging around a WiFi repeater. "If it means I can find a thing to drink."
Surely he's talking about water, or juice, or kombucha.
