Summary:Nadia tracks down a strange extradimensional entity and totally misunderstands what a Goth is. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Eve, or Morning Glory as she's (very) minorly known in the superhero community. is seated beneath a tree in Washington Square Park at this early hour. By her side is a cup of coffee from a local shop. In her lap is her expensive, spendy consumer-grade tablet.
She's comfortably reading a book, glancing up oinly to have a sip of her coffee and enjoy the morning air.
It's been a very strange week for Nadia van Dyne. A few days ago a New York zoology student brought in the half eaten remains of… something. A slightly nightmarish chewed mess that's vaguely reminiscant of crows, moles, buzzards and ants that was found quite dead near an independent bookstore specialising. In the hope that G.I.R.L might be able to figure out what it is where she had been unsuccessful.
After closer study Nadia came to two conclusions. Firstly that the thing she was looking at didn't match anything she'd ever seen and secondly that whatever ate it was probably equally inhuman. And potentially /very/ dangerous judging from the mawed cells left behind in the wounds.
These mystery cells, still eating away days after the injuries were inflicted, gave off an unusual energy signature. Some sort of alien parasite? A genetically engineered superweapon? Either way the risk of ignoring it was too great. Thankfully the energy signature could be tracked. With a little work anyway.
Which is how she's ended up in Washington Square Park, dressed in her Wasp costume and hefting a bleeping handheld sensor device, flitting through the air on insect wings. All of her biohazard precautions fully engaged.
Eve is in costume too!
Goth is a costume, right? Well… sometimes. Eve is definitely fully comitted to her aesthetic. She is in fact noticing the FLYING SUPERHERO, but if you live in New York you kind of get used ot them and thus her attenmtion falls back to her book after a moment of smiling and staring and appreciating /superheroes/.
But… her /ebook/, you know? It must be interesting. In any case, she's definitely not at all thinking about the meal she was unable to finish digesting a few days ago. It was gone by the time she'd gotten the chance to go back for it after having been interrupted in mid-digestion.
Ah well. Such is life!
The airborne superhero seems rather perplexed. Her sensor seems to indicate an otherwise normal looking girl at a bench, so she flies a little further and takes some more readings. Repeating the process for a third time to allow pinpoint triangulation and… it's still the girl at the bench. A shapeshifting alien perhaps?
Nadia hangs in the air for a moment frowning.
Eventually she resolves to break the deadlock. "Excuse me," she calls out with a hint of a Russian accent. "You haven't seen anything unusual in the park recently have you?" She clicks the scanner into silent mode. As the closer she flies the more excited it seems to be getting.
Oh hey the flying girl is talking to /her/. That usually bodes ill.
Eve offers a warm smile, however, and places her hands on top of her ebook in front of her before leaning back to study her a little more, an eyebrow lifted. "… you mean aside from the girl in the flying outfit flying up to me and asking me if I'd seen anything unusual, of course. No. It's quiet as… well, as quiet as New York gets, I suppose."
"I don't wish to alarm you," Nadia starts. Yes it definately bodes ill. "But I think you may have come into contact with an unknown biohazard. Did you by any chance handle some sort of dead cryptid? Near a bookstore by NYU. Like a weird rotting meat… thing. I'm not really sure what it is yet."
Eve just groans.
She groans loudly. She slumps back into her bench and just siiiiiighs loudly. "I /see/," she says after a moment. "Waws it a sort of weird combination of, like… a crow, mole, and a buzzard at the same time?" She asks, looking up towards the sky. She does not like where this conversation is going, but lo, it has gone there.
"It's pretty dead, right?"
"Gosh I hope so," Nadia replies with an involuntary shudder as she recalls whatever it was she was trying to study. "If not I dread to think how bad it'll smell when it dies.. Anyway that's exactly it." She flies a little closer to the ground, about a foot from the floor, so it's easier to hold a conversation. "There was some sort of microcellular contagion eating at it still."
"Could have come from whatever was gnawing on it or it could be some native parasite or cellular function."
"Mhm, really? Unusual cells, you say? Those are probably mine. I'm Morning Glory, by the way. A pleasure to meet you, whoever you are!" Eve has fallen behind on identifying who various superheroes /are/, though this one seems to not be too immediately threateniong. One can never be too careful, though, and that's why she's a little more tense than she was at her arrival. A sip of her coffee follows. "I was, ah, using my powers to ensure that the creature was unable to return from the dead as sometimes things like that do. Please tell me you, like, incinerated it or something?"
"Right now I've had to store the remains under a level four biohazard," Nadia explains earnestly, using the built in electronics in her suit to do a quick search online for Morning Glory. "That's the highest level of containment possible. Any breaches and it'll be incinerated, microwaved and then the remains will be flooded with a concentrated acid solution. Anything left… well it's best you don't know where that'll be placed."
"Those cells are yours?" she repeats, a slight touch of disbelief. "Are you perhaps from… very far away?" She glances upwards. "Oh I'm Nadia by the way. Wasp when in costume."
"….yeah, they're mine. A manifestation of my powers, actually. Let's me reduce those things to nothing, which is good enough, you know. ANyway, I'm perfectly safe. I don't even ordinarily slough off DNA like that — must be because I was interrupted. Incinerate it and it'll be good." She waves her hand, casually. Clears her throat. She's actually blushing. This is sort of flustering.
"I'm not really sure I'd call it DNA," Nadia replies tentatively. "It's very… hard to explain. And trust me I'm generally very good at biochemistry and weird physics. So if I can't understand it… must be something very strange." She blinks a few times. "No offense intended! I'm sure you as a person aren't strange." She holds the scanner infront of her. "The energy readings you're emitting shouldn't be a concern, but I'd recommend you avoid any areas with delicate electronics. Just to be on the safe side."
"I don't suppose you'd consent to giving some blood and tissue samples? Just so I can rule out any transmittable pathogens."
"….well, it's DNA most of the time," says Eve, glanccing from side to side. A slight smile on her face.
"…and I'd really rather not provide samples to a random scientist. How did you even /get/ the vody, anyway? I was going to come back to deal with it and get rid of it but you… sort of somehow got it instead." She makes a face. "I'm sorry that ended up in your lap, but these kids stumbled in and I was in no shape to ward them off at that point." She clears her throat.
"Some sort of mutant ability?" Nadia muses, finally landing on the ground. Her wings coming to a stop but not folding away just yet, staying ready to spring to life if needed. "I don't mean to be rude and pry it's just.. I have to be sure it's not a risk. I'm sure you understand."
She shrugs. "I think one of the kids who distracted you had a sister studying Zoology. She'd been due to visit my lab, over at G.I.R.L, for a visit. We help with scholarships and stuff you see." She digs around in her pockets and pulls out a business card, which she offers to Eve. "As a compromise perhaps if I take air samples from around you and maybe some swabs from that bench. If there's no trace of anything dangerous I'll be re-assured you aren't leaving contaminants around. And at the same time you can be comfortable that a stranger hasn't got samples they could use to clone you or any other unethical experiments you might be worried about."
"Well, I can't exactly stop you. I'm not leaving comtaminants around. Weird energy, though? Ehhh…" Eve lets out a sigh. She's been known to exude some ambient extra-dimensional energies from time to time, after all. She's tripped more than a few wards that way. She gets to her feet and steps away from the bench after taking, read, and pocketing the card. "Go right ahead."
Nadia Van Dyne offers a friendly smile. After all anything able to casually eat something the size of the cryptid probably could have a fair go at stopping her and it most likely wouldn't be pretty. Especially not in a public park! "It won't take long I promise," she assures putting her scanner away in a pocket that by all rights shouldn't be big enough to fit it. Nor should it be big enough for the sampling device that she takes back out. "I came prepared with all the right kit I'd need."
The business card proclaims she's the Director of the Genius in action research lab. With an insect wing logo that's obviously inspired by the wings on her costume.
"So no-one you've spent time with has ever come down sick with anything unexplained? That's re-assuring. Although sometimes a viral infection, like say Kuru disease, can take over a decade to incubate. So no harm in being thorough, no?"
Eve, on the other hand, seems to have no interest in making trouble. This is clearly something she has experience with and she just has to put up with. She does shake her head, however. "No, no. I'm old. If something like that was going on, believe me I'd have seen it well before now, and besides, I'd probably have been set on fire /ages/ ago by some well meaning person." Like Nadia.
Fire is so very old school. If she needed to totally clear out a biohazard Nadia would likely use combination of microwave beams and high energy radiation. Sure it might kill all the plants in this part of the park, but it'd end any threat of an outbreak.
Thankfully that doesn't seem like it'll be required. Her scanner sucks in air samples and there's nothing of concern. So she takes a few swabs of the bench to test. "Old?" she wonders aloud. "How old is old? You /seem/ about my age but appearances can obviously be deceptive."
"Mann," demures Eve. She wags a finger at Nadia, as if to chide her for asking her age in the first place, though a small smile has crossed her expression here. "Older," is all she says, "It's a goth thing."
"I don't understand what the big deal is about women and age," Nadia replies shaking her head and shrugging. "I grew up in Siberia you see. The culture is very different." As for the finger wagging. Well that gets a bit of a blank look as she continues putting swabs into compartments in the scanning device. "Oh a Goth? The nomandic Germanic people who fought against Roman rule? Wow, you /are/ old."
"…. Siberia. Ah. Well," says Eve, "I had no idea, obviously and… no. Not that kind of Goth." She puts a hand to her face. "More like the subculture." She gives a tired smile. "Google will tell you the rest, I'm sure."
Nadia also sticks a stray blue hair from the bench into her scanner. All the results seem normal and safe so far. "Well, everything checks out so far," she muses, tapping a few buttons on the device and then holding it up for Eve to see. "I'm clearing the data on the device. So you don't have to worry about my keeping any of your personal data." She clicks confirm while the screen is visible and it does indeed come up with a memory cleared message. "If that… whatever it was called.. the cryptid. If you assure me it's dangerous I'll have it destroyed as soon as I get home."
"…good to know," says Eve after a momentary pause. the relief she feels at the deletion of data, at least supposedly, is palpable anyway.
"I appreciate that," she adds, "And anyway, I just usually dissolve those things so that nobody has to see them. It's usually better that way."
Nadia Van Dyne nods. "I hope you don't take it the wrong way but I intend to keep the scanner," she adds earnestly. "Not because I suspect you're going round eating people too." Although she hasn't exactly ruled the option out either. "But if I see anything like it in the future and need to contact you. I'm fairly well equipped to deal with most situations but it never hurts to consult with an expert… Would monster hunter be an accurate description?" She blinks. "Of your vocation that is."
"That's one of them, I guess," agrees Eve. Then there is that slight smile again. "I doubt I could stop you from just making another even if I asked so don't worry about it. I appreciate you saying so, though."
"Well it's been nice to meet you Miss Morning Glory," Nadia replies cheerfully, finally letting herself relax a little. "But I probably should be flying back to my lab. You wouldn't believe the amount of paperwork level four biohazards require. I'm not even sure I should have held onto it this long without calling in someone like the CDC.. Although I have no idea what they'd do with it. Short of wall of my lab and quarantine me.."
"You could just give it to me and let me finish what I was doing," says Eve, "but failing that you can just burn it to ashes." She is form on this point, adding, "then burn those too."
"I'd rather not transport it all this way," Nadia points out. "But if you can stop round before this evening… I guess I could hold it a few hours longer. No clue what I'll put on the forms though. Eaten by a superhero…" She shakes her head. "Anyway I'm sure I can figure something out. It was a pleasure meeting you Morning Glory, sorry to have interupted your reading!" And with that her wings flare back into life and she takes to the sky.