Or Is He Both? - Day 2
Aug. 27th, 2024 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsThe X-Men meet Rick Jones outside of town.
Rick Jones was an unremarkable looking man in his late twenties leaning against a well taken care of green AMC Gremlin in the off-the-beaten path meetup spot that was discussed. He had an easy-looking smile, and a harmonica sticking out the breast pocket of his jacket. His brown eyes had a thin ring of gamma-green. He gave a little wave. “Doc’s friends, right?” he asked, vague on purpose.
Kyle nodded. "Well, he and I beat up crabs together once, so I guess we're friends." He eyed the car, mentally went over what he'd remembered of fighting alongside the Hulk in Baltimore and grinned. "Good guy in a crab invasion. I don't understand anything about the science he does, but the big guy's great."
A smile ghosted over Scott's lips as he shook his head, "The way to this man's heart, help him set up a crab bake and he'll love you forever." Dark eyes instinctively glanced around before he nodded slowly, "But yes, the Doc sent us out, though we were hoping you might have a little more info for us to get started with."
"Those crabs were delicious," Jean-Phillipe observed from his customary spot shadowing Scott. "They say hunger makes the best sauce, but whatever people were cooking those crabs in definitely helped as well." He nodded to their contact. "How can we help?"
"Here's the deal," Rick said, standing up straight from where he leaned on his car. "All the gamma radiation is more or less concentrated on the cemetery, but that doesn't mean that someone isn't producing it part of the time. Even Bruce is only about as radioactive as any other gamma scientist or someone like me when he's, y'know. Bruce." Rick of all people would know. He had a little bit of radiation poisoning himself from being caught in the blast all those years ago, but not enough to hurt anyone but himself.
Rick's eyes flashed even more green as he used his self proclaimed 'gamma sense' to double check his statement. He nodded in surety. "Yeah, nothing insanely high. What I'm thinking is looking at the cemetery first, but you guys are the superheroes here. I'm game for anything."
Rick shrugged and smiled. "Who knows, maybe this place was a testing site at some point and there's not a connection at all." It was clear that, despite his ease and his jovial manner he didn't believe that. "Either way, I'll probably get something I can make some decent lyrics out of," he joked, hands played out in front of him. "You ask me to lead you where to go, and I'll take you."
Marius gave his tongue a thoughtful click. "We split up, perhaps? I've Spectrum's powers as a redundancy, but my expertise is in detecting other mutants, not energy signatures. I'm a bit more useful with the face-to-face bit of investigation."
"Which means I should go to the cemetery?" suggested Nica. "Since I'm energy signature gal?"
"Sounds like a plan, Stan," Rogue said. "I have no useful skills here other than tight shirts, so I can do what I do best and have people pay attention to me. Then I can figure out if anyone else has heard stuff. I can't promise answers but I can promise action. For me. Not the mission." She winked and gave a laugh. "No? No one thinks I'm as funny as I think I am?"
"You're gonna have to win a lot of trust awfully quick if you want to get further than rumors, Rogue." Sooraya cautioned her friend ruefully. "Unless Emplate gets lucky and happens to spot someone... How about I see if I can get anything from my connections here as well?"
"Do what sounds right, sugar. It ain't up to me to tell ya how to do that. I think if you got yourself some good connections, I agree -- let's split this up, and reconvene later."
Scott, Kyle, and Jean-Phillipe do research into the deaths in town and find out they are in line with radiation poisoning.
The X-man leaned back in his chair, reaching up to rub the palms of his hands into his eyes as he groaned, letting his head flop back in the chair.
"You know, one of the nice things about the internet is that all the records are available in the comfort of home, in large sized font, not this stare at minute scribbles thing," he noted with a sigh. "Ok, where are we at? Anyone found anything yet?"
"Un migraine," Jean-Phillipe muttered as he rifled through his own stack of pages. Not that he wasn't used to dealing with hardcopy paperwork, but some of these put the incomprehensible scrawling of drunk French dockmasters to shame. But he also knew from hearing some of Garrison's stories about his law enforcement career that inevitably, the minutiae and details were where one found answers or evidence of whatever one was searching for. He cast a questioning look at Kyle to see if he had had any better luck.
Kyle waved his hand for a moment, still holding his phone to one ear and pacing. "Uh-huh. No, I don't really know what a nucleotide is, but I have google. Yeah, that email's a good one, I know a guy who knows a guy, he definitely knows what a nucleotide is better than I would. No, I know, names redacted. I used to date a physician's assistant, she'd stab me if I violated HIPAA." A laugh was heard on the other side of the phone. "Seriously, with a sword. No, the current girlfriend's less stabby. Thanks, yeah, I'll text if I don't get the emails."
He set the phone down. "Okay, medical examiner's an absolute riot, nice dude. Once he got the creds from Gar, he was happy to talk." He sat down in one of the hotel room desk chairs and dropped both feet on the edge of the bed, kneading at the ugly blanket with his toes. "He's sending a bunch of redacted records to a burner email, but he's talking way over my head about causes of death and immunology."
Jean-Phillipe's groan of relief was palpable. "Email. On a computer. Or at the very least a phone. Magnifique." He could only hope that whatever they needed was in those records, rather than going collectively cross-eyed reading the physical records. He drummed his fingers on the desk and rolled his neck to work the cramps out as they waited for the email to arrive.
"Good job, anything to get us away from this torture, and you all think that the danger room is bad, this is an absolute torture by comparison." Scott slumped down in his chair a little, dark eyes resting on the computer as he tilted his head to the side, "You know this is one of those, watched pot never boils moments?"
Kyle's laptop chimed, and he passed it to Scott. "You give me the papers, my eyes are better and I've got depth perception." He was definitely risking a little bit of five in the morning Danger Room run for that. "So just run down the obits and make notes, right? Cant' be worse than going line by line down tenth grade analysis of Life and Death of King John. Fucking curriculum I didn't even set, who picked that one." He scooped up the papers Scott handed him and pulled his knees up. "Hand me a highlighter.'
Jean-Phillipe pitched a highlighter underhand to Kyle, and then grabbed a notepad and pencil for himself. "Bien. I am thinking we start with demographic data? Age, race, gender, and so forth. That should hopefully give us an idea on how to proceed from there."
"Anything would be a good start," Scott agreed, "perhaps we can also look at housing locations. If they're all in the same area it's likely there might be some kind of location we can tie them all too."
Kyle pulled his knees up, marking down the print outs that Scott had handed him. "Obits... actually, hold up." He scooped up his phone and started tapping away. "Okay, so all the obits that our fearless leader pulled here, they list funeral homes for viewings, or churches. Can we - can we use that?" He glanced at Scott. "Little Flower of the Desert, St Augustine, John the Baptist... couple of church names I keep seeing."
"It's a good place to start," Scott turned pulling at desk drawers for a moment before nodding and holding up a map, a triumphant look on his face. "I knew we had one of these around here somewhere." The paper rustled as he spread it out on the desk in front of them. "Say those names again, we can mark them on here and see how it all links up."
Pushpins began to form blobs around churches, funeral homes, and hospitals. A few smaller spots were a bit of a mystery until Jean-Phillipe looked up the addresses - local retirement 'villas'. That prompted him to grab the tally of ages in the obituaries that Kyle had pulled. "This is...an abnormally large number of elderly people," he declared. "In an area of this size, the numbers should be less than half of this," his sociology classes coming back to him.
"What like, more people are dying, or more people are old and dying?" Kyle asked. "So we have a ton of old people dying." He cracked his neck, and grabbed another highlighter. "How often do old people die after a long battle with cancer, because man, obit writers are boring, that phrase comes up a lot. Is that normal, and can I start grading these obituaries for plagiarism. Seriously, if I see 'after a long battle with cancer" or 'a warrior against their auto-immune disorder' I am gonna think they're using ChatGPT or something."
"Let's be fair, obit writers may not be the most...conscientious of writers, they might just have a template they're working off," Scott mentioned distractedly, his brow furrowing for a moment as he reached up and scratched his head, "THis...there's something that's bugging me...I can almost remember it...Clarice!" It was like a light bulb had gone off in his head as Scott stood, stepping away from the table to gesture at the other two. "It was...what almost 20 years ago, Clarice got hit and we had all the doctors worried about cancer and auto-immune disease. It was the radiation and here," a hand waved at the obituaries, "There's way too much cancer and auto-immune, just like you said. It's gotta be radiation based...wait, Banner!"
"Merde. Gamma radiation?" Jean-Phillipe winced. He remembered the aftermath of the mission when they combatted a fiery gamma-fueled robot. It had a way of causing quite a bit of headache.
"Fuuuuuuuuck." Kyle rubbed his face and did his best not to get his claws stuck in his beard. "Fuck, did he fuck us over, the guy's a goddamn Avenger, this isn't a setup right?" He glanced at Scott and then Jean-Phillipe. "Now what the hell do we do?"
"That's...that's a very very good question," Scott had always had a tough time trusting the avengers but they were supposed to be on the side of good, of the right. Now though..."I honestly don't know."
Rick Jones leads April and Nica to the source of the gamma radiation where they find that Del Frye is no longer in his grave.
Rick had directed the superheroines to where the source of the gamma radiation was coming from, which was the cemetery in town. It was well maintained, with nice trees and shade but he still didn’t look fully comfortable there.
“Well, this is it,” he gestured to the cemetery, other hand in his jacket pocket. “Here’s the source of your gamma. There’s a couple spots, but I’m betting most of it is the dead kid’s.”
April didn't notice much of anything at first, but as they got closer to one of the pockets she started to get a metallic taste in her mouth. She stared at the disturbed grave with no little horror, tongue absently poking at sharpening teeth as the metallic taste in her mouth grew sharper, stronger. "We're gonna need a full gamma decontamination when we get home. And anyone with us." She felt like she'd been standing in the sun in the middle of a city during the hottest part of summer, but the skies were overcast. The day was hot, but not that hot, even with her sensitivities.
She didn't need to check the dosimeter badge around her neck to know it was high. "I am... going to back off a bit, maybe call Scott? I'll still be in slightly raised voice range, just... it burns. The radiation. I'm too sensitive to heat for it." She took several steps back before turning, moving briskly from the concentrated pocket to an area that didn't stop the metal in her mouth but did make the feeling of flames on the side of her face recede.
Nica cast a concerned look at April as she retreated, then approached the grave where the readings were highest. She, too, could feel the radiation, but instead of hurting it was like a buzzing along her skin. She'd never tried absorbing gamma before - it wasn't like there was a lot of it available on a day-to-day basis - and she wasn't sure she should start. But she could definitely sense it. She noticed something else as well; the grave had been recently disturbed. Mounds of fresh dirt surrounded the headstone, which was smeared with mud, and as she crouched down to see better, she could see the hole went deeper than a simple groundhog or mole.
Rick squatted down next to Nica and saw that whatever had done the digging had been digging in and not out. He blanched slightly. "Well ladies, I'm gonna go see if any of the other recent graves have been desecrated," he said and wiped his hands as he went to look. He came jogging back after a while, shaking his head with a low whistle.
"Just the kid."
April was on the phone with Scott, relaying what they'd found by the time Rick came back - the radiation, getting the decontamination showers and area set up, the disturbed grave - "Yes sir, just the one gra–No, I'm in hearing distance but the radiation's high enough that–Yes, we've got our badges. Okay. Yes, good idea. Uh-huh. Bye, oh fearless leader."
She walked closer to Nica and Rick. Not quite all the way back to the grave, but close enough that she wasn't shouting, just projecting a little. "Okay, I've relayed all this to the other team. What are we going to do about the radiation though? We can't just leave it, but calling it in to the authorities might not go over great."
"My powers might help..." Nica began, uncertainly. "I mean, I can absorb and project EM fields, but I've never tried gamma and there's not a lot of room for error. If I could get help..." Her expression brightened. "Rogue and Emplate. They can both mimic my powers - three of us should be able to deal with it."
Rick nodded, eyes flashing more green for a moment. "That makes sense. There's not a lot of it, so with the three of you you should be able to get it. And it's mostly concentrated around the kid- or his grave at least."
Nica nodded, eyes moving to the headstone, then the disturbed grave. "And while we're doing that, the rest of you can find out what happened to the body."
Marius, Sooraya, and Rogue look for other mutants in town.
"Well, my tried and true strategy of 'stand in a public space and gaze upon all who pass' has yet to reveal any suspect mutants, nor did my inquiries regarding same." Admittedly, broaching the subject under the guise of a lovelorn suitor who might perhaps have been overly credulous of the genetic status claimed by his dating app paramour was not the most subtle cover story ever conceived, but one worked with what one had. It wasn't as if he'd be seeing any of these people again. With an inward shrug Marius offered the two women coffees obtained at said public space. "What of yourselves?" he asked. "Any luck?"
Rogue gratefully accepted her coffee and yawned. "Luck involves something wittier than I can come up with right now. So that means no. No luck. I even used my feminine charms aka a low-cut shirt, and I got no answers really. It seems like whatever is happening is so far underground, the usual suspects and tricks won't work at all. How about you, Sooraya? Did your innocence get anything that our tainted souls couldn't?"
Sooraya tried a small sip of the coffee before pulling a face and putting it on a nearby ledge. "Nah, I got something better than innocence. While you guys used your wits and 'charms' I figured I'd make a few phone calls." Pulling out her phone, she quickly glanced at the time. "We have a meeting with a local member from the Underground in twenty minutes about five minutes walking from here. So I suggest we get moving."
"With pleasure. Far be it from me to get into the specifics, but I might've left a few people here with the impression I frequent a site for individuals with very specific interests-" Marius' phone was interrupted by a buzz. The man paused to withdraw it from his pocket and crinkled his eyebrows at the text. "Ah, my mistake. It appears Rogue and I are required elsewhere."
"Did y'all go and promise a threesome and now you cain't deliver." Rogue teased with a shake of her head. "Sorry, Sooraya. Can you handle this on your own or do you need us to call in some calvary? We will keep on looking to see if we can find the information we need, but honestly, I'm not holding out hope. If we haven't heard anything about a mutant at this point, even a regular ol' one, I dunno if we will at all." She took a quick swig of her coffee, emptying a good portion of its contents. "This place is just so weird."
"Yeah, if you're sure I am not needed, I can handle this on my own." Sooraya quickly nodded, glancing at her phone to check both the time and her own alerts. "And I agree, but the Underground is probably our best bet at getting this confirmed as definitely as can. I'll text you once I know more."
"Please keep us appraised." Marius tapped out a quick response, his quizzical expression slowly changing to concern. He glanced back up at Sooraya.
"In the meantime, myself and Rogue are off to see a woman about a radiation leak."
"Don't know how many times I gotta tell ya," Rogue said getting up, a gleam in her eyes. "We don't comment on someone's STI."
Marius and Rogue help Nica disperse the gamma radiation and change it.
"You know, I was rather hoping to avoid the cemetery. It seems a bit on the nose after the whole Death thing-- ah, there she is." Marius spotted Nica at the cemetery gates and gave the young woman a wave. "Hello. We were summoned?"
Rogue had to agree with Marius but because their friendship seemed to be built on making the other uncomfortable, she was partly amused as well. This entire mission seemed so strange already, and it was just getting weirder. Although, truly who was she to judge? "You got us here, to do whatever it is you need to do. Is it just us?"
"Thanks for coming." Nica gave the two other X-Men a smile. "I'm sorry to drag you here, but we have a bit of a gamma radiation problem, and I wasn't sure that I could handle it on my own. Or at all, to be honest."
Marius nodded. "We live to serve. I take it the problem is severe?"
"Enough that it needs to be cleaned up before it contaminates the area. Or makes someone really sick. But..." And here Nica blushed a little. "Gamma isn't part of my usual range, mostly because I've never really encountered it before. So I thought maybe you guys could help?"
"Yeah, that makes sense. Not much can really hurt li'l ol' me, so you just let me know where I gotta stand to help you out. Is Marius just being a mutant divining rod and I'm the spirit it speaks through then?"
The Australian gave his chin a thoughtful stroke. "I'm no better acquainted with gamma than the next person," he said, "and no doubt considerably worse at conversion than either of you, but perhaps this could be turned to our advantage. Given my natural predilection towards passive absorption, if gamma is within Nica's capabilities to process I am almost certainly doing so already. What if I were to attempt to emit, say, infrared without making any particular effort towards refinement?" He flicked his gaze back to Nica. "You said if I don't focus my efforts I throw everything I've got. If I project an otherwise known quantity, would the two of you then be able to pick out the unfamiliar?"
"See, this is why I asked for you. You know how to put this into words." Nica gave Marius a half-smile. "I mean, technically gamma's possible, since I channel the EM field. So, how do we do this? Marie? You need to touch me to get my powers, right?"
Rogue nodded, almost apologetically. "I'll have to hold on longer than I'd like, kiddo. And it might knock you out for a li'l bit too, so I can start on one end of this here graveyard, and y'all can go to the other side to rest and relax. Marius here can be a bit of a babysitter as well, if need be. You just gotta clear your mind as best as possible, but I apologize in advance if I take out any memories, or feelings while I'm doing it. I don't try to do that, and I've gotten real good at compartmentalizing, and ignoring what I don't need. You just let me know when you're okay with this and we can start."
Nica nodded, face a little pale but expression determined as she held out her bare hand for Rogue to take. "We're looking at absorbing the gamma and converting it to something else on the EM spectrum that's, you know, less radioactive. Think happy sunbeams or radio waves or something," she instructed the pair of them. "Let's do this?"
"At your discretion, ladies," replied Marius, though he couldn't resist watching as the younger woman extended her hand to Rogue. He'd gone through great efforts to render borrowing mutations as clinical as possible, at least insofar as it affected his teammates. Even without the involvement of his natural extraction mechanisms Rogue's powers were far more elegant. Fewer sharp objects, for a start. But then, it was more than physical vulnerability that the woman's powers left you open to.
It never did get easier, and in a way, Rogue hated doing repeat sessions. She would never admit this, but the more she took from someone, the more fleshed out the shadow in her head became. This wasn't the first time she'd absorbed Nica, and because her initial absorption was so long ago, her powers seemed to want to fill in the blanks. The memories of Nica's mother dying .... being on the team ... filling in for leaders. ...missions ... experiences ... it was a lot and it took more than she wanted. Rogue tried to let go, and she realized in horror that it wasn't as easy as she thought. It literally took all her mental fortitude to do so, and she was surprised that Nica wasn't passed out -- Rogue definitely felt like doing so.
As Rogue let go of her hand Nica swayed on her feet. "Woah, headrush," she muttered, before taking a couple of wobbly steps and sitting on a park bench - there were plenty of those left out for mourners and visitors. "I'll be okay inna minute."
"In your own time," Marius said after surreptitiously ensuring the younger woman had managed to take a seat without incident. He tilted a head towards their teammate. "Rogue? Comment sens-tu?"
"Aucune idee..." She had no idea, but that was fine. She wasn't there to feel good. She'd puke and pass out later, if that's what she needed. "Jus'...Im'a need a minute here to figure out what to do with this power." Taking a deep breath, she inhaled shakily and exhaled. The power was swirling, itching almost, but when she opened them again, she could see the full spectrum she needed. "D'accord. I think ... jus'.... Nica, I ain't got the words to explain this, nor the time. Later, if you wanna, we can do this together, but right now, Marius I think what we need to do is you gotta convert it to something I can handle, and I can just ... push out the energy into something Nica can handle. We might have to try a few times to see what works, but I think I can take it. Sound good, y'all?"
"Huh?" Nica looked up from what was almost a doze, but nodded as she realised what had been said. "Yeah, that sounds good. Let's do that."
Consensus held that it did, although Marius delayed until he judged the two women had recovered a bit more than they might have claimed was necessary. It wasn't all for show; if Marius concentrated he thought he might be able to feel something around him; almost like static building for a shock that never came. Perhaps the sensation was psychosomatic. Marius imagined drawing it into himself and cleared his mind, the latter of which required relatively little effort.
"Right," said the X-Man, "here we go, then . . ."
Marius stretched his hand in Rogue's direction and emitted a steady pulse of infrared -- or what should have been. Infrared was invisible to the naked eye, yet there was an odd green haze to the air before him. Gamma contamination, just as they'd suspected. Instead of trying to filter it, Marius closed his eyes and concentrated on channeling both frequencies into Rogue in as tight a beam as he could manage.
The initial wave of energy felt gross, tainted, disgusting.... it was all she could do to not immediately throw it out of her and just let it disperse but obviously that would be counterintuitive. They were there specifically because of this, and she needed to suck it up. She could take a hot shower later.
Rogue closed her eyes again, and visualized the various threads of energy, saw that vibrant green in her mind of 'danger, nuclear waste' and did her best to mute it down. With clean energy reserves within her, she diluted it as best as she could, filtering the strands so that they could change colour, to a nice red. Red always felt safe for her, and she enjoyed the way it looked and danced amongst the others. "Okay Nica, here it comes," she murmured, stretching out her hands and letting the now clean energy trail towards Nica.
The younger X-Man jerked as the infra-red hit her, the sensation pulling her out of the fatigue she'd been suffering from Rogue's powers. Synching with the energy meant she no longer had a body, which meant she had no fatigue... she floated up off the bench and concentrated on converting the energy into harmless visible light, which she directed outwards. Yellow light splashed across the cemetery, glinting off the gilt letters on the headstones and turning the dull afternoon into bright noon.
Marius felt the flash of light against his eyelids, which he took to be a good sign. He kept going until the greasy feeling against his skin had abated. Were they done? He pushed a little further and--
His legs wobbled. Marius stopped and took a step back, hand dropping.
"Feel a bit lightheaded," he remarked. "Think I might be dipping into my personal stores now. How are we looking?"
While Marius was looking depleted, Nica had recharged and she flew a quick circuit around the cemetery, hovering over Del's desecrated grave a bit longer to confirm. "I think we're good," she confirmed. "The EM fields feel normal now, just the usual background radiation." She glanced at Rogue. "I think it's time for lunch. A BIG lunch."
Rogue smiled, even though inside she was far from okay. There were thoughts, images, feelings, powers ... food was probably the last thing she wanted but she wasn't about to say that. Instead she nodded. "Sounds good, as long as I get a nap afterwards."
Rick Jones was an unremarkable looking man in his late twenties leaning against a well taken care of green AMC Gremlin in the off-the-beaten path meetup spot that was discussed. He had an easy-looking smile, and a harmonica sticking out the breast pocket of his jacket. His brown eyes had a thin ring of gamma-green. He gave a little wave. “Doc’s friends, right?” he asked, vague on purpose.
Kyle nodded. "Well, he and I beat up crabs together once, so I guess we're friends." He eyed the car, mentally went over what he'd remembered of fighting alongside the Hulk in Baltimore and grinned. "Good guy in a crab invasion. I don't understand anything about the science he does, but the big guy's great."
A smile ghosted over Scott's lips as he shook his head, "The way to this man's heart, help him set up a crab bake and he'll love you forever." Dark eyes instinctively glanced around before he nodded slowly, "But yes, the Doc sent us out, though we were hoping you might have a little more info for us to get started with."
"Those crabs were delicious," Jean-Phillipe observed from his customary spot shadowing Scott. "They say hunger makes the best sauce, but whatever people were cooking those crabs in definitely helped as well." He nodded to their contact. "How can we help?"
"Here's the deal," Rick said, standing up straight from where he leaned on his car. "All the gamma radiation is more or less concentrated on the cemetery, but that doesn't mean that someone isn't producing it part of the time. Even Bruce is only about as radioactive as any other gamma scientist or someone like me when he's, y'know. Bruce." Rick of all people would know. He had a little bit of radiation poisoning himself from being caught in the blast all those years ago, but not enough to hurt anyone but himself.
Rick's eyes flashed even more green as he used his self proclaimed 'gamma sense' to double check his statement. He nodded in surety. "Yeah, nothing insanely high. What I'm thinking is looking at the cemetery first, but you guys are the superheroes here. I'm game for anything."
Rick shrugged and smiled. "Who knows, maybe this place was a testing site at some point and there's not a connection at all." It was clear that, despite his ease and his jovial manner he didn't believe that. "Either way, I'll probably get something I can make some decent lyrics out of," he joked, hands played out in front of him. "You ask me to lead you where to go, and I'll take you."
Marius gave his tongue a thoughtful click. "We split up, perhaps? I've Spectrum's powers as a redundancy, but my expertise is in detecting other mutants, not energy signatures. I'm a bit more useful with the face-to-face bit of investigation."
"Which means I should go to the cemetery?" suggested Nica. "Since I'm energy signature gal?"
"Sounds like a plan, Stan," Rogue said. "I have no useful skills here other than tight shirts, so I can do what I do best and have people pay attention to me. Then I can figure out if anyone else has heard stuff. I can't promise answers but I can promise action. For me. Not the mission." She winked and gave a laugh. "No? No one thinks I'm as funny as I think I am?"
"You're gonna have to win a lot of trust awfully quick if you want to get further than rumors, Rogue." Sooraya cautioned her friend ruefully. "Unless Emplate gets lucky and happens to spot someone... How about I see if I can get anything from my connections here as well?"
"Do what sounds right, sugar. It ain't up to me to tell ya how to do that. I think if you got yourself some good connections, I agree -- let's split this up, and reconvene later."
Scott, Kyle, and Jean-Phillipe do research into the deaths in town and find out they are in line with radiation poisoning.
The X-man leaned back in his chair, reaching up to rub the palms of his hands into his eyes as he groaned, letting his head flop back in the chair.
"You know, one of the nice things about the internet is that all the records are available in the comfort of home, in large sized font, not this stare at minute scribbles thing," he noted with a sigh. "Ok, where are we at? Anyone found anything yet?"
"Un migraine," Jean-Phillipe muttered as he rifled through his own stack of pages. Not that he wasn't used to dealing with hardcopy paperwork, but some of these put the incomprehensible scrawling of drunk French dockmasters to shame. But he also knew from hearing some of Garrison's stories about his law enforcement career that inevitably, the minutiae and details were where one found answers or evidence of whatever one was searching for. He cast a questioning look at Kyle to see if he had had any better luck.
Kyle waved his hand for a moment, still holding his phone to one ear and pacing. "Uh-huh. No, I don't really know what a nucleotide is, but I have google. Yeah, that email's a good one, I know a guy who knows a guy, he definitely knows what a nucleotide is better than I would. No, I know, names redacted. I used to date a physician's assistant, she'd stab me if I violated HIPAA." A laugh was heard on the other side of the phone. "Seriously, with a sword. No, the current girlfriend's less stabby. Thanks, yeah, I'll text if I don't get the emails."
He set the phone down. "Okay, medical examiner's an absolute riot, nice dude. Once he got the creds from Gar, he was happy to talk." He sat down in one of the hotel room desk chairs and dropped both feet on the edge of the bed, kneading at the ugly blanket with his toes. "He's sending a bunch of redacted records to a burner email, but he's talking way over my head about causes of death and immunology."
Jean-Phillipe's groan of relief was palpable. "Email. On a computer. Or at the very least a phone. Magnifique." He could only hope that whatever they needed was in those records, rather than going collectively cross-eyed reading the physical records. He drummed his fingers on the desk and rolled his neck to work the cramps out as they waited for the email to arrive.
"Good job, anything to get us away from this torture, and you all think that the danger room is bad, this is an absolute torture by comparison." Scott slumped down in his chair a little, dark eyes resting on the computer as he tilted his head to the side, "You know this is one of those, watched pot never boils moments?"
Kyle's laptop chimed, and he passed it to Scott. "You give me the papers, my eyes are better and I've got depth perception." He was definitely risking a little bit of five in the morning Danger Room run for that. "So just run down the obits and make notes, right? Cant' be worse than going line by line down tenth grade analysis of Life and Death of King John. Fucking curriculum I didn't even set, who picked that one." He scooped up the papers Scott handed him and pulled his knees up. "Hand me a highlighter.'
Jean-Phillipe pitched a highlighter underhand to Kyle, and then grabbed a notepad and pencil for himself. "Bien. I am thinking we start with demographic data? Age, race, gender, and so forth. That should hopefully give us an idea on how to proceed from there."
"Anything would be a good start," Scott agreed, "perhaps we can also look at housing locations. If they're all in the same area it's likely there might be some kind of location we can tie them all too."
Kyle pulled his knees up, marking down the print outs that Scott had handed him. "Obits... actually, hold up." He scooped up his phone and started tapping away. "Okay, so all the obits that our fearless leader pulled here, they list funeral homes for viewings, or churches. Can we - can we use that?" He glanced at Scott. "Little Flower of the Desert, St Augustine, John the Baptist... couple of church names I keep seeing."
"It's a good place to start," Scott turned pulling at desk drawers for a moment before nodding and holding up a map, a triumphant look on his face. "I knew we had one of these around here somewhere." The paper rustled as he spread it out on the desk in front of them. "Say those names again, we can mark them on here and see how it all links up."
Pushpins began to form blobs around churches, funeral homes, and hospitals. A few smaller spots were a bit of a mystery until Jean-Phillipe looked up the addresses - local retirement 'villas'. That prompted him to grab the tally of ages in the obituaries that Kyle had pulled. "This is...an abnormally large number of elderly people," he declared. "In an area of this size, the numbers should be less than half of this," his sociology classes coming back to him.
"What like, more people are dying, or more people are old and dying?" Kyle asked. "So we have a ton of old people dying." He cracked his neck, and grabbed another highlighter. "How often do old people die after a long battle with cancer, because man, obit writers are boring, that phrase comes up a lot. Is that normal, and can I start grading these obituaries for plagiarism. Seriously, if I see 'after a long battle with cancer" or 'a warrior against their auto-immune disorder' I am gonna think they're using ChatGPT or something."
"Let's be fair, obit writers may not be the most...conscientious of writers, they might just have a template they're working off," Scott mentioned distractedly, his brow furrowing for a moment as he reached up and scratched his head, "THis...there's something that's bugging me...I can almost remember it...Clarice!" It was like a light bulb had gone off in his head as Scott stood, stepping away from the table to gesture at the other two. "It was...what almost 20 years ago, Clarice got hit and we had all the doctors worried about cancer and auto-immune disease. It was the radiation and here," a hand waved at the obituaries, "There's way too much cancer and auto-immune, just like you said. It's gotta be radiation based...wait, Banner!"
"Merde. Gamma radiation?" Jean-Phillipe winced. He remembered the aftermath of the mission when they combatted a fiery gamma-fueled robot. It had a way of causing quite a bit of headache.
"Fuuuuuuuuck." Kyle rubbed his face and did his best not to get his claws stuck in his beard. "Fuck, did he fuck us over, the guy's a goddamn Avenger, this isn't a setup right?" He glanced at Scott and then Jean-Phillipe. "Now what the hell do we do?"
"That's...that's a very very good question," Scott had always had a tough time trusting the avengers but they were supposed to be on the side of good, of the right. Now though..."I honestly don't know."
Rick Jones leads April and Nica to the source of the gamma radiation where they find that Del Frye is no longer in his grave.
Rick had directed the superheroines to where the source of the gamma radiation was coming from, which was the cemetery in town. It was well maintained, with nice trees and shade but he still didn’t look fully comfortable there.
“Well, this is it,” he gestured to the cemetery, other hand in his jacket pocket. “Here’s the source of your gamma. There’s a couple spots, but I’m betting most of it is the dead kid’s.”
April didn't notice much of anything at first, but as they got closer to one of the pockets she started to get a metallic taste in her mouth. She stared at the disturbed grave with no little horror, tongue absently poking at sharpening teeth as the metallic taste in her mouth grew sharper, stronger. "We're gonna need a full gamma decontamination when we get home. And anyone with us." She felt like she'd been standing in the sun in the middle of a city during the hottest part of summer, but the skies were overcast. The day was hot, but not that hot, even with her sensitivities.
She didn't need to check the dosimeter badge around her neck to know it was high. "I am... going to back off a bit, maybe call Scott? I'll still be in slightly raised voice range, just... it burns. The radiation. I'm too sensitive to heat for it." She took several steps back before turning, moving briskly from the concentrated pocket to an area that didn't stop the metal in her mouth but did make the feeling of flames on the side of her face recede.
Nica cast a concerned look at April as she retreated, then approached the grave where the readings were highest. She, too, could feel the radiation, but instead of hurting it was like a buzzing along her skin. She'd never tried absorbing gamma before - it wasn't like there was a lot of it available on a day-to-day basis - and she wasn't sure she should start. But she could definitely sense it. She noticed something else as well; the grave had been recently disturbed. Mounds of fresh dirt surrounded the headstone, which was smeared with mud, and as she crouched down to see better, she could see the hole went deeper than a simple groundhog or mole.
Rick squatted down next to Nica and saw that whatever had done the digging had been digging in and not out. He blanched slightly. "Well ladies, I'm gonna go see if any of the other recent graves have been desecrated," he said and wiped his hands as he went to look. He came jogging back after a while, shaking his head with a low whistle.
"Just the kid."
April was on the phone with Scott, relaying what they'd found by the time Rick came back - the radiation, getting the decontamination showers and area set up, the disturbed grave - "Yes sir, just the one gra–No, I'm in hearing distance but the radiation's high enough that–Yes, we've got our badges. Okay. Yes, good idea. Uh-huh. Bye, oh fearless leader."
She walked closer to Nica and Rick. Not quite all the way back to the grave, but close enough that she wasn't shouting, just projecting a little. "Okay, I've relayed all this to the other team. What are we going to do about the radiation though? We can't just leave it, but calling it in to the authorities might not go over great."
"My powers might help..." Nica began, uncertainly. "I mean, I can absorb and project EM fields, but I've never tried gamma and there's not a lot of room for error. If I could get help..." Her expression brightened. "Rogue and Emplate. They can both mimic my powers - three of us should be able to deal with it."
Rick nodded, eyes flashing more green for a moment. "That makes sense. There's not a lot of it, so with the three of you you should be able to get it. And it's mostly concentrated around the kid- or his grave at least."
Nica nodded, eyes moving to the headstone, then the disturbed grave. "And while we're doing that, the rest of you can find out what happened to the body."
Marius, Sooraya, and Rogue look for other mutants in town.
"Well, my tried and true strategy of 'stand in a public space and gaze upon all who pass' has yet to reveal any suspect mutants, nor did my inquiries regarding same." Admittedly, broaching the subject under the guise of a lovelorn suitor who might perhaps have been overly credulous of the genetic status claimed by his dating app paramour was not the most subtle cover story ever conceived, but one worked with what one had. It wasn't as if he'd be seeing any of these people again. With an inward shrug Marius offered the two women coffees obtained at said public space. "What of yourselves?" he asked. "Any luck?"
Rogue gratefully accepted her coffee and yawned. "Luck involves something wittier than I can come up with right now. So that means no. No luck. I even used my feminine charms aka a low-cut shirt, and I got no answers really. It seems like whatever is happening is so far underground, the usual suspects and tricks won't work at all. How about you, Sooraya? Did your innocence get anything that our tainted souls couldn't?"
Sooraya tried a small sip of the coffee before pulling a face and putting it on a nearby ledge. "Nah, I got something better than innocence. While you guys used your wits and 'charms' I figured I'd make a few phone calls." Pulling out her phone, she quickly glanced at the time. "We have a meeting with a local member from the Underground in twenty minutes about five minutes walking from here. So I suggest we get moving."
"With pleasure. Far be it from me to get into the specifics, but I might've left a few people here with the impression I frequent a site for individuals with very specific interests-" Marius' phone was interrupted by a buzz. The man paused to withdraw it from his pocket and crinkled his eyebrows at the text. "Ah, my mistake. It appears Rogue and I are required elsewhere."
"Did y'all go and promise a threesome and now you cain't deliver." Rogue teased with a shake of her head. "Sorry, Sooraya. Can you handle this on your own or do you need us to call in some calvary? We will keep on looking to see if we can find the information we need, but honestly, I'm not holding out hope. If we haven't heard anything about a mutant at this point, even a regular ol' one, I dunno if we will at all." She took a quick swig of her coffee, emptying a good portion of its contents. "This place is just so weird."
"Yeah, if you're sure I am not needed, I can handle this on my own." Sooraya quickly nodded, glancing at her phone to check both the time and her own alerts. "And I agree, but the Underground is probably our best bet at getting this confirmed as definitely as can. I'll text you once I know more."
"Please keep us appraised." Marius tapped out a quick response, his quizzical expression slowly changing to concern. He glanced back up at Sooraya.
"In the meantime, myself and Rogue are off to see a woman about a radiation leak."
"Don't know how many times I gotta tell ya," Rogue said getting up, a gleam in her eyes. "We don't comment on someone's STI."
Marius and Rogue help Nica disperse the gamma radiation and change it.
"You know, I was rather hoping to avoid the cemetery. It seems a bit on the nose after the whole Death thing-- ah, there she is." Marius spotted Nica at the cemetery gates and gave the young woman a wave. "Hello. We were summoned?"
Rogue had to agree with Marius but because their friendship seemed to be built on making the other uncomfortable, she was partly amused as well. This entire mission seemed so strange already, and it was just getting weirder. Although, truly who was she to judge? "You got us here, to do whatever it is you need to do. Is it just us?"
"Thanks for coming." Nica gave the two other X-Men a smile. "I'm sorry to drag you here, but we have a bit of a gamma radiation problem, and I wasn't sure that I could handle it on my own. Or at all, to be honest."
Marius nodded. "We live to serve. I take it the problem is severe?"
"Enough that it needs to be cleaned up before it contaminates the area. Or makes someone really sick. But..." And here Nica blushed a little. "Gamma isn't part of my usual range, mostly because I've never really encountered it before. So I thought maybe you guys could help?"
"Yeah, that makes sense. Not much can really hurt li'l ol' me, so you just let me know where I gotta stand to help you out. Is Marius just being a mutant divining rod and I'm the spirit it speaks through then?"
The Australian gave his chin a thoughtful stroke. "I'm no better acquainted with gamma than the next person," he said, "and no doubt considerably worse at conversion than either of you, but perhaps this could be turned to our advantage. Given my natural predilection towards passive absorption, if gamma is within Nica's capabilities to process I am almost certainly doing so already. What if I were to attempt to emit, say, infrared without making any particular effort towards refinement?" He flicked his gaze back to Nica. "You said if I don't focus my efforts I throw everything I've got. If I project an otherwise known quantity, would the two of you then be able to pick out the unfamiliar?"
"See, this is why I asked for you. You know how to put this into words." Nica gave Marius a half-smile. "I mean, technically gamma's possible, since I channel the EM field. So, how do we do this? Marie? You need to touch me to get my powers, right?"
Rogue nodded, almost apologetically. "I'll have to hold on longer than I'd like, kiddo. And it might knock you out for a li'l bit too, so I can start on one end of this here graveyard, and y'all can go to the other side to rest and relax. Marius here can be a bit of a babysitter as well, if need be. You just gotta clear your mind as best as possible, but I apologize in advance if I take out any memories, or feelings while I'm doing it. I don't try to do that, and I've gotten real good at compartmentalizing, and ignoring what I don't need. You just let me know when you're okay with this and we can start."
Nica nodded, face a little pale but expression determined as she held out her bare hand for Rogue to take. "We're looking at absorbing the gamma and converting it to something else on the EM spectrum that's, you know, less radioactive. Think happy sunbeams or radio waves or something," she instructed the pair of them. "Let's do this?"
"At your discretion, ladies," replied Marius, though he couldn't resist watching as the younger woman extended her hand to Rogue. He'd gone through great efforts to render borrowing mutations as clinical as possible, at least insofar as it affected his teammates. Even without the involvement of his natural extraction mechanisms Rogue's powers were far more elegant. Fewer sharp objects, for a start. But then, it was more than physical vulnerability that the woman's powers left you open to.
It never did get easier, and in a way, Rogue hated doing repeat sessions. She would never admit this, but the more she took from someone, the more fleshed out the shadow in her head became. This wasn't the first time she'd absorbed Nica, and because her initial absorption was so long ago, her powers seemed to want to fill in the blanks. The memories of Nica's mother dying .... being on the team ... filling in for leaders. ...missions ... experiences ... it was a lot and it took more than she wanted. Rogue tried to let go, and she realized in horror that it wasn't as easy as she thought. It literally took all her mental fortitude to do so, and she was surprised that Nica wasn't passed out -- Rogue definitely felt like doing so.
As Rogue let go of her hand Nica swayed on her feet. "Woah, headrush," she muttered, before taking a couple of wobbly steps and sitting on a park bench - there were plenty of those left out for mourners and visitors. "I'll be okay inna minute."
"In your own time," Marius said after surreptitiously ensuring the younger woman had managed to take a seat without incident. He tilted a head towards their teammate. "Rogue? Comment sens-tu?"
"Aucune idee..." She had no idea, but that was fine. She wasn't there to feel good. She'd puke and pass out later, if that's what she needed. "Jus'...Im'a need a minute here to figure out what to do with this power." Taking a deep breath, she inhaled shakily and exhaled. The power was swirling, itching almost, but when she opened them again, she could see the full spectrum she needed. "D'accord. I think ... jus'.... Nica, I ain't got the words to explain this, nor the time. Later, if you wanna, we can do this together, but right now, Marius I think what we need to do is you gotta convert it to something I can handle, and I can just ... push out the energy into something Nica can handle. We might have to try a few times to see what works, but I think I can take it. Sound good, y'all?"
"Huh?" Nica looked up from what was almost a doze, but nodded as she realised what had been said. "Yeah, that sounds good. Let's do that."
Consensus held that it did, although Marius delayed until he judged the two women had recovered a bit more than they might have claimed was necessary. It wasn't all for show; if Marius concentrated he thought he might be able to feel something around him; almost like static building for a shock that never came. Perhaps the sensation was psychosomatic. Marius imagined drawing it into himself and cleared his mind, the latter of which required relatively little effort.
"Right," said the X-Man, "here we go, then . . ."
Marius stretched his hand in Rogue's direction and emitted a steady pulse of infrared -- or what should have been. Infrared was invisible to the naked eye, yet there was an odd green haze to the air before him. Gamma contamination, just as they'd suspected. Instead of trying to filter it, Marius closed his eyes and concentrated on channeling both frequencies into Rogue in as tight a beam as he could manage.
The initial wave of energy felt gross, tainted, disgusting.... it was all she could do to not immediately throw it out of her and just let it disperse but obviously that would be counterintuitive. They were there specifically because of this, and she needed to suck it up. She could take a hot shower later.
Rogue closed her eyes again, and visualized the various threads of energy, saw that vibrant green in her mind of 'danger, nuclear waste' and did her best to mute it down. With clean energy reserves within her, she diluted it as best as she could, filtering the strands so that they could change colour, to a nice red. Red always felt safe for her, and she enjoyed the way it looked and danced amongst the others. "Okay Nica, here it comes," she murmured, stretching out her hands and letting the now clean energy trail towards Nica.
The younger X-Man jerked as the infra-red hit her, the sensation pulling her out of the fatigue she'd been suffering from Rogue's powers. Synching with the energy meant she no longer had a body, which meant she had no fatigue... she floated up off the bench and concentrated on converting the energy into harmless visible light, which she directed outwards. Yellow light splashed across the cemetery, glinting off the gilt letters on the headstones and turning the dull afternoon into bright noon.
Marius felt the flash of light against his eyelids, which he took to be a good sign. He kept going until the greasy feeling against his skin had abated. Were they done? He pushed a little further and--
His legs wobbled. Marius stopped and took a step back, hand dropping.
"Feel a bit lightheaded," he remarked. "Think I might be dipping into my personal stores now. How are we looking?"
While Marius was looking depleted, Nica had recharged and she flew a quick circuit around the cemetery, hovering over Del's desecrated grave a bit longer to confirm. "I think we're good," she confirmed. "The EM fields feel normal now, just the usual background radiation." She glanced at Rogue. "I think it's time for lunch. A BIG lunch."
Rogue smiled, even though inside she was far from okay. There were thoughts, images, feelings, powers ... food was probably the last thing she wanted but she wasn't about to say that. Instead she nodded. "Sounds good, as long as I get a nap afterwards."
