Stark Industries, Saturday

[imafuturist]

So, there were two other Tony Starks in town for the weekend. The only person in the shop who wasn't surprised by that was JARVIS, it would seem. Seeing as how he was one program tweaked by all three of them over the years

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[carter_i_am]

Sam peeked in, drawn by the smell and sounds of engineering in progress. "Hello?"

[imafuturist]

So, so much engineering. It was their thing. "Hello," said the one Tony who was not in a committed relationship or a zygote.

[carter_i_am]

Sam glanced around, noticed the other men. "I'm sorry if I'm interrupting. I heard the...what is that?"

Interest captured, she wandered over to get a closer look at something.

[imafuturist]

"Skrull detector." It was out for reasons.

[not_ironmaiden]

"I told you I wasn't a 'skrull'."

Which was exactly what a Skrull would say.

[carter_i_am]

"What's a Skrull?" She looked back and forth between the men. "Twins, clones, or something else?"

[imafuturist]

"Alternate universes." Proving Tony Stark was always awesome.

[carter_i_am]

"Formerly teen-aged clone," she said, pointing to herself. It happened. "Skrulls? Humanoid? Alien?"

[imafuturist]

"Shapeshifting aliens with some strange ideas about Earth belonging to them," Tony explained. "No fun at a party."

Somewhere... Teddy Altman was sad.

[carter_i_am]

"Never is," she agreed. "So how does the detector work? Do you have something that can anchor them to one form?"

[imafuturist]

"It changes them to their real form. Thing about them is that the change will even fool DNA tests." Tony, no. Now was not the time for this. "They even managed a device to get memories from their targets."

[carter_i_am]

"Will the DNA from their unchanged form fool the tests, too? Maybe it's the actual change that triggers something...or the tests need to be checking for some kind of chemical that we don't know about yet..." Sam was already theorizing. "Do they leave the memories behind, or is the target left with amnesia?"

[imafuturist]

"Never got that far on the DNA testing." Something about cruel and usual. "Targets are kept alive to retain the memories."

Which wasn't just asking for a prison break. Really.

[carter_i_am]

"Do you have samples? I might have access to some tech that could help with that..."She trailed off, already wracking her brain for any alien races that sounded similar for a comparison. Sam Carter had been known to forget about the human element more than once while trapped in the throes of scientific exploration.

This was starting to sound...not great. "So these...Skrulls...keep humans alive so they are more effective shapeshifters?"

Sam studied the equipment with a more determined eye now.