OOC: Logs! Zenith, Rogue, Hank, Norah, NPC-Michael.
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Monday, August 11, 2008, 9:18 PM
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=XS= Danger Room - Lv B3 - Xavier's School
When not composed of digital dreaming, whether made to be an alley way or forest, this room is nothing more than a large dome-like structure made of nickel-titanium. Electromechanical security doors as well as localized force fields operate the only doors into and out of the danger room itself, although there are more outside in the Ready Room that lead up to the Observation Deck. Panels lining the walls, floor and ceiling give away to training dangers such as lasers, projectiles, and sophisticated robots built for combat. Centered high in the right corner of the arena rests the control area where spectators can monitor training events and operate the holograms. Automated doors and the intercom system are located directly below this glass-walled bubble, showing the exits to this 'Danger Room'.
[Exits : [M]ain [H]allway and [C]omSys [R]oom]
Blackness and pinpricks of light, a simulated chill of deep space, and a room without a single breath of air outside of where a forcefield bubble (Don't ask. Forge.) holds atmosphere around where projectors form the shape of a stricken space ship. Inside it, figures with familiar faces lie sprawled where they are real, and floating where they are simulated, victims of what the loudspeakers keep droning: "Hull breach. Micrometeorite impact. Hull breach. Don space suits at once." There is but one 'survivor' still on their feet, and it is not Jean Grey, medical officer for the mission.
Zenith may be shaking badly from the apparent reality of everything around her, but she does follow directions, at least. Gravity trying to keep air pulled in towards her, she fumbles her way into a suit--maybe not with glacial slowness, but it's clear it feels that way to her, and then heads for the nearest body. "What am I--?" she asks the air. The air will direct her! "Can't get everyone in suits, right? Find the breach instead?" Zenith looks around. It's clear she has no idea about how to spot one.
The air, being as how it is hooked up to the real Jean Grey, and not her unconsciously-spinning simulacrum, who has a rather nasty head wound with leaking brains that threaten to detatch and float horribly about the cabin, might just. Jean is not one of the -evil- Danger Room runners, if one is not a student. "Good plan," says the air, echoed just a little. "Now, think back to some basic physics. Air inside. No air outside. What might you expect to see or hear?"
Zenith wastes energy trying to make floating brains not get near her, but since they're not simulated with true lack of gravity, she has little effect with her powers, and looks annoyed. "I've seen the movies," she says, as grumpy as if she hadn't been wondering what to do just moments before. She goes clumping, awkward in her suit, to the nearest wall, and runs a hand along it as she searches, looking for any sucking. He eyes keep drifting to the simulated bodies.
The brains -do- move in response, but there is a measurable lag as the computer shows that it has yet to properly get interpret the pattern of electrical activity that says 'Move brains away from face'. (As for how it can do that at all? Don't ask. Forge.) They, and other bits of cabin detritus, prove a useful clue to localize the leak, being pulled along towards it in a lazy tumble towards somewhere in the aft of the spacecraft.
"So I don't know--" Zenith's earlier apparent confidence fades quickly enough. "What do I cover it with--?" She heads for that spot, following debris, like she's thinking about just covering it with her hands for now.
"Have you memorized the cargo manifest yet?" prompts the helpful voice, as the hissing intensifies. Past her, a bit of unrestrained cargo with a sharp, sharp edge floats, crimson with someone else's blood.
"Jesus!" Zenith says, and jumps away from the bloody shard. "No--!" It sounds like the rest was meant to be a rant about expecting her to learn everything all at once, but she swallows it. She does look to the cargo, though, trying to see if anything jogs her memory.
"If you've taken a look at it," says the voice, supressing any audible eyerolls masterfully. "Try and recall anything that comes to mind." HSSSSSSS goes the air. A few of the bodies, unconscious, start to go blue around the mouth and eyes. There are gasps.
"Fuck this," Zenith says, and extends her powers to the hole, aiming to hold the air in by force of gravity alone, if nothing else. She pauses a beat to see if it's working, before going to search properly.
Again the lag time. But, once it passes, the pea sized hole in the hull does stop sucking. Of course, there are the problems of low oxygen (The automated warning is most insistant about this) and injured and dead (Unless Jean Grey really -does- keep her brains somewhere other than her head.) team-mates to deal with. But hey, at least the air isn't going anywhere, right?
Zenith takes some time to look for anything labeled Hull Sealent - Use Me! but gets side-tracked by happening upon a first-aid kit. She grabs it up, and then stares someone uselessly at the nearest floating body. Hidden priorities show through, however much she's tried to hide them along the way, and it's Magneto's body she looks for first.
Fortunately for Zenith's hidden priorities, Magneto is an acceptable first response for the mission. He is, however, unconscious, because having the resourceful former terrorist leader awake would just make things too -easy-. The pull against her powers intensifies, as the hole tries to widen itself under the pressure differential's demands. And there is no hull sealant. There is, however, duct tape, along with several bags of personal toiletries that have escaped the netting meant to hold them.
Zenith has to take off her glove to take Magneto's pulse, and then checks for anything actively bleeding. She does that to anyone else whose brains are not floating, and are thus not obviously dead. Then, her store of knowledge about first aid exhausted, she goes for the duct tape, panting a little from the effort of the strain the program is putting on her abilities.
In happy news, while everyone else seems to have failed at getting their suits on in time and are thus unconscious and rather cyanotic(Lucky Zenith having been returning from EVA!) only Jean and one of the NASA crew seem to be dead. -He- happens to have the fragment stuck right between his eyebrows, face showing pure startlement. (The back of his head is floating somewhere near the sleeping sacks, or at least the largest fragment of it is.) The duct tape is duct tape. It is shiny and silver.
It works! It will not work for -long-, granted, but for a moment, there is the blessed release of a pea-seized hole that is no longer hissing. "Re-entry will be fun," comes the voice of Jean. "But let's save that for another scenario. Now go up to the cockpit and get the emergency air reserves going." Various other directions follow, this being a -teaching- part of the exercise.
"Thank God," Zenith mutters under her breath, to the advent of actual directions. She can follow directions like a pro! It's this trouble-shooting on her own that gives her fits. "How many points have I lost already?" she asks, as she makes her way cockpit-wards.
"Get the air on before your survivors join me and Ensign Redshirt there," is the dry rejoinder, "And we'll call this one in the black."
It has a light side, a dark side, and binds the galaxy together.
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Wednesday, August 13, 2008, 9:47 AM
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A relic of Victorian times, this kitchen is vast, with more than one oven and several stainless steel work surfaces taking the space once claimed by coal hoppers, cooking hearths and cast-iron stoves. Walls still done in period plaster and tile, and the floor still the original fieldstone, fluorescent lights have been installed overhead to bring the lighting up to modern level. At meal times, kitchen workers scurry to and fro with pans and food and various other sundry items, under the watchful eye of the aging head cook, but once past, order is restored, with copper-bottomed pans hanging above the kitchen island, and a tray of cold snacks left out for foraging students and staff alike. Folding wood doors screen off a pantry capable of holding food for an large household's weekly meals -- or three days' worth of teenager food.
[Exits : [H]allway and [B]ack [P]atio]
The amount of coffee consumed at Xavier's is remarkable at any time, but in recent weeks it has gone from 'remarkable' to 'National output of a small Central American nation'. One of the reasons for this is sitting at the island, hands wrapped around yet another mug, and her eyes for a PDA full of numbers and reports on said numbers: Jean. It's questionable whether she's gone to bed yet.
As custom to any kitchen dweller, the familiar grind of the back sliding glass door alerts those to a new visitor. Rogue slips in, closing the door behind her. She's in jogging mode, from the short shorts to the tank top. The girl doesn't appear as pale as she has in years past. "Good morning," Marie greets, slipping past Jean with aim towards the fridge.
"Hey, stranger," Jean greets, looking up from her coffee with a smile that crinkles the corner of her eyes. There's the short squeal of a chair shifting on fieldstone flooring as she turns to track Rogue's progress to the fridge. "Looks like California sunshine's agreeing with you."
Rogue glances down at a neartly tan shoulder. "Mm, yeah. Lots of days on the beach." From the fridge a water is pulled, and Rogue stops to pick flecks of shaven grass from legs, pasted there by sticky morning dew. She straightens, brushing a bare hand off, and looking up at Jean. "You all right?"
"Late night phone conference with panicking scientists," is Jean's answer, delivered with her eyes closed, and her cheek lolling against one hand. "I think if I can get the caffeine to kick in, I might follow your example and try a jog."
"Wakes me up well enough," Rogue says, cracking open her bottle and taking a long drink. "Ah've got power trainin' nearly all day 'til mah feet fall off. Figured Ah needed a big jolt awake." She sips again, much more ladylike this time. "Ah bet they're freaked. Ah spent yesterday on crowd patrol... the majority of the regular citizens seem like they just don't give a shit. Probably hasn't really sunk in yet, huh?"
"It sinks in in different ways and amounts," is Jean's reflection, thoughtful and slow with the weight of a fatigued brain pressing upon her. "You don't see it during the day, as much, but at night, when the alcohol and the drugs have been flowing... I think the regular citizens give plenty of shit, they just have no ability to -do- anything about it."
Rogue chews lightly on her bottle, thinking about this for a moment. "/They/ don't, but..." she begins. "Me an' Buckethead had a talk last night in the basement..." She doesn't even finish this thought, watching Jean for her reaction.
"And since the structural integrity of the school is still intact..." (Jean's reaction? Dry. Very dry. Like a martini.) "I trust it was a productive one?"
There is a small wrinkle of Rogue's nose. So much for her desired fun about the whole thing. "Ah don't think he counts me as useless. A big step for anyone that's not... well, not him."
"You've always been the one who's been most adamant about you being useless," Jean notes, with a slight tip of her chin, and a reach for her coffee without taking her eyes off Rogue. "I've never ascribed to that school of thought, personally. But I imagine that having Erik Lensherr confirm it probably carries more weight."
Rogue sets her jaw tight defensively, fully knowing that Jean is right. "Yes," she finally allows, uncharacteristically admitting her own faults. "But it isn't his word that confirms it. Ah can have any power Ah want, nearly whenever Ah want." She sips, then holds out a hand to lift a finger in a clause. "True! Not as powerful, or nearly as long. But Ah gave ol' Dr. Lensherr a run for his money in a game of lighter catch last night."
"Just be careful not to fall into the mindset that only mutant abilities make us useful," Jean warns, eyes for her coffee mug, and her voice quiet and a touch distant, as though it's not wholly to Rogue that she's speaking. "If you can give a convincing enough performance in the Danger Room to get Scott and Ororo to put you on the final flight list... I can't guarantee that you won't come back with your abilities crippled by a massive stroke. Or in a box."
"It's been a risk Ah've taken before," Rogue says smugly. "But it isn't that. If Ah get little blips of powers from those I've just absorbed for a few seconds... what would happen if Ah, you know, fully absorbed someone? To the point of..." she begins, waving her hand about in a thoughtful circle. "No return?"
"Honestly?" Jean answers, with a small shake of her head and a winter's chill to her distant expression, despite the summer heat. "Not like this. None of us has..." But with a shake of her shoulders, Jean turns from staring into her coffee, and instead gives Rogue a thoughtful look, whatever had been peering out of her eyes now gone. "That's an interesting thought," she reflects, scientist-studious. "Generally, I'd say that a person's essential personality would reassert itself over time, like what happened with Madelyne when she was overlaid with my thoughts and memories. But with you..."
Rogue waits a moment, rocking on her feet. "With me...?" she prompts. "Are you saying Ah'd essentially turn into that other person?" Any thoughts of becoming space dust is firmly placed out of her mind.
"I can't say," is Jean's answer, properly and scientifically hedged as she taps her fingertips together. "You've already had issues with past absorbed personalities temporarily overruling you, and those are fragments. Impressions. Something that's absorbed to the point of being a fully-fledged person in their own right, I think you'd have a hell of a fight on your hands."
This... is not received well. Rogue's skin, actually able to go paler now, does so. The bottle crinkles in protest under a tight grip and she leans up against the counter heavily. "Yeah," she mumbles. Thoughts of some weird battle, in a rocky, alien landscape of her mind erupts and she physically shakes her head to jar it out. "But their powers..."
"You seem to have two componants to your own abilities," says Jean, tone becoming even more calm and slightly pedantic as she notes the distress at the thoughts, reinforcing more traditional methods of calm with a light gifting of empathy's touch, to soothe and steady. "Both of which break my brain to try and explain, but mutant abilities seem to be on a separate-but-linked track from the memories of their owners. It would make sense -- one has to be something stored in DNA, while the other is just an offshoot of the usual electrical impulses and synapse patterning that telepaths see all the time."
Rogue stares a little blankly up at Jean, the corner of her lip and nose screwed up in a classic 'huh' look. Jubilee would be proud. "So Ah'd get the powers... assuming Ah could shake the personality?"
"Theoretically, yes," Jean confirms. "However, also theoretically, if you permanently adopted one ability you could lose the ability to gain or alternate between any others -- if that were to become the dominant pattern of gene expression, if your abilities work by rewriting your X-Factor or the genes it calls upon. I honestly," she answers. "Just don't know."
"Ah could lose my current powers?" This is not said with any sort of revelation, or dread. Simply with surprise. "So Ah could be like a computer? Just putting files on a harddrive until it fills up? That's a thought, ain't it? Limits on what Ah could have..." She taps a finger on her forehead, looking down between her feet. "There isn't a way to simulate this, is there?"
"Molecular genetics -is- a lot like computer code when you get down to it," Jean reflects, rising to stretch out her shoulders and take to pacing the kitchen, coffee mug in hand and with the shining light of SCIENCE temporarily erasing fatigue. "But honestly, I can come up with a hundred different scenarios, and no real way of giving any of them more weight than another. I'd need to do some pretty heavy study of your genome, full on Muir Island style, before I could even make more than an educated guess."
Rogue sighs, chugging at her water. She pushes the side of her hand to her lips, finally allowed her gaze to roam back to Jean. "So... if we're in some dire situation... an' one of the team is about to kick the bucket." She breathes in at the thought and presses on. "Should Ah absorb the rest of them 'r not?"
"I..." Jean pauses in her wandering, one hand lifting to clutch at the light curtain drawn back from the sliding doors. A long silence passes, before she turns back to look at Rogue, eyes level and calm. "I think," she begins "That something like that is probably best guided by the rules we set for organ donation, except all the more so. Get prior consent, and because their personality will be involved, it will have to be each individual's prior consent."
The almost empty bottle is set down, and Rogue crosses her arms tightly in something more of a self hug than an arm cross. "And you?" She wonders after long minutes of silence. Her head tips to the side, eyes serious and locked into Jean's.
"If it was organs, yes." Jean's answer on -that- is immediate, at least. But to the actual question, there's an odd flash of dark avarice that sparkles in green eyes, quickly suppressed by a frozen calm that doesn't quite mask fear. "I think that... would be a bad idea."
There is no understanding of the notion, nor whatever lurks behind the eyes of Jean Grey. Rogue frowns, a mixture of hurt, but mostly insult on her face. "Of course," she says, dipping her head into a stiff nod. She pushes off her lean on the counter, scooping up her water. "Have a good morning, Dr. Grey," she recites as if on command, before stalking out the door.
"Rogue..." says Jean. But, once again, Rogue's gone again. Jean resumes her coffee and her fatigue, with a sigh. "One of these days," she informs one of the mansion cats, "We'll actually finish a conversation."
Organ donation, except way, way, way more so.
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Wednesday, August 13, 2008, 7:56 PM
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Norah lies in her hospital bed in a clearly grouchy mood, her face set in a little frown and arms crossed as she watches a rerun of "The Price is Right" on a little hospital TV. The gifts of her visitors are scattered around her -- pie (half eaten), a worn Good Luck Bear Care Bear, a stuffed squishable rhinoceros, flowers and candy. The gifts do little to comfort her at this point, what with having a five-inch patch of her hair shaved off (with a neat surgical bandage taped overtop), a ringing headache, and a mysterious rectangle /still/ in her brain with no immediate plan to get it out. You'd be grouchy, too.
There are a lot of grouchy people in the world today. In addition to Norah, we can count the NASA and other governmental types who've just had to deal with one of their soon-to-be mutants in spaaaace deciding that an evening's final review and training on the use of space toilets can -wait-. Dr. Grey keeps pace with Dr. McCoy as she trots along at a busy doctor's clip down the hospital hallway, eyes bright over a crisp white lab coat that is -not- a space suit. She is bearing a small pot of Haagen Daas in a cooler of the sort usually used to transport organs, and also a manila folder. There are spoons.
Moving at that same efficient pace, Hank manages to look a little more leisurely about it somehow. A doctor though he may be, he is without a labcoat this evening and merely dressed smartly in a suit carefully tailored to fit his bulky shape. Over one shoulder is the strap of a briefcase, presumably house a number of manila folders of his own. The two of them quite quickly arrive at their goal, and Hank halts in the doorway of Norah's room, knocking lightly on the open door.
I don't understand that.
Norah groans and pulls herself up into a sitting position, propping up pillows and stuffed animals behind her back and briefly checking over her scrubs to make sure she's decent. She is! "Come in!" she calls, reaching one hand up to tug through what's left of her tangled hair.
Jean is perhaps possessed of a sense of showmanship. She is -definitely- possessed of a sense of the grumpy inside Norah's room. Thus, rather than enter herself, she first motions a 'wait' to Hank before she crouches down to pull the ice cream tub out of the cooler, remove the lid, insert a spoon, and then balance it on one palm. With a look of concentration after a check to make sure duty nurses are being dutiful elsewhere, she sends it floating into the room ahead of them. "Tonsils get you vanilla," she greets, with a rueful smile adding extra crinkle to the corner of tired eyes. "But I think brain surgery, aborted or otherwise, needs the good stuff."
Hank obeys with a small smile stays standing in the doorway long enough for his blue, suited shape to conceal Jeans intentions. Then, as the ice cream makes its gliding way past him into the room, he follows and greets the patient within with a nod and, "Norah." He takes in the scatter of gifts and the TV still on with a glance and crosses over to silence Bob Barker with a quick push of the button. A touch of a chuckle in his voice he informs her, "You are in good hands now. Jean is well versed in the healing arts of chocolate, in all its forms. Hot, cold, solid, liquid."
Norah eyes the spoon floating into her room with a distinct warming of her mood. The fact that the spoon comes with company is a slight bonus; that it comes with ice cream (/good/ ice cream) is a major one. "So you heard about my failure to lose my brain-surgery virginity, huh?" she asks. She waits for the spoon to come quite close before attempting to grab it, but waiting for it to be at close range does not prevent her from missing the first grab. The second time she manages it, however. Jean gets a warm smile of greeting. Hank gets a slightly smaller, less warm smile, even though the failed surgery is in no way his fault. "You know, maybe we should have tried chocolate instead of brain surgery! I have a feeling like we haven't really explored all our options, here."
Jean has a visual imagination. The metaphor prompts a wince, and an "Ow. Now -my- brain hurts," of not-really-complaint as she eschews the proper doctor spot in a chair beside the bed, and instead claims the foot of it for herself, a second and third spoon being pulled from her pocket and held out to Hank like conjurer's cards. "However, to continue the metaphor even farther than it really should be taken, I'd have to say your brain surgery hymen has definitely been cut. But we come bearing important file folders along with our ice cream," she assures, "And so we promise not to leave without a solution. Or seven. One could involve marmosets."
Accepting the third spoon delicately between two claws, Hank continues up along the side of the bed to take that spot disdained by Jean. He takes the seat cautiously though, waiting to determine the full structural strength of the chair before committing his full weight to it. Once assure that he can safely relax, he nods in a agreement with Jean and assures Norah, "Despite the fact that the surgery did not accomplish precisely what it was intended to, it went remarkably well. We are contending with so many unknowns in your case that for a first attempt, that was a remarkably good outcome. And as Jean says, we have brought ideas in official file folders to discuss with you what should be our next course of action."
Norah chokes on a swallow of ice cream and has to cough a few times to recover. "You just... took that metaphor and /ran/ with it, didn't you?" she asks Jean, eyebrows shooting up. "Wow, Jean. The things I learn about you now that I'm not your student anymore!" She grins at Jean and then turns her attention to Hank. "Good outcome?" she asks, just a trifle sarcastically. "They knocked me out, shaved my head and gave me stitches without even ... I don't want to supply Jean with more metaphors. But needless to say, if that was good then I'm really glad I didn't get a bad outcome. In any case, I guess there's nothing to do but break open these important, official file folders and see where we're at."
"It's a perfectly correct anatomical term," Jean notes, with a demure twirl of the remaining spoon between her fingers, and a slight incline of her head, before the Doctor in her overcomes the casual posture at the foot of the bed. "Now, Hank's briefed me on your case, and I bought your surgeon a drink and let him tell me about what happened approximately twelve times in a row, with different intonations, and I think my initial suggestion would be that the next attempt happen with you conscious but sedated, like a patient undergoing surgery for epilepsy. Hank?"
"That seems to be the best choice to me as well," Hank agrees with a brief smile in her direction before turning back to address their patient again. "Which is one of the reasons I was desirous of discussing it with you, Norah. You would be conscious throughout the entire procedure, and it would be important that you were able to stay calm and focused on staying visible the entire time. From what I understand of your power, invisibility is a default in times of stress. Am I correct?"
"Mostly, yeah," Norah says slowly. "I mean, I can deal with a roomful of teenagers during finals week and stay invisible, but it just takes more thinking. If I'm not actively trying to stay visible, then yeah, I disappear when I'm stressed or scared or, apparently, being brain-surgeried." She smirks a little. "So I'd be awake next time? While they're cutting into my brain?" She looks at once intrigued and a little grossed out at the idea.
"Teenagers in finals -are- quite terrifying," Jean muses. "I imagine a pleasant bit of surgery while sedated to the gills -- you don't have any trouble with dissociatives, do you? -- would be nothing. And it -would- be to the gills."
"Nonetheless, I would encourage you to consider asking a friend or parent to sit through the surgery with you. They might assist you in maintaining focus on being visible. Unfortunately, once the surgery is in progress /any/ slip, however momentary could have any number of unfortunate consequences. Having heard what occurred in this first abortive attempt, there are many surgeons who would not consider risking such." Hank's blue brow is furrowed with worry and his tone grave, until he glances up to Norah again and remembers that supportive is important as well as honest. He smiles, showing sharp white teeth and says in slight brighter tone, "What occurred, has however, given me an idea of something we might try that could greatly assist your surgeon."
"Dissociatives?" Norah asks Jean after a moment of flailing through her own vocabulary and being unable to puzzle it out before she looks back at Hank. "You know, I'm not sure if I like this throwing-spaghetti-at-a-refridgerator health care plan we've got going on at the moment. Of course there aren't many surgeons who'd be willing to try! There aren't many patients who are chuffed about it, either! Including me! So please, share your idea that will help the guy who's going to have a knife in my brain."
"Drugs that will make you feel like you're floating on a Carribbean lagoon," Jean offers a layman's description, before the next metaphor gets a crooked smile, and no horrific expansions. "Welcome to the world of mutant medicine -- you just didn't get to see this when you were a student. But do go on, Hank."
"Based largely on certain--displays around the school when you were still resident," despite his chiding tone, the look Hank gives Norah at that thought is one of amusement for the most part. "I have the impression that your invisibility works in two main, and separate, ways. The first, bending of light, is what allows you to influence objects such as your clothing. But with the second you are able to isolate different portions of your body to reveal inner tissues and systems, such as your skeletal structure. If you were able to allow light through all parts of your body, but not affect that foreign object within your brain, it could give us invaluable information." He glances between the two of them, checking for reactions. This is evidently not an idea he has aired with Jean previously.
"Oh, I like Carribbean lagoons," Norah comments to Jean with a wry smile and then nods at Hank. "You mean my walking-skeleton trick? That was good times." She takes a moment to reminisce, smiling. "I actually thought about that while I was getting X-rayed the other day, that there's an obviously better way to take a look at it than beaming rays through my head. But doing that -- well, it's hard, and every time I try to go invisible recently, it /hurts like hell/ and all I want to do is stop. I don't know if I could control it long enough to actually isolate it."
"Now -that's- interesting," sayeth the Jean, with a curious look at Hank as she finally gets around to dishing the ice cream, now suitably squishy for devouring. She multitasks and talks while doing it! "Given there are no pain receptors in the brain, something funky must be going on with your wiring up there around the box. That said... I might have a suggestion for that, if an odd one. At least to let you control it long enough."
Hank's spoon has migrated to his inside jacket pocket at some point during the conversation, but the dishing of ice cream prompt him to retrieve it once me. "I had wondered about that difficulty, and how we might deal with it" Hank agrees with Norah regretfully, but perks up at Jean's talk of suggestions. He watches her with interest for both the squishy cold chocolate and forthcoming ideas.
"Stabby, very painful pain," Norah informs Jean seriously, pointing a finger at her temple. "And a /killer/ headache afterwards. That's why we started looking for the box in the first place." She then nods. "So go ahead and suggest away. Getting a good look at it /really/ would be a good thing at this point, if we could manage it."
"Well," Jean admits, dishing out generous portions of Mayan chocolate goodness, and passing the first to the patient, and the second to her colleague, before lingering over a third for herself. "It would rely on telepathy, and specifically on trusting me to temporarily depress your pain response -- it'd hurt, you just wouldn't feel it. I'd have to monitor it, in case the pain is for a good reason, which would mean I'd probably pick up a few thoughts from higher levels."
Norah accepts the ice cream eagerly, enjoying a bite while Jean explains the idea. "Oh! Of course, Jean, hop on inside my brain," she says with a wry smile. "I think being able to take a look at this thing and not having to feel the pain while I do it far outweighs the possibility of you hearing me be grumpy inside my head. My mind is very boring, anyway. It is a non-issue. Should we do it now, since you're both here? No time like the present."
"Indeed. Especially since I'll be heading--" A pause from Jean. "Out of town in a couple days. If you give your blessing, Hank, I'll eat my ice cream like a good little telepath, and we can get going."
"Hmm." Hank rumbles, around a mouthful of ice cream. He swallows, considers just a second longer, and then nods his agreement. "It does seems wise. Though if possible it would be more useful if we could use the hospital's equipment to record what we manage to observe. Also if Michael--your surgeon, Norah--might have a free moment to be present as well."
Jean looks up briefly at that suggestion, initial reflex towards secrecy widening her eyes, and the swift companion of memory and logic releasing them moments later. "I suppose I can hardly get any more outed," she says, between spoonfuls of ice cream. "And you do have a point."
"Michael is a friend of an old friend from medical school. I wouldn't be concerned on his account in any case," Hank assures her. His ice cream has disappeared surprisingly swiftly, so it takes only one last spoonful to leave the bowl empty. Rising to his feet he explains to the two women, "I believe that I had best go about procuring the use of what we will need and determining whether Michael is currently in surgery or no."
"I noticed he didn't look like he needed a tinfoil hat within moments of meeting me," Jean does admit, relaxing slightly from her seat on the foot of the bed. "But I'll let you handle that, Hank, and I'll stay here with Norah and eat the rest of the Haagen Daaz. Oh," and she adds on, a brief twinkle in her eye. "And answer any questions of course."
"I will return as quickly as I am able," Hank says by way of goodbye, then slips out the door and down the hospital hallway.
I don't understand that.
"Nope, no questions here," Norah answers, shaking her head. "Seems simple enough." So there is just companionable eating of ice cream until Hank returns with the surgeon. At that point, she sets the bowl to the side and rearrangies her legs to sit cross-legged in the bed, elbows propped on knees. She offers the doctors barely a nod of greeting before closing her eyes to focus on the process of going invisible. "Okay, here goes," she says, and starts to strip layers of invisibility from her body, trusting in Jean to numb the pain.
Jean has taken up a more conventional seat for herself by this point, although she's settled cross-legged upon it. Mildly murmured explanations and greetings have been offered, and now she sits with her eyes closed, and her breathing slipping into meditative rhythms as her mind unfurls itself. Light contact is made with Norah, after a moment to filter out all the other noise of a working hospital's brains, practice of years directing her attention to there, and to -there-, taking control of the pathways that carry warnings of pain, and sticking a rake across them to bar entry to the realm of thought.
Hank, Michael, and the imaging equipment they brought do their best to be out of the way while maintaining good sight lines. Hank's attention is split though, between the fascinating view of the inner layers of Norah's body and the expression on Jean's face as well as her scent and other indicators of her well being. There is nothing he can do except watch, and it appears to be making him quite tense.
Norah is pretty focused at the moment, her thoughts single-minded on making the thing visible underneath the layers of flesh. Her skin and muscles are first to go, followed by bone, leaving the outside of her brain visible, surrounded by purplish haze of blood cells and vessels. She's tense and tired, but the sharp pain that rises from the activity seems pretty well taken care of with Jean's help. The blood cells disappear, leaving the nervous system bare and stripped, and then there's a moment as she straightens invisible shoulders and takes a deep, slow, slightly nervous breath before pressing that last barrier and sending that invisible as well, to hopefully leave behind only the Mysterious Rectangle.
Jean is not particularly impressive to look at while at work. There is a lot of sitting still and looking both absent and intent, with just a little furrow to her brow. Although Norah's pain has been rerouted, it is not completely vanished -- instead, in a dialed-down form, it is Jean's to monitor for surges and plateaus.
Mysterious Rectangle indeed. As Norah finishes and there is nothing left her except that one tiny object, Michael, a not easily impressed brain surgeon, lets out a low whistle. Hank turns to his equipment to make sure that as much of it is captured as possible, studying a magnified image on his screen. A few seconds, and a glance to his colleague, then he says mildly, "I think that will do it, thank you Norah."
The Mysterious Rectangle floats eerily in midair, held aloft by Norah's brain tissue. By itself, it looks rather innocent. It's just-- a rectangle, not even a quarter inch long, a thin slice of grey that sits, apparently doing very little. More ominious are the tendrils of encased copper that spider out from this tiny thing, leading to a number of microscopic points that are impossible to make out just yet. They fan across the surface of Norah's brain, five of them, doing nothing noticeable, but looking intensely sinister. Their placement is not surprising - they're nested in areas of the brain dedicated to things like the ability to learn. Spatial awareness. Hank's magnifications reveal tiny markings on the chip, scrawls so minute that they require still greater amplification to make out clearly.
Even though her head is invisible, Norah still can't see back through it, which means her mental focus on staying invisible for the imagers flags as she hears Michael's low whistle, a spasm of curiosity and worry crossing through her thoughts. "What?" she asks, still staying invisible for the moment, just in case a closer look is needed. "So what is it?" The Rectangle shifts a little as her posture changes, growing more tense.
"Mmm," says Jean uniformatively. She concentrates on subduing a rogue thread of pain that's trying to break loose from her net.
And pain there is. Although there's no /obvious/ reaction from the Rectangle and its Tendrils, Norah's body gives off increasingly strong waves of pain the longer she holds her mutation. The Rectangle is so thin that it's barely visible from the side, as Norah shifts.
"It appears to be electronic," is all Hank will vouchsafe for the moment. "I will be delighted to show you what view of it we have captured, if you will let your body return to visibility, please." His words are polite, but tone firm. There is a suggestion that it's not really a request.
Norah complies quickly, popping straight back into visibility instead of slowly adding layers, the Rectangle hidden again beneath a brain, skull, face and a partial head of hair. "Electronic?" she asks, an edge of crankiness settling in her tone as she winces against the remnants of pain that made it through Jean's redirection (not to mention the lovely headache that is beginning to fire up.)
Firing up, but Jean keeps her finger on the dial until Norah is back in the land of the visible. Firing up, but not to as bad as it could be, thanks to a parting gift in the form of a short, sharp shove to those synapses to depress them for the next hour or so. Eyes opening, she settles back in her seat and reaches for one of the vile orange drinks normally reserved for glucose tests. (Such work is not normally exhausting, but imminent giant space rocks suggest staying topped up at all times is wise.)
"If you would like to see," Hank offers Norah mildly. Adjusting a few things, he turns the computer monitor he had been contemplating so that it is easily visible from the bed. The chip and the copper wires extending from it are shown floating above the pillow as they were only moments ago.
Norah regards it first with surprise. "I think I liked it better when it was just a box on an x-ray," she says, attempting a wry joke before her expression shifts into one of barely-suppressed panic. "People! How are we not all freaking out?" she demands to know. (Well, at least one person here is freaking out.) "How did I get /that/ in my brain? I'm a brain-surgery virgin, remember? But it sure as hell didn't grow there!"
"Michael, you're our resident expert here," Jean notes from her chair, one hand rubbing a thumb against her temple. "Did you see any signs of previous surgical incisions when you were prepping?"
Norah's head looks as untouched a a babe's! Creepy.
Except for the big old scar that Michael put on there. JERK.
Well, yes. Except for that. It /did/ look untouched! Before Michael violated her.
Michael doesn't violate people, he saves lives. And also says, "No, I didn't see any kind of previous incisions. Not even faint scars of childhood stitches. There's no way she's had surgery in the last few years." He shakes his head and shoves his hands deep into white coat pockets, looking mystified.
Hank remarks to the room at large, "It is fortunate that we attempted this. The surgery will be much more difficult, knowing that the, ah, chip itself is not isolated, but connected to many parts of the brain with that copper wire."
Norah stares at the image on the monitor with deep dislike. "So do you think we can still get it out?" she wonders, frowning tightly. "And besides the whole mystery of /how/ it got in there, we still don't know /what/ it's doing. Is it recording things? Trying to download stuff into my brain? Or is it just placed there purely to make my life really miserable before asteroids come and destroy everything anyway?" Yeah, she's a little cranky right now.
"I'm sure there are ways," Jean murmurs, still a touch subdued, but with her eyes open and thoughtful. "I'd recommend conventional surgery if you still think it possible, Michael, but if that doesn't pan out... there are a couple other options I can think of." Kitty's face hangs in the mind's eye for Norah and Hank, courtesy of the telepath in the room. "And I'm sure once it's out, we can study it more closely. Something like that has to have some trackable componants to it."
"We'll have to see. Try and match up this," Michael jerks a thumb toward the monitor, "with what we already have. See where all the wires run. I won't have any idea how feasible it'll be until I know what part of the brain we'd be dealing with." He raises an eyebrow at Hank and nods toward the door, then turns to go that way himself, apologizing as he does. "I'm afraid I have surgery to prepare for, but I'll be back to discuss once we know a little more." Then he ducks out of the room. Hank merely nods to Jean's silent suggestion, and remains in deep thought.
Norah flops back on the bed and covers her face with her arms to hide her expression, though her voice is a pathetic whine that manages to convey her feelings on the subject pretty well. "We'll -- let's talk about it later. We can figure out what to do starting tomorrow. I'm tired. I'm still feeling wierd from the surgery medications. And hurty." Not as hurty as she's going to be later, though, when Jean's help wears off. She rearranges her pillows and hugs the stuffed rhinoceros to herself, preparatory to sleeping. "Thanks for all your help, guys, but... mind if I sleep now?"
"Not at all," Jean assures, rising from her seat to collect her own share of the manila folders. She pauses briefly, looking like there's something she wants to say, but instead settles for a simple "I'm headed out of town, so you'll be in Hank's and Michael's good hands, but I'll dive back in as soon as I'm able, and hope it's sorted out before I get a chance to."
So, just so we're clear on things, it hurts?