Examining Ground Zero

June 05, 2015:

With a scientific conference in Gotham, a certain young mutant decides the Obelisks at South Hook are interesting… and is intercepted

South Hook - Gotham

Characters

NPCs: None.

Mentions:

Mood Music: None.


Fade In…

South Hook in Gotham: obsidian pillars grace the landscape, smooth and black, alien in nature and none of the best scientists around have even been able to penetrate the shell, let alone work out exactly what type of alien tech they are.

When the pillars appeared, they caused massive destruction, levelling much of South Hook including the home of Ex Police Commissioner Gordon. South Hook looks like a war zone, really… a desolated one.

The pillars and what they mean are of concern to Oracle, the JL:A and certain other parties and monitoring the area for unusual occurences or appearances is just one of the many things that Oracle does. The security camera feeds, plus some additional ones that Oracle has had recently installed, are currently display on the screens in front of her, her green eyes scanning for anything that shouldn't be there.


Charlie leans on Oracles chair from behind peeking over her shoulder at all the monitors. "I wonder what would happen if I bounced one of them off planet…." she muses idly.^t


There was a scientific conference in Gotham recently one based around the recent disasters and discussions about the byproducts of them and what they might mean for the city and world at large. After all there was all kinds of new microscopic things introduced by such disasters like the pillars and afterwords Zoe wanted to visit the stones herself to see what was going on beofre she got on the bus back home. After all thanks to her molecular sight she could examine them more closely than the average eye. Dressed in a zip up green sweat shirt with a button up black shirt beneath and some cargo pants filled with several gadgets and her phone the young mutant arrived in the scope of the cameras looking about curiously with those brown eyes.


The Huntress cycle comes to a stop outside any official cordon, but the masked vigilante girl doesn't hold back from there.. she seems quite keen on looking into things. She hasn't called in to any of her contacts, and is slowly making her way in towards a high vantage point where she can pull out her binoculars from her toolbelt and to peer in at the obelisks.


With that recent conference, one person suspected almost instantly that people would want to start sneaking in to 'examine' the obelisks. And that could be a bad idea. Thus, when Huntress approaches, a similarly dark-clad figure steps forward to stop her. "Stay outside the perimeter. Just in case." And then SHIELD Atent Melinda May is moving off to intercept the young woman in the green sweatshirt.


"I doubt you can, Charlie" Oracle looks to the young woman behind her "Every analysis we've been able to do indicates they are here to st….." Spying Zoe approaching the pillars, the redhead inclines her head to the screen. "Mays onsite and Huntress" the various Avatars that move across Oracles screens have multiplied lately "Would you like to go and help her greet our guest, for me? Take a spare communicator with you, just in case."

Reaching into a drawer in the table, Oracle hands Misfit a package. She knows it can't be exciting for the young chaos muppet to be stuck in the Tower with her.


Charlie actually endures it pretty decently sometimes. Right now though she pulls her goggles down hiding her eyes and accepts the package. She vanishes from by Oracle there with a slash of pink and purple smoke >pinkurple> and appears back in the shadows watching May approach the young woman in the green sweatshirt.


Zoe hadn't yet noticed the approaching SHIELD agent as she pulled out a small tablet from one of those cargo pants pockets as she started to dictate peering through the screen. "Observing high levels of Radon gas, unsure if its from Thorium, Decaying Uranium or some unknown substance yet to be documents.. The level is geez around fifty-seven. I'll begin manually oxygenating my blood purging radiation buildup if the gas proves too invasive." She extends a hand as a faint blue aura surrounded it as she unseen to most eyes begins to transmute the dangerous gas to oxygen as she gets closer to examine the structure. That glow of energy focused solely around her mouth and nose now as she just seemed to be looking things over.


Huntress just sorta gives May a little look from her perch. Her demeanor is pretty serious, something that is probably easy to pick up on, though it might take someone real familiar with the woman to understand just how serious she might be. She lowers her eyepiece down a bit to watch May depart on another intercept… she lets a slight sigh escape her lips, but isn't moving any closer… yet. She brings the device back up to take a couple more quick pictures of the structures from her vantage.


Melinda May moves toward Zoe but doesn't get as close to the obelisks. "You're trespassing." Let's see how that flies. From the angle she's at, she can't see the young woman's hand or face glowing in any way. She does make sure to 'silently' alert Oracle by tapping on the comm unit in her ear.


"I'm watching, May and Misfit is on her way to you." Activating the OracleApp on Huntresses phone, Oracle conferences the comms "May, Misfit, Huntress, you're conferenced." For now the redhead is happy to watch and see how things pan out in the field.


Charlie notes very softly, she is learning. "In the shadows here. Hey Huntress and May." she sounds chipper.. if softly so.. quiet chipperness. "Let me know if you need me May…. is she glowing…?" Charlie sounds surprised about that.


Zoe blinked a moment as she heard a voice perking up as she looked over towards May peeking out from behind one of the large structures. "Oh, uhh hey there!" She said with a embarrassed smile at getting caught. "Don't come any closer please! This place is filled with Radon gas, it looks like the bedrocks been disturbed in the area and its leaking all over the place. I think these things are changing the very earth around them I'm seeing things that I've never even observed in a scientific study or anything!"She started to walk towards May as she put her tablet away wearing a bashful expression. "Oh this might feel weird one sec." A faint sensation of the air getting sucked from her lungs before inflating again took over the SHIELD agent knocking the wind out of her for a moment as a faint blue beam seemed to extend from a hand towards Mays mouth. "Just making sure none of that got into you. Oh I'm Zoe Vale, nice to meet'cha. "She gulped a moment. "Please don't arrest me, eh heh."


"Oracle." Huntress says over the conference call, "I want you to get me everything you can on this event, don't leave anything out no matter how small it might seem." She asks, in that super serious, if her voice could get deep and gravelly she'd be Batman voice. "It's important to me." She adds almost as an afterthought, softer. She lowers her binoculars down to turn and look where May has gone off to.


Melinda May's eyes go wide as the young woman does SOMETHING that steals her breath for a moment. By the time she's recovered from the bizarreness, the reaches the snag Zoe by one arm and is none to gentle about it. Ever been forg-marched, kid? Well, now you have. Though with as flat as May's expression has gone, maybe Zoe should have preferred being arrested.


Huntresses request has Oracles eyebrows rising, a small smile playing over her lips. "We'll discuss that, Huntress. If you have information, perhaps you would share it with me." No demands, simply a request. There's more to this situation then just Gotham.

"Nicely done, Misfit." The chaos muppet has matured considerably recently and this display goes to prove it. "May has field lead."

"Zoe Vale, huh?" the redhead has already kicked off her facial recognition scans "She's telling the truth about that, May. Well… that's the persona she wants the world to know her by, at least. Searching deeper, now." More searches are initiated, very soon results start to display "Seems she's a student at the Xavier Institute. Victim of several attacks in public." Giving the glowing she was doing, that's hardly surprising. The searches continue, these things are instantaneous…


Zoe blinked as her arm was grabbed and turned around. "Ow ow ow! I.. I don't even know what that is but it doesn't sound fun. I was just making sure the gas didn't get into your lungs. I mean its not very dangerous with short term exposure but it was very high levels so I wanted to be sure you were okay, that hurts!" She said wobbling in place as the teen was restrained by May.


"She's applying for a science position with X-Red too, I believe." Huntress adds, "And I don't have any information you don't have, Oracle." just hunches.. and worries. "Is it safe to go down there closer? What do we know about the area around the objects?" She goes back to the line she climbed up with and begins zipping on down, on her way towards May and Zoe.


Melinda May all but drags Zoe over to where Huntress is hiding out, though doesn't give away the vigilante's position as she stops and lets go of the girl's arm. "What were you thinking, walking right up to a object like that? Are you trying get yourself killed?" Apparently, she's trying for angry intimidation.


"No it's not." Oracle had heard what Zoe had said "We'll discuss the obelisks, Huntress, anything may make a difference." beat "Hold your position for now Misfit." The redhead knows that's not particularly exciting, but sometimes it's just what you do.

"Seems she was at the conference in town, May." Access to the attendees list is quite easy for Oracle to access "Seems she might consider herself something of a science whiz. I'd be interested to hear what she thinks is happening there." Mays approach to the teen goes unremarked… sometimes, it's appropriate.


Zoe rolled her arm in the socket a little when May leg go of her as she sheepishly turned around looking to the SHIELD agent. "Oh I know it might look like its dangerous and honestly it /is/ dangerous. There's all kinds of unknown and possibly invasive elements present. But I can regulate my body in ways most people can't I was gonna be fine.. But I don't think you can so thats why I did that thing I did." She said with a nervous smile up towards the older woman. "I was just studying these things, I watched the earth around them changing bit by bit. I think its trying to do something to the area but uhh I'm not sure what yet."


Huntress was already on her way towards May and Zoe, so she comes upon them as they move back towards where she was and she's gives a slight nod towards the two, "Describe it, how was it changing?" she asks curiously, "And what sort of elements did you see?" she asks.. fishing, mostly. One of her hands comes up to scratch at the top of her head a bit as she peers out towards the desolated spot of the city.


"And what if there had been someone or someTHING out there protecting those obelisks? Unacceptable risks." She glances over at Huntress when she asks, keeping her uncharacteristic 'angry' face. She'll let the vigilante play good cop.


"The folly of youth… " Oracle settles back in her chair "To think you're invulnerable and those with powers and abilities are more prone to that." The redhead is kind of relieved that May is playing the heavy. Too many times, she's had to deal with the youngsters in Gotham who forget that there's nearly always something bigger and nastier than you.

"Would one of you mind putting me on loud speaker, please? I'd like to be part of the conversation." Zoe's noted something that has not yet come to light in the tests that have been performed on the Obelisks.


Zoe looked between May and Huntress a moment and nodded. "Oh well I noticed the area around them was being change into new elements I don't know, sorry. I can see them but I can't identify something I've never seen before. I could describe them to you but without my sense it'll probably just sound odd like telling someone whose blind what red is." She scratched the back of her head at the question about 'what if' and bit her bottom lip. "Well I guess I assumed the place would be empty with all the bio-hazard signs around.. Guess Shields watching out thought."


Huntress reaches to her snazzy utility belt and produces a black phone with purple glittery accents on it and turns the oracleapp on speaker through it, "Well.. describe it maybe?" she sighs a bit, a bit of frustration showing on her face, "Oracle, did you have any video of the incident that created these things?"


Huntress, May and Zoe are standing away from the Obelisks in South Hook, but still near to them. May has a very disapproving look on her face as she regards the young metahuman. Huntress has her phone out and all three are conversing.

"Hello Zoe, I'm Oracle." Oracles digitally disguised voice comes through the phone. She does video footage of the event and she plays it through the OracleApp. It shows the Parademon, the Insect woman, the children, the pillars appearing, the quaking and the damage that occurs.

"That's the pillars appearing, Huntress, but I also received a message during this event." the redhead will play the message next for them, right now she's watching her screens as an Avatar moves towards the location.


Zoe tried to explain as she seemed to have difficulty putting it into words. "Okay its kinda like two waves crashing up against one another. But every time they hit the new strange wave splashes over into the other one bit by bit until I imagine it would eventually change the tide completely."She said attempting a metaphor to explain with her super-powered senses saw to Huntress before watching the video that oracle played. "Ohh so thats what it was, weird..Interesting but weird..I mean I can't identify the nature of the new elements just by looking at them but if I had time to study I might be able to know more!" She said in a hopeful expression even as she looked at the ever stoic May.


Melinda May keeps the stare of disapproval going, even while Oracle is explaining to Zoe what happened before. When the girl tries to wheedle some more study time, she shuts her down with a flat, "No."


There's a growl from nearby. If Oracle has been tracking the Fox, she knows he's had a rough night and is just coming along this way to keep an eye on the damn obelisks as he has for several nights. He's noticed people here this time (most folks keep well away) and is approaching. With a quartet of large, transparent, glowing blue wolves. And a very large 'I'm not effing around' sword in his hand. One that, by the stains on it may have been used in the last several minutes. "What the h- oh, May, hello." Huntress and Zoe get curious looks. "Talking to 'her'?"


The Huntress sort of goes silent, and it's fairly clear she is more or less oblivious to the words from Zoe just previous, and she basically ignores the greeting… and question from Fox as he arrives with the pack of wolves in tow and she just murmurs, "I gotta go.." And turns to start back towards where she parked her bike.


"Huntress, you're my voice in this meeting. Where are you going?" Oracle suspects the purple clad woman knows more than she's letting on "Hello Fox. Busy night from what I've seen."

"We've people who can work on the site, Zoe." The wheelchair bound woman considers the metaphor and is already contacting members of the JL:A. There's a village in Russia they need to check out, quickly… by the sounds of it.

"From what I understand you've just said Zoe, the actual composition of the area is changing, is that correct? And there are new elements there…. " Given the Obelisks are alien tech, this …. might not be such a good thing.


Melinda May turns to look at Huntress and nods, then focuses on Zoe again. Disapproval resumed. Well, until she hears that tone in the disembodied voice. It's normally very difficult to pick out, but it's there. She turns toward Huntress and her Oracleapp again. "What are you thinking, Oracle?" And, if this kid can SENSE the changing elements, could she possibly slow or stop the changing?


Zoe nodded. "Yea but its more then that, its all new and strange. I'm not saying I'm the solution here but I know I can help!" She said looking between them. "If the source of this is in Russia then maybe I could find something out there. Like I said I can see things on a level that most cant and who knows the catalyst to fixing this mess could be something microscopic or even hidden." Zoe gulped a little looking at the man with the pack of wolves and then back to May. "I'm here to try to save this city from even more destruction, please look into my past if you wanna, I know what I'm talking about here and I'm not helpless either.. If I have to I can fight." she said with her best look of determination.


"Bad night." The Fox amends for Oracle. A busy night involves backing down a werewolf pack and putting a Revenant back in the ground and maybe dealing with a haunting. This night has been… more. "Well I know they're not particularly arcane." Unnatural, perhaps, not magical though. "In fact whatever they've done has sucked this area dry of resonance, though whether that's something they do or a side effect I couldn't say. Leaving so soon Huntres?" Maybe he just caught them at the end of the meeting.

The wolves have a seat in a semi-circle behind him as the cloaked, masked vigilante stops and takes a moment glance down at his blade, grimace and wipe it off on his cloak. "Not interrupting I hope?" That's addressed to everyone.


"Yeah." Huntress says.. though it's hard to say who she's talking to. There's a clear moment of hesitation visible on the woman's face, but she does stop and turn back towards the group, but her attention certainly seems focused elsewhere, and her gaze is mostly towards the Obelisks. At least Oracle is still close enough to chat with everyone!


Melinda May gives Zoe another hard stare. "How old are you, anyway?" Because in her mind, this kid can't be a day over fifteen. And there is NO way on this planet she'd let a kid go out there and risk their own safety to collect data.


"Bad and busy night, then Fox. In my report on these…" Oracle pauses as she considers how much to share. Zoe's obviously young and not part of any of the teams the redhead's aware of. "They're alien-tech. As far as we can tell. We haven't been able to penetrate the outer shell to find out anything more… but I did manage to hack them early, they're like science fiction, which is saying something…" beat "We have alien tech in an area where the actual composition of the environment is being changed…. what if it's being prepared? Terra-formed, if you will, to be more ammenable to …. something?"

"Speak to me, Huntress" Oracle directs her attention to the woman "You're thinking something. I've shared, now it's your turn."


Zoe nodded. "Yea I agree and my idea is if we can find the source of this we can maybe find a way to engineer this change in the other direction. You know fix the 'tide' as it were back to how our worlds supposed to be. Cause I think without it this infection might keep going and going. It looks slow now but the larger it all gets the faster it will change I imagine. With all the strange elements I'm seeing already there's no way the world it creates will be anything but toxic for all of us." Looking back towards May at her question. "Ahh c'mon.. I'm Eighteen, I'm not /that/ young." She said almost pouting for a moment as if that took some of the steam out of her dramatic opinion.


"Terraforming. Lovely." The Fox watches TV. Sometimes. He's familiar with the word. It's rather amusing to think that in a world of magic and monters there are somethings that he still can't quite believe. Or, well, it would be if it weren't so deadly serious. The exchange between Zoe and May gets a quirked brow before Fox turns his attention to Huntress. She has something to say?


"Not here.." Huntress says, looking at the gathered people finally, "And not yet…" She adds, "I can't be sure.. I need to know more." she says finally, though there is a hint of doubt to her voice as she speaks.. and hey, she's communicating again, though still a bit distant as she works through whatever it is that is running through her mind.


Melinda May gives Huntress the long look this time, but perhaps surprisingly, the relents and doesn't try to press the masked woman into explaining. So, she turns her attention back to Zoe. "If we give you enough time to study those obelisks the way you want to, do you think you can slow or redirect the elemental changes?" Because, yeah. The term 'terraforming' throws up a HUGE red Heinlein-esque flag in her mind.


"More importantly, do you think your Instructors will give you permission to do this type of work?" Oracle is aware of the Xavier Institute and how protective they are of their students (and rightly so in this day and age). "I may be wrong and need to do more investigation, but any help I can get would be welcomed." she pauses "There's a second location that needs investigation." Fox and May should be aware of it, it was in her report.

On Fox's channel alone, she gives the man a quick update about the young woman. "They start so young, Fox. " Says the redhead who was Batgirl in her teens…

"Alright Huntress, not her and not yet… but soon. Like in the next day or so… we should compare notes." Oracle will likely send Fox to find Huntress if she doesn't hear from in the alloted timeframe.


Zoe looked to Melinda and gave her a nod. "Well what I think I can do here is try to take a moment and catalog everything here as it is because looking at the base elements here its like an alien world I hardly recognize anything even the atmosphere is starting to change. Then when we go to the source I can better identify whats different, we can try to isolate it and then from that catalyst attempt to reverse this whole mess." She said in a hopeful tone. "Look I'm not saying I wanna lead a charge or anything but I think I can help, I was born for stuff like this I can do it." When Oracle talked about the school. "Well I mean, I'm on summer vacation right now and I'm an adult now that I'm eighteen. They can scold me but they can't keep me from helping save Gotham or maybe even the world if this gets bad."


The Fox watches Zoe for a moment and nods slightly, agreeing with Oracle though he doesn't say anything on it at the present. "I can look in on it tonight, Oracle. It's on the way after I head through the Narrows… though the way tonight's been going that could be a bit." Just… one of those nights.

"Are you coming May? Huntress?" Oracle will be of course. In that way she kind of always does.


"I.." Huntress starts to say then shakes her head, "I have things I need to do tonight." she says finally, frowning just a bit, "Is there anything else you need me for for this little pow-wow?" she asks.


Melinda May shakes her head no. "I need to get back. Be careful out there. All of you." She gives Huntress another nod and Zoe another 'don't do anything stupid' look and Kane a 'don't give me a reason to punch you again' look before taking her leave.


What can Oracle say to Zoe? Not a hell of a lot really… but it doesn't sit right. Zoe's phone should sound with a message "I've sent you details on how I can be contacted securely. I would feel… more comfortable… if we had some agreement with your school." But Huntress had said something about X-Red and a message is sent to Bobby Drake enquiring about the young woman.

"Nothing else tonight, Huntress. I look forward to hearing from you, very soon." beat "May, thanks for checking it out tonight. I'll contact the conference organisers and make sure they are well aware of how dangerous this place is."


The Fox nods and dips a hand into his pouch at his side. Out comes a charm that seems to just be several bird feathers on a leather thong. He whispers over it and the whole thing disintigrates into violent dust which sinks into his palm, suffusing him for a moment with an aura that fades. "See you folks later, then." And then he's off. Moving… really rather kind of inhumanly gracefully as he uses a narrow alley to kick jump up onto a fire escape and make for the rooftops.


Zoe gave a little smile almost excited she looked like she might be about to hug May after being given permission but quickly changed her mind at the older SHIELD agents steely disposition and instead just gave a somewhat nervous thumbs up as the young mutant made her way back towards the obelisks as she pulled out her tablet again and started to resume taking pictures and continuing her dictation as she started to document things along with her observations. Connecting Oracle so they could go through it together.

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