Nanites On The Brain

April 08, 2015:

Lunair catches up with Simmons and Skye about what was done to her

The Triskelian - New York

Characters

NPCs: None.

Mentions:

Mood Music: None.


Fade In…

As usual, Simmons is in the SHIELD R&D facility running tests and experiments, who knows what on… but Simmons seems to do this a lot. Looking up from the current set of results she's analysing, Jemma checks the time and starts tidying her workspace. She's expecting a visit for someone May has referred to her… something about kidnappings, lost time and finding out what happened.


No one really expects a random HYDRA weapon to turn up on their doorstep. Not really. Neither did Lunair expect to be here, really. She figured it'd be an update and off she'd go to have her brains scrambled. Maybe she should use magnets…? (How do those even work!?) But she's pretty well mannered and introduces herself to the receptionist. Hi again! And she'll have to be led on down…

Stand and stretch. Go for a walk. That is what Skye has decided to do to clear her head and try to come up with a new approach to the task at hand. She has been stonewalled, and it is starting to anger the little hacker. She hates to fail, but has accepted her current assignment as a test of her skills. As usual, her little walk takes her down to the research and development facility; nothing like a little conversation with Fitzsimmons to clear ones head. She reaches the R&D and pauses in the doorway, knocking lightly before entering, "Hey Jemma. Am I interrupting?"


Looking up as Skye enters, Simmons shakes her head and then nods "I'm just about to meet someone, walk with me while I go collect them." She'd just received the notice that her guest was waiting.

Removing her safety goggles, Jemma walks towards the reception area "What's up, Skye?"

It doesn't take long to reach the reception area and Simmons looks for her guest. Seeing Lunair, she smiles slightly and holds out her hand "Dr Jemma Simmons. Agent May sent you to see me?"


Lunair is totally collect-able. She knows better than to go wandering around the Triskelion, after all. Most of the time she's either brought information or had to deal with weirdos in the basement (tentacles, nooooo). She looks around, uncertain. She smiles politely, as Jemma comes up to her. There's a curious look if Skye comes along, too. There's a pause, and she carefully accepts the hand. She nods. "Nice to meet you, Dr. Simmons. And she did. I'm Lunair." She seems uncertain on what to follow that up with. Hi, I have stuff in my brain? No, i didn't stick anything up my nose? Well, nothing for now. "Ah, er. Is this a bad time?"


Skye had fallen into step with Simmons, walking through the halls of the Tri with an occassional nod to a passing co-worker as it were, "Nothing really. I just needed to give my mind a little break. Having a little bit of difficulty with something. It's like they know what I am going to do and have it blocked already." She shrugs and offers a slight smile, "I'll get it tho. Not to worried, just needed to clear my head."

As they approach and reach Lunair, Skye stands back slightly behind Simmons, afterall, this is her meeting. However, the hacker does wave from her place behind Simmons, a polite smile and a softly spoken, "What's up?" Clearly the question is rhetorical and not really expecting any reply.


Simmons smiles at Skye "It's like that at times. Feel free to talk at me, if it will help. Sometimes just the process of explaining it to others will bring the solution for yourself. Fitz and I do that a lot." Shaking Lunairs hand, Simmons looks quizzacle at the careful way her hand is taken "Nice to meet you, Lunair. This is my colleague Agent Johnson. Looks like you've got your pass organised, lets head through to the lab."

Certainly the reception area isn't the place to start the discussion but as Simmons leads the way, she continues "Agent May told me that you were kidnapped and have lots a block of time. She seemed concerned that something happened to you during the missing time. Perhaps you could start there as we walk?" It's not really a long walk to the lab.


Lunair is quieter and less puppylike than usual. The kidnapping isn't one of her favorite things to think about. She smiles politely at Skye. "Um." What is up? "Not - a lot. You?" That is obviously not entirely truth. "I'm sure you can do it." She will follow along. At least her phobia of lab stuff is slowly dying as she progresses in her classes.

"Nice to meet you, Agent Johnson." Hey, she's pretty well mannered, if a bit off. When at rest, she doesn't seem to show much, if any emotion, giving her a blank sort of look. "Yeah… That's umm, the start of it. We were in the Centennial park when some lady Arsenal called the Baroness staged a purse snatching-" It's a start.


Her question was answered. Well, that was somewhat unexpected, but Skye does reply with a simply delivered, " Not a lot. Well, that's a lie..but that's for another time." She quicky shuts up and then adds, "It is nice to meet you as well. I am sure Simmons can assist you. You are in good hands." She then moves to follow the two, letting Lunair explain her tale and listrning as she walks; not interuppting to allow Simmons to garner the whole tale as it is explained.


Reaching the lab, Simmons ushers Lunair inside and offers the woman a chair. "A purse snatching… you mean a literal purse snatching?" waving that question off, the biochemist continues "OK, so the Baroness, Centennial Park… and?" Smiling over to Skye, Simmons indicates she should sit too "Maybe you can provide insight as well, Skye. Would you two like tea?"

Simmons heads over to the nook where she and Fitz have tea and coffee making facilities set up… she's got her own stash of tea now. "Do continue, Lunair."


"Tea would be great, thank you," Lunair nods. "Yup, she was dressed like a debutante. Then some dude yanked her purse and she screams. Myself, Metal and Arsenal went to tackle the guy. Then the baroness pops out with this weird metal claw and weird snake themed blaster gun kinda thing and said she needed only one of us. She paralyzed my metal friend, which is weird because he's a robot kinda guy. The archer guy got knocked out at some point, but she called this robot dog who grabbed me, shook me and rode off… I guess."


Skye takes a seat, she is already hooked on the start of the story, she just has to hear the rest. A smile is given to Jemma as she nods, "Tea would be great. Rally great." Typical Skye, the seat she is in has her feet pulled up to her, almost sitting Indian style upon it as she listens to the story, "This really happened? So cool." There is a pause as she looks between them and then quickly states, "I mean that's terrible. You are lucky to be alright."


Simmons prepares three cups of tea as she listens, letting them steep before bringing them over to the group. "You guess? What do you mean you guess?" Simmons latches on to that statement "Don't you know?"

Handing the cups to the other women, Simmons casts a glance at Skye "I doubt Lunair is here to see me or Fitz because she's alright." Not a rebuke, an observation.


"I guess because the dogrobot shook me and the last thing I heard and saw was someone shouting after me. They slowed my friend down and Arsenal was dealing with the weird ninja guy. Who had the lady's exploding compact stuck to him, whereupon he blew up. And there was a third person helping them," She remarks. "I don't remember seeing him or her personally. But arrows."

Then a blink at Skye. She … doesn't know how to react to that. Lunair.exe has the spinny blue windows circle going on in her head. "I guess it could be cool," She seems less than… certain of that. "I woke up sometime later in a lab." There's a deep fear, hatred and anger in that. "I saw Taskmaster and her. Then I was asleep. I was apparently drugged pretty well. Which doesn't surprise me given what I can do. Anyway, she apparently just … dropped me off on the side of some road."


That's Skye, she tends to always put her foot in her mouth eventually the more she speaks. She takes the tea and takes a long sip, listening now. Yes it would be best to just listen until she has something positive to help Lunair figure ot wehat happened. Simmons can spearhead this conversation.


"And what is it you can do." Simmons senses the hate, anger and fear "Is everything ok, Lunair?" the story the young woman is telling, is kind of horrifying. Taking a sip of her tea, Simmons waits to hear the rest of the story.


Lunair is sympathetic. Really. But she's got a pretty ugly past. "Lots, and I'm still not sure. But mostly, I create things." Pause. She sets a lightsaber hilt on the table. A shoe. "Ta da! Weapons, clothes, armor…" Fingerwiggle. "I have fun with it sometimes. But - I was created as part of some super soldier thing. I don't know if this recent one was related since she straight up let me go, you know? And no, not really. HYDRA still bothers me sometimes. Aaaand… there's things. In my brain. We made sure it's not tracking, which is really weird."


Skye has been listening carefully to the story, looking for anything she can offer to assist the woman and her obvious time of difficulty. When the woman mentions tracking she perks up a bit, putting her feet down and sliding her chair a bit closer by scuffling her feet, tea held in both hands, "You made sure..are you totally sure they are not tracking you? Did you disable the gps subnet masking for automated restart?"


"Well that's impressive" Simmons responds to Lunairs demonstration, impressed until the the soldier comment "I am sorry. What about these things in your brain?" Skye's concern for tracking gets a nod from the Biochem, she'll leave the hacker to do what she does best.


Sometimes, people can bluescreen error, too. And that's precisely what happens at Skye's last sentence. Beepbeepbeepbooooooooooop. Lunair's eyes practically go blank as her brain runs screaming into the distance. "… yes, my friend scanned me. He's partially machine himself. Nano-stuff is one of his specialties. I stayed in hiding a long while, too," She remarks. Lunair looks to Simmons. "It's okay. I exist and I'm pretty glad for it." She does seem fairly cheerful in light of it all. "But they're nan- nano- nanu? Nano-thingies. They seem to be totally inert far as anyone can tell but the idea of having something in my *brain* totally weirds me out. I thought about headbutting a magnet, but that would end so, so badly." There's some humor in it, at least.


Skye looks to Simmons and then back to Lunair, nibbling her lower lip, "Would you be opposed ot having Simmons and myself check that? A scan is one thing, but sometimes the tracking is intermittent. It can have a built in masking operation to appear like it is.." She pauses as she realizes she is speaking technical again, "I mean if you would allow it. Dr. Simmons and I could make sure you are completely undetectable or tracked."


Simmons frowns as Lunair explains the nanites in her head and then looks at Skye and frowns a little more. "They're called Nanites. Does that sound familiar? Did you friend who did the scan give you anything that we can look at it?" It would certainly speed up certain processes, if he did.

"If not, I will need to run some tests, take some samples and see what we can determine." Tapping her teacup, the biochemist thinks "Inert nanites may not be inert forever. There may be a trigger that activates them. And please, Lunair, don't head but a magnet, it probably won't help either way."


Lunair blinks. "… how do you - I - guess." She seems uneasy, but given she's spent her life in labs and hospitals, most anything sounds pretty unease-inducing. "Yeah, nanites. And I can ask him. I meant to take him some computer parts anyway." She seems to be a good friend, or at least think well on her friend.

"Um. S-sure… And nah, that would be pretty mean to the magnet." She's being a smart ass. But that's the long and short of it. Some cope with humor, to deal with the horror of having *things* in her brain. "I really hope they stay inert." Fidget. "But that is why I came here. I'm sorry."


Nanites. Oh joy. SOmething computer based. Computers are good. Skye understands computers. What she does not understand is how to look at a computer based robot stuck inside someone's brain, "Wait…that's like the guy we ran into in the alley the other night. Sara and I. Some spider special ops guy. He said he was being tracked as well, or he was, but more so by project rebirth." She shakes her head and goes back to the task at hand, "If Simmons can figure out access to these things in sme way, I could look into it. Unless, there is a way to hack it externally."


"You'll need to work with Fitz, Skye." Simmons looks over and considers "We'll need a sample of the nanites to investigate, I can do the biology side but Fitz is the tech guy. It's why we work so well together." Simmons makes a mental note to follow up Skye on the spider special ops guy.

"Lunair, I'll need to scan you first. It won't take long and it won't hurt… could I get you to come stand over here?" Gesturing to a piece of equipment, Simmons will hook the young woman up and conduct the scan.


Lunair is quiet for awhile. She tilts her head. More like her, huh? "I don't know…" She admits. "And that sounds neat." Having a buddy is awesome, right? She thinks about Mike a moment. Good ole Metal. She is always in awe of her metallic machine friend. She seems uneasy at the idea of a *sample* of the nanites.

… especially while they were in her brain. But she just goes with it. "Okay." There's a brief moment of hesitation. Phobias do not die lightly. But she manages to - meander over to the equipment. After a moment. Right, right, going to get hooked up and scanned.


Skye also stands, out of mere curiosity if anything, moving to stand closer to Simmons, but out of the way, "I'll talk to Fitz as soon as I see him. I think we could figure it out together." She sips her tea and stares at the procedure about to take place. A lot of this stuff she has not seen done before and it truly piques her curiosity, "So what are you looking for exactly Simmons?"


Simmons senses Lunairs hesitation and looks at the other young woman "Here, let me show you both." Attaching the diodes to her own head, first, Simmons turns the scanner on … a 3D image of her brain slowly forms on the screen, with flashes of colour rippling over it. "That's my brain and the flashes are the electrical impulses that power our bodies." As she speaks, part of the image changes colour "The bit that just changed colour? That's my speech centre operating." Smiling at Lunair "Any questions?"


Lunair smiles politely at Skye. She nods. She will watch a moment, peering. "Neat, thanks. And um, nah, it should be okay. The nanites would show up, yeah?" She seems quietly curious, although years of lab happenings probably do leave her wary. But trying. Nevertheless, she will go with it.


Skye Johnson watches the scanner, studying carefully all that Simmons is speaking about. When she is able to see Simmons brain, she raises a brow and goes a bit wide eyed, "So that is what intelligence looks like. Wow. Never would have thought that." She smiles over to Lunair and then says softly, "If they are still tracking you…I promise when I am done they will be tracking a garbage truck out of Tulsa."


"Alright then, once this is done" Simmons transfers the diodes to Lunair, letting the young woman watch as they conduct the scans. Sure enough, on the 3D image dark spots (tiny) appear as the image renders. "There the little blighters are" She murmurs nodding to Skye to look. There were quite a few of them of them as well. "Now we need to recover one or three… let me think for a minute." Making sure Lunair has a cup of tea, Simmons moves to her workspace to look up a few things.


Lunair is a bit quiet, too. "Thanks," She smiles a little at Skye. She watches, peering at the screen. "Huh. Um." Yeah, she'd appreciate any thinking done on matters pertaining to 'poking in Lunair's brain'. She sips her tea, settling quiet as she lets Simmons go to her workspace. Though she pauses. "You um, like computers and stuff? A lot of my friends seem to be into computers," She considers. "It seems intense."


Skye has decided to be the comfort assistant for the woman who is being scanned. She has now moved to stand beside the woman and offers her hand to Lunair, "I do. It's kinda my thing. SHIELD figured if they offered me a position as an Agent, I could assist them in whatever hacking they needed done or anything else internet related." She smiles, "I personally think it is to keep an eye on me, but whatever."

Skye then pauses a moment and narrows her eyes in thought, "You know Jemma…something through her er could be less invasive. I suppose I could try to override the power mechanism..just not sure what that would do to her head." She smiles back to Lunair, softly mouthing, /I don't wanna do that."


Simmons smiles gratefully at Skye as she speaks to the other woman, reviewing information on her computer as she does.

"Precisely, Skye. A non-invasive manner is for the best and I…. ah, here it is." Moving to the cabinet behind her, Simmons recovers a small bottle of serum before returning to the other two women. "Skye, I'll need a way to capture the nanites when they are expelled… and keep them alive, if that makes sense."

"Lunair, this serum is designed to separate foreign matter, like those nanites, from the brain. The matter will be expelled through your ear. It won't hurt at all, but it will feel a little different. Are you ready?"

When Lunair indicates she is and Skye has a containment device, Simmons will inject the serum and then wait the moments for it to work.

"It won't get all of them, Lunair. But it will get me a sample that Fitz, Skye and I can work on. Determine what they do and how they work… and then, possibly, give us a way to ensure that you are totally safe." The biochem smiles slightly at that.


Lunair is quiet, blinking at the mouthed sentence. She just sort of tilts her head. "Oh, well. I see." She's a bit clumsy when it comes to dealing with people. But she seems quietly friendly, smiling and nodding. "It's pretty nifty. I can handle some computers, but." Yes, there it is. "That you're that awesome with it." Hey, why not?

Then she looks relieved. Lunair prefers not to have her brain pried open if it's all the same, really. She watches Simmons a moment now, as she mentions the serum. "I … okay," This doesn't sound entirely /pleasant/ but it beats the manual method. "That makes sense," She considers. She nods meekly. "I um, s-sure. That sounds fine." She seems politely cooperative. She is trying not to be too wary. The ladies here are really nice. She's glad for their company. But dang.


Skye takes the container and looks to Jemma with a look of somewhat aprehension and nervousness, tho she tries to ide it for Lunair. She offers another polite smile and exhales softly, "Are they going to come running out..falling out? I just want to be ready." Truly SKye is unsure of what lies within the woman's head.


Too late to answer the question, a small amount of goo runs from Lunairs ear into the container that Skye is holding. "Righ now, Skye. Seal that up. I'd like you to work with Fitz to separate the nanites and investigate them." Looking at the goo will show nothing specific, the nanites are too small for the human eye to see.

Handing Lunair a couple of tissues, Simmons smiles again "That's it, Lunair. Now it's up to us. I take it Agent May knows how to contact you. Do you have any questions?"


Lunair is nervous, it's a bit late for her. She is going to … eewww. "Oh man. I'm gonna take a shower after this," She admits. The goo makes her kind of wince. She doesn't jerk away or move away, but it's not pleasant feeling. Sort of like that wax cleaning stuff.

Lunair smiles back. "Thanks. And yup," Lunair nods. She accepts the tissues to dab at and clean around her ear. "Um. I guess it'll be nice to know more about the nanites," She thinks. "That was about it. You guys seem really nice, though and I appreciate it."


What is that coming out of her ear? Skye holds the container as the goo spills out into the container she is ohlding, wincing a bit as she watches it, unable to pull her eyes from it. As the goo finishes draining, she seals the top and looks to Jemma with a smile, "Right. Talk to Fitz. Don't put it in the fridge." She holds it far out from her body as she looks ove rto Lunair with another comforting grin, "If there is something ot be found, Fitz will find it. If there is something to be blocked, consider it blocked."


"Our pleasure, Lunair and I'm sorry we couldn't make it more pleasant or give you more answers." Simmons smiles back and nods to Skye. "Well, if we're finished here, I can escort you out and get cracking on the investigation. Do keep in touch though, through Agent May, if you need anything at all."

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