[Plot] Cause the Person I am, are the Parts that I Play

[Samantha McManus]

"Non-local guests," she says pointedly.

[Katarina Kane]

"Agents Kane and Ryn, from the Hoffman Society," Katarina says, drawing herself up to look professional again -- as professional, at least, as someone in damp, stolen clothes might look. "Though I would gather that would mean very little to you, here."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"It does not." she says, raising one eyebrow. "Ashlie Minamida, head-mistress of the university." she says ash she finishes wiping her hands and extends it out to Katarina and Ryn, the later of whom just looks at it with disdain.

"And I gather you're not simply here on a sight-seeing tour."

[Katarina Kane]

"You have a leak, Mrs. Mimamida," Katarina said, explaining the situation. "Flotsam and jetsam from your world has been washing up on our shores."

[Samantha McManus]

"Goes both ways, as you can see."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"That... is not how that usually works. Curious. Not to mention failing to trip my sensors. The dimensional tears we've encountered so far usually required external manipulation to allow for matter to pass through though one did linger. Let me grab my equipment to take some readings." she says, holding up one finger before turning around and heading back into her workshop, mumbling to herself. "Perhaps the water obfuscated the readings? it shouldn't but we hardly have that much data. Possible the continuous matter stream of water is keeping it open, which would imply a density threshold...

After a moment she returns, a bag slung over her shoulder and carrying an over-sized version of those flat phones with additional bits attached to it and wires winding in and out of it. "If you don't mind I'd like to take a reading of you two as well to calculate your native dimensional amplitude."

[Katarina Kane]

Katarina took half-a-step back, her aversion to being poked and prodded once more bubbling to the surface; the same instinct that had her flee from Sam and Leo to begin with.

"And that would be..." she asked, trailing off.

[Ryn]

In a similar vein, Ryn takes a half-step forwards. This... whatever it is is beyond suspect. And the contraption it's holding could be anything.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Without getting into too much detail, every universe has a specific quantum signature and so does all matter in it. All I need is a piece of matter from your universe. A coin or even a piece of pocket-lint. Saliva works too but that's not particularly sanitary."

[Katarina Kane]

Katarina let out a breath she wasn't even aware she was holding.

"Ryn, I left my change in my other pants," she deadpanned, not wanting to reveal the pistol she still had strapped to her thigh. "You must have something on you?"

[Ryn]

Ryn eyes the pale-haired woman suspiciously. Her looks could almost pass for Fae if it wasn't for the fact that she's all wrong but she is asking for something that belongs to them like a Fae might to try and trick them into giving them something of themselves. Katarina is smart not to oblige. Ryn for her part simply tears a button off of her dress shirt. She doesn't need the one on the collar anyway and she certainly doesn't consider anything the Agency expects her to wear as part of herself, so it should be safe. She wordlessly drops the button into Ashlie's hand.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"That'll do just fine." She pops open a small compartment on her device and places the button inside before tapping a couple things on the attached pad.

"It will take some time to process. You said the fissure is out in the estuary? How close can we get to it without submerging?"

[Katarina Kane]

"At low tide, you can probably get decently close," Katarina said, thinking carefully. "Wading through the mud may not be pleasant, but you can do it. At high tide....I don't know. I doubt it."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Then we should still have some time. The water might throw off the reading but it's better than nothing."

[Samantha McManus]

"Mustn't be too hazardous if living creatures can make it through."

[Katarina Kane]

"It's not the portal itself that's hazardous," Katarina agreed. "It's the damage to The Veil."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"The Veil?" Ashlie asks, glancing up from the data coming in on her pad.

[Katarina Kane]

"The Veil," Katarina nodded. "The...You know, what protects normal people from people like us. Allows them to justify the strange and unusual; rationalize it away and come up with mundane explanations for the strange and paranormal. A portal spewing out coins with the wrong dates and strange machinery chips away at that."

[Ryn]

"It hides what lives in the fringes and the shadows from humankind." Ryn adds helpfully. "So the truth doesn't madden them."

[Samantha McManus]

"There's not... really anything of that sort here?"

"I mean I've heard of something called the Veil, but it's more of an actual boundary."

[Katarina Kane]

"Well, if portals like this are commonplace, I suppose your Veil must have broken long ago. That's sort of what our job is to protect."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"And if it obfuscates the truth then I'd prefer no supernatural force meddling with my faculties, but I do understand a certain need for secrecy. Still, this is the first I've heard of something like that. If such a thing existed here it was broken a very long time ago."

[Katarina Kane]

Katarina looked at Ryn, raising an eyebrow. "That might be something to look into, if we can't close this portal entirely. We've been told the collapse of the Veil would be...catastrophic."

[Samantha McManus]

"Over here there are people with exceptional abilities that are publicly known. The stigma varies, but some are even celebrated as heroes."

[Leo Eskandari]

"First," Leo interjected rudely, a little offended, "if we ever had a Veil like yours, it broke and the world's no more shitty without it. Second, people like Sam excluded, there's nothing otherworldly or supernatural about mutants. It's all genetics."

"Though, I'll grant you my mutation isn't entirely natural, it's still science and not magic."

[Katarina Kane]

"Well, I'm sure you know more about your situation than we do," Katarina said, trying to calm the situation.

"And why are we excluding people like Sam? If anything, her abilities being different enhances my point. Is she that unusual?"

[Samantha McManus]

"I think getting into that might get us a bit lost in the weeds," she hedges.

[Ryn]

"This world is very different." Ryn nods. She doesn't particularly care for being seen to begin with but it does feel freeing to know she doesn't have to worry about it if it comes down to it. She has her own thoughts about whether or not the Veil actually can be broken universally and it's certainly not in her nature to intentionally test it.

"But she is a little like me." she adds. And though she's not sure how exactly Katarina would interpret this, maybe this mortal god could be a half-step for her to understand and accept Ryn's nature. As far as plans go it's uncharacteristically long-term for her, but then again, Katarina does tend to make her do things she normally wouldn't.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"She's a mutant, first and foremost." Ashlie notes. All this non-sense about supernatural things still bothers her, even if she had to admit there is at least something to it. Doesn't mean she's buying into the whole deity thing.

"And you two are quite far from home, dimensionally speaking." she says, holding up her device. "Usually these incursions seem to happen within neighboring clusters, so to speak. Worlds that diverged relatively recently or developed somewhat in parallel. Places that have mutants. Recognizable faces, similar nations and histories. I've been able to determine rough estimates for calculating these based on the dimensional amplitudes and the theoretical five-dimensional grid on which they could overlap to form breaches." she launches into an explanation before remembering her audience. "The more causally 'distant' a universe is the harder it is to breach. More-so once we consider the possibility of differences in meta-physics.

[Katarina Kane]

"I'm sure in the future, dimensional amplitudes are taught in every elementary school classroom, but in 198X, it's a little harder to come by.

But this sounds like it's a worse-than-normal problem for you. Which may imply that whatever is going on is getting worse?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Not necessarily. Let's pretend for a moment that each universe is a self-contained room in an endless building. Some are very close or directly adjacent and when the walls of our universe grew brittle things bled through to and from those. We patched up our walls and supports. This is more like skipping up or down multiple stories entirely."

[Katarina Kane]

"Oh, so it's an all-together new and different worse problem. Great. I feel so much more relieved," Katarina deadpanned, though she couldn't entirely hide the hint of a smile from the corner of her lips.

[Samantha McManus]

"The saving grace this time is probably that it's between two worlds that aren't hostile that we've seen so far?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Or the result of malicious intent, yes. As far as dimensional incursions go, this is downright pleasant."

[Katarina Kane]

"Well, I'm glad we could oblige.

That is part of our job, of course. We keep things secret so more malicious forces can't use them for it's own end. I would hate to see what either superpower would do with access to technology this advanced. Heck, I would hate to see what our quartermaster would do with technology this advanced."

[Leo Eskandari]

"Our America and Russia are still locked in a pissing contest, but they are far from the most malicious forces we have to live with. I'm starting to wish we did have a you guys. Less work for us supers." Leo did his best to sound flippant, but he meant every word. People like that could have stopped Evo before he got started.

[Ryn]

Ashlie looks like she's about to say something when Ryn cuts her off.

"What are you?" she demands. This discussion is beyond her and she'd much rather go with Sam to the promised blowing off of steam, but she's not going to leave Katarina with this... human-shaped thing unless she knows it's safe.

[Ashlie Minamida]

Ashlie looks down at Ryn, not surprised but taking note that the woman is, at the very least, quite perceptive.

"To put a long story short? I'm a living and thinking machine."

[Ryn]

"Human-wrought humans..." Ryn mutters and looks Ashlie up and down, deciding that this means she must be killable. She can't even begin to imagine how a machine would be imbued with life, but what are bodies if not very, very, very complicated machines that gave life to themselves. She doesn't have to understand it to accept it at the very least. She gives a curt nod and turns to Katarina. "Are you okay investigating the passage with this machine-human? I want to take a look around outside."

[Katarina Kane]

"Be careful, Ryn," Katarina said, nodding.