Xaviers!

Natalie had carefully contained the arm in a case for transport across the campus to the medical lab. She waved at the medical staff as she headed towards the actual labs, bypassing the care sections.

The lab is much more busy than usual. Over in one corner Stephanie is sitting in a wheelchair, yelling at talking to Archaea. When she comes inside she almost runs into X-23 who looks not too happy, cradling a hand that has healed it's exterior wounds, but is sitting at a bad angle, fingers twisted and two bone blades sticking out. She tries to flex it but the fingers only barely move, working against some unseen resistance. When she sees Natalie her expression hardens and her hand drops to her side.

"Natalie. What are you doing here?" she asks, glancing down at what she's carrying.

"Carrying a piece of on of the assailants going by the name of Manikin. Seems to contain some now deceased organs that I was hoping someone here could take a look at," she says, cradling the box carefully and politely ignoring Laura's hand. "We're not sure if the organs belonged to Manikin or if they belong to another individual that Reach, the guy with the blades, referenced." Her delivery's possibly a little flat, as if she's doing a lot of things at once.

"Jesus Christ, what the fuck... That's a straight up brain-in-a-jar."

"It would appear to be, yes," Natalie says, not having a stomach to turn at the moment even if the sight is horrific. "Some mechanism engaged and killed it when we discovered it." She sets it on one of the tables. "The more clues we gather, the more we know what they're properly up to. Too many people want to barge right out and confront these clowns and I'm afraid the conflict will just level Maldon unless we know more about them."

"You're a smart cookie. Go ahead and do your thing. I'm sure Beast can help you if you need anything." she says, not sounding bitter at all.

There's flashes of access on the network as Natalie downloads the proper procedures for taking samples and starts finding the equipment to do so. "How's your hand?" She asks as she starts to work.

"Fucking fantastic." she says, holding her malformed hand up. "Wish she'd just ripped it off entirely instead of leaving me with a mangled mess of adamantium."

Finding the things she's looking for isn't too difficult. A lot of the equipment has excellent documentation on how to operate it, courtesy of Dr. McCoy. Small tissue sample to drop into the DNA analyzer, place the rest of the arm into the large imaging scanner meant for full-sized people. Most of it is controlled by computers, which makes it easy for Natalie to set up a full scan and the machine goes to work, a narrow beam of light running back and forth over the severed arm.

"How does someone even mangle adamantium? I was under the impression that it was virtually indestructible." She watches the light working its way back and forth across the arm, monitoring the processes as they begin feeding data back.

"You're one of the science people, you tell me. Adamantium's subject to the laws of physics. Void apparently isn't." Laura snarls.


Slowly data starts coming in. First some structural information on the casing. Polyactic plastic infused with a steel alloy, more resilient against kinetic impacts than plain metal alloys but more susceptible to other forms of energy, more light-weight than, for instance, Natalie's armor designs. The scanner shows several microscopic layers of other materials worked into the inside of the casing, possibly related to the homeostatic requirements of keeping something alive inside of it, but beyond her abilities to really grasp without an in depth study.

What is more in her wheelhouse is the information coming up on what seems to be some kind of interface. Neuron connectors worked into the brainstem and spread throughout the sensory parts of the brain that connect to the severed wire that once attached the arm to the rest of Manikin. Electronics components that are meant to filter and gate signals before passing them along. At the same time the DNA sequencer begins producing data and automatically running comparisons to known X-Gene configurations.

Code: Select all

95% Match for Sensory Mutation
70% Match for Proprioception-altering
65% Match for Mutant-Mutant interaction
40% Match for Enhanced Deduction
12% Match for Telepathic Markers

Code: Select all

Closest match for genetic sequence:
Sensing of other Mutants as relative position of subject
Limited Clairvoyance, possibility of sense of surrounding area and sensations
--- Spread of recorded long-distance senses: 90% Sight; 65% Hearing; 43% Telepathic/Empathic; 10% Smell; >1% Other
Medium to strong impression of other mutants' abilities

Similarities to known powersets on file:
- Caliban (strong correlation)
- Charles Xavier (partial match, see also Cerebro/Cerebra dataset)

Natalie spins up a process to begin extrapolating diagrams of the arm's neural interface and put them into her shared "project with Ashlie" folder, sub-directory "Manikin Arm" as the DNA data comes in to distract her. "Well, I guess that answers the 'just how big a bastards are they' question." She sighs, looking at the arm and the gray tissue inside it. "The tech here is amazing. Could be life-saving if used properly," she lets out an involuntary growl of her own, "but instead, they use it to enslave some poor person just so they can use their abilities."

"Amazing's not the word I would use." Laura growls, but trails off at the end, seeming distracted as if she's perking her ears, then shakes her head. "More bad than good comes from this kinda stuff, in my experience."

"You are the experienced X-Man here, but an interface like this... capable of actually transmitting proper sensory data? To have that sort of gift, something that could make a quality of life difference in someone else's life and to use it... like this." Her fist clenches and the safeties in the body's programming have to kick in. About that time, it registers that Laura was listening to something. "Something wrong?"

"Thought I heard something, but it's probably just all these machines whirring and humming. And I'm biased. I did end up doing some good with this, I suppose." she says, flexing her good hand and extending her claws.

"Sometimes good can come out of bad situations. That's what I intend to do here, if at all possible." Now that the arm's finished scanning, she turns back around to carry it to a table and inspect it closer, pulling on gloves unnecessarily as she starts inspecting the internal mechanisms of the arm, trying to identify the pump so that maybe she can identify the substance used to destroy the organs.

It's a fairly straight-forward mechanism. Triggered remotely it seems to have injected a cyanide compound into the closed system on top of simply shutting down the intricate life-support system. As a result most of the tissue died off rapidly from hypoxia.

"Well, just make sure you give them a proper burial when you're done poking at the remains."

"Of course," Natalie says seriously. "I am aware that this is... was a person. Just because my body's mechanical at the moment doesn't mean I'm heartless." She retrieves an opaque container and gently removes the remains to it before getting in to cataloging the rest of the arm's circuits.

After a bit of cataloging, Natalie drums her fingers on the table, commenting to no one in particular. "This isn't the sort of thing you just bash together in somebody's basement. You'd need facilities for something like this."

Ashlie's face stutters into existence on the screen of the scanner.

"Don't underestimate how resourceful people can get. But you're right in that he must have materials on hand to maintain or even replace something like this and at least a temporary workshop. I have checked the obvious sites in the area, hospitals, morgues, etc. for increased electrical demands or fluctuations of normal activity but haven't found anything so far. This is a very focused application of his specialty, depending on his access to resources it's possible he set up a closed environment with it's own supply of energy somewhere."

"And I doubt he would have sought council approval to do so, so building permits and the like are probably not helpful."

"They move around a lot, so it'd probably have to be portable while likely minimizing or reclaiming waste product. He's more of a Doctor and Environmentalist than a Physicist, so his approach might be different than where my line of thinking tends to take me."

"So... biofuel maybe. Especially with his 'self-contained' MO. Or some new technology that he has that we haven't seen." She sighs. "And I'm not sure how that helps us."

"It might help narrow down the list of possible locations. It's one of many factors. It tells us that we can't discount abandoned buildings based on a lack of energy consumption, for starters."

"Maybe check police reports of squatters in abandoned buildings," she muses, "I doubt they're working in the dark. Correlate that with buildings with no energy consumption." She stares at the arm in front of her, "And can you start fabricating the pieces of my suit? The V1 core chassis design will have to do for now. I'm not happy with the operating time, but I don't have whatever energy source Stark has, so it'll have to be good enough."

"Certainly. They should be ready for assembly within a couple hours. I will keep you updated on the progress."

"I appreciate it." She picks up the container, "I'm going to go talk to Doctor McCoy about burial for Char's 'friend'." Apparently her focus is slipping enough that the voice modulator allows a cold anger to slip into the tone.

"Of course." Ashlie says, showing no signs that she noticed anything amiss. If Natalie had the attention to spare though she might have noticed the less subdued spike of activity in Ashlie's data-stream signaling her concern.