Xaviers!

"The good thing is that you don't have to understand how it works. That's what the Core and I deal with." Natalie motions towards a panel in the wall that slides open. "Let's get that artifact to the lab and then we'll get you settled."

"I suppose that's a no then..." she says, eyeing the walls with a bit more apprehension as she follows Intercept.

Once they're out of the gate chamber, doorways become a bit more evident. As if Nailah's question just breaks through Natalie's distracted demeanor, she answers, "There's an observation lounge, if you want to see what the space between worlds looks like. The garden room is much nicer, if you like views." She still seems distracted as they walk, entering a lab unlike anything that anything Nailah had every seen. Some instruments might be familiar. Only so many ways to make screwdrivers after all.

A thin, Asian man in a lab coat stood at some chemistry equipment about to drip an eerie blue fluid into a ghastly red fluid.

"Juuust a second, I'm about to do something impossible," he said dramatically. The drop fell and the red fluid exploded in his face as a purple gas.

"Or not," he coughed.

"The lab can, of course, be jettisoned if Shiro's experiments get out of hand," Natalie says dryly. "Shiro, this is Nailah, a new recruit."

"Oh, Chemistry!" she says, seemingly glad to see something recognizable, even if there's still unfamiliar instruments and tools involved. "Pleasure to meet you Mister... Shiro?" she says with a slight bow, trying to be polite and probably being at least kind of awkward if not a little racist in the process.

Shiro turned to face her, waving the purple mist away. It smelled a little like cinnamon.

"Doctor Toshiro Narumi, at your..." he began before raising a brow, "Why are you bowing?"

"Uh... Is that not... I'm sorry, I thought because you're..."

"Oh! Right... No. I'm from California," he said with a soft chuckle.

Thresher snickered at the exchange.

"Our possible samurai ancestors would be so ashamed," he chided.

"But... how does..." she shakes her head. "You're not from my California, are you."

"She's quick. Good," he smiled to Intercept.

To Nailah, he said, "Nope, me and ro-butt here are from a different Earth entirely. Different century even, judging by those clothes."

"Different Earths can progress at different rates and while time technically continues advancing and the gates aren't strictly a time machine, it's a bit fuzzier of a concept in this business. Shiro, Nailah has an artifact from Earth-1077 that we'd like to keep in the lab."

"Yes! Show me! Show me! I do so love when you bring me science," he grinned not unlike a child.

Nailah still seems a little bit hesitant, especially after somebody just blew up her office trying to, presumably, get to this. But after a moment she holds the strange metal ball out to him.

"We tried to have it analyzed, but it didn't react to anything and on the X-rays it was just a big white blob."

"Amazing..." he said as he looked it over, "I'm not surprised your scientists couldn't get anything out of it. It's clearly extraterrestrial. Where did you even get this?"

"Ancient ruins underneath a temple of Horus. We made a lot of rubbings of the inscriptions on the walls but most of that has gone up in flames... I do have some left though." she adds and holds up her notebook, opening it up where charcoal rubbings are pressed between pages of redrawings and notes.

Intercept smiles as the two start to huddle over their 'Science!' "Shiro, when the two of you are done, would you let the Core know to tell me? I need to go make sure her rooms manifest properly."

"Fascinating! It's as if two distinct nonhuman species were involved here," he said, giving Intercept a thumbs up.

"We're not sure. It was very stylized and we thought those figures might be supposed to represent humans. Compared to... whatever those are they're significantly more simian-looking at least. Exaggerated features are something you often find in primitive art."

"Ah. Yes. Of course. The... griffons?... threw me off."

"I don't know who or what they are, but... well the idea of them being extra-terrestrial seems much less strange all of a sudden."

"When confronted by an infinite multiverse, skepticism tends to be an early casualty."

"There's literally an Earth populated by sentient dinosaurs."

"What? How... Do they have thumbs?" Nailah blinks.

"They evolved. And they hate being called dinosaurs," Shiro said.

"And they especially hate overly childish formerly human robots named Shogo with ridiculous dinosaur boxing fantasies."

"J'hon started it," Thresher pointed out defensively.

"I guess it's not any stranger than your robot friend here." she chuckles, shaking her head slightly.

"Oh, he was strange long before he was a robot," he smirked.

"Pot, kettle," Thresher responded.

"Before he was a robot?"

"I illegally used experimental technology to transfer my comatose cousin's consciousness into a synthetic brain to save his life," he explained. "My employers found out and the only option I had was to put him in that prototype military unit. Even then, if it wasn't for Intercept's timely intervention they would have erased him and killed me."

Nailah opens her mouth to say or ask something, not really sure which one herself, but then just closes it again, staring at Thresher.

The robot shrugged. "Well I was dying. Besides, this job is totally awesome."

"Incredible..." Nailah shakes her head. "A copy of a human."

"Technology on our Earth has come a long way since... the 1940s?" Shiro guessed.

"Thirties. People have started working on robotics, but nothing remotely like this."

"Things usually begin to progress pretty quickly when vacuum tube computers are developed. Now if you really want your mind blown, Shogo here has more computing power than every computational device in existence in your world, in one eye, by... well, a factor I can't readily calculate. It's big, though."

"I'm an archaeologist. That... doesn't really tell me much. Though it sounds impressive!" she quickly reassures Tosh and Thresher both.

"I would hope so! I designed that body after all," Shiro said proudly. "It a shame I have to keep repairing it," he added with a pointed look at Thresher.

"What can I say, Bro? Haters gotta hate, Thresher's gonna thresh," Thresher quipped.