2012-08-18: Rise of the Zombots, Part 1

For a better part of the past week, Lab 6 in the SHIELD science wing has been home to some very unusual guests. Five of them, each dressed in identical black garb from neck to toe that could be best described as "standard ninja". Thankfully for SHIELD security, they don't serve as much of a threat or a drain on resources. They don't complain, don't bother, doesn't even really make any requests of all. The reason for that is two-fold. One, the guests are frozen solid, each held in their own case that constantly pumps in a mixture of liquid nitrogen and frost, keeping them nice and frozen. Perhaps more relevant however, is that the subjects are undead, with their exposed faces featuring all the trademark signs of the undead: peeling skin, stringy hair, gaping mouths with bad teeth that just scream 'hey, you head looks tasty'. Total zombies.
The chilled guests are arranged in a line against one wall of the room, each glaring out menacingly. Along with them are two other men. The first is familiar around these halls, the familiar visage of Clint Barton, currently actually dressed in a suit, with the tie and everything. He even combed his hair. Somewhat. Granted, given the other person who's with him, Clint's hair will likely not be the point of interest. The other man stands a good foot and a half, at least, shorter than the archer, with though at least eight inches of that is his own black and gray hair that is held up in wild mane, improbably standing on end, giving a near 'Bride of Frankenstein' shape. A pillar of mangy, unkempt hair. His clothes don't help his disheveled image, held in by a baggy lab coat, coated in small smudges of orange and green and other colors that are harder to distinguish. Observant eyes might notice Clint's nose curl ever few minutes at a stray, unclear bitter smell.
As Clint has called a meeting to be had by the members of the SHIELD community, there have been chairs arranged within the lab for the meeting. He even has brought up some snacks and drink, including a few other adult beverages. Hey, sure it's a debriefing, but that doesn't mean it has to be stuffy.
For the most part, Doug rarely sees the labs. He's still in training and, unless there is a specific reason, Lab 6 has always been just another door he passes on his way to another round of So You Want To Be A Super-Spy? training sessions. Briefings, however, are a valid reason to come inside, and the suit-clad young man is even with-it enough to step to one side of the doorway before he stops and silently gawks towards the 'guests' hanging in the lab's tubes. After a moment, he shakes himself, tugs anxiously at his tie, and quickly and quietly makes his way to claim a chair. No drink for him. At least, not /yet/.
Popping into the meeting, Roy Harper doesn't bat an eye at the frozen ninjas, as he'd been involved in the mission that first brought them to SHIELD's attention. Nabbing a beer and just grabbing a handful of pretzels from the refreshment table and bringing it over to the briefing table. "Yo... Ramsey, right?" Roy greets, taking a seat next to Doug. "Enoying the Wall of the Living Dead?"
No drink for Doug, but lord-- as soon as Wisdom comes in and sees the frozen zombies, he gets a sour expression and heads straight for the alcohol. And it is not the beer he goes for, no sir. It is Clint's own stash of harder stuff. He pours out a glass, then takes the bottle over to the chairs and sprawls in one. It's ostensibly a suit the man's wearing, but there's no jacket, the tie's loose, the top three buttons on the shirt are undone, it's untucked, it's wrinkled, and the sleeves are rolled up past his elbows. His hair looks like he was standing under a plane while it took off, and his thin face is possessed of a determined five o'clock shadow. "They awake in there?" he asks Clint and the obvious mad scientist, not even greeting Doug or Roy, just putting the bottle's lid on the table in front of him.
Coulson slides in quietly and right on time for the start of the meeting, already with a cup of coffee in hand. He takes a data tablet from one of the lab assistants with a small nod, and peruses it on his way forward, stopping by one of the frozen corpsicles to stretch himself upward to get a better look. Then, he tosses Clint a little nod, and moves to take one of the seats, sipping from his cup.
As folks file in, Clint offers a slight nod of his head to each one. He smirks slightly as he overhears Harper introducing himself to Doug. That will be interesting. At Wisdom's question, his smile fades slightly, as he starts to gesture towards four of the tanks. "Those are all fried," he states simply, then points to the fifth. "That one Harper deep froze." He glances over towards Coulson and returns the nod with one of his own.
With the greeting formalities out of the way, Clint takes his place next to the tall-haired gentleman near the five frozen zombies. Rubbing his nose slightly (there's that smell again) before smiling and nodding to the group. "Thanks for your time everyone, I've been talking with our guest here and I thought he should share this information directly to you rather than me try to write it into a report," Clint explains evenly, looking slightly uncomfortable; he's not the public speaking type, more the shoot arrows first, fill reports out later. "So with that said, let me introduce our guest and allow him to fill you in on our five charming subjects here."
Gesturing towards the man with the eye-catching hair style, Clint steps far to one side. "This is Dr. Belroy, generously joining us today from the Super-Human Advanced Defense Executive. They are an intelligence agency that deals more exclusively in extraordinary and paranormal than we do here. Some of you may know them as S.H.A.D.E." Clint then gestures towards the row of frozen zombies. "These are the lovely cybernetic ninja zombies that Harper and I recently encountered in New York. The boys in the lab and I have affectionately come to refer to them as the Zombots. If you want a fuller report on the incident that brought them to our charmed facility, I have stored my field report for you to review in the standard channels." Turning towards Dr. Belroy, he offers a slight nod of his head before taking a seat, waiting for the report from the strange SHADE agent.
"Not particularly," Doug replies to Roy in a light, quiet voice. And then Clint is talking and he straightens in his seat, shifting his focus to him. Typically, in briefings, you wanna pay attention. Dr. Belroy gets a quick smile from the Junior Agent, but otherwise, he seems inclined to keep quiet and just Pay Attention. Crazy talk.
Harper. Wisdom has met no Harper yet. With Clint's fading smile and news, the Briton shifts his gaze from him and Belroy to the fifth zombie, and studies it absently through poor Hawkeye's public speaking and introduction. The hearing, it buffers; SHADE he files away for future reference. Once Belroy's stepping up, his eyes flicker over to the man and go about beginning to study *him*. And yes: he is drinking vodka straight from the bottle.
There's a nod towards Wisdom, as he enters, before Roy flashes a wide grin at his name being mentioned with connection to the fifth ninja and a salutation with his bottle of beer towards Clint. Hushing up as Clint introduces Dr. Belroy, Roy nods briefly at the mention of S.H.A.D.E., taking a minute to offer Clint a pretzel as the presentation begins.
Coulson alternates between tapping at his tablet, listening, and sipping coffee while listening to the intro. A glance over his shoulder shows he's busily calling up the relevant reports and dossiers as Clint mentions events and introduces the guest, including some rather detailed overview information on S.H.A.D.E. for his reference. It's best to know everything one can about... well, anything, really.
Clint makes himself comfortable near Roy, grabbing a beer on his way and finding a handful of pretzels waiting for him. Well don't mind if he does, as he takes the offered mini-snack and dines as he pops the beer bottle off with a twist of his thumb, watching Belroy with a slight disinterest, as he's already heard this at once already.
After some silence, Dr. Belroy blinks a few time and seems to realize it is his time to speak. Clearing his throat, he steps forward and nods to each person in turn. "Thank you to Agent Barton, as well as SHIELD, for allowing me access to this...incredible facility," he starts, his voice slightly shrill as he nervously wrings his hands. "Um, as to your...fascinating subjects here, I must tell you...it is an honor to get to see these in such stellar condition, as well as the one that was...destroyed by Agent Barton." He winces slightly at that before clearing his throat, loudly, and continuing. "Now as far as the origin of the specimens, they were easy enough to identify, as Mr. Barton's report correctly did, as undead. Where his identification was lacking was calling these specimens ninjas." A wry grin crosses his lips as a laugh bubbles up from his chest which he quickly swallows back down.
"Sorry," Belroy apologizes, pulling a hankie from his pocket, dabbing his suddenly sweaty brow. "Just...a little joke, but you see, these undead warriors could not be ninjas because they are Chinese, not Japanese. Specifically they are what we at SHADE like to call 'Jiang Jixie'. The Dead Engines." Belroy at this point has been staring at the under ice notninjas, then looks at the greater assembly. "Um, am I going too fast?"
Doug seems to be having precisely zero difficulty following Dr. Belroy. The thought that someone /might/ actually causes him to pause, blink in surprise, and glance around at the other faces at the table. Oh, well. He'll be the one to ask. Looking back towards the doctor and the specimins, he /just/ catches himself shy of raising his hand before speaking. "How did you determine that, Doctor? Don't tell me they have the characters for 'made in china' tattooed on 'em somewhere." Which... they could. He doesn't know.
Ninjas, whatever. Waving a hand, Roy cracks, "Doesn't matter what they are, as long as you know all about them. As long as they've got a 'kick me' sign, I don't care where they're from." Another pretzel is popped into his mouth, followed by a swig. "Zombots is a lot easier to say than whistlin' Jixie."
That's got to be the most unimpressed look ever, shot Harper's way from the direction of the most unimpressive-looking guy ever to grace a SHIELD briefing. Uh, Wisdom, that is. "That was worse than Ramsey's," he says dourly, then slouches further into his chair and takes another swig from the bottle-- which he then lifts, along with his eyebrows. Question time. "Dead Engines? You can fix a dead engine. Is this an implication that that lot--" he gestures at the fried ones "--can be bootstrapped? Or is it 'cos of their robot bits?"
Coulson pauses to glance the others' way briefly, fingers tapping on his screen. "So SHADE is familiar with them, then," he suggests, taking another sip of coffee. He has questions, but the answers may be forthcoming anyway, so there isn't sense in asking them just yet.
Clint can't help but smirk a bit as he sips at his brew, though he isn't going to give any verbal concurrance to Roy. Afterall, he invited the creepy little scientist man to their home, and so he's trying his best to keep a straight face and not insult the man. Still. Zombot is totally a better name.
Belroy grins slight towards Ramsey, another peel of laughter coming out of him as he taps his fingers together slightly. "Not precisely, but they did have Chinese characters tattooed on their bodies and with similar characters on their masks. Represent 'Death', 'Freedom', 'Power', 'Revolution', 'Rest' and...a final character we didn't recognize." He starts gesticulating as he continues. "But anyone could do that. No, these Jiang Jixie," he continues, pausing for a second to glance towards Harper to make sure he heard the proper name before he goes on, "we've seen them before. In Hong Kong, Shanghai, even a few in Japan and Madripoor. But as far as the Western Hemisphere? This is the first sighting." That actually elicits a wide grin. "It's actually very exciting."
Belroy then glances towards Wisdom, his grin quickly fading as he nods a bit. "Yes, I suppose that is a bit of a trick of the semantics when you translate it," he admits, adjusting his coat slightly as he fidgets. "Um, the name though derives from the unique process that creates the Jiang Jixie." He rummages in his coat pockets a few more moments before he pulls out a rather beat-up looking mechanism that resembles something between a heart and Tony Stark's mini arc reactor.
"This is the heart of the Jiang Jixie," Belroy declares. "It is a complex core-battery that powers the various components of the body, giving it the convincing animated presense that gives the illusion of life, but let me assure you," he pauses to tap the glass of the tubes that hold the various zombots. "They are nothing but your traditional rotting corpse."
Here is where Clint does interject. "That is also the component that held the napalm bomb that activates upon destruction. That one blew up on me and Agent Harper, but we came out of it mostly unscatched thanks to quick action."
That interruption over, Belroy simply nods his head and then looks up towards Coulson. "Y-y-yes sir," he says with a stutter, nodding his head. "Our agents have encountered these before, though I...also have to congratulate your agents for actually maintaining their forms this long. Typically when would get close? BA-BOOM! Big mess, lots of collateral damage to clean up. In more ways than one."
Did Doug tell a joke? It was an honest observation! And look! THEY DID HAVE IT TATTOOED ON THEM. Suck it. The linguist perks up when Belroy mentions a character they had been unable to translate, and he finally looks towards the tubes with something other than apprehensive revulsion. Now he's /interested/.
Doug is, however, polite. He listens patiently and attentively as the briefing continues, the 'heart' given a very curious look, and he only interjects once there is an actual pause in the discussion. "If you still have that untranslated character, Doctor, maybe I could take a look?"
The glance Harper flashes Wisdom is something that's simple enough to interpret as 'sourpuss'. However, the look from Coulson is enough to quiet Harper down, as he straightens up unconsciously, affording the eldest agent a measure of respect so that he can comport himself with -some- dignity. Even if he does take a swig of the beer anyway.
"So these... zombots," Roy comments, most certainly -not- affording Belroy the same respect he might for Agent Coulson, "... they're basically electronic golems made from dead bodies?" A wrinkle of his nose. "Are these symbols like, magic in origin, or just there for decoration?"
Apparently glaring or dirty-looking Pete Wisdom is the quickest way to induce a smirk. He has to drown it in a little more vodka to serious up again, and once he's re-serioused, he sits up properly and puts the bottle down. "Is that the full heart reconstruction?" he asks, looking from Belroy to Barton. "And if it's /fuelled/ by napalm, right, is it actually a combustion engine? And does that mean they've got napalm in place of blood, or is it restricted to the heart? As in, would it continue to function without exploding if the chest section containing it were suddenly surgically removed and cauterized?"
Coulson nods at the compliment paid SHIELD in general and Roy and Clint in particular. "This isn't our first rodeo, either, Doctor Belroy. By all means-- please continue." He lets Roy have the leeway to be a little... well... Roy-like. As long as the meeting doesn't fall into complete chaos, he's willing to let Clint decide how formal it isn't.
The series of questions from Harper and Wisdom are met with some rather sheepish expressions from the SHADE representative. "Ummm...well," he says slowly. "To be completely honest, we're not fully sure how the function of one is supposed to work. As I said, our agents have never attained one fully attached, so there has been a fair amount of guess work. The idea seems to be that, yes, the napalm is the primary fuel source, so an individual unit would have a short life than, say, your typical undead span of infinite time before beheading." He pauses slightly before considiring. "The heart itself function both as heart and nervous system, I suppose you could say, as it also sends out signals to the other parts of the body. Again, giving it that animated look."
"The last mask is located in still located in evidence, Ramsey. I can show it to you, see if that processor of a brain of yours can recognize it," Clint says evenly before swigging at his beer. He glances towards the heart a bit himself, giving it a considered look. "Um...doctor...is that supposed to be glowing?"
Sure enough, the heart has started to give off a glow. Faint at first, but slowly it gains brightness.
And sadly it isn't alone, as the other hearts begin to gain energy as well, with the faint orange glow even visible through their notninja clothes. Soon, the vials are shaking, quaking...and then the eyes on each of the five Zombots pop wide open.
Doug nods to Clint and starts to respond, before he too becomes aware of the glowing. He tries not to look too unsurprised, largely for Clint and Roy's benefit, and casts a quick look towards Coulson before he cautiously rises from his chair. If those things are of a mind to try and bust out, he would like to not be caught sitting down, thank you.
Doug may be new here, but he's just experienced enough to snap a look towards the door. "Doc, you might wanna bail. We'll lock down the room behind you."
As quick to live up to his old nickname as ever, Roy is already standing up, his bow pulled out, ice arrow armed and at ready, taking aim at one of the zombots' mouths once again. If they had to capture them all over again... "Great. Anyone with any ideas on what'll keep them down if freezing them doesn't work? Tasers?"
"Oh, fuck me," mutters Pete, recapping the bottle and carefully, lovingly placing it underneath the table. He shoves his chair out, then gets to his feet too-- and pulls his gun out from where he's jammed it in back of his trousers. "And of *course* you want them in one piece. And of *course* it's napalm." Still muttering, there, until he rolls his shoulders and takes two-handed aim at another one's mouth-- and then he looks to Clint. "Ain't this crate got forcefields on it or sommat? Or just-- I don't know-- a bloody closet with CCTV in? And! If you can *spare* one of this lot, I can try the 'take the chest with the heart' bit. Since they're, you know. /Redundant/ now."
Coulson doesn't miss the change, either. He stands, swiping a few quick swipes with his fingers and jabs his thumb down on the tablet to signal a labs-wide alert. Then the tablet is tossed aside, and he reaches into his jacket, producing a smallish black handheld box with a pair of silver prongs on one end. "Don't know," he answers Roy, and makes his way around the lab's outer wall to flank the zombot containment units. "Let's find out."
Clint is quick to get himself between the zombots and the guest of the hour, glaring down at Belroy. "You told me they were supposed to be out," he growls, to which Belroy can simply shrug. "The shock should have shorted out mechanisms, I have no idea why they are coming alive again." He frowns, looking down at the heart in his hand. "In retrospect we should have drained the hearts and removed them, but-""
The note, between that and Pete's snark cause Clint to move quickly. "Yes, well too late for that now, doctor. Okay...Harper, assuming you didn't bring an extra bow, but we're on a timetable now to figure out how to extract five hearts from five zombies before they pop. Wisdom, time to show us all what you can do." He glances towards Coulson. "Any plans, fearless leader?" he asks, seeing how he is the ranking member of this group.
Doug is at Dr. Belroy's side in a heartbeat -- well, not literally, he's just quick about it. He graps the older man by the shoulders and starts to carefully, but insistantly, escort him towards the door. "We'd like to return you to SHADE in one piece, Doc," he says, not even apologetic about it and ignoring any protests. "Please, the hall. There's an intercom if you need it." Helpful! With a final, careful shove, he gets Belroy outside and slams a fist down on the 'LOCKDOWN' button next to the door. No sense risking the Zombots going tearing through the whole blasted Helicarrier. Regarding the zombots, Roy grimaces. "Are we waiting for them to pop out? Cuz if we are, take out the hearts. I've got enough freeze arrows to freeze them before they explode, but we gotta move fast." Coulson hefts the tazer in his hand and eyes the first zombot vial. Priorities... the helicarrier and the rest of the peole on it are the most important thing right this second. "Containment's priority one," he answers Clint, using the butt of the tazer to break open the glass before the zombot inside can really get going. "Lockdown the lab-- thank you, Ramsey--" he asides while shoving the business end of the tazer into the occupant's... remaining face, and presses the firing stud, letting the high-voltage current pump into the construct. Hopefully, this is not a super-terrible idea, but it's probably better than waiting til the thing gets out. "Response team should be on the way, but the faster we shut them down the better." He doesn't add that if the napalm bombs go off they're basically going to be in a furnace now that the lab's been sealed. "Wisdom, let's see what we stole you from MI6 for." "Yeah all right," says the Briton, apparently unhampered enough by the vodka that he's not having any issues: maybe he and Tony should start a club. He points the gun at the ceiling with one hand, now, not stepping back if the things are starting to shamble; his eyes light up at the same time as his other hand, as the fingers on that other hand begin to elongate, sharpen, grow white-hot. "Might pop anyhow, so mind yourselves--" Wisdom doesn't actually throw them. No. He steps forward like the evil robot in The Black Hole with the spinning death hand that chewed through the book into the dude's chest, he steps; his hand whips forward toward the closest one's chest and sinks brilliant hot knives into rotting flesh and creepy cybernetics. This is how he destroys clothes. /This/. As Belroy is being escorted out of the building, Clint is able to disengage him from the heart, examining it over and over a few times before he eventualy growls and breaks it over his knee. Cracking it open, he discovers that this one is out of the napalm packet that would typically be lodged inside, explaining why it has a weaker pulse then the others. But also inside? A tiny receiver. "They're receiving a signal!" the archer exclaims. "They're remote controlled, by wireless signals." Meanwhile, Coulson goes to work with the one still in it's vial, the shock seemingly to cause the zombot to jerk uncontrollably, body contorting in unusually ways. It looks pained, but it is more likely that the signal is simply corrupted with the electro-intereference. Soon the beast falls limp in it's cage. Pete's experiment has a much more colorful effect. The knives pierce through the skin of the zombot and force the heart through the back, causing the figure to fall limp. It also, however, activates the fail-safe explosion. Soon there is a loup POP and then a flower of napalm that is almost instantly crtystalized in the liquid nitrogen case. All the while, Clint runs towards Roy and Doug. "Microwaves. We need something that is going to disrupt the signal long enough so that we can get the hearts out and disable the receiver before they get the signal to blow up the lab," he is quick to bark out. Doug peers around Clint's shoulder as he messes with the heart, only wincing /slightly/ when it's broken open over the older man's knee. His face lights up when the receiver is exposed and he's quick to put a hand to his ear, triggering his comm. |"Do we have radio jammers on this thing?"| he asks, using the /highly professional lingo/ that all SHIELD Agents are trained to use. |"There's a non-agency frequency being used in here, can we get it cut off?"| Doug is, aside from his brains, unarmed save for a standard pistol -- so he stays way back by the door, where it is safe, and he won't be in the way of the better-equipped agents. He can try to help by being clever, at least, but he's of little use beyond that in this scenario. "Great... -now- you ask for a chaff arrow," Roy frowns. There's a quick shot, ice arrow at the zombot on the left, and then Roy flips his bow towards Clint, doing a quick removal of his quiver and handing it to him so that he's at least armed (he'd get around to razzing Clint about coming unprepared later) and pulling out his crossbow. Heading over to cover Doug, Roy reconsiders the younger agent's comments. "Kid, don't these wireless cameras work on microwaves?" he says, indicating the security cams. "Get them to change frequencies until we find something that cuts 'em of." "Well. That answers that," says Pete, slightly miffed; the brief whiff of cooked zombie smells a little like rancid bacon, and he sticks his gun back in his waistband. He glances back at Coulson, then Clint-- not powered down, he's only retracted the hotknives, so his eyes and his hand are still bright. As soon as he's not holding the gun anymore it's both hands, one in a fist. "You *sure* you need the rest of the hearts intact?" he asks wistfully. With the desired effect more or less achieved, Coulson pulls his tazer out of the vial and backs off, swapping it for his sidearm, and keys his earpiece. "Coulson. While you're looking for that signal to jame, line up the aft microwave antenna on Lab Six and let it rip. I am extremely serious-- clear the back decks. Just do us all a favor and aim at the back of the room," he adds, waving the others towards the lab's door. Which is where he plans to be, thankya. Microwave burns are fairly unpleasant. Clint doesn't need to be told twice, pulling back towards the far wall while steadying the bow that Roy so generously provided him. In the back of his mind, he remind himself of Rule #3: always keep your arms on you. After a few seconds, a response came over the coms for each agent in the room. "Copy and cover," the voice crackles, and then a moment later, a low hum fills the room while the regular lights pop off, bright red lights replacing it. A moment later, the zombies stop, jerk, and then a short pop later and there is a series of more crystalized napalm. A few seconds later, the regular lights come back up. "We clear, Lab 6?" the voice comes over the com, the zombot bodies hanging limply, their not removed from the bodies but discharged of their explosive component and unable to communicate with...whoever is controlling them. Doug is already safely back by the doorway. How lucky for him! When the order comes to cover, he brings an arm up to shield his face and turns away from the tubes, wincing in anticipation. When the lights return, he warily lowers his arm to peek over the top, his eyes flicking from tube to tube before they go to Coulson. "Looks clear," he notes nervously. He's not gonna give the all clear, though. Just in case it's not. Right. "Remind me, Ramsey... got to get some of these microwave doodads for the arrows," Roy mutters, as he uncovers from the security measures. Taking a quick walk to the bodies, Roy prods at them with his crossbow. "So, I've got a question - what kind of damned signal manages to slip past the SHIELD jammers?" Wisdom makes it to the doorway with the others just in time, having shut his shit down as soon as the word 'microwave' dropped-- and the very first thing he does when it's all over is bend to look under the table to determine the safety of the vodka. "Telepathic," he answers absently. "Extradimensional. Magic. Clarke science. I expect we might get a better idea after Ramsey has a look at the last tattoo." "Right now, radio would do it," Coulson notes, picking his way from the door. He pauses to gingerly pick up the tablet left on his seat. Welp, that's junk now. Totally fried. "We're hovering over Manhattan. there's a lot of frequency bands we can't be making a mess of out here," he notes, continuing on to peer cautiously at the zombots. His gun looks first, of course. "Looks clear." "Okay, Agent Coulson, releasing your location," the voice comes over the com. A momet later, the lockdown doors slide open, followed closely by a gang of SHIELD agents in Hazmat suits, with Belroy peeking in from the rear. Clint glances towards him, then back towards the rest of his fellow agents. "So...all things considered equal...I call that a successful meeting?" "Noone died who wasn't already dead," Doug notes helpfully, with a nod to Clint. He's making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS. He moves aside to let the hazmat crew in, already slipping back towards the hallway. "I think I'll go get a look at that last character. It might well just be gibberish if noone else could translate it," he admits. Still. Better safe than sorry, right? "Things didn't go explodey. -That- would be Tuesday." Harper snorts. Taking his slightly warmed over beer, Roy walks over, and sticks it into the nitrogen for a half-second, before pulling it out and taking a swig. Coulson glances at the door when it slides open and the hazmat guys come through. "No Director fury," he agrees, privately amused by the honestly undetectable and very bad pun. "Not the worst meeting I've been in." Wisdom wipes his hands off on his trousers, then picks up the table-shielded (and now warm) vodka bottle and straightens up, listening to Coulson. "The Super Walkie-Talkie and the Kung-Fu Zombot Golems. I think I hallucinated that film in secondary--" He glances past, toward Doug. "I'm going with him." And he does, edging past the room-flooding hazmat guys in order to follow the younger man. And bring the vodka. The room is cleared out without much fuss, with the five hearts being taken into special care for further study. Belroy is quickly escorted off of the Argus, as his services are no longer required. A draft thank you letter will be sent to SHADE. In the evidence room, the mask with the mystery symbol is given to Agent Ramsey for investigation. It is clear at first glance why it wasn't translated already, as it is no recognized chinese figure, but rather a complex cluster of smaller symbols. Unlike the others, it isn't a word, but a sentence, requiring a sensitive eye. It may even take Doug a moment to decode, but eventually the meaning becomes very clear: "The world shall burn, and we shall still stand."
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Category:RPLogs