Society of Justice 3: Crisis on the Earth

[CounterAttack]

"I figured as much... Still, I like the idea of having some kind of combat booster available, maybe something to increase battlefield awareness or resilience to attacks, I dunno," Katie mused. "It just seems like something that could be useful to have on hand if we need it. What d'you reckon? Tommy? Leland?" It seemed like a good idea: while some people wouldn't need the potions as much as others, the concoctions might just give the Society and advantage they didn't know they had.

[hr]

"No, nothing wrong, just want to talk," Rowan answered. "Considering that your company Gentron does a whole lot of genetics work, I want to find out a bit more about the virus in my system. If you can spare some time to help me out, I would like to have some tests done on me to see the extent of its effects. If needs be I can repay you somehow, maybe owe you a favour."

 

[tsatoma]

"It does sound like a good idea to me, though I don't really know anything about potions...I do have a lot of books about it though," Leland said, hoping that they would be helpful if Katie did decide to do that, "You can certainly take a look at them whenever you want...if you want to of course."

----

Garrus couldn't figure out how Renton could drown out the noise of the construction so easily, still asleep after being carried through the noise so that he could be put down for his nap. Garrus shrugged and walked out of the room, bidding everyone a hello.

 

[blaze96]

Richard walked over and handed the keys to the sports car to Alex.

"In case you need them, I myself am not going anywhere soon." He said before taking a seat on the couch in the lounge.

-------------------

Lillian joined Garrus in the lounge after saying hi to everyone. She too wondered how heavy a sleeper Renton was, and if it was a bad thing he was.

 

[RBMidknight]

Taryn exited the car and walked toward the back of it. She waited for Levi to pop the trunk then pushed the lid open. She glanced at the different materials. 'This may take a few trips.' Taryn grabbed a few of the bags. She stepped around the car again then headed for the door. "I guess we can sort stuff once everything is inside?" she asked Levi somewhat rhetorically. Taryn put her shoulder against the door to push it open. She carefully made her way through the Promenade.

When she reached the hallway where the rooms were located Taryn realized that she needed to put the bags down to unlock the door. "Whoops." she muttered. Taryn dropped the bags carefully on the floor while she searched for her keys. After locating her key-chain of multi-colored keys attached to it Taryn flipped through them quickly -'My room...Security room...my room again...safe...no idea what that one is...aha!'- until she found the one for Levi's room.

The lock clicked open smoothly. Taryn stuck the keys back into her pocket then switched on the overhead light. She half-slid the bags of supplies on the floor until and then picked them up to set on Levi's workbench. Then Taryn headed back out into the hall.

 

[socialtangent]

Levi nodded as Taryn took a few of their supplies in hand. Taking up the slack, he grabbed the few remaining bags and looked at the smaller sheets of metal sitting in the trunk. Shifting the bags to one hand, he reached out to the metal and called energy to his free hand. The familiar warm electric buzzing sensation reached to his fingertips as he did so.

Pulling his hand back, he willed the metal sheets to liberate themselves from the trunk and float by him. With little resistance, the metal floated free from the trunk and came to a rest floating vertically next to him. Had he tried this years ago, the strain of keeping these pieces of metal airborne would have required that he stay still. Now, however, Levi walked out of the garage with no problem at all. Before he left, he managed to close the trunk with his foot.

Making his way through the lounge, Levi headed down the hallway, where Taryn was just exiting his room. He leaned the metal sheets against the wall next to his door and let go of the magnetic hold on them. "I got the rest right here," Levi told Taryn as he stepped by her to put his bags next to the others she placed on his workbench.

 

[RBMidknight]

'Really? Oh...' Taryn laughed quietly. "Nicely done." she complimented Levi. Taryn began taking the supplies out of the bags and sorting them on the table. Fasteners went in one stack, tools went in another. Miscellaneous items she wasn't sure about got lumped together in a larger pile. Taryn stuck the 'extra' items she'd purchased together in one of the plastic bags and tossed the bag underhanded toward the couch. She noticed then that her laptop had gone into standby mode while they were gone.

Taryn stepped away from the workbench and toward Levi's desk as she focused on the laptop. "Aww...come on, wake up." she mumbled, typing a few random keys to get the password prompt to show up. "There we go." After a few seconds she had Brian's weapon schematic up on the screen.

 

[socialtangent]

Levi grinned and stepped out of the room to grab the metal sheets that were still leaning against the outside wall. Hauling the large pieces of metal, he set them against the wall next to the workbench. "All we need are the fine electrical stuff now," Levi commented as he looked at the weapon blueprints on Taryn's computer screen. "But we can get those pretty easily".

 

[RBMidknight]

"Uh-huh." Taryn replied, her tone reflecting her distraction as she played with the camera angle of the schematic editor. Finally using a combination of the shift key and touch-pad mouse taps she was able to show the weapon from all sides at precise angles.

"So..." Taryn leaned away from the computer. "Apparently we have fans." she said. She grinned briefly and mimed throwing something. "Some of whom are rather creepy. I wonder if we'll be in some newspaper article now. Or a bunch of people's Twitter feeds. Or both." Taryn frowned. She'd never quite understood the appeal of the 140 character limit online service. If you had something to say something why limit it to so few characters?

 

[socialtangent]

"Well, considering those camera flashes that nearly blinded me, we're probably up somewhere on the Internet by now," Levi responded. "Perhaps we'll even have a story on TMZ," he added with a short laugh. The image of the rag-tag group of celebrity gossip "experts" discussing the newest pictures of the "Electric Couple" amused him. "And I wonder what the "fan base" will have to say about this, too..."

 

[Lizmichi]

Alex took the keys from Richard after getting Eric off her then turned her attention back to Rowan. "What kind of testing did you want done? I mean there's allot I can do but I kinda need to know what you want to know." Alex said. "Oh and as for payment I need none from you." Alex added.

 

[elementsoul]

Tyson watched Steven with concern but said nothing. Victor was still a hot topic and Tyson knew he had to watch his words with a few people which is why he didn't ask Taryn or Levi about what happened to him when they left even if Levi was looking like he was in a better mood.

With nothing else to do Tyson picked up the TV remote, turned the TV on, and started flipping through the channels. Talk show. Talk show. Infomercial. Shitty pop music channel. Don't even want to know. Rerun. Wait, I think this might be good. Tyson finally found a show worth watching, an hour long a fictional show about criminal physiology.

After the show ended an other episode of it started up and people started to show up. Levi and Taryn rushed back towards their rooms with several hardware store bags and a few sheets of metal. Alex and Richard showed up with Rowan returning from where ever he went and Rowan started talking to Alex while Richard took a seat. Last to show back up in the similar time frame was Garrus and Lillian with a sleeping Renton. Tyson waited for a commercial about a minute away before he looked over at Richard and asked in the calmest voice possible that his throat would allow, "Do you know what happened to me after I grabbed Victor? Or were you hiding behind cover or completely focused on Alex?"

 

[blaze96]

"No I have no idea because I had no way of fighting and so for the sake of the group stayed the hell out of the way. All that would have happened if I attacked victor was I would get in the way and end up dead. So don't be so quick to pass judgment on me." Richard said calmly without taking his eyes off the tv.

 

[CounterAttack]

Rowan paused at the question, not exactly sure how to answer. "Um... I guess I would like to know how exactly my virus works. Like, whether it's affected my bloodstream or my skin or something else altogether. Heck, it may have spread throughout my whole body. Also, its healing capabilities: are they built into the virus or is that just a byproduct of the shapeshifting? Oh, and maybe something to check my little brain stem tumour. I don't know if that's changed over the past eight years or so."

 

[elementsoul]

Tyson was drawn back by the answer. It was kind of like his question wasn't heard properly or something. After taking a second to rethink how to word his next sentence to make sure he didn't hit a live wire or something Tyson spoke again.

"I believe you misinterpreted what I said. I didn't comment on your lack of involvement in the fight as you had no means of attacking I wouldn't have expected you to. However, I was asking whether or not you saw what happened to myself because something different happened than normal and I'm curious as to what had happened.

I'm sorry if my addition to the question was perceived the wrong way but I was merely asking whether you were not able to see it or more focused on something else. Seeing as Garrus and Eric took cover and weren't able to see I figured you might have done the same. Alex was also severely injured by Victor so I also thought that you would have likely been paying attention to her as she's very important to yourself."

Tyson wasn't actually sorry. It wasn't his fault that the man side stepped the question presented and replied like it was a personal insult. Tyson just said it in hopes that he would get a yes or no from Richard so he could stop talking again, as his throat felt like a live firecracker just exploded in it.

 

[Lizmichi]

"Well we'll have to go to my lab at Gentron to do all the testing for that. Also it will take some time for the results of the test to come in." Alex said thinking about all the tests she had to run on Rowan. "I'll warn you some of them won't be pleasant." she said.

Eric sighed watching Alex talk work with Rowan and walked to his room that was one of the few that was fixed thanks to his powers. "She'd kill me if I tried anything." he said to him self.

 

[CounterAttack]

"This is genetic testing and experimentation on a live human we're talking about, Alex. Somehow I don't think any of the tests will be pleasant," Rowan answered with a short laugh. "I'm willing to provide blood samples, skin cells, hair, pretty much anything you need. God knows I've been through plenty of tests before. Heck, for a week after I got the thing in me the scientists were sticking needles almost everywhere and doing MRIs left and right."

Rowan briefly recalled the day he had been exposed to the irradiated virus, at age fifteen. Panic had been the first order of the day when he had found himself sealed inside the containment chamber. That was closely followed by paralyzing fear as the gas containing the airborne agent began to fill the room. Then choking, pain, a burning sensation in his chest...

He remembered being told that he had passed out, that he had gone through decontamination and been given some kind of cure for the nuclear radiation poisoning. More tests had followed; by that time he was used to the needles and the scanning and the medical staff in their white coats and procedure masks. Being stuck in that hospital for a week, and going through intensive therapy to get over his ordeal, had been nothing short of hell.

"Y'know, they never told me why the virus had been released into that chamber while I was still inside. At the hospital, I mean," he said quietly, looking away from Alex and down to the floor. "I still don't know why, even now. That's got to be against regulations, even just creating the virus was probably illegal. Am I just... some kind of experiment?"

 

[Lizmichi]

Alex broke her train of thought hearing Rowan talk about how he was just some test tub to someone at some point and couldn't help but sympathize with him. She knew all too well what that felt like and sighed putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Have you heard about the things my dad did to me? Oh and just to clear things up about my so called dad he didn't die in a work related indecent, I had to kill him." Alex said coldly. "I was Gentron's first experiment even before I was born. I was created to be a super villain and nothing more to my father. When we get to Gentron I'll show you everything he did to me." Alex said sighing even more then smiled some. "So you're not alone in feeling this way. If you want I can have Eric dig up the reason for you're testing as well. Nothing he can't get to really." Alex laughed.

 

[CounterAttack]

"He can try... but can he get into the mind of the guy that authorised it?" Rowan asked rhetorically, recalling the one or two times Eric's hacking skills were mentioned. "With an incident like that, I doubt there'll be anything saved on a hard drive. But yeah, if he can find something - anything - to tell me why the virus was released, that would be good."

He got up, mentally steeling himself for what he was about to say. Of course, he had been the subject of a lot of tests and procedures and whatnot before; why should this be any different? Because you're different now. Not the scared kid you used to be, was the answer.

"Alright, if you want to go now or sometime soonish, I'm ready as I'll ever be," Rowan added.

 

[RBMidknight]

"And I wonder what the "fan base" will have to say about this, too..."

"I'll look it up later." Taryn replied to Levi. "If I start searching the web now we won't get anything done." she pointed to the workbench. "How do you want to do this?" she asked. It wasn't quite like the mechanical snake, which had been big and complex enough that they were able to each work on a section. Taryn was perfectly willing to let Levi build the weapon himself if he wanted. It seemed like the project had reanimated him and she wasn't about to stand in the way of that. She could be the...supervisor.

 

[Lizmichi]

"We better go now, it will take hours to run the tests." Alex said pulling out her keys and walked to her own car and got in. "Aww I love this car." Alex said and opened the door for Rowan. "As for Eric the reason has to be somewhere in top secret files and if that's the case Eric can find it." Alex said.