The Conquering Mind (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

Sharl joined Protectron for the trip underwater, the magnetic teenager passing through the water as if it wasn't there, which it really wasn't for him. It was more than a little weird to interact with the water like this when he couldn't really feel it, particularly since all the silt down below did partially obscure his vision, but he made do. Down below, he let the more experienced robot look closer at the fallen satellite, still sorting out the very strange nature of life down here under the water. "Hello, can you hear me up on the surface?" he asked into his commlink, standing by to let Protectron work. "We're down here and we've found the satellite. It's, uh, kind of half-buried in the muck down here. The water's really thick."

He relayed his robot buddy's news up to the surface for a moment, then belatedly remembered that Protectron could actually talk and let the synthetic man explain the situation. With his ability to make out heat patterns, Protectron had an easier time taking in the bulk of the satellite. It looked relatively undamaged, minus the open hatches and compartments where Commander Harrison's people had likely come and gone. The main challenge would be to lift the satellite out in a body, so that none of the extraneous fragments snapped in the process.

[Electra]

For all that most of her attention was focused on the extraction of the satellite, Miss Americana's finely honed senses could not help picking up another strange stimulus, this one coming from further away. It sounded... well, surely it was impossible that anyone had been left behind, but it sounded like a crying baby. Probably a doll, she figured, but a niggling uncertainty remained. Even a doll would be triggered by something, and it hadn't been going when they arrived. "I'm going to check on that sound," she told Dragonfly, "I'll only be a moment, and you and the crew seem to have a good rapport going." She zipped away into the trees, towards the motor court.

[Fox]

Dragonfly frowned, some itching part of her brain alerting her to a filtered-out bit of sound she should probably be aware of. She removed her attention from the equipment, holding out a hand to silence nearby workers as she tried to focus on...what was that? cannot possibly be what it sounds like - not sure where it's coming from - what in the world...?

"I'm going to check on that sound," she told Dragonfly, "I'll only be a moment, and you and the crew seem to have a good rapport going."

She nodded, frowning, calculating Miss Americana's vector in her head and trying to match it up with what she knew of the area. motor court? - very odd - mmh - wait - rapport? She glanced around at the silenced workers, scowling. One of them laughed a little to himself, which only made her scowl a bit more and turn back to monitoring the undersea heroes. hmph

[Dr Archeville]

"No indication of breach from this angle," Protectron's flat voice announced across the radio. Minimal damage, consistent with re-entry and crash. Numerous open hatches and compartments detected.

A large fish darted by Protectron, attracted to the greenish-yellow glow of its optics, momentarily distracting the strange robot from the task at hand.

Esox masquinongy, aka muskellunge, aka muskelunge, aka muscallonge, aka milliganong, aka maskinonge, aka muskie, aka musky

Tactical Analysis: Work now, indulge in personal studies later.

"Shall I complete external scans first, or shall I enter the satellite from one of these hatches?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Flying over the Jersey Devil Motor Lodge, Miss Americana quickly triangulated the source of the crying to one of the freestanding cabins. Inside, she found an eerie-looking room. The lights were on, water was running in the sink for who knew how long; the 'evacuation' had evidently happened incredibly fast. And in the back of the room, she found the source of the cries: a red-faced, thin-looking tiny baby was crying fitfully alongside a screened-in window. It was a warm February, but February nonetheless, the baby couldn't have been left there long and be so active...but perhaps it hadn't been. Alongside the Pack 'N Play which held the baby lay a young woman face-down on the carpet, breathing fitfully. She was pale and her breath shaky, a large contusion on the back of her head covered in half-matted blood. Someone had hit her on the back of the head, very hard, sometime the previous day.

-

Sharl tried talking under the water, and to his surprise it worked! His voice sounding not in Protectron's auditory sensors, but in his comm systems, he said, "You should take the external scans first," he suggested, "then go all the way in. That way, we'll know for sure we have all the information we need out here before you go in there. If there's a radiation leak, you don't want to risk overheating your plasma coils." He tried to talk with authority, the way Miss A would have, bu instead he revealed that he was familiar with the functioning of equipment that few typical teenagers of his demonstrated intelligence would have been. Still, he was Miss A's assistant.

-

Commander Harrison had been away trying without success to get her radio to work, and when she saw Miss Americana flying away she asked one of the support crew about the noise and where she'd gone. When she got an explanation from that tech, she made a face. She then pulled out her service pistol, a big, custom job she'd shown to the science heroes on the way in, and opened fire on Dragonfly. The spray of bullets missed Dragonfly, but the high-caliber ammunition tore its way into the computer panel where she sat, shattering tens of thousands of dollars in valuable equipment, and also posing some risk of shrapnel to the nearby civilians. Her face an emotionless blank, the officer ejected her pistol's magazine and began to reload.

[Fox]

Dragonfly blinked, having thankfully been spared the magazine of bullets, her head whipping around at her visor's alert just in time to see them scatter into the equipment in front of her. One of the few benefits of picking constant fights with arms dealers, at least, was reasonable combat reflexes - in a smooth series of thoughts and motions, the engineer brought up her force field, stood up to face the Harrison, and returned fire, though the scattering shrapnel and sparks threw her aim off more than a bit. what "What-"

[Avenger Assembled]

Harrison gave no reply to Dragonfly, instead opening fire again. The bullets continued to bounce off Dragonfly's shield, but the ricocheting slugs were at least as much a danger to the fleeing support staff as the cold, flat-faced naval officer. But Dragonfly wasn't actually abandoned by the staffers, one actually tried to rush their erstwhile employer as she reloaded! Without hesitation, she brutally pistol-whipped the man across the face and continued what she was doing.

[Electra]

At the cabin, Miss A surveyed the situation in an instant, suppressing horror and pity in favor of doing whatever she could to help. Dropping to one knee next to the young woman, she put her fingers to the victim's neck, counting the heartbeats and checking their strength. Not great, weak and a bit slower than was ideal, but she was more or less stable for the moment. It looked as though she'd been wounded on the other side of the room, judging from the coagulated pool of blood on the opposite end of the floor, and then at some much more recent point had dragged herself over, trying to reach the child. "It's all right," Miss A murmured, "everything's going to be all right now." She activated her radio, even as she searched around the cabin for supplies.

It didn't take long to spot the suitcase open on the bed, full of exactly what she needed. "Miss Americana calling Lab Base Camp One, do you read? I have a medical emergency at the motor court, a young woman and an infant need immediate medical help. I'm calling in an ambulance, but I could use the medic here as well, over." As she spoke, she dug out a can of formula and scanned the instructions, then found a serviceable-looking bottle and nipple as well. It had been a long time since she'd done any baby care, but these were exigent circumstances. Filling the bottle at the tap, she shook up the bottle of formula and gathered the soaked and stinky infant from its prison. "There, there," she cooed, her impressive charisma soothing even to the very small. "You'll be all right." She popped the nipple into the baby's mouth, hoping that would stop the crying while she waited for a reply.

[Avenger Assembled]

"Oh, man! On my way!" said Sharl, belatedly adding, "Stay here, Protectron!" The heroic teenager rocketed out of the water in a smooth, nearly motionless flight that didn't do more than make the faintest of ripples on the lake. He was just about to grab the medic himself and fly over to help Miss Americana with the medical emergency when he saw Commander Harrison pointing a gun at Dragonfly! The smell of cordite and broken machinery was everywhere, and people were running, one of them down on the ground! Without hesitation, Sharl flew in and punched the naval officer in the back of the head, his solid blow connecting with a loud THUNK! She dropped, her face not changing expression, and face-planted in the dirt. "What's going on?"

[Fox]

Dragonfly let go of the charge of twisted space she'd been building, letting it dissipate as the commander got knocked out from behind. "Don't know. Thank you. Be quiet. Handcuff her if possible. Miss Americana," she said, in rapid, curt succession, that last name directed over the communicators as she pointed to a couple people that she recognized from the medical floors of the Lab, motioning them over. "Will send medical staff your way. Be aware: Commander Harrison just opened fire on me, destroying equipment and endangering personnel. Kept her distracted until Sharl punched her out, but have no explanations so far. No serious injuries. Doubt I need to say it, but without better information, recommending...extreme caution around anyone we do not personally know. Will keep you updated."

She scowled, all business now, and surprisingly assertive on the tide of getting-shot-at adrenaline and the absence of a more imposing personality. "Sharl. Thank you, again. Please see a medic safely to Miss Americana? The other should stay here and make sure no one took serious injury from shrapnel or stray bullets. Not entirely sure what you're capable of, but if you can fly them out, that would be best. Protectron - assuming you were listening - found anything so far to offer insight?"

[Dr Archeville]

"Acknowledged," Protectron replied flatly to Sharl as he took off to assist Miss Americana.

Query: Are all digital beings like Sharl as brusque with electromechanical life as Sharl is with me?

Analysis: Miss Americana has called for medical assistance. Sharl has volunteered to go first, though my air speed and physical strength are superior. However, Sharl's greater familiarity with Miss Americana make him a better candidate for assistance.

Unsure if Sharl's increased enthusiasm and general emotional response will be more help or hindrance.

Unaware of the further chaos above, Protectron continued jetting around the crashed satellite, scanning and cataloging all damage.

[Electra]

"Acknowledged," Miss A said in response to Dragonfly's radio call. "You have to make the call on whether to abort the mission, Dragonfly, I'm not there on the ground. My intuition would be to suspend the operation until we know what's going on with the commander. The incident could be related to what we're doing somehow."

Laying the baby down on the bed, she held the bottle in its mouth with one hand and began rather awkwardly trying to remove the soaked sleeper it was wearing with the other, while calling on her handsfree set. "Dial 911," she commanded the phone.

[Fox]

Dragonfly bit her lip, looking down at the unconscious commander and then back up at the lake, where Protectron was dimly visible in the silt around the satellite. "....agreed, provisionally," she noted over the communicators, tapping a finger on the table that used to hold quite a lot of very expensive electronics. "Satellite recovery should be suspended, for now. Coincidence of unusual betrayal and the fallen satellite is...improbable...but the satellite may offer insight if they're connected. Something we aren't supposed to see, or...mmh."

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap went the finger as she frowned, looking around at the assorted people and again out at the lake. hate deciding "Protectron...if you're able and willing, recommending that we continue to investigate the satellite. Investigation only - retrieval may need to wait until we know more, but if you can learn anything without disturbing it too much, it could be...helpful."

[Avenger Assembled]

"This is really weird," said Sharl unhelpfully, looking down at the unconscious naval officer. He'd hit people with intent before, but never someone who'd been a friend just a few minutes earlier. He clammed up under Dragonfly's words, taken together with Miss Americana's reminding him of what an emergency this was! He bent down and actually grabbed one of the team's medtechs, and soon was in the air speeding towards Miss Americana. Sharl wasn't as fast in the air as Protectron, but he was no slouch either. Soon enough he had landed by the open cabin door, going to assist Miss Americana. "Oh, man..." He went automatically to help with the baby, helping get the sleeper off the baby, then feeding it again, the medtech moving in to help with the injured woman. Which was good, because even when she tapped directly into the landline at the Motor Lodge, there was no answer at 911. It wasn't that the line was busy or disconnected, either. The phone was ringing. No one was picking up.

Over by the lake, luckily the commander's gunfire hadn't actually hurt anyone, with the exception of Pablo Austin, the poor technician who'd gone to Dragonfly's aid and gotten a beating for his pains. He had several bad bruises, but he'd be all right, and in fact looked a little sheepish for his intended heroism. The computer where Dragonfly had been working was a total loss, having taken a heavy-caliber slug right through the hard drive as well as the shattered monitor. If anyone less protected than Mara had been sitting there, if Harrison had been a little quieter in drawing her gun, something much, much worse might have happened.

Under the lake, the water was cold! And as Protectron moved closer to the satellite, he was able to make out the etched-in labels on the inside of where the biological containers had once been:

010001110111001001110101011001010010000001110011011000010110110101110000011011000110010101110011

and next to it, more ominously:

01001100011001010110011101101001011011110110111000101100001000000111010001101000011001010010000001001101011010010110111001100100001011010101011001101001011100100111010101110011

[Dr Archeville]

"Acknowledged, Friend-Dragonfly," the strange robot replied flatly. "Investigation of exterior 93% complete; will proceed to interior via hatchway Alpha-5 once external scan complete."

Soon enough, Protectron moved within, the greenish-yellow light form its optics casting eerie shadows in the sunken satellite.

Observation: Satellite interior is set up for hazardous biological contaminants, which is in keeping with Commander Harrison's description of the facility's function in anti-extraterrestrial research.

Analysis: Biological Container Housing Unit #1. Translating from Binary to ASCII Text: "Grue Samples"

Moving on to the next container, it scanned the binary cataloging label, as it had the first one.

Analysis: Biological Container Housing Unit #2. Translating from Binary to ASCII Text: "Legion, the Mind-Virus"

Had it been running its full emotional subroutines, Protectron would have been seized up with dread.

"ALERT!", Protectron's flat voice broadcast out to all Lab Team communicators. "Skyhook-3 contained samples of both Grue and LV-13, Legion the Mind Virus. Extreme caution must be exercised."

[Electra]

Miss Americana cursed explosively over the link, using several words quite at odds with her family-friendly image. "Goddamned military! Harrison will be lucky if she has enough rank to use a toilet brush after this," she promised darkly. "Legion's an airborne vector, nothing we did could've brought this up. They were so interested in secrecy that they screwed up their own retrieval. Dragonfly, get yourself and the crew that looks uninfected into environmental suits right away. We may be too late, but it's their only chance. I'm not getting any phone signal to the city from here, I'm going to patch into the city governance mainframe and try to see what's happening."

She wrapped the baby in a blanket and passed him over to Sharl, then sat down on the bed. "Don't let anyone in," she murmured to the electronic boy, "and keep an eye on the medtech. If he starts acting strange, get him out of the cabin and lock the door." Sitting down on the bed, Miss A assumed a meditative pose and closed her eyes, reaching her consciousness back towards the city, not toward her defenseless body, but towards the web of computers and cameras the city relied on for public safety.

[Fox]

This time it was Dragonfly's turn to swear, copiously, and in Russian. "Possible viral hazard!" she announced, grabbing an environmental suit off a nearby pile of supplies that hadn't quite made it to where they were supposed to go. "Airborne vector. Suit up immediately, and report any signs of illness or strange behavior."

She brought her force field down only long enough to slip into the suit, costume and all, thankful that the one-size-fits-all sleeves could accommodate her gauntlets. She was reconfiguring her force field to operate outside the suit's profile when she glanced down at the still-unconscious Harrison. She hesitated, scowled, but finally - swearing in Japanese this time - made her way over to zip-tie the ex-assailant's hands and (with the aid of someone already in a suit) stuff her into an environmental suit of her own. That done, and muttering something about going too soft, Dragonfly brought her commlink back up. "Miss Americana - not familiar with Legion. Effects to watch for?"

[Avenger Assembled]

Nervously, Sharl sat down on the bed, cradling the baby in his arms and giving the medtech a look. Sharl had spent a lot of time reading about superheroes lately, and Legion did stir up some memories. Oh man, a mind controlling plague? That's awful! Everyone getting sucked into some big hivemind... He'd seen Miss Americana meditate in a crisis before, and knew she was using her cyberkinetic powers, so much like Gina's, to get some idea of what was going on. The medtech, a man he didn't know, was definitely not in hazmat gear, but despite all that he didn't seem to be affected by any plague. Instead he focused on his job, which in this case was bandaging the battered woman in the cabin. "If you can contact Miss Americana, tell her that this woman has a severe contusion and she's in shock, but I think she'll be all right. If we'd gotten here any later, she and her baby would both be in trouble. But maybe we all are anyway."

-

"Uh, Dragonfly? What's _that_?" As Dragonfly and Doctor Tyrone worked to tie up and secure Commander Harrison, Tyrone pointed out something very peculiar about the commander's anatomy: underneath the back of her uniform, sticking up and just visible under her neck, was something red and throbbing, the size and shape of a moderate-sized starfish. At first it looked like merely a strange growth that had somehow been obscured till now, but it soon became obvious that this was no mere overlooked birthmark. Whatever it was, it was _moving_ under the commander's skin, making a beeline for her head even as Tyrone tried to secure the helmet.

-

Miss Americana would have to concentrate more closely to perform a close examination of the city proper, but tapping into police computers here and there showed her what looked like a terrifying spectacle: a city of slumped bodies and stopped cars, of wailing sirens with no one to answer them. Even the birds in the trees outside the city's largest police station were still on their branches. But luckily, before Miss Americana could panic, she caught sight of a police officer who'd slumped down directly in front of his station's security monitor; she could see the man breathing! A highway traffic camera was slightly more ominous, showing an interstate clogged with cracked-up cars, but few of the really bad crashes she might have expected otherwise, as if whatever had put everyone down had given them a second or two of warning.

[Dr Archeville]

Retrieving historical files accessed from Internet... Legion is a sentient virus. Full extent of initial plague is unknown, but fear is that it would have conquered the planet had it not been for the Atom Family (particularly Doctor Atom and the telepathic Chase Atom), Daedalus, Mastermind, and a few other heroes from Freedom City (identities unconfirmed due to conflicting accounts). The Legion virus attacks the central nervous system, taking over the infected individual's ability to control their own actions. The disease is highly contagious, and evidence found thus far indicates Legion is an airborne virus.

"Lab-Friends, I have a hypothesis," Protectron's flat voice came over their communicators. "If the crew of the Skyhook-3 was working with samples, live or not, of Legion, it is probable they also carried some sort of prophylactic suitable for use against it should theere be a containment failure, such as the immunoboosting agent devised by Daedalus, Doctor Atom, and Mastermind during the initial outbreak. Samples of this cure may have been taken along with the samples Commander Harrison's agents already removed. Contact with the recovery team should be established, as well as contact with the Atoms and the Freedom League."

[Electra]

Miss Americana opened her eyes and straightened up, listening to Protectron's words. "A good idea in theory, but Freedom City's already been infected and appears totally disabled. We've got a hell of a mess on our hands, and I don't even see any heroes in the sky. The recovery team is surely infected as well by now. If we can track where they've gone, we can see if they have any antidote. If they do, we can test it and make sure it still works. Our best bet may be to get to the Goodman Building in Freedom City and attempt to start synthesizing the immuno-booster again, as quickly as possible. I'm sure they have records on file and the facilities to create it still."

[Fox]

Dragonfly's hand shot out, interrupting the placement of the helmet to press down as hard as she could on the skin around the...thing...in an attempt to stop it before it could make it to where ever it was going. "May not be that simple anymore," Dragonfly tersely commented over the link, gesturing at Tyrone and miming cutting something free with a knife. "Have spotted an unknown...unknown. Life form, perhaps. Reminiscent of a starfish, but is...under Commander Harrison's skin. Neck. Moving, extremely gross...will attempt extraction if possible. Keep you appraised."

[Avenger Assembled]

Doctor Tyrone went to work with the knife, cutting open the commander's neck in a piece of emergency surgery that was quite the feat of rough-and-ready medicine. Luckily, the _thing_ in the commander's neck was actually _above_ the major nerve clusters, and the red-rimmed starfish that crawled out of the back of her neck did so without doing damage beyond what a rapid application of a bandage could heal. The starfish-thing was the size of Mara's hand, covered in a fine coating of blood and some alien body-fluids, its six-limbed body rippling inside as if it was filled with water. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the thing sprang from the commander's face and hurled itself at Mara, only to suddenly be clinging to her face! But before Mara could relieve Star Trek, she realized that thing couldn't get her: though it was firmly affixed to her forcefield, it couldn't actually penetrate the energy barrier, for all that it writhed over her field of vision to try and get in.

-

"Okay, um," said Sharl, thinking desperately as he rocked the baby back and forth, an unfamiliar task for the electronic teenager that he was obviously trying to do his best on. "So the satellite is infected with that virus, and it crashes here, and people get exposed to it...if they did evacuate them all to that naval base, maybe that's where we should go?" he hazarded. "Along with to the Goodman Building and stuff, so we can get the cure. If that's where the infection started. Wait, that doesn't make any sense, if it's infected the whole city, they'd just be the first patients...unless something else happened, I guess. No, you're right, the Goodman Building makes sense." He thought for a moment, then asked, "Miss A, my friend was telling me they have really sophisticated computers...oh no! We've got to go to, um, our friend's house! If something's happened in Freedom City's, she's in danger!"

-

[Dr Archeville]

Protectron's optics dilated a few millimeters wider when Miss Americana informed the team that Freedom was already infected. But Dragonfly's report got it thinking.

Searching... starfish... echinoderms, belonging to the class Asteroidea... simple body structure... complex nervous system, but no centralized brain... many species able to regenerate, a morphogenic processes that characterizes the phenotypic plasticity of traits allowing multi-cellular organisms to repair and maintain the integrity of their physiological and morphological states.

Based on autopsy reports of invading Grue accessed via Lab computer systems, their bodies have similar structure. Drones possess complex nervous system but no centralized brain, driven largely by the will of the telepathic Meta-Mind. Small 'brain-clusters' develop over time as the Grue Drone matures, allowing greater awareness and sapience, until it becomes a Grue Metamorph. And all Grue posses an extreme phenotypic plasticity.

Hypothesis forming...

"Lab-Friends, I have another hypothesis. It is possible the starfish-like creature Friend-Dragonfly has encountered is a result of the Legion Mind Virus interacting with/assimilating Grue genetic material. We may not be dealing with a microscopic virus, but rather a macroscopic entity. Shall I continue search wreckage of Skyhook-3 for records of the experiments, in hopes of finding some way to combat these organisms?"

[Electra]

"Affirmative, Protectron," Miss Americana confirmed. "Any data you can find at this point is valuable. Keep in close contact as you go through the satellite, and let us know if anything looks even the slightest bit dangerous. Dragonfly, if you can extract and secure that sample, do so, just make sure it doesn't stay in the air any longer than necessary. I think we're going to have to evacuate the civilian casualties to your location, and I'd like to minimize their exposure."

She looked over at Sharl, thinking quickly, even for her. "In all likelihood, our... mutual friend has already succumbed to the infection. There is a chance, however, that the ventilation system may not have circulated tainted air down to her yet. If you can send yourself back there and turn off the ventilation systems to the basement control room, that could buy her more time. It's on the main HVAC panel in the middle of the west wall of the basement. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

[Fox]

Dragonfly made a noise that was half startled exclamation and half Spanish cuss, rearing back as the starfish tried to...well, she preferred not to think about what it was trying to do, getting entirely too close-up a view of the thing flailing on her force field. Casting a glance around - as much as she could with the hybrid monstrosity taking up most of her vision - she grabbed a clear plastic supply crate, unceremoniously emptying its contents onto the ground and throwing her new friend inside. The lid was immediately snapped shut, with a heavy, bullet-riddled piece of equipment thrown on top for good measure.

She caught her breath, watching the starfish and scowling, trying to get her nerves settled again. "Good news, bad news. Good news: creature was extracted from Harrison, and contained. Unless it can eat through plastic. Will watch it. Bad news: creature is extremely dangerous, and very fast for its size. Jumped for my face...force field kept it away, but could have lived without seeing it in that much detail. Inclined to agree with Protectron...bad implications in that combination. Any suggestions?"