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Off Hours Visit (IC)


Aoiroo

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July 1st, 2011 (Friday). 5:12 PM

Two weeks after ArchEvil: Aftermath, a week after The Doktor is In(sane)!

Sometimes Carrie hated anonymity. The fact that no one knew exactly who she was most the time meant that she had no reputation to throw around. Now usually this didn't really matter, she wasn't one for large parties, or eating out at expensive restuarants or getting free things all the things fame or at least a little recognition as a hero can bring. However it would of been nice to have been able to prove with a little bit of reputation that she was in fact a friendly party to Viktor.

Really, after the first dozen questions the nurses asked and the look on her face when she had no real proof of knowing this person or even of her aquaintance to Mona who was of course missing and unable to back her up. She walked out the door when she was denied entry more or less with the face that she expected this reaction. She was more or less sighing the whole way as she walked to the three stall public restroom they had, checked for cameras, stashed her purse under the sink and started climbing up the side of her enclosed stall.

Navigating the interior of the buildings square tiled ceiling wasn't that hard, it was just pretty dusty. She had to look out a lot of the time to get confirmation where she was, the whole deal took about thirty minutes before she sucessfully made it to what she was fairly certian was Viktors room. Still she wanted to be sure, so when no one was looking, she moved a hand out from the ceiling and gave a quick knock on the door.

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When Carrie had first stopped at the room the shower in the small attached bathroom had just been shut off, and she thought she heard a soft murmuring in German. The first time she knocked on the door, there was no response, but when she tried again a few seconds later, it as indeed Archeville who came out of the tiny bathroom, in a terrycloth bathrobe and with a toothbrush in his mouth.

That is not Doctor Ellis's or Dr. Black's usual knock, or any of the usual nurses. A new one, maybe? It is almost super time. Or one of the patients?

Opening the door, he saw no one there. "Hello?," he said, in a voice far flatter and weaker than Carrie remembered. "George? Charles? Scanlon?"

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Carrie slipped down from inside the room, in a switch motion pulled the square tile back into place as let herself fall from the ceiling from her finger tips onto the carpet in a practiced crouch. The whole thing was quiet enough to be cancelled out by the ambient noise of the mental facility, but that point was moot when she said allowed,

"Wow, not too shabby, my landlady might want to take a few pointers on interior design from this place."

Her tone was casual mostly as she examined the room. The rooms themselves had no cameras or devices of the sort probably because of the nature of the person they were holding (and also because of that little news story about the beekeeper managing advanced robotics from his jail cell). She was angled just behind Viktor so that her form was concealed by any hallway cameras looking in. She turned to him with a shrug sort of smile as she looked him up and down,

"Well you look like you've had the kind of week I have, though you probably got better hospital food."

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Darkness dropping silent hard edged oh **** Nacht-Krieger!

Carrie was perhaps not expecting the reaction she got from Archeville, as he staggered back, tripped, and scrambled back to his bed. He tried to cry out, but no sound came save a strangled squeaking.

Come to kill me something I did upset SHADOW ruined some of their plans no maybe kidnap me recruit me must recruit many from places like this- wait, no, talking... feminine voice... not Meinhoff... casual tone... who?

His trembling eased, and he leaned forward a bit to study Carrie's form. "I... I do not think I... I know you... miss... were... were you a... a patient of mine... or... or a... a victim?"

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Carrie's eyebrows shot up as she looked at him stagger back. Given in retrospect it probably wasn't a good idea to surprise someone of his mental state,

"Woah, woah, Viktor, calm down."

She tried a soft and none threatening voice as she moved slowly to close the door,

"It's not, I'm not, I'm Carrie, Mona's friend. Remember we had dinner together, it got wrecked by a robot, you left me to take care of the press. I wasn't terribly fond of doing that at the time. But no, no I'm not gonna hurt you, and I have never been a patient of yours."

No wonder they were turning folks away, he's probably more then a little paranoid at this point. The fact that I did have to sneak in here probably didn't help in the least.

She took a few steps and picked up the toothbrush.

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Carrie? Who... dinner? Oh!

He sat up, though remained on the floor, and continued studying her. "Yes... you were the young Hispanic woman who made clothing... made some for Mona!" His face lit up for a brief moment as he remembered a pleasant time, even through the interruption by the Terminus-tracking robot, but soon lost it as the memory of the last time he saw her flooded back.

No, not dwelling, moving on. Moving on! Focus on what you can do, here, now.

"What... what happened to you?," he asked, voice growing slightly firmer. "Did this... is your form a result of something I... I unleashed? Or could you do this before?"

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"Do what exactly, sneak into mental hospitals, not usually, I've never tried before I'll be honest. It probably helps they have no security cameras within ten feet of this room."

She started to stretch out a bit and noticed she had a good bit of dust covering her dark pants and started to try and wave it off absently. Reaching into a pocket she pulled out a comb and started to try and push the dust bunnies in between the bristles,

"This week haven't been sneaking much though, since I got released from the hospital yesterday. I had do get stitches, and a minor surgery to remove a piece of an axe that somehow remained embedded in my thigh. But yeah, I've been holed up in a white room for a little while a bit less nicer then this one otherwise I might of tried to drop by sooner."

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... what?!

Archeville slowly rose and sat on the edge of his small bed, one of the few area of the room not covered in papers and books. "W-why was there an axe in your thigh? No, wait-" he shook his head, "you s-still have not said how you g-got this way. This...," he leaned to one side, then the other, "this... two-dimensional way. W-was it something that I... that the monster who took over my company did? Or w-was it something you could do before that? C-could you do this when we all had d-dinner that night?"

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Carrie closed her eyes and scratched her head lightly,

"Oh, that."

She let out a breath,

"No, it was nothing you caused, I've been able to do that for forever. Pretty useful really, I never have to buy scissors."

Holding up her fingers she did the little scissoring motion.

"The axe, I got kidnapped by fishmen who came out of a sub in the harbor. I sort of staked a claim to protect the group I was with, and I sort of had to fight through like several dozen fishmen, thank god I'm small, cause they weren't and it was hard for them to gang up on me in those tiny hallways. But yeah, I got bloodied up pretty badly then an Omegadrone just walks on through and swats through them like they're a bunch of gnats. I thought I was hallucenating, but apparently not cause the other people I was with were hysterical when they saw it too."

Her hands were almost always moving as she described the scene, she sort of seemed to need to be animated as she recounted it, she paced the room a little too.

"But yeah, I limped out of there with like what looked like everyone who had the misfortune of going to the park that day and sort of passed out from blood loss a few minutes later. Apparently someone blew that sub all to hell, I honestly think it was the Omegadrone myself."

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The color drained from his face again, "you... you were there? On Fjölnirskraft?" The quaver in his voice came back, as he recalled all the news stories he had been shown about that terrible days, specifically the parts with his super-submarine, commandeered by hideous creatures called to the arrival of their new-old god. "I-I knew that, ah, that some heroes did go for the ship, rescued p-people form those horrible... horrible fish-men. And... and you s-said there was an Omegadrone there?"

The burly man who accompanied Miss Americana here last week claimed he was an Omegadrone. Could it be...?

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"Only one I saw was the freaking Omegadrone, seriously, he wrecked those fishmen and cleared a path for the hostages. If there were any other ones, thanks for the help, but the Omegadrone definitely helped save our bacon even if the news reports are blocking that part out."

Stretching a bit she glanced back at Viktor,

"Okay, now that I've answered your questions, lets do a trade then. I have a question I couldn't find on the outside that I thought you could answer. Namely, where is Mona?"

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Mona....

Archeville made a small whimpering noise as he turned away, folded a bit into himself and began slowly rocking back and forth. "Gone," he said softly. "Gone gone gone gone gone."

... no! No, I am not doing that!

He slowed, then stopped his rocking, took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. He looked up at Carrie, "she... sacrificed herself to stop the giant creature that appeared in North Bay. She took the Daka crystal from my Gravimetric Belt -- a souvenir from our first date -- and filled it with her own energies, then slammed the crystal into the beast. When it cracked it explosively released all the energy... and leaving nothing of either of them behind."

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Carrie watched him and walked forward and put a hand on his shoulder as a comfort before letting out a breath. He was very upset about it, and almost certianly blamed himself. Then again, he probably spent a lot of time thinking it over and blaming himself,

"Of course she sacrificed her self, god freaking damnit Mona."

She pushed a hand through her hair,

"Her folks are worried freaking sick, you're a mess, the worlds a mess, and she had to take the option the freaking Hudini route. She might be pretty damn hard to hurt, but what about the rest of us I mean..."

Carrie let out another breath,

"Ugh, I'm rambling, okay. I believe that much, it's sounds exactly like the sort of thing she would do. So where has she disappeared to then? I doubt she was actually killed, she's like one of the toughest capes around."

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What was her family told? And who told her?

"I have absolutely no idea," he said with a heavy sigh. "I doubt it killed her, even with all the d-damage she had taken during the battle... from what little I have heard of the cleanup and aftermath, there was no trace of the m-monster... or of her. So, I think, the explosion must have t-torn open a rift between this dimension and some other. Or perhaps to the T... the Terminus itself. I pray that would be enough to destroy the beast," he added under his breath. He soon continued, "but there was so many different energies being tossed about during the battle that getting decent dimensional readings has been impossible, so there has been no success in determining where the two went!"

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"Ugh, she's lost, great."

Carrie took a step back and leaned against the wall for a second while she thought more or less out loud.

"Well, she's probably not still in the inbetween, things thrown in usually get thrown back out at some point. Though as much as I've seen of it, it seems that you can only navigate if you have a signifigant force pulling you in one direction instead of just lingering all willy nilly. So how can we confirm where she is then?"

She tapped her chin for a few seconds then glanced at Viktor,

"Hey, you have a tracker on Mona right, it's how you found her after that whole little alphadroid incident, in that jewellery that she's always wearing. How much juice does that have, or really how far could it really go? I know it is possible to make trackers that span across different dimensions, I got one in my purse."

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How strange that this young dressmaker seems to be expressing more hope for rescuing Mona than anyone else. Is there, perhaps, a lesson I should learn here?

"I was able to track the power dampers she wears, but," he chewed one corner of his lip, "the range for those was only global, based on positioning satellites already in orbit, so if she is of-world, much less off-dimension, I would not be able to track her. Well... unless...." His fingers began twitching, tracing lines -- circuit diagrams? -- on his thigh, "unless I was able to build a separate tracking unit... but I am not sure even I could make such a scanner with what I have access to here... and," his fingers stopped, hand fell flat on his leg, "and even if I could, her dampers were cracked and overloading during the battle, they had stopped functioning even before she took the crystal from me."

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Carrie raised an eyebrow at the term he used for it,

"Wait, so she was wearing limiters? Well that makes some sense, not a lot but some and I guess it's hard to say but even if the limiter function is dead who's to say the tracker is. We wouldn't be able to tell unless you made the seperate tracker unit first which honestly leads to one conclusion you need to get out of here, legally."

She glanced over at him,

"How long do you suppose that'd take, you getting out of here. It's not like you can't continue treatment. You can be an out patient, still go to therapy, take medication but how long do you think they can legally keep you here for observation? You might need a person or two to vouch for you, I can't, they have no idea who I am, but I doubt they'll actually keep you here if you make a legal and sane effort to leave."

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"Dampers, not limiters," he corrected, showing another sign of his old (non-megalomaniacal) self. His voice lifted a little, "we first met when she had some concerns over her powers, and during testing she, well, overloaded, releasing Terminus energies. I made the dampers to help control those strain-induced outbursts, and to prevent any constant low-level Terminus exposure to those around her."

And if she had never come to me, we would never have gotten so close... she would never have been controlled... and she never would have sacrificed herself...

He slumped again, voice lowering, "the dampening 'function' was not broken, the dampers themselves were shattered, so even if I had a way to track her across dimensions, there is nothing to track." His left foot began tapping nervously, "I would have to try to track her, her specific Terminus energy signature...."

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Carrie raised an eyebrow and said quite frankly,

"You lost me there for a second, one moment."

She put a hand on her chin,

"So Mona releases terminus energy, okay, that explains the robot incident I'll be honest and why she even flew away. So this terminus energy, without the dampers releases at a steady constant rate, well it's a type of radiation right? Do you know the half life? If she's doing it constantly and we track it there could be a trail of it in the inbetween. But, huh, it'd probably might just lead us to the Terminus if the gear isn't accurate enough."

She started tapping her foot as she weighed the pros and cons then held up her hands,

"So on one hand, is the dimensional equivilant of hell, the other is Mona."

The Mona hand was always higher really,

"We're gonna need some more help here, you almost certianly will need to be a part of the project cause you're the most familiar with her signiture."

She then turned and looked directly at him,

"Well that, and you still love her, and she still loves you no doubt. It is Mona, she has probably forgiven you by now, she is immaculately kind like that."

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Did Ace send her? There is no end to the people he knows...

Archeville shook his head, "I know the frequencies and wavelengths of energies she generates, but... but tracking them would be like... like...," he gestured and fumbled, "like trying to track one particular stream of photons from the Sun. But moreso, because the Terminus contains every form of energy that has ever existed, every form that could exist, and many that have not even been imagined yet."

"I think... I think it might be more successful if we tried tracking her brainwaves, her very mind. Though such a scanner would need to be more powerful than any ever constructed before... and if she is unconscious, it would make an already-difficult process more daunting. But there would be less 'background noise' to contend with, since there are fewer minds in that twisted place."

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Carrie tapped her chin a little,

"So, we can't track the radiation, we can however track her brain. It certianly sounds more reliable, and all we need is the worlds most powerful MRI. That doesn't sound terribly impossible, not terribly impossible at all. I'd give it a week for the terribly part to be dropped, another for impossible, after all impossible in Freedom just means what hasn't been figured out yet as opposed to the actual implication that there is a limit to what this city can do."

Carrie started to stretch again, as she looked up to the ceiling,

"Anyway, how long you think it'll take then? Getting out of here legalling, making a tracking device that can span across dimensions, and probably taking a look at the dimensional traveling device I'll ask a friend of mine if I can borrow."

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Could I? Not like this, not here. Should I? Yes... maybe... yes, of course.

"Arranging off-site therapy, or return visits, would be little problem, true... especially if I call in some favors... though, if this rescue m-mission goes as I anticipate, I would be out of this dimension for an extended period, which would m-make treatment impossible. Then there is the m-matter of the mission itself: my Gravimetric Belt was destroyed in the battle with the beast, unique components destroyed...," he trailed off for a moment.

Mona...

"And... and m-my mind is not what it used to be. On... multiple levels. Part of my being here is to monitor brain and nerve damage suffered during the battle." Not entirely false, though he left specifics unsaid. "I would need to address and correct that before I could formulate the technologies needed for the task, and to be prepare for any challenges along the way."

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"Right, still didn't answer the question."

She put her hands behind her head,

"Taking all that into account, how long do you think it'll take before we're ready to get this mission off the ground? I can do a couple of things to prepare in the mean time, notify my family for example, gather supplies you may need. I've worked with the dimensional diplomat from Earth Victoriana, Lord Lockwood's his name, we can get a bit of his help on that front I'm sure. But all things aside, like with most things, longer we put this off, less likely we are to get it done. A timely fashion really does benefit all involved, especially Mona. So how's this, I'll be checking in once every week or so, then in about three weeks, give or take we try and do this thing. I really want your help on this Viktor, even if the circumstances are very inconvinient, no matter what, you're the best person for the job because I have no doubt you want it more then anybody."

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She is determined. No wonder Mona likes her.

"That is what I am getting at," he responded, the barest hint of irritation creeping into his voice, "I have absolutely no idea how long it will take. My brain is not functioning adequately to allow such calculations to be made. My best guess any sort of timetable is that it would take..." His voice trailed off, murmuring as his fingers bent and jerked and played with the belt to his blue terrycloth bathrobe. His eyes darted about for several moments.

I have been thinking on this since Ace was here. Every methods has its drawbacks, but which ones are acceptable? I am, more and more, leaning towards the nanotech one... but the time needed for that, to build and program them....

He froze, and looked back to Carrie, "at least a week to restore my mind... and that is if nothing goes wrong... which is a terrifyingly large 'if'. But," he slowly stood, voice growing a fraction firmer, "if I let that stop me, I may as well just check in here permanently."

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She thought about it for a second,

"Good spirit, I know you can do it. You are Doktor Viktor Archeville afterall."

She walked over to the window, it was barred a couple stories up,

"Yeah, can't leave that way, someone might think I'm a jumper."

Padding around the room she found a chair and climbed up onto it but found the ceiling still not in her reach,

"Curse you shortness,"

She glanced over at Viktor who might of noticed by this point that she was in fact barefoot if only because her feet were now elevated closer to eye level. She glanced at the desk,

"Gonna make your desk a bit dusty, that okay?"

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