metalogs | [CLOSED] Tiny Intruders from Another World

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[CLOSED] Tiny Intruders from Another World

Who: Six

sixthdeadliest and David Alleyne

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What: Six and David Alleyne meet in person to start running tests on Six's nanites.
When: Not long after their chat on OurPowers. Maybe a day at most.
Where: Six's room at the Diadem
Content Warnings: SCIENCE and Six submitting himself as a human guinea pig.

To say Six was unused to accommodations like the Diadem Hotel would be a massive understatement. He was a man used to motels that didn't bat an eye when you paid in cash for a room for a week, a night, or even a few hours. Honestly, his simple quarters at Providence -- a basic private room with bed, closet, and bathroom -- were plenty for him, reminding him somewhat of his time being raised by One while still maintaining that impersonal "hotel" feel.

The Diadem's lavish accommodations made him twitchy, and he did his best to spend as little as possible from the money the Guilds allegedly freely gave displaced people like himself. (He needed to find a steady source of income that was independent of them...assuming he didn't just join up out of necessity for someone to monitor his nanites. It wouldn't be the first time he'd traded his autonomy because of the microscopic devils.) He certainly didn't eat from the menus provided. Room service was expensive for one thing. For another, he was pretty sure that the rich food would only succeed in making him sick.

He stuck the extra sandwich and bottle of water he'd picked up at a deli down the street into the minifridge, ignoring the small sample bottles of liquor provided.

Then he sat down in a chair at the small table and waited for his "guest".

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IT had taken a bit of work and bending over backwards with people he had contact with to get himself a mobile lab kit, but it was worth it. No one needed rogue nanites after how seriously Excelsior was reacting. So David made his way all the way out here (hey he had to check in with the Guild too), and with him he brought a backpack and a heavy suitcase.

Good news, the hotel was more than enough used to Prodigy just walking in at this point, so no one really commented over the costume, not even the black and yellow biker helmet he used to hide his identity. So it was like this that he took the elevator up, and then knocked at the door, waiting for this new stranger who needed help to answer.

It only took a moment before the man in the green suit opened the door and stepped to one side to give the stranger access. He shut the door behind his guest.

"Thank you for coming so quickly."

"Nanites aren't for playing with," Prodigy said with a sigh. "And definitely not for delay."

With that he stepped in, considering the space.

"Do you mind if I clear the coffee table?"

"I agree. Just wish the scientists responsible for the Nanite Event had known that sooner."

He gestured to the coffee table. "Go right ahead."

"Sometimes you do science because you have good intentions, and you fail to understand what is really going on."

Once he's in there, he moves to lay his bags on the table, and starts to clear it and make it all tidy for the work.

"You have any problems with needles?"

"None."

Six removed his jacket, sliding one of the hidden shuriken into his pocket as an insurance policy. Beneath the green jacket were a pair of devices clamped onto his arms, one of which he removed. Then he unbuttoned the cuff the dress shirt sleeve on the same side as the detatched mechanism. Finally, he rolled the sleeve up past his elbow.

One thing Holiday had groused about in the past was that he had terrible veins. He was the one she trained her interns on for drawing samples because of how hard they were to find.

"My usual doctor says this arm's easier to find a vein on."

How interesting. Well, he'll ask about the devices another time. If at all. Prodigy produces a syringe and a set of vials to work with.

"I'm rather good at finding them," he says honestly as he sets the things aside and then takes out more tools. He's got to get the area clean first.

"Used to be a trauma doc, so this is nothing."

"...You seem a bit young to be a doctor."

He couldn't see the other's face but the voice didn't sound that old.

"I'm a bit young for a lot of things," the man said, his voice distorted just lightly by the helmet, but not enough to make him sound old. "Some people are just geniuses. It gives me an edge."

He reaches for the offered arm, puts on the tourniquet, and then cleans the area he's going to draw blood from.

"How long ago were you infected?"

Six gave the prodigy a look of irritated resignation. "Five years ago, right after the Nanite Event. Everything was infected within hours."

"What's the average period of time before they corrupt people?"

He prepares a syringe, and without hesitation, slips it in. Finds the vein with casual ease. Time to fill the first vile.

"What are early signs, if you know any. The more details I have, even ones that seem unimportant, will help me."

"That's the problem: There doesn't seem to be much of a pattern to the transformations. The nanites are everywhere: the food, the water, the air. Theoretically, anyone who arrived on my version of Earth nanite-free would be infected within seconds though it'd take maybe a few hours before their infection rate would equal that of someone who'd either been alive at the time of the Nanite Event or was born since. And the circumstances of the transformations are random. Some people turned within minutes of initial infection while others have yet to turn. I once was deployed to deal with someone's six-month-old who'd turned. Not too long ago, I was called out for another incident with a man who turned while shopping at the supermarket. There was a theory at one point that extreme stress triggered the mutations, but if that were the case, there should only be one human left on my Earth."

Six took a deep breath to calm himself even if it wasn't outwardly noticeable to the average person. He had learned to hide his emotions between a stoic mask and voice years ago.

"There's only one person on Earth confirmed to be nanite-free, and that was due to a freak accident. He was caught in the processing cycle of a molecular dissection machine, but the cycle was interrupted before it killed him. It stripped him of all his nanites, bleaching him in the process. He's been in total quarantine for the past year."

Edited 2022-09-17 02:46 (UTC)

Irregular data is the worst. Of course it gives him a theory to work with.

"Sounds like there is an external trigger, rather than an internal one," he mused as he finished one vial, set it aside, and took a second. For safety. They'd need this distilled down to just them. Then he could work.

"If it's in the food and water, I can't fathom why he wouldn't be affected. If we were talking stress as a trigger, then one triggering should lead to a domino affect of triggering."

"You would think, but that solution was easier than you'd think: magnets. There's a constant magnetic field in his living space and office. Everything that he's supposed to eat or drink goes through them, and any nanites lingering in the air are caught."

Which meant that the nanites were made of ferrous material.

Magnets. That's... So brilliantly simple.

"You're saying these things are made of a ferrous material? Shit, where's Magneto or Polaris when I need them?"

Still, if they can be affected by magnets, then he's got options for controlling them while he studies them. Which means...

"I need your land line. The one here in the room. Get it for me. I'll pay to replace it."

He needs to make an electromagnet and he needs to do it fast.

Six gave the young man an odd look but went to retrieve the telephone. He brought it back to the prodigy, sitting back down and watching.

Honestly, he wasn't sure what tests could be run in a hotel room. Providence had plenty of specialized equipment. Though if an MRI was suggested, he was going to put his foot down: There'd been plenty of accidents in the early days after the Event with the once-benign piece of medical equipment.

He'd seen pictures. It wasn't pretty.

There's need of a screwdriver, and so David just holds his hand near the phone and a screwdriver forms in his hand of golden light. He soon has the screws out and then the bottom off.

"How did this nanite thing happen, if you know."

"The only people who know the details are either dead or not talking due to the trauma," Six answered, watching the conjured screwdriver with raised eyebrows. "The only thing we know for certain is that a group of scientists were working with nanites, presumably for medical purposes. There was a massive explosion which scattered the nanites across the globe within hours, their programming unfinished.

"Kiev was particularly hard-hit due to Earth's magnetic field concentrating a large number of nanites there. Almost every living thing transformed. Those unchanged were evacuated. The UN caved to public pressure and encased the entire city in a massive forcefield. Nobody's allowed in or out, not even Providence, the organization I work for which is the largest operation dealing with the nanite problem. Nowadays it's referred to as 'the Bug Jar'."

That's horrible. David sighs and takes the wire out of the machine and, from his bag, pulls out a metal bar. Then he starts twisting the wire around it with careful focus.

"Well, now there's another question. Whether when you bleed, you release nanites that would infect others. That's a serious terror."

Yeah, he came from a charming little sci-fi hellworld.

"I'd imagine I do given blood samples back on my Earth usually have them."

Though, boy, was Six going to be in for a surprise. David would find that the blood came out clean. Though any sort of scanning device he had would confirm that Six did possess nanites and a lot of them.

Yeah, charming indeed. And distressingly so. This man would have to be kept safe if he could unleash a nanite apocalypse. For now he finishes wrapping the wire and moves to turn it on. This he puts next to the vials of blood.

"In my bag there should be a microscope and some slides. I will need to see what is going on with your blood."

Six nodded his understanding. "I've had blood samples taken before. You could've asked for worse."

For both their sanity, he wasn't going to elaborate.

"I meant could you get them out," David said, wincing to hear the rest. He's afraid of what it means.

Then again, he's a mutant, and his people had often been... 'studied'.

"Oh."

He reached into the bag and set the items down on the coffee table.

"I wasn't clear enough," David countered, it's not the man's fault in his opinion.

With the vials of blood 'controlled' in his opinion, he goes to inspect the slides. These he carefully cleans before gathering out pipettes.

"Is there any details from your last medical evaluations that I should be aware of? That might affect what I see here?"

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