Junk-2009-08-22

The black-clad figure at the Subway stalks forward, watching the lunch-hour patrons flee for their lives. Shattered glass lies all over the floor inside.

Floyd gets up from his seat, hand disappearing inside his jacket. "Why are you here?" he growls.

"Just wanted to show off my new toy," the figure answers insouciantly, flicking its fingers. It has no face; instead, it seems to be wearing a full-body suit of something black and textureless.

Floyd's hand is closed around the butt of his Beretta. "Looks kinky. Is it bulletproof?"

There's no sign of a mouth, but the humanoid's body language betrays a grin. "Oh yeah."

"How do you breathe in that thing?" says Jason. Despite the mocking tone, he takes the apparition very seriously; it's clearly connected to the alien invasion in some way.

This seems to change the thing's attitude somewhat. Its voice now betrays a greater amount of interest; less mocking, more self-absorbed. "Pores, y'see. Tidal motion in the suit brings in air and.. well, the other part's for you to figure out."

"Look, that's great," Floyd says. "But we have to get you back to the lab. You work with LI-13, right? You should know this stuff is dangerous. It screws with your head." Floyd points to the damage done to the restaurant. "Does this look like the kind of thing you want to do?"

Colin looks blankly from the black-encased weirdo to Floyd, "He-" He starts to question, but decides perhaps it's not the time. He closes his eyes, sword in his hand, trying to detect the oxygen flow around the .. thing.

"Yeah, y'know, about that. Actually, it is. I'm so tired of this bullshit. Y'all are soo particular about what we do." The figure waves his hands about, pacing about on the ground just outside the broken window. "You've wasted the potential of what this stuff could do with your red tape and your budget cuts..."

Colin whispers over to Jason, trying to keep his voice low enough so our new friend can't hear, "He's taking in oxygen.. but nothing's coming out.."

"That's federal spending for you." Floyd draws his sidearm and points it dead-center of the menacing figure's chest. We can never negotiate with these guys. "Wanna get fired?"

"Try it, you useless droid," laughs the figure in black.

Jason starts. "Excuse me... what did you just call him?" he says, peering with renewed suspicion at the figure... as if there weren't enough reason to be suspicious in the first place.

Marcus, who hasn't jumped to his feet just yet, reaches out, snaring control of the paper at hand. He looks pointedly at Jason, then at the enemy, readying a shield for when this gets ugly.

Colin mutters under his breath, "These aren't the Droids you're looking for."

"Fine. Y'all can wimp out if you like. Me, I'm gonna be god. Now give me your links." The figure raises a hand, pointing at the group, singling out those with that uncanny alien-derived power. "And tell that golden barbie doll to give me hers too."

Floyd has a startling moment of clarity. Oh, shit. Eyes wide, he pulls the trigger twice and dashes for the broken window.

The bullets find their mark, but with an audible ping clatter to the ground in front of him.

"Come and take them!" snaps Jason. The gig is up, and it's time to get dangerous. This man may not be exhaling, but he's still inhaling... which means he should still need oxygen. And so Jason channels nitrogen to surround the figure, in the maneuver that gave him his code name.

The paper wall is thrown up immediately, Marcus making his move to shield his friends and once the net is up, he'll work on bringing in the cavalry, reaching out to form one of his golems.

Colin, matching Jason's call, starts to pump the oxygen away from him, pooling the gass away fron his suit, however he can manage.

"Not good enough!" the figure shouts, and a cloud of black motes seems to detach itself from his body. It gathers in the air, somehow sucking the oxygen back toward the black figure - Colin can feel his efforts being resisted.

"So this isn't subtlety time we're on now, right?" shouts out Marcus. At his side the paper has formed into a large cat with whiplike tentacles sprouting out of its back. In eerie silence it rushes forward, slashing at the enemy.

Colin runs at the black clad figure, the air around him splitting, as he closes the distance between him and the stranger. He stands toe to toe with the figure, his sword between them, the blade crackling with heat and fair as he stares at the faceless man.

"Don't try that paper shit with me," the black stalker sneers. An ebon tentacle lashes out from his back, striking open a nearby fire hydrant near the curb.

Marcus narrows his eyes and mutters, "Sorry bud, the cat's an upgrade." The feline certainly shows no signs of dreading water, focusing completely on the assault while outside, the titanic form of the dragon takes shape.

The aerial restraint tries to take hold, but Jason can feel the resistance. Whatever the suit is made of, it has tremendous strength and resilience.

Still free to move, it backs away from Colin and his weapon, heading toward the hydrant.

Going outside may put the water in reach, but it also puts the dragon in reach. The creature pushes into the air, seeking a more mobile vantage point to strike from. The huge creature lashes out with claw and tail, putting this suit to the test against brute strength on a collosal scale.

The suit seems to respond by itself, as evidence by the surprised and painful cry of its wearer. It expands outward into a bubble, changing its very nature as it goes, forming a crystalline sphere with a faintly visible human silhouette inside. At this point the nature of the material becomes obvious - few have seen graphene composite up close, but it's impossible not to recognize diamond. This man is linked to Carbon.

Although the dragon is easily able to buffet the diamond sphere about, getting damage through it seems more of a challenge.

Colin is running after the strange suited figure, he runs over to the carbon link, and he watches the suit bubble itself out. "Oh.. a diamond suit. How clever." Colin thinks to himself.. Carbon burns, right... He concentrates,a ns tries to match the ogygen with the carbon in the suit, trying to burn or catch it alight.

Floyd closes the short distance across the parking lot quickly. As he does so, he holds down the speed dial key for Martinez on his phone. He doesn't even bother to bring it to his face - as soon as it starts dialing he tosses it through the car window, and tries to open the trunk.

What Colin recognizes after a few moments is that the diamond sphere as it is won't burn. But, it transitioned forms once. It couldn't have been bonded into diamond the whole time. What if he can wait until it transitions from diamond to something else and attack at that time?

"Very clever indeed," Jason says, rather less sarcastically than Colin. "However, I wonder if you remember everything you should know about carbon..." His hands are held before him as he breaks apart nitrogen atoms in the surrounding atmosphere, urging it toward oxygen, carbon dioxide, and rarer trace elements...

As long as he remains bubbled, neither Colin nor Jason are able to get a hold of the carbon atoms - they simply don't have the force to overmaster his own control. How can they force him out of his turtle's shell?

Finally, the chemical reactions are complete; a chunk of atmosphere right adjacent to the sphere has been converted into a mixture of nitrogen-rich and very volatile compounds mingled with the surrounding air. "Diamond is the hardest substance known to man... but did you know it's also very brittle?" With that, Jason excites a clump of nitrogen gas to the ignition point, and the side of the sphere erupts in a loud explosion.

Jason's prediction is true, and the man inside seems aware of his plan as well. The sound of the explosion is mixed with a cracking noise, but an all-too-brief one. His carbon control has let him restore the integrity of his bubble in under a second.

Colin concentrates,a nd makes sure that the head inside the bubble is allowed as much oxygen as it needs, pulling the air around the bubble to the inside, to fuel the fire...

Floyd retrieves the Grappler from the trunk. The weapon is activated in the blink of an eye and its internals suffuse with a warm orange glow. He doesn't know where the explosion came from, but he instinctly aims for it and yanks hard on the firing handle.

Colin's attempt isn't fast enough to really do much. But what happens to all that heat he feels inside?

Jason saves his wisecracks for now... whatever he may know about the physical properties of carbon from his textbooks, his foe seems to know instinctively. Instead, he focuses on another task. Letting his air shield drop for now, he focuses all his power on heating the nitrogen - inside the bubble if he can, or in the air just outside the bubble if their foe's Link prevents him from reaching inside. Outside is sufficient; the diamond will conduct the heat just fine.

Floyd adds the grappler's power to the dragon's grip on the sphere. Unfortunately, just holding the carbon-master in place isn't changing anything. Floyd growls. A scientist. He must know all our tricks already.

Marcus directs a suggestion to Jason, "Can you give him the bends?"

This seems to confound the carbon master. After several tense seconds, Colin can see what he's been waiting for - an abrupt transition from diamond, as the carbon atoms free themselves to adopt a new configuration.

Colin moves in an instant, rapidly trying to combine the now free carbon particles with oxygen to create heat, drawing as much oxygen aroudn the changign sphere as he can to try and inact teh exothermic eaction.

"Gah!" The man cries out - and the diamond shell shatters. You have him now.

Colin calls out, "Jason!"

Jason nods curtly to Marcus. "I tried! But now..." The temperature of the nitrogen is now left to its own devices, and instead - now that the man's carbon suit is temporarily out of his control - Jason forces the nitrogen to surround the man once more. Floyd and his Grappler will help restrain him, but they need to use every resource at their disposal.

Colin keeps controlling the oxygen, and turns to Floyd, "I think we need Aura..."

FallGM says, "you can attempt controlled oxygen starvation, blunt trama, whatever"

"They've been called!" Floyd shouts. "But we need him out now! Suffocated or anything!"

"Marcus, Floyd! Take your hold!" Jason calls out, waiting for the target to be enfolded by paper or grapple beam - and once that happens, he'll relinquish his nitrogen grapple and attempt to smother him once more.

Marcus drops his shield and focuses on the binding instead. A bit of lightning origami follows and leaves the target quite well restrained.

This time, without the carbon suit to draw oxygen in, the carbon master has nothing to protect him from Jason's attack. The man squirms, and they can hear a gasping noise from inside... and then Marcus feels the resistance against the paper bindings slacken, then cease.

Well before the van arrives from the lab, several police cars have pulled up. It's taken all of Floyd's persuasiveness - and the clear evidence of his Federal authority - to keep them from opening fire, much less arresting everyone on the premises. Nevertheless the black and whites are here with guns drawn, waiting carefully for clarification from people of the appropriate pay grade.

A special agent from the New York FBI office pulls up around the same time as the van. Aura peeks out of the window, waving with a smile at the group, then ducks back out of sight as the Fed strides forward.

Another several minutes of explanation and Federal dick-waving commence. However Floyd feels about it, it's certainly his specialty and probably his greatest contribution to this particular battle. Finally the police are convinced to form a cordon around the area. Aura is wheeled from the van to the unconscious scientist, and after a few moments of contact nods and lets out a quiet sigh. "The link is removed. But it wasn't mine. Someone else empowered him."

Colin blinks and looks at Aura. "So, I suppose it's useless to ask who, right?" His eyes cast an accusitory glance over at Floyd, but for now he says nothing.

"I guess this means things are about to get very ugly," says Marcus. "How do we stop someone like this, Aura? Can they just.. turn off our links at will?"

Floyd runs a hand through his hair, clenching it at the top and nearly tearing a clump out. "He knows something. He called me a 'droid'. That wasn't coincidence. But if all he has is carbon then he's not the other Master, right?"

The woman nods. "He was linked just like you three," she says. "And I think whoever empowered him could remove your links too."

"Whoever it was, has our research team pretty well infiltrated," remarks Jason. "First Floyd, and then now this guy." He shakes his head, turning to Aura. "What would someone need to have to be able to Link or Unlink someone? Do they have to be able to see them? Or are we doing like the old magic stories, where it's sufficient to have someone's True Name or something?"

Aura smiles. "Just contact with the link, and contact with the person is enough for that. But I think - I hope - that they would be as um, distinctive in appearance as I am. So you can trust people who look like people."

"We don't take him back to the lab yet," Floyd mutters. "We need to put him somewhere else, out of sight of an infiltrator. But we do need to get Doctor Williams to interrogate him."

Colin looks over at Floyd, "So.. surely someone who's giving links.. would probably need to have a government sponser like us?"

The man himself is identified from files as Amos Finch, one of the newer researchers brought into the investigation of alien technology. He's had close exposure to most aspects of the program.

Floyd rides with Finch and Aura in the FBI van, and doesn't leave the man's side until he's installed in a small, windowless, underground room under the Federal building. Questions crowd Floyd's mind, chief among them: who linked Finch? And what did Finch mean by his 'droid' remark?

A couple of hours of interrogation yield useful information. Finch, after all, was a professional scientist - not a spy or soldier.

Somehow, somewhere, there was a second protoform - like Aura - trapped in the wreckage. Unlike Aura, it didn't have a chance to find form until later when Finch examined it. Although he doesn't seem to be aware of the formation process as Aura explained it, Floyd puts this much together: when Finch examined the protoform, what he was expecting was a wounded alien invader, hiding out and waiting to make its move. Tragically, that is exactly what he got.

Through a link, it managed to siphon information from Floyd's mind, as well as from the research files. And it imbued Finch with a link to carbon, promising him power in exchange for aid. Presumably it remains in the lab.

Floyd exits the cell; Martinez is waiting. "I heard it all," the older man says simply.

Floyd nods by way of reply. "We need to get Finch to the hospital, and everyone else out of the lab. If we can't talk this monster down, then..." he trails off.

Martinez slaps Floyd on the shoulder. "Then what? We'll be in deep shit?" He leads him down the hall. "Think positive, kid. You told me that's how Scrapper tamed Aura." But Floyd hears little of it; he's on the phone again, dialing, ordering an evacuation under a cover story about radiation leaks.

"If Finch is the one who made contact with this protoform," Jason says, "then wouldn't its personality be shaped by him, just like Aura's was shaped by Toby? Do we have a personality profile on Finch?"

"We have profiles on everyone," Floyd replies. "The Department of Energy wants to make sure nuke plant workers aren't whacko, and we did a full workup on everyone selected by LI-13. But..." He pauses. "We might not need all that. The down-side of linking is that it seems to bring out the worst in people and he gave it to us right there in the Subway. We're talking about someone highly intelligent, frustrated in his job, possibly with a big ego and a persecution complex."

Marcus listens, adding helpfully, "And a very small... social life." Jason's snickering adds just the right punctuation to the comment.