Post by Trask on Sept 28, 2006 13:55:46 GMT -5
The journey had been delightfully uneventful after the excitement of the last twenty four hours, something Simmons and his team were all profoundly grateful for. None of them mentioned Benson, sometimes it was easier not to. The usual letter would be sent to any family he'd had.
For the most part the teams that did the work for Bolivar Trask had few family connections. Life was easier that way. As was death.
"Ident card please," the armed guard at the facility entrance said in a flat tone.
Largo pulled the slightly dog-eared card from his pocket and waved it at the soldier who paused to thoroughly check the details. A second later he nodded to another guard in a control booth who lifted the barrier and dropped the tire spikes.
"Move along," the identity checker said in the same flat tone of voice. With a double bump of wheels, the truck rolled into the research facility imaginatively titled 'Zeta Site'.
"It isn't exactly the most welcoming place," Simmons commented, "but it's comfortable enough, and at least it isn't far to come to work in the morning."
The truck stopped and Daniels and Largo jumped out, stretching and groaning as they did about being cooped up for so many hours. Seconds later the rear doors were thrown open.
"Get some of the engineers to come down and start bringing the equipment in," Simmons said, "I will show our guest around a bit."
They were in an underground parking facility, not unlike the one they had been in at the hospital. This one however had armoured shutters over the entry doors and a number of warning signs detailing exactly how much trouble employees would be in should they attempt to remove anything from the premises.
Simmons gave the dead girl a faint half smile, "we don't get out much," he said, glancing at one of the signs about correct levels of security clearance.
Perhaps to his surprise, Moonbeam looked more amused than anything as she read the sign. "No doubt," she quipped, and followed him along.
"So you all live on site then. You're telling me there's a draw big enough for you to sacrifice a personal life for this?" She looked at him, then realized she was asking Simmons to shit talk in his place of employment. Wincing, she pushed hair out of her eyes. Still brilliantly coloured red eyes, at that. "Sorry."
Simmons shrugged as he walked toward one of the exits, Largo was already moving off in a different direction while Daniels and Kurshaw trailed behind them. "It's good work," he said, "we're helping to defend the country, you can't put a price on that. Besides," he looked down at himself depreciatingly, "most of us arn't exactly army material."
"As for a personal life," he looked over his shoulder at his fellow scientists, "most of us don't have family and we're not exactly social butterflies." The closest thing Simmons had to a hobby was an impressive collection of mech-related anime.
"Of course they pay isn't bad either," Daniels chipped in, at last willing to speak to the dead girl, if not exactly directly, "and the accomodation is a hell of a lot better than any I'd likely find nearby."
"It sure does beat having to find a condo," Simmons agreed with a grin.
They reached the heavy looking, steel banded door and stopped. Simmons pulled out his own ident card that he kept on a chain around his neck 'or I'd lose it faster than you could blink' and swiped it through the reader.
"Simmons, Brent," the reader chirped in a tinny, pre-recorded voice.
"And guest," he added.
There was a click of magnetic bolts and the door swung open.
Moon watched the whole thing, prideless fascination on her face as the door opened. "Jeezus," she murmured, and followed Brent through the door.
It occurred to her she really *was* with government types, and that the former her might not have liked it one bit. The new her thought all the security was kind of comforting. No one could get at her here. Could he?
She watched Brent for a moment before speaking again. "No one's… died here, have they?" She smirked. "Not that you could tell me, I know, but… if you can say for sure no, it might be…" Moon looked around, amused. "Peaceful."
Simmons looked thoughtful as they entered the cool, white corridor beyond. "I don't think anybody has ever died, at least not at this site anyway," he said, "there are other sites that are based on old facilities where, shall we say, less savoury experiments used to occur."
He frowned, thinking mostly of some of the places where William Stryker had once performed tests on live subjects causing no small number of fatalities. That was in the past now however, the Bill of Mutant Rights protected people against such atrocities.
"There have been a few injuries during my tenure here, but nothing major. I imagine it should be quiet enough for you."
They passed several similar steel banded doors before coming to a stair-well that spiralled both up and down. Simmons began to ascend.
"Don't worry about getting lost," he said conversationally, "the building layout is fairly simple. The living quarters are on the top two floors, the engineering sections on the two below that, that's the ones we are passing through now, and the labs are all everything under that."
Everything was cool, clean and paneled in white. The lighting seemed to come from a pale blue strip that ran down the centre of every corridor and up the walls of the stair-well. It washed the facility with the sort of sterility that made even the air feel clean.
"I'll get you an ident card later so you can wander a little."
"Are you sure it's going to be okay for me to wander? I wouldn't want anyone-" Daniels? "-thinking it was Return of The Living Dead or anything." What was she talking about? She frowned. "That's a movie, isn't it." Intrigued by that snippet of memory, she was quiet for another bit.
"So um ... where do you think I'll stay?" She watched him as they went up the stairs. He sure was being nice. I guess that was the exchange for throwing herself at their mercy. But why? What was she even DOING here?
Oh yeah, that's right. She had nothing better to do.
Simmons shrugged, "it should be alright, I mean you won't be able to get into anywhere restricted and everybody already knows you're here so there shouldn't be any ... um ... incidents."
Three floors up and Simmons left the stair-well and entered another white and blue washed corridor. This one however was wider and lined with a different style of door. Each steel grey door had a name embossed in yellow on its front. Jackson, Jonas. Quinn, Daniel. Holt, Nathan. The list went on. Each door was also flanked by a push button intercom and a some sort of fold out flap marked 'mail only'.
About half way down the hall the group arrived at a door with no embossed name.
"And this would be you," he announced brightly. He thumbed the red key on the intercom and the door slid aside with a pneumatic hiss.
The room within was very different to the sterile corridor without.
Warm, plush, peach coloured carpet covered the floor from wall to wall and was dotted with clear glass-like furniture and slightly organic looking seating. The entire rear wall was covered by half-closed blinds that were currently alight in sunset orange as the sun edged behind the horizon outside.
Simmons shrugged, "better than finding a condo," he repeated his earlier words, "after you."
She raised her eyebrows a bit, and walked in, looking around. "Posh. Looks like they did their research on light spectrum, huh?" Moon smiled a bit and walked over to the blinds, peeking out.
She could do this. A space of her own? Even though he'd stated it before, it hadn't quite sunk in. Space to think, to be awake all night, alone if she wanted to be. Likely alone most of the time, she figured. Scientists weren't the social type.
Moon looked back at Simmons. "Hey ... thanks, by the way. I'm sure it's part of your job, but ... " she shrugged.
Daniels and Kurshaw carried on by but Simmons stepped in and the door swished shut behind him. "We're all pretty much down the hall, a push of the button is all it takes to check if anybody is home." He wandered around the room for a moment and wiped a speck of dust from the glass coffee table.
The bedroom and bathroom are through there," he said, pointing to a frosted glass wall punctuated with a door, "if you feel the need for a lay down or anything and I can pretty much garuntee that you will have access to more than three hundred channels of television but there will be nothing of interest to watch."
The room also contained a fairly standard looking personal computer. "Broadband internet access and Email, though I warn you the security is a tight as it gets so don't be too surprised if a few things get 'lost in transit'. The government firewall picks up on the strangest things."
He stopped was curcuit of the room and adjusted his glasses, "and yes, it is part of my job, but it's the first time I've ever been able to welcome somebody personally," he smiled softly, "and I'm looking forward to helping you understand what it is that has happened to you, even though that is my job too."
"I'll leave you to settle in now if you want, or I can show you around some more," he shrugged, "we've all got the rest of the day off for R and R," he said the letters with an artificially deep and militaristic accent, "courtesy of mister Bolivar Trask."
Moon smiled, chuckling. He could be downright charming when he wanted to be. “No sense in rushing. But can we sit down for a minute?” She took a seat herself in an armchair, running her hand over it just to check it out.
"I just had a few questions." She nodded a little.
Simmons nodded and sat down in one of the peculiar but perfectly comfortable chairs. "Of course, I have all evening," he said. "Just so long as you don't want to know where the emergency exit is. We've been here for years and we still havn't managed to find even one."
He gave her a smile that suggested that was as close to a joke as he was ever likely to get. It wasn't that he was humourless, more that his brand of humour tended to run to the somewhat high-brow.
Moon smirked, not minding his sense of humor at all. She had no idea what she found funny before, but she wasn’t exactly the silly type now.
"So ... you don't have a lot of family, I figure. From what you've said and all. So you’re not married?" She had other questions, too.
"What kind of scientist are you exactly?"
"Would you say you're 'friends' with anyone here?"
"Who's this Trask guy? Is he your boss?"
Simmons chuckled, "no, no family here and no, not married I uh, wasn't exactly the marrying sort," he looked down at his thin, nerdy frame with a depreciating smile. "Too much time in the library and not enough time socialising." He shrugged, "I have no real regrets though, we're all like family here."
He adjusted his glasses again.
"John Largo has been here almost as long as me, I suppose he is the best friend I have, though we don't exactly spend much time down at the bar knocking back beers." Simmons grinned, "we just found that we had physics and applied mechanics in common and thus began our relationship."
It wasn't often Brent Simmons had cause to talk about his life, it wasn't exactly rivetting stuff by normal standards. Most people didn't design giant mech suits for the government though either.
"And yes, Bolivar Trask, the Secretary for Homeland Defence is my boss. He is the guy who says where the money goes around here and what it gets spent on. Right now it's getting spent on SHIELD 'anti-mutant terrorism technology, for a better tomorrow'."
"I guess learning about your powers falls into that catagory, so I imagine he will be around some time in the next couple of days to meet you in person."
He paused a moment.
"That is, if you feel up to it."
She smiled a little self depreciatively herself. "You know, I'm unsure I should be telling the guy that pays my rent whether or not he can stop by to say hello." Moon chuckled.
"Anti mutant terrorism technology." She obviously thought about it for a moment, frowning a little. "Have they killed a lot of people or anything? I mean ... I wonder if there are more 'me's out there in the world. Or if I'm some kind of anomaly." Her eyes went distant for a while, as she considered it.
"Seems pretty fucking out of line if that guy just goes around killing people and using their bodies." It was the first expression of emotion about him specifically that she had shown. She made a face. "God that's so wrong."
It didn't mean he wasn't still in there, lingering. And for some reason her mind was void of any ill feeling on her own behalf. But what he'd done to the others… it made her sick. Moreso than she was already, anyway.
He grinned at her observatin about the rent, "I wouldn't worry too much," he replied, "Mr. Trask has had a full report of what happened, he knows what you have been through."
He paused again.
"Well, he has read a report about what you described as having gone through." He looked thoughtful for a second as if to check that his sentence actually made sense.
"Anyway, he won't trouble you until you feel you're ready. He can be pretty intense, actually he can be damn frightening at times, but he will always take care of his own and I guess that includes you now."
He stood and wandered over to the mini-fridge embedded in one of the panelled walls. Swinging open the door revealed a stock of soft drinks and beer cans. "Do you mind?" He asked plucking out a bottle of cola.
He returned to his seat and twisted open the lid with a hiss of escaping gas.
"We don't know how many they have killed, but in the last three years the incidents of mutant terrorism have escalated to the point where the regular law enforcement cannot cope."
He sighed and gulped some cola.
"The one at Baltimore, that one that came to the hospital, he has to be one of the worst. People know the faces of Magneto and Pyro because they are leaders, figureheads. There are mutants out there though, like him, with powers far more horrific."
"We're all here to try and stop them from harming any more people. I hope you will help us with that while we try to help you."
Moon still held onto that mildly horrified expression as she considered a legion of mutants with awful powers, inflicting their whim on innocent humans. She wasn't aware that in another life her reaction would have been entirely different- to assume that the majority of mutants were law abiding citizens no more harmful than any non-mutant. But Moon didn't know any different, and she'd seen the victimization of humanity firsthand.
In fact, it was all she could remember.
"You bet your ass I will," she said almost before he had finished his sentence. "If I thought there was anything I could have done-" She stopped, looking awful, and got up, sighing as she opened the fridge and momentarily distracted herself by her awe at how well Trask made sure his people were taken care of. Opening her own soda, she sat down again.
"I'm sorry I couldn't help those people. I wonder ... if He and I were in the same room, if his power to control them would override mine, or mine his, or ... what."
"But I guess we had better find out, huh?" She gestured her soda at him before taking a drink.
"Cheers."
For the most part the teams that did the work for Bolivar Trask had few family connections. Life was easier that way. As was death.
"Ident card please," the armed guard at the facility entrance said in a flat tone.
Largo pulled the slightly dog-eared card from his pocket and waved it at the soldier who paused to thoroughly check the details. A second later he nodded to another guard in a control booth who lifted the barrier and dropped the tire spikes.
"Move along," the identity checker said in the same flat tone of voice. With a double bump of wheels, the truck rolled into the research facility imaginatively titled 'Zeta Site'.
"It isn't exactly the most welcoming place," Simmons commented, "but it's comfortable enough, and at least it isn't far to come to work in the morning."
The truck stopped and Daniels and Largo jumped out, stretching and groaning as they did about being cooped up for so many hours. Seconds later the rear doors were thrown open.
"Get some of the engineers to come down and start bringing the equipment in," Simmons said, "I will show our guest around a bit."
They were in an underground parking facility, not unlike the one they had been in at the hospital. This one however had armoured shutters over the entry doors and a number of warning signs detailing exactly how much trouble employees would be in should they attempt to remove anything from the premises.
Simmons gave the dead girl a faint half smile, "we don't get out much," he said, glancing at one of the signs about correct levels of security clearance.
Perhaps to his surprise, Moonbeam looked more amused than anything as she read the sign. "No doubt," she quipped, and followed him along.
"So you all live on site then. You're telling me there's a draw big enough for you to sacrifice a personal life for this?" She looked at him, then realized she was asking Simmons to shit talk in his place of employment. Wincing, she pushed hair out of her eyes. Still brilliantly coloured red eyes, at that. "Sorry."
Simmons shrugged as he walked toward one of the exits, Largo was already moving off in a different direction while Daniels and Kurshaw trailed behind them. "It's good work," he said, "we're helping to defend the country, you can't put a price on that. Besides," he looked down at himself depreciatingly, "most of us arn't exactly army material."
"As for a personal life," he looked over his shoulder at his fellow scientists, "most of us don't have family and we're not exactly social butterflies." The closest thing Simmons had to a hobby was an impressive collection of mech-related anime.
"Of course they pay isn't bad either," Daniels chipped in, at last willing to speak to the dead girl, if not exactly directly, "and the accomodation is a hell of a lot better than any I'd likely find nearby."
"It sure does beat having to find a condo," Simmons agreed with a grin.
They reached the heavy looking, steel banded door and stopped. Simmons pulled out his own ident card that he kept on a chain around his neck 'or I'd lose it faster than you could blink' and swiped it through the reader.
"Simmons, Brent," the reader chirped in a tinny, pre-recorded voice.
"And guest," he added.
There was a click of magnetic bolts and the door swung open.
Moon watched the whole thing, prideless fascination on her face as the door opened. "Jeezus," she murmured, and followed Brent through the door.
It occurred to her she really *was* with government types, and that the former her might not have liked it one bit. The new her thought all the security was kind of comforting. No one could get at her here. Could he?
She watched Brent for a moment before speaking again. "No one's… died here, have they?" She smirked. "Not that you could tell me, I know, but… if you can say for sure no, it might be…" Moon looked around, amused. "Peaceful."
Simmons looked thoughtful as they entered the cool, white corridor beyond. "I don't think anybody has ever died, at least not at this site anyway," he said, "there are other sites that are based on old facilities where, shall we say, less savoury experiments used to occur."
He frowned, thinking mostly of some of the places where William Stryker had once performed tests on live subjects causing no small number of fatalities. That was in the past now however, the Bill of Mutant Rights protected people against such atrocities.
"There have been a few injuries during my tenure here, but nothing major. I imagine it should be quiet enough for you."
They passed several similar steel banded doors before coming to a stair-well that spiralled both up and down. Simmons began to ascend.
"Don't worry about getting lost," he said conversationally, "the building layout is fairly simple. The living quarters are on the top two floors, the engineering sections on the two below that, that's the ones we are passing through now, and the labs are all everything under that."
Everything was cool, clean and paneled in white. The lighting seemed to come from a pale blue strip that ran down the centre of every corridor and up the walls of the stair-well. It washed the facility with the sort of sterility that made even the air feel clean.
"I'll get you an ident card later so you can wander a little."
"Are you sure it's going to be okay for me to wander? I wouldn't want anyone-" Daniels? "-thinking it was Return of The Living Dead or anything." What was she talking about? She frowned. "That's a movie, isn't it." Intrigued by that snippet of memory, she was quiet for another bit.
"So um ... where do you think I'll stay?" She watched him as they went up the stairs. He sure was being nice. I guess that was the exchange for throwing herself at their mercy. But why? What was she even DOING here?
Oh yeah, that's right. She had nothing better to do.
Simmons shrugged, "it should be alright, I mean you won't be able to get into anywhere restricted and everybody already knows you're here so there shouldn't be any ... um ... incidents."
Three floors up and Simmons left the stair-well and entered another white and blue washed corridor. This one however was wider and lined with a different style of door. Each steel grey door had a name embossed in yellow on its front. Jackson, Jonas. Quinn, Daniel. Holt, Nathan. The list went on. Each door was also flanked by a push button intercom and a some sort of fold out flap marked 'mail only'.
About half way down the hall the group arrived at a door with no embossed name.
"And this would be you," he announced brightly. He thumbed the red key on the intercom and the door slid aside with a pneumatic hiss.
The room within was very different to the sterile corridor without.
Warm, plush, peach coloured carpet covered the floor from wall to wall and was dotted with clear glass-like furniture and slightly organic looking seating. The entire rear wall was covered by half-closed blinds that were currently alight in sunset orange as the sun edged behind the horizon outside.
Simmons shrugged, "better than finding a condo," he repeated his earlier words, "after you."
She raised her eyebrows a bit, and walked in, looking around. "Posh. Looks like they did their research on light spectrum, huh?" Moon smiled a bit and walked over to the blinds, peeking out.
She could do this. A space of her own? Even though he'd stated it before, it hadn't quite sunk in. Space to think, to be awake all night, alone if she wanted to be. Likely alone most of the time, she figured. Scientists weren't the social type.
Moon looked back at Simmons. "Hey ... thanks, by the way. I'm sure it's part of your job, but ... " she shrugged.
Daniels and Kurshaw carried on by but Simmons stepped in and the door swished shut behind him. "We're all pretty much down the hall, a push of the button is all it takes to check if anybody is home." He wandered around the room for a moment and wiped a speck of dust from the glass coffee table.
The bedroom and bathroom are through there," he said, pointing to a frosted glass wall punctuated with a door, "if you feel the need for a lay down or anything and I can pretty much garuntee that you will have access to more than three hundred channels of television but there will be nothing of interest to watch."
The room also contained a fairly standard looking personal computer. "Broadband internet access and Email, though I warn you the security is a tight as it gets so don't be too surprised if a few things get 'lost in transit'. The government firewall picks up on the strangest things."
He stopped was curcuit of the room and adjusted his glasses, "and yes, it is part of my job, but it's the first time I've ever been able to welcome somebody personally," he smiled softly, "and I'm looking forward to helping you understand what it is that has happened to you, even though that is my job too."
"I'll leave you to settle in now if you want, or I can show you around some more," he shrugged, "we've all got the rest of the day off for R and R," he said the letters with an artificially deep and militaristic accent, "courtesy of mister Bolivar Trask."
Moon smiled, chuckling. He could be downright charming when he wanted to be. “No sense in rushing. But can we sit down for a minute?” She took a seat herself in an armchair, running her hand over it just to check it out.
"I just had a few questions." She nodded a little.
Simmons nodded and sat down in one of the peculiar but perfectly comfortable chairs. "Of course, I have all evening," he said. "Just so long as you don't want to know where the emergency exit is. We've been here for years and we still havn't managed to find even one."
He gave her a smile that suggested that was as close to a joke as he was ever likely to get. It wasn't that he was humourless, more that his brand of humour tended to run to the somewhat high-brow.
Moon smirked, not minding his sense of humor at all. She had no idea what she found funny before, but she wasn’t exactly the silly type now.
"So ... you don't have a lot of family, I figure. From what you've said and all. So you’re not married?" She had other questions, too.
"What kind of scientist are you exactly?"
"Would you say you're 'friends' with anyone here?"
"Who's this Trask guy? Is he your boss?"
Simmons chuckled, "no, no family here and no, not married I uh, wasn't exactly the marrying sort," he looked down at his thin, nerdy frame with a depreciating smile. "Too much time in the library and not enough time socialising." He shrugged, "I have no real regrets though, we're all like family here."
He adjusted his glasses again.
"John Largo has been here almost as long as me, I suppose he is the best friend I have, though we don't exactly spend much time down at the bar knocking back beers." Simmons grinned, "we just found that we had physics and applied mechanics in common and thus began our relationship."
It wasn't often Brent Simmons had cause to talk about his life, it wasn't exactly rivetting stuff by normal standards. Most people didn't design giant mech suits for the government though either.
"And yes, Bolivar Trask, the Secretary for Homeland Defence is my boss. He is the guy who says where the money goes around here and what it gets spent on. Right now it's getting spent on SHIELD 'anti-mutant terrorism technology, for a better tomorrow'."
"I guess learning about your powers falls into that catagory, so I imagine he will be around some time in the next couple of days to meet you in person."
He paused a moment.
"That is, if you feel up to it."
She smiled a little self depreciatively herself. "You know, I'm unsure I should be telling the guy that pays my rent whether or not he can stop by to say hello." Moon chuckled.
"Anti mutant terrorism technology." She obviously thought about it for a moment, frowning a little. "Have they killed a lot of people or anything? I mean ... I wonder if there are more 'me's out there in the world. Or if I'm some kind of anomaly." Her eyes went distant for a while, as she considered it.
"Seems pretty fucking out of line if that guy just goes around killing people and using their bodies." It was the first expression of emotion about him specifically that she had shown. She made a face. "God that's so wrong."
It didn't mean he wasn't still in there, lingering. And for some reason her mind was void of any ill feeling on her own behalf. But what he'd done to the others… it made her sick. Moreso than she was already, anyway.
He grinned at her observatin about the rent, "I wouldn't worry too much," he replied, "Mr. Trask has had a full report of what happened, he knows what you have been through."
He paused again.
"Well, he has read a report about what you described as having gone through." He looked thoughtful for a second as if to check that his sentence actually made sense.
"Anyway, he won't trouble you until you feel you're ready. He can be pretty intense, actually he can be damn frightening at times, but he will always take care of his own and I guess that includes you now."
He stood and wandered over to the mini-fridge embedded in one of the panelled walls. Swinging open the door revealed a stock of soft drinks and beer cans. "Do you mind?" He asked plucking out a bottle of cola.
He returned to his seat and twisted open the lid with a hiss of escaping gas.
"We don't know how many they have killed, but in the last three years the incidents of mutant terrorism have escalated to the point where the regular law enforcement cannot cope."
He sighed and gulped some cola.
"The one at Baltimore, that one that came to the hospital, he has to be one of the worst. People know the faces of Magneto and Pyro because they are leaders, figureheads. There are mutants out there though, like him, with powers far more horrific."
"We're all here to try and stop them from harming any more people. I hope you will help us with that while we try to help you."
Moon still held onto that mildly horrified expression as she considered a legion of mutants with awful powers, inflicting their whim on innocent humans. She wasn't aware that in another life her reaction would have been entirely different- to assume that the majority of mutants were law abiding citizens no more harmful than any non-mutant. But Moon didn't know any different, and she'd seen the victimization of humanity firsthand.
In fact, it was all she could remember.
"You bet your ass I will," she said almost before he had finished his sentence. "If I thought there was anything I could have done-" She stopped, looking awful, and got up, sighing as she opened the fridge and momentarily distracted herself by her awe at how well Trask made sure his people were taken care of. Opening her own soda, she sat down again.
"I'm sorry I couldn't help those people. I wonder ... if He and I were in the same room, if his power to control them would override mine, or mine his, or ... what."
"But I guess we had better find out, huh?" She gestured her soda at him before taking a drink.
"Cheers."
