17925/Finders Keepers

Finders Keepers
Date of Scene:	13 May 2024
Location:	Science and Medical Lab
Synopsis:	Kitty, Doug, and Noriko disassemble some power armor, and show AJ, Patty, and other students how an investigation works. Some information is found out about how the weapon systems are being distributed.
Cast of Characters:	Kitty Pryde, Allen-James, Douglas Ramsey, Patty Sloan, Noriko Ashida
Tinyplot:	All in the Messaging

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Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde serves as a part-time guidance counselor at the school, with a not-quite full-time job at Stark Industries. Though the ability to work from home - more actually, the X-men's base - means she's around the school more than her job might otherwise allow.

It also means she can help out with other educational opportunities. In this case, she's put out a notice on the school board that she'll be conducting an investigation of some recovered street weaponry. Any students or faculty who would like to watch or assist are welcome.

And at the appointed time, Kitty meets up with anyone who has volunteered, and doesn't otherwise have access to the X-men's base to bring them down. Now she's just arriving in the room. The weapon is set out on a work bench with a note as to its origin and to please not to touch it.

Allen-James has posed:
    Allen-James has volunteered to assist, curious about the weaponry himself. He's one of several students, who follow Kitty down into the X base, though most of them are there to get to see the cool toys that the X folks get to play with.

    AJ was at the bank that got attacked, and suspects that this 'elemental weaponry' may be related, so he's come along, following the counselor down into the basement.
    He's wearing his hoodie, and he has his hands stuffed into the front pocket, as he wanders over to look at the suit of sleek looking armor that is laid out on the table. The glowing tubes, previously golden and crackling, and pale blue and swirling, now lie dormant, whatever power source was built into the back of the suit has gone out, no longer powering the suit of armor. Buttons and dials and other suc h controls look built into the suit at various spots. The hands, especially, have several on them, and there are a lot of what can only be described as 'jet nozzles' on the arms and legs of the armor.

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
    A moment later, and Doug arrives. He's fairly nondescript - except for the weird black and gold right arm; and he has a toolset with him. Otherwise, he just looks like... some guy. He adjusts his glasses, and clears his throat, before he gives Allen-James a brief wave. "Hello." He turns to look at the suit, and rubs his chin. "Uh-huh, uh-huh... flashy." A moment's appraisal, and then he says, "Well, I'm no Forge, but I'll do what I can."
    He sets his toolset down and opens it, taking out a number of electrician's tools, some pliers, a screwdriver set, and some other, more specialized items. All the tools are insulated, and he takes a moment to put on a grounding bracelet.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde makes sure all of the students make it in. "Tommy, why don't you stand behind Melanie since she can't see over you as easily," she says. The tall, thin mutant student with green skin and who has jumps like a frog on steroids nods and moves over behind the girl.

Doug is given a bright smile by Kitty as he comes on. "Ah good, we have help," she says warmly to one of her her school best friends. "Everyone knows Doug already," she confirms, before turning to the armor.

"So there were four men, equipped with various versions of these. This one allowed him to fly and to shoot electricity. Another had one that generated fire, and another frost. The final one could move rock or concrete like Julio. So more than just simple expulsion of fire or electric blasts," Kitty says.

She walks around to the far side of the table. "I phased the man wearing this one out of it and tossed him to the ground. And turned it off after. I was there looking for these guys to make sure none of the technology was stolen or derived from Stark. Favor for the CEO who doesn't mind me missing work to go into space now and then. Which, pretty sure it's not related," she says.

"So now, we want to figure out where it's coming from, and put a stop to them arming more criminals. These guys were not high end. They were holding up club goers in a line outside the door. So could be they stole it, or were given it to test," Kitty adds. "Or, I don't know. Some eccentric making it and not caring where it ends up? There's a story here, that's for sure."

Allen-James has posed:
    Allen-James shifts back from the suit, as someone who clearly has an idea of what they're doing comes in, and starts unpacking a toolbox. AJ retreats to the group of students. "I saw something similar on the bank robbers a couple weeks ago. Though, they were all lightning themed. For one of them, it was clearly enhancing his physical strength somehow, another was shooting lightning from a gun, and a third had all these bombs and traps." he explains. "This looks... much more... finished than those did though. The lines aren't just run willy nilly, and are part of the armor now." he observes.

    And that's true. The armor looks sleek, fairly polished, a definite 'finished product' sort of feel to it. The plates are attached with a specialty torx bolt, to make it a little harder to get into it, but it's easy enough if you have the tools.

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
    "Well, it's not alien tech." Doug says, as he gets out the right kind of screwdriver, "More like Apple Store tech." He sets to work, unscrewing the torx bolts to get up the plates, after producing the right kind of screwdriver to work them.
    "Could just be a disgruntled inventor, who was annoyed he couldn't make it at Stark or Kord or Lexcorp. Well, maybe not Lexcorp. But there's no manifesto or anything going with these... hm." He sticks his tongue out of the corner of his mouth as he sets to work. "Well, we'll know more when we get these plates up."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
"Or," Kitty replies to Doug, "Someone who wants to sell to someone like Lexcorp or Stark. Or Hammer. Or AIM. Once they get it working." She moves over to watch Doug for a moment, but fine with him starting on the disassembly as she instead turns her attention to Allen-James and what he was saying.

"Interesting, so you saw something like it, but other variations?" she confirms. She goes over and grabs a laptop from a counter. "When was it, and what bank?" she asks as she is already typing. "I'll pull up their security footage and we can take a look and try to confirm anything else.

She hits return and a few of the monitors around the edges of the room up by the ceiling light up showing different segments of video of the fight Kitty was in. The cameras often seem to zoom in on the technology rather than the fight. There's someone who fights like Spider-Man but in a different costume (Miguel O'Hara) as well as well as Dagger, and Cyblade, shown in the videos.

Patty Sloan has posed:
Patty steps in a little late but no worse for wear. She got confused since she is not down here so often. She actually wound up in the danger room for a few moments before she got into the Medical lab. "Sorry I'm late. What's going on again?" She asks as she stretches her wings and looks around. She recognizes a few of the people here. Among them being Kitty, Doug, AJ, and of course she recognizes Hambone who happens to be here for some reason.

Patty smiles and leans against the wall. Her outfit today is an Xavier's school top that the back has been cut open on to allow her wings to move freely. She is also wearing a pair of black shorts and her pink and white sneakers.

Allen-James has posed:
    Under the panels, everything is ruggedized tech. Servo motors are connected with tight, professionally bundled wires to circuit boards and driver circuits hidden in the armor's bulk. Of course, when the panel comes off, there is a definite scent of burnt circuitry. Someone fried this remotely at some point between the robbery, and now. Of course, slightly out of place is the fact that there's a QR code pasted beside the circuit board... Doug can probably parse it in his head, it goes to a website on the darkweb...

    "Uhm. Three weeks ago, I was in town buying some clothes and stuff. Down in the SoHO area. First National I think? Uh.. Can you just.. pull security footage from banks?" he asks, curious about the capabilities of these folks that he's moved in with and is being trained by.

    The security footage shows three people breaking into the bank by drilling up from the sewer system. A woman with lightning bombs blows the vault door off the hinges, then a LARGE man with a backpack, gloves, boots, and helmet, rips it off the hinges. There's a fight with Domino, and the Shadow, and AJ gets spotted briefly, outside, nearly getting knocked down by an explosion,a nd using a shield to stop the blast wave. The goons go down pretty easily though, much like the more recent set.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko appears in the lab.  She's no stranger to having to tinker with her gauntlets, keep the screw tight sorta thing, but she's here to help as a staff member to help in case extra levels of containment are required.  With her arrival is a little gust of wind that hits those around her, but she says nothing, and instead watches the video as if she was here all along.  Her gaze drifts to the tech though, eyes scanning and senses feeling for any kind of a unique power signature, maybe even just a CMOS battery's worth of charge.  Not that it would tell her anything, but the video is taking so long to play out for the speedster, she has to occupy herself with something.

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
    "Solid design. Everything's neatly made." Doug murmurs, as he continues to take the armor apart. "Good soldering. Remote killswitch." He tilts his head as he looks at the QR code, and then says, "Ah-ha." He grabs his phone. "I'm going to check it out. They'd have to be world-class to even begin to threaten the security on my devices-" He looks over at Kitty. "I think whoever built this might be a crime tech entrepreneur. Wonder if they told the guys they're selling to about the killswitch though. As far as I can tell all this does is fry the gear - but it could just as easily fry the wearer." He scans the QR code with his phone.

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde looks up from the computer now and then, especially as Doug is giving commentary about the workmanship and design. "I was going to say, it was powered up still in the alley. I found the power stud, there on the right side, and powered it off. So if it's dead, yes that makes sense. Must have killed it before we got it down into the base."

She knows Doug will have every precaution before going to the QR. They are used to dealing with Sentinel technology in here, so have all manner of firewalls and air gaps for such moments.

She gets around to answering Allen-James then. "Not just, pull it up. We have to get into their systems first," she says. She hums to herself as she hacks the bank. This isn't a bank that they've hacked before, but then between Doug and Kitty and Henry McCoy they have a lot of programs to help penetrates systems like this. Nor is it the first bank by far they've gotten into.

She shakes her head. "I should tell them to update their logm version," she comments, probably some comment about the exploit she used to get in. "Ok, video downloading." She puts it up on a screen and starts playing through it so they can watch the equipment being used there. A few times she pauses, zooms in for a snapshot, then continues it.

Patty Sloan has posed:
Patty blinks a few times. "Is there anything I can do to help?" She asks curiously. She looks around at the other students present and can't help but ask, "No one else wants to help out? I totally do! It would be beneficial to both get involved and to help resolve this situation." She smiles trying to get people behind her.

She turns her attention to Kitty. "Seriously, I can drive and stuff it that helps." She tries to give some ways she can help.

Allen-James has posed:
    On the other end of the QR cde there is.... A maintenance manual. As in, pictures and troubleshooting directions and test points and voltages. There's a section for 'routine maintenance', showing the spots on the armor that you need to lube up, how to tune the wind turbines for a new user, etc and so forth. Everything you'd need to know if you, say, had a legitimate reason to be poking around the innards of a very high tech piece of equipment. The file is hosted on a darkweb file server that is hosted in Finland, randomly, and is home to all sorts of file uploads and downloads from anonymous users.

    The equipment in the video is a different theme, different level of refinement. Aside from the woman with the explosives, both the men are wearing large, stylized backpacks for a power source, where the armor's power source, fused though it is, is sleekly built into the back of the machine. The stuff at the bank does share some stylistic choices though, like the clear tubes that the lightning runs down, and the knobs and dials all look like the same design.

    "I mean, that's what I've been training for." Allen-James answers Patty. "I was at the bank robbery, and watched a couple of heroes take these guys down. They were... well... I'm certainly not ready to fight on that level yet. I lack any real offense, my shields aren't strong enough, I don't have a good way to get close to anyone who is attacking at range.." AJ lists off all the reasons he is not ready to fight with people equipped with Super weapons.

    The suit is dead dead dead, nuked by the kill switch, which fused its power pack, and fried many of the circuits, and even overloaded some of the servos and such that helped the suit move. The circuitry, what isn't fried, is well made, and looks mass produced, of some sort, a real circuit board, made by a chinese company for pennies, and then resold as a 'programmable servo controller', for instance. It's all made with stuff that you could find online, except for the fused up power supply that provides whatever special Woo this thing was using to let a man fly.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"It usually takes more than one person to take someone down like that," says the speedster.  It's a generous take, for those who know the sometimes cynical young woman.  "Seems like it might be better to get the designer off the street...or find out where he gets his powerpacks," she says with a hint of thirsty curiosity.

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
"...Not what I was expecting." Doug says, as he scans the schematics. "Unusually high quality customer service for someone selling high-tech gear to criminals." He quirks his mouth. "Got to be some kind of clue as to who built it though - every operation like this needs a physical front, or a salesman-"

He taps his chin, and then turns back to the armor. "Some kind of maker's mark. Every engineer like this has a tell, a way they sign off on their work. Stark likes art deco. Kord likes a cartoony friendly aesthetic. Lexcorp is all cool colors and hard lines. Doomtech is steel and rivets..."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde replies to Patty, "Well at this point we're just investigating. We usually ease new students into use of their powers, so we'll have to see what turns up. But watching how we go about it and learning is definitely something you can do that's beneficial right now."

A gestures is given to Noriko as she adds the comment about taking such people down. 'And Allen-James, you will get there. Just give it time and keep training. There are people who have found out my power and thought it didn't have much it could do besides the obvious. But a sharp and creative mind can turn things to your advantage."

She gets through the video of the bank, saying, "Well that's helpful to see how far they've come along. We can analyze these further for other things we might pick up." She pauses the video on a good spot and then turns back. "Take your forcefield, and this guy," she says, gesturing to the captured armor pack. "I don't know the full capabilities of your forcefields yet. But imagine if you made one and could expand it at weak points on the armor, places like the straps that hold it in place, and he might fall out as readily as he did when I phased him. Or what if you put forcefields over his control studs, preventing him from being able to control anything else about the armor. Or made a forcefield to bump it into the power switch?" She grins over at the young man, but who really is about her own age. "You'll get creative, but we'll do it in the Danger Room at first, where it's safe for you to practice and try new things."

Patty Sloan has posed:
"I still need to get in there and actually test my own abilities. I just have been using them where I think I should but for now its a real challenge." Patty smiles. "Who knows, maybe we can team up and annoy a teacher in the Danger Room. Whatcha think AJ?" She smiles with a mischievous grin. Turns out she may in fact be starting to fit in around here.

Allen-James has posed:
    "Is glowing tubes a signature? Because that's one thing that all the weapons in the videos have in common." Tall and Skinny points out from the crowd of students.

     The backpack look vs the armor is more than a step forward. The ice gun vs the lightning pistol seem thematically the same, but this armor is different than the gear at the bank as if it was made... by someone else. The lightning gloves and boots look similar to the earth manipulator's gear. It's like there's multiple designers, or maybe a single guy using a broadly different set of ideas. The armor on this guy and the fire blasting armor seem similar in design, though this armor is sleeker than the fire armor, and uses two elements.

    "Well, to put forcefields anywhere, I'd have to get close, and touch them." AJ points out one of the limitations of his power. "I 'paint' them. So I've been working on ways to get close. I'm also hoping to get back into swordsmanship. Maybe go down to Happy Harbor Community college. I know it's a ways away, but they're running a sword class this summer apparently." he says with a chuckle. "Or just wait and see who Bishop turns up, he said he was going to look for someone to help me train once I was in better physical shape, so I've been working out a lot in my spare time. He chuckles, and mmmms, "I think they'd kick our butt, Patty." He answers with a smirk, "But it could be fun to try."

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"You can always have someone else get you in close and fast," Noriko chimes in, lifting one of her gauntlets from where it was folded across her chest.  "That's a lot easier than working out," she says with a smirk.  "Sometimes it's about enhancing your toolbox and practicing with that."  Noriko, is obviously, not strictly talking about tools and toolboxes.  "Tag teaming can be fun."  Noriko squints at her own usage of the term as a verb.  Suddenly she reappears with the what appears to be the last sip of a soda.  She tosses the can into a bin.

"When am I getting one of these suits?" Noriko asks 'the class' in jest.

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
    Doug whistles, slowly. "I think there may be more than one engineer collaborating on this. There's some very different stylistic signatures involved in some of this stuff." He puts his finger over his mouth. "What you need to do is talk to one of the guys that was wearing this stuff. Find out how they got it. Once you do that, you can find the manufacturer. As it is, while they're very *conscientious* I can only tell so much by taking this apart. Except that it's advanced--"
    "And based on it having a tech manual, I don't think it's bespoke. Someone might be planning on making a franchise out of this."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
As Allen-James talks of learning swordplay, Kitty offers, "Kurt is very good. Tends towards rapiers and cutlasses and other swords with pirate affectations. Logan or I could help with various Asian blades. Katanas and sais and the like," she offers.

After a moment thought she amends. "I mean Logan can probably teach you anything including chipped flint weapons from the Neanderthals. But he's the one who taught me the others so I know he knows those."

She moves over nearer to watch how Doug is doing with the actual hardware analysis. "Any components that look like they might be purchased that we can trace? Or any kind of control chips or onboard memory that might still be accessible?" she asks. "I had to save a few people from a wave of concrete so wasn't able to pursue them. That and getting the armor to assure Pepper it's not connected to Stark in any fashion was the mission goal."

Her head swivels over to Noriko. "Well, we're trying to stop them proliferating, not give them out," she says with a grin. "This was used to try to rob some people waiting in line for a club. The Russian Room. Which, I hear, has fantastic margaritas."

Ok, inside joke, but Kitty enjoyed saying it just the same.

Patty Sloan has posed:
"I need to learn some hand to hand combat myself and I need to practice with guns more. I dunno who to talk to about hand to hand combat. I mean I'm sure anyone could teach me that." Patty comments as she leans against a wall feeling kinda cool. Her phone goes off. "Oh! Sorry! I didn't know my phone's ringer was on. She quickly ducks outside of the room to answer.

After a few minutes she returns with the phone off and a rather shocked look on her face. She doesn't say anything. She just stands there looking more than a little frustrated. "I need to drive home." She comments softly before turning towards the door.

Allen-James has posed:
    Really, almost all the bits are mass produced, purchased from China. But they're so ubiquitous, you could probably spend weeks tracking down the dozens of companies who purchased them.

    Of course, there may be an easier way. While the darkweb is moderately secure, and whoever posted the manual took Steps, little could stop Doug from say, seeing if the person who uploaded the manual uploaded or read from other darkweb sites after being logged into the upload site, if he were in a hacking mood.

    AJ nods to Noriko's advice. "I could, assuming I'm with folks I know, but I think I should work out regardless. Bishop has told me he won't move on to the intensive training until I'm at least normal weight for my size." he chuckles wryly.

    Kitty gets another nod, and an mmmm. "I've got a background in fencing, and some youth HEMA, when I was younger." he says, as if anyone knows what HEMA is. "I honestly kinda miss it. Katana is pretty like Longsword I hear."

    Patty, though, gets a phone call, and he looks up. "Is everything ok Patty?" he asks.

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
    Well, there's only so much you can do from a cell phone, though if you're Doug that's more than most! He furrows his brow and says "Sorry I'm just taking a look at this person's digital fingerprints. If they're good, they'll have cleaned up after themselves. But engineers aren't computer hackers." He sticks his tongue out of the corner of his mouth again, as he begins taking a look at the document to see what proverbial greasy fingerprints got left on it.
    "If you wanted to practice swordplay, our friend Illyana's the one to ask, but... uh." Doug pauses, momentarily, before he goes back to skimming codes. "She tends to break bones."

Kitty Pryde has posed:
Kitty Pryde slides the laptop she as on over to Doug. "Here, already have a window open to Hack-u-tron," she tells him. Which is the silly nickname she came up with for one of their VMs on which they did some of their hacking back in their school days. And the name that she still uses for a repository of their hacking algorithms and helper programs they've written.

Kitty nods to Patty then. "Definitely schedule some time for the Danger Room."

"I'll start running down these parts," she says, looking over the components in the vest. "Though I'm going to hazard a guess that a lot of it is pretty common." She pokes one of the tubes. "But maybe we'll get lucky on a rare component or something." She goes over to a desktop terminal to start her work on it. "Not sure we have more hardware analysis to do. A lot of cases are like this. A little information and then a lot of legwork trying to make something of it," she tells the students. "Anyone who wants to hang around can, otherwise, feel free to head back up and get ready for dinner."

Patty Sloan has posed:
Patty looks at AJ and frowns, "My moms' house was vandalized. Graffitied up with anti-mutant stuff and everything because of me. My moms' aren't mutants. I think I know who did it. I think I'm going to have to deal with this problem." She frowns.

Patty shakes her head. She's clearly upset and the air around her is whipping around like a micro tornado minus the intense speed. "I think it was my old bully. They would be the only ones in town who knew I was a mutant and has a problem with me. Largely because I accidentally blasted her into a DVD Display case at a Walco."

Allen-James has posed:
    It takes work, but Doug finds... whoever posted it, did it from a coffee shop's wifi in the bronx about a month ago, and also checked on a forum on the darkweb, which is a place where weapon dealers chat and swap sources. The post they made there looks Sus as hell, but clearly someone took them up on it.

    :::Win free weapons for reviews! Post a picture of you, holding your least favorite gun, and win a chance to field test BRAND NEW TECHNOLOGY, never before seen!::: The particulars are, that once you post, if you 'win the raffle', and are in New York, they send an IM to you, containing a code that decrypts to a location where you can pick up a 'New, High Tech Weapon System!'. Participants are warned that if they don't post a review within 48 hours, the device will be disabled remotely, and that they will be blacklisted from further promotions. The thread is full of entrants, and reviewers... If you want to track down the criminals, the thread is great, though most of them are hiding their faces. The IMs and dead drops make it significantly harder to track down the suppliers.

    "Oh, that's... That sucks. If you need... you know.. help with anything.." Allen-James offers, unsure of what help he could be. This isn't the sort of thing you can go and 'punch it all better' after all.