10166/Exile From Stasiland

Exile From Stasiland
Date of Scene:	03 March 2022
Location:	Berlin, Germany
Synopsis:	No description
Cast of Characters:	Michael Erickson, Jane Foster, Jessica Drew, Roy Harper

---

Michael Erickson has posed:
    There's a man out of time in a hospital bed in the middle of Berlin.

    In the ultramodern corridors of Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin, one of the finest hospitals in the city, strapped to a gurney and watched over by local agents of SHIELD, a confused young man sweats out the events of the last twenty-four hours as if just unearthed from a time capsule. His shaven scalp, neck and wrist bristle with electrodes; he wears not a hospital gown but the gray uniform of a member of the East German state security service, the rightly feared Stasi. He stares skyward, breathing still as if he'd just run a marathon. As he has since he manifested in a blaze of blue light ten meters from where his assigned portion of the Wall once ran through the heart of the city.

    He is a man out of time, certainly. But right now, he looks more like a man nearly out of breath.

    Agent Goldenbaum awaits the agents in the corridor of the hospital, studious and severe. Her blonde hair is cropped back similarly to the man in the secure room, her black pantsuit crisp and her eyes discs of hammered gray steel as they look down the corridor, waiting for the team.

Jane Foster has posed:
"When dealing with spatial anomalies, I rather insist on attending." The important part is Jane Foster declares that with a smile somewhere stateside. Other people carry go bags with ICERs, live ammunition, extra passports. Only astrophysicists come armed to hunt rifts in the fabric of the universe. They pulled her into SHIELD because of it, now they can deal with the expertise. Flashing a badge establishes her authority and right on that front, in lieu of the cavalry rushing in to cofnront the Stasi.

Then on to the city of patchwork treaties and cloak-and-dagger spycraft in another age. It's positively benign by modern standards. The brunette wears her hair in a French braid, paired with a smart leather coat to help her blend in as a contemporary Berliner. No, not the doughnut. She carries her gear in a smart rucksack, piles of little sensors and more elaborate arrays designed to barely stand out in an office or home setting.

"Hello, ma'am," she announces herself at the head of a modest American coalition. "Doctor Jane Foster." Why'd they send /her/?

Agent Goldenbaum will probably place her German accent precisely to the eastern intonations, hints of Prussian there, exactly rooted around Berlin's wider periphery. Probably for that reason.

Jessica Drew has posed:
Indistinguishable from the average well-dressed Berliner in a well-cut steel grey wool jacket and pants over a black turtleneck, Drew follows in the other agents' wake down the hospital corridor. The ICER she carries holstered under her arm makes a barely visible bulge.

Placing herself against the wall, she nods to the agent on duty then scans the corridor before focusing on the young man in distress on the gurney.

They had received a briefing difficult to give credence to on the flight in. Glad for the scientist's presence, Jess glances at Jane, one eyebrow raised in question.

Roy Harper has posed:
By SHIELD standards, Arsenal is the most ostentatiously dressed of the small American delegation. He wears his dark-maroon-and-black armor, mask, and hood. Affixed to the young man's back are two quivers and a very advanced compound bow. What's a street vigilante from Gotham doing here hanging out with SHIELD agents?

Whatever the reasons, Arsenal's posture, body language, and movements all speak to deference to the other members in the group. He stays to the back, is alert without being overly obvious about it, and remains silent and observant. His gaze does shift to the man secured to the gurney for a moment as his eye narrow.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    And let us not forget Jane's scientific acumen - German-speaking or not, she would be a perfect choice. Agent Goldenbaum quirks a brow as Jane offers a greeting in German; she nods to the lead agent, and then looks between the other two agents as well. "Agent Erika Goldenbaum. Good evening to you." She seems to recognize Jane, as well as Jessica - superintelligent and superpowered operatives do tend to get memorized by those in the field. Roy, being the new guy, gets a squint from the formidable woman before his face is filed away. And his armor. And his equipment. Then she opens the door to the room and allows them access to the interior.

    "We found him not far from Freidrichstrasse," she explains, stepping inside and looking at the contained fellow - he does not look to see who enters, keeping his eyes fixed heavenward. "Near where Checkpoint Charlie once stood. We're still waiting for a visual confirmation of his identity, but his identification documents all seemed in order. For 1987, at least."

    She eyes Roy again, squinting a bit more before looking back to Jane. "Are you expecting trouble?"

Jane Foster has posed:
"Pleasure to make your acquaintance. How is he doing?" At least no file identifies Jane as possessing any super-powered abilities, thankfully. Neither do they explain proficiency in German for anyone tracking achievements, but the joys of Duolingo can achieve remarkable things. She watches Roy from the corner of her eye, the recruit arguably under her watch as much as Jess', though leaving the latter to run interference isn't in her wheelhouse. "Was he attempting to cross Checkpoint Charlie or was he staying where he was stationed? Could you confirm his name or his rank?"

Never mind Checkpoint Charlie is a major tourist attraction in a somewhat seedy corner of the city, she directs her question at Agent Goldenbaum. She shifts into English for benefit of the others, though not for long.

The patient will be her foremost concern, swept over by a look as much calculating as professional. Gear may have to wait as she sets her bag down within arm's reach, just by her feet. <<Hello, sir.>> That's proper German there, Berliner standard, acknowledging the fellow who might not want to acknowledge them. <<I hope not to intrude much on you.>>

Jessica Drew has posed:
Behind the bland mask she maintains, Jessica wonders what constitutes trouble for the agents stationed in Berlin. Time travel, if this is, in fact, a case of time displacement, rates high in her vernacular. The agent makes no effort to display her prowess in German, like a lot of her skills her original trainers required, so she does not own them with the pride of having acquired them through a love of the culture.

Nothing in this situation smells right to her, leaving her unaccountably edgy. It has nothing to do with the unknown element of a new agent on the assignment, one she is also tasked with keeping an eye on.

Jess blandly waits for the man to react to Jane's polite greeting, watching him for micro-reactions.

Roy Harper has posed:
Arsenal enters the room as unobtrusively as one can while wearing a bow and two quivers on one's back. He remains against a wall and out of the way, but he wants to see what the situation is. He's not a SHIELD agent yet, but he knows trouble when he sees it. This ain't Arsenal's first rodeo.

His gaze switches from the man on the gurney to Agent Goldenbaum. "Are there agents in place watching where he was found? In case there is a repeat performance, such as a portal or some kind?"

Michael Erickson has posed:
    "We have instruments set up," Goldenbaum agrees, nodding to Roy as he speaks. Then, to the greater group, she shakes her head. "His brain activity is off the scale - we don't know /what/ has happened to him, other than the fact he disappeared in 1987 and returned last night in a flash of light. Our instruments don't really detect anything out of the ordinary, but we're not equipped for cases such as these."

    As Jane speaks to the man, he blinks - once - and his eyes snap over to the woman as she addresses him in his native German. << One...two...five...seven...beta...beta...zed...seven... >> Another blink, and he stares at Jane, now, his dark eyes sharpening just for the moment. << Wings... >> This he manages, and is about to speak again - but then falls silent, collapsing onto the bed and his eyes snapping shut in a manner that almost seems mechanical. For just a moment, Jessica would see the oddest thing in his face: recognition. And then, like his strings were cut, consciousness left him.

    And that's when the power goes out.

Jane Foster has posed:
Translation of numbers comes pretty easily for those in need, murmured softly. "A code?" she asides, mouthing to Jessica in hopes the woman can pick up on the details. Not that Roy cannot, but playing telephone between agents might be the easier task than distracting the poor damaged man displaced out of time. She digs one of the sensors from her coat pocket, slipping to the underside of a table -- or the bed, if there is no other option. All that matters is proximity and the ability for it to detect near anything.

She waits for the sensor to come alive along normal spectra and seeking those anomalies that could foretell space being burnt, warped, twisted. Not perfect, of course, but it provides at least a suitable benchmark for what might have happened or be happening. Or not.

Then, her eyes shift as she breathes out in a subtle hiss. "Status update?" Waiting on the lights to come up is pointless. She slips back a few steps, trying not to bump into anyone, using her phone for light if needed.

Jessica Drew has posed:
Jess's bland mask had slipped when she saw the look of surprised recognition on their subject's face when he focused on Jane. She answers the scientist's question with a bare nod affirming the possibility of a code.

A wordless exclamation escapes her when the room goes dark. Then, not waiting for the hospital generators to kick in, she reaches for her phone to illuminate the bed.

The last image in Jess's vision was the new man's face; she had glanced and nodded in his direction, acknowledging the aptness of his question regarding surveillance on where the supposed 'time traveler' was picked up.

While Jane continues her investigation, the mutant agent goes to the door, senses alert to someone using the darkness to cover their arrival.

"Agent Harper, cover the entrance while I keep station in the corridor."

Roy Harper has posed:
"On it," Arsenal says as his secret identity is publicly exposed. Suddenly the room flares with an uncomfortable amount of light. Arsenal took two small orbs off of his utility belt and clicked them. Each instantly comes alive with 3000 lumens of light. He rolls one into the corner of the room and rolls the other out into the hall. He already has his bow off his back and in one hand as he quickly but calmly departs the room to take up sentry in the corridor. He visually checks the status of any of the German agents who were on guard out there, as well as any civilians.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    The lights are out, swallowing all in darkness - and they remain out, at least for the moment. The bright beam of light from Jane's phone pierces the darkness, then Arsenal rolls miniature suns into the room and into the corridor. There, strapped down, remains the catatonic Stasi officer - but the room is empty, as is the corridor. Empty, and...different. The sleek, modern interior of the hospital is older now, beige walls and white tile, the instructions printed in German in different places and in different fonts. The bed is a tubular steel affair where it was plastic frame and studded with sensors. Somewhere on the floor, a woman's voice can be heard singing, a distant voice on the radio.

    "...The sun would set so high / Ring through my ears and sting my eyes / Your Spanish lullaby..." Someone's a Madonna fan. But aside from that? The place might as well be a tomb.

Jane Foster has posed:
'Wings.' That's something for the bewinged one of the lot to chew over later. Instead, Jane takes a moment to locate the German man's wrist or vein at his throat, whatever is more convenient. Supposing he happens to still be there, she takes his pulse to determine any fluctuations in his heartrate. The mental count becomes apparent in the moving of her lips. The phone can be stowed away. Breathing follows, those checks a field medic would make to ascertain if an accident victim was paralyzed on the cusp of damnation or worse.

"Thanks," she says over her shoulder to Roy, appreciative of the burst of light flooding the area. But the area isn't quite right as she stoops over the fellow to check his condition once and for all. "Something shifted. Be on your guard, this doesn't have the feel of a projection."

The weisse frau's version of bedside manner is exemplary for an enemy power, at least. More concerning could well be their whereabouts... squarely on the wrong side of the tracks. Road. "Let me check if he's stabilised, and then..." Her bag was right there. If unzipped, are her devices still within?

Jessica Drew has posed:
Spider tingles roll down Jessica's spine when she looks back at the bed, now a Communist-bloc version of hospital comfort from another era. The blackout covered the transition. Or is it a clever hallucination?

She steps sideways and runs a finger down the tile, which, fortunate for the patients, leaves no mark behind.

"Com check," she taps her ear. "I'm going down the hall to see what is going on. Harper stay in the room. Dr. Foster, did you see anything?

Gun unholstered but held down out of sight, she creeps down the hall on the trail of the radio blaring.

Roy Harper has posed:
Arsenal returns back into the room as instructed. He peers at the walls of the changed room, running one gloved finger along the surface. It's clear he's uneasy, but he keeps his emotions in check. "Is this real, doc?" he asks Jane. "Or is someone in our heads right now?"

Not even a little bit of a scientists but rather a tactician and a warrior, Arsenal moves to the most defensible part of the room without even really thinking about it. He sets one end of his bow on the floor and puts his hand over the top end, letting it rotate beneath his hand. Nervous energy. "It looks real," he adds.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    The man is alive, but cold, his skin smooth and unnatural as if made of wax. If the radio is blaring, it's doing so far, far away, audible somewhere else in the hospital. Jane's bag is full of tools, but they are, at least for the moment, inert. The after-ripple of...something...can be felt in the room, indescribable and unknowable, ebbing away.

    "...beautiful faces, no care in this world / Where a girl loves a boy and a boy...loves a girl..."

    As Jane attends to the patient and Arsenal stands guard, Jessica moves down the hallway; her hypersensitive ears travels the path of the music, senses that it's sounding from somewhere in the lower floors. Maybe audible through an open window. As she passes other rooms, they are empty of patients, the nurses's station empty, too - but the corridor leads down toward a pair of polished metal doors leading to the elevator.

Jane Foster has posed:
Something entirely off about their waxen, graven image sends the astrophysicist back a step. "Real enough to matter," Jane says, tone matter-of-fact. Her swivel to face Roy shows the serious lines settling over her face, falling into a far less cheerful animation than she showed before. She scoops up her bag and slings it over her shoulder, no point leaving good engineering that's hard to explain lying around. "La Isla Bonita?" Tapping her ear, she glances away from their patient and out to the door where Jess slipped away. "Not my favourite song by Madonna, but we can worry about hidden meanings later. The beautiful island, isn't it?"

If only things were so clear. She takes a deep breath and pulls herself together, then gestures. "Stay close. You see something hostile, follow your instincts, but let's avoid engagement as long as we can." Truer words never spoken in the wrong context! "I expect your archery skills and reflexes far outmatch mine." Vote of confidence? Maybe, though she works her way forward, tapping her coms to see if they work. "Proceeding after you. Let us know if you engage." This to Jess may never reach her, but that's at least a bargain they have to strike.

Jessica Drew has posed:
The earlier flush of adrenaline has left Jessica hyper-alert to the slightest alteration of sound in the area. Loathe to leave the others, she soundlessly paces to the elevator and experimentally presses the button, only half expecting the familiar ting of a working elevator.

Jess takes a startled step back when it pings, gun down, she steps back from the doors as the clang of cables and pulleys announces it grinding into motion.

Roy Harper has posed:
"Believe me, doc," Arsenal intones slowly and calmly and softly, "I'm in no hurry to engage something right now."

Peering around the room one final time, Roy falls in with Jane to head out after Jessica. "La Isla what-ita?" he asks curiously. "I have no idea what this song is." And, in fact, it was released 16 years before Roy was born.

He's no Batman, but he ain't too, too far from it. He moves utterly silently out into the hall, not even allowing a boot squeak on the floor or a loud exhalation to give him away. His bow is gripped in one hand at the ready. As taut a bowstring, his body is tight and ready for action.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    WE ARE ALL ANCIENTS. Except for Roy. Aparently. The sweet summer child between them follows Jane, through the trackless, hollow corridors of the hospital. There's no smell here; the expected antiseptic sting is not present, nor even the smll of ozone as they pass a flickering light fixture.

    The elevator opens, leaving Jess face to face with the image of the man in the bed - a copy perhaps, immobile, fixed in space, his hand reaching for the panel with a key in his hand when whatever force did its work on him. A keyhole waits nearby, set into the panel.

Jane Foster has posed:
For that matter, the song was released before Jane was, but a girl doesn't grow up without knowing how to sing a couple Material Girl songs. Madonna proves only mildly infectious, any earworm fully limited to singing a few verses in her mind. Several more drinks would be necessary to even vocalize that as a hum.

Jane tempers her footsteps not to produce much sound, though finding her way through the hospital relies on childhood memory as much as adult experience. Having a physician for a mother helps some. She gestures to Roy, checking over her shoulder now and then to make sure that he follows. He's quiet! The distant ding to the elevator convinces her to head in that direction, though anything jumping out of the halls or shadows is probably going to halt that if it comes to it. Chin up, she refuses to just backdown.

Jessica Drew has posed:
Spiders are ageless or so they would like you to believe and Jess ignores the music which seems so out of place in this so called hospital. Maybe once was a hospital, it no longer is functioning, at least on this floor.

The doors open. She is not immune to a moment of wide-eyed-what-the hell when she recognizes the face confronting her - identical to the immobile figure in a hospital bed back behind her.

The gun is quicker than thought, it pffts an Icer round into his shoulder; the neuro-toxins going straight to work. With mutant reflexes, she catches the key and then the man before either falls to the floor.

Roy Harper has posed:
From Jane's perspective there is probably barely a heartbeat between the sound of Jessica's weapon discharging and Arsenal bolting past her like lightning. By the time he arrives at the elevator there is a carbon-tipped arrow -- a killing arrow -- nocked in his bow. Seeing that no in-her-face threat exists for Jessica at this moment, Arsenal un-nocks the arrow and helps ease the man to the floor. Squatting down next to the body, Roy looks up at Jessica. "Is this the same dude from the room?" He shakes his head. "I don't like this. Somebody's fucking with us." With a slight scowl, he stands and peers around trying to suss out some sort of clue as to what is going on.

Michael Erickson has posed:
    The dart goes in - but he doesn't collapse as the dart /should/ work, instead simply falling over, like an upset mannequin. The key is jostled from his fingers as Jessica catches him, and her reflexes are laser-sharp as she snatches it up in her hand and Roy eases the frozen figure to the floor.

    A new song blares. "When I was a child, running in the night / Afraid of what might be / Hiding in the dark, hiding in the street / And of what was following me..." Kate Bush's voice floats up from the lower floors, beautiful and haunting.

Jessica Drew has posed:
Things take a bizarre turn when the man does not crumple under the effect of the ICER round. Key in hand, eyes riveted on the immobile figure, she answers the new agent "I don't know. I...what the hell," she murmurs in utter disbelief and pokes three stiff fingers into the man's ribs.

"If we can move him, let's deposit him in one of the vacant rooms. Okay? Then let's take a trip. You get his feet and I'll get the rest."

A quick glance down the hall assures her that Jane is still with them, over coms, <<"Do you see this, Doctor? He is stiff as a mannequin."

Roy Harper has posed:
Roy frowns slightly at having to move a stiff body. But he does as he is instructed and grabs the feet to help Jessica move the body into a vacant room. He quirks a slight grin as he quips, "If I get a Ph.D. do I get to stop lifting heavy stuff?"

He follows along with Jessica. Once the body is dealt with, he pulls his bow back out again.

Jane Foster has posed:
Yes, Jane is still with them, just opting to take a slightly slower approach as her eyes narrow, taking in the details around her. When another of their escapees presents himself with near duplication, she certainly checks him for signs of life. "Are they all copy-pasted? Someone is putting them all over. Not enough data for me to determine if they are cloned from one template or projections."

Her warm brown eyes narrow, and she moves out of the way for Roy and Jess to do the heavy lifting. How thoughtful they don't expect her to do it. "The muscle tone and stiffness would make me question if any of them ever existed at all. They aren't alive, not the way we are. Let's establish a code phrase in the event of separation. Our favourite piscine bar in the Big Apple is where we are going for lunch after this. You have doubts, ask where we are going."

That much said, she shifts her bag over her shoulder and glances down. "Music is strongest from this direction. I'm half-tempted not to follow orders and rappel out a window."

Jessica Drew has posed:
As they wrestle the man or the simulacrum out of the elevator Jessica pesters the others with questions, "Do we separate or stay together? Do you need to stay and perform tests, Doctor? If you do, I'd like someone to stay on point with you, just in case."

Once they get the 'subject' into a room onto a bed, Jess stares down at him for a moment before going back into the hall. Holding the key in the air, she suggests, "Want to take a trip with me?"

Roy Harper has posed:
Roy follows Jessica out into the hall, bow at the ready.

Jane Foster has posed:
"My ability to test him is limited for a lack of gear. Unless you want to case a room for supplies, we might be wasting our time," Jane murmurs, examining the fellow being slung between the other two. "Puncturing him to administer any medication could potentially injure the original, if there is one." Her reluctance to deliver injury is clear, perturbed at some distant way. Hippocratic oaths apply to astrophysicists in rare situations, those raised by the towering shadow of responsibility at least.

She glances to the key, and nods. "Something much more to my tastes. We can't rouse or question these. It sounds nicer than putting a chair through a window. It outside exists at all. Let's go." With the others, she intends to veer back to elevator.

Jessica Drew has posed:
Flourishing the key, Jessica steps into the elevator and waits for the others to join her. When they are all in, she slots the key into the lock. After a glance and a shrug to Roy and Jane, she turns the key and steps back, staring straight ahead with an apprehensive look, waiting for it to go into motion.

Roy Harper has posed:
Roy stands cautiously into the elevator. He's holding his bow up vertically, snug against his body. Bows in elevators. Not really all that practical. He glances to Jessica and to Jane to see how the more senior SHIELD members are reacting to this new stressor, attempting to a cue from them. He's really, really good at beating people up. But this time-travel, spooky stuff is outside of his wheelhouse. So he falls back on what he knows: calm assessment of his immediately environment.

Jane Foster has posed:
More often than not, elevators strictly mean conveyance. Point a to b, up and down, little more than that. Jane does not fear them quite the way they should, though tension scrawls a hard line down her spine on the prospects of a descent. Carrying a key to access places they should not be is disarmingly familiar -- and not something she can speak a word about. They might misread her as serious in the unexpected situation with few touchstones the agent can fallback on, like May always seems to be prepared for trouble or Peggy just bulls right through. Oh, to be impulsive!

"The buttons line up to the floors. Wherever this goes, I wouldn't expect that to be listed here. In other words, eyes open and fists up."