1360/SCIENCE! But it's a secret.

SCIENCE! But it's a secret.
Date of Scene:	25 April 2020
Location:	Suite 06: Triskelion
Synopsis:	Daniel invites Valeria Richards to assist R&D with a solution to the shadowy menace in Metropolis.
Cast of Characters:	Daniel Hastings, Valeria Richards, Bobbi Morse

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Daniel Hastings has posed:
Daniel had been cryptic the other day. He had a briefing. Was authorized to bring in 'experts'. So naturally, he called the smartest girl he knew. Now that other madness had died down, he made an appearance at the Tower and presented Val with a SHIELD visitor pass. Then it was off to.. huh.. it looked like an apartment of sorts. "Ma maison.. such as it is." He gestures about. He kept it neat anyway. No clothes laying about. Vacuumed. Of course, it didn't hurt that he only had a half dozen possessions to his name. "So.." But now he doesn't know what to say. "Ahh.. can I get you a drink?" Yes, host. Play host. He heads for the kitchenette. "Tea, juice, water.." He's not a big soda drinker. "Then I suppose I tuck into what's the big deal."

Valeria Richards has posed:
Valeria quirks a brow at the pass when he gives it to her, though there's a flash of a smile as well, anticipatory. "Honestly, the teleporting thing is //really// handy," she laughs as she steps into the apartment, not quite able to hide how she looks around. She's curious! Who can blame her?

"Water's fine, thanks," she answers, stopping short of going into any other rooms. Curiosity only goes so far, after all. "Were you texting me //during// a briefing?" she asks, humor in her voice. "That's brave."

Daniel Hastings has posed:
"Yes. Well. Fury wasn't giving it. A.. subject matter expert was." That apparently Daniel is not allowed to identify. Damnit. "And it was almost over. But." He goes about getting glasses for each of them and ice and water and.. passing it to her he leans on the island. "So. Don't know if you caught the news.. but Metropolis has a problem. Apparently some 'shadow' creature is running amok using some manner of sound based assault to mesmerize the populace then feed off of them. We've started to set up detectors to get samples of this keening in the interest of setting up counterwave generators but that's just a phase one. This entity seems to slink back from whence it came and whence isn't underground. Possibly extradimensional. And.. since I know your family happens to be.. subject matter experts.." He grins. "I was told we could bring in other experts to help." He gestures sweepingly to her. "So there it is. A possibly global threat presently assailing a major metropolitan center and growing. And a chance to nip it in the bud. Science time if ever there was." There's a waggle of his eyebrows and he sips his water.

Valeria Richards has posed:
"There's all sorts of crazy in the news. Did you know people are turning into dinosaurs and gorillas?" Valeria points out, taking the glass with a quick, grateful smile. As he explains, though, her gaze sharpens, mind already running through possible options.

"Conveniently, I've been experimenting with sound and sound barriers lately," she says slowly. "If they've got samples, I might be able to tweak the gauntlets I was working on to counter it while investigating."

Daniel Hastings has posed:
"Oh.. I caught that one too. Part of me is glad that I live in the subbasement of a secure military facility.. and you live on the seventy fifth floor of a secure.. scientific facility." Daniel laughs. "But that's handy. We do have samples.. not complete recordings yet though which is the problem. We also need to make earplugs with the ability to filter out the targetted frequency.. that's not the problem though. It's materials. We've a number of powered individuals and plastic doesn't tend to survive these kinds of fights. Vibranium won't work either because sound. So.." He shrugs. "Anyway.. much as I'd love to sit in and catch a movie.. care to head up to R&D?"

Valeria Richards has posed:
"Oh, well, there are options. I'd lean toward something in the silicon rubber family." Valeria starts to shift into manufacturing mode, almost completely forgetting about the part where she gets to visit SHIELD until he brings it back up again. "Oh! Right. Of course." She pauses, looking herself over, then reaching into her pocket for a hair tie. "Mind if I borrow your mirror for a minute? Just so they don't...you know."

Daniel Hastings has posed:
Apparently, Daniel doesn't you know.. but he nods anyway and leads her into his bedroom then gestures to the bathroom. He stays in the bedroom though since if she wants to freshen up then.. yes well. Hmm. He steps out of the bedroom, too. Ahem. "Just let me know if you need anything." It's a tidy bedroom. Except that there are a stack of books piled up by the night stand. Popular fiction, non fiction, science journals, it's.. actually quite the mess of reading material and no doubt part of a chaotic 'plan' to catch up on life. The bathroom, though, is clean and tidy with the usual male accoutrements of razor, aftershave and such; brush and comb included.

Valeria Richards has posed:
Valeria doesn't take long - it only takes a few moments to pull her hair into a tidy ponytail - before she's stepping back up, looking very much like she did just a moment ago, except that her hair is safely out of her face. And, after a moment, she shrugs out of her hoodie as well, making sure there aren't any wrinkles in her t-shirt. She looks a little less like she escaped from a couch somewhere.

"It's hard enough to convince most people I know what I'm talking about without looking more like a kid than I have to," she explains with a rueful smile, folding the hoodie over her arm. "As if that had anything to do with the function of my brain."

Daniel Hastings has posed:
"I.. hmm." Daniel sees her problem as she explains once she's stepped back into the living area. "Hold that thought." He slips into his bedroom a moment and to the closet where he selects a jacket. A SHIELD jacket. Only it has no insignia on it. He comes out with it. "Ahh.. it's going to swim on you a bit but it will look better than a tshirt. Plenty of people look young around here. Simmons was recruited at seventeen." He offers her the jacket. Yes, it's in his size.

Valeria Richards has posed:
"Well, it's worth a try." Valeria shrugs into the jacket, then chuckles a bit to herself as the sleeves hang half over her hands. Luckily, it's easily fixed by rolling them into neat cuffs just past her elbows. The general size of it is a little but trickier to fix, but she pulls another hairband out of her pocket and discretely twists a fold into the back, bringing it in around her waist.

"There we go," she says, peeking back into the bathroom to get a last look in the mirror before she nods to herself. "That should do. All right. Let's go visit. Who's Simmons?"

Daniel Hastings has posed:
"Biochemist. Brilliant really. Maybe you'll see her there." This time Daniel leads the way out down the hallway to an elevator. He has to swipe his card to get the button to light up on the floor he wants. Then it's out another corridor. The Triskelion is a bit of a maze. Huge. But eventually they find a secure entrance he has to swipe into. "Hopefully there will be some folk about. If not, I can at least show you what we've done so far and let you look at the research. See if anything inspires."

Valeria Richards has posed:
"Well, depending on what the range is and how it works, you might be able to cancel it out with another sound," Valeria says as she follows Daniel. "But I've also been working on a sort of...anti-sound-shield, ever since the whole exploding gauntlets bit. I haven't managed to make //that// work, of course, because sound-generated shields unsurprisingly don't work well with sound-canceling technology, but I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually. Some of it might be applicable though."

Daniel Hastings has posed:
Daniel enters R&D with a guest in tow, visitor's pass included. "Well.. here's the summary of the initial briefing. Redacted." Sigh. He keys up a document on a tablet then hands it to Val for her perusal. "And.. if you could step over here and give us a thumb print and a retinal scan.." Why does this sound familiar. "This way the computer knows who you are when you access files." He picks up the scanner and holds it up for her to rest her forehead in the cradle. "But no, no blood samples. Sorry. Those are for Kree spies."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Seated at a computer terminal, Bobbi is carefully reconstructing an image from a photo. There are a few detail windows open about Life Model Decoys. The image she's constructing is of a Japanese style lolita gothic young woman. She is sitting back and tapping the stylus against her lips while a progress monitor saying "Searching..." sits up in the corner of the holographic screen. She turns around hearing Valeria and Daniel. She presses the 'hide' button and her screen goes blank and she turns around to look who it is Daniel has brought in. "Heeey," she lifts an eyebrow to Daniel and then smiles to Valeria, "Science royalty. What brings Valeria Richards to the triskel?"

Valeria Richards has posed:
"I'm frankly disappointed that SHIELD doesn't already have my fingerprints and retinal scans on file," Valeria replies to Daniel with a wry smile, submitting to the scans easily enough. Once they're done, she looks over to Bobbi with a grin. "Daniel said you all had a puzzle," she declares, almost cheerful about it.

As soon as there's a tablet in her hand, she's scrolling through the data, quickly processing the information. "And as I was just telling him, it happens to be tangential to something I've been working on lately, even. Plus unstable molecules are pretty adaptable for wearable applications."

Daniel Hastings has posed:
"I briefed her on the shadow creature running amok through Metropolis." Daniel explains, "And since I knew she was working on some sonic applications recently.. well.. voila." He gestures to Val as if hey help has arrived. He pokes at the device and uploads the files. "To be fair, I didn't check. So if they do already, the system will match you, tell me I'm an idiot, and move on." There's a flash of a grin as he sits down at a terminal and keys up the commands to give her access to the current research on that topic. "Val this is Agent Morse." Since the woman didn't introduce herself. Tsk. "She's good people. I might even call her a friend if she weren't such a pain in my rear." Still, he's grinning. So she's probably just a friendly pain in his ass.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
"Database isolation. If our public knowledge of who you are is tainted, our secured knowledge of who you are is not." She puts the stylus back in to the clip on her phone and stands up, approaching to shake hands. "It's a pleasure to meet you in person. Call me Bobbi." She grins at Daniel, "That's pain in your ass Ma'am." She winks to Valeria, not at all serious about rank. "I had a theory about the audios effects on the body which I was going to run by Jemma, but since you're here..."

Valeria Richards has posed:
"Nice to meet you, Bobbi," Valeria looks up from her tablet sooner than her father would, but with perhaps less attention than her mother would. At least there's a balance there. And a smile. "I'd love to hear what you've got so far. Or any observations from the field," she adds. "Sometimes the body knows what the mind can't quite yet understand."

Daniel Hastings has posed:
Daniel Hastings can't help but glance back to Valeria as she sets into science mode so quickly. His smile warm and distracted until he realizes he has to finish keying up her access. "Right. So you should be able to use any terminal in here. I think.. Fitz had some prototype notions laying about. I was going to nip down to the cafeteria and get some snacks for the brain." He was talking to Val then but looks to Bobbi. "Did.. Agent Pain In the Ass Ma'am want anything while I was down there? Coffee?"

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi rolls her eyes to Daniel, "I'm good, go fix your brain."

"There are a lot of ways someone can be hypnotised, usually through conflicting sensory inputs," Bobbi says as she glances at what is being shared with Valeria. "I'm pursuing the idea of.. okay, so you know those headphones that some people hate but other people love, the ones that transmit sound through the bone instead of moving the air in the ear against the ear drum." She winces, "I'm presenting everything out of order here, but you're just going to have to be my sounding board for a moment."

She folds her arms, "Right, so, imagine for a moment that the sound we're hearing through the air is unrelated to the effect creating the zoned out effect. What if it's the way in which the sound is interacting with the body, vibrating through us - there's any number of ways you could mess with a body that way. Micro disruptions to the heart, pressure on the lungs, effecting the inner ear. If the sensory soup is complex enough it could overload the brain, effectively stunning your victim." She is a biochemist after all, her brain comes at this problem from the biology.

Valeria Richards has posed:
"Mmm, bone conduction," Valeria nods to Bobbi. "You know, I think some people hate them because the vibration of bone is associated with sounds in the deeper registers, which triggers an evolutionary and deep-seated fear of larger things. But not the point," she waves a hand, leaning in to hear the rest of the explanation.

Poor Daniel. He's forgotten for the moment.

She nods along, though, parsing it through. "Sure," she agrees. "It's not about the effect on the bones of the //ear// so much as it is on fluids or other processes." Lips pursed, she tilts her head. "In theory, easy enough to test. If you exposed a deaf person or someone with protected hearing and they were still affected..."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi nods her head, "Yeah, but there's where my theory hits a wall. We have eye witness accounts from people who are deaf that were not affected by the sounds. People wearing protective gear seemed uneffected too. That's why I wondered if may be it's the combination of the two. Given the sophistication of the attack I started wondering about Cuttlefish. Some of them can strobe their skin creating intense light that stuns their prey. What if this is all biological, what if we're dealing with a creature that has evolved a stunning process against mammals. I was pondering what might happen if we exposed another kind of mammal to the signal. Do pet dogs stare stupified with their owners?"

Valeria Richards has posed:
"So the sound is at least a component," Valeria muses. "Interesting. That's helpful for fabricating something to protect agents against exposure at least, so that they can safely gather information. But it does make protecting the population at large more difficult." She scrolls through the tablet, frowning thoughtfully.

"So what I've //been// working on is gauntlets that generate force fields using sound," she explains. No secret where the inspiration for that would come from. "It sounds like that would be useful if it's a broader effect. But I'd need to solve the resonant frequencies problem." Sheepish, she looks up. "The prototypes sort of...shorted out."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi pulls up a chair and chirply responds, "Fantastic! How does the force field work. Does it translate incoming objects perpendicular to their event, or does it arrest the momentum dead. How do you keep it from just being one giant speaker.. and what happens if you put it down on a surface, or use it underwater." Full of questions she is, but that is part of her job. "We could set up a simulation for the technology in the computer system and see if we can make the concept work before we commit to the effort of building a real one. On the other hand, we could also use the 3d printer here to knock out prototypes when we're ready too." The 3d printer is currently whirring away mass producing several projects at once. That machine almost never stops running.

Valeria Richards has posed:
"There was a //lot// of tweaking to the frequencies and the transmitters," Valeria explains, reaching for a piece of scrap paper to start scribbling out diagrams. "I basically had it set to create a field of a set size a set distance away, which let me set a sort of...target? For where the sound would go. If you were to walk into precisely the right spot, it would definitely sound like something, but the frequencies were usually very low or very high, so probably not much for humans to hear. It basically creates a sort of...scatter field. Because the goal was to be able to stop not just kinetic energy, but things like sound attacks or laser attacks. So whatever it is hits the field and either bounces off or disintegrates. And it worked for a few clips of automatic weapons fire, but once it was //heavy// fire it sort of overloaded."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
"Well by all means don't give up. After all, the acoustic focal point will exist no matter how many things are shot in to that space. What I hear from you is that it worked, but you didn't manufacture it solidly enough to.. what, not shake itself apart? or perhaps the amount of energy going through interfered with the other circuits." She smiles, "But.. any way you're meant to be helping solve this auditory mystery yeah. I'll shut up and let the real genius talk. I'll be your inanimate object you can bounce ideas off of.."

Valeria Richards has posed:
"I think the latter," Valeria admits. "It was holding up all right, but I think the constant adjustment blew the power source. I've got a different capacitor to try out. But." She rubs a hand at the back of her neck, smile crooked. "All information helps. Besides, it sounds like you know what you're talking about too. But I think with a few tweaks and a frequency to //specifically// block it could be adapted to create a sort of...shield dome for-"

She pauses, then grins. "A shield for, you know. SHIELD agents."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi's eyes light up and she grins, "That sounds amazing. Do you want me to raise it with my boss? that's the kind of thing we have R&D budgets for, specifically for external consultants like yourself doing work for us. You know, it'd be especially useful if we could make it small enough to be thrown as a grenade, we could protect bystanders that way." She looks at her arms and her fore arms, "A shield on a bracer perhaps?"

Valeria Richards has posed:
"Ooh, a //grenade//." Valeria grins broadly, perking up. "I didn't even think of that. I was wrapped up in trying to figure out how to make it large enough to protect a block or a city, but I didn't think about something more easily deployed in a smaller space. I'm honestly //very// curious to see what happens to these shadow creatures if they're attacked with a sonic weapon or a light-based weapon. Independent of protecting us from //their// attacks."

She nods quickly, flipping the paper to scribble more notes. "I was thinking a bracer or even just a chest piece for agents themselves. I //might// be able to fit it into an earpiece that could be held in place with some unstable molecules, but, uh. Given what happened to the first generation probably better to keep it away from ears unless you want to be, uh. Permanently safe from hearing things."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
There's an eager nod, "Yes let's not have weird particles exploding in agents ears if at all possible." She lifts an eyebrow and smiles. When you worked really hard on your biochemistry degree only to end up working for SHIELD where you discover the scientists here are utter geniuses you realise your degree is just a fancy language/communication skill set. That's how she feels talking to Jane, Jemma, and Fitz anyway. "It could be a useful addition to some bikes. I'm getting a new bike soon.. the last one was, ah, how do we say this without me sounding like a crazy person." She shakes her head, "Nope, there's no way. I accelerated it in to the legs of a villain named Stilt-Man to take his legs out from under him."

Valeria Richards has posed:
"That sounds about right," Valeria nods sagely, lips twitching against a grin. "Don't worry. I met Daniel when the Mole Man came looking for my parents but they weren't home. The bar for crazy in our family is pretty high."

"So you're...do you do the science //and// the field work?" she asks, a certain glint in her eyes.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi gives Valeria a side long glance and smiles, "Well yeah. But the majority of my time is spent in field work, managing teams, writing reports. But if I can be useful with my biochemistry degree, you better believe you can't keep me away from the microscope. I'm not just on the calibre of my R&D colleagues, or people like you. I'm proud of what I've accomplished, but it turned out my life interests were... broad."

Valeria Richards has posed:
"That's really cool though," Valeria says quickly. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I love the science. How could I not love the science? But, you know. When everyone around you has all sorts of crazy powers, the science sometimes..." She trails off, shrugging. "Besides, it's not like we're short on brains in our house either. Thus, experiments like the gauntlets," she says with a wry smile, lifting the papers.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
"And then there's people like me, with no powers just doin' her thing." She grins and says, "If I could invent a sound shield out of thin air like you I'd be very pleased with myself." She looks at the paper and furrows her brow, "See, this is engineering and I don't know a tenth of what Fitz does. In an organisation filled with smart people, I sometimes come across as the punchy type." She looks down at her hands, "And that would be accurate."

Valeria Richards has posed:
"Well, sometimes it's clobbering time, you know," Valeria winks, looking over the papers with a shrug. "This is easy. Or at least it's easy for me. Always has been. Which sometimes makes it feel like...I don't know. Almost like I haven't earned it? I don't know. I want to do things that are hard too. So. If there's any way I can help with this, I'm happy to. I've got exactly zero obligations otherwise."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi nods her head in understanding. "I wouldn't feel too guilty about it. I was the same in high school. I never studied, it was all so easy I just winged it with every test. You're just further along that scale than me. But, audio attacks.." She reaches over and taps on the screen to bring up the vast amount of sensory data that is pouring in from Metropolis across five different suburbs, set up around where previous attacks had occurred. "These timestamps here are where we believe there's a strong enough signal to prove locality. A .. uh.. witness says these attacks exist to varying degrees of intensity all the time, which suggests the assailant isn't coming and going, just turning the volume up and down. They have been moving though. They are slowly moving north for some reason." She brings up a map of Metropolis and shows the recorded locations. "The data is real time and you can rewind back to when we started recording. We have audio, seismic, radiation, interferometer, uv banded, microwave banded, .. you name it, we stuck as many sensors out there as we could get our hands on in short notice."

Valeria Richards has posed:
Valeria tilts her head, quirking a brow briefly at the pause but turning her attention back to the data. "If the //sound// is happening all the time but the //attacks// aren't constant," she muses. "Now that's an interesting bit of information. That feels important somehow. Like something that should tell us something about the fundamental nature of these creatures. I wonder."

Leaning forward, she eyes the map. "Daniel mentioned they were somewhat extradimensional. I wonder if they strength of the sound - the volume - is actually an indication of how much they're //present// here. Maybe the people zoning out aren't so much zoning out as being brought part of the way into //their// dimension. And being stuck between places and not made for it...they're unable to act?"

Bobbi Morse has posed:
"If you determine you need a different kind of data, a custom sensor set up somewhere - let us know, we'll go install it." She folds her arms and says, "I can just leave you here to pour over the data, there's quite a bit of it. The computer modeller will let you filter and view the data in different forms. If it turns out you max out your computer resources, .. what am I saying 'if', of course you will." She takes out her pad and taps on it a few times, then uses her security clearance to increase your computer resource allocation. "There, that will hopefully be enough. Super computers are great, but in SHIELD we have to share."

Valeria Richards has posed:
"Priorities." Whether she's agreeing with Bobbi or reminding herself is hard to tell. "Thank you," Valeria looks up from the display with a swift smile. "I appreciate it. I'll...take a look at some of this data, then I'll look into personal protection for agents, then deployable protection for civilians, //then// the creatures themselves," she nods to herself, writing it down as she goes.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
"No one will complain if your brain leaps ahead to any other part of the solution before figuring out the parts before it. Sometimes that's just how inspiration works." She walks over to the terminal she was using and taps her pad to it to transfer her work to it. "I'm going to leave you to it. Daniel will probably be back soon, but if you're like me you'll want to bury your head in to the data for a while right?"

Valeria Richards has posed:
"That seems highly likely," Valeria laughs, rueful. "I wouldn't worry, though. I think he's pretty used to that himself. And I promise not to go digging into anything that's none of my business," she adds with an innocent smile. "It probably sets off alarms and sirens anyhow."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
"Worse, it'd get you banned from ever using our toys again.. awfully steep punishment for the crime right?" She smiles kindly and says, "Good luck! It's been a delight meeting you Valeria and I'm excited to see what you come up with." She waves and wanders out of the R&D area.