13944/Round About Questioning

Round About Questioning
Date of Scene:	23 January 2023
Location:	Delores Klein's Penthouse
Synopsis:	Detective Chimp comes to grill Delores Klein about The Artificer.
Cast of Characters:	Detective Chimp, Delores Klein

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Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp after a recent incident, Chimp has decided to talk to Delores. He figures it is best to come talk to her in person. He finds himself knocking on the door, with one of her favorite candies. The good thing about being a top shelf detective you can generally get a good idea on gifts for others.

Delores Klein has posed:
    The elevator to the top floors of the building Delores lives in allows access to a small 'lobby' of sorts. The apartment has a number, but it takes up the top two floors. Bobo has been there before, of course, for the scan.
    "Just a moment!" comes the British accent from inside. The door opens and Delores Klein looks out, then down. Her smile brightens considerably at noticing her friend. "Detective!" she says. "I thought I might be seeing you sometime soon." She steps aside and gestures him in. "If you're not a vampire, come in!" she says, offering him something of a joke.

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp smirks and says "Well only he same fangs I had before." He tells her. He does offer her the wrapped box of candy. It seems Chimp is one who knows in a lot of magic circles old school hospitality rules have rules "How are you doing?" HE asks of her.

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores takes the box of chocolates and her eyes brighten. "Ooh!" she says. "I haven't had these in a while," she says. She carefully sets the box in her dining area at the place setting that actually looks like it gets use. "Now, how am I doing? Well, I expected you to come right out and say it. Am I going to get to give you news you haven't deduced yourself?" she asks.

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp looks to her, and says "Well, I am curious about the book, and the costume, but I thought it would be more polite to catch up a bit first.

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores looks confused. "Book?" she says. She shakes her head. "I'm afraid I don't quite understand. What are you talking about?" She looks down at her clothes. Smiling at him, she asks, "What costume?" Her answers seem genuine.

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp 's brow raises a bit to this and says "Well than what do you think I was going to ask about?" He does not go into the book and costume for now, but Chimp is pretty sure it was her.

Delores Klein has posed:
    "Ah ha!" Delores says, raising a finger. She moves toward her lab. "Come!" she beckons him with a gesture, turning to walk backwards. "Come!" she insists again. She turns back around as she enters her lab. If he catches up with her, she's in her lab she did tests on him in. The same lab that the scanning flash happened in.
    The lights are dimmed, and many of the potions and ingredients she has glow dimly. However, there's one ingredient she has that looks like a single grain of sand in a spice-jar-sized glass container. It glows dimly green in the jar that sits on her workbenches. "Look at this," she says. Pulling an antique geiger counter from behind one of the curtained off under-workbench storage areas, she flips it on and points it at the green speck. There's no reaction.
    "Remarkable, isn't it? I have no idea where it came from, but it's giving off very peculiar particles. Nothing dangerous to human cells--don't worry, chimpanzee cells should be fine, too." She clicks off the radiation detector and sets it aside. "I have heard rumors of something like this. If I'm right--and again, I'm going off rumors and information I have been able to glean from questionable sources--what I have here is genuine Kryptonite." She picks the jar up and holds it out for him to examine. "Isn't that exciting?" she asks.

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp 's brow raises a bit at her speaking of Kryptonite. "Well, I have heard of that but I will admit, never seen any but would have not thought about it in such a small piece, am curious how did you come into having it?

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores's smile takes on that quality of someone gossiping. Her voice becomes hushed as she says, "Can you believe I encountered a thief with it?" she asks. She looks at the bit in the jar as she stands, running her fingers over the glass. "You meet all kinds doing the kinds of things I do," she says.
    Looking more serious, but still smiling, she sets the jar aside and makes solid eye contact with the detective. "If you're not here about that, you'll have to explain about the book and the costume. When I send out medicine as The Alchemist, it's strictly via couriers I can trust. No costumes. I also don't have a formula book." She taps her temple. "It's all up here."

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp looks to her, and says "Well, it may have something to do with a book, that was classified as Evil, and stolen recently from a book shelf. There were two people there besides myself. One had your build, with some padding and their voice altered. But they did have some familiar body language and even more so the way the person scanned the area and myself.

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores listens with interest. "Ooh!" she says. "A mystery!" She crosses her arms, waiting for him to continue. "This all sounds very interesting. How did they scan you? Was it like those scanner things from Star Trek?" She waves her hand like she's holding a tricorder from the original 1960's Star Trek. However, her smile actually fades as she seems to realize. "Wait, you can't mean like my scanner."

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp nods his head a bit to this and says a sphere. It did light and all like yours, and I have not encountered one before like that,

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores considers it. "Hmmm," she says. She moves to one of her worktable curtains and squats down. She opens the curtain and strains to try to lift something. She just manages to roll out a brass basketball-sized object made of something like bronze. It's very much like the one Detective Chimp saw her with in SHIELD HQ all those years ago, but also very much like the one he saw The Artificer with in the bookstore. "Help me lift this thing," she says. "It's at least fifty pounds." She can roll it easily enough, and she gets it to the foot of the chair he sat in before, but she then waits for him to help her to get it up onto the seat so they don't have to look at it on the floor.
    Such close proximity gives him plenty of opportunity to view it up close. Delores is definitely showing hints of still thinking in metric as the device is closer to fifty kilograms than fifty pounds. It's no wonder she would have trouble lifting such a thing. There don't appear to be any scratches on the outside metal, but it's like nothing he's likely ever seen. Once it's in the seat, Delores stretches her back. "I'm getting too old to lug that thing about," she says. "Why I keep it under the counter these days."

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp looks to her and will help to pick the thing up, and says "Not figured out any way to make it float, or move on it's own. He is frowning a bit as he says this, be it his theory not panning out or thinking she is lieing to him it is hard to tell.

Delores Klein has posed:
    "I can't make this thing fly." Delores wipes her hands on her work apron. "The Artificer built it," she says, honestly. "It doesn't work right. I have to keep swapping broken parts," she continues. "I can at least figure out how to do that." She looks at Bobo. "I took courses in radio and TV repair."
    Delores looks back at the sphere and crosses her arms over her chest. "Five of the sides are missing quite a few pieces between them. Of the other seven, six don't work, even though all the parts are there. I'm afraid any flying that was in these parts...isn't." She rubs the sphere affectionately. "It's a good little scanner, though, when it works."
    The best lie detector in the world--even magical ones like Wonder Woman's lasso--wouldn't be able to detect any lie in her words. There is no tell that she has that even a trained detective like Bobo the Chimp would be able to pick up on. However, just because everything she's saying is literally true doesn't mean there's not more questions that can be asked.

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp looks over and says "And you have ever encountered another one? What do you know of the Artificier?" He asks her studying her reactions to his questions

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores considers thoughtfully. "Well," she says after a few moments, "I confess, I am the reason The Artificer knows how to make Orichalcum." Walking to an overhead cupboard, she opens it up and pulls another spice jar sized glass jar and brings it to Detective Chimp. Inside are small balls about a centimeter in diameter that match the composition of the outside of the large sphere in the chair. "The Artificer is dark-skinned. I presume African genes, but I've never done DNA tests. Man's voice, even back when I got this." She knocks on the scanner sphere. "It wouldn't surprise me if there was another out there. The Artificer can make Orichalcum, now, after all. I'd say, "He doesn't need me, anymore," but I can't say that for certain." A shrug. She considers carefully. "You're right, though. About my height. More muscular than I am. Always wears that mask. I admit, I made the Orichalcum one; at least the first one."

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp 's brow raises a bit more and he does look at the jar and whats inside it trying to figure out what it is "If you made it why can you not fix it to fully working order again?"

Delores Klein has posed:
    "I made the metal of the outside shell," Delores reiterates, the glass jar full of orichalcum pellets going into her work apron pocket. She goes to a drawer and pulls out a few tools including two suction cups. She moves back to the sphere and her chimpanzee companion. She licks one of the suction cups before squishing it against the middle of one of the circular seams. Pulling on it, she manages to pull it open enough to get her fingers under it. Opening it, she reveals a bit of a mess inside. "Oops," she says. "Incomplete one." However, even as she lets the opening snap shut, what's inside is clearly not entirely made out of orichalcum. In fact, it looks like most metals do, a shiny-ish gray.
    Delores repeats the opening on a different seamed circle. Opening that lid up like a flap reveals a glass lens. "I could probably replicate the lenses fairly easily," she says. "Unless there's something unusual happening under the hood. The Artificer swore never to reveal the secret to making Orichalcum. I swore never to reveal how to make...whatever this thing is called." She leans down to look over the glass lens. Behind it is just darkness. "The lenses are pretty robust, but they're heavy. I wouldn't be suprised if there are microprisms or some other advanced artifice going on that alchemy and chemistry just can't reveal."

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp hmms and says "Well, It seems I have encountered the Artificer recently and he got his hands on a book, that he should not have, so I will have to put some effort into finding him.

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores's brow furrows. "That's not good," she says. "You said it was an evil book. I've never known The Artificer to be particularly evil. What was in this book that was evil? Do you know?"

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp says, "Were not fully sure what it was, he did not get the full book, but scanned it, so I assume it is like your scanner and is the same as having it."

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores furrows her brow. "When was this thing made, the fifties?" she asks, rhetorically. "I think it's probably safe to assume The Artificer has been making updates to everything, and all twelve sides can scan and store an image." She taps her chin. "Hang on, I think I've still got you in here."
    The Alchemist uses the other suction cup on the broken side to open it, though now it faces away from the detective. Closing the lens side, she rolls the big orb off the seat and makes sure it doesn't hit her toes when it rolls off the chair. It hits the floor with a thud, which does more to the floor than the orb. She rolls it with the open face to the side and pushes it back under the workbench. She climbs under there with it, only her waist down exposed as she works on her hands and knees.
    It takes longer for her to undo what she did before, but after a few minutes, there's a bump on the underside of the work space. "Ow!" she barks out. Sliding out from under the desk, she moves to the side wall.
    Reaching out to a couple buttons, Delores pushes one of them. Underneath the desk glows behind the curtain. She walks over and pulls the curtain back. She has to do some minor adjustments, but something like a ghostly hologram of a chimpanzee sits in the seat once she's done. "Okay," she says. "Find me something to read."
    The display is impressive, but monochrome, just like The Artificer's. There's depth to it, and it's clearly as detailed as the real thing, but it only seems to care about where molecules are, and it isn't really colorful. That's something Delores would know. That at least on hers, reading would be a challenge, if not impossible.

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp hmms and looks about, and then after a moment's thought pulls a folded paper from his jacket pocket, offering it to her. It is todays newspaper

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores considers it, but doesn't take it. "Okay, so you carry newspapers." She squints and moves to the projection. "Were you carrying one when I scanned you?" she asks. She shakes her head. "Hang on," she says. Moving to a particular section of workbench with a glass section set into it, she pushes down on that section and a box raises. It's got an ancient Amiga workstation inside. Delores looks at Bobo and says, "Now, this is mostly going to be brute forcing things, but tell me if you can read anything." She runs a program that seems to work like an oscillator until there is a very, very narrow slice of Bobo's body and clothes from the day he had come in and been scanned. She definitely had a detailed slice-by-slice view of his entire anatomy available, but nothing was legible on anything he might have been carrying.

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp hmms and says "Well, if he could not read it from a scan, why would he be scanning it in the first place?" He asks her, he scratches his chin.,

Delores Klein has posed:
    Delores shrugs. "Why does The Artificer do anything?" she asks. She flips the switch to turn off power to the orb under the counter then pushes the computer box down into its place, all hidden. She definitely doesn't use it much. "I'm not going to aim accusational speculation at this. What are the actual crimes The Artificer is charged with? Are you worried about black magic? Why bring this to me?"

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp says, "Well, as I said, I suspected you, as the only one I have seen with such a device." HE does not say she has convinced him otherwise but he is not pressing it at least"

Delores Klein has posed:
    "If only you'd been there when the first Orichalcum was exchanged," Delores says, furrowing her brow with more compassion than concern. She shakes her head. "I wish I could do more to assuage your doubts, Detective." However, she goes back to smiling at him. "Thank you for the chocolates, at least."

Detective Chimp has posed:
Detective Chimp says, "Well, I did not want to come by without a proper gift coming to your home." He will make a mental note to go look up and see what shield and wand have on her and the artificier"