16203/You've got a Hive in your Mind

You've got a Hive in your Mind
Date of Scene:	29 October 2023
Location:	Labs - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	Jane Roe and Jinx come to Caitlin for help getting the implant out of Jane's skull.
Cast of Characters:	Jinx, Jane Roe, Caitlin Fairchild

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Jinx has posed:
Three Agents of H.I.V.E. recovered from the succubus nightclub. It was a weird night that's for sure. They don't know a lot about HIVE's technology - just that some how the agents live normal lives and then suddenly become dedicated and focused; and then just as quickly go back to their normal lives.

They lose time. Sometimes there's extra mud on their shoes. It's hard to know just what happened and these poor people might start to think they're losing their mind. Which in some respects they are.

"There's a chip in her head. And the other two. We're blocking the signal but we need to get it out so we can study it - figure out how it works and who knows what else." Jinx states matter of factly to Caitlin. She's wearing her ex-Caitlin labcoat. It still has CF embroided on it but the lab coat has been adjusted to fit Jinx juuust right. Using Caitlin's sewing machine too.

"Then you'll be free of their influence and can go back to your life," she charitably adds to Jane Roe. "Caitlin is an amazing doctor. You'll be fine." She assumes. May be. Some brain damage? hopefully these chips don't have self destructs if tampered. They simply don't know - this is the closest they've gotten to one.

Jane Roe has posed:
"A chip in my brain. Right." ane remarked with a scoff at the suggesttion, ppinching the bridge of her nose. "As if someone can justt shof chips into brains so they can force me to buy more soda or to control my nonexistant spending habits."

But surely, the chip would show up on an X-Ray. As would the fact that something with the brain wasn't in the ordinary.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Yeah-- I just want to emphasize, again, that I'm not a neurosurgeon," Caitlin admonishes the other two women. She is perhaps being just a little curt with Jinx; she's as even-tempered as they get but the fact Jinx is flaunting her stolen jacket in front of Caitlin is clearly an irritant for the other woman.

She's dressed in a surgical gown, complete with gloves, mask and a hairnet, and smiles reassuringly at Jane. "You've got the easiest job here: lie back, and try not to move around too much," Caitlin suggests. "I'm going to give your skull a scan and see if we can get a better idea of what we're dealing with."

A huge doughnut-shaped ring drops from the ceiling and rotates around so Jane's table can move and slide her head and shoulders into the scanning unit. "We're going to start with a cranial ultrasound. Just to see if we can get a look at it. I'll do some tests and if it's not ferromagnetic, we'll do an MRI and CT scan as well."

The machine starts up with a low, throbbing hum, making Jane's scalp tingle slightly with an alien frisson. Caitlin stands dutifully behind the radiation screen with Jinx, watching the monitor as the image resolves itself. "....there, I see it," she says, and points a gloved finger at the screen. "It looks like it's near the pituitary gland. I think it's self-motivated, it is probably injected under the skin and crawls to the proper location to set up shop."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx isn't sure which bit in the scan is the pituitary gland. "Yeah. Totally." She was never trained as a doctor - that's a life long endevour after all. HIVE only wanted her to be good with magic and do as she was told. The only reason she never got a chip in the head was they were worried it'd stop her magic from working.

She folds her arms as Caitlin explores. "What a creepy parasite..." As if the ones in nature weren't bad enough. Technological ones? it has a connection through interesting parts of the brain. Whoever designed this was clearly an expert in the mind because it's set up to divide long term memories.

The chip, effectively, creates a forced split personality. One that they can toggle on a whim. One set of behaviour is unregulated but the other is a trained Agent of HIVE. Indoctrination probably only took a few weeks since all their skills remain albeit needing a little jogging to bring them back to lie.

Removal, it appears, was always part of the design. No doubt HIVE wants to be able to hide the existence of these chips if necessary. The same self motivation to get it in place appears to still be there and capable of extracting itself.

"Right. So.. lasers?" Jinx figures if it's complex technological stuff there must be lasers involved in getting it out.

Jane Roe has posed:
Wincing at the chip howing up on the screen, Jane's fingers ruub over her temples as the scaner finaly silences. "That thing is giving me a headache. The buzzer mean," she complains, trying to close her eyes a moment as she tried to feel out the brain itself. Not physically, not mentally but electromagnetically. After all, it must have an EM signature of some sorts.

Flinching at the medical talk about digging into her head and brain, she bit her lower lip, trying to focus on... on figuring out the pattern in blackouts she had lately. "You really think they used me like... a puppet kinda?"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin doesn't respond immediately. She's staring at the image and a bunch of data coming back at her from the sensor suite. It takes the redhead a few minutes to work up a response, shaking her shoulders out of her reverie and looking back at Jane and Jinx.

"It would validate our hypothesis about mind control," Caitlin explains. "It was probably inserted in the back of your throat, or through your sinus cavity. It's not so much that it's proper mind control as that the device puts you in a highly suggestible state," she explains. "While you're 'under', you can internalize knowledge, action and responses without storing any memory of it. It creates a different chemical state in your brain. When that activates, you fall back on the programming imparted during the chemical hypnosis. When your state switches back, your brain can't remember how to access the neurons that were in use at the time."

She drums her fingers on the tablet with a furrowed brow. "The biggest concern is whether or not there's a tamper-proof mechanism. I don't want to accidentally trip it during examination. I'll need to consult with Dr. Raymondi at Columbia Teaching Hospital, he's the head of the neurosurgery department. We'll have to figure out a way to find and extract it without causing any harm to you," she tells Jane.

Jinx has posed:
"Yeah. Sorry -" she looks at the ID they took off Jane. They don't just bring people in to the big T without doing proper security first. "It's what they do. Whatever your skill set - they wanted it. You were probably teamed up with random people multiple times to commit small crimes that add up to their crazy plans for world domination."

"Just pure luck you were on the team with those other two when we crashed that night club. Though, may be you don't even remember that. Or being there. It's a shame we won't be able to figure out your memories from your time under their control."

She wiggles a finger at Caitlin, "Do what you need to do. We need the chip so some smart nerd can hack it. The best I've been able to do is track their signals. And I did that badly - That Wayne nerd Tim upgraded it for me. Hm. May be he can figure out how the chip works once we've got it out."

A finger taptaps against her cheek thoughtfully as she considers giving the annoying rich guy a call. It's premature though - the chip is still in Jane's noggin. "So what are your skills. May be we can figure out what they were up to with you."

Jane Roe has posed:
"Well, then they borowed the wrong brain, because now I am pissed. Stealing my time and not even compensating me for using my brain? Who are these bastards that believe that no man can kill them?"

Grunting as she eyed that chip on the screen, a lot of sensors might pick up... something. Jane's mind working slowly on trying to sort out how the chip was working roughly. "I have no clue what they might have managed without my mind awake, but... I guess they needed an expert programmer."

Jane's ID... was at best fake. A good one on the physical side, but the databases were missing data that could corroborate the name on it. In other words, Jane... didn't exist. Not even with the biometric data anything showed up.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin furrows her brow at the commentary. "That's... ok, that's actually kind if impressive if it's true," she says. When looked to for clarity, she shrugs apologetically and reframes herself in relation to the other two women. "I mean that most 'mind control' is about putting someone into a hypnotic state where their ... 'subconscious', for lack of a better word, takes over. I've seen hypnotists do things like... basic motor commands or simple mobility instructions."

Jane's given a pensive look. "But compelling you to do higher-order tasks, like language crafting and programming... that's a whole new level of weird. We've got to figure out how to get that out of you in one piece so we can see how it actually works. Also I don't want you to have a stroke if we start just trying to yank it out with forceps."

She doesn't seem to be joking.

Jinx has posed:
It's been an uphill battle getting people to believe her. Some of the Titans have seen HIVE in action first hand and the way they instantly forget what they were up to the moment they get caught. But these three potential chips will be physical hard evidence.

"There can't be that many people in the world who can make a chip like this. Unless it's alien. We can't rule out alien. But yeah - HIVE are interested in any and all kinds of mind control. Magic, hypnosis, technological, good ol' fashion cult brain washing. You name it they're in to it."

Jinx was merely the tip of the spear and it took her far too many years to truly understand that. It wasn't until she was the leader of the Five that she truly grasped how hollow the entire endevour was going to be. Even if she had won and conquered the world - what then? the world would still be run by someone else and she'd not be able to fix the crap that made her angry and sad.

"An expert programmer. Well yeah. That is the kind of skill set they'd want to recruit. I wonder what the other two are good at. I guess we will find out when we interview them too."

Jane Roe has posed:
Sitting up, Jane reached for a pen and pad, making notes and drawing lines that at first didn't make too much sense, but would, analyzed, show the pattern the chip reacted to. Just... information gleamed from the chip reacting to specic waves, before she focussing on to Caitlin, offering her the paper.

"Do what you must, to get it ot but don't... I repeat, don't lobotomize me. If you slip and ram your tools into my brain, go all the way. I don't want to be a vegetable." she said, rather matter of factly and flat.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Jinx's summary gets a slow, wholehearted nod of equipment. "Not many," she echoes in agreement. "And I'd like to know how to stop them from doing it to someone ever again."

Caitlin de-gloves and moves out of the medical bay and into the adjoining shop area. "Well what I can do is rig up an interferon array that will desychronize the internal clock cycle. Basically it will scramble up the operating system slightly, to the point it can't process any commands it receives. It'll just apply to the back of your neck, it won't take me a day to fabricate," she promises.

"As for extracting it, I'll need to schedule use of the surgical lab at the hospital. We've got some of the best surgeons in the world on staff, and I promise I'll be there every step of the way to make sure nothing happens to you," she promises Jane, and rests a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

Jinx has posed:
Jinx grimaces at Caitlin's suggestion. She has her own stake in this mess and even though it's completely unreasonable and unfair, she whispers softly to Caitlin, "But if you scramble the operating system we won't be able to reverse engineer it."

There's that weird feeling in the pit of her stomach again. A moral choice, apparently, and she's kind of glad she doesn't have to make the call. She played devils advocate and now she's not sure that was a good idea either.

Three HIVE chips within their grasp and their best bet is to nullify them. She makes small fists at her sides and then unclenches them. "... yeah whatever. Do what you have to do." She frowns and glances to the door. "I'll be in the danger room smashing shit." Anger management. It's not the healthiest way to do it but it's working for her.

Jane Roe has posed:
"You will not bombard my head with uncontrolled scrambling WiFi signals strong enough to fry the chip's OS and make me bleed out of eyes and ears. Put those gloves back on and figure out a way to extract it without frying my brain." Jane's face is kind of... agitated at the idea of the scrambler, which... just doesn't make quite ene for a normal human. But for someone that feels the EM spectrum it actually would.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin shoots a hard, surprised look at Jinx. Irritation for one-- but disappointment, as well, as Jinx starts angling to capture that technology. Surprised, but not really surprised. Her lips thin and instead of addressing Jinx, she looks back at her patient.

"I didn't say anything of the kind," Caitlin tells Jane with a firm voice. "We will do our best to take care of you with the most minimal impact possible. /I/ want to make sure that the device isn't receiving *or sending* any signals. For all I know it could be tied into your cerebral cortex and it's recording all of this. Or there's a failsafe mechanism that might give you a stroke."

She exhales her frustration and lifts an apologetic hand. "I promise. I will do everything in my power to make sure you come out of this alive," she assures Jane. "I'm just gonna need you to trust me for a little while to do it. Is that OK?"

Jinx has posed:
Jinx pauses at the door and tosses the fake ID over to Jane laying on the table. "Say yes. Don't fuck this up anony-hacker." Yeah. They knew. They tried verifying identities the moment they got their unconscious captives back to the tower.

Jinx can't look back at Caitlin. She knows she fucked up - the disapproving look hurts now that she actually likes these people and cares about their opinions. It's a strange new set of feelings. Well, not new, just atrophied. "She's one of the good guys. They all are in this place. Like, they actually give a damn and care. So.. trust her."

She shuts the door behind her.

Jane Roe has posed:
"You have galls to demand that after your little suggestion," Jane retorted, eyes focussed on her, the comment by Jinx throwing the piece of plastic seemingly ignored. At least for a moment.

Turning the head to eye Jinx leaving, she exhaled, barely audible. "You have no idea what she suggested. What..." The door snapped shut, before the second sentence was completed.


Deeply she inhales again,getting up to slowly step over to Caitlin, lifting a finger to point at her own skull.

"I will not allow you to use that idea on my head. Fry the chips in the two others for all you want, but you won't use your scrambler on my head. Or put me in a faraday cage for all that matters. Becasue if you do, whatever of me survives this will have you for torture. Sitting next to a Wifi Jammer is painful, the silence in a faraday cage is maddening and do you want to know how it feels if a cellphone tower is blown up a few kilometers away? I felt a great disturbance in the weave, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Cait lets a frustrated sound escape her lips. The redhead is as even-tempered as they come, but between Jinx's fit of pique and Jane's sudden argumentativeness, her patience is clearly being tested.

"You're going to have to work with me here, Jane," Caitlin says, with a certain medical gravitas. "I'm not just a medical resident; I'm also an engineer with Stark Industries. I promise I will not do anything that causes you significant pain and I will minimize your discomfort to the best of my ability. My concern is that you have a /foreign object/ in your brain, and I don't know what triggers it, what it responds to, or what it might do when it goes off."

She holds her palms up in a supplicative gesture. "I don't want to cause you undue suffering. I just need you to understand that my goal is to get you out of the other side of this without a cerebral embolism or permanent damage to your brain. Will you please at least trust me in that?"