1830/Cutting a Swath!

Cutting a Swath!
Date of Scene:	25 May 2020
Location:	Ted Kord's Apartment: Kord Co's Manhattan Offices.
Synopsis:	Introducing Swath
Cast of Characters:	Ted Kord, Swath

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Ted Kord has posed:
Ted Kord paces the floor in front f his desk and looks at two identical bots. He fixes them with a stern stare. "Listen... I don't know which one of you built the other but this has to stop. This is going to have the Avengers yelling 'Ultron!' Do you want the Avengers on your case? They don't play as nice as the Justice League and... Justice League can be pretty rough. So just stop." He rubs his eyes tiredly then says, "One of you be useful and get me a grilled cheese sandwich. Hold it! Prepare a grilled cheese sandwich... I do not want you to steal anyone's lunch!" He falls to working on some correspondence, listening to the sounds from the thoroughfare far below through an open window.

Swath has posed:
    It is night time, a darkness colored by the lights of a city that stretch into the void like a torch vainly stretching fingers of flame outwards for like Icarus spreading his wings too close to the sun. A strangely nude young Japanese woman in her early twenties roams aimlessly through the middle of the street as the screech of tires echoes and cars go careening around her with angry shouts. It is inevitable when there is a horrendous crash.
    The sound of shrieking tires gives way the a crash and moan of shredding steel and the unending keen of a care horn.
    White headlights are colored by a splash of bright crimson.
    Before the crumpled hood of a land yacht-like, gas guzzling, old blue Ford car lays what remains of the young woman who foolishly crossed the road in a daze.

Ted Kord has posed:
Ted Kord comes to attention. "Someone is hurt! A car horn blasting is never good!" Putting security teams on alert he grabs his private elevator to the street. Luckily he was just getting ready to head out for patrol because busting purse snatchers with a billion dollar Bug was fun! The lab coat is left in the lift. Goggles down he is the Blue Beetle as he comes out into the street. "Dear Lord!" He runs to the young woman first, not noticing the crumpled hood and checks for vitals... first open wounds, then breathing, then pulse. First aid is not his strong suit.

Swath has posed:
    The young woman is suffering multiple fractures, more than one of them compound. Her body is twisted and there are pressure cuts from the impact where her flesh literally burst. However... her bleeding seems to have already stopped. You might notice a slight steam, perhaps it is just hot blood on a cold New York morning. But there is a sizzle that has nothing to do with the radiator of the car behind you.

Ted Kord has posed:
Ted Kord spares the car's occupants a look. they're getting out, thank goodness for seatbelts. That impact must have... hold it. That is a lot of car damage for a little girl to make on a big gas guzzler. The steam also is regarded curiously. "Did she come out of a rocket, did anyone see? Was she flying or leaping tall buildings?" Just murmuring. He shakes his head and gives a low whistle. He notices a security team from Kord Co is already running up with a backboard and stretcher. He whistles again a little impatiently. Kord Co is near the East river for a reason. At the second whistle the Bug blasts out of the water. The Beetle tells his security, "Get her secure, those other folks can wait for an ambulance. She needs a hospital and fast and traffic doesn't move for ambulances in New York." The Bug obediently hovers over the Beetle and extends a ramp as he works a hidden control in his glove.

Swath has posed:
     It's probably good the driver was wearing their seatbelt, certainly, with the amount of damage to that tough older model car. The Kord security team are professional, no doubt, but considering the appearance of the young woman there are very surprised grunts from them as they lift someone whose weight you would normally associate with a double-wide stretcher. To their credit, they likely make no verbal comment about this, however. If Ted is observing Sawth, some of her cuts have mostly disappeared though the smears of blood conceal that fact and one of her compound fractures is no longer... compound, having re-knitted itself beneath the skin rather than piercing the bone through. The strangest thing is the asphault directly under and around where Swath was laying. It is now deeply divited with geometric patterns that look like someone took a chisel with the power of a laser and chipped out precise centimeter cubes of material.

Ted Kord has posed:
Ted Kord finally gets around to less imperative needs. "Throw a thermal blanket over her. It'll keep her warm... and she might be hungry." The guard doesn't even scratch his head. He's been with Kord Co since Booster hung around. He complies with a silvery blanket and Ted helps the men carry the still form into the Bug. He lifts off, scattering a few of the crowd who don't move back in time. And Beetle? he doesn't make straight for the hospital as he said. In fact he hovers over the water and goes to check on this mysterious girl, and his blanket. One hand strays to an old JLA signal device but... not yet. Not like they even kept him on the newsletter mailing list.

Swath has posed:
Indeed, it is as Ted likely surmised. By the time he has the Beetle hovering over the water, the young Japanese woman looks... well... more like a woman and less like a broken mass of twisted flesh and broken bones. Bruising on her skin has formed as though hours have passed. Blood vessels have begun to re-knit. Her bones are mostly sound, save for what a medical professional might discover to be hairline fractures in places. This is no Wolverine, but she heals remarkably fast. And of course... Ted was not wrong about the blanket either. Though her body seem indiscriminate about materials, it does seem to favor the most dense nearby materials first. The thermal blanket's metallic elements are being chewed away at in precise squares that look like pixelization. And now you can even see her mouth moving a bit, as though she is unconsciously saying 'Homph, nom, omnom... '

Ted Kord has posed:
Ted Kord bends over the woman and gently brushes the hair out of her face. "So you're not human, not Kryptonian, Aesir? Martian? I don't know though I have a few clues. Well, beautiful, I am not taking you to a hospital. I doubt you need it and you might be hostile or at least dangerous... I hope you will stop eating soon and be friendly." He takes a look under the now threadbare and not silver blanket at the plastic back board. "Please don't eat my Bug. I juuust got it working right after that durned Felicity got a ride in it. Please be friendly."

Swath has posed:
It takes a few more minutes, by this point it's probably been about half an hour or maybe more since the accident, but with mere squares of the thermal blanket left her form is that of a fully healed, fully formed, and... very nude young Japanese woman. The blood that was on her is even gone, though what was on the stretcher still stains it like normal human blood. Your stretcher survived without a bite taken. There may be some logic to how she 'eats'. She sits, bolt upright, gasping as her amber eyes blink multiple times, taking in her surroundings. "N... nani ka? Koko wa doko?" she exclaims in a plaintif, flute-resonant, soprano.

Ted Kord has posed:
Ted Kord frowns. "Oh great. Doesn't speak American. Uh Konichiwa? Nihongo ga hanase-masen... Ei-go, wakarimas ka? Genki desu ka?" Listen you build giant robots, you pick up a little Japanese. Never mind about the browser. Booster looked that up. "Uhm nani New York. Watashi wa Blue Beetle... you... got.. hit... by a car!" He says the last slow and loud and then goes to a storage locker. He does use the Bug to travel. It has some amenities. "Sumimasen. Clooooothes. Wakarimas ka?"

Swath has posed:
    For a moment those eyes go wide, and then even as you offer her the clothes, she puts her hand to her lips and begins to giggle so hard that her eyes close. "I... aahaha... I'm sorry. I understand and speak English, too. It's just not my first language." She shakes her head, still laughing. "Probably... yes... ahahaha... probably best if we stick to English." She tilts her head at the clothes, then looks down at herself, and hums softly. "Oh. I suppose that would be more acceptable according to my files." She stands, slowly, but makes no move to bother covering herself as she does and accepts the clothing.

Ted Kord has posed:
Ted Kord smiles and then holds a jersey up over her head. "Put up your arms, allow me." He pulls a Hub City Hellcats jersey over her if she complies. "Files... a synthetic? Cool! You have a name? Uhm... I'm Blue Beetle or Ted. Wow my Japanese is that bad, hunh?" Well if he didn't eye her in a sexual way before due to the emergency, he certainly won't now that there's engineering involved. Plus he has about a million questions. The Red Tornado was always too stuck up to answer his emails.

Swath has posed:
    She complies in a fairly docile manner, then looks down at the jersy with a smile as she says "I like this." Tilting her head at his question, she responds, "Well. My unit designation is Synapically Weaponized Tactical Hommunculus unit 00. But it gets shortened to the acronym SWATH. So... I suppose my name is Swath 00? It is nice to meet you Blue Beetle, sir. I apologize for my apprehension, but I take it you are not affiliated with the lab so I need not fear you?"

Ted Kord has posed:
Ted Kord shakes his head. "Nothing to fear from me if your intentions are peaceful, and you don't eat any of my vehicle... or me, SWATH. Wait... lab? You're an escapee? Where from, may I ask?" He's guessing Japan for starters. He starts fiddling with a roll of duct tape as he talks, fingers moving quickly, almost like he's spinning a web.

Swath has posed:
    "Please... please Mr. Blue Beetle sir, don't... don't send me back to the lab," she is suddenly in near tears. Feat of engineering or no, what stands before you is a young adult human woman, by all appearances, and she has emotions like one too. Even a psychic would not find them lacking in authenticity. "I don't want to go back there... they would constantly do... things to me. And... I never got to spend any time outside... or be anything but an experiment." She shakes her head, "Please... PLEASE Mr. Blue Beetle, don't send me back there... "

Ted Kord has posed:
Ted Kord is indeed taken with the display. In fact he reaches out for a consoling hug, as he would to anyone crying and upset. Well maybe not if it were J'Onn or Guy. No definitely nt. "Okay calm down. I'm not sending you anywhere. Uhm, I don't know how they do things elsewhere but you're obviously an AI judging from your responses and AI have rights here. If you're sentient you are entitled to the protection of the law and... I would love an AI for a friend. But... you have to fill me in on your background. Were you built by a huge corporation because... I could probably expect ninjas showing up to try to grab you. I want to know what's up. Anyway here..." In his hands he holds a scrunchie, a braided length of duct tape, one knotted end pulled through the other." He is curious if she is a full AI. Let's see.

Swath has posed:
    She takes to the hug readily enough, though perhaps with the faint reticence of someone unused to casual human contact. And yet the young woman revels in that hug all the same, returning it after a moment. You can FEEL her strength, but it is very restrained like she is careful not to break the world around her and is perhaps overly conscious of it. "I... umu. Okay," she murmurs before continuing "I know the laboratory was called Paranormal Research and Observations. I don't know much more, but it was very high tech. Everything was always very... sterile. I only ever saw maybe half a dozen scientists at once, but if there were that many... they had me restrained for a vivisection." She shudders, "Um. I grew up there, I think. I have.. flashes of memory from before but it is vague. It was definitely a well organized, well funded, setup from the fact that they had so much high tech equipment and I could occasionally gain sensor readings fifty or so people in the area who never came into view... " She accepts the scrunchy, and even though it is duct tape uses it to give her hair a rather cute side-tie. "Thank you."

Ted Kord has posed:
Ted Kord is pondering her actions. Imprinted or learned? "Cute. You pose more questions than answers but... I don't think you are from that lab. If they built you, why keep taking you apart? Also Paranormal Research... sound more like they are investigating unusual occurances and specimens... Offhand... I wouldn't ship you oof to them. But I am going to research you a bit and... I would like to research you, in noninvasive ways and only with consent. Nothing like vivisection. Maybe I can find out where you are from."

Swath has posed:
    "Umu," she murmurs as she inclines her head, wiping her tears as she pulls herself more together. She seems uncomfortable with crying, almost as though having done so came as a surprise to her as much as anything. She smooths her palms down the jersy, almost as though relishing the feel of the fabric as something to simply be a tactile element. "If you wish to research me, that is fine. I get the feeling you are truly trying to help me. After all, you could have simply shipped me somewhere while I was unconscious. That probably would have been the most logical course if you did not wish to be involved in another's situation." She turns her head to smile at you, her smile is warm but vague and dreamy "Thank you. Though yes... if... you will let me approve any procedures, that would be for the best."

Ted Kord has posed:
Ted Kord nods his head. "No one is going to hurt you or inconvenience you at Kord Co. We'll shop for some clothes for you online and give you a function there. Something I'll say is hush hush so my people will be instructed to leave you alone. We'll get some answers first and then I will ask some questions. Your tech may be a little out of my league but I won't reveal you to anyone else without your consent. My God, you need pants." He goes back into the lockers and tosses Swath a pair of sweats. "Here, I get accused enough of using my Bug to cruise for women."

Swath has posed:
    "Does 'cruise for women' mean you would use it to find partners for copulation?" asks Swath with an absolutely straight face. She accepts the pants and slips them on, at this point looking like a sloppy teen or a neet twenty-something with the scuncci side tail, oversized jersey revealing her slim collar bone, and likely just as as over-large sweats assumedly intended for a man. It doesn't miss the mark as still coming across vaguely cute in a way. "I truly appreciate all you are doing for me... I... have no idea how I will ever repay you, Mr. Blue Beetle."

Ted Kord has posed:
Ted Kord smiles. He says, "Yes, picking up women for courting at least. People think just because I made a few billion I'd do things like that. Well your thanks is enough, Swath. The proprietary technology I'll learn about... is just gravy. I mean you're entitled to your freedom as a sentient. Now if you consent to letting me scan you and I learn how you work... that's perfectly legal. Of course... it also means someone is going to look for you. So we will hide you. Fortunately... (embarrassed swallow) you look very human."

Swath has posed:
    "I do not feel as though I am anything but a human, but I know I am different," says Swath as she looks at her hand. She smiles that vague smile and inclines her head, "A scan is fine. I am not worried about fending off attackers. Though... I would rather not take lives if I can avoid it. I do not wish my life taken, after all." She tips her head, "In hiding me... you said you would give me a function in your company. Had you an idea what it might be? I am, well obviously likely, good with computers... but I am also a good cook."

Swath has posed:
    There is a soft laugh that escapes Swath before she responds, "Hai, wakarimasu, Bluebeetle-san." She gives you a brief bow at that, sending scintillations through her short black hair as her eyes squeeze with the width of her smile. She nods then, "Home. that sounds like such a nostalgic word. Ah.. have you eaten breakfast yet?"

Swath has posed:
    There is a soft laugh that escapes Swath before she responds, "Hai, wakarimasu, Bluebeetle-san." She gives you a brief bow at that, sending scintillations through her short black hair as her eyes squeeze with the width of her smile. She nods then, "Home. that sounds like such a nostalgic word. Ah.. have you eaten breakfast yet?" (re)