2075/Epicenter: The Daniel Whitehall Briefing

From Heroes Assemble MUSH
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Epicenter: The Daniel Whitehall Briefing
Date of Scene: 11 June 2020
Location: Ready Room: Triskelion
Synopsis: Peggy shows us the horrors of HYDRA. SHIELD is coming for you Daniel Whitehall.
Cast of Characters: Peggy Carter, Natasha Romanoff, Bobbi Morse, Jessica Drew, Jack Nolan, Achilles, Mikhail Uriokovitch




Peggy Carter has posed:
OOC: Content Warning. This scene contains graphic descriptions of medical experimentation, body horror, Nazi science, and prisoner death. If you are sensitive to any of those topics, please do not read on.

Peggy Carter has posed:
While Peggy isn't back in the field full time, she's still a fount of SHIELD knowledge and experience from the agency's founding until the mid 1980s. This is the closest to an official mission she's had yet, but it's an important one. Having gotten the full briefing about Daniel Whitehall and gone back through every file around the man who was in custody up until her own 'retirement', she's readied for this briefing. She looks nearly her old self, hair styled to look not quite so thin as it was over her sickness, a bit of muscle mass and weight regained, most of those raw patches of skin healed along with the bruises, and in a suit that looks like she could have stepped out of one of the first briefings ever for SHIELD. A neat black pencil skirt, wide lapelled 1940s blouse and matching jacket screams no non-sense. She looks almost identical to the pictures of her on various walls in SHIELD and in the organization's historical files.

The large briefing table has several datapads set around it the way she would old briefing files, all of them keyed up to a file on Daniel Whitehall, previously Werner Reinhardt. There's one for everyone expected and a few extras just in case other agents are pulled in. Peggy's standing at the head of the table, giving serious, quiet smiles to those who enter and a brief tilt of her head. "We'll start in a few minutes..." She mutters in her normal clipped accent. There is a tightness to her, though. The weight of business and old ghosts behind her voice.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Agent Natasha Romanov enters the room with an expression that could be called stony but is more like... utterly neutral, to a vaguely odd degree. She softly greets the... senior agent, "Agent Carter." with respect, and finds a piece of wall to lean on.
    It's kinda strange not being the oldest agent at Shield anymore.
    Not that anyone would know that.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
After the surprise revelation that Daniel Whitehall was behind the technology giving alt right and neo nazis Inhuman abilities, Bobbi sat down with Director Fury and her direct report Field Director Gonzales and considered their next move wisely. It was a quick decision to call on the knowledge of previous Director Peggy Carter. The meeting was organised and now Bobbi was here.

She picked up a data pad and gave Peggy a small smile, "Agent Carter, thank you for doing the briefing today. It is really appreciated." Taking a seat up close to the front because she doesn't want to miss a single detail on this one. She rests the datapad in her lap. Dressed in combination 'ready for action' and 'being a senior agent behind a desk', she has her combat uniform on underneath a business jacket. The combination almost works. If she threw on her lab coat, the confusion would be complete.

Jessica Drew has posed:
It wasn't until she learned some of her history that the wonder of seeing Peggy Carter had weight with Jessica - callous youth not having enough history behind her making her oblivious. Seated down the table from the senior agents with her datapad in front of her, she can't keep her eyes off the woman knowing how much history she incapsulates. Callow youth become fan girl. Dressed for the office today, in a black tailored jacket over black pants, neutral meeting face in place, she shifts in her chair, eager to have details on this new neo-Nazi threat.

Jack Nolan has posed:
Nolan is almost always in tactical gear when he's on duty. Ready to go at a moment's notice. Due to his unique stature and abilies, being in the field is pretty much the main thing he's qualified for.

He makes his way to a seat towards the back, not wanting to obstruct anyone's view of Agent Carter. He has a tablet that he's being very careful not to scratch up with some information on it that he pulled about the current situation.

Achilles has posed:
    It was heavily suggested to Agent Trainee that he might want to attend this briefing. So it's not hugely surprising that he stands in the back of the room, hands in the pockets of his black BDU pants, black turtleneck sculped to his frame. What? He likes black. Well, that and bronze, and blue and.. oh skip it. Either way he's standing in the area but trying not to draw attention to himself for the most part. He's just observing and listening and such.

Mikhail Uriokovitch has posed:
Mikhail had gotten the memorandum about the briefing and actually was sober for this meeting. He is not in his usual sweatshirt and pants, but a button up and tie. He was in a surprisingly serious mood as he takes his seat that is provided, the Russian secures a datapad and pays close attention to the front of the room, the usually jovial man is certainly not so, today.

Peggy Carter has posed:
A pair of neat, shined high heels put Peggy's height at a few inches above her normal and, despite still in somewhat recovery, she seems to be navigating on them just fine. It means she's at a good level to easily look across the entire room even as heads fall in lines with everyone settled at the table. Her smile is sparing, if earnest, but whatever this briefing is, it's taken every bit of the old, serious Directorial attitude. The woman at the front is clearly someone who can, and did, head up SHIELD for over thirty years.
"Agents. Thank you for joiningjust. Senior Agent Morse, thank you for helping organize this and drawing my attention to the... Issue. If you all open your tablets, you will have fully updated and coalesced files on one Daniel Whitehall. There can be no doubt in my mind that Whitehall is, somehow, the man previously known as Werner Reinhardt, Reinhardt was one of the most notorious Nazi scientists HYDRA ever had in it's employ and, in fact, one of the heads of HYDRA during his day. Myself and the Howling Commandos personally saw to his capture and imprisonment in 1945. It... was not fast enough." The first few pages of the file are photos of Whitehall and Reinhard, the older ones as crisp in their black and white as possible but the facial features are, undoubtedly, a match. Even if it is strange the man is young again. But then, Peggy is nearing 100 herself and looks in her 30s standing before them.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi looks around the room, seeing the faces ready to consume what Peggy's bringing to the table. She smiles at this and lifts an eyebrow to Angelo as he stays in the back, nodding toward an empty seat. Her eyes turn to the datapad and she looks through the first pieces of information. When the facial scan of the image Jemma's drones took brought back Werner Reinhardt she was very surprised. When he bid them all farewell with a 'Hail HYDRA,' well that sent shivers down her spine. That old enemy has never truly gone away - she has several contacts with HYDRA agents herself.. but the old heads, the ones who did the truly nasty stuff - they were meant to be gone, buried, finito.. it's almost too coincidental that when Peggy returns so does HYDRA.

For the moment, she keeps her questions in her mind. She has so many of them. There's a lot of information here though and Peggy is already making this feel like an old school meeting. She certainly has a way about her.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Natasha opens her tablet, her brow arching slowly as she looks through the initial files and pictures on offer. She can hardly talk, but... "... We need to get better at not letting these people live so long."

Jack Nolan has posed:
"Are we sure it's the same guy? Not like a clone or an alien disguised as him or some kind of alternate timeline version?" Jack asks, as he tabs over to another page on his tablet, "I mean it's pretty clear he still has the same world views at least, but...I guess I'm just pitching ideas."

Jessica Drew has posed:
Only a twitch of her mouth betrays the little skip of her heart that sneaks up on Jessica at the mention of HYDRA. Her heart doesn't skip out of love lost. She still feels the bitter moment of betrayal when she finally understood what they had done to her and her family.

Her family is gone, but this villain seems to have been reborn again. Eyes down reading, she raises them in time to see both Peggy and Bobbi look around at the assembled agents. Straightening her shoulders, the young woman prepares for an uncomfortable meeting facing old enemies and their crimes.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"Agent Morse can speak to her team's findings of Daniel Whitehall but, appearances aside, the experiments he is behind with giving Inhuman abilities to Nazi agents... I am told they are called 'Alt right nowdays'..." Peggy makes a face for a moment that says she is *quite* unhappy with that rebranding, "But they are Nazis. I would not be surprised if they are HYDRA as well, but I do not have enough information to confirm such allegiences. Never the less, both his physical appearance and his method of experimental operation are consistent with Daniel Whitehall being Werner Reinhardt. And, considering Reinhardt's preferred methods of experimentaiton, I would rather assume and stare it in the face than give this man any benefit of any doubt.

Peggy clears her throat a moment and swipes across her own screen, going to the next pages of the document she's made for everyone. If she's had issues settling into modern technology, she's not showing them right now. "The images you are seeing on the next page are Werner Reinhardt's labs as we found them when we invaded in 1945. We estimate we were able to save about 20 percent of the prisoners he experimented upon, but that estimate could be high as it was difficult to get full numbers on bones from below the cremation rooms." Peggy's voice is as carefully neutral as one can get. The photos are... not.

Horror isn't the right word for the photos, nor is atrocities, but that is as close as one's mind might get. There are dozens of stark black and white photos of various medical rooms, bodies hooked up to machines, some chest cavities opened with tubes running directly into internal organs, between ribs, threaded into muscle. Other bodies so emaciated that the only thing keeping them alive must be the IV drips and wires they are hooked up to. One room of bodies. Naked, stark, broken limbs tossed on a pile like discarded dolls, the occasional face clear though several of those bodies have also been flayed. Another pile of bones and ash. An entire wall of body parts in various gels, containers, some of those also hooked to experimental machines. Peggy stares over the photos she's seen a hundred times, going through them again as the Agents do. "...this...is how HYDRA... attempted to create super soldiers. Among... other things."

Achilles has posed:
    Knowing that his friend has had some seriously bad experiences (understatement!) with Hydra, Angelo takes a half step towards her and just bumps her arm with his arm, if only to wordlessly remind her that she is not alone here. That she has friends around. No words spoken. Just a half smile given if she looks his way. But either way, he's not interrupting the presentation.

Mikhail Uriokovitch has posed:
Mikhail nods at Peggy in salutation as he takes center stage for this. The name of Reinhardt takes a few moments to register in his head until something clicks and he gets a look of recognition. He goes through his datapad and notes a few things and then turns to Natasha and says, "Da. He's lucky we did not catch him." Mik's tone is somber, but he frowns.

When Peggy continues, Mik then looks at the other information provided, unfazed by the atrocities in front of him, though the frown carved into his face does not move.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
    Natasha's expression doesn't change as she goes through the images, but it's not a show of control. Rather her default, when putting absolutely no thought or energy into such things, is to fall into a complete blank. Her mind's concerned with... other things at the moment. She doesn't shrink away from the imagery on hand, but... she moves through it quickly, not lingering a nanosecond longer than necessary.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi frowns a touch at the images. That war had a reputation for cruelty like no other, in part thanks to HYDRA and their insane attempts at world domination. Her mind is considering though - he has to be doing something similar once more. Somewhere in New York City, or New Jersey more likely.. there is a laboratory. She makes a note to start looking for increases in missing persons cases, especially of known Inhuman or Mutant kind.

"In interviews with the people we detained, when we informed them the concoction they injected would kill them and we as yet had no cure... it is safe to say I believed them when they said they had no idea who or what HYDRA was. I believe that Whitehall considers them disposable soldiers, not of the 'true faith' of HYDRA. So, even Whitehall thinks neo nazis are dumb." Her eyes roll at that.

Achilles has posed:
    And then the images come on the display, and Angelo narrows his eyes. Still no words spoken. He has seen horrors in his time. Many different types of horror. But even when he thinks that there is nothing he can see that will ever surprise him... he is proven wrong.
    His face grows cold, and emotionless after that small smile of his, and he just glares at said display.

Jessica Drew has posed:
The images are the sort that will sneak up on Jessica later, those last moments of weightlessness before sleep tangled with atrocities. The counselor, she was obliged to consult, explained the impact of PTSD on her. After a measured breath, she prefers to keep her eyes fastened on Peggy and the front of the room. A crooked half-smile forms for the arm bump from Angelo, which she acknowledges with a lift of her chin.

Jack Nolan has posed:
Nolan isn't as good at keeping his face neutral as some of the other agents are. He frowns, wondering to himself how they didn't just put a bullet in the back of this guy's skull right then and there. Monsters are real, and sometimes they look human.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"One of Reinhardt's top research projects was on something he called the Obelisk. He was obsessed with mythology, as much of the Nazis and the Thule society were, and pursued a story of stars that fell from the sky, which could give great power or death. He did eventually find this Obelisk and figuring out the power it contained was, despite it's lethality. Dozens of those bodies are attributed to touching this orb. Eventually, he found one person it reacted to, but we invaded and shut down his operation shortly after." Peggy falls quiet as Bobbi explains the neo nazis that were taking his experiments. She listens, still looking grim about it as she sighs through her nose quietly. "...A nazi is a nazi, dumb or not. And, chances are, they might not be HYDRA, but another head has surfaces somewhere else."

Peggy exhales again, getting a quiet control over the touch of bubbling emotions that threatened to break through there. It's just a few twitches across her face, that famous British stoicism, but to anyone who even vaguely knows her, that means she was internally screaming. "If you go to your next section... HYDRA. These following pages are every branch I was able to trace over my time as director. Their favorite catch phrase -- cut off one head and two grow in its place -- felt sadly true for many years. Reinhardt was one head... and now I would put good money on Whitehall being another. By the time I retired in 1985, I thought we had contained all the threats but... I now suspect I was wrong. Reinhardt's death in custody during 1989 looks suspicious at best, a set up most likely. I'm still going through records as I was...indisposed at the time." She lets out one last breath, seeing Jack's expression, a slight smirk crosses her lips, "And trust me, I'd have rather him dead. It was all I could do to get him to spend life in prison, many in the government wanted to sign an immunity deal in exchange for his research skills... as the American government did with several other nazi scientists. The SSR, the predacessor to SHIELD, ensured that did not happen. It was the best we could get at the time." She is rather clearly regretting that now. "...That's... the brief of a very long story. I'm open for questions, now."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi has many questions, but it's best to prioritise to the important ones. "When you raided his laboratory the first time, its location was public knowledge because the reich was in power and they felt emboldened, with no need to hide. This time, he's hiding and hiding well. What were some of the tell tale signs at that facility that we could track in todays urban environment. Based on transmission power of his hologram, we guestimate he must be within the NYC, New Jersey area, but that's still a lot of ground to cover."

Jessica Drew has posed:
Jessica nods to herself at Bobbi's question, thinking: very down to earth, very, how do we pinpoint those bastards. "My question is something along the same lines. Laboratories need supplies, tubing, needles, reagents, etc. Do we have a line on who is selling what to laboratories in the greater New York area?"

Jack Nolan has posed:
"I've read that a lot of these HYDRA and Nazi agents killed themselves rather than be captured." Jack says, "Do we know if the new guys have that same kind of mentality? Or are we able to capture one and interrogate him to find the location of the base?" He's pretty good at interrogations.

Peggy Carter has posed:
The question is a good one. Peggy quietly swipes her tablet's screen dark so she can focus eyes on the room entirely in front of her. She paces, just slightly, the thoughtful look of a commander in a war room briefing in the entire set of her body and across her face. If she's still feeling weak from her recovery, she's not showing it now. She looks like the straight backed woman who could command an army. "It's a good point. I'd have to look into more modern medical supplies, but he had a great fondness for electrical as well as biological experimentation, so he'd need somewhere he can get a heavy power draw as well as contain a cremation room without drawing anyone's attenton from heat, smoke, or strange structures. Not to mention, if he's just soliciting volunteers from modern day Nazi movements, looking for politically leaning focus or scientific clinical trial groups might be another lead to follow."

Then her dark eyes flicker to Jack and her jaw sets into a bit of a line. She tilts her head in affirmation at his question of the older ones killing themselves. "That was certainly a pattern during my time and even up through the 70s. With the avent of new technology, including the holograms he's using now, our raids in the 80s rarely caught HYDRA agents in person, but destroyed many of their facilities. From the psychological profile of these... Alt Right volunteers..." The distaste behind her tongue for that term is still drippingly clear, "They are brainwashed for much unquestioningly loyalty and have already volunteered for deathly experiments. It would not take much more to convince them to die for the cause, I suspect. But Agent Morse knows more about that group than I."

Mikhail Uriokovitch has posed:
"Nazi scum," Mik says as more is explained. Jessica's comment about supplies and says, "Many medical facilities, but perhaps short list could be made?" His accent is heavy, but the agent is trying to be businesslike. "Perhaps some common themes will show up, especially if they are not moving things that other hospitals would need that they do not."

The mention of the willingness to die of the Nazis gets a dark snort from Mik, "Da, then perhaps we oblige them?" He then asks, "Do we have mole in their ranks? Perhaps compromise somebody who gives us what we need?""

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi hmms, "Undercover operations are above your clearance level but I will be running that up the command chain," she replies to Mikhail. "Any conjectures as to how he looks so young? the last photo we have of him in SHIELD custody, he's an old man." She shakes her head a moment and agrees with Natasha's assessment.. how do these people keep getting so old. Then again, it also means Peggy is here. The ghosts of the past brought in to the present. Thank goodness no one from the future has turned up to make things even worse. "HYDRA agents do tend to self destruct when cornered or captured. They have numerous ways to do it - from cyanide to implanted explosive devices. They are still die hards when it comes to 'the grand plan', which seems to be different for every arm of HYDRA. Perhaps his return will cause political ripples in the organisation itself."

Jessica Drew has posed:
"They probably have double blinds for buying. Though you never know. Give me blonde hair and I will play the innocent drug rep or equipment rep trying to get new clients." Jessica nods at Mikhail, sweeping her gaze back to the front of the room, then falls silent not wanting to take up meeting time with ground ops.

Peggy Carter has posed:
A slight shake comes to her head, "As far as I am aware, we do not have a current mole in their rank, but I'm 30 years out of date. The two I had in the 80s are... no longer with us, from the reports I've researched." Peggy's lips settle into a grim line as she admits that, though she's keeping most of the emotions off her face because this is still a professional setting. "Medical equipment sales... might... take a long while, but it's a possibility. Especially if we can single it down to a few possible companies or shell corporations and addresses." Peggy finally steps over to the chair at the head of the table, letting herself sit after the discussion. "...As for his aging, considering their experiments and all of what you were able to do for *me*... I wouldn't put it past genetic engineering. Or, perhaps, some sort of artifact they have managed to recover in their other research."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
"Another potential approach to this problem is that hologram generator. He's communicating remotely with his stooges, but that thing draws a lot of power and must have a high bandwidth for communications. Also, it was a big piece of equipment, it had to have been moved there, or assembled there by skilled technicians - probably HYDRA agents. So, that's another angle to pursue.. as well as how he went about recruiting those particular people. Odds are he'll try again, so some stake outs of local neo nazi gatherings might find us a HYDRA agent, who might lead is back to their nest," Bobbi suggests to the group. Perhaps less of a suggestion and more a statement of action she intends to bring up with Gonzales after the meeting is concluded.

Peggy Carter has posed:
"Well, if there are no other questions, you are all dismissed. If you think of others, well...I'm not exactly going anywhere." Peggy offers to the room, those last words echoing with a wry bit of a smile, but she doesn't move from the chair. She simply reopens the file she organized to go through it again. So many years staring at these photos, so little actually changed...

Achilles has posed:
    Pushing off of the counter he was leaning on, Angelo nods his head. He turns and moves past Bobbi, "Agent Morse. If you need anything in any sort of support role for whatever investigations you area ll doing, I am happy to offer any assistance I am capable of. I know you could order me to, but... I suppose sometimes when one is in command, it helps to know one's subordinates are willing."