2403/SHIELD: The embiggening of a school bus

SHIELD: The embiggening of a school bus
Date of Scene:	10 July 2020
Location:	SHIELD research hanger at JFK airport
Synopsis:	A little faith in little Nadia makes a tiny bus big again
Cast of Characters:	Bobbi Morse, Nadia Pym-van Dyne, Bruce Banner

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Bobbi Morse has posed:
The secluded hanger at JFK Airport is spacious enough for this kind of operation -- attempting to undo an invading alien shrink abduction ray. At the very edge of the field a school bus, presumably moving at speed, managed to evade the abduction beam but not the shrinking beam from Brainiac's ship. The hanger is filled with monitoring equipment, energy emitters, computers, a mini-supercomputer cluster is still being hooked up but is partially working.

There are agents in suits everywhere and many "do not cross" lines with clearance levels on them. At the very center of the room are two marked out areas -- one, the size of the bus if it were full size; and two - the teeny tiny microscopic bus resting on a table which will be sacrificed if they can actually reverse the shrinkage.

There are many consultants off in the temporary wings sitting at fold out tables with laptops looking over data. As a member of the Avengers, Bruce already has consultant credentials with SHIELD. Nadia though needed more paperwork, which Bobbi happily had an office worker do for her. Lanyards ahoy.

Bobbi parks outside the hanger. There are many other vehicles with the SHIELD logo on them here, as well as several civilian vehicles. Secrecy about the technology inside is important, but it is isolated from all the other secrets one might see if they visited the Triskelion.

"Time is obviously a factor here. Brainiac's deadline is coming up. If we can reverse what he's done to this bus, or find a way to neutralise the technology used to shrink the bus in the first place - we will have a significantly better chance against him when he comes for his declared final battle," Bobbi explains as she enters the facility. A security guard checks her credentials as he should, but also looks to the lanyards of all visitors and notes them down.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia holds up her lanyard credentials proudly for all to see as she follows Bobbi inside the hangar. An official security clearance lanyard from /SHIELD/ how cool is that?! She is all smiles as she follows along looking at all the various technology that has been set up. She is also carrying a large duffle bag full of who knows what slung over one shoulder.

The bag being full of 'who knows what' only lasts until the security check though, when the bag is opened and revealed to be full of snacks and candy. "It's for the people in the bus!" Nadia declares to the Agent, as if perhaps he thought it was all for her or something in his surprised reaction, "If you're going to get stared at by titans for a few hours you might as well have something good to munch on."

"I have some ideas, if nothing else being locked in a room for a week was a good chance to do some reading and make some notes." She tells Bobbi when they are further inside. Except the books and notes do not seem to be in evidence. "But I need to know more about this technology and how it works. Do you have the data that Mr. Stark has been gathering?" She unslings the duffle bag from her shoulder, "Anyway first I'm going to deliver this stuff to everyone inside, and then the real work begins." And in an instant she has seemingly vanished, except for a tiny speck that can be seen walking across the table towards the bus and boarding it.

Bruce Banner has posed:
Bruce Banner's forays beyond the Avengers Mansion have been relatively rare ever since they had suitable lab equipment installed for him there. Now there's really no reason to let him out in the open unless they want him to break something - or SHIELD says it's okay. He's dressed in a slightly crumbled grey suit that is a bit too baggy on him, and his hair hasn't seen a barber in a couple months leaving it shaggy and unkempt despite an attempt to comb it down. As normal, his brown eyes are magnified by the thick spectacles he wears.

"Uh, Banner," he tells one of the agents, holding up his own lanyard and getting a wide-eyed and nervous stare. He makes a face of mock anger and holds up his hands, but when the agent reaches for his sidearm, he immediately lifts his hands defensively and shakes his head, "Kidding. Kidding. I'm good."

"Tiny bus," the famed nuclear scientist turned rage monster cage announces to the echoing hangar, moving towards it to get down on his hands and knees to peer at the space it occupies, "Hello, tiny people."

A pause, and then he glances up towards Bobbi and Nadia through loose strands of dark hair to grin myopically and say: "This must be how Thor feels."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi looks to the Agent that placed his hand on his side arm, "You. Tell your duty officer you're relieved and report for danger room training. If you want to go further in this agency you must learn to stow those irrational fears."

Several of the scientists looking at instrumentation readouts suddenly pop their heads up and look over at Nadia shrinks down and joins the people on the bus. They have been working on unshrinking it all so to suddenly have another person shrink was a bit of a surprise.

Bobbi walks over to the IT corner and checks out a tablet each for Banner and Nadia to use, then wanders back to meet them once more. "That's a good thing you just did Nadia. This tablet is linked to the local network here. We have WAMPUS in the corner still being set up, for heavy computation and machine learning. There's also the regular servers being used for sharing work. Nothing leaves this hanger. All the data Stark gathered with his specialised drones, as well as all the data we gathered with our instrumentation are on the servers too. If you think you have a solution, we have a small chip of the bus set up over there," she points to another desk with lines around it too, "That we are testing on. The task master for equipment is named Agent Liliths. She's nice but has no sense of humour. All experiments are to go through her. Everyone here is eager to talk shop with each other, don't feel you need to keep to yourself - even if you just want to bounce ideas off of someone." She looks to Banner and Nadia with a friendly smile, "If there is anything else you two need. I'm here for you."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
After a few minutes a small speck can be seen leaving the bus again. After getting some distance away from the bus the tiny speck seems to jump, that tiny jump though is magnified like a flea with it's hyper-dense muscles as it rockets up and in the blink of an eye a full sized Nadia appears standing next to the table again, "The sweets have been distributed!" she announces, seeming rather pleased with herself. "They said hi back Dr. Banner, I told them how cool you are and how you're here to help them." There's that bright sunshine smile again.

"Okay, time to get to work!" Nadia reaches into her pocket, withdrawing seemingly nothing until with a sudden *fwoosh* she is holding several books, research papers, obscure possibly classified articles, and three notebooks filled cover to cover with various thoughts, theories, and scribbles, as well as the occasional cute doodle. "Soooo, the first question is if this is mass based or spatially based shrinking. Has the distance between the molecules been reduced or have the molecules themselves been reduced?" she begins flipping through one of the notebooks as she examines some of the monitors.

Bruce Banner has posed:
"Stark, Stark, Stark, Stark," Banner mumbles to himself from the ground, rising up with a decidedly middle-aged groan and pressing a hand against the small of his back, "Wonderful Tony. Let's gorge ourselves on his leavings."

"Tony Stark isn't as messianic a figure as you think he is," he continues, reaching out to take the tablet and giving it a wary once over before glancing back up at Bobbi, "He thinks from what he already knows. Applies the basic principles. He never shifts the paradigm. He plays inside the laws, but he doesn't break them. Besides, we're both equally capable of blowing ourselves up with our own munitions, thank you very much."

Banner pats his chest with his free hand while staring down at the tablet: "Except he only got the ... the, uh, the heart trouble for it. Fair trade if the alternative is tearing apart city blocks whenever someone cuts you off in line for a churro."

When Nadia appears, Banner regards her as she speaks to him. Her words seem to placate him somewhat, and he ceases to bristle and instead beams widely at Bobbi.

"I'm cool."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi looks very amused as Bruce complains about people talking too much about Stark. A little smirking smile grows on her face but she's trying to be professional, no matter how much she agrees with him. That's why SHIELD do their own measurements too. "The data from the bus itself is in folder 002. The event data is in 001. Stark's data is in 003 and 004. Dr. Franklin's research from Genoshia is in folder 010." She points over to the various equipment aimed at the bus. "If you're looking for something specific we haven't already measured, well, feel free to adjust the equipment and turn it on."

Bobbi nods to Bruce and then lifts a finger, "Oh. And I got you an extra comfy chair Bruce." She motions over to a desk for her chosen consultants. Dr. Banner, Nadia. Let's do some weird SCIENCE!" A pause as her phone buzzes in her pocket, "One moment, don't wait for me." She steps away and brings the phone to her ear, "Yes Deputy Director.." her voice gets quieter as she moves away from the pair.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia grins at Dr. Banner as she picks up the tablet left for her, "Super cool." making finger guns in his direction. Whether a normal teenager would ever do this is questionable, but from Nadia and her questionable undestanding of normal it seems quite sincere.

"Yes! Weird SCIENCE!" Nadia cheers echoing Bobbi's words almost like a battle cry before remembering she probably shouldn't be shouting out of consideration for the tiny people's eardrums.

She steps over to the monitors again, meticulously comparing the current readouts to data in the folders and her own theoretical notes. "Hmmm this is fascinating, I think he is reducing the molecules themselves but on such a large scale... how is he doing it.." the last bit is said mostly to herself, she would very much like to know!

Bruce Banner has posed:
"Some sort of energy transference?" Banner asks, leaning to peer over Nadia's shoulder before examining his own tablet closely, "If he's found a way to move the energy, he can reduce the space between atoms without upsetting Doctor Einstein. Isn't that how your, uh, father does it?"

"Or he's actually taking away matter and reorganizing the atoms ... but even that giant starship doesn't have the space to store a whole neighborhood's worth of waste matter. And we'd need compensatory matter to re-size the bus. No, no, it's got to be energy. SHIELD lady?"

He turns around, looking around for Bobbi and finding she's gone to answer her phone call: "SHIELD la-"

He frowns, looking back to Nadia and speaking like he would to someone working on a top level scientific study with him.

"We need energy. A lot of it."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
"Yes ma'am," Bobbi says as she is walking back to them and hangs up. She nods to Bruce and smiles, "How much?" Bobbi motions over to a the infrastructure officer and says, "What's the current generator output Dr. Seitzer?"

The man in a lab coat with lanyard hanging from his coats pocket is wiping his hands of grease on a handkerchief. "Currently, just the mini-HIT, at 37mW, but if we warm up the big one, re-HIT, we can get up to 517mW in series." He dips his head to Bruce and Nadia and asks, "Of course, if you need more than that, we can link in the city grid or get mega-HIT on a truck from the Triskelion."

Bobbi nods her head to Seitzer, "Thanks for the update." Bobbi looks back to the pair and asks, "Okay, so.. what are we going to do with all this power. Inflate the space between atoms without ripping their atomic bonds loose?" There is a buzzing on her phone, "One moment, I'll be right back." She picks up the phone again and starts to walk away once more, "Director, no Sir... yes Sir...," and once again fades away as she gains distance.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia holds her chin, tapping the side of her face with finger while she thinks, "I think it is energy, but I don't think it is the same process as Pym Particles. I do not think he is shunting mass or energy in and out of the microverse, and the people inside didn't seem hyper-dense, which usually results from size reduction through Pym Particles."

She opens a different notebook and flips through the pages before squinting at the readouts on the tablet again, "I think you're right though Dr. Banner, we need energy. Because it hasn't been too long with enough energy and a Pym Particle reaction I think we can undo the effect of his technology. That's not reversing it through the same means, important difference since while bringing them back in the same way they were reduced would be easiest, we still don't understand how his technology works and will likely need more samples and examples and time before we can get close to that, but the effect can be undone." she sets down the tablet and reaches into her pocket again, a long oblong cylinder appearing in her hand along with what looks like some sort of strange chrome gauntlet, the sort of thing that might belong as part of a costume... "With a few modifications I think she can shunt the energy and Pym Particles through this emitter in reverse and restore the bus, but it's going to take some tinkering and a lot of energy." She looks at Bobbi and echos Dr. Banner, "A lot of it."

Bruce Banner has posed:
"The generators - are the specs on here?" Banner furrows his brow, flipping through the pad and reviewing the partially-classified schematics on display, "I ... I'm sorry, agent, but I don't think that's going to be enough. This is a lot of power. This isn't like 'lighting up the Vegas Strip' power ... this is science fiction levels of power. This is Asimovian energy."

"Can we ... "

Banner trails off a little, moving amongst the equipment that has been set up with a distant look on his face. After a moment he breaks out into a wide grin, having completed some length equation in his head.

"Oh, I've always wanted to do this ... " then, turning to Bobbi and Nadia, he adds, "We need to tap into the city's power supply."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi wanders back over to them as she hangs up on Fury. Well, okay, he hung up first. You all don't know that. "You want to access the city grid?" She lifts an eyebrow and then shrugs her shoulders. "Fine with me." Yep, just like that. Her phone begins to ring again and she lifts it up to her ear, "Hello? ..who?" She looks puzzled and then glances at the phone, "Stupid political ad phone calls." She hangs up and then says, "Just give me a moment I'll get the city grid access cleared by Director Coulson."

She taps on her phone and walks away again and begins talking, "Hey Coulson," no titles needed, "..yes actually it is about that. Do you remember the protocols for the city grid..," she wanders away far enough that her voice is lost to the noise of the hanger once more.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia's eyes light up at the prospect of tapping into the city's power, she's never been able to play with anywhere near that much energy before. But if this crazy jury-rig solution is going to work they're going to need.

She quickly sets to work putting the gauntlet and cylinder down on the table.

"Hey you!" she points at one of the nearby SHIELD personnel, "S..scar..Scarborough! Mr. Scarborough," she calls him after squinting at his nametag, "I need to feed the city's entire power grid into this." she points at the black and chrome gauntlet on the table, seemingly dead serious in that statement. "So I need you to get me a whole lot of wire and cable, also tools, that I can use to do that, can you do that?" She gives the man a brilliant smile and double thumbs up.

Producing some micro-fine tools of her own once again from her seemingly infinite pocket of many things, she sets about making adjustments to the beam array contained within the frame of the device and loading the cylinder into it in an auxillary fashion. "We can do this! This can work!"

Bruce Banner has posed:
"Of course it can work," Banner mutters, distracted by his own thoughts as he moves over towards the computers. He leaves Bobbi to work through the administrative red tape, operating on the assumption of what they need to happen will happen eventually.

"You can wire it up," he directs, pointing a finger at Nadia and the gauntlet, "The software's going to need a sizable change to deal with the new variables. I can do it."

He leans over the keyboard, squinting at the desktop and immediately setting about deleting all the carefully installed macros and software the SHIELD scientists had set up on it.

"This is a mess. Get rid of this. You still use that? None of this. None of this. Ugh, what are you, fifteen? No. No. Okay, good, clean slate."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
A SHIELD agent steps back toward where he left his terminal and sees Banner erasing all of his carefully configured shortcuts and macros. He lifts an index finger to his mouth and bites on it. A fellow agent rests a consoling hand on his shoulder and leads him a way from the terminal.

Bobbi is off talking to Dr. Seitzer about bringing the city power grid in to the hanger. He's waving his arms about animatedly and Bobbi is simply watching his outburst. The words 'mega-HIT' drift across the hanger for a brief moment, causing several agents to stop working and stare their way. "City grid," chimes brightly through the hushed moment as Bobbi insists he do the thing Dr. Banner and Nadia want. In frustration Seitzer storms off and starts gathering up his crew to reroute power from the city grid.

She makes her way back over to see Nadia wiring and Banner coding. "Ah, I see you two are on to something already. Remember, first test is on the bus piece, not the bus itself. If successful, then we do the bus." She knows how myopic it can get when your head enters science space, she is the same when doing biochemistry.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
When Bobbi returns, Nadia is bent over the gauntlet on the table with a soldering iron affixing one end of the reams of heavy cable Agent Scarborough managed to acquire for her to it. It really must be quite the show for the tiny people in the bus, the titanic teenager working in the distance with the sparks that flying everywhere seeming like a veritable meteor shower at their size.

"It's almost ready," she says straightening up and removing the welding mask she was wearing, "We just need to attach the other end of this cabling to whatever interface you are routing the New York power grid through and hope it doesn't explode, fingers crossed." Did she just say explode? The Gauntlet? New York? Was trusting a sixteen year old girl genius really the best idea?

Bruce Banner has posed:
Banner doesn't even check Nadia's work. He pays her a casual glance as she works but seems more than engrossed with his own work on the computer. In the end he makes alterations to the operating system on a fundamental level to accommodate his code, making more efficient use of the processors than the old one ever did. Finally, satisfied, he stands up and claps his hands together.

"Okay, all good on this side," he announces, lifting his arms to entwine his fingers behind his head and stair down thoughtfully at the screen, "Ready when you are."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi looks a little unsure, "Did you say explode?" Her eyes flit over to Bruce a moment and then back to he gauntlet. "Well, lets set it up on the test fire bench and see if it can reverse that piece of metal from the bus." There is a nervous look though, this isn't the first test someone has attempted and so far nothing has worked. On the other hand, Nadia seems as brilliant as her father and she has Banner backing her up.

She claps her hands, "Agents we will be doing a test fire in three minutes." She smiles over to the agent in chair and taps the side of her nose as if to say, 'this'll be the one'.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
The other end of the cable is given to the long suffering Agent Scarborough who is beginning to wonder what he did to earn the negative karma that he is apparently being forced to work off today.

Once the all clear comes back that the thick bundle of cables connected to the gauntlet has indeed been hooked into the city's power grid, Nadia moves the now heavily modified gauntlet over into the test firing position. It is almost not recognizable as a gauntlet anymore after the various heat sinking upgrades and other modifications helpful to their current purposes but that would never normally work for a gauntlet in the field.

"Everyone stand back!" she shouts once the device is in place, before retreating to a safe distance herself.

"Auxillary backup voice activation Protocal Tesla Electric Pink Crystal Rainbow." she calls out loud enough for the gauntlet to register her voice, whereupon lights start coming on and internal components whir to life.

"Now, Dr. Banner!" she calls out for him to activate the software controlling the massive energy surge on his end.

Bruce Banner has posed:
"Hold on to your butts," Banner drawls, before grinning sidelong at Bobbi and murmuring, "Jurassic Park."

He taps the keyboard a few more times, reviews what scrawls past him on the screen at breakneck speed, and then reaches out to hit enter. There's a hum, the thrum of electronics, and the lights definitely dim. The power is shunted from where it normally goes and is instead rerouted to the gauntlet.

As this happens, Banner looks up expectantly and cranes his neck to get a better look.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
With her safety goggles on she smirks at Bruce's Jurassic Park reference. The vertible hum of the massive SHIELD transformers rerouting power from the city grid and in to that tiny guantlet make Bobbi wonder if they've all been dosed with radiation or not. Someone will check later, she's sure.

The gaunlet activates and tiny piece of metal on the test table grows so rapidly it's like a visual blur to human eyes. It is the bonnet of the bus, bent and broken from the crash it was in post-shrinking. A SHIELD scientist starts a stop watch the moment it turns back to being big and Agent Liliths walks over to Bobbi. They're all holding their breath as the power is cut from the gauntlet... five seconds... ten seconds... twenty seconds.

"It's not shrinking," Agent Scarborough breaks the silent. This deflates the tension and people being to breath as it seems like it really did work. Agents approach the bonnet with instrumentation and the information starts feeding back in to the network. All of a sudden people are a hubub of activity again pouring over the data to confirm it is stable. One by one, SCIENTISTS stand up and give the thumbs up to Agent Liliths, then the technicians begin to clap.

Agent Liliths says to Bobbi, "Alright, you've got the go ahead for the whole bus."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"Yeah it worked! I told you it would work!" Nadia practically skips over to Dr. Banner, "High five!" she exclaims holding her hand up. It's anyone's guess who taught her to do that, but she seems quite taken with the gesture.

The gauntlet for its part has small amounts of smoke still drifting off of it, bits of the superstructure glowing orange in places, and there is the occasional popping sound from the amount of power that it just channeled.

Nadia heads back over to the gauntlet after high fiving Dr. Banner and using a pair of tongs rather than touching what is assuredly still very hot metal moves it into position to target the actual small bus.

"It's okay! It took the voltage surge better than I thought. Alright get back again!" retreating to a safe distance she once again calls out "Tesla Electric Pink Crystal Rainbow!" A password only a teenaged girl would come up with, "One more time Dr. Banner!"

Bruce Banner has posed:
"See, nothing to worry about," Banner looks totally assured, glancing sidelong at Bobbi in her safety goggles and giving her a friendly thumbs up, "Hey, this might be a weird question, but I was wondering, do you - "

But then he's interrupted, turning quickly about to listen to Nadia's celebration. He obligingly raises his hands, returning the high five and giving the teenager an encouraging nod.

"Darn right. I'll make some adjustments for the flow, hopefully we can keep it from getting toasty in the bus. Anyway, get ready with the fire extinguishers just in case."

There's a few more taps on the keys, and then Banner executes his program once again!

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi lifts an eyebrow at Bruce's question, unfinished. She'll ask him about it later. She looks back again as the massive hum of the transformers channels energy from the massive city grid. New York City is so massive, it has cryogenically cooled super conducting two metre thick cables running from several power plants to its distribution centres. One of those centres is quite close to the airport as it is a critical power consumer. Right now, that consumer is SHIELD.

The blur of the bus resizing and the people inside it is almost anticlimactic. A scientist starts to stop watch again as a person with a loud speaker says to the occupants inside, "Do not leave the bus yet, for your own safety, stay where you are. Do not leave the bus yet..." they repeat over and over again as everyone waits with baited breath to see if the bus will remain stable. 5 seconds... 10 seconds... 20 seconds... Agent Liliths indicates for Agents to move in. They rush to the bus and start getting people off of it as people start taking readings again.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
The beam shoots out a second time colliding with the bus and in a microsecond the vehicle balloons back to its full size. In that instant however its tiny inhabitants are also treated to what must seem like a supernova in the distance as the power flooding through the heavily modified gauntlet causes it to explode sending pieces and shrapnel in all directions, a few actually embedding in the side of the bus given the speed of its restoration.

"Yep, no matter how much heat sinking you add, that was bound to happen." Not even phased by it, "I'm glad it happened after the second time. I mean I have another gauntlet I could have rigged up but, this is definitely better." she semi-skips over to Dr. Banner and Bobbi again with hugs for both of them and she is also all smiles and waves for the people being brought off the bus after the adventure of a lifetime. Or Tuesday if you're The Wasp.

Bruce Banner has posed:
Banner awkwardly accepts the hug with the time-honored demeanor of someone who has no idea how to talk to young people and is not even sure they were one at any point. All the same, he smiles and politely pats Nadia on the back in response to the hug. He turns back to the computer, tapping a few keys to shut it down and then looking back towards the bus.

"Hey, that wasn't so bad," Banner announces before his brow furrows, "But that was just a bus ... we need to figure out this power problem if we're going to re-size a whole neighborhood."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
Bobbi returns the hug too, with a smile of relief. The bus ... actually looks fine. That gives her hope that the people abducted by Brainiac might be okay too. "What was that weird question Dr. Banner?" Almost as soon as she's asked the question her phone rings, "One moment," she says holding up a finger as she answers it. "Director. Yes..... The bus is back.... Mmhmm. They're off- .. mmhmm.. well yes but.. okay sure... the forms wil.." She holds out the phone and frowns as Fury hangs up. "Dammit." She sighs.