4864/Afterlife: The weakest link

Afterlife: The weakest link
Date of Scene:	24 January 2021
Location:	Afterlife
Synopsis:	Matt and Bobbi discuss what they've found out about Afterlife. A dark premonition threatens to end the peaceful life of the village.
Cast of Characters:	Matthew Murdock, Bobbi Morse

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Matthew Murdock has posed:
Matt had been gone awhile but that there was no shouting, or people bursting through the door looking for him, things had to be going well right? Eventually there's the sound of footsteps outside the back door that opens quietly as Matt steps inside, pulling back the hood of his sweatshirt. "Anyone awake?" he calls stepping deeper inside and sweeping the building with his senses for signs of life.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi glances up from the ebook she's reading, sitting on her bed. She's been out and about too, only having just got back. She smiles over to Matt and says, "Hey. Daisy is presumably off getting to know her mum. I met a guy named Mark who used to date the guy th.. actually you know what that's getting classified and complicated. How'd your recon go?"

Matthew Murdock has posed:
Matt heads in the direction of Bobbi's voice. "Good thing I stopped following her then," he says of Daisy's mom, he didn't want to intrude on that moment, especially when he has to deal wit what he'd already heard. As for his recon, "Strange, but did follow Jaiying, Gordon and the big guy to a cave, they were training Inhumans in there, and it felt like it was more than just control, they were using their powers offensively and it sounded like they're being prepared for something."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi raises an eyebrow, "Preparing for a fight? just what kind of powers did you sense? it's really hard to get an inventory of what kind of threat this place poses. There's a lot of people here and I've managed to glean that not all of them have undergone the transformation yet. And there's also kids here, which makes this a terrible place to pitch a battle. They need their secrecy to live like this and yet they can teleport wherever they want in an instant."

    She sighs and nods her head, "I'm honestly not surprised. Simply hiding away doesn't ever seem to be a complete answer. Some of them try to live out in the world and inevitably they are hunted down. Jacob and Mark, for instance, attempted to run a practice. They were found by HYDRA. Mark escaped, Jacob did not."

    She explains, "The arm of HYDRA that has been their enemy for so long is dead. His name was Whitehall. I doubt it's a popular name in these parts. I watched him die though, so I know his island and experiments are over. Thankfully. It's how we found Jiaying."

    She puts down the ebook and asks, "What else? you were gone longer than I expected you to be."

Matthew Murdock has posed:
There we just over twenty of them, sensed heat and cold, likely some electricity it was hard to tell, definitely felt like they packed a punch," Matt explains as he takes a seat on the floor. "Jia was also talking about needing something SHIELD has, she didn't say what, but if you meet someone named Mark, he might be your best in to knowing what's going on, they talked about him like he was sort of a weak link."

"Then I met Reina," he says. "She says she can see the future and spoke about some things I don't think she could know without some ability to see at least thoughts. She spoke of metal men coming and this place being destroyed," he says. "I don't think she was lying but I could also tell she's not exactly trustworthy, not many people are just as empty feeling as she is." Even if he did feel sorry for her.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    "Right. So it's a veritable X-Men in there. Except no even knows these people exist." She lets out a sigh. As if the X-Men weren't trouble enough from time to time. Whoever they are. "Mark's power is electricity," she adds as an after thought, "But he seemed a very thoughtful man. A doctor, possibly the doctor for this entire village. Interestingly his clinic or labs or whatever it was were quite well stocked and reasonably up to date. Not what I expected to see in this small village."

    The question of Reina though makes her raise an eyebrow. "So you think there's a real possibility she's telling the truth? ...this place being attacked and destroyed doesn't make sense. Though, may be they have more enemies than Whitehall. Whitehall is definitely not coming back from the grave, you can trust me on that."

    She shuts her eyes a moment as she remembers her hands gripping Whitehall's forearms so he cannot take his medicine and watching the life drain from his eyes. Then, not too much longer later, the entire hillside collapsing from a big boom.

    "We need to press the locals for more details then. Perhaps Mark is the best approach. They want something from us, perhaps that's our best way to bargain with them. Get them protection before it's too late. Figure out who this enemy might be. May be Reina knows more and isn't willing to share yet. What else did she say?," she asks.

Matthew Murdock has posed:
"Definitely feels like the X-Men," Matt admis, he only knows them from the news but a group dedicated to defend mutantkind didn't seem too far off from what he witnessed in the cave. Actually, "Or maybe the brotherhood, there was a hard edge to how they were talking, I don't think if they're pushed they're going to show much restraint."

As for Reina, "She knew things from the past that Daisy didn't have time to share and nobody else was there to witness, I don't know if that means she reads minds but she says this whole place is going to be destroyed by metal men." His attention goes to Bobbi after that, digging deep into her reactions. He trusted her, but if anyone had metal men, it'd be SHIELD, or well Stark but as far as he knew he wasn't involved.

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    "You know I can see the look you're giving me right now Matt... SHIELD has no reason to attack this place," she winces.. leaving it dangling with a 'yet' on the tip of her tongue. "Or Stark for that matter. But it does make me wonder -- Soviet Super Soldiers, US Super Soldiers, Chinese Super Soldiers, AIM, HYDRA, Leviathan... the list of enemies that they may have made could be long. It seems everyone wants what they've got."

    And what they've got is super powers that can be extracted. Well, people think that but the technique Whitehall came up with won't work without Jacob. ...or perhaps her...

    "Let's switch. I'll talk to Reina and you talk to Mark. Hopefully Daisy is having a good time. I'd like it if this place were legit, that they are simply training to defend their home in the worst case scenario... but I'm also an Agent of SHIELD and that kind of positivity doesn't have space in reality."

Matthew Murdock has posed:
"Like you said, certain levels of positivity doesn't really have a place in reality," Matt says of his suspicions about SHIELD. "But I trust you Bobbi, if you say SHIELD isn't after this place, then it's not," he says. "As for what their plans are, I agree finding out what it is they think you have is the best bet of bringing things to the table peacefully and working out a deal that'll help these people be protected and ensure their powers aren't used to hurt anyone."

As for HYDRA and the rest, "That's outside of my experience, how likely are any of those groups to know where this place is? Reina didn't give me a time frame but it didn't sound like it was a long way off either."

The lawyer nods at the idea of switching people to talk to, "Sounds good. Where do I find Mark's clinic?"

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi nods her head, "Right. We have a plan. I like having a plan. You make a plan, the plan fails, you make a new plan. That's the way it goes..." She nods down the path and then stops herself, "Take a right out the front door and listen for the building with all the electronics in it."

    She shakes her head and says, "I can't imagine anyone knows where this place is. Though, we will soon enough. We put a radiological tracker in Daisy's arm before we came here." She furrows her brow and says, "It seemed like a prudent course of action at the time. I still don't trust Jiaying.. and if they simply decide to take Daisy and run we'd have no way to find her again."

Matthew Murdock has posed:
Matt nods with a wry smile. "A plan is good," he says with good humour. As for the clinic he nods, "I think I know the one," he says.

Matt considers the tracker, "Does she know about it?" he asks more amused than concerned. "And I agree it was a good call," after all Jia seemed singularly interested in Daisy and had a right hand man that could teleport. "She was the only one you tagged right?"

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi smirks and says with amusement in her voice, "Yes she knows. I tagged myself too. When it became clear I was of interest to Afterlife too.. I wasn't too keen on the idea of being taken and imprisoned somewhere." ..again

Matthew Murdock has posed:
"Good," Matt says, "I am sure you know how'd she take it if she didn't know," he says with a wry chuckle. "And understandable. Do we have a way to contact SHIELD beyond the trackers?" he asks. "If these metal men show up, we may want to get ourselves and as many of these people as we can out of here."

Bobbi Morse has posed:
    Bobbi shakes her head, "They have some way of jamming signals in and out of this place. My guess is an Inhuman doing it, but may be it's technology. I haven't noticed any obvious places that'd be.. on the other hand, they must have a decent generator for the doctors office. Finding where the power is coming from will help us figure out where the power is going."

Matthew Murdock has posed:
Matt nods grimly not liking the situation. "I can probably find the generator for us. Track where it's going. So, I guess it's that and talking to Mark on my agenda for tomorrow and you've got Reina. I'd love to hear what you think of her, she sort of reminds me a bit of an old and very dangerous friend, of mine." Well girlfriend really but there's no need to go into details. "Which might not be good news depending on what she thinks of us."