6118/Cube Part 2

Cube Part 2
Date of Scene:	03 May 2021
Location:	A mysterious cube on the Happy Harbor High School grounds.
Synopsis:	The group escapes the cube rescuing two strange visitors.
Cast of Characters:	Hank Pym, Roland Livingston, Susan Richards, Nick Lytton, Damian Wayne, Michael Hannigan, Reed Richards

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Hank Pym has posed:
Recap: Investigating a mysterious cube on the Happy Harbor High School grounds Susan Richards and several students and staff are suddenly teleported inside. As they explore the cube's interior, Hank Pym attempts to make sense of the structure and its controls.

Hank looks over the computer and controls. "It seems like a power surge burnt out the primitive cooling fans. We need to cool this computer down to get the controls working and beam ourselves out in a consistent manner. We need fans or ice... or... some tubing."

Roland Livingston has posed:
"Tubes, fans or ice?" Roland asks Hank as he looks around the space. "I'll start checking for those, then. Anyone feel as though they might have a line on the spare parts?" He begins walking towards the orange room, tactical pen in his hand. "These things must be guarding something," he says as he joins in the popping of the balloon beasts, darting quickly from one to another to poke them with his sharp implement. He asks Damian, sounding more impressed than distressed or anything, "Are we allowed blades at school? For some reason I thought that was frowned upon."

Susan Richards has posed:
     "I could potentially work something out with a forcefield as a fan, but I won't be able to maintain both that and keep these two little munchkins under wraps," Susan offers, eyeing the two little red-headed wonders who, for the moment, appear to be behaving. "What options do we have available?" One eye is kept on the littles, while she takes quick visual stock of the area immediately around them, to see what could be turned to hand as a fan, or some other form of cooling for the computer.

Nick Lytton has posed:
    "Cooling is *not* what I usually do," Nick protests.  "I can have a try, but don't expect anything room temperature.  Can you live with 100 Celsius or so?"
    Truth is, he has plenty experience reducing temperatures -- he generally hand-anneals his glasswork -- but he certainly hasn't any experience doing it under pressure.
    "I can have a go, but I'd rather know what I should be melting right now... that's so much easier."

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Landing in his feet, Damian's vivid green eyes peer back to Roland. "At this point, who cares?" He asks, turning into a roundhouse kick to another balloon. *POP!* "Besides, no one knew until now."

  The young heir keeps on the attack, since he isn't using his hands, they remain at his side as he jumps and twirls in the air, popping as many as he can along the way. *POP-POP-POP!*

  Clearly now, the boy was more than what was let on, at the very least he had martial arts training.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
Well... crap. A bit disoriented from the sandstorm that swept him out of the white room, through another room room, and having him end up in the red room. The bird takes a breather to get his orientation down, glancing around. Uh. which way did he-? Was it orange or yellow? Those are kind of close together... Well, bubble monsters came from the orange one and nothing tried striking at him so...?

The bird flies over to the yellow door.

Hank Pym has posed:
Hank Pym looks up from the console. "Don't wander around alone and someone find Mr. Hannigan, please. Mr. Lytton, 100 degrees will probably disable the controls permanently. It's cooling or nothing, I'm afraid but thank you for trying." As for Mike the raven... the Red room contains shelves of books! On all four walls, the ceiling and floor. Some mysterious force prevents them from falling. In one corner is a small sort of fort? Made from the books and the cushions of a sofa. In the yellow room he discovers a room outfitted as a laboratory, glassware, microscopes, autoclave, tubing, magnetometers, mass spectrometers. Directly ahed of him is a white (Center room color) door.

Roland enters the Green Room and finds a bedroom set. On the ceiling. A body is in the bed. A sink is on the ceiling as well.

Reed Richards has posed:
Sue's uniform lights up and the holo-emmitters activate along with the sensors, and large window appears and is field with the image of a wild Richards, "Sue! Sue! are you all right? What has Hank done? I'm sorry, I got home late and you had left, next thing I know I am being ambushed by a flying ant and manhandled to the Happy Harbor Campus, where are you all?"

Roland Livingston has posed:
"I've been leaving my weapons in my Bentley this whole time!" Roland says as he drives his pen into another balloon monster, trying to fight through them to get to the green door. "This would be much faster if I had a sword." He's still making good time with just the pen, however. When he ends up in the green room and looks around he spots the bed with the body in it on the ceiling, "I say, are you asleep up there?" He moves towards the wall with the dresser on it and leaps up towards it, trying to get a grip on it so that he can check on the person in the bed. "I've got someone in here. Asleep or dead, I'm not sure," he calls towards the door he just went through.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
As Mike sees a door that corresponds with the room he was blown out of, the raven gives a sigh of relief, flying across to go through the door. He glances around for any of the bubble monsters before looking to the others. "Okay, Red room's a library. Yellow room's a lab. And we already know what the Orange room had."

Susan Richards has posed:
     "Reed! We're fine, Hank didn't do a damn thing. One minute we're looking at this odd cube on school grounds, and the next, well...." Susan turns around slowly, offering Reed a good 360 degree view of the inside of the cube itself. "It looks like we're in some sort of hyperdimensional space. Right now, we've got the computer system, which is strangely analong and yet somehow it -works-, overheating, a pair of very rambunctious twins to keep under wraps, some of us splitting up to get a look around... oh, and just for good measure, the computer system is our most likely way out at the moment, via some sort of teleportation. Does that about sum it up for my better half, Hank?" she finishes, the last few words called out back over her shoulder, in Pym's direction.

Hank Pym has posed:
Hank Pym sums his thoughts for Reed with a topological inversion formula /even/ Reed would find painful. "I get enough of that from my kid, Reed. We're trapped in a tesseract. There's an old hooligan style mattermitter run by an Amiga is you can believe that. Nineties tech through out. You might be able to trigger the effect. I was using an EMF scanner. And my ant was not going to hurt you. MVP as far as I'm concerned."

Hank eyes the twins trying to slip around the force field and goes to have a gentle word with them. e speaks softly but apparently does have a dad voice. The two return to Sue wide eyed.

that leaves the Blue Room to the North and the sepia room that seems to be below every room. Can that be right? But every room seems to have a red door except the center cube. The blue room consists of a kitchen on the ceiling and a reading room n the floor.

Nick Lytton has posed:
    Nick backs up a step.  "Sounds like 'hands off' to me.  I can try for cooler but I don't want to promise anything... and I want even less to break anything."
    In a lower voice, he comments to Dr. Pym, "This is *way* outside what I know.  Advice would be appreciated before I screw something up -- I've only ever used my meta to make art."
    He shakes his head.  Well, at least this is better than being stabbed by one's own evil twin.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian clicks his tongue at Roland, where he only wishes he could bring his sword.

  Nevermind, he's got more balloon body count. Once the balloons around him are dispatched, Damian presses a button in each shoe with a toe, retracting the blades.

  He approaches the blue hatch, looking first before entering the blue room.

Reed Richards has posed:
Reed Richards nods, "I apologize Hank. I-" He eyes shift guiltily to Sue, he looks plaintive, "What can I do, what temperature do you need it to be, I should at the very least be able to teleport in some useful materials from the School , until we can get out, "I know Bo wouldn't hurt, he's been loving on me since we got here. Do you need me in there or can I work the problem better from out here?"

Michael Hannigan has posed:
Mike glances over to Hank. "What materials are you guys needing? The yellow room is a lab, it might have something."

Susan Richards has posed:
     Susan offers Hank a smile of gratitude as the littles decide to stick close after all. "What do you think? Have Reed out there to get necessary materials to us, or have him in here to help effect the repairs? At this point, I'm all for whichever gets us all out of here safely."

     She pauses a moment as the twins shuffle back over to her, to pull them both in for a hug. "Hey. I know you two must be pretty scared, but we'll get you out of this okay, got it?"

Hank Pym has posed:
Hank Pym looks a little swamped. "Okay... sinks are all on the ceiling. Mmmm. Reed come on in. I think I can manage another port in. I believe I need to go inside the control consoles soon and I'd like someone else in here who's... you. Okay... I have an idea. We can use water from that kitchen. If there's glass tubing in there Mr. Lytton can be very handy laying some pipes to the kitchen. We need to get the water oriented the same way we are for this to work. You guys figure that out. I'll run some rubber tubing through this console." He gives Sue a look of thanks. He smiles at the twins as he shrinks and hops into the control console through the open panel.

Declan says to Susan in a confidential tone, "He said if we didn't behave he'd turn us into babies. He can't do that can he? I mean Dr. Mo would fire him?"

Michael Hannigan has posed:
At the mention of needing tubing and glass, the bird turns, "I saw some of that stuff in the lab. Could use an extra hand getting it together." Information conveyed, he flys into the lab before flipping into a more human like form. All the better to carry stuff with.

Susan Richards has posed:
     Susan chuckles and ruffles Declan's hair. "Behave yourselves and you won't have to find out. Now come on, let's step back a little and give Reed a clear spot to teleport in." Keeping the twins behind her, she steps away from the computer to leave the space clear for the arrival of one Reed Richards. Just how is he getting in? That is perhaps a mystery best left to be explained by techno-jargon and wizardry, in another time and space.

Reed Richards has posed:
Reed Richards activates the teleporter and arrives in the cubes control space, along with a large volume of cool night air, Bo is standing next to him with 100 pounds of ice draped across his torso. Reed also has coffee for Hank and Sue. He smiles to his wife and hugs her handing her the beverage. "You're having all the adventures without me, I am beginning to feel left out." He winks and hands Hank coffee, "How can I help?"

Nick Lytton has posed:
    Well, that brings a smile to Nick's face -- something he not only understands, but can *do*.  "On it," he says, jogging in the direction of the lab.
    Labware isn't alien to Nick -- he's done plenty of custom and commission work for labs.  "Find connectors," he says to Michael, "and I'll deal with banging these into some sort of usable shape."
    Put him in his element, and Nick knows what he's doing.  Bundles of seven tubes fused together in a hexagon to improve flow, with a rim on the ends for a waterproof seal, that seems to be the most efficient way to do it.  If the tubing supply runs low, there's nothing to stop him from smoothing out the stray flask or Erlenmeyer into a rough but serviceable cylinder shape.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
Leaving Nick with the glasswork, the rocker works to gathering the other types of tubing, and keeping an eye out for whatever appears to be connector pieces. He brings what he finds over towards Nick to pick through.

Hank Pym has posed:
Roland will find the climbing tree in each cube doesn't quite let him reach the bed. In it is an emaciated elderly man with a beard who... seems to be breathing and sleeping with no concern about being upside down. Meanwhile the lab does indeed have a sink. Perhaps the Universe missed that in setting the usual obstacles super types always face.

Roland Livingston has posed:
"Pardon me, sir," Roland calls out to the sleeping dude above him as he looks for a way to get up there. Hell, he might just be able to leap up from his perch, he is quite strong, after all. "Terribly sorry to wake you, but your science cube seems to have eaten a group of us and we'd like to get out."

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian heads back to the white room, and greets. "Doctor Richards..." The teen had stowed his knives, and looks to the setup so far. "Hobo water cooling. Not a bad idea."

  Seems like with all the activity with the balloons, he hadn't even broke a sweat. "What needs doing?"

Reed Richards has posed:
Reed Richards casually, stretches his way through the cube, taking long steps and shifting around obstacles like a fluid, he takes the lay of the land and helps with elements of the design picking up the basics and embellishing with an innate understanding of multi-vector tesseract physics which seem uncanny. He takes the time to smiles and help with the attachment of the hose to the sink in the lab and is back in the first room, with his wife, nodding, "Interesting place, eclectic, it reminds me of someone... can't place who."

Hank Pym has posed:
The sleeping man seems comatose to Roland, possibly dehydrated and starved to Roland.

Hank emerges from the console dragging some rubber tubing. "Rowzrrfrazzingragmafragging... Ready for that pipe anytime, guys. Hi Reed. You found the trigger. Good job. I think this is Professor Halbstrom's work... from Hudson U? He left teaching right after the Invasion? Also... it's a sort of TARDIS, let's face it." He eyes the giant coffee greedily but stays on task, sparing the twins a stern look.

Susan Richards has posed:
     If there was one thing little ones loved to do, it was help sort through things. So it was that Susan grinned at the twins, took them by the hand, and, after giving Reed a sweet kiss and accepting the coffee, guides the twins over to help sort through the piles of tubing and connectors. "Come on, you two, let's get these sorted out and see what we've got to work with."

Michael Hannigan has posed:
Hearing the comments going on in the console area, Mike considers something he caught a glimpse of in the library. "... Did this professor have any kids... or a habit of building book forts?"

Nick Lytton has posed:
    "Working as fast as I can," Nick calls from the lab.  "I can't promise no thermal shock, but it should be minimized, this is all borosilicate anyway from the feel of it.  Nothing that can't be patched.  I think."  Well, points for honesty, anyway.
    "And do I smell coffee?"
    Priorities.

Reed Richards has posed:
Reed Richards over sees the pipe, taking metal pieces from Susan and the twins, long rolls of tubing MIke finds in the lab and fine glass tubing from NIck, he cobbles together a Frankenstein's monster like contraption of bits and bobs to carry the water flow across rooms, he uses towels to secure them and wrap the ice around the ice at various spots. He even fires up the machine shop to weld somee of the large metal pieces together the ice and into the proper port on the

Hank Pym has posed:
Hank Pym frowns a bit as he shoves tubing as thick as he is tall into the console guts. "Give Mr. Lytton the coffee. Keep him happy. You don't need a nervous BPD case doing this. Hey! Bo! You did great! Good boy, stay! I am working!" More tubing vanishes int the console. "We need this to be one length of tubing and not have it snag or tear... a short could be... very bad. As soon as we get the piping set up we need a few minutes to cool the controls then... we check e-Bay for old computer fans. Or fabricate a cooling system. Hell an AC might work.

"A kid... no. He was a confirmed bachelor... smart guy. No offense Sue... that came out wrong."

Michael Hannigan has posed:
"Ok so he's the one making book forts." Mike assumes from that information. There's a bit of relief in his voice. Because he certainly didn't see anything child like in the structure that they didn't bring with them.

Reed Richards has posed:
Reed Richards slips into the basement like a waterfall even as he wanders among the various components of the tubing network.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian looks down at the hatch on the floor, before Reed slips down inside. A small gag as he observes. "I can handle a HALO jump but seeing that gets me every fuckin' time."

  The young Wayne follows Reed inside, landing with a thump on his feet, surveying inside.

Hank Pym has posed:
The basement is filled with machinery along the East wall. A very large pile of towels is heaped along the South wall and a small form is stirring in it. A girl around Damian's age pokes her head out of the towel and smiles, looking overjoyed. She speaks something incomprehensible and then stands, mostly wearing a towel and starts to walk to the pair. She continues speaking as she walks, only stopping when it is clear she is not being understood. She frowns and gives a sort of ripple and is clothed in a white dress with black and red trim, her feet unclad.

Susan Richards has posed:
     "Language, Damian! We've got little ears in here!" Susan groans softly, pinching the bridge of her nose. Somehow, she had a funny feeling there were going to be myriad questions from the twins as to the etymology, definition, and proper useage of said F-word. And, knowing little ones, they would pick the most awkward time possible for such questions! "Reed? Damian? What do you see in there?"

Reed Richards has posed:
Reed Richards calls out, "Susan, we found someone! She seems around Damian's age," Reed tries to communicate in a number of modern languages, "English, spanish, arabic, japaneses, chinese, french, german" He is also looking among the mounted equipment for an ac or something similarly

Michael Hannigan has posed:
Mike turns his head as he can hear the shouts about finding someone around the age of one of the students. He turns to look to Hank, "Any chance the confirmed bachelor had a wild night at some point?"

Damian Wayne has posed:
     "Sorry!" Comes from down there, one of those compulsory apologies that teens give to placate adults.

  Damian looks toward the girl, observing her, but unable to decipher her words. "Sorry, I cannot understand you." He says, watching her ripple and show her dress. Reed knows the languages that Damian does, so he cannot add more on the list of languages there. "But why would she be down here, hiding?" Something isn't adding up, it seems. And Damian is subtly putting himself in a defensive mode, not drawing weapons, but placing himself strategically in the room, to give him plenty of time to react should he have to.

Nick Lytton has posed:
    Well, coffee or no, Nick is at least involved in something he can /do/, and the pipe factory is working as well as two hands can manage, both in generating more usable footage, and in ensuring what there is doesn't break.
    Fortunately the pressures of time means he doesn't get creative -- just workable tubes, no knots or helices or bizarre tangles.  Count yourselves lucky, he's been known to go off on the damnedest creative tangents....

Hank Pym has posed:
Hank Pym sticks a tiny head out of console. "What? I dunno. I studied topology with the old SOB for a semester and got my one and only 'B' grade ever! We ready with that water? Let's beat it before my daughter shows up and gets frantic."

The girl frowns. She takes note of Damian and instead draws closer to Reed fixing him with a warm smile. She attempts to give the scientist a hug, seeming fairly unconcerned with her own safety.

The borosilicate glassware is good as advertised and the water is soon flowing.

Susan Richards has posed:
     "Who is it down there? Does she appear injured?" Susan frowns deeply at the thought, moving over towards the entrance to the room that Damian and Reed had slithered and dropped through, to see who or what she could see--while keeping an ear out for any shenanigans from the twins.

     "Hello?" she calls down into the room, keeping her voice even and her tone, calm. "I don't know if you can understand us. But we're going to keep you safe. You'll be alright." Perhaps at least tone, if not words, could somehow get through to the girl.

Reed Richards has posed:
Reed Richards picks the girl up hugging her gently and brings her back topside, placing her int the room with Sue and the twins, "Huzzah, it seems we have water. This is our new friend. I remember when Val and FRankling were this age... "

Hank Pym has posed:
Reed doesn't get away without a kiss on the cheek. Susan is likewise hugged and kissed. Then the girl slips loose. This is the point where Hank exits the console directly in front of the mysterious teen. He gets grabbed, hugged and kissed.

"Good God a hippy! See here... you don't want to be doing that. I have a very territorial daughter." The response is a laugh and another kiss. So there! She eyes Declan and begins moving towards him... almost floating, her toes barely touching the floor.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian takes to the posts to climb back up to the white room, not as easily as mister stretchy pants, but he makes do.

  "Machinery down there, but no condenser from what I could tell." At least now, Damian had done himself pretty good. "She could have been a captive. But..." He muses aloud, but he only has a feeling to go off of.

Susan Richards has posed:
     Susan just laughs and hugs the girl right back, allowing herself a little bit of a sigh. Over the girl's shoulder, she gives Reed one of those 'looks', the sort that promises quite a long talk later. She stifles a laugh--unsuccessfully--as Hank receives similar treatment, eyes twinkling with mirth. However, when Declan becomes involved, the protective mom instinct kicks in, and she eases towards the two, ready to intervene if necessary.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
Mike looks over to the doorway to catch a glimpse of the huggy kissy one. He tilts his head at Damian's spoken theory. "...I'm going to assume the book fort in the library was her doing. So, she probably had free run of the place."

Hank Pym has posed:
The lights in the cube suddenly brighten. The consoles activate and primitive LED screen flash on. Task bars begin filling. The girl takes all this in. She doesn't try to go around Sue. She does make course for Mike with more laughter, hands out.

Hank frowns. "I just hope we can't catch anything from each other. That is a thing, CDC will have our heads!" He makes a grab for her belt and nearly falls over as his hand goes through her, much like a ghost. More laughter.

Reed Richards has posed:
Reed Richards puts the girl down and smiles at Susan as she treats him with such affection, "I am thinking she is picking up our language far faster than we are hers." He heads over towards the console to check on the progress.

Michael Hannigan has posed:
As the supposed teen comes towards him, Mike turns to look to her. Not moving away. "Hey there." He starts with a smile, waving a hand in illustration of said greeting, "Got a name?"

Hank Pym has posed:
The task bars fill! The girl accepts Mike's handshake, looking a little puzzled. And then the matter mitter fires up. Hank looks over the console. "Hey! We're ready to go. We know how to get back in. I recommend we exit and come back with AC units to keep this working. Good job everyone! Uhm... Reed, these controls are more from... your time. Would you do the honors?" Roland returns with the elderly man, trying to hold him down. He tends to float up. The girl looks sad at that. Empathic little thing.

Reed Richards has posed:
Reed Richards smiles and raises an eyebrow at his wife, "I think he called me old. I prefer vintage." He looks over the controls and sets everything up, double checking and actiavting the controls oncer everyone is in range of the emitters.

Susan Richards has posed:
     "Vintage, like a fine wine." Susan reaches up to run her fingers through the lighter streaks in her husband's hair, chuckling lightly to herself. She glances back over at Hank, her brows furrowing lightly for a moment. "What will become of the girl, and the old man?" she asks, her voice laced with concern. "Where will they go?"

Hank Pym has posed:
Hank Pym shrugs. "I believe the man is human and needs medical attention. We should do this. What about you, you little hippy? Do you want to come with us?" Hank makes a motion towards the matter mitter. The girl floats over to it. There is the same flash of light as the group and the cube's occupants are squeezed, expanded and return to Happy Harbor.

The cube is gone. The girl looks around puzzled and then points to where the cube /was/. She begins speaking very fast and very angrily.

To be continued?