6629/A Clone Comes Calling

A Clone Comes Calling
Date of Scene:	19 June 2021
Location:	Lobby - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	Ben Reilly approaches Caitlin Fairchild for some medical advice. He ends up getting invited to stay in the Titan's guest quarters.
Cast of Characters:	Ben Reilly, Caitlin Fairchild

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Ben Reilly has posed:
The Scarlet Spider arrives in full costume, his costume a mix of red and a dark-hued blue, his hood pulled up a bit to cast his mask a bit in shadow. Which looks looming and kind of cool on a night patrol, but a little unnecessary in bright daylight. Oh well.

He approaches the security intercom out front, having rehearsed what he was going to say a few times before, only to find his mind going a complete blank when he gets ready to press the button. Good job, Pet--BEN. Ben.

BUZZ

"Uh, hi, I'm the, uh...the Scarlet Spider, and I had some...see the thing is, I'm...well, I don't have a mother or father because I'm...I'm looking for Caitlin Fairchild, it said I could find her here, she's an expert on..."

He leans very close to the microphone and whispers, "clone stuff"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
<Please stand by.> The house AI interface clicks and pauses, and then the display flickers to reveal a redhead peering at the camera.

<"Scarlet Spider?"> Caitlin inquires, looking a little confused. <"Do we have a--"> she pauses and looks at something off-screen, brow furrowing. Abruptly her expression relaxes and she smiles at Ben. <"I guess we do have you in our system. C'mon in, I'll be down in a minute.">

The door to the lobby opens smoothly in invitation. A scanner or sensor apparatus drops down on a gimbal arm and rotates around Ben with a flickering of laser lights, the retracts just as smoothly.

The elevator door chimes softly a few minutes later and Caitlin steps out of it. She's dressed quite casually; light-grey capri pants, a flowing blue-and-white striped blouse, and flat-soled white sneakers. A wealth of frizzy red hair is braided back and hangs over her left shoulder and there's a minimum of cosmetics present. Her only jewelry seems to be a pair of gold bracelets.

"Scarlet Spider, right?" Caitlin says. "I'm Caitlin Fairchild. Sorry to make you wait. C'mon, have a seat," she says, and gestures at a conference table.

Ben Reilly has posed:
Ben Reilly stands straightbacked while the scanners run over him, like a schoolkid about to get a class picture only in a colorful costume and without the requisite pimple on his nose. That anybody can see, at any rate.

He raises a hand at Caitlin's arrival, "Oh, wow, you're younger than I thought you would be. Not that you should be old. I guess it makes sense, cause you're a Titan and all, but your work is really advanced, the bit of it I could compile, it made me think you might be...an old. I mean, older. An older person."

"Yes, anyway, so...I had some questions about...clones."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin grins and then laughs good-naturedly. "It's ok," she reassures Ben. "A lot of metahumans have advanced degrees."

Caitlin takes a seat across from Ben and adjusts her chair down a little so their heads are a bit more level with one another. "Columbia University has an option for your thesis /being/ your doctoral program. And I'm a compulsive note-taker person, so I had plenty of stuff on hand from when I got bamboozled by NOWHERE."

Hands rest on the table, politely folded over one another. Caitlin sits with a very proper posture without being overly stiff.

Hands rotate, flex open slightly. "Which brings us to-- clones. What is it you want to find out? I should warn you the University's library is a much better source of research material than I am."

Ben Reilly has posed:
Ben Reilly pushesh is hood back, although his mask remains in place, "And, while I don't have a lot of degrees, I'm pretty advanced in my science knowledge - I think - although probably not as much as you. Looking at the data would be time consuming and I'm not sure how much..."

"So, say a clone of a metahuman began experiencing evidence of instability - occasional power failures, blackouts, unexpected loss of consciousness. Not constant or even frequent, but even a little bit is enough to make them panic. A lot. So much," he says. "I know human cloning is still pretty...infrequent, but I didn't know how much experimental data had actually been collected about, say, DNA and RNA stability."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin blinks and purses her lips, thinking the question through. "Hmm. That's an interesting problem," she agrees. "There are a bunch of possible causes. I mean," she gestures vaguely. "I'd start with a full medical workup before doing anything else. You said power blackouts, I'm assuming the, uh, clone, has metahuman abilities?" she guesses.

"So I'd eliminate some obvious possible causes. Thyroid conditions aren't uncommon. There have been disorders where secondary mutations weren't developed adequately to deal with some physiological constraints. It's, uh..." she searches her memory. "I think it's Conn-MacTaggart syndrome."

Realizing she's rambling a bit Caitlin forces her focus back on the mask across the table. Apparently the Titans deal with incognito personalities enough that it doesn't phase her much. "Er, sorry. So yeah, first question I'd ask is how labs and cultures look, rather than starting with 'is a clone' and working forward into all the ways that can go wrong."

Ben Reilly has posed:
Ben Reilly nods, "Yeah, I kinda figured that. Hard to be specific without the actual subject's tests and data to look at," he squirms. The idea of putting himself through testing is a bit unpleasant, his best memories of the subject being in the Goblin's clutches shortly after his creation, back when he thought he was the real Peter Parker. He didn't like to think about that time.

"So, I guess it's probably not a total shock that, uh, I'm the clone. Of Spider-Man, which you also probably figured. And I've been having those kinds of issues and...I'm pretty scared about it. I try not to be, because I haven't had the lab to try to work on it myself because I'm really darn broke because it's kind of hard to get a job without proper papers and identification and I don't want to use Spider-Man's because it's, y'know, his real name and stuff and I don't want to compromise his identity because I got pulled over, not that I even have a car, I just webswing around Gotham and, uh..."

"So yeah. That's my problem."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin blinks. "Oh, woah. You are?"

She's smart enough, but apparently it actually hadn't occurred to her to put 2 and 2 together. "Wowzers. Uh..." She scratches the red curls at her forehead that have escaped her ponytail, then draws the length of hair in the curl of her hand once or twice while her eyes flitter around in deep thought.

"Okay, well, that actually simplifies things," she says, and looks at Scarlet Spider before smiling reassuringly. "Spider-Man's a friend. Well, friend-ly," she amends. "With the Titans. I'm sure if I explained the situation to him we could get him to come in for some labs and an examination. If the problem is physiological or metabolic, I can reach out to some metahuman experts. Uh, Dr. MacTaggart, Dr. McCoy maybe," she speculates. "And if it's chromosomal or genetic, we may be able to repair the damage with an RNA editor packed into a benign retrovirus."

Ben Reilly has posed:
Ben Reilly nods, "He's a pretty friendly guy. I try not to bother him too much, once we straightened out, um, which of us was which. Cause I had his memories programmed into me, so it made things kind of messy for a while. Having someone who looks exactly like him hanging around would probably cause a lot more questions than he wants to answer to people around him," he says.

"But I'm sure he'd be willing to help. And I guess I'm...willing to go through the necessary tests," he says, unable to entirely hide his nerves at the prospect.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Gee whiz, that's rough," Caitlin says with a real empathy. "But that also means, y'know, you're Spider-Man. Just with a different name. And he's a nice guy," she remarks. "He's friendly, he helps out, and he's got a good reputation in the City for not like, causing tons of collateral damage."

There's a look; Caitlin hedges a bit, the way people do when they're trying to broach an uncomfortable topic. "Um... you said you were a little short on funds," she repeats. "Are you in an OK housing situation right now? The Titans have guest quarters for visitors," she says, and wiggles a thumb vaguely behind the building they're in. "It's not much but there's wifi, cable TV, and free food."

It's hard to read expressions under a mask, but it's not difficult to guess that Ben might be hesitating. "It'd make doing the testing a lot easier. This way you're not schlepping around New York every time we get an anomalous result."

Ben Reilly has posed:
Ben Reilly considers. He did have a place, but calling it a rat trap was probably an insult to rat traps. He got paid to deliver food on one of those apps, but not one of the major ones because they required better records than he was able to offer. He alternates fighting crime with slinging people's mu shu pork to them off their balconies for less than minimum wage.

"Um..." he says, struggling a little because he doesn't do charity well, but the thing about the testing makes sense, "And it would keep me somewhere...safe-ish if I had another blackout. Where I could get help. The last one I had was in teh stairwell in my building and I got my tips for the day swiped while I was slumped there. But nobody did anything," he sighs.

"Okay, I guess...I guess I could do that."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
A very sympathetic expression crosses Caitlin's face. She reaches over to pat Ben's hand with an oddly maternal sort of expression. "When I met Troia and Nightwing, I was living in Gotham," Caitlin says wryly. "I couldn't stand it living on campus anymore. It was a totally illegal apartment with one bathroom and four bedrooms, in a /really/ bad part of town. I couldn't afford anything else. If you're looking for work, I know some people who are good with hiring metahumans," she offers. "I used to work in an iron yard. Being able to schlep around a ton or two of raw iron and put custom bends in I-beams is hard work, but the pay is pretty decent. Even for New York."

Ben Reilly has posed:
Ben Reilly accepts the gesture of kindness, trying to keep from getting emotional about it. He's been on his own for a while and it's been a little rough, to put it mildly. He isolated himself to protect Peter and Peter's friends, but those were his friends, too, or at least felt like they were and he couldn't even talk to them anymore, not without compromising Spidey's identity.

"Yeah, I could...I could find something to do. I'm good at science, too, I had...he had planned to get into a scientific field. Probably physics or bio-engineering."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"Well I can always use help down in the labs," Caitlin offers. "If you know your way around a mass spectrometer and a centrifuge. If not, we can teach you how to do it."

She smiles earnestly at Ben. "Don't feel bad," she says encouragingly. "Being a meta is hard enough. Stack that up with being a clone and having medical problems, it's no wonder we can even hold a job down. Let alone have a social life. Heroes helping heroes is what the Titans are all about."

Caitlin gets to her feet. "I'll talk with Troia and Nightwing about getting you some tower permits. Nightwing might want to do some vetting, he's a little paranoid about security."

She frowns. "Nightwing's the tall, good looking one with the blue-ish uniform," she clarifies, holding a hand vaguely near her chin. "If you see a short, angry guy dressed in red, don't antagonize him. He's, um." She looks for a diplomatic word. "Temperamental."

Ben Reilly has posed:
Ben Reilly nods, "Some people are sensitive about the height thing. I get it," he says.

"Also, uh, I'm not sure what to do about, like...my face. On the one hand, I don't want to walk around with a mask all the time, especially for medical stuff or if I'm just...in a room that's supposed to be mine? But on the other hand...my face isn't just my face. I've done a bit of stuff to change my appearance, but, like...if you saw us both, you'd still know we were basically twins..."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin considers this with a frown. "Hrm. Nightwing goes around with a mask on all the time," she suggests. "But it's one of those, um, skinny ones, that just covers his eyes." She gestures a little near her face. "But we could probably come up with something," she offers. "Maybe a holoemitter or a voice scrambler. Just enough to make it a little tricky to make your features out. We've been dealing with secret identities for years and years, it's..." she smiles lopsidedly. "Well, we understand how it goes. I mean, I don't-- I've never felt like I needed a secret identity. But others do," she promises.

Ben Reilly has posed:
Ben Reilly grins and shrugs, "Well, he does it just to protect people in his life. I don't have those people." Anymore, he thinks to himself. "But it's still his face. He's not famous or anything, so I don't know that anyone would even know him here, but I also don't now who they are. Could be people he knows."

He almost laughs at the thought though. Flash Thompsom or MJ or Gwen, superheroes? What a ridiculous idea.

"Maybe I'll ask him about it." he says, although there's some hesitance there. He hasn't talked to Peter in a while.

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
"For sure," Caitlin says with an encouraging nod. "Meanwhile, I'll get you a pass for the guest quarters. You can rest and relax there. Supper's served at six. Once Nightwing vets you we'll see about having you up in the Tower for a proper meal. We've got too many people for me to cook dinner for everyone, but there's a 'first come, first served' policy for anyone who needs a home-cooked meal. And then we do a family dinner on Sundays."

She smiles reassuringly and gestures for Ben to follow her out a side door. "C'mon. I'll give you the nickel tour for now," she suggests.