9037/For Great Science, Team Sprocket Blasting Off Again!

For Great Science, Team Sprocket Blasting Off Again!
Date of Scene:	11 December 2021
Location:	Labs - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	Because if a lab get-together doesn't end up with Terry being poked by lasers, can you really say that science was actually done?
Cast of Characters:	Victor Stone, Nadia Pym-van Dyne, Terry O'Neil

---

Victor Stone has posed:
    Cyborg is in the lab, sitting in front of a bank of computer terminals, crunching numbers. He's paging back and forth between a map of Metropolis and descriptions of weird events happening around--the "clock repairman" at the Tower, the zoo incursion, the buildings trying to play cards with each other. The Daily Planet's moon. People confused about roads. All sorts of weirdness, and Terry said a word that made Victor a /little/ worried. (Okay, a lot worried.)

    Wonderland.

    If there's a method to the madness, though, he's going to find it. Because that's what Vic remembers, now that he went ahead and re-read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass--there *is* a method to Wonderland-style madness, even if it isn't always apparent. There's weird dream-logic to a lot of what goes on. Puns, or chess rules (even if they don't quite work), or card games. But nothing's /quite/ making sense, here, yet.

    So he called in some help: Nadia, because if nothing else Nadia needs to know this weirdness is going on, and sometimes Nadia's upbringing means she can see things other people can't. Different perspective and all. Something to be said here about diversity in science or whatever, but look, Victor's a GIRL supporter, we don't need to bang on about him supporting diversity.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia is seated at a computer terminal hooked into the Titans mainframe in the IT section of the lab. In true IT tradition she doesn't seem to be wearing any sort of labcoat, but rather is dressed down in her GIRL pink and red bomber jacker, favorite 'Just a girl who loves Wasps' T-shirt, and a red and black pleated skirt.

That terminal is currently being used to access a backdoor in the Avengers Mansion computer systems that she weedled out of her father, whose credentials are in turn being used to access the Avengers sattelite network. As long as nobody checks the logs and asks too many questions about Hank's peculiar interest in a particular sections of Metropolis it's probably fine. If not, well Nadia will probably get another lecture about rules, it is definitely not the first time she has done something like this. Though after getting caught a few times, she has definitely become more subtle about it using her father's credentials.

Currently she is searching through the archival sattelite data correlating with the various wonderland occurences for corroborating visual records with what people saw, cross refferencing the spatial data with the times of the incidents. There's just one anomoly, that one nobody was present for. Her fingers dance across the keyboard as she checks to see if any of the sattelites were in position over Stryker island at the time the ping registered on the dimensional breach sensors.

Victor Stone has posed:
    "You getting /anything/?" Vic finally asks, pushing his chair back away from the computer banks with a noise of frustration. He doesn't know how Nadia's looking at the information she's looking at because he doesn't /want/ to know. It's satellites of some kind. It's probably completely legitimate. If he doesn't know, he doesn't have to explain to any of the rest of the Titans leadership team why they were illegally accessing another team's satellite network. Plausible deniability, it's a great thing.

    He does glance over, though, briefly. "I mean, that's the /one/ place Terry /hasn't/ been, so it's the one hole in our 'this is targeted at slash connected to Terry' theory." He glowers. "If someone /is/ trying to hurt Terry, I'm gonna be pissed. Just sayin'." Vic might yell at the guy about glitter, but he's a /Titan/, and a good friend, damn it.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
While there is nothing of note on Stryker island itself, there is something that registers on the southern shore across from it, in Pelham.

Out there, on the waterfront, under a thick set of trees, there is a bright flash of purple light. It's similar to Terry's rabbit holes but on the redder side of things. Then, there is a second light- one that did not ping on Nadia's radar for some reason- a sickly green light that shines through the top of the trees.

That light must be unexpected, because the two dots (people?) that moved out from under the tree canopy suddenly freeze, briefly illuminated by the green light.

At this distance, it is hard to make out the specific figures.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"I don't think it is Terry." Nadia replies as she stares at the images appearing on her screen. "If there is one thing I have learned about magic so far, it is that it always seems to be color coded and that isn't Terry's color." What does she mean? Why she's poiting to the more reddish purple color of course. "And that one is green! Wait green? Wait there was only one ping in the data. Vic come here this is weird!"

"I think there's two people there being illuminated by this other light." At this point she's squinting at the screen, "But it's hard to make out... computer ENHANCE!"

Victor Stone has posed:
    "Magic is... color coded?" Vic peers at Nadia, but gets up and comes over to look over her shoulder. Not hard, given he's so tall and she's so short. "What color is Terry's magic?"

    Cyborg narrows his eyes, peering at the picture on the screen. "There are people there...? Huh. People... coming out of rabbit holes like Terry's?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Enhancing."

No. To everybody's disappointment, it does not sound like Majel Barrett's voice, although if this were a just universe, it should have been.

The image grows larger, as the system does its best to enhance and create an intelligible representation.

It takes a few seconds, there are a lot of shadows that criss-cross the figures when the green light hits. Eventually, one of the figures, the smaller one, cannot be enhanced successfully, but the other one next to it happens to be just right in the glare of the light to have more available data to enhance.

It appears to be a man, though discernable facial features are washed out. They are more of a hint than anything else, but the thing that is very clear is that the man is wearing some sort of headwear. A hat, to be specific, a Wellington top hat. Clothing is not very distinct, even with enhancement, but there are hints of brown touched by the green glare.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"Terry is more purply, this is purplish but more reddy." It is all very scientific analysis. "Like when Wanda does Chaos Magic it's more vwoom! Bright red! Color coded." Nadia seems convinced at least.

"It's impossible to say what that green is coming from but look at that guy! I think we're being invaded by Victorian England!" She pauses to think, that doesn't seem right as she thinks back to the cast of characters in Alice and Wonderland. "Any ideas Vic?" It's been awhile since she read the copy that Terry lent her.

"Computer Isolate and crop to the area around Mr. Tophat. Save image. Maybe Terry will know who he is!"

Victor Stone has posed:
    "/Could/ be the Mad Hatter, which would make that the March Hare, I guess, but..." Vic frowns. "What does it mean? Did they come here by accident or..." He hesitates, thinking this through. "This is three days before the New Troy zoo incident, right? So this is the /first/ one. So... two people with similar-but-different portals to Terry's show up, and then three days later there's the first of a series of weird Wonderland-related events start happening. But all the /rest/ of them were around Terry."

    He looks to Nadia. "I think we'd better send Terry that image and see if he knows who it is, yeah."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia bites her lower lip in thought, part of her is taking this seriously despite the usual Titans banter. "What bothers me though, is that there are two portals. Terry's rabbit holes trigger the dimensional scanners. It caused him all kinds of trouble for him. And that one," She points at the Tophat wearing with the purple-red portal. "he pinged. But, that green one didn't. So either its somehow evading the sensors or it's not a dimensional breach at all but a portal from somewhere else on Earth..." Myriad possibilities are being turned over in her brain, that backburner project to study the principles of mystic energies is looking more appealing all the time. She'd love to ask Dr. von Doom, but he's always so busy.

"Yeah, let's send it to him." It is easy enough to send the isolated image to her phone and then attach it to a text message: <<Vorpal, I think we are being invaded by Victorian England, Janet would probably approve, very snappy fashion sense. Do you know this guy? Has a portal like yours but different color coding, more red in the purple. -Nadia>>

Terry O'Neil has posed:
There is radio silence for several minutes. Either Terry is busy at Starr Inc, or he is staring at his phone and saying... well, nothing.

Eventually, though, the text comes back from him.

<<I want to say that's Jarvis Tetch. Want to. Not sure.>>

Another text comes in a few seconds later. <<You don't have anything where you can see his face?>>

Victor Stone has posed:
    Victor paces back and forth while waiting for Terry to reply. "Okay... so... someone on /Earth/... who knows about Wonderland? Who knows about Wonderland?" He pauses, and smirks. "Okay admittedly... a lot of people. Ugh, I wish I actually understood magic." He turns back to peer at the image for a moment. "What happened just after this? Like, where'd they go, can you track that? Did someone else show up?"

    When Terry finally replies he says, "So... the /Gotham/ Mad Hatter? Leader of the Wonderland Gang? Greaaat."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Nadia looks at her phone, looks at Vic, "There may be an unknown third party here." She stops and blinks at Vic. "Wonderland Gang? Wait there's a gang that named themselves after /Wonderland/? That's so cool! Err I mean terrible, they must be stopped." She pauses. "But like is the Gang connected to actual Wonderland? Is this like case closed?"

She texts Terry again: <<Can Gotham Wonderland Gang open portals like you? Also do you know who would have a green portal? The color is kind of gross, doesn't seem trans-dimensional.>>

"If we could isolate a unique energy signature from Terry's magic, maybe we could make some sort of sensor to help us track where they went?" Now she's just spitballing ideas. Still Terry gets another text: <<Can I poke your magic with lasers???>>

Terry O'Neil has posed:
<<No, they can't open portals that I know of, but they're always trying to get their hands on important stuff like tech. Jarvis is supposed to be some sort of genius with electronics. He's a neuroscientist or something like that.>>

And then, a few moments later.

<<... okay. As long as I still have most of my limbs when you're done. I hav eto go now, Miss Starr wants this done before I head out.>>

Victor Stone has posed:
    "Alright, so. Plan is... poke Terry with lasers, look into this Wonderland Gang, figure out what kind of magic looks sickly and green." Vic frowns at it. "Kinda off to be Green Lantern stuff, right? Wait, no, that's not even magic, is it?" He sighs and shakes his head. "But what's a neuroscientist want with... hmm. What's the line? Curiouser and curiouser?" He smirks.

    "Also, Nadia, you've /got/ to get me up to date on this 'scanning for magic' stuff."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
"Space Magic!" Nadia offers in regards to the Lanterns. "They do seem to be color coded, it fits." She nods in agreement. "Dick, Damian, or Tim, one of the Robins can probably tell us more about the Wonderland Gang and what they are currently up to."

Though she makes a face when Vic asks to be brought up to speed on scanning for magic. "That's kind of hard when I havn't finished inventing it yet! But you will be the first to know! Probably because you'll be in the room, now we just need Terry..."