9219/N.O.W.H.E.R.E. To Be Found

N.O.W.H.E.R.E. To Be Found
Date of Scene:	22 December 2021
Location:	Highway between New York and Metropolis.
Synopsis:	Avengers and Titans converge on Nadia's abandoned car. All signs point to N.O.W.H.E.R.E. Let the hunt begin.
Cast of Characters:	Nadia Pym-van Dyne, Natasha Romanoff, Janet van Dyne, Donna Troy, Hank Hall, Victor Stone, Kaida Connolly, Damian Wayne, Karen Starr, Dawn Granger

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Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
It's late on a weeknight. The sort of night when Nadia is normally working away on the GIRL campus, except the recent events with Wonderland have had her on call and commuting to Titans Tower more than she otherwise would.

One would think Nadia would use the shiny new Zeta Beam technology that GIRL and the Titans brought back from space for this. It is perhaps unfortunate that after recently acquiring her license she has taken quite a shine to driving and been doing a lot of highway commuting with the top down and the wind in her hair.

It is about the time when she should be mid-way inbetween New York and Metropolis that both her T-Comm and Avengers Comm begin pinging a steady SOS. The signal leads to a lonely stretch of highway where her the Tesla model S that Hank gave her for her birthday sits abandoned.

There is no immediate sign of foul play. The engine has been shut off, though the keys remain in the ignition. In the front, laying on the driver's seat is Nadia's crystal necklace and the two communicators, still pinging their SOS.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanoff was already driving when the signal came in. Wherever she was, wherever she was going, she caused quite a scene when she changed course and sped off like a bat out of hell.

Now she just stands beside the car, gun drawn in one hand, free hand on the door, just staring blankly at the necklace and communicators left behind; her expression one hundred percent blanks.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
A Quinjet bearing the Avenger's crest screeches through the sky overhead. It's going fast, possibly pushing the engine's limits. There's smoke billowing from the exhaust system and the turbines are making very unhappy sounds.

Inside the jet, the pilot is covering her face with her hands and trying to not throw up. Janet is at the helm with her face set in a grim mask, the accelerator pushed to the redline, and arms braced against the steering wheel.

"<<Avengers, anyone on net, this is Wasp,>> she declares over broadwave. "<<Responding to SOS signal. Any assets in area? Over.>>

The jet shoots past over Natasha's ride and banks perilously. The rear hatch opens and Janet leaps out without parachute or rigging, falling a hundred feet from the sky while the pilot desperately tries to regain the controls so they don't crash entirely.

"Nadia? NADIA!"

Donna Troy has posed:
    A T-Com pinging an SOS means everyone available at the tower drops everything and gets moving. And when it's a hundred miles away? They move in the T-Jet. The hangar doors are opening in the roof before some people have started checking the alerts, and Donna's yelling before some of them have finished. If Vorpal or Raven had been available the arrival of the Titans on the scene would have been even faster, but even without them or any of the Titan's resident speedsters being on call, the Titans presence is on site in a few short minutes.

    The T-Jet comes in fast and brakes fast too, VTOL engines swivelling to bring the plane to a hover almost directly over Nadia's car, where it hovers at a height of a hundred and twenty feet, far enough the the exhaust doesn't melt the tarmac (or car). From the hover, the plane starts a slow descent on vectored thrust into a field close to the road, but as soon as it has come to a halt in the air the cargo door slides open to allow for a quicker descent for those suitably equipped.

    Donna is so equipped, and comes hurtling out of the craft, to slam down directly in front of the abandoned vehicle, damaging the tarmac somewhat from her landing. In her hands, her lasso glows golden. <<Avengers already on the scene>> she says into her com for the benefit of those Titans not yet out of the jet, and gives a nod to Natasha

    "Any sign of her?"

Hank Hall has posed:
    Hank had muttered the word the moment Nadia's comm threw off the SOS. It was a hunch that tickled at the back of his neck. Without warning the suit of Hawk sprung up around him. It seemed his own perceived danger for his comrade in this situation was enough to ping the radar of the Lord of Chaos within him.

    He had found a common ground for the Waspette in the form of classic metal music. Introducing her to his own personal style of music and bonding over it was just another link with the rest of the Titans, a link he desperately needed.

    He jumps out of the craft a hair behind Donna and lands just behind her, his own flight barely slowing his fall. <<Good to know the kid has a lot of friends looking for her>> he says over the coms. He scans the area. <<Got nothing but I'm still Hawk so something is up for sure.>>

Victor Stone has posed:
    Vic's out of the jet right on Donna's heels, hovering in the air over the car, scanning the scene with cybernetic senses. The car, the tarmac around it--everything, in as much detail as he can possibly manage.

    Donna's asked the obvious question, so he focuses on information gathering, expression stoic. He's telling himself Nadia's been through this kind of thing before. She's not a little kid, she's 17, she's almost as old as he was when he started. She's Red Room trained. She'll handle whatever's going on.

    Doesn't make it any easier, really, but it keeps him focused.

Kaida Connolly has posed:
Mice are actually pretty tough and can handle high falls. So, when the door opens, Kaida is already leaping out. She is technically tougher than any normal mouse but she doesn't crack any pavement mainly due to bodyweight. Two pounds isn't gonna be breaking any ground. So, she lands in a three point stance and gets up with a zipping like speed that takes her directly to the car where she starts immediately sniffing about.

"Why is this always happening?" She asks as she sniffs around the car, sniffing at the car, leaping on to the car to sniff. Sure, there's something to be said about contaminating a crime scene or something, but she's a mouse. Unless the people who kidnapped Nadia are also mice, she isn't contaminating anything.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     There's an understanding in the Titans. As had been said, if an SOS is called, and you are able, you drop what you got and go running to assist. Robin was one of the available Titans, and had geared up for a fight.

  Since there were people lined up to jump out of the jet, Damian had remained at the controls, bringing in the jet smoothly.

  After touchdown, and powering down, Robin jumps out of the doorway, joining the rest. He'd heard the status report over the comms, it at least was not a weapons hot type situation. He remained quiet while manipulating his mask for any evidence he could gather up.

Karen Starr has posed:
    It's odd, really. The last to arrive is the fastest.

    She'd heard the SOS, but it wasn't until Janet responded that Karen felt the need to move. Typically, she keeps out of things, until someone specifically asks for her to get involved- or until she feels something warrants her presence. Less than a handful of seconds ago, she was in Metropolis.

    Her arrival occurs at such a speed, that a good half minute or so passes with her floating in the air above the other investigators before the thunderous noise of her flight will reach their ears. By then, she's already started to address the boots on the ground.

    "<<I'm here, Wasp. Got the SOS, but I don't listen to New York most of the time. I didn't hear anything. Maybe I can see something.>>"

    Her cool blue eyes focus on the car below, on the ground and surrounding area, and she starts scanning- taking her time. Seeing everything that can /be/ seen, at least without magic. This is important- so no stone is to be left unturned.

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
There is no sign of Nadia, no sign of struggle either. For the astute detectives, those used to crime scenes and finding the smallest of clues, there are a few. Two sets of footprints, one presumably Nadia's and the other someone much larger and heavier than her. Like exceptionally heavier, possibly even a mechsuit.

The first set seems to get out of the car and walk over to stand across from the second set, then they walk together towards a line in the dirt, almost like some sort of gangplank and disappear. The most logical assumption would be they entered some manner of aerial vehicle, but nothing like that has been picked up in the area by sattelites or radar.

It's like they just disappeared.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha barely moves when the two jets arrive; one posing a safety hazard to everyone in a mile radius, the other heralding a localized hazard to the tarmac. When she knows well enough who's arrived, she returns her attention to the car. She's in no mood for idle chatter, no mood for pithy comments about arrival times. Her composure is such that it could be mistaken for either disinterest, or a hell of a poker face. Janet, at least, may know enough at this point to glean that if Natasha's not expressing anything, then it may well be because she can't devote enough focus to *make* herself. Not that Natasha tends to open up about these things.

"No." Natasha annswers frankly as Donna arrives, snatching the earring and coms, and sparing a glance at the peculiar mouse zipping around. Security risks abound. She can't focus on anti-mouse security right now.

Nat does, however, look directly at Janet as she approaches, flatly - though not unsympathetically - saying "Nadia isn't here." before opening her closed hand to reveal the contents she retrieved from the car. "She left these." The matter of HOW Nadia left is still a bit beyond Natasha at this exact moment in time.

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet buzzes around the site as a six-inch pixie. It's a good compromise between mobility and size and she can cover a lot of ground. She emerges to full size near Natasha, giving the Titans a fast and dismissive glance before focusing on the redhead and the sudden imposing presence of Power Girl.

"Everyone watch your step," Janet says with a clarion voice. "Don't destroy any evidence. Don't touch anything you don't have to. Small clues are as important as big ones."

She forces herself to look at the objects in Natasha's hands. Both of Janet's cupped palms are offered to accept the items from her friend.

"Nadia would never go anywhere without this," Janet says, examining the microverse pendant. Without warning Janet vanishes in a blink, shrinking to microscopic size. The crystal dangles in midair and falls for all of six inches before Janet reappears from it, shooting rapidly up to her default diminutive height. "She's not in there," Janet says, and her voice carries a ragged edge to it. "Where else could she have gone?"

Victor Stone has posed:
    Vic points out the lines of footprints. "Looks like... one line got out of the car and went over there, joined the larger prints... smaller ones are probably Nadia, larger ones... whoever captured her? And then a line in the dirt..." He frowns thoughtfully.

    "Well, they didn't pick her up, no sign of a struggle." He's trying to make sense of this. Mind control? She wouldn't have gone willingly, would she?

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna nods to Natasha, then walks around the car once. When she stops she looks intently through the car windows, but takes care not to touch anything. "No sign of skidding or sudden braking," she states. "Nothing to suggest there was a struggle." She studies the ground, and crouches low to check the footprints, looking at them carefully for a few moments before following the prints to the line in the dirt.

    "Cyborg," she calls out. "Any energy signatures you can detect? Indications of residual radiation, so on? Kaida, anything you can smell here, where this line is? " She stands straight, looking around and taking in details before walking back to the car. "We need a sweep of the area. Hawk, Dove, see if you can see anything nearby, maybe find any eye-witnesses? Robin, anything you can tell about the car?"

    When she's done talking to her fellow Titans, she greets Janet with a nod. "Don't worry, we've been doing this a decade. We know how to work a crime-scene. Did you check for residual traces of Pym-particle usage here? She may have left something else for use to find, that she left hidden."

Kaida Connolly has posed:
"Already on it!" Kaida calls out as she sniffs about, she considers what she is smelling and Kaida idly picks a spot away from that area and pulls out a fold up smart phone and lays it out. She starts tapping on it before shaking her head.

"Something is up." She calls out, "I've never smelled metal like this before and metal is what I smell. It's a very weird metal." She points at the larger footprints, "From those footprints and that line." She hops back up and slides away the phone. She walks over to the footprints and eyes it, "I'm almost certain that whoever or whatever took Nadia was either armored or inorganic."

Hank Hall has posed:
    Hawk is a big man but he is also a cop by training and moves with the precision afforded some of the more adept members of the force. He moves to the door and, being careful not to scratch the paint (this car costs more than 2 months salary alone), opens the driver's side door. He slides in, the ribbons of his makeshift cape rustle as he settles down and pressed the button on the car marked "START."

    The engine purrs to life and the wailing voice of Ozzy Osbourne pours out of the 8 speakers in the car:

The wreckage of my past keeps haunting me
It just won't leave me alone
I still find it all a mystery
Could it be a dream?
The road to nowhere...
Leads to me

    He slips out the rest of the song playing on from the car. "The kid is anything but stupid... that mean anything to anyone?" he asks, flicking a thumb over his shoulder to the car as Zakk Wylde picks out a soft guitar lilt.

Dawn Granger has posed:
Dove folds her arms and watches with interest. A cross-team collaboration looking for one of their own. A slight wince crosses her face at the sudden and loud Ozzy Osbourne. She is tempted to make a joke about bats but decides to keep it to herself. People here are worried.

Her eyes cast up to the sky and she states what most of them are probably thinking. "If there's no other traces then she was either abducted or went through some kind of portal." But her eyes are mostly on Hawk, watching him in his professional element, it's interesting to see this side of him in action.

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Robin crouches down, his eyelets glowing white as he looks toward the footprints. "Mind control..." He turns his head, looking at the micro stresses in the tarmac leading away from the car. "Or they had leverage. Would explain why she signaled before leaving. She'd have known we would be here ASAP."

  "Whoever she was with...is heavy, heavy enough to cause stresses on the concrete." He points a finger to the ground. "Microscopic at the moment...but it's there. "

  As Donna comments about the car, Damian turns to face the car, looking it over, thermals, residual fingerprints, the works. "On it..." He responds. "Road to Nowhere, Ozzy Osborne's No More Tears...other than that, nothing."

Karen Starr has posed:
    "<<I'm not getting a whole lot, but that means there's a whole lot in what I'm not getting.>>" she begins, still on comms thanks to being more than a few meters in the air. "<<Footsteps end and it looks like they boarded some kind of craft. There's no teleportation or portal shear on the ground, so that thin line? Probably a boarding ramp.>>"

    In a moment, Power Girl is now floating there above where the two sets of footprints end, the line drawn in the sand. "<<No evidence of the craft ever existing, though. It /definitely/ flew, but whether that was the only way it gets from point A to point B is up for grabs. Either way, nothing caught it or logged it, so it showed up here, somehow undetected, took on our maybe-two passengers, and then took off again, without anyone catching the departure. Could be stealth technology, could be teleportation but high enough off the ground that it didn't take any little bits of road or sidewalk with it.>>"

Victor Stone has posed:
    "There's some weird readings, Donna," Vic reports. "Some kind of... crazy-advanced energy source, and signs of something going in and out of phase with material space. Like..." He frowns and looks over at the line in the dirt.

    "Spaceship, maybe? That'd fit all the evidence. Some kind of phasing spaceship."

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Where else could she have gone, they ask?

Natasha's eyes briefly narrow in irritation as the music kicks up... but she's heard the song enough times to know where it's going, and she darkly says - at the same moment as the song - "Nowhere."

It could just as easily be the answer to Janet's question, but Natasha's eyes are blazing. Perhaps it's absurd for someone to be this certain based on so little, but. "... you can take the girl away from the spies, but you can't take the spy away from the girl." she says, turning back towards the car.

"They broke into GIRL earlier this year. Nadia asked me not to go..." Natasha darkly chooses the words, "... *find* them..." She's a good kid. Too good for Natasha's personal methods. "... But she left contingencies behind. I'll track them down."

Janet van Dyne has posed:
Janet locks eyes with Natasha, then with Karen. The bombshell Natasha drops clarifies a great many things, very suddenly, and Janet's posture shifts from something near-panicked into firmly assertive.

"Damn it. I knew we should have burned that crew down," she tells Natasha. "And pulled the building along with them."

She touches her earpiece. "HOMER? Send a flare out. Get everyone on the team up and message SHIELD. I want every bit of intelligence we've got on the group called NOWHERE, and I want it yesterday."

She drops her hand and faces Donna and the rest of the Titans. "This is definitely going to get ugly before it gets better," she advises them. "And I don't care how many bodies I have to stack to get Nadia back."

She looks at the amulet in her hand and carefully places it over her neck, tucked into the fabric of her jumpsuit.

"Anyone here who's got a problem with that, stay behind me."

Hank Hall has posed:
    Hawk gives Robin a flat look (not uncommon, even if he first gave it to a completely different Robin.) "I know what song it is I introduced it to her." He sighs and turns to the car glancing over it at Natasha. "An organization... good to know we have a face on them at least."

    He frowns and leans in to stop the ignition, removing the keys with a quick pull from the slot for them. Closing the door (again with care given to the paint, his claws could probably shred the machine if he put his mind to it), he bounces the keys in the palm of his hand. In between the time of the key rising into the air and landing in his palm, it seems the suit of Hawk fades away, leaving Hank Hall in civilian clothes. "Always a problem with our way of doing things..." he mutters looking up at Dawn. "Can't keep the suit on until I know it's done. Once done, it's done."

    He gives Janet a smile at her vicious words. "No worries here. When the suit's on... stacking bodies is something I'm good at and enjoy thoroughly."

Donna Troy has posed:
    Donna nods her head to Natasha, then turns to Hank. "Yeah it means a lot." She thumbs through her T-Com for a few moments before forwarding a message to the rest of the team's T-Coms, and then holds the screen out to show to Janet and Natasha. The message reads:

    'Vivian and I were attacked in the GIRL building at PymTech by someone calling himself Dr. Templar from a group called Nowhere. He also had like a giant living plasma entity or something in a really neat containment suit that was really nice and good with tech with him and a girl who had laser eyes!!!'

    'Anyway, they tried to kidnap me, something about an offer I couldn't refuse, as if I haven't had enough of that from the Red Room, but they ran when I activated my T-Comm SoS and Viv threatened to call the Avengers. Dr. Templar also claimed they were from the future and had super future tech. They somehow managed to negate Pym Particles, which I've only ever seen done once before but they did it way more passively. Like zap, no effect.'

    "Containment suit," she says. "That could be a match for the heavily armored or inorganic participant. Black Widow, that line... 'The wreckage of my past keeps haunting me'... any possible connection between the Red Room and a group called NOWHERE?"

    She gives a quick nod to Damian. "Leverage sounds like a solid guess. In which case she may have left us other clues. Tower radar will have records of any flying vehicles in the area used for an extraction unless it's got some pretty serious stealth. But let's not count on that." She tilts her head to the side and gives Power Girl a quick nod. "Let's not exclude the possibility of some teleportation technology that's /tidy/. " Her eyelid twitches slightly as Vic presents the results of his readings. "Or a spaceship with really, /really/ precise warp drive. Or magic. Can't exclude magic when it's that weird. We'll get someone down to check for that shortly." It's evening, so Raven's probably still having her morning coffee.

    Donna puffs out her cheeks and slings her lasso over her shoulder. It doesn't seem to be likely to be needed immediately. She tilts her head at Janet, staring at her for a few moments. "Janet, Nadia's a Titan. There will be no complaints from us."

Damian Wayne has posed:
     Damian's hand reached back up and deactivates the mask's vision mode. "You asked about the song." He comments before letting it go.

  "So, she left us a note. Good." He was already awaiting someone to fight, now it seemed Nadia had pointed them in the right direction.

Dawn Granger has posed:
Dove ponders for a moment. "a Phaseship then? but what is it phasing through?," because polit-sci degrees definitely don't cover extra-dimensional travel. They do cover quippy names for things though. On that front she's got you covered.

"May be we should call Raven...," see, Dove learnt from the training exercise. Weird extradimensional stuff: they have a specialist for that sort of thing. Two, really. "Or Vorpal." She looks back to Hawk, "I mean, if she's literally on the road to nowhere.. is that just a coincidence or was it really a clue. Any one know where no where is?"

Natasha answers that question. Nowhere is some sort of spy thing. "Ah.. spies.. of course. Spies definitely have Phaseships..." She furrows her eyebrows in concern and confusion to Hawk. Approaching she whispers to him, "Did any of this make sense to you the first time?"

Stacking bodies. She stares at Janet for a while. There's obviously a strong connection between Nadia and Janet but.. stacking bodies. Her lips press in to a thin line and she exhales a slow breath. Baby steps. "There's always another way than.. stacking bodies. I'm sure we can find Nadia safely without taking life. If it comes to it, I will get in front of you, not behind."

Kaida Connolly has posed:
A look at the others and Kaida simply listens, taking in all the pomp and circumstance. All the anger, and all the rage. All the questions and all the thoughts. All the answers and all the ideas. She looks to Donna and then she sucks in a breath as she hops on top of the windshield of the car and turns her eyes on Janet.

"I'm not big on sermons, broken bones and stab wounds teach better lessons. That being said, no one learns anything from death and it is a final thing. Stackin' up bodies creates fear and leads to more death. You leave someone alive but hamstrung or cut a tendon or two? They learn, they live, and they teach others." Kaida pulls out her sword, "Killing is not an option I take lightly and trust me, I have had opportunities. We'll get Nadia back and I'll leave a wake of broken bodies. A wake of lessons taught and teachers to teach." She slides her blade away and looks at Janet with serious eyes.

"You interrupt my teachings with killing and I might teach you, too. Nadia is my friend. I'll find her." She looks around, "We'll find her. We'll do it as teachers. Not as killers."

Dawn Granger has posed:
The rousing speech from Kaida heartens her but she lifts up her hands, "I think we can take the time to find a peaceful resolution. This back and forth with Nadia's enemies costs everyone. If they've done it for leverage - then we could get some leverage of our own. If we make them understand there's mutually assured destruction .. the worst kind of peace .. then that's at least something."

Nadia Pym-van Dyne has posed:
Clues are found, plans are laid. Wherever Nadia is, whether she went willingly or unwillingly, there does seem to be a very deliberate trail.

Being captured as a means of infiltration for an otherwise impenetrable group is a page straight out of the Red Room playbook and the tricky part is always the exit strategy.

Of course that's why there is a lockbox waiting back at GIRL HQ. A lockbox to be opened in the event of Nadia's disappearance if NOWHERE seems to be involved, with an access key for all of Nadia's research on NOWHERE and a cache of their own unaltered files as well.

The Road to N.O.W.H.E.R.E. leads to me.

The Road to N.O.W.H.E.R.E. begins here.