Owner	Pose
Ava Starr	The trip from NYC to Lyons, France, was quantum quick. The trip from Lyons to Geneva was considerably longer, taking a couple of hours or so. But it was pleasant, the train rolling through the French countryside toward Switzerland. Now, a little after 9am, Ava walks with Finley into the main foyer of the building that houses CERN and the LHC. She's dressed up, compared to her usual jeans and hoodie look, opting for a nice pair of slacks and a button-down blouse beneath a jacket that better suits the more professional environment of the science lab. She even put on a touch of makeup and tamed her hair -- a little, anyway. Can't say she's not making an effort. Even so, this is Finley's show, her comfort zone. So, Ava is content to just follow her lead.
Finley Ellison	Finley, all politeness, explains that they're here to see Dr. Melnick. After being informed that he hasn't arrived at the facilities yet today, her expression slips into one of concern. She bites her lip. "Can you tell me the last time he was in?" she asks. "Ma'am?" The receptionist seems startled by the question. "Ma'am, I can't just...How is this relevant? He hasn't indicated that you have a meeting..." Sighing reluctantly, Finley flashes her badge before Ava becomes too tempted to slip away. Finley imagines her stalking invisibly through the hallways and offices of CERN to find Dr Melnick's office, disrupting who knows how many experiments and calculations in the process. "Dr. Melnick and I have been collaborating on his research," Finley informs the receptionist. "And he has been uncharacteristically unresponsive as of late. I am *worried* about him. Will you please tell me the last day he returned to his office?"
Ava Starr	Ava is less likely to slip away with Finley here. For now, she's willing to play it Finley's way. Otherwise they'd never have taken the 2 hour train ride. They'd have taken the Quantum Express. She's *trying* to be respectful of her partner's concerns for the other scientists. Privately, though, she wonders if Carol Danvers has this problem. It's true, though, that she gets antsy without something concrete to focus on. And, really, this isn't her mission. Nevertheless, as Finley finally pulls out her badge, Ava smiles. Maybe now they'll make a little headway.
Finley Ellison	The receptionist stutters, but whether it's Finley's badge or Ava's sudden smile that causes the word to stick in her throat is unclear. "Um? Ma'am? I, uh, let me check that for you." Finley smiles, bright and sunny and triumphant. "*Thank* you." The clack of the keyboard echoes as he searches for the requested information. "Dr. Melnick last left the building Friday evening, according to his ID scan. That's odd. He doesn't have an 'out of the office' notice..." He looks up at the two women, clearly worried that he's misplaced an important scientist.
Ava Starr	Ava looks around the lobby, perhaps more aware of the building's layout than she may be expected to be. She spent at least part of the train ride in from France going over plans she was able to get from a contact in Munich. So, she's actually right on point when she gestures to one of the many doors leading away from this central hub to corridors beyond. "So, right down that way, then, yeah?" Her British accent isn't nearly as out of place here in Europe as it is in the US. She looks at Finley expectantly. "Might as well take a look-see?" One way or another, they're done with this receptionist. It's clear the man's not where he should be. Time to find out what that really means.
Finley Ellison	"We'll just check his office before trying him at home," Finley agrees, moving past the flustered receptionist. "Hey! Wait!" he calls after them. But, too late. Finley and Ava are already through the doors. "If he's gone missing over the weekend, I'm not sure how useful his office will actually be." Finley shrugs. "Might as well take a look while we're here, though."
Ava Starr	Without the receptionist, or any interference from security (yet), Ava moves smoothly down the hallway more like she's on a mission than just casually wandering the halls. "Depends on why he's gone missing," she says, her expression a little more serious now. "If it's connected to his research, you'll want eyes on that to understand. But if it's because of his prior CV or something outside of here... then, no. This won't matter." She's betting, though, there'll be some clue. There usually is. This is actually the sort of thing she's much better at, rather than science. This is something she *gets*.
Finley Ellison	As they walk purposefully down the hall ? the reception hurrying after them, Finley starts to fret. "Oh god, oh god,"she mumbles. "We?ve done this all wrong. I should have let you break in all sneaky-like. His office door is gonna be locked. Which isn?t a *problem* exactly. You can just walk right in there. But there?s surveillance. And *security.* And.."r Despite the anxiety in her words, Finley?s posture doesn?t alter. She strides confidently towards Dr. Melnick?s office, ignoring the shouts that follow them.
Ava Starr	"And no one's going to see us, if we don't want them to," Ava says quietly. "I *can* make us invisible." A beat. "You can, too, for that matter." Nanites. They're useful things. They round the corner and pass momentarily into a camera blindspot. She stops, laying a hand on Finley's shoulder. "Now or never," she tells her.
Finley Ellison	"But my nanites can't take us through to his work station," Finley counters. "So I still  need you." The commotion down the hall becomes more insistent. She sighs and nibbles at her bottom lip before finally agreeing,  "We'd better do it your way." Concentrating, her brow furrows briefly as the nanites swarm around her, tickling across her skin. And she vanishes from sight.
Ava Starr	Ava does her level best to confine as much of her quantum energy to her own body -- no stray particles bouncing off to screw up the LHC below. It's not quite so hard as one might imagine since it mostly involves absorbing energy rather than releasing it. No photons bouncing back off her body to return to anyone's (or any thing's) eye. She can sense Finley beside her, sense the energy of the nanites. She hasn't phased -- that would ignite a brief flash of quantum energy, which likely *would* screw up the energy experiments on campus. She'll save that for the door of the office... If Fin's nanites can't crawl in there and bust it open for them. Indeed, she half-relies on her sense of Finley's whereabouts to get them where they need to go. That, and quickly reading the names on office doors as they pass. When they do reach the door, the sounds of pursuit confused in the distance, she says softly, "Pop the lock? Or do you want me to phase?"
Finley Ellison	"Phase us through," Finley decides. "We'll stay invisible as we ransack the office with as little physical interaction as possible. You can phase us back out. We'll get back to a blind spot and reappear, then wander back on camera. Security, etc, can discover us. And we'll claim we got lost or *distracted* or something. I'd go back now and create a diversion, but I don't think you'd know what to look for. No offense." She reaches out blindly for Ava. "That's the plan, right? At least it's *a* plan. Please tell me that sounds like a plan."
Ava Starr	Between the sound of Finley's voice and the gentle hum of her nanites on the edge of Ava's senses, Ava is able to sense the stretch of Finley's hand. She takes it and gives it a little squeeze. "It's a plan," she says. Because, no. She really wouldn't know what to look for -- not from a research standpoint. But there are other investigative clues she knows to watch for, instead. There's a sense of pressure as Ava draws Finley forward and then, an arm lightly encircling her shoulders, guides her through the door and into the office. Once they're inside, she pauses a moment and looks about, before letting her arm fall away. "No cameras in here," she notes. "Only the strip window on the door. If we're quick, we should be okay."
Finley Ellison	"Oh thank god!" Finley gulps. She almost considers releasing the nanite camouflage, but thinks better of it. She's still not very practiced with them and she doesn?t want her quantum fluxing to disrupt any experiments. The collider isn't scheduled to run today, and while all of the equipment is shielded from quantum energy effects, they aren?t protected from immediate fluctuations. So whatever damage they cause won?t be easily explained. Still, all her worry is merely a passing thought. She hones in on Dr Melnick?s computer. Luckily for them, he?s an absent-minded professor. The password is on a sticky note taped to the back of his keyboard. Finley types 'F1uxC@p@citor' into the login screen when prompted. Then she rolls her neck and cracks her fingers before leaning over close to the monitor. "Okay, Gerald, what have you gotten yourself into?" she mutters, scrolling through his files.
Ava Starr	Ava wanders the room, paying less attention to the mundane technology and more to the diagrams and notations on work boards, the piles of books that reveal his latest obsessions in research, and the other telltale signs of his general thought processes. She pauses at the far end of his desk to look through a black book that appears to be a day planner, scanning down the last two months or so of entries, looking for recurring names -- and names that seem completely random. Finley will understand the context of the research, but Ava is looking for the context of the man. She doesn't know him well enough to guess at his personal habits, but she knows researchers in general to recognize archetypes. She's met a broad sampling of them over the years, after all. She knows people better than most give her credit for, given her own abrasive personality.
Finley Ellison	"Gerry, Gerry. Gerry," Finley murmurs to herself. She's switched from the research documents on his secure desktop ? already copying potentially relevant files to a usb stick ? to his emails. She finds her own latest missive still marked unread. And every email after, as well as a few before. "So whatever happened to him happened last..." Finley pauses, biting her lip as she calculates the time differences. She's moving too quickly to process the local timestamp on the screen. "Thursday evening, right?" She turns to ask Ava. She points at the screen for confirmation, having utterly forgotten that she's currently invisible, camouflaged by her nanites.
Ava Starr	Ava glances over toward the screen, not because Finley pointed at it -- no, she can't see her partner at all -- but because that's where Finley's voice comes from. She flips through the man's day planner again, the pages fluttering beneath her fingertips, likely looking like the wind is turning them. "That what the screen say?" she asks. She looks down at the entry. "Does the name Rosuson mean anything to you?" She pushes the book across the desk. For all that she, too, is invisible, there on Thursday's column is written the name 'Karl Rosuson' and 7:00 circled in blue highlighter.
Finley Ellison	Quickly searching the good doctor's email, Finley finds a smattering of correspondences from one Karl Rosuson. "Here," she says excitedly. "They were discussing a quantum scanner prototype - I...think?" She squints, opening a schematics diagram. "That?s...*weird*."
Ava Starr	"What's weird?" Ava asks, moving towards the computer to look at the screen. She stops short of Finley only because she can feel the quantum pressure of the nanites surrounding her. "You'll need to use your words, love. I can't see you..."