Owner	Pose
Melinda May	Friday, the City of New York announced a new redevelopment initative. Its goal is to turn several hundred acres of dormant industrial park into a revitalized, mixed-use neighbourhood that will combine the most cutting edge urban design with the best in environmental technologies to create a world class example of future living that promises to be a showcase of innovation. Several corporations have joined in the initiative. One of the surprising participants is Roxxon Corporation. In fact, there are several of Roxxon's rivals involved in the initiative, but the site belonged to Roxxon before NYC took it over. In fact, the site has quite the storied history. It was the place of the very first nitramene implosion, back in 1946. Of course, it was rebuilt afterward, but it never quite saw the same level of use in subsequent years. The implosion site was always difficult to work in. People complained of "weird things" happening there. But nothing was ever proven. Especially, given the fact Roxxon never let anyone in to investiage. And their own investigations went nowhere, shelved after a dozen years as fruitless. So, that part of the site was abandoned... and mostly forgotten. When the city finally appropriated the site, Roxxon didn't protest too hard. Expecially since they were given the right to put their branding on it as a major corporate donor. There shouldn't have been any problem really. And, bureaucratically, there wasn't. The mayor held a ceremony to break ground. And when the digger moved in to scoop that first shovel... all hell broke loose. Relatively speaking. An anomaly appeared. Rippling the atmosphere like haze off ashphalt on a hot summer day, it coalesced into a shimmer of dark energy that warred with golden light. The digger was sucked into it, the man running it bearly jumping free in time. Authorities cordoned off the area. The city tried to launch its own investigation, but that only resulted in lost equipment and the apparent deaths of two men. Thus, they finally wised up and called in SHIELD. And who got assigned to that? On a Sunday morning after a night of heavy drinking? Oh, yeah. Agent May finds herself steering a black, SHIELD emblazoned SUV onto a site where tall industrial facilities dwarf everything else around. She steps out of the car, wearing her agent blacks with a leather jacket over top, and pushes a pair of sunglasses onto her nose as proof against the glare of the sun overhead. She closes the door gently and lets out a soft sigh. Oh, it's totally going to be a *day*, isn't it? Oh, yeah.
Peggy Carter	It's been a long while since Peggy's had a hangover and while it's not awful, it's certainly not pleasant. She's content to let May drive, having popped two asprin when the call came in and still nursing a water bottle. When she heard where the issue was? There's no way she WASN'T going along to the site. There's a look on her face that is mostly distant and neutral, but May is sharp enough that she might see the edges of guilt beneath it all. It's like Peggy feels personally responsible for this all. "We should have intervened in this ages ago... Nitramine's instability seems to last... Well, we don't know when it ends. We haven't found the end of it yet. This whole place is unsafe." Peggy mutters as they drive up, the weight of decades behind her eyes as she looks over what's happened to the familiar sight. "The original explosion happened at night, only took a few security guards with it. No reason we should be feeding MORE people to it." She sighs.
Melinda May	May swallowed a couple of aspirin and good litre of water herself, before climbing behind the wheel. Now, she walks forward slowly, beside the Englishwoman. "I didn't think nitramene implosions were that unstable after the final burnout," she says. "Are we sure there isn't something else at play here?" It's right back to that old investigative trope: Make sure you know what you're actually dealing with -- that apparently related pieces of evidence actually are. "I mean... it *is* Roxxon, right?" Even she knows they've got a long history of screwing things up by playing with things they really shouldn't. And that they may have ties to HYDRA. Nevertheless, the nitramene implosion data in the old SSR file she scanned before they left the Triskelion suggested there were no after effects, aside from a tight ball of twisted debris that include a bumper belonging to a car owned by Howard Stark. "We've had how many weird happenings in New York since then? For all we know, this is interacting with something the Chitauri left behind."
Peggy Carter	"There's almost certainly something else at play, truth be told... This was caused by whatever Roxxon was doing with Howard's original formula, which they stole, so I suspect they were already screwing around with the basis of it all. But that original formula..." Peggy frowns a bit more, some skepticism behind her feautres as she reaches back over the years, "I don't think it was near as stable as the SHIELD files about the SSR might say. Howard didn't want it out there because it *was* so unstable. If you neutralized it, that was fine... but the implosions it caused..." She shakes her head slightly, "A smaller one's effects might not be that bad after a few years. This was an entire factory of the stuff." Peg pulls out her phone, beginnign to scroll down the screen of the files they currently have on hand. "Besides. I dug through all the files on this building. It's beem mostly out of use because there's been weird reports here for fifty years. This has been going sideways since just after the original explosion, and that night was a mess in and of itself." The tone in Peggy's voice is absolutely personal.
Melinda May	"So, what happened?" May asks bluntly as they pick their way through the construction debris. She pulls out one of Fitz's sensor sets, figuring they might as well try to get a read on the thing. "What *really* happened? If the file's been sanitized, but you were there... what do I need to know?" Because there's probably more. She flicks some commands on the tablet that comes with the reader suite. She's definitely not in Fitz-Simmons' class. She knows how to operate the things. She won't be interpretting the readings without spending time concentrating. But she's fairly confident that can be done back at the Trisk rather than in the field. And probably by Fitz-Simmons, too. That would be better.
Peggy Carter	The question about what really happened makes her steps slow a bit. While it's been 75 years and Peggy spent a long time actually being in charge, so no one's probably going to come down on her for her mistakes now, it's still not a story she cares to share with everyone. She leans over May's sensor, trying to piece together what readings the woman is getting, but this is really out of her depth. "Edwin Jarvis and I were on site when the explosion happened. This was in the middle of the US government, and most of the SSR, being convinced that Howard was selling his weapons to the Russians. Sure enough, someone had figured out how to neatly weaponize Nitramene. Probably more effective than Howard. They were manufacturing those weapons here. When we came upon it... one of their men who absolutely didn't want the operation to be caught, set off one of the bombs. It set off *everything else*. Looking back on it now... Hell, I'm surprised we didn't lose five square miles around this place. Jarvis and I just barely managed to get away." The fondness in her voice as she talks about the man is clear, and a bittersweet ache of missing him. "...that's how the bumper of Howard's car was found in the imploded ball after. It was absolutely us. But I swear, I didn't *set* the bomb off... but my presense there... Did." That would be where the guilt is from.
Melinda May	May listens to the account without judgement. First of all, it was 75 years ago. Secondly, Howard Stark was obviously cleared of those charges. And Thirdly, she wasn't there. She knows how quickly these things can go south. Thus, she nods her undestanding. "I don't think it really matters whose fault it was then," she comments. "I think what matters is we figure out if there's an 0-8-4 at work here, or if this another of those dimensional breaches that we've become prone to over the past several years." SHIELD has, after all, tracked interdimensional beings coming and going all over the place for ages, now. Especially via WAND. The readings aren't really typical of nitramene, however. The tachyon readings are too high. And there may be a mix of other forces at work. High energy readings, to be sure, but so much in flux they're a mess to read and well beyond the ken of either agent. "We need Fitz-Simmons," May says, passing the tablet to Peggy. She picks up a piece of broken concrete about the size of a golf ball and tosses it in a gentle underhand towards the heat shimmer in the center of the half-dug hole. There's soft *whhorrrlp* sound and it disappears in a small flash of light that causes the tablet readings to spike.
Peggy Carter	"...Are those...Tachyons I'm seeing? I don't remember that being a part of our surveys of the place -- when they let us on the place -- back in the fifties. Even during clean ups, they weren't that high." Peggy admits, a deeper frown crossing her matte red lips as she tries to figure out if she's reading the sensors right. Maybe she's just getting the technology wrong, after all, she's still playing a LOT of modern tech catch up. She seems content to leave the guilt behind her about the mess and focus on the situation here at hand, now. She takes the table, scanning through a few other things. "... We really do. I'm sure I've got... Well, shit. I need to pick through the old files again. Maybe the ones in the digital record *aren't* complete, with the things that have been missing lately..." Peggy mutters that bit quiet enough that it's clearly only meant for she and May's ears. "I'd like to compare the two, at least. The complete records of the two." Then that flash of light comes, as May throws something to the shimmer. She instinctively jerks back, almost braced for an explosion as bad as that first night. But it just disappears, the tablet screams, and both Peggy's brows climb to the sky. "No one can build here. This is clearly still active and...hopefully not, but... Maybe growing." Oddly, from across the way, the sound of Peggy's voice can be heard also. The words are indistinct, words not clear, but the quiet timber of her tone and accent is fairly clear even in the mutterings. Maybe it's a distorted echo from behind the shimmer of what she's saying now?
Melinda May	May shields her eyes from the flash of light, even with her sunglasses on. "Maybe I shouldn't have done that..." She cants her head slightly as Peggy's voice echoes against the energy field. Yeah, okay. That's weird. She's about to test the echo when the sound of footsteps and cocked weapons interrupts her. "Step away from the hole, ladies," a man dressed in black with a balaclava and goggles says. He is accompanied by half a dozen others, all of whom have rifles and look seriously trigger happy. "We're here to secure this site."
Peggy Carter	Dark eyes flicker up from the tablet sensor readings and Peggy just stares for a few moments at the trigger happy goons. Some things never seem to change. She doesn't look exactly scared, just rather skeptical and a hint amused as she smirks in the goons' directions. "Gentlemen, we are here on a SHIELD authorized mission and have authority to secure this site. So, we can either teach you a lesson or you can go back to your Roxxon bosses and get revised orders. You have one warning." While Peggy looks calm and collected as a bored bureacrat, May can probably feel the new tension that's gone through her body. She's preparing for a fight. She takes a single step forward and slightly to the right of May, an indication that she'll get that side of their attackers and May can take the left, if things go sideways. Which she's suspecting they will.
Melinda May	May exhibits the same calm, the same tension. She steps back into a neutral stance, eyes sweeping their environment for the advantage they need to be able to beat itchy trigger fingers. She doesn't say anything, because Peggy has said it all well enough. And May's never been much for talking before battle. The man looks at the pair of them. "Yeah. You're out gunned and out maneuvered. And in less than an hour the city's going to revoke your access, anyway. You might as well save us all the hassle and walk away." "I think that's a 'yes'," May comments to Peggy, glancing to her. "He wants to go back to school." She looks at him. "I'm good with that." And she drops straight down into a spin kick. Her foot sweeps around to kick up a wave of dust and debris into the man's face. Before he can fire, he is instinctively raising his arms to protect himself from the sudden storm of dirt -- this despite the fact it actually can't harm him, given his attire. But human intinct is pretty reliable that way. May rolls forward and thrusts a foot up into his torso. The battle is engaged.
Peggy Carter	"Well. I suppose. If they insist." Peggy deadpans in May's direction, with a slightly too deep sigh as she lets the sensor pad fall to her side, happy it's got a little shoulder sling just for these moments. It looks like the pair might be retreating and then May's abruptly dropping, Peggy starting her own motions not even half a second behind the younger woman. They move shockingly fast for a pair of non-meta-humans. Peggy's not going for the low hit, but the plan which will get her protected and as few firearms on the field of battle as possible. She seizes abruptly forward and slightly to the side of the right center man's gun, reaching for a fast arm lock to disable his wrist that's holding the weapon as she uses her momentum to swing his body around her and gun in the direction of his friends. She'd rather it be dropped, but she will use him as a human shield as necessary. She pulls hard, dragging his shoulder out of socket even as his hand, uncontrolled, opens a burst of fire in his teammate's direction.
Melinda May	Peggy grabs the man, who has partially doubled over from May's attack, and sweeps him around. His weapon fires into his teammates. One of them goes down. One or two of the others open fire, but a companion calls for them to stop. "You'll hit friendlies!" May rolls again and comes up to her feet with a thrust of her hips. Then, she's wading into line of three of them to start engaging in a little aggression therapy with their faces. They fight back. Not well, mind. But they do make the effort. It's almost cute. The others, meanwhile, have also abandoned their guns in favour of hand to hand. How difficult can a couple of broads be to take down? Really?
Peggy Carter	Even as Melinda s fighting, the sound of Peggy's voice can be heard again. A distant echo, still coming from near that ripple, but Peggy isn't even talking right now. There must me some strange time-delay between the space around them and that weird little shimmer. Meanwhile, Peggy in the here and now is rather build trying to subdue at least three of these current incompetent goons. Tired of dancing, she jerks the gun up in the man's useless hand, straight into his temple. A knockout blow. Then she's shifting forward, a spinning kick to another one's temple as the third tries to come around and land a good punch on her, but her fist jerks up to block the attack. She, instead, elbows him straight into the solar plexus and the man goes stumbling, trying to catch his breath... Right towards the shimmering distortion in the air.
Melinda May	May dispatches two of the men she faces. The third grabs hold of her from behind. She thrusts backwards with her legs, flipping up and over him. He lands on his back. She lands on her feet and sends a savage kick into his temple. He's out. The man careening backward towards the anomaly seeks to grab hold of anything that might keep him upright. His hand snags May's arm. He jerks her back. She spins, using his momentum. This sends him back toward Peggy, away from the shimmer. But that sends her towards it. What Peggy sees is a brilliant flash of blue-white light, like a lighning strike that electrifies the shimmer and turns it briefly into something that looks like a writhing mass of zero matter or gravitonium. One instant, May is there. The next... She's gone. And with her, that shimmer. For May, however, the world around her explodes with a brigh white light and then fades into a swirl of black and glowing blues in an endless tunnel -- and a sensation that feels like she's falling into a toronado. When the world reforms around her -- in a brilliant instant -- she impacts the ground heavily enough to knock the wind right out of her and send her rolling several meters across rough ground. When she stops rolling, she stops moving.
Peggy Carter	Peg is nearly done with her half of the group when, suddenly, that flash comes. Her eyes go wide, a curse escaping her lips rather loudly, but she doesn't have time to chase now. She needs to put down the other goon that was left standing after May's disappearance. THEN she can worry about chasing her friend. She makes quick work of him with an uppercut to his jaw, elbow to his temple, and knee to his solar plexus. The man collapses in a heep. "Good riddance." If she keeps cracking wise, then things will be okay, right? She scrambles, unhooking that sensor tablet from her shoulder and starting to go over the place where May disappeared frantically, searching for any trace of the woman or what after effects might be happening from her disappearance. Her free hand comes up to press the comm unit in her ear. "Agent May, come through. Agent. Where ARE you?" On the other side of things, the ground doesn't look much different. The day is colder and the place is a little more rough, not worn down from years and years of weather over a mostly abandoned place. No one seems to have noticed the woman that's collapsed into the hole of what was the Roxxon plant, but no one is really looking down inside. From above, high heels on dirt clap quietly and a familiar British accent is giving some orders.
Melinda May	2020. Peggy's comlink receives only static. And the readings on the tablet are now so low they might as well not be there. It's like the anomaly has gone dormant again. Not... gone, per se. There are still low level readings that indicate a presence. But not like it was. The energy build up has been discharged. Sometime Else. May, meanwhile, lets out a deep groan of pain, coughing as she tries to suck air back into her abused lungs. She struggles to push herself up off her face, but all she really succeeds in doing, at first, is rolling enough on her side so that she can look around and get her barings. It looks like she's still at Roxxon. That's something, anyway.
Peggy Carter	In 2020, Peggy's now in full crisis mode. Melinda disappearing is far worse than few (probably) Roxxon goons stopping their work here. She shifts channels on her comm unit and calls back to SHIELD, "We've got an emergency. Agent May has disappeared, seemingly into the distortion at the old Roxxon site. We were attacked by half a dozen masked men and, in the fight, she was pulled into the distortion. I need a full science team down here NOW." With that, Peggy will go to staring to fully disarm and secure the enemies that attacked them. Where ever May is, no one really seems to have noticed her. The sides of the crater still show some of the original building's infrastructure, though it's rusting. A few loose pipes hanging, some rusted out, ripped metal, but the damage is there. It looks entirely more fresh than the cleaned out, sterlized site that SHIELD took over decades afterwards. From outside the crater, clipped words come on the wind, "I want to know *what* that distortion was, and now. Get the Nitramene dectectors, if we have anything over here for Zero Matter... A geiger counter. No one else is to enter this area until we confirm it's stable again." The orders are rushed and a little surprised. There's a moment or two of hesitation before the sound for more heavy soled feet can be heard, people jerking into gear.
Melinda May	2020. SHIELD responds quickly to the call of 'agent down'. Even if the goon was telling the truth, and the site was going to be taken away from SHIELD shortly... that won't happen now. It will take maybe 30 minutes, but the site will be completely secured by SHIELD in short order and the rogues Peggy secures will be taken back to secure holding cells for questioning. Soon, the place will be crawling with scientists, and doubtlessly others who consider May a friend, too. In the past. May fills her lungs with air and rolls cautiously to her feet as she starts registering movement and the familiar, cliped British accent giving sharp orders. She rubs the back of her head, having taken quite the hit when she was ejected from... whatever that was. For a moment, she starts to move towards where she hears Peggy's voice. But something makes her pause. The environment has changed, sharpened somehow. The erosion's less and the voices of the agents she hears responding the former Director aren't familiar. May's been around too long not to recognize the voices of most of the other New York agents. She steps back into the shadow of some of the wreckage and moves carefully to a spot where she can watch more easily without attracting notice. Being dressed all in black helps.
Peggy Carter	Other than the sharper, less erroded state of the crater that lives where the initial Nitramene implosion happened, the second thing that might be a good hint that something is wrong is, ironically, the men's suits and ties. Gone are the SHIELD blacks or business casual of nowadays. The site around them is teeming with what are mostly men, all dressed in stiff, slightly wider legged business suits, most of their ties not even meeting their belt buckles. Two of them have jackets off, sleeves rolled up, exposing old fashioned suspenders. There's rarely a bare head in sight. Peggy is there too, standing stiff towards the outer corner of the mess as she motions a few others towards there the distortion was -- nearly the same spot it was in 2020. May's lucky she was thrown fairly hard out of the thing, or a half dozen people would be looking directly at her. The woman's got long hair again, a bit more softly styled, in a plum purple dress cut in her usual 1940s style. She stiffens a bit as a taller man comes over to her, command in his step. It's the look of someone who is getting ready to defend her scene.
Melinda May	May recognizes the older styles, yes. And when she sees Peggy squaring up, sees the longer hair and the attitude of the man facing her... "Oh, shit." She's not really sure exactly *when* she is, but May does jump to the conclusion that she's not in her own New York anymore. And her only potential ally may or may not be in a position to help her. Men move in with what scanning equipment was available then, following Peggy's orders. Melinda crouches down, behind a pipe, and continues to watch. Approaching this world's Peggy Carter in the midst of all these men may not be the best choice. Her mind searches options. What she knows about Peggy. She needs to know more about where... *when* she is, first. But, either way... she doesn't know enough. This is not going to be easy.
Peggy Carter	After a few hard words are exchanged with the taller man, he finally backs down on whatever he was saying to Peggy, but it's clear it was a fight. The dark eyed woman folds her arms across her chest, a deeper frown on her ever-red lips. She turns back to the greater vision of the disaster site in front of her, eyes pausing over the shoulder where May is hiding. For just a moment. Her gaze narrows, but then passes across again. Maybe she just thought she saw something. Another short-tie clad man comes up in her direction with a question and she starts walking off with him instead. May's safe. For now.