ArchivedLogs:Third Species

Third Species
Dramatis Personae Jackson, Sage
In Absentia	2014-04-03 Part of the perfectus TP.
Location Somewhere in Staten Island
It's been a long afternoon already. Long and /fruitless/, so far; a trip out to the Bronx to search the house Anole was kept in that provided entirely no useful anything. Despite the futility of the earlier search Jackson doesn't seem particularly /discouraged/ as they make their way into Staten Island. He's borrowed a car from school for the purpose, not possessing one of his own -- an X-Men vehicle, though it doesn't look like anything particularly superheroic, a modest dark-blue Prius, serviceable and boring and responsible. He doesn't look like anything particularly superheroic, either, dressed blandly in jeans and a Cooper Union sweatshirt pulled on over a plain black tee, a red-and-black striped knit cap on his bald head. His teeth scrape against his lower lip as he finds a parking space opposite the building they're arriving at, sunglass-covered gaze turning to fix on its door. "Don't suppose you're much hand at picking locks, hm?" Pulling herself from the passenger side of the Prius, Sage looks over at the door as well. "I am not. I could give it a hand, but I can not guarantee that we would succeed. Blowing it open would also be suspicious, so perhaps there is an additional entrance to find. Unless you would like to blow it open.". She's then approaching the entrance, glancing around for possible other ways in, before putting an ear to the door to check for anything on the other side. Sage herself doesn't look superheroic either. Brown jacket, a pair of blue jeans, a gray shirt under the jacket, and a pair of tennis shoes, ATHENA currently inside her jacket pocket, her blue eyes bright and alert. "I ain't feelin' /enormously/ explosive t'day, no," Jackson answers, trailing after Sage; he clicks the lock on the Prius shut with the keyfob and then tucks his hands into his pockets, tipping his head back to look up at the building. "-- s'a big enough place, could be we'll just need a bit'a wait 'fore someone heads in or out." There is, in fact, a pair of voices audible on the other side of the door, approaching. At this point, Sage is stepping back, towards Jackson. "Someone is coming. This should be our way in.". She's watching the door, waiting for the people to exit, as she hums, glancing her eyes around the building, the parking lot, and surrounding buildings as well. "Oh, good." Jackson takes another step back, too, further from the door of the building. One hand drops to rest on the drab olive-green messenger bag at his side. He doesn't seem in any particular hurry to catch the door in time -- there's a pair of young women just heading out, chattering brightly to themselves and paying the people outside little mind. A very faint shimmer blossoms in the air in their wake -- a small sliver of a shield wrapping itself against the doorjamb, preventing the door from fully closing behind them. He waits for the pair of women to have headed off down the block before he gives Sage a quick smile, gesturing to the front door as if in invitation. "-- What floor was it again? Four? Five?" Sage also quietly waits until the girls leave, before heading towards the door. "503.". She's stepping inside, a small glance through the hallway before she's heading straight for the stairs, ignoring anything else around her. "We have no idea what we will find in there. We must be careful and ready.". She's then beginning her ascent up the stairs, ignoring elevators (if they have them!), but her focus is still kept in a corner of her eye. Jax's shield drops from the door once they're inside, letting it click closed behind them. He heads along up the stairs as well, hands still in pockets but a rather excessive overabunance of energy to his bounding movements, taking stairs two or three at a time. "One day," he tells her once they've reached the fifth floor, "I'm gonna get someone to teach me how to pick locks /right/. -- S'it ever struck you how much bein' a, er, hero," he says this word a little wryly, "an' bein' a criminal is basically near the same thing?" He doesn't exactly /explode/ the lock up here, but with an empty apartment and no likely people to /come/ in or out of it he doesn't bother with waiting around. He focuses in on the door, and a thin line of light begins to sear its way down the lock, sharp and laser-cutting as it burns through the door. He pushes the door in once it has been cut through -- for a moment as he enters he /vanishes/, fading entirely from sight as he slips into the apartment. Inside it's -- shabby. A dingy messy living room with a beaten old couch, beaten old TV, an adjacent kitchen with two old pizza boxes on the counter, the pizza in them long since hardened into inedible trash. A small bedroom adjacent to the living room, a computer sitting on a desk at the back of the living room. Jackson reappears just a moment later -- across the apartment now and standing in the bedroom doorway. "-- S'empty, just at the moment." "Ms. Star is rather skilled at it, or so she claims. And the difference between a hero and a criminal? Intent.". Sage says nothing as Jax cracks the lock, instead walking in silently as he disappears and reappears, a slow glance of her eyes as she takes all the little details in. "Good. I can work on the computer. Tell me if you find anything else.". At this point, Sage is approaching the computer, taking a seat at the desk and removing ATHENA from her jacket pocket. A moment later, she's also removing a sort of USB cord, which she uses the thin end to attach to ATHENA, the other end attaching to the computer's port, as she boots it on, putting ATHENA on. "ATHENA, on.". She's then beginning to attempt to crack the password, speaking over to Jackson without turning to him. "If you can find any theories to crack the password faster, by all means. Relatives in photos, words written down, something that he would remember that you can just see." "I'll see what I can see." Jackson is wandering further into the bedroom, stopping shortly with a slow intake of breath. "You watch many movies, Sage?" "I like Hayao Miyazaki.". This is all Sage replies, as she continues inputting passwords, ranging from names of relatives to other stuff she found in his autopsy. "I am running out of potential options, most likely because I am uncreative. I can attempt to hack into it completely, but I am keeping that for a fallback, incase anyone attempts to check the computer and knows how they work.". "I've watched some movies here an' there an' this guy seems like he was doin' --" Jax's tone is a little distant as he wanders further into the bedroom, "-- a /fair/ impression of a psychotic serial killer. Oh my /gosh/ I'm on here." For a moment he sounds very startled. And then there's quiet, for a while. Some rummaging. The sounds of paper being peeled off the walls, intermittently. Jax returns with a small collection of newspaper clippings -- there's a story of the Oscorp ball and the attack there, an article about Dusk from when he was arrested, a couple about Jax. Ones about Fight Club and Prometheus. He's holding in his other hand a journal, small and leatherbound -- there are other clippings pasted into it amid an enormous wealth of writing. "I mean, goodness, this -- guy seems like he was jus' -- this writing's pretty much a /pile/ of crazysauce. He sounds almost like he's made mutants into some kinda /religion/. All this talk about how we're the more -- perfect species an' humans is -- goin' extinct an' --" He frowns, teeth digging in against his lips. "Try somethin' mutant related. Homo -- superior. Homo /perfectus/ what's that even mean that's not a thing. Third species?" He's paging through the journal with a frown. "That comes up a lot." "Human perfected, human achieved. It is worth a shot.". Sage types it in, rejected. She then thinks a bit, and changes capitalization a bit. First time fails, as does the second. Her third capitlization test, however, unlocks the computer. "I am in. ATHENA, sync.". Whilst she's still using the keyboard, the monitor is blank. Instead, it's scanning right onto ATHENA's glasses screen, as she's sifting through it rapidly. "This does not look good. Prometheus files. I do not believe he was a Prometheus doctor however, so...hmm. There is an entire history on Nox's Prometheus stay here, seems that she was Brockman's main interest.". She downloads the files onto ATHENA, before continuing to scan through his files. "Something of note. Every Sunday he would go to a church meeting in a nondenomenational church in the Bronx. May just be a regular sort of thing he did, but everything is worth looking into.". After downloading all useful files onto ATHENA, she is cutting the connection. "This seems to strengthen my theory. He was not born a mutant. He was trying to /become/ a mutant." Jax glances up sharply at the mention of Nox's name, his expression paling slightly and his fingers curling tighter into the book in his hands. "How would he even have gotten -- mmnh. Some Prometheus contacts, maybe?" His teeth dig in against his lip and he amends: "There /was/ that huge leak of Prometheus info back when I was in jail. Provin' that I hadn't had nothin' to do with Vector. I don't quite remember what /all/ the files released was, maybe Nox's info was in that leak somewhere." His weight rocks restlessly from heel to toe and back and he frowns at the computer, before wandering back to the bedroom. "/Become/ a mutant?" He sounds a little bit -- horrified. "I mean, they -- they /stole/ Nox's powers down at -- an' if that's what he /was/ tryin' it seems like it succeeded, huh? Did -- oh gosh. Is there some poor person out there whose tentacles he /stole/?" Back in the bedroom he can't be seen anymore but the revulsion in his voice is clear enough. "Should possibly tell our kids t'be -- careful again. 'Bout wandering around -- /gaw/, if someone lays a hand on Taylor or anyone --" There's a flicker of brighter light from the bedroom that then subsides. Putting ATHENA back into her jacket pocket, Sage follows into the bedroom, her eyes absorbing every little detail inside. "It is more likely that the person who became his guinea pig is dead. And Anole most likely would have been too, if Isra had not gotten him back. But we will not let anyone else get hurt. We will stop this.". Sage sighs, before turning to Jackson. "Perhaps we can check out the church on one of his meeting days. Even if it is a dead end, any lead counts in an attempt to capture the others." The bedroom is a tiny one, messy as well and with almost every inch of its wall surface -- except for the articles Jackson has already plucked down -- papered in news clippings. Every one about mutants, famous mutants or crimes committed by mutants or crimes /against/ mutants, news as big as the zombie plague or Ryan Black's Grammy speech to things as small as two sentences in a police blotter. "Like I said," Jackson says with a nod towards the walls, "kinda crazysauce. You got --" He looks back out to the living room with a vague wave of the notebook in his hand. "-- whatever can be /got/ off his computer? There's -- more notebooks like these, we could take 'em. Pore over 'em in a timely kinda way. See if they have any more leads." "It is all stored on ATHENA, and also in my own memories.". Sage is grabbing a notebook, skimming through it rapidly, before shutting it closed. "Good idea. We should get out of here before anyone realizes that the door has been cracked and alerts the authorities.". She is then grabbing several notebooks that she can carry, before glancing outside. "Is there anything else in here to take a look at at this point?". Jackson picks up the rest of the notebooks, shoving them into his messenger bag together with some of the articles off the walls that have actually had notes added to them or parts highlighted. "Month-old pizza?" he suggests with a wrinkle of his nose. "Empty soda cans? This guy seems t'have lived off pizza and Dr Pepper." Sage heads for the door, looking over to Jackson. "I doubt he left much, other for his..mad science. But, whatever he was doing, it must of worked. We can't underestimate this at all.". Sage is then cracking the door open, a foot holding it for Jackson. "Let us get back to the mansion and debrief the others, if possible. We can also send an email for those outside of the mansion. Time seems to be of the essence." Jackson scrubs his hand against his face. There's an article on the wall, still, about Nox's murder of Kyle, and he regards it with a slow shiver, teeth pressing against his lip. "Yeah," he finally answers. "Does seem that way." He claps a hand lightly against Sage's shoulder as he heads out, leaving the empty apartment behind them.