ArchivedLogs:Rip van Wrinkle

Rip van Wrinkle
Dramatis Personae Mallory, Thomas, Aloke, Hank
In Absentia	2013-09-05 The team try to figure out what's going wrong with Aloke's power.
Location <XS> Danger Room
The room is large and circular, a geodesic hemisphere of hexagonal ceramic panels. It is the Danger Room, and is thus often full of danger, but is presently not in use and is thus remarkably danger-free. Safest room in the school, probably. A piece of printer paper was taped nearby the door, designating that the Danger Room was in use for the purposes of experimentation. Entering through the door, the room was set up for Science! as Dangerous as that may be. Various sensors and cameras were already set up, designating a particular area in the middle to be the testing range, mainly by virtue of the fact that electrical tape lays in a square with an 'X' in the center. Hanging above the X'd spot is a bit of tubing and collectors, with blinking lights connecting down to machines sitting on the side. Sitting outside the makeshift science facility, is a table stacked with bread, nuts, and protein bars, with a couple bottles of Gatorade sitting there to be taken, though a few clip boards are also sitting there with heavy darkened goggles. A few fire extinguishers are set up beside the table, each one designated for the appropriate type, from chemical to electrical fire based extinguishers. People walking in will notice the dark skinned, slightly demonic looking chemistry professor wearing his normal navy blue button up shirt, with a pair of dark slacks and a grey bow tie. Professor Winthrop wears a long white lab coat over top of this attire though, with his Xavier School id clipped to the pocket of the lab coat, and a tablet computer is perched in the crook of his arm. He stands talking to the blue furred Doctor McCoy, appropriately decked out for the experiments in his own buttoned up shirt and labcoat, minus any shoes of course. If ever there was an appropriate looking set up for scientific inquiry, this would be the place. Science has never been her strong suit, and Mallory is keeping out of the way as her twin does his setup and preparation, perched on a backless stool beside the impromptu buffett table. She wears a form fitted black dress that ends just above her knees - an inexpensive dress procured from some website or another ment to be disposable in the event of ignition. A crisp white lab completes the look, rather out of place on the decidedly unsciencey Librarian. Her dark hair is pulled up into a stylishly messy bun, accentuating her the shining jet colored horns that curl from her temples, a pair of safety goggles awkwardly perched atop her head rather than in front of her dark eyes. The casualness of her pose does nothing to hide her nervousness as she reads what is apparently a fire safety manual. Aloke was brought downstairs a little earlier after his incident by the lake. He's changed into dry clothes now, soft white linen pants and button up shirt, but he sticks to his no shoes policy. He takes his cues from Hank. Aloke enters the ad-hoc testing facility, padding along on his bare feet. "Uh, hi everyone. Thanks again for... taking time out. I really appreciate it." Speaking of Hank, he nods, waves dismissively, and heads for the observation room, tablet in hand. "Not to worry, Aloke, we'll get to the bottom of this!" And off he goes, up into the booth. Over the mic, he can be heard again, "I'll be monitoring the controlled environment conditions from here. I can hear you very well, no need to shout." He clicks the mic off, nods from the window, and gives a furry, blue thumbs up. Inclining his head to Aloke, Thomas offers a smile. "We'll see what we can find out here, though I can't promise too much. This place has impressive equipment for a high school, but its not a multibillion dollar research facility." Waving to Hank as he heads for the observation area, he snags a protein bar for himself and wolfs it down in a few bites. "If you are hungry, or feeling weak, I'd suggest eating a bit before hand. We tend to need more calories due to our transformations, and while you say you do not, its better to be prepared ahead of time. So, just to make sure, you are still wanting to go through with this yes? It may be safer to find a way to shut down your powers entirely than it is to experiment more on it, especially when you are saying that you think transforming causes you to transform more." While he talks, he slides his fingers over the tablet screen a few more times, then glances to Mallory. "You doing alright over there?" Mallory shifts slightly, standing up from her perch to move towards the collected fire extinguishers, wrinkling her nose up at the sight of them, but still taking some time to read each of them in time. Her cloven hooves make harsh clicks with each step, impacting against the tile floor. She glances up towards Hank, nodding in response to his thumbs up, before moving over towards Aloke and Thomas, snagging a small packet of almonds from the table as she passes again. "I am fine. But I am just here for damage control and observation, I suppose," she offers, glancing between Thomas and Aloke, "Are you both doing alright? Still ready to try this?" Aloke nods and picks up a power bar. He peels it open and takes a big bite while Thomas and Mallory explain things and prep. Chew. Swallow. Finally he nods at Thomas, "Yeah, definitely. I'd love to find a way to nullify this thing for now, but I don't think I much time to search around. I can /feel/ the push building up inside of me, and I'm trying to resist, like, /all/ the time. I-" Aloke stumbles as he goes semi-transparent, but pulls himself together again, stands upright. He nods. "I have to figure out a way to balance this thing." "We generally have to choose to shift, well except when an external force excites our states too much. On the plus side, its a great defense against being burnt alive. Though its like preventing yourself from drowning by trying to drink the ocean." Thomas gives a wry smile at that, then shakes his head and snags another protein bar for himself. "So, since this is for your benefit, which would you rather do first? Singular transformation so we can run the full spectrum of tests? Or did you want me to experience it with you first? After shifting with you however, Mallory may need to use the fire suppression equipment, and we wont be able to do any further testing till we clean the air and recalibrate for the increased chemical signatures in the air." He undoes the wrapper at that and takes a bite, chewing more slowly on this one. As he chewed, his thoughts drifted over to his sister << I am having some second thoughts on this, though I guess it wouldn't quite be fair if you went through it and I pussied out. How was it sister, truthfully. Aside from ending up transforming that is. >> When Aloke stumbles, Mallory starts to take a step forward, faltering in her movement when she realizes that touching him would defeat the purpose of this setup, and also melt a great deal of her brother's new lab equipment. Crunching on a small handful of almonds, Mallory listens to Thomas and Aloke, staying silent for a long moment at his statement about drinking the ocean, smirking slightly. "That is a decent way of describing it. Although I'd add the sensation that you're having to drink the ocean while someone is trying to hold your head underwater," she offers with a sigh, wrinkling her nose slightly, "Sorry, I am likely not helping make either of you more willing to do this." Glancing towards Thomas, Mallory continues with her snack, preparing in case she ends up transforming again, the slight flash of pain at the memory of the event, << The actual moments of teleporting? Spectacularly dissorienting, exhillerating, and just a touch nauseating. I could share my memory of it, if you'd like, but honestly, aside from the triggering event, it wasn't bad. >> "Yeah, ok," Aloke says thoughtfully, presented with Thomas's options. "I guess I should probably do a demo run, let Hank get some clean readings, and go from there." Aloke's expression looks like he has miles more apologies and thank you's to make in this scenario, but he knows he'll just end up sounding like drum. "It's gonna feel awesome to let loose on purpose though, I can tell you that much. The past week... I've felt like the thumb over a garden hose." He listens while Thomas and Mallory debate the sensation of their own transformations while wolfing down the rest of his power bar. He washes it down with a water bottle from the setup, and steps forward onto the 'X'. "All set? I'll watch the clock and try to give you a full second of flight. I've... I don't think I've ever actually flown that long before." He looks up and sees the repeated thumbs-up from Hank, nods to Thomas and Mallory, and disappears in a soft pulse of light just as the big digital clock on the wall clicks to 17:59:59. It reads the same thing when he reappears. "Zero point six five seconds, Aloke, thank you," comes Hank's distracted voice over the microphone. Aloke is leaning forward, hands on his knees, panting. He doesn't seem to be in much pain but he does look like someone who just ran a marathon. "Holy shit, sorry. I couldn't keep going. I mean, I was /ok/ but /jesus/ that's boring. Felt like ages..." Glancing over the equipment as Aloke does his thing, Thomas starts offloading the data to the computers when the transformation seems completed. "Well, it doesn't look like much from the outside, but then I guess its different for each of us." It would take some time for the computer to run the results of the mass spec, temperature shifts and the like, so he could talk while numbers crunch. "Felt like ages? Meaning you are experiencing time differently when you're phase shifted. " Frowning, he glances up towards the control panel to Hank. "Doctor McCoy, is it possible we're seeing relativistic effects here? Speed of light, time passage and the like?" Frowning, he drums his fingers across the tablet a moment, before cursing and undoing accidental button pushes. "I don't think we have any cameras or sensors that would event work at that speed here. We can do at the microsecond range, and extrapolate to the nanosecond, but pico and smaller are what we'd need to get to the appropriate sensor scale. Ah well, we'll see what we've gotten from the equipment before I complain too much." As distracted as he is, Hank clicks his mic on while still looking data over, and before he has cleared his throat. Thus, everyone in the DR is treated to the lovely sound of him doing so now. Hank then says, "Right, well, we /did/ get an image of your spiral flight path, Aloke. Thomas, I'm sending it to you now. We have a nice time lapse image lasting several nanoseconds in fact. But everything we know about relativistic speeds says Aloke should experience /less/ time than we do, not more." Hank sounds distracted for a moment, and people on the floor can see Hank transfer the time lapse image to his big wall screen up there, and adds, "It's beautiful, really..." Then he seems to remember mic, late again, and clicks it off. He bustles around a bit, and then projects a holographic overlay in the room, creating a free-floating yellow line spiraling up from the 'X' and then back down. Aloke sits in one of the chairs set out, and leans back. "Look, uh, I don't know anything about realitivity," Yes, he pronounces it incorrectly. It sounds like he's trying /not/ to say 'reality TV'. He must be telling the truth. "But when I travel, I see you all just frozen there. Stuck." He shrugs and drinks more water. Mallory raises an eyebrow curiously as Aloke arrives back where he left from, arms crossed over her chest in a relaxed fashion. "Are you all right?" she asks, holding out a bottle of gatorade while she listens to Thomas talk about results or lack there of, "Drink some gatorade, too. You look like that took more out of you than normal." She tilts her head slightly at the mention of time dialation, chewing at her lower lip in thought, "Can you take a watch with you? Like, a standard non digital wrist watch? If you are experiencing some variety of time dialation, won't anything on you experience it as well? The time on the watch would be, theoretically, different from the time out here?" There's a slight shrug offered, "Or, I could be completely wrong. My only experience with relativity is from Wells." She leans over Thomas's shoulder - not a difficult thing, given the height difference - and looks at the results, although they mean precious little to her. "Well, a pocket watch might work, assuming that all the gears and mechanisms and like would be in the same configuration while he's traveling. We wont know even what happens to most of his mass while he's shifting till some of the sensors get back to us. Also, it may depend on his self, versus external things. If for example his body continues all normal metabolic processes, the food he ate would be slightly digested. If not, then the food would be the same as when he changed, just a few moments in stomach acid." Thomas gives a shrug at that, then lets out a sigh. "Some of our questions may not be answerable without some unfortunately uncomfortable procedures being done, or having better equipment. Though, I guess I can subject myself to it, just to see what happens on a personal scale, or at least the subjective external scale." "Hm, not exactly something I really carry on my person too often," Mallory muses with a gesture at her dress, "Also, lack of pockets. Makes them somewhat impractical." There's a slight frown at Thomas's reasoning, "Ah, yes, there are some questions about transformation states that I just really think we could leave unanswered. Curious, yes, but..." She trails off, running a hand over her left horn, tracing the curl with her fingertips, musing idly to Thomas, << With this sort of setting available, I would almost be tempted to experiment with my own transformation, though the soul rending pain is still enough disincentive to keep me from considering that too much.>> There is a nod to Aloke and Thomas, as Mallory turns towards the fire extinguishers, selecting the standard all purpose one from the offerings, "Alright. Ready, Thomas?" <<Plan is still for me to keep you from changing, yes?>> Hank seems to be busy sorting results and tabulating data. He resets the monitoring equipment distractedly and flashes a quick thumbs up before going back to looking over the data. Aloke looks thoughtful about the watch debate. "Yeah, I mean, I guess I dunno. I've never tried anything like that. I never even really /thought/ about what that might mean. I just... go. And I don't usually wear a watch. I use my phone. But I guess that's always adjusting when it links to the cell tower." At Mallory's mention of her pocket shortage, it seems he just now notices her slinky dress. He blinks for a moment, and makes himself stop staring. "Um right, yeah. Good question." Aloke takes a deep breath, and says, "I understand if you'd rather not, but I imagine your observation of my experience would be valuable." Look at him, trying to use the science words. Good job, Aloke! Taking off his labcoat, and untieing the bowtie and setting it of and aside, Thomas steps closer to Aloke and offers his hand. "I'd rather not, but for the sake of science, we do all sorts of unfortunate things." << Yes please, try and prevent me from shifting. Its not as painful if it gets halted midway.>> Tilting his head and breathing slowly to relax himself, he gives a nod to Aloke. "Whenever you're ready. I'll try not to shift you with me afterwards. You have enough things to worry about without the added pain." He starts a mental count down in his head, the thoughts passing over to Mallory <<One...two...three...four>> If Mallory objects to, or even notices Aloke's stare, she doesn't acknowledge it outwardly, turning her attention to Thomas once again. "I'll be over here - if you can possibly aim to be about," she pauses and checks the distance rating on the extinguisher, "Ten feet away from me, I should be able to keep things from going wrong." There's a slightly nervous grin, as she preps the extinguisher, aiming it at the red X in the middle of the floor, << Good luck, brother. It honestly isn't that bad. And I'll keep you from shifting, after. >> Mentally, she echoes Thomas's counting. Aloke nods and stands, looking from Mallory to Thomas again. "It's ok, I understand. And I promise... No hard feelings if we burn up." He takes a breath, and makes a forearm grip with Thomas. He nods at Mallory's instruction, makes eye contact with Thomas and says, "Two, one..." And then Aloke causes both of them to dissolve into that coherent beam of light. In a moment that seems to stretch on and on, Aloke swoops them once, twice, three times around the room. They have time to take in every detail of everything laid out in the room. They can see Hank with a claw stuck in his teeth, Mallory poised over the landing spot, everything frozen in place. Even with the conflicting sensations of time and no-time, they feel no need for breath the entire time. When Aloke lands them on the 'X', they rematerialize just where they're expected, still clasped at the forearms. << !$*!@$~$$... two hundred five... two hundred six>> And as Thomas materializes, he blinks for a moment as things return to normal. "Well, that was weird at least." he says, as smoke starts to drift from his lips as if he had just inhaled from a cigarette, the air around him shimmering in heat haze. <<Shit shit shit, Mal spray me!>> passes through the twin's link as he pulls his heating up hand from Aloke's hand as he starts trying to unbutton the shirt he's wearing at a break neck speed, showing a black skin tight cyclist shirt beneath the dark blue shirt. Mallory barely even needs prompting, not even waiting for him to finish removing his shirt. Flicking the pin out of the extinguisher and depressing the handle on the silver cylinder, producing the spray of fine, light mist from the nozzle of the device. She waves it about in a carefully practiced manner, quickly soaking him through with the watery mist from the cannister. A bit belatedly, Mallory offers a warning, "Keep your eyes and mouth shut. Both of you. This stuff tastes awful." No further explanation of that statement, but she keeps spraying Thomas with the substance, making certain that her twin is completely soaked through. "Two hundred six?" she asks aloud, trying to catch her breath and finally setting aside the spent extinguisher, teetering momentarily on her odd legs, looking between Thomas and Aloke, and then up to Hank in the peanut gallery. Aloke dives away from Thomas as soon as he's released. It's not fast enough to avoid getting drenched, but he comes to his feet quickly, and continues to back away from Thomas. He takes a breath, and then furrows his brow, looking from Mallory to Thomas and back again. "Wait, what? Two hundred whats?" From the peanut gallery, Hank clicks his mic on. "I assume you two were counting in synchrony through your telepathic link and came up with different numbers. An excellent method, Thomas, if you don't mind me saying. Mallory, for the record, please state your count as of their return." Spitting and cursing a few times, Thomas sighed as his skin practically sizzled from the spray and the smoke ceased to come from his mouth. "Yes, it does taste horrible. Glad you remembered the class K. ABCs sometimes don't work well enough, but definitely more pleasant. I feel for the kids who had their mouths washed out with soap at least." Letting out a sigh, he made his way to the snacks table, and shoveled a few handfuls of nuts into his mouth and washed it down with the Gatorade. "I counted two oh six by the time I realized we were back to normal." Theres steam rising from the man still, the liquid drenching his clothing evaporating from his body heat. Glancing up with a squint towards Hank in the control center, Mallory shrugs slightly, "Sorry, Hank. I didn't even fully get 'one' mentally formed before they were back in place. And 'woo...ohfuck' is not a number, but that's what the count turned out to be. And yes, though Thomas was completely garbled for a few - I only got the last two numbers he counted - two hundred five and two hundred six. Prior to that was a bit of a mess." She turns away, trotting over to a safe, dry spot behind the table, and retrieving two fluffy white towels, offering one to Thomas, the other to Aloke. "Sorry if I caught you in the spray, Aloke. Aim on those things really isn't that great," Mallory offers with a sheepish grin, a glance back to Thomas, "And yeah. The class K seems to be the best option - and at least it wasn't one of the foam based sprays. Those are hellish." The smirk on her lips indicates she isn't unaware of the humor in that statement between the twins. Aloke peels off his own linen shirt, looking thoroughly confused. "Oh, that's ok Mallory..." He drops his shirt in a shlorp on the floor, and starts to towel off with the provided implement. He smirks at the shared joke, he /got/ that part at least. "But I just don't understand. I mean... time stops when I'm traveling. I /see/ you all just-" Aloke is interrupted by his body. He shimmers, flickers half of the distance to Mallory, is seen for a split second reaching out to her in a gesture of pleading for help, and then he's gone again. Except, he's still gone. Looking around, it starts to show up around the rim of the room. A ring of light, like a bent pipe of neon, but it's Aloke's brand of bright yellow. No mistake. Hank fumbles with the mic and says, "Good lord... he's... looping around the room. Thomas, can you get a reading on his energy levels?" "Christ, give me a moment and I can bring up the scanner." Slinging the towel over his shoulder, Thomas slides over to one of the fancy machines, pointing it towards the looping arc, or at least where it seems to be. "I've got it aimed, you should be getting data any second." Careful not to get any liquid on the sensitive machinery, Thomas swings over more of the equipment to point at the loop. "There are a few refraction agents in the lab, we could maybe slow him down a little, but thats not going to be much in the scheme of things. Mallory, try to ring up Professor Xavier, he should know about this." Instinctively, Mallory reaches for Aloke when he vanishes and reappears, even if the appearance is only for a split second, a look of horror on her smooth features. "Shit. Shit shit..." she mutters under her breath, stepping back to keep herself out of the path of light, not sure exactly what would happen if she accidentally got in the path of the Aloke-laser. Fumbling for her phone, she frowns at the blasted thing, scrolling through the contacts, desperately trying to find a contact for Professor Xavier. Because obviously the boss would include his direct line on all the phones for new staff. Yup. Great plan. At the same time, Mallory is mentally blasting as loudly as she can, <<Professor Xavier? If you can hear this, there is an incident in the Danger Room. Aloke is... well, I don't know how to describe it. A beam of light - and stuck. Um, help?>> Hank frantically rigs a number of monitoring devices and bolts back out to the testing chamber. Without thinking, he crosses right through Aloke's path, but the beam of light seems to just go around him no matter what, until he's fully inside the circle of light. He glances back, and wipes a forearm across his brow. "Oh good lord, that was careless of me. But Thomas, are we getting a heat reading here? The air seemed a little warmer to me there..." Minutes pass as Hank looks from his tablet, to the ring of light, tapping furiously to get some kind of information. "Slight increase, but could be from a number of details." Thomas thwacks the hardware in a good bout of percussive maintenance as he grumbles, wincing slightly at the mental yelling in his head. << If he can't hear that, he's in another state. Ow>> Thinking a moment, he looks to Hank. "I'm going to head to the lab. If we can toss up a couple glass layers, maybe a water tank or something to slow him down, it may be a jolt to the system to force him out of it. Will take a few minutes to grab the lot of it though. Hope he'll last that." Shaking his head, Thomas sprints off out the door and down the hall to get the equipment. Mallory looks at Hank with a skeptical look, her tail lashing in frustration as she continues watching the streak of yellow light around the room. <<Sorry, Thomas. Figured it was worth a shot.>> She sinks slowly to the floor, at this point feeling rather useless in the situation, her tail still twitching agitatedly. "I'm just going to stay over here. If the room is actually heating up, you really don't want me close to the hottest area. Generally a bad plan," she mutters mostly to herself, wiping her sleeve across her forehead to clear the sweat beaded on her brow, frowning slightly. "Really hope that's just from the stress. I can't tell if it is getting warmer or not," she offers, dark eyes following Aloke's path as best she can, "Do we have any idea what his upper limits are? Does he even have any?" "Water! You're genius, Thomas, come back!" Hank makes a couple of big swipe gestures on his pad. He explains absently while making necessary adjustments. "The good news, Mallory, is that light is light. The molecules in the air around him seem a bit agitated, but it doesn't look like anything too serious." Then Hank has found what he wants, projects a picture of a moat as a free-floating hologram, about two meters square. "See, the forcefields in this room can simulate nearly any surface. Just a few months ago we simulated a battle between two tall ships on the high sea for some of the students." All the while he is flicking and swiping like a crazy person. "Whether real water or forcefield water, light is effected the same way!" Once Hank seems to have everything the way he likes it, he calls out loud, "Computer, run moat simulation seven!" Suddenly the room is ringed by something that looks like the biggest above-ground pool ever, high enough to engulf the beam of light. In moments, a splash can be heard, then another, and then Aloke is there, soaked, but solid again, collapsed next to Mallory with his arm across her knees. He is unconscious, and thoroughly so. But probably more noticeable are the lines in his face, and the white patches at his temples, stark against his otherwise dark hair, and dark skin. Gone is the Aloke of 30-some years, and here lies a man of 45 or 50. "Thomas," Hank whispers, not looking up to see if the man has returned, "We need a stretcher..." Returning with the tank and equipment, Thomas blinks seeing that things are already back to normal. "Well, that works too." At the request for a stretcher, his gaze notices the changes to Aloke, and with a frown and a shake of his head, he goes off to grab the necessary medical equipment to help Hank bring Aloke back to the med bay.