I'll go where answers can be found/Kick the door and smash it down [OPEN]

[thegreatexperiment]

WHO: Samantha Moon
WHERE: The Tubes
WHEN: Spread out across early November
OPEN TO: YOU, YES, YOU (OTA)
WARNINGS: Standard warning for Sam's mouth, will update if needed

---

Sam liked to spend the occasional evening down in the tubes. She'd volunteered to watch for new arrivals, as was her 'civic duty,' or whatever. But it was more the peace she enjoyed. Living in the Inn came with a lot of dorm-y frustrations, between the single bathroom, the occasional neighbors punching her damn walls, and what she assumed were sex noises echoing through the halls.

But she had a new reason to go down there now: Stealing shit.

That was the idea, anyway. Although, so far, she hadn't found much worth taking. But all scientific endeavors, she knew, came with their fair share of setbacks. True, she and Bruce didn't have to worry about IRB approval or grand funding. No, they just had to deal with a serious lack of any equipment worth having. Not to mention anything that actually had the power to give her any kind of insight into the proteins swirling around the inmates' DNA. But Sam was nothing if not stubborn. So for a few nights, she crept down to the tubes, carrying a kitchen knife, a metal rod, and a canvas bag. Just in case she found something.

The biggest problem was the lists of names. No matter what Sam did, no matter what she told herself, she always and inevitably found herself reading them, again and again. The pain of seeing Avery on the list had dulled from a knife in her heart to an annoying ache. But the trouble with annoying aches was that they were fucking annoying.

Kind of like Avery, she supposed.

And if she wasn't scavenging through the equipment or reading the lists, she would sometimes take a small break, crouching down in a corner and sketching. At least now she wasn't obsessively drawing the sky. She had plans. Maybe unrealistic, irrational plans. But forward momentum wasn't something to sneer at. So she sketched all the equipment she wanted to build or have or make. Everything she and Bruce would need to conduct their work.

You know, in a perfect world.

Comments

[cleptes]

Stealing shit was definitely up Bela's alley.

She had made a career from it back home, and had always gone after the most expensive of items; well, that is what her clients wanted after all. Ever since Bela arrived in the village she had put a stop to stealing, resting her 'light fingers'. She assumed that there wasn't any valuable items around and since Bela wasn't being paid, it seemed like a waste of her time.

It did not stop Bela from stocking up on things that people gave to her, in case she needed them - that was different though.

One night, she felt restless so her solution was to do something in the hope that it would tire her out. Bela hasn't really explored the tubes yet so that's where she headed towards, armed with a few supplies to ensure her survival. Expect the unexpected and all that.

Bela didn't expect to find someone else here though.

"Hi." She began, looking at Samantha with an air of caution. "Am I interrupting something?"

[thegreatexperiment]

She'd been attempting to pry a panel off of one of the walls. For the past three and a half hours. At first, she'd thought it was just a matter of the proper application of physics. Then brute strength. Then she decided that the panel was clearly mocking her, with its unwillingness to move, so, obviously, it had to suffer.

Sam had taken a crowbar to it a couple of times.

Now it was really just spite.

But she turned around at the sound of another person's voice. Definitely not one she'd anticipated. Not that she ever anticipated much.

Still. There were two women in the village that she referred to in her head as 'Sexy British Lady.' The one who was definitely from the same world as Bucky and Tony. And the one who probably wasn't. This was the latter. She'd seen her around, of course. Sam had seen everyone around. But this was the first time up close.

Bit of an odd place for first encounters, really. So something was up.

"Not really," she said, setting the end of her crowbar down on the floor.

[cleptes]

The tubes wouldn't be Bela's ideal choice to meet someone for the first time but there wasn't much she could change about it, aside from turning around and going back home again.

Bela is a little bemused by the other woman's response to the question. Her gaze darted between the wall and the crowbar Samantha had just placed on the ground, quickly deducing what happened. Was it out of sheer boredom or curiosity? She isn't sure just yet.

"I see." A pause. "So I'm not imagining the crowbar, am I? Nor the damage to the panel."

Her lips twitch slightly, doing their best to hide a smile.

[thegreatexperiment]

Sam looked down at the crowbar, the up at Sexy British Lady again. "No," she replied. "Do you hallucinate crowbars often? Because if so, that's a very, very specific type of psychosis. You should probably talk to Doctor Crusher about that."

She picked up her crowbar, twirling it between her fingers like a baton. There was an odd swell of pride. She'd made visible damage to the panel.

It was her best accomplishment so far.

What a fucking pathetic track record...

[cleptes]

"Hilarious." Bela deadpanned with a roll of her eyes. "I'll go right to the good Doctor as soon as I leave here." She does appreciate the fact that Samantha has a sense of humour - much like her own - so Bela is keen to see where this conversation would lead.

She leaned against the wall, folding her arms.

"So, why are you here then? If not to satisfy your wanton need for destruction."

[thegreatexperiment]

"Oh, I'm just looking for useful shit to steal," Sam replied. She saw no point in having any kind of shame. The village was too small for that kind of thing. And it wasn't like there was any kind of black market for the panels that could make her rich at the expense of anyone else.

She turned the blunt end of the crowbar to Sexy British Lady and pointed at her. "And you?" she asked.

Somehow, she had a feeling it was going to be an interesting answer. Whatever it was.

[cleptes]

"Ah. Who knows? Maybe you will strike it lucky down here." Having something of value to trade with someone may go a long way.

Provided there was something valuable around.

"Can't sleep. Thought I would wear myself out by checking out a place I've never really looked at before. See what I could find, if anything." Bela smiled. "Looks like I found you."

[tothefly]

Natasha's no stranger to the bunker at this point, never mind the fact that she hasn't even been here a full month. It seems like the most likely place to find answers, is all, and if she isn't in the schoolhouse devouring any books she can find that hint at their surroundings, or poking around that house down on the east end of town trying to get it livable, chances are she's down in the bunker again, trying to make heads or tails out of the servers. Most of them are beyond repair; most of them are covered in months and years of dust, or shattered into pieces, or just have terminals that for whatever reason just won't power on. But there's always at least one or two that work.

Natasha's in one of those tiny server closets when she hears the sound of movement in the hall behind her, trying to make headway through the dense firewalls and circular programming of whatever used to run this place. It's not unusual, but the footsteps also aren't one of the patterns she's familiar with. Which means there's a red head poking its way out into the hallway, silently followed by the rest of a body as she watches a figure vanish into one of the storerooms up the hall. She follows, footsteps quiet, and eventually catches up to see that same figure poking around in the abandoned corners, clearly looking for...something. The question is inevitable.

"Looking for something?"

[thegreatexperiment]

Sam wasn't great with people. She didn't know names. And didn't go out of her way to learn them, half of the time. But faces...faces she knew. She came up with little codenames for the various underwear models in the clown rodeo that she didn't know. Usually clever things like 'Sexy British Lady' or 'Baldy McBalderson.'

She had a special name for this one too:

Va-va-voom.

She didn't know much else about her, beyond that. But given the amount of times she'd seen Va-va-voom interacting with people from That World, she felt it was a forgone conclusion that she was also from That World.

Sam never knew what to make of That World really.

But she glanced up and offered Va-va-voom a bit of a shrug. "Uh, just useful shit to steal. In the name of science."

[tothefly]

That codename, if she ever heard it, would actually make Natasha laugh. It's one way to identify people, and honestly not that far off from her own system. You do what you have to to get by, to find a little humor in things. Otherwise, things get a little too bleak.

"Well, if it's for science..." she shrugs, sliding into the room and poking around on one of the shelves. A ripped tank top, some detritus in a box. "Find anything worthwhile? I thought this place had already been picked clean. Nothing left but the bones." And some less than helpful computers.

[thegreatexperiment]

"Yeah," she sighed. "It's mostly crap. But Stark said it was the best place to start and I was bored so..." She kind of shrugged. To be honest, Sam had started to live by a motto of 'have no expectations and you'll never be disappointed.' But there was a secondary one of, 'if you sit still, you'll go cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.' They were a little bit at odds with each other.

But she was nothing if not a contradiction. She'd made peace with that.

Or tried to.

"Very cathartic, though," she said. "I mean, you haven't lived until you've taken a crowbar to a computer panel. It's invigorating."

[tothefly]

"It's pretty much the only place to start, unless you really prefer that steampunk turn-of-the-century aesthetic," she answers, faintly amused. Of course Tony's got himself a science brigade. "Honestly, between him and Bruce I'm surprised there's not a fully-functional lab already, despite the lack of supplies." She shrugs, turning over yet another empty box, moving on to another shelf, but pauses and half-turns at the last comment. A crowbar??

"I can imagine, but I hope it wasn't one of the functional ones. I'm still hoping to get some sort of answers from whatever's still running down here."

[thegreatexperiment]

"Yeah, those two are caught in a lab bromance or something," Sam said. She'd listened to the two of them individually talk about science and talk about one another. It was kind of cute. There was just something about old people acting like frat boys.

Really, really nerdy frat boys.

"And no. No functional ones. Not yet. But I make no promises."

That way, she wouldn't disappoint.

[enterprisingheart]

Even now, Picard isn't particularly thrilled about the bunker. Which is partly on account of the list on the wall, yes, but also because the idea of the bunker existing at all doesn't exactly bode well. Especially when it make it very clear that there's been some sort of research outpost present, even if the researchers have long since disappeared. (Or so he assumes, at least, based on the general state of disrepair the bunker seems to be in.)

On the other hand, while it seems that most people do still arrive via the fountain, he's aware that it's at least possible for that part of the process to not engage and as such he figures that it's worthwhile to at least check the bunker now and then to make sure that no one is getting left behind.

That said, while he is aware the other people do come down to the bunker from time to time, finding Sam quietly sketching in a corner isn't exactly something that he can say he'd expected to find, and after a moment of silence he makes his way on over to the corner in question.

"I wouldn't have thought this place terribly conducive to artistic inspiration."

Admittedly, he's not much of an artist. But it certainly doesn't strike him as the most comfortable of places to draw.

[thegreatexperiment]

While she hadn't exactly been anticipating Baldy, of all people, down in the bunker, he was maybe one of three people in the clown rodeo that didn't immediately illicit irritation. On the contrary, his question actually coaxed on of Sam's ultra-rare smiles. Only for a fleeting second, of course. But it was still there.

"There's a certain art in science," she replied, turning her pad around for him to see.

She'd been designing the most efficient possible microscope.

A little bit of a fantasy. But she thought it was beautiful.

Who would have thought she'd be sentimental for a microscope, of all things? But the funny part was, she couldn't remember the last time she'd used one. And she missed it. She fucking missed it.

[enterprisingheart]

Fleeting or not, it's still a smile. And he does manage to spot it, even if he doesn't actually address it. There's no need to, he figures, although he does offer a polite smile in return before turning his attention to the drawing on her sketch pad.

"There is," he agrees. "Especially when we have so little here that we might have otherwise taken for granted."

Admittedly it's been a very long time since he's used a microscope. He might have taken science courses the same as any other Starfleet cadet, of course. But the particular branch of science that he favors (if only as a hobby) isn't one that really tends to involve microscopes much.

"And if we had even half that much," he nods at the microscope she's been designing, "it would change quite a bit, when it came to our understanding of this place."

If nothing else, it might tell them if the plagues the Observers have occasionally inflicted on them are actually the result of some sort of bacterial or viral infection, and that's something that he, at least, wouldn't mind knowing.

[thegreatexperiment]

"I want it to do more than that," she admitted, staring down at her drawing with a certain fondness she generally reserved for kittens and fresh fanfic about Luke Skywalker. "I want to read our DNA proteins. I want to know what it is they did to us when they kidnapped us or whooshed us or cooked us up or whatever."

She could afford to be casual about being 'cooked up.' It was potentially her second time, after all.

Sighing, she slumped against the wall. "Unfortunately, at the moment, it's going to have to remain theoretical. I'm no engineer, but I'm pretty sure we lack even the means to make the lens, at this point."

No phones, no lights, no motor cars. Not a single luxury.

[enterprisingheart]

Reading DNA proteins is, admittedly, likely to be significantly beyond their capabilities. Not that it wouldn't absolutely further their understanding of what might have been done to them, but he's been coming to the conclusion that the people responsible aren't terribly interested in them knowing the precise details on that front.

(Which only makes him all the more curious as to what they might be hiding, to be perfectly honest.)

"For something strong enough to read DNA proteins? Almost certainly, as much as I might like to have something like that on hand. But we should be able to make less powerful microscopes, although I'll admit that I'm not much of an engineer either."

Still, he's pretty sure that there have been at least rudimentary magnifying devices for a not insignificant part of human history, by the standpoint of when he happens to be from. And if that's the case, there shouldn't be any reason they couldn't make a simple microscope, provided the appropriate materials could be found somewhere - and, ideally, a method by which to shape the lenses.

[thegreatexperiment]

"Yeah," she sighed again. Those in the soft sciences tended to think of engineers as cute. And while Sam liked to think that she was above that kind of snobbery, she had to admit, she didn't know as much about putting things together as she would have liked.

Then again, how was she supposed to know she'd end up in a freak show like this?

Fuck, she never thought she would miss Max of all...she hesitated to even think the word...people.

"It's nice to dream, though." It was a decidedly un-Sam-like thing to say. But in her defense, things had been pretty fucking weird, as of late. And that was even before people started getting the plague.

[nonstopnarcissist]

"God, it's creepy down here." Tony didn't often, well. It's not his scene, the Bunker. Too many memories of similarly dark and enclosed spaces, all hard surfaces, rough acoustics. The Bunker's better lit by a little, by enough that it isn't the Cave that rear up if he lets them. Somewhere colder, bloodier- but he wanted to take a look at what was available, maybe offer Sam some pointers. Running into her? A solid bonus.

"And I've seen more than one nazi human experimentation science lab. This place? Creepier." Tony pushed himself off the wall to meander his way over- being not alone helped with the- memories this place brought over. "Find anything useful?"

[thegreatexperiment]

Nazi human experimentation science labs. Of all the times she'd wondered what the hell was up with That World, this was by far the most recent. Why the Overlords chose so many of them was beyond her. How the fuck were they supposed to be useful lab rats? They were all completely messed up.

Then again, so was she.

Sam was running her palm over one of the tubes when Tony appeared, with his typical dramatic flair. She glanced over her shoulder at him, offering a wry smile. "Useful would be a...generous term. I was just wondering if there would be any way to shape this glass without shattering it. I'm pretty sure between the two of us, Doctor Banner and I would exchange a lot of sexual favors for a decent microscope."

Of all the things to miss...

She'd fucking taken her microscopes for granted back home. Never again. Never fucking again.

[nonstopnarcissist]

"We've got a glassblower in the village. Kind of private, real quiet- but she's got enough experience to make whatever we need her to as long as I can get her the material. Also: Though there will be some material loss it's possible to melt down and reform shattered glass as needed. Totally doable." Not shattering would be ideal but- honestly? Reshaping shouldn't be impossible if they go at it from the right angle.

Tony wanders in slowly, eyes flicking to the displays, the parts, shudders a little at the memory of his arrival in this fucked up section of their technologically backwards hell.

[thegreatexperiment]

"I saw a glassblower at a Renaissance Faire in Wisconsin," she muttered. It had been very beautiful. But only through her artist's lens. Scientifically speaking, the best she could call it was 'cute.' Still, it wasn't like she had a better idea.

As a rule, Kindred and fire didn't really mix.

She took one of the schematics she'd been working on out of her pocket, offering the page to Tony at arm's length. "If we could get something with specs like this, we might actually be able to start looking at proteins. Assuming Doctor Banner is able to get volunteers."

He'd been hesitant, when they last spoke, to just out-and-out ask if anyone had noticed that a whole part of their personality was just gone. Something about it being a deeply personal question or some shit.

"Hell, screw microscopes. I wonder if anyone here needs fucking glasses."

[nonstopnarcissist]

"There's not a lot of fine print for me to squint at, otherwise I'd need some." Or several pairs in varying magnifications to focus on fine detail work but- he had Kat to handle that. She was young, had better eyesight, and a light touch for spring wound projects. He might end up tapping her if the wiring needed that kind of hand; but nothing seemed like it was beyond them from what Sam sketched out.

"We're limited by a lack of power, mostly. I don't have the right chemical compounds on hand yet to make a battery system. Unless you want me to rig a lab space in the mill." Which could be doable as long as he managed to keep the space clear of ground flour or grain.

[thegreatexperiment]

Sam smirked. "You're asking the wrong person there. I don't consume anything that comes out of the mill. I probably shouldn't get a vote."

Although she had started to wonder about branching out into grain alcohols...

Oh, but that was a bridge to burn another day.

In the meanwhile, she gave Tony a curious look. "You know, I hear you in your world you're kinda a big deal. Like, a bazillionaire or whatever. I don't meet a lot of dudes like you who would get their hands dirty."