Pete Wisdom is saving the world...from itself. (mister_wisdom) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2012-06-15 04:29:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, glados, pete wisdom |
"You're a serial killer, aren't you?"
Who: Caroline, Pete Wisdom
What: Briefly questioning the Lady o' Science and mediating a protection offer
When: Probably right before the internet choochoo derailed in Tony Stark's post. But Tony Stark's threads often get derailed and Pepper just yells at him anyway. dagnabbit angry hamster :(
Where: Caroline's Labs
Rating: PG13, likely language, lab rats
Status: Complete!
Caroline had done wonders with her lab. It was now a series of interconnecting chambers, modular and capable of being set up for everything from live fire exercises to search and rescue scenarios. She'd had plenty of time since her discussion with Dani. Which had been a lot like being dumped. Oh well!
Oh well, indeed! Someone else knows what that's like. That person also come to an abrupt and crashing halt into some hedges out near the car park, and decided that's about as parked as he's going to deal with today.
Pete Wisdom walked toward the lab's door, and pressed his thumb harder than necessary upon the buzzer, to reach the receptionist and get clearance to be let in.
"Interpol. Wisdom, here to talk to Caroline," he said into it, not even waiting for anyone to say 'who's there?' or anything, because he's sure someone's heard him by now. And Caroline can't be working on putting the whole nutters science shite together by herself, she had to have employees. Besides her camera-laden lab rats, at the very least.
The receptionist opened the door, "Come in. Sign in, have a seat and I'll get Miss G."
She got up and walked through a door. It slid closed behind her.
There was a series of tubes running through the ceiling. Rodents scurried through the tubes, on the way to some..unseen experiment.
Disturbing. That's what that was. Pete signed where indicated, and didn't take a seat. No way did he want to sit down where he could hear the skitter of rats that should - by rights - be set free in people's flats to rummage as they were meant to do.
He clenched his hands into fists and tried to shirk his shoulders forward a little, so his hands could slip up inside his sleeves and warm up a little. It felt like there was one big draft going through California, off and on. Bloody flu...pneumonia...was still clinging onto him, and he didn't want to stop or slow down. Truth be told, he was taking it slower while working his way through some leads, and all while letting Domino use him as her own personal space heater.
Besides that, if he was off his game enough to have ex-whatevers that he still had an unfortunate hard on for, go kicking his door in? Without shooting first and asking questions later? Then he knew he was going to need a trusted friend person nearby, and that only left one person in the area who fit that bill. Though that was causing some complications, which hopefully could be fixed, soon. Another story, for another time.
Right now? It was all business.
Most of the rats appeared to have robotic appendages, cameras, or tails. At least one had a laser beam mounted to it's frickin' head.
After a few minutes, the receptionist returned, "This way. She can't leave her experiment." She gestured for him to follow her, and walked right back through the door.
"Bloody insane animal torturer," Pete said under his breath, while he followed along, keeping an eye on his surroundings and also of every emergency exit he could find, as well as the way to get the hell out of crazyshire.
The passed tanks filled with all sorts of fish. Finally, the receptionist led Pete into an observation room. Caroline was observing what looked like an unstable weapon platform. It wasn't anywhere near as effective as her dreams, and she knew she was missing something. She glanced at Pete as one of the turrets said, in an adorable high pitched voice as it powered down, "Sleep, now."
"Machines don't sleep," Pete mindfully announced, as he drew near. He shoved his hands deep into his trench coat pockets, so he didn't resemble some grumpy hunchback. Overall, he looked a lot cleaner than last time, with a clean suit and tie on, glasses perched on the end of his nose, hair clean but still messy like he couldn't be bothered to do much than run his fingers through it after it'd been ruthlessly towel dried by a someone. True, he was still pasty pale, under his eyes there shadows to match the shadow on his jaw, and he still with a bad sounding smoker's cough.
"Hate to tell you this, but those animal loving groups find about wot you're doing here? They're going to drop one gigantic collective turd." Pete looked to be rummaging his hands around in his pockets. Or maybe he was simply trying to get them feeling warm again, despite the fact he was still running a consistent low-grade fever. "I'm only checking in, to see if you had any new news about Harper or his businesses. If you do, by all means, then feel free to enlighten me."
Caroline looked him over. She'd be even more into dropping her labcoat for him! But she was one of those people that didn't really care. There was still a scientifict curiosity,so the first thing she said was, "Do you want to run through my obstacle course? There's a 35% survival chance."
She swiveled in her chair and shook her head, "Nothing new. I did manage to acquire several patents they tried to steal from me."
"No, I will not be running through your obstacle course. If I was in it, I'd stand there, and let the bloody thing smite me. You're a serial killer, aren't you? They mutilate animals, after all."
He'd read enough about that, thanks to his father. Criminal profilers tended to keep a lot of books, and after cases were over or closed, were free to talk about them. Or yell about them, as the case might be.
"Good on you, then," was Pete's dry response, with the ghost of a frustrated sigh in his voice. He pushed his glasses up with a fingertip, as an afterthought. He'd left them on after target practice with Domino that morning, and barely ever wore the things anymore as it was. His eyes weren't that bad and he preferred to slightly squint his way through things, but if he wanted to shoot something between its eyes, then every little bit helped for accuracy. "No word about Harper and Alma either, any idea on his plans...how he's restructuring things...or, say...who's really providing the funding for the lab to have...sleeping robotic monstrosities?"
Caroline barked a laugh, as if that idea was crazy. Her? A serial killer? Well technically in her other life
She scrunched up her nose cutely, "I see them when I sleep, but I can't replicate them. They're smarter and more reactive. They're...well they're mentally challenged here." She looked down at the turret, "I'm thinking of the military applications of intelligent defense turrets."
"And the rest of those things I'd asked about?" Pete sighed, impatiently, though he did eye the machines with the sort of wariness which spoke volumes about stuff like that falling into the wrong hands. Especially if he wasn't sure if there was some sort of connection lingering between the two supposedly parties involved, those being Caroline and Harper. A sniffle and a brief rattling cough, and Pete focused back on the lady scientist once again. "I'm not here so much for your experiment fun times."
"You're not any fun," She replied, folding her arms. Worry crept into her voice, "Nothing about Alma, but I haven't been monitoring all the channels I could. I have a program running to search for her name but it hasn't caught anything yet."
She tapped her finger on a console, thinking, "Harper's been dead silent."
"You've had literally no contact with Harper or his lawyers or anything. How was it then, that you were able to obtain your stolen patents?" Pete asked, a little sharply, like that was an object of curiosity. "And, also, if Harper wasn't so keen on letting a toy like Alma go, then how come you were able to break away with so much apparent ease...and build your nice very cushy lab. Repercussion free."
He watched while waiting for a response to that line of questioning.
"Harper himself has been silent," She replied. "And my lawyer took care of most of that for me."
She looked around, then tilted her head, as if that was a question she hadn't actually considered, "Maybe he hasn't let me ...go." She'd been so distracted she hadn't thought about it!
"Who's your lawyer," Pete asked, and the way it was asked, was like he was firing off verbal ammunition. He even took out his phone and began to angrily press his finger over the screen, so he could make a note with punchy finger typing. "And if that's the case and you'd like protection, I can suggest a contact for that. If that's something which interests you and you believe that you're in danger."
Caroline pulled out her phone and read off the name and number, "I'm interested." There was a quaver to her voice. She put her phone away, while still envisioning his performance at her tests.
Pete noted the way she said that, while entering in the information. He'd pass along that information and suggest to Fury to look at the lawyer at least.
"All right. I can have someone from the FBI contact you, unless you'd prefer to talk to him yourself. Your choice."
It was hard not to be suspicious, but Pete's problem was he was suspicious about everything, including furniture from scandinavian countries, swiss chocolate, the Illuminati, the Freemasons, and...well, that list could go on and on.
The desk was in fact Ikea, which probably didn't help her case. Not that she believed in any conspiracy theories. Except for how the Turrets would claim the earth when humanity passed.
"Thank you. You don't know how relieved I am about the help."
It wasn't wanted help, but she kept that hidden. This was all getting annoying. She wanted to put Harper through her live fire exercise so she could just do pure science.
He's suspicious anyway. Pete only trusted most people, only so far. That distance wasn't very far at all, maybe a mere inch, if that. Anything further than that, required time and patience or saving one another (or work favors going back and forth with successful case outcomes). He trusted people even less, these days.
"It was offered by someone else. I'm merely the middleman," he explained. He also warned Caroline, because someone had to apply some pressure or seeds of doubt, along with a dose of reality. "If you're eventually implicated somehow or other with Harper, you know you're going to lose all this...shite...you're working on."
"Other than Alma, nothing is more important to me than my Science," Caroline replied quietly. "If I discover a connection, I'll let you know."
"Noted," was Pete's reply, as he watched her very carefully. "You still have the contact information? Or would you like me to scribble all of it down?"
"If you'd be so kind?" She gave him a tired smile. While waiting, she pressed a button and the failed turret activated, walked over to a chute of some kind, and fell into an incinerator, letting out a high pitched, "I'm sorry!" as it was obliterated. She sighed, dejected.
Pete had stopped in the process of taking a card out of his wallet, watched that, and drew in a breath. Very slowly he began letting it out in a puffy-cheeked exhale of 'all righty then?' But what's done was done, which was why he sighed once more and wrote down the number to call through to the local FBI building and, if she chose, to ask to speak to Nick Fury. There was also his own contact information was already on the card, all routed through Interpol.
With the flick of one hand, the card fwipped from his fingers onto the Ikea monstrosity desk.
"Nothing else then, no other information or the likes," Pete asked, tucking his wallet away and ready to get out of crazyshire now. He didn't mention a thing about Alma, because he trusted Fury's people to get the girl her own legal guardianship, and - after Harper was dealt with - then let the girl decide on her own what she was going to do, with her outrageous freakiness. Again, Pete knew when to keep his mouth shut.
"Nothing else, but I'll do my own digging now that you've roused my suspicions. Are you sure you don't want to try a test?" She smiled, her voice shifting into a stiffer speaking pattern. It sounded somehow more natural for her, "The enrichment center promises to always provide a safe testing environment. In dangerous testing environments, the enrichment center promises to always provide useful advice. That floor in there would kill you. Try to avoid it."
"No. Not up t'that. I think I'm goin' to just sit in front of a computer for a while." He coughed a little, to hint at her that he wasn't up to it. Even if he had been feeling better. "Getting over pneumonia. I'd be a shite test subject."
And he was already backing up because her voice was creepy as hell.
In that same voice, she replied, "You would be a good control subject. Keep it in mind."
"Right. I'm being mindful." He flipped her off and smirked while hitting reverse. Mental note: contact by phone or e-mail, for fuck's sake. He waved and turned to go. "You can call Mr. Fury or I'll tell him t'contact you. Cheers."
And he was outta there!