Jemma Simmons is a terrible liar (needanewplan) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-07-09 18:43:00 |
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Shepard didn’t know if Jemma was busy, or if she was even present. But she’d made a chilling discovery on one of her exploration missions, and hoped that maybe someone from outside her dreams could figure out what the brightest minds in her universe couldn’t. How to return a person from becoming Reaperfied. Or at least how to stop it from happening at all.
She dropped a body onto a lab table. It looked human, but dessicated, with obvious technological implants and changes, with a blue glow to the energy.
“Simmons, you around? I got a sample for ya.”
Luckily for Shepard, Jemma was around. Okay so she was working on her report for the Director that there was apparently now a pool going around on for how long it would be. Not that it bothered her, Jemma liked to be very thorough in her reports and to make sure that nothing was left out. Which was why she had it broken down into sections. Land and air samples from the breaches, readings on the electric magnetic activity that had been going on, to the different samples that had shown up in her lab from a variety of different breaches.
Really it was all quite fascinating.
And it allowed her a distraction from the dreams, which had of course started up again. The loss of Bobbi and Hunter had hit her hard, though she understood why they needed to go, what they had sacrificed. No. Focusing on the science and this world was much better for her. So when she heard someone call for her, the SHIELD agent marked and saved her spot before going to the main lab.
“Commander Shepard, how can I assist--oh!” Well that was something!
Shepard had forty pages in the pool. But that was neither here nor there. She wiped her hands on her armor. “This is a husk. This is what happens when the Reapers get ahold of a human. I found it spiked on a little planetoid.” That was something she needed to worry about later. “We never figured out how to reverse it, or really how to prevent it.” The varying layers of indoctrination were complex, but Shepard could at least explain how a husk was created. “Its similar to a zombie. Strips you of your humanity, turns you into a mindless machine to kill others or capture them to be turned into husks too.” She gave Jemma a tired smile. “I’m hoping maybe a genius from a different reality can figure something out.”
Ah yes, another space exploration. Well, it was wise given the nature of Orange County and the nature of the different dream realities that could come from above. There were alien threats from her own dreams after all, why she kept tabs on the Monolith even now, despite knowing how it worked and the reliance upon the moon. But if one day Maveth showed up… well, space exploration really wasn’t so peculiar.
“I see…. One moment please.” With a sample, Jemma moved to her office in order to get a recorder, as well as a notebook in order to take notes on what she was told. Because well, similar to a zombie, but not knowing how to reverse…
“Is there anything specific you can tell me on how they become Husks?” Whatever information she could get would help.
"A human gets impaled on special spikes. It converts the person's organs and water content into cybernetic materials." Shepard wasn't too confident it could be reversed. Prevented maybe. Or maybe they could find a way to shut husks (and the non-humans like Banshees) down quicker. "They have some serious power with electric blasts. Other species get turned into different kinds of Reapers. Husks are the weakest, but they're still sufficiently dangerous even to a trained marine."
“Hmm…” The response was muted, but Jemma was also busy taking notes. “I’m going to guess that you don’t have one of these spikes?” Because that would be helpful, and thus why there was probably no spike for her to examine as well. Obviously she’d need to be careful around it, but Jemma would have preferred that as well. There was plenty she could hopefully figure out just with the corpse…. But she really would prefer having all options available to her, no matter how unlikely.
“Interesting.”
“It was destroyed when I was fighting the husks, but I think I can find another one,” Shepard assured her. If there was one, there were probably more. She’d just have to be more careful next time. “The big danger with any Reaper technology is something called Indoctrination. Too much exposure to it can lead you to… hearing things. It’s a subtle form of mind control, where before you know it you think you’re doing what you want to be doing, but you’re actually doing what they want.”
“Only if it’s safe.” Because as much as she wanted all the information she could have on the situation, she wasn’t about to send agents on missions that could lead to death. Yes, it was part of the job but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be adamant on the safety issue. “But interesting… Depending on the frequency, creating a way to break up the current to nullify it should be doable.”
It was more something Fitz would handle, but she could do it herself.
“Reapers are sentient machines. Hybrids of synthetic and organic, and they’ve plagued my galaxy for hundreds of cycles. Tens of millions of years. Every fifty thousand they return the galaxy to the stone age and reap the genetic material of the space-faring races. Now they want ours.”
“Hm.” It was certainly going to be a challenge, that much was clear to Jemma. But she also never backed down from a challenge either. Something that would actually push her and wasn’t the basics? Of course she was going to want to work this. There would be a lot to learn and that was always important. “Well, I will certainly see what I can find out for you.”
“Thank you. I owe you a drink.” Jane nodded at Jemma. “Or possibly a lot of coffee and lunches, I know you’ve already got a ton of work.”
“I’ll let you know which it is.” With a smile, Jemma marked her notes then turned to the specimen This promised to be quite the challenge.