Time Capsule

[cfbhawkeye]

Doctor Stephen Strange is a handy fella. Between the whole time space and general dimensional weirdness and mutations out there its nice to be on the good side of someone that can actually choose and control where they'd like to go.

Strange is starting to become Clint's go-to guy for general weirdness he can't figure out on his own. It's costing him a fortune in fancy teas and Red Sox tickets but its worth it when it results in things working out. And Clint would rather prod him than Loki for these kind of power trips.

And Strange seems rather thrilled by the idea of a two hundred year jump in addition to a colossal fling through space to pop aboard the USS Enterprise with his general suck the ozone of the immediate area and minor implosion.

It was worse than Mjolnir...

Clint was pretty glad he didn't eat much and there for didn't puke too much all over the shiny metal floor of the Federation Flagship.

Comments

[james_kirk]

"This feels very... Section 31, for some reason," Jim murmurs as he follows Clint out of the SUV and to the door. Why did they need two escort vehicles? Is there really that much danger of getting attacked? Clint doesn't really seem like the paranoid type.

Jim's kinda glad he stuck to the UK.

"They're gonna bring my cinnamon buns and root beer before we get all locked in, right?" he asks as he peers skeptically at the door.

[cfbhawkeye]

"Its probably all already down there. SHIELD's a bully when it comes to cutting in line in tight situations...well... a bully in general really... But we're big tippers. The hell's Section 31?"

Clint barely seems to take note of the high security. He's so used to it that he's, ironically, blind to it. He operates as if its not there, and ninety percent of the time when things go to hell, its not there and he's on the front lines.

More than anything its all protocol, especially with a secondary involved that isn't an agent or specialist like Kirk. The chance of attack or infiltration is low, the bunker they're headed to reinforced and secure enough that buster bombs would have a hard time with breaking it open. But the possibility of sabotage and espionage? That's the real risk. Spies are a distrustful and dangerous lot, even among their own alliances.

Clint types a code into a keypad and presses a thumb into a tiny screen before the set of doors slide back, opening up to an elevator. Down a few flights and opening into an operations room packed with computers, screens and schematics. A couple of techs and an agent greet them casually and a cleared space of a desk is laden down with pizza and bakery boxes and a large picnic cooler packed with ice and bottles of rootbeer.

The techs give Clint a laptop and then give each of them a pair of spec glasses, complete with built in video and audio recorders. Clint grabs the stacked pizza boxes and the two techs haul up the cooler with a handle each. "Ready for your first and hopefully only SHIELD mission ever?"

[james_kirk]

If Jim weren't from the future, all this technology might be impressive. As it is, it's all old-school to him and although it's highly advanced for this particular era, it's sort of on part with being guarded by large dogs and spiked wooden fences.

Well, whatever. Better this than no security at all, especially where alien tech is involved.

"Don't worry about that," Jim says in response to Clint's question about Section 31. It wasn't meant for the man to understand, and Section 31 won't be around for a long time yet.

He lifts his hand in greeting at the other people, but he's definitely more excited about the food. Replicated versions just don't hold up to scrutiny. "You weren't kidding about them cutting in line."

Jim ogles the pizza for a bit before he looks at the glasses being handed to him, putting them on curiously. Huh. Standard fare. Alright. "Ready? This isn't going to be any harder than anything else I've already done, even in this century."

[cfbhawkeye]

"Lets hope not." Clint hummed a bit.

They had a few minutes before the doors unlocked. The agent in charge of the facility gave a mandatory spiel about the security of the warehouse and keeping it all hush hush.

Midway through her speech the time clicked over, the system gave a humming alert and the doors unsealed and hissed open. Clint gave the other agent an apologetic smile and ducked passed her into a massive, underground room as it was flooded with lights. It looked something like a cross between a bunker and a weapons test lab. There were low steel tables spaced evenly though the room heavily laden with artifacts, each with a little number card next to it, there had to be a hundred pieces or more. The largest confiscated items sat on an open space of floor to the far rear of the room. The corner nearest the door was occupied by a desk, a couple of couches, low coffee table and a mini-fridge. A door presumably led to a small bathroom.

Clint headed for the desk and set down the boxes of food. The techs hauled the cooler onto the coffee table before heading towards the door to exit with the agent.

Clint sighed and looked towards Kirk as the doors slid closed again. "Eat first or get started?"

[james_kirk]

Jim takes a look around, cataloging the various locations of things in his head. Alright, at least it's all relatively well laid out and it's not all in a heap. That's good news.

"Gonna do both." Jim's first stop is the bathroom, though, and he relieves himself and washes his hands before he comes out and grabs a paper plate, stacking it high with pizza before he starts heading down the rows of tables. Jim's going to take a quick look through their entire inventory before he starts on anything. "So, data entry. You guys want it all on paper, or can I make voice recordings, or type it up on a computer, or what?"

[cfbhawkeye]

Clint has dug into the cooler, pulling out a rootbeer... in a glass bottle, fancy stuff... and cracked the cap off with his ring. He takes a long swig of the liquid before speaking. He points to the glasses that they had given Jim, then his own sitting on his crown.

"It's all built in video and audio. Just look and talk, it'll record everything POV and transcribe into the hard drive of the laptop. The squints can deal with all the mucking around in the data after we're done. All you have to do is press the button on the side of the frames to stop and start."

Its about then that the ten minute window for the unlocked doors ends, a small alarm sounds again and the hiss of the doors sealing before silence. Fifteen plus hours and counting.

Clint flipped open the laptop, booted up the system for direct data transcription. Then he digs around for the Pandora system. "You like Big Band or old school Rock?"

[james_kirk]

At least just being able to do a show-and-tell-style analysis will speed things up considerably. Hell, he may actually be able to get through the majority of this in the allotted time. Good. That ought to make sure nobody gets warp drive before their time.

"Right. Button is start-slash-stop. Got it." He peruses through a few more items before the buzzer sounds and Jim looks over at the doors, watching them lock themselves up. Better settle in.

He tips his head to the side, squinting a little at Clint. "What the hell is Big Band?"

[cfbhawkeye]

Clint gave Jim a look like he'd committed a real atrocity. Then he shook his head as he cued up the channel. "You just made me sad for the future."

The laptop hummed and the bass tones of the Glen Miller Orchestra poured out at a low volume to fill up the empty space.

Clint hummed in satisfaction before grabbing a slice of pizza then dug around in the desk before coming up with three packs of large round stickers in red, yellow and green. He stuffed them into his BDU's pocket and leaned against the desk, watching Jim get comfortable and acclimated.

"After we're all done here you're invited to go along to the Slingshot. Red marked stuff will get hauled out immediately. It's fun, we barbeque and Sitwell usually brings some of his basement microbrew stuff. It ain't so bad for alcohol."

Tucking them each into the pockets of his BDUs he ambled in

[james_kirk]

"It'll probably break your heart, then, that McDonald's doesn't stick around forever, either," Jim replies, not at all concerned about Clint's music selection. Jim will probably end up tuning it out in favor of concentrating on his work, anyway.

He starts on his second slice of pizza as he finishes making his tour through the warehouse, and then he heads back to the tables nearest their rest spot. "No offense, man, but after sixteen hours of this, I'll probably just want to get back home. I'm sure your friend makes great beer, but if I've learned anything about dimension-and-time travel, it's that you shouldn't screw around with whatever opportunities you've got to get back."

[cfbhawkeye]

"Don't care as long as it lasts until I'm dead. Which shouldn't be all that much longer statistically speaking. And no problem, just making the offer."

Clint dusted his hands before flipping open one of the bakery boxes. The scent of warm glaze and cinnamon washed over his face and Clint hummed pleasantly. He picked on out, using a piece of wax paper to hold it and nipped a bite out.

He turned towards Jim and jerked his head. "Where do you wanna start?"

[james_kirk]

This is why Jim made the first tour through: "I'm going to start with all the ones that I already know, and work my way to the more difficult ones."

So, Jim heads on down to where he knows he saw a universal translator. Swallowing his slice of pizza, he wipes his fingers off on the napkin, pushes the button on the side of the glasses and picks the device up.

He'll keep the recordings short and to-the-point -- what it is, how it works, where it (probably) comes from, how dangerous it is, and how long it should be before humans get or encounter this kind of tech on their own.

Then he'll go back to eating his pizza until he finds the next thing he knows.

[cfbhawkeye]

Clint clicks on his own video and audio sets and walked along behind Kirk, marking each item the allotted red, green or yellow to classify it. He listens at Kirk gives his little renditions of each item, curious and interested despite himself. He even asked a few questions, particularly about anything that was a possible weapon.

"You and Harkness' crew had alot of shit to deal with huh?"

[james_kirk]

"Oh, yeah. All sorts of things. S'how I got turned into a chick that one time. Never play with the buttons on an unknown alien device. Learned that first-hand."

Jim shakes his head at that memory. There's good and bad times associated with it. "But you haven't got one of those here as far as I can tell."

[cfbhawkeye]

Clint pointed at him accusingly. "YOU were that blonde girl!? I knew there was something familiar! Kinda had the same facial structure. Bet that was a trip. Never had anything like that happen. Well no that's a lie, I was a pony once for a while. I dunno if that counts."

He looks around at the assortment of artifacts. "Good to know. Doesn't mean I'm really keen to touch any of it if I can help it. Kinda got my fill a couple years ago. Kinda got the whole space and alien thing out of my system completely."

[james_kirk]

Jim just stares at him for a moment. "Why were you a pony?" Because what the hell. There's gotta be some kind of story behind that one, because as far as he knows, that sort of thing is really only standard for people in Jim's line of work, which doesn't even exist for another another hundred and fifty-ish years.

And he's sure he recognizes Clint's allusion. He'd seen it on the news while he was in Cardiff, though he was finally allowed over here to help clean up, and hence where he'd first met Clint. That's probably one of the most normal ways he's ever met somebody.

[cfbhawkeye]

"Yeah for.... yanno I don't really know how long. Time was weird. It was when Loki and I were 'friends' I guess. I was curious about the whole another body thing." Clint shrugged. "It was different."

There was a hallow thump from overhead. The sound escaped Clint, his hearing aids turned to low to catch the sound.

[james_kirk]

"Loki has friends? I was kind of under the impression that he tried to destroy the world. Why would you want to be friends with him?"

Though, the answer to that might have to come later. The sound distract Jim and he looks up. It wouldn't be the weirdest thing to see someone walking on the ceiling, or something. "Did you hear that?"

[cfbhawkeye]

The archer stopped mid answer and twisted to look in the direction Jim had turned. His eyes narrowed a bit. "Hearing isn't exactly my strongest sense."

He tapped just behind his ear before looking back towards Jim. "What did it sound like?"

[james_kirk]

"Uh. Like something landed on the ceiling. A thump. Not imminent building collapse, or anything, but a definite thump. Maybe somebody had an accident."

Jim scrunches his nose as he looks at the ceiling, but there doesn't seem to be any other noises, so he shrugs.

[cfbhawkeye]

Clint's brow furrowed and he looked upwards again. "I'll send a message up for someone to go check it out. Just in case."

Clint headed across the room towards a panel on the wall, he typed in a code and intercom. The screen glowed to life and he chatted across with the line with the lead agent of the compound.

He grabbed a couple bottles of rootbeer, holding one aloft and called across to Kirk. "They're gonna have a look around. Care to wet the whistle?"

[james_kirk]

Jim's finishing up another recording as Clint calls up, but he looks over at the short man when he speaks again. He holds up his hand. "Sure, toss it here."

He hasn't had a proper rootbeer in three years. Somehow, it's just the perfect thing to go with pizza.

[cfbhawkeye]

Clint smiled and shook his head and headed towards Jim across the floor. "I dunno about the future but throwing soda usually results in foamy explosions. Did they get rid of carbonation too?"

It's not a question of mockery, the tone is inquisitive and curious. Clint actually wants to know. The few things he cares about; weapons, food, the LA Dodgers, he wants to know about the fate of. The bigger picture stuff, politics, regimes, global warming, he's not so concerned about. They rise and fall, come and go, he's picked up the habit from Natasha to not get so involved or attached.

"I know they got rid of real meat and booze. And it sounds like generally anything fatty and delicious, yeah?"

[james_kirk]

"Hey, it's a matter of how quickly it accelerates. If you toss it nice and I make sure to slow it down gradually, then it's fine."

Jim snorts at Clint's vision of the future. He makes it sound like they're all vegetarian eunuchs. "We have real meat and alcohol, you know. Just can't raise cows on ships, so food in space is synthesized, and drinking and driving isn't advised so there's no alcohol while on duty or in potentially hostile areas."

[cfbhawkeye]

Clint gave a sheepish little shrug. "All I ever heard was that none of it was real, I wasn't exactly on B-F-F standards with you guys. I only got what I got in passing-"

The lights flicker and then die, plunging everything into darkness. The sound of systems shutting down in the walls, ceiling and floor. The only thing left running was the locked door fail safe, humming quietly off to the side.

"...shit."

[james_kirk]

Jim blinks into the sudden darkness. It's not like there's any windows in here, so he can't see shit all. "Please tell me that wasn't the sound of our light, ventilation, and communications systems shutting down and that the humming coming from the door isn't the locking mechanism keeping us in here because it's the only thing that has its own power source. That would really make this a bad day."