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]

"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."

[cfbhawkeye]

Over head there was a loud and definitive thump. Then another. Whatever it was moving overhead had abandoned all caution and was plowing ahead. Loud enough that Clint could hear it.

"How much you wanna bet its gonna get alot worse. Blue button is night vision."

Clint silently and slowly moved towards Kirk, his eyes up on the ceiling as he flicked over the vision of his glasses. Uncanny eyesight watching the jerky movement of ceiling tiles as they were jostled from above.

The archer reached around to one of his holsters and pulled a Beretta free. On feel alone he checked the full magazine and extra chambered round and held it out towards Kirk.

[james_kirk]

He presses the buttons on the glasses that he hasn't pressed already until he finds the one that turns on the night vision, and then he looks down at the gun. Jim's fine with handguns when they're hunting mindless alien beasts that will try to eat him at all costs. He's not so great with handguns when it comes to potential human victims. There's no stun setting.

Still, he's got good aim. He knows how to aim for the leg or the arm, so that's what he'll do, he supposes, and he takes the gun from Clint, familiarizing himself with its shape and weight. Not too different from a phaser.

"That thing's gotta be, what... two tons, maybe more, to make the ceiling shake like that? Some kind of a walking tank? Do they even have those in this century?"

[cfbhawkeye]

Clint's pulled the second Beretta, checks the magazine then holds it at ready. "Never heard of Colossus or the Juggernaut huh? Guess you guys were too busy with the aliens to really get mixed up much with the metahumans and supers. Find the right mutant, pay em the right cash. Hell the way it is they can't get work much anyways. Pay em peanuts. Aim for eyes. Sometimes its the only place you can get a bullet in."

Clint jerked his head towards a grate at the end of the room. "Find cover, get low, wait for them to come to us, heres hoping they're banking on the room being empty."

[james_kirk]

"For some reason, I think they all stick to America. The UK gets mostly hostile aliens." Also, did Clint just suggest he shoot somebody in the eye? Jesus. Do they not have plans for stunning or apprehending these sorts of things? America in the past, man, all shoot first and ask questions later.

"You find cover and get low. I'm going to see if I can identify any usable guns on this stuff," he gestures briefly at the tables of alien junk before he starts searching through it. He thinks he might have recognized a gun on his first pass-through, but he can't be certain. But hopefully it's something with a stun setting.

[cfbhawkeye]

"Kirk! Jim! " Clint hissed. He'd already been on his way to melting into the shadows, finding a place to get the element of surprise. Listen. Find out what the infiltration suspects plan of direct action was. Find out their exit, how precise and aggressive they were, how professional, before making any moves.

The fact that the room hasn't been flooded with gas or lazers gives hope that they're expecting the storage room to be empty.

That plan and all that advantage will go straight out the window if Kirk's caught in plain view.

Clint flinches when metal shreds apart under claws or cutters and the darkess cut by pale blue light. Three long tubes of light are tossed in and scattered to light the room further.

The first one to drop down out of the hole in the ceiling is clearly the thing that was crashing around overhead. Their 'Tank' as Kirk appropirately . Smaller than Hulk but larger than Steve. The mutant looked like a man for the most part, but a large underbite, heavy tusks and larger than average hands ending in claws gave away his evolutionary jump. The Tank sniffed the air and scanned the room.

[james_kirk]

Luckily, Jim already grabbed the nearest thing to a weapon he could find and ducked under a table when that horrible screeching of rending metal started. He pokes his head out just enough to see that... thing drop down. Holy shit. What the fuck was that thing? A mutant?

Jim's suddenly not sure if this is because of all those nuclear leaks they've had, or if it's a general effect of pollution, or what in the hell, because he's pretty damn sure 23rd century Earth doesn't have any humans like that.

Too bad he's not friendly.

Jim shuffles further along down the row of tables, keeping out of sight but wanting more distance. He wasn't exactly able to get a gun, but he did get something that's like a tazer, so that ought to help take Tank down. Maybe. Though, it'd probably be good to find out what it's after. One thing in general, or the whole lot?

[cfbhawkeye]

The mutant lumbered forwards a bit and chuffed, then called up into the hole an all clear.

In Russian.

Russian.

Christ Clint hated Russia and everything about it. Only thing that came out of Russia worth anything was Natasha. It just had to be Russia.

Another three bodies dropped down out of the hole, armed to the teeth with M15s and tactical gear. Clint grit his teeth and slunk slowly around, slipping as close as possible. He slowly cranked up his hearing aids, but his Russian wasn't the best. He relied too much on Natasha for it.

While Tank stalked off to start pacing around the room like a junkyard Rottweiler the other three stayed alert but relaxed. Clint had no doubt that everyone else in the building was either dead or in critical condition for that level of casual picking and poking around on the tables. One of them slung a backpack down and started to pull free a rig that would make for an easy method of transport to haul the artifacts up and out of the warehouse. Without a distance and advantage height of height Clint felt clunky and with a pistol it was worse. This wasn't going to end well. There was no way to pick off the numbers without the others realizing that the fight was on.

The possibility of a shootout was very real. There was no way Clint could let any of the enemy team or any of the equipment leave the facility.

Slowly Clint pulled out his phone, dialed an emergency number to Natasha then hit speaker, laying the phone out under a table as near to the operatives as he dared without diving in for a fight, he knew she'd understand the situation in a matter of moments and back up would be imminent.

[james_kirk]

Jim keeps an eye on Clint as best as he can. At least from under the table, he can see everyone's legs and keep track of their movement, though he makes sure to keep out of sight. He thinks that language might be Russian. He's not sure. He doesn't recognize any of the words. Chekov of Uhura would have been useful in this situation, but neither of them are here. They're back, cruising along at Warp 4 in 2261. Lucky bastards.

Instead, Jim's stuck with an archer inside a safe with a lizard-golem and three guys armed to the teeth with what looks like fully automatic rifles and a million pockets full of unknown. He needs a way to communicate with Clint. The glasses don't do it, apparently, which sucks, and it's not like he can use Morse code or light signals.

Though, it does seem as if these guys are fully intent upon carrying away all, or at least the majority, of the stuff in here, which means they probably don't know what any of it does, but they want to play with it and find out. There's some dangerous shit in here. ...But maybe that's to Jim's advantage.

He knows there's one of those prankster balls in here, and it'll turn one of those intruders into a duck if Jim just sets it right. He just has to find it without being seen, so he sets off on his quest, carefully poking his head above the edge of the table to survey the contents. Not this table. Of course not. Next one, then?