Participants:
| Scene Title | If Satan Himself Tried |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Warren has a plan, now Liz just has to participate. |
| Date | Feb 12, 2011 |
Shalegate Factory
When Warren invites Elisabeth this time, he says nothing of mysterious cars or sneaking around, he just says to show up at one of the large garage entrances. The massive warehouse garage doors are open, and workers are all scrambling around a large tank, following instructions from the Mad Engineer himself as he reads from blueprints.
They only seem to be doing last minute tweaks, as the final product seems to be a heavily modified brown military tank. A good chunk of the front inbetween the wheels, and the portion with the cannon, is all removed for a massive drill. It seems to be no longer capable of turning the top half with the way it's been designed, and when Elisabeth enters, he straightens his unbuttoned suit jacket and smiles. "Hello Elisabeth."
She's a good bit leery — and she looks exhausted. "Morning," Elisabeth greets wearily. "What do you need, Warren? I kind of have my hands full at the moment. Humanis First just staged a fucking coup inside the Dome." She grimaces. "And that's not for public consumption."
"You're the last piece of my drill." Warren casually states as he walks up to the machine, placing a hand on the massive drill that looks like it might possibly be capable of going through anything. "This drill isn't a solid construct. The inside has been mathematically hollowed out, and all you have to do is yell into a tube. I'll flick switches which will focus your ability into a different frequency until we find one capable of breaking through the dome. This is all government sanctioned."
There's a long pause as Elisabeth … stares. At him. Uncomprehending. "Really." The statement is as dry as desert dust. "If someone has to yell into it and your computer is going to flick switches, what do you need me for?" she asks.
"It's not a speaker, the tube is just to concentrate the soundwaves from your ability, and the switches are to control the frequencies, unless you believe you can control them yourself." Warren further explains, handing the blueprints off to someone, then climbs up to the top of the tank to open the lid. "Coming?"
With a quirk of her brow, Elisabeth asks, "And who sanctioned it? Orders generally come through my boss, you know." She follows him, though. Up to the top of the tank she climbs, commenting, "I can control frequencies, yes. Depends on what you want."
"The Institute. They gave me permission to ask you, so you may still have to ask your superiors." Warren lowers into the tank, and it all still looks very tanky, but there are some clear modifications on the controls, for someone who's familiar with tanks. And then there's something that looks like some sort of face mask sticking out of the middle of the controls, meant to cover the mouth by the shape of it. And at the end of that there's a long metallic tube, which almost makes it seem like a funnel.
There's a grimace. Oh perfect. This is the perfect scenario. *sigh* "All right," Elisabeth replies quietly. "You know what? If Satan himself said he had something that might work, I'd go along right now." She's not entirely convinced Satan isn't behind this, but we'll leave that alone for now. As she clambers into the tight confines of the tank's interior, she looks around a bit. The face mask? "Kinky," she comments. "You couldn't have made it look more like an automatic blow job than that?" she wonders aloud.
"Well I'm not getting my kicks anywhere else." Warren retorts, reaching up to point at numerous parts of the mask and tube, beginning to explain. "Now, when you yell into this, after it's activated, the soundwaves will be vibrating the drill and the energy dispersed into the dome. If there's any sort of backlash, it won't be inside the tank, it'd be outside of it."
She listens to the instructions and then laughs quietly. Elisabeth turns to look at him in the tight quarters and comments quietly, "You have no clue how audiokinesis works do you?" It kind of surprises her, actually. "I don't require shouting. I don't even require speaking, really — though admittedly my most familiar forms of usage generally use my own voice waves just because they're immediate, local, and under my direct control. But I can use just the hum of the computers you have in here to create the effect you want." She scoots around him to sit in the seat. "Have you tested this at all?"
"If by test you mean drove it through a few abandoned buildings, then yes, I've tested it a dozen or so times. Besides, I know it works, in the sense that I know this all should function as intended. I have no idea what'll happen when we get to the dome, this is all based on the idea that the dome's field can be vibrated through." Warren takes a seat in the tank, eyes going silvery to ponder over her new information.
Spinning in the chair to face the controls, a hand raises to rub his chin. "I thought you had to yell, if you don't need to yell, then this should be a lot more stable. I still need the sound to travel through the tube, but if you have as much control as you're saying, we should be able to hit a lot more frequencies than I thought."
Elisabeth shakes her head slightly. She never talks about what she can do, but in this instance, perhaps he's the one person who needs to know. "The man who taught me how to use my ability better is the one who brought down ConEd itself, Warren," she tells him quietly. "I can manipulate sound into both the ultrasonic and subsonic frequencies at will — which means I could, in theory," and she stresses that because she's already seen what she can do. Pinehearst is seared into her memory, "explode gall stones and kidney stones, vibrate the bones in your body to dust while you still live, turn your brain itself into tapioca…. the list goes on. I have turned a man into bloody mist in front of my eyes before." Though admittedly that was augmented. "The most common use I put this ability to before Vanguard was hostage negotiation. There is some amount of hypnotic suggestion when you infuse sounds with subsonics — it can engender horror, fear, or if the person is already inclined to believe you or do what you're asking, it can be very persuasive. The effects are … pretty extensive, and yes… I do have that much control. Tell me what you want me to do in here today to test it out for you, and I will. But I need to clear my involvement with Kershner."
"We can't test it here. I know the machine itself works, but with your ability, it's too risky to just use it unless we're going for broke. There's a good chance that after you use your ability on it, this thing isn't going to work nearly as efficiently. We need to put all of our effort into the dome." Warren's eyes shift back to normal, then he lays his head back into the chair and closes them. "I'll give you time to ask Kershner. Oh, and I'm holding a Valentine's Day charity event for the people suffering due to the dome, I trust I can see you there? I'd take you, but I don't think Cardinal would be pleased. I think it'd be good to get Milena outside and around people."
The abrupt shift from work to Valentine's takes Elisabeth more than a moment to process. "Uhm…. " Elisabeth smirks. She'll let him stay in his fantasy world where Richard is the reason she doesn't act on the offers he occasionally makes. "Valentine's charity thing?" she asks. "Let's see how things are going. Did you miss the whole Humanis First staging a coup inside the dome part? I'm afraid my team is on 24-hour alert right now. We're not getting much downtime. So… we'll see. I'll run this across Kershner's desk immediately. I'd love to actually do this quickly — if nothing else to rule out whether it will work or not. So far as we can tell, powers actually stop at the barrier. So I have doubts, but I'm willing to try." She moves to climb around him and upward out of the tank. "I'll let you know ASAP," she says, the words floating down to him as her head clears the turret.
"I stay in my factory working all day, I barely keep up with the news." Warren says as she heads out of the tank, then looks up to add, "Nice view, by the way." leaving her with that as she takes her leave.
