Papers Labs And Slushies

Participants:

lashirah_icon.gif corbin_icon.gif

Scene Title Papers, Labs, and Slushies
Synopsis Archives finds some info, but needs the labs to age things up
Date March 11, 2010

Fort Hero: Labs


Fifty-six research laboratories are contained on the first subterranean level of Camp Hero. Once staffed by hundreds of government researchers, many of these labs have been converted to temporary offices for staff of the Company. Several of the labs, however, have been refurbished with new technology and hardware juxtaposed against old and cracked concrete and groaning iron pipes.

Some of the labs at Camp Hero contain outdated technology either too bulky or too laborious to remove, such as reel-to-reel supercomputers and old IBM 80-81 monochrome terminals. Much of this computer hardware still functions, along with archives of magnetic tape backup containing operations manuals for much of the facility and its design, as well as Company records dating back to the mid 1980s.

Curiously, one of the labs has remained sealed since the compound came back online, due to a copious amount of concrete and steel reinforcement used to seal up the lab entrance. Given the thickness of the poured concrete used to close off that wing of the labs, it's clear that it was never intended to be accessed again.


The records and the labs tend to work side by side, not just cause they share a same level, but because much of what the labs do requires records, and at the same time the labs fill in holes in the records, so Corbin knows the woman he's visiting well enough to come bearing a tax.

The door opens, and in his hand is a big slushie in one of those too big for sanity cups. "Agent Lee, I come bearing slushie tax. Someone said you might like to try a slusho, I'm not sure who. But it's sweet, has lots of sugar and is bound to keep you up all night." And where there's slushie tax, there's need for a favor.

Lashirah looks up from one of not one, not two, but THREE different computers that she had begged, borrowed, or outright taken from other places to hook together to pull off some intense physics modeling. There are signs that she likely has been napping at odd hours… and otherwise working lately. Two of the computers seem to be working out the math on how much energy it'd require to 'cook' the 'liquified' bodies someone had brought in. The remaining one is trying to figure out ways to 'selectively' age a person physically. She smiles a bit. "Ahhh, a smart one!" She chuckles. "Any luck in the records for succubi? I'm STILL batting a net zero on that one."

"Not batting zero at all, actually. Found that the Company had a file that's similar to this case, as well as pictures," Corbin says, taking his lumps with a half smile on his stubbly face. The other thing he carried into the lab is sat down somewhere that looks empty, and he pulls out a folder. "That's what I'm here for. We have two pictures, one from 1970, and one from 1930, and it looks like the same exact guy. If we're operating on the assumption that he's draining life and making himself younger… since…" He shows the black and white print out from a newspaper, and an aged photo from the archives, the man with dark hair and beard looks pretty much the same in both. "I was wondering if you could use your awesome skills to age the picture up in intervals of decades, so we can have an idea what he might have looked like before he sucked the life out of the guy."
Lashirah blinks. "Huh. Incubus instead." She mutters, even as she takes the pictures, and scans them into the computer. "Yeah, I can age them up…Do we have any idea on the physics behind the stunt this guy is doing?" She looks the pictures over carefully for clues to how age might affect the face she's looking at before she even loads up the software.

"'Sucks the life out of them' was physics enough for me, honestly," Corbin says, pulling out one more thing that might make her job a bit quicker. A flashdrive. "I went ahead and scanned at the highest quality I could. Figured the bigger the better. The 1930s one is from microfilm, so it's not as good as the 70s one. I'm hoping we can track down the guy's current alias. Life sucking incubus have to have a place to live too, which means jobs and credit lines and all that stuff."

Lashirah ponders as she nods, taking the flash drive thankfully, and plugging it in. It's moments later when she starts the part art, part science of 'aging' a photo. Laugh lines, Wrinkles. drooping of eyes. the basics. "… False documents too. He'll have a trail of them miles long. Would need a set … every time he 'resets' by draining someone?"

"I guess in theory he'd have all that set up, but maybe he transfered his funds to himself, or some other legal mumbo jumbo," Corbin says, watching as she works her art, but avoiding leaning too much. No one crowds the artist at work! "In the 1930s, which we'll assume is his first identity until we know otherwise, he was a lawyer. Well respected one. If he kept his career, he'd have resources to do name changes and other stuff rather easily, possibly even legally impart his money onto himself as a heir without much question. But even knowing his last identity since the 70s might help."

Lashirah nods a little as after setting up the presets, the computer starts whirring away on autopilot. She waits a few moments, then there's a 'oh yeah!' sound effect from the computer… Yes, THAT 'OH, Yeah!'. She grins a little, and hands you your flash drive back. "Decade by decade aging. Including some more modern hairstyles." She frowns. "So do we have a name for him back in the 70's? Known family? habits? Anything to start from?"

"We got names. I'm still digging on the personal dirt, though," Corbin says, taking back the flashdrive with a smile, before wandering back to where the file ended up, to take a peak. He doesn't have the names memorized. "Alfred Morrison was what he went by in the 70s. Never fingered him as the actual guy, just someone they'd questioned and kept a picture of. The 30s he was Walter Barton, a respected New York City lawyer. I don't think the Company guys in the 70s found that, or they could have gone 'oh yeah!' like your computer." He says that with a cheeky smile.

"I actually used my job at the New York Times to do some extra digging. Accessing some online archives. Didn't quite search for mummified corpse, but close enough. Found one either way. Mummified corpse, plus picture that looked just like one of the suspects the Company had back in the 70s. Chances are he didn't deage much that time around, or people would have noticed. Maybe the person he drained was too old so he didn't gain much life. Or not enough it was noticable."

Lashirah hmms. "Interesting." She tilts her head and sighs. "Alright, I'll see if I can't also work on a 'deageing' incase he over did it this time. It was a young guy he got…"

"That's a good idea. I know deaging is a bit more difficult, but hey, he could be twenty for all we know," Corbin says, beginning to put his files away. "It also seems he didn't quite get the job totally done, if the 70s autospy report is at all accurate. It sounded like that body was worse. They're suspecting he'll do it again. I'm hoping to catch him before he does. And especially before we have to put a big memo of 'look out for this dude in 40 years, kay-thanks-bye."

Lashirah nods. "Yeah…" She sighs, and takes a large hit off the slushie… her eyes get wide. "Mmm. That IS good. What did you call it again, a Slusho?"

"Yeah, apparently it's huge down in Brooklyn right now," Corbin says with a grin. It's almost funny to be telling jokes around pictures of dead people. At least they're not in the actual autopsy lab… "Also, on the microwaved bodies— we think we might have a match on that too. Or at least someone whose known to have the same ability and be at large. The file on Luke Campbell should have been forwarded to you, as well as the reports of why he was taken in by HomeSec. Comparing the two, we might be able to decide if it's really him before we start waving pictures around."

Lashirah nods a little. "Yeah, I got his file earlier… That's what the two computers over there are whirring away over. Figuring out if he has the sheer juice to cook them without crispying them. It actulaly takes a LOT of doing."

"Well you've got the jump on that one," Corbin says, laughing a bit. "Those look like pretty powerful machines. Do they go 'oh yeah!' when they're done too?" He's even trying to imitate the voice that was made when he asks that. Badly.

Lashirah blushes. "No. that's MY machine that does that. Those ones just make 'dings'." She smirks. "The Kool-Aid Man is often imitated, but never duplicated."

Corbin chuckles at the blush, packing up the last of the stuff into his bag, before pulling it over his shoulder as it was when he appeared with slushie tax. "Does it go 'On no!' when it fails? Like in that one comic, with the Kool-Aid Man fallen over and losing his Kool-Aid?"

Lashirah smirks. "No." She grins and taps something to play a sound on the computer… Arnold's "I'll be back" quote nearly ECHOS in the small lab.

That earns a full laugh. "You sure know how to make your computer intimidating," Corbin says, looking around the room as if wondering where all the speakers are hidden. "Try not to stay up all night staring at the screens," he adds, gesturing around. There's so many to stare at.

Lashirah grins. There's only four or five, mostly used for virtual environment tests… "More likely I"ll be hitting the paper tonight. To read through all that stuff in those files. Promise I won't get slushy on them… this time."

"You better not. I'm the one who gets smacked around if the paper files are destroyed," Corbin says, though it's only half true. They have scanned copies of most of it already… But it's fun to pretend everything's still on paper. Those 70s files had been. "Have fun doing the book work. It's what I always get to do," he adds, before heading out of the labs, before one of the computers jumps him.

Lashirah chuckles. "I'll keep you up to date." She grabs the file, as well as her copy of the 'aged' photos. She starts setting the spare computer to searching for reasonable matches to the faces on record. After all, there's only a few billion for it to go through.


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