Hill, Vision, Steve, Carnage
Jul. 28th, 2012 09:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aa_natasha It's a short ride upstate. There's pretty countryside everywhere - lots of green and hills. As the team nears the village of Sleepy Hollow they see a pillar of smoke rising into the air. Not far below, near the village, are the gas station and restaurant... as well as a huge piece of debris that smolders. It's stuck in the road, burning, with a sheriff's patrol car nearby. The helicopter does a big circle around the site before setting down, on the road, about five hundred feet from the restaurant.
Upon exiting, the Agents will see the huge piece of debris. It's big, partially metal, and burned. From afar it doesn't look very interesting, except that it's sticking up out of the road. Nearby, there are a few people talking just outside the restaurant. Blood drips down their arms and faces, and from a distance they don't look quite... right. They stumble around, growling. They beg investigation.
Natasha steps lightly from the aircraft, guns holstered safely at her waist and gaze brightly attentive. She steps to one side, fixing on the milling civilians with a slight frown while the rest of the team disembarks.
The cowl of Steve's suit is down for the chopper ride upstate, his vibranium shield settled in front of him as he settles back in his seat. He hoists it onto his back once the helicopter has touched down, so that he can hop out the side and onto the ground. His gaze slides quickly about the scene, noting the burned metal debris in the road, and then the bloodied people outside the restaurant. He glances to Hill first, perhaps deferring to seniority, before looking back. "That doesn't look right," he notes.
Hill steps down from the helicopter once it's safely touched down on the ground. On the road with smoking debris and possible zombies. Perhaps not so 'safely' down. "The local cop thought they were...zombies." She sounds wry, but not exactly skeptical. With the company S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps lately, maybe she can't summon up shock at the idea of zombies. She does ease her weapon out of its holster. The safety's probably still on, but with the stumbling and growling it seems prudent.
Vision is awkward in his newly acquired suit, fiddling with the sleeves even as he clambers out behind Steve. He is unarmed, his utility less fighting and more access. The massive pile of debris thus gets his attention before the anomalous restaurant goers.
One of the locals turns slowly, stumbling, and begins to walk in the direction of the Agents. She hobbles along, one leg struggling to move in any kind of normal motion, while gurgling. Part of her jaw flaps open, unhinged, as she moves. A man behind her watches the woman's progress. He hisses dumbly, drooling blood. The piece of debris is about two hundred feet from Vision. Parts of it gleam if caught in the correct light.
"Hate to say it, but I can see why," Natasha murmurs low and dry in response to Hill. She glances around, pausing for a brief smile at Steve in his oh-so-inconspicuous uniform before she draws her own firearm (but just one) and says, "Well. Shall we?"
"Me too," Steve agrees quietly with Natasha, his face set grimly. What his uniform is totally inconspicuous! He pulls the cowl up over his head to pretend to be anonymous, and slowly approaches the gurgling people, his shield drawn off his back onto one arm to sit ready at his side.
"Let's," Hill replies to Natasha. She takes a step toward incoming zombie woman. Just a step, and calls, "Halt!" Aiming her pistol at the gurgling, shambling, maybe-zombie woman. It's a very //firm// 'Halt!', at least. If she's at all unsure the monster will respond to such commands, she doesn't show it.
"I will look at the metallic anomaly," Vision says to Hill, low and distinct, and begins a gradual, circuitous route toward that point two hundred feet distant. It is a bit of a back route, well out of agents' line of fire.
The zombie guurgs at Hill, shambling along. Blood drips down her arm while the piece of jaw that detached itself folds back upwards on its own. She pushes it in place, perhaps just to be sure, while continuing forward at her slow pace. "We desire communication," she says, voice raspy. "Send an emissary." The zombie doesn't notice Vision move off.
The hulking piece of metal waits to be examined. It's tall. Maybe one hundred feet in length, and thirty feet in width. Its edges are somewhat jagged, as though it was torn from another piece at some point. Vision will need to get much closer to glean more.
Natasha hangs just behind Hill, letting her take the lead while she keeps her firearm pointed safely at the ground. She blinks at the jaw as it slides its way around sections of the face it does not typically belong, and for a moment she has to swallow hard against a rise of bile before finding her voice. "You've got three. Who's '/we/'?"
Having been through war still has not acclimated Steve Rogers to quite a sight as that, and he firms his jaw in reaction to it. He allows the ladies to take the lead on talking for the moment.
Hill nods a little aside to Vision, when he goes to investigate the hulking metal. Then her eyes are back on the zombie. And they go pretty wide at the jaw detachment. Swallow. She retains her composure but...that just ain't right. "Agent Maria Hill. S.H.I.E.L.D. As my associate says, we're here to communicate." She lowers the gun, though it stays in her hand. She waits for the 'who are these things' question to be answered.
"We. Us. We are here," she, the zombie, answers. An eyeball slides out of its socket, oozing down to her cheek, before little tendrils, like nasty sticky fingers, slide down from her socket and retract the eyeball back into place. "We have no name. We do not require yours. We understand this planet is called Earth. We understand you call yourselves human. We wish to know more. Tell us, and we will be grateful."
Vision marginally increases the rate of his circuitous creep as his distance from zombies and SHIELD forces increases. He closes the gap toward the metal in a timely enough fashion. Time to see what he can see from the outside.
The hulk of metal has been badly burned. But it's /tough/. Whatever this stuff is, it was built to withstand some serious damage. Beneath some of the burned portions, or rather where there isn't any, the metal is iridescent. There are a few flecks of gold, too. Maybe he should poke at it some more.
"What did you do to these people?" Steve says in a rather demandy-judgmental fashion. Because whatever it was, it's not good.
"Swell," Natasha mutters under her breath, loud enough for no ears beyond Hill and Steve's. "More aliens."
"What happened to the deputy?" is Maria's first question. Then she amends, in case they don't have deputies on Planet Zombie, "The...first human you encountered. The one who contacted us about your presence."
Vision turns the creep full-crouch as he nears reaching distance of the metal. Unlikely as it is that an iridescent, gold-flecked hunk in Sleepy Hollow is networked, let alone in a way he can understand, he sends out a cautious wireless tendril, a simple ping. He extends a hand going insubstantial even as he extends it. And with two translucent fingertips, he verily pokes. Hello.
"They are here, with us," the woman says while focusing on Steve. The zombie turns her attention to Natasha. Her head lowers to look at her, foot to head, as her eyes slowly travel upward. Afterward, she assumes Natasha's stance. The blood on her arms begins to disappear. "You look down on us. This is unwise. We have many resources. We could be... friends? We ask that you answer our questions." She turns to Hill and examines her as well. The zombie shakes her head slightly, which pushes back some hair. Her chin juts outward. "He used his primitive weaponry to attack us. Do not worry, we were not disturbed by his attack. We hold no anger towards humans. But we killed him. You will understand."
BWOOOOOOOOOOOM goes the response of the debris. It's static. Something isn't right about it. Perhaps it is broken, perhaps it is a kind of firewall in overdrive. But it doesn't like being touched!
"What does that mean?" Natasha asks, edging her gun upward a touch in response to the mimicry. "They're there with you. Are they alive?"
"These others," Steve says, indicating the zombified woman and the man nearby. "Are they alive? Do you control their bodies or their corpses?"
"You..." Hill doesn't bother repeating 'killed him,' though. Her eyes flick down to her own primitive weapon. Which, like Natasha, she edges up just a little. Though perhaps she's a little less confident in its effectiveness now. "...what are you? What are they now?"
Vision doesn't much care for the bwooooom, in turn. He withdraws his fingers and his expression compresses into a wince. Into the wild ether, he pings again. A 'hello?' without aid of parameters of any sort. He checks his own firewalls. He hesitates. And then he touches the metal again. This time, his touch moves quicker and he attempts to plunge his entire insubstantial hand in.
"Ah, you place value on life," the woman assumes. "We use their bodies. They are alive. But without us, they will die. We are part of them, now, and they are part of us. We seek to understand you. But you will not answer our questions. This is a source of annoyance - we believe this is rude." She blinks at Hill while the rest of the blood disappears from her arm. The zombie reaches up with a very humanlike gesture and pushes hair out of her face, eventually tucking it behind her ear. Her leg also straightens, bones cracking audibly. "We refuse to answer more of your questions until your answers ours!" she retorts, her voice, in an instant, quite like Hill's.
Whatever the material is, /it is dense/. Much more dense than steel. And the metal responds to Vision by BWOOOOMing more. Inside there is a kind of circuitry, but it's nothing Vision has ever felt before. It's complicated, built to last, and thick. In fact, it feels like everything inside the metal is a circuit. It is everywhere.
Natasha pales slightly, and her eyes go suddenly hard. She falls silent, the aim of her gun steady.
"Yes, we do," Steve says in a firm voice. "And we don't like answering questions from aliens who come here and kill our people."
Hill gasps, her non-gun hand, going to her throat and cupping around it protectively. That's unsettling right there. "What the hell...?" Not really a question.
The rest of Vision's right arm goes insubstantial. The sleeve of his suit drifts right down through his 'skin' and dangles against his side. His wince tighter against the sustained static, he plunges his arm in entirely, seeking one last end to circuits (circuits all the way down?) and attempting to draw up a series of mental impressions of the tech as he explores. One might just plunge oneself all the way in for a better look, but Vision was taught not to go swimming in alien hardware on a first date.
"Then this discussion is at an end," the woman replies. She smiles. The woman isn't ugly, really. She could look quite pleasant. Perhaps she was a waitress. She bats her eyes at Steve and turns. A moment later, her hips swaying slightly, she walks back in the direction of the restaurant.
It's a world in there, Vision, though not all of it is still operating. Something has happened to this... thing. It's beaten up, old, and running on fumes. The circuits are supported by a self-generating energy source that is on its last leg. As for photos... the hulk of metal doesn't like it! It continues to BWOOOOM, static everywhere, but it can't stop the synthezoid.
"Wait!" Steve says, oddly unaffected by batting eyelashes from zombie women whose jaws are barely hanging in there. How strange.
"/Stop/," Natasha says half a beat after Steve, stirring to follow her.
"We want those people back!" Hill projects her voice, which she's probably thankful she still has, edging to follow after the zombie herself. Not too fast. But cautiously. Not shambling. "What do you want for them?"
They're more half-blind impressions of structure translated into data-bursts than strict photos, but the hulk's inability to repel him beyond emitting protest increases his confidence and his desire for more solid data. He begins a proper swim after all - his right shoulder, neck, and head disperse insubstantial and stick into the hulk so Vision can acquire some proper eye-snaps of the circuitry. More of the suit deflates and hangs lax against the surface.
The woman does not turn or pause. She does raise her hand, which instantly flicks at the wrist. A moment later, her arm extends to an /incredible/ length while shifting in color. Red, glistening, and massive, it launches itself to the top of the hulking piece of shrapnel that has been stuck in the road. Smirking, the woman leaps into the air and flies upward as her arm retracts. She flies several hundred feet, past the roof of the restaurant, and disappears from view. Apparently she wasn't joking.
Vision gets an eyeful. The insides are burning, badly damaged, like the exterior. It's beautiful, though, in its near-wasteland. An imagination isn't required to guess that this, at one point, was a marvel. When Vision goes knee-deep, the piece of metal gives up. No more bwooping. Perhaps it doesn't have the energy.
"/Shit/," Natasha says, in violation of her 'no cursing in front of Steve' rule. She springs forward into a run after the woman with a sudden burst of speed that finds itself useless as she flies upward and out of view.
"Jeez--" Steve breaks out in a run at pretty much the same time as Natasha. They have similar instincts, y. He is also very fast. Wheeeeeeee.
Hill brings her gun up before she starts running, but it's also not fast enough to get off a shot before the zombie woman has flown away. Or jumped very effectively. "No kidding," she mutters, like a response to Natasha's 'Shit.' Her eyes try to track where, past the restaurant, she might have landed. And perhaps scan for the other zombies while she's at it.
Vision plunges into the hulk entire, leaves the suit outside. The mass of worn circuity draws him, the gorgeous ruin of something alien and wonderful. And, certainly, the cessation of static. He does not drift in the guts long, though. The hulk is far too massive for Vision to catalog on first entry. He makes initial recordings, he sketches in notes, he dives back out. Assuming the hulk does not devour him.
There is a small clearing behind the restaurant, and fifty feet away the beginnings of woods. By the time Steve reaches the area, no one is there. He can travel into the woods, too, but no one is in sight. Hill's search will turn up the dead body of the deputy, which is inside the restaurant. The place isn't in the best of shape. There are some broken plates on the floor, a little blood (she can get samples), and a trashcan has been turned over. Upon inspection, the deputy's stomach has been punctured by a broad instrument, though the instrument is nowhere in sight. There is a pool of blood around him.
Natasha skids to a halt, hand lifted to shield her eyes from the sun as she stares upward after the woman. "There are so many things about this that are bad," she says to her companion, voice low and dark.
"You know," Steve says in a wryly grim tone as he too considers the woods, "we didn't use to have aliens."
The chunk of spacemetal doesn't /like/ Vision being there. But it does not try to hold him in, or push him out. While Vision is inside, it will notice that there are fewer and fewer processes. The deterioration is slow.
Hill kneels by the body of the deputy, steeling herself before looking for a badge to retrieve. Something to bring back to his superiors. "What the hell did this?" It's muttered to herself. "We should get his body back for examination. Along with these blood samples."
"Technically, we've had aliens for a very long time," Natasha says grimly. "We just called them gods." She blows out a breath as she scrapes her fingers through her hair, then turns with a nod to assist Hill with the gorey work.
Vision resolidifies outside. He stoops and plucks up his suit, brushing off the fabric. He shakes his head twice, as if to disperse residual static, and withdraws to find the others.
Steve just shakes his head at /that/ particular pronouncement, turning as well to go assist Hill. "I don't know, ma'am," he says in quiet reply to what is probably a rhetorical question. "We might be able to track her through the woods, but I don't know how far." (Not very.)
Hill looks up at Steve and nods short at that idea. "See what you can find. I'll report..." What? "...I'll report our findings back to headquarters before we touch off." Such as their findings are. She offers Natasha a quick "Thanks" as the woman helps her move the body. Hopefully there's a tablecloth or tarp or something around to wrap it for hauling back for whatever weird autopsy it requires. It's only as she straightens that she notices Vision's return.
"Yes, ma'am," Steve says in quiet acceptance of Hill's order. He looks to Vision as the synthetic enters. "Did you find anything?"
"Yes," Vision says. The suit hangs over his arm like a maitre d's giant napkin. "It is not solid scrap, the anomaly. What we see, it is the dense hull. Inside, it is a machine, with circuitry I am unfamiliar with. It is dying."
"Dying?" Hill doesn't dwell on the mortality of a machine, though. "Do you know how much time it has? Can we get it back to SHIELD in time preserve it?" Because of course that's where it's going.
Steve doesn't argue about sending it back to SHIELD, although there might be some RESERVATIONS in his expression. (PS SHIELD don't make it into a gun.) "You mean it's running out of power?" Stilly Vision; machines don't die.
"I do not know. I wore it down before entering. Inside, there is burning, the processes of the circuitry are waning. It is not entirely intact," Vision iterates, flat factual. "I believe there will be enough to study even if it is inert by the time we transport it. But I do not as yet understand how it runs or how to revive it, should we wish to."
Hill nods. If she's overly concerned about the 'life' of the machine, it's not evident. "See if you can make sure it won't blow up on us during transport." Fingers crossed and all.
Steve tips his head in final acknowledgment. "All right. I'm going to see what I can find in the woods." And he heads back out of the restaurant to go TRACKING. In vain. Sad. :c
Upon exiting, the Agents will see the huge piece of debris. It's big, partially metal, and burned. From afar it doesn't look very interesting, except that it's sticking up out of the road. Nearby, there are a few people talking just outside the restaurant. Blood drips down their arms and faces, and from a distance they don't look quite... right. They stumble around, growling. They beg investigation.
Natasha steps lightly from the aircraft, guns holstered safely at her waist and gaze brightly attentive. She steps to one side, fixing on the milling civilians with a slight frown while the rest of the team disembarks.
The cowl of Steve's suit is down for the chopper ride upstate, his vibranium shield settled in front of him as he settles back in his seat. He hoists it onto his back once the helicopter has touched down, so that he can hop out the side and onto the ground. His gaze slides quickly about the scene, noting the burned metal debris in the road, and then the bloodied people outside the restaurant. He glances to Hill first, perhaps deferring to seniority, before looking back. "That doesn't look right," he notes.
Hill steps down from the helicopter once it's safely touched down on the ground. On the road with smoking debris and possible zombies. Perhaps not so 'safely' down. "The local cop thought they were...zombies." She sounds wry, but not exactly skeptical. With the company S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps lately, maybe she can't summon up shock at the idea of zombies. She does ease her weapon out of its holster. The safety's probably still on, but with the stumbling and growling it seems prudent.
Vision is awkward in his newly acquired suit, fiddling with the sleeves even as he clambers out behind Steve. He is unarmed, his utility less fighting and more access. The massive pile of debris thus gets his attention before the anomalous restaurant goers.
One of the locals turns slowly, stumbling, and begins to walk in the direction of the Agents. She hobbles along, one leg struggling to move in any kind of normal motion, while gurgling. Part of her jaw flaps open, unhinged, as she moves. A man behind her watches the woman's progress. He hisses dumbly, drooling blood. The piece of debris is about two hundred feet from Vision. Parts of it gleam if caught in the correct light.
"Hate to say it, but I can see why," Natasha murmurs low and dry in response to Hill. She glances around, pausing for a brief smile at Steve in his oh-so-inconspicuous uniform before she draws her own firearm (but just one) and says, "Well. Shall we?"
"Me too," Steve agrees quietly with Natasha, his face set grimly. What his uniform is totally inconspicuous! He pulls the cowl up over his head to pretend to be anonymous, and slowly approaches the gurgling people, his shield drawn off his back onto one arm to sit ready at his side.
"Let's," Hill replies to Natasha. She takes a step toward incoming zombie woman. Just a step, and calls, "Halt!" Aiming her pistol at the gurgling, shambling, maybe-zombie woman. It's a very //firm// 'Halt!', at least. If she's at all unsure the monster will respond to such commands, she doesn't show it.
"I will look at the metallic anomaly," Vision says to Hill, low and distinct, and begins a gradual, circuitous route toward that point two hundred feet distant. It is a bit of a back route, well out of agents' line of fire.
The zombie guurgs at Hill, shambling along. Blood drips down her arm while the piece of jaw that detached itself folds back upwards on its own. She pushes it in place, perhaps just to be sure, while continuing forward at her slow pace. "We desire communication," she says, voice raspy. "Send an emissary." The zombie doesn't notice Vision move off.
The hulking piece of metal waits to be examined. It's tall. Maybe one hundred feet in length, and thirty feet in width. Its edges are somewhat jagged, as though it was torn from another piece at some point. Vision will need to get much closer to glean more.
Natasha hangs just behind Hill, letting her take the lead while she keeps her firearm pointed safely at the ground. She blinks at the jaw as it slides its way around sections of the face it does not typically belong, and for a moment she has to swallow hard against a rise of bile before finding her voice. "You've got three. Who's '/we/'?"
Having been through war still has not acclimated Steve Rogers to quite a sight as that, and he firms his jaw in reaction to it. He allows the ladies to take the lead on talking for the moment.
Hill nods a little aside to Vision, when he goes to investigate the hulking metal. Then her eyes are back on the zombie. And they go pretty wide at the jaw detachment. Swallow. She retains her composure but...that just ain't right. "Agent Maria Hill. S.H.I.E.L.D. As my associate says, we're here to communicate." She lowers the gun, though it stays in her hand. She waits for the 'who are these things' question to be answered.
"We. Us. We are here," she, the zombie, answers. An eyeball slides out of its socket, oozing down to her cheek, before little tendrils, like nasty sticky fingers, slide down from her socket and retract the eyeball back into place. "We have no name. We do not require yours. We understand this planet is called Earth. We understand you call yourselves human. We wish to know more. Tell us, and we will be grateful."
Vision marginally increases the rate of his circuitous creep as his distance from zombies and SHIELD forces increases. He closes the gap toward the metal in a timely enough fashion. Time to see what he can see from the outside.
The hulk of metal has been badly burned. But it's /tough/. Whatever this stuff is, it was built to withstand some serious damage. Beneath some of the burned portions, or rather where there isn't any, the metal is iridescent. There are a few flecks of gold, too. Maybe he should poke at it some more.
"What did you do to these people?" Steve says in a rather demandy-judgmental fashion. Because whatever it was, it's not good.
"Swell," Natasha mutters under her breath, loud enough for no ears beyond Hill and Steve's. "More aliens."
"What happened to the deputy?" is Maria's first question. Then she amends, in case they don't have deputies on Planet Zombie, "The...first human you encountered. The one who contacted us about your presence."
Vision turns the creep full-crouch as he nears reaching distance of the metal. Unlikely as it is that an iridescent, gold-flecked hunk in Sleepy Hollow is networked, let alone in a way he can understand, he sends out a cautious wireless tendril, a simple ping. He extends a hand going insubstantial even as he extends it. And with two translucent fingertips, he verily pokes. Hello.
"They are here, with us," the woman says while focusing on Steve. The zombie turns her attention to Natasha. Her head lowers to look at her, foot to head, as her eyes slowly travel upward. Afterward, she assumes Natasha's stance. The blood on her arms begins to disappear. "You look down on us. This is unwise. We have many resources. We could be... friends? We ask that you answer our questions." She turns to Hill and examines her as well. The zombie shakes her head slightly, which pushes back some hair. Her chin juts outward. "He used his primitive weaponry to attack us. Do not worry, we were not disturbed by his attack. We hold no anger towards humans. But we killed him. You will understand."
BWOOOOOOOOOOOM goes the response of the debris. It's static. Something isn't right about it. Perhaps it is broken, perhaps it is a kind of firewall in overdrive. But it doesn't like being touched!
"What does that mean?" Natasha asks, edging her gun upward a touch in response to the mimicry. "They're there with you. Are they alive?"
"These others," Steve says, indicating the zombified woman and the man nearby. "Are they alive? Do you control their bodies or their corpses?"
"You..." Hill doesn't bother repeating 'killed him,' though. Her eyes flick down to her own primitive weapon. Which, like Natasha, she edges up just a little. Though perhaps she's a little less confident in its effectiveness now. "...what are you? What are they now?"
Vision doesn't much care for the bwooooom, in turn. He withdraws his fingers and his expression compresses into a wince. Into the wild ether, he pings again. A 'hello?' without aid of parameters of any sort. He checks his own firewalls. He hesitates. And then he touches the metal again. This time, his touch moves quicker and he attempts to plunge his entire insubstantial hand in.
"Ah, you place value on life," the woman assumes. "We use their bodies. They are alive. But without us, they will die. We are part of them, now, and they are part of us. We seek to understand you. But you will not answer our questions. This is a source of annoyance - we believe this is rude." She blinks at Hill while the rest of the blood disappears from her arm. The zombie reaches up with a very humanlike gesture and pushes hair out of her face, eventually tucking it behind her ear. Her leg also straightens, bones cracking audibly. "We refuse to answer more of your questions until your answers ours!" she retorts, her voice, in an instant, quite like Hill's.
Whatever the material is, /it is dense/. Much more dense than steel. And the metal responds to Vision by BWOOOOMing more. Inside there is a kind of circuitry, but it's nothing Vision has ever felt before. It's complicated, built to last, and thick. In fact, it feels like everything inside the metal is a circuit. It is everywhere.
Natasha pales slightly, and her eyes go suddenly hard. She falls silent, the aim of her gun steady.
"Yes, we do," Steve says in a firm voice. "And we don't like answering questions from aliens who come here and kill our people."
Hill gasps, her non-gun hand, going to her throat and cupping around it protectively. That's unsettling right there. "What the hell...?" Not really a question.
The rest of Vision's right arm goes insubstantial. The sleeve of his suit drifts right down through his 'skin' and dangles against his side. His wince tighter against the sustained static, he plunges his arm in entirely, seeking one last end to circuits (circuits all the way down?) and attempting to draw up a series of mental impressions of the tech as he explores. One might just plunge oneself all the way in for a better look, but Vision was taught not to go swimming in alien hardware on a first date.
"Then this discussion is at an end," the woman replies. She smiles. The woman isn't ugly, really. She could look quite pleasant. Perhaps she was a waitress. She bats her eyes at Steve and turns. A moment later, her hips swaying slightly, she walks back in the direction of the restaurant.
It's a world in there, Vision, though not all of it is still operating. Something has happened to this... thing. It's beaten up, old, and running on fumes. The circuits are supported by a self-generating energy source that is on its last leg. As for photos... the hulk of metal doesn't like it! It continues to BWOOOOM, static everywhere, but it can't stop the synthezoid.
"Wait!" Steve says, oddly unaffected by batting eyelashes from zombie women whose jaws are barely hanging in there. How strange.
"/Stop/," Natasha says half a beat after Steve, stirring to follow her.
"We want those people back!" Hill projects her voice, which she's probably thankful she still has, edging to follow after the zombie herself. Not too fast. But cautiously. Not shambling. "What do you want for them?"
They're more half-blind impressions of structure translated into data-bursts than strict photos, but the hulk's inability to repel him beyond emitting protest increases his confidence and his desire for more solid data. He begins a proper swim after all - his right shoulder, neck, and head disperse insubstantial and stick into the hulk so Vision can acquire some proper eye-snaps of the circuitry. More of the suit deflates and hangs lax against the surface.
The woman does not turn or pause. She does raise her hand, which instantly flicks at the wrist. A moment later, her arm extends to an /incredible/ length while shifting in color. Red, glistening, and massive, it launches itself to the top of the hulking piece of shrapnel that has been stuck in the road. Smirking, the woman leaps into the air and flies upward as her arm retracts. She flies several hundred feet, past the roof of the restaurant, and disappears from view. Apparently she wasn't joking.
Vision gets an eyeful. The insides are burning, badly damaged, like the exterior. It's beautiful, though, in its near-wasteland. An imagination isn't required to guess that this, at one point, was a marvel. When Vision goes knee-deep, the piece of metal gives up. No more bwooping. Perhaps it doesn't have the energy.
"/Shit/," Natasha says, in violation of her 'no cursing in front of Steve' rule. She springs forward into a run after the woman with a sudden burst of speed that finds itself useless as she flies upward and out of view.
"Jeez--" Steve breaks out in a run at pretty much the same time as Natasha. They have similar instincts, y. He is also very fast. Wheeeeeeee.
Hill brings her gun up before she starts running, but it's also not fast enough to get off a shot before the zombie woman has flown away. Or jumped very effectively. "No kidding," she mutters, like a response to Natasha's 'Shit.' Her eyes try to track where, past the restaurant, she might have landed. And perhaps scan for the other zombies while she's at it.
Vision plunges into the hulk entire, leaves the suit outside. The mass of worn circuity draws him, the gorgeous ruin of something alien and wonderful. And, certainly, the cessation of static. He does not drift in the guts long, though. The hulk is far too massive for Vision to catalog on first entry. He makes initial recordings, he sketches in notes, he dives back out. Assuming the hulk does not devour him.
There is a small clearing behind the restaurant, and fifty feet away the beginnings of woods. By the time Steve reaches the area, no one is there. He can travel into the woods, too, but no one is in sight. Hill's search will turn up the dead body of the deputy, which is inside the restaurant. The place isn't in the best of shape. There are some broken plates on the floor, a little blood (she can get samples), and a trashcan has been turned over. Upon inspection, the deputy's stomach has been punctured by a broad instrument, though the instrument is nowhere in sight. There is a pool of blood around him.
Natasha skids to a halt, hand lifted to shield her eyes from the sun as she stares upward after the woman. "There are so many things about this that are bad," she says to her companion, voice low and dark.
"You know," Steve says in a wryly grim tone as he too considers the woods, "we didn't use to have aliens."
The chunk of spacemetal doesn't /like/ Vision being there. But it does not try to hold him in, or push him out. While Vision is inside, it will notice that there are fewer and fewer processes. The deterioration is slow.
Hill kneels by the body of the deputy, steeling herself before looking for a badge to retrieve. Something to bring back to his superiors. "What the hell did this?" It's muttered to herself. "We should get his body back for examination. Along with these blood samples."
"Technically, we've had aliens for a very long time," Natasha says grimly. "We just called them gods." She blows out a breath as she scrapes her fingers through her hair, then turns with a nod to assist Hill with the gorey work.
Vision resolidifies outside. He stoops and plucks up his suit, brushing off the fabric. He shakes his head twice, as if to disperse residual static, and withdraws to find the others.
Steve just shakes his head at /that/ particular pronouncement, turning as well to go assist Hill. "I don't know, ma'am," he says in quiet reply to what is probably a rhetorical question. "We might be able to track her through the woods, but I don't know how far." (Not very.)
Hill looks up at Steve and nods short at that idea. "See what you can find. I'll report..." What? "...I'll report our findings back to headquarters before we touch off." Such as their findings are. She offers Natasha a quick "Thanks" as the woman helps her move the body. Hopefully there's a tablecloth or tarp or something around to wrap it for hauling back for whatever weird autopsy it requires. It's only as she straightens that she notices Vision's return.
"Yes, ma'am," Steve says in quiet acceptance of Hill's order. He looks to Vision as the synthetic enters. "Did you find anything?"
"Yes," Vision says. The suit hangs over his arm like a maitre d's giant napkin. "It is not solid scrap, the anomaly. What we see, it is the dense hull. Inside, it is a machine, with circuitry I am unfamiliar with. It is dying."
"Dying?" Hill doesn't dwell on the mortality of a machine, though. "Do you know how much time it has? Can we get it back to SHIELD in time preserve it?" Because of course that's where it's going.
Steve doesn't argue about sending it back to SHIELD, although there might be some RESERVATIONS in his expression. (PS SHIELD don't make it into a gun.) "You mean it's running out of power?" Stilly Vision; machines don't die.
"I do not know. I wore it down before entering. Inside, there is burning, the processes of the circuitry are waning. It is not entirely intact," Vision iterates, flat factual. "I believe there will be enough to study even if it is inert by the time we transport it. But I do not as yet understand how it runs or how to revive it, should we wish to."
Hill nods. If she's overly concerned about the 'life' of the machine, it's not evident. "See if you can make sure it won't blow up on us during transport." Fingers crossed and all.
Steve tips his head in final acknowledgment. "All right. I'm going to see what I can find in the woods." And he heads back out of the restaurant to go TRACKING. In vain. Sad. :c