legionworld | AMERICA II: THE WINTER SOLDIER

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AMERICA II: THE WINTER SOLDIER

Who| AMERICA and you
What| Doing AMERICAN things
Where| Wherever the teardrops of the bald eagle fall.
When| Freedom Day (every day is Freedom Day)
Warnings/Notes| Contains some fighty stuff. She'll be examining a crime scene, too.

Unexpectedly, part of the reputation America's gained is as something of a sim room hog. With a limited number of rooms for this kind of thing, she's often in there for longer than her scheduled time. Not out of malice, she just loses track of time, but it does lead to some people needing to walk in and tell her to cut things short at times. Some people who do have decided just to contact her on the comms from now on, since her sim room activities are rarely pretty.

Unlike the people who use it for combat training, relaxation, or pretendy funtimes, America's been told that she can use the Anywhere Machine to examine crime scenes back home. Solve the unsolved crimes. Unlike Karina and Jason, who basically played make believe, America pushes the limits of the Anywhere Machine and the sim room, giving her full access to the databases back home and the forensics technology of the future.

Anyone walking in now will see her in the middle of an assassination, frozen in time. Blood spraying out of the victim is halted in mid-air, every bullet has a colored trail leading back to its source, and America herself is speaking into a transcription stick as a hovering camera records everything around her. "MacTighe was right, the remaining brain matter was oddly cooked. A careful watch reveals..." She waves her hand and the scene comes back in slow motion, the victim's skull reassembling itself in slow motion. The bullet exits his forehead and then-she freezes it. A thin streak of light just short of the eye. She circles, examining from multiple angles. "Immediately beforehand, a precision laser thr-" She cuts herself off, belatedly realizing she has company. "I'm sorry? Did I run overtime again?"

...Yup. Whoops.

Even with all of the various forms of training the Legion did, it wasn't enough for her. America was used to being active all day, and the heaviest Legion training days didn't measure up to the Academy of Law's. So, when her schedule allowed and the sim room was taken, she tended to slip into the gym. And that's where she can be found tonight, in a sports bra and spandex shorts.

She steps up and grabs one of the magnetic resistance bars. The magnetic pull on the bar worked about as well as actual disc weights, though dropping it tended to be more hazardous. She thumbs it to about forty pounds and gets started. Partway through, she heard someone come up nearby and glances off to the side. "Hey. Do me a favor and crank this area up to about 2 Gs? Controls should be right up over there. Thanks."

God forbid she have to take a break and walk all of ten feet.

Given her powerset, one would think that America's diet would consist largely of meat. Instead, it largely seems to consist of synthetic coffee. Real coffee's available, but apparently that's illegal where she's from. So she has special synthi-kaf. Overpowering black coffee taste, no caffeine. To go with it, generally whatever the special of the day is. Today it's black bean and smoked tofu stew. It's actually quite delicious, but she's too busy reading a holo-display to pay much attention. Shame, since the food really doesn't deserve the disgusted look on her face.

If anyone can be bothered to read the text, it's a study of the Khundian justice system. 'Justice' should probably be added in quotes, since, according to the essay she's skimming, they've focused entirely on trial by combat. For everything, even arguments about bumping into each other on the streets.

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Tex doesn't really need to train with weights—the android body provided her by the Project is semi-organic, but it can't really lose muscle tone or strength. But she's here daily, pumping iron, running, and doing other forms of training. She's barely had a chance to enter the facility and here there someone asking her to do something the person could do perfectly well her own self. Tex snorts and crosses her arms, jutting one hip off to the side.

"Good thing I got here right when you needed me, huh?"

"Yes, it is. That's why I asked for a favor."

She makes it sound like the most reasonable thing in the world. After all, Tex wasn't doing anything important, was she? She'd just walked in and here America had a chance to get some good work in without breaking her stride. Granted, she could just increase the pull on the bar, but the full body resistance made for a better workout.

She shakes her head, staring at America for another moment, before she uncrosses her arms and turns to do the requested action. She flicks the switch, then returns to her cross-arm position.

"Need a spotter, too? A water bottle? Maybe some hot towels?"

The effect's pretty visible. America's entire body stiffens and jerks with the sudden doubling of weight, and the curling is a lot slower than it had been. Less warm-up, now actual work. She spreads her feet slightly for a firmer stance and grunts. "Thank you."

There's a bit of pause between Tex's question and her answer, enough for another rep before she glances over her shoulder to respond, the corner of her mouth tugging upwards slightly. "How are you with palm fronds?" She could use a breeze.

"I always break them, sorry to say," she says dryly. "How about we call that a freebie and next time I do a favor for you, we say you owe me."

Tex is always willing to collect on a favor.

"You're too kind, Texas." What kind of simp didn't familiarize themselves with mission rosters? "Next time, I'll owe you."

It seemed reasonable enough, after all. As long as Tex didn't expect her to go out of her way to return some minor little favor.

"Glad to know we're on the same page," she says. "Don't work too hard." With that, she makes her way to another piece of equipment.

"Oh, no, keep going."

North's stopped in the doorway, though it's not out of the squeamishness that some interlopers to these sessions have probably shown. He's just still getting a wide view of the moment on display, taking in exactly what's happening with an unflinching, keen-eyed interest. He gives a quirk of a smile when she stops what she's doing, stepping in a few more paces and changing his angle on the moment of gory finality frozen around her. Just a few paces, and then he stops, as if at an invisible cordon.

"Am I gonna contaminate the scene if I walk in?"

Edited 2017-03-22 07:07 (UTC)

"Mm? Oh. No." She waves her hand. "It's all holograms. Nothing on the ground here's going to be important." America gestures at the frozen beam of light. "This is the important thing anyway. Someone fried the vic's brain through his optic nerve to keep Psi Division from going through his mind after. A Judge noted the cooking beforehand, but it was blown off as a result of the ammunition used. Coincidence, but his objections were noted anyway. But now that I can see this was done deliberately, I can trace the laser pulse back to its source, see who did it, take some recordings, and notify the people who were in charge of the investigation whenever I get home." If she got home. "It just gives us a new avenue of investigation. Someone pulled the wool over our eyes, and it's time to shear that off."

Nothing worth taking away from his free time. She turns to face him, hands clasped behind her back, and gives him a little once-over before smiling slightly. "You're looking better, North. Meds take care of that knee?"

The verbiage at use isn't always familiar, and a few words definitely don't seem to have the same meaning to her that they have to him. But what she's doing, the cadence and trajectory of her analysis, give him enough of a clue as to what's happening here. He gives a low whistle, following along with the lesson in sci-fi forensics, only to have his grin turn rueful when she turns that observant gaze onto him.

"Amazing what science can do if you keep most of your blood on the inside," he quips, an easy credit where credit's due without getting too sentimental at her. There's already the unremarkable white bag in his hand, top open, that he offers over as he steps up alongside her to get a good look at the bullet stopped in midair. "Bagel? I saw you had the spot ahead of me and brought a spare."

Law enforcement officer's choice, of course.

"You're telling me." She's taken a few hits. This place seems slightly behind her world on most medical things, but it's still impressive. And he's up and walking fine, so there's probably no cause to complain.

She blinks, slightly surprised by the offer, and opens her mouth to refuse out of hand. But, no, this wasn't receiving a gift from a citizen. North was a co-worker. Not a Judge, sure, but... "You'll have to twist my arm." She just grabs one at random. It ends up being the same to her. "It's appreciated."

The laser beam is just a thin red streak, maybe an inch long. The bullets distracting from it are a little odd. Designed to break apart into seven or eight pieces upon impact and carry through from there. Not something you'd want to see in anyone's hands.

"I've seen those classes you run. I know better than to try to twist your arm," he remarks bemusedly, getting in close and looking at the round. Still intact at the moment, but he can tell it isn't designed to stay that way. He fishes out his own bagel (fresh-toasted with something that, if it isn't cream cheese, fakes it admirably) and takes a bite as he studies the scene, gesturing with the bagel as he swallows.

"How much brain was there even left for your people to study after that thing tore through?"

"At least someone's paying attention." Though a space marine is probably the last person who needs her lessons.

She waits until his attention's turned towards the scene to sniff at the bagel subtly before taking a bite. Sesame seed and onion. Nothing to complain about, but you can't be too careful. It's nice and warm, though, still soft from the heat. Very appreciated.

"Not a lot." It's an irritation, but even a Psi can only do so much. "Average Psi could do wonders with even a partial brain sample, but when it's turned into scrambled eggs..." She shakes her head. "Maybe Cassandra Anderson could've, but she was still recovering from getting shoved into one of the Chaos Day graves when we needed to investigate this." Say what you would about Psi Division, but no one deserved that.

America gestures, and time continues to rewind. Bullets reassemble themselves as they pull out of the victim's body and, thankfully, they leave that mess behind as the scenery moves to follow the little streak of laser light. Altering course slightly once it hit a glass pane and it speeds up to cover roughly a mile of distance before they finally meet the assassin in question, huddled under a blanket on top of a massive skyscraper, with the sniper rifle perched on a bipod in front of him.

She grunts. "Helluva shot." Especially using the windows to alter his aim slightly. "No wonder we didn't spot anything when we checked the perimeter."

North had watched her rundown on that particular piece of her world's history, and gives an appropriately commiserating wince and ooh at the mention of the mass grave. From listening to her, it seems like she comes from a place with either astoundingly reliable predictive and neural mapping technology or honest-to-goodness psychics. He would automatically assume the former and keep going, if he wasn't currently in a world where just about everyone is doing stuff that's essentially magic already.

Either way, that's a nightmare to put someone through, psychic or not.

He doesn't let it distract him from the rewind, and where Beeny's affect is grudging respect, his is a huff of pure, pleased surprise. "God damn." The familiar thought patterns of lines-of-sight and trajectory kindle the quiet presence of the AI in the back of his head into brighter alertness, and double-checking with him is almost a reflex, after working with him side-by-side in practice and the field for so long. "You think we could make that, Theta?"

"I dunno." The in-room projector flickers in a little armored figure picked out of magenta and blue light, standing on the empty air nearer the motionless sniper as if to better appreciate the vantage. Its voice is young and mechanical at once, tinged with uncertainty. "That rifle doesn't exist in my databases, and we've only practiced with solid projectiles."

"Tch. Fair enough." He smiles to himself, looking back at Beeny. "How common are weapons like this, where you're from?"

It doesn't even occur to her that some worlds might not have magic and psychics. She's only been to two, but with both home and here having them, surely they were common?

"Easier than you'd think on a clear day," she addresses Theta, managing not to start when it suddenly appears. She glances back to North. "Laser weapons aren't exactly rare, but we don't encourage their sale." Illegal arms, more likely than not. Excusable with the right licenses. "You're more likely to see someone with plasma weapons or bullets." She holds her bagel in her mouth, reaches down and takes the rifle out of the sniper's hand, then holds it out to York with one hand. Got some unexpected weight, largely due to the battery pack, but it seems to be mainly plastic. Designed to break down easily for easy concealment.

"Unlike sonic or plasma weapons, lasers have a longer range and, unlike regular bullets, they don't experience drop when you fire them. Environmental effects can be a pain, largely smoke, rain, or fog." She glances back in the direction of the chaos, then kneels and tilts the sniper's head up to snap a shot with her helmet cam. "You can probably guess the other downsides. Still, using glass to deflect the angle like that... Not sure I could do that. Not without computer assistance." Beeny pauses. "I'd have thought they'd be more common in your time, but I guess if everyone wears armor like that it'd be a waste of time. What do you usually pack?"

It's so easy to forget that hardlight exists, as used to basic holographic projections as North is, and in the second before his brain catches up, he blinks uncertainly as she holds the rifle out to him. But he takes it, and there's definitely some solid heft there, dimensions that he is not at all used to. He puts his own bagel down on the sniper's back, hefting the rifle up into firing position and sighting a vehicle down in the street, shifting it a few times to assess the weight and balance.

"Sniper rifle. Not to say I can't grab an SMG or a shotgun if things get hairy, though." He looks up from the scope, nodding to the little armored figure that's retreated to hover at his shoulder. "And Theta, of course. Some of the members of my team were partnered with AI. He helps run armor enhancements, trajectory calculations, that kind of thing."

America really, really hopes that the holograms in here are sanitary. They should be, but you never know how close they lean towards realism.

She nods at Theta. "I've seen Delta." Not really talked, however. Seems like whenever she meets with a Freelancer, usually Wash, they're getting offended and yelling at her. Go figure. "And met Cortana." At least that one has her head on straight. "Never had the patience to be a sniper. Judge Tutors always said that I had too much going on in my head at once, not enough focus on the target."

His form's good. Better than hers would be, probably. She's not sure when the last time she fired a weapon that wasn't a Lawgiver was, at least not on the range.

If fired, the results will probably be unimpressive. A thin beam of light released for however long he holds down the trigger, burning small holes in the car. Nothing impressive unless he manages to hit one of the fuel tanks for the car and gets the thing to explode. That would be... pyrotechnic, to say the least. Like she said, the beam's straight from the barrel, no drop due to gravity. If they were further off, the curvature of the Earth would be an issue, but not at the distance between North and his target.

He does test it out - a little hole in the door of the car. Then the tire, feeling Theta tic-tic-tic microsecond timing the penetration rates. Then up to the buildings, a series of little test shots until he narrows down the angle where penetration gives way to reflection.

"From everything you've said, I don't get the impression a lot of Judges would want to just lie down and watch everything happening." It's hardly a condemnation - he very much appreciates the value of quick reflexes and some well-placed munitions. They just happen to deliver that in very different ways.

Satisfied with the test shots, he aims back down at the street, toggling the aperture to a quarter-sized beam and burning a precise hole in a fire hydrant. The resulting high-power jet punches through the glass of a ground-level window, and he gives a satisfied huff, lowering the rifle finally and picking his bagel back up. "Oh. This thing is mean."

She watches him. Smooth. Capable. How much was the AI telling him where to go? She couldn't tell, though from the sound of things there wasn't any muscular control going on. Not quite a Blaster Buddy.

"It takes a certain mindset. Never any lack of something to do, though." She's not exactly dismissing it, either. Speaks like someone who's had good cause to appreciate sniper support in the past. "Granted, our snipers are probably a little more active than the traditional military ones. They might get set to a specific target or watch a whole area. Nothing quite deters tap gangs like watching their partners get clipped in the leg right before the catch wagons show up." And given that the rifles are just longer-ranged Lawgivers, well...

"Laser weapons usually are. Not a lot of stopping power, though." Tended to burn straight through. Oh, they'd kill quick, but... Well, he could probably understand what she meant. She wouldn't insult him by explaining.

"Seems like it rewards creativity, though." There are only so many things you can do with a bullet, in comparison, and he can imagine himself trying to get his hands on a real version of one of these sooner or later if the option presents itself.

"How many of these scenarios do you have to work on?" Idle curiosity, but it occurs to him belatedly that if she's digging up one cold case, there's theoretically no limit to the number she could rattle through.

She glances at it and shrugs. "I guess. I don't know that I'd have the time to learn all of the little tricks you could pull off with that." Mirrors? Reflective surfaces? What setting would you have to put it at so that the heat of the laser didn't just melt them before they hit? No, she didn't have the time at all.

Not that she couldn't use one, of course.

Anyway. He had a question. "I've got a few dozen cases that I've solved since my time here. Just niggling little things that I never wrapped up to satisfaction back home." She pulled out her omnicomm and projected a list. That's a mighty long scroll bar. "I had the Anywhere Machine project an image of MAC, the Main Access Computer, and the sim room recreated it, so I've pulled up every cold case we had on record. I haven't counted the scenarios, but..." A few hundred thousand, probably. Possibly even into the millions. She wouldn't get through all of them in years, probably. Even if she just watched them happen rather than try to track down every last piece of evidence. "Depending on how many of the perps are still alive, we're gonna have a lot of broken hearts come my return home."

You know, if Gwen hadn't gone through the events of Silent Horizon, she'd be losing her lunch right about now. Actually, she still manages to gag because that is a lot of detail. Her dad was a cop, but crime scenes like the one America was in right now weren't a sight she'd often lay eyes on.

Sure is a lot of blood and oh look, a skull being put back together through the wonders of the future.

"It's fine. I was just. You know. Staring. Lots of staring."

What the hell.

Welcome to Tuesday, Gwen.

"You sure? You look like you might need a bit of water." America reaches out and snags one of the glasses that had been frozen in mid-flight, sniffing to make sure it's not alcoholic. Satisfied, she scoops more of the water out of the air near the schmuck's face and holds it out for the younger girl. "Here. Sip this slowly."

...She might just be teasing.

Yes, there it was again, the urge to empty out her stomach on the floor right in front of her. The very real and powerful urge. But she had to resist.

Throwing up on a crime scene was not only weird.

But also very rude.

"Yeah, no. I think I might be good. For the rest of my life."

"Your funeral." She isn't-

She does. America just drains the glass and tosses it over her shoulder, wiping at the residual moister on her upper lip with a thumb.

...Okay, that's enough teasing. "Computer, end program." Gwen just. Didn't look like she was adapting to this very well. "Do I need to call Doctor Gym'll?"

Please don't puke on her boots.

"Hold on, give me a sec." Gwen needed a little bit to make sure whether or not food was going to stay where it was supposed to.

And while she may have thrown up in her mouth ever so slightly, that was the end of it.

"Okay. We're good."

The danger is over and your shoes are safe.

For now.

"Better in than out." She folds her arms over her chest, watching Gwen. Looks like they'll have to dance around that subject in the future. No one wants to have to clean up whatever spider-people spit out.

"Sorry I went overlong." Not for the display and teasing. She can't lie, after all.

"It's fine. No irreversible damage was done." And the food Gwen had eaten was going to safely remain inside her gut, and nowhere else. But now that that had been settled.

"So what exactly were you up to in here?" She asked.

"Were you that homesick? Or were you being jobsick, instead?"

"Cold cases." That clears things up. "There's over a thousand crimes a day committed. Large and small. Some of them, we just don't solve. Or there's side-steps we don't see at once, motivations and interferences we can only guess at."

America's voice has taken on a lecturing tone. Like she's speaking to a class full of cadets.

"I've used the Anywhere Machine to plug into my world's computers and pull up all of the unsolved or unfinished cases. I'm using the sim room to display everything it finds and examine each one at the scene. Even the ones no one was around for." She holds up her omnicomm, then taps her helmet. "I record and save every bit of evidence I discover, as well as where the evidence can be found now, so we can find everyone who hoped to get away." She smiles, small and sharp and vicious. "I look forward to bringing this technology home. Imagine how many cases we could work through."

Gwen's eyes widened slightly. She'd known America to be committed and dedicated to her work. But this was a level she hadn't seen before. Talk about being married to your job. America was eating, breathing, and sleeping in her work. It was impressive, but also kind of scary, if she was being honest with herself.

"You gonna have enough jail cells for all your new friends?"

America notes the reaction mentally, but says nothing. It's not an unusual reaction to seeing a Judge. Honestly, it's the first time she's gotten anything approaching a normal reaction around here.

It's kind of nice.

"The ones who are still alive? More than likely." She pauses for a moment, then shrugs lightly. "Chances are good at least thirty percent of them will try to shoot their way out of the situation, which will save some cube space."

Rich was hoping for something a little in-between. Not pure downtime, but some practice that was just a nice light workout. But walking into a gorefest barely phased him, despite it being unexpected.

He'd seen far far worse.

"Forensics practice?" he asked, thinking it was a sim. "Or...no."

It occurred to him she might be doing more clever than that.

"Anywhere Machine? You using it to investigate actual crimes? That's smart."

"Contrary to popular opinion, I do have to be able to think to do my job." Humor aside, she clasps both hands behind her back. Not an 'at ease' gesture. More a 'I probably outrank you, but I don't feel like pushing it, so here's me being non-threatening but still authoritative' gesture. "When I heard the Anywhere Machine could see anything with the right coordinates, I thought it might be able to give an image of computers at home. Impressively, it could. So now I'm using it to solve a few cold cases and wrap up a some open investigations on my end."

Given how often she's been in here, and for how long, probably best not to ask how many 'a few' is.

"I hope I haven't cut into your scheduled time too deeply." She knew she was probably going over, but if someone wanted to object they could. And they have. Repeatedly. Though usually the scenes they walk in on are less dramatic than this.

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AMERICA II: THE WINTER SOLDIER

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