video; mirrornet

[superposition]

[Those who've met Qubit may notice something a little different about him in this video: namely, that his skin's literally glowing. He's attempted to figure out the dimmer switch on this power, but without much success as of yet. Anyway, he's had a lot of other things demanding his attention.]

First of all, I'd be very surprised if anyone's managed to avoid hearing about Sunday's attack on Heropa yet. If you hadn't, well, now you have. Congratulations on being the last one to the party.

Second, I've more or less figured out how the assailants 'ported in. [He holds a small, high-tech-looking disc up to the camera.] These. They're conduits for a remote teleportation matrix. Analogous to receivers, in a sense. We found them hidden under the emergency vehicles present at the scene. So keep a sharp eye out for more like them. If you find any, report them to someone immediately; then disable or destroy them, if it's safe for you to do so. I can't stress that enough. What happened on Sunday had "opening salvo" written all over it, I very much doubt we've seen the back of those maniacs.

[He puts down the device and rests his chin in his hand.]

What I haven't figured out is what they did to our powers. Can anyone shed some light on that? [beat] Not literally, of course, obviously I've got that covered. For the record, I'm supposed to be technokinetic. Somehow I wound up with healing abilities, as well as... whatever this is. [He gestures vaguely at the whole ... glowiness thing.] I mean, it seems completely arbitrary, but there's got to be some connection.

Anyone else who was affected, here's my question for you. Question and a half. What power are you supposed to have, and what do you have now? With any luck, we'll start seeing a pattern, and that'll put us one step closer to reversing this. Thank you.

[He reaches for the camera, then remembers the other thing he was going to say.]

Oh, and on a related note, if anyone happened to pick up my watch that night, please get it back to me as soon as possible, before it takes your arm off. I am not exaggerating. [He is exaggerating, but not by much.]

Comments

[Video]

[crapbearer]

[ Max is still in his Green Lantern uniform, mask and all. No, he's not taking this off unless he has to. ]

Normally? Portals, and supercharging magic users. Right now? Magic power ring.

I know others didn't get off as easy as I did, though.

[superposition]

[kid it's been like 2 days wash your clothes]

So that's tied to an item as well... What happened to your hat?

Video

[driftsintobuffetline]

Glad Hermann never wants to go anywhere. How's being The Human Nightlight treating you, man? Someone should bring you to Rockefeller Center. They could use you as a tree topper.

[superposition]

[THE MOST DISBELIEF OF DISBELIEF FACES.]

Really, Newt?

[driftsintobuffetline]

What? What did you expect, really? 'Oh, Qubit, are you okay?' Dude, Hermann doesn't even get that from me.

You're okay, right? ...healing ability, that's good!

[illuminescent]

A moment, please.

I believe those are my powers, sir.

audio

[quaerit]

I swapped powers with a friend. I ought to have self-replication, and charmspeak. Instead I have something called Second Sight. I don't know how to fix it, or how it was done.

[ He can be heard clearing his throat. Ordinarily, Gansey would use video for this, but he doesn't think he's presentable enough for that right now. ]

That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I've been using that power as best I can to try and find more information about our attackers. One of the visions I've seen involved two people talking about a 'Pillar of Fire'. They compared it to the Porter, but said there was no ghost haunting it, and one of them had concerns over safety. It seems to be new.

I'm wondering if that's connected to the devices you found.

permavid

[superposition]

[Ah... this is the fellow who saw the attack coming in the mirror, isn't it? Second Sight, indeed.]

"Pillar of Fire"... interesting nomenclature. [ The Biblical association doesn't escape his notice. A device to lead God's chosen into the Promised Land... ] A bit dramatic, if you ask me. It could be related, though, certainly. Do you have more specifics on it?

[quaerit]

[ Gansey shakes his head. Qubit’s thinking along the same lines as him. ]

Not really. It took me some time to see as much as that, and I haven’t been able to drill down any further. I saw two of them talking about it, but didn’t get any faces. The room they were in looked like a gym or training area, and a man asked a woman if it was safe. I saw other visions of scientists working, making weapons. My guess would be that the woman was a scientists, and the man was a footsoldier. But that’s speculation based on what they said.

I can send you a file with all that I saw, if you like.

[superposition]

[Nods.] Please.

video | id reads "karen starr"

[boobwindow]

It kind of goes without saying, but if you need some time off work till this is sorted out...

[ And why does he have a watch that can blow up someone's arm? Qubit... ]

[superposition]

[Nonono, Karen. The question is, are you really surprised he has a watch like that?

But oh yeah he kinda forgot to call in, didn't he. OOPS.]

That... yes. I'd appreciate it. Transportation's a bit limited anyway, at present.

[boobwindow]

Are you... doing okay?

[ Is the glowing safe? ]

Video

[insatiableinappetite]

That is what all that fuss is about...?

Are these kind of...matters that common here?

[It honestly makes him glad he's managed to steer clear of that nasty business in the first place.]

[superposition]

[Nods gravely.] Unfortunately, yes. This makes two major attacks in as many months.

[insatiableinappetite]

That's disappointing to hear. To say the least.

And people are...trading abilities, correct?

[He wouldn't know what to do without his Killer Queen.]

[illuminescent]

I think I may have it, sir.

permavid

[superposition]

[He brightens (both literally and figuratively). Phew. If that technology had fallen into the wrong hands...]

Excellent! Excellent. Hold it up, let me see it.

[illuminescent]

Oh-

Oh! You're glowing.

[She holds up the watch - it looks very well maintained.]

Text; private

[pastdoesntdefine]

My power armor is missing. Whatever they did, it managed to remove it from my body. Left me behind in the undersuit, and I've not seen or heard about anyone else getting armor in exchange.

[well, she had some other powers, too, but Carolina's never really tested to see how they worked. ]

I did received a few abilities though.

private; encrypted

[superposition]

[Important objects changing hands, check. A suit of power armor is particularly large and egregious, though.]

Such as?

private; encrypted

[pastdoesntdefine]

Enhanced strength, increased vitality and reflexes. And some measure of invunerability.

video;

[helpline]

"Can anyone shed some light on that," well aren't you in luck because someone, me, can. It's radiation.

[ well technically it's more complex than that, but he's keeping it short and punchy and soundbyte. and...he is now pausing for Qubit to say something like "go on Doctor, show us how smart you are, how is it radiation?" ]

[superposition]

[ "Something like," huh. ]

You do realize that's not how radiation works.

[Look he knows Doctor Who science can get pretty dodgy, but he didn't think they'd gone so far as the whole "radiation does things other than make you horribly ill" thing.]

[helpline]

I do know that, and I do know it's entirely not radiation. I've made a biological scanner, tested it on some affected imPorts and non-affected imPorts—I still need more test subjects, by the way, it won't do any good to have a small sample size. Anyway! These alterations are similar to the alterations we get when we're ported in and are granted powers. And, because I was smart enough to write these things down almost instantly after I got ported in, the findings from the scanner closely mirror the unique radiation signature of the Porter.

Ergo, something like radiation. Now would you mind if we met up so I could scan you? [ and with that, the Doctor holds a device up to the camera that looks suspiciously like the BBC tricked out an old cellphone and hasn't managed to entirely hide the fact that it's an old cellphone. There's a glowing blue light on one end of it. ]