Log - Goin' places that I've never been

[musicdied]

Who: Yelena Belova (musicdied), Winter (worthallthis), Steve Rogers (punched_hitler)
When: Early January
Where: Gloucester, Wolf Trap, and the road between
Summary: Our intrepid investigators set out to dig into the past of the Lullaby Girl
Warnings: possible mention of character death, child death, terminal illness, car crashes, cancer, altered consciousness, supernaturally-induced hypersomnia; further warnings will be added in thread subject lines if needed


Even in the best conditions, it's a solid day's drive from Gloucester to Wolf Trap, and with winter solidly set in, it's easier to break it across two days, stopping for the first night before the last of the light leaves the sky, and picking up again in the light of day. That puts the trio's arrival around mid-morning, leaving plenty of time to get the lay of the land before they can check into their hotel for the duration of the stay.

It takes a few days of careful probing with the handful of foster and adoption agencies in the town and surrounding area to yield any results, and with three likely names, it only makes sense to separate. They can cover the needed ground more quickly that way, and avoid overwhelming the people they want to interview.

It's too late to start back after that, and so they have one more night to spend in Wolf Trap, time to take one last look at anything that stands out, or to simply get some rest before heading back to the hub of chaos that is Gloucester.

Comments

lemme know if any of this needs tweaking!

[punched_hitler]

It's been a long few days, but things are finally starting to pay off. When they'd split up that morning, Steve had left to find Amber's last foster parent. He feels for the guy, especially once it's clear he'd been genuinely trying his best.

He's quiet and thoughtful when he gets back to the room that night, slipping in and making sure the door shuts behind him as he says, "Well, I got a few answers that mostly lead to more questions. Any luck on your end?"

[musicdied]

Yelena's sitting cross-legged on the slightly-rickety chair at the desk, sorting through her notes and occasionally scribbling cryptic notations in the margins. She looks up when he enters, offering a small, rueful smile. "A lot of the same. A few pieces of the picture are clearer now, but that just gives us more places to dig."

[worthallthis]

Winter's feeling less confident about things, but then, he's not the spy here. He's the guy they send in when they want quiet kills, not the guy they send in to get intel. Also, he feels uncomfortable about his conversation with the dying woman-- not from her answers, but from the place she'd been in. From herself.

He's standing by the window, peering out through the mostly-closed curtains, and glances over when Steve comes in. "Do we even know where the new places are to dig?"

[punched_hitler]

Steve's no spy, either, to be sure. And it hadn't been an easy conversation; he can't imagine it was for any of them. "I'm not sure I do," he admits, leaning back against the door with a sigh. "Although I guess there are some incidents I learned about that I want to check out. Her foster father mentioned a lot of accidents that just... seemed to happen to other people. I'd say they're probably unrelated, but."

He doubts it. "Guess the first place to start looking for that is the internet, though." He cocks a wry half-smile. "Going to the library is probably a little old-fashioned."

[musicdied]

"Not necessarily," Yelena says. "The records would all be digitized, but the library is still a community hub. If there are people working there who were around when the accidents were happening, they might remember more than just the facts that make it into the articles and obituaries."

She taps her pen absently against her notepad, an idle rhythm that she halts as soon as she catches herself.

"Most of my research is going to definitely be online. According to her foster sister, that's where Amber lived her life."

[worthallthis]

"Her teacher said the same thing," Winter agrees. "And. Tech magazines. Prosthetics, she said, that work like mine." He has no idea what modern prosthetics are like; they can't all be like his, can they? (He hopes not. His hurts like hell.)

[punched_hitler]

"Huh." Steve turns that over in his head, frowning. "I don't think that's common, here," he says, meaning Winter's arm, indicating it with a little jerk of his chin. "Maybe we can find that out, too."

Although he's not sure why Amber would have been interested in prosthetics. "Her dad said she was mostly just... a little girl. Needed time and help adjusting, but she didn't get into any more or less trouble than you'd expect. The accidents - they might have been accidents, even if she was causing them somehow."

Maybe he just wants to believe the best, but he still thinks it's a possibility.

[musicdied]

Yelena's brow furrows at the mention of prosthetics, and she picks up her phone, tapping in her passcode with half her attention still on the conversation.

"Maybe," she says. "But little girls can be a lot more terrible than people give them credit for."

She should know, after all.

After a moment, she adds, almost absently, "Doesn't Copernicus deal with mostly medical technology?"

[worthallthis]

"You and the others weren't terrible," Winter says firmly, knowing exactly where that line came from. "You were good girls." They were very well-behaved and perfectly gentle, with him, thank you very much.

Nevermind that they were all assassins, back then. That's not the same thing.

Also: "I don't know. Is Ava connected to Copernicus?"

[punched_hitler]

"He should know terrible," Steve puts in, with a wry little smile. "He had to deal with me."

But as far as the actual conversation goes - "They don't... do they make stereos? For sleep? Her dad mentioned one, said it'd put her right out. Called a Quicksilver."

[musicdied]

She's not going to win, two against one, even if she doubts Steve knows even half of what he's arguing against, so she lets it lie. That's not the important part, anyway.

"Maybe," she says. "They made those masks that we used for the lucid dreaming seminars, maybe they make other sleep devices too. It shouldn't take too much searching to turn that up."

[worthallthis]

Winter just doesn't like hearing Yelena put herself down. He's touchy about it. "If so. Then whoever's behind that might have been what turned her to the entities somehow." Which is not making him feel great about those masks. He never used his, it made him feel too much like he was about to go on a mission, but other people did.

[punched_hitler]

Steve nods, frowning. He doesn't know exactly how turning to the entities works, precisely, but it sounds like it'd be a hell of a lead, if Yelena does turn something up.

He hadn't liked those masks, but he had used one, once or twice. Now he feels kind of gross about it, but also glad he hadn't done it more than just the few times. "I know Tony likes to give me a hard time for hating technology, but this does not make me more amenable to trying new things," he points out.

[musicdied]

"Maybe. But they might also be a target. Either way, it would be a potential lead."

She's still tapping away on her phone. After a few moments, she looks up with a grim little smile. "The Quicksilver stereo predates Copernicus the company. But Zyrian Steel did work on its development."

[worthallthis]

"Mister S," Winter suggests with a frown. It's the closest thing to a lead on that name they have so far, anyway. And Steel has come up more than once in the past, related to other things that have happened.

[punched_hitler]

"Well, that sounds disturbingly like something worth following up on," Steve agrees. Because there's coincidences, and there's things like this. (Honestly, he wonders if anything in this world is a coincidence, ever. Probably not. Especially not when it comes to the types of people and situations they're dealing with.)

"I don't know anything about him, though," Steve admits.

[musicdied]

"He is stupidly rich, and owns a tech company that makes a lot of medical devices. And swooped into Wolf Pen as soon as FYRE was driven out," Yelena supplies.

She sets her phone down on the desk and tips her chair back. "He has enough ties to ADI that we'll have to be careful with our digging, if we don't want to risk him being tipped off."

[worthallthis]

"Could just be economic rivals with FYRE and took advantage of the moment of weakness," Winter suggests, which is oddly capitalistic of him to know about. He mostly doesn't understand much about economics. But he did do some work to destabilize companies, as well, in the past, so knowing who was a big competitor to someone else was important. "But it has actual ties to ADI? Like the people there know about entities?"

[punched_hitler]

"If ADI weren't so damn squirrelly with their information..." Steve mutters, because he's starting to feel like this is definitely a case of information getting buried within departments and "need to know" labels. It's everything he didn't like about SHIELD (even before he knew they were HYDRA), and it's everything that's always bothered him about ADI.

He doesn't know what those ties are, himself, so he glances at Yelena, letting her answer that particular question. Though he also adds, "If anyone can dig without someone finding out, it'll be you."

He more than knows his own limitations, when it comes to that. "Best I could do is get their attention elsewhere."

Which is always something he's willing to do.

[musicdied]

"I don't think all of them know about the Entities. Not like ADI does," Yelena says. "But they were in Wolf Pen as soon as we left, and they supplied the masks for dreamwalking, and they've come up enough other times that I think some of them do. And maybe they're just economic rivals - but I don't think FYRE had a strong tech presence, and the way they folded..."

She spreads her hands in a little shrug. "It's like the company only existed to serve the cult, which gave them power, but would have limited their ability to be major players."

She pauses, then grins slightly. "I will try digging for information the quiet way, but it's definitely possible we'll need a distraction."