Okay so a little more...
Los Angeles - The Bus Cargo Bay
I sighed and connected my laptop to the bus network, bypassing lockouts with ease. If there had been doubts about me being a skilled hacker, this dispelled it for May. "Okay, I'm accessing my Dropbox, and transferring all the intel I gathered to the Bus' server. It'll take a while, though, it's under a rather heavy Geo-Positioning-based encryption protocol I designed, and since I'm not in any of my pre-approved usual locales for decryption, I have to keep disengaging the autodelete programming."
Fitz had to ask, "You store highly valuable intelligence on Drop Box?"
"I've been spying, right? All spies need a drop box to put their intel." I cheekily commented, getting groans for the pun from all but Ward, who at the back, struggled to keep a smile off his face - which was weird, puns had been the only bit of humor he showed in the early days from what I could remember without getting emotional feedback. This was an opportunity for that quirk to show, and he was trying to hide it. "But no, not Drop Box, as in the cloud storage company. An actual, Digital, Drop Box not susceptible to the whims of a commercial entity."
"You know you don't sound like a normal twelve year old."
I shrugged as I cracked part of the encryption, and the rest self-adjusted to resist further decryption, though the transfer could no go on ahead. "I haven't ever been a normal Twelve year old, or eleven, or ten, and so on. I've been after these guys for years, and they in turn. I had to go to pretty big lengths to hide from them, deleting all my records, changing even my name, though that was hardly a hardship. I hated the one the nuns gave me at the orphanage." I snorted, as the distant memories bubbled in the back of my mind, but ignoring them, I continued working, constantly disengaging backups and so on. Even so, I continued to converse. "So, uh... Fitz was it?"
Embarrassed at not introducing himself, he nodded. "Leo Fitz, I'm Engineering, and you already met, sort of, Jemma. Jemma Simmons, I mean. She's Biochem. I heard about what happened in the Cage up stairs earlier," I glance up at him, and see him fidgetting with is fingers, a nervous tick I only noticed after... cuba. distrubing. So I look back down as he gets to the point. "Grant Ward, he's a Specialist, they're sort of lone wolves, very good at their job, but bad people skills."
"Yeah, he was angry because I had his file." I comment, "including the part where in a review, under people skills there was a doodle of a poop with knives sticking out of it."
Coulson, having listened in, was eyes wide as that file had only been on the server for hours when they'd picked her up, but said nothing on that, only the doodle. "Actually, it was supposed to be a Porcupine."
I just gave him the same look I'd seen him give Maria, "No, I'm pretty sure it's a poop." I look back at May, and ask, "Does the Deputy Director usually doodle in official documents? Cause, I gotta say that's really awesome."
Everyone (except Ward who was a little put out) chuckled, and then I turned back to the laptop as the process finished. Quicker that I thought, and had to remember how much more advanced the plane was, which I shared with a grin and stare at the bus.
With that, I moved to the holotable, and before Fitz could protest, with ease I activated it and started to access the encrypted data to trigger an auto decryption routine.
"Okay, I can't decrypt here, but, as I said, it's a Location-based protocol tied into GPS systems, among other things. In the case of the Bus, one of the valid decryption locations is not on the ground, but along a specific flight path." I pause, and turn to Fitzsimmons, "You know how in some flying parts of computer games, a tutorial might include flying through rings? That sort of thing. a series of locations on our path trigger each stage of decryption, from disengaging security protocols, to the final part."
"That's... pretty impressive. Who made it?" Fitz had to ask.
"I did, and when I decided that I needed help from SHIELD. For now, I need to know what they were doing in the lab they blew up. Recent Explosion I posted about. The only name I had in connection to it, the guy's been missing for a while."
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sssSKIP!
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As Lola took off, I couldn't help relaxing enough to almost nod off, though the wind kept me awake.
"So, an 0-8-4, huh? Where?"
"You're not going to ask?"
"Object of Unknown Origin. Which I kinda count as, you realise?"
"How so?"
I look at him like he's an idiot, then realise, "May didn't tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
So I explained it a little. Vaguely, enough that it is true, yet a lie, yet it's true. I pretty much went on faith that I was 'Daisy', that Cal and Jaiying were actually my parents, if they weren't then the lie is that we share DNA. And probably not, since I knew from helping some inhuman families that the post-transformation DNA was not passed on, the one part of the anatomy not altered by the change. the daughter of an actively-enhanced-at-the-time does not inherit the enhanced part. only the same potential to be. And hell, I had been injected with GH-325 twice - once in each timeline - so who knows how much my DNA has changed. My pre-change DNA had never been taken for analysis. By the time Simmons wanted to compare, what she had was too decayed, which is weird since crimes from decades ago are being solved because the DNA samples on file are still valid. It had only been the Terrigen-induced change that allowed her to see any change, and it wasn't as radical as she initially thought, unlike other Inhumans she got to monitor as they, under my guidance, went through the change.
Although I'm wondering on the effect it had on my psyche this go around. I find myself reacting like a kid one moment, an adult the next, and then there's my recollections of what happened before, and my response to remembering. I wasn't scared of Ward, in the cage. I was Terrified, enough to trigger a panic attack like I'd never had before, either timeline.
Looking at Simmons was, difficult. Seeing the bubbly girl that would in a few years be drowned out by the woman scared of enhanced people, wanting to put them down if she couldn't 'deconstruct' their enhancements. And I thought she'd been bad when I first became 'Quake'. Thank god she met Lincoln, though that interaction only delayed it.
And I'm honestly not sure I want to delay it here, whether for a long time or short. If I get my powers back, I need those gauntlets.
"Big Thoughts?"
I blink, and realise I'd gotten lost in my musings.
"Kinda. So, uh... Peru. Think we could detour on our way back to the Bus through Burbank? I need to pick up some things. Clothes, for instance." I shrugged. "I have a storage locker there."
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I shrugged on the harness, and buckled it together. I gathered the pistols and magazines and slotted them into their holsters, the weight of two Sig P232 .380ACP's a comfort after so long without. On over the harness, I put a little sleeveless jacket, padded to go around the equipment. On top, I put on a Jacket, light, loose, and I used the little ties to hold it closed. Then I grabbed my backpack, and left the locker, locking on the way out. I met with Coulson back in the parking garage, to find him closing the trunk, inside a suitcase I'd prepped earlier and sent him with.
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Peru was, mostly, the same. Though I didn't go with them, I stayed on the bus (booo!!! i was so bored that I used the time to prepare for the incoming enemy. Weapons I hid strapped beneath Lola) and when the Peruvians took over, I still had my own guns as they didn't search me. And I'd learned how to undo cuffs and had the picks already stashed in a little sleeve cuff pocket for it. And when they talked about the security protocol, I just sighed and pulled out my SHIELD Lanyard/card, swiped and went into the lab. Level 10 security beats lockdown. at their incredulous 'security protocols' protest I just told them to remember who they were talking to, when it comes to SHIELD, I'm not locked out of anything.
I let them think it was due to being a hacker.
Though that could be true.
That had been true.
Oh, and during the attack on the upper level, I had readied the inflatable without a word, and ended up shooting someone during the confusion. I dont think they saw me.
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They saw me. well, He. Ward.
My little 'we all have secrets' didn't get the response it would if he were hydra, or .. centipede, I guess.
I overheard him tell Coulson, who didn't believe him, but I fessed up. It was weird. He guessed that being shot had made a big mark on me, enough to learn how to shoot in turn. Can't be shot if I shoot first, and don't miss.
I'm not sure how to, act, react, around him, Ward. He's so different from Garrett's Ward, from HydraLeader!Ward. And he's the same with me, though because I am a little bit split-personality.
After the celebration watching the nazi raygun be launched into space (hopefully for real) Fitz used the whole 'there's a kid on the bus as part of the team' thing to watch cartoons with me, and I let him, cuz, well, he's fitz. I like this fitz, who doesn't struggle with words, nor does he skip out on stuff like this, or the little celebrations. Ward had been invited, though I think Fitz was trying to get us to 'bury the hatchet'... figuratively, not... anyway... as nice as that image is, ward, hatchet, back, no, Ward turned the invite down. He's avoiding me.
Oh, well.
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