tushanshu | [video]

[video]

[Hey folks, it's Nita! She's back and seems a little the worse for wear--her hair and skin are looking dry, and she's not nearly as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as usual.]

Uh, hi everyone. I'm out of jail. [Obviously. And she's displaying no awareness that leading with that might give new people the wrong impression.] I'm fine. Evandau just wanted someone to harass about the cloning facility. [She's checked the network and seen that Percy went public with that.]

I might be butting in here [and she clearly doesn't care] but has anyone taken any technological steps to remediate the ecological damage? [Nita does not usually break out words like "remediate."] I ran some numbers on carrying capacity, and it's not pretty. [She holds up a sheet of paper covered with equations in her handwriting and a truly terrible overhead drawing of the turtle labeled with various scribbled notes and arrows.] I want someone to check my math, though. Mister Stark? Or somebody. I made a lot of assumptions and I probably missed something.

[Accompanying the video transmission is a text file in English that has her math transcribed. It's a back-of-the-envelope solution based on a lot of conservative assumptions and oversimplified in places, but all the calculations are right, and Nita clearly knows a lot about ecology and the math behind specific problems like soil erosion and agricultural output. The file does not, sadly, include ASCII art of her turtle diagram.

Nita's conclusion is that Keeliai is in trouble unless Something Is Done.]

Anyway, I'd be interested in talking to the engineering and science types about this, 'cause I think we can at least buy some time even if we can't fix the underlying problem.

encrypted 30% to the water-type pokemon she knows about: Arthur, Mera, Kaldur, Percy, Septimus, Amon, Tarrlok, and Finnick.

Okay, this is gross. We've got to do something about the water quality or half of us are going to get real sick, real fast. If you're free tonight--who am I kidding, of course you're free--meeting at my place. I've got some ideas, and I want to hear yours.

encrypted 30% to Kon

Kon, can I ask a favor? Will you fly me out to the ocean? I was going to go for a swim here, but the water is all completely nasty and I'm not even sure I want to breathe it, but I really need to re-hydrate, and flying just dries me out more and I don't want this to take forever.

[OOC: Anyone capable of hacking the default encryption, go ahead! Nita just hits the button labeled ~~"Batman please read this"~~"private" and calls it good.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Your math looks right to me. [And although Bruce knows a little about ecology, he's not nearly at the level her work is at, and he's somewhat intrigued despite himself.]

I... think I count as a science and engineering type. What exactly are you looking to do? Repairing environmental damage is a broad umbrella.

Doctor Banner!? Of course you count as a scientist.

[Hi this obviously non-human woman you've never met appears to recognize you.]

Well. I'm a little out of practice, [he says diplomatically. It's hard to feel like a scientist when he primarily does his work on a laptop held together by duct tape.

He raises a hand to rub at his neck.] Um. How do we know each other? Future or divergent timeline?

[Dude you are so smart don't sell yourself short.]

Could be either. [She thinks for a second.] D'you know a man named Namor?

[They threw down back when it was still Tales to Astonish, man.]

[It's Bruce, selling himself short is what he does. And he's never liked to play up his intelligence, anyway.]

No... Never heard of him. If it helps, I'm from 2009.

Oh, are you from Cap and Iron Man's timeline? [She sounds a little sad.]

[It takes him a second to put that together, because he hasn't met Steve yet, but there's pretty much only one answer.]

I think so. ... Sorry if you were hoping for someone else.

It's not that. Cap--my Cap, not the one here--is an old family friend, and I've been here for eight months now, and the homesickness is setting in like crazy. Sometimes it just hits, y'know?

[Even at her worst, Nita is better at emotions than Bruce.]

[That's not exactly hard, Nita... But he's not doing too badly right now at being empathetic. His expression softens with understanding.]

Yeah. I know. [The first time he'd seen Betty after six years had been like a physical punch to the chest.] I wish I could say it got better.

Is there anyone you know here?

[She has to think for a second.]

Not from my timeline. But it's not like I haven't made friends.

[Nita can make friends with practically anything.]

No, uh, I'm sure you have. [He knows it's not the same, but. He doesn't want to make things more depressing.]

You seem to be doing pretty well for yourself. Even if you were. In jail.

It's not even close to the first time I've been a prisoner, Dr. Banner.

[Nita acts like a perky teenager and it hides the fact she's made of steel.]

[He had a feeling from how much work she'd put into her calculations that she had to be more than she seemed, so he isn't too surprised.]

Can I ask... what happened? This time. [He's worried about what they might be jailing people for.]

[She is majoring in environmental science at Empire State University! And also is a corporate board member, for-real princess, and superhero. Because comics.]

Long story. But okay, Cliff Notes version: the city got attacked by zombies and there was damage to the shell, which might be related to the problems now. We're not sure and the Palace isn't saying.

Whichever it is, while the kedan were working to repair things, some of the mystical barriers that keep us Foreigners out of places the locals don't want us were down. A few of us went swimming underneath the turtle where there's usually a barrier, and we found a cloning lab. In the tanks were copies of Foreigners. [This doesn't seem to bother her much.]

We couldn't verify if it was everyone, because the kedan found us and blew the place up. We made it out and got the kedan out with us, but the clones were all killed. [Not "destroyed." "Killed."]

Later, after we'd gotten back to the surface, Evandau--he's the commander of the guard--picked me up on a trumped-up blue law charge to see what he could get out of me about the whole thing. Worst he had was trespassing, and even that was shaky with the barrier down, so eventually he decided he had better things to do and let me out.

[Shrug.]

[Comic characters have more than 24 hours in their day, seriously. It's the only explanation.

Zombies, okay, he can go along with that, why not. But the next part she's saying--] Clones? [He's visibly alarmed. Not that he protests the use of the word 'kill' instead of 'destroy', or that he has anything against clones, but because his mind immediately jumpts to, what if someone tries to clone him? Bruce doubts it would work, but the damage done and the lives lost in the attempt... He doesn't want to be responsible for one more weight on his shoulders.

He hurriedly adds an encryption to the conversation, running a program he'd thought to set up yesterday. He's not especially skilled with computers, but he knows specifically how to encrypt things, and it's already coming in handy.]

I'm-- I'm glad you're okay, I just-- do you think they're making more? [He realizes she must already know his situation, and goes on, sounding tense,] I don't have to tell you that trying to clone me won't end well.

[He's still roughly a hundred times better at it than Nita, who's 1. not a supergenius and 2. from the early 90s.]

Yeah, messing with the Hulk is never a good plan. [Nita shakes her head. People just don't learn.] The lab got blown to bits. I don't know if they have another one.

[She hasn't heard that new arrivals appear in the Palace instead of washing up onshore now, which suggests there's a secondary lab somewhere.]

[The early 90's, that's rough. Bruce would help if he was asked, just saying.]

Let's hope not. [He exhales, realizing he can't do anything about this now.] Somehow no matter how much precedent there is that they should just leave it alone, no one ever does.

But maybe the cloning is a clue to... to what's going on. There has to be more at work here than they're telling us.

[Nita doesn't actually have any secrets. The worst thing someone hacking her encryption could do is ruin a surprise party.]

Oh yeah, the Emperor is all kinds of shady.

[Wow. Bruce couldn't start to contemplate that kind of life... Not even a tragic past, Nita??]

Remember those days when we used to trust the government? [he quips, voice dry.] I don't.

[Her mother was murdered in front of her when she was a preteen. But it's not a secret.]

I trust my government. I'm from Atlantis.

["Her government" is her cousin the king.]

[I think you're betraying the rules of having a tragic past, there.]

Must be nice. Atlantis is... what it sounds like?

[He's pretty curious about her, since she knows all about him already.]

Probably? We live underwater. [She turns her head and makes the gills on the side of her neck flare out the way someone might wrinkle their nose.

Try not to think too hard about water-breathing mammals, Bruce.]

[He's thinking about it and trying not to, because the gas exchange, how does that work??]

You live under... Really? Are you living there here? [He can't help but be curious.]

[Where does all that extra mass come from when Bruce turns into the Hulk? Some questions have only technobabble answers.]

I sleep in my pool sometimes.

[Oh, he's thought about that one, don't worry. In excruciating detail.]

Is that... comfortable?

And there must be a lot of you at home if you have a whole government, right?

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[video -- 60% encryption] oops I totally lost this notif

[video -- 60% encryption] it happens!

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