"This is a very interesting thought experiment Phillip but it does have a problem at it's very core. You can't take all of the CK out of someone. Trust me, the office has been trying. No matter what there is always some left, even if you lop some off and stick it in someone else." He poked one finger out and touched the scar on Bernard's head.
"It is not a lump some gain or loss. If we gave all our energy to this duplicate when it seeped out it wouldn't get lost in the air it return to us, at least if things worked like you suggested with the power theft."
This message was last edited by the player at 23:48, Thu 02 July 2015.

The other doctor nodded, "Yes. I have lots of thoughts. Sometimes some are wrong, or don't line up with reality, or are complete fabrications around a single conceit that I can't rid myself of, like you being related to the Man who showed up."

He turned to look over at his teammate, "Rod, could you sample and sequence the DNA off the street and the blood mister Gray left in the restaurant?"

Rod Sunk even deeper into his churning metal chair, "Well... I've already sat down."

"I'll give you a dollar."

Rod jumped up, the chair folding neatly into his back, leaving a pair of diesel smokestacks with excited blue flames shooting out of them, "HOT DOG, A DOLLAR! YOU GOT IT!" He leapt away with haste, unfolding a set of rubber tires from the bottom of his feet as he squealed off.

"Good luck finding blood from the attacker." Liam looked more then pleased still, chuckling under his breath. "He didn't look quite flesh and blood when we took that energy shot in the face. Though, I did worryingly see Tom bleeding." Liam watched Hot Rod vanish and returned his attention to Phillip.

"Interesting choice to send your guardian away if you are afraid that I am going to kill you."

He looked Liam dead in the eye, all his timidness gone  "I doubt you'd speak candidly in front of a walking recording device."

"Hard to speak candidly at all when your boss is a psychic." He replied still smiling. "Or when knowing that the last time we caught an interesting meta they had her on a butcher's table and kept cutting out her bits to see what that would do before sticking them in all manner of people. Of course I don't hold that against you, you were not in the test group that knew what the surgery was really doing."

He shook his head 'no' in agreement, "I didn't know. It was a horrible thing to do, to everyone involved. Like the Nazis. The test group that knew what was going on all rejected, I noticed. Survivability must have something to do with attitude. Like Captain America."

Phillip stared off into the distance a bit, thinking. For him, he was quiet and thoughtful for a long time. "It really devalued her Organs, having only one surviving team. Got her out in the field again. Meeting people. How much control do you have over all this?"

"What makes you think I have any control Dr Bernard? I am one man, an adopted Gray who worked for this system before it even was a system. I got snapped up before even the illustrious Dr Crab knew what to think of everything going on. I am under constant suspicion by not just those closest to me, but by jealous co-workers who do not even know of my connection to the Gray house. I am regarded as a monster on a leash by my own father who see's me more as a beloved trained tiger rather then a house pet. It only takes one mistake for a tiger to kill it's handler." His smile as gone now as he spoke.

"What you are suggesting, that this is all some big conspiracy, that I'm some how pulling the strings. That isn't feasible. I'm constantly watched. When could I contact anyone? Why would I ever do anything as obvious as have a double date night that turned into this...this fiasco. All I wanted tonight, was to have dinner with Tom, and that was taken from me. Now I don't even know if I'll be able to see him again or if even the idea of me going near him again won't set off some hit list on me where Shooty will have me in his sights next time."

"No one in their right mind would have planned tonight. I had no control over this, not unless you can come up with some reason for why I'd risk everything to try and empower some supposed duplicate."

Phillip thought again, though to most other people an imperceptible amount of time passed. Nodding, he understood, "So it was either an accident, or you were using the duplicate as a cover for something that happened. We'll probably never figure out what you were covering up at this point, if that theory is true. There's so much evidence lying around that we'll never get what's genuine and what's distraction."

"Dr Bernard, meta's started out as very rare phenomenon. But as each day pass there is more and more around. And as that number grows the bio-static grow more desperate to remain in control. Now, you are what had been called a designer meta despite the fact that no one had any control over the abilities you got really, only the fact that you would get them. How long until that control system starts to crack down on you? How long until they stop caring that they made you what you are and you've played by all the rules they have laid out?"

"No time. It's already happened," He could see where this was going, Why Liam had done what he did, and for now at least, he empathized.

"Yeah, okay, I'll help." It was as simple as that, just saying yes. Well, the whole thing was very complicated and deadly dangerous, but saying yes was always simple.

"Well then Doctor, how would you like to come down to my lab back at headquarters and have a look at my CK experiments?" Liam never invited anyone to demonstrations of his work in his lab, only to the large viewings he had to do with the final products. "I think there are some things you would be very interested in seeing."

"That's be really cool, thank you. I'll arrange a time after we are done here. We are a kill team, not pursuit. Once we don't find our target we will disperse. Do you need a ride to HQ? We've got some empty seats on the teleport, though if you wanted to stay in this area, I couldn't blame you."

He subtly nodded his large head over to where Prodigal was being interviewed by Skipper.

"I...would like to remain, thank you." He nodded his head in return. "I would like to make sure my date is mostly whole and if tonight has been completely ruined." There was a sad sigh that followed his words as he turned and left to go and join Tom.

There was a fair amount of blood on Tom's white shirt, no doubt having ruined it for good. Liam be surprised if one of the medic team didn't try and bag and tag it for the lab.
"Are you alright?" He asked interrupting the conversation with little fanfare. "Oh god, your throat.."
A dark bruise had blossomed over Prodigals neck from where he's been in a choke hold although his nose at least had stopped actively bleeding.

"Believe it or not, I've actually felt much worse before," Tom shrugged, smiling, "But I think my nose is going to be crooked forever, now."

His nose was swollen and tender, but definitively broken. Canting to the right, towards the bridge it suddenly jagged back to the left, making a slight dog leg shape.

He turned back to face skipper, "I'm sorry, but I can't tell you. I need to sort this out on my own. He's too dangerous to simply 'take out' and I believe that he didn't want to injure anyone. He took steps to prevent collateral every time, and I'm going to respect that by doing so in return when I face him again."

Skipper sighed, "You do hear yourself, right? 'Face him again' doesn't sound like polite discourse. I won't press the issue, but I think you need to be very careful what frame of mind you bring to the next meeting between the two of you. You might have had him on numbers today, but you won't be without scars. There's a lot to think about before you go and pick a fight with someone of this level, is all I'm saying."

"Funny, I remember something similar begin said over the first Atomo event." He tugged on Tom to request he leaned down. "Let me see the break." He winced as he looked at the swelling. "You didn't set this right. The septum will deviate if it heals like this."

Taking Tom's larger hands in his he lifted them up to the man's face. "I'm going to help you fix it." He instructed softly. "This is going to hurt, but I'll guide your hands. Just like what happened with Sheep." He rested the man's fingers along his tender nose and over laid his on top of them. "C'mon. It'll be fast. Two motions, To the side and then down."

With a sympathetic smile he pressed on Tom's hands with his own. "One...two.." Click. He pushed Tom's nose to the side and into place and then pressed down with his thumbs to set back into position with the cartilage. Click. "Three. There we go, good job, it's ok." He tried to sooth as he felt Tom writhe under his hands.

Tom's eyes rolled back in his head as he squinted them shut in pain, "Great Scott that hurts. Hurts worse since I know it's coming, too. Agh, I'm okay. I'm okay." He also didn't say anything to the effect that his hands weren't the one that set his nose just now. Especially in front of a killer like Skipper.

He left her warning uresponded to.

Liam kept his hands over Tom's for a time, letting the warmth spread into Tom's nose until he was certain the man's regeneration ability had kicked in and set the brake in place properly. "We can get you some ice for the swelling if you think it will help."

Liam glanced to Skipper who was still waiting and nodded his head. "If you are done with him Commander I would like to finish my date."

"Hunh. I always assumed they used some kind of a machine to reset your nose. Makes sense that could could do it yourself." To Langley she shrugged, "Feel free to finish your date. Looks like this is going to be our first 'one that got away'. I guess everyone needs one."

She was taking their failure in stride, possibly because their mission was a nebulously defined call for help from a panicked field officer followed by requisite cleanup operations. Also possibly because Skipper took everything in stride.

Liam pulled Tom's hands down from his face but kept them in his own. "Hey, lets go back to your place, I know of a local pizza place that supposedly delivers to the moon. And I think things might be a fair bit quieter up there."
He smiled  playfully as he gave Tom's hand a squeeze.

"I also bet you don't want the Cape Tugger getting any photos of you all mucked up like this."

Tom put a playful hand over his brow, feigning sadness, "Oh, no! I might have an ... non-photogenic picture! It would be a first. My career has ended." Tom grabbed Liam's hands back and looked up, "Alright, hold on."

To those on the ground, there was only a 'woosh' and then nothing, as if they had teleported away. The very astute would have been able to look up before they took off and see the blur they made across the sky at many times the speed of sound.

Liam only saw stars. Stars in his vision from the acceleration and Stars in front of him as the hissing airlock closed.

He was on the moon.

He was on the moon and it looked like a mancave.

Trophies of all stripes lined the walls. Signed comics, movie posters, props and memorabilia, and favored toys sat on shelves and lined white and black and red space station walls, partially constructed of carved moon rock and partly of ultramodern polymers and alloys.

Tom looked proud, "What do you think?"

It took a good long moment before Liam good look away from the airlock window from the stars to see the room. He felt a little wobbly in the knees as he held on to Tom as though he was afraid he'd float away despite the feeling of artificial gravity.
"Wow. Just wow Tom, I can see why Moon Base isn't normally first date material. Don't want people lusting after all of this."

He smiled and took his first jellied step into the display room as he looked around at the collection. "Ah, now this is a toy I remember." He stopped at one case. "This was around the house back in the day, I'd always wondered what happened to it." Generally when children we adopted they didn't take toys with them but the toy in question, a little off brand superhero knight, had been Darren's favorite when they were small. He must have given it to Tom before he left.
"Who'd of thought the great Prodigal was stealing from Orphans."

"It's not stealing if it is given. I bet Darren doesn't even remember it, though. His 'friend' Ultra-Mantis is still back at the orphanage, I think, unless Darren kept it after we Traded. I actually have a whole shelf full of toys that kids have given me to 'keep me company on the moon'" He turned and gestured to a shelf overflowing with bears, dolls, action figures and blankets.

"It helps me remember what I keep the image up for."

"Oh yes, Mr-why-is-a-toy-so-sharp Mantis. Darren actually has a scar from that thing from a time Valerie threw it at him while they were playing." He chuckled at the memory. "He was so mad at her...I think Ultra Mantis got taken away after that."

Taking a step back Liam looked over all the given toys. "...you mean a lot to a whole lot of children out there. Someone that keeps the world safe...I wonder how many adults feel exactly the same way."

"I can hear them out there sometimes, when it's quiet. When people talk to me I can hear them. More than I'd like pray to me, but a lot of them say the same things the kids say, 'Keep the monsters away, thank you for what you do, please keep doing it'. There's a lot of pressure on me. On the moon... I can't quite hear them so well. That's why the toys are here. Other times, that's why I have a house here."