Ulric smiles grimly over towards Joani.

"Pleasure to see not everyone has forgotten that were all not armored, bomb-proof, or growable in a dish upstairs," he jokes.

"Can I come down now?" he quietly asks to those already in the elevator, or room. "I'd like to see how they organized themselves. It could tell me a good deal about there purposes of their organization."

Omar was not sure it was safe. He had never seen such a strange occurance, and many theories ran through his head. For one of the few times in his life, he was hesitant. There was definitely something wrong.

"Andrew, since your clones are expendable, why don't you send it in to examine on of the bodies. It hate to become like them." His finger pointed to the motionless people in the room. "Also, find out why they are fused to the floor."

Steve ups his glow and moves so he can shine it into the room without going in himself. He sends,

*Time Stop maybe? They might still be alive... I wonder what happens when a Temporal Manipulator Time Stop's himself?*

Upping the glow makes a few things more obvious, these are statues, or that's what it looks like from the elevator. They are pretty well done by a competent artist, but they definitely don't have the level of detail that they would if they were real people turned to stone. There are probably 20 or 25 throughout the room in all kinds of positions, the concrete appears to have been scooped up out of the floor to create them. On the other hand, perhaps the concrete was used to encase real people that would also explain the lack of fine detail. On the other hand some of the statues are of children playing and there is even a dog being walked on a leash. Some of these statuses/people don't belong in a Proteus facility. On the other hand some of them very easily could have been people you would expect to see down here.

Seeing that Omar is wisely hesitating Andrew grins as if to say, 'I told you so', and after moment sends a clone ahead.

The clone vanishes.

There is no sign of damage, no visible effect. One moment the clone is there, the next it's not. There's just a moment to react before one of the statues, a man with a tennis racket in his hand standing a fair distance away, moves. He straightens out of his backstroke and turns in place to face the group. His mouth, really just a dimple in his head, doesn't move, but a deep voice comes out of him with a thick accent...somewhere between German and Russian.

"Good morning. First, I would like to just get to know you."
Then it becomes darker and each of you feels very drained.

(PMs to each of you as well as what others can see of you.)

Omar's glowing nimbus which doesn't really provide much light to see by winks out. Over the past few years it had become so ubiquitous that it wasn't even noticed anymore, but it's sudden absence is ominous. He doesn't really shrink, but somehow he looks smaller and vulnerable.

The real Andrew standing on top of the elevator rim suddenly stumbles feeling almost ill, and almost passes out before he sucks in a deep gasping breath into lungs that are suddenly integral to his continued survival. Instinctively he tries to lash out and grab one of the elevator cables with one of his tendrils only to realize too late that there is no tendril to reach out with.

Courier's self made light vanishes instantly just before the statue speaks, and he feels suddenly very weak and slow, the grace he has known for the better part of one-hundred years is just gone. For just a moment it is all that he can do not to stagger into the wall of the elevator.


Along with the other vanished lights, those on Cody's battle armor suddenly dim to almost nothing, and the cannon attached to one arm sags toward the floor as it's weight drags it down. From within there comes a strangled croak from vocal cords that haven't been used in a lifetime.

The former President of the human race, suffers less than the others from the sudden change as he holds tight to the ladder, but he is a shell of his former self. He is still as strong and handsome man, but the nova level charisma and looks are no longer in evidence.

The woman once known as SuperGirl nearly fell to her knees as the nova created lights winked out a look of horror on her face. She looks weak and vulnerable and though it isn't as obvious as with Omar, in some ways it is even more disturbing to see. While much of Omar's sheer presence was in his strength, with Joani it was part of who she is and to see these two in such a state is nearly as frighting as anything else you can imagine.

Highest person on the ladder, Kyria really does seem least effected, but perhaps that is just her youth and not a matter of proximity.

Besides all of this, the room is now in near darkness with only a couple hand lights and Cody's armor shining weakly into the darkness. The statues seem much creepier under the circumstances, especially with one stone figure moving and speaking.

*Fair enough. I don't have to go first...I can detect danger to the rest of us just as easily, but don't stray to far...*

Along with the other vanished lights, those on Cody's battle armor suddenly dim to almost nothing, and the cannon attached to one arm sags toward the floor as it's weight drags it down. From within there comes a strangled croak from vocal cords that haven't been used in a lifetime.

"Ungh!" The sound of Cody's voice startles him more than anyone.

He drops one shoulder towards the ground with his heavy canon. First he attempts to send it back to its space-fold but if that doesn't work he hits the emergency eject system and slides it off it's cowling.

*Micahel, Lorean, are you reading this?* he attempts over the link. Regardless of whether they reply or not he addresses the tennis playing statue, he voice weak and gravelly from atrophied vocal cords.

"Who are you?"

Cody motions with his canon arm, but it doesn't do whatever he was trying to do so he lowers it to the ground and then the canon slides off with a thud in the quiet room.

After a moment a voice is heard from inside the armor, one the newer members of the group have never heard and those the older members don't recognize. "Who are you?" in a voice gravelly and unused to speaking.

From the statue comes the response, "I am Quaid," with an
odd bit of emphasis on the 'am.' Then it asks, "What do you want from me?" There is something a bit odd about the voice.

The effect to Omar was staggering; it had been so long since he had felt like this, it semed a lifetime ago. In fact, it brought him back to his pre-eruption days a century before. I am still a wrestler. If trouble comes, I can still fight. Omar readied himself to do battle.

Just then, Omar thought he understood what happened. He spoke so that those near him could hear. "Thetus's Quantum Nullifier must have been turned on."

Kyria adjusted her grip on the ladder, compensating for her balance, and shined a light down the shaft onto the others. "Is everyone alright?" Hearing the gravelly voice and metal scrapes of armor, she added with a touch of worry, "Cody?"

"Kyria! hold bac*cough cough*" Cody's warning disolves into a hacking cough worse than a centarian tobbacconist.



Cody recovers from his hacking, clearing his throat.

"Quaid." he rasps, attempting to build rapport with the strange concrete creature.

"We didn't know you would be here. Or anyone for that matter. What have you done to us?"

Joani was still struggling to regain her bearings. She looked around squinting her eyes in vain but her powers failed her. Panic slowly got the better of her as she remembered the painful encounter she had when she had lost her powers years ago and almost died. "oh no... oh please...no!", she stumbled backwards, almost falling over those standing behind her.

Andrew tumbles to the floor in utter shock. Half of his mind is crying out in utter horror at being rent from his powers while the other is laughing joyously as having an actual beating heart, breathing lungs, and more. From his prone position Andrew looks into the hall at the being known as Quaid. "H-how?" he askes unable to decide if he hould be angry or joyous.

For Steve comprehension is painfully slow as the world gets 'grey'. It's been almost a century since his senses and thoughts have been this dull. He feels weak and slow and for a long moment that stretches he doesn't understand why.

For a long moment he expects to die... then he looks at his hands and sees they are still young. Dimly he realizes that he didn't get old. Awkwardly he stands up and finds his balance.

In response to the questions about what he's done to them:

Quaid barks in an impatient tone, "Stop whining!" He pauses, then adds sternly, "I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions, and I want to have them answered immediately."

Finally he demands, "Who are you?"

"Who's whining?" Omar said to Quaid, as he took a step foreward. "I don't need my powers to kick your ass or grab a stick of metal and ram it into the holes in your head!" Omar was pissed and wanted to his vent his anger on anyone. Quaid seemed like a likely candidate.

"Of course..." Omar's voice softened. "...We could SHARE information instead. Maybe even help one another out."

((OOC: Intimidation))

Quaid hesitates for a moment, then makes an awkward saluting gesture with his tennis racket.

"Let's do it," he says warmly. He then snaps, "What do you want?"

Joani flinched when she heard Omar voicing his anger towards Quaid. She felt helpless and vulnerable and was afraid that they could get into a situation she couldn't handle. She braced herself starting to feel cold. The suit she was wearing was barely able to hold off any environmental condition or temperature. Her thoughts were circling around the trauma she had and her heart beat fast. She was truly scared.

"What happened here, Quaid?" Omar smiled to the strange man with the tennis racket before he continued. "Why is everyone frozen in place?"

From the corner of his eye he saw Joani blanching. She looked like she was going to be sick. Omar understood her shock and shot her a sympathetic wink as if to say: 'I understand your pain'.

"As for who we are?" Omar said to Quaid once more. "We are travelers in search of knowledge."

Quaid shakes his stone head and says, "Come on, don't bullshit me," in a humoring tone.

Kyria listened to Omar and Quaid, climbing down the last few rungs to stand with the others. She laid a hand on Joani's shoulder and smiled at the Paragon. They'd get through this. Powers were nice and part of being a nova, but even without quantum they were still novas. She held a hand out to Andrew to help him up if he wanted, but her main attention was on the Quaid-statue.

"Mr. Quaid," her voice wasn't loud, but it was pitched to carry, "Are you aware of the conditions outside of this facility? Of the state of this world?"

This was all maddeningly, painfully awkward for Steve. It was like the world was functioning on fast forward and he was wearing bottle thick glasses with the wrong prescription. Still some things were becoming clearer even if it was painfully slow for him to reach those conclusions.

Steve says,

"Years down here without any food, and no powers, and your speech patterns... those phrases are canned aren't they? Ergo you're not a living creature. So... Artificial Intelligence? Are you the only robot in there? Or maybe a better question is what is your primary purpose?"

Quaid replies to Kyria with a simple, "Yeah," but if he was going to say anything else it's interrupted by Steve.

When he's heard Steve's question the strange statue-man pauses again, then says vehemently, "No, it is not true."

His voice calms a bit and he asks pleadingly, "Don't you understand? I feel like I was meant for something more than this."

Steve thought, *'I feel...' is from a movie. Don't remember which it was. But maybe pointing that out to the half(?) crazy AI wouldn't be a good idea.*

Steve said,

"Yeah, actually, we do understand. You're stuck down here and not living to your full potential, aren't you? What happened? Did they leave you here to guard the place and not come back?"

Quaid, whatever he is, laughs raucously and says, "Whoever you are, get ready for a big surprise."

Much like Omar, what brings Ulric back is the belief that he can still fight. He still has his training and years of experience. That hasn't been stripped away.

As much as he wants to weep over how ... human his prideful intellect has become, there are other things he must do.

He goes to Joani,
"Calm down my love. This is a condition that we will get out from under. Hang in there."

Then he climbs down into the elevator, first checking his pistol.

Andrew cackles, "What if we don't want to? Can't you feel it? It's gone, everything inhuman, for better or worse, has been stripped away! It's beautiful!"

Andrew pushes himself upright and sits facing Quaid, "Are you doing this? Can you tell us how? Can you tell ME how?"

"Something isn't right here." Cody croaked. "Whatever that thing is it's not playing with a full deck." Cody musters his courage and steps forward toward the animated statue, trying to get a better look at how it is able to move in spite of being made of solid concrete and apparently within the confines of some kind of quantum nullifying field.

Ulric could tell that she was shivering and obviously not doing well. She looked at him but his words had little effect on her, yet she nodded at him trying to overplay her worries and outright fear.



Joani first winced and then glared at Andrew his questions adding more panic and fear to her worries. How could he even consider it? She was shaking her head nervously and looking for a way to escape... to get away from this hell.

Into the silence following the group's reaction to the statue's latest words comes a new voice...as completely incongruous to the atmosphere and tension as applause would be.

Laughter. Female laughter. It has a slightly muffled quality, as if whoever was doing it was covering their mouth to try to stop.

The statue stops moving.

A warm soprano voice calls out, "You guys are too much. All right, I'm coming over. Just be warned that I am armed, and it will work in the interference field, ok? So no funny business. Really."

Another statue starts moving then. A female-looking one that holds a stone 'gun' that fits over its forearm in a sort of sleek, streamlined oblong shape (think the ZF-1 for those who have seen 5th Element). This statue, as stone as the others, moves much more naturally and fluidly than the racket man did as it walks over beside the formerly moving bit of masonry and waves.

"I'm Meri, and this is my place. I'm not an 'AI' or an alien or anything like that. I'm a nova."

She pauses then adds with wretched hopefulness, "You all seem...kind of sane. Sort of."

Andrew suddenly stopped laughing, it trickeled off into a couple of erratic guffaws before he said, "I am now. Or maybe I've finally fallen over the edge into the abyss. Are you live or memorex? Am I sane or lost forever?" Andrew looked around but never really took his eyes off the girl who had either cured him or had been made up by him mind when the final crack shattered his sanity into dust.

Steve says dryly,

"Thanks. We get that a lot."

(To Andrew) Steve says, "You're sane Andrew. The field turned off your powers and that changed the way your mind works. Mine too, I feel slow and numb, like my mind is wrapped in gauze. You have the most enhanced mind of any of us so you're feeling it more. If either or us could Dorm we'd probably be used to this."

Steve turns back to the new nova and says,

"Sorry about that. Greetings Meri. Sorry to intrude on your home like this. We've been checking out some of the old historical records and found some indications that this place might be of interest. We'd assumed it'd have only dead baselines, not a live nova."


(OOC: Steve was lying when he called her a nova. He doesn't think she is any such thing).

"There's more records intact?" Meri asks, clearly surprised. "Where? Where did you come from? Are there more?"

In her desperate eagerness, she starts to take a step forward..then visibly stops herself, jerking back as if from an invisible wall.

"We come from Earth, I assure you." Omar says, taking another step into the room. "My name is Omar Khudikias." He put his hand out for her to shake as he took another step towards her. Hopefully a pretty face would put her at ease.

When she stopped short, Omar did likewise. "Why did you stop?" He asked.

"What? I almost walked into the..." Meri pauses, then changes tack. "Wait, what do you mean you're from Earth? Where else would you be from?"

Almost walked into what? He thought. Is she on the other side of the nullifying field? Or is there some kind of weapon set to go off at a certain place?

"You're the one who was looking at us like we were alien invaders." Omar said, trying to sound facetious. He hoped to reassure her that they meant no harm. "I am from Iraq." Omar would try to get her to open up, although he figured it would be easier for Ulric to do so. Still. Without any powers, Omar wondered how effective Ulric would be.

"Iraq?!" Meri bleated, startled anew. "It survived? But how?! How many of you are there?"

She hesitates, then adds diffidently, "Um...do I have to become muslim then?"

Joani was slowly coming to as her panic subsided. She was still shaking and her heart beat fast. She moved slowly next to Omar trying to gather as much courage and resolve as she could muster. The young woman didn't seem to be overall hostile, she was defending herself.

"We're not all from Iraq...", her voice was still shakey and she cleared her throat before she continued to speak. "My name is Supe..., ahm, Joani. Joani Reikspar. Nice to meet you, Meri."

(ooc: as a side note, Joani is wearing the Supergirl suit in black like described at the beginning of the Chapter)

"But this means...it means there must be civilization right?!" Meri demands, her voice sounding nearly in tears from joy. "Something survived! There's people! Normal people!"

She holds up a small device in her left hand and pushes a button on it.

"Oh my god, you have to tell me...what's been going on? I've been stuck here! It's too dangerous to stay out long enough to walk anywhere, and I haven't got any powers to move fast...I thought the whole world must have been destroyed!"

Her relief is almost manic in its intensity, and she comes forward towards the others, her rocky surface rippling and changing into skin and clothes as she moves.

(quantum device off! matter chameleon off!)

Ulric hopped down into the room - finally, and took stock of the situation.

"Greetings," he directed toward the stone 'nova' with a wave, "I'm Ulric Reikspar from Germany. My friends and I are from all over the globe. We've been going to various sites of promise and gathering what information and tech we can salavage in order to find a way out of this mess. We are not monsters, though taint has been harsh for some of us. Can you help us find out what is retrievable on this site?"

(OOC: It takes a minute or two but all mega atts come back. Your quantum pools are empty however and will refill at the normal rate, this means no powers for now. Cody's armor is also still out of juice, and needing to be recharged.)

The field collapsed and quantum once again bathed the area. Even as the others began to feel better Adrew cried out, "NNOOO!" He could feel his mind quickly eroding, the fury lurking at the edges of his consciousness returned as did the hunger, the inhuman hunger. Andrew fell back onto the floor sobbing, "No ... no ... I was free ... free..." Eventually he stopped and simply cried as he curled into a ball.