[PRP] Stranger Than

[TawnyAngel]

"The sky moves, it's not them- some pokemon started acting strangely and made off with it?" Aulus frowned, it sounded pretty plausible but the motive was still a mystery. "Maybe it's somehow affecting their brains so they've hauled it off to worship it or something," he suggested with a snort, and he wasn't entirely sure himself if he was serious or not. "I've not heard of any of those but from the sound of it the last two have to do with measuring magnetism from the air?" he hazarded.

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"Oh, yes, an aeromagnetic survey is carried out from an aircraft or large flying pokemon towing or carrying a device that measures magnetism, a magnetometer." He hadn't remembered it off the top of his head before but Tambery went ahead and jogged his mind by mentioning; "Is a spacecraft magnometer what it sounds like, one in orbit? I'm not sure about the acronym but I'd be willing to place a bet on it being magnetic or magnetism something-or-other detector?"  

[Gwennythe]

"Mhm. Our current, uh, maps of the planet's magnetic fields are a combination of aeromagnetic and satellite surveys. MADs are more traditionally, um, military technology, most well known for detecting submarines. But we could, uh, potentially use a variation on the idea to locate the missing meteorite. But, the aeromagnetic survey..." Tambrey suddenly looked a bit smug. "We've had surveys of the area done before. It was considered a useful factor to monitor, given the proximity to our old HQ, and it's a far simpler process," she nodded at KO to confirm what he'd said about how it was done "than a lot of people might assume. When I was, um, doing my part working on our current security 'mon project, we've been updating it as we need, sometimes it was, uh, necessary to know what other security we've used before. Only to certain clearance levels, of course, but one of our very basic points of interest was the magnetic environment surrounding us. There were things related to it that, um, well, I don't understand or know about regarding hiding /ourselves/ from similar surveys... Not important to us right now, really. Anyway. Changes in that could indicate a whole, um, bunch of different things... But, well, I bring it up now because... this means we know what the area looks like /normally/ already. We can absolutely detect an anomaly." Now she looked quite excited.

"I don't know why pokémon might have taken it, but I can think of a few different reasons. Natural or, well, not. But I think we, um, might have a way of finding it now... Um, well, if it's totally what our samples suggest, at least..."  

[TawnyAngel]

Aulus frowned thoughtfully and nodded along as Tambery spoke. "Well the Beldum family can sense magnetic fields, if we fed the - whatever you'd call it - baseline data into Aperture it could detect changes, no need for any extra equipment. My reservation there though is how aggressive the Beldum I met was, Aperture was fine at the time but it might not be if it got close to the meteorite." If they did, he still had no idea what could have taken it. Something that had been strongly affected by it? So an electric type, or something like a Beldum, and something that could manipulate the magnetic rock... He had found that screw in the crafter. "I suppose Magnemite could be responsible for moving the thing, just based on their abilities and the fact that they'd likely be heavily affected by it. But," Aulus shrugged, "that's just a wild guess. I did find a screw in the crater, let me get it out." As he spoke Aulus fished his box of clues out of one of the large pockets on his trousers and opened it up to fetch the screw out and inspect it critically.  

[Gwennythe]

"Um. That's... a good idea. They can certainly detect it, but if they can be affected, well, then Aperture would need to be accompanied and, um, gotten away from any effect ASAP... Though, every pokémon that we /know/ was affected was wild? Still, the risk is there..." Tambrey agreed.

She nodded slowly as Aulus theorized what could have taken it.
"Assuming a wild pokémon, did take it, then yes something like Magnemite could be among the likely culprits... Maybe the fact it affected them could be enough of a motive..." She tentatively agreed and leaned forward eagerly when Aulus produced the screw.
"Hum. Flat-head. Single bar." She pointed out, with a little thoughtful frown. "Blunt end. Like a little machinery bolt..."  

[TawnyAngel]

"Uh-hu," Aulus agreed with a frown. "And this was in the crater, so it was dropped after the meteorite was removed which makes me think we've got human involvement here?" He was mildly annoyed at the note of query in his voice but fukkit, as if any of them really knew what was going on. "To move something that size though using pokemon would still be the most effective method, assuming you could still control them. Maybe being coded to a pokeball has some kind of protective effect? The pokemon at the site were still aggressive even though the big meteorite must have been gone a while so either the effects were lingering, or the smaller fragments that remained were enough to cause it. In the latter case I can say pretty confidently that either owned pokemon are safe, or that it takes quite some exposure for them to be affected."

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"Well we can find that out easily," KO pointed out smoothly. "Put a pokemon from a species we know is affected into a chamber with some samples for a little while and see what happens."

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"Mmh," Aulus grunted, he didn't like the idea much but it sounded sensible. "And I'm still wondering why my green mareep wasn't affected come to that."  

[Gwennythe]

Tambrey nodded at the ball, now placed on her desk momentarily.
"Well, uh, what did you call him or her? But, we might be able to tell you that with a good look at the Mareep. It likely won't take very long to get a good look at the genome, and anything else we can test is, pretty much, simpler than that..."

She took her glasses off, fetching a cloth from her pocket to clean them for a moment.
"The bolt does suggest human involvement to me. It's, um, not a pokémon item and if it were part of something present before the impact, we'd have found more, uh... wreckage? Of whatever it came from. I think. No one reported any of their electric types acting up... Of course, I suppose people were cautious once it was clear electric types were aggressive but, um, it is notable that no one reported /their own/ pokémon behaving strangely. You might be right about the pokéballs; we do know they have some effect on the physiology of pokémon, otherwise things just... wouldn't work for us how they do..." Tambrey agreed; nodding and clearly finding it a plausible idea, then nodding again at KO's suggestion.
"We certainly have isolation chambers we could use for that..."  

[TawnyAngel]

"Well then let's make that top of the list after we finish up here," KO said decisively, there were plenty of disposable pokemon in storage they could put to use. "And though I didn't see any of it I have to agree with Tambery's assessment."

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"...Yeah." Aulus frowned and picked another item out of his little box of random crap. "Melted sunglasses," he said, holding them up for inspection. "Did somebody get themselves zapped? Oh, the Mareep though, I called it J'onn. J'onn J'onzz. Shall I let him out so you can get a sample?"  

[Gwennythe]

"I'd say Plusle for sure, at least to start. I'd rather like to test, uh, a Minun as well, just to be sure, and at least one unrelated species." The geneticist ventured.

"Ah! Martian Manhunter!" Tambrey's mouth split into a pleased grin as Aulus revealed what he'd named his green Mareep. "Yes please, that'd be very useful! And, um." She leaned forward to inspect the sunglasses, peering intently at the melted areas, winced and straightened back.

"I'm not, um, a forensics expert, but... yes. I think so. I mean, um, it might be worth running it past forensics if you wanted a detailed analysis on it, but that looks like it came from an electrical arc, almost certainly a pokémon attack, it's too focused on such a small item to be much else."  

[TawnyAngel]

"Right," Aulus nodded and pressed the release button; the green Mareep appeared promptly and looked around itself with placid curiosity. "Seems peaceful enough, I don't think he'll mind you taking a sample too much," Aulus said, patting the fluffy head with his metal hand. "And I suppose we might as well get them to have a look, forensics that is. I doubt it'll take up much of their time and having an answer for sure might be helpful." It couldn't hurt certainly.

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"So what else do we need to determine here?" KO continued, sparing the sunglasses a glance before turning back to Tambery. "It sounds to me like we have a good plan of action; test the subjects and then see if we can track down the unusual signature. Unless there are any other interesting developments here on base?"