1965-03-03 - Government Ethics and Public Rights
Summary: What it says on the tin.
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fitz kitty wanda 


Fitz actually left two messages to Wanda asking her if she had time to talk. Fitz usually only rang up the team when he was building something for them. It was what it was. Off to the side in the lab was plugged in a small ez-bake oven. He chewed on the cookie thoughtfully while waiting. "Seriously, Kitty, you need to try these. I have no idea how but they turn out so good."


The Maximoff scion — elder of them, by a few years, over the other Maximoff enrolled in SHIELD — rarely appears in HQ. She has an uncanny ability to dodge their finest scanning and reconnaissance, and certainly no attempt by Nick Fury or other higher-ups can force her to appear when she doesn't want to. A message from a tech is received with customary extreme distrust, paranoia-levels of suspicion sufficient to give the guards itchy feelings between their shoulders for the next eight hours. She shows her pass to slip inside, shrinking along the route.


Kitty looks at the cookies, raises an eyebrow, shrugs, then reaches out to take a cookie. "What exactly is going on Fitz?"


Fitz was spinning on the lab stool idly while something in a centrifuge was whirring and processessing. "Well first you have toputthe batter in teh tiny pan and then the thermal energy off the bulb insi-… oh." Yeah not how are cookies made. "Agent Maximoff, Katherine Pryde. Kitty, Agent Wanda Maximoff. I know you don't usually come into the office but I was hoping to glean some perspective. How up are you both on current events?"


Proof that truth is stranger than lies, the fact two great scientific minds are linked together considering a child's toy. The dark raspberry leather coat wrapped around her identifies the Transian sorceress better than any badge, shoved away after the infinite scanning requirements end. Loose chestnut hair falls around her in dusky shadows; full disclosure provided by the garnet-studded headband reveals her closed expression in all its skepticism. "Miss Pryde," she murmurs. "Agent." Yes, that's to Fitz. Calling her anything else is apparently up to the eye of the beholder, no instructions given. The heavy accentation of her voice resembles the crossroads of the Balkans she hails from: one part Slav, one part Latinate. "I know the world is not a happy place."

But of course she would. She's the beating heart of the universe.


Kitty has a very bad feeling about this. She frowns, "Not a happy place is an understatement." She looks at the cookie before taking a bite and chewing contemplatitely. She takes the time it takes to chew and swallow to observe both her lab partner and Agent Maximoff. Very carefully she says, "Leo, what did you want to talk about."


Fitz was a good kid and he hoped, hoped he was a good man as a result. Some things were difficult to do became life… is messy and the world, as Wanda out it, is not a happy place. "I wanted to talk to you both because I have a ethical quandry and I was … well I wanted to talk to you both because I value and respect your social and intellectual intelligence." Huge for the 60's but he was progressive in that facet. He took a deep rbeatha nd offered to them plainly, as a scientist, "We have situations cropping up on agents' assignments and as you know Sci-Tech has been tasked with looking after ways to keep our agents safe in the field. So this isa recon question of evaluating what constitutes recon and what is too far?" Now he lookd concerned as he should offering to them, "Science for the sake of science whouldn't be at the cost of humanity to protect humanity."


One better give her time to translate, though Wanda stays silent. Her laconic nature fits well with the scientific community, but the lambent intensity burning in her honey-gold eyes typically reads as disquieting. Double that over for the fact she never smiles, such there's a running pool among lower string agents for how long it may be before she's caught doing so. Currently the shortest odds are on 'two years.' Long silence prevails after Fitz stops speaking. As far as she's concerned, it may be better to start talking around her. No telling how long it will take her to tramp over the English and understand what really is being said.


Kitty frowns, she has a very bad feeling about this. A sinking feeling that she really hopes she is wrong about. "Situations cropping up in the field? Cost of humanity?" Kitty turns to face her lab partner more fully, ignoring the presence of Wanda for the moment. "Leo, is this about the project Agent Fury came to see you about." She sets the cookie down, crossing her arms across her middle and hugging herself, "The one you didn't want to talk to me about earlier?" Her earlier frown has shifted to a concerned, worried expression. "And I'm guessing there is something you don't like about it." She quickly steals a glance back at Wanda. "And it has something to do with both of us?"


Fitz squint to Kitty with a faint pout, "Stop.. doing that and lemme finish a- yes. Yes it is." He sighed and looked to them for direction on this. "So the situation is simply this: With Skrull, the operation in Russia, and other things Division's been looking for a way to better assess the threat opponents our field agents run into. And like that's R&D's job is to keep our agents safe, however… I'm honestly on the fence. I don't know something that detects the nature of a biological designation would be feisable or ethical. Sure the tech may be there but should we trying to develop it. I'm trying to figure out any sort of way something like that could be ethically responsible and not abused to some crazy end. As… individuals with insight into these things I wanted to ask for… help? Perspective? I'll say I've made a lot of things but this I'm not sure about, especially if I'm not the one affected."


Slowly, the brunette parses through the statements and reactions. The luxury of emotion is not one she ever displays, though the deep well of passion plumbs fathoms measured in miles rather than yards, or kilometers instead of meters. (All hail the metric system!) Her reserve deepening, a winter storm swiftly accelerating to whiteout, she folds her arms across her chest. "You make a thing that says 'human or not human?'" Oh, this is not a safe road to walk, not at all.


Wanda may be the unhappy no-fun ball.


Kitty begins to pace. Mind racing, "Is that what was asked for?" she turns sharply as she reaches the edge of the room, "A device that can identify human or alien?" she shifts direction again, "No, that's not quite it is it? You wouldn't be talking to both Agent Maximoff," she again glances in Wanda's direction confusion flickering across her face, "and myself." One hand comes up to rub her chin as she paces and thinks. "Limited application anyway, since aliens are rare. And they sure as…" she pauses "Sure are not topical." She stops moving, again turning to face Fitz completely, "Mutants are topical. Is that what he asked for? A way to identify mutants?"


Fitz shook his head and replied in Russian «"I've made no such thing. A human is as dangerous as anything else. Just differently so."» He held up a hand to buy a moment, "Noooo one has built anything. Someone up the chain of command was asking for something to identify people in the field for power potential. My problem with this is, yes, with the anti-Mutant sentiments the paper is putting out my fear is that something capable of doing that stands too great potential to be abused. Like words, once the technology is out there?" The concern on his face was evident and the inventor in him? Sure could possibly make something, but this was a huge crisis of conscience for him.


Russian Wanda knows, far, far better than English. Whether she admits it, her files contain that granule, as well as the warning to stop offering her any kind of deli sandwich from Katz's. The pickle at least is a welcome thing. Her gaze stitches sharply left to right, between Fitz and Kitty, reading them and the air around them as much as she formulates her own responses. "A tool to protect now is a weapon against us tomorrow. The government changes. Power changes."


Kitty nods in agreement, "Agent Maximoff is right." She sits back down, picking up her cookie. "And You're right to be worried, Leo. The idea of tech like this keeps me up at knight." She reaches up with her free hand to touch the golden Star of David around her neck. "SHEILD directors might have the best of intentions now, but what about tomorrow? Or the day after that? And tech like that won't stay a secret." She fiddles with her cookie, before setting it aside again. She clasps both hands in her lap before continuing. "The government is already talking registration. With tech like this out, how long before registration isn't enough anymore? Before it becomes internment? Or worse." She looks up at Fitz, "I'm guessing that's what you meant by loosing humanity trying to protect it? Because I think that's what it is."


Fitz sat in his labcoat and thoughts. Fingertips pressed together as he sat and just listened. Finally he modded looking… relieved?! A heavy sigh left his chest. "I want… to keep our agents safe… but how we do this matters. We can't afford to foget this. Systemically this is bigger than a gadget. I would like, if ye all are open for thought on this, helping find an alternative solution to hlping our agents remain adaptable without sacrificing our ethics or the exclusion of groups."


"Ask if Berlin was safe. Munich. Vienna. Bucharest." The scattering of eastern capitals tumbles from the witch, inflected by their proper accents, mingled on the backbone of dark mountains and mysterious byroads. "No. Give this to a man who charms crowds, you have a disaster. Did no one learn? Twenty years ago they said people without yellow hair were polluted and put them into fenced camps." A long pause lasts there, her voice hard and edged, forged from the cooling embers of the charnelhouses of Europe. "Or the ovens. Bad science, we say now. But who says it in the future? The voices may be dead."


Kitty sighs, "Of course I'll help develop tech to keep the field agents safe. But I won't build a mutant detector." She picks up her cookie again. "You know, thinking about it, a detector in and of itself wouldn't be too useful for keeping an agent safe." She emphasizes the word safe, "After all, knowing that someone has powers doesn't tell you what kind or if they are trained or latent abilities." She takes another contemplative bite of cookie, thinking over the problem. "So if keeping the agent safe is the goal, I think we need a solid defense." She looks at Fitz, eyebrow raised in question.


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