Kurdish Islam: Behind the Veils
This is a building for Silver Sable USA. It's not as busy as Silver Sable HQ, but some really scary things have been known to come from it.
This is its rooftop. It seems vulnerable.
Something small flies around in circles over the roof. A small boomerang sticks itself into the lock that keeps the entrance to the roof secure. The whooshing noises stop. Up and down the boomerang, lights flash.
The lock unlocks itself, and the door swings open. Across the roof, a puddle of water appears to move towards the open door...and the door isn't even downhill from it...
Across town, this is the Kurdish Shiite Mosque. (It's...not a very good name, is it?)
Peter attends, covered from head to toe. He tries not to talk to anyone. When he has to, he has KAREN speak for him. He's pretending to be a little Muslim girl.
This feels extreme, Peter knows. But then, Ms. Brant DID tell him to take risks...
He sits in a room, with a bunch of other robed and masked girls. For Peter, this is new. He had no idea Kurdish girls were so...human. He doesn't know why they can't just unmask and de-robe themselves, and start living like Americans.
Their families didn't immigrate to remember how much the Ottoman sultan oppressed them, after all...
The girls talk about a variety of things. They don't seem to notice the robotic indifference of what KAREN adds to the discussions.
From inside the front of his robes, Peter takes pictures. The camera uses a flash that isn't visible to human eyes.
The girls don't talk about the Ottoman oppression of Kurds overseas. They're probably too young (or too NAIVE, as far as Peter's concerned) to understand such concepts. But they sure seem to love living the American dream. If only they could do it outside these robes and masks...
On his exfiltration, Peter runs into a girl. She calls herself Kamala Khan. She seems smart. They sit in the mosque, with their shoes off, and have an intelligent conversation.
Or rather, Kamala has an intelligent conversation with KAREN, not knowing that Peter's neither female nor Kurdish. KAREN's Ottoman Kurdish accent is spot-on...
Peter won't get the photos he needs hanging out with this mosque's children. He needs to move among the adults freely...
He revisits his lab, beneath Ms. Reilly's block of flats. Ms. Reilly doesn't know about it; nor does her landlord. She also doesn't know her ex-nephew's the former Spider-Man. Peter would love to keep it that way.
Peter also doesn't want her to know her ex-nephew has a crush on her. Now is even less the time to talk about it; from what Peter's heard, she's STILL dating that annoying lieutenant from the precinct...
Alright; time to get started. Peter's built a fish tank in the corner. It's inspired by what Mystria and the Reality Stone did to him on the Frontier. Half of Peter admits he's been looking forward to a new need for this.
Fully dressed in his suit, he climbs into the tank, and shuts himself in. From there, the tank does the rest of its job.
The following Friday, the Kurds have Mosque. They gather in an amphitheater, around a big black cube, and worship their Allah.
Kamala's in her white robe. During the music, she raises her hands, and sings along in soprano.
Like a mite in her hood, Peter keeps a low profile. Once again, he's a thousandth of his normal size.
For the time being, Peter's in nothing but his Captain Marvel briefs. With luck, Kamala can't see him. He loves the feel of her robes against his bare skin. He's tempted to try lying against her mask, as she's breathing in it, with his bare skin...
One way or another, he's going to capture a classic moment on film. All he's got to do is wait for the imam to start preaching about his visions of their poor helpless kin in Ottoman Kurdistan, struggling for their lives to stand up to the Turks' oppression of its non-Turkic colonies.
That's a lot, Peter knows. He just asked KAREN about all of this last night.