At Officer Cranston's order, Jason sends the activation signal to the cornerstone units. As per their usual programming, they scan the intervening space for safety reasons - to avoid assembling while someone or something obstructs the space to be filled with walls. Lights flash and alarms beep atop each cornerstone column, and laser lights rapidly strobe the ground to paint the intended assembly area with red light.
With a hiss of decompressing gases, the panels on the interior side of the cornerstone units pop open. Chemical processes take place as the contents are exposed to air, and some form of plastic material begins to grow and expand - but filling out to very specific dimensions and spelling out a surprisingly convincing representation of a stone wall. Some of the grass nearby wilts due to the focused heat put off by the process.
There is a flash of light from the direction of the parking lot. The four schoolkids are now accompanied by magical beasts: the boy - Blake - who appears to be the group's leader is accompanied by a great lion-like creature with wings and a flaming mane and tail.
A strawberry-blond, slightly-built girl - Jenny Hart - stays close to her unicorn companion, as flowers sprout up from the pavement wherever the creature's hooves touch.
A stout and determined young man - Nick "Small" Fry - stays close to his very stout and determined bear - a creature that somehow manages to look furry and yet fashioned from stone at the same time.
And then, possibly escaping notice to those only sparing a quick glance, there is a semi-translucent, ghostly form of a silvery great hunting cat, accompanied by a dark-haired girl - Sasha Knightley - surveying the scene with a very serious expression on her face.
Jenny looks momentarily lost, as she watches the Haunted Castle assemble itself. Her face is crossed with worry and then her eyes widen with fear that seems entirely unjustified in the face of an obvious Halloween outdoor decoration using technology that has been around for decades (or at least a few years, if this "world" is presumed to represent a reality mostly based on 20 or so years ago). "It's like last Halloween ..." She starts, then catches herself. "No! It's the fox's dream! The Castle ... but we were more powerful in that dream." Her voice becomes more unsteady. "Is it going to happen like last time? We can't fight them all! We're not ready! They'll kill people! So many people! I can't stop them! I can't stop them! Please - no!"
The stone walls continue to rise, a magnificent display of the full potential of self-assembling technology, in a form that someone from a previous era might mistake for magic. Or, really, considering just how detailed and convincing that "weathered stonework" appears, a compelling argument could be made for it even now, to someone who "knows better." Officer Cranston definitely got a bargain for that rental fee.
Jason shakes his head while watching the castle unfold and assemble. "We are so going to die, you know," he remarks into the radio units. "If not by any nasties, by the kids when they kill us for this. And once again I feel I should say, we should have gone to the armory and requested bazookas..."
The trunk of the aircar closes with a click, after Holly has checked (and re-checked) their food and fuel supplies. The woman seems a bit nervous, as the castle nears completion.
"It'll be fine, and we'd be in more danger if you did have a bazooka," Randall reassures Jason over the radio. He brings the spinner-bike engine up to speed, causing the grass to billow around where it's parked.
"And hay, mister 'overly concerned with legalities' policeman, you might want to warn the kids we're deliberately trying to open a portal so we can go through. They're welcome to come along ... though I somehow doubt they would, y'know?" Jason remarks in the radio as he fiddles with his control box for the bizarre contraption they've assembled.
"That would depend on what Blake does, I think," Holly comments just to Jason. "They follow his lead, except maybe for Sasha."
"If they come, you're in charge of Sasha," Jason remarks to Holly. "Penance for getting us stuck in here."
The police officer grimaces. "Throw me to the lion, why don't you? And the bear, and the unicorn, and the cat." He takes off to intercept the kids, broadcasting a general 'Clear the area! Evacuate the park!' warning while he does so.
"I'm not the one who triggered the portal, Mr. Remote Control," Holly reminds Jason, crossing her arms.
"No, but you helped create and protect a virtual torture world where people's minds are screwed with," Jason remarks.
RIU scans the park, mostly focused upon the scene of the self-assembling castle, from atop a relatively safe perch atop the head of the statue at the central fountain.
"Clear the area please-- oh hey!" Randall waves to the kids, deactivating the megaphone and moving down to be able to speak with them conversationally. "You're just in time, folks! We've been talking to the Sage, and we're going to need your help here."
Eyeing the power cables, Holly then asks Jason, "How long will the stationary lights work once we pull the cables and switch to the car-mounted ones, or will it matter?"
Stone parapets begin to extrude from the corners, and an archway dominates the front wall, framed by macabre stonework that suggests the form of a glowering skull-like face, with an iron jaw-like portcullis. Creeping vines, formed by some other hissing chemical process, begin to splay in a convincingly organic fashion across the surface of the simulated stonework.
"Given the residual charge the coils in the ballasts will hold when disconnected from main power, about forty-five seconds, give or take," Jason answers as he closes his eyes for a moment to focus solely on RIU's link of the area. "It all has to do with the intensity of the electric field in the inductive coil, and the resistive effect of the arc-tubes and their power dissipation rate."
Some of the vines spread outward from the walls, coiling around the power cables that currently run underneath the "stone" walls. The faux vines, however, are just some sort of foam-like substance, and exert no appreciable pressure upon the cords - though they do serve to obscure them amidst the grass.
"You're going to need our help?" Blake asks, incredulously. "Do you have any idea what you're doing? Do you really have any idea, whatsoever?"
Jenny abandons her unicorn to rush over, clinging to Blake's arm. "Blake! Blake, do something! Everybody's going to die. These people - they're going to die! I just know it! Please ... you must have an idea ... something clever ... please!"
"Yes, Blake, I do think I have an idea," Randall says calmly, his spinner bike skimming just over the ground. "As you all know, the Shadow has been sending monsters to attack this world for a long time, and you've done an amazing job protecting people from them. But the Sage felt that they were growing stronger. He called for help from outside - people he could send in to scout the way and try to figure out where they were being opened from, so that we could all work together to stop it at its source. We're the ones he got. You know that Jason has his dragon. Holly and I have our abilities as well." And with that, he stretches out his arm, for the unseen presence he's known for a long time has been ready to help him. He calls the guardian.
A shimmering form coalesces in the air around Officer Cranston, indistinct, unformed, but nonetheless there is the faintest of suggestions of a pair of wings descending.
The air grows colder. Officer Cranston's breath comes out as a visible mist for a moment, and frost begins to form on the surface of his spinner bike.
RIU lets out a squeal as his whiskers twitch, and he averts his gaze from the growing castle, to scan the parking lot instead.
"Incoming," Jason hisses and closes his eyes again. He focuses solely on RIU's view of the world and tries to locate the emerging ... thing.
Help me here, Randall thinks to the guardian materializing near him. Bring the coolness of thought to calm the heat of anger, the strength to withstand whatever may come.
Holly also turns to watch Randall's summoning, and wonders how he did it. "I gotta ask him how to do that," she mutters. She wraps her arms around herself from the sudden chill.
"Impossible!" Blake stammers, as he staggers back. "You ... what have you done? Who are you? What are you doing here?"
Jenny's eyes widen in fright. Fry mouths a silent, "Whoa, cool!" Sasha seems to be reserving judgement, but watching with distinct interest.
The shimmering wings descend from the air, enveloping Officer Cranston ... and then they seem to vanish into mist. The spinner-bike shudders.
Meanwhile, the castle continues to grow. Parapets rise like broken bony fingers, and the crumbling ramparts look rather like fangs and claws. Interior towers start to rise.
Jason calls into the radio, "All right, we've got action. Everyone be ready!" He starts tapping on his console rapidly, doing last minute checks on the sensors, timers, and the set delay for deployment of operation 'suntan'.
Fine cracks appear in the body of the spinner-bike. Its engine rises from a quiet whine to a low rumble. The two downward-pointing turbines turn slightly askew, as if the vehicle is tearing itself apart.
"Are you feeling the ground vibrate?" Holly asks Jason, a bit distractedly.
Blake grabs Jenny and rushes backward with her in tow. Fry's bear interposes itself between its master and the bike that appears to be splitting apart. Sasha frowns, but doesn't make a move ... yet.
Randall stays focused on his conjuration, aware that his bike is being torn apart beneath him. One part of him is worried - Marge will kill me - but another realizes that it's like what happened to Jason's remote. RIU.
And, meanwhile, Jason is bowled over by something large, furry, and apparently invisible, which grabs his controls in - one presumes - its large toothy mouth.
"Bloody gah!" Jason yells as he goes down, hitting the pavement hard, "Holly, get the controls! Without them I'll have to manually control things!"
Parts of the spinner-bike shoot outward ... but the explosion of motion is not the destruction of the vehicle. Rather, it expands outward, as fins extend to suggest wings, with the spinner-fans embedded in them. The front cowling of the spinner-bike has elongated and formed a reptilian-looking head. The back has extended out into a sweeping tail, and the landing skids curl like talons. It hovers in space, the driver's seat forming a saddle of sorts across its back - and it whips its serpentine head about, gazing after the controls that have just leapt into the air seemingly of their own accord.
Trudeau is small, but agile. She jumps and makes a grab for what she thinks is the creature's neck, getting her arms around it (and a face full of invisible fur too). Whoa, this isn't Moonlight, she realizes, given the thickness of the fur.
And before Jason's eyes, Holly Trudeau vanishes into thin air, along with the controls.
God, they're never going to believe this back at the station, Randall thinks to himself. Aloud, on the back of what was his spiner bike, he says, "I'm Randall and this is my Guardian. Mara." The name leaps to him, but he knows it fits theice wyvern, after the enigmatic woman of Zarathustra. "Officer Randall Cranston, NYPD. But in this moment, in this now, what you need to know is that my friends and I have set this trap up to weaken the monsters, to fool them into thinking it's night when they're strongest. We're going to go through the portal when it opens, to find where these things are opening from, and when we're through, the trap we've built will fall, exposing them all to light. But we need you to be ready for that moment."
"Nothing ever goes as planned," Jason grumbles and pushes himself back off the pavement, then brushes off the dirt and debris. "Right, manual control it is," the thin man says with a sigh and runs his hands through his hair as he heads towards their contraption.
The castle towers continue to rise, cones spinning together, and tattered pennants fluttering in the breeze. Thin lines extend outward, as cobwebby forms expand. As Jason rights himself, he finds his stance unsteady, as the ground seems to shift - subtly but still noticeably - underneath him.
Sasha tosses off a sloppy salute to the police officer. "Looks like you know what you're doing after all. I guess this won't be such a boring day." Fry, meanwhile, gives him a nervous grin and a nod, as he pushes his way around the interposing bear to face the icy wyvern - organic and living, yet distinctly mechanical in its appearance as well. He momentarily glances back toward Jenny and Blake.
Blake, meanwhile, has stopped, and recovered something of his composure, and gives a quick whispered order to Jenny. She mouths a protest, but then ducks her head in submission. In a flash, the unicorn has leapt to her side, and Jenny climbs astride it, sitting side-saddle.
Randall grins wryly. "I sure hope I do, Miss." He speaks into his wrist-PDA, "Status report, Jason? Holly?"
Jason suddenly receives a "ping" from RIU. The sensation is familiar: RIU senses something - many somethings - and they are hostile - and they are coming. But at the same time, RIU is confused about the whereabouts of someone else - looking about in a vain attempt to locate where Ms. Trudeau might have vanished to.
"Holly is gone," Jason remarks into the comm, "I have to control things manually, so ... looks like you're the only one who's getting a ticket out of this nightmare and into another. And don't argue with me, Randall, you have a duty to stop this mess, comes with the badge." And with that, Jason heads towards one of the main control blocks for this frankenstien creation. "RIU, watch my back. I've got to get this re-rigged for manual control," he thinks.
"Holly's gone? Where?" Randall tries to get the hang of working with Mara - it doesn't seem right to think of her, and somehow the presence comes across feminine to him, as a mere vehicle to be controlled. Up, we need to find Holly, he thinks to the wyvern.
The wyvern lets out a fierce cry, and moves its wings as if to beat the air - though the spinning turbo-fans are what actually give it elevation. It ... or, rather, she? Mara turns about, hovering and rotating in place, scanning the park for potential prey.
"Probably with that bloody fox that stole my controls," Jason grumbles.
On Officer Cranston's heads-up-display, a tracking unit blinks on, with an alerting warble. The bike's AI voice narrates, in a voice that has a tenor suspiciously like the famous Ice Queen of Zarathustra, "Heat signature matched. Jamming detected. Employing countermeasures." A zoom-in feature shows the heat signature of a humanoid body - Holly's, it would seem - clinging to a much larger creature that is bounding its way through the park, around the artificial castle to the other side.
"Inari's got Holly and the remote control!" Randall shouts to Blake and the others, leaning forward in the saddle that was the driver's seat, urging Mara into a rapid descent upon the wayward kitsune's heat signature. "We've got to get them back and get through before the portal closes!"
Cackling and shrieks emit from within the Haunted Castle. Those special effects that just kicked in are mighty convincing. But then, there's also the matter of the ground shaking.
"Be careful!" Sasha cries out. "If this is anything like the dream, there's a castle in the monster world that looks a lot like this one - only a whole lot bigger!"
Randall mutters, audible over the wrist-PDA, "I'd feel a lot better if I had bought the special effects package. I'm pretty sure that's not artificial." He watches the heads-up on his flip-down goggles - protects from sun glare and bugs and gives him one-eye navigation aids! - and pursues the heat source, hoping to get close enough to snatch it up into the air. He's not absolutely sure it's Inari, but it would fit what's going on.
A voice - Holly's, but distorted - cries out from somewhere within the walls of the castle, "By the Access Code 'Hobbit' and.. the Niflheim Security Level 'Mistletoe', I call upon the power of Hel and the Svartaheim!"
The wyvern rushes with its rider toward the castle. The heat signature flares up briefly - but then it's muted again. It's somewhere within the outer wall of the castle. From the improved and higher vantage point, Officer Cranston can see that within the outer walls is a complex mass of towers and parapets and keeps, still growing and expanding.
"RIU, watch my back. I'd like to know if I'm about to be eaten," Jason thinks as he reaches the control box and slides up next to it in the wet grass on his knees. He yanks off the panel and ignoring usual safety checks due to time (and the very close screaming monsters), starts to pull into the wiring to rig up a few manual switches to over-ride the remote control and trigger the planned events..
"Jason, something's wrong - the package didn't look this complex!" Randall comms.
"Tell me something I don't know," Jason growls into the comm. "Now hush, busy!"
Randall obligingly hushes, focusing on his real job - getting to Holly and rescuing her. Lives are most important here.
From within the castle, there is a loud cry: "WHAT?!" There are hissing noises and the sounds of something whipping through the air, within the darkness. "What manner of spell is this? What sort of element is this? ... You're no Augment! You're a -- MMFF!"
And then there is a loud thump from within, followed by a chorus of cackling, impish laughs. Meanwhile, the grass and ground starts to tear up around the base of the castle. The walls are expanding outward. Just outside of their expanding circumference, Jason finishes making hasty work on the control box. A green ready light comes on. Ready to go.
"I'm a mother," Holly's voice can be heard to cry out from within the castle. "Don't make me send you to your room!"
Holly just called upon her Avatar - no, it was something else? An Augment? Randall realizes, seeing the castle walls expanding outward, doing more damage than he'd expected, that just maybe he should have picked something less... ominous... than the Haunted House tent. Find her, he thinks to Mara. We've got to protect her!
"We're good to go, Randall. Light's green and I'm ready to drop the walls. Just get your bike into position, Randall, and be ready. Get out of here and get help," Jason says into the comm in an oddly resigned tone. "RIU, to me," he thinks.
The wyvern obeys Officer Cranston's command, and dives down within the walls, diving back and forth, avoiding the parapets and their crossing bridges - expanding as much as they're growing closer. The outer walls continue to push outward - and shall surely overrun Jason's position any moment now, at this rate - and the aircar next - and even the schoolkids in the parking lot might want to reconsider a better vantage point after that.
"We don't leave anyone behind," Randall replies firmly. "Set a timer and get in the car, get ready to ram it into their throats. Three minutes."
The little dragon whips back to its owner, turning to regard the expanding castle with a worry its owner can empathically feel.
"We don't have three minutes," Jason notes grimly and shakes his head. Still, he does rig up a simple timer, a small bit of thermal wire that bends as it warms. As the low circuit current flows through it, it will eventually warm and bend enough to trip the control relay, activating the lights and triggering the wall collapse circuits. He can only guess on how long it will take, though. So, he slams the control panel closed and scrabbles to his feet, then takes off in a dead run towards the car.
Randall checks the heads-up display and navigates with Mara through the maze of walls, looking for Holly to do a snatch-and-grab. "Jason's getting the car," he yells both for the PDA and in case Holly's within hearing range. "We've got to get through before it blows!"
This feels like that old movie I saw on Sci-Fi Classics, the officer thinks to himself irreverently. Something about womp rats?
Inside the ever-expanding castle, there's a faint purplish haze below. There's a fox ... no, a giant, fox-like creature, bound in faintly purplish-glowing bands of ... electrical tape? That's the best way to describe its look, in any case. And next to the creature's maw, Holly reaches over and calmly retrieves the control box from its very toothy mouth, as if she did this sort of thing every day.
Randall grins, letting out a breath of relief. He dives down, intending to give her a hand up onto Mara.
Perhaps watching too much television inspired Jason to try to do a mad slide across the hood of the car to the driver's side, then leap into the car. And somehow ... he actually does that! He lands hard into the driver's seat and immediately wishes he hadn't. "Gods, why does she have to be so short," he complains as he slides back the seat and removes the steering wheel from his chest. In the next few seconds, the car fires up and swings around, its nose pointed right at the castle.
The wyvern's spotlight pierces the darkness - and clearly illuminates the scene. Countless impish silhouettes cry out and scamper away from the bright light, back into the safety of the shadows.
"Oh ... hey, Randall!" Holly calls out to the hovering wyvern.
The walls continue churning up the earth, pressing outward. Inside the castle, there's a clatter as UV stands fall and smack onto stone floor, their cables drawn taut. The walls encounter the control box, pushing it atop a wave of displaced earth. The aircar is next in line....
Swooping down and then braking Mara's descent with wings beating and fans blasting, Randall calls to Holly, "It's on a timer! We've only got a couple minutes before it melts down... If it can melt down anymore. Get on, quick, we've got to meet Jason, I told him to get the car ready." He holds out a hand to pull her up onto the seat.
"Time to move it," Sasha declares, as she hops aboard her cat, and, riding it, bounds to the rooftops. Fry, atop his bear, waits as a cloud coalesces about its feet - and then he rides out of the immediate area as well. Blake and Jenny appear to have already taken their leave during the confusion.
"Hell, was it the natural log of eulers number that models the flex rate of the wire, or was it the arcsin?" Jason frets as watches the wall expand. "Come on, trigger!"
"Whoa," Holly says as she notices the castle's continued expansion. She tucks the remotes into her jacket pocket, grabs a loose tape-end on the fox with one hand and reaches for Randall's with the other.
And then - suddenly, the fox SHRINKS quickly. In the confusion, it looks as if a much smaller furred form tries to make a break for it, leaping through bands of blackness that are a little too far spaced apart and falling slowly through the empty space now created ... but at a wordless intervention from Holly, the bands contract and snap to readjust. They still have their prisoner. It's just a lot smaller, down to "people-sized." An angry yelp emits from within the bundle of black tape.
"You're coming too," Holly tells the fox, holding onto it's 'leash'. "I'll let you go in a bit."
Randall eyes the prisoner and comes to a quick decision. "Mara, can you pick her up?" He doesn't seem sanguine about trying to hold Holly and the kitsune simultaneously.
Countless imps hiss and whine, shielding their misshapen faces from the flashing lights and spotlights of the spinner-wyvern. They open their fanged maws hungrily, eager to overcome their fear of light to get a meal ... but their resolve is not yet strong enough ... or perhaps their numbers. Many more scamper in behind them.
A chill feeling runs down Officer Cranston's spine, as a cool feeling rushes across him. Under normal circumstances, if he were to feel such a feeling, that would probably connote some sort of extra trouble - but somehow it feels like a sort of reassuring coolness, and he can intuitively feel that it's coming from the wyvern-bike. It seems to be this entity's way of signalling the affirmative, somehow.
The bike-wyvern sweeps her spotlights, focusing on the closest of the imps and shepherding them back, while she slowly beats her wings and repositions her turbines, coming low and about for Holly to scramble on back. Then, the wyvern reaches one of its landing-skid-talons and snares the long black "tape" and the captured bundle as its prize.
Holly hustles up behind Cranston. "This sort of style is a good look for you Randall," she comments.
Around them, the stonework continues to twist and form. A spiral staircase erupts from the floor, snaking its way around a rising column decorated with macabre memento mori stone reliefs, and even as it does so, cobwebs and choking vines curl around it to give the impression of something that's been around for ages - not mere seconds.
Randall thinks approving thoughts to Mara. "It feels oddly normal," he says to Holly as he takes off and goes to find Jason and the aircar. "I felt connected to my bike before, any rider does, but this time the bike's connecting back. Mara is."
The spinner-bike rises amongst the towers and bridges. The sky is dimly visible above. It looks like they have a clear shot....
"Boys and their vehicles," Holly mutters.
Jason starts flicking on all the lights of the car, both normal and the few he had time to add. "Let there be light," he comments as the electrical systems of the car start to whine under the load. "And RIU? Hold on," he says.
A green hovering foxfire glow is visible in the darkness. It takes a moment of orientation for Randall to realize that, were things at the proper scale, that's probably in the general direction of one of the support columns of the "Haunted Castle" - or where one was, once upon a time. It seems something like one of those little notification lights....
Behind Randall, a chorus of cackling voices can be heard. Then, lower roars. A booming voice thunders, "A new gateway is open to me. A NEW WORLD TO CONQUER!"
The police officer chuckles, ascending. "What do girls-- yikes! There she blows!" He abandons his thought of dropping Holly off so she can take over the aircar, banking into a curve that should take him over the parking lot and line up with the gate.
Rays of sunlight shine from the UV stands, cranked up to far above their safe output capacity. One of them explodes outright. Then, the walls crack. A stone bridge, just newly formed, suddenly breaks apart and collapses, as countless imps scramble to get out of its way.
Outside, the wall is right upon the aircar. It's not every day a stationary vehicle gets hit by a building. Presumably it has anti-collision buffers for the passengers....
Randall says urgently to Holly, "Are we leaving Inari here or taking her through?"
"Inara, what do you want?" Holly calls down. "I'd like to question it more, but..." she tells Randall.
The walls break away here and there, letting in more beams of sunlight, though they don't quite compete properly with the over-boosted lights inside. Outside, they can see buildings around the park square crushing and breaking away under the weight of the expanding castle - and now its falling parapets.
And, it looked as if the aircar was just about to get crushed between the expanding walls and Town Hall - but in a blur, the craft shoots off at a technically unsafe angle - and free of the destruction.
"I always sucked at those driving games," Jason complains loudly ... and looking a bit green.
The UV lamps flicker out as the power cords break from their aircar power source - but the scrambling shadowy monsters have even more to worry about, as their shade quickly breaks away and exposes them to broad daylight. "What? THIS CANNOT BE! What manner of trickery is this? What force -- NOOOOOOOOO!" That would be the booming, unidentified voice from somewhere deep within the castle - presumably somewhere in the vicinity of where a white gazebo once stood.
Back in the castle, dodging amist tumbling towers and flying (falling) buttresses, the bike-wyvern makes her way up to the sunlight, while a tape-wrapped (and thoroughly muffled) bundle dangles from her talons.
"I guess we take her with us," Holly notes, looking over the chaos. "Where are the kids?"
"Take the car in, we don't have time to stop," Randall says urgently into the wrist PDA. He suits action to words, tilting the fans to blast himself and Holly at maximum speed toward the gate and the gazebo inside.
Randall adds to Holly, "I think they left the area. Hope they'll be ready to come back and deal with the monsters."
"Take the car, take the car in," Jason mutters as he struggles with the controls, trying to spin it and align it to where the gate ought to be. "Everyone expects miracles from me."
Jason has only a brief moment to scan the surroundings for any signs of the kids. He catches a glimpse of a bear riding a cloud, with a boy on its back. It breathes out some sort of an amber energy that coalesces around falling stonework, pushing it aside, to avert it from crushing more of the surrounding buildings.
As for Sasha - well, her cat has a tendency to be stealthy anyway, so it's little surprise that it's unseen. A fiery winged lion flies about, intercepting a few of the shadowy creatures that have rushed out of the castle in their confusion, despite the sunlight. Apparently at least some of them don't simply disappear in a puff of smoke if in contact with sunlight, as much as they might hate it.
As for Blake, he doesn't seem to be riding his lion - and there's no sign of Jenny or the unicorn, either.
Stonework continues to collapse, meanwhile, but despite it all, somehow Jason manages to avoid the falling pillars, with RIU clinging for dear life onto the controls (and it's uncertain whether RIU is helping or hindering, at this point). The wyvern-bike seems much more agile in comparison, swooping and diving, alternating between firing turbines to get a sudden climb, or folding wings to dive.
"By the power of Svartaheim," Holly mutters, "follow my commands, flying chariot." She still isn't sure of what her Augment can do, but from Inari's earlier reaction it seems to be unique. Now.. just need to take over the car before Jason's luck runs out.
Within the innermost circle of this mayhem is an overgrown, blackened garden of dead bushes, and a stained and aged, formerly white gazebo.
Randall reports tersely to Holly as he takes Mara through the tottering stonework of the gate, "Looks like Blake's lion is out flying backup, and a good thing. Small and his bear too. I don't see the others."
"I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die," Jason squeaks as he jerks the car around in a nauseating display of chaotic driving, and yet somehow still manages to avoid getting completely squashed.
A flaming form appears in the air beside the wyvern-bike, vaguely shaped like Holly's aircar ... but the form sputters and dissipates in a puff of smoke. It feels to Holly as if nothing went noticeably wrong, per se, in her invocation ... but all the same, it doesn't look like there's anything there to bear her by flight.
In front of the stained gazebo, a larger-than-life humanoid form, with an oversized upper torso, glistening black and bony armor and a skull-like visage, and spikes - spikes - SPIKES! - all around, stands, holding a sword that looks large enough to cleave an aircar (or an airbus) in twain.
"Okay, I guess I can only conjure stuff," Holly remarks. She thinks of the tape again. This time though.. duct tape! A nice silver shield of it to protect the car like.. armor.
A fiery glow emits from the monstrosity's eyes, and cruelly curved horns rise from its forehead - quite possibly not a feature of the armor, but simply protruding through it. It rears back, and as it does so, it rises up - making it evident that it has not two, but four legs: a sort of demonic, giant, armored centaur. As it comes crashing back down on its hooves, sparks fly.
The police officer glances aside to the momentary apparition, and then his eyes are riveted on the more intimidating threat ahead. "Sainted Mary," he whispers. Louder: "I'm going to distract it. Holly, want me to drop you off so you can get in the aircar?"
"Yeah," Holly says, still concentrating. "Get me to the car.."
Randall takes Mara down. "Jason, pull over, I'm dropping Holly off! I'll distract it, you go."
Jason scrambles with the controls, trying to bright the car's bright lights to bear on the creature. "If I live, I promise to never play video games again," Jason whimpers as he sinks down behind the steering wheel. Soon it's just knuckles and his eyes peering over the dash.
A greyish cylinder manifests near the bike-wyvern, and then begins to unroll itself. Strands of silvery grey criss-cross, forming bands around the aircar, yet leaving strategic gaps to allow those inside to see without. Intuitively, Holly somehow knows that this is not merely armor, but especially strong armor compared to ... well ... whatever she should "normally" expect in such a situation.
RIU makes a disappointed noise, then snaps its attention back to the monster blocking the way to the gazebo.
The aircar now looks rather like the biggest ball of duct tape, ever ... and flying, to boot.
"Gah!" Jason yells into the comm, "Go through the gate, no turn around, pick up Holly. Make up your mind!" He tries to maneuver the great taped car back to Holly.
"Come and meet your end, mortals!" the great centaur cries out, the air reverberating with its roar. It might even be especially frightening if anyone had time to stop and take a breath to properly consider the threat that it might pose, in light of the general mayhem happening all around.
"I didn't count on Giant Monster Thingy!" protests Randall over the comm.
"There is always a Boss Monster!" Holly notes.
A large piece of falling buttress smacks into the flying ball of duct tape. The duct tape ball compresses a bit, but fortunately absorbs the brunt of the hit. However, it sends the aircar inside spinning wildly out of control!
Randall grins. "So noted, Miss Trudeau. Jason, stay calm, we've got this. Dropping Holly off, I'll lead it away from the gate, give us a clear shot." He swoops down, backwinging furiously to let Holly off so she doesn't have to deal with massive forward velocity.
The com surges in both static and a dizzying array of creative cursing from Jason. "I hate all of you!" it ends with.
Jason continues fighting with the controls. "RIU," he blurts, "Can you do anything to Mister Ugly? Like, give him an eternal wedgie or something?
Stonework falls to the left and right, but somehow the spinning giant wad of duct tape happens to fly through a chance opening in the debris, with the wyvern-bike tight behind it. In a flash, a little dragon shoots past, heading the other way - toward the giant evil centaur-like entity. With deft piloting - or perhaps a little helping hand (wing?) from Mara - Randall manages to bring about atop the giant duct-tape wad as it slows down and finally comes to a stop on the broken stone mosaic floor of the crumbling castle, amidst piles of broken stone debris.
Once Mara touches down, Holly jumps down. She quickly unwraps Inari's legs, and uses the tape over her head and muzzle as a leash. "C'mon!" she tells the fox, and draws a circular hatch into the top of the car-ball with a finger.
Randall instructs Mara to let her go, and takes off to the air as soon as they're off. "How did we wind up in a situation like this..." he mutters, audible over the comm.
The duct tape obligingly reshapes itself and lets Holly and her taped-up companion through.
The roof of the aircar resounds with a series of thumps, as Holly lightly lands on top of it, followed by Inari.
"Scoot over!" Holly tells Jason as she opens the driver's side of the cockpit. "Oh, and hold this fox!" she adds, pushing Inara in as well.
Meanwhile, there's a loud and angry, "ARGH! What are you DOING, foul little creature? I ... I ... I SMASH YOU NOW! RARRRRR!"
Jason scoots slowly over in the seat after prying his hand from the steering wheel. He at least didn't soil the leather seats. Small successes are good right now. Having a fox shoved in his lap is not one of those successes. Annoyed, he tells it, "God, you're fat."
The fox responds by kicking Jason in the nearest place it can reach from his lap.
"Weapons check," Randall tells Mara, taking off with her after the demon guardian. He's not sure what she has, but he'd like to know so he's not bringing a sword to a gunfight.
Strapped in, Holly turns the car to get a good look at the centaur - specifically searching for weaknesses in the armor.
It's genuinely difficult to tell where armor ends and demon-centaur begins, but it seems to be mostly occupied for the moment with the darting little dragon.
"RIU, when you're able to pull back when Randall gets there, return to me," Jason thinks and glowers when his foot gets stomped by the fox. "You," he growls at the fox, "Are so going to get it for causing this chaos!"
"Strafing attack," Randall says to Mara. "Let him have it with whatever you've got, then we'll peel away from the gazebo and get him to chase us."
The demon-creature's horns lurch about, its sword swings wildly, its cloven hooves strike up stone chips as they smash at the ground, and its barbed tail thrashes about angrily, sparking as it occasionally strikes against the surprisingly sturdy gazebo.
A chill sensation emits from Mara, as her mouth opens up ... and a glowing blue orb forms within her maw, gathering in intensity.
While Randall and Mara attack, Holly brings the car around to the back of the Gazebo, lining up on the monster's barbed tail. "Ever gone bowling, Jason?" she asks.
As Holly looks more closely, noticing that some of the "armor" pieces actually flex, she can make out a fine scaly pattern that nonetheless manages to shine like armor. It would seem that the armor plates are mostly around the torso, head and upper arms, with large gauntlets, but scaly flesh is visible about the legs of the centaur body, and the forearms. Plus, it looks as if some of the armor straps have been rather uncomfortably rearranged around the tail, and the centaur occasionally reaches back to try vainly to readjust them, while swinging the sword with the other hand after the dragon.
"RIU! Cancel return command. New command: Operation, Shock! If you're anything like the robot I built, you should be able to charge-shock at distance. Aim for the armor ... it should cause muscle spasms!" Jason thinks suddenly, remembering all the little 'additions' he added to his bot over the years. To Holly, Jason snaps, "Don't even think it. That's beyond stupid!"
RIU's little body is limned in crackling bluish light, as he spins about. The glow expands outward....
"Okay, this thing is half.. horse-monster," Holly notes. "Get something irritating under the armor on its back and it'll go bucking bronco I bet."
A ball of icy breath shoots out from Mara's mouth from one direction, while ball lightning shoots out from RIU's (much smaller) mouth, in the other direction. Oddly enough, the ball lightning, while it starts out small, expands greatly in size and intensity as it closes on the giant demon.
A fiery flash emanates from the demon - some sort of magical "force-field" effect that cancels out the ice ball before it hits. However, it fails to stop the lightning ball, which only gathers greater intensity as it spreads across the armor. "Raaaaaaaaaa-a-a-a-a-a-a-rgh!" the demon cries, caught mid-armor-adjustment as his body shakes and trembles with the shock!
Randall holds on for dear life as Mara wings deftly through the falling stonework. "That's one thing they didn't cover at academy," he mutters. "Navigating falling rocks." Louder: "You stunned it! Get through, quick!"
"We could try shoving this fox up it's ... ", Jason tells Holly, then shakes his head. "RIU, that was... wow! Return quickly! Thank you!" he thinks.
"Going in," Holly says, once RIU has slipped into the ball.
The dragon pauses only a brief moment to admire its handiwork - was that a grin? - and then it zips back toward the flying ball of duct tape and manages to slip in between the cracks.
The police officer, now wyvern-rider, crosses himself and then urges Mara into a headlong dive into the gazebo.
As the wyvern-bike shoots through the legs of the thrashing centaur-demon, Mara adjusts her own flight path subtly, as there are a great many shadowy forms with gleaming eyes still streaming out of the gazebo - less noticed compared to the giant demon-thing guarding it and holding the portal open.
The ice wyvern bobs and weaves as it flies underneath the demon guardian and into the swarm of oncoming monsters. A collision with any one of these could cause great distress to the rider, if not the wyvern he rides - but Mara deftly banks and pushes off, this way and that, with little more than the occasional glancing bounce of a monster off of her wings - and something very small splatters against the windscreen.
Coming in low, the air-car's armor-ball touches ground and 'rolls' as Holly heads for the Gazebo arch. She doesn't seem too concerned about using the ball to clear away imps either.
The sheer mayhem caused by the rolling great duct tape ball seems to be largely responsible for the relatively clear path that the wyvern has to face. Several splotches of various colors - mostly dark greys, dirty browns and greens, and steaming pitch black - mark the exterior of the duct tape as it careens along.
Over the radio, Randall's voice says calmly, "Get ready to go full blast on the lights, Jason." He asks Mara silently to have another frost orb ready... There'll be at least something on the other side, as many of these creatures as they're seeing.
And ... they roll right out the other side of the gazebo, crashing through the back side, snapping weathered wooden latticework, and crashing through deadened shrubbery. Behind them, the remains of the rotting gazebo collapse and crumble away, as if it were only a mirage, and not a proper addition to the gloomy interior of the castle.
The castle, meanwhile, continues to crumble about them ... except that the pieces are behaving very strangely compared to how they were a moment ago. The pieces are falling upward, barring the occasional fragment that simply hovers and spins in place.
"I ought to throw you out of the car into this mess," Jason remarks to the fox he continues to hold in his lap. "The lights are already at full power, Randall. The car can't give anymore!" he remarks. "Not to mention all the cling-ons that keep hitting the exterior are mucking up the lenses!"
The air ripples, as the remains of the gazebo suck in upon themselves. The ripples calm, and there's no sign of it. Shadowy monsters fly about in a panic, shrieking into the night. And, indeed, it is night now - and under a sky that is completely unrecognizable.
The fox stomps Jason's foot again.
... but no more effectively than last time.
"Behave, or I'll turn this car right around!" Holly yells out of maternal reflex.
"Ow! You aren't improving your situation," Jason remarks to the fox. He eyes the muzzled creature, mulling over options ... and wondering if with RIU, he could hack her and make her behave ... or just turn her into a poodle.
"Mara, we need to get out of here," Randall says to his wyvern, navigating around the pieces of the castle that are weirdly floating upward, looking for a target for the frost orb. "Can you find us a way?"
RIU takes a moment to shoot out of the duct-tape ball and regard the sky. His little flickering wings glow more intensely, and his whiskers flick about. In the air, he moves as if taking a deep breath of the chill air, and then exhaling it, and little sparkles fly in his wake. Jason is momentarily stirred from his antics in the aircar by a bizarre ... awareness unlike anything he's sensed before. In fact, it's rather disorienting.
A few sparks play across the dashboard of the aircar, and across Mara's interface. Mara, for some reason, doesn't seem to be particularly alarmed, as she turns to look toward RIU.
RIU takes a deep breath ... and then lets out a shrill little dragon roar - and shadow-monsters, already shaken, scatter into deeper darkness.
"Hebby ... jibble, fwee," Jason burbles as his eyes nearly roll back in his head when RIU's link surges so strongly into his mind.
"I wonder if the GPS will work," Holly mutters after the scattering of sparks. She eyes the switches that will reactivate the flight computer.
"You okay in there?" asks Randall over the comm.
In the heads-up displays in the aircar and on Mara's control board - and echoed inside Jason's head - there appears an expansive model of what looks to be a sort of solar system - except that in the center is a sun, and around it is a cluster of floating crystaline structures. Planetoids - some of them shrouded in deep fog, some of them covered in forested expanses, some of them breaking down into silvery sands of desert, some covered in snow and ice, some of them expanding out in spires of crystal into wondrous floating cities.
"I like waffles," Jason mutters in response to Randall's query.
There are currents and flows amidst these worlds - gases, atmosphere, despite the absurdity of it across such expanses. Within the display, periodically as the view zooms in, there are sailing vessels with sails all about -- fantasy flying ships. There are also lurking creatures within the "depths" of the ether currents - something not entirely unlike sea monsters dwelling in the void.
"He sounds normal," Holly says, watching the display of the Diadem. "I think we're in the dark part."
The radio echoes Randall, "Great Zork! Is this why they call it the Diadem?"
Jason gets the distinct impression that RIU might have a surprisingly good idea where he is right now. And it seems to confirm Holly's assessment.
"You're right," Jason mutters to Holly. He;s sounding rather distant, though. "We should find some place to make our 'base' and work from... Something safe."
Randall radios, "Lead on, I'll cover you."
The fox-bundle squirms about, and for the briefest of moments, Jason can make out a muzzle protruding from it ... but then, the tapes wrap back around it, completely obscuring the fox's form once more - but at least he can tell with certainty which end is the head, if he couldn't guess before.
"Or ... Holly. Pick the world your daughter plays in. She can be our link to the outside world," Jason remarks as he tries to deal with the immenseness that plays in his mind. "I can instruct her how to hack her gear and get us a link out. I think, anyway."
"Riiiight," Holly says, wracking her brain for the name of Tracy's Shard. "Just.. uh.. give me a moment.."
A shrill scream echoes in the blackness around them. Unlike the landscape of the town, it would seem that here the castle stands atop a rocky precipice, over a low and volcanic plain, with flows of crackling lava and spewing gouts of toxic clouds. In the underglow, various flying monstrosities can be seen hovering - and a whole herd of nightmares stampedes across the floes.
"RIU, can you tell if any of the worlds has an active link to the real world?" Jason thinks.
RIU twitches its whiskers, but it seems that whatever epiphany it had, it does not extend to omniscience. It looks forlornly off into space, and then back toward the ball that contains the aircar which in turn contains its master.
"Anyone for eenie-meenie-miney-moe?" Jason asks a bit lamely.
Although RIU doesn't seem to be adding anything to the discussion at the moment, it seems that however he's managed to communicate with the HUD, it's retaining the generated map in the memory cache.
Jason sits back and takes a look at the vid-map in hopes maybe something will make more sense.
As he fiddles with the controls, he finds that if he zooms in, little representations of scrolls unfold, showing names for some of the locations - but not all.
One location that seems to be of particular importance, and well within the "well-lit" domain (for lack of a better description) would be Tasavalta - one which seems to sport a kingdom of the same name, and a large set of airship docks.
"Not now, Mom, they need me in.. Ithalbar!" Holly says, snapping her fingers. "But we might be safer in Tasavalta."
Jason goes about a methodical examination by trying to first identify worlds that have descriptions and making note of them. From there he starts cycling through them, skimming over each description to see if any of them. "Tasavalta mean anything to anyone?" he asks. He also pokes the fox, adding, "Not once for yes, two for no."
"It's the main starting area," Holly says. "Tutorials, beginning stuff and so on."
Of the named populated areas, it seems that the closest one to the present location - a place well within the darker and more sinister-looking zones - would be an outpost of sorts on a shard called Ithalbar. It looks like a ruinous place, once a city perhaps, that completely encloses whatever shard of crystal is at its core. Smaller fragments orbit it, forested and tangled, with signs of settlements and fortifications.
The fox-bundle squirms and makes a muffled growl.
"I'm not here to level grind," Jason remarks absently, "I want to find a way home."
"I think Tracy is in Ithalbar," Holly says. "She's been playing for some time, after all."
Other exotic locales appear on the map as well - a floating storm in the ether currents known as the Eye, surrounded by a tangled maze of broken airships. Nearby, several wrecked airships have been lashed together to make a sort of floating platform city - imaginatively called Shipwreck - that forms a sort of "last chance" port before reaching the ether storms.
"How dangerous is it? And, what is the possibility of getting better gear on Tasavalta?" Jason asks as he continues scanning.
"I have no idea," Holly admits, and looks to the captive fox. She pulls the tape away from its muzzle, and warns, "If you try to bite, Jason will bite back. What do you know about these areas?"
"And ... any of these worlds have slave markets? We could sell the fox," Jason notes.
"Ithalbar sounds a good place to start," Randall says as he flies cover for the air car, holding a frost orb ready in case they get jumped by something more substantial than the spooks he's seen so far.
If one were to take the most direct route back to "civilization," such as it seems to exist in this world, it would seem to involve charting a course past the storm (assuming one can't just fly over or under it), past the Shipwreck, and then to the outpost land of Ithalbar, and finally to the metropolis of Tasavalta (if one were so inclined). But then, it looks like there is another kingdom on the map - the Sentinel Shards, with a place called Cadmus at its center - that might be reached without weathering such a storm, but there's something different about the way that the scrollwork is depicted.
"Hmm," Jason mutters and zooms in on the area containing Cadmus.
"We are in the realms of Shadow," the fox says, and this time her mouth definitely moves, unlike as in her larger form.
"We know that," Holly grumps. She points to the odd Sentinel Shards. "What about this place?"
"This place?" the fox asks. "Are you pointing at something, or do mean where we are, right here, right now?"
The police officer's chuckle sounds a bit strained. "Don't sell her off too quickly, Jason, I have a hunch about her."
With a sigh, Holly unwraps the rest of the fox's face.
"Next time I'll use transparent tape," the woman notes.
"Ow! Ow ... ow! Not so - OW!" the fox-thing protests. Underneath all the tape, her face has a foxish look to it, to be sure, but not quite the proportions one would expect of a fox - even a human-sized one. In the center of her forehead is a bluish gem, and strange swirling marks follow her tufted cheeks. She looks about at her captors with amber eyes.
The fox's eyes widen, as she struggles to reposition herself and raise her head. "What ... where ... what ... where are we? Where ... what happened?"
"Hi. You owe me a new control unit. I had customized it, too," Jason remarks to the fox. "Why did you steal it, anyway?"
With a crumble and crash, another tower collapses, slowly it seems at this distance and for its size, and the pieces fall off the edge and down to the lava below.
"We're still burning fuel," Holly notes. "Are the Sentinel Shards safe or should we take the long way around the storm here?" she asks as she points to the display.
The fox squirms and shifts, peering to get a glimpse of the world through the gaps in the duct tape. Then, she turns and looks at the display. "Safe? Heh. Well, maybe ..." She blinks and regards the map, then leans forward, staring at it intently. "There are places ... cities! It's not all Shadow here...."
"Nearby cities?" Holly asks. She also takes a moment to concentrate on her duct-tape armor to try and make it transparent - or at least, transparent when looking out from inside.
The greyness fades a bit, giving a mere slight greyish tint to the view of the great outdoors. The fox jerks away from the display, and struggles to get up - to stand up? - crawling over and squashing Jason a bit in the process. "The castle ... the castle ... YOU BLEW UP THE CASTLE!"
Randall scouts the way, climbing from the shadowy Castle. "Could the way you rigged the tent to collapse have caused this thing to do the same, Jason?" he asks over the com. "Quantum convergence."
"IT's a network of data points. Worlds, in what the data is trying to represent," Jason tells the fox as he actually tries to help her more readily see the screen ... "Ack, hold still!" Of course we did! We knew what we were doing!"
"It was an ugly castle anyway, and we aren't sticking around," Holly points out.
RIU swim-flies about the collapsing ruins, watching their continued collapse with great interest. A pillar looks just on the verge of falling, but not quite. He flies over and gives it a little tail swat, then jerks back as it goes crashing down. His whiskers twitch in apparently amusement, and his little body shakes a few times as he does an aerial somersault.
Noticing something when Inari leans forward, Holly says, "Jason, be careful were you grab." Thinking of 'duct tape prom dresses', she tries to change the wrappings into something more like clothing.
"I ... it ... this isn't right." The fox-thing twists about to regard Holly. "You! You aren't human, are you? I don't know why I can't see your true form...." And then she looks down in surprise as the tape pulls away. As the tape shifts about, she lets out a squeak of alarm, and long black hair falls over her face. She sputters to try to blow it out of the way. The rest of the tape shifts about, and it would seem that - as of now, at least - she has arms rather than forelegs, and completely formed hands.
"And yes, it might have, if the two were mirroring each other in action," Jason replies to Randall as he deals with the squirming fox. "And before people complain about destruction of property, it was for a good cause." He rolls his eyes to Holly, noting, "I'm not into fox girls."
Inari stomps Jason's foot, and does a much better job of it this time.
"Kitsune were shapeshifters," Holly recalls. "Is that you, Akiko?"
Randall's voice over the radio: "Akiko Summers?"
"Ow! What?! That does it. I don't care if you think she'll be helpful, out she goes," Jason growls loudly and goes for the door release.
The kitsune sputters and, realizing she has use of her hands, draws her hair out of her face. "Well, I suppose there's not much point in that ruse for any longer, now is there -- EEEP!"
The fox-thing, however, no longer being encased in tape, manages to keep from spilling right out of the aircar. She growls and starts kick-kick-kicking at Jason as she hangs precariously just inside the open doorway.
"If you promise to behave I'll help you back in," Jason offers, growling right back as he tries to fend off the kicking.
The fox shouts and screams a long stream of incoherent protests, threats and generally uninhibited and barely articulated rage at Jason, the universe, the aircar, the Shadow, the Light, the IHOF, and electrical tape in particular.
"Jason, that's a real person!" Holly chides, and tilts the air-car so the girl can fall back inside.
Jason patiently waits out the tirade. "All you have to do is say yes, you'll behave and ... Holly, stop it!" the hacker growls.
Akiko/Inari lets out an angry scream as she falls back into the aircar.
"Akiko Summers, please cooperate with us," comes Randall's voice over the radio, suddenly full of police officer-ness. "We are not attempting to kidnap you. We are trying to help rescue you. You vanished from the real world some time ago, and we believe you have been the subject of brainwashing to convince you that you are a kitsune. Listen to us."
The kitsune abruptly stops, and settles down, though somewhat awkwardly. She curls in on herself. "This is all impossible. The cities, the shard worlds ... those are all from an illusion dream-world I made up. I can't be in it." She looks askance, part accusingly - but mostly uncertain - to Holly. "You ... you aren't what you appear to be. What are you? Who are you, really?"
Holly levels off, and shoots Jason an angry look. "I'm Holly Trudeau, a security executive at Avatars LLC. The world we just left is a simulation of the real world, and the Links you know there, along with yourself, are real people that were brought into it somehow. We got sucked in too. You're an adult woman, who came to work at Avatars as an intern before you vanished."
"And I'm, Jason Edwards, owner of Reality Check, expert in computer systems, security systems, and electronics. Hired by Avatar's to supplement their security personnel on a matter of systems breach," Jason offers and actually extends his hand. "Victim of this place, someone who is tired and right now just wants to go home."
The fox's jaw drops. "How can you know about that dr--" Then, she blinks, taking it all in. She stops, and puts her hands up to her face, examining them. She closes her eyes, squinting, breathing slowly.
"Officer Randall Cranston, NYPD," says Randall. "Investigating a murder that got a lot more complicated than I expected."
Her form ripples. Her muzzle grows smaller, the tail draws back within the black tape dress, the fur fades away. In a short while, it's Akiko - minus her makeup, minus her glasses, but otherwise a pretty good likeness of the Akiko they met in the IHOF. She opens her eyes and looks uncertainly at Jason's hand.
"Truce?" Jason asks, sounding for all the worlds tired.
"I guess ... I guess I won't try to devour your soul after all," Akiko whispers, sounding far less dangerous. "I ... I'm still in the simulation? That was real, then. How long ... there's just no way this could still be ... I mean ... the time passed ... without any breaks? How is that possible?"
The former fox takes Jason's hand, awkwardly, and gives it a shake. "Uhm ... truce, I guess."
"Unfortunately, there wasn't a portal available to the real world," Randall says over the com. "We're going to work on it, but if you can help us with what you remember from your dream, we need to get to Ithalbar."
"Your perceptions were probably altered," Holly guesses. "The important thing right now is to get in contact with some of the techs I trust, then find the system that the Sage mentioned, where they tried to take things out of the virtual worlds. Akiko, a lot of your body is probably simulated matter, so you'll need to get an infusion of the real stuff or you'll turn into semiconductor quantum-dot goo transferring to the real world."
"A while. Seven months, if my memory serves on the record we pulled up on the disappearance of an Akiko Summers," Jason answers and withdraws his hand. "Those other kids, well, at least three are also adults and have been here a long time too. I think you originally tried to help them escape and not see what they were. And ... well, I also think the 'Master' and his agent, the sage,wrote you into being the villain because you weren't conforming. As Randall says,infused with artificial matter."
"No," Akiko says, eyes widening in horror. "No, that's not ... no ... Mr. Forester wouldn't ... he couldn't have ... I'm ... seven months ... there's no way I could have gone through the simulation ... could have survived ... unless ... no, I'm contaminated. I'm ... I'm not real, am I, then? I'm dead? I'm just a ... a ghost?"
"No, you're not dead. None of us are. We're just stuck here. There are portals out, we just have to find them," Jason comments as he finally summons RIU back into the car.
"Forester?" Holly asks. "Is Blake Forester the Master, or his son? Is he the reason that simulation was created?"
RIU snuffles suspiciously at the new passenger, but then returns to his place around Jason's shoulders.
"It's all right," Randall soothes over the com. "We won't abandon you. We will get you of here."
"Blake Forester," Akiko repeats. "He looks a lot younger in the simulation." She looks awkward. "Kind of handsome, really. I don't know if he ever really looked like that back when he was that young. I mean ... you know ... you know Forester, don't you? What he's like? But he's brilliant, of course. And ... artificial atoms! I mean ... that sort of thing is unthinkable. Holography is nothing compared to the ability to manipulate matter. But it was all very secret. I thought ... I thought I had finally made it, that ... He said I was special, talented...."
Akiko shrinks back in on herself, clasping herself around the shoulders. "Those weren't dreams. That all really happened. All of it. ... All of it."
"Wait, did he come over with the merger?" Holly asks. "Is he from Programmable Matter Corp.? We merged to get their electron simulation algorithms. I remember overseeing the secure data link."
"We really need to find your daughter, Holly. If we can, I've got an idea on how we can set up a hidden link to the outside world. We just need to connect into the visual systems of her gear. In fact, it should be relatively easy for her to mod it so that we can. Simple flash-pulse data encoding poor man's optical modem over the visual system of players. If we can link it into my home system well," Jason says to Holly, though as Akiko starts to break down, he sighs, suddenly feeling very guilty. "Here," he says and moves a bit so that he can pull off his long coat and drape it over the woman. "It's not much of a blanket, but, well, you probably feel pretty exposed and violated by this mess right now."
"You want to hack Valhalla from the inside, in other words?" Trudeau asks Jason.
"He's ... he's in some special department," Akiko says, as she grabs onto the coat. "He's just listed as an AI interface programmer. But that's nothing. It's all to cover his real role." She looks out the canopy. "I loved when I first got to meet Inari. I mean, in person. Even playing Avatars - it wasn't the same. It was like she was really alive, even more than in the game - and I wouldn't have even thought that was possible - it seemed so real already."
"Effectively. We're already on the inside, so we're inside the encryption. We're part of the system, so might as well use it to our advantage," Jason says with a nod to Holly.
"You'll be more yourself after you've had some rest," Randall reassures. What she says about Inari disturbs him though, and he finds himself stroking Mara's cold neck. Her Avatar? "The Sentinel Shards, is that a safe place for us to go? Or should we route around the Shipwreck to get to Italbar?"
"In person? In the Real World you mean?" Holly asks, wondering if Akiko worked in the Claytronics lab now.
Akiko blinks and shakes her head. "I mean ... this ... where we are ... now. This place. It's real. It's not the same sort of real as our own world ... but this is a world. Universes are born all the time. It's mind-boggling - pointless - to even try to grasp it all. But it's possible to ..." She chokes back a sob, and turns it into a semblance of a laugh. "It's like being a cheap sort of god, I suppose. Avatars - the world of Avatars - has become its own world, in its own space, in its own reality. That's why it's impossible to change someone's gold values by changing a byte. There aren't any. It stopped being a computer simulation a long time ago."
"Wonderful," Holly says with a sigh. "We need to head for a place to make camp, Akiko. Sentinel or Shipwreck?" she asks, repeating Randall's question.
"Simulation or real world .. it doesn't matter. The point is to find a way home," Jason remarks as he looks out of the window. "I have no intention of staying here."
Akiko shakes her head. "Sentinel ... I don't know how ... the world changes. I don't know if the war is still going on. You ... you aren't aligned with anybody. Maybe you can persuade them you're someone important. I ... maybe I can still do illusions in the simulation." She shudders. "We might be able to pass ourselves off there. Or the Shipwreck. If it's like it's supposed to be, it should be fairly safe. I mean, as long as you don't have too much worth stealing."
Jason resists remarking that Akiko already stole one of his more valuable bits of equipment. "Shipwreck sounds like a place that would be easy to hide in," he offers as his opinion.
"We can't afford to lose any of our supplies of real matter," Holly notes. "I vote for Sentinel or making a run for Ithalbar."
Akiko takes a deep breath. "If you can persuade them that you aren't hostile, the Sentinels might be a way to find civilization. If you can get to the Shipwreck, then from there, past the Storm, you can get back into the territories of the Light - and back to the starting areas. I don't know if there's a portal there - but it's the only place I can think of. The place where people enter. It's a point of creation in this universe, I guess you could say. I mean ... there is powerful magic, I guess you could say - that's how it's still possible for 'programmers' to manipulate things. They just have to do it within the rules of this universe."
"Hmmm, that would be the best place to access Valhalla," Holly admits.
"Sounds like a choice between Uptown or Downtown," Randall observes. "Can we pass inspection Uptown with Holly's air car?"
Akiko shakes her head. "You're right. Either way, it's between a rock and a hard place, or a hard place and a rock. I don't know what will happen about obvious technology. It might get attention ... but is that a bad thing? I'm sorry. I never got a chance to really get far in Avatars before coming into this place. And Mr. Forester's world ... it's his own. It's not really like the Avatars world. I can't help you much in terms of answers. I could end up leading you the wrong way. But ..." She looks out the canopy nervously. "Anywhere is better than here. Evil Inari thought she had pull with the Shadow ... but I don't know if they'll honor anything like that."
"We're wrapped up like a flying redneck," Jason has to point out. "If you two think you can manage to convince them we're good guys or whatever, though, go for it." He rubs his forehead, then asks Akiko, "Are you Inari, somehow? Did part of the experiments try to fuse you with your avatar?"
Randall says, "Let's head for the Shipwreck. There, we can try to find enough materials to give us some 'local coloration'. Something to blend in better."
Akiko looks to Jason with amber, slit eyes, and ... grins. She flinches, then giggles, then laughs. Her face contorts and changes, and once more, she looks much more foxish. "Of course I'm Inari. And thank you - you've destroyed the castle of my would-be master. Don't think he won't be upset over it - but I can help you. I think we can help each other. In fact ... if you're interested, I can get us a proper ship."
"Shipwreck it is," Holly says, then grins to Jason. "At least there, you won't feel inadequate about your piloting."
"See if I help complete any of your plans next time, Holly. I saved your car from being crushed, you know ... after you abandoned it," Jason grumbles, "Not to mention it was the UV light array I built that wrecked the castle. And of course the detonation of the gas station when we first arrived that saved your butt. But who's keeping track, eh?" "The only person I can count on in this whole crazy group is you, RIU," he thinks, then just resumes looking out the window, arms folded across his chest.
Over the radio, Randall's voice is clearly amused. "My mom always warned me to watch out for three things: gambling, strange women, and anyone who says they can get me a great deal on a used car. So far this is two out of three. But I'm listening, Inari."