Bridge of the Ozymandias
Brushed dark metal and copper-toned surfaces gleam in the low red glow emitted from the ubiquitous tubes running throughout the ship. Metal buttresses with circle-cut patterns cast ominous shadows. Upholstered chairs sport securing straps and sturdy handholds in case of turbulence, and it's possible to traverse the entire bridge without letting go of a strap or rail. The captain's station features a ship's wheel and many levers; just fore of it is a second station with a hand-shaped imprint in the center of the controls. Further forward and down a level is a magic circle with a half-circle rail for support, and beyond that are the forward viewports with a view of surrounding space and of the jagged ramming prong.

The Ozymandias is underway from Polydorus, finally free from the fringes of the endless Storm. Where once it seemed that the dreadnaught was making its way through the starry depths of space, now it is more appropriate to think of a craft drifting its way through a softly-lit sky.

Clouds drift by, occasionally above or below, but mostly clustered along the Aether Plane and borne along by its unseen currents. The sun can be seen in the distance, without any horizon to hide it - no ground above or below - but even so, the sky's colors range from purple to red to fiery orange, and the clouds are pink-limned: a look commonly associated with sunrise or sunset.

The ship itself lacks anything resembling a calendar, a clock, or even an hourglass. However, the crew's multipurpose PDA/com units faithfully report the time as evening - a little after 6 pm, Wednesday, October 8th, 2059. Sasha is somewhere on the ship, after having gone shopping in Polydorus; most of the other crewmembers didn't avail themselves of that option, being more preoccupied with their new passenger: Tracy "Tracer" Trudeau.

It's hard to say whether Tracer has accepted the story she's been fed. Perhaps she's accepted it, or perhaps she's reserving judgement, or perhaps she's just very politely accommodating these crazy adults and going along with whatever wild mind game they've got going on - after all, crazy or not, something serious is going on that involved her house getting burned down and her mother disappearing and being put under 24-hour police protection, so it's not like she's in any position to laugh it all off.

At the very least, Tracer has obligingly served as a conduit for communication with the real world. Periodically, it may be presumed that she disconnects from the game to deal with Real World concerns. It's not always easy to tell when this is happening, if she doesn't announce it; the game puts her character on "autopilot," and though she might not be as immediately responsive or engaged in conversation, it's not as if she adopts a glassy-eyed stare for the whole period. There are also instances where she'll be quiet for a bit, and then complain about connectivity issues when she "gets back."

During some of her "out" periods, she has forwarded messages. For Captain Randall / Officer Cranston, she forwarded a message to the NJPD. And she also forwarded some messages for her mom to some of her coworkers.

"You know, you are going to have to let her be more active in this, like it or not. Think about it from her perspective. She's fourteen and her mother is in danger, she's going to do something. All kids are like that. Its then better that she at least operate under our guidance than her sneaking off to do things anyway and really getting in trouble," Jason points out to Holly during a moment of apparent Tracer 'downtime'.

Randall adds, "This is pretty serious, from what she's said, they're working on an Avatars-based theme park. That could spell any number of convergences, or maybe one huge synecdoche. We need to get them to take our messages seriously, and we need to shut it down and cordon it off before it goes any further."

"She is doing things to help," Holly insists. "Leaving the house and becoming a target isn't helping. And we shouldn't be having this conversation in front of her," she notes. "The system will summarize what she's missed for her."

"She could do more. She's already a target, Holly. Staying in one place makes her a sitting target," Jason points out.

"Can't you get a policeman to do what you want?" Holly asks, sounding tired. "I'm already worried about Tracy even being online with us."

Akiko strolls onto the bridge, taking a moment to shield her eyes as they adjust to the brighter lighting of the sunlight (compared to the dull red glow suffusing most of the rest of the ship). She stops as Randall brings Tracer by. "Huh." She waves a hand in front of Tracer, but Tracer doesn't respond other than a mildly annoyed expression. "Thought so!" She grins.

"I would prefer to use people we know and can trust," Jason notes, "Some average donut eater may be on the take."

"Yeah, yeah, but it's that use part I have issues with," Holly notes. "Jason, this is my daughter. She's just a little girl!"

"I don't think she would appreciate you calling her that. Do you really think she'll sit around idly now that she knows what is going on?" Jason points out.

Akiko nods. "Hey, we need the captain on the bridge." She reaches out for Tracer's hand. "I can take her to her cabin for you."

"If she knows what's good for her she will," Holly growls. "And I'd appreciate it if you didn't try to go behind my back and 'suggest' things to her. I don't understand what you want her to do anyway."

Randall throws a salute. "All right, but right now I feel like I'm babysitting here, walking Tracer back to her cabin was a nice change." He winks and returns to the fray.

Akiko says, "Yeah, well, you're Mr. Charm, and it sounds like things are getting ... fiery." She quickly takes leave with Tracer in tow, retreating from the heated discussion on the bridge.

"What about what's good for her mother? Do you think that won't affect her actions any? Weren't you ever impulsive as a kid?" Jason asks. "She's not stupid, I think she can work out if we don't get out, you're effectively dead."

"Holly, Jason's not asking Tracy to take up a gun and go after Blake," Randall says, trying to calm things down. "Or to become a spy and sneak into the Avatars HQ either. He's aware that she's a fouteen year old girl and what her limitations are, right, Jason?"

"I'm not going to put her into more danger than she's already in," Holly counters. "And I'm not too confident that she's safe here if Blake attacks us again. I've heard of induction sets being overloaded and causing real damage, and I have no idea what Jason wants her to do."

"Of course I am. I'm asking her to see if we can get her Avatar's game link to act as a permanent link out for us so we can better act. We just need to tap into the optical feeds of the unit, then we can use basic light pulse coding to communicate with an external system. That way we're not even trying to work around the security systems of the interface itself, or trying to manipulate game aspects, we're just using it as a poor man's optical link," Jason notes, "And I can certainly walk her through how to hook things up that should work."

"By using the junk in my workshop, of course, and my system. It has a much more stable link than this cabin of hers," Jason notes.

The police officer pulls a face. "So she can't do it by mail-ordering some parts?"

Holly's face twitches at the notion of her daughter going into Jason's workshop. "Your home is a deathtrap though, isn't it?"

"The connection problems compound getting any parts," Jason points out. "We need a stable link."

"And no, my workshop is not a deathtrap. Its been years since anyone lost a finger or two in there," Jason comments.

"Good thing it was a clean cut," Randall says cheerfully, waggling a finger. "The paramedic said that you did a great job putting the finger on ice, they didn't have any problems stitching it back on."

RIU wakes up from where he snoozes near the front of the bridge. His eyes light up, and he looks back at Jason.

Randall leans forward on the railing toward the conversation. "But, Tracy's under police protection where she is. You're suggesting she'd need to either elude the people who are there to protect her, or get them to escort her, and then make her way to somewhere with which she's not familiar, and set up camp there. It could be days."

"This is not inspiring confidence, fellows," Holly notes. "Assuming you had this dedicated connection, what could you do with it? The only thing you could connect is the game interface."

There's a squeak of alarm from somewhere in the corridor. It sounds like Akiko's voice.

"Escort. I'm not expecting her to hotwire a car and go off on an adventure. As for what I could do with it, we would have a permanent link to the outside world. Direct lines to the police, Chaz, and so on, as we need. Bes..." Jason starts explaining, then his eyes narrow. "Something's going on, stream access!" He leaps up from his chair and darts out the door towards the squeak. "RIU, locate the access and feed to me what it's doing," he thinks.

"I wonder if Blake's accessed Tracer's Avatar and is using it to attack Akiko!" Jason suggests as he disappears out the door.

Out in the corridor, just in front of one of the officer's cabins that has been designated as Tracer's, a milky-white horse, straight out of Fuseli's Nightmare, stands, taking up the bulk of the corridor, while Akiko has been bowled over onto the floor, in between its front hooves; she's in the process of trying to right herself, though it's an awkward squeeze. Tracer can be seen standing in her doorway, not looking particularly concerned.

"That's Tracy's Avatar," Holly says when she sees it. "I didn't think they could show up when the user wasn't active though."

The horse just stands there, looking on with milky-white eyes, half-tossing its head until it encounters the roof of the corridor. "Ow," it says, in an echoing voice that doesn't actually come from its mouth. "This is way too big."

Jason then ... smirks. "Hello, Chaz," he tells the avatar. "So, you can talk. No need to do hoof stomping to talk. You had us worried there."

Akiko takes Randall's hand and scurries backward out from underneath the horse, reaching up to straighten out her hair.

"That's really you, Chaz?" Holly asks. "What's the name of the girl who poured that drink on you at the Christmas Party last year?"

The horse finally turns to focus (as near as can be told, as its eyes have no pupils) on Jason, then to Holly.

The dashing pirate captain helps Akiko straighten herself up, then smiles at her. "Looks like we're getting a visit from one of Holly's friends," he whispers. "Why he picked Tracy's horse..."

"Heavenly," the horse says/emotes. "No, really, that's her name. And how about you? What was the gift you got in the White Elephant gift exchange?"

"Compensating?" Jason whispers as a suggestion to Randall, then nudges him with an elbow.

Randall oofs. "Well, here's your chance to ask about getting a link," he whispers back.

"I didn't know it was from Tibet!" the horse says, sounding impressed. "All right, it's got to be you. I can't verify links. Based on your message, I assumed you had to be traveling in group with Tracer's VPC, but I couldn't find any VPC links from the central hub to trace. You've got a VPC local tag, but there's no matching central database key."

"Well, it's good to know that Blake can't just find us by a central database search then," Holly says. "But he could use the same trick you did and follow Tracer, right? Any way to hide her?"

"Because we're not VPCs. We're actual people trapped in this ... game. The system has assigned something to us just because it needs some sort of reference on how to react to us," Jason comments, "So, effectively we exist and don't exist to this world at the same time," Jason remarks and shrugs slightly.

Randall clears his throat. "Chaz, I'm assuming that Tracer's Avatar doesn't normally talk, so you're possessing and speaking through it for the time being. Would you be able to do the same trick with a pet, like the squirrel I got Holly?"

"All right, all right," the horse says to Jason. "Listen, I know something wacky is going on. I'm still trying to figure out what's up. You might be stuck in cryo-tanks somewhere, and hooked up to neural inductors, as part of some crazy scheme for all I know. Something's definitely up with Blake. Anyway, I've requested that a flag be put on Tracer's account, and any administrative access on her links will set off alarms. That's the best I can do right now. As for Blake - I visited his office, but he's not in, and the secretary says he's been out for - oh, so sorry, I just got a call! Say, can't you come back later?"

The horse looks to the little squirrel on Holly's shoulder. "Huh. Liked it so much, you got yourself a virtual replacement, huh? By the way, we got the prototype back from impounding."

Randall explains, "I'm figuring that at some point Tracy will get back to her connection and then she'll be perturbed if her horse is talking."

"Sorry, no cryo-tank," Jason says with a sigh, "And what my friend is hinting at is we want to establish a permanent communication channel back out to you. Its difficult enough to break into your comm channel and send you messages, and Blake seems to notice it, to boot."

The horse nods, bonking its head. "Ow. I need to retune my interface. All right, I'm switching to the vanity pet. S'okay, Holly?"

The hispanic officer chuckles at the bonk. Yeah, the horse might be a little large for the setting. "Well, I don't know that you could hook up a line to the pet, but maybe we could do something with the scrying orb."

"Yeah, you always were more.. uh.. squirrelly," Holly notes. "No offense! It's the way you stuff candy into your cheeks.."

"Ha ha," the horse says. Then, it puffs into a faint white mist and vanishes. A couple of swirling bands appear around the squirrel on Holly's shoulder, and a pop-up reads, "Administrative Override." This vanishes, and then the squirrel snaps out of its idle-animation. It makes some chittering noises, as a disembodied (and somewhat higher-pitched voice) says, "All right, that's better! Where's this scrying orb you mentioned?"

"On the bridge," Jason answers as he motions back towards the bridge, then follows Holly.

Once the corridor is clear, Akiko heads over to Tracer, and leads her back into her cabin, while the others head for the bridge.

On the bridge, the squirrel chitters, "All right! I knew it! It's an Imperial rig. Let me see...." It leaps off of Holly's shoulder and scurries over to the captain's wheel, then to the station right in front of it. "Power glove interface!" It turns to glance at Jason. "And a power glove! All right, it looks like you guys are in business."

Randall mutters to the others as they enter, "If Blake's not in his office, where is he?"

The squirrel scampers over to one of the maintenance access panels, and reaches up for it, wiggling its little paws. "Okay. Not quite hands. Hey, can someone get this panel for me? I need to get to the Black Box behind it."

"I never realized archaeic toys were so popular," Jason admits as he starts to settle back down into the 'engineer's' chair, then stops midway. As he heads over to open said panel, he suggests, "My guess on Blake is ... hm. Well, what if Blake has a permanent gate for himself so he can come in and out of his little world?"

"He may be using one of the old interface tanks," Holly suggests. "Chaz, can you find out if Blake has a neural plug?"

"If he was using a safe portal, I don't think he'd look like a teenager," Holly asides to Jason. "But then, I have no idea what they've got in the Urd project, if he's even a part of it."

"Could be," Randall says to Jason. "But what if he has a secret setup somewhere else? Like at that theme park... Is he involved at all in that project?"

Randall adds, "My assumption'd been that he's disappearing the people that found out too much about his little project."

"Blake's a wirehead," the squirrel comments. "He doesn't even bother with a neural inductor." The squirrel shudders. "Scary. I don't care how popular it is, I'm not putting metal in my head." He absently turns back to Holly. "We got the recordings off the squirrel, by the way. It took quite a surge, but came through fairly intact. The footage is trippy, I'll tell you that!" He then returns his attention to the access panel, and begins to work at it, though he has no tools, and it's unclear just how he's interacting with the odd, partially crystalline device. "Ngh. All right. This is the real deal. These are on every Imperial vessel; it's a GM override - we used it for some of the freewheeling early clashes with the Empire before the BLACK took over more of the particulars."

"Hey Chaz, what's the word on this Theme Park deal?" Holly asks the squirrel. "I know we've had partnerships with DreamTime and Programmable Matter Corp., so is this the real deal?"

"Can we add more lockouts to them? Blake was detonating those last time in an attempt to kill us," Jason says, "Well, right before I altered his physical model into that of a monster and scared all his companions."

A few floating runic bands materialize in the air, hovering around the exposed Black Box, partially disappearing into the wall. The bands shatter. "Huh. I think I found your security," the squirrel notes, as its fur sticks straight out. "Slick."

"That explains the black boxes, I'd been wondering if they were something Blake added to make a secret navy," Randall says.

The squirrel waves a paw absently, as he conjures up some more floating bands, and an Under Construction marker. He shakes his head. He finally gets back to Holly - "The theme park business - it's all new news, really. I mean, there have been the rumors forever, and there's a spot in So Cal where I knew we were starting something - but it's only this week that there's been official confirmation. It's all the buzz now. I'm not a part of it, though - and Blake shouldn't be, either."

"If Blake is plugging in directly, at least I have an idea of where he needs to be," Holly notes to Randall. "The original developers used sensory deprivation tanks for wireheads. They're stored near the R&D wing. Bad news is that it means Blake is really fast. Without RIU boosting Jason's speed in here we'd be toast."

The squirrel swishes his tail, and the bands vanish. "All done here. You can close it up." He bounds over to the crystal ball. "All right. This is a permanent fixture, right? Should be able to rig up a user-friendly interface."

"It's user friendly, it's just very choosy about its friends," Randall quips eying Holly meaningfully.

"Do you need me to add you to the access controls for the ship?" Jason asks as he closes the panel, then hmphs at Holly. "I could manage on my own! Not that I don't mind his help..."

"If you can add my admin account, that'd save me a little effort of having to go through the protocols to get permission," the squirrel notes to Jason. "I hate dealing with the bureaucracy. Now then...." The squirrel focuses on the orb, and looks surprised when several windows suddenly pop up. "Oh! You've already customized this one. And you got past the RP protocols? Well, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. This might be easier than I thought."

"Can you give us access to the game interface through the orb?" Holly asks. "So we can at least yell for help if we need to?"

"I don't know how well it'd work in areas with 'strict RP enforcement'," Randall clarifies. "We ran into some issues in Tesliem." He rubs his short, trimmed beard - yes, he's still taking the time each morning to do that. "But with nanotech... Remember that castle we set up in Test North Bend? If they've got a seed programmed, I bet that theme park could be up and running real fast."

Jason flops back into a nearby chair and closes his eyes to focus on the link to RIU so that he can at least add Chaz in to the ship access ... with a small caveat: Jason gets a chance to veto any commands he may issue ... just in case. Chaz could be working for Blake, though unlikely ... or if his account got hacked, well...

"On it," the squirrel says. Some bands surround the orb, and several windows pop up - some technical screens, permissions screens, and user account details flash by. "All right. You'll need to enter your password key, and I can't guarantee you full security in-game for things like that, but you should be able to sign into your account here, Holly, and rig up a feed. Trouble is, everything you do through that channel will be logged, of course, as it's coming through the system. However, I've also set up a guest channel - you can self-spawn a guest line, which won't have all the security access of your regular account, but you can use it to get messages out, and to access publicly-available channels. Plus, you can generate a new line each time - and if you're afraid of Blake or anyone else snooping, well, it's going to take a lot of effort to monitor ALL the guest lines."

"Bureaucracy can be your ally too!" Holly notes. "We can get the old interface tanks shut down so Blake can't use them. It'll inconvenience him, since he probably has another interface somewhere, but it probably won't be full internal bandwidth like the old tanks."

"Can we just overload all the old tanks? With a direct wire in his head, it should lobotomize him..." Jason offers.

"That should work perfect, Chaz," Holly says. "Tracy is on the main account, so we can use the guest channels for basic stuff. If we use the main account, anyone who's watching should assume it's Tracer doing stuff."

Randall points out, "That would be, (a) wilful destruction of corporate property, and (b) manslaughter, at the very least. I'd rather get a warrant issued for his arrest and bring him in for some questioning. We've got evidence he's involved in the disappearance of several people, at least."

The squirrel nods to Holly. "I should have thought of that. Here. If you'd like, I can give you a line for Tracer's account. I mean, that's probably against the rules somewhere, but she's your kid, after all."

"Manslaughter only if it kills," Jason corrects. "And again, I feel I should point out he's been trying to kill us."

"You're talking about a 'speedball' attack, Jason," Holly says. "We don't have the resources to do that. It takes a massive amount of data and a feedback system to monitor the subconscious responses in order to get the user's own brain to rewire the nano-wires... uh.. never mind. It's illegal."

"I'm pretty sure there's a law against performing a lobotomy against someone without their direct permission," Randall jokes.

"So Holly will be able to log into her Avatars account through this?" Randall asks. "What about Jason and me? We don't have Avatars accounts, at least that I know of."

"We need Blake alive to find out what else has been going on," Holly notes. "And.. oh... Chaz, can this link be used to backtrace Tracy's real-world IP address?"

"Well," the squirrel notes, "as long as you can reach this orb right here, you can sign in to guest accounts, if you want to get outside feeds. See...." He leaps up onto a chair, and puts a paw up at a hovering, illusory keyboard, and smacks keys, pulling up a popular search engine. "Voila! The internet!"

"If you sent her to my place we could use my system to echo bounce her position all over," Jason says absently, then coughs.

"Oh sweet Internet, how I've missed you," Randall jokes. "I could catch up on Zarathustra episodes! Or, I could try and contact my dispatch officer."

The squirrel adds, "IP addresses are routinely logged for all users on Avatars. It's a standard part of the security."

"Actually, we also have a bigger problem to deal with too. Our food supplies are getting dangerously low," Jason notes.

"Alright, can you set a flag on access to that as well?" Holly notes. "That sort of info is only supposed to be available to my department, so if Blake hacks in I want plenty of warning."

"Maybe that's something Chaz can help with..." Randall explains briefly that they've been using food supplied from the IHOF in Test North Bend, Blake set up some kind of protocol to bring 'real' food in there, and they're running out as well as down to the stuff no one wanted to eat at first, like squid jerky. "Right now we're sixteen hours out from Semele, but as I understand it, players can speed up time by 'not paying attention' - what can an admin do?"

"Hmm, sure," the squirrel notes, and he waves his paws, as a few more windows pop up, and confirms placing a notification flag. "You can do that, too, through your account. But I can see how you might prefer me to place that right now; probably best to keep your own high-security accesses to a minimum since you're going through this interface."

"We should have brought the hot sauce. With hot sauce even squid jerky might be edible," Jason grumbles.

"Funny thing, that," the squirrel notes. "We've been having some glitches lately with the fast-forwarding aspect. We've also been having some glitches with admin-level materialization. I think it has something to do with some of the new system-generated code developments. R&D says that at the current rate, we can expect another resolution update this Saturday."

"Yeah," the squirrel says. "The system has conflicting demands on it for 'realism' versus 'story-convenience.'"

"Lately, it's been having a few clashes between these protocols," the squirrel explains, "leaning a bit more toward realism in some cases. Or you could say, the WHITE has been taking a beating from some of the other AIs."

"Speaking of conflicts, should we introduce him to our other guest?" Jason asks Holly and Randall.

"What will this update do?" Holly asks. "There are things going on here that... well, the White is worried that... Oh right, the General.."

"The realism part is the problem, the closer to reality things get, the more the chances are of unexpected cross-overs in any place sufficiently congruent," Randall notes.

"Well, the programmers have been riding close on the AI development," the squirrel notes. "Programming on this level isn't ... er ... quite like programming on a regular computer. It's like setting rules for the AIs ... and then you have to remind the AIs about those rules, because, seriously, it's like they forget them sometimes. Constant re-prioritizing. We want a bit more realism, but we also want it to be a fun game. And it's not like the programmers can always agree on where that line is. It's another bureaucracy, of course. Anyway, we've all been putting in overtime this week. We had a major blowout, and effectively lost an entire shard."

"Chaz, can you do something for me?" Holly asks. "Search the news for any odd occurrences that coincide with the time of the blowout."

"There was always the chance you meant our other guest," Randall says with a shrug. "General Vilius Ironfist's from Tesliem, if that's the one you mean, Chaz?" He fills the squirrel in on what they suspect and know - involved with a supersoldier project that involved brain transplantation, possibly has a real brain because the system substituted one in, seems to be aware in ways that ordinary NPC AIs shouldn't. Currently believes they're Imperial personnel on a secret mission, has been filled in on the existence of separate universes.

"Uhm, sure," the squirrel says. "But you know, you could do that sort of thing on your guest account. Here, let me see...." He waves his paws, rather than opting for the slower "keypress" interface that the Ozymandias crew might have to resort to. "Club Deco shut down after explosion." "

Holly pulls up a new window with the news article, and reads it with a critical eye.

"'Melting man' sighted off freeway." "Slasher strikes again!" "Freak electrical storm over Seattle."

The squirrel says, "Oh yeah! That was pretty freaky." He points at the picture of a swirling cloud and dramatic cascade of lightning hitting the Space Needle. "Proof of climate change, you know."

"Yeaaah, climate change," Holly says. "Tell me, will the patch update require shutting down the Valhalla interface to the game?"

The squirrel looks dazed and distracted, as he takes everything in. "Uh ... yeah ... huh ... buh ... whoa."

The squirrel shakes himself, then says, "Uhm ... yeah ... update. Yeah." He looks back to Holly. "The updates are going to be rolling, by zone. WHITE will be spawning subprocesses to deal specifically with moving PCs out of affected areas before it happens. The hardest part is going to be Tasavalta, of course; we've got some ghost zones set up - basically, what amounts to some mock-up sets that the VPCs get moved to - not full duplicates of the zone, but just enough for them to still be 'in the game' while Tasavalta is getting rolled over, zone by zone. The AIs handle all that. So, no, no complete shutdown."

"I know it sounds crazy, but the General noticed for himself that the library books here in the Ozymandias actually are whatever subject you ask for, if you hadn't handled them before," Randall says.

The squirrel then drums his clawtips on his head. "But ... self-aware AIs. That's scary. I mean, the implications ... that's the sort of thing, you know, they say positively just can't happen, not ever. I mean, it's theoretically possible, but we've got safeguards specifically to guard against that, because ... well, next thing you know, you have to wonder if video game characters have rights, and if VPCs are committing murder and ... oh smeg."

"Yeah, it's hairy," Holly notes. "Also, the White and Black are aware of the synecdoche issue. These reports of 'melting man' and other things are directly related. The AIs think that if the game system were to go down, things would get really bad. As in, this world would collapse and affect the real world as well. Dammit, I need to know what they're doing in the Urd project! It sounded like they'd gotten the quantum issue solved, at least within the lab."

Randall grimaces. "I'm pretty sure he succeeded in killing one VPC, though luckily the player wasn't hurt, just going through a petition process trying to get his character reinstated. But he might be part of the key to solving this. Either he or Jason's cursed key ring were supposedly given to us by the Black."

The squirrel scratches his head. "Well, if anyone wanted a reason to shut down Valhalla, that'd be it. Of course, not likely to happen - not with all the money tied up in Avatars these days, and all the countries...." He shakes himself again, then says, "I asked about Urd. I got told, not quite so politely, to mind my own stinking business, and they're quite busy and pulling their hair out thankyouverymuch, without me asking lots of curious questions. So, sorry, I don't have any news on that front - nothing other than the expected resolution update this Saturday, that is."

"I think it would be in our best interest to get to Tasavalta before the update," Holly comments.

Randall says, "Yes, but he just explained that they're going to be moving everyone out of Tasavalta while they replace it with... What? Are they just adding more bits and pieces to the place?"

The squirrel shrugs. "That's the thing. It's a request put in by the automated systems for us to make allowances for major changes. The AIs are ... well, they're alien, you know. It's not like they really explain themselves - not in terms anyone can completely understand."

"Can I ask for something?" Jason finally says, "Find out what places are being built in the theme park and when the first will be completed. That, frankly, is our best ticket out of here. We have a defined point of convergence."

"Wait, you're telling me the AIs themselves requested that Tasavalta be cleared out so it can be upgraded?" Randall says.

The squirrel nods. "It happens now and then. The AIs are part of the process. Every now and then, they predict that enough resources will be needed that it may disrupt normal play, so we make allowances for it."

The 'pirate captain' buries his face in his hand for a minute then looks up again. "Remind me, Jason, why did you want to introduce Chaz and the General?"

"We could find out if the General is in the database, or is strictly 'local' like us," Holly suggests.

"I never said you should, I asked if we should," Jason points out. "You chose to do it."

The squirrel waves his paws, and a translucent panel appears near the orb, showing a preview page with the Avatars logo. It has several pictures of construction work, and some partially completed sets. Some statues are on the back of a flatbed truck. "Here we go. This should get you started on what everyone knows about the theme park."

Randall nods. "In that case, I don't see an advantage to doing so... And it might rather complicate the General's life."

The police officer checks his wrist PDA to see if he can get a connection through it to a guest account.

The squirrel waves his paws some more, and a current map shows up. He puts in a request tag for a change in the aether currents. Request denied; plot conflict. He puts in a request for a "fast-forward" time acceleration on current location. Request denied; RP protocol conflict along projected course. "Grrr," Chaz the Squirrel comments. He requests a convenient wind. Request denied; insufficient plot justification. "Oh, for crying out loud!"

Holly looks over the photos for anything recognizable. And also for any information on what companies are involved in the project. "Can we just get some jet engines added to our ship?" she comments to Jason and Chaz.

Randall's wrist PDA picks up a secured wireless local channel named "Imperial Free Wi-Fi."

The squirrel waves his paws again, as he conjures up another request. The panels read: "Multiple protocol violations. Unable to divert raw materials. Anachronism alert." The squirrel fumes. "It's being like this more often."

Jason tries to bring up his own controls to see if he can accomplish any of the requests Chaz hasn't.

"Interesting," Randall muses. He sends a video chat request to his dispatcher, Marge, and adds the short comment 'Just managed to get an outgoing line, thanks to Chaz. Get a private conference room set up before you take the call.'

The squirrel explains, "Apparently the system - based on what it assumes your course is - thinks that if it speeds you up, you're going to run across some live RP action where a super-fast dreadnaught is going to lessen the VPCs' roleplaying enjoyment. And it doesn't even seem to be trying to account for the fact we could just slap this ship silly with 'Ignore Me' protocols so they won't even see us. And the aether - well, the AI in charge of that doesn't seem to want me messing with the NATURAL flows of the Aether Plane. And the jet engines - well, no on jet engines, and no on materializing them out of thin air."

"Weather simulation is always a hassle," Holly mutters, and looks to Randall. "Wait, who did you get a line out to?"

"Or, is simply means the world is becoming more real and isn't going to allow our tinkering," Jason notes.

"I'm working on getting a line to my dispatcher," Randall says showing Holly the PDA display. "I am still a police officer, at least if I haven't gotten fired, so I've got to give them a sitrep."

"Any sufficiently advanced simulation is indistinguishable from reality," Holly paraphrases.

"Great! See if you can get Blake arrested for questioning on the disappearances," Holly suggests.

The PDA display shows a confirmation signal from Marge (it's the same time of day as when this adventure began, so it's understandable that, coincidentally, it's on her shift again).

Randall glances over at the power glove interface meaningfully. "What about wormholes, like the ones that whisked those players off to safety from Tesliem?"

"Hmm," the squirrel notes. "Not exactly low-key, but that might be an option...." He gives it a try. "Where do you want the output to be?"

"A day or two out from Tasavalta, looks like," Randall says. He consults the chart. "Between Caer Cavarel and Tara Lux?"

"Ah, good," the squirrel says. "I can pick a zone without any shards." He puts in a request, and gets a panel that confirms, and fills with display data on the intended course.

The squirrel notes, "I'll probably get lots of questions about this one, but as long as I don't drop you on top of anyone's deeply serious roleplay party, this just might work. Trouble is ... it might be a rough ride."

"We also have a bit of a problem. One of our passengers is fused with and tagged as, a creature of shadow. Will any of this jumping and target location be of threat to her?" Jason asks. At the comment about a rough ride he shrugs a bit. "Depends on what sort of stresses the ship will undergo. How much torsion, and what the net gravitational force will be. It could knock us all out if its a lot."

"Akiko Summers," Randall adds, bringing up her bio to illustrate for Chaz. "It could be bad for her if we can't figure out a way to separate her from Inari, her former Avatar, before we hit the convergence at Tasavalta."

"Well, the panel I have right here should give you all the model data you need," the squirrel says, tapping the holographic display with a claw-tip. "That's as good as it gets. And as for Shadow ... there are still Shadow creatures even all the way into Tasavalta. It's not like vampires burning to a crisp in the sunlight. And ... uh ... separating from Avatars ... I'm sorry, but that's way outside of my range of understanding how you'd accomplish that." He waves his paws around a bit. "Here. This is going to be useless to anyone but a programmer, but this is the best I can do for you - a bit of a toolkit. You'll need to figure out your best in-game interface for it. It'll give you limited ability to tweak local tags and invoke minor protocols ... something you can already do if you've got the access, but this might make it a little easier." Several new panels emerge.

"I guess we need to secure everything we can before we do the jump," Holly notes, setting aside her net-research on the theme park for the moment. "I don't want Tracy coming back and complaining about being covered in bruises from being bounced around."

Randall nods thoughtfully. "How did Blake do that in the first place though? He not only changed their forms but messed with their memories and thoughts. If we could figure that out, we might have a clue to... Hey, what happened to Ratatosk? Can you control him remotely from here, Holly?"

"Well, let's see if they've made the repairs," Holly says, switching screens as she tries to access her security account.

"Okay, so here's the plan, if we're successful in taking a warp to Tasavalta-vicinity, Holly can try to get into Blake's office, and if we can get into his system, Jason can try to get what we need to know from his files. I'll work with the police and see if we can round up Blake and get the theme park construction site closed to outside access," suggests Randall.

Jason pushes himself up and peers over the numbers. "We should also lock the paddle wheels in position so they aren't undergoing rotational stress along with the other forces. I'm not sure the drive shaft will handle it otherwise," Jason comments, "And yes, everything should be strapped down. If you have any tendency to getting seasick, then you better strap yourself down in one of the ship's heads." He spends another minute going over the other panels, nodding more to himself. "And thank you for these; they should be useful. Would have been really useful the last time Blake attacked us. I can think of a lot of uses for this. Could have used it during the makeup table of doom event, for that matter."

"Tasavalta is the newbie area, isn't it? I would expect the theme part entrance to mimic it, then. I also bet during the resolution upgrade, it could possibly link and may provide us a way to get out of here. We'll just have to keep the AIs from moving us out of the upgrading zone," Jason notes. "As for way, a simpler way to muck with local tags and transient values, like ... power levels. Hm, I wonder if I should test it on someone here."

Randall suggests, "Try Akiko, since Holly was just asking about recharging her."

A panel appears, showing a spinning wire-frame diagram of a squirrelbot, superimposed with icons representing its various systems. A separate window shows a squirrelbot's-eye-view of an R&D laboratory.

"Yeah, I was thinking about that. I just ... it kinda bugs me to mess with her. She's been fiddled with too much as it is, you know?" Jason comments.

"Yes, they have the bot up and running it looks like," Holly comments, and starts checking the various functions, and especially battery charge and motor controls.

Randall shakes his head to Jason. "I know what you mean, but if we can recharge her, maybe she wno't feel so helpless. And maybe you can figure out something about her condition with those new tools."

The bot is currently on a table with various blocks, rings, rods, and other obstacles and manipulable items. There are some other toy models - some of them with underlying mechanics exposed - on the table as well, and on nearby shelves. Most of the lights are out: According to Chaz, Avatars LLC employees may be putting in overtime, but apparently not in this laboratory. A clock displays the time as 7:12 pm.

"Chaz ... were there ever early experiments with having characters that shape-shifted? Early models and classes? Kind of like the mage class, but maybe abandoned?" Jason asks. "She has to match some sort of world model, even an abandoned one."

"He's in R&D Main, fifth floor, two down from the break room," the squirrel says to Holly. Then he turns his attention to Jason. "Shapeshifters ... yeah ... had problems with the interfaces. I'm having a bit of trouble with the squirrel, but I've actually got an overlay that almost matches the model. This is just a little too small, though."

"There was talk at one stage," the squirrel continues, "of having Druid as a class, but in addition to the technical issues, and fitting into the cosmology ... well, there was the potential for legal issues. I mean, wizards are about as public domain as you can get. But shapeshifting druids? It's been done, still being done, and we didn't think we could do it well enough better to justify the risk of a lawsuit."

"Should be able to get there from the lab," Holly mutters, and turns on the manual control for the bot. She taps on the image of the door, hoping the sensor will respond to the squirrel's built-in RFID transponder.

"Could you dig up the old interface and model for it that you may still have if you have time? I wonder if Blake just co-oped the old code to make his villainous kitsune," Jason comments. He also finally leans over and uses the tubes to request that Akiko come to the bridge.

The laboratory's door opens in the projected squirrel-view screen. Lights come on from the detected motion. The exterior hallway is still fairly dim, though, with no sign of activity.

Holly works on navigating the robot through the R&D level to the offices, and hopes nobody is in the break room to spot it.

Randall continues editing his report to include the latest details. He's been working on it off and on over the days, but it's different now that he can actually deliver it. For instance, he deletes the paragraph where he muses 'What if the real world were itself just a simulation and there's an outside world beyond that? People like the General just wake up and notice things being incongruent because of the rules that make this place more convenient, but are there rules like that which affect the real world - our world?'

Jason's brow furrows. "That's odd," he mutters to himself. "What would be worrying her?"

"A horse appeared on top of her, and now we've got a talking squirrel, and you wouldn't be worried?" says Randall distractedly.

On the squirrel-cam, there's no sign of anyone in the break room. It looks like nobody's working overtime in R&D - at least, not on this floor. (Floor five, according to the indicator on the elevator.) Two doors down, one of the doors is labeled, "Forester, Blake - Virtual Point Specialist."

Akiko makes it up to the bridge, and pauses a moment again to adjust her eyes to the sharp change in lighting.

"Oh god.. Randall, you aren't including the octopus incidents in your report, are you?" Holly suddenly asks, as she brings up another screen to try and access the door-lock overrides from within Security.

Randall says, "I think she might be less worried if she had been drinking. No, I'm saving those for the holomovie deal later, Holly."

"Everything okay, Akiko?" Jason asks the woman as he brings up his small portable display and starts tapping on it to bring up Akiko's 'game stats'.

On Jason's display, the various tags appear, showing Akiko's status as an Illusionist, with 19/20 Power Points.

Randall gives Akiko a smile. "Jason wants to give you a check-up, Akiko, so just stand over by him, if you don't mind?"

With a furrowed brow, Akiko nonetheless complies, and stands "at attention" before Jason. "All right. Let me know if anything's wrong, okay?"

Jason taps a bit, seeing if he can bump that back to 20. Also, on a lark, he checks what it declares her power source to be, if its even noted anywhere. "Are you sure everything is okay?" he asks. "You seem ... jumpy."

Randall says to Chaz as he waits for Marge to secure a private conference room and call him back, "Can I give my dispatch officer your com code so she can call you up and confirm that I really am stuck in this place?"

Jason's display briefly shows "Shadow - 19/20," but then it is replaced with "Shadow - 20/20."

"Want to see if I can change your power source to 'Light', Akiko?" Jason asks as he nods slightly, glad to see the number jump up. "No idea what that might do, though."

The door closes behind the squirrel. The interior of the office is dark, only dimly lit by power lights from power strips that have been left in the "on" position, and "pilot lights" on various systems left in standby mode. Cables, half-assembled computer boxes, stacks of manuals, and assorted Avatars LLC regalia fill every available desk, table, and shelf space.

"I don't know," Jason admits and tries to alter her listed power source to 'Light'. Nothing he remembers requires foxes or anything to be aligned to a specific power, after all.

The tag display changes in Jason's display, without any fanfare. "Light - 20/20."

"I'm in his office," Holly reports, and switches the squirrel over to infrared 'night vision'. No color, but it will let the bot see better. She then puts the robot into explore mode to let it map out the room.

Jason blinks. "That seemed ... too easy somehow," he admits, brow furrowed. "Can you still shift to Inari?"

A green light indicator shows on Randall's wrist/PDA. Marge must be in the process of trying to set up a conference room link, but she's probably not familiar with the conference room controls. (They're a bit out of date; it hasn't been in the budget to get a new system, as long as there's a techie on staff who can theoretically help.)

Akiko nods, and checks her attire, as if just to make sure she's still wearing her magic "pirate Inari" outfit, and she hasn't switched to any mundane attire that would tear from the exercise. "Here goes."

Akiko closes one eye and squints. "Hunh. Okay. Glad that wasn't an emergency situation. I'll try again."

Akiko's features glide from her humanoid countenance, and her attire alternately shifts shape or melds into her form to accommodate her new appearance: Inari, in over-sized fox form.

"Okay, so that worked," Jason says with a nod, "Feel any different?" He checks the panel again for if any power sources or stats changed.

On the squirrel-com, the view bounces considerably, as the bot tries to reach higher elevations. On a shelf there are assorted action figures, several ancient game systems and techno-geek artifacts, and a couple of obsolete manuals that are clearly there only for geek cred points - not for actual use, let alone "light reading."

Inari squints, then blinks. "This is unexpected. White is black, and black is white." She trots over to the fore of the bridge, and looks out at the cloudy expanse.

"What's that, Inari?" Holly asks, looking away from her display for a moment. "Are your illusion powers still intact?"

The PDA/com lets out a bleep, followed by Marge's voice, "All right, I finally got this lousy piece of trash working. No, the video's just fine, Randall."

"Well ... I think I changed your power source to light," Jason notes, unsure how to take this. "Which would be good where we're going. But ... I'm not sure what else it may have done."

Inari concentrates, and then shimmers out of view ... though, upon careful inspection of the space where she was standing, there's a slightly hazy outline still there. (It's hazy and faint enough, however, that one can't be entirely certain it's really there, or just expected, since Inari was visibly standing there a moment ago.)

"Well, that seems to be working too. Do you want to stay this way, or do you want me to switch it back to shadow?" Jason asks.

"This will suffice," Inari declares. "If we are heading to the sunward lands, this will be a necessity."

"To start off with, as best as I can tell, I'm stuck in the virtual world of Avatars with Holly and Jason," Randall begins, addressing Marge and tuning the pickup to be focused on him. "I know it sounds incredible, but if you can connect with Chaz from Avatars LLC, he'll confirm it. Right now we're using a link he provided." He supplies the com code Chaz gives.

The report that Randall uploads begins with the basic boilerplate for 'Crime Site Preliminary Discovery Report' but then segues to 'Officer Absence Report', 'Missing Person Investigation Report', and 'Corporate Environmental Disturbance Report'

"Well, you're welcome, then. Do you know why Akiko is jumpy? Is something wrong with Tracy?" Jason asks as he closes his small terminal.

The squirrel-cam, meanwhile, displays an older model VR booth - the sort that can still be found in some arcades - that has been modified to upgrade its interface to an induction helmet, and with neural plugs.

"He's actually got his own VR tank in his office?" Holly exclaims, and overrides the exploration mode for a moment to have the squirrel check the booth for activity.

"Charles Burgundy, Avatars System Admin," the squirrel (that is, the one in this room, not somewhere in Avatars R&D) identifies himself. "I'm not 'physically' present at the site, of course."

Across the bridge, Inari says to Jason, "I believe Akiko is unnerved by Tracer's 'idle state.' She has had limited contact with entities of this world since arriving here. The body of Tracer of House Trudeau has alternately exhibited the behavior of an entity of the Real World ... and that of a standby personality, of a Link of some AI-generated facsimile of her in-game persona."

"Zombie-phobia?" Holly comments to Inari. "At least it should reassure her that she isn't AI generated."

The squirrel-cam bounces along. The displayed VR booth is open, showing its slightly reclined user couch, arm rests, and older limited "control cage" structures that presumably would not actually be used by someone employing the neural inductor (let alone the direct neural plug interface). It is unoccupied.

Jason thinks on that. "Hey, a scary thought for everyone! What if the in-game personas start manifesting themselves without their players playing them? In other words, they start becoming real versions of the played characters," he suggests.

"Less scary thought, more files-extraction," Randall says in an aside from where he's going over the report with Marge.

Inari trots over to Jason and grabs his arm in her mouth. "Come with me," she says, in a somewhat muffled (but disembodied, as usual) voice.

"Jason.. we have enough scary issues to deal with," Holly notes. She guides the squirrel into the booth, and searches out the neural connection port. "Oh, I really wish I had some superglue right now.."

"Hey, shouldn't I be the one with the leash?" Jason jokes as his arm is tugged and follows along with the strange kitsune.

Randall waves to Jason and Inari in passing, assuming that Inari doesn't intend to murder Jason and stuff him in a closet.

Randall gives Holly a sidelong look, then returns his attention to the comlink. "Still with me, Marge?"

"Hmmm, actually," Holly mutters, and sends the squirrel back to the 'geek cred' shelf. If those are models, then maybe Blake actually does have some glue handy..

"Still here," Marge replies. "Listen, don't disconnect. There's a long line of folks looking for you."

Randall holds a finger over the pickup and says sotto voce to Holly, "I was worried that they'd lay me off for going AWOL. It's not easy getting a good job in this market."

The squirrel-cam view pans over the neural interface, where the connectors have been stowed away in their disinfectant pods, and then back to the shelf. The squirrel-cam soon alights upon what looks like a can that serves as a sort of "mini-toolbox" of supplies - some dental picks, some mini-pliers, some two-part epoxy, a pinning drill, a laser-file (for detail work on plastics), and some superglue containers - most of them not yet opened.

Marge rattles off a list of high-ranking officers, in a tone that seems to mix concern with semi-sarcastic allusions to job security. "I'm not quite sure where to start on everything you've missed...."

Cracking her knuckles, Holly starts exploring the robot's dexterity. She first tries to see if it can manipulate the laser file - a handy tool to cloud the optical pickups in the neural interface, hopefully.

"Well, I'd say start from the beginning but in this case, maybe we'd better go with the most important," Randall says. He leans over to Holly, again muffling the pickup. "Stay focused, we need information first, you can do mischief later."

On the squirrel-cam, the squirrel's paw extends forward, and then its pawpad shifts in shape slightly - not a very natural feature, by any means, but somewhat necessary for its cute little paws to be able to perform the manipulation expected of a semi-cartoony magical companion squirrel. (Somewhere under its synthskin, that is, some of its components rearrange.) It picks up the laser file and gets a firm (well, as firm as a squirrel can hope for) grip.

"'Penny Arcadia' is still in stasis," Marge reports, "but even there, she's slowly degrading. Any samples they've taken for analysis have bubbled into black goo. She's some sort of synth - definitely illegal in the States, at that level of apparent realism ... except, you know, for the bubbling into black goo part."

"In other news," Marge says drily, "Officer Randall Cranston and Jason Edwards and Holly Trudeau are still missing. I'm talking to you right now, and we still can't pin you down."

"That sounds about right. She's made of virtual molecules, the simulation she came from doesn't go any deeper than that. Though I'm worried about the 'resolution update'-- but I'm getting ahead of myself there." Randall goes over the basics - Blake Forester, convergent areas producing 'synecdoches', murder scenes and 'melting people' being tied to virtual people exiting into the real world, the missing persons that he believes Blake Forester has brainwashed through the resources available to him in Test North Bend. "This is hearsay from people I believe are the missing persons, but I think it's sufficient grounds to issue a warrant for his arrest and questioning."

"This isn't mischief," Holly notes. "I'm trying to sabotage his most potent weapon. If I'm careful, he won't figure it out for awhile, but his bandwidth will be severely reduced." She keeps working with the the file, until she thinks it's safe enough for the squirrel to carry it back into the booth.

"You're assuming that he actually uses that and it's not just a backup," Randall points out, before returning to his conversation. He checks the list to see if any jump out as likely involved with Avatars LLC.

"It's either this or the old tanks," Holly notes. "He can't be using an outside access and still be able to get into the gaming system admin functions like he's been doing."

With the squirrel-cam in the background, showing its return to the VR booth to work mischief ... er, that is, work sabotage ... Marge's screen shows a concerned frown. "We've been getting cases all over. It's not just North Bend anymore. We had a couple of teenagers who went missing for a couple of days, up in Arizona, and then swore up and down they'd been to a fantasy land. They were arrested for trespassing on Avatars LLC property in California."

Snapping her fingers, Holly adds, "Hey, see if there was a medical examination done on those kids too."

Marge nods. "According to the report, they nearly suffocated upon 'returning to the Real World' in the park. Some construction workers just noticed them collapsing on the ground outside the main gate - had no idea how they got in there. Black gas came out of their mouths. One of them required CPR."

Randall frowns. "That'll be bad for us. Listen, we're heading to Tasavalta right now - that's the starting area for this game. If I'm right about this, there's a high chance we're going to get dropped into the real world - in worse condition than those kids. We'll need an emergency team on site. And we should get the place cordoned off, no one in or out."

"Good to know," Holly mutters, and goes back to focusing on using the robot to 'cloud' the optical network plug in the VR booth.

On the squirrel-cam, horrible things are happening to expensive hardware ... but it's Blake's, so that's okay.

Randall covers the audio pickup and leans over to Holly. "If we had Jason here, he'd be telling you that you should put a shunt in so we can override his connection whenever we want, but since it's me, I'm just going to remind you that we need his files so we can figure out what he's trying to do."

"This should slow him down," Holly notes, and sends the squirrel back to return the tool. "I wonder if he'd leave secure key-cards in his desk. Gotta check that next."

Marge sighs. "The Real World. Got ya. Okay, can you narrow it down a bit? Where, exactly, in the Real World should we be keeping our eyes out for your imminent return?"

"The theme park," Randall says. "There should be an area that's named 'Tasavalta' or something like that. That's probably where the kids showed up too."

"Jason isn't here, and I've got a squirrel to work with," Holly notes. "We don't keep that sort of hacker equipment on hand. Why do you think I hire Edwards in the first place?"

"Okay," Marge says, "same one as these kids showed up in, huh? All right ... when do you think this is going down, then?"

"Saturday, they're going to roll out some kind of 'resolution change'. I've got a bad feeling about it - if the game is being upgraded so they can make it even more like the real world, we may be looking at a huge convergence zone. You've seen what happens when just one or two ordinary people from a simulation come out - but a whole city of them?" Randall says.

"Let me see if I follow you," Marge says, "though on the record, I don't officially believe in any of this. Are you saying we're going to have a whole bunch more Penny Arcadias popping up, then, and teenagers choking on black gas, come Saturday?"

"On a huge scale. If any of that place has already been built, we need to keep the construction workers out or they might disappear." Randall frowns. "Actually, you might check if they've had any disappearances already."

Holly finishes messing with Blake's booth, and sends the squirrel to check for unlocked drawers on Blake's desk next.

Marge pauses a moment. "Well, actually.... Huh." She looks to the side, as if she's checking on something. "Actually, I've got a couple of missing persons reports connected to workers at that site - though they turned up okay, and it was all just a misunderstanding. No black smoke or reports of fantasy worlds or monsters or anything connected to that. Could just be coincidence."

The squirrel-cam takes a tour of the office. All the drawers, sadly, are locked; it's a "smartdesk," and the drawers are set to automatically lock, and can be unlocked from a central security panel. The squirrel doesn't have the tools to fake the biometrics needed to override it.

Randall frowns. "All right then, is anyone wanting to yell at me at the moment, Marge? Pretty much everything I know is in the report."

After a moment of thought, Holly sends the bot back to the display shelves. "I'm going to park the squirrel and put it in motion-detection mode. If Blake doesn't notice it, it can sit there and record him when he comes in," she tells Randall.

"Why don't you just call your superiors and have them fire Blake?" Randall asks of Holly. "Or hey, can you get them to push back opening the park? When is the place supposed to open anyway?"

The squirrel-bot wiggles his way in with a collection of toy Avatars. Sadly, there's no such luck as, say, finding a toy of exactly the same creature (minus robotics) already on the shelf. (There are just too many beast types and variations in the Avatars game.)

Chaz the Squirrel pulls himself away from his paw-waving exercises (working on the toolbox panels), and reports, "There's supposed to be an Open House later this month. Just in time for Halloween. But the full park won't be open yet."

Opening up the security console again, Holly goes to work making a 'check out' entry for the robot, listing Blake Forester as the new beta-tester. She also opens the incident report she was originally working on when everything happened, and includes Forester as the suspected hacker, which should trigger automatic monitoring of his network usage by the security AI.

"Sounds good, then we have a few weeks." Randall reviews mentally. "Holly, is the NJPD providing Tracy's protection, or is that Avatars LLC?"

"We don't have our own off-site security," Holly points out. "It must be the police, especially after an arson and family member going missing."

Randall nods. "Do you want to change anything about that, while we've got a line open?"

"Can you arrange for their reports to get through to you?" Holly asks. "They should be fine so long as Blake doesn't figure out where they are."

Randall passes this along to Marge. "Holly's worried about her daughter. She and her father are under police protection in a cabin upstate, after their house got burned down, but she'd like to get reports from them."

Randall checks the waiting messages. "Oh, here's one for you, Holly." He brings up a query from an Avatars LLC rep questioning his 'inappropriate access' of Avatars system and sends it over to her. "We're going to have to make sure your bosses and mine are on the same page so we can get this California business nailed down, I think my mental health is being questioned here." He checks the report from the staff psychologist.

Chaz the Squirrel frowns. "Uh oh. I'm being called in by higher-ups. Good grief - someone's already taken a look at my log, and wants to know what I'm up to?"

"Randall is always inappropriate," Jason comments as he heads to an empty seat sits down rather hard.

"As I was saying, we need to make sure our bosses are on the same page," Randall says dryly. He looks up and waves to Inari and Jason with a smile.

"I'll send some messages," Holly notes, getting back into her internal mail system. "How did it go, Jason? I hope you and Inari didn't get into any mischief."

Chaz the Squirrel says, "Okay, this vanity pet is a primitive, so it doesn't have a central database registry. If that's okay with you, I'm going to make a private object link - it should only be accessible from my account - so I can get back in contact with you. You just need to keep the squirrel on hand. I can still pull the same stunt with Tracer - but the trouble is, anybody else with sufficient security can trace you via Tracer as well. I have the toolboxes finished - I was just tweaking the interface a bit."

"Oh, I had a very interesting time with Tracer," Jason remarks, "And I think you need to have a very long talk with her.

"The squirrel is fine, Chaz. It just sits on my shoulder most of the time," Holly notes And I'll make sure to cover its eyes when appropriate, she reminds herself. "What do you mean, a poet?" she asks Jason.

"Thanks, Chaz! Good luck with your bosses. It's going to be tough to explain, but if you can put 'em in touch with my bosses, the report and video I've included should either convince 'em we have far too much time on our hands, or something very serious is going on," Randall says optimistically.

"Hey, fellas," Chaz the Squirrel says, "if you want that vortex ... I'm leaving this panel open. Don't close it. Don't let any in-character types onto the bridge, and risk the RP protocols closing it for you, before you use it. You should have everything you need to fire away to Tasavalta, once you're ready. And I think I can handle myself - but good luck all the same."

"I owe you a big dinner when this is over, Chaz," Holly says, and pets the squirrel.

The little squirrel grins. "It's a deal!" It then hops back onto Holly's shoulder, and then resumes its usual cycle of idle animations and passive squirrel antics.

"And oh, apparently your husband is the pet of the Vampire Queen Sasha, she intends to kill her, then him, and that you abandoned her and she's angry," Jason adds as he ticks things off. "And she writes very grim poems about abandonment. And before you get mad, basically, the game is creating a real Tracer from the persona Tracy plays."

A few bands appear, along with a tag that announces, "Admin Override Relinquished." And then the notices fade.

"Tracer is 'auto' mode is acting more like the General does now. She's developing an actul personality. Rather morose one, too. No humor at all," Jason says.

"That's... Very scary. I blame you for thinking of the possibility," Randall pronounces.

Inari nods. "Akiko asked her a few questions, made some small talk ... and that seemed to have given the system permission to improvise a bit and roleplay with Tracer on 'autopilot.' She still identifies herself, however - that the real Tracer is away-from-control, and that she is acting on automation protocols - so she's not quite the same as the General. But it's still creepy."

"I think your daughter has some serious anger issues to work out over you, your husband, and Sasha," Jason comments, "It also makes me wonder if she wrote that up as a backstory, or has the game been efffectively reading her mind?"

"I just gave my dispatch officer an update, we'll have an EMT waiting for us if we manage to get to Tasavalta in one piece and cross over. There's real danger though, apparently two kids crossed over and came back in two days, and they coughed up some kind of black gas and needed CPR," Randall reports. "If we get to Tasavalta now, and manage to cross over, we'll probably be faced with even more complications. But after the 'resolution upgrade'..."

"Okay," Holly says, shaking off the disturbing news for the moment. "There have been disappearances and reappearances at the theme park site, include two teenagers who were missing for a few days and reported being in a fantasy world. They had a rough reentry from their exposure to artificial matter, but survived. I've sabotaged Blake's personal VR Booth to degrade his bandwidth if he uses his neural link, and have the robot stationed to spy on him. Also have a security alert set to monitor his network activity."

Over Holly's shoulder, a hovering holographic video screen shows the "squirrel-cam" view of the interior of Blake's office, via nightvision sensors. It's presently unoccupied.

"I predict we have about a twenty-five percent chance of survival if we make it back," Jason comments a bit grimly.

"As long as we have Ratatosk in place, maybe Jason can apply his special skills to Blake's systems," Randall suggests.

Inari eyes the panel with the display of a swirling vortex. "Hmm. Should I be concerned by that?"

"We have three days to get to Tasavalta before the 'Resolution Change'," Randall says. "As it stands, we won't make it... Unless we can pop a wormhole. That's the control to make it happen."

"We've got seatbelts," Holly assures Inari. "Unless you'd feel safer with a nice squishy octopus to cushion the rough parts."

"Shortcut to Tasavalta," Jason agrees, nodding towards Randall. "So, once we go through that, it's basically no going back. We find out if we'll make it out alive, or disintegrate on transition."

"So - can you break Blake's personal lock on his desk armed with just a robot squirrel?" asks Randall.

"And what is this about octopi?" Jason has to ask. "What are you into, Holly?"

"Fingerprints are easy. Powder or superglue, some clear tape, and the handle on his brain sticking pod," Jason comments, "The others would require circumventing the actual system. "Or, well ... do you have any info from his last physical?"

"If he doesn't notice the squirrel, and uses the VR booth," Holly says, "we might be able to trap him inside and disconnect the net and power to it. There's superglue available."

"And no, even I wouldn't have access to personnel medical records," she points out.

"Superglue fumes stick to the oil of fingerprints and turns them bright white," Jason comments.

"Some hacker you are if you've never accessed the medical records. Tell me you never once wanted to look up Sasha's records to get the skinny on her real wieght, sizes, and so on," Jason jokes.

Randall says to Marge, "Anyway, I'll call you back when I can - I don't think it's a good idea to expose you to Jason any further, he might corrupt you." He winks, even though he's uncertain that Marge can see it, though she said video on her end was working.

"He probably washes his hands a lot," Holly notes. "This is an actual real-world business environment, Jason. We don't have hacker tools readily available. We've got a tap on his network, and a spycam in his office."

"Don't slack off, now. Sounds like some pretty exciting stuff happening on your end," Marge comments in a tone that would normally seem to suggest being unimpressed. Then, she signs off.

Randall grins. "Well, you already found a laser file in his office, Holly. But well, there's a simpler possibility. You could get in contact with your superiors, and get an order to allow you to search his data assets, then have a security officer come in and unlock the desk."

"I hate to tell you this, Holly, but most hacks come from the inside. I bet you do have the tools around," Jason has to point out. "But anyway, a biometrics desk? Hm. Nothing I could hack quickly. But ... I do have a suggestion, does he have any sort of private document system in his office? Like an old timey fax or whatnot?

Holly replays some of the footage of the initial exploration. "He's got a lot of junk," she notes.

"But somehow I doubt a man that has wires in his brain is going to be big on collecting obsolete communications gear," she adds.

Among the collected junk, there's a multi-purpose printerscannerfax - obsolete, not actually hooked to any computer, but probably present simply because the casing is pretty stylish, from a decade when absolutely everything computer-related had to look as if it might be capable of space-flight.

"Well, what I was going to suggest is that send a mail to the doctor's office your company uses, posing as his secretary, and ask for a copy of his current medical transcript to be sent directly to his office," Jason suggests. "If we have the numbers, we can fake the input."

"And failing that we could look under his chair and get the date off his pneumatic lifter. If we account for age, leakage, and such, we could probably guess his eight by seeing how off the pressure tube is from spec now," Jason offers as he reclines back and closes his eyes. "Or failing that, why don't we just use the laser file to cut the drawer locks out?"

"Or we could just be annoying and tamper with is chair and have it fall apart the next time he sits down," Jason offers.

"If we had some electric motors we could wire up the wheels on the chair and next time he sits, we take control and send him on an adventure of office rally," Jason goes on, and on...

"First off.. uh, the laser tool wouldn't do anything to the metal of the desk - it's for surfacing plastic," Holly points out. "And he shares the floor secretary. It'd be easier to send any request right from her in the first place. So.. you want to have the squirrel check out his chair?"

Randall asks Holly, "What kind of corporate authority do you have, anyway? I mean, just because we have a squirrel handy right here doesn't mean there aren't other tools at our hands."

"And hey, heh! Why don't we just use the squirrel to to take the desk apart? Just find a multi-wrench and go to town," Jason says with a laugh.

"I think spying on him until he goes into the booth is our safest bet right now," Holly claims. "If we can lock him in and cut him off, I'm sure he'll be willing to talk. Or at least we can wait and see who he calls for help on his phone. I've already listed him as the likely hacker in the incident we were looking into when we got sucked in. That will get the security AI to monitor all of his traffic. If it sees anything suspicious, we can use it."

"Or, we could send the squirrel to the break room, get a packet of mayonnaise, then come back and put into the sterilization fluid for his hookups in the hope that he'll get some horrible infection from jacking in."

"I wonder if we could take over all the old toys in his office and program them to attack him when he enters," Jason muses.

Holly just.. puts her face in her palm. "They're toys, Jason. I don't see what that would accomplish. I couldn't even get the squirrel to attack him - there are safety protocols to prevent that you know."

"Are now, doesn't have to be," Jason points out as he reaches over and swipes the squirrel controls from Holly. "And there is plenty of point to it. We prove we can get to him in the real world too. Time to reach out and annoy someone." You know, it doesn't do much for an image to be controlling a squirrel with a remote control while making silly little squirrel noises at it ... and pretending to hide nuts ... to attacking a rogue tennis ball he found propping up a book. What exactly he's doing is anyone's guess, really, but he sure seems to be nosy.

"All I wanted to do was lock him into his little padded coffin," Holly says to Randall with a sigh. "Not make him more paranoid."

Randall pats Holly on the shoulder. "Jason is an elemental force. He moves in mysterious ways."

Several crazy schemes later (or, that is, generated by Jason's fruitful mind and shared with everyone on the bridge, but not actually carried out), Jason manages to get the hang of Ratatosk's controls; in fact, he improves on them by employing some of his own hardware for the controls. (Of course, RIU would have been much better at this.) Through a series of experiments in physics, exploitation of (in Jason's opinion) lax security, and amazing mental mathwork, Jason manages to extrapolate key bits of biometric data just from Blake's office - from the compression of the chair, bits of trash fallen behind the desk and missed by the janitorbots, lifted fingerprints from recessed areas (again, out of the reach of the janitorbots), and so forth.

At last, he manages to rig up (through the squirrel-bot, no less) the tools he needs to fool the "smartdesk's" sensors - which, incidentally, are not so secure, as, say, the locks on the front doors leading into the R&D building. The drawers are simultaneously unlocked. And then, the squirrel-bot's sensors pick up movement in the hallway - it's a security guard coming to investigate!

"Curses! It's the fuzz! Flee, little squirrel, flee!" Jason yelps as he fiddles with the controls. So, he naturally does what anyone would do with a toy squirrel in a geek's office. He hides the squirrel by putting it in the middle of collection of toys!

The door slides open. There's a pause before the guard looks in, wearing nightvision goggles.

The squirrel-bot's nightvision picks up the "spotlight" normally invisible to human eyes, projected by the guard's headset....