This may very well be the first time that the crew of the Ozymandias has felt - ever so briefly - that they could be back in something akin to real time, in some exotic theme park back on Earth, in the Real World, since reaching the Diadem. Although even Earth's moon would easily dwarf the size of this "shard-world," at this level and within the city, there's no view of the horizon, and the gravity seems perfectly normal. What's more, it slowly rotates, granting a natural transition between night and day that is unlike any of the places the Ozymandias has visited previously in this universe.
The tents of the bazaar run right up against the walls, ranging from more durable (but still technically 'temporary') wooden market stalls to four poles and an awning of brightly striped cloth, or even wide open 'plazas' of pounded dirt covered over with rugs across which glassware, silverware, and other wares are scattered like glinting flowers, each tended by a gardener of commerce. A ramp leads up to a pier nearby which offers easy transportation to any of the sights and wonders of Tara Tassa, with a line of levistone-buoyed gondolas waiting to pick up passengers.
Crowds jostle, bird-mounts stride by and force breaks in the crowd by their sheer mass, and the momentary breaks in the throng are soon filled in again by the swell of people going about their business: seeking adventure, hobnobbing, or shopping. Barkers advertise wares at booths lining the streets - or, just as often, call out for volunteers to join a merchant caravan, a ship's crew, an expedition to an exotic fragment, a recovery mission to rescue a derelict skyship, and so forth. By the angle of the sun, it's getting on toward sunset, though it's a fair bet that there will still be activity (and sunlight) somewhere on this miniature world.
Randall peers around. "This place is a zoo when we don't have guards clearing a path for us," he complains to Jason and Holly. "What's next on our list of things to do?"
Jason has his hands shoved in the pockets of his coat and the coat pulled tightly around himself. "Not get pick pocketed," he grumbles in apparent discomfort at the crowds. RIU is perched on his shoulder as usual and just peering around.
Petting her shoulder squirrel, Holly suggests, "How about looking at the area new players appear at? I'm sure they don't just drop at random into this chaos."
"Any particular reason?" Randall wonders.
"Shouldn't you know?" Jason has to ask, "Miss Corporation?"
"I never played, remember?" Holly notes. "And because that's likely to be the point of maximum synchronization."
The police officer turned "pirate captain" glances thoughtfully at a seedy character wandering by, then looks over to Holly. "Okay, then, do you actually know where it is new players arrive? Or should we ask, um... Tracer?"
"They don't just arrive in one spot," Jason suddenly comments, "It varies a bit based on what background the player submitted for their character. The AI tries to incorporate it, within reason, into how they arrive. Hay wagon, passenger on an airship, that sort of thing. No great exploding/exiled gods, naturally."
A wagon rolls in through the front gate, pulled by some beasts that look vaguely like oversized roosters with a little bit of dragon blood for good measure. A straw-hatted farmer lazily mans the front bench, keeping his beasts at a leisurely pace. In back, bales and bushels of produce are packed and stacked, but there's a bit of room for some excited-looking (and pretty) girls to ride. They wear a sort of fantasy variant of "peasant" garb, and stand out as looking a bit more distinguished (odd hair colors, odd eye colors) than the average passerby.
"Shoot," Holly says. "I was hoping for a courtyard or something simple. That means the synecdoche will be.. huge. Keep an eye out for anything that looks similar to the layout we saw of the theme park."
"Like so," Jason notes as he points towards the arriving wagon. "I heard the new players all chatting about how they arrived, before anyone asks how I knew that."
Randall doffs his hat to the pretty ladies as they roll by, then returns his attention to Jason. "Good hearing," he comments. "The gate's a pretty obvious place for convergence, but I imagine if they replicated any of the top 'sights you must see', those are also likely candidates."
"The problem is, I have no idea which are the top sights," Randall adds.
"What archetype arrives on a hay wagon?" Holly has to ask.
"Let's pick up Tracer and see if there's any news on what Blake's been doing," Randall suggests. "Maybe you can download blueprints for the park, Holly?"
"If we have them in the computer," Holly notes, nodding at the suggestion of checking in with Tracer.
"Farm boy or girl looking for adventure; where just being in a huge town is adventure enough to start with," Jason comments distractedly as he peers at the huge gates. "Well, one thing in our favor is that the gates in the park aren't to scale if I'm remembering Blake's notes. The theme park is going to be much smaller than this place. So ... why couldn't the whole city be the sync, it just opens up into a smaller version of itself."
"I wonder how much detail is really needed for the portal effect," Holly mutters. "Most theme park buildings are just facades, after all."
Randall frowns thoughtfully. "I don't know... Doorways seem to be the key to this. Remember that arcade way back when? We detected something about the door..."
All this walking back and forth is rather taxing on the heroes. It's a wonder that there aren't more PCs panting and puffing as they make their way between bank and market and guildhouse and quest-points - but then, apparently that sort of "realism" isn't as much of a concern. (It's not heroic, after all! Unless it's a plot point, that is.) Still, they hold up well, and it seems that all of them have been getting a bit more exercise than they'd had much of back in the Real World.
"Next time, I'm going to try a flight spell," Holly notes, even though she's not feeling particularly tired. She usually jogs before work every day, after all.
Back at the Ozymandias, they find Tracer and the general (acting as if he were a mere regular crewmember) up on the bridge. There is a board game of some sort set out (vaguely chess-like, only more complicated), and Tracer makes frustrated noises as she contemplates her next move.
Randall greets them cheerily. "Any visitors while we were out?"
"Assuming doors are important based on one sample is poor use of statistics," Jason points out to Randall as he follows along. "Its like assuming every burrito will give you heartburn just because the one from El Guacamole did. We need more empirical data."
Tracer looks up abruptly as her mother enters, and pushes away from the table - perhaps as eager for a distraction from the game (she has far fewer pieces still on the board than the general does) as to see the others back. "None we couldn't throw out on our own," she says. "Figuratively, that is. No, nobody's broken in or anything. They've just been kind of pesky." She thumbs over her shoulder to the viewport, where a couple of overdressed adventurer types are peering in, plastered onto the glass not entirely unlike certain tacky car window decorations from times past.
"No, didn't that sage say something about it? Natural portals, or formations that look like protals, like a well, intertwined trees, a circle-shaped pool," Randall replies to Jason.
"The portal between Blake's World and the Diadem didn't seem to require a door structure," Holly notes. "But the city gates will probably be closed for the upgrade. We may need Jason's keyring."
"Using that logic, toilets are as likely a sync point too," Jason has to point out. "Welcome to the bog of doom! Everything looks like a circle if you go back far enough."
Randall makes shooing gestures at the adventurers.
"Want me to sic Fusili on them?" Tracer offers. Then, her nose wrinkles. "Aw! Dad is on to me about homework. Mom, can't you call him or something and get him off my back? This is more important, right?"
"And nobody can be looking at the portal or it won't form," Holly remembers. "So, having all of the VPCs out of the area does suggest that the intent IS to open a portal."
"You can do your homework," Holly replies to Tracer. "Nothing is happening right now, so you should be able to work and keep an eye on things at the same time."
"I'm not sure that's valid, really. Why would it matter if someone looked? What, is it governed by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle?" Jason asks. To Tracer, he notes, "Or ignore homework and defy your parents! I'm sure Holly would turn some interesting colors."
Tracer lets out a disgusted sigh at her failure to use her mom as a trump card. "All riiiiiiight." She stands straight, and looks off nowhere in particular.
The "pirate captain" opens a com tube to the ship's exterior to address the adventurers. "Excuse me, but I'll need to ask you to move away from the ship. This is a privately owned craft, Polydorus registry, so we'd appreciate a bit of privacy here."
The general offers, "We could close the blast shields. That should move them - one way or another."
Jason heads towards the blast shields. "Good idea," he agrees...
"I'll exercise the polite option first," Randall says cheerily.
One of the adventurers makes a gasping expression of alarm as he seems to realize what Jason is doing. He focuses, and a shimmering, silvery dragon-like creature appears behind him - and then it grasps his arms in its talons and whisks him away. The other, however, adopts an odd pose ... and fades from view.
Randall frowns. "Gone invisible?"
"I didn't even push a button!" Jason claims.
"Very well, close the blast shield please, Jason. I'd rather not reveal our secrets to someone who happens to be adept at lip reading," Randall says.
The general frowns, rising from the game table to look anxiously out the viewport - though it seems that his eyesight is not so great as to see what can't be seen.
"Uh, right," Jason agrees and finally actually does go about lowering the shields. Apparently he hadn't expected to actually have to do it!
Tracer snaps out of her trance, and walks back to the game table. "I'm ready to resume the challenge now," she says to the general, with a faintly sinister tone to her voice. "I see my error now."
The pirate captain shakes his head. "One of them unwisely went invisible... While we were still looking at them. If he had had any sense, he would have pretended to depart, then done so and returned to listen in."
As an experiment, Holly guides her daughter's VPC back to the game table to see if the semi-AI control over it can still play the game against the General - and if it will do so better than the human girl could.
Randall looks over at Holly and Tracer bemusedly.
There's a thrumming somewhere above head as armored shields - fashioned to fit the curvature of the hull - slide into place. For a moment, there's a shimmering, and then one of the peeping adventurers (the long-blonde-haired "bishonen" fellow with the goatee) flickers into visibility as he stumbles and slides his way along the viewport. He opens his mouth as if to cry, and a creature begins to shimmer into view somewhere in the air, but he promptly falls out of view - and the blast shield snaps shut before his fate can be determined.
Jason winces. "Well, I think he's okay," he admits weakly.
The general seems satisfied that the "threat" has been dealt with, and then returns calmly to the game table, watching for Tracer to make her next move.
Tracer immediately grabs a piece (she's playing black) and swaps it with another.
"Are you quite sure?" the general says, raising an eyebrow - intrigued.
"Your turn," Tracer firmly insists.
Randall winces as well. "Do you want to send RIU out to check?" he asks.
"Yeah," Jason admits and taps the little dragon on his shoulder, then instructs him to go check.
The general doesn't seem to be quite as quick at determining his moves as Tracer. He carefully considers, examining the board.
RIU's whiskers bob, and he shoots out to the corridor. (Clever thing that he is, he's figured out how to let himself out of the ship.)
"So, if we're right about the portal opening, then we need to plan on how to be there when everyone is supposed to be cleared out," Holly notes.
"Well ... if we can make ourselves invisible to the system, it won't try to move us," Jason suggests.
Jason covers his mouth and stifles a laugh. "Our spy has suffered wounded pride, nothing more," he tells Randell."That should teach him some manners. Nothing is quite effective as humiliation..."
Randall considers. "We need to be here when the upgrade happens, so that Jason, and the rest of us, can be updated to a higher level of resolution... Assuming that's the way it works. If we don't, we might wind up dead on the floor when we cross over."
The general, after careful consideration, moves his piece, and takes one of Tracer's.
Tracer, without a moment's hestitation, or any change in expression, moves another, taking one of the general's pieces.
Randall grins to Jason. "Good to know, thanks." He claps his engineer-friend on the shoulder. "Think he works with those King's Explorers people?"
"I'm impressed," the general says. "You seem to be all the more confident in your game-playing even while you are - what was it you called it? - doing your homework." He moves another piece. No pieces disappear from the table this time. Without a proper introduction to the rules, though, it's really hard to tell at a glance just what this means in the greater scheme of things for the game's progression.
Tracer looked as if she were already poised to move her next piece, but now she freezes in place, still with that same challenging, slightly smirking expression on her face, still looking - staring - at the General. No, blinking; she hasn't completely frozen.
The hacker holds up a finger, indicating to wait a moment. Inwardly, Jason sends RIU in for a closer look to see if he can tell.
"Are you back, Tracer?" Holly asks the girl, frowning slightly. To the others, she says, "When the upgrade comes, I don't want Tracer caught in it. The General, yes - he's already effectively human. But a high-rez VPC is just asking for trouble."
Tracer doesn't respond. The general leans back, frowning seriously. He holds up a hand, moves it back and forth - but, no, she's still semi-frozen - still breathing, still blinking, arm slightly trembling from the tension of being held in an unnatural frozen position. She looks for all appearances as if she suddenly was struck by the impulse of wanting to pretend to be frozen in place, rather than, say, actually frozen there by some sort of magical effect.
"That's fine," Randall agrees. "Can you download a blueprint of the park? Or maybe a flyer, something that lists what'll be in it? It occurs to me that using Jason's keyring to open something as large as the gate... Might have explosive results. if we can find something smaller..."
The police officer looks over at Tracer, noticing that she hasn't moved in a bit.
"No obvious guild marks," Jason finally tells Randall, though they are ... players. He then blinks now noticing Tracer too. "Is something wrong with our perky goth?" he asks.
The general frowns. "I'm sorry, but you'll have to do better than to resort to psychological tactics of such a theatrical nature," he says.
"Can you check if her connection's frozen?" Randall asks.
Tracer suddenly snaps out of it, and sits back heavily in her chair. "I concede," she says. "There is no point in continuing the game."
"Yeah ... something odd is going on," Jason agrees as he heads to one of the ship terminals where he can pull up a game interface in 'private'.
The general nods solemnly. "I think I see where you were going," he says. "You may very well have caught me, if you had tried the castling maneuver a few turns back. I had forgotten that move was allowed on that plane. Well played."
"Ah, the General is a VPC in the eyes of the AI, and idle-mode reactions are not supposed to be so effective," Holly guesses.
Randall brings up his wrist PDA and checks for a situation report from Tracy and her father's guards.
Holly fires up the Orb so Jason and RIU can do their hacking. She sighs at how many security protocols she's broken so far.
"Ah, heh, that explains it," Jason says as he taps on his screen. "We weren't under any sort of attack. It was ... a difficulty in dealing with certain aspects of our present situation."
"Hmm, good to know it wasn't, say, Tracy's connection being cut," Randall says.
Jason 'helpfully' taps on his screen, doing who knows what...
"The AIs will go nuts if they have to deal with tourists too," Holly notes, and brings up the screen that is attached to the spy-squirrel, to see if Blake is still doing his plant impersonation or actually interacting with the real world.
The crystal ball warms up, and the windows pop up. The viewscreen of the spy squirrel's camera shows up. Blake appears to have left his office for a break. The lights are still on, though, so it appears that he's probably coming back (and staying after hours a bit) rather than heading home for the day.
"Must have gone to the cafeteria," Holly surmises. "I wonder if we should try to damage his current interface port so he'll use the terminal instead.."
Randall says to Holly, "Let's try and avoid that situation - turning the virtual world into a tourist trap, that is. The word 'trap' might get applied just a little too literally."
"Well, if we get through the portal first, we could try to ruin enough of the park to break the synchronicity," Holly offers.
"And die on the other side," Jason adds.
"So far we still don't know what his real aim is, if he has one," the pirate captain muses. "No, that'd be breaking the law. If you want to break the synchronicity, then you need to talk to your superiors and get them to agree that the park needs to be stopped."
"I was thinking more of knocking stuff over with the aircar," Holly admits.
Randall sighs. "Are you sure you work for Avatars LLC, Ms. Trudeau?"
"I was hired because I gets results," Holly points out. "Besides, I can blame the damage on monsters."
"I don't think we need to be so worried about the law considering what we're dealing with," Jason points out. "Blake isn't following the law. If we do, we're at a disadvantage."
"I don't know what Blake's deal is either yet, beyond him wanting his one private world and pet people," Holly admits. "I'm tempted to think that's all he's really interested in. But he knows more about the portal effect than anyone else right now."
Randall gives Jason a look. "Blake is exploiting the synchronicity of the two locations. Avatars LLC owns the park. It's unreasonable to destroy the park in the process of preventing Blake from achieving his aims." He turns to Holly. "Don't you have a superior in charge of your case? Have you given them a report?" He pulls up his screen. "See, I've gotten a report back. We'll have medical teams on standby, when the upgrade happens. Avatars LLC is stonewalling us though."
"My superior is an AI," Holly points out.
Randall looks at Holly. "What?"
"Hel, the security AI. Or AD; Artificial Deity," Holly reminds Randall. "Uncorruptable, efficient, and with super-human intelligence. The perfect boss."
"She knows everything I do about this situation," the woman adds.
Tracer retires from the game table, while the general puts the pieces away. The goth-huntress declares, "I'll be in my room, if you need me."
Randall holds a hand to his forehead melodramatically. "And does Hel have an order for you in this situation? Or someone that she reports to, so we can make sure they are getting updated? Because, honestly, I don't see an AI telling you 'please destroy our park with your aircar' when it would be much more efficient to order the construction workers to stop."
"Its perfectly reasonable if it means we prevent the death of two worlds. Property isn't as valuable as lives are, Randall," Jason argues. "You are failing to assign relative value."
On the squirrel-cam view, Blake comes into view ... but not from the office door, off stage right. Rather, he comes in from stage left, which means he would have been over at the back of the office, near the VR pod and accumulated technological junk. He is holding a heavily-modified neural inductor, and despite having a pleasantly plastic expression on his face, he slams his fist against the table, and then opens up a panel in the desk and pulls out a med-kit, and begins daubing at the back of his neck with an applicator.
"Look, I'm not saying we shouldn't stop the synchronicity, I'm saying that there are law-abiding ways to prevent it from happening, and we should explore those alternatives first," Randall retorts.
The police officer peers over at the screen. "What's going on?"
"Hel isn't big on issuing orders, but she's got authority to maintain security and explain things to the board of directors afterwards," Holly notes. "You have to react fast to threats. And yes, if comes down to lives, she'll sacrifice property. I can send her a formal request to shut down the park for the duration of the upgrade, but it could be overridden without having any proof of a security breech resulting from it."
"You had better send that request, Holly. Otherwise Randall is going to get his boxers in a knot," Jason says with a sigh.
"Remember, the park isn't even open officially," Holly points out. "This is all some big Halloween preview event."
"Looks like he tried using the pod and something went wrong with it," Randall says, looking over at Holly and Jason meaningfully.
On the squirrel-cam screen, Blake pulls out a spidery-looking device that appears to consist of a camera and robotic legs. He goes up toward the shelf with the squirrel cam, and it's not immediately clear what he's doing for a moment, as he shuffles things around. A moment later, he backs away, without the spider-cam. He touches the desk surface, and the desk computer screen shows a camera view - which seem to be from the point of view of the shelf, but not from the squirrel-bot.
"Hah, he knows someone has been in the office now and is setting up a spy of his own. When he leaves, get close to it and I'll hack it to ignore the squirrel..." Jason suggests.
Randall muses. "Holly, any reason Security hasn't brought Blake in for 'questioning' about disappeared employees that worked with him?"
"If want a nice legal way to do things, we could have our 'friends' from that explorer's guild create a situation that we could use to force an evacuation," Holly muses. "Heh, he put his spy cam right next to ours and didn't even notice it."
Blake positions himself so that the computer screen displays a close-up of some ports on the back of his neck. There looks to be some damage. He picks up the med kit (which appears to be specialized for use with cyberware), and pulls out some tools. He reaches back behind his head, holding tools, reaching for the damaged jack while keeping the back of his neck close to the shelf.
"He's under surveillance," Holly explains to Randall. "There is nothing to link him to the disappearances yet, until we get testimony from Akiko and the others. Then the police can have him."
"All we officially have on him is tampering with the game," she adds.
"No ... he's fixing himself. If we had a taser right now we should short out his brain," Jason suggests, looking thoughtful.
Randall says promptly, "Insufficient evidence to try, convict, and execute him so far. I'd hate to have to bring you in on manslaughter, buddy."
"He may have already killed me. I'm just returning the favor," Jason quips.
With careful work, Blake applies some sort of fluid to the jack that bubbles and sizzles. He then reaches back with some bent-angle tweezers, and extracts a broken plug from one of the interface jacks. It looks like the plug is one of the sabotaged plugs from the VR pod - it must have broken off when he extracted himself.
"Well, no more doing any private-plug-ins, Mr. Blake," Holly comments. "He's stuck with his desk connection, which Hel can monitor at least."
"Unless he fixes the booth," Jason comments.
"I suspect he used the pod for connecting to his private universe," Holly says. "It'll be telling if he tries to fix it himself instead of contacting tech support."
Randall winces at the sight. "I take it either he really likes his privacy, or he doesn't want corporate affairs to know he has a VR pod."
Blake finishes up by pulling out a container and applying some cream-like material on the skin (or is that synth-skin?) around the jack, then a slap-on bandage. He covers it, when he pulls the back of his collar up.
"Just the fact that he's doing this himself, when there are medical techs on-site that specialize in stuff like this, is telling enough," Holly claims. "He doesn't want anyone to know."
"All right - can you fake something to bring him into security on a different reason?" asks Randall. "Drug testing, say? Then when you've got a lie detector hooked up, hack the questioner AI and ask him some more pointy questions."
On-camera, Blake puts away the med-kit, then reaches up to the shelf, and comes away with the spider-cam-bot (which he also puts away). He spends a moment, looking at the broken plug, and flings it angrily (by his body motions, that is, not by his expression, which is always stuck in that plastic smile) across the room ... but then he seems to think the better of it, and drops down on his knees, rummaging around until he finds it again, and stuffs it into a pocket.
The general seems entranced by the scene. "I hardly know where to begin, to ask about what I'm seeing."
Randall says, "Otherwise, if we can't question him, we're going to have to provoke him into using an illegal access."
"If he disconnects his work interface and tries to hook it up to his private server, then we have proof of tampering and can send in Security," Holly says.
"That boy has had too much cosmetic surgery," Jason comments, "He has no expression."
On screen, Blake looks at the "neural induction" headset, still smiling away. It looks as if it has suffered some damage as well - presumably just some blown buffers and fuses, unless he was throwing all caution to the end and pulling out any safeties for a more "direct" connection. He flinches, and looks like he's going to throw it across the room, but stops himself. His fists clench and unclench. His body trembles. He kicks. He kicks again. He slams his fists down, knocks odd items off his desk, swings around and - the squirrel-cam's view tumbles, as apparently he's just knocked over a shelf.
"Not to mention other work. I can't imagine anyone sticking bits into their body like that," Jason comments with a shudder. "And ... he has anger issues. Yow. Someone should call in the corporate docs to examine his head."
"I hope he didn't damage the squirrel!" Holly notes, and turns up the audio so they can at least hear what's going on.
Randall shakes his head, then explains briefly to the General, "We're observing the villain of our piece in his arcane laboratory. Have you heard the phrase, 'a sufficiently advanced technology is indistingishable from magic'?"
From a worm's eye view (the squirrel-bot is on the floor, but has rolled so as to still be looking up), Blake appears to stop a moment, and then turn to the door. He hesitates, then opens it. Someone else is outside - looks like a security guard, probably doing rounds. With the audio up now - "- heard something in here - are you okay?" "Ha ha ha! Oh, God, sorry. I ... comedy of errors. I just wiped out a file, then went to restore from backup and ... not enough sleep, I deleted the backup, too, and I can't get the system backups until tomorrow morning, and..." Blake rambles on with some excuse, still smiling and trying to be jovial and self-effacing about it.
"You might want to shuffle the squirrel out of view," Jason says, "While he's distracted. If he picks it up during cleanup, surely he'll notice it's not his..."
"Well," the security guard can be heard saying - though visibly he's blocked from view by Blake's body, "I guess I know what you mean. Just glad you're all right. Lots of people are on edge...." Blake steps back, the heel of his shoe looming before the squirrel-cam.
Holly uses the virtual keyboard to leave a note for Hel, mentioning the suspicious behavior regarding the neural plug. "It's after hours. Since time was skewed a few hours in his private world, I'm guessing he set it to be night while he's at work so that he could be active there during its daytime."
"Or use the squirrel to insult him," Randall suggests. "Get him to incriminate himself by tapping into his private server through the work headset."
Since Holly isn't, Jason tries to take control of the squirrel and move it from being stepped on. He mutters something to himself about the arguing two being oblivious.
"I could send an anonymous IM reading 'Sasha says hello'," Holly suggests.
Randall grins. "No, let's make it a little more personal. 'Sasha sends her love.'"
In the nick of time, the squirrel-cam's view changes, as it whips away. The pitter-patter and whirr of its tiny servo-motors can be heard over the audio pickup, along with the crunch as Blake steps heavily back on some toy or the other from his shelf. He curses unpleasantly.
"Hey, watch it!" the security guard can be heard warning. "You almost stepped on-" He cuts himself off abruptly.
Blake lets out a stream of profanities, as he turns around.
"I hope his gut makes it hard to see the squirrel," Jason says as he quickly fiddles with the controls and tries to get it under some cover. "Please let dunlap disease save us!"
The squirrel-bot's viewpoint changes. One can only hope that while it can't see Blake ... it's somewhere that Blake can't see the squirrel, either. "
"Here," the security guard says, "it's late. I can call in some help, and we can get this picked up for you. I know you've been having to work overtime for ... how long now?"
A hand appears in the squirrel-cam. It doesn't look like Blake's. Too worn - not smooth and plastic enough.
"No!" Blake exclaims, just a little too loudly to be calm. "No, oh God, I've probably broken ... listen, it's all very delicate, I know. I've got to take care of it myself. I'm sorry, sorry, so sorry...."
Randall says, "Let the guard handle this," guessing that the guard is one that was told the squirrel was part of the surveillance force. It'll definitely raise some eyebrows if the squirrel tries to evade the guard.
Jason scoots the squirrel slightly towards the hand to make it easier to pick up (but trying to make sure he doesn't come back into view of Blake).
Holly's fingers start flying over her keyboard now, as she tries to pull up Sasha's personnel file and make it display on Blake's terminal screen.
The hand finds the squirrel, and the camera view tumbles. Audio crackles loudly like thunder, with the shuffling of cloth, and the thump-thump of the guard's heart. The squirrel must be somewhere in his over-jacket. Voices are muffled.
"Oh god, is that a used hanky?" Jason comments as he tilts his head to get a better look in the upside down world. "And .... ew! That candy has pocket fluff on it."
The muffled Blake-voice sounds a little higher-pitched, and then there's a crash. Something else got knocked over? There's some more jostling.
"Holly, get security backup to assist the guard," Randall says quickly.
The pirate captain belays that, "Or a cleaning robot to observe. There's a mess to be cleaned up now."
"On it," Holly says, as she sends in the request.
The guard shouts something - again muffled. Something thumps against the squirrel's hiding place. Then, there's a fzap of an electrical discharge, then another, then a thump and crash. The guard's breathing is a bit heavier.
Randall says tensely, "I think either the guard tased Blake... Or vice versa."
On Holly's interface, a red alert post appears: "Guard XHT-8311: Subdued employee, Blake Forester. Med team and security backup requested. Dispatched."
Holly goes to Jason's window now, since the squirrel controls are there already, and keys the microphone feature. "What happened, XHT-8311?" she says into it, even though it turns her voice into that of a chipmunk on the other end.
There's some rustling and fumbling, and the guard opens his jacket enough to let light (and clearer sound) in again. The squirrel-cam is able to adjust itself to get a better view of the scene. Blake, still grinning, is sprawled on the floor, askew against the desk. The guard is breathing heavily, and there are spatters of blood visible on his sleeve. Heavy footsteps and whirring tracks can be heard out in the hallway, as an alarm sounds. Blake looks to have taken two shots from a stunner to knock down.
"He's actually creepier unconscious," Jason comments, frowning. "That grin is disturbing. Its like looking at someone who isn't wholly real. I can at least see why he prefers being virtual."
"Did he attack you?" Holly asks into the pickup (never mind that it's a virtual microphone in a virtual reality).
"Yes!" the guard blurts out. He rushes out into the hall, where a security team briefly brings guns to bear on him, then, at his direction, take up positions to cover the hall, and file into the room. A couple of security bots are at standby, and a medic rushes up to the guard. "No," the guard can be heard saying. "Forester, first! Shocked him - full power - he's got cyberware - quick!"
Randall frowns. "What did you do that got Blake so excited?" he whispers to Holly.
"I tried to make him think he was being haunted," Holly notes. "I threw Sasha's personnel file up on his screen. Not sure if he saw it though; he could have panicked because the guard was going for the pod."
Just inside the room, it looks like the PC screen projector has been smashed, but it still flickers - not powered out just yet. Fragmented pieces suggest a face displayed on-screen.
Snapping her fingers, Holly keys the pickup again, "Don't turn off any equipment in there! Seal the office, and I'll have a tech team go over it in the morning."
The room in general is in disarray. The guard says, "He went nuts when I reached under the pod. It looks damaged."
"Shocking someone with cyberware could be really bad," Jason notes as he sits back. "No resistance path into ... parts." His concern is short-lived, though. "Have him look under the pod again. Maybe something is there." he tells Holly.
Assorted voices compete to be heard. Blake is dragged out of the room, where a bot has just rolled up and extended its two portions to form a wheeled cot. A medic tends to Blake as he's whisked down the hallway.
"Damn!" Holly mutters. "Can you check to see if there is anything active under the pod? If he shut down that server, he may have just committed murder."
"Check under the VR pod!" the guard relays, as he sits down and opens up a med-kit for his own wound.
Thinking of something, Jason turns to his portable console and tries to bring it up. The first thing he checks for ... signs that of Blake's personal shard.
A security bot scans the VR pod. "Active. Unauthorized line of transmission. Tracing."
"Well, that's hopeful," Holly says. "We might be able to get the Fry's in place for the upgrade still."
"His world is still active," Jason notes, "I can see it buried under layers of indirection."
"The sorcerer is defeated then," the general observes. "Those are your allies? What does this mean for us, then?"
Randall says quietly to the General, "Blake was pretending to be an employee in order to gain access to the company's resources. We don't have solid evidence yet that absolutely links him to crimes, evidence that will stand up in a trial, but we can try to save some of the victims while we're working on that."
Another guard comes into view - a woman, it can be guessed, though she's in full gear, and not much of her features can be discerned beyond that. She laughs. "What's this? Take your pet to work day?"
"The important thing is that we have a chance to rescue the others now," Holly says. She starts typing another message. "I'll have Chaz try to get to them and see if he can transfer them to Tara Tassa in time."
"Who is that guard? It is someone who is working for Blake?" Jason asks as he looks up.
"It's the squirrel-bot," XHT-8311 replies. "In the daily Hel's Bells update?"
"You're making the assumption they're in his shard - they may have returned there, but we don't know where they are," Randall says.
"Last we saw from the camera, they were back in high school," Holly notes. "So unless Blake moved them, they should still be there. He probably had to have them on his home turf in order to edit out the monster episode from their memories."
"Huh," the female guard replies. "Well, I'll take that to the lab. You'll need to head straight to the infirmary."
"Who is that guard? Are we sure we can trust her taking the bot?" Jason repeats.
Holly works to bring up the guard roster after sending her other messages. "Checking.."
The badge reads XHT-1337. Recent addition to the security force, a real natural in the shooting range.
"She's pretty new, and may be a sharpshooter," Holly notes. "If she tries anything with the bot, we'll know she's in cahoots. Blake has to have someone with some dirty skills to operate in the real world."
"Does that worry anyone else?" Jason says nervously. "Should we go with her?"
Randall suggests, "It'll be better for us if she actually is someone who's working for Blake, we'll get more information."
"She thinks the bot is just an AI right now, not that it's being monitored by live people," Holly notes.
"Okay, we'll go," Jason says, then spins back to the squirrel controls. A few seconds later, the squirrel is making cute chittering noises at the female guard, along with blinking far, far, too cutely at her.
"Sure," XHT-8311 says. "Just be careful. It's experimental. And a bit banged up, too. Ow. Good thing you're a robot, little fella. You look worse off than I do!"
"They'll never let me try out another squirrel after this," Holly laments. "I'll have to settle for turtles."
"That should be more your speed," Randall jokes.
XHT-1337 coos at the squirrel-bot, taking it up, and making consoling noises, though they're slightly artificial-sounding coming through the faceplate.
"I'll call you in as a beta-testers if we get any robo-pigs, Randall," Holly snipes back. "With donut-tracking sensors."
RIU, back in the bridge, perks up at the sound of "donut." He must have learned that word!
Jason hams it up with the bot, making it chitter pitifully, sniffle, and hold up one of its paws as if hurt. He even somehow makes its lower lip quiver...
"Cool!" Randall enthuses. "Sorry, no donuts left in the supplies, RIU. Jason, quit flirting with the security guard, we need her to do something suspicious. Holly, do we have sufficient ground to have Blake put under more exhaustive questioning? And um... How exactly is Chaz supposed to deal with transfering the Frys to Tara Tassa?"
"See if you can get the IR filter working," Holly suggests. "Might give us a better view through the faceplate."
"Oh, I'm going to cry now!" XHT-1337 exclaims. "We'll get you patched up real quick!" The squirrel-bot's POV changes as XHT-1337 heads down the hallway, away from the scene of the crime. XHT-8311 jokingly calls after, "Oh sure, the robot squirrel gets treatment first! I see how it works now...."
"He attacked a guard," Holly says. "That's enough for an official dissection. I mean, interrogation. As for the latter, I have no idea. He's my tech contact, so if he can't do it he should know someone who can - or find a way to mine the info from Blake's implant."
Holly's shoulder-squirrel stirs and wiggles its whiskers, as if looking off and listening attentively to a sound no one else can hear.
"Speak of the devil?" Holly asks, noting her squirrel's behavior.
Jason fiddles, trying to get the filter working. "Oh, tell me you wouldn't do the same if you were controlling the squirrel," he teases Randall.
"Holly!" the shoulder-squirrel squeaks. "Holly, are you all right? Blake's been shot! I've got damage reports on the prototype! Everything's being locked down, except for high security clearance!"
"You should have that clearance by morning, Chaz," Holly tells the squirrel. "I requested you to lead the probe of his virtual reality. There are two people still in there, and I'm depending on you to get them to Tara Tassa in time for the upgrade."
Randall admits to Jason, "Okay, yeah, just a bit."
"Tell him about the unauthorized link under the pod," Jason instructs.
Back down the hallway (from the point of view of the squirrel-bot) can be heard, "Change of plans! Seal off the floor. Everyone out! Don't touch anything!" XHT-1337 gets onto the elevator.
"Oh, right, the server is linked into Yggdrasil somehow," Holly notes. "It must be leaching resources from one of the simulation systems. Find out! If it reaches into the Urd project, I want to know that too."
The shoulder-squirrel trembles. "Uh oh. I think this line is about to be shut off."
Jason blinks. He gets the squirrel to perk up a bit more and focus its ears down the hall, hoping to hear as much as he can before the door closes. "This isn't good. Someone in a higher position is taking over. Blake may have just been a patsy. Easy to manipulate..."
"Then again.. the Urd project may have just taken over the floor," Holly mutters.
"Holly, try to keep the link open," Jason tells the woman, "Bypass all protocols if you have to. We need to know what is going on out there."
Unfortunately, the elevator doors close. XHT-1337 nods a few times, as if listening to a conversation going on inside her headset - and unfortunately not loud enough for the squirrel-bot to pick up on.
"I don't have control over it," Holly says, and starts querying Hel to see if she's being overridden as well.
Wanting to get the guard to open her mask ... Jason gets the squirrel to chirp up at her again, then hold out its paw to her. It sniffs cutely, trying to ploy the woman into kissing its 'boo boo'.
Randall frowns. "I think you're right, Jason. Blake was being manipulated. But by whom?"
The female guard looks down and says, not quite so gently as she was putting on before, "Command: Go to sleep."
"It's coming from the top.. how are they even around after hours?" Holly finds out. "Jason, fake sleep and see if you can keep control!"
"You're probably not the only one who works for an AI," Randall says grimly.
A window appears on the squirrel's controls - "Recognized command: Sleep mode." However, the squirrel-bot is under manual external control, and doesn't automatically go into sleep mode.
"Heh, look what we have here," Jason says, oddly bemused. So ... he makes the bot feign sleeping.
The squirrel-bot, under Jason's command, feigns sleeping. The guard looks away, apparently (hard to tell) satisfied.
"Chaz, I hate to say it, but you'd better disconnect," Holly says. "If they find the link and sever it, there's no way you'll be able to reconnect it."
"All right. Sorry, Holly," the shoulder-squirrel laments. "Closing out, sweeping my tracks." And then the squirrel stands still a moment, and resumes its usual idle-animation actions.
"I have no idea, Randall," Jason admits and shrugs. "They've layered this well. I suspect our little bot is being taken to them."
Through almost-but-not-quite-closed eyelids, the squirrel-bot provides just enough of a view of the elevator floor (as its head droops down) that the elevator doors can be seen to open, and the guard steps out. This doesn't appear to be any of the lab floors. No one else is around. The lights are all out, save for the safety strip-lighting at the bottom of each wall.
"That could be handy," Holly says. "So long as the wireless link isn't blocked. The Well of Urd has always been like a black box at my level of clearance."
XHT-1337 seems to be breathing heavily. The camera view flickers, with patches of the screen freezing in place, or fading faintly - telltale signs of noise interruption and the system's attempts to "fill in" spaces covered by noise. There must be considerable interference down here. The floor isn't one that Holly recognizes - and unfortunately she didn't see which button(s) the guard pushed.
"Too much metal," Jason complains as he tries to divert more power to the transmitter unit built into the squirrel. "Come on little squirrel. You're no RIU to be sure, but you can do this," he tells the screen.
Randall says thoughtfully, "It's all a matter of perspective. To the AIs, from the inside, does the real world look like just another world that needs to be brought under their control?" He turns to Jason. "It might be up to us to get the Frys out of that shard. Blake's out of the picture, and I don't know if Chaz is going to be able to wormhole them directly. What if we set up one of the storage rooms to look like IHOF..."
The guard walks up to a door with an odd emblem on it that features three circles superimposed upon a triangle, with some other features that look more arcane than an abstract logo; it looks like some sort of earlier iteration of the Avatars logo in general design. The surrounding area is dusty and hasn't been cleaned by the janitor bots in ages, it seems.
The guard puts a hand up to the security panel, trembling. It blinks, and shows an error code. She clenches her hand into a fist and bangs on the door. Black vapor seeps out of the seam between her armored gloves and forearm guard.
The interference worsens. Portions of the screen frequently jump and freeze.
Randall looks up. "Black vapor-- from her?"
"This is why I don't like corporations, Holly. ALL of them are ruled by secret societies bent on world domination," Jason grumbles. "So, how's it feel to be a slave? Woah, wait!" he exclaims, sitting up. "Don't you get it? sDon't you see what this is? This guard is from this world. She's breaking down! the people manipulating Blake come from this reality!"
"That.. is not a good sign," Holly notes, when the black vapor appears. "She's a.. simuloid.. or whatever."
The door splits down the middle, opening. Another layer is behind it, splitting on a horizontal seam - two halves rising and lowering - and behind that is yet another layer that splits outward. Beyond is a curtain of darkness that shimmers and undulates. The guard rushes forward. The interference worsens. Error messages flash all over the interface screen.
"Madre de Dios," Randall exclaims. "Bring the squirrel back to life, get away from her. We've got to identify what floor that is, get it locked down."
"Hold on!" Jason says as he taps rapidly to bring the bot back to life! "Run, little bot, run!" he yells at the screen.
"A portal!" Holly yells. "In our basement?" She starts typing, and then pauses, as if unsure what to say or who to relay it too.
"We need to find those symbols," Holly says. "Here, in Tara Tassa."
"I know those symbols," the general says, shocked. "Those are Stellar Imperial."
"You can do it, run the squirrel up her arm and leap off her shoulder," Randall encourages.
"So not in Tara Tassa then," Holly says.
Since every little bit helps, Holly chants, "By Moore's Law and Steve's job, guide Jason's hand!"
The sorceress conjures a shiny sticker which she slaps onto Jason's forehead. It says 'Intel Inside'.
"Oh, no way in hell some disintegrating ghost is about to run off with our only hand in the world," Jason growls as he hunches over. The odd part of all of it is, RIU, who returned just a bit ago from checking on their victim hunches over himself and mimics Jason's movements. Instead of trying to fight the interference, Jason uses it. Jason deliberately sends garbage commands through the controls, which mesh with the static to somehow form functional ones. The first command fly by in a split second, setting up a multi-leveled check summing system to validate any further input, and no sooner as that sequence been entered than a flurry of commands follow. First is an all out squirrel war dance, complete with the biting and gnashing of fake, but still sharp, teeth. When the grip slackens just enough, the claws spin as it, in a flurry, darts up the guard's arm, bounds off her armored breasts (They're very firm and a great platform, you know), slaps the guard square in the face with its tail
, then vaults off the top of guard's head! And of course as it sails away ... it lets out a squeaky raspberry in defiance!
"We can't let that thing escape though the portal," Holly notes. "It'll report about the squirrel now!" she frets. "I can't believe any of this is happening. Why couldn't we have been taken over by aliens or something normal!"
Randall says dryly, "I don't know what you think a tiny little robot squirrel can do about that, Holly." He leans forward. "Jason - see if you can find anything to identify where we are in the headquarters. Holly - get a security bot online!"
"Press the door button?" Holly suggests hopefully as she works to get a security bot under control.
"I think things are about to get a lot worse," Jason frets as the crazed squirrel bounds back towards the way they came. "We need to shut down this area now. we can't risk leaving a permanent gate open! Dammit, why can't squirrel bots be equipped with weapons!"