The interior panel comes into view. Most of the buttons are red-lined - indicating that security is required. The squirrel, having no security clearance, throws itself at the "L" button. It scores. Nothing immediately happens, however; the elevator is supposed to wait a few seconds for more passengers, after all. The squirrel thrashes about and hits the button with two inward-pointing arrows - door close. The doors close. There's more gunfire, but the security pistols at Avatars LLC are small-caliber weapons designed for stopping power - not penetration of elevator doors and walls.
The elevator rises. The "L" button is illuminated. Some of the static clears out, though a few of the status feeds from the remote spy-squirrel still return error codes.
Then - the emergency stop button illuminates, the elevator halts, and a razzing alarm emanates. A calm female voice comes over the audio feed. "The emergency stop has been activated. Please stand by for assistance. In case of emergency, please use the emergency communicator built into the control panel...." The voice continues on, as the squirrel-view thrashes about.
"Of course, it all makes sense now," Randall says, aimed at the General. "The White is behind all this!" To Jason and Holly he adds, "Get a location fix, we need that place secured."
The general is transfixed by the madness on-screen, and seems slow to react to Randall's proclamation. He reluctantly turns away from the static-ridden, shadowy scenes, to look expectantly to Randall for some sort of further explanation.
"For some reason, I don't want to wait for assistance. So ... lets find the access panel in the ceiling or floor, shall we?" Jason remarks rather calmly as he shifts and adjusts the squirrel's viewpoint, looking for the telltale signs of an emergency access panel on the floor or ceiling.
Randall explains to the General about the 'ADs' - Artificial Deities - that supervise the Diadem. People from the outside world, 'the Prime', take control of 'player characters' in the Diadem, who are given challenges to overcome by the Black, such as battles with soldiers of the Empire. The White is supposed to help the players along, keep them from getting in over their heads. But when it learned about the Prime, it saw a golden opportunity to bring its help to the players directly - by unifying both worlds in one Grand Convergence.
"How does that make sense?" Holly asks, still trying to commandeer a security robot while the connection is available.
In the squirrel-cam view, there's a panel in the ceiling of the elevator, with a small tab warning, "Alarm Will Sound If Opened - Emergency Only." It looks like quite the leap to reach it, for such a small squirrel. Just reaching the buttons was acrobatic enough.
Jason isn't about to take a jump for it, no. Instead he uses squirrel-cam to look for panel seams he can use the tiny robotic hands to shimmy up.
Randall asides to Jason, "Don't get too fixated on the squirrel, see if you can hack into the elevator and get the access code. We have to get people we can trust down there to secure the area."
"You act like we can trust anyone. The jury is still out on that," Jason remarks tersely. Still, he takes a moment to see if he can get the panel open.
For Jason, it looks like manual control for climbing is quite a chore - rock-climbing apparently isn't one of his strong suits, skill-wise. However, the squirrel actually has a library of actions for climbing (trees, etc.), and can be set to automatically scramble up the wall (provided it can find purchase). However, clinging to the ceiling while upside-down looks to be the real challenge - much the same way that squirrels are thwarted in real life by a sufficiently large "squirrel shield" to keep them away from bird feeders (until they can find another way around it, of course).
The control panel to the elevator looks like an additional challenge for squirrel paws. Unfortunately, this is a cute little squirrel-bot in the real world - quite the advance in technology, true, but it's no RIU (and the squirrel doesn't have nice sharp claws for prying things loose). In order to get the elevator control panel open - if that's the route Jason takes - the squirrel is going to need tools.
Randall turns to Holly from his explanation to the General, "Is there any kind of voice override you can give through that comm?"
At another window, where Holly is working, her security request form flashes with an "ACCESS DENIED" response in unfriendly red letters.
"Holly! Does this bot have any ..., uh, unnecessary parts?" Jason shouts. "I need tools Might be able to fab something if I can scrap something off the squirrel..."
"It's not even anatomically correct, so why would it have built-in screwdrivers?" Holly notes. "Try pulling out a flat tooth and using that," she suggests, getting frustrated over her attempts at accessing a robot. She tries for one on a different level than Blake's, hoping to at least be able to get it to the proper elevator for recovering the squirrel.
Randall tells the General, "It's obvious now that the White has been rendering the Empire's troops stupid, not just because it makes the battles with these players easier, but so that it can take control of them to serve its will. And that's why Blake never seemed to have any grand ambitions - he was just a dupe, to give the White's orders credibility to people in Prime.
"The Black must have intervened to give the Empire a chance to take hold of its own destiny again," Randall concludes. "That's why you're here with us. These troops may have been brainwashed, but if we can get to wherever they're coming from, which has to be somewhere in the Diadem, they'll know you and your rank. You can free them."
The security window refreshes in front of Holly. Floors 9-11 are inaccessible - it looks like whomever wanted a lockdown was so paranoid as to not even want anyone onto the floor immediately above or below for the time being. However, floor 12 - no problem: An icon appears, showing a track-footed security bot powering up in the floor's security hub, and rolling out, ready for action.
The general nods slowly, taking in the deluge of explanation. "I ... can't say that all of this makes complete sense to me ... but I think I am seeing the pattern now." He frowns, focusing on the window again.
"Aha!" Holly crows, and sends the bot towards the elevators to see if she can override the lockdown.
Another window materializes in front of Holly, showing the viewscreen for Security Bot 12-2Y. It rolls on its tracks down the darkened corridor, with the elevator in view.
Jason checks over the panel closures to determine if the squirrel teeth would even be useful for opening it. "Why couldn't I have RIU out there?" he grumbles, "He's built for this."
"They didn't want to add special tubes for the bots," Holly says, mostly to herself. "Cheaper to put some on every floor. But they should have override keys for the elevators."
There's a faint flicker on a corner of Holly's security screen as the robot advances to the corridor and she uses its access to go ahead and reach the elevator (since immediate physical contact is not technically required, and there's no sense wasting time). It would be something easy to ignore - but it gives Holly a feeling of deja vu....
Randall watches the General, but doesn't see any signs of impending physical action. "Holly, can I borrow a window?"
"Ack!" Holly yelps, and works to shut down the robot's network feeds other than her own control line. "Someone's setting up a spam-field." She absently gestures open a new window for Randall, while trying to put the bot on full-manual control.
The police turned 'pirate captain' turned cybersecurity investigator takes the window up and searches for any mobile units capable of holographic display and audio.
Meanwhile, the squirrel-cam loops about and shows a lot of fuzziness, as Jason gets the squirrel-bot to examine itself. There's also the shine of exposed metal and plastic-like artificial muscle: It looks like the squirrel has taken a hit, and that's why so many of the status blocks are returning errors or garbage, even though the elevator seems to be out of the range of interference. Fortunately, it looks like nothing critical got hit: a lot of the squirrel's body is just fluff, after all, for maximum cuteness and huggability.
Holly works to shut off the bot's RFID system and short-range 'dentures' for various radio protocols to prevent it from being flooded by false signals.
The female voice over the intercom abruptly stops in the middle of, "Please stay calm--"
Holly hastily fortifies the robot, as it prepares to access the elevator. And then - her security window fills up with garbage data, overloads, then blinks out of existence.
"The bot is damaged. Trying to quick-repair check," Jason remarks as he diverts his attention to check the extent of the damage. Its up to you to get the elevator open, Holly. Don't let us down!"
"Autonomous mechanical device search, enter parameters, where do I put in 'holographic interface'..." Randall grumbles at his window. "Holly, why doesn't your company have a Google search engine? Even the NYPD has one for our records and we're so behind the times we still have someone who knows Windows Mail on staff."
"Aarrgh! Stupid lowest-bidder piece of.." Holly curses, and slams her fists through the intangible keyboard. "Because, Randall, if you don't know what you're looking for to begin with and where to find it, you aren't going to do any better trying to search through petabytes of data in our system. We've got these things called Artificial Intelligences that make search engines kinda quaint after all."
Precious few people could give a robot like this such a quick once-over via camera, on itself, from a universe away. Okay, with that last factor, perhaps only one person could, right now. In any case, Jason verifies that none of the squirrel's core is damaged - power system is fine, motor systems are fine, central "nervous system" and processor is fine. Its optional input jack, however, is damaged, as is some sort of optional expansion and diagnostic port. Its "rumbly tummy" generator is gone, too. (That is, when it's "hungry," it cutely makes an audible grumbly-tummy noise, and it can actually be felt if you're holding the doll at the time.)
The speaker in the elevator crackles to life. "Greetings. With whom have I the pleasure of speaking?" It's that same female voice that was so calmly advising the occupants to wait for assistance.
"Your worst nightmare!" Jason instructs the robotic squirrel to say. Of course it comes out in squirrel tone ... so the effect is far from fearsome.
Randall peers at his screen. "Right, so I'm doing this the hard way? Typic--" He looks up at the voice, then over at Holly and Jason, thinking fast. It's got to be an AD. Is there some way we can play this-- Then smacks his face at Jason.
"Jason! Give it my ID number, you doof!" Holly chides.
"Not until we know who it is!" Jason retorts!
"It's the elevator! It's not that clever," Holly notes.
"Holly, see if you can dig up another security robot," Randall orders, taking stock of the situation. "Get a hologram projector, then bring it down there. Jason, tell it you're Holly, and give it her ID number, play along and see who it is and what it wants."
"You don't know that!" Jason points out, "Someone could be over-riding it."
"A holo-projector?" Holly asks, pausing for a moment to think of where a portable one might be. "Where do you need it to be?"
"I am Ganglot," the elevator voice says. "I predict failure of safety mechanisms in this elevator in less than 1 minute, given fall rate of current defensive mechanisms."
The police agent retries his search, this time focusing on portable holographic projectors. He cross-patches the list to Holly once a list of credible results comes up. "General - we're going to need you to take charge of these renegade troops. Holly, once we can get the projector down there, I'll need you to rig up a camera for the General."
"Okay, so is Ganglot a known system name?" Jason asks Holly before he responds to the system.
"Down where?" Holly asks. "Movement is a bit tricky right now! I can't get into the lock-down area at all."
Randall grimaces. "We'll have to work together on this."
"Security subsystem, one of the AI's under Hel," Holly tells Jason.
"Right, then you're on our side," Jason makes the squirrel say, then inputs both Holly's Ident code and name as the next bits of information for the bot to parrot. "Can you get the doors or emergency access panel open? I need an escape route. A small one is fine."
"The elevator is currently in between floors," Ganglot says in a detached voice. "Elevator control system is under data assault. Internal system access - checking. Success." An alarm sounds, as the ceiling hatch pops open and swings down on its hinge. "Suppressing alarm," it can be barely heard to say over the cacophony - just before the alarm cuts out.
"Thank you!" Jason announces, then shifts over to the climb menus...
Randall perks up. "Got one. Holly, Jason, cross-feeding you the data. I need our control line secured, and an access route." His window shows live video with a standard corporate lobby. The robot looks down to see golden metallic hands and feet, then back up at the crystal pillars within which are embedded holographic displays of rearing dragons and lions and phoenixes, a wide black desk with no one behind it, it being the very late of night, and the laser-rigged security gate at the far side, leading to the elevators.
"One moment!" Jason says as he sets the auto-climbing mode on th squirrel, giving it a target path of through the hatch and into the elevator rigging lines. Once that program is set, he switches the view on his mini-system to Randall's cross-feed and works frantically to inject a fractal based encryption randomizer on the line to secure down the access as quickly as possible. No time for fancy, just an old technique here.
"It's a Greeter Bot for guided tours. It's got a holographic projector," Randall explains, as he gets its feet steadied and aims it for the elevators. "Holly, can you deactivate those gates or give it access so we can get it down there?"
"Getting down there is going to be tricky, Randall," Holly notes. She closes the dead Security Bot window and opens a fresh one to see if she can access the security doors.
The squirrel-cam follows the wall of the elevator as the bot expertly scurries up the wall. Superimposed on its vision is a red path-trace showing its requested direction of movement. At the top of the wall, it turns about and focuses on the open hatch, where a red arrow indicates its desired next move. It calculates ... and then springs from the wall, clambering onto the dangling hatch, clinging, claws sliding - but then finally catching on the handle. It scurries up and into a darker area - the top of the elevator. From the elevator below, a dispassionate voice proclaims, "Warning: security protocols compromised. Loss of control imminent. Emergency lock overriden - disengaged. Remote control secured. Audio link c--" And then the elevator voice goes silent.
Meanwhile, another window opens up, as security bot 12-2Z comes online. The robot powers up, hops onto its tracks, and rolls down the corridor of floor 12 - encountering a shuddering, locked-up 12-2Y on the way. Ahead is the elevator door. The indicator shows that the elevator is on floor -8.
The squirrel-cam view shudders, as a latching noise can be heard, and then the sound of the elevator moving. It's going down. In another window, 12-2Z's screen shows the floor number still at -8.
Randall grins. "Well, there's only so much a squirrel can do, anyway. If we can find a toolkit somewhere, Jason's in business." He shakes his head. "I think we're missing the forest for the trees. What just took control of the elevator from Ganglot?"
"Ever here of subliminal advertising, Randall?" Holly asks. "You hide a signal in noise. Same thing here, I think. Something is using the short-range RFID and 'tooth radios to spam systems with clutter, hiding an embedded control signal that'll be read once their buffers overflow."
"What kind of engineers do you have that still code in buffer overflow bugs," Jason shouts, "That's just plain sloppy!"
In Randall's window: As his robot makes his way over to the elevators, Randall has the camera scan the area, looking for anything interesting. Although it's easy to miss, there's a door near the elevators marked, "Employees Only." It might be some sort of maintenance closet.
"I was simplifying it!" Holly snaps. "The same technique can be used to brainwash plugheads. It's military grade."
"Take the stairs, Randall," Holly says. "Elevators can't be trusted."
The Greeter Bot increases in confidence as Randall walks it down the hallway toward the door, intent on pillaging it for a full toolkit for Jason's every need. "Holly, can you make sure the 'bot is cleared for security? Bump its access as high as you can get it."
Randall grimaces. "Stairs. Right. I just now got comfy with walking the robot around and you want stairs."
Holly pauses at her keyboard. "Easier and safer to make it invisible right now," she notes. "It's got a built-in map. It gives tours."
"Bah. A likely excuse," Jason retorts. "Dammit ... I ... I have an idea! Hah! We need an EMP bomb!"
Sure enough, it looks like security access will be required: The greeter bot reaches the maintenance door. "Access denied" lights up in a section of wall that hadn't previously appeared to be a display panel. The message is repeated by a calm female voice.
"Isn't that a really bad idea for our survival?" Randall asks.
"Critical and security systems are EMP-shielded," Holly notes, and tries to override security for the greeter by assigning it a new ID. "Going to try and make the system thing you're a vacuum cleaner, Randall."
"I doubt the main systems are that vulnerable to an emp spike. I do doubt, though, all the subsystems are so protected," Jason points out. "So ... where are the main power feeds?"
Randall thoughtfully copies the last 5 minutes of Squirrel-Cam video to his PDA while he waits for Holly to do her magic. For plan B.
"Each level has it's own fuel-cell, and they're arranged in a spiral," Holly says, trying to remember. "Different location on each floor, for safety. So.. we'll have to see what floor the squirrel gets out on." She checks the status of the bot that made it to the elevator doors to see if it can get them open.
On Randall's screen: A small hatch opens next to the door, just large enough to let sweeper bots through - but Holly manages to falsify an error message on the opening of the hatch. The protocols are such that it's more important for the cleaner bot to get access during the night hours, than to wait for a maintenance crew to get there in the morning, so the full-size maintenance hatch pops open. Inside are shelves and containers of various things that might be useful. There's a mini first-aid station, there's a recharge station with the cleaner bots that have already returned from the night's patrol for the level, there's a small bot maintenance kit right above the recharge station, and there are some more conventional cleaning tools for processes too complex or delicate to trust to 'bots.
On the squirrel-cam: the movement of the walls indicates that the elevator is indeed still going down, even if 12-2Z's viewpoint reports that the elevator is sitting still on sub-level 8 (AKA "-8").
*** Note to GW: Move below description next to Randall's previous screen description.
The bot maintenance kit comes in its own little portable toolbox - or, at least, most of the general-use tools do. There's a reminder to "Return this to Lobby Maintenance Room," and a marker that shows that there's an RFID tag to keep track just in case absent-minded employees wander off with it.
"Y'know, I think I want off this crazy ride. I have no desire to see Miss Bullets again," Jason remarks and flips on the climbing mode of the squirrel again. Next target, the walls so it can scamper to the closest air vent or maintenance hatch.
The squirrel-cam window flickers with just a touch of interference, but the controls respond in timely fashion. The squirrel times its jump to leap for the walls as they roll by, and then to begin scurrying up, using the supporting frames as hand-holds. Above, there's faint light ... and it looks as if it's being shut out. The view is a bit grainy, thanks to the lighting over-compensation: the elevator rides rails up and down, rather than having old-style cables; just a bit above, there are panels sliding out of the walls that are in the process of closing off the elevator shaft.
Randall perks up. "Nice work, Holly!"
And, down below, it sounds as if the elevator has stopped moving. (Ding.) The elevator doors open; boot steps can be heard, entering the elevator.
"Into the light, the liiiiiight" Jason yells at the screen. "Go little feets, go!"
"Jason, remind me, why do you want to EMP the place again?" asks Randall as he works the Greeter Bot controls.
A burst of gunfire erupts from the open elevator hatch down below.
The squirrel-bot scurries upward. Just within reach! Almost ... there! ... "SIGNAL LOST."
"... Okay ... now I'm pissed off," Jason says in a dark growl as his fingers clench tightly. "I hope the person in the elevator worships death, because they're about to experience it." And so .. the hacker tries to use Holly's link to gain access to the elevator control systems ... to, oh, close the doors, then release the grips on the guide rails.
"Aahahahahaha!" Jason cackles with disturbing glee as the elevator controls prong to life before him. Door closed flip. Guide rails release ... He starts for that, then decides he doesn't want to listen to Randall give him a speech about killing. So instead he sets the motors on a loop of fast down, break, launch up, break, down fast, break... Whomever is onboard is about to get one heck of a saltshaker ride!
Jason's access window displays flashing safety warnings. Unfortunately, it isn't accompanied by any useful data (or a voyeuristic view of the elevator's ride), since, as far as the system is concerned, the elevator can't possibly be below sub-level 8. It looks like an emergency shutdown of all building elevators has been initiated, due to catastrophic failure of safety protocols.
"We've got a freed up security bot now," Holly says, sounding a bit down at the lost of yet another squirrel-bot. She goes back to working on opening a route for Randall's Threepio droid.
Randall's display shows that his Greeter Bot has just been promoted. Apparently it is now a multi-functional, all-purpose Maintenance/Greeter/Emergency/Cleaner robot.
Randall mutters, trying to figure out the hands control. "Great Zork, what a pain-- hey." He pops up a window to the robot's on-board program and types: TAKE TOOLKIT. "Jason, can I get you to take over the robot from here? I've got some work to do on this end."
"Does the robot have a bazooka?" Jason asks, "I'm in the mood to blow something up."
Randall shakes his head. "No... But it does have a toolkit if you want to give your EMP idea a try - otherwise, I need it down in the basement area and a camera and mic on the General so he can project his image down there. I'm going to see about getting Plan B ready."
The general wanders from screen to screen, inspecting, occasionally rubbing his chin, but careful not to actually touch anything.
"It's got a projector," Holly notes. She takes out her mobile and turns on the stereo-camera. "Not sure I can feed this through the Orb," she notes. "We'll have to run tests."
Jason rubs his chin, thinking. "Shouldn't we find out what happened to Blake, first?" he asks, then shrugs. "Down we do. I'll see if I can refit any of the tools into weapons along the way. Maybe it'll have a close-range welder in the box or something. Aaaaand, RIU can stream data in a variety of formats. He also has a link to the orb along with plenty of fun ports to fiddle with."
"Blake? Wasn't he just tasered and sent to med?" Randall says.
The greeter bot is able to "take inventory" on the toolbox, thanks to the RFID tag system (at least on any items that are properly tagged), without having to physically rummage through the toolbox while en route. Unfortunately, it does not contain a welder, but it does have a soldering gun.
"He could have been dragged through that Portal by now," Holly notes. "No reason to think the ones taking him to the infirmary weren't fakes."
"Ooo, better watch out, I can cause a blister!" Jason grumbles at the inventory. He sets the bot to head for and down the stairs. "Now ... what can I improvise with?" he wonders. He does at least pull out the big wrench to gonk someone with if it comes to that.
"Anyway, General, you've got what's probably going to be a very challenging assignment," Randall continues. "In a matter of minutes, we should be able to feed your image and voice to this robot on the other side. We need you to convince the soldiers White has working for it that they need to stand down. The robot is probably not going to be able to go through the portal, or if it does, we'll lose the connection, so don't take up any offers to tour their base."
The general nods, walking around and scanning the windows. "So ... what forces do we have remaining? There's this one - the Greeter - with the tools. The other one - Security - who rolls. The furry one - that has been lost?"
The police officer pulls up the 5-minute clip of Squirrel-Cam video he saved and skips through it to a shot that shows the room with the magical symbols around the entrance, then converts it to a blueprint-style diagram. "That's the size of it. I'm going to dig up Inari and get busy with some paint," he says. "I might need to go out and round up some workers fast, too."
On the Greeter's screen - it slowly navigates the stairs, while carefully closing the toolkit, and hefting the wrench in the other. Its safety protocols have been overridden with an ease that is (one is usually told) only the domain of holo-vid horror movies, and it appears to be quite able and willing to use the wrench for lethal force if manually controlled to do so. It has no automated controls, however, to allow it to just "hit guard" with simple commands.
"I feel like the monster in some B rated horror flick," Jason feels compelled to remark
"Nah," Holly says reassuringly. "Fan-fiction, maybe." She tries to get the image from her camera to appear on one of the Orb windows.
The audio pick-up over both the Security Bot's and Greeter Bot's interfaces reports a calm female voice urging evacuation. "This is not a drill. Evacuate immediately. Do not use elevators; use stairs only. Repeat - all personnel, evacuate immediately...."
Randall pauses at the door. "I don't know, you could make a case for being the hero in shining armor, Jason." He winks and then goes to find Inari.
RIU perks up, swiveling its ear fans and sniffing as it looks toward Holly's camera. RIU chirps once, and then a new window appears, projected by the orb - showing a view of the interior of the Ozymandias, from the point of view of Holly's camera.
"I leave the being a hero business to you," Jason remarks at the fleeing Randall.
"Thanks, RIU!" Holly says with a smile. "I'll conjure you some donuts after this!"
The greeter bot makes its way slowly and carefully down the stairs of the Avatars LLC R&D building; no amount of effort can be expended to make it run without the very high likelihood that it'll just end up tumbling down the stairs and breaking in the process. So, while Jason babysits the robot, Holly works with RIU - and, with Jason translating, manages to establish a "magical" link between her camera and the gazing orb.
"Try to feed this through to the projectors, Jason," Holly suggests, and goes to stand in front of the camera.
Randall, meanwhile, chases down Inari, and does a quick survey of possible staging areas on the ship. Fortunately, even in a universe where supposedly there's no such thing as mass-production factory lines, the nature of this place is that similar things tend to look very much alike - that is, models get reused, with a few tweaks. It so happens that there are four blast doors on the Ozymandias that roughly correspond to the door seen by the squirrel-bot in the bottom of the Avatars R&D sub-basement.
There's one to the bridge (naturally), one to the sorceress's chamber, one to the main engine and power area, and one to a cargo storage and containment area marked as "munitions" (even though the Ozymandias doesn't currently use any conventional explosives for its primary weapons).
"Right," Jason says as he tries to configure the bot to take a data stream input from RIU and the orb. "This is fitting, anyway. A midget bludgeoning people with a wrench fits a B rated horror flick."
The general disappears from the bridge so he can change back to his Imperial uniform to better play his proper role.
"Har har," Holly notes.
*** Note to GW: Various swaplines needed for this section to fit dialogue together in the midst of all this summary narrative. ;)
"So, if we can make the area around the door look as similiar as possible to the entry way in the video, then I think there's a very good chance we can force a convergence point," Randall theorizes to Inari, gesturing around the munitions storage area. "Then we step through it, we're out in the real world, then we turn it off and go back through their portal and we'll be back in the simulation. Or, maybe we can cut out the middle-man and go right there."
The Ozymandias trembles. A loud boom and rumble can be heard even through its thick, reinforced hull.
"What was that?" Randall switches his PDA on and checks with Jason and Holly up in the bridge.
"Er, what the heck was that?" Jason says, his head jerking up from where he was working. He immediately looks to the ships diagnostics panel.
The diagnostics panel shows nothing untoward. However, its levels and stabilizers suggest some sort of activity outside, even though the ship is (near as anyone can tell) stationary.
Abandoning her post in front of the camera, Holly heads to the magic detector and mage's circle.
"Want to risk opening the blast shields to see outside?" Holly asks Jason. "That could have come from the city."
"We might be under attack!" Jason calls into the comm. "Holly, can you conjure a video camera outside to see what is going on?"
The magic detector shows a swirl of activity. The alarm hasn't gone off, since it's been necessarily suppressed in the face of so much magic concentration to be found in the city - and it hasn't anything like artificial intelligence to do anything more sophisticated than that. It would appear that something akin to a storm is brewing outside - a magical one, that is.
Points of light that indicate the presence of high-level Links (powerful enough to be noticed even in all the chaos) shooting off in different directions. For what it's worth, they don't seem to be congregating around the ship.
"Okay, hmm," Holly says, eyeing the scope. "I wish we'd paid more attention when that warp-storm was developing," she says. "I think we're about to see an invasion fleet at worse, or a hurricane at best."
Tracer walks onto the bridge. "Huh. What's going on?"
"Do you know about storms appearing out of nowhere around here, Tracer?" Holly asks, as she starts activating the ship's magic circle.
Randall gives the scene a once-over. Well... They'd better let the paint dry. "Holly, Jason, what's this about a storm?"
"Something is brewing outside," Jason says tersely as he goes to open the blast screens and just get a look.
"There's a storm brewing," Holly replies to the comm. "Can't tell if it's a 'normal' magical storm or a wormhole storm."
The blast screens slowly roll open. Outside, clouds swirl, citizens rush about in a panic, bazaar stalls are blown over by heavy gusts of wind, and green-flaming chunks of rock rain down from the sky.
Randall laments over the com, "And we just got done painting here! Coming up. Inari, you'd better come along too, maybe you can make something of it."
"Hmm, I'm going to raise shields," Holly says once she gets a glimpse of the chaos outside.
Tracer says, "Oh, you mean outside? Nothing to worry about," she says nonchalantly. "It's just a chance for some high-level Links to get to save the day, and low-levels to defend citizens against low-level mook mobs. Some wizard has gone berserk, tapping into a forbidden ritual, so on, so on. I mean, what's up here? I've been away."
Holly actually pauses as she hears Tracer's explanation. "It's not a threat to the ship then?" she asks, just to be certain.
A chunk of green-flaming "rock" splats against the main view-portal, and spreads out to reveal itself to be a curled-up demon-like creature. Several more join it. They leer and hiss as they gaze in through the portal.
"I guess a rain of cats and dogs would have been too cute," Holly mutters.
"Shouldn't be," Tracer says. "I mean, if you were going to be part of the main event and get the attention of the Big Bad, then, you know, you'd get some sort of warning - like, someone saying you've been chosen by the Light to help to defend against the greatest threat the civilized world has ever faced - you know the drill."
"Yeaaaah," Holly says, glancing at her daughter's virtual form. "We sorta did get that from the oracle in Shipwreck.."
"Want me to close the main screen and squish those things? I don't like the way they're leering at me," Jason notes and then makes a rood gesture towards the demons.
"I think closing the shutters would be good, yes," Holly agrees.
Randall slides open the bridge door and steps in, a fox form visible behind him. "What've we got?"
The demons, oddly enough, don't actually return the rude gesture. Perhaps there are some younger players somewhere within potential line of sight, outside the ship.
"G'bye little demons!" Jason says as he starts the closure of the blast shields. "Apparently, the usual monster invasion that happens now and then. Supposedly not a big deal..."
Inari looks with disgust at the view port. "Imps." She reflexively covers her nose with a paw, then looks relieved. "I'm glad we're inside and they're not. They reek like sulfur."
A look of horror dawns on Inari's face. "They can teleport through non-magical barriers!"
Randall blinks. "Holly - can you do something about that?"
"Right!" Holly says, and goes back to her original spell-casting. "Armor is Good, Armor is Great," she chants. "All kids love Armour Hot Dogs!"
The blast shields slide shut. The little green demons make a show of being knocked free, or of "bravely" attempting to brace against the cover and keep it from closing (they haven't got a chance). One gets "caught" in the closing wedge and makes distorted faces as its eyes go wider and wider, while its fellows cackle and point, and lean down, trying to make faces until the very last. Then, one concentrates, scrunching up his face....
Before the little imp gets to finish ... whatever it was going to do, there's an explosion of color seen through the narrowing visor line of the closing blast shields.
There's a flash of yellow - and as the blast shields slam shut, some of it gets caught between the view panes and the shields, squashed and spread out. It looks like a great quantity of mustard with a bit of catsup in the mix - and maybe some relish, too.
Jason .. shakes his head. He spins his chair so that he can look at Tracer. "Does she always sing jingles and such? How do you live with that?" he asks.
RIU's eyes light up in alarm.
"... Did you just turn our ship into a hotdog?" asks Randall.
"And you just violated tons of anachrony protocols!" Jason adds, "RIU is getting inundated with alerts!" He waves his hands frantically, spins around, then tries to bring up the 'ignoreme' barriers around the ship to quiet that!
"Well.. hey, it worked didn't it?" Holly says defensively. "I'm married.. was married to a marketing exec! Cut me some slack."
Tracer blinks in astonishment, as she walks up to the view portal to examine the squashed condiments closely. "Seriously. You covered the ship in...."
The 'pirate captain' rubs his hand with his face. "For certain values of 'worked', but now..." He sniffs the air. "Now I'm hungry."
"You have horrible eating habits, Randall," Holly comments.
"Under Construction" banners shoot out from the ship, passing, ghost-like, through the walls. They can no longer be seen, but one can just presume that they've wrapped up the ship. RIU relaxes visibly, letting out a heavy sigh.
"I think I've almost got an invisibility spell worked out," Holly notes. "It's just.. doing it to the ship.. could be taxing."
Randall shakes his head. "No, I mean for a hotdog, but we don't even have any left in stores," he says sadly. "Good work, Jason. Though there's not much we can do about the players that might be wondering about the giant hotdog. We'll blame it on the evil wizard."
"Oh, you aren't going to claim that I'm the evil wizard then?" Holly asks Randall.
On the greeter-bot's screen, it seems the robot has reached a wall. According to its internal positioning, it has reached the bottom of the stairwell on floor -8.
"There's an idea," Randall says with a grin. "No, I think you'd better save the magic for now. So, plan A is, have the General speak with the troops when we get the robot down there, and get them to stand down. Plan B is, go in there ourselves, and try and stop whomever's behind this." He looks at the robot's view. "Plan A seems to have hit a wall."
"Try knocking," Holly suggests.
The greeter-bot turns around, and finds the normal door exiting off of the level. The label says "Sub-Level 8 - Restricted." There's a security panel to one side.
"Hmm, lets see if we have clearance or not," Jason mutters and directs the bot towards the door to see if it opens. "And if not, well, there's always messing with the panel."
Returning to a terminal window, Holly checks on the security bot from the twelfth floor, and sends it towards the nearest stairwell. "Okay, sending down backup," she reports to Jason.
Randall mulls the situation over. "Holly, shouldn't you have gotten some kind of security directive from Hel?"
The greeter bot reaches toward the panel and invokes its emergency access codes. (The actual reaching is apparently unnecessary, but it seems to be part of its 'programming' for some reason to act out the action.) The display shows "access granted," and the door slides open. Meanwhile, in another window, the security bot goes to the stairwell on level 12, and rises up on almost-humanoid legs and retracts its treads. It proceeds to make its way down the stairwell.
Once the bot is underway, Holly tries to contact Hel, requesting a status report.
In Holly's other window, the inquiry to Hel goes without response. This should not happen.
"Hey, at least I didn't need to hack the door," Jason discovers. He uses the bot to peer out the door without going all the way out. Might have guards patrolling, after all.
"It.. it looks like Hel has been isolated, somehow," Holly notes, sounding shocked as she tries a few other methods to get a response. "Maybe since Ganglot went down."
12-2Z's status window shows a customized alert as it is assaulted with several hostile data packets and inquiries. Fortunately, its defenses are holding for the time being.
Randall checks his wrist PDA for any important e-mails, while he's on the subject. Come to think of it, he probably ought to give Marge a status report. He starts typing. /To: Marge. From: Randall Cranston. Subject: Avatars LLC involvement in murder/kidnapping. This may sound crazy, but when haven't any of the status reports I've been sending since I got sucked into a virtual world? I have reason to believe one of the AIs in charge at Avatars LLC has orchestrated this whole business. Think Skynet. See attached video.../
"What's wrong?" Tracer asks. "What are you trying to do here? This is crazy." (This last part seems to be more an observation with a slight touch of awe, rather than any sort of criticism.)
"The Avatar's building is being invaded from here, Tracy," Holly notes. "There's a portal in the basement letting people and constructs pass back and forth."
Randall's inbox is full with various inquiries and reports. Fortunately, this puts no restrictions on his outbox, and his message goes out.
"Oh," Tracer says. "So I guess that means you've got to stop them somehow?"
"I thought your bosses at work seemed awfully quiet," Randall says as he dispatches the update. Even if we don't make it out, there should be enough data for them to do a full-scale audit on Avatars LLC. If it isn't too late... "It looks pretty clear to me whichever AD is behind this has locked out the other ADs as it's making its takeover bid."
"Want me to try to dive into the network again? Like the first time when RIU got me complete access," Jason asks absently.
On Floor -8, the greeter bot goes down a darkened hallway (it doesn't automatically light up, unfortunately), bumbling its way along. Unfortunately, its video receptors are able to accomplish very little, even with brightness and contrast adjusted to maximum. Even the emergency EXIT signs are off. Fortunately, there are several tools (including a genuine flashlight) in the toolkit that could be employed for a light source.
Jason takes the boring approach to darkness, he has the bot use the flashlight.
On Floor 11, the security bot turns about, and verifies that the security panel leading to this floor has been locked down, maximum security. It's uncertain whether or not even Holly's access would open this door at this point, without trying to exploit some gaps in the system.
"I'll take over the greeter bot while you do," Randall volunteers.
"I don't know that the network is safe, Jason," Holly notes. "If Randall is right, and it's the White or the Black behind this, then anyone with a cybernetic implant could literally be an NPC puppet - including our executives. A lot of them have plugs and radios. A normal AI couldn't hack a human brain, but the ADs here specialize in controlling humanoid bodies."
The light flicks on. As it does, oddly enough, the automated lighting system seems to have finally responded to the greeter bot's presence, and the hallway lights turn on. The EXIT signs are back on as well, along with the safety tracers along the bottom of the wall on each side. The audio picks up the thrumming of the building's main generator and central air systems.
"Yeah, well, how many have military grade work stuck in their heads?" Jason points out to Holly. "It might hold out for a bit before I'm mentally fried."
"Well.. hmm, good point," Holly replies to Jason.
Randall frowns at the lights. Well, maybe they're just automatic... He studies the map, looking for the stairs down, or a place where the stairs should be, but are being omitted from the map for security purposes.
"Bah," Jason grumbles as he looks over the bot controls and video feeds again. "There's a sync problem. I think someone is feeding us bogus data." He closes his eyes, thinks for a few moments, then opens them and begins work on the controls. His focus, the data feed transmissions, he tries to set up a signal scrambling mechanism to keep fake data from being injected.
Security bot, meanwhile, has made it down to floor 10. Holly's security grid flashes, warning of more security attacks. (By comparison, the greeter bot's warning grid is completely free from any hostile attempts.) It stops, detecting a possible trip hazard. It scans down and avoids stepping on an expended gun clip. There are several marks on the walls that suggest gunfire. As it rounds the stairs, it comes across several bloody marks.
"We need Hel," Holly mutters, watching the progress of the security bot. "But I've no idea how she's being blocked out."
Scanning for bodies (or empty armor), Holly tries to figure out just who was shooting at whom!
The security bot continues down, and around the corner. Floor 9. A body is sprawled on the stairs - a security guard. It looks as if he's been tasered and shot, repeatedly. His gun is in hand, blood spattering the walls. Further down, near the door for floor 9, there's another guard, but its body is depressed, and black gases seep out from the suit, and black ichor oozes from bullet holes, slowly melting away into vapor.
"Damn it!" Holly curses. "Guards aren't supposed to get into gunfights." She has the bot check to see if the security door is open, since that's the likely thing to be fought over.
As an afterthought, Holly turns and tells Tracer, "Don't look at this."
Tracer says, "What? I mean ... I see virtual dead people all the time. As if."
"They aren't virtual," Jason remarks, his expression growing more annoyed by the second.
Randall shakes his head at the sight. "Code Skynet: AI breaks loose. They talked about this in the academy but they never really say what to do except stand back and call in the Fed Cybercrime Unit. The heavy metal." He looks over at Holly. "Think it's time to call them in, or do you still think you can handle it from here?"
Jason slaps his panel. "Fine. Lets see if they can cope with me rebooting the sensor array on the bot," he growls and tries to simply put the greeter boy sensory systems in a restart cycle.
"The building needs to be cordoned off, Randall," Holly admits. "I doubt the Mistletoe failsafe system is still active in there."
The security bot carefully navigates its way past the security guards, rather than stepping on them, and checks the door. It has been heavily damaged, and doesn't close all the way. With some leverage, it might be pried open. There's no light in the corridor beyond.
Randall nods. "Calling the emergency hotline officer." He punches the code.
"Hello," answers the emergency hotline officer. "Emergency Hotline. Officer Randall Cranston? Please give your current location and nature of the emergency."
Activating the robot's speaker, Holly calls, "This is Security! Are there any human beings who can hear me?"
"Avatars LLC R&D building. Code Skynet, I repeat, Code Skynet. We have armed hostiles in the building. Security guards are dead," Randall says. He includes security bot video of the dead guard.
12-2Z's audio feed: "Get out! Get out now!" croaks a voice from inside the corridor. "Bio-engineered...."
"Roger that, Officer Cranston," the guard says over the hotline. "On it right away!"
"Are they still in there?" Holly replies to the voice, and tries to use the robot's arms to pry the door open further.
"I'm not having much luck here. I think I'll have to dive in and try to unblock Hal directly," Jason says as his voice seems to sink. "Randall, do you have your gun at your side?"
Randall frowns, shutting the call down. "I think they just spoofed my call, Jason. No one sounds that calm when they've got a Code Skynet reported. Yep, got it, why?"
12-2Z's audio feed: "They're gone. Like ninjas ... melt into black goo when they die ... might be bioweapons...."
"Never mind that for now," Holly says to the survivor. "What is your condition? Did you see them take any people or equipment?"
12-2Z's audio feed: The voice pauses to breathe heavily. "Don't worry about me. ... Fake guards ... med lab...."
"Because if this doesn't work and they manage to take me over, you'll need to shoot to kill. So, anyway, if I don't make it ... I wish you all the best. I'm sorry I couldn't do more," Jason answers simply. "RIU, to my shoulders. Time to take what may be the last dive."
RIU lets out a mournful trill, and looses himself from the orb pedestal to loop around Jason's shoulders.
Randall shakes his head. "Holly - give Jason some backup, can't you? Tin-foil hat?"
"Hang tight!" Holly tells the survivor, and then sends the bot towards the 2nd floor, where the med-lab is. "Hmmm, maybe something better than a tin-foil hat.." she mutters.
12-2Z's camera moves out. The security assault on its defenses seems to have slackened ever-so-slightly, as if whomever is attacking it has redirected some of their resources elsewhere. The robot bypasses the slowly evaporating dead guard in the stairwell, navigates past a few more expended cartridges, and continues downward. At the next turn, there is a small black stain on the floor, slowly fading to mist.
Jason pats the little dragon's side. "Hey, I couldn't have asked for a better partner," he tells the little dragon as he sits back in his chair. "Trace external communications link, locate external systems," he mutters to himself and RIU, detailing out the plan, "Link dive to external system, locate security protocols for trace back to control source Hel."
"By Gibson, by Swanwick, by phreaks and by hackers," Holly intones. "Grant this Cowboy a boost to blast crackers!"
The young Hispanic officer lays his hand on Jason's shoulder. "We've got your back, don't worry. But just in case - I hope you remember that old movie we used to giggle over, that wasn't even converted to holo-video, just flatscreen."
Holly conjures up not a 10-Megabyte Hat, or anything like that. Instead she produces an ivory-handled six-shooter with circuit patterns inlaid, and hands it to Jason.
Tracer looks bewildered. "You're giving him a gun? What - is he going somewhere? Is he going to shoot somebody? A Boss?"
"Confidence building tool," Holly claims to Tracer.
Randall grins. "Y'know, that does pretty much sum it up."
Several of the windows flicker out, though there's still a progress window for 12-2Z's downward progress. (Floor 8. No more dead bodies yet.) RIU closes his eyes, tucking his nose underneath Jason's neck, and fluttering his whiskers momentarily. Then, a new window panel opens up....
Jason hurtles through the void of space, amidst a tracery of lines. Before he can plummet too far, a giant serpentine dragon snakes underneath him and catches him.
After taking a breath, Holly starts up again, this time invoking Nithhogr, the dragon that nibbles the roots of Yggdrasil - and produces a little Viking helmet that she sets on RIU's head.
In Jason's dream-vision, the mighty dragon has ... a little Viking helmet on its head. At a distance, no one is likely to notice - and presumably few people up close are likely to make fun of such a large dragon anyway.
Randall looks bemused at the display, and then gives Holly a look. "Your mom has a strange sense of humor," he whispers to Tracer.
"Yeah, I noticed," Tracer says, now looking with more interest at the display of Jason's amazing virtual trip.
12-2Z's window: Floor 7. Still going.
"Hey, he's a dragon, and Norse mythology has lots of those," Holly points out. "Symbolism is powerful, you know. Now ride on into Niflheim and free Hel if you get the chance!"
"Come on. If this is to be our last ride, lets make it one hell of a show," Jason notes to the dragon beneath him and pats his neck. He crouches down, laying his body flat along RIU's neck as the images and lines swirl by. His first order of business, unlock Hel. And that means locating Niflheim ... which shouldn't be too hard he hopes as the network noise that is flooding and over-riding the systems is likely obvious ... just follow it to the security core.
The data streams are recognizable as such, but in this cyber-representation, the interface takes on a more arcane quality: runes and sigils float about, and stylized stars and other celestial bodies follow visible, outlined paths.
Jason watches the paths for ones that have larger data flows than others ... as well as watching for anything that looks like it might divert and assault him.
RIU carries Jason onward, through a dazzling orrery of spinning discs and spheres, glowing runes, and shooting stars of data packets. The air is chill, and as unnecessary as it might be for the interface, Jason is fairly certain he can see his own breath crystallizing in the air. At last, they set down on a plane - a white plane that looks like the purest of snows, rippling to form the dunes of a snowy landscape with the stylized stars shining above. But this is no mere decoration: this icy land is itself a barrier - for Niflheim lies below.
Randall ponders. Aha! While their connections from here are all likely being spoofed, Tracer is on the outside. He catches Holly's eye. "Holly, can I have Tracy phone in the Code Skynet? She should be able to reach one of the officers keeping an eye out and they can pass the message on."
"Jotunn weeps for no one," booms the voice of a titan that looms into view in Jason's virtual-within-virtual world - a translucent entity, humanoid, formed by glowing icy-turquoise panels, such that he seems to be made of ice. "What is with Hel stays with Hel."
"Hey, good thinking Randall!" Holly notes. "Get your phone out, Tracy."
Tracy snaps out of her reverie. "Oh! Sure. What do I call?"
"Here's the number." Randall gives the contact information. "Code Skynet, Avatars LLC R&D building. Humans shot dead. They should ask you for clarification, and how exactly you know this is going on, and in a few minutes you should get escalated to a Fed. Code Skynet is one of the big doomsday scenarios, like bioweapons and nuclear bomb threats. They take it very seriously."
Tracy nods several times, though she's not visibly writing anything down - not in this world, anyway. "Anything else?"
"Here's my officer ID code, I'm the one who told you to report it. Officer Randall Cranston, NYPD. Tell them to check with my dispatch officer. After that... Take shelter, and stay low," Randall advises.
In Jason's viewscreen - it looks as if Jotunn represents something hostile that might divert and assault him.
"I'm already inside," Tracy protests. "What, you don't want me back online?"
"Heh, a system freeze acting as the deadlock itself. Someone must be jamming the actual main router port for the Niflheim control. So ... that means you are symbolic creature here creating the ice that blocks the way," Jason reasons out as he stares up towards the creature. "And really, if you think your size frightens me, well ... then you don't know me very well. I took on great corporations as a kid; only lost once, in fact ... so ... would you like to dance?" He pats the Dragon's neck fondly as he eyes the icy panels, "Any chance you could inject an ice bolt between his panels ... or down his throat? If we can get it reacting, well .. we could split water into hydrogen and oxygen ... and that, well, it just might blow him apart form the inside..."
"Be careful, Jason," Holly says. "And I'm sorry I couldn't get you a bazooka like you wanted."
In the view panel, Jotunn smiles broadly, as a light comes to his eyes, and he speaks more articulately. "Yes, warrior, you only lost once. But a piece of the blade that struck you down lies within you still. A magical blade it was - and one that might spring to life again. Do you care so little for your life as to throw it away pointlessly?"
Randall clarifies, "Code Skynet means an AI's gone rampant and is taking over everything. That can mean militarily, by seizing assets with armed units, but it can also mean by simulating friends to get you to let down your guard. We've already hit a couple examples of them faking signals in and out." He adds, "If the dispatch officer you reach doesn't swear at least a few times and go 'off'script', you've got a fake, and then you should let us know."
Tracy nods. "All right. But I'm coming back!" And then her eyes lose focus as she stares at the image of the confrontation with the ice giant.
"Other than that, keep an eye out. You know your 'usual' police lookouts. If they disappear, or you've got strangers out there, you're in trouble and need to hide," Randall adds quickly.
Unfortunately, Tracer shows no further response. One can only hope she's following instructions.
"Ooo, nice. So now I'm talking to the one in charge, do please introduce yourself. Enough with all these smoke and mirrors. And really, you wouldn't be trying to scare me away if you weren't afraid I could win," Jason points out, a wide grin spreading on his face. "If I walk away now, I will always wonder what would have happened."
Randall returns his attention to the unfolding battle. "Tracy's warned and passing on the Code Skynet, I hope," he says to Holly. "Frotz, I feel so helpless here."
The ice giant's brows furrow, and while it's hard to make out the expression on a translucent face, it's surely even less pleasant than before. "Your bravado is misplaced. A hero takes on the foes he is matched for. One who oversteps his bounds is broken, no matter how many patron gods be disappointed."
Randall looks over at Tracer thoughtfully. "Well, let's get you settled in your room," he says, standing up.
"Bounds are meant to be pressed and passed; they're the challenge. If you spend your life never trying to surpass what you have done before, well, what's the point?" Jason asks and shrugs. "And you can stop with the god complex. There are no gods here."
Tracer doesn't respond, but just continues staring. She's still breathing, at least - and her eyes blink at a normal rate.
The police officer frowns. "Holly..."
"The power to make and destroy worlds," Jotunn declares, "is that not what power the gods have? The power to command the oceans, to turn the seasons, to make plants grow, and skies rain. If that is not enough, then what makes a god?"
With her attention jumping between Jason, the security bot, and other things, Holly notes something else. "Yeah, she's not going into idle mode. The Grey could be overtaxed by the storm-battle outside though."
12-2Z reports in: Floor 5.
"Could be - or could be White's trying to override it," Randall says with a frown. He sees if Tracer will stand and walk when he tugs her arm or not.
Tracer seems to have enough of a sense of balance that she doesn't fall over at a tug, but when he tries to lead her, she resists, and then stumbles forward. It could be possible to drag her along in this way, but it won't be quick, let alone graceful.
Fortunately, Tracer snaps out of it. "Hey! Oh. Back," she declares, straightening up. "Great Zork. This had better be real and all or I think I'm in trouble."
"Inari, give me a hand here-- oh hi Tracer," Randall says, helping her back upright. "Who'd you get?"
"I can make and destroy worlds too. Change others forms ... like Blake that one time. Saved a young woman form the system continuing to mess with her. I did it all by manipulating numbers and logic gates," Jason points out, "But I'm no god. I'm a programmer. I just manipulate logic sequences to a desired effect. Everything always comes down to a very simple question, doesn't it? Yes or no. On or off. Simple boolean logic. For all your bluster about changing worlds, all you have done is switched gates. Tell a hundred thousand bees to all beat their wings t the same time; alter the breeze enough to blow over water; increase evaporation and create a storm. In the end, its all simple mathematics. Mathematics don't make Gods, it dispels them. You're nothing more than an equation with an inflated sense of grandeur."
"If we survive I'll send you to computer camp for the summer, Tracy," Holly promises.
"Javier Acevedo," Tracer says, taking a moment to say the syllables clearly. "At least, I think that was it. He had a bit of an accent."
Randall nods. "That sounds promising. What did he say?"
"Some stuff I'm not going to repeat while Mom's here," Tracer says flippantly. "But he said the code's good, and I'd better stay where I am and all, and not go back on-- not go outside."
"What was that?" Holly asks. Mother's have bionic hearing when it comes to certain things.
Over the audio feed, Jotunn laughs boisterously. "Then call the gods what you will. It will do you little good, even if you think you can bring them down to your level."
12-2Z reports in: Floor 4.
"I said," Tracer repeats, "not stuff I should be repeating. Period."
"No, the last part," Holly insists.
Randall gives Holly a look, then back to Tracer. "Okay. Check the police that have you under surveillance, they should be familiar. If they're strangers or they're not there, you have a problem and you should find a hiding spot and stay quiet. Being online lets anything on the net know that you're online, and probably where you are, so if you see any danger signs..." He shakes his head. "Wait, it's night. You probably won't be able to see the police."
Tracer looks sheepish. "Okay, okay - he said not to go back ONLINE. Okay? Thrill! Whatever the maresydoats...." She begins to sputter and slip into a stream of incoherent slang words in her frustration - half of them probably just made up on the spot. She pouts.
"Rainbows!" Holly blurts. "Jason, if you can hear me.. uh.. I don't know, but Jotunn might be impressed by rainbows. Symbol of Bifrost and the gods and all that."
"And, may I also point something out, Mister God?" Jason asks, grinning impishly, "You do know that in mythology, that the Jotunn were slain, yes? Killed by Odin. Well, I don't have Odin, but I do have my own thunderbolts." His foot nudges RIU's neck to get him airborne again.
"And Tracer.. go to the flat interface if you're going to stay online," Holly says in a compromising tone. By flat, of course, she means the screen-only interface instead of the neural-induction one.
"Okay, okay - give me a moment to switch over," Tracer says, huffily, but not quite so huffily.
RIU leaps up into the air, his antlers crackling with blue cascades of energy, as he seems to have a pretty good idea what comes next.
"When he roars, laughs, or whatever ... aim down his throat. Lets see how he handles swallowing some electricity," Jason instructs the little dragon. He also takes moment to see if there are any faint control feeds leading to the giant.
Any leads going through the giant seem to come through the "ground" - it is entirely possible the giant is unable to separate itself from the snowy landscape (whatever THAT fact is supposed to represent in this strangely mythic virtual interface).
Jason takes a mental note of that. He should be able to stay out of reach for an advantage, then.
The giant rears back, and begins sucking air inward, his chest expanding. A wind picks up, kicking up particles of glittering "snow" swirling about him.
Randall looks over at Tracer thoughtfully. He stands and goes over to sit by Holly for a bit, checking on the security bot's progress, taking the opportunity to whisper to her.
"Now!" Jason orders RIU, "Ball lightning down his throat!"
12-2Z's report: Floor 2. Emergency/Med Level. On screen, there's more blood, more black goo, several bullet craters in the walls, but no visible bodies.
"Fuseli!" Tracer suddenly shouts in a commanding tone, as she raises her arm, and a swirl of white mist coalesces ... into a fearsome, unearthly charger right in the middle of the bridge!
RIU rears back, his mouth filling with a cascade of blue crackling energy!
Reacting quickly, Randall holds up the gun that he'd already prepared in case Jason got controlled. Right scenario, wrong person, Jason. He aims for Tracer and fires the taser bolt.
The taser bolt launches toward Tracer - and apparently she wasn't expecting a counter-attack that quickly, what with the attention being focused on Jason! She has some sort of magical defense that comes into play - a swirl of white that whips about her - but it has no visible effect against the charged attack. She screams angrily, shaking, trying to take a step forward ... but her eyes roll back in her head, and she slumps to the ground. The nightmarish charger turns about, caught midway between trying to stomp Jason's head in with its hoof, but before it can turn on Randall, it disappears in a puff of mists.
"Sorry, Holly," Randall says to her. "I'd been wondering about Tracy for a bit ever since we noticed her idle personality was stuck. Frotz! Now I don't know if our Code Skynet got out, or if the AI just hacked her idle personality. Inari, give me a hand, we've got to get her secured in Sickbay."
Jotunn takes the blast. "Ha ha! You fool! You've gotten so absorbed with the representation, you've failed to realize the underlying ... WHAT?!?" The frost giant stumbles, and its planes begin to distort and dissipate. "NOOO! TREACHERY!"
"We have to hope she got the message out," Holly says with a sigh. "Nearly to the 2nd floor now.."
The snowy landscape on screen explodes outward, revealing a dire and dismal realm below ... but that's merely a distraction. The important thing, amidst all the clutter, would be the data streams that are released once the barrier is down.
Randall reloads the used taser bolt. "Go get 'em, Jason!" He picks up Tracer by the arms, with Inari getting the feet, and goes to take her to the nearest stateroom that can be locked from the outside.
"And you failed to remember that I'm a artist and that electricity is my my paintbrush," Jason retorts, looking extremely pleased. He grabs onto RIU's neck, hanging on throughout the explosion as he tells the dragon, "You're the best!" If he survives the explosion, well, he'll see if he can contact Hel.
Security windows pop up, on bridge. "Processes Gangloti, Ganglat, restored. Hel - Access confirmed."
Inari noses her way underneath Tracer, forgetting dignity long enough to take advantage of her back as a conveyance for the girl's unconscious form. "Lead the way," she tells Randall, somewhat shakily. "I didn't see that coming. You have my respect."
"Yes!" Holly cheers, and starts telling Hel what's happened as rapidly as she can.
Randall chuckles. "Well, to be honest, I'd just suspected at that point, and I was over there to ask Holly to question Tracer about something no AI could know. Thank Jason's paranoia, or I wouldn't have had the gun out and a taser bolt ready."
In the bot window, Holly looks over another scene of carnage, and instructs the robot to continue towards the med lab to see if Blake is still there or not.
A new window appears on the bridge. "Requesting access for system representative manifestation." It then follows with a string of alphanumeric data that seems to represent some sort of temporary passkey.
12-2Z checks the door, and a momentary "ACCESS DENIED" is immediately wiped out and replaced with "OVERRIDE - ACCESS GRANTED." The door slides open. Inside, there's much more blood.
"Hel, I need you to confirm if a Skynet alert has been issued or not," Holly requests of the security AI. On the screen, she has the robot scan for bodies and any survivors.
On 12-2Z's viewscreen, it looks as if the night medical staff has been systematically gunned down. Several robots have been violently disabled as well. 12-2Z switches to its standard life-detection suite of sensors, scanning the area - but no life forms are detected. It then proceeds to match IDs - it looks as if the only bodies to be found here are the night-shift medical attendants (just two of them, who serve not only this building, but several others in the complex during the night), and the two guards for this floor. One guard doesn't have a weapon drawn - he must have been caught entirely off guard.
Randall steps back into the bridge and peers at the new window bemusedly. "System representative request?" he asks of Holly.
Holly thumbs the request window as well, saying, "I've always wondered what she looked like."
"She?" The pirate captain looks over at Jason's window. "Did you manage to unlock Hel then?"
In the virtual world, Jason sits up a bit, blinking. "Hel is online," he says, in case anyone can hear him, "But Hel cannot access the simulated universe. Its using something called Gangloti and Ganglet as a proxy."
Two glowing forms manifest on the bridge, a couple of inches off the floor, and resolve into semi-ghost-like entities in flowing white robes. One appears to be female, the other male, both with braided hair, and a Nordic look to their somewhat abstracted features.
"Oh, just the subsystems," Holly says, a little disappointed. "Good thing Jason put up the Under Construction markers, or we probably wouldn't be able to get this much." To the specters, she asks, "What is the security status of the Avatar's Tower? Do you have full control again?"
Randall doffs his hat in a salute. "Welcome aboard the Ozymandias, sir and ma'am," he says, holstering his gun since it doesn't look like Jason's in any obvious danger of being taken over.
"Come on, lets get out of here before the system decides we're a threat and attacks us," Jason tells his dragon as they twist in the air above the ruined landscape below. Another tap and RIU darts off back along the path they road in on. They arc along like a lightning bolt rippling through a cloud. They flash brightly then their form fades, leaving only the briefest after-image.
"Communications are being reestablished," the female - presumably Gangloti - reports. "Several AD protocols are not receiving proper responses. Hostile entities are detected on the premises. Attempts are ongoing to reestablish control over defensive systems."
The male, Ganglat, reports, "Several protocols associated with GREY have been rerouted. WHITE has sent inappropriate instructions violating proper chain of priorities. BLACK is unresponsive."
Randall looks over at Holly for the translation.
"Mutiny," Holly translates for Randall.
"By who?" JAson croaks from his chair.
"Do you have records from the security cameras of the incident, and are any foreign hostiles still on the premesis?" Holly asks the pair of ghosts.
"Most likely by the White, as Randall suspects," Holly tells Jason.
"Hostiles assumed to be present on sublevels 8 through 10. All aboveground floors determined to be clear of hostiles," Ganglat reports. Gangloti begins to report a list of personnel injured, dead, or status unknown, during the night's events. Blake Forester is among the list of "status unknown."
Holly spares a glance to the security bot feed, to see if Blake could be in the med lab - alive or dead.
"Randall, can you play back the portal sequence from the squirrel for our guests?" Holly asks.
Randall nods. He brings up his PDA and patches it through.
"They might have taken him. I wonder if Blake had a failsafe system wired into himself. In the case of an attack on his person, engage takeover," Jason offers tiredly as he rubs his eyes to try and clear away the feed afterimages.
Blake Forester doesn't appear to be visible in 12-2Z's searching. Gangloti replays a security segment marked of "high interest" - It shows a fragmented reconstruction of events in the lab (apparently pieced together from camera footage, and footage from robots present - since it looks like, early on, the invaders shot out the cameras): Security guards bring an unconscious Blake Forester into the med lab. More guards come in - and promptly slaughter the two guards and the minimal staff, then haul Blake out.
"More likely White figured the jig was up... And is moving up the timeline for world conquest," Randall theorizes. "This storm outside could be its way of evacuating all players to duplicate zones so it can kick the upgrade off sooner."
"Has a Code Skynet been declared or not?" the police officer asks.
Gangloti reports, "Cascade effect in fuel cells has been halted. Projected as attempt to destroy building and remaining personnel inside."
"So you think the White is behind everything? That doesn't make reasonable sense," Jason notes, "If his designed role is protection of of the PCs."
Ganglat reports, "Emergency line reestablished. Query: No indication of Code Skynet enacted."
"It's a working theory, but I think it wants to promote itself to, not just AD, but RD. Real Deity," Randall surmises.
The police officer gives Holly a pointed look.
"Destroy the building!?" Holly almost squeaks. "That would sever the interface to the Diadem and Valhalla as well. The quantum cores would suffer an entropy reversion.. unless.. hmm. Maybe that's the real purpose of the synecdoches then, to provide stability in case of a core failure.."
"No such thing. The only truth is mathematics," Jason remarks dryly as he runs his hands through his hair. "And the WHITE is still just a computer program, regardless of what fancy terms you want to give it. And now ... I think we need to find a way to crash it."
Gangloti amends, "Projected destruction would primarily be focused upon aboveground floors." She gestures, and a holographic representation of the building, explosions, and a rather clean model of its destruction follows.
"We have a bot on the lower levels. Something is interfering with its image data. Can you help me clear it," Jason asks the AI directly. "I'm having difficulty isolating the feeds."
Holly rubs her temples, and glances back at Randall. "Would the military bomb the building if that Skynet alert went out?" she asks the officer. "That would just accomplish the same thing: bury the core so it can't be reached."
Ganglat responds, "Foreign interference detected on Sublevel 8. Correcting." Meanwhile, the greeter bot's viewscreen alters to show a dark room with twisted debris, barely illuminated by a flashlight beam.
Randall says quietly, "Bombs don't stop a rogue AI that's decentralized itself across multiple datacenters. I don't know what they do in the Fed Cybercrime Unit, but I think it's time to call in the big guns. We can't Lone Ranger this."
"If the portal is still present, do you have any fiber-optic scopes that can be tossed through?" Holly asks Ganglat. "We need to get an idea where the other side is located."
"And now the real challenge begins. I have to use a butler robot to defeat an army, shut down the offending AI, and get out of here. Well, get all of you out of here, at least," Jason says as he pops his knuckles. "All in all, a real challenge. So ... time to get to work."
Gangloti pronounces, "Determined that conditions are met for enactment of Mistletoe Protocol. Require human authorization for emergency termination of all computer operations."