Armory
This storage chamber, located in the middle of the gun deck, is a reinforced location meant to house explosive ordinance for the Ozymandias, just in case such weapons should be required for one of its missions. Currently, there are no such explosions in here, only a few canisters of paint in the corner, and some other odd bits. By and large, the armory is empty of weapons or cargo, save for that carried by its current occupants.

The whiteness fades, only to be replaced by the dull red illumination standard throughout the interior of the Ozymandias ... and then that fades as well, as the glowing red fluids seep out of the heavily-armored conduits to elsewhere in the ship (one presumes) ... but there is no flow to replace them.

"Hey, RIU, can you charge as if you were going to bolt, but just hold it for the glow effect? We need light," Jason calls out into the darkness.

Flickers of blue light pierce the darkness. It's a crackling, flickering, almost strobe-like blue light, casting jumping shadows.

Randall looks up. "I'm not sure I like that. We weren't low on fuel, were we?" he says as he rummages around himself. "Mara, can you bring up running lights?"

"That cannot be good," the general says, looking up at the empty power conduits.

Mara's console lights switch on, along with her blinking running lights, adding to the visual cacophony of the chamber.

"Well, good is relative," Jason claims. "I refuse to worry without concrete reason. So, does everyone feel intact?"

RIU is back to his small, and usual size, wrapped around Jason's shoulders just as he was before the "cyberspace" illusion kicked in.

"Let's see, I should have some Glow Sticks in my purse," Holly says, putting an emphasis on what she's looking for before reaching into her purse.

The air feels still, and smells of ozone. Ears ring slightly. Things feel solid enough, at least.

Glow sticks spill out of Envoy's purse and onto the cold floor, in a wide range of colors. They keep spilling out.

"Ozone, probably just RIU. Not dangerous in small concentrations," Jason notes after sniffing the air. "Akiko seems okay, so how about Inari? Intact after that flash?"

"I'd offer to dance, but we're at a lack for music," Randall says with a grin to Akiko. "Jason, you just ran the upgrade procedure for this room, right? Then maybe the problem is... A quantum-ically real version of that fuel doesn't exist in a 'sufficiently real' room."

Inari's ears twitch. "I am intact," she reports after a pause. "I feel a silence, as if a voice whispering in my ear for so long has grown silent."

"Well, I am going to go by that being a good thing. So, what's the status on Sasha, then? Did she remain a kid or revert?" Jason asks as he goes to the closed door and peers at it, then places his hand on it to feel for vibrations.

The silence of the room, besides the crackling and the rattling of glow sticks on the floor, is eerie. The sounds weren't there while the "cyberspace illusion" was in effect, but they haven't returned, either, upon a resumption of something resembling reality: No engine noises. No rumbling storm. No rocking to the floor. Just stillness and silence beyond, it seems.

The police officer in pirate captain's clothes eyes the door thoughtfully, but is distracted by the spill of glow sticks. Wait - they made a sound, but, nothing outside did. "She looks the same as always," he replies, considering.

"Sasha came out as a teenager," Holly notes, holding a yellow glow-stick over the girl. She doesn't look all that happy about it.

"Right, well, I have a theory. We're in limbo, folks. We're cut off from the ship," Jason explains as he draws his hand away. "So ... outside this door is probably literally nothing. So ... we had better hope we can force it to sync and open somewhere."

"Don't worry, chronologicaly she's still an adult so we can still book her," Randall says. He nods to Jason. "Into the real world?"

"Which only makes sense if you think about it. How can a fully realized room exist inside a partially realized ship? Incompatible realities," Jason adds, "So the universe expelled the room ... with us in it."

"Right, the door. Well ... you see there is a small problem. How well do all of you understand how an explosion works?" Jason asks.

"This would be a very bad place for one to happen in," the general notes, "if we are inside."

"Jason, what's the point?" Holly asks. "We have only way out of here. Either that door opens on gun deck, it opens to our world, or it opens to the enemy stronghold. Or, like you say, it opens onto nothing. But it's the only door."

Randall suggests, "I can have Mara form an ice shield to contain it, or shield us."

"Point one for the General, he has a basic understanding," Jason says and holds up his index finger for emphasis. "Explosions are, more or less, expansion of matter caused by excitation of the energy state of the atoms. Gunpowder, dynamite, and such all use gas expansion as a way to enduce force on an object. Simplistically it all follows the ideal gas equation, PV=nRT, even though there is no such thing as a ideal gas, but anyway. My point is if the explosion doesn't push the door out, it will push in, on us. The energy has to go somewhere and will follow the path of least resistance. Last I checked, flesh and bone isn't as strong as steel." He wraps his knuckles on the door for emphasis.

"Want me to conjure up spacesuits?" Holly asks. "We don't know, though, that anything I conjure is upgraded or just simulated."

"And to make things worse ... sorry folks," Jason adds, "If the is burning involved it may just consume all remaining oxygen and we all die from suffocation."

Inari rises up from where she was sitting on her haunches. "Is it just me, or is the floor colder?"

Randall shakes his head. "This just underlines Holly's point, Jason. I think we can handle the explosion. If you don't have to physically touch the door to use your key ring, then I'll set up a shield here..." He gestures to the side of the door. "We'll stay behind it, and you do your thing. Focus on the real world, that place in the basement where we saw this door and these symbols. Shut down lights, because portals don't spawn if we're looking."

The blast door has nothing on it that resembles a keyhole. There is the turn-wheel to crank it closed or shut - and thankfully there's one on the inside so that anyone inside wouldn't be trapped - but there's no internal locking mechanism visible.

Jason tests to see if the wheel itself currently turns or acts as if it's locked. "Give me a minute to think and look at some things," he says distractedly.

Randall nods to Jason, then thoughtfully checks his PDA to see if he's got a live signal.

"The point of the door is that the portal forms behind it, where we can't see," Holly notes. "The one in the basement was there when the door opened. Of course.. uh.. it could have been there for months."

The wheel turns, though it requires just as much effort as it ever did. It's a multi-layered door, each section slightly offset from the other so that there is no direct path (no matter how thin) going through the door at any one point. The innermost door visibly opens a crack.

Jason now digs in his numerous pockets, looking for an extendable probe to slip into the crack. He wants to see what, if anything, is on the other side of the crack.

Try as he might, the door layers are too closely pressed together for the probe to fit through at this point. He'll have to crank the doors further apart until he can see a seam of the next door opening in the sequence before he can hope to get the probe through.

"Nope, not in the real world, or else the walls are forming a pretty good Faraday cage," Randall says, seeing the familiar No carrier signal message on his wrist-PDA. He reaches up to pat Mara's shoulder. "Jason, what if we're Scrodinger's cat?"

"We're the observers, Randall," Holly points out. "And the door is still closed."

"Well, won't this be a moment of faith?" Jason comments dryly, "If I open the door to see what's beyond it could be a vacuum and kill us all. But if I don't open it, we'll die in here anyway. Fun." He taps his fingers together, thinking. "Okay, I have a plan. I need every useless bit of junk you have on Mara, Randall, combined with all of my useless parts. I need to rig up a powered wheel turner for the door. Then either you or Holly seal us off from the door by wall and I use the device to remotely open it. That way we don't get sucked out if it is a vacuum."

Randall elaborates, "We might be in some kind of limbo universe only until we actually observe the outside world. If you collapse the wave function on the side of the simulated world... It might convert us all back into low-grade simulations again."

A couple of Jason's electronic gizmos on his utility belt begin flickering erratically.

The police officer checks Mara's saddlebags for spare parts that Jason can use, nevertheless. Don't worry, I won't give him any of your parts, girl, he assures his ice wyvern.

There's a low-grade circuit tester, and a live-wire testing device - nothing terribly expensive, or shielded like the rest of his equipment. Those same devices were behaving erratically a while back ... when was it? Oh yeah - back in the outlet mall.

"You know, that door isn't opening quickly, so just a crack will tell us if there's a pressure difference," Holly notes.

"Folks, we have a gate," Jason suddenly declares. "We have EMF disturbance, I'm getting inductive electrical spikes on my probes, like back when we were sucked into this mess."

On Mara's console display, one of her multipurpose screens switches to an audio analysis interface. Waveforms ripple across the display. Unfortunately, despite Mara's attempt at helpfulness, it doesn't readily translate itself to any meaningful form for the layman observer.

"Well, peachy! So open the door! Hopefully the door on the other side will open automatically," Holly notes. "And should we go through with weapons and claws ready?"

Randall shakes his head to Inari, looking puzzled. Wait, canids have ultra-high frequency hearing, don't they?

"Yeah, I'll just pull out my trusty gun and be ready! You know I don't have any weapons!" Jason says with a roll of his eyes. When he noticed the wheel turning on its own, though, he says, "Ack!" and tries to grab it!

With Jason's interference, the wheel momentarily stops, and the door stops its slow opening sequence....

"Is someone on the other side?" Jason yells at the door as he struggles with it.

Whoever it might be on the other side is particularly strong. Jason is unlikely to be able to hold the wheel back for long, unless the other party gives up.

"What was the key for again?" Akiko asks. "Was that part of the process somehow, or was that just a bad idea after all?"

"It makes things explode," Inari interjects. "I think we generally agreed that an explosion in here would be bad."

"Gneh!" goes Jason as he starts turning with the wheel. "We're about to have company!" he yells as he lets go and hops backwards. Quickly, he pulls RIU off his shoulders even though the little dragon protests. "I have a dragon and I'm not afraid to use it!" he yells at the door.

The police officer frowns, drawing his trusty sidearm. "Step back. Kill the lights. Holly - put the glowsticks on the floor in a pile next to the door. Something on the other side means that there's air to breath, and darkness will give us time to figure if it's friend or foe."

The small woman starts kicking the various glows-sticks towards the indicated corner!

The general frowns. "If that door is linking to the Inner Sanctum, we may be in grave danger. My rank will prove insufficient to explain this away."

Mara's running lights switch off, and she blanks out all her console displays as well.

"Relax, I've got a plan," Randall whispers. Then he starts trying to figure out what his plan is.

"Hey guys, just a heads up," Holly says quietly, "but I don't feel myself recharging, power wise. So watch Mara and RIU's power usage."

The door continues to open, no longer impeded by Jason. Jason's electronics stop going haywire.

Holly's easily-forgotten-about shoulder-squirrel wiggles its nose and chitters quietly, then begins grooming Holly's frizzy hair.

There's a hiss as air slips through the doorway. It must have opened enough to break the seal.

"Everyone get ready," Jason hisses as he crouches down. "Incoming whatsit-of-doom."

Randall frowns, then switches his gun to taser dart mode. The EMF burst meant something... Maybe our waveform collapsed and we're now synced somewhere else in the universe?

"Something's coming in!" Inari hisses. And in the faint yellow glow of a single activated glow-stick, it does indeed look as if something is coming in - a black mist is forming on the floor, just inside the doorway, spreading out ... and dissipating.

"Hey, that's.. that's just like virtual matter falling apart in real space," Holly notes.

The black mist doesn't actually seem to be coming through the door. Rather, it seems to materialize just a bit inside the door, near the visible seam, and then it disperses again.

"But.. why didn't my conjured glow-sticks evaporate then?" the sorceress notes. "Maybe it's gas, or some sort of transition effect?"

"I think it's virtual air," Holly says. "My stuff is a different level of fake, or are being actively renewed or just longer lasting. So the other side of the portal must be in the Diadem, right?" After a moment, she then adds, "Want to toss a grenade through to break the sync?"

Randall whispers to Jason, "Unless you want to meet the boys in the Inner Sanctum.... Keyring."

"No! Just ... hold on," Jason says as he slinks towards the door. He snaps out his probe again and hands the keyring on the end of the probe. Nervously ... he sticks the probe through.

The innermost layer of the blast door finishes opening, and presumably the outermost layer has opened as well. A thin line of light shines through the visible seam.

Randall moves to have a good covering arc of whatever might be on the other side, gun ready.

The probe's display is bright enough to noticeably cast shadows. On the other side must be the Inner Sanctum that the general spoke of: The architecture and "fantasy-dark-steampunk" look is indicative of Stellar Imperial design, and with their typical preference for glowing red sconces, even if there's no reason for their home base to require powering by "fuel" such as an ironclad would be. Nonetheless, there are other light sources that put the faint red glow to shame....

There is a tremendous creature standing back from the door, part bear, part mountain, with cracks visible in its legs, and the red glow of lava shining through, while swirling mists form a sort of "halo" around its feet. Protruding from its form here and there are shining crystals, and glints of metal - suggesting, at once, armor, or revealed segments of ore in its rocky form.

"Last chance to shut that door, Jason," Randall mutters, flipping the mode switch back to standard rounds.

Next to it is a winged unicorn of gold and white, crowned and adorned with flowering wreathes. Around its feet, the ironworks have rusted and turned earthen, and flowers spring forth from the very floor - and it looks as if a whole trail of flowers have sprung up in its wake, just to reach this point.

"Uhm, folks, don't annoy the big monster," Jason whispers as he starts scooting backwards, then tries to shut the door frantically. "Its the kids and their ascended creatures! The bear and unicorn, which means Regis may be here too!"

The probe briefly gets a glimpse of something shiny and metallic - up near the turn-wheel. A muscular knight in garish armor works at the wheel. His armor seems to match that of the bear - something of metal and rock and crystal and precious metals, with a hint of lava flowing underneath what gaps appear in the plate. His face is not visible, but his proportions might be those of Nick Fry somewhere underneath that outfit. Although he seems to have human proportions, he seems to exude a raw power that suggests he could take on ironclads singlehandedly. Even the most proud of Tasavalta's heroes striding through the market squares to show off their beasts and their gear couldn't compare to this. Why, the shoulder pads alone could be used for emergency shelter in a storm, surely.

"Okay, I vote we destroy that hallway so they can't sync to us or the real world anytime soon," Holly whispers. "Any objections?"

The probe retracts before a clearer glimpse can be had of the woman in the room - but the fleeting impression Jason got was of an awful lot of gold, long hair, and an awful lot of skin. The monitor shuts off. Meanwhile, Jason tries to work the wheel. It's not happening. It's like trying to stop a freight train: It's slow, but it's inexorable.

"Right, so," Jason says then tries to use the keyring on the wheel to see if it will just break the mechanism!

"Fret not," comes a lilting voice from the other side. "Your agony will end soon. You shall be purified by the Lig--"

Randall whispers, "Wait, they're human too. I've got a plan." He stows his gun and reaches into his jacket for something else. "We're here to save you! Are you Princess Heart? And Small?" he yells.

Randall flourishes the object he just retrieved from his jacket to the door, moving up to line of sight. Unlike regular Empire soldiers, they won't shoot on sight... I think. "Officer Cranston, NYPD. We're here to rescue you, stand back please!"

The tiny woman pulls a ridiculously oversized high-tech gun from her robes, and aims it down the center of the corridor. It hums ominously.

And then, Jason has plenty of illumination to find his way to the turn-wheel. He feels a slight resistance in the key on the key ring, much like as if he were trying to push two north-poles together on magnets: enough resistance to be noticeable, to try to push him this way or that way, off an invisible dome of force, but not enough that he can't overcome it with a simple amount of determination and force.

"Officer," comes the lilting voice, "the Light has entrusted the Law in us. We shall purify the world and bring on the new age. Don't worry - we will reform you ... all this pain will be forgotten."

Okay, they've had a job done on them, Randall thinks to himself, thinking a silent command to Mara to be ready to breath. Well, I had to try.

Jason realizes he's not even sure of what he's doing or if this will even work. Of course, he does know for certain that either of them on the other side of the door could turn him into taffy without breaking a sweat so ... if he has to go, it'll be his choice as to how. He presses forward, trying to connect the ring to the wheel.

Where it was resisting a moment before, it's as if Jason's determination causes the poles to shift - the key snaps to the middle of the turnwheel, a very un-door-like object. It doesn't stop. It slides right in, as if there were an invisible keyhole in its very center.

The wheel turns on its own accord (or, rather, by that of the Earthen Knight on the other side), while the key remains in place, its teeth vanished underneath the iron. Click-click...

An explosion rips through the chamber, as the turning wheel breaks apart into shrapnel. A concussive force sends Jason flying back, across the room, right into a large fox-thing. ("Oof!" she goes, though the sound is generally lost in the madness.)

"Wha-" is all the general can say, as he's evidently caught off guard and not quite on board with the implications of using the magic key ring - he goes flying back as well, and hits hard against the metal wall opposite. He slides down, unconscious.

Despite the loud explosion and the flash, it would seem that, all reason aside, it hasn't had quite the effect that Jason feared. The explosive effect was more theatrical than anything ... except, that is, for the unfortunate general, and the turn-wheel.

The opening through the blast door no longer shows the light of the hallway. Rather, there is just a thin line of shimmering blackness. Just to the right of it, however, where once was the turn-wheel, a section of the wall has been torn away to reveal a door that wasn't there previously.

"If I'm not dead, Inari is going to kill me," Jason thinks from where he lays on the fox-thing. He pats his chest, looking for holes.

Jason finds the key and its ring, which has landed on him during his short airborne trip, none the worse for wear despite being at ground-zero in the explosion.

"Two doors?" Holly asks, the aim of her blaster wavering. "Is the main one closed? It's hard to tell in the dark."

Randall reels back before the explosion. "Frotz! Jason, are you okay?" He looks up to the door and freezes, his hand mid-stowing badge back into his jacket. Did the lights go out on the other side or... "Jason, what did you just do?"

Sloooowly, Jason looks up. "That didn't do quite what I expected. I think I just activated the last part of the curse challenge," he admits, "But ... I'm not complaining." He pushes himself off Inari before he looks back and says, "Er, sorry about that. I didn't hurt you, did I?"

The ice wyvern closes her mouth, steam wisping from her nostrils. She watches the door distrustfully.

"Warn us before blowing us up next time," Holly notes. "I've got a squirrel on my head and no idea what it will bite if startled."

Jason takes the offered hand. "You have squirrels in your head too, you know," he comments to Holly. "So, I think I somehow shifted the sync to who knows where. Shall we see where it goes?"

Akiko crawls out from behind Inari. "Oof. Oh no!" She rushes over to the general. "Does anyone know first aid? He's hit his head!"

"The wheel is gone, so how do we open it enough to find out?" Holly asks. "Time to try those potions of yours, Randall?"

"Near as I can figure out, folks, we got synced to the Inner Sanctum, where White has been indoctrinating Jenny and Nick Fry into believing they're heroes too," Randall says. He goes over to look in on the General. "I've got some training. Let's see if he's just out cold or if he's hurt first."

The police officer continues while inspecting the General, feeling the back of his head for blood, "Whatever Jason did unsynced us... and I'm not sure where that door goes. You said something about a challenge, Jason?"

"Yeah, to break the curse of the ring. I probably have to face inner demons or something. Yay. You all might want to remain here," Jason comments as he goes to examine the new door.

"Hmmm," Holly goes, and picks up the glow-stick with her free hand to better examine the shimmering portal. "Yeah, I think Randall is right. The interference patterns look a bit chaotic still. I suppose whatever is beyond that other door will determine where the portal syncs to."

"Mara, a bit of ice please?" Randall asks his ice wyvern. She extends her neck and coughs once, somehow ladylike, into his outstretched hand. He applies this to the swelling, then improvises a bandage to keep it in place.

The style of the door is at odds with that of the design of the armory in general. Although it has the same brushed-steel look to its surface, its shape suggests the contours of wood grains, a frame, and rivets - not unlike, say, a model of a wooden "dungeon door" in a virtual world having the visible textures of a metal surface transplanted onto it, however incongruously. It has a turn-handle.

"Well, at least it doesn't have a plaque that reads: 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Jason remarks dryly.

Randall affects his best holo-soap-opera doctor face as he turns to Akiko. "He'll be fine, miss. A little rest, and keep this bandage on the swelling, and it will go away in no time."

Akiko nods, and helps to hold the bandage. "I'll keep a watch on him. It doesn't look like we have anything to fight just yet, after all."

Holly rests the BFG over her shoulder, since she can't just let go of it without losing it. "Well, going to open it?" she asks Jason.

The police officer gets up and dusts his hands off. "Holly, give me a hand? I'm going to put our unconscious friends on Mara's back. I don't think we can leave them behind."

Akiko recoils as she pulls a hand away from the metal wall. "It isn't just Mara's ice. The walls are getting colder."

Mara helpfully nuzzles her "passengers" into place - Sasha in back, general in front. Akiko helps with the seatbelts to secure them. "Convenient!" Akiko says, appreciatively.

"So ... all of want to follow along where ever this door goes?" Jason asks, his had hovering over the handle. "It might not be pleasant."

"If Akiko is right, we may not have a choice Jason," Holly notes. "The universe may be 'encouraging' us to go along."

"Even us bike cops have to take suspects into the station sometime," Randall explains to Akiko, pointing out the lockable restraints. click click "As for your inner demons, I'll be impressed if they're worse than 'way downtown'."

"I just ... I have a bad feeling it won't improve your opinion of me," Jason admits, "Not that you have a great one now, but."

Akiko shrugs. "Is this going to reveal your inner demons? How can any computer do that? It shouldn't be able to show us anything that a determined hacker or policeman couldn't find on the inter-web anyway."

"What's to worry about?" Holly says, grinning. "I've got a really big gun and a squirrel. I'm set for anything!"

The 'pirate captain' reaches down and picks up some of the glowsticks. He offers them to the others. "Inside Jason's head, it could get dark."

"Given I have a cortex implant hooked into my visual and aural sections of my brain, I fear just what it could extract, you know," Jason points out, then shrugs. "So, just, well, I'll say it now. I'm sorry." He reaches out and turns the handle.

The handle turns, and the door opens. Air rushes into the room from a dark expanse beyond - but not an EMPTY expanse. Noises echo. There are walls. The air is cool - a bit cold - but no colder than, say, the typical server room.

Mara helpfully pops open a "saddlebag" hatch as Randall loads the excess glow-sticks into them.

Holly shakes up another glow-stick, and tosses it ahead through the door to at least see if there's a floor.

Randall pats Mara's neck. "There's a good girl," he murmurs. "If we need more light, I can switch on the floodlight."

RIU whisker-tickles Jason's cheek, as if to make a little reminder that, "I'm here with you no matter what!" Then, the little dragon casts crackling arc-light glow with his mouth, to supplement the glow of the tossed glow-stick.

The glow-stick hits the floor, and rolls on shiny marble floor. It rolls to a stop up against a metal panel with a vent grill. There's something hazy, though - the glow-stick doesn't seem as bright as it should, like there's some intangible curtain between here and there, obscuring some of the light.

"Well, at least we don't have any huge unbeatable monsters on the other side," Jason admits. Nervously he pats the dragon on his shoulders before stepping through. He has a odd sense of deja-vu here, but then he has spent a lot of time in similar places.

As Jason steps through, he's washed over by the sudden change. Yes, the air is cooler here. The air is alive with the thrum of environmental-regulation systems, and the ever-so-faint rattle of fans in need of replacement. The song of machinery quietly echoes through the chamber, and it is dimly lit not only by the glow-stick, but by banks of status lights on exposed server racks. A motion sensor trips, and light-panels illuminate in the ceiling.

Randall and Mara bring up the rear, since Mara is going to need to squeeze through the door. The piratically dressed officer motions for Holly, Akiko, and Inari to go ahead.

This is, perhaps, the most eclectic server room Jason could hope to see. Here, an advanced optical processor. There, an ancient UNIX, just like the server room at a bank he visited as part of a job interview. ("It would cost too much to transfer all the accounts to a new system! And the DOWNTIME!")

Being careful, Holly steps through. "Okay.. best not to touch anything that looks important, just in case this really is Jason's mind somehow," she comments, and makes sure the 'safety' on her Burst spell is still on.

Jason stuffs his hands in his pockets, briefly comforted by the odd collection of tools he carries (And that he didn't stab himself in the process). "Wow, its like a mix of old memories and digging through hardware catalogs for things I couldn't afford," he admits as he slowly walks a circle around the room. The first thing he checks for are name plates on each of the machines to see if there is any naming pattern to the servers themselves that might give a clue as to what this place is.

The computer stations are but one portion of the chamber's decor. It seems to stretch on, a maze of access points, server racks, and an obligatory fire-control and first-aid station here, a workstation (and swivel chair) there. But where there are walls visible, there are torch-sconces, shaped something like claws (robotic claws?) holding flickering plasma flames. There's a "dungeon" decor going on as well, but one expressed in exposed support girders and with segmented panels in arrangements that only abstractly suggest blocks in a stone wall by the placement of their seams.

"He just hacked all of US not half an hour ago," Holly notes. "If he wants to hack his head, I think he'll know what he's doing."

Mara squeezes in, and hugs her wings close, respectfully keeping away from touching anything.

The police officer guides Mara through the door. "Shall I close this behind us?" he asks. "All that's behind this is the way back... Either the Ozymandias or the Empire Inner Sanctum Play-Set."

"I don't think anyone is going to be coming through the portal behind us," Holly offers. "And this place could be a labyrinth from the look of things. We'd better mark our path."

RIU flutters over to one of the server machines, peering down at a nameplate - "UNIVAC." He squeals. It has no vacuum tubes, of course, and is nothing like any of the series of early (massive) computers starring in the works of a certain age-old science-fiction author, but it was nonetheless named with some humor in mind. It looks just like the server room machine at Bastech, which Jason saw when he was on a tour - taken by a friend of the family who was impressed with Jason's inquisitive and precocious nature. However, it's shinier and in better condition than Jason recalls. Plus, when he checks - there's no sign of the wad of chewing gum he stuck underneath the main access panel.

Akiko checks a door. "Huh. Girls' Lockerroom?" She rattles the door. "It's locked. Not surprised, really."

There are many other doors. They don't fit the decor, generally. Some are wooden, some are steel, some made of modern plastic types, some of faux wood, some looking like they're reinforced to withstand blasts while others look like they could be easily kicked in, some offering no clue as to what's on the other side and some having clear glass windows.

"Like I said, it might be wading through memories," Jason says as he goes to check out the 'UNIVAC' terminal. He crouches down before the terminal. Though hesitant, he reaches out and taps one of the keys to see if the terminal will light up.

The access monitor winks in, and shows the Bastech logo, along with a sign-in prompt. Mr. Harrison had jokingly wondered whether a little computer wiz like Jason would be able to guess the sign-in password, once upon a time. "It's not like the movies," he'd said. "You aren't allowed to just have the name of your wife or your daughter, or your wedding anniversary. Too easy. There are rules - but of course, the trick is that people have to remember them, or it's no good. The weak point in any security system is the human element...."

Randall brings up the rear. "One of these doors could be the way out," he says quietly.

Jason rubs his chin, thinking. "And I remember trying the user name 'Ford', with the password of 'indiana'," he remarks in an almost wistful tone. "It was the whole comment about movies, and since his name was Harrison, well ... I just remembered an old movie reference with a once famous actor." He even tries it here on a lark. "It's like recorded fragments of memory ... so like Akiko said, it may only have moments of my life that were actually recorded somewhere."

"Well, this definitely isn't the real world," Akiko notes meanwhile, peering through an open "iris" window through a futuristic metal-reinforced doorway. On the other side appears to be a glassed-in walkway on a retro-futuristic battle station straight out of the umpteenth remake of Flash Gordon. "Oh. Isn't that Ming's pleasure dome? Huh. Whoa. Okay, I'm not wearing that, no way."

The screen prompt rewards Jason with a sign-on - to a limited-access (test) account.

"Heh, did the same thing back then, too," Jason laughs as he pats the screen. "So, the point of the curse defeat is to prove I don't need the ring. So ... maybe this is like the central room of memories, where each door leads off to some recorded event where I have to prove something."

The police officer looks back behind them. So far the room seems pretty uninhabited. "So... This is a room full of locks? Locked computers that you have to prove you can break into?"

Jason finally stands back up and goes to check the myriad of doors. "I'm not quite sure yet," he comments.

As Jason looks around, he can see that the door Randall is guarding - the one that they all came through - looks like a conventional "dungeon door" on this side, for the most part, except that it has a glass "window" with bars across it for reinforcement. (The rest is wood and steel.) On this side, the window is transparent, whereas on the other side, it was solid (and very opaque) brushed metal. Through it, he can see darkness ... except that there is a faint ambient light cutting into the room. On one hand, that illustrates that the armory is still there, and hasn't vanished with the closing of the door. On the other hand, it also illustrates that there is line of light, somewhat irregular, cutting across the room - though at least it shows no signs of getting any wider right away.

Akiko wonders, "What if someone else here manages to break into something before Jason does? Does that mean the test still goes on? Or does that ruin everything?"

Inari notes, "It looks like he already broke into that computer. Maybe that means he's already won."

"I'm not sure, but it looks like the room we just left is showing some light," Randall says. "It could be that our 'friends' from back in the Inner Sanctum have managed to get it locked back in on them."

The police officer checks if the door has a visible lock on this side, or just the turn-handle.

"That was too easy, though. It was just a memory," Jason points out and shrugs. He wanders towards one of the other doors and peers at it. "Okay, this is odd," he says as he starts wiping at the door, "It couldn't be. That old electronics class? The one where I broke in and was using school parts to build my first robot? The one were I accidentally ... er ... Nevermind that."

A turn-handle is all the door sports. If the door is meant to be locked, the mechanism is not visible here. And if the mechanism is what blew up on the other side, earlier, there's no hope for it....

"The system could just be using all of this to give him an idea of what needs to be done," Holly notes. "I'm pretty sure the memory of how he got the implants is going to be the real test."

Randall searches for a chair to push into place to block the door. Hmm. Rolling office chairs are probably not the best choice. Something without wheels.

Jason visibly cringes as he watches through the window of the door he's standing at. "Yeeeeah, it is," he comments, then puts his forehead against the glass. "Boy was I stupid."

As Jason searches around, he finds a door that says, "Restricted Access; Maximum Security," over the Dantech logo. That was that overseas firm that, due to a grey area in legal jurisdictions and due to a not-so-secret patronage by certain rival foreign powers, employed "black ice" technologies and particularly ruthless measures to keep out unwanted prying eyes - exactly the sort of thing that would make it a very high-paying job for someone to snatch secrets from out of their grasp. Plus, there was the fact that Andrei, that brilliant and vindictive foreign exchange student, had gone on to work for it. Sure, Andrei had only gotten Jason in a LITTLE bit of trouble in school, in the big scheme of things, but it was humiliating. That probably meant more than the money, when Jason went after those reports. Not such a good choice, in retrospect, considering the hospital bills ate up most of his pay from the job....

"Find the door you want to unlock, then get cracking," Randall calls to the others as he spies a chair that looks workable, an extruded piece of plastic that belongs in a corporate lobby. "I'll set up a barrier here to buy us time. Mara, give me a breath here, and here, to lock the legs in place..."

*** Note to GW: Move second-to-above door description to more appropriate place.

"One, I didn't notice and disable the security camera in the electronics lab back in school," Jason says, "Two ... I also didn't know what I was doing and ended up shorting out half the power supplies in the lab while I was testing out memory metals for its arms. That set off the sprinklers in the entire building. I sogged the entire school and got caught. Lets just say I ended up joining another school that year." He pushes away fro that door and resumes looking. "Anyway..."

After a little bit of targeted puffing, Mara has the door and its barricade iced in.

Randall surveys the door, now wedged with a chair under the handle, and beams of ice leading to the floor to hold it in place. "Good work, Mara. It won't hold up for too long, but we'll hear it when they do finally manage to break in." He looks over to see where the others have gotten to.

"Do you get the feeling you're seeing your past mistakes more than just memories?" Holly asks Jason. "Or just events that had a major influence on you?"

There's a door that looks vaguely like a hospital operating room door - not the sort of thing that would normally be locked at all, though its label suggests otherwise: "Neurological Enhancements Laboratory." (A status bar reads, "Experiment in Progress: NO ADMITTANCE.")

"Hey!" Akiko says. "How to explain this, huh?" She points at a door that has a door hanger on it. "Akiko's Room. KEEP OUT!" It's decorated with a "tribal" heart design. "Okay, that CANNOT be part of your memories. What, is this a multi-quest?" She tries the door, but it doesn't budge.

"Coincidence," Holly suggests. "He probably knew a girl in high school named Akiko, or had a sister with the same name."

Jason visibly twitches at the next door. "Oh god, that job," he mutters as he rubs over his eyes. He can still remember the long hospital stay. "Sort of. Anything that could have gotten recorded," he notes as he stares at the Dantech door. "This one, well ... ever deal with a super-secretive company that dealt in semi-illegal things? Wait, what am I saying? You already work for one! Well, anyway, lets just say I learned a quick lesson on what they do to people who try to tried to steal their secrets. He reaches out and even tests the Dantech door to see if its locked or not. "Single child, and no, I didn't know anyone with that name," Jason comments.

The Dantech door is, in fact locked. But not just that. Jason feels a jolt of current, and reflexively snaps his hand back before he can close his fingers around the handle.

"Okay, well.. maybe it's from Blake's World then, Akiko," Holly guesses. "Jason, what sort of injuries did you get?"

The police officer jogs up, his pirate captain coat tails flapping and Mara padding after him with talons clicking on the floor. "I didn't stay to eyeball it, but I've got a hunch that our 'friends' from the Inner Sanctum have managed to sync the Armory back in, and they're about to come looking for us. Look, I've got a feeling about this. You don't know anything about mechanical locks, right, Jason? But there are so many computers in this room... Maybe even one for each door."

"Maybe," Jason agrees as he uses his foot to try and prod open the 'hospital' door as a test.

The hospital door, fortunately, is not booby-trapped. Despite the "no admittance," apparently security isn't the primary concern, as the door becomes semi-translucent (a variable-opacity setup to avoid accidents when approaching doors) when he approaches. Behind it, he can see himself, on a gurney, being wheeled past, by an orderly. A holographic projection screen shows a model of a brain, and some pathway points, and some read-outs that are too small to read clearly this far away.

"Akiko, see if you can find a computer that would match up to the the Inner Sanctum," Randall says, starting off to do the same. "It'll look like it was designed by the Empire, gun-metal gray and red glowy stuff flowing through tubes. If we can find it, and Jason can hack it... We can decommission that door. Holly, keep an eye on Jason."

"That looks promising!" Holly notes. "If anyone had means to implant you, it would be Dantech. You must have impressed them enough that they wanted to keep a close eye on you."

"Hey, you wanted to know about my head, well, we might have a chance. I'm going to see where they're taking me and why. I don't remember this," Jason calls out to the other. Another pat of the dragon on his shoulders and he pushes the medical doors open again and follows after the gurney.

"I'm sticking with Jason," Holly replies to Randall, and follows the man through the door.

"Aw, drat it," Jason says and kicks the doors. "Open back up, you!" he tells them, then looks for door catches or locks.

"Oof!" Holly goes, not having turned her head soon enough to see Jason get stopped.

"So.. magic key ring, or big gun?" Holly asks after removing herself from Jason's back.

Before he leaves to search for that Empire computer, Randall murmurs to Jason, "Something the Oracle said to us back when... 'Only one door is opened to meet your challenge. You cannot open them all.'"

"I think I've found the evil computer!" Akiko calls out, pointing at a retro-tech monstrosity that looks just as Randall described.

"How about a non-destructive approach?" Jason grumbles as he stuffs the keyring back into his pocket and looks for locks and catches along the door, to even an access pad. "The point is to not use the key ring,"

"Yes, I'm sure," Jason says. He doesn't curry to Randall right now, he's more interested in the door in front of him.

On each side of the hospital doors, Jason can see access panels where the RFID sensors would be located, but there's a more conventional keypad that looks like it belongs with the door, even though it's embedded in this crazy server-dungeon-room's wall.

The police officer gives Akiko a look. "Jason's got a puzzle in front of him, and he's obsessed. I don't suppose you know anything about computer hacking, Miss Summers?"

"A little," Akiko says, quietly, "but I won't pretend to be the least bit like Jason. I mostly relied on Inari's powers to get around."

"Right, we do this the old fashioned way," Jason mutters to himself and digs out a few of his thinner tools to pup the panel off the keypad. Before he opens it, though, he says, "Either of you ladies carrying a compact with powder?"

Randall nods. He speaks up louder. "We need someone to shut this computer down, and get the door to the Empire turned off. I could try a little 'percussive maintenance', but if someone wants to show a little finesse?"

Inari clears her throat, as if to remind everyone she's there, but then looks quizzically at the "Imperial" machine. "This ... this is all tubes and wheels and machinery. Is this really a computer, though?"

"Right, on my way," Holly calls. "Akiko, come stay with Jason! Don't let him go anywhere on his own."

Randall offers Akiko his stun baton, which he unclips from the back of his jacket. "Use this."

"Did I say to stop him?" Holly says as she arrives. "Just stay with him! He might listen to you, after all.. your bedroom door is here, so it must be a challenge to him somehow!"

Akiko raises her eyebrows. "Okay ... so ... uhm ... just if he tries to dash through the door, right?"

"Then follow him!" Holly says, and looks at the steampunk nightmare device. "Hmm, maybe it uses punch cards.."

Akiko rushes over beside Jason. "Okay, no funny stuff! Don't leave us behind." She nonetheless stands at a respectful distance so as not to interfere with his hacking. She digs around in some pockets, and pulls out what looks like a fantasy-world compact. "Uhm ... oh, forgot I had this. I borrowed this from Holly's dresser. Sorry, Holly!"

"Thanks," Jason says as he takes the compact. It actually takes him a minute to figure out how to open the blasted thing before he draws out the powder-puff. He flicks some of the power onto keypad to see if it sticks to any of the buttons. The ones used to enter the access code should have skin oils on them, after all.

"Ahh, the Ghost of Charles Babbage's Machine," Holly says. "As long as it's not the lipstick, I don't mind Akiko," she calls out, and tries to find the bin that should hold the punch cards for the computer.

The powder sticks to some of the buttons, barely - but Jason's eyes are keen enough to pick up the difference. That at least narrows down the possibilities.

Randall considers the options. "Plan B is, I unload a few bullets into the guts of that thing," he says to Holly confidentially, readying his gun. "When we start hearing a banging noise from that direction, I'll put it into action."

A brushed-steel hatch slides open after the pull of a lever (merely having it slide out with a bit of manual power just wouldn't be COOL enough for such retro-tech, after all), and Holly finds a series of punch cards, organized into folder groups.

"Hmmm," Holly goes as she takes out the first group of cards and studies them for a clue as to their program.

"I think it is probably a four button sequence. Common in a lot of things. Short enough to remember but somewhat secure," Jason says to Akiko absently. "Now, if this was a hospital with a morbid sence of humor I would expect it to be: ll34. Can you guess why?"

Akiko, after a period of deliberation, responds, "Uhm ... I'm wasting time just trying to guess. I give up - why?"

"Huh, I think this is actually COBOL," Holly comments to Randall. "The language of choice for tyrannical bureaucracy. What do you want me to have this computer do, Randall?"

The police officer raises an eyebrow. "Well... See if you can identify the part that controls the door we just came through. Then delete the door."

Holly shuffles through the cards. "Hmms, lots of doors," she says. "How about we just get rid of all of them?"

"Rotate the entire sequence one-hundred-eighty degrees and think in terms of letters," Jason suggests to Akiko. He writes down the few buttons that shows use and starts then doing all the combinations. If it is just a four digit sequence, that's sixteen possible codes.

Randall looks bemused. "Go for it. The Empire can live without doors for a few days."

Akiko groans. "What, abandon all hope, all ye who enter here? I half expected to see a door designed by Rodin when we walked in here, seriously."

"Our Armory door won't be affected, since it's.. upgraded," Holly points out. "But they shouldn't be able to find it, or open or close any doors that aren't already opened or closed," Holly says, as she plucks cards out of the stacks before closing the access panel. "Now, just need to yank on the one-armed bandit lever and hope we get all cherries!"

"Doctors have a sick sense of humor," Jason claims as he finally starts work on the combination lock. Now he tries to pop the panel off so he can hook it into his small palm system and let it cycle codes based on the numbers he gleaned from the panel. Even if its more than four possible sequences, his small computer can cycle through codes faster than he can.

Just in time, Jason notices that as he went to pry the panel off, the key ring had replaced the tool in his hand.

After wiping her hands on her robe (darned greasy computer), Holly gives the 'Run Sequence' lever a yank and then stands back. "Watch out, a paper jam could cause it to explode.."

Jason grrs. He sticks the keyring in his mouth and pulls out his tool again. Whatever he mutters this time is thankfully obscured by his full mouth.

Inari leaps over, bodily knocking Jason and Akiko to the ground, and covering them from the blast.

Mara similarly swings her wings up to shield Holly and Randall. Fortunately ... the blast is not so close, and the extra effort appears to have been for naught.

"Umm, I don't know if that was related," Holly admits. "I imagine this thing will take some time to actually run through the new program."

As Randall weaves his way through the servers to investigate, he finds a door he hadn't found previously - or, rather the remains of it. It's an Imperial-style blast door (or was), though it has been blown to pieces. Through the door, there is a hazy, smoke-filled corridor, apparently, though there's something indistinct about its appearance, and a blackish mist clings to the ground where the smoke pours through.

Holly runs up next to Randall. "Okay.. so, maybe it was the program," she admits on seeing the new corridor.

"Um. I think you deleted this door, Holly," Randall calls. "I'm not sure where it goes, though. I've got a feeling it was an important door."

Akiko squirms out from underneath Inari. "Okay, okay, already!" She sighs, looks at the debris, and then hugs Inari around the neck. "Thanks for the save, but it's hard to breathe underneath you."

"So, do you often visit the fine Chataeu Du' Fox? I hear its a great place to hear tales about tails," Jason jokes lamely to Akiko from where he's pinned underneath Inari with her.

"Well, as long as nothing comes down it, we should be fine," Holly says before she remembers that The Universe Is Listening.

Randall gives Holly a look. "Right." He examines the blackish mist, then licks a fingertip and holds it up to the air near the opening to check if there's a significant breeze.

Jason pushes himself out as well and recovers his tools as well as checks for where that annoying key ring ended up so he can keep an eye on it. "Can I open the door without the universe blowing up today?" he complains.

"The way is open," comes a lilting voice, from the far side of the obscuring fog. "The Light is with us after all."

"Oops?" Holly says apologetically, and then raises the BFG and points it down the corridor.

Jason covers his eyes. "Right, now I have to hurry," he complains. Back to trying to open the door!

"Okay, Holly, blast that corridor shut, Mara will fill the hole with ice," Randall orders. "Then we'll flee into the other side, where, um, Jason got implanted with a biochip in his brain by mysterious people. Okay. I think I can talk my way past them though."

"I was getting tired of lugging this thing around," Holly notes, as she releases the safety on her spell and pulls the trigger.

RIU retracts his claws, as the keypad flashes, "Access granted." The hospital doors swing open. The key ring, meanwhile, seems almost dejected ... as a black vapor swells around it and fades away.

Randall admits to Holly, "I have misgivings about the hospital, but I think our chances are better with them than with the two Light-amped freaks on the other side of this."

"Bwah! Door is open. I suggest we all run like hell, folks!" Jason shouts as he scrambles to his feet.

"YAH!" cries the heavily-armored knight on the other side. "You fiend!" cries the scantily-clad damsel of the unicorn. Boom! goes the corridor, as Stellar Imperial construction, already weakened by a few blasts and much abuse, is torn asunder by the conjured BFG.

Holly gets up off her back after the gun evaporates. "Right, run away time!" she says, and scrambles for the hospital door.

At this moment, the corridor is obscured. In fact, it's not even clear whether or not there is a corridor, through all this smoke. At the very least, the flow of dissipating black haze is no longer visible.

Holly gets up off her back after the blast knocks her over. "Right, run away time!" she says, and scrambles for the hospital door.. and quietly wonders why the BFG didn't vanish. She hangs on it to it anyway for now.

Randall, not eager to test whether they went away or got sealed off by the BFG explosion, calls to Mara, "Put a barrier on that! They'll have to chew through it to get to us."

"Diversion time," Holly says, stopping in front of the Dantech security door. She chants, "Removes Spots and Stains, Wonder Bleach Invisible Spray!" Aerosol can in hand, she sprays the door with it.

"Huh, not what I was expecting, but sure to be tempting," Holly notes, and hurries on to the Hospital door.

The hospital doors swing open at Holly's advance, and stay open. The antiseptic smells of a hospital corridor greet her beyond.

Randall directs Mara through blasting the shattered corridor opening with enough ice that the Ascended duo on the other side should have some difficulty getting through it in a hurry. Though if they happen to have some kind of mega-weapon...

Inari calls out, "Hurry!" Without stopping to ask permission, she snatches up Jason and Akiko....

"Duck!" Akiko calls out in warning, as the large fox barges through the hospital corridor with her two passengers.

A triple-thick series of barriers swells around the destroyed Imperial blast door, formed by Mara's breath. Given that neither the bear nor the unicorn were known for fire attacks, one can hope this will hold them for longer than it took to make the barrier.

"Right - let's get out of here," Randall says, urging Mara on and turning to run for the hospital door. Hope those seatbelt restraints will hold through this!

Mara weaves between the servers, toward the hospital doors, as a piercing light illuminates the mound of ice behind him. Although the corridor may have been decimated, apparently that did not eliminate the portal after all.

Cracks appear in the ice barrier, even as Mara swoops into the hospital corridor, folding her wings and stooping to give her passengers as much head-clearance as possible - but from the sounds of it, it's still holding for now.

The corridor leads into an operating chamber. Jason's body is on the operating table. Despite the apparent brain surgery going on, his cranium is not visibly open. His head is encased in a translucent flexible shield, expanding outward into a space open enough for the surgeon to operate, while tubes run over his face and obscure much of his features.

Doctors and assisting droids stand about, and make no reaction to the sudden presence of a wyvern, giant fox, small dragon, and several people bursting into the operating room.

"Making the insertion," comes over the com broadcast to the room, from the lead surgeon's headset, as he operates within the sealed working area. Through the translucent field, he can be seen moving slightly, assisted by robotic arms for utmost precision. "There. Run the first sequence, please. Keep an eye on response time."

"Gods, I think I'm going to be ill," Jason says as he wilts slightly on Inari's back. "RIU, go see if you can lock the door behind us to buy us extra time, okay? You probably don't want to see this," he asks the diminutive dragon as he tries to find a screen that describes what this operation is for ... and who paid for it.

Randall catches his breath, clutching his chest as he leans against the hospital corridor wall. "Hey Jason, this is a great opportunity for us to irreparably damage the timestream."

RIU quickly whips back, extracting his tool-claws, and promptly closing the doors. He whisks back away from them, as they return to their normal opacity.

In the corner stands a man in a business-suit - or, rather, a holographic representation of him. It's Andrei, all grown up. He frowns, as he watches. "You can't seriously think he'll never notice this," he whispers to an unseen person presumably standing beside him, wherever the input source is - or maybe to yet another holographic representation on a network, for all that can be told.

"It is for his own good," comes a filtered voice, overlaid several times with a man's, a woman's, a child's voice. "He may yet prove useful. Some day, he will even thank us."

"This is just a recording. Doing anything to it won't affect reality," Jason notes, though his attention quickly switches to Andrei. "Like the hell I'd thank you for messing with my head, you unseen androgynous midget! You don't even have the guts to reveal yourself."

"Haven't you ever wanted to be a paradoxtor?" the policeman in pirate captain outfit jokes. He glances to the door, thinking to close it - but RIU is ahead of him there. More seriously, "This can't be happening in the real world. We've got to be in a simulation from your memory. Or maybe Avatars LLC was involved in this."

Outside the hospital doors, a muffled explosion can be heard, followed by a distant bear's roar.

"I think that was the ice barrier going," Holly notes. "I hope they fall for the distraction.."

"It's too risky," Andrei says. "This technology can be traced by those who know enough. No one else HAS this."

"And you would not have it save for us," the multi-voice says. "If you are discovered, you can always come to us." The doctors in the room show no sign of responding to the dialogue. Surely this must be a private chat portrayed only for Jason's benefit in this "vision," since no professional could be that sloppy and get this far.

"Has what?" Jason asks the holograms as he waves his hands at it, then jumps off Inari. "What did you put in my head!?" he says as he marches over to the readouts to see if the tests that they run give any indication as to the device's function.

Andrei laughs bitterly. "No. No. I'm not playing your game. This is to keep tabs, and nothing more. I've done my part of the deal. I'm not giving you anything more than that."

"Response time is within acceptable parameters," a male nurse replies, observing the data on a screen. "It should not be noticeable to the patient."

It appears that the device is an intercept - a remarkable piece of technology made of materials that would escape any known scan, aside from invasive, manual probing into Jason's skull. By the data Jason can see, this would allow someone with the proper equipment, within proper range, to spy on his nervous system - not to read his thoughts, per se, but to peek in on his sights, listen in on his ears, feel his emotions, feel his pain ... and, it seems, if need be, project signals as well, with a little bit of feedback.

Jason's jaw sets and twitches visibly. "That, you, I can't," he says in halting words as his eyes narrow and face gets red. "I'm going to kill Andrei."

Randall considers the situation. It's a simulation, yes. But it's physical, it can be interacted with. And... Maybe there's more than one way out of this room. "Jason... Do you still have your key ring?"

"If he's compromised," Andrei warns, "I'm frying it. Your other test subjects - all right. But this is a hacker. Some day, he'll find it himself, or get on the wrong side of the law, or end up on a cold slab and get dissected to see what flavor of black ice took him out. It'll be found out."

"No. It disintegrated when the door to here opened," Jason answers through gritted teeth.

"That is not your concern," the multi-voice says. "We are true to our word. And all the same ... you should not question us. It is unseemly. We are sparing you a great embarrassment. The money is but a token. We expect your continued cooperation."

"Artificial voice," Holly mutters as she listens in on the 'conversation' between the hologram and someone unseen. She turns to watch the corridor, pondering defenses.

"Well, I still have the ring, but I don't know if it works," Jason says, correcting himself. "Come on, just say a name, who are you ..." he starts to say, then immediately focuses on the codes, trying to memorize them.

"Whatever," Andrei says. "I know you keep your word, but I don't know about the rest of your kin. Some of you lie. And even you bend the truth."

Chanting another bizarre spell under her breath, Holly produces an energy pack that she clips into the BFG, restoring its ominous hum.

RIU watches the codes, too ... and 'remembers' them with a whirr of internal supplementary hard drives.

"There are some of my kin whose nature is to challenge," the multi-voice says, "but even they must follow the rules. We all share the same ultimate vision for this world. We challenge each other, but we do not betray. You have nothing to fear."

Randall nods thoughtfully. "You have a few seconds. Start hacking the computers if you can, but give me the keyring, I'm going to try something."

There's a blinking light that distracts the male nurse. As he looks away, a warning panel blinks on the interface screen. "Security breach: Code BLACK." Some of the codes are altered. RIU dutifully records this. Then, the warning panel is replaced with an error message, and it vanishes. By the time the male nurse looks back, everything looks like it's back to normal.

"Here, enjoy," Jason says as he tosses the keyring to Randall. "RIU, can you bring up a ..." he starts to ask the dragon, then just stops, jaw dropping at the sudden code change.

"Everyone else, get inside the operating room," the police officer urges, hefting the ring purposefully and moving aside so Mara can squeeze in. "I'm going to try and open a portal from here to the real-world hospital. If it's still in business... This room should be a pretty close match."

The key ring is no longer smooth to the touch. It looks worn, and several cracks are visible in its surface.

"You're right, there's not much oomph left in this," Randall says. "This might be what the Oracle meant when she said we had to choose carefully."

"They're AIs!" Holly claims. "The ones the hologram guy is talking to. They must be!"

"Have our magical woman of diminutive size recharge it," Jason suggests distractedly. "Code BLACK, do they actually mean the BLACK AI of Avatars?"

Randall shakes his head. "No, not really, but do you want to argue with the two outside? Coming in or not?"

As Randall surveys his surroundings, he can see the short corridor leading to the now-opaque doors that let them all in. To each side there are small cubbies with rolling carts, equipment, a washing station, displays, and so forth. It appears that, aside from a doorway to what looks to just be a supply closet of some sort, the only exit from this room would be the double doors they came in through.

The police officer checks that everyone's inside, then holds the keyring out to the operating room doors. "These doors, they're not locked by ordinary meaning," he says to the invisible forces that surround them. "But we're held within the simulation world by a greater, unseen lock. This keyring has the power to break that lock. Match this place with its counterpart in the real world. Open a synecdoche."

"And the bright side of doing this here," Randall mutters to Jason. "is that we'll be real close to medical help."

"Then do it and hurry," Jason says as he runs his hands through his hair. "Whenever someone wants, they can nuke my mind," he thinks. "Great. I step home, I may die."

The police officer frowns. "I just got the verbal equivalence of a system warning. 'What is opened by this key shall not be closed again.'" He looks over at the others.

"I don't like the sound of that," Holly notes. "And I don't know if blowing up this room behind us would break the link then either."

Beyond the hospital doors, there's a louder bear roar. "No sign of them, Mistress," can be heard, in an echoing voice, like that of someone wearing a helmet, perhaps. "We must find them. What evils they may unleash!" comes a lilting voice. "Look! This must be it!" the first voice calls out.

Then, there is a thud. "A barrier is over it!" the voice repeats. "I shall blast my way through."

"Well, decide," Jason says, sounding frustrated and almost despondent. "We don't know what will happen, but we also know if we stay here those two will kill us. Either we risk it and exit, or we surrender. Or ..." Jason pauses, then asks the little dragon, "RIU, can you get me a link to the two that are pursuing us? They're still simulated, I think ... so I should be able still modify their flags."

"Okay, that may have bought us a moment or else made them really angry," Holly notes.

"Crap, I can't modify them anymore," Jason says, "We're on our own. Choice is yours, Randall. Decide!"

Randall frowns, glancing over at the others. A gateway permanently linked between the real world and the simulated... There are some decisions an officer should not have to make on the spot. He opens his mouth to speak.