It's amazing how tired one man can look while he's stressed out and working and that's Jason right now. He's commandeered one of the tables in the quantum lab to work on building some 'assault' gear to deal with the imminent invasion. In the hands of the right person piles of junk do take on a rather ominous appearance and those duct-taped collections of super capacitors and inductive coils are no exception. Now is the odd-looking snorkel device that has a roughly canid shape to it that he's currently working on. He's having to use a small butane torch in bursts to heat and melt plastic together. The origins of the plastic is well, it looks familiar, but hard to place.
It's hard to tell what he's thinking, other than general worry. The way he smacks the current device hard when it isn't working quite the way he wants is also a dead giveaway of agitation.
Zahnrad says, "Cue"
The door to the lab opens slightly, so Tracy can poke her head inside. She tries to gauge Jason's mood, and quietly asks, "Am I interrupting, or could you use a short break?"
"I could use days without catastrophes, but seeing as that isn't going to happen I may as well take a short break," Jason relents. He shuts off the small pocket torch. "You can also use these to make creme brulee," he remarks as he sets the torch down. "But .... that takes skill."
Coming up to the workspace, Tracy points to the duct-taped bundles of capacitors and coils. "The EMP grenades, I presume?" she asks. "When one goes off, will it affect the others or anything else with an ultra-capacitor?"
"It'll disrupt anything that isn't well-shielded against an emf burst, including most ics. You would have to have a a really tight-nit faraday cage to minimize the effect. Not that it means much to you most likely but the basic theory is that within a perfect conductor, no electrical field can exist. Extrapolating from that you'd realize that current only flows on the skin of a wire not in its core an a perfect metal sphere would be electrically neutral in its core and ... well, they shouldn't affect each other, I made sure of that," Jason remarks. "And bear in mind that a high current discharge does generate a lot of heat and will cause things to burst. It's not a major explosion or anything, but I wouldn't want to be within twenty feet of it. You'll be picking shrapnel out of your skin."
"Speaking of shrapnel, would the burst set off any electronic detonators in the area?" Tracy asks next, a bit nervously. "Say the blasting caps in a plastic explosive charge?"
"If it hit just right and with enough force, yes," Jason says.
The girl chews her lower lip for a moment, then says, "Well, I'm planning things based on the assumption that Jason 'Dragonhand' actually masterminded the infiltration and everything, and that he set traps - since that seems like the sort of thing you'd do. So I was going to use the grenade to knock out the computers in the satellite control room before cutting power to the dish, figuring that there'd be a bomb set to go off once the link was broken. Does that make sense?"
"If it were me I would use pressure or thermal sensors to target any organics and then use high voltage discharge system to just electrocute an intruder. Less collateral damage. Plus, there would be a backup dish, as you never bet all your resources on one plan of action," Jason remarks a bit dryly. "The thing is, though, anything we think of is really just a guess without seeing the systems in question or blueprints of all the changes. I can't tell you what he would be thinking. We may share DNA, but we're different people."
"So you don't think you both share the same weaknesses?" Tracy asks.
"Given he's trying to be better than me in all aspects, I would expect him to deliberately try to overcome any weaknesses I have. Which, by the way, I have none," Jason says, "Outside of a questionable sense of humor and a tendency to be brutally honest."
"Oh really?" Tracy asks, one eyebrow raised. "So if he sent you a letter daring you to attack him.. you'd be able to ignore it, right?"
"That's such an obvious trap. Of course I would ignore it. Ignoring it would also annoy him, most likely," Jason says.
"What if you sent him a note that challenged him to prove his power or influence within the Empire of Stars by doing something nobody else could get away with?" the girl asks next. "Would he take the challenge, to prove himself?"
"How would I know? I have no idea what he has been up to in four years outside of bedding Inari," Jason remarks, his own brow raised now.
"Because not backing down from a challenge seems a fundamental part of you," Tracy points out. "And if you were like that at that age, then he probably is too. It would be giving him a chance to show off, while also letting you know the extent of his influence."
"You're forgetting something. When have I ever shown off?" Jason asks. "I work behind the scenes."
"It's not about showing off in public, it's about showing off to the only person that he needs to impress," Tracy says, and taps Jason in the middle of his chest.
Jason looks down. "And why does he have to impress me?" he asks when he looks up.
"Because he's out to beat you," Tracy says. "And to make your defeat mean more, he needs to show you that he's already achieved more, has more power, and so on to make you feel inadequate before his eventual victory."
"That would mean I would have to care about power and appearance. I live in the slums. I could afford a home in the spires. So ... eh," Jason remarks and shrugs. "I choose to not be more. So him being more means ... well, squat."
Tracy sighs. "Look, this isn't about how you feel, it's about how he feels," she says. "Just.. humor me? I'm worried about all those Imperial plants that have been rounded up. What's going to happen to them? Are they prisoners of war, with rights, or replicants with none? If we send them back, will they just be executed, or would Jason Dragonhand actually have enough sympathy for them to try and protect them if we challenged him to?"
"He wouldn't care, Tracy. Look, I worked for a brief period with the Government doing, well ... the dirty side of cyber warfare. Worked being, well, I had to to stay out of jail for a couple years and have my records sealed. When you operate from a detached position people are just bits of data. You rig a program with a trap that causes an enemies plant to explode, do you morn those killed? Or is it just a number?" Jason says as he sighs and rubs his forehead. "Unless they retained some intrinsic value, it's just componentry to sacrifice. As for what will happen to the replicas here, they would likely be put to death. If they went back, they would likely be put to death for failure. They don't have much of a future, either way."
"He's the one who gives them their orders though," Tracy says, sounding a bit desperate. "He knows them; has known them for years. If there's even a slight chance.." She stops and shakes her head. "Never mind. If I give you a letter to send through the portal before you destroy it, will you do that much for me?"
"Tracy, he knows of them. That is not the same as knowing them. It's a big distinction. It's why officers in the military do not fraternize with the troops. You have to be able to send someone to their death," Jason says, pausing there to rubs over his eyelids. "I know this isn't what you want to hear. I know you want to believe there are heroes in the world that good can win, and all that. The reality of it is there isn't, and bad things happen to good people. No, it isn't fair, but life isn't fair. Tear down an atom and show the the 'fairness' particle? You can't, it doesn't exist. It's something I learned the day I watched the drunk son of some rich family get away with killing my parents. A little money here and there, and the police lost the evidence of his DUI. A little campaign gift to the judge and the prosecutor didn't have a chance. You're asking me to try and change the future of these people; people who invaded our world. You're asking me to play God with another reality
somehow. I, frankly, don't know if I can."
"I was only asking you to be a human being," Tracy says, sounding defeated and looking away. "Will you take my letter, just in case? You don't think it'd mean anything anyway, so what's the risk? That way if I get blown up trying to shut down the Q-Link, I'll at least be able to pretend I tried to fight injustice."
"There are better ways that hoping someone cloned from me would save them out of bravado or some perceived challenge, Tracy," Jason says. "I want you to understand the people we are up against. We can't appeal to them directly with much hope. We can't stand out in front like a knight on a crusade, that just makes us a meat shield. We have to work behind the scenes. If you want to save them find out if they want to be saved. For those who want asylum, their main issue is all the similarity isn't it? Being from an alternate reality isn't the crime, look at Inari as an example. Instead of wasting power on trying to send a letter through, why not use it to create a destablized zone and, well, use the character designer routines to randomize their appearances so they do become unique in feature. No one could claim they were replicants then. Then they can claim asylum from an oppressive government." There's another pause, then he finishes with, "I'm human, Tracy. I've just ... been on the beating
end enough to know the stark realities of our society."
"... kzzrt. Bzzzt. Jason, are you there?" It's Inari's voice on the communicator.
"Could you rig up.." Tracy starts to ask, only to stop the moment Inari's voice comes over the comm.
"Yes, I'm here. I think I've ruined every positive image Tracy ever had of me in the past ten minutes. So, if you tell me we're sitting on a nuclear bomb, I wouldn't be terribly surprised. What's your status?" Jason asks in the comm.
"Tracy had positive images of you? It's about time you got rid of them," Inari kids. "Been to Hell and back. It's overrated. Old Imperial base under about a mile of concrete but it looks like it's been decommissioned for years. I was looking through the files when I got your message about the Q-link, but there was a lot of static. What's going on?"
"We have some control back, but the old satellite system is still active and communicating with some remote location through one of the Dantech com satellites. But then almost all communication is routed through those. More concerning is the Q-Link itself is going crazy. One of the ADs, your friend, BLACK, has taken control if it and is doing who knows what. I've got to shut it down somehow. Tracy volunteered to handle the disabling of the sat link."
Jason explains.
Inari responds, "That can't be good. Q-Core level's still full of security robots doing that weird stare at each others thing. Feels like I'm making my way through invisible laser beams, if I trip one, all Hell will break loose, or something. Don't get killed without me, okay, Jason?"
"Tracy may already be plotting a way to hit me with friendly fire," Jason jokes lamely, "But I'll do my best to live long enough. I'm afraid if I did get killed without you, you'd just find a way to get me back so you could kill me again."
"That's a promise," the vixen's voice replies. "Anything else before I get on with getting up there?"
"Inari," Tracy asks, "if we survive this and retake the building, will you help me interrogate someone?"
Jason's brow arches. "Who do you want to put in thumbscrews, Tracy?" he asks.
"I don't want to use thumbscrews," Tracy says. "Just intimidation. And it's my ex, Mark. If he's still in custody here, I want to squeeze him for everything he knows about 'Artemis' of the Wild Hunt."
Inari doesn't say anything for a bit but it's easy to imagine her raising her eyebrow at the intercom. "What makes you think I'm an interrogation specialist? Just because I was the designated bad guy for Blake and his buddies doesn't mean I was good at getting information from his 'heroes'."
"You'll make a good chaperone to make sure I don't hurt him too much then," Tracy says.
Inari's voice: "Jason. Poke Tracy for me please?"
"You do still have sharp claws, teeth, and you can do illusions," Jason points out as he grabs a ruler and dutifully pokes Tracy in the back with it.
Tracy refuses to respond to the poke.
"And you'll let me get away with more than Cadena would," the teenager adds.
"I also remember certain rumors that you once plotted ways to kill me, Inari," Jason remarks into the comm. "You can be scary..."
"Scary I can do. Chaperoning... Are you seriously asking me to chaperone you? The girl who threw her latest but one boyfriend out of an aircar?" Inari clicks her tongue. "And this bit about it being your ex, you know that is so soap opera."
"I have to accept responsibility for starting the whole throwing someone out of an air car," Jason admits.
"I don't watch soap operas," Tracy notes. "But he tried to kidnap me, for money. Maybe he realizes now that he's going to jail. Anyway.. that's for later. Jason, show me how to set the fuses on the grenades."
Inari's voice, in a low tone. "If we don't have anything more pressing, sure... But I reserve the right to kill him if he creeps me out."
"If we somehow survive this, Inari, I promise you I can find something more pressing and interesting than killing a punk. If you need anything more, just open the comm, I'll have mine active," Jason promises.
"It's a date," Inari's voice responds. The comm connection clicks off.
"They're simple to activate. They work just like the old ones, you pull a pin out that connects two contacts and after ten seconds, the relay snaps closed and boom," Jason explains, "Even your dog could do it." He taps his fingers on the table for a moment, then adds, "And Tracy ... for what it is worth, I wish I still saw the world the way you do. I wish there were heroes too."
"Ten seconds?" Tracy asks. "Can you rig one of them for like, five minutes? And while you did your best to stomp on my ideals.. you did also tell me how to actually save those people - not by depending on human kindness, but on human saving-my-assedness. I've got a plan."
"Er, with five minutes someone could just move it," Jason points out.
"I plan on rolling it into the center of the room - on top of the false ceiling. I'll want time to get out of blast range, in case it does set off an explosive," Tracy explains. "I suppose I could just tie a line to the pin though.."
"You watch too much TV," Jason mutters, "A string never actually works. So much for making her face reality..."