The door chime sounds. "Cadena, Unit AVA-808-X-024, requesting permission to enter," the door speaker reports.
"Granted," Jason mutters around the stem of one of the probe's he's holding between his teeth while he fiddles with some connections out the outer housing. He's down to just a tee-shirt, jeans, and a loosely hanging tool belt around his waist with a mishmash of bits sticking out of it in no discernible logical order. RIU has discovered the wonders and joy of an old plasma-ball light and is just curled on top of it and snoozing contently.
The quantum probe makes noises at regular intervals. "Ping... Ping... Ping..."
The door opens to allow a white dog-humanoid to enter. He wears a white lab coat with an Avatars hanging ID tag, and still has his staff sling over his back. Mane-like extensions to his fur have been drawn back into a ponytail that appears to be secured in place with one of Tracy's hair-bands, though a few stubborn strands fall free in front of his ears. Unlike his appearance in the Gloaming or the Diadem, he does not exude a glow, he is not accompanied by ghostly chain images drifting in the air, and the blue "chain tattoos" are no longer visible through his facial fur - only hinted at with some light blue smudges, as the fur refuses to fall just PERFECTLY into place anymore. He bows as he enters. "Good evening, Mr. Edwards," he says. "I was told I might find you here." He looks around the lab again, evidently a bit daunted by all the equipment.
"Really? I should make a point to rig the building sensors to conveniently forget where I am. It makes me itch when people can find me so easily," Jason claims after taking a moment to extract the probe he was holding between his teeth, "And no need with all that mister stuff. I figure if you've had to dodge bullets together, you may as well be on a first name basis." He glances up and over at the odd dog-human and also can't help but remark, "Er, have you let Tracy do a makeover on you? If so ... she used a bit too much blue blush on your cheeks..."
The dog humanoid reaches up, touching his cheek. "Oh. That. Ah ... my in-game model has a visible pattern in my fur, but that sort of thing doesn't translate so well in the Real World, since my fur tends to shift around, breaking up the pattern. It'd probably have to be cut short for the pattern to show through properly."
Cadena rolls a hand-truck in with him, propping it up on its end to stand near the wall. Unlike the traditional hand-truck, it has rounded corners and soft surfaces, all white and blue, supporting a box marked "Property of Avatars New Product Development Department. PROTOTYPE." He walks over to take an appraising look at the Q-Core box. "I will endeavor to refer to you by whatever name you prefer," he says. "I appreciate the work you're doing on trying to recover the North Bend simulation data. I'm afraid that I hadn't quite grasped earlier just what had happened to it, nor the gravity of the task you're taking on here."
"Er, now I'm imagining your head covered in a great puff of shaving cream," Jason remarks. There's a pause as he checks a few readouts on a console, then there is a few aborted attempts to kick the Q-Core for not cooperating. "Stupid stubborn piece of ... " Jason growls and throws up his arms in a vent of frustration. "Yes, well, the life of a child depends on the data. That makes it even more important," he says once he's calmed down a bit. "Life is too short as it is. It's not fair that someone doesn't even get the chance to really live before it is taken away."
"Ping... PING! Ping..." Apparently the Q-Probe picked up the kick.
Cadena nods quietly. "I appreciate your effort. I wish I could offer some sort of help." He frowns. "Do you perchance know anything about a duplicate of Ms. Penny Arcadia who materialized in the Real World some time ago, when you and Mrs. Holly Trudeau and Officer Randall Cranston first encountered the simulated North Bend? RIU's records indicated that this younger version of Ms. Arcadia was put into some sort of stasis, but I have no way of knowing whether or not that would have done any good to slow down the degradation process, let alone what would have been done with this 'Penny double.' The idea had occurred that perhaps she could provide an alternative way to find genetic data from that simulation ... though I'm sure someone else would have thought of that already if it was possible."
"Honestly, I have no idea what happened to that poor simulation since then. I just remember her breaking down and being placed into stasis," Jason admits, "I expect it would have either been picked up by Avatar's itself and is some lower chamber, or it went to the government agency that manages all clones and replicants. If it went to the latter, it was probably atomized, sorry. It likely wouldn't have been useful anyway, it was incomplete from what little I heard." He looks at the Q-Core again with the decided impression he would like to kick it again. "As for my efforts, I haven't made any real progress. I was hoping that now knowing there is an organic component to these things that I would be able to pick up traces of old organic memory compounds and chemicals, but ... no."
At this, Cadena nods, but frowns. "If that entity was incomplete ... I wonder what might have prompted Ms. Arcadia to believe that the North Bend simulation would have a complete genetic model within the simulation. I had thought that the younger version of Penny Arcadia contained within the simulation would have been that source ... but if this was incomplete ... that might have been a red herring." He shakes his head. "This is really a stretch, but is it all right if I approach the Q-Core and see if I can sense anything?"
"Be my guest. You could kiss it if you want to, but I don't know if it would help any," Jason says and gestures towards it with his right hand. "As for why ... there is a difference between the simulation and the data behind it. You might have perfect data, but only routines capable of realizing a fraction of it."
Cadena nods, and carefully approaches the Q-Core, withdrawing the staff from the sling over his back. "It's not dangerous or harmful to touch, is it?" He stands at about arm's width from the device, examining it curiously and warily.
"No more harmful than touching a vending machine. Anything dangerous is under shield and it's mostly nonfunctional right now," Jason says. His brow then rolls a bit, followed by his eyes narrowing. "And I wonder, hmmm. How well do you remember this Penny?"
"I know Ms. Penny Arcadia, mother of Margaret Arcadia," Cadena says, gingerly reaching out toward the Q-Core, but hesitant to actually touch it yet - as if trying to brace himself to be ready to leap away, should anything too interesting happen. "She never really confided in me or told much about herself. So far as I know, Margaret was raised alone, and Ms. Arcadia had a very negative opinion of males - humans, at least - in general. She had a reputation as being very tough as a businesswoman, but I never really understood the particulars." At last, he touches it. He closes his eyes, concentrating, then says, "Someone - no, that's not quite right. Something is still there. I feel ... vague hints. I can't formulate it into anything solid. I sense ... a tinge of darkness. I suppose I need to be more specific."
"May the Light guide me," Cadena prays. "Please show me the way to someone who is within this place. I wish to help, but I need to know more. Please show me a sign, a path ... something to show me how to proceed."
"Well, I'm grasping at straws here ... but if you remember her pretty well, that might help. The problem with any failed system is it becomes near impossible to see where data starts and noise ends. But ... not that we know it has an organic core and memory encoding is a fairly well known chemical process perhaps your own memories of this woman would help locate part of the old data stream. It would give a chemical sequence to search for with the probe," Jason suggests uncertainly. "Or I could be completely crazy. That's a high probability, really."
Cadena nods. "Perhaps I need a synecdoche, then. Or ... to repeat an unfortunate allegory, I need a sample of the scent to find a trail. Without some sort of help, I'm unlikely to find anything, especially when I don't even know what I'm searching for." He closes his eyes again, concentrating.
"Actually, we need a neurochemical scanner along with a general electrical map of your brain," Jason notes. "Then we just hook up your brain and look for any common patterns in it and ol' Betsy here."
"Margaret, are you there?" Cadena whispers. "I'm trying to find ... another version of your mother from long ago, before you were born. A memory of her. I know that was before your time, but maybe you can help me. If you could try to remember your mother. Did you ever see pictures of her from before the time you were born? Maybe she showed you pictures of the places she frequented, videos of the times she had. Anything that could help to imagine just what she was like when she was a younger lady...."
The lab feels unusually chilly, suddenly. The lights dim, and even the Q-Probe's pinging sounds like it's coming from farther away.
"Er ... that shouldn't be happening," Jason remarks, "And crap, I don't have my gun."
Cadena keeps his eyes closed, concentrating, one hand on the Q-Core, the other holding his staff.
"Mama always said I looked just like her when she was young," an eldritch girl's voice says from nowhere. Sparks of light dance around Cadena's staff.
"Oookay, that's a bit creepy," Jason admits as he fumbles for a weapon. Of course what he comes up with is an old screwdriver ... but it is better than nothing.
The sparks twirl in the air, forming the outline of a ghostly girl. She reaches up to touch the Q-Probe, which begins pinging wildly. "Oh, a toy! What does it do?"
"Margaret!" Cadena says, half-laughing, though tears form at his eyes. "It's so good to hear you again, but that's not a toy. Do you remember your play-place? The one where we built things together? Well, you did all the real work, but still ... I'm near a place that is sort of like that. That is supposed to help us find our way there, but it's kind of fragile. This place we're looking for is made to look like North Bend when your mother was littler, when she was still working for her father at a mall, when he got her started in a little arcade. An arcade ... is a place where games used to be in their own machines, all lined up in a room. It was noisy, with lots of flashing lights - all of the games trying hard to get peoples' attention, so they'd pay money to play."
"Don't touch that! It's delicate. It measures changes in matter at the quantum level!" Jason blurts as he hurries over to the machine. Apparently risk to equipment over-rides being creeped out.
"Oh, and this is Mr. Edwards, but he prefers to be called Jason," Cadena says. "He's a very smart man, who knows a lot about computers. He has a musician friend who is a fox. Er, a fox-girl, that is. He's trying to help us."
The ghostly girl giggles at Jason's expression, but is polite enough to stop poking at it. The Q-probe settles back into its regular pinging. "Hi, Jason! I'm Margie!"
She turns and looks at Cadena as he describes the place. "I can almost see it, this place. It sounds like my last name!" she whispers. "But someone told the machine to forget it existed."
"Uh. Hi?" Jason says uncertainly. "Nice to meet you? That's RIU over there. He's lazy," he adds for lack of anything else useful to say and thumbs towards the sleeping dragon.
"Exactly!" Cadena says. "You can see it better than I can. I'm trying to get the Light to help me find it, but I'm very weak right now. I'm hoping that if you can concentrate on it, and I can get the Light to show the way, then it can help Mr. Edwards somehow, and his equipment might respond, so he can find what he's looking for. It would be just like when Lady Manjari and Daphne and Brother Cadena and the others joined hands at the Oracle, so that together they could open the way to find the Hidden Tome of the Rainbow Bridge, with their combined forces."
Sparks follow the girl like fireflies as she starts climbing onto the table just adjacent to the Q-Core. This last gets her attention however. She beelines toward RIU to tease the dragon by its whiskers!
RIU blerts! and looks up, then whips its head around trying to find its nearly-invisible assailant!
"In hindsight ... remember to not mention RIU to children," Jason mutters.
Margie plays with RIU, causing tiny blue sparks to crackle between its claws and her fingers! "Concentrate on what, Caddie?"
The miniature dragon gives Jason a 'help?' look.
Jason manages a shrug along with a terribly confused look. Unsure of what else to do, he goes and tries to collect RIU to keep him from being a further distraction.
Cadena says, "Hmm. Maybe RIU could help us out. I think dragons are good luck. At least, this one sure seems to be." He ponders. "If you can see this place, or a ghost of it, we're trying to find your mother. Your mother when she was younger. If Mr. Edwards - er, sorry, Jason has any suggestions on something or someone else we should be looking for, I'm open to suggestions."
"Ah, no, it's best to focus on something that would be very familiar. Better chance of locating the data fragments that way," Jason claims.
The miniature dragon curls up on Jason's shoulders! Not long after, however, Jason has to deal with Margie trying to climb up him as well. Her hands and feet feel like nothing more than touches of a chill breeze; if he weren't hearing her voice or seeing the sparks form her body, he could imagine it was just the lab air conditioning acting up.
"Dragon!" exclaims Margie as she climbs up. "Isn't my mom where you left her, Caddie? Back in... Way up in the tower!"
"Ack, hey, I'm not a jungle-gym," Jason complains as he hops around in circles and flailing rather ineffectually.
"That's your mother today, Margaret," Cadena explains, eyes still closed. "Your mother needs us to find a memory of her from when she was younger. It's ... it's like Peter Pan trying to find his shadow that got loose, in a way. I'd try to do this myself, but I'm weak. In fact, I can feel my energy draining away even as we speak. I may not be able to do this for much longer, so I need you to try very hard to focus. I may not get another chance."
Jason stops flailing, leaving him balanced precariously on one foot. "And if you do this, it might make it possible for you to have adventures again with your favorite dog, er, person, er person-dog? Well, whatever he is. It might make it possible to be with him again," he suggests.
"I can think of nothing I'd enjoy more," Cadena says, smiling faintly and sadly.
The ghostly Margaret pouts, but leaves Jason alone. RIU peers out distrustingly from where it's partly tucked into Jason's T-shirt. "Okay, you just need me to find... My mom, when she was real young, so she'd look a lot like me? But someone told this machine pretty hard that it should forget all about that stuff," she explains. "I don't think they wanted anyone to be able to go back to this place."
"They were bad people that wanted that," Jason claims as he tries to recover some dignity from his brief stint on nerds-ballet. "And very bad people should never get what they want."
"Your mother believes that this memory of her when she was young can help you get better," Cadena says. "It's a place of memories, and there were sad memories from this time, but good times as well. Some people would rather just forget the past, and hide away everything - the bad with the good - but we need those memories. We need the younger memory of your mother to help find a way to help you. Then ... you can be with your mother again."
The ghostly girl approaches the Q-Core. "There's a big wall around the arcade," she says slowly. "It's got skulls an' crossbones an' lots of red flashing lights."
"Be careful, Margaret," Cadena says, trying hard to hide the alarm in his voice. "You don't need to actually touch anything. That's what I need to do. If there's anything dangerous, I can deal with it."
The dog-humanoid clutches the staff more firmly. "Light, please show a way past the ... wall of skulls and crossbones and red flashing lights that obscures the arcade that Margaret sees, so that we can find the younger version of her mother."
"Chemical over-write. Of course!" Jason says and snaps his fingers. "Brains are annoying things, they record everything in chemical bonds. Even data being passed between the cores. It also takes a long time to actually get a brain to over-write bonds once they formed. So ... someone has put a programmatic wall up around the organic part while the programming tries to get the synapses to change the bonds. If we can just get that program to shut down, there might be data still in the brain. Eureka!" He hops on one foot in a circle as he's apparently looking for something ... and seems to find it. A grab and slide later, he's hooking another console into the quantum probe. "Time to find any background 'routines' running that center around coordination of the cores..."
The console lights up, begins running the filters that Jason indicates. In moments, the virtual reality view springs up, isolating the lockdown routine from all the normal maintenance routines of the Q-Core. It resembles a giant red-and-black dragon somehow dripping with corrupting ichor, wrapped around what looks like a schematic view of a brain. Margie inspects this display with interest. "That's it!" she whispers.
As Cadena speaks, more sparks of light glitter around his staff... And then drift toward Jason. They coalesce about the display and highlight its likely vulnerabilities.
"That does not look healthy at all," Jason admits as he eyes the dragon. "If I end up on the floor and drooling, just have one of the bots shoot me in the head. It would be kinder," he mutters as he looks over all the possible attack points. "C'mon Smaug, lets find those missing scales so the black arrow can find its mark, eh?"
RIU hisses at the larger dragon! It slinks down his arms and attaches its claws into the receptacles on the side of the terminal... And a tiny virtual RIU appears in the monitor!
The miniature dragon launches a crackling ball of destruction toward the larger one, scoring a direct hit. It reels back, and there is a silent scream.
The door opens, and Tracy walks in, saying, "I brought some ice-cream, hope you like chocolate-chip.." Then she stops, and looks at the ghostly girl projection and the Battle Dragons game going on.
Margie, distracted, skips over to Tracy. "Chocolate-chip ice cream!" she says, holding her hands out.
The red-and-black dragon slashes with its claws! One of the four shields revolving around the tiny RIU-icon shatters and dissolves. A monitor at the bottom of the screen reports, "Network protection layer 4 breached."
Cadena continues to pray fervently for the Light to guide and protect Jason and RIU, as he holds onto the Q-Core shield and staff.
The teenager's lips form a thin, tight line as her eyes widen. She offers the pint of ice-cream (with 1% real milk) to the apparition.
Glittering sparks continue to dance about the monitor, revolving around one highlight, then jumping to the other as the enemy dragon strives to guard its weak points from the enemy.
The ghost-girl's hands close on... Nothing. Apparently the ice cream isn't tangible to her. She pouts.
"It's not the size of your dragon, but how you use it. I always practice safe computing with my du ... eh, never mind, children are present," Jason mutters. It's now his turn to bite his lip and tap away at the panel. "Lets see if I can get it to a predictive pattern of access point movement ... then I just have to be one step ahead."
Just then, Jason sees it, the pattern repeats. Wing, wing, behind the left arm... He relays this to RIU, who leaps upon the forming opening with tenacity! The virtual RIU icon winds up in a corkscrew, gathering up a tiny glowing ball of deadly attack-subroutines, and then unleashes it, straightening out, so that the lightning bolt hits straight on!
"I'm Tracy Trudeau," Tracy introduces herself to the ghost, and sets the ice cream down on a worktable. "You must be.. Margaret, right?"
The lockdown routine shivers and then fades away in a cloud of greasy black bits. Lights start appearing on the Q-Probe as its pinging changes into a soft, subtle music.
The ghost girl nods at Tracy. "But my friends call me Margie! When they don't call me Lady Manjari, of course. But I don't like them to use Manji."
"Coordination unit lockdown disabled. Time to record whatever is left in the ol' brainpan," Jason says. "Maggie, you're up. You need to see if you can find the memory."
RIU looks smug as it unplugs from the terminal. That nasty program will never torment its master again!
"Thank you ... Jason!" Cadena says, gasping. "And RIU!"
"Don't thank me yet. We don't have anything extracted," Jason points out.
Margie looks over at Jason when he speaks her name. "Ok! Maybe they'll have ice cream in there," she whispers. Her eyes are far away as she walks toward the Q-Core. "I see... It's like North Bend! But it's kind of shimmery, and not all there. And there are these weird fin-like things on the skyscrapers. Where do I look for the arcade?"
Tracy quietly opens the lid of her strawberry ice-cream as she watches.
The ghost-girl actually seems to be flying now, her feet no longer touching the ground, her arms stretched out like wings. Stray sparks whip across the floor, portraying the barest outlines of buildings.
To Tracy the lab seems unusually cold and the lighting dimmer than it should be. This takes away somewhat from the ice cream's tastiness.
Jason rubs his face. "Great, ask me for an address I haven't used in four years," he complains as he wracks his brain and tries to remember where the arcade was. "It's not in the main city, outskirts ... " he mutters as he tries to direct the girl as best he can remember. "We had to drive from there ... oh right, the station I blew up. Landmark, right. Follow the old road."
"Okay! I'm following the road now," Margie confirms as she appears to swoop low over the landscape.
"The data is very spotty," Jason remarks to the room as a whole. "It was before reaching the dregs, a worn but still used place."
Cadena, eyes still closed, whispers, "You can do it, Margie. Your mother will be so proud!"
The hues of the tiny sparks shifts to red and blue, and the suggestion of an outdoor mall takes form. "There's the arcade! Hey, it has my name on it. Arcadia!" says Margie. She shifts her position, her feet angling toward the ground as if coming in for a landing.
"Starting up recording of accessed data patterns now," Jason explains to the room as he taps away on the console. Why? Who knows. "Go through the doors. Her data simulation should be inside."
"Does this mean we don't have to infiltrate Dantech?" Tracy asks.
"I wish I could see it with you, Margie," Cadena says, laughing quietly, straining to hold onto the staff and the Q-Core. "Maybe we can build a model of it together some time."
Margie is walking now. The sparks shimmer, then form the outline of a door, which she passes through, and tens of machines inside the door all glowing and chiming. "Um, hi? Mom? Are you here?" she says hesitantly.
"Remember, Margie," Cadena says, "this is from long ago. She's not your mom yet here. Her name is Penny. It's all right to call her that in this place. She won't mind."
RIU curls on one of Jason's shoulders as he types, swishing its tail side to side.
"I'm not counting on that just yet, Tracy," Jason mutters. "C'mon, are you still there or not?"
Margie pauses as if listening. "No, I'm not lost, I'm looking for my-- I'm looking for Penny!" she says brightly. A constellation of lights appears in front of her, a few bright golden lights at the top, tiny speckles of pink, a blue streak forming the body.
"C'mon, let the data still be complete," Jason mutters as he taps furiously. "Too many people die too young. Just once time, be fair. Give her a chance. Let the data be complete..."
The ghostly girl turns to Cadena. "What did you want me to ask her?" she whispers.
"That's a good question," Tracy mutters. "How do you get the data? Can't just ask her for a blood sample.."
Cadena frowns, concentrating. "You found her, then? Does she look like you ... maybe a little bit older?"
"She looks like me! If I were wearing a T-shirt and I had my hair dyed pink and... I'm sorry, I was talking to my pet dog," Margie says.
"Keep talking to her Margie, about anything. Tell her about your dog, or what kind of ice cream you like. anything at all. Just ... keep her going. It's opening up old synapses and old data encoded there. The longer you talk, the more I can get," Jason tries to encourage the odd 'girl. "This place is the keyframe, the data anchor for the entire simulation. It's a monument to his origins and where all his dreams began. He made every detail as precise as he could."
Margie tilts her head. "Someone offered me chocolate chip ice cream, but then I couldn't touch it," she tells Penny Arcadia gravely. "I don't know why! I can touch you just fine. Do you have any ice cream?"
The constellation shimmers in place, as if laughing. It leads Margie outside the arcade, and toward a neighboring store. Perhaps it's a slow day in the Arcadia.
Cadena says, "Yes, I think Jason has it figured out. You're doing great, Margie!"
More soberly, aside to Jason, Cadena says, "I might be able to use my power, using my connection with Margaret as a conduit of sorts, to that other reality. I could try to heal the incomplete model, to fill in the gaps. However, it comes with risks. If I don't do it correctly, my 'healing' could end up creating false data - it would be data that is internally consistent, but not the original. And ... due to the nature of it, I'm not sure how I could tell if I was doing it incorrectly, since the whole point of this is to find data we don't already have to check against."
Margie yums, enjoying imaginary ice cream. "You're a very nice lady, M-- Penny," she exclaims. "Do you have a pet dog? Mine is white and he has blue markings on his face, and..." She rattles on.
Jason's eyes go wide. "It's not just Penny's data in here," he says to Cadena. "Her father and mother are also in here. Their entire sequences. If you wanted to determine what were the damaged sequences in a chain, having multiple sets of DNA from the same line would help avoid re sequence errors. A good system could actually predict what Margie's DNA should be. Just ... don't mess with it. Right now it's one in a million this amount is recovered; any other pushing and we could lose it."
A download bar pops up. It inches slowly from left to right.
Cadena slumps a bit, but then straightens up. "All right. I'll try to hang in here. I'm not sure what will happen when I run out."
"Does it matter if this works?" Jason asks Cadena.
Margie clucks her tongue at Penny. "No dog? But you saw a squirrel? Was it a trained kind of squirrel? Or maybe a squirrel-bot! Avatars makes really life-like ones," she says, then looks puzzled at the response. "No, no, Avatars is this really big company! They have this game where you can do almost anything you can imagine..."
"How far are we?" Cadena asks. "Do you have an estimate for how much longer I must hold on? I might ... be able to predict whether I have enough energy to hold out for that."
A few red lights appear on the Q-Core's dynamic map as Margie continues trying to explain Avatars, and indeed, the whole concept of virtual reality to the Penny Arcadia NPC. "Caddie, come here so I can use your collar and show m-- Penny my Ivory Tower!" she asserts.
The download bar continues to hum along, at about 50%. Another minute or so ought to do it.
"A minute, maybe two," Jason explains. "You have to hold out. You have to find the will to."
Cadena laughs weakly. "I would, Margie, if I could. I don't think I could do that without some sort of miracle. I'm guessing popping a neural helmet on my head so I could join in would be less than constructive right about now."
"Try to talk about something else, Margie. That system doesn't know about Avatar's ... the data is all before the company even existed," Jason urges. "Ask her about the arcade, or about her dad and mom."
Margie pouts at Cadena. "Well, you have virtual reality machines in your arcade, it's kind of like that," she improvises. "Except bigger, a lot bigger. Anyway, you said your dad was out on business? Wasn't Grampa a big builder? He liked to build big buildings!"
"Is there any way you could insert me into the simulation, Jason?" Cadena asks. "Not physically, of course. Just ... maybe if there's some device I could speak through. Maybe Margie has a toy ... it's like a ... what were those called again? It was like having a virtual pet, but you took it with you in the real world, and you could take it by friends who had the toy and your pets could 'play' together. Maybe if my voice and image could be relayed through that, it wouldn't break the setting."
The red lights shift. They don't seem to be increasing greatly, but just a few every second.
"Margie ... can you find out how old Penny is?" Cadena asks. "Find out how much older she is than you are, if you could. Does she have any favorite music? Maybe there's something new that just came out."
"I could but ..." Jason says, "This is delicate enough as it is. Just a little more time is all we need. Are you really sure? I could try to patch that collar into something in the simulation."
"If it looks like it'll break something, don't bother," Cadena says. "I was just thinking that maybe more points of interaction would mean more engagement. More connections."
The ghostly girl dutifully does as Cadena asks. Sparks of light continue to flow from his staff into her and the simulation of the arcade to which they've returned. "Cat on a Spaceship? My mom listens to that all the time," she exclaims. "Oh wait, you're-- never mind!" The red lights gradually subside as the VR topic no longer seems to be of great importance.
The data download bar increases again, now at the 75% mark.
"My drain rate has increased," Cadena says. "I might be able to make it, but we have to keep trying more avenues. Margie ... does Penny have a favorite game at the arcade? Maybe she could give you some tips on how to play it."
Jason rubs his forehead. "Nothing is as ever quick as we would wish it to be," he admits. "Nearly there, though. Just a bit longer..."
Margie duly picks up a few tips on how to beat 'Dragonriders of the West', which she deems to be a fun game, if kind of old-fashioned. The download bar closes ever nearer to 100%... And finally hits the mark. It flashes green, enclosing the word 'COMPLETE'.
"Got it!" Jason declares as he continues to tap away. "Now making ten redundant copies on different systems just to be sure."
"Do you need a V-chip?" Tracy asks, reaching for her chip wallet.
"Thank you, Margie!" Cadena exclaims. "Now ... er ... can you let Penny know that you need to go now? We've got to get you back out of there. If everything goes all right, you should be able to visit again later."
"I'll take anything just to be sure the data isn't lost again," Jason claims. "You don't need any of your memories, right? We might be able to overwrite your brain with the data..."
"Caddie says I have to go now," Margie says to the unseen arcade attendant. "I'll be fine! He'll walk me home." She smiles and waves at the Q-Core.
Tracy retrieves a blank petabyte chip and brings it over to Jason.
And a few seconds later, Margie is somehow more there, looking at the real world, holding a hand out to her faithful dog. "I met my mom when she was real young! She was still like, old, old, but not OLD old," she clarifies. "And she treated me to a soyberry cone. It didn't taste much like real strawberry! But I didn't want to be mean and tell her that."
"Cloning data yet again," Jason remarks after taking the chip and copying it down to that device too.
Cadena finally looks up, opening his eyes, and he laughs when he sees Margie with his own eyes - for the first time in a long time, aside from just somewhere in his own memories. "That was very nice of you," he says. "We'll have to tell your mother all about it. Now ... we'll have to get ready for the next step...." He sets down his staff, and gets down to one knee, extending his arms out to Margie.
Margie smiles, then runs up and hugs Cadena. It feels like a whisper of wind. "Thank you, I had a great time," she says softly into his ear. And then she is gone.
The lights brighten up again. It feels a bit warmer.
Even though she's gone, Cadena stays there, kneeling, his arms closed as if trying to hug the space where Margie seemed to be just a moment ago.
Jason unhooks the console from the quantum probe and slumps against the workbench behind him. "Stupid lights, messing with my eyes," he mutters as he wipes at them. "Looks like we got the data Penny wanted. Perhaps more. Maybe for once the innocent won't have to suffer."