It's been a couple days since the assault during the funeral proceedings. Everyone has generally recovered from their injuries. Well, at least enough so that Envoy can make use of the main laboratory in the consulate building. The fact she gets to use it unsupervised is a bit of a surprise ... but it might also be because Icarus and Violette are with her! At her request, but still. He is considered one of them after all!
"Are you sure you want to do this? I want to go find those ... jerks for attacking us during the funeral," Icarus mutters as he enters the lab just behind Envoy. Violette is on his tail! Literally, she's holding onto it like a leash and giggling.
"Finding them is less of an issue than neutralizing them," Envoy notes, and wonders if Violette is still on painkillers. "You exhausted yourself dealing with the few that attacked - there may be dozens at their base, along with their power source." She sets her crystal box on one of the tables after admiring the room's symmetry for a moment, then opens it and takes out a finger-sized bit of Sifran crystal that's slightly more purple-pink than the others. "I'm terrible at fighting people, too."
"I'm supposed to be a weapon, right? I should be able to stop them," Icarus insists, but without much conviction. Violette, meanwhile, is wagging Icarus' tail now. "I have to do something."
"Violette, hold this and tell me if you feel anything from it," the Exile says, turning to hand the quantum balancer to the junior mage. "You're going to do something, Icarus: help me figure out how to counter their crystals. Then we can try some combat-based inertia manipulation."
Violette looks disappointed that she has to let the tail go. Let go she does, though, and takes up the little crystal offered. Her ears waggle a bit, then look like they're trying to some sort of pom-pom directed cheer as she looks over the bit of crystal "Well ... hm," the Eeee remarks. "Ever flip a lot of coins? I mean a lot? Like hundreds? Imagine how it would feel if you actually got a coin that exactly landed on its edge every single time. It's kind of like that," the Eeee tries to explain. "Or maybe like walking a tightrope ... only without utter terror."
"That's the timestone effect," Envoy notes. "It reduces quantum noise. I'm not sure if there's any actually incorporated into the crystal of if it simply managed to copy it." She holds her hand out for the crystal.
Violette holds up the crystal, perfectly balanced on its tip on the tip of her finger. She weaves her hand about and it remains perfectly balanced. "You're not supposed to give pretty girls jewelry then take it back you know," the Eeee comments.
"It isn't jewelry," Envoy says, making a grab for the crystal. "It's a very special tool."
Violette rolls her hand around, dodging Envoy's attempt to grab it! Instead the taps the Aelun's nose! And now the crystal is perfectly balanced on her nose tip. "You're no fun," she says. "I demand Icarus in compensation!"
"What?" is all Icarus says, looking confused.
Envoy blinks and crosses her eyes at the crystal. "I am lots of fun," she counters. "Ask any Chaos Mage." She plucks the crystal from her nose and sets it on the table (standing it vertically just because), and then retrieves the small led box that she keeps sliver of Dr. von Bronson's cultured crystal in. She takes out the sliver and puts it on the table about a foot away from the balancer.. and then tries to synchronize with it, expecting a headache.
Getting a headache is only part of the experience! She also feels like her feet are coming out of her nose and that her internals are floating somewhere three feet to the right of her. And then there is this odd smell of boiled cabbage and mushrooms... And oh, everything looks upside down and two dimensional.
"Urgh.." Envoy comments. She doesn't even try to physically reach for the balancer, sensing that trying to move at all would be a mistake. Instead, she closes her eyes and tries to synchronize to it, in the hope that it can somehow counter the quantum nausea.
Poor Envoy. It feels like she wants to vomit ... through her ears! Thankfully the nausea starts to settle somewhat. At least the world isn't upside down ... but she still feels like her feet are coming out of her nose.
In an effort to boost the normalizing effect, Envoy tries to get the crystal in her horn (and so connecting to her timestone ansible) involved. Just shunt the noise into the bottomless probability pit, she thinks, although her instructions to her internal network are a bit more detailed.
Okay, that seems to help. Her feet are on the end of her legs now, not her nose. And better, the odd smells are gone! Plus, no nausea. Whew!
"This is tolerable," Envoy mutters, then looks to Icarus. "Where you following what I was doing?"
Icarus looks up. "No? Was I supposed to be?" he asks, embarrassed.
"Well... what else was there to focus on?" Envoy asks, then shakes her head a bit. She does not understand children as well as she should. "Here's what I did: I deliberately synchronized myself to the chaotic crystal to simulate what exposure is like when the cyborgs attack. Then I tried to counter it by linking with the quantum balancer here. How badly are you effected by the static and so on during attacks?"
Icarus rubs his head. "Well, the last time it was directed at me," he admits, "And it hurt. I mean really hurt. I could feel it in my bones. It felt ... " He flaps his arms, "Like it was trying to make me a puppet. Does that make sense?"
"Similar to what happens when galvanic shock is applied to muscles, maybe," Envoy says. "Would you say it was aggressive? Deliberate or methodical, or just overwhelming?"
"Aggressive. Deliberate," Icarus says, sounding certain about that.
"Dr. von Bronson wants your Node.. but these crystals were 'grown' off of another Node similar to your own," Envoy suggests, and tilts her head slightly to one side. "It could be an attempt at communication, or a reaction to your Node. After Cypher's lockdown, you should be safe though, unless there are entanglement backdoors." She sighs, then asks, "Can you connect to the balancer, or do you want me to guide you?"
Icarus squats down so that the crystal is eye-level with him. "Hmmm," he mutters as his eyes cycle through a spectrum of colors. "I can try," he says. "I don't think it would be that hard. I mean, I can see the signal lines that it has, I just have to tap them." The hybrid's brow furrows as he focuses on the pinkish-purple crystal still standing on edge. The color shifts in his iris slow until it matches exactly the same hues of the standing sliver. Only, it doesn't stop there ... the outline of his skeletal system begins to shine through his pelt ... and the same exact color as the sliver. Moreover, Envoy can feel it; his entire structure is replicating the same balancing feel that the shard itself radiates.
"Ooo, he's my color!" Violette says as she claps her hands. Well, he's half her color anyone, only one side of her is violet.
"Be careful," Envoy cautions, almost reaching out to Icarus' shoulder, but stopping short. Probably not a good time to sync up with him. "You'll want to be able to return to normal functions as well. But if you can internalize things.. so long as they don't consume too much power.. then you should be able to fend off the takeover attempts."
Icarus is mesmerized by the shard. He doesn't even seem to notice Envoy or that she almost touched him. And worse, all the crystalline structures in the room start to thrum with the same light as he is. Well, save for the blackened shard Dr. Von Bronson managed to grow.
Unable to see the lines of communication like Icarus can, Envoy dares to put her hand on his shoulder and try to see what's going on.
The touch is electric! And yet also somehow pleasant; it feels like her very being is spread out; not confined within her body, but is spreading throughout the building. Every simple crystal node in the building is humming in time with hers; vibrations balanced perfectly. It's ... peaceful, really. She can even feel Icarus' mind with her, intertwined. If Envoy has ever wondered what it was like to be a chair, or a rock, or a wall ... she now knows.
Nostalgia! But it might also get out of hand.. and who knows what it will do to the Silent-Ones' crystals. "Icarus, can you hear me? You need to pull back. Focus on being just yourself," Envoy tries to tell the boy. She's used to this sort of being multiple-things effect, but Icarus may not be prepared for it.
He may not be used to it, but he seems to be able to manage it. The expanding 'world' of thought begins to contract back in on itself and drawing Envoy along for the ride. She can feel each and every separation within the building structure as things gradually lose synchronization.
"Violette.. did you feel anything just now?" Envoy asks, while her mind is still semi-elsewhere.
"Yes, I did," the Eeee's voice says softly. "It was ... it felt like sitting in the gardens back home. Before it was destroyed, that home. After a rainstorm. A quiet peace."
Envoy looks to the shard of 'enemy' crystal. It wasn't linked into the chain, so maybe the communication protocols are just too scrambled. "Can you sense the chaos crystal still, Icarus?" she asks.
"Yes," Icarus answers ... from everywhere. At least it seems that way because everything still linked in the chain resonates at his vocal frequency.
"Can you balance it?" Envoy asks next, hoping the entire embassy didn't hear that.
"I can try," Icarus says. The omnipresence of the voice is rather unnerving. The hybrid goes quiet as his attention returns to the crystal. That's when Envoy feels something snap! The feeling of peace is gone. And Envoy finds herself looking at Icarus who is now lying on the floor.
The Aeolun is on her knees and cradling Icarus' head in her lap before she even thinks about it. "I'm sorry!" she tells him. "Are you okay?" She even tries connecting to his network to get a diagnostic.
Icarus' eyes snap open. His iris' are solid black ... and it is spreading. Tendrils of darkness are tracing out underneath his pelt as it starts to spread across his skeleton. "Thank you for giving me access to my puppet," rattles a disembodied voice, likely generated from the hybrid's own bones. Its tone is all too familiar.
"NO!" Envoy shouts, and tries to 'dive' into Icarus while reaching out for the balancer. "You couldn't have broken the access lock!" she claims.
"I didn't have to. He opened the access to link to my little toy you took," the voice says. Trying to access Icarus now and Envoy feels like she just hit her head on a brick wall. Worse, just as her hand closes around the balancer, she finds herself flung straight upward, slamming into the ceiling! And ... she is stuck there. "You forget I deigned his original layout. In the end it is just another machine. Prototype Thirteen. It should be a simple matter to erase what personality had formed, the voice adds as the prone body of the hybrid twists upward and onto its feet in a disturbingly unnatural way. It also looks upward ... eyes and expression ... dead.
"You can't have him!" Envoy yells, and tries to cast her own field around Icarus rather than try to free herself. She has to cut off the communication!
"It was mine the day the cells started splitting over the seed lattice. It was simply stolen from me," the voice insists. Icarus' head tilts, then the voice adds, "I don't think so." And Envoy suddenly feels like she's under a crushing weight from every possible angle!
Harmonize, Envoy sings to the balancer. She needs focus! And more energy. If she can just twist the phase of the crushing field to something.. non-crushing! Lower the inertia instead of raising the gravity, she thinks. That will give me some time!
Maybe it is panic, or fear for what could happen to someone she cares about ... but the synchronization comes easily. She can both see and feel the warping of space about her body. Violette is standing nearby, looking horrified! She actually runs over and grabs onto the hybrid's arm. "Stop this," she cries to him. "Stop this! You are not a puppet. You are not a thing. You are a person. I've seen you laugh and cry. I've seen you care. Machines don't care, people care. You're more than a machine, don't let him treat you like one." The hybrid merely looks at her with its eeriely dead eyes.
Reaching out, Envoy tries to alter the warp. I need to be faster, she thinks. And it's one of Icarus's warps, so she's familiar with it at least. If she can reduce inertia by half, she'll be able to act twice as fast as those outside the field. Von Bronson can't be faster than Cypher - I'll still have working access, Envoy thinks, frustrated at how slow she is without Probe. "Node Access," she sings to her own network, trying to get into Icarus before too much damage can be done.
Pressure eases. A lot. And just in time as the world fades to white. Envoy is standing in a vast ... nothing. Silence.
"Icarus!" she calls out. "I'm here!"
When it is a vast nothing and there is no echo ... it somehow seems worse. She blinks and then up ahead she can see something. No, someones, standing in a circle, all back to back. At the current distance it is hard to make them out.
It's something though! She hurries towards the figures, trying to fly.
It's not quite flying, but then it is not quite ground, either. As she approaches the figures ahead, she makes out ... four? One is a talk and proud-looking Silent-One. Another is a youngish human male. Another ... an amorphous crystalline figure, and the last ... a 'male' looking version of ... Envoy?
"Icarus!" Envoy calls out, seeing the group as different aspects of Icarus's whole. Even the Aeolun form fits, since he does have some of her as part of him, due to his ability to assimilate.
All the heads turn at once and look at Envoy. "We are Thirteen," they say in unison. Up close, there are tendrils of darkness crawling through each figure. Slow, but steadily the darkness moves. "Thirtheenth functional prototype of a ambulatory quantum manipulator. A conglomerate of inorganic parts and genetic factors."
"You are Icarus, my son," Envoy replies. The balancer (or it's virtual representation) is still clutched in her right hand, and she tries to smash through one of the dark tendrils with it.
"Illogical. This specimen was never born; it was created in a gestational pod and grown over a period of days, then several decades in suspension," They all say in unison. "It cannot be anyone's son."
"/He/ is Icarus,/" Envoy claims as she keeps attacking the tendrils. "I initiated his entry into this world, even if I did not create him," she says. "I love him as my own. I will defend him at all costs! That is a bond beyond the merely physical."
The shard she carries does damage the encroaching darkness. "It is human," the human form says. "It is Silent-One," the Silent One signs and says. "It is inorganic," the crystalline blob intones. "It is ... " the Aeolun starts to say, then looks confused. "This is ... this does not match any records."
"It is not a puppet," Envoy says. "Help me break these intrusions instead of arguing with me!" she tells the figures. "You are more than just separate parts, and as long as he exists.." she points to the anomalous Aeolun boy.. "then you are also a part of me. There will be ice cream if you help!"
"Part of ... you?" the figures say in unison, each also lifting their hands to look at them. "We re ... I remember," they say. "The first real eyes I saw were yours. My first steps. The smell of must and rust. Laughter. Yours. Mine. But ... how can I be real? How can I dare to dream to be?"
"Existential conundrums later, breaking evil black tendrils now," Envoy insists. "I can't even answer those questions about myself."
For the first time all four of the figures look at each other. "Is that the answer?" the human asks the others. "That there is no answer?" The Silent-One asks. "It is yes and it is no? It isn't the end, it is the journey. The attempting to find that defines us as it ... defined her," the Aeolun version says ... and out of all of them smiles. "And no one is going to take away my right to be. No one ends a journey what they began as. What was Thirteen is now Icarus." Without further comment, that one steps away from all the others and joins Envoy in attacking the invading tendrils.
"That's it!" Envoy encourages. "No going back to being Pinnochio for any of us!" She redoubles her tendril hacking efforts!
The human joins next ... and soon the Silent-One. The encroaching tendrils of nothingness are finally halted ... perhaps even begin to be pushed back. Only one figure remains still; the crystalline one; symbolic of the hybrid's inorganic aspects.
"Why aren't you helping?" Envoy asks the crystal. "I'm part inorganic too, but I'm still a self-deterministic entity. Even crystals want to grow, don't they?"
"I am fundamentally incompatible with organic material," the crystal claims, "If I act, I disrupt biological processes." That's when it hits her; she's speaking to the core; the seed what was part of every experiment from one through thirteen. "Twelve deaths at my lattice."
"You have successfully integrated into Icarus," Envoy claims. "The extra time to mature and grow and the enhanced cellular energy capacity have corrected those problems. I can fix any that remain."
"I do not wish to die again," the crystal says. It ... actually sounds scared of that possibility. "Twelve times. I died twelve times," it says softly.
"Fight now, or you will be cloned and made mad, and die many more times, because Dr. von Bronson's creations are all expendable," Envoy points out. "I won't let you die. Icarus is never going to die if I can help it."
"Bronson ... the humanoid. The one who caused me such pain," the crystal says as its shimmering 'fingers' curl into fists. "Who tore me from the collective, grafted, gave me life, gave me feeling, only to rip it from me, again, and again. No more," it says with finality. "No ... more." It walks up to one of the tendrils and opens its fist, fingers taking on the shape of claws. In a blur of shimmering color it strikes into the darkness. From where its hand sunk into the darkness shimmering light ripples outward as the invading tendrils takes on the hue of the crystal. Somehow, the darkness screams.
"I don't mean to encourage sadistic tendencies, but he completely deserved that," Envoy notes, nodding with approval. "I'm sorry that he was able to get in at all.. I should have realized he was probably tracking us through that shard. I just didn't think it could be so.. functional. I've underestimated the enemy."
"Perhaps," the crystal says. Its hue and tone continues to spread out back through the invading darkness, replacing it. "But I will not be so easily rewritten. But this ... mockery will be."
"What mockery are you referring to?" Envoy asks. "The rogue shard?"
"Yes," comes the answer.
"You can do that now?" the Aeolun asks in surprise. "Can you do the same for the node being used to create it?"
"The shard you carry helps," the crystalline form explains. "This shard tried to access me, and that leaves it open to me. As for its source, unknown. I would have to physically touch it."
"Tell me.. do you have any loyalty to the Tribunal?" Envoy asks next. The shuttle that the node came from was under their directives, after all.
"This node is autonomous," comes the reply.
"Can you make other nodes autonomous?" the Aeolun asks next. "And defend yourself against the Tribunal if they try to control you? They really don't care for the autonomous thing."
The crystal figure withdraws its hand ... and there is no trace of any darkness in its wake. "Unknown. Parameters of each node are unique," it claims. "As for defense, in theory. Autonomous function can be maintained."
"Good.. defend your autonomy as hard as you can!" Envoy tells the crystal aspect. "Not just against Dr. von Bronson, either. Even against me, when we sync up."
"Your primitive structures are of no significant risk to me," it claims.
"That is no way to talk to your mother," Envoy grumbles. "Just because I don't have a Node.. and am still somewhat brain damaged.. uh.. is everything fine in here? Icarus is still Icarus?"
"I could attempt to restructure your lattice if you wish," it offers, "And repair damage. The more ... emotional aspects of this entity are fine, just sleeping. I can close the connection and awaken the whole if you wish."
"Despite everything that's going on.. I still need to repair the damage myself," Envoy notes. "When I have my full faculties again, then we can see about reconfiguring and optimizing. Better wake up the rest of you, unless you have anything you want to ask me?"
"Does it get easier?" the crystal asks.
The Aeolun thinks on this for a moment. "Life gets more complicated as you progress. Whenever something seems to get easier, it will be replaced by a new challenge," she says. "I'm sure that if look back on this in a thousand years, I will wonder how I was ever so small and inept. But that's fine, too. Only fools want the world to stop."
"With sufficient power it is possible to stop the world. If you warp the gravitational field enough you can create a singularity," the crystal notes.
"Ah, but you don't even have to go that far," Envoy says. "Gravity is a crude way of doing it instead of manipulating the Higgs field directly. Separate out inertia and you can increase its 'density' to cause full on stasis, without the crushing side effects. I'll teach you how, once I finish solving the equations."
"It's very handy to be able to speed up time for big projects like terraforming, after all, or slow it down when things get boring," the exile notes.
"Perhaps," comes the noncommittal reply. "If there is nothing else, I will re-integrate the subsystems."
"I will.. try to calm down Violette. Am I still up on the ceiling?" Envoy asks.
"No. You are on the floor. The shadow-dweller is holding my prone form and crying," the crystal notes.
"Better send me back then," Envoy says with a sigh. "If we keep dropping dead people will start avoiding us."
The next thing Envoy knows is ... her nose hurts and she's staring at a metal floor. Also, there is a crying bat sitting nearby. "Don't you dare die on me you spotted ..." the Eeee is whimpering; her voice is muffled; probably buried in Icarus' neck or chest.
"How long since I fell?" Envoy asks, sitting up and rubbing her nose until the rest of the soreness goes away. "If you're crying like that when Icarus wakes up, you'll scare him."
Violette squeaks! "Five minutes?" she suggests, sounding a bit uncertain about it. She also wipes at her eyes. "He was turning all black. It was ..." the bat hugs onto Icarus again. "And I couldn't do anything."
"You could have run and gotten Morpheus," Envoy corrects, and slides across the floor to Icarus. "He's going to be alright. This won't happen again."
"What would he have done? I just .... I couldn't leave him," Violette admits, "I had to be there in case he could hear me." Icsrus is still asleep, but there is no sign of any encroaching darkness. In fact, Envoy can see the corrupted shard from where she its. It ... just looks like a mirror-image of the Quantum balancer shard she still holds in her hand.
"You're a mage, Violette," Envoy says. "I know it's hard when it's a friend that gets hurt or threatened... but whether you can help or not, you have to keep your head, understand? Morpheus is like Icarus.. essentially. If something weird happens to him or me, you go get Morpheus, alright?"
Violette frowns, but nods. "I was alone when ... you know," she murmurs. "I didn't want him to be alone if he was dying."
"He's not going to die," Envoy says with a bit of heat in her voice. "He's my son, and I'm immortal.. so.. he will be too. I'll find a way."
"No, but I have a headache," Icarus admits, "Ow."
"And a very wet neck," Icarus adds. "Was I drooling?"
"Ice cream will fix that," Envoy notes. "I keep my promises, and you did help sort things out inside.. oh.. something probably spilled on you."
"In here? I might grow gills! Like in that weird show Violette took me to, something about swamp monsters," the hybrid says as he tries to sit up. He shakes his head then smacks the side of it a few times. "I did?" he asks.
"Yes, you did," Envoy says. "You helped me help you.. and you neutralized the crystal used to attack you. Do you remember anything?"
Icarus looks ... confused. "That was real? I thought I was dreaming," he admits.
Icarus flaps his arms. "It was ... I couldn't feel. Things just were," he says. "I felt ... broken."
"You aren't broken," Envoy says, and tousles Icarus's hair. "You're stronger now than before, I think. And since we aren't overrun with guards I suppose we didn't set off all the alarms. Or, alternately, we burned them all out. Either way.. ice cream. I'm sure Born-in-War has a stash of it somewhere.."
"Of course he does. His daughters guard it," Icarus claims.
Icarus gets to his feet with Violette's help. "I can show you where ... but getting past them is not easy," the hybrid claims. "You'll have to distract them."
As the kids seem to recover, Envoy glances back at the no-longer dark crystal. Good News, we can fight the mutant crystal, she thinks. Bad News.. I probably can't use it as a weapon against the Tribunal. Possibly Good News.. might be able to liberate enough crystal from the Tribunal to stand against them after all. She pockets the Quantum Balancer, and then follows the others to the door. "Did I tell you about all the deathtraps I've run into so far.." she says to them.