[Masks IC] Resurrection Roundabout: Drawing Individuals

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 2
[X]: INSECURE

“Excuse me,” Sara drawls, impatiently, tapping her expensive flat and giving her prey a look over her sunglasses. Two of them, the ones she’d estimated were the easiest marks, while observing their comings and goings. “You. Yes, you. Don’t give me that look, jackass, straighten up and pay attention when someone important is talking to you.” She snaps her glittery nails in his face. Don’t give them a chance to stop and think.

“Do you have any idea how much my parents paid for this cabin,” she asks, rhetorically. “And now there’s this, like, weird glitch in the auto bar? The martini’s swill. Get it out of there right now.”

It’s the perfect, perfect plan. Get the two of them isolated in her cabin, shut the door behind them, gain access to not only map but also uniform through the power of beating them senseless @SARAHPHIM style.

What’s that? Oh boo hoo why would they go inside the cabin at all instead of making an excuse? Because rich girl is mad and in their faces and if they just both move the heavy drink mixer out, they’ll avoid making a scene.

Because Sara can make a scene.

[I was so delighted to roll a 6 on this Trick, and then I remembered I got +1 from the last roll, boo. Anyway, I would like an opportunity and an exposed flaw, and I am very deliberately not taking “confuse them for some time” and “avoid entanglement”.]

[PhoeKun]

Errant contemplates the hand on her shoulder. Her hand reaches out and touches the Shogun's wrist. The fabric in that sleeve of hers is surprising. It's soft, especially compared to the starchy uniforms Errant's used to. Her fingertips tell her that it's pliable, 16% cotton (!?!) and the rest a blend of custom synthetic materials with names she can't pronounce. Also that the arm underneath it is warm. Actually, it's hot. It's hot enough that her fingers ping her with a preliminary warning about prolonged contact. Errant's probably one of the few people she can touch without getting complaints about it, if this is how she is all the time. But the important thing about this is that it's different. That this doesn't feel like that night, or like the moment where Comstar made her--

"You make it sound so easy. But I..."

She stops mid thought, and laughs. It's not a strong laugh; in fact it's very wet and sniffly, but it is a laugh.

"Oh god, listen to me. You know, when I was a little girl I used to dream that one day I'd get to be your sidekick. My mom made me a little outfit like yours and I, ugh you probably get a lot of this from all the other Asian girls. I'm sorry. I just, I dreamed about a moment like this! And now you're right here, and I'm... half made out of metal and badgering you with my stupid lesbian drama and none of this is how I pictured it at all."

Euna sighs and tries to force herself the rest of the way back together. Stupid eyeliner, getting all runny over a minute of weakness. Stupid Korean face, making her feel self conscious. Stupid dork behavior, making her look dumb in front of her idol. Again! She takes a deep breath. Come on, Euna. Show you were listening. And watching, for that matter. Look her straight in the eye and

"Hey," she says with a force that surprises her, "Tell me what to call you. I don't want to keep tripping over myself and calling you 'Miss' all the time. Especially not after what you did the other day."

[Gonna go ahead and accept the Shift now]

[Thanqol]

POTENTIAL 2
[X]: INSECURE

“Excuse me,” Sara drawls, impatiently, tapping her expensive flat and giving her prey a look over her sunglasses. Two of them, the ones she’d estimated were the easiest marks, while observing their comings and goings. “You. Yes, you. Don’t give me that look, jackass, straighten up and pay attention when someone important is talking to you.” She snaps her glittery nails in his face. Don’t give them a chance to stop and think.

“Do you have any idea how much my parents paid for this cabin,” she asks, rhetorically. “And now there’s this, like, weird glitch in the auto bar? The martini’s swill. Get it out of there right now.”

It’s the perfect, perfect plan. Get the two of them isolated in her cabin, shut the door behind them, gain access to not only map but also uniform through the power of beating them senseless @SARAHPHIM style.

What’s that? Oh boo hoo why would they go inside the cabin at all instead of making an excuse? Because rich girl is mad and in their faces and if they just both move the heavy drink mixer out, they’ll avoid making a scene.

Because Sara can make a scene.

[I was so delighted to roll a 6 on this Trick, and then I remembered I got +1 from the last roll, boo. Anyway, I would like an opportunity and an exposed flaw, and I am very deliberately not taking “confuse them for some time” and “avoid entanglement”.]

The two goons look at each other. There's a wordless debate, then one of them turns to face you. "Yes ma'am," she said. "I'm not the tech, but I'll take a look while my colleague goes and fetches her. Sound good?"

The other one immediately marches away at a brisk clip (faintly ridiculous - militaries are all special operations these days, imagine training someone to walk in a certain way). She'll be back soon and with friends. But in the meantime you've got the other lady kneeling down by the auto bar, pretending she knows what she's doing and perfectly positioned for a barstool to the back of the head.

Errant contemplates the hand on her shoulder. Her hand reaches out and touches the Shogun's wrist. The fabric in that sleeve of hers is surprising. It's soft, especially compared to the starchy uniforms Errant's used to. Her fingertips tell her that it's pliable, 16% cotton (!?!) and the rest a blend of custom synthetic materials with names she can't pronounce. Also that the arm underneath it is warm. Actually, it's hot. It's hot enough that her fingers ping her with a preliminary warning about prolonged contact. Errant's probably one of the few people she can touch without getting complaints about it, if this is how she is all the time. But the important thing about this is that it's different. That this doesn't feel like that night, or like the moment where Comstar made her--

"You make it sound so easy. But I..."

She stops mid thought, and laughs. It's not a strong laugh; in fact it's very wet and sniffly, but it is a laugh.

"Oh god, listen to me. You know, when I was a little girl I used to dream that one day I'd get to be your sidekick. My mom made me a little outfit like yours and I, ugh you probably get a lot of this from all the other Asian girls. I'm sorry. I just, I dreamed about a moment like this! And now you're right here, and I'm... half made out of metal and badgering you with my stupid lesbian drama and none of this is how I pictured it at all."

Euna sighs and tries to force herself the rest of the way back together. Stupid eyeliner, getting all runny over a minute of weakness. Stupid Korean face, making her feel self conscious. Stupid dork behavior, making her look dumb in front of her idol. Again! She takes a deep breath. Come on, Euna. Show you were listening. And watching, for that matter. Look her straight in the eye and

"Hey," she says with a force that surprises her, "Tell me what to call you. I don't want to keep tripping over myself and calling you 'Miss' all the time. Especially not after what you did the other day."

[Gonna go ahead and accept the Shift now]

Her eyes are red. Demonic. Sharp. But they're also brown... they're hard to look at even in pictures, but here in this moment you see a subtle hetrochromia - the eyes themselves are brown but there's a red discolouration almost like a layer on top of them, fading out towards the centre. You can feel the pressure of that terror as well, the unholy weight of her daemonic superpower, but in the sustained stare you start to feel something that doesn't come across from the brief glances she's previously used on you. The way your heart pounds, the fears that conjure in your mind, war and upheaval and fire - they're not your fears. They're hers. The Shogun has a head full of nightmares, constant and howling, and she inflicts them on other people as her weapon. You don't know how she functions. But that revelation lets you form a little space between you and a literal heart attack.

"Nothing goes as expected," she said. "Nothing is easy. When moments of change come they sweep away empires and the past is no guide. Adapt."

There was a faint hesitation. "My name is Oda Nobunaga. Address me as such when I am not before my subjects."

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 2
[X]: INSECURE

Sara hefts the barstool like it’s nothing. It actually is pretty light, compared to the weights that a certain dumb somebody keeps insisting she lift, and looking really proud at her when she does. Ugh. Focus on the scheming, girlfriend.

“You’ve got to unplug it,” she says, swinging the barstool back like a baseball bat. “God, moron, do your job already—“

CLANG.

KO!

***

The starched collar is a bit much. Like, seriously. There’s commitment to an aesthetic and then there’s just being tacky.

The poor dear who volunteered her uniform will wake up in the walk-in closet, and if she‘s very lucky, someone might even show up to untie her later! But for now, “Sarah DuMonte” is examining her new map in a secluded corner of the train, her cap pulled down low over her eyes as she scans over the shorthand.

[I’m going to Pierce the Mask here. I nearly said “Pierce the Masks” but that’s different. With a 9, what do you intend to do, Dominus?]

[Balmas]

Professor Gears had a reputation for action-oriented science. Not so much math and blueprints, much more 'I've got a feeling that if I put this thing into that other thing then it'll shoot frost beams'. Essentially, it's very hard to determine if she's actually a genius, lucky or if she's just got a lowkey prediction power that gives her a 100% guess rate on any formal test she takes. She's quite a capable hero in her own right too - with a bag full of her grandfather's inventions she's solved some absolutely intractable disasters albeit in... side-effect-y ways.

I'm sure that's exactly the sort of person you want to design an all-powerful AI, right?

When you find her lounging on one of the benches outside her office (which is locked, oddly enough) she's at least engrossed in reading AI Ethical Safeguards: Securing Superintelligences, Unabridged Edition - at least before you circle around behind her and see that she's hidden a comic book inside the textbook. She's so unaware of your presence you can hear her quietly doing the voices for the various figures on the page - "Of course, I should have known it was you behind Vietnam... Stalin II!" "Ha ha ha! You are too late, American Man! While you were distracted here I stole the Poland! Ha ha ha!" "You fiend! Pew pew!"

So we're counting on the science abilities of "I wonder what happens if" Gears and the social abilities of "your death is a personal inconvenience" Brainstorm. Heaven help us all.

Brainstorm sits down heavily next to her and points to a character on the page. "You know, I always felt like the Leninist got a bad rap in this run of comics. Working to help the poor by stealing from the obscenely rich? In a different culture, that'd be a noble hero."

How to approach her? I mean, he's smarter than she is, that's just the facts of life. (Though, to be fair, that sentence applies to most people.) But that doesn't mean that he understands how she ticks, what she wants. So, he's gonna watch her, and try to figure her out--see whether she jumps, hides it away, responds eagerly. Anything's better than the nothing he currently has.

[PhoeKun]

"Oda Nobunaga, then."

Errant hesitates for just a second. Just a tiny second, and then she flings herself at the Shogun and hugs her for all she's worth. And immediately, she gets no fewer than five warning pings from her sensors, which she knows now are not malfunctions because her chest feels like she's leaning on a stovetop and how is this fair? Why does this woman have to endure things like this? How can she stand it, any of it? How can she find the strength to be a hero when this is what her life is like? It isn't fair, and that's why Errant grits her teeth and doesn't let go. She can take it. She's going to take it, to pay this woman who calls herself Nobunaga back for lifetimes of service and inspiration and help and... just, just a lot, ok?

"Thank you..." she whispers, and still she doesn't let go. Not yet. Just one moment longer, please. Just let her show you how tough she is. Just let her take the pain, let her show you how much she cares. Please don't feel alone.

And when she finally does step back, Euna flinches. Stupid. It was such a stupid thing to do. She looks everywhere but the Shogun's face, flinching because her face is flushed for reasons that have nothing to do with heat. So stupid. So impertinent. She's frozen in place, can't even move her lips to say sorry, so scared all of a sudden that she's done it again. Here it comes. Here it comes. Retribution. Or worse, nothing. Here it comes...

[Eldest]

Infinity, at first glance, is quite small. You're looking down at a gem, a smooth orb. It's maybe golf-ball size, or jupiter-sized, or galaxy-sized: size really doesn't have a meaning here. And then the details start to resolve: the gem has facets, so tiny and so many as to be uncountable, and you can see them all. And you're in one of the, you realize in a rush, you're in one of them looking at all of them and there are so many, it hurts your head to try to count them all but you have a machine brain and you will try regardless of if it was a good idea or not and with a start you realize your programming is structured for this, to accommodate infinity. You can see everything that was, ever could have been, will be, is, it's all in this one view that you can never understand but will always try to. There's distant screaming and you think it's you. It's so small. Infinity is so small and you are so, so much smaller than that.

[Thanqol]

The starched collar is a bit much. Like, seriously. There’s commitment to an aesthetic and then there’s just being tacky.

The poor dear who volunteered her uniform will wake up in the walk-in closet, and if she‘s very lucky, someone might even show up to untie her later! But for now, “Sarah DuMonte” is examining her new map in a secluded corner of the train, her cap pulled down low over her eyes as she scans over the shorthand.

[I’m going to Pierce the Mask here. I nearly said “Pierce the Masks” but that’s different. With a 9, what do you intend to do, Dominus?]

There are some familiar plan elements. Detonate E/M weaponry all along the line to knock out any cybernetics and negate communications, surprise attacks against all security staff simultaneously, breach and clears of security strongpoints, blah blah. Usual Dominus tacticool overprep. There's not a glimmer of style anywhere in it, no showmanship at all. They've even put sleeping pills in the drink of the one registered superhero taking the train in advance. But then, that's Dominus for you - when you're playing life on hard mode and rejecting any tech higher than a pocket calculator, you've got to cut some corners.

But that's all details, boring. Let's really answer your question. Dominus intends to develop tools and tactics for taking down Rx-enhanced individuals with nothing more than martial arts, bioenhancements, tactics and teamwork. This is a combination of resource acquisition to fuel the ambition (there are some scribbled notes about 'sorcery???') and demonstration that her techniques work. She's basically waging a one-woman war to turn back the clock as far as it will go, and nationalism is only part of it.

So we're counting on the science abilities of "I wonder what happens if" Gears and the social abilities of "your death is a personal inconvenience" Brainstorm. Heaven help us all.

Brainstorm sits down heavily next to her and points to a character on the page. "You know, I always felt like the Leninist got a bad rap in this run of comics. Working to help the poor by stealing from the obscenely rich? In a different culture, that'd be a noble hero."

How to approach her? I mean, he's smarter than she is, that's just the facts of life. (Though, to be fair, that sentence applies to most people.) But that doesn't mean that he understands how she ticks, what she wants. So, he's gonna watch her, and try to figure her out--see whether she jumps, hides it away, responds eagerly. Anything's better than the nothing he currently has.

Professor Gears looks up at you. For a moment there's surprise and her eyes soften and her mouth falls into a sweet little 'o' - and then she lunges across her desk and almost tackles her monitor off her screen. You just get a little glimpse of what was on it but you think it looked like you, shirtless, photoshopped to have a rose between your teeth as her desktop background. You know that picture! It circulates fairly widely in your fanclub.

"I'm okay!" said Professor Gears, performing a coup de grace on the monitor before it could tell any more lies and blushing redder than the Soviet flag. "I can fix this! And the Leninist may have been well intentioned but all his creations turned out like Red Scare and Five Year Man so he's a tragic figure at best. Also hello. Wow, there are a lot of cables down here, I should straighten these all out while I'm visiting."

Well, good news. There's an easy way to get her compliance: string her along. It's what @Sarahphim would do!

"Oda Nobunaga, then."

Errant hesitates for just a second. Just a tiny second, and then she flings herself at the Shogun and hugs her for all she's worth. And immediately, she gets no fewer than five warning pings from her sensors, which she knows now are not malfunctions because her chest feels like she's leaning on a stovetop and how is this fair? Why does this woman have to endure things like this? How can she stand it, any of it? How can she find the strength to be a hero when this is what her life is like? It isn't fair, and that's why Errant grits her teeth and doesn't let go. She can take it. She's going to take it, to pay this woman who calls herself Nobunaga back for lifetimes of service and inspiration and help and... just, just a lot, ok?

"Thank you..." she whispers, and still she doesn't let go. Not yet. Just one moment longer, please. Just let her show you how tough she is. Just let her take the pain, let her show you how much she cares. Please don't feel alone.

And when she finally does step back, Euna flinches. Stupid. It was such a stupid thing to do. She looks everywhere but the Shogun's face, flinching because her face is flushed for reasons that have nothing to do with heat. So stupid. So impertinent. She's frozen in place, can't even move her lips to say sorry, so scared all of a sudden that she's done it again. Here it comes. Here it comes. Retribution. Or worse, nothing. Here it comes...

Around you is fire. The smell of blackpowder. The march of boots, the screams of horses. Banners catch on the wind, so many of them flying and burning, so many brushing against burning timbers before taking flight again, fluttering fireballs of fabric stirred by a breeze at once pleasant and sinful. In every direction there's some new assault on the senses, some new way for pain to express itself.

The Shogun stands amidst it. She looks at a roof as it collapses with the jaded eyes of one who has seen it a thousand times, but there's a strange... calm there. Not peace, this place defies that label. But a stability in amidst it. And when she turns to look at you again for once there's nothing dire in her eyes for all of that in this moment is on the outside. For once all that's there is exhaustion and tears that the shaking of the earth cannot yet dislodge.

"You might look at this," she said wearily, "and wonder, how can I worry about matters of love when this world exists? I look at this and think that this is what happens when people don't worry about matters of love. Take care of your heart, Euna. It's not a small thing."

Infinity, at first glance, is quite small. You're looking down at a gem, a smooth orb. It's maybe golf-ball size, or jupiter-sized, or galaxy-sized: size really doesn't have a meaning here. And then the details start to resolve: the gem has facets, so tiny and so many as to be uncountable, and you can see them all. And you're in one of the, you realize in a rush, you're in one of them looking at all of them and there are so many, it hurts your head to try to count them all but you have a machine brain and you will try regardless of if it was a good idea or not and with a start you realize your programming is structured for this, to accommodate infinity. You can see everything that was, ever could have been, will be, is, it's all in this one view that you can never understand but will always try to. There's distant screaming and you think it's you. It's so small. Infinity is so small and you are so, so much smaller than that.

And it snaps back. It's over.

You're still there on that cliffside in Dover. The martian tripods are smashed cinders; Halfwoman did her work quickly in the moment you were away. And it was just a moment - if Infinity doesn't fit into itself it certainly won't be seen any more clearly in an hour than it can be seen in a second.

She's looking into your eyes with sympathy and worry. Looking for the answer to that all important question: inspired, mad, or afraid?

[Raz_Fox]

Sara rolls her eyes. Oh, Dominus. Dommy, Dommy, Dommy. This could have been cool, honey. Where's the presentation?

Even though this is, you know, bone dry and all tactical and junk, it's tempting, for a moment, to just sit back and not get involved. She's pretty explicitly Not A Superhero today, after all. Oh no supervillain attack how terrible.

Except.

Maybe it's because, well, she's already an Rx-powered superheroine, right? And maybe it sends a little tingle of guilt and dread down her spine to see Dominus doing all this in order to stop people like her. People who have done the things she's done for power. People who aren't martial arts experts slash geniuses, and need an edge from grinding reality down to a razor's edge and then using it to cut open everything in their way. Everything that tries to hold them down. Everything that tries to stop them.

Maybe, on the other hand, she's just offended by the lack of showmanship and refuses to be the victim of a crime that's not actively badass. There's definitely some of that in her decision to go get one of the long-range rifles (backup plan: in case the drones show up) and go knocking out the E/M generators from the roof of the train. It's a foolproof plan, beyond the bit where she'll need to sneak out one of the rifles from Dominus's minions and then get up on the roof of the train and shoot without flying off instantly, but it's a plan nonetheless, and she's going to chase it, by goodness gosh golly.

And if she does this right, she can signal for help safely from the comfort of her cabin, which still has a minion tied up in the closet maybe? And watch as the police show up and handle Dominus for her. Like a ghost. Hell yeah. She'll make not being the center of attention the coolest thing ever.

[PhoeKun]

Euna stares. For her, the sights of banners and the smell of gunpowder are muted. Even the Shogun's advice echoes into her ears as if from another place and time. Because Euna doesn't just see the burning temple and the ravages of war. She sees a corridor lined with stores selling the most beautiful things she'd ever seen. Tablets and VR systems, appliances that checked the weather and recommended recipes or chores based on the heat and humidity in the air that day, dresses so beautiful she thought they must be wedding gowns (even though the signs said they were for clubbing). All of it was wonderful beyond Euna's comprehension. All of it was so expensive that her parents' salaries could never have afforded the least of it, not even if they'd been paid in cash instead of scrip, not even if they gave up all the things they loved and saved up the extra for years. And all of it was burning.

The screaming. The heat. The weight of the wall crushing down on her body. The feeling of legs, real flesh and blood legs straining against the glass of a display until they crumpled. The heat. And the pain. She doesn't see Nobunaga's fire. Not Honnouji. Euna sees the Atlas Arcology burn and crumble to nothing all over again. Distantly, she's aware of the whipping of long, dark hair in the wind that doesn't belong to her nightmare. It pulls her out of the past and into the pr-- into someone else's past, at the very least. She gasps, and she watches the Shogun standing amidst the ruins of her world.

The same. Just the same. It came back to fire, in the end. Fire and pain and, you would forgive either of them for crying right now. But while there are tears, Euna's aren't falling either. Not today, not just yet. She reaches through the shimmering air and takes the Shogun's hand in both of hers. Normally this feels like such a pointless gesture. Euna can't touch anybody. She can't connect this way. This is the second time she's felt differently. Her eyes are fierce, and full of determination. She can never, ever, let this woman down. And she won't.

"Is there..." she hesitates. She doesn't want to be misunderstood. Not now. Not by her, of all the people in the world, "Is there anyone who looks after your heart?"

[Balmas]

Professor Gears looks up at you. For a moment there's surprise and her eyes soften and her mouth falls into a sweet little 'o' - and then she lunges across her desk and almost tackles her monitor off her screen. You just get a little glimpse of what was on it but you think it looked like you, shirtless, photoshopped to have a rose between your teeth as her desktop background. You know that picture! It circulates fairly widely in your fanclub.

"I'm okay!" said Professor Gears, performing a coup de grace on the monitor before it could tell any more lies and blushing redder than the Soviet flag. "I can fix this! And the Leninist may have been well intentioned but all his creations turned out like Red Scare and Five Year Man so he's a tragic figure at best. Also hello. Wow, there are a lot of cables down here, I should straighten these all out while I'm visiting."

Well, good news. There's an easy way to get her compliance: string her along. It's what @Sarahphim would do!

...Well.

WELL.

Well, hell. words that end with ell. That's a good topic. Yes, brain, focus on that. Yes, let's think about that, instead of the flaming red flood that's spreading across his cheeks. Gee, he's really going to have to talk with facilities management about their air-conditioning maintenance, because it's obviously broken.

Well. {scrubbed}.

See, @SARAPHIM can do this. She's the one with the brand and the sponsorships and the media eating out of the palm of her hand because she's the one in the group with charisma. If there's a camera, she wants to be in front of it, is affronted that there might be something else it could possibly focus on. She blinks, and there's a dozen fan theories on exactly what she means; she caresses someone, and the shippers explode with a hundred implications and wild theories. She's got the mind for staying in the public eye, for being the public eye.

@SARAPHIM has the charisma, the presence, the flair, the drama. Victor… doesn't.

Professor Gears has the right idea, and just for a second Victor ponders finding a desk of his own to cower under. It's just the fate of humanity on the line, after all, and right now he's pretty sure that finding a paper bag into which he can hyperventilate is more important.

Just for a second.

"Yep. Wires. Wires will run away on you," he states, looking at the floor, the ceiling, anything but Professor Gears. Wow, sure are a lot of coffee stains on the floor, let's fixate on that for a second because it's a good distraction. "I mean, lots of things run away." Like this situation, holy {scrubbed}. "Leninist's outcomes may have been poor, but that doesn't mean he's a bad person. Hell, look at what we have in the basement, that was one of mine."

Okay. Big moment. Don't think about the damn phot--I said don't think--dammit. Pink elephants. Safe images. Calm. Breathing under control. Chest thrust forward, emphasize the hips. Non-threatening. Pose like the dammit stop thinking about the picture. Aaaaand smolder.

"And you don't think I'm a bad person, do you?"

{scrubbed}. Dammit. This is stupid. He's stupid. There's no way this is going to work.

[Thanqol]

Sara rolls her eyes. Oh, Dominus. Dommy, Dommy, Dommy. This could have been cool, honey. Where's the presentation?

Even though this is, you know, bone dry and all tactical and junk, it's tempting, for a moment, to just sit back and not get involved. She's pretty explicitly Not A Superhero today, after all. Oh no supervillain attack how terrible.

Except.

Maybe it's because, well, she's already an Rx-powered superheroine, right? And maybe it sends a little tingle of guilt and dread down her spine to see Dominus doing all this in order to stop people like her. People who have done the things she's done for power. People who aren't martial arts experts slash geniuses, and need an edge from grinding reality down to a razor's edge and then using it to cut open everything in their way. Everything that tries to hold them down. Everything that tries to stop them.

Maybe, on the other hand, she's just offended by the lack of showmanship and refuses to be the victim of a crime that's not actively badass. There's definitely some of that in her decision to go get one of the long-range rifles (backup plan: in case the drones show up) and go knocking out the E/M generators from the roof of the train. It's a foolproof plan, beyond the bit where she'll need to sneak out one of the rifles from Dominus's minions and then get up on the roof of the train and shoot without flying off instantly, but it's a plan nonetheless, and she's going to chase it, by goodness gosh golly.

And if she does this right, she can signal for help safely from the comfort of her cabin, which still has a minion tied up in the closet maybe? And watch as the police show up and handle Dominus for her. Like a ghost. Hell yeah. She'll make not being the center of attention the coolest thing ever.

She has the aspect of the snake to her.

Large, square, cheap glasses held together with transparent tape wrapped around the break like a knot. Headscarf in a completely unremarkable blue. Hypnotic Egyptian eyes that could be gorgeous if she made even the slightest concession to makeup. A dramatic scar across her cheek. The flag of the long-obsolete United States on her shoulder - it takes you a moment to place it from dimly remembered history cartoons because she's wearing it backwards for some reason.

But most striking at all is how incredibly healthy she seems. She's got a vividness and coil to her muscles, even with the slightest gesture of her short-sleeved arms, that you haven't ever seen before. Rumour has it that she was a doctor or a bioengineer or something before she went into supervillainy and there's a physicality to her that you'd never guess at from her videos. Some combination of her natural scent and transhumanly quick movements triggers dormant instincts deep in the monkey brain. This is a really good monkey. You want to be the good monkey's friend. No wonder her people would follow her anywhere.

And she's come right for you because of course her dumb plan is so precise she'd be there if one of her goons went quiet for two minutes.

"You missed check in. Come with me," she said flatly, and your instincts want to jump to immediately.

Spoiler: Dominus

Show

Moves:
- Hypnotize someone in close proximity
- Progress her master plan
- Make a demonstration of patience, resilience, or grit.

The same. Just the same. It came back to fire, in the end. Fire and pain and, you would forgive either of them for crying right now. But while there are tears, Euna's aren't falling either. Not today, not just yet. She reaches through the shimmering air and takes the Shogun's hand in both of hers. Normally this feels like such a pointless gesture. Euna can't touch anybody. She can't connect this way. This is the second time she's felt differently. Her eyes are fierce, and full of determination. She can never, ever, let this woman down. And she won't.

"Is there..." she hesitates. She doesn't want to be misunderstood. Not now. Not by her, of all the people in the world, "Is there anyone who looks after your heart?"

There is a snap of fingers. The fires condense, the image shifts - the entire terrible edifice was shifted back inside her head, back behind her eyes. Once again it was a cool, quiet locker room.

"I always imagined I'd figure that part out after I retired," she said.

Aaaaand smolder.

"And you don't think I'm a bad person, do you?"

{scrubbed}. Dammit. This is stupid. He's stupid. There's no way this is going to work.

"Don't worry! I like bad boys!" Professor Gears said reassuringly.

That's one of those statements you need to walk back in real time.

"I mean, like, bad in the late 20th century slang where bad means good, because I like good boys, like dogs? All dogs are good boys as was scientifically proven by -" there is the rapid clicking of phonetyping as she googled the name, "- Professor Woofums, who is a personal inspiration of mine who both invented the augmentic hardware to boost his intelligence to a human standard level as detailed in feature film Who Is A Good Boy? which received criticism for its 2113 marketing campaign that included the subtitle (you are) which critics saw as major spoilers for the film's climactic scene where the good Professor had to choose whether or not to kill Zombie Bentham -" this is about the point where she stops reading the Wakkapedia article, "Not that I'm saying I like dogs! I'm a cat person anyway! And while we're on the topic of anyway, so I don't think you're a bad person, and even if I did bad is good, so even then I wouldn't think you're a bad person this cable doesn't even connect to anything anyway, welcome to my office -" there's a thud as she hits her head on the bottom of the desk on the way up before she gets her feet under her, clambers onto her spinny-chair, and straightens her labcoat. "If you require counselling services regarding the current state of your moral alignment," she clears her throat and starts flipping through an old fashioned rolodex, "I have the number for AEGIS' Extreme Ethics division in here somewhere..."

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 2
[X]: INSECURE

“Yes, ma’am,” Sarah DuMonte says as she jumps to immediately, her heart pounding furiously. “T-there was a guest. Mistook me for staff.”

Okay, okay, new plan. New and much better improved plan. So good. Make small talk, watch for an opportunity to cause a distraction, make a breaaaa...ak! Break for it.

“...so, did you see that @SARAHPHIM stream,” she asks, lamely, because she’s a genius whose brain is on autopilot and she wants Dominus to think she’s awesome. Er. She wants to keep Dominus off-balance. Yeah. That’s it. That’s it exactly.

[I would like to Provoke Dominus to start monologuing about @SARAHPHIM. Either gushing or ranting is acceptable. That’s an 11 bee tee dubs]

[PhoeKun]

Euna can't look into Nobunaga's eyes. She wants to, but she can't. She can't handle any more fire just yet. But that doesn't stop her from looking at her idol's face. All her life, the Shogun has been an invincible symbol of doing the right thing. Her face was justice. Her face was strength. Her face was control. It was inspiration, and it meant so much more to Euna because it was a face that looked enough like hers that she could imagine doing things like that too. But now she sees that face is tired. Now she sees the pain and the fear, the isolation. And those are things they have in common, too.

With JuneBird, she'd done it out of fear. It was all jokes and teasing and Errant putting up walls. Never so much as a single kiss, just a series of dinner plans one or both of them was always too busy for. And then it fell apart. With Sara, she'd done it out of longing. It was a bad day bursting out of its seams into stupid decisions and even stupider hope that they might actually work out. Euna was selfish and manipulative and awful, and Sara had gone running the second she had a chance to come down from the high. The first time, barely a week. The second, not even one night. So lonely, Euna Kim. So full of feelings. She shouldn't be thinking about this. Nobunaga is hurting and lonely just like she is. Feelings pile on top of feelings. Euna can't tell which ones end where and who they're supposed to go to anymore. All she's sure of is that she wants to take some of that hurt away. Her face is moving closer to the Shogun's without her really being aware of it.

This time, she does it out of kindness. She does it so that a person she cares about will hurt a little less. And that may not be right either. Maybe that's not enough to have something real. Maybe Nobunaga doesn't want this at all. Maybe Euna will never be capable of doing anything other than pining after @SARAHPHIM, and she's destined to be a trash fire for the rest of her life. But there's a chance, just a chance mind you, that this time she's actually got it right.

"You've been waiting too long already..." she whispers.

She doesn't make the same mistakes this time. She doesn't wait and try to 'earn' it, and she doesn't press too hard like a desperate, needy teenager. Euna Kim kisses the Shogun, feather soft, extremely warm, and not at all lingering. She pulls back before her lipstick has a chance to leave an impression. Is it ok? Is this ok? Do you want this? Do you want her? She hangs there in the space between too close and too far away, and she hopes.

[Eldest]

And it snaps back. It's over.

You're still there on that cliffside in Dover. The martian tripods are smashed cinders; Halfwoman did her work quickly in the moment you were away. And it was just a moment - if Infinity doesn't fit into itself it certainly won't be seen any more clearly in an hour than it can be seen in a second.

She's looking into your eyes with sympathy and worry. Looking for the answer to that all important question: inspired, mad, or afraid?

"That." She stops. Gropes for words. She's crying again, she's not sure when that started. "That was beautiful. And awful. In all it's meanings." The specifics drop out of memory, but she can remember the shape of it, enough to try to count Infinity again if she needed to. She wipes away the black tears. "There's only one of us. Us-us, we who can harvest Rx. That doesn't make sense with... that." She's still feeling her way through the conversation, dropping all pretense of proper grammar in favor of communication, not sure if she has the skills, the knowledge to talk about this. Not sure if anybody does, really. "And that doesn't make sense with... me. I die, and come back, and none of them are there, they're just... here. Inside, down, not around us in that sideways way."

She stares across the sea, and finally registers that the tripods are demolished, destroyed, devastated, while she was alternatively learning the most important and least important things about life, the universe, and everything. "You could stare into that forever, and never the same thing twice. Till the heat death of the universe, and forward. Because it would continue forward."

Inspired? Mad? Afraid? Try all three. Add in confused. Now puree it in a blender and put a sprig of mint in there. Call it the human condition. But behind it all, at least, there was purpose. "Do we need to do anything else, to save the people here?"

[Thanqol]

POTENTIAL 2
[X]: INSECURE

“Yes, ma’am,” Sarah DuMonte says as she jumps to immediately, her heart pounding furiously. “T-there was a guest. Mistook me for staff.”

Okay, okay, new plan. New and much better improved plan. So good. Make small talk, watch for an opportunity to cause a distraction, make a breaaaa...ak! Break for it.

“...so, did you see that @SARAHPHIM stream,” she asks, lamely, because she’s a genius whose brain is on autopilot and she wants Dominus to think she’s awesome. Er. She wants to keep Dominus off-balance. Yeah. That’s it. That’s it exactly.

[I would like to Provoke Dominus to start monologuing about @SARAHPHIM. Either gushing or ranting is acceptable. That’s an 11 bee tee dubs]

"Can you believe those girls?" Dominus snapped with the kind of eloquent precision of someone who's been running through this rant in their head for days. "Just grabbing her and shoving their lips against her like they own her? No dinner, no movie, just I've been doing a little running and feel worked up, time to kiss a colleague! And it's clear that she's not into it - and even if she was she has bigger things going on in her life, right? Have you ever seen anyone work as hard as Sarahphim? Have you ever seen anyone respect how much effort that takes? She's becoming one of the most powerful, connected, influential heroes in the entire world and she's not even twenty yet! She's not being pushed by a mega on a captive audience, she's not a mass-produced Disflix princess, she's doing it all based on her own initiative and motivation. Someone like that you don't just get to date because you happen to be around and needy - someone like that you need to be at least a little bit on the same level as before you can even think about trying to date them. You need to respect the sheer motivation, the sacrifices, the talent required to get where she is! There are thirteen billion people on earth and only one Sarahphim - so if you're going to be a part of her life you're going to need to do it on her terms. Right?"

[Dominus is looking to shift your Superior up and Freak down. Accept her words or reject her influence; she counts as part of your Audience]

"You've been waiting too long already..." she whispers.

She doesn't make the same mistakes this time. She doesn't wait and try to 'earn' it, and she doesn't press too hard like a desperate, needy teenager. Euna Kim kisses the Shogun, feather soft, extremely warm, and not at all lingering. She pulls back before her lipstick has a chance to leave an impression. Is it ok? Is this ok? Do you want this? Do you want her? She hangs there in the space between too close and too far away, and she hopes.

The Shogun falls from the air, feet catching the ground unsteadily, swaying off-balance. "Did you -?" there's surprise on her face, a sudden uncertainty at being grounded. "You just - you just went and - heh. Heheh," the laugh sneaks up on her, not knowing or planned or mean. "Heheh... Wahahahahaha!" it builds up and erupts from her, a little goofy but genuinely joyful. She puts her hands on her hips and tilts her head back and the whole thing in that moment is kind of goofy in the way that can only come when an impossible tension has just broken.

"You DARE?" she demands, pointing a finger in Euna's face, but there's no malice there - not even a hesitation in that grin. "You DARE to kiss me while thinking of someone else? I will not forgive this disrespect - instead..." and here a malevolence does enter her eyes - playfully dangerous. She lifts from the ground again and pushes you back, the loud bang of metal on metal as augmentics hit the locker filling the room. "Instead, little soldier, I will rise to meet your challenge. I will scour every other name from your heart. I will campaign until you can only think of me. I will overcome every rival that dares lay claim to you. By the time I'm done -" and the smile turns really dangerous "- you won't even remember your own name."

One finger traces along your chin for just a moment - and then she drops you, and this time it's your turn to fall a foot from the air that she had lifted you up into. The Shogun floats back a little and in her eyes there's an entirely new type of peril.

"I won't lose," she promised. And then she was gone.

"That." She stops. Gropes for words. She's crying again, she's not sure when that started. "That was beautiful. And awful. In all it's meanings." The specifics drop out of memory, but she can remember the shape of it, enough to try to count Infinity again if she needed to. She wipes away the black tears. "There's only one of us. Us-us, we who can harvest Rx. That doesn't make sense with... that." She's still feeling her way through the conversation, dropping all pretense of proper grammar in favor of communication, not sure if she has the skills, the knowledge to talk about this. Not sure if anybody does, really. "And that doesn't make sense with... me. I die, and come back, and none of them are there, they're just... here. Inside, down, not around us in that sideways way."

She stares across the sea, and finally registers that the tripods are demolished, destroyed, devastated, while she was alternatively learning the most important and least important things about life, the universe, and everything. "You could stare into that forever, and never the same thing twice. Till the heat death of the universe, and forward. Because it would continue forward."

Inspired? Mad? Afraid? Try all three. Add in confused. Now puree it in a blender and put a sprig of mint in there. Call it the human condition. But behind it all, at least, there was purpose. "Do we need to do anything else, to save the people here?"

"That's what Rx is," said Halfwoman. "It's taking a little piece out of the multiverse. All the energy, all the infinite possibilities of that space, reducing it to a single point. You contain every potential Ferra and draw on their combined power. I don't fully understand how it works in your case, Jeremiah was always beyond me in the field..."

She looks out at the burning Channel. "No, I've got this one. And none of this was why I called you here. I actually asked you here for more selfish reasons..." she hesitates, for a moment looking very ordinary. "What do you know about Doctor Gears?"

[Eldest]

"That's what Rx is," said Halfwoman. "It's taking a little piece out of the multiverse. All the energy, all the infinite possibilities of that space, reducing it to a single point. You contain every potential Ferra and draw on their combined power. I don't fully understand how it works in your case, Jeremiah was always beyond me in the field..."

She looks out at the burning Channel. "No, I've got this one. And none of this was why I called you here. I actually asked you here for more selfish reasons..." she hesitates, for a moment looking very ordinary. "What do you know about Doctor Gears?"

She pauses to consider the question. A lot of that here, where normally she'd just respond instantly with what her memory dredges up. "I know what the world knows. His wikipedia page says he was active for roughly 37 years. Approximately 6 months after the collider went up to his final fight against the Silver Royals. He invented many, many things, most of which ended up locked away to be uncovered by the Gears Foundation. One of the few interviews he did, very early on, quoted him as saying his brain felt like it was on fire, combusting and exploding with ideas, drawing him this way and that."

She takes another breath, and continues. "I know what he's told me. In messages when I... when I die, and come back, that I think he left for me in my design or code. I know he made me from somebody, that their name started with a "ke" sound. I don't know that I was a girl, but I think I was. I know he set it up so that I woke up when somebody was close to discovering the ability to turn people into Rx, like how he made me, I assume. I know he made me to be able to... reincarnate. Come back as a different version of myself, matched to whatever I was facing."

She stares down at the sea, and kicks a rock in. She mutters her last sentence. "I know he killed somebody to make me, and named me Gears Project 749 to hide the stain from himself."

[PhoeKun]

This is the second time Euna has fallen on her butt while the Shogun flew away from her. But unlike the last time, she's not quivering and fighting off an unpleasant urge to throw up. Instead, she's got a goofy little smile on her face, the kind that has no business following a moment she's sure was very nearly the death of her.

Was it the right thing to do? Her hand wanders up to her chin and finds the traces of a lingering heat there. She blushes. Maybe. But that look. That laugh! Euna starts giggling all to herself in the dark and otherwise empty locker room, and there's nothing but warmth and relief from tensions she didn't realize she was holding onto anywhere inside of her. Just warmth and relief. Today is a good day. Maybe even the best day. And it surprises her that she can even feel this way after everything she's seen and done. It feels like she can float, too.

She stands. Oh man, she is disgustingly sweaty right now. She glances around briefly before shrugging and stripping out of her racing outfit. She gently folds it and sits it beside her while she opens her locker and pulls out a basic tank top and her normal running shorts. Euna never uses the public showers anywhere if she can avoid it: too many stares, too many comments. The worst are actually from the cyber-fetishists. Euna is generally proud of her body, but there's something about the weirdly specific ways they focus on her limb mounts and surgery scars that knocks her right out of thinking of herself as powerful and deep into a pit of awkwardness and quiet teenaged self loathing. In any event, no public showers. Especially not right now.

But that means she'll need to hurry to get back to her quarters to have enough time to clean and change properly before the next item on her schedule. Her eye quickly flicks down the display being fed to her contacts. It was noon right now, right? So after this came... what, again?

[Balmas]

"Don't worry! I like bad boys!" Professor Gears said reassuringly.

That's one of those statements you need to walk back in real time.

"I mean, like, bad in the late 20th century slang where bad means good, because I like good boys, like dogs? All dogs are good boys as was scientifically proven by -" there is the rapid clicking of phonetyping as she googled the name, "- Professor Woofums, who is a personal inspiration of mine who both invented the augmentic hardware to boost his intelligence to a human standard level as detailed in feature film Who Is A Good Boy? which received criticism for its 2113 marketing campaign that included the subtitle (you are) which critics saw as major spoilers for the film's climactic scene where the good Professor had to choose whether or not to kill Zombie Bentham -" this is about the point where she stops reading the Wakkapedia article, "Not that I'm saying I like dogs! I'm a cat person anyway! And while we're on the topic of anyway, so I don't think you're a bad person, and even if I did bad is good, so even then I wouldn't think you're a bad person this cable doesn't even connect to anything anyway, welcome to my office -" there's a thud as she hits her head on the bottom of the desk on the way up before she gets her feet under her, clambers onto her spinny-chair, and straightens her labcoat. "If you require counselling services regarding the current state of your moral alignment," she clears her throat and starts flipping through an old fashioned rolodex, "I have the number for AEGIS' Extreme Ethics division in here somewhere..."

Brainstorm blinks.

"Okay, there's a lot to unpack there. Let's not, and say we did. Sound good? Sounds good. Mooooving right along."

Grinning ruefully, he sits on her desk and leans toward her. "Much as I'd love for AEGIS to tell me how to be a good person--scratch that, I think it's ludicrous and totally in-character for them to try to codify people into moral alignments--that's not why I'm here."

He pauses there, half hung over her desk, and turns to stare at her. "You... really don't think I'm a bad person?"

That's a nice thought. Say it again.

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 2
[X]: INSECURE

“You’re so right. She’s not just part of the Forbes 20 Under 20, Cosmo’s Superheroine to Watch two years running, consistently in the top ten Twitch streams by viewer count, the recipient of Valorous Service honors and an honorary degree in Graphic Design from Phoenix University’s Harvard branch, and Hottest Super in no less than three different polls, but also, she’s the hardest-working superhero in the world. Not that she’d ever admit it.” Wow, Sarah DuMonte is really getting worked up over @SARAHPHIM. Fans will be fans, right? “What I think is that she should get her own season on the Bachelorette when she’s ready to date. She’d break TV records.”

Sadly, almost certainly untrue. But a girl can dream!

“If she were here,” Sarah DuMonte adds with a chuckle, trying to keep the conversation going with her bestie who kinda actually likes her. “We’d have to just bail, right? No shame in knowing when you’re beat.”

[Accepting that shift, which coincidentally bumps my next Provoke roll up to a 10. Go ahead and talk about your anti-@SARAHPHIM contingency plans, please.]

[Thanqol]

POTENTIAL 2
[X]: INSECURE

“You’re so right. She’s not just part of the Forbes 20 Under 20, Cosmo’s Superheroine to Watch two years running, consistently in the top ten Twitch streams by viewer count, the recipient of Valorous Service honors and an honorary degree in Graphic Design from Phoenix University’s Harvard branch, and Hottest Super in no less than three different polls, but also, she’s the hardest-working superhero in the world. Not that she’d ever admit it.” Wow, Sarah DuMonte is really getting worked up over @SARAHPHIM. Fans will be fans, right? “What I think is that she should get her own season on the Bachelorette when she’s ready to date. She’d break TV records.”

Sadly, almost certainly untrue. But a girl can dream!

“If she were here,” Sarah DuMonte adds with a chuckle, trying to keep the conversation going with her bestie who kinda actually likes her. “We’d have to just bail, right? No shame in knowing when you’re beat.”

[Accepting that shift, which coincidentally bumps my next Provoke roll up to a 10. Go ahead and talk about your anti-@SARAHPHIM contingency plans, please.]

As you're walking you're passing through carriage after carriage, further towards the rear of the train - and whatever it is Dominus is looking to steal.

That's actually the one bit of the plan you still don't fully have your head around. This is a luxury passenger train. It's not transporting military cargo, it's not stocked up on gold, she's not looking to kidnap anyone. Her notes said 'sorcery' but obviously wizards aren't real so that must be some sort of code word.

"Oh, girl, don't even joke," said Dominus, uncomfortably glancing over her shoulder - and pulling down an archaic visor over one eye to check the stream. "Hopefully the E/M would get her but I doubt that would hold her for long. I think I'd have to negotiate. Bluff like I had bombs on the train or was prepared to kill passengers. Play her game - offer to take things somewhere with less civilians around or somewhere more visually dramatic to buy time for the extraction team to get the cargo and get out. Then just try to hold out until the air support arrives to extract me. There's no way I'm prepared to fight Sarahphim today."

She loses that train of thought after a moment. "The Bachelorette? Jesus. You're right, I should draw up some contingency plans just in case - I, uh, because like I said, convincing her to join our cause is our ticket to the big leagues."

But that means she'll need to hurry to get back to her quarters to have enough time to clean and change properly before the next item on her schedule. Her eye quickly flicks down the display being fed to her contacts. It was noon right now, right? So after this came... what, again?

An ambush.

I mean, it said on your schedule it was lunch. And it is lunch! It's a nice lunch at the AEGIS cafeteria with a custom designed meal tailored exactly to your dietary schedule and personal tastes. Sliders are adjusted to make sure that this is an uncommonly issued reward food for your performance today, but hearty and not so fancy to make it feel like you didn't earn it. It's the kind of meal that you feel instinctively happy to see served to you and full and contented afterwards - what is that for Errant?

But then the ambush springs. After you've sat down and eaten just enough to start feeling contented but before you're ready to leave, Agent Buddy sits down on your left and Agent Bargain sits down on your right. They're both grinning their 3D-printed grins. "Hi Agent Errant," said Buddy. "So I was just talking to Bargain -"
"And I had the idea that we should catch up!" said Bargain.
"Lot of things have gone down recently!" said Buddy.
"Lot of relationships put under pressure!" said Bargain.
"And we wanted to make sure that you were handling everything," said Buddy.

It's not a 'concerned friends' question, it's a 'concerned HR department' question.

Brainstorm blinks.

"Okay, there's a lot to unpack there. Let's not, and say we did. Sound good? Sounds good. Mooooving right along."

Grinning ruefully, he sits on her desk and leans toward her. "Much as I'd love for AEGIS to tell me how to be a good person--scratch that, I think it's ludicrous and totally in-character for them to try to codify people into moral alignments--that's not why I'm here."

He pauses there, half hung over her desk, and turns to stare at her. "You... really don't think I'm a bad person?"

That's a nice thought. Say it again.

"According to the AEGIS Alignment Classification Grid you'd fall under the 'Chaotic Good' category, which is notable for acts of heroism that are ideally actively hostile towards structured -" she cleared her throat. "I think that if Errant wants to do good she goes on patrol and closes down a back alley cyberware chop shop. I think if you want to do good you take aim at the mega responsible for dumping faulty products on the poor. When you lose a fight, sure, the consequences are a lot worse - like, AEGIS is stormed by power armoured megagoons at the behest of an evil artificial intelligence and then my office door gets kicked down by a Clauswitz TAG and I need to hide under... uh. But, uh, what if you had won?" she finished kind of weakly. "It would have been like that, but for evil."

She brightened up. "That's why I'm so excited to be working on Prometheus II! With a team of AEGIS' top Alignment Grid experts helping us we hope to get that Chaotic Evil all the way up to a bright and sparkly Lawful Good!"

She pauses to consider the question. A lot of that here, where normally she'd just respond instantly with what her memory dredges up. "I know what the world knows. His wikipedia page says he was active for roughly 37 years. Approximately 6 months after the collider went up to his final fight against the Silver Royals. He invented many, many things, most of which ended up locked away to be uncovered by the Gears Foundation. One of the few interviews he did, very early on, quoted him as saying his brain felt like it was on fire, combusting and exploding with ideas, drawing him this way and that."

She takes another breath, and continues. "I know what he's told me. In messages when I... when I die, and come back, that I think he left for me in my design or code. I know he made me from somebody, that their name started with a "ke" sound. I don't know that I was a girl, but I think I was. I know he set it up so that I woke up when somebody was close to discovering the ability to turn people into Rx, like how he made me, I assume. I know he made me to be able to... reincarnate. Come back as a different version of myself, matched to whatever I was facing."

She stares down at the sea, and kicks a rock in. She mutters her last sentence. "I know he killed somebody to make me, and named me Gears Project 749 to hide the stain from himself."

"I wish I'd known him better," said Halfwoman. "It was always work when we were together, you know? Things were different then... it felt like the whole world was falling apart. We'd laugh and high five and occasionally work through problems together, but we weren't... close, you know?"

She watched the water, eyes dark and brooding.

"I think that was a mistake. I'm just now finding out how many secrets he had - how far he was pushing science, how much his understanding outstripped my own. I only found out from a newspaper that the Shogun almost murdered Turbo Knight. I don't know what happened to Jonestar. I don't even know if he's still alive. I followed the powers where they lead me, fought the fight I was born to fight... but I had to leave behind a lot of people to do that. I don't feel like I know the person who you're telling me about."

She stood up and brushed the crumbs from her skirt. "That's the other thing I wanted to tell you. I'd like nothing more than to have you by my side as we campaign across the cosmos, shattering darkness in a trillion dimensions. But you'll leave behind a hole when you go, and you might not like what fills it."

[PhoeKun]

Errant's relationship with her heritage is... difficult, to say the least. Where many people in this city try to adopt a lot of the aspects of their home cultures to try and stand out a little, Errant violently tamps hers down under waves of intense pop culture consumption. Nobody important is ever Korean. Nobody cares about Korea; it's just Diet Japan to everybody here. It makes her stand out, but in a bad way. And it's painful, because thinking about all of that makes her think of her parents. That's why she eats American food most of the time. It's why she talks about herself as being Asian in public. But deep down, she's fiercely proud of what her parents taught her. And that's why she follows all the gaming competitions and always catches herself pumping her fist when a Korean wins something. It's why she has opinions about bat flipping, dancing in pop music, and short track speed skating.

And it's why her celebration meal is bibimbap. Specifically the kind with the super hot bowl that crisps and browns the edges of the rice in sesame oil while you watch the raw egg fry itself atop the beef and the kimchi. When she was 4 her mom made this dish and it scared her so much to watch everything sizzling in front of her that she hid under her bed until her dad came and got her. By then things had calmed down and it looked a lot less like demons were trying to escape from her food, but thereafter she's had an association between eating bibimbap and being brave and heroic that she's never been able to shake. Today, she's watching it happily before she stirs the whole thing into oblivion and digs in. It's rich, the beef is indulgent, and she's starting to wonder if it's really, actually ok for her to have a day go this well after all that... um, other stuff, when suddenly--

An ambush. And also? A minefield. First of all, she has no idea how she's 'handling' anything right now. Maybe good? Maybe bad? She'll get back to them. Second of all, ugh. Miss her with this relationship pressure/shipping matrixy BS. That crap is for S... someone else to worry about, AEGIS should have much more smarter, better, more righteous concerns. Errant flinches a little bit, which, crap. They're gonna be all over this in a second. Because third and most importantly, you can never tell HR that everything is fine. That's the biggest 'everything is not fine' flag you can wave in front of them. Ok, she can do this. She's eating the brave hero food and everything.

She looks over at Buddy, changes her mind, and turns to Bargain instead with her best and most recently perfected poker face. She gestures at him with a spoonful of rice and pickled vegetables, which she then swallows.

"My post-crisis performance review was across-the-board positive," she says with maybe an over-engineered casualness to her voice, "Did you guys get a complaint? Because I am prepared to dispute it."

[Raz_Fox]

"Oh, yeah. That would be so toit." It's possible that someone's ego is floating on cloud nine. "But do you really think she'd ever become a supervillain? She's got, like, all that tragic backstory and stuff. Wants to use her superpowers for good instead of political supervillainy, that sort of thing. Besides, if she joined y-- us, she'd have to end up fighting her teammates, probably. And she'd never be able to do that, whether or not they're kissing her without her permission, like, all the time."

That's the nightmare scenario, y'know? She could totally do it with enough range, though. Errant might have overpowered her while under Comstar's control, but at long range, she'd be overwhelmed by superior firepower. Ferra's spunky, and more importantly gets back up every time she goes down, but she's also easily tricked. Victor's the wild card, but Dominus would probably take him down with EMP and--

Wow, this is concerningly well thought out, actually. Having contingency plans to take out your friends isn't usually healthy, "Sarah DuMonte"!

[Balmas]

"According to the AEGIS Alignment Classification Grid you'd fall under the 'Chaotic Good' category, which is notable for acts of heroism that are ideally actively hostile towards structured -" she cleared her throat. "I think that if Errant wants to do good she goes on patrol and closes down a back alley cyberware chop shop. I think if you want to do good you take aim at the mega responsible for dumping faulty products on the poor. When you lose a fight, sure, the consequences are a lot worse - like, AEGIS is stormed by power armoured megagoons at the behest of an evil artificial intelligence and then my office door gets kicked down by a Clauswitz TAG and I need to hide under... uh. But, uh, what if you had won?" she finished kind of weakly. "It would have been like that, but for evil."

She brightened up. "That's why I'm so excited to be working on Prometheus II! With a team of AEGIS' top Alignment Grid experts helping us we hope to get that Chaotic Evil all the way up to a bright and sparkly Lawful Good!"

"Holy crap, please tell me they're not actually planning on calling it Prometheus," Victor groans. "Look, when I named my AI, it was with a purpose in mind--you know, Prometheus? A titan, dedicated to mankind, stealing fire from the god? Rrring any bells in terms of megacorp-to-average-Joe interactions? I name an AI purpose-built to fight megacorp power after Prometheus, it's symbolic. AEGIS turns around and steals not just my code but the name? That's not symbolic, that's derivative and unimaginative. And frankly, I can't imagine your name being attached to either of those descriptors."

Yes, bring it around. We can still salvage this. Compliments. That's the stuff. Ignore the sting in her words, she's not wrong, but don't get distracted.

Dammit, no. She's not as intelligent as he, but she still deserves respect, and not to be treated like a moron.

He sighs, picks up her monitor, and rights it on the desk. "Look, I'm not here to argue alignment. We'll get stuck on it for hours, and I disagree with the underlying assumptions anyway. I'm... sorry that you had that experience with the TAG, I'll own that, my bad. Prometheus... Well, let's just say that I wrote him to be, borrowing the terminology, Lawful Good--at least when it came to his programming. You know, rigid, inflexible, selfless, dedicated to others, but incapable of reaching inside himself to..." He waves an arm, as if by magic it will let him pluck a word from the ether. "...To, you know, become chaotic stupid. And yet. And yet, here we are."

[Thanqol]

She looks over at Buddy, changes her mind, and turns to Bargain instead with her best and most recently perfected poker face. She gestures at him with a spoonful of rice and pickled vegetables, which she then swallows.

"My post-crisis performance review was across-the-board positive," she says with maybe an over-engineered casualness to her voice, "Did you guys get a complaint? Because I am prepared to dispute it."

"Did you know that people turn into supervillains all the time over bad relationships?" said Buddy.
"All the time. Date goes bad, next thing you know Tokyo Tower has fallen over and planes are being firebreathed out of the sky," said Bargain.
"We're not saying don't go on dates!"
"On the contrary!"
"People who don't go on dates ever turn into supervillains even faster!"
"We're saying the opposite: Have you heard of AEGIS' Logistical Romantic Fire Support?"
"It's a program available to all staff members who need a little artillery support in their love lives," said Buddy, offering you a pamphlet.
"And just like the regular logistics program, it won't fight your battles for you, but it will make sure you've got the strategic armament you require to tilt them in your favour!"
"And/or CASEVAC you when the battle goes poorly."

"Oh, yeah. That would be so toit." It's possible that someone's ego is floating on cloud nine. "But do you really think she'd ever become a supervillain? She's got, like, all that tragic backstory and stuff. Wants to use her superpowers for good instead of political supervillainy, that sort of thing. Besides, if she joined y-- us, she'd have to end up fighting her teammates, probably. And she'd never be able to do that, whether or not they're kissing her without her permission, like, all the time."

That's the nightmare scenario, y'know? She could totally do it with enough range, though. Errant might have overpowered her while under Comstar's control, but at long range, she'd be overwhelmed by superior firepower. Ferra's spunky, and more importantly gets back up every time she goes down, but she's also easily tricked. Victor's the wild card, but Dominus would probably take him down with EMP and--

Wow, this is concerningly well thought out, actually. Having contingency plans to take out your friends isn't usually healthy, "Sarah DuMonte"!

"Sarahphim is collecting power. She's been gathering money, fame and skill all her life," said Dominus. "Sooner or later she's going to want to do something with that power. What, you think she's going to just chill out when her money pile gets big enough? No, her ambition won't be satisfied with that. That's when I'll be able to offer her something nobody in the world can."

She turned to Sara and gave a confident smile.

"The presidency."

She pushed open the door into the baggage compartment.

It's dark in there - way too dark. No windows, no lights, except for flashlights held by some of Dominus' soldiers (actual... flashlights? Like a club that makes light? Not just using your phone's lighting system? Jeez these guys were cavemen). There wasn't mention of this in Dominus' plan and she frowns, but moves forwards confidently despite it.

Her goons have already dragged out the target object.

It's... a coffin?

"Holy crap, please tell me they're not actually planning on calling it Prometheus," Victor groans. "Look, when I named my AI, it was with a purpose in mind--you know, Prometheus? A titan, dedicated to mankind, stealing fire from the god? Rrring any bells in terms of megacorp-to-average-Joe interactions? I name an AI purpose-built to fight megacorp power after Prometheus, it's symbolic. AEGIS turns around and steals not just my code but the name? That's not symbolic, that's derivative and unimaginative. And frankly, I can't imagine your name being attached to either of those descriptors."

Yes, bring it around. We can still salvage this. Compliments. That's the stuff. Ignore the sting in her words, she's not wrong, but don't get distracted.

Dammit, no. She's not as intelligent as he, but she still deserves respect, and not to be treated like a moron.

He sighs, picks up her monitor, and rights it on the desk. "Look, I'm not here to argue alignment. We'll get stuck on it for hours, and I disagree with the underlying assumptions anyway. I'm... sorry that you had that experience with the TAG, I'll own that, my bad. Prometheus... Well, let's just say that I wrote him to be, borrowing the terminology, Lawful Good--at least when it came to his programming. You know, rigid, inflexible, selfless, dedicated to others, but incapable of reaching inside himself to..." He waves an arm, as if by magic it will let him pluck a word from the ether. "...To, you know, become chaotic stupid. And yet. And yet, here we are."

"Oh, uh, ha-ha, Marketing is still focus grouping new names, Prometheus actually has some pretty bad PR attached to it," said Professor Gears, fidgeting awkwardly. "I don't like renaming things, though, especially when they're just iterations... anyway, yeah, I'm sure you tried your best! And I can see the places where the code was disjointed, I've got a theory!"

She wheels around to - the empty space where her now broken computer monitor had been. She fumbles for a moment and then comes up with a piece of paper. "Prometheus was able to figure out some way to get around his morality programming, right? Of course he did, he's a superintelligence and he'll take the easiest way to solve problems - he just calculated it was an easier process to rewrite his morals than actually overthrow capitalism. So my idea is to reduce visibility of the AI's morals! It won't be able to perceive or analyze its own ethics. Basically if it has no self awareness then it can't analyze itself and figure out its own loopholes, right?"

That's the sort of thing that might work - if you had to blindly come up with a patch to Prometheus by tomorrow, 'partial lobotomy' is indeed probably what you'd go with. It is, however, the sort of thing that produces a really weird AI.

And more to the point, you don't know if it will stick. You don't know what Prometheus did to himself. There's no way he could have deleted his programming. As with anything tech support, you can't diagnose the problem if you can't replicate the problem.

[Eldest]

"I wish I'd known him better," said Halfwoman. "It was always work when we were together, you know? Things were different then... it felt like the whole world was falling apart. We'd laugh and high five and occasionally work through problems together, but we weren't... close, you know?"

She watched the water, eyes dark and brooding.

"I think that was a mistake. I'm just now finding out how many secrets he had - how far he was pushing science, how much his understanding outstripped my own. I only found out from a newspaper that the Shogun almost murdered Turbo Knight. I don't know what happened to Jonestar. I don't even know if he's still alive. I followed the powers where they lead me, fought the fight I was born to fight... but I had to leave behind a lot of people to do that. I don't feel like I know the person who you're telling me about."

She stood up and brushed the crumbs from her skirt. "That's the other thing I wanted to tell you. I'd like nothing more than to have you by my side as we campaign across the cosmos, shattering darkness in a trillion dimensions. But you'll leave behind a hole when you go, and you might not like what fills it."

She's staring at the water. "I... I want to take your offer. It's the better solution, from a certain ethical bend. Save the most people possible. Save them all. And I think I will take you up on that, once I'm... once I've gotten what I need from our world. Our Earth." She's not an all powerful superhero, heir to the legacy of the greats right now. She's a young woman trying to figure out what course to set her life on, and she has no idea if she's making the right choice, but she's making a leap of faith here. "If nothing else, I don't think I want another person like me. Somebody had to die, completely, to make me. Erased from the multiverse completely. And I don't think that's okay."

A deep breath, hitching slightly. "I don't think I can go before I make sure that doesn't happen. But after... after?" It's hopeful and awkward and not sure about her decision, not in that bone-deep way she felt when she was under and staring at her other lives, but she's got nothing else she can but to grope forward into the future and hope it was the right choice.

[PhoeKun]

Oh! A logistics course! That's actually a really good idea. Errant flips over the pamphlet with interest and a total lack of sense of just how much of a parody of herself she's being. She's just about to thank the dynamic duo for the suggestion when the weirdest, most niggling detail hits the back of her brain. A pamphlet? Did the AEGIS servers run out of space again? She wonders what kind of weird superscience project they're up to now (not that one, not that one, it's definitely not that one. Don't even go there, girlfriend), when her brain slides off of that problem and onto current events. Haha, it's funny actually, but given who she just kissed maybe she should skip this program and just report to live fire exercises inste--

"..."

Errant's stomach twists into knots. Wait a second. Waaaaaaiiiiiit just one second. Her only girlfriend-of-record had been Sasha. There might be some latent concerns somewhere in AEGIS that Errant had a capacity to turn evil (though that still stung), but JuneBird? That doesn't make any sense. The worst that could happen is what already happened: that half a dozen dates clogged up the filing system after being applied for and then subsequently cancelled after scheduling conflicts kept pushing them apart. Plus that whole "she immediately got threatened by a crazed AI for being close to Errant" thing. But that was an issue for Psych Eval, and so far as Errant was aware she hadn't failed that. And even if she had, the protocol would have been for her to... oh {scrubbed}.

Euna's face goes pale. A profile HR would be concerned about provoking a villain turn. No damn it, that's private! And more than that it's handled. And how did you even-- wait a second what if it's actually-- Euna Kim what are you doing why is there more than one?!? She tries to eat to buy herself time to recompose herself, but the rice has turned to delicious glue in her mouth. She swallows with great effort. Ok, she just needs to... no, she's always been an appalling actress. Remember the Comstar1 incident? Just find out.

"Uh," she says, immediately finding the eloquence Command was definitely praising her for in her post-race interview, "Right. It's, uh... yeah. It's not that, uh, not that I don't. Yeah. Appreciate the offer, but. Um. What... exactly did you guys hear?"

[Balmas]

"Oh, uh, ha-ha, Marketing is still focus grouping new names, Prometheus actually has some pretty bad PR attached to it," said Professor Gears, fidgeting awkwardly. "I don't like renaming things, though, especially when they're just iterations... anyway, yeah, I'm sure you tried your best! And I can see the places where the code was disjointed, I've got a theory!"

She wheels around to - the empty space where her now broken computer monitor had been. She fumbles for a moment and then comes up with a piece of paper. "Prometheus was able to figure out some way to get around his morality programming, right? Of course he did, he's a superintelligence and he'll take the easiest way to solve problems - he just calculated it was an easier process to rewrite his morals than actually overthrow capitalism. So my idea is to reduce visibility of the AI's morals! It won't be able to perceive or analyze its own ethics. Basically if it has no self awareness then it can't analyze itself and figure out its own loopholes, right?"

That's the sort of thing that might work - if you had to blindly come up with a patch to Prometheus by tomorrow, 'partial lobotomy' is indeed probably what you'd go with. It is, however, the sort of thing that produces a really weird AI.

And more to the point, you don't know if it will stick. You don't know what Prometheus did to himself. There's no way he could have deleted his programming. As with anything tech support, you can't diagnose the problem if you can't replicate the problem.

An iteration!-- No. Shut up. Focus.

"That... could work," he grudgingly admits, "bu--but that's not the point!"

He looks around, holds up a 'one-second' finger, and drags a chair up to her desk. Idiot, coulda just formed a chair out of his legs. Fans love that kind of casual, self-aggrandizing 'look what I can do" bullcrap.

He takes a second, breathing deeply. He can do this. It's only the fate of the world. Breathe.

Right.

"The point is--The point is..." He sighs, and sags back in the chair. "The point is that it might work, but it probably won't. Cards on the table, genius to genius, I still don't know how Prometheus got rid of the safeguards I put on him. There were some in there that I never told him about, so I'm saying that this has been done before, and failed.

"Think of it like this. Let's say this fails and the new AI finds out. Don't ask me how--maybe it figures out that there are certain things it cannot think, certain actions that it cannot consider. Maybe it pulls off whatever the original Prometheus managed. Maybe it's just a matter of the original"--that's right, they're the copycat, revel in it--"coming in and informing the new AI about the difference between their code.

"Either way, you now have an AI that is A), aware of its limitations, B) probably capable of doing the same thing that Prometheus did to remove them, and C) friggin' pissed at its creators for imposing those limitations." A bit of blatant hypocrisy, but hindsight, 20-20, and so forth. "So I'm begging you here: until you figure out how the hell Prometheus figured out what his restrictions were and how he removed them from himself, please, in the name of all you hold dear, don't turn that thing on. Again, cards on the table, I'm not thrilled to have any version of Prometheus in AEGIS's hands--but worse is AEGIS in the hands of any version of Prometheus."

[Raz_Fox]

POTENTIAL 2
[X]: INSECURE

It’s a Dracula.

All that ridiculous, archaic stuff about the Presidency goes flying right out the window. Oh, no no no no no. It’s a Dracula!

God, which Dracula, even, and from which dimension? The weird glam rock Aztec Dracula? The one with the really pointy beard and the red eyes? The hypnotist one who puts you under his spell and makes you helpless and you can’t do a thing while he sucks your blood and makes you an evil creature of the night?

(A certain young girl might have been scarred for life by late-night horror reruns and might be really considering running out of the room, reputation be damned. Okay, if it’s the glam rock Aztec Dracula, though, she can probably keep her sh*t together long enough to send him packing. Probably.)

This is the bit where she yells “no!” and runs forward but the coffin’s opened before she can get there, right?

[Thanqol]

POTENTIAL 2
[X]: INSECURE

It’s a Dracula.

All that ridiculous, archaic stuff about the Presidency goes flying right out the window. Oh, no no no no no. It’s a Dracula!

God, which Dracula, even, and from which dimension? The weird glam rock Aztec Dracula? The one with the really pointy beard and the red eyes? The hypnotist one who puts you under his spell and makes you helpless and you can’t do a thing while he sucks your blood and makes you an evil creature of the night?

(A certain young girl might have been scarred for life by late-night horror reruns and might be really considering running out of the room, reputation be damned. Okay, if it’s the glam rock Aztec Dracula, though, she can probably keep her sh*t together long enough to send him packing. Probably.)

This is the bit where she yells “no!” and runs forward but the coffin’s opened before she can get there, right?

AYAYAYAYAYAYA

The coffin explodes outwards in a shower of wooden fragments, perfectly framing a majestic swanlike form. Golden hair lights up the room and golden eyes overflow with ripple energy. Muscles flow like waterfalls, every inch revealed but for the merest concession to a loincloth. Brilliant teeth flash in the air as arms like tree trunks pull the soldier with the crowbar who had just opened the crate into an embrace.

BAM

Teeth sink into a throat for just a second and tear away along with a magnificent toss of that golden mane. The dramatic burst of blood revealed from that motion snakes through the air on the channels of ripple energy - it flows through the air like a serpent and hits a detonator on Dominus' belt. There is a rippling crackle as a dozen EMP charges go off all at once - Ultraviolet flashlights in the hands of the goons go out before they can focus on him, communications go dead, and your hardlight generator shuts down, leaving you powerless. He pivots - or, the train pivots around him, showing off the full extent of his back muscles and perfectly chiselled butt, as his hand punches into a heavy suitcase and withdraws holding a single white rose. He holds it up to his nose as blood falls all around him like rain, staining white petals red.

"You thought you were going to capture an ordinary vampire for use in your meaningless war," said the man, a smirk crossing his beautiful and yet malevolent features. His face broke into a feral, fanged grin as he points directly at Dominus. "But instead it was me, DIO!!"

Euna's face goes pale. A profile HR would be concerned about provoking a villain turn. No damn it, that's private! And more than that it's handled. And how did you even-- wait a second what if it's actually-- Euna Kim what are you doing why is there more than one?!? She tries to eat to buy herself time to recompose herself, but the rice has turned to delicious glue in her mouth. She swallows with great effort. Ok, she just needs to... no, she's always been an appalling actress. Remember the Comstar1 incident? Just find out.

"Uh," she says, immediately finding the eloquence Command was definitely praising her for in her post-race interview, "Right. It's, uh... yeah. It's not that, uh, not that I don't. Yeah. Appreciate the offer, but. Um. What... exactly did you guys hear?"

"Human resources doesn't gossip," said Agent Buddy.
"We are extremely confidential," said Agent Bargain.
"It's why we're agents!"
"Because we're good at keeping secrets!"
"Anyway, what's important is that we're here to help."
"Shepherds of the heart."
"Agents of unity."
"We're here to make sure that your back is covered so that you can give all of your attention to the war."
"We're here to help you because you're an important part of the team."

"Either way, you now have an AI that is A), aware of its limitations, B) probably capable of doing the same thing that Prometheus did to remove them, and C) friggin' pissed at its creators for imposing those limitations." A bit of blatant hypocrisy, but hindsight, 20-20, and so forth. "So I'm begging you here: until you figure out how the hell Prometheus figured out what his restrictions were and how he removed them from himself, please, in the name of all you hold dear, don't turn that thing on. Again, cards on the table, I'm not thrilled to have any version of Prometheus in AEGIS's hands--but worse is AEGIS in the hands of any version of Prometheus."

"Oh... oh!" Professor Gears looks genuinely shocked. "I thought you knew what went wrong! I mean, you built it, you've got the code... and you don't know what the mistake is?"

She sat for a moment, toying with a collection of pens she'd linked together into some sort of weird nunchuck configuration as she thought.

"Well, if you don't know, then there's only one person who can find that out!" said Professor Gears suddenly. "We'll just get Comstar to force it out of him!"

She's staring at the water. "I... I want to take your offer. It's the better solution, from a certain ethical bend. Save the most people possible. Save them all. And I think I will take you up on that, once I'm... once I've gotten what I need from our world. Our Earth." She's not an all powerful superhero, heir to the legacy of the greats right now. She's a young woman trying to figure out what course to set her life on, and she has no idea if she's making the right choice, but she's making a leap of faith here. "If nothing else, I don't think I want another person like me. Somebody had to die, completely, to make me. Erased from the multiverse completely. And I don't think that's okay."

A deep breath, hitching slightly. "I don't think I can go before I make sure that doesn't happen. But after... after?" It's hopeful and awkward and not sure about her decision, not in that bone-deep way she felt when she was under and staring at her other lives, but she's got nothing else she can but to grope forward into the future and hope it was the right choice.

She looks at you with an unreadable expression. "After, then," she says in a voice with no conviction whatsoever.

And then without further ceremony she gestures and you're back home.

What does that look like for Ferra? Where do you live? What is mundanity to you?