Child's Play

[Shinigori V2]

"I don't know about you," Janet begins, "but I'd still want to have it. Even if we don't need to eat, it's..Nice, y'know? And we should take anything we might even kind of need, I guess."

[Idran1701]

Sam nods. "Yeah, I still kinda feel hungry after a while even though I know I don't need stuff like that. The rest of you don't?"

[Shinigori V2]

"No, I definitely do." Janet adds.

[ChristianC]

"Yeah, m-me too." Alexis piped up, looking at the clauset thoughtfully, "but we should probably get something e-easy to eat... in case we have to hurry."

[BrainWalker]

Max picks up on the group's general uncertainty as to what to bring, and throws up a partially genuine bust mostly comedic shrug. "Hey, if we're fighting viruses, why don't we bring along some giant blue, red, and yellow two-color pill capsules?"

"Seriously though, does anyone have even the slightest idea how to troubleshoot network and/or computer problems from the inside? I barely understand how to do it from the outside. It's not like we can just fiddle around with the menus until we find something that looks like it might be useful. Should we bring a toolbox? A blowtorch? Duct tape? Antibiotics? Spackle? Cheesecake?" Max glances at Enzo. "Can we download some kind of diagnostic tool or something?"

[Idran1701]

Laughing at Max's proposal, Sam brings up his own, only half-serious. "Hey, can we bring a smaller closet? Then we don't hafta worry about it at all!"

[Kelne]

Emily frowned, "I don't know. I mean, if the closet got infected, who knows what it might start spitting out at us? I think we should take only what we really need and travel light."

[Animala]

"I dunno, ten seconds is a really long time in a fight, right, Kid?" Lauren said, appealing to the only other person she knew was used to fighting. "I...kinda got into a lot of fights before I came here."

Ambassador Leafshade looked up from Lauren's shoulder and intejected, "They deserved it, though."

Lauren ignored her, continuing, "...and a lot of the ones I won didn't really last too much longer than that."

Lauren hmmed at Max's suggestion. "Maybe we can just fiddle around, though." Lauren said, chewing on her finger in thought. "I mean, if we pull a cake out of the closet here, what is it? It tastes like cake, but what does it look like outside? Is it a picture of a cake, or a cake recipe or just the word CAKE over and over? But whatever it is, it looks and tastes like cake. I bet when we see how things are broken, it'll be obvious how to fix it. So if we come back, it'll be easy. Maybe we should just each take something small that makes sense to us. Like a dishrag for cleaning up the system or something. Maybe we'll get lucky!"

[Besyanteo]

Enzo let Lauren finish before answering Max directly:

"The simple answer is that we can't be sure that we can fix it. If we think we can, awesome, we'll do it. If not, then I analyze the data that looks like it's causing the problem, we leave and report back to the adults on what we've found. So, you know, no big deal either way, probably."

He looked at and spoke to the others as a whole then:

"And we aren't sure that there's a virus, which is why we're not unlocking weapons yet. We can at least wait until we get in and then make a decision after looking around a little."

[Shinigori V2]

Kid frowns, crossing her arms. "So, are we grabbin' junk, or what?"

[NebulaQueen]

"Yeah, lets get it and head out - oh, and Enzo?" She turned to face him, and said, "I know we don't know if there's a virus or not...but I think Lauren's right. I'd rather have our stuff now and not need it than not have it when we do. Besides, we've all been learning how to do this sorta stuff, right? It's not like we're gonna shoot our eyes out or anything."

[Shinigori V2]

"No." Janet says. "Enzo's right. Think about it. What if it's a test? What if we go into that flaredrive, and they notice we unlocked our weapons? I really think we need to survey the situation first."

[NebulaQueen]

"So...you don't think there's enough room for us and our guns?"

[Shinigori V2]

"No, I mean, what if we unlock our weapons and they notice? There's no reason to have them unlocked yet, we don't even know if there's anything we need to beat up. We'll just look like we were waiting to unlock them. It might send the wrong message."

[NebulaQueen]

"Yeah, but if we don't, we could look careless. We want to look prepared, don't we?"

[BrainWalker]

Enzo's reply was surprisingly simple, sensible, and straightforward. Sort of re-framed the whole situation.

"You know, I kind of get the feeling that the majority of what we do in here is some kind of test. Not like, a pass or fail kind of test; I mean, they're just seeing how we act, what we can and can't do, that sort of thing. I mean, no one's ever done anything like Project Bluesky before. This whole thing is uncharted territory for D52. And humanity as a whole, I guess. They want to know what they can expect from us."

Max reaches into the closet and pulls out a roll of duct tape.

"Anyway, I'm taking some duct tape. If it's fixin' we need to do, you can't go wrong with duct tape. You know, unless you do."

"Too bad they probably wouldn't let me have a torch."

[Idran1701]

"Well...if that's what they wanna know, then we shouldn't worry about it." Sam stands near the door, thinking on other things they might be able to use in any situation. "'Cause I think maybe Enzo's right, 'cause he's right a lot. But that means that they dunno what's the right answer. So we should just do whatever we'd do, an' not worry 'bout it. 'Cause I know we won't do anything bad, and that means they'll see that too."

"Maybe we should bring, like...stuff for bad weather, an' stuff? If stuff's bad there, then it might be like it's raining or snowing or stuff." He pulls out a set of parkas, customized for each of the Wunderkind here. "Does that make sense?"

[ChristianC]

After much deliberation, Alexis decided to leave Pervical in the closet, all the while listening to the others. "I think Sam is right... we're told everything we should know, and they wouldn't be testing to see if we believe them or not... and if they were, that'd be really w-weird. I think we should just try to do our best and not w-worry so much about what the grown-ups expect us to do."

[Kelne]

Emily nodded, "Absolutely," she said, "I think we can leave the weapons for now; We can always unlock them after we arrive if we need to." For her part, she helped herself to a powerful flashlight from the closet. It was difficult to tell what they might need. They shouldn't be in the damaged section all that long, and there didn't seem much point in carrying tools when they'd probably just wind up doing any reprogramming in their heads.

[NebulaQueen]

Well, it looked like she was outnumbered. The others raised a good point, though; they could at least wait until after they were at the right spot, right? Arguing right now seemed a bit silly...but even so, Silvie couldn't help but be a little annoyed.

It didn't matter now, though. Silvie walked in, grabbed a flashlight for herself, a poncho, some jerky and water, a long length of rope, and a knapsack to put it all in.

[ChristianC]

Alexia grabbed a poncho for herself, a camouflage patterned in the same darkgreen and mossgreen as her uniform, and inspected it closely before putting it down in a backpack spawned for the occasion. Likewise she retrieved some rope, a flashlight, climbing hooks (you never knew), and something she'd used occasionally, a tin-jar of coal-paint, barely filling her palm. She didn't really have any reason, other than that there might be a chance they'd meet something dangerous.

[Besyanteo]

Enzo was going to ask about the ponchos, but as he thought about it, it made sense. The network had a problem, and that could manifest in any number of ways. A poncho made sense, if it was 'raining' inside the system. On that note, he made some selections from the closet similar to Silvie's. He tried to force a smile through his tired expression.

"Anyway, when we're in, we'll unlock the minute anyone starts to feel uncomfortable. I guess it doesn't count as 'absolutely necessary', but I agree that we're better safe than sorry."

[Shinigori V2]

(Brooming along; if you didn't get a chance to pull something from the closet, just post in what you'd like to have. Note that "Working Shotgun" is not available.)

The kids finally get their closet transactions sorted out, and they're quickly on their way. With the command route in mind, they make their way to a part of the database they haven't seen yet.

It's much the same as the rest, except for...a number of empty picture frames. Kid and Janet look over them all as they pass, but say nothing.

At the end of the hall is...A wall. The command route is a dead end.

Enzo-

Spoiler:

There's a tiny, tiny door there.

[Besyanteo]

Enzo blinked, and got down on his knees to examine the door.

"... You've got to be kidding me."

[Shinigori V2]

Kid tries to look around Enzo. "What?"

Janet looks, and narrows her eyes, before taking off her glasses and cleaning them with her gloves. "Flare Drives aren't big enough to hold us. I have no idea what they were thinking."

[Besyanteo]

Had he told them before about...? He might have failed to mention it. But this was still ridiculous looking, even with compression.

"... They're thinking we can compress our selves to fit in. I'm just having a hard time believing that we can be compressed this far. I... I'll try it first, and we'll see where that gets us."

With that said, he'd do what felt natural to begin the compression process. If it didn't begin after a few seconds, he'd look at the patch notes for clues.

[Shinigori V2]

Enzo initiates his compression process...Simply by willing it to happen.

He notices everything, including the others, growing larger and larger as his programming compresses further and further. He notices that he actually does feel he's getting smaller, rather than everything else getting bigger.

After about a minute, however, he's actually right size to enter the door. He can see the doors are made of glass, and the other side actually reminds him of the inside of a very nice...Bus.

The others notice that now Enzo's roughly the right size to fit in one of their hands. Oddly, Kid seems to be taking it pretty badly, beginning to shake.

[Besyanteo]

Enzo sent across his link to the others:

Or, you know, I could be totally wrong.

[NebulaQueen]

Silvie blinked, then stared, then gaped at Enzo. She knew they could do a lot of ...strange things here, but it was still amazing to see first hand. She looked to the others ...only to see Kid shaking in her robo-boots. Wait, she still wasn't used to this, was she?"

"Hey," she said to Kid, her voice soft, "Are you okay?"

[Shinigori V2]

"People aren't supposed to do that." Kid replies in a whisper, albeit sharply.

[NebulaQueen]

"People aren't supposed to go into computers, either," she whispered back. "Look, just...think of it as the power of imagination, okay? Clap your hands if you believe and all that stuff."

[Shinigori V2]

"I'm an actor!" Kid replies. "That's not how imagination works!"

[NebulaQueen]

"Well it's how it works in the movies, and books, and TV shows, and it's how it works here! Just go with it, okay?!"

[Shinigori V2]

"..I'll try." Kid replies.

Janet steps forward. "Right. I'll go last, so that I'm in position to help everyone else. Who's next?"

[NebulaQueen]

"I'll go," she said, sounding confident. Maybe if this worked, Kid would be less nervous about it. Without further ado, she stepped forward, closed her eyes, and thought to herself, Think small think small think small....

She then felt a strong wind, only instead of coming from around her, it felt like it came from above her. Silvie opened her eyes, and...everything was huge! Really huge! She spun around until she saw Enzo, and squeaked, "Hey, it worked!"

[ChristianC]

Alexis looked at Kid and tried her most encouraging smile... which was actually more depressing than reassuring, but whatever. "K-Kid, if you want, we could go at the s-same time..." she half-whispered as Silvie suddenly shrunk to a minuscule size. Truth be told, she'd opened up the patch notes as soon as Enzo had, not wanting to lag behind the others, and she'd read... roughly, how it was done.

"We just got to... think small..." she said, taking the girl's hand in her own and squeezing close her eyes, thinking really small thing. When she opened her eyes, the ground was rushing towards her pretty fast, and she gave a little start, glancing over to Kid to see if she too had been shrinking.

[Shinigori V2]

Alexis looks over, and finds that Kid did as Alex suggested, and compressed at the same time.

However, now she's taking very quick, shallow breaths and looking even more panicked. That..Doesn't seem good.

[Kelne]

Emily quickly shrunk herself down to try and offer Kid a bit of moral support. Looming over the others like a giant couldn't be good for their peace of mind. It was a decidedly weird sensation, and she was very aware of her smallness. It was as if some little voice in her head was constantly reminding her that she wasn't meant to be this size and she was vulnerable. And surely size wasn't the only thing that fell by the wayside with compression. It would simply be an outward visual manifestation of who knew what memory-saving shortcuts. Still, voicing these thoughts wouldn't exactly eassure Kid, so she throttled them down, making her way over, "It's not so bad, Kid. It'll only be for a little while, after all."

[BrainWalker]

Max was wondering how compression was going to manifest itself in the database. He laughs as Enzo begins to shrink to tiny, tiny size.

"Ha! I thought that might happen, but man, I didn't think we'd be able to shrink that much! Where's the little bottle on a tea table helpfully marked 'drink me?'"

Max twirls around and strikes and incredibly goofy pose that would be right at home in a ridiculous Saturday morning 'teen martial arts team' show. "Compression algorithm, go! Smallify!"

... Maybe he was getting a little too into it. After shrinking, Max was going to finish out his pose with some kind of final flourish, but having never shrunken himself before, the process was strange enough to throw off his mojo. He plants both feet firmly on the ground and looks up at the kids who haven't shrunk yet, and are in the process of shrinking.

"... Woah. This is... really cool, but really strange at the same time." He turns around to face his fellow compressed comrades. "Hey, other than taking up less space, what are the effects of compression? Everyone feeling okay?"

Suddenly, finally, Max notices Kid isn't doing too well. "Kid?"

[NebulaQueen]

"Emily's right," Silvie said, a bit too loud and a bit too quick. "After this is done, we'll be back to normal size ...right, guys?"