RPGWW

by **Besyanteo** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:51 am

Though he had no way of knowing, hits thoughts mirrored Max's quite closely. Thirteen was neat and all, but it was definitely time to go home now.

"Well. Uhm. Thanks Thirteen. Maybe we'll see you again soon?"

If the others started to move, he'd definitely go with them to get back to the formatted part of the Database.

by **Christian** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 2:08 pm

Alexis smiled as the cat sniffed her finger, but it quickly turned to a horrified look as the cat was dropped in her hands. With a loud yelp she further dropped the cat to the ground, eyes wide open and hands shaking violently. "I-I-I'm sorry!" she blurted out, pale as a sheet, "I didn't mean to. I mean, I didn't..."

by **Spleen** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 3:18 pm

(OOC: Hah! Hah! Internets!)

When Darren learned that he was destined to be a Wunderkind, he realized that it explained a lot about the way he was always angry, and how that was something that he was feeling less in this new, digital world. He kept mum during Thirteen's explanations, however. He couldn't shake the feeling that something was still wrong. "How were we supposed to know we was lookin' for a cat?" he wondered out loud. "You sure that's him? That's Robert?" He knelt to pick up the cat himself from by Alexis's feet and stroked its head, looking into its eyes. "You Robert, cat?"

He looked up at Thirteen again. "I don't get any of this sh--this stuff." He managed to stop himself from cursing. "You went back in time to talk to us, and give us the damn cat?"

by **Shinigori V2** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 3:39 pm

"I've told you." Thirteen says evenly, "I did not go back in time. And you didn't know he was a cat...Because you didn't ask what he looked like."

by **Spleen** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 8:22 pm

Darren, being nine years old, could not understand, and just shrugged. "We got the damn cat, then, so let's go, huh?"

by **BrainWalker** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 8:38 pm

Max was relieved Darren got to Robert before he was able to scamper off and make them all chase after him.

"Yeah, I guess we should mosey." He turns to Thirteen. "So... It's been... weird. But interesting, too. I guess... we' ll be in touch? You said Enzo can connect us all, right? Plus there's your freaky theme song and that glowy thing you do, so it'll be hard to miss you if you're hanging around out here."

by **Shinigori V2** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:51 pm

Mission: 01- Lost and Found.
The Database: Unformatted Land.
June 12, 3756.
11:15

"We'll meet again." Thirteen says. "Remember what I said. Do not tell the adults about any of this. They will not understand."

She turns, and a large, purple vortex appears before her. "We are the eternal children. Always remember that."

She looks over her shoulder, as her musical accompaniment becomes noticeable again. She looks at each in turn, before speaking again. "Maintain innocence." And with that, she steps through.

Now, the music is gone, but the rain remains. The view of the ocean is...Beautiful, with the lightning dancing above it. The tingly pressure still remains, but the kids are now alone.

by **Besyanteo** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:12 pm

Maintain innocence. Maintain innocence? What? Enzo didn't have time to think it over right now. Instead, something that felt more pressing was on his mind. Namely, if they were all going to lie to the adults...

"We need to come up with some story about this place. If we don't, they're going to know we're lying."

Huh. Lying about something this big... Didn't that kind of go against her last warning? It seemed like it kind of did. Still, he didn't like the idea of having his code rewritten.

by **Kelne** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 11:20 pm

Emily shrugged, "Why lie? We can tell them exactly what this place is like, and that we found Robert in the woods. We just don't mention Thirteen or anything she said. Let the adults see if they can work out why the 'unformatted' area looks like this to us." It would also leave them free to return whenever they wished, as nobody would be all that surprised if they wanted to spend time in what was awfully like the outside world.

A thought occurred to her, "I wonder if it gets dark. Whether we'll be able to see the moon and stars." Given how realistic it was so far, there was no reason to think it wouldn't. Was the environment based on a real place, she wondered, or was it all made up from scratch?

by **Idran1701** » Wed Aug 05, 2009 11:47 pm

"Oh hey, that'd be pretty cool if we could. Hey, I wonder how big this place is too...maybe if you go far enough you can go all the way around it like a real world? Or maybe it just stops, but that'd be pretty weird.

"But yeah I think Emily's right, we can just not say stuff. That's not lying, it's just not saying stuff. Oh, but we needa also remember to ask if they can leave this place like this, 'cause if we don't they might try and fix it so stuff doesn't get lost here again or something. I like this place, it's like a giant park kinda."

by **BrainWalker** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 12:11 am

"Yeah, Thirteen just warned about telling the adults about the whole 'eternal Wunderkind' thing, not about this nature-y unformatted zone. After all, we told them what the classroom looked like and they seemed pretty clueless. They're probably going to want to know how this place looked to us, too. We don't have to lie, but we don't have to tell the whole truth, either."

"And Sam's right; I think we should try to get them to keep at least some unformatted space... I really want to come back to this place."

Suddenly Max remembered that picture he took of Thirteen... he should probably secure that somehow, so the adults couldn't extract it. ...Was that even possible? It seemed reasonable, but... if it was possible, he wasn't entirely sure how to go about it.

"Hey, Enzo, do you know anything about, like... data storage, I guess? I took a snapshot of Thirteen and I think it would probably be best if the adults weren't able to find it. I know we're all new to this whole Wunderkind thing, but I don't suppose you'd have any idea how I could, maybe... secure the data, or something? Store it in a locked personal folder or... I don't know. I guess I could just delete it, but, I mean, how many weird confusing godlike girls are we going to run into, you know?"

Come to think of it, Max isn't entirely sure where he saved those snapshots in the first place.

by **Animala** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 5:52 pm

"Wow, that was cool! I want my own theme music, too!" Eternal children, maintain innocence...well, she'd remember it, but she knew her stories. That sort of thing never made sense to the hero until much, much later. She knew me in particular... Lauren shivered with excitement. Man, this was so cool!

Lauren came out of her reverie to Sam's idea. "Yeah, it would suck if all this went away. It's nice out here! It's weird that none of the adults can see this stuff. I wonder if they'll even know we got wet?" She walked over to Darren to get a closer look at the cat. "Hey, could I have a turn holding Robert?"

by **Christian** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 7:55 pm

Alexis glanced at Darren and Robert the cat, hands folded once more behind her back. Her breathing had been heavy, she'd looked as if she was about to fall over, but now she was calming down and there was a look of some regret about her as she glanced one last time at where Thirteen had disappeared. She wondered briefly if she should try to use her other abilities to see if they worked, and focused for a second on Robert, using a built-in program that allowed her to mark particular points of interest, hostiles or other targets and relay them back to the team.

"C-can anyone see that?"

by **Shinigori V2** » Thu Aug 06, 2009 8:41 pm

The children can easily see that Robert has a glowing yellow aura around him.

by **Idran1701** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 8:43 am

Watching Robert more closely now, Sam reaches out to pet him. "Yeah, I see it! What is that?"

by **Christian** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 11:53 am

Alexis smiled a little as Sam asked his question. She wasn't entirely sure she could put in the technical specs for it, but she knew well enough what it did. "It's a way for me to point out if there's something you guys should be, uh, aware of." she looked at the others, "try standing behind a tree and looking at him. I think I have him marked down as a..." she blushed a bit as she'd forgotten the term for it, "ah..."

by **Shinigori V2** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 12:35 pm

"Objective." Janet says, trying to be helpful.

by **Christian** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 1:32 pm

Alexis nodded, "Yeah, objective." she thought for a few seconds and then nodded, looking at Janet and marking her as an ally. "And I've got Janet pointed out as a friend!"

by **Shinigori V2** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 1:44 pm

To the other children, Janet now has a glowing green aura.

by **Besyanteo** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 5:57 pm

Encrypting a picture that Max took... In theory he could do it? In practice...

"I have some idea of how to do it, but I don't know how to reach the picture you took. I mean.... I don't even know how it would be stored. If it's stored in you, I could try to talk you through it I guess? If it stores outside of us, though, then I don't think it would get saved; Computers can't save anything in unformatted space, it kind of gets lost. So... It would be in here somewhere, but we'd probably never find it again. So I guess tell me if you.... uhm. If you find it. In yourself.

"... That sounded really weird out loud."

by **Kelne** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 8:49 pm

"Maybe if you save a second picture and see if you can figure out where that one's filed as you do it?" Emily suggested absently, still rather amused by Alexis' random tagging of cat and person.

by **BrainWalker** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 9:01 pm

Max scratches his head. "Yea, that's a pretty good idea. It's kind of strange to think about... I learned in training that I could take a picture of whatever I'm seeing -- kind of like hitting the 'print screen' key on a computer -- but I never really paid attention to what happened to them afterward. Maybe... I wonder if that's something I can pay attention to... hmmm..."

Max brings his hand up to his chin in thought, and curls his pointer finger over his lips. He decides to maneuver into a position to get a good shot of both Robert and Janet while they're glowing. "Green for friend, and yellow for... neutral? Does that mean an un-friendly target glows red?" That's how stoplights work, anyway.

Okay, wait, Max needs to concentrate this time. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He tries to un-clutter and focus his thoughts, to the extent that a 13 year old boy is capable. Here goes nothing, again. Max opens his eyes, and snaps the picture. Then... he's not sure exactly how to go about it, but he tries thinking about the picture he just took, to see if he can "feel" where, or how, they get stored. It's kind of like meditation, only weirder.

by **Shinigori V2** » Fri Aug 07, 2009 11:46 pm

Max focuses, and saves the picture.

Max://Maxfiles/Snapshots.

by **Spleen** » Sat Aug 08, 2009 1:43 pm

Darren relinquished the cat to Lauren. "We ready to go now that we're done marking things?" He was impatient, eager to get back to an area of the computer that he was at least prepared to understand.

by **BrainWalker** » Sat Aug 08, 2009 6:03 pm

"Woah." Max subconsciously registered what Darren had said and began walking as he began explaining his recent discovery.

"It's so weird. I... I know where my personal directory is. It shouldn't make any sense, but it feels totally natural. Holy crap. I feel like... I feel like I get it now. We really are a new breed." Max isn't really paying attention to anything around him as he walks.

"Oh yeah." Max snaps back into the real world. He turns around, walking backward, and addresses Enzo. "So, I found the folder. Now what?"

by **Idran1701** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 5:50 pm

Eager to go, Sam begins wandering around the area, though he remains careful not to stray too far from the group. At Max's comment, he looks back and speaks up. "I'm ready t'go! The faster we go back, the faster we can finish the mission and then come back here and do stuff that isn't a mission, an' I wanna look around this place and see what else is here an' stuff! Oh hey can we all take pictures? How do you take a picture? 'Cause that's pretty neat!"

by **Shinigori V2** » Sun Aug 09, 2009 7:48 pm

"Um...Actually, yeah." Janet says. "How do you take a picture? It kind of makes sense that we can, I just didn't figure it out, I guess."

by **BrainWalker** » Mon Aug 10, 2009 7:11 pm

"What?" Max stops walking. He had heard the question, but he wasn't entirely sure how to answer it.

"Well... I got the idea from Dom, the guy that checked in every so often during training to make sure everything was going okay. I asked him what other abilities I should have other than stuff related to combat and piloting, since that was all the trainer AI was set up to teach me. He wasn't sure, but he thought that I -- that we -- should have all the basic abilities of your standard computer. You know, like, word processing and calculations and surfing the internet and stuff. He wasn't sure how I was supposed to actually do any of that, though."

"So, I experimented with the idea and I figured out how to write little memos, but that was pretty boring. Then, after training one day, I was lying in bed staring at the ceiling, and I thought about my photography, which I'd taken up because my family travels around a lot and I wanted to, like... save the memories, you know? And then it just sort of happened. I thought about photographs, and bam. I saved an image of the ceiling of my room."

"It's hard to explain. I mean, how do you blink? How do you remember stuff? I mean, if I ask you what your mom looks like, you think about her and you've got an image in your head, right? Now that we're all Wunderkind, if I ask you what four billion and three divided by eighty-seven is, you've probably already got an answer. How did you figure it out? You just thought about the numbers and came up with an answer. It's like... it's kind of like having a kind of lame mutant superpower, I guess. You've got this power but you're not sure how to tap into it yet. It'll just take some practice."

Max tilts his head and furrows his brow, not entirely satisfied with his explanation, even though it was verbose. He briefly wonders how Thirteen would have condensed it, before getting a little annoyed at himself for considering it.

"Does any of this make any sense?"

by **Christian** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 6:06 am

"Fortyfive million, nine houndred and seventy seven thousand, elevent point five two eight seven three five six three two one eight three nine zero eight zero four five nine seven seven zero one and one." Alexis noted quietly as she was experimenting with her marking abilities, different auras popping up, changing and disappearing all over the place. She realized she could alter the colors, and Robert has subsequently been a target of interest, a hostile, an ally, a hostage, civilian and unidentifiable threat. Otherwise she remained mostly quiet, listening to Max's attempt to describe their powers.

She hadn't herself used them that much, but she'd tested out keeping a simple journal, which she hadn't had any need for pen or paper for...

by **Besyanteo** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 3:37 pm

(Neither Shini or I know anything about Crypto, I'm -fairly- sure, so cop out post with permission is go!)

Enzo nodded. Well, that would help a lot! He spent the next minute and a half describing to Max and the others, in detail, how to go about encrypting data within their personal storage space. In theory, it ought to be pretty easy for them, since they could manipulate it directly. In practice... Well, Enzo had never encrypted something in his 'head' before today, and was performing the job on something of his as he directed the others, so he could try to puzzle out any problems he ran into along the way.

by **Shinigori V2** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 6:56 am

The children continue back towards the partitioned section of the mainframe, and it's mostly quiet. The storm rumbles ahead, still sending a light rain down, but nothing more than a bother. As they step back inside, though, the water caught in their hair and sheeting off their bodies disappears entirely.

Looking herself over, Janet addresses the others. "So...We're Wunderkind...I guess we should...Talk about this sometime later, as a group. For now..Let's not tell the adults. I really don't want them thinking we're malfunctioning or something."

She waves to the others, and starts back towards her room. "Good night, guys...See you tomorrow for school."

As she leaves, the rest are left to return to their rooms in time, and begin their mission reports.

Each got the feeling that they'd end up meeting Thirteen again in due time, whether they wanted to or not.

Mission 01: Lost and Found- Complete
Mission Status: Successful.
Mission End Time: 11:55, June 12, 3756.
Optional Objective: Meet Thirteen- Successful.
Damages: 0.00 Credits.
Gains: 0.00 Credits
MVPs: TBA.

by **BrainWalker** » Thu Aug 13, 2009 4:33 pm

'Good night?', Max wondered. It's almost noon.

"See ya, Janet." Max waves.

Turning to the rest of his colleagues, Max lays out his plan for the rest of the day. "Well, I don't know about you guys, but I think I'm going to head back to my room, reorganize my files and work out that whole 'encryption' thing. And knock out that mission report." Max starts walking back to his room. "If I've got some time left over this afternoon, or evening, I might come back out to the unformatted zone and explore a little."

"Well, if I don't see any of you out there before class tomorrow, 'good night, guys.'" Max punctuates this with a sort of half-wave hand gesture that ends with a two-finger point at some arbitrary location on the ceiling.

by **Christian** » Thu Aug 13, 2009 10:51 pm

Alexis waved a little to Janet as the girl departed, looking at Max as he spoke. True, it at least... no, it didn't just appear, it was mid-day, but they really didn't seem to have anything else scheduled for the day, aside from the mission reports.

She gave Sam a shy look and swallowed hard before asking, "S-Sam? I'm... I'm not very good at... writing... can you help me?" She blushed scarlet red, but mostly because of her embarrassment and lagging so far behind the other children. Mostly.

by **Idran1701** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 6:57 pm

Turning to Alexis, Sam gives her a friendly grin and nods. "Sure! It won't be that hard I bet. We just hafta put down what happened on the mission. The only stuff I ever wrote before is school stuff, but this sounds like kinda the same thing, and school stuff isn't that hard. It's just kinda confusing when you start. Do you wanna do that right now or was there other stuff you wanted to do first?"

by **Kelne** » Fri Aug 14, 2009 8:53 pm

"Well, I suppose I should write up a report," Emily said without a great deal of enthusiasm, "But once that's done I'm going to do a bit more exploration here." There were the wings to test out after all, and she was still curious about how far the environment extended.

by **NebulaQueen** » Sat Aug 15, 2009 12:20 am

"I need to get my stuff done too," she said. "I'll see you guys tomorrow?"

by **BrainWalker** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 2:28 am

Max was wondering if anyone was going to mention plans to explore the unformatted zone tonight, but no one said anything. Too bad.

Max wanders lazily back to his room, thinking about how he's going to reorganize his files. Normally, organizing your stuff isn't at the top of any kid's list, but it's different when the stuff you're organizing is data inside your subconscious mind. Well, it's not actually inside his mind, it's more like... a separate place he can tap into with his mind. Actually, Max wasn't entirely sure how all this stuff worked. Which is why it was so exciting trying to figure it out.

Upon reaching his room, Max leaps onto his bed and flops down face-first. Comfy! After a confusing morning, relaxation was welcome. As his mind clears, new data enters his conscious via news stream.

"What!?" Max's exclamation is muffled in the bedsheets. "Ninja Surfer Kid 6 got cancelled!? That sucks!" The series has always been mostly about martial arts, but there have been some pretty cool chase scenes, and the action had always been solid. Plus, Kidritta Osbourne was pretty easy on the eyes. Oh well... it's pretty rare that a series remains good 4 or 5 sequels in, anyway.

The rest of the news didn't strike Max as being particularly revelatory. Violence in a violent part of the city? Stupid racists being stupid? Rain? Shocking.

Eventually, Max rolls over, and clasped his hands between his head and his pillow. He had has his fill of rumination on the nature of his existence for one day. Now he had something else on his mind: a file structure that he needed to organize and secure. "Snapshots" seemed like a fairly logical directory name for a file full of snapshots, but he didn't want to secure all of them. That might be a little... suspicious, assuming the adults had access to this storage. Max had already decided that he was going to create a separate directory for secure stuff, but what to call it? It would have to be something simple, but something he could defend. One thing Max has learned from movies is that if you're going to do something sneaky, you're going to need an alibi or some kind of boring, normal-sounding explanation.

"I got it! A journal!" Max had no interest in actually keeping a journal but it was a perfect excuse to want to keep some data to himself. Max created the folder, and made it secure using the method Enzo had taught him. Now all he had to do was move the picture of Thirteen into it. Simple!

Except, looking into his snapshots directory, Max discovered that all his picture files were labeled simply with the date and time. And only now did it occur to him that he had never actually looked at any of the images he had captured. "Well, dang." Now what?

"Guess I'll have to find a way to look at these... hmmm..." Max wasn't actually looking at a list of files in a directory on a computer monitor. He was simply... aware that there were numbered image files in a directory called 'snapshots' somewhere in his personal storage space, wherever that was located. So, it's not like he could check a 'view thumbnails' option somewhere. No, he'd have to find a way to project these images into the physical/digital space he currently occupied. But how? Why does this whole 'digital existence' thing have to be so complicated?

Staring at the ceiling, Max got an idea. "Hmm... flat surface. I wonder..." he muttered. He concentrated on the ceiling of his room, and stretched his hand out towards it, as if that was supposed to do something... but nothing happened. This was going to take some practice.

Max decides to knock his mission report out first. Somehow he already knew the basic report format and that he was expected to email it to Rivendare. It was a pretty simple mission, but he'd have to come up for explanations for a few things... like why he and his sister didn't just spend the whole mission flying around, how they found Robert, and most importantly, how they were able to figure out Robert was a cat. It required a little creative thinking, but Max was used to talking around certain details when dealing with adults. You don't live in Deck City without learning a little self-preservation. He also decided to toss in a little blurb about how the kids tested out their various abilities at the end.

Max decides to save a copy of his report in a new sub-folder called "mission reports," for future reference.

Well, now that that was out of the way, Max had the rest of the afternoon to figure out this picture projection thing. Which is good, because it took him most of the afternoon to figure it out. He tried using the ceiling, and the walls. He tried using his mirror and his TV as a viewing screen. He even tried making images simply float in midair like he'd seen in a sci-fi movie once. Man, that would have been cool. But he had the most success with walls. After a few hours of trial and error, Max was able to project his snapshots onto an existing flat surface. Awesome! He viewed his pictures one by one, deleted the junk pictures he had taken while practicing his ability to take them during training, and decided to rename the rest something more useful. He also made a mental note -- which ended up becoming an actual text file -- to try and remember to give these snapshots more useful names when he takes them in the future. He decides to leave the image of Thirteen with it's simple time and date filename, though. He felt that made it less conspicuous, especially in a folder named "journal."

Max had completed all the tasks that he had set for himself in his room, but by this point the evening wasn't far away. He thought about going back to the unformatted zone, but no one else had mentioned whether they were going to go back, and it didn't seem like it would be as fun to explore by himself. He'd have to go back with his sister sometime. That way they could fly around to their heart's content and not have to worry about leaving each other behind.

Max decided to see if he could get Ninja Surfer Kid 3 on his TV. It was his favorite movie in the series, mostly because it had two chase scenes, one of which involved a helicopter and a speedboat.

by **Kelne** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 9:27 am

Emily gave some thought to her own report as she settled in to write. To her mind, finding Robert wasn't the interesting part of the report. Rather, she focused on her impressions of this new and unexpected world they'd found within the database, and a little bit about her impressions of the others. All in all, she didn't spend a great deal of time on the report. She'd been cooped up in that room for weeks, and spending her off-time there just wasn't on the cards.

Instead, she scooped up a tablet with some reading material on it and made her way back to the Great Outdoors. They couldn't go on calling it unformatted space or wunderkind land or whatever, and that seemed as good a name as any. Despite her earlier resolve to do some exploration, the urge seemed to have left her. This was a place which would reveal its secrets in good time, and was best explored with company, she felt. Instead, she lay back on some grass close to the disembodied (disembuildinged?) bulkhead door and gazed skywards, lost in thought.

Today's events were going to take some digesting, she decided. Meeting the others, followed by Thirteen, had brought home to her that they were, in the truest sense of the word, something new under the sun. She still wasn't sure how she felt about being a whole new species, and had little idea where events were leading. Perhaps the best thing was to just take each day as it came.

by **Christian** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 9:40 am

Alexis finished up the last bits of her report in her room after coming back from her meeting with Sam. There really wasn't that much finishing up to do, but she added some final thoughts and then lay down on her bed, teddy lying next to her, both staring up in the ceiling. It'd been a pretty interesting day, all in all, and she hoped that they'd all get to do more stuff together soon. She liked being around the other kids, it was a huge change from all the training they'd been doing.

Absent-mindedly the two squeeze-balls she'd been practicing with was summoned to her hands, and she started the exercise... only to drop them a little while later, hugging the teddy instead. It felt... different, but after a little while she began to snooze, clutching the teddy tightly, the faint tones of music emitted from it lulling her to sleep.

by **Shinigori V2** » Mon Aug 17, 2009 1:29 pm

Mission: 02- Subhuman.
Deck City: The Database: Classroom.
June 15, 3756.
12:00

It's noon, three days after the children's first mission. The last few days have been fairly simple; wake up, go to class, free time, sleep. So far, class seems to be more about catching the kids with less of a chance to go to school up to the others than actually learning anything, so for some, it's been more than a little boring. Mr. McSweeny continues to drone on about the properties of computer programs, and how they can be manipulated. However...

However, there's something amiss today. There's a tenth desk, currently going empty. The last few days, there's been a perfect number of desks for the nine children, so it's possible that something's going on.

"So, in review..." McSweeny continues, gesturing to the blackboard. "Computer programs, using the computer's own systems and resources, can be manipulated in a number of ways. They can be copied, made invisible, shrunk to take up less space, moved easily from one area to another. There's not going to be a test on this, but it's still good to know. Does anyone have any questions, so far?"

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