Child's Play

[BrainWalker]

"...Huh."

Max blinks, and takes a moment to process that information. Juniorkind? What the heck? He'd have to check out that email later, but right now the Wunderkind were on a scouting mission.

Well, then, I guess I'll trust you to have a handle on things. Let us know if you need an assist. I think we're going to go ahead into the building...

Max looks to Sylvie and Lauren. "Unless there's any objections?"

[Spleen]

Darren glanced into the room that Emmy had opened. "Go in first, Em, I'll cover you out here. Tell me if you find anything cool, all right?"

[Animala]

Lauren returned to full size, and reluctantly enlarged Ambassador Leafshade to only ferret size. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to wear herself out again, even if it was amazingly awesome...and then Sylvie's message came through.

Wow, that's really...do you think they got here on their own? How does that even... Lauren shook her head, fighting off a wave of envy at the idea. After all she had done to get here... Anyway, I guess bringing them home is the only thing that makes sense, yeah

"I'm ready to go! The intrepid explorers and their loyal companion ferret venture into the depths of the ruins....what untold treasures await them? What terrifying traps?" Lauren bounced on the balls of her feet in excitement.

[Shinigori V2]

Lauren, Max, and Silvie enter the large building, finding it...Equally large on the inside. There is a console ahead of them, and on the far end of the giant singular room within, a huge viewing screen. As they walk in, a recording starts up, projecting itself on the screen.

The screen shows a full page of nonsense coding; one that even their computerized brains can't decypher. It flips through a number of those pages, before beginning to repeat. As it does, a man's voice begins playing through the room. It's soft, yet strong, and his words seem to be chosen carefully, rehearsed ahead of time and recorded. It's oddly soothing to the three, but to Lauren, it's deeply familiar.

"Report submitted by Joseph Ashton. Ten thirty-two PM, Deck Standard Time." The recording begins. "This recording is security level 16. I repeat, one-six. Waiting ten seconds before continuing report."

Exactly ten seconds pass, as the recording starts again. "As the Spades suspected, a threat is looming on the horizon. This threat is Viral in nature, and will quickly corrupt and overwhelm the whole world, unless something is done to prevent it."

Mr. Ashton takes a moment to think, before sighing. "During the Doomsday Event, Professor Norman has proven that the world was bombarded with radiation. This radiation, which Norman has nicknamed K-Radiation, is mostly harmless and virtually undetectable, other than a very finely tuned Hilbert Wave scanner. That's not, however, to say it hasn't had effects.

"In an estimated five percent of children, the K-Rads have developed a mutation of sorts. The children become much more attuned to the technology around them, absorbing the electronic fields around a machine into themselves, and eventually gaining...I'm not sure how to describe it. Technopathy would be the best term, I believe.

The children become capable of interacting with the machine with their minds."

He stops a moment, as if allowing this to sink in. "This, however, is...Not the full extent of it. Norman has..." He sighs, before continuing again, "Norman has developed an air-borne agent that we will release into the atmosphere, via rocket. This agent, when inhaled in large enough amounts by a K-rad effected child will...It will jump start a new evolution within them. The child, after enough time has passed, will evolve into living data, a digital human, much like Selene DuGalle was transformed by her father before the Great War."

The screen changes, now showing a picture profile of Lauren, in her new Wunderkind form, complete with her pink and white uniform. Leafshade, sadly, is nowhere to be found on the projection. "This transformation will allow the children to exist as digital beings, and interface with machines and manipulate data in ways humans never thought possible. They'll gain powers and abilities far beyond human comprehension...But, the only effected humans will be children."

He sighs, and continues. "I fear that we are creating a new race of child soldiers to face this threat, when we're not even certain what it is yet. I'm afraid that this is the wrong decision, but...We don't have a lot of choice. I fully admit that I'm most afraid for my daughter; due to the research that Norman has done, I'm sure beyond the shadow of a doubt that she'll be among the first to..Change.

"It is my hope that D-52 will be ready, willing, and able to collect these..Wonder children as they enter their new lives, to guide them down the right path, and see to it that they still have the lives they deserve. We will be launching the agent as of oh-four hundred hours.

Tell my wife and daughter I love them, and that I'll be back as soon as I can. End report."

With that, the recording stops.

----

As Alexis talks, the boy looks up and screams, which causes the girl to scream, which causes....A lot of screaming from the two.

[ChristianC]

Alexis took a step back, eyes wide and her mouth agape... for a few seconds she look like she's on the verge of bursting into screaming herself, but then she huffs and pushes that aside, squeezing the hands of the kids, trying not to shiver all over from the feeling of their hands in hers.

"Hey! C-calm down!" she says to the two Juniorkind as she tries to figure out what to do with them... maybe she could shrink them? Like... Lauren had done with her ferret? The e-mail had said they were compressible... so... maybe...

How would she do that? Well, she'd shrunk herself before so...

She looked at the kids, trying not to listen to the screaming so much as she imagined them made up of... uh... building blocks. Yeah! And the blocks were all spread out, like... like a pile of blocks! So she imagined the blocks just... clicking together, like that wooden puzzle that turned into a cube, except the cube was children, and the blocks were data. If she could fit them in her hands, then maybe they'd... well, they probably wouldn't calm down, but at least their screaming wouldn't be so loud, and she could show them to the others.

[Shinigori V2]

The Juniorkind shrink ever so slightly...Then return to normal size. Screaming even more now.

[ChristianC]

Uh... guys... I might need some help here... they won't stop screaming

It didn't even occur to Alexis that taken out of context, that sentence would be very, very easily misinterpreted. Instead she narrows her eyes and tries again... maybe if... uh... what if she tried to 'read' them like an e-mail? She let her eyes unfocus a little as she looked at the boy, imagining him shrinking, piece by piece, like a balloon running out of air... maybe that would work.

[Shinigori V2]

Alexis's imagery seems to work better this time, as the boy slowly seems to shrink out of the girl's grasp. As he becomes smaller and smaller, he begins to laugh, as if it's tickling him.

Soon, he's only an inch tall, and both have stopped screaming. The girl, a short black haired girl with slightly slanted eyes and very pale skin, looks between her friend and Alexis, before finally standing up as if to make a stand. "Wha'd yew dew tah hem? An' tah us, ya creepir!"

[ChristianC]

Alexis breathed a sigh of relief as the boy shrunk. Well, that wasn't too diff-

Oh great. Creepir? She didn't even know what that was, and here she was being accused of being one. That was hardly fair!

"Look, I'm only d-d-doing this to help y-you t-two..." she stammered before focusing on the girl too, trying to 'deflate' her while looking at her hands... feet... head... torso... just seeing them all almost shrivelling down, shrinking into themselves until she was in a more manageable 1 inch size.

[Shinigori V2]

It takes a little more focus, as the girl continues to spout nonsense as Alexis works on compressing her. But, after a moment, the girl too begins to shrink down, losing her train of thought as she begins to giggle uncontrollably, before falling over and rolling in a fit of laughter as she, too, shrinks down to the desired size.

[ChristianC]

As soon as the girl began to shrink, Alexis felt a boost in confidence and as the girl fell over, giggling, she sat down on the ground, holding the two children in the palm of her hands.

Well, that... was a little scary. What were these kids doing here anyway? She'd have to ask Thirteen about it later. Juniorkind? Left lying around? Really freaky...

Guys, I've got them now. I'll drop them by the bus, okay?

She got up again, making sure the girl and boy in her hands weren't falling off... while watching them and their wunderkind uniforms. She wondered when these kids would actually start training... or had they already?

"H-hey?" she spoke to the two, "What're your names?"

[BrainWalker]

At first, Max was excited to be hearing a top-secret D52 report. But as the report goes on, his excitement erodes. He remembered seeing an old photo of the night sky with two moons instead of one, and asking his parents and teachers about it, never really getting a straight answer. All he managed to get out of them is that it's not there anymore, and whatever caused that had been titled 'The Doomsday Event.' But he had always been assured that it was no big deal. This... seems like a pretty huge deal. This is quite the revelation. An explanation for where their sudden divergent evolutionary path got started. It was actually kind of fascinating.

Wait, wait... what the Hell was that whole K-rad rocket business? D52's solution to the 'viral threat' is to release more of the radiation that causes it into the atmosphere? How the Hell does that make any sense? What the Hell are they thinking? What gives them the right to force evolution on unwitting children? Max was getting kind of pissed. Sure, if a moon exploded and released radiation on the planet, that's may or may not be anyone's fault. But that rocket business... that's f'd up.

Max glances over at Lauren as her picture comes up on screen. 'Joseph Ashton...' somehow, he hadn't made the connection until just now. Did this man really have a hand in turning his own daughter into a cyber-soldier? No... he said he was afraid for her, and that he wasn't convinced Project BlueSky was the right thing to do. Right now, neither is Max.

"Umm... wow. That's a lot to take in."

Max looks over to Lauren to see how she's doing, but then something occurs to him. 0400 hours... 0400 hours when? Max tries to access whatever media file was just playing to see if he can find the date it was recorded. He wants to know exactly when that rocket business went down.

Umm... yeah, ok. Roger that, Alexis.

[Kelne]

"Yeah, sure," Emily said, somewhat distracted by the chatter. The presence of other, younger wunderkind was a bit of a bolt from the blue. She had to wonder why they were here in particular, or whether they were in fact stranded in computers scattered across the city. Definitely food for thought. For now though, she stepped past the bulkhead, investigating the territory beyond.

[Shinigori V2]

After talking quietly enough between the two that Alexis can't hear, the kids speak up so she can hear them.

"I'm Benji!" The boy shouts.
"'m Razzie!" The girl follows.

...Well, there's that out of the way.

----

Checking the date on the recording, Max gets the following date: October 9th, 3754.

----

Emmy steps into the room, and notices that the walls are covered with names. Hundreds and hundreds of names. Most of them are grayed out and dull, but a number are white: The names of her brothers and sisters in the squad. Among the others, those are very easy to pick out.

However, she notices another group, another set of names that have turned red. She can tell at a glance that those names are 'compromised' somehow:

Daniel Wilson
James McQueen
Milton Birdseye
Agatha Lane
Ellenore and Katherine Tagart
Randal Savage
Doreen Jennifer Hesling.

She gets the feeling that the red names probably mean something very, very bad.

Further, on the far end of the room, it looks like part of the wall has been broken away, just a small fragment, about the size of her fist. Huh.

[Animala]

Lauren froze completely still as the recording started. "Dad?" she whispered. As the recording played, she desperately tried to...save it away somehow? Write it to storage? Or at the very least, memorize the whole thing.

She just stood there in silence after the recording finished, face blank, her mind whirling.

"Ummm...wow," Max said. "That's a lot to take in."

"...he's alive." Lauren said quietly to herself, seeing what would happen. She didn't wake up. The room didn't disappear.

"He's alive!" Lauren raced around the room with XLR8-assisted speed to hug Max, then Silvie, then literally bounce off the wall. "I knew it, I knew it!" She picked up Ambassador Leafshade and held her out in front of her as she spun in a little circle, then kissed her on the nose. "Oh Dad," she said more quietly, wiping her eyes. "I knew it all along, I never doubted you."

[NebulaQueen]

Silvie stood there, mouth agape and eyes wide, still shocked by the recording. Thi-this was absolutely crazy! Secret projects, government coverups, mutagenic viruses...it was like something out of the Y Codex! Or the Latent Terror series. Either way, this was (and this wasn't a term she used lightly here) some spooky crap.

It seemed that Lauren thought differently, though, and soon Silvie was brought out of her shock by a very firm, exuberant hug. Silvie tensed up and watched silently as Lauren skipped away, before she snapped to her senses.

"That's...so, that's your dad!"

Silvie nearly smacked herself for that. Stupid stupid stupid...argh, she can't believe she choked like that!

[Shinigori V2]

"Do you see now?"

Lauren's celebration is interrupted by the arrival of a new voice in the doorway. Approaching slowly is..Another new Wunderkind. Her suit is red on black, and she's got long black hair, and pale skin, not unlike Thirteens. Her eyes are a dark green, and she smiles warmly at Lauren and the others. "Your dad was training you for this. He knew all along that you'd become what you are now, and he was working for it the whole time. It makes sense now, doesn't it?"

She stops about midway through the room, and tosses her hair. "Oh. My name's Vi. I'm a friend; like Thirteen. Well, not exactly. I'm a real friend. Not like her."

[NebulaQueen]

First Alexis found some little kid wunderkind, and now this? Just what the heck was going on here? Silvie stared at her warily, and asked, "And what's that supposed to mean? And who are you, anyway?"

[Shinigori V2]

"I told you," Vi answers, "My name's Vi. Thirteen is lying to you. Can't you tell? She's totally cryptic and aloof and she never actually says anything."

[Kelne]

Well, this was... Pretty overwhelming, really. Those were a lot of names. So much, she thought, for the project being a test run before deciding whether to go further. If all the kids on the list converted, they'd need every scrap of space they could find just to house everyone. Still, the names in red were far more concerning. Emily tried to access the database to see whether there was any other information associated with the names, as well as checking out whether that chunk of missing wall might have contained anything important.

[NebulaQueen]

"That's just your name," she said petulantly. "Not who you are. If Thirteen's such a big fat liar, then what makes you better?"

[Shinigori V2]

Emmy finds that...The chunk of missing wall contained three names inscribed on it. One of them was flagged as "very important."

---

"I'm Wunderkind, like you." Vi says. "Just your average kid, transcribed into code, thrust into a digital world. The difference is, I know the truth about Thirteen."

[Animala]

Lauren returned the Ambassador to her shoulder before turning to the newcomer.

"It always made sense. Why wouldn't he teach me to fight for myself and what I believe is right?"

"Duh," added Ambassador Leafshade quietly. Lauren grimaced slightly and bopped the Ambassador on the nose. "Sorry," they said together.

"Hey, is your name 'V', like the roman numeral for 5? Are you all gonna be numbers?"

[Shinigori V2]

"No, it's short for..." Vi frowns, and glances away, as if embarrassed. "Violetta. But, I mean, doesn't it make even more sense now?

[Kelne]

Well, no sense in keeping what she'd found to herself.

I've found something, everyone, she sent, A whole list of names, with ours highlighted, and eight in red, which means they're compromised somehow. She refrained from using the word 'zombie', but that's what she was thinking. Except that the archive should date to before the place got trashed, so was it something completely different? The only way to find out would be to talk to one of those people, she supposed.

We've got Daniel Wilson, James McQueen, Milton Birdseye, Agatha Lane, Ellenore and Katherine Tagart, Randal Savage and Doreen Jennifer Hesling. She wasn't sure it'd do the others much good to know the names, but it surely couldn't hurt.

[Idran1701]

Meanwhile, while Emmy analyzes the names, Sam looks around through the hole left by Kid. Kid must be even stronger than she thought, because he can see all the way through the wall. It's a small room with the walls covered in lines...he thinks they're words, but he can't read them from here.

While he looks around inside, he gets Alexis's first message - other Wunderkind? Kids? Something he didn't expect at all to find here: who are they? How'd they get here? Was this part of the project too, and they got stuck when the virus hit? But then why didn't Mr. Rivendare tell them about it? Or maybe they're like Thirteen or something and they're just here somehow?

As he's thinking, he sees Emily come in and look around the room, but she doesn't seem to have noticed Sam yet. He's a little surprised that she's doubled back down the hallway this fast, but they must not have found anything interesting for a long while. Before he can say anything to her, though, she sends the message about the names; that must be everything he's seeing on the walls! After it's sent, he calls out, trying to get her attention. "Emily! Hey, over here!"

[BrainWalker]

Max listens to the new kid blather on while he attempts to save a copy of the video to his own personal storage. Or, failing that, to see if he can compress it into a portable form that he can take back to the bus and share with everyone. This is definitely something the other kids are going to want to see. He also jots down the gist of Emily's communication, along with those names, in a text file. Definitely not comfortable about that whole "compromised" thing. But one crisis at a time.

Max asserts himself in Vi's direction. "Okay, if you're going to make accusations about a friend of ours, you're going to need some hard evidence. Just 'cause she's annoying and cryptic doesn't mean she's evil. It just means she's... socially awkward. Showing up out of nowhere in red and black, flipping your hair around like some kind of primadonna and making blind accusations about people is way more suspicious than anything Thirteen's ever done. Other than having a number for a name."

"And Lauren, when exactly did you lose track of your dad? That rocket was fired just two years ago. Sure he trained you, but could he really have been training you for... this?" Max punctuates the statement by raising his arms and sweeping them around in an attempt to encapsulate the entire Wunderkind experience in a single pronoun. It kind of comes off looking like he's displaying the interior of the building to a potential buyer, though.

[Besyanteo]

Enzo woke with a start. Well, the others HAD been busy, hadn't they? He sat up, and stretched. Well, now what? Interrupting Max wouldn't help any, and he seemed to be asking all the smart questions without anyone bothering him. No, that side was just fine for now. Over here, though... Over here, Kid had punched a wall. The wall wasn't repairing itself, it didn't look like. This didn't bode well.

Enzo would ignore the reactions of surprise he expected to get from Kid and Sam in favor of interfacing with building. He meant to find out what it wasn't getting fixed.

[Animala]

Lauren shook her head, sending her pigtails bobbing. "Mmm...no, it was before that. He left right before the Doomsday Event which is why w--people thought he wa..." Lauren trailed off as her brain reengaged. "Wait a minute! Are you trying to tell me my dad knew what would happen that far ahead? Come on! My dad's awesome, but he's not a time traveler!"

Lauren was attempting to show some bluster, but couldn't stop herself from smiling slightly. "he is not..." She hadn't even had to think about it.

[Shinigori V2]

The comment about Vi's suit's color seems to have got her worked up, as her smile turns to a very fierce glare. "You're going to let the color of my suit factor into this? Really?! Some 'heroes' you guys are!"

----

Enzo interfaces the building, and finds that that nice, lovely kernel he set up...Is corrupted.

It's visual manifestation, the mailbox, has been knocked over and...vandalized with graffiti?

[Besyanteo]

Enzo twitched. He and Janet spent hours on that. HOURS. Someone was still here, causing trouble. They were wunderkind, too, obviously. How very convenient that Vi would show up now and start bad mouthing 13.

Enzo surfaced from the dive. He would have to move to fix it again, and apparently he was going to have to put some protection up for it.

Someone broke my and Janet's Kernel, and graffiti'd it. I'm going in to take care of it now, but... Watch out, guys. Someone here is messing with us.

"Uhm. I'm up. Thanks for watching me. I'll be back in a minute, probably. Hopefully less tired this time."

He moved outside, and tried to deep dive into the system again.

[BrainWalker]

She's lost her cool already? That was easy. Also, good to hear Enzo was back, and already providing useful intel.

"Well, really, the color thing is pretty minor compared to the haughty attitude and the slander. But you have to admit, there's a history of red and black being used in things like political propaganda and cartoon 'bad guys' and outfits for fashionable mafia henchmen."

[Shinigori V2]

Enzo deep dives again, and finds the same area, with his poor, abused mailbox lying in wait...

With another female Wunderkind sitting atop it. Her suit is neon green on black, and she's got brown hair done up in twin ponytails. She also wears dark, dark sunglasses, completely hiding her eyes. She grins widely and makes a weird gesture at Enzo. "'Sup, sucka?"

----

Vi fumes openly for a minute, before throwing a small tantrum, and reutrning to her cool state. "Yes, your dad knew! What he didn't know was...Y'know what?! Forget it! I'm not helpin' you jerks!"

[Besyanteo]

Enzo's response was pretty simple, terse, angry. Not quite confident, though. This was... unexpected. She was sitting right there. Like, waiting for him.

"You broke my Mailbox."

He looked around, to see if she'd screwed up anything else.

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

[Shinigori V2]

"Name's DJ." The girl replies. "An' I'm here ta break yer mailbox." She grins wide again.

[Besyanteo]

"Uh huh."

He had worked hard on that. Really hard. And she was just sitting on it, grinning like a damn cat over a mangled bird. Enzo was... not happy. He was also alone, weak, and not up to repairing the kernel AND fighting this girl at the same time. Or at least he didn't think he was. Luckily, Enzo had family.

Kid, please step outside and deep dive with me. Sam, watch our bodies up there for us. I have a situation in here. Repeat, Kid, please deep dive next to me, Sam watch over us.

And his family had a particularly heavy handed and ungodly fast fighter among it's ranks.

[NebulaQueen]

"H-Hey, hold up now!"

Silvie raised her hands, and said, "Look, Thirteen may be ...okay she's weird and annoying. But she's also helped us out a lot, you know? We just want to know why you think she's bad, that's all."

[Idran1701]

"Oh, Enzo, you're up! Okay...um...good luck?" As Enzo deep-dives, Sam looks to Kid, not sure what the stuff about the kernel means. He can tell it's not good, though, and with all the time the two of them spent on it, that sounds like a jerk thing to do.

A minute or two later, he hears Enzo's transmission from...wherever the deep-diving is, and nods despite Enzo being asleep again. Okay, I will! Is everything all right? How come you need Kid?

[Shinigori V2]

Kid looks to Sam, before laying down near Enzo. "I think he needs me." And then, she Dives.

A moment later, Kid appears next to Enzo, and looks between the two. DJ makes a face, as if trying to recall something. "Hey...Dun I know ya?"

Kid backs up next to Enzo, nodding to him. ...What the heck is she nodding about?

[Besyanteo]

Enzo fires off a reply to Enzo: I need her to beat the ever loving crap out of someone in here.

Privately, to Kid: What's up? You need to talk to me? You're nodding.