Child's Play

[Spleen]

Darren rushed over to help Sam with Kid. "We need to carry wheelchairs for times like this, just wheel her back."

Someone needs to leave something in the system here to tell the bosses we all got back to the drive safely, Darren reminded the others. Assuming this wrecked out crap-machine ever turns on again after this crash.

[ChristianC]

Alexis nodded and hurried over to help Sam and Darren with Kid. She didn't know much about programming, but this... this she understood. She took Kid's left arm on her shoulder, raising the girl up. "W-we might be able to c-create one... I-I mean, may...maybe not right now, with the f-failing computer..." she began to hurry towards the door now that they had Kid raised properly.

"W-what's happening? Is someone doing this?"

[BrainWalker]

Max didn't need to be told twice. Crashes tend to be quick and dirty. No telling how much time they had once the warning sounds. He turns to his team in full-on serious mode.

"Sylvie! Lauren! Leafshade! Shrink up; you guys are flying with me. We're getting the heck out of here."

[NebulaQueen]

"Got it!"

Silvie didn't need to be told twice; there was no way she wanted to get stuck in something like this! As soon as Max gave the word, she began to shrank, just as directed.

[Animala]

Lauren took a little longer to react. "I wish..." she trailed off and shook her head. "Okay." She and Ambassador Leafshade started to shrink as well. It kind of hurt to leave this behind...there might've been so much more to find, but...for now, it would be enough.

[BrainWalker]

Max gingerly scoops up his team and holds them close, shielding them from the wind, briefly wondering if it might be a little awkward as he carries them over the rubble. It's a short trip, and when it's over, Max sets his friends down by the port to the bus as carefully as he had picked them up.

[Kelne]

Emily, after a moment's consideration, decided she'd be better off helping to move Enzo and Kid. At least until they surfaced and were capable of moving themselves. With that in mind, she started hauling Enzo along, willing that enhanced strength to kick in.

[Shinigori V2]

The squad, albeit from different directions, rushes towards the safety of their flare drive. Enzo works in his flare drive, successfully getting a barrier set up and data backed up, so that the data could-and would- be saved. Enzo and Kid jump back to their bodies, and everyone recollects at the Flare Drive, just as a message comes in from HQ- "System crashing. Get back to Flare Drive pronto. Extraction as soon as everyone's in. MOVE MOVE MOVE."

In short order, everyone is being compressed and entering, as the 'city' begins to rumble and fall around them. Huge chunks of the buildings fall away, blocking off the alleyway that leads back into the main street; though thankfully they shouldn't need to come back. As the last of the children compresses, they get a feeling that someone's watching them.

Standing on the roof opposite of the alley, a Wunderkind. Her arms crossed, she smirks smugly, looking down on the escaping Bluesky squad. Max and Enzo manage to catch a quick glimpse of her before shuffling onto the safety of the 'bus'; her hair is an almost unnatural, fiery red and hangs over her face a bit. Her suit is a simple red on white uniform, and something about her makes them both feel horrible uneasy. As they shuffle into the flare drive, the doors slam shut, just as the building above them gives way and the system gives one last, dying message.

Viral Presence Detected.

-------

Mission 03: Ruins- Complete
Mission Status: Successful
Mission End Time: 1:13 PM, June 16, 3756.
Optional Objective: Find transmission from Mr. Ashton.
Damages: 0.00 Credits.
Gains: 0.00 Credits
MVPs: TBA

[BrainWalker]

Max stands at the door to the bus with Enzo, and they share a look of concern. What the Hell just happened? Was that some kind of bizarro anti-wunderkind invasion? Comparing the events of the mission with the content of Mr.Ashton's video lead to some... disturbing theories.

The kids need some consensus.

"Well, that was... interesting. Everyone okay?" Max looks around the room, and sees some harried faces, but nothing more serious. "I think we need to... Well, first, I think we should probably just take a breather and relax for a minute. But we also need to compare notes, get our stories straight, and figure out what kind of report we're going to be drafting for the bossman. I wanna know what you guys in beta team found out other than names, and I've got some... pretty heavy video we recovered from the other building. I think putting together what just happened, and what both teams discovered, could lead to some... pretty scary conclusions."

Max finishes his verbal pondering, and then notices little Benji and Razzie hiding behind Janet's bed, probably startled by everyone rushing into the bus like the world was ending.

"Oh yeah, and then there's those two," he says, nodding in their direction. "I'm not even sure what's up with those guys. Juniorkind, was it? Is this going to be a regular thing, now? It's like Wunderkind of all different shapes and sizes and degrees of assholishness are popping up all over the place."

[ChristianC]

Alexis had been too busy carrying her unconscious kind-friends (kinders?) to really notice much of what was going on, but the system signal... virus? She'd known it, there'd been some kind of virus there...

Everyone got back okay? Did the virus come in with us? What happened back there?

She threw out the questions before she even had time to register what Max had said, but much thanks to her mind having been converted into a software, her cached hearing was quickly accessed and she blinked, looking over at her brother.

Can we see that video now? And what about those names? She looked over at Benji and Razzie and then hurriedly stepped up to them, being on almost equal height now. She was pretty short, after all.

Hey guys, sorry I threw you in here, do you have any idea what you two were doing in here before we came along?

[Idran1701]

"I don't think there was much besides the names for us." Sam glances between the others in his team, thinking on what all happened. "Enzo and Kid had to do something in deep diving, but I dunno what exactly. He needed Kid to beat someone up I think, but I dunno who." At Max's comment, he looks over to the two Juniorkind, just having noticed them now. "Oh, hi! Who are you two anyway? Are you okay? You don't hafta be scared, we're all safe here now. I'm Sam, what're your names?" As for the video, he doesn't pay much attention to talk about it just yet; keeping the new kids from being too panicky is first priority.

[NebulaQueen]

"I'm fine," Silvie said. "But wait, what's this about beating people up? What'd she - er, or he - what'd they look like?"

There were other things going on, sure, and Silvie was curious about those kids they picked up. But, she couldn't help but wonder if this mystery villain had anything to do with Vi...

[Besyanteo]

Enzo sits back in the 'bus', just trying to calm down. That could have gone so much worse than it did. Oh man. Someone was asking about Deep diving... Ah right. DJ. The data.

"We were dealing with a Wunderkind who had wrecked the Kernel Janet and I wrote. She was between us and recovering the data successfully. She calls herself DJ... Black and green suit, pretty stupid overall. She wasn't able to stop us, luckily. The data should be safe for now. I think. We'll definitely have to tell the adults about the virus girl, and I'm convinced that's what she is."

He paused to collect his thoughts better. However the more he tried, the more tired he got. Better to write a report and let the adults figure it all out. With a hand over his eyes he asked:

"... So I guess we've got another three hours before we get back to the database. What should we watch?"

[Animala]

Lauren glanced at the younger ones. "I think..." she said, then stopped and switched to a less...public transmission. "I think maybe the video should wait until we're alone. It's supposed to be pretty secret. But it means my dad's alive! He's alive! Lauren took a moment to collect the rest of her thoughts. Oh, and we also met this Vi girl who doesn't trust Thirteen and thinks my dad can see the future. She really, really wants us not to trust Thirteen. I don't know if that makes her a bad guy or what, but, uh...we really didn't get along very well.

[Kelne]

Emily hadn't actually seen any of the other wunderkind in action, so there wasn't much she could add there. "Names were about it for the building. I should have them saved," she said, checking the files were intact and uncorrupted, "But it looks like almost everything was trashed long before we got there. I don't think those buildings represented a lot of storage space at all."

[Shinigori V2]

Razzie, taking a position on the cot, frowns at Max. "You're dressed funny."

Janet, having woken up, sits next to her and pulls her and Benji close, chuckling. "Yeah, we all kind of are. Hey, how about I tell you both a story while the big kids talk?"

Both seem enthused by that, and head towards the back of the drive. Janet leans in to Enzo, whispering. "Uplink to me while you talk, I'll keep the little ones distracted and figure out what they were doing here."

Kid sits, cracking her knuckles. "Woulda liked to take a few licks on that brat." She says, putting her feet up on one of the chairs opposite. "But, another time. Anyone else get a really creepy feeling as we were leaving there? And more importantly, should we start comparin' notes on what we all found? I think Max already suggested it, but really worth doin', I think."

[ChristianC]

Why wouldn't we want to trust Thirteen? The future....?

Alexis chewed on her lip slowly.

Did she attack you guys? Maybe she's from the future...kinda, like Thirteen too? And they don't like each other? We should ask Thirteen about it, or maybe... she glanced at the others should we?

[Besyanteo]

Enzo will go ahead and uplink with Janet, but otherwise he just listens to the others for now.

[BrainWalker]

Enzo and Janet wrote a kernel? From the inside? That's pretty impressive.

Max sighs at Alexis's comment. "I don't really know what to think about Thirteen. Maybe she and Vi did know each other at some point, but I think it's pretty clear they're not on the same side. Although why Violetta would try to make us think Thirteen isn't really our friend is a mystery."

Max crosses his arms, and shifts his weight. "After watching that video with Lauren's dad, I think I agree with Enzo. I'm pretty sure our party-crashers are the 'viral presence' the system was talking about." Suddenly, Max is reminded of the dream he and Emmy shared, just for a moment, before he blinks and shakes his head to clear it out. "If you guys want to watch it while Janet's got the kids, I'll play it. It's... pretty relevant. It's almost pointless to keep talking without it, if you guys," Max casually gestures to 'Beta Team', "don't have any more data to share. Not that there was a whole lot of data in there. I think Emmy's right; it was very crisp and clean and bland and boring out there. No interesting programs running. I think it was just pure no-frills data storage. The buildings weren't all that big, aside from the two we checked, and there weren't that many of them. Maybe Vi and DJ were after some specific data? Who knows."

Max ponders for a moment, and turns to Enzo. "Hey, Enzo, do you think we could stream the audio through our comlink instead of over the bus speakers?"

[Shinigori V2]

"But, if they were the virus the thing was talkin' about, why did it detect them AFTER they left?" Kid asks.

[BrainWalker]

"That's... a good question, actually." Max has to think about it for a second.

"Well, computers don't always detect viruses immediately. By design, they're pretty good at sneaking in undetected. Heck, we didn't even know they were there until they revealed themselves, and the system didn't say anything until it started crashing... I'm not sure that's it, though."

Max's expression changes. He looks a little uneasy. "Actually... as we were all piling into the Flare Bus, I saw -- and I'm pretty sure Enzo saw her, too -- a third invader, standing on top of one of the buildings; the one just across the alley where we came into the system. She had a red and white costume, and she had this... hair. This crazy orangey-red hair, like someone cranked the color setting on their TV all the way up. She was staring down at us with this cocky smirk, like the villain in a kung-fu flick who beats the hero at the end of the first act before he goes off to train and comes back to avenge himself at the end of the movie. Normally I'd be pissed, but something about her made me really uncomfortable."

With a sigh, Max amends his previous theory. "I dunno, maybe she's what the system was really talking about. Maybe she's the real threat and DJ and Vi were just her lackeys or something. I don't know."

[NebulaQueen]

Silvie groaned, and said, "So we have the virus, and three crazy people after us, and then all this stuff with the new kids and the video and ...argh! Just what are we supposed to do about this?"

[Besyanteo]

When he could get a word in edgewise, Enzo answered Max:

"Yeah, I can do that. Heck, if I had access right now, you guys could watch Yulu.cw movies through me. Anyway, here we go-"

There was a brief pause, where Enzo stared at a fixed point. Everyone had an odd feeling, like something was moving just behind their eyes... and then a window appeared in their respective fields of vision, off center and slightly transparent, at 90% opacity they suddenly knew. They'd also find that by thinking about it, they could move where it was displayed or change the opacity.

[ChristianC]

Alexis frowned.

Why would there be wunderkind who are not on our side? Does this have something to do with what Thirteen was speaking about before? About evolution, and us being special? Her frown deepened, What if D-52 aren't the only ones "making" wunderkind? What if someone is picking up children who can become wunderkind and train them wrong?

Her train of thoughts were interrupted as Enzo manifested a small video-frame in her vision, and it barely startled her... which was surprising, but hardly unforeseen. She'd had enough crazy to last her a lifetime.

[NebulaQueen]

"Whoa!"

Silvie blinked, before she squinted and tried to focus the window juuust where she wanted it to be. She lowered the opacity, and said, "That's a pretty neat trick."

[Shinigori V2]

As the kids get comfortable with their windows, the video starts.

Spoiler:

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.

(Copy and pasted from before because I am extremely lazy.)

[Besyanteo]

Enzo sat, after the movie ended, looking thoughtful. A Viral threat. HE said that it would overwhelm the world, and corrupt it, but he didn't say anything about destroying it, really. That their plan to combat it was him and his brothers and sisters... That implied that it was at least in part digital, if not completely so. Even when they had their bodies, they couldn't do anything more to fight a biological virus than a human could. Virus detected. Max and Emily's dreams. Zombie wunderkind. Did the adults alter the children to become wunderkind now to avoid their being taken over and corrupted while in physical bodies? It would be terrible if every digital device on Krynus suddenly harbored hostile intelligence, but that could be hidden from and a counterattack planned. Anything that didn't send or receive data would be fine, heating and cooling devices, rudimentary vehicles and the lot. Life could go on while they worked. So long as humans with strange powers over technology didn't start becoming a risk to life. So now they were wunderkind, and could possibly defend themselves... Or in the worst case, they could-

No. He cut that thought off short. That wouldn't happen. The adults had done nothing to make Enzo think they should distrust them. Nothing serious. Paranoia would help no one. That said... They had seen this now. The data had been saved on the drive, by Enzo himself. So long as the virus didn't find and destroy it, and he felt at least that she would have a hell of a time doing it, it should be safe; Locked in a digital safe that only he and Janet could access, sealed in a read-only passworded partition. She probably couldn't bulldoze her way through that... maybe. At any rate, the adults would eventually learn that the kids had seen what they had seen. It would be too late to simply refuse to grant them access to information on the virus. They'd earned that today, in more ways than one. Yes, Rivendare would tell them everything. Enzo's fourteen year old mind was made up that it would be so.

[ChristianC]

They... made us?

Alexis frowned deeply as the video finished playing. Her eyes had been wide with surprise and... fear? The image of Lauren had jolted her awake.

They... they turned us into this. We weren't born Wunderkind... we... we...

She looks at the others, her mouth trembling slightly... but for those who've noticed, she hasn't spoken with her mouth in a long while, and her thought-words still come along fairly calmly and straight forward.

What else haven't they told us? Di... Did they kill my parents? I don't... how much of this did they do because they wanted to?

[Idran1701]

Sam shakes his head at Alexis, though he's still processing these revelations. "Thirteen said that we were gonna be Wunderkind no matter what. So they didn't do anything like that, I know it. They wouldn't, 'cause they wouldn't have to, and so why would they? Right? They just wanna help us, that's what all of them always said."

He frowns to himself. "They just...they found us! Yeah...we were the ones they found that could change after they did the rocket thing, so they changed us so that we could help save everyone. Mr. Rivendare'd tell us if they did anything else, he wouldn't lie to us. We're still here to help people and...and stuff like that. An' all this means is that now we know what kinda thing we especially need to help people from."

[Kelne]

This was, to Emily's mind, seriously messed up. Finding out that D-52 had unleashed someting on the world that would turn five percent of children, everywhere, into wunderkind was... Well, it was going to take some wrapping her head around. That was a huge number of kids to be suddenly loosed on the net with no guidance, and who knew how they'd all react. As well as which, it looked like somebody sinister had gotten to some of them first. DJ, she was willing to bet, was Doreen Jennifer Hesling from the list, so that suggested whoever had put the three they'd seen up to this had at least six others under their control.

Added to which, there was this virus thing which could destroy the world as they knew it. She had a feeling that they were all going to be seriously stepping up their training as a result of these revelations.

[BrainWalker]

Max sighs. "Well, I don't share Sam's optimism, it is technically true that they didn't 'make' us. From the way Lauren's dad tells it, it sounds like the Doomsday Event, whatever the heck that was, got the ball rolling. D52 just made it roll faster. But still, they had absolutely no right to alter the lives of several million children all over the world without anyone knowing. That's seriously fucked up. They told us on our deathbeads that we had a choice, but did we? I guess that's what Thirteen meant when she said we were always going to be Wunderkind."

Max slumps into one of the cushy bus seats. "I dunno what to think. I don't know what I'm going to put in my report. There's going to be a whole heck of a lot more 'Wunderkind' running around, and clearly not all of them are going to be friendly."

[Shinigori V2]

Mission: 04- Highway Patrol
Deck City: The Database
July 20th, 3756
8:30 AM

The Wunderkind's internal clocks all sound an alarm, waking them from whatever states of sleep or recreation they might've been in this morning. Something big is going down. They're to report at 0845 to the Data Uplink Room. After months of waiting and preparation, the day has finally come.

It's B-Day. The children's bodies are complete, and ready for upload. For the first time in months, they will exist in the real world, in physical bodies.

Every child has received an email, detailing their bodies blueprints and schematics. State of the art robotic bodies, designed and specifically built to match the child nearly perfectly, save for their Wunderkind uniforms. Their home will still be on the Database; they'll still be spending a majority of their time digitized. But for now, they can return to the real world, and for many, might possibly meet their parents again, or at least their new handlers in the Big Brother/Big Sister program.

[Kelne]

Emily was up and about... Well, precisely on time, really. One thing about being digital - if you were supposed to sleep for a set amount of time, that was it. There wasn't really the option of ignoring alarms in your head. Still, she cetainly wasn't wasting any time getting moving this morning. Today, they'd be able to go out into the real world at last. She was really looking forward to seeing her parents again, even if she'd tried to dial it down a bit for the sake of those kids who didn't have parents to miss.

She'd been putting her time to good use since the last mission, keeping up with her schoolwork and doing her best to master her new abilities, trying to expand the limits of what she could accomplish in the digital realm. She had a feeling she'd need every skill she could muster when they next ran into those other wunderkind. For today however, those thoughts were far from her mind as she headed down the corridors towards the data uplink room.

[ChristianC]

Alexis had been up and about an hour or so earlier than she'd needed to. To her, this day had been... partially dreaded, because although she'd been... alive in these computers for months, it had been many, many years since she'd seen much of the outside world and... what she remembered from it wasn't something she liked to remind herself of. In fact, just thinking about it made her wring her hands nervously in her room, her squeeze-balls gone for now, although the floor and her bed was littered with texts and images, windows continuously spawning the message "HELLO WORLD!", others that made simple calculations possible... All simple programming stuff, really.

She took a few deep, but unnecessary breaths, before she opened the email containing the schematics of her new body... and a face to the voice of the handler she had been introduced to... a tingle of anticipation ran down her spine, but it was still scary... she nervously gathered up the files in her room, clicked the applications closed and went out of her room and towards the Data Uplink room... this was going to be a pretty eventful day.

[NebulaQueen]

Silvie was absolutely giddy with excitement, over...well, everything, really. She was finally going to be in the real world! She would have a real body (which happened to look totally sweet), she'd get to see her parents, and actually meet them and talk to them instead of just emailing them, and they'd finally get to do something! Barely able to contain herself, she rushed towards the Uplink Room, grinning like a fool.

[Idran1701]

Sam follows close behind Silvie, nearly as excited as she is as he runs into the Uplink Room behind her. "So what's the first thing everyone else's gonna do when you get out, huh? I mean after we meet our handlers an' see family or friends or stuff. I'm gonna go to the park and see if I can throw a ball out of the field!"

[Besyanteo]

Enzo was up at his usual time, and had sat in his room for a while. He had a number of little applets put together, now. He could monitor the news and the weather of Deck city, temperatures and wind speeds and such, and he would get a little alert if his pet project in the database malfunctioned. He could translate words and phrases, poorly, into other languages at need... but he hadn't actually used any of it much so far. He'd built a bunch of little digital replicas of things now, and they littered his room much like the ones in Alexis' room. It was a mess, but somehow it fit well. It looked sort of right.

He got the email at 8:30 like everyone else, a little while after he got up. It was odd how he wasn't looking forward to this. Not like he expected to be. It's not that he didn't want to have a body, he just wasn't excited about it either. It just... was. He'd get lots of neat abilities, and that was always nice. Lately, though, all he really wanted to do was program and manipulate data. Turn things into things, change stuff around to suit his needs. The digital world was full of potential. The physical world... well, it was sort of an unknown right now. Well, unknown other than he half expected all of them to have the press sprung on them suddenly. Some to think of it, the latest Deck City news of significance had been bothering him. Maybe that's what he wasn't as keen as everyone else on being uploaded today.

He stood up and left his room, to meet the others in the hall. There was always the chance that things would work out just fine, and they would wait to involve the media. It was their first day, after all. Please let it not be today... He smiled at the others as he walked with them. Sam was asking a question.

"I... dunno, really. I guess I haven't thought about it."

[ChristianC]

I want to go to a place.

Alexis replied to Sam's question, but she didn't really seem that excited about it. Her uniform had reverted back to its old colors and she was keeping her hair tied up in a long, loose braid like before.

I don't really know what I want to do after that.

[Idran1701]

Sam turns to Enzo, looking a little surprised at his lack of enthusiasm. "Really? Nothin' at all? Well...I'm sure you'll think of somethin' really cool when you get out!" And then to Alexis, furrowing his brow at her own tone, "Um...what kinda place?" Privately, individually, he sends a private communication to each of them.

Enzo: Everything okay? I thought everyone'd be really excited and stuff.
Alexis: What's wrong? Are you gonna be all right?

[Besyanteo]

Enzo sent a message back to Sam:

No, it's ok. I just... I like this place a lot, you know? Maybe I'll feel more excited when we're actually in the bodies. We'll see.