ic Teching the Tech (IC)

[Spacefurry]

Predator 

 

Predator gave Eira a nod.

“Hello Miss Katastroff. I am aware of your reputation as well.”

The smooth face of the visor lifts, opening on servos on the sides of the helmet to show her vulpine face behind a clear transparent screen.

“Perhaps later we can speak more casually. But first official business.”

She nods again as she turns and indicates the covered remains. Predator covers the events of the evening from just before ‘Mr. Cardenas’ arrives, up to the incident.

 

Walking over she crouches beside the coving and lifts it.

“I didn’t have long to examine it, but I’m confident it is of Terran origin, just not the exact creator. I am more than happy to have the second opinion of a specialist.”

She looks to Eira.

“A suspect in questioning at the moment confessed to a device in the podium possibly responsible for this.”

Predator looks at the podium and stands.

“I was just about to confirm this.”

[Avenger Assembled]

Redhead

 

"Some of them might act like humans, but even the nice ones are inhuman - and they're breeding. They're stronger than us and faster than us and no god put a soul in their bodies. So-called heroes like you think you can beat the bad ones and be friends with the good ones, but even you have to know what they're doing. They already tried replacing the superheroes ten years ago and that damn near burned Freedom City down. They did it again a couple of years ago on Supercrime, remember?" she said in a taunt. "Even the nice ones talk about uplifting humanity. Uplifting my ass. They just want to make us like them because they know deep down, they're not like us. They never will be." 

 

Eira 

 

Sure enough, Predator found that the EMP device was reasonably small and contained; which explained why her armor hadn't taken a hit, or people's cellphones. This was obviously the sophisticated work of an expert, and of a much more recent vintage than the bot itself. 

 

Eira waited patiently for the Predator to finish her inspection, then stepped up to straddle the machine. "You are right. This _is_ old...pathetic." She rolled up her sleeves, showing what looked like long tattoos or scarification over her wrists and down her arms. And then grey cords squirmed out of her wrists, extending from just below her hands, and slid into the open mouth of the Cardenas-bot. The robot's upper section twitched as more fluid leaked out. 

 

There were wet, metallic sounds as the cords worked their way deeper into the skull. "They always put it in the head. Idiots," she hissed under her breath in the low, throaty voice of someone in deep concentration and excitement. "I am penetrating the skull and interfacing with it," she added in a whisper. "Do not be alarmed by reflexive activity." 

Cardenas's eyes snapped open and looked right at Predator, white and wide and staring, as more internal fluid leaked out. A low, almost anguished whine escaped its clogged throat. 

[Supercape]

Echohead

 

Echohead paused. This woman was believable; or at least he believed she believed what she was saying. He flapped his fingers, trying to peel apart the web of subterfuge. 

 

"Wait... robots who breed?"

 

Was she a robosexual?

 

Wait... was she a robot too?

 

"You mean as in uuuh-uuuh thingy dirty squelshy breed? Or they just build more copied of themselves?"

 

He really didnt want to think about the mechanics of bio-mechanical sexual breeding. 

 

He decided to take a risk, and untied her. 

 

"You better not try anything... ah... with me..." he said, red faced. "I warn you! I know karate!"

 

He didn't know karate, but hopefully he could copy the head of someone who did. 

 

Wait... I should have done that first....

Edited September 13 by Supercape

[Spacefurry]

Predator 

 

The EMP device was small, but it had done its job. As Predator examined it briefly she wondered if it had truly been meant to disrupt the presentation, or if whoever built it knew that the presenter themself was going to be a machine.

The strength of the pulse had been strong enough to trigger some kind of catastrophic failure in the Cardenas stand-in, but a focused field that it didn’t disrupt anything beyond the stage.

The tech was newer than the robotic remains, but that didn’t give much more to work with at the moment. 

 

Predator stepped aside to allow Eira room to work. She watched with interest as the girl rolled up her sleeves and initiated her inspection of the remains. The reactions of the remains didn’t bother her, she was focused on what Eira was doing.

“Designers often tend to unconsciously follow what they consider anatomical norms.”

She commented off-handedly as she watched.

 

It was rude, but she really wanted to examine Eira herself. Predator compartmentalized those thoughts though as they were counter productive to the investigation at hand.

 

When the construct’s eyes snapped open to stare at her, Predator crouched down. When she spoke she maintained eye contact, searching for any reactions or recognition.

“Can we question him?”

She asked Eira.

[Avenger Assembled]

"There is nothing here to talk to," said Eira dismissively, her dataspikes making audible wet noises as they penetrated into the cyberbrain. "This is just a drone pretending to be human." A mechanical tone like "awwww" escaped the Cardenas thing's lips as the dataspikes bit deeper. "I am compiling its travel patterns onto a datamap..." She grunted with audible effort as the drone twitched, taking a step to keep stradding it as if she was pinning it down by brute force. "If you have questions, ask me-" 

 

-

 

The redhead looked a little surprised - even if she did rub her wrists and mutter "Took you long enough." It was hard to tell how much Echohead had actually reached her; but it seemed like he'd actually caught her attention. "You know about that robot nation in Europe, right?" she asked skeptically. "The one they made where Chernobyl used to be? That's where they're doing it. Not like a big bad bot army or something...but you know, all that transhumanist malarkey. They make it look like what they have is better than what we have. What we could ever hope to be. But ask Cardenas how well that went." 

[Supercape]

Echohead

 

Echohead flapped his fingers. He didnt really keep up with the news, not as much as he should. Especially if he wanted to be a super spy. He really wanted to be a super spy. But running his gardening shop was lovely too. And there was only so much time in the day. 

 

But he had heard of the robots. 

 

"So they have a nice little fledgling uptopia?" he asked the Redhead. "So what? A thousand such promises every day! Every political party, religion, movement... they all think they are the best. So what if a bunch of robots are following suit?"

 

He paused. He wanted to get to the nub of this. 

 

"What's this got to do with you? You seem... ah... pretty invested in this. Not just handing out leaflets or posting on internet forums..."

 

He was tempted to say something about a fiery redhead. But he imagined if he called her a fiery redhead she would probably act like one. And bite his head off. Or, given this was the world of superheroes and supervillains, he imagined her her read hair would turn into a strands of living fire and strangle him. 

 

He gulped at the thought, thought dry. 

[Spacefurry]

Predator 

 

The armored hero nodded.

“A datamap would prove most helpful.”

Predator said as she stood back up. She studied the remains for a moment then turned her full attention to Eirka.

“Does it know Mr Cardenas’ current location? Perhaps the last location it knew of? Or possibly a future rendezvous point.”

She thought for a moment.

“If you can locate a list of directives or orders, that may also prove useful.”

[Avenger Assembled]

"Professionals should always believe in what they do. It's how you know they won't sell you out the first time somebody pays them more." She shrugged. "Anyway, if you want to find out who replaced Cardenas, my advice is to check with the robots. They're the ones with the hidden agenda here, not me." She smiled thinly and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Except not getting beaten again by those thick-necked goons. If you could drop me off with the actual pigs and not these rent-a-pigs, we're square for all this." 

 

Eira made a noise that sounded like a very human grunt of frustration, pivoting her body as if she was driving her dataspikes as deep into the brain as possible. "Somewhere in Caribbean...will need to process the data." She knelt down until one knee was resting directly on the broken drone's chest, leaning down with her body weight as fluid trickled from Cardenas's mouth. "Extensive memory-mapping. Could have passed for human for long enough." She looked up at Predator and said, "Cardenas is dead. This level of memory-mapping requires individual sectioning of brain tissue. It is almost impossible to 'upload' a mature human mind." 

 

The drone spoke, Eira's lips moving at the same time. "Spread gospel. Cyberization. Implants. Encourage - uplifted -" The drone was making mechanical noises that were not quite speech; and now something was leaking from Eira's mouth, a distinct dark blue fluid a different color than what was leaking from the broken drone.

[Supercape]

Echohead

 

"That's a deal," said Echohead, who didn't trust the Iron Talon either. Mercenaries... Rent-a-good... private army... whatever you called them, they didn't sound good. And with those boots, they didn't look good either, unless one was in the business of resurrecting the third Reich. 

 

And Echohead wasn't. 

 

"In fact, I'll take you to the cops myself. Nobodies going to be beating prisoners on my watch."

 

He guided the redhead out of the building, looking for a nearby police behicle, and calling Predator and Mirror Knight. 

 

"Whats up, dudes?" he asked, wincing at his own pathetic attempt to sound cool. "I mean, what's up, mighty heroes?"

 

Ouch. that didn't sound any better. 

 

"I'm taking the woman to the police. Don't trust the Iron Talon. She says its some kind of robot uprising. Any leads?"

[Spacefurry]

Predator

 

Predator made a noncommittal sound at the  mention of the Caribbean. She watches as Eira ‘digs deeper’ into the artificial remains. She could only nod at the woman’s assessment of Cardenas’ possible death.

“Not without mystical aid.”

She added, the word sounding only a little uncomfortable on her tongue.

 

It wasn’t something she enjoyed working with. ‘Magic’ was difficult to account for. To measure or factor for. At time it down right resisted any attempts to quantify it. And that made Jean more than little… miffed when she was forced to deal with it. She had had systems in place to deal with it back home, but she did not have them here in this world.

 

Setting aside those thoughts she turned her attention back to Eira.

“Any idea how long this has been presenting itself as Ca-“

She cut off as the drone began to speak.

 

“Hmm”

She looked from it to Eira.

“Any ideas on wha-“

Predator stopped again.

“Miss Katastroff?”

She asked, a hint of concern in her normally calm tone.

 

On 9/22/2023 at 9:25 PM, Supercape said:

Echohead

 

"Whats up, dudes?" he asked, wincing at his own pathetic attempt to sound cool. "I mean, what's up, mighty heroes?"

 

"I'm taking the woman to the police. Don't trust the Iron Talon. She says its some kind of robot uprising. Any leads?"

 

The shift of her tone and the tilt of her head is minimal as the helmet’s internal microphone picks up.

“Understood. I’m with the consultant now.”

She eyed Eira.

“I’ll rendezvous with you as soon as possible. Things may be more complicated than we believe.”

She added somewhat cryptically.

Edited September 25 by Spacefurry

[Avenger Assembled]

Eira said something that would have made a Viking blush and spat more blue fluid onto the back of her sleeve. "Bitchbastard jaw feedback!" The dark blue magnetic fluid soaked rapidly into her white sleeve as the drone continued repeating the last few phrases she'd pulled from its memory banks. Still crouching over the drone, she looked up at Predator and Mirror Knight. "This could have passed for some time. They inserted a large language model into its brain and taught it to tell people about uploading, the skit röv mamma jävlars," she added furiously, She couldn't seem to pull her hands free without breaking the connection, so she wiped her mouth on the sleeve again. "Its internal memory starts in the Caribbean - in Montserrat." 

 

- 

 

The redhead was looking around at the sky, as if taking in what would be her last glimpse of free air for a little while. Come to think of it, if she hadn't killed anything sentient, what was her sentence going to be? Probably not very long. "I'm telling you," she added, "It's those robotic creeps in Ukraine, oh, excuse me," she added sarcastically, "in _Rurland_, who are doing all this. Just watch if you go there; you wouldn't be the first superheroes they replaced," she added seriously. "You're all right. The world needs supers with a little common sense."

[Supercape]

Echohead

 

"Ukraine? Uhhh.... that doesnt sound good...."

 

In fact, it sounded bad. It sounded suspiciously like world wall three, it sounded like a game of ping pong played with thermonuclear warheads. 

 

He called his team mates. 

 

"Predator? Mirror? Ah... I got a lead. Not much of a lead. The redhead says its all to do with the robot haven in the Ukraine. I dont know whether to believe her, but it may be worth checking out..."

 

He cleared his throat. 

 

"Thing is, this thing is political dynamite already. And the Ukraine? Well, if someone wanted to play us, you can bet they would send us to the Urkaine. So if you have any better lead, sing out..."

 

He felt the sweat around his neck, strangling him. 

[Spacefurry]

Predator 

 

Predator was thoughtful for a moment before nodding to noone in particular.

“Thank you for your assistance on this.”

She thanked Eira.

“I look forward to your report. If you’ll excuse me.”

She nods to her before turning away.

“I need to rendezvous with others involved in this investigation.”

 

She accepted Echohead’s call as she walked through the building. The Ukraine was a point of tension, understandably so.

“Your assessment is a valid concern. We can not dismiss the possibility of forces attempting to ‘give us the run around’ as it were.”

Predator made a thoughtful sound.

“Hmm. Data can also be manipulated, but I can not see how they could have known we would have been able to access the drone’s core so quickly. The drone’s memory banks point towards the Caribbean, the isle of Montserrat to be more precise.”

 

Unless this entire situation has been manufactured.

She thought darkly to herself.

 

“Either way, we will need clearance and transportation from your superiors Agent Echohead.”

She continued as she moved towards the exit.

“I think we can agree, Montserrat may be the safer first choice, barring sudden volcanic disturbances. Beyond that, we will have to see what we find. Any thoughts or concerns?”

[Supercape]

Echohead

 

Echohead breathed a sigh of relief. Ukraine was simply to "hot" to be an attractive option. 

 

Wheras Montserrat-now that was hot in a whole different way. A great way! Umberto had visions of him lying on a sun lounger, wearing some very cool sunglasses, and drinking martini. It was, of course, imperitive that his martini had a small umbrella in. And ice. And an olive. 

 

"Montserrat it is", he concluded. 

 

Now all he had to do was persuade AEGIS to give them an all expenses trip to Monsterrat, in a first class plane (with its own mini-bar serving super spy drinks), and put them up in a five star hotel with complementary caviar and champagne. 

 

Hope, as they said, springs eternal...

 

Gulping, he brought up his phone to start negotiating with AEGIS...