ic It's Gonna Be The Future Soon (IC)

[Fox]

The shapeshifter was just now drifting back to consciousness, and she gave Wraith a jaundiced look through a bloodshot eye. "I know you. What's a Kinigosi doing in a human simulation, anyway?"

Wraith blinked for a moment, glancing back over at 'Gal Vanic' and Sharl as they talked, and deliberately overlooking the poorly-covered 'alien freaks' line. There were better things to pay attention to, like an enemy who apparently knew what she was.

She hummed, turning her attention back on the waiting villain; very carefully she leaned down, back to the others, and...smiled. It was a neat trick, without a mouth, though that was solved simply enough - as her 'skin' pulled tight over the smile it just split apart, receding back into her face and leaving an unsettlingly large mouth full of row upon row of glinting, shark-like teeth. Even her eyes were smiling...or maybe they'd just been pushed out of the way by her grinning razor-filled maw.

"Hunting," she finally answered, sounding awfully pleased about it.

[KnightDisciple]

The militia didn't look mollified by Corbin's words, but they didn't look angered by them either. "We have captured another alien in the city," replied the militia commander evenly, his face still hidden behind his mask. "But you look like a person." Evidently for these people, that was enough to win the early stages of trust. "Perhaps he will talk when he sees you." With the militia's guns at his back, Cobalt Templar was escorted deeper into the militia headquarters. Corbin could easily see what a crisis he was walking into; armed militia occasionally ran back and forth through the narrow hallways, an alarm was blaring from somewhere, and everyone was obviously on edge.

The walls looked decidedly odd to Corbin, as they would to any human: there was no sign of doors, the walls simply irised open to reveal rooms on the other side buzzing with activity and heavily-armed alien soldiers. Finally, they reached what at first looked like a blank wall, and then transformed itself into an open cell door: inside a figure in shockingly human garb lounged, a red-eyed man in a red jacket, white tee, and blue jeans. As the door opened, he turned and smirked at his captors, who looked ready to go in there and whip the smirk off his face. "Alien! This man would have words with you."

"Are you going to beat me up, superhero?" asked the man with a wink. "I don't think we've met. My name is Keres."

Cobalt Templar managed to not sigh in audible relief when he wasn't shot.

"Yeah, hopefully he will. Whoever "he" is."

He followed the militia men, lapsing into silence as he noted their route as best he could. Couldn't hurt to try and memorize the way out as best he could.

'I'll give them this, these guys don't mess around, and those guns look pretty nasty. Maybe if we make nice after all this they can take me out to the range with one? Always good to add another design to the roster...'

As the wall opened up in front of him, Cobalt Templar took several confident strides. He was about to add a confident "what he said" type statement after the militia member announced his presence.

But hearing the "man's" name, and seeing his face, those words died in his throat before his lips could twitch.

'Oh, crap. The Foundry, here? Keres? Of course. He's probably trying to make them think he's not a big threat...'

Cobalt Templar's posture straightened a bit as he steeled himself for this encounter. He kept his eyes locked on Keres, but un-crossed his own arms.

"I hope you fellas have been keeping a close eye on this guy. I've never met him, but I've heard of him. He's nothing but bad news."

He took one small step forward, closing the distance a bit while keeping some space between himself and the dangerous android.

"We haven't met, but I've heard of you. Busy little bee, aren't you? I remember hearing about what you did to General Dynamics. Nasty piece of work. Probably not as nasty as the stunt you almost pulled at USNet. Of course, that's not your nastiest work by far...Just what are you doing here, Keres?Probably has something to do with that sphere they collected from you, doesn't it?"

Templar effectively knew the answer, but perhaps the android would be goaded into talking?

[April]

Sage waited patiently for the room to clear--a section of her mind examining the speed and efficiency of the workers evacuation--as she kept an eye on the black-clad figure. The dark clothing wasn't enough to raise suspicion, Sage's own normal costume was what one would consider dark--and the one she arrived in when entering Tronik was even darker still--but the manner in which the figure stood there was enough to raise a red flag.

-Going to take a closer look,- Sage thought to Papercut as she slipped from her hiding place. Eve paused for a moment, glancing back over her shoulder at Koshiro. -Stay hidden, stay safe, and have that plane ready in case you need to get away quickly.-

Telekinetically anchoring herself to the walls, and then the ceiling, the nimble teen slowly approached a spot on the ceiling above the suspected bad guy.

[Electra]

Koshiro was still busy working up his nerve about being this close to a dead body when the whole place suddenly went dark. Visions of the murdered guy jumping up and grabbing at their ankles was enough to have him stepping back, teetering on the edge of the bin for a second. As he caught his balance, he could see, barely, the outline of the dark figure. "Couldn't get out if I wanted," he muttered to Sage. "Dark as hell up there, I'd just hit a wall. Anyway, we've got him outnumbered. What's the plan?" He hoped the senior student had a plan, because he most certainly did not. "The others might be in trouble too, I don't think we can count on getting any backup."

[Avenger Assembled]

The shapeshifter visibly flinched at Wraith's terrifying mien; evidently knowing what a Kinigosi was was no armor against fearing them. if anything, it seemed to make matters worse. "You...you can't actually hurt me," she said defensively, shrinking away as much as her bonds allowed. "Even if you tear this avatar up, I'll just wake up in my crib and you won't have a hostage anymore. You may have your little computerized friend here who makes you think this place is real," she went on with a nod towards Citizen, "but nothing you people do to me is going to stick once I'm out of here."

"Well, then," said Citizen, turning to face his antagonist directly, "if we can't permanently hurt you, then we don't have any good reason to hold back," he said sharply, bending down next to her on the floor and giving her a steady-eyed glare behind his shades. "So you'd better start talking, or maybe we'll see how my friend here likes the taste of you?"

Her teeth set, the shapeshifter reluctantly said, "Look, I'm not even supposed to be here. I'm just paying a debt I owe the Foundry." She slumped in her bonds. "Your friend Rogue's one of Talos' top people, and he's backing her play on her own turf. That's where all of us came from."

"Wait a minute," Sharl went on, frowning. "Why would Rogue want to destroy Tronik? She's a technosupremacist, she knows killing us is just like killing a human-"

"She doesn't want to kill the people, kid," said the shapeshifter irritably. "She wants to kill the city."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Oh, you are from outside?" replied Keres, a look of cold amusement on his falsely-human face. "How remarkable! Rogue warned me her little boyfriend might bring in outside help, but I was expecting Miss Americana and Dragonfly, not teenagers with attitude." Keres stood up in his cell and stretched, looking relaxed despite his confinement and the glowering guards outside. "You might as well leave now, little boy. What's coming is going to be tough enough for the natives and machines like me, but you organic projectors are going to be in for a world of hurt. You might even get sucked right out of that meat sack of yours and into something more interesting." He grinned. "But you look like the type to get really offended by the loss of your flesh, so you may want to run home first."

[Avenger Assembled]

Sage's plan turned out to be to recon, keeping a silent connection to Papercut so he didn't feel abandoned in the alien factory. With the emergency lights beginning to snap on, one after the other, casting the factory into an eerie shade of red, at least it wasn't so dark anymore. As she crept along the ceiling, the figure standing on the big oxygen recycler came into focus in the light from the skylight overhead and the clicking-on emergency lights. It was instantly obvious the man didn't belong in Tronik; the man was dressed as a 17th century pirate, at least if you ignoring the cutlass at his hip that crackled with electric power. He looked like he'd cut a more swashbuckling air in happier times; as it was, the pirate looked tired and a little strung-out, like a man at the tailing end of a coffee bender. "Arr, will you look at that?" he was saying to himself in awe, obvious admiration on his face as he peered down into the recycler, tapping away at a computer pad in his hand. "Lor molecular fusion, down to the smallest detail! That'll fetch a fine haul on the open market!"

[KnightDisciple]

"Oh, you are from outside?" replied Keres, a look of cold amusement on his falsely-human face. "How remarkable! Rogue warned me her little boyfriend might bring in outside help, but I was expecting Miss Americana and Dragonfly, not teenagers with attitude." Keres stood up in his cell and stretched, looking relaxed despite his confinement and the glowering guards outside. "You might as well leave now, little boy. What's coming is going to be tough enough for the natives and machines like me, but you organic projectors are going to be in for a world of hurt. You might even get sucked right out of that meat sack of yours and into something more interesting." He grinned. "But you look like the type to get really offended by the loss of your flesh, so you may want to run home first."

"Run away? What, do you think I'm a coward like you? I've faced worse than you and come out fine."

Cobalt Templar's worry had been dropped in favor of resolve, and a bit of angry disdain. What was a robot spy next to legions of Omegadrones?

"You're a corporate saboteur, sure. Probably because it plays to your strengths of hiding in the shadows. No, I'm not going to run away, Keres. I'm going to stop you. And I know how."

Taking a few steps back, but never taking his gaze fully off of Keres, Corbin turned to a nearby militia member and spoke softly.

"I believe the obtuse threat he is making is related to something you've confiscated. I understand you have a strange spherical device in your possession? I believe that's the threat. I need to examine it. Quite like I will need to take it out of city limits. If there's a timer, perhaps I can at least get it far enough away it will do nothing to your city. I have some help I might be able to communicate with once I've got some altitude, and they might have a suggestion on what to do. Perhaps I could at least examine it first?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"We do have something," said the militia commander, his voice uncertain behind his heavy mask. "The prisoner was captured carrying an object into the fusion recyclers in the lower delta levels of this sector, a black-body spheriod that we had to carry here by antigravs. It's being analyzed right now by our xenospecialists in the upper levels, two floors from here." Evidently sensing Corbin's urgency, he turned and gestured towards the wall, an elevator sliding smoothly open in the blank wall as if it had been hidden there all along, but with what he'd seen of Tronik's casual high technology there was no way of knowing if that was true.

"Have fun!" called Keres amiably as they headed for the elevator, leaning close to the force field at the edge of his cell. "Just make sure you can stop them all. Otherwise, we'll be fitting you for a Mark IV. One of the really boxy ones, doesn't look anything like a man. You'll look good that way," he added with a wink.

[KnightDisciple]

Cobalt Templar nodded as the militia commander spoke.

"That sounds right. Assuming it's not over..."

He tilted his head and thought for a moment.

"Oh, say about 50 tons, I should be able to get it out. How big is it in size?"

He starts walking toward then elevator door, and is almost in the threshold when Keres says "stop them all". In the blink of an eye he's standing at the cell door, blue flame flaring as he stares down the artificial man.

"Where are the rest?"

He stares for a moment more, but then shakes his head and takes a step back.

"No, you want me angry and desperate, so busy trying to figure out where they are that I can'd fix it in time. Too bad for you."

He turns away and closes his eyes, raising one hand to his ear as if talking into a hidden headset. Instead, his lips barely move as he taps into the network Sage has been providing for them.

'<Guys! I think I know why they hit all those places! They're hiding some sort of black spheres all over the place! I've got Keres, from the Foundry, sitting in a cell here at militia headquarters. I don't quite get what he's saying, but it sounds like bad juju for Tronik. I'd bet dollars to donuts they've hidden these things at the different buildings Sharl told us about earlier. We need to find them all! Right now they want us confused and more scared than long-tailed cats in a room of rocking chairs, but we've got an advantage now! I'm going to take care of the one here with Leroj's help, then try to get to the plankton processing center. Cobalt Templar moving out.>'

With that he opened his now-glowing eyes and stepped forward into the lift. He nodded to the commander.

"Let's go."

[Gizmo]

"Kill the...? What does that even mean?" the temporarily named Gal Vanic demanded on their captive rather indignantly. Was Rogue trying to move the city's citizens to a different computer or into the real world as holograms? Kimber could actually grasp the motivation of wanting to be treated as real and not a second class imitation pretty well, but that was where her understanding of the malicious Tronik native's scheme ended. As Cobalt Templar filled them in on what he'd learned over the telepathic net, she gulped audibly. "I guess that's why they wanted to distract us. Where were the other targets? I'm pretty fast in here, and I shoot lightning, did you see? I bet I can make get at least one of them rounded up in no time!"

[Fox]

Wraith bowed her head for a moment, mouth closing back up while she mulled the new revelations over. "If Rogue destroys the city, would not all the citizens die as well?" she asked, turning to look at Sharl with questioning eyes. "If a virtual shapeshifter was able to bounce me against the ceiling - and I was able to feel the pain - would a native citizen here survive the city being destroyed? I suppose if they are like you, perhaps they'd survive, but where would they be? Would they be left on your computer network without a city to live in? It is a very confusing motive."

[April]

-I'm going to distract him,- Sage thought to Papercut as she crept into position above the pirate garbed hacker, -You follow up by binding him with that trick you pulled on Collins. Then we get answers.- At least she hoped she'd get answers; the petite telepath was concerned with what she was hearing over the telepathic network but there wasn't anything she or Koshiro could do to aid the others.

That thought irritated her, and she mentally chastised herself at allowing the group to split as it did. Setting those thoughts aside she coughed slightly, calling her position out to the attention of Freebooter.

"You're getting ahead of yourself," the gymnast declared as she dropped from the ceiling. Her weapon formed in her hand as she fell, and when she touched down on top of the oxygen recycler she launched a series of thrusts and slashes with her blade. Not one attack landed, but that wasn't what Sage was trying to do. Instead she drew the hacker off guard and in line with Papercut's position so the origami artist will have a clear shot.

Pausing for a moment in her display of acrobatic swordsmanship, Sage smiled and said, "I have questions. You will answer them."

[Electra]

Right on cue, a single sheet of paper fluttered down from the catwalk, silent and inoffensive. It landed squarely atop Freebooter's head as lightly as the first snowflake of winter. Then, with a sudden rustle and crinkle, it began to grow, stretching and folding itself with dizzying speed, rolling the villain to one side, then the other as a sturdy and very large paper box formed around him. In seconds, the mysterious pirate was totally encased, only a silhouette visible through the walls of his fibrous prison. "That should be pretty solid," Papercut called down. " But he can hear you in there. Go head and ask."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Hey, what the-" The pirate persona dropped as soon as the world vanished, Freebooter's voice taking on an entirely different quality of suspicion and anger. "Yeah, I can see you, too!" he said, visibly straining against his fibrous restraints for a moment. "I don't know who you are, but if you kids want to screw around in a Freedom League system, that's your lookout." He hesitated a moment, then said with genuine respect, "Nice job on getting in, by the way, the system was supposed to be locked down. I had to sell my services to get in the door at all. Listen, I've honestly got no beef with you kids, I'm just here for the super-tech the League's been keeping away from the common man." He sounded affable enough, if annoyed at his restraints, not at all a potential mass murderer caught at his work.

---

"If the programs holding the city itself together failed, then all the people would be shunted into protected memory," said Sharl, talking aloud as he sussed out what had to be Rogue's plan. "That's a backup Miss Americana and Dragonfly put in last time they were here, a system so that the people would be protected even if the city programs overloaded." He ran his hands through his hair and said, "And if they were in the protected memory, someone like me, or Rogue, or Talos, or anyone else with technopathic abilities, could come in and take them. Could come in and take them anywhere." His eyes hardened "That monster..."

At Cobalt Templar's voice in his ear, he thought fast, then turned to the others. "Somebody needs to go help Corbin with that. I don't want any of us dealing with these things alone. Gal Vanic, can you do that?" Citizen asked her. "You were really fast on the way here, and I'm betting you're really strong too." He grinned slightly. "And the lightning thing! You can blast the hell out of these bastards. Wraith and I can hit the last place, the plankton processing center. Till we know where Rogue is, we've got to travel in groups."

---

When he finally found it in a militia lab, the black sphere turned out to be an eerie globe of absolute blackness, a sphere of opaque nothing some 2 feet in diameter. It floated in mid-air, resting over a carefully formed loop and handle that glowed with a matching red radiance. "The sphere killed the first man who tried touching it," said the militia officer at Corbin's back. "We've had to carry it around in the alien system it came in. How can you destroy this?" he asked Corbin seriously.

[KnightDisciple]

When he finally found it in a militia lab, the black sphere turned out to be an eerie globe of absolute blackness, a sphere of opaque nothing some 2 feet in diameter. It floated in mid-air, resting over a carefully formed loop and handle that glowed with a matching red radiance. "The sphere killed the first man who tried touching it," said the militia officer at Corbin's back. "We've had to carry it around in the alien system it came in. How can you destroy this?" he asked Corbin seriously.

"Worst case I drag it to orbit and toss it into deep space. And or try to burn it away.

But I'd prefer to just get it and myself outside where I can get a better signal to one of my sources; I think he had an idea of what to do, but the signal was weak. So...what's the shortest route from here to outside? Can we maybe clear it for safety's sake?"

Cobalt Templar carefully walked over to the whole thing, gently reaching out to take hold of the handle. He applied the bare minimum of force necessary to try and move the sphere of nothing just a little bit. He wanted to know what it would take to get it moving.

[Gizmo]

"The lightning thing!" Kimber echoed, grinning broadly and floating another foot into the air, exuberant despite the grave situation. "Just point me right direction... uh, boss!" the electrified ghost added quickly with a quick glance towards the assembled news people who were no doubt listening in. "Cee Tee's usually pretty hard to miss, I bet I'll find in no time flat!" With directions provided, Gal Vanic was off like a bolt of lightning, one extended arm leading the way with the over tucked in beside her, elaborate blue hair blown back in the wind.

[Fox]

Wraith waved as her newly-electric friend took off, her other hands - plural, as she'd grown a few for the task - using whatever cords and cables she'd managed to find to bind their defeated enemy as securely as possible. "We should probably hurry, then," she noted, tugging on the makeshift restraints. "Only...hmmm."

She stretched her neck around, turning to face the shapeshifter even though the rest of her body was still tying her arms. "I do not know if you are able to change your shape enough to escape, and we are in a hurry, so I will make you this deal: if you escape, harm nobody. You may stay here, or you may leave the city - the simulation itself, perhaps - or you may hide. But if you hurt anybody, or if you cause any trouble, I will find you."

Her three black eyes narrowed to slits. "I do not mean that I will find you, here, and remove you from the city, though I will very likely do that too. I will find you, wherever you are on Earth, and I will hunt you. It will be very fun - at least, it will be very fun for me. You, I think, will enjoy it less. Okay?"

[April]

The telepath shook her head.

"It isn't the League's to give away," she said in quiet rebuttal. Eve couldn't deny that many of the things she had seen in her brief visit to Tronik would improve the lot of humanity, but stealing that technology was a moral and ethical quagmire. She didn't say any of this to Freebooter; it was doubtful that he'd care.

Getting off track, Sage thought to herself. Cocking her head, she regarded the trussed up hacker briefly before she asked, "Where is the sphere Rogue had you place?" The petite young woman raised a gloved hand to cut off any immediate reply and added, "Before you think to lie to me, know that I could merely take what I want from you mind, and attempts at subterfuge would be wasted."

"So I ask you, as a courtesy, seeing as you and I share a devotion to the common welfare of humanity." Sage smiled at Freebooter. It was a faint softening of her expression, but enough to show she was being genuine, even if the tech pirate wasn't.

[Electra]

"You're putting all these people's lives at risk just to steal their fake technology?" Papercut asked the boxed-in mercenary in disgust. "That makes you evil and stupid, and one of those is bad enough." He began stretching paper in his hands, laying it over the box to strengthen the joints and joins of it for travel. "Who are you working for?" he demanded. "We know you're with that psycho chick, but who else? You help us out, maybe you'll stay out of super jail."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Wait, what people?" Papercut's words struck home for the electronic pirate; Freebooter sounded genuinely concerned. "...they are sentient." Freebooter swore, angry enough to curse both in pirate talk and what sounded to Sage and Papercut like hacker-speak. "I was assured by my now former employer that this was just a sophisticated mockup of a Lor city, one where the Freedom League could do training runs without hurting any real people." The kids could see him flex his muscles inside the box, as if testing his restraints. "But if there are real AIs here...that's why they were going to blow it. I guess the Foundry's serious about race traitors after all. And the stupid fleshbag working with them."

He took a breath. "Listen, I'll level with you. I'm here working for the Foundry. Not my usual customers, but I'd wanted to get in with them for a while now, get in the door and see what they were doing, mix it up a little from the inside once they trust me, you know? I guess I won't get to brag to CK about getting in with them after all." He sighed. "Those programs manifesting as black spheres are annihilation devices. They'll crack the system mainframe wide open. I can tell you where the big one is. Rogue and the rest of the Foundry crew, that's Foxtrot, Xavon, and Haxor, are in Sector Three-Alpha-A-Boot-3," he rattled off another list of numbers, then translated it for the students as easily as one of their science teachers would. "which for you guys would be...the plankton factory. If you let me go, I'll make sure the backdoors in the system are all locked behind me, so the sentient programs in here can't get away. You kids go show those metal bastards how flesh and blood hacks a system."

[Avenger Assembled]

Suitably chastened by the near miss they'd all just had, Citizen concentrated not on the villain Wraith was suitably intimidating but instead on scouting ahead. He still had his technopathic abilities even here, and so within seconds he'd scanned the plankton processing center that was his and Wraith's planned destination. By the time the shapeshifter was done cowering from Kinigosian wrath, indeed slinking towards the hole they'd made in the side of the massive sector tower as if to jump off and away, he had enough to tell Wraith.

"All right, the plankton center's deserted; it looks like they chased out the workers and somebody overturned a militia carrier in the main entryway..." As he picked up Wraith for the flight, he described the ten story building to her, its bulk making it a veritable piker in this city of sky-concealing towers. "But there's a blank spot in one of the ships at the dock I can't penetrate. That's got to be where Rogue and the others are; they're the only people here who'd be able to block me. They're big ships by Earth standards, as big as one of their supertankers, with a magnetic scoop down below and processing tanks and autofacs above. Suggestions?" he asked of Wraith as they got close to the comparatively low-slung, squat factory; the sharply acid scent of Tronik's nearly dead seas in their nostrils as they left the city behind for the flat, green-grey oceanshore, even the sea darkened by the massive buildings above.

[Avenger Assembled]

She hadn't had a chance to see much of the people yet, but Gal Vanic certainly got a feel for the city as she flew past the massive super-structures that made up architecture in Tronik: the electronic faces of the militia officers cast some fifty stories high or more as she flew by, flickering slightly as they announced the security lockdown that had evidently gotten rid of all those black-clad people on the streets. Even so, when she passed close by windows set to transparent she could see the sheer volume of simulated humanity inside: this number of people couldn't all be on top of each other without something going wrong in a hurry!

When she reached Cobalt Templar on the roof of the vast militia building, the great tower still swarming with troops and big guns, he'd just reached the roof himself, still escorted by several black-suited officers and carrying the black sphere that seemed to glimmer with such terrible power. They'd been grimly silent on the way up, answering questions in monosyllables and watching Corbin impassively through their faceplates. Gal Vanic certainly got their attention, but in the crisis they faced they simply raised their guns without actually aiming them at her. It was a good day.

"" Leroj's voice sounded genuinely concerned. "" He spoke as if he'd never left, and only in Corbin's ears.

[KnightDisciple]

Corbin actually grinned when he saw Kimber. He set the sphere down, then turned around and waved his arms.

"Come on down!"

He turned to the guards and spoke in a reassuring voice, though Leroj ought to be able to tell it was meant for him as well.

"Don't worry guys, she's with me. Galvanic's one of the good guys. Gals. You get the idea. She's here to help."

He turned with a grin and a shake of his head at the sheer flair Kimber had right now. While he made a show of being open and friendly with her, he "thought at" Leroj, hoping his guide could help him out.

<Seriously, don't worry man. She came in with me and Sharl. Now, you got cut off earlier, you were saying something about my ring and the sphere, but I didn't catch it. Can you say it again? Please tell me you know how I can take this thing out of commission.>

[Fox]

"It is difficult to say without knowing more about what we are getting into," Wraith admitted. She'd shifted a little when Sharl had picked her up, providing convenient handles to be carried by and slimming her body a little to reduce the drag of the digital wind as they flew. "If we knew that we had time and safety it would be a very good idea to do...what is the word - ?"

That last bit was in Lor, and she narrowed her eyes as she tried to translate it, not that she really needed to. "...is it 'scouting'? If they were able to waste a fairly formidable shapeshifter as a distraction and can shield an area from your senses, whatever Rogue is planning is likely to be well-defended or a trap. I do not like going into a prey's den blind."