ic Unfair Science Fair (IC)

[Electra]

With the robot's chassis popped open, Miss A took a set of slim tools from her purse and began poking around inside, carefully inspecting the inner workings of the sophisticated gynoid. "This is strange," she said aloud for the benefit of the others. "The technology here is close to cutting edge, with processors and engineering that's not more than a couple of years old, at most. But the parts themselves are much older. This is classic Foundry tech, and probably at least forty years old. It looks almost as though someone took several old Foundry robots and stripped them down, then reassembled the parts with some modern chips and megaprocessors to create a brand new robot of a heroine no one has seen in decades."

She sat back on her heels and shook her head. "It doesn't make sense to me," she admitted. "But as far as I know, even the Foundry doesn't keep hold of its outdated tech for this long. There's a STAR Squad warehouse facility in the Fens that has, or had, a number of deactivated Foundry robots. I wonder if they're still there."

[Scuffles]

Glow narrowed her eyes at the smoke trails. The young heroine wanted nothing more than to hurl herself northwards to investigate, but she restrained herself, aware that she couldn't just leave the civilians exposed without alerting the more experienced heroes. It just wouldn't be responsible.

She shot another frustrated glance to the north, then swooped down neatly to the doorway where she released herself to drop back to the ground. "There's smoke trails pointed off towards the city!" she called out to Miss Americana and Citizen, then paused in amazement at how dismantled the robot attacker looked. "Oh wow you pulled that thing apart fast!"

She shook her head and got back to the task at hand. "I might be able to catch up and find out what they're from?"

It almost sounded like she was asking for permission...

[Gizmo]

Wail ran his hand through his beard thoughtfully as Miss Americana described her findings. The experienced hero had seen more than his share of mad super-science in his time and it was sometimes tough to keep track of what was and wasn't in the realm of science fiction anymore. If he had to confiscate one more of those phones with the texting messages in his class, honestly. "Well, not everybody can afford shiny new transistors and diodes and what," he rumbled aloud, looking about for Jennifer to make sure the students had been safely seen to. The ex-Marine knew her way around a crisis situation alright, so he wasn't too worried. "Maybe some folk found a trash pile, figured to do some recycling."

[Avenger Assembled]

Getting to the warehouse was something of a logistical challenge, but luckily Miss Americana was more than strong enough even to carry the solidly-built Wail. The STAR Squad warehouse turned out to be right on the edge of the Fens, the only occupied warehouse on a mostly deserted block of otherwise vacant buildings. Rising high overhead as the heroes touched down on the street before, it was also one of the few buildings on the block with no broken windows. Hmm, better tell Koshiro to avoid this block, thought Citizen as they approached the heavily-secured front door. No use getting into trouble with the cops. Unless we come in costume, I guess...

Security cameras by the heavy steel door turned to watch them as they buzzed in, eying them like so many predatory birds, and with a clack the internal locks in the big door swung open, granting them admission into the warehouse.

Waiting for them just inside the door was an African-American woman in her thirties, a sergeant by her FCPD uniform, who looked up at them from her wheelchair behind the front desk with a suspicious, but oddly-familiar, face. "Can I help you four?" she inquired of the four heroes.

[Electra]

Miss Americana opened her mouth to speak,then blinked in surprise and took a moment to refocus. The nametag said Danson, but this woman was far too young to have been active forty years in the past. Not that immortal superheroes were unheard of, or even that uncommon, but Donna Danson had a daughter who could be this age now. Either way, finding her here guarding the repository of robot parts could not be a coincidence. "Sergeant Danson," she began politely, "My name is Miss Americana. We're investigating a possible break-in at this facility, and I'd like to ask you a couple of questions." She held up the robot, arranging it so the facial features were clearly visible. "Have you ever seen this gynoid before?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Lady, we get robots in here all the time," said Danson, her eyes narrowing as she studied first Miss Americana, then the other heroes closely, peering over the counter at the heroes. The other cops on warehouse duty, either older officers nearing retirement or others with medical or personal reasons not to be on desk duty, were watching their conversation with some interest: from the quiet hum of air conditioners and the football game on somebody's small desk TV, it didn't look like the Star Squad warehouse got a lot of action. Several of them were, in fact, looking from their sergeant's face to the robot's again in confusion, while Sergeant Danson herself looked singularly unsurprised at the sight of the robot. As if she'd been expecting it. "Listen, I'm just in charge of receiving. If you want to talk to Star Squad Command, that's back by the Courthouse in Central Freedom." As she rattled off what was obviously rote directions, Citizen shot a glance at Miss A: evidently he recognized the mystery woman, or at least her name, as well.

He put his hand lightly by one of the computers as he leaned against the marble countertop, playing the bored sidekick letting the grownups talk, while he reached out to interface with the warehouse's computer systems. That proved to be a mistake, as suddenly every monitor in the room flared reddish yellow and Citizen himself jumped backwards, gasping in surprise as pain shot up his hands.

"Holy-!" Flushing a little crimson himself, his hands feeling like he'd tried to reach out and grab a boiling pot, Citizen shot a look at Miss Americana and 'thought' at her, "That's strange," he said out loud, shooting a look at the others that tried to mask his own apprehension.

With the red glow cleared, now the computers were scrolling English words, much to the bafflement of the officers in the room, over and over again: "LETMEOUTLETMEOUT!" in big white letters across blue screens. "What the hell was that?" one exclaimed. "What the hell is going on?"

[Scuffles]

Glow, rather like Sharl, was content to hover in the background and observe while Miss Americana spoke to the duty officer. She leaned quietly against an empty desk and eyed the Sergeant, chewing her bottom lip as she tried to work out why her face was familiar. A couple of moments later she blinked in surprise as Miss America held up the dismantled robot.

Okay, so our fiery high-tech robot just happens to look like the reception desk Police woman at a STAR squad warehouse? That's just got to be more than a coincidence...

Citizen's sudden exclamation made her jump and step away from the wall, green light gathering around her for a moment until she realized there was no immediate threat. Then the computer screens all went berserk as well.

"What on Earth?" she asked as she moved over to stand near the more experienced heroine and plucked the head of the robot up with a little flare of telekinetic energy, half because she wanted to know and half because she wanted to distract the police officers from whatever it was Citizen had tried to do. "Why are your computers going nuts? And why does this busted up robot look so much like the Sergeant?"

[Gizmo]

Wail stepped past Glow, placing his considerable bulk between the floating head and the receiving desk and more importantly between the Australian teenager and the possibly cornered sergeant. "You'd best listen, sister," he intoned, lowering the volume of his voice but deepening it into a bass register of which most average humans wouldn't have been capable, one that was felt vibrating in the listeners chest as much as heard with their ears. He leaned over the desk just enough to look directly in Danson's eyes, evidently not put off by her wheelchair. "This thing busted into a damn school and put the students there at risk. My students. You oughta believe I'm looking to bring the hammer down, and neither forty year old bell-bottoms or a shiny badge are likely to dissuade me." LaMarr might not have known the first thing about robotics or artificial intelligences, but if the sergeant really was Donna's daughter, the dots were quickly beginning to connect. He might not have considered himself a modern day Sherlock Holmes, but you didn't run a private investigations and security team for decades without a few things sinking in. "And I do not care to be stalled. Start talking."

[Electra]

"Citizen, step back!" Miss Americana snapped, giving the teenager a look even as she leapt to the nearest console. she promised, and it wasn't the good kind of promise. Not only had her sidekick interrupted the investigation and sent the computers going haywire, he'd tacitly admitted his attempts to pry into her secured data. Teenage hijinks were bad enough when the teenager in question wasn't a sophisticated machine intelligence with a superhuman potential for mischief. Ignoring protocols and army security, she began typing in commands, attempting to analyze the system without exposing any part of herself to an infectious virus. As for Danson, Wail obviously had her sewn up for the moment. If Miss A'd had a hand free, she'd have pressed her fingers to the place behind her ear where the basso profundo words still resonated.

[Avenger Assembled]

It soon became apparent to Miss Americana that this was no ordinary system, not even an ordinary highly-protected STAR Squad facility. There was no risk of virus here; in fact, any such program would have been in very serious danger from all the security The sorts of hard-coded, damaging projections built into this system had to be the product of a genius like herself. Indeed, barring nano-sized tools and physical construction of the hardware, whoever had programmed the literal firewalls around the system had to have not just a genius like hers but powers very similar as well. Sharl's hasty probing had been out of line, but he hadn't been wrong in the conclusions he'd reached, either. She'd actually have to work at it if she wanted to break through these walls, or at least sneak her way through the door. But there was something else inside the system, something sealed away behind the barriers that would have looked like tough password protection to anyone else.

Danson's teeth pulled into a brief snarl that was too familiar, enough to dissuade any doubts Keith might have had about whose daughter this was. "Fine. God forbid I cause the department any problems with capes," she added with a glare. "Sergeant Walker, cover for me, I'm going to have a talk with our guests." With great care, she began wheeling herself out from behind the window where she'd been sitting. Passing the still-blinking computers, she slapped a monitor and exclaimed, "Enough!" Sure enough, the machines went dark after that, the message they were sending out fading away. She rolled her way out into the hallway to face the heroes. "'Scuse me if I don't get up. Not all of us got turned bulletproof. Lemme show you where we keep our robots," she added, rolling herself towards one of the sealed evidence rooms nearby.

[Electra]

Miss Americana blinked once with surprise as the sergeant's disability became apparent, but that changed quickly to a close scrutiny when she did the trick with the rebellious computers. She would have dearly loved a moment to sit down and interface with the system till she found out what made it tick, but right now they had other priorities. With a nod to Sharl, Miss A fell in behind the wheelchair, keeping a close eye on their surroundings as they headed into the warehouse. There was no telling what you might see in a STAR Squad holding area. As they walked, she fell back and murmured in Wail's ear, "You knew her mother, right? Any ideas on how we handle this one?"

[Scuffles]

Glow raised an eyebrow in surprise as the sergeant cut off the computerized chaos with a mere slap and a slightly raised voice. "Did you just tell a computer to shut up and have it listen to you?" she asked. "Because that would be a pretty sweet trick. I can never get computers to shut up."

She fell into step next to Citizen to follow Danson, Miss Americana and Wail deeper into the warehouse. Her eyes swept back and forth both to take in the interesting technology and out of concern. Something is definitely strange about all this...

[Gizmo]

Wail shook his head subtly, arms folded as he followed at the back of the small procession, his footfalls heavy even as he stepped carefully. "Not sure. It's a stereotype with folks with fire powers, but Danson really was a hothead." He kept his voice low, something of a feat with the amount of reverberating force his broad chest and the lungs within could generate. "If the girl's anything like her momma, might not want to press her buttons too hard." It wasn't much, but it was about the only advice he could think to give. He hadn't been faking his anger over the attack on the school and he wasn't feeling particularly inclined toward calm, deductive consideration. Keeping his composure despite it all, he kept his eyes on the woman leading them.

[Avenger Assembled]

At Sergeant Danson's thumbprinted command, the vault door swung open, letting heroes and escort into the sealed robotics holding area. It was a grim area if you were inclined to personalize hominid machines, with robot heads, android bodies, and other signs of super-scientific mechanical humanity everywhere. If these had been organic body parts, the stacked limbs and neatly sorted body parts would have made this look like a butcher's shop. Or a serial killer's lair. That thought was enough to make Citizen shiver inside his coat as he met the soulless red eyes of a long-quiescent humanoid machine, for all that he couldn't feel the cold of the temperature-controlled vault. _I see this all the time at Miss A's place. I don't know what's so...wrong here. But it is!_ thought Sharl nervously to Miss A.

"We don't get the brains or anything else that can think," said Danson as she rolled herself along the central walkway, the steel walls slightly reflective beneath blue bulbs overhead. "That all goes to Booking or the Freedom League, depending on what's happening to Tin Can Timmy or Tina." She made a gesture to the rows of humanoid robots along the walls and added, "The big stuff is all downstairs in deep storage, of course. This is just the stuff that could walk and talk like a man, back in the day."

Suddenly, as the vault doors swung shut behind them, a voice sounded over the loudspeakers: a timeless, weighty voice like something from the beginning of time, Or its end.

"Dana. Dana. Dana. You are a criminal. They will punish you. Surrender to them."

The sergeant flinched at the words and stopped her forward progress, but pressed onward after a moment, evidently not sure if the others could hear it or not, finally offering an explanation. "Lots of old systems in here. Sometimes you get...echoes. There's nothing to see here, you all need to leave. And I need to fix the damn speakers!"

[Scuffles]

The light reflecting off the metal walls took on a faint green tinge as a slightly jumpy Glow reacted to the vault door closing behind her. Her hand slapped against the door as she looked at it apprehensively and then turned back towards Danson with her hands on her hips.

"An echo? It didn't sound much like an echo to me. And even if it was an echo that still means someone said it first!" she exclaimed. "And if we need to leave why did the door just close?"

She let her eyes flick towards Citizen and Miss Americana, taking her cues from the more experienced heroes. Sharl doesn't look settled in here either, so maybe it's just not me being paranoid. There's something strange about this place...

[Electra]

"I don't appreciate being lied to, Ms. Danson," Miss Americana said coldly, the lack of rank as obvious as a slap. "It's worse when the lies are poor and obvious. Something very strange is going on here, and it centers around you. Cover her," she instructed Wail and Glow. "Don't let her try anything in here. I'm going to get to the bottom of this." she instructed Sharl.

Resting one hand against the nearest console, Miss Americana closed her eyes. She swayed for a moment before her knees locked, leaving her motionless but for the slight rise and fall of her breathing. Freedom from her synthetic body, Cyberknife unfolded herself inside the network, stretching phantom limbs and peering around for the source of all this trouble.

[Avenger Assembled]

Gina found, in STAR Squad's computers, a scene like something from Gulliver's Travels. There was an entity down here, buried deep in the code, something mighty and powerful bound by chains of ones and zeros, its energy being pulled off to power dozens, if not hundreds, of cybernetic entities much like the robot Miss A and the others had fought in Keith LaMarr's school. Buried deep inside the code, the entity looked at her, and Gina realized she'd met this thing before, albeit many years earlier, in her computer at home. Please help me. I am bound in my own chains. the cybernetic intelligence inside the computer said. My power will-

Suddenly the mind gave a terrible computerized cry as its power was drained (from the look of things against its battered code, not for the first time), convulsing against its chains in agony. Hurry!

----

"No, no, not going to be like this..." Danson was pounding at the side of her head, as if trying to still voices there. "You put these things in my head! This is YOUR fault! YOUR fault!" And with that, her head jerked backwards and she slumped in her chair, a faint line of drool coming from her mouth. She looked like someone in need of medical attention at first glance, but Citizen's eyes widened in sudden and terrible recognition.

"We need to get out of here right now!" he exclaimed to the others, shoving his hand through the door's control circuits even as suddenly the robots all around them, all the hundreds and hundreds of robots throughout the garage-sized vault, suddenly began sliding and crawling together, mechanical joints slithering and snapping into place as dissassembled parts grew back together into a building army of mechanical hominid with flaming red eyes.

A few smaller robots, like animate mechanical torsos with no heads or lower limbs, took to the air and began hurling gouts of red-burning flame at Citizen, the cyberintelligence who stood between them and the closed Vault door out into the building. Citizen nimbly dodged and turned in the air, avoiding the blasts that would have overwhelmed his program matrix with skill, distracting the fliers from focusing either on him or on the door. But that wouldn't last for long, not with more of them coming. "Glow," he called, "try to take out the little ones! The rest of us will deal with..." He glanced over at the unconscious-looking Miss A, knowing what Gina had to be dealing with. "...the big problems."

[Electra]

she promised, and indeed the chains were slackening, even as her mental hands began to tire.

[Avenger Assembled]

The cybernetic intelligence snapped its way free of its bonds, the connections between it and the machines inside the system breaking down. it thought to Cyberknife, seeming to grow in strength now that it was free of the bonds that had drained it of so much energy. said the machine, and for all its sincere regret that was still a deeply mechanistic neutrality to its 'voice.'

-----

"Come on, you ghouls!" called Citizen as he swooped right through the smaller robots who'd been blasting at him, going for the half-assembled robot skeletons that were looking more and more like the oddly dressed gynoid they'd fought earlier that day as loose metal parts flowed together to make up their bodies. "You'll have to do better than that if you want to take me on!" He was improvising here, desperately trying to keep the robots from blasting the others or turning on the Miss Americana construct, but it seemed to be working...so far! He shoved his hands into the machinery, disrupting vital connections as he tried to fry particular circuits. "Let's go!"

[Scuffles]

"Aww damn!" Glow muttered as the various components started to move and assemble into a motley collection of robots. She flinched a little as the smaller ones took flight and engaged Citizen with bolts of fire, then calmed herself with a deep breath and slipped into her assigned role.

A quick, weaving dash took her to Danson's side where she planted her feet and prepared to defend the comatose woman. "I'm on it!" she called to Citizen as she sized up the small group of the flyers, then spread her hands wide, green light flaring off her as she took a firm mental grip on a still-inert robot leg on each side of the room.

With a sharp clap the young heroine brought her hands together, using the movement as a focusing point for her telekinetic powers. The two legs whizzed unerringly across the room and collided heavily with the robots, producing a loud clang!

[Gizmo]

"Son," Wail called to Citizen calmly, clearing his throat as he took a step to one side and planted his feet, "watch your head." Taking a deep breath, the aging hero let loose a wrecking ball of sonic force that warped the air between him and the larger robots in a rippling column. The attack crashed into them, carefully missing the teenage hero engaging them but reducing plating and gears to shattered spare parts as they were blown into the far wall. He had to restrain himself from going all out inside the STARS building; it had been a long time since he'd last had to destroy a police station from the inside out and he wasn't looking to break his streak any time soon. Paperwork's probably only gotten worse.

[Avenger Assembled]

Obviously used to working in teams, Citizen dodged with admirable alacrity as the robots fell apart in eruptions of shattered parts. He looked around wildly at the still-frantically thrashing technology in the room, particularly at the somnolent figures of Miss Americana and Sergeant Danson. Oh man, if I tell them that the real threat is the unconscious paraplegic police officer...crap! He really hoped Gina was getting the job done inside the system! Meanwhile, from the other side, the small group of fliers that had been harassing Glow opened fire on her, jets of reddish flame flashing past close enough to scorch her! Citizen flew over there and helped block a shot, the heated blast scorching past his emitter, that might have come even closer, but the fight wasn't over yet!

Danson, for her part, wasn't looking so good: the seemingly-unconscious officer had flinched like someone kicked in their sleep when the various robots had exploded, and was now visibly bleeding from the nose. But her fingers were still twitching, ever-so-slightly, in time with the movements of the wriggling robot parts! Six new humanoid figures were taking shape, stalking towards the heroes with murderous intent in their eyeless mechanical faces as they extended long, searing fingers towards them. "Burn you! Burn you! Burn it out of my head!" they hissed.

Inside the mainframe, as she freed the GENIE, Gina could hear that voice too, coming from inside the system.

[Electra]

Looking around, Gina peered past the tangles of damaged and redirected code and found Danson, half-buried in a nest of nonsense programming like a tunnel spider in a web. She glanced at Gina in return, making the cyberkinetic glad her mind had automatically put her in her featureless avatar, but most of the disturbed woman's attention was obviously on controlling the half dozen robots menacing the others. Gina took advantage of that by rapidly building her own web, taking scraps of discarded code and building it together into a wall that blocked off the vital system functions of the network. It wasn't her best work, not with the mess in here and all the mental energy she'd already expended, but it would hopefully hold up long enough.

With the computer network under her control for the moment, she took control of the wall speakers to address Sharl and the others. The listeners would hear a voice certainly similar to Miss A's, though lacking in timbre and polish, and just a bit squeakier. Any of it could simply be artifact from shoddy speakers. "Render Sergeant Danson unconscious now," she ordered tersely. "She's in the computer and the robots, knock her out to get her out."

[Avenger Assembled]

Citizen stepped up to the nearest robot and followed Miss Americana's instructions as best he could, shoving his projected head through the robot's midsection. "Take this, you mechanical monstrosity!" he called, his eyes briefly widening behind his shades when the mechanical humanoid gave nothing but a low chuckle at his attempted cybernetic assault. It threw a punch at him that passed right through his projected body, Citizen briefly flickering as he stepped back and his systems re-established themselves...only to see another robot leering malevolently as it threw a fiery blast directly at Miss Americana's insensate form! He didn't hesitate a moment, grabbing the gynoid and yanking her out of the way as a blast seared past them both. "Frack it, I'm stuck!" And sure enough he was; the press of robots all around him and the urgent need to keep the Miss Americana robot from being set revealingly ablaze (not to mention what such a thing would have done to Gina) had trapped him away from taking out Miss Americana's antagonist. "Hit Danson!" he called to the others.

Meanwhile, inside the system, Danson's avatar faded into view; the officer looked just like her mother once had decades earlier, fire crackling around her head and inside her mouth as she cursed at Cyberknife. "It put these things in my head!" it shouted at the still nearby cyber-intelligence that was so awfully familiar. "Got to burn them out! Got to burn everything out!"

"That is not how it was!" the genie called back, audible only to Cyberknife herself. "You wished for power, but it was your will how to use it! Just as another once wished for knowledge!"

[Scuffles]

As her telekinetic shielding swept the gout of fire away, Glow did a double take towards the comatose Sergeant, then snapped her gaze back towards the smaller flying robots. "She already looks unconscious!" she yelled back at Citizen. "Can't you like, jam how she controls them or something?"

She gathered her powers around her again and then lashed out at the small flying robots once more, a solid mental punch crashing through the little squadron as she tried to swat them out of the air.