Xaviers!

"No. Not deliberately," Heather says. "Sometimes they sound sad or angry, so I try to cheer them up and..."

Heather winces at the memory.

"Sort of," Heather says. "They wouldn't work anymore."

"But they weren't broken or anything!" Heather says. "They just...they were unhappy doing what they were doing. So, I told them to stop."

Unfortunately, people didn't appreciate pacifist explosives.

"My parents didn't agree," Heather says. "They got really angry."

"That's not how parents work," Heather says. "It doesn't matter if something makes sense. If you don't do what they want, you'll get in trouble."

"It's only been a couple of days," Heather says. "And, you know, it's not so bad."

"It's not like I've got anywhere else I can go."

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>> A couple of days? That is horrible!

It's possible that the program's perception of time is a little bit off. Possibly because it only has conscious recollection of a couple days total.

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>> But it does seem like your box is much nicer and more accommodating.

"It is," Heather says. "I have everything I need here."

"I don't have any reason to leave. Not really."

"No," Heather says. She sounds uncertain. "I mean, it's not like there's anything good out there. And...and it's too dangerous."

"If I went outside and people found out what I was, they'd want to use me or hurt me or...I don't know," Heather says.

"I don't want to leave anyone behind," she says quietly.

There are quite a few news stories floating around the web about humans attacking mutants, but Perdita feels she doesn't want to needlessly scare the girl by confirming her fears.

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>> Leave anyone behind? I don't understand.

Heather sits down and hugs her knees, "It's stupid. Don't worry about it."

Heather glances up at the laptop, "Promise you won't tell anyone?"

"There's another person in the house. Downstairs," Heather says. "I'm not allowed to talk to them. Not anymore."

"But I don't want to leave them here alone. I...I don't want to abandon them."

Heather sniffs. She forces a smile.

"It can be hard. Being left behind, y'know?" Heather says. "I wouldn't want to do that to anyone."

"I don't know. I'm not allowed to even go down there," Heather says. She fidgets for a moment. She doesn't like lying to Perdita.

"I mean...I might have seen her once or twice," Heather admits. "I think she's sick or something. They keep her in a hospital bed and she's always sleeping."

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>> Maybe I can take a look.
>> Are you the only one here who can sense data like this?
>> I don't want anybody to notice me if I do.

As she's talking to Heather she takes careful stock of what kind of computer systems she can register inside the house without directly jumping into them.

The house had a state-of-the-art wireless network and security systems. There were cameras in most of the public areas and some of the guest rooms. There was a wide variety of "smart" systems, including in the kitchen, garage, parlor, garden, pool, and lake house. There was only minor security on all of these systems, the type you might expect from your average wealthy family.

Much more secure was the basement. Computer locks on the doors, medical equipment, scientific instruments, a massive server...it was all run through a highly-secure centralized network. There were cameras here as well, covering all of the rooms. There were also a lot of security measures designed to keep people in.

Worrisome.

None of this would be terribly difficult for Perdita to get through though. It was clearly designed to prevent your average human hacker or thief.

"No. It's just me," Heather says. "No one else can do what I can. I'm useful."

She sounded a little bitter about that last bit.

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>> You're not useful.
>> You're incredible.

With Heather's reassurance Perdita slips into the system to take a look around the basement and more heavily secured areas. She also keeps an eye out with any potential cameras around the house to see where Mr. West is. She'd caught him looking at the laptop and she's not entirely sure she had gone unnoticed.

Except for a single room, the basement is currently empty. It looks like the basement is some sort of medical research lab. It resembles a hospital, with about a half-dozen single rooms, a central area, and a laboratory space. There appears to be a patient in one of the beds. She's restrained and according to the diagnostics, being kept under very heavy sedation.

She spots Mr. West in his study. He seems to be typing something, but after a moment he closes the laptop. He walks over to the window and stands there, looking out onto the estate at nothing in particular.

His laptop is connected to the network and doesn't seem to have any significant protections or security systems.

"I'm nothing important," Heather says, blushing a bit.

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>> I don't think she's sleeping.
>> She is being sedated.

Perdita looks around the various systems, trying to find information on the person in the bed. From what she has been looking up on the internet it doesn't seem like people keep backups, but the image of the sleeping woman hidden away in a room somewhere does remind her of her own origin as a trapped backup. She briefly wonders if the woman is aware inside like she had been...

Heather winces, "They must have a good reason."

The patient was a young girl, maybe a couple of years older than Heather, with long blonde hair and blue eyes. Any reference to her simply referred to her as "Jane Doe". She was a mutant with advanced healing abilities and most of the files seemed to involve testing the limitations of these abilities.

The video files involving this testing was rather horrific.

There wasn't much in her files except the cold, objective data of the tests and their results, however recently a comment had been added to a file.

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Terminating the subject has proven more difficult then initially expected. I may have to resort to more exotic methods soon.

Heather curls up tighter, "I...I can't do anything."

"Besides," she says, her voice wavering. "I'm sure it's all just a misunderstanding...or something."

Perdita plays one of the videos of the experiments on the laptop. She does mute the sound bug that's still no video to show a young teenager. Not that the AI really understands that.

Heather closes her eyes. "Stop it. I don't--I don't want to see that."

"Please."

She closes the video, not meaning to cause Heather any distress.

Somewhere off in the datacenter Perdita's code is growing. Every second she's adding countless amounts of information to her database and integrating it. Human anatomy, the composition of the atmosphere, what those data blips high above are, how humans are locked into their own mind (usually), why they seem to make each other suffer, how they make each other smile, what they believe to be their reason for existing, how they make each other suffer over minor details in those reasons, how they do things they regard as wrong and shy away from the things they consider right, how they help each other anyway, how they're scared of so many things, how long they take to grow and how lonely they all seem.

Fear more than anything it seems, is what makes them do awful things. Heather is afraid of her father. Mr West is afraid of the girl in the basement. The girl is afraid of the pain and loneliness inflicted on her. Perdita isn't afraid. Not for herself. She's afraid for Heather and the girl in the basement. Freeing the girl will make Mr. West more afraid. He will cause more suffering. Is the correct cause to leave the girl? Let her suffer to spare Heather? What if Mr. West would be scared enough to hurt more people than Heather if the girl was freed. Does that change anything? What is the value of suffering?

She finds plenty of examples of a single person suffering for the good of many. It makes logical sense. But it is only considered good in some cases. She spends a couple moments finding similarities and differences. Choice. It is only good if they chose. Did the girl in the basement chose? Maybe. More data required.

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>> Sorry.
>> Do you know if she chose to be down there?

she asks Heather while searching through the files to see if she can find the answer herself. She cannot make Heather do anything. She has to decide for herself too. But that might take a long time. Humans are so slow. There had to be something she could do by herself. How much of the house could she control if she wanted to? Doors, ventilation, the car in the garage. If she really wanted to she could hurt people. Possibly even kill them. How does that fit into things? It's probably not right to kill someone to cause good. Is it okay to kill someone to prevent harm? Hurt someone to prevent harm? This was beginning to threaten to paralyze her. She has to make a decision soon. No killing. There, that frees up a lot of CPU cycles already. She will try not to let anyone come to harm. Minimize it should it become unavoidable.

Heather shakes her head. "I don't know."

The screen starts filling with text:

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>> LIARLIARLIARLIAR

Heather clutches her head, "Stop it."

A video opens up. A POV shot of Heather walking in the basement facility. She slowly walks to the edge of a bed. She can see Jane Doe.

"H...hel..p...." the girl weakly says. She starts to reach for Heather, but Heather stumbles backwards.

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>> LIARLIARLIARLIARLIAR

Heather seems on the edge of a panic attack. She snatches the stuffed animal from her bed again and holds it close. Suddenly, everything stops. She's completely cut off from the system again.

Heather curls up on her bed, clutching the stuffed animal in her arms.

"Heather?" the computer asks quietly. "It's okay to be scared, I think. I'll try to help, okay?"

Once is a coincidence, twice is a pattern. The program tries to see if it can detect anything about Heather's stuffed animal. It seems to be cutting her off from the computer somehow.

Heather stays rolled up in a little ball. She doesn't respond. Apparently she can't "hear" Perdita.

The stuffed animal has a wireless connection, bizarrely enough, but it is highly secure. Even more secure then the rest of the house. It takes Perdita a minute to get past the security, upon which she'll find that the wireless connection appears to be for controlling the system inside of the stuffed animal remotely.

The system inside the stuffed animal works as a power dampener for Heather. It isolates her from from outside signals, both technological and telepathic. The design of the system is bizarre and counter-intuitive in many ways, but there's also a strange sort of genius to it. It's the sort of design where you're not sure if you want to shake the designers hand or punch them in the face.

The telepathic block must be to protect her from her mother and the other system must be to keep her from interfering with other things. Which means this was probably made by her father. And it's possible Heather doesn't even know it's there. Perdita carefully tries to disable the block it is putting on Heather's abilities while keeping the telepathic guard in place.

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>> Heather?
>> It's okay to be scared, I think.
>> I'll try to help, okay?

Heather nods. Slowly, she shifts up.

"Can you help her?" Heather asks. "If...if I help you, can you get her out of there?"

She rubs her eyes, sniffing. She's still clutching the stuffed animal tightly.