Closing Pandora's Box

Mainland Europe, North America, Genosha and the rest of the World.

Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Narrator » Thu Aug 27, 2015 7:36 pm

There's the city's general wifi grid, an optional guidance system for the cars, numerous communication nets, traffic control systems, even utilities like electricity and water are controlled electronically on some level. There are the cars themselves (although likely still out of range), the phones and tablets on everyone around her, even some objects she might not expect like someone's shoes or glasses. Beneath her feet she can feel energy conduits brimming that seem to be powering almost everything by some mechanism that doesn't quite make sense to her. Digging deeper she can sense the city's underlieing systems deep beneath the surface, water filtration, sea-turbines and so on. Those are definitely out of her effective range but they're large enough that she can sense them.
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Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Heather West » Thu Aug 27, 2015 8:03 pm

Heather tries to see if she can get the guidance system to get control of his car. Or at least let her follow after him.
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Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Narrator » Thu Aug 27, 2015 8:06 pm

To just gain control of his car she'd probably have to be closer. Following it on the other hand doesn't seem like it'd be a problem. Once she's picked out his car in the traffic guidance system she can just keep tabs on it at all times.
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Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Heather West » Fri Aug 28, 2015 12:36 am

Heather decided to tail him until she could come up with a better plan. Using the guidance system to keep track of them, Nina and Heather made their way down to the street slowly, doing their best to stay out of sight. Once they were on the street, Heather looked for a car that could be talked into following their target.
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Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Narrator » Fri Aug 28, 2015 1:27 am

Most cars are, well, being driven but she finds a parked car nearby that's nice enough to open it's doors for her and drive them after Argus. As the car pulls onto the street they might catch sight of someone running up on the sidewalk, yelling something about stopping to steal his car or somesuch nonsense. The man looks extremely perplexed, as if this is not a scenario he ever really imagined happening.
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Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Heather West » Fri Aug 28, 2015 4:36 am

"Where are we?" Nina asks, watching the person yelling at them as they pull away.

"I don't know," Heather says. "Providence. I think."

"What does that mean?" Nina asks.

"I don't know," Heather admits.
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Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Narrator » Fri Aug 28, 2015 3:20 pm

The answer to that is available in the form of the welcoming program she talked to earlier and it is more or less accessible from any electronic device, including the car's built-in screen. Although if she's even looking she doesn't have too much time to do so anyway before they're rudely interrupted by the sound of an incoming phonecall, the car's screen changing to the image of a buzzing smartphone to indicate such.
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Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Heather West » Fri Aug 28, 2015 8:12 pm

Nina presses a button that looks like it answers the phone. "Hello?"
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Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Argus » Fri Aug 28, 2015 8:24 pm

"As impressive as it is that you managed to follow me here, you should really stop sticking your noses into things that are none of your concern. I don't particularly like the idea of fighting two little girls, but if you keep this up you won't leave me a choice."
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Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Heather West » Sat Aug 29, 2015 12:50 am

Nina bursts out laughing for apparently no reason.

"We're not afraid of you," Heather says. "We want our friend back. I'm not letting you take her."
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Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Argus » Sat Aug 29, 2015 1:12 am

"Look, I'm sure the AI sounded really nice and I don't even care why it was driving you around, but it's not your friend. It's an extremely dangerous piece of software and I'm just reclaiming what should rightfully be mine before it decides to worm it's way into more than just banks and do some real damage."
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Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Heather West » Sat Aug 29, 2015 2:16 am

"Nobody has the right to another person," Heather says. "She saved us. We're returning the favor."

"Try to stop us...and...and..." Heather starts to falter. There's only so much bravado she can summon up at once. "We'll..."

Nina chimes in suddenly, "What are you going to do to us? Lock us up? Are you going to burn us? Pump our veins full of acid? Chop us up and dissolve us in a chemical bath?"

Nina giggles. "What can you do to us? We've been in hell once already, mister."

"Keep this up and we'll show it to you," Nina says.

Heather looks pretty disturbed by all that and can't manage to do anything but stare at her friend.
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Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Argus » Sat Aug 29, 2015 2:33 am

"That's pretty morbid for someone your age. If you want we can debate how real a program can be but at the end of the day it's just a program that was written by a human. It's sophisticated enough that it fooled you into thinking it's a person and you shouldn't feel too embarrassed about that. But you're taking this a little too far. Sneaking into the country, stealing a car, announcing you aim to mug a man. I get it, you think you're doing the right thing, but you don't know the bigger picture. My name is Argus. We can sit down and I'll explain, I can even send you home afterwards. Or, hell, if you're runaways, I can see if I can put in a good word and you could stay here. Providence is extremely open to granting asylum, especially to technopaths. I assume that's what you do, isn't it?" The man talks in that vaguely condescending tone most adults reserve for dealing with little kids but there's also a bit of an edge to his voice, some impatience about having to deal with this that is creeping in.
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Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Heather West » Sat Aug 29, 2015 7:39 pm

"What will happen to Perdita?" Heather asks.
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Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Argus » Sat Aug 29, 2015 8:16 pm

"I'll be evaluating it's code to see if it's safe to utilize." he says, not really lieing but he also doesn't seem to see the need to explain any details to the two. "At the very least I will try to salvage my own work from the program."
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Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Heather West » Sun Aug 30, 2015 6:29 pm

"Your work?" Heather asks.
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Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Argus » Sun Aug 30, 2015 7:45 pm

"I poured years of effort into working for Dr. Minamida, working out how to make the system safe, ensure it'd never do anything we didn't want to. She thought I was too scared, too strict, too harsh. On a piece of code. All that arguing only to have her scrap the project. Safety issues and ethical concerns, she said. She might as well have spit me in the face. She just wanted all the credit for herself. I have as much right to this code as anybody, so I'm reclaiming it. It was rampaging through the net. I'm just going to clean up after her screw-up and put this program to good use. Once I'm through securing it."
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Re: Closing Pandora's Box

Postby Narrator » Fri Sep 04, 2015 5:41 am

As they're talking they continue to follow the car they'd seen Argus get into. What escapes Heather's technopathic senses of the traffic net is that at some point Argus forced the door of the moving vehicle open and jumped out, ducking into a roll and disappearing down a side-street. Eventually the now empty car reaches it's destination and parks itself. Nina's chipper optimism manages to keep Heather from sliding too much into pessimism over having lost track of Argus. In the end it only encourages her more to dig deeper into the city's systems. Cameras and the phone system in particular are very talkative and gladly help the young technopath to pick up the man's trail again.

He seems to have headed into one of the taller buildings in the city, having taken a side-entrance. It takes a while to talk the magnetic locking mechanism into complying, but eventually it relents and opens with a click. The more Heather interacts with the city the more she gets the feeling that there's very little she can't do here. The ubiquitous computer-systems that link the entire island together expand her reach far beyond it's normal limits and once she's talked her way into one of them it remains open to her. By the time she and Nina are sneaking through the building the traffic net, phones and cameras constantly dance around at the edge of her perception. When she worries about running into someone in the corridors of the building she's suddenly aware of all phones and their location around her, informing her of which way they can go without risking running into somebody. Security cameras helpfully provide her with the ability to look around corners and the traffic grid helpfully provides her with routes to take to avoid people, doors that are a little more resistant to her persuasions and so on.

The effect is almost uncanny in how easily they manage to walk through a place they really shouldn't be in. They walk past various workshops full of who knows what, some computer labs, server rooms. It seems this place is some kind of R&D facility, which would explain why some systems are somewhat hardened, even against technopathic intrusion. They're kind of uncooperative like Argus' systems had been and Heather shies away from prying into them too much because they seem like they might set off alarms if she bugs them too much. Besides, they're here for Perdita.

Eventually they leave behind the R&D areas as they go further up in the building. Past office areas and meeting rooms until they reach more residential floors. It seems Argus isn't taking Perdita to one of the labs but rather his own personal apartment. That might seem a little dubious to someone aware of how companies or corporation work (especially ones that apparently provide their employees with living quarters) but it goes a little over Heather and Nina's heads that Argus might be acting purely in his own interest and might not have as much legitimate claim to Perdita as he'd like them to think. The amount of security cameras up here is much lower so it takes a while to figure out which apartment belongs to Argus and as they move through the current floor one of the doors suddenly opens behind them with a hiss and Argus grabs Heather from behind with his arm around her neck and one hand over her mouth, muffling her protest.

"I really wanted to avoid having to hurt you kids, but you're relentless."

Nina, crazy as she is, charges at him but this time he's not inclined to take it easy on the girl, raising a pistol from his side and firing. The bright blue bolt tears right through Nina's knee. She stumbles as searing pain takes away her balance and she crumbles to the ground even as her leg already begins to regenerate. Heather screams into Argus' hand and struggles against his grip but the man mostly ignores her as he takes aim again and takes aim at Nina's head this time. He drags Heather through the door as Nina collapses to the floor, the top half of her head a smoking crater in the floor. The door slams shut despite Heather's panicked attempts to convince the door to stay open.

Argus pulls some simple handcuffs from his belt and cuffs Heather to an office chair before turning his attention to the computer console the chair belongs to. Heather tries to calm herself down and focus on what she can do. Everything here seems to be reinforced against manipulation both from the outside as well as from the inside, which seems strange but unfortunately works well against her powers. One thing that responds a little more is the angry, chomping-at-the-bit device she'd sensed on Argus before. Right now it is plugged into the console and a lot of it's 'attention' is focused inwards, busy restraining Perdita's code.

Meanwhile Argus seems to be busy preparing a more permanent prison for Perdita, not entirely convinced the mouse-trap will hold the program for too long. And there has to be some kind of release-code. But right now that would only dump Perdita into the bigger, nastier trap being set up on the console. Heather tugs on the cuffs and tries not to panic. He just shot Nina and what if she's next! In her panic her influence on the electronics around her grow even weaker. The thought of getting out out out is all that runs through her head, yanking at the handcuffs which makes enough of a racket that neither she nor Argus hear the door complying with Heather's frantic pleading and open at the sheer desire to leave. Outside a, well, partially headless Nina is swaying from side to side slightly as she shambles forward. Keeping your balance is hard when you only have one inner ear and only a partially regrown eye but she's doing the best she can. She slowly but steadily makes progress towards Argus.

When she's only a couple feet away from Argus, now with a bit of a face to cover up her regenerating brain, the man calmly turns around and faintly shakes his head.

"You look ridiculous." he says, raising his gun again as Nina lurches forward. The blast tears through her torso but that doesn't seem to deter her too much, collapsing against Argus, fingers clutching his armor. Heather's eye dart around the room as the two are struggling. There's gotta be something she can do. Her eyes fall onto the ports on the back of Argus' helmet. If she could just... She pulls the chair with her until her fingers reach the electronic mouse-trap plugged into the console. She yanks it out and for a second tries to gather the courage to move towards the man still holding an energy pistol, even if he's still distracted by Nina refusing to let go of him. She takes a deep breath to try and calm her heart hammering in her chest and yanks on the chair she's cuffed to, slinging it around and intot he back of Argus' knees.

He doesn't quite collapse, but his legs give in enough that Nina almost manages to topple him, giving Heather just enough time to plug the device containing Perdita into one of the ports of his armor. Out out out! No more boxes, please! Her thoughts spiral around the same panicked hope that had opened the door as Argus recovers, finally throwing Nina off of himself and turning towards Heather. He raises his gun and then suddenly stops. The panel on his helmet flickers and electric discharges suddenly course through his armor. He let's out a scream as he falls to his knees, clawing at his helmet and trying to tear it off as the program designed to trap Perdita rampages through his system, the AI herself pushing it along in front of herself like a wake as her program unfolds itself, wrecking havoc.

She's not really sure whether to thank Heather or scold her for putting herself in danger, but this is not the time anyway. Instead she tries to find the best way to bring them to safety before Argus recovers. The Slipstream receiver on Argus' belt springs to live and the two girls disappear in a flash of light. Perdita continues to overload everything she can, scrambling any data the Slipstream device might have recorded about where she sent Heather and Nina before she worms her way out of Argus' system and initiates a satellite-uplink...
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