[Social] The Future Is Now Old Man ((open))

[Robin Stanton]

Robin had spend most of her trip with her Dad back to the school deep in thought, an unusual state for the peppy shapeshifter. And upon arriving back at school she'd almost immediately disappeared into the Point and spent all night huddled over a workbench with Acala. Most of what she does is write ideas on a large screen with a stylus and staring at her scribbles while occasionally nodding to herself while the nanite swarm does the actual work of drawing up hard-light blueprints and generating endless lines of code only for Robin to look at one finished part or another and shaking her head or tapping insistently on some section of her own scribbles.

And once they have whatever they're designing hashed out Robin goes to work on a laptop, stylus in hand she's drawing and typing, setting up something while occasionally waving Acala over from her manufacturing work to point at something, forcing the poor robot to add yet another chunk of code. Finally the two of them finish and Robin triumphantly holds up a tiny contact-lens inlaid with almost imperceptible circuitry as well as a sizeable chunk of jagged antennas and circuit-boards that Robin proceeds to jam right into her skull until her eyeball pops into place against the lens with the rest of the construction disappearing into her head. She tilts her head back and forth and then holds both hands against her ears and squishes her head into a more elliptical shape before letting it bounce back, her power seeping into the electronics in her head to make them adjust with her instead of breaking or pushing out of her head and she nods, giving Acala a satisfied thumbs-up that's also seen on the laptop screen where it's shown from Robin's point-of-view and a red "Live Now" blinking on the streaming site.


The next morning...


Fade in. The camera focuses on the pink blur taking up most of the view, turning into Robin's sleepy but grinning face reflected in a mirror. She yawns and stretches just a bit more than would be reasonable for a regular human.
"Hello and good morning to... hell, shoulda thought of a title first huh... Whatever, we got a whole two viewers right now and I know for a fact one them's a bot!" she laughs. "But just for the record, I'm Robin Stanton and this is the live-stream of my life. Yeah, I know, vain as fuck, but!" she says, raising a dramatic finger into the air. "This isn't so much about me as it is about giving anyone who cares a glimpse into what it's like to be a mutant. A pretty privileged one, but I can't exactly do anything about that but be aware of it!"

Grabbing a tube of toothpaste she squeezes some straight into her mouth and makes a bunch of weird faces as she swishes it around, before spitting it into the sink and grinning into the mirror to check her teeth being sparkly and clean. Is it a pointless ritual? Yes. But her Mum did it and not all habits you pick up make sense.
"I do have a bit of a mission." she admits. "But really, it's just to maybe dispel some notions about our kind and what we put up with and do. The good, the bad, the ugly. The heroes, the villains, the lost and redeemed. The dramatic and mundane. Mostly the mundane, really. And hey, if we ever get enough interest that people start asking questions I'll do my best to answer them. And, if this goes really well then I will take requests by people who need help. I got Acala here ready to screen those and fact-check, so we don't get trolled. And don't try to be clever, cause she's a straight-up robot and probably way smarter than any of us."

She taps her ear where a modified X-Team earpiece is sitting and music starts playing on it as well as on stream. Her pyjamas morph into a loose-fitting t-shirt and slim jeans and she grabs her ruffled braid, pulls it taut and lets go, snapping it up and into a short-haired kind of bob-cut. She frowns a little at her reflection and shakes out her hair, which literally makes it grow longer to about shoulder-length and she nods, satisfied. And with that she's out the door and into the hallway where a couple other students are moving about, getting ready for class. Their faces and more unique traits are automatically blurred as the camera catches them while their phones are automatically pinged with a brief message along with the option to opt into appearing on stream proper.

"Anyway... I figure people are rightfully worried and scared of the unknown and, well, mutants can be kinda secretive. To protect ourselves and our feelings, because it's easier to share with people who have a better idea of what you're going through, because violence is an unfortunate reality from both humans and, honestly, mostly other mutants. Cause we get just as scared and confused and places like this school help us come to terms with who we are." Talking to herself garners her a couple weird looks from people, which she mostly ignores. Word's gonna spread soon enough and Robin has never been one to give a shit about standing out for acting or being weird.

Reaching the end of the hallway she hops onto the railing and slides down, flying off at the landing and turning into a ball to bounce off the wall and ricochet down the remaining stairs, landing on the ground floor on her feet that have turned into rollerblades, sending her rolling towards the front door, giving a two-fingered salute to the student nice enough to open the door for her to roll through. "So if you're worried about those strange and powerful people or just curious or hell, bored, then I invite you to watch me put my weird-ass life on display twenty-four seven along with anyone who ends up opting in!"

[Samantha McManus]

Sam blinks as Robin bursts out the door onto the walk, hopping back to stay out of her way.

"Are you... streaming or something?"

[Robin Stanton]

"Oh hey Sam!" she says, spinning backwards and coming to a stop. "Sure am. Don't worry though, you're all content-filtered out unless you opt in. Acala whipped up an algorithm for me. S'all in the message it pings your phone with. Back home that woulda been part of your own privacy settings so I had to come up with a stoneage solution." she chuckles.

[Samantha McManus]

"Before I uh... 'opt in,' do you want to talk about your dad?"

[Robin Stanton]

"It'd just mute the stuff about him, but sure."

[Samantha McManus]

"How's he doing? He's avoiding me again."

[Robin Stanton]

"I mean... he's not great. You guys kinda screwed the pooch by bailing on him."

[Samantha McManus]

"Bailing on him? We went down to get him when the breach happened. He bloody told us to leave him!"

[Robin Stanton]

"I wasn't there." she shrugs. "He said you guys committed him and let him stew at Muir but he was also drugged up to the eyeballs, so I dunno."

[Samantha McManus]

"We went there instead of straight home because we needed to find out more about what was happening to him. The folks at Muir will at least talk to us."

"Plus we were a bit wary of Lippincott. Like if we got home and hey, here's this guy you're already absurdly overworking and now he can do eight thousand new things and maybe doesn't sleep anymore."

[Robin Stanton]

"Probably shoulda told him that. Then again, who knows if he would have listened, cause apparently Lippincott's his new best friend now. Or at least, how he puts it, the person he trusts the most in this place which is... extremely sketch if you ask me, but he's also being extremely grumpy and still reeling from having perfect bliss ripped out from under him. This whole thing's just one giant mess..."

[Samantha McManus]

"You know, I've not thought on it much, but is Lippincott... even a mutant?"

[Robin Stanton]

"Knowing how the government and all that shite works, probably not. Accountability and oversight and all that jazz. S'part of why I'm doing this." she taps the corner of her eye.

[Samantha McManus]

"I mean, if he is he sure isn't very open about what his powers are."

[Robin Stanton]

"You think he's doing something shady with powers he's pretending not to have?"

[Samantha McManus]

"I mean, I'd like to think I've got a little more cred with your dad than the guy who sends him through a literal meat grinder."

"...unless he's into that."

[Robin Stanton]

"I prefer not to think about that, thank you very much. But he is going along with this crazy schedule for a reason. Lippincott offered him a chance to be a freaking space-shuttle, if he can hack it. I don't think he had to do much manipulating. He wants to push himself and to be 'used' as he puts it which... he really needs to stop putting it like that. He wants to contribute. Be useful, productive, whatever you wanna call it. I think everyone wants to be in some way. And Lippincott offered him a chance to while everyone else tip-toes around him for some reason."

[Samantha McManus]

"Still doesn't seem like a fellow I'd trust, you know?"

[Robin Stanton]

"You're probably right, but he's gotten my Dad on his side and what happened at Muir only seems to have cemented that."

[Samantha McManus]

"Well... bloody great."

"Him and the students he recruited really drive me up a wall. You point out that what they're doing is, frankly, insane, and all you get in return is gaslighting."

[Robin Stanton]

"So, what are we going to do about it?"

[Samantha McManus]

"I don't know how much we can even prove. Maybe if we could show that he messed up your dad or something?"

[Robin Stanton]

"Did he though? Apparently he agreed to this non-sense schedule himself. But we don't need to catch him doing something illegal to fight back. Stage a student protest, figure out their gears and gum them up, give the prefects a run for their money. There's a bunch of us and three of them, they can't be everywhere at once and they'll get tired and fed up eventually. Fight the power and all that!"

[Samantha McManus]

"They don't seem to be too bloody shy about using their powers against students," she grumbles.

[Robin Stanton]

"If only there was somebody who would stand up to those who abuse their powers. Maybe someone who has amazing powers themselves. Maybe a whole group like that could come together and put on cool and goofy costumes with some kind of big letter emblazoned on it. But oh well, such a thing is simply impossible. Oh wait."

[Samantha McManus]

"They run the X-Men, now."

[Robin Stanton]

"Only if the X-Men listen to what they tell them. Is this a prank? Are you pranking me? You don't need their permission to do the right thing. Fuck 'em!"

[Samantha McManus]

"There's... there's a lot of things I can do. There's just not a lot of things I should do."

[Robin Stanton]

"Okay, well, maybe don't go full Morrigan on them but, like, if what they are doing is bad then the right thing would be to do something."

[Samantha McManus]

"Sorry, I mean I know that wasn't what you were suggesting. It's just... what some people are suggesting, so I'm on a bit of a hair-trigger."

[Robin Stanton]

"Okay yikes. Is it somebody from around here? It better not be! And... I know you're kinda... cagey about this stuff, buuuut this is exactly what I was hoping to be part of the discourse? Stream experience? You know, honesty. About the stuff we deal with, how it affects us and that most of us are just... good people, trying to do the right thing."

[Samantha McManus]

"Talking about my alternate universe counterpart that just escaped from mutant jail might be a bit... much, for your first stream?"

[Robin Stanton]

"What? No way, it's perfect! Jump in at the deep end. Hell I put 'I'm from the future in an alternate reality' in my About page!"

[Samantha McManus]

"You don't think 'hey, there's also a person who has the same powers as me but really likes using them to kill people' would kind of... defeat the purpose?"

[Robin Stanton]

"Maybe in the short term, I don't know. But the whole idea is to shed some light on this. All of this! So people don't just see the the mysterious murders in the news, so they know people are fighting to stop them. And so you can feel like you can actually talk about this kind of stuff with people. With your friends. Is this why you were worried you'd killed the Cloud-o-Dad in the lab?"

[Samantha McManus]

"This is... something I'm just starting to figure out."

"See, everyone has this sort of little light inside them? And mutants have brighter ones, which sounds awful to say it. Like the first time I saw them I thought they were souls and maybe they are, but saying mutants have brighter souls sounds like something they'd say in Genosha."

"But that's what I did to take the MGH out of his system. I manipulated his... light."

"And it feels like killing someone. I think that's why she figured it out before me. Your light only leaves you when you die."

"And I'm the Morrigan. I make sure they go where they're supposed to."

[Robin Stanton]

"Holy shit."


"Hoooly shit. Okay that's... some heavy stuff alright. Damn... Are you sure about this?"

[Samantha McManus]

"There's a place they go. I see it as a tree, but I think everyone sees it differently. And it's... I don't think I'm the only one who can do this. I mean I know right now I'm not the only one who can do this. She can do this, but she's me."

[Robin Stanton]

"She's not you. I mean, yes, I get what you're saying, she's got the same powers as you, but I feel like this is important to stress, yeah? She's not you. But... wait, so... you think there's a for reals afterlife? And your evil twin still takes people there after murdering them? You were right, this is buckwild for a first interview."

[Samantha McManus]

"I don't know what's beyond that. I just know that's where they need to go."

"And when your dad was on MGH, his light was blazing brighter than it should have. I think it would have burnt him out, eventually."