Xaviers!

"Well, I'm not the best at tech, but I played with lego a lot growing up. And I guess I can reach the stuff on the top shelves." Vic was a bit frustrated with having to balance being small enough to see and hear his passengers, but big enough to keep ahead of the chasing nanites - though Will's volunteering to take them on at least let him not have to worry about the latter for awhile.

As they enter the workshop, Natalie sounds thoughtful. "I can try, Tosh, but Vic," she gestures towards a body that looks oddly like Natalie suspended in a rig on a wall, "I'm going to need you to flip the two switches next to that so it's powered, just in case I fry this rig trying to unshrink Tosh."

"Oh geez, that's why you didn't care if you were eaten by ants? You've got a spare?"

"On the contrary, just because it's a low priority, that doesn't mean I don't care. It's just a lower priority right now than saving the campus."

"Also Vic, less important, please get the pants from the bottom drawer of the third workstation on the left. I don't think my current outfit will grow with me."

"Oh, that's totally normal." Vic responded to the sight of the slightly macabre figure hanging from the wall. He very carefully set his palms down on a nearby workbench and coaxed his traveling companions onto the work surface more empathetic than just tilting his hand and dumping them, before setting about the tasks assigned to him; switches on, pants out. To do that he had to go full-size which put him out of earshot of the group for a little while, so if any micro threats happened by he'd be unaware

Natalie moved around, trying to find a better angle to try to pull the particles out of Tosh. "Okay, ready, Tosh?"

"Ready as I'll ever be. And apologies in advance for... umm," Tosh answered, reddening, "... the impending nudity."

Natalie gives all the systems another check and then tries to start the intake process again, aiming at Tosh this time.

The process repeats but this time, as Tosh is surging in size several of the conduits inside the Nat-nite burn out, sparking and fizzling as long lists of error reports fill Natalie's head.

Natalie keeps pushing until she gets Tosh to a suitable size. "That was the last one," she says, disgruntled, "I need to get out of this."

Tosh stood on the desk for a few moments, one hand cupped over his mouth as he fought nausea and the other preserving his dignity. The former concern dealt with, he jumped down to the floor and hastily put on his pants.

"Alright then," he said, "Let's get everyone big again." He quickly retrieved his lab coat and consulted the X-Men database for additional information on Pym particles before math-ing all over the whiteboard.

Natalie begins hobbling the Nat-nite over to the body in the frame, trying to get close enough that hopefully she can make the leap into the body and trying to do an assessment of the body to see if it's ready for her. As she does that, she begins writing another program to shut down the Nat-nite and turn it into a containment vessel for the VanDyne particles in it once she's gone. The last thing she needs is it regaining control and spraying those things everywhere again.

The frame is not really set up for her right now. It's not really set up at all. She can feel it's in decent repair but it's mostly just sitting there, so it might take a moment to get it up and running again enough for her to do a full transfer.

Natalie sighs, poking a couple of the frame's systems to get it started on the process of booting up before limping away to try and find some terminal where she can try to contact the campus network.

With Tosh on the scene to protect Natalie as she jumped into her big girl body, Vic decided to check up on the others still on the table. With a little hop and some power flexing he was soon more on their level.

Boy genius that he was, Tosh quickly developed a working understanding of what he needed to do and rushed to gather what he'd require to build a Pym particle extractor and something to contain them.

Fortunately, the Nat-nite, while damaged, still has plenty of hardware to work with and Natalie is already working on vacating the robot. With Vic as an additional pair of hands to help out as instructed by Tosh the two start assembling a container with a strong enough magnetic field on the inside to hold the Pym Particles.

By the time they're nearly finished, Natalie's old robot frame has finished initializing and flickers to live. There hasn't been much that she managed to gleam for the network but one consistent transmission that keeps repeating. Schematics that show the large satellite dish sitting next to the Point and how it connects to the rest of the Point with a number of potential access points for the cable throngs indicated, among them one in the Workshop. The dish itself is displaying a window of rapidly scrolling code that indicate it's being rewritten to function as a temporary signal amplifier.

Natalie moves back closer to the old frame and starts her program running to shut down the Nat-nite as she makes the jump back into Ashlie's old body. "Something's writing a program to try to use the satellite dish as some sort of signal amplifier," she says as she tries to analyze the code and figure out what sort of signal is going to be amplified.

Potentially anything that's connected to it, though the way she's picking the information out of the network seems fairly inaccessible to anybody or anything not a technopath.

She compares it to the nanite's network, trying to figure out if it's a piggy-back control signal for them or, she hopes, Ashlie trying to communicate something. She bundles up a message, encrypted with her own memory encryption and cocooned by her containment code, and drops it into a gap in the stream.

Code: Select all

Ashlie? Are you intact?

"So, is this an 'ET phone home' situation, or a 'calling for the rest of the fleet as reinforcements' moment? 'cause those have two very different solutions."

The looping signal does not seem anything like the nanite's fractured and flexible network, but there's no response to her package being slipped into the data stream.

"Maybe the headmistress got shrunk too, and this is what she's trying?"

"I don't think it's the nanites. They seem to be operating their own network and this is nothing like it. I'm not getting a response from the Headmistress."

"Perhaps Miss Minamida is attempting to send herself out of harm's way?" Tosh theorized as he put the finishing touches on the containment device.

"I don't think so. It's just code for using the satellite dish to amplify any signal and listing several access points to plug a signal into, one of which is... here... in the workshop." She sounded confused.

"Wait, if it'll amplify any signal..."

She looks to Tosh's claptraption.

"Yeah... that could work... " he said thoughtfull. "Nat. Could you get the drone to hook itself up to this magnetic containment device?"

"Might take a moment. I shut it down to keep its previous programming from taking over. Most of the VanDyne conduits got fried when I unshrunk you." She gestures at the Nat-nite, scooting it into position to plug into the access.

Once everything was put together, he connected the assembly to the satellite access point. "Okay, Nat. Do your thing. Though I suggest we use the PA system to give everyone time to get somewhere open."

Natalie nods, extending her hands over the machinery as a sub-process commandeers the PA system.

Code: Select all

Please proceed to an open area. Please proceed to an open area.

She gives it a 10-count and then begins manipulating the programming to use Tosh's machine with the signal boosting code and running it through the Nat-nite.

The Nat-nite activates it's VanDyne chamber again with the building charge focused on and channeled through the access point and into the satellite dish. Outside the dish crackles with electromagnetic energy that seems to tug on everyone still affected by Pym Particles before said particles are suddenly dislodged, gathering inside the satellite dish before being siphoned off through the Nat-nite and into the magnetically sealed container. The dish outside groans and begins to collapse in on itself just as the nanite begins smoking profusely. And just before it overloads and potentially explodes the surge of electromagnetic force stop, the container glowing with extracted and safely contained Pym Particles.

Across the campus people suddenly find themselves surging back to their original size with a dizzying rush.

Janice goes tumbling off the table with a muffled grunt as she grows.

"...bloody hell."

Drake fell off the desk as well, crying out upon landing on his injured wing.

"I... Think I need the infirmary... "

"You did it. You crazy supernerds did it!" Vic was a little too caught up in the moment, chalking up Drake's troubles as being the usual witty banter of hero types.

"It's kinda what we do," Tosh smiled, sighing in relief that it worked.

"So uh... can you access anything now, Nat? Or did we fry it?"

The network floods back into Natalie's awareness. The few security cameras around the school show students all over the place, confused but back to normal size. And blinking quietly in the background is a notification that the fire suppression system in the server room was deployed automatically.

"Fuck," Natalie says, darting from the room. "Server room's on fire."