My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

The site of the recently restored Braddock Lighthouse. Aircraft hangars and other X-Men facilities, including a Cerebra unit and the Danger Room have been constructed around the foundations of the lighthouse.

My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Mon Jan 15, 2018 10:23 pm

The Headmistress' strange responses had prompted Natalie to act. Something was wrong and lack of access to the Point wasn't about to stop her. She'd judged the front door was too obvious, but there were a couple of maintenance entrances that she thought she could wrangle access too. As she approaches the Point's network, she reaches out her mind subtly, trying to get a feel for the state the network was in.
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Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Narrator » Mon Jan 15, 2018 10:36 pm

For starters, the school network already seems different. Mainly an absence of Ashlie's very distinct and usually strong signal permeating the system. In and of itself that might not be too ominous, considering Ashlie had said she would be performing maintenance in the Point, but it made the campus feel even more empty and quiet. There's only two entrances to the Point Natalie is aware of. The main one and the freight elevator that leads directly to the workshop. She has a hard time even getting a connection to the Point's network from out here. It's still there, but all her regular access rights seem to be gone and it's shut off completely from the rest of campus. No wifi, no nothing. Purely internal systems that are too faint and distant from out here for Natalie's power to reach.
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Mon Jan 15, 2018 10:40 pm

Ashlie isolating herself like that is weird enough and more than enough to make Natalie antsy, especially since she's so used to Ashlie's semi-omni-presence. She heads for the freight elevator, reaching out to touch the systems that operate it to try and at least get a sense of where the elevator is.
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Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Narrator » Mon Jan 15, 2018 10:42 pm

This system she manages to access, although not through her phone and only by reaching out to it directly with her power through the elevator controls. The elevator is, unsurprisingly, down in the workshop at the moment, but calling it up from here seems very doable.
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Mon Jan 15, 2018 10:47 pm

Natalie contemplates it for a moment and then ponders that Ashlie has to have something monitoring the elevator, so she sniffs for that to put a block on it and then tries to call the elevator to her.
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Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Narrator » Mon Jan 15, 2018 11:01 pm

The elevator does indeed have a camera monitoring it, but fortunately it comes within reach as the elevator slowly moves up and a pretty much static shot of an empty cabin is really easy to loop for Natalie. The doors open to the view of an empty cabin she'd already caught a glimpse of via her power. Riding it down takes a while, the large cabin only vaguely illuminated and with everything else being quiet the sound of the moving cabin seems so much louder as it rumbles it's way down into the Point. In reality it's probably pretty quiet, but it's just one more thing that might give away her intrusion.

Finally the cabin comes to a gentle stop and the doors slide open. The workshop is empty, but all the lights are on. The various projects that Ashlie and the students were working on are still there, but some stuff has been moved around, shuffled, as if somebody had moved through and looked everything over and not bothered to put it back in the right place. All the way across the room, near the door, a large area has been repurposed for... who knows what. Pieces of all kinds of things are strewn about along with thick cable strands that snake out the door, propping it open a couple inches. There's dis- or partially assembled scanners, emitters, a radar dish of some sort, a couple buckets of blue-ish fluid that has a vague glimmer to it, a 5 by 5 feet area that is fenced off by poles topped with some kind of reflective array or signal booster...
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Mon Jan 15, 2018 11:14 pm

That's not maintenance or it's the strangest maintenance in the world. She moves slowly and quietly, eyeing the equipment and trying to get a sense of whether it's connected to the network on or not.
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Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Narrator » Mon Jan 15, 2018 11:22 pm

It doesn't appear to be. Whatever went on here seems like it was more of an experiment that got wrapped up some time ago. The cable strands aren't actually connected to anything at the moment, but she can get a vague impression from them still. On the other end are two systems, neither of which are usually connected to the actual network directly. One feels vaguely familiar, impressions of vastness and three-dimensional coordinates that don't really seem to make any sense, the other one unfamiliar and confusing. Neither of them feel quite 'right'. Almost a little hostile and for some reason it keeps reminding her of childhood memories, especially times when she clashed with her mom in childish defiance.
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Mon Jan 15, 2018 11:43 pm

Now Natalie's even further on edge. There's so much not right here. She steps towards the door, following the sense of the two systems, keeping an eye out for watchful security systems as she sticks her head out into the hallway, looking around before slipping out to head towards the systems.
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Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Narrator » Mon Jan 15, 2018 11:48 pm

There's no light in the hallway safe for the narrow strip of light from the workshop door. Stepping through it blocks even that, at least momentarily. For a moment she could swear she can hear something. Voices. A conversation? The next moment it's gone and she's not sure if she really heard it or if this was just something her power picked up. The two cables lead in two different directions. One away from the workshop and towards the central hub of the Point, the other further down towards the doors to the hangar and one of the few doors in the Point Natalie has never been through, but that she probably noticed before. It's the only door that has a biometric scanner on top of the usual RFID card reader access system.
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:05 am

Biometric scanners are a pain. She had to deal with them at the Mint and she's not looking forward to doing that again. She ducks back into the workshop, fishing a flashlight out of an emergency kit. She slides out into the hallway, turning towards the central hub with the flashlight down by her side until she absolutely needs it.
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Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Narrator » Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:24 am

There's the sound of something skittering across the brushed metal surface of the walls or ceiling in the hallway behind her, but when she spins around there's nothing there. For a moment she's reminded of the time she found Shari sneaking around in the Point by climbing over the walls. That time had worked out infinitely better than she could have imagined, but she knows for a fact Shari's not in the Point with her and somehow she can't find it in her to leverage that memory for reassurance, try as she might. It's like the strangeness of what's happening isn't letting her and she can feel her heart beating in her throat as she creeps towards the central hub.

A couple of monitors are flickering and casting the jagged shadows of the seats arranged around the room against the walls. On the table in the middle and strewn around a couple of the seats closest to it are stacks of pizza boxes, bunched up fast-food wrappers of various kinds, empty cans, some of them crushed pretty thoroughly. The whole room smells vaguely of decay, rot and death until her mind seems to snap into focus a bit and the miasma fades into what it actually is. The smell of stale fries, melted cheese, gyros and ketchup. On the screens she can see... generic scenes of some city near the ocean. Not Maldon, she thinks, but it could be some corners she just never saw?
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:32 am

She tugs her scarf up over her nose to help block out the smell. Now she's well aware that something's completely busted in the Point. Apparently, she doesn't watch many horror movies though because she slides into the hub, listening and looking... and trying to avoid the refuse. She didn't think the Point systems needed screen savers, so she's a little confused by the images on the monitors. Still, she tries to grab a few to put on her phone to look at later... once she's out of here.
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Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Narrator » Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:42 am

Suddenly there's a loud metal bang behind her, as if a door had just slammed shut.
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Tue Jan 16, 2018 12:58 am

Natalie spins towards the sound, flicking her flashlight on and pointing it in that direction.
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Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Ashlie Minamida » Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:04 am

The workshop door is closed now, which she can mainly tell by the fact that the light from the propped open door is no longer shining into the hallway. In the jittering cone of her flashlight she can see the two cables throngs that have been yanked out of the doorway, which would explain why the door suddenly slammed shut.

A moment later Ashlie steps into the cone of light with a frown on her face.
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:15 am

Natalie frowns, eyeing the Headmistress as she reaches out with her powers to try and feel what might be wrong with her. Their e-mail exchange gave her every reason to suspect something is wrong. She doesn't say anything for the moment.
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Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Ashlie Minamida » Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:19 am

Natalie feels... absolutely nothing.

"What are you doing here?" Ashlie demands.
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:33 am

Which is all kinds of wrong and actually startles Natalie somewhat badly to start off with. She frowns and it's a moment before she responds, "I'm coming to see about 'you'. You were behaving strangely, so I wanted to check up on you."
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Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Conduit » Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:40 am

Before Ashlie can answer the lights in the hallway as well as the central room behind Natalie turn on and a cheerful voice interrupts the both of them.

"Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. She was asking about some data earlier. Didn't think she'd break in. So rude!"
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Tue Jan 16, 2018 1:55 am

"Because someone was doing a lousy job of pretending to be the Headmistress," Natalie says, angry now. "Where's Ashlie?"
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Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Conduit » Tue Jan 16, 2018 4:46 am

"Ooh, she's clever! Or you did a sloppy job." Heather laughs as she looks past Natalie and at 'Ashlie'.
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:15 am

"Could be both," Natalie says, moving a bit so that she can look between Heather and 'Ashlie'. "Although based on what you said, I'd wager you were the one I was e-mailing," she directs to Heather.
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Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Conduit » Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:36 am

The young girl taps her temple a couple times with a smirk on her lips and all the lights in the Point go out. Including Natalie's flashlight.
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:44 am

In the dark, she’s shit out of luck, so Natalie immediately tries to grab control of the system controlling the lights and turn them back on.
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Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Conduit » Tue Jan 16, 2018 6:22 am

Once again she can hear the voice she thought she heard earlier, definitely being picked up by her power and louder this time, clearer. It's an almost childish sing-song and it's snuffing out any signals she tries to send into the lighting control system.

Code: Select all
"When the blazing sun is gone, when he nothing shines upon,
Shut down all your little lights, twinkle twinkle through the nights.
Twinkle twinkle little spark, plunge your rooms into the dark."


"Hey, quit bugging my friends!"
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Tue Jan 16, 2018 3:11 pm

She isn't sure how Heather's doing this, but she can't make contact with the systems and her options are limited... well, not all her options. A quick breath and she focuses on that 'off' feeling that she gets sometimes. It feels like her brain locking up, rolling backwards. And then she begins to consume, pulling data to herself rather than trying to project into the system. Hopefully consuming enough of Heather's control of it for something to get out as she lunges in Heather's direction.
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Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Narrator » Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:44 pm

It's an excellent plan! She can almost feel Heather's influence on the system slip, scrambling and being pulled into her. Somewhere in the darkness the young girl starts to scream in a mixture of frustration and pain and that's when Natalie starts seeing flashes in the darkness. Impressions, fragments, things her mind struggles to make sense of because it's neither fully data nor thoughts. For a brief moment Heather's power is drawn into her and she catches glimpses of the other girl's mind.

She's sitting on a moving metal plate of some kind, streaks of flame shoot out from underneath it somewhere and twirl into neat patterns before detonating.

She's bobbing on ocean waves next to a giant shark wearing broken pieces of armor when a sudden water spout almost topples them and a monstrous sea serpent rises from the waves.

She's riding a squat, armored dinosaur stomping around on the deck of a ship.

She's sticking her tongue out at what looks like an older, slightly taller and skinnier Tosh who is glaring at her.
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Conduit » Tue Jan 16, 2018 5:44 pm

"Stop her!" Conduit screams, her voice echoing in the dark hallway. The only thing visible are her glowing eyes casting a glow on her distorted face and the trickle of blood coming from her nose.

Behind Natalie she can feel something moving. Something big, almost filling the entirety of the hallway. A large limb of some kind lashes out and knocks her against the wall and everything goes black...
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Heather West » Tue Jan 16, 2018 6:06 pm

When she comes to Natalie finds herself in one of the holding cells. Next to her is the lifeless form of Ashlie, propped up against the wall, head tilted back and unblinkingly staring at the ceiling. Across in the same cell and sitting on the bed with her legs pulled against her chest is the same young girl she just encountered. Except not. She looks slightly different, her hair's a tad longer, she's wearing different clothes and she looks scared. Natalie's head is pounding and her shoulder feels bruised from where she got slammed into the wall, but otherwise she seems to be okay.

The young girl looks at her when she notices Natalie is awake. "Are you okay?"
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Tue Jan 16, 2018 6:13 pm

"I think so," Natalie says, rubbing her shoulder with her mind reflexively reaching out to try to contact Ashlie's body, even though she doesn't expect anything to be there. "Who... are you?" She rubs her temple, wanting the blasted headache to go away.
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Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Heather West » Tue Jan 16, 2018 6:35 pm

She can contact Ashlie's body in the sense that it's full of hardware receptive to her power, but no program is actually running. It's turned off.

"I'm Heather. I help out in the medical center sometimes. You ran into evil me and her boogeymonster too, huh?"
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Tue Jan 16, 2018 6:42 pm

"Made her mad, I think... My brain's a little scrambled at the moment. Saw someone who looks like Ashlie too. How long have you been down here?"
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Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Heather West » Tue Jan 16, 2018 7:16 pm

"I'm not sure. A couple days?" she hazards a guess.
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Heather West
 

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Tue Jan 16, 2018 7:24 pm

Natalie gives a thoughtful noise, then reaches her mind into the Ashlie unit, searching through the hardware looking for some kind of clock to see when it was turned off. "So they have control of the Point? What happened to Ashlie?"
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Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Heather West » Tue Jan 16, 2018 7:31 pm

The time when the chassis was shut down roughly coincides with the time the announcement about the Point shutting down over the holidays was sent.

"I don't know. But if she's the same as me then she can talk to the machines and she probably told them to shut her out from everything. Or worse..." she says and Natalie gets the impression that Heather seems a little gunshy if not straight up scared of her powers in regards to Ashlie for some reason.
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Heather West
 

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Tue Jan 16, 2018 7:39 pm

"That would explain how she shut me out of the network too. I sort of talk to machines too. I assume you've tried getting the locks on the cells to open?" She begins running her brain through the hardware of the body. She's seen this thing in operation and Ashlie has to have one hell of a transmitter/receiver in it. Maybe if she can find it, she can coax it to make a call to the campus network.
User avatar
Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Narrator » Wed Jan 17, 2018 5:21 pm

"Yeah, I can't hear any of the machines outside the room and I don't think they can hear me. And Ashlie's not in there." she says, indicating Ashlie's body. "I tried turning her on, but without her it's really stubborn."

The robot body is in some sort of standby state. It still has power, which is good news at least. It's also incredibly complicated. Looking for nodes that receive and transmit data is a pain in the ass because it seems many of the motor functions are set up almost independently to minimize amounts of data that need to be exchanged between them and the main core just for balanced movement, but that means they all have what is essentially internal routers spread throughout. One of the larger bandwidth connections she comes across looks promising but she has a hard time making sense of it. It's essentially a black box and nothing she sends to it results in anything that makes sense, though it is clearly set up to receive some kind of signal. If she had to guess this is what pairs Ashlie to the actual computer running her programming and is probably hardcoded to only connect to that.

Finally she does come across something that at least might work. Clustered together in the connections handling sensory input is an array of things that can send and receive. A number of wifi bandwidth, radio signals and more. A whole suite of EM transmitters and receivers. They're functional, but she can soon tell what Heather meant with 'stubborn'. The system seems very deliberate about what it responds to, seeming to require some intentionally obscure drivers to be loaded, most likely along with Ashlie's main program. It's certainly something she can theoretically emulate, but it's like poking at a very complicated combination lock.
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Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Natalie Denisov » Wed Jan 17, 2018 5:49 pm

Natalie is about to lean back and start piecing through the transmitter when something Heather says stops her. "You can't hear anything outside the cell?" She reaches out a little with her own senses to try and see what the interference might be.
User avatar
Natalie Denisov
Student
 
High Concept: Ghost In The Machine
Aspect: More Comfortable With Things
Aspect: Quad-Core Mind
Aspect: Lighthouse Keeper
Aspect: Sufficiently Advanced Technology

Re: My Mind Is My Passport, Verify Me

Postby Heather West » Wed Jan 17, 2018 10:23 pm

It's hard to tell, since she simply can't feel any of the electronics beyond the cell at all. Considering it's a holding cell for mutants and other super-powered individuals it's probably shielded in some way.

"No. I think the rooms have some kind of curtain." Heather says, shaking her head a little.
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