It's All About the Benjamins

[Will Stanton]

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>>Your credit's good here.

>>If you're going to mess with this program, whatever it is, be careful -- I don't know what it would do to you, and I'm generally a bit more resilient than your average bear.  I wouldn't want you to get locked in some kind of setting yourself!

[Ashlie Minamida]

"None taken. I went out of my way to overcome that very handicap." she jokes. Very dryly.

[Natalie Denisov]

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I think I'll be okay and I'll be careful. I handled a military grade security grid, mostly, I think I can handle this...

She writes 'Temp Workaround? - Natalie' on the whiteboard. "What else?"

[Cam Beckett]

"We might be able to remove the chemical, but not without breaking down the bonds themselves, and that can't be safe. Yet. Experimentation required."

Cam walked over to the whiteboard.

"I also wonder how the chemical expressed itself when he was a glove -- here, it's appearing as a virus, right? Well, gloves don't have computer viruses. Clay doesn't have computer viruses. Maybe there's a form that exists that would make it somewhat trivial to remove the contaminating agent -- just slice it out like a tumor."

He wrote the word "EXPERIMENT" and circled it. He paused. He then underlined it three times.

[Will Stanton]

Natalie's power picked up something on a computer terminal across the room.

It was an ASCII drawing of Cam, with an arrow through his head, and the caption "Kooky Cam's Crazy Craftsmanship"


The WillConsole whistled innocently. Actually did whistle, over the room's intercom.

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>>You can handle me any time you'd like.

>>Seriously, though, if you want to take a look and see what you can do, you can.  That whole 'trust' thing I'm supposed to be working on, right?  I highly doubt you can hurt me; I'm just worried about hurting other people 'tsall.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Umm... back up a sec... Shiar are?" Tosh asked.

[Will Stanton]

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>>Not particularly relevant at this point in time.

>>Avian-descended humanoids from Chandilar.  Smart.  Aggressive.  Mean.  Good gazpacho.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Aliens... are real? Seriously? Oh my God are the Danger Room rumors true?" he asked excitedly.

[Will Stanton]

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>>Y...yes, I'm afraid I must come clean.  The rumors all true.  I'm sorry, ASHLIE, I've tried to keep this a secret, but I can't lie to my friends anymore.

>>The Danger Room and I have been dating for the past six months.  It started out as a harmless fling, but things got...got very serious in a hurry, and well, one thing leads to another.

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>>Seriously, Tosh.  I'm an interdimensional traveler, champion of an alternate dimension version of a Celtic goddess of sovereignty, currently embodied in the form of a computer created by --your thoughts--, and you're surprised there are aliens?  It's not only an infinite universe, it's an infinite series of infinite universes when you bring in alternate dimensions.  Of course we're not alone out there!

[Natalie Denisov]

Natalie giggles at the "dating the Danger Room" bit. "So we could be dealing with an extraterrestrial created compound instead of someone cobbling something together down here?"

[Will Stanton]

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>>Could be, could be.  Could also be something cooked up here, either specifically or coincidentally targeting me.  Really, nothing to go on at the moment.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Well, I always kinda assumed it was out there somewhere. I just didn't think actual contact was feasible. You're right though, I just can only process so much mind-expanding knowledge so fast."

"Anyway... couldn't it be both? It was two separate compounds."

[Natalie Denisov]

"Could be, but like Will says we don't have a lot to go on at the moment. We need to dig into it more and I probably should get started trying that workaround." She looks towards Tosh, "Tosh, may I use the Will-puter?" As an afterthought, her mind moves to watch the Setec program to see how it responds.

[Will Stanton]

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>>That's....a very valid point.  It could well be both

Will mused.


As Tosh gave Natalie permission, the signals from the Setec program did shift their focus, sending...whatever their signal was towards Natalie now.

[Natalie Denisov]

"Ah ha!" Natalie says out loud with a broad grin on her face. "The Setec program is watching me now." Then she looks thoughtful, "Still not sure what it's looking for, but it's something... Small steps."

[Cam Beckett]

"Well, if you're the 'user' now, that would explain why it's focusing on you.

I'm still in the camp that it's fundamentally forcing the subject to be used. Right now, it belongs to you, and so as long as you're using it, it will be there for you. And if you booted it over to me so I could install Skyrim, or let ASHLIE use it to run the campus lighting system or something, it would still be in use. Might even count as being 'in use' if it was just being used by an automated system, like as a printer server or something. Just like it wouldn't, or couldn't, switch back when you needed gloves, until Nailah wore them, and then took them off. Use identified, use acted upon, use finished."

[Toshiro Narumi]

"I agree with that analysis. But I'm still reluctant to 'end the session', so to speak, before we get a better handle on the situation. Not with a sapient being involved."

[Cam Beckett]

"It's your call," Cam shrugged, going back over to the whiteboard. "Still think you'd get more use out of a modern computer than an admittedly impressive collection of 30-year-old parts, but that's no skin off my nose."

[Will Stanton]

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>>Your concern for my well-being is -touching-, Cam.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"As a sapient being that has been rewritten and restarted your approach to this seem needlessly cautious. Will has been through more than we could replicate even intentionally. Assuming you save your work, turning a computer off has no ill-effects. Interruption of consciousness is an irrational uniquely human fear." she says, seeming way too amused about how worried people seem to be about turning somebody off.

[Cam Beckett]

"That sounds like a challenge, headmistress," Cam smirked.

[Toshiro Narumi]

After a moment, he sighed.

"You're still not installing Skyrim," he said to the presumably smug Cam.

[Cam Beckett]

"Fallout? Candy Crush Saga? Barbie: Horse Adventures?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"You are truly history's greatest monster," he deadpanned.

[Cam Beckett]

"Just seems a shame to waste all that empty space," Cam laughed. "Of course, with that graphics card, Office might be a stretch for his capabilities," he said, practically giggling.

[Natalie Denisov]

Natalie zones out a bit as she starts typing at the Will-keyboard, though watching her 'code' would probably be strange. It's almost like she's writing two completely separate parts of the program at once. As 'intercept.bat' starts to take shape, her power tries to coil itself around the Setec program, trying to convince it that 'No really, Will is in use and what I need means he needs to be allowed to shift at his discretion.' It's not all the far from what she did to the security desk at the Mint, she thinks, though she tries to forget how that ended up working for her.

[Narrator]

Now that she was actively concentrating on it, Natalie could feel the invasive virus probing her mind, as well. Nothing active -- it didn't feel like it was trying to worm it's way into her -- but just sitting there, like an impassive cliff face.

She tried to needle it into thinking that what she needed was an independently shifting Will -- and it just completely stonewalled her. When she was able to work her way into it and start poking at it, it simply duplicated itself and brought everything back to square one. It seemed the program was taking her attempts at editing the program itself as being a case of Natalie putting Will 'in use', and thereby didn't believe that she needed him to do something else.

It took no aggressive action -- it wasn't like the security system back at the base, pinging her for more information constantly. It just kept occasionally poking her in the brain, checking to see if she was still there. As long as she was, the program turned it's nose up at Natalie.

She had more luck with intercept.bat -- while Will was clearly single-purpose hardware, as it were, it was surprisingly intuitive to code. She could see a spiderweb of connections between files and programs, calls and callbacks flowing through it as Will observed what she was doing. Where normal systems would try to put up cautions and roadblocks as she coded important files, Will actively tried to get out of her way, giving her freedom to pull up what she needed and poke around. Unlike the security system at the base, where she was forced into a controlling role, this was more of a partnership, doling out space and memory at her own pace.

[Natalie Denisov]

Natalie frowns at the programs attempts to thwart her and focuses more on the program itself. She tries to route around Setec, trying to give Will another avenue to access his shifting program. Since it was 'her code', she couldn't divorce it completely from herself, but maybe she could use her power to provide the key for intercept.bat's 'lock'. It was a thoroughly metaphysical concept if she stopped to think about it, but she preferred to focus on the concrete.

[Narrator]

She tried to work her intercept.bat program deep into Will's programming, worming it into his core processes. His shifting utilities were pretty basic, fundamental things -- a major part of how he worked, and so she had to inject her code, and by extension, bits of herself, into Will's processes.

It was...odd. Odd was probably a good term for it. She had been pretty deep inside the security console, and this was...this was different. She could "hear" bits and pieces of Will's mind tugging at her code, reshaping it to help fit how Will saw the world, and how Will would interpret her commands. She could put her metaphorical foot down, of course, if she so chose, keeping her code 'intact', but it didn't seem like Will was trying to stop her, per se -- more like helping her understand the linkages between the shifting and his personality; how they interacted and played together to create a functioning system.

Most of the code between Will's "conscious" mind and the shifting programs dealt with translating inputs into familiar mental processes -- explaining how he could see, hear, etcetra as things without eyes and ears. There were fundamental conceptual alterations done at this level, as well, dealing with form and function. This probably explained why he didn't mind being sat on as a chair or worn as gloves; some part of Will's mind was actively translating those experiences and sensations, correlating them with positive feelings and senses of accomplishment a "regular" person would achieve.

All of that information, these translations and sensations, started routing themselves through Intercept.bat, which tried to get at the shifting program, which was of course walled off by Setec. Signals were getting through -- it was translating the computer inputs into sensations Will could understand and comprehend, sending waves of contentment as new devices pinged onto the system and feelings of excitement as Natalie shifted through the code. It just blocked any attempt to get THROUGH it.

As Intercept.Bat tried to poke through it, Setec shifted into a more aggressive mode. Noting that it's normal attempts at blocking the shifting from working were not sufficient to stop inquisitive minds from poking around, it send a sharp, shocking ping up through Intercept and into Will's system, sending everything juttering to a brief pause as Will's CPU and memory suddenly filled with junk data for a moment -- kind of like touching a hot stove for a second sends reflex actions back up your central nervous system.

[Natalie Denisov]

Natalie shook her head as she caught the shock ping. "Nasty little bastard," she mutters, "Not you, Will. This Setec thing." She scratches her chin as she thinks, the beginnings of an idea forming, but she was running through it's ramifications.

[Will Stanton]

There was a pause before Will responded, as the cursor paused on the screen, the system locked up for a second.

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>>Yee-ouch!  Like being slapped in the face.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"I know that face. What are you thinking?" Tosh asked Natalie.

[Natalie Denisov]

"What if 'useful' was something that gave him some mobility? Like... those shitty Transformer movies. Maybe a transformer that turns into a computer?" Meanwhile, her fingers were trying to disconnect the intercept program to try to undo some of the damage, doing her best to make it look like a retreat.

[Narrator]

No problem at all -- the virus didn't seem at all interested in following her up the link; it just sat back and continued defensive actions.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Miss Minamida is right. We can hardly do more harm by letting him revert and seeing what happens."

[Natalie Denisov]

"Okay," Natalie says, "But if I have to rebuild all of those connections again, you have to do the snack runs."

[Will Stanton]

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>>And, to be fair, a kickass robot body sounds super-awesome.

>>Right, headmistress?

he teased.

[Natalie Denisov]

Natalie takes a deep breath, "Okay, Will, I'm done." She pushes the power button just for good measure.

[Will Stanton]

The connections broke as Will went offline, and the grey box sat there for a moment, the lingering green from the onscreen text fading out of the old LCD display.


And then, with a twirl, a twist and a bump, the console flattened out, squashed flat, and shot towards the ceiling as if it had been on springs. Protusions shot out, forming into blank limbs, and then detailed limbs, fingers, toes, shoulders, head...

And Will landed on his feet, arms raised up as he attempted to stick the landing.

"Ta-dwoah!" he cried as he slipped as he hit the floor, falling down on his rear end.

"...Ta-da!" he grinned, sheepishly.

[Toshiro Narumi]

Tosh grinned broadly. "It's good to see you, ya goof. In person shape anyway."