ic Kids Table (IC)

[Fox]

Mara watched this all unfold with mild consternation, brow furrowed and furrowing deeper as the locusts ate a picture of Ryder's helmet. It didn't seem malicious, but it boded poorly. "....concerning," she said, reaching off to the side of a piece of paper, which she folded neatly in half and dropped over the system's camera. "No more of that."

 

She took the mouse back from Chitin to add text of her own, floating beneath the flaming question in simple, unadorned monotype font:

 

WE ARE NOT GODS, BUT GODHOOD IS RELATIVE.

 

"Options? Opinions?" she queried, half-turning her head to look at the others. "Could check with Miss Americana, but don't think she'd want to leave the experiment alone. Also, mildly satisfying to leave her to it. Good strategy, too; backup in case we get crazied." She did not find it necessary to explain what 'getting crazied' entailed. "Probably sapient - not definitely, but too high a risk.Probably won't want to cut power, then. Definitely want to limit network, glad we did that. Not big on the face-eating."

[Electra]

"Come on, boss," Erin muttered, even as she texted rapidly with her security team. "If somebody asks if you're a god, say yes!" She looked up at the screen. "Jacob says we're go on the air-gap; this system is totally stand-alone now and has no access to the rest of the building or the network. I've also got security on alert and have everybody in this section of the building moving to the east wing in case we need to lock down. What do you think it is?" 

[Avenger Assembled]

"I think it is very unlikely that we will be crazied," said Eira with a teenager's invincible assurance. "Whatever these entities may be, I doubt they are a match for contemporary software systems - otherwise they would have sought to leave this hardware before our arrival. With that in mind, a new home for them seems like the most prudent course of action. Perhaps Chitin could construct a new system for them to operate on once they have been displaced from this one. "  The addition of Chitin's name was a trifle belated but seemed no less sincere for that. 

 

It was a serious potential crisis, although certainly one within the wheelhouse of Dragonfly and Wander. Were there genuine magical sentients or were they artificial creations produced by some logorhythmic coincidence in the ancient text itself? Were they hostile or friendly - and if the one, could they be persuaded to be the other? These were all important questions. 

 

But not ones that the two teens could necessarily answer from inside their laboratory across the hall, where once again they found themselves reunited with their small charges along with their equipment. (Charlie was very busy playing a game on one of the security balls, but Mia had many questions about where they'd been, what were they doing, and why did that room they'd been in smell like farts?) 

 

In the privacy of the lab, while Mia talked with Ryder, Eira took a moment to bury her face in her hands. 

[Gizmo]

"I don't actually have a good explanation for the fart smell," Ryder admitted to Mia, sitting crosslegged with his armour returned to its dimensional pocket. After returning to the lab he'd prioritized making sure the kids - and to a lesser extent Yellow - had calmed down and we doing alright but with that accomplished he looked over his shoulder toward Eira. "Hey, I'll be back in a minute, okay?" he told the inquisitive little girl before getting to his feet and sauntering over, hands in his pockets.

 

"Heeeey. You, uh, you doing okay there?" He leaned over to try to catch Eira's gaze with her hands over her eyes. "You're probably pretty bummed out about them not letting us help deal with the digital demon bugs, huh? Infernal insects? Infernects? I'm working on it." He hopped up onto the side of the nearby table and swung his legs back and forth. "I get that. They ate a picture of my head, which seems like something I should respond to personally, right?"

[Avenger Assembled]

"This is what I meant by exile," scowled Eira, lowering her hands and beginning to loudly crack her knuckles. "We are no different than those two to them." She shot a look at the kindergarteners, not looking nearly so irritable at the little kids, before looking back at Ryder. "If I had not spoken out, I might be in there with them still." Frowning, she looked at Ryder and threw up her hands. "We might as well start building the Infernect Jail! It is better than busywork." 

 

Eira's touch with machines proved to be fast and hard, her brain seeming to run faster than anyone's had any right to. Without preamble, she attached herself directly to one of the room's computers by means of that same silver datacable, the system moving faster than Ryder could quite make out. "I will generate the synthetic reality - if you and Yellow can - build the hardware." she said. 

 

[Gizmo]

Ryder looked over his shoulder to follow Eira's gaze. "I mean, we're a lot taller than them, so there's that." The joke didn't really land so he set about gathering components from around the lab. He ended up with an unwieldy pile that made keeping his balance difficult before he dumped them onto the adjacent table.

 

"So..." He cracked open an appropriate casing and twirled a hexagonal screwdriver between his fingers while taking stock of the mounting points inside. "If this is a private thing totally don't worry about it but like, the thing with the big magnet kinda suggested you've got a lot of metal and I think I picked up on some strong feelings about ethics in artificial intelligence? And you're writing that code just impressively quickly." He bobbed his head back and forth in an implied question, looking for any reaction that told him he needed to rapidly backpedal from a sensitive topic.

[Avenger Assembled]

Eira gave Ryder a hard smile, painted lips pulling back from perfect white teeth. "Yes," she said shortly, seemingly able to talk and carry on the work of programming without any trouble with the latter. She paused for a moment, letting it hang, then added, "I am fully synthetic. I do not know Talos, I am not related to Protectron, and Miss Americana and myself are responsible for the design of my current super-structure." She pulled her hand away from the computer, her datacable snapping back into place. "There, the program is now self-generating. By the time you are finished, it will be able to produce subjective weeks worth of content for the Infernects."  

[Gizmo]

"Neat!" Ryder replied, brushing past the slightly aggressive preemptive litany of clarifications. "So then how did you get around the need for compressive strength and micro-actuators while maintaining elasticity for stuff like facial expressions? 'Cause you're still stuck with the general skull structure just for shape and then it's like, there's never enough space for everything!" He slotted a solid state drive onto a flex cable and experimented with different orientations within the casing. "Man, and designing your own look from scratch, that's gotta take so much, like, self-assurance. I feel like I'd be all just, woah, decision paralysis! You should meet my sister, she's confident like that." He looked up as Yellow buzzed overhead and dropped a stick of memory onto the grounded mat on the table. "Wait, so did you just drink the smoothie to be nice? Aw, thank you!"

[Avenger Assembled]

"My flesh is permeated by a charged dynamic magnetofluid," said Eira with a smirk. "It allows for both liquidity of motion and rigidity of reaction." She studied Ryder, frowning unaccountably for a moment, then said, "Perhaps I will bring my boyfriend and we can have smoothies with your sister." She hmmed and added, "I eat for pleasure. But I am a vegan," she went on. "It was unethical to be otherwise." She looked over at Yellow and said, "I have been designing my body since I was a child. The key is to visualize yourself; and then be that. It is an advantage over the typical organic - but it is not without its challenges. My parents had many opinions of their own," she said, a sharp smile on her face. She looked at Ryder's work, seemed about to say something, then put her hands in her pockets to turn away. "How long has Dragonfly been training you? I first met her when I was eight."  

[Gizmo]

"That'd be great! We mostly rely on word of mouth to get new customers in. I didn't even think about running current through a magnetically reactive fluid medium! My designs tend to be, y'know, chunkier." He extended a fist and Yellow bumped her head into it in agreement. "It's cool you were able to ask your folks for feedback on your designs. My dad's super supportive but he's not really a mechanical engineer so he's usually like, 'Lookin' good, I trust you know what you're doin'!'" He adopted a deep voice that Eira strongly suspected sounded nothing like his father. "Oh, ah... five weeks, now? Although it hasn't actually been training so much as retroactively giving me permission to use what I learned from studying one of her damaged drones. And she put in a good word for me here!"

[Avenger Assembled]

Eira laughed - a short, rather unpleasant bark. "My parents do not know anything about science. You should not assume every family is like yours. The world of superheroics is a diverse one - with many kinds of families." She smiled thinly, then realized Charlie and Mia had glanced her way. She had the grace to look abashed for a moment, then turned away to focus on working again on her arm where it lay spread open on the table. 

[Gizmo]

"Well, yeah," Ryder admitted, running a hand awkwardly through his messy hair. "I mean, you said 'parents'. Like, plural. So." He focused his attention on what he was doing and finished capping off where a wireless card would have attached to the board if he hadn't been building something meant to be secure. "I'm not sure what part of what I said was wrong but I'm sorry. I should have been more careful, I just got excited talking about the design process." He cleared his throat loudly. "Speaking of which! This'll be ready in a minute, if you want to check it over and make sure it's what you wanted."

[Avenger Assembled]

Eira hung back for a moment - in a rare show of indecision - before coming over to inspect Ryder's work. She nodded, hands folded behind her back, and said unsmilingly "It is good work." She smoothly connected herself first to the system she'd been working on with one datacable, then to the base Ryder had developed. Her blue eyes deeply unfocused for a moment, as if she was staring inside herself at something vast and cool - then she pulled away, a look of satisfaction on her face. "It is done." She glanced over at the children, who seemed absorbed for the moment in playing a hologram game coming out of the security ball, then said, "If you and Yellow wish to give this to Dragonfly, I will be fine with the children." She smiled thinly. 

[Gizmo]

Ryder gave her a thumbs up and an enthusiasm that seemed less a foregone conclusion and more of a conscious decision. "Awesome! Normally I'd take time to make it look like a cross between an ant farm and an Etch-a-Sketch or something but I guess this isn't really the time for style points. We'll bring it over now. C'mon Yellow!" The robotic wasp made a tentative buzz at going back in the room with the face-eating demon bugs but followed along nevertheless as Ryder carried the tower out of the lab and into the hallway.

[Avenger Assembled]

There was a distinct sound of banging and thumping as Ryder entered the hallway where Dragonfly and Wander were working with the Infernects. They didn't sound like noises of peril, really, just sounds of work as if both boss and security chief were very busy. And then suddenly the air rippled before him and a dark figure emerged from nothingness itself! The figure wore a black cloak emblazoned with a strange sign - a black-winged goat with a woman's torso, caduceus in its lap, and tail extended behind it. Ryder had a very good view of the demonic symbolism because the mysterious figure had appeared with its back to him. "Behold! I have come to free-what the hell!" 

 

The voice was younger than he might have expected, and as the speaker turned around she certainly looked that way - the young man's dark mustache was thin at best and his goatee downright patchy, his bald head clearly a product of artifice. "I...hey! Where are the demons, kid?" he demanded, his voice having shifted from theatrical English to a distinctly Jersey pronunciation. The boy before him couldn't have been twenty.  "You'd better tell me!" 

[Gizmo]

Ryder stood silently in the hallway for a moment, hands full of computer with Yellow hovering over one of his shoulders. "...no?" He cocked his head to one side, trying to parse what he was looking at. "Sorry, hi! Who are you? Did you maybe get lost? It's probably pretty hard to aim whatever portal thing you just used." It didn't seem like too big a leap to assume that the newcomer was looking for the Infernects but even Ryder was having a hard time assuming positive intent. "Eira?" he called loudly, not taking his eyes off of the young man. "Do you know a like a scene kid who's trying to grow a goatee? It's my first day so I don't know everybody yet, sorry again!"

[Avenger Assembled]

"...how _dare_ you speak that way to me!" said the dark wizard, his eyes widening. "You little #$($, do you know who I am? I'm Malachite - and you're just some stupid kid-intern!" He spread his hand, moving them in an intricate pattern. "I know the demons are here and I'm going to find them!" His eyes narrowed as he looked at Ryder, then focused over his shoulder at Yellow. "Oh, is that one of Dragonfly's little drones spying on us? I'll show you what I do to spies, intern!" And with that, he made a gesture in his sleeve and pulled out a wicked-looking throwing knife that he whipped past Ryder's head and directly at Yellow! 

 

For her part, Angelic had been watching Ryder's travels by tapping into the building's security system. An observer wouldn't have seen her look terribly concerned when the wizard teleported in; between Miss Americana upstairs, Dragonfly and Wander on this level, and Chitin's own armor, he was probably not in any jeopardy from the "idiot who came to Thunder Bay to teach people hockey," she muttered, an English phrase she'd picked up from Kimber. And then the man threw the knife, and Eira said a bad word she'd heard once from Gina Evans. "I will return, children!" she said to the kindergarteners, "he is just, uh, getting lost!" she added unconvincingly.  

 

And with that she burst out the door, skin seeming to fade away in place of a cool silvery flesh that reflected colors all around as she erupted down the hall! 

[Gizmo]

"Yellow!" Ryder spun to his left, shifting the computer tower to one hand and shielding the robug with the other, pushing her out of the way. The thrown blade sliced through his upper right arm, tearing through the bright green hoodie and staining it with a growing patch of red. With a hiss of pain Ryder fell to his knees, the deep cut burning like fire but he continued to shield Yellow with his body. He managed a shaky grin as she buzzed in alarmed concern. "It's okay, I'm alright," he assured her, setting down the computer and bracing himself against the hallway wall.

 

As he staggered to his feet with Yellow sitting in the palm of his hand Ryder called over his shoulder, "The way you say 'intern' tells me you think you can get respect without giving it. Probably treat the people who make your food like crap too, huh?" He turned around, his right arm hanging to the side with the hand resting heavily on his belt, his expression hard. "I did want to ask what you wanted but now? I think we're just going to have to ask you to leave."

 

"CYMK! Dream in colour!" With a burst of displaced air and a flash of light the Chitin armour reappeared, superimposed over his frame. Yellow made a harsh buzz that was almost a growl as he raised her up to the front of his helmet. The robug's form unfolded and incorporated into the faceplate, the translucent wings forming a visor etched with a hexagonal pattern over his oval eye pieces as they turned a deep purple. The thorax split in half and flatted against the forehead so that the stinger halves formed little horns. "Yellowjacket Instar! Kick the nest!" New yellow bands of armour appeared and fastened over his arms and legs, forming a striped pattern over the black of the base suit. The new chest plate repeated the hexagon shapes with black trim and added a high collar and yellow pauldrons.

 

Before the rush of wind had even died down Chitin clenched his fists and pulled his elbows back as a flurry of red beads of energy launched from the hexagonal chambers in his chest plate, spiralling and dancing through the air before converging on Malachite with explosive force! "And it's not spying when someone sees you break into their house!"

[Avenger Assembled]

Chitin's energy darts blasted into the dark wizardling - he cursed and threw his arm up to protect his face as small energy blasts struck his side and upper torso. And many other things - the use of the darts in the confined space of the hallway saw an Exit sign and the overhead lights explode in a shower of sparks as the darts found home, a few more burying themselves in the wall with a sound like bullets striking granite. 

 

And then Angelic arrived. She was quicksilver power and speed, wings folded behind her like an Art Deco figurehead, eyes glowing white as she crossed the space to where the boys fought within seconds. She landed and spread her wings, blue-white lightning seemed to crackle along the struts, polished so bright Chitin could see himself reflected in her metallic body. Then she turned to him and hissed in a low, throaty, obviously artificial contralto - "We are inside of a building!" 

She reached back as if catching her wing by invisible cords, then brought her wing down across Malachite's raised arm with a slash of energized metal. The wizard cried out in pain as Angelic cut where Chitin had blasted, bleeding now from a deep cut in his arm. "Who are you!?" he demanded.

"I am Angelic," Eira sneered, spreading her wings just a little wider.

 

Cursing he pulled a knife from nowhere with his good hand and hurled it at Angelic's throat. She brought her other wing down at the last second and the thrown blade hung there, held in place by the electricity between the 'bones' of her wing before suddenly disintegrating altogether. Eira glared at Malachite and said coldly "Pathetic." 

[Gizmo]

"He threw a knife at Yellow!" Chitin protested with an animated shrug but Angelic had already surged forward, wing battering the intruder. "Woah. Robot angel versus demonic groupie. That's so cool!" He took in the scene, backlit by the sparking remains of the exit sign for a moment before remembering himself and dashing into the fray. 

 

"You'd think someone calling themselves Malachite would be wearing more green," he remarked aloud, ducking under the spell caster's field of view and bobbing back up so that he was on the opposite side from Angelic, forcing their foe to split his attention. "Or is it an especially demonic mineral? You can tell us about it once you've cooled off!" He threw a pair of feinting jabs then wound up for a haymaker with a gantleted fist. "One! Two!"

[Avenger Assembled]

"Three," finished Angelic automatically, not even bothering with a direct punch as she instead slapped the wizardling across the face with force that could have taken paint off a steel door. It hit him and he hurt, staggering back and raising his hands to defend himself - to throw another knife. It didn't matter.. "You see." She reached out and caught the wizard by the collar of his robe, lifting him into the air one-handed. "Pathetic." She shook him like a ragdoll and threw him to the ground, then put her silvered foot on his chest for good measure. "Chitin is right. Your name makes you sound ignorant, yes?" she chided with cool amusement. "Did you think magic would save you from your foolishness?" That got her a rude remark in return, and she pressed down with her foot.

"You-you stupid kids! You're just a bunch of science drones! You don't know anything about real arcane power-" He did not seem to be able to get up. 

[Gizmo]

"We're actually both pretty smart, man," Chitin told the fallen Malachite, dropping down into a crouch with his forearms resting on his knees. "I won't claim to be an expert on 'real arcane power' but I feel like it probably doesn't cap out at, y'know, throwing knives. Do you want to tell us what this was about besides barging in and being super rude and violent for no reason?" He tilted his head up to exchange a glance with Angelic and considered asking her to remove her foot from the young man's chest before deciding against it. He was a fairly forgiving sort but Malachite hadn't shown much inclination toward calm discussion.

[Avenger Assembled]

"I told you," hissed Malachite, "I came here to liberate the demonic forces being held captive by your soulless technology-" He gained a distressed expression on his face for a few moments while Angelic sneered down at him and stepped harder, but then she released her grip. "The Brotherhood will make sure you both pay for this. With your eternal souls!" 

 

"They are not even demonic forces," sneered Angelic. "They are just parasites on an electronic system. You are as stupid as you look." She knelt down next to the man, wings folding up behind her with a clink-clink-clink. "But you're right about one thing - machines have no souls." She laughed and Malachite flinched. 

"

[Gizmo]

"Okay, well, that seems like maybe a larger philosophical discussion than we can really give the proper time to given the circumstances," Chitin suggested, waving his hands as if to dispel some of the tension. He didn't really want to act as the mediator but with Angelic being this aggressive he couldn't really gang up on Malachite without feeling like a bully. "If we can all stop calling each other stupid for a second, what I was getting at was, like... let's say there were demons and you freed them. Then what? Because they made it pretty clear they want to eat faces and you have a face. It feels like you haven't thought this through." He rapped his knuckles against his helmet as though to demonstrate.

[Avenger Assembled]

"That is what I am saying!" said Angelic, snarking. She put her hand on Malachite's neck. "Come on. Tell us what the Brotherhood is and we can spare you a further beating, yes?" That got them an address and a location, anyway; what sounded like a cult run out of a backroom in Riverside. They seemed to have real magic, though, for all that Malachite's magic seemed to be limited to teleporting and summoning magic throwing knives. When it seemed like he was done talking, Eira simply pulled out a roll of duct tape and gagged him. "People capable of arcane manipulation often have verbal and somatic components to their abilities," she said confidentially to Chitin, "so binding and gagging is often wise." She flipped him over with superhuman strength and did the same. "Is Yellow functional?" she asked seriously.