The Conquering Mind (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

Sharl flew right up through the biolab floor. "The whole place is deserted," he said, starting a little at how agitated all the experimental animals were. "It's really creepy. It looks like people just sat things down, wherever they were, and left. There's even ramen in the microwave in the breakroom and everything." He knew what ramen was; Gina had introduced a digitized version of it to him first thing. "Man, those guys are really upset..." He flew up to the cages and peered at them, finally pulling away. "Is there a way of building a machine that can receive telepathy?" he asked, flying over to the two ladies. "I mean, Protectron can obviously do it, and he's a robot. Maybe hearing the whole thing will tell us more about what's going on."

[Fox]

Dragonfly shook her head. "Typically a brain-to-brain process. Often eludes electronics. Suppose it might be possible to build a machine that received psychic signals, but would take research and specialization into psychic processes. Not like you can just wire a......" She trailed off, hear head slowly rotating to tilt to the right, ending almost parallel to her shoulder. "That's...mmh. ....very unpleasant. Gruesome. But...theoretically possible. Open brain...no. Implants? Maybe even a head harness. Likely less useful results. Less bloody, however. Not as good as a human subject but still...."

Her head wasn't quite so tilted anymore, but she'd turned her gaze back toward where she knew the lab animals were being held. original thesis by - citing unimportant - open-brain testing is barbaric but direct - implants better - consultation with Ironclad provided insight into haptic feedback - not so different - signal in another direction - translation much harder - animal brain simpler - multi-point node harness could be externally mounted no harm to the subject lower signal resolution boost with correct against outside signals u(t,r) = 1/r * [F(r-ct)+G(r+ct)] . . . . .

She started distractedly tapping a finger against her leg, taking a mental inventory of the available equipment - and available salvage from that equipment - that was lying around on hand. "Might need a hand. Wiring, timing...mmh. Protectron, or Miss Americana?"

[Electra]

"I'll give you a hand," Miss A said, though she seemed a little bit distracted herself. "Protectron, do you think you can safely get close enough to Lonely Point to make a visual identification without having to engage? I'm not current with the research on your stealth capabilities, and I don't want to see you getting damaged or disabled." She looked over at the animals, then back to Dragonfly. "I assume you're thinking about the possibilities inherent in the fact that the experimental animals, for all their brains are undeveloped, seem to be reacting to the psychic signal? You're going to get PETA down on us, but needs must as the devil drives, I suppose."

[Fox]

Dragonfly frowned, but nodded, having already grabbed some tools off a shelf and started gutting a couple expensive-looking scanners for parts. "Would be better with a human subject. Reliability. But Sharl and Protectron aren't, you and I are...." She paused, pointing a screwdriver at Miss Americana for a moment before shaking her head. "....not...ideal subjects. Animals will have to do. Non-invasive, if possible. Keep PETA happy. Medical floors were doing recent experiments with brain-scan harnesses...better prosthetic control."

She'd assembled a small pile of wire and electronics by now, and gave the paragon some basic instructions, for all that the process was probably fairly obvious to someone with Miss Americana's skill. "One goat would be easy. Read activity, map it to a signal, adjust signal to something intelligible. Two goats is harder...risk a feedback loop or race condition. Would have to be in two places at once without help while setting it up out of available supplies. But two...mmh...antennae, mean that we can triangulate a source. In theory."

[Avenger Assembled]

"I'll go see if Protectron needs any help," offered Sharl as Miss Americana and Dragonfly got to work. He flew right up through the roof again, coming up next to the flying robot as they both peered over in the direction of Lonely Point. As the scientists worked below, Sharl hmmed, peering in thought as he studied the naval base. The blowing wind coming up between buildings ruffled some old papers on the roof, but didn't do a thing to his black jacket. "This is really weird," he commented to the robot. "Hey, didn't you say Lonely Point is where, uh, they launch things into space?" Even the thought was still hard for Sharl to grasp, but this was hardly the time for him to embrace his love of outer space. "Weird that they'd have so many people down there if the thing's on Earth. I wonder if it's trying to do something with one of the rockets..."

-

Down below, Dragonfly and Miss Americana were two of the smartest women in the world in one of the best equipped facilities in Freedom City. It was less a question of if they could finish their work and more if they could get it done in time. As it was, with a little elbow grease and some goat corralling, both women were more than successful at what they were doing. Given Miss Americana's genius, it was not hard for her to put together the radio-jamming device she'd wanted, the simple, blank transmitter with the powerful battery had been the work of just a few minutes. The goats were a little more challenging (aren't they always?), but sooner than she'd have thought possible Dragonfly had a telepathic detector built in, complete with little range-finder! As the frightened goats maaed and nipped at their leash, the little display pointed her towards the south; towards Bayview, Port Regal, and the Lonely Point Naval Base.

Dragonfly had rigged the machine to speak for the goats, seeing as how talking goats was probably a non-starter

"Obey the Mind. Be the Mind. All are one within the Mind. The Lonely will be Conquered. The Collective will be Conquered. All will be Conquered by the Mind. Live for the Mind. Obey the Mind. Fight for the Mind. Obey the Mind. Defend the Mind...." And it went on like that, in a never-ending series of repetitions that sounded decidedly dire.

[Dr Archeville]

"Close to it," the strange robot said flatly. "The Lonely Pint Naval Base works closely with the Star Island Space Control Center, which is located on an island off the coast."

Analysis: Equipment at Space Control Center could be used to disseminate airborne contaminants over a wide area.

Analysis: Communications equipment at Space Control Center could be used to contact Grue spacecraft, if not a Grue-held world.

"Rockets or their communications equipment," it continued. "Will you join me in getting a closer look at the floating metahumans? Your assistance would be quite welcome, as you are able to get into places I cannot, and you are stealthier than I am."

After Sharl agreed, the strange golden robot kicked it's jets to full and made a beeline for the base.

[Electra]

Miss Americana listened carefully to several repetitions of the psychic drone, pursing her lips thoughtfully even as she swayed from foot to foot as though trying to ease some perceived discomfort. "It's not the Grue," she finally said. "It's something different, something that wants to control them as much as it wants to control us. Something about its association with the Legion virus must have given the Grue genetic material some kind of collective sentience, like that of an ant colony. That's going to make it more difficult to pin down, I'm afraid."

Setting aside the goatly research for a moment, she walked over to Dragonfly and held out the small jammer, about the size of a powder compact and designed with only a single switch protected in a plastic housing. "I need you to hold onto this for me," she told the other scientist, her voice very serious. "It's a radio frequency jammer. If I fall unconscious or become unresponsive, I need you to activate that right away and do not turn it off until the viral entities are dealt with. It's extremely important."

[Fox]

Dragonfly glanced down at the device and back up again and, for a moment, mentally switched off her commlink and every monitoring device in the biolab. "Right. Suspected for a while now," she replied, nodding solemnly and slipping the failsafe into one of her pouches. "Didn't seem...polite. To ask. Entitled to one's secrets. Certainly wasn't going to try to connect, mind-to-machine...invasion of...personal space, I guess. Still. Have to say: very good work. Mostly had to stumble onto clues, and like to believe I'm a fairly talented engineer myself."

She brought the suppressed commlink and Lab equipment back up, turning off the goat-linked speakers with a scowl. "Assuming you two heard full psychic transmission. Fortunate that it doesn't seem allied with the Grue. Unfortunate if it managed to conquer them. Signal seems to originate from your direction; recommending caution. Metahuman presence may be there to combat the threat, or may be controlled or otherwise neutralized. Given the state of the city, healthy suspicions say the latter."

[Electra]

Miss A pursed her lips tightly together as Dragonfly made her suppositions plain, the pressure enough to whiten the skin around her perfect lips. It was a perfect simulacrum of human physiological response, and yet she would've much preferred if no one had ever noticed. Distractions pulled at Gina's extraordinarily efficient brain like static, momentarily leaving her without words to say. "You are a talented engineer," she finally said, her voice tight, "and we have work to do. We're going to need to get these receivers mobile and see if we can get a triangulation going based on the relative strengths of signal, and I think we'll need Protectron for that, unless you have a spare jetpack laying around." She looked over at the clock. "We're going to lose the light very soon too. We should start thinking about where we're going to spend the night."

[Avenger Assembled]

Outside, Protectron and Sharl headed together for the Lonely Point Naval Base, Sharl sucking up his fears in the face of adversity. Think of what Gina would say, or Miss A! Come on, Sharl, he thought to himself, you've faced the end of the world, madness, and everything else, you can handle some low-tech...holy crap! In front of them, suddenly something erupted out of Lonely Point Naval Base in a column of fire, a spear of shining silver that was headed...headed straight for the Lab! "Ohmigodohmigod!" Sharl wasn't familiar with the exact specifications of American naval missile architecture, but he did know that there was a big one headed straight for he and Protectron, and after them their friends, and perhaps the only hope for liberating Freedom City from the rule of the unknown mind that had conquered the city! "Miss A Miss A! They shot a missile at the Lab!"

[Electra]

Miss A murmured a curse word and brought up the Lab cameras, which were sensitive enough to pick up the missile, for all the good that would do them. "Guided," she muttered, staring at the screen. "But if I try to get in, I might lose my connection here..." She closed her eyes, her face going blank as a marble statue. "Dragonfly," she said distantly, her voice sounding unconcerned, vaguely monotone, "we could really use better shielding on the Lab."

[Fox]

"Shield-!" Dragonfly's mind spun through the possibilities, but nothing worked - she wouldn't have nearly the power required to expand her spacial shield that far, and some back-of-the-mental-napkin math on estimated time to impact didn't leave any room for throwing together some sort of massive field-projector, even if she could tap it into the Lab's central power lines. Hopefully Miss Americana could stop the missile, but it wasn't the sort of thing you respond to by putting all your eggs in one basket....

The world sped back up to speed as her mind finished weighing the options; no more than a few seconds after Sharl shouted the warning she was half running, half teleporting as fast as she could for the stairs leading up toward the hanger bays. "Will do what I can in case Miss Americana is unable to stop the missile. Should...should get clear, Sharl, Protectron. In event of failure."

[Dr Archeville]

Analyzing... too far to make proper identification.

Range: 12.87 km from self. 14.48 km from The Lab.

Tactic: Move to intercept. Attempt cyberpathic interface.

Protectron had already taken off at full speed towards the missile. "I am moving closer to get a better look at the projectile," the strange robot announced to Sharl and on his Lab communicator, "and shall attempt to deflect it. Sharl, I think you should continue on to the Space Control Center and scout the area out."

[Avenger Assembled]

Sharl chewed his lip, the electronic teenager torn between helping Miss A, helping Protectron, trying to stop the missile himself, and...I don't know! He thought desperately! "I'm going to keep going," he told the others through his commlink, and so he did. Sharl dipped down right to street level, weaving in and out between buildings as he pushed himself to his utmost. I'm so slow, he thought angrily, I'm so slow, and that missile is so fast. I'm supposed to be a computer program! Why can't it just be a little...faster...

[Electra]

With no one around to see, Miss A might as well have been a statue in the Hero Museum, still and lovely and semi-lifelike for a long few seconds of quiet. As she concentrated all her attention, a blue light began to spill out of the computer console and up her arm, till her entire body was encased in a crackling blue nimbus. When she opened her eyes, they too glowed blue behind the whites, and what they saw was obviously nothing even in the room. Miles away at Lonely Point, so subtly that it was hard to notice, an invisible force began rewriting the orders programmed into the guidance computer, so neatly and quickly that it was only when the missile veered from its course and headed for the Bay did it become obvious that anything was amiss.

[Avenger Assembled]

A few seconds after veering off, the missile exploded in mid-air, a blast that would have been lethal in a city a mere loud firecracker in the sky over the Bay. All was quiet at first, though Sharl took the opportunity to whoop as he headed for the base. Miss A and the others had done it! I should have known the heroes of Freedom City wouldn't be put off by some stupid missile being fired at them! "Woo-hoo! I can see pieces of that thing falling into the Bay!" he radioed to the others, tapping his little holographic commlink. "You did it!" He kept heading towards the base, flying low over the Bay so as to escape detection, and for a little while, everything looked quiet.

Meanwhile, still connected to the base computer, Miss Americana detected another missile launch being prepped: this one a much larger cruise missile that would take out the entire block if it hit the Lab! The lab animals, which had started settling down second earlier, were getting mighty upset again...

[Fox]

Dragonfly gradually slowed to a halt, pausing from her panic-fueled sprint in the stairwell between the 26th and 27th floors. She leaned against the wall, panting, but relieved. "Good," she replied, when she had the breath to do so. "Very...very good."

She wrapped her arms around her stomach, adrenaline wearing away. too close - much much too close - can't take more than a couple minutes' travel - priorities: get breath back - focus - solve crisis - find Ellie "Assuming it's not that easy to launch a missile; implies that parasites or central intelligence - hive mind? - have access to detailed host knowledge. Was honestly hoping Harrison - not-Harrison - was a fluke. Or a good bluff."

[Dr Archeville]

If Protectron had eyelids, it would be blinking.

Query: What just happened?

"Did one of you do that?," Protectron's flat voice asked over the Lab comm. It quickly added, "Continuing on to tart destination." The strange robot continued on, streaking through the skies of Freedom towards the missile.

Analysis: Speed insufficient for swift resolution of task. Must work on improving air speed.

[Avenger Assembled]

Sharl thought for a moment as he studied the Bay beneath him, and then suddenly flew beneath the water, the electronic teenager disappearing without a ripple beneath the waves! It was a disorienting experience, but since he wasn't breathing, wasn't really _interacting_ with the water at all except through the tiny friction of his mobile emitter, it was actually an easy enough flight once he got over the psychosomatic urge to fill his lungs as 'water' closed all around him. "I'm okay," he said over his commlink to Protectron, his voice carrying clearly despite the physical matrix in which he was embedded. "They won't be expecting me from this angle!" Sharl had to force himself to focus on the dangerous mission, and not gawp in awe at the bay laid out clearly beneath him!

[Electra]

Outwardly, Miss A did absolutely nothing as the missile was launched and diverted and the second one queued up, as her colleagues chattered and the situation became more dire. She stood in the lab, still bathed in blue light, one perfectly manicured hand resting on the console as though she'd merely paused for a moment in thought.

Inwardly, Gina felt as though her mind was being pulled apart. Far away, she could feel her own physical body, uncomfortably cold and wet, painfully hungry, careening towards exhaustion and chemical deprivation, all of which she was powerless to address right now. She could feel the cool metallic safety of the cybernetic matrix that was the Miss Americana shell, ordered and powerful, but not built to be interfaced with this way. She could hear the chatter of communications but could not respond any more than she could go upstairs for a sandwich at home.

She tried to shove aside all these distractions and concentrate on what really mattered, the massive and well-protected computer matrix at Lonely Point, the one that was even now preparing to fire another missile at the Lab. She snuck in past the security programs behind a shield of innocuous code, then shut them down from inside, allowing her free access to the streams of data that made up the state of the art network. It was the work of long and agonizing seconds to find the programs that anchored the entire system, the cyberneticist's answer to the big red button, and another long moment to ensure that what she was going to do would not be dangerous or irreversible. She surgically incised blocks of code that were essential to system function, tipping the first domino that signaled the rest of the system to collapse rather than risk bombing the wrong target. The lights began to go out on the consoles at Lonely Point, one by one, then in great waves until all the boards were dark.

[Fox]

Dragonfly tiredly pushed herself off the wall, heading back down toward the biolab where she'd left Miss Americana at a much more relaxed pace. Not that the situation wasn't dire, of course, but there wasn't a lot she could do from where she was. She sighed, nerves a little frayed, and tried very, very hard not to worry too much about the things she couldn't do anything about right now....

[Avenger Assembled]

Two of the humanoid shapes hovering over Lonely Point flew towards Protectron and Sharl, both of them flying fast enough to make mini-sonic booms as they blew past the robot above and the electronic teenager above. One blew past them both, the Asian woman in translucent armor wearing a blank expression and making no noise as she went. The other, a glowing blue man with the same empty look, stopped and focused on the robot. "Artificial intelligences cannot be Conquered," the mind-controlled hero informed Protectron, alien anger in his voice. "Instead you will be destroyed!" And he did his best to make good on that threat, hurling a bolt of lightning directly at Protectron's chestplate!

[Dr Archeville]

Sensors detect imminent arrival of superpowered organics. Tactical response protocol initiated.

Tactical Alert: Unknown organic building electrostatic charge. Anticipate discharge in 3.0000 seconds.

Shunting power to structural support field ERROR structural support field not found

Rerouting tactical subroutines

It appeared as if the electrical blast would hit the strange robot, but at the very last nanosecond Protectron rolled away, avoiding it entirely!

It zoomed towards the glowing blue man, arms stretched wide. "Organic being, you have been compromised by a half-extraterrestrial parasite. Please remain calm while I attempt to remove it."

[Avenger Assembled]

Unfortunately, Electrolux, or at least the psychic gestalt puppeteering his body, proved equally nimble, flying out of Protectron's reach. "Your electronic subsystems are advanced beyond human engineering capacities," Electrolux informed him. "If you are a creation of the Collective, serve the Mind now and you will be rewarded later." There was no distress on Electrolux's face, or any other emotion, but the voice was cold and venomous, the sort that would have made a human's skin crawl. "If you are not, serve me in any case, and I will bring an end to the entity that has so often bedeviled this world."

For his part, down below Sharl looked up to see Protectron in mortal combat against a glowing blue electrical man. Oh man, that's Electrolux! He's one of the great Swedish heroes. He must have been visiting here... Sharl wasn't sure exactly where Sweden was, but he knew it was very far away. He can probably really hurt Protectron...and he can probably really hurt _me_...but I can't just let him fight Protectron! Even if he's a robot, he's still a hero! Sharl turned and looped through the sky, pushing himself to the utmost. "Hey, Electrolux! Hold it right there!"

[Electra]

When Dragonfly got back to the biolab, she could see only the goats, who were behaving pretty much as they had been, and Miss A, still and unresponsive, bathed in a nimbus of electric blue light. Far away, Gina used the base's own cameras to get a look around, and quickly spotted the rocket and the gantry that held it. A quick probe revealed that the rocket was still in the construction stages and didn't have the sort of machinery needed for her to get into it, but the gantry certainly did! She gathered herself and moved her mind out of the computer and through the pathways of wireless data, streaming through the air until her consciousness landed inside the gantry itself. She immediately locked down the arm holding the rocket in place, scrambling the code so that nothing short of a manual detachment would lift the arm to allow a launch.