The City of the Future (IC)

[Avenger Assembled]

April 25, 2011

It hadn't been easy for Miss Americana to get clearance to visit the Sanctum: explaining why a non-League member had access to its computers was one thing, explaining how a citizen of Tronik had found his way onto her hard drive was a tough act to follow. But her spotless reputation, enormous popularity, forceful personality, and close ties with League member Dr. Archeville helped overcome any doubts about her. It didn't hurt, of course, that she'd recently saved the entire city, and perhaps the world, from the Conquering Mind! And so Miss Americana, Dragonfly, and Sharl Tulink got clearance to visit the Sanctum and get access to Tronik's hard drive, bringing with them as an escort the famous Daniel Daedalus. To his credit, Daedalus had been nothing but helpful in organizing the project, sharing with Miss Americana complete files on his efforts to maintain the Tronik hard drive from the outside, as well as what the League itself had observed from within during their various missions over the years.

Like Miss Americana and Dragonfly, the League was worried about Tronik: the city's society was becoming as strained as its harddrive thanks to the glitches and instability hanging at the back of the program. A lone metropolis, even an advanced alien one, was under a great deal of social pressure even with economic self-sufficiency. Though Daedalus had managed to repair the hardware after several serious glitches (one of which corresponded to Sharl's childhood memories of a massive hurricane that had locked the city down for weeks), the program itself was becoming more unstable, and the efforts to fix it had been like building a dam rather than actually stopping the flood: Daedalus was an engineer, not a computer guy, for all his genius. They'd all had plenty of time to study it, because there were enough worries about the integrity of Sharl's program going through a matter transmitter (even while inside another hard drive) that they'd taken one of the League's fast planes up to the Sanctum, the incredible speed of the anti-grav-driven jump jet turning the thousands of miles to Greenland into a trip of barely two hours.

Sharl had stopped pacing early in the flight as they flew, and was instead focused on pulling out every detail he could remember from his home city for the benefit of the others: he was really nervous about going home, and doing his best to hide it as he sat at the plane's small conference table. "Neo is tidally locked in orbit around Bantam, so it doesn't rotate," he added unnecessarily. "Neo's as big as Earth, but most of it's uninhabitable: the desert on the sunward side is too hot and empty, and you can't pass the ice mountains on the spaceward side. Tronik Island is the biggest landmass people can live on, it's about the size of your island of Greenland. We only live in Tronik itself, though, which is only about a hundred and fifty square miles. At the last census," he said like reciting something from school, which he was, "there were fifty million people living there."

[Fox]

"Fifty-" Dragonfly raised an eyebrow at Sharl, trying to make sure she'd heard that right. Not to mention making sure she'd done the math right - she had pretty good faith in her basic arithmetic skills, but the implication was just mind-boggling. "That's...1.2 people per hundred square feet," she pointed out, glancing at Miss Americana and Daedalus. "Give or take. Rounding. One point one nine five six six....sorry. Precision not important. Still. That's...." She shivered. "Think I'm claustrophobic just thinking about it. Even building up...."

[Avenger Assembled]

"Tronik looks very different than Freedom City. Tronik feels much less empty, but the sky is a lot harder to see. Down deep enough in the sectors or even at ground level, sometimes the only light is artificial." Sharl shrugged a little; what might have sounded like a hellish industrial cityscape to some was home to him. "If people really want to see the outside, they can sign up for the plankton fleet. Some people can't take the isolation of just being on a ship with a hundred other people at a time, but if you can make it a year out in the ocean, you can come back and live on that for years afterwards. That's how we supplement our artificial proteins. Or, I guess, that's how we make it look..." He shifted, looking a little uncomfortable, and confessed, "I'm still not sure what I should tell my family."

[Electra]

Miss Americana had been quiet for a few minutes, looking out the window of the plane without really moving or reacting. She turned to Sharl suddenly, all her animation seeming to return at once. "I'm sure they'll just be happy to see you back," she told him bracingly. "We can help you explain what happened, at least to them, and when they see your powers, I imagine they'll be more inclined to believe. As for the rest of the city, the "plankton farmer" story should hopefully hold up. If we've been out in the middle of the ocean for a few years, it'll make sense that we're a bit odd and out of step. We'll need aliases, I suppose. I'll be, hmm, Mary. You?" she asked Dragonfly.

[Fox]

Dragonfly gave that one a lot of thought, taking the question far more seriously than it probably warranted. For nearly a minute - an age, at the speeds the people in the plane could think - she tapped her finger against her armrest and cycled through name after name, soundlessly muttering to herself. "....Ema," she finally supplied, snapping out of her thoughtful ponderings as quickly as she'd fallen into them. "And a good cover story, yes. Simple, plausible, easily related. One less thing to worry about."

[Avenger Assembled]

Having gotten what Sharl could tell them about Tronik's history, Daedalus filled in the blanks he could of the city's 'physical' history: the Centurion had rescued Tronik during a battle with the Curator in the depths, only a few years before his own death in 1993. "The Curator told him he'd be happier as stored data, just like the people of Tronik. So not only did the Centurion beat the Curator and rescue the space freighter he'd come to save, he also grabbed the Tronik harddrive and got out of there before the droneship could go into hyperdrive. So that left us with what to do..." Faced with a potentially unstable program full of millions of sentient minds, the Centurion had found Daedalus himself in deep space, and together they'd grafted the Tronik system onto a Lor military computer, the most compatible system that could be found on short notice. "We managed to save everything, thank science. A few seconds either way..." He shook his head.

It wasn't long after that that the Centurion's Sanctum came into view, or rather, what little of it was visible through the Arctic pack ice so far north. The Arctic sun was impossibly clear and bright as their jet made their landing near the big impervium door that led into the Sanctum itself. (The Centurion had luckily been thoughtful enough to build his stronghold in an island beneath the pack ice: though the global warming that had become obvious since his time would one day do serious structural damage here, the Sanctum itself would survive anything short of a planet-cracking event in the general area. Outside, Daedalus led the way, using his passwords to get them inside; their brief glimpse of stark, sere nature outside as they trudged from plane to door quickly trumped by science gone wild.

Even Sharl was fascinated by what he saw inside the Centurion's Sanctum, for all that none of it would have been out of place on Tronik. There were the statues of the Centurion's parents in their togas, the rocketship that had carried him from his distant home, and finally down a long corridor studded with trophies from the countless exploits of the Man of Adamant lay a secret door, and inside it...while Daedalus explained technical matters to the two scientists, telling them how a permanent powersupply had been installed to the Lor computer, and how signaling devices were in place to alert the League if anything should tamper with the program from the outside, and here were the interfaces they could use to send their consciousnesses directly into the system if they preferred not to use their powers...Sharl had eyes only for the computer itself.

Sharl Tulink approached his world, his reality, his city with something like reverence, gently laying his hand against the gently humming tower that, if placed on the floor instead of on the low table, would have barely reached up to his thighs. Tronik, Neo, Bantam, and everything else he'd ever known fit inside a computer whose body could easily have fit in a small corner of Gina's basement. "Hi Mom and Dad," he whispered. "I've traveled so very far, but I finally made it home. 'It is not down on any map. True places never are.'"

[Electra]

Miss Americana gave Sharl a little room to do whatever communing he might want to do with the computer that was his world, standing aside to talk to Daedalus and Dragonfly. "I'd like to take an hour or so to get familiar with the computer before we start plugging in the extra memory, just to make sure there's nothing we're missing in the schematics. With the work Dragonfly and I have done on Sharl's program, he should integrate well, but he's not familiar with traveling on the internet and may not find the back door again by himself. Once we have the memory set up and buffering the program, I propose we take a break for food and rest, then Dragonfly, Sharl and I will travel through the web and go through the back door as a group. Timing is going to be crucial, given that we can only stay out of body for so long, but by entering somewhere we know is weak, we should maximize the time that we have available." She looked to Dragonfly for her opinion on things.

[Fox]

Dragonfly tapped a finger on her leg, pondering, but nodded. "Good plan. City has lasted this long. Few hours is unlikely to change things."

It didn't give her much to do in the meantime, though. She was the least familiar with the system of the four people present, and had a sneaking suspicion that she'd only be getting in the way unless asked for. Instead, she quietly made her way over to Sharl. "When I was very young," she offered, putting her hands in her jacket pockets, "was much better at...putting my mind in computers. Not just using them, but actually...being there. Seeing in and through them. Found a satellite one day - don't know how I got through firewalls. Shoddy security. But found a camera feed - civilian-level orbital surveyor. Earth was...."

She closed her eyes, remembering. "...so...small. Tiny. Felt like I could reach out and pick it up. Was everything I'd ever known, an invisible spot on a little blue sphere in empty space. Profound, but...unsettling. Guess important things aren't...size, or visual impressiveness. More quality, and memory, and personal significance."

[Avenger Assembled]

"All my life," Sharl murmured in reply to Dragonfly, "I believed in aliens. Even when everyone in school, everyone I knew, said that we were far beyond where anyone could find us, I believed in worlds beyond ours where impossible things could happen, and where brave people didn't just live day-to-day, but instead fought for a better tomorrow." He brushed electric fingertips lightly against the computer, feeling a slight tingle as his magnetic field interacted with its, and hastily pulled back his touch. Instead he turned to Dragonfly and added, "And now, thanks to you, Miss Americana, and...everyone else I've met, I know those stories are true." He smiled. "Even if no one ever really believes me. The world you live in is beautiful. Treasure it."

There was much to do after that, but fortunately between one thing and another there was plenty to occupy their attentions, even the formidable attentions of the various intellects there. The computer was indeed a standard Lor military computer, which made it orders of magnitude beyond anything on the market (outside a super-genius's lab anyway) on Earth. What made it special was less its capacity and functions, which Miss A or Dragonfly could have equalled with a few days work; what mattered was that the Lor could turn these out in trillion-unit quantities on assembly lines when they needed to. Its quantum storage capacity was tremendous, enough to hold vast libraries, but much of it was taken up with supporting the equally alien hard-drive that held the Tronik program. If they'd had one of the Curator's own computers handy, adding the memory would have been a snap, literally, but of course that ancient guardian parted with nothing without a fight to the death.

[Electra]

Interfacing the new memory core with the Lor computer was tricky work, but enough was known among the superintelligent about older Lor computers that at least they hadn't come unarmed. The core they had designed was optimized to work with Lor technology, and though it was the work of hours to install the core and get it working without disrupting the balance of the fragile city inside the box, the three engineers were able to make it work. "I'm only going to open a fraction of the memory right now," Miss A murmured, her fingers flying across the keys of the netbook she was using as an interface. "Just enough for us to get in without risking a buffer overflow. When we get back, we can start opening the memory a little at a time, first to shore up the core subroutines, then to start building new ones." She yawned, sitting back from the computer.

[Fox]

Dragonfly leaned back against a wall, pulling her gauntlets on and latching them closed with whatever unseen mechanism she used to keep the things on. They'd been designed for dexterity, sure, but all the design in the world couldn't make them as good as bare hands for working with small wires. Which, really, gave her some ideas...albeit ones she had to file away for later. "Best to try to get an idea of how well the system utilizes memory, anyway," she added, nodding as light flowed down the seams and glasswork of her gauntlets. system test - okay - okay - okay - within limits - but check later - okay - okay... "Always unpredictable edge cases. Small steps makes problem diagnosis, correction easier."

She glanced at Sharl, and blinked. "Not...expecting any, of course. Problems, I mean. But best to plan just in case."

[Avenger Assembled]

With the program running and everyone needing a break, Daedalus took them down to the dispensary: the Centurion's food replicators were a few decades old now, but they worked as well as they had when they'd been installed in the early 1970s. For his part, after some hesitation, Sharl opted to indulge in the 50s-diner food the Centurion had evidently favored: hamburgers and french fries, and bubbling Coke on the side! "I'll make sure to go to the bathroom before I leave," he promised Miss A and Dragonfly. "I don't want you guys to have to clean up after me when I'm gone." Despite his nervous happiness at the thought of being back in Tronik, Sharl certainly didn't like the idea of leaving his friends behind. Especially Gina, wherever she was behind that mask. Probably back home. When they were done eating, Sharl, who needed no rest, went to carry out the long, involved procedure that was using the bathroom. He wouldn't miss having to scrub undigested, chewed food till it went down the drain.

[Electra]

Miss Americana ate sparingly, though she drank a great deal of water, and took her turn in the restroom as well. "The guest rooms are open," she told Dragonfly and Sharl, "let's all try and get some rest. With rest and fuel in us, hopefully we'll avoid the problems we faced during the alien mind invasion. Let's meet up at 0700 local time, fed and ready to go." She headed into the first available guest room, activating the privacy lock behind her.

[Fox]

Dragonfly, possibly just to spite commonly-held Lab perceptions, ate plenty for her meal. not as good as the Santa burger - probably not magic - still - very good She did, at least, stop herself before over-eating - being over-full and uncomfortable would probably not have been much better than going a little hungry, spite or no spite.

Muttering distracted agreement with Miss Americana's plans, she made her way into a guest room and locked the door behind her, removing her visor only after doing a mental sweep for surveillance. Laying on her back, she only partly dozed off: it had been a long long time since she'd jumped feet-first into a strange computer, and she wanted to make sure her mind was up to the task. For the hundredth time in the last few months she reshuffled her mental list of priorities, bumping computer link practice further up the list. Always so many things to do....

[Avenger Assembled]

For his part, Sharl sat alone in an empty room, Daedalus having gone to bed himself. He could have gone to the effort of sending himself back to Gina's house, but he hesitated to go backwards when he'd gone to so much time and effort to go forwards. Instead he reached into the little backpack he'd been carrying (no one having raised an issue about why he was carrying around literally material possessions) and pulled out the expensive laptop Gina had entrusted him with for his departure: Miss Americana would be taking it back with her when she left. "I can't believe this is my last night on Prime," he murmured to himself. How hard would it be to go back, knowing what he knew?

He'd already said his face-to-face goodbyes with Gina anyway; he'd even left her a note tucked away where Emerson would find it and present it to her sometime in the morning. He cracked open the laptop and dialed up the only program on its hard drive: somewhat awkwardly, he stuck his finger in the IR port, and found himself sitting not on the artsy 70s couch in the Centurion's waiting room, but rather on a simple bed with a feather-stuffed mattress and soft pillows, in the very first draft of the room Gina had built for him on her computer at home. He set the 'computer' on his lap aside and laid down, feeling the familiar sensations of 'reality' all around him now that he was back where he belonged.

"Well, almost..." It had been a long day, and back in the computer, it was easier than Sharl had expected to go to sleep; the little window that showed him still visible on the screen outside as he slept and dreamed.

[Electra]

Next morning at slightly before the appointed hour, Miss Americana arrived in the computer room, dressed in a comfortable blue coverall with red and white trim. Everything was ready now, she'd prepared her physical body well against the rigors of a longer out-of-body trip, and figured she'd suffer no worse than eventual hunger pangs while she was gone. As she waited for the others, she inspected the newly buffered memory one more time, nodding with approval at its continued stability. This new piece of Tronik's foundation ought to do its job just fine, as soon as they were ready to let it.

[Fox]

Dragonfly shuffled out of her borrowed room only shortly thereafter, rubbing at her face under her visor, hair disheveled. Not that she seemed to care much. "Never sleep well away from home," she muttered. One hand reached out and a thermos unfolded into her grasp - some glasswork going up the sides here and there glowed softly red as she pulled the cup-top off and poured herself some hot and fresh-smelling coffee. "Just not right with not-home noises. And without home noises. Place doesn't....echo right."

[Avenger Assembled]

A few minutes later, Sharl made his appearance, just finishing up the Coke and pizza that Gina had left for him in the fridge of his little room. He was back in his Tronik-wear, the black coat like a cape and black mirrorshades that the people of Tronik preferred. After all, unlike the others, he wouldn't get to pick how his 'avatar' looked: it was really him in there. "You guys should make sure to suit up once we're in there," he said, a little diffidently. "It'll make you fit in better." He'd explained to them why people in Tronik dressed the way they did: Bantam was a cold, dim little star and Tronik Island itself frequently was swept by storms from the shores of the ice mountains. (Though just as often, by storms from the deserts as well...) Still, they'd probably fit in okay: the coat and shades were only about as mandatory as a suit and tie had once been on the sidewalks of New York.

Meanwhile, Daedalus had opened the hard-wired Internet connection at the Sanctum, re-establishing the back door that Sharl had left through those many months ago. He pulled Miss Americana over for a quick discussion of the technical aspects, making sure that Sharl would go back to the point in the network just before he'd been sucked into the datastream. "Even with two cyberkinetics on the team, the last thing we want to risk is anyone being sucked onto the global network by volume. From there, you'll have a clear path through to the backdoor in the ground sector on the main island."

[Electra]

"We'll take care of him," Miss A told Daedalus, breezily confident. "I've been navigating the internet for years, and this version of Sharl is considerably optimized from the one that came out. He's even virus resistant." With a chuckle, she walked over to the laptop and cracked her knuckles, looking at her two companions. "All right," she told them brightly, "this is it. Anybody have to take a potty break, speak now or forever hold it." She sat down in one of the comfortable chairs near the computer, closed her eyes, and went limp.

A moment later, a form appeared onscreen in the digital environment of Sharl's "living room." It was female, but didn't look like Miss A. This woman was close to middle-aged, with roughened hands and features that spoke of life in harsh weather conditions and shocks of gray running through dark hair. She wore a trenchcoat and dark glasses, much like Sharl's. The woman waved at the people outside the screen, though from inside she could not see them.

[Fox]

Dragonfly sighed, laid herself out flat, and closed her eyes. see if I can remember how to do this on the first try - really need more practice - slacking She took a deep breath, and her devices hummed as they powered down.

Her manifestation inside Sharl's room was a bit stuttering at first, but after a moment she solidified as...herself. Or, at least, a more abstract version of herself: clothes a little more stylized, equipment pared down to free-floating steel plates and solid light constructs. Not that she intended to stay that way - a glance at Miss Americana and her avatar rearranged itself, changing to a short, lithe young woman with dark hair pulled back into maybe an inch of ponytail. She raised an eyebrow over her black, nonreflective glasses and picked at her trenchcoat a bit. "Prefer shorter jackets. But didn't want to break the theme."

[Avenger Assembled]

Sharl joined them a few moments later, somewhat ungracefully sticking his finger in the IR port before reappearing inside the machine itself. As he stepped out of the 'air' to stand beside the two women, it took them a moment to realize what was different about him: after all, his avatar hadn't changed a bit. But inside the simulation, Sharl didn't look like a computer program brought to life or a cunningly projected hologram. If they didn't try and peer at the code inside him, he looked like a human being. "Wow, so here we are..." Sharl smiled a little nervously, sticking his hands into his pockets. "Uh, welcome to the computer," he joked. "Miss Americana really did a nice job programming this for me. It feels as close to home as I could have gotten. Are we ready?"

When Miss A indicated they were, Sharl opened the door to his room, revealing not the pretty blue sky visible through the windows, but rather something else entirely: a long corridor that stretched out before them, leading out to a broader, wider metal security door. "Wow, that must be the gate to the network..." He added to Dragonfly, "Before, when I wasn't pro...when I couldn't understand this, it all looked like crawling chaos. I couldn't even understand I was in Miss A's computer until she started talking to me. Did you want to do the honors?" he asked Miss A.

[Electra]

"The emulator I built for you lets you perceive the data in a way your senses can understand," Miss A told Sharl, stepping forwards towards the door. "None of the architecture is actually here, of course, but your human mind isn't made to see datastreams the way Dragonfly and I can. This should make it easier for you. Stay close, though. Being overconfident on the net can get you in trouble very quickly. She pulled open the door and ushered the others through.

The other side of the door was very different from the quiet order of Miss A's computer. It was as though they'd stepped into a frantic city street, as busy as Tronik at the close of the business day, with things rushing every which way. Glowing shapes that looked very much like people milled and rushed about, while vehicle shapes went by even faster, jockeying for position and blocking each others' access. Sharl couldn't read any of the many glowing signs all about them, but even so, it was an almost overwhelming amount to take in. Still it made sense, not like it had on his first trip.

[Fox]

Dragonfly glanced around, quietly reveling in the raw data flowing around her - flowing around them, she corrected, remembering that for the first time she wasn't alone in her computer-diving. Still, it wasn't something she'd done anytime recently and she'd almost forgotten how...alive it felt, the silent thrill and the all-consuming roar of pure, unfiltered information. It took a lot of willpower to not just reach out and mess with passing streams, to grab and inspect them for hidden gems like encryption keys or a few thousand bytes of a whispered secret.

Instead she put her hands in her pants pockets; a mostly symbolic gesture, but a gesture none the less, and something to keep her curiosity mostly under control until they arrived.

[Avenger Assembled]

Sharl guided the way, more on instinct than memory, as his mind went back to his terrified flight of a few months ago. "This was all different then," he said aloud, walking along the sidewalk out of memories of what walking in that 'road' was like. "I couldn't even feel the ground beneath my feet, or see anything but myself. Stepping from Tronik out to this was like walking off the edge of reality; just falling and falling forever, knowing there were things in there with me but not able to see them or touch them." He shuddered a little, and added, "I'll have to..." No, come to think of it, he didn't have to try this again on the Internet in Freedom City. Chances for that were going to be thin on the ground.

What had been a mad, panicked flight was much, much easier as a straight shot through a recognizable, if deeply alien cityscape. He didn't recognize the backdoor to Tronik at first, since after all it had looked nothing like this his first time through! But as they went, the cityscape seemed to part as they reached the edges of the network's coverage, until finally they found a classic Daedalus computer construct: literally! From its marble steps to its Doric columns, the gate to Tronik looked like something from classical Greece. This time, it was Sharl who took the lead as he put his hands on the big brass door. "From the other side," he said, "It just looked like a door to nowhere, but stepping through it..." He ran his hands over the 'brass' surface. "If it's in the same place, it'll just be an alley in the ground sectors. Somebody posted anonymously on the alien boards that there'd been a sighting, so I came down and investigated." He blinked. "I didn't even tell my parents where I was going. They'll be...right through here."

[Electra]

Miss A took the lead again, working the complicated set of locks that barred the door from the outside. Most users wouldn't even see this door, and those who did would have to navigate its fierce security. Even knowing the codes, it took a little bit to get through. That was just as well, the idea of any hacker or curiosity seeker with a yen for something new being able to access Tronik was not a good one. "All right guys," she told the others, "here's where it gets weird. Sharl, you might experience a few minutes of disorientation. Your mind has gotten used to processing data through the emulator, but now you'll be back in your home system and using processing paths you haven't accessed in months. It's all right if you need a moment. Dragonfly and I will have our own adjusting to do, since it's an alien computer system." She pulled open the door and led the way in.