"Hi!" Beebee says to the Star. "Basma. We, uh, used to go to the same school. So, are you going to buy that game piece?" she asks bluntly.
"Nice to meet you, Basma," Max says, shaking her hand. "Oh, you heard about that? Yeah, I'm still working on it. Turns out I didn't have quite the resources I thought I had. But soon, hopefully."
***
"So any word on Vi after the photoshoot?"
"Apparently, she's been trying to go through Aquarelle to get to me. I'm thinking of finding a way to lure her out of hiding, maybe set a trap for her."
"Hmmmm. Like this?" Chloe asks as she gently places a hand on top of Sam's to verify the position. "Okay, I'll go after Andromeda and this time, it's a strike or bust! Thanks a lot," She says, before going to stand next to Chroknight.
"Haven't seen you around lately. Any update on the search for the thief?" She asks them. "It's okay, I just...well, if we get it back, then we can probably save the store. Oh, right!"
She looks to Infarius on that outburst. "You wanted to talk to Beebee about the weird Magix that guy used. Maybe that will help make a break in the case."
Andromeda flings a couple balls haphazardly down the lane. Both go into the gutter, but the second has enough force and spin that it ends up jumping back out and demolishing all but the headpin. "I need nachos."
Andromeda was already moving away from Jessie and her bugs, so other people taking her place and wanting to talk to Sam doesn't even need to add more of an impetus to keep going.
She's in motion; she stays in motion.
She parks herself on a stool at the snack bar, unconsciously rotating it around as she lets the server get to her whenever they want.
The longer I can sit here without ordering the better.
When she does have to actually ask for nachos though -"Extra jalapeños on the side, please."- she doesn't actually eat them at first. Saucy foods are riskier after all, so she just unsheathes her mouth enough to scarf down some peppers. How old are these?
She plays with the cheese a bit, trailing her finger near enough to the sauce to watch the bow wave of her sheath keep the whole thing from skinning over.
When Chroknight arrives and immediately jumps in to take a turn without being prompted Indy shrugs and offers a wave.
"Hey Chro, gonna do the team stuff after the game so don't go running off alright. Important stuff to talk about later."
"Running off? Off course I'm not running off... I never do that." She replies, before turning to Chloe.
"Haven't seen you around lately. Any update on the search for the thief?" She asks them. "It's okay, I just...well, if we get it back, then we can probably save the store. Oh, right!"
"You not seeing me around probably means I'm busy trying to solve that case. Among other cases, and patrolling, and..." She sighs, but the sound is lost inside the metal armor. Only the gesture gets through. "Strange how it seems I get so little time, even if I'm in theory the one who can control it."
Strangely, she reaches for Chloe's cheeks. "If I had more time..." She then drops it and looks at the door. "Oh, come on! Again!?"
Chroknight zips across the room, bumping into Gui, who was about to reach for a hot dog, and sending him to the floor. In a flash, Chroknight is gone. Then she is back again. "Moth Clan. Sorry. Not so sorry, I have to go." And she is gone again. And back again. "I'll be back for the team thing, Indarius! You have my word! Keep the good work, boss, you are doing great."
Gui shakes his head as he gets up. Unbelievable. The last hot dog was on the floor. Looking at the snack bar, he sees Angelica.
"Mind if I teke dis chair, mom chère?" And then the cheese dip explodes. Mostly it winds up sizzling off of her sheath in a sudden stench of carbon and ammonia, but some of it lands on him too.
"Oh no no no!" She immediately grabs a fistful of rapidly disintegrating napkins and starts swiping at his shirt, but a fluctuation of her sheath hits him like a fist to the ribs. She drops the napkins in a sticky heap on the floor, putting another fistful on the counter near him, but keeps her hands to herself this time.
Gui looks at her, lost for a moment. "I will give you dis. It is never boring with you..."
"Are you..." For once her eyes give her happy news as they record no structural damage to his skeleton or organs.
She rechecks for his organs though. That's how Houdini died I think?
"Are you really just gonna leave that cheese there? Even if you cover the stain you'll smell like snack food."
"Is there more you could give me if you wanted to? Besides the unpredictability inherent to spontaneous lactic combustions?"
"Hi!" Beebee says to the Star. "Basma. We, uh, used to go to the same school. So, are you going to buy that game piece?" she asks bluntly."Nice to meet you, Basma," Max says, shaking her hand. "Oh, you heard about that? Yeah, I'm still working on it. Turns out I didn't have quite the resources I thought I had. But soon, hopefully."
"Cool," Beebee says. "Chloe's my bestie, and it's her family's game shop, so I'm invested. Even organized a bake sale to help after the whole smash-and-grab thing. I think Andromeda's working on finding the guy who took the bad guy piece. Star Pharoah, I think he was called? Anyway, the attack was crazy. I got mind-controlled and everything."
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She looks to Infarius on that outburst. "You wanted to talk to Beebee about the weird Magix that guy used. Maybe that will help make a break in the case."
"Yeah, but I figured we could finish the game first." He says motioning to the board which shows they've got another 8 frames for the majority of the team members playing.
"Running off? Off course I'm not running off... I never do that." She replies, before turning to Chloe."You not seeing me around probably means I'm busy trying to solve that case. Among other cases, and patrolling, and..." She sighs, but the sound is lost inside the metal armor. Only the gesture gets through. "Strange how it seems I get so little time, even if I'm in theory the one who can control it."
Strangely, she reaches for Chloe's cheeks. "If I had more time..." She then drops it and looks at the door. "Oh, come on! Again!?"
Chroknight zips across the room, bumping into Gui, who was about to reach for a hot dog, and sending him to the floor. In a flash, Chroknight is gone. Then she is back again. "Moth Clan. Sorry. Not so sorry, I have to go." And she is gone again. And back again. "I'll be back for the team thing, Indarius! You have my word! Keep the good work, boss, you are doing great."
"Actually you run off all the time." He notes the odd interaction between Chro and Chloe. They've never been one to be touchy feely to his knowledge, and even reaching for some civilian puts him on edge as to what that was about. Then Chroknight is saying something about Moth clan and zipping out the door before he can get a word in edge wise. He let's out a breath obviously upset.
"We're here to get away from heroing." He pulls out his communicator and flicks it open to check where Chroknight is disappearing off to via the gps pin.
"You know actually, bit of a funny story, my first villain was moth themed. It was a complete failure on my part though."
"Cool," Beebee says. "Chloe's my bestie, and it's her family's game shop, so I'm invested. Even organized a bake sale to help after the whole smash-and-grab thing. I think Andromeda's working on finding the guy who took the bad guy piece. Star Pharoah, I think he was called? Anyway, the attack was crazy. I got mind-controlled and everything."
Indy's lips curl revealing his sharp teeth a bit, "Mind control is the worst kind. Not something I delved into practicing myself. But if you want I could try to find any residual magical essence, but this long after the incident it's probably faded."
"All right, gonna get it this time-" Chloe says as she takes up her form, following Sam's instructions and rolling the ball down the lane - this time managing to get seven pins down, but leaving a split between the remaining pins.
Indarius' attempt to bring up Chroknight's GPS finds that there's no signal. And perhaps recalling that the time warrior's method of contact has always been the group chat on an Infinifone Pay-As-You-Go phone. Which was apparently so cheap it didn't have GPS.
Chloe nudges Gui. "Thanks. Can we all split Chroknight's frames since they aren't here? I figure that should be fair, right?"
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Indy stares at the device for a moment then it clicks that Chroknight never got one and he sighs putting it back in the pockets of the sweats. Rubbing his eyes as the obvious signs of wear show on him.
"Sure, but if she comes back and bowls more we'll just nix it all since the scoreboard'd be all kinds of mixed. If we wanna keep it as teams and not just friendly bowling to hang out."
"Cool," Beebee says. "Chloe's my bestie, and it's her family's game shop, so I'm invested. Even organized a bake sale to help after the whole smash-and-grab thing. I think Andromeda's working on finding the guy who took the bad guy piece. Star Pharoah, I think he was called? Anyway, the attack was crazy. I got mind-controlled and everything."
"I wish I would have been there to try to stop the theft from happening," Max says with a frown. "Don't worry, I'm sure we'll get it back. Somehow."
Beebee tosses her hands up. "It wasn't so bad. I just blanked out for a moment, and suddenly I was outside the store. No, uh, no side-effects that I've seen."
Indy's quick detection spell finds no residual magic on Beebee.
While he's doing that, Beebee glances at Chloe then turns back to DD. "Cool. But I wonder about the reason why the guy wanted the toy in the first place. He just took the Pharoah figure and left the rest of it, so he's not a collector. And if he really is a cultist, who is that figure? It's based on a real-life villain, right?"
Elsewhere in the bowling alley, Jessie is staring at her phone and looking distressed. "What?!?" She asks the air, then turns to Sam and shows her the screen, her face full of hurt. "You're changing rooms?" The message on the screen is from Daedalus, informing Jessie that Sam will be moving out and Xaiara will be her new roommate.
If Sam checks her own phone, she gets a similar message, telling her that she's been reassigned to be Andromeda's roommate.
If Andromeda checks her much-abused phone, she sees there's a message notifying her of a change in room assignments and that Xaiara is moving out and Samantha Murphy will be her new roommate.
"No!" A new crack adds to the spiderweb of Andromeda's phone. "Why would they do that?!"
Is this revenge? Or trying to separate us so I won't learn about Manticorps?
Sam's eyes flash a brighter green "I had nothing to do with that." she quickly takes out her tablet and starts hacking into the school to find out WHO did that.
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Something was distracting the nerd girl from doing what she does best. It was an acidic taste bubbling from her stomach. Could she be upset.
You are, her matrix tells her, Tell Her!
But Sam concentrates instead. She needed to know.
Expanding her internal nanoimplants, shunting built up algorithms to appear normal, removing protections against... well that is unimportant. Sam needs to know WHO decided to hurt her friend.
Jessie is her friend.
That is what is important here.
"Forcing us into rooms we do not want to be. I do not want to be roommates with Andromeda" her flat tone finds a quite moment in the bowling alley, a rare thing, but perfect so her voice can carry to everyone there.
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Statian employs her prodigious intellect to figure out who had switched her roommate with Andromeda. Hacking into Daedalus's computer systems was not the easiest thing in the world, but it was still within her capabilities. She is able to quickly find the dormitory reassignment, switching her roommate with Andromeda's so that the two could be in a room together. It had happened mere moments ago.
Statian's review of recent logins comes up empty; no one of Daedalus's faculty had implemented the change. Instead, it was a function of the computer system itself -- or rather, a program imbedded within the system. One with a distinct algorithm that Sam recognizes all too well.
The Governess.
What do you do??
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Sam's hands twitched, the tablet slipping from her grasp to clatter on the ground. Her inhibitors strain to contain the horde of repressed emotions, making the young woman curl into herself from the bowling chair, fans of weaving threads pour out from the small of her back to threaten any that come close.
It only lasts for a moment, before Sam is leaning down to get her tablet, brush it off and face the others. "The 'governess' has done this, deciding for me what would be best." the others know who Sam's governess is.
But Jessie doesn't.
Sam looks to Jessie, her face bland again, all emotions like regret, worry, sympathy, caring are devoid in her gaze. They have to be. "Governess is an artificial intelligence designed to be a caregiver, enhancing itself past the ability of containment or morality. Until IT is eliminated, it is not safe to be around me." she pauses tilts her head and corrects "Not safe for you." her eyes shift to look at the other bowlers, the normal everyday people rolling and smiling. "Or them." Andromeda and her teammates are left out of that.
Her confidence in their teamwork has been shaken, so briefly she considered going forth with a plan alone but stops herself and looks around "I can attempt to lure IT here, defy ITs plan. Correct, Autocorrect, build firewalls on the reassignment, stop it, until IT comes to 'correct' my behavior. 97.23 chance of success is estimated. Evacuation of noncombatants will reduce to 31.992." she paused "IT is watching." not looking at the cameras.
"Or we accept her habitation correction and wait."
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"Wait?!? Wait for what?" Jessie asks after looking around the bowling alley like the scoring screens could come to life and the ball return systems start launching bowling balls at them at any moment.
She scrunches her brow in thought when nothing immediately becomes dangerous. "So... why would IT care about changing our roommate situation? I mean, Andromeda's a badass who went toe-to-toe with Shard, and I'm... well, not that powerful. Oh. Is she supposed to, like, protect you better?"
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Sam looked up, about to say something dumb like it doesn't matter, that all that matters is making sure IT cannot hurt Jessie, but it does matter. Thinking of her own thought as 'Dumb' makes her glance Andromeda's way with the faintest hint of embarrassment.
Miniscule. Barely there.
Then back to her tablet "Why? + Who? = What next?" Sam says, twisting a FBI quote about motives "You are correct, Jessie. I apologize for ignoring the obvious. Knowing why IT is reassigning habitation will expedite capture, allowing reorientation to preferred cohabitation."
Sam pulls up the Governess's original algorithms, even though she knows the AI has evolved, the core still might help her understand 'What they are really planning'
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Sam digs into the original code of the Governess and reviews its source commands and directives. Her mother -- or more likely, her younger-self's idealized vision of her mother -- is found throughout the AI's original parameters. Nostalgia hits her hard, but within those early directives Sam finds the basics of her understanding of a mother's love: to keep her baby safe first, but then to make her happy.
And Sam had decided she wanted to be friends with Andromeda.
"...um. Is this something me and Beebee should be worried about? Or is the likelihood we're attacked by some rogue AI low?" Chloe asks, listening with slight confusion.
"And, I mean, if no one actually wants to switch rooms...just tell the administrators? I'm pretty sure that if you explain some weird technology ghost is messing with you that you don't need to bother messing around with this on your own. Literally ignore the digital and go analog, right?" She suggests.[b]"They must have some superhero IT expert working there who can back you up."[b]
"If the governess decided we overstepped, she could drop the next elevator someone is in, or send an AI tankard into dockyard after charging the inventory to toxic gases." Sam looked at Chloe, then sighed "But she won't do that, until she decides that is what is best."
She speaks as her mind PANICS!!!! Friend, how did the governess knows she wanted to be friends with Andromeda. Sam herself only figured that out. Maybe the code is wrong, no, doubting what it in front of you just because it brings up negative possibilities will lead to inconclusive outcomes.
Sam looked around the room, to her teammates to her roommate, and thinking so hard her brow furrows.
Do Not tell everyone about the friend thing, her matrix nearly screams, pointing out near toxic levels of embarrassment that Should cause in a normal girl.
Frowning slightly, the nerd girl says "IT is concerned about safety." then she looks to Jessie "What would you like to do? I endanger you, would you like to change rooms?"
"Cool. But I wonder about the reason why the guy wanted the toy in the first place. He just took the Pharoah figure and left the rest of it, so he's not a collector. And if he really is a cultist, who is that figure? It's based on a real-life villain, right?"
"Yeah, the Pharoah was a real bad guy," Max says. "I've been trying to learn more about him, but I haven't gotten very far. He's either very obscure, or the information about him is being hidden by somebody. Either way, I hope to get to the bottom of it soon."
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Giving a shoulder and wing shrug, Indy shakes his head at Beebee. "Can't sense anything on you, so I don't think there's any lingering effects, let alone any way that I could track it. Hopefully you will be more resistant to it in the unlikely case that you get hit with the same magic going forward."
He nods along with Dee's explanation, "I don't know anything about a Pharoah guy. Could maybe try some contacts, but honestly Deedee you've got just as much access to those as I do so I figure you've already tried?"
He doesn't seem to have much to comment on in regards to the AI and Sam freaking out over that, but he does move over to offer a reassuring shoulder pat.
"It'll be okay Sam, the team's got your back against this thing. Someone's gotta be holding a... I dunno copy of IT somewhere right, delete that and poof all gone. But I feel like I recall someone saying Daedelus had a pretty powerful AI helping to manage the school."