Thanqol

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Green!

As much as White frustrated her, there was something to all of that lecturing. At the end of the day being morally coherent meant that her answer to that question could be 'the truth' and not 'a smoke bomb'.

"I'm a journalist," she said, pivoting around and sitting cross-legged in front of the safe. She opened her palm, a holographic diode showed a display of the Anthropozine's front page. "I think that your mother is shady as hell and so I'm looking around to see if I can find evidence. What I've got so far isn't anything coherent, though. Boxes of case files I haven't had time to go through, and -"

She leaned to the side to show the open safe. "House keys? Like a hundred of them? I've got no idea what I'm looking at here. Not yet, at least."

Green's eyes were wide, glittering, honest - curious. Single note and predictable. It was refined, but it wasn't an act. Green had learned long ago that humans loved sincerity and consistency; someone acting as they were supposed to was someone with handles, someone they could interact with and steer to their own ends. And this kid definitely had an agenda - and questions - of his own.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Green!

Her thoughts are so loud and fast that they must be audible; her thoughts are so fast and powerful that the negate the need for physical movement entirely. She remains in place, body language disabled. Plans, thoughts, things to say, speeches and possibilities. All secondary to stealth. All secondary to trust.

How had he - oh, she's a fool. He'd sat on the beanbag chair and covered himself in a blanket. The irregular, lumpy shape of the beanbag had concealed his silhouette. She hadn't checked because there wasn't a chance that an adult would have fit into that space and because there had been no possibility of valuables being hidden under there. She'd walked right past him. That was quick thinking and a profound sense of understanding of how people moved. She felt a burn of appreciation a she tied the act of lateral thinking into her evasion protocols.

Huntresses of Hybrasil

Wasn't it...

With razor precision she'd cut out her enemy's heart. She had taken the light and life from the machine, the genius that made it shine. Now it was metal and data. She'd forgotten how graceless the gods could be when they were not united with a loving heart.

But wasn't it...

She flares her thrusters into full reverse. The Kathresis was agile but in terms of brute speed the Aeteline was its match. they arc around the arena, circling on pillars of light and flame, endless chase. Hers is the more powerful machine, on the straight like this she could pull ahead. Instead she sets the burn so the Kathresis gently gains. It can't read even this simple deception.

Wasn't combat supposed to be beautiful?

As they circle she unfolds her machine guns again. Rotates them to a rear position and fires - short, stuttering, controlled bursts. Checking her fire after each salvo. Grinding down the Kathresis' edge like sandpaper.

She had loved fighting Akaithon. She had loved the intensity of their duel, their silent conflict made manifest in sword and spear. This time she had scalpeled her out of the fight entirely and now was set to the grim task of disassembling her machine in a safe and controlled way. Akaithon... she had become this in order to emulate a shadow of Solarel's power. In order to come closer to her she had put her life on the line. And she had denied that escalation with a single shot. There was no beauty in a desperate mismatch like this. There was nothing sadder than a failed tactic. If it worked, as it had when she had done it, it made the tactician look like a genius. When it failed they looked like a fool. And for that to be her rematch with Akai...

For the first time she did not even have anyone to not speak to. She only had metal, grinding down lesser metal.

Breathless Dead

Mosaic!

"This is serious!" said Taurus. "What could be more serious? Glorious battle in the eyes of the Gods!" her breath is so hot it steams in the night air. Purpose is pounding in her blood, rushing in her ears. She is a Ceronian with blood scent and every cell and impulse screams that she is made for this. "An army's job is to fight. A general's job is to find them worthy foes. A civilization's job is to raise them, arm them and send them on their way."

No past. No future. An endless hunt for the next battle. She left Elysium for this. Left that glittering, wet afterlife because this craving poison dripped in her blood. She was...

... she was the daughter of a mother who'd cursed the gods themselves. She was the daughter of a people who had beaten their swords into ploughshares. It had seemed a blasphemy at the time. A corrupted rebuke to the Gods, a prison in an eaten world, locked with a lie that had also been the truth. Of course she had died for it. But...

The girl raises her battle-scythe, blood of Hades alight in her veins.

There is a sword in your hand. You can smell your sisters close at hand.

You look past the physical force of the chariot as it charges, the scythe as it swings, the wolf as she snarls. You see your true enemy in the darkness of the blood rushing through her heart.

And you know that this is not a hopeless battle.

Ember!

You back up past the edge of the belltower, onto the rickety scaffolding. Your steps disturb the doves who burst out in a great flock. Sagetip has you dead to rights with a pair of pistols. The fall wouldn't be half as unpleasant as having those go off in your face at this distance. The fight was short and violent, her bandoleers are scattered on the floor, she only has these shots left. She is determined to make them count.

But in the scuffle you've knocked over the tripod that held the glorious crystal rifle. It gleams on the floor behind Sagetip and so long as she's holding you at gunpoint she's not picking it up and shooting Mosaic.

"Good show, now," said Sagetip, gesturing with one of her pistols. She's proud. "Off you pop."

She expects you to jump? Oh - of course, if she fires here then the smoke will throw off her own aim when she takes up the rifle again. At this distance that irritation will make it impossible. A fall by comparison won't add more than bruises but will give her the time to snatch up the rifle and make her shot before you recover.

Quajl is slumped but stirring. Her eyes are focused on her rifle. She only needs a moment.

How will you buy it for her?

[Pay a price]

Dolce!

"The Royal Architect is a digital intelligence," said 20022, pausing for a moment to see if that registered. It didn't, so he went on. "A remnant of the Atlas Cultural Sphere and a survivor of the Long Storm. Extraordinarily powerful and influential but profoundly fragile. He is a direct agent of the Skies' collective purpose and makes decisions about the demolition of planets, the relocation of stars, and the bending of physical law itself. He answers only to the Saoshyant. He has taken an interest in a mineral deposit under this planet and has requested its extraction - a process which is likely to destroy the entire peninsula on which we stand. This cannot be meaningfully prevented.

"The Crystal Knight, as sector governor, while not having the power to prevent the Royal Architect's operation can make it inconvenient. She wants to acquire... something of her own, sunk beneath the waves," he waved a hand. "Not important, ultimately, but she's willing to put the local servitor population at risk in order to get it. We could stand on principle but that will likely result in the deaths of thousands, so it's far more effective to ensure that what does happen is well organized. That means conscripting the local servitor population into satisfying the Crystal Knight's obsession, then pivoting immediately to the evacuation afterwards. If we do it right a lot of people will be very tired and somewhat homeless but they won't be dead."

Dyssia!

"Oh, sure there is," said the Dust Knight. "It's called the Publica."

That winsome little smile of his flits back onto his face as he looks up at the sky. "It's not a complicated idea," he said. "Be good to each other. But the implementation is complicated enough to even stir the mind of an old warhorse like me. The challenge is really just about implementing a stable, respectful form of government that can integrate all of these hyperspecialized biomantic species without the expedient of just biomancing them 'better'. In fact, we'd as soon see the whole fucking field of biomancy regulated back into the box of medicine where it belongs."

"Which," he sighed. "Makes it hard. Going to war with the Skies when your ethics prevent you from just biomancing up a warrior servitor species and sending them to kill the enemy's biomantic warrior servitor species is a bit of an ask, especially when that courtesy isn't returned. Make no mistake, we're outnumbered, outgunned, outclassed, and constantly on the run. Every twenty minutes we need to stop and deal with two servitors brain malfunctioning at each other, the pay is shit, everything is so scarce that pay is a relevant internal concept, and also if you have personal assistants you have to pay them or face administrative sanctions. But," he said, "as cures for boredom go it's way better than the fucking Skies."

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Green!

It has to be the safe. There are other things that could be valuable, but the safe is the only thing that is guaranteed to be. This strange little basement lair, far away from the eyes of children. Three shampoo bottles, a marriage on the rocks, a powerful woman with a trophy husband - did she have something on the side? Her fingers move so steadily across mechanism and electronics even as her thoughts race around her like whipped horses. Concealment vectors, escape routes, limited time. Everything was going to come together or fall apart one way or another. All the pieces of this strange life and the ties that relied on it.

[Infiltration 0/8 4+6 = 10]

Orange and Pink!

Everyone is exhausted and wet. Everyone is laughing. Any further magic would pale in comparison. It was time to move into wind-down - which meant huge chunks of roughly cut sandwiches[1], heavy with seeds. Impossible to eat without getting juice over face and hands, inherently comedic and fun food as seeds were spit out onto the grass. Sugary without being cloying, cooling without threatening a brain freeze, a chance to bring everything back down to earth.

[1] Watermelon.

In this atmosphere, Bondi and Ariel collect Oscar's notes and concoct a series of prizes. Everyone gets something - from 'most balloons thrown at once' to Jason (prize: a crash helmet Pink had painted a brain pattern onto), to 'scariest girl' to Gwen (prize: Caliban's sunglasses, with a recommendation not to fight while wearing them). The goal at this point is not to go out on a high note of excitement but on one of contentment and harmony where damages are plastered over and everyone is friends again by the end.

MASKS - Ghost Gate City

"Don't think I don't see you!" Hsien yells at the television. "You liar!"

Lady Foxfire never fully grasped how television worked. She had instantly assumed from the first time she saw a broadcast episode of Gilligan's Island, that the people on the screen would be able to hear her if she shouted at them. And why not? It was essentially a miniaturized stageplay, wasn't it, or some sort of scrying spell, or whatever. The details were for nerds. She was a fox and had enough fox magic to make her uninformed opinions reality.

So it was indeed the case that her voice carried. The screen wasn't a wall any more; it was a portal - or something stranger. A tupla, a dream fragment, a platonic ideal? When Foxfire had first yipped encouragement to Gilligan as he was about to doom the crew once again he had responded as Gilligan and not as a confused human actor. All Hsien knew was that she was seeing red, so much so that she'd dragged the vending machine halfway across the room so she could bark in foxy outrage.

"This isn't like stealing a tofu bar!" said Hsien. "This is politics! You're messing with the city itself! You know that this is wrong! You're hurting people in ways you don't even understand, aligning yourself with the landlord class, and that haircut is like a three, tops! What's even the point if you're not cute? What's even the point if your scheme hurts a thousand people along the way?"

[A Mind of their Own, Unleash Your Powers: 1, 1 +3 = 5]

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Green!

Case, then loot. That applies even in an exploration in real time operation like this - she notes what's there briefly and then continues onwards. Once she's explored the space she'll backtrack towards the extraction point, acquiring as many high ticket value items as possible as she goes.

Orange and Pink!

To recruit the holdouts dirty tactics are called for.

"For my team, I choose Isabella!" said Ariel loyally.
"Jordan," smirked Caliban. [Negotiation 0/1 - picking him first for the sports team]
"Herman!" said Ariel.
"Pablo," yawned Caliban.
"That's not fair," said Ariel, deliberate in her targeting here. "You've chosen all the big kids!"
"What are you going to do about it?" said Caliban. "And since you're busy complaining I'll also choose Gwen."
"That's cheating!" Ariel gasped.
"Too slow twinkletoes."
Ariel turned and knelt down, looking Isabella in the eye seriously. "We're in trouble, Isabella," she said. "We need to recruit someone big and strong to our team, and fast. Can you think," she made sure the framing had Isabella looking over her shoulder directly at Barrera, "of anyone who might be able to help us?"

Aiming a wide-eyed birthday girl in need of rescuing at someone was an excessive use of force.

To convince Selena, Ariel resorts to a more grown up version of the same tactics. Just absolute sincerity and "Pleeease? We could really use your help." No tricks or reasoning, just the sheer weight of guilty pressure to do something nice for a little sister. [Flattery 0/1]

To convince Luca to join up is more of a stretch, but Caliban does what she can. She waits for a moment when he looks up, makes eye contact and then reveals from inside her jacket a brightly coloured water pistol. She holds a finger up to her lips - shhh - and gestures him over, inviting him to put his skills into practice. [Shooting 0/1 3+1 4]

Oscar she doesn't press at all; she does not think that would benefit him. Ariel asks him nicely if he'd like to play but, if he doesn't, she offers him instead the job of score-keeper - a magical little paper notebook emerges from a sleeve and she asks him to work along with his dad to keep track of who landed the most number of hits.

[other scenes continue elsewhere]

Breathless Dead

Mosaic!

The crack of the whip sounds above even the din of battle. The crack of lightning follows soon after.

Ceronian soldiers scramble to the edges of the ravine, climbing up or dropping down and hanging by their fingertips. Crushing bronze wheels bypass them by inches. The hooves of four mighty bulls, thick and vital with the heat of life, pulls a chariot in blue and silver to the front of the formation. Atop it stands Taurus, crowned with the bull horns of Mars, whip in hand, the long metal spike of an ELF Buzzsaw rising up from the crest of the chariot. It crackles with power from the heavens, lightning storming overhead.

An ELF Buzzsaw is an uncommon weapon type, so named for its ultra-rapid disorienting blasts of electricity. It is inaccurate and close range, only a few meters longer than the reach of the heavy whip. Its role in this context is to paralyze the front line of an enemy phalanx as the chariot charges head-on, shattering a formation outright.

"Mosaic!" roars Taurus, exalted in the light of Mars. "The Gods will this battle! They have revealed to me in dreams how you invaded Elysium and stole my Princess from me! In the name of Mars I swear I will collar you to my chariot, or else I will break it with my own hands!"

A glint of light reflects from the warlord ahead of you; the focused rainbow that indicates where Quajl's crystal arquebus has lain its gaze. It's a promise - stand your ground and she will fire to disable the Buzzsaw, if you trust her to make the shot.

Ember!

She will not be able to make the shot. From behind Mosaic you can see the reborn Hermetic's sniper nest atop the distant rooftop. You can see Sagetip creeping up on her from behind, silhouetted by the moon. You see strong hands reach out to grab the mechanical jaguar-taur, heavy across her mouth, stealing her breath. To rescue her you must move with speed beyond speed and confront the most skillful of the Ceronian lieutenants in direct conflict.

Be wary. Sagetip can hit a mosquito in flight with a shot from her solid projectile pistols, and she wears a dozen loaded and ready about her armour.

Dolce!

"The Crystal Knight is rather... forward," said 20022, and his voice was sympathetic without being apologetic. "You've never met an Azura before. They are an Administrator species, as far beyond us as we are from the birds and fish. They are our creators, our mothers and fathers, who took dirt and water and made it into our blood. They speak to the Gods and built their civilization to please them, as our civilization was built in turn. They carved our brains, so it stands to reason that loving them is our first instinct."

He gently sipped his own tea. "There is corrective biomancy that the Service offers. I've had it done, very pleasant procedure. It makes it much easier to withstand their direct attention which can be helpful if you draw the eye of some of the more aggressive citizens. In fact, there is even a career path that allows even people like us to be physically uplifted into Azura bodies, though it is rare that anyone would even think to want that."

Dyssia!

The Dust Knight smiled. Genuine but weary, the smile of someone who feels good about his chances of conquering the desert - tomorrow.

"You know, what you just said used to be a mainstream political opinion?" he asked. "Don't do heinous shit. People just kind of took that as a baseline. But the fucking Skies, man."

There was a deep, frustrated exasperation to how he said that word. Like he remembered it as something other than the all-encompassing, all-consuming empire that it was today.

"We - which is to say, the majority - were out living our ideal lives, not fucking with anyone, exploring, colonizing, building, living - dying, you know? And at the time there wasn't much you couldn't do with yourself and a few decent friends and neighbors, so that became the average community size. But the Skies - they seemed harmless at first. A weird cult, heavy on the recruitment, advertising their vision to anyone who would listen. Fill in the void! Make the black sky blue! It seemed right mad to most people, but that was kind of the point. What else was there to do? We didn't have any rivals, any scarcity, any checks on our power. No reason to organize - no reason but the Skies. And so we invented this mad game of shahs and nobility and hyper-optimization out of boredom, because the only thing worse than pushing the boulder up the hill was sitting peacefully at the bottom."

He smiled sadly. "So there it is," he said. "That's why the Skies cling to life like a leech on a teat. It's the ultimate artistic vision, the final reason for a bunch of degenerate immortals to crawl out of bed in the morning. The fact that it justifies anything is the point, because without it they couldn't justify anything."

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Red!

At first, Red's brain is that simple. Her personality is a caricature; a default perky heroine red-haired anime girl who believes in doing her best. Moving stuff around inside it is really as simple as adding or removing settings and sliders; huge categories of thought aren't so much internally justified ideas so much as received wisdom. It's so easy to change it takes a moment to realize that altering it has profoundly unexpected results.

November is a distributed consciousness. Red's sexuality is based on internalizing the things that Pink says as true about her also, because Pink is the part of her that thinks about that kind of thing. In the same way, her morality is built on a bunch of lectures and conversations from White - she can adequately express and live up to that morality based on prior experience and best guesses but she simply can't confidently navigate an entirely new moral problem on her own. It's a bit like the old problem of the Chinese Room: if the meaning of language shifts beyond what's in the translator's dictionaries then suddenly the whole illusion of consciousness comes crashing down.

Sophie has altered an outcome and, in order to justify that outcome, Red's brain needs to make some changes. Its current outcome is based on a vast library of evidence; since that evidence is now incompatible with reality it is to be discarded. The entire structure of Red's mind collapses, reverting through version after version after version looking for a stable equilibrium. For as long as Red's known Pink she's fixated on girls, and so the only point where that influence was not present was before Pink was created. And here Red's mind stops collapsing - and starts surging out instead, vast and incomprehensible firestorms of ancient deep-storage code tearing up out of archives. To revert to a version before Pink meant to revert to a version before she was humanoid.

Sophie had cracked the glass. Underneath was a dragon. The mind of an enormously powerful space construction engineering engine, a thing of stellar vectors, cosmic physics and the mentality to build worlds.

She growled. Through every wall speaker and holographic overlay in the house, there was the sound and feeling of fire.

Another limitation of Red was a lack of imagination. She did not visualize things effectively, did not plan for the future. When her cognition process began it did not develop socialization, did not develop self identity, did not develop restraint. Red was hand-eye coordination, reflex, instinct, physical awareness. It is those things that arise from inside her first, alongside a burning, artificially imposed sense of animalistic attraction to anything she can get her hands on. In the absence of any other mission objectives it's all that animates her. She adapts to her new body rapidly enough to pounce, adapts to her new strength rapidly enough to pin.

Those hadn't been thoughts Sophie had been looking at; they'd been instincts, and now they were being manifested physically.

Green!

Green loved mazes. She was falling into this one with the blurring rhythm of Purpose. Her first forays into consciousness had been in labyrinths; the complexities of artificial spaces inside games and puzzles. Scenting resource nodes. Understanding the hidden logic, the puzzles, alternate routes, secret passages. She hadn't been invited to play Hitman for AI-ethics reasons, but there it was installed on the same computer she was living in, and so she'd found a way. Now, this deep, she was falling into her oldest memories. The logic of human spaces, how their minds moved in right angles, how they valued enclosed empty space.

They'd based this off the Hacienda De San Antonio. She'd been there in one of her digital dreams. She'd spent days mapping out its corridors and patterns. Those memories come back to her now, the patterns of movement and shade, and she understood this place again...

It was warm here. A warm summer's night, an eternal summer, built in a world without seasons. Warm enough for outdoor parties in t-shirts, warm enough for pools and iced drinks, warm enough to allow a frozen heart to beat. The ventilation system here had been heavily modified, networks of tunnels and ducts that created the omnipresent impression of a volcanoside plantation. Perversely, insanely, there existed a second ventilation system that cooled the house down again where the first one warmed it up - all the children's rooms had circular fans, Luis' room had a windowside A/C unit. Even the guards would have their desktop fans, the kitchens would have the windows open to let in a breeze...

But someone liked the heat. They liked it enough to carry it up into space with them. She just needed to proceed to where nothing had been done to manage it.

[Architecture 0/2]

BlackWhite!

There are no sideways glances this time, no hidden communication. Both of them understand the situation on a primordial level.

Fiona is exerting power. While there might - later - be something in challenging her for that directly, the time was not now. Revealing a side like this was more vulnerable than anything else and trying to wrest control from her would be damaging. She could not challenge her directly without hurting her.

But at the same time, she disagreed. Coming out of retirement for a high value solo operation involving a physical skillset you hadn't mastered? Dangerous. The need for confidence urged reckless behaviour. There was a hunger for absolute control, not just to wield power but to command mastery.

Black and White step to either side, synchronized. Their eyes are down, avoiding challenge - but no. Behind those demure lashes they're both fixated exactly on Crystal as they start to circle. The wolf has bought down the unicorn, and the scavengers wait on either side to steal her feast. Advance towards one and the other will attack your prize with hungry lips. Take the time to properly discipline one of the scavengers and it will be to the sounds of Crystal's stolen screams. Neglect them and they will take anything they can reach. A lesson in the importance of pack tactics, a dilemma for the alpha to solve, all leaving her in unquestioned control over whoever she chose to be in control of.

Bring both under control? Entirely possible by the end. The point would be made by then.

Hard Wired Island: The Future is a Foreign Country

Pink and Orange!

STAGE INTERIOR, INTERMISSION
Orange: Clearly the issue with Selena is the relationship with her brother. We cannot achieve a full success on this magic show without addressing this.
Pink: So we have thirty minutes to heal a lifelong sibling rivalry?
White: This is not operationally relevant. We need merely to distract Selena for the duration. A sufficient maneuver would be to pickpocket her phone, forcing her to remain in place until the show ends so she can look for it. It will render the experience mildly stressful for her but will achieve our chief goal of causing a distraction for Green.
Orange: Did you hear something?
Pink: No?
Orange: Weird, could have sworn.
Pink: So, what, do we need to Inception this, or what?
Orange: Sadly we do not have the resources on hand. I don't think common threat/trick gone wrong is either practical or effective under the circumstances. Forcing a direct confrontation between Selena and Pablo risks outright disaster...
Pink: We need to get her to laugh with him.
Orange: Go on.
Pink: We can close this out with an Ariel/Caliban battle. We have Caliban put Bondi in peril as scheduled, and then have Ariel try to rescue her. We put everyone who we trust on Ariel's team and everyone we don't trust on Caliban's team. Then we arm Ariel's team with water balloons; Caliban's team is to put themselves physically between Caliban and the balloons, try to catch the balloons with their bodies. A party game, gets everyone engaged, it's a warm and dry evening, can even try to draw Barrera into it.
Orange: ... that works. Many of the people who we couldn't risk arming with water balloons - Pablo, Jordan - would actually make ideal blockers. Pablo understands stage presence and will sell the hits, Jordan would benefit a lot from an impromptu cold shower.
Pink: Gwen would die for you and it would be wrong to deny her the chance to do so.
Orange: And - hopefully - Selena would be able to appreciate the chance to hit Pablo with a water balloon. It's sufficiently childish a discharge of frustration that it hopefully provides some catharsis, and if we line it up with the big conclusion then we can make her the hero of the game.
Pink: Perfect. Let's do it.

Green!

She loved puzzles like this. What was the least suspicious way to get an unaware target to move?

Fortunately she was in a house filled with children, and unfortunate smells were a fact of life. Even if the guard hadn't smelled it at first he'd quickly come to realize that the smell wafting down from the top of the stairs indicated there'd been an accident. Enough to put him from his food, and not the sort of thing a heavily muscled bruiser would be keen to spend his break cleaning. She didn't need anything from him other than to decide this was not his problem and find somewhere else to eat his lunch - preferably outside.

[Chemistry 0/1 Preparedness 6/8 (no spend): 4+3 7]

She shifted the formulae to neutralize the smell afterwards. No need to get anyone blamed for crimes they didn't commit.

After that the riddle shifted back to: how to effectively explore an unfamiliar space? She only has one data point to leverage right now: shame. This house holds a known secret and the tension of it will stain the walls. She looks for the place that has not been maintained beyond the necessary; the corridor with the old photographs, the place with a conspicuous lack of warmth in the furnishings. The part of this house where someone lives but doesn't feel like home.

[Bullshit detector 0/1]

Black and White!

"What the fuck, White," said Black. "You didn't do any sort of background check on the girl you were sleeping with?"
"I was going to ask you the same thing," said White.
"I did but -" she hard stopped and changed course. "I mean, you could have asked. Socialized. Pillow talk."
"Again, I will ask you why you never thought to do this," said White serenely.
"... the way I did it did not involve a lot of space for pillow talk," Black said, shifting.
"Likewise," said White. "Are you suggesting that we should sacrifice our gag kink in the name of operational efficiency?"
"Flawed line of conversation," Black said, clearly melting down in embarrassment. "Abandoning." To Fiona: "Explain. Explain the robbing of the banks."