Scene #7520: BIOMARE: Beta Clearance

Owner	Pose
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	Phreak has been busy. When you return to the FIXER GRID, there are a couple of new developments. -All of you receive a Security Clearance ID Card - Beta Clarance. Despite the fact that it is delivered to you as a stream of information rather than a physical object, you are somehow aware of what it is before you exit the Fixer Grid. -Phreak has also supplied, for your consideration, a set of holoprojectors 'acquired' from a mid-tempo film effects studio. They can, if desired, be used to project somewhat decent holograms of the standard-issue Omni-Pol armor the guards seem to wear here. It won't be too convincing up close, or for anyone who's actually awake, but it ought to do for run-of-the-mill patrols. BIOMARE Bercilak, surprisingly, takes Phreak up on the offer of the holoprojector, and appears as a towering white-armored corpsec goon, once everyone materializes at the drop-off point. His clanking, though it might draw looks, now attracts no fire, giving the rest of you a moment to think, in contrast to last time. Once you're inside, it becomes evident that the security systems here work not based on the input of a human operator, but on some kind of sophisticated (yet abusable) AI--your clearance cards allow you through the front door with no hassle, even if there are those among you who aren't holo'd up. The map which Phreak procured, and the power grid diagram which Liza requested, both point to elevators which may now be accessed with your clearance cards, allowing you to speedily jump to the Beta levels of the facility. From there, a number of the Watch's stated aims are within reach. BETA LEVELS In stark contrast to the previous Alpha levels, this part of the facility is a spawling natural cave network. The map shows man-made attachments at the mouth and the end, though it's anyone's guess as to why the architects built around it instead of through it. It is dark in here, with the only light coming from gently humming overhead fixtures spaced out at regular intervals. The shade-mutants dwell somewhere in these caves, as does a secondary system for the power grid, and presumably, whoever or whatever was meant to receive those eyedrops and fuel cells Xion found. Of course, the guards down here will naturally be carrying ID, and Phreak is eager to remind that the right one might be able to give you all a 'promotion.' The elevator deposits you on the south end of the caves. They wind east and west but ultimately form a long, single passage, with research stations, labs, security checkpoints and maintenance areas built into the side like barnacles on a ship. The map shows a SECURITY CHECKPOINT to the east, PROJECT DHAMPYR at the first bend in the path, PROJECT VINDICATOR just past it, POWER CONTROLLER at the end of a brief bend eastward, BIO CONSTRUCT FABRICATOR - OFF LIMITS! almost at the north end--and at the very end of the tunnel, TIM.
Xion	Mysterious Corpsec Goon X -- Xion, in a holographic white plated local guard uniform fizzing intermittently with the reality of a black hoodie trimmed in white and shorts with FUTURE GLASSES -- idles by the enormous Mysterious Corpsec Goon B. "So, are you going to just smash the checkpoint, B?" Xion asks, IN CODE, while looking at the labels. Trying to think of the perfect answer to continue her clues from yesterday, she thinks about each of the proposed things. "Well, there was a meat fork last time, so that's either Project Dhampyr or the Bio Construct Fabricator. That means I bet..." Xion looks up consideringly, checking her options, and then--" "Oh, nevermind, dibs on TIM." She then walks off towards TIM.
Karlan Nobles	Although this is their first time on the job in this region, Pramanix and Silverash actually seem to be taking things relatively seriously if their taking advantage of the offered holoprojectors is any indication. Silverash seems to be taking to the false outfit far better than the former, however, as Pramanix seems to be rather preoccupied with trying to get the false helmet to look just right. SilverAsh: "It looks fine." Pramanix: "It's not fine. It's crooked." SilverAsh: "Nobody can see your face in there, anyway. It looks... Endearing." Pramanix: "That's the last thing I want to hear out of you." Noticing the lack of fire coming their way, the pair aren't particularly rushed as they head inside. Although they would usually look more at home as executives or special guests here, blending in by just acting like regular guards actually seems fairly easy for them to do as Pramanix takes the lead with SilverAsh trailing nearby. "Smashing the place would certainly be more exciting. I wonder how well this place would hold up to water damage..." Pramanix comments to Bercilak and Xion as she reaches for the bell at her waist, then stops herself moments later. "... Not yet, though. Not until we find something... Crunchy~" She chuckles softly, already sounding somewhat excited by the prospect of breaking things while Silverash shakes his head in older sibling-styled exasperation. "We should at least keep a low profile until we find something worth smashing at the very least. That said, it would be quite a shame to waste something potentially useful in our future endeavors." Silverash follows up as both he and Pramanix look towards the BIO CONSTRUCT FABRICATOR to the north. They stare at the ominious OFF LIMITS sign, glance at each other, then shrug and start heading that way.
Hibiki Tachibana	Stealth might not be Hibiki's strong suit at all, but she can understand the need for it sometimes. She's also not as inherently ill-suited for it as Bercilak, so if he can pull it off, there's no reason not to give it a try herself, right? Thus, she's walking forward in her own Holographic Omni-Pol Corpsec White Stormtrooper-Adjacent Thankfully All-Sizes armor, with her hands in pockets that are nonexistent on it but very much existent in the jacket she's actually wearing. More than a little surprised that they're just able to /walk/ in, and wondering if they're either very confident in their security or just don't realize how easy it is to abuse, she happily prescribes to the 'we take those' mentality and doesn't put any more thought to it as they head down. "Nice of them to give us a break from white hallways," she says with the tiniest bit of truth inside the sarcasm once they're moving through the rather poorly lit tunnels. "Do you think whatever's further down is more of this, or more like up top? ...You know, Alpha...Beta...I don't even know what 'C' they'd use 'cause nobody ever uses it. It's always--I dunno, Omega, Theta, all that stuff." Those questions for the ages last as long as it takes for her to focus in on two points on the map. Project Dhampyr, and the Bio Construct Fabricator. She remembers that first name from the information they took last time. Her eyes narrow, then shift, then move back. "...Then I'm headed to see what they're doing with this Project of theirs." She taps at it for emphasis, then starts forward to head down and turn at the bend. "There's probably going to be something worth smashing there," she says towards the snowcat siblings as they go. Which destination is she talking about? Probably both.
Maricel Thorne	"Allllpha, Beta, and Sigma," Maricel happily informs Hibiki, having abruptly materialized as Maricels are wont to do. Staticky energy drizzles down off her white parasol like liquid for a split second after arrival; the accessory is the only visual hint to her identity, but pairs remarkably well with the color-coordinated guard outfit anyway. "Now, I knowwww I had some plans. Let me see here..." Reaching into what must be her labcoat pocket (though it just looks like her hand is phasing into her hip), the good doctor pulls out a sheet of crumpled ink-stained notebook paper. The crumpled paper says FREE PROJECT DHAMPYR on it. It also says ASSEMBLE GUARD-SPIDER (thanks liza), with a crude sketch of a half-dozen humanoid bodies assembled into arthropoid form occupying the rest of the sheet. "Rot, I hate prioritizing," Thorne grumbles softly. "But I suppose that if we meeeerely keep walking, we'll find guards anyway." Moseying along after the magical girl towards DHAMPYR, she calls out: "Hibiiiikiiii. How do you feeeeel about spiders?"
Liza Grier	Liza has quasi-moral objections to using holographic disguise, up until she figures out that this section of the facility is run by AI. The program barely has to do more than reskin her armour white. When it actually works, her first words are an amused semi-sigh of "Stupid fuckin' computer." When Xion walks off towards TIM immediately, Liza nods sagely. "Yeah. Fuck Tim." She has no idea who that is, but if he works here, he deserves whatever's aobut to happen. "Preaching to the chaplain." she says to Maricel. "Trust me. I spent hours and hours labbing this out. It's like I said; we don't get a successful run done unless we disable at least one pretty major subsystem here. It was nice of them to jam them all into the same shitty computer-run cave though. Inconsiderate to skip out the Reclaim System though. I'm sure I can trust you with the shade and all, sooo . . ." She merely has to glance eastwards to POWER CONTROLLER, and, conveniently, the SECURITY CHECKPOINT along the way, like a favourite stopovr pub on the way home from work. "I'll take out the power, if you don't mind."
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	[Team] Xion: So, are you going to just smash the checkpoint, B? [Team] Bercilak: Ha. Per happes, X. But if I do, I shalt ibide 'til the reste of thee hath thy wai. Oth that, I shalt be presencial for whanne-so the shit goeth doun. [Team] Xion: Well, there was a meat fork last time, so that's either Project Dhampyr or the Bio Construct Fabricator. That means I bet... Oh, nevermind, dibs on TIM. [Team] Phreak: TIM, huh. Found some office chatter, X. Sending it your way. An augmented-reality display cleverly flickers into view behind the holographic faceplate of Xion's 'armor.' It scrolls exactly as fast or as slow as she needs it to, in order for her to read through it. The robotics director--apparently a small and underfunded team given the intended focus of this place on biological research--is bitching at the quartermaster regarding an order marked 'complete.' Namely, that it is not, in fact, completed--and then bitching from the quartermaster about poor security and a thieving roboticist. Guards are regularly placed here, but not in the numbers that they were in the previous levels. They're also a lot less interested in what she's doing, because good God are there mutants a plenty in this cave, and some of them are quite aggressive. They're being watched from observation booths and labs built into tbe walls of the facility, and each seems to correspond with a different gaggle of mutants. The first kind you come across are hairless and eerily adjacent to human beings, save for the translucence to their skin which reveals not organs or circulatory systems, but cybernetics taking the place of these. They mill about with emptiness in their eyes, saying words but not truly speaking or conversing--an imitation of what they've seen, perhaps? Then there are the shade-mutants, who huddle together and appear more intelligent than these last ones. Their skin is as shadow, their forms indisctinct, their breathing raspy, tendrils of darkness hanging from them like the whiskers of catfish. They blend into and out of the shadows with ease. They need to, because they're being harassed with some sort of acrid substance secreted and flung by grotesque, misshapen bipedal creatures with distented bellies and tubular, oozing heads. XION, SILVERASH and PRAMANIX can sneak past them on their way to TIM and the FABRICATOR, respectively. But for HIBIKI and MARICEL, this is undoubtedly where to be if you want to free the shades. There is a nearby lab with a placard that notes as such, and it is currently occupied by a lone scientist at some sort of control station. The shades seem to huddle away from the light sources and from the creatures which hurl compounds at them. "Oh, good. I was hoping a patrol would come by," says a voice through the intercom. "These shades don't wanna fight back, and we've had the Vindicators hurling psychoactives and narcotics at them all day. I know you've got places to be but if one of you could give them a prod, see if you can't rile them up with the stun baton... I'd appreciate it." [Team] Pramanix: I wonder how well this place would hold up to water damage... [Team] Bercilak: Not wel, I trow. The scientist doesn't complain if Pramanix, Silverash and Xion just wordlessly keep walking, though there are more Vindicators along the way--these are aggressive, and they hurl spot-fabricated chemical substances your way, in clumps of twos and threes. Apparently if you get the attention of one shitty mutant of this type, you get the attention of the whole mutant ham sandwich. It's mostly a matter of patience, dealing with them--patience to let them hurl their cocktails, get out of the way, and whittle them down a group or two at a time. But eventually, past a second cluster of creepy translucent not-humans, the fabricator awaits. The BIO CONSTRUCT FABRICATOR's 'No' notice is more in depth in person.e is a holographic display--really, the equivalent of a piece of printer paper taped over something--warning would-be users away:
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	"By order of the Site Director, the creation of new Bio-Constructs is prohibited, due to unauthorized built-in functionality with the facility's reclaim buffers. All extant Bio-Constructs have been tagged and may be studied or utilized as normal, but no new Bio-Constructs are to be made. Any employee found to be operating this terminal will be subject to fines, litigation, neural sterilization, and/or dismissal from the Company. We thank you for your understanding." It is a bulky terminal the size of a supercomputer from the 70s, with an enclosed glass tube approximately the height of the average human, and some sort of actuated nozzle at the top of that tube. Using it is as simple as just stepping past that flimsy hologram, and the lighting in the caverns is dim enough that it's likely the only way you'd really be 'caught' aside from bureaucratic snooping is if you were to wait next to it the whole time it went off. The monitor has a few options: NEW TEMPLATE, LOAD TEMPLATE, and CONFIG. CONFIG asks for a password and would likely require some know-how or a conveniently placed sticky note to overcome--but the others have no such restrictions. [Team] Hibiki: Do you think whatever's further down is more of this, or more like up top? ...You know, Alpha... Beta... I don't even know what 'C' they'd use 'cause nobody ever uses it. [Team] Maricel: Allllpha, Beta, and Sigma. [Team] Phreak: OT got it wrong, huh? Here it's Alpha, Beta and Gamma. All Greek to me. Get it? ...anyway. Technically there's four clearance levels here, but Gamma looks like it's just the Site Director and his bodyguards--so by the time we get to the Delta levels, he'll probably be right next door to us. [Team] Liza: We don't get a successful run done unless we disable at least one pretty major subsystem here. Liza is treated to the absolute delight of a pre-made distraction when she enters the SECURITY CHECKPOINT. There is an argument going on, between a bedraggled Opifex woman in a grey jumpsuit and a towering, bulky armored Atrox with a painfully cliche buzz-cut that screams 'career violence-seller.' "I've got Robotics--all three of them--coming into MY house when I'm on vacation because you idiots let some college kid vaporize a fuel cell. You know how much paperwork it takes to get ICC eyes off of that shit?" The guard captain can barely get a word in edgewise. Behind the argument, there is a wall of screens with a checked-out nanomage guard 'attending' them, soda in armored hand, invasive cranial cybernetics gleaming in the soft glow of monitors.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	Xion, meanwhile, will be heading even further north, past the Fabricator, to the point marked TIM. The email conversations Phreak sent her, and the fuel cell, suddenly make more sense. Another notice is displayed, in that same lazy printer-paper-sized way. One begins to get the feeling that the absolute bare minimum is done here to set expectations for employees. Following the unfortunate onset of blindness in our Eyemutant Sentinel, the robotics team has graciously provided their mutant tester--lovingly nicknamed 'The Incredible Machine' or 'TIM' for short. For our friends in security who may not be aware, TIM has faithfully served this facility for years, assessing the combat viability of relevant projects. Access to the Delta levels will now be automated through TIM until the replacement Sentinel reaches maturity. Thanks, TIM! The chipper tone of that advisory does little to temper the machine's intimidating presence. At first, the stains on its black talons appear to be rust--but as it clicks and whirs, turning to inspect her, she can see that it's actually dried blood. It stands a full head taller even than Bercilak, its wide white frame substantially wider as well. Two unevenly sized red optics scan her up and down, as parts cannibalized from one of the charmingly janky cargobots rumble like onboard motors. Its movements seem jerky, as if being forced to operate under substandard conditions. Its 'voice' is a mix of threatening imperative and polite pleading. "SCANNING. INSUFFICIENT clearance to proceed to Delta level. Please PRESENT proper clearance, SUBMIT clearance request or LEAVE."
Karlan Nobles	[Team] Pramanix: I wonder how well this place would hold up to water damage... [Team] Bercilak: Not wel, I trow. That's certainly good news for Pramanix, should things go from quiet to loud. It does seem like they're making good time, at least, and without getting accosted by guards to boot. There is that strange request from the scientist to consider, though. Rather than verbally responding, however, the snow leopard siblings seem to actually get the same idea and start making vaguely muffled noises with their hands over their mouths. Eventually, they acknowledge the scientist's request with muffled, but vaguely affirmative grunts. Neither of them actually stick around to oblige, of course, since they've got their eyes on the prize: whatever this fabricator is all about! Pramanix does slow down somewhat to take note of the location of the shade-mutants, though, and Silverash watches the Vindicators during that time to try and remember their appearances. What they might be reacting to. What might be good to cut apart later. On the way to the BIO CONSTRUCT FABRICATOR, Pramanix sticks to darker corners and watches for any potential patterns in the ooze-headed creatures' movements to try and figure out their movement patterns and where they tend to look before trying to sneak past the lot of them. SilverAsh follows his sister's lead, although he's quick to swap spots and cut them apart should things go south. SilverAsh's sword is probably easier to use quietly than Pramanix's bell, after all. Upon reaching the BIO CONSTRUCT FABRICATOR, they scope out the area briefly before starting to look over the thing and reading the material presented on the screen. SilverAsh: "What do you plan on doing with this, A-ehm. Pramanix?" Pramanix: "This place needs to be dismantled, remember? What better way to do that covertly than to have things start getting clogged up?" Alas, neither of them are particularly well-versed in the arts of computer screwery. After stepping past the hologram, Pramanix just starts peck-typing at the terminal, trying to start up a NEW TEMPLATE and selecting all of the most complicated-sounding, biggest-looking, and prohibitively expensive-sounding options. Silverash, meanwhile, just pretends to patrol the area around the fabricator, acting as both an early warning system and as a potential ward against anyone thinking something's actually happening here. Or just whatever has the most letters in it. She's not a scientist.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	Silverash: Study Vindicators Pramanix: Make McMonstrosity The Vindicators appear to detect prey primarily through olfactory means, as sometimes they're able to bullseye a shade-mutant even when they're blended in shadows--though not always. This is supported by the observation that their slimy heads don't appear to have eyes, but sport inhuman, mole-like noses. They sometimes attack guards who are careless in their patrols, but sticking away from the packs, it's easy enough to get by unnoticed, once you account for that and stay out of the drafts that blow through the caves. Pramanix attempts to clog up the system with a Frankenstein's monster of a mutant. The system helpfully advises her of what she's doing throughout the process, with little notices and warnings. Gastroliths selected. Vegetarian diet recommended. Advanced muscular package selected. Warning: caloric intake may be prohibitive at indicated size range. Disregarding size advisory per user request. Warning: user-defined presets will result in overdeveloped hypothalamus and amygdala. Warning: development of adrenaline gland exceeds safety parameters. Warning: Strain on reclaim system may exceed operational limits. Warning: This construct is not suitable for work. Proceed? This thing has no safety features whatsoever besides politely reminding the user that they're going to create an abomination before God, and Pramanix is able to 'OK' her way through the entire process. The nodule gets going. And it's loud--like a lawnmower going off. 'Reclaim system temporarily unavailable during construct fabrication,' helpfully flashes the terminal. 'Construct completion in thirty minutes. Reminder: What the Director doesn't know won't hurt him!' A green laser appears to be synthesizing something like flesh. A thin disc of it sits at the bottom of the glass enclosure, stretching all the way to the sides in a way that suggests this thing will break the tube when it's finished. It might be a good idea to be somewhere else--Silverash notices some movement of white armored uniforms coming this way to investigate the terminal.
Xion	Marching along like a good little corpo-drone, Xion has plenty of time to consider... TIM. Encouraged to engage with TIM as a close, intimate companion by her VIOLENT SEMPAI, Xion sway-arm walks through the halls like a particularly new and not yet unsouled corporate lackey. The feeling from the base is exceptionally rancid, so she pops in some headphones and messes with her phone to start some upbeat music. Her VIRTUAL AVATAR puts in a TACTICAL HEADPIECE and then adjusts their FULLY AUTOMATIC MILITARY-SPEC PRIVATE INFRASTRUCTURE DEFENSE CARBINE. The jingoistic psyop posters salute her and shed a tear at how little her presented profile respects minorities and minority thought. Then, finally, at the end of her path she faces: TIM! THE.INCREDIBLE.MACHINE. A massive Ro-Buddy who's seen better days looms over top of her, and Xion steps forward to hug the large robotic entity as best as she can. "Oh no, are you OK? Everyone here seems so listless and hurt. I've only got Beta Clearance, but I can work with you to get better clearance, right? You'll authorize me! After I knock off that rust, yeah?" Xion produces from her inventory a brush and polish (the brush has a keychain handle, because of course it does) in a metallic shwink, as she scrubs at some of the disrepair. "I work in a lot of maintenance, so I know a few tricks, okay? Even if robotics put you together, it looks like they don't take care of you. That's terrible! You do a job that people thank you for, so, they should definitely clean you." "Do you know anything about ice cream machines? I do. I had to get real good at fixing them after--" Xion, while she scrubs, relates the awful story of Taylor Ice Cream machines and how frustratingly specific they are, and how TIM is really just the best for still working in such a state, wow, look at TIM! In this way, Xion makes gentle love to the authorization machine, as Liza Grier instructed.
Liza Grier	God this would be so easy to sneak right past these idiots if it were any other game genre. If Liza were any other game genre, really. She'd just press the crouch button and glide on through, or melt from cover to cover while their view comes are all locked in one direction. Okay she actually does do a little of that. White corpgoon armour isn't exactly sneaky, but this is one of those situations where the small fry is so small and the cost of dealing with them Right Now is so steep that she really feels like she can come back afterwards. So while they're distracted arguing, she slips in through the side and slaps several small magnetic bombs under t-angles and wall-facing surfaces. She intends to see if she can just kind of waltz into the monitoring office from there. The nanomage is unfortunate enough for Liza to have something special in mind for later, so it's a matter of coming up behind him and slamming that pneumatic combat injector into the back of his neck and dosing him with barely less than fatal amounts of depressants, anaesthetics, and sedatives. From there, she begins checking out his console, first just trying to follow the others on-screen, but then taking her cryptographic sequencer to it with the finesse and hacker-pro grace of breaking into a car with a sledge. It's a security console, so she wants to see, at least, if she can turn off any doors or defenses.
Hibiki Tachibana	All it takes is the sight of the first set of mutants for Hibiki to clench her hands into fists and will herself to not act right away. Are these human-seeing ones more being than machine? Is there even any thought behind those blank eyes? In a way, it's even worse than what they encountered back at the PROJECT DHAMPYR labs up in Alpha... But it's what's happening with the shade-mutants that get her to grimace, only hidden by her holographic headgear. It's not just because of the Vindicators aggressing them, having to watch them huddle up and skulk--but because the scientist isn't asking them to /help/, he's asking them to rile them up. Though her helmet seems to be looking off towards the scientist as he speaks to them, her eyes are busy darting between him and the creatures. "...Sure thing." The girl steps over towards the grouped-together shades, making a show of reaching for where her equally holographic stun baton would be at rest on her armor while giving time for Pramanix and Friends to continue onward uncontested. When she reaches them though, her arm stops short and she pauses for a moment, only to lean in towards them while dropping her voice. "...We're not going to hurt you. I want you guys to go and hide in a moment." Hibiki's not sure exactly how intelligent they actually are, but if anyone can express their intent here even if the words can't quite be understood, she hopes it's her. A step back, and-- "Balwisyall nescell Gungnir tron..." She reaches for her pendant instead, and her disguise is suddenly obliterated in a flash of golden radiance. That's why she moved away from the light-hating mutants! Her Symphogear has taken shape over her body by the time it dies down, and a fist promptly embeds itself into the nearest wall to dislodge a healthy amount of debris. Snatching the chunks out of the air as they go flying, she whirls around and throws them with all of her punchgirl strength up towards the light fixtures spaced throughout the immediate area to turn it from 'low visibility' into 'what visibility?' - and by extension, give the shade-mutants free reign of the surroundings. The last and biggest of them is flung with a final turn back towards the scientist's booth to open it right up. So she can try to blitz down and just judo chop in the back of the neck to disable him. This will probably all work out as long as he doesn't get off an alarm! ...Will breaking in through the glass bring up the alarm? Well, they'll find out!
Maricel Thorne	Maricel acknowledges the distant scientist's request with a smile and a wave- but as Hibiki smashes open the booth, her wave transmogrifies into something else, twisting her hand into a claw-like shape. Neon-staticky energy engulfs her fingers and her eyes, and- a moment later- appears around the chemical-spewing Vindicators too. An awful humming-shrieking pressure builds up inside each of them in turn, inducing utterly horrendous headaches. "Aaaabsolute fucking hack," she says in her cheerily musical voice, glancing over at the turboviolence Hibiki's currently enacting on the scientist. "Defend your thesis in hell." Her split attention allows the Vindicators to mob her, coming in larger numbers than she can Scanners simultaneously- but their chemical attacks bother her surprisingly little. When a splatter of sizzling liquid hits her square in the shoulder, she dips her finger in the stuff and then licks it off with a contemplative look, still psychically torquing them all the while. "Not bad, not baaaad," she says absentmindedly. "Could really use some salt." With their primary mode of offense proving demonstrably ineffective, she wades closer, subjecting them to yet more concentrated psychorradiation with proximity. A simple tap to each of their tubular spitter-heads should finish them off in gorily craniosplosive fashion.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	Xion: Befriend TIM TIM raises its claws concerningly, looming over Xion as if poised to strike. It's just part of the maintenance routine. The machine routinely changes its posture to grant Xion's brush better access. It even allows her to climb on its back in order to brush between the armored shoulder plates, where crude affixments of haulerbot guts reside. [Team] Phreak: X, what's going on? Lemme peep that stream a nanoquad, here... [Team] Bercilak: Cease thy attempting to maken cleve that word. [Team] Phreak: Shut up, bitch. Oh, FUCK X that's a slayer-droid. Get the fuck--are you cleaning it?! She is. And what's more, TIM appears perfectly fine with it. When the deep clean is finished, it alarmingly intones, "DELTA LEVEL CLEARANCE REQUEST SUBMITTED FOR EMPLOYEE NUMBER Sierra Charlie Dash Echo Four Two Zero Six Nine-- [Team] Bercilak: HA! Agreable. [Team] Phreak: Yeah. Thought you'd like that. "--NAME Jenny Johns REASON Maintenance Qualification Delta. Please ALLOW PROCESSING TIME OF Twenty Four TO Forty Eight HOURS. Thank you, have a NICE DAY." TIM's red optics flash brightly. All seems to be going well--until a thick, freshly polished killing carbon blade is thumped blunt-side against Xion's shoulder. "HALT. CLEARANCE REQUEST EDITED. GROUNDS: Qualification EDIT SUMMARY: Experience with refrigeration technology. Thank you, have a NICE DAY." The hydraulics whine as it shifts back into its guard position.
Xion	Xion, brush and bubbly paste, scrubs with gusto. She produces a small-bristle pipette cleaner and carefully works it between thresher blades. Bits and flecks of this and that are wiped away with mindful sweeps of a microfibre cloth. X gets a call from PHREAK during all this. "Oh, hey P. This poor TIM didn't get serviced in what seems like forever. They're just-about broken, but--" She half-removes an access plate with a ratcheting 'thunk', carbon deposits and rust tumbling to the testing ground. "Someone didn't care at all when making you. And you've done such a good job, too!" She sighs, cross-legged, in TIM's side guts, finding all sorts of nastiness in the internal hopper. Is that cloth? Scraps of uniform? Tugging on a set of black gloves -- her holographic uniform gets confused at the action, adding a second set of TACTICAL OPERATOR MITTS to her hands -- she starts working gears and pulling the big bits out of the various robotic components before sweeping down the internal access with the brush and cloth. Almost sad, the signal that their time is over comes -- another robot friend! She waves, though this friend is shiny and well-kept. Thumbsing-up her second pal - robots have no malice within their hearts, and are thus friend-shaped almost always - Xion closes up T.I.M. with a strong, chassis-affirming thunk and a spin of the access clasp. "All fixed up! Thanks for the update, TIM, I'll try to make you proud! Oh, since I'll be leaving--" Xion pulls out one of her earbuds and sets it near an audio port, so TIM can jam out to Xion's chill house playlist while it's alone. "Okay!" "What was I doing, again...?"
Karlan Nobles	Unfortunately for whatever unholy abomination is being made, Pramanix does not understand a good half of these words being thrown at her. The most important parts she does understand, however, are 'exceeds safety parameters', 'exceed operational limits', and 'not suitable for work'. What's the worst that could happen? Many things, apparently, as the tube starts to fill up the bottom entirely, and as Silverash dips in to bring her attention towards the oncoming guards SilverAsh: "We should go." Pramanix: "Aw. I was hoping to see what would come out." SilverAsh: "You'll see it later, I'm sure." He is not sure, but someone has to be the slightly more responsible one here. Instead of sticking around to meet the guards or heading back to where they had come from, though, the pair start heading further NORTH towards XION and TIM for lack of anywhere else they might be able to go without blowing their cover right away. When they see Xion whispering her sweet nothings to it, though, they both take that moment to dip back around a corner. And then they both lean out to watch/eavesdrop, not quite being subtle about observing her at work. That thorough cleaning actually seems to work, and they seem conflicted on how to proceed. Pramanix: "Should we be...? Maybe we can go the other way." SilverAsh: "We can't. Those guards must have noticed your... Handiwork by now." Pramanix: "But we can't go forwards, either. Can we?" SilverAsh: "Perhaps we can, but I believe our younger friend has already succeeded in her task there. All that's left is-" Pramanix: "Are you calling me old?" And so, SilverAsh just heads right on up towards Xion and TIM, trying to gauge if the robot would recognize anyone else as vaguely associated with the friendly cleaner.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	[Vicinity] Hibiki: We're not going to hurt you. I want you guys to go and hide in a moment. HOHhhAHHh is the best approximation of the wheezing, airy response Hibiki gets--like the wind howling through the skeletal fingers of trees--but it is assuredly a response. She is certain of this, because they all blend into the shadows, a wave of nothingness enveloping them at the sight of what must surely be her Signal, radiant as it is. When the lights go out, she can hear wet impacts in the darkness. Some of them are familiar--the splattering of chemical compounds. The Vindicators 'see' through their sense of smell, so it would make sense that they could continue to attack. But they're growing lesser in number. There are other impacts, too. Gurgling screeches, paired with them, growing as steadily in number as the chemical splatters decline. More still, gruesome sounding implosions from where Maricel's psychic pressure explosively overwhelms them. Eventually, there is silence... until Hibiki's strength shatters the glass. A silent alarm is raised--and a not-so-silent one, as the scientist speaks up through the intercom almost immediately. "Hey, uh..." The problem is... he was so clearly not expecting any of this that he doesn't say literally anything else, right up until Hibiki's chop sends him tumbling to the floor. "Dr. Petersen? You good? Alarm's goin'." There is one single guard--Maricel can sense both her presence and that of the multitudes of shades, emerging from some sort of psychic cloaking field to surround her. The rest appear to have headed north, to investigate the fabricator unit. "Dr. Petersen--" A guttural grunt silences and halts her question. Her carbine clatters to the floor, and there is a susurus of hoarse almost-speech blowing through the darkness. They then congregate around Maricel and Hibiki--but decidedly not in a hostile way. Both of them feel as if an attempt is being made to include them in some nebulously understood social gathering, a vague, unintrusive empathic impulse of 'inclusion' playing at the mind when one allows it to wander. They would probably follow, if one were to lead.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	The magnetic bombs, sneaking past the guard captain and the quartermaster--this much is easy, precisely because of the insult that would be implied, were the captain to take his attention from the furious department head to address a grunt. There's a sense that she's seen but not Seen. An extra, so to speak. The nanomage... reacts with a fluid, graceful strip of Liza's wrist. One and a half seconds after she's injected him. "What--" His unconscious form is easily pushed aside, revealing a cybernetic visor serving as his eyes. He's in fighting shape, but only in terms of 'nanomage' and is probably a welterweight at best with the armor included. In other words, nothing at all for someone like Liza to shove out of a chair. [Team] Phreak: Damn, you're hitting the 'net here like a truck right now. I love it! There aren't many defenses on this level--most are in the Alpha, Delta or Gamma levels. But... the singularity that powers this place (referred to as a 'notum reactor' partly out of a technicality, and likely also in part not to alarm laypersons with reasonable concerns about space-time anomalies in spitting distance of a population center)... That thing is apparently guarded by four very nasty autocannons with armor-piercing rounds. It'll take some time, and she'll probably wanna hide that nanomage a little better. But Phreak helpfully advises that she can brute force herself into root access by, of all things, prodding at a software vulnerability of this OS involving, of all things, the equivalent of a taskbar. It was quickly patched out, but the facility is so sprawling and so stingy as to buy the updated version. From there, it's just finding which area of the base monitoring software deals with the turrets in the 'reactor' room. The question then is not what 'can' be done with them, but what 'will' be done. Disabling them is possible. As are other, more devious things. When that's done, assuming she stuffed the nanomage into the miniature armory station just nearby, or perhaps under a desk facing a wall, she can be reasonably sure, given the distraction she's seeing unfold near the shade enclosure, that people are going to be too occupied to come bother anyone in this substation until it's far too late to make a difference.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	[Vicinity] Xion: What was I doing, again...? TIM plays what is clearly a pre-recorded segment, not unlike a radio commercial. "Remember," says some cheesy sales-degree having corporate PSA type, over an 'inspirational' guitar. "The Company values creative minds that proactively seek solutions to--" It abruptly cuts off with a hiss and pop. Then, the machine's vocoded, pleasant-threatening voice returns. "EYEMUTANT SENTINEL scheduled for TERMINATION. EYEMUTANT SENTINEL REQUIRES emotional MAINTENANCE." Two much-more-fluid (thanks to her assistance) steps are taken. Clank, clank. There is a palpable thud with each step. The carbon kill-talon is folded so as not to poke Xion, and the machine bends down to gently urge her in that direction--east of the big maintenance door leading to the Delta levels. In the dimly lit cavern, she can just barely make out the gleam of an unnaturally large eyeball. "Thank You Jenny Johns," it says in deliberately cut-pasted voice barks.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	A bolt of red energy... is not what is flung towards Pramanix and Silverash. TIM doesn't hurl it. Instead it comes from the eastern bend of the cavern, from that very same abnormally large eyeball. It isn't a bolt, because that implies that it is coherent, and because there's a connotation of threat there. It fizzles out sadly, and is far from approaching even a mildly accurate vector. It is thrown 'towards' them only in the vaguest sense, that they can see it sputter into nothing far above their heads. "We got you, nasty guards who speak to bad machine! Just ash now!" Comes a halting, guttural voice on the other side of a river of chemical waste. When the creature stands, they can both see that it's much more than just an eye. It's a headless body with a fleshy red right arm that is, in fact, one giant eyestalk, terminating in a cloudy cyclopic eye, beneath which there is a fanged mouth and a prehensile tongue which flicks in evident agitation. "You fix me! You put me back at door!"
Liza Grier	The really messed up thing is that Liza is more familiar with 'singularity' as a reactor option than whatever 'notum' is. Exotic fuel, dug out of the ground, probably used for combustion or something, would be the standard assumption. But the number of ways that fucking with a supermatter core has gone wrong, or even worse, somehow managing to break and erchius drive, is something she has nearly memorized. 'Notum reactor' notation makes her screw up her face a little searching through the files. 'Singularity' gets a relieved 'Ohh.' from her. Albeit, relieved because she doesn't intend to stay here. Or let this place stand for long. "Oh my fucking god, a widget injection? Seriously?" she replies to Phreak, hammering at the keyboard. She nudges the unconscious nanomage with her foot, like she can just kinda sliiide him out of the way, but that's a subconscious reflex, and the feeling of the resistance of his nerd fit against her boot is a reminder that the rest of her body knows she should be securing the other one. "Annoying. Though there's no point running head on at those cannons. I didn't get to be where I am by proving how tough I am in a stupid way." Her first instinct isn't to deactivate the turrets, but to invert their IFF registration to shoot employees and nobody else. This isn't just so she can creep past them, because she then searches the nanomage for his tag (he must have one, or else how would the machines know who he is? they don't seem to have sophisticated facial recognition from what she's seeing) and pockets it. Rather than stuffing him in a closet here, however, she plants a beacon the size of a mini-soda can under a desk, twists it to activate with a little while, closes the door, and the teleport beams the unconscious dude out when the chief's back is turned. For later. It's also for return trips, though she keys in a reminder to teleport while crouching. From there, she heads to the reactor room with the precise audacity of a foot-dragging grunt on an errand they really don't want to be on. She needs to see the state and layout of the singularity itself. The spicy hot friend-now-enemy tag disappears into her telecrystal inventory. For later, but a very, very soon later.
Maricel Thorne	As the shade-mutants crowd around, Maricel makes her guard-disguise fizzle out with a thought. After a moment's reflection, she sheds her labcoat too- bad associations. "These creatures are psionically sensitive," she murmurs to Hibiki- "and vuuuulnerable. They whisper to communicate; the mutants used to control them screamed. They've been beaten, traumatized. Open your heart to them, Hibiki, and let them see you're different." But Maricel herself can do more than passively open up. She reaches out- both with meat-tendrils that snake out of portals and offer themselves to the shade-mutants' examination, and with her mind, lowering her mental 'voices' to a soft sussurus. Each piece of her brain whispers to them gently, and she holds out her hands to let them feel the sutures on her skin. hello, new friends. i'm so sorry You're hurt. we can help deep breaths What they've done- Please let me fix you. like us every nerve raw i promise "no, stop- you are my creation" We'll make this right. We'll make them stop. no more cages I want to tell you so many things, Maricel's composite thoughts say. I want to tell you that you deserve better than what they've done to you. I want to tell you that you're beautiful, the only beautiful thing they ever made. A brief pause as she re-composes herself; a little too much sadness was creeping into her mental voices. And I want to tell you that you can help us stop this. Help make sure that nobody's ever hurt like you were, ever again. You don't have to. It's asking too much; the patient to be the cure. But it is within your reach. And she offers them something- a gleaming, beautiful idea that they can internalize; a mental device. It is self-evidently and obviously beneficial- a mental elixir to soothe the sting of their trauma and to bulletproof them from the psionic assaults once used to keep them under control. Whether you choose freedom or justice, please take this.
Xion	Xion gasps softly, waving Praminix and Silverash into the room fully as she's turned towards... EYEMUTANT SENTINEL. "The Eye Drops." Unpacking a large crate of EYE SOOTHANT from her inventory, she heaves the crate at the Karlan pair. And then another. "Help out!" Inside the crates are corporate packing peanuts (non-edible, toxic) and SOULLESS EXTRUSION TUBES of eye drops. "Eyemutant, it looks like you have a chronic condition and will need help! And I don't have enough to help you right now. You need..." Xion looks up and down the mutant spitting Astigmatic Beholderbeast. "... Replacement parts. But it's okay!" Xion twirls and poses -- the twirl heaving a containerless soothing goo-mist into the room, a full crate of de-inventoried 'content' without the extra steps and bobs jettisoned like a healing aerosol. "I've got, like, a whole bunch more crates, though. So until my friendsecondboss -- the head of Emotional Maintenance -- rolls in, let's get you to a better place, okay? Her name's Maricel, and she'll help you be anywhere you like. Maybe you can partner up with TIM!"
Karlan Nobles	With Xion's Delta clearance giving Pramanix and SilverAsh passage to the caverns below, the former gives her a quick thumbs up while the latter salutes her briefly before they both head right on in. The initial appearance of the red energy has them both taking up a defensive position around the corner (or whatever would amount to a corner in a cavern), but they exchange dull glances when it's clearly less of a bolt and more of a sad flop. SilverAsh: "This must be the one that needs emotional maintenance." Pramanix: "What a strange way of putting it." SilverAsh: "Perhaps, but fitting. Our ally here seems to have the... An idea already." Following Xion's lead, Pramanix shuffles into position hastily to catch the first crate, and SilverAsh's move to help her with that ends up with him getting caught off balance by the second crate. Pramanix snickers as she extracts THE DROPS, and it takes only a few moments before they're both joining Xion with THE TUBES. Pramanix: "That's right, friend. Please, don't be afraid." SilverAsh: "But do not get too comfortable. If we're discovered here, you'd be better off remaining out of harm's way. For your sake, and for theirs." They take in the GOOMIST and let themselves relax briefly, then get to work applying the eye drops to the giant eyeball thing. Of the two, Pramanix has the better bedside manner, but SilverAsh has better control and technique with the tubes.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	[Team] Liza: Oh my fucking god, a widget injection? Seriously? [Team] Phreak: Yeah, hundred percent. I figure anything that's not biochem or the power system is way cheapo, to keep this place's constructon and the overhead after from drawing too many eyeballs. The nanomage does indeed have an ID tag--and it grants him Delta-level clearance. That should be useful not just now, but later. The singularity itself is in the next level--but she so happens to have a tag in her inventory, and so long as no one else tries to present that same tag today, it should suffice to get her to the delta level. The fabricator buzzes noisily as she passes it, and TIM grants her access owing to its scan detecting the card. She won't have much time--that fabricator was already half full with something that looked like uncooked chicken, the screen blinking something about reclaim being back online in 15 minutes. But getting out is easier than getting in, for Liza, and it should be just enough time for her to reach the singularity and see... Yep. That's a space-time anomaly, alright. A pulsating blue orb. Motes of dust fall at a glacial pace around it, cooking off once a certain threshold is passed, yet so slowly that much of it has accumulated, like a translucent outer shell. The turrets are inactive at the moment, per her command. They are evenly spaced, one to an antrance, within a circular, blindingly futuristic-white room. Ceiling mounted monitors display the operation of parts concealed by the room's construction. A patricle collider bombards a crystalline mineral held carefully in place by a specially prepared chamber shaped like a cone. From the open end of this cone, and into a 'catch' on the ceiling made of that same material, space-time distortions are funneled, creating the pulsating singularity in the center, guarded by shielded glass. This is what they spent money on, and it shows. It'd take time--more than what they've got, to destabilize this, but it would be possible. Brute force is the least advisable, as it seems as though sheer paranoia about precisely that attack vector was the prevailing design philosophy here. The whole thing is contained within a precisely constructed, constantly adjusted magnetic field, which requires a locally-installed AI to manage--the kind that doesn't have a built-in off button. It's got its own terminal, accessible only by annoyingly obtuse maintenance hatch, off of the local network as a safety precaution. She could, however, sequence one of the terminals in here, to learn about the shutdown and maintenance procedures based on previous user history, with what time she does have... that would give her several means to deliberately fuck it up, once the AI below was out of commission.
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	[Vicinity] Maricel: Whether you choose freedom or justice, please take this. HhhhHYEHhh whispers a shade, reaching out in the darkness like a shadowed rendering of a Renaissance painting. Maricel's well wishes, and opennness to being peered at, are apparently welcomed. As is the Gift. There is, communally, a sense of wonder which spreads across the darkened gathering. Hibiki, and Maricel, can practically see the lightbulbs going off. hhUH rREee, says another, attempting to mimic human speech. fFFuH rREee... Free--an idea many of them have thought of before, well familiar but often hopelessly dismissed, is flush with new life. The air is briefly disturbed by the passage of shadowed forms.
Hibiki Tachibana	A quick flick of the wrist after Dr. Petersen goes down, and though everything is dark, she can hear things going well enough (relatively!) with Maricel and the singular guard being disabled. It certainly seems like their shadowy friends are enjoying their newfound freedom. Following them through the sounds of their diddering as they surround them, Hibiki pauses briefly, listening to Maricel speak to her. Her lips purse, and her hands tense before loosening back up into simply resting at her sides. "...Open my heart..." She's not able to do things quite like her companion. Psionics isn't anything she understands. But... She closes her eyes at the sensation tapping at her mind. At first, it simply keeps prodding at it in that unintrusive manner without any response. There's an even more nebulous poke back that's then held, like a tiny finger meeting theirs halfway and remaining. And at the tip of that finger is warmth and light. Not the kind they'd shy away from. It's a vague 'good' sensation, an inviting and understanding one. Through this link that's somewhat mental, more empathic, some of the own 'hurt' inside of her heart comes through--but with it, a metaphorical light at the end of the tunnel. That's the kind of feeling that she gives off. It's not something that can be expressed in simple words, but her way of trying to convey that whatever has happened to them here--it'll all be fine. Something only possible because of her being clad in her Symphogear, bearing the very esoteric ability to 'reach out and connect' with other individuals. It's not an ability she can really actively use, or even really understands or is aware of herself...but when she's already in a situation like this, it makes the act of 'opening up' much easier and deeper than it otherwise would be. And then, her eyes open back up. About the time they all start shuffling. "...You guys can go. Live your lives. Hold onto them tightly."
Rubi-Kan Vagrants	"We hate TIM! And we hate stupid Company..." It swivels its arm eye around, blinking as evident irritation on the surface of its head-sized eye begins to fade. "You okay though." There is a petulant pause. "We guard door for company whole life, stupid fat sewer man come with nasty spitters and spray me," says the eyemutant, gesturing with its relatively human hand to its eye. "And they say we die! They no have problem making stinky new things with dumb computer," it angrily opines, blowing a raspberry and gesturing blindly towards where it supposes the fabricator to be. "So they shove us near bad water and come with drops like we stupid or something. Like we forget they kill us for being hurt!" There is a weird, guttural sigh, as inhuman lungs heave. "Maybe we go with friend boss. Anything better than smelly river." Silverash's warning proves well-founded. The gaggle of guards uselessly trying to stop the fabricator are immediately assailed by quite possibly the most useless and actively detrimental project to have come from these labs yet. A huge, thick camel looking creature with skin like uncooked chicken literally bursts through the tube. It knocks the guards over like black and white bowling pins, letting out a donkey-like bray. It's just as stubborn as a donkey and about as aggressive as a bull, and its primary method of attack seems to be ramming its big useless ass into things. And spitting. Rocks. Attempts to contain it are further hampered by the fact that its drooping trunk of a nose, the method by which it spits these rocks, makes a very humorous, cartoonish noise, that sets the guards to laughing in spite of being knocked around. It's audible even in the shade enclosure, to Hibiki and Maricel, who hear laughing mixed with annoyed shouting and fart noises. There is a gesture, made for Hibiki's benefit, as the shades seem able to sense her unfamiliarity--in imitation of a human gesture witnessed, no doubt, there is approximately the mental sensation of a pat on the back, lingering in quiet appreciation of her assistance, before that, too, fades. From their contact with the shades, Hibiki and Maricel both can sense the quiet feeling of cold determination that appears, when the newly respawned guard and scientist come in with reinforcements. To the credit of the guard, the reinforcements are the psionic 'floaters and bloaters' from the sewers, the vile little sacks of flesh with the crude, aggressive psionic attacks. It might have won them the day, if not for Maricel's inspiring idea-seed. To a one, they are killed again, with chilling efficiency. Ironically, OT appears to have gotten just the result it wanted. Fortunately, the Watch has assured that the company will not reap the benefits of its cruelty--just the opposite. There is a sense, as the shades then make their escape, that both Hibiki and Maricel will be Remembered.