10/20 Instance: Ghost in the Shell

[Svartfreja]

Current.


<Broo> Broo hummed a happy song as he sat with electronic magnifying goggles, with hands stuck in oversized mechanical gloves, all the while hunched over a table with a rather fetching looking robot on said table. In his mechanical gloves he was working with micro tools, making microscopic adjustments.

<Pietro> Pietro was half watching Broo and half investigating everything else in the lab that he could safely navigate to at high speed. Sometimes, even then, he had to slow down more than he liked just in case he dislodged something that was carefully balanced and caused an avalanche of destruction. It was an impressive, if highly cluttered, lab.

<Dangerlite> His robotic assistant observed the small mutant's work from her place at the circular control platform, located outside the spherical cage formed by all kinds of scientific equipment and experimental tools. The machine monitored Broo's progress on multiple holographic displays at once.

<Aodhfionn> Fianna, on the other hand, was leaning against a wall, trying not to pull himself into shadows as a cigarette trailed smoke over him. His red eyes banked down as he watched Broo, shivering in his hoodie before watching the blurring guy. Although he looked the picture of boredom, he was watching with interest. Crazy AIs were the best AIs...

<Broo> "Aaaand I think that's done then." Broo announced, looking up straight at the smaller Danger, and nearly fell of the stool he was perched on. He pulled off the goggles and shook his head. "Some things are not meant to be looked at with microvision."

<Pietro> "You know, Broo, if you'd be interested, I think some of your work would make interesting class projects..." Pietro commented, coming to a stop at the bug kid's shoulder.

<Broo> Broo turned towards Pietro, giving a buggy smile. "Really? Well I have some schematics of things I haven't built yet, maybe those could be used for practical classes. Then again... they might explode if done wrong... better stick with the already built ones that don't go boom."

<Dangerlite> "This appears to have been the last remaining seal," little Danger commented, zooming into the holographic projection of the central structure of her damaged old body. "We should now have access to the computer core, free of OsCorp's contraptions."

<Aodhfionn> "Aw, but things goin' boom are the best kinda things." Fianna pushed forward now that the weird techno-BS was over and done with...hopefully. "So...no killer femmebots?" Almost a shame.

<Broo> Broo stood up on his stool, stretching. "Unless if she really wants to turn killer. Think best not annoy her then." Broo mentioned to Fianna.

<Aodhfionn> "Noted." Fianna came over to inspect, not getting too close - he wanted a good headstart if it - she, sorry - felt like waking up in a bad mood.

<Cessily> The heavy doors sealing off Broo's underground lab - it just seemed like common sense to have them - slid open with a rumbling sound, and the silver redhead rushed through. "Sorry for the delay!" Cessily looked at the others and greeted them with a brief smile. "Did we miss anything?"

<Broo> "Danger, how are the diagnostics for accessing the core? Stable yet, or is there still fluctuations in the data streams?" Broo asked, peering over to one of the images. "Oh Hi Miss Kincaid!" Broo yelled waving. This time he did fall off his stool.

<Aodhfionn> "If techno-babble gets y' hot, yeah. If not, no." Fianna grinned at Cessily, taking a drag of his cigarette. "Hey, sweets."

<Dangerlite> "Broo?" the little backup Danger asked, genuine concern in her electronic voice, and leaned over her console to check on Broo. "Are you unhurt?"

<Carol> Carol followed Cessily down, coffee in hand, "Yelling at Fury took longer than I anticipated, my bad." She lifted into the air to peer over the table at Broo.

<Broo> "I am unhurt!" He replied with a thumbs up.

<Pietro> Pietro's quick reflexes had saved Broo from injury and he righted the kid on the stool. "Maybe you should consider crash mats if you make a habit of that."

<Cessily> Cessily breathed a sigh of relief and gave the little genius a smile. "Or a helmet," the young teacher suggested. "You need to be more careful, Broo. We still need you."

<Broo> "I have actually, both the mat and helmet, however the helmet gets in the way and the mats are very cumbersome to take everywhere." Broo replied with a grin.

<Broo> "Danger," Broo said, sounding much more serious, "Let us bring life back to Danger!" he announced, very Frankensteinian.

<Carol> "Then get more than one mat," Carol suggested, setting down on the floor again, "We need your brain."

<Aodhfionn> "Jus' set up lab in a bouncy castle. That'll fix it." Fianna chuckled, glancing at Carol and deciding it was safe enough to edge closer now. If anything happened, he had ample people to hide behind.

<Broo> "Not really," Broo replied to Fianna, breaking his dramatic characterization. "I considered that as well, however an episode of Dexter's Laboratory changed my mind."

<Pietro> Pietro couldn't help the laugh at that statement. The kid was a unique treasure.

<Dangerlite> "This is my intention," little Danger replied to Broo, returning her attention to the colourful display of countless charts and diagrams. "And if my readings of her core structure should be correct, it won't need much more than a little spark to bring it back to life."

<Carol> "Sounds like me," Carol commented with a small smirk.

<Aodhfionn> "Wait, she's been a static shock from wakin' up all the time she's been here? Fuck." Fianna shifted to a good vantage point, wishing he could do his usual of perching up near the ceiling.

<Broo> "Then all we need now is a carpet and a pair of boots." Broo added.

<Cessily> "I guess this is what OsCorp was worried about," Cessily commented, leaning against the railing to look down at the motionless body of Danger, lying amidst an array of strange machines. "This is why they must have kept her all the way down in that containment vault."

<Carol> "Didn't want her getting out..." Carol held her coffee cup out to Cessily, "I'm a walking battery. Tell me where to put the charge."

<Broo> "As much as i want to actually see you bring her to life like that, I believe all joking must be put aside and maybe just use the controlled environment we have here and the instruments that can give out exact amounts of electrical currents." Broo said.

<Carol> "Who says I can't be exact? I do have some measure of control." Carol was a little offended.

<Cessily> "Yes, they must have tried to isolate her from any kind of electrical signals or currents," Cessily said, taking Carol's coffee and holding it in both hands. "Her and the old memory core from the school. I'm still sorry we couldn't get it out along with the body..."

<Pietro> "Well at least OsCorp can't use any of it anymore." Pietro could totally be the optimist in the room.

<Dangerlite> The smaller Danger looked up from her displays, before turning her head back towards the holographic projection of the core. "Do not worry about it," she said, not sounding bothered by the loss of her old hardware.

<Broo> "I was actually thinking that Miss Danger here would like to be the one activating her body." Broo told Carol.

<Carol> "Well, if she'd rather... but I did almost die getting that thing back." She held a hand out for her coffee to be returned to her.

<Dangerlite> "Not at all," Danger replied, looking at the SHIELD officer. "You are welcome to help if you would like to do so. In fact, I believe Ms Danvers should be able to generate much more power than your generators ever could." She glanced at Broo. "No offence, I'm sure they are fine generators."

<Broo> Broo shrugged, "Okay, Ms Danvers, would you like to come down?" he asked.

<Aodhfionn> Fianna kept quiet, letting the people smarter than him talk as he leaned on the railing, blowing out a stream of smoke. Watching the inert body below, it was hard to imagine that was housing a pure AI, tonguing a fang.

<Carol> "You bet I can generate more than the generators... we won't need that much, right?" She didn't want to blow up the school.

<Cessily> "Just be careful," Cessily called after Carol, still clasping the other woman's coffee. Her shiny silver lips formed an awkward smile. "And yes, maybe take it easy this time? We don't want to blow up the rest of Danger - or us, for that matter."

<Broo> "Oh I'm pretty sure no-one will be blown to bits today. Unless I accidentally used imperial instead of metric." Broo mentioned, then frowned, looking across to another screen. "Oh, not to worry, all is fine."

<Aodhfionn> "Yeah, I'm in the 'I haven't been blown up' club, and I'd hate to hafta revoke my membership after paying those fees." Fianna threw out, shifting his feet and sending Cessily a smile. Maybe if he started now, he could outrun the blast?

<Carol> "How much do you want?" Carol looked between Broo and the funsized Danger as she landed beside the original body.

<Broo> Broo opened his mouth to answer, then looked back at the screen, looking for the exact amount. "Danger, how much did we calculate again?" he asked, his little finger moving across the lines of words and coding and equations.

<Aodhfionn> "Abou' three maniacal cackles an' an 'It's aliiiiive!', whatever that is in metric these days." Fi muttered.

<Dangerlite> "I suggest you begin with only a light zap to see what happens," Danger's backup recommended. "All we need is to get the energy flowing - that should allow me to get a clear reading of the core's condition. Then we can increase the power as needed, while I monitor the system's integrity."

<Carol> "Okay, where am I zapping? Does it matter or should I aim it somewhere specific?" Carol created a small charge in her fingertip.

<Broo> "Oh anywhere would do, except for the ports at her... um... anywhere above hips." Broo said, looking slightly guilty while thinking of the upgrades.

<Carol> Carol raised a wary eyebrow at the bug kid and decided to go for the chest area where a heart would be on a human.

<Dangerlite> "The core is located right underneath the chestplate," the machine answered. "It is capable to make use of any ambient energy, so close enough should suffice."

<Pietro> Pietro felt like he should be taking notes or something. A sketchbook appeared in his hands and he decided to immortalise the moment.

<Cessily> "I never thought I'd ever see someone give CPR to a robot," Cessily commented, as she watched with rapt attention how Carol zapped the mechanical equivalent of Danger's heart, while clasping the cup of coffee between silver fingers.

<Dangerlite> A faint, ghostly glow lit up the wiry insides of Danger's damaged form, before gradually fading again. At the same time, the holographic sphere in front of her smaller double flared up in a bright display of zapping lights.

<Dangerlite> "Just as I thought," the machine said, studying the first signs of life within her old self. "The damage has corrupted the core's structure."

<Aodhfionn> "You an' me both. At least it's pretty." Fianna tilted his head, grinding out the finished fag. "So...is it - she, sorry - really a proper AI? Not jus' a smart robot?"

<Carol> Carol was aware of the activity both in the body at her fingers and the display behind her from the effects of her powers, "Want me to try again or what?"

<Pietro> "She was born out of the Danger Room... which you have no idea about... but yes, she is a one hundred percent real AI."

<Aodhfionn> "Heard rumours. And sweet...no wonder Ossy wanted her ass - though with a casin' like that, there were probably other reasons too, huh." Fianna, ever the mature one, pointed out.

<Dangerlite> "Yes, please try again," she told Carol, while zooming into various parts of the intricate network of light. "In fact, I would like to put in more power this time."

<Carol> "Okay, I'll just keep going, tell me when to stop or turn it up," Carol tossed the miniDanger a smile and increased the charge in her hand before applying it to the inert body in front of her.

<Cessily> "Does that sound bad to anyone else?" Cessily asked, looking from one person in the room to the others, before turning back to the damaged Danger and her miniature version nearby. "We can fix her, right?"

<Pietro> "Her body is all manufactured, it should be easy to repair... it's the... 'brain', for lack of a better term, we should worry about."

<Broo> Broo studied the holograms. "Danger, would it be possible for you to access the core while Ms Danvers delivers a constant stream?" he asked, "See if you can reroute and defragment the necessary data points so that she can just start up and keep herself going. She should be able to self repair after that."

<Aodhfionn> "Y' know, I'm no tech-head, but I gotta admit, this is...fascinatin'." Fianna folded his arms, watching the progress with narrowed eyes, the red flaring.

<Dangerlite> "We all are going to find out together," the smaller Danger replied, her eyes on the ghostly lines of light moving through the cobwebs of wires in the larger original. "A good idea, Broo."

<Pietro> Pietro was several pages into his sketchbook now and a pencil or two down but he had plenty more.

<Broo> "Ms Danvers, if you would be so kind, just a very low current, but a little stronger than the first one, and try and keep it ongoing and stable if that's possible."

<Carol> "I'll do my best. I'll let you know if I need to be plugged in, myself, but the ambient energy is enough. If that starts to mess with your holograms... sorry."

<Dangerlite> Zooming into the holographic representation of Danger's computer core, her backup studied the lines of code as the machine's heart was revived, layers upon layers of the strange symbols moving in intricate, impossibly complex patterns. "It is not what I plan on doing, however," she added. "More power please, Ms Danvers."

<Carol> Carol nodded, increasing the energy output as instructed, "If someone wants to bring me my coffee, I'll be very grateful."

<Aodhfionn> "Damn, Matrix did not prepare me for that." He gestured at the lines of code, eyes flickering over it. Then he frowned. "Why's that bit blue?" He asked with the air of someone who wasn't going to understand the answer.

<Mick> As a certain set of lines began to light up, it became obvious there was something different about them. Very blue, for one thing. Different patterns, for another. And almost...very carefully seperate from the rest. The data codes were completely different too...in fact, it looked more like a map of a human brain whose nerves were starting to fire up.

<Cessily> "I still have yours," Cessily supplied, cautiously stepping down to Carol, while keeping a close eye on the glowing machine in front of them. "Are you sure you know what you're doing? Obviously I have no idea about these things, but is it wise to start improvising now?"

<Pietro> "Don't worry, if it starts to go bad, I can evacuate the whole building before the explosion reaches the top of the basement stairs." Pietro gave Cessily a confident smile.

<Broo> "Fascinating." Broo whispered. "That blue shouldn't be there." he added. "That might be blocking Danger's own coding somehow." he added frowning.

<Aodhfionn> "Virus? Maybe she didn' update her firewall?"

<Carol> Carol frowned, shaking her head but not really knowing why. "Don't think so..."

<Broo> "Looks similar, but no. It's not doing anything bad to the system really. It's just there... like an additional program that was loaded, but is using resources that were never intended for it. A bit of a parasite I would say."

<Dangerlite> "Another anomaly," the other Danger commented, highlighting the affected area. "A separate codeline." The difference between the two strings of information became increasingly obvious, though neither consisted of legible letters.

<Aodhfionn> "Mebbe you guys missed a bit of Oswald's codin'?" He was out of his depth, but hey, it was a possibility...right?

<Carol> "If it helps, it feels completely different, energy wise from Danger..." Carol could feel it like two separate pulses in the circulatory system.

<Mick> The energy was more biological, for one. It was lighting up faster than the rest of the core, almost as if it was protected, and one of the holograms flickered suddenly, changing to a face before the hologram flickered back. For a second, blue-on-black eyes with hair falling into them had blinked at the gathered faces before it had faded.

<Dangerlite> "My plan was to charge the core with just enough energy to allow my source code to reestablish itself and reconstruct the damaged areas," the backup explained. "I am afraid the presence of this foreign code might impede its ability to self-repair."

<Cessily> "Did you see that!?" Cessily nearly spilled Carol's coffee as she threw up her arm to point at the flickering apparition.

<Pietro> "Can you get it out of there?" Pietro looked up from his sketchbook, blinking at the image that flashed on the holograms. A quick sketch later, he held it up, "Anyone know what this is?"

<Aodhfionn> Fianna just shrugged. "Looks like a person to me."

<Broo> "Danger, you have your holograms recorded, yes? Could you bring that image back up?" Broo asked. "This is far from anything Mr Oswald is capable of."

<Carol> "It's Osborn," Carol corrected, frowning at the picture Pietro held up as she couldn't look behind her and keep her hand on Danger at the same time. "Doesn't look familiar to me."

<Dangerlite> "Yes, one moment please, let me load it up." The machine-girl loaded up another display to play back the recording, multi-tasking while monitoring herself.

<Mick> Now that it was caught, the image showed a male face with longish hair, a slightly panicked expression and odd, blue-on-black eyes. The image on Pietro's sketchbook showed the same, the features youngish, tired and drawn as if the person hadn't slept for a while.

<Aodhfionn> "Whatever it is, it looks bloody knackered." Fianna frowned. "Does she have some kinda...person in her or somethin'? Because tha' looks very uh...human."

<Cessily> "Don't tell me there's a real ghost in the machinery," Cessily muttered, watching the blurred picture take form as Danger adjusted the quality, not prepared to be proven right. "Oh my god..." She looked from the hologram to Pietro's sketch and back again. "This can't be..."

<Carol> Carol continued to supply the core with channelled energy while topping up her reserves from the ambient energy in the room, reaching for her coffee with her free hand.

<Aodhfionn> "What?" Fianna looked down at Cessily, frowning. "You okay?"

<Mick> Another hologram flickered. Then a computer screen. Whatever the hell it was was looking for something.

<Dangerlite> The robotic girl tilted her head, for a moment focused only on the blurry outline of a face in front of her. "He seems familiar," the backup Danger uttered, sounding thoughtful. Before she could dwell any more on it, however, the frantic activity of her source code caught her attention.

<Broo> Broo was staring in interest and somewhat admiration as the image jumped from one screen to another. "It's accessing my equipment. Fascinating. Oh look, he found the old dot matrix printer I hooked up." Broo said as the horrid sound of the old 90s printer started printing.

<Carol> "That sound offends my ears," Carol complained, taking a sip of her coffee.

<Dangerlite> "The self-repair routines of the old core are trying to purge the foreign code from the system," Danger remarked, her metallic fingers moving swiftly across the control panel. "I was afraid this might happen. It is hardcoded to maintain the original system integrity. If we do not extract the other string somehow, I'm afraid it might be lost."

<Mick> He hated dot-matrixes. So damned slow. Four words were on the paper that got spat out - DO NOT DELETE ME. Not that he'd have to worry about that, he could feel Danger's self-protection starting to try and do it for them and oh god there were things wrong-

<Pietro> Pietro put down his sketchbook, "Be right back, I have an idea... need to go turn something on." He dashed out of the room and headed for the robotics lab.

<Cessily> "This is Mick!" Cessily exclaimed, fear creeping into her voice at the machine's words. She turned to Broo, panic welling up in her shiny eyes. "We can't let that happen! We have to do something!"

<Broo> Broo suddenly thought of something. The little bug boy jumped from his stool and scurried to the one side of the workshop, scrounging through inventions, until finally he yelled, "Aha!" Broo dragged a skeletal body of a robot he was working on, and hooked it up to his computers, changing the settings on the machine so that it started showing some power as well.

<Aodhfionn> "Who?" Mick? He'd heard the name mentioned a couple of times - "Wait, wasn' he one of the students who died...?" How the hell had he wound up in an AI? He watched with renewed fascination, suddenly interested.

<Broo> "Let's hope he sees this." Broo said, "I turned on all its functions including full access via its wireless connections. It's basically a beacon for him now."

<Pietro> Pietro had also turned on a potential host for the code - the Sentinel body that was sitting unused in the robotics lab. All the weaponised parts had been removed during classes but the rest was in excellent condition.

<Carol> Carol could feel her energy consumption growing with the more she fed into Danger, the holograms were in danger of being compromised because they were like beacons to her.

<Mick> There was a brief flurry of activity on a screen before he suddenly caught the new signal - they'd left a path out, maybe? He had to take it. Pulling on the signal, he found enough space to house himself temporarily at least, though it was limited...needs must. A few moments later, the code disappeared from Danger's as it downloaded.

<Dangerlite> Danger seemed lost in the cascades of code in front of her, the flickering holograms growing increasingly chaotic as more and more energy surged through the core. She calculated every possible option to separate the two - until the foreign presence vanished from one moment to the other.

<Dangerlite> "Where did it go?" The machine managed to sound surprised.

<Broo> Broo frowned when even his screen flickered and faded from time to time. "Looks like it loaded itself on to the robot here. Oh dear... never meant for it to process this much. He'll probably be a bit sluggish in it." Broo said with concern.

<Pietro> Pietro came back downstairs with the Sentinel body and stood it up next to Fi, it could have made it down under its own steam, of course, but that would take longer.

<Aodhfionn> Fianna eyeballed the Sentinal, not sure he wanted that with a strange person inside it near him. Robots, he decided, gave him the creeps. He scooted away from it. "How's Danger holdin' up now the code's gone?"

<Cessily> "You mean Mick is now in there?" Cessily asked, eyeing the crude robot with both hope and disbelief on her face. "And is he... alive?"

<Broo> "Yes, for the moment." Broo said, then looked up at the sentinel. "Ah. A definite upgrade I would say, plus it should have no trouble running with him in that. I think it would be best to plug a direct connection to it. Don't want actual Sentinel programming trying to download into it via wifi." he joked as he connected the makeshift robot with the Sentinel.

<Pietro> "Yeah I worried about that too... maybe he can reformat it while he's in there and purge the system of all that nasty anti-mutant nonsense." He was doing the optimist thing again.

<Mick> Sluggish wasn't the word...he could store himself in here but it would have to be mostly dormant, or he'd fry the systems...and him with it. He 'felt' the connection, consciousness darting through it and finding the Sentinel. Ugh, stank of OsCorp, but it had been stripped...and yes, it'd take him! The program jumped from body to body, and the Sentinel began to power up.

<Pietro> "Ah there we go," Pietro smiled, heading back down the stairs for his sketchbook.

<Aodhfionn> "...Oh joy, we're givin' an unknown access to a Sentinel? This is smart how?" Fianna if anything backed off more. "Cess, sweets, y' sure you know this guy?"

<Carol> Carol found herself feeling increasingly irritated by Aodhfionn's term of endearment for Cessily. Maybe some sort of jealousy... maybe. Her nose wrinkled.

<Cessily> Cessily couldn't help feel wary in the presence of the Sentinel, but she did her best to appear confident. This was really Mick, wasn't it? It had to be! "Yes, he was one of our students," she assured Fianna and the others. "He was among the missing when Hydra came for the old school. We all worried he might have been lost in the attack."

<Mick> The Sentinal didn't seem to do much for a few moments, before the head turned, a creaking indicating a hand flexing fingers. "...Testing?" His voice was glitchy as hell, and faintly muffled, but...it was Mick's voice.

<Broo> "Up your volume a little bit." Broo suggested.

<Pietro> "Hang on, I got it," Pietro made a few minor adjustments to the circuitory, "Loose wire... probably my fault."

<Carol> "Okay, awesome, kid has a body... but my coffee cup is empty and your holograms are going to start draining the grid any second for more energy because I need it."

<Cessily> "Mick?" That one word was enough to stoke the glimmer of hope in Cessily. Her silver eyes were wide and shiny as she looked up at the imposing machine. "Is that really you?"

<Mick> "Thanks...can't do...physical shit. I...this is...hmm." There was another break and the machine juddered. "Light! Fuck that's bright. Uh." A hand came up to jerkily shield his eyes for a moment. He knew that voice. As his sight settled, he knew the face too. "Mick...? Yeah...yeah, that's me! Cessily, right?"

<Cessily> "Mick! You remember me!" Cessily beamed at the friendly killer machine, and before she knew, the mutant girl found herself hugging a Sentinel. "I can't believe it! You're back! You're really back!"

<Mick> Mick couldn't feel the hug, but he saw the movement, gently and awkwardly patting the silver girl. "Yeah...I...can't access everything, think I got scrambled while - Danger. Where's Danger? Is she okay?"

<Carol> "We're working on that..." The holograms behind her flickered.

<Dangerlite> "She will be," the machine-girl said, all of her attention focused on her damaged counterpart in the center of the lab, and the cascading symbols of her own source code, dancing in a cascade of holographic light in front of her. "Thank you for your help, Ms. Danvers, but I can handle it from here."

<Carol> "Awesome." Carol lifted her hand from the body and went directly to a wall socket, putting her hand on that to absorb energy directly from the grid. Ahhh better.

<Broo> "Mr Maximoff, would you run some diagnostics on our friend here," Broo asked patting the sentinel before moving back to Danger, "I think I need to keep my attention here."

<Pietro> "Sure," Pietro got to work right away, abandoning his sketchbook again.

<Mick> Mick still had his hand on Cess as more of him seemed to wake up, eyes on Danger's body before he looked down. "It's...okay, Cess, I'm-I'm okay. She kept me safe all this time. She's a little fr-fried though." He tried to smile, but the Sentinel didn't have features, so he settled for a pat instead. "Good to be awake again."

<Cessily> "I can help," Cessily offered with a smile, the young counsellor staying with Pietro and newly reincarnated Mick. "I think I may be needed here more."

<Aodhfionn> Fianna looked between the friendly Sentinel and the out of it Danger, before sighing and pulling out a fag and lighting it. He'd stay here, because this was interesting, but holy shit if this didn't give him the creeps. Someone just...downloaded into Danger's brain? He shuddered.

<Pietro> "I think all my tinkering might have disconnected a couple of wires in your face... the mouth is supposed to move when you talk." Pietro borrowed some tools, "Hold still, I'll fix it."

<Dangerlite> Danger's backup turned her head, eyes focused on the Sentinel with its new inhabitant. Even though her artificial features didn't betray much, the machine seemed lost in thought, and almost conflicted for only a moment. "You are very fortunate," she said to the Sentinel. "I am glad you are intact."

<Mick> Mick stayed as still as he could while Pietro messed with the wires, glad he wasn't concentrating on feeling, and staring at...mini-Danger? "I...it's...thanks to Danger...you. She...I lost my body, couldn't c-come out of the wires, she...kept me safe. Thank you. I just want her - you - awake."

<Pietro> Pietro tightened the last screw and gave the robot a smile, "Try it now."

<Mick> He was alive. That realisation made him want to cry, weirdly enough, but he couldn't right now - hell, emotions weren't registering, not yet, and he was so glad to have Cess there even if memories were taking their time to be accessed. He smiled, then, and the face worked properly for it.

<Pietro> "I am awesome, even if I do say so myself." Pietro grinned, "Everything else is balancing out now after the initial surge so you should be fine in there for a while. If you feel any strong desire to purge the world of mutants though... let me know."

<Mick> "Did. Don't now. I don't like OsCorp." His voice was slowly smoothing out. "I purged the programming when I replaced mine in here. Only room for one, after all, and I'm not going to kill my friend." He patted Cess again. It was good to be home. Wherever that was now...

<Carol> Energy levels finally balancing out, Carol turned her attention to the Sentinel-student. "Hi," she waved up, "You're in Boston... well technically like a half hour out but let's not split hairs."

<Dangerlite> "Do not worry, I will make sure that she does wake up." Danger reconsidered, pausing for the fraction of a second as she tilted her head by part of an inch. "That we do." Her gaze returned to the code, its strange symbols almost alien in appearance. "Even if it may take more than a zap."

<Carol> "If you want me to stay around, I can. I don't have anything else to do this afternoon..."

<Mick> Mick smiled again then. "Good. I'd...I...don't want to lose her. Not now." He concentrated on the new voice, an unknown. "Boston? That's...a ways out." He paused, rifling through the Sentinel's systems...he knew there was one somewhere - ah! "Hey, this has GPS. Awesome. Wow. So...the...the school...?"

<Pietro> "Kinda blew up... but SHIELD were kind enough to supply us with a new one... and a babysitter," He gestured at Carol.

<Dangerlite> "Thank you, but I think I will have to run some more simulations first," Danger replied, allowing herself the brief moment to look at Carol. "I ran into some unexpected complications, but I am sure I will find a way around them." Her eyes fell back on her other self. "Once I understand what happened to me..."

<Mick> Mick looked at Carol then, before looking back at the still Danger on the table. "...Wish I could help you. I know they tried things and she had powered down to save us both, but I wasn't...aware...and I'm human, or supposed to be. Can't read systems. Couldn't. Can now. But you know what I mean."

<Pietro> "Okay then," Pietro looked around the lab, grabbed his sketchbook then focused his attention on the Mick-bot. "Would you like the tour?"

<Aodhfionn> Fianna sat on the floor, legs hanging off the ledge as he looked down. "Y' know, this is some Tron shit right here. Fianna, by th' way. I'd shake your hand, but y'll crush it in tha' tin can, huh?"

<Carol> Carol gave miniDanger a searching look, "Yeah, I think we should vacate the lab, let them get on with it... without all the voyuerism."

<Cessily> "Don't worry, I'm sure she's in good hands," Cessily said, her hand on Mick's metallic arm. "Yes, Pietro and I can show you around." She offered a heartfelt smile. "You have a lot of catching up to do."

<Mick> Mick looked at Pietro, tilting his head a little. "...I..." He looked at Danger longingly - as longingly as he could like this, anyway, but the feeling was there. "...Sure. I can't...help much anyway, and I'll only...I'll only pace a hole in the floor. How long were we...?"

<Pietro> "Almost a year..." Pietro wrinkled his nose. "I know, it's a while."

<Aodhfionn> A year of the guy stuck as a machine? He actually felt a bit sorry for Mick then. Fianna looked at his fag, then at Mick. "Hey, you smoke, mate? Oh wait - guess y' can't in that...?"

<Pietro> He managed to resist the facepalm. "Tour first, existential crap later."

<Mick> Mick gave the white guy a look, before smiling. "Yeah...and I do, but not in this. C'mon. Tour. Or I'm gonna get morbid." He was keeping close to Cess though. A friendly face meant a lot right now.

<Cessily> "Though we should probably get a sign to stick to you, so you won't find yourself in the middle of a crowd of scared and overreacting students," Cessily suggested, patting Mick's arm.

<Pietro> "We can stop by the robotics lab and make you look more unique on the way up," Pietro offered with a smile, "But let's hurry up before we get vaporised by a stare."

<Mick> "Yeah. I ain't gonna purge anyone. Fuck, this thing is clunky." He went to rub his face and stopped. "Yeah. Come on. Show me around. I think I want to make sure I'm not..." He didn't finish the sentence. He appreciated the mini-holodeck, but he wanted actual sensation, even if it was trapped like this.

<Carol> "I can't do that... yet... I could learn." Carol nodded to herself, "Broo, go with them and take a break, the Dangers'll be fine for a little while."

<Aodhfionn> Fianna caught the look, half-ducking. "Alrigh', alrigh' point taken. You guys have fun wit' the tin can, I'll catch up t' you later." He smiled. "Might not know y', mate, but uh...welcome back." He dodged another glare. "Alright! Goin'. Yeesh." With that, the pale boy blurred out, trailing a little smoke.