You wake up feeling groggy, thirsty and hungry. Your v-trodes are on and a few seconds after you wake up a virtual simulation starts playing.  You are dimly aware that Minerva is asleep in her gaming chair in front of the desk.

---

Once you've looked over the training sim and game details you can appeal the decision as to which evolved type you got.  I may not change it, but I'll listen.  If/when you are satisfied, please post a description of waking up and running through the sim based on what others may see as they do their own.  Take cues frm the what's in the book, but feel free to modify it.

Shin-Ji had changed. He looked about 20 pounds heavier: not more muscular, just bigger and broader over all. He'd gone from a thin-athletic build to a thick athletic build, just larger and broader over all. His arms, stupidly visible, were now a black and silver appearence. Anything he touched as he moved was smeared by an oily gunk as he walked.

The decision to go ripped gi for his arms was one he'd quickly regret as soon after he woke, he had to bite back a scream and replace it with a stream of sucked in cursing in juvespeak, Korean and Russian swearwords. It was just too much.

He stopped himself as he began to hyperventilate, taking control of his own breathing and trying to think. It was not easy: his arms FELT like his arms, but they looked like some kind of really fancy corp-grade custom ware. His sensei had been augmented with polymer muscle and wired reflexse, but NOTHING like this.

"Congrats!" Thought Shin-Ji. "You got the augments you were debating getting, and it only cost you two arms and two legs!" Of course, that just reminded him that his sensei was dead.

It took him about five minutes of patient breathing and running mental koans before he was able to start the sim. He had to take a break when he heard "That oily gunk you just wiped away? That's your old skin and muscle" to center himself again: though this only took a few seconds. He paused and looked at his ankles: they were the same weird black metal his arms were. He'd get spotted in a second if he didn't cover his arms and legs entirely. At least his body seemed to be normal, uptowards the torso end.

He had to pause and try squeezing an empty energy drink he'd nabbed: it didn't didn't crush (anyone could have done that) so much as deform into a steel ball. " Preem" is all he could let out there as he resumed the v-sim.

The crazy stuff started a few minutes later as Shin-Ji listened twice, repeating the section out of sheer disbelief that he simply must have disheard. He shook his head as he spent the next 10 minutes or so concentrating on his hands.. until his left one slowly formed into a single, lengthy knife edge. It wasn't like a spur, where the blade might pop out of a concealed holster, or one of the fancier mechanical reconfiguring limbs: his arm seemed to mold like liquid, naturally, until his entire forearm was an elongated blade. He couldn't do anything but stare and gawk at it.


"Am I still in a fever dream? This can't be real."

His sim was smart enough to respond to that, affirming he wasn't dreaming.

Numb, and used to following weird orders in the name of physical laerning, he spent the next 10 minutes reconfiruging his fingers into a variety of simple tools, and eventually working out how to pull armor "over" his skin. That was weird, and very difficult, taking Shin-Ji nearly a half an hour.

Concluding the V-sim, he made his way over to a table and numbly began munching some of the ration bars he'd been eating. How did you even begin to process this?

Jai slowly came back to consciousness, wiping silver sweat from his brow. The message he was hearing was crisp, like he was thinking it. Better than his cut-rate trodes. When he noticed that he'd knocked one of the contacts off of his skin when he woke up, the seriously crazy shit the voice was saying started to make more sense.

For a second, he extended his senses. Even past the bunker walls, ancient echoes of Russian military weather reports and yesterday's radio adverts for laundry soap in Bengali threatened to creep into his stream of thought before he was able to tune them out. Apparently quite literally.

That's when the voice told him something truly insane. Reaching up to the hideout's light system, he snapped a finger while thinking "off."

"Uh, my bad. One sec."

Another snap, and they hummed back to life. The exhilaration sent a strange jolt through his spine, and for a long moment, he felt like his brain was on fire. That's when he noticed that the street fighter was snacking on a ration bar in damn near freeze frame. Taking a deep breath, he tried to relax and his perception sluggishly compressed back to normal. Well, something like normal. If anything was, anymore.

"This is insane. Scivid stuff. I take it the rest of you are on an entirely different trip, because I've never punched deck in my life, and this femme just told me I -am- one."

Tailgate woke up, and he really wanted to eat or drink something, but he felt weird. He was covered in sweat, most of it dry by then. His ears and his throat hurt, like he'd been at a concert and yelling a lot.

And he started to panick for a moment, as he couldn't SEE ANYTHING! He opened his mouth several times, but no sound came out, at least nothing any one in the area could hear. He thrashed around for a moment.

Then the training sim kicked in and information started to flow - too loud! He clapped hands over his ears at the volume, and they...what happened to his EARS?? Why couldn't he see? Why couldn't he talk??

He had to fight to remain calm and to pay attention to the sim, to the information. But he did, out of desparation, and to focus on something else other than himself for a moment - though, since it was describing what had happened to him, that was less comforting.

After several minutes, he finally came to himself once more. He wiped the silver goo from around his ears and mouth. He slowed his breathing down and tried talking again, concentrating on it like he hadn't had to do in a long time. His voice sounded...a little weird for a second, then normalized. "This is...fraggin' nuts."

Vamp had never been a heavy sleeper. Not since That night. So waking up feeling she had been deeply asleep was a very unusual sensation. She was sore and felt like she was getting over a bad flu bug. "Did anyone get the tags of the lorry that hit me," she said through a mouth that felt like sandpaper.

Then the v-trodes she didn't realise she had on kicked in and she started to see just how deep the rabbit hole went. As she watched little sparks of electricity danced about her hands. "Kuso no hōhō wa arimasen," she said, falling back into her native language without thinking about it. Once the sim ended she sat up and looked at her hands, watching the electricity arc between her fingers. She raised a hand and looked for something, settling on an empty bunk. She pointed her hand at it, raised her wrists and smiled as a bolt of lightning shot from her hand to the bunk.

"This is bloody amasing," she said, looking at the charred spot she left on the bunk before reaching down and grabbing one of the water bottles she had left on the floor before settling in and passing out.

Nikola's sleep was so deep that it took several attempts to fully awake.. she opened her eyes several times to close them again and go back to sleep, back to her dreams... and to mumble words such as "Inktomi", "Niatha"  "Earth grandmother", "Pacha mama" "Spider mother" etc

It was a sign that she was dreaming of spiders as the carbon plague started to change her organism and form the insectoid appendages out of her body.. at first her dreams were terrifying nightmares but during the night her mind started to confront and accept the fear produced by her body reacting to the plague.. as her mind associated the image of spiders with native american legends that she learned in the past , fascinated with an idealistic view of tribes that were more in sync with nature and saw a postive figure in spiders.

Finally she woke up in peace, as if the carbon plague had just unlocked something...something that was already inside her.. maybe already inside many, and as she took a deep breath she was ready to accept it.

When she raised her upper body and looked at her palms and the thread coming out of them and connecting to a sort of technoorganic spider she understood she had dreamed about it.. and that part of those dreams were real.. she rememberd being able to see the room and feel through those things coming out of her, even though her eyes were closed as she was asleep. Although she was no fan of how spiders looked in the past she was not freaked out  now and with her will she comanded the probes to walk back to her hands,, where she observed with fascination at the techno organic "creatures"... IT FELT NATURAL! and with a thought, it climbed up near the elbows using its legs to firmly rest there while the thread ended up softly tied in her forearm.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:09, Wed 06 Oct 2021.

Minerva jolts awake when Vamp shoots the bed, nearly falling out of her chair.  "Oh, hey, you guys are up, and you made it!" she says almost as though she had doubts.  "You're probably starving, it's been..." she looks at the clock on her monitor.  "It's been about 23 hours since you arrived.  Did the sims help?  I programmed them to kick in when you woke up, but I guess I fell asleep," she yawns stretching a bit in her chair.  The 'living' area of her bunker is a bit tight with so many juvies standing up.

Jai looked around, though his head was still too fuzzy to attempt a proper headcount.

"We, uh... lose anybody?"

Shin-Ji had already had a ration bar or two: they'd been a part of his sim. But he still felt like he could eat a horse.

"I feel so weird.

My entire balance is off. I can't believe my hands and feet are.. that stuff."

Vamp was on her second ration bar and had finished the bottled water and was up looking for more. "Looks like we all made it but Sleeping Beauty here is going for a lie in," she said, nodding her head towards Val.

"Looks pretty brill. You've gotten more bulky. Not fat but not all lean muscle; like you've been doing strength training."

"Except that it isn't muscle." The sleeveless gi showed arms that got increasingly more obviously metalic as they descended towards the hands.

"I'd turn my hand into a knife or something, but I'm just too tired and hungry. Apparently, if I don't eat every couple hours I'll turn into a statue, so if you see me like that, just feed me.

Shin-Ji wondered if they'd draw on his face if that happened. Fair enough if he was silly enough to let himself starve like that.

"I'll make sure you get fed but not before we all draw on your face," Vamp said, giving him a smile and tossing him another ration bar. She grabbed another one, tore it open and started eating as she pulled out another water.

"The sims helped. I am, according to what the sim said, a Bolter. I threw lightning at one of the bunks. Give me a hammer and blonde hair and I'm that God of Lightning guy from those old movies."

Nikola stood up slowly and with careful steps got closer to the other ones as they ate their food
"Thank you for taking care of us Minerva, im starving so i'll accept your offer, funny thing, the Sim seemed to interact with my subconcious mind and who knows with what else inside of me"

She showed her arm with the thread and the spiderlike cybernetic to the fellow Juves."Did some of you get something similar to this? I can only remember legends"
This message was last edited by the player at 04:47, Mon 11 Oct 2021.

Tailgate nodded at the idea of eating, a hunger gnawing at him a bit. But first...he looked over at Val's seemingly-asleep or unconscious body. He frowned a little as he tried to concentrate. He tried to filter out other noises from all around, one by one. He focused on just seeing if he could hear her breathing in the noisy room. His eyes were closed as he tried this, blocking out other senses and just listening.

"For you," Minerva says looking at Shin-ji.  "You'll need to cover those arms and legs when walking about, the Feds and the cops will zero in on you like mad," she says.  "I've got a friend working on a project that may help in the mid term, but it will take a few days or weeks to go," she adds a bit cryptically.

She looks wide-eyed at Nikola.  "Wow, you're a scout then?  Is that what the sim said?  I've never seen one before," she watches the spider-like thing in fascination a few more seconds before recovering her senses.

"When you are all awake, fed and ready, we'll talk a little more serious.  Big question is, what now?  You've got these neat powers, powers that will mark you for the hunt if the cops find out, but you can do a lot of good with them also.  I'm going to the little girls' room and when I get back I can answer more questions," she says getting out of her chair and heading to the fresher.

Jai watched her go, staring at the speech bubble.

"Wizard? I admit, this does feel like magic. But I don't think the hat with stars is my style."

He looked around at the assembled crew, paying special attention to those with outward expressions of their new abilities.

"So what are we thinking? I mean, I could just walk away, settle things with Uptown Girl. Not all of us ended up with all of this stuff confined to our heads, though. She-"

He nodded his head in the direction of the bathroom.

"-seems to have some kind of org lined up. I think I should at least pay it forward."

Shin-Ji's eyes were hard.

"Too many dead friends. My giri to them, and my sensei, is clear.

He spent a few seconds gathering himself. Was his friends deaths only two nights ago? It seemed so much longer already.

He took a deep breath and buried his anger.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:00, Tue 19 Oct 2021.

Vamp sat down on Val's bed and slapped her face. "Oi, wake up. Bloody layabout having a lie in whilst the rest of us are figuring out what the hell to do now."

She looked at Shin and gave him a grim smile. "I know how you feel. As far as I know my entire crew, my band, my friends, are all dead or in the nick. Those pigs didn't seem to care about the fact that they were popping off rounds in the middle of a club catering to juves."

She held up her hands and let electricity arc between her fingers. "I want to do something with this to get a bit of payback."

When Vamp slapped Val's face, Tailgate spasmed hard at the exact moment and clapped both hands over his ears. "ow! fraggit!" He twitched a bit more before finally lowering his hands.

He let out a breath in a noise that was both angry and pained. "I was...listening to make sure she was still breathing, that we hadn't lost her to the sickness." He winced and shook his head, then seemed okay.

After Hearing Minerva, Shin-Ji and Vamp Nikola moved her eyes inconsciously upward and from left to right as she pictured diferent scenarios in her head

"Well definitely i want to achieve something good with this new abilities, although leaving might sound interesting i think we might need help later, to abandon now will most likely reduce our chances in the future. So i vote to hear what Minerva has to say about the things we can *accomplish*, hopefully we can bring some justice to this planet"
 Nikola looked at Vamp and then to Val to see if she was fine

Minerva comes out of the restroom tying her hair back into a puffy approximation of a pony tail.  She looks down at Val and addresses the others.  "Is she okay?  I mean, I didn't see anything wrong during the change," she asks taking her seat at the computer and folding her legs beneath her.

As dreams go, it was too tangible.
As nightmares go, it was just bizarre, not horrible…
And as afterlives went, it did feel like she had died, but at the same time…

Thwack.

Something hitting her face. Something not in virtual, something more tacticle than the…

Thwack.

Her eyes shot open, but milliseconds after her hand shot up, instinctively grasping the other hand before it could smack her again. And the first thing Val could see as she came to was Vamp’s face – suddenly contorting with pain.
She was as puzzled as the other girl, for a split second. And then she felt it, the electrical current flowing through her body, and via the conductors on the palm of her hand, delivering an electric shock to the Goth.

“Frack,” she whipered, letting go of Vamp’s hand, too confused to apologize.

And there was something else… a certain… halo? Around the Goth’s head, quickly changing hue – the muted color of nonchalance, misted with impatience, ever so slightly tinged with worry – suddenly bleeding to the pulsing shades of pain and rage.

“What the frack is…”

She looked around, her neck clicking.

Tailgate close by, his halo sort of similar to Vamp’s original one, but touched with a little vibration that she couldn’t quite place, between embarrassment and thirst; Nikola and Minerva, with subtler and softer shades of preoccupation…

So it's true. I can... scan? People? What the...

Val sat up, self-consciously pulling up the neckline of her corset.

“It’s very creepy to wake up like that, with all of you weirdos watching me sleep,” she said, voice still coarse; she cleared her throat and tried again. “Hey. Did I miss anything?”
This message was last edited by the player at 10:43, Tue 02 Nov 2021.

Vamp was somewhat startled by the speed in which Val grabbed her but she had noticed her own perception and reflexes had been enhanced by the change. She was even more startled when she zapped her which she felt disperse throughout her body, seemingly giving her a slight boost.

"Bloody bitch!" She snarled before grabbing Val's arm and delivering a zap of her own before letting go and standing up.

"We were watching you because the rest of us have been awake for a bit whilst you took your damn time. Next time we'll have a film crew here to incentivise you."

She none-too gently tossed a protein bar and water at Val before stalking back over to her own bunk and sitting down with another water. "Trust me when I say there was plenty wrong with her before the change."

Jai rubbed his right temple, exasperated.

"You got the sim, right? I'm not sure what your particular... situation is, but hiding is going to be more difficult for some of us than for others. I'm gonna stick around, I think. Pay it forward for her help for a while, anyway. Can't really speak for anyone else."

"What did you miss?

We're all weird genetic freaks now. Some more than others. The powers are pretty preem though."

Shin-Ji had to stop himself from staring at his weird metal hands now. He'd wondered about getting augmentations, but had never seriously considered cybernetic replacement. If he'd been forced to it, he'd had probably gotten something that looked human.

He'd been putting away ration bars like there was a sale, stopping mainly to down water and energy drinks: those things were dry. Normally ration bars were something even he could barely put up with: right now they were frakking ambrosia. He'd never been that hungry, nowhere close.

"Well, okay..." Minerva says, not exactly sure how to handle the love/hate thing going on.  To Shin-ji she says, "not genetic freaks, the plague is a nano machine construct." She lets that sink in for moment; the carbon plague was created.  "The Feds and NCPD buttoned up the Obelisk outbreak pretty tight, I'm actually impressed.  I'm still trying to get a list of everyone that was there.  Not many got out, but there are not a bunch of missing persons reports either," the screen behind her puts up a bunch of scream sheets from the last couple of days and there is nothing.

One very short article says there was a gas leak near the Obelisk on the night of the raid, and the authorities cordoned off the neighborhood for a few days to lock it down.  The article says everything is back to normal and school will re-start tomorrow.

Shin-Ji scratched his temples. This had implications he just couldn't deal with right now.

"Ok, wow. That's.. I was thinking it did stuff to our genetic code. But I guess it's just like the nanobots that they use to implant cyberware and heal people? Only about six zillion times as advanced?

Let me pop the 60,000 nuyen question, I gotta ask.

Do we have the slightest idea who the hell might have created this thing?"

Seriously. He didn't know that much science, but he'd studied how he might get some augs later to improve his performance: what self respecting athelete or fighter DIDN'T consider it at some point?

He knew enough that the stuff he was doing was wildly beyond anything.

Something else occured to him, though.

"Another question. So this stuff.. I've functionally had my arms and legs replaced with full cybernetics. Does anyone ever go psycho from this?"

It was worth asking. His sensei was a solo, and he'd been quite frank about the unwritten perils of augmentation when asked. He knew his students that kept to the life would eventually want to know the ups and downs of getting chromed.

Nikola got distracted with the conversations regarding Valeriya being finally awake, the comments of Shin-Ji made her head start coming up with some new "hypothesis" ... and decided to join the conversation between him and Minerva  adressing Shin Ji first.

"This carbon plague is so mysterious.. as Minerva said it does look like completely artificial but i can't help to think that it might awaken some hidden nature in us....
for example as a martial artist you trained a lot with the goal of being stronger.. so i wonder if that influenced the fact that the plague made you mutate this way...but also the fact that there are specific mutations, like easy to identify stereotypes also makes me think that this is so artificial.. I mean, as you said Minerva .. there's a name for what i am now: a Scout, and it could be that my beliefs or hopes make me fall into confirmation bias...

And the fact that the corporate government hides what happened at the obelisk makes me wonder of their objectives.. is it just to prevent panic and economic crisis? or do they want this to silently continue to have people like us?.. do they plan to use juves like us?.....Speaking of Juves... Minerva.. would you like us to search for other juves affected by the Obelisk incident?"
This message was last edited by the player at 16:34, Mon 08 Nov 2021.

Jai's brow furrowed in thought.

"I don't know, I wasn't really a tech guy aside from what I needed to know to boost product. Never interested in software or programming or any stuff like that.

Anyway... if it's designed, then I think the best bet is that, yeah, it's to make use of us. Like Shin-Ji said, these are the kind of upgrades you used to need to go pretty deep into augmentation for. And the first places you saw that kind of tech back in the day were government and corporate spec ops. Could be we're a byproduct of the newest spin on that same process."
This message was last edited by the player at 06:51, Tue 09 Nov 2021.

"I don't know of anyone who has gone cybersycho, but I am aware of a kid that got all arrogant and overconfident," Minerva says in response to Shin-ji.  "I think the sim went over some limitations, I don't know the details really, but keep it in mind."

"You bring up good points, unfortunately I don't have the answers.  A bunch of us, 'evolved' we're calling ourselves, are organizing, cell-like in a kind of resistance movement.  We're trying to get to the bottom of it, save kids from getting dissected or turned into weapons, and ultimately see if there is a way to control the plague or stop it," she says.

"A good place for you guys to start, not even having to commit to anything, is helping me find out if everyone got out of the Obelisk and if not, what happened to the missing kids," she adds.

Nikola's eyes opened wider than usual while her eyebrows went up as well, her gesture was of some surprise, not of suspicion, but of her thinking that it was actually a good idea but wad not sure where to start, she looked for Vamp since she might have some idea
"That's a good idea indeed i would like to help other like us.. Vamp! Would you like to give a try locating your fellow goths?"

"I got out of there pretty late, all things considered. At least one kid was sick and probably got picked up, do you have a list of folks who haven't resurfaced?"

Minerva shakes her head.  "I would have to know everyone that was there in the first place to do that," she says.  "I have a familiar out scanning the feeds for missing persons of the right age group, but it's not smart enough to hack police records," she adds.  "The Obelisk is your neighborhood, if you can slip back into your lives maybe you can scan who is missing from talking to others juvies, checkin out who's not showing up to class, that sort of thing," she suggests.

Tailgate frowned at the reactions and conversations going on. He had, of course, been focused more on Vamp and Val than anyone else. At least initially, with Val not waking up like everyone else.

But then the talk turned to the Carbon Plague again, what it was, what it had done...and who might be effected. Or picked up by The Authorities. Or worse.

But that still didn't answer what THEY were going to do next. What they were going to do with their new abilities. Or if they'd stick together, though it both seemed a smart play...and an easier way to get spotted.

"Who created it, why they created, how it chooses people, how it chooses what to give them - all good questions, but ultimately right now, all fraggin' unimportant."

He shrugged. "Are we stickin' t'gether? Do we have a next step or more? Do we have a GOAL?" He reached up to his ears unconsciously but quickly yanked his hands back down. "We get these...abilities, this STUFF...what're we gonna do with 'em?" He seemed to be asking himself as much as anyone else.

"I think we should stick together, and I think we should help those who weren't as lucky as us. As far as our abilities... I mean, I've got a few ideas..."

He bit his lip nervously.

"...as soon as I figure out what I'm actually doing besides besides being able to listen to three radio stations at once."

"We need to stop stuff like.. that, from ever happening again. I'm willing to fight to do that." Shin-Ji didn't think he had to say what "that was".

"Well definitely i welcome the idea of getting back a little , my parents must be worrying more than usual, and our absences could raise some attention, but i also think that we will be more efective if we can meet regularly and do activities as a group.

Btw Jai feel free to share your ideas"

"Uh, I mean, your usual hack work, just with my head instead of a deck I gotta lug around. No visible hardware means some crazy stuff as soon as I get a handle on it."

He looked around at some of the more obvious or odd effects the Plague had rendered on the group.

"I don't know what the heck to do with metal arms or whatever except for, ya know, the obvious. No offense. And I don't even know what most of you can do at all."

He looked down at his hands, gesturing as though he were counting or keeping track of something in his head.

"But the bottom line is the same. Keep ourselves, and everyone else victimized by this, safe. Whether it's blocking bullets from the Dead Folks with those arms, sending that spider thing down vents to activate manual locks to get other juves out of a bind. Whatever you bring to the table, we use it. Especially while they're not expecting it. Because I certainly didn't hear about this on the news."

"Righteous. Though I'm not going to try and catch a Genius round any time soon with these metal arms. I'm a pretty good fighter, but that's vid stuff, even with boosts.

Though, according to that little intro program, I can armor myself up when I need to. I'm not too anxious to try that immediately and asphyxiate myself or something.

What a gonk way that would be to die! Here stands Shin-Ji Han, locked in place forever because he covered his own nostrils.

We should exchange contact info I guess, unless we have a particular way of talking hooked up by our benefactor?"

Tailgate looked from one to the other as they spoke up. Then his eyes slid to, and then quickly past, Val. He gave a small shrug. "Sure. Yeah. Keep in touch. Maybe meet once a week." He sounded like he was thinking as he spoke. "Too often and we'll draw attention to ourselves and our...eclectic grouping...but too little and...won't be worth much."

Val had been munching on the energy bars and drinking water absent-mindedly, until all of a sudden there was a silence and the food was gone and the bottle was empty. And she was still hungry and thirsty.

She shook her head, willing herself to fully wake up. No, it wasn't that; it wasn't that she was sleepy of something, she was fully awake, in some sense more awake than ever, her new senses showing her reality in ways she had never perceived. Actually, a bit too much; the room was like a swell of clashing emotions, A psychological clamour like the audience from one of her concerts, surging like a tsunami of mixed feelings. Some were scarcely surprising, some were... Oh well.

"We gotta go back home?" she said finally, taken aback at the prospect."I mean, it's not like I'm a super big fan of whatever we're doing here, but... if I go back home I'll be super grounded, mum will give me an earful, the PR And Marketing guy will give me another one about announcing that collab without asking them first... So, like, can we not?"
There was all that, and there was the stuff that went unsaid. Val hadn't exactly had funthat night, but at least she had felt like an adult. Going back home meant going back to being a kid, and worse than a kid; it felt like an admission of defeat.

"Fiiine," she sighed after looking around at the faces, an affectation, really; now she didn't need to read faces to know moods. "I'll go back back to my good little schoolgirl life. Better hide all this before mum throws away the 'slutty gear', huh. None of this is cleared with the Public Image Consultants," she said, voice dripping poison. "T, can you give me a lift or something?"

"Well, you don't have to go home; you don't have to do any of that," Minerva says.  "But if you can slip into your old lives, it's better than being on the run.  A girl's gotta eat, and kibble isn't what it's cracked up to be," she says with a smile as protein bars and kibble is all that is in her cupboards.

"However you guys want to take it, I can help and I can reach out to my crew as well from time to time.  Jai, I can give you a copy of a messenger daemon I made; it's not perfect but it can get messages to me fairly safely," she adds.  In virtuality a little winged chibi anime-style woman appears in the space above her head and flies over to Jai, hovering around him.  "One of my furies," she says with a smile.

Vamp had been half-listening to the conversation around her whilst sitting and drinking her water but her full attention turned towards Val when she began to whine. She stared at her, jaw dropped and utterly gobsmacked at the things she was saying.

"Are you taking the piss? You have to be because I can't believe that even you are that bloody tone-deaf. Do you even hear the words coming out of your mouth?" Vamp asked.

She stood up and carefully set the water down. "You...don.t want to go home because...you might. Get. Grounded. Some of us wish we HAD FAMILY TO GROUND US!" She screamed. In all the times she had been angry before she had never raised her voice but this time she screamed. Electricity sparked around her hands as she took a step towards Val. "I WISH I HAD A MUM TO GIVE ME AN EARFUL! I don't and you're whining because YOU DO? ARE YOU SERIOUS? Jaysis Christ but you have to be the most spoiled, entitled brat I have EVER BLOODY KNOWN!"

Her hands seemed to come up of their own accord, the electricity intensifying but she kept lowering them, seemingly unaware that she had raised them. "I may have lost the only family I have known for the past six years last night which means I am alone in this bloody world," she said, hatred in her voice and eyes. "You have parents that care but you're scared to go home because of getting grounded. You are unbelievable."

She took another step forward, lips drawn back in a silent snarl.

"Yeah, a girl's definitely gotta eat," Valeriya echoed Minerva, and the rumblings of her stomach were loud enough to hear. "Very badly. Can I get another? At least this plague isn't going to make me fatter, right? So... Yoboys? I guess this is..."

She was going to say 'goodbye', 'catch ya later' or something like that, when Vamp flew off the handle - again. For a second Val flinched, but then anger filled the place of fear in her mind, to be gradually replaced with dull annoyance. If last time seemed a lifetime ago, that morning was... another decade? Whatever.

"Ugh, Vamp. You are fracking exhausting, anyone ever told you that?" Val rubbed a finger on the bridge of her nose, trying to calm down a sudden flare of headache. "I didn't ask to get a 24/7 CCTV line live from your inner mess, OK? So at least turn the volume down, yogirl. Or just don't be around, eh. Nobody's forcing you to talk to me."

Val turned to Tailgate, rubbing at her temples even as she managed a winning smile.

"Gimme a ride home, T? At least it'll piss them off to see me arrive like that."
This message was last edited by the player at 12:41, Tue 14 Dec 2021.

Minerva was quiet for a moment, the tension in the air palpable, and then she clears her throat and says quietly, "here is my number, it's not listed, you can reach me there if needed.  I can help connect you guys until you are better organized, if that is what you want."  She is clearly trying to change the subject to deescalate the sudden confrontation.  "Look, Vamp, your crew was at the Obelisk, right?  Give me names or tags and I'll see what I can find.  It's a good place to start," she offers.

"Well I'm off then," Hunter says, having sat remarkably quiet throughout the discussion.  He offers his phone number so he can keep in touch and will accept anyone else's provided.  Kat, also quietly sitting in a corner with her arms wrapped around her knees seems to come out of some sort of reverie.

"I can call a cab from the New Harbor mall, it's not too far and is a reasonable place to be.  Anyone need a ride?" she asks her voice still sounding sleepy.

None of them seems to want to get in between Val and Vamp

"Right, I guess I just tell it to tell you whatever needs sharing?"

He stared up quizzically at the daemon, completely at odds to describe his current circumstances.

When the argument erupted, he was glad for Minerva's interruption.

"I'll take a ride. Where the hell am I going to put this appliance cube..."

Vamp went utterly still, jaw hanging open at Val's response. Anger she could handle but being dismissed? Her aura flared bright red as pure hate welled up inside of her and then she moved. She had always been frighteningly fast but this was something all together different. She was a blur as she crossed the room and stopped just before ramming into Val.

"LOOK AT ME, DAMN YOU! I SAID LOOK AT ME!" She screamed, her face inches from Val's. She pulled down the neckline of the wedding dress she wore, ripping the cloth in her rage, to reveal an ugly scar on the right side of her chest. "I SHOULD HAVE DIED THAT NIGHT! WHY DIDN'T I DIE?"

And then the rage was gone, leaving a deep void surrounded by a grief so profound it was breathtaking. Mixed with it was self-loathing, guilt, and unbearable loss. Tears begin to run down her face as she looked at Val. "Why didn't I die with them, Val?" She choked out before starting to fall to her knees. "I should have died."

There were no more words. Just tears as she cried so hard no sound came out.

The rage and closeness to violence had him up and over in a few seconds out of reflex, but Shin-Ji had no idea what to do to this, so all he could do was look pained and look away once he realized Vamp wasn't going to actually kill Val.

He could prevent a physical assault, maybe, but what did you do about this?

Vamp's outburst hurt, probably because he was something he felt as well, deep down. The death of many in his clat, not to mention his sifu, came back to haunt him. Not to mention some deep resentment for his own father's death.

Caught with nothing to contribute, all he could manage was a pained grimace, standing a few feet away from Val and Vamp.

Nikola had been wondering how to put her “powers” to good use while noting the number of Minerv when she heard Val and Vamp arguing,

at first did now want to engage but inconciously her new extremities reacted to the situation, climbing to her shoulder and  starting to analyze the situation, it seemed the lenses on one of the “spiders” was changing its focus.

 When Vamp exploded  she was moved to do something and get close to confort her, with a hand gesture she indicated val to wait and calm down, she would try to handle this:

 “oh dear, you had been through so  much! Let it go if you need to, and who knows ! maybe they are not all dead, they might even be all alive, finding them could be our first mission, and if someone fell victim ,  we can make whoever is responsible pay”  Nikola rested her hand on Vamp’s shoulder hoping not to be electrocuted

Tailgate glanced at Val when she voiced her concerns. Her version of "problems at home" were way different than his. He started typing a message out and then stopped, hesitated and then deleted it. He shook his head. He didn't want to be labeled a...well, whatever it would be. He looked down and let out a small sigh.

He flinched away when Vamp started yelling, looking at her wide-eyed. While he agreed with...some...of the sentiment, she was WAY too loud and energetic about it. About lots of things. He opened his mouth to reply to Val but didn't want to appear over-eager or anything - but then Vamp blew up in a different way. He stopped, blinking, mouth slightly open, for a moment.

After a bit of hesitation he lightly cleared his throat, "Um." He licked his lips and closed his mouth. He turned to Val and nodded slowly, the words just gone after Vamp's breakdown.

He tried to think of what to say to Vamp, several times his mouth starting to form a word and stopping...finally he gave up and scratched his head. He was feeling a bit uncomfortable, and like he was intruding on something private, though it wasn't his fault.

Val knew; she just knew.

Her new powers didn't include seeing the future, but people were as transparent as wine glasses. No, bad metaphor; they were as transparent as glass partitions on a public bathroom - you got to see all the things you really didn't want to, every single flaw and imperfection, every hairy crack and fold, every flaccid appendage.

She knew Vamp would retaliate; she kinda knew someone would step in. Maybe Shin-Ji, because he was the kind of guy who dislikes disorder. Maybe Minerva, because it was her place after all and she didn't want a fight there. Or more probably Tailgate, because the readings Val was getting from him looked very... protective towards her. Yeah. That was one way of putting it. Really she hadn't looked much into it, into him, because it was... scary?

How much of ourselves do we read when we read others?

Hey that was a good line for a song.

Val knew, but she hadn't known Vamp would break down from one second to the other; she was very new to her powers, and Vamp's inner turmoil too volatile to predict. Not that Val was making a huge effort, to be honest; she was tired, she was restless, she was too worried about her own life, whether to go back home or not, what would her parents do. Who the heck was she supposed to be, really.

She turned around slowly, sighing. She was surprised to see Vamp cry, and also she was not. She was getting her emotional distress like literal waves of color and feel, like jellyfish thrown at her face with a vengeance.

"I don't need to look at you to see you, Vamp," she whispered in the strange silence after her outburst, suddenly feeling very tired. The storm of emotion coming from the Goth was exhausting, a swirl of rage and impotence. And slowly she descended and took a knee, the slick black second skin of her leggins reflecting the harsh light in strange ways.

"I know how you feel, Vamp," she said in the lowest of voices, only for her. "I don't know what happened or maybe... maybe I don't know who you are any more. But I know how you feel, trust me. And I'm sure... it wasn't your fault. It's not your fault. What happened sucked. What happened was unfair. But you are alive and..."

Deep breath in, her eyes on the Goth's, feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Why me? A Scanner? Give me a fracking break.

She had never been interested in healing, or even understanding other people - who ever gave a fuck about healing or understanding her? Not her parents, for sure; not her millions of fans; maybe not even the yogangers in the room, who shared with her... what, exactly? The bad luck to have been in the wrong Obelisk at the wrong time? And what else, beyond that?

And yet, here we fucking are, Valeriya Konstatinova; there's no going back to your former life, so might as well live this one.

"...And I'm glad you are alive, Vamp."

"I've been so terrible," Vamp whispered. "To you. To everyone around me. I should have died that night. I wish...I wish I had.

She looked down but her eyes weren't looking at anything save what happened that night.

"My brother was six. He never had a chance to live. He was looking at me when he died. I was trying to reach for him but I was too far away and then I saw the light leave his eyes."

She reached up and rubbed her chest.

"It hurt to breathe. There was so much blood. Mine joined with my brother's and did what my hand couldn't do. My parents were lying together, close to my brother. They had been trying to get to us when the men opened fire. I was gasping and coughing and what I thought were tears was blood. I was crying but not tasting tears."

Tears ran down her face as she looked at Val.

"The men left. As fast as they had come in they were gone and the flat was on fire. I somehow stood up but I didn't go to my brother or my parents. I went to the door and was on the street in my nightgown and there was so much blood."

Her voice hitched but she kept breathing.

"They told me I was lucky. They said the shooters used high powered weapons and armour piercing bullets so it went right through me. They said I was lucky. My family died in front of me but I was lucky."

Her eyes searched Val's face as she talked.

"I waited for family from Japan to come get me but no one did. The corporation never sent anyone for me either and it wasn't until later that I found out that they killed my family in Tokyo and London and destroyed the company. In one night I went from having a family to being in the system because there was no one left to claim me.

"But I was lucky."

She looked down again, face hidden in the fall of her hair.

"I've been so awful to you when all you did was try to be keep being my friend. I don't know who I am Val. Everything I thought I knew about myself died that night. It ran out of me in a pool of blood and left a stranger in its place and I've been so damn angry ever since. It's like everything else was left on that floor save the anger I feel every moment. And I take that anger out on the world and everyone around me. I don't know how to move forward or apologise for it."

She looked back up.

"Will you help me?" She asked in a small, soft voice empty of everything save pain enough that she was drowning in it.

Valeriya sighed.

“Well, you’ve been a bit of a bit-your brother, he-? Oh.”

The immensity of it hit her like a sledgehammer. Not just the words, but the sheer grief emanating from the other girl. She saw it, she was there, watching life leave the little body of a six-year-old, and not just any random boy, but his brother. Val closed her eyes and retched, but the sights didn’t leave her mind, the salty, metallic taste of blood was still on her tongue.

If this has been your life, I don’t know how you didn’t kill yourself, Vamp.
And if this is my life now, I don’t know how I will carry on living.

She reached for something, blindly, and grabbed Tailgate’s arm, purely because it was the closest thing that felt solid enough to take some of her weight. Eyes still closed, she forced herself to breathe slowly.

“It’s not… like I… wasn’t, a bitch. To you, Vamp,” she muttered, fighting back the urge to puke. “With maybe… less… reasons, but…”

She shook her head. No. Not a contest to see who had the shittiest life, or what was worse, bad parents or no parents. Another deep breath, and she tried opening her eyes. Oh frack, everyone was looking, and not in the good way. As much as she loved spotlights, it was because they elicited adoration and admiration, they enhanced your best bits in front of strangers; here it was the opposite, whatever they were doing was an exhibition of the ugliest bits in them, in front of… her peers? Really?

“You are still you, Vamp. Whatever you have suffered, I’ll do what I can to fish you out of there,” she promised.

And maybe one day someone will wade through the marketed, branded, globally sold version of myself, and get me out of that packaging too.

Vamp looked at Val and the look in her eyes, the expression on her face, was heartbreaking. Mixed in with the guilt, the self-loathing, anger, and hate...was hope. Hope that Val could, would, help her.

She threw her arms around the other girl's neck and cried.

***