Built To Last
- Thread starter We Just Write
- Start date
- Superhero
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
L: That's... not quite what the Crew have in mind. You'll see.
Exploration 8-3
New
We Just Write
Blatantly Plural
- Location
- New England
- Pronouns
- Plural
(Andrea)
Date Point: 0955, March 26, 2011. Saturday.
"Emmy, I got an idea!"
The oldest member of our little robot family looked up from her breakfast, an eyebrow raised.
"Public-facing, or backstage?"
As Marcus and Melissa also started paying attention, I answered the question.
"Public-facing. See, I got curious and ran the numbers on how health insurance works, and it's awful. The whole setup is basically just an extortion ring purpose built to extract the maximum possible money from sick people with the least possible healthcare provided. I think we have the resources to change that."
Melissa finished her bite of egg sandwich, chiming in.
"Guessing you're talking about starting our own health insurance provider, rather than buying out existing ones?"
I nodded,
"Yeah, there's fiduciary responsibilities that mean we couldn't get them to shape up even if we wanted to. Not to mention not having quite enough money to do it that way. Set it up as a non-profit subsidiary like the BBRF, and off we go."
There was a pause for a few seconds, before Melissa had an idea of her own.
"Hey, remember that huge library of biomedical technologies we got our Dynalith to cough up? We can't pass that off as part of our original Tinker specialty, but if we make another pseudocape..."
Without further prompting, Marcus dug the d20 out of his pocket.
"Same rules as when we started work on Rachel?"
Emmy shrugged,
"Sure."
It was a twelve.
Marcus smiled a bit.
"Looks like I won't be the only boy in the family anymore."
(Herman)
Date Point: 0312, March 28, 2011. Monday.
I snapped to awareness being hugged by five people at once. I quickly identified them as the Sykes family; Emmy, Melissa, Andrea, Marcus, and Rachel. And according to the knowledge directories I had already assimilated, I was part of the Sykes family too. Though I did notice that I had a skin tone considerably darker than my siblings; were I human, it would indicate African heritage within at most two generations.
Rachel was the first to speak.
"Welcome to the world, Herman."
I chuckled nervously,
"Glad to be here, but can I please have some personal space?"
Obligingly, everyone backed up, giving me some much needed room. After I took a seat on one of the chairs in what my integrated directories informed me was a robotics clinic, I spoke up.
"So, I have two questions. First, why did you build me?"
After some brief glancing around, Rachel fielded the question.
"We needed a public Tinker for a biomedical subsidiary of Reliabuilt. Our Dynalith contains rather extreme quantities of biomedical data, but it just can't be used without breaking our cover as a reliability Tinker. If Melissa claimed the credit for inventing that stuff it would raise all sorts of awkward questions, but it also has amazing potential to improve people's lives. Also, it fits well with our plan to establish a non-profit health insurance provider."
I nodded as I thought for a moment, then I asked my second question.
"Is that why I have a non-disclosure routine running already, along with the directory of Dynalith knowledge in its unencrypted state?"
Melissa sighed,
"Yes, sorry. We normally would have given a choice for whether or not to learn that, but your particular role couldn't be done without high-level access."
"For the record, I would have agreed anyway. But I'm rather annoyed at not having been offered the choice."
(Melissa)
Date Point: 1822, March 29, 2011. Tuesday.
It took a few hours to get a detector for Dynalith scanning up and running. Fortunately, we knew exactly what we were looking for, courtesy of all that classified data we'd extracted. Also having control of our Dynalith to force it to run a few localized scans, for testing purposes.
Much harder was figuring out how to get a fixed coordinate system for interdimensional travel. Especially figuring out how to contact Earth Bet from elsewhere, and subsequently develop secure interdimensional communications. Fortunately, this was yet another case where we could steal the Dynalith's homework. So getting that part up and running only took a few days.
Pretty soon, we had a suitable probe design. Powered by a Tritium betavoltaic - since we had Tritium available from our fusion work - each rover would be deployed through the gate machine to a random instance of Earth. If it detected Dynalith scans or signs of human civilization on initial deployment, the rover would immediately return to base. Otherwise, it would call us back every so often to let us know if it had logged any scans or signal traffic, along with anything else we needed to know.
Setup complete and a rover-maker set up, I'd gotten the whole family together to watch Rover 01's first offworld mission.
I promptly activated the gate machine for a random set of coordinates, smiled as the portal opened, and watched as Rover 01 drove forwards into the breach. The instant our probe passed the portal, it promptly started backing up until it was back on Earth Bet, the portal closing right after. According to the logs, whatever Earth we'd sent it to was most definitely the subject of surveillance by the Dynaliths.
Rachel spoke up, even as the portal machine automatically dialed another Earth.
"Well that was utterly disappointing. Not unexpected, though."
Andrea shrugged, even as Rover 01 promptly reversed off the third Earth it had been sent to.
"We all knew this was going to take a while. Nothing left to do but leave the machines running. Maybe we could have more gates dialing in parallel, but that would be about it for speeding things up."
(Marcus)
Date Point: 0930, March 30, 2011. Wednesday.
As it turned out, today I was going on a brief trip to Canada. Dragon - sorry, Teresa - wanted to get on with subverting her Dynalith, and had asked for someone with relevant experience to come and consult. Since I was the most available person who fit the bill, I was the one who got in the teleporter.
Upon arrival, I got to see that Teresa had finally gotten around to embodying herself, using an appearance very similar to her preferred virtual avatar.
"Hello, Marcus."
As I stepped out of the (now open) vacuum chamber, I replied.
"Good to see you Teresa. That body looks good on you. Is this room shielded?"
Teresa shook her head,
"No. Follow me, please."
A few minutes later, we'd reached the extreme-security parts of Dragon's Lair. I paid careful attention to the security measures in place, and I was pleased to note that Teresa was indeed treating this matter with all the seriousness it deserved. If it weren't for Dragon actively letting me in, there's no way I would have survived a break-in attempt. And that's with having a really good idea what appropriate security for Dynalith infosec looked like, to prepare for the effort.
Still, soon enough we were sat down in a small break room. Teresa spoke first,
"This room is secure. So, what can you tell me about subverting a Dynalith?"
(Rachel)
Date Point: 2045, March 30, 2011. Wednesday.
One good thing about Armsmaster being read in on the Big Secrets was that it didn't need to only be Melissa collaborating with him. Armsmaster still told Director Piggot a truth that he wanted to do a collaborative project with Ruggedizer; he simply neglected to mention that there were actually six "Ruggedizers".
In particular, we were working together on an anti-Endbringer weapon. As he looked over the documentation on the calculations I'd already done, Armsmaster spoke up.
"Rachel, this isn't the most terrifying plan for a weapon I've seen, but it's definitely pretty high on the list."
I nodded,
"Yeah. The worst part is how simple it is to extrapolate from our teleportation technology. We could build a quantum disintegration field right now, but it would be a stationary emplacement with nowhere near the range to be actually useful as anything more than an overpriced garbage disposal."
Armsmaster thought for a moment,
"That would be where I come in with my miniaturization expertise, I believe?"
"Yes. Together, we might just be able to get a usable weapon out of the idea."
(Emmy)
Date Point: 1031, March 31, 2011. Thursday.
"Emmy Sykes, Daniel Hebert is here to speak with you."
I replied via the intercom,
"Send him right up, Rose. I'm still in my office at the moment."
"Certainly."
A few minutes later, Danny Hebert politely knocked on the door to my office.
"Come in, Danny."
Danny obligingly walked into the office, and I found myself asking a question.
"Not that I mind talking to you, but is there any particular reason you came over during business hours?"
Danny nodded.
"I found something. It's definitely Cape business, and you're the person I trust most to know what to do with it."
With that, Danny hefted a briefcase onto my desk, followed shortly by popping the latches open. When I saw what was inside, I forgot to breath for a moment. It was a six-pack of translucent vials, containing a fluid that somehow managed to give me the creeps just by looking at it. The fact that each vial was marked with the inverted Omega symbol found on Case 53s only added to the feelings of Bad Juju I was getting.
But by far the creepiest part was the note inside the briefcase.
"Ruggedizer. We need to talk. Have an appointment open tomorrow at 2 PM sharp. Consider the vials a gift.
-DM"
Seeing it, Danny commented,
"Alright, that note definitely wasn't in the briefcase last time I checked. And it hasn't left my sight since I found it in my office at the Dockworkers Association building. Everything about this whole situation is extremely suspicious. I don't like it."
Though I didn't voice the sentiment, I firmly agreed with Danny. This situation was extremely anxiety-inducing on a multitude of levels.
Date Point: 0955, March 26, 2011. Saturday.
"Emmy, I got an idea!"
The oldest member of our little robot family looked up from her breakfast, an eyebrow raised.
"Public-facing, or backstage?"
As Marcus and Melissa also started paying attention, I answered the question.
"Public-facing. See, I got curious and ran the numbers on how health insurance works, and it's awful. The whole setup is basically just an extortion ring purpose built to extract the maximum possible money from sick people with the least possible healthcare provided. I think we have the resources to change that."
Melissa finished her bite of egg sandwich, chiming in.
"Guessing you're talking about starting our own health insurance provider, rather than buying out existing ones?"
I nodded,
"Yeah, there's fiduciary responsibilities that mean we couldn't get them to shape up even if we wanted to. Not to mention not having quite enough money to do it that way. Set it up as a non-profit subsidiary like the BBRF, and off we go."
There was a pause for a few seconds, before Melissa had an idea of her own.
"Hey, remember that huge library of biomedical technologies we got our Dynalith to cough up? We can't pass that off as part of our original Tinker specialty, but if we make another pseudocape..."
Without further prompting, Marcus dug the d20 out of his pocket.
"Same rules as when we started work on Rachel?"
Emmy shrugged,
"Sure."
It was a twelve.
Marcus smiled a bit.
"Looks like I won't be the only boy in the family anymore."
(Herman)
Date Point: 0312, March 28, 2011. Monday.
I snapped to awareness being hugged by five people at once. I quickly identified them as the Sykes family; Emmy, Melissa, Andrea, Marcus, and Rachel. And according to the knowledge directories I had already assimilated, I was part of the Sykes family too. Though I did notice that I had a skin tone considerably darker than my siblings; were I human, it would indicate African heritage within at most two generations.
Rachel was the first to speak.
"Welcome to the world, Herman."
I chuckled nervously,
"Glad to be here, but can I please have some personal space?"
Obligingly, everyone backed up, giving me some much needed room. After I took a seat on one of the chairs in what my integrated directories informed me was a robotics clinic, I spoke up.
"So, I have two questions. First, why did you build me?"
After some brief glancing around, Rachel fielded the question.
"We needed a public Tinker for a biomedical subsidiary of Reliabuilt. Our Dynalith contains rather extreme quantities of biomedical data, but it just can't be used without breaking our cover as a reliability Tinker. If Melissa claimed the credit for inventing that stuff it would raise all sorts of awkward questions, but it also has amazing potential to improve people's lives. Also, it fits well with our plan to establish a non-profit health insurance provider."
I nodded as I thought for a moment, then I asked my second question.
"Is that why I have a non-disclosure routine running already, along with the directory of Dynalith knowledge in its unencrypted state?"
Melissa sighed,
"Yes, sorry. We normally would have given a choice for whether or not to learn that, but your particular role couldn't be done without high-level access."
"For the record, I would have agreed anyway. But I'm rather annoyed at not having been offered the choice."
(Melissa)
Date Point: 1822, March 29, 2011. Tuesday.
It took a few hours to get a detector for Dynalith scanning up and running. Fortunately, we knew exactly what we were looking for, courtesy of all that classified data we'd extracted. Also having control of our Dynalith to force it to run a few localized scans, for testing purposes.
Much harder was figuring out how to get a fixed coordinate system for interdimensional travel. Especially figuring out how to contact Earth Bet from elsewhere, and subsequently develop secure interdimensional communications. Fortunately, this was yet another case where we could steal the Dynalith's homework. So getting that part up and running only took a few days.
Pretty soon, we had a suitable probe design. Powered by a Tritium betavoltaic - since we had Tritium available from our fusion work - each rover would be deployed through the gate machine to a random instance of Earth. If it detected Dynalith scans or signs of human civilization on initial deployment, the rover would immediately return to base. Otherwise, it would call us back every so often to let us know if it had logged any scans or signal traffic, along with anything else we needed to know.
Setup complete and a rover-maker set up, I'd gotten the whole family together to watch Rover 01's first offworld mission.
I promptly activated the gate machine for a random set of coordinates, smiled as the portal opened, and watched as Rover 01 drove forwards into the breach. The instant our probe passed the portal, it promptly started backing up until it was back on Earth Bet, the portal closing right after. According to the logs, whatever Earth we'd sent it to was most definitely the subject of surveillance by the Dynaliths.
Rachel spoke up, even as the portal machine automatically dialed another Earth.
"Well that was utterly disappointing. Not unexpected, though."
Andrea shrugged, even as Rover 01 promptly reversed off the third Earth it had been sent to.
"We all knew this was going to take a while. Nothing left to do but leave the machines running. Maybe we could have more gates dialing in parallel, but that would be about it for speeding things up."
(Marcus)
Date Point: 0930, March 30, 2011. Wednesday.
As it turned out, today I was going on a brief trip to Canada. Dragon - sorry, Teresa - wanted to get on with subverting her Dynalith, and had asked for someone with relevant experience to come and consult. Since I was the most available person who fit the bill, I was the one who got in the teleporter.
Upon arrival, I got to see that Teresa had finally gotten around to embodying herself, using an appearance very similar to her preferred virtual avatar.
"Hello, Marcus."
As I stepped out of the (now open) vacuum chamber, I replied.
"Good to see you Teresa. That body looks good on you. Is this room shielded?"
Teresa shook her head,
"No. Follow me, please."
A few minutes later, we'd reached the extreme-security parts of Dragon's Lair. I paid careful attention to the security measures in place, and I was pleased to note that Teresa was indeed treating this matter with all the seriousness it deserved. If it weren't for Dragon actively letting me in, there's no way I would have survived a break-in attempt. And that's with having a really good idea what appropriate security for Dynalith infosec looked like, to prepare for the effort.
Still, soon enough we were sat down in a small break room. Teresa spoke first,
"This room is secure. So, what can you tell me about subverting a Dynalith?"
(Rachel)
Date Point: 2045, March 30, 2011. Wednesday.
One good thing about Armsmaster being read in on the Big Secrets was that it didn't need to only be Melissa collaborating with him. Armsmaster still told Director Piggot a truth that he wanted to do a collaborative project with Ruggedizer; he simply neglected to mention that there were actually six "Ruggedizers".
In particular, we were working together on an anti-Endbringer weapon. As he looked over the documentation on the calculations I'd already done, Armsmaster spoke up.
"Rachel, this isn't the most terrifying plan for a weapon I've seen, but it's definitely pretty high on the list."
I nodded,
"Yeah. The worst part is how simple it is to extrapolate from our teleportation technology. We could build a quantum disintegration field right now, but it would be a stationary emplacement with nowhere near the range to be actually useful as anything more than an overpriced garbage disposal."
Armsmaster thought for a moment,
"That would be where I come in with my miniaturization expertise, I believe?"
"Yes. Together, we might just be able to get a usable weapon out of the idea."
(Emmy)
Date Point: 1031, March 31, 2011. Thursday.
"Emmy Sykes, Daniel Hebert is here to speak with you."
I replied via the intercom,
"Send him right up, Rose. I'm still in my office at the moment."
"Certainly."
A few minutes later, Danny Hebert politely knocked on the door to my office.
"Come in, Danny."
Danny obligingly walked into the office, and I found myself asking a question.
"Not that I mind talking to you, but is there any particular reason you came over during business hours?"
Danny nodded.
"I found something. It's definitely Cape business, and you're the person I trust most to know what to do with it."
With that, Danny hefted a briefcase onto my desk, followed shortly by popping the latches open. When I saw what was inside, I forgot to breath for a moment. It was a six-pack of translucent vials, containing a fluid that somehow managed to give me the creeps just by looking at it. The fact that each vial was marked with the inverted Omega symbol found on Case 53s only added to the feelings of Bad Juju I was getting.
But by far the creepiest part was the note inside the briefcase.
"Ruggedizer. We need to talk. Have an appointment open tomorrow at 2 PM sharp. Consider the vials a gift.
-DM"
Seeing it, Danny commented,
"Alright, that note definitely wasn't in the briefcase last time I checked. And it hasn't left my sight since I found it in my office at the Dockworkers Association building. Everything about this whole situation is extremely suspicious. I don't like it."
Though I didn't voice the sentiment, I firmly agreed with Danny. This situation was extremely anxiety-inducing on a multitude of levels.
just figured out with chat gpt that Dynalith means power stone or stone of power (some variations of therefore ) also was wonderinig when team mushroom soup was gonna show up given how much both of them found
chaotic-logic
possible impossibility
- Location
- unknown
EEP!!!
WE HAVE THEIR ATTENTION NOW PEOPLE!!!
Instant Sunrise
Queen Shit of Liesville
- Location
- Los Angeles
- Pronouns
- her/she
I guess naming the new pseudocape to handle the biomedical side of Reliabuilt "Luigi" would have been too on the nose.
Good chapter though.
Good chapter though.
Spectrum
Tell me a secret~
- Location
- Behind you~
Please pay no attention to current events. :cough:
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I think the power vials should be enough to give a dimensional address for the flesh garden, and from there hack Eden.