The Labs: Oh, God She's Back

[ASHLIE]

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>> "Do you require assistance with that?"

[Nina Madaraki]

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>> sure! have at it!

[ASHLIE]

So Ashlie attempts to brute-force her way past the encryption with all the processing power of the Mastermind System backing her up.

[Will Stanton]

The encryption was impressive -- it would take a decent chunk of time, even with Mastermind behind it, to crack. At least half an hour.

[Nina Madaraki]

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>> u r the best! <3 <3 <3

[ASHLIE]

>> "Thank you!"

[Nina Madaraki]

As they waited, Nina started logging into a secure SHIELD database.

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>> no peaking

[ASHLIE]

Having just broken a secret government encryption Ashlie sees exactly zero difference to following a different secret government encryption.

Though Nina did ask her not to look.

But SHIELD had threatened to take away her friend.

She decides that for the sake of her friend she has to piggy-back on Nina's connection.

[Nina Madaraki]

Nina started downloading information and files from the SHIELD database into Will. This included schematics on SHIELD field equipment, SHIELD policies and procedures, and all of Nina's (non-classified) files regarding potential threats to the University.

While Nina was working, ASHLIE would notice that Nina had an entire file on Riot that Nina was not uploading to Will.

[ASHLIE]

It takes her about 0.21 picoseconds to decide to open the file.

[Nina Madaraki]

It was...thorough. Nina had basically pulled all the records on her half-sister and composed a series of reports on them addressed to SHIELD Research and Development discussing the potential for Riot to be use for some sort of project:

"Subject is belligerent and shows certain behavioral traits that point to a possible personality disorder. Conditioning would be necessary if the subject was chosen for the program."

[Will Stanton]

Meanwhile, Will's folder system was moving everything that Nina copied over into the "proper" portion of the skills folder. Pretty clever organizing system! Seems to be somewhat context-aware.

[ASHLIE]

Now Ashlie goes from curious to worried, digging deeper into SHIELD files to find out what program this is.

[Will Stanton]

Whiiiich is about the same time Bing! the encryption sequence was done on Will

[Nina Madaraki]

Apparently, SHIELD had gotten their hands on one of Riot's proxies somehow. They were very interested in the abilities of someone who could make centrally controlled copies of herself that had a variable appearance.

"Awesome!" Nina says, seeing that the encryption had been broken.

[ASHLIE]

Ashlie makes copies of all the files pertaining to Riot or said project. Then she sends a massive data spike that would begin to scramble data and, if left unchecked, would eventually burn out the hardware said data was saved on.

[Nina Madaraki]

Nina didn't notice!

She was bad at data security. It's a good thing no one else at Xavier's was interested in stealing secrets from a SHIELD database.

[Will Stanton]

Well, then. Will's Black Air shifting files were a far level more complex than anything present in the rest of his shifting database, with the possible exception of the people. And it was a vast collection, indeed.

We'll skip the vast percentage that were just various geometrical shapes.

Quite a few of them were mechanical in nature. They had apparently done a lot of work trying to get Will to be an all-purpose, off-road vehicle of some kind, as there were quite a few configurations of engines and wheels and jets, all apparently modular. Very advanced work. From the sheer number of attempts, there had apparently been a large number of problems, resulting in a large number of designs, with and without engines and weapons. Speaking of weapons, there were a variety of designs -- machine guns with infinitely replenishing ammunition, for example.

They had also shifted him into a variety of clothing, with incredible durability and protection -- apparently, when properly treated, the armor was even able to deflect laser for several seconds.

Another set of experiments apparently had had something to do with Will's nutritional value, as a possible food source for agents in the field -- an endlessly regenerating source. There were also seeds and small trees, apparently designed by the botany department, as well as 'improvements' on the average farm animal -- cows and chickens able to produce much greater quantities of milk and eggs, for example.

There was a small sphere which, when immersed in water, would absorb various contaminants and impurities, resulting in clean drinking water and a ball full of nasty shit. "Absorbing" seemed the be an entire thing -- they had experimented with absorbing radiation, though that apparently resulted in the destruction of the ball itself, for example.

The most disturbing form? Well, there were a couple possibilities.

One form was some sort of explosive device, complete with a nasty radioactive fallout. Worse yet, the schematics indicated that Will, as the core of the bomb, was to regenerate after a set period of time, and re-detonate, for added collateral damage.

Another form was an average businessman, except without a brain, there was a complex remotely-controlled device in there, triggering the electrical nanoprobes as necessary -- a spy able to record and transmit sensitive information.

Apparently, someone had taken Will for a joyride, too -- there was a section with a) a 1964 forest green Jaguar E-Type, b) a credit card, c) a bottle of expensive French red wine, d) a small-sized condom, e) a roll of toilet paper, f) a durable black plastic bin bag, and g) a sanitary napkin

Other forms included a pack of Orberto brand Beef Jerky, and one of those bobbling Hula Girl thingys.

And it went on like this... forms far more complex than Will had tried.

[Nina Madaraki]

"Busy little bees," Nina says, copying the information to her files.

[Will Stanton]

Oddly, that popped up an error message.

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Warning: copying these files will damage data storage capacity.  Abort, Retry, Fail

[Nina Madaraki]

Nina frowns, clicking "Abort".

Damn it.

[Will Stanton]

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Operation aborted.

Funny enough, nothing was stopping her from copying anything ELSE. Or adding things for that matter. Was it only that folder?

[Nina Madaraki]

Nina tried copying over some folders from "Knowledge" as a test.

[Will Stanton]

Well, Nina now had a text file listing all the US presidents, one with all the words in the English language, and one about all the spots that made Sara giggle when he poked her. That seemed to work just fine!

The copying, that is.

[Nina Madaraki]

"So unfair!" Nina says, sounding annoyed. She really wanted those files, but she wasn't gonna risk lobotomizing Will to get them.

[Will Stanton]

Removing them would be exceedingly difficult, and would require several experts on a variety of different subjects, including computer architecture, neuropathology, and shifting dynamics. A tricky proposition.

Black Air knew their stuff. It would require the resources of another shady government organization to mess with this.

[Nina Madaraki]

Hmmm...

While Nina mulled that thought over, she started exploring the "Dreams/Fantasies" folder.

[Will Stanton]

Each dream and fantasy was in it's own video file, with an accompanying chart of neurotransmitter production -- pleasure versus fear, essentially.

The early files were, of course, childish things. Will as a superhero? Who could believe that! Will as a spaceship captain? Slightly more out there. And so on and so forth. The ones at the very beginning were even more abstract -- babies don't have very good imagination. There were nightmares, too, full of scary clowns and things.

Teenage years were just covered in smut. This should be no surprise to anyone who has ever been a teenager. Shifting started working its way in at around age 15, and again, smut smut smut. It wasn't even GOOD smut, at that -- like bad erotica, written by a teenager. That probably means Nina could take it and make a blockbuster modern fantasy series out of it, but that was about it. The nightmares were more profound, working their way from 'generic scary thing!' to fear of exclusion, fear of death, being unprepared for tests, showing up to school nude -- they were, in general, more creative than the fantasies, and more frightening.

They weren't all about smut -- there were plenty of ones about great food, great acting performances, or the Bills winning the Super Bowl and things like that.

Once Will arrived at XU, familiar people started showing up in some of the fantasies! Sara was, of course, all over them, but a couple searches would find Nina -- both in nightmares, with her dissecting Will showing up on multiple occasions, and more dramatic, leading-a-team-and-being-rescued type fantasies starring a super-awesome and competent Will. She didn't show up very much in the more sexual fantasies, though other people at XU certainly did -- she must not be Will's type.

The nightmares shot off the CHART once the Black Air incident happened -- faceless men in labcoats slicing and dicing, poking and prodding. They were the strongest and most powerful nightmares to this point, with the fear cranking off the scale.

However, oddly, a few new fantasies and dreams started popping up after Black Air -- different ones from what had been appearing before.

One was, essentially, the exact same as some of the Black Air nightmares, but, rather than the faceless goons, it was Sara, and Nina, and Sam and Kevin and Bear and various people Will was friends with. The same sort of procedures and techniques were being employed, but the readouts indicated that this wasn't frightening -- Will's brain was producing positive endorphins and things. He was enjoying it.

A second had Janice approaching a desk in the library, and signing something on a clipboard. A few minutes later, a Ken-doll-esque Will emerged, following Janice around, and outside, where a few words from Janice transformed Will to a car. They drove to the store, with them having a conversation all the way, except when she had to stop to fill Will up with gas, and then when they got there, Janice transformed Will into a purse as they walked around the store. It went on like this for a while -- honestly, Nina would probably be bored if she watched Janice go through her errands, and then back to campus and into class, and so on, until she finally returned Will to the front desk, where John was waiting to check him out, and so forth. Will wasn't bored, though -- endorphin level was off the charts.

A third one actually predated the Black Air thing, but started showing up with more frequency -- Will was either the top sheet or an entire bed; hard to tell from that angle, when Sara and Kurt Wagner came through the door, in flagrante delicto and loving it. We will spare our more puritanical readers from more details, but Will seemed, once again, to enjoy himself. The dream first popped up after a nice with Victoria Valentine and Onyx in his memories, and appeared with greater frequency post-Black Air, along with several other dreams along the same basic theme.

There was more, if Nina was looking for anything in particular and/or had a few hours to kill.

[Nina Madaraki]

Nina frowned. Something about this folder seemed to upset her a little bit, but she didn't save anything. Yet.

Instead, she moved on to see what that Will.wil file was all about.

[Will Stanton]

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SHIELD OS 4.6 could not determine a program for the extension .WIL

Choose a program you want to use to open Will.wil

And then there was a drop box of every executable Nina had on her laptop, from simple notepad all the way through her no doubt impressive collection of video games.

[Nina Madaraki]

Nina started trying out programs! Starting with notepad.

[Will Stanton]

Notepad then featured...an ASCII art Will!

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　　　　　　　　　　        　　　／￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣\
　　　　　　　　　∧＿∧        ＜ <Well, this is new and different>     >
　　　　　　　　 　　　　 　　 　 ＼＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿/


[Nina Madaraki]

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>> oh come on who hasn't been turned into a computre?

[Will Stanton]

Will grabbed some of the letters Nina typed, and threw them to one side!

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　　　　　　　　　　        　　　／￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣\
　　　　　　　　　∧＿∧        ＜ <I feel so two-dimensional.>          >
　　　　　　　　 　　　　 　　 　 ＼＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿/


[Nina Madaraki]

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>>lol

>> well now that i can talk to you any requests?

[Will Stanton]

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　　　　　　　　　　        　　　／￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣￣\
　　　　　　　　　?＿?         ＜ <I'm not sure I understand.>          >
　　　　　　　　 　　　　 　　 　 ＼＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿＿/


[Nina Madaraki]

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>> is there anything you want me to do in here?

>> example:  i could delete the scary black air nightmares

[Will Stanton]

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...Really?

Um...go for it, if you're sure it's safe...I guess....

[Nina Madaraki]

Nina gets into the dreams folder again and starts deleting any nightmares relating to Black Air.

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>> oh i have no idea lol

[Will Stanton]

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Should...should I ask what else you've been doing?"