Participants:
| Scene Title | Possession |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Reed meets Mallory. |
| Date | April 27, 2009 |
The Bedroom of Mallory Allistair
Mallory cycles through products on Apple's site; she lost a shuffle today, and that ain't good. Mallory needs her music to make her less grumpy. Right now she is very, very grumpy, and curled up in her room's closet. Every so often, there's the thudding footsteps of an annoying cousin or something going by. Mallory sits with her laptop balanced on her thighs, knees up. She has one hand on the keyboard; she's manipulating the site with her mind, however. For practice.
Reed has been curious about the two technopaths that were mentioned by Abigail Beauchamp. He has already encountered one, and she was not the ray of sunshine that he'd hoped for. He's done a little snooping, and has traced quite a few leads on those who he gave money too and took money from. He is finally getting around to this particular lead. He slips into her system, easily bypassing what goes for security in this timeline. The moment he's in the room, in her computer he senses it. Technopath. The only problem is.. she probably senses it too. He struggles with the choice between staying and finding out what he can, or splitting — running away just in case she's a stronger techno path than he.
Mallory frowns; she presses two fingers on the bridge of her nose and makes a little whuffing noise. Ow. Something's tingling. Snuffling twice, she takes a moment. Is it an outside tingle or an inside tingle? It's a weird tingle, so she closes her eyes and starts to walk her consciousness around the perimeter of her security. It's not standard; this is security made by a technopath, full of little tricks software isn't keeping up with.
Being inside the system, he can see some of these little tricks. Though there may be a few that are nicely disguised as simple protocols or programs. He might actually trigger something unintentionally, being somewhat overconfidence of his own ability. Regardless, he slows his pace. He can already tell that he's been sensed, so this is going to be far tricker than he imagined. He checks for all the necessary components, such as a microphone, and speakers. He turns up the volume and finds himself a nice set of digitized samples as he activates the camera to see who he's looking at. The speakers crackle before a whispered voice comes across. "I see you.."
He's looking at a girl nearing the end of her teenage years, and a cranky one at that. Her eyes widen in comic surprise before narrowing down. "You hear me?" she manages to say, thickly, fingers splaying further apart as the majority of her mind is occupied checking the trickier components of her defense. Aha. A photoshop program pops up, and then a blank expanse of white canvas. See you too, asshole, reads the text. The drawing tools and brushes flicker; there's a flowing creation of an eye, a blurry image drawn.
"Tsk tsk." the whispery voice starts. "Such fowl language from some a pretty girl." Okay. He's a cocky seventeen year old boy. He can't resist taunting her a little. He would chuckle if he could at the image created. He adds a touch of his own to the drawing, by making a tiny teardrop form at the corner of the eye. "You don't even know me. How can you automatically assume I'm an asshole?" he whispers to her. Those familiar might recognize the voice of radio's "The Shadow." "You've been looking around for me."
The canvas gets wiped clean in one irritated swipe. Blank again, and program closed, and a simple notepad opened instead with no-nonsese courier font instead. Mallory frowns, glances at the camera in her machine - oh - and gives it the finger. The answer is short: Robin Hood?
The announcement of Robin Hood would not be complete without the fanfare of bugles that play over the loudspeakers. "The one and only. Cat got your tongue? I can hear you if you talk, you know?"
Mallory scowls. That's her computer and he's playing annoying shit on it. It's bad enough he's there, but this is just adding insult to injury. She curls her palm over the camera's eye to block her image out. you stole from me, comes the answer in the notepad window, quick and fast with fury. She's still not speaking out loud.
"And gave it to someone who needed it. Something wrong with that? Not like you needed all that cash. Whereas what I gave to someone else turned their life around and gave them a second chance. Why are you so damn greedy?" the whispers voice chastizes. Really, it's not so much that he's doing good, but he figures he has to justify himself somehow, so these are the obvious responses that he's been giving. "So, you can't buy another iPod when you want. Whoopie."
Mallory closes her eyes. He's gonna make her say it, right? bastard, comes her answer. cockmonkeyfuckasshatshitstain—— Uncontrolled, thoughts just getting thrust out through programming. dont care about anyone but family comes the next reply. fuck them, and then, all i have left, and then blood money. Fuck! Mallory withdraws her hand from the computer. One, anyway; the other remains over the camera.
The immediate instinct to flee hits him. He's definitely hit a nerve. He can't see her, but he can tell just how out of control she's getting. It crosses his mind that this may be the opportunity he's looking for. He starts looking for an out. She's got her hand on the camera, he can see that. "What? Did I piss you off? All you have to do is come in here and get me. You can do it, can't you? Or are you one of those weak technopaths? You want your sorry money, all you have to do is come get it. Just like I did. But you won't. You're weak. Maybe I should take some more of your precious little blood money and pass it around. Give you something more to cry about." He's taking a great risk. Drawing her in — could backfire on him.
It's been a bad, bad day. There's a split second decision before, quite suddenly, Mallory starts drawing through all her contacts. Eyes closed, both hands splayed over the keyboard now - he can see her face again, and it is full of fury - she pulls everything toward her consciousness, pulls and pulls and pulls until her nose is bleeding. She's pulling video. All the awful, hateful things she can find - the nasty porn, the horrible videos from the darker corners of the net, where there are beatings and executions, all the hate propaganda she can find, and just flings it at him. Just flings everything in an assault of images in the hope that it will HURT him.
There's no feeling when you're dealing strictly in binary. The flow of data however, pushes him, forcing him towards the exit of the computer. Towards the wireless stream that connects this system to the Internet. He holds strong and pushes forward. He reaches out, feeling digital tendrils of her binary persona peeking through and he tries to wrap part of himself around it and tug. He pulls with all his might, hoping to bring her inside. He's never done this. But the mechanics are simple. As long as they do not cross each other's paths they'll be fine. The moment they overlap, then who knows what will happen. Worst case, they'll cancel each other out and both cease to exist. If successful, he's going to trace the trail back and hijack her body. Become her, while she will be stuck inside the digital world he'll be leaving behind.
Unlock a door and pull it open when someone's pushing with all their strength against it; they'll stumble in, and that's what Mallory does. Her body goes limp, head lolling to the side, as the bright shining thing that is her persona, her consciousness, is pulled fully inside. She's wondered what it would be like, if it could be done, but suddenly there she is without her body's limitations weighing her down.
i see everything
And then, i think i see my house from here
He feels himself slip past her, and suddenly he is suddenly awake. Alert. Overwhelming of sensations as his finds himself inside her. Sights, smells, sounds and touches. How long has it been since he was human? Pulling his hand away from the computer to put it up to his face — or.. her face? Oh boy. Flexing fingers to make sure he can control them. He can see. Vibrant colors. Real colors. Not digital. Already forgotten the one who changed places with him, he walks over and looks into a mirror. He should be surprised to find a 'she' staring back at him. Reaching up he touches his cheek. When he speaks, it's her voice he hears. "This.. is going to be interesting." He's not a cold blooded killer, so she can easily slip out of the computer and onto the internet if she desires. He's not going to shut off the system with her inside. He walks over and looks into the camera, just in case she's watching. "Enjoy your stay."
Mallory is distracted. So much information, and here she is, back in the center of it. She almost, almost doesn't notice, but there's not much she can do beyond sending to the text editor NO.