[IC] [SR4] What I want to do when I grow up, High School builds character Options Track this topic Email this topic Print this topic Download this topic Subscribe to this forum Display Modes Switch to: Outline Standard Switch to: Linear+

[Koekepan]

The start of the fall quarter in 2072 is dreary in Tacoma. It isn't really cold yet, but the weather struggles to reach 20C in the afternoons, and drops below 10C at night. Stretches of thin, watery sunlight alternate with drifting drizzle which obscures the Olympics from view and turns Puget Sound leaden.

Still, all these things happen outside the school. The school building is a solidly constructed, institutional building. Its purpose has shifted in some ways over the years. Lessons are now delivered in preprogrammed units through VR. In theory this means that all learners can follow their own pace to tackle anything which catches their fancy. In practice, many kids have learned to game the system so that they don't have to work very hard, just passing the minimum number of easy courses so as to avoid remedial attention. The ones who excel are often scouted by the corps and offered entry into the corporate schools with promises of great jobs to follow. This isn't universal - some of the smarter kids don't get offers. Usually this can be traced back to trouble with authority or other behavioural problems, or having green skin.

The kids themselves refer to the school as babysitting by taxpayer, because so do many other people, and it does seem to fit the way they are shuttled in, plugged in, unplugged and shuttled out with occasional breaks for lunch, bathroom breaks and PE because some people still care about high school athletics for some reason.

[Koekepan]

Latest news from Seattle Public Information Network:

The mayoral race for Tacoma is heating up, as hotshot challenger for the post Malcom Coombes touts his plan to rehabilitate Puyallup with incentives for the gentrification of the area. Precisely what these incentives are, and how they might be earned, has yet to be revealed.

Corporate hiring is down for the year in the Seattle Enclave. The corporations cite strong competition for work from the workers of many nations, and the high cost of maintaining employees in the area. Economists point at a global trend leading to greater investment in capital expenditures to support the productivity of corporate entities. Union leaders explain it as a coordinated attack on the bargaining power of the working metahuman.

The Worldfood policlub is establishing a presence in the Tacoma/Lakewood area, and dropping AROs all over the place which implore people to give money to stop hunger. They come complete with heart-rending pictures of doe-eyed orphans starving in some hellhole or other.

[Koekepan]

This morning is the fifth of September, 2072. In theory, every pupil should choose at least one extracurricular activity and register for it by Friday the ninth, but in practice it means that everyone will pick something low effort which lets them cut an afternoon without too many questions, unless they're an aspiring athlete or desperate to get access to some of the school's outdated, clunky trid cameras. There's no accounting for taste.

More administrivia are making the usual appearance. Everyone has to take a mandatory career guidance evaluation, in VR. No sweat. That's always good for an hour of pretending to be busy. There's a message from the school's principal, all about putting one's best foot forward, taking advantage of opportunities, and tackling the challenges of the day head-on. Inspirational stuff, until one reflects on the way the school's computer systems stutter when everyone signs in first thing in the morning, the way the electricity flickers and dulls when the big transit buses pass by, and how the principal is a professional bureaucrat in a petty corner of a broken world. What does she know about getting ahead? Nothing.

There's a notification of a scheduled visit and evaluation by recruiters for various trades and corps, and even from the UCAS government. Whoopie. If it's anything like the last five times that happened, one or two of the smart kids (or ones too stupid to be distracted from their VR studies) will get offers from corps to transfer there and live like wageslaves for the rest of their natural lives, a couple of tuskers will know the right secret handshake to land apprenticeships with trades, and everyone else will get the usual formulaic response about pursuing other opportunities.

[Koekepan]

News from the streets is that trouble is brewing in the Puyallup Barrens.

Apparently there's three way beef between the Running Motors, the P-verts, and Local 69. Probably was too quiet for too long, and something had to give. Word is that one of Local 69's girls was seen hitching a lift with a Running Motors biker, then somehow ended up in P-verts turf. What exactly is true, and what precisely everybody is saying, are very confused right now.

The Shadowcrawlers and Wabbits at Southeast Tacoma High are hyperventilating at the prospect. Almost everyone else hopes the craziness stays away.

[Koekepan]

The usual silliness from students reigns in the hallways and on the grounds of SouthEast Tacoma High this Monday. Overenthusiastic and impulsive wabbits seem to have found a way to easily wrap an ARO in some kind of sticky layer, and tossed them into various corners of the ceilings. The contents of the AROs are the usual juvenile material, including some which suggests the presence of a hidden camera in the girls' locker room. As a result, the maintenance drones are hunting down AROs while a team tears apart the locker room with intensity better suited to the lost treasures of the Sierra Madre.

A team of hollies have decided that they are investigative reporters, and are aggressively interviewing anyone and everyone to get to the bottom of the story, on the theory that it's the biggest media event since the big D got his. The fact that the staff are threatening them with Serious Consequences on their Permanent Records for Interfering with a Criminal Investigation only encourages them because it obviously means that they are far too close to The Truth, and there is a Coverup at High Levels. Half the boys in school are claiming personal responsibility, but this doesn't deter the hollies at all.

Aside from all this is the news that some washout girl said that the fitting way to commit suicide in this era is to create some black IC which wipes all higher brain function and leaves a mindless husk to die slowly. She is now in intensive suicide prevention counseling, and messages about light, happiness and hope are nearly as ubiquitous as the wabbits' AROs.

[NeVeRLiFt]

Colt sits in his class wishing the day would be over.... hmm I wonder who is causing all this mischief at school?
Colt checks his commlink one last time and then resets the trodes gently back on his head to finish his VR studies.

[Koekepan]

The educational VR environment gives Colt, as it does every other child in the school, a blinking reminder:

Please remember to enter your personal evaluation here, before the end of today. We must have this information to give everyone the best educational experience possible.

Typical school. A totally useless career guidance evaluation, but as in all bureaucracies, the process trumps the function.

[Vegas]

Daiyu sat with a few of the other Washouts in the quad, reveling in the fade of the bold colors of summer into the pale grey chill that would soon descend over the entire Metroplex. Someone passed a few clove cigarettes around the group and others stared at the sky, but the only topic of conversation that anyone cared to discuss was Starling’s latest creative suggestion of how to leave this world and the quick response of the Administration to put her on suicide watch and in return pump sunshine and glittery unicorn messages throughout the school.

Daiyu wasn’t having any of it.

[Koekepan]

The school's automated standards and regulation system sends out a cheerful note to all the pupils:

Please remember that, while we cherish the inner beauty of all of you, our standards of dress also relate to the whole student. Remember to cover up properly, now that the weather is getting colder, and cover the bits that only your parents or doctor should see. Those of you in our Household Assistance Program for the Disadvantaged are welcome to apply to the administration, confidentially, for replacements of outgrown or worn out items of clothing.

As pupils tackle the test for career guidance, or whatever it is, it becomes a topic of conversation how different it is from previous guidance tests. Previous ones were full of questions like: Do you enjoy the outdoors? while this one asks questions like: Which would you rather do outdoors: hunt, fish, or pick wild flowers?

The dissection and inspection of the girls' locker room gave rise to the discovery of absolutely no cameras whatsoever, resulting in a lot of consternation on the part of the school's staff.

[Twitch_]

Rio is multitasking, eyeballs flickering as she shuffles rapidly between AR windows. She's curled up in the corner of a classroom, surrounded by a handful of other blinkies, each one similarly occupied. None of them are paying each other the slightest real-world recognition, although they're piled together in a haphazard heap.

Task One is the career evaluation, which Rio is treating as an extremely serious exercise for the amusement of her friends. How do you feel about flower-picking, really? Which common household item reflects your inner soul?

Task Two is World of Wonderland, a brightly-colored MMORPG and current fad among the blinkies. They don't actually play the game much; the point is to see who can cheat most effectively. Rio usually wins. She'd be completely insufferable about it if it weren't for Domino, who periodically signs on and curbstomps her within minutes.

Task Three is research. Rio is bored and restless, the career evaluation has brought up some vestigial anxiety about her role in society, and her father's cab was vandalized again last night and he refuses to get upset about it. She wants to exert her power. Cautious feelers are going out to Cafe Frou-Frou, Papa Gotcha (could the rumors be true? A real fixer?), local connection hub AROma: I'm better than these idiots. Pay me to prove it.

[Koekepan]

Responses are coming back, as kids complete their career guidance questionnaires and some subterranean system processes the outcomes. Turns out that there are a few basic responses which the primitive system returns.

• You would be well placed to be an (insert job here), you are signed up for (insert vocational VR training course here). Most kids get this response.
• Your talents would be well turned to post-secondary academic education. You have been signed up for (insert academic coursework load here).Maybe one in four get this.
• The UCAS needs you! You are now signed up for (insert ROTC-style courseload here). A few kids get this - really not many.
• Your artistic side is very strong. You have been signed up for (insert combination of arts fundamentals, arts history and skills courses). Apparently five kids in the school got this.
• You have an exciting set of career options before you. An appointment has been made with a special guidance professional for you, next week.

Not too many people got the fifth result. Just a few. Rio, for example, and Colt, and Daiyu. They also have automatically arranged appointments with one Melinda Xavier, next week.

[Koekepan]

Papa Gotcha gets back to Rio with surprising speed - then again, in his line of work, communications matter.

The kind of jobs I need done aren't exactly for the junior class. I have a reputation to maintain. If you know someone reliable, you can point them my way and maybe earn a finder's fee.

Papa communicated with a talking headshot, rather than in text. He sounded jovial enough, rather than dismissive, but maybe that was just his style. And hey, he actually responded. Cafe Frou-Frou just sent an automated response advertising a coupon for their central american blend drip coffee (half off a baked item to go with it) and a teaser about new branches opening.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Monday, September 5, 2072 [08:32].

Perfect. Monday morning. Mondays suck.

Zoé - or Liara, as she was being called - had arrived on time, dutifully, but with the incessant drizzle, she had felt compelled to take a cab rather than her bike, but hadn't been able to do so and thus had been forced to ride the bike. The Horizon Double Revolution was a great machine... Just not in inclement weather. Worse still, she had three bloody hours after class of delivering pizzas to do.

That's why they call them Chores, she reminded herself as she slunk through the school, multitasking very efficiently between paying attention to the AR displays and the hallways.

Those who passed her and were completely colorblind would think she looked out-of-place: though her short height was not entirely beyond the pale even for an adult metahuman, her slender, lanky build looked very out of place in a high school. Those who were fully blessed with the gift of sight would find themselves assailed by an unusual riot of color: she had decided to go whole-hog and bring out her dressCODE CYBERPIRATE ensemble, a set of clothes that cost more than some of the families of the students here made in a whole month: glossy black trimmed in glowing red neon tubes, with a soft rain of glittering nonsense symbols that looked really awesome raining down her back and chest. It's not AR - it's clothes that function as a display. And her outfit wasn't even the half of it.

Her exposed skin was a light, pale blue in color, dappled with even paler blue markings up and down her body - reportedly (amongst those who paid attention in the locker room,) it was a fully body treatment. The most spectacular thing about her was her hair, however; it cascaded in a veritable cornucopia of colors, seemingly unpredictably, yet not randomly.

As she walked along the school's corridors, she was composing a social media post to the school's social media, updating her profile and posting her thoughts.

Day three of my continuing adventures in public education here in Seattle - Tacoma, really. I've decided to just go ahead and adopt the nickname Liara - she was sexy, and I wish had biotic powers. Telekinesis would be f**king wizard. The school bureaucracy's gears are chugging slowly, which one might attribute to the aged state of the wretched Matrix infrastructure in here. The school's nexus is entirely up to the challenge of wheezing once in the face of light usage loads and then throwing in the towel, and frankly I fear going into VR here without at minimum a rating 6 Biofeedback Filter running, given the way the power flickers every time a sodding lorry drives by.

I'm starting to get a feel for the school's social scene, though. There's a number of distinct categories that the students here try to neatly file themselves into, or risk being filed into by others. I don't fit neatly into any of them, but I suspect that few here would. In case anyone's reading this and happens to be a local, consider this an outsider's perspective looking in:

Blinkenlights
Guys, seriously, I get that you love the Matrix. I love it too. The Matrix is the wave of the past, the present and the future, at least until an interstellar version is invented.

For the love of f**k, take a shower. You don't have to do much more than that, I swear, but take a rutting shower. (If you're a freshly-showered Blinkenlight, this doesn't apply to you.) The meatspace is not to be ignored, believe me, and you all do such incredible things with AROs that some guidance counselor is certain to tell you that you have a bright career ahead of you as graphics designers or matrix topography designers, but take a bloody shower!

Clones
The so-called Clones, AKA Drones, AKA Zombies... I just don't even know. These guys don't know you're insulting them, and they don't care. The only thing they care about is getting good grades, and they study like mad. I can sort of respect that, I guess, but I doubt it'll matter when the corps can just hire one guy for the price of ten of you to design an Agent to do the work of ten thousand of you. I know High School is supposed to suck holy donkey dong, but you could at least try to come out of the shell and have some fun - or jack in with the blinks and have some fun inside.

Hollies
I'd probably like the Hollies more if my first experience with them hadn't been the queen bee of the blonde courtesan club trying to make me feel like a walking metahuman dung heap...

That aside, I get it. Some of you want to go to tinsel town and make it big. That goal is within your grasp, but if you want to do it in a position other than horizontally, you may just be S.O.L. The more realistic of you are simply infatuated with games and trids and love everything that comes out of the entertainment mecca of CalFree, to which I have to say: my Miracle Shooter name is GlowStick 898, and I don't miss. These halls have become my stalking grounds, and if you think you're a bad enough predator to take me on, come get some.

Shadowcrawlers:
The name just says it all, I think. Have any of you held a real gun in your hands, or gotten elbow-deep in cleaning fluid when you were done shooting it? If you're smart and actually make some money, the first thing you'll buy is an olfactory cutout.

Sixers
I'm pretty sure literally every one of you in the school has sent me a friend invitation since Thursday. It's kind of scary, I'll be perfectly honest, I had to whip up a script to batch refuse them.

Let me just say this, guys: being a changeling isn't all it's cracked up to be. The downsides at least balance the upshots evenly, and if SURGE hits you hard, well, I'm about the best you can hope for. Some poor motherfuckers wind up with insect eyes and worse.

Being an Elf rocks, though.

Wabbits
How do you bloody do it? I couldn't even clear four hurdles in gym on Friday, and I'm pretty sure that when the coach told me to just jog around the track, some of you were quadruple and even quintuple lapping me. Are you all on something, or do you just take coffee intravenously?

Washouts
You know, I can sort of agree with your message. The Sixth World does, in some ways, fellate the gigantic stallion. But for f**k's sake, do you have any idea how depressing you guys are to see? Are you - are you actually trying to make everyone else in the school as miserable as you are?

I have a suggestion: start off small, and put an article of clothing that reflects a significant amount of electromagnetic radiation between 10¹³hz and 10¹⁵hz, and do experiment to find what makes you smile, like music or games or academic excellence or positive reinforcement of some sort. We can go from there.

Zoé paused, shaking her head; a group of blonde girls were walking down the corridor, and she flashed the zoom on her cybereyes up high, determining in an instant that it was Eden Masden and her honeybees. Deciding the time was not right for a confrontation, she turned and slipped into the first room she found nearby, closing the door. The lock was quick to subvert, being that it was mechanical, and she tugged the shade down on the door before the honeybees could draw close.

Eat that, she thought, flicking the light off. In the early morning, seattle drizzle; with a dark gray overcast outside and the overhead LEDs off, Liara was the brightest light in the room, which suited her just fine, between the glowing lines on her clothes and the bioluminescent light coming off the dappled pattern which lights up like pinpoint freckles on her face, larger dappled dots running down the sides of her face and neck, into her jumpsuit.

"Are any of you paying any attention to the meat," she asked, without even looking back; she didn't need to. She sensed the vigorous Matrix presence of the baker's half-dozen of Blinkenlights in the room. Most would presume she was running a high-rating Sniffer program that alerted her to nearby Matrix traffic, and they would not be wrong. None could know that she was innately sensitive to the electric impulses of wireless transmissions and the electromagnetic current of power running through their commlinks, both well within her sensory range.

The slender youth turned to the Blinkenlights in the room, eyes flicking over them. Most of them did not impress themselves upon her one way or another; ordinary blinkies, lost in augmented or virtual reality, huddling like natives around a digital wise-woman. In size she was nothing spectacular, barely larger than Zoé herself, but she was possessed of more adult proportions, wearing a dressCODE CYBERPIRATE jacket similar to Liara's own. She had some means, then, and anyone with a fondness for Matrix gear who could afford to splurge on dressCODE had to be slinging something fairly nice, hardware wise. Her eyes took on an unnatural shine, black with a white iris and corona, as she approached the Blinkies, her public PAN features resolving to their scrutiny: not ostentatiously overdone, but she is carrying a virtual pet in the form of what appears to be some kind of living fuzzball peering with large, matching eyes out at those she looks at, as she walks over to the corner.

"Hi. I'm Zoé, but people are starting to call me Liara", she both says and transmits to Hex, while querying the other elf's PAN and searching the school and locality's social media for data on her. She smiles as she greets the other tech-head. Do you shake hands? Some people don't like it, and I don't wanna look like a right tit - or a left tit - by being left hanging.

[NeVeRLiFt]

Colt stops talking to ork sitting beside him when the beautiful elf enters the class room and stares wide eye at her with his mouth dropped open to the floor.
After the initial shock wears off he composes himself and tries to not gawk at her as she makes her way into the class room.

Catching her eye he see's the intelligence behind them.... he give's her a sly wink and nod as if saying "whats up" before turning back to the ork, continuing his conversation about last nights news on the Shadowrunners that hit the Ares lab.

Once done talking with the ork, Colt stands and makes his way over to the two ladies and sits down in a bean bag cushion close by them and introduces himself.

Hello there ladies (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) the names Colt Seavers.... but my friends call me Lobo
Lobo is polite and sincere with his introduction and tries to give his best smile without showing to much gums!


Lobo is tall standing 6' 3" and weighing almost 220 lbs, he has a athletic/muscular build for a teenager... he has chestnut brown hair that he keeps combed over and parted to his right side with the sides and back trimmed close, his eyes are beautiful light-verdant green and when the light hits them just right they have a sorta glow to them. His complexion is slightly tan and he's clean shaven.

[img]http://i44.tinypic.com/2vdjkpg.jpg[/img]

[Vegas]

When Daiyu entered the room, it was as if a shadow passed through the open door. Shrouded from head to toe in shades of black and grey, the lack of color was even more pronounced against her almost snow white skin. The diaphanous grey material of her shirt was sheer enough to expose the lacy black bra underneath and the glitter of the metal piercing that dangled from her navel as it swirled around her as she walked.

She kept to the edges of the room, choosing her path that put the most distance between her and the other students that were for the most part immersed either in the VR of their studies or the Matrix. To those that looked up when she entered, she flashed them the best look of disdain that she could muster. She tended to like the rooms filled with the Clones, occasionally she’d settle on the classrooms filled with Blinkies if she could get over the smell. Either way they tended to leave her alone in the meat to put forth just enough effort to get by in her classes to satisfy her parents demands.

Daiyu mused over the message that waited for her when she re-entered the educational environment VR.

Special Guidance Professional. How perfectly dreadful, can’t imagine what triggered that result, it wasn’t like I was trying to answer the questions seriously…

[Koekepan]

The classrooms still exist, because the structure of old buildings which are really expensive to replace doesn't change that quickly. Nowadays there isn't a teacher presiding over every classroom so much as technology, run remotely by the school system's bureaucracy. In effect, the school is broadly supervised by what amounts to a few security riggers. Of course, the riggers do have things like voice tone analysis to predict where trouble might be, and there is a discipline response team which they call upon to break up fights or other sorts of trouble.

In each classroom, as has been the case for many years, the kids tend to segregate themselves into their groups naturally, so a haphazard cluster of blinkies or a hyperventilating caucus of hollies is perfectly normal. More outgoing ones do drift around, of course, and the darker corners can usually be found to contain the washouts.

As far as the actual personnel managing the school, they are naturally rather well known to the kids. There are the maintenance folks (who contain the bulk of the metahumans, including trolls and dwarves who take very little crap indeed), the secretarial and management staff, and then the specialist groups like remedial teachers, tutors, and so on. This means that almost everyone except the freshman class knows perfectly well that Melinda Xavier isn't a regular member of the staff, but probably some kind of consultant.

The old desks which were used for lecture-format classes are largely gone in favour of reclining chairs or even beanbags more suitable for VR. It's supposed to make the school feel more comfortable, but given the hard-wearing, institutional nature of the fabrics and structures chosen, it looks like a rehab facility crossed with an airport departure hall.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Since she got the message about the Special Guidance Professional, Zoé has been running a matrix data search on her, putting her average skills and white-hot commlink to work in AR, searching and sifting results, almost automatically. She defaulted to searching the entire Matrix, so the Interval is 1m.

Interval 1: 4 successes
Interval 2: 3 successes
Interval 3: 2 successes
Interval 4: 5 successes
Interval 5: 4 successes
Interval 6: 2 successes
Interval 7: 3 successes
Interval 8: 3 successes

After eight minutes, she either knows what there is to know about miss Melinda Xavier, or has called off the search as a thorough waste of time hunting a ghost. Fortunately, that search can happen easily in the background, her attention easily divided between running the search and walking down the halls, ducking Eden Madsen, and entering a room in which to turn down the lights.

[Koekepan]

After eight minutes, she either knows what there is to know about miss Melinda Xavier, or has called off the search as a thorough waste of time hunting a ghost. Fortunately, that search can happen easily in the background, her attention easily divided between running the search and walking down the halls, ducking Eden Madsen, and entering a room in which to turn down the lights.

Honestly, it doesn't take particularly long to pin down Melinda Xavier. She has a substantial record as an academic in the field of abnormal developmental psychology, with a stint in incarcerated populations and another in profiling and research into early identification and treatment. Basically, your fairly typical psychiatrist. Why she's involved in guidance counsel work now is not entirely clear, but there is something about her joining the Tacoma Education Authority as a consultant in a joint delinquency reduction push with various other departments as well as Knight Errant.

Presumably she's here to help kids get their feet on the first rung of that career ladder so that they can reach for bigger and better things. The taxpayers' dollars, hard at work.

[Vegas]

Folding down into the Lotus position as she sank rather gracefully to the floor with her back against the wall of the classroom, Daiyu shot a quick message over to Kim to see if her assessment results came back.

Got the you’ve got an artistic side, you’ll be taking these classes..blah blah blah. You?

She chewed mindlessly on her almost black, blood red lips while she formulated her response. The flurry of messages pinging back and forth amongst the Washouts was starting to produce a pattern, one that she most obviously fell well outside the curve. No one had received anything like she had, no other mandatory meetings with a guidance drone from the Administration. It raised her hackles a little and put her on edge as she shot a message back to her best friend after what they had done to Starling.

Some total crap message about meeting a guidance pro next week. Never heard of her though… Maybe I finally failed their psych eval afterall. :\

[Koekepan]

Bit by bit the general news filters through. There's a very small crowd who get the special appointment. Maybe a dozen, school-wide.

Most of them were already headed for some kind of special treatment, like the kid who likes to put kittens in trash cans and set them on fire. Or the wabbit who was repeatedly caught on the principal's desk, leaving various excretions. Or the ork girl who got pregnant (apparently deliberately), and then made a huge stink about metahuman rights and orkish culture when the administration got upset.

And a few more normal-seeming ones, like Daiyu, or Colt, for example.

[Twitch_]

Rio's mood is not improved by being blown off. Junior class, huh? She'd show him junior class. Rio curls her hand into a fist, smashing an opponent's skull with her warhammer in World of Wonderland. The spray of virtual blood almost makes her feel better.

Her sulking is interrupted by a ping from the periphery of the AR display in her glasses and a vague awareness that someone is looming over her. Still in a bad mood, she responds with her very best blank stare, while the emotitoy hanging around her neck chatters indignantly and throws a rude hand gesture. One or two of the blinkies glance curiously at it before returning to their torpor.

Not bothering to get up, she leans forward and grabs Liara's foot casually. When this does not produce the AR window she was looking for, she frowns and pokes the unresponsive shoe before realizing her mistake and rolling her eyes. "Can I help you with something." Her voice is flat and rusty from disuse.

[ShadowDragon8685]

"Uhhh... Sorry?"

Zoé is taken aback - slightly, anyway - by the grip (and poke) on her boot. It's not often she can be said to loom over anything except young children and small animals, and is nonplussed for a moment, quickly searching for the Matrix trails to Rio's attention, as her earlier messages seemed not to get her attention.

This better? Sorry, I figured someone wearing a dressCODE jacket would be paying a little more attention to the meat. Her Matrix message pops up in its own window in Rio's line of sight, translucently overlaid atop her World of Wonderland battlefield, in such a way as to get her attention, but not as to distract her from the slaughter that's to be done.

I just came over to say hello because you're the only blinkie in this room who looked like they gave a damn what they look like; I'm Zoé, or Liara... All the others are clustered around you like six little Indians around a big chief, so I figured you were like, the digital goddess around here. I can, uh, go, if you'd like...

Her turning around after Rio's awkward grab for her foot brings her attention to Colt's introduction, as he walks up towards himself and Rio. His wink on the way over had unnerved her slightly, but she'd brushed it off. Now that he'd approached, though, she looks positively nervous of the tall young man who stands well more than a foot above her. "Um... H-Hello," she says, in the meat, scanning his instant message.

Her eyes snap a picture of Lobo instantly, easily visible despite the fact that she turned out the lights, between the natural glow she herself is putting off, the dreary light that makes it through the clouds outside, and her cybereyes' low-light vision, and she sends a picture of him to Rio, popping up in the AR chat window she opened in the other elf's PAN, along with a message Do you know this guy? He's introducing himself to us... He's the size of a mountain!

To Lobo, however, she does send a message in reply: Hi... I'm Zoé Devois, Colt; or if we're going by handles, 'Hi, Lobo. I'm Liara.'

She clearly seems to be unnerved, greatly, by the huge young man approaching her, but trying not to show it.

As she's trying to be polite and civil in the face of feeling nervous - and looking heart-wrenchingly adorable in the process - the results of her Matrix search came back, and she frowns in utter consternation. "Special Guidance Professional," she mutters aloud. "Melinda Xavier? Sounds fishy... She looks like she is who she says she is, though."

Zoé fires up her facial recognition software; her general Matrix crawl for Ms. Xavier has brought back an image of Mardis Gras 2061, with Ms. Xavier dancing on a table, festooned with heavy beads. It's more out of mischievous, youthful curiosity than paranoia anymore, when she sets the program and to trawling the Matrix for moving and still images and trid of Mardi Gras 2061 featuring Ms. Xavier. It's a search that will take a while, but it can take place in the background, and her 'link has more than enough processing power to spare.

She walks out of the semicircle of blinkies, a little put off by Rio's cold response and manner, but still hoping she sends a message back by Matrix, walking off through the room, and giving Lobo a wide berth; thinking that perhaps Rio would be more interested in unplugging to attend to the attentions of an older teenager who might be described as "hunky" by those into the large male segment of the population, though she does watch for messages from him, too. Finally, she settles for a small-ish beanbag chair in the back of the room, turning it around to face the back wall as she sits out on it, stretching her legs out.

It isn't until she's seated that she finds herself facing the elf Washout. Her first thought is Awh, fuck. Is she gonna try and hum me out of existence, too? Her second thought it Well, may as well try.

She senses the activity of the youth's commlink, and reasons that she's engrossed in AR. Zoé almost pities people who have to rely on simple AR; with her commlink wired directly to her head and her other augs, she has seemingly limitless amounts of attention to spare; some of which she spares looking up and down Daiyu. She certainly wasn't dressed in Matrix Chic the way Rio or herself was; Daiyu went classic Goth, and Zoé bit her lip as her eyes ran up and down the pale white elf's practically see-through shirt (aided by the incredible resolution in her eyes) and over her lacy brassiere; down to her feet and back up to the blood-red lips.

Clearly, at least, this was someone who cared what she looked like. May as well try to make introductions. "Hi. I'm Zoé." she introduces herself to Daiyu, again both speaking and transmitting it as a text message at the same time. If Daiyu looks up at her in the physical world, she'd find someone who, in the dark, might well pass for an alien; clad head to toe in a dressCODE CYBERPIRATE ensemble, the light-lines trailing down Zoé's jacket, trousers, boots and gloves shift from a soft glow red to a bright glowing white, while her face remains a lit up pale blue, with brighter, visibly glowing dots, all beneath a riot of color in her hair, the power of her commlink's transmitter on full to connect directly to the Tacoma RTG for leaving a geode-like multi-loop pattern in a rainbow of colors along the right side of her head, shifting with pulses in the Matrix and the ambient electromagnetic flux caused by the blinkies and other students in the room.

In the Matrix, on the other hand, she tries to put her best foot forward, leading not merely with a chat message but with her avatar, which after the events of last Thursday should surprise approximately nobody to learn that it does, in fact, look to be an Asari, a fact which will be lost on almost everyone except those who like her are intor retro remakes of old games. Still, even if you don't know what it is, it is a pretty fly looking blue alien.

[NeVeRLiFt]

Seeing the Distress he has caused the girl Lobo quickly sends her a text on his commlink apologizing for blunt introduction.
Hey sorry about that, sometimes when something catches my eye I just react... and you certainly caught my attention.
So what's your story little lady? You don't exactly fit the profile around here... you stick out like a sore thumb?
I'm just looking to make some new friends so if I can ever be of any help just let me know.

Lobo sends the hot goth bunny a text also.
You know you're the hottest thing since sunburn girl! hell sliced bread ain't got nothing on you...
Names Colt Seavers, but my friends call me Lobo. And it would be my honor to hangout with you and maybe catch movie or get a cup soykaf and talk.
I'll be in touch unless you shut me down... and if you ever need anything just let me know.

Lobo busy himself by logging in to World of Wonderland and quickly finding Rio and tagging a long beside her killing stuff and exploring.
He introduces himself and is just overall helpful and friendly and plays only chatting if she seems in the mood to chat, otherwise he just follows her around helping and allowing her to tag mobs first unless she sends him a invite to group up.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Zoé is busy trying to introduce herself to Daiyu, finding the much-taller elf to be very fascinating, and rather attractive. Fortunately, she can multi-task very well, thanks to her attention coprocessor and speed-of-thought reception of messages.

I get that a lot, she replies to Lobo, whilst waiting and hoping for some response from Daiyu.
I look like I look, and that's really all these is to it. All that I want to go into, anyway. I know I don't fit into any 'mold.' I might argue that nobody truly fits a mold.

She doesn't frown (as she is facing Daiyu, and doesn't want to mistakenly be seen to be frowning at her,) but does find this a bit consternating.
How does one say that large men taking an interest in me is usually creepy, she thinks to herself.

Sorry, I just... Things like the wink, and 'little lady,' from men your size, tend to make me nervous. You're huge, and I'm kind of the exact opposite. My story, such as it is, is that I'm from Boston, and now I live in Seattle and I don't know anybody here... So it's good to meet someone. Sorry I got skeevy on you.

[NeVeRLiFt]

I get that a lot actually, people don't know how to take me and are surprised I'm actually a geek at heart.