[IC] [SR4] What I want to do when I grow up, High School builds character Options

[Happy Noodle Boy]

After the last costumer for the morning rush left, Charlie told Todd to head out. Todd started running toward school. Even though he had plenty of time, he was following the advice of his sensei to use this time in his life to practice his skills and hone them. While he learned a lot from sensei Castillo he liked to think that he knew enough to know he didn't know enough. For example he should learn more about lock picking before he used the auto pick he found in the duffle bag Johnny gave him.Sensei Catillo

Todd wondered when he was given a choice of three duffel bags what was in the other two. If could have been weapons, money and gems, or maybe body parts. He shuddered at the last thought. While Johnny assured him that past that stage in his life, he realized Johnny was one dangerous individual and it was best if he never confirmed or denied that statement

As it was he selected B and E gear and some pretty sweet electrical gear. As he ran past a couple of his classmates dressed in their shadow crawler synth leathers I suppose there is a market for shadow runners with those certain type of skills. If I were to take an interest in the lifestyle I don’t think I would advertise ,but then again there is something to say about hiding in plain sight.

Farrokh Barara
Todd then ran past a person he did not believe in hiding in plain sight, he recognize Farrokh Basara and waved, a unofficial leader of the local squatters. He remembered to check the bushes to make sure the couple of large cups of soup he left earlier was gone and no trash was left. Ever since the manager encouraged this and other small acts of kindness, the local squatter population has reciprocated by keeping disruptions to a minimum.

As he got to the entrance he made a point to check his official com for any normal messages and reminders and to check his real com and his agent to check on any developments. He was trying to help his blogger friend "Ivan Annoying" find out if the girl they put on suicide watch was pushed that way by cyber-bulling. He had his agent check the social boards to see if anyone was bragging.

I got one more year at this freaking place. If I can survive the school year my options open up. While I do not have the same options I had at the corporate school, given the drek that Renraku did to my father that may not be a bad thing. The question remains, will the world give me that year?.
Todd paused as if hoping for an answer to his last thoughts. Hearing nothing Todd preceded inside.

[Aria]

"Wanna talk about it? What's your family like?"

Hop looked up at Zoe, still slightly sheepish after his outburst

”What? I, no, they’re ok really. They’ve looked after us all. They’re wrapped up in work at the moment so we kind of look out for each other, my sister and me, I just know how disappointed they’ll be if things go to the shit again! We used to live…er, I’m not supposed to talk about the past, low profile and all that?” Damn, he was flustered, shouldn’t have made a slip like that

”It’s not all that mysterious really, we all have some past we’d rather forget about right?” although he had a feeling that with this inquisitive little girl that particular evasion might not do the trick…

"Hop, you sticking around? "

"Sure, Kate's ok, I'll hang for a bit... "

[ShadowDragon8685]

Zoé seems to be insensate, nestled up against the Asian elf, but her avatar's voice comes out of the speakers, very smooth, feminine and adult.

"No, I get it. It's okay, I won't - ah, hell."

There's a moment's pause, and then Zoé's own voice comes out instead. "Sorry - fixed that. And yeah, I get it. So, just you and your sister, huh? She older, or younger? Is she all alone, or with friends or family? Do you need to call and check on her?

In the Matrix, Zoé's avatar is revealed striding confidently around her home node, queuing up various searches and data analyses; a window into the node is offered to both Hop and Daiyu, who will see that she's happily striding her nude alien around the inside of a massive computer monitoring center, with data flowing along screens and vertical panes of nearly-transparant blue glass. She pauses, and looks towards the 'camera,' smiling. "I've had this reality filter a while. I like it... But what do you think? Does it really suit this avatar, even in free-runner gear?" The avatar's body flashes for a moment, and is suddenly clad in heavy cargo shorts and a tank top that barely comes down to the bottom of her ribs, and a pair of matching tabi shoes, all bright red and white. "Or do you think I should get a more sci-fi filter to go with the new avatar? Oh, and movie - what do you guys think? Something animated, something live-action, something silly and funny, something sci-fi, some kind of hard-boiled, gritty, explosion-filled action movie?"

She holds her arm out, and the 'camera' moves, revealing that there's a hovering drone in front of the alien, displaying a screen with the movie list she's been browsing. She's currently highlighted one titled The Mesh. "I haven't seen this one yet. It's live-action with heavy special effects. It's about a girl who inherits an ancient piece of prototype super-tech along with a family company. She gets physically converted into a ghost in the 'Trix and has to try and find a way out, interacting with programs smart and stupid, AIs, active users and the like... It's pretty action-heavy. Then there's this one.

She scrolls the list down to a flick called Sugar Rush 2070. "It's an all-animated mega-buster by Horizon, all about everyone's favorite video game characters, and what they do when we're not playing their games on our commlinks. Somehow they got the license to use tons of characters from all sorts of different companies in making it. I haven't seen it yet, but I wanna."

Zoé starts to run one of her searches; running a comprehensive search on the Matrix for any information she can dig up about any sort of preexisting communications infrastructure that might already be in place in the mission area.

[ Spoiler ]

Assuming -2 dice penalty for searching for Obscure data, searching the whole of the Matrix and digging as deep as is possible, Zoé achieves 24 hits in 13 minutes of comprehensive searching.

If she isn't suffering the -2 dice penalty, she achieves the necessary 24 hits in 9 minutes of searching.

If neither of those were sufficient, then it's literally impossible, though Zoé won't give up until fifteen minutes have passed.

While she's searching, she's a little distracted, but moving at the speed of cold sim, she can still keep a conversation or watch the movie while searching. As she begins the search, she says to the others, "For my money, I kind of want to see Sugar Rush 2070, but you guys can choose. I don't mind."

[Koekepan]

Liara's network activities reveal no coordinated wireless resource establishment, but does reveal a network of utility tunnels and various cable rights of way, including ancient but still valid coaxial and optic fibre cable run and access rights.

Whether they are still there, usable, or in use, legitimately or not, is not recorded.

[Ziathra]

Graciana settles herself comfortably in the truck, making certain her head and neck are supported by something.

“I'm going to go astral and look the place over,” she says to Tristan. “This shouldn't take long.”

Graciana then slips out of her physical body. For a moment, she relaxes in the closest thing she has to a true home these days. Then she flits over to what's left of Daniel Bleriot's home, invisible to most eyes. She begins looking through what's left for something with an aura on it, starting wherever seems to be the remains of the bathroom.

I hope his hairbrush or toothbrush survived. That would be perfect.

Graciana also keeps an eye out for body parts and things that might be part of the cartridge press.

We should have picked up a tarp and some plastic bags.

[Koekepan]

Graciana's astral form drifts over the lot, over which the ghosts of flames still seem to dimly flicker here and there, but the fact is that nothing with much of an intact astral signature seems to have survived - or any such thing was removed before the fire. There are vague, vague impressions of industry, and of violence, but nothing clear can be garnered from them through the overriding impression of destruction and desolation.

That said, the fire does not seem to have been in any way magical or supernatural, merely consuming within this building, sufficiently so to have weakened and ultimately brought the structure itself down.

[Ziathra]

Graciana frowns at the traces of violence. She frowns harder when her careful search finds absolutely nothing with an astral signature on it. She pauses by the impressions of industry, double-checking for pieces of machinery.

Arson, I'll bet. Fire is destructive, but this destructive? I think there would have been some clearer trace if he'd died here. So our stray puppy may be alive, but he and the press are elsewhere.

[Koekepan]

The astral offers only a very shadowed view of such soulless things as machinery, but what little Graciana can make out after the fire only confirms the impression that nothing functional remained when the fire took the building.

[RdMarquis]

"Hey, uh, Andy? Have a good day."

"Thanks, Shane. You, too."

Neither of them saw the small sigh of relief the other gave, but both knew it was there. Shane wasn't a parent. He'd never intended to be a parent, and he didn't know how to go about it. He looked after Andrew because that was what family should do. Awkward as their interactions were. Angelo's mood dimmed a bit on the bus to school. Say what you wanted about LA. It gave you a sunny day every once in a while. As for the morning announcements, they fell on deaf ears. Save for the visit and evaluation by various groups. Angelo made a note to be absent that day. The less the company saw of him, the better.

On the other hand, the chaos in the hallways cheered him in a way he couldn't explain. He supposed he just preferred "inmates running the asylum" to "here is your number, citizen". So long as the situation did not devolve into "Lord of the Flies". Angelo watched another ARO go up while he idly flipped through the career guidance evaluation.

The teen's result left a bad taste in his mouth. Even if it wasn't the type of euphemism his former hosts would have used for a firing (or worse), something in Angelo's gut told him the appointment meant nothing but bad things. "Well, damn."

[Ziathra]

Graciana sighs. This will be a lot harder than I planned.

She returns to her body. “Bad news. There's not so much as a stray hair in there. The fire was so bad that I can still find traces of it on the astral. I found faint traces of industry and violence, but absolutely nothing useful. I think it's arson. I think our stray was removed before the fire really got going, along with the press and anything I could have used to find him.

“I suppose we can go back to finding Dealers and following them around, but we might have to do that tomorrow. What do you want to do?”

[Happy Noodle Boy]

Checking through his messages he focused on one concerning the "special evaluation" The term "I got a bad feeling about this" comes to mind
Todd called up his agent, Hana AKA 'PHNG" Pink Haired Ninja Girl after she supplied him with Ivan's info request he was going to have do research on the counselor and whatever special program he was about to get dragged into.

He cursed himself again for putting off checking into a sniffer program I could have already started hooking into the wireless traffic I can have gotten a better handle the local infoverse. I know I am not a hacker but it is amazing how little most of the students and staff pay attention to their wireless. This may be the point being overcautious may be my downfalll Over caution he mused, he had others call it paranoia. He started sorting yesterday's as well as the current conversations around him.

His ear-buds looked and sounded like he was listening to the latest from"The Lindbergh Babies" and "Suicide Horses". The devices were part of a audio system that he recorded conversations around him. Todd could listen to them directly and/or record them for later search analysis. he had set search his keyword special program and the conciliator's name. He got one promising hit. Some girl is screaming about being put away and not fair. He is going have to clean up the sound data. Todd hoped he a her voice print on file, he probable should talk to her and see if she knows something more on the situation.

His agent beginning to Que in. I think I will drop a message to Pap Gotcha. If I can't afford the sniffer I may have to barter because time may be a wasting.

[Vegas]

Daiyu waved off Hop's evasion of talking about his family life as nothing she wasn't exactly forthcoming about her situation either. Instead of makings. Big deal about it's he settled back into the couch, shifting Zoé's weight slightly so she could slip her arm around the girl while she was in VR.

"I'm cool with either movie really, I'm not picky. Hop? You want something cute and silly or more serious and dramatic?"

[Koekepan]

As he got to the entrance he made a point to check his official com for any normal messages and reminders and to check his real com and his agent to check on any developments. He was trying to help his blogger friend "Ivan Annoying" find out if the girl they put on suicide watch was pushed that way by cyber-bulling. He had his agent check the social boards to see if anyone was bragging.

A quick search shows no sign of any bragging. In fact, it mostly shows angst-ridden complaints from other washouts about how cruel, unfair, capricious, heavy-handed, narrow-minded, and mean-spirited the authorities are, and how disproportionate their response is to one girl's hypothetical statement.

There is no responding statement from the school.

[Koekepan]

The teen's result left a bad taste in his mouth. Even if it wasn't the type of euphemism his former hosts would have used for a firing (or worse), something in Angelo's gut told him the appointment meant nothing but bad things. "Well, damn."

The school can control the official students' chat environment, but they have no control (despite repeated efforts) over unofficial channels. Discussion of the results and outcomes is rampant. Some people seem to think that a special appointment means great things in the future, but the rest are deeply suspicious of it. It smells of special assignments and extra work, at the least.

[RdMarquis]

The rest of the day saw Angelo's mood plummet.

From his jacket, the teen produced a pair of sunglasses with red lenses. His lips peeled back into a sneer as he practically slapped them onto his face. Bad news it was, then. Unless the administration saw something he didn't in a kid who would leave his, well, leavings on the principal's desk, and...

God. Damn. Kittens? Being crazy wasn't enough for you, guy? You had to be cartoonishly evil on top of it all?

And they had been shuffled into the same group. At least he had other people to commiserate with. Not that Angelo planned on saying so much as two words to the kitten burner, if he could help it. His index finger paused over the screen of his Airware as he recalled where he had gotten the commlink. A certain individual had insisted on rewarding Angelo with the device after the teen helped get the remains of a wall off his leg and called Docwagon. A year passed with Andrew learning what the programs on the Airware were for. And that he shouldn't believe in coincidences.

He ran a hand through his hair and began searching for someone sane to ask about the appointment. Horizon had a branch right in town. If they knew where he was and wanted to talk, they'd have reached out to him that very day. A few minute's of work revealed a social media post which had gone up around eight. GlowStick, huh? Appropriate. Assuming the name was in regard to her unique coloration. Angelo reached for the Miracle Shooter icon and signed on as Coil. His challenge to Zoe was accompanied by a message.

I'm always up for a shootout. But first thing's first. Tell me if this sounds familiar to you: You have an exciting set of career options before you. An appointment has been made with a special guidance professional for you, next week. I don't suppose you know what the hell we've gotten roped into?

[Ziathra]

“As long as we're going to have to get out and talk to people anyway, there's something I might as well do.”

Graciana hops out of the truck and picks a patch of pavement big enough for a thaumaturgic circle. Selecting white chalk for air spirits from one of the pockets of her armored cargo pants, she draws a circle, then an equilateral triangle within the circle. She pauses to access tonight's astrological data, then runs a calculation to determine which symbols she should use this evening. Graciana then quickly writes the appropriate symbols between the circle and the triangle. She double-checks her work, then carefully steps into the center of the circle.

Once there, Graciana begins to chant in Toki Pona, hoping that the Simple Language of Good will usefully alter her state of consciousness. It certainly causes the street people to slink into the shadows. “Person of air, come to me. Person of air and fear, come to me. Person of air and fear, hear me. Person of air and fear, help me.” Meanwhile, her thoughts wing to the metaplane of air.

[ Spoiler ]

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4306866/

5 hits for Graciana!

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4306887/

1 hit for the spirit! Graciana gets 4 services!

Graciana must now face 2 Drain, on Willpower+Logic of 7d6:

http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4306904/

4 hits is no Drain!

Outside the circle, a slowly twisting tornado takes form. The tornado is only 10 feet tall, but it is filled with suspended cobwebs, which in turn are filled with spiders.

What do you want, person of magic?

Thank you for coming. Await my commands on the astral plane.

The tornado fades from normal sight, spiders, cobwebs and all. The tornado is still very much present on the astral plane, however.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Zoé had been busy until nine, when she had finally noticed Angelo's message.

8:59@Coil [Glowstick]: Sorry, I was busy earlier. Um... Yes. It sounds familiar to me. Looks like we're on some kind of shit-list, huh? I don't know what it is... But I have a feeling it can't be good. I'd love to frag you sometime, though.

Normally, Zoé doesn't play fair at Miracle Shooter. Ever since she had her headware commlink installed, she'd have a habit of tracking the commlinks of those who were also running Miracle Shooter and using the electronic warfare skills she was developing to give herself a massive advantage in information, whilst also using similar trickery to befuddle attempts to find her, both those allowed for by the game's interface and those which were not.

Today is no different, but her heart's not in it, so she simply scurries around the school setting AR motion-sensor bombs (stealth RFID tags Ares sells for the game; supposedly one-shot, but any hacker can refurbish a used one,) and avoiding direct confrontation, preferring only to ambush, and then with explosive heavy ordinance or the digital version of the Ares Thunderstruck gauss rifle, or Ares Desert Strike sniper rifle (from down a long hall,) or Ares Crusader machine pistol (the very best thing to finish off someone damaged, but not 'dead,' from a trip-mine blast.)

Tactics generally regarded as noob-like, but she doesn't care. They're effective and if they piss off the other players, she still goes up in the leaderboard. Whether Coil will fall for such treachery is a good question, but the average player is in trouble.

9:45@Coil [Glowstick]: I did some digging on Melinda Xavier. She's some kind of prison psych shrink and developmental psychologist. I dunno about you... But this bodes ill.

I don't suppose you play Pokémon Radioactive? Or maybe Ultraviolet/Infrared?

Pokémon UV/IR/Rad were the latest three entries in the venerable game series. Ultraviolent and Infra-red were the standard dual-released games, they were augmented reality only; players could play the old-school top-down adventure game, and/or search for wild Pokémon in the real world and battle other players via AR. Radioactive was a full-sim adventure game and battle arena, that also supported AR battling, but not AR wild Pokémon searches. They were part of the same generation, of course, and Zoé has all three.

[Happy Noodle Boy]

As the school day of ended he took another look at that damnable list again.

This is truly a special list, three obvious trouble magnets ...and me. How in the hell did I get matched with these losers? There are other who also aren't anywhere near this level of wasted metahuman potential, so this doesn't bode well for them either.

He ran out of school. Okay today I head for the restaurant to help with dinner set up. this keeps up they may have Charlie's nephew take over for the afternoon cart shiftt and I may wind up doing setup for the weekdays.

I wonder if the three losers thought the test was an actual jobs application? maybe ms. Ork wanted a job as a profession mother and using the political angle so her future child doesn't hate her because she couldn't think of anything else to do with her life

Mr crap-on-desk maybe wants to a job as a guard dog, either that or wants someone to take care of him; give him mud baths and housebreak him using a rolled-up paper and a taser.

And yes, Kitten-burner. Perhaps he thinks Satan is hiring directly from high school, he may think the retirement benefits are better than most corporations. Another explanation is he wants a job where he can take innocent beings and derive pleasure from their prolonged suffering. In other words he want to be a high school teacher.


This musing was not getting him anywhere but more annoyed. In just one day his life options have shrunk to damn near zero. Quitting and getting a job was probably not an option, besides quitting school would disappoint his father. Not that Reform school would not make his father happier.

In order to explore legal options but I would need to know what I am facing and to find out before I might well get carted off to reform school. I reconized a couple of the people on list. After I am done at the restaurant I may want to look them up, assuming Papa G doesn't Call. But we will see




.

[RdMarquis]

After packing up and leaving the campus in a hurry, Angelo's steps slowed to a crawl. He wasn't going home. Not just yet. Once he returned, he would be expected to stay, and there was too much to worry about for that.

Unbelievable. His first day of school in a new city came with a new enemy to contend with. It's a deal, Angelo replied. Though he was hardly concerned about Miracle Shooter now. For the record, he planned his virtual gunfights in advance. Ask more casual players for the most popular battlegrounds, scout the places out, and start setting up to give the other guy a bad time. He was sure other players would eventually catch on, but until then, he would continue rolling grenades down ventilation shafts.

He narrowed his eyes at the name and occupation. Wild guess. They think we're future criminals. I'd thought the appointment was a standard warning that we're this close to being shipped off to juvie, but- Andrew was sure he could recite the results of his quiz from memory by now. -that exciting set of career options concerns me. Something tells me the justice system will not be involved. Right now, their plans for us can take a backseat to how we can disrupt said plans. You know anyone else involved who doesn't deserve a manhunt or straightjacket? We need to get together and figure something out.

And the solution was all but guaranteed to be drastic. Ultraviolet, yeah. Angelo wasn't too serious a player. He'd picked the game just because the monster on the cover (according to his friend, a stylized version the Norn, Urd) looked cooler than the other two.

[Ziathra]

“Tristan, would you please help me look around?”

Graciana collects a flashlight from the glove compartment of the truck and walks into what's left of the house. She is still wearing her driving gloves.

She walks with great care once she's in there, avoiding anything that looks like a weak spot in the floor. Her first stop is the bathroom, followed by the bedroom, hoping against hope that something useful survived the fire. Once she's done there, she takes a look around the rest of the place, looking for clues.

[Koekepan]

In order to explore legal options but I would need to know what I am facing and to find out before I might well get carted off to reform school. I reconized a couple of the people on list. After I am done at the restaurant I may want to look them up, assuming Papa G doesn't Call. But we will see.

Papa Gotcha doesn't call back, but does send a message:

"Tell me, kid. Why am I getting flooded with offers from a Tacoma High School today?"

[Koekepan]

She walks with great care once she's in there, avoiding anything that looks like a weak spot in the floor. Her first stop is the bathroom, followed by the bedroom, hoping against hope that something useful survived the fire. Once she's done there, she takes a look around the rest of the place, looking for clues.

No basements here, this was an old industrial building with concrete flooring. The closest thing to a weak spot is where the fire spalled the concrete.

Identifying living spaces would be trickier if it weren't for an ashy remainder of what may have been a bed - but this place burned long and fiercely. Little which is even identifiable is left. There's a metallic puddle which may once have been lead bullets for loading into ammunition, but even that is speculation. Most of the interior burned so hot that there is not even much in the way of soot left - and the rain has washed most of the rest down.

On the other hand, there's no real sign of equipment left. Maybe one or two bits and pieces which were forgotten screws or wrenches, that's it.

[Happy Noodle Boy]

Todd finish up at the Happy Noodle. The assistant Manager thanks him as head out. Angela says she's looking to include Sushi with real seafood, I would be nice to afford it if she does it.

Todd brings up his messages. He notices one from Papa Gotcha:

Papa Gotcha doesn't call back, but does send a message:

"Tell me, kid. Why am I getting flooded with offers from a Tacoma High School today?"

Todd Thinks for a moment. This is just getting better and better.. Todd pauses than composes his reply:

Sir, If you want the answer to that I can look into it. If I were to venture a guess right now, I would suspect unlike most of their fellow students they are hearing the sounds of the knives being sharpened and they still want to fight for their future. Get back to me and I can start the research.

Sheep

Todd figures he should actually start the research now. Start with the first few now and then go down the list based on response. For now I will exclude the three losers.

Hi I discovered that we seem to be on the same special list. If you happen to anything more on the "special" list please contact me. I suspect that ignorance will not do me any good. Thank you

A short message but to the point After I finish my homework assignments I may want to drag my B & E gear and review those options as well

[Vegas]

Daiyu had given Hop ample opportunity to partake in Zoé's weed or to casually decline before she picked up one of the rolling papers and pinched a healthy amount from the offered bag and almost expertly rolled and sealed a joint before she left a blood-red-black imprint of her lips against the seal of the paper. Sure, it wasn't her usual drug of choice, but in a pinch and after the day she had, Daiyu decided she deserved a bit of a break. She felt her pockets for a moment, her arm moving around Zoé before she fished out a lighter and lit up, holding in a long inhale.

A slow smile spread across her lips as she exhaled the overly-fragrant smoke.

"So your aunt really bought this for you? She's actually that cool?"

Daiyu was impressed. She might have been able to convince Jian to buy for her at some point, but he'd have held it over her head to use it against her with their parents. Besides, her parent's wouldn't ever have been cool enough to score her drugs. This is why she spent her spare time with Raven and his flock.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Zoé's alien avatar smiles in VR, chuckling softly.

"Yeah. She's like, the exact opposite of a responsible adult, while still being a responsible adult. Does that make any sense? Like, for instance, those chips in my stash? They're, uh, BTL masters... But they've been neutered, the gain on all the sim tracks turned down to CalHot levels and below. Not that it would matter, since the sim-module in my head still has its limiters on. She doesn't want me getting addicted or frying my neurons, but she doesn't mind if I slot stuff that, well, most parents would go into orbit if they found in their kids' possessions. Hell, she got them for me."

"And the weed - she won't let me smoke tobacco (not that I want to,) because it can fuck you up so bad and elves live such a long time to be fucked up bad for... But she doesn't mind if I get buzzed on old-school, more-or-less harmless cannabis. Only, yanno, I don't really care to. Same with alcohol; there's three bottles of wine in the fridge. They're, eh... I don't really care for them. I mean, sure, super-sweet, fruity, girly drinks I like, but I like them just as much without the booze, you know?"

Zoé giggles in the Matrix. In the background, it can be seen that her avatar is standing on a hovering platform in front of a massive series of holographic screens, sifting through data.

"She's like the best of an irresponsible aunt and a loving big sister in one, really. She never got to be a big sister to my mother, but she doesn't feel any different than she did back then now that she's my guardian, so... Yeah. She is that cool. She got me this place - near enough to her doss that I could just hop on my bike and be on her couch in less than twenty minutes, far enough away to feel like I'm my own girl, you know?"