Finally finished putting this together, though it'll probably need some revision at a time when I don't need to go to bed.
The theme of this piece is "Morgan has more personality contamination than she thought."
Well. It'd been fun, but I was running up agains the limit of how long I could not go to work without having consequnces. I needed to decide what I was
going to do with the rest of my life.
Unlike a lot of the other people from The Legendary, my bridges weren't burned behind me. I still had access to my birth form and identity. Even if someone
got the server logs and tracked down everyone who had been logged in, there'd be no way from looking at me to tell that I'd been at the computer at the
time. Not without being relatively familiar with Alexis Morgan's RP background, and very little of that was online.
But could I really go back to how things were?
Logic said I could, but emotionally, I couldn't quite believe it. After all, one of the going theories on the event said that what I was now was shaped by
my stories. And one key principle that I had kept reusing on one level or another in my writing was "Those who have power will use it, or else."
I had no particular desire to meet Or Else.
So I can't go back. But on the other hand, I can't stay here. Being in the same area as Bob's house seemed like it would be a good idea. But it
wasn't big enough for all of us. And I needed my stuff. Especially my computer. If I was right about things, it'd be one of my best tools in getting
powerful enough to deal with all the lunatics. Oh, and I'm an incurable packrat who never totally gets rid of anything if I can avoid it.
This left me with a set of housing, logistics, and transport problems, all of which could be solved quite simply by throwing a great deal of money at them.
I did not have a great deal of money.
However, I know how to get money.
Which is how I ended up making a rather long side trip on my way home...
* * *
Lifeforce scanners are fascinating things, in part because when I'd written about them, I'd left things so vague. I suppose I'd gotten some
inspiration from Shadowrun's astral perception, but in a lot of ways they weren't very similar at all.
One thing I'd definitely got down was that the world seen through them was quite colorful.
But I'd been playing with them a little here and there, and as I did so it brought up memories of the different things they could tell me. I could
recognize anything living as being so, and identify sentient beings. (Though no one had ever figured out the mechanics behind AIs being visible this way.) An
overall evaluation of health was possible, and a few (but by no means all) health conditions were discernable with analysis. And in some cases, the absence of
life was itself significant. There were things that I, with the help of the software running on my henshin device, knew how to recognize.
Among those things were active meth labs.
Normally, such things would be considered beyond the agency's scope. Bigger fish to fry, and such. Still, they spread misery for fun and profit, which fit
the usual criteria. And, possibly most importantly for practical purposes, I could find them. Without empathic abilities, I wouldn't be able to find
anything higher priority except as a target of opportunity. It wouldn't be a good idea to wait on that before establishing a proper financial base.
I took a moment to check myself over. I didn't have the effective invulnerability to forensic tracking that I was used to, so it wouldn't do to be
careless. I was wearing a long black dress that was slit almost insanely high, black high heels (which somehow I could walk in as long as I didn't think
about it), and thin black gloves. I smelled like alcohol. All as it should be.
As I walked up to the small house, I noticed the abrupt lack of any smell in the air. If I'd needed any confirmation that my scanners were right, this was
it. Only one thing ever caused such a complete lack of scent in the air - my defense fields were reacting to the presence of poison gas.
I knocked on the front door. It only took a few moments before someone answered. "Excuse me," I said, trying to slur my speech a bit, "My car
broke down a couple blocks from here, could I use your phone?"
I could see the risk/reward calculations going through his head. Had I seen anything that could lead the cops to him? Could he just shut the door and ignore
me? But it didn't take him long to notice my 'inebriated' state, and then he must have considered, what could he get from me? Was there anyone who
had seen me come here, or who would look for me?
He made the decision I wanted him to, grabbing my arm and pulling me inside.
I didn't protest. Why should I? He was taking me in the direction I wanted to go. If I'd been feeling that helpful, I would have told him he should
have grabbed my right arm. It would have given him a few more seconds.
The moment he closed the door, I willed my gun to appear in my hand. Before he'd had a chance to notice that I was now armed, I had pushed it against his
chest and pulled the trigger. It was a low power shot for silence's sake, but that didn't make a bullet through the heart any less fatal.
I was now had a (potentially very short) time limit. I ran forward and into the kitchen. The man sitting at the table actually had time to notice me before
I'd hit him with a quick volley.
However, I'd given the third man in the house ample warning by now. I had yet to actually see him, but he obviously knew someone dangerous was at work
here, and didn't intend to take any chances. Perhaps he'd acquired a shotgun, and was lying in wait to ambush me as I came through the door.
Unfortunately, while I couldn't be certain how he was armed, I knew exactly where he was waiting. I could see his life through the wall. A mid-power shot
went right through the wall and still had plenty of energy left to go through his head.
Now that all the enemies were down, I could ransack the place. I only really wanted two things, money and ammunition. No point in spending money on bullets if
I don't have to, right? (Technically, they shouldn't work, since my gun is chambered for 10mm GP - which has never even been manufactured in this
world. But thanks to the game mechanics this form was based on, I was effectivly wielding an omnigun. It could fire anything that would fit in the chamber. It
was a nice arrangement, I could save my small stock of GP ammo for things that were actually dangerous. And I suspected finding bullets that had been fired,
but whose propellent had never been ignited, would be very disruptive to any ballistics investigation.)
When I was finished, I had acquired a moderate amount of cash - certainly not enough to be set for decades, but enough to handle my near-term expenses - and
enough ammo that for the limited use I would be making of this form, I wouldn't have to worry about it for a while. Together, it was enough that I'd be
able to focus on more important issues for a while, which was enough to consider this operation a success.
Before leaving, I methodically shot each body in the head, heart, and spine. It was kind of a pain, but it was important to follow the procedures in cases like
this. It'd be quite troublesome if one of these bozos were to suddenly come back to life.
Once I got out of town, I did a quick mode shift. The gloves were, as intended, completely destroyed, while any blood that had gotten on me was scoured away as
my clothes tore themselves apart and reconstructed themselves in a new form. I'd left nothing of myself behind, and with some care nothing I'd taken
could be linked back to it's source.
As I superjumped my way towards home, I contemplated my plans for the next few days. It'd take a while for certain transactions to complete, so I'd
probably spend some time watching new anime. I remembered someone saying on the forums that Alexis' technomagic background reminded them of Nanoha, and
I'd downloaded the series, but not watched it. And given the circumstances, now would probably be a good time to sit down and do it.
Morgan & Antares method of acquring money - kill evil people, take their stuff.
Morgan's dress is based on the one worn by Aya Brea at the beginning of the game Parasite Eve. It looks approximately like this.
-Morgan.
The theme of this piece is "Morgan has more personality contamination than she thought."
Well. It'd been fun, but I was running up agains the limit of how long I could not go to work without having consequnces. I needed to decide what I was
going to do with the rest of my life.
Unlike a lot of the other people from The Legendary, my bridges weren't burned behind me. I still had access to my birth form and identity. Even if someone
got the server logs and tracked down everyone who had been logged in, there'd be no way from looking at me to tell that I'd been at the computer at the
time. Not without being relatively familiar with Alexis Morgan's RP background, and very little of that was online.
But could I really go back to how things were?
Logic said I could, but emotionally, I couldn't quite believe it. After all, one of the going theories on the event said that what I was now was shaped by
my stories. And one key principle that I had kept reusing on one level or another in my writing was "Those who have power will use it, or else."
I had no particular desire to meet Or Else.
So I can't go back. But on the other hand, I can't stay here. Being in the same area as Bob's house seemed like it would be a good idea. But it
wasn't big enough for all of us. And I needed my stuff. Especially my computer. If I was right about things, it'd be one of my best tools in getting
powerful enough to deal with all the lunatics. Oh, and I'm an incurable packrat who never totally gets rid of anything if I can avoid it.
This left me with a set of housing, logistics, and transport problems, all of which could be solved quite simply by throwing a great deal of money at them.
I did not have a great deal of money.
However, I know how to get money.
Which is how I ended up making a rather long side trip on my way home...
* * *
Lifeforce scanners are fascinating things, in part because when I'd written about them, I'd left things so vague. I suppose I'd gotten some
inspiration from Shadowrun's astral perception, but in a lot of ways they weren't very similar at all.
One thing I'd definitely got down was that the world seen through them was quite colorful.
But I'd been playing with them a little here and there, and as I did so it brought up memories of the different things they could tell me. I could
recognize anything living as being so, and identify sentient beings. (Though no one had ever figured out the mechanics behind AIs being visible this way.) An
overall evaluation of health was possible, and a few (but by no means all) health conditions were discernable with analysis. And in some cases, the absence of
life was itself significant. There were things that I, with the help of the software running on my henshin device, knew how to recognize.
Among those things were active meth labs.
Normally, such things would be considered beyond the agency's scope. Bigger fish to fry, and such. Still, they spread misery for fun and profit, which fit
the usual criteria. And, possibly most importantly for practical purposes, I could find them. Without empathic abilities, I wouldn't be able to find
anything higher priority except as a target of opportunity. It wouldn't be a good idea to wait on that before establishing a proper financial base.
I took a moment to check myself over. I didn't have the effective invulnerability to forensic tracking that I was used to, so it wouldn't do to be
careless. I was wearing a long black dress that was slit almost insanely high, black high heels (which somehow I could walk in as long as I didn't think
about it), and thin black gloves. I smelled like alcohol. All as it should be.
As I walked up to the small house, I noticed the abrupt lack of any smell in the air. If I'd needed any confirmation that my scanners were right, this was
it. Only one thing ever caused such a complete lack of scent in the air - my defense fields were reacting to the presence of poison gas.
I knocked on the front door. It only took a few moments before someone answered. "Excuse me," I said, trying to slur my speech a bit, "My car
broke down a couple blocks from here, could I use your phone?"
I could see the risk/reward calculations going through his head. Had I seen anything that could lead the cops to him? Could he just shut the door and ignore
me? But it didn't take him long to notice my 'inebriated' state, and then he must have considered, what could he get from me? Was there anyone who
had seen me come here, or who would look for me?
He made the decision I wanted him to, grabbing my arm and pulling me inside.
I didn't protest. Why should I? He was taking me in the direction I wanted to go. If I'd been feeling that helpful, I would have told him he should
have grabbed my right arm. It would have given him a few more seconds.
The moment he closed the door, I willed my gun to appear in my hand. Before he'd had a chance to notice that I was now armed, I had pushed it against his
chest and pulled the trigger. It was a low power shot for silence's sake, but that didn't make a bullet through the heart any less fatal.
I was now had a (potentially very short) time limit. I ran forward and into the kitchen. The man sitting at the table actually had time to notice me before
I'd hit him with a quick volley.
However, I'd given the third man in the house ample warning by now. I had yet to actually see him, but he obviously knew someone dangerous was at work
here, and didn't intend to take any chances. Perhaps he'd acquired a shotgun, and was lying in wait to ambush me as I came through the door.
Unfortunately, while I couldn't be certain how he was armed, I knew exactly where he was waiting. I could see his life through the wall. A mid-power shot
went right through the wall and still had plenty of energy left to go through his head.
Now that all the enemies were down, I could ransack the place. I only really wanted two things, money and ammunition. No point in spending money on bullets if
I don't have to, right? (Technically, they shouldn't work, since my gun is chambered for 10mm GP - which has never even been manufactured in this
world. But thanks to the game mechanics this form was based on, I was effectivly wielding an omnigun. It could fire anything that would fit in the chamber. It
was a nice arrangement, I could save my small stock of GP ammo for things that were actually dangerous. And I suspected finding bullets that had been fired,
but whose propellent had never been ignited, would be very disruptive to any ballistics investigation.)
When I was finished, I had acquired a moderate amount of cash - certainly not enough to be set for decades, but enough to handle my near-term expenses - and
enough ammo that for the limited use I would be making of this form, I wouldn't have to worry about it for a while. Together, it was enough that I'd be
able to focus on more important issues for a while, which was enough to consider this operation a success.
Before leaving, I methodically shot each body in the head, heart, and spine. It was kind of a pain, but it was important to follow the procedures in cases like
this. It'd be quite troublesome if one of these bozos were to suddenly come back to life.
Once I got out of town, I did a quick mode shift. The gloves were, as intended, completely destroyed, while any blood that had gotten on me was scoured away as
my clothes tore themselves apart and reconstructed themselves in a new form. I'd left nothing of myself behind, and with some care nothing I'd taken
could be linked back to it's source.
As I superjumped my way towards home, I contemplated my plans for the next few days. It'd take a while for certain transactions to complete, so I'd
probably spend some time watching new anime. I remembered someone saying on the forums that Alexis' technomagic background reminded them of Nanoha, and
I'd downloaded the series, but not watched it. And given the circumstances, now would probably be a good time to sit down and do it.
Morgan & Antares method of acquring money - kill evil people, take their stuff.
Morgan's dress is based on the one worn by Aya Brea at the beginning of the game Parasite Eve. It looks approximately like this.
-Morgan.