Bioshock 6.3
January 28, 2011, Coil's Base - Brockton Bay, 5:47 PM
I finished healing Trickster's eyes, very minor damage, also healed the welts from the bug bites, but let the tranquilizers stay. Huh, his title had also changed to Freshly DeZiz'd. How? I could figure how getting rid of Noelle's mutated power would take care of her Simurgh influence, but how'd his go away? Oh well, food for later thought.
A six armed gorilla came out of the lift, Taylor had already shown me the silhouette of the form in a message, or else I'd be spooked. Genesis picked up Trickster and carried him off. Noelle and Sundancer joined them in the elevator, I waved them up and went off to deal with my clone.
(Not-So-Evil Twin)
Avik SenSharma (NPC) (Clone)
Lvl. 14 Accidental Human
Status: Unconscious
Uh... What to do with this guy? I observed him, then replayed the memories relating to him... I've generally prided myself on avoiding philosophical/ethical/moral traps, but this guy wasn't supposed to exist. Yet there he was, a sentient sapient person, he spelled his name the way I had always wanted to, and he had a huge hateboner for the real Aveek.
I pulled harder on Gamer's Mind. He was a sentience created from twisted and incomplete fragments of my experiences, memories and personality. He wasn't supposed to exist, and I honestly couldn't think of an immediate way to let him keep on existing. I scanned, biomassed and inventoried him.
Even with Gamer's mind on, I felt like a dick.
Taylor told me to leave the Travelers to recover and come over to Coil's office. Ballistic and Trickster would take a few hours to wake up and they'd need some time to themselves. Fair enough, I complied.
As I made my way up to the office floor, Taylor redirected me to dozens of tranqed mercs in the hallways to be healed, properly sedated, disarmed and locked into rooms, we'd need to bring the base back to a semblance of order before they awoke.
When I reached Coil's office, Taylor was waiting there in costume, must've come in through the emergency exit while all this shit was happening. She was sitting at Coil's desk, operating both her laptop and Coil's terminal with either hand. "Let's not wait any longer then." She said without lifting her head. I nodded.
I walked into the middle of the room, Taylor stood up from the machines and nodded at me as she dismissed her armor, "This room is off the record for now. Go ahead... wait." She moved the chair from Coil's desk out near me and turned it to face me. "Yeah, go ahead."
I dismissed my armour too, then replayed the memory of my last living scan of Lisa from the day before. I put my hand out at the correct height, recalled said scan, prepared the biomass inventory hole, then applied fleshcrafting with the scan as blueprint. Added in the extra mana to materialize her clothes too.
A blue flash.
Lisa appeared, holding my hand, the ever present smirk on her face, "Thank...Huh?"
She blinked and looked around a few times, confusion, surprise, dread, panic, understanding, sorrow... each of them flowed through her in a span of a second as she paled. She took a shaky breath, then sat down on the chair right behind her. "Did... Did the casino strike not go well?"
I had Gamer's Mind turned full on, and was doing my best to ignore the ridiculous mixture of crippling relief and grief in the back of my mind. What did you even call that? Grilief? Ugh, bad Gamer's Mind! Puns later! Focus now!
Taylor sent me a block of text with the instructions to print it out, it seemed like a bunch of concise excerpts of the events since yesterday in terribly butchered English. Huh, I should've thought of that, Taylor's Gamer's mind was much lower in level than mine, her mental stats were lower than mine. How come she had better composure right now? Argh! Focus!
Lisa was beginning to shake and hyperventilate, Taylor held her from behind the chair and was whispering placatives in her ear. I printed out the text in big fonts on a sheet of construct paper, materialized it and held it in front of her. Lisa focused on it immediately, her eyes kept getting wider.
"Legend's Rainbow Underpants!" Her breathing had slowed down, still shallow. She smiled wanly, "You guys hogged all the fun."
She reached up and patted Taylor's head, who nodded and let go of Lisa. Then she looked at me and frowned. Her eyes softened as confusion turned to understanding and then sadness. Why was she sad all of a sudden? What did she figure out about me?
"Whew!" She shook herself and got up, then she approached me and put a hand on my cheek. That should feel nice, why was it not feeling nice enough?
"Aveek."
This was odd, I had perfect tactical awareness of the room and its occupants, I was combat ready, there were no threats. Why the fuck could I not figure out what was up with her? Why did she have tears in her eyes?
"Aveek!"
"Huh?" I snapped out of my musings, focus, Aveek, focus. "Yes Lisa?"
"You fucking burned me to ashes!" There was mirth amidst the sadness. I didn't quite get the joke.
I replied with sincerity, "I apologize, but you were dead and I was not in complete control." It was not a good thing I did. Self control is very important. Why was she frowning again?
"It's alright. You can let go now." She was looking at me with sadness and sympathy? Why? Let go of what? Why the fuck was she crying? She was fucking alive for Rob's sake!
"Your mind Aveek. You can let go of the emotion control."
Ah, of course, Gamer's Mind, yeah, it always behaves a bit weird when it's full on in a non-tactical situation. She was right, I generally make it a point to not mask my emotions around her. I should let it go. I nodded and complied.
...
Horror, revulsion, grief, anger...
The weight of what I'd been through in the last half hour crashed upon me. I'd seen Lisa dead! I killed two mercs! I killed Coil! I fought with a true blue eldritch abomination! Eugh! Eugh! I had to kill Noelle so many times after saving her! I killed an innocent clone of mine! Lisa was back! Lisa was alive! I killed people with nary a wince... Why was Lisa telling Taylor to get a bucket of all things?
Before I knew it, I was down on all fours, crying, emptying my stomach into the bucket Taylor was holding in front of me, Lisa was stroking my head and yes, that felt much nicer. She kept whispering in my ear, "Hey... It's all right... Everything's fine..."
I didn't really know how long I was down like that, but after some time, it simmered down to sobs and dry heaves... I checked my status, it said 'Distressed', yeah right.
I sat up shivering and scanned myself, I was still recovering from shock, I removed the excess adrenalin flowing through me, and let the endorphins stay. The bucket was almost half full, ew, I biomassed and inventoried the puke, then cleansed the bucket. Taylor put it back into her inventory.
It took me another few minutes to stop sobbing, I looked at Taylor, she too had tear tracks, she smiled at me and cleared her throat, "Ahem. Tea. You need tea."
"Yes for once. / Yes." Lisa and Me replied in tandem. Taylor smiled at us again and went back to the table, assembling a tea service from her inventory. That girl was a lifesaver.
Lisa was still stroking my hair, I turned to look at her. Her eye make-up was slightly smudged, but damn she still looked beautiful. She still looked shaken, but her usual smirk was back, "Cleanse first, then kiss."
I complied.
January 28, 2011, Coil's Base - Brockton Bay, 6:09 PM
"So if I was the one worst affected, why am I the one giving foot massages to you two?" My second cup of tea was cooling because both my hands were busy massaging the two pairs of feet that were propped up on my thighs. Taylor and Lisa were enjoying their beverages and making very unladylike noises. It was Lisa's idea of relaxing for a bit and putting all the madness that had happened behind us. My Massage skill was already at level 7.
"Ahh, do the thing between the toes again. Well, two reasons," Lisa lifted two fingers, "firstly, because without our help it would have taken you much longer to figure out that you can do necromancy from scans," I huffed, she continued, "secondly, we're female."
I couldn't resist the setup. I shifted into an avatar I'd crafted just for kicks, a gorgeous strawberry blonde leggy lass with stunning features crafted out of the various women I'd scanned in the hospital. It had CHA +12, figure out the rest. I was wearing the same skimpy outfit Lisa had used to tease me back in the mall. I gave them my best demure look and replied in a husky voice, "Does that mean I get a massage too now?"
Taylor choked on her tea, Lisa almost dropped her coffee as she gaped at me. I daintily picked up my teacup and sipped away at it with exemplary etiquette.
Taylor looked away and began wiping her mouth with a tissue. Lisa schooled her features and smirked again, "Hot damn! Good try, but we're not male, so nope, you don't get a massage. But guess what I just realized?" I quirked an eyebrow at her, her smugness intensified, "I'm not strictly heterosexual," I paused mid sip, trying my best not to react, she continued, "And neither is Taylor."
Tea sprayed out of my nose. I hurriedly shifted back into my Aveek avatar but still kept coughing, damn you AI! Taylor was blushing and glaring at Lisa.
Lisa shrugged and changed the topic immediately. "By the way Taylor, you were also badly affected. And I know you can't suppress emotions as good as Aveek, how'd you keep your cool so well?"
Taylor smiled, it was not a very nice smile, "I didn't, I shunted my anger and frustration into a couple thousand insects who viciously tore each other apart." Her smile softened, "It helped." She shrugged as both Lisa and I shuddered involuntarily.
"Anyway, enough dilly dallying, Lisa, what do you need for the takeover?" Our moods were lightened enough, I reinstated nominal emotional control.
Lisa sobered up and nodded, "Me and Taylor would be able to do it by tonight." Taylor was already up and setting up the table with spare laptops and phones.
Taylor nodded at her, "I had spoofed the last hour's updates and check-ins between the mercs, Coil and the outside teams. You'll need to take over, you'll be able to handle the night's password changes better. Though I still have no idea what set him off though."
Lisa sighed, "It was the Sigma Charlie, System Compromised. Must have been a monthly check from a remote server. You should check the maintenance logs of the server from this morning. Damn Coil and damn his contingencies."
Taylor grimaced and started accessing logs. "Okay, hopefully there's nothing else we missed. And you'll need to guide me through all the financial bits and bobs."
Lisa smirked, "We have two better people to help with that, call Dev over. I'll get in touch with Number Man, might as well keep my promises."
Taylor was smug, "I called him the moment Noelle was taken care of, gave him a coded summary of what happened and sent him the location of this place. He'd be here in a few minutes. Aveek, you might want to go out and pick him up at the emergency exit? The tunnel has a few confusing branches."
"Yeah, I needed your maps to get in myself, I'll go and get him."
Taylor pressed a few buttons and the hidden door unlocked, I left and headed for the exit through the tunnels.
I didn't have to wait long outside the sewer entrance that served as the mouth of the exit. Dada soon arrived on his motorbike. He parked the bike and approached me, face looking solemn and grievous but I could feel the mirth rolling off him.
"Aveek, bro, I have some bad news."
I gave him a narrow eyed stare, what now?
"Look, the loan I gave you, the first installment is due." He was suddenly kneeling, hands joined in a pleading gesture, "Please don't get mad and burn me to ashes!"
I facepalmed,"TAAAAYYLOOORRR!"
"What? It was an important part of the report! Besides, It was Lisa who asked me to text and emphasize on it when you went away..."
I was never going to live that one down was I?
