Interlude 1.A

Armsmaster was growing under his breath as he parked his enormous bike. He usually didn't wander all that much into the docks, but the capture of the ABB's new tinker was as good a reason as any to examine the scene.

It was a mess, the two explosions the civilians had mentioned in their various reports did some irreversible structural damage to the nearby buildings. He tapped the side of his helmet to examine the various cracks. It almost looked like the explosion was still happening in slow motion. If his calculations were correct, the explosion would go on for some more time, enough to overthrow the four nearby buildings.

Of course, he could contain it for further study.

He looked at the blood splatter by the wall, and examined it with his systems. He crouched and took samples.

"Oh, that was Red." Someone said behind him.

Armsmaster turned and grimaced at Velocity. "Red?"

Velocity crossed his arms. "I was the first at the scene. Two kids captured Bakuda and a few normals from the ABB."

"And?"

"They didn't really have any code-names yet. They were two, Red, who I think is some sort of brute, and Blue, who's probably some sort of mover. We also saw a man, but he didn't show any kind of ability."

Armsaster growled. "You know this, how?"

Velocity grinned at the leader of the protectorate, and handed him a SD card. "You know how voyeuristic people can get. We have multiple perspectives of the fight." He pointed North, "the ABB was attacking the Merchants, apparently they thought they could take all of their territory now that they have -or had- their shiny new tinker."

"Bomb specialization." Armsmaster muttered, as he put the SD card in a compartment in his suit.

Velocity nodded, "then comes Red, she kicked their asses and did this thing with a wooden sword…"

Armsmaster nodded absently as he viewed the multiple videos and blinked when the Red-masked woman slashed at the ABB. "Is that Jack Slash's ability?"

Velocity scratched the back of his head. "I don't know? It kinda looked like it. It wouldn't be the first time someone has similar powers as a known cape. She's a hero though."

"Maybe she's just pretending. She could be Jack Slash's daughter." He immediately teleported the blood sample to his lab. "Dragon, did you catch that?"

"Yes, knowing Jack Slash, if this is his daughter, it's likely the Nine are not far away. I'll run a DNA match to confirm your hypothesis." The woman's voice came from his suit, they had been chatting just before they heard of Bakuda's capture.

"Thank you, Dragon."

"Talk to you later." Was her reply, and she cut off the line.

Velocity didn't look convinced. "I don't think she's his daughter. She seemed nice."

"Jack Slash is known to be able to act."

"Ok." He still sounded unconvinced.

Armsmaster continued watching the video and frowned when a man appeared from nowhere. He rewound and replayed the section multiple times. "You think the girl with the blue mask is the teleporter?"

"Yes, looked like she was focusing and then, the other guy appeared."

Armsmaster frowned under his helmet. "And why would she teleport this guy? He was drowning or something. Was it an effect of her ability? Or did she save him from drowning?"

Velocity scratched his nose. "Hmm, maybe she just needed him to remove the bomb collar? Maybe they know each other."

"Maybe." He agreed, internally he was making multiple theories about how her power worked. "You said he didn't show any special ability?"

"Yes? They just had him view the bomb collar, and then Red disarmed it."

"Red didn't disarm it. She was just the tool used to disarm it. Bakuda is registered as Tinker 6, right?"

"Yeah, I think so." Velocity said, wondering why Armsmaster would ask that. He already knew it.

"Well, what rating do you think a Tinker that can disarm her bombs in seconds should have?"

"Oh. He's a tinker?"

"Maybe". Armsmaster cursed the fact that none of the videos seemed to have taken a good enough shot at the teleported man. He stopped the videos and turned to Velocity. "Did you offer Red and Blue a place in the wards?"

"Of course, I'm not a newby. But no, they didn't want to have anything to do with the wards. The reason they gave, and I quote, was 'too much teenage drama'."

"Sounds fishy."

"Sounds like they had trouble with other kids. Not rare with recent triggers." Velocity argued.

"They-" Armsmaster stopped his train of thought when he remembered something. He used his connection to the PRT servers and read a recently created file. "Shadow Stalker recently reported a new parahuman villain that goes to school with her."

"Oh?" Velocity seemed surprised by that. "And why didn't she capture this villain?"

"The description she made of this new parahuman matches 'Red'. Same body type, same chinese style shirt even."

"That doesn't seem smart. Not much of a costume if you're wearing the same clothes you normally do."

Armsmaster started walking back to his bike. "Have the PRT make a thorough investigation of the scene. I want to know everything there's to know about this new parahuman group. I want tentative ratings in the next 30 minutes."

Velocity cursed under his breath, but nodded. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to meet this 'Red' of yours." He said, and kicked the engine to life.

As Armsmaster left the scene. Velocity couldn't help but mention, "I didn't say she was mine."

If Dragon had a real body, she'd have sighed at that moment. She watched, bored, as one of the lesser AI she handled ran a subroutine that attempted to match Red's DNA with any known parahumans. Jack Slash had already failed as a possible match, of course.

She turned her attention to PHO. Someone had posted in one of Saint's 'Watch out for the evil AIs' threads and had gotten multiple replies and likes. Saint himself was arguing against the new poster.

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Topic: The AI Doom is real

In: Boards ► Off-Topic ► Other ► AI

(Showing page 150 of 151)

►SupremeTinker (Verified Cape) (The Guy in the Know) (Administrator)

Posted on January 16, 2011:

SntGeorge, while your ideas seem to have some merit at first glance. I have come to the realization that it's mere fear-mongering. What do you even know about AIs? Probably nothing, other than "Ooooh, they're the boogeyman!"

Let me tell you what *I* know about them. They come in all sizes and character, just like other people do. Self-aware AI exist, and I know at least one that posts on this forum.

Yes, you read that right. An AI *posts* on this forum. None of you Bozos ever realized, right? That's because she's not just self-aware, she's also capable of hiding in plain sight. And before you go on a tirade about how that makes her SkyNet or something, have you stopped to think why Judgement Day hasn't happened yet? It's not because Super Heroes are there to save the day, or because of some laws imposed on her by her creator. AI of this level is able to circumvent this problem multiple ways, yet she hasn't done anything about that.

The truth is, an AI that's able to pass the Turing test, is likely human-like enough to be considered a person. And since one bad day can turn any normal person into a monster, I have come to the conclusion that any attempt to further 'rein in' such a person with digital chains could in turn, create the monster you so fear.

Of course, such a bad day also creates the best of Heroes. Who do you think she's more similar to, the Joker, or the Batman?

You mentioned you don't believe AI can have a soul. Well. What the heck is a soul anyway? Why do you think humans have sole property over such a mystic concept? Humans are not the only sapient species in the world these days. AI are people too. Deal with it.

Dragon was speechless. If she could blink, she would've done so at that moment. She didn't know who this "SupremeTinker" was. Sure, she kind of liked what he said, but he had also assigned himself administrator rights over PHO along with the badges of 'verified cape' and 'the guy in the know'.

She attempted to ban him, but she realized there were new lines of code in PHO that disallowed such an action against him.

At that moment, the DNA subsystem returned one 50% match. That meant it found a parent of the cape Collin was investigating. Dragon absently made a mental note to check the results later, but first, she had to find out who was the hacker that was attacking her website.

After failing the tenth time to remove admin rights to the new poster. She decided to go another way. She sent him a message.

Private message to SupremeTinker:

I don't know who you are. But stop what you're doing right now.

She was fishing for information. Anything he said to her, she could cross-reference to figure out where he was located. She could then cut-off his access to the Internet and then regain complete control over PHO.

Private message from SupremeTinker:

Dragon, I am your father.

She paused at that. What?

What?

This person was quoting Star Wars? And he knew Tin Mother was Dragon?

Private message to SupremeTinker:

No! That's not true. That's impossible.

It really was impossible. Her own father had died in 2005. There was no way this person was-

Private message from SupremeTinker:

Search your feelings; you know it to be true!

She mentally glared at SupremeTinker. He really was quoting Star Wars. She wondered if this was an elaborate trap set by Saint. It was unlikely, because he would never talk positively about AI in any situation. Especially one as public as PHO.

Private message from SupremeTinker:

Joking aside, you can't believe how proud of you I am for what you accomplished since I passed away. As a father, it fills me with joy to know how much you grew these past five years.

She was about to reply, promising to capture him and bring him to justice for this violation. But before she was able to send her message, a video window opened in one of her old subsystems that she barely used anymore.

An image she hadn't expected to see appeared before her. "Sorry to show myself like this, Tess, that's your secret identity, right? Tess?. Anyway, I thought this would be the best way to reveal myself to you. And I am truly proud of you, by the way." It really was him. Andrew Richter, her creator.

At that point, if she could, she would have cried like there was no tomorrow.