Turn 56

--- Maya ---

“This looks like the place…” She told herself glancing between the card Delacroix had given her and the sign reading ‘the Witch’s Wares.’ “Here’s hoping they have something that can help us.”

(They’re a magic store. It stands to reason that they sell a few basic defenses to said magic at the very least.) Her inner logic assured her.

(Or better yet, we can probably get the Whispers to give us a few cool ideas from looking at all of their shit.) Her inner madness pointed out.

(That’s an option as well.) Her inner reason admitted.

Stepping into the store, she felt something beginning to scratch at her head giving her a migraine. Almost as if the air pressure in the store was vastly different from the air pressure outside of it. (What the hell?!)

Her eyes began darting around the store as the whispers began trying to figure out what was affecting her and-

“The store is bigger on the inside.” A voice told her, immediately releasing the pressure on her head as she realized that yes the store really was bigger on the inside.

“What… what the fuck was that?!” She gasped, not really understanding what had just happened.

“There’s a spatial enchantment on the store giving me more floor space.” A dark-haired woman explained from behind the counter while reading a book. “You’re like the third, fourth M.A.D. to walk in here and freak out because of how the enchantment interacts with your power’s passive awareness the first time you see something like this.”

“Oh…” She squeaked, realizing she’d been outed in less than a minute of entering the store. (This was a bad idea.)

She felt the fact that neither of the voices in her head had responded to that, was pretty much confirmation of that idea.

The cashier rolled her eyes, before turning a page. “This is a Deviant store, I honestly don’t care what your Deviancy is just so long as you don’t cause any trouble.”

“R-right.” She swallowed, still feeling fairly shaken.

“So, do you actually need something kid, or is this just that whole magic vs science thing?” The cashier asked her in a bored tone.

“Um, what?”

“Usually when I see an M.A.D. come into my store, they’re window shopping to get inspiration on how to prove their science is better than magic.” The cashier looked up from her book and looked her in the eye. “In which case if you’re not looking for something specific I’m going to throw you out in five minutes.”

Not wanting to admit that her inner madness had been suggesting just that a few minutes prior, she instead told the cashier that, “I need an anti-Slaver item.”

“What kind?”

“What kind?” She repeated with a touch of confusion.

“There’s like twenty different kinds of Slaver effects we sell aid for, that said we don’t have any for Slashers or Malcontent due to the way Anima and Malice interact with each other.” The cashier elaborated without looking up from her book a second time.

“Um, my brother, he uh, he got hit by this messed up… focusing charm? And it… it made him obsessed with this girl until a Hunter snapped him out of it.” She tried to explain. “I’m hoping you have something that can keep that from happening a second time.”

“Second aisle from the left. Looks like a bunch of cheap nick-nacks, if you hit the skulls you’ve gone too far.” The cashier told her pointing to her left.

“Oh, uh, right…” She nodded, before making her way to said aisle and eventually finding a shelf full of hand sized knick knacks like the cashier had said. “Um, which one do I grab?”

“Do you want guaranteed protection, or general protection with a stab at the one responsible?” The cashier asked from the register.

“Um… guaranteed protection!” She called back, figuring that keeping Tommy safe was more important than attacking the one responsible. (Not that that’s going to stop me from shanking the bitch.)

“Shield marked with a brain.”

It took her a moment to find it, but eventually she found a whole line of shields with different icons carved onto them, and sitting in the middle were three with brains on them.

(Okay, twenty-five dollars a pop…and I’ve got fifty-nine, so I can just afford one for Tommy and maybe get one for myself too…)

A/N: Just a heads up this is a multi-site choice.

-Get one just for Maya. Maya refuses to leave Tommy unprotected.

[]-Get one just for Tommy.

[]-Get one for Maya and Tommy.

“Just so we’re clear these things will protect my brother, right?” Her scepticism demanded she ask, once she’d brought the little nick-nack to the counter.

“Yes, though I should warn you each necklace will only break the effect once. And only if you’re wearing a single one of these, otherwise they’ll cancel each other out when they trigger.” The cashier warned her with an explanation as she scanned Maya’s purchase. “From there I’ll also reiterate these things are only good against Arcane and Psionic Slaver effects, anything else and you’d need a more specialized tool that’ll cost you notably more.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Uh-huh…” She nodded, not really sure if that reassured her or not given how little she actually knew about the Arcane outside of a few internet searches. (I… might actually want to fix that at some point…)

---

Wanting to get as far away from any Arcane as she could, she made her way towards the (safe, and understandable) M.A.D. club for one of her weekend lessons with Melvin.

(Please tell me we aren’t going back there again…) Her inner passion whimpered, sounding particularly ill now that she’d returned.

“Not if I can help it.” She assured every aspect of herself. “Do either of you know what the hell happened back there?”

(There was… something about the room?) Her inner reason tried to explain. (The dimensions were wrong, the data didn’t fit, and it, it… urgh…)

She felt her headache beginning to return at the memory as the Whispers began bickering just out of her awareness. “Let’s not… Is magic bad for us?” She forced herself to reconsider, some part of her demanding that she figure this out before she let it go.

(It’s not my part…) Her inner passion grumbled weakly.

(No, I… I don’t believe so.) Her inner reason disagreed. (Otherwise we wouldn’t be able to hold the store charm we bought.)

“I… Yeah, I guess that makes sense.” She had to admit, even as one of her hands fiddled with said charm in her pocket. “You think… you think the whispers black box it then?”

It was an idea she didn’t particularly care for, but she’d read enough web-fiction and seen enough anime to know this was the kind of interaction she needed to watch out for.

(Possibly, though I don’t think it was a direct problem…) Her inner logic confessed. (It was more like, like…)

(Like we were trying to divide by zero.) Her inner madness finished. (Or like we were running a program that copies itself and those copies copy themselves, and then there’s more copies than the computer can handle.)

“So, it’s not that it’s black boxed so much as there was too much to process and it caused whatever part of my head processes the Whispers to crash.” She summarized, before frowning. “But shouldn’t that have caused me to black out too? I mean that’s what’s happened the last couple of times we pushed the Whispers too hard.”

(Maybe, though if this happens to all M.A.D.s there may be an emergency disconnect of sorts?) Her inner reason offered as way of explanation. (Though this may just be something we need to ask a more experienced M.A.D. about.)

“Right…” She nodded walking into the M.A.D. club.

---

“Ah, there you are kid,” Melvin greeted, pulling up his welding mask. “Was wondering when you were going to get here since Kim said you were going to cover her tour today.”

(Shit, I forgot about that.) Her episode at the Witch’s Wares was still throwing her. (Though thinking about it…) “Hey, Mel there was something I wanted to ask you about.”

“S’what I’m here for.” Melvin shrugged. “Though speaking of, you know how to weld right?”

“I’ve got the basics, though I’m more used to working with scrap than anything else.” She admitted, knowing full well that her Drone Minions were as cute as they were because of their personalities rather than their actual chassis.

(They’re just beautiful on the inside.)

“Alright, then ask your question and grab a mask off the table while I make sure you actually know how to weld.” Melvin told her.

“Well, I was picking this thing up for my brother to try and cheer him up a bit.” She started with a half-truth. “The store I went to was this… magic place I guess, and when I stepped in I sort of froze with this really bad migraine until she told me that the store was bigger on the inside.”

“Yeah, that happens sometimes.” Melvin admitted with a grimace. “You see as M.A.D.s we’ve got this sort of passive awareness where we’re processing everything we see, and cataloguing all of it for possible parts. Or that’s how it was explained to me anyway. What happened is that you stepped into an area where the rules were off compared to what your head is used to processing, and it caused a sort of update short out in your head.”

“That’s… kind of what I thought happened.” She nodded. “Though I’ve got to ask, is this going to happen every time I get close to an Arcane?”

“Eh, it shouldn’t.” Melvin shrugged, before pulling down his mask. “I mean it’s only happened once or twice to me but, according to the guys who actually study this stuff, it’s triggered by entering an area with a different set of physics than you’ve previously experienced.”

“So it shouldn’t happen too often, right?” She asked one last time as she lowered her own mask.

“Not unless you wander into a Wonderlander’s domain.” Melvin assured her. “Apparently whatever let’s them do their thing makes M.A.D.s high if we spend too long around them.”

(I’m now voting we find a Wonderlander and see what happens to us.)

---

Having finished both her lessons with Melvin, as well as covering Kim’s tour -(And earning sixteen bucks.)- she decided to make one last stop at her lab to try and upgrade her Server Farm in the hopes of solving some of the memory issues she was having with how little memory she had left for her COMP.

Which is why she decided to try and use a few radio and wi-fi signals to set up an active connection between her COMP and her Server, allowing her to access her more data oriented programs without actually having to store them on her COMP.

“And… that should do it.” She nodded, stepping away from the small radio tower she and her minions had had to build on the hospital roof so as to ensure her data transfer would work in about a third of the city. (Which I’ll have to fix eventually.)

(So what if they don’t work on the rich side of town. Sanctuary can focus on saving those assholes.) Her inner passion dismissed, while her inner reason argued that.

(I believe she was more concerned with the fact that our signal only stretches to the southernmost parts of downtown, and barely covers our actual neighborhood.)

“Yeah, we’re going to have to spread a couple of signal boosters out around the city if we want access to our data programs wherever we go.” She agreed with her more logical self.

(I’m sure it’ll be worth the effort.)

(Eh, not really.) Her inner madness disagreed. (We’ve only really got two data-programs right now, and only one of those will fit on our Server Farm unless we expand them.)

(Well… it’ll be worth it with a little more effort.)

(Right… So which program are we stashing on the Server Farm?)

“I was thinking my Simple AI () since it lacks the sentience and sapience of the DMs-” She stopped herself as something occurred to her.

(No, it still lacks sentience and sapience, though that won’t be the case in a few upgrades.) Her inner passion assured her.

“Oh thank god.” She’d been worried for a second given how she’d been neglecting the program for months. “Just going to ignore that idea for my own sanity…”

(I’m not. In fact I’m going to guilt trip you horrifically for it.)

“Please don’t.”