Turn 81: New Friends And Old Friends
--- Maya ---
While she wanted to confront Ying immediately about her knowing a Deviant other than Maya -(because hypocrisy!)- she found this difficult given how Ying seemed to be avoiding her. Though her more reasonable self, felt that it might’ve just been because it was the weekend, and her mother was dragging her out to something.
(Yeah, I doubt that.) She frowned, angrily typing away at her keyboard as she finished chipping away at the upgrade for her Generator program that she’d been working on and off for the last while.
Her inner logic let out a mental sigh. (You are aware that there is nothing wrong with Ying having a Deviant friend other than us. Nor is there anything wrong with keeping said friend secret, when we ourselves are keeping our Deviancy secret.)
“It’s not about…” She ran a hand through her hair. “I’m not mad about her keeping someone’s secret, it’s just that it’s pretty clear this ‘Edna’ woman isn’t keeping her Deviancy a secret. Meaning that Ying is purposely keeping a double life secret.”
(Again… hypocrisy!)
“You both know that’s not the same thing!” She growled. “We’re trying to be heroes, letting everyone know that we’re a Mask is a sure fire way to get someone hurt. That’s like Mask 101! The only reason Vi and Tommy know we’re a Deviant is because we had to tell them to help them, and I have no intention of telling them we’re a Mask anytime soon.”
(Then what about Decker, Kim, or even Anavi?) Her inner reason asked.
“Kim and everyone else at the club are M.A.D.s and none of them know we’re a Mask.” She pointedly reminded herself. “And neither Decker nor Anavi have any idea who we are under the Mask.”
(Still it feels your angry at her for something you yourself are doing…)
“Just…shut up.” She told herself, before realizing she’d finished her upgrade to her Generator program.
She began massaging the bridge of her nose as she realized that despite spending most of a Saturday afternoon working on her program she was still feeling frustrated over the whole thing with Ying.
(I… need to find something else to do…) She eventually decided, before taking a look around her lab to see what she had to work with. (Okay, running low on Scrap and I’m completely out of Plastics, but I’ve got plenty of Organics and Electronics…)
She ran a hand down her face at yet another frustration. “Ugh, going to have to set the DM’s to start collecting Scrap or Plastic… or maybe I should split them up to get a little of both.” She looked over her remaining supplies. “Or maybe…”
Scene Consequences
-Generator Upgraded to V1.3 (Mem 4/6)
--Current Power Generation: 5 Units per Turn
-Gained 1XP to Reality Hacking
--Currently: Lv. 6 (8/14)
---
While creating the basic frame for her Minions that DM-1 had started out as was a simple task that she had more than enough parts for, she found that she was running a fair bit shy of the amount she needed to get all of the upgrades she’d given the DMs since then.
Luckily, between the three LCMs she was able to get enough of the finer work done and convert enough of her otherwise unusable parts from her other projects to piece together everything her latest minion needed to be on the same level as their elder siblings. Though it did leave him looking a little rougher around the edges than DM-1 and DM-2 had after their upgrades.
“Eh, it gives you character.” She told her newest Minion, as she began bringing him online. “I mean if not for their personalities and DM-1 having a bit more wear and tear I wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. But you, you’ve got your own look going on, don’t you DM-3?”
“Yes, mum.” DM-3 nodded slowly, as his programming took control of his body and slowly stretched each movable piece out before giving a full body shiver and correcting his stance with a few heavy steps.
Once he was passingly familiar with his new body, her latest little drone gave her a determined look -or at least as determined as a machine with limited physical emotes could manage- before asking, “Orders?”
“Uh, orders?” She repeated, a touch confused given how this was the first time one of her drones had been able to talk upon creation.
“Orders?” DM-3 asked her once more, while watching intently.
“Uh, live and be happy?” She offered, her newest minion.
DM-3 gave a staticy sound that could only be interpreted as a frustrated growl, before once more asking, “Orders, mum?”
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“Huh…” She gave her little drone a confused frown as she began piecing together what he was saying. “You’re… going to be a busy little bee aren’t you?”
“Yes, mum.”
Scene Consequences
-Maya has created new Drone Minion: DM-3 (Dimitri)
---
(Hey, do you ever wonder if this counts as child labor?)
“What?” She blinked, taking a break from playing lookout as she watched DM-3 use his tools to cut a large piece of metal into a more manageable size.
(Well, we keep calling the drones our kids, and we’re kind of putting our ‘kids’ to work gathering things for us to build with.) Her inner madness explained.
“What? No, that’s… not what’s happening here.” She denied shaking her head as DM-3 threw another piece of scrap on his back to carry to the base.
(...)
“It’s not!” She cried. “I mean, yeah they’re our kids but… they’re not really kids, they’re… machines.”
(So slavery is okay if it’s a machine?)
“No, no, that is not what’s happening here!” She told herself as her youngest little minion took a break from working under the hot sun to see what she was yelling at. “Okay, I know you’re wording things that way on purpose! It’s like seventy degrees tops!” She told herself as her youngest little minion took a break from working in the freezing weather to see what she was yelling at. “Gah!”
She growled at herself, before clarifying that, “I am not abusing the DMs. They’re born adults barring any programming upgrades I give them. They don’t get tired, can’t feel pain, or temperatures. Lastly none of them work more than six hours a day and that’s not counting their days off, meaning they have a thirty hour work week tops!”
(And yet they get no pay.) Her inner madness chided in disappointment.
“No,” she admitted, “but they get a health plan that includes immortality, free body augmentations, and dental!”
(But they don’t even have teeth!)
“Just because they don’t use it doesn't mean it’s not there!”
Scene Consequences
-DM-3 is now collecting Scrap.
--Thanks to having Tools and being Dexterous, he gathers 3 Scrap each Turn.
---
“So… Ying…” She began as soon as Ying sat at their lunch table.
The other teen sighed, before giving her a look. “You’re not even going to wait five minutes?”
Next to her Aisha looked fairly sheepish, while she on the other hand simply answered that, “We both know I’m too impatient to wait. You’re lucky I didn’t kick down your door for answers.”
“That… would’ve ended badly for everyone involved.” Ying grimaced, before running a hand down her face. “Alright, let’s get this over with, ask away.”
“Well, obviously, who the hell was that Edna woman on Friday?” She asked as pointedly as she could.
“Miss Edna is…” Ying stopped before giving another grimace and sigh. “Okay, so several years ago -back before… everything- my dad signed me up for a summer camp thinking it would be good for me to get out and socialize with people… outside of our class.”
“Oh…” She swallowed, realizing what Ying meant by everything.
“And you, uh, you know her from your… summer camp?” Aisha figured, not aware of what else Ying was saying.
“Miss Edna is the head counselor and owner of the camp I ended up going to.” Ying continued, looking more comfortable moving past the previous landmine. “And because of that I’ve known her since I was a little girl. Even longer than I’ve known you Maya.”
“You, um, you seemed close with her?” She noted, trying to figure out how not to put her foot in her mouth.
“Hmm, well, yes.” Ying nodded. “I’ll admit, she’s always been something of a fun aunt I see in the summer, but we’ve grown closer this last year or so.”
“Did… something happen?” She asked.
Ying was quiet for a moment, before explaining that, “I’m… one of the last two ‘long term’ Campers she has. I’ve been there eight, nine years now while everyone else has been there less than five. I’m also technically a camp counselor, or I will be next year.”
She was pretty sure there was more to it than that, but (that could just be me not knowing the whole story.)
“Huh, I’m, uh, I’m surprised your mom is letting you, um, work there.” Aisha admitted, nervous but still curious. “Especially with… how you talk about her.”
Ying let out something too bitter to call a laugh. “Yeah, she isn’t getting a say in this.”
She couldn’t help but grimace at that as she began putting two and two together. “I’m uh, I’m guessing your mom knows… Edna is a Deviant?”
“No.” Ying inhaled deeply before exhaling. “I’ve made damn sure she doesn’t know that.”
A harsh silence fell over the three of them for a moment, before upon noticing Aisha gnawing on her lip the girl too nervous to voice her question, Maya decided to take mercy on the other girl and explain that, “Ying’s mom is… anti-Deviant…”
“That’s one way to put it.” Ying scoffed, looking actually amused. “My mother enjoys using our family’s wealth to push a political agenda making life as difficult as possible for Deviants. In fact I think her little band of bitches is pushing an ordinance that would make it so that being a Practitioner would be illegal in the hopes of pushing it to a state level.”
Normally, she wouldn’t care about magic users but given the context she was pretty sure this was more important to Ying. “Can they… do that?”
Ying considered it for a moment. “They can put a license requirement on it due to it being a secondary Deviancy rather than an innate one, which could then be expanded to only allowing licensed magic users to operate at all. Or that’s the plan that has been passed around all of those stomach churning fundraisers I’ve been forced to attend.”
(Right, since her mom is running them she’d have to attend most of them, and if this Edna is like an aunt to her…) It wasn’t a position she envied to say the least.
“But we’re getting off topic.” Ying told them with a shake of her head. “You wanted to know who Miss Edna was, and she’s a seventy year old Arcane I’ve known since I was nine. She’s in town visiting her adoptive son, and decided to come and bug me into hanging out with them.” Ying tilted her head. “Or rather she kidnapped me to make me hang out with them.”
“I see…” She nodded, processing everything Ying had told her, which was significantly more than she’d been expecting all things considered. (I guess… everyone has their own lives, not just me.)
Scene Consequences
-Maya has a much better understanding of Ying’s life.
--Maya has grown a bit closer to Ying.
-Maya gained 2XP to Politics.
--Currently: Lv. 1 (3/4)