They say obligations tie you down...

[thelasttsviet]

WHO: Shelke Rui and open. Specific prompts in the comments.
WHERE: All around!
WHEN: Mid-March
WHAT: Shelke playing with her powers and meeting with various people.
WARNINGS: None probably.
Notes: This is in prose but brackets are fine. Let me know if you want a specific prompt.

It had been a little more than a month since Bruce Wayne and his company had come up with a synthetic version of Shelke's 'mako' injections. It wasn't quite the same, of course, and it had taken her a few weeks to adjust to it, but after that...she'd been healthy. As healthy as she ever was, anyway, so still easily tired and trapped in the body of a nine year old, but still, better than the bone-weary exhaustion she'd been feeling towards the end there.

Except, that unlike the last time she had been healthy, she wasn't caught up in a war against an entire planet lead by a cult of lunatics. No hunting for Vincent Valentine or 'pure' spirits, no sneaking into the WRO. No fighting her own people to stop an ancient weapon of mass destruction...

No anything, really. Except a new world to explore and mysterious powers she didn't understand and an empty house to try and fix up.

After a few days, she couldn't decide if she was overwhelmed, indecisive, or just bored. So she tried to think about it analytically. She couldn't do everything at once, and if she tried, she'd do them all badly. And her Deepground training had left a certain instilled desire to get one thing perfect before moving onto the next. So, the obvious thing to do was learn what was new first.

Her new power. Or altered power. Whatever it was that made her feel like she could just...dive in...whenever she linked herself to a computer. She had always been able to 'mentally' link to a network, admitted using an interface back home but here just by touching, but this felt...different.

So after several hours of psyching herself up, she tried it. When she felt the pull from the machine, instead of pulling back, she let it yank her in. And it did. Physically. Suddenly she was inside the network, perceiving it almost as if it were a physical ocean or river she could interact with. It was fascinating. It was amazing.

It was entirely disorienting.

She managed to yank herself back out into the real world after several minutes of aimlessly 'swimming' amidst the sea of information inside her laptop, and found herself sprawled out on the floor of her living room, staring at the ceiling, barely able to catch her breath.

Huh.

It was another hour before she was brave enough to try again, but she remained inside much longer. By the end of the day she was starting to even understand what she found inside. Interpret it. Interact with it. It was like nothing she had ever even dreamed of before.

It was three days later that she decided to move further on, out into the greater network. Out into the internet...

Online! - It started as a shimmer of light that seemed to leak out of one of the ports on someone's computer. Are they at home? At work? In a cafe trying to write the great American novel? Well now they're not, because the shimmer slowly flutters out and shifts and dances into a humanoid shape, and then with a noise not quite unlike a pop, Shelke was standing next to the machine, dressed in a brown skirt and pink sweater, her red hair a bit messed and her expression slightly bewildered.

"...Huh."

She seemed just as surprise as everyone else that she was there, honestly. Well, as surprised as she ever was, really. After a few seconds, her faintly glowing eyes fix on the owner of the machine.

"Where am I?"

Cellular phones are a series of portable tubes - The phone started misbehaving as soon as Shelke hit it, but to the owner, it would just be a sudden series of bizarre application openings or closings, a phone-call that abruptly started to dial then stopped, and finally a text program opening and refusing to be closed.

It was thirty seconds or so before anything happened, and then a word appeared in the program.

Hello? Can you see this?

Comments

Bruce Wayne

[thelasttsviet]

Shelke had to stop by once a week to pick up her medication, and at first it had felt like a frustrating obligation, but honestly, there were enough remarkable things going on in the building that she stopped minding it pretty quick. Once her invisibility powers were back 'up and running' with their usual success, she could just wander around the building, watching people work, and no one was the wiser.

It was probably wrong, but she'd been a terrorist bent on destroying the world for half her life, so really, wrong was subjective.

Still, she eventually made her way to the lab where she typically met Mr. Wayne, and she let herself fade into view as she stepped inside, scanning the room.

"Hello?"

[the_caped_crusader]

[He can preternaturally sense her presence before she fades into view, although he feigns surprise, turning with a subdued startle after she announces herself.]

Oh! Shelke, of course. I'm sorry, I almost forgot you were coming today. [He approaches her after a moments pause.]

How have you been feeling lately?

[thelasttsviet]

[Luckily Shelke's observant nature didn't really lend itself to people, so she never knew he was faking his surprise. Not that she was trying to surprise him...(yes she was.)]

It's fine. [She said as she moved further into the room, scanning it absently as if checking for threats. Or exits. Someday she'd probably shake that habit.]

Uhm. [Right, she kept never knowing how to answer that.] Mostly the same. Tired, but I no longer feel sick.

[It was sad when 'crappy but tolerable' was her default normal but...well, life was hardly fair.]

[the_caped_crusader]

That's good, it means your body is adjusting. In time, the plan is for you to transition completely to feeling normal.

[He turns away from her for a moment and fiddles with something that she can't quite see with his back turned, but it doesn't take him very long to turn back to her with a small bracelet in his hand.]

Actually, I've been working on something since the last time you were here. A discrete dispersal of the synthetic mako, so that you don't have to continue coming here for doses. It works like a transdermal patch, and will absorb through the skin. This hopefully helps with the ups and downs you feel from the injections.

[thelasttsviet]

[Shelke reached out to take the bracelet, turning it over in her hands a few times. It was an interesting idea...and it would certainly be nice to be free of remembering her injections. But the rest...]

Thank you. [She hesitated, not quite ready to put it on just yet.] I don't know if it will help, though. I've never...not had those.

[The ups and downs.]

[the_caped_crusader]

Well, [He exhales.] luckily that's the goal of medical science, really.

[He doesn't address her directly, flipping through charts or inputting data using the keyboard in front of him as he speaks, but she has his attention.]

Unfortunately, the burden of testing falls on you so long as there isn't another person here with the same affliction as yours, but I'm rather confident that we can continue refining this process into something that works for you.

[overemotionally]

Jim was checking the network in a sorry attempt to try and re-familiarize himself with this place. He had been gone for five years from this place, lived what felt like an entirely different lifetime about halfway through their five years in space. Only 24 hours had gone by here when he was brought back.

He's scrolling through looking for familiar names when a text program pops up. Weird. He's pretty sure he didn't hit anything. Jim closes out of the program and continues scrolling when it opens again. This time he knows for a fact he didn't touch anything.

The words pop up and he furrows his brows.

Yeah, who are you?

Could this be like Spock's power? Was this another import?

[thelasttsviet]

[It was a few seconds before anything happened.]

Shelke.

[And then a few more.]

Is this a phone?

[overemotionally]

[Jim blinks down at the phone. It's like...]

Yeah, you're the one messaging me. Aren't you using a phone?

[thelasttsviet]

No. Hm.

[After that message there is thirty seconds of nothing, just long enough perhaps for him to think whatever had happened has ended, before the typing starts again.]

Put the phone on the ground and step back.

[overemotionally]

[Jim just looks at the screen for a few seconds before, reluctantly and skeptically, placing the phone on the ground and taking a few steps back.]

[mathemagier]

[He's at the house when it happens- the same house that barely has any furniture, but boy does it sure have an internet connection, because priorities.

Hermann jumps a bit in the single armchair amid boxes and boxes of what's supposed to a living room, and slams his laptop closed like that will solve anything. For a wild second, he's worried he wrote her into existence, but his abilities don't quite work that way. He recalls someone else's that did however, and manages to relax.]

You're in my house. A good 40 minutes away from the nearest imPort city by car, so I rather hope you know your way back.

[Not that he isn't driving back to De Chima later anyway]

[thelasttsviet]

Hm.

[If she seemed surprised by that, it didn't really register. Instead she turned a slow circle, examining the room carefully, then back to him.]

I see. I underestimated how quickly I was moving.

[A beat.]

...Which import city?

[mathemagier]

De Chima.

[Suspicious squint] You travel between networked devices then?

[thelasttsviet]

Hm.

[She had started out in Heropa so...whoops.]

Yes. I think so.

[She'd been doing it for hours now and she still didn't really feel confident in what it was. Because it didn't really make sense.]

[mathemagier]

[Well it makes sense to someone, as he nods. It's possible he'd invite her to sit, but there's not really anywhere to sit except on some boxes]

You don't sound terribly confident. Are you a new imPort? Or this just a new ability?

[doubleblind]

[Cosima's at work, holed up in her lab past work hours working on her very important side project when the strange light coming from her computer catches her attention. She abandons her microscope and stares in wonder as the girl materializes in front of her. She can't help but stare at how amazing the whole scene is.]

Holy watershed.

[Oh right, that's rude. She grins, offering Shelke her hand.]

New power?

[thelasttsviet]

[Shelke was perfectly still for several seconds before she turned to Cosima. Oh, someone she knew. That was handy at least.]

Old power. [She hesitated.] Or...changed power, I suppose.

[doubleblind]

[Cosima keeps holding out her hand, gesturing to a couch on the far side of the lab with the other. Whatever Shelke just did, it looked exhausting. Or at the very least, disorienting enough that the girl could use a rest.]

Changed, huh? Seemed like a trip. That was very cool, by the way.

[thelasttsviet]

[Shelke was a bit disoriented, it seemed, which was why she didn't notice the hand being offered to her. When she did, it was a very good thing, because a moment after she reached out to take it (something she would not have done generally) her knees started to buckle, and the hand became the only thing holding her up. At least she was tiny and light?]

It...was. [She answered after a moment, letting herself sink down onto the floor, trying to collect herself. She hadn't actually let go of Cosima's hand either? Whoops.]

I did not realize how tiring it was.

[doubleblind]

[Cosima lowers herself to the floor right along with Shelke, kneeling beside her. She squeezes her hand in reassurance. The floor is not the most comfortable place to sit, but Cosima's not so sure the girl could make it to the couch right now even though it's only on the other side of the room.]

Hey, hey, it's okay. You're okay. Take a minute to rest, all right? Can't say for sure, but I bet being tired's pretty normal after pulling off something like that. [Cosima's not entirely sure what that something is, and she's barely stopping herself from asking a dozen questions of what happened. Those can also wait until Shelke feels a bit less exhausted.]

Cellular phones are a series of portable tubes

[pummelgranite]

This is weird. Weird and concerning. There is plenty of shit in this phone she does not want anyone else seeing. Like nature photographs and poetry and deeply untasteful nudes. She's about to flip the thing over and rip the batteries out when the text appears. She should still just rip the battery out. She should absolutely not respond. So she responds.

"Uh huh."

[thelasttsviet]

It was a good thing Shelke wasn't going hunting then, clearly. There was another few seconds of silence before another message appeared.

Is this a phone? Please put it down and step back.

[pummelgranite]

She frowns at the scream and types hurriedly.

Not just "a phone" it is MY PHONE.

And she does not step back.

[thelasttsviet]

There was another delay.

I do not believe I am going to break it.