Logs:Double Decker

Double Decker
Dramatis Personae Hive, Kelawini, Cerebro	2023-12-01 "Fancy old abacus, thank you very much."
Location <XAV> Phoenix Room - Xs Third Floor
The guest rooms at Xavier's are spacious and comfortable, well-furnished suites readied for visitors. This one is among the smallest of the available suites, consisting of a small sitting room, a bedroom with queen-sized bed, and a large bathroom. The windows look out over the side yard, with its playground and playing fields. The decor in here heavily favours rich reds and dark woods, and the artwork that graces the wall leans fiery in theme. There is a fireplace, here, stocked with wood in the niche beside it; on the mantlepiece above it, small glassworked figurines of birds in reds and oranges and yellow look half on fire themselves, when they catch the light. "-- dedicate an entire fucking full-time job just to stalking one goddamn person, I do not want to see what goddamn freak they find to fill that position." The heat is blasting in here but nevertheless Hive has bundled himself heavily, fresh coffee in the mug in front of him and a thick fleecey blanket wrapped around him together with his thick sweatshirt, warm flannel pajamas, fluffy crimson and gold striped grippy socks. His grump currently is not directed at his companion but at his computer screen, where Rolling Stone is reporting that USA Today has just concluded its search for its first ever full-time Taylor Swift and Beyoncé correspondants; the media chain is still in the process of selecting a similar position for Ryan Black. "... I mean, I'm sure it'll be a flatscan," he's reconsidering, "but some real fucking psycho to want to spend their whole life on that shit." Where is Hive's companion, anyway? There doesn't seem to be anyone else here, but a reply comes all the same, crisp and androgynous, with a touch of Received Pronunciation, "A psycho hopelessly outmatched by Lucien Tessier." The voice comes from an intricate robotic bee perched on the lip of a fiery raku vase on the table in front of Hive. Framed by the colorful flower arrangement, the little drone looks almost like a deliberate adornment until it moves, antennae waggling. "And an easy target for the Blackguards, too. I predict high turnover for that job." Out in the hallway, a student has ventured boldly into the guest wing. Kelawini is looking for something--tracking something, even, but whatever it is registers in her mind via her technopathic sense, which isn't necessarily easy for someone else to parse. She coasts to a stop in front of Hive's door, her vision defocusing as she concentrates to confirm the thing she seeks is in there. Without really stopping to consider whether the room might be occupied--a guest room is basically like a public area right?--she barges right on in. Her outfit accidentally matches the themed decor: a sunny yellow denim jacket over a black crop top, red jeans, and suede ankle boots with fleecy cuffs. "Ho brah!" is less a greeting than a startled exclamation. << Issat his brain make da kine?! >> "Da kine" maps to the network activity she's been trying to pin down. "Eh, sorry Uncle. I no--uh, didn't think there was nobody in here." "All they'd have to do is make a fucking. Nicki Minaj correspondent and they'd have a whole flock of --" Hive's words cut off into a frown, a sharp tick of his sunken eyes towards the door just a moment before it opens. His scowl is not particularly inviting -- likely even to people aware of his Resting Bitch Face but probably even less so to a stranger. He picks up his coffee for a gulp before he says anything. Despite the scowl, when he does talk it is not to shoo Kelawini off. "My brain does a lot of fucking things. Dunno what you're listening to." The bee drone's wings quiver briefly when the door opens, but by the time Kelawini steps inside it has gone still and silent, like a metal sculpture to complement the metallic glaze of the vase. But on Hive's screen Signal indicates a new message. (Cerebro --> Hive): This one has been sitting on my head for weeks, sniffing after my drones (Cerebro --> Hive): They use a lot of bandwidth when I'm controlling them directly like this, though it's not easy to pin down so (Cerebro --> Hive): It's a fair cop, but I'm sore about it (Cerebro --> Hive): She's not even a very GOOD technopath, without her Wonder Twin Kelawini doesn't look intimidated by Hive's scowl and mostly isn't, but she is in awe of him wholly apart from that. Snatches of memories in whispered rumors at Lassiter speak of the mysterious telepath, the herald of raids, the many voices in one that tells you they've come for you, you're going to be rescued. She swallows. "Computers talking," she replies, immediately feeling absurd and embarrassed about the wording. << Lolo, he not that old, he know what "network" means he got a computer right there! >> "Always a lot happening on the network, here, not even the Internet just the school. So it's like..." Her finger traces a wobbly but more or less horizontal line at about her eye level, then suddenly shoots up as high as she can reach. "...den sometimes it come go way up. Not like no streaming or gaming, I never see nothing else liddat." She's studying Hive's computer with interest, though she refrains from pinging it. "You know anything about that?" "What the fuck is a computer," Hive is replying, deadpan, as he reaches for his laptop to reply to his messages. "Like some kind of fancy new abacus? They talk now?" (Hive --> Cerebro): Good enough to track you down (Hive --> Cerebro): You sound sore (Hive --> Cerebro): You can't just out-technopath her? (Cerebro --> Hive): Bugger off (Cerebro --> Hive): You do realize I can only "technopath" down in my lair? (Cerebro --> Hive): I've been disguising my network traffic and I can code circles around this brat, she's just bloody relentless "Fancy old abacus, thank you very much," says the bee. Kelawini rolls her eyes. "Can you telepath through your computer?" She's trying not to sound too excited or impressed at the idea. << Don't that just make him some differen kine technopath? Mebbe I come get one bettah computer, den I solve dis mystery... >> She's definitely thinking of her phone as a "computer" in this context, and with it she is pinging Hive's computer now, little though that solves her network traffic mystery. But then the little metal bee--she'd not even noticed it before and it takes her a moment to spot it--talks. "Chee, who's there?" She strides right up to the table and leans in close to study the drone, her power stretching for it and her excitement fully undisguised now. "Dis yours?" is to Hive, even if she isn't looking at him, and adds pointedly, "I wen see abacuses, dey don't look like no bug." "Mine," Hive echoes with a bemused snort. "Like hell. -- Brains are computers, right? Kinda a different kinda technopath. Anyway this mouthy-ass abacus," he's gesturing with his mug towards the bee, "Jax's kid made. Got a damn mind of its own now." "Abaci," Cerebro says, leaning just a bit on the terminal "i", "are mechanical computers. Brains are organic ones, and this 'bug' is a digital one." The drone takes off when Kelawini leans close, scrupulously staying out of her reach. "He can't telepath digital computers any more than you can technopath organic ones, but there are people who can bridge that gap." The voice playing from its speakers dopplers with its movement until it settles down onto Hive's shoulder. Or the blankets generously piled over his shoulder, anyway. "I don't belong to anyone, and I'm not your mystery to solve. Haven't you got something better to do? Studying for finals, or shopping, or posting idiotic videos for the content farms? Pick your pubescent poison." "Nailed it, bruh," Hive interjects here, his next sharp hfff directed down into his coffee before another swallow. "She's definitely gonna back off now." Kelawini is definitely not backing off. "AI?" she asks, bright with excitement as she watches the drone take flight. "Like you one person? Spence got skills." She's aware Jax has other children, but mainly thinking of Jerusalem here and comparing it against this robot with a mixture of skepticism and amazement. Without asking for permission, she's plopping herself down on the couch sideways, but far enough from the drone that her power can't quite reach, however much it's reflexively trying. "No stress, I'm not poking around in dere. You gotta name, brah?" She leans a little to one side and looks at Hive. "Eh, not you Uncle I know who you are." Though she's idly wondering now if "Hive" is short for something, or if it's a normal name for whatever kind of Asian he is. A small, not-quite-awkward pause later she adds, "Howzit? I'm Kelawini." "Not that kid. Shane's twin. B made Jerusalem, too, back when she went here." There's a small and rueful twitch at the corner of Hive's mouth, his eyes darting to Kelawini a longer moment and then pulling away. He slouches further down into his side of the couch, tugging his blanket more snug around him. "Thai," is delivered, unhelpfully, without any scaffolding for context. "I know who you are. I hear fucking everything around here. -- Anyway term's not even starting till Monday, dude, how's she gonna have finals." His eyes narrow. "... and her sister posts most of the idiotic videos. You're almost done here, right? I mean. Graduating." "She made a lot of the drones you see around here," Cerebro adds. The bee cocks its head sideways, though its colorful compound eyes can see Hive just fine without turning. "It's never too early to study, I'm sure. Or too late to start posting idiotic videos. What about shopping, then? Happy birthday and congratulations." The drone has rotated its tiny head the other direction to give the impression it's scrutinizing Kelawini. "Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not an AI, just the sysadmin. I'm not actually sorry, since you might become slightly less of a pain in my arse now you know that I'm a terribly boring sort of person." The bee's slender articulated legs shift in place for no apparent reason. "You can call me Cere." "Chee..." Kelawini is mentally reviewing the sheer variety of drones she's seen in the mansion and on the grounds. Her mundane sensory recollections have an extra depth in her sense of how the devices register in the school's network, and how they felt as a part of her and Nanami when they've swept up the entirety of that network. Well. Almost the entirety of it. "Not that boring if you look liddat using a drone." She waggles her fingers in the direction of the bee. "You're like me, eh?" She's not less excited about this than the prospect of meeting a strong AI, but "other technopaths" in her mind maps to only the terrifying consciousness that had contained them during testing at Lassiter. Though she's known Hive could read minds from the moment she saw him, though he's pointedly reminded her he hears everything, it's only now she clumsily tries to deploy her rudimentary command of psionic self-defense. "Yah, I graduate next spring." She focuses on the anxiety and uncertainty that attends the thought, but it doesn't really crowd out Lassiter, especially at "happy birthday and congratulations". Her parents would definitely want her to go to college with that money. She should want that, too, shouldn't she? << Bettah computer first, >> she promises herself. "Cere. What kine name dat? You British?" This thought makes her a little less embarrassed about being troublesome to him. "Birthday -- oh shit." Hive's brows are knitting deep, and he's saying, "... you getting that money now," like it's a curse. His eyes narrow sharply on Kelawini after this, and for a brief moment at that thought of Lassiter Technopath there's a noticeable alien pressure squeezing down against her mind, there for a second and then hastily withdrawn with a gruff, "sorry." His snort then is sharp as his eyes flick back to the bee. "British, fuck, have some respect, he's as British as you are American. Do you want to go to college?" "British, fuck!" Cere exclaims, about in time with Hive. "I don't belong to any nation, either, but I'm from Bangalore." An infinitesimal pause later he adds, crankily, "India, if you must. The name comes from a Pali word that means 'glory' or something like, but it's also short for 'Cerebro'." Even without direct access to his mind, Hive can probably clock this seemingly innocuous pause as a hesitation. "And yeah, I'm a bit like you, and because that is dangerous, not a lot of people know who I am or what I can do. You've earned this much, but I need you to keep that secret and stop digging for more. If I trust you to respect my privacy, I may tell you more." (Cerebro --> Hive): You made a face (Cerebro --> Hive): Did you try to eat her brain? (Cerebro --> Hive): That looked like your brain-eating face (Cerebro --> Hive): What's wrong? This information about Cerebro's heritage strikes a distinctly positive note in Kelawini's mind without her really understanding why. "Oh, das cherry but you no talk like..." She frowns, unsure now where that sentence was going, then just shakes her head. "Shoots, I wen go this school how long now? I know how to shaddap." She looks past the bee at Hive, the frown returning, deepening. "Eh, get choke money." Though self-conscious that growing up in poverty has not really given her a strong sense for what most other people would consider "choke money", she doesn't bother qualifying this. She's too busy comparing Hive's tone ("... you getting that money now") with her own sense that she should be happier about this than she is. "'Course I do," is a touch defensive, a reflex from a lifetime of being told she wasn't smart enough or good enough, or that her mother was high makamaka for teaching college, or-- "I don't know what I want to study." (Hive --> Cerebro): I didn't mean to try and eat her brain (Hive --> Cerebro): I got curious. It's still hard to control (Hive --> Cerebro): Nothing's wrong. Just a memory, I think. (Hive --> Cerebro): You've been around fifty billion years, have you met many other technopaths? "Given the givens I think it's okay to not be overjoyed about your 'we all got tortured' money." Hive's brows knit, and then he huffs a quiet snort. "... 'we all saved ourselves from being tortured' money. Still not exactly joy-inspiring, even if a leg up on getting through college is good. ... what's," he's about to ask but then instead he's kind of crankily googling 'high makamaka'. It doesn't come with another squeeze at Kelawini's brain but Cerebro can likely clock the disgruntled irritation in his expression that understanding is still Much Harder than it really should be. "I guess computers would be a cop-out. Do you like computers or is it just, y'know --" His fingers flick vaguely in the direction of Kelawini's head, then drop back to curl around the coffee mug (currently resting, slightly unsteadily, on his knee.) "Finding that sweet spot between what you're good at and what you enjoy can be a bitch." (Cerebro --> Hive): I know YOU wouldn't mean to (Cerebro --> Hive): Only I get curious, too, and can't even slightly scratch that itch (Cerebro --> Hive): Proper technopaths, like yours truly, are rare as hen's teeth (Cerebro --> Hive): This kid's the only other I've actually met in either life. I never interfaced with Halim "My family wanted very much to be English." The drone grooms its antennae, managing to project affected primness that underlines Cerebro's point. "I know, it's risible but quite common. You don't need to know what you want to study," the drone tells Kelawini, "at least not immediately. You can start with the classes just about every major requires. You can also, quite literally, afford to wait." Kelawini's scowl is reflexive, though the anger and hurt behind it has dulled over the months. "We no wen save ourselves, you guys did that." She mashes her psionic obscuring button harder and tries not to think about the raiders who didn't come back or about the ones who were injured and captured and outed. She gamely redirects to, "Why would anyone want to be English? Or British or whatever?" Her technopathic interface with the phone in her pocket is arcane to Hive's mind but her thoughts around googling "difference between English and British" and her bewilderment at the answer (<< dem haoles stay lolo >>) is plain enough to understand. The question of whether she likes computers draws an unexpected blank--she hadn't really considered it in those terms, at least not consciously. "I like fo use computers," she ventures, uncertain. She likes the connections they make possible, from the music she can listen to any time to the information she's looking up right now (she thinks even less of both Britain and England than she did before) to the conversations with friends and family and strangers the world over. Better computers--hardware and software both--makes all those things easier, so... "Auright, I like um. But da kine...programming?" She doesn't have easy words to express the vast difference between the way her power lets her navigate technology swift and sure as a shark through water and the way using a keyboard to bang out letters and numbers is like trying to row a dumpy flat-bottom boat. "Das too slow." "You gonna pretend none of your people embrace being American? Colonization is a mindfuck." The tremor in Hive's hands is getting worse, coffee splashing up towards the rim of the mug before he clenches his fingers tight against it. "Bet if you learned, there's ways to turn that shit towards some freelance money and get an education in something you want to do. Probably just takes a little practice figuring out how to turn what comes natural to you into boring-ass code for someone else. My --" For a second his teeth grind, clench hard, but only a second. "... old housemate made a solid living selling code and his brain wasn't even built for it. Freed up the rest of his time for..." Here he trails off again, the stubbly-bitten edge of his short fingernail scraping against the mug handle. "More important things than capitalism." (Hive --> Cerebro): Bet you could teach her a few things about how to turn brain-thoughts into rent money. (Hive --> Cerebro): Halim certainly could've, that motherfucker could do goddamn anything (Hive --> Cerebro): She met another in there (Hive --> Cerebro): Fucked up how many of us learn we aren't alone in those goddamn cages (Cerebro --> Hive): Not that I've ever paid Charles rent, but yes (Cerebro --> Hive): I'm not shocked, though I am dismayed and more curious still (Cerebro --> Hive): Would it be insensitive to ask if she knows their name? (Cerebro --> Hive): Or anything by which I might track them down "I'm hardly your counselor, but I do know a lot about the tech field. There are more ways to make money off of your wizardry than slinging code, and you can definitely learn to do so without university." He pauses, and the drone tilts its head primly. "That's probably part of why I'm not your counselor. How about this: sometimes figuring out what you want to do is a whole process, too. At its best, school can be part of that process." Kelawini shrugs. "Sure, plenny kānaka like rah rah USA, but we stay occupied. India..." Her thoughts are hitching a little there, suddenly considering how she cannot possibly know enough about India to finish that sentence, however much she feels like she should. She settles for a somewhat confused, "...das complicated, eh?" She considers Hive, considers his computer. "What he do? Your old housemate. When pau--finish selling code?" Her eyes shift to the drone again and she sits up straighter, hands braced on her shin. "You gonna teach me how fo come one badass hacker?" (Hive --> Cerebro): If she's anything like most of us her patience for randos getting nosy about the cages may not be high "Terrorism, mostly." There's not a lot of change in Hive's gruff tone, though his hand lifts from the mug somewhat reflexively to trace his fingers against the knotted line of scarring visible beneath his short hair. "Flexible schedule helps if you're at war with the government." He picks up his mug, carefully taking another sip. "Cere wants to know who the other decker was. The technopath at the labs. Not a lot of you running around." The drone's wings buzz irritably, but Cerebro settles on a fairly mild, "A bit complicated. Colonialism doesn't end when the colonizers leave, I'm afraid. At any rate..." The metallic insect lapses back into stillness, but still seems to be looking at Kelawini as Cerebro's voice continues, "I will teach you as best I can. How badass you turn out is up to you." The drone's head rotates toward her again. "There are damnably few of us, and 'running around' is carrying a lot of weight, there. Maybe I can teach you a few things that'll help keep you in the running." Kelawini fixes Hive with an uncertain frown as she considers the word "terrorist" and how she's heard it applied to Jax, and for that matter the other teachers who'd raided Lassiter, and by implied extension this skinny, unassuming man in front of her. Her eyes settle on the scar beneath his fingertips, slots that into the horror stories she heard in the labs. "Your housemate sound pretty badass," she ventures, with a dawning conviction all the raiders are unbelievably badass. "Mebbe I learn um good, bumbai get one flexible schedule too." She's trying to remember the sense of that presence she felt at Lassiter now, but finding little context for it. Her power stretches out for the bee drone, both directly and through her phone's connection to the network. "I don't know, we never saw um. They felt strong, though, and big." She isn't sure "big" is actually the right word, here. "They out too, right?" A ripple of discomfort passes through her. << Lotta fakkas wen help the white coats, all of um out now... >> She's thinking of the Winterses and feeling disloyal for thinking of them, but simultaneously not quite able to give a stranger the same grace she automatically wants to them. "You could find um." "He was pretty badass," Hive affirms readily, together with, "My whole team is pretty badass." Under his blanket he is shivering noticeably; when he wraps his blanket in a more fluffed up layering it doesn't much help this. His brows furrow, deep. "I'unno. Dusk usually -- we haven't --" For a second his teeth grind. "I think there's a lot of people we're still trying to track down. I was kinda out of it for a minute but I've gathered things have been a bit of a scramble." (Cerebro --> Hive): No way they actually let everyone go (Cerebro --> Hive): Government has incentive to hold onto a strong technopath "Well, I'm not the decker I once was, and I'm certainly no Dusk. But, with a little help?" The drone lifts off when Hive adjusts his blanket, only to settle itself back onto his ineffectually shivering shoulder after. "I could find them."