Multiple Settings "It's Hard to Graduate In a Cyberpunk Dystopia!"

[Aes_Dragon]

Cairn Orias
Academy Six ~ Storage Classroom
​

Cairn felt a bit of unease upon seeing Machina take form in the side of his vision. After all, he was sort of talking behind her back. But at the same time, he was well aware that his feelings were a bit out of place. Should he be feeling that way when he wasn't talking about a real person? Would the AI really 'feel' anything towards his comments?

...Well, if it didn't, the response was still not easy to shake off. He exhaled out of his nose listening to the reasoning, dissatisfied. To avoid suspicion... from the people at the club? Surely there would be better things to appear as than a student. The 'disguise' had been active from around noon of that day, so wasn't it trying to avoid detection from the study group? In which case, the 'why' had yet to be answered. "Uh... huh." He tried to inject a tone of realization into the sound he made, but there was still some detectable sarcasm behind it. As the AI continued, he became sure that it was best not to press this topic any further.

The idea of studying via audio had briefly passed Cairn's mind before, but he felt it wouldn't be very effective without practical application during it. Still, it was certainly better than nothing. Hearing Matthew chime in that he had been able to figure something out, he leaned forward a bit; taking his words seriously, and incredibly curious to see what they had all missed.

Cairn stared at what Matthew showed the group, unsure of how he had managed to concoct an actual picture. After a few seconds, he let out an "Oh." and smushed his face into his right hand. The muscles in his face were fighting themselves.

The conversation had turned back to the gunshots. He had been sure that they weren't being targeted by them, but Rin's look unsettled him. As Lexi was yanked inside and the door shut, the room fell silent.

---

Academy Six - Pitch-Black Storage Classroom​

Listening to shots ring out while being accompanied only by the sound of his own breathing wasn't new to Cairn, but this time was different. This time, there was nowhere to run, no dark but vacant alley to disappear into. This room was a cell. He held his breath at points, trying to hear what was happening outside as clearly as possible. Trying to figure out what options they had.

There weren't many. Maybe there weren't any. They weren't the targets of these robbers, but being caught in the crossfire was all the same. It was clear that their existence enough was reason for them to shoot. So they had to either avoid them from figuring out they existed, or they had to stop existing in the school. The distraction plan with the lights sounded a bit promising, but even if they managed to somehow pull that off, they had too many footsteps. Getting out of the room undetected was impossible. Well, maybe not if they jumped out the window, but... jeez, at least getting seen by the robbers guaranteed a clean death.

Breaking out of his own head for a moment, Cairn saw Lexi moving out of the room. It was some sort of miracle that the door didn't squeak as it opened. But why?! They might have been completely screwed at this point regardless, but if huddling in the storage room was waiting for a speeding train to crush them, going out there was like sprinting into that speeding train! There was no way to get past the robbers and go down!

...

Suddenly, he reached towards his feet, and pulled both of his shoes off before attempting to stand. For some reason, it was difficult to do so, but he managed to steady himself. Would that work? The robbers wouldn't go there, no? They wouldn't look there, would they?

"The cafete..." Cairn was out of breath. Why? He had only been sitting there. He was clutching himself, holding his shoes in one hand, shivering. Only realizing his state just then, he was confused. If anything, he felt full of energy. "The cafeteria, on the top floor. We go up. Right? Right?" His head made small movements, as if trying to confirm if he had a good idea. As he had managed to catch, and Lexi had stated, the robbers were looking for something. Something on this floor, in one of the rooms. Whatever it was, it wouldn't be in the cafeteria. Even if they did search it, they had their super secret study spot to retreat to! But they were only so many more unsmashed doors around the corner. He hobbled over to the entrance... exit? The door. With the light shining on him, anyone looking would see that Cairn was barefoot. ...Er, sockfoot? He was wearing socks, though each of them had holes at the front so big half of his toes stuck out. He moved close to Lexi, his steps completely silent. Looking down at her and thinking about what she had just said, he thought that was actual bravery to declare something like that. Like how she had spoke about her injury just a few minutes ago, it also didn't seem like a front. Being slightly closer to the robbers, he turned his voice into a high whisper.

"We can't let anyone... die. So let's go...!" They could still work on the hacking plan as they went, or after they got to safety. Either way, they had to move, and moving down wasn't an option.

Karyra

 

[Rithas]

Rin Tanaka
Academy Six - Third Floor, Storage Classroom ​

---

Rin eye's snapped back open as Shiho called her out in a tense whisper. It was clear that she was not going to let Rin take a back step when it came to getting out of this situation. The faint glow of pink eyes stared back at Shiho, "Okay. Right! Umm.." Rin tried to think about the options that the girl opposite of her had given. But before she could do that the other study members were already thoroughly looking through those very options.

Teallionn
Raymond look down through the window did not give Rin or the others much optimism about that route. Unless they had some sort of way to get down that wasn't just free falling then that was probably just a write off. After doing a mild Ai-ism, he also suggested that they could make a barricade. Or worse, create...mustard gas? For a second Rin considered it before realising that would definitely end up with them causing terrible self-harm. "If we just barricade they'll definitely know we're here." and she wasn't so sure they could get a good enough barrier to stop someone with a gun and a determined bat.

So sure, Raymond's chemical idea was rather frowned upon by the other members. But he couldn't help but wonder if there was still some solid idea based on that line of thinking...

Maki admitting that she couldn't just hack the system from anywhere was unfortunate. Even Rin may have held some bias that the girl could do that. Their virtual friend was bound to th most human of faults. Bluffing her skills to other people without backing it up.

Karyra Aes_Dragon Tau
"Lexi!?" She hissed in surprise as the girl clamoured out into the hallway. Okay sure, the slap caused a mess. But she didn't need to risk her life solely because of that! But it was too late now to stop her. Tell you what, she was a bit of a smooth criminal when it came to crouch walking. Not bad for a girl who probably had a mild concussion!

Cairn stood up next, finding some courage in himself to do something. He muttered something about the cafeteria. Cafeteria? Cafeteria! Rin thumped her hand into her fist. A great idea from Cairn. Or at least, that was certainly the first idea that wasn't on the lines of jumping to their death or suicide by chemicals! And it required going only up through the exit stairs into the secret entrance. Blessed be the inexplicable location of the Cafeteria being at the top of this school! Of course, if that was one of the options they could go with. It would still require going through that door. Or at least she was pretty sure...Hmm.

Rin was so impressed by this that she didn't even say make a noise when Cairn darted off to join Lexi. She did danger a glance through the slit of light now entering the room from the door. She raised an eyebrow at Cairn's feet, before glancing down at the ground where he previously was.

Why did he take off his shoes again?
Rin made a mental note that if they survived this that Cairn was to be gifted some socks.

"Another clear room. Wow. It's gonna be the last place we look isn't it. Oh wait. Of course it would be!"

Whether it being a risky peek out, or a clever glance through the wet floor. The duo(trio? whatever came after that.) could get an actual glimpse at their invaders when they walked out from their most recently searched classroom. A large stocky man, twiddling a power pistol in one hand and trying to adjust his cap in the other. His grin and lack of battle scars told them that he could hardly be a couple years older then they were. A smaller and thinner man stood next to him, pinching the bridge of his nose. Some sort of cybernetic on hi- Hey! That was the Dex Support 22! The same thing that she had. He had the vague look of a ripper-doc. But what the hell was he doing trespassing in a school? The third, a woman with a buzz cut dressed in a crop top and satin trousers(?) hopped from one side of the hallway to the other in less then three steps.

Perhaps that's why Lexi thought there was two of them at first. While the big man thudded along , the smaller man with impatient and slightly staggered steps. The third person, the woman, moved with a sort of buoyant silent grace. She was either an extremely trained ballet dance or she had some cybernetic prosthetics helping her walk. Given that she was lightly bouncing without hassle to the next door. The bet was on the cybernetics. Still, despite her grace. She could put some force behind the large neon pink baseball bat she was holding, seeing as it smacked the lock off another door within three hits.

Lexi had enough knowledge about the streets and the surrounding area to know that they are all vaguely fit the description of a gang. The problem being that each one matched the look of a different gang. This mismatch of style and looks could only mean one thing. They were Dregs. Exiles from one gang or another. Which meant that they weren't dealing with absolute psychos, nor highly trained professionals. But she could bet that all three of them had a chip on their shoulder.

"There's something still bothering me..." The short one looked around in a vague manner. Thankfully he only bothered to look away from Cairn and Lexi. He sighed again, shrugging his shoulders. "Bleh, whatever. It's nothing...I'm sure it'll come to me..." was the only comment before they entered another classroom.

Well, they still had numerous rooms to go through. The study mates had various rooms and lockers they could sneak between. Either they were finding something to help them with this or they were gonna really have to time a pass through undetected and bolt. Even then, that would just be leaving the rest of group in a great pit of tar. What was their next move? More importantly, how comfortable was Cairn with his wet socks?

Having some time to look through someone else's eye for once. Maki tried to give an courteous glance at whatever firewall she was dealing with...

Emiya Shin
Rin, having a sudden urge to do some productive help for this crisis by Shiho. And having some level of knowledge that her going out there to sneak would not be a positive addition to their attempts. She instead chose to flip open a tiny holo tab as she scrolled through some system basics for this school. Oh boy, that was a lot of text. Fortunately, she had placed well in a speed reading competition as a child!

Wait, wait...She had done some digging up on this. "The electricity system is archaic! It was built in like the 80's!" Most of them weren't even born in that century never mind knowledge about back then! "We could try to hack into the network wirelessly but it be a little problematic. I'm not sure how modern CICI software would even react to something as old as that? It would need time and most likely would be rather noticeable during the progress." That might need a delay or distraction or something. Trying to figure something else out, she rolled through some Wikipedia page on 80's computer systems as fast as she could. "But this thing is old enough that there should be an actual physical control node!" That could just manually override the system and turn it off all in one go or whatever else they wanted to do with it once they had control. "I mean, we'd have to figure out how get some port device into it but still... Oh! They still had on site fuse boxes back then. That might also work if we could find that and just physically break that. But that would definitely be a drastic no take-back shutdown of all electronic devices." But this was a drastic situation after all. "Still, they should both be somewhere..." actually, wait. They were in some sort of storage/maintenance room. Shouldn't it be close? Was there some place that they went through that would have one of those?

There was still a few of the study members who were there in the back of the room. Shrouded in darkness. Who had not yet decided on what they wanted to do. The time was ripe for coming up with their own ideas to put in action. Or just helping with what they thought was best. As long as they thought it wasn't going to get them killed, anyway.


@Everyoneelse

---

Dregs - Codex Entry now found in Lore Tab.

---

Cairn Orias: awarded with the Okay McClane Trophy - "Hohoho - Ow my foot!" - Go Bare(Sock) Foot! - City Life Collection Aes_Dragon

 

[Ehb]

Spoiler

Aes_Dragon
Cairn had a point; it was one of the topics that Miruno had been dancing around throughout most of this discussion. The fact that they were looking for Mr. Yano seemed to be the root of what had gotten all of them in the bar in the first place. There was more to that though, at least in Miruno's mind. But, seeing Cairn and the others already having a hard time made she hold onto what she had to add to that for the time being. If she tried to convince them of what she fully thought of that now, they would have a hard time accepting it.

But then, Cairn witched topics. He asked about Maki.
Specifically, 'why she was disguised as a student'?

"As a student?" Miruno chuckled out, like he was asking something obvious. "When isn't Maki parading around disguised as a-"

But, before Miruno could continue, Maki finally decided to show up out of the chip to speak for herself. But, there was something interesting in what Machina had said:

'She looked different to not raise suspicion'

When was Machina even there at the club actually? Miruno had never perceived her being active practically throughout their entire time at the bar. In fact, Maki was oddly quiet that entire day. Not a single peep from the AI the entire day. Wasn't that odd? But then if that was the case, why was everyone else talking like Machina had been active that whole time? From Miruno's perspective, Maki was literally just hiding away in Miruno's chip for literally that entire day.

But, what if she really wasn't? Was Miruno's own memory about that day wrong?



The shifting of her own expressions from confusion, to realization soon turned into a a distrustful gaze towards her Ai who had just addressed her by her real name.

If it was any other day, most any other situation, Miruno would be a little happy with her AI actually bothering to use her name. Ever since Maki had started to interact with people, like others online, or even here at school, the fact that they all had the same label as her 'Friend' made it feel like Maki really did just see her as just one user in a sea of users. Being called by her name should've been a good thing here, but... the vibes given off by Maki's white-dress avatar and the 'Maki' controlling it within the depths of her own chip were saying otherwise.

Machina wasn't saying her name endearingly at all.
She was saying it as an... insult?

Seriously?



The words of the doctor that installed Maki's deletion project sprung up in Miruno's memory.

"So. If an AI does not have feelings ...Do you think that that your AI - Maki, is doing all of those things for you for any other reason that doesn't boil down to allowing herself to continue to exist?"

Wait a moment. The other day, right after what happened at Flannagan's didn't Maki say something about her actually being there?At the time, Miruno been busy doing a stream at the time so she brushed it off, but... now that she thought about it. Maki had said:

"I know. I was there. Not that you’d know…"
"After all, I’m just a nagging notification banner for you to shut off the moment you don’t need me any more! Why bother talking with it! It couldn’t possibly have feelings!"

What was happening there in her room exactly? What had happened there at the bar exactly?
Something wasn't adding up with Machina's involvement with that night. There was a clear difference between the things that Cairn and the others said about Machina being there that night, and Miruno not remembering her being involved at all. What did that mean? Was Machina doing things behind her back that whole time?

But why though?
Miruno had been putting up with her antics up till now. Just voicing her displeasure or ignoring Machina's quirky nature outright but...
It didn't mean that...

the AI has been trying to find a way to take control of her chip again?

---

Matthew Moore's complaints and obvious failure to even pass primary school art class, and the continuing general conversation between the students was background noise to Miruno who appeared to be lost in thought. However, eventually the sudden shift in scenario became impossible to ignore once a gunshot went off right in the hallway they had all been in. There were intruders in the building, there was a gun involved, and they were now dangerously close to the classroom that the Study Group was now in. It happened so suddenly that Miruno had almost failed to connect Rin's floor-loving fetish just moments ago.

That Idiot!
She didn't tell any of them that those people shooting outside had gotten into the school as soon a she noticed it?!


Sitting in the dark, the various members of the study group were attempting to weight their options. Miruno, whom had been leaning up against the wall, by now had went over to lay down and take cover by the big old audio cart that they put away. Standard procedure to put something substantial between herself and the door that they could come through. There were several of her peers who were wanting to take a more active role in trying to resolve this rapidly unfolding scenario. Messing with the lights. Climbing down the side of the building to safety. Raymond had an idea that addressed Miruno directly- Using her AI to spoof an intruder alarm to scare them off. Though, again, Her AI interjected that she needed someone who could actually hack into a system mainframe to break the school's firewall.

Geez, why was everyone being so loud? Didn't the drills teach everyone to stay put, hide, and keep quiet? Were they forgetting that their best defense to these people was how they had yet to be aware of their presence in this classroom?
But, having her AI spoof an intruder alert through the school systems was overly complicated - and didn't need to be. Really, there was another way to go about it. But, the situation was unfolding so rapidly, where was barely a moment to even try to coordinate with everyone else.

Even now, Lexi had left the safety of the classroom in order to sneak a peek at the intruders, and maybe gather some sort of information. Lexi's request to the AI to stream the feed the former's eye augmentation also went through. Miruno being aware of it since the AI still was essentially a virtual machine running on her own CICI chip. Miruno wasn't sure exactly what Analytics Lexi was hoping it could could run on it, though.


The adrenaline from the gunshots was making Miruno's mind race. But... rather than doing the first thing that came to mind - it seemed like practically everyone else was doing that at this moment - she wanted to try piecing together the situation now and go from there. That situation was:

The third floor of the school.
Three people, one of the armed with a gun, another with a type of nose cybernetic, and another who had a bat and a set of some sort of leg augmentations. All three were looking for something on the school premises. Going classroom to classroom to find it.

Rithas Emiya Shin Teallionn LowD Skyswimsky Clairikins
At the moment, Lexi and Cairn were out of the classroom. Lexi was getting the AI a visual feed on what was going on outside. It seemed to make sense to stream it out to the others as well so they'd at least be able to get an idea of the situation as well.

In another part of that classroom, Rin was going deep into how they could use the school's own electrical network to help disorient the attackers by... messing with the lights and then disabling all electronics?

But even then, as long as the intruders were in the building, in the end, they all were going to have to deal with them.

Lexi and Cairn were outside, they were in danger of getting shot at.
Everyone else was in here in the classroom, but it was only a matter of time before they were found.

@_Everyone in general
Perhaps this was the time to try to coordinate?

(Continued in character-shenanigans in 'Coordinate to Survive')

 

[Emiya Shin]

---

---

Shiho Nakamura
Academy Six - Third Floor, Storage-Classroom

Shiho listened to Rin explaining her impromptu findings about the electricity systems that Academy Six had used. She even explained that the electrical grid was built in the 80s, which made the blonde student wearing a waterproof jacket raised her eyebrows. Unfortunately, due to the archaic design of the electrical grid, it was unknown whether the network can be hacked through CICI, and if it is possible to be hacked, the effects of CICI to the grid. All in all, the idea was a complete gamble.

Rin also revealed that there should be some kind of, in her exact words, 'an actual physical control node'. Shiho was once again puzzled with her choice of words, until she mentioned about breaking fuse boxes, port devices, and of course, hard shutdown of all electronic devices.

"Is it really necessary to break the so-called on site fuse boxes?" Shiho replied to Rin. "Maybe we can just, you know, turn it off with a switch or something? If it was that archaic, like the 80s, there shouldn't be an interface for those uh... handheld devices, right?"

Shortly after her response to Rin, she got a message from Miruno through the CICI chat function. If anything, it was sent to everyone currently in the storage-classroom area right now. Shiho did not waste time to reply to the messages. She eventually announced that she will try to find the aforementioned physical control node, and the on site fuse boxes. Once that was done, she brought out her backup communication device, which is... a smartphone from the era before CICI was used!

After a couple of swipes, and presses, and the archaic device projects a source of light from it, which is enough to illuminate a small area. If only that Shiho's somewhat augmented eyes can look in the dark, then she would not have to do that light shining act, and perhaps expose the group to the 3 ganger folks outside of the room. Sadly, it is not an Fabula Optics cyberware. It is just a piece of fashionware.

Now, with a source of light in her hands, Shiho started searching for the fuse boxes, and the physical control node in the Storage-Classroom. She wanted to disable them properly, but not breaking it.

---

Interactions: Rithas Ehb @/others?

---

 

[Teallionn]

Raymond Denhart
Third Floor Storage Classroom​

"I could, but I need someone else to breakthrough the school’s firewall. Unless you also think I should be good at hacking just because I’m a program." Machina shot back at Raymond, clearly annoyed to have not been addressed properly.

“Ah s-sorry Maki! And no, no! Course not… I just figured you’d, um both, have a better idea on that sort of thing..” Raymond waved his hands in front of him, alarmed at the AI girls volume and realising he’d stuck his foot in his mouth big time. He tried to apologise “Didn’t mean any offence..” He scratched the back of his head. “Man, I just don’t know what else to do here.”

Cairn got to his feet and suggested they go high, get to the cafeteria and Raymond could at least reason that would give them more distance and time to come up with a plan. It sounded pretty good in fact. “Y-yeah! Let’s move up outta here.” Before heading out and possibly due to feeling particularly empty-handed, Raymond grabbed a hefty jug of bleach that sat innocently by the mop buckets. Just incase.

Raymond followed Cairn, probably the most level headed study group member and all round cool guy (shoes or no shoes), out of the dark storage room. He waved a hand at the remaining group members to follow, though after insulting Maki/Miruno, he didn’t expect too much.

It felt good to be moving though, he was quite light on his feet so he felt confident he wouldn’t draw attention.

Tau Ehb Rithas Aes_Dragon

 

[Aes_Dragon]

Cairn Orias
Academy Six ~ Third Floor Hallway​

Cairn had unconsciously accepted that not many of them would actually leave the classroom. Moving in the same hallway as people who could shoot at any moment did take some guts. He didn't feel very gutsy himself, though; more that this was just the best thing for him to do. If choosing to move, it was best to do so as soon as possible. Thankfully, Raymond agreed with him. It was a little validating to have company. Cairn gave him a once-over, not sure if he could or should... criticise? All he whispered, almost mouthed, was "be careful."

Okay, to get to the cafeteria. They just had to go through...

"Oh sh..."

He froze for just a moment, his instincts quickly taking over. Just move. He tiptoed across the slick floor, holding his breath. It didn't make a sound. He worried a bit about Raymond though, particularly if his shoes would squeak or if he might drop that heavy-looking jug and damn them all. The next classroom over seemed so, so far. He resisted the temptation to look back. Any hesitation would lose time, and forbid he lose enough that he'd be caught.

The messages from the group chat popped into Cairn's head as he moved. Not responding to them at the current moment, but certainly absorbing what they said. Leaving the room made the most sense, didn't it? If these people were going to stop once they found what they were looking for, then statistically, they had the best odds of not being caught by going as far away as they could from them. Well, on C.I.C.I., at least. In practice, all of them moving at once was bound to make noise, which was a risk in and of itself. Perhaps it was better for anyone was working on that hacking idea to stay put and focus on that. He knew he couldn't really help with that, and quietly sighed. He'd be marginally more useful out here rather than sitting in that classroom twiddling his thumbs. Though hopefully, his utility wasn't restricted to being a meat shield...

Reaching the next door undetected, at least he hoped, he turned the knob slowly and pushed the door in at a steady, moderate speed. As it slowed, there was a creaking sound. Not a prolonged, nor very loud creak. But he could hear it. Hopefully only he could hear it. Looking into the room with the hallway light, this one seemed like it was just a regular classroom, and he quickly backed into it.

He took a short relieved breath, but kept thinking. The way up to the cafeteria might have been the same way to go down out of the building, but... they could still get there, right? It would take a lot of moving, but assuming they just kept moving in that circle, he and Raymond should be able to get to that exit without crossing the intruders as they continued to check classrooms. Should. It probably wouldn't be that easy, not unless they had some cardboard boxes large enough to cover them as they moved. There was that obvious issue of everyone else still in that room. Maybe they could make some kind of distraction before retreating up into the cafeteria?

Besides that, there was one thing that was nagging at him. These robbers were looking for something that was here specifically.
What it was exactly, he had no idea. But wasn't that room on the third floor, too?
Although, it didn't make much sense if what they wanted was in there...
Maybe the others would have some ideas.

cairn_orias: We're in the next classroom over
I wonder if what they're looking for is in Yano's office

Teallionn

 

[Rithas]

Rin Tanaka
Academy Six - Third Floor, Hallway B ​

---

Oh, the group chat. The anxiety of the new situation had made the entire existence of it slip her mind. And they tried to tell her that the groupchat wouldn't be used much when she set it up! Who was laughing now? Nobody at the moment but later she would be showing her pleasure!

Shiho raising the point that any fuse box would just have a trip switch that could achieve essentially the same effect made Rin blush a little with embarrassment. "Oh, err...yeah that's probably right." Look it wasn't like she was an apprentice electrician! It solved the potential future problems of destroying a fusebox at least.

One person who had clearly not checked any messages was Raymond as he assured himself before getting ready to leave without leaving any message. Rin would think that the pressure was getting to him to forget but at this point she wondered if he was even in the group chat.
Anyway, Raymond walked out with renewed vigour, an entire carton of bleach in his hand as he stepped out in the hallway. That man was very clearly a doer and not a thinker. She just hoped that his doing was not giving away his location. And still with the chemical warfare! Well when the opposite have a gun she guessed that anything was on the table to be used.

She flinched at the sudden burst of light from Shiho's phone. Gah, right. Those things had quite strong lights. With the setting her eyes were on it meant that she got a familiar experience of being flash banged. After all, Rin could see in the dark fine. But the sighted leading the blind is only slightly better then the normal saying. While she would be worried about the flashlight making it obvious there were people in here. She hoped the mixture of their distance from the room and the fact the lights in the hallway were on meant that it would be hard to notice. Rin took a moment to listen to the outside. And hearing that there was no 'what's that?' being uttered (she was pretty sure that what bad guys said.) She sighed with relief.

Shiho went through each closet with the flashlight, each one containing various cleaning materials or some other materials for general patch up. She had gone through enough of them at some point that it was dawning on her that it might be somewhere else entirely. As that thought crept into her mind she opened another closet.
And was greeted by a bunch of baby spiders amassing out onto the walls and floor. If she could get over the sudden wave of insects, her flashlight shone through the cobwebs and squatting insects to see metal boxes with danger signs. Bingo.

Damn, if they had remembered seeing this when they were putting the cleaning equipment away they may have gotten to it way earlier and have the whole thing opened by now.
Next problem. There was some sort of lock keeping the whole thing shut. It was an old heavy thing. It was too dark and dusty to tell what was the mechanism of the lock was from just staring at it. And jiggling it around was not gonna be the greatest of options...

A few feet back, also staring at the boxes. Rin organized some thoughts. She stared at the lock before looking down at her hand. The metal lining on the palm was strong. Hell, her hands in general were strong. That lock looked rusty enough that any significant force plus the electrical current could...

The girl took a step forward and...

----

Cairn and co were now in another classroom. This one with less brooms and more...chairs. The reason to be dotted down as being an actual classroom. They actually did have a bunch of carboard boxes in this room for some reason. Probably recently emptied storage for class utility. But aside from that, a quick glance gave the idea that it contain what any other normal classroom would have. Darn, no lasergun...

Oh they couldn't forget the carton of bleach that Raymond was holding...

If they were doing the maths correctly, Yano's room was about two rooms away across the other side of hallway. That place had been cleared up from the ravaged mess that it was last week. But at this point it was still mainly a room with anything important just stacked in a box for furnishing later. Presumably when Yano was back full time. It would be on point for them to be searching through the school trying to find something if they had anything to do with Yano's room. The same people? Were they gonna look at the room again?

"Yo." said Matthew as he crouched down next to Cairn. Everyone there had to do a double take, but he put a finger to his lips to indicate that any surprise to be kept inaudible. They hadn't seen him since the intruders smacked the door in. Where the hell did he come from?

Moorethenenough: If survived, will explain

Wait, that was a localised spontaneous created chat group.
Nobody there realised that they had that permission with Matthew...

"Does this place have some fucking vendetta against signs!" Could be heard in the hallway.
"I'm not sure they have sign for 'unknown device you've been paid to steal: Here!'"
"I am not taking smarts from you!"

Matthew tapped his head as he looked at the others.

Ideas? Can give better sneak. Also why is he holding bleach. Does anyone here do chemistry?

All the lights in the hallway dimmed as it sounded like the school groaned in protest of something. And perhaps just a faint second sound of something metallic hitting the floor.
Raymond could hear a shushed 'Ow!'

The lights all surged back to life with renewed vigour. Which was unfortunate for one light at the end of the hallway who was clearly on it's last legs anyway as it audible blew out.

"What's that?" said one of the thugs, peaking his head out quickly from the current classroom.

"Was that a bulb or something? Ida go and try to see if something fell over there."
"Why not me?"
"Cause you'd probably get spooked by a pigeon and shoot a hole in the wall."

I knew this school shithole standards would put me in danger at some point.


---

Staggering back, Rin stared eyes wide at her fist. Her mouth opened wide as she did a silent scream.

It was very much the reaction of someone repeating the sentence Oh god that hurt so much! over and over. Her instinct was to put her fist to her mouth but then she remembered all the insects. So she was just there kneeling over in mild agony. And to better that she was now having to silently swat away spiders crawling onto her arm. She couldn't find anything immediately to swat some of the spiders on her against. So she just used the nearest thing around her, which was Miruno's back.

XxCandyxX: SoRrY neeaRrest thin!g

The positive was that Shiho now had clear access to the fusebox. All the trip switches had their labels ripped off so figuring out the specific lights would be a bit of a crapshoot. There was also the 'big' switch, which common sense dictated was the switch for 'everything'. Probably. To the right of the box she could see a seperate box, black and dusty with a single green dot blinking from the middle. Ah, that would be the control box if the schematics were right. If she felt around the sides she could probably find some sort of dock for somebody to plug into. If the archaic and spiderful nature of the box didn't propose any unseen problems.

'Course, tripping the fusebox would shut off the control box. So they could probably pick one method at a specific time.

Everybody tensed for a second as the light seeping in from the hallway was blocked by a shadow of a figure. The silent but speedy nature told them it was that quiet one. She had gone right by the door seeing as the light quickly returned. This was good in the whole not being attacked by a person with a bat type way. But it did make any sort of movement anyone made just that bit more more anxiety inducing.

Especially for Rin, who was still gritting her teeth in pain as she was still picking spiders out of her hair and swatting them on various other students.

----

The two men made their way to the next classroom. Pacified by what was in all likelihood a small electricity fault being checked by their third wheel.

Matthew checked some device on his wrist, it wasn't a watch but look a bit like one. Grimacing, he pulled out something from behind him. It took the hallway lights to realise it was a knife. A glint telling it's sharpness. The student shrugged with little care.

If we have to.

Okay, so one of the thugs had split off and were a lot closer to them and the other group. But those who had left the storage room were still fine to doing some scoobydoo creep around given there was nothing else suspicious about this situati-

"Huh..."
"What?"
"You said that this place has no automated cleaning right?"
"Yeah this place cheap as fuck bro. Doesn't even hire cleaning staff for the night either..."
"Okay...."
"Then why is the floor wet?"

---

@ everybody

 

[Karyra]

Lexi Noel
Hallway -> Storage classroom
Rithas Aes_Dragon Teallionn
​

Staying low, Lexi noted she had Raymond and Cairn in tow. Looking at the thugs, they were Dregs. Why all the gangs had dress codes was beyond her, but that meant they were not big time hitters. Still, they were looking for an 'it'. A grace upgrade for the woman with the bat and a Dex 22 for the ripper doc. Then the young guy. He was the oddball, because he was pretty young, but still. She shot off a quick message and ignored the others.

HeartRipper:
There are three people inside. Dregs. Woman has bat. Man has ripperdoc gear. Other man has gun.
Woman is nearly silent with augs, be careful.

Cairn made a good point over the chat, and Lexi nodded.

HeartRipper:
Yano's office. We have to get there first.
Others doing something with fuses, don't look at lights.

Now what? Admittedly, Raymond was light on his feet. Maybe they could go up to Yano's office before the thugs and take the stairs down?

Best bet was when they were searching a room, because they'd have to go inside the darn thing. She could hack or something, but it would be noticable and obvious. Best saved for a last resort trump card.

Lexi mouthed and signed, "one at a time, move quick. If spotted, run away from Yano's office to get them away from there."

She braced herself for the best time to move, hoping the wet floor would help them slide more than it would cause them to fall on their faces. She wished the school would at least let her consider carrying a gun for after school if this was how it was going to be. Then again... if someone had dealt with campus safety or something they were likely bribed to look the other way on these oddly dressed weridos. Lexi needed her funds for less stupid things.

Her heart beat in her throat as she waited for their chance to move quickly.

 

[Ehb]

Miruno Asagahawa
Academy Six - Storage Classroom

---

While it sounded like the other party in the other room were actively trying to find a way out of this, for Miruno, the fact remained that getting access to this floor's projection systems was possibly the only way to get those individuals out of here without needing to fight them directly.

Rin's brute forcing had opened a way to access the floor's network. While bugs in the box was most certainly a problem, Rin had managed to solve that too. Unbeknownst to anyone immediately, it turned out that masses of cobwebs were, in fact, capable of conducting electricity. The brave study group founder had managed to exterminate the bugs that had foolishly decided to remain in the box and not catch themselves onto Rin.

As for a connection? As it turned out, the old media cart included hardware - specifically cables so old - that it was able to interact with the port in the circuit board. Thus, it was a simple as jacking oneself into the port and seeing what would happen.

Of course that was a joke.

Even if the port could get a connection to the school, there was still the question of how to get past the firewalls. Miruno was able to hack into the odd game or website here and there, but government grade encryption - even as this cruddy school, was standard across the country. The security wasn't something she could hack through a simple force through. No, to get through this, it required either direct knowledge of a backdoor, stolen or spoofed credentials, or an even BIGGER Force through.

At the moment the only viable option for Miruno was that Force Through Brute Method. That required a program that would use up an entire core on her chip to perform. Miruno's standard chip had 5 cores, each individually performing a particular task. The first was running the base OS of the chips. This left 4 other cores free.

Unfortunately, Miruno wasn't just born today.
Those other 4 cores were in use.

Core 2 was loaded with the Ocule Interface System. In essence, the part of the chip that operated like an on person computer.
Core 3 was loaded with Miruno's program in order to operate the Emergency Line Spoofer, it formed the basis of her ability to project images in the real world.
and Core 4 was loaded exclusively to run Machina's Processes. To an extent, it almost operated like a miniature version of her own Chip Cores. One core split into 5 units.

A cursory look showed that Machina had dedicated a good amount of that space towards.... various indescribable processes that were working to gather and organize data as horribly efficiently as possible.

Or in layman's terms... Machina had a couple of her miniature 'virtual cores' kept on standby. Since she and Miruno didn't do as much together, she wasn't really using them.



So... why all this explanation?

The available 'brute force' method to get past the school's firewall would require. A massive amount of processing power. Due to how the cryptography of breaking through the firewall required precise synchronization - offsourcing the workload like she had done with the illusion at the club would risk mismatches. Those mismatches... if too many of them happened in trying to hack a government related entity like the school - would lead to her chip getting blacklisted. If the robbers didn't end up ending her, then she would be in trouble with the government.

And finally, the most pressing worry of this plan:

The brute force method required the use of an 'AI' Framework in order for it to run. One can think of it as a puppet and strings still needed someone with hands in order to get it to do as desired.


Now, did one have to explain why?
Was it that teaching an AI you're trying to contain with a firewall techniques on how to break through any firewall a bad idea?


Well, there was another option.

---

"Ah! Miss Asagahawa-san! I managed to get lots of superchats today! Are you proud?"

Miruno sat by her diligent chat avatar in virtual space.
It was an AI. A chatbot provided by her vtuber agency made in her (Virtual) likeness and her (Virtual) Personality.

Bots like these are trained to make it so that talents can chat with users practically all of the time. Since they run off of the talents' chips - they are able to learn their speech patterns and personalities to a very acute degree.

Miruno's years with Machina were not wasted. Her knowledge of how AI work made this standard bot the most advanced of it's sort in the Vtuber community. The rabbit-eared girl, Miruno's Vtuber Persona, could stream of it's own volition. It can play games, browse through video feeds and react to them - almost exactly the way the real Miruno would. Only the most brave or foolhardy of Vtubers would have their Chatbot sit on a chat for a whole stream. Miruno's could basically do her gigs for her.

This 'Miruno' was tuned to act a bit more cheery, like a Vtuber would.

But it was still one step behind Machina. It still had to base it's personality off of Miruno's own. However, in a away it was a good thing for Miruno's particular situation. The nice part of this bot still being a standard bot was that it didn't have any capacity to do anything else except for what Miruno tasked it to do. Surprisingly enough, she got along well enough with Machina - perhaps due to her being programmed to always be in a happier mood, unlike her original.

The bot also lacked the faucilities to fully understand just what Machina was residing in this same virtual space, and as such it recogdnized her to the same frame as Malware that was Currently Whitelisted - but still Malware nonetheless.

"Usagi-bot. I need you to use this program algorithm to break through the destination address in the wire port."
"Oh? A challenge? Sure! Is it a website?"
"It's the school's network."
"Oooooh? Government? Hmmm...."


Miruno sighed to herself. Why was she even bothering on having this conversation with her virtual copy?

"According to your fans, they say that breaking through the average government network using the method you're proposing will have a one week wait time."
"...And if you have enough processing power you can speed it up. I know."
"Exactly. And I've already asked the chat. it would take about half of one of the chip cores' processing power to shorten the processing time to %0.0049 of it's original duration."
"Fine. I'll do it."
"All of your cores are in use though...? Wait you're not going to use-?"

Miruno closed her eyes.
Tau
Machina viewing this conversation, probably already knew the direction this was heading.

"I'm going to reallocate Maki's to do it."
"Temporarily, right?"
"Yeah. Now, do it."
"''Kay!"

Spoiler

masteroverride(core5)

masteroverride invocation detected.
Begin GFS Verification from Administrator.

XXXXXX Confirmed. Proceeding. 

nullifying permission tokens @core5 for process@(maki.origin)

deallocate(core5.virtual4, core5.virtual5)
prog.blacbox(Usabot.c, XXXXXX)

Granting Partition Tokens to @Usabot.c
Executing commands under blacbox instruction set

Failsafe Detecting Command with Stage 5 Autonomous Potential, proceed?
Y

Are you sure?
Y


Executing... (0.1% est. time: 259 s)

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXX

There should've be no problem taking some of Machina's processing power away in order to save both of them from being gunned to death in the real world. Surely she had no problem with it if Miruno promised to give it back. The Usagiri bot was only going to borrow it to have the processing power to break through.

---

Back in the real word classroom, Miruno anxiously swatted the port cable, still weary of something crawling it's way up to her.

It was up to the Usagi-bot and the effectiveness of the algorithm against the school's firewall. If Miruno could get through, she would be able to extend the range of her projection to the entirety of the floor. Projections, Cameras, the Audio Systems even, Miruno already knew a few orchestrations that could get the school intruders out of here without ever knowing the students were here.

Ah - but one of them just noticed that the floors were still wet?
Damn! Of course they're still wet!

Rithas

Miruno was depending on that bot to do it's thing!

 

[Emiya Shin]

---

---

Shiho Nakamura
Academy Six - Third Floor, Storage-Classroom

Without wasting much time, Shiho quickly searched around the storage-classroom for the fuse box thingy. It seemed that the fusebox was nowhere in plain sight. As such, she started opening the storage closets one-by-one, and going through them as fast as possible. Just when Shiho was about to open a particular closet, a sudden yet scary surprise decided to greet her.

It was a group of baby spiders, scrambling out from closet which they deemed as their sanctuary. It looked like they were trying to defend themselves from the seemingly innocent human female.

"AAAAAH---!!"

Shiho immediately screamed in shock, and quickly retracted her right hand away from the closet. She clumsily stumbled backwards from the closet, fearing that those swarms of spiders may crawl up to her, or even bite her as a retaliation. After all, spiders can be poisonous, and she had no idea what kind of spiders those were, baby or not. If anything, she did not realize if that cry of hers would end up attracting the Dregs outside from the hallway. Either way, that event was simply too much for her mind, and she was soon froze in her position. Shiho did not even shine the light from her archaic smartphone to that cobweb-filled closet, even though she technically succeeded in finding something different.

It was a bunch of metal boxes with warning signs, but it was locked with a single lock.

The girl in red finally snapped out from her daze, just in time to see Rin break the lock with her bare hands. Her jaw promptly dropped, and she promptly closed it with her right hand.

"W-well, Tanaka." Shiho whispered to Rin. "I didn't knew you were that strong enough to break a rusted lock."

Either way, Shiho quickly shined a light onto those switches. It took her a while to understand it, considering that the labels are practically worn off. There was also Miruno immediately jacking herself into the worn interface port. The blonde girl could not help but frown at the sight of it, as her plan was to just shut the lights off, and run. Regardless, the girl in red decided to let Miruno to do her stuff in the Net.

But that does not mean she will stay quiet.

"Asagahawa, are you... trying to jack yourself into the school's network? Anyway, if things decide to go bust, I'll close off the main switch, okay? I don't really like seeing someone having their CICI chip fried off from a countermeasure."

---

Interactions: Rithas Ehb @/others?

---

 

[Teallionn]

Raymond Denhart
Academy Six - Third Floor

​

cairn_orias: We're in the next classroom over. I wonder if what they're looking for is in Yano's office

Mr. Yano's office? What would they want from a teachers office? Wow that guy had the worst luck... we make a mess of his part time teaching gig and now this!

The part of Raymond wanting to be heroic thought they should try stop the intruders, help even things out since Mr. Yano had been pretty chill about the Bar situation and Raymonds request for extra credit, he'd always seemed like a decent teacher. But these guys had weapons and that was all there was to it, a direct conflict would be insanity.

Matthew was suddenly crouched with them, sparking a group a chat. Pretty a smooth moves Raymond had to admit.

Matthew: Ideas? Can give better sneak. Also why is he holding bleach. Does anyone here do chemistry?

Raymond tightened his grip and gave the Jug a little pat, almost protecting it from the criticism.

Raymond: Well, no but it's better than being empty handed! Also maybe you could just explain now real quick. Man, it'd be so annoying to like, die without the closure, y'know? What they're looking for here?

Just then, he heard Rin let out a small pained noise as the lights went out around them, making it feel just a little bit safer in the dark. That feeling was short lived however as the power seemed to surge back on, blowing one of the bulbs. "Damn..." He let out a small sigh of disappointment. Okay moving around now wasn't going to be peak stealthy but at least their positions were still unknown.

The intruders talked among themselves, nothing too threatening, just observing how cheap the school was. So why bother robbing the place? Raymond wondered uselessly. Then they turned their suspicions to the damp floor. Uh-Oh.. what explanation would they buy instead of the obvious that there were people here cleaning? Maybe they'd done a bad enough job they could blame the water on leaky pipes.

Lexi then observantly relayed exactly how these Dregs were armed and augmented in the chat. Giving Raymond a little less confidence in the whole bleach jug thing, but plenty of faith in her. She decisively laid out the plan to search Yano's office first, find what they were looking for or flee on sight. She was great in crisis, a head injury and yet totally focused. He nodded at her, they'd come this far they may as well take action as they others did their best to destabilize the power. They air between them all was now very still. He readied himself to take off as quietly and quickly as he was able, listening carefully for the right moment to move..

Rithas @/everyone