Digital Natives

Digital Natives
Date of Scene:	30 December 2012
Location:	Traverse Town - VALKYRI HQ
Synopsis:	Avira finally finds a technician to fix VALKYRI's computers.
Thanks to:	Thanks to Avira for the scene!
Cast of Characters:	Avira, TRON

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Avira has posed:
Days ago, in the wake of a certain break-in, VALKYRI had indeed put out a wanted poster with an unusual request. A computer programmer. Now what on earth would a group of female mercenaries need a computer programmer for? That particular mystery, of course, would take follow-up from interested parties.

So far there had actually been one response, but from an individual that Avira's only been able to maintain sparse contact with. Nothing had yet to be set in stone.

The location of the VALKYRI headquarters in Traverse Town was pretty well known. Just look around in district three for the house with the statue outside of it. The statue, of course, showing a man with a sword slaying a Heartless. Yes, a man, strangely enough given the current population of VALKYRI but the statue came as-is, not commissioned.

TRON has posed:
Alan walks through the streets of Traverse Town, surveying the buildings carefully between glances at the paper in his hand. Even though he has had more than ample opportunity to figure out the world's layout, there are still some places he has not become familiar with. District 3 is one such location.

Fortunately, the directions relying on the statue make it easy.

Alan tucks the paper into his pocket and readjusts his glasses as he walks up to the door, casually glancing about as if to appreciate his surroundings. Only when he is certain the coast is clear, he reaches up and knocks on the door. Hopefully someone is home.

Avira has posed:
Alan can hear some shuffling behind the door following his knocking. A few seconds later, the door swings inward revealing a strange-looking animal there. It looks a lot like a werewolf with the wings of a raven and the tail of a snake. Fearsome at first glance, save for the curious look on her face.

"Yes?" Avira asks, confused at first. Then the eagerness in her voice can be heard. She may be assuming that Alan is a customer of some kind. "Can we help you?"

With the large form of Avira in the way, it's kind of hard to see within the VALKYRI base beyond.

TRON has posed:
Alan seems mildly surprised at Avira's appearance when she answers the door, marked only by a brief tilt of the head. He only gives her a single look from head-to-toe and appears to accept it immediately. Who is he to judge, considering everything is so odd to him in the first place.

"I am here concerning your notice." He pulls the paper back out of his pocket and offers it to Avira. She would recognize the request for the computer programmer typed on its surface. "I would like to offer my assistance, if I can."

Avira has posed:
Avira looks at Alan, who is eye level with her given his tall height. To her, he certainly seems like a regular human-not that Avira was expecting anyone else except for, perhaps, a moogle to respond to her request for assistance. "Oh, fantastic!" Avira sighs, sounding relieved. "Please, come in, we need to talk details."

Inside, it sort of look a little like a party hall. More specifically, like the ones described in Beowulf. There's a big long table down the middle and cots and beds in the very back. There's also a set of stairs going down into the floor.

Avira heads for these stairs. "Now let me tell you, this isn't an ordinary job. This isn't a 'set up an antivirus and firewall and forget it' type deal. My system has been invaded by a sentitent computer program. Yes, believe it or not, such things do exist out here and...oh wait."

She pauses at the top of the stairs. "I'm getting ahead of myself here. I am Avira, leader of VALKYRI. And you are?"

TRON has posed:
Alan takes in the inside of the VALKYRI base as he enters and makes sure the door closes behind them. A nice place, indeed.

He does not take much time sightseeing, following Avira to the stairs while listening to her explaination. At mention of a sentient computer program, his eyebrows shoot up under his bangs as he peers up after her over the rims of his glasses. This is an expected reaction, but not for the reason Avira may think.

He pauses just slightly out of melee range as Avira stops at the top of the stairs and introduces herself. He inclines his head slightly and allows a thin smile to cross his face. "Call me Alan. A pleasure to meet you, Avira." He isn't comfortable yet giving his true identity, but that may change shortly.

He takes a few more steps forwards, eyes narrowing in thought as his black leather-gloved hands flex faintly. "A sentient computer program..."

Avira has posed:
"Nice to meet you, Alan. If you don't mind me asking, and forgive me if this is a touchy subject, what world are you from?" A question, Avira realizes, she probably should have asked before instead of pitching headlong into the uncanny valley territory of sentient programs.

Avira turns away and finishes going down the stairs with Alan in tow. The basement of the place appears to be a laboratory of some kind filled with strange scientific equipment that seems to be merged with a wizard's study. Mixed with all of this, of course, is a set of terminals. One of them looks a lot like a computer from Earth. The other...well, it appears to be a bit more high-tech. From another planet, even! But it still has what passes for a monitor.

"That's right. Say, artificial intelligence on steroids. He is an enemy of ours and quite recently demonstrated that our systems are not secure against him. I don't know if he'll make any more attempts in the future, but it's possible, especially if we get ahold of more things he wants."

Bending down, Avira starts rolling a rug out of the way on the floor. Revealed beneath, burned into the stone, is a three-circle pattern commonly associated with LEXUS.

TRON has posed:
Alan takes a little more time to answer the next one, a wistful look akin to 'homesickness' visible in his eyes for a moment. "A world connected to Manhattan. I am... uncomfortable to say more than that right now."

Until he knows what he is dealing with, he would rather not reveal too much too soon--for VALKYRI's sake. He isn't so much concerned with himself.

He nods slowly as Avira explains further on the subject of Programs, then directs his gaze to the floor as the rug is rolled out of the way. What he sees burned into the stone chills him to the core upon immediate recognition. His gloved hands clench into fists and face pales even more.

"LEXUS."

The name leaves his mouth before he could stop it, but the /way/ he says it... one part grim understanding, one part loathing. Avira may even catch a flicker of light coming from Alan's eyes.

Avira has posed:
This is exactly the kind of response that Avira had feared, actually. "...I'm sorry, Alan." The VALKYRI says quietly, looking over to him with sympathy in her eyes. Of course, Avira assumes that Alan just admitted he was from modern Earth and doesn't want to talk about it right now because talking about a lost world is painful to do. It's something she's seen quite a lot of lately.

There's a bitter look on her face as she stares down at the symbol of LEXUS. "I need to get a stone carver here to get rid of that." Avira grumbles as she starts to push the rug back into place with a clawed foot.

Then Alan speaks, naming the Program of her vexation. She looks shocked, as she had certainly not named the aggressor. "Wait, you-" she looks up at Alan, "...you know this Program?"

TRON has posed:
Alan inhales deeply, pushing his glasses on the top of his head and pinching the bridge of his nose between his eyes. This is exactly what he was expecting despite hoping otherwise. "I have met him once, but it was enough. That Virus would likely love nothing more than to assimilate my data."

He pulls the glasses off of his head and tucks them into a jean pocket, a serious look settling into place. "So LEXUS has been focusing on you and your organization as it is. I suppose it won't hurt then..." His voice trails off, the gears almost visibly turning in his head.

Finally, he nods once as if silently reaffirming something to himself. "Bear with me for a moment, Avira, I have much to explain." He stares down at the rug now re-covering the Eye of LEXUS. "You deserve that much."

Avira has posed:
While Avira would agree that meeting LEXUS once is more than enough, the rest of what Alan says is pretty strange. Avira gets the feeling that 'assimilate my data' is not a clever euphamisim for something else untoward. Her gaze remains right upon him, though she continues putting the rug back in place with a gentle push of one of her feet.

"I would not necessarily say 'focusing' but he has caused a considerable amount of trouble for us recently. Furthermore, he is a Shadow Lord and VALKYRI has pledged itself to oppose the Shadow Lords. This is more of a recent development but when it becomes more widely known, I expect more trouble for us."

Avira folds her arms before her stomach, watching the mysterious man. After he offers an explanation, she lifts an eyeridge, "Really? Well...go on."

TRON has posed:
Alan nods once. "The name 'Alan' is an alias I use to protect myself and those around me. I am not human, nor am I from a human-based world."

He untucks his turtleneck and reaches up under the back from the beltline towards the shoulderblades, pulling free what appears to be a silver Frisbee with dulled rings in the center. He then pulls something free from within it--a black ring-like object that Avira should find very familiar.

"My home world is alternatively called 'Dataspace' or 'The Grid'--the world of the Programs. It connected to Manhattan through a building, a buisness called 'Flynn's Arcade'."

'Alan' aims the ring-like Disc at the networked computers, holding it as if he was offering a plate of food to someone. The computer screens flicker briefly, then what appears to be holographic images project above the black ring Disc. "My name is TRON. I am a self-monitoring security Program and, according to my fellow Programs, an icon of resistance against the Darkness on The Grid."

Avira has posed:
Yep, data assimilation was not a euphimisim. Furthermore, Avira now realizes what that weird lump on Alan's back was once he removes his identity disc. Avira DOES find the object extremely familiar. She's seen LEXUS fight with and feircely protect one of his own. In fact, she's pretty sure she saw Deelel with one too. "You're a /Program/!" Avira says, shocked once Alan admits that his name and appearance are false.

Due to LEXUS, Avira's familiar with the "Grid" term too. What she didn't know was that it was actually connected to Manhattan!

She looks from the identity disc to the now flickering monitors, back to the identity disc. "Holy s...cow. So...you would know all about resisting the likes of LEXUS, then..." her eyes widen a little, "And you'll really help us?"

TRON has posed:
TRON allows a faint smile to cross his lips. "I'm afraid I do, yes, though not against LEXUS directly. There is another Program I fought against before the Darkness came, the MCP--Master Control Program. I originally followed him out of The Grid into Manhattan, but lost him when that world fell."

He redirects his gaze to the ring-half of his Disc, a whitish-blue glow emanating from his pupils as he evaluates the data he is currently scanning. "I would like to help you, yes. But if I act, you will gain the attention of the Shadow Lords--and especially LEXUS. And that... Virus..." he nearly spits the word out, "will undoubtedly destroy anything in his path to get to me."

He returns his gaze to Avira. "So what I need to know from you is one thing. Are you and yours ready to face the Darkness, no matter what happens?"

Avira has posed:
"I've...fought LEXUS, though not as effectively as I suspect you can. I know Programs like you can rebuild their physical world bodies. Or at least LEXUS can. Master Control Program...?" Why did that sound FAMILIAR?

LEXUS had actually mentioned the MCP in passing before, though Avira cannot recall precisely when and in what context. But since this was another denizen of the Grid, it makes sense that LEXUS would know of him too.

Avira steps closer to Tron, curiously looking at his identity disc a little bit closer. Only then does she see that his eyes are luminous now too.

TRON will also notice something in the networked systems VALKYRI has. LEXUS left a bunch of junk behind-corrupted files, broken directories, bits of viruses. More importantly, there's a rootkit that seems to have added a backdoor for him to return through if he's ever needed to. It's pretty clear he was there.

"The attention of the Shadow Lords...is a risk we're prepared to take." Avira says grimly. "Should he come, he'll have to contend with us." Looking away from the disc, Avira looks TRON in the eyes.

Her gaze is hard. "Yes. We're /ready/."

TRON has posed:
TRON frowns at the amount of damage LEXUS left behind. Not difficult to remove, but the Virus will know sooner rather than later. Especially once he locks and removes that back-door.

He meets Avira's gaze, studying her to her very soul if he can, and finds nothing indicating lies or other falsehoods. "So be it, then." He turns his head to regard the display over his Disc as his glowing eyes flare.

There doesn't seem to be any difference at first, until his 'gloves' receed into white panels on the back of his hands as the palm and fingers turn fleshy-colored and his ring-Disc turns white. Bluish-white lines identical to his eye glow cascade under his clothes, mutely illuminating through the material.

At the same time, the monitors flash as data is sorted, deleted, cleaned, and put back to right. Avira would probably find this very fascinating.

Avira has posed:
Avira kind of hopes that LEXUS notices. It would be nice to have some payback for all the mess he's caused lately. Avira was, in fact, vaguely aware of stuff left behind but realized just deleting or running a regular antivirus was not going to cut it. Not against someone who had a whole 'adaptation' MO.

Stepping back, she watches Tron as he gets to work in rapt fascination. The glowing lines, which she has seen reflected somewhat in LEXUS and has long since associated with the Programs, appear.

Her attention diverts between TRON and the computer monitors, things flashing by too fast on the monitors for her own mind to really comprehend it. "Was it bad?" she asks, regarding whatever LEXUS had left behind in her computers. There's nothing really stopping the deletion of the mess for TRON. Removal of the backdoor is certainly going to be noticed at one point.

TRON has posed:
TRON looks focused on his work. Running his code wirelessly against a system, like one of those remote programs that cleans your PC for you, takes some focus. Still, he can multitask.

"Yes. The computers would have run, but barely so. And if you have used them since this hacking occurred, LEXUS could easily use his back-door to steal any information stored within." His eyes narrow sharply as he slams shut the back-door, the absolute last task. "But not anymore."

All the screens activate abruptly, showing a Tetris-like 'T' symbol encircled by a ring--the same symbol at the center of TRON's chest. "There." He lowers the ring-half of his Disc and recombines it with the 'Frisbee'-like half.

Avira has posed:
"All I've really done with them since he was here was poke around and look at what happened. Deleted a few things that I could delete...not much else." Avira looks a little dejected as she remembers what else she'd found when she came back. Namely, Morrighan gone and a snotty note left behind.

"So I guess anything on those systems was copied by him, then?" Sounds like she's not too thrilled at that idea, even as she looks at the new markings on the screens. The mutate glances from the monitors...to TRON, where she sees that symbol on his chest.

Avira grins pleasantly at him. "Thanks." Avira extends an arm, for a handshake.

TRON has posed:
TRON shakes his head as the screens deactivate. The mark won't appear again in the future, at least on VALKYRI's end. Hackers, though, will get a surprise. "I can't tell for certain. I would assume so, just to be safe."

He places the Disc back onto the mount on his back and turns to fully face Avira, a warm if cautious smile returned to her. "You are quite welcome." He accepts the handshake, his grip firm. "May we work well together."