Key Fragments

Key Fragments
Date of Scene:	17 October 2012
Location:	Hollow Bastion
Synopsis:	Riku, prompted by Diablo, firms up plans and inquires for more information about Manhattan with the help of LEXUS. This may not be a good thing for the city in question..
Cast of Characters:	Riku, LEXUS

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Riku has posed:
Riku lays on his bed staring up at the ceiling, hands behind his head. The large and spacious bedroom dwarfed the monstrous bed, the ceiling vaulted so that the entire tower chamber was steeped in gloom.

Riku gestured as he sat up from the luxurient deep maroon comforter, leaning against the headboard as magical lights sprung to life nearby. The fitful glow did little to cheer the room, which was well appointed but somehow cavernous and sparce in it's size. The flutter of wings heralded the approach of Diablo, who alighted on the balcony railing and squawked loudly. Riku grumbled but stayed turned away, staring into the near distance and brooding over last night's 'practice' session. Diablo squawked again, flying into the room and alighting on the bed. Squawk. "Go away, Dee." Squawk.

The raven hopped several times across the bed and then onto his foot. Squawk. Riku peered over at Diablo. "Fine. What do you want?" The raven gave him a beady eye and the raven and Riku stared at eachother for a moment. Eventually the teenager relents. "Right." he nods. "I should get things going while I'm still here." He was hoping to get away before then, and let the disparate Shadow Lords bicker and tear the plan to pieces between them. "Come on. Let's go see Lexus first."

Riku slid off the bed, Diablo hopping onto the bed and then onto his shoulder. The raven growled at him when he started down the stairs. "Dee." The raven only squawked at him indignantly. "Right. Practice." Riku made another passing wave at the air, brow furrowing as he concentrated on where he wanted to go. He stepped through the portal, and for once, the portal magic doesn't go awry.

He descends into the basement level, looking around at the machinery for a few moments before messing with any of it. Now that he is here.. He's.. not quite sure how to do this.

And Diablo was pointedly not being any help at all.

LEXUS has posed:
Surveillance is the essence of gathering information. If you cannot /see/ what you wish to gather information upon, you cannot gain that information. It is simple.

This is why the depths of Hollow Bastion are heavily monitored by the one who controls the entrypoint into that section of the Dataspace. Having long ago found an alternative exit to the one in ENCOM, LEXUS has taken to using this as his personal gateway.

SNMP TRAP: DARKNESS INFLUX ABOVE 12.
ALERT: MOTION DETECTED WITHIN PRIMARY GATEWAY._

Camera lenses studding the area turn slightly, tracking the arrival.

SHADOW LORD, DESIGNATION: RIKU DETECTED._

Several monitors, sizzling with static, flicker as a series of purple concentric circuit patterns form in the screen against a black background. The perceptive would remember the same design is upon LEXUS's eyes.

DIGITIZATION PROCESS INITIATED. PROCESSING..._
There is a sizzling crackle from the large device that dominates this room of the computer databanks, and a bolt of light fires down, building a wireframe up from nothing as thousands upon thousands of tiny blocks fill in, rezzing into the familiar form of LEXUS.

DIGITIZATION PROCESS COMPLETE. CORE SYSTEMS ENTERING STANDBY MODE. END OF LINE._

Slowly, LEXUS blinks, and then looks to Riku. "Greetings, Riku." He pauses, considering the incessantly naggy raven for a moment, but does not address it. "What can I do for you?" If it were Negaduck, he wouldn't have bothered to 'get out of bed', as it were.

Riku has posed:
Riku takes in a steadying breath, trying not to look startled when the digitization beam goes off. He straightens his shoulders, digging the journal out of his pocket as Diablo flies off his shoulder to perch on an outcropping not too far away.

"From what I've been reading. Yesterday's.. plans, are going to have several.. complications." Most of which he had been aware of long before he'd come into the conversation. He flips the pages. "There have been some mentions about The Manhattan Pillar, yes. Some old legends, but the information is fragmented. What I want to find however-- is this." he holds up a picture. He's sketched in the rough outline. If not for the broken bottom half, it might be a rod, or possibly a key. The top is very distinctive. A series of concentric crescents.

"I only have a partial image of this. It's showed up only once in all the fragments I've tracked down, but if it's genuine.. then when we get down there, we don't want to stand in front of a locked door looking like idiots." At least, not while Diablo is glaring at me. "And if what is down there is so important, and nobody has ever found it, it has to still be somehow locked up."

LEXUS has posed:
"Agreed." LEXUS replies amiably. "There are several concerns, but most of them are self-resolving. The one you put forward, however, is more intractable." LEXUS steps foward, looking at the drawing. He holds up a hand, and a thin line of purple traces across the page, scanning it. "Processing. Seeking comparisons. Refining results." He pauses. "We will have to secure this item before we commence the operation. But my current records do not show where the item may be. Extrapolation suggests that the item may be considered a historical relic of some kind if it has been discovered. Perhaps someone may have discovered it and is allowing it to sit in a corner collecting dust. It did not appear in my visual listing of objects in this vein, so it is either misfiled or resting in a collection that is not within search parameters... Or is unpublished. Private."

Riku has posed:
"..or all three." Riku mutters to himself. He looks at the picture, flipping back and forth along several pages of text. "Lexus. I'm going to need you to handle the... harvest that Negaduck talked about." he pauses, then continues without looking up from the book. "All I need from this is a little time. A delaying action, at most. Negaduck is probably going to blow off his beak at the orphanage and then he and anybody who goes with him will be useless until after none of this matters anymore.

" ..and perhaps if he can shake Dee for a few minutes, heroes can miraculously show up at the parade before... before the festivities. "The book I found this in was an old book of maps. I bought it in manhattan while.." he pauses, then admits. "while out on assignment. It said. 'Old Manhattan. A key to it's past and it's future.' and that was all that was on the page." Riku starts to pace around the room, flipping back and forth over the same pages.

"Can you look up anything that would publicly or historically relate to keys? Maybe it's a running theme.. or something in that world's culture."

LEXUS has posed:
"Harvest, distraction. In the end, it is the same." It appears that LEXUS views the Heartless as little more than fodder. "I can gain data upon the nature of a Heartless feeding while I am present. It will not be a wasted effort, especially with your own operation in progress."

Now that's probably where Riku sees why LEXUS is working with the Shadow Lords. "I will work to protect the Heartless as long as possible in order to extend your operating time."

LEXUS tilts his head slightly at the question. The admission does not gain any kind of recognition whatsoever from the Program. "I will begin searching immediately." He pauses. The screens behind him flicker, newspapers, magazines, blogs and other media flying across the imagery. Here, in his place of power, it seems he is operating at maximum capacity. Many results are shown on the screens, neatly collated and arranged by likely relevance. "There are several books and periodicals possible for research. I have reserved them for checkout at the local library. There is also an art museum exhibit that is using locks and keys as their central iconography. You may be able to find more information there as well."

One of the terminals begins printing the information in simple, block monospaced font, which LEXUS tears off neatly and hands it to Riku. "This is the list of the findings. If you require physical assistance, ask. I will be happy to provide such to competent leadership."

Riku has posed:
Riku raises an eyebrow but doesn't show any sign of discomfort, even as he is blocking the idea of the heartless 'feeding' from his mind. That in the chaos, it might be anybody he knew fighting.. that it might be Sora when all the lights went out. Riku frowns minutely, then the expression smooths out and he continues to keep his face completely still like she had told him to practice doing.

Riku doesn't like the creepy feeling he gets just looking at the uncanny 'self' of Lexus, nor does he understand really where the machine person came from, but he knows better than to question. Here, it was weakness to question too much. Instead, he listened, and watched just as others listened and watched everything he did here. Riku looks over the screens with some carefully contained interest. Similarly controlling his expression, he nods to Lexus. "Thank you. That will be all." he takes the information graciously, inclines his head slightly and crooks his arm with an expectation.

As before, Diablo flies down onto his arm, skittering up to his shoulder. It makes a faintly approving 'churrr' to him as he turns and vanishes from the basement.

LEXUS has posed:
"We will be watching." LEXUS says. It's hard to tell whether that is a threat, a warning, or a gesture of support and goodwill from the Progream, as he delivers the phrase in a perfectly neutral tone. As Riku leaves, the Digitization beam flares again, and LEXUS is gone, back to the Dataspace where it does whatever enigmatic things he does when he is not working directly with the Shadow Lords.