Comics by Shaenon II

Randall smirks back. "Of course I'm drawing conclusions based in insufficient data. That's the only way to work on Madtech without being Mad. Or I suppose, even being Mad, really."

But his smirk is mostly for show. A genuine smile peaks through as he thinks about the possibilities. "I'll admit, while this certainly ranks among the most confining job interview, I'm not sure if it rates as that strange. And your offer... He pauses for a moment. "Well, it certainly intrigues me. Opens up a lot of options, and odds are you've got access to stuff that would make further advances easier. So, I work for you. What conditions do you want to place on me, and what do I get out of it, besides my life and easier research?"

Before Phelps can answer, Randall shakes his head. "You know what? Never mind. It doesn't matter, really. I can probably guess the conditions, and I've already accepted that they have to be in place. I accept your offer of employment. Now, where's my new lab to?"

For a few moments Thomas just stared at Molly 022, then he turned back to the door and started shouting. "A mouse, you gave me a mouse! How do you expect to do testing on that. Never mind that I wouldn't be able to even recognize any remains much less analyze the effects if I did fire at it. But it's a bloody mouse. What kind of sick twisted person would do live weapons testing on a mouse. I'm not sure what this gun was designed to shoot but I'm sure mice weren't it. Judging by the size of the focusing array I'd say enough energy would be put out to blow any mouse into a pink mist. How would I analyze pink mist."

Thomas trailed off thoughtfully and started mumbling to himself, "Hmmm a human on the other hand. Yes I think a human might have sufficient body mass. Now where to find one hmm." Thomas thought quietly for a few seconds, and then brightened up,"Oh of course the guards."

Looking up Thomas started yelling again, "Hold still please I'm not a very good shot and this gun is a bit heavy." Thomas paused to brace himself then started yelling again. "Don't worry I'm pretty sure this won't kill you and you'll be helping me figure out what this gun is. Admittedly I'm 94% certain its an anti-vehicle plasma cannon, but hey there's a one percent chance I'm wrong so I'm sure you guys will be fine."

Turning his attention back to the gun Thomas made sure it was fully repaired and at its highest setting. Then he reached down, grabbed Molly, and put her in his pocket. "Just stay there for a second would you. Not sure what this will do, but the other five percent chance is that this is a portable siege weapon and I'm sure you wouldn't want to run between me and the door if that were the case."

Then Thomas fired the gun at the door.

Jack

There are more kinds of madness than the cackling kind, Aren't there, my love?

A voice seemed to whisper in Jack's ear with a breathy little laugh. He grinned, taking a grenade. Indeed. I'm afraid I'm running rather low on my bag of tricks. I've come up with some interesting new ideas, though. Including three involving toast. Remarkable stuff. Surprisingly tough when latticed properly. He mused, grinning as he fondled the firepower.

But I agree. It's time for vengance. And perhaps a little fun.

After arming up, Jack led Diede to the truck. He'd have her drive. He wanted to shoot something.

Edwin Reiniger, Janitor Extraordinaire

There were vague thumps overhead, perhaps resembling the slow beat of drums. Reiniger got up, despite the protests of his back. Whatever that was, it was big. The cellar doubled as the school's bombshelter, so if he could hear it all the way down here there was a problem. For a second he wondered if the monstrosity in the boiler room had somehow become sentient, but then he remembered he hadn't finished it. It was enough to give any sane person the willies, but it was still just a shade of what it would be when it was finished. It occurred to Reiniger he had no idea what it would actually be when it was finished, or what purpose it would serve. This caused him worry for a couple of minutes, but then the thumps shook him out of it.

Reiniger's gaze was drawn to a large metal door in the wall. It had taken him mere minutes to make the hole it was in, but placing the door had been a matter of months. There was no helping it though, as that hole was where the rats would come in through, and the smell that came in through there was just horrid. He'd discovered that the cellar was adjacent to the sewer about a year ago, when he decided to investigate the matter of the rats that kept turning up all over the place. They were sneaking in through a small breach in a wall in the cellar. He'd taken a sledgehammer to the wall and beat right through to the sewer, which was a surprisingly easy job. He'd wondered about the thickness of the wall, as he was certain a bombshelter shouldn't be this easy to breach. Little did he know that the shelter outdated the relatively new sewerline, which had replaced the older, smaller one. Back in the day the shelter had been built without approval of city council, so it was absent from any maps the engineers possessed. When building the sewerline they almost hit the shelter, but not quite. They shaved off about half the wall though, weakening the entire structure. Hence the rats. Hence Reiniger's convenient escape route. He knew the sewers like the inside of his own pockets due to his frequent trips down there in search of more rats, or to fix the school's drainage problems. Technically city workers were supposed to do that job, but Reiniger took care of it himself so they wouldn't find the door, and the adjacent shelter. Besides, he didn't like having other people on his turf, perhaps a remnant of his isolated youth. Hence all the locks in the school.

He remembered the locks. The shelter, the place people would have to run if anything terrible was going on, was locked from the inside with the heaviest lock Reiniger had been able to find. If these parents got brutally slaughtered, Reiniger was pretty sure he wouldn't be allowed to see their kids anymore. He'd probably get fired for neglect, or for responsibility in the principal's death. Maybe he was jumping to conclusions. Maybe whatever that noise was wasn't some kind of Mad on a trail of destruction through the city. Then again, if it was broken plumbage, he'd still be the one to have to fix it. Reiniger sighed and picked up the autoplunger in one hand and the keyring in the other. He went up the stairs and carefully opened the reinforced door to a slit.

After taking a few seconds to think, Nicola said, "It doesn't sound that crazy. We need some way to make a living that doesn't take up all of our time, and we have to keep a low profile. I was considering heading for your superiors despite their orders, depending on what you thought their reaction would be if we simply showed up. This sounds less risky."

"The only problem is that you're still wanted, and they might be looking for me too, either as a victim or as a collaborator. But I think the government has enough other problems to worry about that they won't be looking very hard."

-Thomas and Molly 022-

The effect on the door was dynamic. The gun fired out a bright blue beam that struck the door, pouring into the door. With the sickening sound of metal grinding against metal, the door began to shrink, tearing off of it's hinges and growing smaller and smaller until, after Thomas eased off the trigger, a tiny dollhouse version of the door plunked flat against the ground with a tiny "thunk!" The two guards at the door, both extremely surprised, poked their heads away from where they'd been hiding at the far sides of the door, looking astonished.

Thomas had gotten the gun working, and apparently it was some sort of shrink ray. But it still wasn't working perfectly, as he quickly noticed that he had gotten about a foot taller after firing it. Apparently there was some sort of energy bleed that he still hadn't fixed yet. But of the two of them, Molly 022 got the worst of it: the lab mouse was still growing, getting larger and larger until it burst out of Thomas' pocket, plopping to the floor, and showing no signs of slowing down in it's growth...

One of the guards, the braver of the two, stepped forward. "Umm, we're going to have to ask you to give that device over now that you've got it fixed..." he stepped forward.

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-Elsewhere in the facility-

Phelps grinned, and snapped his fingers. Two of his guards stepped forward and unchained Randall, waiting for him to stand up. The guards flanked Phelps and Randall as the former led him out of the prison sector and down several plain white hallways. Eventually the group entered a large open room with several tables filled with various scientific implements. "You'll be sharing the public workspace at first. If you prove particularly fruitful you'll be permitted your own private lab. Needless to say you will not be permitted to leave the premises of the base for any reason, however. If you need anything particularly exotic, either in materials or information, you'll have to speak to one of the guards posted outside the lab space. Work hours are from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm each day, with brief breaks for food twice each day." he folded his arms. "As for what you get out of it, well, what would be better than furthering your research? In this place you'll be able to turn your ideas into things that will be useful for the good of the North. If you're helpful enough eventually we may even let you leave.

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-Jack-

Zeta sparked and blinked. "Oh... is someone coming this way? Hmm..." the little robot girl frowned. "I thought this place was abandoned. I made sure of that." She stood up. "Processing... that's... negative. Evidence suggests hostilities." Zeta walked out of the room she'd seized and down some stairs. "Odds of escape are... negligible." she looked out a window to see Jack and Sgt. Diede driving for the car. "Examining variables... highest likelihood of victory... surprise attacks." She moved to the kitchen and looked for certain things.

It was lucky that she could <Read> objects... otherwise she'd never be able to figure out which mix of common household cleaning chemicals could make a passable chemical explosive.

The house Jack and Diede were approaching looked deserted, but for a single moment Jack noticed a glimmer of metal from one of the first-floor windows.

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-Nicola-

Amy shrugged. "The people I have in mind aren't particularly on the right side of the law to begin with. If anyone could hide us it'd probably be them." She nodded. "Heading to our superiors wouldn't be a good idea in any case. Angey-boy was the only one of the three of us who actually knew where 'Home base' was. Aside from a ballpark guess, I would have no idea where in Canada to go to begin with. I've never been there." She frowned. "I have an e-mail address I can send to for instructions if Angelo is somehow incapacitated or killed, but I'm pretty sure any e-mails we send get forwarded somewhere else or something like that. So unless you have some way of tracking e-mails I don't even know how we could even begin to find them."

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-Edwin-

He opened the door slightly, looking around through the area. At first he couldn't see anything. Then he heard someone clearing their throat. He soon found himself gazing through a slit in the door at the eye of the principle of the school. "Mr. Reiniger, I need to speak with you about some... comments... parents have been making lately about your activities. May I come in?"

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-Brain-

Brain began to disable the two devices, hearing the loud sounds of the rampant prosthetics getting louder. The plexiglass began to dent as they kept trying to force their way in. It was only a matter of time before they broke into the enclosed space.

The seconds were ticking...

"Oh there you guys are. I'm afraid I need human test subjects to test out what this is so I can't hand it over. But on the bright side this probably won't kill you. I figured this would blow a hole in you guys, but you'll probably just end up a bit smaller."

Bracing himself again Thomas shot the two guards. Once they had finished shrinking he walked forward to examine the rapidly growing mouse. "So little mouse not so little anymore are you now. Well your going to have to come with me now. I'm going to have to examine you and the guards to see exactly how this thing works. You know I figured this power core was just a mini fusion reactor, but it's obviously a bit more exotic than that."

Absently he scratched Molly on her head and looked at the guards saying. "So are you guys still alive and thinking. I can think of at least 3 ways to shrink something and only one of them leaves you both alive and capable of rational thought. Hmm actually make that four, but the fourth options pretty nasty so let's hope it's not that."

Randall followed along, nodding at the appropriate times. "Well, I guess I'd better have a breakthrough soon, so I can get myself that private lab. The hours sound rather short, though. Only 12 hours, and time off for two meals? Any issues with me logging extra hours?" While he isn't pleased with how things have turned out, especially being forced into this whole situation, he can't help himself. His head was already aching slightly, just thinking about the possibilities of what he could do here.

And while privacy would be nice, who can object to multiple test subjects like this? The thought caught him a little off guard, but it wasn't wrong, really. A few tests would have to be run on people, and who better than a guard or scientist to run it on? They are all be familiar with Madtech, so hopefully they can describe things a bit better than the average person. Plus, I bet they have all been hit with something at one point or another...

Hearing that he might be released eventually was enough to bring him back to the present. "In truth, if I do well enough for you to possibly let me go, I might not want to. But that's neither here nor there, really. I should get to work, unless it's time for food... His stomach rumbled slightly, breakfast had been a long time ago, and he hadn't quite finished it. Not that that mattered much, but still, he needed to keep in shape, and that meant food. Occasionally. "Oh, and that reminds me. There somewhere I can work out here? Lab grunt though I be, I'm not willing to let myself go just yet. Plus, I often think best when pushing my body. Nature of my past and all, I suppose."

Molly was confused, terribly confused. As far she could recall (wich given the attention span of the regular mouse, was about half an hour ago) never something like this has hapened.
First one of the big forms had grabed her taken her out of her cage. She hadn't been to happy about it, usualy when it hapened it meant one of those anoying tests. Or an injection... She really hated that.
On the other hand it might be one of those labyrinths wich were so easy to solve and had food pellets at the end, so she decided not to bite anyone. Yet. Plus she had figured that if she bited too much she would end up like the other mice. There was a reason she was Molly 22. The 21 first one, who has once shared her cage had all been taken at some point, never to come back.
Bitting was fine but survival was better.

Then she was hurried in a completly unfamilar environement. For once it was huge, she couldn't see any walls. Sure there was one of those huge mamals in the center but he didn't seems to give her any attention, wich was fine by her. Maybe she had finally been taken fot he last trip ? She should have been terrified but for once, Molly had her eyes on a prize she hadn't tasted in quite somme time: Freedom. all she has to do was to jump froml this table, make a run for it, go under that door and then , then .. well she would see. at least there would be no more needles.
Survival was fine but freedom was better.

She was about to jump out when she was grabbed. Again. And put in a smaller place. She was infuriated, she was frightened she w. Hey, a familliar smell ! Yes ! The new place was full of paper, one of her favorite food. she stated gnawing the papers in the pocket.
Freedom was fine but lunch was better.

Having finaly finished eaten and climbing out of her shelter she felt something very very weird hapening.

"Squeeeeeeeeeeek ?"

She was confused. The walls were reappearing fast and she had no idea why. It was obviously somme new kind of labyrinth and she had no idea how to solve it. She was disoriented, peckish as she had been doing a lot of physical activity and most of all she really wanted to bite someone.
A strange animal got near hear and touched on the head It smelled like one of the big mammals but he was way too small. The contact wasn't unpleasant though and he smelled like the one who gave her food two minutes ago. She deducted he was probably friendly. She decided to postpone any feeling of agression for now and follow . Plus the scenery around her was still shrinking and she was feling more and more hungry. He might lead her to more food.
Lunch was fine but... no actually lunch was pretty much at the top.

Brian grunts, and motions to the guards.

Fine, you just lost yourself your one chance to talk to me. Get her out of here, now! Escort her from the premises, and put her face on the security register. If she comes near any of our property in future, have her detained for questioning.

He watches as the guards take Ellie outside, and returns feverishly to his work.

It's a good thing I work better under pressure!

Thirty seconds later, he's wearing on his hand a crude metal gauntlet, which glows with a faint blue light.

Let's see if my maths was right. This SHOULD be a miniature version of the EMP cannon I created earlier. Unfortunately, there's no way to stop the bleed of power, so it's likely to knock out everything within a 20 metre radius.

Only one way to find out, huh?

He turns towards the plexiglass, places his middle and index fingers together, raises his thumb, and pulls in his ring finger and pinky, pointing it at the prosthetics behind the screen.

From the tips of the middle and index fingers, a blue beam of light shoots out, and through the plexi-glass, striking one of the prosthetics and then billowing out in a blue wave of energy.

Brian waits to see if he's managed to stop them, hoping for the best, with a crazed look on his face.

Edwin Reiniger, Janitor Extraordinaire

"Oh, mister principal sir, how are you today? Come in? Herr, herr, no, no, you wouldn't want to do that, it's all dusty down here. No place for an important man like you to be sitting in, herr, herr. No, you just leave the cellar up to good old Reiniger, herr, herr. I'll just come outside"

Reiniger unhooked the chain on the door and inched out through as small as possible a slit as he could manage, rapidly slamming the door shut behind him and locking it thrice. He turned to the principal and grinned broadly, which was sort of a scary sight, but he probably intended for it to seem innocent and friendly. He looked at the little fat man in front of him and wondered in what kind of world a git like that would be allowed to boss around a guy like him. All that man cared about was numbers, profits and public relations. He didn't really care about the children. Not like Reiniger did.

Reiniger hooked the ring of keys to his belt and slid the autoplunger behind his back. He figured it was best not to show the principal he had time to do that kind of stuff.
"So, herr, comments, you say, sir? We're not talking about those packets of itching powder I gave to my man Andy the other day, is it? I mean, that was just a harmless bit of fun, between me and him, see? And he told me he wouldn't tell anyone"

Reiniger grinded his teeth.

"All those little packets would have done, sir, would have been giving his parents a red back for a couple of weeks; or his pets, if they're his victim of choice, herr, herr, herr. I was very responsible about it even, sir. I made him listen to me read all the guidelines before I let him go. Safety first, I told him! I even took the trouble of showing what happens if you get the powder in an open wound on one of the rats. But it was all on the packet, sir! Do not, under any circumstances, bring Itchy's Fun Powder anywhere near an open wound. If the kid screwed up, it's not my fault. I can't help it he's stupid, sir, herr, herr"

Jack

Jack had grabbed a few little things of his own, and the ride here had been moderately productive - about as best as one could hope, given the less-than-optimal circumstances. He grinned, grunting as he hefted the jury-rigged pressure sprayer onto the roof of the van, givin the ripcord a series of tugs, thumps, and curses before the motor roared to life. Chuckling, he hooked the hose into the first of a set of five-gallon drums labeled Quick-Gro Chemical Fertilizer.

"Knock Knock!" He cried cheerily, as he began to hose down the side of the house with a presurized spray of steaming green goop that sizzled and hissed as it came into contact with the exterior wall.

-Jack-

A familiar face looked out of a second story window. Zeta was annoyed at this human's unpredictability. "Oooo... go away! I don't want to play with you right now, madboy!" She felt the holes in her face crack slightly as it shifted into a scowl. She had hoped that the organics would have tried to go through the front door... she'd rigged it to explode. She watched the exterior wall start to dissolve, as part of the house began to slump over, the second story on the other side of the building lurching against the strain.

This would be heck on the resale value. Of course, she didn't care, since it wasn't her house (She'd stuffed the owner into the fireplace chimney after tying him up) but still.

Too many uncontrollable variables... odds of her survival were down to 23%. Briefly she wished one of her siblings was here. She hadn't been built for extended combat. Reaching down, she tossed one of the homemade chemical explosives down at the two organics. Sgt. Diede was a bit quicker on the uptake and tackled Jack, rolling along the ground with him as the two of them narrowly got outside of the (admittedly small, Zeta was disappointed) blast radius. She responded by lifting up an Uzi and firing at the window, shattering it as Zeta ducked back inside.

The metal girl grumbled, looking through her array of homemade weaponry. "Ooo... you two are asking for it... just wait!"

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-Edwin Reiniger-

"Alright. This will only take a second." The principle folded his arms. "This is difficult to say, but... well, we've gotten a lot of complaints. From parents, I mean. A lot of the ones that have visited seem to think that you come off as creepy, even a bit scary at times. And many of the teachers feel the same way. Sir." He shifted uncomfortably. "We respect the years of service you've provided, but the incident with Andy really was too much. It's important that you realize that there is supposed to be a certain level of distance between the non-teacher employees here at the school, and the students. You need to realize that you aren't a child, Mr. Reiniger. I'm sorry, but you are fired. Have all your personal belongings off the premises by 5:00 pm today."

The Principle turned and began to walk away, nonchalantly, as if nothing had happened.

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-Brian-

The EMP seemed to work as advertised. Every single electronic device within the radius had just been completely shorted out.

Renolds looked around at the inanimate arms and legs nervously, kicking one just to see that it was dead.

The gauntlet he'd just assembled began to hiss and pop loudly, however...

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-Thomas, Randall, and Molly 22-

The guards stared wide-eyed at Molly as she kept growing, only stabilizing once she managed to get about roughly human-sized in height and much, MUCH larger in width. One of the guards, who shall now and forever more be dubbed "Captain Overreaction", immediately reached for the communicator at his waist. "The prisoner in cell 93-b4u is escaping! He's created some sort of horrible monster that's tearing apart the door! It's hideous! Requesting a heavy weapons team down to block D immediately! Extermination is the only solution to Ack! Brfle-gaccccck!"

The other guard looked at him, sighing. "Dude. Overreacting."

The first guard grinned sheepishly. "Sorry, sorry. Let's just run away screaming, ok?"

"Well fine then." The two of them turned, howling as they made their escape, leaving Thomas and Molly 22 standing there, looking extremely confused.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the facility, Phelps nodded. "There's no problem with you logging extra hours, but-" Suddenly, the lights flickered on and off and a loud siren began to howl. He sighed. "Aaaand now there's a breach." He turned to some of the guards. "Go take Mr. Randall to get fitted for obedience clamps. I'm going to go evaluate the situation." He turned and began to storm off as two of the guards grabbed Randall's shoulders and began to carry him off.

Panicking, Brian shakes the gauntlet off his hand and looks around for a product safe. Seeing one across the other side of the room, he pick up the gauntlet with a pair of tongs and darts across, rips the door open, flings the gauntlet in, and slams the door shut, leaning heavily against it, just in case.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait" Reiniger said, clasping the principals shoulder with his hand.
"I- I didn't quite hear that last bit. I thought I heard you say I'm fired, but- but that's impossible, herr, herr"
Involuntarily Reiniger's free hand flipped on the switch on the autoplunger, which started making pumping rubbery sounds.
"Good ol' Reiniger is part of this school. No-one but me could make this place work. You have no idea what I've done, what I've accomplished. And the kids, the littluns love me. Their parents, they're just jealous"
Reiniger's hand gripped the shoulder so tight he almost hurt the principal.
"I'm part of the school, but more importantly, herr, herr, the school's part of me. You can't take that away from me! Rip my heart out, but don't take the school! I live here. I own this place! You're nothing without me! Nothing, you hear!"
Reiniger's finger pushed the dial on the autoplunger to the next setting, unsafe. Of course, since the autoplunger had four settings, only one of which marked as "safe", that wasn't very impressive. The thing started purring loudly, and the smell of gasoline lingered in the air. Reiniger has syphoned the gasoline out of the principal's car to power his plunger. It was sort of ironic, really, considering what was about to happen. Considering that, if the principal got the chance, he'd flee to his car, only to discover it had an empty tank. Reiniger had dumped the rest in a jerrycan in the janitor's closet for later use.
"Herr, herr, herr. You were never a good principal. A number cruncher, that's what you are. You don't care. You don't care I care. No-one can take those kids away from me, especially not you"
Reiniger's finger flipped the dial to dangerous.
"Herr, herr, harr, ha, harr, harr, harr"
Reiniger was done talking. He didn't really have anything left to say. It didn't matter what he said to this individual. All he could do was laugh, in a strange sort of cackle, scarier even than his regular throaty laugh. He flipped the switch to hit the decks, at which point the plunger started emitting loud clanking sounds and thick black smoke. He slammed the plunger into the principals face just in time for the explosion. The plunger was propelled out of the rest of the machine, with the principals face still stuck to it, hurtling him into a row of lockers and knocking him out. He quickly switched back the remains of the machine to safe and grinned.
"Looks like I've got a large stain to clean up, herr, herr"
He'd calmed down somewhat now and the mad laughter had gone. He'd been on the brink. His thoughts had been drifting to the monstrosity in the boiler room. But now he was okay. Now everything was okay. Reiniger grabbed the unconscious principal by the arm and dragged him through the hallway, down to the cellar, where he tied him tightly to a chair with some chains and padlocks. Then he added the principals keys to his keyring. His carkey, the key to his office, and even the key to his house. Reiniger sat down, the rats chittering in the background, and said "Oh, what, oh what shall I do with you? Herr, herr"

Jack

Jack grunted as Diede tacked him to the ground, bringing him outside the blast radius of the explosive. He growled, a peal of laughter bursting from his lips as he pulled the pins out of a couple of grenades and tossed them through the shattered window. Taking up the hose once again, he noticed that it had been damaged in the fray - wouldn't run for much longer, given the caustic nature of its contents. Still, he resolved to make the most of it, spraying the acidic goo through the window as much in hopes of driving the girl out as in hopes of turning her into slag.

Thomas

"Hey wait. You can't run off. I haven't tested this gun on you yet." Thomas called after the rapidly retreating guards.

"Stupid guards. Oh well guess I shouldn't be surprised noone ever seems to stick around to help once I get to the testing phase. I don't understand why though. I mean it's not like it would kill them. Probably not anyway." muttered Thomas to himself as he looked around the corridor outside his cell.

Seeing nothing of immediate interest he turned back around to Molly 022. "Hey you little mouse. Well I guess it's big mouse now, but never mind that. I need you to come with me so I can run some tests on you. Wait you probably can't understand me. Why on earth am I talking to you. Oh man I'm talking to myself again. That's not a good sign. At least I'm not actually answering my own questions yet."

"That's because you haven't asked any yet." he replied in a slightly higher pitched voice.

"Oh man it's started answering. Shut up little voice in my head I'm not crazy yet. At least I'm fairly sure that I'm not. I better find a lab to finish my testing before I lose it." Looking at the big mouse he thought to himself for a few minutes. "Ok your an animal and you probably want food. Hmm I'm not sure where to get enough food to entice such a large mouse. Well let's see if I can find the cafeteria. They probably have some food you can eat. And now that I think about it I'm pretty hungry too. They didn't give me much to eat in that cell. And hey maybe I can find some people there to test the shrink gun on." At this last thought Thomas brightened up.

With his current course of action firmly in mind Thomas attempted to coax Molly to follow him. "Come on little, um big mouse follow me." And started walking down the corridor in the direction that the guards had fled.

"Come out guards. Come out for testing." He called.

"Stop doing that your just warning them off."

"You shut up your just a figment of my imagination. You don't know anything."

And so Thomas continued down the hall. In search of food, a lab, and more test subjects. While rather desperately trying to convince himself that he wasn't insane. Little voices in his head not withstanding.

Randall's expression was somewhat disappointed. "Obedience clamps, eh? Well, not too surprising. Though this alarm is going to be a problem. I do hope this doesn't happen all the time." He allows the guards to direct him along, but continues talking, partly to them. "But it does, doesn't it? At least once a day, perhaps more? Too bad I can't viably remove hearing as a sense. Wouldn't he hard..." He has to close his eyes for a second, as his headache gets worse. "...but enhancement would be the main goal anyway. Say, either of you watch much wrestling?"

Molly 022

Who is following Thomas, is pretty anoyed buy all the sounds and lights. She starts attacking at random those huming and noisy boxes that lies on the walls.
Sure she takes a few electric shocks while doing so but a lifetime of being a test subject has kind of make her used to it.
After a while the lights start going down but the strange howling sound (the alarm) seem to have gained in intesnsity.

-Jack-

His goo hit a support wall on the house, as the side Zeta was in began to slump and fall over. Inside, Zeta was having trouble. Too many undefined variables! Combat was HARD! She was losing her balance...she couldn't...she had to... "Aaaaaaaugh!" She wobbled and tumbled towards the window, falling out of the building and landing on the ground right outside with a thud.

She pushed herself up. "Arrgh! You ruined my hideout you big jer-eep!" Sgt. Diede pointed an uzi at her head. She paused, processing the situation. It would be best to do that. It maximized her chances of escape at a later point. She raised up her hands. "I surrender! Lemme go! I'm sorry I won't do it again!"

Sparks shot out of the damage holes in her head.

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-Thomas, Molly 022, and Randall-

A crowd of guards had gathered at the far end of the halls with what looked to be large-muzzled guns. One of them pointed. "Fire the Nerflomation blasts!"

They began pumping their weapons and then began firing balls of bright yellow foam in Thomas and Molly's general direction. Once the balls hit something they stuck and began to swell into a tough, puffy yellow foam. Of the salvo, one had stuck to Thomas' leg and another had bapped Molly on near her right eye. They were starting to make it rather difficult to move.

The guards held their position, furiously pumping their nonviolent weaponry so that in a minute they could fire again...

Meanwhile, Randall's captors looked at him blankly. One of them spoke up. "Sorry, I'm more into flower arranging."

The other nodded. "Tandem pottery. Why do you ask?" The second guard brought out what looked to be a large collar with several vice-grips protruding out of it at various... imaginative... angles, moving to try and secure it around Randall's neck.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Brian-

As he leaned up against the door he suddenly heard a loud "Ka-BOOM!" as the door itself burst off it's hinges and sent him flying fortunately into a office chair with surprisingly good padding, which rolled up and smacked against one of the labtables, causing a cup of coffee to spill and dribble into a puddle on the floor and dampening one of his shoes.

Then the lights flickered and went out. Renolds looked up and sighed. "That's it... time to take a sick day." He looked up to Brian. "Want to grab some lunch, boss?"

One of the lab techs was bending down and looking at the inert prosthetics. "I don't get it... why would all of them just start suddenly going out of control like that?" he popped open a casing. "Hmm...this is my design, but why is that chip there... that's not part of the model design. And the job of putting it in is pretty sloppy. Did someone spot-weld this in? Strange..."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Reiniger-

The Principal's eyes widened. "Y-you...you're mad! Release me this instance, you ragamuffin!" He was growing more and more nervous by the second. "I-I-I'm a pillar of the community! People'll notice I'm gone! You'll never get away with this, you rebel!"

After rubbing his aching head, Brian nods to Reynolds.

Yep, we're out of here, along with our helpful recipient.

He then turns back to the techies, and sighs.

You're going to need to check EVERY computer and EVERY prosthetic in this place for those chips. Someone is conducting industrial espionage against the company. I just wish I knew who they were, and why they're doing it. That chip gives them remote control of the device to which it is attached. Someone did the same to my new prosthetics the other day, and nearly killed Reynolds with it.

Until you manage to clear the building of the chips, it might be best to not put the power back on.

That done, he heads to the nearest emergency stairway with Reynolds and starts making his way out of the building before stopping momentarily in the main security hall.

Reynolds, can you grab the same parts I asked for a few moments ago? I think I'm going to need another one of those devices very soon, and I don't want to run the risk of leaving without some kind of protection.

Thomas

Upon being hit by the foam balls Thomas lost focus and began trying to analyze them. "Hmm some kind of foam product. I haven't seen anything quite like it before. Seems a bit a sticky. Going to have to be careful of touching it to sensitive equipment. Probably meant to disable rioters without hurting them." Curiosity slowly overcame what little good sense he had and he reached down to take a sample of the foam.

Fortunately he was still holding the shrink gun and it clanked as it hit the floor when he reached down. The noise while not loud was unexpected and broke his focus. "Woah what's this. Oh right the shrink gun. Still have to find some test subjects."

Thomas stopped contemplating the gun for a moment to ask the guards, "Hey do you know where I could find some human test subjects. My last pair ran off before I could use them. I don't know why there's only about a 75 percent chance the procedure would kill them. So do you know where I might find some willing humans."

Thomas returned to studying the gun. Meanwhile the little voices in his head desperately attempted to point out certain pertinent facts about guards firing at him. Eventually they succeeded.

"Oh hold on. You guys are human. Well man I feel stupid now. You guys should have said something before I made a fool of myself. Hold still while I shoot you."

Happy now that he had succeeded in finding some test subjects, Thomas raised the gun into its firing position and began shooting into the guards formation heedless of the foam flying past him.

Jack

Jack dropped the hissing hose as Diede covered the sparking... thing. It was hard not to look at her... it... and see a little girl. But that 'little girl' had also murdered a number of Diede's troops. Jack gave her a hard look. "All right... I accept your surrender. How do I shut you off?" If she told him, Jack would deactivate the construct and then take her back for a full analysis - he needed to find its memory and see who sent it. If she refused to cooperate, he'd just have to figure out how to shut her down manually.

~Days Later~

It had only been a few days since Lily's Grand Plan had been created, but it already felt like real progress, the first step of a long road back. SueTwo hadn't been able to control her Madness just yet, but--

*WhrrrrrrrRrRrRRRxxRxgCgXgrkRxkGrKg *CRUMP**

"S2? The rammer's broken again!"

--but she had made three much more valuable contributions. Two and a half, if you counted how much the third machine kept breaking down.

"OK-- I think I see the problem. I'm going to have to cut the lights to manage it, though."

The first device was the lumpy cube in the center of the main room off the hideout (it only had one room so far, but that was another matter.) SueTwo herself wasn't entirely sure how she had made it-- all she was sure of was that it produced electricity, and all you had to do was feed it with organic material occasionally.

Disconnecting the wires for the lights from the device, S2 fiddled about as darkness reclaimed the lair. Then...

*cRrRRr-rrrkzrrzkr-krrrrRR-Rrrrrr-rrrWhrrrrrrrrr...*

The device also powered SueTwo's other two creations: the Piston and the rammer. As the Piston slowly crawled through dirt, digging tunnels slower than the eye could follow, the ramming machine blitzed over the walls and floor, tamping them, turning them from dirt into some concrete-like material that could hold up on its own without crumbling or falling apart.
At least, that was the theory.

"OK-- we're back. Lights back on in 3... 2... 1... now!"


So far, there wasn't much of a lair; from the 'Well' that led to the outside, a short hallway led to a small central room. The only furnishings so far were the girls' sleeping bags, the [improvised] air pump in one corner that kept the air safe to breathe, and two bags of food in another.
Leslie, Sue and Heather were focused on arguing over a piece of paper that read "Lair Plan". SueTwo was hovering around the Piston, occasionally reaching into the giant fan-drill's workings to tweak something. Karen and Lily were sitting, discussing new ideas for when they got back in action.
By now, it was almost impossible to see the opening to the new lair from outside.


The Narbonics had gotten a foothold. There was somewhere no one could find them. Soon, as they rebuilt, they'd bring themselves back. Recruit new members. Perform new criminal activities.

For now, though, their future was still in doubt.

-Jack-

"Oh. Umm... strictly speaking, this unit wasn't built to be deactivated manually like that." She paused, processing the fact that Diede's gun was still pointed at her face and the Mad was still holding the acid-spitting device.

She really, REALLY wished some of her brothers were here. They'd have stomped these two flat and eaten their hats. Or something like that. "But to prevent the loss of data due to critical systems failure, this unit should probably mention that there is an emergency shut off switch beneath the back plating of my torso. It's not meant to be operated manually, but a short localized electrical surge would likely trigger it with minimal damage to interior systems." Zeta neglected to mention that it would also set into motion a series of internal events that would cause her to reboot, if possible, within three units of what this culture referred to as "hours." Her odds of escape were considerably higher if that information wasn't available to these humans. "I don't suppose releasing me is an option?"

Sgt. Diede scowled. "No."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Brian-

One of the techies couldn't help but salute as Brian addressed them. "R-roger sir!" He blinked. "Did I just call you sir?" Thinking about it for a moment, eventually he shrugged his shoulders and ran with it, turning back to get his men on the job. "We'll get those chips out and analyze them as quickly as we can! Do you want us to tell you if we find out anything?"

Renolds, meanwhile, was busy getting more of the parts list together, while looking dubiously at one of the prosthetics, as if he was expecting it to move again and attack him at any moment. To be fair, his track record made it somewhat likely, even now. As he carried the parts he walked along Brian. "You like Chinese? I know this good place a few blocks over..."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Thomas and Molly-

As Thomas began to shoot different guards, shrinking each one in turn, the guards began to break formation. "He's got some kind of...some kind of SUPER WEAPON! Retreat!"

The unshrunk guards dropped their weapons and turned to flee... and ran right into the stern face of Phelps. "What, so a squad of trained soldiers can't handle a single Mad with a shrink ray? You're all on KP for a month." He folded his arms. "Regardless, if you can't handle him and that rodent with the Nerflomation cannons we'll just seal off this sector and flood it with sleep gas."

"B-b-but sir! Some of our own men are still here! And plenty of other prisoners!"

"And that's why we're using the sleep gas, instead of the nerve gas, now isn't it? Now follow me, troops!" Phelps motioned to the remaining guards as they made for a security door and began to initiate a lockdown.

Thomas heard a slight hissing noise from above him as he picked at the balls of foam stuck to various parts of his body. A bright green gas with a faint acidic smell was beginning to leak in from vents in various places on the ceiling. Unless dealt with fast this would prove to be a serious problem for him.

Molly, meanwhile, was reacting oddly to the gas, in that her tail was beginning to split off into 3 different tails and her fur was beginning to change into an odd faded green color.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Nicola-

Amy folded her arms. "So what's this virus going to do when we upload it into the library's computers, anyway?"

Smiling as the tech-head gives him respect, he nods.

Yes. Should you find out anything, anything at all about the chips in question, don't write it down or record it. Instead, call me straight away with the information. Here's my cellphone number.

He hands him a business card from his days as a security guard, with the words Security and Guard now crossed out.

He then turns to Reynolds.

Chinese? Sounds good. I could always do with a chicken chow mein.

Jack

Jack reached back, disabling the... thing. He looked over at Diede with a smile, his eyes glittering. Good work, Seargeant. What we're going to do now is take this thing back to my workshop. I'm going to take it to pieces and try to figure out who sent it. And then... Then we're going to have to relocate. my home is no longer secure. Perhaps you should call the General and give him a report?

Elijah was lost in his own little world for a long time. Well it felt like a long time for him. In reality, it has only been about 12 hours. When he finally came too, it has pitch black and he could barely see 3 feet in front of him. Elijah hardly noticed. His minds was still in a flurry of new thoughts and ideas while his body was in automatic mode. Slowly, his body worked itself back home where his brain finally kicked back in control. Grabbing random parts around his apartment, Elijah worked through the night on his new ideas.

Thomas

"First you give me inadequate tools, then an inadequate test subject ,and now your trying to gas me. What kind of lousy research facility is this anyway." Shouted Thomas at the now closed security door.

"Oh well at least I finally got to test this shrink gun, and it seems to be working properly although I'm going to have to analyze the guards I hit later to be sure. Not enough time now unfortunately"

Thomas turned to look at the vents that the gas was coming out of. "Looks like a basic ventilation system. Wish I could get up there and take a look though. Now what can I use to stop it. Hmm those look promising," Moving quickly he picked up one of the guard's dropped Nerflomation cannons and examined it. "Hmm looks like a great big nerf gun, but with expanding foam bullets rather than darts. Not what I expected military guards to be carrying, but I can work with that," emptying out his pockets he looked at the tools he had thought to bring with him, a screwdriver and a small knife. "Heh I didn't really prepare properly for this when I left that cell, but I suppose these are all I need anyway."

After a few minutes of hurriedly scavenging parts from the various nerf cannons and putting them back together in ingenious ways, Thomas had assembled what was basically a nerf shotgun. Instead of firing one ball of foam it fired ten at a time, but at the cost of drastically reduced range, just enough to be able to hit the ceiling. Or at least that's what Thomas was hoping he had built.

Holding his breath to protect himself from the gas Thomas ran under each of the vents closest to the security door and fired a blast of foam at them. Then he ran back and turned around to see if his makeshift foam seals were holding.

"It will render them useless after a few minutes, unless their budget for computers is a lot higher than it should be. Before it finishes that, though, it will have spread out through the library's connections—meaning that any site someone is browsing will carry the program, and spread it to the sites it is connected with."

"I was going to open a number of bank and stock company websites right before I uploaded it, but I don't think we need to do that anymore," she said thoughtfully. "That was always a secondary effect, anyway. The real point is that, like a virus, it is capable of changing as it reproduces, and the fittest iterations of the program will survive and prosper. Eventually, there will be whole ecologies descended from the program."