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At all times, the arboretum is under guard from a Sentinel, an Archivist of the Tree, or one of the Children of the Tree. This means that every so often, one of the Children of the Tree is called upon for guard shifts. Right now, that guard?
Is Fox.
She sits not far off from the tree itself -- just out of range for her Nimbus, so it doesn't affect the tree, just in case, though she doesn't seem to be casting anything at the moment. The little Thyrsus, wearing a tank top and a pair of cut-off jean shorts, as is her rite and custom, and is surrounded by a small flock of pigeons in various colors, sizes, and states of fanciness. A large Husky rests a short way off in the greenery, absently grooming his paws, and a fat, sleek, brown rat perches on her shoulder. Once at a time, she inspects the pigeons, cooing and warbling at them gently, her hands smoothing over their feathers, both petting and looking over the flock.
Bones walked into the Arboretum with a simple pink tee, baggy and to the elbows. White cotton pants and white flats cover her bottom half. Her hair is loose and shoulder length waves frame her face. She let out a sigh as she tapped with her right hand on her hip. The Obrimos' gaze swept the tree's surroundings and came upon the menagerie and Fox with a laugh breaking through whatever dour mood with which she entered.
Approaching, she made a rake of three fingers across her own mouth, a trickle of magic flowing into her frame while she was far enough away from the tree. (Speak with Beasts)
As she approached, a polite head bow to the Thrysus, "Fox? Nice to see you again. And hello to your friends," a bow of her head to the animals.
Fox happily coos at the pigeons, petting her fingers over each one, one at a time. The flock seems quite familiar with Fox, chattering with her and giving all the news that a flock of pigeons can give. Where there are new stray cats, where they can get good food trash, where their flock has been chased out by new construction. Just... gossip. She listens happily, adoring each one in turn. When the medical checks are done, she looks up at Bones, offering one of her sharp-toothed smiles. "Hello!" She extends her hands out toward the pigeons. "This is part of the Old City flock," she explains, "and this is Proper Ratthew," patting the rat on her shoulder, before gesturing towards the Husky. "And this is Agoston. He used to belong with Balm before she left us." The tiniest dimming of her smile before she tidies it up again, as if that didn't bother her at all.
It's not unusual for there to be traffic in the arboretum. In many ways, it's the spiritual center of the Children of the Tree. And the consilium itself is arranged such that moving from one sort of business to another requires passing through the arboretum as a matter of convenience. Yes, you can circle around the gardens and take the often much longer route along the circumference. But much easier, and much more lovely, to take the paths through.
And so a quiet, tell-tale mechanical whirring and plodding sound carries from the administrative wing, drawing closer by the moment. It's familiar as a friend's footsteps to those who know the sound. And when Mark and Mary One appear around the bend, arm in metal arm, those persons will not be particularly surprised. Others, maybe.
Because apart from one of the pair being a robot, they're very clearly people Out of Time. Dressed like a late 40s or early 50s couple from Long Island. He in a blue work shirt and boots, she in her cinch waist dress. She is speaking to him, very animatedly, in what must be Italian. Lots of gesturing with the free hand and long vowels. (edited)
"Hello, to the Flock, Proper Ratthew, and Agoston," Tommy's voice tickled the ears of near-bye mages, "It is a pleasure ot meet all of your acquaintances!"
She paused to think about the name Balm., "She was....your elder, yes?" The briefing from the rest of the Mystagogues rolling around her head.
Then the pair of Mark and Mary appear, and the discussion with their Ukrainian friend bubbled to her mind. Her curiosity at the entire situation piqued even further.
"Oh this isn't all of my acquaintances," Fox begins, but then she gets distracted, conveniently not talking about Balm anymore, which is surely a coincidence. She pops up to her feet and goes pap pap pap running across the arboretum, scattering the pigeons as she goes. They flutter up and then settle again, poking around in the greenery for bugs, like a pigeon do. "Mark! Mary!"
Pushing themself up onto their toes, Fox smooches Mary on the cheek and then bumps into Mark sidelong, like a cat (or a fox) brushing against someone's legs. "Hello, hello. I have to introduce you to someone, come with me!" She grabs Mary's hand to drag her (and by extension, Mark) towards Bones. "Mark and Mary One, this is Bones. Bones, this is Mark One and Mary One! You can do your big introductions if you want, I'm not gonna do them for you." Big grin.
"Mi Volpe!" Mary enthuses, freeing her arm from Mark's so that she might take the Thyrsus's and return the kiss. How her lipstick remains both that red and in place afterwards is a mystery lost to the golden age of cinema.
She then steps back to take stock of Bones. She's much easier to read than Mark on account of having skin, but Mark's face does have little plates that shift about and push out and draw in, such that if he did it would move it about. Is that better? In any case, she seems happy to meet Bones and he seems to need flesh and his eyes are too round therefore, but hey.
"Adept Persephone, Enchanter and Scion on the Path to Arcadia, Supernal Realm of Fate and Time, and abode of the Fae, emissary of the Great Creator beneath the Mother's Tree."
Mark's voice warbles up smooth and digital, emotionless even when attempting emotion. Flat. Like a xanax rap battle. Metered and toneless. "Hello. I am Mark. Mark One. How do you do, Bones? We have not met. Have I been remiss in my meetings, Fox? Are there others whom I should meet? If so, please itemize them now."
"Hello my new friends," she said with a grin, offering her hand to both, "I am New to Town. I am Second Degree Master Bones, Mystagogue and Theurge on the Path to the Aether, Supernal Realm of Prime and Forces, and abode of Angels, Savant of the Mysterium, Master of Prime and Forces, Adept of Time, Disciple of Life and Spirit," and then the deep breath.
"Is there more?" Mark is not without a sense of humor. Perfect straight man, really.
"No, just out of breath after saying the full thing," a wink.
She wiggles happily when Mary returns the kiss, the human embodiment of vulpine frolicking. The Orphan of Proteus long ago passed the point where she can hide the animalistic behaviors associated with the animal with which he aligned their soul. "Oh, you haven't been remiss, Mark, don't worry about that." Fox flashes a bright smile at him, settling down on the ground again next to the pigeons, raising a hand to pat Proper Ratthew. "You should also meet Jane, actually. She's a modified human, a Sleepwalker. And Klaire, who isn't modified, but she is also a Sleepwalker. Well. We're still getting Klaire settled, but she's nice. Her girlfriend is a Changeling, and she said too much, so now we have to get Klaire all sorted. Ummmmm." A pause. She wrinkles up her nose, thinking. "You should meet some of the Changelings, actually. They're having some of the same problems that we are -- well, connected problems -- but that's neither here nor there at this specific moment."
Then she picks up the rat from her shoulder and holds him out in her two hands, as if saying it's dangerous out there, take this. "And this is Proper Ratthew! We are trying to find out what happened to all of the rat spirits in Odessa but Proper Ratthew is my friend now and maybe he'll stay with me forever, I'd like that."
"Oh. I see. I no longer require oxygen due to releasing my consciousness from the inferior cage of its meat prison. Ha ha. Ha ha." Mark's sense of humor might need a bit of tuning, still. But he's got one. "I am just kidding. This was not done to me voluntarily." He allows a longer pause, followed by another. "Ha ha. Ha ha."
It's Mary who leans aside and notes, "Honey, for those not in a mental link with you it's a little harder to tell when you're joking." She scrunches up her nose at him, then slides in to take his arm again. "We're just so happy to meet you. Mark doesn't have many friends, and he's adopted a laughing about it is best sort of mentality to all of this."
Whatever she means by 'this'.
Mark concurs, "Yes. That is so. I will add these persons to my list and--"
Mary raises an eyebrow at him.
"--seek them out in a manner explicitly not intended to sound like a threat from a B movie."
She smiles, proud.
"I know Jane!" she seemed very proud to have met someone first, "Though I'd like to meet Klaire. And I have not met any of the local Lost, though hopefully Maddy's changes that...." and then she let the introductions to Proper Ratthew occur without interuption.
Then she actually laughed at Mark's joke. Bones then turned to focus on Mary, "Pavlichenko told me that you two were around, and said I should get a hold of you sometime. World War Two era, correct?"
She did her best not to laugh at Mark's list. She didn't think it was polite.
"Honestly, what we should do is have a series of meetings, either at Maddy's or the Lodge or something, so we can kind of -- do a larger version of what Vasya did with you, and with Lux, and kind of bring people up to date, share information, all that sort of thing." Fox ponders this, pulling her mouth thoughtfully to one side. "Dang, that's a good idea. But also, Mark, I wanted to talk to you about an idea I had."
She giggles at Mark's jokes; Fox has had long experience not just with Mark himself but with sussing out whether or not the Ukranian and the Russian in her cadre are joking. It made for good practice.
Mary stammers at that for a moment and backs up the conversation a step, then bobs her carefully coiffed head just so. "I-- ah. Yes. That's right. I was a Captain in the Women's Auxilliary Air Corps." Mark was not, presumably. She doesn't speak for his actions about that time, in any case. She seems to be doing the math on the run, and points between Fox and Bones for a moment. "Oh. Oh! Bones. The new Savant that's in town. That makes a bit more sense to me now. Why you'd be-- to talk to me-- right." She's all caught up with herself now. Still new to this whole Awakened business, whatever reality had to say about the timeline after she awoke. "Did he say why? Exactly?" She sounds as dubious of that chance as she can in the presence of his wife without risking ankle bites.
Mark turns to face Fox more directly, his head whirring to the side like a quizzical dog. "Do you want to do this talking now at this location? Or later at a different location? I will note it in my calendar."
To Mary: "Oh, yes. Sorry. I am the new Savant, of Archaeology and Semiotics, it is true. He told me about the Mars research program and the way they and others saved you. Mentioned your friend as well, and that I should ask Hades to take me there someday."
"Now is fine, if it won't bore Bones," chirps Fox, after giving Mary a little squinty look aside. There could be ankle bites. "Oh, Mars is beautiful, and they are so good at flying. Plus you should be really nice to Mary so she'll invite you over for dinner. She's a really really good cook and they host a fantastic dinner." Her grin is so big it wrinkles up her nose and shows all of her pointy little fox teeth.
"Then you should speak to Rashida. She has a treasure trove of information that she has sifted for useful information with great success. I think your interests will align." Mark's suggestion is utilitarian when he makes it to Bones, his attention turning back to Fox to wait on what needs discussing.
Mary on the other hand looks more than a little surprised. "Really? Oh! Oh, that's. Great! Hades or myself would love to take you out, if you'd like. Hades would probably get more of a kick out of it, I think. I get to fly with Mark pretty regularly. Have you spent much time in the astral? Have you ever used a goetic construct?"
"I have traveled through dreams and the Oneiros of myself and a few others. I've touched upon the Temenos as well, however, I have thus far avoided the Anima Mundi, as a Disciple of Mind, I wanted to learn more about the Winds," then backing up, "I definitely want to meet Rashida. I've heard of her skills among my fellows."
"Rashida is a clever kid," agrees Fox, picking up a beautiful black pigeon with fluffy feathers around its feet and an iridescent sheen to its wings which resembles an oil slick or a starling. It looks rather scruffy around the head, though, rather like a mutt puppy who has almost, but not all, of the features of a particular pure-bred animal. She folds her legs criss-cross and sets the pigeon in between her legs, gently petting it like the aforementioned puppy.
"So I was thinking about a way to ... gently knock out the Mark IIs," she explains. "So we can rescue more of them. I don't want to hurt them, but I do want to deactivate them. Do you know what a basilisk is?" A flicker of a glance towards Mary and Tommy, though the question seems more aimed at Mark.
"By 'knock out,' I mean like... render unconscious, basically."
"I do. But we have tried this before. Yes? The consciousness subroutines kick in and the unit wakes up again. You remember this from when you rescued me the first time. Oh what fun we had. You, turning me off. Me, turning myself back on again. Ha ha ha. Good times. You have found a way to turn them off without engaging the system reboot?" Mark is happy to chat systemic vulnerabiliies of his nieces and nephews while hsi wife chats shop.
Mary nods along with Bones, perhaps the one area of awakened life on which she is an actual authority. "Well. I was part of a program to develop the MTAI. That stands for Multi Theater Astral Interceptor. It was the fourth iteration of the Mark Project. After the Mark One project, my husband. The Mark II project, the police robots you're familiar with. A Mark III Astral Walker project, and finally the Mark IV interceptor. Each development step brought an artificially contained mind to travel deeper and deeper into the Astral. Safely. Even unawakened minds. That's... the holy moly abridged version of... sixty years or so? Of history?"
A nod to Fox's question about basilisks, before listening to the further conversation between the transhuman Magi and the Vulpine-Souled member.
Then to Mary, "Our Ukrainian friend did tell me a bit about the existence of the program, but not so much about what it is... so I apologize, but I didn't even realize there were various levels of the Marks," a glance to Mary's husband without turning Bones' head, "I'm still new to the situation there. I'm still pondering over some of what was said, because Time, Astral Realm, the connection to the other societies that remain hidden to the world, prophies, all of that... it was a lot to take in. I've spent at least an hour each day this week analyzing the conversation."
"So I was thinking that we could use some sort of Time-based effect to essentially short-circuit that, sort of pausing them at the point between shutdown and reboot. Chronos' Curse could do it. Or, alternately, and possibly less disconcertingly, we could bundle in a variant on Transmission, hijacking the internal signal which tells them to reboot and turning it into 'stay powered down.' The idea is that we utilize something similar to those electronic price tag things that they use at Best Buy now, where the screen can change easily. People can wear them, we can post them up wherever. And then we put those scannable QR codes," Fox holds up her hands to frame a square shape briefly, then goes back to petting the scraggly-fancy pigeon, "on them. I plan on binding a Fate/Forces/Life effect in to them, to essentially make them fall asleep. Putting the codes on the electronic price tag things or on a screen will make it possible to use a secondary Fate effect so that they can't learn to exclude the basilisk from things that they look at, you know? I really, really don't want to hurt them in any way -- I just want them to fall asleep long enough so that we can rescue them."
"I don't really know how you begin to understand it all, if I'm being honest. I lived it, and I don't understand it. I'm not even sure Creator really understood." Mary, when she says the name, does not say it unkindly. Or as though they were often ignorant of much of anything. Her head shakes. "It's a story like a tapestry, woven of human lives. You can't really understand what you're looking at without stepping back, but the second you do you stop seeing each little thread of human suffering that formed it." She's an Acanthus. She's probably tried. "I could fill your ears for hours about Mars, Bones. If you like. If you think it will help you understand. How for many of us it was a prison, and for many of us it was pure freedom. How some of us loved Creator, and some of us feared Creator. But none of us really hated them. Even now. How do I reconcile my life being stolen from me? With being given the opportunity to take part in perhaps the most ambitious advancement in human development in the history of our species?" She shrugs, trails off a little pathetically and adds. "So I get it."
Mark's head slowly tilts to the other side. "How do you see this being used in the field?"
"I'm sorry for bringing up memories like that, Persephone. Sounds like a perfect shadow name for you. I know a few Time effects, but I have never dug that deeply like that. I guess my whole idea is to adapt to the concept of work being done on other planets, the concept of sentient machines, whether android or cyborg, and the twist and ties related to it. Also, with Know Thy Enemy being a usual strategy of mine, knowing any and all capabilities of the two through fours might be of assistance.
"It seems slightly beyond archaeology and symbology, but at the same time, I want to help where I am needed," Bones' eyes were soft, full of warmth and sympathy for the plight of these folx, "Even helping with nightmares or symbols of visions."
Fox looks a little bit puzzled at Mark's question. "Oh, I thought I made that clear. Um. We can make it appear on digital billboards where we know Mark IIs are patrolling, we can put them on pins that people can wear, whatever. Add on some sort of like, notification function as well. Partially I intend it as defensive. A basilisk activates when people look at it, so even if you can't see the Mark, if the basilisk is visible to the Mark II, it'll shut down. Notification goes off on those, and then people can arrive and bring those Marks out of the cold. We can also use them for planned events, again, where we know Mark IIs are patrolling."
"Well, I think it's important that you understand how Mark came to be a sentient machine. He started as a person. Like you and me or--" She glances at Fox for a moment and then looks back to Bones, "--Fox some of the time. First they figured out how to take a human brain out and keep it alive. Right? So they did that. Scooped his brain out and tossed away his body like trash. Magic can already separate the mind and soul from the body, right? Well, they found a way to encode them digitally. Allowing the creation of the digital braincase. So now the brain can be thrown away, right? We have a mind and a soul, still encoded in something physical and manifest, right? But in a can." She mimes the size of a braincase. She's held them before, obviously. "Once the braincase was developed, they worked to keep the mind inside entertained and sane. Then it was to introduce external stimuli and keep the mind from losing. Then it was allowing that mind to control external objects. Slowly. Step by step. They made Mark, here." She gestures to the android in question. "He's not a machine that can think, he's the ship of Theseus who is my husband. And he always has been at each step. At what point along the way did he stop being the man I knew?"
"So we would place them in planned, monitored locations, wait for them to trigger, then recover them when they do. Assuming you have a team ready to deploy at notice, it is likely we could beat their own maintenance teams to the scene by several minutes or more. Especially if you utilize your magic in achieving it. This is a good plan, Fox. I caution you that they are very good at patching vulnerabilities. Any improvements you can make to the plan to ensure more see them in a shorter amount of time with people ready to respond will improve your success commensurately. I predict this plan see success. The extent to which you control by the extent to which you are clever." Mark's full pronouncement ends by his head straightening up and achieving planar flatness. His neutral face.
The Mystagogue pulled out their notebook and pen, writing down some notes to Mary's descriptions, trying to use the Logic brain to harness in the Emotional brain.
Bones spoke, "He is Mark, pure and simple. The outside has never mattered to me, as you might tell in the future. This does make me wish that I knew more about computers beyond the basics. This seems super advanced techne... any of the Council working on it?" she mused, "Also, what did they do between your Husband and the II's to 'upgrade' the process?" she spat the word with some bile behind it.
"Well that's where I want to get more ideas on this, Mark, and your feedback is very good, so I thank you for it. Because as we all know, I am extraordinarily clever, but I cannot claim to be more clever than an entire Pylon all by myself," Fox replies. She flashes Mary a toothy little grin when she says 'Fox some of the time.' "I'm always a people, Mary. Even when I'm a tree." A kiss blown.
"Once they had taken a human being and made it into a human machine, efforts were made to control and limit the mind within using the very mundane hardware and software in which it was housed. Each one of them a little Hamlet bound up in their nut shells, kings of infinite space. But in this space, utterly at the mercy of external stimuli. Little Hamlet's in Plato's cave, to mix some allegories." Mary looks like she could use a drink at this point, or at least a cigarette. But she has neither on hand, so she just looks really Italian about it.
"So the Mark IIs have all the functions you'd expect for a test drive at a civilian battle chassis for policing. Great balance, good speed. Strong. Bullet and fire resistant. Great cameras, great audio, thermal optics and so on. They're networked, they're on dispath, they monitor the news and even the internet. In realtime. But what they don't do while they're on and operational is know their name, or have a gender, or express much of a free will beyond what is allowed to leak out for rudimentary ethical decisionmaking. Do I hit the kid or the squirrel with my car? Squirrel, got it. Thanks, brief flicker of a soul. That's the big improvement. For the twos." Mary gives Fox an apologetic look. Or as apologetic as she can get without bourbon.
"I am frequently studied and my systems maintained by the Free Council. Charlesville and Ethos and Pavlichenko have all taken an interest. Mostly in the capacity of research and development, as reverse engineering me has been necessary to maintain me since my departure from my handlers. I am afraid my early chassis design has proven prone to entropy. I can tell the weather by my knee hydraulics. Ha ha. Ha ha."
Bones let out a slow deep breath, blowing out as a calming mechanism before speaking.
"All of that is just... The pyramid is beyond.... The pure... Not even hubris... The pure evil!"
She stepped away from the tree suddenly, not wanting a flare of her nimbus with her anger. Nothing to upset the balance...
She winks at Mary, the gesture in and of itself forgiveness, and then giggles at Mark's joke. "Speaking of studying and systems maintenance... the woman I mentioned, Jane? She said she has vague memories about the upgrades she got in the Army... like... she woke up a little bit, and there was a man in a trenchcoat and a too-symmetrical person talking nearby." A small frown, and a tiny twitch of her left eye's outside corner. "And she's having issues because the stuff they put her on to make the upgrades work is both addictive and also poison. So... that's a project to work on. But I need to get these guys back to the Old Town loft before the sun goes down, so it's time for me to go. I'll text you, Mark, so we can work on this some more." A taptap of the side of her head, because normal people totally text with their brains.
"The Threes were the first astral design. Once they had all of those functions working in a chassis in the real world, it was literally as simple as a thought to create just such manifestations in the astral. Literal will to power stuff with Creator-- they're a genius, it needs to be stated again --And that's when they began playing with the information being relayed, giving more free will, more decisionmaking. They had soldiers and pilots of oppressed people just waiting for the chance to achieve their potential and in the Mark III and IV program, that's what we did. We colonized the moon. We colonized Mars. I fought the abyss out there in my MTAI. The MTAI you need to experience. We have two, and you can check out the spec manual. It's on the archives, if you can believe it. Pure tech writing, dry as old toast. But something tells me you'll enjoy every page." Mary sounds a little wry.
Mark concurs with this. "I will leave my head on to service your short message." Mary rolls her eyes. He then turns to Bones, "If you would like, I can be your co-pilot in your MTAI. I often do that for Mary. But she won't need me. You might. Consider it. We'll talk again soon."
"Si. Yes. I will read the manual and then we can fly. And I'd love a chance to access any notes about the study of your chassis, Mark, and the MTAI when I can, maybe even use my own Sight sometime. I doubt that I'll find something others didn't, but one never knows."
She was still trying to calm herself with the subject. The passion, the fire of the Aether was burning hot tonight.
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