sure, jan

[maskormods]

TEST DRIVE MEME

Considering apping into MASK OR MENACE? Want to dip your toes into the setting and get a feel of whether your character will fit into it? Or maybe you're just cruising and want to play around? Then you've come to the right place!

Pick any of the following scenarios below or feel free to make up your own, but don't be afraid to throw yourself at anyone's thread, either!

And remember to have fun!

01. Your memory is hazy and you might feel increasingly frustrated or anxious, or maybe you're excited as soldiers march past, barely glimpsing you. One second you're somewhere underground, the next you're enveloped in blue light, and suddenly you find yourself directly under Flordia sun's bright and burning glare. A female soldier steps toward you with a wide smile on her face and directs you to a car, ready to debrief you. You realize you are not the only one, surrounded by equally confused or eager faces... and you're all sporting a digital tattoo on your wrist.

02. Welcome to Cape Canaveral, where the smell of the ocean is in the air and locals are more than pleased to see new imPorts roaming their streets. They wave, they cheer, they ask for pictures as politely as they can. The more inhuman you look, or if you're wearing a costume, the more likely locals are to approach. Hey, enjoy the moment! The popular malt shop is offering you a free drink if you need it.

03. The technology in this world is certainly something. The cars are clearly modeled after popular 50s cars, but they hover several feet above the ground as they drive down the street. There are digital jukeboxes in restaurants, motorcycles also hover through traffic, advertisements can be seen on a digital projector on the taller buildings. Even kids on skateboards appear to drift a safe ten feet off the ground while playing!

04. Wherever you are, you can hear the loud revving of an engine, distance at first before you finally see it: a hovercar bursting around the corner, going beyond the maximum speed limit and just barely making its sharp turn. It doesn't appear to be slowing down any time soon, not with two police cars trailing it... and uh oh. Those skateboarding kids don't have much time to get out of the way as the car comes speeding down the road. You've been brought here for a reason Hero — so you better act fast.

Comments

[tadeadshi]

Nope. Looks like you're stuck with me.

Okay, I'll bite. Where do you work.

[microbrobotics]

[ He sticks his tongue out a bit. God, now that he's past the whole "oh shit I have to lie to my brother" part, he's almost giddy. Talking with Tadashi about engineering projects! Something he thought he'd never get the chance to do ever again. ]

StarkTech. It's not too far up the road - Tony's got a sick lab. And there's other geniuses there, and I bet he'd hire you too. You'd be a little slow compared to the rest of us, but you can work hard to keep up, right?

[ He tries to keep that "he'd hire you too" part casual, but he can't hide a note of excitement in his voice at the thought of it. Working with Tadashi on engineering projects: ALSO something he never thought he'd do again. ]

[tadeadshi]

Had to work hard to keep up with you, didn't I?

[He musses his hair a bit. There's no malice or jealousy in that, just up front observation. Maybe he'd been jealous when they were younger but what'd it matter? Hiro was smarter than him in a lot and Tadashi was smarter than him in other things. It worked out.]

What all do they do there? It's gotta be something good if it's keeping you in one place.

[microbrobotics]

[ Hiro doesn't even fuss about the ruffling - he's too happy now. ]

All kinds of stuff. It's pretty free range as long a we've got some kind of project. Me, a programmer, and a biologist came up with a vaccine that reprograms our nanites to ward off false memory implantation. It's kind of been going around. And then I'm making helper bots to help me out in the lab.

[tadeadshi]

Nanites?

[He glances down at his wrist. Oh right, the things in his wrist when he woke up. Good to know they can do other stuff, maybe he can do something else with them.

He is proud though. Look at his lil bro, using that brain of his for something big and important and helping people.]

How big are the bots?

[microbrobotics]

They're in your bloodstream. Tracking mostly, I think, but there's some tricks to 'em.

[ Amazing what happens when someone lights a fire under his butt to get him moving. When they get to a small housing development, he jogs up to the first door of #1. From there he appears to ... do nothing? But there's the distinct sound of the key turning in the door from the other side, and then the door opens. ]

About six inches high. At least the prototypes are. Haven't decided if I want to go bigger or program better cooperation schema.

[tadeadshi]

I'd go for programming. You can always go bigger later--

[Okay, hold up. That got his attention quick. There's no one waiting just on the other side. And he didn't see or hear anything like a retina or body scan, what the heck. He looks at Hiro quizzically and steps inside after him, taking one last look at the door from the inside and... Yep, still ordinary door as far as he can see.]

Okay, what's the trick.

[microbrobotics]

[ It's a completely ordinary door. With no pneumatics, no gears, no nothing. Just a pair of keys in the lock and the darn thing apparently swinging open of its own accord. Hiro hops over the threshold with a positively wicked look on his face. ]

Oh, you know.

[ He opens his hand - and the keys pull themselves out of the lock and into his open palm like they were drawn there with a strong magnet. ]

The usual.

[tadeadshi]

[His eyes dart between the now-empty lock and the keys in his hands. This is obviously the superpower thing going on and he can't tell if it's telekinesis or concentrated magnetism. Has to be one of those two.]

What'd you get.

[Look, once he knows for sure what Hiro got, he will be rightfully impressed and geek out with him but he wants to know first.]

[microbrobotics]

[ He figures as much, but he's sure gonna gloat a little anyway. ]

I'm calling it technokinesis. If it has moving parts - or it's a component of something that does - I can make it move. So technically, I don't even need a key. I can press the bits inside the lock manually. It's just easier to grab the key if it's there.

[tadeadshi]

All right, that? That. That's cool. That's very cool.

How'd you even figure out you had it or-- Have you tested the lim-of course you have. [ And there he goes, running so many ideas and possible scenarios and RIGHT little brother. Little brother here, watching him. ]

What else do you know about it?

[microbrobotics]

[ It's nice to see someone who immediately gets the implications of something like that. Most people call it telekinesis or second-class technopathy when really it's so much than either of those things. He grins up at his brother. ]

Come up to my room and I'll show you. I've had a whole month to practice. It's so ridiculously useful, you have no idea.

[tadeadshi]

Oh, I'll believe it. Show me, I wanna see.

[He can think of a whole lot of things he could do with an ability like that. He's pretty much forgotten his own file in favor of investigating Hiro's abilities and his space. Actually now that he thinks about it, this would be the first time Hiro hasn't had to share a space at all. He's had a whole month like this. Way to make himself feel a little smaller in the grand scheme of things.]

[microbrobotics]

C'mon then. I got a whole buch upstairs.

[ Hiro is great at that, don't you know? In case you'd forgotten how much your little brother demands on a daily basis, here's another one: the hallway in front of his room is peppered in bits of tech in front of the door. He's already molding his way into this setup too. ]

[tadeadshi]

All right, I'm coming.

[If nothing else, he's glad for Hiro's enthusiasm. It's always good when Hiro's excited about something and actually wanting to show Tadashi. But he sees the bits of half-together mechanisms and smiles.]

Lemme guess. This one [he gestures to the poor door framed in metal at the floor] is yours, right.

[microbrobotics]

[ It's also a marked change from Hiro's abject misery at the beginning of this conversation. So, a win-win all around. He eyes the door sheepishly before opening it up. ]

Yeah. Uh, I had some trouble with control at the beginning. These things get some velocity if you're not careful.

[ Inside his room ... well, Tadashi won't be surprised by the mess, because it's Hiro, but it is truly a disaster area. Junk everywhere, half-assembled bots and computers and all kinds of junk. He's working on building quite a bit of his equipment since not everything he's used to back home is readily available here. There ... also isn't really any room to walk. Or room on the bed, for that matter. About half a dozen little white blobs made from hard plastic and carbon fiber are quietly resting in the mess of his bedsheets. ]

[tadeadshi]

Oh...

[He looks around the room and is just. In awe. He thought maybe? It was a bad idea for him to not share a space here, the transition might be a little rough. But nope. Nevermind, it's great he doesn't share a space because there's no space to share. He runs a hand down his face at the mess in front of him, wondering if maybe the mess gets this bad back home in the eight months' difference.]

I think I'll get some downward velocity if I take two steps. Hiro, how're you not in a full body cast by now.

[microbrobotics]

What? This is the most organized I've ever been, I swear. Look --

[ He half-lids his eyes in concentration. After a moment, everything tech-related in the room springs into the air, like it's snapping to some kind of predetermined pattern. Which it is, since that kind of very fine control is part of Hiro's abilities. With everything in the air, it's much easier to see the methods in his madness. This corner over here is a 3-D printer that's being reassembled to handle harder media properly. Under it, a secondary layer of tools and equipment that he's using to work on it. Even his bed space is organized, with the six tiny white robots (with an awful familiar design - Hiro calls them "Bayminis" for a reason) each in their own corner of a three dimensional workspace. The finished ones are off to the side while the others are in different spots depending on what he's working on. And so on and so forth.

It's still a mess, sure, but when his powers are active it's a multi-level workshop that utilizes every inch of space in the room. For someone as smart as Hiro, equipment was the main barrier between his brain and the world. His microbot arrangements were all held mentally, but they were limited by the latency of his transmitter. Here, it's straight from his brain to the materials, no lag whatsoever. This is a real good look into what the inside of your litlte brother's mind really looks like. ]

[tadeadshi]

[Once it's all up in the air, it makes sense. Tadashi can see how the organization works, it just works best when it's 3 dimensional and not strewn on the floor. He carefully steps through the non-mechanical piles on the floor to walk around and get a look at everything, taking great care not to touch. He doesn't know what that would do to Hiro's concentration and he doesn't want to risk it while he's in the middle of it all.

He sits when he finally makes it to the bed now that there's space and just looks at it all, eyes finally falling on the Bayminis and he's won over. Fine, you win, little brother, he won't say anything scathing. He finally gets the courage to ask the question he's been dying to ask since Hiro told him the time difference.]

So I take it Baymax went over well?

[microbrobotics]

[ Probably a smart move, especially given the metal embedded into his door. But once it's all up and into place, Hiro relaxes. Whatever energy it costs him to get things up in the air, it doesn't seem to take nearly as much to keep them there. When he bumps into a stray actuator, it slides back into place like an icon snapping back to its spot on a computer. The power comes with some amount of memory in terms of saving a particular setup, in addition to his own excellent spatial capabilities, so in a place as familiar to Hiro as his own room, it's easy to just leave everything where it is.

He slips past Tadashi and flops onto his bed. Face tilted up, a warm smile on his face as he considers the 'minis. Hiro drifts one of the in-progress bots closer so that he can take a peek at it. Looks like he's in the process of replicating that hovertech onto the bot's back so that it can fly around his three-dimensional workspace. ]

Yeah. Real well. I miiiight have stolen him from your lab and taken him on some adventures.

[tadeadshi]

[He shifts to make room as Hiro flops by him, his paperwork staying close by; he's not about to risk losing it in this mess. But this is familiar. And then the Baymini is within reach and he carefully takes it to look it over. His fingers deftly work it over while his head gets that weird humming, headachy feeling again, the same one he got when he was looking at the new phone he was given. He understands how Hiro's put this together after a few minutes and looks back to him. He's not entirely sure the hover on the back is wise (shouldn't it be on its feet?), but then again he's not clear on how hover tech works here. Hiro probably knows more about what he's doing with this.]

What... Kind of adventures. Because I don't remember building Baymax for adventures.

[microbrobotics]

[ Hey whatever, it's just a prototype. This particular design decision seems to have been made due to space issues more than anything - the motor is a near copy of a hoverboard's, possibly actively cannibalized from one. He'll have to either miniaturize the tech or make his bots bigger to get them on its feet.

And oooh boy. Time to tread carefully again. If he just pretends everything was Big Hero 7 rather than 6, then maybe he can swing this. Also: he never expected to have to explain himself to Tadashi about his "upgrades" for Baymax. ]

Uh. I also might have made him armor and taught him karate?

[tadeadshi]

You... Taught a prototype medic bot to fight.

[He's bristling a bit -- he never intended Baymax for anything like that -- but he's trying to keep it cool and under control. There had to be a reason. Ask questions first, gauge temper after. He takes a deep breath.]

Why.

[microbrobotics]

[ Oh. Tadashi's kind of mad, isn't he. He should have expected this reaction, but with that whole dead thing going on, Tadashi's reaction was always an abstract "what would your brother think?" rather than an actual "how mad is your brother going to be." He closes in on himself a bit. Some of the equipment in the far corner of the room is quietly resettling itself back on the floor. ]

I - look, it was the only thing I could think of. I kept one of my microbots after the fire and it started malfunctioning one day. Baymax sort of ran off without me and I had to follow. We found Callaghan making tens of thousands of them in an abandoned warehouse - and he attacked us. The police didn't believe me and I didn't want to worry Aunt - anyone else, so I made sure we were prepared next time.

[tadeadshi]

I could've--

[He stops himself there. Rubs at his face aggravated and sets the mini down between them. This is... This is something else. Saying Callaghan set the fire to steal his microbots and now that he tried to kill Hiro... and then taking Baymax and using him for the antithesis of what he was built for.

It's a little much to process in one day, what with the waking up in another universe to top it all off. When he speaks again, his tone's even. Almost quiet, like he's confused more than he is angry; he's a fairly equal mixture of both.]

We could've figured something else out. I could've helped build something different.

[So why didn't I? There had to be a reason he didn't.]