Heroes: Endings and Beginnings

[SirNitram]

NeXT's voice briefly had very human emotions, before Al got his control back. "Simulation.. Failed." He quickly tried to move on to avoid lingering on the slip. It had felt real. But it was supposed to feel real. "Suggestion: Re-prioritize evacuation."

[Dark Silver]

And it was over.

Legion rose from the ground, bringing his hands up, and stroking the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

"Admittedly...that went about as well as could be expected..."

He spoke up louder, so Inferno could hear, "That was dirty...you know that is a no win scenario. We cant even evacuate the city in time with those circumstances."

[Comrade Tortoise]

"Alright. What did we learn? We learned that sometimes trying to actually fight something is just going to get us crushed, and that we should listen to eachother's suggestions. Also: A superhero team is not up to a task that an uber-tech Japanese military fails."

[Charon]

Inferno smiled, then spoke over the intercom. "You're not looking at the problem in the right way. This isn't a no-win scenario, you just have to be more patient."

It had taken his first team five tries before they figure out what to do. Some of them had even suggested Inferno release his barriers, an idea that had been shot down almost immediately.

"At the very least, it seems like you've picked up one of the basic tenants that this scenario is supposed to teach. Our job isn't to bring down the bad guys. Our job is to protect the civilians. I'd rather let the bad guy get away and have zero casualties, than bag him and have 200 dead."

Inferno paused for a few seconds. "Just let me know when you're all ready to try it again."

[Comrade Tortoise]

"Might I offer a suggestion this time that you guys will listen to? It is Godzilla. We cannot hurt him. He is going to walk through the municipality regardless, but how he walks is what matters. A leisurely stroll will have him take down some houses and maybe crush some old people and small children. This is unavoidable. If he gets mad, he does what just happened to us. Jump around crushing and burning things. What we want to do is call off the troops shooting at him, and either do nothing, or lure him out of the municipality the way he came as fast as possible. Send him peacefully on his way. This counts for more than Godzilla. Hell, a venomous snake. If you see a rattlesnake, if you try to hurt it, it will bite you. If you leave it alone, it will slither off into the bushes and leave you alone"

[SirNitram]

"Your proposal requires active work against primary protocol." NeXT pointed out. "This unit cannot actively seek to endanger baseline humans, and you admit yours does."

[Hotfoot]

For a moment, Mark 25 looked at NeXT quizzically, but shook off the odd sensation as soon as Sunrise started commenting on the situation. There were things echoing behind the programming, a few nearly made it out. "We cannot save everyone. It is noble to try, but when disaster comes, some deaths are inevitable. We brave the fires to save those that we can, those that, without us, would have certainly died. If our actions cause the deaths of hundreds, as opposed to thousands without us, we have done our jobs. That said, Sunrise, you were human once. Try to remember the socialization skills you learned. Turtles may not mind condescending tones and words, but you are part of a team, and such talk directed or even near a superior officer is highly inappropriate."

[Comrade Tortoise]

"Your proposal requires active work against primary protocol." NeXT pointed out. "This unit cannot actively seek to endanger baseline humans, and you admit yours does."

"Basic utilitarian calculation. One action leads to a higher death toll than the other. It just so happens in this case that the one with the lower death toll is inaction. And yes, inaction is quizically an action. Your primary protocol as you currently interpret it leads to suboptimal results. As for condescension, it is not intentional. My mannerisms are blunt and sarcastic, they always have been. They have been that way since before I became a Chimera. I will try to... moderate them, but expect slip ups. As a corollary I would request that my mannerisms not have an effect on the evaluation of my suggestions. As we have just empirically demonstrated, I am occasionally right, and failure to recognize when I am due to taking personally what is manifestly not, can lead to all of us being char-broiled by gamma radiation and heat"

[General Havoc]

There was a soft burst of static, followed by a few sounds that resembled a trash compactor in reverse, and only then did the floating Dalek manage to calibrate words properly.

"Would it be appropriate to venture a suggestion at this junction?" asked the Dalek in a flat, tinny voice, like an old time radio.

[SirNitram]

"I was not programmed for present duties." NeXT stated flatly. "Attempts will be made to institute workarounds."

[Agent Fisher]

As the simulation ended, Mike smiled softly. "Well that sucked." He muttered, sitting on the floor of the sim room. After firing his strongest shot, he needed to rest.

He looked up at the team as they discussed options of what to do. "Ok, so we'll give the turtle's plan a try." Mike said then looked over at the dalek. "When did another robot show up?"

[LadyTevar]

"About halfway thru the simulation, Mike," Jerri answered, having noticed the 'Dalek' before she fell out of the van. While they'd not actually been 'at speed', she still hurt a llittle from the landing.
Are you going to take ...

"Heidi? Shut the fuck up." Jerri could almost feel Heidi retreating. After all, Jerri rarely cursed.

"So... Legion? This time would you like Markus, Mike and I to focus on evacuation?"

[rhoenix]

Getting up, and nonchalantly dusting himself off, Agent Templar looked thoughtful. "Ok, far be it for me to be the first person to say this, but we should work on our teamwork and coordination. Yes, especially me. So next time, will we have a designated leader for the mission?"

[LadyTevar]

"We did this time, Templar... or were you drunk on Caffeine and didn't notice again?" Jerri replied.
Hey, stop stealing my lines

"Legion was in charge."

[Dark Silver]

Legion was listening to the others talk, pondering, then when Templar spoke, his eyes snapped open, and the the edge in his voice came in, "We were incharge, Agent Templar, in case you had not been paying attention. Which you haven't. This excercise is meant to help team efficiency and co-ordination, but when the Team Lead, or the second in command is not listened to, things go wrong."

Legion set his eyes on Templar, "It is suggested you pay better attention, if you intend to not become a casualty in the field. As Senior Field Agent, I have the position of experience, as such Agent Inferno has placed me as his Second in Command of this team. With him absent, Leadership role falls to me. "

Legion didn't wait for Templar to respond, instead he looked up to where the control room window would be, "Give us a few minutes to let the energy-tossers rest some. I'm sure Gordan would appreciate the rest. NeXT, your did well, and as much as I hate to admit it, Sunrise and Mark25 is correct, sometimes our options do not allow for saving everyone....only as many as we can."

The tinny voice he had not ignored, but he was still pondering Jerri's suggestion, when he finally looked at the walking eggshell with a eyestalk, he arched a brow, "I would apprecate a suggestion, as well as a Identification."

[rhoenix]

Not only was Agent Templar very tired, he felt weary. It was also rapidly becoming apparent that he'd need to change a few things in his own life to rise to this challenge of working with a team like this - and sleeping properly was right at the top of the list. He'd made too many mistakes today to give into the convenient mental dodge of "being new and nervous," for he certainly wasn't new to Ultima.

It was time he acted like it, and if that meant going through all the team-building motions now so he could go home and properly sleep, and with effort, make fewer mistakes - then so be it.

Massaging his temples for a moment, Agent Templar next massaged his eyes for a few moments before regarding the others on his team once more. "So noted. What is our next task, then?"

[General Havoc]

"This unit's designation is Omnicorp Sentinel-class Autonomous Law Enforcement Robot XC-001 Alpha," said the Dalek. "This virtual entity is merely a pre-defined observational platform, as there exist physical and legal barriers to my presence within this location at present.

It turned its eyestalk around several times before offering its suggestion.

"The calibre of threat represented by the hostile agent in question exceeds the likely capacity of any weapons system presently on-display to defeat, even with Epsilon-level force authorization. Any weapons deployment capable of destroying such a threat would have a greater than 50% chance of total infrastructural annihilation of the metropolitan area, thus breaching primary priority protocols. This unit's initial recommendation would be the complete evacuation of this metropolitan location, in attendance with an effort to channel the threat away from the statistically-likely areas of mass-human coalescence. Internal simulations are inadequate to predict with minimal authority the optimal method by which this could be attained. Use of high-distracting, high-focus tools such as lights, sirens, flash grenades, or metahuman powers that satisfactorally replicate such effects would appear to be the likely point of initial testing."

The robot considered the matter for a moment. "Of course," it said, "units engaged in diversionary actions would, with near-absolute probability, be destroyed by said threat. This unit estimates a near-impossible likelyhood for simultanious compliance with both Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary priority protocols in this instance. This unit's avatar is observational only, and cannot directly interface with the simulation under current operational parameters. Otherwise, this unit would endeavor to fulfil this objective in person."

[Dark Silver]

"Considering the creature took a hit from 'Hailstorm' and was still extremely lethal....." Legion mused, "I doubt anything we can throw at it will do anything but annoy him....and with the short amount of time between simulation beginning, and the arrival of the creature, and the level of power it can throw down at a whim....."

Legion sighed, he always hated this simulation.....

"And I'd prefer none of the team dying....and even distracting that thing is pretty much a death warrant... Even if you could interface and have a form in here, I wouldn't send you out to face the 'Zilla, we don't assign anyone to their death in a hopeless situation...."

So...now we saw how bad things can go and how quickly....suggestions people for the next run. I know Gemini and Sunrise want to try to evac and distract...NeXT, if you can get a image, can you give us a three dimensional illusion on the appropriate scale?"

[Charon]

Inferno sat back and watched the team interact. If they failed again, at least they were beginning to learn that they might be able to work together. They were beginning to learn each others strengths and weaknesses. He nodded to himself and then paid closer attention to the Omnicorp unit. That worried him. Why was it here? Why would it be here? Why had it been given access to this room?

Inferno opened a private communication line with the maintainance bay that the line was coming from. "This is Agent Inferno, currently in Training Bay Two. I was hoping someone could tell me why the Omnicorp unit has been given an Avatar to interact with my team."

[LadyTevar]

Jerri rose to her feet gracefully. Just because Heidi was the powerhouse did not mean Jerri didn't spend her time in the gym, and she tried to be in better shape than most lab-geeks.

"I suggested that Sunrise's idea had merit," Jerri said, walking over to stand by Legion. "I'm not sure it will work, but it would get Godzilla's attention. However," she gave a shake of her head. "If this is by the Movie, Godzilla's reaction to any monster in his territory will be a rush to get into a big fight, and more radioactive breathing going everywhere."

And you're not even going to bother with the serum at all, are you. You've already decided that since this is a simulation, you don't need me.

"What we really need is a good plan for getting the civilians funneled away from Godzilla," Jerri continued, ignoring Heidi for the moment as her mind spun through the possiblities. "Opening up the streets in the safest direction, making sure people know that's the way to run. Trying to prevent car wrecks as people panic. Oh, and stop the El-train," she added, referring to the elevated train tracks. "Last thing we need is the classic 'Godzilla picks up train' scenario. Looks good in movies, but I don't want to see a train thrown through buildings."

[SirNitram]

"Light sources within range will suffer near-total destruction from prolonged projection."

That said, moments later a colossus of metal appeared, equal in height to Godzilla and definitely familiar.

It was Mecha-Godzilla.

[Comrade Tortoise]

"That will work. What you would want to do is place the projection behind him, or along a vector of least distance to the outward edge of the municipality. He will move quickly toward the target, but that wont be any worse than him walking. If we can get something mobile police helos with spot-lights for example, we can move the projection outside city limits. With the loud speaker we can replicate sound."

[B4UTRUST]

Inferno opened a private communication line with the maintainance bay that the line was coming from. "This is Agent Inferno, currently in Training Bay Two. I was hoping someone could tell me why the Omnicorp unit has been given an Avatar to interact with my team."

The comm clicked open a moment later, being answered by a young male voice, undoubtedly one of the geeks down in Metatech.
"Hey, Agent, sorry about the lack of updates," he stated cheerfully. There was something about his tone that implied that he, infact, was not very sorry at all and probably didn't give two shits about Inferno's updates or issues.

"Guess we all got distracted tearing into this thing. It wanted to know where you all were and it's just a passive avatar in guest mode. It can't do anything to ya. So we gave it guest access to the training system so it could watch. I think it likes you or something. Anyway, back to the grind!"

The comm disconnected and further attempts went unanswered. It was obvious that the tech was to busy exploring the inner workings of the Omnicorp slaughterbot to give the agent wanting to bitch about it much priority. Hawk had more or less implied to the techs down stairs that it was going to be utilized as an Ultima asset, so to them it wasn't an outrageous request to let it observe. The fact that Hawk hadn't taken the time to update his team on the new arrival was not their problem.

[Charon]

"Well why the hell is it interested in... Hello? Hello?" Inferno closed the comm "Son of a bitch."

Inferno flipped open the comm to the room now. "Omnicorp unit Alpha, why are you observing my team's training scenario?"

[General Havoc]

This unit's structural integrity and physical construction is presently undergoing evaluation by BMA technicians at a garage facility several levels below this location. This process will require an uncertain quantity of time to complete. This unit requested to be permitted to interface with the holographic projection systems of this training facility and the creation of a stock-avatar for the purposes of evaluation of these events. It was not this unit's intention to prejudice active operations.

Though it had not actually answered the question, the Warmachine-turned-Dalek seemed to consider the matter concluded, before adding another comment in an offhand manner.

"As the Senior Agent designated "Hawk" has indicated that this unit might find employment under the auspices of BMA authorization, this unit judged it prudent to perform such observations pending further developments, as an exemplar of BMA tactical unit operations in response to Omega-Grade threats to public order."