Spectral Analysis [The Cure, Part 2]

[a1enzo]

Once more, Enzo emerges from the Matrices' closet. "Mouse?" he calls. "You got everything? Did Oracle show up okay?"

Comments

[l33t-mouse.livejournal.com]

"It's all good," Mouse says. "Go ahead, put yer stuff back on an' head out to the waitin' room when yer ready. Ask yer cuz t'come in." Mouse hopes they won't have to do a mid-shift scan with Dani, because she may not be able to hold out that long. "An' thanks, darlin. You're pretty crashin' tough, when it comes right down t'it." Maybe that ego-boost will compensate for the ego-bust of having to be naked in a scanner.

[goinghost.livejournal.com]

"Heh. Compared to the last time, this was cake," Danny said, sitting up and beeping his clothes back on.

"Hello clothes."

Whoo. Much better.

He hopped off the bed and headed out, but stopped at the door. "Um, I know you're going to do your best, but--she'll be okay, right? This will work?"

[twiceahero.livejournal.com]

"It'll work," Oracle looks up from the open windows in front of her. "We've done this before, after all, and it worked that time too." She smiles, "The sooner you get Dani in here, the sooner we can get this over with and you can stop worrying."

[l33t-mouse.livejournal.com]

"Don't worry, honey," Mouse says. "Last time I did this I was doin' it on the fly, an' it all went fine. This time I'm practically ridin' with trainin' wheels." Yay for having a control sample!

[goinghost.livejournal.com]

"Okay." There was one last pause, followed by an extremely sincere, "Thank you."

Then he ran to get Dani.

[a1enzo]

The silence in the waiting room is extremely loud. Enzo is suppressing his anxiety by making faces at the "Bogus and Baseline" comics in his zine.

[ami_imperfect]

And over here we have Dani, who is surpressing a giggle fit while watching Enzo make faces.

Barely surpressing.

[a1enzo]

Oh, Enzo can hear you not giggling, Dani.

"C'mon, look at it!" He shoves the zine in her direction. "It's the preachiest thing ever."

[ami_imperfect]

Okay, no more stifled giggle fit. Dani bursts out laughing at the comic as the mun has flashbacks from when she used to read Highlights.

"Not to mention lame," she adds between giggles.

[a1enzo]

Bogus hogs resources and makes no effort to fix his memory leaks.   Baseline gives back the memory he's not using anymore.

"Megalame," Enzo agrees.

[ami_imperfect]

"Where do they come up with this stuff?" Dani wonders aloud as she skims over the cartoon again.

[a1enzo]

"Dunno, but I don't think the sprites who make it up have kids."

[goinghost.livejournal.com]

The mun is way too lazy to figure out what the DP-verse equivalent of Highlights For Kids is (it might even just be Highlights for Kids) but there probably is one.

"I always thought the lazy guy was the one who was supposed to be the example you were supposed to follow." Which explained...so much. This was how Fun Danny had come into existence. Goofus all the way, baby.

"Dani, you're up."

Brave voice, brave face. This was all going to be perfectly fine, that's what his body language said. This was going to be fine.

[ami_imperfect]

"Well, that figures," kids Dani as she gets up from her chair and puts aside her 'zine.

It's going to be fine. She finds herself repeating the mantra in her head as she heads back into the room that Danny had just left.

[a1enzo]

"Good luck!" Enzo calls after her.

It's going to be fine.

[l33t-mouse.livejournal.com]

"Hey, sugar." Mouse is at the door to greet Dani when she comes into the lab. "We scanned yer cuz without a hitch. Th'console's gonna run yer data against his once we get it - still gonna take a while t'fix, though." Probably not as long as it did for Bob, where she was pretty much flying blind. "Yer gonna have'ta take off yer clothing format fer the scanner. Wait 'till yer on it an' I'm back behind th'console over there."

At least Dani's got the same, er, basic subcomponents as Mouse. Presumably.

[ami_imperfect]

"Okay." Taking a deep breath, Dani walks over to the scanner.

She'd better, or else Dani'll have something else to kick Vlad's butt about when she sees him again.

"Uh, how do I, um...undress?"

[l33t-mouse.livejournal.com]

She keeps forgetting that Users don't know how to manage their clothing formats when they've gone digital. "Double-click yer icon, darlin'," Mouse says as she warms up the scanner. "It's simple, since y'only got the one outfit."

[ami_imperfect]

Dani nods and does as she's told, double-clicking the icon.

It's tough to shake the feeling of vulnerability as she settles on the scanner. After all, the only other time she's been...without clothes in front of another person was after being created by Vlad (let's just say the first time she made the transition from ghost form to human was a leetle bit awkward).

"Okay, I'm ready," Dani announces. Her voice is shaking again.

[twiceahero.livejournal.com]

"Okay," Oracle says as she pulls up a vid-window with Danny's data. "I'll watch for data anomalies beyond the ones we're already expecting." She nods to Mouse, "Whenever you're ready."

[l33t-mouse.livejournal.com]

"Here goes," Mouse says, hitting the button. She watches the resulting data scroll across the screen. Doesn't look like there's any bugs in Dani's code, but then again, she's in her regular-sprite-format right now.

[ami_imperfect]

Hopefully there shouldn't be any bugs there yet; Dani didn't think she was that far gone.

She remains perfectly still, waiting for her next instructions.

[twiceahero.livejournal.com]

"This looks good," Oracle says. "Now we'll need a scan of you in your other form so we can get a look at where the code is being corrupted."

[ami_imperfect]

"'Kay."

The transformation is identical to Danny's, right down to the white hair and skin and searing green eyes.

But it's obvious that Dani's straining to keep herself together in this form. A couple beads of sweat trickle down her face from the effort.

[l33t-mouse.livejournal.com]

Obviously they're not going to be able to do a mid-switch scan with Dani. Or, if they do, it's gonna be a little tricky.

Mouse starts the scanner up again: she gets a beep and sees red code flash across the screen almost immediately. Another few errors come up before the scan completes. "Okay, honey. Change back," she says, as soon as the scan's done. What she's seen worries her.