User visit: Mark Grayson

[a1enzo]

"Okay," says Enzo, leading Mark into the digimat room, "just stand over there in the target area so I can shoot you with this laser."

Comments

[1nv1nc1ble]

"That," prounounce Mark, "is pretty darn cool."

(He considers making a joke about "Surfing the Web," but realizes that it's probably not a joke around here.)

[a1enzo]

(Not even remotely.)

"Thanks. It's got great compression."

He hops onto the hovering board and they glide out through the main gates and across the bridge into the neighbouring sector.

[1nv1nc1ble]

Mark follows, staying at a low altitude and a slow pace. He could easily outpace Enzo, but then he'd have to find the comic shop by himself. Plus, he doubts that the Academy would approve of high-speed shenanigans in the area.

He looks around as they fly through the city. "Does any sprite fly without help?" he asks as they go. "I've seen your baud, and there's plenty of cars out here, and even that guy over there," he points to a sprite on something that looks like a pedal-powered orinthopter, "but no one who flies on their own."

[a1enzo]

"Some do. My brother-in-law and his daughter can fly 'cause they're part keytool, and there are some hero formats, like you, who have it as part of their powers. Some viruses, too. It's pretty rare, though."

[1nv1nc1ble]

"Keytool?"

[a1enzo]

"I didn't tell you about keytools? They're little sort of sentient machines, about this big. Really rare. A keytool picks a Guardian to bond with, and you wear it on your bracer and it can turn into pretty much any kind of tool, or be an energy weapon or a scanner or a communicator or whatever. Only Bob and his keytool, Glitch, merged their code, so now Bob has keytool powers. And two minds, but Glitch is pretty quiet. And Mairi, my niece, inherited most of it."

[1nv1nc1ble]

"Hmm. Sounds a little like the Green Ghost. He had an amulet that gave him his powers."

He thinks for a second. "It sounds like Bob is kind of a superhero. Bonding with an artifact definitely is an origin moment."

[a1enzo]

"More of an upgrade. He was already a Guardian or he wouldn't have had a keytool in the first place."

[1nv1nc1ble]

"Some superpowers are pretty much upgrades," says Mark, smile in his voice. "Not all of us have the benefit of alien genetics."

He looks around the System as they pass over it. Except for the fact that sprites are odd colors and binomes are ... well, binome-shaped, everyone seems to be going about their daily business with little or no difference from the people of Riverside. Chromed architecture notwithstanding, the neighborhood could be one of the ones around the UC Riverside campus.

[a1enzo]

Enzo nods. "Format-wise, the main difference between Guardian and Hero is the organization. The Guardian Collective is a Net-wide organization. Heroes are independent or have small teams."

[1nv1nc1ble]

Mark nods. "Like the police. Though, from what I hear, the Guardians of the Globe are reorganizing to have a more official and global organization behind them, with government support." He shakes his head sadly. "It's sad that it took the first team being murdered for that to happen."

"Still, it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. I know a couple of the guys who are trying out, and I think one has a chance of getting on the new team. Robot's pretty talented." Of course, the other one is Rex, and he's a jerk, so Mark's not going to expect much from him. (Petty, perhaps, but we are talking about the social opinions of a high school senior here.)

[a1enzo]

"Well, systems usually have police forces too, for more normal stuff." He points out a CPU car a block away.

"I hope all that works out okay."

[1nv1nc1ble]

"Me too," says Mark. "It's been a bad business. No body's got any leads; not even Damien Darkblood, and he's one of the best there is when it comes to investigations. The Guardians need a win to get past that."

He shakes his head. "Bad stuff. Change of subject: Is that the store down there?"

[a1enzo]

"That's the one!" You know, with the great big sign saying COMICS.

Enzo comes in to hover in front of the store, keeping out of the way of pedestrians as best he can, and hops off onto the sidewalk.

[1nv1nc1ble]

"'Scuse me," Mark says to the sprites on the sidewalk as he comes in for a landing. The binome dressed in black, with what appears to be white facepaint, nods silently and stops his rendition of "Coding Against the Wind" long enough to let Mark set down without causing any disruption. (Clearly, MIMEs get more respect in the Net than in meatspace.)

He looks up at the sign. "Truth in advertising," he says, mildly amused.

[a1enzo]

Inside, the store looks similar to any comic shop on Earth, down to the pudgy, bearded binome behind the counter. Instead of racks of loose issues and trade paperbacks, however, there are row upon row of small windows displaying covers, each with an ADD TO CART button.

[1nv1nc1ble]

Mark looks around the room, nodding to himself. It's not Night Flight Comics, but he knew that. But it's certainly kin. He drifts down the first row of windows, bearing the logo "New Releases."

"Hmm. The Code Ranger... Web Patrol... True Tales of the Guardians... Matrix and AndrAIa's Game Adventures... Hey, man, this guy looks a little like you." The window displays a brawny sprite, dressed in barbaric clothing, back-to-back with a piscean warrior princess, bearing the title "Trapped in the Hyperbolean Age!"

[a1enzo]

Enzo doesn't even have to look. "That's 'cause he is."

[1nv1nc1ble]

Mark gives Enzo a puzzled look for about half a minute before he remembers that Enzo probably can't tell what his face is doing in his current configuration. "This," he says, pointing at his expression, "is apparently my confused face, because... dude, what the heck?"

[a1enzo]

Enzo snickers a bit. "Wow, I really haven't explained anything about my family, have I?"

[1nv1nc1ble]

"Well, aside from the fact that your brother-in-law is a Guardian and flies because he's merged with his keytool, and one of your nieces has inherited that trait, not really." He pauses, then adds, "Unless you count your super-powered girlfriend as family. Some people do."

[a1enzo]

"I do, but I meant, you know, family family. See, I'm a backup copy. There's two Enzo Matrices, only the original just goes by our last name."

[1nv1nc1ble]

"So... he's...," Mark points at the comic cover and then back to Enzo, "... you?" He considers this, then adds, "So, you're like a clone."

"That's gotta be a little weird."

[a1enzo]

"It was at first. You get used to it. Dani's a clone, too," he adds. "One of the first things we had in common."

[1nv1nc1ble]

[OOC: Sorry about the delay. I've been sick.]

Mark considers this. "That's weirdly romantic."

He turns and scans the list of titles. Web Patrol looks interesting, and further down there's a Tales from the Null Sector, which looks to be a horror anthology of some sort (at least those look like zombies on the cover image, and the title blurb is talking about a Virus). "I can bring stuff back with me when I go back through the digimat, right?" he asks.