8150/The New Style

The New Style
Date of Scene:	02 July 2019
Location:	Central Park, Manhattan
Synopsis:	Summary needed
Cast of Characters:	Cypher, Spider-Man

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Cypher has posed:
Another lovely day in Manhattan. Take in the sights and

Honk honk! "GET OUTTA DA #$*!#@ WAY!"

"Is that a dog or a rat? It's a dog! ...No, it's a rat."

"HEY SWEET THING, HOW YOU DOIN'!"

"Are there vines growin' outta dat sewer grate?"

"What... no. ...Yes."

In the span of about fifteen minutes, Manhattan... as in the entire island... is slowly overwhelmed by a gigantic tropical jungle. Leafy plants make passage through the streets almost impossible, gigantic trees shatter the concrete and reach up toward the sky. Could this get any worse?

That T-Rex chasing a police car down one of the few stretches of navigable streets says... yes.

Spider-Man has posed:
This was a pretty standard Tuesday for Spider-Man only a few short moments ago. Swinging through the city after work, doing a little lite crime fighting, pretty much the usual. It isn't until weirdnesses descent that Peter found himself wishing it were Wednesday. "I feel like I don't get to say this enough: You don't see this every day..."

Clinging to the side of a building with his body turned away from his one hand attached to the glass, he watches a T-Rex chase after a police car with wide eyes on his mask to match the wide eyes beneath it. "Or that, if I'm being honest."

How does one even combat a T-Rex?

Spidey's head lulls back dramatically. Just a second and then he releases his grip and turns into a swing after the Dinosaur, "He big guy. Sun's gettin' real low."

Cypher has posed:
Stomp stomp stomp stomp ROAAAAAAAAAR!

The police car skids onto the curb and smashes into a fire hydrant, and the police officers get out, firing at the T-Rex, which seems... enraged at the bullets.

It rushes in, its mouth open wide to snap up one of the police officers -- except at the last second it closes its jaws and swings its head into him, knocking him back, and smashing the car further aside.

"Hey! Hey, Spider-Man!" Somebody calls, waving from the curb. It's... some kid. He's pulled the other police officer out of the way.

He's got on a black t-shirt with a yellow fish on it that says 'BABEL' inside it in block print.

Spider-Man has posed:
Woooosh!

Spider-Man swings after the T-Rex and police car what it is trying to consume. Suspiciously quiet given the gravity of the situation in which New York finds itself. Mostly he's trying to rationalize the fact that there's plants everywhere and a dinosaur crunching down Main street knocking cars around like a Godzilla movie.

*TWIP*

A webline shoots for the knocked police officer to pull him up into swinging arms where he can be safely deposited next to the kid with the BABEL t-shirt. "Hey pal." Spidey says from his crouch, pointing a long finger up at the T-Rex, "Be right back. Maybe don't stand right here..." Hands waving at the sidewalk, "Definitely a danger zone."

Another line carries him up towards the T-Rex. "Alright, let's test some Star Wars logic!" T-Rex's have decidedly fewer legs than AT-ATs, but the general idea is the same. Web a leg, swing around both legs until big moving previously extinct monster topples.

Cypher has posed:
"Oh, absolutely. Except..." The young man says...

The webline goes right through the T-Rex. Thwip thwip! Splat.

"...It's not real. None of this is." The T-Rex certainly looks real, and it certainly SOUNDS real...

"It's a hologram, an incredibly sophisticated illusion. I suspect if you aimed a web-shot right..." He draws an 'X' with his fingers at the deepest part of the dinosaur's chest, "There, and *pulled* as hard as you could..."

Spider-Man has posed:
Did that kid just call this a Hologram?

Spidey glances back as he starts to swing and frowns beneath his mask. "A hologram... Seriously? Sophisticated enough to interact with the real space..." That's mind boggling, but he's listening, crouched atop a lightpost with his knees bent and angled outward.

"I'll take your word for it. Stay here, try not to get eaten by the imaginary monster." One leap and a line later, Spidey is swinging up towards the T-Rex. His left wrist comes up to fire a line at roughly the indicated place Babel pointed out and gives a mighty tug. "Just like pulling the plug when the X-Box freezes.. only my x-box never tried to eat a cop car."

Cypher has posed:
THWIP! He hits... something. And whatever it is resists his tug -- but when he yanks back, he pulls out a cylindrical, hovering drone.

The T-Rex disintegrates in a twinkle of lights. "Well, not exactly--" Doug pulls the police officers aside, as the drone fires-off a sonic blast that mimics physical impact, knocking the car aside again. "Whoop! Sorry, sir!"

The Drone struggles to right itself, and suddenly a flock of screeching, flapping, flying pterosaurs materialize out of thin air, flapping around Spider-Man, trying to distract and obscure his field of view.

Spider-Man has posed:
Spider-Man is attached to the drone now. Where it flies, he does, gripping the line with both hands as he's slammed against walls or light posts, or the periodic flappy winged pterosaur. "I don't think I'm going to buy this game when it releases." He murmurs quietly after half wall running and side flipping. He has to release the line to kick a flying dino in it's imaginary beak, but quickly shoots another line to replace the first.

"Does this make me a beta tester?" His finger twists a dial on the inside of his free palm to change his webbing to a rapid-fire setting. "Thank you Mister Stark." Finger held down on the trigger, fanning out around him to send goblets at the wings of as many of the flying dinos as he's able.

"If you've got anymore neat ideas on how to disable this thing, I'm-" Wall. Spidey runs along it, waving it at the occupants, "They're not real!" Pointing at the dinosaurs, "Th- AYEEE..." Pulled away, still waving at the stunned onlookers.

Cypher has posed:
"No, but the Drone is." The kid on the ground says. "...So do you know someone who'd go to these lengths to tie up pretty much every municipal authority in Manhattan? And... why?"

The drone tries whipping Spidey off, but that's not going to work -- his Spider-Sense goes haywire, just in time for him to see a gun turret pop out of the thing and start spraying bullets at him, shattering glass windows behind him as it sprays hot lead.

"I see it has on-board self-defense systems. But it must be being operated remotely!" The kid on the ground says. "TRY DISRUPTING THE SIGNAL, SPIDER-MAN! THE SIGNAL!"

Spider-Man has posed:
Spidey fires several weblines at the barrel of the gun turret and that he uses to swing up in a wide arc over the top of the drone. "Can't let this thing kill a bunch of innocent people trying to stop me." He says to himself, grabbing hold of.. something.. on the drone to ride it like a bronco, "YEEEEHAAAA..." Waving a hand in the air, the other connected by the fingertips.

"You can't stop the signal, Mal... sorry, focusing." He's already focused, which has never once stopped him from random commentary while focusing. "This is when a utility belt full of very specific gimmick weapons would definitely come in handy... Note to self: Spidey Belt prototype. First item... microwave gun.. maybe EMP grenades. Those would come in very handy, almost unversally."

Another flip, another line, again swinging around to aim a double kick at the turret gun. Line as he passes to try and hurl it towards the side of a building.

Cypher has posed:
The kid on the ground is still trying to race along, to keep track of the fight.

Conveniently... there is a flagpole mount, the sort Spidey might perch on, close at hand. The drone is still focused on trying to paste the Wall-Crawler, after being spun around in a circle by that kick -- catching it with a webline and smashing it against the flagpole causes it to hurtle to the ground, where its various moving pieces struggle fitfully, before its power cell gives out and it dies. Bwoooooof. It's sort of sad, really. Droney! Poor Droney...!

Spider-Man has posed:
Spidey is all about kicking a drone while it's down!

Launching off the flagpole into a drawn out backflip that brings him down towards the sidewalk where droney is taking its last groaning breaths. "You'll be missed... no, I'm kidding, you wont. New York isn't ready for forest coverage." Pete turns from where he's crouching to watch Babel jog along towards them, "I don't think this is exactly what you meant by disrupting the signal, but I still feel pretty good about how this ended."

Pointing with both hands down at the struggling death throws. "Would have been nice to find out who was controlling it though."

Cypher has posed:
"Well," The kid says, "maybe we can do that." He reaches into his pocket, and takes out a utility tool, before he levers open the drone, and then says, "The first thing we learned in school, hitting it till it quits doing whatever it's doing is always on the table. It's got to have some kind of computer uplink." Peter can spot it as soon as the kid does.

"...Do you have access to a computer, Spider-Man? I only brought my phone with me."

Spider-Man has posed:
Peter pats his costume expressively, "Must have dropped it..." He murmurs about a computer, glancing around the streets with a little turn that drops one of his knees to the sidewalk, "There's a computer cafe around the block, though." Pointing in the direction with another shift that turns his attention back to the kid and his drone. Pointing out the uplink with a wiggle point. "Wait, I think I've got something." Fiddling with a small the dial on his wrist, another press of his palm trigger sends out a holographic display with an attaching wire running to the hub on the web launcher.

"I don't even know half the stuff these things can do, but if we're even kind of lucky, this is connected to Avengers Tower." The connection wire is held out to his new frien'. "Hope it doesn't upload itself and turn into a brilliant, self aware, super computer."

Cypher has posed:
"They're never that bright. I'm Doug, by the way." He turns, and his fingers race along the hologram, moving stuff and inputting information. He seems to know his way around a holographic interface, that's for sure.

"See, the problem about AI is, there's Artificial Intelligence, which only mimics intelligent behavior based on specific data input, Adaptive Intelligence which can process more data, and Actual Intelligence, which is complete self-awareness. The problem is, when you hit the Actual Intelligence stage, by definition something has the right to be a jerk."

"Aaha! See, this drone is part of an incredibly sophisticated network of drones all over the city creating this illusion. It's really top-shelf stuff, but--" He looks at Spider-Man, "...I've worked at the next level at the Institute."

Then he says, "These are all being controlled by a central hub... that's moving... what are they doing?" He brings up a map of the city, showing that the rigger controlling the drones is outside of the Guggenheim.

Spider-Man has posed:
Spider-Man watches with no small amount of interest as Doug shifts things around as if he's been elbow deep in a holographic computer once or twice in his life. "You've done this before." Pointing out the obvious, right about the time Doug confirms that he has, in fact, done this before. Then listening intently at the information being relayed from the drone and the network of like drones.

"Sending dinosaurs after every police for nine or ten blocks certainly makes it easy to walk out the door with millions in artwork." Spidey stands up and dusts off his knees, "Nice to meet you Doug, I'm Spider-Man. Webhead to the goons... Wallcrawler.. Friendly Neighborhood guy.. You can just call me Spidey." Up nodding, hand going up as if he's about to fire a line to drag him in the direction of the Guggenheim.

"I'd offer you a ride, but I don't know how forward it is to let someone jump on your back.. Society is weird about personal space these days."