9874/Techno-what

Techno-what
Date of Scene:	01 November 2019
Location:	Danger Room - X-Men Base
Synopsis:	Samuel, Andrea and Vi try out some of the uses of the Danger Room
Cast of Characters:	Vi, Samuel Morgan, Rage

---

Vi has posed:
Warren Worthington was in town and doing a stint of training sessions of his on in the Danger Room. Between them he was amenable to running the facility for student training. And so it is Vi had been walked down to the Danger Room by another student. After making her silent observations about how many people there are here with wings, Vi had headed out of the control room and down to the large doors which part to let her into the Danger Room itself.

She's wearing some athletic shorts and a top which she'd been told were for gym class or other workouts, so they seemed like they might be appropriate. She has a very cheaply made pouch hanging from them, wearing a belt to support it, the pouch literally made from some discarded heavy rag she'd found in the hold of a freighter.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    The Danger Room can show such a variety of programs and scenarios, that literally almost anything you can imagine can be done. Ski off the side of Mount Fiji, abseil into the Etna volcano during an eruption, outrun the pyroclastic cloud off Mount Vesuvius during the Pompeii eruption, help launch life boats on the Titanic or climb One World Trade without any equipment. The world is, and even can literally be, your oyster. So it may be a strange sight that greets visitors to the Danger Room today, as Sam is in the middle of one of his own training sessions.

    The dining room has been rendered in exquisite detail, set for a dinner with guests. On one side of the table sits Bean with a woman who bears a resemblance to him, while to his right sits ... well, it's not Doctor Eisen, but he bears a striking resemblance to that father figure, at the head of the table. On the other end sits another man with a braying laugh and a voice that sounds like it's a modulated yawn, with another woman who seems to say very little to his left... and opposite Bean sits, well, the opposite of Bean. A young man that's ill disciplined, ill mannered and constantly bickering with everyone.

    Together they're having lasagna.

Rage has posed:
Heading down the hallway as well is Andrea, who is wearing a pair of spandex workout shorts and a matching sports bra with a small red X on the material. She has on some new sneakers as well, black and white. "Hey, Vi." She says to the other girl with a smile as she lifts her hand upwards. "I hope everything's going well for you. Come to stretch your muscles a bit?"

As the doors swish open to reveal the dinner date, she slows down a few steps and tilts her head curiously. She rubs the back of her neck in confusion as she sweeps her eyes towards each participant at the table. "Huh."

Vi has posed:
Vi hears Andrea's approach, looking over and giving her a small, soft smile. "Yes. I thought maybe I could practice things that I couldn't anywhere else. I saw the room could turn into a mountain but I'm not sure what all else it does," she says, not really have understood the talk of hard lights, Shi'ar, holographic frameworks and other things that were mentioned by the student she'd asked how it works.

Vi steps inside and pauses as well as she sees Samuel in the middle of dinner. She gives him a little wave and a smile before Angel comes on over the speaker. "Samuel, I can wall off your section for privacy and let the others do a different simulation if you like?" he offers.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    The dinner is... not going well. Maybe it's the lasagna, maybe it's the look of polite disinterest on the faces of the adults when the man at the foot of the table goes on at length about the suitability of re-cut car tyres as an investment vehicle to reduce tax exposure. Possibly it's just the fact that Bean is bored out of his mind, and having to deal with the kid in front of him making rude comments and throwing veiled insults at him. It is then, alas, that the inevitable happens.

    Rude kid throws a wobbler, demanding more lasagna, even though there is no more. Eyes alight on Bean's lasagne that is only half eaten. A pudgy hand reaches across the table to snatch his plate. A knife is spun around in his palm. There is a flash of silverware.

    *K-THUNK*

    The simulation freezes with the kid just touching Bean's plate, a knife stuck through the palm, buried an eight of an inch into the table. There is a bit of a buzzer to indicate that a social faux pas has been committed. "He's not dead..." Bean defends himself, motioning to the teenager opposite him who is merely lightly maimed. Alas. It turns out that's not acceptable as a family dinner.

    "I'll just... I think I'll try this one again tomorrow, thanks."

Rage has posed:
"... Wow." Andrea says as she rubs a hand along her face. "So, this is what you were talking about in regards to social simulations. So, besides stabbing the kid in the hand, what went wrong?" She asks Samuel as she heads inside, giving a few stretches of her arms over her head, followed by a cracking of her back.

She offers up a quick smile to Vi to show that she didn't forget her for her teammate, but Samuel has the majority of her focus and concern. She heads over to the table, flopping down into a seat next to Bean. "Want to run it again with Vi and me here?"

Vi has posed:
Vi watches as things play out and the knife is stabbed through the boy's hand. She slowly drifts over only when Andrea goes first, as if not having known if it was ok to go over during it.

For a change, rather than preferring to just stay quiet in the background, Vi speaks up. For unlike what she's been experiencing in any of the classes she's been put into, she thinks she knows the answer to Andrea's question on what went wrong.

"He shouldn't have stabbed the hand. It would mean he can't help with feeding the family anymore with a hand injury. A punch to the face, something that won't swell his eye closed, would have been a better choice," Vi says quietly.

Wait, what?

Rage has posed:
"N... no... that... is terrible advice." Andrea says to Vi with a squint of her eyes. "Social simulations is how to deal with stress and multiple table personalities /without/ violence."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Family dinner with guests, dealing with agitation and remaining polite." is Bean's answer to Andrea's question. "It's one of those social simulations. I'm not supposed to stab anyone. Or punch anyone." he hastily adds to Vi, taking a deep breath. "Believe me, I've done that too. In theory this is a partial success because nobody died." Yeah, seriously don't take him to a dinner party. He waves at the table, the frozen tableau, and it all just vanishes. They were close to the edge of the Danger Room, and clearly Bean was impatient to get the whole thing out of his sight.

Vi has posed:
Vi's expression drops a little bit as she finds out she didn't have the right answer. "Oh," she says quietly. She shifts her weight back and forth, a toe nudging at the floor, for she's barefoot now that she's back indoors. "He shouldn't have tried to take food though, that's very serious," she says quietly.

He shouldn't have tried to take it while Samuel was looking anyway. Of course you had to take food. You'd starve if you didn't. Except maybe not here. Vi's lips form a brief frown at the reminder of how wrong her life-long learned lessons and instincts are here.

Warren's voice comes back over the speaker. "Want me to load up something else?" he asks.

Rage has posed:
"Let's re-run it when you take a break? I can help you out with it. Can probably help you both out with it. Social simulations is important. In that particular scenario, you could have done one of two things. You could have politely told the child no, or, you could have shared your food with him which would have distracted him."

"As far as the conversation goes, you could have tried to find a way to change the subject by asking the boring gentleman a question, such as perhaps ... asking him where his favorite place to drive his expensive cars at while on vacation. If he knows a lot about tires, he probably has some interesting stories which would deviate away from his job, which clearly was not entertaining. Then, you could draw upon your own experience of travel to maybe talk about a destination you liked, like a beach."

She gives a long stretch of her body, then reaches out to flop a hand on Bean's shoulder. "It takes some time to get used to managing different personalities, but it gets easier with practice. Look at conversation like a tactical mission. You want to navigate each one."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Blink.

    Once again Bean is reminded how simple this stuff is to some people. He'd been stressed the entire time, thinking only of the imperative that everyone had to leave the table alive, and that he simply had to make it to the end of dinner. Influencing the conversation? Was that... cheating? There is, however, one flaw in Andrea's plan.

    "You'd be surprised how much I haven't traveled. At least, no somewhere I can talk about. There weren't a lot of beaches." Although there were, often enough, fast cars. Usually moving at speed. While being shot at. He learned that it wasn't a suitable topic for the dinner table, with guests, which for some byzantine reason seemed to change the rules of the dinner table. It was maddening.

    He does agree with Vi though. "You don't steal food from someone, that's just... do that in the barracks, and a knife through your hand is the least of your worries." Worse, that sort of behavior made you a liability, untrustworthy... at that point, in a world where you depend entirely on your comrades to watch your back, you're as good as dead.

    Eventually he looks around, runs a hand through his hair and sighs. "I think I'm done with the social training for today. Thank you for running them though. The public speaking one was awesome."

Vi has posed:
Warren's head can be seen in the window up above. He gives a little salute down and says, "Ok, I'll turn on some training in case you want it." The room shifts, the patterned walls and floor fading out to give way to a bit of a hodge podge of different locations. There are targets, a big open area, another with various objects, a rack of weapons including both guns and melee weapons, and a few other things including traditional workout machines like treadmills and weights.

Vi looks over to Bean and says, "I thought you were doing ok. You fit in with the rest of them until he tried to take your food," she says quietly. But she looks towards Andrea as well, her brows furrowing a little at how easily the woman seemed able to come up with ways to handle things. "I haven't started any of those yet," she says with a little shake of her head.

Rage has posed:
"Well, then talk about something that interests you. You built a motorcycle right? Ask him what tires would give you the best performance." Andrea offers him a smile. "It just takes practice. You will get the hang of it, both of you will. In my industry, managing conversation and people is part of the job. It helps you network, figure out the strengths and weaknesses of what they can do for you."

"I guess for me it just comes natural, but I have to practice also, especially when I go into large meetings that are crucial."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Hands clench into fists, and Bean stalks away from the site of his failure. They don't relax until he's by the weapon rack, and selecting a plain looking Beretta M92f from the myriad of choices, starting to load up three magazines from a box of 9mm hollow points. "I didn't fit in. I will never fit in. Not in a family setting anyway." It's the one part of his education that he's failing. And failing badly. Having loaded the magazine, he takes the unloaded pistol to the shooting range and starts to strip it down, summoning cloths, brushes and bottles of oil from thin air. "Please, just... pretend I'm not here and go ahead with your training."

Vi has posed:
Vi glances from Andrea to Bean as they talk. Maybe something of Andrea's advice has rubbed off, as Vi asks quietly, "You built a motorcycle?" She looks to Andrea and then follows over a little bit of the way towards the weapons rack. "I saw someone else working on one. The boy who was outside... ah... by the basketball court," Vi says, not bringing up more of the incident than that to identify that she's talking about Alek.

Vi looks around the Danger Room, a little in awe at what it has turned into. "So I can fall here, and it won't hurt at all?" she asks. She presses her foot against the ground as if finding that claim she'd heard earlier a little hard to believe. It sure feels hard.

Rage has posed:
"Sam, it takes time to fit in. Even I have trouble fitting in." Andrea says as she follows after him with a concerned look on her face. "As a celebrity, I am used to living in a fish bowl, in which cameras are all around me, microphones in my face, flashing lights. But here at Xavier's, I had to learn how to fit in here and be a normal run of the mill student. I was uncomfortable and awkward and had a hard time making 'real' friends."

She gives his shoulder a gentle nudge. "You are super smart in like everything academically and you have a great tactical mind. You can work through this as well. Look at the people at the table as mission. Can you tell me anything about each person? Describe them to me."

To Vi, she offers up a smile. "Yup, you can fall and not get hurt. Just make sure that when you load a program, safety protocols are initiated. Warren up there will do that for you."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Just about finished, actually. Need to put the gearbox back and tune the engine, and they it's good to go." Bean, by now, has the crosspin out of the slide stop, and the entire slide assembly off the top of the pistol, removing the barrel and placing every part meticulously on the cleaning cloth. A brush is run through the barrel, a rag attached to the cleaning road, sprayed with breakout, and then run through the barrel again and again until it comes out clean. Then, just to be on the safe side, the brush goes through again. He's someone who takes no chances with his firearms.

    And when Andrea sets her challenge... "Man to my right, my father, has no patience for the vapid or braggarts. From his body language, I could infer that he was as annoyed with the dinner guests as I was, but making .. small talk.. with them. Because silence during the meal would have probably invited even more conversation that he didn't want to listen to. The woman to my left, my simulated mother, was annoyed with the child opposite me. From her expression and movements, I must infer that he was about to tell the woman opposite her to restrain her offspring, or otherwise going to offer a corrective disciplinary slap herself." Barrel back into the slide assembly, double checking the striker, test the main spring, assemble with the bushing.

    "The woman opposite her seemed, by her stooped shoulders and quiet demeanor, to be at her wit's end, looking at my mother for some kind of support to deal with her son. The man on the far left, at the foot of the table, was failing to notice all of this and, entirely self absorbed, believed he was the life of the party, taking the polite silence and non-committal answers as an encouragement to elaborate." Okay... for someone who doesn't do social situations, he does seem to have picked up a lot of information.

Vi has posed:
Vi is glad the question was asked of Bean and not of herself. She noted the items of value on each of them, how difficult it would be to get anything out of their pockets unnoticed. The clothing they wore was very unusual looking.

But Vi had figured out enough to know her answer would probably have gotten something between a blank stare and a look of concern. "Good, then," Vi says quietly, ceasing on the comment about the room instead so she won't be pulled into the other conversation.

Vi looks curiously at the rack of weapons, and her fingers lift just a bit. "So the room can make metal," she comments quietly. After a moment she lifts her gaze up towards the window. "Can you make... metal around the outside of the room. Like... beams and..." Vi waves her hand sideways as if across the ceiling.

"Girders and beams?" Warren asks. "Sure thing coming up." And they fade into existence.

Rage has posed:
"That's really good, Sam. So, knowing that information about each of your social opponents, at this point you should learn how to overcome the situation. Your father could have been targeted for conversation by engaging with him about the motorcycle. Tell him how excited you are that you got it up and running. That would catch the interest of the other man as well who was talking about the tires."

Andrea picks up a weapon as well, starting to load it with a magazine, a small hand pistol. "Then maybe pass over half your lasagne to the child so that it would keep his mouth busy. From there, the two women should naturally engage in conversation on their own as they notice the men having a 'guy' moment as they talk about cars."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "But it was my food. It legitimately belonged to me, and I was enjoying it. I will not yield my food to someone simply because they are going to become unreasonable if I don't. Not while I have a knife I can stab them with to teach them the errors of their ways. You may depend on it that the child would never have tried to steal food from someone again, and was likely to have become better behaved afterwards." Bean mentions, re-assembling his pistol and glancing over to Andrea's as he does. Everything clicks back into place, and the weapon is placed down on the shooting stand so Bean can put in some ear plugs. He notices the room change, and wonders how this will affect the training.

Vi has posed:
Vi listens to the pair of them, intent on what is being said, but otherwise the petite teen's expression not giving much away. She looks towards the guns and makes a soft comment, "I didn't think this was something that would be used here?"

Warren's voice floats down from the speakers. "We usually don't use them, because they are too likely to kill. But knowing how to handle one can be useful at times," he says. This gets a little nod from Vi, though the look she gives the guns suggests she doesn't care for them at all.

She looks back up then as the metal girders and cross-beams come into existence around the room. The girl's head swivels about, and then suddenly she's rising into the air. Straight up at first, and then she begins to move as if swinging on a pendulum over towards a corner of the room, a good twenty feet up in the air. Abruptly she changes direction, swinging towards the other side of the room. The motion is not like Rogue or Pixie's flying at all. Vi looks like she were swinging from something invisible. Her body moves like Spider-Man's but without any visible webs.

Rage has posed:
"But Sam, it would have distracted the kid long enough to calm down and bring some ease to the table and remove stress between the two women. It's a small sacrifice. Think of it like chess. 'Some', not all of the lasagne, is like a pawn. Just give the kid a few bites to keep his mouth busy." As she stares down the sightlines of her gun, Andrea squints an eye shut.

"Did you ever thought about politely excusing yourself away from the exercise as well? Just say you had to go to the bathroom. Gives you a chance to take a breather and reassess the situation. Everyone needs an exit and re-entry plan in conversation in case things get too stressful."

As she glances over to Vi moving through the bars, her brows lift upwards. "I wish I could fly." She says with a small huff. "You wanna show me how to shoot a gun." She says aside to Bean.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "You can do that?" Bean blinks, and then looks up at the control room window, despite it being invisible. Nothing is invisible that is made so by technology to a technopath. "I could do that? That was an option?" Yup. Totally trying that next time. As he looks up, he sees Vi mag-sling along the girders and smiles. Man, he wishes he had a cool power like that.

    But Andrea's words get his attention next. He watches her handle the weapon... while admitting not knowing how to use one. "First things first. Put. Down. The. Pistol."

Vi has posed:
Some of Vi's movements lose a little of the Spider-Man movement, as unlike him, she can pull hard enough to 'reel' herself in along that imaginary web. It's clear she hasn't had much experience at this though. There's a sense of experimentation to it, including a few wobbly moments where Vi suddenly shoots towards a beam too hard, or starts to fall when it seems she wasn't intending to before suddenly her body jerks back upwards in the air.

The room is big enough she has freedom to move about, and the experience having metal above her to pull on is new. So far she's only been able to push off things beneath her. This goes on for a time before she finally grabs something from her pouch, tossing it down so the metal clatters on the ground, though it immediately latches onto the ground like pressed on from above as Vi drops down towards it. Her body slows until she lands relatively gently, as if she'd only had a drop of a foot or two.

"Thank you, that is... wow," Vi says, looking up above her after. She walks slowly over to join Andrea and Samuel again.

Rage has posed:
"Of course you can. You can't sit at a table and pee yourself. So, just excuse yourself to the bathroom, wash your face, take a few moments to think about the situation seeing how you're good at assessing the individuals, then come back with a fresh checklist of conversation topics." Andrea assures Sam as she puts the weapon down with a grin. The safety is turned on, the clip is loaded correctly. She could be conning him, or this could be another social lesson.

"That was awesome, Vi. You looked great up there!" You are so lucky that you can do that and just float around and be free. I would love to be able to have a cool power like that."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    Bean doesn't take weapon safety lightly, and double checks Andrea's pistol when she puts it down, first of all ejecting the magazine, and then checking the chamber by racking the slide back part way, index finger on the trigger guard as he does. She gets a 'look' from him, one that seems to convey that he doesn't like people messing about with firearms safety. But, also giving her the benefit of the doubt, he starts the lesson. "In essence, a pistol is simple to use, but more difficult to master. You first want to check to make sure that what's in front of you is a target. Never aim a weapon at something you don't want to kill." He lets that sink in for a moment.

    "Next, take the weapon in your dominant hand, as this normally corresponds with your dominant eye." He does the rest quite quickly as he narrates. "Check target, keep target in line of sight, raise pistol, double up on the grip, bring right foot back slightly, wait for rear sight to come into the periphery of your view, place over target, wait until front sight lines up, squeeze trigger, don't pull." Double tap. Through the Q ring. The pistol barely moves in his grip, and he lowers it after the shots, thumb flicking the safety back in. "You try."

Vi has posed:
Vi rejoins them, and looks a little bashful at Andrea's compliment. "Thank you," she says quietly. "I'm still sort of learning it," she says. "I only did experiments with it before, I didn't get to try things out like this," she says quietly.

The bit of metal she tossed down, a heavy washer from the looks of it, flies towards Vi and she catches it and puts it back in the poorly made pouch. The top seems made so she can easily pull one of the washers up out of it when she needs.

Vi watches Bean going over how to use the gun. Her brown eyes fall away from it soon though. The sight of the weapon not something that she is comfortable with, and she moves away a little bit towards where racks of weights stand. She goes over and looks at them, picking up a small hand weight that is just a few pounds and sampling the weight before replacing it, looking thoughtful.

Rage has posed:
As she listens to him, Andrea gives him a small smile, brows lifted upwards. "What is this gun called?" She asks as she picks it up once he tells her that it's her turn. She gives it a glance over, then ejects the magazine into her palm, gives it a spin, then slams it back in with a swift movement. Click-clack.

Picking the gun up, she holds it upwards in both of her hands, shifting the weight into her right, then squints her left eye shut as she aims for the target. She fires off a shot with a jerk of her arms. She hits the target, but quite off from hitting any of the rings. "Oh, that was cool. It has a kick to it." She says as she cuts a look to Bean again. "I bet you're an ace with guns too, huh Vi?"

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    After the first two shots, Bean ejects the magazine as he looks at Andrea. The shots were wild, absolutely, but they need not have been. He can spot the telltale signs of someone who is more used to handling firearms than they let on. "If you're not going to be serious about training, I will not teach you at all. These are not toys. They kill. You will treat them with the respect they deserve. Until you can be serious around deadly weaponry, don't ask me for help."

    That said, he rejoins Vi and eyes the weights. It's suddenly very crowded in here...

Vi has posed:
Vi's back is to the others as the shot is fired. She gives a tiny flinch at the sound. She puts the weight back on the rack and turns back towards the pair as Andrea asks her the question. The petite nineteen year old gives a little negative shake of her head in response, her eyes going to the gun to stare at if for a moment.

"No, I've never touched one," she says. "Well, except the ones I bent at the one building," she says of the Friends of Humanity operation that she followed Samuel to.

Vi crosses her arms and moves a little closer to the rack of guns, looking at them with a baleful eye. "Do most people here have these, then?" she asks quietly. Her tone and expression would make that seem a bad thing to her, if so.

Vi looks at the weights again. "There seems to be a lot of training for fighting," she comments quietly. "Why?"

Rage has posed:
"Bean, I am being serious here. I want you to teach me how to use a gun." Andrea says as she turns to look at him. "So you're mad because why? I didn't get a bullseye on the first try?" She says as she folds her arms over her chest. "It's important that you know how to teach someone and show patience, especially in conversation." You get it now? It's a social simulation. She strongly hints to him.

"I do not own any guns, /but/, my mother is a Marine and she showed me how to use one a few years ago after I really got popular in the world of being a celebrity, because she thought it'd be important that I learned how to protect myself."

Then, another glance to Bean as her eyes lift upwards. "But I am not good at it. I haven't shot a gun since I was thirteen. It's been four years."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "Then you know better than to intentionally miss your target. When you understand what you did wrong, come speak with me, and then we'll see." Because this is, very much, a trainability issue, Bean seems to hint. Some things he seems to have no sense of humor about.

    He gives Vi what he hopes is a reassuring smile. "Most don't. I'm the exception, as is Andrea it would seem. It's part of why I'm dangerous to others." Other parts may include things such as knives through hands going for his food... "And I train for fighting because I was taught how to fight, and once you get taught you need to train. Constantly. With training comes confidence, but confidence is dangerous without training. It's an endless cycle."

Vi has posed:
Vi seems slightly mollified to hear the number of weapons she's encountered so far, isn't indicative of the rest of the world. She looks over to Andrea, expression thoughtful as she hears of Andrea's mother.

The young woman's thoughts seem to whirl and churn almost visibly given her expression. "Why did those people hate us?" Vi finally asks quietly, voicing a question that has been on her mind for awhile. "I heard other students talking about them. The Friends of Humans. Saying they hated us, and wanted to kill us. They hate mutants? Why do they hate us? What did mutants do to them?" she ask quietly, looking between the two.

Rage has posed:
"They hate us because they're afraid of what we can do, and they're afraid of what some bad mutants have done in the past." Andrea says to Vi. "When someone can cause earthquakes or shoot lasers and melt people, it tends to freak people out and then they make bad decisions and it poisons the mind."

"I didn't miss on purpose, Bean. I haven't shot a gun in /years/. It's not like riding a bike for me. My skill-set is turning into a werewolf and using natural weaponry. I wouldn't lie about something like that. I honestly wanted to hear how you would teach me and what steps you would take. Figured Vi would like to know also."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    There's a deep sigh as two topics clash together all of a sudden. Bean gives a glance up to the control window, and then back to the simulation. Out of nowhere, a plain unadorned chair appears and he sits down, suddenly weary. "Andrea... now might not be the time. We'll talk about this later. Especially about the need to keep both your eyes open if you intend on hitting anything." That, he hopes, takes care of that first issue. Then the second issue...

    He nods after hearing Andrea's explanation, but has to add his own bit. "For some it goes deeper than that. They don't hate us at all. They might fear us a little, but not truly. What we are, to them, is a means to an end. There are ideologies out there... sorry, schools of thought..." He's noticed that he has to sound less like a thesaurus around Vi, so changes the complexity of his language on the fly. "... that require an enemy, an outside source of perceived danger or general 'otherness' that can be used as a convenient victim. Some mutants are obvious, others aren't. That makes it easier to push the idea that mutants are all around, and ready to strike at any time. When you get people to believe that, they'll happily hand over a bit more freedom, a bit more power, all for the promise of a bit more safety. It's happened in the past. It's happening to us now."

Vi has posed:
Vi's arms cross about herself, and she gives a tiny shake of her head with a look towards the gun rack. Apparently learning to use one is not high on her list. There's a definite aversion to the weapons there. Samuel knows Vi's history, can probably guess the context to her and the light in which she sees such weapons.

Vi listens to the answers given, first by Andrea, and then by Samuel. "But aren't there good mutants too? The people here seem very kind-hearted," Vi says. Too good to believe, Vi doesn't say. When will that other shoe drop and she'll find out the truth. It can't be this good. Can it?

She looks over to Samuel, and there's a hint of a grateful smile as he catches himself using words he'll know she won't understand. But the concept he's bringing up is something that it seems she's struggling to grasp fully, with no life experiences to draw on that are even remotely close. "So it's a way to control others then?" she asks softly.

Rage has posed:
Giving another stretch of her body, Andrea steps away from the gun rack and starts for the doors, giving her arms a few swings. "You two have a good night. I'm going to go for a run in my fur."

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "In a way, yes. How to explain this..." Bean wonders, nodding to Andrea on her way out. It does actually give him an idea, muting the microphones around them so that even the control center can't hear what he has to say next. "Here's an example. There's thousands of prisoners in Echo. There's not that many guards. If all the prisoners rushed the gate together, if they all made an attempt to escape at the same time, they'd be unstoppable. And yet it never happens. Why?" He lets the question hang for a moment, before he goes on.

    "Because that requires organising. It can be done, but if you plan something like that, an informer is going to hear it, right? They'll tell on you to the guards, and then you disappear. And nobody tries again. How many informers do you think there actually are in Echo? Ones that the guards have put there?"

Vi has posed:
Vi considers the scenario. "A lot of people would be killed even if they tried together," she says quietly. Her eyes search about. "I don't really know. The people, many of them didn't like us, because we avoided the work crews," she says quietly. No work crews, no ration tickets. No ration tickets, no food unless they stole it. Not hard to see why people wouldn't be fond of the urchins who had to raise themselves like that.

"But you could always tell people were cautious of what they said around others. Anyone who got desperate enough might betray you to a guard," she says. Everyone betrays you. That was the first lesson her brother taught her.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "They didn't like you, because you existed outside of their system." Bean continues, nodding. "You were 'other', something that didn't fit in with their view of the world. If they'd looked after you, you could have helped them, and then perhaps they'd have been less dependent on the whims of the foreman. But they didn't, because taking care of you wasn't allowed. The entire system depends on people being afraid of talking to the wrong person, because every person might be an informer. And those informers might not be desperate. They might simply think that what they've heard is a test, that an actual informer is watching them, and they don't want to disappear as well."

    There is, of course, an inevitable conclusion to this tale. "There's maybe half a dozen actual informers in the camp. But the idea of that enemy among them, that fear, means that people will betray each other so that they don't become a victim themselves. The same is true out here for mutants. Bad things are happening to us. But people turn a blind eye because while these things are happening to us, they're not happening to them. Us and Them. That's the language that causes this sort of problem. And that's the kind of situation where the informers appear, where people start being afraid not just of the enemy, but of being seen as a friend of that enemy. The Friends of Humanity have entered that stage now. Next stage will be registration, then detention camps."

Vi has posed:
Vi frowns a bit as she listens to all of this. There are nods here and there as if she is recognizing what Samuel is saying. But the ending? Hearing that this is where mutants are heading. Vi lets out a little breath. Not the kind of other shoe she's been waiting for. But it's still footwear and a big piece of it.

"So that's why you went after them," she says softly of his raid she followed him to in the city. Vi's eyes flit about with her thoughts, but finally land upon something else. "Will you take me back to the city? I would like to walk around and see more of it," she says. "I wanted to go back, but I was afraid I wouldn't be able to find my way back. Someone gave me one of those phones. They taught me to unlock it, but... I can't figure it out other than that," she says.

Samuel Morgan has posed:
    "I wish I could, but I can't. I'm... not allowed outside by myself." It might be surprising, given how independent Bean appears to be, that he's not trusted off school grounds. His tone of voice makes it sound like there are complicated issues at play there. "And I'd help you with the phone, but I'm not that great at explaining technology." Ey?

    "For me, they just... work. I don't need to know how, I rarely read a manual unless I'm interested in how to repair the thing. It's the whole technopath thing. But, to finally answer that question, yes. That's why I went after the Friends of Humanity, because they crossed the line into that next phase, the phase of attacking allies of the targeted enemy group. It needs to be stopped. My methods are a bit on the direct side for some, they'd prefer a political solution. But until there is one, I'll continue to do what I do, somehow."