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Flamel Parsons     They've seen dizzying heights, and now they'll experience deep depths.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjG0ivBT4lQ

    The entrance to the main Project Mystic facility is still powered, somehow. Parsons has to help get this one open, using ancient echoes of clairvoyance to defuse the multi-stage blast door and airlock system that's not just locked with keypads and codes, but with psychic structures and authentication systems. Not that he'd turn down the help of anyone who feels mechanically capable or competent in hacking.

    The tremendous cold-war-era door opens up into a dark elevator system, one that heads straight down the spiraling tip of Maslow Peak and deep below, further and further into the earth. It's a heavy, industrial sort of lift, the kind that no doubt once transported heavy airlifted pieces of equipment and shipments of cargo. They can see the Project Mystic facility long before the door opens, as the shaft gives way through glass to a wide, open view of the interior. If they didn't know how tall Maslow Peak was, one could have mistaken it for hollowing out the entire mountain, but the interior chamber is certainly massive either way. From above, they can see concentric rings of laboratory systems, as well as heavy transmission equipment designed to receive thick cables, bringing in massive amounts of information from the upper labs outside.

    Huge glass chambers gleam with purple light as mysterious shapes, impossible to see at this distance, swirl within. A heavy central area seems armored and locked down, guarded against a yet-unknown threat, and at least three stories tall.

    More of the brain-scanning equipment is in here, but it's powered and operational, still in good condition. More of the gleaming glass tubes are here as well. And rows upon rows of spinning, active reel-to-reel systems churn away, still processing dozens of years after being abandoned. Sensor systems and record-keeping devices are still pointed directly at the huge glass chambers.
Flamel Parsons     When the lift shudders to a stop at the base of the shaft, the glass -- at least a foot thick -- slides open easily, as softly as the day it was crafted. Parsons steps out and quietly mutters under his breath, "I've been here before. I've been here before, haven't I? When was I here before? Nobody's been here in years, but I've been here before. It doesn't make sense." He rambles a little bit under his breath, maybe in a way that might benefit from someone snapping him out of it.

    There are plenty of terminals -- for recording equipment, for containment equipment, and even for experiment equipment -- still active and awaiting input. The weird main armored mini-lab doesn't have a terminal, only a display: "NO INPUT IN PROGRESS", whatever that means. Parsons wanders over near it and just stares at it distantly, like it's hypnotic to him. The Ghost has come along, but as she steps out onto the smooth concrete floor, she seems just as uncertain and lacking recognition of this place as anyone else besides Parsons; even Maslow Peak doesn't necessarily know itself.
August Kohler August is feeling better about himself. The Ghost has seriously helped him, and he has a new goal going forward - to try and connect with those around him better emotionally. To stop hiding. And so, now, it's time to find out the truth of Maslow Peak, as well as to help Flamel out up here.

And so, glancing out through the shaft into the various chambers amd technology, August turns to Flamel as the lift reaches the end. "Hey, Parsons. Calm down. We're about to figure out what's going on here, and we need you focused." August sighs a little, before walking up to one of the terminals for experiments. He wants to see if it looks to be connected to the mini-lab, and if so, what sort of experiments it's attached to. As he does so, he speaks to the Ghost.

"Thanks for accompanying us this far. I thought you would have disappeared with hopeful parting words by now, like in the movies."
Staren     Staren paces back and forth impatiently, the sound of his armor's footsteps heavy as Flamel and the hacker(s?) work. Staren knows a lot about machines and computers, but for him 'hacking' usually consists of 'Wow, can you believe pressing ctrl+alt+del on the login screen /actually got me task manager/?' or 'They didn't lock the BIOS, so I can boot this USB drive' or, as a last resort, 'pull the hard drive and copy the unencrypted files'. He doesn't so much defeat security as take advantage of paths someone didn't think to secure.

    You could say it's a microcosm of how he uses elite resources to solve problems in general. It's all about having capabilities noone expected anyone in your position to have...

    Staren will lend his armor's strength to any brute forcing efforts, and tools to anyone trying to do fine electrical or mechanical work. From time to time he stops to look at August and the ghost. Wondering what will happen. If August is going to change in a way that means they won't be working against eachother so much. He hopes so.

    Staren whistles, impressed, when the main cavern comes into view. "Nice. And if this elevator's working, they might still have power..."

    As Flamel rambles, Staren points out, "Maybe you astrally projected here? Or a piece split off of /you/, like August's anima here."

    After August speaks to the ghost again, Staren comments, "She's your anima, right? If she disappears, it's probably to become part of you..."

    Staren, Staren feels like he's got something he can work with now. /Running/ computers with all the software and hardware needed to interact with the storage here, no need for trying to build replicas somewhere else. All he needs is an unlocked terminal somewhere so he can start inquiring as to what these machines are /doing/...
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa has pulled a cable out of the back oif her neck at some point to help work on the door. She follows up Flammel pulls a cable out of the back of her neck and will pull out a adaptor a legacy of her service to the union and will attempt to jack in.

"Flamel? If you could handle the brain candy end? I'll start poking at the computer systems here."

She does take note the Ghost is hanging in there and August is chatting with her at the moment. She meanwhile focus on dealing with cutting through the systems here.

"They really didn't mess around with the security measures here did they?"
Flamel Parsons     "Huh-- Wha? Oh! Hey, sure! Sorry, just got a bit distracted for a moment. Old classic of a Psychonauts facility, you know." Parsons says, already seeming to have forgotten that he remembered being here in the first place. "Hey, shout to me if you need Clairvoyance! I can project old psychic echoes, it might give you hints if you're stuck at all."

    August's and Staren's prodding at the experiment terminals show that they connect in certain ways to the mini-lab. Specifically, they operate and take in some kind of data from the experimental equipment, and can start some kind of transmission sequence towards the "MYSTIC-56" module. It reads from these helmets, and transmits into the module... It might be possible to send empty data, or something like that, to start whatever process was being experimented on, or to scan oneself to get the process working.

    The Ghost looks sheepish, but eventually mutters, "Well... Well, when you leave, you won't be able to listen to me so easily. I'm going to go back to being a part of you that can't speak the way you're seeing it here. August..." She looks concerned, deeply, for a moment. "I need you to promise you'll try to keep listening to me when you leave Maslow Peak. Please. We can't go back to how things were before you came here."
Flamel Parsons     The terminals Staren finds here are fairly useful. What they're doing is operating some kind of scanning equipment, designed to non-invasively, and rather gently, examine outer neural connection activity. It's not an upload, but rather, a sort of surface reading, an examination of /activity/ rather than /identity/. It's designed to examine what it means to be alive, rather than to examine a specific life. The process is what it's after, rather than the content.

    He can examine the storage he's gotten so far here, too, by slotting those reels into place and spinning them. They're all snapshots of connections /in motion/, more of a measurement of trajectory than of content. And they all are meant to send data /into/ that chamber, which, as far as Staren can tell, has a functional storage capacity of "infinity". What's done once it's in there? That's yet unknown.
August Kohler "My anima, huh?" August considers that. "Well, that makes sense. Feminine side, is a girl. Not entirely sure if she's been separated, just haven't been in touch with my emotions." August looks sheepish himself, as he turns to the Ghost and nods. "I'm going to talk to people. Let them know how I feel, try and find out how they feel. Try and let my emotions out naturally instead of penting them up until they burst. Can't just wear my mask all the time, can I?" It's so awkward to be saying this out loud, especially to 'yourself'.

With the terminals, August considers and turns to Staren. "You're the computer expert. What should we send inside?"
Orchid      Signal quality had been getting worse, so if Orchid was going to continue to help her friends, she'd need to go into the field to do so. So that's what she did. She also brought sack lunches for everyone, so they could face the next part of the puzzle refreshed and ready to go. Her bag also includes a laptop computer, a set of connection adapters, and a blank hard-drive for data storage. (Also a fresh box of spider drones)

     Once down the elevator, she looks around, commenting. "That door was too cleanly operating. Disuse alone should have made it sluggish to open. Also, Flamel, I wouldn't rule out that you memories had been tampered with, given what kind of science they were doing at that lab."
Staren     Staren scratches his helmet at the question as he reviews the stored reels. "Well, that's the thing, we're not sending in computer programs. We're sending information on how brains work." He turns around to face August. "I know about computers, but I don't know what's on the other end of that connection, or what anything we send will do when it gets there. It /could/ be making some kind of copies of people, but I doubt it at this point. Maybe it's trying to build an artificial psychic from pieces, and if we send it enough brainscans, it will finish... but is that what we /want/ to happen?"

    Staren shakes his head. "Even if we do want it, we don't know that's what's going on. I think we should find 'MYSTIC-56'... or at least some notes!" He looks up to address the cavern in general. "Didn't anyone here keep any goddamn NOTES?! Write anything DOWN?!"

    Staren shakes his head and sighs.

    After a moment, he addresses August again, "I guess if you want to send your own scan in and hope for the best, I won't stop you. It's unlikely /one/ more scan will cause some problem, after how many they've already got."
Flamel Parsons     Slicing through the security systems can certainly help. Kotone gets to plug into the systems, and it's... SLOOOOW. Holy shit! 1956-era spy-tech supercomputers are worse than plugging into a goddamn modern IoT toaster for Kotone's movement through the system. But she can maneuver well enough to access some recording equipment inside, even if she can't access controls just yet. She might need Orchid to tag-team that if she does.

    But at the very least, she can see MASSIVE data storage in there... And it feels like another user! It's like a second person jacked into the digital space. Whatever that other entity is, it's apparently doing nothing just yet. On her own, Kotone might be able to turn on cameras or something like that inside there...
August Kohler "Well, at the least, we can try sending some empty data and see what it does." August moves to set that up, see if it has any results. On the subject of his own scan..."Maybe. Not my first choice, though. Perhaps if this gives any results."
Staren     Staren shrugs. "Sure." He watches to see if sending an empty scan does anything.
Flamel Parsons     "Huh? But I've been inside my own mind, and I've never seen any signs that anything's gotten messed with since the day I was born... And even then, I've got plenty of neural security. It's... Really /weird/." Parsons replies to Orchid, scratching his head. "It doesn't make sense to me."

    Oh, looks like someone's trying to do some kind of spoofing over there. August's efforts to send in empty packets means someone of Orchid's level of skill is probably necessary to make it work. How does one construct an empty brainscan anyway? Surely their data expert can find a solution.
Orchid      "Fair enough, I can't say I'm an expert on minds," the reploid replies to the psychic. Orchid has pulled out and set up that laptop, and is using it to probe into the computer system. Given her own inclinations, she is, indeed, trying to tap into the camera feeds. "It's a lagy network, but it's what we have, at least for the moment." She's opened the box of spiders, and the small drones are fanning out into the facility. Right now they're just mapping the place, looking for anything that's moving, or any indications of traps. Given how small they are, hopefully they won't set off any such traps. "The computers might tell us something, but I doubt everything we want is in this room."
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa has never experianced anything this slow and she's from her pov this is the slowest thing she's ever been into. She ndoes find though the data storage is impressive for the era. Still she makes a pained sound over the comm about it's speed, her toaster is factually got a better processor than here. Though once she's in she'll start to access the internal cameras and try to get them on, while she does sniff out security systems. She also pauses for a moment she's not alone in system...
Flamel Parsons     Tapping into camera feeds elsewhere is relatively easy, and gives Orchid a map of the place, though she can't get into the MYSTIC-56 module. While the rest of the vast chamber shows no movement and mostly the equipment they're familiar with, that core blindspot is clear. Getting into that is something that'll require August's approach, sending in data she could use to hijack the interior cameras perhaps, using Kotone's angle of approach in the digital space. Undoubtedly, Orchid could find a way to hijack those interior cameras, though, if she could design something to ride an empty transmission into the internal structure...
Flamel Parsons     Orchid DOES turn up a not insubstantial volume of records from the cameras. Maybe those will be of interest to Staren? There's plenty to look through, from 1947 to 1956. That might sate his craving for records.
Orchid      "This whole place is built around the MYSTIC-56 module," Orchid reports, "Not enough paper notes to be noticeable." She looks over to where Staren and August are. "Hey, I've got an idea, if one of you brought one of those scanner helmets." She summons one of her spiders. "It looks like this thing is trying to read thoughts, not full minds. Well, my drones have a basic awareness of the world around them, and simple brains. They might be enough to produce enough of a mind scan to get this thing to respond." It's a bit of a nutty idea, but it feels safer than using a scan of one of themselves.
August Kohler "Got it." August moves to grab one of the helmets, kneeling to try and attach it to the spider. While he does so, he speaks to Staren. "Can you work with the computers while I do this?"
Orchid      Attaching the helmet over the spider is easy enough. Orchid waves one hand in front of the spider to give it something to think and be aware about while being scanned. The other hand works on downloading those camera archives to that spare hard drive she brought.
A2     Competent in hacking does not describe A2. Mechanically capable describes her only in the sense of being capable in taking machines apart, one way or another. Left to her own devices, she'd start battering the door systems down by force, and keep at it all day. When Parsons gets them all into the elevator much more easily than that, the sole thing she has to say on the long, awkward ride down is: "All that climbing and we just go back down again. Goddamn typical."

    One last bit comes from her when Flamel starts wandering around in a haze, claiming he's been to this place that was last active in the 50s. "Who the hell knows. Maybe It's a genetic memory from your past life as foreign war scientist refugee, or project data implanted as a false memory by a sleeper agent satellite." says A2, exactly as drily as the content demands. Not especially computer fluent (not computers this old, anyways), A2 is more concerned with, or perhaps suspicious of, where the power is coming from. She sets her minimap to display all the powered consoles in the area, and then starts tracing the conduits back, trying to find where a reactor might be that has been running for decades despite such old technology.
Flamel Parsons     Using the spiders as a sort of blank-slate pseudo-brain, Orchid is able to activate the scanning helmets by sort of slipping the spider in under one of them. If she loads some of her usual camera-breaching software onto them, surely that'll get through the weird one-way firewall and into the system beyond it; from that end, she can use Kotone's data to gain control of the cameras.

    The big display on the MYSTIC-56 module flips from "NO INPUT IN PROGRESS" to "INPUT IN PROGRESS".

    The armor on the MYSTIC-56 module churns and... almost roils. Like something alive in motion, it shifts around several times to allow the packet of information through. After that, the camera feed is soon accessible! Within... It looks like a massive, gleaming purple brain, suspended in a strange glass case, in the center of the chamber. Huge cables wind their way into the glass case. It's mounted above a larger glass chamber, this one thicker and darker, impossible to see the interior of.

    All the experiment terminals swap from one function to another. "MYSTIC-56 MODEL ASSEMBLY MODE - COLD READER RECEPTACLE", they state. And they demand... Specifications. Design limits. Robotics data of some kind. This is where Staren can certainly help, if he's not too busy with the camera records, or where A2 or Orchid could donate some or all of their own data if they chose to.
Staren     Staren sighs. Scanning a drone shouldn't work, but... he monitors the computer all the same. He rolls his eyes when the indicator turns green, and then watches with increasing interest as apparently that /actually finished it/. And the camera feeds from Kotone and Orchid are showing a giant brain...

    "Well." He turns back to the others. "Looks like that actually finished it. We've got /some/ kind of artificial brain in need of a body. Are we sure we want to give it one just yet? Maybe we should find a way to talk to it, find out if it's hostile... or even just crazy..."
August Kohler "There's several of us here. If it's a threat, we can take it out. Parsons, what do you think? This is your mission, primarily." August moves to talk to him as he's been quiet a bit, and snap him out of any fugues he might be in, but also seems interested in the robot himself.

"Staren, I have to admit, this is pretty cool, don't you think? We're making a robot. If we do this, I can actually say I built a robot." He seems...legitimately happy about that, even if it's kind of awkward. Like he's trying to be more open and emote a bit more instead of holding what he feels deep inside.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa will share her data as needed as she now also takes a look at the camer feeds she's getting. "You have a point but it could also be going nuts from not having one. Trust me I done hte brain box thing, and I'm left starving for senrory imput afterwards." She notes shuddering. "It beats being dead but..."
Flamel Parsons     Staren's perusal of the '47-'56 records is fruitful if he's seeking a purpose, but only ostensibly so. Shipments of stacks of reel-to-reel tapes came down. So did those weird skeletal robotic Cold Readers, in huge stacks of pods. They were trying to load something onto them, and it seemed to work for the most part. Frequently, the skeleton-bots would imitate human behaviors inside their big glass cases. They could get some to walk. They got some to move. Some even did a few complex tasks. Late in the project, around '55, they even got them to display psychic powers, and Staren can find a lot of footage of partying the night after they got one of them to really bend a spoon.

    After that, though, came a year and a half of attempts, entirely unsuccessful to get them not to burn out within minutes. None of these seem to be functional replications of a person or of psychic potential. Eventually the scientists spent months just arguing around chalkboards every day about various designs for brains and bodies, and eventually they left. There was no disaster. They just couldn't get the thing to work.

    And then nothing.

    No, not exactly nothing. There's one camera record, later, in 2005 -- that is, about two or three years ago in Multiversal time -- where one old man in Psychonauts uniform comes in through the elevator. He's got a huge chunk of Psitanium strapped to his back. With a quick gesture, he turns the cameras off, and they remain off until Orchid turned them on just now.
Staren     It's happening. They made an artificial psychic(?) and it wants a body. As August speaks up, Staren half-turns his head. He doesn't think this is going to work great, but... there's a small chance that maybe it will help mellow August out a bit. He looks at the screen again. "No promises. Looks like when they tried this before, they only lasted a few minutes before burning out. Well, if you want to say you made a robot... anything in particular you want it to have?"

    Besides turning August's words into design specifications, he's trying to find out what he has to work with and make sure all basics are accounted for. Like maybe it should have a self-destruct... then again, maybe not. August would probably be mad about that. Staren thinks about anything else that needs including for a moment...
August Kohler "Laser guns." August replies immediately, but not.../entirely/ seriously. "Kidding. Nothing specific, I guess. The thrill of doing it at all's pretty cool." As the others find recordings, August moves over to check out what Orchid is looking at on her laptop...

And sees the highlight of the old man. "Hey, hey, Parsons. The old Einstein guy, I think his name was Ford Cruller? He's on this footage! Carrying big chunk of psychic crystals."
Orchid      All this psychic technology is somewhat outside Orchid's realm of expertise, but she's willing to give the thing in there a body. Then again, she's wise enough to give it a relatively simple and limited body, so as the conversation goes on, she puts in her two cents. She also tries to find where the thing might be coming out, and pre-positions a number of spiders there, in case she needs to web-pile it.
Flamel Parsons     August gets a cautious, measured answer from Parsons. "Hmmm... I don't think whatever's in there would be a threat. I mean, there's no sign that anything here was a danger to the scientists, I think...? It looks more like the armor was to protect it, not keep it trapped. It's a psychoisolation chamber, but it's inverted, it's trying to lock out any background telepathic signals from reaching the brain. Maybe something in there is fragile...?"

    And then he peers at the old man. "Hey. Hey! You're right! It /is/ Psychomaster Ford! What the heck is he doing in there? And why's he look so old? Wait-- No, that's right, that's what he looks like. How in the world did they..." He shakes his head. "Weird. Well, I know whatever Ford was doing here was a good idea, whatever it was, so I should make sure we do whatever he did." And on that note, he emits... A weird pulse. A Clairvoyance reading! The phantasmal image of Ford can be seen walking into the chamber, "through" the walls of it. This gives Orchid the knowledge she needs to know where the door is, at least.
Flamel Parsons     A2's efforts to find a reactor are actually incredibly useful here. The power lines aren't coming from a reactor at all. In fact, it looks like the facility's been using the brain inside there as a form of power generator. The energy flow flickers in time with the camera feed of the massive brain's own pulsating glow. Whatever's in there has psychic potential in a big way! It must be a huge mass of psitanium, and the energy it's making is not unlike the weird energies emitted by the Cold Readers when examined by A2's senses. It has the same machine life signature as them, but without the hostility; the signature is spreading around to the rest of the chamber.
Staren     After some brief discussion, trying to think of what to actually give a new robotic being, the answer is obvious. He remembers being shown the plans long ago, the same ones he ended up using to make most of his robotic body. Except the brain. The instructions were very clear: DO NOT BUILD WITHOUT A CONSCIENCE. Even Wireless agreed it was dangerous, before he went mad.

    For all this talk and drama, though, what he's using as a base is basically a humanoid robot body made of tough military-grade materials (but without the external armor Staren usually wears when using it) with super strength, the ability to disguise itself as a human and to use that arm-electrifying attack Staren uses as a flashy finishing move. The undisguised form is obviously metal, painted red and black (or whatever August's color scheme is) divided down the middle, with the colors on opposite sides on the head, with half of the upper head made of some tough clear material, showing the psi-mechanical brain within. The eyes look more like some kind of lights than conventional cameras, but the nose and mouth are normal humanoid.

    Sure, he'll add lasers if there's a convenient way to fit them. Eye lasers, maybe? It's pretty traditional.

    He also instructs the computer to give it the best power source available.

    Staren takes one last look at the plans... but he'll hit Enter over Orchid's warnings that it should be kept weak. He's going to give this thing a chance. It... feels like the right thing to do. Hopefully trusting in feelings right now won't backfire.
Orchid      Orchid sends in some specs of her own, but she goes for a more limited robot model. Specifically, a robot model composed of feet, eyes, and a hat, without much more. Yep, she sends in the info for a Mettool.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa takes a moment to access her internal files nad will pull up the specs for the basic skinned Steel morph body she was given by Rory. She loads it up it might take a bit but she will get it done though she has forgotton a tiny tiny thing, the apperance specs are set to her own apperance. She makes sure the data goes through though hopefully they cna work something out over this?

"LEts give this thing a chance shall we?
Flamel Parsons     Several designs are processed by the neural structure of the system. A moderate, open-source design -- Kotone's own civilian body -- forms a sort of basic structure. Staren's design with a more rugged look and strength, and an electrical arm, and that stylish red-and-black paintjob. Kotone's facial features mix around with Staren's own default face. Orchid's simple design forms a sort of unusual mechanical drone backpack that shapes around it, simple feet curling about it in a way that seems ready to unfold into something wildly different.

    The display changes from "MYSTIC-56 MODEL ASSEMBLY MODE - COLD READER RECEPTACLE" to "MYSTIC-56 MODEL ASSEMBLY IN PROGRESS..." and then soon to "MYSTIC-56 MODEL ASSEMBLY COMPLETE". The chamber unfolds. Within the lower tank structure, the thick glass contains the body that has been crafted, equal parts mechaniloid and full-body prosthesis mixed with Staren's own Transhuman-Sol design. It is drifting -- floating, rather -- and has its eyes closed. The group is free to enter, or to keep their distance, but as soon as anyone steps foot inside, its eyes snap open abruptly, and it speaks with a voice that comes from both the body in the chamber, and the huge, now-exposed brain residing above it, which seems to be activated far more than it was before, swirling with light, even with only the empty scan. It pulses with each word as the telepathic signal becomes available to every radio and mind in the room.

    It says perhaps the worst and most unexpected thing it could say.
Orchid      Worst? Maybe. Unexpected? Not completely. Mind you, the post-modern description of himself does make Orchid's eyes roll. "'AVYMGA' doesn't make for a very good group name," she says aloud, looking at the creation of their joint ideas. She's still trying to figure out what they should do, but at the moment talking seems like a good idea.
Orchid      Oh, and Orchid is also keeping an eye on the Flamel outside the chamber.
August Kohler August steps forward into the chamber as their robot is built. He's bustling with excitement. "Oh man, that looks awesome. Hey there. We're not going to hurt you." August looks hopeful, and then it speaks...

And he takes a step back. Flamel Parsons? What?! "The...what the hell?! How are you Parsons? He's Parsons!" August gestures to Flamel, though he considers. "But...no. No, no, no. Parsons. Are you a Cold Reader?"
Staren     What. WHAT.

    Staren's initial thought is that Flamel was copied, somehow, and his memories of the event erased.

    Then he begins to wonder if this has all happened before, and the Flamel they know is actually a robot. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it would be an unexpected surprise! He starts asking basic questions about what both of them remember.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa Stares for a moment as the body for the brain takes shape she watches iwth interest and then something strange happens even for this neck of the woods. She wioll move towards the new body takes shapoe and it's Flamel as well. She'll walk toweards it hllding out hwer hand to shake. "Agent Parson's right? What is the most recent oldest thing you recall?"
Flamel Parsons     The robotic body sparks softly. Something is wrong. The second Parsons -- looking nothing like the first -- steps forward, and the glass structure opens around him to let him through. The weird mix of Kotone's facial features with the neutral display on Staren's is reshaping actively to inject a little of Parsons' own. Parsons, himself, is shaking, stepping backwards. A trembling hand has taken his sunglasses off, and his eyes are darting around as if something in the room is going to explain things. He's sweating, looking nauseous -- things only a human body would be capable of, right?

    The second Parsons offers an eager handshake, and a cheerful smile. It's that same unbreakable optimism and friendliness as Parsons has always shown. But it feels... Hollow. Dysfunctional. Like the mind's not working entirely. The body is older, 50s-era Cold Reader. The machine's movement can't match what the mind wants. The mind itself may not even be real; the tone of voice is almost like a chatbot. "Pleasure to meet all of you! Sorry if this sounds odd, but do you know where Ford Cruller is? He's supposed to come get me when he needs me, he said he'd find me when he got some things sorted out."
A2     A2's power signature tracking mostly leads her in circles around the facility, detached from the others fussing over their nerd BS on vintage computer consoles. Eventually, the power signature being a giant, pulsing, glowing purple brain brings her back, as does the vaguely psychometric image of Ford, and she arrives to find that in the time she was checking the place out, a gaggle of weirdos have apparently managed to give birth to an intelligent and partially militarized machine life form with zero idea of what it's supposed to be or going to do.

    "What the fuck did you idiots do?" are the first words out of her mouth on seeing the resulting robot. They aren't tired and jaded, or otherwise in 'safe' territory for A2, but pointed, alert, and tingling with an edge of rising anger. Swirling waves of sparks coalesce into one hand, and take the form of her massive tank-busting Type-4O sword, already crackling with visible arcs of energy along its blade. "Do you have /any/ idea what the hell you're doing? Are you just playing with this crap for fun? What the /hell/ are you thinking?"

    Without thinking, A2 puts herself between the original Parsons and whatever the hell the others had just created, shoving the former backwards with her free arm and slapping the latter's hand away with some force. "What is /this/ supposed to be? And why the hell does it think it's Parsons? That is, if it thinks anything at all. That giant brain just spat it out, right? That thing the old man carved out of that giant chunk of purple problems and left here to run the facility. How did feeding all your data to the giant psychic server seem like a good idea? All this place did was churn out killer robots before, so why the hell do you think this is going to be any different?"
August Kohler August is still taken aback. He tries his best to answer the question. "No, I don't. Probably...at his summer camp? He's a camp counseler, right?" August doesn't move his hands to his weapons, because he doesn't see a Flamel as a risk.

And A2's outrage makes August take another step back. "Look, I just...alright, I don't have an explanation. But we now know what Parsons was /searching for/. This is progress, A2. We know that whatever this is, Parsons is one of them. It's the only thing that makes sense. And that's what we came here for, answers." The 'playing with this crap for fun' part is getting at August. He thought it was pretty cool, and now he's just kind of tripped out.
Flamel Parsons     "Woah!" The second Parsons is shoved back, and demonstrates a powerful levitation ability as it stays upright, sliding back. "Hey! There's no need to be rude here. I wouldn't ever kill anyone, especially not someone I just met." There's twitching and sparking as it tries to look indignant, but something about the authentic emotion fails to catch. One of its eyes goes dark entirely. "Oh, hi! I'm Flamel Parsons, agent of a vague yet menacing government agency. Who're you?" The way it speaks is exactly the same as it was before, when it talks to A2. It fails to register the hostility.

    The original Parsons is kept back, and he seems more and more panicked. "He's not... That's not me." He mutters. "That's not a whole mind. That's not a real person. That's not a real mind." He points, eyes wide, and his brain glows to show the active telepathy. "That's not real. He's not real. He's not got a whole, real mind, the hardware can't sustain it without external psychoconstruct infrastructure. That's not real." He puts his own fingers to his head.

    "I'm not real."

    The Ghost pulls ahead, looking over the second Parsons for August. "He's right. And that's not-- It's not like me. It's not a piece of a whole. It's a blended-up mess. It's going to fall apart any minute and it's going to burn out the way the Cold Readers always did."
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa will shake the hand from the second Parsons she tilts her head a little bit something feels a bit odd. She looks to see Flammel the one she know isn't doing so good she's getting very concerned for the Flamel.
A2     "One of /what/?!" A2 insists, increasingly short-tempered. "Last I checked, he wasn't fucking two years old. That giant brain server /thing/ happened a long time after Parsons did, so who the copy is is /obvious/. I don't know why the hell the old creep had some kind of copy of him on hand, but do you think it's anything good?"

    Even if August is upset, he should be able to recognize the danger zone this situation is fast encroaching upon. It directly resembles a steady ramp up to the kind of thing A2 had lapsed into when setting foot in ONI's server room. "Shut up!" she barks at flesh Parsons. "Anyone can tell it's not real! It's a machine! A soulless robot going through the motions! Now get your shit together and tell me why the hell this 'Ford' guy is making them!"
Orchid      Things are getting more and more tripy. Orchid looks around the room, sliding over first to Staren, then to Kotone, gesturing them towards the elevator out. "It may be time to get moving.
Staren     Staren doesn't reply to A2, because she's right that this was kind of irresponsible. He figured, most likely they'd get something that would burn out, second most likely they'd get a killbot they have to put down immediately, third most likely (but very remotely) August gets a new robot sidekick that forces him to think more about the future... This was not one of the expected possibilities!

    At least Staren's expression is unreadable through the helmet.

    Staren feels a mixture of sadness and relief when Parsons Mk. 2 starts to repeat itself. At least they won't have to deal with it for long.

    But now Parsons is doubting his own realness. Staren turns towards him and puts hands on his shoulders. "Of course you're real! Even if you're a cold reader, or an AI, or some kind of psychic construct, that doesn't make you any less of a person! It doesn't matter where you came from... It matters who you /are/. Who /you/ remember being... and even more, who you /want to be/."

    He says this entirely earnestly. He worked out this kind of philosophical dilemma ages ago... Or rather, his father did, and explained it to him, but everything Staren's learned since, about uploading and whatnot, only reaffirmed it. He wants to comfort Flamel, but he has zero doubt that Flamel's any less of a person now, even if his origins may not be what they thought a few minutes ago.
August Kohler August takes another step back as the second Flamel starts to break down. "He's frying." And then, a turn towards the actual Flamel as he says he's not real, moving over to him. "Gah...Parsons, don't think that way. You're plenty real. You haven't fried out, have you? I've known you for months, at the least." August moves to pull him back, glancing to Staren who has his hands on Flamel's shoulder, as he wants to especially get him away from /A2/. If she's going to kill the second one, he's not going to stop her. It's going to die either way.
Flamel Parsons     The second one is breaking down, just as expected. Its breakdown is accelerating under the stress of having to commit new memories and have authentic emotional reactions. "That's really rude to call someone soulless, you know!" It says, but even the friendly tone is starting to decay into a sort of flat, machine-like noise. It's not sounding explosive, it just sounds like it's... Crumbling. "Ford's been doing a lot of work lately. He's really stressed out about the state of the world, you know! All those nukes -- who knows what's gonna happen! You should go find him. Ford says I can leave when he's figured out a few things. Ford said I could leave."

    The other eye sparks. "Oh, whoops. I can't see now." He says. "Oh, hi! I'm Flamel Parsons, agent of a vague yet menacing government agency. Oh, hi! Oh." His body collapses forward onto the ground. If only all of A2's machine problems solved themselves that easily. Aside from a few soft, oddly blue-ish sparks, it seems like the Cold Reader is just spent.

    Parsons is trembling, his voice is getting more and more distraught. When the thing collapses, he falls onto his knees, eyes locked to it. "I'm a big... Big blended mess of minds. A bunch of pieces jammed together in a big slurry. I couldn't-- I couldn't see it when I looked at my own mind before. Perceptual block. Did I make a perceptual block? Oh my god. I can't-- I'm not real. None of what I thought about myself was real. It was a bunch of nonsense that came out of a mess of blended brain. What does it matter if I'm not going to die, none of what I was thinking was..."

    He continues his ramble. His brain is flickering and sparking, though not the way that machine did. He winces every time, making soft exhalations of pain. He looks like he's about to vomit. He looks like he wants to crawl into bed and stare directly into a pillow. He looks... Rather rattly. There might be something else that needs figuring out in a moment. His looks of misery are starting to look more like looks of pain.
Orchid      Orchid steps up behind Flamel, reaching out one hand to stroke the back of his neck. "Hey. I know advice like 'calm down' isn't very helpful, but I want you to know, you're not alone. This is something I had to learn myself." she kneels next to him. "It doesn't matter how or why you were made. It doesn't matter if you were built for a specific reason. What matters is who YOU want to be. You can't control your past, only your future." Shes not expecting huge results now, knowing that sometimes people have to work through this stuff, but someone has to say the words.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa watches as Flamel two breaks down she frown she looks over to A2 for a moment. She will behave but she has a growing dislike for A2. When Flamel two basically crashes and falls over she turns her attention to Flamel one rushing to his side.

"Flamel! Take it easy focus,m focus man you are Famel Parons Pyschonaut!" She will move to hold on to him if he will let her, she's looking scared, she knows that sort of breakdown, wondering if she was a copy. If Kotonme Yamakawa has been dead all these years, and she? Is just cluning to the idenity of someone else. "This is bad...."
A2     Almost in measure with Parsons' rapidly elevating levels of stress, A2 gets more and more agitated as the mecha-Parsons' thin facade of humanity rapidly breaks down, raising her voice and vehemently denying any of it is happening. "That's not explaining anything, damn it! What was that date supposed to be about then?! Why the hell are you so eager to believe you're a clone! Aren't you supposed to be twenty or something?!"

    Between Parsons' psychological breakdown and mecha Parsons' physical one, A2 loses her perpetually fragile and unstable cool first. Screaming "DAMN IT!" A2 swings her gigantic sword into the collapsing cold reader and continues smashing it several times even after it collapses, stomping on its weirdly un-Parsons-like skull and grinding her heel through it. She then wheels around and sharply backhands Parsons (it isn't very soft, with the artificial skin long worn off her hands) and yells "Just shut up! Stop babbling! You're driving me insane!", very abruptly interrupting his spiraling ramble, instead of trying to offer existential reassurances.

    Kicking aside robot debris, she starts walking towards the psitanium brain, punching and smashing out consoles on her way to somehow keep a lid on something worse. When she gets there, she'll start assaulting the upload chamber's armour with heavy blows of her weaponry, carving away at the blast plates and prying them apart with superhuman strength.
Flamel Parsons     A2 tears apart the robot. One of its arms is removed entirely by the impact. The head-plating is punctured dramatically, though the mettool armoring keeps it from being pulverized entirely, so she winds up tearing out one of its eyes. One of the strikes impales it through the midsection brutally. It's a mess by the end.

    Parsons is almost as much of a mess. The others do their best to focus him on his future rather than his past, but Kotone and Orchid stumble more on the relevant point, even if maybe by accident. This seems to be less about his past, or even his future, and more about his... Identity. His sense of self. Losing that sense of self means something's going wrong about him. The impact of the backhand almost takes him off his feet. The glowy orange web of nerves that substitutes for how he bruises and bleeds shows up again, and this time, it's more meaningful. He's never bled before, and he still isn't now. Only this moment does he finally allow himself to realize what that /means/.

    A hand is drawn to his face, and the fingers come away glinting slightly with shiny orange light. "Flamel Parsons... It's fake. That part of me, who I am, the-- The ego, the I, the self, that wasn't real, it was-- I didn't-- There wasn't a way to come up with it, it was just-- It was fake, came out of nothing but a slurry of identities and echoes, and--" His brain is sparking worse. More and more of his identity-breakdown is affecting him. "Shit. Shit. It hurts." He mutters.

    The fake brain containing the archetype of Parsons, the original template, is gone, crushed under A2's strikes and its equipment ripped apart, causing much of the surrounding chamber to flicker as its power falters. And good thing too, Parsons even seems to experience a small amount of relief as the backup of himself goes, though that reaction is hard to find in his conspicuous display of misery. The Ghost seems to rush forward, looking distressed. "A-aaaah! The old Einstein guy said this might hurt him-- I don't know how to fix this, but it needs some kind of fixing I think!" She calls out, with a tone of intense worry and anxiety. Something about her seems stressed even more than the situation merits, though it merits a rather great amount even on its own.
August Kohler As Parsons falls onto his knees, August moves over to him, looking away from the Cold Reader as it collapses. He's tense, but he wants to help Flamel who, as someone said on the radio, August could see as a close friend. He certainly trusts Flamel more than he does most people. But as he's doing that, the machine sparks blue...and so does August. Energy starts to build around him, as if the boy was summoning a Persona. As soon as August notices it, he panics, and starts to step backwards, looking at his hands. "Wait, what, why, why, what is going on-"

And then the energy hits peak. But instead of forming into a Persona, it suddenly disappears and circles around the ruined Cold Reader, before bursting into pure energy - no danger, just a light show. For a moment, everything is still. And then, the mangled body rises up from the ground, rapidly. It turns around, taking a look at its surroundings, before suddenly leaping back away from A2 with supernatural agility. Once it has comfortable pace away from her, it starts to feel its limbs. Fingers are flexed and placed against palms, arms are stretched out, mouth is opened and closed. And then, its features start to change, but not...physically. A psychic imprint of a different form grows over it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVYYfyha_ZQ

Hair grows out, red in color. The face begins to change, no longer resembling Kotone's/Staren's/Flamel's, but instead an exact copy of August. Clothes form over the body, a mixture of a train engineer's outfit and a military uniform, complete with a railroad cap, though there's a big gash in the midsection. One arm remains the same, a red and black metal limb, as do the legs. The missing left arm is replaced with a constructed arm made of psychic energy, taking the form of metal and flesh combined with tubing, strange fluid the color of the blue sparks flowing through it. The most distinct thing different from it being just a copy of August, though, is the eyes. They're yellow. Due to one being torn out, only one looks natural - the other is swirling energy.

And then, he speaks. The voice is August's, but it's crackly, as if it's been filtered heavily through a tape recorder. The tone is a strange mixture of different emotions - a hint of rage, but it's excited, and yet...melancholic. "Well, well. What a nice body. Pretty cool, if I say so myself...but she had a POINT, you know. You don't know what'll happen when you make a killbot. What did you think would happen?" The Shadow keeps guard of A2, as if he's expecting her to attack, keeping his arms up in a defensive position. "This has been such an interesting trek, you know. Met little miss Anima, got all touchy-feely, shot some mountain lions. But did you really think that was all it TOOK? THAT I WOULD JUST CHANGE IN A MATTER OF HOURS?!" The rage takes forefront, as Shadow August laughs heavily.

"You've made some good points, though. The cat's plan was flawed. I'm not going to strike aimlessly. I'm going to break the biggest barrier of all...the society that's broken and abused me! The society that rejects me, sees me as a monster for what I do, for trying to fight for them! I'll burn it to the ground. I'll burn all my worries away!" He's clearly unhinged, and August isn't going to stand for it. "No...no! I'm not going to let you do this. PERSONA!" A glance into the mirrored bracelet, and...

Nothing. Not a flash of blue energy, not a summoning of the Tin Soldier, not a thing. The Shadow just laughs. "Don't you remember how you got your Persona? You accepted me. Conquered me. But now it's different. I'm in charge now. I'm my own man. And I'm going to break through every obstacle in my path!" As he finishes speaking, loud thunder rumbles in the background. The psychic storm of Maslow Peak starts to stir full-force...and lightning's about to strike any moment now.
Staren     Staren's not sure what more to say to comfort Flamel. He watches as she destroys the broken robot, and then the brain. "Wait, are you sure--" Well, too late now.

    And then the robot starts to change. Red hair. "No! You weren't supposed to posess it, you need to merge with August!"

    But it's not the Anima, like he first thought. It's... August's Shadow?

    Staren already knows that means August's persona won't work. He doesn't bother trying to convince the shadow -- he just attacks, firing beam cannons and missiles (anti-tank and plasma) as he tries to finish what A2 started.

    Only after several seconds does he realize that just because he gave it a weapon doesn't mean everyone else knows about it! "If the arms glow DON'T LET IT TOUCH YOU!" Staren warns!
Orchid      Hey, you remember those spiders Orchid had deployed, ready to pile onto the cold reader should it turn out hostile?

     Yeah, they go into action now, jumping onto Shadow-August, attempting to wrap him in sticky silk. Hope he doesn't have any arachnophobia.

     For herself, Orchid turns to project a shield between herself and Shadow-August, staying where she is to give cover to Flamel.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa looks on with a mix of fear and concern as Flamel melts down, she doesn't even bother with A2's rampage for the moment. Even with A2 smacking Flamel may be one of the few rational things she's seen A2 do. The hope might shock him out of it, that doesn't seem to be working, and then? Things get worse as August's shadow takes form. After helping Speedwagon with his own? She was hoping to not have to deal with something like this as well. She just has this oh shit look on her face, oh dear god. The beast is loose, the Shadow has escaped and it's genocidal plans.

She will move to get Flamel.

"I wonder the same thing a lot since I was converted what I do know is your actions here are your own and not someone else's that much is real."

She will move to get Flamel as she fears a2 may turn her weapons on him next.

"I'm not kidding I wondered if I'm some sort of AI born out of the wreck of a human brain."

She'll carefully get ahold of him.

"We need to go Flamel, come on!" She'll pick him up and fireman carry him if she has to, they got to go.
Flamel Parsons     August tries to summon his Persona, and fails.

    Luckily, when it comes to following August's call, and striking out, he does have another option: His anima. The Ghost of Maslow Peak shrieks in panic, full of stress and anxiety to match her piss and vinegar, summoning her blueprint power armor and her heavy chainsaw-gear sword, and does the sort of thing A2 would approve of, which is blast her way straight towards the Shadow. The Maslow Peak facility is a battleground of the mind, and while August might have lost control of his Shadow, he's at least gained a little control over other aspects of his mind.

    She's just as intent on making sure he doesn't escape as August himself is -- for obvious reasons -- and the chainsaw flares with thick, whirling darkness and with fire as she swings angrily at the host body, joining with Orchid's efforts to disable it and A2's no-doubt thorough efforts to re-pulverize it.
A2     A2 continues in her fury until she has made absolutely certain the brain that so resembles the thing she reviles more than anything else is destroyed, crunching and ripping through the last of the wreckage necessary to confirm its destruction. She makes the mistake of taking a moment as the lights flicker, planting her sword deep into the metal and slumping on its hilt, huffing as mental exhaustion starts to outweigh her dying fury. She is too preoccupied by the swirling chaos inside her head to notice the robot she'd just wrecked standing up again of its own accord, until August's synthesized voice cuts through it like a gunshot.

    Within a fraction of a second, A2 is three steps into a blind charge, sword in hand to chop the robot down the central line this time, reacting on pure instinct and anger. She comes to an awkward, metal-screeching stop only when she sees the thing's face as well as hearing its voice, and then only long seconds of bewildered hesitation follow. She hasn't had the pleasure of meeting, or even hearing much about, August's Shadow before, and so when it's staring her in the face, instead of A2 being the group's single best hope of containing the disaster early, she completely fails to flip out, blow her limiters, and go on a robocidal rampage, instead hovering on the confused precipice of violence without having any idea of its consequences.

    "The hell . . . ? Thats not . . . just copying August. Is it? That can't be right. I destroyed the Server so-" A different part of August's brain made manifest jumps into the fray in her stead to try and murder it, only making matters even more chaotic and confusing. This is the absolute worst time for A2 of all people to stay the trigger on smashing a robot. The distinction is too important, either to some snippet of still-functioning code deep down there, or to some sense of viewing August. "What the hell is it?! Is it a Machine or is it human!?"
August Kohler August is still in shock and disbelief at the lack of his Persona as the others immediately react with violence. Shadow August expected this. As the missiles fly forward, fire suddenly manifests in the air around the Shadow, moving to detonate them before they impact, though the beams impact with the chassic, searing into him. It's not enough to really tear through him, though, especially as he's using psychic force to make himself more durable. The Cold Reader had a LOT of psychic energy to go around.

The spiders leap onto the Shadow, wrapping it up in silk. It's open for more attack for a bit, but responds by immolating the air around himself and allowing himself to burn slightly, metal charring. The silk is tough, but the fire is extraordinarily hot, and eventually is able to tear Shadow August free.

As the Ghost of Maslow Peak comes slamming towards Shadow August, the Shadow actually talks to her. "Oh look, our feminine side! Trying to connect with our feelings...WHEN DID THAT EVER DO US ANY GOOD, HUH? You can't beat me! I'm the /true self/!" The blade slashes into his arms, burning and corroding them with fire and darkness, cutting through the metal and chopping them up, but the psychic construct arm pushes back, and moves to grab that chainsaw blade and try and /yank/ the Ghost and use her as a projectile, trying to throw her wildly. "We doubt you! Doesn't that make you mad? We're not really sure we can reaech out. Half-baked promises out of hope instead of a real determination!" The Shadow tries to taunt the Anima, who's hopefully going flying in the direction of A2, if A2 remains still,

Glancing towards the mountain, Shadow August grins wildly. "Now then! I actually don't have any interest in fighting you today. No, I have a bigger stage to play on. So I wish you...farewell." With his last words, thunder cracks again, and then a /massive/ burst of psychic lightning strikes against the mountain, blasting a hole through the lab and sending piles of debris everywhere, none of which hit the Shadow.

As soon as it gets a chance, the Shadow moves to run and leap through the hole, descending the mountain rapidly by using raw superhumanity. If it has any tracking drones on it, they are able to detect it moving luckily not in the direction of the warpgate, and instead deeper into this world...though eventually, the Shadow must find the drone, because any signals are cut.

Meanwhile, August crouches to the ground, hands clutched to his face. "No, no, no nonononono, this can't...why? Is this my fault?" He's going to be a mess, even if not as much of one as Flamel.
Flamel Parsons     A2 isn't going to turn on Parsons, but getting him out of here isn't a bad idea. He stumbles, staggering, disoriented, dazed to the elevator, and so he's out of the lines of fire of the big blowout battle. Things are settling down now, and Parsons is needed. He can't let the group go without some help figuring out a problem like this.

    The lab's structure is blasted open, and the entire upper segment of the mountain is exposed. It's not likely to cave this room in or anything anytime soon, but the rumbling and the debris that falls are definitely a driving force in getting out of here if one is averse to such things. The data's well backed up, courtesy of Orchid, Staren, and Kotone, so there's not much reason to stay, unless they plan to put humpty dumpty's brain back together again.

    On the way up the elevator shaft, still flickering with its power, Parsons finally tries to re-summon his mental stability. And he doesn't have to try at all to restore his optimism as he starts trying to help plan out an approach.
Flamel Parsons     The Ghost crashes down, battered, bruised, and reverting to some of her more feral behaviors, but the Engineer gets well away from her before she can summon her lances of chaotic blueprints. As he gets away, she focuses on prioritizing the situation appropriately. She focuses on getting to August, and trying to get him back on his feet. "It's another barrier to break." She says, firmly. "It's another thing to take head-on. That's the thing about obstacles like this. It never matters whose fault they are. The only thing that matters is how to break them. It's not your fault, he'd have gotten out some way. This way he didn't get out with even more of your pent-up psychic energy."

    "You don't need to feel this way as long as you spend your time focusing on the obstacles ahead and crashing through them. That's what will keep that feeling-- that's what'll keep /me/ from being that way. Alright?" Maybe it's just a little bit of an unhealthy way of dealing with one's feelings, but it's functional, and it's what she needs -- what AUGUST needs -- right now. "We need to go and get you focused. As long as you deal with your problems, you can find the ways for /other people/ to deal with this awful feeling."