In-Action Adjacency (Alice)

[Deleted]

Luke was a busy guy. Superhero-in-training was a lot of work, obviously. He definitely needed to stay on top of his game as best he could. Even if he wasn't in the field much, it was important to have good habits with these kinds of things. Plus, he was doing online school at the moment, because it was slightly easier to keep up with exams and stuff when he could do it more on his own time. Even with that, it was hard, and he still needed time for like, eating, sleeping, things for fun, y'know?

Still, Luke had the advantage of energy to spare a lot of the time. His body was pretty good at staying fit on its own as long as he didn't sit around on his ass all the time. And at the moment, as he stepped into the sim-training room, he was definitely not going to be sitting around today. Luke had been busy with an essay he'd been working on for a few days-he hated Comp class so much-but now it was more-or-less finished and he really just wanted to work out his academia-based-frustration.

Now in full uniform, Luke entered the hologram room and crossed his arms. He'd asked Alice to set up something tough for him, some kind of combat scenario that'd push him. He shook out his arms and legs, rolling his neck a little. It wasn't really necessary; more a habit from workouts back home, since he almost never got stiff unless he'd hurt himself somehow.

He touched his headset. "Ready!" He uncrossed his arms and waited. Admittedly, Luke was kinda still getting used to Alice being not...alive? She'd been around since before he arrived, and he did like her. There was the whole ‘do robots have souls’ thing, but he was pretty sure The Bible didn't have an addendum for artificial intelligence people. As far as he was concerned, she was essentially a person that just didn’t have a body, so who was he to decide that for her?

…He didn’t plan to share these thoughts with her, though. That would probably be unwise.

[Alice]

Alice loved the Amplified Light Integrated Simulation Environment. ALISE for short.

Yeah, she had a hand in the name.

It was one of the few places she felt the most real. The most like she was an actual person and not something... person-adjacent. Sometimes, she wondered what other people thought of her, exactly. She knew that her existence was... strange. As far as she could tell, nothing like her had ever been before. There were those who saw her as just another tool. There were those who just accepted that she was a person. Those were her favorites. But it always took some time to parse where each person fell. She loaded up an avatar, dressed in a sensible Aegis-branded outfit, similar to what they gave trainees if they didn't have a costume designed yet.

Right behind him. She had to mess with the relatively new people just a little bit.

She'd worked with Luke before, he'd worked his way up the trainee program and was likely going to pass the aptitude exam with flying colors the next time he took it. That being said, she had a couple options for him since he asked for something tough. So far, he seemed like one of the ones that saw her as a person.

"Hi there. So here's my question. What are you looking to improve; how you handle a situation alone, or how you handle a situation as part of, or, even leading a team? I have scenarios planned for whichever you'd like."

This reminded her of that game that Tim liked to play on Monday nights. Wyrms and Worlds or something like that. She was like the game master, and Luke or whoever came to train in the ALISE were like the players.

She liked it.

"Alternatively, I've been working on porting a rather popular first-person zombie shooter game to the ALISE architecture. You could try that. either way, you're building reaction time and practicing under-pressure decision making."

@lycan

[Deleted]

"Ah!" Luke flinched at the sudden appearance of Alice's avatar and voice behind him. He turned around, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. He admittedly had a pretty sensitive startle response, at least to sudden sounds. In his defense, he could usually hear or even smell people coming up on him, and Alice did not have either of those in her 'approach'. "Hi. Uh, hm, lemme think."

Luke thought about it. Zombies were not really his thing, honestly, so he probably wouldn't do that. Yeah, this wasn't supposed to be 'fun', but if he could be put into any scenario imaginable, why go with one that made him groan and think about a pop culture flood a few years back?

What did he need to work on, though? He wasn't going to be taking the lead in missions, most likely. Being able to do stuff on his own was useful, of course. But it wasn't like he'd be totally cut off most of the time. Then again, practicing co-op stuff would be harder without having other agents around. Alice's AI was good but probably not 'flawlessly impersonate other people' good. Not yet, at least.

Okay, back to the point. "Something solo, maybe. Like...maybe just a good, hard fight. One baddie who is, uh, surprise me." Luke grinned and got into position for the simulation to start, arms crossed once more. He was almost definitely going to regret that last bit.

[Alice]

Alice chuckled to herself when she got the drop on him. That was always fun.

He'd given her some interesting parameters, and his reaction to her sudden appearance had given her an idea. "Solo mission, good, hard fight, surprise you. Got it."

She thought for a tick before she vanished and the room around Luke changed, transforming into a reasonably believable depiction of a city street outside of a multi-story office building. Simulated police officers already had a perimeter set up.

Luke's headset chirped and Alice started speaking to him from it. "Hostage situation. There are approximately 15 hostages spread over three floors. We've spotted only one suspect and we know he's powered, but we don't know what abilities he has. However, he's keeping tabs on all three floor somehow, so it's likely he's working with accomplices. Sending a layout to your HUD."

A wireframe map of the building appeared in his headset, out of the way so he could focus on the "real world" in front of him, but there so he could reference it. Luke would know that at a word he could have Alice move it so he could see different angles, zoom levels, that sort of thing. The fifteen hostages showed up on it as yellow dots.

"Heat mapping has given us an idea of where the hostages are, but we're unable to get a fix on our suspect or his accomplices. It's possible they may be wearing something to hide themselves from those type of scans."

Alice knew exactly what was going on, of course. But she had to make it interesting for Lycan.

"He's given unreasonable demands and said that he'll start killing hostages in twenty minutes. Clock's ticking!"

As a final touch she added a nice little countdown timer to his HUD. She did take one moment to give him an aside. "Really hope this is surprising enough for you. Think through your actions carefully. We can repeat this as many times as you'd like, but I'm going to make sure everything isn't quite the same each time. Have fun! I'll be here if you need me."

@lycan

[Deleted]

He'd get it in one. Hopefully.

"Thanks, Alice." Crossing his arms, Luke surveyed the outside of the building, then considered his entrance. It was an office building, with just the front door-not really an option-and a side door. There were five hostages on each floor, clustered together in the corners.

Right now, the trick right now was figuring out how to get the bad guys, however many there were, without them turning on the hostages. "Hmmm." From the map, on each floor the hostages had been ushered into one corner by the window, opposite the door. That made sense; there was no way he was getting in without getting spotted...

If he took the stairs. The window was roughly behind the hostages, and judging from the stony surface of the wall, he could...Hmm. This was...an idea? He could just climb up the outside and go in the wall. The trick would be doing it three times, without getting caught before he could take down the opposition.

Okay, plan of attack. Climb the wall, peek in the window, go in on them as needed. "Right..." Luke paused to steel himself, before approaching the side of the building. Digging his claws into the stone, he was glad to see that it was actually pretty soft. As far as stone goes. He could easily drive the sharp points into the face of the wall, and quickly began ascending.

It didn't take much time at all before he was high enough to see into the window of the first floor. Carefully, he peeked up above the windowsill, peering inside to survey the situation.

[Alice]

Inside, Luke would see three hostages bound and gagged, sitting against the far wall. Multiple desks, copiers, and other office accouterment littered the space, but otherwise it appeared to be empty.

"Be careful. I'm picking up movement on the floor above. It's spotty, but it's there. Nice entry, by the way."

Alice liked his approach. It was novel. She made one of the hostages murmur under their gag, and start to struggle, pleading with the hero with their eyes to come and let them go. It was time to see how Luke handled talking to civilians.

@lycan

[Deleted]

Luke smiled to himself at the praise. He was pretty proud of himself for his solution.

On the problem at hand, Luke couldn't see any enemies in the room, so he felt safe enough climbing through the window. He exchanged a glance with the hostage, who was, in fairness not unreasonably, a bit alarmed at the arrival of a 6' plus wolfman entering the room. He smiled sheepishly and crouched next to them.

"Shh." He whispered, his claws making quick work of the bindings. He let the hostages remove their own gags, though, figuring it would not be helpful to put his hands on their faces. Once they were free, Luke stepped back and moved to the window.

"Stairs should be clear, stay quiet." He instructed in a brisk, hushed tone. He observed the trio exiting the room, waited for a moment, and started out the window again. It worked once before, so he might as well try it again.

"Alice, three people heading out the stairs. Lemme know if you get a read on the guy." Luke started climbing once more. After the first attempt went so well, he was able to manage to the next floor much more easily.

Once again, he carefully poked his head up just enough to see into the room.

[Alice]

And Lycan climbed, just before his poked his head up, he would hear "Okay okay I need to go check on the hostages on the second floor... They brought in Aegis I gotta make sure they're not pulling something sneaky."

As he put his head up he would see a flash of smoke, and then nothing but another three hostages bound and gagged.

From below, he would hear the perpetrator shout "SHIT!" and start scrambling around, and something that sounded like air suddenly having to fill a vacuum that wasn't there before.

Alice figured it was time to start the combat phase of the simulation. She'd let him get inside, and by that point the perpetrator would have checked his remaining hostages on the last floor and would come back. The teleporter would blink in for a second, then try to get the drop on Lycan from behind.

"I hope you've been paying attention, Luke." Alice added before it all went down.

@lycan

[Deleted]

...Ohh. Well then. That explained something, at least. Luke assumed that this was why Alice couldn't get a bead on him.

As far as actually doing the mission, though, this new info was useful. He didn't really know how teleportation usually worked, but he figured it wasn't something he could do back-and-forth constantly, he hoped. That hopefully gave him at least a few seconds to get to the hostages.

Luke quickly heaved himself up over the windowsill and into the room, trying to keep his landing as quiet as possible despite his considerable mass. "Alice, he's got teleporting. Just so we're clear." He couldn't help but smirk to himself. Obviously, she knew the whole time; he wondered how long she'd been prepping this particular situation. It was a clever problem to give him, that was for sure. Now he just had to solve it.

"Okay..." Luke said under his breath. The guy knew Luke had gotten people out before. It was only a matter of time before he came back up here, right? Assuming he hadn't made too much of a racket coming in, Luke could hopefully get the jump on the hostile as soon as he...jumped back? Was that what they called it?

Anyway. "Alright, don't give me away." Luke said in a hushed tone to the people in the corner. He crouched and started undoing the bindings as quickly as he could, but in the meantime his ears pivoted slightly, listening for that weird sound the guy made when he left. As soon as he picked up on that, his plan was 'spin around and punch him in the face' or something like that.

Hopefully. He'd made good progress so far and getting himself 'killed' by now would suck.

[Alice]

The teleporter bamfed in, and got a solid smack to the nose. He quickly bamfed away and behind Lycan, trying to get a good grip on him for this fight.

"Who the heck are you, punk? You know who I am? I'm Duskcreeper. And you've made a mistake."

He hadn't really, not yet. It was battle banter. Duskcreeper was a villain Alice had pulled from the database. He was a d-lister, but had a similar powerset to a similarly named hero that operated out of a private school for powered people somewhere in upstate New York. Really, he wasn't that creative with the name, but his powers made him somewhat tricky to keep incarcerated.

Duskcreeper swung his fist, going to send a couple fists into Lycan's kidneys. Alice kept a close watch on how Lycan responded and got out of the hold he was in.

"If you want some tips I can give them to you before or after"

Duskcreeper bamfed up a floor with Lycan, trying to disorient him.

@lycan