Earthnet: {Pingback@Wingman.Comment String#"Resources allowed. Go ahead, Fred."
Fred: "Uhm, Mr. Neilsen? Amazing Spleen?"
The Amazing Spleen [Brad Neilsen]: "It's amazing. The grass is talking to me. You know that there's serious trouble at both your primary locations, right, Fred."
Fred: "It will take a few minutes before I'm certifying May for action. And I also anticipate you running ahead of your schedule if I sent your team to the Blue Ridge location right now. Let's talk about grass, instead."
Brad: "It, like, grows from the roots, you know. You can crop it and crop it, and it just keeps growing. And one day it gets long enough, and it flowers, and then there's pollen, and the...
Fred: "I am not unfamiliar with botanical science, Brad. Now, apparently your superpowers are evolving from from chemical control to life energy manipulation. Do you think that you can move a little higher on the lifeweb than grass? Channel me up something more useful? "
Brad: "Well, there's knotweed and trees... and a stallion. Oh, God. [Even on private chat you can read emotion in human comment. Or, at least you can if you're a 31st Century AI. And right now the emotion is frustration beyond reason. As Fred intended. Earthnet is fibbing when it says it lacks a clear picture of the bizarre events unfolding in a little corner of Grand Coulee Planetary Park. This conversation is about the Wingman Protocol.] Why did you make me go there? Why can't I stop thinking about Jennie? I haven't seen her in a year!"
Fred: "You see your friend, Vijay over there, chatting with May?"
Brad: "I wish I could be that smooth with girls."
Fred: "You don't have to be smooth with girls. You have to be what Jennie wants. And hard as it is for you to believe, you can do that."
Brad: "What do you mean?"
Fred: "You're not a stupid kid. So you know that I know that you know. Look: the point isn't to get a personality transplant. You're you, and Vijay is Vijay. It's to do and say what you need to say, when you need to say it. Hey, stallion!"
Brad: "I told you to stop reminding me of him! You're a robot. You don't know what it's like to be a nineteen year-old boy!"
Fred: "I'm not a robot. I'm an AI with more computing power than you can imagine. And I know exactly what I'm doing to you. What you're feeling right now, you're feeling for a reason. Now are you going to do something about them?"
Brad: "I...
Fred: "Stallion!"
***
Fred: " We have trouble developing at primary and secondary location, but Earthnet can't get a read on either. That's a worry. So far we have six hundred year-old zombies and modern Xenovores, who are outworld pirate scum lacking anything like the resources to operate on Earth. Earthnet tactical estimates ATRI 15 technology and some kind of magical praxis is at work here, and that adds up to an Omega-class threat. Unfortunately, it looks like you're about half an hour from being cleared for the Blue Ridges insertion. Anything you need to talk about in connection with getting one of your team impaled on Maraud's stinger, Ning?"
The Furious Fist (Ning Lee Wong): "You're saying that I've got some hang-ups, that I should let them all hang out?"
Fred: "Oh, now that's a ridiculous superstition. No, the only thing wrong with humans suppressing inappropriate emotions is that some of you don't do enough of it. This is something a little different. It's the part where you talk to a friend about girls."
Ning: "Friend? Girls?"
Fred: "You're not a stupid man, but let's pretend that you are for a moment. First, while it's technically a violation of the Federation Bill of Rights for EarthNet to stop running an instanced AI when it has resources to spare, I could ask to be shut down, or go do something else. I'm hanging out with you on private chat instead. Second, your crush Ma Tian is obvious even to fleshies. I lack the words to tell you how much more processing power I have. Certainly enough to tell that you have awesomely good taste. Look at what I found in an old Internet archive. "
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| I hope that Khulann Chulunn doesn't mind that I went looking for a pretty Mongolian actress with a prominent You know what? Never mind.... |
Ning: "She's so beautiful. [Henry Wong's voice is a deep tenor; but not right now. Now it cracks with passion.] And I recognise that sweater. When we fought at a grocery store once, one of the night staff was wearing one. I told her that she'd look even better in it than in her costume. Doesn't mean that I like her, though. She's an evil bitch."
Fred: "It's a well chosen picture. You're trying to read a message into it."
Ning: "Like everything she does I think is her trying to tell me something. Did she smile? Did she meet my eyes? It's all about me... Lord Buddha, I hate myself when I think like that."
Fred: "Enough with the self-loathing already. Ask yourself why you want her to be sending you messages."
Ning: "Well, it's obvious, isn't it? She's always telling me that I could fight beside her and be her khan if I were just strong enough."
Fred: "Sounds like she's coming on to you."
Ning: Oh, she thinks that she's some kind of immortal Buddhist nun, fighting to smooth the path for the Maitreya-Cakravartin. She can only make it with her guru, and only to achieve mindful enlightenment. Now, I think all that Mizong bull is just Yin Wu's pick-up line. And I think that she suspects it too. So there's that. But the cause she's fighting for is evil. I'll have no part in that kind of strength."
Fred: "So you're too noble to fall for her."
Ning: "I really am full of myself. And she's a manipulative Tatar bitch. But I can't help hoping that when she looks at him, she thinks of me. I'm such a...."
Fred: "And her celibacy must fail, because here are her daughters."
Ning: "Bad enough that Yin Wu has her fooled. But I can't think straight for imagining Uncle Kwan with his hands on her."
Fred: "So you think that she's a bimbo? That it could have been you?"
Ning: "NO! I don't blame anyone for being fooled by Uncle Kwan. He led two generations of my family to the grave, and everything I've done so far to stop his evil has just put more victims in his path. He's evil, and she's evil, or she wouldn't fall for him!" [Fred does not point out the contradiction.]
Fred: "You don't strike me as the self-pitying type, Ning, and this is not the time to start."
Ning: "There's nothing I can do. My future was foretold by Mardoom Thah: 'Wong Guangyao will die under the first spring moon after the House of Wong perishes from the Earth.' Uncle Kwan will have children by Ma Tien. And, for him, that's all the more reason to see her die in pain. Serves her right, too."
Fred: "Look at the face of that girl over there. You've already tried and failed to watch her die."
Ning: "She's just a girl. Who looks a lot more like her mother than her sister."
Fred: "Yes, she's a sweet --okay, a semi-sweet-- girl with a bright future ahead of her. But that's not what you were thinking when you summoned your Eight Dragon mastery to clear an entire battlefield to fight beside her half an hour ago. That face is chained to your heart."
Ning: "No!"
Fred: "Deny all you like, but listen to her accent. Do you honestly think that Ma Tian and Wong Guangyao were the people who raised her in Philadelphia?"
Ning: "Who else?"
Fred: "Be strong, Wong Heng Li. Admit your heart's feelings for Ma Tian, and you can save that girl, now and in the past, and let the future take care of itself."
Henry Wong [aka Ning Lee Wong]: "She can be my Avenging Daughter!" [There is passion in his voice, but also frustration, and that's as far as Fred needs to take it.]
EarthNet Instanced Crisis Control AI Partition "Fred": {server-to-server protocol 11AG6. 124.Earthnet.OfDef#Resourcesurrender@"Wingman: Executed."}
Earthnet: {Pingback@Wingman.Comment String#}: "The fleshies will get laid now?"
Reply@Fred: "Approaching 90% probability."
Earthnet: {Pingback@Wingman.Comment String2#}: "It will have to do. Inform the Furious Fist that his team is clear to beam into the Blue Ridge Anomaly."
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| Yet another mob, via lotrwikia |
I Really Should Think of a Codename Before I Die [Vijay Singh Kumar]: "I've been in more coherent D&D campaigns than this!"
Avenging Daughter [May Wong]: "You play D&D, Vijay?"
Vijay: "Oops."
May: "It's okay, you're still cute."
Fred: "Three for three!"
May: "What?"
Fred: "Er...Zombies, aliens, Orcs. Don't worry, it all makes sense. Fight now!"
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