TILT-Log 8: Doo Doo Doo Do Do Do Duh
Apr. 5th, 2024 12:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_dominion posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsJono and Ashley wake in the world of Super Mario
The first thing Jono really noticed was the pain. A consistent burning sensation that emanated from his chest and throat and made him feel nauseous. Could he even throw up? Was there even anything to throw up? He hadn’t needed to eat in over a year.
The second thing he noticed was the saturation of color and all the pipes. He blinked and turned to Ashley as he pulled out his light writer. “Mario?”
"Whuh?" Ashley scrubbed at her gritty eyes, and pushed tangled hair off her face. "That's a really green pipe." She sat up, and looked down at a landscape so lurid that it hurt to stare at. "That's a really green a lot of things. Mario is who?'' It took a moment for everything to fall into place. "Oh. Mario Mario, like the plumber. Yeah, it does give Mario here.'
Jono tried to move closer to her and had to take a pause after the first two steps. Is this what burning alive felt like? "Something's wrong."
"You think?" Ashley muttered as she got to her feet. "We're in Mushroom Land, it's so green I want to scream and you look like you've coming down off a bad club trip." She shook herself, and winced as her back twinged. "You sit down, you look like you're about to fall over." Even the ground under them was a shade of pure green, where it wasn't brown and strangely striped.
"Feels like the first time my powers again." Jono typed, not even realizing that he'd missed words. Everything hurt. Why did it feel like he was struggling to breathe? Why was he even breathing? He hadn't needed to breathe in over a year. "Not sure if sit can get up."
Ashley stumbled over to Jono. "I'm uncrushable, even if you explode..." Except her back was killing her, and her nose hurt, and her fingers hurt, and she was determined to push through, because she was supposed to be tough. The pain was probably a side effect of whatever knocked them out. She hoped. "Come on then, lets get you up and moving if you're not going to sit."
“Powers not right.” Jono typed, wincing as he tried to move. “Knew this was bad idea.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw something move and inwardly groaned, raising a hand to point to it, hoping Ashley could get a better look than him.
Ashley had gotten upright, one hand on her lower back, and followed Jono's arm towards the movement from behind a giant gaudy green pipe. "Is .. that?" She stumbled back a step and a mallet, cartoonish and comedic came hurtling past her face. "Run! I know that turtle!" She ignored the pain in her knees and got her shoulder under Jono and pushed up and was struck still as she couldn't push him upward. "Something is wrong here, and we need to run!"
The man-size turtle, green shell and black helmet and oversized dark grey boots jogged towards them, strangely slowly as another hammer came through the air. "We run, if we run they stop chasing us!" God she hoped she remembered this right, because everything hurt and Jono was sick and neither of those was supposed to happen.
Jono shoved his lightwriter back into his pocket and took a long, deep, painful breath before squaring his shoulders and pushing forward. In the distance he saw an even larger green pipe and tugged Ashley towards it. If he remembered correctly that was a way out of a level. Maybe it would get them out of the game?
The ground was easy to run, flat and even and even though Ashley huffed and her head and face felt tight and strange, she was a step behind Jono the whole way. She stumbled the last few steps towards the pipe, and cried out as the cartoonish hammer glanced off her shoulder, sending her head over heels into a tumble. Tears burned her eyes, and shock and surprise, and she got herself up as the turtle-man got closer, and she threw herself onto the lip of the pipe, and grabbed at Jono's hand to pull him up. "Something is so so wrong here, that shouldn't hurt." Her bare arm was already red with the start of what she thought might be the first bruise she could remember in a long, long time.
Jono shot her a look as if to say, ‘no shit,’ as he climbed up the pipe. This was a fucking nightmare. Of all the times to regret not listening to Quentin this was certainly one of them, being able to communicate would be great about now.
***
"You know the guy who created this is obsessed with re-arranging furniture in his house? I met him a few years ago. The guy - who basically created Nintendo from the ground up as a video game giant as opposed to a card making factory - walks around with a tape measure everywhere to see if he can correctly eyeball the dimensions of objects he passes and wakes up his wife at three am to shove a loveseat into a different spot." Arcade rubbed his chin. "Genius is the only think that makes him worth leaving alive. Amazing how that works."
***
Ashley couldn't help but think of the phrase ass over teakettle as she went down the pipe. It made the familiar sound, one she'd expected as it pulled her and Jono in. Unlike the games she was familiar with, this wasn't an instantaneous teleportation. They slid down an air-propelled slide, tumbling over each other until it spilled them out, landing on another flat grassy plain.
She picked her head up, and groaned and rubbed at the scrapes along her arms. She absolutely did not want to say it out loud, because saying things made them real and she and Jono already both knew and she couldn't help herself. The words spilled out of her, landing as awkwardly as she just had a moment before. "Our powers are broken. I'm not supposed to get hurt." Getting her feet under her was just as difficult as it had been when she woke up, and it hurt the entire time and she still did, getting up and offering Jono a hand.
Jono took her hand and used it to haul himself up, wincing with each movement. He didn't bother pulling out the light writer, there really wasn't any point in stalling long enough to type what he was thinking, but even still, he didn't think his powers had ever not been broken. Once up, he grabbed her wrist and started tugging her in what seemed to be the right direction. The sooner they got out of here, the better.
"Nothing broken?" They were running, it probably meant nothing broken, and it was silly to ask someone who couldn't talk questions, but it was better than stumble-running in silence.
The 'run' plan was great right up until the ground gave way to a drop off. Ashley glanced over the edge, and was unsurprised to see magma, or something just like magma, complete with a blast of hot air that send her hopping back awkwardly. Above the boiling lava was a platform made of faceted metal, patrolled by a mushroom shaped creature. It was assuredly mechanical, they could hear the mechanical whirrings under the piped-in familiar Mario music, and just like the video game, it moved in a pattern. It shuffled to the edge of the platform, waited, turned and traveled to the far end, and then repeated.
"How are we supposed to even get there?" She didnt' quite expect an answer from Jono, and absolutely hadn't expected one from the game they were trapped in, but the ground Ashley was standing on pulled back and slide on rollers inside a hidden hill, to reveal trampoline material patterned exactly like the grass they had been standing on.
Jono pointed towards the trampoline even though he’d really much rather have let the mushroom kill him. At this stage he wasn’t about to let Ashley stay in here alone- even if he wasn’t much use.
"I hate everything and everyone." Ashley muttered. The robotic Goomba moved along an exact pattern, and as she mentally prepared herself for the absurdity ahead, she noticed it was moving in time with the music. Not a dance, at all but the path it traveled began and ended at the same time, in sync with the background music that had been playing.
"I think...' She started. "I think we're going to have to smash it, like in the game. I think if we don't it'll push us into the lava." She whistled the familiar Mario music, and pointed at the robot. "And it's on the beat. So if we time it right.. I think if we time it right, we're Mario. We land on it. Or ... one of us does."
If she had her powers - the strength she'd started hating and still mostly hated, minus a few glorious moments in the Danger Room, she could've thrown Jono at it. But... She stepped onto the trampoline and gave a few cautious bounces. She was heavier than Jono - who wasn't she heavier than? The gap wasn't -that- wide...
"I can't. I don't think I can get across and land on it."
Jono inwardly sighed and then pointed at himself and nodded. He understood her subtext. If it wasn't going to be her, it had to be him- there were only two of them after all. Truth be told he wasn't sure that he could make it either, but it was worth a try.
He got on the trampoline and started cautiously bouncing to the beat, waiting for the right moment to launch himself across the ravine. He'd never been very good at math beyond counting to four (and sometimes seven if he was really feeling an odd time signature) but he knew music and the timing that came with it and when the moment felt right he jumped.
As Jono jumped, Ashley did too, and the combined momentum sent him over the gap, and on top of the mushroom shaped robot. It made a two-tone noise of defeat and collapsed into itself, accordioning down to only a few inches high, and scuttled towards Ashley, and over the edge.
She expected it to fall into the lava, but it only dropped a few inches, landed stuck between the trampoline and the platform, flattened feet wiggling madly. Ashley bit back a giggle, now was not the time, there really was lava under them, and she crawled over the thing and hauled herself up on the platform. "That doesn't happen in the game." She looked back over the edge. "This is Mario but it's not following the game, or it's a Mario game I never played." And her dad had most of them, even the weird second one you had to import from Japan. "But I guess we look for power ups and mushrooms? Super stars? I don't think we're going to get lucky enough for a tanuki leaf..."
Jono felt...like shit. Everything had hurt before but now it was worse- the burning sensation was radiating deeper into his muscle and he felt lightheaded. Instead of trying to type, Jono merely pointed down the path and then tried to grab Ashely by the wrist and pull her out. wherever they were, he didn't want to stick around.
The further they went, the more of the strange pipes dotted the platform, never more than the pair could climb over easily, but more and more as they traveled. Ashley clambered over one, and dropped down further than she'd expected, the new platform was a good ten feet lower than the first. She winced as she got herself back up, and yelled to warn Jono as he came over the edge.
Then she saw the question blocks a few yards ahead, and gave a grunt of disapproval. "I don't even want to know twisted nonsense is in those but I think we're going to have to find out." She set her shoulders and strode forward. "Better be a star. I want my toughness back." She leapt, one fist up and punched the block.
The flower that fell out landed on Jono and panic rose immediately in his chest. Before it consumed him from the inside he pulled down his scarf and bandages, revealing the gaping hole where his jaw and neck should be and prepared for the heat to rise up out of him in waves, he turned away from Ashley just in case. Unlike the usual consistent roar of flames, they came out in fireballs that hurtled towards whatever he was facing. How did this keep getting worse? What exactly had he done to make the universe hate him this much?
Ashley had one glimpse of the raw insides of Jono Starsmore, and had to gulp back bile - and then guilt - before he turned away. He hadn't chosen that, he would be horrified if she threw up and there were Koopa Troopers heading towards them. Three turtles in goggles, all in a row, jogging towards them, scaled feet clacking in unison. She screamed, and grabbed Jono's shoulders. "At the TURTLES! Aim for the TURTLES!"
A fireball belched out of his chest, and hit one of the Koopa Troopers and it did not scream, it disappeared into it's shell. The shell, unfortunately did not follow into disappearance, or flop off the side like the Goombah had. It launched itself towards Ashley and Jono. Ashley had barely enough time to react, instinct took over, and she punched the the second of the question blocks. "please be a star please be a star please be a star' she muttered.
It was not. It was, unfortunately for Ashley, a mushroom. One that skidded across the blocks and as she backed away, it tipped off the edge and smacked her right in the chest. She'd half expected it to feel plastic, or maybe metallic but like a real mushroom it was squishy, and slightly damp. She bent, picked it up - and let out an uncomfortable groan as it did exactly what she'd expected.
Ashley grew, painfully and quickly, every joint and tendon on fire. Her pants ripped at the thighs, her shirt seams stretched thin and frayed, showing the yellow under-garment that kept her still new strength in check. She grunted as she bumped her head on the last of the blocks, which spat out a golden coin and another and another and another, landing at her feet. . "That's racist!" She yelled at an unnaturally smooth blue sky, dotted with pure white pixelated clouds even as she kicked the shell back towards the last two Koopas. It shot off, incredibly fast, and tore through the remaining turtle enemies, and then bounced back towards the pair.
Jono lurched to the side, narrowly missing the turtle shell. He hated this. He hated this so much. Angrily, he flipped off the shell before forcing his aching body to move towards Ashley. He was going to make sure they got out of here or die trying.
Ashley was not quite as fast, and the turtle shell crashed into her. There was a metallic tune, slightly-off key and Ashley fell to her knees, shrinking back down almost instantly to her normal height. She had grown and shrunk and her shoes were destroyed and her shirt torn and in one hand was the stray shell. She used it to get to her feet, spat out something harsh and threw it at a stack of brickblocks, screaming a guttural cry. It skipped like a stone along the smooth platform, and hit the bricks, and one byone they all exploded into tinier bricks, and then even tinier ones, revealing another of the green pipes that they had slid through. "Oh, not again, no no no...' and yet she set her shoulders, pulled her shirt back on her shoulders, and took Jono's hand.
"I'll go first and cover you. If I can take a stupid Koopa shell to the tits, I can take anything." She hoped.
***
"Mutant! It's a mu-"
This staggering insight was terminated by a keyboard flung directly into the speaker's face. As the man reeled, his assailant pivoted to the next terminal in a flurry of purple hair and lashing tail.
"This is important?" Sharon asked innocently, clicking around the open program at random. While the video feeds were self-explanatory none of the commands she saw meant anything to her. Fortunately, these appeared to be death traps. What could a wrong choice do, kill them more?
"Yes, am sure I wish to disable," Sharon said to the prompt as she selected the appropriate option. Behind her someone was groaning. She ignored it.
There was a mug of coffee to her left. Instinctively, Sharon reached out with her free hand and pushed it off the side of the desk.
***
The first thing Jono really noticed was the pain. A consistent burning sensation that emanated from his chest and throat and made him feel nauseous. Could he even throw up? Was there even anything to throw up? He hadn’t needed to eat in over a year.
The second thing he noticed was the saturation of color and all the pipes. He blinked and turned to Ashley as he pulled out his light writer. “Mario?”
"Whuh?" Ashley scrubbed at her gritty eyes, and pushed tangled hair off her face. "That's a really green pipe." She sat up, and looked down at a landscape so lurid that it hurt to stare at. "That's a really green a lot of things. Mario is who?'' It took a moment for everything to fall into place. "Oh. Mario Mario, like the plumber. Yeah, it does give Mario here.'
Jono tried to move closer to her and had to take a pause after the first two steps. Is this what burning alive felt like? "Something's wrong."
"You think?" Ashley muttered as she got to her feet. "We're in Mushroom Land, it's so green I want to scream and you look like you've coming down off a bad club trip." She shook herself, and winced as her back twinged. "You sit down, you look like you're about to fall over." Even the ground under them was a shade of pure green, where it wasn't brown and strangely striped.
"Feels like the first time my powers again." Jono typed, not even realizing that he'd missed words. Everything hurt. Why did it feel like he was struggling to breathe? Why was he even breathing? He hadn't needed to breathe in over a year. "Not sure if sit can get up."
Ashley stumbled over to Jono. "I'm uncrushable, even if you explode..." Except her back was killing her, and her nose hurt, and her fingers hurt, and she was determined to push through, because she was supposed to be tough. The pain was probably a side effect of whatever knocked them out. She hoped. "Come on then, lets get you up and moving if you're not going to sit."
“Powers not right.” Jono typed, wincing as he tried to move. “Knew this was bad idea.”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw something move and inwardly groaned, raising a hand to point to it, hoping Ashley could get a better look than him.
Ashley had gotten upright, one hand on her lower back, and followed Jono's arm towards the movement from behind a giant gaudy green pipe. "Is .. that?" She stumbled back a step and a mallet, cartoonish and comedic came hurtling past her face. "Run! I know that turtle!" She ignored the pain in her knees and got her shoulder under Jono and pushed up and was struck still as she couldn't push him upward. "Something is wrong here, and we need to run!"
The man-size turtle, green shell and black helmet and oversized dark grey boots jogged towards them, strangely slowly as another hammer came through the air. "We run, if we run they stop chasing us!" God she hoped she remembered this right, because everything hurt and Jono was sick and neither of those was supposed to happen.
Jono shoved his lightwriter back into his pocket and took a long, deep, painful breath before squaring his shoulders and pushing forward. In the distance he saw an even larger green pipe and tugged Ashley towards it. If he remembered correctly that was a way out of a level. Maybe it would get them out of the game?
The ground was easy to run, flat and even and even though Ashley huffed and her head and face felt tight and strange, she was a step behind Jono the whole way. She stumbled the last few steps towards the pipe, and cried out as the cartoonish hammer glanced off her shoulder, sending her head over heels into a tumble. Tears burned her eyes, and shock and surprise, and she got herself up as the turtle-man got closer, and she threw herself onto the lip of the pipe, and grabbed at Jono's hand to pull him up. "Something is so so wrong here, that shouldn't hurt." Her bare arm was already red with the start of what she thought might be the first bruise she could remember in a long, long time.
Jono shot her a look as if to say, ‘no shit,’ as he climbed up the pipe. This was a fucking nightmare. Of all the times to regret not listening to Quentin this was certainly one of them, being able to communicate would be great about now.
***
"You know the guy who created this is obsessed with re-arranging furniture in his house? I met him a few years ago. The guy - who basically created Nintendo from the ground up as a video game giant as opposed to a card making factory - walks around with a tape measure everywhere to see if he can correctly eyeball the dimensions of objects he passes and wakes up his wife at three am to shove a loveseat into a different spot." Arcade rubbed his chin. "Genius is the only think that makes him worth leaving alive. Amazing how that works."
***
Ashley couldn't help but think of the phrase ass over teakettle as she went down the pipe. It made the familiar sound, one she'd expected as it pulled her and Jono in. Unlike the games she was familiar with, this wasn't an instantaneous teleportation. They slid down an air-propelled slide, tumbling over each other until it spilled them out, landing on another flat grassy plain.
She picked her head up, and groaned and rubbed at the scrapes along her arms. She absolutely did not want to say it out loud, because saying things made them real and she and Jono already both knew and she couldn't help herself. The words spilled out of her, landing as awkwardly as she just had a moment before. "Our powers are broken. I'm not supposed to get hurt." Getting her feet under her was just as difficult as it had been when she woke up, and it hurt the entire time and she still did, getting up and offering Jono a hand.
Jono took her hand and used it to haul himself up, wincing with each movement. He didn't bother pulling out the light writer, there really wasn't any point in stalling long enough to type what he was thinking, but even still, he didn't think his powers had ever not been broken. Once up, he grabbed her wrist and started tugging her in what seemed to be the right direction. The sooner they got out of here, the better.
"Nothing broken?" They were running, it probably meant nothing broken, and it was silly to ask someone who couldn't talk questions, but it was better than stumble-running in silence.
The 'run' plan was great right up until the ground gave way to a drop off. Ashley glanced over the edge, and was unsurprised to see magma, or something just like magma, complete with a blast of hot air that send her hopping back awkwardly. Above the boiling lava was a platform made of faceted metal, patrolled by a mushroom shaped creature. It was assuredly mechanical, they could hear the mechanical whirrings under the piped-in familiar Mario music, and just like the video game, it moved in a pattern. It shuffled to the edge of the platform, waited, turned and traveled to the far end, and then repeated.
"How are we supposed to even get there?" She didnt' quite expect an answer from Jono, and absolutely hadn't expected one from the game they were trapped in, but the ground Ashley was standing on pulled back and slide on rollers inside a hidden hill, to reveal trampoline material patterned exactly like the grass they had been standing on.
Jono pointed towards the trampoline even though he’d really much rather have let the mushroom kill him. At this stage he wasn’t about to let Ashley stay in here alone- even if he wasn’t much use.
"I hate everything and everyone." Ashley muttered. The robotic Goomba moved along an exact pattern, and as she mentally prepared herself for the absurdity ahead, she noticed it was moving in time with the music. Not a dance, at all but the path it traveled began and ended at the same time, in sync with the background music that had been playing.
"I think...' She started. "I think we're going to have to smash it, like in the game. I think if we don't it'll push us into the lava." She whistled the familiar Mario music, and pointed at the robot. "And it's on the beat. So if we time it right.. I think if we time it right, we're Mario. We land on it. Or ... one of us does."
If she had her powers - the strength she'd started hating and still mostly hated, minus a few glorious moments in the Danger Room, she could've thrown Jono at it. But... She stepped onto the trampoline and gave a few cautious bounces. She was heavier than Jono - who wasn't she heavier than? The gap wasn't -that- wide...
"I can't. I don't think I can get across and land on it."
Jono inwardly sighed and then pointed at himself and nodded. He understood her subtext. If it wasn't going to be her, it had to be him- there were only two of them after all. Truth be told he wasn't sure that he could make it either, but it was worth a try.
He got on the trampoline and started cautiously bouncing to the beat, waiting for the right moment to launch himself across the ravine. He'd never been very good at math beyond counting to four (and sometimes seven if he was really feeling an odd time signature) but he knew music and the timing that came with it and when the moment felt right he jumped.
As Jono jumped, Ashley did too, and the combined momentum sent him over the gap, and on top of the mushroom shaped robot. It made a two-tone noise of defeat and collapsed into itself, accordioning down to only a few inches high, and scuttled towards Ashley, and over the edge.
She expected it to fall into the lava, but it only dropped a few inches, landed stuck between the trampoline and the platform, flattened feet wiggling madly. Ashley bit back a giggle, now was not the time, there really was lava under them, and she crawled over the thing and hauled herself up on the platform. "That doesn't happen in the game." She looked back over the edge. "This is Mario but it's not following the game, or it's a Mario game I never played." And her dad had most of them, even the weird second one you had to import from Japan. "But I guess we look for power ups and mushrooms? Super stars? I don't think we're going to get lucky enough for a tanuki leaf..."
Jono felt...like shit. Everything had hurt before but now it was worse- the burning sensation was radiating deeper into his muscle and he felt lightheaded. Instead of trying to type, Jono merely pointed down the path and then tried to grab Ashely by the wrist and pull her out. wherever they were, he didn't want to stick around.
The further they went, the more of the strange pipes dotted the platform, never more than the pair could climb over easily, but more and more as they traveled. Ashley clambered over one, and dropped down further than she'd expected, the new platform was a good ten feet lower than the first. She winced as she got herself back up, and yelled to warn Jono as he came over the edge.
Then she saw the question blocks a few yards ahead, and gave a grunt of disapproval. "I don't even want to know twisted nonsense is in those but I think we're going to have to find out." She set her shoulders and strode forward. "Better be a star. I want my toughness back." She leapt, one fist up and punched the block.
The flower that fell out landed on Jono and panic rose immediately in his chest. Before it consumed him from the inside he pulled down his scarf and bandages, revealing the gaping hole where his jaw and neck should be and prepared for the heat to rise up out of him in waves, he turned away from Ashley just in case. Unlike the usual consistent roar of flames, they came out in fireballs that hurtled towards whatever he was facing. How did this keep getting worse? What exactly had he done to make the universe hate him this much?
Ashley had one glimpse of the raw insides of Jono Starsmore, and had to gulp back bile - and then guilt - before he turned away. He hadn't chosen that, he would be horrified if she threw up and there were Koopa Troopers heading towards them. Three turtles in goggles, all in a row, jogging towards them, scaled feet clacking in unison. She screamed, and grabbed Jono's shoulders. "At the TURTLES! Aim for the TURTLES!"
A fireball belched out of his chest, and hit one of the Koopa Troopers and it did not scream, it disappeared into it's shell. The shell, unfortunately did not follow into disappearance, or flop off the side like the Goombah had. It launched itself towards Ashley and Jono. Ashley had barely enough time to react, instinct took over, and she punched the the second of the question blocks. "please be a star please be a star please be a star' she muttered.
It was not. It was, unfortunately for Ashley, a mushroom. One that skidded across the blocks and as she backed away, it tipped off the edge and smacked her right in the chest. She'd half expected it to feel plastic, or maybe metallic but like a real mushroom it was squishy, and slightly damp. She bent, picked it up - and let out an uncomfortable groan as it did exactly what she'd expected.
Ashley grew, painfully and quickly, every joint and tendon on fire. Her pants ripped at the thighs, her shirt seams stretched thin and frayed, showing the yellow under-garment that kept her still new strength in check. She grunted as she bumped her head on the last of the blocks, which spat out a golden coin and another and another and another, landing at her feet. . "That's racist!" She yelled at an unnaturally smooth blue sky, dotted with pure white pixelated clouds even as she kicked the shell back towards the last two Koopas. It shot off, incredibly fast, and tore through the remaining turtle enemies, and then bounced back towards the pair.
Jono lurched to the side, narrowly missing the turtle shell. He hated this. He hated this so much. Angrily, he flipped off the shell before forcing his aching body to move towards Ashley. He was going to make sure they got out of here or die trying.
Ashley was not quite as fast, and the turtle shell crashed into her. There was a metallic tune, slightly-off key and Ashley fell to her knees, shrinking back down almost instantly to her normal height. She had grown and shrunk and her shoes were destroyed and her shirt torn and in one hand was the stray shell. She used it to get to her feet, spat out something harsh and threw it at a stack of brickblocks, screaming a guttural cry. It skipped like a stone along the smooth platform, and hit the bricks, and one byone they all exploded into tinier bricks, and then even tinier ones, revealing another of the green pipes that they had slid through. "Oh, not again, no no no...' and yet she set her shoulders, pulled her shirt back on her shoulders, and took Jono's hand.
"I'll go first and cover you. If I can take a stupid Koopa shell to the tits, I can take anything." She hoped.
***
"Mutant! It's a mu-"
This staggering insight was terminated by a keyboard flung directly into the speaker's face. As the man reeled, his assailant pivoted to the next terminal in a flurry of purple hair and lashing tail.
"This is important?" Sharon asked innocently, clicking around the open program at random. While the video feeds were self-explanatory none of the commands she saw meant anything to her. Fortunately, these appeared to be death traps. What could a wrong choice do, kill them more?
"Yes, am sure I wish to disable," Sharon said to the prompt as she selected the appropriate option. Behind her someone was groaning. She ignored it.
There was a mug of coffee to her left. Instinctively, Sharon reached out with her free hand and pushed it off the side of the desk.
***
