Dennis Cain or the new found nick name he came up with Demrius was sitting in a coffee shop when some one ran in screaming about some kind of spider or something."Where is it?." He asked the hysterical man ,who was sweating and looked as if he in the midst of a panic attack."I...its out in the street.." He stood up and ran outside, running in the back of the little shop to change into his black sleeveless hooded body suit with an dark orange bull on the front and lines on the side and black cargo pants with the same lines running down the length of the legs.

Dennis continued to until hearing something outer worldly, and ran in the direction of the sound, only to find Green streak standing in front of the giant spider."Whoa..where did he come from?" Dennis's arms were suddenly coated in a thick layer of bone like armor all the way up to where his sleeves stopped. His tree trunk legs ready holding his near 8 and a half foot frame in place ,as he waited to see how this turned out.

Tink was embarrassed. "Of coahrse. Not the best costume to be wearing in these circumstances, is it?" She slipped off her jetpack, undid her belt, then slipped off the lab coat, revealing a orange, business-like skirt suit. She left the labcoat lying on the grass, and picked up the belt and the jet pack, fastening each in place again.

Tink's voice grew hard, her Georgia accent thicker, as she moved between the guards and the spider. "This became a public matteh when ya'll let this critter get loose. And maybe it should've been a public matteh befoah that." Her right hand was now on the handle of her blaster. It had been a long time since she'd last learned EdenTech had made a sapient creature, but it had happened before...

Greenstreak was about to grab all of the EdenTech weapons using super speed, but doesn't as he watches them being levitated into the air.

"And if it's sapient, regardless of why, it don't go inna cage 'less'n it's under arrest, and it ain't NO ONE'S PROPERTY." As her volume rose, her hand briefly went back to the handle of her blaster, the dark chocolate color of her skin contrasting with the blue-grey metal and the white plastic. Her voice calmed a bit. "Ah'm willin to take Psilence's word for whether it's sapient or not. Sound good to you?"

"Well, that takes care of them." Dennis said as they finally decided not to attack the spider anymore and turned to the other heroes."So, what now?"

Tink relaxed and turned her full attention back to the spider. "Now we wait for Psilence to give us his two dollars worth. Then comes the hard part."

I'll try and catch it! You all stay here to figure out what just caused that!"Dennis rushed after the spider, once standing up from the assault of being run over, only to roll back up to his feet and run after the spider, he jumped high into the air and dropped onto its rear, grabbing onto its two rear legs."Calm down spider, you no killer." He was tugging back and considering how the spider was just the right size, to properly get a grip on, and at least attempt to control.

Dennis, was flailing around while he was being webbed, climbing up the spiders abdomen ,with one arm as the other was pinned to his side, only to finally break free from the webbing, with both of his arms grasping around the spiders abdomen."Christ that's some tough stuff." He said referring to the webbing.

After scanning the area where the spider had been standing, Tinker Belle moved along its path, pausing to pick up her lab coat as she passed the stop she had been standing.

Unable to find any incriminating evidence other than memories of communication with a voice using a secret comm device, there wasn't much else. He released his hold on Bruno's mind, then telekinetically reached behind his ear and snatched the comm device, pocketing it for later. He also floated the super-taser off the guard's belt and slipped it into a pouch on his belt.

Psilence hovered into the air and followed the rest of the heroes tracking the spider's path. He soon caught up to Tinker Belle and he floated along beside her. "What do you call yourself and do you know any of the other heroes?" he asked, his voice still a bit cold from dealing with the rogue guard.

He nodded to her. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Tinker Belle. As I said earlier, I call myself Psilence, with a silent P. I am a telepath and telekine." he said, anticipating the usual questions about his abilities.

"So you did. Ah guess Ah'm paying more attention to looking for this dart - and this might be it! - than to who's talking to me. Sorry about that." She pulled a pair of tweezers from a pocket of her belt and picked up a tiny dart with four prongs. She examined it with her goggles, taking pictures from various angles. "Looks sorta familiar." The dart went into an evidence bag.

"Yeap, that'd be it. And that comm could be real useful..." Tink pulled out a bag lined with a copper mesh and pulled a cable out of it, leaving one end inside and plugging the other into her headset. "Can you drop that comm in here, please?"

Tink brought out a regular evidence bag for the taser, which she then sealed and put into another belt pouch. Then, feeling through the mesh of the bag with the comm in it, she activated the comm and spoke into it. [I]"'Twas brillig and the slithy toves were whooping it up in the Malemute Saloon, and the kid that handled the music box did gyre and gimble in the wabe, and back of the bar in a solo game all mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgabe the lady that's known as Lou."[/I]*

The bag permitted the sound to reach the comm, but only allowed its signal to exit through the cable, where it was routed to a fairly sophisticated computer that quickly identified the type of encryption, although actually cracking it (even with a known input) would take a while. But this was enough for Stage Two. Tink put the cable back into the bag, and put the bag into the same pouch as the taser. She set up a filter to identify other transmissions using the same type of encryption. "Going up!" Rising about 15 meters on her jetpack, she used her comm system to find any other transmissions that were similar in frequency, modulation type, and using the same type of encryption. They might have changed channels, and they might have switched to a different encryption formula, but it was not likely that a tiny comm like that could support a wide range of frequencies or encryption techniques.

Of course, if they had good communications discipline, it might still be a while...

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(OOC: *"The Shooting of Dan McJabberwock", as quoted in H. Beam Piper's "Naudsonce".)

Once Tinker Belle had the two pieces of tech, Psilence turned back to the task of following the giant spider. When he reached out with his telepathy, he could still just barely feel the presence of its unique mind. He flew off in that direction. As he drew closer, the feeling grew stronger and he soon found himself orbiting a parking structure on the edge of Progress Park.

Psilence focused in on the spider's presence, attempting to track it passively.

Psilence hovered down into the parking structure's entrance and descended down the ramp until he reached the lowest level. Unfortunately, that was about as far as his passive detection would take him. He couldn't narrow down his search area any farther without actively probing for the spider's mind. He looked around the expansive deck and began floating down the center row slowly. The night hours lighting was active, so only every other fluorescent light was lit.

Stopping in the dead center of the level, Psilence cleared his throat and spoke. "Hello, my young friend. I don't know if you can understand me, but I do not wish you harm. I wish to be able to communicate with you. Show yourself, please."

At the same time as he spoke, Psilence reached out with his mind, his probe the equivalent of tapping someone on the shoulder to get their attention.

As Tinker Belle approached the address, she observed the police setting up their blockade. They must not have realized they were dealing with a remote...

By now she had identified enough of the signal to add her own messages to the datastream coming from the remote. The operator might ignore it, but that would be up to him.

The text read: "Tinker Belle to Operator. Police are settling in for a siege. Please take a moment to explain why I should not jam your command stream to prevent further property damage."

Tink considered what she would have done in such a situation, while monitoring the police and emergency frequencies to confirm (or refute) the operator's claims of restraint. But the actions of the police suggested that they knew of no fatalities; if they did they would be moving in much more aggressively.

She sent a new message: "Police are still waiting outside. Take your time, do it right. Are you aware of giant spider on the loose?"

She didn't really expect the operator to know anything more than that it was, or to admit it if he did, but the question still needed to be asked.

The woman who answered didn't have nearly as much Georgia in her accent as Tinker Belle had, but someone with a good ear for such things might still notice it. Someone with a very good ear might realize it was the same woman. "Yes, I'm Millie O'Brian. What's your project?"

"Well, that's almost as good as a success, from a scientific point of view." Millie paused for a moment, considering. "I have some free time this afternoon. Can you come out to our lab?" She gave him the address; it was on the eastern edge of the NERD. "And what was your name again?"

She looked around the lab. There wasn't anything sensitive out in plain view, and it wasn't as if she'd invited a perfect stranger over, after all. Still, she also checked her security system...

"Sounds good, Mr. Price. See you then." Millie ended the call and considered what she would need if the project had turned out the way she suspected. She started moving equipment out of the way of the wall screen.

From the outside, to the Mark One Eyeball, the M&O:AE&G lab looked much like any other independent lab. Brick and mortar over a steel frame, windows at the front where the office was, and cameras covering the approaches. Like many other labs in the NERD, it also had less obvious security. The whole building was a Faraday cage; a transceiver on the outside provided a connection with wireless networks. The windows were double paned, both for thermal and sonic insulation. Other systems were even less obvious, at least while they were inactive.

A Mini Hatch, marked with the company logo, was in the small parking lot when Eric pulled in. As he approached the building, a woman in her late twenties, with dark reddish-brown hair and skin like chocolate, opened the door and introduced herself. "Eric Price, I presume? I'm Millie O'Brian. Come in, have a seat. Would you like some coffee while we talk?"

Inside the front office, three desks formed a table, with the desk closest to the front door being clear except for a monitor screen. The other two desks, facing each other, had a variety of high-tech office gadgets on them, including a coffee maker, and at the far side straddling the place where those two desks met was a family portrait: Millie, a blonde woman about her age, a young woman in her late teens and two girls about six years old, with the latter three looking like sisters and features that argued a family relationship with both of the older women. An artist's rendition of a building under a geodesic dome was on one wall, on the opposite wall were several framed diplomas, for both Millicent S. O'Brian and Marianne M. Morrison. A GED for one Alexandra Irene Morrison-O'Brian, dated in March of 2014, was in the middle of these. Beyond the desks, there was a door marked "Laboratory".

Millie looked at the matrix, wondering if it had any USB or other standard interface ports. "We have gear here, and I'm sure that what we don't have we can make. Or commission from someone else. But that last one is the big one. Why is that part of you unsure? And is that functioning right now, or is it like a computer without power?"

"That's a relief. I think sensory deprivation is a leading cause of the 'crazy A.I.s' you hear about." Millie checked the ports, then gently set the device down. "The baby on your doorstep is a good analogy, I think. Except that if you don't feel up to the responsibility, you can take more time trying to find someone who is. If you do decide to raise this baby, and I think I can speak for my partner in this as well, we'd be happy to help out, where we can."

"I wonder if she'll accept that name. Or that gender. Depends on how accurate the scan was, I guess." Millie took a sip of her own coffee.

"If I were in your shoes right now - and I was, almost, February just past - I'd prepare a simulated environment. Connect her, wake her up, find out what kind of body she wants, and keep her sane while you get it ready for her."

Millie stood and turned toward the Laboratory door. "If it's a lab you need, you've come to the right place." She opened the door, toed the doorstop down, then picked up the Matrix. "Let's see what we can do for you. And for her."

The lab was divided into several rooms connected by a hallway. Windows revealed a machine shop, a chemistry lab, a small ring accelerator... Millie led Eric to the robotics lab and propped the door open. One wall was covered by a large flat video screen, and other equipment was less obvious. "If biomorphism isn't an issue, we'd be making most of the body over in the machine shop. But if she wants to look human, or mostly human, some people find Lexi to be in the Uncanny Valley, others don't realize she's different until she tells them, and I'm getting off topic...We've got the capability to make a fairly realistic humanoid body." She set the Matrix down on a table, then booted up a large computer. underneath it. "Or, we might be able to reverse engineer your adaptive nanites..."

Millie's cell phone rang, Freezepop's [url=https://duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Da3EHBPsTMW8]Science Genius Girl[/url], and she answered it. "Hey, Scottie...Yes, he's here, it's not quite the situation we thought, but close enough...I'll be there by six...Bye, love!" She put her phone away as the wall screen lit up. "My partner, letting me know she got the twins home from school." She turned to face the wall screen, that now showed a feminine but clearly CGI face. "Good afternoon, Casey. Are you sapient yet?" The face on the screen answered, "No, not yet. Are you?" Millie turned back to Eric. "Lexi's sense of humor. She thought the login screen was boring. Any, nanotech is the Pandora's box of our time. It can do so much for us, or so much to us. So far, we've only worked with it in constructing materials, or as a material. Like our own artificial muscles." She opened a box on a shelf, withdrawing one of the spare leg muscles they'd made for Lexi.