Turn 4

--- Maya ---

(Bolts for the bolt throne!)

She paused halfway into a new box. “What the fuck was that?”

(I don’t know it just felt appropriate.)

She waited a moment, hoping for a little more elaboration, before finally shaking her head. (I don’t have time for my crazy’s crazy.)

(Hey, I resemble that remark!)

Choosing to ignore her more deranged self, she continued her search through the basement for parts she could use to improve her tech. After all she’d burned through the majority of her stash of electronics when piecing together her Hand Cannon and her COMP upgrades.

And as luck -or her father’s apparent hoarding tendencies- would have it, she’d managed to find a box that was full of a number of old handheld consoles that had been thrown away over the years. Admittedly they were more plastic than useable parts, but the sheer quantity of parts was more than enough to make up for their lacking quantity.

As she hefted the box up to carry it back to her room, she stubbed her toe on a piece of metal sticking out from under a pile of random junk.

(Motherfucker that stings!)

“I know!”

Dropping the box of already broken electronics, she kicked aside the junk pile to reveal what appeared to be a car part of some kind.

“Why the fuck is this even down here?!” She asked the air around her, something that would typically not get a response but given her mental state- “Now is not the time for sass!”

(I don’t know I’m feeling kind of sassy.)

Shaking her head in irritation, she tugged the piece of scrap metal out of the pile and began considering what to do with it.

(Set it on fire and laugh maniacally!)

“That’s kind of pointless to something that doesn’t feel pain.” She pointed out bitterly.

(True, but a good maniacal laugh will make you feel better.)

“Maybe later…” She commented, thinking if any of her inventions had a need for a large quantity of metal.

Now usually due to her coding specialty, she only really needed circuitry and electronic bits to work with. Unfortunately, this meant that while all of her current equipment was compatible with her programs on some level, they were also largely undefended, and easily broken under a heavy enough impact.

(Like a computer without the casing…)

She tossed the metal in her hands a bit, while she currently lacked the tools to really make use of the metal, that didn’t change the fact that if she wanted to make bigger things, she needed stronger materials to tack it onto. And even if she couldn’t use the parts now, there was no reason she couldn’t start stocking up for later.

(I guess that means I should keep the plastic bits of these consoles too…) She figured, taking a look at the box of plastic electronics.

(Waste not, want not.) Her voice of reason agreed.

“Hey, squirt, what are you doing down here?” Tommy asked as he made his way down into the basement.

“Oh, uh, I was just looking for parts for one of my projects.” She told him, after all her family knew she liked to tinker, even if they didn’t know she was an M.A.D.

(It’s because we haven’t made a death-ray yet!) Her inner child whined. (All good mad scientists have death-rays!)

(Well, if you count the Hand Cannon, we’re already half-way there!) She reminded herself.

(I thought we didn’t want them realizing we’re a Deviant?) Her other self-reminded back.

(It’s more we don’t want them to know we’re a mask, and if they know we’re a Deviant then-)

“Uh, Maya?”

She blinked before remembering her brother was in the room with her. “Uh, yeah?”

“Are you okay?” Tommy asked carefully.

“Fine.” She nodded.

“Okay…” Tommy nodded reluctantly, “Uh, did you need something?”

“What?” She glanced around before noticing that Tommy was pulling his band’s musical equipment into the middle of the room. “Oh, uh, no, no, I was… Sorry, I got lost in thought for a minute there.”

Tommy shrugged, his concern melting into a laidback grin as he sat down with his guitar and strummed a few chords, “It’s fine, happens to the best of us.”

“Mm-hmm.” She nodded back, before listening to the song he was playing.

(I’ve always wondered how he comes up with these songs…)

(Maybe he hears the whispers!) Her inner madness squeed excitedly.

(I very much doubt he’s a musical M.A.D.) Her inner reason cautioned.

(Still, he must be getting his ideas from somewhere.) She figured, gently swaying to the tune.

(Well, why not just ask?)

Figuring there was no reason not to, she waited until Tommy seemed to hit a stopping point on his song, before asking, “How do you come up with the music for your songs?”

Tommy gave her a curious look. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you write like what? Three songs a week?” She gestured to a pile of nearby music sheets. “How do you find so much inspiration?”

“Mm, you’re giving me little too much credit their sis.” Tommy admitted with a smile. “Writing a bunch of lyrics on a piece of paper is different from putting music to them. Hell, I only really write one good song a month, the rest end up in the recycling bin.”

“But that’s what I mean, how do you come up with that one good idea?” She pressed; her curiosity unyielding now that it had been unleashed.

“That’s a bit of a question I suppose…” Tommy admitted, as his eyes drifted to the basement ceiling. “If I had to explain it, I guess my music is mostly about feeling it out.”

“Feeling it out?” She repeated as her face scrunched up in confusion.

“Yeah, feeling it out.” Tommy nodded. “Like I take this barebones of what I made, and then from there I sort of just… do what feels right you know?”

“Uh, no?” She frowned.

“Right, you always were more of a hands-on learner…” Tommy frowned back, before snapping his fingers as an idea came to him. “Hold on I got it.”

Taking his guitar, he plugged it into a nearby amp, before gesturing for her to come over.

“Okay, now just put your hand on the amp and close your eyes.”

Seeing no reason not to, she did as instructed.

“Alright, now just feel it out, hermanita.” Tommy told, her as he began to play a song she hadn’t heard before. “Let the music flow, and take you where it goes…”

As she continued to hear the song, to feel the vibrations from the speaker, she began to hum along an idea slowly forming in her head as she did so.

---

Figuring that she still had a few hours to work before having to head to bed, and riding a wave of creativity that had hit her after her talk with her brother, Maya decided to use that time to finish out her GPS mapping program so that she could move on to bigger projects.

As it stood the program was little more than an advanced GPS map using a few hacked satellites to create a detailed overview of the world. On its own this was something any smart phone could achieve with an internet connection and a recent enough map update.

(Meaning we have to give it a proper overhaul.) She thought to herself, mindful of the fact her early bird sister was already lying down to sleep.

To this end, she was programming in a passive effect into the program so that any wi-fi receptible device within a radius of her COMP would be marked for both easier hacking and tracking. Both things that her AI had done to help her escape when she’d been kidnapped and could do again with a simple order or two.

The real trick of this program came into place when she actually turned it on.

For, while flexible her AI had the problem of needing a fair amount of power to change its orders and implement and edit whatever random coding her AI needed to fulfill said orders.

In contrast to this, thanks to the fact her Map () was both simpler in nature and merely running a much simpler piece of code on loop, she was able to implement the passive program with virtually no cost to her actual power supply.