Turn 15

--- Maya ---

“I think I’m finally starting to keep pace with you, hermanita.” She told Izzy as for once, they hadn’t needed to slow down for her to catch her breath.

“Really?” Izzy asked, just a hint of smugness in her voice.

(Uh-oh, I don’t like that tone.)

“Well, I mean we haven’t had to take a break yet.” She explained, inwardly agreeing with her more emotional half.

“Then I guess that means it’s time to pick up the pace a bit.” Izzy told her with a nod.

Her head snapped to her little sister. “Wait, what?”

Rather than responding, Izzy seemed to put on more speed as they went from what most people would thing of as a light jog, into what was an actual run.

“Dios mio…” She whimpered.

---

“Okay, so… any idea what actually constitutes as organic materials?” She asked as she walked through the forest.

(The blood of our enemies?)

“Uh, little less… insane, please.”

(I believe anything ‘organic’ can be used.) Her inner logic offered. (Though the more biodegradable the better probably.)

“Okay, so like a bag of fallen leaves should do, right?” She figured, kicking a pile of leaves to the side.

(If we melt it down with some water and a few household chemicals.)

“Alright, then I guess I’ll fill my bag up then.”

“So, is that a no on harvesting our enemies for parts?”

---

Having had enough of nature by the time she’d gotten home, she set her bag of leaves to the side and began pulling out parts for another project she’d been putting off for a while.

If she was going to hack reality -or even keep building things- she was going to start needing a machine capable of scanning everything for her, as well as a simplistic program to relay all of that information back to her.

To this effort she was building a general-purpose scanner. While it wouldn’t give her the specific information other scanner types might, it would still allow her to get a general idea of whatever she was working with.

Admittedly, this meant the device as it was ran more of its power through a program, scouring the internet for anything on whatever object she attempted to scan. But as luck would have it thanks to a few of her other projects she was able to create a number of synergistic upgrades between everything.

First thanks to having a physical method of scanning the world around her, she was able to improve the tracking range of her MAP () by a full fifty percent.

Next, thanks to having her Informant Network () feeding her a constant stream of data from the police, she’d be able to immediately access the unsealed criminal records of any person she scanned. As well as any other data the police may have on said person of interest.

“And now our COMP can work as our very own tricorder!” She declared, beginning to scan things around her room.

(Are we actually allowed to use that name?)

(I believe so, so long as it’s not the official name.)

(Cool. Now use Mr. Tricorder on Izzy’s stuff, we need to find her diary!)

---

Once she was done playing around with her new invention, she decided to continue working on her overhaul of her information programs. And so, she began creating a number of modifications between the way her MAP () and her Informant Network () worked together, allowing the two to more easily transfer information between each other.

A task made significantly easier by her recent work on their code for her Scanner.

What this mean is that while her MAP () would continue to flag any crimes her Informant Network () picked up from the police, it would now also go through any police records connected to the phones and identities her MAP () was tracking. This in turn, enabled her MAP () to flag and mark any known criminals, letting her know who was and was not a threat.

She even went so far as to make flagged criminals pop up as red dots on her mini map, in contrast to the white dots that represented everyone else her MAP () was tracking.

(Got to love the gaming classics.)

(Perhaps, but isn’t this something of an invasion of privacy?)

She paused what she was doing, considering the moral implications of such a thing, when she herself was big proponent of internet privacy. (Mostly because we don’t want anyone to see our internet history.)

“Mm, you’re not wrong…” She admitted, feeling a little too much like Big Brother, with all of their unnecessary phone taps on otherwise innocent individuals. “Yeah… Let’s just make this a little more discerning.”

A few tweaks or so later, and rather than simply giving her everyone’s record for every little infraction, it would only give her information on anyone with a record. This way the only people who would be flagged were people known for harming others, and it would give a bit of wiggle room for those who hadn’t directly hurt others with their actions.

(After all, if people want to be dumbasses and get themselves killed, well… Darwinism.) Her inner insanity explained.

(That’s not a very heroic mindset…) Her inner reason pointed out.

(Meh, we idiot proofed the world, and now the world is ninety percent idiot. Heroic thing would be to let nature sort it out.)

(Again, that’s not really heroic… Like, at all.)

(What? You want to go against nature? Defy the natural order?)

(We’re a M.A.D. scientist! We literally defy nature by principal of our powers!)

“…” She couldn’t help but stop to listen to the arguing madness within her own mind, and from what little she was understanding, “I can’t actually tell which of you is arguing we’re the hero and which is arguing we’re the villain…”