Turn 36

--- Maya ---

Given how easy her talk with her dad had been compared to her… confrontations, with Izzy and her mom, she’d decided it’d probably be better to try and talk to Tommy while he was calm, rather than waiting for him to be in a mood.

Unfortunately, this did nothing to change the fact that her lack of social skills, meant she had no idea how to broach the topics of personal trauma and coping with anyone, let alone her elder brother.

“So…” She began awkwardly, as Tommy strummed a tune on his guitar.

“Yes?” Tommy asked, not pausing in his playing.

“How are you doing after… everything?” She tried, not entirely sure how she should broach the topic of the Summer Festival and how it went to hell. (Possibly, literally.)

Tommy rolled his neck, before sighing. “A little stressed out, but nothing major. I mean the staging area was a lot safer than the rest of the festival. Honestly if it wasn’t for all of the screaming and the sky turning red, I doubt I would’ve realized what was going on.”

(Huh…) That was… significantly better than the rest of her family was doing. (Then again, Tommy always has been the mellow one in the family.)

(That’s what makes him so cool!)

“How about you?”

“Huh?” She blinked.

“I asked, how are you doing?” Tommy repeated, “I mean, unlike me you were actually in the middle of it. Hell, you, Vi, and Izzy were in it longer than anyone else in the festival from the sounds of it.”

“That’s, um, I’m doing fine.” She told him.

“Really?” Tommy asked in that way that told her he didn’t believe her but was waiting on her to talk about it.

“I…” She sighed. “I know, it’s weird but I’m not messed up by whatever is going on. I don’t know why, but my head is just…” She made a vague motion with her hands. “I know I should be more bothered by it but I’m not.”

Part of her was reluctant to admit to that much, especially after the way it’d blown up when she was talking with Vi. On the other hand, she was pretty sure as long as she didn’t admit that she was an M.A.D. with all of the issues there in, her talk with Tommy wouldn’t end as badly.

Tommy watched her squirm for a moment before eventually shrugging. “We all handle things differently. If this doesn’t bother you than it doesn’t bother you.”

“That’s it?” She asked with a bit of shock.

“That’s it.” Tommy nodded, strumming a few more chords. “Like I said, people process things differently. We made it out unscathed, and if that’s enough for you then that’s enough for you. Don’t see a reason to complicate it, there’s nothing wrong with it.” He met her eyes. “Even if you think otherwise.”

“I… I don’t…” She lied.

Tommy gave a huff of amusement. “You’re stressing yourself out over nothing, hermanita. You shouldn’t feel bad about not feeling bad, that’s just a spiral that’ll mess you up. Feel what you feel, and that’s what you feel.”

(Huh, that’s what you feel…)

---

Convincing her mother to let her out of the house, had been something of a chore, though once she’d explained that there was this ‘hobbyist club’ she wanted to visit to meet up with a friend, her mamá had changed her tune with a surprising speed.

(It’s like she doesn’t expect us to have friends outside of our house!) Her inner passion whined.

(To be fair, we only have what? One associate outside of the family, and we don’t really see them outside of school.) Her inner reason reminded.

(That’s due to their circumstances not ours.)

“Look, all that matters is that we got out of the house.” She told the voices, once more forced to play mediator between them. “Now, unless one of you wants to help me find this place, you can quiet down.”

(You mean the building on the right, that you’re about to pass.)

She froze one foot still in the air, before checking the address Kim had given her and realizing that (yes, this is the place.)

The building itself wasn’t too much to look at from the outside, though given how it was technically downtown, the building was automatically in a better neighborhood than most of the places her family frequented in the southern districts of the city.

Going inside, she found herself in a fairly clean and organized waiting area, more similar to a business than a clubhouse for M.A.D.s.

“Sorry, but we’re unfortunately closed at the moment.” A voice told her, drawing her attention to a woman in a suit sitting at a nearby desk. “If you wanted to buy a guest pass you’ll have to come through another day when we’re open.”

“Oh, um, no… uh, I’m supposed to be meeting a friend here?” She told the woman, before glancing around. “Um, this is an M.A.D. club right?”

“Yes, and tours are closed for the rest of the week.” The woman told her.

“Um…”

“Maya!” Kim called, stepping through a nearby door made of blacked out glass. “Sorry, Carol, she’s with me.”

The secretary -Carol- sighed, before waving her to come closer. “Very well. I’m assuming she’ll be a regular visitor then?”

“Uh, yes?” She guessed, not really understanding what was happening.

“Alright, in that case I’m going to need you to fill out this paperwork to make use of our facilities.” Carol informed her in a particularly dry tone, as she put a packet of paper on the desk.

(Paperwork?!)

(Why the fuck do we have to do paperwork?!)

“Sorry about this Maya.” Kim laughed anxiously, as she grabbed the paper and a pen before dragging Maya to a nearby table.

“And I’d like to point out, that this won’t go into effect until our facilities fully open.” Carol called, getting a wince out of Kim.

“Um, what is all of this about?” She couldn’t help but ask as she felt a little overwhelmed.

“Er, sorry.” Kim apologized again. “When I invited you, I hadn’t been expecting the whole…”

“Demonic invasion?” She supplied.

“Yeah, that.” Kim sighed. “So, unfortunately everything is sort of shut down since most of the club was at the festival.”

“That makes sense.” She grimaced.

(Honestly, we probably should’ve realized there was going to be some complications from that.) Her inner reason admitted.

(But I wanted to play with the other Deviant’s toys!) Her inner child whined.

“Um, but we can still fill out your registration forms so you can come and go as you please.” Kim told her in a (failing) attempt to recapture some of her excitement.

“Okay,” She sighed, understanding that this wasn’t the other girl’s fault, though there was one thing she was wondering. “But, uh, what did she mean by tours?”

“Oh,” Kim blinked before smiling. “We fund the club by running a sort of children’s science museum every so often. It makes enough for us to offer everyone some basic supplies and pay the rent and utilities for the building. What’s more we tend to cycle out the people volunteering for the tours to keep things interesting enough for repeat visitors.”

“Huh…” (That’s one way to get tinkering funds.)

(Better than waiting on allowance and scavenging trash cans anyway.)

With that revelation her eyes drifted to a little check box on the form in front of her.

[]-Minion

[]-M.A.D.

One choice just let her visit, the other let her visit and get some resources, if by outing herself as a Deviant to what was essentially a bunch of strangers.

(Don’t be paranoid, they’re just trying to help other M.A.D.s.)

(Besides do we really want to be someone’s minion?)

(If it means keeping our anonymity? Maybe.)

“Anyway, the club alternates days where it’s open and where we’re giving tours to people. Oh, and if you need a bit of money, you can volunteer to help with the tours though, since it’s volunteer you’ll get less than minimum. When we aren’t touring we have all sorts of programs for everyone to help out with or learn science regardless of their Deviant status. If you’re lucky some of the cooler toys are even for sell if you can haggle someone into it.” Kim continued explaining, while Maya debated her choice with herself. (Definitely, literally.)

---

“Maya!” A happy voice cried out before she even closed the door.

“Seamus!” She called out just as enthusiastically as she caught the toddler trying to tackle her, spinning him once in the air before putting him on her hip. “And what are you up to today?”

“Muy bien, me and mamá were baking cookies!” Seamus told her, switching languages as he repeated the bits of Spanish their mamá tended to slip into her speech to get all of them to learn it.

“Oh, that’s good!” She nodded seriously. “And were you a big help for mamá?”

“Mm-hmm.” Seamus nodded just as seriously.

“Even better!” She praised, as they made their way into the living room.

And now that she was with Seamus, she remembered something that her parents had told her a couple of days ago about how Seamus had been oddly calm despite all of the monsters running around.

(Well, I’ve talked to everyone else already, might as well make sure Seamus is doing alright too.) She told herself, before turning to Seamus who’d taken to drawing on the living room table with his crayons again.

“Hey, Seamus,” She started, trying to figure out if there was a better way to ask a toddler, “how are you doing after the festival a couple of days ago?”

“I had fun!” Seamus smiled with excited eyes. “I got to ride the rides, and daddy got me cotton candy, and I played with the other kids, and I saw the magic men, and then we-”

“Uh, Seamus,” She cut into the toddler’s rambling. “that’s good but weren’t you scared of all the monsters. I know I was.”

She started to think this was a bad idea when Seamus lost his cheer but found herself confused as he bounced back with even more. “It was scary but the man in the mask was keeping us safe!”

(He must be talking about one of the Deviants at the festival.) “That’s good.” She told him. “Do you know who he was? His uh, mask name I mean.”

Seamus thought about it for a moment before shaking his head. “Uh, the man in the mask?”

(I guess it was too much to hope for Seamus to remember the hero’s name.) She sighed, before frowning. (Wonder if mom or dad ‘ll know if I ask them, though they did say there were a few Deviants helping out. No telling, which one calmed Seamus down…)

“He said we were lucky there were so many mad people there so he could keep an eye on everyone.” Seamus told her. “He said he couldn’t do much, but that he’d nudge the monsters away from us little ones!”

“He did, did he?” (He must not have been an actual mask then, but one of the M.A.D.s at the festival. If I see him at the M.A.D. club I’ll have to remember to thank him for helping everyone.)

---

Given how she’d already used what little free time outside of the house she could scrape past her mamá to go and visit Kim’s club, she found herself stuck working from home for the day. Something that while not a large problem, did however limit what projects she could work on without arousing some suspicion.

(Just like when we got started.) Her inner passion commented with a nostalgic tone.

“You mean like what, two weeks ago?” She asked, pulling out her laptop and bringing up her Drone Protocols ().

(Hey, we’ve done a lot since then!) Her inner madness argued. (Almost feels like it’s been three months since we built the lab.)

“Sometimes…” She admitted, before shaking her head and focusing on her current project.

Knowing that school was just around the corner, she was fully aware that her free time was about to take something of a hit. Meaning she wouldn’t be able to waste as much time on the more menial tasks she had to accomplish to continue inventing.

Luckily, she could use DM-1 and any future drones she made to do those tasks for her. She just needed to update their software with some actual stealth protocols to keep them from being discovered while working at whatever tasks she set them to do.

(Yes, give Skynet infiltrator capabilities, that absolutely isn’t going to inspire anything terminator-esque down the line.)

“I’m not taking it that far.” She argued with a roll of her eyes. “This is just going to make it easier for the drones to calculate a person’s field of vision, and how much noise they’re generating in comparison to the noise around them.”

(Quite.) Her inner logic agreed. (Though, even if we aren’t making human replicants, this program may still be decent entry point for future Infiltrator tech down the road.)

“Maybe…” She admitted, wondering how hard it would be to convert some of these programs for her own UI.