[mwiland]

As Timmy moves through the apartment he can feel the buzz of all the technology in the house and notices a certain zen to the flow of the information flow in the entire apartment.  When Timmy wheels into the meeting room he carefully picks up the pillow on the floor at the spot that he chooses to sit at, picks up his tea and carefully starts to sip it.

Mr. Wong, I have come to understand that your child has a special gift, could you expand on that?

[deathwishjoe]

OOC: I dont think I would have my goggles on at this moment.

perception test: 5 Intuition + 3 perception. (8d6.hits(5)=3)

[mwiland]

perception test: 5 Intuition + 2 perception (7d6.hits(5)=3)

Matrix Perception = Computer 2 + Analyze 3 + Technomancer Bonus 2 (7d6.hits(5)=3)

[mdp]

Harry takes a good look around the room.
Visual perception: perception 3 + intuition 4 + vision enhancement 3 + home ground 2 (12d6.hits(5)=4)

[Sichr]

The house itself is heavily warded, watchers are present in the area around the house. Inside the house, domena is cleansed, no background count, no astral signatures so far.
Lynx`s aura cathes your eye, before you continue...he is on the edge, one small step from the void, holding weak and soehow desperate grip on last pieces of humanity in himself.

Mrs Wong is awakened, but her talent is on the low level. She would be adept, but she is not developing, Status quo. She is some kind of adept, you are not able to read what powers she is able to use.
Old man is the Taoistic monk. Awakened, developed and cultivated talent. He is not hiding anything, so you are able to assense that he is at least Grade 4 initiate. Mystical adept. Healer. He posess the Sight, and his aura is firm standing Mountain. He came a long way before he got here. To gain more info about himself you would better talk to him, if you want to. He is a friend of the family, spiritual advisor. Not relative.
Also some of the Kaligraphies on the walls have an astral reflection. They are connected to Mrs. Wong.

Technology used in the household is not standard serial production, every little piece is custom made, designed and crafted with some significal features that point to the same designer for all the pieces.

There is too much space in this apartement just for two adult and the kid. At least two more kids are ocupying the place, deducting from the equipement and other circumstantial evidence. there is also the room for person, who is not the part of the familly. Neverthles, nobody else is present.

Upper floor of the apartement is accesible by four metal helix staiways. Silent hum of some machinery and some other sounds may be distinguished from background noise.

Walls of the house are covered with wifi inhibiting material, from outside it is the matrix fortress. You are not able to detect any outgoing signal. Once inside, it is like going beyond the mirror. Wheny you are passing by the elevatro shaft, you see bold matrix (resonance) signatures,but the semantics is completely alien to you. If seen again, you will recognize it.
As you mount the stairs the Reasonance around you is more and more concentrated, your senses are almost overloaded with it. You`ve heard about places like this. This is not artificaly made UV zone, but it may be Resonance well. Also... you see that the elevator shaft is heavily rewired and you can feel the data flow throught that inaccesible space. You have the feeling that the shaft itself should be used as powerfull antena. The further you go, the more difficulty are you able to distinguish physical world from the resonance one. Living at the place like this must posess magnificent potential. You feel like being present in another living node. Neverthless, the resonance seems almost "untouched by the hand of a man". Pure and...alien a bit, with no apparent interest on yourselves.
When you enters the apartement, you are finally able to catch your breath, it was like diving into the deep sea. There are also wifi inhibitors in the walls of apartement, Isolating it from the stairway and elevator shaft.
The machinery in the apartement, in opositre to the outside, complete human. Yet, you are able to see fragments of resonance signature here and there, aparently human one, but it looks almost...unintentional. Every person present in the room is (almost) normal, unEmerged individual..well, except Lynx..(he is not emerged but also he is far from "normal human") It is a bit terryfying presence...or emptiness.


As you expect, when you ask your question, Mr. Wong looks at you:
Well, he is the only one able to use the elevator...

[mwiland]

Just a few questions Mr. Wong if I may?  What is the elevator shaft used for? Who do you think might have taken your son?

[Sichr]

We are rather not attempting to anger whoever lives there...Im confident about my knowledge enought to say that that place may be inhabited by some kind of techno-sapient entity. Never met her, thought. Not that I want to. It began maybe one and half year ago. I was serriously thinking about using force to put things to normal state, when its presence became apparent, but my son told me not to. The way he said that...well, I decided to accept our new neighbor and keep ourselves safe as much as possible We had done everything we were able to cover its presence, nearly cutting ourselves from the matrix. Well, I soon find out that my satelite comunication system is running beyond its possible performance...and...
He pauses, looks at his wife, who nods
well, I think we need to be honest to you. You need to see something.
He stands up and walks to the stairs.
Please, understand that this is the very carefully kept secret of mine
he continues as he climbs one of helix stairways.
I was working for Renraku Seattle, hardware R&D laboratories. I was one of people imprissoned in the Arcology during the Shutdownt. I managed to avoid being captured by Deus puppets, recjoined my familly, which was also living in the arcology. Later I`ve found a way to contact some outside help. A group of independent specialists, like yourselves, set up the extraction and were risking their lives to get us out from there. They were helpfull even after, providing full cover and new identity to us, putting our real identities to the Shutdown cassaulties list. Mr.McLister was very helpfull those days. He is the last one who remains from that team. Others are dead, some of them disappeared during crash, even Bill hes left the bussines some years ago, saying that he is far too old for all that mess.

As you follows him to the upper floor, large space opens around you. Different machines, multiple interconected automatic assembly lines, stable hum of the ventilation and air-conditioning, everything  controled by the Nexi connected to large holographic design tool, maybe four meters in diameter, in the centre of the room. Most of you is simply stunned to comment this place, Timmy recognizes the huge, probably hardware manufacturing capacity of SOTA facility in the room using almost whole floor of the building.
You see that the wall separating this space from elevator shaft is pierced by multiple cabel bundles, which are also connected to the Nexi.
Given My experience, I was shocked when this something slipped in through my satelite uplink, cutting throught my firewalls like they were next to nothing. It didnt take any capacity from my node`s performance, rather it improved it to the level no human would be able. The only thing I know about It is that it is consuming waste ammounts of data storrage. I have to upgrade twice a month...but since Im able to gain the profit on the upgrades it made to my equipement, I dont care about it.
Well, now I do not. At the beginning, I was shocked. Like I said, I was ready to alarm KE and give up my whole new life, rather to went throught something like that again. But my son spoke to me. I knew that many children were influenced by Deus, but my son wasnt even concepted in 2059.
Ofcourse we heard some about Emergency phenomena. I put one and one together, and decided to wait and see the further developement. Due to general prejudice, we were very carefull about any leaks. My son was always followed by nanny or my wife, he learned how to hide his talent. Ive provided him with the equipement that should head been used as an explanation if some minor accident happens. Even when we wre educating him at home, we didnt want him to stay isolated, so he was treated like any other well carred normal child. Untill today it worked well.
His room is also up here. None of the other children likes this place too much, it gave them creeps. But Hao loves this place...and I assume he is able to understand this entity, whatever it is. But if it is somehow connected with his dissapearance, I cannotr say. His room is overthere
He points at the doors.
The other rooms are storage and material bay, please avoid them if not unnecessary, inner conditions are strictly controlled. Now, if you want to take a look be my guests, just don`t touch anything. I`ll wait with my wife, you may ask for anything you need, and also, don`t forget to finish your tea.
He smiles politely, and with slight bow he leaves you alone.
Playground is yours.

[Kot]

Griffin was looking around the place, totally amazed at it's layout and the alien - at least to him - amalgam of technology. Even if he wasn't alerted to that before, he probably would have noticed something - or Shade would. Maybe the purpose behind it, bringing back basic Turing equations back from the ages-old MIT wisdom levels...
"This place does feel inhabited... Hmmm. Anyone there? HAL, are you home?" The little things hurt. Griffin remembered where this last remark came from... When the Technomancer Scare hit, they were almost bored to death by the lack of work, and usually huddled at home, watching pre-crash movies, and their modern remakes. And he grew to like it...
He turned around, trying to quench the painful sadness, and follow Shade's advice. His eyes re-purposed themselves to perceive a whole new spectrum of non-light that had to fill the Astral plane reflecting this place. He scoured it with his Awakened gaze, his eyes in rem-like movements patterning and isolating details his own senses could not discern... He not-looked around, trying to locate any patterns and shreds of emotions that had to be there, and provide him with at least a tiny shard of the child's aura...

Intuition(4)+Assensing(2)+Specialty(2)+Mentor(2) (10d6.hits(5)=4)

[mdp]

Harry looked at Timmy
well this seems to be your kind of thing, I'll go back downstairs and talk to the wangs, let us know what you can find out
he then turns away and walks back downstairs to his tea.
So Mrs Wang, can you tell me exactly what you remember from your encounter at the mall parking lot?  I know it ain't easy but every detail might help.  Please take your time.

[mwiland]

Matrix Perception: Computer 2 + Analyze 3 + Technomancer Bonus 2 (7d6.hits(5)=3)

[deathwishjoe]

Remembering the rumors he heard about the renraku arcology, Lynx decides to stay with the team upstairs.  you never know when an AI might go crazy and turn on anybody.  He waves to Harry as he heads downstairs. 

[Sichr]

@Lynx: When those thoughts come to your mind, you almost feel like being watched by some hungry species that should use your cybernetic body for a puppet show...but that feeling is gone quickly leaving sarcastic..and a little metalic...taste in your mouth. 

@Griffin: You DON`T feel any presence here, only yours and your comrades. What do you see is a place that has a great potential to become void, but, being aspected and taken care of by some powerfull geomancer, it is quite stable. Welll, this place is being cleansed regularily, maybe on week basis, and it makes your work even much easier.You are able to find fragments of aura reflections here and there, and in time you are entering the room, you have a clear image of young boy living here. He is no saint, but no evil. His body is quite healthy, not taken cerelesly. In the room the reflections are brightest. Althought the room looks quite empty, just a bed, table comfortable seat and two wardrobes full of clotches belonging to young, virgin boy at the doorstep of pubescence.
You are able to find samples of hairs, nails, even his favorite pen, quite enought to create the material link if needed, but usable only for a few hours.
There is a place, where he is practicing Tai-chi, its astral reflection affected by hours of drilll, thousands and thousands repeated moves, patiently...and sometimes impatiently, practiced to perfection. You see the reflection of his mother there also, not so strong, as sometimes she was practicing with him, lecturing him, teaching him. Violent outbursts of frustration are only a few, like he is patient student. On the walls, there are many caligraphis strips, most of them written with china ink. You are used to see the reflection of the author in such things, but this time there are none...Except one.

@Timmy: You can almost feel the presence of the entity in the streams of resonance, but is seems like it is not present. Even withiout it, you see a sparkling silicon heaven build in this place. Waste ammounts of data dwells in the nodes, but without apparent structure. Everything is so Alien, hard to understand for a human. It seems like every pice of data and resonance is "marked" with the signature, but it looks like that every part with different symbols. You slowly realized that all tohse symbols are just a part of the signature...still they have something in common, but you are unable to determine what. You are recognizing the signature from the elevator shaft...more pieces to the puzzle, but not enought.
Puzzles. Right. It looks like thousand puzzles of thousand pieces, and all you have is ten pieces, each from different box.
The boys signature is also present, clearly visible and recognizable, If you see it again, you will know it.
When you enter boy`s room, you realize strange thing. Those paintings, caligraphies on the wall, are fragments of the resonance signatue...and they are also carrying hardly recognizable resonance reflection...except one.

@Timmy&Griffin: You found yourself standing...looking at the same picture. Althought the other symbols lacks anything recognizable for human mind, this one looks more like a picture from Rorschach test...Some kind of human mind pattern...

@Harry: Well Im not sure...but let me start from the beginning. We hav ebeen shopping in the Mall as usually. My son loves that place, always says that there is whole world waiting for him. What is spam to me, my son analyzes and plays with, sometimes when Im not around to watch him and tell him to stop. You know, kids. As usually we had been taking a whole afternoon tour around the mall, visiting shops, byuing some necessities, looking for entertainment. He loves that Virtual Castle place, he told me that only at this place he should behave like a normal child while nobody is suspecting him from some wrongdoing. We had a lunch i nthe restaurant, and also Ive visited some more specialized shops, looking for chemicals Im using as compounds fot my inks. Well all that time we were together, only in the Virtual Castle I ussualy wait in the coffee while he is playing his games with others. Well, when we get back to the car, everything is confused and hazy. I remember that it rained ... and we were lost in the mist
...you see that she is concentrating, her eyes fimly closed, making some Tai-ji movements almost uncounsciously. Her voice lowers, resonating as if coming from the distance. You also see that the monk began to swell, the vein is pulsing on his temple, his breathing strenghtens like if he is lifting some heavy weight...
Suddenly he stops, his breathing changes into painfull sound, ynd you can see that he isa pale as the paper, pulsing vein bursts, creating wide hematom, bloody tears starts to drop from his eyes, flashes of mana breaking his skin, stretching his body beyond limits...you can hear sinews and muscles tearing inside his body. He maintains to stay calm, and with only soft, painful whispering...
"Sorry Wenquian. This curse is too strong..."
...he collapses. Mr. Wong jumps to him, catching old man before he fell on the ground, laying him down gently...

Mrs Wong, still in the trance, continues without pause:
When Hao got lost in the fog, poisonous, filthy fog, Ive been calling his name and then, I`ve found rotten stock at the edge of the swamp...I rest, alone and desperate, watching voices carrying my boy away...and one of them turns at me, and then the lightnig came from the skies and I fell...
...she blinks, like returning to reality from the nightmare, began to cry, shivering, embracing her belly
...when i woke up...
...she hardly manages to continue
I was alone, laying next to my car...empty...Ive climbed to the seat and commanded it to go home...oh dear my baby mybabymylittleboy
...she cracks out...unable to continue...

[mdp]

Haven't had a case like this in a long time Harry mumbles to himself, reaching for his wiskey flask.  He hated all that magic stuff  with spirits and all, never was able to understand it.  Luckily he recorded the conversation with Mrs.Wong. 
after opening a subvocal chanel to Griffin Harry got himself together, still under the impression of the old monk going down trying to help Mrs. wong Rememeber.
Hey Griffin, I just talked some more with mrs Wong, thought you could have some use for her description of the events in the parking lot
He then sends a copy of the conversation to Griffin's commlink

[deathwishjoe]

Nikolai sees his two companions have both moved to stare at and study a single painting.

"Hrmmmm... Looks like two boys, rowing same boat in different directions to me."   

[Sichr]

@Lynx: As you closes to your companions with the remark sliping of your lips,  you mark significant difference between other drawing and the picture. Not just about its feeling.
You chectk the table to confirm your hypothesis and you find your proof. Amongst some writings and blank pages there are some previsous versions of that picture on the wall. You tajke them, comparin one with another, and yyou came to the solution, that while the every other drawind or caligraphy on the wall was made for the first try, intuitively and precisely, with a certain hand, tghis one was drwn, corrected, redrawn and improved many times...this points you to the conclusion that since the other pages were drawn with the inner inspiration and are showing a perfect understanding to the symbols drawn, this one page is drawn from memory, as if Hao tries to recall something he saw before...