(no subject)

[gone_byebye]

The door opens onto an alley in October, the sky overhead blue shading into evening grey. "This is the door I always come in from," Ray says. "Right this way."

He leads Tyler out of the alley and onto the sidewalk.

Views of the Firehouse can be had here.

Comments

[basic_powers]

"They're supposed to be instructions for programming the stuff inside of these." He pulled out a dozen wrapped egg containers, each about the size of a small grapefruit with a USB port on top, and a pull pin along the raised seam in the middle. "My friend Angie, she's kind of a mad scientist kid, we had a school project together and we came up with this nearly indesctructable silly putty. And some other kids in the shop class, they made these little putty creatures that you could program to do things. So I kinda had this thought about combining them... sort of as a non-lethal means of restraint."

[gone_byebye]

"You could do that, yeah," says Ecto. "Can I play with this thing for a while? I think maybe I can get some sense out of it."

This is about the point when Ray comes down the stairs with an armload of books.

[basic_powers]

"No problem," Tyler handed over one of the eggs. "I know she listed five settings already."

"Hey Ray! Are those the books on ghosts and the Ark?"

[gone_byebye]

"'kay," says Ecto, already a little distracted. She can multitask with the best of them, but this is something new to play with, so most of her processing cycles are being allocated to the task at hand.

"Sure are," Ray says. "You can take your pick from any of them to get started- I tried to grab the ones that'd give you a decent overview without getting into excessively technical territory. Egon's still compiling the rabbinical and Islamic stories about the Ark and cross-referencing them with each other for safety's sake, since there hasn't been a whole lot of direct study on the subject."

[basic_powers]

"Thanks Ray, I'll get started" Tyler glances through the stack before pulling out a few of the thinner ones, before digging out a dictionary from his bag as well.

He's ten, and while he is fairly intelligent, that doesn't mean some of the larger words might stump him.

The inside of the putty egg sloshes around inside of it's container from time to time, nanites running through their programmed formations.

[gone_byebye]

Ray nods. "I might as well go through some of the others and mark off the relevant parts for-"

"Got it," Ecto announces, holding up the controller. "Daddy, hide the good books, okay? I don't wanna get 'em dirty or anything."

[basic_powers]

"Already?" Tyler looks up warily and puts a piece of notebook parer in to mark his place. Then he hurries over to get his helmet out of his duffel bag.

Ecto may have programmed this one, but Angie MADE all of them.

"Ready whenever you are, Ecto."

[gone_byebye]

"I had a lot of CPU cycles to spare," Ecto says, a little apologetically. Ray's busy moving books out of the way, himself. "And I can talk to the controller in binary to find out what I'm supposed to be doing if I get it wrong. Okay, everybody."

She'd be sticking her tongue out the side of her mouth if she had one, her expression is that intent. The putty egg sits for a moment, rocking gently on the firehouse floor. Then it moves, and we learn two things:

1. Ecto's programming of the stuff is not nearly as precise as she would like, but
2. It is nonetheless evident in the shape and design of the little skeletonlike things that form themselves out of the putty that Ecto is a big fan of Ray Harryhausen's work on Jason and the Argonauts.

[basic_powers]

Tyler watches as the little army of skeletons fight each other in mock silly-putty combat. He cautiously kneels down for a better look. "How did so many of them come out of that one egg?"

He's pretty sure that there wasn't that much putty fluid inside of one egg. "...That is so cool....Did you figure out what settings four and five did?"

[gone_byebye]

"They're hollow," Ecto says with some satisfaction. "They're all just really thin tubes. That way I can use all the stuff that was in the middle to make more skeletons with. I haven't gotten to four and five yet, but I'm really really close."

Ray is down on his stomach to watch, his torso propped up on his elbows. This is fascinating.

[basic_powers]

"Uh...then what setting did you build these guys from?" Tyler runs through a short mental checklist of the possible settings. "...Airbag?"

Several of the skeletons gang up on one and beating the good sense into him with a spiked club made of putty before stalking around in formations. The lead skeleton gurgles a roaring command and the mass marches towards Tyler's duffel bag.

[gone_byebye]

"Yeah. It was kind of like building a soap bubble only it's thicker than nanometers." She grins. "I like soap bubble math. All the interesting stuff happens right up where you can see it."

Ray looks over at the bag and then back at Tyler. "Um, Ecto," he says, "you might wanna rein those guys in a little bit."

[basic_powers]

"Blrraaaaaugh!" The lead skeleton roars again as the putty monsters gather around the duffel bag and squirm under it, squishing themselves flat. "Raargh!"

The bag twitches for a moment...before being lifted up about 3 inches off of the ground by the army of putty monsters.

"...uh..." Tyler's eyes widen a bit in alarm. "uhmm.. Yeh. Time to call off the skeleton warriors."

[gone_byebye]

"Whoops." Ecto fiddles with the controls with surprising delicacy, given the size of her fingers, and the skeletons all come up to attention before turning around and marching back to join, one by one, into a ball of gloop.

[basic_powers]

Tyler lets out a breath of relief and takes off his helmet. He was half-expecting the monsters to come up at him.

"Glad, that stuff didn't attack... Wonder why it went for my duffel."

He'll just be giving the ball of gloop a nervous poke with the tip of his sneaker.

Poke. Poke. Poke.

[gone_byebye]

"Are you carrying anything other than the food and the clothes?" Ray says curiously. "I mean, anything that it might find of interest? Because the only other thing I can think of is that it looked like it might be a portable object and the stuff was out to pillage."

"No clue, Daddy," says Ecto. "I'm sorry about that, Tyler. Thank you for letting me play with it."

[basic_powers]

"There's at least 11 other putty eggs in there, along with my patrolling gear." Tyler replies. "...and my radio communications unit for talking with the Revenant."

"You can keep playing with that one if you want to.. Maybe it'll come in handy later."

[gone_byebye]

"Okay!" says Ecto brightly. "Thank you!"

Ray grins. "Thank you, Tyler," he says. "For that, and for coming along to help out."

[basic_powers]

"You're welcome and I'd come out here to help out anyway." Despite what Revenant might say about a 'misplaced sense of responsibility'. "Someone has to stop this Peck guy."

He knows he won't be himself, but if he can help Ray, then it's definitely all worth it.