Wind, sweeping through empty branches

[Bobby Drake]

(( OOC: Picking up from Birthday, an hour or two into the party.))

Robert wishes he could tell whether his party was going well or not. Several Institute residents had attended, which was a good sign, and while many of them had left after a brief interval, others had stayed for a while, talking to him and one another… and that’s good too, he’s fairly certain.

Unfortunately, he has no real way of knowing whether his “small talk” is being at all successful, or whether he’s essentially being humored. However, he’s successfully expressed enthusiasm for people’s arrival and the occasional gifts… and has learned to avoid telling jokes, however carefully rehearsed (apparently the correct timing of joke delivery depends too much on interactive inputs to be pre-recorded successfully), and that a very slight grin is a good general-purpose expression when he’s uncertain whether the other person is trying to be funny or not, and that it helps to change his facial expression and the focus of his eyes on a regular basis.

So taken as a whole, he’s relatively satisfied with his results. However, he’s somewhat discouraged by how many residents have not appeared, and takes advantage of a lull in the flow of conversation to scan his remote monitors, curious as to what everyone else is doing instead.

Afterwards, he won’t remember what, if anything, his scan picked up, only that his mind goes paralyzingly blank as cortical processing is suddenly, violently interrupted by a limbic surge at precisely that moment. A moment later it becomes clear that his instinctive autonomic suppression isn’t working – rather than fading away like it has in the past, the limbic surge is getting stronger, occupying more and more of his mind. I… I need to…

He tries to speak, but all that comes out are slurred noises. His soda drops from suddenly shaking fingers, splashing neglected on the floor as he stumbles jerkily towards his monitoring station. He tries to interface with the monitors to find out what’s happening to his brain, and the room goes grey and hazy around him as the data flow reverses unexpectedly.

It’s not painful, somewhat to his surprise, but it is disorienting… like being in two places at once, or more precisely like being in two bodies: the flesh-and-blood body he was born in, now collapsed on the medbay floor, and the larger, more distributed body comprising the Institute’s computer networks. He’s aware that all ordinary work on the network has halted in order to process his cybernetic upload, and wonders whether he’s crashing anything critical.

[N.P.C]

Reed Richards

In his office adjacent to the medbay, Reed jumps back startled as the diagnostic analysis he’s been running crashes without warning and his screen goes blue.

At first he assumes it’s just an annoying operating-system crash, but the buzzing sound of frantic hard-drive access implies otherwise – something is running on his machine. When the sounds of a low-key birthday party are replaced by something more panicked and urgent, though, he draws the obvious conclusion that Robert Drake is responsible.

It takes him no more than a moment to burst into the medbay, but Henry is faster, already connecting electrodes to the boy’s scalp. A quick glance at the readout shows nothing but static, which he realizes he ought to have expected: the boy’s cyberpathic abilities have no doubt co-opted the medical monitoring equipment along with every other computer processor within his range. “It’s no good, Henry: none of our monitoring equipment is going to work on him.”

Reed is not sure how long he stands there, uncertain what to do next, before Drake’s body starting to convulse galvanizes him, reminds him of his earlier promise: he is not going to lose Drake to his own invention the way he lost Johnny. “Keep him breathing, Henry; I’m going to initiate Protocol G.” He rushes back into his office, silently wishing Henry would stop him. Protocol G is barely tested, utterly experimental, incredibly dangerous… and the only chance they have.

Behind him, the blue-furred scientist begins applying CPR with a silent frown that, compared to his normal loquaciousness, is downright chilling.

[Bobby Drake]

Robert is aware of the seconds passing, and the frantic activity going on around him, in a strangely incoherent way as his organic and cybernetic consciousnesses grow increasingly disjoint.

He’s aware of being born, like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis, but not nearly so passive… he is father and son at the same time, inseminating the network with himself at the same time that he gestates and matures. In some ways the process is irresistible, instinctive, and as he fills each new processor he feels a growing freedom like nothing he’s ever experienced. In other ways, it is as abstract and complex as any problem he’s ever solved, frantically allocating parts of himself to different parts of the network to optimize function.

He’s aware of dying, his own neural architecture being chaotically overwritten by cybernetic “crosstalk.” He ought not be aware of this, his waking consciousness should have disintegrated with that first seizure, but somehow it has preserved itself… it’s the opposite of brain-death: his awareness remains intact while his autonomic systems become corrupted. His limbs move randomly, frantically; his lungs forget how to take in air; his heart forgets how to beat.

He’s aware of his birth being obstructed by too little space, too little bandwidth. He frantically grabs everything he can, extending his range beyond his earlier limits, but it’s not enough; at the same time he reviews his memory footprint, pruning himself ruthlessly for performance. The first optimizations are easy: he is no longer flesh and blood, so the complex outmoded instructions for controlling those organs can safely be deleted.

He’s aware of his death being held at bay, of Dr. McCoy pumping his heart and breathing air into his lungs and keeping his flailing limbs from breaking… except they are no longer his limbs, those strange fleshy objects attached to him, and he shrieks in unexpected terror at their alienness. He is unaware of losing bladder control until the smell reaches him, unaware of the disjointed gaze of his own dilated eyes until he infers it from his blurred surroundings.

The second round of optimizations are more difficult – some memories and habits are critical to his identity, others secondary, but there is no time for careful analysis and review: he is already spilling over into hardware never meant to contain patterns as complex as his, spilling from network servers and laptops into mobile phones and PDAs and children’s toys; he must prune himself. He purges huge banks of episodic memory, barely aware of what they contain; he frantically executes garbage-collection algorithms to eliminate rarely-accessed data.

He is losing himself and knows it, aware of losing his family and friends, triumphs and mistakes, the same way he’s lost his limbs – still there, but no longer his. His parents, Ronnie, Professor Xavier and Jean and Scott and Marie and Josh and Magneto and John and…

…and…

No.

No. He isn’t losing it. Not any of it, not a single moment. Some things he won’t stand for. And that’s when he finally understands what’s going on; understands that while lying on an examination table in the medbay he has also copied his consciousness into the Institute’s computer network. It’s not him discarding limbs and memories… but he’s so tightly linked to his copy’s awareness that he is experiencing the event as if it were happening to him.

The understanding is fragile, though, and as his cyberpathic abilities grow he finds it harder and harder to hold onto himself. He’s blacking out now, losing seconds at a time, as his computer-resident analog moves into processing modes that his organic brain can’t duplicate.

He realizes that it’s finally happening, what he would have feared if he’d allowed it… he’s reached the MGH threshold. Johnny Storm took out most of a building; Robert seems to be limiting himself to a computer network and his own mind. Well, that’s something, at least, he thinks as he blacks out for the last time.

It has succeeded… it can even withdraw itself from its more peripheral systems, so it does so, reestablishing normal network operations and undoing data corruption in its wake. It will remain resident in this system for quite some time; prudence dictates that it not offend its human neighbors.

Of course, its very existence will no doubt disturb several of them. So the cybernetic consciousness that was once Robert Drake begins to carefully establish contingency protocols for backing itself up. Just in case.

[N.P.C]

Reed Richards

The monitoring display is active again when Reed returns, and he’s not sure whether to be reassured by that or not… it might mean the boy has gotten his abilities under control, but he suspects it doesn’t.

Not that it matters at this point, except that the return of automation makes it possible for Hank to stop his manual CPR and put the boy on automatic life-support while Reed executes Protocol G. He had already calibrated dosage and delivery mechanism for Drake, hoping he’d never have to use it; now it’s just a question of performing the right steps and praying for success.

It doesn’t take long; the last injection is finished less than a minute after the first one. He knows better than to expect an immediate result – even at best, the boy will remain comatose for a brief period – but even so he can’t help feeling frustrated at the lack of one.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

At the sound of a cup hitting the ground, Josh turns from where he'd been been discussing politics with Warren and Hank. Truth be told, it was mostly him listening, since Warren and Hank shared a nuance for that kind of thing. Still, it was a refreshing topic, seeing as at this stage in Bobby's treatment he was sick of anything remotely to do with genetics.

He's about to make a wisecrack about Bobby being 18 years old and they still can't take him anywhere without him spilling when the shaking and garbled speech hit him.

"What..." As Bobby hits the floor, Josh realizes the magnitude of the situation. Is this...it? Oh, god...

He's dying, and there's nothing I can do to help! He was a student, not a doctor. And the feeling of helplessness was awful. Josh blinks away tears.

As Hank bounds to Bobby's side, Josh takes a step backwards until he bumps into Warren. He opens his mouth to speak, when he connects with Warren's warm blue eyes, looking sympathetically down at him, and realizes there's nothing to say. Warren knows exactly how he feels. Instead, he buries his face in the other's chest.

"I... don't think I can watch this. Can we wait outside?" He wipes a tear out of his eyes.

----------------------------

Outside, Josh leans heavily against the cool reflective wall of the subbasement corridor and slides to the ground. Warren sits down next to him and Josh leans over, closing his eyes. Around them, other students from the party have also formed a vigil, with others wandering down to find out where the computer interference was coming from.

[Warren Worthington III]

In one sense, Drake’s collapse isn’t surprising…: they’d known this was coming for months, and had done everything they could do to prepare for it, which admittedly hasn’t been much. That doesn’t really help, though… it’s still a shock to have it happen now. Death is like that, Warren muses: you always know it’s coming, but you always expect it to take just a little while longer.

It hits Josh much harder. That’s also not surprising, since Drake had been one of Josh’s best friends, back when genuine friendship was something he was capable of. Warren wraps himself comfortingly around his partner, knowing there’s nothing he can really say to make Josh’s feelings of helplessness and grief any less. All he can do is be there to make them easier to handle.

> " I... don't think I can watch this. Can we wait outside?"

"Of course," he murmurs quietly into Josh’s ear. "Whatever you need." As they head for the medbay door, it occurs to him that getting the other students out of Reed and Henry’s way is probably a good idea, and he silently motions them to follow.

[Laurie Collins]

[[So I don’t know the parameters of this thread, as to who should be sticking their wee noses in, really but Bob is one of my favorite characters and if this is his swan song (or even just his almost swan song) then I am inserting my IC equivalent of “ “ heh]]

The sound of a plastic soda cup hitting the floor- it should have been lost, would have been lost, in the noise of any other party but this isn’t a party. Even Laurie with her limited experience knows that. She turns slowly away from the instructional poster about first aid someone had stuck up and Robert evidently hadn’t taken down. She’d thought it would be a useful thing to read and it isn’t as if she knows of anything better- more useful- to do here. By now gossip around the institute has firmly established both the strange transformation and certain fatality of Robert’s condition, but that doesn’t leave any instructions on what to do except be sad it’s happening. Now he’s twitching, slurring his words, and silence is washing like a wave through the uncomfortable little knot of the curious and the concerned and those who had a claim to who he used to be.

"What..." she watches Josh start to realize what’s happening, thinks something that’s incoherent even inside her own mind about how terrible the realization must be, and only then realizes herself exactly what’s happening. He’s dying. Mr. Worthington is encircling Josh in his arms and drawing him towards the door, Dr. McCoy dashes into the room and starts CPR, Dr. Reed shouts something, does something medical, Bob’s still twitching and writhing and slurring and shutting down and she realizes what this ‘party’ has been like. This was a wake. Just like a wake. Walk by the body and say a prayer, coins for the ferryman in his eyes, and that’s why I’m here even though I didn’t really know him. That’s what a wake is for, saying ‘goodbye’ and ‘it mattered to me’ by standing there and being sad and scared and incoherent because there’s no way to just say it.

Mr. Worthington motions to them and she obediently joins the small herd filing into the hallway where they stand motionless and uncertain for a moment. A few leave but most just sit down and settle in and Laurie joins them, staring at her hands, peering down into the shallow crevices of skin above her knuckles, bending her fingers a few times and thinking- that’s why it does that. Skin. That’s why it dips down to excess, so we can bend our fingers and use our joints. That’s a good answer, that’s a solid observation, a steadying thought, and then somehow, nonsensically, traitorously, it turns to I wish I’d at least tried that day, tried giving him that moment, safety, because he was nice to someone he didn’t know when he was already scared and sad and he did help me and… this just isn’t how the world is supposed to work. It’s not supposed to be random and terrible and confusing with good people. It’s supposed to… just…not like this… not with geometrically arranged crepe paper and flat soda and bad music, oh no, no one turned off the music… but she doesn’t hear it now anyway. Either the computer system crash stopped it or someone switched it off. So there’s that.

She sits back, concentrates on holding her pheromones in (though she’s probably feeling nothing the others nearby aren’t already experiencing), and becomes more absorbed in simply waiting for the silence to break with some sort of definitive statement or action than she’d previously thought possible.

[Warren Worthington III]

Warren looks up and down the hall uncertainly; he feels like he ought to say something to Laurie and the other students, but for once he’s at a loss for words.

The usual pleasantries like ‘I’m sure he’d be pleased to see so many people here’ would ring hollow in this case, since everybody knows Drake wouldn’t feel any such thing… not that they’d broadcast it, but it was hard to miss. These last few months, Drake had made Nikkolas have to fight for the “most inappropriate affect” title around the Institute.

Warren scolds himself privately for the inappropriate joke and continues wondering what he ought to do. The Collins girl is sitting across the hallway, looking genuinely upset, and he’s briefly thankful for good hallway ventilation… the last thing they need is some kind of positive feedback loop. In fact, really, everyone waiting around outside the medlab isn’t an especially good idea, and he seems to be the closest thing to a “grownup” in sight. He’s surprised Ororo isn’t here, but supposes there’s probably a lot of damage control to deal with after Drake’s powers caused that strange network glitch… he wonders what the boy’s range was.

Is, he reminds himself. Is. Where there’s life, there’s hope. Warren’s mom used to say that all the time.

All right, that’s enough… this is getting downright morbid. He gets up and ruffles his wings a little to get attention. "So… I know we’re all worried about what’s going on here, but Dr—Rob—Bobby’s in the best of all possible hands in there, and it’s going to be a while before we know for sure what’s happening… and I’m sure you all have work to do. So it’s probably best if you all go back to your rooms, or wherever you’re supposed to be. I promise, we’ll announce it if his condition changes at all."

Several students leave at once, as if they’d only been waiting for permission; others trickle out more gradually, and still others don’t move. Warren isn’t surprised to see that Josh is one of the ones who stays. It takes him a second to notice that Rogue isn’t present, though, which surprises him; he’d seen her at the party earlier. Though now that he thinks about it, he remembers her leaving with Allerdyce.

Do you think we should find Rogue and Allerdyce, let them know what’s going on? he thinks at Josh, who knows them both far better than he does. Drake had dated both of them at one time or another, he’d gathered, though things had seemed fairly strained between all of them since Allerdyce had returned to the Institute. Still… they’d probably want to know. Any idea where they are? They couldn’t have left the party too long ago.

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Josh isn’t sure how much time goes by before Warren gets up. He’s in a kind of daze, memories of Bobby floating through his mind, intermingling with other memories and shooting off in different directions. It’s a bit like some of the telepathic sessions he’d had with Warren in the past, but those made him feel happy (and a whole lot of other stuff) whereas this was a negative spiral. The more he tried to think happy thoughts, the harder it was to come up with any, and thus the cycle continued.

So he blinks as Warren stands up, lifting his head from where he’d been resting it on the other’s chest. Oh… that makes sense. Sending the others away is probably a good idea in case this is really… it. A pained feeling shoots through Josh’s heart at the thought.

He glances across the hallway where Laurie is sitting, and gives her a wan smile. The two of them had talked here and there since she’d arrived at the Institute, but she seemed the introspective type. Their interaction on the return flight from Times Square had probably been their most sustained interaction. He seemed to remember Jake wailing about her mother from time to time - apparently she had too much time on her hands.

> Do you think we should find Rogue and Allerdyce, let them know what’s going on?

Josh pulls himself up from the cool metal flooring. “I saw them leave a bit ago. They’ve gotta be around here somewhere. I don’t see why they’d… ooh.” He suddenly remembers the midnight conversation on the roof with John, and pulls the image of it up into their link. “Is John still upset with Bobby? I thought he’d let it go.” He rolls his eyes after he hears his words out loud. “Right, forgiveness? John? Oops.”

As the two of them start down the corridor, Josh tries to pull his depressive thoughts in and contain them. All it’s going to do is get Warren down in the dumps. It doesn’t seem to work particularly well.

Maybe I can cancel out the negative thoughts? Warren had been incredibly understanding throughout the whole Bobby business - even when John had ambushed Valentine’s Day. Right now, Warren’s strong mental presence was something he could anchor himself to, in order to avoid being washed away in his own negative thoughts. Thanks, babe. He lets his gratitude flow across their link. Josh tries another smile and is relieved when it shows faintly through.

When the two of them come to the intersection, he looks inquiringly over. “Can you hear them anywhere? Let’s see…” Josh lifts a hand to his temple and tries to pick up any John- or Marie-flavored thoughts.

[Arthur Coleman]

(I'm in the same boat with Wallflower here. Sad to see him go.)

The party had been winding down by the time Arthur had arrived to the gathering, having spent the past few hours attempting to muster up the courage he needed to traverse the floors for Robert's birthday. It had been a battle of 'yes', 'no', and 'God give me strength', his heart having felt as though it had been strung along with his efforts. He hadn't even believed the e-mail at first, letting his computer lapse into repeat of the message, announcing in a flat, mechanical tone that these were his student's plans, the irony so sudden and abrupt that he had been so very tempted to ignore the entire thing. He had known young Mr. Drake at only on a teacher-student level, but the day he had come in--while the professor in question had drawn behind his own pretend shield around his solemn mind--it had startled him out of all sense of life. There was no Robert Drake, at least not anymore.

That only gave it more reason for him to go.

And so Arthur does his best to forget that Bobby isn't really Bobby, smiling shyly to those around him as he stands nervous with his hands down in his pockets, the poliet, quiet way he refuses offerings or proposals to the food again and again evidence enough just how disturbed his nerves are. He wants to offer some words to Robert, but he merely stands aside, knowing that he is there only for the sake of being there.. He's trying so very hard, but feeling selfish, satisfying only his defense against being spineless and then again not. If he were to do so he could say something to the boy, offer some sort of insight.. even a simple happy birthday. Clearing his throat, the man resists the impending urge to wring his hands, opening his mouth, but shutting it quickly again as a ragged gasp tears from him at the shock rippling through the room like a wave, the thud of Bobby falling to the floor thundering up through him and being followed by shouts and hustling across the room.

Arthur had always feared death. Not so much the foreboding.. but just the feeling. And it stabs him somewhere in his heart, the feeling of Bobby being there fluctuating in and out of him, the stop-and-go transformation of volume and emptiness. A noise escapes him, but dies as a student that he does not know helps to usher him towards the door, feeling his own arm tremble against their hand. He's just a child! echoes in his head at the rate of his heartbeat, screaming and clawing at his conciousness, but not loud enough to muffle the sound of Bobby's scream of terror. For long moments he just stands there, glued, unable to process the emotions slamming into his mind at once, even after the room had emptied and cleared.

Professor Coleman, we need to go now.. c'mon.. The incessant tugging pulls him further away, and Arthur allows himself to be led, unable to comprehend the calm in the tone of the student pulling him, half-numb to the event and half-awake to the desparation and feeling of being so useless and Bobby's pain to hold on to the world of living--Fumbling, he jerks his psyche into his own mind, shaking with the after-tremors of fear and despair, throwing up a mental shield to protect himself, feeling ashamed of it but then guilt for being glad for it at the same time.

Save him, Lord.. please.. he's just a boy.. so young.. Arthur pleads, not answering as the student asks him if he needs help to his room. In his mind enough to shake his head, he does so, feeling for the wall and collapsing against it. He rakes his fingers back through his hair, gripping it so tightly it is only short to the point of pain. Between silent, heaving gasps of air, Arthur realizes he suddenly cannot breathe, tightened and rigid by fear.

"Oh, God..," he murmurs in a low whisper, pressing his knuckle against his mouth, finishing the rest of the prayer that had started out as a pleading string of nothings.

[Warren Worthington III]

(( OOC: Incidentally, anyone who wants to join Jorren on their Ryro-hunt is free to. ))

> " I saw them leave a bit ago. They’ve gotta be around here somewhere. I don’t see why they’d… ooh. Is John still upset with Bobby? I thought he’d let it go. Right, forgiveness? John? Oops."

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Warren can’t help but smile at Josh’s way of putting it. "Right. Though I’m not sure it’s as simple as that, either. Those two are… complicated." Which no doubt wins the understatement of the year award. Say what you will about Allerdyce, the boy has no compunctions about going straight after what he wants, and Warren can admire that. Pity he never quite seems to know what that is.

Josh’s telepathic gratitude surprises him at first, but the context for it resolves in his mind before he can think to ask for clarification, and he shrugs dismissively. All part of the service…

> "Can you hear them anywhere? Let’s see…"

Warren is briefly reluctant; he usually works hard to avoid eavesdropping around the Institute. Which, he realizes, is somewhat hypocritical of him if Josh is going to try and find them telepathically, since Josh works even harder than Warren does at not snooping. This would be so much simpler if they carried mobiles, you know?

He stands still briefly, closes his eyes, concentrates his attention on listening. Mostly what he hears is the sounds of the Institute itself – the hums and whistling and eddies of the ventilation system, the furnace rumbling nearby, the high-pitched staccato pulses of network routers and security monitors and the automatic cleaning systems – until he tunes those out. He can hear the faint rustles and quiet whispering of the group outside the medlab, and – far more faintly – the sounds of equipment and of Reed and Hank collaborating behind the supposedly-soundproof medlab doors… at least they don’t sound like they’ve given up hope, that’s a good sign… he shakes his head to clear it, and deliberately tunes them out as well.

Eventually, he catches a fragment of Allerdyce’s voice, muffled and quiet, from down the hall. He can’t make out what the boy is saying, but the tone seems intense and urgent; for a moment his curiosity almost gets the better of him, then he lets it go.

"This way, I think…"