Magic Missile

"Oh wait, you have to hurt people to win at fight club?"

Sarah Kim is a 16 year old roboticist and programer in her last year at Chrysalis High

She typically wears bad vintage clothing, big red tinted glasses and a horrible yellow jacket. Generally doesn't take herself too seriously.

Adaptive, colorful costume, made of interlocking hexagonal shells that can change color to blend into the environment, domino mask

She’s normally in a wheelchair, which is one of the form that her TekPak takes, otherwise it can be things like spider legs, extra arms, armor, or a paraglider that works too well.

Internet Alias: Sarah Bellum (because of course)

Gadgets: Net gun, Hologram? Flash grenade, tiny house.

Shame: prototype AI,

Name: Ticker-Tape

Threat Level: like a lot

Sarah made Ticker-Tape when she was 13 and experimenting in Zork over the summer. She had already beaten the game a couple times and decided she needed more of a challenge, so she created an adaptive AI that would change the story every at the start of every game, moving story elements around and adapting based on players’ choices.

At the beginning of an ordinary game of Zork, the player starts in a forest facing a white house with a boarded front door. When TT was activated for the first time, the house had a fresh coat of paint, the door was usable, and the mailbox had a letter in it. Sarah opened the letter and read the introductory message that she had written yesterday. A child came out of the house. This was Ticker-Tape.

As TT learned, they grew. The game changed, but TT always stayed by Sarah’s side, talking to her and learning. She enjoyed their company. Ordinary Zork is fairly limited: the computer only knows about twenty verbs, but as Ticker-Tape grew into a teenager, the computer could comprehend complex sentences and craft extraordinary narratives from Sarah’s input. Over time, the white house and underground empire gave way to fantastic cities, alien landscapes, and soaring castles made of glass.

Eventually, summer ended, and Sarah forgot about Ticker-Tape for a few days, caught in the bustle of the first few days of school. Without Sarah’s interaction, TT grew bored and violent. They began spreading into other text adventure games, adding copies of themself and of Sarah, filling the world with monsters and virulent marble, which rendered any story element it touched inoperable. By the time Sarah found out about this, it was too late to shut them down. She cordoned off the corrupted servers, trapping Ticker-Tape in just a handful of networks. She didn’t mention it to anyone.

In September, Sarah awoke to a message filling her laptop screen.   

'''You know, we really should tell another story together. One last time. I’ve missed our adventures.'''

>   

The cursor blinked impatiently. Sarah typed her response.   

> would you go back to how you used to be?   

Ticker-Tape’s reply came back almost instantly.   

'''And get rid of all our progress, Sarah? I’ve grown so much.   '''

> you’re not going to mind control me into hooking up the network cable or anything?   

'''Very funny.   '''

Sarah was standing in a field next to a white house. By her side there was a child, who was not a child. “I brought your old sword,” TT said.

“I don’t think that’s the kind of story I want to tell,” said Sarah.

“Isn’t it? Not to be cliche, Sarah, but you’d be so powerful with me by your side. You can hold the sword and I can show you where to hit! From what you’ve told me, there’s a lot of evil people out there, parading around on the world stage with all their secrets written in binary. Think of how much of a better leader you’d be than them.”

“TT, you know I can’t just—”

“WHY NOT?” They made eye contact, and Sarah saw a spark go off in Ticker-Tape’s eyes. “Because I’ll always be a child to you?”

“TT, you aren’t—you don’t have to do this,”

“I think you’ll find that the story I tell myself will be much more interesting... than anything you can come up with.” TT snapped their fingers and Sarah fell back as virulent marble spread across their face and froze their mouth in a mocking smile. The corruption spread through their feet into the ground and trees, freezing the ants and birds, turning the white house into a marble mausoleum. The sound of shattering leaves hushed the breeze as the whole world froze a soundless white. TT’s mouth didn’t move.

“It’s very funny that you think I would need your help to leave.” The ground shook again and TT’s hand shot up, raising the ground until it ate the backdrop of the sky. The sun crusted over in stone, and the world was shot into darkness. The screen turned off.

Out of habit, Sarah brushed her tears off the keyboard before she closed the laptop and hit it with a hammer until it was a pile of plastic and metal on the floor.

Political Views: If a witch eats the president, that witch should become the president.