Summer travels into the magical kingdom inside her soul. Well, it's a virtual reality workspace that Leo added to his bots several months ago, but this is kind of how she imagines it anyway. Like Otto and Aria, Summer's senses such as sight, touch, and smell route through a circuit to her electromechanical brain. With an act of will, she can put an internal computer onto that circuit as well. Its virtual reality software then feeds her brain with experiences just as real as the real world, and respond to her actions and imagination. For Otto, this is how the cockpit of the Phoenix becomes accessible. For Summer, it's a home away from home. She experiences this virtual space as a cozy studio apartment, and an attached lab and workshop. She can store copies of anything she sees there, such as quantum chromodynamics textbooks or movie posters. And she can design the perfect superhero costume. The fact that it's all high-tech doesn't make it any less fantastic. If visualizing a thing and making it real isn't magic, what is? With Leo's gift of his grappling system to Alycia, Summer came to a realization. She's been too dependent on her past. She trained with Leo, fought next to him in practice, even did some actual crime-fighting together before the Menagerie. But she - and he - always had a similarly equipped and trained partner. Now is different. And that's what's messing her up. She has to throw it all away and start from scratch. She might have to learn heroism fresh, but she's doing that now anyway. The centerpiece of her VR workroom is a 1:1 scale model of her own robotic shell, along with callouts for her special equipment. There were previous attempts at creating the perfect shell. A few have been filed away. Most are in the trash. She stares at it for long moments, then yanks everything out. The grappling systems, the thrusters, armor modules, transformation, all of it goes. All of it? She hesitates. The drone docking system? It stays. She might need to move from body to body, and this is a convenient way to do it. And she can always upgrade the drone. What do I need? She starts with the new module type - a dual-use electromagnetic emitter. The principles of the EMdrive and the hard-light hologram aren't that different. Light becomes force, and the new module is a laser on a chip capable of doing just that. She coats the virtual shell with it, then lays on a layer of skin on top. I'll have to make allowances for partial coverage. I might need to carry someone, and I don't want them to be hurt by the impulse. Plus, I want to wear clothes too. Living light - for disguise, weapons, tools, and more. Levitation - for mobility and force. That covers a lot of the package. But those grapples.. Those were versatile. Summer conjures up a new object, floating in space in front of her. She doesn't know how to build it yet, but she knows in principle what it needs. There's a knock on the door. Summer panics, and ejects herself from VR space back into her body. "Yeah?" She hears Leslie's voice, sounding bored or tired. "Yo. New girl moved in?" "Um.. yeah? She's good, thank you." There's a pause. "Two duffel bags. Travels light. If she's in trouble with the cops, I gotta know." Summer nods to herself. Of course, that'd be the logical conclusion. "She's…" There's hesitation - how much am I allowed to say? - "She's on the outs with her dad right now. No police problems and there won't be, I promise." There's a grunt from the other side of the door. "Cool. Goin' to bed. Don't stay up too late." "I won't. Love you, sweetie," Summer calls back with a smile. She can hear a softening in the voice. "Love you too, kiddo. Goodnight." The new object is a kind of mini-drone. It can hover, and fly about. It's got a graphene capacitor and a dual-use emitter system, a tiny onboard computer, and not much else. Its job is to dump as much electricity into the emitter as it can, for as long as it can, and then either burn out or fly back. The onboard computer is programmed with a visualization - a net, a dome, a shield, anything Summer needs to project out of hard light. And the little guy will make it happen. Someone about to be attacked? Throw one of these units at them, and it forms a protective barrier for as long as the charge holds out. Someone falling? Wings, or a harness. It could project holograms that can look like regular objects - a false door, a vending machine, a person. She opens the closet, where a dozen or more hypothetical outfits hang ready for inspection. With this module, I can look like anything. But what? More on the way, including the actual costume! But I'm really a fan of how this tech can be played with and thematically re-purposed. Inspired partially by this scene , because we don't get many magical girls who build their own stuff. The idea of a VR home is inspired by Steam VR Home , which I've been playing with a lot lately. #Background
