She was... experimenting.

As much as she was able to go to places really quickly through the Internet, the reach of the worldwide web sometimes proved inadequate. There were places without signals, without connections, after all. So, with Kingsport as her starting point, she was hopping all over the county, trying to see how far she could go before she inadvertently made a hop to a different county, or something.

And that was when she stumbled upon a strange sort of scene.

She had managed to end up in a forest; apparently coverage reached up to here, at least, as she exited a certain person's phone. It seemed she couldn't even float further if the electromagnetic waves got too thin. She looked at the owner of the device she had used as a portal; a couple of... escaping people? They'd just abandoned their car... and they had a rather nasty weapon. Probably not too much a superhuman, but still; despite the proximity to Kingsport, there were still normal people in the world who could be ripped into pieces by a shot from one of those. Unfortunately, it didn't quite run on electricity, so there wasn't anything she could do for the situation... well, she could have these armed men's phones call the police...

...but before she could actually do anything, someone else came. That someone else... was a veritable pool of magnetism and electricity. A... robot? She thought as she peered, transfixed, watching what would happen next.

L-Force

Things happened quite too fast for Alice to react.

One moment the robot was looking at the two men, the next his ninja-thingamajigs were on fire... err, lightning--- the men were on guard, pointing their big bad guns at the direction of the automaton, but they couldn't just see him yet--- it was just Alice's electrical sensing that gave him a better view--- and then one of the men panicked and shot.

Uwaaaa, loud. She didn't really know how her existence work, since she was pretty sure she didn't have any sort of eardrums anymore, but the launcher roared as the man triggered it. Maybe the soundwaves still vibrated through her ectoplasm or something. She didn't have enough time to contemplate on the mechanics of her ghostly body when the robot counter-attacked--- and not in the way Alice expected.

The robot's arm suddenly appeared and grabbed the man who shot. What the heck? Just as fast as it had made itself known, it disappeared, dragging the man along with it into where the robot still was--- so this was why there was just as much magnetism as electricity in the robot? It was a function? This was beginning to feel like that time traveling movie with androids from the future...

She grit her teeth--- well, the representation they had in her astral form. She didn't know what these two had done, probably something bad since they were carrying them really large guns, but that seemed just a tad excessive. Was the ninja weapon actually stuck inside the man? Was he still alive?

She had to interfere, before things escalated, or so she thought. She rushed in, through the smoke, and jumped into the robot, intent on possessing.

Would she get there in time? What would she find inside?

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She was in.

The structure of the circuits was something to behold; every piece was designed to be able to reconnect to each of the others, every piece having just a little bit of programming. There was also how the magnetic reconnectors didn't exactly interfere with the electricity, despite their prevalence, and how everything was miniaturized, made efficient.

So was the software, the directives. They were simple, to the point; they collected information on crimes that were happening, and then with precision they tracked down the perpetrators and eliminated them. It was simple... but in its simplicity it was cold and brutal. Alice could not fault it, though; robots were, more often than not, created with certain purposes in mind.

But now was not the time for thinking and admiring. For now, she wrested control. With effort, she forced the machine to stop, to halt. It didn't quite have the expected effect--- this robot wasn't like anything she had encountered before. Instead, it split itself into pieces... and, well, remained still, so at least that was a success.

She processed the information from the automaton's feeds. The first man was Heimlich, and he was dead, unfortunately--- or at least the attack the robot did was supposed to eliminate him--- she could only hope the machine's information about anatomy was just a bit accurate, but even then she only hoped little. At least the other man--- Marcus Drake--- was still alive. She'll... maybe she could help him later, but right now the best way to help him was handling this artificial being.

Apparently the robot had a callsign of 'Lorentz Force'... she picked and prodded at its programming--- did it have an internet connection? ---and then it prodded back. An inquiry? In mixed letters and numbers, even? Who programmed this thing?

"I'm Alice." she spoke, simply. "You're... Lorentz, aren't you?"

Ah, it did have Internet access; that was where he was getting much of his information. Even as the robot's protocols checked that emergency services were already on their way--- fire trucks and ambulances, so she probably needn't call their attention towards here--- she also noted that the robot probably didn't want to get caught, or something. As such, she came to much the same conclusion as the artificial intelligence; for better or for worse, she had to be quick.

As she perused the automaton's programming, it felt... at certain places... incomplete. Like there was something that was still planned to be added at certain points, but was unfinished. The general core was to apprehend criminals, but there were bits and pieces--- heck, even the mere fact that the programming was responding to her, even in mixed-with-numbers speak--- that seemed to imply that this machine was to be more than just a hunter, and killer, of criminals, that this machine was to be more aware than it currently was.

Could she do something about it? Yes, perhaps. But even with her intuitive skills in programming, she doubted she could fill in the gaps. Perhaps, if she had the leisure, all the required material, the time for fixing and testing; but right now, there was only so much she could do. And there was no telling what could actually result from it. But well, she had to try!

"Lorentz." she began, addressing the intelligence. "I interfered in your operation because while you were hunting criminals, you weren't supposed to kill them." she chastised. "You should just leave them incapacitated for law enforcement to pick up." She wondered if she was getting through. She looked for some relevant files, and found some applicable law resources, which she tentatively introduced to Lorentz's core.

"Besides, there's no telling if someone's actually just being coerced into a crime." she said, running away with herself, even if she was not quite sure the intelligence would understand her. "Some people do crimes because they don't have a choice." Let's see... do I have material about restorative justice... reforming criminals... do I just chuck that in? Yeah, let's do that.

She kept an eye on the timer that indicated the duration before the emergency responders arrived.

L-Force
OC: if there's anything you want me to change with this post, just tell me!

Alice gaped a bit. She was right; this robot was supposed to be far more intelligent than it was, currently. It had parsed through the information she had given it, and taken some more from other sources, and had come to a conclusion. There was hope that this could be resolved peacefully.

"Um... I guess so." she muttered, not quite used to saying other people were particularly wrong. "I mean, yes." Right, she shouldn't leave anything to doubt for the robot when she had instilled a beehive's nest worth of uncertainty in it, already. "So, Heimlich and Drake here---" she said, as she idly noted that the latter was still visible through Lorentz's feed. "I guess their crime is armed robbery, or aggravated robbery... and if this is their first offense, it should just count for around three or four years in jail. Not death." she stated, hoping that it was clear.

...slowly, she relinquished her hold from Lorentz's systems. This was... a bit of a leap of faith, but so far her faith had been rewarded. If anything went wrong she could jump back at it... she probably could do it faster now, since she knew its workings more. "I'm going to let go of your controls now." she said. "I'm going to trust that you'd do what is right." Geez, this stern straightforward speech really wasn't her thing. With that, she slipped out of Lorentz and into Drake's phone, making it ring.

Drake, surprised, felt for it in his pockets, and answered it. "Hello?"

"Hello~ this is Marcus Drake, correct?"

"Wh-wh-who is this?!"

"Ah, right, I guess you could say I'm your guardian angel~ although I was too late to save Heimlich. I'm sorry."

"You--- you wrecked the robot?"

"Ah... not exactly."

"But it would kill me!"

"Well, you could have escaped already... although it would be really nice if you could turn yourself in. The authorities are coming in a moment."

"Ah, but, but---"

"Listen, you didn't kill anyone, right? You'll be fine. I think they'll be nice to you if you return what you stole... I think." Ah. She was bad with this reassuring and convincing criminals to surrender, too.

She watched and waited for what Lorentz, and Drake, would do. What they would do... would dictate what she would do, next.

L-Force