kore_logs | Let's take a make-believe vacation

Entry tags:

Let's take a make-believe vacation

Who: Tony Stark and You (meaning, whoever wants to stop by)
When: 216?
Where: Tony's Lab
What: Tony in his lab doing Tony things. ...the age appropriate Tony things.
Warnings: None that I can think of? Just shenanigans.

Tony has actually been pretty busy and probably very scarce lately. The mechanical genius has been keeping to his lab and only leaves when he's forced to do so by splitting migraines. Those following his work would know he had found, modified, and reprogrammed a few nanites to delve under his skin and use them as an interface to reprogram the micro computers also under his skin that had once been used to summon his suit. Well, that little skill isn't very necessary here, and though the prehensile suit had been a terrific idea for back home, he had a better use for those computers.

Most of them had been re-purposed into monitoring his vitals, short-range sensors, wireless data-transfer to his phone--usually info sharing between his vitals and JARVIS--among other little basic Tony Stark needs with the help of the nanites. He had other intentions for them, but those were more in depth and time consuming, so they could wait.

From time to time, he likely had one or two young lab assistants, but to be completely honest, he lost track of when they came and went. He also lost track of what day it was, when he last ate, if he'd slept recently, or who was actually in the room when he started babbling. Fortunately, if he was alone, he had that mobile mini JARVIS app to respond to him, so he seemed less like he was losing his mind. Unfortunately, when he actually didn't expect a response, sometimes he got one and it would drag him from his head space to blink around at the world like a dazed deer caught in headlights.

At the moment, he was working on a strange piece of tech that the lab so graciously dumped on him while he slept. Hey, he wouldn't turn down gifts of weird technology, but he would appreciate someone at least leave a user manual with it. Or a Terms of Use. Maybe an EULA... Something! With that thought of frustration, the device discharged some kind of current--conducted through the tool in Tony's hand--to deliver a rather startling jolt up Tony's arm. The tool clattered to the floor as did the chair he'd been sitting in when he jumped up from it, muttering irately and pacing a small semi-circle away from the table.

"See? This is why I need my workshop! Do you hear me?!" He shouted angrily, looking up at the lights in the ceiling while rubbing the remaining jolt out of his arm. Oh, he was talking to the Machine, but it probably didn't care. He had angry outbursts from time to time when things didn't go his way. It was... normal. But if anyone were to walk in on him, or already be in the same room, this had been his first outburst after hours of silence. It was time for a break before he broke something. Someone might take this moment to distract him with conversation.

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"Dude. You okay?" Leo stopped at the door, eyeing Tony warily. He'd been in and out of the labs ever since helping Pajama Girl with her toy piano, moreso after he finally woke up one day after falling off his bed. Never before had he been so happy to be in pain, and he'd been ecstatic to get back to working on something, to actually feeling the machines. That nanotech Tony mentioned before had intrigued him, and he was determined to learn more about it and find his own use for it. There had to be something.

But that - whatever it is Tony was yelling at - that's new. Leo takes a few steps inside, giving it a curious look. "What's that?"

Tony turned, hearing the voice and gave his narrowly focused mind a moment to process the face. He had almost quite literally been in his own little world while working on the device on the table he had to be drawn back to reality. Which, for Tony, could be a bit of a process at times. He continued to rub the lingering sensation of the electrical shock out of his arm then shook it a bit. "Yeah. That's not the first and it won't be the last." Because let's be real here, he was winning no points with the device on the table.

"Not a clue." He replied somewhat irately, rapping a knuckle off the dark alloy shell of the device. "Well, that's not entirely accurate. I think it might be some form of bio-tech. And if I'm right, then my next assessment is some kind of electronic brain. A hard drive. But that's about as far as I've gotten."

"Sir, there is no evidence to suggest there is anything biological about the components of the device."

"And you know this because your scans have been able to penetrate that impenetrable outer shell? Oh, right! No, they can't. Butt out." He ran a hand down his face in frustration and turned his attention back to Leo. "Look, I'll show you what I mean." He picked up the small pocket knife off the ground and walked back to the device on the table. "It's damaged--not my fault. It came that way. And if you..." He wedged the blade into one of the cracks, prying it apart just slightly, Leo would be able to see past the shell and into the inner workings... which seemed to writhe away from the light shortly followed by another discharge and Tony cursed, dropping the knife again in favour of rubbing the jolt out of his arm.

He came in closer to watch, growing more curious about the new device as he did. He'd not quite seen something like it before, and he definitely hadn't seen Tony get quite this upset about stuff yet. Though, with inventors, it was only a matter of time, judging by personal experience.

When it's pried open, Leo craned his neck to see what's inside... but there it went, shocking Tony again. "Maybe it just doesn't like being torn apart like that. It only shocks you when you try, right?" Could be some kind of automaton, he figured, and they usually did have opinions about that stuff.

"Yeah, no. That would be a good guess if that wasn't actually the first reason for the electroshock therapy. The first time?" He spun the device on the table so it faced the opposite direction, revealing a few strange ports on the back. "It took some trial and error and some testing, but I managed to scrap together--" He directed Leo's attention to one of the rather large computers in the corner. Obviously not a Dell or HP. Neither was it a Stark Industries model. Tony had actually managed to jury-rig a cable with an interface that matched the port on the device. "That."

"It worked. For a second. A massive burst of data made it to the computer in a language I've never seen before, then it not only fried the computer, but I lost half the nanites working with my micro computers." He motioned to his arm. Nearly half the nanites under Tony's skin were 'dead in the water' so to speak, wiped clean of their programming. "That one knocked me on my not-so-iron ass. In other words, it shocks me whenever it damn well feels like it!" No, Tony. It shocks you when you tamper with it. But he was far too riled up to admit that.

Edited 2014-07-25 19:03 (UTC)

"Seriously?" Holy Hephaestus. And it took out half of Tony's nanites? That thing wasn't playing around. Leo was tempted to offer to see what he could do to fix them, if anything could be done at all - after all, he didn't have to see a machine to manipulate it, even if that did make it easier - but he'd come to learn that Tony didn't really like anyone working on those things but himself. It didn't offend Leo at all, though. He felt the same way about his own projects.

But this thing might be different, considering it had just appeared and looked intent on keeping Tony away from it.

"What if I just..." His voice trailed off, all his focus going to the device before them as he reached out to touch it. Maybe he could get something that way.

Edited 2014-07-26 20:10 (UTC)

"Yeah. No kidding." He would find some way to reactivate the little buggers. They still had purposes to serve and he'd be damned if he let some testy device get the better of him over it all. But Leo was right. This project, though it had gotten slightly personal, because he was a bit on the bull headed side, it wasn't one of his inventions.

When Leo spoke again and seemed to concentrate, Tony refrained from talking, opting to just watch instead. The boy was extraordinary, so maybe he really could do it.

As soon as Leo's hand would come in contact with the device, it hummed to life, as if being brought out of sleep-mode. Okay, that was irritating in Tony's opinion. "Great. It likes you better." He huffed, but was interested despite himself. A small holographic screen was projected above the device, showing some kind of interface, but everything was displayed in a strange alien language. The screen rippled and warped with short spits of static, likely due to whatever damaged it before it arrived in Tony's lab.

Leo's eyes widened the instant the machine came to life, staring at it with no small amount of confusion. It was speaking to him, but for once... it wasn't helping. He couldn't tell what it's actually saying, and that mystified him. Machines, more often than not, were still machines, regardless of who built it with whatever language in mind.

"I... I guess it's a computer? I don't understand it - it's not in any kind of language I've seen before." Even Ancient Greek made more sense than... whatever this was. "It's broken - I guess you know that, but maybe it can still be fixed..." Concentrating, he silently asked the machine what they could do to fix it.

Wandering had been a mixed bag, as of late. While she hadn't discovered anything hostile, most of the labs were full of devices Fortescue didn't feel confident enough to mess with. And she wasn't exactly a slouch in the technology department. No Ivy Chance, for sure, but she'd rarely needed to ask for help before; she'd grown up with high amounts of technology.

A shout, though, that draws her attention, and Jazz stays behind a few strides as she pokes her head around the frame of a doorway. She recognizes the occupant, at least, even if he's been MIA for a little while.

"Loud and clear, darling," she notes, somewhat wry.

Tony spun around with a start when that semi-familiar voice broke his angry rant before it could truly get started. Well, if it wasn't the beautiful mystery woman in the flesh? He could subdue his ire for a while.

"Well, well. I'll have to yell at computers more often if it summons goddesses to my lab. I don't think I ever got your name."

"Usually this goddess prefers sacrifices of wine or scotch, but yelling does the trick every once in a while." She smiles, poking the rest of herself into the room to glance at its contents. "And it's Fortescue."

Last name only, as is standard procedure when she introduces herself. Only one person here knows her first name, on account of how much she loathes it.

"Missing your usual stomping grounds, I take it?"

"Fortescue? Tony Stark. Now we're properly acquainted. And if the lovely goddess knows of anywhere a ruggedly handsome mechanic could procure these gifts of alcoholic pleasure, she would certainly be included in the spoils." He hadn't had a drop of liquor since he arrived and he would be more than willing to share if he had any.

But the next question helped tone down the flirt a few degrees. "The usual grounds, the usual equipment, the usual artificial intelligence that hinders my progress with his safety procedures..." And the usual stunning redhead who barges into his shop and nags his ear off until he has to go join her for dinner or sleep, whatever the case may be. He shrugged. "Y'know. The works. I'm a little spoiled. Don't you miss anything of home?"

Fortescue tilts her head to the side, curious at the mention of artificial intelligence. He doesn't sound as though it's a joke. Most of the people in the Center, at least in the past, haven't come close to Fortescue's world in terms of its technology. Even the phones that the Center had so graciously gifted them are many, many generations behind what is standard in Imperium.

"Well, handsome mechanic, you just have to keep checking the cafeteria's spoils," she chuckles. "Sometimes there are a few nice bottles in the cupboards. You just have to get to them before someone else does."

She almost doesn't answer the question, but in the end simply shrugs. "Life is better for me here, as depressing as that sounds. Even with the terrible lighting."

Natalie, who had been sitting there for a few hours quietly murmuring to herself as she thought out loud, often chatting with JARVIS for a little tech help here and there, looked up suddenly from her work. She had been interested in a device she found somewhere in the building that look vaguely like a tablet from home, but she couldn't have been sure. Perhaps there was a way to program it to include books and other things that a teenager might need to keep herself from going completely batshit. Along with learning for the sake of learning, it was one of the main factors in driving her to actually be a competent tech person.

"Ouch," she said helpfully, standing up and pushing the goggles up her forehead, holding her hair back.

"Yep." Tony agreed, shaking the jolt out of his arm. That one would linger for a while. A very long while if the ache in his knuckles and elbow were anything to go by.

"Yep, yep." He agreed again, turning completely away from his project to face her. He was probably five minutes from threatening it to cooperate, so it was probably best he take a breather before he made himself look crazier than he actually was. "What're you working on?" He nodded over to the tablet-like device. "I need to take a break from this thing before I declare war on whatever planet it came from for trolling me." He may or may not have said that with a bit more force than necessary. Hopefully she knew by now that none of his ire was aimed at her.

Adults using colloquial internet-based language like 'trolling' would never cease to amuse Natalie, but then again, she also figured that Tony was not a typical adult.

Her eyebrows shot up and she worked the amusement out of her expression slowly because now was not a very good time to be amused. "Well, I'm trying to turn this on. I keep getting a startup screen and then it shuts itself down," Natalie explained, creasing her brow, the hand clutching a screwdriver resting sassily on her hip. "I dunno what it is. I just found it and I thought I could make some use of it."

Tony was certainly not your typical adult. He was, as Pepper had said before, a big kid at times. With his toys and obsessions and need to be up on everything current. HE furrowed his brow and looked the device over.

"As in, it looks like mechanical failure or like a corrupt operating system? I can fix both. But I can walk you through fixing mechanical failure a lot easier than repairing the operating system. Because if I fix everything, you won't learn anything, right?" Oh, but the desire to fix everything was in his blood. However, so was the desire to see others using their brains and potential. So, in favour of expanding her knowledge, he could stave off the Mr. Fix-It drive for the time being.

"I definitely would not want you to fix it for me," she agreed with a smile.

"I think it's mechanical failure. I managed to open it but there's only so much that I already know how to do." And she had already spent a great deal of time going to the library and reading up on this sort of thing, often bringing books back to the workshop or her bedroom. "The screen's all good, but I think there's gotta be something wrong with the power. Like, where and how do I charge it?"

"Or," she added suddenly, "how can I build a new charger for the port here?"

"Good. Then we're in agreement." He crossed the room to the tablet in question, giving it a good once-over. "Not bad. A charger, actually, isn't all that difficult to cobble together. Even with the limited materials left to us by the oh-so-possessive caretaker." Anyone get the hint that he still doesn't like being held against his will? Hey, ask him to work here and help out, sure. Kidnap him? He gets a little pissy. For a very long time.

"I have a box of spare parts I've been keeping around for just these kinds of situations." Oh yes, he was very proud of himself.

"I don't expect this to be, like, an iPad mini but if I can fix this doodad, I'll consider that a step in the right direction as an apprentice,' Natalie decided. She wasn't any happier about this situation; being thrown for a loop, having her life pulled in another direction has never ever sat well with someone who preferred even a semblance of a routine, normalcy. Whatever that was.

'What do you think about it?" It's opened and it looks a little too simple to match the modern technology she's familiar with, "Or the tech you've found here, in general?"

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Let's take a make-believe vacation

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