ArchivedLogs:Super Science

Super Science
Dramatis Personae Tony Stark, B, Peter
In Absentia	2013-07-09 '
Location <NYC> Stark Tower - Midtown East
A gleaming beacon of modern architecture shining bright amidst the industry of Midtown, Stark Tower serves as headquarters to one of the largest tech corporations in the world. The offices and boardrooms of Stark Industries and any number of satellite companies, subsidiaries, and nonprofits are homed here. To the public what draws most visitors is not the business but the science -- the first two floors of the building hold an extensive museum dedicated to technological innovation. As well, guided tours three days a week are open to the public, to be shown through both the museum and, more notably, through (select parts of) the dozen floors dedicated solely to R&D.The building itself is as eye-catching inside as outside. The soaring lobby atrium extends upwards, bright and glass-walled with perpetually bustling balconies ringing each floor. All visitors must pass through the lobby security checkpoints to be signed in. The technology integrated into the building, from the interactive holographic displays that help guide visitors to their destination to the quiet AI that remembers visitors' preferences upon repeat visits to the basement arc reactor that powers the entire building, are quiet reminders of the company's dedication to innovation. Stark Industries is a very good place to work, if you are a techie. There's a large employees-only cafeteria (with a myriad of food options available for cheap purchase, three meals a day, though lunch and dinner additionally have limited catered options available free); there's a kitchen with a wealth of snacks (also free!) stocked in the fridge and freezer and pantry (employees can send requests to the office manager! Who tends to fill them within the week); there are rooms just for gaming (video games, board games, pool or ping-pong or air hockey or DDR); there's a free gym with a rock climbing wall. Employees in tech and R&D don't /have/ set hours; so long as their work gets done they can come in at 2pm or /leave/ at 2pm and nobody will say anything about it. Vacation time is tracked the same way (i.e., not at all.) There's even a room for massages. The perks, really, are in place because when you get past all those cushy rooms into the actual labs where the /work/ gets done, working at Stark Industries is -- well, /hard/. For all the flexibility, there's an intense /pressure/ to do the work and do it well; there's tight deadlines and high expectations and occasionally a sort of feeling that without those unlimited snacks and free professional masseuses possibly someone here miiiight have gone on a shooting spree by now. To an outsider, this section of the labs looks like a study in chaos. Very /futuristic/ chaos; the wealth of engineering equipment scattered around the workshops is more state-of-the-art enough to lend the enormous space a cutting-edge feel even /before/ you notice the interactive holographs that let employees interact with their computers (from pretty much anywhere in the lab, regardless of how /close/ they are to the physical devices.) -- useful, probably, as holographic displays are far less likely to incur damage from occasional equipment /mishaps/. Of which there are sadly probably many. A whole lot of flexible freedom to create also means a lot of freedom to fuck up. Which happens on a frequent basis; in between the huddled-together conversations over this bit of code or that algorithm are very frequent outbursts of swearing. One of those outbursts of swearing is coming from Sebastian /right now/. It's in Vietnamese, so it doesn't sound as obscene as it /might/ if you -- well, knew Vietnamese. -- Which probably means to Peter it sounds fairly obscene, no doubt /Shane's/ half of Vietnamese lessons has started /out/ with a healthy grounding in swearing. Currnetly Bastian is swearing /at/ a -- remote-controlled helicopter? No, it lacks the /copter/ part of this, but it's definitely a foot-long slim flying /something/. With a long body. And thin metal wings and thin insectoid legs. No head, though, that's fallen /off/ in its most recent crash in the encased space it has been unleashed to fly inside. Because, alright, it's not /really/ a flying dragonfly robot, it's only /trying/ to be. The part where it actually /flies/ is what he is currently failing at; there are scorch marks on the floor near the edge of the test space, and the dragonfly body is sitting a few feet from the dragonfly head, one wing still occasionally sputtering usless fzzp-fzzp-fzzps of some kind of tiny energy pulse. Sebastian is ignoring the sad dying dragonfly entirely in favor of its holographic image, tracking the most recent disastrous attempt in replay while statistics scroll by beneath; in another segment of airspace there are lines of code that he is grimacing at, knuckles digging into his eye. The blue sharkboy is /kind of/ dressed in his flamboyant usual, blue skirt and yellow butterfly-embroidered top, but it's all covered over by a labcoat. For no real reason, given that he's currently just working on the computer, save that labcoats /clearly/ add +3 to thinking. "Are those /all/ curses?" Peter asks, somewhere behind and over Sebastian. "Shane taught me some but I didn't recognize /all/ of those." Peter's never one to miss an opportunity to learn /more/ curses! Well, okay, maybe he is -- since mentioning the cursewords has gotten him to darken into a sharp violet. The metallic-blue spider-boy is currently perched on the ceiling. He claims it helps him /think/; it might just be because -- less people are likely to notice him when he's scuttling overhead. It's clear from his posture and behavior since starting at the lab that he doesn't think he /belongs/ here; he's pretty much sequestered himself inside a work-station /way/ out of the way and only occasionally emerges -- in a dashing blur of metallic blue! -- for snacks and mechanical supplies. At the /moment/, Peter's not wearing a labcoat; he's wearing... it looks like plastic /chainmail/, actually. Slightly transparent; his dark-blue skin is a visible blur under it -- closer inspection reveals that it's a shirt made of plastic tubes, all sealed together into an interlocking weave -- with a slim little red box (with USB port!) at his sternum, the nape of his neck, and the very center of his back. Peter's got on dress-slacks, at least, and his two-toed socks -- he's hovering above Sebastian, upside down, knees and feet pressed to the ceiling -- along with one palm. The other is holding a tablet -- Peter uses the holographs /sometimes/, but a lot of times, he just prefers to use something more physical. CALL HIM OLD FASHIONED. Maybe. "Um! Oh, oh gosh!" Sebastian's eyes widen when he has a sudden /audience/, head tilting to look up at the ceiling with a very deer-in-headlights hugeness. "N-- I mean yes," he quickly corrects to the (deeply blushing) truth. "I just keep trying to -- are you wearing chainmail?" He bites down on his lip, tipping up onto his toes to peer at Peter more closely. "-- You're probably going to regret it if you ever /drop/ that tablet." /He/ clearly enjoys his holographcomputer; he swipes at it with a lot more flourish than is necessary to freeze the little robot dragonfly mid-flight. "Why, do you need more curses? You can borrow some of mine. They're useful for -- like." Sebastian's eyes dart around the industrious workshop space, and then his shoulders slump as he admits: "... useful for, like, /every/ day here. Just all the time. "I don't think," he confides a little quieter, still stretched up onto his toes to get /that/ much closer to Peter, "that I've done a single thing successfully since I started." "--oh yeah," Peter says, grinning down to Sebastian at the mention of the tablet -- and then Peter proceeds to /flail/ his arm. Just, SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE. In a very violent, dangerous way -- fingers uncurling from the tablet, just pressing his /palm/ to it. FLAIL! FLAIL! FLAIL! "One of the benefits," Peter quickly explains, "of being able to stick to just about /anything/." And then -- Peter's on the floor! Just like that. WHUMP! He lands behind Sebastian, a few feet away, right-side up. "--yeah," Peter agrees, still-flushed violet at the mention of not doing anything successful. "I know what you mean I don't even know what we're /doing/ here. Oh, um, it's," he gestures to the plastic CHAINMAIL, "just testing something? I made it with one of the 3D printers, they have /awesome/ ones here, like holycrap -- it's the thermoregulator? Water's flowing through it from these things." He taps the red pad on his chest. "It /kinda/ works? But not really. It keeps getting jammed, and melting." Peter leeeeans forward, peering over Sebastian's shoulder at the holograph of the flying dragonfly. "--man that's cool," he says, a little breathlessly. "How does it fly?" The shaking of Peter's hand earns a tiny smile from Sebastian; he reaches out when Peter's on the floor to tug at the tablet experimentally. "Does that make it hard to /use/?" He taps a finger against the screen demonstratively. "I mean, with your fingers? I guess you could stylus." He slumps against his workspace -- with the holographic display over it it is currently right now nothing but an empty desk! His head lands up somewhere in the middle of a long string of Lisp. "-- Melting? What are you using for the --" He straightens again, this time turning to TURN Peter more towards him and examine the device at his chest. "-- Um, it /doesn't/," he says regretfully, as he looks Peter over, with a small flick of fingers towards the slowly flapping decapitated dragonfly on the floor nearby. "But theoretically, it's a -- I kind of scaled /down/ a jet engine -- it has repulsors for stabilizing, but. Uh. In theory, in practice it's -- not. Very stable. But I don't think it's a problem with the /hardware/ I think I just keep miscalculating -- it's not very /big/." "Oh, naw," Peter responds, when Sebastian taps the screen -- which instantly responds! -- "I can actually totally control the stickiness? -- like, which fingers stick and which don't -- it's like," and here he pauses, /peering/ at his other free hand. "--actually I have no idea what it's like I don't even know how it /works/," he says, and he actually doesn't sound very happy. When Peter is turned, he does not resist! The device on his chest is more or less just a modified water pump plus /heater/ stuck inside of a small, slim casing -- the casing is easy to pop off to expose the innards. "--oh," Peter says, flushing a little violet as Sebastian inspects it. "S'cuz I'm using. Really I just. Printed these on a 3D printer they're not even /heat/ resistant." He tugs at the tubes. "--but actually I /should/ be trying to get the cooling system to work instead of the heating system I just kind of got. Distracted." Peter /peeeeers/ at the dragonfly on the ground; his foot scoots forward -- as if to nudge it! And see if it responds. "--my dad," Peter begins, a little more quietly -- "Uh, I mean -- my. Original. Dad. Used to send my uncle -- letters. He'd talk about a lot of things -- science was -- he'd say," Peter scoots back from the instrument, looking back to Sebastian, "that 99.99% of science is /failure/. You know," Peter adds, with just a /tiny/ quirk of a grin, "I still have um, a bunch of schematics on those --" He makes a buzzing noise with his mouth, hand bobbing in the air. "--things. From that time. I, uh. Took those things. From that place." A sliiiightly sneaky glance t othe side. Outside, there is often a /stir/ when Tony Stark appears somewhere; flutters of cameras, milling people trying to ask questions or get autographs. In here, it is somewhat the opposite -- Tony's arrival, infrequent enough to be unexpected, not infrequent enough to be really /startling/, tends to come with a quieting, a more /dedicated/ application of energy as everyone tries to Look Busy at once. He's dressed casually, as many people here are; jeans and a faded Black Sabbath t-shirt. He isn't particularly hurried as he makes his way through the lab, stopping by one far workstation to offer a few suggestions to the man working there, stopping by another to /hear/ some from a young woman also in a labcoat. But eventually he makes his way over to the boys, crouching with elbows on knees to look at the dragonfly on the floor. "Its head is supposed to be attached, right?" He's reaching for the head and then the body, to examine! "-- You wearing chainmail?" he asks Sebastian's question to Peter /again/. "I am /totally/ the ninety-nine percent, then," Sebastian answers with a sudden bright smile -- that fades when there is an abrupt Tony there! His gills flutter wildly beneath his labcoat and, flustered: "/Um/ I didn't mean like -- the Occupy -- not like your the one -- I mean you /are/ but that's not a /bad/ -- uhhhhhhhhhh --" He scrubs the heel of his hand against his eye. "... the head's supposed to be attached," he agrees meekly, "it sort of had a -- kind of /difficult/ landing. In that. It just crashed and didn't land at all." His nose crinkles up, and he drops his other hand away from Peter's chest. "-- It's better than chainmail." "OhGod," Peter says, /sharp/ and sudden and -- yep he's on the ceiling, again. Somehow having managed to jump off the floor and /rotate/ himself in mid-air, his feet and one hand attached; the tablet dangles from his palm as he peers down at Tony and Sebastian. Face a vivid violet. "Um. Hi," Peter says. Then: "I'm -- Peter." Shakygrin. In case you forgot, Tony. AGAIN. "It's--" Peter's hand drifts to the red compartment on his torso, and: "--liquid cooling /and/ heating suit it's basically for thermoregulation because some mutants can't sweat also I thought it'd be awesome to be able to like jump through /fires/ or swim in freezing lakes and still be totally okay also I'm Peter um do you still have my thwippy thing I think it might be dangerous." "More like the .1 percent," Tony answers Sebastian's stammering self-consciousness with a bland tone that makes it hard to tell if he's actually amused or not. He examines the decapitated dragonfly-head for a moment, before reaching for the body and, then, promptly dropping it again with a sudden undignified yelp. "That's -- that's hot. Right. Engine." He's shaking his hand, eyes slowly squeezing closed as he exhales. "Right. I'm okay." He leaves the dragonfly body where it is, instead picking up the head to thunk it down onto the table. A few taps at Sebastian's display, and the model is replaying its most recent flight again, though he pays more attention to the recorded data scrolling by than the image of the robot. He doesn't seem to really pay attention to Peter's sudden ceilingleap until the boy is explaining his contraption. One hand braces against Sebastian's workstation, and he turns half around, head tilting back and his eyebrows raising. "You know, we do offer chairs. To all our employees." His eyes are drifting more over Peter's device than his violet-hued face. "-- It's a very different design type if you're trying to thermoregulate people who can't do it themselves or trying to walk through fire. And /that's/ entirely different from dealing with freezing -- have you tried Peltier cooling at all? Usually more for computers than -- well. But we're really just fleshy computers, aren't we?" The last of Peter's statement just earns a puzzled lift of eyebrows. "Have your what." "Oh ohgosh don't that's --" Sebastian remembers only too late that the body of the robot is still cooling; he cringes as Tony burns himself on it. "Mmngh sorry yeah I'm still working on -- well, OK, working on making it /fly/ making it not dangeroys is -- second." "Thermoelectric?" He muses, "that -- would be good for /everyday/ sort of -- maybe less for things like fire." He squints up towards Peter at the mention of webshooters. "His wrist -- um, watches? The glue shooters?" In demonstration, Bastian holds out a wrist -- he even makes a THWIP noise! Though he's not wearing his own, it does not THWIP. "Oh, the units are modular," Peter replies, ignoring the comment about the chair -- probably without even realizing it! He snatches the red device in his chest out with a click, exposing the metal socket rim where all the tubes are piped into it -- and suddenly. Oh, SHIT. Water dribbles out of Peter's chest! His eyes widen as he fumbles to snap the device back /in/, an apologetic glance thrown down to Sebastian and Tony. "--oh, oh jeez, I forgot -- you have to -- turn it off um /sorry/ uh yeah I don't actually have a--" "--but yeah you switch out the components with heaters or coolers depending on what you need to do," Peter continues, shoving the device in with a click; it makes a tiny-little-hiss. "The final design would be wrapped in -- um -- the exterior in thermal insulation? And monitors and when it detects -- the units would try to -- the idea," Peter says, with increasing nervousness, "is to, like, make a /circulatory/ system that pumps /energy/ instead of blood, venting it or containing it based on information from your environment. It probably --" "--oh," Peter says, glancing down at Sebastian at the mention of the thermoelectric plates being better for every day use. "Yeah, maybe, or -- there's a lot of sensitive components? Depending on how -- I don't know how small or thin or flexible they can be, but it could even work -- as part of the thermal insulator that the tubing is /beneath/, and--" He flushes, then, as Sebastian explains the thwippy things. "--yes those um. I think -- it's /dangerous/." "Dangerous -- I know I haven't been in the industry long but isn't that usually the point of weapo --" Tony has been looking up towards Peter and he stops short as water dribbles down from the ceiling to him. Splish. Down over his face, trickling down into his shirt. He exhales a sharp breath that blows a small spray of water away from his lips. "OK, this is new, my employees don't usually. Get quite that excited -- please tell me this is just water." He lifts the hem of his shirt, wiping it against his face. "OhGod," Peter responds, eyes wide as he seems to realize just what he has /DONE/ oh my God his suit just peed on TONY. STARK. At once, Peter's on the ground -- whump -- and charging forward to grab a nearby paper towel (having been previously used to clean up after eating!) and, maybe with just a little horror, /shove/ it at Tony's suit. Dab, dab, dab. "OhmyGod I'm so sorry yesitsjustwater ohmyGod, um, um," and now Peter is /darting/ away from Tony, face violet, glancing back at Sebastian -- back at Tony: "I'm /so/ sorry pleasedon't. Fireus." Then, another step back, and a little quieter: "--the thwippy thing it. Has a tiny self-destruct feature. To release all the glue at once. I, uh. I didn't realize -- how /powerful/ it is, if it went off accidentally. The wearer could -- suffocate. In glue." "Release all the glue at once," Tony's echoing this with a touch of distraction; he takes the paper towel from Peter to dab himself dry. He turns back towards Sebastian's display, paging through some of the code. "How powerful /is/ it. I've been tinkering with the one you lent me, could almost imagine that if it all went off at once you might be able to stop a train." Patpatpat. "Guy once broke my foot dropping the prototype battery for the S1 on it. Didn't fire him for that. -- Though I did fire him when he missed three of his deadlines to get it working," he muses. "If you do want to experiment with the thermoelectric cooling you could talk to Anita," he's gesturing towards the young woman in the labcoat who he was talking with earlier, "she knows pretty much everything you could know about that." His scrolling stops on one section of code, highlighting a few lines with a swipe of his hand. But not doing anything else with them. He crumples the paper towel, presses it back into Peter's hand. I'll stop by on Friday and see how your -- chainmail is coming along." NO PRESSURE THOUGH. Sebastian's eyes widen even further at the mention of the train, his mouth opening into a small O. He's abruptly somewhat distracted, though, by /studying/ the section of code Tony highlights. Staring at it fervently. Perhaps it unlocks the MYSTERIES of the UNIVERSE. "--oh I--" The mention of the train manages to get Peter to /snap/ rigid; his coloration goes from violet to deep, deep indigo -- suddenly taking a /biiiig/ step back from TonyStark: "--wouldn't know I mean uh theoretically/maybe/but." Step, step. And at the mention of firing someone after missing three deadlines -- and Tony coming by on Friday -- Peter's eyes look ready to /pop/ out of his skull. "...yessir." He's now looking -- fervently! -- toward Anita's workstation. As if this person possessed the means to SAVE PETER'S LIFE. Tony just twitches a small smile at the boys. That's all! He leaves them to their CLUES and continues on. Other employees to harass.