ArchivedLogs:Zombie Ants

Zombie Ants
Dramatis Personae Doug, Dusk
In Absentia	2015-03-27 A plan is set in motion.
Location <NYC> Doug's Apartment - Little Italy
Early Friday evening is a time usually reserved for rushing home from work and getting ready for the night and/or the weekend ahead. That's if you're not among those lucky enough to already home and beginning said activities. Such is Doug. Working the early morning shifts gives the blonde plenty of time to beat the crowds home. He's already showered and everything! He even sent a text to Dusk, asking him to stop by if he was free, although he wouldn't go into any specifics. Perhaps it's related to what he's working on, now. Hair still damp from the shower, the polyglot sits near the ever-nearing-completion computer cabinet, clad only in a pair of snug blue sweatpants. His glasses are perched on his nose, and he seems lost in the lines of code that are rolling across his laptop screen. They probably match the lines in the various notebooks open around him, but they're moving to fast to verify that fact. From the iPod in the dock, French pop plays softly. In the kitchen, a frozen lasagna is just beginning to overcook. Dusk's texts in return were slow in coming. 'I work from home.' 'I'm usually free.' But then a long silence. POSSIBLY he fell back asleep. Or got distracted with a project. Both frequent hazards of working from home. Eventually Doug's buzzer does sound, though. Bzzzz. Dusk is unsurprisingly outside, dressed in dark corduroys, a heavy shawl thrown on over his wings, a blue and silver wrap shirt draped around him beneath that. There's a messenger bag slung on over his chest, tucked under the shawl as well. To his credit, Doug hears the buzzer fairly quickly, and shifts his laptop so he can hop lightly to his feet. Having a first floor apartment means that he's able to poke his head out his door and verify Dusk's presence before he hits the button to open the front door. "Hey, Dusk!" he says, leaning against the door frame and offering a bright smile of welcome. "Glad you could make it. C'mon in. You hungry?" He wrinkles his nose, blushing a bit as he realizes how that sounds, and he folds his arms across his bare chest. "For food?" Dusk's grin flashes broad and fangy, and even before Doug clarifies his question his answer is immediate: "I'm always hungry." His eyes flick over Doug, and then past him into the apartment, nostrils flaring in a quick sniff as he steps inside. "Oh, /food/. Is it the kind of food with caffeine?" Doug manages to not blush further under that flicker of scrutiny, and he nods at the question as he pulls the door shut behind him. "I have coffee," he says. "Also energy drinks and a two-liter of Dr. Pepper. Caffeine is the friend of those of us up at fuck o'clock." He grins, slipping past Dusk and heading for the kitchen. "I also have a lasagna, provided by Mrs. Scarpelli from upstairs, who is convinced I am not meaty enough to find a nice boy." There is definitely a bit more of Doug, packed a bit tighter to his frame, accented as he reaches up scratch his chest. "What's your pleasure?" "Have you been looking for a nice boy?" Dusk sheds his shawl once inside -- beneath, his wings are kind of /dazzling/, not their usual black but a shimmering expanse of silver and purple swirl brushed over the fuzz with a darker metallic colour beneath it on the actual skin. "Dr Pepper'll do me. Think I'll pass on the lasagna though, that stuff usually spells death for me." "I'm always on the lookout for a nice boy," Doug says, stopping his path to admire Dusk's wings. "It's spotting them that I have trouble with. Oh, hey. Those look good. Tag do those?" Which probably rhetorical, as he continues into the kitchen to grab the drinks. "Oh, yeah," he says when Dusk passes on the dinner. "I forget about the garlic." He grabs a couple of glasses, dropping ice into each before opening the fridge to grab the soda. "You could probably still eat," he says, poking his head back out. "I just tested clean for the shop physical, and I'm about to eat a bunch of red meat and carbs." He waves a hand, disappearing again. "Up to you. But after. I want to talk to you about something I need help with." "Yeah --" Dusk's wings shiver just slightly outward, his smile curving back a little. "Tag's pretty great. S'been getting me and Isra a lot. Horus, too. Though I think maybe Horus pays him in -- strange trinkets he finds on the street." The garlic comment makes his mouth open -- close again -- open again, before a crooked grin pulls at his lips. He trails after Doug towards the kitchen, leaning one wing up against the wall. "That's kinda a myth. -- Help with what?" Doug is topping off the glasses when Dusk comes around, turning the bottle slightly as he lifts it. "A myth? You mean you're not a /real/ vampire?" He grins, catching the tip of his tongue in his teeth playfully as he returns the soda to the fridge. The question gets a long moment of silence, covered badly by the retrieval of the lasagna from the oven. "I've been having these dreams," he starts, setting the pan on the stove top and reaching to turn off the oven. "Like, really vivid ones. About the near future. They're really coherent, like they're actually happening, y'know?" He drops the hot pads on the counter, and wrinkles his nose. "It's like I'm seeing what's going to happen or something. Which was /totally/ not in my power set, prior to this." He pauses, watching Dusk's face with a pensive sort of look, chewing at his bottom lip. "They're very...bleak." "I have a reflection. And a cross necklace that doesn't burn at all. And I freaking /love/ garlic." Dusk leans forward, reaching out a hand for one of the soda glasses. His brows draw together at Doug's explanation. "... Oh. Those." His wings quiver behind him, pull in tighter. His thumbclaws twitch slightly. "It's not you. I mean, not your -- powers. What..." For a moment he hesitates, leaning back against the wall. "What's happening in your dreams?" Doug furrows his brow at Dusk's reaction to his revelation, and he picks up the other glass, taking a drink and swallowing before he answers. "In the last couple, I've been a resident of the state in a nice little mutant asylum," he says, setting his glass back down. "I got caught trying to take food to some people, and these robots -- Sentinels -- came and took me into custody for violating curfew." He frowns. "They took Warlock, too. Probably cut him to pieces trying to figure him out." Which probably makes some kind of sense. "Which is how I got the idea," he adds, some excitement creeping into his tone as he steps forward. "I want to turn Warlock into a virus. An A.I. virus." "Cut him to pieces? Isn't he just --" Dusk's wing gestures behind him in some confusion, waving vaguely towards Doug's laptop. "A program?" His confusion doesn't really ebb at the rest of this. His brows lift. "... Huh? To do -- what?" "In the dreams, I uploaded him into a Sentinel I stole from the feds," Doug says, heading in the direction of his laptop. "It was really cool, because he could do this morphing thing with his arms that was super helpful." He looks back at Dusk. "So I'm sure he confused the hell out of them when they got him back." He squats next to his laptop, and punches up a website with the most recent article about Norman Osborn and his EMT drones. "This is kind of how it started, in the dreams," he says. "What I'm thinking is maybe I can make a virus that could be used in case they /are/ prophetic, and these Sentinels turn into /those/ Sentinels." "They are prophetic." Dusk's tone is a little grim. He follows Doug back towards the laptop, teeth sinking against his lower lip. "It's not just the Sentinels. Something's going to happen --" Whatever he's going to say here, though, he just trails off, eyes a little wider as he sinks down into a crouch beside Doug. He taps the rim of his glass against his teeth, slowly. Takes a sip, slowly. "... Huh." Thoughtful, this time, instead of confused. "What would you have it do?" "Zombie ants," is Doug's cryptic reply. "You know that fungus that turns ants into zombies? Something like that. A computer version of the zombie virus. It would hide as some ignored subcommand, until its programming required it to have to..." he wrinkles his nose as he tries to think of the right word. "...deal with mutants. At that point, the Warlock program would take over all the Sentinel's functions, and then there's a Sentinel on /our/ side." He nods slowly as he reconsiders that plan. "Yeah. They all talk to each other and probably some main CPU somewhere, so in theory, it could spread like wildfire." "In theory." Dusk leans back, propped against the floor by the lower talons on his wings. He takes another long sip from his glass, staring more through the computer than at it. "But could it spread from one /version/ of the Sentinels to the next? Because the things there," his claw flicks towards the screen, "the medical -- whatever shit they're claiming to push right now, those med-bots, those aren't even remotely the same models that are at those hell-camps later. So presumably they go through some -- some kind of changes. Incarnations. Upgrades. You'd have to wait and get it into the right /version/ of the Sentinels. Or deep enough into Oscorp somewhere that it's everywhere -- but that'd be hard to ensure. Maybe." He doesn't look quite sure, brows furrowed deeply and his teeth gnawing at the glass again. "You don't -- happen to know anyone there, do you?" Doug's expression turns sharp as Dusk lays out what he already sort of knew, and he leans forward. "You know, I actually don't know anyone there," he says. "Although, Norman Osborn /did/ offer me a job working for him a couple of years ago. Kind of." He furrows his brow as he tries to recall the exact conversation. "My dad has access to the servers as an Osborn consultant, but I can't steal his credentials again. It would look suspicious." He purses his lips thoughtfully. "But if I could get a job there...even part-time...." Dusk's smile spreads, slow and sharp-fanged behind the rim of the glass. "... probably pays a hell of a lot better than a prison camp." Doug's grin is less fangy, but no less wide as it works its way across his face. "Indeed." He rocks forward, and taps a few keys. "So, if you're in, let me show you the changes I've made so far," he says, scooting himself and the laptop closer. "And where I'm running into trouble with it." He grins, and tips his head to the side, baring his neck teasingly. "And then snacks."