Logs:Manageable Mayhem

Manageable Mayhem
Dramatis Personae Akihiro, B, Heather, Regan	2019-10-15 "I'm not really up to speed with the internets."
Location <BOM> Common Room - Bom Lodge
The common room's rustic-lodge feel has been somewhat mitigated by the modern amenities inside its sturdy wooden walls. It has comfortable couches, several chairs, a refrigerator (stocked with snacks and drinks!), a pool table, a pinball machine (METALLICA!), an assortment of books, a television -- with several game systems! -- and a splendid view out the windows (when their lacy yellow curtains are drawn open) for the rest of the island. The pale wood floors have been covered in places -- by a pair of soft thick blue rugs, by a large squishy pair of beanbags that stand in front of the stone fireplace. There's also a board up on the wall, half corkboard, half whiteboard, with a variety of community notes (and occasional insults) to other Brotherhood members. Large doors on the right-hand side lead off to the kitchen and dining room. In the back of the room, the council room's heavy oak door bears solid locks that are almost never actually barred. A short hall adjacent to the council room's door leads to a trio of multi-stalled bathrooms; these might once have been marked with the typical man-woman-handicapped signs, but someone has given them new plaques on the door; a stick figure with horns and a long tail, one with wings. One -- the large single-user toilet -- has instead been given a helmet and a cape. It's bright and sunny, the cheerful curtains pulled wide open to flood the lodge with light. Birds are twittering outside, an occasional fluttering fall of colorful leaves by the window lends a seasonally appropriate air to the day. Regan looks at odds with the general Pleasantness. Tucked into one side of a couch in cream skinny jeans and an oversized burgundy sweater, her hands are currently wrapped around a large cup of coffee that she is frowning down into. She lifts a hand, passes it over her forehead. Looks up with a small hitch of brows. "Run that by me again?" B looks brighter if not more cheerful. In a purple grey and black swirled galaxy print dress, gleaming metallic silver over her eyes and on her claws, purple and silver leggings. She sits cross legged on the floor, leaning back against a coffee table. "I don't know if there's a date they want them on the streets by. I didn't even think they were production ready but the business team always has other ideas." Her annoyed scowl is short lived -- shifting back into just somber as she remembers where her current upset ought to be directed. "Most if these changes were -- not things they told my team until kind of the last minute. There's a whole long list of features they want from us, now." "That sounds real unpleasant." Akihiro says, coming back in from training. "Didn't mean to eavesdrop. You know how it is." He makes a vague motion towards his ear and pulls the wrinkled black t-shirt he was carrying on. Wandering over to one of the refrigerators he pulls out a bottle of water. "We just going to let this happen, or we gonna hit them?" There's a pause as he goes to take a drink from the bottle. "Wait, would that even work? I'm not really up to speed with the internets." Heather's book, an old looking book with a yellow cover, entitled 'Contemporary Abstract Algebra, 8E', lays open and face down next to her where she had just put it down to struggle her way out of the comfortable beanbag chair that she's been reclining on. While her tie-dyed t-shirt and bright magenta jeans also add a bit of colour, her expression seems blank, made even harder to read past her tinted ski goggles. "What kinds of features are they asking for?" her recorded voice asks, though the volume is turned a bit lower than it is normally. She turns her gaze to Akihiro and mimes scratching her head while the recorder continues to play, "What is this about internets?" "Hit who? All of Stark Industries? Do you imagine that would stop the project?" Regan is directing the question -- evidently in earnest -- to B. "How much sway, exactly, do you have over these developments? Do you know where these things are headed?" B's brows hike up. "Thankfully I'm... uh." Her clear inner eyelids shutter briefly as she looks to Akihiro. "Up to speed. I don't have any say in where they end up. It was supposed to be for a military contract but the cops are taking an interest now." Her gills flutter rapidly, and she swallows hard before looking to Heather. "They're already a nightmare to destroy and functionally self-repairing. There's -- no actual way on earth to make them accurately scan for mutants, but they want to see how close we can get. But I mean -- any net I cast there is going to miss half of us and grab a lot of humans up with it." It's a hasty afterthought of addition when she scrambles to assure the others: "... not that I'd do it! I just mean like. Hypothetically. If I tried." "I guess they wouldn't have a separate facility." Akihiro sorts of 'hmms' to himself as they talk. "That it's probably in one of these clouds I keep hearing about." This is to Heather. "Back in my day we could burn some research, kill a few scientists, and send an entire operation back to the drawing boards." Finishing off the water he tosses it into the bin. "I can barely run a smartphone, so I can't even begin to imagine what the security at Stark Industries is like." Heather lifts up her goggles to squint at Akihiro curiously, but snaps them right back over her eyes in short order and concedes, "Probably in a cloud. Probably no particular object that can be burned." She looks to B for confirmation while the recording plays, but there is no pause before a second message continues. "Is it possible to introduce a flaw?" A bit of incomprehensible chirping escapes her lips, but she bites her bottom lip and crosses her arms, eyebrows furrowed. "I would really rather you didn't kill this particular scientist." Regan is looking over the rim of her mug at B as she takes a sip of her coffee. She tips the cup out to Heather indicatively afterwards. "Sabotage may in the long run be more effective than blowing up Stark Tower. And would it be such a terrible thing?" Just a curious musing, in her tone. "If they swept some humans along in all this?" "In the clouds," B echoes, blinking again. "Something like that. It'd be really difficult to derail a large project at Stark just by blowing up a building. I mean, I could do a lot to throw wrenches in the gears but I honestly don't think it'd stop them getting made even if I screwed the project up totally. They'd just fire me and put someone else on it and they'll be on the streets a year later instead of next year." One of her slim shoulders shrugs. A small tug curls her lips up after Heather speaks. "I could sneak all kinds of things in there." Akihiro sits down cross-legged on the floor and thinks. "It's safe to assume it'll be militarized within the decade. We'll definitely need to come up with ways to actually put them down." He leans back into his palms. "Maybe invest in a little adamantium too even things out." A small smile appears momentarily on Heather's face to mirror the appearance of B's and she gives a thumbs up of approval. She nods her head a couple of times rapidly at Regan in agreement. "I do not think it would be a terrible thing at all." Her eyebrows raise slightly and she clicks on another question. "Where do you get adamantium?" "Even things out," Regan muses, her lips just slightly pursed. She sips at the coffee again, then lowers it to her lap. "Are they meant to perform autonomously? Just how smart are they? And if they do start selling them to the police, will your team stay involved with the upkeep at all?" "Do we -- have the capacity to process adamantium?" B's enormous black eyes open just a little bit wider; the sideways tilt of her head is small. The flutter of her gills comes just a little faster. "We made them as weapons," she explains again, more directly to Akihiro this time. "They're already pretty, um. Pretty militarized. I mean, I programmed the things myself. It just -- the original plan wasn't --" She shifts just a little uncomfortably on the floor. "But don't get me wrong, they're not just tough, they're deadly. And they're smart. But --" Again, a small shrug. "They're just robots. If they sold them to the cops this whole thing would be so experimental. I'd hope they keep us involved through an initial deployment unless they want to start some kind of Skynet situation." "Well, we could take my father's, but I have no idea where Wolverine is." Akihiro floats jokingly. "I know a few military bases that may still have some," he nods at B, "but we don't have a setup to really do anything with it. I believe we can get it layered onto items, but that's not exactly cheap." "I do not know anything about adamantium. I am guessing that you cannot use it just like-" While this part plays, Heather hooks her recorder to her shirt and then gestures as if she is holding something bulky in both hands and using it as a crude bludgeon. "If you do oversee the initial deployments what kind of access will your team have?" The last she seems to wonder out loud to herself: "How much bad image would it take for cops to scrap the idea?" "I am not certain," Regan answers slowly, "that additional individual armor -- or bludgeons -- will make up for the expense in getting and attempting to utilize them. When it comes to battling fleets of people with military-grade weaponry --" Her shrug is small, too. "Probably our resources are better placed elsewhere. A small smile touches her lips with Heather's questions. "We aren't without sway in the police department. I feel confident we could figure out a way to keep you all involved." "I've never worked with it but the process is pretty specialized." B stretches one leg out in front of her, her claws tapping lightly against the ground as she considers. "It would make the most sense if we still had full access to the bots after deployment -- I can only imagine they'll need a lot of on the fly tweaking in the early days. I don't know about stuff on the cops' side -- I mean, historically they're allowed a lot of murder before they face like. A single solitary consequence -- but." Her smile slowly curls a little wider. "I think we could manage a fair amount of mayhem." "Depends on how many humans they kill." Akihiro sits back up, taking the pressure off his wrists."Maybe occasionally tear people apart. Although that'd probably get them quarantined and inspected. We just need the public to lose enough faith in them that they push for a ban." One of Heather's eyebrows raise, and then the other, when told they have some sway in the police department, and she nods understanding. "Enough mayhem to make people lose faith," she plays, her thoughtful tone carrying over the recording while she bows her head in agreement with B. "Sounds manageable."