ArchivedLogs:A.I.

A.I.
Dramatis Personae Doug, Sebastian
In Absentia	2013-06-25 '
Location <NYC> Village Lofts - Lobby - East Village
Bright and sunny, the lobby of this apartment building is clean and unassuming. Requiring an electronic keycard for entry, the pair of elevators dings cheerfully when one arrives. A small sitting area has bright yellow couches and small coffee tables, though the nearby vending machine is perpetually running out of /something/. Tall windows let in plenty of light during the daytime, and the building maintenance keeps the common areas spotlessly clean. A bank of mailboxes near the sitting area collects mail for the building, a recycling bin right at hand for the unwanted spam. Beside the mailboxes, a large corkboard serves as informal meeting space for the announcements, perpetually flyered with notes and notices from the various apartment residents. The city has not /improved/ in the past days. With escalating unrest it is not a safe time to be out of doors and perhaps this is /contributing/ to the fact that even though his workday ended /hours/ ago, Bastian is only just now getting back home. He is dressed brightly colorful! A swishy white-bordered pink /poodle/ skirt, a gauzy-sheer white blouse unbuttoned over a strappy white camisole. Cheery attire aside, he mostly looks /tired/ as he slouches his way in through the doors, pulling out his bundle of keys (his keyring has, of late, grown a second picture-ID electronic keycard to go with his non-pictured unlabeled Lofts keycard.) He doesn't head straight for the stairs, instead dropping his keys into the front flap of his messenger bag and beelining for the mailboxes instead. Not very long after Sebastian comes a Doug. The blonde is also slow in getting home from his classes, although the plastic bags in his hand indicate that his delay was less about avoiding detection than it was a shopping spree at some computer stores. Doug is dressed in an orange tank-top and knee-length denim shorts with low-rise green Converse sneakers sans socks. His trusty laptop bag is slung across his chest, bulging slightly on its side. Once inside the lobby, he also diverts to the mailboxes, shaking his keys around until he secures the right one. The sight of Sebastian pauses him slightly, and he takes a moment to look the younger boy's outfit over carefully before he steps forward. "Hey, Sebastian," he says, sliding his key into his mailbox. "You look worn out, dude." Sebastian shrugs a shoulder, head instinctively bowing and eyes fixing forward when he is addressed. "Long day, I guess," he says, more to the mailboxes than to Doug. "You been holding out OK with all this -- everything?" Doug bobbles his head. "I'm doing okay, I guess," he says in a weary sort of voice. "I mean, at first, it was a lot to absorb. I kind of just -- lost myself in projects. Checked out." He wrinkles his nose, and looks over to the smaller teen as he opens his mailbox. "I'm sorry you've had -- having -- to go through all of this," he says sincerely. "You guys don't deserve it." There's a small wrinkle of his nose that borders on a grimace. "/No one/ deserves it." There's another shrug. "Hasn't really been -- all that much happening to us. I mean, now. Have -- has -- work? Classes? Been good?" Sebastian stares at the mailboxes in front of him, only belatedly remembering he /needs/ his keys to get into those. He pulls them out, opening up the boxes for both 303 and 305. At closer inspection, the new keycard-ID dangling from his keychain proves to bear the Stark Industries logo. Sebastian Nguyen, R&D. "The city could use a break, though, that's for sure." "Still sucks, even if it's just little shit," Doug says, pulling out a roll of magazines (mostly tech trades) and a handful of envelopes. "That stuff builds up, and weighs you down, whether you acknowledge it or not." Doug leaves his mailbox open as he sorts through the envelopes, pulling out some junk flyers and tossing them in the recycle bin. "Classes are good," he says with a bob of his head. "Trying to get my credits in over the summer so I can start as a sophomore next year and hopefully qualify for the Stark intern program." That reminds him of something, and his gaze slides to the keycard hanging from Sebastian's keys before lifting to catch the teen's gaze accompanied by a weak, lopsided smile. "Congratulations on that, by the way." "Does kinda build up," Bastian acknowledges with a crinkle of hos nose. He tugs mail (skimpy, mostly junk that he tosses straight into the recycling) from 305 and mail (heavier, mostly envelopes that he actually looks through, tossing two but keeping the rest) from 303 and hugs the whole bundle to his chest. "Oh -- oh! Oh, cool." He offers Doug a small, shy smile. "Good luck." His cheeks flush darker at the congratulations. He looks down to his keycard, and hastily relocks the mailboxes. "Oh -- thanks," he says, a little quieter, and then: "I'm -- I'm not an intern." "Thanks," Doug says, shoving his mail into his laptop bag. "I could use it. There's a huge pool of applicants every year. I'm just hoping I can come up with something suitably impressive if I get called for an interview." He closes his mailbox, turning the key. "You're not?" he says, eyebrows lifting at the revelation. "I guess I just assumed you were, from what Micah said." There's the smallest jump of muscle in his cheek, but his expression remains amiable. "So, you're drawing an actual salary and everything? What are you doing?" "Good luck," Bastian says again, quiet and sincere, "it's kind of a -- it's intimidating." His hand lifts, scuffs awkwardly against the back of his neck. His smile returns, small, crooked, but warm. "No, I'm -- yeah. Actual salary and benefits and everything. I'm, um --" He jingles his keycard a little bit. "I guess my title is Researcher, officially? We're -- in R&D." "I can imagine," Doug says, his own voice growing a bit softer and distant-sounding. "Hell, /I'm/ intimidated just by the prospect of going through the whole application process. I can't imagine how much more intimidating it is to skip all of that and just find yourself in the middle of things." He smiles, and nods. "Oh, that's right. Micah said it was you and Peter who got jobs. That's awesome." He taps his temple firmly. "Gotta have some brains to be in that field." Sebastian colors darker. His weight shifts to one foot, the toe of his other rubbing against the back of his opposite ankle. "Kinda an accident," he admits bashfully. It's brighter and less shy when he agrees: "Yeah!", more excited, "Peter too. He's crazy-smart. I um -- I don't think a lot of our coworkers are really all that comfortable with us but." But shrug. "It's awesome. I love robotics. AI. It's --" He hesitates, nose crinkling. "Well. Neat." "Wish I had those kinds of accidents," Doug says wistfully, and he exhales a bit heavily. "Some day, maybe." He lifts a shoulder at the assessment of Sebastian's co-workers, and wrinkles his nose. "Well, considering you two are probably twelve years younger than anyone else in there, I imagine there /is/ some discomfort -- outside of the obvious other stuff." He smiles wanly at the nose crinkle and nods. "Yeah, it is. That's the field I plan on going in to," he says. "Started getting interested in the software as I started to develop my game engine, and got hooked." "Some day, maybe," is a little more cheerful, a little more encouraging. Though Bastian's nose just wrinkles again at the mention of his age. "There's a few other kids -- um, nobody our age," he admits, "but other college students, or -- people who didn't go to college at all and are just brilliant and taught themselves. -- What sort of game?" he asks with a still more interest. Doug chuckles. "So, Stark is all about hiring the wunderkind?" he asks, and rolls his eyes a bit. "/That/ doesn't make me feel any better." It's a tease, and he lifts his shoulders. "Well, if you ever get a chance to remember me to the big man...." He lets the thought die in a small grin and a wave of his hand for the question. "It's an open-world platformer," he says with a lift of his shoulders. "I call it Technarch: Rise of the Warlock. If you want, I can show you some of the test stuff sometime. Like I said, I'm working on the A.I. now. Which is tricky, because the level of interaction I'm striving for is enough to blow out regular processors." He lifts the bags, shaking them gently. "Which is a current project: attempting to build a better processor." "I don't know. A /lot/ of the people are old as anything," though to a sixteen year old this may well just mean in their thirties and forties. "T think he's just about hiring people who impress him?" Sebastian shrugs uncertainly, teeth dragging against his lip. He smiles soon after, quick and bright. "Oh! I'd love to see it. I haven't done anything exciting like make a game. /Or/ build a processor," Sebastian admits, "I mostly cannibalized friends' tech for pieces to make my robot." He hugs the mail to his chest, glancing past Doug towards the stairs. "I gotta get dinner before I eat someone," which, given the videos Doug has seen, /might/ not be an exaggeration, "but can I come see some of your game some time?" "Maybe they were hired as teenagers, and Stark's just kept them in the lab forever," Doug says, waggling his eyebrows. "You should ask them about pop culture, and see how much influence the outside world and the internet have had on them." He colors a bit at the response to his game and projects, and ducks his head. "I've actually been working on it for a couple of years," he admits. "Not, y'know, consistently. Some times I'll get a week or two that I can't get enough of it, but lately I've been busy with other projects." He grins. "But. I've never made a robot. I don't know if I could do that. Maybe. If I had years to work on it." He nods when the younger teen makes his apologies, and he blanches a bit at the joke, offering a jittery sounding laugh. "Sure, you can come up anytime," he says, moving towards the elevator. "Maybe you can offer me some feedback on it." Sebastian blushes, too, at Doug's laugh. "Sorry," is offered hastily. "I'll --" He ducks his head again. "Bye!" He scurries quickly off towards the stairs, instead, disappearing swiftly to race home.