ArchivedLogs:Cannon Forges in the Library

Cannon Forges in the Library
Dramatis Personae Iolaus, Kisha, Shane	2013-02-25 A discussion on biology and murderdrones
Location <XS> Library
Xavier's librarian might hope the library is a quiet place to sit and study, but with a school full of teenagers that is not always the case. Nevertheless, it is certainly a treasure trove of knowledge, well-stocked with a wealth of books on its high shelves. Its reference section is vast, though its fiction is as well (much to the delight of many of its students.) The wide octagonal tables and smaller armchairs are often crowded with students, though the whispered conversations that often take place leave some doubt as to how much work is getting done at any given hour. While the unfortunate financial problems of her first project have been a blow to morale but after a whole night not sleeping on the problem Kisha has decided to hit the books. Which is why she's in the library next to a small fort like structure built from what seems to be the entire aviation section and a small scanner. As she's not engaged in practical science she's without her labcoat, sporting black pants and a matching black t-shirt with the Aperture science logo on that leaves her scarred arms uncovered. Aloud she wonders "I wonder if I could incorporate myself as a company..." as her hands carry out the repetative task of turning pages and scanning them in. A figure who is in a lab coat steps into the library, heading straight for the research section. He is far too old to be a student, but unfamiliar enough not to be a teacher either. His lab coat has his name embroidered across his breast - Iolaus Saavedro, MD, Ph.D - and his strides take him directly to the biology section. Hand skimming in the air along the books, he pulls several off of the shelf and plops down on a table not far from Kisha, opening them and paging through the index quickly. Almost at the school for a full week Kisha still has a rough idea of everyone who might be wearing a lab coat and wandering around, so a stranger digging around in the biology section draws a curious glance. Although not quite so curious as to stop her scanning. "Won't those be a little below your reading level?" she wonders. "Unless... is the labcoat a fashion thing? I mean I hope it isn't because then I'd have to stop wearing mine and then how would I know if I'd got acid splashed on myself? Burning sensation aside that is." Iolaus glances up from the book, and it takes him a moment to process Kisha's question. He blinks several times, then smiles. "Oh. Well, if you saw me doing reading on the biochemistry section, yes, that would be a little bit embarrassing." he says, eyes twinkling mischievously. "But the wisest thing a scientist can say is 'I don't know', and I am well into what is, for me, the unknown." He picks the book up and shows her the title. 'Marine Microbiology', by a whole host of authors. Kisha leans out from behind her book fort to get a better look. "You're researching some kind of fish diseases?" she wonders. "I'm not sure I agree with your statement about wisdom. I think the wisest thing would be more like 'I don't know /yet/'. As a challenge against the very universe itself. At least up until the point where the scientist in question finds out she needs several thousand dollars worth of raw materials and her creative vision isn't shared by the teachers." SPEAKING OF MARINE BIOLOGY, the library door opens with a /pound/ of one webbed hand against the wood. Shane is calling back over his shoulder, "-- you're protesting a little too /much/, asshole --" though this is quickly shushed by the librarian. He lets the door thud shut behind him, shoving his hand in the pocket of his neatly-pressed grey trousers (paired today with a green button-down and grey vest), obeying the letter of the law if not the spirit as he shushes and stomps his way across the room, his other hand curled around the strap of his backpack. The sight of Iolaus pulls him up short, though, and he veers towards the doctor instead. "Jeez, still chasing your mutant fetish, I see." Despite the words, his tone is almost like friendly! "Blood composition of marine life, actually. I know human blood a lot better than I know acquatic creature's blood." Chuckling and shaking his head wryly, Iolaus nods. "Well, perhaps you're right. Back in post-grad, I felt that I spent more time writing grant applications than I did actually doing research." he says, and his voice is easy. "Still, that's as much a part of science as the actual science, these days." His eyes flick over to Shane as he enters, noisily. "Oh. Actually, I'm here helping Doctor McCoy." Iolaus says, one eyebrow raising smoothly. "It's a wonder more scientists don't obtain funding via shady nefarious sources," Kisha says solemnly, perhaps with a hint of resentment that she can't access such sources. Not yet anyway. "It's probably for the best though, instead I've decided to play around with UAV's..." She half sits up to peek over at Shane, before frowning. "Hello S.. erm... whichever brother you are?" There is a pause and then she adds "What kind of marine life? Not shark twins by any chance? Because if so that's a really weird co-incidence." "He's stealing my blood," Shane informs Kisha, wandering over to Iolaus's chair to lean against the back of it and peer at what the doctor is reading. "But in a boring way, not a vampire way. I -- think?" Now he's leaning /closer/, eying Iolaus's mouth like examining it for fangs. But then he's looking at Kisha instead, with a raise of his hairless brow. "Lots of scientists obtain funding via nefarious sources, but usually only if they're doing nefarious shit. The fuck are you doing with UAVs?" Iolaus gives Shane a very patient, very despairing look as he turns his attention back down to the page. He takes out a tablet as well and types in a journal entry to pull up an article on it. 'Blood cells and serum chemistry in the world's largest fish: the whale shark Rhincodon typus'. Yup, takin' Shane's blood. "I find myself agreeing with Shane. What are you doing with UAVs? And... are they really that much more inexpensive than what you had planned before?" Kisha whistles innocently. "Well, given that bronze is mostly copper and a ton of copper will set you back several thousand dollars..." She notes, carefully avoiding what precisely she needed it for. "What am I doing with a UAV? I'm going to fly it around... What else would I do with it? There is actually a whole amateur subculture of people who do that. In the same way there are people who make robots just for fighting other robots." She looks between Shane and Iolaus and grins. "Are you sure you want to risk taking his blood? Rumour has it he keeps a severed member in a jar. And I'm not entirely sure I'd want to offend someone who can maintain such a rumour, never mind someone it's true about." "Kill people with it," is Shane's prompt answer, "I heard from --" He hesitates a moment, then continues on, "-- the news. There were some drones attacking a kid right in the city. My brothers make robots. I dunno about fighting. They have a spider one that climbs around the walls." He does not confirm or deny the rumour about his jar o' dick. He just /grins/, toothily. "OK, stealing's an overstatement. They /asked/ for my blood, pain's alright if it's consenting. Besides," he adds, his smile growing sharper, "I do love doing my part to help science." "A severed..." Iolaus turns and gives Shane a somewhat suspicious look. "Right, well," he blinks, turning back to his paper. "I'm happy to say that /I'm/ not asking for anything. I'm just assisting here - I'm not the scientist of record. Blood draws are Doctor McCoy's problem, and I'm pretty sure he could take Shane." he says, teasing light in his voice. "But in order to be a UAV, doesn't it need to be... automated? You can't just fly something that's autonomous. It needs to have a mission." "Not true, UAV means Unmanned aerial vehicle nothing to say they are automated. Military UAV's often come with backpack control units, I think some of the flight sticks are even based off X-box control pads," Kisha explains cheerfully before adding with a shrug. "Well it's not /me/ using combat UAVs in a city. Because if had those I wouldn't need to be reading up on aircraft design in a high school library. That being said if you can direct me to the news articles in question I'd love to take a look. Maybe I could try catch one somehow..." "Yeahno trying to catch one is basically the dumbest thing I've heard all week, you can try and get yourself killed on your own time. If you know how to build a fucking UAV I'm pretty sure you're also capable of using Google." Shane is still leaning against the back of Iolaus's chair, though more out of convenience now than over-the-shoulder reading. "Doctor McCoy's a -- well, a beast. A lot of our teachers here are pretty badass, maybe they're just trying to make sure nobody acts up?" "Oh. Well, are you going to automate it? That seems cooler than just flying it around." The doctor glances up at Shane, responding, "Somehow, I don't think it works." Iolaus' tone is sarcastic, though there is a wide smile on his face. He pages through the paper, frowning. "Mm. Well, maybe I will just try the standard techniques and see what happens." he says, wryly. "Since this paper seems to tell me nothing useful at all. Empirical evidence." Kisha handwaves at the potential risks. "The week is young," she points out. "And I'm googling it as we speak, I asked more as part of the ongoing conversation. I should also note that building a UAV isn't especially tricky. At it's most basic level it's a remote control plane with a few cameras on it. The fun part will be trying to retro-engineer Google glass and link the two systems together." "Yeah, but all the other morons I'm sure to run into are going to have tough competition after you. You know, they're trying to make the drones target mutants specifically?" Shane pokes one finger down at Iolaus's shoulder, at that. "Aren't you good at genetics shit? Is that even possible? I mean, how would they know?" Iolaus gives Shane another /look/, and he shrugs his shoulders. "Everything's possible. They can make a screening test for the X-gene just like anything else. It's expensive to run genetic screens like that, but it's possible. Doing it without a genetic sample is harder... I mean." he shrugs, again, non-committal. "It takes me hours in a lab to screen one person when they give me their blood. But that's because of limitations of the technologies I have, not because of any innate problem." Now this /is/ interesting. "So if they are targeting mutants it's probably one of two routes. Either they're running an obscenely advanced sensor that detects traces of airborne cells or they're simply cheating and going off a physical recognition program," Kisha muses excitedly, rolling her eyes at Shane. "Oh please. You don't think I'm going out there with a butterfly net do you? If I'm going to catch one I'll be sneaky about it. Find out who builds them, why and all that sort of thing. Then you find an employee who is vulnerable to... erm..." She looks at Iolaus and winces. "His conscience... And arrange for one to fall off the back of a truck. It's the sort of plan which takes weeks of careful preparation. If not months." "Right, so you're not just a moron, you're an arrogant moron. Got it." Shane's fingers drum against the back of the chair, his chin dropping to rest against an arm. "I mean, just going of an image of mutants they already /know/ are mutants would be easiest. It sounded like they're trying to make drones that can /detect/ mutants and kill them, though. That'd be --" He shrugs a shoulder. "Harder, right? All the screening tests I've heard of need actual blood and shit. A company that could do something like that --" His fingers tap faster, expression tightening as his jaw clenches. "Collecting the DNA is difficult, sure, but running the screening tests are harder. It costs tens of thousands of dollars a screening because the equipment to do so is so expensive. And it takes... time. A lot of time. Miniaturizing that and getting it fast enough to detect in real time is..." Iolaus shrugs his shoulders, a wry smile on his face. "Well, it's an engineering problem, not a scientific one. That means it's /possible/, if given enough resources." Kisha shrugs. "Oh it's possible, but you'd also need to make the device smart enough to tell what the source of the material was. As it's most likely picking up samples from the air it'd need to be able to trace the concentrations to home in. Such a system could also be fooled by DNA bombing or by use of something like an NBC suit. So you'd want to pair the two options together and maaaaaaaaybe configure it to target people in sealed suits as well. Putting all of this together in a package which self destructs is very odd." She's evidently curious enough that she's no longer bothered about scanning in pages from the book fort. "I can't believe I missed this story or that I /ever/ thought it'd be fun to build my own cannon foundry." "People like that have a lot of resources." Shane sounds apprehensive about this, rather than excited. "And possibly a lot of mutants to test it on while they try to make it work." He scrubs a hand against his cheek, frowning deeply. "-- Fun --" he is starting to echo, but then just gives Kisha a look that hovers between disgruntled and disgusted. "Right. Yeah. This whole thing's wicked exciting." "Cannon foun--." Iolaus gives Kisha an incredulous look then pinches his forehead. "An engineer at heart, /clearly/." he says, a faintly amused look combining with the pained look on his face. He glances back at Shane, studying his expression for a moment. "Perhaps. You're better off asking an engineer than me, though. The theory is all there. All it takes is time and the will to build it." "You could say it's in my blood..." Kisha notes absent-mindedly, her focus shifting to her google-fu with such intensity she might not have even noticed Shane's look of doom. "Oddly I can't see any specific mention on the news sites about it being a drone. Just an explosion. Which is a shame because it'd have been possible to compare the dimensions to images taken by military drone enthusiasts and look for design similarities. Company product lines tend to share features, either through shared design or to cut manufacturing costs." Shane's expression does not seem much mollified by Iolaus's answer, tightening further. "Yeah," he says, shoulders slumping heavily for a moment. He pushes off of the back of Iolaus's chair, standing upright. "M'gonna find Bastian." This gruff grunt is apparently what passes as a goodbye, because he's clapping Iolaus on the shoulder and then heading out the other direction than he came, disappearing into the computer lab. Iolaus turns to watch Shane as he leaves, and then turns back to glance at Kisha. "If it was government, it wouldn't surprise me if they tried to cover it up." he says, turning back to his paper. "Sunshine and all that." Kisha hrms. "Sunshine and all what?" she wonders. "I can't imagine it being the government because they'd have a lab in a more remote location. It's more likely to be corporate, although I can't imagine what they're doing with a combat drone lab in a major population zone. Or rather I can imagine and I very much don't like the possibilities." "Me either." Iolaus says, voice soft. "Me either." he shakes his head and stands up, closing the books. "It was good to meet you." He hesitates, then chuckles and steps over to extend his hand. "I'm Doctor Saavedro." Kisha reaches out with her left hand complete with horrific scarring from the wrist upwards, her right hand already tapping the name into her search bar. "I'm Kisha, nice to meet you. I'm probably still technically the 'new girl' as I've not quite been here a full week yet. So far I've been convinced that just about everyone is a little bit insane. Myself most likely included." Iolaus smiles and nods, once, shaking her hand firmly. "It's good to meet you, Kisha. Perhaps I'll see you around." he says, smile spreading wider. "And... all the best people are crazy. Everyone else is just boring." A playful wink. "Boring people blow themselves up with considerably less frequency," Kisha points out solemnly. "And yes, nice to meet you. Hopefully if we do meet again it won't be in any kind of professional capacity!" Iolaus chuckles. "If you're making cannon forges, somehow I doubt that." the doctor says, even as he turns and, dropping his books on the circulation cart, heads back up towards the medical bay.