ArchivedLogs:Fetching the Machine

Fetching the Machine
Dramatis Personae Doug, Murphy
In Absentia	2013-07-08 Murphy picks up his computer. Thing.
Location <NYC> 503 {Doug} - Village Lofts - East Village
This apartment is, for the most part, laid out like most of the others in the building. A small entryway opens up into a living area occupied by a worn-looking leather sofa covered in a multi-colored afghan. In front of that, a low cost-effective coffee table is generallly littered with tech and gaming magazines, post-it flags stuck to various pages. The kitchen is separated from the living area by a bar-island with two high stools. Down a small hallway, two doors stand face to face, vigilant in keeping the bedrooms beyond secure, while a third, facing the living room, leads to the bathroom. Throughout the apartment, various gaming posters have been framed and hung carefully, most of them classic arcade titles. Whump, whump, whump. This is the sound of Murphy's fist making contact with Doug's door -- a steady, stacatto rhythm. The man even manages to make knocking sound like a death sentence. Murphy's outside the apartment, looking a little threadworn -- his eyes have heavy bags underneath them, like he hasn't slept in a while. He's got on his usual black wool coat, white shirt, tie -- and an unlit cigarette cradled between his mouth. He's also carrying what looks like -- a leather briefcase? It's good to have your projects finished. Or mostly finished. Doug's actually managed to get some real sleep, and clean up. It shows on his face when the door swings open. The blonde is in a pair of box-cut blue swim trunks and a yellow tank top with a cartoon sun in sunglasses on the chest. From behind him, there is the sound of music -- Indian music, from the sound of it. Doug gives the older man a wide grin and a playful gleam in his eyes as he steps back, motioning for the detective to enter. "Mister Law. Come on in." Murphy Law's perpetual scowl only /intensifies/ -- both in response to the music and Doug's sudden grin. Murphy is not the sort of man who does CHEER well. Once he steps in, he's searching out the source of that music, as if he intends to HAMMER IT INTO SILENCE with his briefcase. Except, he's not going to do that; he's just going to try and shut it off. If it's something simple. If it's something complex (like a computer), he'll just /glare/ at it, waiting for it to shut itself off. Somehow. "You finished the network?" Doug's apartment is remarkably clean, save for his desktop, which looks to have had some sort of technological explosion on in, judging by the bits and pieces that litter the wood. On the coffee table, there is a shiny, durable-looking laptop and a pile of discs in plastic cases which are currently being inspected by Delete, who is also facegrinding along the corners. The source of the music isn't hard to find -- an ipod in a dock on the kitchen counter that actually has a 'Stop' button on it. Doug nods as he pushes the door shut, turning the locks. "Mister Law, I have created a masterpiece for you," he says. "I burned out many brain cells and missed a couple of tests, but this was /totally/ worth it." He actually sounds excited as he moves back into the living room. "Do you want something to drink, before I start throwing jargon at you?" "I ain't looking for a masterpiece," Murphy comments, jabbing his finger at the stop button -- maybe several times -- with all the grace of a man who's used an mp3 player all of... zero times. "I just want it to fuckin' work," he informs Doug. Once the music has stopped, he swings around and proceeds to stomp off toward the living room, searching for a /chair/ to sit in. "No drink," he says. "And I don't need the jargon, either. I just need to know if it's gonna friggin' work. And," he adds, "maybe how I turn the thing on." "Hey, I don't do 'good enough'," Doug says as he follows the older man into the living room. "Anything I tackle, I put everything into. You get my best, or I get the hell out." He lifts a shoulder, moving to drop into the couch, which is the only piece available for sitting, it seems. The living room's facade of clean falling as the piles of computer science books and manuals not visible from the door suddenly come into view. "I had to build a whole new type of processor for it, but it'll work." He indicates the shiny laptop. "There it is." The presentation lacks showmanship, but Doug looks extremely pleased about it. "That baby is probably the most powerful laptop in New York." "It's -- a laptop," Murphy says, /eyeing/ the piece of hardware suspiciously. Apparently, he hadn't expected it to be. Well, a /laptop/. "You made me a laptop." His head jerks up, swivels over to face Doug -- and now his eyebrows are /grinding/ together: "Why. Did you make me," he gestures at the machine, "a /laptop/?" But then: "Can I network it to other computers with wi-fi to create a chain of connections? Where's the software I'll need to load on the other rigs?" He's reaching for the laptop. As if to poke it. Poke, poke. Yeah, that's a laptop, alright. "Hey, be careful!" Doug leans forward to bat at Murphy's hands when he begins poking at it. "I made -- hey, I said careful -- I made you a powerhouse laptop," he corrects, cradling his hands around the edges of the case. "He's very amiable, but /damn/. You don't have to poke at him like it's prom night." He strokes his fingers over the case once, and then pops it open, sliding his hand over the power switch. There's literally about four seconds of warm-up, and then a simple Windows desktop. "Now, this will /work/ as a laptop," he says, sliding the cursor around to highlight an otherwise invisible icon. Clicking on that, he brings up a control panel that reads 'Enigma Engine' at the top of the window. Currently, a window shows two machines connected to the network. "This laptop is not only super-fast, but I wrote a program that directs the wireless router to find the nearest signal -- whatever it is -- and piggy back on it. So there's no ISP to track." His fingers twitch, and he tips his head. "It can network up to...." he chews on his lower lip for a moment. "A hundred? Hundred and fifty machines, if they've got the right software." "--buh." Murphy's hands /fly/ back from the laptop, as if he's just been told it's made out of LAVA. He glares at it, though -- the sort of glare that says 'This ain't over'. The briefcase is WHUMPED down on a nearby table; Murphy's knuckles make a sharp series of cracks, and... "So what am I loadin' on the other rigs. I'm just gonna use," and here, Murphy's hands clench together, as if to indicate something -- very /small!/ -- "a bunch of raspberry pis -- shove 'em in some sort of nice casing, hide 'em places. To chain the network along from wherever." Doug smiles a bit warmly at Murphy's reaction, and lifts a shoulder. "You could do that," he says, reaching for one of the discs stacked up. "Only you won't have to." He waggles his eyebrows. "See, as long as the machine this program is installed in has a wireless router in it, this program essentially will turn it into a smaller version of Enigma, which means that it will find the closest wireless signal, and piggy back on it to use sattelite transmission." He waves a hand at the screen. "And it will automatically connect to Enigma, and establish itself on the network. Then, once on the network, transferring files or whatever is as easy as drag-and-drop." His grin is wide with teenaged cockiness. "When each machine is set up, it'll have to be set up with a terminal name, but that's a simple login screen on first-time set up." "Those," Murphy agrees, "are /definitely/ words." He reaches, then, for the laptop. A little more slowly. A little more /carefully/. Bringing the lid down on top of it, slooooow. And then fumbling about for its power-cord. "Anything else I need to know?" he asks, before: "It ain't gonna do anything weird, is it?" And then: "You didn't put any -- creepy spy bullshit in this, right? The less people know about where this is going, the better. Nothing illegal, but it's gonna piss some fuckheads off." Doug gives Murphy a flat look, and raises his hands, flapping at the air. "Computer talk to each other with big machines in sky," he says in a very Tarzan-like voice. "No need gizmos. All machines talk happy to each other. Need name typed in when program first started up." He makes a noise that borders on rude in response to the question. "Dude. I just got done telling you how I made these things /un/trackable. You think I put some sort of spy shit in there, just to fuck with you?" He waves a hand at his closed bedroom door. "The only other machine that's on it is mine, and Betsy was just a test, to see if I had it working the way I wanted to." He leans forward, then to pick up four more cases. "I made back-ups of the main program, but there's a catch. You can only use each disc four times before it'll be unusable." He shrugs. "Just a fail-safe, in case a disc got lost or whatever. If you need more than twenty machines connected, come back and I'll burn you a few more." Murphy /glowers/ at Doug at the computer baby-talk. It's hard to say whether or not he's genuinely offended; Murphy /always/ looks offended. At the world. The man's got the look of someone who's perpetually pissed off at the particular arrangement of the universe before him. That being said: "Alright. Good." In reference to the spy question. He eyes the cases Doug's holding out, fishing the cord up and laying it on top of the laptop; then, he's popping open the briefcase, and: "If this works, I'll give you a heads up about it. Figured out a solution for the power problem," he adds, a little growlishly, as if chewing over thoughts regarding that right at this moment. "So." He hefts the laptop up, laying it in the leather briefcase -- securing it in straps. "Should be able to steal some fire from Mt. Olympus." Doug is unflinching under the brunt of Murphy's glare, blinking innocently at the man before he flashes a toothy smile. "It'll work," he says. "I ran my last tests this morning. Enigma should be able to handle anything you throw at him." Then he's leveling a finger at the older man. "And treat him nice -- he's literally one-of-a-kind, and better than anything you'll ever own." It might be a tease, except Doug doesn't look like he's kidding. He tips his head at the mention of the power solution, and his eyebrows twitch. "What'd you come up with?" Then a furrow of brow follows the next statement. "Steal fire from Olympus?" he echoes. "But it's nothing /illegal./" "I don't own computers. Don't /need/ 'em," Murphy says, kind-of-matter-of-factly, like the idea of him owning a computer was a novelty. He reaches up, proceeding to tap the side of his brain, and: "Remember?" Like this, alone, should be a suitable explanation. The 4 cases are taken, snuck inside the briefcase as well; then, he's snapping the leather casing closed, zipping it shut -- and hefting it up. "USB chargers," Murphy tells Doug. "Gonna need some custom shit -- something that can hold a charge for a couple of days instead of a couple of hours. But I know some fuckers who can swing it. And yeah," at the mention of illegal, Murphy swings his hand, "it's stealin' /cable/ illegal, I guess. But it ain't nothin' serious. Just making sure some people," he says, hefting the case to test it, "got access to what they /need/." Doug grins, and lifts a shoulder. "I remember," he says, wrinkling his nose and crinkling his eyes at Murphy. "No email, no computer...I'm frankly surprised you've got voice mail." The case, when hefted, is surprisingly light. Probably no more than four pounds, not including the briefcase. The solution to the power gets an 'ah' sound from the blonde, and he nods. "That'd be pretty effective," he says. "They're super-portable, so they wouldn't be a bitch to take along." He seems kind of impressed with this solution, and he tips his head. "But how'd /you/ find out about them?" It's probably another tease, given the way Doug flops back into the couch, smiling widely at the older man. "As long as it's for the good fight," he says. "I've already broken a shit-ton of federal laws with some of the shit I've done this year; I'm not worried about pissing off Time-Warner or whatever." "I read some tech manuals. Out of boredom," Murphy responds. "Ain't got the brain for this technical shit, but I can brute force my way through the lingo -- find solutions /other/ people figured out. It helps," he adds, "when you don't sleep." Ha! Oh wait; that doesn't sound like a joke. "Alright. Thanks for the piece of hardware. I'll contact you if it works. Or if it doesn't." LUG. He's carrying the briefcase now, moving toward the door. Doug frowns a bit as Murphy explains, and he's pushing to his feet even as the detective begins to move. "You've got to sleep sometime," he says, real concern seeping into his voice. "I just went through a week of no sleeping, and it wiped me out. And I wasn't running around the city, where cabs and buses lurk in wait to run your sleep-deprived ass over." He closes the distance between them, reaching out to catch at Murphy's sleeve without any real intention of claiming it. "You know you can call me for other P.I. computer stuff, right?" His smile turns...well, not predatory, as in their prior meeting, but it's hard to miss what the blonde is getting at in his next statement. "Or not work stuff. I'm flexible." "I'll remember," Murphy responds, as Doug catches hold of that sleeve -- a brief swivel of his head to /peer/ at him. "S'fine. /Busy/. I'll sleep soon," he grouses. And then: "Will keep that in mind." GRUNT. And then he's stomping his way toward the door, briefcase in tow, eyebrows /collapsing/ together into a single point. Chewing through the next step of the problem. Doug follows. "Do," he says. "It's a legitimate offer, on all counts." His own eyebrows are furrowing, and he kicks around on one foot for a moment. "Um...you want stick around for dinner?" he offers gamely. "I was going to call out for some Chinese food and chill out." He smiles gamely. "I've still got that cheap whiskey." Murphy pauses at that door for just a moment; his hand squeezes the knob, and: "Kid," Murphy tells him, "I /ain't/ gonna sleep with you. And even if I were," he adds, throwing a sharp, punctuated /glare/ back at Doug -- "--I don't do relationships. S'better for everyone. /Trust/ me." He pulls the door open -- yank, yank, TWIST! -- and starts thumping out, those steel-toed boots of his whumping on the ground as he walks. "Thanks for the gizmo." "/Relationship?/" Doug snorts, and rolls his eyes. "Okay. I don't know how you jumped to /that/ from kung pao and whatever, but okay." He shakes his head, and lifts a hand after the older man. "It's not a gizmo," he calls after the man. "It's a fucking masterpiece. Remember -- I put my /all/ into /everything/ I do. /Everything/." He might be raising his voice a little, to be certain the man can hear it. "/Everything./" Satisfied that he's made his point, if Murphy looks back, he'll see a widely smiling Doug drifting back into his apartment, the door pushed to, but not closed completely. Yet.