ArchivedLogs:Irrational Prejudices

Irrational Prejudices
Dramatis Personae Brent, Kisha, Tony Stark	2013-06-20 '
Location <NYC> Stark Tower - Midtown East
A gleaming beacon of modern architecture shining bright amidst the industry of Midtown, Stark Tower serves as headquarters to one of the largest tech corporations in the world. The offices and boardrooms of Stark Industries and any number of satellite companies, subsidiaries, and nonprofits are homed here. To the public what draws most visitors is not the business but the science -- the first two floors of the building hold an extensive museum dedicated to technological innovation. As well, guided tours three days a week are open to the public, to be shown through both the museum and, more notably, through (select parts of) the dozen floors dedicated solely to R&D.The building itself is as eye-catching inside as outside. The soaring lobby atrium extends upwards, bright and glass-walled with perpetually bustling balconies ringing each floor. All visitors must pass through the lobby security checkpoints to be signed in. The technology integrated into the building, from the interactive holographic displays that help guide visitors to their destination to the quiet AI that remembers visitors' preferences upon repeat visits to the basement arc reactor that powers the entire building, are quiet reminders of the company's dedication to innovation. There are only so many times you can take your minder on the Stark Tower tour before they get really bored and go sit in a nearby cafe until they stop doing tours for the day. Kisha has not only found that number of visits, but she's exceeded it and is pushing into the 'they'll start charging her rent' stage. The petite teen is at her neatest, in a black t-shirt with a binary coffee molecule pattern on the front and black pants which have never been on fire (the only such pair she owns). Currently she is very busy standing and /staring/ at one of the holographic doohickys. STARE. Tony, incidentally, has also shed /his/ minder, at the moment. No doubt somewhere they are fretting; the days since the press conference have played host to a wealth of backlash and also a lot of swearing on the part of his handlers. Never let him near a microphone again. Thankfully, at the moment he is sans microphone! Sans cameras, sans anything but a large paper cup that is hopefully coffee. It smells pretty coffeeish, anyway. "You know, they work better if you actually --" This voice comes very abruptly from beside Kisha; Tony lifts one hand to swipe at the display, shifting the holo-map to a different portion of the tower. He's fairly nondescript, at the moment, jeans and a Black Sabbath t-shirt. "Impressive technology, mister Stark." The voice comes from behind, unlike Tony and Kisha, this man hasn't lost his minders. If you can call them that, really. Brent is not quite flanked by two big, tall guys. They're somewhere nearby, watching while Brent stands behind Tony and probably behind Kisha too. He's definitely unarmed, but he's wearing a suit. It's a fine one, too. Armani, and he is just standing there without further comment. Kisha pouts slightly when someone begins playing with the display. "I was using the method of loci," she notes petulantly. "I'm familiar with how to use it... Mister Stark? Did he just... you..." Her mouth snaps shut and she pinches her forearm. From close up it's easy to spot that both her arms have some quite severe burn scars from the wrists up. Yep, still awake. She spares a moment to glare at the suit and his goons before adding "I can't decide if it's better or worse than what Doctor Doom had on display. His robot band was pretty advanced, he could order them to kill on command." "Of course it is," Tony answers Brent, without looking at him, "I made it." Another flick of his hand reverts the display back to what Kisha had been looking at. He takes a swig of his coffee, glancing sideways towards Kisha, flicking his gaze from scars up to face. "His robots were certainly very -- flashy. If you're into that kind of thing. Though murder on demand isn't really great as party tricks go. The music, though --" Tony doesn't actually /say/ it was impressive. But there's a grudging respect in his tone. "I'm sorry to disturb you entertaining and educating the next generation, mister Stark." Brent's voice is lacking entirely in passion, and probably honesty. It sounds more like a statement made merely for the sake of formality, "But I would like to request you to consider investing in Mister Osborn's newest project. The institute. Based on the video you released, I would assume you would be interested in aiding children to learn to understand and control their own bodies." Brent keeps talking, his tone of voice is fairly low. "If we help them, we can also bring some understanding of them into the world. Perhaps it would ease the minds of some people if they were less of an unknown quantity." This is obviously a pitch of some kind intended to bring Tony to a specific point, then he looks towards Kisha, finally addressing the girl, "And you sound like an intelligent young woman, miss. I'm Brent MacNeil, it's always pleasant to see youth who take the need for knowledge seriously." He smiles, a pleasant but measured smile. Kisha tilts her head. "I was meaning more from a programming and adaptability point of view," she notes. "But yes, no doubt it'd make for a pretty shitty party piece." And then Brent gives his little talk about the Osborn Insitute and she bursts out laughing. "That... that was a joke right? You have heard all the rumours online about his company testing mutant hunting combat drones in New York? I think you'd help those kids more by filling a ball pit with scorpians." Now Tony /does/ turn, glancing over Brent, up and down with a quick flick of eyes. He sips his coffee again. "OK," he says, with a short nod, "thought about it. Done. Got better things to do than fund Osborn's private army. Like maybe --" He gestures with his coffee cup to Kisha, "fill a ball pit with scorpions. Little robot ones maybe." He lifts thumb and forefinger a little bit away from each other -- little-robot-scorpion size! "I guess irrational prejudices are not limited to those who hate those unlucky enough to have been born mutants, then." Brent says, with a hint of being troubled by what he's heard in his voice, but nothing too much. "While I do not approve of wanton violence against mutants, I do approve of having the means to defend ourselves from anyone who would wish innocent people harm. Besides, from what I know, the only mutant hunting combat drones in the city are of Latverian stock. I do not put much stock in rumours, though, so perhaps if you can offer me evidence of your accusations regarding Mister Osborn I will reconsider my stance on the man." "What I do know of him tells me he seeks to make the world a saver place through a two-pronged strategy, prevention by educating those who do not desire to cause harm and helping to put away those that do." Brent sounds less slightly enthusiastic than before, slightly worried. "But perhaps there are other people willing to produce the infrastructure needed to aid children and confused people learning to control abilities they did not ask for. If your accusations prove to be right, I might be forced to look further than I already have. Please forgive me when I say that I hope you are wrong, I would rather believe mister Osborn does not want to harm innocent children. He did not come over as such a monster, but I have been known to misjudge people before." Kisha beams at the idea of robotic scorpians. "They'd be the must have toy for the holidays," she says cheerfully. "Say Mister Stark, you don't by any chance have people working on brain computer interfaces do you? I've been dabbling with one for an extra credit assignment and I'm having trouble getting the calibration right for the software." She glances at Brent, then at his goons and frowns. "Unfortunately I don't have my computer to hand. I was told I couldn't bring it near the R&D labs because of the camera. But if you look into the reports of bystanders during the 'Spider Dude' incident there are a few which mention a military combat drone flying after him and then self destructing." "What you do know of him -- you know," Tony tells Brent this like a teacher educating a younger mind, "you shouldn't just take everything you hear at face value." His fingers drum against the side of his cup. "You've been dabbling in neuroprosthetics? We also. Dabble. What's it you're trying to accomplish?" His posture is shifting, turning mostly back towards Kisha though he watches Brent out of the cornet of his eye. "You're free," he adds to Brent, "to have whatever stance you want on the man." "I want a stance based on reality, and I am quite aware not to take everything I hear at face value, mister Stark. I run an insurance company, I'd be out of business quite rapidly if I didn't. I however tend to prefer my personal impressions to rumours that cannot be easily traced and offer little evidence." Brent then offers Kisha his card, regardless of his prior words. "I'd be interested in the footage, miss. If you are right, I will need to drastically reconsider my stance on the man. There's an e-mail address on there." He then looks at the bench, "I admit standing up all the time is inconvenient, would you mind if I joined you?" He pauses, then adds. "And pardon the bodyguards, the frequency of death threats has increased lately, and I can't afford to be lax. I don't want to need them. As for the tech-talk, it sounds fascinating. I wish I understood even half of it."" Kisha hunts around in her pocket for her cellphone confident she can ignore the signs about photography with the buildings owner chatting to her. "I'm making a hat which lets me control an wearable optical display that hooks into a small computer I was thinking of building into a pocketwatch case. So it would need to function like a keyboard and mouse at the very least." A few deft keystrokes later and she's got a very small picture of the schematics on display. The business card gets vanished into the pocket the phone came from. "Death threats? Is that common in your line of work?" Tony asks this a little distractedly; he gestures to the bench behind where he is standing in absent invitation. When he schematics are pulled up, he reaches for the phone, watching it a moment. "So you want me," he says this while absently fiddling with the phone, and then the holographic display in front of them, "to persuade you to change your -- I hope you have good people working for you in sales." He hands the phone back to Kisha, as the schematics on its screen appear instead in the display in front of them. "This all your design?" It's also a little distracted; most of his attention now is commanded by /fiddling/ with the schematics in front of him. A tweak here, an adjustment there. "When people get their claims refused, they are sometimes less than rational mister Stark. Nonetheless, I can't afford to entirely disregard the threats. I'm not too worried however. And I do not ask you to persuade me, I merely ask you to provide evidence for your claims." Brent seems a bit aggrevated there. "If they are true, then my mind will naturally be changed. Perhaps it's because of my line of work, but I have to come to have severe distrust of rumours on the internet that do not come with any evidence. I hope you can understand. I most certainly do not wish to cooperate with a man who would seek harm to innocent children, I am perhaps somewhat distanced while doing business, but I want a future in which these altercations between mutants and flatscans are fastly reduced. My hope was that helping prevent accidents by helping people control their abilities would be of benefit there. I saw your press release, mister Stark." "I came to you in the belief we agreed that this hatred needed to stop and the belief that mister Osborn was of the same mindset. But I'll leave you to your educating, mister Stark." He grabs another business card and offers it to Tony, "If you happen to have anything you believe I should know, I'd love to hear it, have a nice day, both of you." Whether or not Tony accepts the card, he turns around after a short wait, leaving along with his bodyguards. Kisha shrugs. "Some of it is from college research projects which have been released open source," she admits, her eyes flick to Brent at the word 'flatscan'. "That's an interesting turn of phrase... But anyway I put all the research together into a single design and am building it by myself. The physical construction is relatively easy but it's the software side I am struggling with. I've only had an IT teacher smart enough to cope with shoe laces since January. So I'm making do with what I've taught myself.." Tony /eyes/ the business card, not reaching for it but gesturing instead to the bench! Like sure leave it there. "Flatscan, wow. We've moved onto racial slurs now, wonderful. That is definitely the path to harmony." This word turns Tony's attention from Brent entirely, fixating on the display in front of him. "You know, if you just --" This gets cut off by the very /determined/ throat-clearing of a tall redhead in a crisp business suit who is materializing by Tony's elbow. For the briefest of moments there is /something/ in his tone reminiscent of a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. The display collapses with another gesture of his hand, returning to the map of the tower. "Right. Good. Enjoy the --" This cuts off into a quick smile as he turns around, offering the coffee out as he heads away: "Look, I brought you coffee." The fact that it is half-drunk and probably cold by now PROBABLY won't go a long way towards appeasing her. OOPS. "You shouldn't be angry at Mister Stark," Kisha offers helpfully. "He was stopping me from carrying out industrial espionage and stealing the designs for the holographic displays." She nods solemnly. "Anyway I better get going before my ride leaves without me or calls in a search party. It was a pleasure meeting you. If you do have any thoughts about what we were discussing then I'm assuming the data upload you just did also included my E-business card?" Before Brent leaves, he responds to Tony one last time. "That was a joke, mister Stark, meant to be self-deprecating. I thought that would be obvious, I was apparently wrong. My apologies if I caused any offense. The word non-Mutants is also clumsy while using human imples mutants aren't human, so I don't like any of the three options open to me. I tried to make a joke but my sense of humour seems to be defective today. I'm very sorry if I caused any offense." And he keeps walking away after he dropped the business card, bodyguards in tow. "Could work on getting some good PR people to go with those bodyguards," Tony suggests. Proooobably hypocritically based on the pain he causes his /own/ PR people every time he opens his mouth in front of a camera. "-- You have an e-business card. You're like twelve. Right. OK." This is not much of an answer either way, but it is what Tony says! Before he is whisked away. Probably to somewhere more boring.