ArchivedLogs:Potential

Potential
Dramatis Personae Lucien, Mirror
In Absentia	2015-03-05 "I do think you're right. They might change everything."
Location <NYC> Oscorp Tower - Midtown East
The main entrance of Oscorp Tower is a sprawling space - the ceiling is five stories up, with balconies for various offices exposed to the lobby interior. The front desk is manned at all times by no less than three secretaries prepared to direct you where you need to go - or file an appointment with the appropriate manager. Two escalators flank the desk, extending up to a third story pantheon - where tour guides regularly take visitors through a variety of hotspots, including Oscorp's biology and engineering departments. Two elevators are set aside beside the escalators, with a third private elevator that is guarded at all times by a guard and requires a security card to access. The place is crawling with guards, all of whom are watching for the first sign of funny business. Lucien greets Mirror at the front door of Oscorp Tower. He's polished, from his neat dove grey suit to his warm smile to warm handshake (which comes with a whisper-note of ease to it, slipping in to twine through the reporters mind in the softest suggestion); he certainly seems at home here as he flicks a brief glance over Mirror, gestures for them to follow through the massive sprawling lobby of Oscorp Tower. "Ms. Chaudhry. Mr. Osborn extends his apologies; he would have loved to be here in person to meet you for this presentation. Unfortunately the preparations for the opening of the Osborn Institute are making quite a lot of demands on his time. Please," he gestures Mirror in first, to the elevator. Glossy-sleek, sitting inside a glass tube that shoots up high into the lobby's heights and down low through the sub-basement as well. "Still, I am quite glad you could make it. So much of your work has been groundbreaking. I only hope our presentation can help continue in that vein." Mirror returns the handshake firmly, her own smile brief. She lacks Lucien's polish, but makes up for it in presence. Tall and strong-featured and strong-stanced, she follows after him at a brisk clip, the short heels of her boots clicking against the lobby floors. She is in bold colouring, her skirt-suit well tailored in deep purple, her press pass -- Naseemah Chaudhry, Daily Bugle -- around her neck. "Oh, I have faith in you," she answers, a quiet note of laughter in her tone as she slips into the elevator. "Norman Osborn has never been /timid/ in his ventures." She folds both her hands on the handle of her purse, a rather large black leather bag, today. "But if what I've been hearing is true this has the potential to really change the situation for the mutant community." Lucien taps his ID card against the elevator's keypad, tapping at the console afterward. The doors slip closed, the elevator slides smoothly downward, opening again onto two rooms separated by a hallway splitting them. Glass-walled, the laboratories are visible if starkly divided from the halls. Clear behind the glass, there are teams of techs and engineers hard at work. On a host of machines, steel and plastic, joints and limbs, robotic pieces being fine-tuned into greater levels of sensitivity. Somewhere off in the back, some of these disembodied pieces have come to fruition -- a few fully assembled humanoid robot, perhaps in the vicinity of seven feet tall, standing still and silent. "Oh," Lucien answers easily, stepping out to lead Naseemah down the hallway, "it certainly has the potential for /that/." At this there's a small lift of eyebrows, a small curl of lips. Naseemah follows Lucien out of the elevator, steps slowing a little to take in the sights of /industry/ around them. "Not that I don't appreciate the opportunity, of course, but was there a reason I was approached for this particular tour?" "As I noted, we have been well aware of how groundbreaking your work has been." Lucien pauses outside the opposite door, holding up a hand briefly to Mirror to only caution, "-- I do have to ask that there be no recording in this room," before the door opens with a soft whoosh of air to let them into another hallway, another set of similarly set-up laboratories. In here, the fully assembled robots are in action. Working -- practicing, it seems. Some administer injections to dummies. Some are practicing splinting. Another pair are working on CPR. "-- And well aware of your focus on how sensitive issues affect the mutant community in particular, Ms. Chaudhry. The testing we are performing here is quite thorough. Though they were initially designed to be able to perform emergency medical care on the frontlines -- administer life-saving treatments to troops where it might be dangerous or impossible for medics to get to them in time -- we're entering in talks to test them in ambulances here at home. To provide emergency care here, to mutants whose powers might make treatment difficult or impossible -- who find it challenging to /find/ medical care otherwise." Naseemah shakes her head at the mention of recording. "I have a startlingly good memory." Her smile is quick, brief. She follows Lucien in, trailing alongside the glass walls to watch the robots at work inside. "There certainly have been cases on cases of mutants denied treatment for being too dangerous -- whether or not," she says dryly, "that was actually true." Her lips press together, faintly. "It seems a band-aid on the real issue, doesn't it?" "/Emergency/ medical care," Lucien replies easily, "always is. If someone has just been shot, would you rather they bleed out right there because it is better to cure society of bigotry than to compress the wound? These --" He turns his hand out towards the robots, "assuredly will not fix all the ills in the system. What they will do, what they are designed to do, is save lives. And to the person with the gunshot wound, it's rather a better start than the alternative." Naseemah's arms fold against her chest. Then unfold, so that she can remove a notebook from her purse and begin jotting things down, rapidly. "It's not nothing. Are these field-ready, already? Does Oscorp already /have/ plans for their deployment?" "Nearly ready." For just a moment, a small muscle twitches in Lucien's cheek. "Negotiations are still underway. Deployment would be quite small, to start. Likely primarily in a diagnostic capacity -- assess situations, let the medics move in once it has been cleared for safety." Lucien folds one arm across his chest to rest in the crook of the other; that other arm lifts, finger tapping against his cheek. "The secondary advantage to using them in the assessment and diagnostic stages is not having to /divulge/ sensitive information about mutations -- and registration data -- /to/ the medics and the doctors. It would eliminate some of the problem with discrimination if their human counterparts never needed to know who was a mutant and who wasn't, once the bots had cleared their patients for safety. The only time they would need to divulge information on a patient's mutation was if it /were/ actually relevant to their treatment, and then only to their doctor." A ghost of a smile flits across Lucien's lips. "Mr. Osborn likes to think of them as guardians. Mutants have already been so mistreated by the system, but these -- have the potential to look out for them. 'Sentinels', we are calling them." Naseemah's writing briefly pauses. She lifts a hand, rubbing slowly over her cheek. For a moment her dark eyes travel back to Lucien, locking steadily on the side of his face. "I do think you're right," she says at last. "They might change everything."