xp_logs | LOG: Forge and Haroun

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Haroun goes to get a checkup after being exposed to low-power EMP fields. Turns out the new design handled it like a pro, and Forge lets slip who they modelled the new kinesthetic data from.

Haroun poked his head into Forge's workshop area. "Got that adaptation ready to go?" he said. "It was a very not-fun feeling as systems wavered between online and offline due to the proximity of the EMP
effect. Hence why I want the diagnostic before we go installing new systems - I'd hate to cook an IC and not know it until a more critical moment."

"That's what they call a stone bitch of a feeling there," Forge replied, not looking up from the circuit board he held between his fingertips, soldering the last few transistors into place. "Go ahead and have a seat over there, hook up the red and green leads from that monitor. Diagnostic shouldn't take a couple seconds..."

With a puff of smoke, he finished his soldering, placing the circuit board on his workbench. "So," he asked in an attempt at cool nonchalance, "you wouldn't be asking about EMP shielding because you're all thinking of going after Magneto, would you?"

Haroun shook his head. "Not in my immediate plans, no." he said. He couldn't explain where or how he'd experienced an EMP effect without completely blowing security all to hell. "I can't tell you any more than that. But I suspect that this design handled EMP a lot better than the old one would have."

Forge gave a small self-congratulatory nod there. "As much as I'd like to take all the credit there, Paige came up with the structure for the EM-insulation for the artificial neural system. Nice side effect is that you don't bleed off any more electromagnetic signature than a normal person of your mass. Downside, well, there's no way we could design the 'ware to be completely nonferrous. Thus..."

Breaking off his sentence midway, Forge walked over to the old-fashioned dot matrix printer on the other wall that was churning out pages and graphs. "Diagnostics read within acceptable levels, minor conductivity fluctuations that should pass in a day or so. Wait.. these wouldn't have happened yesterday. More thermal-related, meaning..."

With a grin, he looked up at Haroun quickly. "You flew! You sneaky bastard! How did it go?"

Haroun laughed. "Better than sex." he said. "Better than anything in the world. I hadn't really processed how much I'd _missed_ it until I got back up in the air. ~Where I belong.~ he thought, but didn't voice it. "Keeping it very simple for the time being - I'm still not sure I trust the nav software, or the complete lack of nav software that I'm used to anyway. But yeah, I told Newton to fuck off for a while."

"Rock on!" Forge hooted, leaping into the air in excited congratulations. "Once you get a controlled flight down, I'll set the 'ware to download the appropriate telemetry during a diagnostic cycle. That'll let us know from an engineering standpoint how the mechanics are holding up. But seems like from here on out, you're ninety percent out of the garage and back into the infirmary for your checkups."

"Lots of testing between now and then, but yeah. Recovery's entered its final phase." he said, grinning like a loon. "Been a good week, all things considered." he said. "It's odd, though. The flight software's reactive. Passive. It will take some getting used to. And it's far more intensive on the body-english."

"That's because we couldn't use the original code," Forge explained, "wouldn't work with the new hardware. So I took hard data readings from the closest stand-in we could find, altered them for body mass and power specifics, and built the reflex software around that data."

Waiting a few seconds, Forge forced himself to suppress a smile. "If the reflexes seem a little unfamiliar, you might want to talk to Sam."

Haroun blinked. And then laughed until tears came down his face. "You took the kinesthetic data from Captain Crater?" he said, howling in laughter. "I am _so_ doomed." When he got control over himself, he looked over at Forge speculatively. "You've got full data on Sam, then, right? Would that happen to include his blast-field?"

Thinking for a moment, Forge shook his head. "All the data we took was inside the field," he explained. "How he moves to steer when he flies. Made some modifications, since you don't have a convenient blast envelope. And since we didn't have any pre-accident x-rays of you, the docs reconstructed the ribs that were removed to install that jet pack you used to have, and we wired the myomer muscle fibers with kevlar to act as an artificial abdominal wall for the internal organs you've still got."

Reaching over his head, Forge thumbed without looking through the Braille tags on his files before extracting one and sliding it across the bench to Haroun. "On an MRI, if you ignore the obvious density issues, you're structurally nearly identical to a regular human body."

Haroun nodded. "Of course. And that's good to know. Still have my disabled tag to get around metal detectors at commercial airports." he mused out loud. "Any chance of getting or reconstructing that blast envelope data?" he asked. "Assume you can't sample the field directly. Could you recreate it artificially?"

Musing, Forge nodded. "I have a few theories that I'd like to corral the senior Guthrie to get confirmed. Anything that I can share without violating confidentiality, sure, I'll toss your way. If it gets you back up in the air faster, hey, I'm all for it. Believe me, I know what it's like to have the one thing that makes you special taken away. It sucks."

Haroun nodded. And oh, those words were fairly bitter irony from the mouth of babes. "Anything you can share would be good." he said, disconnecting the analysis equipment. "Need anything else while I'm down here? Because if you don't I've got a date with the Wild Blue Yonder. Going to see if I can still do drop-ignites." he grinned. Nothing like living suicidally to liven up one's day!

Forge nodded, holding up the circuit board he'd been working on. "Counter-EMP projector. Short range, won't affect anything outside your own neural system. Basically, it'll let you do a cold restart if you get chunked by some stray solar flare or magnetopath. I'll pack it up and drop it by the docs, it'll need some fine-tuning that falls well into their ballpark. But from everything I can tell, you're cleared for take-off, boss."

Haroun grinned. "Rather than trying to kludge together counter-measures, why not just go with a system that's immune to EMP intrinsically? Stay away from E-M and you're fine. Any chance of a pure optics play or something like that?" he asked. "You can always ask Alison to help if you need to gather data..."

"It's an idea," Forge said, filing the reference away for future use. "Now go, shoo. Wild blue yonder and all."

"Shooing!" he said with a laugh, then hopped down from the diagnostic couch. "And Forge?" he said.

"Thanks."