Log: Hank and Sam.

[x-cannonball.livejournal.com]

Sam assists Hank with some Danger Room settings after running one of his special scenarios.

Hank was about ten feet off the ground tinkering with one of the danger room's many holographic projectors. Something was interfering with the motion tracking module which he'd only noticed on the third systems check. However, even the slightest problem in this particular room could lead to rather disastrous results. Henry was completely dedicated to giving the systems a tune-up in order to prevent more work for himself in the future.

"If you wanted to test motion tracking, maybe you shouldn't start with the fastest person here? That doesn't seem rightly fair to the Danger Room, I don't figure." Sam smiled up to Hank, the pair hadn't seen each other in quite some time. "Probably not fair to you either. You haven't worked on this in a while and might need to warm up too."

"Sam," Hank began, closing up the access panel. "Your boastful disposition only means I'll be enjoying this all the more." With a quick exhale, Hank flipped down to the ground and landed in a crouch. With a smile he went on, "While I will be checking the tracking systems with you, I had another, more prominent purpose I thought you might serve...durability."

"I'm not sure you can rightly call my claim boasting. I am the fastest." The Guthrie boy spoke it as fact while he moved up to properly greet his friend with a hand shake. "Durability I can also do, so long as I stay in the air, that is."

Hank chuckled, pulling his netbook from his securely stored pocket. "Excellent, I have just the session then, do you need any time to get ready?"

Sam pulled down the goggles to his flight suit. When he was requested to the danger room he knew he'd need his suit. "I don't think that ought to be necessary." With a smile the speedster lowered his center of gravity to prepare to take off.

"Have you ever played a game called Bombardment, Sam? It was very popular when I was a boy in elementary school." A ring of cannons materialized around the room; attached to each was a basket with thirty pound medicine balls inside.

"It's looking like dodgeball so far. Are we testing my durability and I misunderstood?" Sam laughed and inquired with a smirk. "Other than throwing me off course, I'm not sure if I can be hurt while flying."

"Think of it as a combination of speed, durability and agility. The cannons will track you as best as the system can manage, trying to tag you. You don't want to be tagged. Each time you get hit, I get a point, each time you destroy a cannon, I lose a point. If your score is under 100 by the time the run is over, I owe you dinner." Small targets popped up on each cannon, "Break them by catching and lobbing the ball at the target...oh, and of course, you do have to hit it."

Hitting a few more keys, a number of walls materialized above them, circling around as they moved in and out before fading away. "Each cannon you manage to take down, things are going to get a touch more difficult." The cannons loaded their payload in unison, "Whenever you're ready."

"That's sinister, I ought to have figured that you'd have a way to get me out from under my blast shield. I'm sure you remember I can't catch the balls like that without them melting." Sam chuckled softly. It had been his first time training since his return (which he was glad Hank didn't seem to know about quite yet.) Slipping a small box of matches from his pocket, the country boy removed on and slid it between his teeth like he used to straws of hay. He wanted to remind himself what he learned about his own limits or all he had just recently got past would have been for nothing.

"I'm ready when you are, Sir." Sam gave one last sincere grin before they began.

"Then let's begin," Hank took a few steps back and the cannons swiveled to lock onto Sam and fire. With a mighty blast and flash of fake fire fifteen balls blasted toward the young man at full speed. As they fired, Hank began to monitor the danger room's systems.

Before he could develop a plan, Sam would have to see how the cannons acted and that meant not yet being tagged. With a blast he was off, trying to stay under the speed of sound for the sake of Hank's hearing. The best he could think up at the moment would be to wait until a break in the firing in order to pick up a ball that had come to rest. He'd have to at least stop thrust to grab a ball and also to throw it.

Hank divided his attention between the system read outs and how Sam was doing. There weren't any tricks hidden up the sleeves of his white lab-coat, but that didn't make the challenge any easier. This test was designed to test the limits of the danger room and while he may have been able to do this with wall mounted cannons, he needed a flier for the ground based ones. "You're doing great, Sam, keep it up!" he yelled over the combined sounds of Sam's blasting and the cannons firing.

After a few failed attempts at timing, Sam managed to get into a routine of catching a ball by flying over the top of it and scooping it out of the air, then flying by a different cannon right after it fired to break the target. He didn't expect to be flawless in the task but he did well enough at keeping his successes above his failures.

"It's going to get a little harder now," Hank said, but his voice was drown out by thunder as a storm formed overhead. Lightning arched between clouds and rain started to fall. A couple of the floating walls appeared as well, horizontally to block the rain in spots. So far the system was performing perfectly, considering the nature of this Em Cee Esher nightmare scenario.

"Not sure you can rightly call that a little, Hank." Sam laughed a little. It took him a moment to regain a tempo and the rain prevented a good grip on the medicine balls even if they weren't directly in it at the moment. Not one to complain, he continued with his task and though his success ratio was lower it still looked like he would ultimately win.

Striking a few of the keys in his hand, the medicine balls changed from a light red to black, making them harder to spot against the room's increasingly low lighting. "You can stop this anytime you'd like, Sam."

"Don't care to give up, although I am wondering if you've set a time limit to this exercise or if I ought to expect to be here for some time." Sam was still in good-spirits, even though the change in color was now preventing him from being able to score as many points as before. It wasn't long until his score began to decline as he took more hits from the incoming fire. Fortunately he could still see the cannon blasts and had not been caught with a hit without his blast shield... yet.

Suddenly the firing ceased as Hank typed in a new line of commands. "No time limit, just do your best until you've beaten the scenario." The cannons started firing again, now the balls were flashing green as slowly as they seemed to rise into the air. There was something different about this one. "Let's see how you do against seekers."

Sam hadn't expected the seekers to explode and, once he landed to throw a medicine ball at the last cannon, a shower of small, springy balls peppered him just before the scenario ended. With just a laugh, and the knowledge that most certainly dropped his score into the losing bracket, he looked up to the control room. "I think I probably owe you the drink this time but don't expect to be able to surprise me with this scenario again. Next time I got your number."

"Anytime you feel up to it, let me know," he added the scenario to Sam's favorites so he could practice. "Thanks for your help, Sam, the motion trackers need just a little bit of tweaking before they're just right."

"You can always tell me if you need more help." Sam pushed his goggles up onto his head as he moved up to the control booth to talk with Hank. "I still like to keep active."

Hank shut down the simulator and opened an access hatch just as Sam walked in. "If you don't mind, I need to test the durability of certain features actually." Penlight in mouth, Hank began to tinker with a circuit board until it came loose. Withdrawing it from the casing Hank pointed to a small, clear-plastic box containing a microchip, "Hand that to me, would you?"

Sam did as instructed. "Well, I'm already here. Wouldn't make much sense for me to leave and you to have to get someone else in here."

Setting down his soldering iron and goggles, Hank looked up at Sam, "If you're sure you're ready." Standing up, the blue doctor picked up his netbook and entered a sequence of commands. "We'll do a standard durability test- plaster walls to start with, moving to plywood, wood, brick, stone and finally metal. How does that sound?"

"Sounds just fine. I've punched through all those things before and I remember about how they ought to react when I do." Sam gave one of his big, sincere smiles and headed back down into the Danger Room, pulling his goggles back down into place for another run.