Log: Doug and Sue: Skynet manipulations (Backdated)

[x-invisiblegirl.livejournal.com]

Doug stumbles across Sue in the middle of a hallway and stops to help her with a problem with her robots.

Sue sat in the middle of the hallway, her tablet balanced on one knee and books and papers scattered around her and a pencil gripped tightly between her teeth. The girls blue eyes were focused on the screen in front of her to the exclusion of everything else as lines of programming marched across the screen. "Come on, come on," she muttered not lifting her gave, "work this time, please!" she begged before a flashing red screen popped up on the screen causing her to scream and throw her pencil across the room in frustration. "You hate me don't you."

"People who don't believe in animism when it comes to computers clearly don't understand the way of things," a voice observed drily from a few feet away.  Doug Ramsey knew all too well that computers and electronics could be animated to deadly purpose, but not everything was about his personal boogeyman, and he could at least still joke about it.  Maybe therapy was good for a few things after all.

Sue looked up as the sound of a voice pierced through her reverie and noticed the blonde man watching her. "Exactly!" she agreed, "They're totally alive, and hate me." She glared at the tablet, before sighing and looking up at Doug. "I've tried everything, bribing, threatening, even begging; I just can't get it to work." The teenager tapped her tablet and smiled at Doug, "People say it's the future, but skynet so starts right here."

Doug shuddered slightly.  The truth was Skynet would almost be preferable to the type of future that would come to pass under Mastermold.  Skynet was robots, Mastermold took the bodies of people and twisted them to her will.  He certainly didn't want to think about the possibility of people remaining at all conscious of being one of her 'meat spores'.  But that was more than a teenager needed to be exposed to.  "Let's see what you've got," he said, making a beckoning motion with his hand and trying to consciously detour from a morbid train of thought.

Sue shrugged and passed the tablet over to Doug, "I made Angelica some robots as a Christmas present, toys for the  furry devils she decided to keep. The chassis was fine but the programming was a little primitive. If something comes towards you run in the opposite direction." The blonde sighed, "I figured that if I could upgrade the programming then they could do something more. Maybe share information eventually, or remember the layout of the room or evasion patterns." Sue let her back slide down the room till she was looking at the ceiling  "I just can't get the new programming to take."

"Hm."  Doug paged through lines of code, recalling the antics created by other small robotic devices.  "You might see if Catseye still has the mini-squid that Forge made her," he observed.  "It could give you a point of reference to check against."

"Mini-squid?" Sue asked giving Doug a level look as she tried to determine if he was pulling her leg or not, "Someone actually built one? He'd need to come up with a way to keep it waterproof but still let the sensors and propulsion work out of ht main body," The girl lapsed into a far-away look before she shook her head and dragged her mind back to the present. "You think she'd let me borrow the squid so I could take it apart and look at the programming?"

"I don't recall if it was water-bound or just the robot version of a stuffed animal that she could chase," Doug mused with a shrug.  "And you'd have to ask her, really - Catseye's hard to predict like that."  He grinned.  "You could always offer to bribe her, though..."

"Bribe her?" Sue asked with a grin, "Are you suggesting I would ever stoop so low as to actually bribe someone? Although for a good cause like a waterproof robot I might be persuaded to see if there is anyhting I can bring her to brighten her day. Any suggestions Mr..." Sue paused and gave Doug a questioning look, "I don't think I've actually met you before," the teenager noted holding out a hand, I'm Sue."

"I happen to know Catseye is susceptible to offers of pastrami."  Doug grinned and nodded.  "Doug Ramsey, one of the drones at the infamous Snow Valley Centre for blah blah blah..."  He even made the hand motion.  Garrison wasn't the only one that merited sass from Doug - after all, if you couldn't mock yourself...

"Pastrami, right," Sue futilely cast around herself for a blank piece of paper to note that down on. "Well Mr drone Doug Ramsey of the center for blah blah blah bubblah, it's a pleasure to meet you," the teenager said struggling to keep a straight face as she talked, "So how do you know so much about programming? I didn't think that three were that many people around here who were comfortable with the mystical and Arcane world of computer programming."

"Heh."  Doug smirked.  "How do I know so much about programming."  If anything would make it clear that Sue hadn't had occasion to meet him before, that would be it.  "One, age of the geek.  Two, it's kind of related to my power.  Pattern recognition, instinctive understanding of language...it comes in handy."

Sue considered that for a moment, "So that means that if you hear a language or see it you can understand it? That's awesome, so when people do the whole speak in a different language thing to talk about you you know what they're saying." She gave Doug a level look, "Does it work on all languages, including fictional ones?"

"<i>Qu' 'oH, je ngoD</i>," Doug replied in a guttural tone, then grinned.  "It does, in fact.  And, in one very peculiar case, a language that has not yet been invented."  And depending on how you viewed cause and effect, might never be invented now.  Far-future precognition was confusing.

Sue blinked at Doug, "That is so cool!!" The girl squealed, "Seriously that's liked the coolest power ever!" The blonde  tilted her head  to looks at Doug, "So is that why you're so good at computers?" she guessed, it only made sense, after all everyone talked about programming languages.

"It does help some, at times."  Like most things involving his power, it was difficult to tell where his power ended and his own native ability began. "It's not always a complete shortcut, though.  Some things come easier than others.  It does take work."

"So even having super powers means you still have to work at it?" Sue asked a little crestfallen, "That doesn't seem fair, I mean if we have all this amazing powers then shouldn't they just work without us having to put in work ourselves? So you just know the language when you see it instead of having to work ar learning it."

"If you find someone to actually register a complaint with on that, let me know.  Because my karma could use some unsticking while they're at it."  A smirk sat firmly on Doug's face, mostly because if he didn't keep the tone light, Sue would probably learn way more than she needed to about some of the harsher realities of Doug's existence.

"Well I don't know about complaining to anyone, but I'd say helping a poor innocent, confused little girl figure out how to make this program work is a pretty good place to start unsticking your Karma," the girl stated hopefully giving Doug a bright smile,

Doug's eyes twinkled with amusement.  "Poor and innocent, huh?"  Confused he'd buy, but... "You oversold it a bit there, Miss Storm.  First rule of getting people to do what you want - don't put all your cards down at once.  You gotta slow roll it."

"I'll remember that, unless this is all part of my cunning plan to get you to do what I want by making you think I have no idea what I'm doing" the teenager replied with a wink, "Besides for the record, I totally am innocent," she told Doug with a laugh.

"That's adorable," Doug said in that amused sort of sarcastic way that meant he still saw right through her.  Sue didn't have much on Emma or Marie-Ange when it came to subtle manipulation.  In fact...

"How would you like to meet Emma Frost?" he asked Sue.

Sue stared at Doug, "Emma Frost?" she asked in a surprised tone of voice, "CEO of Frost Industries, Queen of the engineers, My dad's main rival Emma Frost? We can just go meet her?" the blonde asked, her voice which had been rising continuously as she spoke had reached a squeak by the final question.

The squeak totally turned the attempting to look coy and innocent and manipulative teenager back into a young ball of energy, and Doug chuckled.  "Yep, we can just go meet her.  I kind of work for her."  The actual question of power structure at the Snow Valley offices, and the differences between the on-books and off-books ones, was something for another day.

A blonde blur was all Doug could see as Sue bounded to her feet in an instant, all the notes and text books strewn across the floor completely forgotten in her enthusiasm. The teenager grabbed Doug's hand and pulled him towards the door, "Whatarewewaitingfor?Letsgo!" she burbled in a long run on sentence eyes bright with excitement.

Doug missed that, the carefree enthusiasm.  It was a lot harder to feel that when you were always thinking about the angles, about vulnerability and how to exploit it in others and protect it in yourself.  He decided he liked Sue Storm.  Smart, effusive, occasionally trying to be cheeky and manipulative...hm.  "How would you feel about being my Minion Number One?" he asked as they made their way to the stairwell.

Hey, Wade couldn't have them <i>all</i>...