The Danger Room Paradox - Finale
Dec. 16th, 2018 07:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsEveryone retrieved, Team!Science gets down to shutting things down for good.
"That's the last of our missing people!" Kane called through the comms as he and Everett evacuated the last team of mutants, disoriented and shaky, through the portal and out of the Danger Room. "What now?"
A blonde head shifted, looking up from the blueprints she'd been buried in, a laptop showing shifting lines of code casting an eerie glow that it up her face as she sat back in her chair. "Now we shut thing whole mess down."
"Very carefully," Hank cautioned, already glancing over the readings from the medical team with no small amount of relief. "Our best simulations still don't give us much data about the potential effects this will have on each subsequent field."
"So do it all at once and not piece by piece?" Ev asked. "Maybe less of a chance to play Whack-A-Mole if you hit all of them at the same time."
"Whack-A-Mole is hardly scientific," Reed muttered, one hand running through his hair. "But I can understand your point. I would have to agree with Everett. Sue, do we have enough power to close all the quantum trails? There's also the possibility that if we unleash enough energy into the first one, the rest will fall like dominoes." He gave a shrug. "Obviously, it's anyone's guess." And even though he'd asked Sue for an answer, Reed couldn't help peering over Hank's shoulder at the numbers. "Actually, we should be fine. I don't see why not. I can take the blame if it all goes wrong." It wouldn't be the first time.
The blonde turned her head away from a screen to wave a finger at Reed, "No, sorry not happening, we're a team, we take the blame and the triumph together," she admonished him as her teeth sank into the flesh of her lower lip. "If we're going to do it then it might be safer to hit them all at once rather than try to create a cascading shutdown. The Dangeroom is a smart system, if it detects a problem it might react before we've managed to push it through to the end."
"We need a decision that you're the only people equipped to make." Kane said as he staggered up to the control room. "What's your idea of the best shot?"
The scientific consensus seemed strong, and Hank spoke confidently. "All at once. Though that's not as simple as it sounds. We'll need to prepare so that it truly is a simultaneous trigger."
"Is there anything we can do?" Ev asked, indicating himself and Garrison. It was a rhetorical question, mostly, as he knew there was little with which they could assist besides dive for cover in case something exploded.
Reed couldn't recognize a rhetorical question even at the best of times. "No. Why would you be able to help? Especially now, when this requires extreme precision and knowledge that we've all but admitted we don't have? And if some of the greatest -- if not THE -- greatest minds are at a loss..."
There were times her boyfriend was the smartest man in the world, there were other times when...well when she despaired for him. Shaking her head the woman reached over, cuffing Reed lightly around the head with a warning glance, "the best thing you can probably do right now is check on the others and make sure they're ok. This is just a piece of programming now, a complicated one but still just programming."
"Just programming got us into this. Hank, give me some kind of timeline that I can understand that isn't a pat on the head."
"Shutting down shouldn't take long." Hank glanced at the screens, where Reed and Sue had already started to set up the sequence that would hopefully put an end to the chaos that had plagued the mansion and its residents. "An hour, perhaps. Uninstalling the updates so they don't cause any more problems will take much longer - the Danger Room will need to be offline for the duration. Not that anybody will be keen to return to it soon, I would imagine."
Ev nodded, accepting the simplified explanation. "How long is 'much longer?' Hours, days? Poor Scott, he'll be so despondent." He put his finger on the tip of his nose. "I'm not going to be the one to tell him his favorite toy needs repairs."
"We literally pulled people out of video games. Scott's feelings are about at the end of my list of concerns, competing with a possible reboot of 'Friends' and avocado toast killing home ownership for last place." Kane said. "But let's be clear. You can make things safe again in here, right?"
"I mean, I'd be a little concerned about the idea of Avocado toast killing home ownership," Sue allowed in an attempt at humour, "most of my neighbours love the stuff..." from the reception o her joke the attempt to lighten the mood of the room didn't seem to have the effect she wanted and the young woman turned to her screen with a small internal sigh. She knew there was a time and a place for these things, but the rescue attempts actually seemed to be going well this time.
"Yeah, once everyone's clear we can pull the lug on the entire system, after that it's just a matter of partitioning the hardware and the software. I can construct a firewall that will keep it contained till we figure out what went wrong, and I'm sure we can put in hardware to suppress the quantum effects."
"Readings confirm everybody has been removed from the scenarios," Hank said, "so I believe we can begin. Sue, if you can concentrate on that firewall I am sure I can support Reed with the shutdown, and once that's completed we can take a brief rest before starting the repairs. As much as the stereotype about computer coders and caffeine rings true I think we're going to want to be firing on all cylinders while we uninstall these upgrades. The last thing we need is for those fields to warp or malfunction."
The shutdown took place entirely on screen, as the Danger Room sat looking like an empty cube of space. But on the monitors, the complex energy fields roiled and heaved as the three mutants fought their own upgrades to deny the quantum field power and close the inadvertent rifts. The only sounds were typing and breathing, eyes riveted on the sensors feeding information back to the complex programs they had developed. One minute the swirl of chaos was thick and pregnant in the air and the next, like a last gasp, the screens were as empty as the room appeared. Three identical sighs punctuated the room, even as Kane tapped on the screen.
"That was... a bit anti-climatic. I mean, you hear quantum and you're thinking an explosion of blue energy or something." He said and turned more serious. "Especially after saving the lives of dozens of friends. You guys deserve at least a little blue energy each. Let me know if you need anything else. I'm off to tell Scott we broke his favourite toy."
"That's the last of our missing people!" Kane called through the comms as he and Everett evacuated the last team of mutants, disoriented and shaky, through the portal and out of the Danger Room. "What now?"
A blonde head shifted, looking up from the blueprints she'd been buried in, a laptop showing shifting lines of code casting an eerie glow that it up her face as she sat back in her chair. "Now we shut thing whole mess down."
"Very carefully," Hank cautioned, already glancing over the readings from the medical team with no small amount of relief. "Our best simulations still don't give us much data about the potential effects this will have on each subsequent field."
"So do it all at once and not piece by piece?" Ev asked. "Maybe less of a chance to play Whack-A-Mole if you hit all of them at the same time."
"Whack-A-Mole is hardly scientific," Reed muttered, one hand running through his hair. "But I can understand your point. I would have to agree with Everett. Sue, do we have enough power to close all the quantum trails? There's also the possibility that if we unleash enough energy into the first one, the rest will fall like dominoes." He gave a shrug. "Obviously, it's anyone's guess." And even though he'd asked Sue for an answer, Reed couldn't help peering over Hank's shoulder at the numbers. "Actually, we should be fine. I don't see why not. I can take the blame if it all goes wrong." It wouldn't be the first time.
The blonde turned her head away from a screen to wave a finger at Reed, "No, sorry not happening, we're a team, we take the blame and the triumph together," she admonished him as her teeth sank into the flesh of her lower lip. "If we're going to do it then it might be safer to hit them all at once rather than try to create a cascading shutdown. The Dangeroom is a smart system, if it detects a problem it might react before we've managed to push it through to the end."
"We need a decision that you're the only people equipped to make." Kane said as he staggered up to the control room. "What's your idea of the best shot?"
The scientific consensus seemed strong, and Hank spoke confidently. "All at once. Though that's not as simple as it sounds. We'll need to prepare so that it truly is a simultaneous trigger."
"Is there anything we can do?" Ev asked, indicating himself and Garrison. It was a rhetorical question, mostly, as he knew there was little with which they could assist besides dive for cover in case something exploded.
Reed couldn't recognize a rhetorical question even at the best of times. "No. Why would you be able to help? Especially now, when this requires extreme precision and knowledge that we've all but admitted we don't have? And if some of the greatest -- if not THE -- greatest minds are at a loss..."
There were times her boyfriend was the smartest man in the world, there were other times when...well when she despaired for him. Shaking her head the woman reached over, cuffing Reed lightly around the head with a warning glance, "the best thing you can probably do right now is check on the others and make sure they're ok. This is just a piece of programming now, a complicated one but still just programming."
"Just programming got us into this. Hank, give me some kind of timeline that I can understand that isn't a pat on the head."
"Shutting down shouldn't take long." Hank glanced at the screens, where Reed and Sue had already started to set up the sequence that would hopefully put an end to the chaos that had plagued the mansion and its residents. "An hour, perhaps. Uninstalling the updates so they don't cause any more problems will take much longer - the Danger Room will need to be offline for the duration. Not that anybody will be keen to return to it soon, I would imagine."
Ev nodded, accepting the simplified explanation. "How long is 'much longer?' Hours, days? Poor Scott, he'll be so despondent." He put his finger on the tip of his nose. "I'm not going to be the one to tell him his favorite toy needs repairs."
"We literally pulled people out of video games. Scott's feelings are about at the end of my list of concerns, competing with a possible reboot of 'Friends' and avocado toast killing home ownership for last place." Kane said. "But let's be clear. You can make things safe again in here, right?"
"I mean, I'd be a little concerned about the idea of Avocado toast killing home ownership," Sue allowed in an attempt at humour, "most of my neighbours love the stuff..." from the reception o her joke the attempt to lighten the mood of the room didn't seem to have the effect she wanted and the young woman turned to her screen with a small internal sigh. She knew there was a time and a place for these things, but the rescue attempts actually seemed to be going well this time.
"Yeah, once everyone's clear we can pull the lug on the entire system, after that it's just a matter of partitioning the hardware and the software. I can construct a firewall that will keep it contained till we figure out what went wrong, and I'm sure we can put in hardware to suppress the quantum effects."
"Readings confirm everybody has been removed from the scenarios," Hank said, "so I believe we can begin. Sue, if you can concentrate on that firewall I am sure I can support Reed with the shutdown, and once that's completed we can take a brief rest before starting the repairs. As much as the stereotype about computer coders and caffeine rings true I think we're going to want to be firing on all cylinders while we uninstall these upgrades. The last thing we need is for those fields to warp or malfunction."
The shutdown took place entirely on screen, as the Danger Room sat looking like an empty cube of space. But on the monitors, the complex energy fields roiled and heaved as the three mutants fought their own upgrades to deny the quantum field power and close the inadvertent rifts. The only sounds were typing and breathing, eyes riveted on the sensors feeding information back to the complex programs they had developed. One minute the swirl of chaos was thick and pregnant in the air and the next, like a last gasp, the screens were as empty as the room appeared. Three identical sighs punctuated the room, even as Kane tapped on the screen.
"That was... a bit anti-climatic. I mean, you hear quantum and you're thinking an explosion of blue energy or something." He said and turned more serious. "Especially after saving the lives of dozens of friends. You guys deserve at least a little blue energy each. Let me know if you need anything else. I'm off to tell Scott we broke his favourite toy."
