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xp_logsGarrison runs across the mansion's newest resident when he comes to the Danger Room to do updates. He doesn't plan on running a training session, but manages to do it anyway.
April sat cross-legged in the observation area of the Danger Room, still contemplating the scenario run she'd watched earlier. She'd been fascinated by the way the room changed and adapted as the participants moved through it, and the amount of damage it had managed to sustain. Code wasn't really her strong suit, but she had a feeling that the programming running the room was hideously beautiful. Her real interest was the material the room was surrounded in, to take such damage and seemingly have no ill effects on the room or the housing around it.
She was so caught up in her musing on the technology that the slight itch in the back of her neck was easy to ignore at first. A hand had reached up absentmindedly to soothe it as movement caught the corner of her eye, and her head turned to slowly take in the man who'd just entered the area. Ah, that itch, then. Dangerous, but not currently a threat. "I'm April, don't believe we've met yet."
"Hmm? We...haven't. That's not a common occurrence here." He paused. "Garrison. I'm... actually, I'm actually not entirely what I'm here these days right now. Tonight I'm doing some programming in the DR, unless the place burns down around me first."
"I haven't been here very long." She racked her brain for mentions of his name, "and you're the one that came back recently, right? Is it okay if I ask what a Sentinel is? Because they sound like weapons smart enough to hunt enhanced, but I'd like to be wrong about that."
"Twenty foot robots with a weapons platform specifically designed to counteract mutant abilities. Hunter units capable of scanning, intercepting and neutralizing any mutant." Kane said as he sat down at the terminal. "Pretty much a genocidal nightmare. Dangerous enough to merit a deal with the devil to stop."
A pair of slick black tendrils waved in agitation as April got to her feet, and she cursed quietly under her breath. "Fantastic, the portal dropped me in the shitty political timeline. I figured, based on things people have said, but that's a confirmation. At least the lot of you are alright so far." She came to a stop near the terminal, close enough to watch but hopefully far enough to not be annoying. "So how does the room work? I got to see it in action this morning, but I haven't actually been inside."
Kane paused, looking puzzled at the tendrils for a moment, obviously wanting to ask but declining for the moment. "The Danger Room? It's a fully modular dynamic training simulator which combines solid light holographic projections with smart surfaces It can simulate different levels of gravity, velocity, temperature... even atmospheric conditions like rain, storms, underwater..."
That much realism? "Holy shit, the webkouring I could do," she blurted out, cheeks turning pink immediately after her outburst. "Sorry, I'm missing my webs a little. And the coding for that has just.. wow. Incredible to look at, I imagine. Probably way over my head, I'm only fair at programming."
"I'm not the one to talk to about the code. I'm a wiz with the interface, but under the hood, I'm about as useful as a wet flannel hammer."
The description startled a laugh out of April, tendrils receding as her earlier agitation disappeared. "Being able to coax cohesive scenarios out of something that complex is still brilliant."
"It's a good interface." Garrison tapped a few buttons. "Inside the room, it's a holo-interface. Up here, it's a little more robust. There's a tutorial program if you're interested. It will take you through the basic functional and allow you to program some initial scenarios."
"Very interested," she agreed, watching him move through the interface. "Gym's very robust, but I prefer my workouts a little more open air and agility based. Not enough buildings close together for that out here."
"I've been away for months in hell and hell's almost worst mutant timeshare. So if you want me to keep up with... well, anything, you're going to need to provide more details."
"Right, apologies. I'm a spider-person? Several people have expressed some level of familiarity with the power set, but I have webbing, a sticking ability, and physical enhancements if you're not. Mine just has... Well, a few extras I knew about, and a few that were as surprising to me as they were to the people that encountered me once I landed through the portal located in your chapel. Back home, most of my exercise was using those abilities to move through Queens."
"You landed through the what? Where?" Kane shook his head. "When did we get a portal?"
"Oh, is it new? I don't know, but it was here by New Year's since I arrived around then. Ask someone who knows things, not the FNG. Clint, maybe? He was excited about the science." April gave him an apologetic smile. "Tell me more about what you're programming into it?"
"Man, disappear into enemy territory for a few months and they redo the whole damn place on you." He muttered. "I'm updating our combat profiles. We have more detailed information on the Brotherhood so I'm inputting it all into the system, so it can generate more accurate projections of them for training scenarios. Here, it's easier to explain this on the floor. Follow me." Kane headed out of the operating room, but instead of going down the main hall, he took an abrupt left and heading down a narrow set of stairs.
"Emergency access if the room is compromised. If you're pulling late nights, it just saves a few minutes." The door slid open and he stepped into the large steel shod grey cube room.
"This is the real fascination," April remarked, a look of open admiration on her face as she ran her fingers over the wall. "The amount of damage I saw happen in here earlier and you can't even tell. I'd love to.. no--" she pulled her attention away from the wall. "Sorry, I get lost in the science sometimes, especially with things that might overlap in my field. You were explaining the training scenarios?"
"No sense trying until you understand the room itself. So, let's take a basic preloaded setting. Interface." Kane held out his hands. Golden halos of light appeared around them, as well as a large panel hovering in front of him. Controls spun around his hands as he tapped into the air above the screen, occasionally pausing to shift a control at his wrist. As he did, the room rippled and instead of a bare cube, they seemed to be standing in a grassy field on a sunny day. The horizon stretched out around her.
"Field 1. We're very clever naming things. But look around. Feel the breeze on your face. The scent of the pine trees on the edge of the clearing. The warmth of the sun. In fact, if you want to take off your shoes, you can feel the grass between your toes."
April slid her sandals off at the invitation, marvelling at the feel of cool dirt and the slight prickle of grass. "Eerie, how realistic this feels. I feel like I could actually pluck the grass and hold it in my hand. Dangerous in the wrong hands."
"Not really. The Danger Room handles over fifty million exaflops of computational power. Which is... well, a lot, I'm told. I know nothing about the tech. However, I know this." He hit a button and all the holograms disappeared. Looking down, she could see patches of nanite constructed microfilaments around her feet. The steel underneath was pebbled and the consistency of dirt. She could see the output systems arrayed from the walls, providing the breeze and the warmth of the sun. "This part is pretty cool too." He started to walk, and the floor slid underneath each foot like a moving sidewalk, allowing him and easy gait but not moving forward an inch.
Her mind came to a halt at the information, mouth open in a soundless question as wide eyes took everything in. She dropped to one knee gracelessly, fingers lightly tracing over the patches of microfilaments. "Sweet mother Lovelace," she breathed out quietly, then a louder, "I want to marry the person that came up with this and have ridiculously smart science babies with them. I didn't even know you could do this with microfilament yet, and it's literally my degree field. Fuck, the science in here is amazing."
"It was more of a gesult, and honestly, I think some of it actually breaks science. It's been worked on by mutants with all kinds of powers, including to build basically anything they could envision. So I'm told reliably that some parts of the DR kinda break various laws of physics." Kane shrugged. "My degrees are in criminology and psychology, so not really my scope. But it is pretty amazing what this place can do."
He touched the panel and the holograms kicked back in, putting them in the clearing. "OK, hold out your arms and say 'interface'."
"I think it's definitely broken my mind a little, but in a good way," April replied as she held her arms out. "Interface." Her eyes moved over the panel, mentally cataloguing the preloaded options as she waited for more instructions.
"I've given you introductory access for now. That means you'll only be able to choose pre-loaded settings, scenarios, and modify them within specific parameters." He said. "Once you log enough hours getting used to that, we'll move you to operator status. That will give you the ability to build from the ground up. Beyond that is programmer access, but there's only a few of us at that level right now."
"Makes sense. Is there a specific pre-load that's most useful for gauging abilities or settings adjustments that might be necessary?"
"Not really. Everything is designed to be modular. For example, let's say I wanted to test someone's agility." He tapped a few times. A series of poles of differing heights, each with a hoop on the top appeared in the field. They were replaced by a maze of laser lights, moving in complex patterns. Those disappeared and what looked like a massive jungle gym with internal sections in motion appeared. "I can choose from dozens of testing environments specific to agility, determine the difficulty level, and then the program will adapt it to whatever base environment and variable settings I have selected. Or, you can go with any of the preloads you can access, which have all those settings already programmed in. All you have to choose is the difficulty and length of the session you want."
"This has officially replaced the gym as the best workout, at least until it's a little warmer out." April bounced lightly in place with excitement, a little overwhelmed by the possibilities. "Do you want me to have a go at it, or would you like to keep blowing my mind with the possibilities?"
"That's up to you. I'm not running any training sessions right now, but the room will set this as a solo session, so the full safeguards will be on if you want to run some scenarios."
"I wouldn't mind actually getting to stretch my webs a bit. Being cooped up makes me antsy, especially when everything is just a few shades off normal and almost everyone I come across pings my danger sense. A little spoiled for choice." She bit her lip in indecision. "City'd probably be easiest, but some of those agility testers look fun."
"So..." Kane hit a button and the clearing shifted to a cityscape. "There are fifty city scenarios at your access level. And all of the agility challenges map to all of them. Just use your interface and you'll start to see all of them."
Garrison narrowing it down for her was incredibly helpful. As April saw the city shift into place, her hands moved, hesitantly scrolling through and discarding scenarios that she was less interested in. "Not for your first time," she muttered under her breath as she swiped several in a row out of the way before "not dressed for that," removed another handful. "Nothing good happens in that part of Jersey," and an emphatic swipe had her narrowed to three, and she selected the middle one without looking. As the cityscape changed into her chosen scenario she tugged her hoodie over her head, dropping it on the floor next to her sandals and leaving her in a tank top and joggers. A wet-looking black and blue material swirled over her hands and up her forearms like gloves, and a few moments of intense concentration had it over her feet and ankles like boots.
A giddy chant of 'I get to go swinging, I get to go swinging' started up in her mind, and she gave him a wide grin. "How do I turn the interface off, and where do I start after?"
"The interface will remain on, but once you hit 'run' for the program, it will disappear until you call it again. As for the rest, play with it. Enjoy. The point of this place is to explore."
April tested her web shooting, flexing her wrists to test the directionals since she didn't have her bracers on. "Awesome. Are you able to program things in while I'm using it? If you're going to be upstairs, don't laugh too hard if I'm being ridiculous. Yell at me in an hour and I'll get out of your way?" She moved towards one of the buildings as she talked, hitting 'run' as she picked up speed. A black hand shot out, webbing releasing from it and wrapping around a simulated traffic light as she was launched into the air, a joyful scream trailing behind her as she came to a sticky pause against the side of a building. She calculated the angles of the buildings around her and jumped again, a series of webs launching from alternating hands as she jumped across the buildings in a rather strange hopscotch.
"Thanks for this, Garrison!" she called as she used her momentum to swing over the branch of a simulated tree, flipping effortlessly through the air and landing on a nearby balcony. "It was really nice meeting you!"
"You take care." He was fascinated by her web abilities, but he was exhausted from even the limited social interaction. Instead, he logged himself out, left the DR and went back to Amanda and MA's suite. He'd get caught up tomorrow.
April sat cross-legged in the observation area of the Danger Room, still contemplating the scenario run she'd watched earlier. She'd been fascinated by the way the room changed and adapted as the participants moved through it, and the amount of damage it had managed to sustain. Code wasn't really her strong suit, but she had a feeling that the programming running the room was hideously beautiful. Her real interest was the material the room was surrounded in, to take such damage and seemingly have no ill effects on the room or the housing around it.
She was so caught up in her musing on the technology that the slight itch in the back of her neck was easy to ignore at first. A hand had reached up absentmindedly to soothe it as movement caught the corner of her eye, and her head turned to slowly take in the man who'd just entered the area. Ah, that itch, then. Dangerous, but not currently a threat. "I'm April, don't believe we've met yet."
"Hmm? We...haven't. That's not a common occurrence here." He paused. "Garrison. I'm... actually, I'm actually not entirely what I'm here these days right now. Tonight I'm doing some programming in the DR, unless the place burns down around me first."
"I haven't been here very long." She racked her brain for mentions of his name, "and you're the one that came back recently, right? Is it okay if I ask what a Sentinel is? Because they sound like weapons smart enough to hunt enhanced, but I'd like to be wrong about that."
"Twenty foot robots with a weapons platform specifically designed to counteract mutant abilities. Hunter units capable of scanning, intercepting and neutralizing any mutant." Kane said as he sat down at the terminal. "Pretty much a genocidal nightmare. Dangerous enough to merit a deal with the devil to stop."
A pair of slick black tendrils waved in agitation as April got to her feet, and she cursed quietly under her breath. "Fantastic, the portal dropped me in the shitty political timeline. I figured, based on things people have said, but that's a confirmation. At least the lot of you are alright so far." She came to a stop near the terminal, close enough to watch but hopefully far enough to not be annoying. "So how does the room work? I got to see it in action this morning, but I haven't actually been inside."
Kane paused, looking puzzled at the tendrils for a moment, obviously wanting to ask but declining for the moment. "The Danger Room? It's a fully modular dynamic training simulator which combines solid light holographic projections with smart surfaces It can simulate different levels of gravity, velocity, temperature... even atmospheric conditions like rain, storms, underwater..."
That much realism? "Holy shit, the webkouring I could do," she blurted out, cheeks turning pink immediately after her outburst. "Sorry, I'm missing my webs a little. And the coding for that has just.. wow. Incredible to look at, I imagine. Probably way over my head, I'm only fair at programming."
"I'm not the one to talk to about the code. I'm a wiz with the interface, but under the hood, I'm about as useful as a wet flannel hammer."
The description startled a laugh out of April, tendrils receding as her earlier agitation disappeared. "Being able to coax cohesive scenarios out of something that complex is still brilliant."
"It's a good interface." Garrison tapped a few buttons. "Inside the room, it's a holo-interface. Up here, it's a little more robust. There's a tutorial program if you're interested. It will take you through the basic functional and allow you to program some initial scenarios."
"Very interested," she agreed, watching him move through the interface. "Gym's very robust, but I prefer my workouts a little more open air and agility based. Not enough buildings close together for that out here."
"I've been away for months in hell and hell's almost worst mutant timeshare. So if you want me to keep up with... well, anything, you're going to need to provide more details."
"Right, apologies. I'm a spider-person? Several people have expressed some level of familiarity with the power set, but I have webbing, a sticking ability, and physical enhancements if you're not. Mine just has... Well, a few extras I knew about, and a few that were as surprising to me as they were to the people that encountered me once I landed through the portal located in your chapel. Back home, most of my exercise was using those abilities to move through Queens."
"You landed through the what? Where?" Kane shook his head. "When did we get a portal?"
"Oh, is it new? I don't know, but it was here by New Year's since I arrived around then. Ask someone who knows things, not the FNG. Clint, maybe? He was excited about the science." April gave him an apologetic smile. "Tell me more about what you're programming into it?"
"Man, disappear into enemy territory for a few months and they redo the whole damn place on you." He muttered. "I'm updating our combat profiles. We have more detailed information on the Brotherhood so I'm inputting it all into the system, so it can generate more accurate projections of them for training scenarios. Here, it's easier to explain this on the floor. Follow me." Kane headed out of the operating room, but instead of going down the main hall, he took an abrupt left and heading down a narrow set of stairs.
"Emergency access if the room is compromised. If you're pulling late nights, it just saves a few minutes." The door slid open and he stepped into the large steel shod grey cube room.
"This is the real fascination," April remarked, a look of open admiration on her face as she ran her fingers over the wall. "The amount of damage I saw happen in here earlier and you can't even tell. I'd love to.. no--" she pulled her attention away from the wall. "Sorry, I get lost in the science sometimes, especially with things that might overlap in my field. You were explaining the training scenarios?"
"No sense trying until you understand the room itself. So, let's take a basic preloaded setting. Interface." Kane held out his hands. Golden halos of light appeared around them, as well as a large panel hovering in front of him. Controls spun around his hands as he tapped into the air above the screen, occasionally pausing to shift a control at his wrist. As he did, the room rippled and instead of a bare cube, they seemed to be standing in a grassy field on a sunny day. The horizon stretched out around her.
"Field 1. We're very clever naming things. But look around. Feel the breeze on your face. The scent of the pine trees on the edge of the clearing. The warmth of the sun. In fact, if you want to take off your shoes, you can feel the grass between your toes."
April slid her sandals off at the invitation, marvelling at the feel of cool dirt and the slight prickle of grass. "Eerie, how realistic this feels. I feel like I could actually pluck the grass and hold it in my hand. Dangerous in the wrong hands."
"Not really. The Danger Room handles over fifty million exaflops of computational power. Which is... well, a lot, I'm told. I know nothing about the tech. However, I know this." He hit a button and all the holograms disappeared. Looking down, she could see patches of nanite constructed microfilaments around her feet. The steel underneath was pebbled and the consistency of dirt. She could see the output systems arrayed from the walls, providing the breeze and the warmth of the sun. "This part is pretty cool too." He started to walk, and the floor slid underneath each foot like a moving sidewalk, allowing him and easy gait but not moving forward an inch.
Her mind came to a halt at the information, mouth open in a soundless question as wide eyes took everything in. She dropped to one knee gracelessly, fingers lightly tracing over the patches of microfilaments. "Sweet mother Lovelace," she breathed out quietly, then a louder, "I want to marry the person that came up with this and have ridiculously smart science babies with them. I didn't even know you could do this with microfilament yet, and it's literally my degree field. Fuck, the science in here is amazing."
"It was more of a gesult, and honestly, I think some of it actually breaks science. It's been worked on by mutants with all kinds of powers, including to build basically anything they could envision. So I'm told reliably that some parts of the DR kinda break various laws of physics." Kane shrugged. "My degrees are in criminology and psychology, so not really my scope. But it is pretty amazing what this place can do."
He touched the panel and the holograms kicked back in, putting them in the clearing. "OK, hold out your arms and say 'interface'."
"I think it's definitely broken my mind a little, but in a good way," April replied as she held her arms out. "Interface." Her eyes moved over the panel, mentally cataloguing the preloaded options as she waited for more instructions.
"I've given you introductory access for now. That means you'll only be able to choose pre-loaded settings, scenarios, and modify them within specific parameters." He said. "Once you log enough hours getting used to that, we'll move you to operator status. That will give you the ability to build from the ground up. Beyond that is programmer access, but there's only a few of us at that level right now."
"Makes sense. Is there a specific pre-load that's most useful for gauging abilities or settings adjustments that might be necessary?"
"Not really. Everything is designed to be modular. For example, let's say I wanted to test someone's agility." He tapped a few times. A series of poles of differing heights, each with a hoop on the top appeared in the field. They were replaced by a maze of laser lights, moving in complex patterns. Those disappeared and what looked like a massive jungle gym with internal sections in motion appeared. "I can choose from dozens of testing environments specific to agility, determine the difficulty level, and then the program will adapt it to whatever base environment and variable settings I have selected. Or, you can go with any of the preloads you can access, which have all those settings already programmed in. All you have to choose is the difficulty and length of the session you want."
"This has officially replaced the gym as the best workout, at least until it's a little warmer out." April bounced lightly in place with excitement, a little overwhelmed by the possibilities. "Do you want me to have a go at it, or would you like to keep blowing my mind with the possibilities?"
"That's up to you. I'm not running any training sessions right now, but the room will set this as a solo session, so the full safeguards will be on if you want to run some scenarios."
"I wouldn't mind actually getting to stretch my webs a bit. Being cooped up makes me antsy, especially when everything is just a few shades off normal and almost everyone I come across pings my danger sense. A little spoiled for choice." She bit her lip in indecision. "City'd probably be easiest, but some of those agility testers look fun."
"So..." Kane hit a button and the clearing shifted to a cityscape. "There are fifty city scenarios at your access level. And all of the agility challenges map to all of them. Just use your interface and you'll start to see all of them."
Garrison narrowing it down for her was incredibly helpful. As April saw the city shift into place, her hands moved, hesitantly scrolling through and discarding scenarios that she was less interested in. "Not for your first time," she muttered under her breath as she swiped several in a row out of the way before "not dressed for that," removed another handful. "Nothing good happens in that part of Jersey," and an emphatic swipe had her narrowed to three, and she selected the middle one without looking. As the cityscape changed into her chosen scenario she tugged her hoodie over her head, dropping it on the floor next to her sandals and leaving her in a tank top and joggers. A wet-looking black and blue material swirled over her hands and up her forearms like gloves, and a few moments of intense concentration had it over her feet and ankles like boots.
A giddy chant of 'I get to go swinging, I get to go swinging' started up in her mind, and she gave him a wide grin. "How do I turn the interface off, and where do I start after?"
"The interface will remain on, but once you hit 'run' for the program, it will disappear until you call it again. As for the rest, play with it. Enjoy. The point of this place is to explore."
April tested her web shooting, flexing her wrists to test the directionals since she didn't have her bracers on. "Awesome. Are you able to program things in while I'm using it? If you're going to be upstairs, don't laugh too hard if I'm being ridiculous. Yell at me in an hour and I'll get out of your way?" She moved towards one of the buildings as she talked, hitting 'run' as she picked up speed. A black hand shot out, webbing releasing from it and wrapping around a simulated traffic light as she was launched into the air, a joyful scream trailing behind her as she came to a sticky pause against the side of a building. She calculated the angles of the buildings around her and jumped again, a series of webs launching from alternating hands as she jumped across the buildings in a rather strange hopscotch.
"Thanks for this, Garrison!" she called as she used her momentum to swing over the branch of a simulated tree, flipping effortlessly through the air and landing on a nearby balcony. "It was really nice meeting you!"
"You take care." He was fascinated by her web abilities, but he was exhausted from even the limited social interaction. Instead, he logged himself out, left the DR and went back to Amanda and MA's suite. He'd get caught up tomorrow.
