Forge & Darcy | Thing 1.0
Jan. 19th, 2023 04:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsDarcy and Forge finally chat in more than passing, and she gets to meet Thing v1.0.
Darcy rapped her knuckles firmly on the closed door to the lab Forge had said he was in, waiting patiently for a minute before just heading in. The volume of the music had her wincing, but she kept walking across the room until she was in front of the younger man and able to give him a wave. The volume dropped significantly as he noticed her, and she let out a sigh of relief, dropping inelegantly into a rolling chair and sliding her way over. “Sup, I’m Darcy. Nice to see you in more than passing, dude.”
Forge was tinkering with the new and improved BluetoothSucks stack, having just given April access to the repo, when Darcy walked in. He blanked his display and then smiled at Darcy. "Yeah, I know. I'm Forge." he said by way of a greeting. Then he unceremoniously put his beThing'ed hand on the tabletop between them. "This is my take on Thing." he said, activating its remote-control protocol via his smartphone.
“Sup Thing?” Darcy grinned at the hand skittering in her direction with delight, holding out her own for it to shake or give a five to. “So you’re probably wondering why I asked about checking Thing out, other than the general curiosity,” she said, eyes still on Thing. “I know my profile’s still a little general on the info other than the electrokinesis.”
"Shocking Thing into submission will not earn you brownie points nor get me to share the horrible, horrible things my new protocol does to Bluetooth." he said with a grin.
Darcy shook her head, laughing at the quip. “Nah dude, I wouldn’t do that unless Thing was trying to hurt someone for no reason. It’s happened before, we’ve had hostile nanites get on the grounds. Ended up frying someone’s prosthetic because it was doing the bad touch.” She accepted Thing’s handshake, evaluating the weight and grip. It didn’t feel quite like shaking a flesh hand, but the grip was dead-on for firm but not overbearing. “Anyways, what’s currently still kinda need to know is that I’m a burgeoning technopath. If it’s got circuits I can eventually do some basic to advanced communication with it.”
Forge blinked. And then blinked again. "I know people in DARPA that would sell their mothers for five minutes with your gift." he said. "It's incredibly rare. And … from my perspective at least, deeply disturbing." he said. "So you want to, what, see if you can swamp the Thing protocols and order him around?" he asked.
She huffed out a breath at that, shrugging. “Yeah.. it was definitely a thing to learn! And experience, honestly. I didn’t even notice it at first, and then found out one of the computers I’d been talking to didn’t actually have a setup for verbal input. I’m still learning the edges of it.”
She’d brought the hand up to eye level, and was carefully examining the joins and mechanics. “I mostly wanted to see how advanced Thing is, introduce myself to both of you. Ask if I could meet your other smart tech. If they’re familiar with me, maybe I can counteract something with hostile tendencies trying to take over. I’d like to avoid the nanite issue again, if I can. And if you’ve got an AI in here, I want to meet them so they don’t treat me like a hostile when I’m learning the network.”
Forge sighed. "Gonna tell you right now - I made a very solemn oath a long time ago not to bring into the world true AI. I could, you know. I know the math. But …I'm not ready to be a father yet." he said with a small laugh. "Thing there has a pathing algorithm, enough onboard storage to hold a fair selection of maps, and what I call a travelling salesman algorithm." he said. "Plus, his central control is software on my phone, not on the hand itself." he said. "Form-factor is goofy, sure, but I figured you and your buddies in the cloak-and-dagger end of the business might find the tech potentially useful."
“That’s fine and probably smart, even, although it wouldn’t be the first one here. People do still get a little weird about computers that can think for themselves.”
"To put it mildly." he said agreeably. "This was a crude prototype I hacked together in a few hours. V2.0 could go into any number of stealthier or even smaller shells, HD video and IR sensors, mapping algorithms, onboard audio, secure data protocol to bring the take back to a centralized collection point. Might help you get close enough to keep an eye on bad people doing bad things in dark corners, hrm?" he said. "Could even give it a USB port for remote-hacking attempts of air-gapped machines."
“You’re speaking my language, although Doug’s probably the one you want to talk to about what’s actually practical and useful. Maybe something that helps me bridge the gap with foreign tech, though.” Darcy set Thing down with an absent scritch of the hand’s knuckles. “A sort of… hm, not calling card, because I’ve never been the sort of cocky to leave those behind, but something that registers me as a friendly, even to hostile systems. Maybe.” She rubbed the back of her neck, thinking about it. “Or maybe not, that’d be awful in the wrong hands.”
He hrmmed at that notion. "Risky." he said. "Save it for v3." he said. "As far as foreign tech - if it can talk to commercial stuff, I can make Thing able to talk to it. And thus, the relay is born." he smirked.
“Oooh, Thing. We’re gonna be chaos besties,” she cooed at the hand. “Well, assuming your creator doesn’t mind me making friends with his tech.” Darcy grinned up at Forge, mischief twinkling in her eyes. “Doug didn’t really have a choice for me making friends with his, but you’re not dating me, so it really is up to you. And I’m still getting to know VI, even though she’s mansion-wide now. Ah… VI’s the Danger Room, if you haven’t met her yet. She’s a modified Stark Virtual Intelligence. But yeah, I’m at least trying to have a working relationship with the smart tech on the grounds, so I know if we have hostiles. It’s not paranoia if it’s happened before.”
"And then you went and made it creepy." he said with a sigh. "Look. I've got some ideas for Thing v2, which I think I'm gonna call Spyball, because if I can cram the generators into a small enough frame, Spyball's gonna float. No noisy propellers, no climbing limbs. Nice and quiet." he said. "Well, as quiet as I can make it. Thermal baffling is gonna be a bitch-kitty, I can see it coming already. And look. I'll make you a deal. You want to technopathically get cuddly with the stuff I make, fine. Probably can't stop you. But you keep your brain out of my hand and my leg. Deal?"
“Oh hon, that’s not me being remotely creepy.” Darcy’s smile was all teeth. “But yeah. I can agree to not interact more than the passive meet and greet with your hand that happens as a function of shaking hands, and I won’t do more than that to either limb outside of a legit emergency - either medical for you or hostile takeover by outside tech for them - without your explicit request and permission. Is that good enough? Because I prefer to keep my promises and not go back on deals, but I will to save the lives of the people in this place seven days a week and twice on Fridays.”
"Legit emergencies, you do what you have to." he said simply. "We're both adults here, we get it. What I had visions of, as your humor is low, is me walking along inadvertently giving everyone the finger or kicking the obnoxious twat in front of me in line trying to return three year old opened puppy chow." he said. "Don’t give me that look, Lewis, I've read the files." he said. "So none of that shit and you can strike up happy conversations with Thing or anything else I may happen to come up with." he added.
"Think your spy buddies might be interested in a semi-autonomous remote sensor ball and hacking package?" he asked.
“Could be useful. There’s definitely better people to ask than me. I’m still a baby, relatively speaking, and I can do my own hacking. Marie-Ange or Amanda might be a good ask.” Darcy shrugged. “Kicking the jerk being an asshole to service workers without a damn good reason should be a public good. And so should hacking Hammer Industries so their workers have to beat 20 levels of Tetris before they can access reports. It’s just culling the weak.”
"Oh, puhleeze. Hammer's so full of holes the only thing it's good for is pointing script kiddies to." he said. "At a certain point we need to show kindness and mercy to the handicapped." he said with a snicker. "Gods, Hammertech is just … awful. Every once in a while, someone over there will have a good idea and promptly get hired away by Stark or one of the other sharks in that pond. Well, not so much Stark anymore, but it did happen." he said. "And yeah, kicking obnoxious twats who're being idiots is a public good and service, but only when the kickee _knows what they're doing_ and isn't surprised by a mischievous technopath." he said with a pointed look.
Darcy’s voice was prim. “I wasn’t a technopath then, that was… something completely different, that I’m unable to do anymore. I’ve only been online as a technopath for…” she paused, doing the monthly math in her head. “Not quite a year? Less time than I’ve known about the electrokinesis. Ultimately it all goes back to the hostile nanite thing, but the short version is that my ex was an asshole and our powers had a very, very bad interaction that burned my original mutation out. Ask Clint to show you the Collins files, if you want the fuller story.” She didn’t comment further on Hammertech, although she did strongly agree about how awful it was.
"No need for the Trauma Conga Line Power Hour." he said, waving his artificial hand in the air. "I don't drink and quite frankly it's mostly none of my business." he said. "But I think we get one another and I think we're good here. Go talk to whoever's best to have the spyball chat with and we'll set something up. Might have a prototype by then."
“Sounds good. And unfortunately, you do need to read the Collins files, because there’s a chance you’ll encounter her in the… shit, I had something for you to look at and forgot it. Anyways. You’ll see. Ask for… hmm, the Genosha files and anything from December 2021 to the present. That’ll give you an idea.” She stood, giving Thing an affectionate pat on the back of the hand and holding her fist out for Forge to bump. “Nice getting to talk to you for more than wormhole monitoring hand-offs, dude.”
He bumped his mechanical fist with hers. "Just what I always wanted. Depressing homework reading." he said. "But yeah, if this person's a major threat I should get comfy with what they bring to the table." he said. "Front-liner I'm not but if I know what they can do, maybe I can build something to help deal with it."
“Yeah, that’s the thing I forgot to bring you. Something she left behind that could work as a starting point. I’ll drop it off sometime, or ask one of the old-timers to bring it by. They might know a little more about how it works.” Darcy turned towards the door. “I’ll let you get back to work, thanks for letting me come meet Thing.”
Darcy rapped her knuckles firmly on the closed door to the lab Forge had said he was in, waiting patiently for a minute before just heading in. The volume of the music had her wincing, but she kept walking across the room until she was in front of the younger man and able to give him a wave. The volume dropped significantly as he noticed her, and she let out a sigh of relief, dropping inelegantly into a rolling chair and sliding her way over. “Sup, I’m Darcy. Nice to see you in more than passing, dude.”
Forge was tinkering with the new and improved BluetoothSucks stack, having just given April access to the repo, when Darcy walked in. He blanked his display and then smiled at Darcy. "Yeah, I know. I'm Forge." he said by way of a greeting. Then he unceremoniously put his beThing'ed hand on the tabletop between them. "This is my take on Thing." he said, activating its remote-control protocol via his smartphone.
“Sup Thing?” Darcy grinned at the hand skittering in her direction with delight, holding out her own for it to shake or give a five to. “So you’re probably wondering why I asked about checking Thing out, other than the general curiosity,” she said, eyes still on Thing. “I know my profile’s still a little general on the info other than the electrokinesis.”
"Shocking Thing into submission will not earn you brownie points nor get me to share the horrible, horrible things my new protocol does to Bluetooth." he said with a grin.
Darcy shook her head, laughing at the quip. “Nah dude, I wouldn’t do that unless Thing was trying to hurt someone for no reason. It’s happened before, we’ve had hostile nanites get on the grounds. Ended up frying someone’s prosthetic because it was doing the bad touch.” She accepted Thing’s handshake, evaluating the weight and grip. It didn’t feel quite like shaking a flesh hand, but the grip was dead-on for firm but not overbearing. “Anyways, what’s currently still kinda need to know is that I’m a burgeoning technopath. If it’s got circuits I can eventually do some basic to advanced communication with it.”
Forge blinked. And then blinked again. "I know people in DARPA that would sell their mothers for five minutes with your gift." he said. "It's incredibly rare. And … from my perspective at least, deeply disturbing." he said. "So you want to, what, see if you can swamp the Thing protocols and order him around?" he asked.
She huffed out a breath at that, shrugging. “Yeah.. it was definitely a thing to learn! And experience, honestly. I didn’t even notice it at first, and then found out one of the computers I’d been talking to didn’t actually have a setup for verbal input. I’m still learning the edges of it.”
She’d brought the hand up to eye level, and was carefully examining the joins and mechanics. “I mostly wanted to see how advanced Thing is, introduce myself to both of you. Ask if I could meet your other smart tech. If they’re familiar with me, maybe I can counteract something with hostile tendencies trying to take over. I’d like to avoid the nanite issue again, if I can. And if you’ve got an AI in here, I want to meet them so they don’t treat me like a hostile when I’m learning the network.”
Forge sighed. "Gonna tell you right now - I made a very solemn oath a long time ago not to bring into the world true AI. I could, you know. I know the math. But …I'm not ready to be a father yet." he said with a small laugh. "Thing there has a pathing algorithm, enough onboard storage to hold a fair selection of maps, and what I call a travelling salesman algorithm." he said. "Plus, his central control is software on my phone, not on the hand itself." he said. "Form-factor is goofy, sure, but I figured you and your buddies in the cloak-and-dagger end of the business might find the tech potentially useful."
“That’s fine and probably smart, even, although it wouldn’t be the first one here. People do still get a little weird about computers that can think for themselves.”
"To put it mildly." he said agreeably. "This was a crude prototype I hacked together in a few hours. V2.0 could go into any number of stealthier or even smaller shells, HD video and IR sensors, mapping algorithms, onboard audio, secure data protocol to bring the take back to a centralized collection point. Might help you get close enough to keep an eye on bad people doing bad things in dark corners, hrm?" he said. "Could even give it a USB port for remote-hacking attempts of air-gapped machines."
“You’re speaking my language, although Doug’s probably the one you want to talk to about what’s actually practical and useful. Maybe something that helps me bridge the gap with foreign tech, though.” Darcy set Thing down with an absent scritch of the hand’s knuckles. “A sort of… hm, not calling card, because I’ve never been the sort of cocky to leave those behind, but something that registers me as a friendly, even to hostile systems. Maybe.” She rubbed the back of her neck, thinking about it. “Or maybe not, that’d be awful in the wrong hands.”
He hrmmed at that notion. "Risky." he said. "Save it for v3." he said. "As far as foreign tech - if it can talk to commercial stuff, I can make Thing able to talk to it. And thus, the relay is born." he smirked.
“Oooh, Thing. We’re gonna be chaos besties,” she cooed at the hand. “Well, assuming your creator doesn’t mind me making friends with his tech.” Darcy grinned up at Forge, mischief twinkling in her eyes. “Doug didn’t really have a choice for me making friends with his, but you’re not dating me, so it really is up to you. And I’m still getting to know VI, even though she’s mansion-wide now. Ah… VI’s the Danger Room, if you haven’t met her yet. She’s a modified Stark Virtual Intelligence. But yeah, I’m at least trying to have a working relationship with the smart tech on the grounds, so I know if we have hostiles. It’s not paranoia if it’s happened before.”
"And then you went and made it creepy." he said with a sigh. "Look. I've got some ideas for Thing v2, which I think I'm gonna call Spyball, because if I can cram the generators into a small enough frame, Spyball's gonna float. No noisy propellers, no climbing limbs. Nice and quiet." he said. "Well, as quiet as I can make it. Thermal baffling is gonna be a bitch-kitty, I can see it coming already. And look. I'll make you a deal. You want to technopathically get cuddly with the stuff I make, fine. Probably can't stop you. But you keep your brain out of my hand and my leg. Deal?"
“Oh hon, that’s not me being remotely creepy.” Darcy’s smile was all teeth. “But yeah. I can agree to not interact more than the passive meet and greet with your hand that happens as a function of shaking hands, and I won’t do more than that to either limb outside of a legit emergency - either medical for you or hostile takeover by outside tech for them - without your explicit request and permission. Is that good enough? Because I prefer to keep my promises and not go back on deals, but I will to save the lives of the people in this place seven days a week and twice on Fridays.”
"Legit emergencies, you do what you have to." he said simply. "We're both adults here, we get it. What I had visions of, as your humor is low, is me walking along inadvertently giving everyone the finger or kicking the obnoxious twat in front of me in line trying to return three year old opened puppy chow." he said. "Don’t give me that look, Lewis, I've read the files." he said. "So none of that shit and you can strike up happy conversations with Thing or anything else I may happen to come up with." he added.
"Think your spy buddies might be interested in a semi-autonomous remote sensor ball and hacking package?" he asked.
“Could be useful. There’s definitely better people to ask than me. I’m still a baby, relatively speaking, and I can do my own hacking. Marie-Ange or Amanda might be a good ask.” Darcy shrugged. “Kicking the jerk being an asshole to service workers without a damn good reason should be a public good. And so should hacking Hammer Industries so their workers have to beat 20 levels of Tetris before they can access reports. It’s just culling the weak.”
"Oh, puhleeze. Hammer's so full of holes the only thing it's good for is pointing script kiddies to." he said. "At a certain point we need to show kindness and mercy to the handicapped." he said with a snicker. "Gods, Hammertech is just … awful. Every once in a while, someone over there will have a good idea and promptly get hired away by Stark or one of the other sharks in that pond. Well, not so much Stark anymore, but it did happen." he said. "And yeah, kicking obnoxious twats who're being idiots is a public good and service, but only when the kickee _knows what they're doing_ and isn't surprised by a mischievous technopath." he said with a pointed look.
Darcy’s voice was prim. “I wasn’t a technopath then, that was… something completely different, that I’m unable to do anymore. I’ve only been online as a technopath for…” she paused, doing the monthly math in her head. “Not quite a year? Less time than I’ve known about the electrokinesis. Ultimately it all goes back to the hostile nanite thing, but the short version is that my ex was an asshole and our powers had a very, very bad interaction that burned my original mutation out. Ask Clint to show you the Collins files, if you want the fuller story.” She didn’t comment further on Hammertech, although she did strongly agree about how awful it was.
"No need for the Trauma Conga Line Power Hour." he said, waving his artificial hand in the air. "I don't drink and quite frankly it's mostly none of my business." he said. "But I think we get one another and I think we're good here. Go talk to whoever's best to have the spyball chat with and we'll set something up. Might have a prototype by then."
“Sounds good. And unfortunately, you do need to read the Collins files, because there’s a chance you’ll encounter her in the… shit, I had something for you to look at and forgot it. Anyways. You’ll see. Ask for… hmm, the Genosha files and anything from December 2021 to the present. That’ll give you an idea.” She stood, giving Thing an affectionate pat on the back of the hand and holding her fist out for Forge to bump. “Nice getting to talk to you for more than wormhole monitoring hand-offs, dude.”
He bumped his mechanical fist with hers. "Just what I always wanted. Depressing homework reading." he said. "But yeah, if this person's a major threat I should get comfy with what they bring to the table." he said. "Front-liner I'm not but if I know what they can do, maybe I can build something to help deal with it."
“Yeah, that’s the thing I forgot to bring you. Something she left behind that could work as a starting point. I’ll drop it off sometime, or ask one of the old-timers to bring it by. They might know a little more about how it works.” Darcy turned towards the door. “I’ll let you get back to work, thanks for letting me come meet Thing.”
