all_inclusive | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

There are three cameras installed so far in the walls of the hotel and Sarah is working on the fourth. She doesn't trust this place, doesn't think it makes any sense. It's filled with doors to worlds she doesn't know and that means there could be threats lurking everywhere. The cameras will give Sarah a feed to as much as she can get her hands on. She can track the comings and goings of people in and out of these doors and it's enough to give her an edge.

That or she's just setting herself up for more frustration.

She slides the baseball cap off her hair, tucking it under again as she looks left and right, setting up the ladder in the corner close to the library. Dressed as a maintenance woman, she's managed to make herself look like she's got legitimate work in the eyes of the guests, when really she's trying to find more out. Two weeks ago, going through this door had taken her into a world where some part of her had split off and given her an animal companion that felt incredibly familiar. Today, it's just a library. Slowly ascending the ladder, she gets to work untangling some of the hotel's wiring and starting to do some of her own.

If this has any hint of Skynet in it, she'll find out.

She finishes with the camera installation when a wave of dizziness hits. Vertigo, combined with old nausea she's never really shaken from her treatments, and she's much too high suddenly to be dealing with this. Crawling down from off the ladder, Sarah takes in several deep breaths, counting the cameras left in her hand. Two to go and she'll have decent coverage on this level.

Left and right, she looks, then picks up the ladder and tries to keep her head down to avoid looking too suspicious as she carries a ladder through the halls of a hotel, trying to make it seem like she fits in.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It was U's turn to explore the nexus. Tony had originally sent Dummy to roam and report, but Dummy had required one too many rescues, and Tony had finally rolled his eyes and told Dummy to take over for U in the boring duty of holding a sun lamp in just the right pattern over the most promising of the Extremis plants. If things went well, he'd be able to try Extremis in mice, soon. Of course, with Dummy on the case...

"Hey, a little extra randomness never hurt anything," Tony had said, watching Dummy's efforts. "Keep track of exactly what happens with this, will you, Jarvis?" Dummy whirred as U tried to demonstrate a better way of doing it. "Get going, U," Tony said impatiently. "Put that competitive edge to use and see if you can bring me more information than Dummy."

So it was U trundling down the hallway: a sturdy robot with a long arm opening the doors that would open, methodically tilting and swiveling the camera this way and that to catch every angle -- but never crossing any thresholds.

U turned away from the last doorway and scanned the hallway, then pointed the camera at the woman picking up the ladder, trundling a little closer. Tony had put hotel employees on the pay attention, U list -- anyone who looked like they actually belonged in this hotel was definitely of interest -- and U wasn't quite up to detecting impostors. So far as U was concerned, Sarah fit in perfectly, and that's what made her so interesting.

Sarah tenses up when she hears the sound, turning around as her hand drifts towards the weapon she's keeping hidden. She doesn't want to pull it out too quickly, but she really doesn't remember the hotel having any kind of security measures that look like that. Slowly descending the ladder, she tips her head left, then right, watching as the thing watches her back.

That's enough to set alarm bells off in her head. Moving quickly, Sarah gets behind the thing and immediately starts to look for a way to take it apart, muttering 'come on, there has to be a panel' to herself, because there has to be a chip. It's primitive, but Skynet has to start somewhere and they'd made do from a chess-playing robot. Why not this thing? Finally, she finds a panel and pries it open, but it doesn't disable the thing. Suddenly, Sarah is taking apart a robot in a hallway and that's not exactly a good idea.

She glances around them for a door, opening it and kicking her way back into it as she drags the robot, grabbing a towel to drape over what looks like a camera before the knife starts rooting through wires and the infrastructure to see what makes it tick -- not that she knows what she's looking for. She's not John, but she'd like to think she'd figure out if she finds anything dangerous.

There were a few things that U was good at. Interpreting sensory data from its camera and its microphone, manipulating objects with its arm -- these were U specialties. Annoying Tony Stark -- all Tony Stark's robots came with that ability pre-programmed. Tony didn't want any yes-robots around. But when it came to interacting with other human beings, U was out of its depth. It had a few programmed reactions, and it worked through them. Quizzical tilt of camera -- ignored. And now Sarah was behind U.

U pulled its arm in for safety and began to swivel toward Sarah, but by then she had the access panel open. U started beeping -- the loud, long series of beeps that meant unauthorized access, that was meant to discourage the idly curious visitor who'd popped open the panel. U also sent a quick burst of data back --

(over the hotel wireless network to the receiver Tony had set up in his hotel room, through the door that was propped open and back to Tony's home universe via a coded laser beam. In Stark Tower, on the other side of the doorway, Jarvis analyzed the situation and sent back a command that reinforced U's most basic default programming: be helpful, do no harm -- and another command that contradicted another branch of programming that was meant to keep Tony's robots from being modified and used against him: wait, do not self-destruct custom components)

-- and U allowed itself to be pulled back through a doorway, only sending another burst of data into the ether.

The towel confused U, it was so much like something Tony might do when he was annoyed. U was calculating whether Sarah was annoyed when the towel slipped just enough to give U a glimpse from underneath. An opportunity was quickly identified and U abandoned the calculations for an easy action: it made a quick movement, deftly catching hold of Sarah's hat and flicking it off. That's how this game was played, right?

Only then did U notice that Sarah had a knife at its innards. That was not the kind of thing U had learned to expect. The beeping increased in pitch --

(and on the other side of the doorway, Jarvis said, "Excuse me, sir, but I think you'll want to know...")

Meanwhile, Sarah would have had plenty of time to see how U was put together -- the wires all led a box in the base, which contained the main controller, and to the camera and the actuators at each of the joints. Each actuator had its own very simple controller/sensor that registered how the joint was positioned and how it was moving. If the wires were cut, U would lose control of the camera and the arm, and the actuators, on their own, would freeze the arm in place and then very slowly return it to a neutral position.

But for now, U simply attempted to shift its arm so that its weight was better distributed for moving, and to back away from Sarah. And it shook its camera, patiently trying to dislodge the towel.

If she didn't know any better, she'd think the thing was the robot equivalent of a mutt trying to react to what she's doing. She's paused once or twice, frozen as she eyes the robot and isn't sure whether to continue, especially with the beeping. Someone might call attention to her and with the hat knocked off and the knife in the thing's infrastructure, it would mean stopping to get it back and putting her cover back on. The arm is a curious thing, but right now, the way it keeps trying to shake the towel loose is making her feel incredibly uneasy.

This doesn't seem like an apocalypse-rearing Skynet monstrosity.

Sarah sinks into a chair that she's dragged closer, staring into the heart of the thing and wondering if maybe the movements aren't so random. "Hello?" she tries. "Can anyone hear me?" she demands crisply. "If anyone can hear me, you've got twenty seconds to tell me what the purpose of this thing is, or I start making cuts with my knife."

U backed away slowly, the beeping coming to a stuttering stop as the towel finally slid away and U turned its camera this way and that to take in the room it was in while it tried to figure out what to do now. Default programming said to either investigate or help -- but Sarah was just sitting there now, so there was nothing to help her with, and U wasn't stupid enough to continue investigating.

(and back in New York, Tony looked up from the display Jarvis had created of the events going on in the nexus and said tightly, "Remind me to give my next robot the ability to talk back."

"Is that wise, sir?" Jarvis asked.

"No, but that's never stopped me," Tony said, holding up his hands to summon his usual set of hidden weapons: don't leave home without them. "What, are you worried that you'll lose your edge over them? Not gonna happen."

"I am instructing U in morse code," Jarvis said calmly.)

U dropped into a neutral position and the beeping started again, spelling out "Primary purpose: exploration."

("Tell her U's for when you've got an itch in that spot on your back that you just can't reach," Tony suggested, striding toward the lab and the doorway to the unknown -- hostile -- territory. At times like these, Tony regretted blowing up his suits.)

"Further purpose," the beeps continued. "Helping hand."

("Hold down the fort," Tony added to Jarvis, stepping through the doorway. It was already past the time limit Sarah had set, but hopefully he'd be in time to rescue something.)

She's known morse code for as long as John's been alive, but her suspicions only grow when it seems like someone's out there giving the robot these instructions (or, more realistically, this message). She flips the knife in her hand and starts to cut more of the wires, the alarm bells going off in her head about 'exploration', because that means exploration is for a reason.

(She ignores 'helping hand' because Sarah's levels of faith and trust are fairly null and void, no matter how much people have tried to convince her to feel otherwise).

The robot seems to be slowing down and Sarah resolutely does not feel bad about the way it starts to seem a little more pathetic with its' slowing movements. It's a machine, she tells herself. Just because she hasn't dealt with a machine in a while doesn't mean she's forgotten. She just needs to harden herself up a little more.

"What did U ever do to you?" Tony asked, flinging open the door and stepping inside, leaving the door open behind him -- line of retreat or path for reinforcements. Tony hoped to talk his way through this one, but the sight in front of him was not a pretty one to someone as fond of his robots as Tony was, and he found that he was angrier than he thought as soon as he opened his mouth.

"That's U you're torturing, by the way, and I happen to know that U -- U's the robot, by the way, since this is no time for jokes -- my robot pal did nothing to deserve it. So who are you, what's your excuse, and what will it take to get you to stop?"

She tenses up at the sound of a human voice (at least she hopes it's human. She's not sure she's ready to cope with a T-888 or any other form of metal today). "It's a machine," she says calmly, keeping her voice even. "And it was looking at me like it was trying to get information on me." She tucks her knife away swiftly, eyeing the man up and down as she keeps her distance.

"I'll stop if you give me information," she says. "What was U designed for? What sort of chip does it have?"

"It was...looking at you?" Tony took another few steps forward. "Welcome to the modern world; leave your house and lose your privacy. Don't do anything you don't want on the cover of--" He looked at her judgmentally for a moment. "I'm going to go with Maintenance Workers Quarterly, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong."

He stopped with U directly in between them and waved his hand in front of U's camera. No response. Tony sighed an exaggerated sigh to hide his real reaction, just how much the disabled robot bothered him -- U was a machine, yes, but...

He looked back at Sarah. "I've got a better idea," Tony said brightly. "You stop, tell me who you are and what you have against machines, and I won't bring the management into this little dispute." Not that he had any idea how the place was run, but phrases like "wanton destruction of property" were already running through his mind. And the simple truth was that the management tended to be on Tony's side, no matter where he happened to be -- having money was nice that way.

She stares at him unflinchingly, not even blinking. If she looks away for even a moment, she risks missing something and that's not an option right now, not when she's still assessing the danger of the situation. "What makes you think the management is something I care about when there are doors here that lead into multiple other worlds?" she asks calmly, folding her arms over her chest. "You tell me why you built this thing and where you got the tech and maybe I'll tell you my name."

"You seem to work here," Tony said. He had his doubts, at this point. "And I just threatened to complain to your boss. But if you're just planning on skipping town..."

He didn't really care what her name was. He was curious about what motivated her, but all he really wanted out of this was to get U back.

"Do you have a deal for I take the robot and leave?" he asked. "Because that's how this is going to end, one way or another."

"I want to know why you built that thing and whether anyone has contacted you about the technology," she negotiates, keeping her tone even and steady. She refuses to bow down and she refuses to give up. He might still end up leaving with the robot, but not before Sarah gets a chance to find some information.

Tony shrugged casually -- but not too casually. Sarah's repeated insistence on the same information, along with her perfect calm was not an encouragement to relax.

On the other hand, this was an easy interview question. "I wanted to impress my dad," Tony said, then held up his hand. "No wait, that was Dummy. I think actually, initially -- and U's been useful for other reasons since -- it had something to do with getting a decent cup of coffee delivered directly to my hand while I'm working. Without asking."

He glanced down at U. "I'm still working on that part, actually. I probably ought to just make one with an integrated coffee pot, don't you think?"

His hands itched to get in and fix that cut wiring. He looked back at Sarah instead, because it might seem like he was at ease, chatting away, but he wanted to see if she reacted to anything, too. He had too many enemies not to have learned to pay attention.

"And yes. Of course someone has contacted me about the technology. I'm Tony Stark." Not that his name seemed to mean much here, but she'd probably get the idea.

"Is it my turn now?" He smiled and continued without waiting for a response. "What do you have against robots? And could you back up a little?"

She watches the way he works cautiously. She doubts he's metal, but that doesn't mean anything. This place has too many doors to too many worlds and the things hunting her and John are smart. She'd never want to lead them back to him, and she has to be cautious. She takes a step back, but it's only because she wants to be careful and because it gets her out of arm's reach.

"Sarah," is all she says, still working on getting her papers in order for a new ID. "And it's not what I have against robots. It's just a healthy curiosity about what makes them tick. U here is pretty unique," she says, her eyes flickering over the thing. "Can you blame me for wanting to find out how he works?"

Tony's in amidst the broken wiring as soon as Sarah steps back. Not as bad as it could be, he finds; he can fix this.

He looks up briefly at her justification, or should he say rationalization? Or should he say evasion, distortion, untruth? Healthy curiosity doesn't go for a knife first thing. But he doesn't give her anything but a skeptical "Uh huh" in response, and then it's back to work. "And yes," he adds eventually. "I can." He's not entirely distracted by getting U moving again; he spares her the odd glance in case she's going to bring that knife back out.

She raises her brow, but stays steady as she holds his gaze, refusing to be cowed now that she's been called out on possibly going a little too far. "Maybe you shouldn't send your pet robot wandering the halls alone," she says. "It might be safer."

"What's the point of having robots if you can't send them to do the things you don't want to do?" Tony asks rhetorically.

U suddenly moves back and forth in a testing sort of pattern, and Tony finishes up and sidesteps out of the way. "You'd better go back home," he tells U, stepping in front of the robot.

Tony adds, all irony as U starts to move away, "But your concern for robot safety is noted. So which would you suggest? Upgrades, robot buddy system, or entirely new strategy? I've gotta admit, I've just had a fun idea about a flock of bat-bots, but I'd love to hear your perspective."

She goes pale and still at that, thinking of the robots that Skynet had sent to do their bidding and those tasks that humans didn't want to do; or, more accurately, didn't do anymore because the machines had evolved and didn't do the humans' bidding anymore. "Bat-bots," she echoes, blankly, staring at him warily.

"As far as I'm concerned, machines should stop where they are. Too much at once can be dangerous," she warns, her voice steady despite the brief waver as she thinks of what they can grow to do.

"You say that like machines are all the same thing," Tony says without rancor, happier now that U's back in working order and on the way home. Unless he hears anything from Jarvis, that looks like problem solved.

"But that's just wrong."

Watching U, he's missed the subtleties of Sarah's reaction. And despite his argumentative words, he seems inclined to follow U, his body aligned slightly more toward the door than toward Sarah.

"Machines are reflections of the people that make them," he says. It's the most obvious thing in the world to him.

But that being the case -- he'd sent probably the nicest aspect of himself out into the nexus, and look what that got him. "But if we're speaking in portentous warnings, I've got one too: don't expect it to be so easy next time you decide to mess with one of my machines."

"Where I come from, they will be," is all she has to say about it. "And they're not always reflections. Not when they figure things out for themselves, start changing their programming, start rebelling," she says, but quiets when she starts to think that maybe she's said too much. Instead, she allows a curt nod of her head. "Put a sticker on them," she suggests. "And I won't touch yours."

There might even be a wry and playful smile on her lips, a dare to see whether he really would (and a dare to see if she's telling the truth).

"Oh yeah? You don't think that has anything to do with whoever created them, back where you come from?" That's pure unalloyed disbelief right there. Tony leans toward Sarah. "It's always people who have something to answer for. Creation is a responsibility."

And that's getting more serious than he really wants to discuss right now with this evasive woman. Luckily, another topic presents itself.

"Sticker," Tony says. He makes a show of thinking that over, and then shakes his head sorrowfully. "No, sorry, can't do it. Too fifth grade girl. But trust me, you'll know them when you see them."

On his way out, he adds over his shoulder, returning the provocation, "And hey, if you ever change your mind about robots, let me know and I'll give you a discount on a guaranteed friendly and useful robot to help you with your..." He grins and gives it an ironic emphasis -- "maintenance work."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only