Participants:
Also Featuring:
| Scene Title | Pure Imagination |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | If you want to view paradise, simply look around and view it. Anything you want to, do it. Want to build the world? Nothing to it. |
| Date | April 4, 2015 |
The crisp clopping of boots down the white flooring of the Yamagato building echoes off the glass walls in such a way that even the intrusiveness of said gait is acoustically altered in a way to seem pleasant and belonging. The owner of said boots, one Marlowe Terrell, carries in her hands a neat brown-paper packaged box wrapped with a single thread of twine. Similar to said package, her brown-paper colored skin is covered with a black sleeved button down at the wrist that provides strong contrast to the shined loop earrings swaying from her ears. Her hair, pulled back and out of the way, puffs out of the hairband its tied by like an animal springing from its confinement. The rest of Marlowe moves purposefully at a steady clip, her posture straight like a soldier at marching grounds, but she can’t help the sidelong glance out of soaring glass windows at the beautiful greenery that brings life and proven biological mood lifters to the environs.
Back to attention, soldier, echoes some voice distantly from memory. And focused she is again as she gets to the doors that will lead her to the office of the Director of Technology for Yamagato Industries, one Mr. Hachiro Otomo. Aka, her supervisor, aka, her boss. New hire nervousness is squelched in favor of remembering procedures, manners drilled in. It’s why the omiyage took her a painstaking half hour to package. And now that she’s here, she sucks in her breath and takes the plunge with a smile. A knock on the door.
“Konnichiwa, Otomo-sensei…”
«Good morning, Marlowe Terrell» The door chirps after the knock in a mostly smooth synthesized masculine voice. The glass door slides open smoothly into the spacious office, with its gently curving white ceiling inset with lights that create illumination that emulates the way sunlight filters through skylights, rather than artificial overhead starkness. Hachiro Otomo sits at his curving, glass desk with an inspecting look on his face as he studies a rainbow-iridescent cube of coppery-looking metal held in one hand.
Hachiro raises his free hand, holding a ceramic mug with the Yamagato logo on it, and then sets down the piece of bismuth he’d been examining. “Marlowe,” he says casually, as if they were old friends. “I have a pot of coffee on, I didn’t look in your personnel file to see if you were a coffee-drinker though,” his gray brows pinch together, eye contact still on the bismuth cube. “My fault, uh— Jiba,” Otomo addresses to the air, “does Marlowe drink coffee?”
«I’m sorry Hachiro, I don’t have that on file.»
At the response that seems to emanate from all around the room, Hachiro shrugs and takes a sip from his coffee and slips out from behind his desk. All around the office, there’s scale models set on glass shelves. Starships from science fiction, the USS Enterprise D, space battleship Yamato, the Serenity. Their shelves are set between tiered gardens of moss, small trees, crawling ivy, and other living plants that give Hachiro’s office an earthy feel to it. As Hachiro slips from behind his desk, he moves to meet Marlowe in the middle of the room with a hand out in a casual handshake.
“And please, Hachiro will do. Got to let the air out of the room.” Hachiro takes a long, pointed slurp of his coffee in expectance of that exchange.
If there’s anything that will break the icy covering of tradition, it’s the surprise-then-geek-out of Marlowe’s expression as she hears Jiba’s automated tone. But get it together, girl, and she does avoid the squeak that jumps from her chest to the hollow of her neck before it dissipates there. Still, she can’t help the “ojamashimasu” that accompanies her entry, because she doesn’t mean to be a bother… yet. Not upon her first day.
But Hachiro’s casual manner and preoccupation with the cube of bismuth pique the woman’s interest as much as the offer of coffee. “I most definitely do drink coffee,” she answers to the air and the man. “One cream, five sugars.” That’s spoken a little quickly, easily. Marlowe realizes this and she presses forward from the entryway to meet the director halfway. A brief glance goes to the model ships, eliciting a wider smile from her at the sight of them before she’s focused back to the man.
“Yes si— Er. Okay, Hachiro.” And with that, the neat brown paper package is offered forth. “For you. Because I can already tell, you’re going to be world’s best boss.” She grins, eyes bright with a hint of extra excitement.
«.04 ounces of dairy creamer, 17.5 ounces of granular sugar, 12 ounces of coffee. I’ve added this to my record for Marlowe Terrell, Sir.» Jiba’s voice emanates from all around the room again, and a mechanical whirring sound catches Marlowe’s attention far to her right, by an angled wall of glass that overlooks the Hudson River and the ruined sandbar that is Coney Island. There, a coffee maker switches on and a rotating tray loads a twelve ounce mug into the dispenser.
There’s a warm smile at Marlowe’s demeanor, and Hachiro takes the package in hand and quirks a brow. “Azasu,” he quips, but delays in opening it. “You never know, I might be a real jerk,” Hachiro offers with a lopsided smile. “But really, don’t be scared. I’ve been around here long enough to know that the only time formality is critical is when you’ve done something wrong.”
Eyeing the parcel again, Hachiro points up to the ceiling. “The voice you’re hearing is Jiba. He’s a third-generation artificial intelligence I’ve been designing in my spare time. Jiba is wired into the entirety of the Yamagato building, and he manages most of the day-to-day electronic affairs. Heat, air quality, some basic physical and internet security.” The package is considered again. “I like to treat Jiba as an employee, in case he ever rises up to crush humanity like in those movies?” Hachiro looks up to Marlowe. “He’ll know I was one of the good ones.” There’s a toothy smile there, and her boss finally starts plucking at the corner of the paper wrapping like a much younger and less patient man.
“I didn’t get you anything,” Hachiro off-handedly adds with tongue and cheek tone as he’s carefully picking at the wrapping. “Well, employment.” He looks up. “Does that count?” Then back down. “I suppose coffee counts.” At that, there’s a ding from the coffee pot, indicating it is finished preparation of Marlowe’s cup to specifications.
There's no disguising the impression on Marlowe's face as turns her gaze to the mechanical whirr of in-office coffee making. Her posture even leans slightly to the right, eyes clear and watchful, examining the how as much as simply watching the process. He can see the mental gears inwardly turning as much as the machine's tray as the mug is deposited and coffee brews. Coney Island's ruins are but a blur in the background, colors muted against the white walls and blue sky. It all happens within the span of those few seconds, and she's back to the boss.
"If you are a jerk, I'll honestly assume you're a Skrull first." Marlowe says with a crooked grin reflecting his lopsided smile. "Either way, not scared." He's made the introduction comfortable, and the woman stands with surety and recognition of their forming bond. Upon the note about Jiba, she turns her gaze up when he points, and around as he continues. "A wise decision," comments Marlowe with a sage nod and growing interest. "Is the program trained to key to you as inventor and primary owner? Like AUTO? Or more like Enterprise?"
Her gaze returns to the package as he picks at the corner, and she smiles with a dip of her head and a short shake. "Oh no, please, you don't… a job and real coffee from an A.I. linked dispenser? My day's already made." Her hand gestures to the box, her smile widening further with the knowledge of its contents. "Go on and open it." While he does so, she's headed over to the coffee, picking it up and taking a sip. She sighs with soft appreciation as only a good cup of coffee can deliver. "This is perfect. Thank you Jiba," she says to the air.
The box he holds in his hands is fairly weighty for its size. Once the package is fully opened, the office lights bounce off the steely glint of a large orange-sized sphere almost instantly recognizable to anybody with a recent memory of pop culture. A miniature Death Star sits inside some straw in the unassuming wooden box. But that’s not all, as Marlowe notes, “You can twist the laser section off.” And inside, a hollow interior for tucking away whatever he should wish: candies, coffee beans, nanny cam.
She takes another sip of the coffee in her hand, smiling around the mouth of her mug and buzzing inwardly with eagerness to witness the man’s reaction.
Grinning from ear to ear, Hachiro shakes his head and carefully sets the package down on his desk. “You know, ever since we moved in to this building I've been introduced to more than a hundred people from the technology department. None of them have so much as visited me once since then. And none of them have given me such a thoughtful and…” Hachiro’s head tilts to the side slightly. “Well researched gift.”
«And I can answer your inquiry as to my private key, Miss Terrell. My command protocols are hard linked to Hachiro’s SLC-E ability. Therefore, no one can gain administrator access to my code other than my creator.» Jiba’s comment comes with a look of pride from Hachiro.
“It would take a longer explanation, one I’d be glad to give another day. But perhaps a bit long for right now.” Leaning up against his desk, Hachiro tucks his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “But, you've piqued my curiosity. And in short order you've shown me you take your commitment to Yamagato Industries and this department seriously.”
A tiny, more exhale than laugh but a joyed sound makes it through Marlowe’s vocal grip. But she is super pleased, even if she manages to confine it just to her eyes and the bumps of her cheekbones. “It’s just good manners, as my mother would say,” she notes with again a slow nod. “Besides, most of the tech department don’t have the same… talent, as me,” she remarks amusedly, then slipping in a proud, “And they don’t realize what they’re missing out on.” She holds up the mug of coffee, pointing at it, and then more audibly laughing before she tilts her head too to listen to Jiba.
“Linked to an ability,” Marlowe echoes with a glance back to Hachiro, her brows lifting in interest. She nods in acknowledgment, filing questions away. Hachiro’s words make her straighten, her gaze back at him unwavering. “The company isn’t sitting around. Looking at all this,” she says motioning a hand to all around, the gesture ending with physical mention of the Coney Island ruins they can see out the window, “and what’s outside of the park, I know people see a bunch of ruins. Tragedy because we’ve messed up the past. But… what I see?”
She crosses over to the desk as well, setting her mug of coffee down with a gentle thunk and picking up the cube of bismuth. Marlowe holds it out so he can see her ability at work, and the rainbow iridescence of the material starts to move. She shapes it with her mind and touch, small circular bumps pushing up from the top of the cube in a short rippling succession that also make look like another familiar child’s toy. A line cuts along the top of the cube, running across the flat surface, followed by another and another. After just a few moments, Marlowe sets the cube back down and reaches to pluck up a Lego-shaped smaller cube, 4x4, off of the original parent and sets it beside the much larger, mostly intact bismuth that now has metallic Lego-like bricks sitting atop the original metal. Her gaze returns to Hachiro and she smiles with a poke of her teeth visible along her bottom lip.
“Building blocks.”
The display of Marlowe’s ability exceeds anything Hachiro had read in her dossier. Dry facts and statistics — while informative — lack the emotional resonance of witnessing miracles in the act. His dark eyes assess the block, and Hachiro walks over to Marlowe and carefully plucks it out of her hand.
“That's what Yamagato is about. Building forward, repairing the now with the future mind.” As he says that, Hachiro looks at the bismuth block and turns it around in his hand. “Jiba,” he calls to the room. “Open a new display.”
«Right away Hachiro. Opening a new display.»
At Jiba’s confirmation, a faintly shimmering beam of light traces down from a black dot on the ceiling. A moment later, there is a semi-opaque panel of blue-white light that looks like a browser window hovering a foot away from Hachiro. It jitters, just a little, and has what looks like faintly visible scan lines.
"Holograms." Hachiro explains, motioning to the display. "The idea is modeled around CRT televisions, which used a raster-scan technology," he runs his fingertips through the screen and it splits, his fingers casting downward angled shadows through the light. "The electron gun in the old CRTs sent a stream of electrons to the fluorescent screen and the beam of electrons were deflected to sequentially hit every pixel on the fluorescent screen. Though we perceived an entire image on the screen, in actuality, only one pixel is illuminated at any time."
Cracking a smile, he offers Marlowe a look of amusement. "To go high tech we had to go old school. The lasers in the ceiling are projecting a single point of light on this image. But the lasers are moving so fast we see it as a solid image. The air is phosphorescing because this office is suffused with a small percentage of a harmless synthetic vapor that is photo-reactive, enhancing light."
After that explanation, though, Hachiro moves on to miracles. By concentrating on the bismuth block, Hachiro disassembles it on a molecular level, causing it to appear to break apart into a faintly luminous vapor before being represented in a three-dimensional image in place of the browser window. "My ability allows me to translate matter into energy. After a fashion, I can commit material objects into data. Every single piece of information that once existed for that block of bismuth is now replicated in our archive. Down to every last proton and electron."
Hachiro looks Marlowe up and down. "Building blocks," he affirms. "You couldn't be more right."
“Innovation,” Marlowe inserts along with a nod to the mention of purpose for the company. Indeed, for them specifically, and her own mission. She continues to look awed, expression tinted by giddiness, at not only Jiba’s responsiveness and capabilities built into the office itself with the laser hologram, but also with the explanation of how. There’s an outright grin back when Hachiro mentions going old school to go high tech, a ready nodding accompanying her approach to look closer at the illuminated floating projection. “A vapor, really,” she comments with a glance all around the room in reaction, despite that obviously the particles are invisible until activated.
What gets her is when Hachiro creates a miracle of his own by dissipating the bismuth block into seemingly nothing. Eyes widen, trying to drink in the sight of the luminous vapor, to follow it until it becomes truly visible again in the data formed upon the light screen. Marlowe breathes out a quiet “whoa” and steps closer in study. She can’t really help her hand that reaches out to try and touch something, expecting some feeling at least at the fingertips that reach for the object on screen. But before her fingertips have the chance to penetrate the barrier of light, Marlowe curls her fingers in and turns back to the man.
“You mean for your ability,” she muses after a long moment of looking at Hachiro, with an almost teasing smile hinted at her lips, “you’ve got, practically, WonkaVision.”
Smiling fondly, Hachiro raises one brow. “There was a very specific reason I scouted you for this position, Marlowe. Your ability and mine, they’re…” he moves his hands around as if demonstrating a puzzle. “Harmonious. You adjust and shape matter, which I can convert into digital information. You can build something to a small scale, from which I can create a reliable production model that we can turn into actual fabricated components. At the most basic end we’re a living AutoCAD system!”
Laughing at his own joke, Hachiro claps a hand on Marlowe’s shoulder. “But that’s thinking small isn’t it?” With a determined look in his eye, Hachiro poses an unimaginable question to Marlowe. “Imagine what we could do when developing nanomachines, build big and then scale small. Cybernetics, even biotechnology. The possibilities are limited only by our ideas.”
Letting that hand fall away, Hachiro has but one last question for her. “If I haven’t scared you off with the responsibility,” his smile grows. “Are you ready to build the future?”
Harmonious. The word lights Marlowe up with a swell of pride, her chin tilting up, posture straightening, eyes ever-so-slightly shining with threatened wetness as she looks from the light screen back to Hachiro, back to his hand on her shoulder.
Her laugh also bubbles up at his joke because she agrees, "You're so absolutely right. And that's what I'm here for. We'll show that it can be done. No idea is too big for this city, the country, hell the world. Zenkaishōri!" She laughs again, enthusiasm permeating the humor of the notion, of their "total world victory".
As for the responsibility of it all, of the future, she shoots him a crooked smile that practically states that he need look no further. Marlowe nods once and looks back out those soaring glass windows to the world at large. "Let's do this."