Participants:
| Scene Title | What is in a Name? |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Over a cheap lunch, three people discuss a project with an unfortunate name |
| Date | February 21, 2011 |
Fast Food resturant on the outskirts of Harlem
For once, Alia is the first one to the scene of a meeting. The location choice is a bit unconventional, an out of the way fast-food joint on the edge of Harlem. She has picked a booth near the back corner, her back to the walls so she can watch the entire shop, as she eats a large sandwich and soda, enjoying, it seems, every bite.
Warren arrives next after the tell-tale rumbling of his car's clockwork-modified muscle engine. Hands in the pockets of his black suit's pants, unbuttoned jacket flowing as he walks, he takes a seat across from Alia and rests his white-gloved hands on the table. "Been a while."
Alia looks up at Warren. "Explain why I should not stab you." She says calmly as she sets down her sandwich. "Other than, you are very useful right now." Alia's tone is soft, quiet. Not growly at all. It could, for someone sitting a short ways away, be her telling some sweet little joke. Up close, the look on her face very well states that Alia is so far away from thrilled with Warren Ray, that you could likely put Humanis First and the Ferry in that gap, and they'd never find eacho ther.
"Stab me? Are you blaming me for the robot trapping you? I designed it, and innovated much of the hardware, but I can't program and I didn't actually build it. I only had a vague idea of how they'd even use the things, I simply helped them because I have an ongoing plan." Warren does look apologetic, two fingers lightly tapping the table. "I am sorry, I had no idea what happened to you was even possible. Again, I know nothing about programming."
The door's pushed open again, and Cardinal walks in; street clothes, jacket and jeans. Noting where the pair are sitting, he nods up and over easily before approaching the counter - giving them another minute to talk while he orders a quick, cheap lunch. It's been a day. He'll be over in a minute - hopefully they won't kill each other before then.
Alia growls softly. "Wasn't software trap. Hardware. Relay to fry connections. Lucky I wasn't new." She takes another bite of her sandwich, the ice melting some. "HOpe it's good plan. I want me back." She says, which either will be cryptic, or be very easily understood, depending on which side of this conversation your on.
"That must have been from the finalized design of the brain, or maybe I did it and forgot… I don't remember everything I design, you know." Warren looks over and spots Cardinal, then back to Alia, shaking his head. "I'm sorry for what you went through, I wish I could make up for it." He doesn't question her wording, he knows she has some speech issues.
It's with a chicken sandwich and a soda that Cardinal walks over to the table, his head shaking slowly as he glances between the pair. "From those expression," he allows dryly, "I'm guessing you two are getting along great." Thump, into the chair, and he starts unwrapping the sandwich, "So. Tell her about Verse, Warren."
Alia calmly takes a sip of her soda and waits. This ought to be worth sitting through the applogy alone. She still has stray memories from Verse's head floating in hers, after all ,and some of th em are not terribly reassuring.
"Well, according to Broome, Colin Verse is a technopath working for the Department of Evolved Affairs. I was offered the opportunity to work with him due to my interest in A.I, which is apparently his specialty." Warren flicks his hand and a small marble sized sphere rolls out of his sleeve, unfolding into a tiny spider-like robot. He stuffs five dollars into its metallic jaws, then says, "Beef.", and off it goes, hoping from the table, on some sort of mission.
"So as I was saying…" Clearing his throat before continuing. "He's working on something called the ALIA project."
"Gee," Cardinal murmurs sarcasticallyaround a bite of sandwich, "I wonder what that's about."
Alia twitches. "Colin Verse. Works for DoEA or DoD. Also Know As V.Iris. Programmer of AETOS-0, Hunter Drones." She frowns. "ALIA project?" She frowns. "bastards. body they copied me to must be technopathic." She rubs her forehead. "ALIA project. Alia Chavez. I do not believe in 'coincidence.' And they broke their half of deal." She notes this with a tone that is down right acidic before she continues.
"He works for Georgia Mayes. Went to school in England. If she isn't Humanis First, I will eat a boot." She rubs her forehead. "Colin also works with Hector Steel, or did."
"It seems pretty obvious that I should take Broome up on his offer, work with Colin Verse, and learn as much as I can about this ALIA project." Warren suggests as the spider bot finally arrives at the counter. It begins to repeat 'beef' very rapidly, and the engineer motions a hand and nods his head at the clerk, who proceeds to take the five dollars.
When the money is taken, the spider bot extends little metallic tentacles that grip the wrapped up bacon cheese burger as soon as it's sat on top of the spider, then it begins the treck back to the table.
"I agree," Cardinal says as he swallows the sandwich, reaching over to pick up his drink and gesturing it between the pair, "The two of you… need to keep an eye on what they're doing. You…" The straw's pointed at Warren, "…cooperate with Verse, bring the data back to your factory or whatever, and have Alia go over it. Hardware and programming. Together, you should be able to figure something the fuck out."
Darkly, "Hiro told me to find out everything I can about their robot program. You two're my best bet."
If is me, what been altered, and how to… terminate the duplicate, if need be."
Alia nods. "… ALIA likely will be hostile, at first, to Warren." She notes… "likely hide it, if she thinks still chance to get out. Steel gave hint that 'pretending to be dumb' was safer." Alia considers this. It is an odd game to be playing. A mirror match, of sorts. "… Figure out what they are doing. If is me, what been altered, and how to… terminate the duplicate, if need be."
Endgame> The Shocker> Aric says, "one more 16 hour day and I get some mad over time. 30 hours of time and a half after tomorrow. So I am off to bed. night"
"Terminating it probably wouldn't be difficult, if necessary, but my first priority will be to find out how easily copied ALIA is." Warren watches her, waiting to see if possibly she already has the answer. "Here's a question. How do you know you're the real Alia?"
"She still has her ability," says Cardinal with a slight shake of his head, taking a sip of the soda before noting, "Carpenter can only replicate memories and personality when he overwrite's someone's brain. He can't do shit with abilities. And… if he copied her into a new body, Ezekiel transferred her power, and they got a bioshaper to make her look like that, then she is Alia for all intents and purposes."
Alia looks at Warren. "Because I put together microwave cannon they don't know about that you made… when transfered from Colin's brain to … me again, was another body there. Carpenter likely put me in it. If it had technopathic abilities as well…" she lets the thought trail off. "That said? if … other one is really other me… that one would be 'real' too. Conundrum, that."
"Reminds me of an old Canadian animation. I'm not even sure why I remember it, since I don't remember my childhood. But…" Warren shrugs, and up comes the spider bot on to the table, presenting the burger for him to grab. Then it crawls right back up into his sleeve. "This woman kept cloning herself, but then she couldn't figure out which was the real one, and after killing all of the clones, she finally just killed herself since she didn't know if she was a clone or not."
"No." Cardinal corrects with a grimace, "The woman you saw is still the woman you saw. She's just been brainwashed to believe all your memories're hers." It is, apparently to him, an important difference. Even if it might not to others. A breath's drawn in, exhaled, and he adds quietly, "I need a live feed on Hector. I don't need to see what he's working on, I just… need to have a camera that can occasionally see him. Even if it's just on his lunch break or something."
ORDER: It is now your pose.
"I'm sure I can come up with something, but I have to figure out what kind of place Hector even works in. I'm not sure if that one garage I saw was his normal working space." Warren reaches into his pocket and pulls out another small sphere, looking it over. "I have lots of camera types, but I'd need to build something that Hector won't easily noticed…"
"If you're going to be working with Verse," Cardinal says with a nod back to Warren, "You'll probably see him again. Get the lay of the land before planning anything…" Information, information, information. It's almost his mantra these days. He brings a hand up, rubbing it against the side of his face, "An Institute assassin tried to take me out the other day, so, things are going to get interesting. We need to be prepared."
Alia raises an eyebrow. "Institue… that's other thing. Either Mayes or Colin or someone there, has institute ties. Body was kept in retrieval casket."
"The DoEA has access to lots of Institute technology, so you probably don't need to worry a lot about Institute ties. Even Broome mentioned the DoEA having technology based on my revised robot designs, I'm not so sure the Institute has a choice, and they seem to be antagonistic to the DoEA and the government in general." Warren raises his burger to take a large bite, closing his eyes for a moment of thought. "If anything, I can probably get the Institute to help me plan the surveillance of Hector Steel."
"They aren't exactly a secret group," Cardinal says with a shake of his head, "They're government contractors, the same as me and Warren. It's just that they get a lot more funding than we do…" He pauses, "That's… actually a very good idea, Warren. Propose it to whoever your Institute supervisor is."
Alia pushes a notecard across the table to Warren. It has but two things on it. The letters AC, and an email address of moc.liamg|tpyrcdts#moc.liamg|tpyrcdts
"STD crypt? That's a bit of a tmi email address." Warren takes the card and slips it into his jacket, smiling after another bite of his burger. "Broome or Ezekiel will probably go along with it, and they likely have a lot of useful information and resources, not to mention they could have spies."
"If they're going to make their resources available to us," Cardinal shrugs one shoulder, "I don't see any reason not to use them. We'll play one against the other. Extracting Steel is a priority, though, whether or not he wants to be there."
Alia Nods. "I'll keep digging. Not finding much. Might find nothing of use. Send stuff to look at to that. Will get top priority."
"Well, I'll keep in touch." Warren slides out of the booth, then begins walking off to the door. "I'll plan things out in detail tonight, we can do this."
"Alright. I've got something for you to look at, at some point," Cardinal adds, bringing his soda up in a salute, "Bit of tech you might find interesting, and that we might be able to use as a basis for company partnership."
Alia simply leans back to finish her soda.