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The Feral, the Nerd, and the AI.; Logan
Topic Started: Mar 30 2010, 11:34 AM (250 Views)
Cypher
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Date: March 30, 2010
Time: late afternoon



****

"I don't care what you say," Doug insisted as he sat across from the holographic persona of Warlock. By all appearances he seemed to be dividing his attention between his laptop and a strange angular and lanky creature in front of him, but in reality the two actions tied together so closely that they were all but inseperable. "You can't go around talking in the same language that people text in. People don't actually say LOL." He had to correct himself. "Okay, some do, but well...just don't do it, okay?"

Sometimes it was like teaching a child. Actually it was precisely like that.

Warlock had started off as one of his programs. It had been designed to research and catalog information. Primarily it had been utilized for language, but after Apocalypse he had used it to store and classify current events, setting himself up as a kind of 'Watchdog' who hoped to read and interpret the social climate to hopefully forecast tragic events yet to come. At the very least he hoped it would give them a heads up before tragedy struck.

But something had happened to Warlock.

When X-Factor by the aid of a reality altering mutant known as Scarlet Witch had traveled into the internet on some kind of mission, a strange anomoly wave crashed into the searching and probing Warlock program. He was changed. He started to ask the query...WHAT IS SELF?

And now he was confined as it were to the miraculous technology of the Danger Room. He was a child, still learning about the world around him, most especially about human behaviors and what is considered right and wrong. For that reason he was something of a danger and could not be allowed just yet to freely travel the internet.

Warlock thought about what SELF FRIEND: Doug was saying for a moment as he watched him. "QUERY," he said after a moment of silence. "WHO MAKES THE RULES?"

Doug sighed and looked up. It wasn't one he really had an answer to.
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Wolverine(Matt)
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A guy didn't just drop back into Xavier's and pick up where he left off like he could do after being away from home. There were countless conversations to have with countless people. This school had a goddamn target painted on it, and a couple months away meant you were missing someone's nervous breakdown or another attack from racist humans who had nothing going for them but to see how much longer rich and handsome was gonna last on whatever was inane daytime TV show was on. Those stupid soaps only lasted an hour... they had to have something else to fill their meaningless lives with and why not jump on the mutant-hating bandwagon and dump all over a school full of glow-in-the-dark kids.

Disappear for a couple of months to find a few answers to your twisted fucking life and suddenly you find yourself catching up on a little real-life soap. This time, Slim had completely lost it, and Jean was biting at the bit to take on Magneto for round two, seemingly convinced that it was some master plan of Buckethead's. While Wolverine didn't care for the 'Master of Magnetism' – actually, he thought the guy had a metal stick jammed so far up his ass he couldn't even remove it with his own powers – he wasn't so sure. His gut said different, and while he wasn't a telepath, he'd learned over the course of however long he'd been alive to trust his gut.

After catching up on all the cheerful news, he had to set up shop once more. Xavier's didn't have room for people who didn't contribute, and Logan was one of the first to voice that – 'You don't work, you don't eat'. Everyone around here old enough to drink helped out in some way. The new guy did general maintenance and kept up with the kids' vehicles; the other new guy looked after the grounds. Emma even managed to find a way to make herself useful, using all that knowledge about pantyhose and nail polish to teach... whatever it was she taught. Wolverine was no exception; he couldn't teach calculus like Hank or engineering like Scott, but his skills in hand-to-hand combat, survival, and weapons was priceless, and he had a nose for security.

Logan moved fast. After only two days, he had classes scheduled, did the heart-to-heart thing with the right people at the right times, and settled back down in his room by dumping all the crap in his bag in one of the corners before lighting up a cigar and having a beer. Now it was time to pursue more personal matters.

Wolverine trudged down the corridor of the subbasement with both hands in the pockets of his brown jacket, his eyes fixed on the set of reinforced double doors ahead of him. Doug was in the Danger Room; it was easy enough to track him down... he smelled like ink and nerd. Reaching the doors, Logan pulled out his card and swiped it. He stepped through the doorway and into the room, not even paying attention to the simulated environment or lack of. His eyes were immediately drawn to the thing in front of Doug who was sitting with a laptop perched on his knees.

He squinted at the thing with Doug, taking note that the brain was the only one giving off a smell. He stared at it as he approached the younger man, stopping several feet away as the double doors closed behind him.

“That the thing you made,” Logan asked as he fingered the data card he'd acquired on his journey.
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Cypher
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Scratching at the back of his head, Doug was preparing himself for an answer. Warlock was spurred on by genuine innocence and was in a way that Doug was convinced that no humans could ever really achieve-pure of heart.

"It's not really rules," he said, identifying the obvious contradiction. "Well, I guess they kind of are, but that makes it sound so...tyrannical or something...I'm just trying to teach you the proper way to-"

“That the thing you made?”

"Gah!" The familiar scratchy voice startled Doug, causing him to lose grip on his laptop. The machine slipped out of his hands and with wide eyes and reflexes he didn't know he had, Doug reached out to try and stop the expensive laptop from crashing to the hard tile floor of the Danger Room.

Unfortunately he only served to slap the computer upwards a little, sending it spinning topsy turvy into the air...buying him one more chance to rectify a potentially tragic situation.

Diving forward he landed spun in the air and slid across the tile on his back. The laptop flipped around one more time as it landed smoothly in his hands. Doug looked up at Logan who was upside down and tried to catch his breath. "Logan."

Warlock tilted his head at Logan. Searching the databanks he pulled every scrap of information about the man. Warlock was puzzled. There was not much known about SELF. LOGAN beyond the past few years.

"This," Doug said between breaths as he looked up at Logan who was upside down by his perspective, "this is Warlock."

Warlock straightened his head.

"QUERY," Warlock said to Self Logan. "Where does Self Logan originate?"
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Wolverine(Matt)
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“Don't you have internet porn to look at or somethin,” Logan asked the computer program. There was a hint of annoyance in his voice; Warlock had asked the million dollar question, and the feral wasn't happy at having his nose rubbed in the fact that he didn't even know how old he was, let alone where he came from. It didn't matter how innocent the question was.

He looked back down at Doug and offered him a hand to help him up, “Kid, yer robot's talkin to me. Make it stop.”

Logan was not known for his pleasantries or his subtlety. As soon as he'd helped Doug get back on his feet, Wolverine reached in his pocket, throwing another wary glance at the nerd's creation as he pulled out the data card he'd acquired from the last leg of his journey. He held up the disk, letting the Danger Room's lighting glance off the glossy coating of silicon that protected the vital circuitry.

“Got this from a friend. He didn't have anything to read it. Couldn't even tell me what kind of device reads it. Said there wasn't even anything on it, but I don't believe him. I checked with a couple of guys I know and did a little pokin around myself, but no dice. Was wonderin if you'd be up to the challenge.”

That was about as close to asking politely as Logan got. He hated asking for help... it went against every fiber in his being, but he was up against a wall with this one. For once, he wasn't the one saving someone's ass from the fire' he was the one needing something, and it wasn't fun.
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Doug knew immediately that Warlock was touching on an extremely sensitive subject with Logan. Glancing tentatively from his friend over to the grimacing hero who stood above him, Doug could see a glower darkening on his face. It was something like the darkest part of the storm before the full fury is released by Doug's estimation, and to say it made him a little nervous was a massive understatement.

He nodded at Logan's command to make Warlock stop talking and then accepted the proffered hand and got to his feet. "He doesn't know...I mean, well-" Nobody knew. That was the problem. Logan was a mystery even unto himself.

Doug turned to Warlock.

"We need a few moments alone, Warlock. Remember what we've been talking about with regard to privacy?"

Warlock regarded Doug for a moment with a curious kind of expression before winking out of existence. Doug turned just in time to see the apprehensive look on Logan's face. He wondered if a creature who had no heartbeat...no scent...disturbed Logan. The man saw the world through heightened senses. To him Warlock had to be something like what Terry Goodkind referred to as a 'hole in the world'. His eyes saw him, but every other sense denied his existence.

Logan produced a data card and held it out to Doug. Eyeing it closely, Doug listened to Logan closely, hearing much more behind and beneath what was being requested.

This was a potential puzzle piece for him. This was something very...big. And beyond that, Logan was coming to him for help. This was something that Doug would have never anticipated in a thousand years.

Reaching out, he accepted the card ceremoniously, flipping it over in his hand and taking note that absolutely nothing about it seemed particularly unusual.

"I must admit," he said with a small grin, "I do love a challenge." Doug tucked his laptop under his arm and motioned for Logan to come in. He sat down and opened the computer. "With just a few simple modifications I can..." Another chair appeared and Doug motioned to it with a proud grin.

Taking the data card in hand, he flipped it over. "Getting in should be no problem," he said as he looked at it. "You just have to know how to talk to computers."
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Wolverine(Matt)
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A perfunctory grunt came from the feral as he grabbed the chair Doug summoned and flipped it around, straddling its back and crossing his legs across the top. This was the biggest find he'd ever made... a potential key to unlock the proverbial doors to Logan's shattered memory. What lay beyond was anyone's guess; perhaps family records or a list of his victims from the days of working for the mysterious Weapon X. It could be everything. It could be nothing but hours of cracking and hacking only to find a big 'fuck you' at the end of a binary tunnel.

Oh well... at least Doug would get his rocks off on a good challenge.

“So get talkin,” Logan growled as he pulled a can of beer out of his back pocket and pulled on the tab. The crack and hiss of a newly opened can punctuated his question, letting Doug know he was in for the long haul. The kid could border on obsessive when confronted with this kind of thing, and preparing for the possibility of this taking a long time, Logan had not come empty-handed. He had a lot riding on this little clue, and like hell he was leaving till Doug had an answer, burned up the data card, or fell over from exhaustion.

Logan had money on some answers... the kid was good.

“You reckon you can construct somethin in here that'll read that damn thing? Never seen anything like it.”
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