12244/Pet Projects

Pet Projects
Date of Scene:	26 September 2020
Location:	Basement, Avengers Mansion
Synopsis:	Tony hires a new executive assistant...
Cast of Characters:	Blurr, Iron Man

---

Blurr has posed:
    So! Last time, Tony had been conversing with a giant sentient AI whom the Avengers had agreed to take 'care' of, when it suddenly shut down in the middle of the conversation. He'd decided to investigate later, assuming 'Blurr' as it called itself, wouldn't have gone anywhere.

    Well sure enough the next time he would come down to check, Blurr is still slumped against the wall, in the same position he'd been when he'd stasis locked previously...

Iron Man has posed:
"Alright... let's see how we turn on this big Roomba..."

Standing in the basement, with his Stark Tech shades pulled down to his nose, Tony reads the various data points that are continually scrolling across the lenses. Handy things, those shades. Stark Tech, for when it has to work, but also look cool.

"Interesting... lots of alien tech for a robot car with faux leather interior. I wonder if any of these parts would work with the new Avenjet?"

Pulling on a pair of mechanic's gloves, Tony starts looking for an access panel of some sort. Or at least some screws that he can remove. But it looks like the robot is sealed up a bit too neatly for hand tools.

"Going to need to use the torque wrench on this thing. Maybe the cutting laser."

Blurr has posed:
    Indeed, there is a lot of alien tech that is totally foreign to him. In fact, much of it is beyond what the technology in his eyewear can even make sense of. It can't even get a read on something so simple as mass.

    Certainly, there are a lot of panels that look like they could potentially come off fairly neatly just like the panels on a car (although he's probably right in assuming hand tools likely won't do the trick), and some of the inner workings underneath them are visible from the spaces between them. Especially the area between the head and the neck. From Tony's point of view, being so much smaller and so much shorter, he could stand near its legs and look straight up into the mass of cables and wiring that emerges from behind a series of interlocking plates along its neck and run into the head.

Iron Man has posed:
"Damn things are busted."

Tony takes off his shades, throwing them across the room to bounce against one of the garage's concrete walls. They don't shatter satisfyingly, though. Instead they bounce frustratingly, but it's okay, he'll crush them properly later.

Holding up his wrist a bit closer to his mouth, Tony makes a note.

"Reminder: Completely redesign the Stark Glasses and shave... let's say 3 grams from the total weight."

The reminder set, Tony seems much more at peace despite the poor performance. And now, he's ready to take the power tools to this metal mystery.

A few moments later, he's got an array of tooling set up on a cart in front of him. Drills, impact drivers, and the aforementioned cutting laser. But quite a few less impressive devices as well. Like a laptop, a crowbar, and a glass of scotch.

"The kneebone's connected to the... plasteel-coated cable bundle... the plasteel-coated cable bundle's connected to the... hm..."

Setting up his ladder, Tony climbs up it while holding a pair of channel-lock pliers and carefully balancing his glass of scotch. Not the preferred way to climb a ladder, by the way. Taking a pair of channel-lock pliers in hand, Tony begins to disconnect one of the neck cables.

After he takes a sip, obviously.

Blurr has posed:
    The closer Tony gets to the neck area, the more detail he can see. When he gets to the top, he can not only see the cables snaking out of the head, but he can see through tiny gaps between them--this is an incredibly complex machine indeed. Even moreso than perhaps he's ever seen.

    Now remember what he had been thinking moments ago? Hand tools probably won't do the trick. As he pries at it with the pliers, it refuses to loosen even a little bit. He could try a power tool, or, now that he is a lot closer, he might take notice of a damaged panel on the right shoulder that doesn't appear to be bolted down. Or if it was previously, it has come loose.

Iron Man has posed:
The failure of the channel-locks is a perfect opportunity to go ahead and polish off the rest of the glass of scotch. Now with his mustache slightly moistened, he takes a look at the machine, appreciating its complexity.

The channel-locks might not be the tool he needs for disconnecting the cables, but they'll work nicely for prying the loose panel back and forth a few times until it comes loose with a metallic scraping sound. It clatters as it hits the floor at the base of the ladder, and Tony takes a look inside the panel.

"Huh. Lots of stuff in there."

Blurr has posed:
    Once the panel comes off, Tony would find what looks like an oversized, highly complex, socket of some kind. Or series of sockets. It looks like it could either connect to 1 large cable of some kind, or a bunch of smaller ones. But that's really all he could tell. Yes, even with all his fancy hi-tech scans and gadgets. It may be hard for him to admit, but this thing is actually beyond him...at least for the moment, anyway.

    Still, there's a chance if he attempts to connect to it, he might be able to learn more...

Iron Man has posed:
"See? This is why I prefer American cars. None of this overengineering..."

Tony heads back down the ladder and checks out his cart. And while he's there, he might as well have a quick refill. It's a Saturday, after all, and it's not like they can have the board meeting without him.

Well, actually, they can, and often do. He tacitly approves of this.

"Lots of parts for a robot that turns into a car. But maybe it uses a nuclear reactor for an engine. I bet I could sell that to Fury if it does..."

Tapping his wristwatch, Tony takes yet another auto-dictation. "Reminder: Call Fury and ask if he has any interest in nuclear-powered cars. If he does, invent one. If not, tell him you were joking and ask for another contract."

"Reminder: Also, don't tell Fury about that thing with The Contessa."

Surveying the tools on his car, Tony looks for a second like he's about to pick up the laser cutter. Easier to deal with it if it's in parts, right?

But in the end, it's actually the laptop he picks up, along with one of those glowing crystalline-nanite adapter cables that he used on the Technovore a few weeks ago. Should do the trick.

It only takes him a little longer than usual to climb back up the ladder, holding the laptop, an adapter cable, and a freshly-refilled glass of scotch.

"Okay, let's see if this thing runs on Unix..."

The adapter is plugged into the port, adapting to fill the socket.

Blurr has posed:
    The nanite adapter does indeed fill the socket as if it were made to do it, and suddenly the connection is set. Instantly, Tony's laptop fills with code--but not any kind he can read. It's definitely in some other language, and definitely not any language that originated on Earth.

    It scolls rapidly up, down, and across the screen, moving so fast it's hard to tell if the characters are actually moving or if they're just changing in place. And if he tries to command the laptop to do anything, it seems to have stopped reponding to him!

Iron Man has posed:
"Dammit! Another busted doodad. Knew I should have hooked Dum-E up to it instead..."

Over in the corner, Dum-E suddenly looks up at Tony and the giant robot, and makes a starteld 'Mwoooop!' noise.

"Just kidding, dummy..."

Watching the strange characters take over his laptop, Tony tries his best to decipher them in realtime, with very limited success.

"Looks like this pattern keeps repeating... almost looks more like Mandarin than English. Maybe an iconographic language, or... is that a Space Emoji?"

Blurr has posed:
    Iconographic, perhaps. Most of the symbols resemble patterns of dots and lines in various orientations. If he could get a dump of this to go over later, he might be able to get something out of it. But right now it's just moving too fast.

    However, eventually it stops and blanks out, and a message in English across across the center of the screen...

    Going to borrow your comms. Thanks.

    Then the power goes out.

    Thankfully, the mansion is only dark for a few minutes, before everything powers back on. There is another message on the screen now:

    Wow you have a lot of those exos. And weapons. But do you have any more juice? ......
    Like whatever you gave me last megacycle.

    Then, just like that, the laptop goes back to normal as if nothing had happened at all.

Iron Man has posed:
That settles it, Tony's going to upgrade to the newest version of Norton. However, he doesn't seem particularly disappointed or alarmed by this development. Instead, he actually looks quite pleased.

"Don't worry, Dum-E, you're off the hook this time. Turns out our boy here is Unix-compatible, even if he is from space. Everything works with Unix, right?"

Dum-E's ocular lens contracts. "Mwwwoooop!"

"But if he wants more juice, I think that can be accomplished. All I've gotta do is pull out the old Arc Reactor here... easy no... and attach these leads here... whoa! Gotta keep the reactor plugged into my goopy chest hole, just... splice in and redirect some of the energy out through here and... there we go!"

Blurr has posed:
    As before, there is a low hum and the flickering of lights as Tony redirects some of the energy into Blurr.

    The lights in his optics come back on, and he peers curiously at the tiny reactor the Terran seems to be using. "Is that actually a tiny reactor?" he asks, looking somewhat incredulous. "What do you use it for, a food subsitute?"

Iron Man has posed:
The Arc Reactor's power output is nearly infinite, due to its self-charging abilities. But it does have limits to its maximum immediate output. Fortunately, that cap doesn't seem to be reached just yet, or Tony might be in some trouble.

Probably wasn't the smartest idea to risk the device that's keeping him alive just to turn on a giant robot, but Tony always thinks about things like that after the fact, and he's much happier that way.

"What this? More of an accent piece, the giant glowing orb in my chest really makes my nipples look smaller."

Blurr has posed:
    Blurr arches a brow at Tony, unsure of whether to believe him or not. It sounds weird, certainly, but he knows nothing about Terran culture. Oh, wait--those exos he saw in the system. Must be for those. "Oh, I don't suppose you have a bigger one anywhere?" he asks. "You know, with more output?"

    So maybe that wasn't such a good idea. The Autobot draws more power from it, even if just to test its limits--while this is enough to bring him to consciousness, it's far from getting him to 100%. Power levels start to dip toward the danger zone. Probably not anything Tony hasn't seen or done before, but maybe enough to make him think twice about giving a giant alien he just met access to the thing that's keeping him alive.

Iron Man has posed:
"Whoa! Easy there, Greedy!"

Tony reaches down quickly, and snatches the leads away from his reactor before any horrible cardiac events can occur. After all, there's nobody here to save him except for an alien robot and another robot whose codename rhymes with 'dummy.'

The leads spark as he pulls them off, and Tony quickly plugs the Arc Reactor back into his chest hole, where it latches with an audible 'click!'

"Robots. You give 'em a watt and they take a megawatt..."

Blurr has posed:
    "Sorry! You said it was just for looks!" Blurr says defensively. He sighs. "I've just been exhausted for what seems like forever." he pouts. "But you must have a bigger one somewhere, right?" he asks again.

    A pause. "Look, you've really been a huge help, and I appreciate that--isn't there some way I can help you? There has to be something. If you're a leader, your people must come to you with their problems."

Iron Man has posed:
Tony doesn't really look all the put out, despite the slightly panicked way that he snatched away the leads. Better safe than sorry, now that he's been dumped by the girl who usually bails him out when he makes poor choices.

"Oh god... do they ever come to me with problems..." Tony can feel a colossal complaint building up inside him, despite how he tries to suppress it. His voice raises about an octave, and gets really nasal, apparently the voice of someone who needs things from him.

"Tony... why do you take such a big cut from the app sales? Tony... how come the warranty on your products always ends right before the new product cycle? Tony... what about the poor seabirds that your offshore power reactors have displaced? Tony... why don't you pay a higher corporate tax rate? Tony, Tony, Tony... it gets a bit much sometimes."

A sudden glimmer comes into Tony's eye, and he smiles beneath his silent film star mustache.

"You uh... don't happen to have any experience as an executive assistant, do you?"

Blurr has posed:
    Blurr arches a brow at Tony, listening to him do those...interesting impressions. He's not quite sure what exactly he is going on about, but he gets the idea that the human is annoyed with others who ask him dumb questions.

    "Well no but I'm sure I could learn." Of course he thinks he could be good at anything. Because he's fast. And fast is everything. "I could shut those annoying people up if you wanted." he offers with a smirk.

Iron Man has posed:
"Bad enough the tax rates are as high as they are. Why, I had to pay NINE percent last year on my adjusted net income. I ask you, is that really fair for a job creator like me? What's my incentive to continue to create jobs if I have to pay taxes on the jobs I create? So of course I tried to do a corporate inversion in Ireland, but then these hippies start protesting, threatening to throw out their Stark Phones... sometimes I wonder why I even bother running a multinational conglomerate if that's all the thanks I get."

It really must be rough being a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist.

"And don't get me started on all the regulations the FAA keeps trying to force down my throat. I'm sorry I don't feel like logging my flight plan EVERY TIME that I wear my armor. Who's going to save the day the next time there's a Chitauri invasion? Hawkeye?"

Tony lets out a bitter laugh.

"Maybe after he gets there on the bus!"

Blurr has posed:
    Blurr listens intently to Tony's rant, although he doesn't really understand what most of it means. Other than he's just complaining about his world's laws. He nods, even though again most of it means nothing to him. "Hawkeye--ohh, is that the arrows guy?" he asks, finally connecting the dots.

    Then he frowns. "But I thought -you- were one of the leaders? If that's the case, why don't you make them change the laws you don't like? Or tell them to send the police to stop the protesting and destroying of technology?"

Iron Man has posed:
"Bah... doesn't work that way, I'm afraid. You're lucky, being from space or wherever. Bet they've eliminated the regressive bureaucracy out there."

Tony looks off into the distance, even though he's in a garage, seeming a bit wistful as he takes another sip of his scotch.

Which polishes off the rest of the glass.

"Anyway, it's been nice chatting, but I've got to go convince S.H.I.E.L.D. to loan me eighty billion dollars. Fury's been doing that thing where he plays hard to get, and I've been doing that thing where I threaten to sell my hardware to MI-13... we go back and forth."

Gradually, a bit more wobbily, Tony makes his way back down the ladder, managing not to drop his laptop, his empty cup, or more importantly, himself.

"Help yourself to the hundred and twenty volt sockets in the wall. If you need 240 instead, I'm sure we could find a transformer."

He says this entirely without irony.

Blurr has posed:
    "Why don't you let me come with you? I'm sure I could convince them." Blurr says with a smirk. Right, because he's such a diplomat. Especially with how well things were going with Lockdown. "Besides, I'm your executive assistant now, right?"

Iron Man has posed:
"Oh right, right. Better come along then."

Tony doesn't look like he's going to slow down, though he does pause long enough to set the unimportant things back down on the cart.

And long enough to refill his cup.

"You'll have to discuss payment with HR, but I've got a real eye for talent, so I'm sure this will go really well."

With his cup filled back to the top, and his chest magnet full of wattage, Tony heads toward the door of the garage, patting Dum-E on the head before he exits through the swooshing doors.

Dum-E looks on, a bit confused by what's happening.

"Mwoop?"