[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/FfNWY2y.jpg[/img][/center] [center][INDENT][h1][color=gray]THE INDESTRUCTIBLE IRON MAN[/color][/h1][/INDENT][/center] [center][sub]arc 1: furnace issue 1.2.2.2 - next degree [/sub][/center] [i]virtual_artificial_iter7.8965_developmentlog.mp3 PLAY/PAUSE? [00:34:57] A crowded office desk pans into frame, surrounded by mountains of stained ceramic mugs and scrunched up note paper. The mousy face of Tony Stark pans into view, a sweat beaded face with red rimmed eyes. His beard is roughly chopped. [00:36:50] “ This is Day 4 of testing the General Adaptive Responsive Virtual Intelligence System Alpha Build. I’m scrapping the original language and building from the ground up. Turns out PymLan burns up more RAM than my servers are capable of handling. It’s going to be another month of headaches but, hey, I don’t want my own personal HAL-1000 to get a seizure, right. Training data needs another month to be optimized but we should begin construction of primary neural algorithms in a week or so. Testing today consisted of enabling heuristic baselines to social conversations through conversation. Topics included: Stacey Langford vomiting all over my bed, my bender in Vegas, my startling lack of father figures, musical tastes - remind me to input bias factors for punk next time - and…and…” “ Fuck, maybe, Rhodey was right about me.” “ Being more comfortable with talking to a machine of all things…”[/i] [hr] The first time she steps into Tony Stark’s minivan makes her wonder whether she hedged her bets right. The floor is a hoarder’s dream, a heap of unorganized blueprint manuals and manic trash strewn all over the floor. Looking at it reminds her of an upended garbage bin. She almosts expect to see a raccoon scurrying her way out of the pile. “ Can’t you work faster?,” she snipes at the most wanted man on the eastern seaboard. Stark is currently typing away frenetically, lines of code running down the monitor like a waterfall. His expression doesn’t waver as he replies back in a sarcastic monotone. “ I would if you’d stop pointing a gun at my head.” “ And stop giving you incentive?,” she purrs sarcastically, tapping the gun against the side of his temple. “ I heard the best artists work under pressure.” “ Ah, nothing more like the threat of death to get the juices flowing.” The next couple of minutes is a flurry of keyboard keys and brief sips of some off-brand caffeinated sports drink from a convenience store. Stark’s bloodshot eyes boredly stare at the computer, only flinching every once in a while in sheer annoyance. Those moments are rare like a koi fish swimming to the surface of a pond. “ Why the suit?,” the question tumbles out of her mouth. “ Hm?” “ Why…all this.” She says with irritation. “ You’re Tony Stark.” “ And?,” Stark replies in a tone that she only expects is the closest vocal expression to shrugging your shoulders. “ You’ve got enough fucking money that every stock broker in Wall Street puckers up their ass whenever you go on one of your binges. You earn two to three Nobel prizes a year. You’re the heir to a multi-billion dollar company and you’re telling me the best way to deal with all your issues right now is to dress up in a powered suit of armor?” Not even a blink. Nothing to communicate any anger. Stark still wore the same despondent look on his face as though he was an insomniac late-night shift worker. “ Yup.” “ And here I thought you were the smartest man alive.” “ Oh, is that disappointment I hear?” The taps on the keyboard become louder. “ Feel free to walk to the back of the line because you’re not the only one.” “ I thought you’d be….” “ What? No, no, no, let me guess.” Stark jeered at her sarcastically. “ Like Reed Richards? Hank Pym? Abraham Erskine? Some quiet, eccentric visionary toiling away in their labs, producing technological miracles for the good of the world? A prim and proper little scientist staying in their lane whilst everyone causes chaos around them?Did the world change for the better when the Pym Particle was discovered? Did the world change for the better when Erskine made the Super Soldier Serum? Did the world turn upside down when Reed Richards began making another public tech demo in an impoverished third world country. I didn’t think so. I am not your fucking Gandhi. I am not your Einstein. I am a man with a drinking problem. I can’t solve the world’s problems.” Stark stopped talking and then, shook his head sadly. “ That’s what caused all this stupid shit in the first place anyway.” “ I thought you’d be different.” “ Well, - “ His voice caught on a cough before continuing “ - you thought wrong.” The monitor suddenly flickered and a black window emerged. She thought it looked like a sheet of graph paper, stretched out across the back of the porcupine. The spines oscillated, flickering up and down randomly. Whatever Stark had been doing to crack the device open was successful as he leaned over, a mad glint in his eyes. “ And bingo. Come on, come on, don’t fail on me now, buddy…..” The graph paper contorts, shrinking into a line as thin as yarn. The yarn begins snapping and threading back together in a simplistic imitation of the human mouth. The cheesy 90s british accented tone from the speakers forces to put two and two together to realize it was him. “ Hello, sir. I’ve had a terribly long nap and -,” There was a brief skip in the A.I’s speech. A half-second or so. To anyone else, it would have seemed like a minor glitch but to her, it was the electronic equivalent of human shock. “ Sir, why are we currently 154 miles away from our home address?” “ Hello, JARVIS.” Stark sheepishly scratched his head. “ I’ve got some explaining to do.”