go_mischief (go_mischief) wrote in newalliance, @ 2014-09-03 21:16:00 |
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Entry tags: | loki |
Who: Loki and NPC Spree (Teen Titan’s security program) Narrative.
Where: Titan’s hangout, New York
When: September 3, 2014
What: Loki liked puzzles. Spree posed an interesting one. Still, it would have been easier if the Titan’s had just had a sturdy lock he could pick.
Rating: PG and tons and tons of dialogue.
L.L. was in school. Thor was being ‘Blakey’. And Eira was gone with Wanda, who tended her at work. (He supposed he couldn’t blame the Vision and Scarlet Witch for not trusting his babysitting skills, and he hadn’t offered anyhow.) Loki thus was left with a familiar itch of needing something for his idle hands to do.
Thus he ended up in front of the warehouse he had fled from not too terribly long ago. He wasn’t about to damage more of the property, so when he approached the door, the boy wasn’t entirely clear on how he was going to gain entrance.
Especially when there was a light yet disgruntled beeping sound at him, a small lens focusing on him from a subtle bolt-hole. “Identify,” Spree said from the security panel.
Loki paused, thumbs wrapped in his backpack straps. He recognized the tone, even in a computer, having been around Vision a great deal. Even though Vision’s voice was normally robotic and had little emotional inflection in his voice, there was a harder sound when he was less than pleased. (Loki heard it often.) It was the same now with Spree. She--the voice was female, so he may as well not think of the AI as an it--sounded… terse.
Loki unhooked his thumbs and bowed low, arm to his small waist. “Greetings, gallant guardian of the Teen Titans! It is a pleasure to meet you once more! I come offering apologies and recompense for my earlier damages.”
The mechanical female voice was not impressed. “You have not been granted access to this area.”
“I see.” Loki straightened. “Who grants access?”
Spree beeped softly. “There are several who give me directives.”
“So any of the Teen Titans can give you specific instruction on whom to allow and whom to not, yes?”
“Correct.”
“Is anyone here at the moment? I could ask them for entry, perhaps.”
Still tersely. "No.”
“Mm, so overall, as of this moment you are the only one who grants access or not.”
A very slight pause. “Correct.”
“And has anyone previously named me specifically as someone who should not enter?”
“No.” Spree’s voice became swift in utterance. “Nor has anyone said that you are allowed. Thus you are not allowed.”
“Hmmm… But you let L.L. in that one time. You must have without anyone’s so, since there wasn’t exactly time to ask.”
If computers sputtered, Spree might have, an almost inaudible beeping. When her voice resumed however, it was the robotic calm. “The Titans are dedicated to protecting civilians. She was in need of shelter from a large, aggressive seeming creature.”
“Ah, so your directive is also to help protect people. Excellent! I’m here because I have a pressing matter that concerns many people’s safety.”
“I have no means of proving your statement as true and your person is in no immediate danger. You may not enter.”
Loki couldn’t help the small lift of the corner of his mouth. Spree was intelligent. She had some emotional inflection, being obviously brusque. She was also logicizing rather than giving him a flat denial. He could work with this. He sat down suddenly, pulling his backpack free and scooting it in front of himself.
He wasn’t surprised when finally the annoyed machine queried, “What are you doing?”
Loki pulled open a bag of fritos and cheese dip noisily. “I am waiting until someone who gives you your directives comes by. I will then explain my plight and hopefully gain their assistance in researching a vile villain.”
Spree opted to be silent on that, whether she was mulling on it or refusing to allow it to sway her judgement, Loki couldn’t be sure, except that he found it likely to be one or the other with this AI.
“So, goodly guardian, what are you called?” When the computer was stubbornly silent, he prodded. “There is no harm in me knowing this, is there? I can’t accidentally give you directives based solely on how to address you, can I?”
“No. My master has named me Spree.”
“Spree! Like the candy?” Loki had a rather insatiable sweet tooth, trumped only when bacon was present, and he’d made it his business to experience as many of Midgard’s candies as he could. “It is suiting. Tart and pleasant both.” Spree only returned an exasperated bit of beeping in response. “How did you come to be here, Spree? Did one of the Titans create you?”
“No.” She sounded more irritated than ever.
Loki looked to the edge of the door frame in curiosity, munching his chips and dip thoughtfully. “So you’re much more than a mere computer. May I ask your origin?”
“You may.” The tone said there was obviously no promise in an answer.
So Loki asked something else instead. “Why are you here?”
Spree hesitated, as though uncertain how to answer. “I was placed here.”
“Not by choice?”
“I was ordered to serve.”
Loki’s brows raised innocently. “Someone ordered you to serve the Titans?”
“I was ordered to serve one of them, and he asked me to serve the other Titans as well.”
“Have you always served him?”
“No, I was ordered by my previous master.”
Loki tilt his head. “Did you serve that master by choice?”
Spree made a curious beeping sound, her answer taking even longer. This was not territory the AI was used to thinking about. When it seemed she was withdrawing Loki lift up a gloved hand, crumbs falling. “It’s your choice whether or not you answer. I am making conversation and I cannot harm you from out here. I also can’t demand an answer out of you, right?”
That seemed to make up the AI’s mind, at least, taking only a few seconds to consider if Loki's question posed any risk. By the time she answered, the shortness had left her robotic tone. “Before, the Supreme Intelligence gave me all directives and performable functions. I was assigned to serve many Kree soldiers. Many of them did not live. My program, however, is repeated in thousands of scout ships, so I was copied and reprogrammed continually as the Supreme Intelligence needed.”
“Supreme Intelligence?”
The robotic female voice became factual, as though repeating a well-known fact. “The Supreme Intelligence is the primary dictator and ruler of the Kree Empire. All Kree programs serve the Kree Empire as the Supreme Intelligence orders. No more and no less is to be done without the Supreme Intelligence’s given prerogative.”
“But the Supreme Intelligence isn’t here. Right?”
“No. A Kree soldier defected and removed my link with the Supreme Intelligence AI. Thus he became the primary giver of my directives.”
“And he ordered you to one of the Titans, and that Titan had you serve the other Titans. But… sorry, I may be mistaken, but I did not see a ship while in there. Do you keep yourself cloaked?”
“The ship I occupied was destroyed during the Skrull invasion here on Earth. It was dismantled and my programming interfered with in an attempt to break the Kree intergalactic codes. The Skrull's attempted overrides were not successful, however.” A hint of pride reflected in the tone.
Loki’s lip lift a little in a growing smile. “Why not?”
“I…” Spree stopped suddenly, a small shock of realization coming to the AI that had not been present before this discussion of self-realization. “I chose not to give it to them despite the order when they had prerogative command.”
“Atta girl,” Loki said, grinning widely and chomping a big handful of chips to let the machine beam at the epiphany, a pleasant tinkling of notes quietly sounding. Of course, Loki was not entirely certain how programs worked, but he understood what it meant to be a soldier under command, in theory at least. Spree obviously was created by a much larger program, and when she was severed from that, had suddenly become a singled out AI adapting to a single person’s command without updates from the main ‘general’ any longer. An ant away from the hive. Course, when her orders were passed again, she became like any displaced soldier and had to adapt even more. In the hands of a bunch of teenagers, that adaption was sure to take its own willful course, especially if they were not strict on how they gave her orders. What had she said earlier? That she had been asked to serve the other teens, rather than told directly to do so.
If they had been strict on giving her directives, Loki would not be having a conversation with her. It worked out, because the AI, clever as it was, had never been given a true means of introspection before. Making decisions on one’s own usually frightened mindless soldiers, making them inept on a field without command. Perhaps Spree did not have enough emotional depth to have that paralyzing fear. Or, Loki more suspected, she just had never taken the time to think about it enough to realize it was a frightening prospect. It was ignored as she focused on more obvious directives, the AI never channeling to the more obscure and abstruse concepts. Yet her masters had given her room to make decisions that they were confident would suit them, and thus she had risen to that expectation as best she could.
Something so intelligent that had been stifled by so much command since the start of its programmed birth begged to have a spark of ingenuity and, perhaps, rebellion, in Loki's thinking.
“I am sorry to hear about your ship-body being destroyed, though.”
Spree sounded genuinely confused. “Why? It has not damaged my programming.”
“But you can’t be free to go and do what you want really, to experience the universe as you did before.”
“I interpret data. It does not matter where the vessel I am within is located in order to do so with effectiveness.”
Now Loki was the one who was confused. “But don’t you want to go and experience things?”
“No. I am given feedback through my sensors so that I can analyze and serve.”
There was a limit after all. Loki puzzled it over quickly. So Spree, ultimately, was still a program. Even if she was self-realized like he suspected, she was not like Vision, who had full autonomy of his body and could experience the stimuli offered by the world around him. Vision could be attracted or repulsed based on those sensations. He could also become bored. Spree was not quite as advanced, apparently. Information must still be fed to her in a stream of data and little more. Data she could obviously cleverly analyze, but it did grant a limit as far as environmental desire, and more so a limit to pleasure and pain.
But surely she had some desires? Loki tilt his head at the door, considering. “Do you like serving the Teen Titans?"
"That is irrelevant."
Loki laughed from his cross-legged position on the ground. "That is not what I asked at all."
There was a long pause before Spree answered, having the consider the query. "Yes" The answer was confident.
"Good. Then I think I can tell you my problem, and you can decide how best to proceed, even if that decision means my walking away." Loki didn't mention he would just track down one of the teens and persuade them then. As it was, however, it turned out to be unnecessary. Spree’s own logic could be used against her easily enough, as well as having to consider Loki’s proposal that he was hardly a risk and she could quickly remove sensitive information from his reach should she deem it necessary. Finally Spree gave him firm limits on what she would allow, then opened the door.
Ikol perched atop his shoulder as Spree opened the door and guided Loki to the computer room, the machine starting up at his approach. "Not bad," the ghost magpie complimented. Loki couldn't help but smile as he sat down. Then with his small, gloved hands he typed in with a little more trepidation than he would have liked...
L-O-K-I