Kevin Flynn just wrote your favorite game (greetngsprogrms) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2014-09-10 23:39:00 |
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Entry tags: | kevin flynn, tony stark (iron man) |
Who: Kevin Flynn and Tony Stark
When: Late August
Where: Stark Tower
What: Talking about A.I. and Lasers
Rating/Warning: Low/None
Status: Complete
Tony was still freaking out a bit about Director Fury. At least they knew now that the other man was going to be all right, but that only meant that Tony had to work harder to figure out what had happened to him. Tony wanted justice. Or vengeance. Or something. And there was the fact that his office had been attacked and damaged by some sort of fire ball or something, and he hadn’t been able to narrow down his suspect list for that, either.
All in all, Tony was feeling like a bit of a failure. And Jarvis was gone now, too. Which felt like a piece of his body had been ripped away. It was horrible.
He was in the lab, in front of a computer screen, trying to put together the AI program like from his Dreams. If he couldn’t have the real-life Jarvis beside him, he wanted the AI one.
Kevin had been getting the strangest objects from his dreams. First it was not one, but TWO arcade units. One named after the TRON program he'd met on the Grid and the other was one of the games he'd programmed and not gotten credit for, Matrix Blaster. But the object that took the cake was the laser.
It was the same laser that had zapped him and sent him to the Grid in the first place. It was not working however and he was stumped on how to get it up and running. He'd tried a bunch of old parts he'd bought off of ebay or that were stored in ENCOM's basement levels but nothing worked. So he'd loaded it onto a small uhaul and driven it to Stark Tower to ask the only other brilliant tech guy he knew how to get this sucker to work.
"Hey, if I park any longer with my U-haul security's gonna call Homeland." Kevin smirked from the entrance to the lab. Tony had been so into whatever he was doing he hadn't even noticed him.
“That’s your fault for double-parking outside the building, Friend. Just saying,” Tony said, not taking his eyes off the lines of code on his screen. He was starting to realize that he might not be able to get all of this finished himself. He was going to need at least a second set of eyes. Jarvis was unavailable. He had countless geniuses at his disposal--the good thing about owning his own company and peopling it with brilliant people--but he thought one set of eyes in particular would really help.
And that set of eyes just walked into his lab. Finally, Tony tore his own attention from the screen and looked over at his friend Kevin. “How’s that beautiful wife of yours?” He asked, breaking into a smile.
“Rachel’s good. Her etsy shop is doing really well, people like her stuff. Don’t ask me what half of it is, it’s all that ‘couture’ type of clothing.” Kevin chuckled. “How’s things with you and Pepper? How’s the ticker?” He tilted his chin towards the glowing device embedded in Tony’s chest.
“Right right,” Tony said. He didn’t pay attention to women’s fashion. Though, he was thinking about contacting Rachel to surprise Pepper with a dress for something special. Of course, he’d have to plan something special, but that shouldn’t be too hard.
“Things are good. Boring good, almost,” Tony added, breaking into a frown. Did he really just say boring good? “Working on developing the same sort of AI that I have in the Dreams… the Jarvis system. I might need help with this code.”
Kevin made an amused face and chuckled. Boring good? Only Tony Stark would describe a stable relationship and lifestyle as ‘boring good’.
“Jarvis system, huh? Named after your BFF.” he tried not to sound jealous as he headed over to where Tony was sitting. He wasn’t from Tony’s world so it made sense things would work together that way, even with the differences being Jarvis was a person here in this one.
Kevin suddenly stopped in his tracks and clasped his hands over his heart, staggering about dramatically. “Oh. My. God. Did Tony Stark just ask moi for help with code? You sure you’re feelin’ all right, buddy?”
“Well, sort of. In the Dreams there is no Jarvis the person… only Jarvis the computer. And I guess he’s my bff there, too.” Tony shrugged softly. It would be like him to be best friends with a computer, wouldn’t it? “Don’t act so suprised, Flynn,” Tony teased. “You’re just the closest set of eyes.”
"So your best friend is a computer? Sounds about right." Kevin teased. Not that he had room to with his own computer related dreams. "At least he's not trying to kill you." He then added under his breath.
"Aw c'mon I'm the best pair of eyes and you know it. Lemme take a look." And he scooted Tony out of his chair to peek at the code.
Tony simply smirked. It did sound like him, didn’t it? Best friends with a computer? If only. Jarvis in this world was the closest thing he was going to get, actually. He shook his head a little. “No, definitely not. I’m in a much better position than Dave.”
Hal was evil.
“All right, take a seat.” Tony stood from the chair, and moved to pour himself and his friend a Drink while Kevin had a look at the code. Tony’s code was… impressive. Okay, impressive was a drastic understatement. Tony’s code was inhuman.
Kevin hadn't actually expected Tony to hear that let alone respond. He smirked.
"Hal's got nothing on the MCP." Kevin smirked. Tony's code was pretty impressive, and maybe inhuman to anyone other than Kevin.
“Yeah? That your Dream thing?” Tony asked. He brought both glasses of scotch back over to the desk and leaned against the far edge. “The video game, or whatever?” He hadn’t really paid all that much attention to anyone’s dreams but his own lately. And those had been a kick in the nuts.
Kevin chuckled as he scanned the incredulous lines of code, expertly reaching for the Scotch without looking; late nights downing coffee or red bull created habits like that. "Well the MCP was an A.I. program...not unlike Jarvis here, only way more arrogant and bent on world domination." He sipped from the cut crystal scotch glass. "Or well, the domination of the computer world anyway. He liked order, efficiency. I always thought he was a bit of an asshole. Started out as a chess game, would you believe. Ah!" He stopped scrolling the code and started mumbling in codemonkey to himself. "There. I bet that's been a bitch to configure." Kevin pointed at the screen at the line. "I can fix that for you no prob. I helped write the MCP you know."
Tony leaned over to look at what Kevin found. He nodded a bit. “Go on, then.” He said, and took a gulp from his own glass. They could work together. Tony didn’t mind getting a bit of help. And it was a good thing they both spoke the same language. Codemonkey jargon, or whatever.
“Yeah, I can imagine that a program designed to institute order and efficiency might go a bit mad in a world where chaos reigns.” Tony added, swirling the liquid around in his glass, idly.
“Yeah it was definitely not cool,” Kevin said a bit distractedly as he started hitting the keys in rapid fire fashion as he tweaked the code. “The light cycle racing was pretty badass though. Even if the guy had designed it to kill any program that lost. Can you imagine being able to do ninety degree turns at high speed? It’s insane. And glorious.” His fingers flew over the keys as his blue eyes studied the computer language before them. Tony’s code was indeed quite complex, but Kevin had started dabbling in his own at home, curious if he’d be capable of creating an MCP like program here, only without the world domination tendencies.
“Like… Snake? Tony asked, remembering that video game where as a snake you had to not crash into walls--or yourself--and the speed kept escalating. “You got me at ‘light cycle racing’ though. That sounds pretty awesome.” He sipped from his glass, watching Kevin’s new lines of code appear on the screen with great interest.
“I dunno,” Kevin said as his fingers flew over the keys. “I guess from the outside looking in it would appear like that. But from the POV of the driver, it was like driving a concept motorcycle at lightning speed over a wireframe grid, some walls to enclose you, and nothing but inky blackness above. The whole world was glowy color lines with shades of gray on black infinity.”
He paused, scrubbed through a few more lines to make sure it was good, and then tested it with an execution command. The program started running, spitting back lines of code.
“There, I think that’ll help.” Kevin grabbed the glass and got out of the seat, sipping the cool alcohol. “So what will you have Jarvis do?”
“Huh.” Tony said, trying to imagine it. He wasn’t sure that he could. Definitely didn’t sound like The Matrix--which was how he imagined Kevin’s Dream World before. “Thanks.” Tony said, and exchanged places with Kevin. He clicked a few buttons to get the code running other tests, then turned to his friend and gulped again.
“Everything. It’s got to connect the suit to the internal systems here at the Tower, and at my beach house. I need to be able to run things remotely, especially now that the real Jarvis isn’t around.”
Kevin nodded as Tony explained. “Makes sense. Can't really trust too many people with the whole suit deal anyway. And you know I can't work for you. Makes for bad publicity if I'm working for the competition." Kevin smirked, clapping his friend on the back. The joke was part sarcasm as that was exactly what he'd done years ago with another rival company.
"Listen, I still got that trailer parked outside. It's kinda got sensitive tech inside it so..."
“Right, right.” Tony said, turning his attention back to Kevin and away from the scotch bottle for a moment. He finished pouring himself another finger, then stood. He swished the alcohol around in the glass, drained it, and then motioned toward the door with his free hand. “Lead the way to this double-parked trailer.”
Kevin and Tony headed to the elevator that was on the special floor that housed his lab. As they rode the elevator down, Kevin turned to Tony, leaning against the railing of the elevator car. “So, this item in the trailer. It came from my dreams.” Kevin was smiling now, because it was exciting. “I can’t get the sucker to work for anything. It’s old tech, from the 80s, so compatible parts are hard to come by, hell, even to build. I’ve gutted a half dozen old PCs but nothing seems to get it to even turn on.” They exited to the lobby and walked out to where Kevin’s U-haul was parked. He opened the back of the truck to show a carefully wrapped and relatively large object inside. “You got any other discreet elevators, especially ones that are freight?” He smirked.
Well, Tony could make anything work. He was certain of it. He could make parts. He had a 3D printer, for goodness sake. He’d played around with some really old tech, too. This was growing more and more intriguing the longer the elevator took them down toward the street level.
He moved with Kevin out onto the street, and then wandered over to watch, his hands shoved in his pockets. “Well. I suppose… Yeah, you got that thing on wheels?” He asked, leaning over to get a better look. “We can take it up the back elevator straight into my lab.”
“Yeah, she’s on some dolly’s.” Kevin nudged it to show him. “Where do you want me to park to get to it?”
“This way.” Tony said, motioning.
Ten minutes later after moving the U-Haul and struggling with the freight elevator, Tony and Kevin had the thing on its way up to Tony’s lab. This back elevator only went up to the lab floors, so it was relatively private. Tony was itching to inspect the thing, to figure out what it was and what made it tick.
Kevin was grateful for Tony’s friendship. It wasn’t just anyone he could tell about a giant laser that magically shows up at his house. Well except for that guy with the Starlord shop, but that had been because Kevin was desperate for parts.
Once they got to the lab, Kevin rolled it into a clear space and unwrapped the moving blankets from the device. “I present to you: the laser.” Kevin said in a jokingly dramatic tone. “This is the same sucker that sent me to the Grid in my dreams.” The laser looked like something out of a scifi film.
Tony nearly gasped at the sight of the thing. Nearly. He moved forward to inspect. “Man. Kev. Look at this. Look at this.” He said, doing a slow circle around the thing. “...it’s beautiful. I mean, it looks like shit, but it’s beautiful, too. Like nineteen eighties Doctor Who.”
Kevin laughed. “Right? Guess that would make me the Fifth Doctor. All I need is a Tardis.” He relished watching Tony circle the thing in awe, finally having something from his dreams that even impressed him. “So yeah, having a helluva time powering her up. I don’t know what the deal is.”
“What I wouldn’t give for a Tardis.” Tony said. He reached over to open a panel on the side of the laser, trying to figure out what it did. One of his eyebrows arched gently. “I’m sure we’ll figure it out. We’ll just have to deconstruct it to figure out how it ticks.” Yay. New project.