Log:Thought Experiment

2021/04/27 Slinger Grimm Porter 1

We join our two heroes in the throes of domestic living- a brief respite between heroic sacrifice & the daily grind of being a gainfully employeed adult. Despite the rare opportunity, August has been hard at work in the basement- working on putting together a dollar-store version of some advanced technology he ran across in his work- though whether that was his work on the up and up with the CBPD or his work as the 'Huntsman'- private digital detective, it's impossible to say for certain.

In any event- the need for a guinea pig has arisen and with it, Grimm's phone buzzes.

When Grimm looks at it, she'll find a very Daemonish text:

<< I've got whiskey and a nice new chair. Just need a smart, capable, psionically gifted magical heroine down here to help me with the heavy lifting. >>

He's definitely buttering her up for something.

Grimm is immediately suspicious at the text. She was practicing some acoustic guitar in the newly manifested Music Room when she feels the buzz in her pocket and takes it out to check. Still, whiskey is the magic word. She stands up and sets the guitar into its stand, then vanishes and reappears in the basement. "You sure know how to get my attention. What's the catch?"

Grimm's senses will likely sense the throne made up of very diseparate parts, but that's hardly unsual. There's always some half-spun rerun experiement going on down stairs as August tries to adapt ewhat he's found into his kit on a shoestring budget.

But here, before her- between she and August there is an added emphasis on the narrow margins he's operating in.

When he pops up it's clear he's wearing his Slinger 'pajamas'- just without the mask.

He grins at her.

"The catch is I just need you to take a seat and think pointedly." He replies before he leaps off- swinging around a weight bearing column and into his workstation proper where the rattling of glasses and bottles can be heard.

A moment later he emerges with Grimm's bait- err payment in hand.

Grimm stares at Slinger. Then the chair. Then to Slinger. "You want me to sit. In -that?" she points to the chair skeptically. "What's it going to do to me?"

August nods. "Yes in that. I know it's not pretty- its not like I've got an industrial set up down here. But its perfectly safe."

As if Porter were in the room to punctuate the sentence for him- a spark goes off beneath the chair causing August to maek a face that says 'Oh shit' as he hands off the glasses and bottle of whiskey to drop down to get a better view of the problem.

He shoots a splat of webbing into the chair at the sparking wire. "There. That's better."

He rights himself and adds, "Its all perfectly safe. Its a scanner. 100% non-invasive."

Grimm takes a step back at the spark and looks even more skeptical. "You're not exactly inspiring me to sit in the electric chair...or 'scanner'." She'll take her payment up front and holds out a hand for the glass of whiskey.

Slinger takes a glass and the bottle, taking a seat in the chair himself to pour Grimm a glass that would make a professional bartender doubletake.

If that's a drink, he pours himself a double before shooting a webline into the ceiling and tacking it to the bottle before the webbing's adhesive can dry.

He takes a sip while making eyes that say, 'See' before getting up and waving a hand at the chair.

Grimm narrows her eyes faintly. "Alright, alright," she relents and takes a sip before sitting down uneasily. "So...think hard. Like...what exactly? Is it going to scan my thoughts?"

August puts down his drink nearby and begins fiddling with something on a PDA. "That's right. Well- anything at first. Just need a baseline to start." He answers after a long moment. Finding what he's looking for he taps the screen and puts the PDA down, then he hops up and pulls down what can only be described as a rose shaped chandelier made out of various metal collanders with other components holding it all together.

Componets that begin lighting up now that they're pulled from their stowaway location overhead.

He lowers the device until its just an inch or two above her head, and then he folds out two flattened panels that protrude to either side.

There is a slight hum coming from the device now that its so close.

"And it will scan for them- not whats /in/ them. So you're free to think whatever you'd like." He adds for extra reassurance. "Though thoughts of Carpenter will likely jam the whole thing up."

Grimm feels all levels of uncomfortable. "This all looks really sketch. And not very usable in the field. So you want me to think of anything but Carpenter?" Which of course HAS her thinking about Carpenter now, which causes her to smile despite herself.

"Stop it." August says as he continues to recalibrate- almost as if he knew what she was thinking.

He sighs dramatically before doing a bad but no less sardonic Grimm-itation (rimshot), "Wow, August- you made all this down here by yourself with random stuff you found over the course of the week? In-cred-ible! You're a genius. Who needs all your Daetech when you big brain so good?"

"It's not for the field thankfully. You could probably break this thing with a good whack of the back of your hand. I don't need it to be tough or tiny. Just sensitive. Once I have my data I can start deciding what to do- or even what I /can/ do in the field." He explains.

"That trippy bankrobber was a real laugh, but it was also a spot light on a glaring hole I have in this prosthesis." He adds, using Daemon's clinical name for the August-gestalt.

Grimm snorts and tries to stow away thoughts of Carpenter. "Okay, okay, now you're pushing it with the praises you're heaping on yourself. And saying it's made of random stuff after it sparked is, again, not inspiring confidence," she smirks. Still, she's remaining in the seat. "Oh? Yeah, that was fun. A free trip. Shame he uses it for robbing banks."

"Well- normally that's what best friends are for, but instead /someone/ is letting the junk-based technology- that is a hundred years ahead of its time mind you, decide her level of confidence in /someone/ who's had their guts spill out in the black woods of Germany for /someone/ just 2 days after their technologically aided resurrection." August says with Daemon's sharp-tongue. "So, like any hetero-sexual but plainly platonic lifemate I filled in one of those someones."

He snaps. "There we go. Ok. Think thinky thoughts." He says as he makes a couple of gestures & moves into her line of sight.

"Let's try something easy. Favorite movie. Think it- /then/ say it."

Grimm purses her lips as he calls in his chips, and they are owed. "Okay, okay. I'll think thinky thoughts," she relents and tries to focus on what he wants. She thinks 'The Ring', and then says, "The Ring." Of course she loves vintage horror.

"Still? Blah. The book was better. Way better- and lets not even get started on the original Japanese film versus the old American version." August says with no lack of surprise. Its clear this has been a conversation had a thousand times over. He shrugs.

"Ok- opposites. Think of two opposite things- anything, same thing. Think it, then say it. Then take a drink." He says before following his own suggestion with one hand and gesturing through his systems with the other.

"Always," Grimm replies with conviction on her choice of favorite movie. She focuses on the next task. Cats and dogs. Two opposite pets. "Cats and dogs."

"Well at least we know you aren't the clone." August says with a smirk. "Alright- two more to go. Next to last- weave a little spell for me. Nothing crazy. Tie a shoe on the moon. Sparkle like a vampire in the Sun. Whatever you feel like doing."

Grimm blinks at that. "Wait, is this actually a clone detector? Did you clone me??" she asks with rising suspicion. This IS Daemon we're talking about. He may have cloned a backup body for her in case she went Corpse Up and he needed a fast replacement to transfer her mind to.

"Not... recently?" August replies- seeming to have forgotten that that wasn't exactly something Daemon would have shared openly, even with Grimm. "And I'm pretty sure your backups burnt up with Allam's. We're stuck with these." He says the last bit as if it pains him greatly.

"And- I can totally make a handheld clone detector. What do I look like to you? A 15th Century Italian Nobleman? Some kind of hack?" He scoffs, taking a drink but being sure to give her a look over the top of his glass.

Grimm gasps at that. "You -didn't...." she says in disbelief.

"What? Make a clone detector? No. Why would I when all the backups timedout already? That was why I had to print this thing out." August replies, clearly not getting it.

"No, the clone backup!" Grimm escalates. "You made a backup of me??"

"Well- yeah. Of course I did. Remember those Alpha & Beta freaks? Pretty sure they almsot killed you and your metal ma-- ex." August says, surprised at the sudden escalation. "That was when I started backing us up. Well when I first starting trying anyway. But I got them all stablized and tucked away safe and sound. Seemed liek the best play- you had a mission, whether you knew it or not at the time, and you're the only family I have. Seemed like a no brainer." He adds as if that were the thing that might be bothering her.

He cocks a glance to see how that plays, and sensing more concern he adds, "Its not like I kept our synaptic data in the same blacksite."

Grimm isn't sure whether to be offended or flattered. Can she be both? Because that's how she feels. "And you didn't think to tell me you had a clone of me sitting around somewhere?" she asks more calmly. "When did you even make a copy of my mind?"

"Well- yeah. I did. But I ran the numbers. At the time, you taking the information as intended was only like 28.8%. Well below acceptible thresholds at the time." August explains. He takes another drink and then shrugs.

"Then I thought, 'What if she starts worrying she's a clone?' Ran some new numbers and though unlikely, that seemed like an unnecessary burden for you to carry. Its existential madness if you aren't careful. Didn't seem worth the risk." He says the words in a matter-of-fact manner that really gives him a cold, clinical edge that is usually subsumed by Slinger's more vibrant personality traits.

"Making a copy was easy. I could do that in a snap. Plenty of wireless neural interfaces to hijack- the hard part was configuing the scanners I built to piggyback the carrier wave to our synaptic sigs and properly encrypt the data or course. This was before I build inthe quantum signatures to make duplicating the data impossible. My suit had the only key." Over time, he starts to sound more proud of the work he did- totally in secret up until now.

Grimm stares as the growing disbelief becomes apparent on her face. Well, disbelief that he actually admits to it and really thought it through. Not that he was capable. She's about to ask if she's the clone when he covers that topic too. Her jaw works soundlessly a few times as she tries to process all that.

"Um. Thanks?"

That's all she can think of initially. "It's the sentiment that counts?" She's trying to be nice when she knows it was his version of caring for her that made him copy all her thoughts. Though she suspects he might've happily deleted some memories from her brain, such as anything concerning Malcolm or Carpenter.

August smiles, clearly feeling appreciated when he says, "You're welcome." He says it without the sligthest hint of worry or concern that Grimm might still be a bit more nonplussed than she's letting on.

Unfortunateluy, his keen eye for detail is on the numbers he's running now. Right. This. Second.

"So..." He says, looking at her expectantly. He has definitely not been derailed by this revelation & has more sciencing to do!

Grimm blinks as he prompts her to continue, then recalls. "Well, I can't quite tie shoes on the moon, but I've been learning some other magic. She holds up her glass by its base and stares at it. The room starts to grow colder and frost creeps up from where her fingers touch the glass, chilling it and her drink. She lets out a breath which can be seen on the air as her glass completely frosts over, and then stops with the spell. The room temperature returns to normal, but her glass remains perfectly chilled.

August pauses to watch. He looks suitably impressed.

"Ok- that's pretty arid. How's it work on beer?" He asks as he reads through the results of his scan.

"Interesting. I wonder if there's a difference between spells and psychic phenomena when you do them." He taps his glass as he ponders the results.

"I...don't know. THIS...was a spell," Grimm explains, then grins a little. "And it works great on beer. And keeping your cocktails from getting watered down."

"Oh- I bet it does. Damn. I mean- I know it looks simple enough, but if I were to hazard a guess, you just neutralized the movement of the molecular structure of that glass & the liquid within. If I were to scale that against something... a bit more conventional without having any equipment on hand for measurement, I'd say you just redirected the energy of a hand grenade? MAybe an old one. But the amount of energy goes up proprotionately to the mass affected. If you did that to the house, you'd be redistributing the heat of a tactical nuke." Slinger explains, making it very clear why that little trick is so impressive.

"Ok- last run. All you have to do is switch the channel we're talking on to ..." He says as he reaches over for the PDA, he sets his glass down in its place and then taps the side of his head while making eye contact with Grimm to indicate a mind link between them.

Grimm looks to the glass she frosted with a spell. "I'm not sure if that's exactly what the spell does, but maybe that's how it works? Though not sure why you're talking about heat and hand grenades when I made something cold," she explains. She looks at him a moment. "Oh...-that-? Um, okay," she starts and tries to establish a mind link while seated in the precarious and experimental chair Slinger made, with a strange device hanging over her head.

"I know its 'magic' but- the rest of us still abide the laws of physics. That energy had to go some where or be converted into something else. Heat and cold are the same thing- its jsut a matter of interpretation." August explains. If he detects their connection, he'll continue to say, "Making something cold isn't so much the absence of something as it is a distinctive lessening of something. Or maybe thinking of it as more of an 'exchange' is closer."

Magic?

Exchanges?

(or is it Exes -and- Changes?)

In any case (or worst case), Porter knows a thing or three about all of those things. All from experience. Some good. Some bad. Some... yet to be determined.

Like now as there is a sudden sound immediately above them (but still int the basement).


 * FLASHTHWUMP*

Grimm thinks back to Slinger << I'll keep the science to you, and the magic to--oh shit!>> There's an immediate sense of alarm as the sound of Porter's arrival is heard.

<> Slinger manages to reply as his own sensory enhancements detect the arrival.

Slinger attempts to web-yoink Porter to him before his precious equipment is Porterized into oblivion!

"Hey-ahh!" Porter gives his own interpereation of the ancient Outcast song. With more flailing and less rhythim. Also, gravity yoinks him downward with a vengeance. Probably right on or near sensitive equipment.

Someone mentioned sensitive equipment, right?

There's also the coffee that Porter -was- holding.

Grimm hasn't got the fast spider-like reflexes of Spiderman. She's seeing all this too fast to react.

Slinger manages to snag Porter- yanking into his arms. Unfortuantely the coffee wasn't accounted for- and it comes down with a splash all over August's complicated, duct-taped, super-science rig.

The sparks begin to fly and it looks to be more than a few squirts of webbing will fix.

Flying sparks. Spilted Coffee. And Grimm in the now literally hot seat. There's a bright burst of light and the sound of angry sizzling electricity that's blinding!

Slinger shields his eyes, inadvertantly dropping Porter in the process. Normally he'd set him down gently- he may be trouble, but his checks cash everytime.

Grimm's hair is a little frazzled, as is she. She blinks a few times and pats herself down with one hand to make sure she's still there and in once piece.

August flips his wrist and yanks his mask to him, pulling it on.

"This is not my fault. Everything as in working order 10 seconds ago." He protests immediately. Only then he asks, "Are you ok?"

"I...I won't blame you for acts of Porter," Gabrielle says as she winces and ducks out of the head-gear and out of the chair carefully. "I can still walk. Yay."

"Oh god. He got me then?! Oh god. I'm hideous!" Slinger says, feeling his face through the mask. "No... oh no. Do I have an odd number of appendages?! Wait- do I have an even number?!" He panicks a bit patting himself down. A rogue Portering put him into this Slinger-shaped mess.

"Yeah...I'm sorry, buddy," Grimm grins at his concern about being hideous.