10650/Nanomachines, Son!

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Nanomachines, Son!
Date of Scene: 03 April 2022
Location: Kitchens - Wayne Manor
Synopsis: A troubleshooting session in the Wayne Manor's kitchen regarding an unnamed friend of Tim's nanomachine woes.
Cast of Characters: Tim Drake, Damian Wayne, Lonnie Machin




Tim Drake has posed:
    Usually, the kinds of places Tim finds himself during his marathon research sessions are appropriately Bat-like. You know: dark, old libraries or hidden computer labs, that sort of thing.

    Less so the Batcave since he's gone off on his own and started his own team, admittedly, but one of the bright, open kitchens of Wayne Manor with its modern appliances doesn't really fit the bill.

    And yet here he is, laptop on the island counter, alternating between typing and taking notes on his tablet.

    That he's found himself in the Wayne Butler's domain probably has something to do with the icepack he's cradling between his neck and shoulder and the cut on his brow, freshly stitched. Alfred himself is only a few steps away at the stove, tending to something in a large pot while also keeping an eye on Tim in a way that suggests some sort of serious discussion about taking care of oneself has happened shortly prior.

    A talk that Alfred probably gives quite a lot, in this household.

    Tim's got the kind of look that suggests he's been at this (whatever "this" is) for a while. And in true Tim fashion that probably meant all forms of self-care went out the window, though he's at least freshly showered and out of costume, dressed down in a pair of sweats and a jacket thrown over an old t-shirt, probably something he pulled out of the back of his closet here at the Manor. But he's definitely been burning the candle at both ends, if the bruises under his eyes are anything to go by.

Damian Wayne has posed:
    Damian enters the kitchen wearing a grey T-shirt, black shorts, and black running shoes. The armpits and neckline of the T-shirt are heavily ringed with wetness suggesting that he just finished some sort of workout. He strolls into the kitchen with mien of one who feels like he owns any rooms he enters, and heads for the fridge.

    "Pennyworth," he says in greeting to Alfred.

    Then to Tim, with barely a glance in his direction, "Did you finally get evicted? The Super 8 is offering long-term discounts, I heard." Then he opens the fridge and grabs three bottles of water. He immediately cracks one open and starts to guzzle it.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Apparently most of the scandal sheets have drafted Lonnie Machin - who has recently created an identity for himself as independent reporter Lonnie Machin - as the guy newly-rebellious Tim Drake is out and about with to scandalize the Gotham City Old Money - which made him laugh. Though he's not laughing now.
    Now, he's leaning against the counter, holding a cup of coffee, feet crossed at the ankles, in an Antifa t-shirt with the other hand braced against the counter and a pair of sunglasses on, a flat expression on his face as he watches Tim without saying anything.

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim is staring down his computer screen rather than acknowledge the red-headed elephant in the room. Which is maybe mixing up his metaphors, but he did get a good hit on his noggin' there recently after all. He doesn't so much as look up when Damian enters, which is probably at least partially related to him trying to ignore Lonnie.

    "It'd be weird for my landlord to evict me considering he's me."

    Like Lonnie, he too has a cup of some sort of hot liquid, though it's probably tea. Something herbal (read: caffeine free) and soothing, which is best for him per Alfred, and definitely not a punishment.

    However long this standoff has gone on, Tim's the one to break. "Look, if you're going to stand there you can at least help." He pushes his tablet across the counter towards Lonnie, which contains a fairly staggering compilation of notes about some sort of deadly nanomachine that he's trying to deal with.

    From over by the stove, Alfred breaks his silence--well, he did offer a hello to Damian, naturally--to tutt at Tim. "Hardly a proper way to treat a guest, Master Timothy."

Damian Wayne has posed:
    With a picture perfect toss, Damian arcs the empty water bottle into the recycle bin. Then he climbs up onto a stool with the other two water bottles he grabbed. The closer he is to Tim the easier it will be annoy him.

    "Lovers quarrel?" he asks without so much as a shred of empathy in his voice, as he pops open a second water bottle. "Who could have predicted that the relationship between a stray that a billionaire took in and a shadowy castoff who is poor for a living would have gone down a rocky path."

    Damian guzzles down the second water as quickly as the first. But then, oddly, he pivots for some reason. "So what's the problem with you two anyway? Why you mad at Tim, Lonnie? I mean, other than for the typical reasons that everyone is mad at him for."

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Lonnie raises an eyebrow. "First of all, you must be this tall to insult me." Lonnie holds his hand up about an inch higher than Damian's standing height. Then he resumes his somewhat languid pose, "He's working too hard. Again. He's going to have a nervous breakdown. *Again*."
    He picks up the tablet and begins to study it, using a finger to swipe through the information contained therein.

Tim Drake has posed:
    All Tim can do in the face of Alfred's admonition is some faint squawking, because it's not like he's going to talk back to Alfred, of all people.

    Thankfully, both Damian and Lonnie make much better targets.

    "We're fine," he says, even though the very next thing he does is glare at Lonnie. "I'm fine!"

    Bit of a broken record there, which Tim seems to realize because he just frowns and leans forward to stare more closely at his laptop. He makes a good show of reading something, gaze skipping across the screen, before he sighs and buries his face in his hands. Careful of his stitches, though.

    "Unless either of you are going to help me reprogram the nanomachines that keep killing my friend, leave me alone. I have work to do."

Damian Wayne has posed:
    "Lonnie, we're unwitting kindred spirits now. He's so stubborn he doesn't know how to get out of his own way," the teen says to Lonnie.

    Now, does Damian particularly care about the fate of Tim's friend? I think we all know he isn't going to lose any sleep over it. But he *does* think he knows everything and that's enough to get him off of his stool to walk around the kitchen island and stand behind Tim's shoulder with his arms crossed over his chest in an imperious posture.

    "You have nanomachines?" he asks, with an actual edge of curiosity and excitement in his voice. The kid's a nerd for toys and gadgets, and if said toys and gadgets are cool enough he will unknowingly drop his sarcastic, disdainful aura. "What're you tryin' to get them to do?"

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Lonnie continues to swipe through the information, taking it in at a high rate of speed. "We had this argument before, Tim. While I'm glad you're doing everything in your power to help your friend, you need to stop torturing yourself." He furrows his brow. "So stoppit!" If Tim protests he cuts him off with a "Stoppit" and then another "Stoppit," and a long stare followed by a "...Stoppit."
    "...Robotics isn't my forte," He says finally, "But I DO know a lot about computers. If you can't attack the machines themselves... introduce new data that changes the way they work."
    He flicks his gaze up at Damian and then says, simply, "You're right. He doesn't know how to get out of anybody *else's* way either, which is why he threw me in jail so many times. It's also one of the things I like about him."

Tim Drake has posed:
    "I'm not torturing my--."

    "I just need to--."

    "Lonnie!"

    Eventually Lonnie does get the last word, and Tim returns his focus to the laptop screen, mouth pressed into a thin line. He drops the half-thawed ice pack onto the counter.

    And naturally, Alfred steps in just then to swap it out for a fresh one. "You'll regret it tomorrow if you don't keep icing that injury down," he says, reproachfully. Tim puts the new ice pack back into place with a stiff nod.

    He has to tip his head to one side to keep it there, but then he leans forward to pull up a series of images taken from a microscope. It's a blood sample, and while the nanomachines themselves are too small to be visible in any detail, their proliferation throughout the sample is highlighted.

    "I don't, but a friend does. Evil Lab #382 injected her and her sisters with it; they deaden pain receptors, but some sort of upgrade encoded a failsafe that triggers them to shut down the host system. My friend has an X-gene healing factor, it's the only thing stopping her from staying dead."

    As he talks, he brings up another set of pictures. None of them are labelled with names, but still it's clear this comes from a different person. "One of her sisters has the previous version. No failsafe. I just have to figure out how to re-encode the nanomachines to downgrade them."

    Yes, he's ignoring the rest of the conversation. Tunnel vision or embarrassment, take your pick.

Damian Wayne has posed:
    With a disdainful smirk, Damian returns back around the counter to his seat. Much of the sweat on his workout clothes is starting to dry. He opens up the third bottle of water.

    "You're going all about it wrong, as usual. Just program the nanomachines recognize their own kind as a foe, and they'll do your work for you."

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    "But if the person who designed their original programming had any sense at all, they've already got an IFF program in place to prevent that from happening. Though... every strength is also a vulnerability. If you hacked that coding you *could* turn them against one another."
    Lonnie rubs his chin and then says, "But to do that you'd need the original programming code. Right?"

Tim Drake has posed:
    As Tim rolls his eyes, he leans back and adjusts where the ice pack rests against his neck. "That was the first thing I tried. Too many failsafes; the code figures out that it's been compromised long before we're able to overcome the natural reproduction rate in my friend's system."

    He casts a sidelong look at Lonnie, and then his frown deepens even further as he stares at the blood scans.

    "Yeah. Which I don't have, not in full. The lab self-destructed before I could try to pull the entire file."

Damian Wayne has posed:
    Already starting to get bored and fidgety, Damian tosses the two remaining empty bottles into the recycle bin. Nothing but net.

    "Can't you remove one from your friend and see if the Bat computer can decompile the code executables inside the thing?" he asks. Then he grabs a bottle cap that he forgot to re-cap on one of the bottles. He lines up a shot toward the microwave and finger flicks the bottle cap. It hits the microwave and ricochets to thwap against the side of Lonnie's head. A bored Damian is no good for anyone.

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    "...Then talk to someone who could finish it. You mentioned your friend was a mutant. I seem to remember a couple of mutants in the Hacktivist community. I could probably do it myself with a little bit of time, and -" The bottle hits him in the side of the head and he says, "Really cute, short stack." He walks over and puts a hand on Tim's shoulder.
    "You do realize that agonizing about this - denying yourself food and rest, is only gonna *inhibit* your ability to solve the problem, right? How long've you gone without sleep? The Butler said it's been a day so I'm assuming at least a day and a half."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim is wise enough to Damian's ways that, while he doesn't know precisely what Damian is going to do, he isn't exactly surprised to see a bottle cap go pinging off the side of Lonnie's skull.

    Still, it does earn a quick snort from him. Even if he's shaking his head at the same time.

    Which, mistake, ow.

    "I've run it through the Batcave's systems and the Roost's. Even with that, I don't have the whole thing. The gaps in the code are--."

    He pauses when Lonnie touches his shoulder, and then Tim sighs. "I can't sleep right now anyway. When I started up the servers in the lab to pull the data, it sent out a signal that triggered the nanomachines. Her heart stopped beating and it was my fault."

    But he does close his laptop, and stand up. "I'll send you what I have of the code. Maybe between you and Babs, we can piece together what's missing."

    Given that he starts gathering his things up, Tim's probably about to run away. To find somewhere else to keep working, of course. "If we find another lab to raid, though, I wouldn't mind some backup." He glances between Damian and Lonnie for a moment before he pushes his stool back under the counter and turns to leave.

Damian Wayne has posed:
    Damian can't help but grin a bit when he bullseyes that bottle cap. Some things just really make him happy.

    "Fine," the teen says, also standing up from the stool. "If you find the lab, you can wait in the car and do social media. I'll handle the combat." It's clear that he's definitely not going to cut Tim any social slack, but he'll go crack skulls with him when shit's on the line.

    Damian heads for one of the other exits from the kitchen. As he passes through the doorway he comments, "Lonnie, you should go with him. Perhaps some gorilla-brain carnal release will get his mind off of things."

Lonnie Machin has posed:
    Lonnie gives Damian a look. "...Right."
    He glances back over at Tim and says, "Can't or won't? Remember that more than 24 hours without sleep and it's like successively consuming alcoholic drinks. You tell yourself you can still function, but you're slipping more and more off of your peak. For such an empirical guy you really do deny basic science when you're in the mood to be stubborn."
    "I have volunteer work at the shelter downtown tonight, actually. But I'll swing by when I'm done. Just text me where you're at, Tim."

Tim Drake has posed:
    Tim Drake, exit stage left. Though he's clearly not that far away, because at Damian's parting shot to Lonnie, Tim's exasperated, "Oh my god!" can certainly still be heard.

    And then, a couple of seconds later some sort of distant shout that probably was an agreement about the whole text thing, though he's too far away to be understood clearly.

    At the stove, Alfred sighs. "I'd request indoor voices if I thought it would do any good at all, really."