14441/Reign of Terror: Roadtrip to T. O. Morrow

Reign of Terror: Roadtrip to T. O. Morrow
Date of Scene:	17 March 2023
Location:	Belle Reve Prison, Louisiana - Interrogation Room Alpha
Synopsis:	Doug and Berto speak to TO Morrow about Sentinels. Hilarity ensues.
Cast of Characters:	Roberto da Costa, Douglas Ramsey

---

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto da Costa gave his friend Doug a call, kind of mysterious but Berto was well known for a penchant to the dramatic. Come down to Louisiana with me, I want you to talk with someone, then we'll get some gumbo. I've got Nick's permission, it'll be quick in and out." He picked you up in one of Shield's SST, his sleek red roadster already tied down in the cargo bay and it took less than an hour to get to the small airstrip near Belle Reve almost as long as the drive. Yes, you could have take a helicopter but you know Berto will never pass up the opportunity to drive of new roads.

    He handed you folder on the person you were going to talk to when you got on the Super-sonic transport. Thomas Oscar Morrow, one of the world's premier experts on robotics, and one who had never been involved in the Sentinel development. A genius super-villain, who may have insight to the Sentinel construction and what they are being used for today. Why has HYDRA unearthed them only to scare Mutants and aliens? Or is it more? Anyway, Berto and Doug arrive at the imposing prison, and park in the small lot for visitors. The prison administrator, one Amanda Waller, meets them at the intake desk, "I do not like this, I cannot refuse Col. Fury's request but this is unnecessary and dangerous, the man is a known psychopath who has confounded our best and brightest, what do you bring to the table? You didn't even send a telepath?" Berto drops his sunglasses and gives her a bright smile, "My man Doug is better than a telepath, Ms. Waller. Right Doug?"

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
    Doug has dressed up neatly for the events - he looks like a nerd. Sweater vest, glasses he doesn't need, immaculately combed hair - ok that's just his normal hair - slacks and brogues. He clears his throat. "I've got some expertise in advanced interrogation techniques, ma'am. I'll get what we need out of Doctor Morrow, and I promise you it'll be a non-invasive interrogation." He is, perhaps, not comfortable revealing the full extent of his mutant powers to a woman who might just decide that he's too valuable not to have for herself - or that he's too valuable to let someone else have him. Doug doesn't fancy trying to survive being hunted down by Task Force X.
    He gestures. "Anyway, Mr. da Costa has bribed me with oysters rockefeller at Royal House, so..."

Doug seems to be unfazed by the prison, but really he's withdrawing into himself, shutting out this place and the grim data he's picking up off of it. He'll have nightmares off and on for weeks, but he'll deal with it. "It's funny, Ms. Waller. This place is a cage for some of the most dangerous criminals in the world-"

"...But all of them are *terrified* of you."

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto da Costa nods, he himself is dressed in an immaculate black suit, black dress shirt, yellow tie. He takes off his sunglasses and places them in his breast pocket with a nod, "See, we will be in and out of your hair in no time. Props on the haircare regimen by the way, maintaining that fro in this humidity cannot be easy." He focuses his charm on the director with seemingly little affect. He still wears the easy smile and exudes his charm he doesn't even seem intimidated by her but you know Berto well enough to see the edges of hesitation no one else would pick up on.

    Her response is frosty, "I want to know what you find out."
    Roberto responds, "I'll submit my report to Nicholas and he will pass on the results back to you." The smile never falters but the silence grows until there is an imperceptible nod and the two-some is led to the interrogation room where Doc Morrow awaits, "Hello Doctor Morrow, my name is Roberto DaCosta and this is my colleague Douglas Ramsey, we wanted to talk with about Sentinels.

    The Roboticist scoffs, "Sentinels?! Please those relics? They aren't even worth my time! Trask was an idiot thinking that aliens could be contained with base level quantum computing! By anything that was so obvious! The key to the endeavor is androids. He even stole elements of Ino's Amazo android primitive as it was and still could not make it work." He scoffs grandiously

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
    Doug sits down and then laces his hands together. "Right. But, Doctor Morrow, you HAVE to concede that even something as crude and simplistic as a Sentinel can be incredibly dangerous in the hands of an idiot."
    He immediately assesses - the man has nothing but disdain for the intelligence of anyone that isn't him. He's also highly susceptible to flattery. Combine those two, and encourage him to attack others while at the same time flattering his own intelligence. He plays to that. "Like... a particularly stupid child playing with an atomic weapon."
    He maintains an even expression, though in the back of his mind something nags at him - there's something not right about this. Something's off...
    "In fact one might say that the continuing attempts to build and field Sentinels is a sort of direct insult to the genius of a roboticist like yourself... so why shouldn't you make an example out of them?" He's fishing a bit, but there's a non-zero chance that a narcissist like Morrow will find that sort of appeal to his vanity entirely logical.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto da Costa smiles and lays out the holo display of the sentinel's remains while Doug's speak, his eyes shifting to the other's man taking in his tone, letting Doug take that good cop role, while he plays a particular brand of bad cop, "I don't know Doug. I know you tell me what that he's the premier roboticist but I'm not even sure he know about these sentinels, the remote power sources are just too much."

    Ivo eats up the praise and nods, "You make a good point, Mr. Ramsey. Though with me safely ensconced behind the walls of Belle Reve, I have little to worry about from even a toddler with a nuclear device." There's that oddity again, a slight hesitation at the idea of being safely ensconced. He sighs, "The longer I talk with you the less time in my cell at least. Show me what you have and I can tell you if it's worth my time. Remote power source? How pedantic, this technology is quite advanced, far beyond the likes of Trask or even Ivo, Sivana possible but even he would not have integrated the technology into robotics so smoothly... this is someone new. I need to see this in person, I won't suffer upstarts."

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
    "I've heard some interesting things coming out of Stark and LexCorp but both of those companies are more interested in human-operated devices than autonomous drones." He puts his hand on his chin as he notes that hesitation. "You know, Beto? I'm really looking forward to those oysters. It's one of my favorite dishes."
    "What about you, Doctor? What's your favorite dish? I bet you can only DREAM of it here in Belle Reve." He gestures to Beto, and then says, "...I think we can show him some of what we have. Do you know what the core function of Sentinels is, Doctor? Terror. They're a terror weapon, made to inflict and propagate suffering. See, that's the problem - Bolivar Trask isn't a transcendant genius, like you - he's merely an intelligent sadist, looking for a group he can get carte blanche to inflict unlimited pain on. Mutants, extraterrestrials, he doesn't care which. I won't waste time appealing to your morality, but a man like that debases your art and drags the perfect science of what you do through the mud."

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto da Costa nods slowly, "Royal House does make the best in the world, the smell alone brings me back to the first time I tried them."

    Morrow sneers, "Stark... Luthor, first rate minds but they have no poetry, hardly a soul between them!" The gaffe if more pronounced this time especially embedded in the midst of a passionate rant, a sudden slackening of the features as the processor shifts from linear processing to semantic processing, the slightest adjustment as the two areas of thought try to merge into a coherent narrative. Fuh-Favorite dish? Dream?" his nose twitches wildly as Berto mentions the inherently human connection between smell and memory. Morrow blnks absently almost like he's being reset before resuming as if the questions were never asked, "Yes! Show me what this fool Trask has been accused of, it isn't him, he is not even like Luthor or Stark, a tiny man with tiny grasp. You under stand Mr. Ramsey the nature of my art, the nature of the great game Morrow plays. The perfect science he embraces and displays, I will not let them drag me, drag my science through the mud, yes, show me."

     Berto raises his eyebrows as Morrow gets more agitated, sitting forward, he gives Doug a sidelong glance, "If you your sure, Dougy... " He taps a button and one of the walls raises to reveal a large glass pane and behind that pane are the remains of the sentinel and the satelite.

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
    Doug gestures. "So." He says, "I won't condescend to tell you what you're looking at, doctor. What we will do is answer any questions YOU have for US." He glances back at Beto and his eyebrows briefly flick up. It's a brief flash of expression that intimates that something isn't right.
    "I guess food's just a distraction for a genius. Nothing more than energy for the body and brain, a regrettable necessity." He shrugs. "It's just like I told you Bobby - for men like us, there's only boring and fun, not right or wrong." That's a tagline from Hackers, and he deliberately screwed up the word order. Doug would never, ever get that wrong. Not in a million years. It's another test.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Morrow rises and walks over to the window, plastering himself against it studying the room's contents with the sort of single minded intensity reserved for geniuses and robots. "Yes, yes, food for the machine, knowledge feeds the brain, "This -this was not made by human hands, it is not of this world." Roberto frowns at the misphrasing glancing from Doug to Morrow as he leans back in his chair, standing, "Not of this world? Then who? Come on Professor, you expect me to believe you don't have an eye on up and coming talent?"

    Morrow twitches at the misphrasing, "Smug child, you think you are fit to count yourself at Morrow's level? You are not even fit to stand at the level of his shadow! And his shadow must get word of what has transpired. Doug and Roberto watch as the Morrow impostor sloughs off its human skin revealing the android underneath.

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
    "I knew it. Waller, I know you're listening in on every word. Kill the Wi-Fi. NOW!"
    Doug gets up, and then he shrugs, once. "Maybe I can't operate at the level of T.O. Morrow. But - and as a dedicated heel, the real Doctor Morrow would understand this in a way that you can't- I can cheat."
    Then he speaks... and it's NONSENSE. Or it seems like nonsense, a mishmash of sounds that almost sound like words but don't - except that it's the audio expression of computer code. He speaks malware into existence, attacking the robot's sophisticated auditory data inputs with it.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
Roberto da Costa's form darkens to the vanta black obsidian we all know and love and he closes with the android, driving a fist into it's side. The android is made of organix composites not nearly as strong or versatile as steal but Morrow's genius enbales it to still stand up to Berto's initial attack and counter. The android is designed mainly for obfucation and stealth to fool even Belle Reve and Waller the Justice League when they came to check you can imagine how advanced it is in those arenas, but that means that it's offensive capabilities are basic, but still it is a morrow class android the likes of which betters anything the Danger Room could construct. (Okay maybe not Danger herself but you get where I'm going.) It is caught entirely off guard as Doug speaks malware into being, corrupting it's networking abilities, altering its core programming, attacking it's very ebing, until the construct can only shut down its audio sensors leaving it deaf but immune to the onslaught.
    Berto exchanges blows with the stealth droid, attacking and countering, giving as good as he gets, avoiding the driect blows, when the unit goes death he calls, "What's it's next play, Doug?"

Douglas Ramsey has posed:
    "It's turned off its hearing which means it won't hear reinforcements coming when Waller sends someone in with the firepower to scrap this thing!" Doug says, as he dives for cover. "Which, if she's as punctual as I got off her and as pissed off as I expect she is that Morrow put one over on her, should be coming in three, two, one...!" He covers his ears and closes his eyes.

Roberto da Costa has posed:
The android shatters the window trying to make its escape but it's too late as Waller's security force storms the room, the emp bolts scramble the androids circuits but can't interrupt its last command as the robot triggers it's self destruct. Only Berto's quick thinking wrapping his solar field around them both and pulling the thermal energy from the explosion saves the rooms denizens from immolation. As the robot itself collapses to ashes.

    Waller strides into the chaos, "What he /Hell/ have you done with my prisoner!"