212/My Special Robot Pal

My Special Robot Pal
Date of Scene:	01 March 2020
Location:	Stark Tower: Workshop
Synopsis:	Caitlin and Tony discuss robots and AI design. Is Caitlin offered a job? Or is she being told to stay in her lane?
Cast of Characters:	Caitlin Fairchild, Tony Stark

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Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin whistles energetically at the drone hovering on the other side of the lab. She beckons. Croons. Cajoles. It hovers back and forth uncertainly as if not sure how to respond to her summons, then abruptly turns and flies into a clear wall. Caitlin's head hangs in exasperated despair as the pitiful little bot emits a warbling chirrup and goes still.

"Test #43," she remarks into a voice recorder. It's late night at Stark Industries; she's the only one working in that lab section, and the floor's largely empty save for a few other researchers in other areas working late.

"Autonomous design still failing to respond to verbal cues and commands." Wearing a knee-length teal skirt and a grey blouse under a lab coat, she shuffles over in her sensible slipper shoes and picks it up off the ground. The subtly blue-tinted spectacles she wears reflect the damaged unit.

"Criminey. That's another rotor shot," she says remorsefully, and flicks a gyro blade with a fingernail. "I've got to make these more durable. Every time it hits the wall it crumples like paper."

She lifts her head. "JARVIS?" she requests, politely. Caitlin's always polite to JARVIS. "Can you tell me how much it'll add to operations cost to switch to those microimpellers from Wayne Industries?"

"<Certainly, Dr. Fairchild,>" JARVIS says in his cool voice. "<It will add a cost of one thousand, seven hundred dollars for the prototype and two hundred and ten dollars to the retail cost. You are approaching the maximum spending cap allocated by marketing.>"

Caitlin sighs heavily. It's a lot of shoulders moving under that lab coat. "Great. Okay. Well... let's get started on #44, then," she sighs, wearily, and moves to clamp the drone frame up to salvage what she can from the small thing.

Tony Stark has posed:
"JARVIS?" Tony calls from the staircase that leads up to the workshop's top floor and through to his personal apartment, "Who let you in? Caitlin, what'd I tell you about inviting strange AIs into my home? I bet he's going through all my files. Aren't you?"

<Not at all, sir,> JARVIS responds serenely, <I am allowing HOMER time to recalibrate his neural processing core and assisting Doctor Fairchild with her tests.>

Tony nevertheless gives the general air around him a playfully suspicious look, planting both hands on the railing of the staircase and swinging himself into the air to jump down the last few rather than walk like a normal person. He's dressed in a white 'Stark 2020' t-shirt threw which the glowing circle of his chest implant can be seen. A pair of loose, grey sweats make up the bottom and he's wearing no shoes. His hair looks to be a mess, and it's very possible he was asleep.

"Who's this?" he asks, gesturing to the crumpled drone in Caitlin's hands, "Are you trying to give JARVIS a body? Don't do that. There's something less magnificent about an omnipresent AI when he's buzzing around knocking books off the high shelf like an indignant cat."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin straightens up smartly when Tony comes in. "O-oh! Sorry boss," she says, apologetically, and interlaces her index fingers in front of her thighs to keep from twiddling them nervously. "I sent my lab team home early," she explains. "Everyone was tired and grouchy and Kit and Melissa kept sniping at eah other. I think they just needed a day off," she explains. "But we're working on that solicitation-- the Navy contract?" she reminds him. "DARPA wants a working prototype in six months. The autonomous drone. I'm trying to minaturize it," she says, and brings over a large magnifying hood to make the precision work easier. "So I figured I'd stay late and see if I can make any progress on it. JARVIS is keeping me company," she smiles.

"It's too small for him, though. The drone," she clarifies, and opens the hood on the little device. "I pulled neural patterns from a dog brain and imprinted them in synthesized neuragel. I'm ..." She tugs on her hair in frustration, pulling the ponytail through both hands while grimacing. Nervous tic. "I'm still not quite sure if it's working or not. It's very stupid and keeps running into things."

Tony Stark has posed:
Tony wanders through the lab like he owns the place, which makes sense given that he does. He picks up something one of Caitlin's staff had been working on, turning it over in his hands with detached curiosity before putting it back somewhere other than where he found it. When he tires of roaming, he plants both hands on the workbench nearest Caitlin and slings himself up to sit on its edge. Both his feet dangle over the illuminated tiles, and he makes 'gimme' hand gestures towards the broken drone.

"Have you met a cat or a dog?" he asks, glancing momentarily up towards the redheaded bombshell, "They're pretty stupid. If we had one when I was a kid instead of longwinded stories about how great Captain America was - is - and day drinking, this is where I'd insert the story about how my dog chased its tail for hours. Or something. Gimme."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin hands over the palm-sized drone readily enough. "I think that's part of the problem I'm having," she agrees, and drifts over to the opposite workbench to rest her hips against it. With her legs out in front of her and palms partially supporting her weight, it's at least enough to offset the height difference between her and Tony. "The neural patterns are there but the brain scans are conglomerated."

Caitlin taps her bracelet to project a mini-keyboard, and flings an image up on the monitor. "See, the primary activity in the dog brain occurs in the cerebellum," she says, gesturing with her fingers. "But learning is integrated into the cerebrum. I'm trying to do a one-to-one imprint of existing neural channels to simulate the way the brain is structured. Nothing new there, LMDs use similar designs," she explains, glancing at Tony. "But they're basically still computers, right? We use those brain channels for processing, not bit storage. I want it to do both. So far--" she gestures, grimacing.

"We solved the flex issue in the chassis but the wings are still extremely fragile. Amanda's been hitting her brain against the wall for a month with no luck. It's... I mean, we'll make the deadline," she says hastily. It occurs to her, apparently, that her attitude is dangerously defeatist. "We've got time. We'll get it to work, I promise."

Tony Stark has posed:
Once Tony has the drone, he enters his own little world. He may be listening, but there's not a great deal about how he acts to suggest it. He turns the machine over in his hands, careful not to damage it further even if at times he looks as though he's being careless with it. He turns it over, examining the underside and then gently moving the wings. He sucks on his lower lip as he does, eyes fixated on the device. Then, after a few moments of this, he hands it back over to Caitlin and leans back on the workshop table with both hands flat behind him.

"I hope so," he says finally, gesturing towards the little drone, "The Director was pretty excited about your idea and I spent that whole weekend singing your praises up and down the Augusta National. I don't think he envisioned it crashing into walls."

He doesn't offer a great deal in the way of technical help. That's never been his style. The scientists of Stark Industries would never get far if he was there to prop them up when they were flagging, even if Caitlin never was the type of scientist to flag.

"You need a budget booster shot? Give yourself a little room to breathe?"

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin grimaces. "I want to say 'yes', but I'm not doing an end-run on marketing just because I'm having a fit of the dumbs," she exhales. "Me running to you for help is just going to make Mindy Moynahan even meaner to me, and she already doesn't like me. I don't want to make a habit of telling the accountants that their asking for the impossible. I'll figure it out," she repeats. She seems to be saying it as much to herself as for Tony's benefit.

"We've got some fallback designs, though!" Caitlin sits up again and fiddles with her bracelet. "They're provable concepts that'll hit most of the solicitation benchmarks. I'm not gambling on LexCorps screwing up, but we can at least show up without empty hands."

Images flicker across the screen as she goes through a few different concept sketches at various degrees of completion. Several images later, they're no longer drones, but a random assortment of plans and ideas. "Oh, whoops, those are in the wrong file. Sorry, lemme navigate back..." She frets her lip and fusses with the bracelet more. Concept designs go across the screen fairly quickly: an AI neural network, a particle emitter, what looks like deep-space telemetry gear, a HUD in a contact lens, touchless interface devices... nothing that Stark Industries is currently working on, which means they're likely her own designs.

Tony Stark has posed:
"Mm-mm," Tony murmurs, closing his eyes and raising both hands towards Caitlin as she shakes his head, "No Lex-talk. I've seen enough of that shiny asshole's face plastered all over my TV for two lifetimes. Can you imagine announcing you're running for president in Metropolis and in the same breath dunking on Superman? Superman! In Metropolis! That's like running for pope and saying Jesus is fine but you think Buddha had better ideas."

"Hey," Tony says, looking up at the flickering imagery of designs projected before them, "Go back. The first one."

He waits for the screen, should Caitlin indulge him, to shift back to the AI design concept. He leans forward on the table, resting his weight on one arm as he examines it critically. He lifts a finger, trailing it through the air as though plotting out the schematics on a whiteboard only he can see.

"I think you've got something here. Or at least the beginnings of something."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin winces a bit at Tony's colorful language but mostly keeps it to herself. "You don't *run* for pope, Mr. Stark, you get elected. I mean, in theory. God's supposed to do the choosing." She subtly makes a crossing motion with her thumb near her sternum at the use of the Lord's name, though seems mostly unaware she's doing it.

All the same she's whipping through the images and stops, goes back, and looks at it.

"Oh, this? This was just some doodles," Caitlin tells Tony, shifting. "On my lunch break, I promise," she adds, quickly. "JARVIS gave me a peek at his neural network and I got thinking about how his network array has become kind of organic itself. It's huge," she amends, "but it's got a proportional amount of intelligence to a canid. No offense, JARVIS," she adds, quickly. "You've got much better processing power."

"<No offense taken, Dr. Fairchild,>" Jarvis comments.

"But I couldn't make this work on the drone project." Her chin uplifts at the image. "This assumes I could encode synapses for both pathway and bit storage. I ... we made some real progress with it when I was with NOWHERE," she admits, shifting on her feet. It's not a comfortable topic for her. "But the project was abandoned after all the nastiness happened. It'd cost milliosn to develop anyway, I'm sure, and months of work," she says, trying to dismiss the concept. "Someone in R&D has probably already figured out it can't be done, I'm sure."

Tony Stark has posed:
"Look at you," Tony says with a grin, leaning away from Caitlin and giving her an impressed look as though seeing her for the first time, "Looking up an AI's skirt. The Stark Method lives on in the next generation."

Despite that, Tony regards the concept design with a look of genuine interest. The sort of look that is rare to come by in Stark, who tours the labs and workshops occasionally but very rarely looks anything more than late for after-work drinks. He shakes his head, pivoting back to Caitlin.

"Don't make assumptions like that. You're not going to have a flying JARVIS, but you can definitely fit the building blocks in there. Talk to him. Let him help you identify the critical nodes and bring those across. All the rest is dead weight. Clutter. No offense, JARVIS."

<Still none taken, sir.>

"Try that, huh? The plus side is JARVIS doesn't have a salary so you can talk to him for hours and hours. Believe me, that's most of what I did back in Malibu."

<Happy memories, sir.>

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin turns *violently* pink in the ears at Stark's lewd jest. "T-that's just mean, Mister Stark," she says, torn between amusement and mortification. "I'd never do such a thing. And JARVIS said it was OK!" she adds, quickly. "But I wouldn't do it any-- oh *darnit*," she says, and stamps a foot as she realizes Tony's having fun with her. Tables rattle nearby. She can't help the embarassed smile she turns away to hide, at least until the blood settles out of her ears again.

"Um." She coughs. "Um. Anyway. Yes. No, I-- I mean, OK, in *theory*, I could," she allows, tentatively. "I could scale down JARVIS to... oh..." she thubbbbts her lips. "I'unno. A suitcase?" she suggests. Hands illustrate an invisible box in front of her. "But it'd be JARVIS himself. You know?"

She tugs her ponytail again. "I mean you're running a simulacrum of JARVIS in your armor. I assume. Otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation. It's a distributed neural network through the satellite system when he's not around here." She waves a hand vaguely about.

"If--" She frets her lip in consternation, eyes flickering back and forth as if visualizing designs in her head. "No." She shakes her head, finally. "It's crazy. The technology-- I mean, okay, Vision, right?" she says. "And Ultron. They're why we have LMDs and proto-sentient AIs at all. That's what happens when you force a chemical computer to do binary logic."

She casts around, grabs a pen, and starts drawing synapse relays on the whiteboard. "It's a brute force attack on the problem. And, it only worked twice," she reminds Tony.

"Chemical computers-- like a brain-- can support fuzzy logic. A neuragel encoding laser would let me make the *paths* and also set default states, or drawing on standard logic gates in an adjacent CPU. See?" she says, drawing some complex switches.

Realizing she's getting a bit over-effusive, Caitlin checks her babbling with an audible clicking of her teeth and fusses with recapping the ink pen. "Sorry. I got ahead of myself. But like I said, even if I was totally sure it'd work-- it's waaay outside the scale of this project. Like, a factor of ten over what I'm allocated *just* to design it. I was hoping I'd get lucky with the neuragel. We'll just fall back to binary logic and hope the software teams can figure something out." She shrugs self-effacingly again.

"I mean, unless someone in Skunkworks has a neural encoding laser, and no one's told me about it," she says, hopefully. "That'd simplify things."

Tony Stark has posed:
"HOMER's the one who gets the privilege of the ride-along now," Tony offers, a broad grin splitting his face as he gets just the reaction out of Caitlin that he'd hoped for, "JARVIS was splitting his attention between here and the Mansion and it just got to the point that I wanted to divvy up the workload a little bit. Try something new. So, HOMER handles the personal side - keeps the schedule, runs ops on the armor. He even helped design the latest. You should meet him sometime. When he's not, you know, recalibrating."

As Caitlin theorises, he sits back and watches. There's still no pitching in. He tilts his head to look towards the design as Caitlin sketches, puffing out his cheeks and letting out an airy sigh.

"It mightn't be what you're looking for here," he says, pointing towards the crumpled drone as he slips down off the workbench, "But it's an idea all the same. I'm not paying you to sit here and solely focus on whatever DOD boondoggle gets shoved under your nose. You're a creative. I want you here because you think these things up for fun."

He begins to pad in the direction of the stairs, reaching up a hand to lazily scratch at the back of his head as he goes.

"I'm gonna sleep," he tells her, "Don't stay at it too long. The lab backs onto my bedroom and I don't want anybody getting the wrong idea."

As he reaches the stairs he leans on the rail, turning at the hips to look towards Caitlin critically for a moment when she's otherwise occupied. After a moment he shakes his head and heads on up the stairs.

"Knock it out of the park, Fairchild."

Caitlin Fairchild has posed:
Caitlin pinks again and sticks her tongue out at Tony's back when he makes the offhand comment about his bedroom adjacency. The final words seem to confuse her and she absently rubs the back of her neck, then looks at the downed robot, then up at the ceiling.

"I literally have no idea what he wants me to do," she tells JARVIS, since... well, he's the only one around to talk to. She lands heavily on a stool, which creaks protest, and fiddles with the tail rotor of the drone. A fingertip flicks it into a buzzing motion.

"<I'm afraid I cannot speculate, ma'am,>" JARVIS apologizes. "<Mister Stark's actions often baffle me.>"

"Okay, so... " She frets her cheek and gestures vaguely upstairs at the next floor up-- R&D. 'Prototype and Design', officially. Unofficially, 'The Skunkworks'. "Do I just like... go knock on Dr. Tanaka's door and say 'hey, I've got this wild idea for a project, so transfer me up here and give me fifty million dollars to test it'?" The very idea provokes a snort. "Meanwhile, Hurlburt's acting like this DoD bid is going to torpedo my career if I don't figure something out. Once the remodel's done, I'm back on the main campus anyway. I *hate* deadlines," Caitlin mutters. She looks up. "I'm gonna miss having you to talk to, though. It's nice having some company in a lab at night."

"<I'm afraid I cannot speculate on Director Hurlburt's intentions either, Dr. Fairchild,>" JARVIS apologizes. "<But if it's any consolation, I have enjoyed working with you too, doctor. Mister Stark seems excited about your ideas. You should find that encouraging.>" A pause. "<But perhaps, as they say, 'don't quit your day job'?"

"Yeah. Yeah, okay," Caitlin agrees. She gets to her feet and starts putting things away. Once done, she trades her lab coat for a jacket, and puts a purse on her shoulder. "I'm gonna get some sleep. G'nite JARVIS."

"<Goodnight, miss.>" Ever polite, the AI.