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simmons aspect pepper_potts corvinus _2015 _May
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May 31, 2015:
Corvinus is returned to Stark Industries
Stark Industries
Characters
NPCs: None.
Mentions:
Plot:
A Dark Hold
Apocalypse: Only the Strong
Blood versus Family
Bones Of The City
Breaking the Universe
Cyberdata War: First Strike
Dangerous Esterikos Wonderous Mystikos
Dark Gods & Times
De Oppresso Liber
Demon Lord of New York
Diaz de Muertos
Don't Tell Thanos The Babysitter's Dead
Empire of Tears
Escape from Sakaar
From the Ashes
Gateway to the Stars
Genosha: Rebirth
God Of The Dead
Hacker, Sass-Mastah, Engineer, Spy
Himmel und Hölle in Bewegung Setzen
Mood Music: None.
Fade In…
The ancient avianoid entity known as The Corvinus is broken. Not necessarily in spirit, nor in body, but something is seriously wrong with the functioning parameters of the philosophical construct. From all appearances, it appears as if something has caused the portly fellow's psyche to swap to the Buddha Bird, but the Corvinus has not been seen or heard from in some time. Given that these discoveries were made by the ad hoc investigative committee of The Cavalry, Jericho Trent, and Jemma Simmons at a location that would just LOVE to take the poor befuddled Stark Industries associate apart, the decision was made to quickly evacuate him to a much more amenable and secure position.
An email was sent, along with a text to Pepper Potts, Jim's employer, though the details were left intentionally vague for security reasons — Jim had a definite concern of going from 'the frying pan' into 'the fire' if a certain Mr. Stark got to him before Pepper had a chance to negotiate that scenario. Not that Mr. Stark isn't a cool person but… the strangeness that Jericho had seen on a cursory examination would bring out the true scientist - engineer — and that concept is downright terrifying.
Some time has passed in flight via Quinjet from the secure location towards Stark Industries, and the avianoid has been passing the time by quizzing the folks present on current events he's missed in the past month or so.
Anything to keep him present, focused in the now, and not drifting off into the very intimidating sea of data that Jim's mind found itself adrift in…
Meanwhile, the compact transport craft is coming in on approach to Stark Industries, under the expert guidance of one of the world's best pilots.
Simmons has been chatting with Avianoid, she's developed what she thinks is a reasonable rapport. As the Quinjet touches down on the landing pad, Simmons waits for the all clear from May before unbuckling her belt and assisting Corvinus. "Now, Mr Reha, Miss Potts should be waiting and I'm sure she's arranged things so that we can get you inside."
It's a little unusual for Jemma to be doing these types of things, normally she has to wait for everyone else to disembark.
Pepper Potts has indeed arranged to make Jim/Corvinus' transfer as seamless and low-key as possible. She's waiting for them just off of the landing pad, and as soon as they're off the jet she's gesturing them toward a freight elevator with the doors open and waiting. Presumably, she's got JARVIS holding the elevator open. "Corvinus, welcome home. I'm sorry if the elevator is a bit cramped, but it's the only one that opens to the roof."
Jericho is at the back of the ramp. He's not here at Stark Tower often but when he is it's usually for something fairly important. Like, oh, Jim trapped in a Bird Body. It's serious, otherwise he'd be laughing. "I think you may find that it's opposite day, Pepper." He murmurs quietly.
The avianoid makes his way along using the assistance of Jemma and Jericho to the freight elevator in question. As the bird-entity stumbles into the wating lift, both wings flare and catch the top of the frame in a horribly graceless sort of motion, followed by a grunt of pain that one might equate with stubbing one's toe on a couch or the like. The fact that the impact caused the car to shake a bit probably was not part of the plan, either.
"Hey, Pepper. Thank you. We need to talk. Not out here."
The tone… is not that of an introspective ancient birdgodthing, but more… earthy. Like someone who's a bit more human. What this presages may not be immediately indicated, but the body language, the tone, the stance… it's all wrong compared to everything that the avianoid was about before. In fact, it might even flag a few warnings for JARVIS, as the corvinoid is decidedly NOT operating within standard parameters.
He'll slouch against one side of the elevator once he's inside, and pull his wings down to hold them under his arms as best he can. That just looks painful.
And then he'll wait for everyone else to get in and for the doors to close before saying any more.
"Good day, Miss Potts. I'd say it's a pleasure but under the circumstances…. " Simmons glances with a worried look at The Corvinus. As the wings flare, Simmons stumbles a little… the shock of the action catching her off guard. Following the Corvinus into the lift, Simmons tries to give the Avianoid some room.
Pepper startles slightly when Corvinus 'stubs' his wings and stares after him. She's starting to get an inkling of what Jericho's little quip meant. "Oh, my. JARVIS, please take us to Jim's room."
"Certainly, Miss Potts. Though, I must warn you that the Corvinus construct appears to be operating at… decidedly non-normal processing levels."
She sighs and nods. "I know, JARVIS. We're going to work on it. It's okay for now."
"Of course, Miss Potts." And then the elevator starts moving somehow more gently than would seem normal.
Jericho leans against the wall, watching… mostly Jim. He's been watching mostly Jim since they started flying. And right now, well let's just say he's curious. He's not staring at the Bird, per se. It's the code. The way it's cracked and broken and… yeah. It's a hell of a thing. Kind of like looking at a train wreck.
The beak'd head peers up at the camera even as he attempts to minimize his profile as much as possible. It's not a hateful stare that he focuses on the monitor, but rather like he's trying to find some sort of anchor in the moving box.
"Thanks, JARVIS. Never thought I'd be fighting motion sickness in an elevator. Hope like hell it's just temporary. Don't worry, I don't have anything to…"
He closes his eyes a brief moment and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "We might need your help later, if Mister Stark is okay with it. I'm… apparently a mess. No. Not a kitchen or a galley or a cafe—"
The birdly-being zones out as he stops talking, Well, whatever it is he's doing, seems to be relaxing at least a slight bit, because he's forgotten about holding down his wings and they're sitting fine upon his back without taking up too much space.
It's the strangest thing, the code. Even as Jericho is watching it.. it is trying to 'heal' itself. This seems to take the form at points of horribly gross abuses of computational space and power to bridge minor gaps, sort of like sewing together a series of papercuts with inch-thick steel cables, and then welding the spots together over the duct tape and baling wire. One who can see this probably would be unnerved like seeing a train wreck, indeed.
Simmons glances up as Jarvis speaks, turns her attention to Corvinus and then to Pepper when the Avianoid zones out. Jericho's attention on Corvinus hasn't been missed, but there's only so much they can talk about until they get settled.
Soon enough, the elevator eases to as gentle stop as it started, and the doors open to let them out. Pepper steps out of the elevator and into a vacant hallway that resembles one of the guest/residential floors near the top of the building and gestures for them to exit as well. And just like before, the doors are staying open and patiently waiting.
Jericho blinks a bit. Huh. That's a hell of a thing to see. Even he's not good enough to patch code that quickly. "Jim is that you doing that or is our dormant bird patching the code. And how are you holding up?" Must be odd. Stuck in that body.
The avianoid is standing not quite stock still as he stares off into space. There are slight eye movements that are barely perceptible to the human eye, though the partial head tilts back and forth seem to indicate that perhaps he's perusing something, maybe?
In fact, it does kind of look like one of those hapless souls who gets sucked into the Internet on various searches and ends up burning six hours on doing practically nothing.
Someone may want to wake up Hi… er… the avianoid.
Oh, wait… maybe he's waking up on his own?
"Did you know that the Douglas Aircraft DC-3 was the first airplane with a planned galley for food service? Galleys on commercial airlines typically include not only facilities to serve and store food and beverages, but also contain flight attendant jumpseats, emergency equipment storage, as well as anything else flight attendants may need during the flight. Aircraft in operation today mainly use the familiar Airline service trolley system.
Airbus has developed a new galley concept called SPICE, presented 2010, which they publicise as a potential new worldwide standard with significant advantages over the current 40-year-old trolley technology. Sources: Delta Airlines Museum and Airbusdotcom."
The tone that he presents it with is as if he had made the most amazing discovery!
After another moment he notices the elevator doors open and blinks a few times as he steps out of the conveyance and into the residential hallway.
"Almost afraid to ask… how long were you waiting?"
And that patch code? It's not pretty by any stretch of the imagination. Ever see 'thereIfixedit.com'?
He shakes his head a bit as some buffered information filters back in.
"Is it me doing what? And if he's doing something I'm not seeing it? I'm… feeling a bit weird right now, okay?"
Simmons exits the lift and waits for Pepper and Corvinus to lead the way. "Not all that long, Mr Reha." she murmurs "And I imagine you are feeling a little off, right now." classic british understatement, right there.
Pepper stops at the first door they reach after disembarking from the elevator. "This room has the tallest ceilings I could get on short notice." Well, other than Tony's penthouse, but they're not going there. She has JARVIS open the door, and really hopes the doorway doesn't give JimVinus any problems. Once he's inside he should be fine.
"I think something is happening." Jericho straightens up, watching. "Jemma, Pepper be careful. I dunno if Bird Brain is going to force his way to the top and if he'll be violent." He's seen Corvinus be violent before. It's not pretty.
The birdly being winces a bit, raising his hands to cover his head some. "Sorry about that. It.." He coughs and focues a bit more. "It's sort of difficult to describe… I mean… it's like… well. Sort of like Zaphod Beeblebrox being shown the Heart of the Improbability Drive? I don't think I'm insane but having a little pin to point to where I'm at in the mental geography in comparison to how much data is in here…"
He reels a bit as he actually THINKS about that, and grabs a wall for support.
"Okay, apparently Douglas Adams is straight out right now."
He follows along then just barely clears the doorframe, thankfully.
"Thank you very much Pepper. I… I'm sorry for the email he sent back… I.. we had to go. And… I.. no we saved lives. The Ultrahumanite was going to start World War Three. But… don't ride a rocket into the upper atmosphere. In fact it's as cold as hell.. and there's no one there to —"
The avianoid makes his way to the wall and WHANGS his head against the wall.
"We've GOT to get that fixed. Three fucking tangents in less than five minutes. Pardon the language."
He places a hand over the beak, rubbing the top of it like someone more human might rub the bridge of their nose.
"I'm still alive. We can work through this. But could we avoid having cake any time soon, please?"
Simmons has been keeping her distance, sort of. "We don't have to have cake, Mr Reha" the continuing reference to cake in the Corvnius OS was noted. Looking to Pepper, Simmons waits for the woman to indicate when to proceed. "Can you be seated, Mr Reha?"
Pepper Potts nods to Simmons, giving her the go ahead to do whatever she feels is necessary. The living room area of the suite has been mostly cleared of furniture, almost all tables and anything Wings of Doom(tm) could knock over and break is gone. Instead of a sofa and coffee table, for example, most of the space in front of the TV has been covered with huge bean bags and cushions so big they could well be used for mattresses. "I wasn't sure what you'd want to eat, Jim, so I kind of guessed."
The pantry has been with easy to open storage bins, each bin filled with easy to handle snack-like foods like cookies, crackers, turkey jerky, dried fruits and vegetables, nuts, and so on. The fridge has been stocked with sealed beverage containers that should be easy to open, all of them clearly labelled with everything from milk to tea to soups and broths.
Stepping off to one side to give Jim as much room as he feels he might need, she watches with open concern, but no pity. She wants to help him get better, not lament his current predicament.
Jim makes his way over to the bed and twists and hops up onto it in a fluid motion , wings drooping down like some obsidian angel as he glances over to Simmons, while taking note of the ammenities. The bean bags caused him to chortle a bit, a rather raucous sound that sounded no less than a murder of crows going at it for a good twenty seconds.
"Sorry, was thinking of what the person you ordered them from was probably thinking." Well, at least he does have some sense of humor, right? It's not all doom and gloom!
He cracks his neck a bit as he looks around.
The mirthful tone is almost immediately replaced by a mercurial shift to a bit more of a downbeat.
"I'm terrified right now. But at the same time, something is keeping me from just flipping out entirely. I don't know if it's Corv, or if it's just the underlying hardware, or…" He pauses for a second. "I'm kind of scared of the idea of Mister Stark taking a gander at me, too. I mean, Jericho there was trying to and apparently something was snaping and biting at him. To quote Number Five… 'No disassemble'!"
God, that's a blast from the past, isn't it?
There isn't a lot Simmons can do. She'd kept Corvinus in hibernation mode until he got to this point. "We're not sure exactly how this happened, Miss Potts, but as you've worked out, Mr Reha has been trapped in the Corvinus' body and I'm assuming that the Corvinus consciousness is trapped in Mr Reha body… they've somehow switched." Jemma's been thinking on this. "Mr Reha, we haven't tried this… is it possible to make the change? Perhaps we can speak with Corvinus and see if he has something to add."
Pepper nods to Simmons, she'd gathered that much. Though, isn't that a bit like JARVIS and Dummy switching 'bodies'? She's not sure how Corvinus is goign to react to being human and squishy, though she thinks it's proof of human mental resilience that Jim's held up as long as he has in this situation.
"Cake? I think that can probably be avoided." Jericho's just glad the birdly being hasn't flipped out. "Any chance of getting to Co… actually hang on." The hacker does a rather brave thing and pokes at Corvinus' code again. Well okay, he lets Maxwell poke at Corvinus code. That way he doesn't get burned.
"I've been trying to make the switch about every 2.3 microseconds with fifty percent of the processing power since I woke up. That I can define it to that point is also very terrifying. I don't want to use any more than that because I'm afraid I might break something worse than it is already broken. But I'm afraid to go to sleep again because the last time I went to sleep I slept for two weeks but for me it was only a matter of seconds. I don't want to lose that kind of time again? But I also know that as I'm getting tired I'm losing focus and things are getting strange. D… do you think you could keep watch for me as I try to catch some normal sleep not the shut-down sleep, maybe that will do the trick? I mean, it's worth a shot? Really wish he'd left me a freaking operator's manual or something, right? Feel like freakin' Ralph Hinkley here."
And that's another blast from the past for folks watching from home. '80's nostalgia, eh?
The avianoid glances at the gathered folks hopefully.
Last time, the genle prodding was rebuffed with warning warmth. This time it's almost a virtual lash of some eldritch not-quite energy reciprocating the poking — every prod is met with a return prod of fifty percent power, and that's a burning biting harshness.
"It was worth asking." The scientific mind at work… May had given Simmons permission to do what was necessary. "I'll stay, Mr Reha. If Miss Potts says it's alright." She's concerned for the man and if she can help, she will. It's more than just a fascinating project.
Scary part is, Pepper's understood every last 80s reference. "You're of course welcome to stay, Dr. Simmons. If you need anything at all, just ask JARVIS. He'll see to it for you." She's stay as well, but she has meetings in the morning, and she needs to get some sleep herself. "Jericho, are you going to be staying also?"
Jericho shakes his head. "No, well, I'll stay for a bit. Chat and make sure everything's alright with the Bird, but I've got trouble on a couple of fronts, one of which you know of and the other of which is Limbo." So he's often out and about and taking care of things. Or getting into demonic battles. You know. Kind of how it goes.
His life is so odd sometimes.
"Ow. Okay, Maxwell that's enough." He looks over at Jim. "That… felt familiar… the bird woman. She had something that felt the same… odd."
"And I appreciate it, Dr. Simmons. Honestly. Because if I hadn't thought of it, I'd be jumping all over it right now and if it worked, I'd be in a much better headspace. I mean, if we can at least find Corv, then we're halfway to finding the solution, right?"
Okay, it probably isn't that simple, but he's at least trying to remain positive as he glances around.
"That might be the proprietary transuranic that he refuses to tell me anything about. Sorry. Though…"
He sits upright against the wall at the head of the bed and glances at folks… so…. sleepy.
There's a little bit of transposition, almost visually like a transporter from a particular science fiction show beaming one thing in and beaming one out…
After about five minutes there's a very perplexed portly human with salt and pepper hair dressed in a suit that is pricey looking covered with a nice jacket of some sort. Experts may recognize it as a custom bulletproof jacket.
"This one is concerned."
When human-bodied Corvinus appears as Jim falls asleep Pepper's only reaction is to sigh and gently lower her head into the palm of one hand.
Please set the following tags on this page:
simmons aspect pepper_potts corvinus _2015 _May
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