Preppers

May 07, 2018:

Luke pulls Six and Danny into preparations for the new Mega Bar.

Abandoned Factory

Characters

NPCs: None.

Mentions: Jessica Jones, Daredevil

Plot:

Mood Music: [*\# None.]


Fade In…

At Jessica Jones' suggestion, Luke contacted Six to arrange a meeting and get a more 'high tech' perspective on building out some secret rooms for the group in the soon to be reconstructed building in Harlem that once housed his bar. While it won't be a central meeting spot, Luke felt it important to sprinkle these types of places around the city so they're not all climbing into Alias' windows and what better than to get in on the ground floor of new construction for his contribution. Well, he and Rand's as the latter has graciously offered to bankroll it through one of his offshoots until Cage can pay him back.

The meeting spot is an abandoned paper factory on the East River, soon to be turned into fancy lofts but for the time being remains vacant. A light is on in the overseers office, which is where Luke has sprawled out copies of blue prints that he's now standing over as he speaks to the other two. "So I plan on occupying the top floor of the building with my apartment, but I thought part of it could be used for us. Pretty sure all of you can kung fu your way up there one way or another. Then I want to put a panic room type situation in the basement. Jessica said she'd talk to a buddy about putting some magical wards on shit, but going a little high tech couldn't hurt. And, well, I need all the input I can get about the rest. This is my first rodeo as far as hideouts go." His brows go up to the others, opening the floor up to suggestions.

*

Danny looks…well, a little worn-down. He's pale enough for dark circles to be readily apparent. Seems the ninja's chi is not in perfect harmony at the moment. To his credit, he stopped checking his phone when they started talking. "A panic room should be a complete cube of poured concrete with a heavy door. We could call it a vault with the contractors. Just uh…we'd have to explain why a bar needs a vault large enough for a millionaire who still keeps his money in gold bricks."

*

As the only person in the room who requires a substantial amount of equipment and an honest-to-god costume as part of her metahuman persona, it's possible Six feels out of place, standing there with her arms — one so obviously inorganic — folded, hip leaned into the table on which the blueprint sits. If so, it's impossible to tell through the perfect darkness of that glossy helmet. The front of it reflects only the precision lines of the blueprint she's looking at, the particulars long since captured and uploaded to one of the servers in her lab in Gotham.

"You're going to need to be more specific about utility. Another layer of security, or more than that? Information collection?" The helmet turns just enough to suggest a glance at Danny, and then minutely nods. "The panic room — you want it to protect us, but do you want it to also function as a holding cell if necessary?" The voice from the helmet remains very obviously synthetic, but she's obviously been refining it. The inflection to denote a question mark is vastly improved over the last six months.

*

"You mean you don't?" Luke smirks at Danny about the comment about gold bricks. "Or do you keep a swimming pool full of coins and dive into it like that cartoon duck?" He nods about the idea of it being a 'vault' though, having thus far been at a loss how to obfuscate it's purpose to contractors, other than just constantly switching out workers so that no one has the full story. His eyes go back to Six, who's presence he's no long as unsettled about. Lately he's been thrown through a goo monster, fought an actual dragon, and now mechanical women seem commonplace. "All of it. Security, some place you can work if necessary. Where Jessica can work. Something we can run an operation out of if necessary. And, you know. Fire suppression system would be a good idea." Considering.

*

Danny grins at Luke. "You know, I wanted to do that when I was a kid. He filled the tub full of tiddlywinks instead. Less fun than you'd imagine. Tiddlywinks got…places." He makes a face, then shrugs it off and ruffles his own hair.

He clears his throat and looks at the blueprints as he pretends to understand them. "There should be a generator too. Somewhere protected. Something that can run any electronic stuff that you add," he nods to Six. He's…well, she's about as far from his realm of experience, but he has this thing where he trusts someone, then trusts who they trust. Even if it's not smart. But from what he's seen, Robo-lady is all right.

*

The little electronic burble-and-chirp might be something like a robot chuckle, concerning that dry remark about fire suppression. She might have explained it to confirm either way, but then Danny says the words 'tiddlywinks got places' and the helmet turns, Danny's outline reflected back at himself for a long, long moment.

In the end she manages to stay on-topic, miraculously. "Secure equipment lockers and terminals for briefings if you want an ops center, biometric internal security, sensor arrays for external monitoring of the immediate vicinity. I don't need special accommodations." There's a pause. The voice she's created for her personal use isn't capable of expressing humor, but something in the tilt of her head does the job: "I'm wireless."

Her mechanical hand lifts, that elbow a fulcrum on the arm still folded over her middle. Complex, jointed fingers open, then close, a deeply organic gesture of consideration. "Mr. F is likely to be keeping an eye on your property, so I would recommend something to foil that. Encryption for any outside connections…chaff to interfere with radar void scans, ladar, thermal imaging, EMF detection. Better if people don't know what you have downstairs in the first place. Yes?"

*

Danny gets a mechanical chuckle from Six and a belly laugh from Luke. He's still laughing as he shakes his head and pulls out his phone to start thumbing out notes in a hidden folder. Just because Stark made the device Luke-proof, it doesn't stop the 'buttons' from being so tiny that he doesn't thick-finger half of what he means to type and ends up doing so three times over just to get it right. Even auto-correct or auto-fill can't save him most of the time. G-E-N-F-backspace-F-motherfuckerbackspace-E…

"Does that mean we don't have to plug you in between uses?" Then she starts firing off phrases like 'radar void scans' and he damn near goes cross eyed and has to give his best friend a look that indicates he's going to need a drink after this is all done. "Acronyms get expensive." He mutters and wipes a hand down his face with before giving an nod. "The less people that know about it all, the better, yeah. And while a fireman's pole has been naysayed, someway to get from upstairs down to the panic room couldn't hurt."

*

"I feel like Daft Punk is giving me the side-eye when you do that," says Danny to Six with a little bit of a blush. "Hey which one is Daft and which one is Punk? Or is that not how it works?" Throatclear. Right. Blueprints. He listens to the laundry list of tech. "I can order some of that. Say it's for my own personal security. No one's going to bat an eye if a rich guy goes overboard on security."

As for the question of strip…uh, firepole replacement? "What about a dumb waiter strong enough to hold more weight?"

*

There's another brief pause, this one punctuated with an honest-to-god emoticon blazing briefly into existence in the uniform darkness of the helmet's glassy faceplate: unnecessarily sideways, in the way it would be if someone typed it; pinprick brilliant LEDs in the shape of a winking, smiling face. Just for Danny.

Then she's looking at Luke, unfolding her arms. "Actually, a fireman's pole is a good idea. It would be the fastest option with the smallest footprint, and the easiest to secure, as the internal portion could be dismantled to allow the panic room to be sealed. A dumb waiter that fit everyone would be slower, at risk of mechanical failure. If it were intercepted it would become a kill box."

Pause.

"I may be able to obtain a source of power significantly better for underground use than a generator. I'll need time to find out." Because Tony Stark is committed to helping her, but whether or not that help extends to something like 'giving her an arc reactor' is definitely an open question.

*

"So long as it can hold me." Which is a tall order, or rather a heavy one when it comes to firemen's poles. "And we're putting it behind a book case, because ten year old me wants it behind a book case." Okay, so maybe he's actually just planning a club house for him and Danny and the others can come over too, if they know the secret password. "This time the building is going to be isolated on all sides. Two by the street, one by a utility alley and the other by a pedestrian alley to leave a gap between it and the neighboring building to limit collateral damage if anything happens to it again." He's flipping papers to one that shows the perimeter of the entire building and the basement level floor plan, pointing out the particulars. "So we'll need to line the panic room up with whatever we build on the top floor for us if it's going to be a straight shot."

*

"And I guess we could build a shaft for a dumb waiter and then install the pole ourselves. Then we don't uh…get the contractors wondering. Other than maybe Luke has a thing for the Ghostbusters." A beat, "…or fire…firemen." Danny winces in preemptive apology to Luke. Ahem.

Oh hey, robo lady made a smiley! It makes him blush a little more then look back to the blueprints to attempt being an adult. Although it's kind of hard when you're literally building a secret clubhouse. "I uh…maybe we should ask Emery about some of this? I mean, I don't know his history, but something tells me he might have some thoughts."

*

"Do you want the bookcase to open when you pull on a specific book?" Again: the synthesized voice makes it difficult to tell whether or not this is a joke. Certainly there isn't any other winky face to signal one way or the other.

"Telling the contractor it's a dumb waiter is a good idea, either way. I can probably oversee the fabrication. There are metamaterials that would support your weight." Pause. The helmet turns the slightest bit toward Danny. "They're expensive."

*

Luke makes a gesture at Danny for the firemen comment that translates in the street to 'come at me bro' but it's all in jest. "If it were just you and me, I'd say yeah sure, rope Emery in. Don't know how the others would feel about it though. More people that know about it, the more a liability it becomes." His fingers snap in thought, "How about when you cock back the head of a bust of some greek dude?" Hey. Might as well go all out.

*

Danny blinks rapidly, then for the third time that night, blushes a little. "That's uh, not the…immediate mental…cock…bust." Mumble mumble. Ahem. "I have the budget for this. Don't worry about that." Yep, let's change the subject back to building materials, shall we?

*

Danny stumbles over — stuff — and Six is relentless in her ability to stare (presumably stare?) just long enough to make doing so a thing, her stillness absolute. That stillness makes the slow turn of her head to look at Luke again that much more evident by contrast, her mechanical arm slowly, silently lifting, palm upward, in a gesture that indicates Danny with the universally understood gist of: what even is?

"Ask Jones what kind of support for her work she'll want. I can modify my copies of these" She turns that upraised gesture into a light tap of one alloy fingertip on the blueprints, "to show ideal space allotment and wiring for your ops center, gear lockers, etcetera. It'll be easier if I know what she needs included. We'll make everything electronic-" There's a pause here, but it's short. Just a hitch in her delivery, subtle and spontaneous. "-Accessible for Daredevil."

*

When Six mentions accessibility and Daredevil, some old memory clicks in Luke's brain, "Oooooh." Like something finally makes sense now, going back to the time of the infamous thumb drive. He clears his throat though, not commenting on it further. "You have a line item in your budget for Doomsday Prepping?" He grins at Danny. "I know I'm starting to sort of take your monetary contributions for granted, but I appreciate it, man. And every dime from the tenants that isn't spent on the expenses of running the building will be going right into paying you back."

*

"We can talk about that later, Luke. Besides…" Danny looks at the blueprints and shrugs. "This isn't just for you, right? Why should you have to pay for it all?" This time he's going to ignore Six's non-facial expressions. That's enough blushing for one evening.

*

"It would be cheaper if I stole most of what we need," Six says, straightening out of her lean and folding her arms loosely again. "But since this is going into your place of business it's best to keep items of questionable legality to a minimum wherever possible. If you decide you want to cut corners on that, let me know. In the meantime, I'll send those updates, and let you know when I need a weekend or two to begin incorporating some of these elements. Simpler if we do it before the interior walls are finished."

She glances at one, then the other. "Anything else?"

*

"No." Luke is quick and firm with a response to Six, "Absolutely no stealing of anything. I'm not going to build up something good by hurting anyone else in the process." He grumbles as he starts rolling up the blueprints. "Speaking of foundations, the footing for the building has cured. They're going to start framing out the sub levels over the two weeks if anything has to go in during that time." He attempts to bop Danny over the head with the plans to lighten the mood. "Fine." Because everything Six rattled off would take him several lifetimes to pay off entirely himself, so no argument there.

*

"I may not have the street smarts and the tech knowledge to bring to this fight. But one thing I can do is help pay for things," says Danny a bit self-depreciatingly. He also doesn't activate his keen ninja reflexes to deflect the bop.

*

"It would be…more like a Robin Hood scenario," Six says, but there's no emphasis there to suggest an argument. "But, no. No stealing." She half-pivots, clearly in preparation to go, but the pivot is in Danny's direction and it halts long enough for her to say, "I'll send you an itemized list of equipment and vendors. I'll mark the critical pieces so you know what's necessary. Everything else will be wish-list. Nice to have. You can decide how much of it seems reasonable." The 'you' in that statement is shared with look, helmet tilted that way: the pair of them, then.

*

If Danny isn't engaging his kung fu hustle, Luke is going to take full advantage of that fact and almost literally pounce on the shorter man and try to wring an arm around his neck. Epic bro noogies are about to be engaged. "It's called brainstorming for a reason. If we were relying on just my cloud, all we'd get is an annoying drizzle." Luke himself might have street smarts, but tech know how is out of his purview too. He didn't even think of the generator bit. "That's perfect. Thanks…Six." Calling someone a number is weird. I mean. What happened to one through five?

*

And why is six afraid of seven? Because seven eight nine.

Be grateful, world, that Danny only thought about that joke and has never made it. He probably wouldn't get a winky. It would probably garner another one of those vaguely disconcerting slow headtilts.

"Ay, ay, dude, I love you, but…pit stank." That may not be true or not, but either way, he swats in a decidedly un-ninjalike way. "I uh, I learned about some of this stuff when I was updating my house security." He nods to the list. "Okay. Sounds good."

*

Funnily enough, nobody's ever actually asked her that question, and it does have an answer. An involved answer, even.

Thanks, Luke says, and she's already turning through the rest of that pivot, stride lengthening as she moves toward the door, the hallway beyond, and presumably the roof access she used as her point of ingress. "Anytime."

It's not until she's outside that she stops for a moment, head down, to gather herself out of the awkward unease that is 'spending time with Matt's friends right now,' even if it's all business. Even if they don't know who she is.

Maybe especially then.

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