HEO 1 Testing

November 16, 2014:

Eight starts the demonstration of the first load of drones for Babs

New York

Characters

NPCs: None.

Mentions:

Mood Music: None.


Fade In…

It's been night for several hours now, but the snow's only now beginning to fall. Luckily, Eight has such things as drone Taxis for just this issue. Lord knows being in a wheelchair and getting a taxi in this weather, at this time of night, who'd even drive anywhere near Eight's abandoned lead mine? Yeah not happening. Tonight we find Eight on the surface, standing amongst the snow without so much as a shiver. Boxy looking carbine resting against it's shoulder as it, well quite literally chills.

Theres no sign of the robotic birds yet, but well it has constructed a good and proper fucking -bonfire- and positioned a series of corrugated steel roofing panels just so, to build sort've a thermal reflector. A lovely night then, in a way.

If Fenris hadn't introduce Eight, there would be absolutely no way, no way, that Babs would have got in the Taxi drone thing that Eight had sent. But there you have it, Fenris did and so Babs did. She's seated in her wheelchair in the Taxi drone as it wings its' way to Eights complex. A different experience, no doubt, but Babs is enjoying the scenery as they fly over the landscape. As she looks down, she notes the bonfire…
Eight lowers that stubby carbine, as a panel in it's side opens up and in the weapon goes. Drawing mute as the little taxi settles down, and powers down. "Hello, Babs."Stepping over to pop open the door, before stepping free. "I am so happy you could make it out at this time of night, but for a tight pattern aerial test program, the night is far more practical than the daylight. Also, I do have a hard perimeter pushed out to aproximately a mile right now. We will not be observed, or bothered."A pause, as it flashes a neat bright green smiley face emoticon across it's screen. "Would you like hot chocolate, or coffee?"

As Babs alights from the drone, she shivers "Oh my… it is cold but yes I understand. Nighttime best for testing, you've ensured privacy… " Babs summarises Eight updates in shorthand. "Coffee please… " and the smiley emoticon is returned with a bright Babs smile.
Eight leads over to the fire, and a neat little poker table it's set a thermos and mug out on. It is thankfully, nice and warm. "I have all thirty prototypes already charged and orbiting, we are ready to begin your interface evaluation when prepared."It offers, before producing a tablet that if we're perfectly honest looks entirely bland and everyday. "It is synched to your hand print, bone structure and vein layout. Press your hand to the screen to encode the device when you are ready to begin."

Babs pours herself a coffee whilst considering the fact that Eight has her hand print, bone structure and vein layout… that's concerning if the tech is picked up by her enemies but she also wonders how this might be incorporated into her existing security systems. After taking an appreciative sip of the coffee, Babs places the mug beside her and takes the tablet from Eight and after looking at the screen, presses her palm to it… the interface flares to life and Babs examines it. "Alright, give me the tour Eight"

The screen takes a moment to synch, before it breaks down into an almost satelite like view of the surrounding 30 mile area. Some areas are in color, some in a sort've hazy black and white. "This is a real time composite image generated by the sensor network your looking at now, the amount of color corrosponds with the relative age of the sensor sweep. You'll see outlines around homes, vehicles, streets and anything else man made. Tapping on any outlined item, will set a drone to automatically prioritize that object as a priority surveilance target. Go ahead and touch any object you so desire, and we'll begin to isolate respective platforms from this sort of world view."There arent many things out here honestly, ghostly pale green spiderlike shapes likely represent the various combat drones Eight has spread around. Beyond that five or six houses, a snow plow spreading salt on a backroad and well…look at all the various inhuman heat signatures. Every cat, dog, deer and squirrel is here for the viewing too.

The interface takes some brain realignment, that's not unusual and once Babs has understood the basics she understands what Eight is saying. To start with, Babs taps on a house image… that's something she can comprehend and has some expectation of what she expects to see.

The image immediately resolves to the sort've vague black and white, before quickly popping back into color. Icons begin to form along either side. "Alright, the icons on the right toggle primary sensors. Auditory, TV, thermal and microwave. The icons on the left, represent the specific authority of this drone to study things. With all of them inactive, it will simply remain here and record until you tell it otherwise. The icons indicate increasing levels of discrimination, if a person exits the home do you want it to message you? Do you want it to follow them, and allow eventually for another asset to take it's place? Should it compare a face against a database, and if it makes a positive identification what level of interest should it take. Go ahead and toggle the primary sensor feeds, and soon we'll move into individual unit control. Please, do stopme if you have questions."Eight's, well calm and patient and a little on the monotone side. So alarmingly perhaps, it is shockingly easy to just tune it's voice right out.

Babs plays, for want of a better word, for several minutes, getting used to the interface testing functions. "Nice" she says several times… before stopping and regarding Eight. "The databases it hooks into, are these configurable? I have….. ummmmm….. a couple that aren't generally available. I imaging we'll need to write a data parser to convert the data structure."

Eight nods sagely "It was designed to be flexible, and adaptable. So it'll read whatever database it has the permissions for, and it can upload information to a database for further catalogging."The Thermal and audio modes are neat, but well it's the microwave spectrum that comes into it's own. The image is, complex but you can make out power lines and junction boxes. Everything from what looks like a PC plugged in on the first floor, to the fan in the bathroom that somone seems to have left on. "The fleet works as a singular organism, you can specify the density of it's survey in real time but remember these drones are designed to look like birds. They are not particularly fast, cars will be best tracked with the fleet at a wide spread which will allow for multiple intercepts. They will track people, cars or certain objects which are sufficiently unique for them to differentiate. If you give them something too generic, their hit ratio will quickly drown out legitimate contacts. Now, touch the center top of the screen to go back to the overhead view and then again for the fleet management screen."Eight does not, it seems, fuck around.

Babs nods at Eights words. "One of the things I'm contemplating is to equip my most trusted assets with these so they can deploy them onsite…." Babs murmurs before following Eights instructions and brings up the fleet management screen.

It's, well a simple overview of every platform. A short summary of their mechanical condition, weather conditions, what it is they're doing and where they are."If a Drone is not recovered when it suffers a failure, it will auto self destruct before it hits the ground. They use a series of small explosive charges, so they arent liable to damage anyone. This could potentially result in injury if somone attempted to capture one of them. Now, tap the top of the screen again to bring your tablet to the global navigation menu."

"Self destruct mode, very sensible" Babs says, a thoughtful look on her face as she taps the top of the screen as directed. "So what am I looking at here, Eight?".

There are, well like three hundred little icons. "My drone fleet, which are not open to command but you can observe their datastreams with a very slight delay. For instance, select jaguar on the first row there. That is my primary combat asset at this time, and it's sensor suite is the most comprehensive that I have outside right now. The Vultures are working comms dark right now, as they're potentially searching for one of my siblings or I'd show you one of those."Jaguar is of course, indicated by a rather dorky little little jaguar sprite.

Babs looks at the screen presented, frowning for a few minutes as she takes it all in… "Are these individual drones, or groups?" she asks Eight before identifing Jaguar and tapping the icon.

"Individual, I organize and task differently as I'm not human. I was originally tasked with mining operations, so this is not that different really."Eight's seemingly done less "human optimization" on it's own drone fleet, because the display is somewhat dizzying. The image is warped, a composite three hundred and sixty degree spread with overlays of various sensors all individually represented. Thats before we get to the mass of text and targeting reticles everywhere, its the sort've information overload liable to give somone a head ache. "Jaguar has a higher degree of autonomy than most of my armed drones, but it has a magnificent sensor suite. I have not had the time to humanize these outputs however, so I do apologize if it is not ideal."

The resulting display is mind boggling… Babs struggles to take it all in. "Excuse me Eight, the information barely makes sense… it would take me some time to process it all of it." Reviewing it for several more minutes Babs frown deepens slightly "Please don't apologise… I should be apologising to you."

"Nonsense, I was designed for multi-tasking and you were not. Jaguar has my most comprehensive set of sensors as it is the most sophisticated drone I operate, It's raw outputs are significant even by my standards. There is no need to apologize by my measure."Finally, eight gives a touch of a nod. "So, is this interface sufficient for field testing?"

Babs gives Eight a small smile "Yes, it is good… and I would like to see what you have in mind." She thinks for a bit before adding "Truth is Eight, what you've done here is amazing and I'm keen to see what they can do."

Eight cocks it's head to the side "The HEO-1 systems, well a daylight test would be best. I designed them so as not to require any actual, piloting on your part. HEO-2, will be significantly more convient to directly control as those are almost lighter than air. However HEO-2 construction has just begun and it may be some time before I can source all the raw materials necessary, as they are entirely exotic in terms of construction."A pause there, before offering the faintest of nods. "I had anticipated significant revisions to the interface would be necessary, I had budgeted nine hours for this stage of testing and adjustment. However, why dont you configure the device for your database and direct the fleet to head to Gotham to begin the search?"

Babs looks a little stunned "Well ok, I had thought to be an observer only but I can do that… one minute please." Taking her own tablet from the arm of her chair she spends a few minutes tapping and prodding the screen. "I'm allowing limited access to my database, Eight, to do as you suggest. The access is time based with a few layers of authentication." she gives an apologetic smile "old habits… I'm afraid." Then on Eights tablet, taps away again, entering strings of text to configure the access. "OK, the database is connected. Let's do this…." and the navigation commands are then entered.

"I'm not interested in your databases, I'm built for serious threats not street crime. I'm more liable to seriously hurt somone by accident otherwise, and If I am to cause harm I would rather it be intentional."Eight's neat little fleet, gets moving immediately and well they arent exactly as Glacial as Eight made them out to be. Fourty miles an hour is pretty damn decent really, considering. "As I have said previously, Babs. You have no need to fear me, I am not human. I don't want what you have, I dont want you harmed and it shall not be so as far as I am concerned."

"As I said, old habits and my systems are configured that way… I really understand… " Babs let her thoughts trail as she watches the screen of the tablet, the fleet moving towards Gotham.

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