ic Can't Change Their Stripes

[alderwitch]

"No, it's fine," Talya said with a light laugh, "And you're right. I was born in 1917. That's no great secret. I've had the advantage of watching a great deal change over the span of my life. Hemlines. Hemlines have changed tremendously from what I wore as a proper little girl, for one."

Her blue eyes twinkled with amusement as she kept the topic light. Certainly, there was a lot that Talya had seen that was ugly but she kept the topic light. It wasn't all bad, being immortal. "I've found that most that are like I am - the few I know - staying frozen in time tends to mean that you don't age the same way your mortal contemporaries do. I spend far more time with those that look like I do than I do with any my actual age. Of course, that is an ever smaller growing crowd for those that age. It's easier to keep in touch with what current trends are when you don't fall out of that demographic ever. I own a smart phone. Terribly handy. I also play bridge when I can gather up enough players. Enjoy the best of all the worlds, I figure."

She smiled then, extending one hand for her water glass. "Goodness. I would take you on patrol but most of the time I end up invariably arguing with police officers about my innocence so I think, perhaps, you might wish to wait a bit regardless before coming with me. For some reason, I have the worst luck in being mistaken for the thief in question when I show up. Most aggravating."

[Geez3r]

Eric was doing a lot of laughing this evening it seemed, which spoke much about his spirit.  "Yes and I do suppose since I'm keeping the paint job, it would be quite likely police would draw the same conclusion with me.  So, to wholly legitimate business then?" he said offering up his wine glass for a toast.  "On that front I should probably practice some - hrmm, it's not 'monologue-ing' when heroes do it, what's the word?  Right 'banter' - for patrols.  Not for practical use in the fights - too many explosions for that to be an effective strategy - but more for I suppose identifying one's self as friend or foe.  I will also have to update my database for known costumed individuals, it has gone unpatched for too long; also there are now targets I don't want to shoot on sight.  Really now as I analyze the logistics of it, being a villain seems to be much easier." continued Eric as he rubbed his chin, his eyes darting side to side as he did the mental math.  "You had an objective, observed the target to identify mission parameters, identified and eliminated possible variables and entanglements to maximize mission effectiveness and executed the plan at the apex of probably success.  Heroes just kind of get in the way of the bad guys' plans, essentially at random.  Well actually maybe they don't.  Do heroes have a set patrol pattern, or do they just go where the mood strikes them?  Or are there a lot of crimes that happen when you're in your civvies minding your own business?" asked Eric suddenly having a spike in curiosity, half thinking out loud, half asking Talya for input. 

[alderwitch]

"It depends on the hero," Talya offered, feeling for a brief moment like she was giving away trade secrets. She gave a small shake of her head and took a sip of her wine, "There are some with set routes and duties, others that tend to be more catch-as-catch-can in the endeavors. Most of the heroes I know cultivate some sort of discerning where hot spots are likely to occur. Personally, I tend to end up in trouble without needing to ever look that hard but I've always been lucky."

Her slow, sly smile gave that word additional meaning, "Being a villain is easier, yes. The control starts in the hand of the one committing the crime. It's their plan, played in their court to their strengths. Being a hero, however, is endlessly more engaging as you need to... adapt."

[Geez3r]

Eric nodded in agreement and was about to speak when something in the corner of the room caught his eye - the waiter bringing out two filet mignon entrees.  From the way he was focused on the steak, Natalya would be forgiven for thinking he had just been rescued from wandering the desert for days on end.  With his hands on the arms of the chair, Eric looked positively ready to pounce on the waiter.  But mercifully they did not have to find out if Eric really would as the waiter was tableside in a mere moment.  Eric even managed to say "Thank you." without drooling. 

Eric unceremoniously picked up his fork and dug in, with the steak being so tender, no knife was required.  "Mmmmmhmmm.  So good." he said more to himself than anyone else with his mouth half full as he savored the first bite.  And you had to admit, it was probably one of the best steaks you've ever had, probably not the best considering Natalya's long life, but a definite front runner.  He washed down his first bite with a splash of wine.  He held the glass in his hand for a moment, looking at it whistfully.  "I first came here on the suggestion of my girlfriend at the time for one of our few dates.  She was something connoisseur, and was able to tell me the exact reason why this wine paired so well with this steak.  Said reasons I can never remember, so I stick with the chef knows his trade and leave it at that." he said with a smile setting down his glass.  "So I'm not going to be in a state to talk shop while this steak is in front of me, so change of topic?  What are some of the more interesting places you've traveled to?"

[alderwitch]

"Hmm. It's hard to get more exciting than Freedom City. The density of super heroes leads to an exceptional sort of experience unlike anything else on the globe," Talya replied, watching the appreciation for food with an understanding glint in her blue eyes. Prison food was uniformly a horrible experience regardless of the prison. She began to slice hers up as well, cutting it into small manageable bites. "And 'interesting' is a complicated term. I have to admit, I like the cities. Moscow in winter is unlike anything else. Most people don't visit then due to the bitter cold so most of the tourist attractions are emptier than they'd otherwise be and the winter festivals are worth seeing more than once in a lifetime. Paris will always hold a special place in my heart - its the museums. I could spend a week in Paris and see nothing but the art. I've seen that city in all sorts of states - right after the war, she was a different creature..."

Talya lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug, "New York, during the 1960's. That was an exceptional time. Everything was changing and the city resonated with it. What about you, any place you'd like to go see now that you can?"

[Geez3r]

"Well that's the thing; up until now I haven't been much of a traveler.  The furthest away from Freedom I've gone is Boston for a conference a few years ago. That's yet another thing I've wanted to change this time around.  Before all of this I was the stereotypical corporate stiff that worked far too many overtime hours in the hopes of climbing the corporate ladder.  For good or ill, it's a trait I inherited from my own father." he replied after taking a moment to take a few more bites of steak.  "While I was in Blackstone, I did raid their library for their books on geology at the suggestion of Dr. Gerald Neiss - may have heard of him, went under the moniker of 'Dr. Quake' and robbed a few banks a couple of years ago, nice guy over all, if you get get past all of the puns.  I'm hardly an expert on the subject but I fear I may have developed a fascination with the subject matter when he showed me an Oregon opal with botryoital jasper inclusions.  Lot of technical terms in there, but basically it's an otherwise clear rock that appears to have clouds and auroras inside of it.  I considered myself to be a smart man but it kind of blew my mind that something like that existed and that I had no idea.  Dr. Neiss gave me a listing of some of his preferred locations, most of which are way out west, and I figured I should make my way out there when I have the chance.  Maybe send a few pictures and letters back; he's up for parole soon enough, who knows might make a friend through the whole arrangement."

[alderwitch]

"There's nothing wrong with a good pun. It used to be a pre-requisite for true arch-villany - before everything went so very serious in the 1970s. Oh, there were a few outliers of course. Overshadow has always been a waste of perfectly good carbon, for example," disdain thickened her accent for a moment before she went on, "But time was when leaving a calling card was practically mandatory and good banter was a skill sharply honed."

Talya paused in eating her steak to reach for her wine glass, "But cultivating friends in all walks of life is useful for heroes as well. It just can make one's social circle a little tricky to navigate."

That was said with a side long smile, "I've seen less of America than I might otherwise like. In general, I tend to stay close to Freedom City these days. My home in exile, as it were. The west coast is lovely though."

[Geez3r]

"Yes, all of those terrible villains who were far too serious to crack jokes.  Such terrible, terrible people they are." muttered Eric, not entirely sure himself if he was being serious or not.  "Humor probably goes hand in hand with admitting you're the bad guy.  At that point, you're basically just enjoying the ride.  I'm frankly not sure which is worse." said Eric with a frown.  He had mental picture of himself as Malice, only with a yellow smiley face painted on the helmet as he unloaded a rocket barrage at a squad of FCPD vehicles.  Not a pleasant thought.  "Probably made pursuing the criminals a bit easier, or at the very lease you were able to discern a pattern, and know how was responsible for a given act.  Not that there aren't those that still enjoy the spot light, the Crime League for instance.  But their particular idiom is all about being the opposite of the Freedom League, so drawing attention to themselves kind of comes with the territory.  Discretion, as you know, has it's uses."

"I've never had much difficulty navigating my social circles, usually because there weren't enough people to make a circle.  Lot of associates, but not many friends.  Something that is a matter of public record as a matter of fact; they cited it in my trial as evidence for declaring me a psychopath.  My mother always said 'Your heart can hold secrets and friends, but not both'.  Smart woman."

[alderwitch]

"Well, villains are no more universal than heroes. The fact that you've been on the other side gives you an advantage that can be extraordinarily useful, as much as it seems utterly negative at the moment. Everyone has a pattern and everyone has a tell. You've spent a few years inside Blackstone. Let's take dear old Dr. Quake, for example. If he falls off into bad habits when paroled, you already know him - his quirks and his habits. Perhaps you can use that to help him redeem himself but certainly, you can use that to plan out where he might be going and what he might be doing," Talya took a slow sip of her wine, her hooded blue gaze never leaving Erik's face. She set the glass back down lightly on the table. 

"I wouldn't say you can't have secrets and friends but when they come into conflict, one has to inevitably take precedence over the other - but then, it's pretty clear what my choice has always been," Talya said, the words light and easy, "It's alright. The world needs people like me too. Someone has to keep the heroes safe."

 

[Geez3r]

Well Eric's attempts to turn the discussion to interesting rock formations had failed utterly, mostly by his own doing - par for the course really.  "I've had the knack for pattern recognition and tactical thinking for a while now. Manipulation and psychological profiling on the other hand are bit outside of my normal routine.  When I play poker - rather, when I'm allowed to play poker - most of my game is the cards rather than the players; I pretty much wind up counting cards by accident.  I guess they're pretty much the same in principle aren't they?  Weighing probabilities for a given outcome based upon historical data."  He sat there and mused for a moment.  "That's what the heroes who aren't in the spot light are for aren't they?  We've got heroes we hold up as pillars of the community, and paragons of virtue.  Then there's another set who we trust are on the side of the angels, but otherwise...  Who watches the watchers?"

[alderwitch]

"Everyone has their roles to play," Talya agreed with a slight smile, her brows arching up with interest, "I don't suppose you play Bridge at all, do you, Eric? We are getting woefully low for our Bridge parties these days. Always preferred that to poker myself. Having a co-conspirator always makes the games more interesting to me." 

She tipped her head to the side, her smile growing, "Manipulation is just as much about pattern recognition and tactical thinking as anything else. It's just the patterns are people and the tactics is in understanding what they will do, and what they won't do and how to game the odds. In the end, everything can be reduced down to move and counter move. Read your opponent and you can know where he's going to be and why. It does help, I admit, when you have time to watch the trends. People, alas, move slower than a good game of cards."

[Geez3r]

"I never played until Blackstone, after that it seemed like a wonderful time to learn.  There aren't quite as many cheats as you would expect in those walls.  You tend to accumulate too much free time if people stop inviting you to the games.  Turns out there is honor among thieves, but only when they would be bored out of the mind otherwise.  Did give me enough time to figure out how to shuffle with one hand though, though other feats of legerdemain remain elusive.  Didn't have the other arm until year three." he said with a little wave of his robotic hand.  "Turns out there was some concern over giving me access to tools and materials."  he continued sarcastically. 

"We ran the gamut for card games though.  Guards wouldn't let us bet on anything material, so poker lost its charm eventually.  That and you can only play the same game so many days in a row before you go nuts.  Crazy Eights was my personal favorite.  We'd play chess on occasion too, though that one tended to cause lots of ego clashing so it wasn't as frequent.  I'm still garbage at reading people though."

[alderwitch]

"Well, plenty of time yet to learn if you want to garner the skill. I played a lot of bridge in jail - still have a club that gets together now and again although life does get in the way," Talya smiled slightly, the card playing apparently a fond memory, "Personally, my skills lie in the opposite direction - far easier for me to read faces than it is to keep all the cards in my head. I might not be able to accompany you on heroing for a bit, but perhaps sometime you can come join us for a friendly game of cards. Also not a bad way to get to know people, come to think of it. Casual social engagements are sometimes - sometimes - less fraught than super-heroics. As to chess, never been my cup of tea. It's a little harder to cheat in chess than at cards as well. People notice extra queens far more often."

[Geez3r]

"I'd like to take you up on that offer some time.  Though do warn me ahead of time if I will be the kid at the table.  Would probably be wise to warn them about me too, I've got a feeling that showing up out of the blue at a bridge game might throw some people for a loop.  Then again this would be a group of people you regularly hang out with so they've probably used to a few curve balls at this point." replied Eric with a smile.  "If you're quick enough, you may want to try blitz chess, there's a few more opportunities for a sneaky trick here or there since it's so fast paced, but don't try that move against someone who's really good."  After helping himself to some more of the steak he asked Natalya "Speaking of skill sets, how did you acquire yours?  Were you trained, self taught or do you just sort of make it up on the fly?"

[alderwitch]

"Ah, now that is a long story. It really depends on which suite of skills that you're talking about, to be honest," Talya offered with an easy smile, "I was recruited from civilian life to serve as an informant by the group that went on to become the SOE - Special Operations Executive. They were looking for civilians who could blend in, bilingual if at all possible, and I spoke German flawlessly which made me an ideal candidate. There was a bit of basic training, how to use a gun, how to do some basic self defense in a pinch, how to trip a lock with a bobby pin and then off we went to send information back home as we were able to. By the end of the war, I had figured out quite a few more things but I'm not against adding to my grab bag as I go. Never know when a skill will turn up handy."

Talya's smile was the slow, flirtatious grin that had convinced more than a few enemies to give up their secrets as she added, "And then, as you know, I spent the swinging sixties stealing things and confounding the heroes of the day with elaborate encounters. I picked up a few tricks from watching the way they worked. Didn't really do the whole swinging from a grapple line until then. I have it down pretty pat now. What about you? Self taught genius?"

[Geez3r]

"Neither actually." admitted Eric.  "I've always been a smart guy, but I've never been the smart guy, at least once I got out of the little pond that is public school, and got into HIT.  There was never a class that I struggled with, and the material always came to me easily, but I needed the instructor or textbook or something to follow along with.  Genius to me is someone who invests a new field of mathematics by candle light so that they may accurately explain the movements of the stars.  I'm an engineer, I give a form to the knowledge of the scientists that came before me.  I think it stems from freshman year.  In one of my classes, we had to make a device that would sort a bag of M&M's by color.  Now obviously that's not a problem you see in your text book, and there's no code you can steal online to do that. So you're faced with a given challenge and you have to solve it with the knowledge and tools you have available to you.  It's a demonstration of how you specifically solve a problem.  I got such a thrill out of that project, because it validated all of the time I had spent up until then studying.  It was tangible proof that what I had learned could make an impact on the world.  So I've been trained, and my creations are the sum total of my knowledge focused through the lens that is my creative psychological construct."

[alderwitch]

"I think it's a matter of scale, darling, most people couldn't invent a battle suit - or even make one when given the schematics," Talya commented with bemusement, her chin resting on one elegant hand as she'd finished her meal. "You sound more like an artist, though, than scientist, I have to say. Which isn't a bad thing. Mechanical creations can be just as much art as painting or sculpture. Or poetry. Is that the excitement, then, of your new project?" She asked with a small gesture towards his hand and the hard light he'd been talking about earlier, "The ability to create whole cloth?"

[Geez3r]

By this point in time Eric had edged himself as close to the table as possible and his voice carried that same air as a child going to Disney World for the first time.  "Well that's the thing, I didn't invent a battlesuit, I made one; the concept had already existed, I just put my own personal stamp on it.  Besides, it's often far more cost efficient to make a squadron of fighter jets than to make a single battlesuit.  The former has been refined enough to be mass marketable, in the case of the latter, each is a unique enterprise onto itself." said Eric trying to undersell himself.  "You would have liked Dr. Reese Corning, he's the advanced mechanical engineer instructor at HIT - of them anyways.  'An object that functions is a product; an object that functions well is art.'  They could back it up too, he had been a watch maker for 30 odd years on and off as a hobby, and had this old-timey wind-up pocket watch made entirely of wood; it was a masterpiece." said Eric sounding suitably impressed. "I mentioned earlier that you confront any problem that you have with the tools and resources available to you at the time.  The phrase in engineering you always hear is that 'you can't make a lead balloon' meaning that you are constrained by the properties and availability of your materials, even if that particular phrase was disproved.  If I can work out the final kinks, then I have an entirely new type of material available to me, which opens up a huge array of solutions to problems I previously wasn't able to solve."

[alderwitch]

"But I imagine that your new material will still have constraints? Just different ones than the other resources at your disposal?" Talya asked with curiosity, her bright gaze taking in his animation and the delight on his features. She made a self-deprecating gesture as she added, "I admit freely, that I am no scientist and the bulk of what you're describing is well above my own particular understanding of such matters but it seems a resource that's as malleable as what you're describing would have to have certain restraints. Certain limitations? Or perhaps I'm misunderstanding the depth of your discovery."

Her gaze lit with curiosity as she tried to follow the science of it all and distill what the engineer had created during his time in prison. Say what you will, but a long stint in Freedom City's finest incarcerations did tend to lead to its inmates having all sorts of time for their hobbies and interests. It was rather nice to see that occasionally that could benefit humanity rather than seeing someone break out of prison with an all new death machine to try out. "Have you been able to suss out the limitations of what you can do or do you need to go into full scale production before yielding those sorts of answers?"

[Geez3r]

"Okay,okay, poor job of explaining." said Eric sounding not at all displeased, but rather invigorated that he had a captive audience.  "Everything has certain properties, but in a vacuum, those properties are neither strengths nor weaknesses.  Iron and lead for instance, while both metals have different melting points, malleability, conductivity, density, etc.  For instance, in the olden days, they made iron armor instead of lead armor because it was light weight (relatively speaking) and was quite hard and could hold its shape.  On the other hand, lead with its low melting point and its high density made it perfect for casting bullets." explained Eric as he laid it all out.

"My Bastion tech on the other hand is kind of a different animal.  You know about conservation of energy right?  Matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed, they simply change form.  For sake of our conversation the main difference between matter and energy is that matter has mass and volume, ie: it has a physical form.  What my tech is doing is blurring the line.  It allows energy to masquerade as matter for a time.  You heard of the Higgs Boson particle they discovered at the LHC right, or rather confirmed existed?  The god particle they called it.  That particle is why, on the subatomic level, some subatomic particles have mass while others do not.  By manipulating this Higgs field and using light - photons if you want to be technical - as a conduit, I am able to give light mass, to make it hard.  Hard light.  Make sense?" asked Eric eager to see Talya's impression. 

[alderwitch]

"How long a time?" Talya asked then, her expression thoughtful as she tried to follow the science and explanations, "The science makes sense as you've explained it - although I am certain it is a vast simplification for the layman at the table."

That was said with a small gesture towards herself to excuse her lack of science as background. Her attention remained fixed on her dinner partner, her flirtatious smile firmly in place, "Does it remain matter for some set amount of time? Is there something that triggers the release of the light to energy once more? Or is it fixed and permanent in its new form once you've done your treatment to it?"

[Geez3r]

"Right now it's a functionally indefinite duration.  The hitch is that the object requires a committed projector and that projector requires a steady stream of power (and quite a lot of it if I'm perfectly honest).  Without any power, the object loses its mass and reverts to being true light.  Which, as far as the mass market implications are concerned, is a fatal design flaw.  No one is going to build their house out of hard light if the house winks out of existence when the lights go out.  This is about where I got to in my tinkerings while in Blackstone.  Or at least that's as far as I could take the research while inside the walls.  Now that I'm out I can begin work on the next phase." said Eric clearly enjoying himself.

"Ok, so in all of reality, we understand four fundamental forces in the universe that account for how basically everything works.  They are: gravity, electromagnetism, and then simply the weak force and the strong force - magic is the unofficial fifth force, but good luck in getting that published.  You know the first two, so the weak force - for our purposes - is what holds molecules together and the strong is what hold atoms together; I'm focusing on the strong.  So if you remember your chemistry, you know that an atom has protons and neutrons in its center, its nucleus, and then it has a bunch of electrons orbiting around it.  Protons have a positive charge, neutrons have no charge and electrons have a positive charge.  But hang on a second, you also know that two like charges on magnets repel one another, so how are a bunch of positively charged protons able to stay right next to one another without repelling each other?  The answer: the strong force.  It is the most powerful force known, and as such overrides the natural tendencies of these subatomic particles and keeps them together.  The problem is that the strong force has the absolute shortest range of the four forces, being barely undetectable when just outside the nucleus of an atom.  What I'm trying to do is use the strong force to tack the Higgs Field onto the photons of light so the reaction is stable without needing a continual supply of power."

[alderwitch]

"I think you might have lost me there," Talya said with a light laugh, "I admit I've heard the terms before but I fear I might lack the basic science background to make much more than cursory sense of your discovery, so to speak. I understand the necessity of a generator and power - that part I can parse quite well - but my chemistry basics were a long, long time ago and I was never the most apt of students. So, let me see if I've completely misunderstood. What you're saying is that without discovering a way to use the rules of one of these forces to bind your light together into solid form - the cost outweighs the potential benefits for anything but short term use but you're hoping that with some solid time and access to laboratories of your own you can further it to the point that is no longer true. And, if you can, the discovery could change a great deal for humanity's day to day experiences? Did I put that together correctly or am I missing a key portion of the science in there?"

[Geez3r]

"No you pretty much got the gist.  You'll find that in science the middle bit is always the confusing part.  You know what you started with and you know what you end up with, it's connecting the dots that's the tricky part.  Now while I laid it all out nice and rosey here, don't be surprised if you don't see it on store shelves any time this decade.  Once I figure out the science of it, I still need to figure out the engineering bit of it, and then comes the business aspect of it to get it in the hands of the consumer.  But really I think I'm just in love with the fact that I've got a lab again.  Granted it's where my living room should be at the moment, but it's a lab and it's all mine." said Eric with a gigantic smile plastered on his face.  "Unfortunately I still need to do some fine tuning and calibration with this thing before I can get to the really fiddly bits." he said as he gestured with his robotic arm.  "Wine glass, yes; transistors, no."

[alderwitch]

"Wine glass is still significantly more fiddly than 'block of solid matter'," Talya pointed out with a warm smile of her own. "I'm well aware that science moves in fits and starts, really like most things. Getting the broad idea down is the first step but all the parts to make a plan come fully together and realize the idea in its entirety - that concept I am utterly familiar with. Like any great endeavor, mastery can take a lifetime. Even a long lifetime," that was added with a small, sly grin as she gestured towards herself. Talya was well aware that her lifetime was nothing like normal. She lifted her wine glass in small salute, "To the future of your grand endeavor. May it be an enjoyable journey."