2013.06.17 - Cosmic Tech Support

It hasn't quite been a month since Justin Hammer got swindled out of $6 million trying to buy a piece of future alien technology, and as a consolation prize ended up with a scanning device to reverse engineer. He has had a team of his best engineers working on the device since he acquired it, and they've managed to make some amazing discoveries. But even with the breakthroughs they've made, there still isn't anything marketable about what they have uncovered so far. The team has hit a couple snags, primarily with the physics behind the sensor coils themselves, as the regular laws of how antennas work doesn't seem to apply in this situation. As such, progress has slowed and the project hasn't had any favorable reports in the last week.
And that just isn't acceptable.
Patience has never been Justin's strong suit, and when the progress on the scanner reverse-engineering seemed to stall, he pushed his engineers harder. The lead engineer on the project, a man by the name of Edward Hershall, finally had the guts to stand up to the CEO. Hershall informed Justin that they were working on something that was obviously relying on theories that very well hadn't been discovered yet, and that it could take years to understand what they were looking at. This, of course, wasn't acceptable either. So it was on that note that Justin had fished up the contact information for the man- alien rather- that had given him the tech.
The meeting had been set up for Sunday afternoon. This was anything but what Hammer wanted to be doing on the weekend, especially after a hectic workweek, but he wanted progress on this project worse. Already slightly irritated by the entire situation, plus having to be at work on a weekend where he had made plans, The CEO waits in the main lobby of the office tower. He's in one of his trademark suits, a light grey number with lighter pinstripes and a dark tie, leaning against the receptionist's desk. He checks his watch every few moments, and generally seems to be making the lone security guard behind the desk slightly nervous.
It might be somewhat suspicious, given the fact that Justin has only ever seen Rins looking quite alien - that he even agreed to come to this very public place. So he might not be recognized as the man that approaches Justin looks totally human. Well, that brow is kind of big, and his features are fairly strong, but still, human. Beyond those human features though, it's possible to pick out the horned alien beneath. He's wearing a subtly-patterneed button-up shirt that is untucked with the sleeves rolled up, and a pair of jeans. He's carrying a leather satchel. "Mister Hammer."
The CEO looks up and toward the door when it opens. The guard looks too, standing up to approach the newcomer, since it's his job to make sure everyone checks in and out of the building in the absence of the receptionist. Justin straightens when he's greeted, looking the man over. He seems vaguely familiar... "Yes, can I help you?" he asks. The guard draws to a stop next to his boss, since it seems that Hammer himself is handing the arrival, something that's pretty unusual.
The man looks vaguely perplexed, then his face splits into an amused grin. "I'm your appointment, Mister Hammer. You called me?" He looks from the guard back to the CEO. "Rins." Oh please don't mention the alien thing in front of the guard. It'd be messy to get Gregor to neuralize the poor bastard.
Recognition dawns on Hammer, though he can't keep from looking at least slightly confused. It does make sense that he would have some sort of ability ot tech to blend in, otherwise everyone in the city would know there was an alien running around. Not that an alien couldn't blend in, with all the weird looking specials and mutants out there. Nodding, Justin turns to the guard. "Get him a visitor badge and signed in." The guard nods, and moves to do so. He grabs a visitor badge from a drawer behind the desk, and lays it on the log book. "Can you please sign in here?" he asks politely as the CEO looks on.
While it's true that Rins would probably just be mistaken for a mutant, that in and of itself draws more attention than he wants. He looks rather relieved when Justin doesn't make a big deal of it. "Sure." He takes the pen and goes to sign in. His writing is awkward and childlike. They don't do a lot of hand-writing in the future, and 21st century English isn't exactly his native tongue. He signs his real name.
Once Rins has signed in, the guard takes the book and logs the time in. He leaves the badge on the counter top for Rins to take. Justin watches the formalities, then starts towards the bank of elevators just off of the lobby. "This way," he says, motioning forward. "The lab we're headed to is in Building 3. We'll take the tunnels over there, it's shorter." When he gets to the elevators he pulls out his wallet, extracting a key card from it while he waits for the car to arrive.
Torbin Rins takes the badge, though it takes him a minute to figure out that he's supposed to clip it on. Strange, but he'll go with it. He falls into step behind Justin. "I'm not sure if I can help you, you know. I'm not an engineer. It'd sort of be like asking a pilot to figure out how a...well, something unrelated to piloting, works." He scratches his temple.
The elevator dings and the doors open. Justin steps inside and uses the key card to select a restricted sub-basement floor. He looks toward Rins as he puts the keycard back in his wallet. "I'm really hoping you can, otherwise I'm thinking I may have lost a lot of money on this deal. Between what I was swindled and what I've put toward reverse engineering that scanner, I have more than a few bucks invested." While not outrightly harsh, it's pretty obvious that the CEO isn't in one of his better moods. The elevator stops and the doors open on a plain, but well maintained hallway. It's wide, but there are no doors or windows visible. Several hundred yards down another tunnel branches off to the left, but little else is visible in the harsh florescent lighting.
Rins is fairly relaxed for a guy who is not in the good graces of a grumpy CEO. Then again, if thigns go to pot, he's got a way to get out of dodge without a lot of fuss. "Look, I didn't play you. If I did, I wouldn't be standing here right now. If I can help you with it, I will. But there's a chance I can't. You're talking about alien-created tech from a thousand years in the future. You might not be capable of understanding it." He holds up a hand as he anticipates that might cause offense. "I don't mean you're not smart enough, but it'd be like asking a scientist a thousand years into your past to figure out a cell phone."
Justin shoots Rins a look when he's told he may not understand what he's looking at, but quells it pretty quick when the alien puts it into perspective. That's very true, and also very similar to what Hershall had told him. Still, he doesn't like thinking he may not be able to figure something out, even though he's not even the one who does any of the engineering. He walks down the long hallway in silence, taking the connecting hallway that jutts off to the left. When they reach another elevator, Hammer uses his keycard to trigger the car. "Hershall is the lead engineer on this, and who we're going to meet. I'm hoping between the two of you that we'll be able to get past this road block." His tone isn't as harsh as it was a few moments ago, having managed to bite back his irritation. The elevator arrives, and the same routine with the keycard is again observed. When the doors open this time around, the setting is much brighter. The hallways leading away from the elevator banks are dotted with windows and doorways, and the decor is a lot more refined. Justin starts down a hallway, toward a row of labs.
"I know enough as a repairman you'd call to get stuff working again. I'm not an engineer, and I don't develop this stuff. Now, I might be able to explain what your man is having problems with, but like I said, no promises." Rins takes in his surroundings and notes when Justin uses the keycard. "I just wanna remind you that I wasn't the one who screwed you. If you had brought the scalpel down here, there wouldn't be a 'down here' anymore."
Hammer nods in acknowledgement. "You got any leads on the guy that did?" he asks as he walks down the hallway. Having passed the part of the journey that needs the keycard he slips his hands in his pants pockets as he walks. Most of the lab doors are closed and locked, the lights in the labs off or dimmed heavily, leaving much of the spaces behind the windows lit only by the monitors of computers and equipment. There's an occasional employee working here and there, and most of them look up in surprise at the fact the CEO is here on a weekend. That's never, ever a good thing.
When the pair reach an open door with a placard next to it reading 'LAB 3-262' Justin stops. He looks into the open door, spotting the man with greying hair sitting at a workbench facing away from the door. "Knock, knock," Justin says as he walks into the lab. "The cavalry's here." He steps aside to let Rins enter the lab after him.
"We've mostly been chasing down the buyers or resellers. We haven't been able to get close to any of Corvis' men." Rins is having his fair share of frustration. His lip curls and he rubs his cheek. He enters the lab and stops beside Justin. "Uh, hi."
The older gentleman turns to look at the arrivals. He seems very haggard, as if he's been working non-stop for a couple days and is awake only thanks to copious amounts of caffeine. He forces a smile, and swivels his chair around to face the CEO and the other man. "Mister Hammer, and you must be Rins," he says, "Been looking forward to talking with you about this." Justin jumps in at this point, introducing his engineer. "This is Ed Hershall, chief engineer of my guidance and sensory arrays labs. I'm hoping the two of you can work this little issue out." At least it doesn't seem that Hammer told Hershall that Rins is an alien. If he did, the engineer makes no indication of it.
"I'll try my best. What seems to be the problem?" If Hershall has the scanner disassembled, Rins goes to have a look at it. "It's the power converter, isn't it?"
The scanner is carefully disassembled on the work bench, many of the components laid on top of an anti-static mat and carefully labeled. There's also a stack of drawings and photographs showing the device in various stages of disassembly, with careful notes on exactly how to put the device back together. "It could be related to the power converter," Hershall says, turning back toward the device. "But I just can't figure out how the antenna array is tuned. It doesn't seem to follow any of the conventions governing antennas that we know of today. I was wondering if it had to do with the power output, but haven't really gotten a chance to dig into that area yet." There's a hint in the words that Hershall and his team are being rushed. Justin, meanwhile, follows Rins over to the desk and likewise peers at the device, standing on the opposite side of the engineer. He stays quiet for the moment, but it's obvious he's going to remain at least somewhat involved in this. Unfortunately.
It can't be easy to have the top boss literally breathing down your neck. Rins gives Hershall a sympathetic look. "Well, I dug in my archives. I found schematics for the array and the power convertor's prototype versions, going back hundreds of years. I'm hoping that they'll offer some insight. Maybe you can replace the components with a modified version that you do understand, based on the old schematics." He pulls out a round device. "Sorry the resolution is so poor." He hits a button, and a fully-realized schematic that would put Stark's HUD to shame leaps to life. It shows an incredibly detailed schematic of a power convertor. "I did my best to translate it into English. Parts don't really translate well, as you can see." He points to a few areas with a collection of strange characters rather than English text. He sticks his hand into the image and swings it around to face Hershell.
Both Hershall and Hammer are clearly impressed by the holographic schematic. The engineer looks over the lines. "Poor resolution?" he laughs as he traces along the routes. "I'm glad to see at least a few things don't change. This is going to help a lot." While Hershall studies the drawings, Justin peers at them as well. He only vaguely understands some of it, this being far and beyond his scope of knowledge. His degree was in mechanical engineering, and this is anything but mechanical in nature.
"Heh, well, perhaps not poor resolution from your perspective." Rins doesn't seem to mean at in an arrogant way. He grins a little. "I had no way of converting these schematics into something your computers could understand. So you can use this. If you tear it apart to try and reverse-engineer it, it won't work. There's a core inside it that shatters when you breach the outer case." A beat, then, "Consumer-level tech. Voids the warrantee. It's designed to be tamper-proof."
Justin frowns almost immediately. Yep, that was going to be his next order of business, after they figured out the scanner. Hershall is simply impressed, moving the image by touching it and slowly getting the hang of how to navigate the schematic. "Just amazing... It's starting to make more sense seeing it like this. The traces on the device are so small they were nearly impossible to figure out. Not to mention many of the components were unidentifiable." Justin is still quiet- this has to be a new record for him- as he straightens up and just watches his engineer and the alien in disguise.
"If you hit another wall, contact me again. I tried to label the components with similar alloys that are available on Earth. If you get this working, it won't be as efficient or as accurate, but it'll still be hundreds of years ahead of anything currently on the market." He glances towards Justin, as if checking to see if that will appease the CEO.
Hammer looks toward Rins, then back down at the schematics. He lets the silence sit another couple seconds, then nods once. "That'll be acceptable," he finally says, crossing his arms over his chest. "As long as it's accurate enough for the applications I have in mind, I think we can work with it." In reality, if it's half as accurate as it's potential is, that's still a huge leap beyond anything that Hammer Industries, or anyone else, has. And more than good enough for the drone project that Justin wants to integrate it into.
"I'm glad this is helpful," says Rins. "You were a victim of Corvis, along with a lot of other people. It's my job to try and undo the damage. At least in your case, no one died." He looks to the scientist, then back to Justin. "There's not much more I can help with beyond this at the moment. Like I said, contact me if you hit another snag."
The Engineer offers Rins a genuine smile. "You have my thanks, I think this is just what I needed." He goes back to the schematics, having found a new enthusiasm for the project. This seems to please Justin, and he finally turns away from Hershall, leaving the man to work in peace. "Let me know if there's anything I can do to help you catch Corvis," Hammer offers, "And I'll be in touch if we need anything." He motions toward the door to the lab, ready to escort Rins back out of the secured facility.
Category:Log