2014.06.19 - Project Daybreak: Intro

For today's unveiling of Project Daybreak, the largest conference room on the lowest floor of the project's lab facility has been converted into a press room, with presentation screens, extensive seating, and a table set up panel-style setup on a raised dais. As the group conference comes to a close, with guided public tours and one-on-one Q&A's scheduled to follow, Roberto da Costa, the project's primary backer, storms off the stage into a small prep room for the panelists, spewing a stream of virulent Portugese profanity.

It's not hard to guess why, either. The focus of the press inquiries were not on Da Costa International's first foray into research and development or their staking a claim in North America or the new responsibilities put on the company's scion, Roberto. Instead, someone in the press corps got wind of Roberto's mutant registration tucked in amongst the paperwork of the project's founding, and asked a few pointed questions. The rest of the reporters, smelling blood (and, let's face it, a more interesting story) jumped eagerly to that topic. Did Roberto have a superheroic identity? Was he affiliated with any of the city's super-teams? Did being a mutant give him an unfair business advantage? Would his abilities be used in the lab's research, and did that mean he would condone scientific testing on mutants?

The unwitting mutant debutante stands in the middle of the room and huffs angrily, trying to calm down, unwilling to pass through the guarded doorway into the Q&A room and face the public again just yet. He didn't lose it on camera, fortunately, but he's going to need a moment to compose himself if he wants to keep up that particular winning streak.

Pryce and Vincent Von Gregory, technological wunderkinds and partial backers to the project are not far behind Roberto after his exit into the prep room. "Well that is a first. Someone covering the announcent of a major scientific project actually read all of the paperwork attached to it." One of the twins says trying to lighten the mood a little.

"And we thought we were going to end up having to spend half our time explaining nanorobitcs in very small teeny tiny words." The other one adds before leaning against a wall.

Kilroy walks among those present behind the wall of vultures, and in Kilroy's eyes they truly are vultures. This is why the family operates behind the shadows, only taking interviews or the like when they must. Fortunately, accounting is viewed as amongst the most boring subjects known to man, and after a short burst of mind numbing financial theory most shriek and flee in terror. This is a project he personally intends to back heavily. He watches for now, curious as to the rest of the event.

157 is among those waiting in the Q and A room, sitting quietly with some schoolbooks and working on some homework while he waits. He's a bit of an oddity among all the reporters, businessmen, and scientific types present...a scrawny schoolkid, surely not the sort who would be interested in something like this. Perhaps he's here with someone else, most would think. Of course, he isn't. Power sources and energy production are just another of his Priority Observation Targets, so...here he is. True, he could have just observed from a scrying portal, but that wouldn't give him a chance to make contact if he needs to find opportunity to learn more about this project.

See, Allison didn't really hear much about the labs... not at first. But what she heard led her to instruct her friend and confidant... Julius.. to research it. That was a few days ago. And with two sleepless nights passed, and many hours of number crunching and jotting down notes digitally, Ally worked herself until her brain basically fell asleep on the job. So... after waking, showering, remembering to eat (which takes some doing now and then), she donned her suit (it's really faster than trying to hire a taxi, and far cheaper...) and flew downtown towards Project Daybreak. She landed a ways off, no need to make them think there is an attack in progress.

Sure, -she- didn't think of that. Julius did. She was focused on -getting- there. And so she stowed her armor in a closet somewhere, set the onboard computer to maintain contact with Julius, and walked the rest of the way.

Showing up, with her hair a bit mussed. Hathead anyone? She has a tablet in one hand and is basically walking straight towards the dias... crowds? Bah!

"You are unsettled." the young man with jade skin notes politely with an apparent mastery of the obvious, "But you needn't be.." he continues kindly, "..the questions posed have little immediate pertinence and are an inappropriate avenue if their intent was to discredit the veracity of the research that will be done."

"After all, a being's genetic heritage inevitably effects the outcome of any project that they undertake. I would assert that a registration with MENSA would give you a grater advantage than a physical mutation."

Querl Dox concludes what he has to say there. Having somehow managed to land a role as an independent evaluator he has little skin in the actual game.

Dressed in a three piece suit, and I mean come on its science for Reed Richards it's a must situation. Dressed up and sitting quietly, much farther in the back of the circus Reed is seated and waits for the clamoring media to settle. As he waits he reads through the information released to the press for the fifth time. Looking up for a chance to see if the hoopla is over, the man decides to take it to the next level and 'stretches' his neck long enough to get a better view over the crowd.

"At--least--Da Costa International's name will be in the news for the next few days," Adelisa Rust notes with the most uplifting smile she can muster. Adelisa - 'Lisa' for short - is here representing a small, but fiercely innovative research collective in Berlin that's recently made some waves thanks to its work with extradimensional bio-matter. She's a few years past grad school, and her optimism and enthusiasm seemingly have yet to be ground away by the merciless minefield of the peer review process.

"Well. Most of it will be, anyway," she corrects in a smaller voice, averting her eyes from the man in charge as she briefly rubs the back of her neck. Her English is strong, but her accent is still readily apparent, and carries more tinges of Eastern Europe than Germany. "Think of the free publicity--and for science, no less; you're a very lucky man." Another smile is flashed Roberto's way, and then Lisa glances Querl-wards, nods along with his assertion, and adds, "Everyone has a little something special about them; they're just upset that none of their special things are about to change the world," to it.

MEANWHILE, THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY

"... special things are about to change the world." Lisa Rust's voice emanates from one of dozens of monitors studding a room in the depths of Castle Doom where the events of the world play out endlessly for Doctor Doom's amusement/edification. Roberto da Costa and Querl Dox's faces and bodies dominate most of the display due that probe's present proximity to them, although it - she - soon takes to idly scanning the rest of the room while she waits for Roberto or Querl's reply.

"Such enthusiasm," the Lord of Latveria muses as he studies both Lisa's display and a ticker stuffed with data streaming from her hard drive, "such joy for life--but then, how could a life lived only for Doom be anything butjoyful?"

Apart from a few funny looks when he sat down, the assembled reporters here are mostly ignoring 157. He doesn't look particularly kidnapped, autotuned, or prone to entering junior beauty pageants, so he's not really TV material. Allison actually blends in with the newspaper reporters, most of whom are equally unfussy about their appearance and pushy about achieving their goals. Maybe she's covering it for one of the city's high schools.

"Meu deus, this was supposed to be boring," Roberto groans back in the prep room, clutching his temples. But the twins' attempts at lightening the mood are fairly successful, even if he still can't quite tell which is which, and intentionally or not, Querl Dox's stilted reassurances get a genuine laugh. After a moment, Roberto's posture is back, along with a smile that only looks a little bit forced. "You're right, Lisa. I wanted publicity, and now I've got it. Let's get the rest of this over with. If I start tugging on my ear, attack whoever I'm talking to with the densest technobabble you've got," he tells the researchers, striding back into the press room.

First, the Brazilian notices a head on an elongated neck floating above the crowd. He is startled for just a moment, but then he recognizes Dr. Richards and smiles. At least that man seems unlikely to be distracted from the research by who is or isn't a mutant. Although the stretch move has attracted the attention of a reporter, who is trying to get Reed's attention by peppering him with questions. As a metahuman scientist, is he attached to the project? In fact, are there any human researchers allowed on the project at all? Is it reverse discrimination? And so on.

Roberto claps his hands together once, announcing: "Alright, ladies and gentlemen, now we'll be touring the lab facilities, doing photo ops, and answering questions one on one. Feel free to approach any of the research team and we will be happy to answer your questions about the project." He manages to make the last three words only *slightly* pointed.

Pryce and Vincent both salute Roberto at his order and share a matched pair of evil grins. They have a special skill with driving men mad with technobable, mostly because they can hammer it home at lightning speed in stereo. "Don't worry, if nothing else we could even drop compleatly programer speak too." If Roberto does end up needing a save the pair fully intend to have fun with it.

Once things are ready to move on the pair stride out of hte prep room with something just short of a swagger ready to face the barbarian hoards.

At the exact moment that Roberto enters the room, 157 finishes his homework. He closes up his book and notebook, tucking them and his pencil away into a bookbag and zipping that up. Standing, he lifts the bookbag with clear effort and puts it on his shoulders, then slowly tries to make his way through the crowd of reporters. He's short, so he can't see way back here and it's unlikely he'll get to ask any questions. Fortunately, his small size makes it relatively easy to slip around all the adults. Unfortunately, his complete and total lack of physical coordination makes it difficult to do that without falling on his face. Well, that's not quite true. When he gets to the front, he does take a tumble, but he manages to get his hands out to catch himself, at least, so he doesn't actually hit face-first. Slowly, he gets to his knees, picks up his fedora and puts it on, and then stands up as though that never happened, looking at the gathered researchers...then raises his hand, as though he were in school.

"Yewie finds that this project may be useful to people of Earth," he says, in slow monotone. "Describe planned research timeline, skills of members of research team, proposed speed of adoption once research is complete, and potential alternative applications for research." Pause. "Please." He lowers his hand again.

Reporters are pushed past, and greeters try to say hello to Allison and offer pamplhets and documentation explaining things.. well, publicly available things in layman's terms. Either way, a rumpled looking 16 year old girl who really isn't even dressed in a manner that shows any inkling of a thought towards fashion does tend to draw the eyes.

She isn't even paying attention to communication signals she's picking up on psionically at the moment. She just... wants to get to the folks in charge of running this operation, and inform them how they could be doing a better job.  The AI is speaking in her brain of course, through her psi-link. She interrupts him and replies, <> And then, the computer sighs. Yep, a computer can sigh... at least in her head.

So, when she can't immediately pick out anyone for being... the head geek or whatnot, she just turns to the nearest official Project Personnel and speaks to them. "I need to get the algorythms I have on this device to whomever is in charge here. Their numbers are going to be inefficient. They need to use nano-collectors and position them with a better pattern to make the best use of their facility." She goes on with some more intolerable technobabble that I can't even think to type... and basically glazes over the eyes of the attendant she is speaking to. "Oh, Mr. DaCosta. I was just trying to explain to this person here.." she gestures to one of the generic personnel. "That I need to get this data to someone with technical know-how and authorization to make changes. Perhaps I should be speaking to someone on the research team you indicated?" Yep... manners take a back door when it comes to SCIENCE for her.

Brainiac shifts slightly his arms going from stiffly to his right hand clasping his right wrist behind the small of his back. He blinks once when Roberto laughs at his reassurances but does not seem disaffected by the gesture. Querl looks pointedly as Lisbeth when she supports him and then agrees with her assertion by way of a polite nod.

When Roberto exits he waits patiently until others have departed until following such that he's near the tail end of the procession.

"Mutant?" Querl Dox replies as a pair of reporters lag behind the rest to test their material on a seemingly obvious target, "To what end?" he replies politely and they re-state the question a different way, "Ah," the Coluan says, "Allow me to put this conversation in its proper context: A human cell has three billion base pares of DNA. Generally speaking, its replication in your species is ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine (99.99999999%) accurate. In essence yielding one (1) mutation per 10 billion nucleotides. Therefore, each cell division yields roughly 0.6 mutations. Your average cell has divided approximately 47 times from a single zygote. Thus, after forty-seven divisions you average somatic cell has accumulated about 28 mutations. As humans have 100 trillion somatic cells they therefore have, on average, 2.8 quatrillion separate mutations."

He then looks at them directly, "However, I am not human," and continues on with the faintest of smiles.

As his returns to his body he's quickly 'assaulted' with questions. "Alright, but let me answer your primary inquiries first. No, no, yes, and it's mutate, M-U-T-A-T-E, not mutant." Reed replies to the reporter before smiling. "However there is nothing wrong with being a mutant, scientific studies argue that you, myself and everyone in this room are all mutants. And judging by the look on your face you are trying to comprehend that bit of information. I will give you a moment" but before he goes into a full scientific rant about the evolution of mankind, Reed hears that the tour is about to begin and perks up. "Oh goody, if you will excuse me Im eager to get a first hand glance of the facilities here. I hear they boast on having a micro particle collider." It's taken some years but Reed has learned. Standing up and performing 'the Picard maneuver', Reed moves off to join the masses.

Adelisa follows her fellow scientists out into the crowd after taking a moment to make sure that her blonde bun is still intact. The sea of reporters aren't such a big deal; she was pretty much expecting to deal with them after spectacle of the conference, and she already had her best mutant genome identification anecdote locked and loaded by the time they come into view. Before it can even come to that, though, her head snaps towards a familiar voice as its owner tries to keep the media vultures at bay, and for just a moment, her eyes narrow.

MEANWHILE, LATVERIA

Doctor Doom looks down at the shards of glass and rivulets of wine trailing through his fingers with a scowl. He didn't mean to do it, but how could he not? How could he help himself when that voice--that face--that man invaded his display?

"Richards..." The name is only two syllables big, but his growl fills the monitor womb with hatred all the same. "Disengage tertiary objective," he adds a moment later.

BACK IN NEW YORK

"-- sorry, what?" Adelisa disengages from staring a hole through Dr. Richards' superextended face to squint at a reporter with a recording device shoved up near her mouth. "Wh--I don't--I'm just a normal human woman," she sputters, leaning to either side and going up on her toes to try and track the rest of the ground. "--of course there wasn't any pro-mutant bias in the--oh, would you look at that?"

After pushing her way past the reporter, Lisa jogs to catch up with the procession; the reporter, of course, trails after her, but he ends up fidning someone else to harass by the time they both arrive. Of course, two more reports soon pop up to take his place, but she's a bit more on her game, by that point: all smiles and small, media-friendly words about her part of the project. Which is, perhaps unfortunately for them, pretty dull, because it mostly focuses on collecting, analyzing, and cataloguing findings from other segments of it.

There's a certain puckish quality to the Von Gregory twins that puts Roberto in mind of a pair of Hollywood con men or romanticized bank robbers. It's oddly reassuring having them as backup, ready to disrupt this formal setting at the drop of a hat. He also can't help but grin as Braniac lives up to that name, terrorizing a few reporters with far more complete information than they are prepared to handle. Adelisa seems to falter under the media scrutiny or get deeply intimidated by Reed Richards for a moment, but recovers quickly, so that's surely nothing to worry about. So far, this is going better than he anticipated.

He's feeling good about his unlikely team as he leads the group through a corridor, passing various equipment rooms on either side. Reporters are sure to ask the research staff about the equipment in the labs that belong to them. Is it dangerous? Could it be weaponized? Is Project Daybreak a front to gather equipment for a new group of scientific supervillains? You know -- the really incisive, well-informed stuff.

"Oh, hi, Allison," he greets the Xavier's student with a friendly smile. "I should have figured you would be interested in this place," he tells the younger mutant. "I can probably set up an internship or a work-study or something, if you want to get involved. As for that" -- he inclines his head to indicate Allison's gadget -- "I'm not really much use on the REALLY technical stuff. Maybe try one of the researchers?" He hooks a thumb toward Lisa and the Von Gregories, then smiles and specifically points out Brainiac. "I think you might get along with Querl Dox, over there, actually."

And then a tween is pestering him with -- well, actually, fairly substantive questions. Roberto wrinkles his nose, but figures he might as well offer Yewie some answers in case one of the reporters accidentally slips and writes it into an article. "We're planning on consumer implementation first, to cover the cost of development. Cell phone cases that charge your phone in the sun, special paint that extends the mileage on your hybrid car, that sort of thing. Those could hit the market as early as next year, if things go well. As for the credentials of the researchers, I'll let them speak for themselves. I'm just the money guy," he says with the sort of insincere humility that only exists to be charming.

"Now that would depend on what exactly you mean by mutant, wouldn't it. On a technical note just being identical twins, or our off the charts IQs could count. But if you are reffering to the X-Gene then I am sorry, we are just plain old normal millionare industrial philanthropists." One of the Von Gregory twins fields off a question about being mutants. Roberto's feelings about the twins is not too much off hte mark, spending as much of thier formative years as they did amongst the big names of Hollywood gave them plenty of time to hone those conman like skills usefull in the boardroom and when dealing with the press. While he deals with more questions the other slips through the press having spotted someone interesting. Or at least more interesting than the streatchy head of Reed Richards.

Pryce, and it is the twin wearing the Pryce name tag, appears out of the press at Allison's side as she tries to get the attention of Roberto. Once the man in charge has his say he waits a second before sidling up next to her and speaking. "Kind of presumptuous being so sure you have a better configuration in mind, especailly when you have not seen what we have planned or had even a tiny peek at the algorythms we are going to put in place for the whole thing?" He asks with a slightly ammused tone of voice.

Kilroy walks in after taking a call outside. He is taking sense of the room, keeping a low key as before. He is curious about the nature of the project, eager to back it and annoyed at the media. He is also likely unknown by most if not all here, which is just the way he likes it. His badge merely says, "Kilroy Conneticut, Sheer Accounting."

"Understood. Project has variety of potential uses and may be properly minaturized for portability. Success of project will lower humanity's vulnerability to targeted strikes against existing power plants and will allow advanced technology to remain available in undeveloped or damaged areas." 157 follows after the group, struggling somewhat to keep up. He doesn't move all that fast in general, and he's short, so...it's a bit tough. Fortunately, no one seems inclined to actually push the kid out of the way. Reporters can be jerks, but 'Cruel Reporter Shoves Boy Down, Causes Injury' can /very/ easily make a rival paper's front page.

He /did/ catch da Costa's answer to Allison, though, and when the group pauses for a moment and he's able to get up relatively near Robert again, he says, "Yewie is also interested in internship or work-study or something. Yewie is student at Academy of Tomorrow and is studying technological innovations." Technically he's not doing that for school, but Yewie's getting a little bit smoother about fudging the truth when he needs to. A little. "Yewie could be of use to project, and project would be of use in fulfilling Yewie's objectives."

He does note the presence of the famous Reed Richards, as well...but this doesn't appear to currently be Reed's project. There are other opportunities for studying /that/ particular famous scientist. A pause, though, as he notices Kilroy's badge, and he looks back at Robert, then over at Kilroy, then back at Robert. Finally, he points at Kilroy. "Yewie has detected second 'money guy'. Is second 'money guy' involved in project? Please."

Walking along with the other visitors to the installation, Reed seems to be interested in everything he sees. This can generally be determined by the persistent turning of his head from side to side as he looks at all of, how would Ben say it: 'Shiny new toys'. And as much as he would love to get in and recalibrate everything he see's, he decides to keep his hands in his pockets and rubber neck, in the literal sense, for the tour. Ooo! Is that a gyro-stabilized cutting laser? Nifty. I wonder what they have the.. No! This is their adventure in science.

Suddenly confused, Allison's brain processes stuff being said around her. "Huh? What does whether someone is a mutant or not have anything to do with how this place performs and runs?" she asks aloud. "That's like asking whether gravity cares if you are a chimp or a human." She snorts and shakes her head before shrugging and offering a bit of a smile towards Roberto. Then... she turns her attentions to said researchers.

Lisa and the Von Gregories are now her targets, not to mention Querl. She looks at Querl and raises a single brow. "How odd." She remarks with a grin. And she approaches them, holding out her tablet which is stuffed to the gills with research notes of her own, suggestions, in a disjointed way that really... only she tends to follow.

"... figured out that the subject was actually suffering from spondylolysis!" The tail end of Adelisa's story is broken up by her own laughter; the fact that the reporters are just kind of staring blankly at her while she wraps up makes the fact that her laughter is the only laughter even more painfully apparent than it already would've been. "It, it was confusing at first, you see," she hastily tries to recover, "because its spine was in its--"

After a shared glance, the reporters wander off to question someone else; one of them lobs off a half-hearted thanks for her time without breaking stride.

"... that would have killed at home," she mutters to herself as they go. No sooner than she exhales and sets herself to moving on - or checking on Richards, and then moving on - Allison pops up with her tablet in hand and draws her attention away.

"Hello!" she brightly offers, even as she makes a face at the mutant's forwardness. "He is a little--withdrawn, sometimes, but perfectly nice," she says with a slight head tilt towards Querl. After Pryce speaks, she offers Allison her hand, saying, "Ah--I am sure that she means well enough; she showed a lot of initiative, don't you think?" to the twin. Afterwards, she turns fully towards Allison with a sheepish smile. "I could take a look, if you like...

"Certo, Huey," Roberto answers, nodding as 157's presence is (misleadingly) accounted for and getting his name wrong to boot. "We would love to start an educational partnership with the Academy of Tomorrow." He grins for the cameras. No one takes a picture of the heartwarming educational opportunity. He sighs quietly and continues, "Second money guy?" He follows 157's glance over to Kilroy, reads his nametag, and smiles. Media circus or no, there's at least potential for the project to impress and draw more investment. He'll save the pitch for a more confidential setting, though. "No, he isn't, but he might decide to be. He's probably curious to learn more about our project before he gets involved."

Since Pryce, Lisa, and Allison seem to be heading for a technical discussion, Roberto sidles toward Reed, trying to buttonhole the high-profile scientist. "Dr. Richards? Roberto da Costa. What do you think of our facilities here?" he says to break the ice. Several photographers snap photos of the two talking, no doubt with Daily Bugle captions like 'META SCIENTISTS CONSPIRE???' in mind. "I'd love to hear your thoughts. I don't suppose you're looking to hire out as a consultant?"

The group now arrives at the prototyping level of the facility. Everything from sophisticated microcircuit printers to machining workbenches is available here, along with testing rooms, monitoring equipment, and stockpiles of chemical and synthetic raw materials. If Project Daybreak were going to do a heel turn, this is where they would assemble their armory, and that's not exactly lost on the reporters.

Pryce offers his best megawatt grin to both Allison and Lisa. "I never said it was a bad thing, presumption stood both my brother and I well at MIT." He offers as a way of smoothing things in the off chance he sounded harsh as opposed to teasing when he spoke earlier. "I am always happy to hear fresh ideas, and if they are as good as you say if the man in charge offers you an internship would be glad to have someone else on our team that has a chance of keeping up."

Across the room from him Vincent is doing his level best to explain the uses of some of the equipment that the group is showing off without giving away that one really could build an army of killer robots or laser guns with it all easily.

Kilroy looks at 157 with curiousity when he's addressed but smiles warmly at the statement. He's about to answer when he sees the camera, and then shuts up for a second. He's considering how to get out of this when suddenly, LOOK! SQUIRREL! FANTASTIC FOUR MEMBER! All is well. Breathing a sigh of relief, he continues to observe the situation, impressed with Roberto's handling of an otherwise hostile press. He listens.

"Should Yewie add Huey to list of recognized identifications?" 157 asks Roberto. "Yewie will ask Academy of Tomorrow to arrange for educational partnership. Yewie finds assisting in project to be significant opportunity to further studies." He takes a few steps away from Roberto, over to where Vincent is standing, listening to the conversation and looking out at all the equipment. "Project Daybreak has acquired vast assortment of materials and equipment. Project Daybreak is very well-equipped and appears prepared for extensive research, testing, and production," he comments. "Multiple alternative uses for observed materials possible." Fortunately, for once, he doesn't go into any further detail than that. Instead, he looks up at Vincent. "Describe role in project. Please."

"Oh! Okay!" Allison exudes teenage excitement when it is mentioned that someone will have a look at her work. She activates the tablet, and the machine projects a holographic screen and Interface. Her own OS and design of course. She moves a hand through the display and brings up her notes, which look almost handwritten. Mathematical equations and complex formulae. It's... all quite advanced for well.. for a fully educated scientist. Let alone a teenage kid.

"I think we could increase your output by at least a factor of three. If we programmed nanotech to adjust to the angle of inclination of the... blah blah blah... " yep, she's in full blown techno-ramble mode... as she flicks through notes at high speed.

Yeah, she's kinda taken the offer of an internship in one ear and out the other. She's less concerned with job placement, than... well, making the tech better. Her eyes are like... wide with energy and a total lack of Guile. But she is talking about things that would generally require several degrees, some of them PhD's, to be knowledgeable about...

Reed is taken aback when Roberto approaches him. "It's pleasure to meet you Mister de Costa. And I must say you have put together quite a fantastic facility." Reed says with a smile and a hand in greeting. "However at the moment my abilities to consult are, sadly, unavailable. But you dont need me. Look around you." Reed's voice seems to raise in tone as if ready to take the other man on a ride of wonderment. "You have everything you need to contribute to the hallowed halls of science here. You have the equipment, you have the bright youthful minds and you have the drive to find what youre searching for." Reed then lets off a soft chuckle. "And that is all you need, just be ready for the greatest adventure you will ever go on."

Adelisa doesn't seem to have any trouble with following Allison's stream of technobabble while scanning over the girl's notes. The holodisplay elicited a little surprise, but she acclimated to it readily enough, and now she's taking the information in as fast as she can get it. "This is--fascinating," she offers after a few seconds of silent study. Her tone is stiff and the words are spoken deliberately--probably because she's more focused on learning than communicating right now. "Some of your..."

LATVERIA

"... figures could perhaps use another look, but on the whole--very intriguing," Doctor Doom says for Adelisa while the probe's main processors are occupied with information retrieval. Off to the side of his personal HUD, a few shots of Allison taken from various angles today pop up, along with what information he has about her('Scientist', basically); she may merit further attention in the near future, if those notes are anything to judge by.

PROJECT DAYBREAK

"Perhaps we could meet to discuss them later," Adelisa evenly offers. A moment later, upon hitting the end of the tablet data, she blinks a few times, refocuses on Allison, and adds, "And if the man in charge doesn't want to snap you up for an internship--I just might know someone who would," flashing a smile Pryce-wards afterwards. "You should have a closer look--they're very fresh ideas indeed."

Roberto smiles graciously at Reed's eloquent demurral. Now THAT is a soundbyte. It's all the more amazing because Richards doesn't even seem to be doing it on purpose. He's just that optimistic and exuberant about the advancement of human knowledge. That the doombot among them doesn't go completely homicidal at this display is a testament to the extent to which Allison's abilities have distracted Latveria's leader. "Inspiring words, Dr. Richards. Thank you," Roberto says, blissfully unaware of the near miss. "We'll do our best to live up to your hopes for us."

Unfortunately, another segment of the assembled press aren't entirely buying Vincent's misdirection. It's not that he isn't doing a good job; it's just that there really is no way to disguise the capabilities of this equipment. One particularly pointed question to Roberto gets an equally pointed answer: "Look, this kind of equipment is used in civilian prototyping labs all over the world," he explains tersely. "The only reason you are grilling us and not Boeing is because I happen to be a mutant, and I happen to employ some non-humans. That says a lot more about you than it does about me. In-house prototyping is going to speed up our research progress dramatically: end of story."

Fortunately his lack of tact is covered for a bit by Allison's light show. Yes, literally, sparkly lights are enough to distract this particular gathering of the fourth estate's finest. Several photographers snap pictures of the nifty displays, understanding none of it, but appreciating the special effects. And, slowly, they're starting to filter out of the building. This is the end of the tour, after all.

Pryce lets out a low whistle looking at what Allison has worked out once the display goes online. He can't help it, for the first time since the start of the project he has to reach out wiht his powers and get a feel for her tech and see what he can see inside of the tablet. While he tries to learn all eh can about the tablet, and maybe take a peek at other notes she has made of things saved in its memory he grins and nods. "Ok, I will admit it, I am impressed. Half of this here..." He points out some of the equations displayed, "...won't be neccissary though. We threw out normal program design for a hive mind processing style we have been working with in larger size but this is some work on par with the best."

Vincent's grin does not faulter as he goes from being grilled by the 4th estate to being grilled by a preteen. "My brother and I are amongst the tech specialists in the project. I personally am part of hte design team for several of nanorobotics that are going to be in use and my brother is heading up the programing team."

Kilroy isn't immediately leaving with the tourists...er...reporters...but he is slowly moving toward the edge, listening to everything, watching the displays, gauging the body language and confidence of the techs and those describing the technology. He resists the urge to turn all the money in the reporters wallets to confederate bills. They'd blame Roberto.

"Understood," 157 says. "Nanorobotics and programming. Yewie has studied programming since arrival and has learned to program at moderate ability level. Yewie has reviewed research regarding nanorobotics but has not learned to create or modify nanorobotics at this time. Yewie is capable of construction of robotic equipment at larger scale, however. If Yewie receives permission from Academy of Tomorrow and Project Daybreak, Yewie will be capable of assistance to variable degree in these two areas."

He looks over to Pryce, watching the holographic displays as well. That's rare for Earth...and his analytical mind actually suggests the level of design here is pretty rare even out in space. He turns his attention to the reporters around Roberto as he hears the questions about equipment, though. "Notification: Boeing Company responsible for multiple military projects including fighter aircraft, reconaissance drones, and other military and espionage technology. Boeing Company is therefore proper target for questions regarding sharing of equipment for peaceful and weaponized projects. Moderate probability Project Daybreak is capable of similar split purpose. However, present evidence does not suggest this split has occurred at this time."

Da Costa maintains his smile, offering meaningless pleasantries as the last of the press exit followed by Dr. Richards. Once he's sure there are no cameras or voice recorders left in the room, he slumps into the nearest swivel chair with a forceful sigh. The energy of his flop isn't quite centered, so the chair slowly rotates for a couple of seconds. Then Roberto gathers his breath and says, "Well done, everyone. Bad situation, but we dealt with it. Tomorrow, we can get started on our actual work. I think we've all suffered enough for today."