hexcope | Etraya Inbox

[ Harold looks even more like a professor than normal as he decides to deliberately play up that angle for his first visit to S.T.A.R. labs since his own arrival. It'd been disappointingly empty of computer equipment, not to mention entirely unsecured, so he'd never returned after his initial scouting. Now he's in a sweater vest and tie under his suit jacket rather than a waistcoat, and he has a leather messenger bag over one shoulder that Jayce will recognize from summer camp.

He'd decided to leave Bear at home, which wasn't an idle decision. Harold is incredibly defenseless and relies on Bear for protection much of the time -- basically whenever John, Shaw, or now Carver aren't around in person -- but he did say he would need a greater measure of trust in order to work effectively, and he should at least start by trying to earn it.

If he ends up settling in to work, he'll bring in a guard. Trust but verify, indeed.

As it is, he comes limping up to the massive facility and pauses in front, sending Jayce a message to let him know he's arrived. Little point in wandering around looking for wherever they've set up. ]

Follow the arrows.

[There along the walls, from the entrance inward, are a series of papers stuck to the wall halfassedly with tape and a very basic arrow drawn on them. They've been up for a while, and there's worn parts of the otherwise dusty hallways, pathways made by the motion of human feet.

When Harold arrives, Jayce is already sitting down as if he’d just been waiting around the whole time for Harold to arrive, with a pot of hot water, since Harold expressed the desire to bring his own tea.

Originally, he had planned to erase as much evidence he could of his plans for saving Viktor, but after his second conversation with Harold, and with the potential of inviting Peter over... he decides to not. What does remain is six white boards, all flipped to show their blank side only, but the other side has much more information written on them. He'll keep that side hidden for now, until he talks more with Harold.

The two long desks that sit near each other, one clearly Jayce’s and the other Viktor’s, aren’t as cleaned up. There’s notes stacked on each, both with their own methods of organization. Jayce’s desk has a notebook on it, closed, and various blueprints underneath it all.

If browsed, there are notes about building a device to track magic in Etraya, along with a blueprint, and it looks to be the oldest of the blueprints. Another blueprint is for the Hextech gauntlet that Jayce had built for Vander to use. Any notes pertaining to nanotechnology seem very minimal and surface level, more like brainstorming than fully formed plans. Should Harold find a chance to snoop, for notes on artificial intelligence, there’s also not a lot of notes there on explorations, but instead more diary-like entries about Aurora and detailing what he assumes are her limitations.

Jayce stands up from his seat as Harold approaches, wearing his science outfit, and holds out hand to shake.]

Glad you could make it.

[A pleasantry more than maybe he means it, but he's trying to mean it.]

Edited 2025-07-08 05:09 (UTC)

[ There are literal directions pointing visitors to where to find their research. It practically gives Harold hives as he follows it, and he feels rather like a small furry mammal forcibly pried out of its burrow. Yes, he's absolutely going to need a guard if he's going to work under these conditions.

The rest of it he takes in with a quick, assessing glance, but refocuses on Jayce with all the etiquette of a gentleman. Since Jayce is trying then he'll try as well, and he contains his scathing comments about the lack of security as well as some choice asides about how they'd have been having an entirely different conversation all along if Jayce had just told him he was trying to save someone's life.

Harold raises a mild eyebrow at the greeting but shakes his hand politely nonetheless. ]

If there's no time to waste, then I'd like to get right into it.

[ Once he's decided to do something, Harold is professional and even relentless, full steam ahead. He understands they need a preliminary conversation to work out the particulars and assess their ability to work together, but with a life on the line he sees no need to engage in any further pleasantries. ]

[Jayce tilts his head back a little with eyebrow raised, Harold's determination to begin working without a full discussion about it is more than a bit surprising. He expected he was going to need to give a lot more detailing.]

Alright. What do you need to start?

[ He sees that surprise and explains himself evenly. ]

Your partner's life is in jeopardy. We can sort out our differences of opinion after that is resolved.

[ There's the moral imperative, but he also expects Jayce to be far more reasonable when he isn't mentally consumed with the looming, impending death of a loved one.

Harold limps to the side and offloads his bag, which settles with a heavy thunk on an unused table. ]

Walk me through what you've done so far?

[Jayce looks over Harold again, eyes searching for some kind of deception that he's not had any reason to expect from Harold, but a fear he's harbored nonetheless. After decidedly enough deliberation, he walks over to one of the whiteboard and rotates it to the detailed side. There is a drawing of Viktor, with certain parts of his body shaded in purple, specifically his right hand and his left leg. Along the left side are a series of runic shapes like math equations. On the right, a rough drawing of the top of a nanobot with a runic symbol emblazoned on it, as it sits atop a stem cell.]

I still need to talk to Dr. Langstrom about how to get the nanobots to attach themselves to the correct cells- artificial intelligence for it's pattern recognition is what I've come up with, but if you have better ideas, I'm open to it.

We can't rewrite Viktor's genetic code even with the tools we have here- but magic can. I've been working on the runic formula. Infuse the nanobots with trace amounts of magic, get them to redirect the stem cells to his affected areas, and empower them with energy from magic to be able to outpace the decaying, hopefully making the healing process stick.

[Unlike most times Harold's seen Jayce, there's not a trace of humor, lightheartedness, or agitation.]

[ Similarly, Harold is absolutely focused, though it's with a sense of steady calm. He's utterly unruffled by any crisis that isn't immediate physical danger and confident he can work through it to the best of his ability. Complex near-impossible coding problems are practically his comfort zone. He has no intention of making a full A.I. for this purpose and likely not ever again for any reason, but some more rudimentary applications seem appropriate, and he can do that as easily as breathing. ]

Is Dr. Langstrom a biologist of some kind? We haven't met. I would agree artificial intelligence is suited for that kind of pattern recognition, but I'd like a medical expert to advise me on the intended outcome.

[ He peers at the whiteboard, specifically at the runic equations. ]

And is this a mathematical language for magic? [ Because, please, he's dying to learn that. ]

Biochemist with a specialty in blood. He agreed to help with this, too.

[He leaves out the reason why Kirk would be perfect for helping with this.]

Yes. Sort of.

[He looks back to the whiteboard, at his own illustrations.]

It's not a one-to-one of using variables in math. It's more like stringing together a sentence.

[With a pen and a scrap of paper nearby, he begins to draw a particular shape- a perfect circle with seven spikes jutting from evenly spaced intervals. As he explains, he details out the sketch with proper shading.]

This one means precision. On it's own, it means nothing. But if you combine it with enough supporting runes with this as the emphasis, it "leads" the spell. With a word like precision, you could assume just means accuracy, but that's not the only use of it. Sometimes it means repetition, sometimes it means distance. It depends on the surrounding context, and the order the arcane reads it. Which isn't left to right, or right to left, but in an ordinal direction.

[Maybe if the situation wasn't so dire feeling, he'd have a bit more enthusiasm for what he's talking about. He looks back to Harold, searching his reaction for traces of disapproval.]

So it's a code of its own.

[ There's no trace of disapproval, just a short muted silence as he thinks, gaze flicking across Jayce's example back and forth as he memorizes it. There's a tremendous amount of things to consider, and Harold is fully out of his depth on at least two-thirds of this project, which is not a state he likes to be in. ]

I think that's something I could work with, [ he says slowly, making sure he's not over-promising as he runs through some options mentally for how he would approach this. ] But I have a few conditions.

[ Maybe this is the part Jayce was expecting all along, but Harold didn't see the sense in getting into it unless he thought he could help. And maybe, too, he'll be surprised by what he says next. ]

The first is that you see if Ms. Shadowheart is capable of healing him, instead of all this. I passed on her name to him but I'm not sure what became of it. [ Harold gave some other options, too, but that's the one he trusts most and feels is most likely to work. ]

[He's not surprised by the conditions. Everything Harold's asked of him so far has carried them.]

I've already asked her. She doesn't know about genetic diseases.

["Illness, poisons, end curses and charms." Astounding feats in their own right, but not the kind of miracle he's looking for, unfortunately.]

[ He nods immediately, accepting that without further discussion. Harold knows little enough about magic that he'd wanted to cross that off first without assuming it was a dead end. ]

The second is that anything I make will be a closed system. No one will have access to the program I devise. I can ensure that myself, but I didn't want it to be a surprise.

[ In other words, taking his own advice. What Jayce is describing is, beyond all of his frustrated references to nuclear power, effectively about curing cancer. That could do immense good... or immense harm. It's such a short step from the cure to the cause. Not to mention that Harold is planning to code it in his own custom programming language he'd built the Machine in, designed for A.I. The code language itself will be the building blocks for making a fully formed entity.

He hasn't decided yet if he might include a kill switch or remove even his own access afterwards, or both. That will come further into the project once he understands it better. ]

Edited (typo) 2025-07-10 20:10 (UTC)

[Jayce frowns a little, and then turns away as he moves toward the white board, fingers tapping his lips. He wouldn't try to access the program, he wouldn't even know what to do with it if he could. But it's not himself he's worried about.

There's a risk involved in all of this that Jayce hasn't told anyone about. Hasn't even discussed it with Viktor, but he knows Viktor's thought it as well. It's the kind of thing neither want to say out loud.

Lying has always benefited him, and honesty has almost always backfired. If he tells Harold everything, he doubts he'll still help him. Jayce traces a finger along the outline of Viktor, erasing the purple shaded-in parts in an idle sort of way.]

...Did you save them? The person you were trying to save?

["Who were you trying to save when you first developed it?" Harold asked him this before. He can only assume someone asks that when they've done the same.]

Edited 2025-07-10 20:48 (UTC)

[ It's an apt question and he'd known be was inviting it when he asked in the first place, so Harold doesn't balk at answering. He assumes Jayce is lying about something, because usually everyone is; that won't preclude him from helping, but he's setting all these conditions because he expects someone to try to exploit him.

It's still hard to speak. It's physically difficult to say, ] No.

[ It was his father, and he'd declined into dementia slowly over years, and nothing Harold could do could stop it.

But that's not the relevant story here. There's a different death that is immediately relevant, and Harold came here planning on telling Jayce this so he understands the seriousness of his commitment, both to saving someone and to preventing his work from being misused. He waits until Jayce is meeting his eyes again to speak. ]

I used to have a research partner. He was killed by the people we sold our work to.

And I like to think I can at least learn from my mistakes.

[Jayce turns back around, all the purple smudged away from Viktor's hand. He exhales a humorless laugh out of his nose. There's probably a timeline where the same happens to him. His desperation for private funding for Hextech to avoid the political backlash of government funding led him toward a night full of secret dealings and selling out.]

Which is why you want to make sure I can shut things down at a moment's notice. Can't let them have it if it doesn't exist. I get that.

[Jayce sighs as he leans with both hands on the table Harold sits at.]

I tried it once. At that point, it was already too entangled in government funding. They wouldn't shut it down when city profits were directly tied to Viktor and I's work. I know- irrelevant here.

[He just didn't want Harold to think he was some clueless asshole, all of the time.]

If we save Viktor's life, if we cure him... I'll find a way to nullify the gemstones.

[ There's more reasons than just that for why Harold wants him to have the means to shut things down at a moment's notice, but the memory of Nathan's death is a particularly compelling one, yes. Hearing Jayce agree to doing that after Viktor is cured, learning he'd tried once before to shut it down -- it solidifies his resolution to help. It's the right thing to do, and it will lead to a very dangerous technology having precautions attached to it.

Still, he can't help but give Jayce a dry, deeply understanding look. ]

Who do you think we sold it to? It was the government.

[ It was the U.S. government that killed Nathan. They wanted to make sure no one was around who could either tell the public of their Machine or take it away from them. Harold would be dead, too, if he weren't an inveterate paranoid who hadn't ever attached his name, real or fake, to its creation.

Harold has one last condition, but he lets that response rest on its own first as he turns to his bag and starts efficiently pulling out computer equipment. The first thing he pulls out is an extender for his personal MeSH network, then a laptop, then a second monitor, then a standalone full-sized keyboard, then a power strip... ]

[That admittance from Harold sinks such a deep and nauseous feeling into the pit of his stomach. There are times when he wants to think the Council could be different than what he's heard of other governments. Their capacity to change and listen as long as they had a strong hand to guide them- his hand. He could fix it, if he could just...

Would the Council have done something so drastic to himself and Viktor? If he's honest, most of them are spineless. But with Ambessa in the picture, if she got her hooks in anywhere, that'd be a different story. He doesn't need to know much about her to know it wouldn't be her first rodeo to do a hostile takeover. If they had said no to weapons enough times, would they...?

It doesn't matter now. He's not there, and what happens to him in Piltover is unknown to everyone. What matters is what happens here, and Viktor.

Jayce silently watches Harold get set up as he tries to calm the bile he feels in his throat. A distraction, anything.]

Okay, you don't need that last one. We have those.

[He means the power strip.]

[ He can tell his comment has landed, and doesn't feel the need to rub it in. Harold isn't one to linger on someone else's pain.

He also ignores the remark that he doesn't need a power strip and says, ] My last condition is that I'll have a guard for the duration. I get rather absorbed in my work and I'd prefer not to have to pay attention to the outside world.

[ Harold glances up expectantly, waiting for approval. ]

A body guard? Sure.

[He'd accuse it of being paranoid, but literally nothing out of Harold's mouth isn't, so.]

As long as they can keep their hands to themself. I have other projects going on here that I don't need someone messing with.

That will not be an issue.

[ Every person on their team is impeccably professional -- by Carver's account, even Bossie. Harold reaches up to touch his Aurora-given earpiece briefly, flicking through some menus and typing with rapid eye motion. Message sent.

He goes back to setting up his equipment. ]

Where did you acquire these nanobots? [ If he can't program them himself, Harold assumes they aren't his. ]

I'm going to have to request new ones. The ones I've tried to make with parts I found here are too big- Viktor's veins are thin. Last thing we need is this causing some sort of blood clot.

[This is why he hates dealing with biology. You know what doesn't have problems with blood and cells? Metal and electricity.]

So if you've got specifications you need for when I ask, tell me.

I really don't know much about nanomachines. [ He wasn't lying about that. ] If you don't need these any longer, then you won't mind if I use them to get acquainted, I trust?

[ Harold might not know much about nanomachines right now, but he can learn. He won't opine on specifications until he's more confident. ]

Sure. Microscope, tweezers, and petri dishes are over there, the bots are in the fridge next to it. It's incredible that so much information could fit on something that's so small...

[ Harold gets to his feet again and limps over to start collecting materials with which to examine the failed nanomachines. ]

If you want them to be truly tiny, there shouldn't be much information in them at all. Just enough to function. They'll ideally be operated from a remote server, which can house a far more sophisticated program than what could fit on these.

[ He may not have a lot of experience with nanomachines, like he'd said, but Harold knows computers and he knows networks especially. ]

That's exactly what I was thinking we'd need to do. Easier to inject code remotely into them than to try and condense all the things we need it to do into literally microscopic pieces of hardware.

And then we... destroy the server?

[Since Harold wants it to be a closed system.]

[ The first part is entirely correct, so Harold isn't expecting the finisher. His head jerks up from where he'd been examining a nanomachine, and he squints skeptically at Jayce. ]

You really do need my help, don't you?

No, we're not going to destroy the server. We're going to secure it and make backups.

action!

NOW AFTER BOTH CONVOS...

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