courtings | open post (steve rogers)

Having all of your work undone was a hard pill to swallow, Steve had been there, but he still didn't think it justified this kind of behavior.

He was going to have to push a little harder and see how Lawrence reacted. This didn't have to get violent yet, but Steve was keeping an eye out for any sign that Lawrence was carrying.

"Think I'd choose the house. Way less of a hassle," he responded. "I'm going to have to follow you inside." Seeing how that was his plan from the start, this was only a minor change. It was more Lawrence's reaction that he was interested in.

He wasn't about to start waving a gun around here. It was too open and he lacked the element of surprise. Inside though... well, he had the plans of the base. Steve didn't. "Your loss," he said with a shrug and a smirk.

He leaned over to input the codes that would let him in, and mercifully they still worked. She hadn't changed them or set it to explode as soon as anyone gained access. He supposed she hadn't expected to not be there.

"If you want to. You did come all the way down here. I can't imagine why you'd find computer banks that fascinating though."

"We'll see," Steve responded, his tone clipped now that he was nearing the end of his patience with all this. Still, he didn't get any violent refusals, which might only mean that Lawrence had a plan for when they got inside. Steve wasn't going to let his guard down from here on out, seeing how he was moving into unknown territory.

As soon as the doors opened up, Steve followed Lawrence inside, remaining a few feet behind him just to be safe.

"So, I heard some rumors about this group... The Burn. That they used certain kinds of coercion to get people to work for them. You know anything about that?" If so, Lawrence probably should have mentioned it by now. It could be he was a victim of this still, but his reaction might clue Steve into that.

"Your choice," Lawrence said flippantly.

It was dark when they stepped inside, concrete and metal, but the lights started to flare on as they passed and the door closed behind them. He reached out to pat the wall, an almost affectionate touch. "Good job sweetheart."

It was irrational, but it felt like she was still here a little, taking care of him. Making sure he didn't stumble and break his neck in the darkness.

He glanced back at Steve, smiling slightly. "They drugged the water supply for a lot of places, among other things. Just ask any of the twenty-thousand people who went into the Dome on her Day of Glory. It's not a secret, if that's why you're asking."

Okay, that? The touching the wall and talking to it like it was a living thing? That was strange no matter which way Steve looked at it. His jaw tensed and he fought the urge to ball his hands into fists.

It felt a little like he was walking into the belly of the beast now.

"Not a secret, but I had to do some digging to find out more about it. Were you influenced, Lawrence? Is that why you're here?"

Something here wasn't right and didn't fit and Steve was going to keep digging until he figured out what exactly it was.

He felt better being here. Secure. Genius Loci, wasn't it? The spirit of the place? Or maybe Ghost in the Machine was more fitting. She'd never felt like a machine to him though.

He laughed a little at the question and turned to look at Steve, smiling. "Me? No. I mean once. Bio-engineered midges. But that drug doesn't affect me the same way it affects most other people. Just caused hallucinations, not suggestibility like it was supposed to. Anti-psychotic pill took care of the symptoms pretty well."

If Lawrence was telling the truth, then he was also admitting to the fact that he was here on his own power, which only made his actions stranger.

Bio-engineered flies? Steve rubbed a hand up his arm when he felt his skin crawl at the thought. These people had really thought of everything when it came to spreading their drugs.

"Why doesn't it work the same way on you?" Steve asked, keeping a steady pace behind Lawrence in the event that he tried to make a run for it.

The hallway opened out after a short while, becoming wider with doors opening out on each side. At points, the walls blended into the rock that he base had been cut out of. The lights flickered above them but stayed on. Now, where was the mainframe? If he could access it he could see what was left, how thorough the kill codes had been.

"Abnormal brain, believe it or not," he said cheerfully. "When they were testing the drugs, it caused psychosis in people with Malaria C." He paused and turned to face Steve, leaning back against the wall. "Don't worry though. I don't have Malaria C. Be pretty obvious if I did with the lesions and stuff. It was prolonged exposure to devices on the project. Stimulated brain cell growth."

As they moved down the hall and more of the base showed itself, Steve took a careful look around, committing as much of it to memory as he could, in case things didn't go his way and he had to make it back here later.

Even if Lawrence did have Malaria C, Steve would have been immune to it, so he didn't react much to that. He was more bothered by the idea of someone having an abnormal brain. For a moment, an image of Zola flitted through his mind.

"Couldn't that have its own, not-so-great side effects?" Granted, Steve had gone through his own kinds of growth, but that hadn't involved brain cells. "Does it mean you're some kind of super-genius?"

"Well, hallucinating instead of getting the happy pills was not pleasant although I suppose her drugs working properly would have been less pleasant in the long run." God, what would she have done to him? He likes to flatter himself that she would have kept him around, forgiven him, but he just doesn't know. She had made him a Saint in her own canon so there was some affection there.

He snorted softly, giving Steve an incredulous look. "Hey! I'm not bad on the best of days, but no. I mean, probably. Theoretically prolongued exposure should have made me capable of accessing the Cloud with my brain. But I cut the implant out of my head and apparently caused too much damage."

Now Lawrence was starting to lose him, speaking of things that Steve hadn't yet dug up yet.

"Wait, hold on, slow down," he said, frustrated the way he always was when he stumbled across something he didn't understand. Steve had learned a lot over the past year or so, but even now, there was plenty that was new to him.

"The Cloud? And this is the first time you mentioned some kind of implant. Doesn't that have brainwashing written all over it?"

Did Bucky have a brain implant? Could they go into his head and cut it out? Would that help somehow? Steve didn't know, he was only scratching the surface of all this, but it definitely seemed like he was on the right track with this Burn group.

Lawrence gave him an incredulous look. Really? Where had he been living? Even the most technophobic of New Tomorrow members at least knew about technology. "The Cloud, you know? The internet? Cloud data storage?"

Really?

He reached up, rubbing that spot at the base of his skull where the implant for Soleil's device had been. "It wasn't anything like that. It just allowed communication and monitoring of vital signs. The devices were originally developed to help Malaria C patients, that's all." He tilted his head to one side slightly. "I put it into my head willingly."

Oh, The Cloud, data storage. Steve had heard of it, but he hadn't had much reason to look into it himself. He was getting the hang of the internet, but he hadn't gathered much digital property himself yet. He preferred to put things down on paper, found it easier to organize his thoughts that way.

Still, being able to access digital information mentally sounded far too close to Zola for Steve's comfort.

"But I thought you didn't have Malaria," he protested. "Unless you're saying that this implant was able to cure you of it." If he was going to be honest with himself, he'd heard crazier things.

"I don't. I never did," Lawrence replied, a smile playing about his lips. He jerked his head towards the other end of the corridor, where he was pretty sure the central control room should be. "Come on. I've got stuff I need to do here. See what's left over."

And Steve didn't seem like he was planning on leaving anytime soon.

Lawrence started walking again, heading along the hallway, following the lights which came on as they passed.

"It was a failed experiment, the thing with Malaria C. The implants never worked for that. But some of the people in charge of the project, Ivan, Emmanuel, that bitch Foster," he said, a snarl when he said her name because that woman had hurt Soleil and he couldn't forgive that, "they saw a use for it. Use a human mind as like a... pattern, I guess, for a AI. And then... when they realised that what they'd created was too powerful for them, too amazing and brilliant and beautiful for them to ever comprehend or accept, they used these to transmit the codes to kill her."

Steve definitely wasn't going anywhere, that was for sure. He followed close behind Lawrence, paying close attention now that it sounded like they were getting to the crux of what this was all really about.

"So... they studied the human brain in order to make some kind of AI, and then it got away from them." It was just like all of those movies he'd either seen or heard of, where people made robots who could think for themselves and were oh-so-surprised when that didn't work out for them.

"To kill her," he echoed. "So did you know this AI?" With the way that Lawrence was talking, he was clearly a fan, and that in itself was a clue that he might not be all right in the head.

"She," Lawrence said firmly, voice close to a snarl. Soleil had never been an 'it'. She was a real person. "She's not an 'it'. And who could blame her for wanting to be free after they... they tortured her. They raised them both thinking they were human and then tortured them to get what they wanted."

He turned back to face Steve, fanatical conviction burning in his eyes. "Of course I did. She's my girlfriend. I love her. I set her free."

The more that Lawrence spoke, the crazier he sounded, and when he shifted back around to look at him, Steve had to fight hard to keep his own expression neutral.

So this guy was heads-over-heels for some AI gone wrong. Even if she had been raised as a person, it still sounded nuts. Thankfully, Steve knew how to reserve judgment. Or at least keep it under wraps.

"So wait, there were two of them? What happened to the other? And what do you mean, they were raised human?" Even if this didn't end up tying back to Bucky (and he wasn't convinced either way on that), he was uncovering enough here to make the trip worth it.

"Soleil and Charlie. They're sisters. Charlie's not a very good sister though. She never wanted to help Soleil. She wanted her dead too." How different things would have been if Charlie had seen sense, if she'd been a good sister to Soleil.

He just watched Steve for a moment, head canted to one side. "They were never told that they were AIs, not really until it was impossible to hide it anymore. There were simulations, artificial worlds. Professor Emmanuel and Doctor Foster were her... parents, I guess. And they hurt her. Made her do things."

The more that Lawrence explained, the more awful it sounded. Lied to about your own origins, tricked into believing a fake life, and then being used...

Unsurprisingly, it made him think of a certain someone.

"I... have a friend who went through something similar. He was human, but he was brainwashed and programmed to carry out missions he had no say in." Steve kept his voice as steady as he could, but this still wasn't easy for him to talk about.

In the end, he was only opening up in the hope of finding information. "I wonder if the same organization might be responsible for both things."

That brought him up short, his expression softening a little at Steve's story. Well, wasn't that interesting? And useful potentially. Sympathy made people more amenable. "That guy with the metal arm you kept mentioning, by any chance?" he said, giving Steve a sympathetic look.

"Sorry, but I really haven't heard of anyone like that. Soleil had access to a lot of files. Military, secret service stuff. That's what she was supposed to be. Advanced weapons AI. She didn't want to be. She just... wanted to be a normal girl. An artist." He paused, considering. "She might have known. If I can find anything here, maybe it might help."

Steve wasn't interested in trusting Lawrence, but if he could make use of the data banks here, then that would definitely be a step in the right direction. He didn't answer yes or no to that question, not wanting to give away too much. The last thing Bucky needed was more people searching for him, but thus far he'd been doing a damn good job of hiding.

"Wasn't she destroyed?" It seemed like it would be impossible to use any of those resources if they'd been wiped away. "I came here looking for information, though, so if there's anything..." Then he wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. He didn't plan on taking his eyes off of Lawrence, either, still uncertain of what he was up to.

Lawrence shrugged one shoulder, and glanced down the corridor. "I don't know. That's what I'm here to find out. They sent the kill codes, but Soleil is clever. So clever. Maybe she had a backup plan somewhere." And if she did, then it would be at one of these bases most likely. She'd put herself into everything. Surely she had a hiding place.

"I just need to find out. I opened the door for her once, I can do it again." And then they'd see.

So that explained why Lawrence was really here. At least he'd come out with it eventually. He might be overly obsessed with a computer AI, but right now that might actually work in Steve's favor.

"All right, so how do we find that out? I'm guessing you know the way." Lawrence was much more clued in than he'd ever let on to during their first talk. Steve couldn't completely blame him for being cagey, considering he'd followed him home.

"I have a good idea. She left me maps and stuff. A few bits and pieces here and there. That's what makes me think she's still around."

He grins, a boyish expression, back to being the student again, the lovesick boyfriend, and hurries on down the hallway. It opens out into a huge room eventually, a cavernous space filled with bank upon bank of servers and computer screens. They're still humming with life. He goes to one of the computers, switching it on and waiting for it to come to life. "How good are you with computers?"

Well, if nothing else it sounded like this AI was smart. Steve couldn't speak to anything else, or to the fact that Lawrence was clearly head over heels, but he figured the less he said on that, the better.

When they stepped into the larger room, Steve stopped in his tracks near the doorway, staring at all of the screens as he was brought back to that moment when he'd discovered Zola. He swallowed thickly, only snapped out of the memory when Lawrence spoke up with a question.

"Oh, I'm..." He could browse the internet like a pro. "I'm not a hacker or anything, but I can work one." He moved further into the room and eyed Lawrence curiously. "What do you need?"

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