courtings | open post (steve rogers)

"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?"

Lawrence had no such compunctions. He'd seen similar spaces in Tarantula, in the other bases that the Burn had taken over. He started searching for whatever storage he could find, drawers and cabinets and safes.

"Hackers don't have anything on the people who made this stuff," he said. "Well, first, I'm looking for a device. A little black box connected to a wire. Should be an earpiece with it like an earring."

A little black box, a wire, and an earpiece. "And it could be anywhere?" Steve asked as he started to look around the room. That was going to be like searching for a needle in a haystack. Imagine how long it would have taken Lawrence to find on his own.

Black box, wire, earpiece. He made his way around the room systematically, opening up drawers and searching through shelves for anything that fit the bill. "What is it, some kind of data storage device?"

"Well, hopefully they'll have kept them around here. Not sure I want to check every single lab in the place." He would if it meant that he could get her back though. He would search the world, hunt down Bardle again if he thought it would help.

He found a couple of notebooks in one of the drawers and flipped quickly through them before shoving them into his backpack. Research notes. Good to know.

"Hm, something like that, yeah." It was the lie that had kept Emma and Walker going to Edinburgh. He was still amazed they'd fallen for it and kept falling for it.

"Something like that meaning not exactly," Steve said as he kept searching. He glanced over his shoulder when he heard a shuffling noise and watched as Lawrence shoved some notebooks into his bag.

He moved on, and the next drawer that he opened up had something that fit the description he'd been given. Steve picked out the items, looping the wire around his wrist before he called out to Lawrence across the room.

"Is this it?"

"Well, yeah," Lawrence admitted, giving a soft laugh. "But I'm not sure how much the technical explanation would mean to you. Or to anyone who hasn't spent eighteen months on the research project." Besides, it wasn't entirely a lie. It just wasn't the whole truth.

He froze when Steve called out, and then whipped around, a fierce light entering his eyes when he saw what Steve was holding. "That would be the thing, yeah," he said. He started to head over to Steve. "Pass it here. I should be able to get it linked up."

Steve wasn't all that eager to hand it over, not until he got some more answers. He kept a tight grip on both of the items and watched the kid carefully.

"I'm sure you can explain it in a way that I could understand. What exactly do you hope to find on here?" If this was anything like the drive that Natasha had gotten a hold of, if it had anything resembling Zola's algorithm on it, then Steve would never forgive himself if he placed it into the wrong hands.

"Sorry, but I've been having to deal with a lot of lies lately." And Steve was nothing if not a fast learner.

Lawrence went very still when he was refused, annoyance flickering for a moment. Well, this was frustrating. "You're not the only one, Steve who just showed up hoping to charge his phone," Lawrence said sarcastically.

"If there's any way to get at the data that Soleil left behind, then it's gonna be through that device. It's nothing dangerous. Basically, if she's not around, it'll do nothing, if she is then... she can find me."

So that was it? A way to try and get into contact with an AI that might not actually exist anymore, whose existence was questionable to begin with. Could a computer system be a person? Lawrence certainly seemed to think so, and Steve was relying on him to further his search. He could only hold out for so long.

He was going to watch his every move, even so. Steve slowly handed over the items, keeping a close eye on Lawrence as he did so.

He loved it when people trusted him. This was easier than the Professor had been, obviously since he'd had to kill the Professor to get the device. He took it as carefully as he could, holding it like a precious thing. "Great, thanks. Now, let's get this show on the road."

As he walked back to the computer, he activated the bio-link. A little extra layer of security. Technology like this, no-one was going to want to destroy it by killing him or stealing it.

Steve's trust only went as far as what he needed from Lawrence, but considering how desperate he was to find Bucky, that went a long way. He followed Lawrence over to the computer, shoving his hands in his pockets as he looked over the console.

He'd learned a lot about computers, but this was definitely above his pay grade and so for the moment all he could was watch. Which was frustrating, but he planned to pay close attention to what he could.

He accessed the computer, starting to pull up files and lines and lines of scrolling code. Some of it he recognised, some of it he'd built in himself when Soleil had needed him to open the door for her, and some of it was completely new and so far above his capabilities it was a little frightening. For all that Soleil had taught him, this had been built by experts. And Soleil had added and changed it herself.

Some of the pieces were definitely not as they had been. Was that due to the kill switch or something else? He didn't even know if he was looking at the right part.

"If you want to do something useful, there should be paper records too. They started using those instead of the computers when they realised She could get into everything that was on the computers.

Steve's eyes scanned over the code, but it may as well have been another language to him, and he wasn't going to be able to make any sense of it. He could tell that Lawrence could read everything there, though, which put Steve at the disadvantage.

Paper records he could work with, though, and so he nodded and started going through some of the nearby file cabinets.

"Is there anything in particular you're looking for? Any terms I should keep an eye out for?" he asked.

Lawrence sat back in his chair, chewing his lip as he thought for a moment. "Project Sevendays. That's what it was called. Also... Robert Emmanuel, Aisling Foster, Ivan, he was one of the head researchers. And... Charlie and Marianne. That's what they were called. I don't know if that'll come up in the files but it's worth looking. Can't hurt. I mean, they're all dead now but... hopefully they've left something behind."

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