[D5 EA] Droid Tech Housecall

[Farkas Lowca]

Farkas entered the bar once again, this time with his toolkit and moved to the bar and sat, putting the kit in the seat next to him. "Something sweet and fizzy, no alcohol. Doing some work here today."

[Cal Arcton]

The bartender, a human male, opened his mouth, but it wasn't him who answered. "Redberry juice." Cal said, standing in the doorway that led upstairs. It seemed he'd just come down. "It's sweet and fizzy, with just a little bit of tart to balance it out. Another thing brewed right here on Noventa."

Straightening his neckcloth, Cal moved to join Farkas on his side of the bar. "Good to see you again, Farkas." He said with a smile and a nod. "I see you brought your tools with you today." He nodded to the kit in the adjacent seat.

The bartender slid a glass of clear red liquid, iced and bubbling gently, across the counter.

[Farkas Lowca]

The technician pats his toolbox. "I did. Redberry known for anything other than it's juice? Particularly nutritious or just pleasant to drink?" he asks curiously.

[Cal Arcton]

"Well..." Cal scratched at his stubble. "As you probably guess from the name, and the color of the juice, it's very red. And my mom liked to say it settles a stomach. Seems like it does. But I'm afraid I don't know much more about it than that. Ferments real well, too; Classic Red is the Noventa beer of choice."

[Farkas Lowca]

"I'll have to try the alcoholic version when I'm not going to be working sometime then," he says with a small but pleasant smile before taking a drink.

"So, has Demona been around today?"

[Cal Arcton]

Cal smiled. "Sure thing. Come by anytime, and I'll mix you up one myself."

He grimaced looking around. "Oh, I think she's been spotted a time or two. Hey, Demona. You've got a visitor."

No answer.

Cal sighed. "Thought I heard a ghost." The light flickered.



Demona appeared with her usual laugh, and the sensually unsettling sway to her hips. "You're teasing me. Should I tease you back?" Again, the ethereal laughter echoed all around.

Cal shrugged. "There ya go. Just gotta know the right tricks."

[Farkas Lowca]

The slicer looks to the holo-twi'lek and whistles. Not a catcall or an appreciative whistle, but one that sounds remarkably like a droid. Hello. "A pleasure to meet you Demona. How are you doing?"

Apparently Farkas had spent enough time around synthetics that he learned to actually use some binary.

[Cal Arcton]

The luminescent figure straightened, blinking. Something about the darkness around the eyes made it look disingenuous. "What a clever boy you are." She said.

The light flickered, and she vanished. An instant later, and she reappeared, right beside Farkas, facing him. "Do you want to play with me?" Static accompanied the next laugh, making it sound more like a cackle.

Cal shook his head. "You could see how, in other circumstances, the things she says would sound playful. Instead of, y'know, chilling you to your very core."

[Farkas Lowca]

Looking at the suddenly closer Demona, he replies to Cal with a shrug. "Possibly. There seems to be some intention in how she acts. She may be exerting some control over the bar's systems. It's odd that the lights blink before she moves. Usually if there were something wrong with her holoprojection functions or routines that caused power spikes, the light flickers would happen when her image was drawn and not when it disappeared. It's as though she were creating the flickers intentionally for dramatic effect."

He tilts his head as he poses his next question. "Is that the case Demona?"

[Cal Arcton]

Cal blinked at that. "So... she's doin' it on purpose, to be all spooky?" A moment passed, and he snorted. "Yeah, that sounds about right."



The figure's eyes seemed to glint, flashing red. "Ooh." She blew them a kiss, then raised one finger to her lips. "It's our little secret." Translucent as it was, her teeth could be seen through her finger, glimmering whitely.

[Farkas Lowca]

"That would be my assumption. Before taking a look, I couldn't tell you how much of her behavior is abberant due to corruption or malfunction, but if I had to make an educated guess I'd say that the person that installed her at least intended for some of this behavior. And may have intentionally given her access to some of the building's systems to help enable it," Farkas explains.

Finishing off his drink, he stands. "But I'll need to take a look to be sure. It sounds like it was a non-standard installation, so you'll have to show me where the hardware was put."

[Cal Arcton]

Cal grimaced. "Non-standard is right. Ummm..." Squinting, he looked out the window. "I can give you about half an hour. Only way to get to her means turning off all the lights in here." Luckily, it was pretty slow. "C'mon, I'll show you." He said, jerking his head.



"Be seeing you..." Demona flickered and then vanished. It was hard to tell, but the ethereal laughter seemed to trail them as they walked up the stairs.

...

It was in one of the side rooms. Cal pushed a button, and a hatch in the floor slid away, revealing an intertwined collection of electronics. The computer core was just visible under a mass of wires and conduits, clearly live. "Okay, here." He tossed the older man a flashlight, and switched on his own. "Killin' the lights now."

The room was plunged into darkness, except for the dimly flickering light of the two flashlights. And somewhere, deep in the mess of cabling, a faint red glow.

[Farkas Lowca]

"That's a bit of a mess," Farkas says as he looks at it. He opens his toolkit and pulls out a pair of insulated gloves, slipping them on before moving closer to take a look at the nest of wires. Pulling out a simple tool made of non-conductive plasteel, he uses it to try and move wires around gently to try and make sense of them. "Hmm..."

Then he pulls out what looks like some sort of extremely customized datapad that wasn't in the toolbox and extends some sort of strange attachment from it. Definitely not a normal tool as he simply attaches it to one of the wires. He starts tapping away at it, attempting to slice into the system so that he can try and see what is going on in the system before he tries to make any fixes.

[Cal Arcton]

The code seemed... complex. Eccentric, even. It seemed as though it would take some time to gain proper access.

As Farkas began his work, Cal did his best to aim his flashlight at his datapad. "Quite the fancy piece of gear you've got there." He said. For a time, he was silent, the electronic sounds the only thing that could be heard.

His commlink rang.

The light shook as Cal jumped. "Sorry." He muttered as he lifted it to his ear. Static hissed audibly through as he answered it.



"Ooh, that tickles." Demona's voice came through. "But are you sure you should be doing that?"

[Farkas Lowca]

"It's personalized. A lot of people that have as much experience with computer systems like I do tend to create personalized tools like this. We all have our different specialties and focuses, so we need different things. I value being as non-invasive with synthetic intelligence as I can so I prefer piggybacking off of exposed systems for observation. That way I don't interfere with processing too much," Farkas explains. "This attachment has a tiny, needle-like protrusion that enters into non-optical lines and picks up signals physically with minimal interfacing, while allowing me to send small packets of data to the system."

To Demona specifically he whistles again, imitating binary once more. [Sorry.] But his organic body won't allow for a full explanation, so he continues in basic, "You're probably sensing the pings it's sending out, allowing me to measure response times, power usage, and security responses. Nothing really invasive. Kind of like when a doctor uses tools to monitor vitals on organics. Just trying to see how healthy your systems are right now."

[Cal Arcton]

"Suppose that makes sense." Cal nodded. "Just like anything else."



"Just be careful no one gets hurt." Demona's voice ended in a hiss, and the line went dead. Cal stared at his commlink as though it were a live snake.

All of the basic diagnostic information was coming back normal, although signs indicated that the processor was running quite actively.

[Farkas Lowca]

Farkas sighed a bit at that. "Threats are definitely aberrant behavior for a an entertainment holo-projection AI. But they may be intentionally aberrant. The man who designed her may have been more mad than genius. Did he have a reason to not like you or anyone that worked here?"

[Cal Arcton]

"Not so as I'm aware of." Cal said, scratching his head. "Was a sullustan fellow. Stayed here about a week, then moved on. He offered to set up the system in exchange for room and board."

He shrugged. "She's always been spooky. I do think she's been getting a bit more intense lately. Appearing at odd times, that sort of thing."

[Farkas Lowca]

"Well, often times the designer's personality can come through in a synthetic creation. Was he particularly odd himself?" Farkas asks as he continues tapping through collected data. A minute worth of data does not reveal abnormalities. He'd likely sit here for a few talking and monitoring.

[Cal Arcton]

"A bit." Cal said. His frown could be just barely seen in the dim light. "Mostly he was quiet. Muttered a lot. Didn't bother me none, though." Cal shrugged. "So long as they're not causing trouble, I don't really care how people act."

Aside from the excessive processor use, it seemed that the storage was much more full than could otherwise be expected from a program of Demona's type.