you'll be a leper, be a healer, be a sinner, be a saint

[ahollowman]

What we've been doing for one-fortieth of a second can't continue indefinitely.

If you compare the six days in the Book of Genesis with the four billion years of geologic time, on that scale, one day is equal to about six hundred and seventy million years. At three minutes to midnight on the sixth day, mankind appeared. At one fortieth of a second before midnight, the industrial revolution began.

And it's unsustainable.

There were a couple things I learned eight years ago in a cave with Ho Yinsin. One of them? Was that it's all unsustainable. And it needs to change.

Ultron wasn't wrong. He wasn't right, either. But he wasn't wrong, even if the execution was, even if he lacked empathy. Even if he had no appreciation for the sanctity of life. Something's got to change. We've got to evolve. There's more out there, we've seen it, I've seen it, aliens, the Asgardians, dark energy. Cosmic Cubes. If we keep doing what we're doing, there is no future.

There's just one-fortieth of a second.


Darrow still used fossil fuels. It was weird, and Tony didn't like it. Why did it work that way? What made it that way? Who the hell could say, because Tony had yet to see even a single convincing piece of evidence that Darrow wasn't just some elaborate simulation, that it wasn't thoughts thinking thoughts of their own, ten million billion calculations every second on an alien computer.

So why did his motorcycle still run on gasoline?

There was a way to fix that.

It started with Henry Cheng, a boy whose first language was thought, a boy who needed his RoboBee. It became Panoptes Solutions. Soon it would be too big for the two of them, especially because there were things they couldn't, wouldn't, or shouldn't be in charge of. A think tank of two guys was a pretty shit tank. Phil had asked Tony how he'd sift for employees, and Tony had known the answer. He'd set up shop -- he had literally set up shop, they had computers and a band saw and a screenprinter -- and began to make logic puzzles.

Little metal boxes, opened very specific, convoluted ways. Not all the same, but different, with different kinds of puzzles. Meant to target different kinds of minds. Mechanical intelligence, social intelligence, knowledge of chemistry or advanced maths. Things for tactile learners, some puzzles better suited to observers or the more auditory type.

In the end, they all contained a business card with a web address on it.

The web address took them to a website that prompted them to submit a resume.

And if Tony liked the resume, the submitter was given the address of the shop that would one day be Panoptes Solutions and an invitation for an interview.

[ any characters who might be interested in joining the think tank are free to respond here under the assumption they solved one or more puzzles they found around darrow. it's up to you how difficult it was for your character. they can meet him at his shop, which looks like a half-furnished cement-floored shop with some equipment, a refrigerator, a blaring ghetto blaster, and truck delivery bay doors in the far end of it.or chase him down somewhere else. ]

Comments

[tobereckoned]

The puzzles had been appearing in various corners of the city and Rey had a scavenger's eye still. It was probably not a particularly gracious trait in a Jedi Knight in training to see shiny bits and pieces in the garbage that others should have overlooked, much less to be constantly assessing their potential value in portions. She wasn't just a scavenger anymore but her instincts didn't know that.

With the first puzzle, she'd been amused but thrown away the card. The second and third had been curiosities and the fourth an annoyance. She'd gone to the website and refused to fill in the form, more interested in who was going to the trouble. At the fifth, Rey hooked her datapad to the computer and searched out the source of the website.

Today, five solved puzzles in her arm, Rey used her free hand to pound on the door, waiting for an answer. Her staff was slung over her shoulder and her lightsaber was in her bag. Just in case.

[sidestepdestiny]

When I find the first box, metal and perfectly placed in the middle of the sidewalk, I think it's some kind of a trap.

"Is this some kind of trap?" I say aloud, but no one's paying attention, so I give it a closer look. I give it a shake. I give it a sniff. I hope it doesn't explode in my face as I finally get it open, but inside all I find is a business card.

The fuck?

No wonder someone threw the business card away if you have to solve some bizarre maths puzzle just to fucking get to it. I drop the card on the ground but I keep the box, closing it back up to bring home to Simon in case he wants to give it a go. It's like a fancy numbered rubix cube.

Later, I find two more boxes like the maths one just lying around. I wonder if I've stumbled upon some kind of nerdy scavenger hunt, well, I just happen to enjoy nerdy things and so I'm sucked into trying to open the other two boxes. One has mazes along the sides and latches you have to free to open, the other seems to be about patterns. It doesn't even occur to me to try a spell. I get them both open and find the same business card inside. Now it's got my attention.

The website is nothing but a resume, and I frown, because what the fuck can I put on a resume? A part time job as a bus boy at Semele's? An undercover job as a bouncer for a secret vampire mafia? Snakes, I didn't even graduate Watford. I close the website and let it go.

The next morning on my way to the supermarket I see someone else holding one of the boxes and snort, nodding toward the box. "Sorry to break it to you, but it's just a marketing scheme."

[theyoungdetective]

It takes two boxes for Tim to bring him to the door. Two boxes and a week.

He was suspicious of the first. He chalks that up partially to the fact he was in the suit when he found it and partially from the experience. Puzzles like that made him think of Nygma, and while it was lacking some of they trademarks, he wouldn't put it past Darrow to produce or kidnap someone of a similar leaning.

The fact that there was a business card inside it was a bit on the other side of annoying. He researched the page, checked to see if there were any encryption or malware or anything more than a request for a resume. When he sees that's really all it is, he's a little put out.

Maybe part of him didn't feel confident putting down, "high school dropout," "high school senior," "Wayne Enterprises CEO," and "barista" all on the same resume. Maybe part of him was just disappointed that it wasn't anything more sinister.

Not that Tim wants Darrow to be as overwhelmed with crime as Gotham, but he gets bored with how much it isn't Gotham at times.

But then he found a second on his way to work and something compelled him to pocket it. He knows what's inside. He tells himself that it's just to amuse himself between blending smoothies.

It's a different puzzle, of course. He smiles, thinking about how much someone must really want to find the right employees for their venture. The puzzle is done before the first hour of his shift goes by.

He went home and filled out the resume that night. He got an address the next day.

Now, Tim's standing out the door, two boxes in his bag with his resume (because you bring a copy of that to interviews, right?), feeling slightly overdressed for what might still just be a mugging because who the hell is this cryptic about hiring people?

He knocks anyhow. The bow staff, gauntlets, and a domino are always hidden in his bag at this rate anyhow, and he's got an umbrella for the chances of rain he checked for on his way over.

If he's lucky, maybe he won't be blending smoothies for his savings by his birthday.

[startarebellion]

Galen had no idea what to put on his resume. The puzzle boxes had been easy. Relatively speaking at least, because when you could access the Force and the binding energy of every living thing in the galaxy could direct you to do what was "right" then it was pretty easy. On his own Galen probably just would have cut them open with his lightsaber to see what was inside.

The hard part was figuring out what to put on a resume. He didn't particularly need a job, nor did he really want one. But this seemed like the sort of thing people who were trying to get out of this city would do so he decided to give it a try. His resume had been short.

Former assassin and revolutionary. Problem solver. Unconventional employment history.

That was it. If the universe wanted him to get the job then that would have to be enough. He was mostly trying to not get the interview and give himself an excuse to not take the job. It didn't work.

He was given an address to what looked like if it tried hard enough one day it would be a workshop. Today was not that day though.

"Hello?" Galen called out, narrowly avoiding drawing his lightsaber out of habit. "I'm here about the job from the puzzle?"