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WHO: Tony Stark, dangerously open
WHERE: Tony's Calibration Room
WHAT: You're stuck in Tony's head and good luck, buddy, he doesn't want to be there, either.
WHEN: During the Calibration Event (June 3rd - July 10th)
WARNINGS: Some body horror under the cut, but otherwise it depends on you. Digging for Tony's secrets is still going to be a challenge here, so if you work for it I'll assume you want to see that nasty stuff. I'll update as necessary.
Update: Horny, as usual.

There is bright, dazzling light in the eye immediately upon entering this room, another door directly in front of the entrance peppered with bursts of camera flashes and roving spotlights illuminating the fine, gold silk drapes around the open frame, flashing through intricate, stained glass mosaics set into the stone flanking the entryway, and glinting off of the golden struts where a velvet rope had hung but had been knocked carelessly to the floor, an open invitation. Through it is a sweet-smelling party, packed with beautiful people in even more beautiful clothes, laughing among the sumptuous chime of crystal in a warm, welcoming hall. The wall stretching away from either side of it reaches almost to the extreme edges of the room, incrementally decaying from polished brickwork to raw, cracked stone, tumbling down into rubble that litters the way further into this room around the corner from the rich door.

This building the door is set into is just a wall from the other side, built up into a dark cave of that raw stone. Tony is pacing behind it, nowhere in the cave welcoming enough to sit or linger, jagged piles of scrap metal where there wasn't cold stone lining the walls and scattered in piles that would have to be carefully navigated to avoid sharp edges glinting readily to slice into ankles. The lone occupant isn't dressed nearly as charmingly as anyone at that party that would have been such a good time, his once white shirt wrinkled and tattered and rolled up to his elbows, open at the collar and liberally stained black down the front with whatever dripped from his hands, thick and dark like oil and charcoal. In one hand, coated in this viscous liquor, his ever restless fingers worked erratically and mercilessly over a dark knot. The sweet smell of the hall is long gone here, overtaken quickly by acid and whiskey and a bitter, sick smoke.

Set into the back of the wall, there is a computer monitor, spilling a soft blue glow across the stone floor with a constant generation of lines of code in an alien alphabet that Tony throws judgemental glances at as he paces back toward the front of the cave. Most of the light comes from the back of the room, though, the roof of the cave opening to a bright, blue sky, where soft clouds make a slow march across and birds wheel freely, well above the curl of smoke that whisped up out of the cave and dissipated.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

This Stark might have had a few inches of growing left to do, but he still raised both of his hands, innocent of wrongdoing and a surrender, as Tommy appeared in his space like he might have a moment ago when Tommy was threatening reports. The severity of his expression either didn't suit this age, or he hadn't learned yet to sculpt it into the warmer ease he used to charm the cameras because he looked deadly serious even as he cocked his head as though he hadn't heard any of that over the music, sorry, definitely not sorry. It was only when he settled his head back in his hand, draping the other along the back of the couch and out of the way, that he conceded, "I never really liked them much," as though that wasn't obvious from the outfit. "But they served a purpose." He caught the eye of a tall blonde man as he passed down the hall and swung around to head up the narrow stairs, making the man start slightly at the sight of Tommy then offer Tony a very familiar slow smirk before raising a hand, five fingers, and continuing up on his way.

“To get the dude bros to give you space outside of a dorm? I hear dorm living isn’t the greatest.”

And that’s what he has, sipping at the bottle in his hand. Yeah, Tony gets to deal with a Tommy blanket, precisely because Tommy is being an ass. That’s just who he is.

“You’re a bit of a wet blanket on a really cool looking party, Stark.”

"You think I'd live here?" Tony asked, offended somehow by the implication, perhaps illustrated by the sudden animalistic howling that erupted around the keg, followed by the chanting of their chapter letters again. The twinge of irritation only softened when he looked down at Tommy, realizing this probably looked like money to him and not the performative asslicking that Tony saw enough of at home. They grew up on radically different planets. It was only a brief reprieve from Tony's severity, though, and he plucked the bottle away from Tommy for the insult to take a long drink before offering his assessment, "Putrid. There's mouthwash in there." He still finished with a final sip before handing it back. "I'm only here as an alibi, so we can do whatever you think we should be doing at a cool party."

"Can't get drunk," Tommy shrugs. "For me, it's about the experience. Putrid is an experience."

Still, he looks at Tony, smirking widely as he takes his bottle back.

"Alibi? What crime were you committing?"

This time, Tony took a beat to drop his head back into his hand to spread a knuckle against his lips and press back his own smirk in response, only partially effective as he held Tommy's gaze. It was probably for the best he couldn't get drunk, he was already like this, taking up Tony's space stone-cold sober. "Inappropriate touching," he warned, fingers on the hand spread across the couch flexing like he would do it if Tommy kept this up, but quickly curled to hold the cushions again, out of sight. "There's a football field, not far from here. Game tomorrow. Beautiful green, absolutely impeccable. That guy--" he gestured to the man who had gone up the stairs, then more vaguely around the room, of course, "Is supposed to play. It's not our field, though, and a home game, well, that's worth the real celebration." He took a breath, glancing around the room as though it mattered at all now who heard him, if they even could over the music, and said, "It's such a perfect space, a satellite is about to make an unscheduled landing."

"So you're just ruining sports by landing a satellite of yours here?"

Nope, he's not moving. If you hands get weird places, he's calling you on the fact that you're feeling up someone WAY younger than you.

"Not just 'sports', that's Harvard Stadium," Tony corrected, jeez, did he have to spell everything out? Did Tommy not know the history here? Tony frowned, realizing no, probably not, Tommy probably didn't have any reason to ever think about the insular squabbles of the Boston collegiate, and that was just one small part of a youth he didn't properly experience. Maybe they could correct that, in a way. Before that, Tony took the bottle again and continued, "And it's not my satellite. Do you think I'd go to the effort just to leave my name on the evidence? It's a Hammer Industries satellite. Their defense system is total garbage." Taking another drink, he snuck his free hand as best he could, knowing he didn't have much of a chance with Tommy's reaction speed, to tickle the back of his neck for looking so confident where he was and taking advantage of an uncomfortable old man. That always got Cassie's nose out of the lab, or so Tony had thought then, at least. Clearly, she took a few trips without his noticing.

See, Tommy doesn’t even get the significance there, other than ‘Harvard is where smart people go’. Where David had wanted to go. Where they wouldn’t let him go because he was a mutant. So it was the place that smart people went unless you were a mutant because admissions was racist. Simple as that.

Besides, shit like that didn’t matter to the kid that only had a GED because the Kaplans had harassed him into it. Problem with Tommy Shepherd? He’d been told far too many times in his life that he was stupid and could never amount to anything academically, to the point where he believed it. Which was a shame. Being able to think as much as fast as he did meant he could achieve a lot more than he did. The only person that had bothered trying to learn that of him had been the Vision that had been here on Agra 10, the father he never had, the one that tried to interact with Tommy on his own level.

Hilariously, though, Tommy doesn’t bother to flinch away from the hand, just closing his eyes and letting Stark do that. His nerves were too fast for tickling to even be a thing for him, so he could just lay there.

“So you are fucking with a stadium of Smart-but-Super-Racist College because they’re, what, rivals? Or just to thumb your nose at a school that really shouldn’t be bothering with sports at all. And then you’re furthering it by fucking with a corporate rival. Man, Stark, either your pranks are horrible or wonderful. Can’t decide. Actually, no, changing my mind. Horrible. Pranks that require the levels of thought you’ve got are just boring. And you’re here to...? Prove you didn’t fuck with the satellite?”

That was the opposite of the intended effect. What kind of hardass little kid wasn't ticklish? Smoothing his hair back down, Tony corrected, "This prank is perfect," but otherwise Tommy wasn't far off, he got the important structural elements; it wasn't that complicated, it didn't take much thought. "And all of these people are going to gladly say that they saw me here tonight, nowhere near a computer." If they had seen him with the guy with the striking white hair, that would have been an unforgettable image, Tommy might have come in handy at the time if he wasn't doing it by invading Tony's space. Where did he learn that manipulative game?

Tony didn't want to get rough with any of these kids, Billy's teeth notwithstanding, special circumstances, Tommy was in trouble, but he tried a pinch to Tommy's neck instead with a challenging purse of his lips. "What kind of pranks should I have been pulling, sensei?" Since he obviously had specific pranking requirements. Tommy wasn't in any way prepared to take on the task yet, though, he didn't know what he was getting into. "Wait. If you're going to be an honourary MIT hooligan, you have to pick a major. Gotta know who your people are."

Not a kid, Tony. Legal to join the military, legal to fight wars and die in them, hell, old enough to have been experimented on because he's a mutant. He's a fucking adult, no matter your arbitrary rules.

And really, he's Magneto and Ultron's grandson. Manipulation runs in the genetics. He grins up at Stark and shakes his head. Which just happens to be so perfectly timed as to avoid that pinch. Ha, he IS paying attention.

"Way I understand it, most of college involves kidnapping mascots or filling uniforms with itching powder, that sorta shit."

Wait, honorary what? Tommy's eyes narrow at that suggestion.

"Dude, MIT's probably as racist as Harvard. They wouldn't want me being an honorary anything. And they probably don't have a GED equivalent major."

There wasn't a lot Tommy could do to convince Tony he wasn't somehow sixteen years old for the rest of his life, and he wasn't doing himself any favours by listing off some truly underdeveloped pranks. Despite losing his shot at the pinch, Tony raised his eyebrows at that with a wry grin; he would have to insist Tommy left the pranking to the adults if that was the caliber he was going to be working with.

Surprised that Tommy's answer to his request wasn't as simple as Tony thought it was going to be, his first instinct was to defend his alma mater, about to point out that his graduating class, at least, wasn't all white guys and what did that have to do with their admittance of Tommy, but that answer came to him faster than Tony had to ask for it. He didn't have a defense for that one; he couldn't think of a single mutant in any of his classes, as least not one that couldn't pass for baseline. That didn't really matter though; Tony was in charge of admissions right now, and that made it his job to laugh and point out, "That's not really how that works," as he tried to make another grab for Tommy's ear. "Did you want to be a pitiful undergrad then, spend some time figuring out your options? I mean, it's your college experience, I won't stop you, but that's shooting your shot pretty low."

No, it's totally how it works. Racism, systemic, it's right there. No one wants a mutant. And no one wants a mutant that didn't finish high school.

"I don't get to go to college, Tony," Tommy rolls his eyes before taking a swig. "Smart people go to college. Super smart people go to MIT."

"Now who's the wet blanket," Tony grumbled, slouching back into his repose with his arms along the back of the couch again, head in hand. Tommy was the one that said this was a cool looking party and he would have given anything to be here, but obviously the company was bringing the tone down enough to bring out the worst in him instead. "Are you like this on a date, too? Oh, I haven't even thought about marriage, baby. Don't even ask me about dessert, I don't deserve that kind of commitment. I'll be going home alone tonight." One of Tony's hands flipped up to ask where that behaviour was coming from, but this wasn't really where he wanted to delve into why Tommy didn't think he got to do things, so the question ended with the gesture. That wasn't the kind of thing a guy wanted competing with a rowdy singalong with the Beastie Boys. "You're here now, so do you want to keep being a little asshole about it, or did you actually want to do something with the time?"

"I don't date," Tommy points out. No one asks him. He rolls his eyes at Tony's stupidity. "That't the thing about you rich white people. You figure it all works out for everyone the way it works for you. You do remember why I was put in that place my team busted me out of, right? Blowing up my school? No one would ever welcome me into an institution of higher learning. Only got the GED because the Kaplans forced the issue."

He'd missed two years of high school. Finished it in two weeks and aced all his exams. He just doesn't get it. America had really serious concepts of what 'intelligence' was, and Tommy would never fit the bill. And no one tries to cure him of that misconception.

"But I get plenty of desserts and I've gone home with a lot of people. And frankly, the point here was to be annoying, so I think I've won. But if you've got an idea of something to do while stranded in your no doubt very precious brain, lay it on me."

This was intolerable. Tommy might have been worse at listening than Jon was, and it felt like Tony's foot had been asleep for approximately eight years. The only thing Tommy had won, as far as Tony could see, was convincing himself how stupid he was so that everyone else around could do him the favour of hating him, too. It must have felt great being so right about that all of the time. "Get off," Tony bit, because it was clear whatever this attention was harboured more hostility than the camaraderie Tony was trying to give back to him. Tony didn't go to high school either, Tommy got the GED, and that wasn't even worth arguing because none of this was real and Tommy just wanted to feel sorry for himself on someone else's conscious. I don't date, christ, couldn't even let that one go by. "What do you want me to say?" Tony asked, "What's the next thing you want to tell me you're not worthy of so you can brush me off? Here's the idea, we're in a place of learning, take some notes: pulling bullshit like this, boy, I couldn't possibly engage with you on that level, makes the people you're pissing all over feel like they're not worthy of you."

Nope, not moving. Instead he set the bottle aside and looked at Tony, quite seriously.

“No. If I get off, I get dragged into whatever memory this is, deeper into it. Which I don’t want. And you probably don’t want. I came here because I wanted to make sure of something. And I have.”

So he just meets Tony’s eyes and stares at him, serious for a moment.

“I came here to make sure you weren’t reliving what Billy did to you. What he did because you saved me. You didn’t have to do that, Stark. I don’t even know why you did, not after how I’ve treated you. Except maybe you did it because you can’t get it through your head that age is a number that is put on us arbitrarily by those that want to control us, control what we think about ourselves and how we engage with the world. But that’s your problem, not mine. But, way I see it, as long as I’m here, we’re not going deeper. You don’t have to worry about some ‘kid’ being in your personal shit. But I had to come.”

He had to make sure there wasn’t something glaringly in here saying he blamed Billy for something his brother couldn’t control. Billy, who was soft and gentle and everything Tommy could never be.

“And stop calling me boy. If nothing else, I think you get to be considered an adult when you nearly get imprisoned in the Negative Zone or your brother and best friend get tortured by the Warden of the Cube, or a ton of other shit we’ve gone through. You may not like it, but we made a choice and grew up fast because of it.”

Only with that does he roll off of Tony’s lap, standing in the blink of an eye.

“I don’t want your memories, Tony. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t blame Billy. And that you’re not some brain-dead dude possessed by the storm or the rage bugs or whatever. But this?”

He gestures around them to the atmosphere of the memory.

“Very Tony Stark. Genuine shit. Only you’d show up to a frat party in a suit. Smart plan, though. Great way to alibi yourself. Hope it worked, even if it’s weird because you’d think that to hack into a satellite and instruct it to land in a specific location you’d probably want to do so early on to ensure that you’re programming the thing with the proper angle of re-entry to ensure that not only does it land precisely where you want it when you want it, but to make sure it doesn’t burn up on the atmosphere from coming in to fast. Which means that hacking it would probably have to take place decently in advance to program in either the right controlled degradation or something, right? Like, tell me if I’m wrong. I don’t understand a lot of computer stuff. Closest thing to a computer I’ve ever owned is the cellphone Kate bought me after the team broke me out, but Vizh 2.0 talked to me about shit sometimes.”

No, seriously, tell him. He’s standing there and he looks half intrigued. Of course, he’s not expecting an answer.

Most of that speech didn't make Tommy's behaviour any clearer for Tony, making him start to argue before Tommy was even close to done-- "What, Billy...?" It hadn't occurred to Tony to be dwelling on a fight like that, he'd had plenty more in his life that left him with much deeper scars than a run-of-the-mill, short-lived mind control incident. If he couldn't handle his friends losing control to some rage occasionally, the Avengers never would have formed in the first place. Tommy's take on it seemed to be more serious. "What else was I supposed to do, watch?" he challenged, which sounded reasonable enough if he wasn't trying to argue against whatever point Tommy was trying to make about age, like he wanted to have a larger argument about the nature of linear time. "I didn't intervene because I think you're a kid and want to control what you think, I did it because he was going to blast your face off--what does that have to do with my personal shit?" Tommy was obviously trying to express ten thoughts at once and didn't have the luxury of Pepper showing him how to do it gracefully. "I wasn't calling you 'boy', it was an expression, like-- you're not an adult, you didn't grow up because some bad shit happened to you--"

Tommy was on his feet, and Tony sunk his face into his hand, sighing and fully aware that trying to convince Tommy he wasn't the enemy was not going to work this way if he didn't even think Tony had a good reason not to let him get fried. "Why would I blame Billy?" he muttered, mostly to himself. Tommy was already off on his next speech.

It drew Tony slowly up out of his hand, watching as Tommy worked out what anyone investigating the great mystery, including Hammer's clean up crew, hadn't thought to consider. At first, the only answer he did provide was a parroted, "You'd think," because he was only wrong in a very specific way and first Tony had to clarify, "If you're not a computer guy, how'd you get there?" Tony knew the answer to that one, but he canted his head slightly, his cold stare tested by Tommy's speed obscuring his more minute reactions.

"Because he blames himself. And because of what our mother did to you," Tommy answers.

Part of the issue of interacting with Tommy was that he'd had a very strange upbringing that meant he didn't manage some parts of his powers easily. And yeah, talking about twenty things at once can be so much easier for him.

But then he's grinning because maybe he figured some of it out. That would be pretty cool, if he was even remotely close.

"I'm a speedster. Understanding precisely how to slow down is important. Plus, you know, I watched his show on replacing the lens on the Hubble telescope once with Mr. Kaplan. It talked about orbits. From there, well, it's like, thinking? Just thinking. And I've got all the time to think."

Granted he's probably spent a lot of time, relativisticly speaking, trying to figure out how this would WORK as an alibi.

"And movies with hackers. It's not how it really works, Jonas said, but he said some stuff could be automated. Like, set to go off at a specific time."

What Wanda had to do with why Tommy was being catastrophically resistant to playing Tony's game made as much sense as his weird age tangent, making Tony rub his brow with irritation then squint to focus on what logical information Tommy had to offer him that wasn't all twisted up in his compulsive paranoia. Movies and even documentary shows were not the best way to learn about practical sciences, that was definitely doing the science and finding out what blew up first, but it was a good start, especially for someone willing to do the thinking.

"Sweetheart, I'm going to tell you about the satellite, I promise, but I've just got one more for you, if you'll indulge me," Tony said, and maybe this was risky because Tommy actually seemed engaged in the satellite thing and had stopped being so much of an asshole, but it was staggering that he could have both of these thoughts within the span of a single Basement Jaxx track. "What is it that you think makes a person smart?"

See, he can TOTALLY live with Sweetheart actually. Somehow, it's less demeaning to him.

"Uh, they do well in school and tests and they go to college and they make shit. Though I guess some smart people don't even go to college I guess. Just, you know, not failures at school shit and capable of doing shit that is about thinking."

If Tony gave him a moment, would Tommy get that Tony was on to his bullshit? Or was he genuinely not making the connection? Hard to tell. Tony had slowly turned his head to give Tommy a sidelong look, but was rolling his eyes before Tommy could start debating him on the nature of time and control again and bounced up to his feet with him. "Come on," he instructed with a swipe of his hand up the back of Tommy's head, directing him through the sticky-floored dining room and pushing his hair up and too far forward. "Most of any craft landing has to be done well in advance," he started to explain as they went, weaving their way through bodies to make it to the kitchen and the large window overlooking a sloping front lawn, facing out to a wide, flat park and the night sky that was too overcast to see many stars through. Tony lifted himself up onto the kitchen counter nearest to it, a throne of mostly empty bottles, where he could check the offerings for any dregs left at the bottom of any clear enough glass to not have to guess what was about to go into his mouth. "The runway at Kennedy Space is fifteen thousand feet long. That's fifty football fields, no matter how immaculate or celebrated, and they use that for space shuttles. If a satellite is coming down, it's not coming in for a landing, that goes in the Graveyard, you're lucky if it gets a controlled descent at all. So, assuming everything goes perfectly, and the air pressure doesn't change because of a storm system and there are no other flight paths in the way and you craft is even designed to survive re-entry and no one is wondering why it's falling out of orbit, what problems do you have to calculate for?" With his free hand up to count them off, Tony applied Tommy's previous answer, "Air resistance, can't come in too hot. Angle, that's an interesting one, lots of angles to account for, actually entering the atmosphere is just one of them. Degradation, same thing, can't be too fast but can't be too slow, either. What else?"

Dude, Tommy could debate the nature of time until the end of his own life. Because it really was relative, and he definitely experienced it differently.

But when Tony left, Tommy followed, mostly because he's intrigued. The stopping in the kitchen definitely bores him, though. Look, he's already got a bottle, and he takes another shot of it. He listens, he listens hard and then his eyes go just the tiniest bit out of focus as he shifts mental speeds to consider things.

"Speed," he offers at first, after what might seem like a very short pause to Tony, but for Tommy is hours upon hours of thinking about it. After all, some of this stuff was things he understood from instinct alone, because of how his powers worked. "Speed is a huge factor. Doesn't matter how strong your surface is, if you're coming in too fast, you're coming in too hot, and you're going to deal a ton more damage. That's why planes and the shuttles have to have means to slow themselves down. It's easy when you can deploy flaps and that sort of shit to help slow you, or you've got other ways to introduce friction into the system. The one part of my suit that isn't just basic unstable molecules is the soles of the feet, because the frictionless material would actually be bad for me there."

Another swig of the alcohol.

"You also have to know material strength, right? Like, it may not be something other people think of, but I know how different surfaces are going to react to my speed. Too soft, you bounce. Last thing you want is a crashing satellite to bounce off into the stands, or worse, people. Plus you've gotta know what's under the stadium, or you should think about it. The force a satellite crashes at might be enough to break through to whatever is underneath, and if that's flammable or something else, ouch. There's also timing. You want to make sure that when it lands you're not making a paste out of the football team. Which would definitely get you in a ton more trouble. So you've got to know that all the factor's you're controlling for means that it comes down when you want, as much as where."

That said, he leans back for the next point, grinning stupidly.

"You've also gotta account for how the thing is going to break down, coming in. Then again, maybe you don't. But I did part time work with super-sonic construction of high end electronics. I'm faster than a mass-production line you see. And basically I learned a lot about how easily components can fry under the wrong conditions. So even when you're planning all of this, even if the satellite has like, boosters or something and it probably doesn't, you can't rely on them coming back in. Because they're not designed to come down, so you can burn right through the electronics because of insufficient heat or electrical shielding."

Then he's done. But after a moment, he shakes his head, like he's decided it isn't good enough. Like there's no way he's hit on the things that are important here.

"You're probably going to say something really smart now, right? About how I messed up and missed something SUPER obvious. But I don't really know anything about satellites, 'cept what I pointed out. I bet David could tell you in, like, ten seconds flat."

His best friend was a genius on Tony Stark's level after all.

Edited 2020-06-14 00:00 (UTC)

It wasn't clear if Tommy had just leapt ahead of the whole flight process, problem already solved, to address the myriad of problems that arose when the flight went well enough to even consider the landing complications, or if Tony mentioning their target had just focused his attention there. He did have to know more about ground friction than any kind of air friction involved in coaxing a satellite down into the atmosphere, so it could have just been the safe area for him.

What Tony did say was, "Who's David?" looking slightly offended like Tommy had just whispered another girl's name in bed. They were trying to do something here. He waved off the intrusion, rude, and continued, "So, you've got all of these problems unique to bringing something down from space already, that's just the tip of the iceberg, we haven't even talked about fuel or lift or cross-streams over the Pacific. Now think, that's about ten times more challenging than landing your standard 747. Those beauties take off and land fifty thousand times, every single day-- their paths are planned well in advance, the conditions familiar, sometimes the same crew does the same landing multiple times in an hour. And yet, it takes a pilot," Tony was counting again, "a co-pilot, ten guys on the ground and eight more in ATC, and that's just to set her down, it's a whole different group that plans the landing in the first place." He drained what was left in a vodka bottle that he didn't think was vodka, from the taste of the burp, and finished, "So, you tell me, does it make sense that I, one kid, not a real computer in the building, these are business majors from top to bottom, would be the culprit if I was here all night?"

"David's a mutant at Xavier's. Or he was at Xavier's. His powers meant his brain copied the knowledge of people around him. But he's smart on his own."

Still, he takes another serious drink before leaning forward to listen to Tony more. Clearly he's intrigued by this lesson here. But then he's grinning, because when Tony's done he gets it.

"Fuck man, perfect crime. Do you get caught? Or do you get off because people don't get how smart you are?"

Just the knowledge...? Tony wasn't sure how to interpret this mutation Tommy presented to him, leaving him frowning thoughtfully about the implications while Tommy was drinking, idly searching for another viable bottle himself. If he could just copy knowledge, that would save a lot of reading time. A mutant like that would have to be smart to do anything with it, or all of that information would be useless detritus.

Tommy's grin was enough for Tony to brighten and smile back, though, and he slouched back on one hand like he could in any way hope to exude any kind of humble indifference to his dazzling talents, waving the drink in the other hand theatrically, oh, this old thing? "Of course I didn't get caught, but do you think I'd let anyone forget how smart I am? Please. It was all Hammer. He's already a billion years old at this point, and the second my dad dies, he's the leading aerospace engineer on the planet. His options are to admit the rival's kid with centuries less experience could possibly have that kind of control over his systems and tank the company stock, or claim it was an internal error and fire a few interns to cover up a total sweep of the security team. Still cost him a few million, sure, but that's petty cash."

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