'-

XI. The Multitude (Points of View)

An interlude with Loki's perspective. Darcy and Tony finds out some worrying stuff. Pepper is pulled into it. Plans are developed.

'-

After Loki was sure the mortal woman had left her apartment and was not going to return soon, his poise collapsed completely. It had taken a lot of effort on his part not to coax her back to the bed. She was too tempting, with her ripe lips and bountiful curves and unparalleled eagerness. He could still smell her on himself, the blossom of gardenia over ocean sprays. Yet at the same time, there was no doubt that he needed some time to think as well. He lay on his back on the couch, a hand pinching his nose as he tried to figure out what the Hel happened in the last few days.

He was captured. It was certainly a miscalculation on his part, but he could appease his self-esteem by pointing out that it was an insanely overpowered trap with a Midgardian artefact that was surprisingly older than him. They had to partially bleed the lifeblood of a whole city for the time it was active, disrupting the lives of the citizens there, causing minor chaos and discontent. That was how he knew it hadn't been set for him at all.

The other was the disappointed face of the sorcerer that had monitored the artefact's opening to see their catch. Loki had almost been offended. He was a great catch, thank you very much. The only way it could be more embarrassing was if Thor's band of misfits contributed more to his capture than the magic user he hadn't seen before.

Compared to that, the cell he was tied to and the cuffs they keep him in were still very much within his capabilities to break; even now he could stretch its limits, leak more and more of his magic out. To his surprise, the ground and building wards was on a completely different level and intelligently linked to the genius loci. He was not aware that Midgardians were still in touch with their land spirits, or how the one here wasn't dormant even with the obvious over-reliance on machines in this area. Still, what he could not break with force, he could certainly circumvent with guile and it would not be the first time he did so. With the right tools and materials and timing, he would be a free man once more. It merely took time to gather them.

Not that it had been reassuring at all to know that there was something roaming Midgard that warranted such defence, but he was glad that it was loose on Midgard and not roaming anywhere else.

He had enough trouble brewing on the horizon.

And what are you doing instead? You meet the first woman you could find who welcomed you with open arms and you indulged yourself, repeatedly. Where is that self-control that you pride yourself on? How different are you from Thor?

The fingers of his right hand flexed out to summon his knives on reflex until he remembered his magic was still chained down, particularly anything remotely offensive. He couldn't even begin throwing them to help him think and that vexed him. On the other hand, it removed the temptation he had at times to draw a line on his forearm and watch the blood slowly drip down in mesmerizing swirls. Not on the artery, though, he wasn't suicidal.

His smile was grim and with not a little amount of self-loathing. At least, not anymore. Now, it was stark utility that drove him to do it.

So, he was caught, and when he was relieved from the sarcophagus they had some lowly serfs question him because apparently the Avengers were too busy to see him. They asked imbecilic questions. Boredom calcified his mind after the third day and he gave them the answer to the questions they're asking after toying with them for only a while. The deluded fools never even realised that those weren't the questions whose answers they want but never even tried asking him about it—why should he make their jobs easier? Fortunately, before he was bored enough to make a random attempt at escape, Thor came to accompany one of them.

Unfortunately, he was just as deluded as the previous fools, in a different way.

He kept asking why Loki was on Midgard, what he was planning on Midgard, against Midgard, and as he answered Thor's questions without lies and merely a little wordplay, it took all of his patience and control not to scream that Midgard was not worth more than a shovel of manure in mother's garden. For one who claimed to care about Asgard, what have you done for it recently, Thor? You're much busier playing house here, he would've mocked.

If it wasn't for his mother…

His left hand had summoned the child's ball he had been fiddling with for a while now. He settled into throwing and catching that.

And yet you found yourself a wench.

Loki shook his head. As easy as it was to rage against his imprisonment or the situation he had found himself in, it was not that simple. He was no longer a callow youth so eager to throw blame to the parties nearest to him. Darcy Lewis was not simple. He came to Lady Jane's study with the intent to rile Thor and found her instead. When she noticed him, her fear was palpable in the air even without magic to sense them, but it did not stop her from offering him hospitality.

He did not know why she did not withdraw it when he challenged her to, only that her stubbornness was stronger than even her own fear. It was the best explanation he could come up with as to why she so easily called him a friend.

A killer, she'd said, her candour felled him with the weight of frank judgment and she'd stayed as unaffected as the eye of the storm. She spoke of the truth she'd seen but he had yet to see her fit him into some mould or ideal. She did not take it as her right to praise him, or to absolve him, or to rage at him, or to inflict pain at him.

That was why he couldn't help but listen.

Darcy may have found it agreeable to herself to lay with him, but there was no doubt that she saw him as who he is. If he was a worse man than she'd seen until now, she may as well leave as she had threatened before; why she hadn't left yet was a mystery for another day. He was beginning to get used to the headaches that thinking about her apparent contradictions usually generate.

Even with her quirks and idiosyncrasies (and hoyden brashness and vulgar language), she had the qualities of Frigga's best handmaidens. He could easily see her as one of the few weavers allowed to work on the ever-changing weave of all that might be, what has come to past as well as those that failed to come at all. She might have learned how to work the spinning wheel under his mother's tutelage. He wondered why Thor had not seen her potential and chose Jane instead.

She gifted him with the truth without even realising its worth. She showed him the choices he did have but somehow hadn't seen. Yet after all that, she walked away without asking for anything, unconcerned for anything more complicated than simply enjoying his company. No matter how simple and frank she appeared, there was an inquisitive mind underneath. She had courage enough to shame any warrior and an unwavering generosity that tempered it. She met all his challenges and questions without a doubt.

He did not wish to release himself from her company.

"Why am I even thinking about this?" He asked out loud. Because in the end, it did not matter. There were things he needed to do elsewhere and he will still leave.

There was time, though. Right now, he had to wait for the morning or evening star's next conjunction before he would take his leave of Thor's ragtag band. It would not matter even if he could get all the materials he needed by next week. Once he succeeded, let them make of it what they wish. He had more important things to deal with than the fretting of mortals. For the time being he was settled comfortably here and he could even indulge his curiosity to see whether the Midgardians have written something interesting by now.

It might even give him an inspiration for the current little problem he was facing.

'-

When Darcy arrived, Jane was in the labs. A few questions told her that her boss had arrived more than two hours ago 'just to check up on things' and that she hadn't even noticed the hours passing. Darcy bundled Jane away again after she pointed out the clock. Jane agreed easily this time, because she hadn't planned to stay for that long in the first place, and out she went. With that settled, Darcy was prepared to go back and enjoy her break. Should she check if Loki wanted to explore the tower some more? Why is she suddenly acting like his guide, anyway? Am I being too clingy?

Darcy sighed. She didn't think she was being unusual—she just thought that he didn't exactly have anyone else she could imagine he'd want to spend time with. What if he just wanted to be alone?

Well, he could just say that to her face, couldn't he? It couldn't hurt to just ask him if he wanted to join her on…hmm, she didn't exactly have a plan yet. Oh well. She could figure it out as she went along.

Then, the lab doors opened.

Tony strode into the lab with the force of a hurricane. He was in a business suit, better dressed than Don Draper himself, and she could see that he had his game face on. It wasn't his eccentric billionaire lazy glance, the one that said 'I can buy and sell you with the spare change in my pocket'. It wasn't his 'captains of industry' face he went to boardroom meetings with either, especially when the (murders and executions) mergers and acquisitions option was on the table.

This was one rarely seen in the media.

"What's up Tin Man?" Darcy asked.

"Need some intel here, Dorothy." He smiled and it was one for the tabloids, but his body language held carefully coiled tension. She tried to keep herself relaxed and not escalate the worry. It wasn't easy.

"'Sup, Bro?"

"Do you actually have a list of the books Reindeer Games wanted?"

"Yeah, I do." She said simply. "Why?"

"So you knew that Vom Krieg was on it?"

Darcy's eyebrows rose up. "What? Is that one of the German titles? Because I don't speak German."

Knowing vocab pieces really doesn't count as knowing the language.

"That's what I thought." He said this so grimly that she gave him her full attention. "Maybe the name of Carl von Clausewitz would be more familiar to you?"

Wait, she knew what Krieg was. War, wasn't it? And she definitely knew Clausewitz. The book Tony was talking about was Clausewitz's On War, and something inside Darcy faltered as the tension between them grew. Darcy sat down on her computer and opened the library's page. Tony went around the desk to see her monitor.

"It says it's military philosophy," Darcy muttered, but doubt still grew in her voice even with that knowledge. He nodded.

"Yeah, like Sun Tzu's Art of War, which I would bet is also on the list."

She had a vision of an armoured figure in green at the head of an invading army, exactly like the SHIELD recordings she'd managed to copy from the SI database. Was Loki planning another invasion? Right underneath their noses? There was an odd pang of betrayal inside her, but she had to remind herself that for all his being an ass, Loki had never actually lied or promised her anything. Maybe it was just her pride, because she'd been sure she understood what he was and it wasn't what other people thought.

Tony could see the worry on Darcy's face and he took pity on her enough to explain. "I'm not worried about thosebooks—I've read them and they're far from being a military manual. You should read the Art of War sometimes. It's fun."

His smile faded. "Y'see, what I'm worried about the books I don't know. I need to find those out."

For a moment, Darcy was concerned about something else as she wondered how Tony even figured out what Loki was looking for. She swivelled on her chair. "You're spying on everyone here?"

He rolled his eyes. "No, there are flagged keywords of every search in the intranet."

"And what about the browsing data everyone accumulates? Plaintext?" Darcy asked. Tony stared at her with incredulity. He was almost affronted.

"The data are aggregated, anonimised and encrypted and I salt all the passwords—you do know that not even all e-banking sites do that, right? Only Jarvis knows who's actually looking for what and he doesn't even keep the secure stuff like passwords himself or the hash functions. Plus, even if he can access them, no one can pull it out of him without the right reason."

Darcy was impressed. "You mean, the right query?"

"No, I mean the right reason," Tony said with a confident grin. "He's an AI, not dumb silicon. I didn't force-feed him Asimov's Law of Robotics, but I made sure he damn well developed a morality of his own."

"You must be so proud of him, Dad."

He leaned closer with a mock whisper. "Yeah, but if I say it too often, it would get to his head."

Darcy laughed. Tony casually continued. "We also destroy personal browsing data once they're older than a year and everything else but the basic bio when someone leaves SI. That secure enough for you?"

She couldn't help but roll her eyes at the smug look he had but had to acknowledge that he knew what he was talking about. She raised her hands in mock-surrender.

"That's very impressive, Boss-man."

He pouted. It was still too cute for his own good. "You're breaking my heart here. I can't believe you just challenged Tony Stark on security protocols."

She smiled back. "Never doubted your competence, Tony, just worried about your intentions."

"Hey, I only screw people who's asking me to screw them, and they have to stand in line for that privilege. Don't mistake me for some people."

She laughed. "And what about those supervillains?"

"They're asking me to screw them when they hit the civilians."

Darcy logged in with Loki's ID, praying that he hadn't changed the password. It would turn out that he didn't even bother to do that and she breathed out a sigh of relief. She checked the last search history and didn't find anything suspicious and logged out, turning around to face Tony fully.

"The thing is, I added additional keywords to flag for that StarkPad I gave you." Tony said, his voice level.

"Like war," Darcy said casually, too casually.

"Yep. And nuclear. He didn't even try for anything like that or anything close to the Manhattan Project, though."

Darcy blew some hair out of her face, relaxing by a fraction. She grinned even when she could still feel the rapid beating of her heart, her mind trying to come up with possibilities and each of them was worse than the previous one. She kept her voice light through all this.

"You sound soooo disappointed, Tony."

"I know. It makes me feel weird, you know? Being wrong? A first in a decade! Maybe I should bask in the novelty of it for a while, get a tan while I'm at it." He said. She chuckled, wondering how long it took him to cultivate the art of making people want to punch him within a minute of talking to him. A bigger part of her was smiling and facepalming.

"Yet you're here anyway," Darcy said.

"Yeah, I'm here," Tony said, looking painfully sober and not quite happy about it. "I'm not going to beat around the bush anymore. Do you have that list?"

She sighed. "I do."

Darcy knew she had no good reason not to spill the beans on Loki to Tony because she didn't have any proof that he wasn't going to harm them, other than her own instincts and his profession of debt of being her guest as she had freely taken him as a host. Trust but verify, she had said. Well, being tight-lipped about this is so not going to fly under that, she thought cynically. Tony's voice was sympathetic.

"Kid, look at me. If I did what I usually do when I freaked out, SHIELD would've known about this since yesterday, but my gut feeling tells me to trust you, and I'm doing that. That's why I'm the one asking you. I, for one, don't really care about what he's reading since he's not hitting the majority of the flags, but this Tower is my home. Pepper lives here, despite all my efforts to tell her not to."

Darcy could feel her palms going a little damp. She was in over her head. This was one thing she could be certain of when the Tony Stark himself was speaking seriously to her, didn't even remember to act like he was checking her out and actually allowed her to actually glimpse where his heart lay.

She wondered if this was the man Pepper Potts saw and not the world.

"Darcy, I can't not ask you about this," Tony pleaded. "You understand, right?"

"Promise me that you won't tell SHIELD if you don't find anything and keep it a secret," Darcy rushed.

Tony shrugged. "Sure."

She rummaged around her bag and pulled the rolled parchment out. Tony whistled at it. Somehow, it managed to not get any crease at all either, or knowing Loki and Asgardians, probably magic paper. "They don't do subtle around there, do they?" He asked.

"That's what their printer uses, actually. Parchment," Darcy replied. He stared at her in shock.

"They have printers?"

She could see the gears of his mind turning—he would love to take apart such a device the second he got it and he'd kiss anyone gifting him one. "Can I ask Rain Man for a printer? A gift for his good buddy Tony? I could trade him for a year's stock of poptarts, in all the flavours he'd want."

Darcy shook her head and destroyed Tony's daydreams. "I'm not sure Thor uses them."

"What? How could he not? Why on earth does he look like he's stuck in magic space middle ages?" Tony asked in disbelief, unrolling the scroll in hand. She shrugged, but couldn't hold back the grin on her face.

"I know that Loki does because he's a magician from over the rainbow—and Thor isn't. Y'know, Clarke's Law?"

"And you saw him printing it?" He asked, intrigued.

"I didn't see it. I saw him tap the orders out in his floating AsgardPad, which had this exact same list on, same font, font size and all that crap—I suspect his 'printer' is in his personal pocket dimension. It could totes be a magical quill copying stuff word for word to a parchment a la Harry Potter."

Tony scanned past lines and lines of titles and authors without breaking the conversation. "If this is what you find out in a few days when those interrogators get a whole lot of nothing, I'm inviting you out to the Avengers' shawarma times. Maybe on a regular basis."

Darcy froze. She wasn't sure if she should be excited or terrified. "Err, thanks, but I'm just an assistant."

Tony snorted. "Keep saying that and maybe you'll believe it. Because I don't."

She had no idea what she could say to that. Keep repeating that she was an assistant? How does one break the delusion of someone of Tony Stark's calibre? She only had Loki's reading list because she helped him and she'd worn him down after he was probably bored out of his wits trying to code an app on the go. I don't have his bucket list of 'shit I plan on doing'!

"So, do you have this stuff in softcopy? I'm thinkin' of showing this to Pepper. Seems more like her field than mine."

"No, I don't," Darcy said, and she saw him deflate. It had been her habit for a while for anything she didn't want to risk getting hacked. Either put an air gap on important data or don't keep it in soft copy altogether. It didn't mean she kept nothing, though.

"But I did photocopy it. Y'know, just in case."

Tony's eyes light up at that.

Darcy sighed and retrieved it from her bag. "Tony, I know this is hard to believe, but he's…"

She took a deep breath. What was he to her, really? A friend, she'd said that. But should one ever have to choose between the safety of the people around them and their friend? Tony had actually been honest with her about why he was so worked up over this. The least she could do was come clean to him about her reasons.

"He's a jerkass and believe me I know. I've had conversations with the guy, remember? But as weird as it is, he's not just that and he's also a friend of sorts." She ignored the disbelieving look that Tony sent him, even as it changed into something more subtle and less recognisable. "I don't want to screw with him just on the basis of 'suspicions' instead of actual proof. If we find out that he wants to attack earth, sure, jail him, but otherwise? I'm respecting his privacy. We're only showing this to Pepper for now until we get new information."

She had the feeling that he wasn't someone who trusted other people easily and she was flattered that he did trust her—she wasn't going to waste that.

Darcy held her hand out for him. Tony took it with a firm hand shake.

"Sure. You get yourself a deal."

He strode out of the room with the same forceful strides. Darcy was just picking up her bag to go back to her apartment when she heard Tony call out to her from the doorway.

"What are you waiting for, Lewis? A written invitation?"

"What?" She gaped.

"Let's go to see Pepper, what else? What, you thought I'd go off without you?"

"Well, yeah, I mean—"

"Nope. You have a good head on your shoulders and somehow managed to find out more stuff on Reindeer Games than anyone could predict. We can't not include you."

'-

Finding Pepper Potts was not difficult because it turned out that she'd been looking for them; specifically, Tony. Darcy could see how his whole being lit up when he saw her.

"Pepper! Just the person I'm looking for," he made an exaggerated move to hug her and she stepped out of his way with speed and ease. Tony pouted. The redhead was unaffected.

"Isn't that convenient? Because I've been looking for you too, Mr. Stark," She used his last name like a reprimand and for all Tony's smoothness, Darcy didn't miss his split-second wince. Pepper's voice turned firm, "In fact, Auditing was also looking for you. You are aware that there was a meeting that you missed?"

"I had to cancel. There was a matter of national security that needs handling."

He was the very image of insouciance with his hands in his pockets. Pepper merely raised an eyebrow.

"Natasha hadn't said anything about any new missions to me."

"Of course not, I wasn't running a mission with her. You don't expect me to actually blab top secret details to people without the clearance for it, do you?" Tony continued.

Pepper's lips quirked up on the left. "You do it all the time, Tony. I hear you mumbling them in your sleep…and talking about it at breakfast."

"I got Fury to upgrade your clearance," he said easily. Pepper was blindsided.

"Tony! That is really unnecessary—"

"It is completely necessary. Potts, have I told you lately how you kept me sane in a world gone crazy? Because you do. You're my life."

His last statement was no longer showmanship—it just was. The simple honesty stood unadorned by the well-known Stark flavour of bravado that he projected in most public affairs.

When he turned to Pepper, the love in his gaze was so unguarded and bare that Darcy felt like a voyeur.

Pepper Potts shed her professionalism like a coat in a powder room, took three strides, and hugged him. He pulled her tighter into his arms and the brunette could see what he meant by his words; she was his rock. They held each other for a moment or two. Darcy would've been less worried if they weren't in the middle of a frickin' corridor, but she couldn't bring herself to interfere.

Pepper was the one who pulled away first and Tony reluctantly let her go.

"What happened?" She asked him.

He sighed, scratching the back of his head. "Long story, Potts. Let's get somewhere else so Velma here could tell you about our current mystery."

'-

They ended up in a booth table at the coffee shop in the second library. The booth did not seem to be one that was accessible to the general public, as it was in the far back, and Darcy thought she could see lines and lines of glyphs from some dead language around the perimeter and walls. She remembered about Dr. Strange's recommended adjustments to Stark Tower. A crooning singer echoed the golden age of swing in her voice and filled the spaces of their silence. Darcy let Tony take the lead in the explanations while Pepper listened to him while scanning the book list copy. She'd only interjected once or twice during the explanation.

"I know this isn't going to make a lot of sense to either of you guys, but I don't think he's going to attack the Avengers or anything. It wasn't his plan—unless you believe that he planned on getting caught." Whatever his original plan was, it involved that cup and they've moved it somewhere else, haven't they?

"I'm not putting anything past Reindeer Games, yet," Tony said.

Darcy sighed. "Yeah, I know you don't—and I don't blame you. I just have to put my two cents in."

Pepper lowered the stapled papers with a thoughtful look. "I don't know, Tony. I think what she said made sense."

"What?"

"What?!"

"You think he's not trying to pull something over us?" Tony asked. Pepper shook her head.

"Of course not. Now that doesn't sound like him at all." She shook her head "No, I don't think that his plan, whatever it is, is going to be as simple as just an attack. If he was up to something—and I'm not saying he is, we still don't know enough—it wouldn't be anything short term. You don't read up on governance and institution building if your aim is destruction," Pepper finished.

A stunned silence followed her. Stark Industries infamously unflappable CEO smiled at her audience.

"What is he planning?" Tony asked.

Pepper shrugged, a lot calmer than Darcy herself would've managed. "I have no idea."

"This might just be a trick to get us to let our guards down," Tony fired back.

The redhead slid her fingers around her cup in thought. "It doesn't make that much sense. This list doesn't distract us enough from focusing on him—if he wanted us lulled into a feeling of complacency, he would've given Darcy a list of literary books. Fiction, drama, the history of earth, maybe. It raises a lot less flags than one on politics and is still natural for someone with limited mobility to be interested in."

Tony groaned.

"Maybe he did that on purpose to confuse us?"

An amused smile rose on Pepper's face. "Tony, not everything everyone does has to be about you."

Darcy couldn't help a small laughter from escaping, even as she gasped and closed her mouth immediately. Pepper was still amused while Tony continued to grumble as before.

"I think even Loki would take issue with that," Darcy said.

"Well if he's not coming clean with us, I'm booting him out. That's it. We give him a chance to explain and it's not our fault if he didn't take it. There is no way that I'd be biting my nails down, wondering what he's trying to pull when the shit will hit the fan." Tony stated.

Darcy straightened up. "You mean…"

"Yep. He's going straight to SHIELD." Tony said.

"No." Darcy cut in.

Across the table, Pepper and Tony turned to her and she faltered for a second. They were still larger-than-life figures for her, after all. Tony was incredulous while Pepper was harder to read. She had her professional face on and was as attentive as she was implacable.

"Kid, I know you feel like you're his friend—"

"It's not that, Tony," she shook her head, bypassing his attempts at sympathy or calming her down. For the first time in months Darcy was very sure about what she was talking about. She could hold her own against Tony frickin' Stark if it comes to it.

"I wouldn't have minded if he was actually arrested, with the prospect of facing a trial to determine his guilt and everything over court. If he ends up jailed for two hundred years, so be it. But SHIELD? Give me break. Once he'd passed the doors of government black ops, who knows where he'd end up to and what sort of punishment he'd receive? Or what would be done to him?"

Darcy's gaze grew hard.

"Because of course SHIELD has so many alien test subjects for invasive medical studies. Not."

The tension in the room was palpable as the two of them held their standoff. It was broken when Tony groaned and slouched back on the couch. He ran both of his hands repeatedly through his hair, sometimes yanking them, until Pepper carefully pulled his hands down.

"I hate being part of the good guys. Some days, I wish I'm just the playboy billionaire, you know? Living the fun and fast life."

"Nobody would know if you ignore it. They'd expect it, actually." Pepper said, sipping her tea. Darcy was too surprised at how casual she'd said it to say anything.

"I would if I could, but I can't," Tony grumbled.

There was something gentler in Pepper's eyes. "It's not can't, Tony, it's won't. That's something completely different. It means you're a good man."

"I just…" Tony trailed away, seeing two hopeful looks aimed at him.

"Oh alright, Ladies, you win. It is completely unfair to expect a man to ignore such looks from two beauties, okay? I hope you're happy you've blackmailed me into letting our errant princeling to stay."

Darcy was still thinking, even as he groused. The Tower had been Tony's place before it became the Avengers' and was dragged into the mire that is Asgardian ruling family drama, and it was still his home. Even she couldn't fully assure him that Loki meant no harm. Darcy couldn't help but feel guilty at that. She grasped at straws, trying to come up with something, anything she'd ever read or studied about.

"I don't think he has to stay here. I know a way to get him out of here. This would be official, above the books, with government acknowledgement, consent and all that jazz," she said. The words flowed easier and faster as Darcy tried to outrun her own nervousness as the Stark-Potts power couple gave her their complete attention.

"Look, I really don't know about how these things usually play out in the grand scale. I don't know how the power differential between Asgard and Earth is going to affect this without analysing the details and getting more information—plus, it ain't like we have a planetary government or anything like Asgard does, so the inter-governmental cooperation bits are going to be a nightmare to sort through. There's no fricking way I'm volunteering for that either, by the way. Not to mention the fuckton of work y'need to put into the whole back and forth between Asgard and Earth before anything like a final agreement is baked halfway—"

"Whoa, whoa, slow down!"

"—but I think I might have an idea about what we can do," Darcy breathed out.

Pepper smiled, unphased. The brunette had a suspicion that she had been thinking along similar lines at the same time but was just too gracious to ever say a word about it. She leaned forward.

"I'd love to hear all about it, Darcy."

'-

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.

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Author's Note:

The plot thickens... anyone wants to try guessing what any of our characters are up to?

'-

Random List of Stuffs I Decided to Detail:

Asimov's Law of Robotics: Science fiction author Isaac Asimov made them to be the standing orders that overruled any other orders that a robot may be given. In I Robot, these are:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

Conjunction: (astronomy) when planets seem to align with each other (or background stars) when seen from earth (or whatever planet or planetoid you're standing on and is using as reference).

Hash function: in this case, it's the additional function that processes plain original passwords and passphrases by adding salt (and doing a couple other things beyond that). Not sure I can explain what it is in sufficiently abbreviated form here.

M&A (Murders and Executions, ahem, Mergers and Acquisitions): Totally stole the first line from Patrick Bateman in the movie American Psycho. In some ways, the M&A world is pretty cutthroat, though, and the tongue-in-cheek reply is almost appropriate.

Salt: (cryptography) random data added to password or passphrase. To salt would be to intentionally (use a function to) add random data to stored passwords. This way, the stored password on file is not an exact match to the real password, securing it better in case of security breach.

'-