Loki Misses the Asgardian Prison System

Chapter 6

Loki's halfway through his chicken nuggets when he looks up at the ceiling, thinking. There's no harm in trying. If nothing happens, at least there's no one around to see it. "JARVIS?" That's what Natasha said, wasn't it? JARVIS. Whatever that means.

"Yes, Loki?" a voice says.

Loki looks around, but there's no one else here. He can't quite tell where that voice came from, but it wasn't a person. Or, at least, not a person near him. But he got an answer, which is what he was looking for. JARVIS, whatever it is, is here. That's what he wanted to know.

"What are you?" Loki asks.

"I am an artificial intelligence system tasked with helping Mr. Stark with business and security," JARVIS tells him.

Loki raises an eyebrow. "Artificial intelligence?"

"Yes."

"So you're not real," Loki says. That's what it means, right? He's never actually heard the phrase, but if he's artificial intelligence, he's fake, right?

"I'm as real as you are," JARVIS says. "Intangible, but real nonetheless."

"Ah." That's interesting — and very strange, too. He's an immaterial being, but he's still here, in a sense. It's weird.

"Did you have a question?" JARVIS asks.

"What?"

"Did you have a question?" JARVIS repeats. "People typically call on me for assistance, like with a task or to answer a question."

Loki purses his lips, thinking. "What kind of questions can you answer?"

"There are very few questions I can't answer," JARVIS tells him.

Loki nods slowly, thinking. "If I were to ask, for example, why the chicken on the outside of my plate is always warm and the chicken on the inside of my plate is always cold, could you answer that?" He doesn't really care — cold chicken is still better than the food he got in prison in Asgard, and he's hungry enough that he'd eat them frozen if he had to — but he's curious whether JARVIS has an answer.

"The microwave emits small waves that cause the water particles in the food to rotate, producing heat," JARVIS explains. "Because the microwave emits those waves from the sides, they are absorbed by the outside chicken nuggets, and there is less energy to be absorbed towards the center of the plate. To fix this, try flipping your chicken nuggets midway through to cook them more evenly."

Loki just sits there for a few moments in silence. He didn't actually expect JARVIS to have an answer to that. After a few moments, he says, "Stark didn't flip them."

"Mr. Stark doesn't like you," JARVIS says simply.

"Fair enough," Loki says. He bites the cold head off one of his center dinosaur nuggets. Maybe he will try flipping them tomorrow. It could be an interesting experiment. He just hopes it doesn't ruin them. If he only gets to eat once a day, he'd like to actually get to eat, but having to remake his food would just be embarassing.

"Is that all?" JARVIS asks.

Loki thinks for a moment. What other questions does he have? How about... "What is a Perry the Platypus water bottle?" If it's something demeaning — as Clint clearly thought it was — he'd like to know why.

"Your water bottle has a picture of Perry the Platypus on it," JARVIS explains. Before Loki can ask, JARVIS continues, "Perry the Platypus is a fictional character from the popular animated kids' show Phineas and Ferb."

Loki looks down at his water bottle with furrowed brows. Okay, he sees the picture. It's a little teal rectangle with a face and a hat. That makes sense, he supposes. But... "What is a platypus?"