The First Taste

Amber
[i am painting a mural is it amazeballs?]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Amber
[5 suxx, it's pretty okay]

Verna Gardner
Verna's on her way out. Well, on her way to deliver something, and then to be out. The something is a note in her hand addressed to Dr. Andrássy which reads: "It never happened."

'It' isn't discussed. She's fairly certain that a man of his intellect can probably discern what she means by those three words, even if his first language was not English. As an added bonus, nobody else would be able to discern what she means as well.

So it's up the stairs, out of the lab and into the light -- wait, no, it's dark outside now, curious. Must have been down there too long again. Up to where the little inter-office inboxes are (because the Doctor believes in writing things on paper for some strange reason).

Because it is well past time to begin looking the part, now that the lab equipment is at least mostly present if not fully functional, she's wearing a white lab coat over her sweater, hair pulled back into a (perfect) braid to keep it out of the way.

Amber
There is a warehouse in some part of town that is ugly and pink.  The two things may or may not be mutually exclusive.  Someone told Amber that she should get a medal for making this place look...not the way it looked when René Jacobs first gave her the tour.  Amber isn't getting a medal for it, though.  She's getting paid.  Handsomely.  Maybe not handsomely enough considering she's probably the only person working on it, but ah well.  It's not like she needs the money anymore.

Something happens when someone is stuck doing the same thing over and over again.  And Amber has been doing the same thing over and over again for weeks.  The original layer of paint had to be dealt with, sanded or stripped down so that the new layer wouldn't be placed over something old and flaked.  Then the painting began, but dude, so fucking boring.  There's a reason why Amber hated doing contract work, why she hated waking up at the asscrack of dawn to load up someone else's truck and paint some other person's kitchen any of about fifty different shades of white.

Good thing is, she's been tasked to do both the inside and the outside of the building.  That means: Breaks.  Not real breaks where she wanders away to get a bowl from Tokyo Joe's down the street, but a break from painting in a single color back and forth, back and forth all around the outside walls.

Breaks for Amber mean painting, real painting.  With a variety of brushes tucked in an apron tied around her waist, an actual fucking palette, a myriad of colors.  It gives the right side of her brain something to do that isn't droning and monotonous, but it also means that she's distracted.  She gets into it and she forgets the time.  And she's indoors because outside is supposed to be Serious Business and Nondescript.  So she's in the lobby at the moment, or in a hallway somewhere that she can't see the light fading outside.  The mural?  Well it's only just started so it's mostly base colors.  Presumably she's spoken to René about this, about either what this place is meant to do or what might be appropriate.  If she's been left to her own imagination the walls are going to be PINK!  PURPLE!  TURQUOISE!  YELLOW!  Splashes of color to brighten this place the fuck up because it needs to be brightened the fuck up.  And if she's not left to her own devices then, well, it's the beginning of something appropriate that will no doubt still break up the monotony.  She doesn't realize how late it's gotten until she shifts and her bones creak with it, joints popping from staying stationary for too long.  Amber pulls out her phone and checks the time, shit.

She's packing up her equipment when Verna walks past her, headed for the outside world.  She's seen the woman before, of course she has, but they've never spoken, why would they?  Verna is the sort of person who has to be tricked and dragged into strip clubs and Amber looks like the sort of person they put on guard outside of them.  Intense, tough, strong.  She looks up when Verna, dressed in her lab coat all nice and neat.  Then she rises, power and stability.

The first words that she every speaks to Verna Gardner are, "Hold up, I'll walk you out."  Because they are women and it is night and there are terrible things out there, and between the two of them Amber is most likely to scare anything off, or break its nose if it gets too close.

Verna Gardner
Everyone wants to walk her to her car. Or watch her out to her car, as the case may be. Dr. Jacobs, Dr. Andrássy, and now the painter? Well, it's not unwelcome, but it is worrying, isn't it?

"Oh, why thank you so much," Verna says, trying for bright and personable. But then she ignores Amber for a few seconds while perusing the inboxes -- to slip that note in.

"You know, I've been told this isn't a good neighborhood, and all," she says, echoing Rene. "So it's nice to have someone to walk with. Oh, I'm Verna, by the way. I've seen you around, but we've yet to introduce ourselves."

Amber
Probably the only people Amber wouldn't offer to walk to their vehicles in this city are undead, or Laurel.  Even Nathan would get an escort, probably René, too, if he were around.  Amber is strong, and she is stronger than she looks, gifted with a supernatural strength.

And then there is the intensity of her presence.  She is a beautiful woman, with a storm-eyed stare that's usually good enough to ward off unwanted advances.  She does not like to play the role of knight on shining white charger, but she recognizes that most of the time she's the only one suited for the position.

So she walks Verna out of the building, a tall woman with a rolling gait, dressed in a t-shirt under an unzipped hooded sweatshirt, jeans, work boots, all of these things spattered with paint to some degree.  There is a bandana tied over her hair and another tied around her neck that does not quite disguise the mask she wears to protect herself from the fumes.  And she carries two bags, one a messenger bag that must be her personal bag, and another that clinks and rattles with supplies.  When Verna pauses to slip a note into a cubbie Amber looks back at the blank walls of the warehouse interior.  Not seeing them, but seeing what they could be, maybe, we'll see.

Then the researcher is talking.  Amber turns and levels her gaze on the woman.  "Amber," she says, and tips her head toward the door, indicating that it's time to go.

"No problem.  What're you guys doing in here, anyway?" she asks, because she's never asked before or maybe no one told her if she did.

Stephen Andrássy
[roll perc + alertness, suckers!]

Amber
[WHERE YOU AT]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )

Verna Gardner
[Verna saw what now?]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

Stephen Andrássy
A five-year-old Volkswagen Passat is parked on the frontier of the parking lot back far enough that it's easy enough to overlook but neither of them overlook it. It's one of the only vehicles in the lot and it was not there when they parked their own rides.

Both of them have seen it before. They know the car belongs to René Jacobs. But Jacobs is nowhere to be seen. He's not behind the wheel and he isn't hovering around the vehicle smoking a cigarette before he goes inside to check on the place. He's already soundly lectured Verna on not staying on the premises after dark and on the rare occasions he's stopped by during the day for a brief in-and-out and passed Amber he's bid her a good afternoon. Not a good night.

So: there's his car. And here comes a six-foot-one blond-haired blue-eyed man with combed hair and trimmed facial hair wearing Oxford shoes and jeans and a button-down shirt. His shoes click on the asphalt as he walks from the car towards the warehouse that the two women are vacating.

Verna Gardner
Verna's smile goes very bright when Amber asks what they're up to. "What, Doctor Jacobs didn't tell you? Oh what am I saying, of course he didn't. He never does," Verna says, about to embark upon a rousing rendition of science.

"We are making diamonds. But not just any diamonds, mind you. These diamonds will hold coherent nitrogen particles. It's for quantum computing research. I don't mean diamonds like you could wear as earrings, they're very small, you see --"

And then Verna stops the conversation in its tracks, because there's Doctor Andrássy himself. Her lips form a line. And then she remembers -- it never happened. "Ahh, Doctor Andrássy, I was just telling our painter here a very little about our research," she says, with a smile. It's perhaps a bit forced, but it's there.

Amber
Amber has a bit of a temper.  It's what happens when the world fuels a hatefire by crushing one's dreams.  That temper has controlled her life for the better part of the last five or so years.  It's kept her from being terribly perceptive of the world and people around her.  It's kept her from using her head in situations when it's absolutely imperative to use one's head.

She's listening to Verna talk about very small diamonds and is about to ask her How small is very small?  Because Amber knows that people crush diamonds to make things very, very expensively glittery.

But then she notices the car.  Amber's is closer, and older but looks much nicer.  A 1968 Ford Mustang, very red, and updated enough that when she slips her hand into the pocket of her sweatshirt a moment later its headlights flash, indicating the disarming of an alarm.  Pretty nice for a painter, but then maybe she restored it herself.  She looks like she might be the kind of tomboy thug who also works on cars.

Several things happen at once.  First, Amber dismisses the car because it's familiar and at first it doesn't seem strange Dr. Jacobs would be parked way over there.  Then Verna stops talking suddenly, before Amber can voice her own question, and so she looks again in that direction.

That.  That is not the man who looks like he could be Sean Connery's stunt double if Sean Connery were still young enough to play James Bond.  Amber stops dead in her tracks.  And she hears Laurel's voice in her head being chased by her own voice issuing a string of profanities.

Outside of her head she says nothing, but her eyes narrow on the man headed toward the warehouse which may as well mean he's headed for them.  Then her gaze sweeps over to her car.  He hasn't spoken yet, so maybe it's some other clean cut guy around 6-6'1" with Aryan features.  That doesn't mean she's not also try to calculate how much time it'll take her to throw Verna over her shoulder and bolt for the Mustang.

But then Verna talks to him and Amber becomes doubtful.  She also thinks, because Amber grew up in a place where people could die because it was suggested they might have overheard something that they shouldn't, Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.  She doesn't even really want to know about diamonds being manufactured for quantum-computing!

Stephen Andrássy
It: The night that friends of Verna Gardner dragged the poor girl out to a strip club and teased her when she noticed that her fucking boss was also there. Rapture. What a name for a strip club. What a place to catch one's boss when one doesn't want to be there anyway. Maybe she was imagining things. It might not have been him. One minute a man who is tall and blond and well-dressed was standing at the bar in conversation with a woman. The next that woman was striding across the joint to pin her in a bear hug that she refused to release for over a minute and he was gone.

That woman was named Laurel Hensley and she gave an accurate description of the man who was present the night It happened. She left out the part where he was handsome in the way plenty of men are handsome when they're in the prime of their lives. In an agelessly boyish sort of way. That he chooses to comb his hair and keep a beard because the effect makes him look mature. Amber heard about what happened and she heard the description of the man and her mind immediately concludes and rightly that this is the man who was there the night It happened.

That note Verna has not yet delivered tells her that It never happened.

The friendly smiling-eyed way the man greets both women may suggest that note is right. That nothing happened. He doesn't present himself as one who has done anything weird or wrong recently. It's a beautiful night on the eve of a wicked snow storm and he has his hands in his pockets and he looks very pleased to see Verna. They hit it off the first night they met.

Nerded out, hit it off. Same thing.

"Ah, Miss Gardner!" he calls when they're maybe thirty feet away. There's the accent. Here comes the strange sentence structure: "Here you are again so late!" Within a matter of seconds their points in space coalesce and he stops just beyond arm's reach of them. Gives Amber a perfunctory glance to confirm he does not know her but he can make a valid guess at who she is: "And Miss Blumenthal, yeah? René, he does talk so about the building now. He did not like the color before."

A clicking noise with his tongue. Shame. Not like you can tell what fucking color it is in the dark.

Amber
[what hey i am totally cool this is my chill face: manip+subt+WP]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Stephen Andrássy
[perc + subt: jesus christ, lady. -1 diff because auspex. no rerolls because she's not actively lying.]

Dice: 7 d10 TN5 (1, 3, 5, 5, 6, 6, 9) ( success x 5 )

Verna Gardner
"Oh yes, I apologize, Doctor. The time, it flies, and sometimes I get carried away," she says, and gives him a smile in return.

"Doctor Jacobs doesn't appreciate pink. I suppose," Verna starts, drawing out that 'suppose' like she's chewing on the word. "Not that flaking pink is a very good color for anything, but perhaps you keep that in mind when doing the interior?"

There is nothing wrong here, just a couple of women doing the right thing and looking out for each other on the way out to the parking lot. And a charming Doctor.

That strange woman who hugged her told her to be wary of her employer, and Verna scoffed. Doctor Andrássy may have his quirks, but it is the height of hypocrisy to suggest there's something odd about someone else when you hugged a total stranger for a whole minute. In Rapture.

No, don't think about that. It never happened.

Smile. Try to smile.

[Manip+Subt = It never happened.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )

Amber
Amber is still asking herself why.  Why why why.  Whyyyyyyyyy.  Why is this happening why did she stay late why is Denver so goddamned small.  She'd though the tangled knot that was what happened to Laurel had become a little less tangled, but here she is, right in the middle of another snarl.

Because Amber knows what happened to Laurel and she has a description of the man Laurel thinks did it and Amber knows just enough about vampire things to know that what was done to Laurel was most likely done by a vampire and here he is, the man himself.  Tall, blond, neat, accented.

FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU--

No, Amber, jesus christ, pull it together.  She does, and she does a fairly commendable job of it, too.  She forces her muscles to relax, keeps her face schooled into her usual terse expression.  She does not become some wooden doll-thing, stiff and tense and no longer remembering how she moves her hands when she talks.

She does a commendable job, but someone adept at reading people can still tell that she's wary.  Nervous.  Unsettled.  There was a time when Amber unsetteld was a more dangerous prospect than Amber already angry, when it would only ever add fuel to an oil fire ready to explode at any second.  Her hands are in her pockets and they stay there.  There is a nod for the blond man, yes, she is Miss Blumenthal.

"Yeah."  Her face is pointed toward him but her eyes are on her car, the lovely red mustang that is practically calling her name.  Verna says something about the interior and Amber turns her head to look at the woman, eyes narrowed with a lack of understanding.

"What?" she asks.

Verna Gardner
[Perc+subt: Does Verna notice the nervousness of Amber?]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

Verna Gardner
"When doing the interior paint? I don't think Doctor Jacobs likes pink. As a note for your color palette," she tries to clarify, but then stops, looks away. "But oh, you've probably already hammered out all the details. Don't mind me."

Verna's blithely going about the process of making small talk to cover the bit of tension that's sure to fade with time. but she's so preoccupied on her own awkwardness she doesn't notice Amber being a bit off as well.

Stephen Andrássy
At mention of whether Dr. Jacobs likes pink or not the young-looking scientist who serves as Verna's employer tightens his teeth not because he perceives an insult to the color of the building he'd chosen but because he's trying not to laugh or even show amusement at the fact that Verna knows his -

What the hell is René to him anyway? He doesn't know anything about science but he was handling the hiring process. Maybe he works for the university. Just does general hiring. Doesn't explain why the physicist is here with the man's car when the man isn't present. A little scandal never hurt anyone.

Call him an associate. She knows his associate well enough to state that she doesn't think he likes pink and Andrássy nearly laughs. Charmed by the research assistant's astuteness maybe. He seems oblivious to Amber's nervousness but then the thought had also not occurred to him that Verna would find the walk to her car dangerous not because of the neighborhood itself but because of the predacious nature of unseen men who walk such neighborhoods at night.

"I did tell René if he did not like the color then he could change it so," he says. "The details are for him, yeah? It is all paint to me. The work, though." He glances to Amber and then lets his attention settle on her. Nothing in his gaze but neutral conversational politeness.

His skin is not waxen or overly pale. His eyes are youthful in their intelligence and their curiosity and their good humor. If she's really paying attention she can see his chest rises and falls. He is not standing stock-still like a statue but shifting his weight back and forth between his feet like he's full of energy.

This doesn't look like the sort of person who would hassle a girl at a strip club. He's nice to look at but not so nice that one would be immediately swept up and do whatever the hell he asked.

"It did look like terrible before the new paint," he says. Like terrible - he says it the way an American would say 'like shit.' "Flaking, yes." A quick blech of a frown. "Not a good look for the poor building. I thank you."

Amber
[doo de doo, gonna +1 diff this bad boy because maybe Verna's his ghoul or something?]

Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 1, 2, 3) ( fail )

Amber
She's about to answer Verna when the stranger does it for her, saying more or less what she would have said.  It's a contract job and she's already signed the contract - or they shook hands, Amber works with all kinds of contracts when it comes to painting.  Or she did.  She agreed to this job before she went home to a life where she didn't need to paint other people's buildings anymore.  It's only her pride that had her see the thing through.

And she'll still see the thing through.  Because if the man is a vampire he can't touch her during the day, and she'll never be here after hours again.

Anyway, this is her job, and she has worked out with René any changes in color schemes to both the inside and the outside already.  She knows how much leeway she has with what she's doing.  Andrássy lets his gaze settle on her, and Amber looks at him without looking at his eyes, and she doesn't let the look linger.

"Dr. Jacobs and I worked it out already," she says finally, gruffly.  Eyes slanting to Verna, who is awfully chatty and familiar with this guy.  Maybe she's under his spell already or maybe she's like Amber, (blood bound) chooses to stay of her own accord.  Maybe he's only an asshole to moody, grouchy women like Laurel, a type that is remarkably like Amber.  Time to go.  This time she does not feel compelled to drag the research woman along with her.

"Alright, I gotta go," she says.  Glances at Stephan and away again, giving him a terse nod.  "Nice meeting you."  Then, without batting an eye, she walks away toward her waiting car.

Verna Gardner
"Oh! Certainly. I will see you around, Amber!" she says, with a polite smile. It's nice to make acquaintances, isn't it?

Ahh Verna, so oblivious.

But her head does cant to the side when she notices something. Huh. Isn't that Doctor Jacobs' car? Strange.

"I do like the new look of the place," Verna continues after Amber has fled. "Looks less... unfinished. Like we're scrubbing off the yuck, and turning it into a respectable lab," she smiles.

Of course, she would probably work in a hot-pink laboratory if it came to that. The science is what is important, isn't it?

Stephen Andrássy
She says it was nice meeting him but Amber can't lie any better than she can convince herself that maybe she shouldn't leave this nice young woman alone with a guy who's possibly a vampire and has shown up after dark driving a car that isn't his at a place where neither of them have seen him after dark.

At least she did Andrássy the courtesy of walking Verna out into the parking lot and then confirming her name and her identity and her purpose for being at the warehouse. Letting him have a good look at her face while her eyes refused to meet his.

"Good night!" he calls after her as she flees towards a car that one would have to be dead to not be able to admit is a sweet fucking ride. His accent doing him no favors with that interjection. He sounds young and exuberant and a little distracted.

Doesn't matter whether she thinks him harmless or not. Whether she thinks there's been some kind of huge misunderstanding. Amber trusts Laurel. She doesn't trust René  Jacobs' whatever-the-fuck-he-is and she doesn't know Verna. Doesn't owe her anything.

And so the two nerds are left alone.

"Ah," he says, "a lab is a lab is a lab, though, yeah? If we could control the temperature so, the work we could do in a car-parking. Or the dining room. Or... eh. No I suppose you are right." He walks around to stand at her side. His back to the parking lot and hers to the building. Looks at it the way an artist looks at a blank canvas. "It did not look finished. Permanent, now, yeah? It is good. I am very glad for this."

His voice carries first as words until becoming a distant muted thing. His praise of her work shadowed by her desire to get away.

Unless she has a change of heart Verna and Andrássy are alone when he goes on:

"Oh, I am being rude, no? You are wanting to go home. If you wish to go, please, before I do start talk of work. I will make talk of work all night."

Amber
And that is it.  Amber walks to her car and there is no sound of footsteps scuffing along the pavement after her, not quick footsteps as someone decides No I Think I'll Chase You.

At the driver's side door Amber looks back.  Looks at the two nerds nerding out.  Vampires are not good, but even she knows that they're not terrible to every single person that they meet.

Unless they're a sociopath.

Whatever it looks like, it doesn't look like anything that would shake her assumption.  That Verna will live to come into work tomorrow, and if she doesn't Amber knows where to start looking.

But she's pretty sure she'll be okay.

Mostly sure, anyway.

A powerful rumble signals the start of her car, and then she's pulling out of the parking lot, away and into the night.

[thanks for the scene, youse guys!]

Verna Gardner
Verna sighs in relief. Apparently she didn't need to leave him a note. He gets it -- let's not talk about The Thing That Happened.

"You aren't being rude And I would talk of work all night too. I think you saved poor Amber, I would have gone on and on about diamond imperfections if you hadn't shown up. More than she would have likely enjoyed," she says, and quirks a knowing smile. Of course she knows that not everybody gets so worked up about science as she. More than once she's seen the dull eyes of someone bored to death by the spew of words out of her mouth.

Stephen Andrássy
That is funny: he saved poor Amber. This is a sentiment to tuck away for later. Not that he knows who Amber is or who she serves or why it is that she ran away from him so quickly. Only that he made her nervous and she was not afraid of him but suspicious and the fact that everyone was playing a game of pretending the strip club was a thing that didn't happen certainly did not help.

Verna would have gone on and on about diamond imperfections if he hadn't shown up.

He's looking at her profile when she quirks that smile. Gazing is more like it. Because how often does a man like Andrássy meet someone who is within his age bracket and excited by the same things that excite him and is willing to throw caution to the wind and stay late in order to take science in a direction few people are heading in.

It would not be proper to begin to look at his research assistant in any way other than professional and aloof. Did not Pierre Curie's granting Maria Sklodowska space in his laboratory lead to their falling in love and wedding and eventually discovering polonium and radium?

"But I did show up," he says, "and I am now about to tell you that I do think we should - I was thinking, this evening, as I did have dinner, yeah? Of a way for one to, eh, carve on the surface of the diamond without using such high power as laser or ions, the blasting of them yeah?" His left hand comes out of his pocket with the keys to the place looped over his middle finger. The rest of them waggle as if in wanting of an instrument. "I have to write it down."

So she's free to go if she wants to go. But her boss is going inside the now-dark warehouse to secure a breakthrough.

Verna Gardner
Oh, free to go is she? With such a carrot dangled before her face? Her eyes light up with a true smile, no forced thing bent by thoughts of disaster.

"You wouldn't happen to want a sounding board? Someone to bounce those ideas off of? I could... I could help, couldn't I?" she asks, because she wants to be there, to hear his new idea first. Wants to impress him with her dedication.

Of course she would. She is drawn to this, the lab, the science. Willing to overlook just about any oddity, and certainly any warning from strange drug-crazed individuals. She follows, because she is a follower.

Stephen Andrássy
He's maybe gone five steps by the time Verna finds her voice. Not so far that he can't turn on a heel and continue his journey towards the warehouse and the laboratory within by walking backwards slowly so that he can still see her face.

A sounding board. She could help.

Andrássy laughs a laugh that is both surprised and delighted. As if he had suspected she was this dedicated that she wanted to be on the bleeding edge of things but it's also kind of late and dark and she has to be back here early in the morning. A little sleep deprivation never killed anyway. He twirls the keyring on his finger and flicks his eyebrows.

"You could," he says. "Come on!"

No compulsion or command in it. He does not need to tell her to follow him. Just turns around and continues hustling towards the door. Unlocks it and leads her inside and this is where the audience would be yelling at her not to go in there. What is wrong with you. Bitch he's gonna kill you.

René has been busy. He also hired an electrician to turn on motion sensor lights in the main corridor. No one will have to fumble around with a switch if they're here after dark. They bustle down the corridor and into the basement and once the door is shut behind them the physicist goes on:

"So I was thinking to myself as I was cleaning up this spill in the kitchen, yeah? What would not damage the surface of the diamond while carving into the lattices to make more space for the nitrogen, eh? These high powers used so far, they make a mess. Completely useless for such small work as this. Removes the carbon, yes, but does also remove everything else."

Boom. They're in the laboratory. Into the break room he goes. Where the mailboxes and couches and long table live. The chalkboard. He picks up a piece of chalk and starts to tap out a left-handed equation on the board.

"I was thinking of something to, eh, provide a vector for the low energy to. A way to get out the carbon without something so intense as the lasers and then I did remember: oxygen radicals, yeah? Very much reactive. They would rip the carbon molecules out of the diamond lattice and then form carbon monoxide."

He turns away from the board with the equation and the chicken-scratch drawing of an oxygen-carbon reaction. Not as if she is his student but as if he is trying to conclude his rambling.

"The potential applying of this to the exploiting of nitrogen vacancies is, eh. Huge."

Verna Gardner
This is the moment where the audience would be pitching a fit at her abject stupidity. Thing is, Verna is anything but stupid. Naive, perhaps a bit demented in her need to please, but as the physicist talks, she follows every word -- even in his odd accent.

It's her intellect that will be her doom.

Because, here this bright young thing is, trailing a monster into his underground lair. All for the promise of science.

She follows his words, follows him down underground, in the middle of the night, to go sit at the couch and stare at a chalkboard while he writes and draws -- and does so in order to speak the right words. She knows.

"Oh... well, that removes the need for the lasers. If it works," she says, biting her lower lip in thought.

"But we wouldn't want to expose it too much to the oxygen radicals, right? Just enough to make a good... Swiss cheese out of the lattice. I fear it might just end up polishing the diamond if the reaction is too widespread over the surface."

She puts fingers to her lips, taps in sequence. "I wonder, if we mixed in some antioxidant, perhaps? If we gave the oxygen something else to react with, it might slow the reaction with the carbon enough to make it tightly controlled."

Stephen Andrássy
If it works. That's the thing. Down here they have equipment on a small scale that can emit beams and observe chemical reactions and create very cold environments but not on the scale they need to test conditions like the one he's proposing. Most of the equipment fits on one row of tables against a far wall but the space he's acquired could easily fit what they need to run a large-scale quantum computing laboratory. One can see room for coolant tanks and an array of machines meant to break down and rearrange particles.

They just need the money first. One cannot buy equipment without money. They sure as shit don't have lasers down here yet. So he's trying to find a way around lasers.

Which they're doing. Stephen cants his head at the young girl who only got so far as a Bachelor's in physics before coming here. Basics can get a person far when that's all they have. It filters out all the higher-level noise that can clog epiphanies like this one.

He points the chalk at her and then turns back to the board.

"That's good, that's... yes, maybe... silicon dioxide, or..."

The chalk taps against the board. Squawks as he appends his equation.

Verna Gardner
Verna brightens out of the problem-solving reverie when the chalk gets pointed her direction. She's helping.

"Or, we could take it a different route, and create the oxygen radicals necessary right at the source through some kind of substrate? Jiggle them loose or something... Then we'd at least have control over the oxidation amount."

She bites her thumbnail before she's aware she's doing it, and then looks at her thumb like she's confused at its being there. It is a strange sort of 'flow' that one can achieve in the midst of idea storms, yes? The kind that makes you forget you have fingers.

But Verna's also not the type to mar her nails, so. She rises, and heads over to the chalk to draw out an idea of her own. No equation, but a diagram.

A flat plane labeled 'diamond' followed by a flat plane labeled 'substrate' followed by rays of wavy lines, meant to knock pieces  (oxygen radicals) off of the substrate. A kinder, gentler thing than a laser perhaps?

She can come up with ideas. Ideas are cheap, though. She's never had to worry about such things as lab budgets -- these things are quite above her pay grade. Thing is, most anything is doable if you have enough money to throw at it. But there is a big difference between an idea that costs a billion and an idea that costs a thousand. The trick is knowing which is which.

Stephen Andrássy
"Mm..."

He plants one hand on his hip and bounces the chalk around in the other. Staring at the blackboard with intent upon his features and his attention fully off of her. Both his posture and his profile tell her that he's deep in thought. Considering the options that they have before them and recognizing a moment for greater insight.

Not at all like a statue in this moment but with his mind so active Stephen's body does not display the kinetic energy that has him moving about so often when he has to stand and talk without anything else to occupy him.

There's no ring on his left hand. Never has been. He keeps his nails shorn to their quicks and takes care of his personal appearance. One has to wonder if scientific discovery is the sole and true love of his life.

"That would be an extra step, though, no?"

Verna Gardner
"True. But it has the potential to be more precise. A trade-off. It depends on what is more necessary -- that there be a hole to begin with, or that the hole needs to be exactly in a spot, I suppose," Verna says, staring at the chalkboard that is beginning to resemble the dredgings of dangerous minds. Arcane equations and detailed geometric diagrams are pretty much a physicist's artistic expression. One gets introduced to it early, filling entire walls with the brain's need to draw out what can't be seen otherwise.

Homework in their line of study is half diagram, and three-quarters math.

She draws another example, this time with the Swiss cheese diamond lattice somewhat random, and another with a single, perfectly centered divot in the middle. She labels them Idea A and Idea B.

"I could see the benefit to either, really. One's a more automatic process than the other."

She bites her lower lip again, in thought. "But then, that's assuming we could get either to work too."

Stephen Andrássy
A flick of his eyebrows to indicate that yeah they don't even know if either of them are going to work at this point. First they have to lay down the hypothesis before they can run the tests to bang out a technique.

But it's there. And the blackboard will only grow more laden with equations as the physicist works. Controlled-frenetic suppositions and diagrams and things a person without a scientific mind can make no sense of.

"Well," he says without setting down the chalk, "one cannot make an omelette without cracking a few eggs."

That's a French expression. René would be touched.

Verna Gardner
[Can Verna totally make sense of it? Muahaha! Int+Science = to show off. Specialty: Physics]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 5, 5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )

Verna Gardner
The equations he's pondering -- chemical reactions and varying possible types of materials -- these she follows, her eyes tracking over the artistic pinning down of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen -- yes we will make you do things for us, little atoms.

Until, he sets the chalk aside.

"Or a few diamonds. As the case may be," she smiles, puts away her own piece of chalk, and dusts off her hands, being careful not to touch her clothes with such dusty fingers.

Stephen Andrássy
"Yes." Amused concession. They're going to have to wreck quite a few diamonds to decide which method would work better. "I do like to think one day we will make the artificial stones with the same latticework. This is the first step though, yeah? One thing at a time. One must crawl before walking."

He turns away from the board with some reluctance. They've only just met and he doesn't know how to think with another person present.

"If you do wish to stay," he says, "I will be here to write a draft, eh? Or to start. The drafts do take time. But if you wish to stay I did see a coffee dripper upstairs. You drink coffee?"

Verna Gardner
"Oh of course I drink coffee," Verna says, although there are some poor unfortunate souls who do not.

"It's getting rather late, though. Do you mean that I'll want coffee to stay up with you? I'd like to stay, to watch, to help... Whatever I can offer. But..."

Another thought comes to her, unvoiced. That people will talk. The physicist and his assistant, alone in the basement all night? The eyebrows that would raise. Even though of course she would never.

Even though they will talk no matter what she does. It is a fine line a young woman must walk in between the rumors on one hand, and hard work on another. More than once, it's been insinuated that she couldn't possibly have gotten the high grades that she did, except by visiting professors' office hours and spending the majority of the time under a desk.

People are assholes.

Stephen Andrássy
On the plus side the only people who really work here so far are two other grad students and Verna. It isn't like at the hospital where Dr. Jacobs going off in private with that redheaded bitch of a nurse is going to cause a company-wide stir. It's expected that sometimes scientists will stay up until all hours of the night discussing theory and places that theory can go. Drinking absurd amounts of alcohol and arguing. That's how science is done. Not by sneaking off to one's own desk and never sharing ideas.

They're here to push the boundaries of science.

And Stephen hears that but. Stops at the threshold between the break room and the corridor and lifts his eyebrows as he considers what it is she isn't saying.

"If you do wish to stay," he says. Again. "I am going to go up the stairs and make the coffee and come back down. If you do wish to stay, then you will be here when I return. Yeah? And if you do not wish to stay, then I bid you an excellent night and thank you for your service, Verna. You are a very great help to me this evening."

With that he gives her a winsome if distracted smile and ducks through the doorway. She can hear him start to whistle halfway down the corridor and then he's up the stairs.

Verna Gardner
It's late. But she so rarely gets to have real face-time with her employer, to really get into the research. Strange, that he is never at the lab during work hours, but perhaps he holds classes, or... something.

She wants to avoid the talk. Wants to avoid being overtired tomorrow. But her eyes catch the chalkboard, their fledgling ideas scrawled with expert sloppiness. The beginnings of something.

And some day, she can say she was there at the ground floor. Literally.

So, she walks to the sink, washes her hands of (messy) chalk, and then plants herself back on the couch again, to await coffee.

Isn't that what assistants are for, though? To make the coffee? Perhaps he's just one of those egalitarian types.

Stephen Andrássy
When he comes back down the stairs it's slower than when he went up them. Presumably because he's holding mugs in his hands. He doesn't need her to do the coffee for him nor to open doors. She is a research assistant, damn it, not a secretary.

He's gone maybe fifteen minutes before moseying on back down the stairs. Oxfords clapping as he comes down the corridor. He finds her sat on the couch with her hands washed and gives her a smile no-teeth no inappropriate suggestiveness before coming around the table to hand her a mug.

This is how it starts. Not with stolen glances and accidental brushing of hands as they bustle about the lab for eight ten twelve hours a day together. With a cup of coffee in a basement break room going over frameworks for removing carbon atoms from latticework vacancies.

"I do not know if you take sugar or milk," he says, "so I did add both."

It looks like he knocked back a considerable amount of it on the way downstairs. His mug is already stained and drained down past where she can see its contents. He carries his back to the head of the table and clunks it down on the table before picking up his chalk again.

"Now, I believe that you were saying something about preciseness."

Verna Gardner
"Ahh, the sugar just helps you stay awake," she says, as she takes her mug from him, wrapping hands around it that she's just now noticing were cold.

"Mmm yes. Precision would be hard to come by, if we relied on the random interactions of oxygen and antioxidants in order to give us the necessary carbon vacancies. Unless you can think of a way to make it less random?"

She brings the mug to her lips and takes a sip. Just a sip, it's fresh coffee, still hot.

Stephen Andrássy
"And that is what you were saying about the substrates. You think we can control the reaction of the oxygen and the carbon."

He's looking at her handwriting on the board. The diagram she's drawn. Imagining what lies out there in time beyond what they have in front of them. Time isn't a straight line anyway. In another universe this discovery would be happening on another continent. Someone else may yet beat them to it.

Not all science happens in poor-lit laboratories with anemic budgets. Time was universities did not fund the bulk of the research. Teachers taught and students studied and it was the madmen and the fanatics who were out there doing all the work.

"We cannot do away with every randomness. This part here is not so needing of precision as the part that does come after. You did take inventory, yes?" He picks up his coffee mug. "Here, do we have equipment to test your substrate?"

Verna Gardner
"Yes, somewhat. Of course randomness happens, and it wouldn't be atom-by-atom perfect. And we'd need a way to selectively excite the substrate into releasing oxygen. Perhaps we could piggyback on some of the research being done to generate hydrogen out of water. It would also create free oxygen radicals, wouldn't it?"

But do we have the equipment here? At this lab? In its current state (half-painted, inventoried but not on)?

She puts her hand over her mouth, looks down at the coffee. Whoever buys coffee for this place does a good job...

"Hmm. Electrolysis is enough to liberate hydrogen from water, I remember that from high school. You can do that in your kitchen."

She takes another sip, caffeine to fuel the mind.

"Or I suppose you could shoot it with an electron gun. Same difference."

Stephen Andrássy
The coffee is a dark roast René would be appalled to hear his associate added sugar and milk before serving. It's the sort of coffee a connoisseur would take black after preparing it in a French press but it's only here because research assistants work long hours and need coffee to keep them going and it should have come downstairs at some point but none of the assistants have asked Dr. Jacobs if there is a place down here they can store appliances. Space for a small refrigerator and a coffee pot exist in the break room. Once they fall into a routine maybe they'll ask. For now though it's upstairs.

Talk of randomness and substrates leaves no room for talk of coffee. Andrássy looks over at Verna as she talks and his water-colored eyes find her face and read it. Portent of a smile etched into one corner of his mouth.

"Yes," he said, "any of that could work." He looks back to the board. Picks up a piece of chalk in a different color and continues writing. "The randomness, though. We do not know how many carbon atoms do hide in the diamond's surface, correct? And we do have many diamonds to prepare. Would not the randomness save so many extra steps?"

Andrássy is not a pedagogue but he does have the tone of one who is pushing to make her think beyond her station.

Verna Gardner
"The randomness would save us time, but perhaps cost us efficiency, in the end," she says, eyes flickering over the board behind him. "Perhaps if you could tell me something? What's the most important variable we need to control for? Time, energy expenditure, precision -- what is it that we require the most?"

We. Us. Because she's thinking of this as theirs -- a shared enterprise. Wants to be a part of this, yes?

She watches him write, the scraping of chalk against slate (even though they aren't made of slate anymore) and sips her coffee. Outside, the snowstorm threatens, but neither of them seem to care what's going on outside. Verna only cares because the coffee is warm and the air is cool.

Stephen Andrássy
"Well..."

The board is filling up. He's throwing in mechanics equations to account for the time and energy expenditures of electrolysis versus redox.

"Time is something we cannot control for, eh? We have no idea how much of it we have. It is an unknown. And precision... eh."

He is a precise man. Even in jeans his appearance is sharp. His spine is straight and his handwriting is controlled even when he writes quickly. Whatever he puts into his hair ensures it will not move unless someone comes along and musses their fingers through it.

"Energy, then. Let us control for energy. We are very small and have not much money."

Verna Gardner
"Hmm. If money is the objective, then we'd want to account for the cost of chemicals too, yes? I mean, water is cheap. But pure oxygen and antioxidants and the machinery to mix the two properly might not be. I don't know," she says.

And really, she doesn't know. How would she? This is the first time she's been in on the theory stage of something like this, when different ideas are being weighed for substance. She's always just been told what needed doing, not been tasked with even helping to figure out the how.

"Energy is a cost as well, but that is something easily ramped down. I mean, there are electron guns that fire a single electron at a time."

Time. And then, his comment strikes a thought. She sips coffee, and then, "We don't know how much time we have? Well, I suppose that is true. But a process that takes a few seconds is preferable to a process that takes a few weeks, yes? In ballpark terms."

Stephen Andrássy
To her last question Andrássy taps the chalk against the equation showing the energy expenditure of an oxidation reaction.

"This here. What I do propose. Water from a tap, silica from a bottle. Low-energy vibrations to initiate the reaction. Boom. Carbon monoxide. The only equipment one would need is an agitator and some containment so to keep the gas from escaping into the lab."

Though he's shooting down everything she's proposing that's a part of building a theory. One must imagine and account for all other possibilities. One cannot do this alone.

Verna Gardner
Her eyebrows raise, "Yes, silica, that's just sand," she says. And means, cheap. "And yes, wouldn't want to fill the lab with CO. We'd be victorious over diamond vacancies, but also very dead," she laughs.

Lab accidents happen though. It's why there are required warning posters and material safety sheets on the walls. And once research has begun, certain things will have to be taken much more seriously. Like CO.

"Hmm. Perhaps carbon monoxide alarms might be useful things to have..." she muses.

From what the doctor can tell, she doesn't take the shooting down of her ideas poorly. She is, as ever, simply happy to be here.

Stephen Andrássy
Verna laughs. He too laughs and it isn't a boisterous sound but it shows her a smile and how a smile lights up the rest of his face. The other research assistant whose advisor was the sole source of their intel on Dr. Andrássy all those weeks ago made it sound as if the guy isn't any older than his mid-thirties but when he laughs he looks as if he's on the lower end of that spectrum.

Carbon monoxide is a dangerous chemical because it binds to hemoglobin just the same as oxygen does. The more of it bounds onto the hemoglobin the less room for oxygen until the body becomes hypoxic and begins to suffocate. Victims lose consciousness before they realize what's wrong. It's a relatively painless way to die but no one wants to go out like that when they aren't expecting to.

"Yes," he says. "I will order some in the morning." He claps his hands. "Very good! Miss Gardner, this is fantastic."

He turns away from the board now choked with three different hues of chalk and waggles his fingers as he looks around for supplies.

"Paper. I know where nothing is."

Seems to be he intends to start working on the working papers for this technique tonight. Like all he needs to keep coasting through the night is his own inspiration. Verna has enough caffeine in her to make it home but she has to be up in the morning to be right back here.

Verna Gardner
"I'll get you some paper," she says, leaving her coffee on the table to go fetch. Bustles to get that paper, and a pen, and a pencil if he prefers. This is the usual occupation of an assistant, after all.

She returns, bearing office supplies. "Also, if you'd like, I could type up the paper for you. I know how you prefer not to use a computer." Ahh, helpful little thing, no? She intends that the doctor should want for nothing.

"Um. Are you going to be down here all night?" she asks. "Don't you have work in the morning too?"

Because, you see, Verna has decided that this is the man's second job. Why else would he never be around during the day?

Stephen Andrássy
He's pulled a pen out of his shirt pocket by the time she's returned but Andrássy hasn't sat down at the table. Still doesn't sit down.

"Ah!" he says. "Thank you."

And then she wants to know if he's going to be down here all night. Left hand starts to scrawl out the beginnings of an outline while he's still standing.

"Yes, I do have students to advise." He jerks his right wrist out of his sleeve and eyes his watch. Finds her eyes. "Ach, you do not have to stay. It is very late so." Down goes the pen. It isn't as if he's going to forget what he wrote. "I will walk you to your car. Come."

Verna Gardner
"Oh, let me finish my coffee first," she says, and goes for the cup. Cooler now, it's easier to gulp down. Which she does -- carefully. It's like watching the daintiest of proper ladies quaff.

But she does finally accept the invitation to leave. She's had several, by now, but to miss out on this? It was a fantasy come true. "You're too kind, Doctor. I appreciate the help though, it's a bit frightening at night."

A bit. Not too much to keep Verna from working late, though, as has been apparent. At least this time, she didn't stutter out an admission that she appreciated his eyes. Eyes like water.

The empty cup gets discarded in the break room sink, washed out, dried. She's not going to leave it to make the room look unclean. And then, it's off to join Doctor Andr ssy out to her car.

Stephen Andrássy
[GOOD JOB DRINKING THE COFFEE VERNA]