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Michal strolled in the door, his customized iPad in one hand and a can of Dew in the other. The door opened before him, and he let go of the computer, floating it along as he typed in commands. “Morning, Roberto,” he said, walking over to his desk. The silence filled the lab for a moment, and he paused to look up, the iPad floating itself down to the desk and connecting to his main computer.

The door opened up a moment later, and his lab gopher stumbled in, then stopping as the corner of his jacket caught in the closing door. “Ah, morning boss, sorry I’m a bit behind schedule,” he said, yanking on the jacket and nearly spilling the large mug of coffee. Michal gestured, righting the cup and sailing it across the room to one of the work benches. “Thanks.” Managing to release himself from the cold steel door, Roberto straightened it out. “What are we working on today?”

Michal reached over, tapping a key and bringing up the projector over the main work table. “I’m not sure when Doctor Carver or Doctor Gravinsky will be in. So, would you rather start on the AI, or the space elevator, or continue working on the lab results from our last attempt at artificial psionic enhancement?” He grinned, green eyes twinkling as he took a gulp of his soda.

The lab assistant gulped slightly. “Ah, um, the space elevator?” Michal grinned, reading the lesser-of-three-evils on his face.

“Ok, space elevator it is. So,” he moved over to the table, moving his fingers and typing in instructions from several feet away, “the physical design is the easy part. Start figuring out how to build something like this …” An image took form on the table, and Roberto quickly started taking notes.

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The two men were buried in their work when they heard a feminine voice clearing her throat. While not necessarily a gender-specific noise, it was clearly done to get their attention.

When they turned, a lovely blonde woman was leaning against the doorjamb. Her arms were crossed over a laptop which she held loosely against her torso. A pale green skirt with matching jacket outlined the black computer in stark contrast. Blue-gray eyes gleamed with amusement as the two men looked at her. "Sorry to interrupt," she said softly. "I would have let you two keep working, but I didn't think you were going to stop soon."

She'd actually been watching them for about five minutes, waiting for a break in their work. The psiad had interrupted them only when she'd realized that they weren't going to be stopping anytime soon.

Carver walked forward, peering at the image. "What's this?" She was no dummy, but most engineering things were beyond her keen.

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"It's, ah, a space elevator," Roberto said, instantly shuffling to the side - and managing to smear a chunk of his notes written in dry-erase marker on the table. "Oh crap."

Michal grinned. "Don't worry, it's all stored." He tapped his temple. "I'll type it up for you later." He switched his gaze over to the doctor as the display on the table changed. "Just a little 'light' engineering work. A space elevator, which theoretically would make large-scale space flight cheap and easy." He reached for his Dew, then frowned as he realized it was empty. "Rob, Dew!"

"Yes boss," the lab assistant said, and ducked out of the room quickly. "It's the blonde part that flusters him, I think," Michal said once he was out of earshot. "We still need to analyze the results from Booster Delta." The item in question sat on one of the shelves underneath the small windows, a tangled collection of wires, electrode pads, and small antenna. "Unless you want to try it again?" His voice was at once hopeful and doubtful.

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It was then that the young physicist decided to walk in. She smiled at the other two, nominally her superiors. "Just passed your gofer.. Ran out of Dew again didn't you?" Her voice almost always sounded like a sultry purr when she wasn't mad or talking about physics.

Annalise Gravinsky did not remotely look like the stereotypical physicist. She was of medium height with tanned skin and long black hair. Where the others were dressed almost formally, she was dressed casually in jeans (clean ones) and a t-shirt. While not in the same league as her colleagues, everyone had their area of expertise, and a little overlap.

She looked on the screen and frowned. It was the orbital elevator again if she judged the schematics correctly. Engineering wasn't her forte, she focused more on the theoretical aspect. The Elevator was something they still hadn't been able to make work correctly consisstently.

"Good Morning to both of you."

She looked at Michal. "Have you been burning the midnight oil again?"

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Snorting, Michal looks at the clock, then blinks. "I didn't start work until at least six o' five ... which apparently was almost four hours ago." He shrugs. "Still trying to solve the issue of orbital rotation when traversing, and there's the problem of building the cable with enough tensile strength," he trails off at the slightly blank looks on their faces.

"I'm technobabbling again, aren't I?" he asks, a faint blush rising to his cheeks. Fortunately, a convenient distraction arrived in the form of Roberto returning with the required soda. "Thank you, Rob. Get the doctors anything they require, will you?"

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"I'm fine, thank you, Rob," Carver said, nodding to the other man. She ignored the blush and stammer she got in reply but for a moment there was a spark of unfriendly bemusement in her expression. That was gone so fast that the others weren't sure they'd see it. Carver herself seemed unaware of it as she slid her laptop onto a stool and took her seat on its neighbor, smoothing her skirt over her thighs as she settled. Her legs casually crossed and her hands wrapped around her knees as she glanced at the Booster Delta.

"Dr. Wesson," she said softly, turning to the incredibly young genius, “while I’m not opposed to trying again, I’d like to see the results from the last test before we have another.” She’d like the see the fruits of their labor before she earned herself another headache. “I’d come by to see if you had them yet. Since you don’t, would you mind if I took a look at them myself?”

She wasn’t a research specialist – her career since leaving medical school hadn’t left her with many options to do research or even care for patients – but she had faith in her intellect to piece together the results into something coherent.

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Michal nodded, and reached out a hand towards the keyboard, the keys clacking furiously a moment later. "Here's the control numbers," he said as they scrolled out across the table, followed a moment later by a small graph on the right side. "And here's the results from Delta." Another set of numbers scrolled out below the first set, and a second graph overlay the first. The two lines were almost identical, the second one slightly 'above' the other. "Hmm. I think it's getting better. But only a two percent improvement over your regular abilities is nothing to write home about." He sighs, popping open the Dew and taking a sip. "If it wasn't so consistent over the dozen separate tests, I wouldn't be sure it was statistically significant."

Reaching out his hand again, the device in question floats off the shelf, and untangles itself before carefully draping over a chair. "You're welcome to examine it," he says to Grav. "Psionic powers, unlike quantum-based abilities, don't seem to have a central focal point. Which is part of what makes it so difficult to boost their power."

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"Everything has a price," Carver said, her voice distracted as she studied the graph. "You're right, Dr. Wesson, two percent isn't much improvement, especially not with the corresponding headaches." She paused, a thought coming to her. "In fact, the headaches may be a sign that we're going about this wrong. Neotic powers tend to be much more subtle and lack the initial transformation that novas undergo. The headaches may mean we're forcing something in a direction its not supposed to go."

"So... we can't do this?" Rob asked, drawing one possible conclusion from her words.

Carver looked at him and he felt a blush rise as she focused on him. She was just caught up in the rush of scientific creation, but for a woman to look at him like that... well, it drew out certain feelings in a man. "No, I still think we can. But the Delta might not be the way to do it."

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Michal nodded first at Grav, then at Carver. "Yeah, the last thing I want to do is give the few psionic-powered people we know of blue skin and a tendancy to build doomsday devices and monologue." He winks at the two women, and behind him, Roberto rolls his eyes. "I mean, I can only stand so much competition." Sighing, he flicks a finger, and the Delta lands with a clatter in a large, plastic bin optimistically labeled 'parts.' "Heh, reminds me of when we met," he says to the blond.

One year earlier

The door to the lab opened, and the woman who stepped in was forced to stop suddenly as a large, unidentifiable piece of electronics flew past a quarter of an inch past her nose to land with a crash and a spray of broken plastic pieces. "This is all junk!" the young man ranted, his back to her. "Christsake, I'm going to have to order my own equipment to outfit this place."

"Um," she said, and he whirled around, another piece of electronics raising up into the air and hovering near his head.

"You must be my lab assistant. About time. Although," he frowned, "you're less Hispanic than I expected from the name. All of that," he gestured, sending a box seemingly made up of nothing more than flashing lights to join the pile, "needs to go to a dumpster, or recycling, or someplace that still needs electronics that went out of service before I learned how to walk."

"I think there's been a mistake," she said dryly, dismissing the pile of junk with a glance. "I'm Doctor Willow Carver," she added. "And you must be Michal Wesson?"

He paused, mouth hanging open momentarily, before he recovered. "Yes. Ah, I apologize. I confess I have no idea what you're doing here, as I haven't been able to check my e-mails." He gave a pointed glance to the dust-covered 386 sitting on what might have been a desk twenty years ago. "I'm still in the process of moving in. What am I supposed to be doing for you?" Glancing around, a chair lifts itself up, dust flying from it as it slides closer to the door, assuming she wants to risk sitting down.

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An impish smile crossed the doctor's face - impish and something a touch darker. "You can strip," she said, her voice devoid of amusement. Her fingers plucked latex gloves out of the pocket of her lab coat and briskly started to pull them on. "I'm here for your physical."

The shock on his face was too funny to ignore, and Carver started laughing. As Michal paused, his fingers hovering over the buttons of his shirt in a forestalled automatic response, she giggled, "Sorry, couldn't resist. I am here to schedule a physical, however."

Today

"I forgot my latex today," Carver said with a wry smile. As Roberto silently considered the images that summoned, Carver glanced again at the Delta. "Going back to the beginning here, but how do we find neotic energy? I mean, I know how I feel it, but how well do your machines catch it?"

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Michal sighs, glancing at the sensors. "Yeah, you weren't here in the lab when I accidentally blew out the last set." He walks over and gestures at one of the devices, currently unplugged. "Psionic energy 'reads' like a sort of negative-quantum wave, with a very low amplitude. So I can read it with a very well-tuned quantum sensor. As long," he gives Grav a slight smile, "as I don't make the mistake of trying to use my telekinesis while they're plugged in."

Eight months ago

"What did you want my help with?" Doctor Gravinsky asked Michal, as they sat in the cafeteria.

"I realize that your specialty is gravitational physics, not quantum physics, but I need some help calibrating some very delicate sensors in my lab, and my lab assistant is down with the flu." He paused to take a bite of the chicken pot pie he'd ordered, washing it down quickly with his soda. "Plus, I think I've double-checked enough of your work, I think it's only fair you help check some of mine."

After lunch, she followed him back to the lab, where a pair of vacuum-cleaner-sized black boxes lay on the table. "So, what do you need my help with?" she repeated, looking them over with some interest.

"They go in these brackets," he waved a hand, pointing at two shiny new metal things bolted to the ceiling. "But they're sensitive enough that if I use my telekinesis to lift them, I might blow out a component or twelve. Plus they have to be properly aimed, and it'll be faster if we each do one."

Shrugging, Grav picked one of them up. "Fair enough. You have a ladder?"

An hour later, both devices were attached to the ceiling, cables strung from them to the new supercomputer on the desk, and the LCD screens were displaying Ready status. "Alright. So," he pulled a coin out of his pocket and tossed it to her, "bounce it across that red square. I'll stop it using the minimum force I can, and that'll tell me what else I need to do."

The quarter flew across the table, and as it crossed the red tape it stopped. A tenth of a second later, both sensors let out clouds of black smoke and large popping sounds, as well as a small amount of sparks. "I take it that wasn't supposed to happen?" Grav asked, waving a hand in front of her face as she backed towards the door.

"No," Michal said. "And I just spent seventy-five thousand dollars on them. Each." Sighing heavily, he waved a hand, flicking the switch for the small fans mounted in the top of the outside wall. "And I didn't even get to use them," he mourned.

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The past

Grav frowned. "That's alot of money, though I guess with everything else here it could have been worse." She looked at him, and around noting all the equipment. "Yeah at least that was all that was lost."

Now

"That was an expensive little expiriment. Let's not repeat that again."

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Nodding, he turns back to Carver. "Essentially, psionic energy seems to be some kind of anti-quantum wave force, with less punch to it. The problem is coming up with a good amplifier for what you're already doing." He sighs, staring at the parts bin for a few moments. "Eh, what the heck. Doctor, Rob, you mind doing another power reading, before I figure out what to try designing next for this project?"

Roberto gulped, but moved gamely forward, removing his lab coat and baring his forearm across the table while Michal plugged in the sensors by hand. Setting a clean scalpel blade beside his arm, he looked up at Carver. "Ready when you are," he said.

"Sensors are online ... now," Michal said, standing next to the computer. "Just say the word when you start with your mojo."

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Carver stared at the blade. Jael stirred in hungry anticipation; Willow wondered if she could contain her. Last time, Roberto had had a nasty cut from an earlier lab mishap. But a doctor wouldn’t hesitate; a doctor wouldn’t look so nervous about cutting a man’s arm. She picked up the blade and pressed it to Rob’s arm; that was when Jael made her move. Willow tried to stop her, but the blade was deeper than she would have chosen. Jael laughed in quiet delight in the back of her mind.

“Hey, that doesn’t hurt much,” Roberto said.

That’s not a good sign, Rob, Carver thought, but she said nothing. Dropping the blade, she placed both hands on the wound. First, she imagined the blood vessels constricting, and it was so. The bleeding stopped, leaving the barest smear on the table. Carver needed to see what the damage actually was; in her mind, she saw the anatomical drawing of his arm in her mind. The skin was peeled back; the muscles were pulled back and the veins and tendons appeared in sharp contrast against the white of his bone. She’d severed the thenar muscles, the ulnar artery, the ulnar nerve, the flexor retinaculum with its neighboring veins and nicked the flexor tendons. Not good.

Closing her eyes so that all she saw was the anatomical image, Carver began to compel the broken pieces to knit back together. First, she repaired the damage to the tendons; then she forced the veins and flexor retinaculum to heal. Next, she tackled the nerves and artery; that left the thenar muscles. Finally, she saw the sliced skin close together in her head, and when she opened her eyes, she saw Roberto’s arm, hale and whole. Swallowing with relief, she turned to Michal. “I hope you got that.”

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Michal kept his breathing slow and even, focusing on keeping his powers nullified. On the screen, two windows displayed a graph and scrolling numbers as his arm split apart, and then stitched itself back together again. Only once the graph settled down again did he move, pulling out a pair of alcohol wipes and unplugging the sensors.

"That was ... much better than our last test." Stepping up to the table, he glanced at Roberto's arm. "Doesn't even look like it'll scar." Gently, he clapped his lab assistant on the shoulder. "Actually I wasn't sure you'd go through with it. You want to take the rest of the day off?"

Roberto blinked backwards over his shoulder. "What, and miss checking out the results? You think I'm crazy?" He held up his arm and flexed it. "Good as new. Thank you, Doctor Carver. Um, is it supposed to ... tingle like that?"

Ten months ago

Willow looked up as Michal rushed into the room, holding what looked like his lab coat sleeve tightly to the arm of a Hispanic guy with him. "Slight emergency, doctor! Laceration on his forearm. I'm not sure how deep it is, but it started bleeding really fast." The assistant was looking pale, and had a death grip on his left arm with his right hand.

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A slim young woman with cream-colored skin, dressed in a red turtleneck that matched her hair and jeans tight enough that might just have been a layer of paint of her muscles, slipped into the room while everyone was still staring at Roberto and his ever-changing arm. She gave the screen displaying the results of the room's latest test a disinterested flick of her eyes and then stepped up into the 'conversational' space of the group.

"Mm. Excuse me, I was told this was Dr. Wesson's lab. I have a package for the doctor, from the Eleusinians." Her voice was light and clear, a smile or a smirk tugging at the side of her lips. She was holding a small vanilla envelope, obviously padded for the safety of whatever gem lay inside, but she hadn't actually held it out to anyone. To those with the right skills or mindset, it meant quite clearly that she didn't know which of them actually was Dr. Wesson. She blinked her storm-blue eyes with innocent dissembling and waited for someone to claim the package.

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She had a moment of shock before the adrenaline kicked her into motion. Carver abandoned her notebook and laptop, walking around the desk to wave at an examination table. “Alright, it can’t be that bad,” she said soothingly, giving Rob a smile. She snapped on her gloves and slid her fingers around Michal’s, usurping his grip on the red-stained lab coat. “Sit down… Rob?”

“Yes, Rob.” He eased onto the table as Michal hovered around him, tense with worry.

“Ok,” Carver said, “I’m going to look at it – let me know if you feel light-headed or dizzy when I take the pressure off.” She eased back the coat, baring her teeth when she saw the trauma that had been done. A ragged cut ran across his arm, tearing through the muscles just below his elbow. It immediately welled with blood. “This might feel strange or even hurt,” Carver warned, right before she constricted the veins and arteries in his arm.

Carver sent the ‘power of her mind outward’ to ‘see’ what was damaged in Rob’s arm. She didn’t care much for the phrase; it made her feel like she should be sitting in a tent in a cheap sideshow carnival somewhere. But that was the only words she had for what she did; her mind constructed the image of the damage done as if it were a drawing in an anatomy book.

She relaxed a little as she saw the wound in detail. The palmaris longus was severed, but that wasn’t a concern; most people could live without one. The cut flexors – from the carpi radialis to the carpi ulnaris – would need to be repaired or Rob could never curl his arm up fully again. The ulnar nerve and artery would require repair, as would the basilic vein.

“Wait! Let me get my machine and take readings!” Michal’s voice broke her concentration.

“What?” Carver blinked at him.

“You’re about to use neotic energy to heal him, right?” The young genius practically vibrated with excitement. “Give me five minutes to get my sensors and monitor this.”

The blond doctor stared at him. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. It would be for science!”

“No, I’m not delaying treatment so you can get some machine to measure this,” Carver sputtered.

“Rob, please… this would be a great chance for us to get a reading like this.” Michal was almost begging. “Think of the profession!”

Rob sighed. “Doctor, can you delay for just a few minutes? It wouldn’t take him long to set it up.”

Carver stared at Rob now. “Are you serious?!”

“Yes.”

“You’re stable,” Carver said after a moment of clenching her jaw in irritation and disbelief. “You won’t die or suffer permanent damage.” She’d considered lying about it.

“Then can you please make Michal happy?” Rob leaned forward and stage-whispered, “When he’s happy, life is easier for me.”

Carver counted to ten before saying, “Dr. Wesson, you have five minutes to get your machine. That’s how long it’s going to take me to get a saline drip into Rob. You have lost enough blood that I am concerned Rob. Do you understand – you could have been seriously hurt.”

“Okay! BRB!” Michal hurried off.

“You are too loyal to him,” Carver said sharply as she opened a cabinet and pulled out a needle and tubing.

“I know,” Rob sighed. “But I would like to see the readings, too.”

“Your arm,” Carver replied in a tone that also said and your life. “I need you to lay back and give me your other arm…”

Now

“You know, I think next time we measure neotic readings, it’s Dr. Wesson’s turn to bleed,” Carver said, her voice speculative. Whatever Michal might have said to that was lost when they were interrupted. At the woman’s implied question, Carver pointed to Michal. “I don’t think I’ve seen you before. You are...?”

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The woman's lips resolved into a delighted smile and she nodded her thanks to the pretty blond. She held the enveloped out to Michal, cut-off gloves peeking out from the sleeves of the turtleneck as she did so.

She smirked at Robert, "Tingley, eh? I didn't realize how much more...interesting...section one was." Her eyes glittered, and Michal's assistant blushed just barely under the insinuations of her tone. "I'll have to keep that in mind."

She grinned at him for another heartbeat, then motioned to Michal. "Um, I can't leave until you open that and verify receipt of the contents. There's a slip to sign inside."

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Michal blinks, eyes wide as he looks at Carver, mental wheels almost visible as they crank around. "Actually, that might not be a bad idea once we've evaluated all of this data," he says. "My main concern is that I'm not sure how the nova healing factor will interact with your own abilities." He seems about to say more when he realizes there's a package being handed to him, and takes a moment to evaluate the deliverywoman. "Yes, I'm Wesson. You look vaguely familiar. Have you worked here long?" As he talks, he rips open the envelope, pulling out an unremarkable-looking flash drive and staring at it as if trying to intuit the contents thereof. "Hmm?" he asks rhetorically, looking at the slip before turning to plug it into the larger computer on the desk.

Opening some files, the screen is filled with what appears to be several pages of meaningless symbols. With another murmur, he closes the window and signs the sheet. "Well, here. I'll get to it, ah, soon-ish," he promises, already going back to the task at hand.

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"Just transferred from section 2, so I figured I'd bring this by for you. But you know section 2, they love their paperwork." She tapped the paper, prompting for a signature again. Her eyes were glittering, but whatever the joke was, she wasn't sharing for the moment.

She smiled at the others and replied to Dr. Carver, "I'm Eva. Eva Parker." She held out a hand to shake. "And you are?"

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"Dr. Carver," Carver replied with a smile, taking the other woman's hand. "Feel free to call me Carver. You're new to our section? How long have you been here?"

It was a friendly question, but there was a hint of challenge in it. There could be something a bit off about Carver, and this was one of those times. But as always, it also seemed to fade quickly.

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Michal blinks in surprise, looks at the paper, then at the traitorous pen before launching it into the parts bin. Wordlessly, Rob hands him a new one, and Michal signs the form - this time with ink - and returns it to her. "I think I might have seen you around somewhere. Acquisitions, huh? You must know Jaunt, then." His voice is filled with annoyance at the mention of the teleporter.

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Her eyes blinked slowly at Carver, but she shook her hand firmly. "Eva Parker. Most people call me either Eva or Parker, I'll answer to both."

She shook her head at Dr. Wesson's assumption and took back the receipt, "Nope. This is my first day here."

Eva cocked her head towards the last unnamed person in the room, holding out her hand politely. "And you are?"

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Michal takes a moment to evaluate Eva again, then shrugs. "Well, nice to meet you. I'm Michal Wesson, obviously the resident tech-head and super-genius, so if you need a cutting-edge computer, come see me. If you just need tech support to browse the OpNet," he claps a hand on his assistant's shoulder, who sighs heavily with a 'not again' look on his face, "see Roberto, my lab assistant. And welcome to the Argonauts. Now, back to unlocking the secrets of the universe!" The last few words are said with a dramatic flourish like a bad movie preview, and he whirls back to the table, picking up a dry erase marker again.

"Okay, so, baseline reading one, baseline reading two, we'll put the experiment readings over there, and the formula theory over here," he scribbles out the formula while the rest of it is displayed.

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  • 1 month later...

Carver leaned against a table, eyeing Roberto. After a moment, she slid up next to him and leaned her head toward him. "Remember, if you start to get dizzy or feel weak, you'll probably need to eat," she advised him. They had covered this before but redundancy was good. “I also have some vitamins for you.”

“I was fine last time,” Roberto murmured back.

“Yes, but this is the second time in less than a year that I’ve done this,” Carver said, then grinned abashedly. “Also, I’m a total mother hen. While Dr. Wesson finishes up, how about you go grab some food? Some carbs, good amount of protein and whatever veggies or fruit you fit into that meal. I’d feel better.”

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Bannon looked around his bedroom/office. As promised, his secure OpNet terminal had been re-activated and his baggage had been placed on his bed. Of more immediate interest was his passkey, along with a scribbled down suggestion from Lee that his old lab space was sealed down under level 5 protocols and would need to be reopened and it's OpNet access re-established. It occurred to Bannon then that when he'd left on his hiatus, he'd left a lot of cryo-preserved specimens in the storage area of his lab, including some interesting Indian/African hybrids...

Well, it couldn't hurt to reopen the lab and get it all back online. He'd need a place to store and replenish his various supplies of chemical and pharmaceutical toys. Scooping up his passkey Bannon headed off towards the science floor.

======

He'd found his lab, locked down as expected. The passkey opened it up, though, and for half an hour he'd just roamed around taking the dust-covers off his old equipment. The growing trays, the centrifuges, the miniature greenhouses complete with solar-charged artificial lights that were 99% identical to sunlight that Thierry had designed for him... It was all there. And set into one wall: a series of sliding drawers, each containing specimen jars, the plants inside frozen unto the point of stasis and no further. And at the far end was his vault.

Bannon stood before the heavy door and stared at it for awhile. Then, with a mental shrug, he swiped his passkey through the reader and gripped the handle. Micro-sensors embedded in the metal skin read his fingerprints and skin conductivity. Satisfied that he was him and not under any emotional duress, the vault clicked open, the various other, less friendly security measures disarmed themselves.

Inside were containers. Lots and lots of containers, all labelled in Bannon's own shorthand. He walked the length of the vault, green eyes roaming over the bottles, the vials before reaching the spray canisters disguised as breath spray or shaving foam dispensers, the pens, drink containers, pill bottles, even some wristwatches with hidden reservoirs good for one shot at the right time.

His armory.

Selecting a few items from the racks and pocketing them, he turned and walked out of the vault, sealing it behind him again. Briskly, he exited the lab and locked it behind him before wandering in search of someone to ask about his OpNet connection...

"...back to unlocking the secrets of the universe!"

Those words weren't the same as he would have picked, the accent was American rather than French, but the general message, along with the relish and humor with which they were spoken was so close to Thierry's idiom that Bannon nearly thought he was having auditory hallucinations. He stopped, turning towards the doorway the voice had come from.

Pushing the door open, the first person he recognised was Willow Carver. Beside her was a harassed looking man who had the words 'assistant to a great mind' practically stamped on his head. The other two in the room Bannon recognised from his reading material: Dr's Anna Gravinsky and Michal Wesson. Gravinsky was a competent physicist, and Wesson was a nova megabrain. Finally was a slim red-head that Bannon recognised as the 'new girl', Eva Parker from Section 2. Politely, if belatedly, Bannon knocked on the door by way of announcing himself.

"Good morning."

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“Dr. Bannon,” Carver said with a smile. “Come on in. I’m helping Drs. Wesson and Gravinsky with neotic research. And Eva was dropping something off for Wesson. You’d be welcome to come and talk science with us, I’m sure.”

Maybe the Prometheus Golden Boy can be a guinea pig for a while, Jael grumbled. Her sudden voice startled Willow, who hoped she hid her twitch well enough.

Maybe so, Willow replied. She wasn’t sure. From all that she’d heard about Jason Bannon, he’d seemed somewhat standoffish. Say, what’s with the name-calling?

Jael was quiet, so quiet that Willow wondered if she’d retreated back into her portion of their collective mind. He’s… I don’t know. He puts me on edge.

Probably means he’s a decent guy, then, Willow replied. I can’t think of better character reference than a thumbs down from you.

Love ya, too, Wills. Jael merely sounded amused. I’d like to be wrong on this, rather than have something wrong with our boss.

That thought wasn’t comforting to either woman.

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