Players:
Summary: Kisha has another master plan
Date: July 7, 2010
Log Title: Mercury Is Not A Seasoning
Rating: PG
Xavier Mansion - Ramsey Dormitories Lobby
The lobby of Ramsey Dormitories has two elevators at one end of the wall along with the entrance to a cafeteria. On the wall are three pictures that say 'In memory of'. One is of Douglas Ramsey, another of John Proudstar and the last one is of Jean Grey. There are several couches and tables down here for students to relax. Large windows in the front and sides allow for a lot of light in the room.
As the afternoon sun spills into the dormitory entrance, and the heat from the outside fights doggedly with the air conditioning, some students have sought refuge from the heat of the day indoors, to stare at the brightness outside warily. Three open styrofoam packs of food sit next to Connor, which is actually a fairly common lunch these days for him, with today's fare being Greek and Mediterranean. Even as he lays on one of the couches, he seems to be in the midddle of an exercise. Above him is a red rubber ball that seems to be the central point of a dozen ball bearings that float in a slightly wibbly orbit around it, the movement and all the fine control coming from a single focused hand.
Although none but a telepath would know it the rarest of sights can be seen in the Lobby today. For Kisha is carting around a chart made entirely in *gasp* dead tree format! Of course that doesn't mean her ever present touch screen computer isn't along too, but it does mean she needs a little more room than normal. Advancing on the couch area Connor is in she glances around and hmmmms. "Might I make use of the wall here? Only I need some space for my schematics."
Coming in from outside with a thin sheen of sweat on his brow, is Robyn. Even though the walk from the dining hall to the quad is a short one, it's just that hot out there. His clothes are covered in paint and clay but his hands are at least clean. As soon as he's in the lobby and the a/c hits him, Robyn sighs. "It's too hot out there." He says as he takes a few steps in to see the two others in the room. "Hey Conor, Hey Kisha, how's it going?"
Connor points to the unadorned wall with his free hand, "Go ahead… that wall…" Barely even paying attention to the others as he focuses back on his exercise. The rubber ball quivers and ripples as the force applied to it shifts, and the orbits of the ball bearings decay slightly, then realign into a pair of concentric rings, moving opposite directions. Now sweat begins to form on his brow as the movements increase in speed, "Don't worry Robyn… I got it this time… no holes in the wall like last week."
"Thanks," Kisha replies quickly, already moving to begin putting up the chart. "I'm doing well. I've completed a rough design for a digital camera based telescope. Apparantly I won't need very sophisticated equipment to spot satellites, so all I'm doing is mounting four cheap webcams and setting the timings so the refresh rates overlap. Which is good because lens grinding my own telescope seemed like it would be tricky to learn within the timescale."
Robyn can't help but watch the balls rotate and keeps an eye on them, in case he has to duck again. "Yeah you missed me Edward Gorey poster by an inch." He says with a chuckle. He looks over at the wall and Kisha and what she's doing. "So is this part of a master plan or yours or just some high powered telescope?"
"Dammit, Dammit, Dammit…" And this time before a dozen little railguns can fire off and put holes in the walls of the lobby, all twelve ballbearings fall onto his chest as the rubber ball compresses and becomes a cup. That part lands and smacks Connor on the head as he grumbles, "I really am getting tired of these fine motor exercises… either the ball gets crushed, or the bearings rocket off… or something happens…"
"That sounds… very interesting…" Kisha says, her head turned to one side and her eyes locked on the ball bearings almost as if she's in a trance. "You can't begin to understand how much I want to drop everything and make something to study what you just did. But I'm not supposed to do science to students. It's one of the must nots from my screensaver. Setting them on ther was just about the only way to ensure I'd remember to follow them." With sheer force of will she turns her head back to her diagram. "It's just to let me know if we're under any sort of obvious surveillance from orbit. I… might have read a few too many cyberpunk thriller novels lately.."
As soon as Connor says the first Dammit, Robyn ducks expecting the flying ballbearings and lets out a deep breath when they don't go flying. He looks up and smiles at Connor. "So what exactly are you trying to do?" He says before turing to Kisha and chuckling. "Rule number tweleve? No preforming science on other students? Actually that's kind of cool, to know whose spying on us. And honestly I'd be surprised if you didn't find someone."
The mouth goes off before Connor's brain catches up, "At any given time, anyone in the world can expect to have three spy satellites and one media satellite over them at all times." Before he blinks and looks up and around at the others, "Oh… right, this?" His voice returning to normal, "I've been challenged that if I can make a working model of the solar system by fall, they'll let me in the AP Physics course. Even the gravity ratios need to be close to exact as estimate… and all the orbits and rotations need to be correct. And I've had enough science done to me thanks… one scan per month is all I want to sit through."
"What about Pluto?" Kisha wonders curiously. "Are you counting it as a planet? Or a minor body which doesn't need representing?" Once her chart is up on the wall she pulls up the computer and begins writing with the stylus. "I'm expecting considerably more over the city, if not specifically the school. Too many major events occur here in New York and I bet it attracts spy satellites like honey and bees. My aim is to try map when it's safe to conduct outside experiments."
"I've had science done to me once or twice, and weird stuff done another, I'll pass." Robyn says as he moves to flop in one of the chairs. "Wow, I'm kind of glad I don't have anything like that for my classes. But the I don't take any AP stuff." He says watching Connor and Kisha. "Okay so it's not really to see what is spying but when so you can have you're window? You're going to become a mad scientist aren't you?"
Connor can't help but grin, "All science is mad until proven right. And seriously… Kisha… why are you even bothering? You have a room… you also have a bathroom… AND you can always requet lab access with a teacher supervising. There's a surprising amount of freedom in the rules, just stop assuming you'll need to do it all on your own. Speaking of which…" He reaches down into his bag, and pulls up a bag of Mrs. Fields… "Your weekly bribe, roomie." Grinning as he opens the back and oatmeal raisin scents float into the air.
"I also might perhaps be considering the viability of keeping one or two someday," Kisha admits, scuffing her toe in an attempt to look innocent. "And Robyn becoming is not technically accurate. Are is generally the word people would use. For the record neither of you are any fun. /My/ science would be fun and not in the slightest bit evil."
"You know, I never figured out -what- exactly was the bribe but I'll take the cookies anyway." Robyn says with a chuckle as he grabs the bag and digs in before offering whatever else is inside to Connor and Kisha. "Well fun and evil are in the eye of the beholder? That doesn't sound right, but what you might think is fun Headmaster Summers might think as evil…and I said mad scientist not evil, you can be mad and have fun…look at the Mad Hatter." He says holding up his tattooed wrist with 'Mad as a Hatter' onit.
Connor looks at Robyn for a moment, "Why? Because you put up with the fact that most nights you have to suffer anywhere from half to twice the standard gravity on the planet when I'm sleeping… deal with the fact that occasionally I sleep-port… aaaand… this way we don't argue the virtues of Tim Burton." Winking once at his roomie before reaching over and ruffling his hair before saying up to Kisha, "Not fun? Us? You're kidding… we defy the laws of conventional science in so many ways it would make someone's head explode. Me alone? I'd piss off Dr. Hawking and make Dr. Michio Kaku dance naked in the streets for proving the existence of quantum particles and energies. Robyn can manifest a tangible plane of energy that is considered impossible. I don't know a scientist out there who wouldn't want to study us for the rest of our natural lives… and that's the problem."
Kisha bites her lip as Connor does the why science would love us talk. "My kind of science on you would go like this. I build device, teachers check it's safe, once that's done you teleport to somewhere which does Borscht worthy of the name. I then buy food for us and we teleport home." She pauses, dabs at her lip to check it's not bleeding, and adds "I'm not really sure what I would do studying psi-energy. It doesn't suggest itself to as many immediate applications and I'm unsure if Robyn knows where to find places which sell proper Russian food. Although to be fair I would settle for other kinds of Borscht. My attempts at an automated soup making machine proved… Uhm… toxic."
"New York City, you can pretty much get any ethnicity of food there. Just google 'Russian Food NYC' and you'll find it." Robyn says with a nod. It's amazing what can be found on that island. "I can also jump into the minds of other people and the astral plane is just a wierd plane cause it's so infused with this one." Then he can't help but laugh at the toxic part. "So I know not to eat your cooking. Well your science cooking?" But isn't baking science for hungry people? Looking over at Connor, Robyn grins as he bites the cookie. "Connor, you know I don't mind. You're one of my best friends, and it's not like I always sleep in the room. Besides rooming with you is like having Housekeeping." He teases.
Connor eyerolls, "Yeah… never had so many invites to stay over in rooms until people found out about the cleaning thing… that and the field trips." Giving it all something of a good-natured look, before he then makes a slight face, "Borscht… bleh. I prefer Pirohsky myself… my mentor might have been Russian, but I was raised in Seattle. Gimme my sushi and coffee thanks much." Laughing a bit and then reaching into one of the opened boxes and scarfing down a half dozen stuffed grape leaves, "What we could use is a device that will calmly remind Robyn he should go back to his room at four am. You haven't used your bed in two days, Robyn… I can tell… it's still made."
"Leaking mercury," Kisha explains casually, as if it's a common culinary complaint. "I guess I'll have to do my food hunting myself. Baking isn't my strong suit I find myself adapting the appliances to work faster. It tends to end poorly." She shrugs, then ducks down to check the bottom of her diagram. Which seems to just be a big circle with potential orbits around it with little notes by each line. "Rigging an RFID tag in your room and setting alarm inside a watch which goes off if it isn't near the tag during set hours is childs play."
Robyn winces at the idea of leaking mercury in food. "I don't even want to ask why you would put mercury near food." He's afraid to ask if she tasted it. "So wait…you're actually plotting a way to get me to go to bed? But I'd probably ignore the alarm if if was wrapped up in work." He mutters the last sentance. "I did sleep though, for a few hours…in the art room. I've just got a big project I'm working on, it's almost done. Heather can tell you."
Connor looks up thoughtfully, "She might have already and not actually understood what she was meaning at the time… I'll have to ask after you're done so it all makes sense. But… Heather's really only comprehensible when you don't understand." After that comes the impish grin and then the comment of, "Yeah… mercury poisoning is bad. Let me guess… old-school thermometer for measuring food temperatures?"
Kisha nods in response to the thermometer comment. "Perhaps something based off the mosquito. Emitting a high frequency noise at 75db and locking on the wrist when the alarm triggers," she mutters, flicking open a blank document file and beginning to sketch a watch design up. "It would be almost impossible to ignore /and/ if you stayed anywhere you shouldn't it'd annoy everyone else. So they'd send you back to bed…" Without glancing up she adds "Who is Heather?"
"Heather is a girl who goes to school here, she's nice. Weird but…in a good way." Robyn says with a shrug. "Oh god, next thing I know you'll talk about implanting it in me and having it shock me until I go to bed." He looks over at Connor and frowns. "Since when did you become my parents." He grumbles jokingly but then Connor would know his parents asked him to watch out for Robyn when he visited. His parents are protective in an odd sense.
Connor can't help but chuckle, "You know when your dad had you off listening to that weird jazz fusion stuff he said he thought you'd like? Well… your mom cornered me in the kitchen and started going in on me about how unsafe it is at school, and how she wanted to make sure you're allright. She's actually an alien, you know… she implanted a device in the back of my head and directly controls me from the safety of her ship… KIDDING…" Stopping and finally looking at Robyn, "Because you LIKE having someone watch out for you, Robyn. Told me so yourself."
"We can skip right to the electrocuting implant?" Kisha asks hopefully, making a gesture with the stylus which clears the page. Ready for a new design. Matter-of-factly she adds "He's also telling the truth about not having a device implanted. I'd have felt it if there was one. Personally though I don't mind where you sleep, but when people mention devices or problems I feel this /need/ to design something which fits. Like I wanted soup, so I went and designed a soup machine."
"Yeah that Jazz fussion, not bad but not something I'll listen to on my own." Robyn's parents are an intersting sort. "Nah, my Mom just hates super-powers. They make her uncomfortable. And I know you're kidding, she would inplant it in your wrist or something." Then at Kisha's words. "No, no electrocuting implant!" He protests. " Robyn says joking back as he stands up with a stomach rumble. "Nah, Connor's just being a good friend is all. Okay food calls, I'll see you guys later!" He says as he makes his way to the cafe.
Connor sits up a bit more, looking over the couches towards the stylus and display, "So… the problem is you're creative, but the problem is your mind latches onto things too easily, right? Most of us here seem to balance out all this interesting and phenomenal ability with some kind of physical or mental burden. It's rare that you get ones like Mister Drake, or Magneto… all the power and none of the consequence."
"Something like that. And I can only really keep on design inside my head," Kisha explains, flicking to a notepad page which seems to be filled with observations about her own ability. "Even when I try do the same concept twice I don't always get the same schematic either. Which indicates there is a strong probability factor involved, with solutions filtered by the resources at hand." She muses over the notes and adds a few scribbled lines which the computer converts into neat text. "I would suspect Magneto's ability has /some/ downside. At least when he was our age anyway. Not that I'm in /any/ hurry to ask him, because I can't see questioning a man like that about his failings being connected with a long and healthy life."
Connor starts gathering up his things, and then all the styrofoam containers are taken by him and collapsed with his power into a small ping-pong ball sized mass that he drops into the garbage, "Well… I'm off the the gym, and hopefully a DR session tonight… see you around, Kisha. Maybe sometime you and I can practice Russian. I must've sounded awful…"
