flavour of the day and butter pecan with hot fudge and fresh peaches
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Nice and Normal
Rating: PG (Newson cussing, as usual)
Challenge: FOTD: grangerise, Butter Pecan #6: bright
Toppings/Extras: hot fudge, fresh peaches
Wordcount: 1,070
Summary: A new head scientist is introduced to Newson’s black ops laboratory.
Notes: Such an Adam horoscope. Grangerise: To add visual content to a book by adding inserting images not included in the original volume, often by mutilating other books. Fresh peaches: The Sun moves into the Air Sign of Aquarius today, introducing a season of freedom, individuality, and experimentation… Aquarius energy can be strange and unusual, filled with quirky surprises and unexpected twists.
“Merritt, come here,” Newson barked by way of introduction. It was early morning that the sun was still only just about creeping over the skyscrapers; daybreak in Britannia City was beautiful in its own way, endless orange spilling brilliantly across the hundreds of mirror-like glass skyscrapers, wispy fog rising through the levels as the dew was evaporated by the heaters built into the walkways.
Adele Merritt, however, was used to the sight and did not even glace at the windows as she clipped smartly across the room to stand at her boss’ desk, folding her arms with a clink of cold silver bracelets.
“New member of staff for you to break in,” Newson said, amused as always at the thought of unleashing Adele upon some hapless newbie. “Found a replacement for Grouter.”
Great, another head scientist, Adele thought in irritation. As a rule, she didn’t like the scientists-especially the black ops ones who were generally stuffy, condescending, posh wafflers stuffed with so much self-importance that it made her feel sick. She was always secretly rather pleased when they blew themselves up, which happened fairly often.
“Résumé?” she asked; word economy saved time.
“This,” Newson said, picking a weighty tome out of one of his drawers and dropping it with a smack into his desk, “thing.”
Adele’s venom-coloured lips pressed together tightly for a moment as she stared at it. Scraps of paper had fallen out of it and the thing was stained, worn-and in some parts appeared burnt. Leaning down, she flipped through it a little. Some pages were absolutely stuffed with tiny, violently rightwards-leaning handwriting, spikily laying out massive equations and sentences that made no sense, like “peripheral temporal margin” and “less convex here?”
And then there were the diagrams, the sketches, the blueprints, the ripped-out pages of encyclopaedias and magazines and more writing on scraps of paper, beermats, bits of torn wallpaper and tissues. Mechanic designs of mind-bending complexity were scrawled haphazardly on pages and then carefully traced onto the next, and every component was painstakingly annotated.
“What the hell is this?” Adele asked, leaning away. Newson must have lost his mind, she decided-who the hell hired someone whose so-called résumé looked like a six-year-old’s scrapbook with the addition of insanely long words?
“He’s perfect,” Newson said with a smirk. “I’m telling you, Merritt, he’s a genius-with the addition of being a complete fucking idiot.”
“Brilliant,” Adele muttered. “Just what we need.”
“This man’s mind is phenomenal,” Newson said. “He’s fucking brilliant. A Cambridge graduate-living in a piss-poor hovel because people don’t listen to him. And he has no idea how much his ideas are worth. Some of these things could make a fucking mint if they’re treated right! And he doesn’t even want paying, just a lab for him to make his stuff. He does it because he enjoys it.”
“Are you sure he’s not insane?” Adele asked.
“I’m sure he is. Does it matter? He’s working on my next project and trust me, Merritt, you’re going to love it.”
Hmm. That usually meant trouble.
-----
She had gone down the laboratory to find this new head scientist of theirs, which was why she was surprised to step into one of the main rooms and find a twelve-year-old boy in a lab-coat leaning over one of the tables, mucking about with some mechanical thing or other.
OK, he was actually in his mid-thirties, but his hair was the most blinding blonde she had ever seen occurring naturally in anyone over the age of four and his enthusiasm was extremely childlike. He was smiling. To himself. What sort of total nutter smiled these days? She stepped across the lab and went to stand by his table, her frown one more of confusion than loathing, though she was sure that would change.
“Hello,” he said brightly, continuing to fiddle with a screwdriver and what looked like some sort of control panel. After a moment he dropped it to the table and leapt to his feet so quickly that Adele almost stumbled backwards, holding out a hand for her to shake and thrusting it practically into her nose. “I’m Adam Kirby.”
“I know,” Adele replied, not very impressed.
“It’s nice to meet you!”
What the fuck was wrong with this man?
“Sure it is,” she replied warily, brushing his hand out of her face. “I have a present for you.”
“Really?”
He seemed delighted.
“Yes,” Adele said, and then slammed the thick folder in her hands down onto the table, crushing whatever it is he had just been working on. She was quite certain it wasn’t what he had been meant to be doing anyway. He didn’t seem to mind. “Instructions. Enjoy.”
“Oh, thank you!”
“…are you for fucking real?”
She glared at him suspiciously. For the first time Adam’s smile buckled slightly, although it didn’t entirely fade and he simply looked a little confused. His eyes were dark hazel-green and almost as bright as his smile.
“What do you mean?” he asked. It was almost enough to make her miss the stale, blathering scientists she was used to. Almost. Newson had warned her that he was eccentric but nothing could have prepared her for the overwhelming niceness emanating from the man. She felt as though she could choke on it. God, she hated nice people.
Look on the bright side, she thought to herself, at least he’ll be easy to relentlessly bully. I wonder if I could make him cry?
-----
It had been three months and she still hadn’t managed to make him cry. Not even close. Every insult she hurled at him, every obstacle she purposely and callously threw into his way, every single attempt at breaking him was deflected with easy-going, you-don’t-really-mean-it optimism. He was the worst type of nice person in that he ceaselessly and with unwavering faith believed that everyone was just as nice as he was, even if they didn’t act like it.
Including, apparently, her.
“He’s not normal,” she said under her breath in the elevator one day as she left the labs. “He’s really not fucking normal.”
“It’s not very normal to mutter to yourself in an elevator either,” Robyn Walshe said from next to her. The glare she received could have punctured steel and Robyn found herself edging slightly away from the business-suit clad woman despite the fact that she towered over her. “Just saying.”
Title: Nice and Normal
Rating: PG (Newson cussing, as usual)
Challenge: FOTD: grangerise, Butter Pecan #6: bright
Toppings/Extras: hot fudge, fresh peaches
Wordcount: 1,070
Summary: A new head scientist is introduced to Newson’s black ops laboratory.
Notes: Such an Adam horoscope. Grangerise: To add visual content to a book by adding inserting images not included in the original volume, often by mutilating other books. Fresh peaches: The Sun moves into the Air Sign of Aquarius today, introducing a season of freedom, individuality, and experimentation… Aquarius energy can be strange and unusual, filled with quirky surprises and unexpected twists.
“Merritt, come here,” Newson barked by way of introduction. It was early morning that the sun was still only just about creeping over the skyscrapers; daybreak in Britannia City was beautiful in its own way, endless orange spilling brilliantly across the hundreds of mirror-like glass skyscrapers, wispy fog rising through the levels as the dew was evaporated by the heaters built into the walkways.
Adele Merritt, however, was used to the sight and did not even glace at the windows as she clipped smartly across the room to stand at her boss’ desk, folding her arms with a clink of cold silver bracelets.
“New member of staff for you to break in,” Newson said, amused as always at the thought of unleashing Adele upon some hapless newbie. “Found a replacement for Grouter.”
Great, another head scientist, Adele thought in irritation. As a rule, she didn’t like the scientists-especially the black ops ones who were generally stuffy, condescending, posh wafflers stuffed with so much self-importance that it made her feel sick. She was always secretly rather pleased when they blew themselves up, which happened fairly often.
“Résumé?” she asked; word economy saved time.
“This,” Newson said, picking a weighty tome out of one of his drawers and dropping it with a smack into his desk, “thing.”
Adele’s venom-coloured lips pressed together tightly for a moment as she stared at it. Scraps of paper had fallen out of it and the thing was stained, worn-and in some parts appeared burnt. Leaning down, she flipped through it a little. Some pages were absolutely stuffed with tiny, violently rightwards-leaning handwriting, spikily laying out massive equations and sentences that made no sense, like “peripheral temporal margin” and “less convex here?”
And then there were the diagrams, the sketches, the blueprints, the ripped-out pages of encyclopaedias and magazines and more writing on scraps of paper, beermats, bits of torn wallpaper and tissues. Mechanic designs of mind-bending complexity were scrawled haphazardly on pages and then carefully traced onto the next, and every component was painstakingly annotated.
“What the hell is this?” Adele asked, leaning away. Newson must have lost his mind, she decided-who the hell hired someone whose so-called résumé looked like a six-year-old’s scrapbook with the addition of insanely long words?
“He’s perfect,” Newson said with a smirk. “I’m telling you, Merritt, he’s a genius-with the addition of being a complete fucking idiot.”
“Brilliant,” Adele muttered. “Just what we need.”
“This man’s mind is phenomenal,” Newson said. “He’s fucking brilliant. A Cambridge graduate-living in a piss-poor hovel because people don’t listen to him. And he has no idea how much his ideas are worth. Some of these things could make a fucking mint if they’re treated right! And he doesn’t even want paying, just a lab for him to make his stuff. He does it because he enjoys it.”
“Are you sure he’s not insane?” Adele asked.
“I’m sure he is. Does it matter? He’s working on my next project and trust me, Merritt, you’re going to love it.”
Hmm. That usually meant trouble.
-----
She had gone down the laboratory to find this new head scientist of theirs, which was why she was surprised to step into one of the main rooms and find a twelve-year-old boy in a lab-coat leaning over one of the tables, mucking about with some mechanical thing or other.
OK, he was actually in his mid-thirties, but his hair was the most blinding blonde she had ever seen occurring naturally in anyone over the age of four and his enthusiasm was extremely childlike. He was smiling. To himself. What sort of total nutter smiled these days? She stepped across the lab and went to stand by his table, her frown one more of confusion than loathing, though she was sure that would change.
“Hello,” he said brightly, continuing to fiddle with a screwdriver and what looked like some sort of control panel. After a moment he dropped it to the table and leapt to his feet so quickly that Adele almost stumbled backwards, holding out a hand for her to shake and thrusting it practically into her nose. “I’m Adam Kirby.”
“I know,” Adele replied, not very impressed.
“It’s nice to meet you!”
What the fuck was wrong with this man?
“Sure it is,” she replied warily, brushing his hand out of her face. “I have a present for you.”
“Really?”
He seemed delighted.
“Yes,” Adele said, and then slammed the thick folder in her hands down onto the table, crushing whatever it is he had just been working on. She was quite certain it wasn’t what he had been meant to be doing anyway. He didn’t seem to mind. “Instructions. Enjoy.”
“Oh, thank you!”
“…are you for fucking real?”
She glared at him suspiciously. For the first time Adam’s smile buckled slightly, although it didn’t entirely fade and he simply looked a little confused. His eyes were dark hazel-green and almost as bright as his smile.
“What do you mean?” he asked. It was almost enough to make her miss the stale, blathering scientists she was used to. Almost. Newson had warned her that he was eccentric but nothing could have prepared her for the overwhelming niceness emanating from the man. She felt as though she could choke on it. God, she hated nice people.
Look on the bright side, she thought to herself, at least he’ll be easy to relentlessly bully. I wonder if I could make him cry?
-----
It had been three months and she still hadn’t managed to make him cry. Not even close. Every insult she hurled at him, every obstacle she purposely and callously threw into his way, every single attempt at breaking him was deflected with easy-going, you-don’t-really-mean-it optimism. He was the worst type of nice person in that he ceaselessly and with unwavering faith believed that everyone was just as nice as he was, even if they didn’t act like it.
Including, apparently, her.
“He’s not normal,” she said under her breath in the elevator one day as she left the labs. “He’s really not fucking normal.”
“It’s not very normal to mutter to yourself in an elevator either,” Robyn Walshe said from next to her. The glare she received could have punctured steel and Robyn found herself edging slightly away from the business-suit clad woman despite the fact that she towered over her. “Just saying.”