Fic: RPS (Jared/Jensen): Weird Science, Part 1
Part 2 | Master Post | Art Post
Degrees, Jensen had found, were like languages: once you picked up the first one, the second, third and fourth ones were a snap-and an addiction. Kind of like Pringles. Or...gummy worms.
The gummy worms were a recent thing.
He’d graduated high school as a child prodigy, rushing through his senior year at the very awkward age of fourteen and entering college. His parents had worried but Jensen had dismissed them as being overprotective. At fifteen, he’d been more mature than most adults and, really, who needed high school anyway? High school was a fish bowl full of teenage rejection, acne, and being stuffed into lockers. Jensen was glad that he’d missed it.
Every now and then-when he watched one of those bad 80s movies that were always playing on some channel or another- he sometimes wondered what it would have been like to attend Senior Prom but Jensen didn’t let it bother him. Judging from the movies, he would have just ended up standing along the wall, gawking at all the popular kids out on the floor as the supposedly geeky but really good-looking guy danced with the cheerleader he’d been quietly lusting after for years.
Jensen didn’t know what it was like to be that secretly good-looking guy just waiting to claim his prom queen. It might have to do with him preferring a prom king instead of a queen-a big problem according to Hollywood-but it was probably more due to the fact that Jensen was not a popular guy waiting to shed his geeky exterior. He was just a geek.
Awkward, shy, and dealing with an inconvenient sexuality, Jensen had scraped through his teenage years by learning to keep his head down and avoid being cornered by groups of other teenagers. Of course, when he’d been fourteen, Jensen had sometimes fantasized about being cornered by Zach Dupree, the star quarterback, but that was a different story entirely.
Seventeen years and three doctorates later, Jensen was still scraping by, though, luckily, he’d stopped daydreaming about Zach Dupree (who was marrying his third wife next July according to Jensen’s mother). Jensen had once thought that his life would be different once he graduated college and found employment, that he’d find his place in the world. Belong. It had taken awhile before he’d realized that all he’d done was trade in his fishbowl for an aquarium-one with sharks instead of fish.
“Dr. Strickland,” Jensen mumbled as he slunk by his tightly-buttoned-up boss. Strickland never even turned his head, too busy talking to the visiting suits and what looked to be an army general. Jensen breathed a sigh of relief. He was five minutes late today and Strickland was known for not tolerating tardiness. In fact, Strickland was not known for tolerating much of anything.
It took twenty-six minutes and thirty-two seconds to get to Kripke Labs from Jensen’s apartment. Six minutes from the second floor apartment to the subway, making sure to bypass Big George if he was drunk in stairwell again; two minutes waiting nervously in the empty space for the next train; five uncomfortable minutes on the Blue line, keeping his eyes on the dingy floor while would-be gangsters passed him by; two minutes to change trains to the Green line, shuffling past the business men with their briefcases and gold watches; eight minutes watching the city flash by once the Green line rose out of the ground and headed for the industrial complexes; then three minutes to walk to the lab and be waved past by Christian, the security officer with the long hair.
Sometimes, Jensen stopped by the coffee shop on the corner, upping his time to thirty-two. Today, he’d made the trip in twenty-three, starting out in a dead run from his apartment. His alarm had gone off right on time but Jensen had taken a few extra minutes to contemplate imperative protocols, standard deviations, and the chemical makeup of gummy worms. He’d gotten a little...waylaid.
It hadn’t been until Zelda had slunk in to demand breakfast with a vicious jump onto Jensen’s vulnerable stomach and a glare that Jensen had realized the time. “Shit!” he’d muttered and dashed for the shower, Zelda giving him the evil eye the entire way.
The gummy worms were becoming his newest vice. It would probably help if he knew what they tasted like.
Jensen slipped into an empty elevator and selected the button marked “B.” Usually, he had company, but, then again, usually he was on time. Jensen stared at his distorted reflection in the shiny metal of the doors and wondered if he’d aged at all in seventeen years. It sometimes seemed as if he was still fourteen and mooning over Zach Dupree.
The doors dinged open. “Jensen!” Danneel said, swishing in as her white lab coat swirled around her legs. “Where have you been? Have you heard?”
Jensen quirked an eyebrow. “Heard what?” he asked but Danneel was ignoring him, bending down to coo at Zelda in her carrier.
“Aw, baby, what are you doing in there?” She pushed her fingers through the small grate. “Doesn’t Jensen know any better than to keep you locked up?”
“I was about to let her out...” Jensen muttered, rolling his eyes. It wasn’t as if he was planning on keeping Zelda stuck inside her cage-and it was for her own protection, anyway. Who knew what trouble a cat would get into on the subway? Danneel popped the cage open and let Zelda saunter out, her bushy tail wrapping around herself. “She knows how to open it anyway.” It was useless to expect Zelda to stay in her cage. The only time that she would was when she was feeling lazy-otherwise, the cat was too smart for her own good. The only places that were safe from her were the ones that were padlocked-and even those were suspect. Jensen secretly thought that Zelda had figured out how to pick locks. Far too often, he found her languishing in a cabinet that he’d sworn had been safely secured.
“There’s a good kitty,” Danneel cooed, cuddling the purring cat under her chin.
“Heard what?” Jensen repeated. Zelda was a subject that he would never win on. Ever since he’d found her as a kitten, half-drowned outside the lab, she’d become an unofficial mascot and most everyone had an opinion on how to properly treat her. The cat, to say the least, was spoiled rotten.
“Hmm? Oh, there was a memo. I thought you would have been here earlier.”
Jensen flushed. He was always on time. It was only lately that he’d been having problems. Ever since… “I...overslept.” Danneel raised an eyebrow skeptically and Jensen ducked his head.
“You should ask Chad for it. If you hurry, you might catch him before his break.” Jensen sighed. Yet another unfortunate side effect of running late: he might not catch the secretary before his mid-morning break. Chad took his breaks very seriously. "Strickland's on the warpath."
Jensen's heart skipped a beat. "Strickland?" The elevator doors chimed.
"Oh, it's my stop," Danneel chirped and pushed Zelda into Jensen's arms. "Take good care of her!"
"I--Danneel!" Jensen grabbed for her arm as she slipped out. "Danneel!"
She spun, red hair swirling around her shoulders. "Sorry, Jensen, I've got to go. Strickland's monitoring our productivity. Ask Chad!"
"But--"
"Or Jared!" She wiggled her fingers at Zelda. "Bye, honey. Don't let him forget your tunes."
Jensen stared after her as she disappeared behind a bank of computers and the doors slid shut again. Zelda yowled, lashing her tail. "Don't start," Jensen grumbled, hefting her onto his shoulder. "I need somebody on my side today." Today was supposed to be a good day. After months of being lost in a never ending labyrinth of theory and computer simulations, Jared and he were close to a breakthrough-something that would make them famous. Something that would allow them to break free from Strickland and his insistence on research always having to have a bottom line. Jensen sighed and stared at his reflection again. Life wasn't supposed to be this way. There were shackles around him-with one big one around his neck named Strickland. "It's going to get better, Zelda." The B lit up on the elevator.
"Jensen!" Large hands hauled Jensen out of the elevator, dragging him into the hall. Jensen stumbled on the tile, dropping Zelda as he tried to catch himself. "Where have you been? We have to get started!"
Jensen wrapped his fingers around the wrists that were holding him up and stared upward. Jared always had been a few inches taller than him. "What?" He flushed, feeling awkward and lost, his brain unable to decide if it wanted to focus on what Jared was saying or how his lips looked forming the words. It was just going to be a bad day all the way around.
"The micro laser transcendental particle wave!" Jared said, shaking Jensen. "We've got to-"
"You have three messages," a monotone voice cut in. Jensen swung his head to the left to see the floor's bored secretary, Chad, reading off his clipboard. "Your mother called. She wants you to call her back. Your dry cleaning is done and Dr. Strickland sent a memo marked urgent. He says that he-" Chad cut off in mid-sentence to glance at his watch.
"Says what?" Jensen asked. Jared was gaping at the both of them. "Strickland says what?"
"I'm on break," Chad replied and turned sharply on his heel to head down the hallway.
"Chad!" Jensen called after him. "Strickland says what?" Chad walked around a corner.
"Fucker," Jensen swore. He struggled with Jared's deathgrip, wanting to follow Chad. Couldn't the man have at least just handed him the memo? "Damn it..."
"Strickland's shutting us down, Jen," Jared said quietly. His fingers reluctantly released Jensen's shoulders, letting Jensen settle back into a more natural posture.
"He's what?" Jensen thought that he must have misheard Jared.
"Shutting us down." Jared couldn't quite seem to meet Jensen's eyes, glancing around the hallway. "Unless we give him something that he can use. Which is why we've got to-"
“He can't do that! We have a contract!”
Jared shook his head and held the lab door open as Zelda trotted inside. “It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t need to fund us, Jen.” Jensen’s eyes skittered across his workspace, feeling his heart sink.
“He doesn’t already…” Jensen muttered. Their computers were over fifteen years old, running on outdated software and nearly every piece of furniture was something that had been hauled out of storage, usually by him or Jared-hand-me-downs of hand-me-downs. In fact, the newest computer they had in the lab wasn’t a computer at all-it was a shell of an iMac that Jared had brought in as a bed for Zelda. Not that Jensen usually minded the ramshackle state of his workspace. This was his first lab-his very own and he’d fought tooth and nail for it.
“Yeah,” Jared agreed softly. “And if we don’t turn a profit soon, he’s not going to even give us this much.” He pushed past Jensen to slump into his favorite chair, the one that creaked whenever he moved. “We’re under contract for two years, Jen, so he has to pay us but he doesn’t have to fund us. He could put us in someone else’s section or, you know, just let us sit here. Doing nothing.”
Sitting in the dark without even the power to run a centrifuge: Strickland would do it. With Jensen’s credentials, there was a better chance of him being snapped up by some lesser scientist to work on inferior projects like a second stringer on a baseball team. Jensen dropped into the chair beside Jared’s. It would be a fate worse than death. Jensen had put in his time. He’d leveled up, damn it.
“So it’s now or never,” Jared added, his chair creaking as he turned on his computer. Zelda batted at his hand and he obligingly pressed play on her personal iPod. The cat was an Apple freak. She refused to have anything to do with generic devices.
“But it’s not ready,” Jensen protested. Every simulation with the beam ended in unmitigated disaster as the controls failed when they shouldn’t. Sure, he and Jared were close but that could mean that they were anywhere from a day to a year away.
Jared smiled wanly at Jensen. “So, we’ve got today to figure it out.” He leaned toward Jensen and used the reach of his arms to drag Jensen into a hug. “We’ll make it, Jen.” Jensen’s cheek pressed against Jared’s hard chest and Jensen’s heart skipped a beat. Damn Jared as his incessant need for tactile contact. Jensen sometimes wished that he could enforce a three feet of personal space rule between them-their own little bubbles-if only because of the stupidly infatuated way he reacted whenever Jared pulled him in for a quick hug or slapped him on the back or stood entirely too close. Why did he have to get the attractive straight guy to work with, anyway? That was hardly fair; Jared was easy on the eyes but he was awfully hard on the heart. And…other parts.
When Jared released him, Jensen scurried away, trying to pretend that he wasn’t retreating like a scared virgin when he so obviously was. He rolled himself the few feet to the Jet Engine-an ancient computer that took up most of a desk and roared like a plane about to take off but, sadly enough, was the most powerful piece of equipment they had. “Well, something’s definitely wrong with the stabilizing thruster…”
“As in ‘it won’t thrust’?” Jared asked innocently and Jensen shot him a glare. A red gummy worm hung from Jared’s mouth and he slurped it up. Jensen swung back around to stare at his keyboard. Those damn gummy worms. Jensen wished that Jared would go back to the little bears because at least then Jared didn’t feel the need to eat them like some kind of bizarre porn star, letting them linger while he slowly sucked them between his lips. “I think it’s the equation,” Jared added, seriously again. His fingers clacked on the keys of his computer. “The variables need to be adjusted.” Jensen had a variable that Jared could adjust. It was growing exponentially right now.
Jensen rolled to the other side of Jared, booting up the next computer, mentally cursing Jared’s sweet tooth. The man was forever bringing in treats to torture Jensen with. Though, perhaps Jensen should count his blessings. The Tootsie-Pops had only last two days-two very uncomfortable days. The monitor flicked for a second before going dark. “Fuck,” Jensen swore. Resigning himself, he slipped underneath the desk to fiddle with the power cord again.
“What’s wrong?” Jared asked, rolling toward him.
“I swear I’m going to duct tape this cord in place,” Jensen shot back as he slowly rotated the base of the cord.
“Oh, not getting any juice again?”
“Just tell me when it comes on.” Jared rolled in front of the computer, just to the side of where Jensen was bent over underneath the desk.
“No, not yet. Did you try leaning it to the left? It likes the left.”
“I know it likes the left…” Jensen replied, doing just that. “How about now?”
“Uh, yep-no! No, it just went out again.”
“Fuck.” Jensen savagely bent the cord, taking out his frustration on it and Jared crowed.
“There it is! You’ve got it!”
“Thank fuck,” Jensen muttered, climbing out from underneath the desk. The narrow area didn’t allow him much room to maneuver and Jensen shoved his glasses higher on his nose. He should just rip open the cord and find the faulty wire before it did something more serious than refuse to work but he kept thinking that he’d get a new computer instead. ‘Hope springs eternal,’ after all.
Jared’s chair was in the way as Jensen finally emerged and Jensen pushed against Jared’s leg to roll him backward. Unfortunately, he seemed rather stuck in place. Jensen readjusted his glasses again and stared up at Jared-before realizing his situation. Jared’s long legs sprawled out on either side of Jensen’s shoulder and Jensen was at the perfect height to… To… Jensen flushed.
“Uh, okay, so it’s, uh, got power now, right?” Jared stuttered, rolling back to his own area, his face looking like Jensen’s felt. Not trusting himself to answer, Jensen climbed back into his chair and stared at his still flickering monitor. “So, I think I might have an idea how to fix the beam. I’ve just got to reprogram the simulation. When, you know, I actually fix it. Not that you won’t because, you know, you might get there before me because it’s not like you spend all day down on your knees-under your desk!” Jared’s keyboard clacked furiously as he babbled on and Jensen bowed his head. It was going to be a long day.
Zelda purred in her bed, blissfully unaware of how close she was to losing her happy home.
Two hours later, Jared pushed himself away from the computer, rolling across the floor to the filing cabinet where he hid bags of gummies. Jensen set down his coffee, expectantly. “Level Up?” Jensen asked. If Jared was allowing himself to break into a new bag, it was a good sign; he normally hoarded them.
“I,” Jared boasted with a wide smile, “am a genius.”
Jensen lifted his eyebrows. “You are?”
“Yes. You should be swooning appropriately.”
“Yeah, that’s never going to happen,” Jensen replied, rolling his eyes. He kicked away from his desk to slide in front of Jared’s computer. Long lines of code sprawled across the screen, changes carefully catalogued and marked. “So this isn’t going to nuke our server or anything, right?” He lowered his chin to skewer Jared with a look over the rims of his glasses. Jared might be a brilliant scientist, but Jensen was never going to forget the Blackout of 09 where shortly after Jared had pronounced himself a genius, his new and “improved” coding turned into a virus that fried nearly half the building.
Jared pouted. “That hurt, Jen. I thought we weren’t going to talk about that anymore.”
“Forgive, Jared. Don’t forget.” Jensen paged downward, still scanning. “This looks good.” Jared had changed a few simple variables which seemed to affect all outcomes. There was no way of knowing for sure without actually running the simulation, however.
“See? Genius.” Jared’s grin widened as he tilted back in his chair, flicking his hair out of his eyes.
Cocky preening suited Jared. The way his dimples flashed when he was happy sent Jensen’s blood pressure soaring. Jensen spun away as heat flashed through him, heading back to his own space and away from Jared and his…candy. “Let’s run it.” Silence settled over the lab, broken only by the low humming of electronics, and the heat that had been pooling inside of Jensen rapidly cooled. He turned slowly back to face Jared. “What’s wrong?”
Jared’s dimples had disappeared and he wouldn’t quite meet Jensen’s eyes. “I, uh, had to change a variable.”
“I know that, Jared.” Jensen had just looked at the code. With all of Jared’s flags there was no way that he would have missed the changed variables.
“Well…one of them is now a little…high.” Jensen waited for Jared to finally spit it out. “Like…Misha high.”
“Fuck.”
Misha Collins was the star of Kripke Labs. If Misha had been a less likable guy, Jensen might have hated him. Misha was the kind of guy that got away with murder-in a metaphorical sense, though Jensen wasn’t certain that if Misha would get away with murder in a literal sense. It was entirely possible that the higher-ups would hide the body for him.
Strickland hated Misha but it was out of his control. Misha was one of the most eccentric scientists at Kripke Labs, constantly inventing one crazy thing after another-such as the gigantic, kangaroo bunnies that maintenance kept as pets or the machine that took up most of floor 6 (its function was a mystery though Misha assured anyone that asked that it was highly important and “Please don’t disturb. It’s deep in thought”). However, for every one of Misha Collins’s useless inventions, he seemed to come up with a matching, wildly successful idea. Half of the gadgets that modern people considered indispensable to their everyday lives owed at least part of their existence to Misha. He was the sole reason why Kripke Labs was still in business and, thus, he was untouchable.
He also had one of the nicest labs in the entire building. Jensen felt green whenever he thought about it. Luckily, though, he wasn’t Bruce Banner. It kept the lab intact.
Jensen nervously straightened his badge as he passed a security guard. While he was an employee and had clearance to be on this floor, some of the officers were not known for their gentle natures. Not all of them were like Christian. Zelda, sitting comfortably on his shoulder like the free-rider she was, purred against his ear.
Sandy McCoy, Misha’s lovely assistant and Jensen’s former arch nemesis passed them by, oblivious with her nose nearly pressing against her clipboard. Jensen instinctively glanced at Jared, gauging the reaction, and felt his heart squeeze painfully when Jared stopped dead in the middle of the hallway. Jensen busied himself with staring at the hard blue tile of the floor. He hated this.
All last year, Sandy was the only thing that Jared could talk about it. She’d been the start, middle and end of every conversation. Before she had been hired, Jensen been entertaining “thoughts”-and not just the kind that made him late for work, either. As soon as her white sensible shoes had stepped in front of Jared, however, Jensen had been forced to face the cold hard facts.
He hated the reminders that Jared was straight.
Sandy and Jared had dated on and off for a year, finally breaking it off entirely during a particularly sad and depressing March. Jensen had spent that month feeling as if he were perpetually attending a funeral.
“Sandy,” Jared said with a nod.
“Oh, hi, Jared!” she chirped, marking off a checkbox. She beamed at Jared and then nodded at Jensen as an afterthought. “Jensen. Zelda.”
Jensen couldn’t take it. “Where’s Misha?”
Sandy jumped and stared at him. “What?”
“Misha?” Jensen asked again, raising an eyebrow but Sandy was leaning towards Jared, whispering something about…talking? They didn’t have time for this. Jared could flirt with his ex-girlfriend some other time-some other time when Jensen wasn’t watching and painfully aware of his own chances with Jared.
“Sandy, have you seen my notes on the cultural influences of planticular substratum-” Jensen found himself flattened against the wall as he was nearly mowed down by an extended plastic hand followed quickly by Misha Collins. Zelda yowled and abandoned her comfortable perch, knowing a sinking ship when she was on one. Misha pushed his glasses up and removed the blue stylus from his mouth. “Oh, hey, what’s up, I didn’t see you there, didn’t mean to run you over, say can you hold this for me?” Nodding in bemusement, Jensen gingerly took Misha’s…device. He’d learned over the years that sometimes it was just better not to ask.
The device looked as if at one point it had been some kind of e-reader but had had a series of horrendous operations since its inception. A multitude of modifications had been added to it. Jensen could see equations on its faintly glowing screen but had no time to read them as the large plastic hand that had been grafted onto the side waved itself in front of him. “Whoa!”
“Don’t drop it!” Misha shouted. The hand slammed into Jensen’s face, knocking his glasses to the ground. Jensen stumbled backward, falling against the warm wall behind him. “Bad hand! Bad!” Plastic crunched as Misha snapped off the added appendage and tossed it to the side. “Sorry,” he apologized, finally making eye contact for the first time since he’d arrived. “I’m still working on that. It’s supposed to keep intruders from reading my notes but it gets…overzealous. It has a hard time differentiating between thieves and colleagues. And, well, me.” Misha rubbed at a red mark on the side of his face. Frowning, Misha took the device back and popped the stylus back in his mouth as he tapped at the screen. “I know they’re in here somewhere.”
“You alright?” Jared asked and Jensen flushed when he realized that what he’d thought was a wall was really Jared.
“Yeah, fine, where are my glasses?” he mumbled, dropping to the floor to feel along the tile. Zelda swatted at him-payback for letting her jump ship.
“I haven’t seen your notes anywhere, Doctor,” Sandy said above him. “They should be right where you left them. Excuse me, I have to go check on the kangaroo rabbits. Security says that one has been escaping at night.”
“Yes, yes,” Misha muttered distractedly. “Kangaroos…Marvelous creatures, really. Underappreciated. Don’t you think so?”
Jensen sighed as he found his glasses. Great. It looked like they were cracked. “Yeah, sure,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. Zelda jumped back onto his shoulder but stayed at the ready in case she had to jump again. “Listen, Misha-”
Was that a tiara on Misha’s head? Jensen stared. Sometime between him getting smacked around by Misha’s borrowed hand and the conversation about kangaroos, Misha had acquired a new hairpiece. And it seemed to be…connected? Wires ran down the side of his head to connect to the reader but Jensen was more bemused by the small star on top of Misha’s head. He looked like he was just waiting to activate it and go crashing through some troopers… A smile started to pull at Jensen’s face.
“It’s their pockets I admire,” Misha continued, tapping away at his pad. “So handy.” He froze, his eyes sightless. Then he brought the pad up closer to his mouth. “Mental note: look into genetic modification for pockets. A man can never have enough pockets.”
“We were wondering if we could borrow your lab,” Jared blurted out, his hands in his pockets. Jensen whipped his head around. You didn’t just come out and ask like that, right? You were supposed to work up to it.
“Jay…”
Misha blinked at them. “Well of course you can. Mi laboratorio es su laboratorio, mis amigos. At least somebody will get some use out of it tonight.”
“…Where are you going?” Jensen asked. Misha never left his lab. If Strickland would allow him to, Misha would just figure out a way to have the cafeteria ship his food directly to the lab and then no one would ever see Misha again.
“I’ve got this thing,” Misha said, tapping away again.
“Oh.” Jensen crossed his arms. “So you can’t catsit tonight?” He’d honestly given it a little bit of thought. If the variables were as high as Jared said they were, he didn’t need Zelda with him. Even if everything went right, the energy in the room would be enough to give him static shocks for the rest of the week whenever he went to pet her. Zelda growled at that and Jensen reached up a hand to pet her side.
She never had liked Misha that much. Mostly, Jensen thought, because Misha didn’t see the big deal about Apple products. Though there was that one time where Misha had robotized her toy mouse…
“Hmm? No. Not tonight. I have to give a lecture about why Ewoks will never be able understand string theory. Very important stuff.”
“…I see.” Jensen peered at Misha, trying to figure out if he was serious or not. Knowing Misha, he probably was.
Jared clapped a hand on Jensen’s shoulder and Jensen turned to see his grin. “Nah. Ewoks are more about quantum loops.”
“Exactly! See that’s what I said! Plus, that doesn’t even take into account the effect of the unmitigated-” A buzzer went off and the star on top of Misha’s head switched on, electrifying and projecting itself. Misha flinched. “Ah, excuse me. I have to see a man about a conduit.” He walked off, rubbing his tiara and muttering to himself about star power seeming to be a good idea in theory but having unforeseen consequences when implemented.
“Well, alrighty then…” Jensen said, staring at Misha’s back.
Jared’s fingers rubbed a highly distracting circle on his shoulder before dropping away. “Hey, we got the lab. We can ask Dani if she’d catsit for us.” He pushed Jensen forward, shoving him out of his contemplation of other parts of himself that could use some circular motion from Jared.
…If this experiment worked and he and Jared got filthy rich from doing it, Jensen was going to have to look into getting laid. This was ridiculous.
He was still wondering what gummy worms tasted like.
Danneel was occupied (apparently, she was attending Misha’s lecture-in full costume no less) but the intern on floor three agreed to do it with just a little flexing of Jared’s muscles. Jensen had grit his teeth and looked away. Genevieve was entirely too interested in the ringless state of Jared’s finger. As far as he was concerned, she was just a few centuries of hermitude away from being Gollum.
Jensen entered the security code for Misha’s lab, debating on buying Jared a replica of the One Ring to wear. He could always claim that it was just for a cosplay.
“You okay, Jen?” Jared asked.
Jensen frowned. “Yeah? Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well, you just seem a little…” The lab door swooshed open, locks unsnapping and a sealant door rolling away. “…distracted…” Jared finished, breathlessly.
It was like stepping into the Cave of Wonders-if Aladdin had been a scientist and the Cave had been filled with long banks of white computers instead of gold. Jensen sighed. Just one of those computers probably cost more than his entire lab. All he could do was dream of maybe getting a hand-me-down of one of them in about five to ten years.
Gyroscopes twirled all across the lab but Jensen already knew that they didn’t really serve a purpose. Misha was just an enthusiast. Secretly, however, Jensen thought that Misha might be deflecting when he claimed that. Jensen wouldn’t put it past Misha to have one gyroscope in the bunch with a vital purpose while the rest were just sheer decoration. Misha was like that.
The core reactor-Misha’s pride and joy next to the gyroscope collection (costing more than Jensen and Jared’s salary combined)-pulsed dimly against the wall it dominated and Jensen smiled, his heart racing as he looked at it. It was going to be his and Jared’s ticket out of the basement doldrums.
Even Strickland wouldn’t be able to deride this. Sure, Jensen had designed the micro laser transendental particle wave beam originally as a way to warm-up cold coffee without using the microwave, but in the development stage, it had morphed into something else entirely. Jensen was living out a comic book dream and building a freaking death ray in his lab. Oh, not that he would use it and, really, he was still hoping that it would heat up that cup of coffee, but it still had weaponized applications and that, more than anything, was what would sell Strickland.
Jensen glanced over his shoulder at his partner, admiring Jared’s back as he bent over to plug in the USB ports to the hard drives. This would work. It had to.
“Okay, change the x…carry over the…got it. And…” Jared beat on the table in a drum roll, then twirled to face Jensen with a smile. “…we’re up and running.”
Jensen smiled back. “Well, let’s get to work.”
Part 2 | Master Post | Art Post