Logs // Good news, Not so good news...

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

Afternoon. Alison goes to see Forge at his request, planning to tell him about the information her father sent her about the patents issue regarding the Jetstream technology. Forge's question about a touchy issue manage to utterly derail her on that, though.

Taking the stairs two at a time and humming under her breath, Alison glanced down at the folder she was holding, somehow managing not to trip over herself and tumble the rest of the way down at the same time. Having an answer and a potential solution to the patent rights issue was one thing - the note however, which had been neatly tucked in the folder on top of the few sheets of paper written her father's usual neat script, the color of ink the same it had been back when she was younger, however, had added a glow to things.

She'd never have dreamt...

"Hey, Forge? You in there?" she asked, rounding the corner and peeking inside the lab.

Forge glanced up from behind a stack of books and drawings, hair out of his customary ponytail and messed every which way, held out of his face only by the welding goggles pushed up on his forehead. "Miss Blaire," he exclaimed, shifting on his stool. "I was just going over Da Vinci's proportions, you know, Vitruvian Man? Given Mr. al-Rashid's shoulder-to-fingertip measurements and the curvature of his upper spine, I'm guessing about a 34 inseam, and that he'd be about five foot eight?"

Blink. "Uhh.. that sounds about right, yes." Blinking, Alison stepped inside the lab, walking in slowly, switching the folder from one hand to another while giving Forge a curious look. "I thought his standard measurements were all in the dossier," she quickly edited herself in terms of how the information had been acquired - twice - and went on, "we received along with the hardware?"

"Oh, I know that," Forge said sarcastically, waving his hand in the air in a flourish of overexaggerated drama. "But how much do you want to bet that the folks who put those schematics together had both legs? And he was what, sixteen when his accident happened? Eighteen? His upper body's grown since then. Original specs, here?" He rummaged through the pile, holding up a wrinkled blueprint sheet. "Assume the subject's got full spinal support - Mr. al-Rashid is missing the bottom three vertebrae. It's why he walks the way he does. Subtle, but after you spend nine months trying to get your own new leg to behave, you notice these things."

Wiggling his fingers at a monitor, Forge called up a wireframe drawing of the cybernetics he was currently designing, highlighting the differences from the original. "This design, it'll mimic almost exactly what I can extrapolate his natural physique to be like - the closer it is to what his mind will recognize as natural, the better he'll adapt."

"Oooh." Leaning over to look, Alison made all the appropriate 'ooh, brilliant' type noises required by any genius currently displaying his work while being critical of what others had done. The changes along the back of the wireframe design weren't hard to spot, too, with Forge pointing out each minute change, stoutly explaining the shifts from the 'older' version to the new.

After minutes of dancing around his intended topic of conversation with Alison, Forge felt a flush creeping up his neck and coughed. "So," he began cautiously, "with designing the cybernetic components to mimic Mr. al-Rashid's physical body precisely, and since you're his, um, yeah. I mean, you need to decide... no, that's not what I mean, well, it is, it's just..." Stammering, Forge suddenly wished he could hide behind a welding mask for this part.

"If I were, uh, designing the seats for the Blackbird, I'd want the pilot's input, because he'd be sitting in them. So I need input. Yours. Yes."

"Hmm?" Looking from the wireframe on the computer screen to Forge's obviously flustered expression, Alison made another, interrogative noise. "Well, you said you'd made adjustments already to compensate for some of the design flaws  in his spine in regards to age and growth and learning curve, yes?" The analogy wasn't producing anything in terms of understanding other than the fact that perhaps Forge wanted to redesign Haroun's butt to better fit the 'Bird's piloting seats, and somehow, Alison didn't think that was what Forge was trying to get at. "…use baby talk?"

Damn. Oblique references were hitting the brick wall. "Part of his recovery and resuming his life is going to be, well, getting the cybernetics to register with his neural system as being HIS body, not some machine bolted on. Hence the need to get... things... designed accurately. And ... okay, Mr. al-Rashid's a guy. A kind of uptight one, but a guy nonetheless, with a girlfriend, and..." Forge's voice trailed off as he felt his face beginning to rival Cyclops' optic blasts in crimson intensity.

"Gee, he's not that uptight, trust me." Alison couldn't help but snicker slightly at that, which was a mean and horrible thing to do to Forge, who was past bright crimson and all the way to nuclear type red glow. And then part of what Forge had been trying to say slowly started to percolate it's way through and Alison stared at him, amusement fading to make room for astonishment. "Whaaa…"

He couldn't possibly be trying to say what she thought he was trying to say.

No way.

"…you have got to be kidding me."

~*~

Late evening. An old family friend drives up to the Mansion, late at night, to deliver news to Alison regarding her father.

Being called down (or rather up, from the Medlab) at this hour was unusual to say the least. The name was one she knew though, and Alison couldn't help but wonder what Steve Hutchinson would be doing here of all places.

Her father's solicitor was an old family friend, though, one who had sometimes given her news while she was touring, as to how her relatives were doing. But it had been years since she'd spoken to him - two, actually, to be precise. Ever since she'd moved to the mansion.

Stepping into the waiting room, Alison tried to dispel the faint sense of worry. There would have been any number of ways to speak to her that didn't require for him to drive down so late in the evening, to say the least. But really, that didn't mean anything, did it?

"Alison…"  Looking up slowly, the older man gave her a sorrowful look, tiredness etched in every line of his face. "There's something I need to tell you."

"I'm so sorry."

"I'm so very sorry..."