xp_logs | Hank & Garrison: Junk Food Delivery

When a pallet of supplies, including several boxes of Hostess products, arrives for Hank, Garrison Kane is kind enough to hand deliver it to the doctor's laboratory.

"Doctor McCoy!" Kane hammered on the lab door with his right hand, using the left to balance a flat filled with boxes, all plastic wrapped together for shipping. The poor student who'd opened the door had looked at the delivery in disbelief before Garrison sent him back to the dorms and hefted it up to take down to the basement. A normal person would have needed a forklift to moved the pile, but oddly, it said less about his strength as it did about the recipient's isolation. "Your Amazon order is here."

Within the lab, Hank was busy examining the effect his latest strain of nanites were having on red blood cells under the dim, but piercing, light of a microscope. It took a moment to realize that someone was pounding on the lab door, which he sealed anytime he was working with the tiny robots. Stretching his back as he stood upright, the blue-furred doctor realized that he was starting to age and after seeing what his father had gone through, it wouldn't be long before he started to see grey fur.

Shocking the lab experiment with a micro-pulse emitter, the doctor made his way to the lab door and entered the override code to let whoever was making the racket inside. He smiled a toothy grin as he saw Kane standing beyond the pallet's worth of boxes, "Ah, Garrison, you didn't have to bring this down to me, thank you."

"It was either me or Piotr, and I was closer to the door." Garrison said, with an easy shrug. "You want these inside the lab?"

Hank glanced behind himself at the mess that his workspace had become. Moving quickly, with feline grace, he cleared a counter-top for Kane to set his latest shipment on. "Over here would be fine, Garrison. May I offer you anything in the way of refreshments for your efforts? My selection is limited mostly to flavored coffees and teas, but I believe Laurie keeps a stash of soda-pop around here somewhere...probably in one of my cold storage units." The doctor chuckled as he searched through his touch screen tablet for the shipping order he'd placed two days before to check it against the packages.

"I'm fine." Kane set the pallet down carefully, not wanting to jiggle any of the boxes, despite the plastic wrapping. He was about to excuse himself when he noticed the packaging on one of the boxes; Twinnings. And then another; Hostess. Tapping it with one finger, he leaned around the pile. "Hey Doc, not trying to be nosy or anything, but did you order more tea and... well, snack cakes along with everything else from Amazon?"

Hank's grin turned from warm to sheepish in an instant, "Well it would seem someone has at last stumbled across the great secret to how Doctor Henry McCoy is able to manage so many late nights in the lab." He tapped the screen in his large hands and dropped it back into the front pocket of his over-sized labcoat before starting to undo the plastic. "They're not just for me, of course, I'm working on a way to use basic sugars as natural constructors for surgical nano-bots. It's a way's off from working though, so I'm afraid I'll need to eat all the Zebra Cakes and Twinkees before they, er, spoil."

"Yeah, and I've got a natural deficiency in my blood that requires me to drink beer to keep myself healthy." Kane traded a grin with him. "The question is, why order this stuff off Amazon when you could just buy it at the grocery store that's, what, a five minute drive from here, eh? When's the last time you got out of this place?"

Thinking for a moment, Hank pulled the touch pad from his coat and pulled up the calendar. "I suppose I've been down here or in meetings, when not sleeping or eating with everyone else of course, since I got back from Edinburgh a couple weeks ago. It was a short visit home too." Running a hand through the top of his mane, the doctor sighed, "It takes time away from my research to go into town though and I'm afraid that what Laurie and I have been working on down here has the opportunity to change the world- so, I'm afraid my social life has been... sacrificed, if you'll pardon the term, on the alter of science." Then a bit more dryly and with a bit more of that boyish smile that endeared the older man to those in his presence, "Tell me, how is the world outside my little cave? Is Obama still president? Does the sun still shine?"

"We were conquered by the Japanese last week. The trains run on time now, but Karaoke is required for all job interviews." The Canadian shook his head, switching a disapproving look between the packages and the other man. "You can't stay down here all the time, Doc. You know as well as I do that no one is at the top of the game with nothing but forced isolation and focus all the time. The mind needs outside stimulis to help keep cognitive processes away from getting stagnant and trapped along specific lines. You know, I have the same degree that you apparently got when you were twelve, so you know what I'm talking about."

With a chuckle, Hank waved a dismissive hand, "All work and no play makes Hank a dull beast, eh? Indeed you would be correct- though my circle of drinking buddies has somewhat diminished as of late as many have either moved away or in the cases of most, matured to a point where the imbibing of libations is a limited function."

"You don't need a bender to get out." Kane thumbed a gesture at the door. "C'mon, Blue, let's get out of here for a couple of hours. At least. I know a place that has a secluded patio and the Rangers in on the television. It's not Harry's, and they serve all those fruity drinks with a whole pineapple on it as decoration."

Hank checked his wrist watch, "Well Mister Garison Kane, you've twisted my arm- how could I say no. I just need to reseal the canisters my nano-bots are in and then we'll be on our way...I think inventory will wait a few hours for me."

"Yeah, make sure those things are sealed. I don't want to come back to the entire mansion plugged into the net, calculating Pi all day, blaming us for what happened."