Reed and Sue -- Kablooey!

[xp-fantastic.livejournal.com]

It was an odd day in the laboratory all around. For once, there was only Sue and himself in the lab. Normally, there would be interns, or lab assistants, or someone going in and out, but there was a mandatory staff meeting and he had (naturally) volunteered himself as the one who 'stayed behind' and 'missed out on free coffee and muffins'. He was actually a little disappointed by the last one.

Sue, by virtue of being the boss' daughter, somehow didn't have to go to the staff meeting. Fine by him. Ever since the night of their 'sleep over', he had felt that they were definitely becoming friends. Reed had very few friends -- in fact, he could probably count on one hand all the friends that he had. Or maybe a few fingers. Regardless. It was nice to know he had one more.

Working on this power core was tedious, but interesting work. So many unstable chemicals, and a few reactions that were essentially unpredictable made for an exciting experiment. "Sue, can you hand me the HCl please? And quickly?"

Hydro-chloric acid, not there, not there, that was a base, that was something...pink, that was her vitamin water and that was a flask labelled HCl, "There you go," it had been forever since she had played with chemicals, the thought eyeing the potassium idly. "I wonder if I could set another fume cupboard on fire," the blonde mused to herself outloud.

Reed didn't look up from his work, grabbing a pipette and carefully titratting the solution. "Another one?" He looked at his mixture and picked up his clipboard, jotting down a few observations. The reaction wasn't working the way it was supposed to, and it was starting to frustrate him. "Should I ask or let that one be?"

"Are you saying you never ever set a fume cupboard on fire?" the blonde challenged, "That you've never been curious about if you could do it, or what patterns you could get out of the flames or if you could create a miniature pyrotechnics display to distract your brother while you stole his chocolate?"

Reed looked up, his brow furrowed. "No."‎ Sometimes he felt that his experiences were so far from Sue's that they may as well be living on two different planets. Turning his attention back to his experiment, he frowned. "This should be reacting by now.... and it's not." Scribbling furiously, he went over his calculations and mumbled to himself,as one hand lightly touched the flask. "There's no thermo reaction. Why?" And then he suddenly realized what he'd done wrong-- he tapped the flask with his finger and he was reminded that he hadn't even stirred the mixture. "Sue....," he said warily, "I think we need to move.....now...."

"Hmmm," the blonde looked up a quip dying on her lips as she saw the ashen look on Reed's face, "What's wrong?" The blonde was on instant guard as she backed away from the table her eye's searching the table for any signs of danger."

Before Reed could say anything, the mixture finally proved its volatility and began to vibrate. ‎The kinetic energy from his tapping had been a strong enough catalyst to start everything going. Doing quick math in his head, he had approximately 5 seconds before the imminent explosion.
Launching himself at Sue, he spread out his arms and chest over her, essentially creating a shield‎ between her and the explosion. He'd never tested out this part of his powers, but logic dictated that he should be able to withstand the reaction.

As usual,he was correct-- too bad he hadn't accounted for his clothing or hair.‎ The explosion had rocked the lab, destroying several pieces of equipment,along with his lab coat and pants but he was ultimately fine. Still stretched out, he peeked inside the Reed bubble at Sue. "Are you okay? Please don't tell anyone about this..

Sue just stared at him, for once a blank look on her face as she blinked owlishly, "I'm...fine," she allowed shaking her head to shack of the lethargy which was clouding her thoughts, "You're a mutant? Of course you're a mutant, sorry." And he'd just managed to save her life...well the blonde released the forcefield she'd started to form, he'd thought he had at least. Mind letting me out of...you?"

"Oh!". He immediately retracted his limbs and tried to fix the shreds of his clothes. Alarms were blaring and it wouldn't do for anyone to see his powers. "Sorry. I'm sorry. For everything. I don't know what happened...I just... I reacted. I didn't want you hurt." A pause. "I should probably resign now."

Sue blinked and tilted her head to the side? "Why would you do that?" she queried, "I'm pretty sure you just saved my life, that's not really the kind of thing I ask people to leave for. Mostly I'd give them a promotion, or you know something nice not a pink slip. How do you feel about statues and plaques?"

Even though the lab was starting to fill with emergency personnel, ‎ Reed stared at Sue like she was crazy. "But you know what I am. If word gets out, this company will not be very popular."

"Reed, we're weapons manufacturers," Sue pointed out waving off the emergency personnel, "We do develop other tech but still our biggest contracts come from supplying the military. We're not in this to be popular with anyone, although now you mention it," the blonde looked around at the lab's security camera then grabbed the older man's hand and dragged him out of the room. "You can keep watch."

"Watch?". Now he was even more confused.

You know, be on watch, stand guard, keep an eye on things," Sue gave him a pointed look as she dragged him through the halls, "please tell me you at least got upto some mischief when you were a kid."

He shook his head. "No. Why would I do that?," he asked as she pushed him out of the room. Now,he was outside in the hallway, brushing off people's concerns,‎and refusing any medical treatment. Reed hoped Sue knew what she was doing.

"Why wouldn't you?" Sue stopped to give Reed an amazed look, "Kid's are supposed to push their boundaries and do mischievous things. It's one of the main benefits of of being a kid, or you know young." The young woman started dragging him towards a nearby office, "Seriously after this I'm taking you out on the town or something."

"I am still very much confused as to what we're doing right now," Reed repeated. The office was a regular office, nothing fancy. He had no idea why they were there. "But since you seem to have a plan, I'm following your lead."

"That's always a good plan," Sue agreed off-handedly as she settled down behind the computer and flicked it on, her fingers flying across the keyboard as she sorted through menu after menu. "Warn me if someone's coming, I don't want anyone to see us in here."

Reed simply nodded and he crossed his arms near the door, peeking out occasionally. This seemed like very inappropriate, since they should be in that laboratory, debriefing the safety personnel, filling out incident reports, being accountable for what happened in that lab. A few times Reed felt like speaking up, but Sue seemed so concentrated on her task, he didn't think it was right to interrupt her. After all, he was with the boss's daughter...how much trouble could he get into?

"Are you almost done? It looks like they're looking for us..."

"Almost there," Sue made a few more taps on the computer before leaning back in satisfaction, "and done. That should take care of the camera records for the lab," she noted before looking at Reed. "But I think maybe you and I need to talk about what just happened."

So that's what she was doing.... He should have guessed but his mind was still spinning. "about what,' he asked, playing dumb. Maybe she'd take the hint. He'd never shared his secret before, more because it wasn't something he found important but to have it exposed in such an obvious way....

"You saving my life back there," Sue motioned back towards the lab, "I think that's more than enough to be talking about...although maybe not here."


"And not there either," Reed pointed out. The lab, while slowly emptying, was still busy with people trying to clean it up. "Can we meet in a little while? Let me get dressed and then I promise, I'll tell you whatever you want to know."

Sue pursed her lips in thought then nodded, "My apartment," or what's left of it anyway, "in an hour." The blonde pulled out her phone as she made for the door, already texting the address to Reed, "That whole burnt up clothes and singed look really doesn't work for you. You're gonna be ok? Or can I get you something from...you're living out of the company apartment across the road aren't you?"

Reed nodded, answering all her questions with that. An hour would be enough time for him to figure things out. 'Alright, I'll see you then."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

He almost didn't go to her apartment. Reed went back to the little apartment that he shared with a few other workers and rebuffed all their concerns, locking himself in his room immediately. He then proceeded to pack all his things with a military efficiency. Everything that wasn't important was getting thrown in the garbage, his ID would have to change, his personal belongings would be mailed anonymously to his parents....Once this was completed, he packed his car and sat in the driver's seat for fifteen minutes, staring out into traffic as he tried to process what he would do next.

And all he kept thinking was he wanted to see Sue one more time. Slapping his palms on the wheel out of frustration, he took a deep breath and went to Sue's.

There, at the door, he hesitated again before finally ringing the buzzer.

A familiar blonde pulled open the door and smiled, "Hey, I was starting to worry you weren't gonna show up. Come on in, I picked up a pizza on the way over" Sue gestured to the apartment as she stepped back from the door, "You'll have to excuse the mess though," Sue had had the majority of the damage cleared up but there were still char marks clearly visible on the floor. "In this case it totally wasn't my fault, this is why you should never have people over." Sue shrugged and sat down on one of the crates she'd pulled in to be used as seats. "The decorators ripped out well pretty much everything here so this may be the one place I know that no-one can watch us."

This wasn't how he expected his first time at her place to be like. There had obviously been some serious damage, but he wasn't going to ask. "That's fine," was all he replied with, stepping inside. "I don't know if I have much time. I should probably get on the road soon. I don't particularly like driving at night."

"Driving, where..." Sue cut herself off and gave Reed a long look before nodding to the other crate, "There's at least time to have a bite to eat before you leave," she noted. "So, where are you headed to in such a rush then?"

"away," was all he answered as he reluctantly took a seat. Fiddling with the edge of the crate, he finally had enough. "Look. I'm a mutant. And other than looking at it as a curious scientific matter, I'd just as much like to carry on with my life, my genetics notwithstanding. I don't think I can do that now that you know" Reed stood up suddenly. " I should leave."

Sue stood up slowly, her eyes cold as ice as she surveyed Reed, "You really think so little of me that I would let something like that affect anything? If you remember, I deleted the camera log in the laboratory so that no-one could see what happened in there. Being a mutant is scary, the thought that someone could find out and ruin the rest of your life is frankly terrifying, but," an invisible forcefield sprang up infront of Reed preventing his moving, "you're not the only person who has secrets to hide that they don't want the rest of the world to find out."

Reed was about to get up and protest, but he found himself stuck to his spot. Curious, he put a hand out and encountered...something. Carefully stretching his body out, he realized that he was in some sort of a forcefield, or a bubble, and clearly, it wasn't something he made. "You're one too," he said, almost clinically. "Fascinating. Did you create this, or did you have to alter soundwaves for this? I mean, is the principle generally the same as a stealth technology?"

"It's a creation," Sue replied as she crossed her arms slightly mollified as the topic shifted, she hadn't forgotten about Reed's earlier statements, but she had been thinking about her powers for a while and would appreciate getting an outside view of the scientific basis behind them. "I think it's something to do with my body's bioelectric field, but the forcefield's obstructionary properties extend from the physical right through the electromagnetic spectrum. I can bend light around it, or even use it to disperse heat, although that becomes discomforting after a while. I've tried adapting it to stealth technology, but I can't seem to find a way to replicate the effect, and to be honest I enjoy the fact that no-one can see me. Might be counter productive to find a way to beat my own forcefields. Any you? some kind of cellular manipulation?"

"I would think that if you were able to harness vibrations, you'd be able to bend around certain frequencies," he mumbled, still trying to figure it out. It took him several minutes of thinking before he realized she had asked him a question. "Hm? Cellular manipulation?" Reed shrugged. "I like to think of it more as cellular plasticity. My body is simply capable of elasticity, without my input." He sat up a bit straighter and cleared his throat. "Watch."

It took a few minutes of him sitting perfectly still to notice the change, but slowly, his face and his body drooped downwards, at an almost imperceptible rate. Once it got to a point where he thought she could see it, he straightened up and his features bounced back into shape. "If I don't focus, I lose control of my body. It's a constant juggling act."

"So all this time, since I've known you you've been focusing on keeping in control from doing that," she gestured at him, "aside from how cool it is, what happens when you get distracted or focused on something else. For that matter what happens when you work, I've seen you in the lab, you get so focused, how do you keep control of yourself?" Now she knew what was going on in his head, Reed's focus and control was awe-inspiring.

Reed shrugged again. "I've been like this since I was 14. I've had plenty of time to acclimate myself to my powers, and to be honest, no one pays much attention to me anyways." This was not send in a self-deprecating way, but in a more matter-of-fact tone of voice. "At this point, it's second-nature. It is the reason I tend not to drink," he admitted. "Much harder to concentrate when my mental faculties are slightly distorted." Standing up suddenly, Reed bumped his head against Sue's forcefield. "Hm. I forgot that was there," he mumbled. "Can you release me please? I really do need to get back to the road. My parents don't live close by and it'll be a long drive. Why they decided to move to the mid-west is beyond me."

"It isn't so bad," Sue replied offhandedly, "the scenery is nice if you like the open fields and hills thing, and the people are pretty nice out there too. I'm more of a seaside girl myself, or city. I can't imagine spending too much time away from New York, or ever choosing to leave it." The blonde cocked her head and waved her hand at Reed dispelling the force field with a sigh. "If you really want to go then it's not like I can stop you, can ? I've deleted the footage from the camera's so you don't have to worry about anyone tracking down your secret that way and I'll make excuses for you." Sue gestured at the door and gave Reed a wry smile. "It's your standard red pill, blue pill type scenario. You can head out to the mid-west or you can stay here and I can introduce you to some friends of mine who can help. It would be nice to not be the only mutant at work, have someone to talk to."

Reed perked up, literally and figuratively. He actually understood a reference that Sue had made. "The Matrix! I understand that," he said excitedly. "Blue pill, red pill.....human batteries..which would actually be theoretically plausible, if we could find a way to continuously sustain someone; however, as evidenced by the movie, humans are in no way a reliable source of energy, considering the sheer amount of resources that would need to be invested for what would really be a paltry return."

"Nuclear would be a better short term power source for the machines," Sue agreed, although in a world where they had supplanted us I'd place my money on hydro-electric generation surpassing anything else. It's not like they need the beach view that we do. In fact getting away from the salt air would probably be better for them. And they'd be localized to maximise efficiency so they could cover well teh entire earth's surface with solar panels if they wanted and cap the volcanos." The young woman gave Reed a level look, "It is bad that I can't see how skynet taking over would be a bad thing right now?"

Several hours later, a few pizzas, and a couple of bottles of water had been consumed, and Sue and Reed had tentatively plotted out how to create an AI system that didn't evolve into killing humans. In fact, as Reed leaned back into the sofa, his fingers stained with ink, he felt a certain sense of companionship....something he really couldn't recall feeling before. The topic of him leaving hadn't been brought up again, and frankly, it really wasn't something he wanted to do in the first place. He was scared though. Clearing his throat, he put the papers aside.

"So. Tell me about your friends again."