xp_logs | Reed and Nica -- Powers Talk

Another day, another after-school session with Hank in the labs, working on her powers. Nica let herself drop through the various levels until she reached the one she wanted, floating through the ceiling and down to the floor, where she solidified. The problem was, she'd missed Hank's lab by a smidge, and instead found herself in the other science-guy's domain. The less-nice one. "Oops."

Reed lifted his head briefly before returning to his diagram. Another teenager. It was probably the only down side to being in the Mansion. Adults, he could tolerate. Small adults on the other hand were tedious, time consuming and above all, mostly ignorant. It was hard enough for him to have a conversation with his peer group but an adolescent? Sighing heavily, he turned to her and gave her a pointed look. "Yes?"

"Sorry, I was looking for Hank, but it looks like I missed my aim," Nica replied, apologetically. "This power of mine doesn't come with a GPS. Sorry I bothered you." She made ready to leave the way she'd come, concentrating and letting her body become light.

"No, you're right," he said with a nod. "Correct space, simply the erroneous time. We share a lab space."

"Oh, I hadn't realised that." Nica paused in her exit. "Monica Rambeau. Hank's been helping with this whole "turning into light" thing."

"If your entire power is turning into light, you wouldn't be making comments about your 'gps'. There must be more to it if you're able to gage distances as well."

"That was just a joke. I don't really have one, I just have to remember and gauge where things might be." Nica was starting to realise Reed didn't speak 'humour' at all. "I absorb light and turn into light wavelengths, that's all. It's how I do the whole ghost thing."

Returning his attention to his diagram, he frowned and scribbled a few things down. "Well then, if you go through things, then you're not turning into light wavelengths. I understand that most of us defy regular human biology, but physics is still a constant. There must be more absorption on the electro-magnetic spectrum than you're aware of."

"There must? How come?" Despite herself, Nica was curious and she powered down. "I mean, I know there's a thing called the EM spectrum, but I'm more of a politics and history major than physics."

"History major. Then you should know about William Herschel, and his discovery of infrared radiation which essentially pioneered electromagnetic spectrum research." He turned to look at her. "The experiment with a prism." That should be enough information.

That was more scientific history than the sort Nica was studying, but the word 'prism' was enough to clue her in. Or at least pretend she understood all of it. She nodded. "So if I'm not just absorbing visible light, what am I using when I ghost through things?" she asked.

Reed gave an exasperated sigh. "The same thing a medical professional would use to see through things: x-rays. This,” he gave her a pointed look, “is also on the electromagnetic spectrum, albeit a more dangerous spot due to the radiation." He paused. "I wonder if that means you're radioactive when you become translucent."

Nica's eyes widened. "Radioactive? Crap, I hope not! I'd hate to be irradiating everyone around me when I'm training!" She gave Reed a beseeching look. "Is there some way you could find out? If it's x-rays?"

Now that was an interesting concept. "Yes. We could. It wouldn't be hard to build a large-scale mass spectrometer and simply read your results as you phased into your other state.... yes, I think that could work. We have the faraday cage that we could convert, and maybe...if we tweak the coils..." His mind had started racing, faster than his mouth could process. Bouncing around the lab, he grabbed various things, mumbling to himself the entire time. In fact, it wasn't long until he'd completely forgotten 'Nica was even there.

"I'll just wait here then, shall I?" she asked, finding a stool to sit on to watch while he worked. There was something kind of fascinating in how focused he was.

Tools flying, Reed went from one corner of the lab to the next, making all sorts of strange tweaks and adjustments that only his brain could comprehend. In less time than he thought (but still longer than he'd liked), he had what he felt was a human sized spectrometer. For the first time since he started tinkering, he stopped and turned around. "Oh good, you're still here. I've already forgotten your name and I wasn't sure how to find you. Step inside."

Nica started. She'd actually gone into a slight doze watching all the tinkering. "Um, Monica. Nica," she replied, sliding off the stool. "What is this thing?" she asked as she cautiously stepped inside.

Reed gave her a dismissive look. "You'd need a doctorate to properly understand. What it'll do is measure your powers and determine what it is you actually do. It should work. I'm a genius, after all."

"As long as it doesn't turn me inside out," Nica muttered to herself. She closed the barrier and waited. "What do I do, o genius man?"

"Just stand." Reaching for his laptop, he hooked it and pushed a few buttons. After a silent moment, he nodded. "All done. Now it's a matter of the program, which will take a little bit of a while to process. I'll send you an email when it's done, or you can wait again."

"Okay." Nica came out of the spectrometer and stood, a little awkwardly. "Er, thanks? For helping me with all this?"

Staring at the data, he made a slight nod. "I'll have an answer before the end of the day." ‎