Jamie and Moira, Thursday evening

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In which Moira really is a genius and Jamie's powers finally get explained.



Moira, hair pulled back into a messy bun that appeared to be eating three pens, flipped through Jamie's MedFile again.  Just to be sure. They had yet to come up with a good, solid scientific explanation for the boy's powers.  She wanted to be sure she wasn't just jumping the gun.

But, on the other hand, she had spent all of her nonemergancy time reading and analyzing and thinking about the duping process.  She'd also gone over the test results, old and new, and thought that she knew what was what now.

Jamie himself poked his head into Moira's office a few minutes later, looking intensely curious.  "Hey, Doc.  Whatcha got?  Laws of thermodynamics finally catch up with me?"

Smiling, she pointed at one of the comfy chairs--sorely in need of repair work but still comfortable.  "Nay but 'enry owes me dinner.  Or somethin'.  Wasnae 'e promisin' gifts ta th' person who worked out 'ow yer powers worked?"  Moira watched as Jamie's look intensified and the smile grew into a grin.

"Instant A in his physics class, I think it was.  You can probably get that to translate to din--how?"  Jamie perched in a chair, craning his neck to try and get a look at the files on her desk.  "Nobody could figure me out.  I was starting to think there wasn't an explanation. How'd you work it out?  How sure are you that you're right?  Where am I getting all this extra mass?"  Okay, so Kitty was definitely rubbing off on him.

"Easy, Jamie.  Th' explanation isnay goin' anywhere, I promise." Gathering all of the paperwork into one neat, or something very similar to neat, stack, Moira settled herself on the couch. "'ow...well, let's jus' say tha' after wha' 'appened wit' ye, I pulled all th' information on ye tha' we 'ad.  Includin' th' data from th' tests I ran last time.  As for bein' sure..."  She shrugged.  "Well, I lost two night's o' sleep on this, so I'm pretty damn sure this is th' closest we can come ta a REAL explanation.  Some mutant powers do defy scientific reasonin', we use wha' we can in those cases."

"Solve the mansion's insomnia problem, that's the thing that defies scientific reasoning."  Jamie grinned.  "Okay, so you have a huge file on me from my various tours of the machines that go ping.  What'd you find?"

"I'm a genuis, nay God."  Clearing her throat, she flipped open several files.  "Let's start from th' ground up, shall we?  We're all made o' matter, down ta an atomic level."  Moira glanced up at him. "Ye jus' 'appen ta be made of ectoplasm.  Under anythin' but an electron microscope--which I actually used this time--looks jus' like normal matter."

"You're kidding me," Jamie blurted out.  "I'm Slimer?  Doug's never gonna let me live this down."

She bit back a laugh at that one.  "Well...let me put it this way. Yer powers are nay matter-based.  They are, actually, psionic in nature.  Yer pullin' matter pretty much, I think, from another plane--possibly th' astral plane tha' th' telepat's talk 'bout.  Yer makin' matter out o' nothin', or so it seems but in reality yer simply transferrin' it from another plane."

"Huh."  Jamie looked incredulously at his hand.  "Ectoplasm.  Who'd'a thunk."  His head jerked up abruptly. "Wait, are you saying I'm made of ectoplasm right now?  Not just the dupes?"

The reaction was expected, really.  Reaching over, she placed a calming hand on his shoulder.  "Pretty much but like I said, it acts like normal matter down ta th' atomic level.  Meanin' ye literally cannae tell th' difference."  Moira looked chagrined.  "We dinnae until this weekend.  Everythin' looks an' acts normally."

"So I can, um, I could still . . . have kids?  Not right away," he added hastily.  "Obviously.  Just, you know, later on, it's not going to matter?"

If she looked startled by the question at all, she didn't let it show. "Like I said, it acts like regular matter all th' way down ta beyond th' atomic level.  So 'tis safe ta say tha' ye can probably 'ave children when th' time comes."  Reaching forward, she grabbed the papers and flipped through.  "Give me a second, Jamie, jus' need ta see wha' else..."

"No hurry, long as I'm not about to go poof into thin air or develop a yen for rattling chains in the attic all night."  Jamie blinked, then took a closer look at Moira.  "Only, I'm not the one who looks like a ghost around here.  You doing all right there, Doc?  We can pick this up again later . . ."

Waving him off, she grimaced.  "Nay because I'll fall asleep on th' couch if we do.  Wha' yer made o' actually explains a lot 'bout 'ow yer powers work.  Without ye controllin' somethin', they decay. Inanimate objects, clothes for example.  An' I've 'eard 'bout yer trick wit' th' tuna sandwiches--I really would avoid doin' tha', lad. Yer dupes take a wee while longer but they'll eventually fall apart as well without tha' link from ye."

"I don't do it that often," Jamie mock-grumbled.  "Trust me, Doc, I'm really not fond of the dire rear.  That does make sense, though." He gave her the hairy eyeball again.  "And maybe you should go fall asleep.  Tired brain doesn't solve as many problems and Jono isn't . . . going . . . any . . ."  Jamie blinked.  "Wait a second, didn't you say I was getting this stuff off the astral plane?  Do you think I could help him somehow?"

The look on Moira's face was priceless.  "Oh my Lord.  I 'adnae even THOUGHT 'bout tha'."  Taking a second, she caressed the link, carefully since Nathan was still recovering.  "Ye may want ta talk ta Nathan 'bout tha', or Charles but 'e's rather busy right now. But...it cannae 'urt, at all."

"Well, I'll definitely track him down.  I dunno what I could really do, but . . . anything's worth a shot, right?"  He grinned.  "And hell, the band really sucks without a lead guitar.  Any more astounding revelations you wanna toss my way while I'm down here?"

"Any help at all would be a God send right now."  Scanning the papers, she thought quickly.  "Ye brin' th' dupes from th' astral plane like we thought--kinetic energy.  Good job 'ow far ye've come from when simple pressure did th' trick."  Moira glanced at him, pleased with his progress on that.  "Pretty much, ye 'ave two powers.  Creatin' th' dupe an' then duplicate an' transfer engram patterns.  Wit' a limitation, ye can only transfer inta identical created bodies."

Some of this was sounding an awful lot like something another student of hers did.  She filed that away for the time being.  "An' I think tha's it."

"Well, I'll miss being an unexplainable scientific anomaly, but hey, Doc, awesome job.  Ectoplasm."  Jamie shook his head, grinning.  "That's wacky."

Moira grinned back.  "I'm sure ye'll find another way o' breakin' poor 'enry's brain some other way.  I 'ave fait' in ye."