Gamma Emission:
Pair Production (pt 1)
Explaining my relationship with Terrence to Julie took far longer than I first thought. While I left the explicit details unsaid Julie was more than happy with
tales of the fumbling romance Terrence and I had. By the time we finished talking, Dr. Shaw had long since left the hospital for the night. But I was able to
swing by the following morning.
----
Nursing my third cup of coffee, I nodded to the staff at the hospital reception desk as I walked past. The woman behind the counter barely spared me a glance
before returning her attention to the phone she was on. I'm not sure if recognized me as a former coworker, or if she didn't care about someone who
looked like they knew where they were going. In either case I was glad to avoid the potential bureaucratic quagmire that masquerades as 'checking in'.
My journey to the radiology department was comforting in it's familiarity, leaving me free to worry about the impending talk with Dr. Shaw. I let out a
small sigh of relief as I approached his office and noticed the door was open. I wouldn't be stuck in the hallway, ruminating on everything that went wrong
yesterday. Rapping my knuckles on the doorframe to Dr. Shaw's office I gave a cheery "Morning." to the rooms sole occupant.
Dr. Shaw looked up from the paperwork that littered his desk and, for a brief moment, appeared surprised by my presence. He was quick to school his features,
"Come in, come in." he said as he waved to one of the chairs in front of his desk. I closed the door behind my and took the offered seat. Dr.
Shaw's office fairly typical, the small room was dominated large desk with keyboard and monitor. The wall behind him was nothing but shelves; holding his
certificates, awards, a wide swath of books and journals, and a few technological devices who's purpose I could never figure out. There were two
comfortable chairs for guests to sit in, slightly smaller than Dr. Shaw's. The only other things in the room were a pleasant fractal painting on one wall
and a filing cabinet in the back corner.
"I wasn't expecting to see you quite so soon." Dr. Shaw commented as he quickly cleared his desk of the files he was looking at before I arrived.
"Given your state when you left Terra Volta yesterday, I figured you would be in one of the observation rooms." I managed to squash the impulse to
frown at his mention of the observation rooms. I had spent far too much time there as it was.
"I didn't need to spend the night here. I was just tired." I said, keeping my voice even. "The testing took more out of than I first
thought. Nothing that sleep and coffee won't fix." I took another sip of coffee before saying anything else. I was supposed to be apologizing to him,
not biting his head off for showing some concern.
"Ahh yes, the testing." He seemed as eager as I was to move the conversation back onto safe ground. "I think we can definitely classify it as a
success. You were able to achieve homeostasis with large external source of radiation at levels far above what we expected. You even managed to burn out a few
of Julie's more fragile sensors. We'll have to come up with a better system of communication though, the headset wasn't built to withstand those
levels of exposure." His voice hadn't changed one bit from the pleasant upbeat tone he started with, but the I got the message loud and clear anyway.
He knew the headset was working fine, it was my ability to focus under those levels of exposure that was lacking. And he was willing to leave that out of the
report that would be filled with Hero Corps as long as we tried again. I expected that the 'again' would continue until I could recite the radioactive
decay tables for Uranium while standing next to the reactor.
"Sure," I squeaked out a few seconds later. "I'm sure Julie would appreciate the chance to recalibrate her sensors and gather some more
data."
His smile widened as he leaned back in his chair. "I'm glad we could come to an understanding."
Oh yeah, that was going to be fun. And on that note, it was time to swallow a bit more pride. "Sorry about being so terse yesterday. If we are going to
repeat this, I would appreciate any thoughts you might have on the data collected so far." Yup, that tasted just about as bitter as my coffee.
He quickly brushed asside my apologies with a flustered gesture, "Don't worry, no harm done. The whole thing was sprung on you without much
warning." He typed at the keyboard for a second before turning the monitor so we could both see the graphs it displayed. "As you can see this shows
your alpha particle production per second versus the distance from the reactor core. Now the interesting thing is -" I found myself nodding and
'hmm'-ing as I desperately tried to keep up with the torrent of information he was putting out.
----
I walked out of his office close to an hour later, not sure if I understood what had happened any more that I did before. But at least I had a copy of all the
data gathered on dvd. Julie would be able to massage the numbers into something understandable. But before that happened I needed to track down Marcus
O'Riley on floor three. He was, according to Julie, one of the mages working in the applied materials division; enchanting scalpels, poultices, and the
like. He was my best bet at getting a set of sheets that solved my problem without taking out a loan. The only problem was what he would want in exchange,
something too rare and I might be better off heading down to MAGI.
****
Yeay, rejoice, more shortfic. The next bit (to be up sometime monday) should be significantly more humorous. I just have to lay down the groundwork first.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
Pair Production (pt 1)
Explaining my relationship with Terrence to Julie took far longer than I first thought. While I left the explicit details unsaid Julie was more than happy with
tales of the fumbling romance Terrence and I had. By the time we finished talking, Dr. Shaw had long since left the hospital for the night. But I was able to
swing by the following morning.
----
Nursing my third cup of coffee, I nodded to the staff at the hospital reception desk as I walked past. The woman behind the counter barely spared me a glance
before returning her attention to the phone she was on. I'm not sure if recognized me as a former coworker, or if she didn't care about someone who
looked like they knew where they were going. In either case I was glad to avoid the potential bureaucratic quagmire that masquerades as 'checking in'.
My journey to the radiology department was comforting in it's familiarity, leaving me free to worry about the impending talk with Dr. Shaw. I let out a
small sigh of relief as I approached his office and noticed the door was open. I wouldn't be stuck in the hallway, ruminating on everything that went wrong
yesterday. Rapping my knuckles on the doorframe to Dr. Shaw's office I gave a cheery "Morning." to the rooms sole occupant.
Dr. Shaw looked up from the paperwork that littered his desk and, for a brief moment, appeared surprised by my presence. He was quick to school his features,
"Come in, come in." he said as he waved to one of the chairs in front of his desk. I closed the door behind my and took the offered seat. Dr.
Shaw's office fairly typical, the small room was dominated large desk with keyboard and monitor. The wall behind him was nothing but shelves; holding his
certificates, awards, a wide swath of books and journals, and a few technological devices who's purpose I could never figure out. There were two
comfortable chairs for guests to sit in, slightly smaller than Dr. Shaw's. The only other things in the room were a pleasant fractal painting on one wall
and a filing cabinet in the back corner.
"I wasn't expecting to see you quite so soon." Dr. Shaw commented as he quickly cleared his desk of the files he was looking at before I arrived.
"Given your state when you left Terra Volta yesterday, I figured you would be in one of the observation rooms." I managed to squash the impulse to
frown at his mention of the observation rooms. I had spent far too much time there as it was.
"I didn't need to spend the night here. I was just tired." I said, keeping my voice even. "The testing took more out of than I first
thought. Nothing that sleep and coffee won't fix." I took another sip of coffee before saying anything else. I was supposed to be apologizing to him,
not biting his head off for showing some concern.
"Ahh yes, the testing." He seemed as eager as I was to move the conversation back onto safe ground. "I think we can definitely classify it as a
success. You were able to achieve homeostasis with large external source of radiation at levels far above what we expected. You even managed to burn out a few
of Julie's more fragile sensors. We'll have to come up with a better system of communication though, the headset wasn't built to withstand those
levels of exposure." His voice hadn't changed one bit from the pleasant upbeat tone he started with, but the I got the message loud and clear anyway.
He knew the headset was working fine, it was my ability to focus under those levels of exposure that was lacking. And he was willing to leave that out of the
report that would be filled with Hero Corps as long as we tried again. I expected that the 'again' would continue until I could recite the radioactive
decay tables for Uranium while standing next to the reactor.
"Sure," I squeaked out a few seconds later. "I'm sure Julie would appreciate the chance to recalibrate her sensors and gather some more
data."
His smile widened as he leaned back in his chair. "I'm glad we could come to an understanding."
Oh yeah, that was going to be fun. And on that note, it was time to swallow a bit more pride. "Sorry about being so terse yesterday. If we are going to
repeat this, I would appreciate any thoughts you might have on the data collected so far." Yup, that tasted just about as bitter as my coffee.
He quickly brushed asside my apologies with a flustered gesture, "Don't worry, no harm done. The whole thing was sprung on you without much
warning." He typed at the keyboard for a second before turning the monitor so we could both see the graphs it displayed. "As you can see this shows
your alpha particle production per second versus the distance from the reactor core. Now the interesting thing is -" I found myself nodding and
'hmm'-ing as I desperately tried to keep up with the torrent of information he was putting out.
----
I walked out of his office close to an hour later, not sure if I understood what had happened any more that I did before. But at least I had a copy of all the
data gathered on dvd. Julie would be able to massage the numbers into something understandable. But before that happened I needed to track down Marcus
O'Riley on floor three. He was, according to Julie, one of the mages working in the applied materials division; enchanting scalpels, poultices, and the
like. He was my best bet at getting a set of sheets that solved my problem without taking out a loan. The only problem was what he would want in exchange,
something too rare and I might be better off heading down to MAGI.
****
Yeay, rejoice, more shortfic. The next bit (to be up sometime monday) should be significantly more humorous. I just have to lay down the groundwork first.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy