Dances with Wires [Kira/Petri]

March 1st, 2012
12:17 PM
R&D Loft
Irkutsk, Russia

The first sign that things weren't going quite as well as expected might have been the extraordinarily loud WHOMPTH that echoed throughout the building.  The noise, sudden and unexpected, sounded not unlike what one might imagine an elephant falling on top of an industrial refrigerator.  It was a concussive sound, a dry and sudden and unexpected sound.  But to Petri Ovaska, the sound was progress.  The problem, of course, was the dry gas mix.  There had to be enough force behind the grappling units that it could either hook or embed itself in whatever the target, but of course the power of the impact diminished rapidly the further they were shot and the drag of the lines they needed to carry made the situation even worse.  He knew all these because his girlfriend had taken the time to rather exhaustively explain the situation to him.  Well, no.  Not just exhaustively explain the situation to him.  She'd drawn diagrams, waved her hands around madly, shouted and at one point (inexplicably) thrown something very sharp in his general direction.  (To explain an important detail of course, she wouldn't ever want to hurt him!)

And he'd listened intently the whole time.  First, because it was absolutely crucial to their extremely interesting work.  And second?  Well, because it was her.  He'd never, ever say it out loud, but honestly he was content just to listen to her talk even if she was rattling off ideas and facts he could scarcely wrap his head around.  Which wasn't to say he was any slouch in the intellectual department.  He was a brilliant chemist in his own right (even if he had more fun applying his skills to blowing things up than to anything more abstract or critical) and had a decent base to understand what she had to say most of the time.  But as bright as he knew he was, she was like a supernova.

But what he'd taken away from that particular conversation was that the grappling units needed more power.  That meant finding a way to compress more gas into the same volume under higher pressure.  And somehow also make up for the difference in weight.  Now that was outside of his expertise, but shooting something out of something else with more power?  Well that was very much his game.

Unfortunately his first two ideas hadn't worked out quite to his liking.  The valve release pressure was too much for the mechanism with the g-gas mix he'd tried, with the compression leading the seal to blow clean off.  The second mix fared even worse, holding just until the release valve was pressed, after which the pressure was too great for the hook itself which burst into pieces like shrapnel.  Luckily these things were easy enough things to remedy, and the current round of testing looked *significantly* more promising.

The trouble was, Kira had stepped aside for a moment to change into a fresh lab coat and……well, that was always a week point with Petri.  The compression device ran just a bit longer than expected and…WHOMPTH!  The canister, overfilled, shot backwards at extreme velocity, smashing into a piece of steel plated mortar work on the opposite side of the room.  The round, smooth canister had penetrated a half inch of steel and four inches of brick.

Somewhat sheepishly Petri looked over at his girlfriend, a smile on his face nonetheless.  "Well, it looks like that mix had the force output we wanted…

Cli-click. Cli-click. The sound was subtle as deft fingers worked with the trigger mechanisms, the TINY screwdriver she held in her hand was carefully turning the equally tiny screws. Not too tight, they had to be able to move… It was a very tedious predicament, but after this it should allow for greater control with speed and force. Far less clumsy. Beads of sweat had gathered on her brow as she wore her work goggles, leaning close to the magnifying glass that she was peering through to ensure that she was performing all her work correctly. She could feel all the words flowing through her head, the calculations, and yet at the same time? It was all deathly quiet. She was only peripherally aware of her boyfriend sitting at his work table nearby to her. Least unless the canisters were getting tested. Then she could hear the sounds they made quite clearly. With a final twist of the screwdriver, the last screw was in place, exhaling slowly as she placed it down on the table. Her fingers slipped over the triggers and tested them (not that they were connected to anything, but they had to feel right.) Excellent!!! PROGRESS!!

Beaming, she sat up and removed her goggles, propping them on top of her head which pushed some of her bangs back. Her brown hair was pulled back in its usual ponytail, a couple of smudges of grease on her golden features as she stretched her arms and flexed her fingers. Phew… She had felt how exhausted they already were, but there was no way that they could stop right now! Such progress was being made!! Sliding away from her desk, she rose up and glanced around the organized messiness of the room, metal piled up on different tables as well as other pieces that were questionably small. There had to be at least…. seven different projects going on right now and each with its own level of intricacies and difficulties. Her head tilted from one side to the other as she cracked it, rolling her shoulders as the blood flow returned to normal. Beneath that she was wearing a black T-shirt with some sort of design and dark blue jeans with a hole in one of the knee's. On her feet were a pair of tennis shoes with mismatched colors, the socks equally mismatched not that you could see them.

Glancing over, she watched as her boyfriend leaned over the canisters, the big grin she had settling down to a warm little smile. Those perfectly broad shoulders, blonde hair cut so short… She giggled quietly to herself as she turned away and walked over towards the stairwell, unbuttoning the lab coat that she was currently wearing. It was getting stifling! Well, that, and this one was covered in streaks of oils, gas, and even some spray paint. She REALLY needed to remember to wash these things in a more timely fashion… Pulling the coat off of her shoulders, she started to hang it up to grab a fresh one, when--WHOMPTH

She paused and turned, new lab coat in hand to see Petri staring at where the canister had literally shot over to. Blinking a couple of times, she squinted her eyes, lowered her goggle-glasses and looked for herself. She glanced back to Petri, who hadn't moved, offering him that little warm smile from before as she saw the sheepy-ness in his expression. What had happened? She looked back, hazel eyes widening slightly as she let out a cry of happy surprise, immediately dropping the coat as she ran over to the fresh hole in their wall. "Well, it looks like that mix had the force output we wanted…. "And then some!" She cried, crouching in front of the hole, fingers carefully touching the edges of it while mindful of the potential to cut herself. "Completely clean cut, no harsh edges. Had to be traveling at…" Honestly it was practically impossible to hear her because she was muttering so soft and fast to herself while she checked those edges. "Might be tricky to get the canister back out again, but thats definitely the right mix!" She finally came up and turned around to face him, her eyes completely alight because SCIENCE.

And just like that she turned back around and reached without fear into the hole, bracing her feet against the wall and PULLED as hard as possible. In complete comedy, the canister came quite easily, and so she went toppling backwards, sprawling out on the floor. But the canister was still in her hands! That was the important part! Laughing, she stared up at the ceiling, shoe laces dangling as she lowered her legs slowly to the floor. "Or maybe not."

"And then some!"  Most people would have been stressed or freaked out or terrified if a high velocity canister of highly compressed, terribly volatile gas had just smashed through a wall.  Kira Unterberger was not most people, and Petri couldn't help but grin as she muttered to herself in what he was fairly certain was Hungarian.  There were very few people he had ever met who had her capacity to make him smile, least of all like she did.  Most of those he'd called friends over the years had wondered if he was capable of smiling at all, a fact he chalked up to the fact that whenever confronted with a task he tended to be of single minded focus and intensity.  Kira broke that rule, often without ever really intending to.  He was comfortable around her, he could laugh with her.  And that alone was startling.  It was strange, in moments like these, how much he realized his life had changed instantly when he'd met her.  Become something more than it had been before.  Richer, stranger, very very different.  Unintentionally, the smile had fallen off his face as he lost himself in thoughts, pleasant as they might be.  It was easy to slip back into that serious, thoughtful expression.

With a bit of a start he noticed her jump back into Russian, leaning forward at the lodged canister she said "Might be tricky to get the canister back out again, but thats definitely the right mix!".  She turned back to him, beaming and excited as if she'd had some sort of revelation.  And considering this was Kira?  No doubt she had.  More to the point he had no doubt he would hear all about it any second now.  But first apparently she was going to try to dislodge the canister, and Petri stepped forward to try to lend some assistance…..before Kira's first attempt managed not only to bring the whole assembly flying out of the wall but sending her sprawling out on the floor in front of him.  He'd barely moved, a sort of shocked expression on his face, watching the whole thing play out in some strange internal semblance of bullet time.  Her feet settled on the ground, canister in her hands as she burst out laugh, "Or maybe not.  It was all too much for Petri and he started laughing right along with her.  Time started back up again and he quickly stepped in to lend her a hand and bring her to her feet.

He stepped forward and between chuckles grabbed the reasonably light canister.  "Looks like you released some of the gas when you pulled the thing out!  You alright there?  Quite the tumble you took!"  Setting the thing aside he reached down to help his girlfriend back to her feet but failed to take into account the length of the lab coat she'd just put on.  One foot on solid ground and the other planted on her coat, the lack of friction between the linoleum floor of the lab and the coat Kira wore meant that as he pulled her up, he slipped backwards.  With a heavy thud the tall man landed on his back, even as Kira had been pulled to her feet.  He stared up at the ceiling for a second, blinked twice and then burst out laughing!  Sure, there was a whole lot of work to be done yet, but he'd just dropped all of the fucks he'd been giving in the midst of this little comedy of errors.  "So should I take this as a sign we've made as much progress as we're going to today?"

He was starting to think it might very well be time to take a break before he broke something that really mattered.  Which was surprising considering what the man did for a living, but all the same it was generally the case that one didn't want to demolish things accidentally.  Not to mention his stomach was starting to rumble something fierce.

Unexpected response. Due to velocity, the canister's momentum should have embedded it into the wall and gotten it stuck rather deeply in there! Although… if it did leave as smooth a trail as it had, perhaps not. At that point it would have to depend on the make of the wall and--  "Looks like you released some of the gas when you pulled the thing out!  You alright there?  Quite the tumble you took!" Blinking a couple of times she chuckled and took his hand, "Oh I'm fine. Just--"[/i] She shrugged lightly as she began to stand…. her eyes widening slightly as she did stand, and was fell right back down on top of him. Her bangs fell askew about her features, goggles clinging tight to her flesh so they did not move (as they were supposed to do in these instances).

She slowly opened her eyes and blinked a couple of times at her boyfriend whose face was now extremely close to her own, her hands pressing into the floor next to him.  "So should I take this as a sign we've made as much progress as we're going to today?" She began to grin and opened her mouth to answer, humming slightly in her throat as she decided against speaking immediately and pecked him affectionately on the lips, sliding carefully off of him. "Its safe to say we probably should. We've accomplished what we meant to with the gas gauges, mix, and canisters. I adjusted the trigger mechanisms and pulley balance, so hopefully they will be much sturdier than before." She mused as she carefully helped him up with an adjustment to the weight difference and height difference between them, turning away as she pulled her lab coat off again to replace it on the coat rack while glancing around the room. "I'll have to repair the wall, maybe reinforce--"

At that point in time, her stomach made a rather loud grumbling noise, falling quiet as she seemed almost startled by the bodily function of letting her know she should probably go eat something. She looked down at her belly and touched a hand to it, feeling it tremble beneath her touch. "--Or lunch. Lunch is probably a wise choice." Honestly, she didn't remember if she had had breakfast or not though considering how her stomach was rumbling? Probably not. Smiling over at Petri, tilting her head as she walked back over to him and stared up into his eyes, her hands clasped behind her back as she swayed slightly from side to side. "Should we go out? Or stay in?"