[closed] Weird Science

[smarterthandad]

Who| Val & the Brainiacs
What| SCIENCE!
Where| Brainy's lab
When| post-plots
Warnings/Notes| nah, will edit if that changes

The test chamber lights up, momentarily as dazzling as the sun, and the unmistakable BZORCH! of heavy-duty comic book science echoes through the room, followed shortly thereafter by the scent of ozone. Val lifts her dark goggles to inspect the holographic readouts filling the air around her as the new data start to scroll across them, numbers and diagrams as thick and incomprehensible as the script in a magical grimoire.

"We are really gonna have to nail down where that stray antimatter is coming from before we scale this up." Far be it from Val to object to blowing up an evil planet--it's a nicely thorough solution, if you ask her--but the entire mass of Apokalips spontaneously converting itself to energy would cause as big a problem as it solved. "Still, even if this winds up being a dead end, it might be worth weaponizing."

If she realizes it's unsettling for a small child to be planning war tactics, it doesn't show.

Comments

[googledox]

The work is a welcome distraction, even though a measure of child care and conflict resolution is involved. After their loss on Apokolips and several days of notifying families in person, the labs are a welcome respite and the company is far less upsetting than grieving lifemates.

Brainy surveys the experiment through darkened goggles.

"Affirmative." There may come an opportunity where turning Apokolips into energy and throwing it at something might not be the worst idea ever. "I find it unlikely that it would deal any damage to Chronoblivion Itself - and it certainly can't be used on most intra-universe threats, but we aren't yet aware of what agents and constructs our enemy might send through the dimensional breach at us. If we'd had something like this to threaten Galactus with, freeing the Spectre could've potentially been avoided entirely."

He nods at Valeria.

"Superb work on those field projections."

Where he sits in his little egg-shaped floatypuff carrier, also wearing tiny darkened goggles, Brainiac 6 frowns and crosses his tiny arms.

"I'm the one that determined the right subharmonics to scan for in the first place," B6 says petulantly.

"Yes, you did. And they were very creative," says Brainy, booping his son's nose before turning back to a display to do some calculations.

The gesture leaves the 2 year-old equal parts mystified and pleased, but he still turns to Valeria behind his father's back and sticks out his tongue.

[smarterthandad]

Val rolls her eyes. Her ego rivals any Brainiac's, and as far as she's concerned? Brainiac 5 is a peer, not a superior. Praise from him means much less to her than it does to the younger Brainiac. Of course she does superb work. Acknowledging that is just recognizing reality.

"Merl, we're competing against Chronoblivion, not each other." She dismisses most of the holo displays with a sweep of an arm and pulls up the reports about the Legion's Galactus mission on one of the handful that remain. "Anyway, I'm surprised Galactus was so unreasonable. He's generally a much better big-picture thinker than that."

[googledox]

"Rider determined Galactus was from a point in his personal timeline that was fresh off the conflict he called the Annihilation War, one that left him deeply weakened and ravenously hungry. It's possible he could've potentially been reasoned with under better circumstances but conditions were far from ideal."

He suddenly puts their experiment on lockdown, right at a really good part. It won't jeopardize it in the least, but it's definitely pausing it during a potentially fun part.

"Speaking of hunger. It's snack time."

He turns around and picks up Brainiac 6, who's still glaring at Valeria, and gestures for Valeria to follow, too.

"For the both of you."

He's already figured out that telling Valeria she can't contribute to the team at all is no go. He's certain that if any of them tried, she'd be sneaking into the labs anyway - or worse, striking out on her own to find some way of fighting back. But allowing her active duty membership would be unconscionable, given her age.

So that just leaves this. Research and development. Tactical planning. Mechanics and construction.

But she's still a child, even if she doesn't always seem to realize it. And while she seems to have others from her world concerned with her general care, he realizes that during labtime, he's got to take over for them.

That means breaks. And snacks. And some small a semblance of externally-imposed structure. (He's already got to do it all for Merl, he might as well extend that care to another).

He's converted a whole corner of the lab to be more child-friendly. It holds different snacks, two sleeping mats for naptime (B6's nap is enforced, hers is optional) and B6's favorite toys and banky. Near that cabinet is a comfortable seating area with plush chairs. It's a weirdly domestic setup to be shoved into a corner of a superhero R&D lab.

Holding onto B6 with one arm and balancing him on his hip, Brainy takes off his goggles and B6's goggles and puts them on a nearby lab table, then starts rooting through the snack pile.

"I've just replenished the snack stock. There's fresh jabu fruit. Soystix. Cheese and freb crackers. Grex bars..."

[smarterthandad]

It's not Val's first time at the apocalypse rodeo. Sure, it sucks being away from home while saving reality, but someone's gotta do it. It would be a waste of her talent and experience, not to mention wildly immoral, for her to sit this one out, regardless what the adults think. This universe seems a lot shorter on genius than her own, anyway.

Humanity's greatest mind (just ask her) plops down cross-legged on a shag rug with a butterfly pattern. Her feet have been dangling from the adult-sized chairs for too long for even a toddler to be comfortable.

"Pop-tarts! ...Or whatever version of a frosted pastry with fruit filling you have here."