random loose threads

[driftsintobuffetline]

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2016
January 29 - Returning from Submarining
February 13 - What are you thoughts on MARRIAGE?
February 16 - Day 1, Soviet Occupied Import Cities
March 12 - They were supposed to talk about Miles and Greg, but talked about themselves instead
April 14th - Kinks, Tatts, and Power Suppression
June - Admiring the Ring
July 27 - Hermann's New Car
After the Kaiju Test - Need a New Apartment

Comments

[mathemagier]

Hermann hums acknowledgement. He really should eat but all he'd really like to do is sleep. He'll need to set an alarm, and the thought is already unappealing.

Breathing a reluctant sigh, he eases himself off of Newton and hisses through the stab of pain that arcs through his hip and along his spine like another shock. This is a terrible position, and it's several agonizing moments later that he's finally settled properly back against the couch. He digs hard fingers into his hip in a futile effort to massage through the discomfort, and knows he'll need Newton to help him to bed.

He's a bit more awake now at least, and stares at his mug of soup with a frown. If only he possessed the ability to summon liquids. With a grunt of effort, Hermann leans over to draw it between his hands. It has gone cool, with only a bit of tepid warmth left, but he's not about to ask Newton to warm it up for him.

He stifles a yawn then swallows a mouthful of soup. "We'll need to choose a different country in the morning."

[driftsintobuffetline]

Newt feels a stab of guilt at the pain in his leg; what a selfish prick he is, making Hermann sit in such a way as to cause him so much discomfort. No wonder Hermann is second-guessing this. As Hermann settles back, he curls up against the man's side, head resting on his shoulder and arm across Hermann's lap. When Hermann isn't eating, his fingers dig into the knotted muscle, picking up the massage where Hermann left off.

He is going to be a shitty caregiver, but dammit, he just wants to spend his life with Hermann.

"Canada, like all good American-war deserters. Or we'll run to Mexico, like criminals do, right?" He shrugs. "You know, cross the border, avoid extradition--who DOES extradite in this world, not that I think they'll send us back. From there we might even be able to hop a plane, depending on the security screenings in this world. We could hack ourselves a ticket or two onto a flight somewhere really obscure? ...We could go to Germany, though I guess that's predictable for us."

[mathemagier]

It's a serious consideration, but Newton's overly complex thought process lightens the mood a bit. He leans back against Newton and lets him work for awhile before draining a bit more soup.

"Australia is positioned rather far from both American and Russian soil," he muses. "I doubt they've bothered to have any presence there. Of course, it would be more difficult to offer much in way of aid so remotely, but we can't afford to suffer through the shocks and there's no way to test--"

Hermann stops abruptly, and turns to stare at Newton. "Newton, I'd rather not have to ask this, but how would you feel about losing a finger for an experiment?"

His mind is suddenly a race of half-formed theories and ideas for slapdash tech to run in their limited window of time for a solution.

[driftsintobuffetline]

He thinks Australia is still a little too close to Antarctica, but his argument dies and he considers his hand, or more specifically, horrifically, his left-hand ring finger, before he says, "You know me, dude. Always game for science. So," he places the edge of his right hand over the farthest knuckle on his left-hand pinky, almost a cutting motion, then over the middle knuckle, and finally at the joint connecting the pinkie to his hand, "how big of a slice do you need?"

Of course, Newt wants to know why a severed finger is required, but he trusts Hermann. The why has no bearing on the question of if he is willing. Of course he is willing. It's science. It's Hermann. Why is simply his own curiosity. Hermann had a yes from the moment he breathed Newton's name.

[mathemagier]

Although he'd expected Newton's compliance, Hermann had also expected a request for an explanation. It doesn't come, and that trust is as sweet as it is disconcerting. But he supposes given his past protests against Newton's self-experimentation that his partner knows he wouldn't ask without a well-founded reason.

He turns the mug in his hands and considers his own fingers. Unfortunately, none of them are at all likely to grow back and if not for that key factor, he wouldn't even be considering this.

"Well, nanites are prevalent throughout our bodies, correct? LACKEY targets them, which in turn target the nervous system. If I can teleport disconnected organic material as an object, and if we could scrape together something to monitor the nerve endings in your severed finger within a few hours, then we could swiftly test the safety of any given set of coordinates."

All of that assuming they either work into the night, or awake very early in the morning. Likely better after some sleep.

"We already know the imPort cities are safe, and that Los Angeles (and theoretically anywhere else in America) is not. They could be our control sites to test both sets of readings before we experimented with other countries. It may not work, but it's better than porting to a random country and hoping for the best."

[driftsintobuffetline]

His love for Hermann almost stays his objections, which only continue to grow the more he thinks on the subject. It's about then that Newt wonders if they have a real problem on their hands--how has this relationship forever altered their very productive, very useful dynamic? Have they...actually become weaker by caring about each other's feelings? Have they become too cautious?

Or is it just him? In putting Hermann first, is he actually failing him? All he wants is for Hermann to like him this time around.

"Hermann, first of all, even if we can scrape together a device like that, which I'm not saying we can't--your power and our collective mechanical know-how means it's definitely possible, even if we end up scrapping the toaster for it, or something, but even if we can piece it together and launch the sucker, how are we going to determine if the punishment is, for some reason, NOT shocks? Or not shocks at SOME locations but shocks at others? Or randomly generated--lotteried, like a chore wheel...spin and see the punishment you get. If they can issue electrical impulses through the nanites, I don't doubt they could enforce other commands. Our device won't be able to monitor for everything, nor will the finger react to everything."

Which brought up a point that he feels Hermann hasn't bothered to consider, because to Hermann, this is more of a logic puzzle (which cities trigger spasms in the nerves and which do not--like playing Battleship) and to Newt, this has to be partly biology, because their object doing the testing is not going to be simply a machine. "I also don't know how long the nanites will survive outside of my system or how long before the blood drains from the finger and the nanites simply drain out. We don't know enough about them, yet, so if they even DO survive in my severed finger? they might not survive more than a couple of trips. So to make sure we still have active nanites to test with, I'd need to put them under a microscope and check after every trip, which means opening up the finger or even cutting off a new sample--which I'd do, but I'm not positive this is a viable option. I think it's a great idea, Hermann, and I hate to be the naysayer--"

But that's always been our roles to each other, keeping each other in check, keeping our science honest, he wants to say, in case Hermann's feelings are hurt because now that matters.

"But have you thought about the fact that, in addition to the issues with feasibility, you're sending, across the world, into unknown crowd situations, a potential bio-weapon and biological matter that could be used to create self-healing soldiers, if it falls into the wrong hands?"