Summary:Late nights in the lab … again Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Stretching, Jemma Simmons rubs her good eye and peers at the 3D model that's rotating over her workbench. There's the Canny Canuck's shield laid out there and the machines in her lab hum and beep as they run through the tests she's programmed.
Hersnyone who is monitoring her system will know *just* how tired she it. Some might even know the dreams that have been plaguing her. Those who don't though, will just think she's overworking herself. That's not anything new.
Yawning, the biochem stretches again and puts the kettle on to boil in the small kitchenette.
It's late. Quite late. There aren't many people left in the Triskellian at this time of day.
The shield of the Canadian copy of the Captain is reverbium. SHIELD has enough samples of this stuff now that they have identified several isotopes of the material that have all been alloyed differently for subtly different properties. That's a bit outside of Jemma's wheelhouse - the metallurgy aspect of it - but the chemistry is definitely within hers. It's not biochemistry but to a certain extent chemistry is chemistry.
"Evening Simmons." That comes from her door. It's Jeriah's voice because it's Jeriah who is standing in her door. "You're here late."
Tea. That's what Jemma is making and as the kettle boils, she shuffles around in the little fridge. "No, not that one … that's a sample. Ah, this one. I got that for lunch yesterday … no, two days ago. It should be ok to eat. I think." She talks to herself. "Let me get that heated u——" There's the jingling of jars as she starts at Jeriah's voice.
"Evening Mister London. Don't sound so surprised. I'm often here late. Sometimes it's the best time to get things done - when I'm not being interrupted.
"Why are you here? I thought you'd be out taking Potsie for a walk."
"Firstly you're awful at naming pets. You're the kind of person who named their cat 'Mister Whiskers' aren't you?" Jeriah says as he comes in and offers out a folder. "Paperwork from the last mission. Don't worry, I'm getting good at filling it out but there's still a bunch of things you have to sign."
SHIELD does still use hardcopy sometimes. A lot. Sadly.
"So, how was he? Did you swoon? Does he like swooning? Or did he just apologize a lot?"
Jemma looks askance at the folder. She hadn't asked for this position but she'd got it anyway. Sometimes she thinks she was just to slow to step back when everyone else did. "You've stopped putting snide comments about scientific staff being in the field then?" She asks as she takes it.
Food, it seems, is going to have to wait.
She sighs before adding "Thank you." beat "Did *who* swoon? Captain Canada? Why on earth would he swoon? He did apologise, a lot, when he realised I was a SHIELD agent and not just *some woman*."
There's silence as Jemma flicks the report "ULTIMATUM. I sometimes wonder where they get the names. Then again, that's not much better than the Canny Canuck of Courage, is it. You know, he got that SHIELD from EBay and painted it himself?"
"And I don't have a cat." She adds. Not adding more about naming things. That had been Clint that had done that, after all.
"It's a backronym. You know. When someone tries to make an specific acronym and tries to reverse engineer it?" Jeriah goes to leaning on one of the tables. He is often leaning. And no he had not meant him swooning but he'll come back to that.
"The Underground Liberated Totally Integrated Mobile Army To Unite Mankind." He smirks. "It's a bit awful but that's the kind of person that organization attracts. And yes, I stopped putting in snide comments about science staff being in the field. Now they're merely pointed comments."
He's quite firm that he doesn't think that non combatants belong in combat zones and he does have a bit of a point but he doesn't get to make these decisions.
"But if you did it'd be named Mister Whiskers."
"A … backronym? You just made that up." Jemma accuses Jeriah whilst stifling another yawn. Does he know how long she's been at work. "Pointed comments, hmmm. Maybe I'll just stop coming along with you then." That should please him, right?
"ULTIMATUM is dedicated to abolishing the concept of nationalism, so they can bring about world unification. So yes, they attract some pretty terrible types. The intel I've found indicates there might be some links to HYDRA, though."
"If I had a cat it would be called Mister Meowgi."
"And AIM. They're all kind of in the same space, but there are egos and actual differing agendas involved. ULTIMATUM wants to unite the world - sort of. HYDRA wants to run it. AIM just wants to experiment on it." Jeriah gives a one shouldered shrug. He's been shot at by all of them so none of them are great in his book.
"And no I did not make that up, I don't know why SHIELD insists on sending you obviously undertrained into these situations to begin with and that's a terrible name."
There's that smirk again. "What are you working on, by the way. I thought you were a biochemist."
"And combined, they're all terrible. I take this disturbance was just a garden variety one? Stir up trouble because they can?" She's talking about the attack the other day.
Jeriah won't miss the look that passes Jemma's face - the blend of frustration and hurt. The truth is she's trained, she's just not a soldier or a dedicated field agent. Not that she says anything else.
"Working on? A number of things and given sleep is elusive these days, I thought I'd put some hours in. Assessing the reverbium that was used in this shield, trying to get a get a breakdown to see if we can replicate it, to start with."
"I had a colleague in here the other day, working on potential cures for the bio-phage that AIM is distributing. He came up with the idea of an oscillation grenade - it sends out a constant sonic pulse that starts subsonic and goes ultra in a series of cascading bursts. Given the Reverbium that AIM is using in the bio-weapons at least is unstable, that might be of use to you, in the field don't you think?"
Jeriah does see the hurt on her face and he does regret being quite that blunt but she is still a non combatant and SHIELD insisting on sending her into field situations is nothing short of abuse in his way of seeing things. Soldiers are THERE to handle the complicated business of shooting and blowing up things so that the people who follow don't need to risk it.
"So you're doing regular chemistry then. Interesting." Her question on the use of sonic grenades has him thinking. "It could be useful yes but if you do that you're going to have to accept some pretty catastrophic detonations. You're going to kill people and probably wreck buildings. We know that reverbium reacts violently when exposed to certain sonic frequencies and we've seen what has happened before when that has occurred by accident. What you're proposing, essentially, is to do the same thing on purpose."
"Well, I'm not, not really. Hank, my colleague, suggested this. I've asked him to spend some time with you in the Engineering lab, if you're interested - see if you can adapt and use the idea. It's not a bad idea, really. And why is it interesting that I'm doing 'science', Mister London? That is what I do, if I've read your commentary correctly."
"What I'm doing is seeing if I can replicate the reverbium ourselves and whether we can create a strain that is a) More stable and b) Able to be used to cure those already afflicted. Bind to what's in their systems and flush it out."
Just like he suggested, really.
She sighs though and rubs her temples. "I know what I'm proposing by the use of the grenades, Mister London. I'm suggesting that they might be useful in some situations and quite frankly? I'd rather it be them than any of us."
"Because it's not the science that's on the tin." Jeriah points out with a wave of his hand. "But I don't know all your specialties. You're a chemist, good enough."
"Operationally it's a sound idea. Tactically it's a bit of a coin toss. It'd be a good way to respond to a cloud of bioweapon aerosol before it could infect anyone but it's as likely to blow us apart as them since we won't be able to identify ahead of time who has reverbium body parts. Additionally if they're smart they'll look into ways to vibration shield the reverbium."
So those are all the potential issues. "Still, the sonic vulnerability is probably one we shouldn't ignore so I'll be happy to see if my knowledge can be of assistance to Doctor… Hank?" He assumes Hank is SHIELD. Boy is he wrong about that one.
"I'm a bio-chemist, chemistry is the base but as I said, I was working with colleague." Jemma listens and nods. "Hank was considering you might use them in clearing a building if it was problematic. Honestly, I don't think it's a bad thing to have in our arsenal - even if we never really use them."
Nodding at Jeriah's assessment, Jemma doesn't argue. He's right. "Doctor McCoy." There's the faintest of smiles as she glances at the contractor, waiting for the retort that's likely to follow that. The kettle boils and Jemma starts to make tea, glancing a question in Jeriahs direction - does he want tea or coffee? "A colleague from outside SHIELD, actually. He's a mutant." Jemma does have some interesting contacts.
"Are you here this late, because of the reports?"
"Yes. SHIELD needs to get it's file system into the twenty first century. Go paperless and all that." Jeriah has seen organizations like this say that they were going paperless for a long time but how many of them has he actually seen do it?
None. That's how many. None.
"A mutant who doesn't work for SHIELD that you've pulled in onto this project?" Jeriah cants his head slightly. "Not that I'm sure he isn't good but what the hell are SHIELD's operational security protocols that they allow for something like that?"
"And sometimes, Mister London, keeping things on paper is more secure than going paperless." Jemma sighs before adding "And all that. Just think of it as extra pay for you when you have to work back." Rubbing her eye, Jemma looks at the model and the notes to the side taking a deep breath at Jeriah's next comments.
"About the same, I suppose, for allowing a contractor to be part of my team." beat "Highly vetted and a reknown Scientist in their own field."
"Yeah but I have a security clearance." Jeirah points out. "Maintained by an organization you can count on to be relatively impartial about that kind of thing. Which is why I get these contracts to begin with."
Well, how SHIELD's OpSec protocols may or may not work isn't really his concern until it puts him in danger, and then it's absolutely his concern. It hasn't yet though. Yet.
"Yes it's all well and good until the national archives catch fire. And at that point…"
Jeriah is of course referring the 1973 National Personnel Records Center fire that destroyed 18 million documents before it was contained and caused hundreds of thousands more to be lost.
Jemma just eyes Jeriah at that statement. "And who's to say who else I pull in doesn't have similar?" She's not answering his question directly. She might be being stubborn. She has to wonder though, how many more 'complaints' he'll be raising.
"That's a point, I suppose. You'll need to speak to archives about that if you have any better suggestions." She finally answers, flipping through his report and scanning it quickly.
"Why don't you give me a list of your … suggestions … to improve things around here? You seem to have views on a lot of things." Maybe it's just that she's tired and it's been a long day. Or maybe it's wearing and she feels like she's on the defensive a lot of the time.
"Because they don't." Jeriah laughs. "Do you know how many people have the kinds of clearances I had to hold? I know most of them." Because the special forces world is small and people in it tend to run into the same people over and over and over again.
"Do you really want a list? Or do you just want me to stop going on about it." Jeriah is still leaning on the table when one of Jemma's instruments beeps. He glances over. Oh that's curious…
What was Jemma doing again. Oh yes, analysing that shield, the reverbium and the biophage.
"And some go through SHIELD vetting and have clearances of their own. Then again, Mister London, I suppose you think Scientists like myself are a dime a dozen, so why on earth would I need to consult with anyone else? I could just run down to the med lab and find someone, right?"
She shakes her head and turns to put that report in the document holders. That will be signed in due time and sent to records. This isn't like Jemma to be snippy and upset - but since they Death Lok'd her, somethings seem to upset her more than others.
"I would like you to—-" The machine beeps and she looks at it. "That's strange. I wasn't expecting any results from that. That was running what *should* be a control sample with not reverbium in it."
Jeriah gives the back of Jemma's head a good stare. "Bad operational security gets people killed. If you think I'm not right to be concerned about it - given that I'm the most likely one it will get killed - then let me know."
"Is the sample contaminated?" That's the sensible first question and the easiest one to check. No, the sample is not contaminated and the machine is calibrated properly. It's picking up the presence of reverbium and it's doing so at a very high energy state. Something beyond what Jemma has seen before. The spectral lines for this thing are all over the place and it's letting off some genuinely strange radiation as well. Radiation that looks very similar to the kinds that are typically scanned for by the mutant-detecting gear that used to be used by Sentinels.
"Is that right, Mister London? I would never have guessed it might get people killed." Jemma has extremely personal knowledge of such things. "It doesn't change the fact that I need assistance at the highest levels and we have procedures to alleviate the risk." She's so prim and proper when her back is up.
Jeriah's question is a good one and Jemma does her checks, even while shooting him a withering look. "No. It's not and the equipment is operating within parameters." There's another sigh as the biochem massages her temples and frowns at the readings. "This can't be right. These are similar to the mutant patterns that were used by Sentinels. Something is affecting the readings."
She needs to get to the bench where Jeriah is leaning and she looks at him, raising an eyebrow. "If I could get you to move, please, so I can get in here, I need to check some things."
"Yes and it doesn't change the fact that it's my life on the line more than anyone else's on this team, so if the questions are uncomfortable…" Well, he's still going to ask them. Because he's the one first through the door. He's the one taking fire so that others can get out and he's the one who has to do the dirty work of killing people who are trying to kill them.
"Jeriah does move though. A little bit. The equipment is still reading very high energy state emissions.
"Why would they be doing that. There are no mutants in the room and I wouldn't think they'd be more sensitive than that."
"You have a problem with trust, you know that." Jemma shakes her head again. Like she'd do anything that would put any of her team at risk. Herself, maybe - but not her team. "What makes you think that I would accept anything that made your job more difficult?" Still ever so prim and proper.
The equipment response has frowning oh so much. "They really aren't. These aren't even calibrated for detecting that type of energy which means it has been detecting something very strong and localised." She looks at Jeriah and where he's moved to. "Humour me. Go and stand by my desk."
Jeriah gives Jemma an odd look but does as she asks without even anything in the way of commentary. Once he does that, the energy levels drop off. That's at least one half of the theory experimentally proven.
"I don't trust people because people have proven to be untrustworthy. And I know that when the stakes are high you cannot take people at face value. SHIELD knows that too, that's why most of what it does is secret." Except this, apparently. Though this would be hard to keep secret given it's nature.
"Did that do anything? It seems to have stopped beeping at least."
Jemma is used to odd looks at her leaps of logic. It's part of the way her mind works. To assess things and make connections that most people don't - intuition perhaps, or just experience.
"Well you do what you have to do Mister London." Jemma's just resigned to the snark at the moment. The constant questioning and judgement as well. She's distracted though, watching those results as they abate.
"Yes. It did. Come closer again, please."
"I usually do." Now he comes back and the readings go right back up again. It seems to follow an inverse square pattern. That is to say, the closer he gets the exponentially stronger the readings get. That's standard for a radiant field and it means that he likely is the source of the unusual energy.
That HAS to be his bio-core. The thing that's powering both his implants and his weapons. He did say he might let her look at it at some point.
Jemma is well aware that London does what he must. That includes bedevilling her, it seems. The questioning isn't malicious at least. Is it? She doesn't think so. London is a soldier after all.
"It's you. My equipment is picking up your reverbium core, which is interesting. That means it's putting out a lot more energy than I expected."
"Unless of course, you're a mutant and have just neglected to put that on your paperwork. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened."
Jeriah had said he might let Jemma look at the system. "It would be helpful, Mister London, to be able to examine you." Now. She means. Even though it's late.
"I am not a mutant. If I were I wouldn't have needed four surgeries to contain all this…" He gestures at himself meaning his implants but also clearly meaning whatever one might consider 'awesome' about him. He is rather irreverent, Mister London is.
"I thought you might say that, though." Jeriah sighs. "Alright Doc. What do you need me to do. Off with my shirt, I suppose?"
"You never know, Mister London, when AIM is concerned. We see and we're seeing a lot of horrific things coming from organisations like those. Doctor McCoy gave me some details on a mutant who was bio-engineered by them." Jemma shakes her head.
"If you're worried about me, the cameras are recording." She gestures. "But yes, I can hardly examine you through your shirt now, can I?" There's no way Jemma can say that without blushing.
"And just over here. I need the light and the instruments that are laid out here."
"I hear they have things called X-Rays these days. New fangled radiation devices that can see through walls." Still, Jeriah takes his shirt off and walks over to one of the bed-benches that is near all of the biomedical equipment. Yes, he's quite fit. It pays to be in his line of work. The saying is 'sweat more, bleed less.'
"It was inevitable that once people realized that your genes could give you powers beyond a beach body that people would try to do it on command. Soon enough they'll want to make a pill that you can take that gives you whatever power you want. Imagine how much that will be worth, even if it kills you to do it."
"What is it with people and X-Rays?" Jemma mutters. "Who's to say I haven't already done that with my implants?" Jemma's eye does give her IR and X-Ray capabilities after all. "They only tell me so much, Mister London." And yes, Jeriah is fit. So are many of the agents that Jemma's had to examine over the years.
That's what she keeps telling herself.
"I'm pretty sure that's what Thunderbolt is, a miracle drug - or it could be if they spend the time to refine it."
The contractor is correct in that, of course.
With his shirt off, Jemma gets the first good look at the implants and starts the basic examination. What she's must interested in, at least for the moment, is to see how it's connected in.
Jeriah is special forces fit which most people in SHIELD aren't. Their teams are good but in order to be an operator, it has to be all you do. And indeed it is all Jeriah does, he just doesn't do it for the US Army anymore.
"Thunderbolt was, I think, an experiment. It was known to kill the users and intended to do so. They wanted to see how their drug worked with test subjects they didn't care about so that they could refine a version that didn't have the side effects. Or resign themselves to using disposable soldiers."
Which the likes of AIM or HYDRA or any of those groups WOULD do. You just get leverage on people. Threaten to hurt something they love if they don't take the plunge. Or offer to save something they can't save themselves. People are easy to manipulate like that. Jeriah's seen it, A lot.
The visual examination doesn't reveal much. It's not until Jemma starts doing internal imaging that she begins to find things. The trickiest proposition in the whole setup was how to run the power to the implants. Installing a power system in a human body would be tricky indeed. So what they appear to have done is coopted the circulatory systems. Small implants designed to pick up power are at the edges of the cardiovascular system. The power itself is carried by the blood, which appears to have been modified with reverbium specifically alloyed to carry the charge without hurting him.
It does mean he could probably electrocute someone by bleeding on them, though.
"Thunderbolt was an experiment, yes. One that I'm sure they were trying to progress. Or are. It's not like an organisation like that is just going to give up on it - but we've set them back some at least.
But disposable soldiers - Jeriah's not wrong.
"Alright, let me see what my scans show me. I already know from your blood panels that your cells are reverbium laced. Which is fascinating. What I don't understand is wh—— " That she goes quiet might be concerning for Jeriah but she's quiet for a very long time.
"Well that's likely what my system was picking up. How on earth did they do this…" She's talking to herself for the moment. "Your reverbium core is powered by miniscule power packs that have attached to your cardiovascular system and use your blood to charge them."
"Have you had any problems with this?"
"The blood carries the power, yeah that much I no. The power system has never given me any problems before, why?"
Jeriah is good with augmentics. He knows a lot about a lot but there are limits to his knowledge and this is one of them. Exactly what the biological implications of carrying a charge in his blood might be isn't clear to him.
It's clear to Jemma though. Too much and the power would kill him. This has to be calibrated precisely. The individual energy would be miniscule but the blood flows so quickly that it adds up to a lot. That's how he can power sonic fields that disintigrate or deflect bullets, or charge his fist so that he can knock over a man in an exoskeleton.
But it is definitely playing with fire.
The Core is an eight inch object lodged in his spine. Actually in it. His spine is being used to house this thing. It's got a reverbium component in the center and every thing around it looks like it's designed to contain and focus oscillations generated by his own bioelectrical field. What the core does, essentially, is turn his own nerve impulses into a generator capable of powering plasma weaponry.
"Why?" Jemma's distracted as she looks at the results, her mind reeling from the implications. "You're familiar with augmentives, yes? As well electrical and electronics. You've got electricity in your blood. What do you think would happen if something caused blood to clot and you ended up with too much of a charge in one place?"
"Or, on the other side of that coin, you bleed out and can't deliver enough charge to your implants?" That, she's not sure of. "These implants are embedded in your spinal cord - judging by the size of it, I'm going to conjecture they grew it there. Spinal surgery of this nature is … very tricky."
"So … this looks like you can focus your own electrical energy and create … things?"
"If I bleed out I'm dead anyway so no I don't think I ever considered that." Jeriah points out wryly. "Also your instruments are cold." And they are. Metal. Doctors rooms. It's a thing.
"You mean things like this?" Jeriah clenches his fist and a crackling energy field surrounds it. Jemma may have seen that before, he's certainly done it before, but maybe she hasn't seen it this close up. And definitely not while monitoring him for changes which, oh yes. As he does that she can definitely detect the circuit that's being made.
"The core helps me power my electro-plasma weaponry. In theory you could use it to power other things but I don't have any compatible devices." He'd have to build them and that's not really his thing. Modifying and jury rigging yes. Build from scratch? Well he's good at fabrication but he'd need some theoretical knowledge he doesn't have to do design.
"Alright. 'Bleeding out'. Whilst we might be able to stem the blood loss, it will cause power issues with your core. You might *wish* you were dead at that point." Jemma notes and Jeriah feels another press of the cold metal instrument against his back. "Are they? I hadn't noticed."
A small revenge from the Squint on the Soldier.
"Yes. Just like that. Let it go and bring it back up again? Uh. Please." she says, watching the instruments and the readings and not the actual effects. "Is this how you fire your weapon, as well? And what other 'compatible devices'?"
It's a good thing there's an entire engineering department here, isn't there?
Jeriah lets the charged field around his hand go and then brings it up again. There's that power spike again which probably coincides with the increase of certain amounts of vibrational energy. This is possibly quantum in nature but that's straying a bit outside Jemma's field of expertise. She can see differences in how his blood behaves. It's kind of amazing it doesn't heat up and boil when carrying a charge like this. That must be an effect of how the reverbium particles store that charge and then transmit it. Because this SHOULD fry him from the inside out.
"Yes that's how I fire my weapon. By channeling the power through the ports in my hand." He shows his palm. Ah yes there are small contacts on his hand and also on the weapon grips. "In theory you could make other devices to use the same power, but I only have the weapon array.'
Even his drones have independent power cores.
"Fascinating." Jemma is storing all this knowledge and she's going to mull it over. There might be information that allows her to treat the afflicted. The Quantum nature of the engineering certainly intrigues her but it's her friend from the Academy that would be having fits about this.
Unfortunately, they're not here to share this with.
"Has it ever failed on you, Mister London?" Jemma asks as she looks at his hands. "And do you have blueprints of any of any of the other modules you might use?"
"I have some data on things that were related to the original project but I couldn't tell you for certain if it was designed to work with this system or one of the several others that AIM was testing out of that facility." Jeriah lets the charge go again. Maintaining it is possible over long periods of time but he prefers to be using it. Otherwise, to him, it's like swinging around a loaded weapon. You might hurt someone with it.
"Failed on me? No. There are circumstances that make it unwise to use though. The sonic fields are capable of vibrating things to pieces so anything delicate is at great risk when I'm using them. It certainly wouldn't do to be HOLDING something delicate while I was."
Also, for example, he could electrocute someone by hugging them. Which would make for a wonderful assassin's tool provided the arc didn't go through HIM on the way to the ground. Alternately it might just make for an awkward first date.
"Oh well. Your sonic fields are probably good at cleaning jewellery." Jemma quips casting Jeriah a cheeky grin as she deploys the cold instruments again. She didn't have to do that but it makes him shiver.
"It's fascinating it hasn't failed and but not, both at the same time. Whoever designed this … did a good job at integrating it into the human system. You said there were others in the project - were they all as stable as this? Any psychology problems?" Not that she's expecting that but you never know.
"If you're interested, the people in Engineering might be able to help you decode all that. Maybe help you create some more modules, if you wanted."
She hasn't thought about the electrocution hug yet - Jemma will though, at some point in the future.
"I suppose that will involve you probing me more so that they can understand the principles the power core operates under?" Jeriah says with a sigh because yes, cold things are cold and nnnnnnngh! It's all he can do not to yelp when she does it. She'd never let it go if he did.
"Operationally they were all stable yes. Psychologically? Hard to say. I wouldn't have seen any psych sessions and remember that half of them were okay with selling the weapons to Genosha so I think we're dealing with some sociopaths at the very least, here." But might the implants CAUSE psychological damage? There he is not sure.
"What? No!" Jemma lays that cold instrument on his back again for being so onery. "I meant show them the blueprints and work with them. You like working with your hands and practical knowledge of how things work. They're the ones with the knowledge on how to read and assess the plans."
"That's a fair assessment and I wasn't sure if any demonstrated any … unusual … behaviours in the field. When was your last psych evaluation, Mister London?"
Not that anything Jemma's seen so far makes her worry. Except for his *need* to bedevil her constantly.
"I think you can put your shirt on now… If you want." She's not complaining if he doesn't though.
"I work for myself, Doc." Jeriah says. "That comes with a lot of freedom but among the things it does not come with benefits. I haven't had a psych evaluation since I left the service." That probably isn't a good thing. He seems stable, if snarky and somewhat annoying but…
At her say-so, Jeriah does get his shirt to pull it back on, if only to protect himself from her cold metal on his back again. Next thing he knows she'll stick her metal hand in a freezer and use THAT on him.
"Why am I not surprised." Jemma stretches again, yawning as she does. It's late and she's been here all day. "You might want to think on that, Mister London. It might explain why you grouch at biochemists who are perfectly nice to you." She says lightly.
"I'm going to check my tests over here and then I'm going to find somewhere that serves dinner at this time of night…. " She looks at the man considering. "Have you eaten?"
Jemma would never put her hand in the freezer and do that. Only because she doesn't think that way. If she did …
"Or maybe the biochemists are secretly AIM nodes who stick cold metal on the back of poor unsuspecting soldiers." Jeriah snarks back. The question however has him canting his head slightly.
"No, I haven't eaten. Cafeteria is closed and all that. I was thinking of getting some schwarma. There's a place up the road."
"Or the agent is just surly and made a mistake." Jemma goes through the process of checking her experiments and locking up her work stations before turning back to Jeriah. "Would you like to join me? I know the schwarma place or a nice little restaurant not far from here. They usually find me a table no matter time I go in there."
Jemma wonders if they feel a bit sorry for her sometimes. The woman who always eats alone, late at night.
She hangs her lab coat up and gets her jacket and bag. Whatever Jeriah's answer, she's done here.
"Well let's see your nice little restaurant then." Do they feel sorry for her. Or do they just appreciate the regular who is never any trouble. Because she never is any trouble is she?
Unless she brings it with her.