13568/Welcome to the neighborhood, so to speak.

Welcome to the neighborhood, so to speak.
Date of Scene:	29 June 2021
Location:	Science Module (Mackenzie King Station)
Synopsis:	Kinsey shows Nicholas around the MacKenzie King science station ; Kibou broke some news to her; Nicholas is intrigued.
Cast of Characters:	Kinsey MacKenna, Sinister

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Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
Kinsey never imagined Dr. Wessex would take her up on her invitation, it just was the kind of thing you said when being polite. So when the notice came, saying he was 'in the neighborhood' and would mind seeing where she worked, she was both surprised,and delighted at the same time.

Dr. Wessex actually understands her research. That doesn't come around very often, unless she was at a conference. And Club Lub was not!

"Show him to the science bay, please, when he arrives." That would leave her time to finish up this tiny bit of experiment in the meantime.

Sinister has posed:
Well, to be fair, it isn't every day one gets invited to go check out the science labs of an Alpha FLight space station in orbit. Even if technically speaking, you could fly yourself up there and stare, it's not the -same- as being actually welcomed.

It is a very slightly giddy Doctor Wessex that's excorted via security detail to the science labs. He may, enroute, have been peering here and there to get a glimpse of the stars through transparent steel plexiglass, but he didn't make trouble. His ID's all checked out, he appears to have a clean criminal record, with the exception of a few unpaid parking tickets and the like.

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
When the security detail arrived, the senior one coughs in his hand to alert Kinsey, before he announced their arrival. "Your guest?"

"Yes, yes.. just one more minute.." Kinsey was deep in microscope slides. "One more to go.. And done." Sure, she would check that one again, but she thought she had the gist of it. "Doctor Wessex! Welcome to my science lab."

And it *was* her science lab. After the bomb went off, and she became a Blue Lantern, she helped to build back up, and joined the team permanently, it was hers.

Sinister has posed:
Sinister beams closemouthed at the senior officer, hands tucked in the small of his back and rocking ever so lightly back and forth on his heels. He looks back the way they came and whilst waiting. "Was that really a particle demolecularizer I just walked out of? Like sub-light photon conveyance?" he asks "And do you guys get comm badges?"

Oh, wait now, there's the doors opening and he beams with lips peeled back this time. "Doctor MacKenna! Please, call me Nicholas... I am honoured, nay elated to be here. Something of a childhood dream, just like every little boy everywhere in the entire of the western world, to be an astronaut. If fleetingly. I suppose I'm an astroadventor, moreover." He pauses here, waiting for the security officers to take position wherever they're going to go, before offering a quieter:

"Listen I just wanted to apologise for Luci. She can be a little over the top sometimes and does love to play games. I'm glad you were such a good sport about it."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
The senior officer rolls his eyes. "Yes, it was. No, they aren't. Any more questions?"

The junior security officer laughs. "You wouldn't believe the number of times we have to answer that question, the one about comm badges. They're similar. They don't have enough range as we were meant to believe in Star Trek. More like fancy walkie talkies. Don't mind him."

Kinsey has finished her job by that time. "Thank you Stephens, Walenza. I'll take over here."

And once they have gone she smiles.

"Nicholas it is then." And she laughs. "I had wondered. After all, Mercy seemed to be Giles' date, which left me as the recipient of the evil eye. Really I was amused. If you have to rein in your mate, perhaps it's something to do with you, not me. I don't believe I was flirting with you, was I?"

Sinister has posed:
Sinister waves to the officers as they depart. "Sorry for asking for the million and oneth time, then..." he runs a hand over his hair, shags it out at the back slightly and thinks on the question.

"Not that I can account for, except in the mind. I was finding the conversation was just getting into interesting topics. Talking shop of any kind is a little rare," he admits, considering the rest of the implications of that statement. "I wouldn't have thought myself flirting, either. Or worthwhile taking a crack at, for that matter, but if I could read minds, I'd be a billionaire, so, that may just be another feminine mystery."

Gesturing at the slides she was working on, he asks "An interesting project in the works?"

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"I'm too old for romance, I think. That, or you'd have to hit me with a clue by four to get my attention. Maybe when I was younger, but my head was buried in books and getting marks." Ah those were the days. "You're lucky to have someone. Even is she's a tiny bit crazy."

Hey, Nicholas had to put up with her, not Kinsey!

"I'm running an experiment watching how the cells react to certain lights that we can't see in space." Yes, Kinsey could have had someone else checking on it, but she refers to getting her feet wet so to speak.

Sinister has posed:
"Oooh, I don't know. You're only ever as old as you feel," But something in that does make Wessex smile, though the perceptive will notice it does look just a smidgeon baffled. The guy that still thinks he landed way outside of his usual price range, so to speak and can't quite figure out how he managed it.

As the experiment is related though, his expression grows a little more serious and a lot more curious. "To see if there's phototrophic reaction we're unaware of, saving on the cellular and molecular levels? I assume for some theoretical use? I imagine if you find some interesting findings, it may have cancer implications and other treatment potentials, also."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"Precisely." Kinsey stretches her back. "We're in the first steps of trying to find what particular type of cells are more usable for insertion into the human genome as, for lack of a better word, a robot that we can control. But first we have to see what types of light vs what types of cells."

"My Friday nights are exciting." She laughs quietly.

~Do you want a partner? You haven't mentioned this before now.~ Kibou broke across her laughter. ~You do not seem happy with that.~

At which she has to cover up her mouth, and tells him, ~It's difficult to explain right now. Needless to say there are many variables that need to be involved, including what Carol mentioned to me. Don't worry about it.~

~You mean the Kree thing? I could have told you that!~ Kibou thought he was helping. He was not.

Sinister has posed:
Sinister's head tilts to the side, not in small part because of the conversation he's overhearing. Billionaire indeed and many times over. He chews on his cheek, face betraying absolutely nothing. "I bet they're about as interesting as my saturday's were in ER. Erm..."

He looks at he slides from afar, reading labels on the data more than looking at the slides because it would be very strange if he made his eyes capable of examining that closely. It has freaked people out before. "...what are you attempting to get the controller cells to do? Self-repair?"

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
~Kibou!~ Kinsey doesn't know what to say. She wants to know what he has to say, but she doesn't at the very same time.

~You are being silly. I could have told you at any time you wished you were Kree. A very strange Kree, but that is why I formed a bond with you. Did you really not know?~

She licked her lips, and tried to answer Nicholas, while dealing with the turmoil that Kibou just caused. "Um.. um.. Yesss? We don't even know if anything will come of it."

~Is that why Ganthet and Sayd put me on patrol on the Kree border?~

No reply comes from Kibou. Perhaps he has realized he has spoken out of turn.

Sinister has posed:
Sinister looks at her with a single blink. He gestures around the lab, like it's just here. Which it is, but also... that seemed to be a precursor to him going to the CRISPR (presuming she has one) and staring at it for a long moment. A single finger gets laid atop of it and then, he's looking at the database that goes along with the modern peice of genetic miracle. "Try these..." he brings up glial cells. "Except, you want them semi-encoded from stem. Arresting the development keeps them as interstitial communicators and stops them developing entirely into nerve tissue."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
~Kibou?~ And again, ~Kibou!~

He's not answering.

Forcing herself to be calm, Kinsey wanders over to the CRISPR, and takes a look at the glial cells. "Not exactly.. wait.. ah! If we beam two lights over different frequencies it might work. Interesting." She looked up.

Sinister has posed:
"Your model may require two types of cell; one Search and Destroy and one controller, unless you encode the controller with mRna capacity. Then it's just going to tell the other cells to fix themselves whilst keeping in contact with all the other Controllers," Sinister shrugs, but he already knows it has a very good chance of working, but neglects to fill in all the steps. Because he's an ass like that.

Wessex smiles, then gestures around the rest of the lab. "Do you get to see the outside? I was looking for a window all the way here."

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"Thank you." Kinsey smiles a little bit, figuring he hasn't told everything, but for different reasons. After all (she thinks) they are meeting as equals, and it would have been derogatory to tell her every little step.

She did mark a few notes on her logs, to remember things she wanted to check out.

"The outside? Not in science, though we are on the perimeter. It's better that it's not. The experiments are usually light and wave sensitive. The outer edges are extremely thick and well balanced. We did have an explosion about a year ago. We used that to get our hold up to date. You can look out from other places though."

Sinister has posed:
"OOOh, that makes sense," Nicholas looks at the stark walls. "I suspect there's quite a bit of lead in the lining of those there walls, for that reason too. It generates its gravity with an outer rotating ring, doesn't it? Sorry, geeking out a bit and well," he looks down at his feet. "I might be stuck to the ceiling, but there's definitely something holding me here." He glances up and around, as if hunting again for the elusive voice that's now silent and back to her.

"That must of been a hot mess of excitement though. Explosion, in space? I would... probably have embarassed myself. But the crew of this ship, well, wow. So. Uh... rather blows my mind anyway. Even if there are atmospheric shields, I'd..." well, the imagination can paint things by his tone.

"Do you suppose Stephens and Walenza will swing me by a window on the way back to the transporter, if I look at them pathetically enough?"

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
"It was.. frightening, I suppose? I didn't have time to think. I was in the labs, when everything blew up. Thank god there was a green lantern, and a red lantern. They patched the whole thing until the systems took over. It.. there was a man pretending he was a crew.."

She wasn't afraid. But she also talks like this was before she was a Green.

"You're correct. And no worries, geeking out is my style." Kinsey grins. "I can walk with you, and yes, you can look out the window. I won't even make you quiver your lower lip. Though now that I think about it, maybe I will!" And she winks.

Sinister has posed:
Interesting. The Lantern corps are a little bit of an intellectual mystery to Sinister, given the abilities and emotional connection, empowered by sentience and machinery. Really, he should just inspect some of his own gadgets with a clear eye.

"They do say you find out what kind of a person you are, when you look into the depths of the volcano. I think I might just admire you more, Doctor MacKenna..." Wessex offers with a smile, gesturing to the door. "I know if I stay much longer I'm going to want to poke at -everything- and then that will be terribly awkard. But also, if you insist..." he 'horselips' which is when you let your bottom lip drop and wibble it up again several times, all the while making his eyes round and sniffling pathetically. Not an oscar winning performance, but it is a little giggleworthy.

Kinsey MacKenna has posed:
Kinsey laughs brightly.

"You know, I think I like you, Nicholas." And with that, she simmers down. "Me? I've always been this way. Always. As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, 'Hope is not something that you have. Hope is something that you create, with your actions.' I just create hope. Come on, I'll show you out."

Sinister has posed:
And on the way back, hope springs eternal.

Watching a man gaze out of a window at that Blue PLanet, floating like a strange coloured apple spinning endlessly in space. And seeing a child have a dream fullfilled in that instant. It's the little things, or in this case the singular things, that make life worthwhile.