anemoi | And a double-shot of humility, too.

[Video, mid-morning]

"Observation of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Entanglement on Supraquantum Structures by Induction Through Nonlinear Transuranic Crystal of Extremely Long Wavelength Pulse from Mode-Locked Source Array."

[Gordon looks dazed, and pretty exhausted, but... strangely happy. What the hell is he talking about? Has he lost it?]

Sounds like a mouthful, but it's just about short-range teleportation of heavy particles through a solid barrier. I suddenly remembered about half the damn thing last night. I just... started writing, couldn't really stop. Somewhere around page thirty I realized why I remember it so well: it was my doctorate thesis!

My full name is Doctor Gordon Freeman! I received a PhD in theoretical physics about four years ago! THAT's that I'd been remembering over all those months! Hah, let's see 'em try to relegate me to lab gofering and coffee duty at the Labs now!

[Action, later that afternoon, at the Happy Insomniac Coffee House]

Yyyyyyeah, hi Anna, I need three lattes, one vanilla, one hazelnut, one vanilla skinny, two pour-overs of the medium roast with a double shot in one and soy in the other, one of those organic yerba-mate things and uh... make it a large cinnamon latte with a triple-shot of espresso for me this time. It's gonna be a long day.

[Looks like mister PhD is still stuck on coffee detail after all. That order's going to take forever to fill too. Point and laugh? Strike up a conversation? Question his taste in coffee?]

[2% on his grad thesis, 11% total]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Relegated to coffee duty, huh?

...I guess there's something to be said for seniority there.

[Like, you know, EVERYTHING.]

I guess. I'd say I know how you feel, but...

[Rex stops and pretends to think for a moment.]

Nope! I really don't.

[In fact, he was the one who ordered around the Providence small fish, when he wasn't busy ignoring orders.]

Figured as such. When's the last time YOU had to work in anyplace like that? [He says with rhetorical grumpiness over his coffee. He'll be in better spirits once that caffeine hits his system; there should be enough of it in there to give a small animal a coronary.]

In a lab? Actually, just before I got here!

Being the walking human cure for a worldwide epidemic has its perks.

[He stops in mid-coffee-slurp.]

When did you work for a lab?

[of course, by 'work' what Rex actually means is "beat up monsters for the organization and undergo tests from a hot doctor in his spare time". But at least he didn't have to get the coffee!]

Uhhh...far back as I can remember. [he shrugs, trying to make it look nonchalant.] All I know is that I woke up there and I've worked with them since!

Y'know, until I woke up here instead.

You really have a habit of doing that, don't you? So what was that place called?

Habit of waking up? You could say that. I'd say I'm used to it by now, but it's kind of hard to be used to something you can't remember.

Place was Providence, only organization in the world that could handle the EVO problem! And they couldn't do any of it without me.

Shen blinks.

"I...ah...eh... I... have no idea what you just said, but I have the suspicion that it's good news... I think."

It is. It means I'm not just some crackpot scientist building antigrav machines in the side yard! This is legit, this is the real thing! Plus I've actually got a last name now! Just going by Gordon was fine but it was starting to feel a little dehumanizing. Like it was a code designation or something. Citizen five-two-three, colon, "Gordon."

"Hmmm, I have noticed humans do find surnames important." Blinkblink. "I wonder if I've got one." Think about it later, Shen. "Still, that's excellent news. I'm... happy for you." He's just realised this.

Still on coffee duty, I see. [To Anna:] Coffee, black, two sugars.

[Fan. Freaking. Tastic.]

Unfortunately. It looks like tenure is a bigger factor there than I thought.

[He takes a draw of his own caffeinated confectionery monster drink.]

So, still making coffee runs, still taking lunches to beat up idiot super-villains that wander in, plus thanks to my new cred I'm slated for new admittance interview training too. [Whoop-de-doo finger twirl.]

Good for you. You have something to do.

[As for him, he's bored. Very, very bored, to the point where he paints emoticons into the walls and shoots them. The borrowing of body parts for experiments is just par for the course.]

Yeah, never rains but it pours. And then there's the occasional tsunami.

[Now that he notices... How often has he seen Sherlock do something outside of tell off a civilian for no damn reason or lounge around at a coffee shop? He's having a noticeable amount of difficulty counting up the instances.]

So I've heard. More of these wannabes, I assume.

[Good question. The answer: very little.]

Exactly. They're easy to take down by themselves, but more and more people are getting zapped with this stoopervillain ray or whatever it is... everyone's having trouble keeping up.

I'm really not looking forward to the day they decide to form teams either, although the mental image of random people is goofy-ass costumes trying to do one of those super group poses is actually pretty funny.

Even with you explaining it I think I understood only half of what you just said.

What, you mean about the paper? I'm uh... yeah, I'm starting to get that a lot...

Point is that I made particles teleport through a solid wall by my hand. No matter how you look at it, that's pretty cool.

I'll take your word for it. Science has never really been my thing.

Oh yeah? What do you do, then?

[They may have conspired as to the best place to get a drink, but that was only through text. He hasn't really talked to Lancer face-to-face that much yet.]

Apparently I was some sort of warrior, or so I've been told. I'm still waiting to cash in on my Anemoi.

Swordsman? Or something else?

Spear, actually.

Glad to hear it. I may be able to handle quantum chromodynamic gauge-invariantal lagrangian calculations, but don't ask me to pick up a weapon like a spear and know how to use it.

Name's Gordon. Yours?

Don't recall my true name. I just remember that most people back home called me Lancer. You can call me that.

And a double-shot of humility, too.

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