fandomhigh | Mad Science & You: Week 1 (Tuesday, Period 3)

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Mad Science & You: Week 1 (Tuesday, Period 3)

When students arrived at the Danger Shop for the first week of classes, they would notice that everything inside looked suspiciously ... normal. The inside had been set up to look like a typical classroom, with desks in neat rows and posters of inspirational sayings on the wall. The only unusual things about the room were the large selection of lab coats hanging on the back wall, and the man sitting on the teacher's desk at the front of the room with his face cloaked in shadow. He waited until everyone had taken a seat before standing up and starting to speak.

"Welcome to Mad Science & You!" he said. "The very fact that you have chosen to enroll in this course already proves your superiority over the rest of your feeble-minded fellow students. I am your instructor, Professor Souichi Tomoe, and my personal areas of scientific expertise are genetic engineering and astrophysics. Over the coming weeks we'll be exploring the interesting world of so-called mad science, dealing with areas of research that the scientific establishment tend to consider too 'outlandish', or 'in gross violation of ethical standards'. I hope to give you a sampling of some of the things my mad scientist colleagues get up to." Prof Tomoe grinned, with an oddly glowing red smile.

He clapped his hands together excitedly. "And before we start barreling head-first into reanimating the dead and creating hideous mutant hybrids, I should probably find out a little about you. So, pick a lab coat to use this semester, and then tell me your name, year, why you choose this course, and anything about your previous experiences with science, regular or not."

He started to reach for the coffee cup on the desk, and then paused as though remembering something. "Oh yes. And I will also be in need of a TA this semester. If any of you are interested in the position, you may speak with me after class."

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Introduce yourself to the prof. He's really interested to find out more about you.

...that may not be a good thing.

"Lex Luthor, senior, and I'm interested in science." Though not mad science in particular if he was going to be honest. "Before this I've taken a bunch of school classes and done some private study."

"Ah yes, Mr Luthor. I remember you from last semester," Prof Tomoe said. "Any particular areas of study, or just general survey courses?"

Lex wasn't entirely sure being remembered was a good thing. "Biology and chemistry, mostly."

Generally a good thing. Prof Tomoe was a little disappointed that Lex leaned more towards heroism than villainy, but most of the class had.

"A good solid background. I'm sure you'll do well this semester, Mr Luthor."

The lecture had been a bit... intimidating, but Evan selected his labcoat and was pulling it on as he introduced himself to the class.

"I'm Evan Sabahnur, and I'm a freshman. And I think that there's no way we can really thrive in a world that we don't actually understand." Which didn't address mad science in particular, but he was hoping to be diplomatic. Or something. "And in my last school, our science classes were pretty comprehensive. We once went on a fieldtrip of the inside of our janitor, to study his nervous and digestive systems. And to see certain genes he carried, close up."

There was something very odd about the way Evan looked. Prof Tomoe made a mental note to try and get a good look at his genetic code sometime during the term.

"Inside your janitor? That does sounds like a decently comprehensive school. Did you also handle any hands-on scientific exploration, or just discussions of theory?"

Oh, that would be one hell of a peek at Evan's genetic code, considering it hailed back to the first mutant, and one given an impressive number of enhancements over the millennia.

You could end the world, with a good poke at DNA like that.

"Hands-on? Kind of. Doctor McCoy believed that the best way to learn science was to experience it, but I only really had one semester at that school before coming here."

You have no idea how squeeful that kind of data would make a professional geneticist. Especially a crazy one with actual hopes of ending the world.

"Your Dr McCoy makes had an excellent viewpoint. Theory only matters as much as you can actively apply it to a purpose." Like, say, studying the cormorant to make your monsters more effective at collecting souls via regurgitation. "I hope we can give you a good second semester of scientific study, Mr Sabahnur."

"I, um... I'm looking forward to it," Evan replied, looking... mostly convinced! Probably!

Okay, he was gauging the distance from his seat to the door. One never knew when that knowledge might come in handy.

Topher had maybe been bouncing a little by the end of that lecture. Shut up, it was exciting, okay?

Probably everyone was shocked.

Also, he might have been a little more delighted by getting to wear a lab coat than the situation really merited. Hush.

"Topher Brink, junior, and this school so doesn't offer enough science classes considering that some of us want to go to MIT and med school and be intelligent people," he said cheerfully enough. "And, uh... I've been to a few different science-focused schools and taken a lot of classes, I have a lot of programming experience, I've built robots... oh, I was working on an AI for a while?" He shrugged. "So yeah. I'm good."

An over the top enthusiasm for lab coats was a good thing in Prof Tomoe's book. He certainly wore his everywhere.

"Oh excellent. It sounds like you have substantive experience, Mr Brink. Robots and AIs, you say? For any particular purpose, or just to see if you could?"

"Oh, I knew I could," Topher said brightly. "There were purposes. Important ones."

Like helping a friend spy on classmates and running another friend's lab. You know. Teen stuff.

"Aaaand one time I ran tests on a weird alien rock," he added. "Buuut it briefly turned me into a monster."

Prof Tomoe's grin got even wider at the words "turned me into a monster". Topher had just hit on Tomoe's particular area of interest. He thought he was going to like this kid.

"And how would you describe the experience?" he asked. "I'm more familiar with the external process of creating monsters than the internal process of becoming one."

Well, except for that gooey alien parasite currently possessing him, but it's not like he was going to tell anyone about that.

Topher tilted his head in thought for a moment, then proceeded to rattle off a detailed and highly technobabbled account of what it had felt like to develop grey skin and claws, as well as hypotheses on what biological steps had gone on at what points in the process. It was very thorough.

"Objectively, it was sort of awesome," he concluded. "I mean, eating deer was kind of gross? But very educational."

Prof Tomoe listened in rapt attention, nodding appreciatively at the really interesting bits. As someone with a background in genetics, this was all super interesting to hear.

"Fascinating. I'm disappointed I missed it. I would have liked to examine the biological transition process up close."

He paused. "You know, I'm looking for a TA to help out with classes this semester. Would you be interested in the position?"

"Um, chyeah," Topher said eagerly. "Quick question, will there be any handling of explosives involved?"

...He'd been Oz's TA once, see.

"Probably, but likely not for a few weeks," Prof Tomoe said. "We'll need some way to test the durability of the killbots."

That was the exact perfect answer Tomoe could have given, which was why Topher was sort of grinning hugely now. "Nice," he declared. "I'm in."

Arietty stood on the edge of her desk and pulled out her tiny bullhorn made from a jujubees box. "I'm Arietty Clock," she said through the bullhorn. "And I've never really studied science before, but as a borrower, I've always had to make a lot of my own things out of other things and I guess that's maybe a little sciencey?"

Look, she'd mostly just been looking to take something new and exciting, okay? And hoping to find out that not all scientists were like Professor Mildeye. Speaking of. . . .

"Also, please don't try to dissect me. It's rude."

In case anyone was wondering.

One of his student was a tiny, palmed-sized person. This was an interesting change. He was going to have to look into getting a properly sized lab coat for her.

Prof Tomoe leaned in for a closer look. "Fascinating. Were you born like this, Miss Clock, or was there a horrible shrink ray accident somewhere in your past?" He waved a hand. "And I'm far less interested in dissection than I am in pulling out souls to look for ancient talismans, so I assure you that you'll be safe."

He paused. "Well, from being dissected."

There was probably a pharmacist Barbie or something they could borrow a lab coat from. Though it might be pink.

"Well, I don't have any of those. The talismans, I mean." She wasn't sure about the "soul" thing. That was something she'd only ever heard beans talk about, not other borrowers.

". . . I also prefer not to be eaten." Just to get that out there. Because you never knew. "Oh yeah, and I was born this way. I'm a borrower. This is what we look like."

Edited 2012-08-28 17:19 (UTC)

There were no pharmacist Barbies, but Arietty had the choice of stealing either Doctor Barbie's regular white lab coat (http://www.amazon.com/Mattel-Barbie-Childrens-Doctor/dp/B00005BUUU/) or a bright pink one. (http://www.amazon.com/Barbie-Happy-Family-Baby-Doctor/dp/B000087L3I/)

"Most people don't," Prof Tomoe said with a sigh. "That's why I need to search as many souls as possible."

He tilted his head a bit at Arietty. "Don't eat you? Why, are you delicious?"

Well now he was curious about it.

That seemed like quite a hole in Barbie's resume. She should get on that, really.

Arietty wondered how one searched a soul. And if souls had anything useful to borrow. Then he asked his question, and she folded her arms across her chest and glared. "I don't know! I've never eaten a borrower, have I?!" Really now. "Cats seem to think so. But cats will eat anything."

One generally searched a soul by using ray beams to rip them out of victim's chests and then seeing if they turned into talismans. Souls looked a little like star crystals (http://www.oocities.org/tokyo/5976/sm104/sm104c11.jpg) if you took them out to poke at them.

Prof Tomoe raised an eyebrow over his glowing glasses.

"You're the one who brought up the issue of your edibleness. I merely inquire as to whether it's a pressing concern for you, not whether you'd go nicely with some tempura batter and soy sauce." He was into a lot of questionable stuff, but cannibalism wasn't really his kind of thing.

He nodded at Arietty's second statement. "Cats are awful, aren't they? Especially the talking ones. Always getting in the way of plans."

Arietty had actually only met one talking cat, and that had been in that strange other world they were all in for a week. But she couldn't disagree with the rest of his statement.

"A cat ate my cousin Eggletina," she said. She didn't actually know that was true, but it had been heavily insinuated by her mother. "But for all I know beans are just as bad. You all eat almost as much as cats do."

Prof Tomoe paused at Arietty's second comment, not sure of the terminology she was using.

"Beans? I'm not sure legumes have working digestive systems."

Arietty rolled her eyes. "Human beans, not food beans." Come on, he was supposed to be a scientist. "You bloody huge not-borrowers."

"My name is Ryan Clark, and I'm a senior," she began. The lecture had caused her to raise an eyebrow. She was wondering what she had gotten herself into. "I wanted to take this class because, um, I thought it would look good on a college application, especially since I don't have a lot of science experience."

"Well then, Miss Clark," Prof Tomoe said, "we'll try to give you a decently comprehensive introduction to the field. Imagine how impressed those college boards will be when your very own killer robots threaten to blow them up unless they admit you to the program of your choosing."

He broke out into a maniacal laugh. Any time with killer robots was a good time.

Well, this was going to be an interesting semester.

"I'm not so sure that I'm the build-a-killer-robot type," she protested. "My plan was to get into college based on the variety of things I've experience traveling the world while working with missionaries."

"Not the killer robot type? Well, I'm sure we'll find some kind of mad science to suit you this term."

He waved off her protests. "That's the boring way to get in. You've got to make a real splash to get noticed and rise above the crowds. I like using soul-stealing monsters to make an impact, but that's my personal preference. If they're not trembling in fear of what you might to to them if angered, there's no way to guarantee they'll do what you want."

"William Murdoch, I'm a junior, and... well, I attended a Jesuit school before Fandom, and they were really rather serious about making sure we all got as well-rounded an education as possible, although with so many of us and only a limited amount of time," he shrugged. "I read a lot. Mostly with regards to new technologies and ideas- or new in my own time, at least. Since coming here I've developed an interest in forensic science especially."

"I'm not very familiar with the Jesuits or their teaching practices," Prof Tomoe said ~~because Christians are a tiny religious minority in Japan~~, "but it's good to get the basics down."

He paused. "'Your own time'? Are you from a different time period than this one?"

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Mad Science & You: Week 1 (Tuesday, Period 3)

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