fandomhigh | 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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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."

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

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