Posted by Lieutenant Alexis Bonner (Assistant Chief Medical Officer) in side - sim: Social Experimentation at its Finest (Tag Kane)

Posted by Lieutenant Dr. Solomon Kane (Chief Science Officer/Research & Development) in side - sim: Social Experimentation at its Finest (Tag Kane)

(snip)

Alexis grinned, “Yeah, are you?” She really didn’t know what to expect from her parents as far as her relationship with Solomon. She was just about over the shock of them being there, she thought. She was still surprised and wasn’t sure why they didn’t tell her they were coming, but they were here. She had missed them, and when the door slid open, the smell of....cookies wafted into the corridor. “I did mention my mother loves to bake, right?” Like Alexis loved to experiment.

Frigga bounded into the room, and Alexis started to call her back. Instead she let her go as Frigga sniffed and exlopred the whole space. Her mother was near the replicator and if Solomon thought Alexis made a mess when she cooked, her mother made it look like a volcano erupted. Her father on the other hand had stood up and walked toward them to pause as they stepped inside and the door closed. With a barely contined smirk, “You know my daughter is going to be really upset if you let Mastrakian ice Beetles devour my remains and then let them in turn get eaten by a Brezid gecko.”

“Best part of the plan… she’d never know, now would she?” Kane said with a somewhat forced grin.

Alexis looked over and up at Solomon. And in those tiny ear buds they always wore he would hear a muttered, “Mastrakian ice beetles??” Alisson paused what she was doing and glanced over at her husband, “Anthony what you going on about now.” Then stopped turned fully as her brain tried to make sense of the chaos standing by the door.

Bonner

“Tell ya later.” Kane subvocalized and then he looked her father dead in the eyes. “Kane. Chief Science Officer. How ya doin’?” and he held out his hand to Anthony. “Other than trying to break into my R&D space, that is.” and this time the crooked grin was mostly genuine.

Kane

“Anthony.” He shook Kane’s hand. It was not exactly the firmest handshake Kane would ever get, but confident if a bit weathered by age. He laughed, a rich deep sound. “I never tried to break in, sneak around poorly, maybe. I’m an ecologist. I can breed you giant man eating Venus fly traps that can survive in space. I can not hack computers.” He gave Kane a once over, curiosity trying to reconcile the man he met earlier with the Alexis version of gushing they got about him several weeks ago. He had a feeling Kane made his daughter all kinds of unbalanced. “A pleasure.”

Alisson had made her way over and had already figured out this was both Alexis’ boy friend and the man her husband had met earlier. Did he even have skin under all those tattoos? “Alexis, aren’t you ..”

“Leave her be Alisson, she’s solving a puzzle. My wife Alisson.” She offered her hand to Kane with a genuine smile and a mother’s obvious curiosity. “It is very nice to meet you.” She turned to Anthony, “What puzzle?”

Bonner

Kane shook her hand and then said “The beetles and the gecko. When your husband decided to sight-see in my lab, I was wearing a shirt that said ‘I’ve got enough to do today without having to make your death look like an accident.’ My staff knows that as my ‘I’m off the clock but working so don’t even think I exist let alone talk to me’ shirt. When I told him to leave, he made a crack that I should at least try to make his death unique. So I went with the first idea that came to my head. Ice beetles eat him, gecko eats the beetles, no remains or even DNA to show the murder happened. Clean and clear. When he mentioned the beetles, Lex’s brain fixed on that. She is my Queen of Tangential Thinking.”

Kane

“Alexis you are not thinking about…” Alisson began.

Alexis shook her head, “Not quite in the clear. If you want all the beetles eaten and destroyed you have to feed them to the gecko before they wake up which means what they are hasn’t fully passed through their system. If you get the gecko and pump its stomach before it passes excrement you can find DNA evidence. Minute and mixed and hard to seperate out unless you have someone willing to put in the time. You aren’t in the clear until the bacteria destroys the gecko’s excrement.”

“The Queen indeed,” Anthony turned around and walked toward the couch his shoulders shaking in silent laughter. Alexis…finally catching up with the conversation turned red.

Kane took and squeezed her hand. “It’s okay. And what was missed is that the ice beetles completely absorb the food in under an hour while motionless. True, their excrement would have the DNA present, but thats why you use Brezid geckos. They digest everything, even the excrement.”

“I did not miss that. That’s why I said pump the stomach. By the time it gets to the gecko’s excrement the traces are sub molecular. You have to know what you are looking for to find it by then. But it would be impossible to identify the specific living matter it came from.” Then she shrugged slightly, “So you’re right.” Anthony looked like his jaw might hit the floor or Alexis had grown tentacles or something. Then he looked at Kane and then grinned hugely.

“As usual, we’re both right. That’s why we make such a good team.”

“Six years old she walked into my lab class, stared at a model of Cypress Pine DNA a student had submitted for five minutes and then proceeded to rebuild it correctly, and explained as she did it.” Anthony said from the couch. Alisson joined him in the couch watching the two of them without shame.

Alexis thought it might be a really good idea to go to work. Very very quietly, “He knows I’m smart, Dad. You don’t have to explain it to him.”

Bonner

Kane squeezed her hand again and then looked directly at her mother who was staring at them. “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” and he winked at her as he took a seat. “I do know she is highly intelligent.” and he looked at Lex. “But you are also highly creative, dedicated, and extremely beautiful and sincere. The smarts is just kind of the icing on this cupcake.”

Kane

Her mother grinned, “Oh I intend to, several of them in fact.”

Kane looked at her and his voice became a bit serious. “Maybe hold off on that for a bit.”

Alisson gave him a look, it was the same exact look Alexis got when she was trying to figure out something he said that she didn’t get right away. Maybe she was pushing it a bit. Anthony snorted, “Told you to leave the matching sweaters at home.” Alisson laughed and pushed him, not nearly hard enough for as much as Anthony moved. “I did not bring matching sweaters.”

Alexis stopped on her way to the couch when he squeezed her hand again. But then she sat next to him, only to turn and look at him like the world no longer made sense. “Are you sick?” Then in the ear bud, “Why are you acting so weird?”

Bonner

Kane grinned his crooked grin at her and said “No. And I’m trying to be nice. Can’t let the in-laws know what a reprobate you’ve brought home.”

Kane

At the word ‘in-laws’ Anthony’s brows raised and he stared hard at his daughter, who squirmed in her seat and turned a couple shades of bright red under his scrutiny. It might have been way too long since she called or wrote. If Alisson noticed she didn’t give it away, but she did change the subject. “Alexis, and no offense to Kane, but are you really sure you want to work in science? I am sure there is no end to the experiments and research you can do, but that’s all you have ever talked about. Being a doctor.”

“Oh, I’m not in science or R&D anymore. Well not full time. The AMO position came open again and I applied. Dr Walker said yes, so I am a practicing physician again, Mom. Stop worrying.”

“Good, that’s where you are happiest.” Alexis could concede that was true, or had been. Now there was more. “So Kane, where are you from? What got you into science?”

Alexis knew the questions were coming, her dad was patient, her mother…not so much, but her eyes happened to catch the top part of the NDFD tattoo and suddenly Solomon’s comment about the pictures made such clear sense. A muttered, “Crap.” and then “You can’t ask him that!”

Bonner

Kane’s head slowly turned and he looked at her like she had just grown a third eyeball…

And then he just chuckled and shook his head. “Yeah… real smooth there, Bonner. I’m sure they didn’t catch that at all.” He turned and looked at Alisson and said “I’m… not from around here. Thats a pretty good way of starting off that particular conversation, I think.”

Kane