"Kanpai!  You probably could,"  She admits, "If only because somehow your blood must be half ETOH at this point anyway... how in the name of the hells can you drink that much?

I remembered hearing about the seed vault while we were taking off... apparently the whole place was rigged up to blow without anyone knowing.  Someone said an Exalt died trying to get them, too."  She blows on her dumpling, "We could.  But I'm not a geneticist.  Neither are you, I think.  Know what scares me?  Geneticists.  Imagine the first Exalted geneticist to pop up.  Tentacles everywhere, oversized humans with tiny genitalia, pauldrons..."

Arkady cringes at the thought. "Well that's a good point..." and takes another rather big gulp out of his cup.

"You may consider me an athlete, but life long training in drinking alcohol. Some even call me a professional drinker."

He picks some of the less weird greens and continues with his dish, adding more thing to the broth as he goes on.

"So, I've been scratching the surface of my future plans, so how about you? Whatcha doing now, besides besides trying not to trip on aspiring young scientists at your feet." His tone is certainly amused. "That visit to my shop was like a field trip."

"It was a field trip.  It's good for them to understand some things.  Most of them are- ooh-"  She takes another long sip of her drink punctuated with a morsel from her broth- "Most of them are little better than lab techs you see.  Some are quite smart, yes, in an academic sense.  When I heard that an honest-to-Qaf Twilight was in Pandora Bay, well... it felt like a good time to kill a few birds with one stone.  I'm not going to call what goes on in Pandora Bay science.  It's more tinkering, or weird engineering.  But it's a point to make to them.
 Pandora Bay's what they can expect if they decide to get a bit too uppity.  Do you honestly think for a minute that any of the ones I brought into your workshop could hack it there?  Most grad students are hot-house flowers.  They thrive in controlled environments, and must be tended to by skilled gardeners."

"Well you might have a point, some of the coolest shit is not done by scientists. Mainly because scientists usually know what to expect and work towards that end I suppose."

He rolls his eyes and takes another long swig of plum wine

"I personally enjoy happy accidents. Cool shit happens then. And if any of your students could make it there? Maybe. I don't recall know them, but seemed to lack that adventurous spirit and a will to take risks."

An

"A good scientist can base off of first principles or forge alone.  Inductive, deductive- they should be able to handle it from any direction, and most of my students-"  She takes a looooong swig of her drink- "... are not."

"They didn't take risks because I don't want them to take risks.  I saw that machine in your lab.  I saw the blood spatter.  There's a good rule of thumb in one of the labs I own... 'don't touch anything but a mop if you see blood on the floor'.  Happened to one student I had, good kid, his name was Charlie."

She takes another long drink and closes her eyes.

"Poor kid.  He was trying to develop ansible-phones, direct conversations across lightyears through quantum-entangled machinery.  We've got something similar powered by some specific essence but nothing more... technological.  His brains were similar to cooked egg by the time he dropped the phone."

"Well shit. Smart kid that had an idea, but I mean if a microwave oven cant hold that amount of energy without spillage, how the fuck did he think that a phone could contain it? I mean, yeah we tinkerers come up with crazy shit but hey, some fucking common sense man..."

He empties his cup and places it neatly on the table.

"Not supposed to talk shit about the dead tho, or they'll come and haunt us. Besides, his death did prove that the idea was flawed. Just like that blood splatter on my workshop floor proved that idea to be flawed."

He apparently kept his eating up to par with his drinking, realizing how little he had left. He drops the last of his meat, veggies and dumplings to the broth to boil.

"Funny to think that some of your scientists could actually cut in the scav biz. The scavs need tech savvy people, and the scientists apparently could use  a... new perspective. How do you come by you prospects? Do they apply or do you go talent hunting?"

"He had a rather ingenious little insulator.  I mean, it would have worked if he'd paid less attention to the physics, more attention to the chemistry."  She leans over to fill up Arkady's cup again with her plum wine, "A battery leakage, you see, caused a catastrophic reaction with his insulator.  He'd accounted for a bad battery leakage, of course, in which case he had it designed to muffle any explosives or radiation, but the leak caused a focusing effect.  Instant stream of gamma particles right to the cerebellum.

In the end we're still not sure if the whole idea is flawed or not.  We haven't found a suitable insulator."

She shakes her head, "Most of them are applications.  Some are through the school systems on the Upperdecks, their daddies and mommies want them to become big smart scientists, oh no, beware the underdecks!  I do take a bit of pleasure of breaking them from that, I'll admit.  We do have some of the underdecks types, the kind you'd more likely enjoy, and they're almost as bad.  Just like theory is no substitute for experience, street smarts generally won't let you isolate stray Solar motes.  Give me some from the lower-middle, any day!  But I don't have *time* to talent hunt.  I just take what I can get.  It drives me, frankly, insane."

"Well, yeah I kinda get that talent hunting part being a pain in the ass. even I don't do that actively. I just pay mind to interesting individuals wherever I go, and boy do I go places... not college, but places."

He pours to her in turn and raises his glass once again. He can hold his drink, and he assumed that so could she, Infernal and all.

"Thank you for the food, it was very good. Way spicier than what Mama used to make, and unlike the food I usually have it actually tastes like something. The next question is: How long do we continue drinking, and how much? You get to set the limit as the hostess."

"Whereas... whereas I'm in an office,"  She says, swaying a little bit in her seat, "We can stay here long as you want, you can drink as much as you want, it's on me, but I have a business proposal.  Exchange program,"  She says, holding up her drink in a mutual toast. "I send... one of my hopeless nerds your way, you send me... someone that needs a little book learning."
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:06, Sat 04 May 2019.

Arkady is a bit taken back by this proposal

"An exchange program? Sure I think that can be arranged I suppose. Just please don't send me anyone who can't handle themselves at leas to some degree. In exchange I'll go through the extra effort and find you someone who can actually read and isn't a complete fuckwit."

He chuckles a bit and rolls his eyes

"Phew that is gonna be hard, but with some luck I'll find a diamond in the rough. I'll try to keep my intern... hmm... moderately safe but I won't take responsibility if he splatters they splatter themselves on the floor out of their own stupidity, mind you. Keeping that cellphone story in mind."

He glances at his cup and his eyes wander to the metal hand holding it

"Tough with my track record I really don't afford to say shit like that!"

His laugh is whole hearted. He's done plenty of stupid shit himself and those things had brought him where he is now. Sometimes you just gotta do stupid shit.

"It will be strictly voluntary and they'll have to fill out waivers.  Including informing them that they'll be leaving the Last Refuge and stupid mistakes makes dead students."  She tells him, "I'll screen too for you.  You know the point of this, right.  Make the best scientist we can.  We have to take the longest view.  Everything is an iterative process!" 

She laughs politely, glancing back down at his arms.

"Well, you're not the only one who's had things exploding on them!  I was just fortunate enough that my Exaltation happened before I was given cybernetics.  Or died."

"Of course! The best Scientist we can. I'll think of something relevant to tutor them at."

He downs his glass in a single sweep

"So you've blown shit up too? I'm making a bold shift from peer to peer professional talk to personal chit chat. If someone at your college makes a murmur out of that, we'll just lie that this entire lunch was entirely professional. Of course if you don't want to spill such trivia to a still quite new 'colleague' I find it understandable."

He picks up the bottle and looks at her still filled cup, at the ready to pour more as soon as it empties. He himself feels slightly sauced at this point. Luckily he hasn't got the need to stand up. Still the hot food and alcohol makes him loosen his tie a bit.

"Oh yes.  The Last Refuge's engines, while we were fleeing Earth orbit.  And don't feel so bad, I've already delved into your own background, tit for tat."  She takes the point and takes a longer, deeper swig of her drink, enough to noticeably make a dent in her cup. "My calculations weren't correct, but then again, we still haven't quite nailed those down.  The engines are always a step away from an explosion every day, and that's nobody's fault but the Fae siren sitting in the reactor.  Who knows how much she'll output second to second?  Certainly not my coworker, the bitch."

"Who did you call a bitch now? your coworker or the reactor core? can't really tell much of either." Arkady raises an eyebrow and leans back in his chair

"It's kinda weird to think that if you weren't there fixin' those engines, we wouldn't be having this nice chit-chat. it's a bit admirable really."

"My bitchy and tragically very deceased coworker.  White Arcing Lightning, blessed be her name, is responsible for all things good and noble on the Last Refuge."  She says the last part a bit loudly, with a sort of verbal wink at Arkady.  Yeah, it's never a good idea to badmouth the Fae on board, because who the hell knows what'll happen.

"On the contrary, I made them explode in the first place.  I take responsibility for my failures.  I fixed them back up, of course.  And then I had to have a long talk with our reactor."

"Oh. So that kinda quick fix." Arkady whistles and raises his eyebrows. "Well that went better than expected still. mankind got to live another day. now we just gotta keep it that way."

He checks his cup once and sighs.

"One more for the road and then I should be going I guess. got a lotta shit to do tomorrow too. Trying to get a research vessel going is hella lotta work, and I honestly ain't used to that. Luckily I'm good at figuring out how shit works."

"Yes, I imagine you are.  One more for the road."  She reaches over to fill his cup, then fills hers.  She holds it up, "Ganbei!"  She downs her drink with a fluid motion and then leans back in her chair, "I'll be staying here for a spell.  I will send you further correspondence via email.  It was a pleasure eating with you, Arkady."

Arkady raises his cup in turn "Na Zdorovie!" and empties his cup in a single sweep.

"The pleasure was mutual, Shun Xiao. I'll be waiting for that mail."

He walks towards the door and as he's about to step out, looks over his shoulder and waves once. "Until next time. It may be my treat, depending on if I can ever find a suitable place. Do svidaniya!"

He makes his way towards his ship in a steady pace. That amount of liquor actually kicked harder than he previously thought- Then again, you usually only notice it after you stand up.
Once he's a bit further away, he takes off his tie and opens a few shirt buttons, shoving the tie in his vest pocket.

"Blyat. Who would wear this everyday voluntarily?"

He heads out of the restaurant, undoing the horrible neck-snake that was sure to have strangled him if he kept it any longer.  His phone buzzes once- a sign of a new message.

Actually, scratch that.  A dozen messages.  It looks like Corduroy has been busy.

Apparently he's gone on a hiring spree.  The man has hired another bar's worth of people after taking further looks at the ship and running across some weird shit in the ducts.  'Black acidic gunk', or BAG, pops up a few times.  They've having a devil of a time cleaning it out.

Leans his elbow on a corridor and drives his hand across his face. It's cool, it helps, but it doesn't stop his low growling sigh.

"Aww... fuck me..."

He writes a short text back "I'll be right there." and picks up his pace as much as he can, avoiding contact with really anyone he might pass by as best as he could, as his head was already solving problems he would, and might encounter.

He kinda wants to trust Corduroy's judgement with the crew picks, but still keeps himself on his toes.

By the time he gets back to the Bogatyr he finds it a hive of activity.  Men, women, and gods are dressed in hazmat suits, carrying big bundles of machinery in and out of the airlocks.  He's not at all surprised to find Sanctuary orderlies standing by, ceremonial uzis calmly strapped to their belts, observing the goings-on.

"Welcome back boss," Corduroy tells him, "Sorry, but it was all I could do.  Once I found the BAG it became a 'contact Sanctuary and they'll impound the ship' sorta thing unless I could prove we could clean it out ourselves.  Sanctuary's already pretty busy so they thought why not.  You know how long Sanctuary quarantines last..."

Months, at the least.  They don't take chances.

"So basically we had this guy, Squiggles, he went up in the vents to do some basic duct-work, you know, cleaning out the dead rats and stuff... put a hand on some blank gunk.  Half an hour later he's missing his hand,"  Corduroy explains to him.  "Where'd you get this ship anyway?"

"Aww shit. It's that bad? Sanctuary's not gonna take my ship for fucking sure. Got it from Spiderweb, who prolly privateered it from the dead fleet or just was left behind in the wake of one. I don't know, or really care. The important thing is that it's mine now and I intend to fucking keep it."

He observes the people buzzing in and out and takes a quick glance at the sanctuary orderlies.

"I think we can work this shit out. Either coming up with equipment that can safely detect and extract it, or coming up with a some sort of reagent. Like solvent, kind of. Can we get any samples of that shit?

He rolls his sleeves up to get to work, but halts a bit

"Lemme get outta these fancy clothes and put on my grease gear. This is just a minor problem, so we will solve it. I'll make squiggles a new hand if he still wants to work here after that shit show."

He has no Idea what he's up against, but he'll figure it out.

"I think Squiggles would appreciate that,"  Corduroy says with a sage nod. "This way, boss..."  He leads him away from the Sanctuary orderlies, shooting them a dirty glance as he heads out.  "Can't stand the medtechs, know what I mean?  Anyway after Squiggles did his best Tyr impression we decided to leave the shit alone, it ain't eating through metal, only flesh... probably could use glass vials.  We almost did a bit of scrubbing clean up first outta panic, amazing what lemon juice does... at least you look good, boss.  Hope your meeting went well."

There's plenty of hazmat suits around, though Arky has his own.  Once suited up Arky brings him to the offending duct, which has been completely cordoned off by his men.

"It's up there."

The ducts are pretty large, designed for a full-grown man to be able to get in there and work on the guts of the transport.  Space, after all, gives plenty of opportunities for... space.  Sure enough he sees it, a big puddle of black ooze, stretching off into the black gloom of the duct.

"Yeah honestly the meeting went better than expected. She wasn't immediately hostile, but I gotta send one of our to her academy for an exchange program. She's gonna send one of her's here for the same reason, poor fella."

He kneels in front of the goo, a bit of distance from it and takes a closer look.

"I it only melts flesh, It might either be some necrotic bullshit, or a biological agent. Like flesh eating bacteria or fungus or some shit."

Arky really wishes he smoked a cigarette before putting on his hazmat.

"Is this stuff seen anywhere else than here? Gotta takes some of it to the lab to see what it is under a microscope. I need a vial or a petri dish."

"So we're sending spies to each other," Corduroy says from just outside the duct, "Very polite spies."

He pauses and sucks his teeth.

"I ain't seen it anywhere but the ducts.  Two ducts, this is the worst of it, rest was little drips.  Here you go, boss." He digs into his jacket to produce a small vial with a rubber stopper, a little scuffed and dirty-looking but probably clean.  He hands it up to Arky.

"You own a microscope?  Surprised you ain't made microscope glasses or some kinda shit like that."

Arky has no shortage of tools he can use to scrape this shit up, least of all his fingers; if it's not hurting the ducts it's not hurting his cybernetic arms.  He's easily able to transfer it to a vial and bring it to his 'lab', such as it is; it's still being put together.

((Learning roll, difficulty 40.  Higher results give more insights.  Very high results may give... special insights.))