(ง'̀-'́)ง (hairbender) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-11-24 15:57:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, asami sato, h g wells |
These were the precise calculations I used to determine how much power I needed.
Who: Asami Sato and HG Wells
What: Trying to replicate a power source
When: Recently
Where: Future Industries R&D
Rating: PG-13 for heavy flirting
status: complete
Asami had to fight the urge to show off. She was interested in seeing what Helena could do, and showing off some of her own inventions, but she could seriously show off. If she could make a friend who really understood technology and science? She’d never really had a friend like that. Ever. In any universe. Even as smart as Korra and Mako were, they’d never fully understood.
As always, her hair was perfect, her makeup on point and she looked like she belonged as much on the runway as she did in a workshop. Asami could probably pull off working on a car in lingerie.
Her workshop was at the main R&D branch of Future Industries, in view of the ocean. There was a race track and a rather anachronistic looking (and huge) airship hovering overhead and Asami was putting the finishing touches on the latest version of her taser glove.
This was a meeting that Helena was intensely excited for. Not only did she enjoy meeting new people, she really enjoyed meeting other inventors. Helena had the luxury of having known many inventors and scientists in her dreams. Most of them, however, had been in the Victorian era. Many, if not all, had been lovers at some point. She’d only known one in the modern world, Claudia, whom she tended to view as a surrogate daughter of a sort. So to meet someone in this world inclined to technology and science was exhilarating.
Helena had brought a couple of her inventions with her. Her Grappler, which fit in her purse, and her Imperceptor Vest, which she wore under her light jacket. It was the easiest way to carry the vest, plus it was custom fit to her measurements. Her own hair was a mane of black silk that seemed to always be perfectly touchable and never seemed to fall out of place, no matter what she did to it.
Finding her way to the place, Helena took her time getting to where Asami was, having to stop and marvel at the things around her. That airship hovering above was a marvel! She finally made it into the workshop.
“This place is positively fascinating!” She spoke, her English accent a bit more pronounced in her awe.
A fellow engineer and also a hairbender, well that was a treat. “I’m glad you think so.” Asami tossed her hair over her shoulder as she got up to shake Helena’s hand. “I have my hands in so many different things. Sometimes I think it’s too much but I’m just interested in everything.”
Honestly, Asami was Batman.
Asami certainly had gorgeous hair, she had to say. Helena was momentarily distracted by that hair toss. She smiled warmly, giving Asami a firm handshake. “I completely understand that. I am rather the same. In my dreams I am an author and an inventor. Both here and there, I can never learn enough. I’m always reading and teaching myself new subjects, new branches of science and arithmetic as well. Sometimes I sit and do math problems just for fun.” She chuckled. Sometimes it earned her odd looks from people, but she didn’t care. She loved knowledge in all of its forms. “I’m also multi-lingual.” Most of which was absorbed from her dream self.
Asami had to fight not to stare. Helena was either her long lost white twin or her technology soul mate and either way it was exciting. “There's no such thing as too much learning!”
At the multilingual part, Asami could almost swear to a flirty tone in Helen’s voice. “What languages?”
“Precisely my point!” Helena responded with a grin. It was part of why she was constantly learning something. The other part was with her genius came the curse of getting bored when she wasn’t challenged enough. And being bored ended with very bad things happening. So she attempted to keep her mind well fed, especially when her insomnia was in control.
“Latin, German, Russian, Coptic, and French are the ones I am fluent in. While I am not fluent in them, I am also familiar with Old English, Middle English and a smattering of other ancient languages.” Most of the ancient languages had come thanks to her work with the Warehouse. Many Artifacts tended to be from the ancient world, thus she tended to pick up such smattering of languages.
“One of the better things my dad gave me.” Asami liked to prove that girls could do science and engineering like guys could. Much of her recruitment and hiring efforts were to that effect. “A thirst for knowledge and a grease thumb.”
That was a lot of languages and Asami looked impressed. “That’s...wow. I just know three, including English. Japanese and Spanish are the other two.” She figured Japanese still counted even if that was her father’s language.
“Mine also comes from my father. They are excellent things to pass on if you ask me.” Helena definitely would have chosen the smarts over the vanity of her mother. But while Helena was very much her father’s daughter, she had more of her mother in her than she’d ever admit. The temper. The vanity. Those were definitely from her mother.
“Thank you. Languages are a bit of a hobby. Also one of my jobs in my dreams deals a lot with objects from the ancient world. I picked up tidbits here and there from that.” She smiled. “What is your favorite area to delve into?” She assumed even with having fingers in multiple pies that Asami had one or two areas that she tended to dwell in the most.
Asami didn’t remember much about her mother, though she’d picked up the same shade of lipstick and probably the hair thing from her. She grinned, saying excitedly, “Cars. Engines. I’m working on a new engine for an airplane, and trying to make some dream inventions work with modern technology.” She pointed towards the far side of the warehouse where an odd looking machine sat. It was big enough for two people and looked like some kind of animal with dragonfly like wings.
“Excellent areas to focus on.” Engines weren’t quite something she’d worked on before, but it would be easy enough to learn. Circuitry, however, that was one of her specialties. Mechanical engineering, biology and chemistry were here areas of expertise. And she was a world class expert in time travel. Helena looked over at the machine on the far side, gazing at it with interest. “Is that a flying machine?” Obviously by the wings, but whether it could actually fly was an entirely different question.
“Yes. It’s based on a hummingbird spirit being that was friends with one of us,” Asami explained. “In my dream world spirits and humans could interact. At least they could after Korra left the path open between the material world and the spiritual one.” It had made Asami a little bit more spiritual. She liked to think it was fitting that she and Korra also represented a joining of spiritual and material.
“One person flies it, the other works the arms. That one has been modified with a special blowtorch. We used it to ...cut into a gigantic walking colossus.” Not for the first time it occurred to Asami that that had been the hummingbird that her father had died in. That was probably part of the reason she’d delayed work on it.
“Brilliant,” she said in awe. “Rather ingenious as well. Hummingbirds are able to hover in place, thus being the better model when attempting to do something such as gain access to a walking colossus.” Helena certainly saw the inspiration and understood the application of it. That was something she innately understood, the functionality not only of the machine, but also how it needed to be used once it was built.
There was plenty of trial and error, of course. Her time machine had gone through several stages of testing before she’d found one that worked. “Is this the only one you have here?”
“We spent so much time getting the balance right. A lot of the production models were lost in the battle so we only had the two prototypes.” Asami rubbed her arm. “They were both lost in the dreams, smashed by the colossus. This one got a hole cut into it’s leg before the colossus smashed it and my father ejected me. It let my friends get inside.”
There was the implication in ‘ejected me’ and not ‘ejected us’, but Asami moved on. “It’s the only one I have. I think I can fit the design with modern fiber optics for stability, the question is what use it could have. I’ve been thinking about local scale transport and hauling. Like at a construction site, or even being used in construction.”
Helena nodded a bit, understanding that. Some things were more complicated to get just right than others. “Unfortunate, but at least they accomplished what you needed them to.” That was the important part, accomplishing what the machines were built to do. She did hear the implication, but she didn’t press. After all, she understood sore spots when she saw them.
“That would be quite the sight to see. Fiber optics would no doubt add quite a bit to the design and functionality. That would be an excellent use of them, I would think. It might make things safer at construction sites.”
“The stability is the important part. We solved it with hydraulics but honestly it’s like flying a drunk cow.” Asami laughed. Her eyes raked over Helena and she cocked her hip. “Do you want to get a closer look? I have all day, if you do.”
She saw the way Asami’s gaze raked over her, and she smiled. “I would love a closer look, drunken cow or not.” Helena said with a chuckle, looking at Asami. This would certainly be time well spent.
“Of course.” Asami gestured for Helena to follow her, doing her hair tossing thing again. It was second nature, and she didn’t always realize she was doing it. “We could even go up in it if you want.”
The hair flip was a bit unfair, but she followed after Asami with a smile on her face. “I would certainly love that chance to see it in action.” Helena brushed some hair behind an ear, managing to not catch it on any of her earrings. The ones in each earlobe were pearls, real pearls, dream gifts. The other three were small hoops. Her wedding ring and the locket around her neck were her only other pieces of jewelry she was wearing.
“Want to go now, or look at some other things first?” Asami wanted to see what Helena had brought, too, and wondered if there was some kind of joint project they could dream up. She pulled a lever and the cockpit snapped open with a hiss. “Honestly, the controls aren’t anything like any modern aircraft, and I’ve flown planes and helicopters before. They’re based heavily on the planes my company built in the dreams. We made the first bi-planes.”
When the cockpit opened, Helena poked her head in, getting a closer look at it for some moments. The craftsmanship was breath-taking, she had to say. It was definitely something she wanted to try out, though perhaps not when she was wearing one of her inventions that she’d brought with her. “Perhaps after looking at some other things. But this is remarkable.” It definitely had controls that were different from ones she was familiar with.
“Though perhaps you could help me with a problem I have been attempting to solve?” She asked. Helena purposely waited for the response before she took her jacket off to reveal the vest beneath. “I received one of my inventions from my dreams, though it is lacking in a power source. Or rather, it’s power source is antimatter and I am attempting to devise a more reasonable power source for it.” She didn’t want to break into CERN every time she wanted to use her vest, though she was certain her and Harley could figure something out there.
“Thank you.” Asami was really proud of it. She’d done all the design work, though Varrick and her father had helped in places. All the key work was hers. “Of course! I’d love to help.”
She licked her lips as the jacket came off, though whether her reaction was to the vest or the motion it wasn’t clear. Asami had seen the wedding ring.
“Anti-matter?” On one hand that was well beyond her dreams, on the other hand it was exciting to think about. “That’s going to be a tough one to crack. Whatever power source you use will need to be light and efficient to not weigh the vest down, and not radioactive. And then we’d have to convert the power couplings to use the new power source…” Asami rubbed at her chin. “It’s actually the same sort of problem i’ve been trying to tackle for an idea for a powered suit.”
Asami was also Iron Man and she was too proud and stubborn to actually go to Tony Stark.
Upon the affirmative, Helena slipped her jacket off to reveal the vest beneath it. It was what many these would call steampunk. The golden tubes on the front were the buttons to control it. On the back, falling in with the small of Helena’s back, was where the power source would go.
“It will take some thinking, that is for certain. This vest is called the Imperceptor Vest. When powered, it allows one to move faster than the human eye can perceive, thus making it seem as though the wearer becomes invisible. It is the functional version of the Invisible Man. In fact, about the only thing I wrote about that practically works in the real world is cavorite.” And in that, she just outed herself as being H.G. Wells. She did wonder if Asami had read any of those books. With the things she invented, it was highly probable she’d read at least one of those books.
It was rather an attractive vest, if Asami thought. She stepped up to inspect it, walking around Helena. “I think we can make an adaptor easily enough. You’re right, the hardest part will be the actual power source. My gut says solar, but we’d still need a very lightweight battery. If we can come up with something powerful enough I have a few other applications it could help with.”
An invisible vest. Asami was just amazed. “So it’s super speed, instead of an actual optical illusion? I’ll bet a camera could pick it up.”
And then it hit her. Wells. Helena G Wells. “Wait, The Invisible Man…?”
Helena watched as Asami walked around her, inspecting the vest. It was a complete marvel considering Helena had constructed it in the 1890s before most modern conventions had come into being. “Solar is a potential. It needs to pack a punch, in a way. I only had the chance to use this vest once in my dreams. Anti-matter hadn’t been discovered in the 1890s and it had to wait until the 21st Century to be tested. Luckily, I didn’t die while testing it.” She chuckled a bit. “Though you are correct, optical illusion is not enough. Bending light rays is all well and good, but it is not true invisibility. Or at least not in a real world setting limited by the horizons of science.”
Then at the question, Helena smirked, a gleam in her dark eyes. “Yes, the Invisible Man. It was not enough to simply write about a man being invisible, I wanted to actually make a person invisible. However, the laws of physics in my dream universe did not allow for true invisibility, so I settled for moving faster than the eye could perceive.” It made sense, really. A fictional world could have any rules of physics that the writer wanted it to have. But when attempting to translate such things into the real world, one had to work within the confines of physics as it existed there. Thus Helena had to shift her aim for the Imperceptor Vest. Her time machine also had to be changed. Not even she could break the laws of time and space despite how hard she had tried to do so.
“Well.’ Helena had mentioned time travel before, so that made sense. So did the idea of thinking of something that wasn’t possible yet. Asami had had ideas that would work now, but were impossible in her dreams. “The laws of physics in this universe don’t allow that either. Maybe in a comic book. But how could it make someone move faster without hurting them? Is it related to your time device? Speeding up the timeflow around the wearer?”
Asami traced a finger down one of the pipes. “Is this a heat conductor?”
The smirk took on a slight somber note at the mention of the time machine. That machine would always bring back horrible memories, and she had no good associations with the contraption that she’d pulverized after it had appeared in this world. Helena refused to dabble in time travel ever again. It had cost her her sanity in one life. It would cost her so much more in this world, and she wasn’t going to lose Harley and Christina if she could help it.
“No, this is completely different from that. The idea is to generate enough energy, six terajoules to be precise, so that one can move quickly.” She looked at the pipe. “Yes, it is. It is supposed to conduct some of the energy from the power source and generate an invisible field of a sort around the wearer. The only problem with solar power is that the energy would have to be enough to produce the six terajoules of energy. Any less and it does not work.”
Asami whistled. “Six terajoules? If we’re lucky we can get a small solar panel to output a thousand joules. We’d need six billion panels. We’re going to need to figure something else out. No wonder you needed anti-matter.” How many joules could a firebender produce…?
Anti-matter seemed like a good solution, the problem was generating it and safely. Outside of like, a star-ship or a super conductor though, that wasn’t going to be easy. Or could it? “...how up to date are you on your theoretical physics?”
“As I said, anti-matter is an assured source, but highly impractical for multiple uses.” That was where it became insanely expensive to power the vest. “Relatively up to date. I have made attempts to read up on it, though I am easily distracted by other branches of science.”
“Come on.” Asami grabbed Helena by the hand, and dragged her towards a whiteboard and graphing table. “What if we built our own particle accelerator? I’ve got most of the parts and I don’t think you need much to accomplish what you need. If we can..” Asami tossed her hair back and started to sketch on the whiteboard. “If we can come up with a good containment system, we might be able to generate enough power and not have to recharge after every use. I’ve been dying to find a good power source for my own applications, too.”
Helena watched Asami as she began to sketch on the whiteboard, head tilted to the side a bit. She could certainly see where Asami was going with this.” Actually, that might be a viable answer, yes!” She grabbed another marker and started jotting equations down on the other side of the whiteboard. “These were the precise calculations I used to determine how much power I needed. So bearing that in mind, we should be able to use the particle accelerator.” She glanced over at Asami’s sketch again in thought. “This is actually far simpler than other options I was attempting to devise. Course, thanks to my dreams, my mind is largely still in the Victorian era, which is why it helps to have someone else to bounce ideas off of.” She smiled brightly at Asami.
Turning the calculations over in her head, Asami made adjustments to her sketch. "We can make a scale model for testing purposes, but if that's successful there's a lot of land I own where we can build a production accelerator under."
Moving to another part of the board, Asami hipbumped Helena as she continued to geek out. "There are three shapes for the, well the battery for lack of a better term. A circle, a sphere, or a cylinder. A square might work too. Or what if..." She drew an oval. "For added strength, what if we went with an egg?"
Asami glanced at her, positively beaming. Brainstorming suited her well. "As much as I hated Varrick, this part of working with him was always enjoyable. He was...an eccentric genius. Also an asshole."
Helena was absolutely loving this. She hadn’t brainstormed with anyone in this way since the 1890s. It was entirely exhilarating to her. Not to mention a bit of a turn on as well. She chuckled at the hipbump and she just watched the sketch for some moments.
“Considering I used a cylinder for the anti-matter, let us try an egg shape. It would certainly add more to it than a typical cylinder shape would. I would need to reconfigure the wiring of the vest itself, but that is easily done.” The blueprints for her vest only existed in her mind, but that was enough. “Do you have paper I could use to reconstruct the blueprint for the vest? That might also help give you a better understanding of the device.”
She couldn’t help but to grin wider at Asami. “I admit I have missed this collaboration. It is entirely exhilarating to be able to engage in it again. And with a very talented, smart and beautiful woman.” And that was definite flirting.
"Maybe fit a bit more of the fuel, with that added strength of the shape. Ever try to crush an egg with your hand?" Asami was thinking of a lot of practical and... rough... applications. Structural strength was important. She drew out her idea for the container. "I want to run simulations on what'll happen with a containment breach."
Asami gestured to the graphing table, her hand brushing Helena's. "There, have at it!" Her face colored a little and she fought the urge to flutter her eyes. She mostly failed. "It's wonderful. You're a visionary. I'm sure your, uhm, husband appreciates that as much as I do."
“It is rather difficult to accomplish crushing an egg in your hand,” Helena affirmed. One either needed large hands or quite a bit of strength in their hand to do it. And for the egg to be in just the right position at times as well. “Yes, it would be a good idea to see what manner of things may go wrong so we are able to do our best to limit that number as well as prepare for the potential of it happening.” After all, when she tested her vest in the dreams, her famous last words could have been ‘Let’s see if this works, or if it kills me, shall we?’ had she died if the anti-matter had failed.
“Thank you,” she responded. Then upon seeing the color on Asami’s face, she smiled flirtatiously. “I have a wife, not a husband,” she gently corrected. “And she does have an appreciation for my visionary mind. We have an open marriage, in the event you were thinking I was being too forward for being married.” She wanted to clear that up. Open marriages weren’t conventional and not what people assumed upon seeing a wedding ring on someone’s finger. Plus, Helena didn’t want to be labeled as a cheater when her marriage wasn’t a conventional one.
“In my experience, catastrophic failure is always a possibility.” Not because her work was shoddy, but because something could happen. What if one got shot at or in a fight? Asami flushed deeply. “I uhm. Wow. Okay.”
That was a thing? Asami had a really odd not-relationship with Kitiara and knew Kit was probably with other partners, which she didn’t know how to feel about. But she’d never met anyone in an actually open relationship. “I’m glad that’s cleared up.” Both the flirting and the open marriage, anyway.
“Indeed it is.” Even Helena could acknowledge that she was not perfect in her craftsmanship. Besides, when dabbling in things like anti-matter and particle acceleration, there was a good chance something could go terribly wrong even if all the proper precautions were taken.
Helena smirked a bit as she went to work drawing up a new sketch of the vest, jotting down equations on the side and adding in the new egg-shaped power source on the back, replacing the cylinder that was currently there. “I am glad as well. It has been a while since I last worked with a woman on a project.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder as she looked over at Asami. “Though tell me, what should the egg-shaped source be made of? As you can see, I used brass fittings to help with conducting energy on the vest, but I would imagine we would need a more durable metal to handle the particle acceleration?”
“That’s the thing I do. I try to hire as many women as I can get my hands on. I hire men, too, of course, but most of the brains here are women.” Asami came over, leaning in close to Helena to look at the drawing. Her chest brushed Helena’s arm. “Brass wouldn’t hold up. We’d want something light and strong, maybe some lead coating on the inside.”
“That is something I truly admire. Having dreamt of being a woman heavily into the sciences in the Victorian era, I fully support promoting women in the field.” Helena said with a smile. “Not to mention, I do know what it feels like to do the work and have a man claim all the credit for it. It was made even worse as that man was my brother.” Nope, she would never let that go. Sure Charles here hadn’t taken credit for her work, but she would still take it out on him now and then.
She glanced at Asami, licking her lips as she felt her chest brush her arm. “Titanium, perhaps? Aluminum may be a little too brittle for the power output we need to generate.” She leaned into Asami a bit as she made some adjustments to the sketch.
"I couldn't imagine that. It's hard enough here." It had been less of a problem in Republic City, but was still one. The prissy rich girl who didn't belong with the men. "So I suppose that's the HG Wells in all the pictures?"
She didn't move away, her hair fanning across her face as she watched. "Titanium..." She snapped her fingers. "What about Magnesium as an alternate? And Boeing developed a microlattice last year that's supposed to be just as strong, but lighter than styrofoam."
If they were doing this they might as well invent new materials while they were at it.
“Indeed. He used my initials, at least, but that was hardly enough. People found it easier to believe that a time machine was possible than it was to believe a woman had thought of it.” Helena shook her head.
“Wait a minute…” Helena said. She jotted down the atomic number and other such information for both magnesium and titanium. “What if we combined them both? Or combined other such metals? I’ve done it before when I made cavorite, actual working cavorite. That is one of my inventions that translated directly from fiction to reality.” Now her mind was shifting to chemistry and she was working out various metals and what combinations might work.
It made Asami a little angry on Helena's behalf. "I guess you get the last laugh. All those small minded men are dead, and here you are."
Asami grabbed a pencil and added to the sketch. "Composites are always stronger than the separate materials, right? We can fabricate some right here and see if the science holds up!"
“That I most certainly do,” she responded with a confident smile. It was one of the reasons she flaunted the ‘I’m H.G. Wells’ as often as she could. It made her feel vindicated. “I am here and working with someone as smart as you. We are dreaming of things they never could.”
Helena jotted down several metals she felt would be good for this experiment, to see what would work best together. “They are, and sometimes combining different metals yield very different and unexpected results. Could we run simulations on various combinations? It would save us from using quite a lot of metal.”
"It sounds like that's a little more up your alley." Putting things together, making them work, trying new designs. Those were Asami's strengths.
"I paid out the nose for a computer capable of those kinds of sims, so you bet your cute butt we can run simulations."
“I do enjoy dabbling in chemistry. Perhaps one day I could make some cavorite and demonstrate a failsafe security system for you.” Helena was going to make some cavorite and build some anti-gravity traps in her and Harley’s house to deter any would-be robbers. It would, of course, require a lot of preliminary work. Magnetizing the floors and all of the furniture to ensure only intruders were promptly stuck to the ceiling with no way down without someone turning off the anti-gravity generator.
Somehow she felt Harley would enjoy being stuck to the ceiling now and then.
“You are definitely wonderful. You will need to teach me how to use this computer. Or I could simply just beg you to run it each time I needed a simulation done.” She was half-teasing. She really would beg, complete with flirting, if Asami wanted her to.
"I'd love that. It sounds like it would be really interesting!"
Asami pulled away. "Why don't you roll up the sketches and we'll go check it out. It's just next door." She turned away, then glanced over her shoulder. "When you put it that way, why would I want to teach you?"
“Then I shall do that!” It simply took some time to create the cavorite. It needed about a week for the metal to coalesce and form into cavorite. And it needed to be in a containment oven, otherwise the roof would blow sky high when the cavorite finally solidified. Helena had actually done that once, blown the roof off of the lab where she’d first made cavorite. That had been a mess.
She began rolling up the sketches, then looked up at Asami, a smirk on her face. “Perhaps if you ever become tired of my begging you to please run a simulation? Though the view is a highly pleasant one,” she responded, eyes sliding down Asami’s backside as she started after her.
Harley welcomed anything but blowing up the roof was probably on the borderline.
Asami felt a little outclassed. Not intellectually, they were wonderfully of similar minds, but the flirting? As much as Asami tried to be smooth she was a bit of a dork at times. Helena was smooth. Asami was willing to believe her on the open thing, and the flirting was fun. She winked.
The computer lab was in a large room next to the main lab, and currently unoccupied. There were several consoles, and a towering computer at the center. Asami leaned over a table to clear it off for Helena to put down the blueprints.
Helena knew better than to attempt to make cavorite at home. She’d do it in a proper laboratory, and only after proper precautions were taken to protect the lab itself from Helena’s invention. The difficult part was making the cavorite. It was easy to build the generator and such.
Oh Helena was definitely smooth. Whether it was the British charm, her natural charisma or something else was anyone’s guess. But she’d always been a smooth talker. And there was nothing she liked better than giving out smooth compliments. She liked watching people respond to it.
“Oh wow, now this is positively amazing!” She praised as she looked at the consoles and the towering computer. She then moved over to the table and rolled the blueprints out, her hand brushing against Asami’s as she did so.
Asami shivered. When Helena had come up behind her her mind had briefly gone places. But there was engineering to do and while engineering with a partner was quite frankly a turn on, there was engineering to do.
"Let me give you a guest log in, for now." She stepped past Helena, two fingers trailing down her arm and over her elbow as she did.
Helena could consider engineering foreplay. After all, considering how many scientists and intellectuals she had liaisons with in the late 19th Century, projects like this were definitely foreplay. Being able to appreciate and connect with someone in their element like this was a definite turn on for her. But that went for any area, not just in engineering. Talking psychology with Harley, for example, could be a huge turn on for her.
It was her turn to shiver at the touch, but she watched and paid attention to what Asami was doing. “Alright,” she said, entering Asami’s personal bubble. That was another trademark of hers, invading people’s personal space when she liked them. Of course at the moment, it was partly to better see what Asami was doing as well as partly just being in close proximity to her.
Asami didn't mind the invasion. Inherently a lonely person, she enjoyed closeness with people. She pushed her hair out of her face, and pointed out how to program a simulation. "Slash help will give you extra commands, I'm sure you can figure it out from there. I'm still learning new things about this every day. We did some tests in this on some designs before we even bothered to make a scale model for the wind-tunnel."
Helena understood loneliness. Her dream self was an intensely lonely person, and some of that bled over when she found herself away from Harley and Christina. She absorbed everything that Asami told her. Luckily, she had an innate understanding of computers so she didn’t have to ask for more in-depth guidance. “Having this computer must save you a lot of money that would be spent on the trials.” But with the instructions in mind, Helena began to program a simulation, focusing first on the magnesium and titanium combination of metal.
"I've had it for one quarter and it's already paid for itself." Her R&D was such a huge part of Future Industries expenses and the paper pushers hated her for it, but if she didn't innovate, what was the point? "We started with making electric cars. We still do, but we've expanded to so much more now."
Asami put her arm on Helena's shoulder, leaning against her as she watched Helena program.
“Why limit yourself when the possibilities are infinite?” Helena queried, though it was more a statement than a question. She wasn’t one to limit herself, and someone like Asami with a range of knowledge and expertise probably didn’t want to limit themselves either.
She leaned into Asami, watching the program run. She made some notes that she could refer to later when making the decision on what metal combination to ultimately use. “This program is brilliant. Is it able to run any simulation you could potentially think of?”
“Anything physics based, at any rate. I’d have to bring in a programmer if we wanted to expand it. Do you have some ideas? I know there are a couple of people on the Valarnet.” Asami glanced at Helena out of the corner of her eyes.
The first person that came to mind was Claudia, and she very nearly said her name out loud. However, she quickly realized that Claudia wasn’t actually here in Orange County, which reminded her that she missed people from her dreams. “There is someone I work with who is a programmer, but that is about my only suggestion.” Helena didn’t really know anyone on Valarnet that were programmers.
“I'll put out some feelers,” Asami replied. She’d remembered some people talking about it, and it couldn’t hurt to ask. “If they’re not interested.”
“It certainly wouldn’t hurt.” Helena said with a nod. She herself wasn’t a programmer, though she could probably learn how to do it. But perhaps leave it to someone who was more of a professional at it. She made some more notes as she watched the simulation play out, though she also eyed Asami out of the corner of her eye.
They were much closer than they had any right to be. ASami wasn’t inclined to move, her attention mostly on the display as it played out simulations in wireframe. “Its holding up 90% of the time. Good, but not great.”
Helena wasn’t inclined to move either. She liked the closeness as she watched the display. “There is probably a better combination.” She then stopped the simulation and started another one, using two other metals to see what would happen.
“What if we can reduce the impurities in the first metal a little more? It would be difficult but not impossible.” Eventually as they refined the technique it would become easier and cheaper. After all, solar panels had come a long way both efficiency-wise and cost-wise.
“True, it would take time, but the more familiar we become with the metals, the easier it would become.” Helena changed the simulation, going back to magnesium and titanium. She bumped up the purity level of both by a percentage point each, curious to see how much that could affect the outcome.
“Oh, that’s promising.” Asami leaned past Helena to get a better look, without jostling her or getting too close. She mostly failed.
There was a grin on Helena’s face, and she set a hand on Asami’s shoulder as she watched the results. “Certainly better. Though I wonder…” She trailed off as she quickly made notes of these results. She then altered the simulation again, bumping both purity levels another percentage point higher.
“What is it?” Asami craned her neck, her hand landing on top of Helena’s.
She noted down the results of this simulation before she altered it once again. This time, she put the magnesium purity level back down two percentage points, but left the titanium one where it was. “I am curious what would happen if instead of making both metals more pure, if we only made one more pure. Call me curious and wanting to see what could happen.” She glanced at Asami, obviously more than enjoying this. And she liked the hand on her own.
“It’s worth a shot. We’re getting closer to 99% with every simulation.” Excitedly, she bounced in place. “You can’t get to 100% but… if we get close enough the failure rate would be well within a safe zone.”
“Precisely. And at the very least, we will know where to focus our efforts while making the metal mixture.” Which could also cut down on the expense of creating it. Helena grinned, watching the simulation yield some intriguing returns. She marked them down. “This is positively remarkable. Perhaps I could even use this to better refine my formula for cavorite!”
“I can’t wait to see this in action.” Asami moved away and sat on the table, careful of the blueprints. “This is so exciting! I feel like we’re on the edge of something great! Something new.”
“It is because we are on the edge of something new. I have not heard of anyone accomplishing something like this.” Helena was excited and firing on all cylinders. She then moved over to the blueprints, jotting notes about the magnesium/titanium combination before she looked over at Asami with a warm grin. “I believe we can accomplish great things together.” Did that have more than one meaning? Possibly.
“We can. Between the two of us we can touch the stars!” Asami laughed, leaning back on both of her hands and kicking her feet giddily. “God, I just feel so fired up.”
“So do I.” Helena responded, setting the pencil aside. She moved over and stood in front of Asami, in her personal space again. She planted her hands on either side of Asami’s legs and leaned closer to her. “I believe we shall accomplish great things together.”
Shivering, Asami leaned in. She stopped just short of Helena’s lips, her voice throaty. “Maybe we need to try some practical applications.”
A sly, sensual smile curved her lips. “Agreed. That would be the proper progression.” Her own voice was a bit lower. And without further ado, Helena leaned further in and kissed Asami. The kiss was electric, much like the project they’d begun working on.
Groaning, Asami kissed her back. It was exciting and electric, and it felt a little wrong but mostly in the good kind of wrong. She wrapped her legs around Helena’s waist and tangled her fingers in her hair.
She was always stimulated by science talk. It was little wonder why her dream self had slept with most of the men she worked with in the lab. She’d even slept with a co-worker or two at the Warehouse. Highly ill-advised considering one attempted to kill her later. She groaned a bit into the kiss as Asami’s legs wrapped around her. Helena wrapped one arm around her back, pulling her closer, while her other hand tangled into that magnificent hair.
“Your marriage is really open?” Asami asked, breaking the kiss for air, and because she needed reassurance. In the back of her mind she thought she should really clarify things with Kit too, but it wasn’t like they were dating.
“Yes, it is. Both Harley and I are poly. Monogamy doesn’t exactly work for us.” She assured Asami. A potential other reassurance was the fact Helena didn’t hide her marriage. She wore her ring and she’d been upfront about it. She also looked Asami in the eye, another important part of telling the truth.
“I’ve just been both the other woman, and the woman who had to deal with the other woman,” Asami explained. She tugged Helena back into a kiss, satisfied with that answer.
Helena was definitely not the type to push anyone into doing something they didn’t want to do when it came to these sorts of situations, so she wouldn’t have pushed it if Asami was uncomfortable with it. Especially after hearing about being the other woman and having to deal with the other woman. Helena knew that well, she herself had been the other woman multiple times in her dreams in the Victorian era. She kissed Asami back, adding a little more heat into it this time. The science talk had gotten her revved up, though she still would only go as far as Asami was comfortable with.
Regardless of how far they went here, Helena was definitely going to screw the life out of her wife that night once Christina was in bed.
It was something she needed. A physical release and also one to help set her head straight. But mostly, Asami was going to show Helena just what an engineer’s hands were capable of.
Helena’s hands started wandering. One slid along Asami’s back, the other skimmed down her side, then along her leg. She was definitely into this, and she was more than happy to show off her own talents in this department.
Oh, this was a very good day.