Alex Rogan (alexrogan) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-02-08 22:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, alex rogan, sarah kerrigan |
Who: Sarah Kerrigan and Alex Rogan
Where: His business
What: Job Interview
When: The day after they talked
Warnings/Rating: PG for vague talk of PTSD
Status Complete
Sarah had been torn on what to wear. From the sound of the job, it sounded like she’d get her hands dirty, but she still wanted to be presentable. Sexy even. She’d gone with a business skirt, and a white shirt with the appropriate buttons unbuttoned. She didn’t want to give the wrong impression, but frankly Kerrigan as starting to be desperate enough that she’d roll with the wrong impression. Maybe. Only not. She scolded herself.
She arrived at the address ten minutes early, wondering if this was the best idea. Things exploding and her didn’t always get along these days. But surely she could handle it, right?
Alex was, sadly or not, extremely blind to most things like undone buttons. He was a bit of an odd sort. absentminded in a real way when it came to anything but working and inventing. He smiled when she arrived, having been waiting for her. Well, waiting for a value of working on his latest invention in the main shop area.
It was a square box shape festooned by wires, and glowing from a phosphorescent sheen along it’s surface, inside and out. It was designed to be a new form of ice cream maker, one that could use normal items, restructure them based on the concept of what ice cream looked and tasted like, and make ice cream. He had not yet gotten it up and running yet.
He paused in his work and stood, wearing a lab coat that showed signs of singeing, and jeans and a t-shirt that proclaimed Space Invaders to be the best videogame ever,
“Hello! Miss Kerrigan, yes? I’m Alex Rogan.”
He extended a hand that was covered in a few bruises and grease, then realized it was, and withdrew his hand. “Sorry!” He wiped it off on a rag that had seen better days. The rag rippled, and absorbed the grease, leaving his hands completely clean.
She peered at the device, not sure she understood what it was or what it would be used for, but she thought she could learn.
"Hello." She didn't shy away from the grease, though she did think she was officially overdressed. Kerrigan stared at the rag, mouth hanging open. "We could have used those in Afghanistan."
Alex smiled and nodded to her. “I’m sure, but it never does as it’s supposed to. You see, it’s supposed to disintegrate dirt, not absorb it, and I still haven’t figured out what it does exactly.” He scratched his head as he peered at the rag.
“Where does the dirt go?” Kerrigan asked, looking down at her hand, a bit amazed that there'd been no transfer of grease. She wondered how it worked, and if Alex even knew.
“I don’t know. That’s part of the problem. It could be assimilating it, and somehow turning it into something else, but what? Or it could be sending it somewhere else.” He sighed and eyed the rag then set it down.
“I do know it somehow involves the digitization of energy and matter, but not what it does. Sometimes things don’t exactly work the way I want them too.”
Alex nodded to her.
“You built it, how do you not know where it goes?” She was generally curious, even if her tone came across as more harsh than necessary. It just made no sense that someone could make something and not know how it worked.
“Well, I built it to do one thing and it failed and there was an explosion, and then it does this.” He shrugged, and sighed, staring at it. “I... I’ll figure it out, someday. I’m working on a sensor that can pierce things like this and figure out how they work.”
“How often are there explosions?” Sarah asked, knowing she was morally obligated to tell him about her PTSD.
Alex scratched his chin. “Not often? And most of the time they are like... more poof explosions than boom explosions.” He made sound effects and hand motions to go with his explanations. “I think the last one was last month, mid-month.” He dropped his gaze to the cloth. “When I made that, really.”
“Poof explosions. I can handle those.” She ran her fingers into her hair, shaking it out. “I can handle the bigger ones too, just not as often. I have, uhm, PTSD.” She felt ashamed even admitting that.
Alex nodded, listening, then winced. “I’m sorry. My mother had that. She was a supply officer in Vietnam, and shot down and forced down behind enemy lines. She and twelve others had to fight their way back to allies. They made it but it took almost a month because of how they had to move and... yeah.” It was a lot worse than that but he left out the bad parts, knowing, if she had something similar, it was probably from a similar reason.
He focused and was intense, eyes passionate as he looked at her, voice strong and strident for once. “I’ll do my best to avoid thing that could trigger you if you want to let me know where those would be, other than bad explosions.”
Sarah nodded her head. Most of hers was from combat (and some anger there) but there had been incidents, which were all too common for women in uniform. She didn’t like to talk about it. “If I’m aware there might be something big, I’ll be okay. It’s not like I’ll start shooting wildly, at least.”
Alex nodded. “Okay. Then how about you sit, and tell me more about your work skills and experience? I just want to know how to work with you, and what to teach you here to compliment your skills and make us both more money.” He nodded. he was absentminded, but not dumb. Some subjects should be left alone unless and until they needed to be faced.
“Of course.” Kerrigan took a seat, smoothing her dress out as she did so, and thought a moment of where to start. She had a lot of training that didn’t translate well to civilian life. “I received a lot of training in general electronics repair. I was also responsible for maintaining our vehicle in the field. And I can purify water like no one’s business.”
He settled and listened, eyes going vague as he just shut off from everything else. “Excellent. Your training, will it apply to things like rewiring wall wires, testing voltage and load levels in houses and projects, and helping to find and fix energy bleeds in electrical lines?” He paused then nodded. “Good on the last two. Can you work on both purely mechanical cars and ones with newer electronic and computer parts?”
He rubbed his hands. “I can get you up to speed on some of what you don’t know, if there are areas where gaps need to be bridged.”
"Yes, and yes, and I'll probably need a refresher, but without seeing something in front of me I couldn't tell you just what exactly I'll need help with." The redhead spoke with confidence and clarity, answering without needing to think too hard on it.
“Excellent. Now, a practical exam.” He waved a hand at another counter where a disassembled computer lay out in parts. “This is a basic new model computer. I had to take it apart and blow it clean since the owner had clogged it with dust and thought it was a hardware issue. Can you assemble it so it runs? Or tell me how you think it should go back together? “ He wanted to know what she could and couldn’t do.
Sarah got to her feet and walked over to the counter. She touched her finger against the metal part of the case to discharge herself, then examined the motherboard and the case, before quickly installing it, lining up the connections and then plugging everything in. “Thermal paste?”
“In the cabinet underneath. There are protective items there, too and other tools if you need them.” He was careful about what he did and how. He didn’t let things go wrong... except some of his experiments.
“Okay.” She hooked the computer up. The hardest part was the heatsink, but that was just because heatsinks are a bitch and all need to die in a fire. She double checked her connections, then closed up the case. “It’s ready.”
He moved to it, double-checked it, then nodded, smiling. “Well done! That was rather smooth.” He admired her work, then nodded. “The work is hard, and I pay $15 dollars an hour to start, with extra for hazard pay if the job includes danger or a lot of grime. Most of what I do is help people with small problems from electrical work to plumbing, but right now I’m also designing and working on putting in a security system for a local businesswoman. You can set your own hours and you get paid when you are here, or checked in on a job and working. At first, you work with me, and then when I think you are ready, and if you want to, you can start doing one person calls yourself.”
He settled back then and smiled at her. “Do you have any questions?”
Sarah regarded him for a moment. It all sounded too good to be true. She didn’t ask about benefits - one of the few things she wasn’t that bitter about was the VA system. She held out her hand. “When do I start?”
He met her hand with his own and shook. “This afternoon, if you’re available. I’m doing my electrical check of Miss Dane’s business, that’s the security job, and it’ll be a good getting your feet wet start.” He grinned. “Welcome to Rogan Electronics, Miss Kerrigan. We can sit down and do the paperwork now, or later, as you like.”
He liked that she was to the point, and he hoped this would work out.
“Lets get it over with,” Kerrigan replied, feeling lighter than she had in months. “I can’t wait to get started!”
FIN.