Who: Bruce and Helena What: Reverse engineering the Imperceptor Vest has hit a sore spot with Helena and she'd really REALLY like a different answer to her problem. When: Tuesday around noon Where: Banner's lab Warnings: Sciencey stuff, angst, mentions of death by nuclear bomb, everything else TBA
When she'd started reverse engineering the Imperceptor Vest, Helena hadn't foreseen having a bad reaction to it. After all, what harm could come from that? It had nothing to do with time travel, so she was safe from dealing with potentially bad memories about Christina and everything she'd once tried to do to get her daughter back. So she'd thrown herself into reverse engineering the Vest. It wasn't overly difficult, at least once she'd found her notes from when she'd originally built it. But soon enough, she was presented with a problem she wasn't exactly certain she could answer herself, nor did she feel she wanted to know the answer. So instead of asking Claudia on the matter, Helena did her own research. She found a couple books at a bookstore and even did some online research. The answer she found there was the one she feared, but she pushed it aside, figuring she could get through the task at hand or find some other answer along the way.
The problem she faced was how to power this new device she was working on. The Imperceptor Operated on antimatter. Given the fact that antimatter was composed of particles that had opposite charge and quantum spin, Helena knew she needed the exact opposite of that in order to detect invisibility, or the near-invisible appearance thereof. And that exact opposite power source was nuclear. As soon as she'd found that answer in multiple sources, Helena got a bitter taste in her mouth. It brought up all the issues of her death in so many ways. So Helena did what she did best, or worst truthfully, and she pushed her feelings on the matter aside. Which, of course, only made things worse. Her nightmares were raging again when she slept, and she was more driven than ever to find an alternate power source. But she wasn't exactly finding what she wanted, so she felt she should show Bruce what she'd worked up all ready. And she sincerely hoped he had ideas for what could be used aside from nuclear power because she couldn't work on this any further if nuclear was the only option.
Though the fact she was ignoring, or mostly ignoring, her personal feelings on this matter was causing her to be a little more neurotic than normal. She was taking opportunities that she might have approached with caution were she in her right mind. For which she'd nearly gotten herself into a bad spot with the Sergievskys. And after realizing how irrational she was being and finally admitting the problem, sort of, to Bruce over the comms, she'd called Anatoly and apologized. And then she was determined to go about finding a solution to this. So she woke up early that morning, or as she'd barely slept, if at all, she started her morning routine a bit earlier than normal. She locked herself in her workroom after making herself some tea and light breakfast and proceeded to work a bit more on her notes. Once it got closer to noon, Helena got up, gathering both of her notebooks containing all her notes regarding this subject as well as the Imperceptor Vest itself. She wasn't certain whether or not the Vest would be helpful at all, but better to take it and not need it, than not take it and need it. It might be helpful for her to show it to Bruce.
Helena slipped the vest on, then grabbed a suit coat and pulled it on over the vest, effectively concealing it from view. Putting her notebooks in her rather large purse and ensuring she had her Farnsworth and Tesla, she headed off to Bruce's Warehouse. She tried not to think overly much on the way there. It would be difficult enough for her to take this up with Bruce, she didn't want to dwell on it on the walk there. Besides, she'd secretly, or not so secretly as she had a feeling Myka knew she was upset, and Pete might suspect something, but she'd dodged all attempts at making her talk about it directly. Once she arrived at the Warehouse, she let herself in, using the key Bruce had given her and she made the familiar walk to the lab. She paused outside the lab, taking in a steadying breath before she entered and glanced around.
"Bruce?" She asked. He was rarely far from the lab, and even if he wasn't currently in there, she could at least start working on something until he did arrive.