abheirrant | ❧ i n b o x

[You know, he could have saved Qubit some trouble by just explaining himself in the first place, but he didn't, so here they are.]

It is an abjuration ward that repels necrotic magic.

[ Nah it's fine! Easier to ask forgiveness than permission. (Just kidding, both are absolutely impossible.) ]

I thought you were the only one here who had necrotic magic?

I am at present, as far as I know. But in light of recent events, I thought it pertinent to ward your area and everything therein from potential thieves.

[And by "potential thieves," he means if/when Kabal gets interested in what Qubit is keeping in there and decides to force him to rot his way into the lab.]

Edited 2020-02-13 07:41 (UTC)

[ Yeah. Yeah, he picked up on that implication. ]

Don't tell me he's been hectoring you again. Didn't he learn anything the last time?

He has not yet, but luck favors the prepared.

[Not that Kabal learned anything, to be fair.]

Forgive me for not asking for your permission before etching a glyph into your door.

[ ... Well, he's not wild about people messing with his property without asking, buuuut on the other hand he has zero room to talk. At least he doesn't have to deal with Kabal for now. ]

I would have appreciated some notice, at least. For a minute there I thought we had another intrusion on our hands.

But that said, it's past time I had something like this in place anyway. Technological defenses are notoriously vulnerable to magic of any kind, to my eternal chagrin.

Was there a reason you delayed having such defenses in place? Not just for necrotic magic, but wards of any kind.

[Though knowing Qubit, he gets the feeling he already knows what the reason would be.]

Several reasons, actually. For one, I work with extremely sensitive equipment, and interference caused by magic is a pain to normalize out of the data. For another, I prefer to have full control of my defensive measures, for obvious reasons. Or at the very least, I want to understand how they work.

[ TL;DR it's because he sucks absolute shit at magic. If that was your guess, congratulations! ]

[His guess was that Qubit just doesn't like magic the way he doesn't like technology, but close enough.]

I could explain to you how the glyph works, if you'd like. I have been meaning to come see you at some point.

[ Ok it's not that he's scared of magic! He just, you know, resents the way it gets to flout his neatly ordered model of the universe! You know how it goes. ]

You have? Is everything all right? I haven't given up on that on that prototype dampener for you, I can expedite it if you need.

No No, no need to expedite it yet. I just thought it'd be nice to talk.

If that is all right, of course.

[ Oh. Right. Talking. That thing you do to build and maintain relationships with other people.

It's been a while since he's properly done that, hasn't it? Funny - he was almost grateful for the quiet, when he first got here. Back in De Chima, he could scarcely go a few hours without needing to speak to a housemate, or co-worker, or Newt, or even the dogs. If it weren't for all the distractions, he could get so much more done, he thought. Yet here he is, holed up by himself in his lab for days on end, stepping out only for food or more work - and he's still not getting anything done.

... Yeah. Maybe a talk would be nice. ]

Of course. More than all right. Sorry for assuming. I've been a bit ... keyed up lately.

[ I mean. He's always high-strung, but like. more than usual. ]

Is something the matter? [More than the usual troubles Anchor provides them on a week-to-week basis.] I could bring you some tea, if you'd like.

[Spoiler: he's bringing it anyway.]

Edited 2020-02-15 05:02 (UTC)

[ Qubit grimaces at the screen. Is that what he wants to talk about, though? ... Signs point to "maybe." ]

Nothing catastrophic, just some personal drama. I'll take tea, sure.

I will see you shortly.

[And he intends to, making his way over to the lab after collecting a few things for the promised tea. Unfortunately, that glyph on the door does him no favors, lighting up the moment he's near. He can feel the magic -- magic he put in place -- working against him, pushing him back like an invisible force. He'd hoped to make something that would merely keep him from rotting the walls away, but in his zeal to protect Qubit, he overdid it a bit. Whoops.

He sends another text rather than knocking, or even trying the door himself.]

I am outside, if you could open the door.

[ Meanwhile, Qubit has a few minutes to prepare for a visitor, during which he makes a halfhearted attempt to tidy up. But, probably for the first time since he got to Anchor, he can't really find much that needs it. He's spent a pretty significant percentage of the last week on tidying, refactoring, inventorying - all the manual labor and mind-numbing clerical tasks that, in previous labs, he's always left up to automation, because he could, and because his time was much too valuable to waste on something as trivial as housekeeping.

But there's a certain... virtue, maybe? ... to doing it himself, with his own hands. It's been a return to his roots, in a way. Almost nostalgic. Even if everything else he touches comes away in shambles - this, at least, he can still control.

It's a relief when Carlisle actually arrives, but even that isn't without a faint undercurrent of dread. After all, they're privy to facts about each other that no one else in Anchor knows. Have they ever had a conversation that wasn't emotionally devastating for one of them? Don't they have anything pleasant to talk about?

... Well, it is what it is. Qubit doesn't bother texting back, just answers aloud - ] Coming!

[ A few seconds later, the door slides back into the wall. Qubit's right behind it to greet him. He's dressed a little more casually than usual, in shirtsleeves, while his iconic coat hangs from a wall hook near the door. He smiles (albeit without much exuberance), and nods once to acknowledge his friend. ]

Good to see you. Come on in.

[Qubit is right behind the door, and Carlisle stands on the other side several feet from it, the fingers of one hand curled against his palm while the other grips his communicator as though his life depended on it. Though he brightens -- visibly -- when Qubit appears, he remains in his spot for another second or two, replying from there rather than any closer.]

Yes. Yes, good to see you, Mister Qubit.

[One more moment of hesitation and he forces himself forward, determination etched into his brow as he hurries toward and beyond the threshold. With every step, the wall glows just a hair brighter, the illumination barely visible to the untrained eye, as easily missed as the soft hum of a volatile enchantment.

Despite his predicament, Carlisle still goes to the trouble of angling himself to the side so as not to risk brushing against Qubit on his way in. They both have their quirks about physical contact, and it seems he'll respect those even when he's dealing with other issues. The technology around the lab (which does seem more organized than the last time he was here, he has to admit) does little to keep him out today as he doesn't stop until he's a good distance from the door, letting out a sigh of relief once he can no longer feel the enchantment working against him. The wall itself quiets, the soft glow dissipating.

He adjusts the satchel at his shoulder.]

Right. Good. Have you been cleaning in here?

[ Honestly, Carlisle's hesitance to enter doesn't strike Qubit as that much worse than the first time he came over. And that visit ended with them trapped in a Redshift, so if Carlisle seems more hesitant this time, well... that's understandable. His untrained eye doesn't spot the glyph's odd behavior from the opposite side of the door, either, just yet. In any event, he doesn't comment on any of it, just stands aside and lets Carlisle enter at his own pace. ]

Mm-hm. A bit. [ A lot. Actually, the place is cleaner than it's been since he first moved in. Some tables have been swapped, the machinery has been rearranged. The tangled web of wires is gone, supplanted by neat bundles that run upward and disappear into the ceiling. The Shame Tube™ is still where it was, but it has a little more visual polish, at least. ]

I figured I could use the space more efficiently with some refactoring. Cable management was getting to be a nightmare, the way it was.

[ He does not mention what prompted him to do this. But also, now that he's looking at it in the context of "guests," it's dawned on him that there's... really no good place to sit a guest down and have tea. It's all task chairs and heavy work tables, nothing that can be easily pulled over and made welcoming. Also, since his poison of choice is coffee... ]

Oh. It would help if we had a kettle, wouldn't it? One second.

[ Don't mind him, he's just gonna technomance some parts out of a nearby bin and turn them into a shiny new electric teakettle! It's pushing it a little in terms of size, so he ends up holding the kettle in one hand while he shakes the tingles out of the other. ]

Oh, I don't need—

[Too late, Qubit is already technomancing up a kettle, and Carlisle gets that same wide-eyed awe he did the first time he watched Qubit's abilities at work.]

Ah. That is- hm.

[Sure, it's terrifying how he can take some bits and pieces and transfigure them into a piece of technology, but it's equal parts fascinating, and Carlisle can't help but wonder just how it works. He can explain magic, but technomancy? Or some ability that supposedly isn't magic, but certainly seems a lot like it? That's completely foreign to him.

He's just going to set his bag on the nearest worktable and fish out his mugs and tea, his eyes locked on that teakettle. Don't mind him.]

You said before you can reshape machinery with a mere thought, but you don't understand how magic works? [How? Magic is so easy by comparison, right?]

[ Qubit sets the kettle down near Carlisle's setup, and takes a moment to casually rub his hands together, looking at him instead of the kettle. Oddly enough, something about the question makes him relax considerably.

Talking shop! It's so obvious. Sharing their expertise with one another, that's a pleasing topic right there. Forgive him, Carlisle, he shouldn't have doubted. ]

Right. Because my abilities are psionic, not magic. It's an important distinction, but it's not uncommon for people to conflate the two - or entire civilizations, for that matter.

[His eyes flick from the kettle to Qubit.]

But magic isn't nearly as complicated as technology, is it? I mean, I suppose it depends on the sort of magic one is working with and the method they choose to manifest that magic, but surely.

[ Qubit shrugs. ] Not necessarily. You do realize "technology" is just as broad a category as "magic"? As you said - it depends on your design and implementation. What you're trying to do, and how you're trying to do it.

Take... [ aha! There's a convenient example right in front of him. ] Take this kettle, for instance. It works by running electricity through a single piece of wire. That's it. It's about the simplest thing you can make electricity do.

[He eyes the kettle again.]

And electricity is an energy, so... the wire acts as the guide for it, much like the lines in a glyph?

Well, yes and no. It's... [ He pauses, debating how to explain this to someone who might just have a completely different (or nonexistent) understanding of high-school physics. ]

It's a form of energy, produced by the motion of charged particles. In this case they're electrons - negatively charged particles, too small to be seen, they're an elementary component of matter - which are moving within the wire - not all in the same direction, of course, the wire is just a medium - such that the net flow of charge is positive. [ beat ] Does that make sense?

[ Please let that make sense, he isn't sure how to simplify it any further without just assigning you Feynman's lectures. ]

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