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The C.I.C. - Wednesday

Nate took the morning shift at the C.I.C. The raven patrolled the counter, alert for any stray shiny bits of anything.

His first customers of the day were delightful. The second pair to come in, anything but. "Do you have the new Space Battle game?" one demanded. Nate shrugged, "Probably. Kaidan's pretty good about keeping things current." "But does it have the new Excellent Exiles expansion?" the second of the pair asked as if they'd just scored a point. Nate gave him the blandest of bland looks, "Like I said: Probably. Kaidan's pretty good about keeping things current." The pair signed up for the dual room.

Nate gave it about half an hour before he set the router to constantly disconnect and reconnect that room. Petty was not beyond him.

Kaidan came in late in the morning, attempting to peel white glue off his fingers. All of his fingers. How do you even get glue on all of your fingers?

Description is here.

[OOC: Open! OCD is smol.]

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Interact before Kaidan gets there.

After Kaidan arrives.

Miguel wandered past, peeked in, and saw Kaidan. "Hey." He stepped in. "Thought I'd drop by and see how it's going; haven't seen you at the gym lately."

Mostly because he'd been going pretty sporadically himself, but details.

"Hey Miguel," Kaidan greeted, "I've been slacking lately. You'd think I'd be smart enough to get out of the heat and exercise in a nice, air conditioned gym instead of running all over the island in the heat. How've you been? Any more thoughts on the whole 'hey let's gang up on the island's nonsense' thing?"

"Still not getting gremlin-bit for the privilege," Miguel said firmly. "Though if you want to, I'll take blood samples."

"I was thinking more live-trapping one and then doing the venom collecting like they do with snakes. Get it to bite an, I don't know, blood pressure cuff bulb or something, drain the venom into a test tube," Kaidan said, frowning a little in thought.

"Yeeeaaaah." Miguel wasn't so sure about that. "How do you plan on nabbing one? A box and a stick, like in ancient cartoons?"

Kaidan tilted his head, "You haven't been in a hardware store in a long time, have you? They make live traps for animals like rats and raccoons. Not sure which size would be right for the island gremlins, I've never seen one."

"You do know the gremlins are sentient, right?" Miguel asked. "I doubt they're going to walk right into a trap."

"Didn't know that," Kaidan shrugged, "Even humans can be trapped, though, so it's something to take into consideration. Depending how sentient, maybe they could just be asked for help."

"Tell you what," Miguel said. "You try and reason with one, and I'll trap it. Either way, we should get its venom."

He was fine with the idea as long as he wasn't the one potentially getting bit.

Kaidan eyed him. He wasn't sure he liked that 'either way, we should get its venom' comment. "You realizing that biting me might kill the poor thing? Is there a list anywhere of who they've bitten and what species the people were?"

"Not a clue," Miguel confessed. "You're human, though, aren't you? Enhanced, but still. Why would it kill something to bite you?"

He'd be careful if he ever needed to stop Kaidan.

"Not really," Kaidan answered, "I don't know if it would. I've just never been bitten by anything before. Even mosquitoes avoid me."

"Not really what?" Miguel asked. Call him curious.

"Not really human," Kaidan answered, "Just ask anyone in my universe."

Miguel gave him a side-eye. "I'm asking you. I figure you know better than anyone."

Kaidan threw him a lopsided smile, "Me? I'm the last person you should ask. I'd say yes, but I've never looked at my DNA."

Miguel shrugged. "You want to? I'm a geneticist. I've got equipment."

"I'd rather not see how broken it really is," Kaidan said, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck.

Over the scar.

Miguel snorted. "For one thing, you don't have to tell me about fucked-up DNA. For another, what difference does that make? Might matter if you want kids," he allowed, "but otherwise, you are who you are."

"Can't have kids," Kaidan said, looking away, "I know what I am - I'm still figuring out the 'who' part."

Miguel winced. "Sorry; sore subject? Anyway, aside from that, the only reason to get your DNA read is personal curiosity. And mine, because now you've said you don't know, I'm curious. Though let's be honest," he added with a shrug, "if we go by percentage of DNA shared with the general population, a chimp could be more 'human' than most people I know, so who cares?"

"Little bit," Kaidan acknowledged, shrugging a shoulder, "Never felt the need to get it read. I've been ignoring the clinic because I've no idea what my bloodwork would show here and I don't want an off-island lab getting curious about it."

"Doubt the clinic here would care, but they might not have the equipment." Miguel thought about it for the moment. "I think. This period's medicine isn't anything I've really studied. Anyway, if you're curious, I could take a sample and let you know. Even show you mine if you want, though I can't imagine it'd be interesting if you don't know what you're looking at."

"Not that curious, but thanks," Kaidan said, "It was more a worry what'd happen if the gremlin actually did bite me." He shrugged, "Though I guess if it did, the venom could be extracted from my blood somehow."

"Probably, yeah," Miguel agreed. "Easier with a baseline, but I imagine it's got enough unique properties to weed out. And still better you than me," he added, grinning.

"Not from my perspective," Kaidan grinned back at him, "Though honestly, I'd prefer to get a purer sample if possible."

"Yeah, but it was your idea," Miguel pointed out. "I still think it's best to just leave them alone."

"I have nightmares," Kaidan said, looking away, "I hate being helpless. One of them lately is having the world blow up around me while I'm, I dunno, singing show tunes in the park and oblivious to it, to my friends needing help, because one of the damn things bit me." He took a breath, "I'd really like an antivenom. Secondary to that, I'd like to turn it into something that could be used against an invading force. From the things I've heard on the radio, the bites don't make people aggressive and in some cases, it makes aggressive people significantly less than. Wouldn't be a bad thing to deploy against monsters or whatever is attacking."

"For that part, you probably could just ask. The island's their home, too," Miguel pointed out. "That may also be why so far as I've heard, they've never bitten anyone in the middle of an invasion. But if you're looking for an antidote - well, think about what you're saying. If you're that different from standard human, what works for others might not work for you, and vice versa. You want one for everyone on the island? We're talking separate antidotes for every species and subspecies here. That'd take a lot more than one sample, and a lot longer than a week or two."

Well, maybe. He was a genius. But then, he also didn't want to spend every waking moment on this thing.

I always forget the OOC. soz

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The C.I.C. - Wednesday

NATE

KAIDAN

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OOC