This Is Going To Be Harder Than It Looks

Participants:

alec_icon.gif elisabeth_icon.gif

Scene Title This Is Going To Be Harder Than It Looks
Synopsis Liz brings Alec the suppression drug to test and see if we can replicate it.
Date Aug 5, 2009

Alec's Apartment, Dorchester Towers


It's not hard to detour to Alec's apartment on her way home — it's just one of those things that is still a little uncomfortable for Elisabeth. Still, Cat asked her to take care of it, and take care of it she will. And hey, if it means she gets to hit Alec… maybe some good will come of it, right?? When he answers the knock on the door, Liz offers a faint smile. "Catch you at a bad time?"

Alec stands slightly wet and drippy with a towel held about his waste. He eyes her, "Nope." he states, moving aside to let her in, "If you ask nice I can even put on some pants." the smallest of smiles is offered as the door is reclosed and the bolts thrown firmly. click click thunk CLACK. "What's up?"

It might even be mildly ego-bruising that Liz's gaze as she takes in his dishabille is entirely amused and only very vaguely admiring. "That can't possibly be for me," she comments. "Go put on some pants. I gotta hit you, and I don't want twenty naked Alecs running about." Her grin is cheeky.

Alec is only slightly admirable naked. The scars do tend to ruin the image after all, it is perhaps why he plays the seductor so few of his marks actually end up amid tossled sheets. "The shower? No. Usually I don't shower until /after/ you make me all hot and sweaty." he fires back. He grins warmly though, feeling better about their reparte' now that it's freindly and not a series of veiled lies. He heads for the bedroom, chewing the inside of his lip as he realizes he actually /likes/ seeing her. This whole… friendship thing is a bit over his head. When he comes back out he's sliding a slightly to tight white T on over a pair of worn holed up jeans, "So what's this about hitting me?" he asks as he runs a hand through damp hair and flicks water in Liz's direction. "Beer? Smoothie?" he heads for the kitchen.

To be fair, his scars never once seemed to bother Elisabeth after the initial shock of them passed. She waits in his living room for him, perched on one of his breakfast bar stools with every evidence of being perfectly at home in his place for the first time since his confession - part 1. When he steps out, she holds up a syringe. "Cat asked me to bring this to you and tell you to hold it… while I beat you severely about the head and shoulders with a baseball bat." She grins faintly. "I've seen you dupe with coffee before… will it work with this?" There's a tilt of her head. "It's the power suppression drug for … well, for backup. Apparently Brian's decided to take on attempting to teach our poison excreter to control her ability somewhere out of town. This is the fallback."

Alec nods his head, "I know about Brian and Maya." he /was/ survieling them after all. He sips from a fruit smoothie and shrugs, reaching out his hand for the drug, "Depends." he says honestly, "Energy equals mass times a constant squared." he states in a tone that all teachers get when explaining something, he does it automatically. You know, he really isn't bad as an instructor, "Which more simply put means the more complicated an object, the more energy transference required to replicate it. If this drug is made of rare, unique, or extremely altered chemicals, which I assume it is, it will take massive energy to replicate." he eyes her, "Only way to know for sure is to give it a go." he sets the smoothie down and licks a little extra strawberry from his lip, "Let's see."

"Yeah, I know you know. I was just…. reminding you," Elisabeth smiles faintly. "I do'nt know what that means. How much energy are we talking here?

Alec ponders, "Not sure. Never tried to replicate a drug before. A couple of chemical compounds, but in the end it was just easier to replicate the formula on paper or in digital format then it was to do the item itself." he shrugs slightly and then walks around the corner, "Start small. Hit me." he says as he stands out in the living room. "We need to build up, not down, if you unleash to much energy it might get real crowded in here real quick, and we don't want you trampled to death."

Elisabeth erms, and looks very confused. "You said that you think it'll require a good bit of energy. So…. why don't you hold this," she says, holding out the syringe, "And then I'll just… take my best shot with a two-by-four or something? That way…. Somehow, I doubt I could generate 'too much' energy in that instance. How'll we know if what's in the syringe is what it's supposed to be, though?"

Alec eyes her as if he were insulted, "What's in the syringe is what's in the syringe. If it's not what we need then it's not because of me, it's because the source isn't what you said it was." hrmph! "I don't make imperfect copies. Ever." he takes the drug and holds it in one hand, "Bring your baton or a bat or something? I don't keep a bat on hand."

There is a distinct roll of her eyes. "You *said* that if it's really complicated or something, it would take massive energy. So…. if I don't hit you hard enough, you merely won't replicate while you're holding it, then?" Elisabeth asks, puzzled. "And no…. But I can run downstairs and get it.

Alec shrugs, "Not sure. Never really tried to push myself to far with this. Never had to try. You forget, I don't rely on my powers, they're just an extension of my skill. A tool, not a crutch." he's touchy about that, but then his ego is pretty heavily based on his more mundane and less supernatural abilities. "Alright, if you have a tazer bring that too, as many charges as you might need."

Elisabeth oys. "Christ," she says as she slides out of her chair. She lets herself out, swiping his keys off the counter, and it's not more than ten minutes before she's back with the baton from her uniform and a taser. Since she doesn't really wear her uniform for much these days, she had the taser locked up in her gun safe. "All right… this is just bad. I can't believe I'm looking forward to tasering you," she comments as she lets herself back in.

Alec chuckles a bit, "Don't worry about it. How did you think I made all those copies so fast back at that thing that time?" he doesn't get specific, "Wired a tazer into my suit. Not something I'd tried before, good deal though. Think I'm gonna keep that modification."

Elisabeth purses her lips and shrugs. "All right, then. Let's start with the simple — I'll hit you once. If that does nothing, I'm not wasting time with hitting you anymore, as amusing as it sounds to occasionally haul off and whack you without warning just to make you duplicate." She grins at him. "Ready?" She hopes she doesn't hurt herself pulling this. When he's standing in the living room, she swings the baton with the ease of a woman well used to using the thing as a weapon and then hauls off and litarelly uses it like one would a small baseball bat, with all her strength behind it.

Alec just smiles at her, "Give it your best shot gorgeous." he is surpremely confident, that little crooked smile of his that's infuriatingly cocky, and usually comes right before he makes a good point or says something that he knows is right.

It's still the oddest sensation ever. When Liz hits him, there should be a resounding '*crack*!' or something where she's broken a bone with that hit. But there's just…. nothing. No rebound, no impact, no sound for that miniscule moment in time. And then she's standing there facing him….. and no duplicate. "Well, now….."

Alec raises an eyebrow, "Wuss." he says with a smirk that turns into a grin. "Come on, you have to have more juice in you then that."

Raising a single eyebrow at him, Elisabeth says, "Forget it. And don't ever call me 'wee girl' again, or … I'll find a way to hurt you. Seriously." But mostly she's not. Stepping back she loads the taser and says, "We'll just pull out the big guns. I could also try shooting you, if you think that would help."

Alec shakes his head, "Bullets center the energy to directly, what ability I have to absorb the impact isn't great enough to suck up all that pinpoint delivery. Knives either. Bean bags from a shot gun though, that might work. Or if I was wearing a vest or two, spread the impact out." he eyes her, "We'll call that a last resort, shall we?"

"Beanbags from a shotgun might be an interesting exercise anyway… cuz let's face it, I really just wanna shoot you in the face sometimes," Elisabeth teases mildly. When the taser's ready, she fires it at him with no warning.

Alec just chuckles at her, "Yeah I kno-" he pauses as the tazer hits him, crackles, then goes dead. He pauses, eyes it, then her, and quirks a brow, "Wench." he says, with a small grin. "That thing got like a dial on it or something?" obviously he didn't dupe.

Elisabeth smirks at the accusation. "I am!" she replies cheekily. "We'll try it one more time…. and if that doesn't work, I think we should have a strategy session to think of what other impacts might work. A taser isn't concussion, but if it doesn't have enough power to it, I'm not real sure what *will*," she admits. She walks to him and disentangles the probes from his clothes and skin. Then she just touches him with the touch-stun setting on, reasonably sure it will do nothing just as the last two have. But hey… gotta try all the options.

Alec stands there, letting her prep her little toy, though the probes never really peirced his skin. Kinetic absorbtion is a bit handy when you need protection from minor things. "We could drop me outa a-oo that tingled." he shivers once, "moving car." he finishes. "Or try that bean bag." he pauses, "I've used heat before too, once a live wire from a 220 outlet, but that one hurt like a bitch."

Elisabeth sighs heavily and nods. "Well…. this is about the time that I wish Jennifer hadn't lost her mind," she comments mildly. She moves to plop back down in the bar stool, looking dejected. "This is not good."

Alec eyes Liz, "Hey, energy is energy, and the laws of physics still apply. There's a great deal of energy in a stun gun, but I drain them dry in a second, not so much in a baseball bat. Maybe what we need is a sustained source that won't drain immediatly, and more importantly, won't kill me. Thoughts?"

Elisabeth's turning the matter over in her head. "Honestly, Alec…. I'm not entirely sure who's got that level of power. We've got some people who have some pretty serious kinetic powers, and could potentially be augmented, but anything like that could still hurt you, right?"

Alec shrugs, "I've survived falls from about five stories without more then a seriously twisted ankle. Aaaah. Geneva, your silly little police cars and tightly packed streets. I miss you." he says longingly, "Also from a car one in Tokyo, I don't care what the movies say, those people can't drive for shit. Um. Kinetic energy tends to be spread out, the more of my surface it covers the more of it I can absorb with ease. Falls are actually pretty easy for me to soak, electricity… Hey. Wanna go fuck with Cat? I could try replacing one or two of her fuses with my finger, short her stuff out soak up some of her juice and jack her electric bill up a few hundred bucks for giggles?"

Elisabeth scratches her forehead and says, "I think you'd be better equipped to determine how much energy you might need to make this work. But it sounds to me like it may be far far harder than the benefits." She grimaces. "I mean, how many times you wanna jump off a five-story building to duplicate this stuff?" She sighs.

Alec makes a face, "None if possible. That was way less fun then it actually sounds." he's quiet for a moment, "Hold on, let's try one more thing." he disappears into his office, waving for Liz to follow him. It's the Santuary that she's never been allowed to enter before, surely she wishes to see the inside? "I might be able to rig something up if we have a little time?"

Elisabeth slides off the chair again and follows him curiously. She's not exactly nosy, but definitely curious about what he's hidden in his office. Mostly she expects it to be a pretty normal office space.

Which it is… sorta. When Cardinal was here, it was the picture of ordinary, now there are a few minor tweaks. Namely there's peices of his suit from 'The Other Night' laying about, mostly neoprene like material, a soldering iron, electronic's boards, a set of lock picks with a few even Liz has never seen before, made from a metal that's sort of dull grey. Likely titanium. One of them was apparently giving Alec issues, looks like he's been filing it down a bit. He waves her to take a seat across the desk. "A tazer is run on a single 9 volt battery that keeps it's charge amped up due to a series of resisters and, for the laymen, doo-hickies that juice it way beyond it copacity." he waves for her to hand over her tazer, "So, let's add a few more doo-hickies, a couple more 9 volts, and then see what we can get out of it." he grins. "I always wanted to make a super Tazer anyway. I fiddled with a military grade one once, not as impressive as you might think, lots of juice but only one shot before you have to wait a full minute to recharge." he makes a face.

There's a soft laugh as Elisabeth looks around. "Well… I mean, we could just stick a butter knife in an outlet if you wanna pull that kinda crap," she days mildly.

Alec shakes his head, "Not really. Like I said, tried it once. See most people grab that and it blasts them back, forceing them to let go. Not so much with me. I soak just enough of the energy up to keep my arms locked around a live cable, not enough to not feel the pain. Besides, 110 outlets barely tickle. A tazer punches harder then that by a factor of about 12."

Elisabeth merely shrugs and says, "Okay. You're the boss." She hands him her taser. "Do what you will, crazy inventor man."

Alec grins a bit and cracks the tazer open with the judicious use of a screw driver… namely undoing screws. His tongue sticks out a bit in consentration as he gets to work. He moves with the sort of efficiency one expects of a man /very/ used to crafting 'doo-hickies' for his work. Quick. Easy. Careful. "You think this is cool you should see the system I almost put in your house. I thought about hooking up one of your apartments power conduits to your door handle." he grins, "You know, just in case. Thought better of it though. That sort of thing malfunctions and you might come and shoot me for frying your new men."

"That would get very ugly, don't you think? If I had to come arrest you for inadvertantly killing someone?" Elisabeth replies mildly. "Or God forbid that *I* should be the one fried by such a thing. Then I might skip the arresting part."

Alec nods his head, "Which is why I didn't. Still… woulda been fun ya know." he grins. "Never tried it before, well not a built in system of course, did the poor man version a few times." one hesitates to ask about that. He blows on the solder gently, "Give that a moment to sit and we can test it out."

"No, it wouldn't have been fun," Elisabeth comments with a smirk. She could just see how poorly that would go over. "You're an odd man. Truly."

Alec eyes her, "What? None of your other ex lovers make things for you to shoot them with?" he asks with a completely confused and innocent look on his face. "Huh. You should have a better class of ex, for sure."

Elisabeth rolls her eyes and comments mildly, "Some of my ex lovers have gone shooting WITH me, but no… few of them let me shoot at them." She grins slightly. "Don't knock my class of ex, mister. Most of them have been damn good guys." She gives him The Look. "You, the jury's still out on. There's a holdout on the twelve-member panel that's hanging the decision."

Alec snorts, "I'm a bastard." he admits freely, "But I'm a skilled and impressive one, outside of the sheets anyway. You gotta admit, I gots the skillz." he drops a fake ghetto accent on that line before standing up, "It's ready." Oddly enough the accent was pretty good. He screws the tazer back together and hands it to her before making a shooing motion, "Living room." he says, scooping up the drug, "Let's try this agian."

"You are a bastard," Liz agrees mildly, taking the taser from him. "Don't go fishing for compliments about your mad skills between the sheets, either. If a woman's pleasure isn't enough proof for your ego that you know what you're about, you're on your own fixing that problem." She's not being snippy, just mostly giving him shit for fishing. She heads back toward the living room with him and waits for him to pick a spot to stand.

Alec barks a laugh, "Hey, I didn't say I wasn't passable, just that I wasn't spectacular. Though, to be honest, you never got my A game, I mean, come on, you could have had an unending stream of ready lovers if I'd coughed up the truth to start with. But then of course you'd never have been able to make it work what with that whole 'crippled' thing." he smirks a bit at her. He finds that the longer they remain friends the easier the banter becomes, and frankly, he likes it. He stands in the most open space they have, just in case, and makes a face at her, "Shoot me sexy."

Elisabeth just rolls her eyes and tsks, "Your 'A' game includes bringing in more than one self? Damn, man… that's just too sad for words. It's a good thing you're an EX lover." She smiles faintly, glances at the supercharged taser in hands — which should be charged up by now — and shoots him with it. "

Alec laughs at that, his face split into a great big smile… Right up until the Tazer hits him. Then the smile twists and his body contorts. The tazer whines a high pitch and there's the instant smell of ozone in the air as it heats up in Liz's hand alarmingly. And Alec… well… His form blurs and twists, shimmering like a bad Television image, two torso's trying to climb away from one another on a single pair of legs, flicking back and forth in and out of reality for a long two seconds before with a sizzling POP! the tazer emits a gout of blue smoke. Alec falls to the floor of the living room with a thud, the syringe rolling from limp fingers.

Oh, that can't be good. The taser heating up alarms Elisabeth greatly, and then Alec collapses. "Shit!" she says. She drops the overheated taser and heads to his side, carefully avoiding the syringe, her fingertips checking for a pulse in his throat gently. "Alec…. you fuckin' die on me, and I'll kill you myself." Yeah, yeah, it's illogical.

Alec twitches at her touch. "oooooow." he says before cracking an eye open to look up at her. His heart is pounding a million miles a minute. He doesn't seem to be suffering the effects of an actual shock, but instead something else. He's more pale then he should be, his pupils are dilated. He shivers once and lets out a shuddering careful breath, "So." he says weakly, "Let's not try that again huh?"

Elisabeth nods immediately. "Yeah… no more trying this," she says. She puts a hand on the side of his face briefly and grins slightly. "Dumbass. I can't believe I let you talk me into that." She continues to monitor his pulse and his face. "You almost duped, though. It looked…. odd."

Alec shudders again at the thought of the experience, "It hurt is what it did." he says with a grimace. "A lot." he pushes himself up into a sitting possition and groans. "I think we had just enough energy to start the process but not enough to finish. It was like… being torn apart one molecule at a time a thousand times a milisecond, and then put back just to have it done all over again." he sort of hugs himself and repeats, "Ow."

With a quick nod, Elisabeth says, "Yeah… it sorta looked like that too. I saw a special effect on television once sort of like it. You sort of… ripped half apart and meshed back together again. Think 'Matrix' when they're doing the ducking and dodging stuff in slomo."

Alec blinks, "Wow… So, scale of one to ten, how freaky was that to see?" he asks, offering her a sightly shaking hand, silent plea for help to his feet.

Elisabeth reaches out her hand to help him up, making sure he's stable on his feet and helping him to a seat. "About an eight, I guess," she admits. "I wasn't sure what would happen if you didn't split." Once he's seated again, she goes back to retrieve the syringe and put it in her pocket.

Alec shakes his head as he makes his way back towards the kitchen, "There's more … You know how you don't have to look to know your hand is there?" he asks. You just sort of … know. This is my hand, it is here. In a room completely black where you cannot see, unless you're an idiot you won't smack yourself in the face. Because you know where your hand is. That's how it is with Them. Everyone one of them. I just…. know where every peice of me is. I can never lose track of it, forget it, and when I want I can summon it back. I might have been ripped in two, but I would always have ended up as one again. Ow." he adds on the end of that as he stiffly opens a pill bottle and pops a couple of it's contained pills. "So… we can safely say I can't replicate that damned thing. Whatever it's made from the components are to complex. But I /can/ tell you I've replicated regular house hold stuff before. Which means that crap must be seriously jacked up. To use a technical turn." he gets himself a bottle of water and starts to drink slowly.

"Yeah, well…. considering what it is, that's to be expected," Elisabeth says quietly. "Shit." She purses her lips and nods slowly. "Well… here's hoping Brian has some success. Cuz I felt like shit for turning her in, and I pissed off some of the people who know what I was up to." She looks right at Alec. "But I still think it's the right call. If Brian doesn't have any luck with her. Hell, in all honesty? That particular power, I'd rather just see GONE."

Alec nods his total agreement, "I'm of a mind with you on this." he says freely, "She's a threat to more then just people, but to the entire cause as well. If she wiped out a building, or popped in the safe house, there's no way we could stop it from comeing back on us."

Elisabeth nods slightly. "Not a chance in hell." She shoves her hand through her hair and studies him. "So I got a question for you. You told me from the start you weren't in this for the cause. Are you going to step back and go back to regular life now?"

Alec eyes Liz for a moment, "Someone very close to me was Evo, and your cause effected her life greatly. Then someone came along and stabber her to death because she was trying to do the right thing." he shakes his head, what physical hurts he suffers seem to pale in comparison to whatever scars Tallie's death has left, "Be a bit more of a cocksucker then I care to be to spit in the face of her actions by walking away now." he speaks quietly, but firmly, "Don't take that to mean I'm some zealot, just… I have some atonement to make. This is as good a way as any. Besides, who else can I joke about being naked with?"

She's watching him thoughtfully, and then she nods slowly. "All right." Elisabeth moves to stand up. "You know that fight that brought down the Narrows?" She purses her lips and looks at him. "That was us. Fighting against a guy who was looking to loose a nasty virus that would have wiped out a lot of people. And we think it's possible he's not dead yet. So…. if you want all-in, now's the time to decide if you really want all-in. Cuz there are a lot of things that are just not over yet."

Alec sighs, "Hey, I blew up a building for you and killed a guy with a fire axe Liz. I know I didn't pulp anyone in a giant red mist but fuck woman, what more are you looking for from a guy?"

Elisabeth laughs quietly. "You didn't do that for me, Alec Bonder," she tells him softly. "You did it because it was the right thing to do." She leans over and gives him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Much as you fucking hate to admit that."

Alec mutters a bit at her, "Fuck you." he says irritably. He really does hate that thought, cause that would mean he cares. And he doesn't care about anything. Ever. Right? He frowns a bit and takes another drink from his bottle of water. Quick, avoid that train of thought, distract! "I'm going to crawl into the shower. Care to join me? You can run to Cat afterward all yummy smelling and squeaky clean." yes. Good distraction.

There's a cheeky grin, because she's coming to realize that all the 'bad boys' who've drawn her are the ones who actually have that same quality. The one that makes them step up and try to help in this crazy war. Elisabeth winks. "Nope, not today. Even if you were serious… I don't think I need any more complications with you." She pats him lightly on the face. "Besides… I'm meeting someone, and that's just rude." She grins.

Alec nods his head and adopts a pouty expression, "Just as well. I'm in no condition to even be half way decent in the shower. You'd have to do /all/ the work."

Elisabeth rolls her eyes. "Get some rest. Feel better," she tells him quietly. "And thank you for trying, Alec. You gonna be okay on your own here?"

Alec nods his head, "Yeah. Just uh… need to lay down a bit, let the pain killers do their thing. Everything's where it's supposed to be just hurts. Everywhere. If I need nursing I'll do it myself. You shoo."

Elisabeth nods slightly. "All right. Call me if you need me. I'll probably store this in my gun safe until tomorrow, so I should be home all night." And yeah, yeah… so maybe she lied about meeting someone — or maybe it's just wishful thinking.

Alec rolls his eyes at her sudden change of story. Really? He's a /professional liar/. Sometimes he's just insulted, really, they don't even put the smallest amount of effort into it. It's… Liz needs a rolemodel! He waves at her, "Will do. I warn, I sleep naked so if you come up there's a chance I'll be wearing what I was when you came in, minus the towel."

Elisabeth laughs at him. "Hey, just because I'm home doesn't mean I'm alone," she says with a wink. "I just wanted to let you down lightly. But considering that I've seen you naked, I don't think it's a big problem." She ruffles him. "Get some sleep, Alec. I've got a serial killer to catch, so I expect I'll be up late either working or doing other things if company shows."

Alec makes a face, "I'll make sure not to listen in on the bugs I put in your apartment." hey, she wants to tease, he can tease back! So nyeh. He starts a stiff sort of limp walk towards the bedroom, "Take the spare keys by the door, if I call you it'll be because I can't come down to get you and you'll have to let yourself in." practicle at least.

"All right," Elisabeth replies, her expression somewhat surprised. He's allowing her a key. That's kind of a step of trust she didn't expect. Though she does give him the hairy eyeball on the comment about the bugs. "I'll see you later."

Alec just smiles sweetly. Score one for him. "Let's hope later rather then sooner." Because if he calls her, its because something went Wrong. Besides, it's not like he, of all people, couldn't change locks right? Still… it's more trust then she's ever gotten before. He groans as he makes his way to the bedroom, the sounds of a pained man looking forward to sleep.

After letting herself out the door, the texts flow.

Liz: Can't duplicate sample.
Cat: Simple failure?
Liz: Requires more energy than can be generated to duplicate complicated mixtures. Tried concussive force, tried taser force. With supercharged taser, managed *almost* but hurt the person in the bargain.
Cat: Fuck.
Liz: Yup.


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