Theoretically Speaking [Connie]

[Jemima Rennal]

This was the third time Jemima had prepared a scientific theory to the Researchers down in the laboratory.

The first time she'd walked down - aged 15, she'd presented a very lovely, but completely inaccurate idea about Meta evolution involving adaptation to circumstance. It was very nice, said one of the researchers, but that couldn't explain powers such as Duplication, or flight. She'd frowned, agreed wholeheartedly and screwed up the paper as a failure, never to return to the idea again.

The second time, aged 16, she'd written a semi-interesting paper on a theory involving the stimulation of t-cells and white blood cells in healers. It had a few glaring errors, but was otherwise not badly done, and she'd proudly nodded to herself while vowing to come back when she had a solid, water tight theory that someone would want to research, or maybe even offer her the internship she was after. She knew Esme was a busy lady, so she'd silently been waiting ever since to finally show one of the researchers a magnum opus, and get a paper worthy of showing the octopus lady.

This time she was older and wiser, and carrying a theory in her journal she deemed so fantastically brilliant that she'd definitely get that internship and then spend the rest of her happy life in the research lab learning all the most fascinating things about Meta Humans. Holding the new rather freshly typed idea in her hands, she rapped her knuckles on the door, then peered in.

"Hello." She said warmly, stepping inside. "I'm here about a theory I have. It's an idea on the cell splitting and repercussions of Duplication." She smiled, edging inside, then paced from foot to foot nervously. "There's a subject I'm studying. His name is Ninny, and he's willing to help." Jem chewed on her lower lip, then gently dropped her bag down out of the way.

"I'm Jemima. I've been in here before." She added, gripping the paper tightly in her hands.

[Conrad Manne]

Conrad wasn't delusional. He'd known for a long time that being a researcher for Hammel wasn't always going to be fun tests and finding things out. He'd been a biology major, after all, so he knew that most lab work wasn't the kind that was worth making movies about. Most of his job was reviewing data, often from the other researchers, and checking for possible inconsistencies. Meta research was still a fairly new field, and while they already knew a lot more than they'd known as recent as seven years ago (When Conrad's power had manifested) there weren't enough proper labs to get validating results in different environments. As careful as the research team was, there was always a chance that there were environmental factors they were not considering.

He didn't have an office of his own--those went to the more senior researchers--so Conrad worked out at his desk in the main part of the lab. It made sense then that the blonde girl who entered went to him, even though he was at the bottom of the ladder in the department. "Hello Jemima. I'm Conrad." She looked a little familiar, but since he was at the school every day, all the students looked a little familiar to him. She looked like she was about RC's age, but he hadn't ever worked with her for observations. "What can I do for you?" She wasn't the first student to wander into the lab with so-called "theories." The problem was, most of those students ended up wandering right back out the second they found that their theories were wrong. (And they were almost always wrong. Hell, even the researchers spent more time tracking down wrong answers than right ones.) She looked enthusiastic now, but Conrad knew that chances were good that she'd end up disappointed.

None of his theories in high school had panned out either.

[Jemima Rennal]

Jemima toed the floor for a moment, then edged closer, bursting with energy as she pulled up a seat next to Conrad. "Um. I'm not interrupting anything important am I?" She asked nervously, chewing on her lower lip as she delicately placed the paper beside Conrad's work station. "I think I've met you before once. Conrad sounds familiar." She added cheerily, grabbing a pen out of her bag and setting it down beside the carefully typed theory. Rubbing her chin, she offered a small shrug, then tapped the paper with her finger.

"I'd really like to go over my ideas with you, if that's alright?" Jem queried, uncapping the pen, ready to scrawl any notes over the original paper. "The summary is finding out whether the acts of one particular duplicate will effect the original person. Say, for example, tattoos, catching a cold, injuries, etcetera, etcetera." She paused, looking up at Conrad for a moment. "I'd like your thoughts, any ideas? I was thinking that if it's non-effective on the original, then the duplicated cells must be sort of... eaten by the body?" Sitting back, she chewed on a fingernail and managed a slightly concerned smile.

"Hopefully this is a better idea than the last two I came up with." The blonde girl added with a frown. "If not then I'll just have to work on it a little more." She pushed her hair out of her face and turned on Conrad for his appraisal of the idea, hoping he'd be willing to give his honest thoughts about what she'd written.