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A/n hey all... right now this is a one shot, but I may continue on this line. It depends on Adele. She's been very A.D.D lately.
Science Matters
"Hey kid… What are you doing?"
Morgan bumped his right hip against Reid's desk. Emily stood on the other side of him looking over the young agent's shoulder.
"I'm busy…" Reid responded.
"No need to get irritable!"
"Yes there is Morgan… This is really important."
"No… Catching a serial killer is important."
Reid looked up, pushed his hair behind his ears and scowled at his friend. "We have to turn these in by tomorrow. I have to research if I want to make the right choices."
"Why?"
"Did you read about the prize?"
Morgan winked at Emily. "No… I didn't read about the prize."
"Do you ever read inter-office Email?"
"You have the lecturer's tone in your voice again."
"So you don't care about the Olympics?" Reid challenged.
"No…"
"Morgan!"
The older profile grinned at his friend. "Okay, so I like the hockey and the downhill racing. What does that have to do with anything?"
"See the email." Reid pointed at the screen. "You pick your favorite in each sport. You get 10 pints for every bronze medal they win, twenty-five for silver and fifty for the gold. The person with the highest total points gets three extra days of personal time."
"Why are you so excited?" Emily asked. "You work just as hard as we do. When are you going to have time for three extra days of vacation?"
Reid went pink in the cheeks and turned back to his computer.
"Why are you avoiding the question?" Emily inquired as Morgan began to laugh.
"I'm not avoiding the question!"
"Yes you are," Emily said. "What do you have planned Reid?"
"It's none of your business!" Reid snapped as his fingers moved over the keyboard.
"We won't go away until you tell us." Emily said in a singsong tone.
Reid looked up and then around the mostly empty bullpen. "Okay… Austin is coming up for the Fourth of July. She has the whole week off. I'm going to use that time then. Are you all happy now?"
Emily waggled her eyes at Morgan. "I don't know! Are you happy Morgan?"
"Yeah… I'm very happy!"
"That's funny guys… May I please finish picking my team?"
Morgan patted him on the shoulder. "We're just teasing you man. We want you to be happy."
Emily nodded vigorously. "What he said."
"Hey…" Morgan said as he spotted something on Reid's screen "Why did you pick them for curling?"
Reid looked up at Morgan as if he had lost his mind. "I told you! I have to pick the best athletes. The Canadian curling team is favorites for the Gold Medal."
"What about loyalty to the home team?"
Reid just shook his head. "I want to win!" He insisted. "I am loyal to the US team, but if they don't have the best…."
"Alright… I get you kid. Seriously though, curling!" Morgan said with a certain amount of disdain in his voice.
"It's a sport that requires precision and speed and -"
"It's pushing a rock down the ice." Morgan retorted.
"You don't know anything. It's all about friction. They call it a Chess game on ice. The players wear mikes, so you can hear them plan their strategy of the game. It's so neat to hear them say they can send the stone to a certain place and knock the opponent teams stone a different way and you think no way an then it happens."
Reid's animated explanation had Morgan rolling his eyes in exasperation.
"The stone is made from forty to pounds of granite that's imported from an island off the coast of Scotland. It's hydrophobic which reduces water absorption. You push off against the hack which allows you to accelerate the curling stone to the target, or the 'house'. Then the sweepers move in and help the stone go farther and straighter. The reason for that is that the sweeping reduces friction between snow and ice. It generates heat. In addition, the ice is bumpy. It looks like an orange peel. The 'pebbles' cause the stone to glide. If the ice were smooth, the ice would form a vacuum and slow it down. When the stones collide, they transfer kinetic energy from one to another. It's all very scientific and awesome." Reid finally wound down from lecture mode to see Emily and Morgan staring at him. "What?" He said.
"Gee Emily, everything you always wanted to know about curling, but were afraid to ask."
"Come on Morgan... Let's go get coffees before Reid starts telling us about the science of double axels."
Reid ignored them and went back to his "Fantasy Olympics."
"So…" Emily said to Morgan in a low tone. "I guess this means we pick Canada for curling." She asked as he poured hot coffee into her mug.
"You better believe it! I'm not letting Dr. Reid beat me out of three more days of vacation time."
a/n2 all the information about curling is courtesy of . You can see videos that explain the science behind the sports of the Olympics