Quick note before I begin: I wrote Dr. Kleiner's speech so that he would sound congested. So, I occasionally replaced n's with d's, and m's with b's. Also, there may be something that looks like a typo but is intentional to make Dr. Kleiner's speech more sickly.
"AAAHHH-CHOO!" I sprang out of bed, startled by the doc's sudden sneezing.
"What the hell was that?" I asked, annoyed.
"I'b sorry, Bardey, but I seeb to have codtracted sobe terrible virus."
"Can't you sneeze quietly or something? It's four in the morning. Gosh."
"I cad sdeeze quietly, but it's possible to sever a nerve id by brain." The doc sneezed again and gasped. He rushed off to find a tissue in his lab.
"That's gross. Don't you have medicine?"
"I have aspirin frob 1998."
"Never mind then. Just try to sneeze into your elbow. And don't you dare sniffle. I hate when people do that." I didn't give Dr. Kleiner a chance to reply. I got back on top of my bed-crate and went back to sleep, extremely grouchy.
--
When I awoke again, the doc had an overflowing wastebasket full of tissues by his feet. His eyes had dark circles under them. Every few moments, he paused to wipe his nose with his lab coat.
"You look awful. Is there anything I can do to help?" I asked, concerned.
"No, Bardey. You can just go do your typical duties."
"I know what you need! You need sleep! And...soup!"
The doc looked around. "Where is this soup?"
"It doesn't exist. But you should still have some rest. I can work for you."
"What?" Dr. Kleiner stared at me.
"I said the soup doesn't exist. It's a lie." I answered.
"I bean after that."
"Uh...I can work for you. How hard can it be? All I need to do is type, write on a clipboard, swear at the equipment in the lab, and occasionally sleep. And wear that coat." I pointed to Dr. Kleiner's slightly green lab coat. "Erm...on second thought, I can do without the coat. You just go lie down."
"Well, okay. How badly cad you mess up?" He began to walk towards my bed-crate.
"Badly." I muttered under my breath.
"What, what?" He spun around.
"Shut up and go to sleep."
--
After I was sure the doc was asleep, I sat down at his chair and booted his computer. It asked for his password. Thankfully, a yellow sticky note on the top of the monitor declared that the password was, "Lamarr-is-my-love-123" I typed it in, suppressing a laugh.
Everything on his computer desktop had some long, scientific name. He didn't even have Solitaire.
I gave up on his computer and picked up his clipboard. He was almost always jotting something down in it. The paper currently clipped to it was a diagram titled, "Schematics for..." something. I couldn't read his frantic, messy handwriting. The symbols were all foreign to me.
At that point, I wanted to make a diagram of something. I snatched a piece of paper from the printer and attached it to the clipboard. While I was doing that, I got an idea. I drew a stick figure on the piece of paper and titled the drawing, "Dr. Kleiner".
Then, I began labeling the stick figure with science names. The legs were known as, "Transportation limbs", the arms were known as, "I don't know any good science shit to name the arms", and the head was known as the cranium.
I then folded up the piece of paper and measured it with a ruler and caliper.
"Hmm, very interesting. Very interesting indeed." I tried to do my best Dr. Kleiner voice, but I ended up doing a British accent. Being a scientist wasn't so bad! It wasn't as awesome as killing Combine, though. Nothing would top that.
For the next few minutes, I tried to build a tower out of pencils. After it fell, I tried pens. By now, it was starting to get boring. Dr. Kleiner was still fast asleep. What else was there to do?
I played with everything I could find in the lab, until I got bored enough to return to the computer. A random, I clicked on one of the icons. A notepad popped up. It had an extremely short program written on it.
LabAlarm;
IF unauthorized (break-in) is TRUE::
Var: "Break in" is equal to "unrecognized entry"; Refer to "entry-definition"
Run sequence
TERMINATE session
RUN SOUND: (Alarm1)
~end
I decided to change it a bit.
LabAlarm;
IF Dr. Kleiner is (stupid) is TRUE::
Var: "stupid" is equal to "not smart";
Run sequence
TERMINATE power
TERMINATE Lamarr
RUN SOUND: (Burp)
~end
Hell, it was worth a shot, wasn't it? I checked the time. I had spent two hours goofing off. That, in my opinion, was time well spent.
I heard Dr. Kleiner groan. He was now awake. Lamarr had settled herself onto his stomach.
"Morning, doc. You sleep well?"
"If you classify a good sleep as dreabing of deadly clipboard clamps, thed my sleep was beautiful."
"You dreamt of deadly clipboard clamps? You need to get outside."
"Nay, I think I'll stay here. Dow, what tomfoolery did you do?"
"None, really."
"Well, I'm dot so sure about that. But I hope you enjoyed beig a scietist."
"It was okay." Dr. Kleiner sat on his chair, Lamarr sitting on his head. I had saved the program and closed the window so that he wouldn't suspect anything.
As he touched the computer mouse, the lights went out. The screen went blank. Lamarr fell off of the doc's head and lay still on the ground. All was quiet for a few seconds until...
I heard a burp.