Jane couldn't help running around frantically as the final touches were made on the latest experiment. Even Dr. Selvig had come down, interested in seeing the final product of over a year's worth of work.
"Make sure the level four pistons have been properly oiled," she said to the mechanics leader for the fifth time, scurrying past quickly. With her (untouched)!espresso in one hand an a clipboard in the other, the astrophysicist should have been ready to handle rocket science. In truth, she was even more frazzled than she let on.
"If I don't get this right, I could lose my job!" she squeaked to no one in particular. While not necessarily true, the radiation ray she had been working on was a big project for her company. She had worked on it diligently, but still had her doubts. What if she had made a miscalculation? What would happen if the machine malfunctioned and exploded or something? Jane itched to personally check every single bolt and screw to make sure they were tightened. If even a single button were out of place, she felt like she would be letting her company down. To let them down meant the possible destruction of Earth as they knew it. Of course, Jane experienced this kind of pressure almost everyday. It was the norm for a scientist at SHIELD. Unfortunately, the pressure didn't get better with each passing day. If anything, it got a lot worse as she slowly came to terms with the utter importance of her work.
Hearing her shout, Jane's friend and colleague, Dr. Selvig, came over to her.
"Jane, you'll be fine. You're the smartest girl I know! If anyone could handle this, it would be you." He gave her a cheery pat on the back and walked off. Jane sighed. Erik wasn't the best at human conversation. Looking up, she saw a SHIELD agent striding towards her, sunglasses still on. As if just realizing this, he whipped them off when he was at least five feet away from her.
"Agent Coulson? Have you come to inspect my work?"
The agent, despite having been under intense care since his near death incident in New York, was still the same as always.
"Let's get down to business, Ms. Foster. Is it completed?"
Slightly put off by his abrupt request, she stumbled for a bit, before replying, "Uh... Almost. Just some finishing touches..." She trailed off, scratching the back of her neck.
"Good. Tell me how it works."
"Well, the patient puts on this armband. The armband monitors the patient's heartbeat. If there is a substantial drop in his or her pulse, it will trigger a safety shut down. It ignores climbs in a heartbeat rate to take fear and anxiety into account. Also, the entire process excites the body, so it would be somewhat counter-intuitive to add that as a feature. However, if the person, say, doesn't have a heartbeat for five seconds, or dies or nears death, then the ray would stop immediately."
Coulson nodded, gesturing for her to continue.
"The day itself utilizes gamma radiation to send out immensely strong signals through the atmosphere. Through a process similar to sonar, or even the echolocation used by bats, the waves bounce back, much fainter and safer, for us to read. They have the potential to travel very far, so we can explore the depths of the galaxy, and even the universe!" she gave a proud smile, excited about her life's work. Coulson's face betrayed no emotion.
"Wonderful. But why the armbands?" he questioned.
Jane's shoulders sagged a bit. "Well, I don't really understand the details myself, since my forte is in astrology, but Erik-"
"Dr. Selvig."
"...Dr. Selvig confirmed the main reason. Basically, for ease of use, the controls are located at the base of the gamma ray. So if the machine malfunctioned and the people controlling the ray suffered radiation poisoning, the machine would stop automatically."
Coulson frowned. Or, more accurately, he maintained the expression he had been holding for the past five hours. "Why are the controls at the base of the ray? Why not make them mobile?"
Jane Foster winced. "Well, uh, we... erm... we wanted to avoid any hijacking by the enemy hostiles... so the safest way would be to keep the controls in one place... where they can't be interfered with."
"So you're saying it was just an oversight?"
She sighed. "Yeah. I guess I'm just not as used to all your high-techy stuff... All the equipment I've ever used was home-made. And I'm not saying I made it. Erik did. I was mostly the dreamer of the group..."
Coulson's eyes softened. "You'll adjust soon enough. We'll have the issues fixed sooner or later, but we might as well run a test drive now."
"Okay. Hopefully none of us turns into the Hulk," she joked, trying to lighten the mood.
No reaction. Agent Coulson put on his sunglasses again and walked off stiffly.