Newt was elbow-deep in a kaiju specimen when Elissa walked into the lab. She'd never spent a great deal of time down there, just once every now and again to help fix equipment when Newt needed another pair of hands and someone who wouldn't tell him to shut up. She knew the lab though, knew enough not to stray too far onto Hermann's side of the room, especially if she was covered in grease and dirt like she was now. Elissa skirted the line the pair of scientists had drawn down the middle of the room and hopped over a pile of kaiju guts until she was firmly standing on Newt's side of the lab and could put her toolbox down where it wouldn't track dirt on Hermann's side of the lab.
"What'd you break this time Newt?" she asked.
He didn't bother backing away from whatever the piece of kaiju he was working on was. "The mass spectrometer is acting up again, making the chugging noise whenever I put a sample through. I need the mass spectrometer Elissa—"
"Yeah, I know that Newt but you're perfectly capable of fixing that thing by yourself, so I'm thinking you called me down here under pretense of fixing your toy so you had someone to talk to while you dissect that hunk of kaiju." She crossed her arms and hitched a hip against a nearby table, toolbox at her feet. "I do have other work to do, Newt."
"I'm on the verge of something here Liss, and I can't—I can't stop working to fix the damn thing—"
Elissa raised her hands, warding off the incoming torrent of words. Newt only called her Liss when he was freaking out—two less syllables to spit out amongst everything else. "Okay, okay. I'll fix it. You just keep working."
"Good, good, good."
Elissa shook her head and walked over to the mass spectrometer. The big thing was ancient and the casing was covered in dried bits of kaiju, but all the working parts would be clean. Newt was a messy guy, but he took good care of his scientific equipment. She set to work dismantling the thing as Newt started telling her about his kaiju-as-clones theory. She'd heard it before, knew it almost by heart, but the drone of Newt's voice had become a sort of music to work to when she was in the lab, so she let him ramble on and she made a vague noise of understanding and agreement every now and again, spaced between the clanging of her tools.
The chugging noise was caused by the misalignment of some of the moving parts within the machine—same as always. What Newt really needed to do was replace the thing, or at least buy new parts, but he kept putting it off and maintaining his stance that there were more important things to spend the money on. Elissa didn't disagree, but fixing the thing over and over again was getting tiring.
"Do you know what it would mean if the kaiju were in fact cloned? Do you?" Newt's voice had risen in pitch and it went higher still when he realized Elissa wasn't paying attention. "Elissa!"
She gave a little jump and looked over her shoulder at him. "Sorry, what?"
"Do you know what it would mean if the kaiju were cloned?!"
"Uh… no. Should I?"
Newt threw his hands up in exasperation, flinging bits of kaiju everywhere. "It means they were created for a specific purpose, it means they're not attacking us out of some animalistic need but that they're being ordered to do it—that the kaiju themselves are weapons."
Elissa grinned at him. She'd known the answer. He scowled and rolled his eyes before diving back into his dissection.
Newt remained silent for all of thirty seconds before starting in on another theory, this one about how the kaiju were constructed and if they could reproduce or not, if they were clones. Elissa finished realigning the mass spectrometer and closed up the casing while Newt was describing his speculations about kaiju brains in excruciating detail. He'd move onto the bone structure next; Elissa had heard this one too. But she knew Newt thought through things best while talking, so she let him go on, even cleaning the casing of the machine to give him more time, though he wouldn't notice if she snuck out.
"The brains are pyramidal, which is such an odd shape and probably has something to do with the environment in which they're built or maybe it just fits better inside their skulls, thought those are all different shapes, so what could the brain shape mean?"
"Newt."
"Both brains are the same shape, so there's got to be a reason—"
"Newt!"
A significant jolt went through his body when her voice got through to him. "What? Are you done?"
"Yeah. Anything else you want me to take a look at while I'm down here?"
Newt gestured towards the wall of refrigerated compartments lining the wall behind him. "No, no, everything else is working fine, good, but could I bounce something off you? I've got a new theory."
"I guess. As long as you're not expecting any sort of intelligent commentary on the matter. Biology isn't my strong suit."
But Newt was already talking, something about how the kaiju could function in our world, where the chemical make-up of the air and water and land was so different than what they were probably used to. Elissa stood by and listened, trying to follow Newt's words, to make some sense of what he was saying. However, she caught sight of the time via the clock on the wall and yawned. It was late—way later than she'd realized. She needed to get to bed. They had tests to run on Gipsy the next morning—technically later that day—and she needed to be alert for it. But Newt was in full swing, which meant, short of throwing something at Newt, there was no way she was going to get his attention, and since everything nearby was hard, expensive, glass, or guts, she wasn't keep on throwing something at him. So she waited.
And felt her eyelids begin to droop, her body begin to lean.
"Elissa? Liss? You're using a cross-section of a kaiju gland as a pillow so could you move? I don't think I'll be able to get another one of those and that's very important."