Colin looked at Dragon.
His friend looked back.
Even through the armor he could tell she was puzzled, intrigued, and just a little bit worried.
All three emotions came up on his helmet HUD, proving that his emotional judgment software was working to design. Finally.
Although, he was more than a little unsure why it only seemed to work on her. Oh well, it was just the beta version at the moment, the next one would work out the remaining bugs.
They both turned to inspect the sight that had stopped them in their tracks, on their way to talk to Raptaur at the BBFO office. Near the edge of the water along the dockside in the DWU compound, several tables had been set up, each of them covered in containers. Raptaur herself was standing staring at the second table along, while a little distance away Metis was observing, with Amy Dallon in her new costume next to her. The healer's helmet had a full faceplate and seemed to be totally sealed, while the outer layer looked more armored than normal.
Über and Leet were sitting upwind of the entire setup, apparently both taking notes and enjoying whatever was going on. They were both wearing environment suits as well.
The entire area to a distance of about two hundred feet in any direction was cordoned off with a series of tall bright orange poles, ropes strung between them, and more hazard signs hanging from the ropes than either Tinker had ever seen in one place before. The yellow and black signs flapped in the light breeze blowing towards the bay, proclaiming things like 'Biohazard', 'Radiation Hazard', as well as a whole series of chemical warnings such as 'Toxic', 'Corrosive', 'Flammable', 'Explosive'.
Added to that were some he'd never encountered before.
'Mutagen' was one that worried him…
So was 'Anti-particle emitter'.
Some of the others were worse, he was sure, but he couldn't quite figure out what they meant. At least two were in a script none of his translation programs could make heads or tails of.
The final sign, on a pole near the barrier, simply read:
Family Picnic Testing Area
No Entry without appropriate PPE
Class Nine or Equivalent, Full Coverage
Contact BBFO office for details
"Class Nine?" Dragon asked in a worried voice. "What the hell is that mad creature doing that requires Class Nine PPE? That's the sort of thing you'd give to someone you were sending into a radioactive volcano full of corrosive mutated Ebola."
While a little overstated, the sentiment was fairly accurate, he felt. It was certainly not the sort of thing one expected to encounter in the middle of a shipyard.
"My armor is class nine sealed when I activate the safety protocols," he replied, doing exactly that. His helmet extruded a set of transparent covers which met with a click, enclosing his head completely, while a number of other sounds culminating in a beep and a green light on his HUD told him that the power armor was fully sealed. He had sufficient life support for nearly twelve hours.
"Likewise, but I'm still confused," Dragon said. They exchanged another glance, then he got off his bike, joining her in walking over to see what the hell was going on this time.
Ducking under the ropes, they both watched as Raptaur seemed to make a decision, reaching out to one of the containers on the table she was standing in front of and picking the thing up. It was obviously made of EDM, as were all the others, and had purple fumes drifting from it. She drank the contents while they gaped, licked her lips with a long forked tongue, her head on one side in a thoughtful manner, then said something to Metis, who nodded, writing it down on the clipboard she was holding.
Amy checked an entry off on the clipboard she was holding, then pointed to one of the other containers. Picking it up the huge reptile drank whatever was in it as well.
She looked contemplative, before belching loudly, a blast of weirdly silvery smoke with purple flames coming out and making both new arrivals jump despite themselves. None of the others reacted at all. Raptaur shook her head decisively.
Both her companions took notes. Über laughed. Leet was grinning.
After exchanging another look, and in Colin's case, sighing heavily, they walked over to the tables.
"Oh, hi, guys," Raptaur said brightly, looking over her shoulder. "How's it going?"
"Very well, thank you, Raptaur," Dragon replied. She looked at the tables. Many of the containers were fuming or smoking, in a variety of colors, a few were full of something that glowed, also in different colors, and half a dozen were radiating enough heat to be felt fifty feet away.
None of them looked even slightly safe.
Especially the one that Metis kept hitting with a baton, when it tried to sneak away.
Colin had never seen an inanimate container look guilty before. He wished he hadn't now, firmly turning his head so he wouldn't have to look at it.
"Can I ask… What on earth are you doing?"
"Taste test. We got to talking about what Family delicacies would go down well around here with the humans and Leet suggested we should try as many combinations as we could come up with, including some of the new things we've worked out," Metis replied, turning to them with a smile. "It sort of expanded into a general 'What things does Raptaur really like' experiment. We may have gotten a little carried away."
"Bearing in mind that the gamma emissions from that container are off the scale of my radiation monitor, I would have to agree," Colin sighed, pointing at one wide bowl full of shiny metal nuggets. "Never mind all the other things."
"My cobalt-60? It's pretty tasty." Raptaur picked up a handful of the pellets and chewed them in a contemplative manner. "Interesting aftertaste," she added when she'd swallowed. Colin could feel he was going a little green, for several reasons. "Sort of gamma-y. With a hint of vanilla."
"Oh, god," he muttered to himself.
She picked up a cup full of something faintly greenish, swilling it around. "This chlorine trifluoride goes well with it. Give me a little gas though."
"Chlorine… trifluoride…?" Dragon managed to say in a stunned voice.
"Yep. Really nice," Raptaur smiled. "Fizzy."
She poured a little out of the container onto the ground by her feet. There was a sizzling whoomp sound and the stone-like compound started burning violently, fuming and crackling.
They stared as she drank the rest, putting the empty cup down. "I tried some of the other interhalogen compounds but most of them are a little bitter. Or salty. They'd go well with fish."
Colin put a hand over his visor, wondering if it was too late to leave and pretend this conversation never happened.
"These turned out to be a hit," Amy said, picking up a bowl full of greasy yellowish flat fragments. There was an alarming amount of alpha radiation coming from the bowl. Colin, despite himself, took a step back.
"What it is?" Dragon asked with a sort of horrified fascination.
"Battered plutonium-239," Raptaur smiled, taking a few of the things and eating them.
They gaped at her.
"Metis called them Fission Chips," she added, grinning. "Catchy name. But I don't think they'll really take off. Although they are sort of moreish." She ate some more of them.
"How many of those have you had now?" Über called over. She looked at him.
"Pounds of them. Like I said, moreish."
She ate the last couple.
There was a deep rumbling thump from her stomach, while she hiccuped. "Only problem is they go critical if you don't digest them quickly enough," the lizard added casually. "Too many gives me a little heartburn." She scanned the tables as Colin checked his heart rate, the HUD blinking a warning that his bio-signs were out of safe range. "Ah. That's what I wanted, settles me right down."
Reaching out, she picked up a container that was covered in frost, vapor running down the sides. There was an EDM rod protruding from it. She held this and lifted, pulling an orange cylinder from the container, like a large popsicle. His helmet sensors read it as just below minus two hundred degrees centigrade. Sticking it in her mouth, she sucked for a moment, then pulled the EDM rod out without the frozen material on it.
"What was that?" Dragon asked, in the tone of voice of someone who didn't really want an answer.
"Dioxygen difluoride ice pop," Raptaur smiled. "Nice on a hot day."
"Oh."
Dragon glanced at him, then both of them turned around and started walking in the other direction. "We have to go. Enjoy your testing," his friend said without looking around, her voice a little strained to his ears, even without the software telling him anything.
"OK. Nice to see you guys. Drop in any time," Raptaur called.
Leet waved at them as they passed. Neither Tinker responded. He smirked and went back to watching.
When they were safely away from that pit of insanity, Dragon said over their private comms channel, "Don't ever accept an offer of a snack from the Family."
"I had already reached that conclusion," he sighed.
Neither of them could think of anything else to talk about the rest of the way back to the Rig.