5 years, I'm revisiting this story.

The lab shook abruptly, a loud boom in the distance. While the confines of the room reduced the noise to just bearable, computers still rocked, test tubes clinked against each other, the ceiling lights dared to flicker, and Rafael Salazar's chair had rolled backward from his workspace. Without ceremony, he pulled himself back and continued working.

This would have been the 5th tremor that morning, though.

Across the room, Rafael could hear the faint grumblings of one (1) Peter Meechum. He didn't have to look behind to hear the wheels of Peter's chair spin around before he spoke up with another complaint that day.

"That has to be at least the 7th time today, and it's barely noon! Doesn't he know that other people are trying to work here?"

"Now, who is this 'he' that you speak of, Peter?" Rafael said, curious, as he resumed typing, "Could it be Dr. Wilson? I did hear that he had just a few ideas involving some rather incautious-"

"Don't even pretend like you don't know who's responsible for all these damn mini-earthquakes!" Peter jabbed an accusatory finger in his direction - Rafael could feel it from across the room, "The inconsideration- Did you happen to notice that, because of one of these little tremors, I had spilled scorching hot coffee all over myself, or did you somehow miss that amongst the rest of the chaos?"

Sitting up, Peter's white button-up had a very clear mocha-colored stain taking over the entire front. The coffee had left his shirt smelling of dark roast, and underneath the stain was likely his stinging and reddened skin.

"Oh, believe me, I think that even Van Kleiss in the next lab over could hear how much pain you were in," with his back still turned, Rafael didn't feel the need to hide his amused smirk, "Including all those painful words."

"Well, I'm glad to see that managed to brighten your morning, but you know what," seeing right through Rafael's weak facade of professionalism, Peter stood up, striding away towards the door with ire, "You better do something about this, or else those assistants he keeps going through won't be the only ones out the door. And don't think I'm just referring to myself - he's starting to become an occupational hazard around here!"

"Well, we're looking to create what's essentially a cure for cancer here. One could say that it's an endeavor that could only be described as groundbreaking, so surely, this is only fitting?"

"Ha ha. Look, it's not just the reckless property damage that is the problem. He doesn't work well with others, he goes off on his mini projects with our funds that often cause more trouble than anything, and he's been getting away with it for far too long to the point that he holds almost no accountability!"

"it should go without saying that these types of risks are a given. If people can't handle a few quakes along the way, then this may not be the job for them." Rafael felt just the smallest twinge of exasperation begin to reveal itself, "Besides, he is an adult capable of making his own decisions. What do you expect me to do?"

"Yes, but he's also your son!"

The lab doors slid shut, unceremoniously, but Peter's words hung in the air like an echo.

Rafael removed his hands from the keyboard to wearily rub his face.

He has spent years now working on this project. His boys were growing up. But only now are years of meeting with the world's greatest minds, spending late nights at the lab, and begging for more funding are starting to find real traction. Now that they have the Consortium's money. New labs, more supplies, new faces. They wouldn't have had their newest site here in Abysus if it weren't for their funding, but now, providing results was more important than ever if they wanted to keep it. They can and have to up the ante when it comes to their research methods.

But Peter may stand to have a point. Could their progress be getting hindered while in the pursuit of it?

He will just have a talk with Caesar about it, that's all.

The tremors had stopped, but now, there was yelling. Even as he stood outside the door of the lab, he could hear the muffled voices in argument.

The panel of the door slid open, hitting him with a thick wave of smoke and overlapping yelling. Reluctantly walking into the dark fog, he could roughly make out three things: his eldest son Caesar calmly putting out a piles of charred metal with a fire extinguisher, a similarly-charred man spitting curses and lunging at Caesar, and Violeta standing between the two as she talked the man down.

"Sir, please, calm down," she spoke evenly like the understanding mother that she was, "We are just so sorry. Truly, it was an accident-"

"Are you kidding me?!" the scorched man could only be made out by the whites of his eyes and teeth underneath all of the soot, "He tried to kill me! But you want me to calm down because he didn't mean it?"

"Well, of course, when you put it like that, it will sound bad."

Meanwhile, Caesar had just finished putting out the remainder of the flames as he turned back to address the irate man, "To be fair, the central core was showing clear signs of overheating, and I had to extinguish it before it grew too unstable. It was for everyone's safety."

"EXTINGUISH? SAFETY?! IT BLEW UP. Notice how I am the only one here looking like a chimney-sweeper? That's because this idiot failed to warn me that he was going to set the thing off before he did it!"

"I did warn you."

"AS I WAS INSPECTING IT!"

"I thought you knew what you were doing," Caesar had the decency at least to look a bit sheepish, "I could admit some fault in assuming that you would."

The man lunged at him, again, with Rafael stepping in this time.

"But the fact of the matter is that," Rafael said, "at the end of the day, nobody got hurt."

"Oh, what a load of-" the man sputtered, throat strangled as he rubbed his soot-covered face, cursing when it got in his eyes, "You know what? I'm done. With this project, with this job, with this self-centered, mentally unstable sociopath! I quit! Have fun when your nepotism burns this place to the ground!"

With an angry toss of his lab coat, it left a comical contrast between the scorched versus unscorched sections of his dress shirt, a perfect rectangle of soot on the front of his button-up against the clean and crisp blue of his sleeves. The door slid closed, unceremoniously.

"You really have a talent for ruining other people's shirts, mi hijo," Rafael commented after a moment of silence.

"You blew him up?" Violeta interjected, hands on her hips and a glint on her glasses, "So, how many has that been now? Your 5th assistant to quit?"

"Has it been five already?" Caesar looked in the distance, recounting them in his head. There was the incident with the rocket, the near-death with the circular saw, the one with the venus fly trap mutation, and there was mild electrocution involved at one point with another, "Not all of them quit, actually. I fired the last one before this one."

"Yes, and what was your reasoning?"

"Their work ethics were not," he held his chin in thought, "up to my standards."

"One could argue that she was just following OSHA standards."

"Rafa, Caesar," Violeta began, rubbing her eyes underneath her glasses, "This isn't an isolated incident. It's not just about your former assistants, for whom we're lucky we're able to compensate for their distress, but from coworkers. Repairs dipping into our funding, a hostile work environment, amongst other complaints… It was different when the Project was just us and the people that we've been familiar with for years, but now with the Consortium funding us, the legitimization of nanites has never been more of a reality. We have to, at the very least, be willing to maintain a level of professionalism."

"I am a professional, Violeta," Rafael objected, referring to himself, "Do you not see this lab coat?"

"¡Es serio, Rafael!" she chided him, humorless.

"Che, eta joda, mi amor. Perdoname," he apologized, kissing the top of her head in a calming gesture, "You're right, you're always right."

"Sí, por supuesto, ya lo sabía," she scoffed, though it lacked any venom as she leaned into his touch, "Qué un payaso eres."

"Can't I just create my own assistant?"

Rafael and Violeta, parents first but still scientists at the end of the day, looked up at Caesar with simultaneous interest, "How do you mean?"

Caesar did take their concerns seriously. (He also hates to upset his mother.) He supposed the track record that he's led has begun to become excessive, not to mention rather unproductive. He can't keep endangering the well-being of everyone on the Project. That much is certain. So if the issue, then, is minimizing physical endangerment and increasing productivity… Well, that can be solved, surely.

He fed off of their intrigue, anticipation building up in his chest as he walked over to his computer with a hop in his step, "Of course! It's so simple! Who better to assist me than an Artificial Intelligence programmed to specifically meet my expectations and follow my every order? This way, I wouldn't have to extend any concern about lab safety or keep social etiquette in mind when it's just code! Nobody gets hurt, we all get our work done in peace, and it's ultimately the most competent assistant you could ask for."

"No bodily harm when there's nobody to harm," Rafael considered, nodding along, "literally."

Violeta hesitated, "I suppose that does solve our immediate issues, but Caesar, it's not as if you can just stop interacting with people, right? If you do this, it won't solve everything."

Caesar was grinning at his screen, fingers flying across his keyboard, "It's certainly a start, though, and it's right in my area of expertise. This, for sure, I can manage."

"Right… But the issue at hand was how we and our coworkers get along."

"Which is what this assistant will help me with. I don't know why I never considered this before. Keeping up with deadlines, passing along communication, and, not to mention, advanced data tracking. Trust me, Mamí, this is going to help maximize the Project's efficiency, tenfold."

Rafael, a man of his own eccentricities and a similar one-track mind to his son, couldn't doubt the logic. He smiled at his wife, optimistic, "It's not exactly what we meant, I know, but his intentions have always been good, you know that. If something happens along the way that one of us disagrees with, we'll address it then, but I think that this is a good idea. Come on, this is his way of solving it, and it is worth pursuing."

"This is his way of solving it, and it is worth pursuing," Violeta repeated with a nod. Two good points. Her anxieties were, at least, temporarily soothed. It also helped to watch Caesar bounce around the lab in his excitement, "Okay."

He mirrored her, "Alright Caesar, no more human assistants, but if this one also tries to file legal action, that's on you."

"Y tambien, clean up this mess, por favor."