Bryce frowned at the fragments in his hand, trying not to spill the fine gravel that some of the more delicate components had been reduced to as he picked through them. "I designed this, Lara. I know fer a fact that it was waterproof, windproof, shockproof, abrasion-proof..."
"Yes, but I think the acid weakened the outer shell, rendering it susceptible to impact damage. Then the water got in, and it was all over." Lara shook her head as she fished in her backpack.
"Acid?" Bryce asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"Yes. The thing that was guarding the underground chamber - some kind of slug, I'd guess, or maybe they had a common ancestor once - I'll have to speak with Lindsay about it. In any case, it had highly acidic saliva. I would guess that it digests whatever it feeds on outside of its body, then slurps it up. It did not have any teeth that I could see." Lara pulled a flat piece of stone out of her backpack, setting it on the desk. She dipped into the bag again to pull out a small metal cube. "It did not like fire at all. That lighter you made is magnificent!"
"Of course it is!" Bryce snapped, feeling wounded. "I made it, after all. Steady hot smokeless flame in any weather, any gale." He dumped the pile of ex-recorder on the desk and took the cube, fiddling with it. "The recorder would've survived, too, if you would've told me that it was goin' to be bathed in acid before it was bashed around and drowned..." He pulled out a cigarette.
Lara yanked the lighter away. "No smoking in the manor," she chided, putting it on the desk. She picked up the chunk of stone again, looking at it with interest. "But just look at what I retrieved!" She brushed her hand across it gently, reverently. A fine spray of dirt fell to the ground; her eyes sparkled with delight as she smiled down at it. "I'll have to get it translated, but I think it has something to do with Vesuvius. It appears to be..."
Bryce did not give a good roll in the hay about a two-thousand-year-old stone shopping list. "I know there's no smokin', I'm just suckin' on it." He proceeded to do so, picking up some of the larger fragments of the ex-shell of the recorder and looking at them carefully. He could now see where the acid had eaten away at the careful Lara-proofed seams he had put together. "You don't appreciate the work I do fer yeh, Lara! This took me months of plannin' and fabricatin' to get just right. I even worked on it when I was sick..."
She arched one perfect eyebrow. "Well, if I had known I was going to run into an acid-dribbling subterranean slug, I would have let you know that I needed my equipment to be acid-proof. As it was, I had adjust to changing circumstances." She shrugged. "My guns survived the experience intact..." She indicated the monsters of weaponry that rode on her hips, gleaming dully in the gentle manor lighting.
Oh, yes, her guns. Hillary's responsibility, those. No wonder they held up better; whenever Hillary got out of bed long before Bryce woke - or did not come to bed at all - he must be spending the time dreaming up nutty scenarios that Lara might possibly get into, and insulating her equipment against them. If Lara paid by the hour, Bryce thought sulkily, even her vast fortune wouldn't cover Hillary. Her demands never let up; even when she was gone, she would call back endlessly, wanting this or that or the other thing, wanting x translated or y investigated or for one of them to run over and help her with z. No, she didn't appreciate the two of them at all. He brooded on that, barley noticing her excited ramblings about that sodding hunk of stone in her hands, nodding at what should be appropriate points in the narrative.
"Your bath is ready, Lady Croft," Hillary said, walking into the room with what Bryce thought was excessive formality. Lady Croft was hardly the picture of aristocratic decorum in her filthy catsuit and bedraggled braid, after all.
She dropped the stone on Bryce's desk and spun with a gratified sigh, walking towards the large staircase. "Ah, do I need a bath!" She pitched the backpack behind her without a backwards glance, expecting Hillary to catch it one-handed behind her, which he did. She unbuckled her guns from her waist and her muscular thighs, pitching them just as casually behind her for Hillary to catch with just as much care.
Trained monkeys, we are, Bryce thought with a snort, then poked at the recorder again, sucking on his unlit cigarette. Well, he had managed to make a Lara-proof phone at last, and damn him if he wasn't going to make a video/audio recorder that she couldn't destroy, no matter how hard she tried! He pulled up the design plans for the one that lay in a sad pile of half-melted fragments on his desk. State of the art and then some, it was. He couldn't help but admit to himself that he had done the best work he had ever done in her employ; her inarguable need for something better than had ever been made before motivated him like no promise of profit ever had. Still, he thought irritably, she didn't have to take him for granted like that.
Bryce fumbled with one hand for the cup that should have been on the desk, his eyes on the design on the screen. His hand encountered nothing. "Oi, Hillary!" he yelled, irritated. "Where's me coffee?"