5. The morning after Aoife woke up with possibly one of the worst hangovers she could ever remember having. Her head pounded like someone had let loose a bunch of trolls inside it, and they were happily pulling apart anything that functioned in anyway resembling thought. Light hurt, sound hurt, everything just hurt. " Lousy godam stoopid sco'ish whiskey." She cursed. First day in another universe and what does she do? Goes and drinks herself into a stupor. Dad would be proud. She rolled over, trying to squint at her surroundings without managing to let any light get to her eyes. Poor strategy; but otherwise it felt like someone was branding cattle and her eyes were the cows. She managed to make out she was still on the dirty floor of the closet sized room she'd been in last night, but the door lay open a crack and the other demolitionist was gone. What had he said his name was? Taylor, Tammy, no- that's stupid. Tavish. It was Tavish. She groaned as she pulled herself to her feet and shuffled out of the door. " Ay'm sorry 'bout last night." A deep voice said from behind her. Aoife jumped, and quickly lost balance as her prosthetic leg clattered to the floor. " Must've leusened the strahps last noight and not toightened 'em again." She cursed, bracing herself against a wall. Tavish was looking at her, concerned. " Will yue quit gawkin' an' help a poor cripple?" She snapped. There goes her chances of being treated like a normal human. He drank with her like an equal last night because he didn't notice her leg, he treated her like that because he thought she was whole. From here on out it would be the pinched smile and questions like " Aoife, are you sure you can make it up those stairs?" she'd grown so accustomed to. " Sorry, didn' mean ta stare." He said quickly, before grabbing her prosthetic and handing it to her. Self consciously she attached it to the nub of a thigh that remained. " Bombinomicon's what took ma' eye. Same thing get yer leg?" Tavish ventured, tapping the black eyepatch on his face. " Unless tha's slang fer bus accident, noe." She quipped back. There was an awkward silence. Aoife's head still beat like a drum, and she'd like to not be the zoo exhibit she felt like she'd become as quickly as possible. " Aneway, Ay am sorry." He repeated. " Fer wha'?" " Las' night. I was drunker than a sailor on shore leave, i's no way ta' greet a layday, and Ay'm sorry." " Oi'm not used to behan cawled a layday." Aoife smiled, but then felt like she less deserved the compliment when she threw up all over Tavish's shoes. He flinched, but then grinned. " Yer in worse shape 'n a cat in a dogpark! Come on, we've gotta get sum breakfast in ya. Nuthan' cures a hangover like a gud breakfast, an' then ay've got plenty a water an' orange juice ta' get hydrated." He half supported, half dragged Aoife along to the stairs. " Ay maight need yer help to get the vomit outta mai shoes however." He chuckled, and Aoife chuckled too. It felt nice to lean against Tavish, he was stockily built but he wasn't fat, and she could feel warmth seeping from him onto her. Of course her puke made everything smell like the inside of a stomach, and that somewhat killed the mood, but for now it was just nice to have somebody to lean on. …. Medic's log, Dr. Saanvi Ghosh Day one after explosion. My colleague, here on out referred to as such, is keeping a detailed log on our proceedings with the inter-dimensional teleporter. However, as his notes are all in german, I can't make heads or tails of them and neither can our engineers. I'm taking the liberty of recording our progress in english so we may ALL remember our exact procedures. Engineers are spearheading most of the movement, even though my colleague somewhat brilliant neither he nor I are as mechanically minded and so we must act as something of glorified assistants/ concept engineers. Today we are replacing the inner workings of the teleporter that were burned out or otherwise destroyed in the explosion yesterday. The male engineer is making swift work of it, Lucy directing some as well. However, we ran into an incident with the F-45 valve that wasted nearly three hours. It seemed originally the valve was not damaged in the explosion, simply loosened a bit. When the engineers went to screw it back in however, in was completely missing. We scoured the lab, thinking it simply rolled under a table, but it was no where to be found. It's an essential part for the teleporter, so all progress had to put on halt while we procured a new one. Hopefully this is the last mishap in our progress. Other parts that need work: 6 wires connecting central mechanisms were completely burned to cinders along with most power converters Energy Grappler damaged Outer casing must be fully replaced Various circuitry and safety hoses loosened.
Once all parts are replaced we may begin reverse engineering its interdimensional powers. I hope we finish it soon, almost everyone at this base seems to continually have their minds blown that I am not Indian in nationality. A band of lobotomized baboons would have more brain cells than some of this bunch.