...One hour later...
...In an elevator...
"How long is this elevator going to continue?" Loki asks.
"Five more minutes." I said, calmly.
Loki sharply glares over towards me in the meanest way possible.
"You said that five minutes ago." Loki said, sounding angry and frustrated.
I look down to the bar graph item similar to a screen near the elevator doors.
"That's because we do have five minutes left." I said.
"There is no we." Loki said.
I have a short lived laugh at his reply.
"As there is two people in this room; you're wrong." I said,holding up two of my fingers. "Smart-ass."
Loki gawks at me.
"Is that what you do for the entire hour before you do work?" Loki asks. "Stand there and think?"
Much as he amused me that really wasn't true.
"No," I said. "I the time go faster."
"And you didn't bring a book this time." Loki said, hissing at 'this time' in a way best compared to him accusing me of being a spy for all know how ludicrous that is; me, being a spy, for a nation: with restricted internet.
I sigh then point to the side of my head.
"That's because it is all in here." I said,tapping on my temple.
The elevator finally stopped.
"Finally!" Loki said.
The door opened to reveal a sleek, pretty,and pristine lab.
"What the Muspelheim leaves this room clean so well?" Loki asks.
I went through the door snickering.
"Cleaning up after ourselves, smart-ass." I said.
I've long since gone to believe Muspelheim meant Hell in Norse Mythology.
"Can you stop saying my ass is smart?" Loki asks.
"Not until you're grown up." I said. "And what is Muspelheim?"
"You can call it a literal hell." Loki said. So I am right, I thought walking down the hall in black high heels. All the coatware are in the first floor in a cubby huge enough for me. "And then there is Helheim in Niflheim. Helheim is the underworld realm. Niflheim is where life goes back to in the end."
"So helheim is hell?" I ask, puzzled.
Loki shrugs.
Loki, actually, just shrugged.
"If you think of it that way." Loki said.
I rub my forehead using my right hand.
"...Oh my god you're confusing." I said, shaking my head and then take my hand off my forehead.
Ron and Fred are over the table observing a long wide black shield like park that is not a still sat in their seats.
"Hey Emily." Ron and Fred said at once staring at the part-that we all agreed on calling the black scale-still confusing to biology and science.
"You know, the black scale is not going to move." I said as Fred handed Ron a wrapped up BLT.
"It moved." Fred said.
"By an inch." Ron adds,unwrapping the BLT.
"By the way," Fred starts to say.
"There's already a hole." Ron finishes for Fred. Ron has an Australian accent, big muscles, a little blonde mustache growing, and wild blonde hair that should belong to a cowboy in Night at The Museum. "Came up while you were getting beauty sleep. We didn't make it, matey."
Ron takes out a bite from the BLT-miraculously not making a mess-and chewed with his mouth closed. I swear the law of gravity gives Ron an exception because every cheeseburger related product never ceases to make a mess while being is the neat-freak kind of man; in a good way.
"Are these two twins?" Loki asks.
"No." Fred and Ron said.
"They're just really good buddies." I said,with a slight nervous laugh. "Guys,are you serious about the hole?"
Ron points over to the not-living-metal-long-engine hood black thing.
"It moved before the blast came in." Ron said.
"From outer space," Fred said. "The defining blast of circle fans came from the stars a few hours ago."
"So you're saying this thing moved right before it happened?" I ask, finding it odd.
Loki came over to the side of the table and looks down towards the black shield item. It seemed as though he was going to start a an imaginary glaring contest with Fred,Ron, and the black alien shield. Ron held up a black remote towards the mobile gigantic and very neat projection board set up in front of the right hand wall right across.
A blue blazing blast shot through the sky burning away pieces of a building-well, actually, a very neat half of a circular is missing from the side-right in the way to the area where the heat bloom is coming from. The solid wall disappeared shortly after the blue blast had mysteriously went away. My jaw went slack and the shock I felt right then is strange. Strange because something likes this-other than surviving bombings, chasing a guy through comic-con, and getting a flying advanced car-is what an average human is not fortunate to see every day. Loki didn't pay any attention to the screen.
The screen turned black and went away into whiteness blending into the projection board.
"See?" Ron said, after gulping down what he had chewed. "We're not lying about that sort of deal!"
"This is too surreal." I said.
"You didn't look over to the whaling station, Emily." Ron said.
"No?" I said. Ron takes another bite out of the BLT. "Walking through the snow is one thing but tugging your boots out of the heavy snow is a task that requires complete focus and attention."
"You need new boots." Fred said.
"No," I said. "I don't. These pair do quite fine."
"They do fine in American Winter." Ron said. "This is Bouvet Island Snow!" Loki had made a little field of ice to shield himself from any breadcrumbs or any sort of mess that tossed off the BLT that is being waved from side to side. "Not snirt, not fluffy snow,and light snow."
"Snirt." Loki repeats.
"Yeah, snirt." Ron said.
"I thought I heard you say 'shirts'." Loki said.
Fred burst out laughing and his face turned a tomato red.
"What?" Loki said, clueless. "What's so funny about a whole island of shirts making it hard to walk through."
I resisted a very well known urge to laugh at Loki.
"Loki, imagine yourself doing that." I said. "But wearing poor boots adjusted to easy-going air."
"I don't get it." Loki said.
Fred walks away and his laughter echoes down the hall.
"I was giving an example." I said. Ron dropped his BLT into a trash can; he must have lost his appetite. "Apparently kids like you don't understand comparing examples."
"Yes, they do." Loki said.
"...Matey, have you heard of Autism and Aspergers?" Ron asks.
"No," Loki said. "What is it?"
"You're the defining rocket about them, just,..." Ron put his elbow on the counter bending his fingers forward. "More able to control yourself, lets say,without needing medicine."
"You don't need medicine to control yourself." Loki said.
"There are some people who do." Ron said.
"Such as?" Loki asks.
"People with Multiple Personality Disorder,people who panic too much,people who have a real condition involving involuntary laughter, paranoid people, people with injuries," Ron lists. "It is a disability."
"But why medicine?" Loki asks.
Ron stares point blank at Loki, in all seriousness asides,with a raised eyebrow.
"Now here's my question," Ron said. "Are you a blonde?"
Loki frowns, etching his right eyebrow forwards-well, more like hunched really-leaving the other eyebrow in place.
"I do not have yellow hair." Loki said. "You see my hair color is black."
"There are some who are color blind in this room." Ron said.
I stare at Ron in shock, because; one, he's never told me anything about his ordinary day to day life self-even though I've worked with him for a couple months-back at home.I felt so shocked but now it made sense why he mistaken my hair to be black on the second day I turned up for work.
"What color is my hair to you?" Loki asks.
"Blonde." Ron said.
"I don't have blonde hair." Loki said.
"Color blind, matey." Ron said.
"Stop calling me 'matey'," Loki said. "You are not a pirate!"
"What is there to call you?" Ron asks. "Aussies don't have any 'genius' nicknames for fellows such as you."
"Call me Loki." Loki said.
"Ikol?" Ron asks.
"No, Loki." Loki said.
"Okay, Ikol." Ron said.
I had my attention on the black shield.
"Stop being stubborn," Loki said, in a demanding tone. "And call me by my birth name."
"Right, Ikol." Ron said.
The black shield seem to budge during the argument between an Aussie and Frost Giant. If anyone were to tell Ron to stop call them 'matey' he would go ahead and dub them by their name spelled backwards; always. Even when greeting them. Lets say he did that to me for awhile until I apologized.
I picked up the black shield-for the first time in several months-using my hands.
It had been found during the initial beginning digging into the wall that lasted for a couple days until a annoying snow storm set in. That item is one of many that had been found in the we've been studying the found material to see what it could be while the other people suppose to come were getting their training in for this one trip.
Underneath the black shield is a row of technology related parts entangled by some other related machinery.I turn to the right then walk away from the ensuing argument down the hall.I feel around the raised up elevated area feeling a familiar shape.
A familiar shape that didn't just come from Earth environment but somewhere else. I felt R and the big G alongside each other. Could it be possible?, I thought taking the black shield into the sink and turn on the water facet. I squirt some soap into it then grab a sponge then go after the mysterious top layer-not the backside-until I could tell there is a prominent evidence of 'RG' together. I clean the raised bumpy edgers until there were evidence of metal with hints of rock.
Rock Giant?,I thought, Rock Giants have been here too.
But that doesn't make sense when there is technology below.
I turn it over looking to the backside.
I cleared my throat and a little sigh came out.
This used to be some relevant piece of Rock Giant culture and been twisted into some other use. I saw what seemed to be a pair of long gray metal legs similar to a robot spider hooked in below. Thud,thud, thud went Fred's boots along the floor. Fred's boots are significantly different to American Boots as they were made in some nation that slips out of my mind.
"Hey big Em!" Fred said, his face clear of any redness. "What'cha washing?"
"Uh, the big alien thing." I said, holding it up.
Fred tilts his head.
"What the hell is that underneath it?" Fred asks.
"I don't know." I said.
"That look on your face tells me otherwise." Fred said.
"Well, my face is wrong." I said.
"I've known you for a year," Fred said, coming closer. "You only make that expression when you have an idea what something is."
"I realized there's two initials 'RG'." I said, pointing to the top. "RacingGirl."
Fred stood there, thinking, for what seemed to be hours. Reality set in that Fred has been standing for five 's face turns into a 'wait, I am forgetting about something important' that really can't be written into a book. Hell I believe that James Patterson would find it hard to describe Fred's reactions to everything.
"Is Ron still with..." Fred started to say. That 'I have forgotten something' turned into a 'Emily! You just broke the rules.' kind of one. "Wait...who was that hilarious kid?"
"Loki Strange, my kid." I lied. "He's about seventeen going on to eighteen."
"Boy, kids grow up fast." Fred said.
"Yeah, that they do." I said.
"You do know what the boss said; no kids." Fred reminds me.
"Loki is a teenager." I said. "So he is not a child."