Beneath
Chapter Fifteen – Light
By 7:00 in the morning, Loki had read four more chapters of Understanding the Physics of the Universe, freshened his clothing without the use of the laundry room which he never intended to visit again, determined that his inability to change his appearance had spread only about half an inch further up his right leg and an inch more on his left foot, and made a decision concerning Jane.
He needed Jane to begin her work, and she could not do so until the healer gave her permission. He saw no reason he should be forced to wait idly for her apparently fragile health to improve, so he would improve it himself. This was no simple matter, however. He had learned to knit together broken bones and seal open wounds, but he had never dealt with altitude illness, had never even heard of or imagined such a concept. It would be a simpler matter to rid her of the symptoms of the illness, but without curing the illness itself this could prove genuinely dangerous.
Since the ultimate cause of her illness was the thinner atmosphere here, resulting in lesser amounts of useable air entering her lungs with each breath, he ultimately settled on forming a thin flexible bubble closely surrounding her, and increasing the density of the air inside it. He would lower the density a little each day until it matched the surrounding air, and then dissolve the bubble. It should require no conscious effort on his part to maintain it once formed, so the drain on his energy should in turn be minimal. It was an elegant solution, and one he was quite pleased with. He had only to test whether it would actually work as he imagined, and he waited eagerly for the appointed time when he would knock on Jane's door.
In the meantime he scoured his memory for every contact he had on Svartalfheim, both those who themselves wielded powerful magic and those who knew others who did so.
His hand was on his doorknob when the knock came on the other side.
"Good morning," he said, finding Jane standing outside his door. Her hair was pulled up into a knot, her eyes were slightly squinted, and he could immediately tell she hadn't slept well again.
"Good morning. Ready?" she asked in a scratchy voice.
He nodded and they started down the corridor out of the berthing wing and toward the galley. "Not feeling well, I take it?"
She frowned. "No."
And not in a pleasant mood, either. He'd only known her for a week or so but he already knew there was no point even trying to engage her in conversation right now. She was not alert and she was not interested.
He forced a smile when Rodrigo, sitting with a woman he didn't know, gave his usual friendly wave. By the time he and Jane made it to the table with their breakfasts Selby was there, too. He was growing tired of these others being around all the time; a little mischief would have made it eminently more bearable, but he had no time for that at the moment. It was actually helpful that they were there that morning, because while Rodrigo, Selby, the woman named Macy, and later Wright talked and Jane answered questions in short syllables – mostly yes and no – as they arose, Loki was able to concentrate on his plan. He was about to begin when he suddenly sat back for a moment to consider whether Odin, or his enchantments, would consider this use of magic mischief. And as soon as the thought occurred to him, he clenched his jaw in a burst of anger. This, after all, was exactly what Odin wanted, he realized – for Loki to question himself at every turn, for something as natural to him as breathing to be bound up in self-doubt until he came to the decision Odin deemed right. Every time he let himself be paralyzed by such questions was like letting Odin win. But he had no choice. Not yet, anyway. He had reconfirmed that this morning when he tested his ability to change his appearance. And although he had not seen any other negative effects on his control of magic, he could not ignore the risk that there already were, or that there would be with further violations of that particular rule to expand the damage.
But Loki knew the difference between the battle and the war. He would play Odin's game for now. He answered his original question with a no, this was not mischief, and it would certainly not cause chaos. Whatever his ultimate reasons for doing this, he was helping Jane, providing her with a cure the Midgardian healer could not. She would feel better, she would be happier, and she would get what she herself desired – to begin her work. It was simply fortuitous for him that they desired the same thing.
It then occurred to him that this was actually a good test of his earlier question: would the use of magic to help someone, to "do good," reverse the decrease in his control of magic?
Without further hesitation, he began to form a membrane of interconnected particles around her seated form. It struck him that he could now put Midgardian names and properties to some of those particles, but he found this distracting. Because he could not risk his actions being observed, he was not using his hands to create the bubble; strictly speaking he did not need to, but it was his habit, and the sense of physically reaching for what he was manipulating aided his focus. This was no simple barrier he was creating. It had to take account of objects and people in contact with her, such as the chair she sat on and the floor beneath her feet. It had to allow the continual flow of fresh air.
When he was finished, the bubble pressurized and sealed, he released a shaky breath and steadied himself. He had accomplished his task not a moment too soon. Jane took a deep breath – Loki wondered if she could already feel the difference in the air pressure – and pushed her chair back along with the others; he followed suit. She was going to see the station's healer next, but he wanted to give his intervention a little more time to work, to increase the chances of a positive response.
"Jane, are you really feeling no better? What are your symptoms?" he asked as they walked through the galley to drop off their trays.
"Not really. I think I slept a little better, but I still woke up a lot," she said, then ticked off all her symptoms so smoothly it was clear she'd already done so many times.
"I'm sorry to hear that. I do hope it clears up quickly. I know how anxious you are to get to work."
"Yeah, me too. And I don't get it. I mean, I've been hiking at altitude before in California, and I never had any problems, not like this. I guess that's the difference between gradual and immediate ascent."
"I suppose. You enjoy hiking, then?"
She paused to give him an inquisitive look. They said goodbye to the others – Selby would be waiting in the Science Lab to find out whether Jane was permitted to go out to the dark sector yet – and lingered in the main corridor outside the galley. "So, uh, yeah, I like going hiking. I like being outdoors in general. But I thought you knew that."
"How would I know that? Oh, you told me about some hill you climbed at McMurdo," he said, recalling where she had been while he'd busied himself with her laptop.
"No, not that, I meant when you asked…. Well, it all seems so stupid now. I was convinced SHIELD had given you a file on me and told you to…yeah." She paused, grimaced, pressed a hand to her forehead for a moment.
Loki had no idea what she was talking about with her half-sentences, but he supposed it didn't matter.
"I was so rude to you. I really am sorry. I swear that's not…not the real me. They kept me holed up in this place in Norway in the middle of nowhere during that whole New York thing and once I figured out what was going on they wouldn't let me leave. They watched everything I did, followed me when they finally let me out, and they hid and took pictures when a friend came to visit me. I guess it really did a number on me. It's harder to trust people now."
"You've apologized enough. I understand, I think," he said. "No one would react well to that kind of treatment, especially from those who have set themselves up as friends and protectors. Friends don't behave that way. But I do still hope that we can come to trust one another despite the earlier misunderstanding."
She nodded, but was glancing at the door to the healing room known as Club Med, which was located next to the galley. Distracted.
"Why don't we go pick up our radios from the communications office before you go see the doctor? Rodrigo reminded me about it last night."
"We can go after. I'm really anxious to get the yay or nay."
"I believe I saw Dr. Brissett in the galley. He won't be in his office yet anyway."
"Really?" Jane asked, glancing back toward the galley entrance. "I didn't notice. Well, okay then. Let's do it."
A few minutes later they were at the opposite end of the main corridor in Comms with its TV screens and computer monitors and radios and microphones. Rodrigo issued them their personal Kenwood UHF transceiver radios and showed them the emergency functions and how to make and respond to person-to-person, workgroup, and station-wide calls. Then they both did quick tests; Loki imitated Jane's "testing, testing."
"Do we need to say anything in particular? You know, 'over' and 'do you copy' and things like that?" Jane asked, fiddling with the dials and turning it over in her hands.
Loki clipped his to his belt, satisfied that he knew how to operate it and now hoping he did not need to learn yet another version of speech to talk on it.
"No, it's pretty casual. Just tune it to who you want to talk to and start talking. And it's not a huge deal when you're inside the station, but any time you go out you should always have it with you and on, just in case. Oh, and when the sun sets keep them on if you want to know that someone's spotted an aurora. We use the radios to let everybody know to run outside if they want to see something cool."
"Okay, got it," Jane said, peering at the tiny screws on the radio.
"You're one of those, huh? Don't go taking that thing apart. 'Do not modify this transceiver for any reason.' It's the first do-not warning line in the owner's manual. Right under the big 'explosive gases' warning. Last winter a couple of guys did that over a bet. We couldn't get the radios working again."
"Oh, all right, fine. If you insist. I've got to go see the doctor now anyway. Hoping for a thumbs up to head out to the dark sector."
"Then we've got our radios just in time," Loki said. "I have a feeling you're going to get your thumbs up."
"A-ha, so you're an optimist, hm?" Jane asked.
Loki considered that for a moment; he'd never particularly thought of himself as either an optimist or a pessimist. "I suppose you could say I believe in creating the conditions that turn optimism into realism."
Jane raised her eyebrows. "Not exactly lacking in confidence, are you?"
You have no idea, Jane Foster.
"Not a bad philosophy, though," Rodrigo said with a shrug.
Jane started to respond but the radio crackled with a message that sounded almost as though it were in code.
"Sorry, guys, that's McMurdo. I've got to respond."
"Okay, thanks, Rodrigo. See you later," Jane said.
He waved and started speaking into a microphone; Loki followed Jane out into the corridor.
"You know, I do think my headache is letting up. Maybe it was that extra liter of water I forced down this morning. I think I might drown, but it would totally be worth it."
Loki smiled warmly and nodded. "I'm sure that was it."
/
/
Jane burst into the Science Lab grinning from ear to ear.
"I guess I don't need to ask what the doctor said," Selby asked with his own grin. He stood up from his desk.
Lucas looked up from his computer screen with raised eyebrows but said nothing.
"Vitals look better, headache's faded. Selby, when can we go?"
"Right now. Wright's out there now. We just need to get our gear on and we're out of here."
"Excellent! Oh, but there's one hitch. Dr. Brissett doesn't want me walking it yet. I'm supposed to go out on a snowmobile, can we do that?"
Selby nodded. "Not a problem. I did my little training on that when I was at McMurdo, so I can drive us. It only seats two, though, but you can ride on a sled or walk, whatever you prefer, Lucas."
Jane pumped a fist in the air. "Yes! I mean, not about you, Lucas, sorry." He was looking back at his computer; Jane was too excited to take much note of his lack of enthusiasm. "A sled sounds like fun."
"I'll walk," he said over his shoulder.
"Okay then," Jane said with a nod. "Let's suit up!"
/
/
About half an hour later Jane and Lucas stood outside Destination Alpha or DA, the station's "front door" they'd come in through two days earlier. It was sunny and bright and cold, but Jane felt reasonably warm in her gear. She was grateful to see the sun in this winter wonderland, especially since it wouldn't be long before she wouldn't see it for months, and she was grateful to breathe the outside air, even if it bit at her throat and lungs. But most of all she was grateful to finally be getting out to work on her equipment. She was tugging at the ends of her gloves and shifting her weight from foot to foot.
To their left were the myriad smaller buildings and berms and storage containers that made the research station look more like a cargo depot, and to their right was their destination – the pristine white fields dotted with some of the world's most advanced precision scientific instruments, true marvels of modern engineering constructed over multiple years in the harshest conditions on the planet.
She looked up at Lucas, standing still and impassive and gazing out toward the dark sector. "Hey, aren't you excited about this too?" she asked. "I mean, how can you not be?"
He turned his steel blue eyes toward her, his expression mostly hidden beneath his gear, even his eyes distorted by goggles. "I'm ecstatic on the inside," he said calmly.
Jane rolled her eyes and laughed. Lucas was really pretty odd. But she had met her share of odd people in life – some had even slapped that label on her – so odd didn't particularly bother her or put her off. She was perfectly content to assume his strange droll comments were intended as humor so long as he gave her no cause to believe otherwise. And he had to be ecstatic on the inside; no student of astronomy could fail to be elated at where they were.
Selby came around the corner of the building in a Ski-Doo snowmobile for the curbside service he'd promised, and it occurred to Jane that her concession to the doctor would actually turn out to be one of the coolest rides she'd ever taken, way better than anything at Disneyland.
"Helmet," Selby said as Jane settled in behind him. He extended a hand back toward her and she took the dark blue helmet he passed her.
"Ugh," she muttered – she had some gear to rearrange now – but obediently took the helmet and got to work.
"Lucas, it's not like you'd get lost anyway, but just follow the red flags. We'll wait for you right inside the door."
Jane thought her face might break from her smile when Selby's foot hit the gas and they set off with a lurch over the packed snow. She reached her right hand behind her to grab on to the handle of the small storage box there and her laughter melted into the wind and endless white.
/
/
If he were capable of suffocating – and Loki didn't think he was, certainly not without considerable effort – he felt certain he would have done so in these layers of clothing. The one-piece overalls and especially the multiple items constricting his face and limiting his vision bothered him most of all. He decided this would be the last time he would bow to these means of safeguarding precarious human health. But first he would have to test whether it would be considered mischief for him to wear whatever he chose and project or transform the rest as needed. Another spasm of anger toward Odin jolted through him for forcing him to take that into consideration for such a trivial thing, intended only to improve his comfort and his ability to protect himself.
Jane interrupted his thoughts to ask if he were excited.
Oh yes, Jane. Very excited. "I'm ecstatic on the inside," he told her, making her laugh. She had adapted easily to his shift in persona and responded well to it, and he was satisfied to leave things as they were for the moment, though he strongly suspected they would not be able to remain that way for long.
A few minutes later he walked in the ski tracks behind the vehicle carrying Jane and Selby away toward the largest visible telescope in the distance and the attached building. He narrowed his eyes as a scream followed by laughter – both Jane's – was carried back toward him on the wind. His first thought was that he would much rather be driving that vehicle than walking, and would like to have one or two at his personal disposal; in simpler times he would have enjoyed testing its limits together with those he'd once considered friends. But as he watched Jane, Selby, and their vehicle grow smaller and smaller as it gained distance from him, he was reminded of a similar scene from his youth, one that had been repeated over the centuries in different guises.
Loki did not like the role of tag-along. And in these particular circumstances, it was simply unacceptable. Jane was forming a bond with Selby, sharing experiences with him when she was supposed to be spending her time with her erstwhile assistant. That would have to stop. And if it did not on its own, once Selby's tour guide function was no longer needed, then Loki would have to intervene to ensure that it stopped. He had certainly learned more effective means of doing that than injuring himself in a childish attempt to gain attention. Never again would he break his own bones to get what he wanted.
The South Pole Telescope he realized, as he approached it, was impressive. Not bifrost-impressive, but this was Midgard after all. He entered the building at the door near the snowmobile, and Jane and Selby were waiting nearby as promised, chatting and laughing amicably about something called "Ditch Day."
"I'll tell you later," Jane said to Selby as Loki started removing layers; Jane and Selby had already done so, hanging their jackets and other unneeded items on a series of hooks by the door.
"Sure," Selby agreed. "Ready for the tour?"
Loki saw Jane nod out of the corner of his eye as he hung up his red jacket.
"Lucas, you're going to have to try that, it was awesome. If the doc wants me to keep coming and going on one of those things I won't complain."
"We don't really use them in winter, so I'm told. Problems with the tracks in the extreme cold."
"Oh, right. Pity. We should take advantage of them as much as we can in the meantime."
"Sure, actually, if you want, I can take you for a spin around the station tonight. I've been wanting to get some pictures out there away from the buildings anyway."
"Oh, that would be great! I have a new camera I should try out, too. And I should probably start sending some pictorial proof to my friends that I'm actually at the South Pole and not making the whole thing up. Ready, Lucas?"
Loki slung his satchel back over his neck and nodded.
Selby led them through a corridor choked with haphazard seemingly random items – if her bedroom was any indication Jane would feel right at home here, Loki thought. They came to a series of tightly sealed shrink-wrapped wooden crates that Jane clearly recognized as her own. Jane ran her hands over them, practically caressing them, and exclaimed her relief to see them here and her eagerness to open them up and inspect them; Loki eyed them curiously, wondering if one of them could be modified to create a bifrost. It was hard to imagine something so small and surely relatively primitive could harness that much power.
They went upstairs and out onto the deck where the ten-meter telescope itself was housed, along with more random items, some partly buried in snow. Not properly dressed, they didn't linger, but Jane's exuberance and the light in her eyes as she looked it over and Selby pointed out a few things about it were unmistakable.
Back inside they went through the cluttered corridor again and into the Dark Sector Lab itself, where Wright greeted them. Jane and Loki were provided another desk and computer each. Jane was clearly glad to hear the DSL was wired for internet; Loki was as well, figuring this room afforded more privacy than did the Science Lab in the station, and perhaps a bit more even than the computer room.
"Well, I'm sure you're anxious to get those boxes opened. Do you need any help?" Selby asked.
"No, thanks. I've got Lucas for that," Jane said, resting a hand on his upper arm.
Loki kept his reaction from showing, but hoped she would remove her hand from him quickly and not make a habit of this. He needed her close but not that close, and he didn't care for the implication in her words or the sense of being put on display as her assistant. But he had set up that particular role himself and he was perfectly ready and willing to continue to live with it. He didn't need her or anyone else to know who was really in control here; the fact that he knew it himself was sufficient.
Selby provided them with several tools to get past the thick plastic sheeting and the pry open the boxes, and Loki followed Jane back out into the corridor.
Jane hadn't really told him much about the various devices she had built and shipped here, so he listened carefully as she gave him an overview of each one, laced with stories as she went about how, when, where, and why she'd built them. A couple of them were newly augmented via material and financial assistance from Tony Stark's research foundation, and one of them she kept relatively quiet about, which made Loki intensely curious. Two of them, along with a telescope that was recognizably so to Loki since he'd used something similar on Asgard, had nothing whatsoever to do with Jane's research but were sent by a friend of hers in Australia – the "really small tiny projects" she had mentioned when they first met.
Once everything was opened, Loki followed Jane's lead in running diagnostics on each piece of equipment to make sure nothing was overly jostled in transit. One of her particle collectors, an older one, was in fact damaged in some way, so she got more tools from Selby and got to work repairing it while Loki powered up the rest of the pieces.
They were close to missing the galley's lunchtime hours by the time Jane pounded on a table and declared the homemade device that looked a little like a miniature satellite dish as good as new. Noting how obviously cobbled-together the thing was, Loki doubted that was saying much. Some of the newer pieces were much more intriguing.
Selby had delayed his own lunch to be able to drive Jane on the snowmobile again – Wright had already left – and while Loki considered joining them, he decided it was not worth his time. He would have to make sure Jane was completely better by tomorrow so that the snowmobile was no longer needed. Despite likely minor differences in their physiology, he was confident he could heal her headache; he'd suffered from them for a time as a young man and had become proficient in eliminating them as they developed.
A better use of his time was scanning Jane's e-mails and learning more of Midgardian science. Jane's friend Darcy referenced a package she'd sent Jane and insisted she should read page 38; it was rather cryptic but then much of what Darcy wrote he found cryptic and too full of what he assumed to be local slang to follow. He thought it unlikely there was any cause for alarm in her rambling message, though since this person was apparently the only one Jane had told about Thor's impromptu visit to Norway Loki wanted to keep a particularly close eye on their communication.
He spent the rest of the time until Wright returned, followed by Jane and Selby, reading on the internet about Albert Einstein. The man had been vastly ahead of his time, posing theories about things that could not yet be observed that later, once actually observed, turned about to be remarkably accurate. It was little wonder his name came up so often. And his theories provided some of Earth's first scientific indications of the possibility of rapid travel through space, of a version of Asgard's bifrost. Loki began to wish he'd spent more time learning about the technical workings of the bifrost observatory. He knew how to command it from his brief stint as king of Asgard, but this relied on magic that was simple for the user, whether through the enchanted Gungnir or through Heimdall's dedicated sword. Controlling the bifrost did not mean he knew how to build one from scratch, whether the bridge that channeled the power or the observatory that focused it.
Turning his attention from Asgard and the bifrost to Midgard and Albert Einstein, Loki took an unintended detour into reading about the man's personal life. Einstein had voluntarily renounced his citizenship of his homeland – Germany, Loki was interested to note, having been there once himself – because people of his race were being treated badly there. He'd later taken up United States citizenship and supported war efforts against the home he was born to, though apparently with words rather than the sword, or whatever weapons the Midgardians were using at that time.
Perhaps true strength was forged in betrayal and persecution. Not Thor's type of strength, but those "other forms" of strength his mother would speak of when he was young and feeling inadequate next to his brother. He hadn't understood what she meant then, or more accurately he'd dismissed it because it wasn't those "other forms" that made him doubt himself so much, that made him feel like he wasn't living up to what Odin expected. He understood now. Strength came in many forms other than the ability to lift heavy objects or pummel someone with your fists or your forged-in-the-heart-of-a-dying-star hammer. Strength came from the mind – intellect, magic, manipulation, control, deceit. Loki excelled in these. And his physical strength was formidable as well, especially in this realm where no individual would stand a chance against him, with the exception of one giant green freak of Midgardian nature.
When Wright returned Loki chided himself for letting his thoughts run so far afield. He read another article on a variation of the Einstein-Rosen Bridge theory while awaiting Jane's return.
/
/
"Hey, Jane, have you met Sue on SPUD yet?" Selby asked, swinging by the corner of the DSL where she was running calibrations on one of her newer sensors.
"No, I haven't, I wanted to though." She glanced up from the readout her own handheld computer, a new toy she'd acquired from SHIELD. SPUD was a telescope designed to measure B-mode polarization and showcased a particularly impressive use of acronyms, standing as it did for Small Polimeter Upgrade for DASI, with DASI in turn standing for Degree Angular Scale Interferometer.
"She keeps weird hours. Why don't we go over to MAPO now? She'll still be there and we should still be able to make it back in time for dinner."
"Dinner?" Jane glanced at her watch. It was already past 6:30. "Wow, how did that happen?" she asked rhetorically. The same way it always happens was the answer. She was notorious for losing track of time while working.
"Go ahead, I can finish this one," Lucas offered.
Jane considered it. Only one person was actually needed to run each of the calibrations, but they were doubling up on them because Lucas didn't know her equipment – well, no one knew her equipment except her. That was a byproduct of do-it-yourself astrophysics. So as they worked their way through each one, she explained it and made it his responsibility to track all of the results. It was fun in a way; she could almost imagine she was a professor training her graduate student. Much more fun than teaching uninterested undergraduates how to calculate the mass of Charon just to check a Gen Ed requirement. Lucas mostly just listened and did what she told him to, but when he spoke up it was usually to ask a good question, and Jane enjoyed explaining the answer.
But if she were going to take on this pseudo-professorial role, she should make sure Lucas met all the scientists out here, too. Contacts were important in just about any career, she figured. Preferably contacts who didn't think you were crazy, of course. And maybe if he didn't bring up that whole building a wormhole generator idea again he might actually do better at that than she had.
"No, let's both go," she decided. "We can finish with this sensor tomorrow. Then maybe you or Wright could help us link up a couple of these with the telescopes?" she asked Selby. "I got permission before I came here." The Stark Institute for Scientific Innovation had obtained permission actually, just in case her name would have gotten the request rejected.
"Yeah, I know. And sure, we can do that. We've got some calibrations of our own to run tomorrow, but it shouldn't be hard to work your stuff in. So, you want to walk to MAPO or be chauffeured?"
Jane laughed. This was getting ridiculous. "Definitely walk. It's so close. And actually I feel great. Maybe it's just adrenaline from finally getting out here and getting to work, but I've got more energy than I've had since getting here and I feel like I could climb a mountain."
"The doctor would probably advise against that," Lucas put in.
"It's not like there are any here to climb anyway, so I think I'm good. Let's get this stuff shut down and pay a visit to our neighbors."
ECW gear went on and in just a few short minutes came off again as they went inside the Martin A. Pomerantz Observatory.
Selby led them through the building until they came to the office area, where an Asian woman around Jane's age sat hunched over a computer. "Hey, Sue, come up for air. I brought you some visitors."
Sue, who turned out to really be Su-Ji Lee, turned around, pushed her glasses higher up on her nose, and stood. Noticing she was also about her height, a question immediately popped into Jane's head that would probably not be appropriate if she were to blurt it out right away. But she was definitely asking.
They exchanged the typical brief professional and personal background information; Jane noticed that Lucas said he was from Toronto and was mildly annoyed that he would volunteer that to someone he just met and wouldn't answer her when she asked him directly about being Canadian.
"So, Sue, I'm sorry if this seems a little weird," she began once the pleasantries were out of the way, "but how do you get in and out of bed? Because I'm scared I'm going to break my leg or maybe my head every time I get up."
Everyone laughed – well, Lucas appeared to be smirking rather than laughing per se – but Jane wasn't the least bit bothered. Being "vertically challenged" was just another part of life. It wasn't her fault the beds at the South Pole station were designed for Thor. Or Lucas for that matter.
"There is a solution, and it's called a two-step stool. It's on wheels but it locks. And I'm still afraid I'm going to break something sometimes, but I'll show you were I got mine from, it's one of the jamesways. There's three or four more in there."
"A two-step stool, imagine that!" Jane declared sarcastically, wondering why no one had thought to put one of those in the rooms in the first place. "That sounds great, thanks."
"Uh, Jane, you did know you can actually lower the height of the bed, didn't you?" Selby asked.
Jane turned to him in confusion. "Uh…what?" So someone left a little detail out of one of those briefings, hm?
"But then you lose the storage space under the bed. So most of us keep them high anyway, even if it means we have to be gymnasts to get up there," Sue said.
"I'll show you how to do it later if you want," Selby offered. He was tactfully avoiding laughter, but Jane could hear it in his voice nonetheless. In the great tradition of Caltech pranking, she was going to have to think of something clever to pull on him.
"I guess it'll be fine once I have a taller stepstool," she said. And Sue was right, the storage under the bed was helpful.
"A cargo flight is coming in tomorrow at around three. It's supposed to be the fifth and final one for the day," Sue said. "Yours truly is going to guide the plane once it lands. Afterward I can take you over to the jamesway."
"Okay, but…you're directing the landing? Of the airplane? Really?"
"The taxiing, yep. You can do it, too, if you're interested. Just talk to the fuelies and take the safety briefing seriously. But you have to come up with cool props to use to signal the pilots first."
Landing planes. With props. And ten-meter telescopes and telescopes buried in the ice detecting neutrinos through the planet's core from the North Pole and her own upgraded equipment in cold dry air and snowmobile rides and cool people and an upcoming prank war and – she glanced over at Lucas, as quiet as ever, shaking her head and laughing – her very own odd assistant. This was going to be one of the most amazing and unforgettable experiences of her life.
/
[Special note: I'm really not sure if it needs the clarification, but just in case - regarding the line about people being "treated badly" in Nazi Germany, since that is real stuff as opposed to fake stuff allow me to simply note that that was Loki's minimally-informed POV based on reading about Einstein vice WWII itself, and is in no way intended to minimize or simplify the Holocaust.]
So things are looking up again for Jane, hm? Of course she's spending most of her time with Loki so that's probably not going to last terribly long.
Teasers: Jane finishes her meds but Loki thinks he'll miss those pills; Loki gets a sled ride that's not exactly what he's expecting; Jane sees something she wasn't supposed to; Selby again draws Loki's attention (which is, you might imagine, not really necessarily a good thing).
And excerpt (Jane and Loki speaking, which I'm sure you would realize anyway):
"You didn't have much time for thinking in Melfort. So you'll be looking for answers about what to do with the rest of your life while you're here?"
"You could say that," he answered after a short pause. She was pretty sure the smile was still there, but something she couldn't put her finger on made her a little uncomfortable.
Hope you enjoyed! Reviews most welcome.