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Post by olivia victoria flaversham on Mar 3, 2010 21:31:58 GMT 10
 
Three minutes.
Two minutes.
One minute and thirty seconds.
One minute and fifteen seconds.
Time is relative. But to Olivia, she was always running low on it. Between taking care of her father, getting ready and actually getting to school – she was always at least ten minutes late to class. Luckily, Olivia didn’t have class today. It was a brisk Saturday evening, the time when girls her age should be out with friends, or a significant other. But instead, Olivia was stumbling through the rainy night alone; book bag flailing precariously at her side as she eagerly exerted herself to reach the bus stop before her final mode of transport rode off without her. The two red lights glowed like embers, alluding to her desires, and acting as a carrot on a stick, urging the adrenaline to just last a few seconds longer so she would not have to run anymore in the rain.
But, when she was within a hair’s breadth of the bus, there was that gut-wrenching roar as the engine spluttered to life. With a cry, she reached out a hand – but to grasp at nothing. The bus was uninterested in her, and was already driving off. With an angry huff, she kicked out at the puddles and sighed in defeat. It looked like she was going to have to walk to school after all.
You may be wondering what she was doing on her way to school on a Saturday night. Well. After a few hours of pouring through her textbooks, on one of her rare nights off, she discovered a compound that she hadn’t considered before. The very compound that may be the key to her father’s illness. So, with the eagerness of a child on her first day at school, she had bundled up in her faded jeans and her favorite slate blue sweater, grabbed her bag and coat and ran out the door. But now that she’d missed the bus? Looks like she was walking the rest of the way in the constant rain. Bundling her black overcoat tighter around herself, she hurried through the dreary weather to the lab.
Surely nobody would be there on a Saturday night. So she didn’t really care that her hair looked a mess, as she had only run a brush through it for a moment or two, and now it was dreadfully ratty due to running for a good forty five minutes or so in the rain. So, as she fumbled with the keys to the lab and practically fell inside, slamming the door behind her to block out the rain – she was quite shocked to see someone else working there that night. Instantly, she recognized his face. After all, who didn’t know about the infamous genius Basil Baker? Leaning back against the door, she stared wide-eyed at him for a moment, blinking the rain out of her eyes.
Obviously she had caught him off guard, and she blinked, slipping off her soaking coat and hung it up, trying to subtly do something about her hair before resting her book bag on the table. There was an array of instruments on the table that caught the girl’s eye and, as she made her way to her own table, she couldn’t help but try to work out what on Earth he was doing. He was quite a bit older than her, and had been granted access to the labs for his own research. That alone thrilled the girl. It had crossed her mind more than once that she should ask him for help with curing her father, but she had never really known the right way to go about it. As far as she knew, he didn’t even know that she existed.
Opening her text books, she shook her head and tried to concentrate; grabbing the equipment she needed to get started. But, as she slipped past the older scientist to grab some safety goggles, she noticed a curious green substance bubbling over a Bunsen burner. Basil watched it with an intensity that caught her off guard. Well. She’d seen him at work before, watching him curiously from across the room every now and then. But never before had she seen that fire alight in his eyes. It was almost carnal, and it sparked a fire in her own eyes. Her curiosity peaked, and she slowly slipped closer to him – her eyes drawn to the bubbling green liquid.
Like a child, she crept closer, on her tip-toes to see over his shoulder, desperate for a better look at the experiment he was working on. However, as she bit her lip, tilting her head to the left as she watched the green goo and the complicated chemistry set he had organized neatly on his desk – she was about to force her way into the boy’s life. Still wet from the rain outside, a few drops of water fell into Mr. Baker’s experiment. There was a loud sizzling sound as the concoction bubbled over and onto the table, burning sizable holes into the table’s surface and causing the girl to leap back, as if electrocuted.
A blush blazoned her cheeks, her doe-like eyes wide as she looked up at the man, clearly embarrassed and apologetic.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Basil sir. I was just…curious?” she stammered, giving him a forced smile and hoping he wouldn’t flip out at her.
She had heard he had a tendency to be a little … err. Dramatic?
 W O R D S;;913 T A G;; basil! N O T E S;; sorry it sucks D: C R E D I T;; hey it's SHMEY! @ caution 2.0 |
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Post by basil morris baker on Mar 20, 2010 7:08:48 GMT 10
Most guys would be out with their friends having a good time on a Saturday night. Basil, however, had never been most guys, and his definition of a good time was as odd as his personality. Although technically apartment 221 at 604 W 116th Street was his home, rented out by the university that employed him, he always maintained that his real home was the lab in the corner of Havemeyer Hall. It was in this corner of Columbia University that Basil Baker had made his nest, and it was here that he spent most of his free time. He could not remember a time when he hadn't been the odd kid on the playground who was more interested in books than in sports, and he certainly could not remember a time when he hadn't been fascinated by chemistry, especially forensics. It was his genuine passion that had brought him so far, already conducting postdoctorate research at age 24 after attending two world-class universities and working with famous, decorated scientists.
It was understandable that his ego was a little inflated, especially when his connections to the NYPD had allowed him to help them in their forensic research.
Tonight, however, Basil was having a good time, clad in his monogrammed lab coat. He was taking a break from studying DNA testing, taking a break from studying the different pollutants in soil from different parts of the city, taking a break from endless spreadsheets and tedious numerical data. Instead, he was running reactions for fun. It was an odd hobby, perhaps, but Basil had always found it rather fascinating and a good way to exercise his intellect. He had come up with a game for himself: cover up the labels on aqueous salt solutions, number the bottles, and then run various reactions to try to determine which bottle was which. It was detective work on a small scale, and good practice for his future job, he thought.
Setting up an experiment like this took several hours. As soon as the professor in charge and all the other students and technicians in the lab had gone home, Basil had put away his work materials and stolen ten different salts from the supply closet. It was not really stealing, he told himself, since he worked in the lab. The professor knew about Basil's little games, and rarely minded as long as he cleaned up after himself and was willing to pay if he used too much. Basil needed an easy-going boss to handle his dramatic and stubborn personality. After wolfing down his messy ham and cheese sandwich, he had begun. That had been around 7:00 pm. It was now 9:00 and Basil was still in the thick of his experiment. He had almost immediately identified silver nitrate, although it was obvious because it had stained one of his fingers black. Others had come more slowly, but he had soon knocked out five of the ten. The other five were more stubborn.
Basil's blue-gray eyes were concentrating intently on a reaction bright green with pH indicator. It was bubbling happily through his glassware, making a sizzling noise that Basil had always loved. A ghost of a smile played over his stark features. He rarely smiled, but when he did, he meant it, and he meant it now--he was genuinely excited whenever he was able to play around with his own experiments. His face, others had remarked, would have been handsome if it weren't always so expressionless. It was true that Basil rarely displayed or even admitted his emotions, and he always tried his best not to feel them, but he was human and there were things that made him happy. Chemistry was one of them.
Naturally, he was so thoroughly absorbed in his experiment that he disregarded the sopping wet girl who stumbled into the lab. It was not that he didn't see her--Basil saw just about everything; he was quite observant and very sharp about such things--but he figured she was one of the college students who worked there, and perhaps she had left a jacket or a hair clip or a favorite pen. He had once seen a girl return to the lab late at night because she couldn't do homework without her favorite pen. He had chuckled at that, although not while the girl was around. Basil ignored her even when she came over to his lab bench, leaning forward to peer at his experiment. Curious college students were not that unusual either. After all, why wouldn't they be fascinated after their dinky little experiments, mixing silver nitrate and sodium chloride?
Basil was waiting for the heated solution to change color, from basic to acidic. If it didn't, he thought irritably, hen he was wrong about the solution he had tested. Just when he thought he saw the green shade begin to lighten, droplets of water dripped into the flask he was heating from the girls hair. Instinctively, expecting what would happen now, Basil jumped back with an expletive. Momentarily, the concoction bubbled over the top of the flask, spilling onto the lining of his bench and burning it.
"Shit," he cursed. Basil whirled around to face the girl and found that he recognized her. She was definitely one of the professor's students, a mentee or something. What was her name? Violetta? Odette? Viola? Something like that. He glared at her. "Err... Viola, is it? Don't explain, just help me clean this mess up first." He grabbed a bottle of clear liquid from the shelf and snatched a clear plastic dropper, dropping the liquid onto the spilled, green chemical. "It's to neutralize the base, there's another bottle up there, hurry up," he commanded her urgently.
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word count ** 954
tag ** viola >_>
notes ** yesthatwasashakespearereferenceimanerdwhatever.
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