Smash Kinematics

[trustycrowbar]

Who: Gordon and you. YES YOU.
What: Physics class
Where: Gordon's teaching lab & the immediate grounds outside
When: Mid-Morning
Warnings: Ethically questionable treatment of sandbags.

Unlike most teachers here, Gordon had handled a physics classroom before--Grad students go to extremes for money. He figured a multiple-tier structure would work, two difficulty levels covering the same subject.

In this case, their first set of homework could either be a tame block of algebraic expressions or a sultry set of differentials depending the student's level. Either way, the the lecture and lab would essentially be the same.

Comments

[trustycrowbar]

He hefts his collection of notes, guiding her out the classroom door with his free arm.

"I've, uh, been in a fight or two, if that's what you mean..." What he's done is not boast-worthy, at least, he doesn't think it is. Furthermore how does one even relate all the shit he's been through? Now that he's literally removed from the situation, he can barely believe it himself on reflection.

[icequeen_aran]

"Oh?" Please do go on, Doctor.

[trustycrowbar]

He takes a minute to compose his thoughts on the subject. She doesn't need to know the gory details. She doesn't look like she has the stomach for it anyway.

"...My world met with an unexpected calamity around the turn of the millennium. One that changed the course of its history forever, and not for the better I don't think. Earth was suddenly territory to be claimed, on a map that had many more dimensions than just two. We were completely unprepared. I was there at ground zero when the whole thing started and I..." He cuts himself off, clearing his throat and glancing at some remote patch of floor for a second.

"Well, someone had to fight back. That's all."

[icequeen_aran]

What little he knows.

She listens to his story with rapt interest, though it's admittedly nothing she hasn't heard before. Not where she came from and not since arriving here herself. Everyone was rife with stories. As such she sounds more empathetic than she looks, not much more than a furrow of her brow.

"You were invaded by someone." She assumed. "Were you the sole survivor?" Something Samus could definitely, and unfortunately, relate to.

[trustycrowbar]

"No, thank god, but out of the science team I was part of... there were two survivors besides myself, maybe three. I'm not sure how many others made it beyond that, though I'd guess it to be no more than a couple dozen out of more than a hundred. It's damned amazing we made it out at all, considering we were fighting off both the monsters AND the goddamn military's containment attempts--"

That last part holds a flash of contempt that one wouldn't figure a man like him were capable of, and he wrestles it down with obvious effort.

"I'm sorry. It's... still a pretty fresh memory for me."

[icequeen_aran]

When he mentions monsters and military containment attempts her expression shares the same flash of contempt his did. Something struck a cord.

"..." Even if Samus was intensely interested and curious for more, she wouldn't press it. Wouldn't apologize for asking, but wouldn't press it. She wanted to offer her condolences but she couldn't figure out a way to express it directly that sounded sincere enough. Words like that seemed to get stuck in her throat, much less ever make it out of her mouth.

"You should know you're not alone here. I've heard unfortunate tales from others here ranging from alien invasion and time travel to soldier clones and bipedal nuclear tanks gone wrong." She paused, wondering if he being so new would even believe that, of if he'd need more time to let the weirdness of this place (and its inhabitants) settle in.

"I'm former military myself." This was oddly, a fact not many Smash residents knew about the biomech and armed weaponry teacher. Being here was an interesting chapter in Samus's life; keeping some facets of herself secret that would normally be common knowledge, and vice versa.

"Wasn't fond of the rules and self-serving hypocrisy that they created."

[trustycrowbar]

That raises a few questions, not least among them being "anyone from his world?" and "who the hell makes a bipedal TANK?" but what's most astonishing to him at the moment is:

"--You're old military?"

Literally it was the last possible thing he could have expected her to be.

[icequeen_aran]

A nod.

"Galactic Federation, if you're familiar."

[trustycrowbar]

So the secretary's an ex-soldier, and not only that...

"'Galactic?' As in 'outer reaches of space?'"

[icequeen_aran]

"I'm also part alien."

She says this very dryly, making it incredibly difficult to discern if she's being serious or just messing with him at this point.

[trustycrowbar]

"--Okay, now you're just joking with me, aren't you?"

[icequeen_aran]

Samus merely SHRUGS with nothing more than a fleeting smirk, probably to his frustration. (Don't worry Gordon, you aren't the first...)

"Either way if you ever need a hand with class need to know how something here works, I'm just down the hall; room 214."

[trustycrowbar]

"I might just stop in. If nothing else, to sit in on your classes. Bioengineering is far from my specialty but I've seen more than enough of it to be curious about what an expert has to say on the subject."

"...Not as curious as I am about your armed weaponry class, however."

[icequeen_aran]

"It's a hobby, really." Or at least Bioengineering was something of the sort prior to coming here. Teaching it has, by necessity, broadened her horizons beyond the need to repair a technologically advanced suit of alien armor biologically unique to her and her alone.

That, and it's always been fun for her to tinker with things and take them apart just to see how they work. If Gordon ever peeked in Samus's class or office after class hours, he'd probably find her desk littered with mechanical parts and blue-prints.

Weapons on the other hand... have always been an ever-present part of her life.

"I try to teach the kids to not shoot their eyes out. So far I think I've been pretty successful in that regard."

She was still waiting for the day, however. And that unfortunate kid would get no sympathy from her.

[trustycrowbar]

He may, eventually, see the pile of tinkering projects in her office, especially if she stops by it as they happen to wander past. As it is, he's content to take her word for it. Someone who takes bioengineering as a "hobby" is quite all right in his book.

"Considering some of the kids here," Yes, he's thinking about you, N. "That's the best you can hope for. I had figured that because this is a fighting academy they'd all, you know... actually know how to FIGHT."

[icequeen_aran]

"You'd be surprised." An answer that could have easily been taken one way or the other. Some were incredible fighters, and some, well... weren't. That was the purpose of school and teaching though, wasn't it?

If there was anything she could rely on about this school, it was that it always managed to surprise her.