Cat's in the cradle (Melia and Taliesin)

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"Well I could show you some of my side projects I've got going on. Just little research things. Y'know, trying to come up with flame resistant materials mainly. That's most of what I do, actually. Since we want to try and get ships in orbit at some point, we have to think about the process of entering back into the atmosphere. Ideally we use a craft we can use more than once, like Christiana. Orbital physics are tricky though. If you enter the atmosphere at the wrong angle, you burn up. I want to try and widen that margin of error, y'know. Make it kind of dummy proof so that it's more accessible to anyone. Not just experts," Dominic explained, leading the way to a side room where he had multiple stations where he was melting different metals, poly carbons and ceramics together to create something that could withstand extremely high temperatures for short or long periods of time.

Matt bounced along behind them, equally excited about the projects Mr. Howard was working on. This was an area that Matt was instructed to 'stay on the other side of the window' due to his terrible curiosity of wanting to touch the objects that did not appear so but were, in fact, very hot.
 
Kristie nodded with an intent expression as Dominic explained his other projects. She wasn't quite as interested in the lack of computer areas but she was still quite curious. Science fascinated her but she personally had never gone much beyond the basics in any of those fields. She could sort of understand the chemistry and physics that was going into his work with these materials, but only sort of. It still looked pretty awesome though and almost as dangerous for her to be around as Matt. "This is really some fascinating work you've got going on here." She complimented. "I really admire what you're trying to do here." Dominic sounded like an all-around pretty good guy and she was having a hard time reminding herself that relationships were a bad thing for her. It was hard to resist a guy who, like her, seemed to be trying to better the world. Or at least make on small area more accessible to the general populace, which was close enough. It still showed signs of a kind, inclusive personality which was pretty rare these days.
 
Dominic nodded. "The landing capsules are already pretty fool proof, for the most part, you know, the ones developed by NASA. Their shape makes them right themselves the way they should once entering the atmosphere. The problems are that you must land in open water, which to anyone not familiar with the way water works with a hollow object, that's terrifying when water starts pouring in and you can't do anything about it until it's finished. Nor is it a reusable object. It's throw away. So it's just not ideal in any situation for the general public."

Not that any part of this was terribly accessible to the general public. Even the suborbital trips required a great deal of money to take, and some preliminary health screenings had to take place before they could go on. But otherwise, most anyone could do it. Provided they could come up with the money for it. Matt stood on the other side of the glass, watching Mr. Howard and Kristie converse and could sense their connection. His expression was bummed, because it was clear that Mr. Howard found Kristie infinitely more interesting than he found Matt, who was generally more of a bother, so he wandered away, to let them have their own private time. He realized he was feeling a twinge of jealousy and tried to ignore it, because that was stupid and he knew it. Either way though, he shuffled back to Mr. Howard's office, where he helped himself to the computer and played around with some of the theoretical models that they had been working on. So far everything kept crumbling on take off and he wondered if Mr. Howard had fudged the math parts so they would do that on purpose. That was probably the case, because he knew it was Matt's weakness. No one took him seriously at all.

Matt dug around for one of his math books and began working through it. Fine. He wouldn't let anyone slide those sorts of things under his nose because he didn't understand it. That only meant he needed to understand it better.
 
"Ahh, yeah I can't say I would particularly enjoy experiencing that myself, even with a working knowledge of the process." Aside from the fact that it was also a heck of a lot of water, which while was fine for showers but was definitely far far more than Kristie was every interested in being around, let alone locked up in a tiny capsule reaching the end of its usefulness. She was fairly engaged in what Dominic was saying but her eye was naturally drawn to the movement of Matt wandering away. She felt a stab of guilt for getting in the way of his research, however many holes there still remained in his plans. And yet she didn't want this to end quite yet. "So where would you place your progress on theoretically making a spaceship that can survive going in and out of orbit?" She might as well enjoy it while she could, since she probably shouldn't come back after this. Partially because she didn't want to get in Matt's way but mostly because she didn't want to see Dominic's reaction to her being a thief, let alone a creature with super human powers taking advantage of them to steal from people. She felt no guilt over her actions but she knew most of the population frowned on that sort of thing.
 
"I've tried to study the ones that have successfully left and come back and done multiple trips. But there's so much potential that could go wrong, you know? Their margin of error is so narrow, one mistake in returning and it's all over. On top of that they require rocket launching, which is an immense amount of fuel. I don't think that should be necessary so I'm also working on non rocket launching using magnets... like the bullet trains in Japan. But faster, obviously. All together, sadly, not very far. NASA has had a shuttle that used ceramic plates for reentering. But the safety issues with that are incredibly risky. Not only do they have to go through rigorous inspections before each launch, there's still high risk of one falling off in launch or in return. And if one falls off and heat gets trapped underneath them...?

Boom. Repeat of the Columbia disaster. Obviously to be avoided at all costs. I need a solid structure that can't break, but is still light weight enough, and can withstand such high temperatures and high vibrations..." he shook his head. "It's really tough. And there's a lot of other people researching it out there too. But governments keep cutting funding. And space exploration is the first to go off those lists unfortunately. So here I am, trying to do it on my own, for the sake of the people. So that being said, sadly, not far enough. But I've got a team of chemists and engineers of all types working on it as well. Hopefully they are trust worthy enough about it."

Evidently the were, according to Matt, who had apparently done an extremely extensive amount of research on him, and all of the employees who worked here before he had even bothered to approach Dominic. Something that had put Dominic off a bit until he began to understand just how Matt operated. And that was paranoid levels in top gear at all times. Somehow Matt's background checks were infinitely more thorough than the standard government fare background checks. Dominic did not even want to know how Matt had accomplished this. It was probably partially illegal and the less he knew, he figured, the better off he was.
 
Kristie was finding herself feeling a bit overwhelmed just listening to the scope of the problems he was working with. Between her goals and his she almost felt like she had the easier project. "Wow." She murmured shaking her head in bemusement. "Well I wish you the best of luck with that. I'm afraid I'm only particularly good with computers though so you'll find no Matt with me." She glanced towards the window and frowned lightly. How long had they been talking since Matt had left? It was so easy to lose track of time when you were enjoying yourself. "Speaking of…who knows where he has wandered off to? We should probably see what he's up to." She smiled apologetically. "I hadn't intended to take up so much your guy's time, though I greatly appreciate the tour. He just spends so much time talking about his work here I had to check it out one of these times." And 'Mr. Howard' who had turned into well…definitely not what she had imagined. He just had to be pretty, blond and intelligent. And unfortunately a upstanding man who also happened to be human.
 
Dominic finished up the tour, showing her a miniature model of a non rocket launcher before he wrapped it up and lead her back to his office. Matt was gone. Not that Kristie and Mr. Howard had been talking that long, but in the time that they had been talking, Matt had found the hole in the equations on Mr. Howard's simulator program that was causing all the problems. Carefully he had written out the incorrect formula on a legal pad in an unusually legible hand using a bold Sharpie. Underneath it he wrote the fixed equation and left the note pad on Mr. Howard's desk, with the simulator running it's simulation on repeat, successfully.

Dominic sighed heavily when he saw it. "I should have known he would figure that out. When he wants to learn something he'll learn it." He sat in his chair and paused the simulator. "I'm trying to nip this in the bud but he's so damn determined. Do you know how many times I've explained to him how impossible his goal is? We've barely gotten an unmanned probe out of the solar system. We can't even get a manned mission to Mars. We've barely come up with the technology to observe the solar system structure of other stars how the hell are we supposed to send a manned craft to another star. He's fucking nuts." Dominic ran a hand through his hair in frustration.
 
"He does have a bit of a disconnect between possible and probable…" Kristie murmured sympathetically, moving over next to him to stare at the paused simulation. She hesitated a moment before putting a sympathetic hand on his shoulder though she almost felt like a hug might be needed for this level of frustration. She wasn't about to get that familiar with him though. "You did your best but against someone like Matt it is probably going to take something a bit more serious than a few problems with equations to deter him." In fact fudging the equations had probably been a moderately bad move on his part if he wanted to retain enough trust from the super paranoid Matt to have even the slightest hope of curbing his determination to die alone in space. Assuming the man even made it off the launch pad. All the research in the world wasn't going to stop missed flaws or just simple bad luck.

"Matt's mind is rather unusual and functions on an entirely different level than most of the rest of us." She wasn't referring particularly to his intelligence either. She was more referring to the fact that he seemed to think he lived in a science fiction novel where enough scientific discovery would magically break the laws of physics in their time. "To try and get through to him you would probably have to try and think more like he does…" She sounded rather doubtful even as she suggested it. Mostly because it was hard for her to wrap her mind around it despite living in a supernatural world herself.
 
"You've pretty much hit the nail on the head with that depiction of him," Dominic agreed. "But I can't help feeling... guilty, I suppose. He's made it clear that he wants to try, even if it means that it will fail. The kid has a death wish or something. I just don't feel particularly good about knowing that I would be participating in what would basically be an assisted suicide. Except he doesn't see it that way. For him it's about going where no other man has gone before, and going farther than anyone has ever dared to go. He wants to be the first. And to be fair such a thing would certainly go down in history books. The first man who... heaven forbid, saw Jupiter with his own eyes, or something. No matter how much progress we make, researchwise, in order to even reach a quarter of the goals he's set for himself and for us, it would all have to be published posthumously. Do you know the kind of backlash something like that would bring? It's so...ethically wrong."

He sighed. "But I still feel personally responsible for denying someone's otherwise completely harmless dream. Destroying it. He has so much potential. It's just that... they're the kind of dreams had by a child. And the child grows up and realizes he can't be an astronaut and go to Mars but he can still be an astronaut. You know?"
 
"I know." Kristie agreed with a warm sad smile. The transition between those childhood dreams and accepting that they perhaps would not go as far as the child would like was a quite painful process and a fine line to walk, because a certain amount of dreaming was what pushed all advancement. But it also got a lot of people in a lot of trouble, dead or with their hearts and spirits broken. "But he is a child, honestly. He is still quite young, still growing. His brain is still developing." She sighed lightly. "That being said, perhaps I can talk to him and have slightly more luck. Perhaps a different person and a different tactic will get a bit farther." She rolled her eyes, thinking back to the past two weeks. "He sort of listens to me. Sometimes."
 
"He's not that young," Dominic added, "Well. A child to me and you, I suppose yes. He's gotten an odd combination of life experiences that I haven't quite figured out where they all come from though. I have to admit though, I was quite relieved to see that he has a friend, and quite a good friend it seems at that." He flashed another one of his charming smiles. "For awhile I thought he didn't have any friends at all, so it's great to see that he has such a grounded, lovely lady as yourself to help keep his head too far out of the clouds. Or stars I should say." Dominic stood, holding out his hand again. "Kristie, it was a pleasure to meet you, and I hope to see you around again. Do come back for a visit. Or perhaps we could see each other over coffee?"
 
Kristie was having that weird moment where she realized she seemed to have a lot more in common with Matt than Dominic. She had known it intellectually but it wasn't until he spoke of life experiences that she really got it. She of course could see fairly clearly how Matt had ended up the way he had mostly, but then she had had a few similar experiences. This only underlined to her that she really should not be considering what she was. She should just say no, not come on any more visits and call that, that. Yet in the back of her mind there was a little voice whispering 'it's not going to go anywhere anyway, why not enjoy it while it plays out?'.

The thought was too tempting to resist and before she had even made the conscious decision she was smiling brilliantly as she shook his hand. "I would love that." She pushed all of her doubts and concerns out of the way and pulled one of her business cards out of her pocket. "Just call or shoot me a text when you have some free time." She held up the card with a hint of teasing. "Or you know, you can just stop by. It can be pretty dull around my place sometimes."
 
Dominic couldn't help but chuckle. Imagine meeting a girl through Matt of all people. He gave Kristie another brilliant smile as he took her card. "You do computers, huh? No wonder Matt's friends with you. Did you help him set up that crazy system he's got then?" He lead her to the door that had been previously locked and sighing as Matt had very clearly gone through that door to leave and it was now perfectly unlocked. He held the door open for her. "Do you know how many security breaches Matt got through when he first started coming here? Somehow he managed to get to my office about three times without anyone seeing him or anything. I had to make him get a visitor's pass after that because... what the hell. Nothing to make me paranoid about my own security system here than that little berk walking through here like it didn't even exist." He laughed. "Did you drive or how did you get here?"
 
"Surprisingly not." Kristie responded a little faintly, trying not to drown in that radiant smile of his. "Like we can expect from him he set that all up through sheer determination. Even as a computer technician I am rather impressed with his work. I only came aware of him and his set up when he needed a new hard drive a few weeks ago." It had been a seriously busy past few weeks now that she thought about it. Who knew what kind of craziness she would have gotten into from a random patron? "Speaking of security systems though if you want any help buffing up in that area I am fairly skilled at such things." Why not get some business out of him too while she was at it?

"Ah…" Kristie blinked in the light, suddenly remembering that she hadn't had a chance to go cat and hitch a ride with Matt so she was going to have to call a cab for the way back too. "I rode a cab here…I guess I'll be bothering you for a few more minutes while I wait for it to arrive." She was already pulling out her cell phone to call, a number which she had become entirely too familiar with in the past few weeks as well.
 
Dominic smiled again. "Why don't I give you a ride home instead. The great thing about being the owner of the company is I get to set my own hours. Though Matt does challenge that quite a lot. Let me grab my keys and we can zip out of here. It won't take that long."

He walked around his desk and opened the drawer, pulling out the keys to a Mercedes Benz. He flashed that smile at Kristie again. "I've got to spoil myself a little bit. The problem with making work your life is that work is your life, leaving little room for other pleasures. It's a good thing I love what I do." He lead her out the door, placing his hand gently on the small of her back. Quickly he locked up and guided her to the silver vehicle and opened the door for her. "Top down or up?" He asked.
 
"Sure…" Kristie agreed weakly, standing by the door as he slipped back inside. She had the strong feeling this was spiraling out of control, and even worse only half of her wanted to do anything about it. She was enjoying his nearness a great deal, though the idea of her riding in a convertible downtown with a handsome blond was almost too much. She felt like she'd walked into some movie or something and soon they were going to ask her what she was doing on the set.

It took everything in Kristie to not lean just slightly into that hand and inch closer to the man. "Down." She answered automatically to his question, because if she was going to go ham on this she might as well go all the way. She slid into the seat and managed a grateful smile. She scrambled to actually remember anything else he had said in the last minute to try and cover her bemusement. "I'm glad you still enjoy what you do, not many people make it past 30 and do. Sometimes I feel that I have to worry about that between running my own business and charity. One or the other is usually a full time job and I do both." Alongside also being an accomplished thief in the night. She really didn't like sleep much apparently for all she was a cat.
 
"Down it is," he said, getting into the drivers seat and pushing a button to let the top down. "It's a gorgeous day out, after all." He placed a pair of reflective aviator sunglasses on.

"So you're big on charities, huh? That's really great! Not enough people in the world who are. It's pretty amazing how many requests we get from the Make a Wish foundation, actually. It's really a pretty impressive program, that. So what kind of charities are you involved in?" He glanced to the side and smiled at her again.
 
Kristie had to check twice just to really believe that this moment had gotten even more like a scene from a movie. Now things were just going a bit too far. It was ruining the moment just a bit but she was hardly going to complain. So he hammed it up a bit too much sometimes, he was handsome enough to get away with it. "Well not so much charities as just one, the one I started up and run. It's a bit of an after school program geared towards the betterment and advancement of youth in poorer neighborhoods." She smiled a bit shyly. "I would like to expand it to the point where it does things like Make a wish as well, though without the needing to be nearly dying part. But as you can imagine that takes a lot of money and there isn't a lot of people who want to donate to the kids they consider scum." She sounded terribly nonchalant as she spoke. She had long since accepted the fact that that was a reality of life, which only made her feel even less guilty about stealing from the same people whose ruthless business practices created those sorts of neighborhoods.
 
Dominic was awestruck with Kristie and he let out a low whistle. "That's really amazing! I'm impressed! That's so fantastic!" he gushed. "You're something else, aren't you? So do you do work in Matt's neighborhood? That's a rough place he lives. He's told me a little bit about some of the kids in that neighborhood." Dominic muttered under his breath, "For the life of me can't understand why he chooses to live there. Man's got more than enough money to buy a better house in a better neighborhood and afford himself some bloody comforts. Or at least a car. Even just a junker, Christ."

But he glanced at Kristie sidewise again, "I'll donate to your program. Will you help me out with my security system? I'd love to become a regular contributor. How about a bus or a van, would you need some transportation for them to get from activity to activity as well? I could donate one of those too."
 
For the first time Kristie was unable to stop to distinct blush spread over her face. Even Matt, who lived in the neighborhood, was not as excited about her charity. Her hands twitched nervously in her lap while she struggled with the need to hide her cheeks yet also wanting to just ignore it and hope he somehow wouldn't notice. Of course even while driving it's hard to miss when her face was nearing the color of her hair. It was making it a bit hard to focus on what he was saying too or maybe he was just throwing out to many options.

"Uh well, a van would certainly expand what we could do with the children." As she focused more on business (and he stopped gushing so much) the blush was starting to fade away. "And perhaps even expand how far one center could reach. I do have one in Matt's neighborhood but it was far enough away from him that those kids hadn't had much exposure to it." Those brats seemed to be flourishing from what she heard, though she would probably never quite forgive them for stabbing Matt's hand. "Of course pretty much anything helps." With a bigger donator or two she would be able to use more of her own funds as well. This day was starting to look up quite a bit now that she thought about it.

"We'll just set up a time for me to come over when Matt isn't hanging around and I'll give your security a once over." She smiled with supreme confidence. "After that even Matt might have a bit of trouble sneaking in." She tilted her head with a slight frown. "Though I would hope he won't have a reason to anymore."
 
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