Mar 30 21:34:17 107 PA - A Probationer called Flash

From Chronicles

A police laboratory, with large pieces of scientific instrumentation, and several people in white lab coats as well. Some computer terminals, a large gas chamber, and a cluster of sinks inhabit the central island. A good-sized water chamber designed for ballistic testing is set along the left hand wall. The techs are constantly experimenting and working on whatever new batch of evidence they've recieved today. A door at the far end leads into the morgue.

Weather at Thu Mar 30 21:34:17 107 PA (-1.86C, 28.65F): The light wisps of cloud overhead emit an almost mist-like rain accenting the cool temperature. The Waxing Gibbous moon hangs overhead.

Heading to the end of the evening shift, towards the night shift, and the station has loads of people coming and going. The mist-like rain outside doesn't encourage hanging around, and so people don't. Maya is working still, and this is indicated by the volume of the music banging out from the lab. Loud as it gets rock music is blaring out of her computer, and she is here, covering her usual outfit in a white coat, which doesn't entirely go. Maya is standing beside one of the machines, pressing buttons on it, apparently talking to it as she does so, although the words are drowned out by the music.

Vargus enters the lab area from the main HQ section, apparently having just come from the quartermaster. Over his normal cold-weather gear, he is wearing a long black leather stormcoat. Silver fasteners crawl their way down the front of the coat, and a pair of loop epoulettes on the shoulders sport freshly afixed insignia. The brass badge of a probationary KDPD officer is set into the front of the coat. He shifts a bit inside it, getting used to the fit as he enters the lab proper and is hit in the face by the solid wall of sound being genereted therein. He blinks a few times, looking about, and finally spotting Maya. He makes his way over in her direction, seeing her attention is on the collection of machines. He waves a hand and tries to give a greeting through the din.

The machines definitely have her attention and the one sided (presumably) conversation goes on for a few more minutes before she presses the final button and turns, a spin on her heel that lifts coat and skirt slightly, and has her facing him. A flicker of surprise shows in her circle of her mouth and the widened eyes before she holds up one finger, turning to walk quickly to the computer, to turn the volume down several decibels. "Oh hey. Are you a probationer? Stupid, of course you are, or you pushed one over and stole his badge." There is a breath-length pause as she gives him a considering look, "Did you?"

Vargus blinks again, at the suddon confrontation with the Maya, and at the seccation of the music. He blinks once, and works his mouth open a bit to clear the pressure, or lack thereof, from his ears. He holds up his left hand and with his right pinky, wiggles it around in his ear before blinking hard again. "..eesh." Looking back to Maya, he shakes his head. "Ahh, right on the first, not so much on the latter." He smirks and extends a hand. "Blake Vargus. Just finished processing a bit earlier, got issued my issuables, and got my first assignment. They said I should come down here and see if you needed a hand with anything....?" He trails off with a question and a quirked eyebrow. "Someone said since you're usually running solo, that you might could use a hand with some research."

Maya's hands are twisting together in front of her, most a fidgety movement than a nervous one as she stares at him, perplexed. "They sent you down here? Were they laughing? I mean, the last probationer that they sent down here has vanished, you know?" She seems serious as she moves to another machine, working quickly without pause in the flow of words. "I mean, it wasn't a direct consequence, well, it probably wasn't, but you never know, and..." She stops dead, turning to look at him again, her eyes narrowing in a frown. "Uh did I tell you my name?"

Vargus seems to take the flow, or barrage of information in stride and he shakes his head. "Not as of yet, no... but they told me who I would most likely find down here at this hour." He shifts a little in his spot, looking around the lab. "So... the last probie you had disappeared? Could it be he was reassigned or something like that?"

"Wow, alright. I'm Maya. No, he just disappeared. Poof. Didn't show for his next shift." She shakes her head rapidly, resting her hands on her hips, the look she gives him turning considering. "I suppose losing one probie is unfortunate. If you vanish after visiting me, it would be a pattern." The hazel eyes narrow at him and she points a finger at him. "Don't vanish."

Vargus holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender, "Hey, I can't make any promises. I'm a shifter by trade, and I tend to go where the work, or the whim, takes me. But I can guarentee you, if I disappear. I usually come back." He looks around the lab again. "So what kind of stuff do you do down here?"

"Corpses, evidence, anything really." Maya moves to a machine that demands attention with a loud beeping, and frowns at it briefly, before she opens it, peering inside for a moment. She reaches up to grab a pair of gloves to pull on as she talks, "Mostly people bring stuff in those little bags, we call them evidence bags, and I analyse them, find out what they are, and tell them." She turns to look at him, a small tray with a bullet in it in her gloved hands. "They seem happy with that and leave me alone."

Vargus chuckles and nods his head slowly, "I seeeeeee.... so you run evidence analysis and forensics? That's pretty cool. My background is in archology, excavation and salvage. With some odd exploration thrown in. I thought the PD might be in need of some magically-inclined investigators, and it appears they did." He does a little ta-daaa presentation of himself in his stormcoat. "Do you study any of the arcane? Or more lean toward the hard-science thing?"

Maya's hands rest in front of her again. Rest might be a deceptive word, really, given that her fingers move restlessly over the little tray, as she stares at him with narrowed eyes. She listens to him, her head tilted, her lips pursed. "Interesting." She draws out the first syllable, before she turns towards the computer, putting the tray down on the side. "I'm all about science. I shall have to think of something to call you." She taps a few keys quickly, entering data from the strip about the bullet.

Vargus's eyebrow quirks up again, something it seems to be doing fairly often. "Huhh... you could call me Blake, or.. Vargus. Or some combination thereof." He moves up alongside Maya, glancing over her shoulder at what she's doing. "So is there much call for forensics in-town? I guess the number of military-class weapons in the hands of citizens is noted and restricted, so standard weapons still see their uses? That's conjecture, since, without that, you wouldn't be here at all.."

"No, those are your names." The reply is absent, her additions to the case records pretty routine, stating the bullet's type, size, and damage, along with it's evidence number. She turns, stopping abruptly as she steps almost into him, her hands coming upwards. "Wow, personal space there, probie." She takes a step back, giving him a narrow eyed look. "You think a lot for a probie. Yes, precisely, then you have people who die randomly and it is easiest to do an autopsy on them. So what can I use you for?" She tilts her head, the red lips curving into a broad grin for an instant, before vanishing, short enough for doubt of its existence to be there.

Vargus blinks, dismissing the grin, "Huh, yeah, I have a bad habbit of thinking. Gets me into all sorts of trouble.. and out of it every once in a while." He shrugs his shoulders expressivly, "I don't know, I think that's why they sent me down here. To see what I could do for you. I spend a lot of time in the libraries doing my own research. Figure I can help out here and there, while the officals do official things, humm?"

She files the evidence, locking it up, before she turns around to rest her hands on her hips, giving him a considering look with narrowed eyes. "Alright." Maya studies him for a few moments longer, her forehead wrinkled. "You can help me put this guy on the table." Abrupt, and then she turns, heading for the other part of the lab, with the freezers in it. "Are you freaked out by dead bodies?"

Vargus considers the question as he starts to follow her across the room. After a moment she shakes his head. "Nope, don't think so.. I've been around some pretty strange things, and corpses haven't ever really bothered me." He peals out of his new stormcoat, and looks around, then finally hangs it on the back of a chair, then quick-steps to catch back up with Maya.

She tugs on a drawer, pulling it open to reveal a covered corpse, even as she turns to grab a trolley. "We slide him onto here. I can't keep calling you probie. That isn't even original. Make sure his head is at this end." All in one breath, as she stops the trolley next to it. The look is back on her face, thinking too hard, and she points at him, "And get a coat on. Back of the door. Go, go go..."

Both of his eyebrows crawl up to his hairline, and his head snaps around one way, then the other. He spots the door and hops up to it, closing it part-way to observe the aforementioned 'back'. He spots the labcoats and unhooks one, then throws his arms into it and pulls it down around him. A quick check, should always be presentable, and he returns to the trolley, looking over the body. "So... want me to get one end? Or just roll it over? How does this work?"

"You see the cloth under him? Come here, stand next to me. Then take a piece and pull hard." She matches action to word, resting a bare knee on the trolley to get the height, "One, two, three, pull!" Maya steps back as she pulls, and the body spins onto the trolley (with or without his help). "Now we move him to the table and then I cut him up." Maya's grin reappears, staying long enough to be seen, and then she turns, beginning to push the trolley over.

Vargus mimics your action, and follows the instructions. He grabs a handful of cloth and pulls when he is told. He pauses a bit at the latter comment. "Huhh. I see. Is 'cut him up' a technical term? Or an official procedure?" He smirks and shakes his head, wheeling the trolly over to the table and then lifting his end when Maya is in position to transfer the body from trolly to slab.

"Totally." His smirk gains him a flash of that broad grin, the one that warms hazel eyes and makes his presence here seem a less of a problem to her. Once the body is on the slab, Maya turns to a pile of protective clothing, offering him gloves, an apron and a visor and donning the same for herself. "I'm going to call you flash." She speaks decisively, "And you are not allowed to vanish, ok? Right, so we start by going over the whole body, checking for things like needle marks." A large magnifying glass is picked up and she matches action to word.

Vargus sees the next stage, and looks around for a glass of his own to use. The one he finds is not nearly as large, and the handle is cracked, so he ends up holding the rim of the magnifier and starts to go over the body. "So.. just looking to see if drugs or something were a factor?"

"Or anything weird that isn't skin. Particles, anything that isn't normal." She lifts her head, looking at him through the glass, with one massive eye. "We call those clues, Flash." The grin reappears again, before she returns to checking every centimeter of the corpse's skin. "If we find anything, it goes in a bag, and into the machines..." Another sharp look, with narrowed eyes, "Unless you can tell me what it is by touching it."

Vargus nods slowly, and turns his focus back to the task at hand. He uses his excavation experience to partition up the sections to be searched and goes through a systematic pattern to look for any anomolies. Just on a whim, and since it's his thing, he mutters a quick, sharp phrase and enacts a Sense Magic spell as he goes over the body.

Maya is moving slowly along the body and she too utters a sharp exclamation, keeping one hand in place as she reaches out another, and an evidence bag flies to her hand from across the room. She carefully picks up a tiny piece of fluff and drops it into the bag, closing it and signing it before she straightens. "There, evidence, see, Flash?"

Vargus blinks at the odd behavior of the average-seeming evidence bag and leans down to peer at the bag's contents. "Hummm, okay... but evidence of what, exactly?" He straightens himself and then stretches his back out. "Gah... haven't done and decent work in too long, I'm out of shape for all the leaning over."

"Anything!" Maya turns around to look at him, tilting her head consideringly. "Alright. He is fine there for the time being, go home, Flash. I'll finish up here." He has earnt a smile apparently and she moves forward abruptly, hugging the man tightly, suddenly and enthusiastically. Then she steps back and points at him. "Nine in the morning sharp, Flash." Then, back to work.

Vargus seems to stiffen up and freeze as he's hugged suddonly, but then relaxes. "Ahh, right... nine ah-em." He seems a bit flustered by the whole visit, and on his way out the door realizes he's still wearing hte lab coat. He pulls it off, and crosses to the Back Of The Door to replace the coat, and grab his own storm jacket on the way to the door. He looks over his shoulder but finds Maya tinkering with one of the machines as she starts to process her newly-found bit of Evidence. He nods his head slightly to himself, and heads out into the hall.