audio;

[secretlabtech]

[ He's not believing any of this. Any of it. Either everyone's cuckoo or he's on some kind of drugs, and Dexter isn't certain which of those sounds more plausible. ]

Someone mind telling me where I can get a plane ticket back to Miami? I'll settle for a freighter at this point. A helicopter? Seaplane? [ Pause. ] A yacht?

I get it. First thing everyone asks is how to get home, but I'm not the kind of guy to kick up my heels and take it all for granted. Crime scenes to get to, work to do, and there's my son--he needs me.

...

How about a kayak?

Comments

[doeswhathewants]

Oh, it was a while ago. People die all the time. Usually they come back, I believe he did- but then he left.

I've died a fair few times back home, but I remember them not anymore.

....there was a point to this- ah, yes! You are stuck. [Thanks, Magneto -_-; ]

[secretlabtech]

[ Again, going to disregard a lot of that. Poor kid with his poor addled brains.

Magneto is so helpful. ]

I'm getting that. Like flypaper, right? The harder you try to get away the more stuck you get.

[doeswhathewants]

Not entirely apt... as some are returned home for short periods of time. Then pulled back.

Ah... perhaps a catch and release metaphor would be more appropriate. If we are caught again. Then released. Well, you see the point.

[secretlabtech]

[ Tilting his head curiously. ] Catch and release, huh? Do the people here have anything in common?

[ Why is he even asking? And why is he asking a kid with amnesia? He regrets it almost as soon as the last word leaves his mouth. ]

[doeswhathewants]

It isn't .... it isn't a perfectly common theme, but from the vast number of people I have asked, some sort of trauma or- or large emotional event happened before or while they were being brought here. It is my personal working theory that the Core can sense these things somehow and takes those people.

Of course, there are outliers who throw off the perfection of the idea.

[secretlabtech]

Like a scatter diagram.

Maybe they're just lying about it? Or maybe to them it's not such a big deal?

[doeswhathewants]

I shall take your word for the scatter diagram comparison.

Possible. Though who would need to lie to the innocent face of an ordinary child with no interest but returning home to his beloved brother?

Look at this face, good sir, could you lie to this face?

[secretlabtech]

Oh it's...simple really. When you mark results on a scatter diagram, you tend to ignore the outlier results as aberrations, otherwise they'd throw off all your averages.

I don't know. People lie about things for strange reasons all the time. Maybe it only makes sense to them. And the people who lie to kids are twice as common. Trust me, I work with the police. I see liars come through the department every day.

[doeswhathewants]

Tsk. Cynic.

Ah! You are the police? How interesting. Have you a badge? A gun? Will you work for them here? The police are rather ineffectual, here. Most places that I am familiar with, to be honest.

[secretlabtech]

No, I'm afraid I don't have a badge or a gun. I'm just a... Blood guy.

[ It's like Cody's Bring Your Father to Class Day all over again. Kids staring at him with vacant expressions: So you don't actually catch the bad guys? ]

[doeswhathewants]

Blood guy. Forensics? Exciting. As close to magic as mortals will come. Do you work in a laboratory with the CSI?

[Pfft. Catching bad guys is overrated.]

[secretlabtech]

[ He's hurt. He helps to catch bad guys alright. At least when he's not too busy actually catching them. And cutting them into neat disposable pieces.

Still he's happy that Loki is actually interested. ]

I have my own lab, but I get called out to go over a crime scene any time there's blood. So it's sort of like CSI, only the cool music is on my head, and blood sequence testing takes a lot longer than a video montage.

[doeswhathewants]

[Now that would be terribly interesting to know.]

What does blood sequencing do? Does it work on non-mortal blood? What about alien blood?

[secretlabtech]

[ Yes but it's not something you teach an elementary school class. Unless you're Harry Morgan. What did your father teach you, Loki? ]

It lets us compare samples against others for DNA matches, find out if the people are on our database, or in some cases if they have family members who are. In some cases we can even pick them up because they're suffering from a rare disease, or if they have a rare blood type, because it's all right there.

Blood's like a signature left behind at a crime scene. Not as straightforward as a fingerprint, but just as unique.

[doeswhathewants]

[Odin taught him nothing of value. Only how to hate and destroy the universe. So maybe that comes in handy.]

And no humans have the same DNA. Well, science and magic are not so far apart. Blood is used in spells for many things linked to a person.

[secretlabtech]

In spells.

[ No Dexter. Easy Dexter. ]

Maybe when I get a lab around here I'll be able to show you around it.

[doeswhathewants]

To do specific harm to an individual, to bend them to one's will, to find them anywhere they might go- a whole number of things. Interesting that Midgard has isolated this unique property as DNA.

[He tips his head.]

That would be cool! At least you seem to do something with your science, some people, I am told, only publish articles.

[secretlabtech]

I... Right. [ Kid reads too many comic books, he thinks. ]

Oh, there's nothing wrong with writing articles. I'd have written my own, but I'm afraid prose isn't my strong suit. Sometimes, though, you'll come across a case where you have to use new methods, or you see something nobody's ever seen before. It's exciting.

[doeswhathewants]

Don't believe me? [And he rolls his eyes.] Well, you will. As soon as your own powers manifest. Not that mine come from the Core.

Do you invent your own methods often? What's the grossest thing you've ever seen?

[secretlabtech]

My own powers? I already have powers-- [ He taps his head. ] --of deduction! You know, like... Never mind.

I've had to pull a few things out of my bag of tricks, sure, but the grossest thing I've ever seen... [ He pauses, looking thoughtful. Room full of blood? Dismembered bodies riding through the town on pale horses? Nope, none of those things-- ] It wasn't even on a crime scene. Five words: strawberry ice-cream cheese taco. I've walked in on thousands of dead bodies, some of them have been there for weeks in the Miami heat, and I'm telling you it took a taco to make me lose my lunch.