1964-05-11 - Master and Margarita
Summary: Maximus the Magnificent intrudes on Vesper the Very Uncertain.
Related: Lady In a Daze
Theme Song: Master & Margarita - The Tea Party
vesper maximus 


Maximus knows where her lab is…so, she receives a buzz that there is a guest for her, in the lobby, right when its about time for her to leave. Just like guests to show up at the last minute.

*

New York University. The biology labs are all in front of Washington Park Square, the sort of large green space formerly used in historical times for armies to muster on. By evening it tends not to be all that busy except for researchers making the msot of the hours when they aren't expected to teach and those rare experiments that run late. Vesper is bent over a table, in the thick of it. Her lab is quiet, a place where holy insights can be rendered thanks to the enlightening glow of science. Machines murmur at the fringes, a thermal cycler whirling around pipettes and test tubes. The incubator in particular gleams with a faintly purple light, a centrifuge shut down for the evening. A cup of coffee is forgotten on a table next to a collection of black and white prints, resolution outright terrible, but the best NYU can do in 1964. Her lightboard has more of them laid out, a number of models in various stages of completion revealing twirling lattices of steely grey base pairs and a wire backbone, others no more than chemical spheres connected by those tubes and wires to form composites that match up to at least one of the photos.

It's an environment of intense concentration and discovery, headaches and heartbreaks. Her own little world. She barely even notices the buzz. She barely even notices the phone outside the lab rings with the annoying rattly chirp of metal. When she does, the brunette flips her hair back from her face. Labcoat over her clothes, Vesper possibly looks like a teenager playing at scientist. But she goes to answer it because there's no one else.

*

"Hello, this is the front desk. There is a non-student here who says he was invited. He says his name is Maximus. Were you expecting him?"

*

The name chills the blood in her veins, and sets her pulse to a manic rise. Vesper almost drops the phone. What does one do, get out the guillotine and call the nouveau Jacobins? Her chin firms and she says, after an appropriate pause, "I must have lost track of the time. Oui, send him down."

*

The King arrives, dressed very normal. No make-up. Lab coat. Black pants. He could be trying to deflect suspicion or notice around this place. The man still has presence, though, evidenced by how he enters the room and lands his eyes directly on the other woman. "There has been a threat." He says succinctly.

*

By the time he arrives, not a great distance, a few things have been attended to. A fresh cup of coffee, pitch black and scalding hot, in the French manner, for one. She's scrubbed off the smudge of graphite on her cheek and stripped the rubber gloves from her hands, though another is at the ready from a cardboard box full of the pairs. It might even leave Vesper feeling a little more normal, having coffee. He steps in and she is almost gearing up for the fight in a modest fashion. Not with fists up, shoulders back. Just a drawing on her reserves. "Bonsoir." That's French for good evening. "A… threat?"

*

"Yes…my brother, Blackagar. The man who I deposed? He has theatened to destroy the entire supply of terrigen. If he does, there will be no future for our people." Maximus tries to put his hand on her shoulder and move past her, looking at the various bits of equipment. "I will need some things. This is all free for you, right?"

*

"No, none of this is free," Vesper answers. "It belongs to the university mostly." Truth; all the various bits and pieces of her equipment is barcoded, tagged, or otherwise attacked by those print-wheel labelmakers that create elevated stickers with edges capable of slicing people. "We write reports for what we use, and some of my experiments run for days, or weeks." Case in point, trying to peer into the matrix of certain amino acids as no one has done before. Her body is rigid under his hand, and clearly it's not something familiar to her. "There are companies you can buy this from, better things. Or industrial sources? I am… what are you trying to do?"

*

The king works his way around the place, taking stock of what sorts of things these people have to offer. "Very well. Order it all for me. These glass things. Raw metal sheets. Aluminum. Titanium. brass for some good measure. Something…spinny. Yes one of these. I can fix its /obvious flaws/, but something to start with is nice. You can order it all for me? Have it sent to my home? I can give you my accounts. And then, you can help me. It will be grand." Maximus looks at her sharply. "Perhaps just a tiny drop of it…see if it tries to kill you…"

*

Orders thrown at her are met with wide eyes. Vesper scrambles for a notepad, which are a dime a dozen around here. Her jotted notes in French are a scrawl. "You need a centrifuge, or something that turns?" she asks, flipping through a page. Titanium sheets, where on earth does he expect her to get those. "And the account number for this?" Her pen skims along, underlines four or five words in particular. Then she remains poised for more, rather than a possible death sentence. The guilty assembly of a DNA spiral stands over the table, incomplete, and the broken bits of a second one modeled after the images on the light board leave little doubt as to what she was doing.

*

Maximus rattles off a string of numbers. "There is..ahem…/plenty/ in there for such things." At one point he just gestures to a whole rack of various chemistry flasks and equipment. "I suppose I will need some sort of…furnace, for the metalworking. UH! This was so much easier if I could go back to Attilan to do this. I have /everything/ there. But, this is the road back. Yes. So, you have it? I will let you know when the things get delivered, beautiful." He sways back over closer to her. "I see what you've been /up to/." he smiles softly. "And all this time, you thought you were /sickly/. No. Instead. You are better."

*

The numbers are lined up, double checked, and transferred onto another piece of paper she stuffs into the drawer. "Very good. I can call a few businesses. Most are close, I think. It should only take a few days." He's paying, this makes a difference in the world for her. With another nod, she looks up and Maximus is practically sauntering atop her. Chin lifted, her eyes grow wider, dark as the best chocolate. The habitual lick of her lips follows, and she doesn't even find her tongue. That voicing anything right now isn't possible. The best she can do is nod.

*

He was a King for ten years. Maximus can tell when someone is suitably intimidated. The dark-haired man reaches out and pinches her shoulder between thumb and two fingers, squeezing once and then lets her go, headed for out of the room. "I will call you when the things arrive." Sharp. But then he pauses at the door and looks over his shoulder. "You could bring some of those sweets when you come again."

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