A totally ridiculous highlander ficlet which is really a badly disguised gripe about work, students and how lax security is despite the fact we all have to carry hundreds of different keys. Sorry to inflict on you but there we go, the next installment of Zero X is on it's way I just had to get this off my chest first.
er... Cleaning
Totally pointless and shameless crack that is probably not funny (or even comprehensible) to anyone but me. This is basically a rant in fic form and probably doesn't really need any understanding of highlander.
( Stupid fic this way )Methos looked at Amanda "All the lights are still on, all I'm saying is put on a lab coat just in case."
"In case of what? They don't exactly have security patrols and if they did they're still going to question why we're working in the middle of the night. The security here is a joke, that door was propped open."
"Just do it Amanda, think of your clothes, you wouldn't want to burn a hole through that jacket would you?"
Methos smirked as she quickly donned her lab coat, remarking under his breath that clearly she had never been in an academic lab before.
Amanda was rummaging through the acids cabinet with Methos lounging against the desk making acerbic comments as the bleary eyed researcher walked past. She froze "We can explain we're..." Amanda stared at the woman's back then looked up at Methos confused.
"I don't think she even noticed we're here Amanda. She obviously has other things to worry about." Methos pointed out
"Why the hell is she here anyway?"
"Academic labs are pretty much used all hours." He grinned at her as the sounds of swearing were heard from the over side of the room and footsteps came closer
"Hi I don't suppose either of you have a working UV-vis spectrophotometer that can record long timescale kinetics with a temperature control I could use do you?"
"No sorry" Methos answered honestly wondering briefly what she was talking about before deciding it was unimportant.
"Worth a shot, mine has stopped recording, again so I'm going to have start over, again. That's what I get for working at the weekend, nothing ever goes right when you come in specially. I want a spec that works for christmas." She sulked briefly before turning to the two immortals "What are you looking for anyway?"
"Sodium Hydroxide," Amanda answered quickly plucking a chemical name out of the air at random
The researcher raised an eyebrow at that "In the Acid's cabinet? It better not be, the number of times I've told the undergrads." She bent over quickly to look in the cabinet plucking a bottle out "Damn it is as well, I'm going to kill them on Monday. Here put it back on the shelf over there when you're done. What is the point in having the Acids in a seperate cabinet if people keep putting Bases next to them." She wandered off again muttering under her breath about students and explosion hazards.
Amanda and Methos looked at each other Methos shrugged "University labs always have people wandering in and out of them, so long as you look like you belong people just assume you're meant to be here. After all who would expect people to break in looking for cleaning products in the middle of the night. We'd better take some sodium hydroxide too, it's a good cleaning agent too. Let's get back we have to try and get that black stuff off Mac's kitchen counter before he gets back tomorrow."
A/N just to explain the geeky science references: Sodium hydroxide being Basic (Alkali) reacts strongly with Acids, so storing it in the Acids cabinet is an explosion risk. Acids are supposed to be stored in isolation to prevent that risk, (the actual chances of anything happening are very slim, but the whole point of the cabinet is to prevent that, annoying students).
A UV-vis spectrophotometer measures absorbance of light, and can be used to monitor any reaction that causes a colour change, it's a very standard pieceof equipment, (just mine keeps breaking). The temperature control and long timescale kinetics just means that the researcher wants to take readings over a period of time at a specific temperature, basically you need a computer hooked up to it, making it more specialised.
I like to think we would question the presence of random people in the lab but honestly so many different people wander through I probably wouldn't, and I doubt anyone else would either. It is a point of fact that experiments you come in specially at a weekend to do hardly ever seem to work, it's very frustrating.
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