Adventures in Babysitting

[pugsmuggler]

It was uncharacteristically early when Garamond decided to stop by Calibri’s lab. The installment was still relatively new to the first circle’s queen ship. The counters were still glossy-tiled and free of chemical burns, the utensils all shiny and unused, and while it accommodated for plenty more than just Calibri’s research, no one really had the nerve to go in there with it being consistently occupied by the circle’s finest poisons expert — No one except for Garamond. From Garamond’s perspective, Calibri had acclimated himself to life on the ship quite well, and handled his responsibilities aptly. This particular morning, however, Garamond had decided to hand Calibri a responsibility that extended slightly beyond what Calibri had signed on for.

Ten-year-old son at his side, Garamond let himself through the laboratory doors and into the. He found Calibri, after a brief trip around the countertops, curled up asleep underneath a desk. Calibri was equipped with a stylus and notebook in hand as if he had fallen asleep scrawling notes. Garamond, not visibly surprised by the scenario, crouched down to Calibri’s level, perching himself on the toes of his loafers.

“Ah, there you are,” Garamond announced himself. “I had a favor to ask.”

Comments

[tactician]

It wasn't the exact choice of words he'd go for. To Calibri, the organisms were peculiar because of their natural inclination towards genetic entropy, which, for a universe that boasted infinite possibilities and utter chaos, still fell into an unsurprising manner of equilibrium and order more often than not. He figured, wisely, that that was a concept that would entirely be lost on the child, so 'pretty' would have to work.

"Can you count them?" Calibri asked, hovering over his shoulder, but not too close.

[kobacake]

"All of them?" Danny frowned slightly and bit down on his lip. There were quite a few on the sample that Calibri had provided, but he figured he could try. He began trying to count them by color. There were two blue ones, three that were an orange-yellow, one red, one greeny-blue... wait.. how many was that already? He resigned himself to counting them one by one instead, deciding to say it out loud so he wouldn't get confused again. "One, two, three, four..."

By the time he finished he pulled away from the microscope, looking at Calibri with a puzzled glance. "Twenty.. six?"

[tactician]

Calibri's glasses glinted. "Are you certain?"

These bacterium had the property of spontaneously multiplying every few seconds as much as its container would allow, spreading until the entire slide would soon be full of a brightly-colored spectrum of colors.

[kobacake]

"Um.." Danny, unsure of his answer, stuck his eye to the lens again. He gasped when he saw the multiplication that had occurred in the time he looked away. There were definitely more than before, maybe even twice as many. "Whoa! There's way more of them now! How?!"

AND YOU SAY HE HAS NO SENSE OF HUMOR

[tactician]

"Maybe you're not very good at counting," Calibri mused.

GA Sp

[kobacake]

"W-What?!" Danny's mouth flattened into a line, turning to Calibri again with his brows pinched together. "I CAN COUNT FINE!!"

[tactician]

It was less kind and soft than the 'smile' Garamond's mention had elicited, but there was definitely a jagged incline to one corner of Calibri's mouth. "I see. In that case, it must be the bacterium's reproduction cycle. This specific breed is prone to spontaneously self-replication. The rate and triggers have yet to be found, but I am hoping that with enough observation of a small sample's patterns, I may be able to come to a conclusion eventually."

[kobacake]

"Does that mean that they multiply?" Danny frowned slightly as he tried to decipher what it was exactly that Calibri had said. He wondered why Calibri always had to use such weird words.. they didn't make sense to him at all.

garamond probably gave him that pencil

[tactician]

"Yes," Calibri said simply, fishing out something from his lab coat pocket.

To what was probably Danny's great relief, it was only a plain spiral notepad, the size of his hand, and a mechanical pencil. (Upon closer inspection, it was light blue and was decorated with...what looked like frowning grey clouds with cartoon lightning bolts coming out of it.)

"Here. Use this to mark down the count every few minutes. These bacterium also die off at an unknown rate, so the number will vary and may even decrease. When the count hits five hundred, report to me," Calibri instructed, figuring they were easy enough instructions that even a child of Daniel Garamond's intellect would not have trouble.

it's probably his lucky pencil

[kobacake]

"Ok," Danny nodded, secretly pleased to be able to help with what he could tell was a Very Important Task. By the time he'd looked back at the microscope again the bacteria had nearly tripled in number. He began counting out loud again, though now he was mumbling under his breath as he did so. This would certainly take a while...

I guess we can end here!

[tactician]

While Danny wasn't looking, Calibri smiled to himself.

That was much easier than the early morning activities would have suggested. Garamond would be glad to know that not only was leaving Danny in Calibri's care a good choice, but an educational one. Optimized use of resources, if he did say so himself.

Patting Danny's head lightly in a gesture the boy might not have noticed, given how absorbed he was in counting (Boss often did this, so he hypothesized it was a regular gesture in the Garamond family), Calibri went back to work.

Bacteria were multiplying, poison was brewing, and all was well in the First Circle.