Have I Got a Deal for You

[thinkingfire]

I hate to make my introduction this way, but current circumstances have forced me into a bit of a bind. My name is Professor Martin Stein, and I'm rather hoping someone here might be able to provide a bit of assistance in a matter of what is sadly quite literally, life and death.

In the interest of preventing a rather sizable nuclear explosion--and I do realize this is a long shot, but would there be anyone present who has been fortunate enough to survive some sort of incident such as being involved with an exploding particle accelerator or nuclear reactor of something of that nature? The matter at hand is...rather urgent.

Comments

[thinkingfire]

Survivors, actually. I'm hoping to find a compatible individual among them.

[amadine]

Compatible for what, exactly?

[thinkingfire]

Compatible for a sort of merger, actually.

It feels terribly forward of me to be soliciting public assistance like this, but I have as sort of condition where I must fuse with another individual, else I'll become unstable and explode. Sadly, this is a literal explosion and not some emotional equivalent.

[amadine]

Gods below.

What happens to your...partner, when you merge? Have our loving hosts simply neglected to bring the other half of a set, or are you an alloy of those who've gone before?

[thinkingfire]

Oh, my other half sadly did not make the trip with me. It's not a fatal process, if that's what you're concerned about.

My partner and I simply touch hands and become one being--or, it might be more accurate to say--I take a more advisory role, while my partner controls the body...which would likely be their body, if this works the way it usually does back home.

[amadine]

That sounds like an utter nightmare.

How do you determine compatibility, exactly? Is it as simple as exposure to the correct environment?

[thinkingfire]

It has not been the easiest thing to deal with, but thusfar, I have been managing.

The criteria for a successful fusion are difficult to say. Back home, it was reliant upon individuals who had also been exposed to the particle accelerator accident that gave me my own abilities, though there were several finer points of compatibility to take into effect. A sort of resonance on the molecular level. I'm sadly without any equipment or a team to screen people with, so the best I can hope for is a very good guess based on the environmental aspect of it all.

[amadine]

And the consequences for an unsuccessful merger?

[Everything she knows about nuclear explosions, she learned in the escape from Gehenna.

That's enough to tell her that the consequences might be very, very bad.]

[thinkingfire]

Well, an unsuccessful merger would be one in which absolutely nothing happened to me or the other participant...

...or, in a spectacularly bad failure, could cause the both of us to explode. There's really no way to say without the proper scientific equipment.

[amadine]

So there's a chance that attempting to keep yourself from killing all of us might result in you killing all of us. Fucking marvellous.

I have some facility with manipulating the environment here - I can create a sealed-off space for you to make the attempt in. I don't know if it would be enough if things go sideways, but any protection must be better than none.

[thinkingfire]

Thank you. Believe me, I don't want to kill everyone any more than everyone wants to be killed. Blame our hosts and the fact that they took me without my partner.

[amadine]

Oh, I assure you, I do. Their bill is a long one, if ever we have the opportunity to call them to account.

[thinkingfire]

I do hope that day will come to pass. It seems they've got rather a lot to answer for.

[amadine]

More than you could possibly imagine.