01 / 11 / 09 - Jean, Stark
=NYC= Gradient Genetech - the McClintock Center - Financial District
Not the grandest or largest of the suites available, Gradient Genetech shares a similar quality of 'shiny and new' all the same. A small conference/reception area with a front desk, two loveseats and a coffee table is visible from the hallway, with three doors leading off from it. One is to a small office on the left, the other to a storage and supply room of equal size. The door at the back leads to the main laboratory space, which takes up a full half of the suite's footprint. While it's not as well-equipped as Dr. Grey's lab back 'home', it nonetheless features PCR machines, microscopes, a robotic pipetter, and all the other tools of a geneticist's trade, along with a small exam room for human subjects, curtained off with glass walls and sliding doors. Another area behind other temporary walls is alive with the sounds of squeaking and tussling, courtesy of cages full of well-kept lab mice.
Coffee is on, and the office supply of pastries has yet to be decimated by thieving university student minions. The reception area is set up to receive. Dr. Grey, however, has been lured into her office while she waits, sucked in by the siren song of her email reporting new arrivals. In deference to the fact that she's expecting someone, she's left her door open and called down to the main entry to let them know a guest pass is desired.
Feathers ruffled, Stark is preceded by a minor storm cloud of sulky crankiness. The easy welcome does something to smooth feathers back, such that he is more or less reached equilibrium on arrival at reception. He does not introduce on office space, open door or not, but rather gives notice of arrival, and then waits. Pepper is an isle of serenity at his side, superhuman in her equanimity. She is playing some sort of puzzle game on her PDA. That probably helps.
Tappity-tappity-tappity... "Yes!" comes from Jean's office, with the sort of happy satisfaction that accompanies touchdowns in football players. Or, in this case, the delivery of degenerate PCR primers for scientists that have been held up by an overzealous customs agent who read 'biological material' on the label. Thus, Stark's sulking storm cloud is countered by a cheerful little cirrus of scientific progress. "Hello there, Mr. Stark, Ms. Potts," she greets, as the not-really-glass door in to Gradient Genetech is swung open for them. "Good to see you. Coffee? I swear I had someone not myself make it."
"Coffee would be great, Dr. Grey," Stark says, without any real enthusiasm. Pepper's gentle pass is brighter, even if it is a no, with hands lifted to indicate that she will be busy. Notes! (Or else games.) "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me." There is just the slightest hint of exasperated, ironic emphasis on the words.
The acceptance may be without enthusiasm, but Jean's assembly of two cups of coffee, following a motion towards one of the loveseats, is swift and precise as another tall redhead's style. Much coffee has been drunk from the office coffee maker, it seems. "Oh, it's not a problem," she assures, with an offer of the first cup. "Although can I take it not all of your meetings today have been productive ones...?"
"Ran into the obnoxious--" --ly bitchy-- "--wall of Hellfire Club protectionism over at the Shaw Research Center," Stark admits, picking up one of the cups with murmured thanks. "Frost and Talhurst. Just one little attempt at takeover...!" He sighs, so maligned, and takes a sip of the coffee for courtesy's sake. "I'm following up on an idea Mr. Ryder inspired, actually." A glint of humor pushes through irritation, bright in his eyes. "Again."
"They do obnoxious so well, don't they?" Jean murmurs in slightly-sympathetic turn, and sips at her coffee for more than just courtesy. (She is lucky there is no blood caffeination breathalyzer test.) "Sebastian was much easier to work with, in some ways. But what's my boy wonder come up with?"
Stark, having sat opposite Shaw on far too many bidding wars to count, looks highly dubious at the idea of him being easier to work with. He goes, "Uh huh." Sitting back, he allows irritation to fade with renewed focus. "There's a lot of research being done out there on mutants and mutation, but little of it has reached the stage of practical application. I wanted to get your opinion on it, on areas that you think might be best to focus on, and how you'd suggest going about it. We're beginning to explore possibilities at S.I., but a lot of it is still in the area of pure research."
"Well," says Jean, setting her coffee mug before her on the table and interlacing now-freed fingers. "It really depends on what you mean by 'practical application' -- we're still decades away from any sort of post-embryonic gene therapy, for example."
"Here's a practical application," Stark says, leaning forward to set down his coffee and use /his/ hands to gesture. "Talked to this physicist who is working with a group at the SRC on mimicking the mechanisms of mutant energy storage, for the creation of more efficient, higher capacity batteries. They have it. That is all but ready for production." He makes an 'on the other hand' sort of gesture. "And then we have -- you might be familiar with her, actually. I think she went up with the Pegasus crew. Zenith? That dancer? I've got an offer to get my company in on looking into the mechanism of her mutation, in an attempt to replicate it. We do some research, but the results of /that/ -- years, if not decades off."
"Whatsisname... Richards?" Jean wonders, dropping the name of the one physicist she's tripped over. Zenith is of more interest, earning Stark an interested look from over the edge of a reclaimed coffee mug. "Years, decades... but I might finally get the flying car they promised we'd have by now. Batteries could be interesting -- biochemical systems are, as we know, amazingly efficient. I'm personally hoping to do some eventual work into cancer research, thanks to some mutations out there... the difficulty is always in finding people willing to share their genetics. Have you thought about aging?"
"Aging?" Stark looks a trifle blank. "Not really. We have a few pharmaceutical and biochemical companies under our umbrella, but -- that's not really my area." Even though they /can/ make things which explode. "Where does aging come into this?"
"There are mutants who don't age," Jean answers with an attempt at dialling down on any outbursts of pure geekish interest (She is thirty-mumble-something. There is -dignity- to consider.) She does not add 'like my boyfriend'. "Considering the Peter Pan complex of our generation, cracking the riddle of why we age is a huge thing. But practical and in your area... well, I suppose there's the mystery of how does a pyrokinetic generate fire. Or how does a telekinetic move things."
"But those things are, as you say, mysteries." Stark brushes his thumb along the neatly trimmed edges of his goatee in an absent, thoughtful gesture. "/Other/ than the Shaw Research Center--" Which is full of stupidheads. "--who is doing research into these sorts of things? What particular areas of mutant science have been more fully explored?"
"I know that Sanford out at Rice is working on the aging puzzle, and there's rumours that someone in Canada is looking at heat generating mutations as a potential form of clean energy." Jean ticks off on her fingers. "Ventner's Celera Corporation is making noises about some big new understanding of the universe through genetics, but Craig Ventner's as much a showman as a scientist, and also he's an ass, so we'll see." Absently, she takes another gulp of coffee in the wake of this pronouncement. "Not that he didn't do us all a favour with automating gene sequencing... in your areas of interest, honestly there's not a lot that I can think of. Twenty years on, most of us in the field are still trying to figure out how the -common- areas of mutation work. Rao's trying to cure it, and had some French backers a couple years ago. You might see what ideas Erik Lensherr has, if you feel your stock prices are too high."
Pepper's hands move like lightning! Shorthand scrawl of stylus on screen later to be cleverly translated, she concentrates on getting every last name -- right until the end. She writes E and r and then stutters to a halt. She glances over at her boss.
Stark looks bland. "I'll run the idea by the board. I understand he has a physics background, doesn't he? Perhaps he'll have some ideas we can use in improving the Sentinel body armor design, too."
"At the very least," Jean offers, with an impish cast to her eyes and mouth, "I'm sure you could get him to try testing them to destruction. Incidentally, I meant to offer myself, if you ever want a test subject... oh," she recalls, lifting a finger. "Some of the NASA boys are poring over Professor Forge's modifications to the Pegasus II. How good are your government contacts?"
Stark /still/ looks bland, but the glint in his eyes becomes marginally more pronounced. "Good," he summarizes them, encapsulating it all in a single word. He looks mildly intrigued. "I'll drop a note with R&D," he promises on her as test subject, and then asks, "What about the modifications?"
"I'm a doctor, not an aerospace engineer," Jean points out, despite not being a Dr. -McCoy-. (He's in Westchester.) "But I believe they had to do with giving it more legs, for the most part. Some life support improvements also."
Stark glances at Pepper. There is no telepathy involved, just long familiarity: she starts an email. "Sounds interesting," he says, looking back at Jean. "Canada, huh? I'll look into that." In a slightly altered tone, a little more laid back, he asks, "Where do you, personally, feel that the greatest contributions are going to come from?"
"Health and medicine," says the biologist promptly, if not without a self-aware smile for herself as she says it. "But, in your field, I'd say probably clean energy. I make the energy conservation laws weep on a regular basis. Imagine if we can sort out the physics for that."
"That," says Stark, emphasis in simplicity, "would be nice." Being /over/ that mystical 4-0 himself, he meanders back around to, "So, what kind of progress is being made on the aging front?" He is all kinds of casual, and much relaxed from his Hellfire Club-induced crank as the conversation continues.
JEAN IS MUCH NICER THAN THE HFC MEANIEHEADS. Even if she calls Stark old.