[Fin] Clean Getaway

[insidiousEnigma]

He had been advised to rest, to let his body heal....But when did Zacharie ever listen to anyone else's advice?

There was too much to explore and he would be damned if he let a concussion, a broken arm, reopened face wounds, and a fractured rib slow him down. Wow...he obviously had his priorities twisted. He walked slowly down a long, dusty hallway, taking in the cracked walls and looking for any sort of foliage that could possibly be growing. He figured that he fit right in here, wrapped up from the waist up like a mummy like he was. "...It's disgusting here." He muttered, though he wasn't sure if he was pleased with this or not. Dark and dank meant that moulds and fungi would be growing which was good for experimenting...but not so good for living in. The teen settled on being mildly displeased. "Pory Porygon." Virus chirped from its perch on his good shoulder. His good eye, the left was hidden beneath an eye patch, sharpened as he peered around the seemingly empty hallway. There was nothing here except- "Oenothera!" The teen exclaimed, ignoring the sharp pain in his side as he scurried over to the small plant growing from beneath the baseboard. Virus made an inquisitive noise at the excitement, "Pory?" Zacharie struggled to pull a glass jar from his bag, it was hard with only the use of one arm, but was soon plucking the plant delicately from beneath the worn wood and securing it in it's new home. "Oenothera, or Evening Primrose, oil was primarily used for eczema but can be used as an anti-inflammatory." He explained, letting out a pained wheeze at the exertion. "It's not particularly common, so for us to come across it is...astounding!" He said excitedly.  

[TawnyAngel]

Ever since he had arrived his skin had been crawling. Dirt. Grime. Dust. Flith! Technically it was probably below his station to be cleaning but he did not trust the lower ranks to do it properly, most people's standards of clean were horribly low. At the base it had been alright, so easy to clean but this old building was not. Unable to relax in such an environment Frost had decided to use his time off to start getting the place up to a decent standard.

Armed with two mops, a bucket, suds and pokemon helpers he had just finished a section of corridor and was turning into the next when he heard a voice. There was a trainee, apparently extremely excited about the local flora. Signalling Koios to set down the empty bucket (the Metang did so with a soft hum) he cleared his throat at the young rocket. "Trainee, what are you doing?" He could see what the trainee was doing but he had learned that by asking people what they were doing you implied 'are you supposed to be doing that', which was just the effect he was aiming for.

As the small man spoke a pale sleek Vaporeon rounded the corner accompanied by a shiny-esque Glaceon. They came to a halt one either side of the white clad Agent and regarded Zacharie with cool black eyes.  

[insidiousEnigma]

Oh...he hadn't noticed that someone else was in the hallway with him.

Zacharie glanced from the baseboard to the agent, back to the baseboard and then finally settled on the blonde agent. "...Picking Evening Primrose." He said slowly, his uninjured shoulder raising in a slight shrug before carefully tucking the jar into his bag. Wasn't that obvious? "Well...I suppose I am exploring; finding Oenothera was just an unexpected surprise." He amended. Grunting, he straightened himself out of his hunched over position. He wondered if there would be anymore lurking around the baseboards...though if everyone was cleaning as well as this Agent was they would be mercilessly pulled out. "Pory-gon." Virus put in, wiggling excitedly on his shoulder. "Yes, much more interesting than sitting around in the 'infirmary.'" Zacharie agreed with a slight nod. "...Have you happened upon any flora? ...If you found some and by some miracle didn't crush them I would be happy to take them. I'm hoping to be able to make a muscle relaxant." He explained to the blonde male.  

[TawnyAngel]

Frost was not an expert on teenagers but he was fairly sure that this was not a normal hobby. It was however rather more palatable than all the drinking and sticking their tongues down one another's throats that a lot of youngsters seem to prefer.

"No flora," he replied after a moment, "only a large patch of yellow slime mold, which I eradicated." Frost tilted his head to the side, an artificial mannerism he had adopted to communicate 'I am thinking' but it always looked stiff and stilted. "If you do not inconvenience me you may join me and gather whatever flora or fungi you wish. If you can make use of them it would be inefficient for me to destroy them." Obviously with his arm in a sling the boy couldn't actually help with cleaning but that was just fine with Frost; doing it himself was the entire point of this exercise after all.  

[insidiousEnigma]

"Yellow slime mold?" Zacharie repeated delightedly. There were multiple species of mold that the blonde could be describing! Though his smile dropped at the news that it had been destroyed. "...Oh...well I suppose I can sympathize with why you destroyed it." That didn't mean that he liked it one bit. "Hopefully I will come across more that I can take a sample from." He muttered, mostly to himself as he patted his bag absently. He would need to buy or somehow acquire some more jars, he was running low. The man's offer caught him by surprise and it showed in the way he stared absently at the other before he managed to sputter out a confirmation. "Y-Yes, I would like that very much! I will endeavor to stay out of your way." He didn't like that his injuries made him a bother, but he definitely knew how to stay out of people's way. "I'm Zacharie. I say that because I can't recall meeting you before. Not that I would likely remember even if we did, I'm horrible with names." He rambled before giving a slight shrug with his good shoulder.  

[TawnyAngel]

Frost studied the sputtering boy in silence for a moment. If he was faintly bemused it was communicated only in a slightly different angle of his head and a tiny quirk of his eyebrow. "Agent Frost," he replied, "you will remember it." It was not a request.

"Undine, Scald."

This was said without a glance down at the water type but she seemed to know the drill, moving quickly to the bucket and filling it up with steaming water. The surface of the water was faintly foamy, indicating that there had already been some kind of cleaning product in the bottom. Frost dipped his mop into the water, wrung it out, and started work on a patch of floor.

"I do not remember seeing you around, and my memory is fairly reliable," he said after a moment. "Have you been a member of Team Rocket for long?" Small talk. Not his forte but he was prepared to take this opportunity to practice.  

[insidiousEnigma]

Frost...Frost...FrostFrostFrost...

The teen mentally repeated the name to himself as it seemed impertinent that he remember it. He'd try his best...but he wasn't expecting any miracles. "Mn, no." Zacharie said absently, his attention diverted to trying to pull a latex glove from the depths of his bag. "I was recruited a little over a month ago." Grumbling under his breath, he managed to yank the horrible tasting latex over his fingers with the help of his teeth. "Virus take note," The Porygon chirped. "Remind me to avoid breaking limbs in the future." It was said sarcastically but the little virtual pokemon trilled to let him know that a note had been made. "...I was joking." He muttered, rolling his visible eye. "Anyway, I joined to be able to have the chance to do experiments that may or may not be legal." He said this proudly, as if doing experiments that may be morally wrong were something to be smiled upon. "...Not that I'm allowed near anything of importance after the bathroom incident." He grumbled.  

[TawnyAngel]

Frost nodded to Zacharie, expression remaining neutral. "I see," he responded, "a far more sensible reason than the ones I so often hear." Smooth sweeps of the mop, dip the mop into the bucket, wring out the mop, smooth sweeps. "My own reasons were not dissimilar. Nearly identical I suppose you could say. I was interested in using electric pokemon as power sources for vehicles. My research has deviated somewhat since I arrived, but I am sure that the work I'm doing would still be quashed. People fear progress. People in power fear is most of all, they have a vested interest in the status quo. Mmh. And people do get so very upset about whether or not research is 'ethical'." Frost had about as much use for ethics as a fish had for a bicycle but as he spoke his voice remained calm, neutral and precise. Clearly he had opinions on the matter at hand but whether or not he had feelings about it was up for debate to an observer.

Dip the mop into the bucket, wring out the mop, smooth sweeps.

"Bathroom incident?" he added with a glance to Zacharie, a very slight lift in inflection and that sharp tilt of his head indicating that this was a question.  

[insidiousEnigma]

"It is my belief that science and ethics should be kept separate for the sake of progress." Zacharie nodded slightly as he gingerly lowered himself to his knees. "How do you know something will work if you cannot test it, you can't. You still only have a hypothesis when you send it out to the masses and then when the side effects are worse than the symptoms of whatever you're trying to cure you have to recall everything." The scowl on his face showed his distaste for the whole thing. "So now you have people who still need treatment, some that have worse symptoms, and some that have even died. All because you couldn't bear to test on another human; even if that human were dead or consenting!" He startled slightly, his voice having gotten a little louder than he had intended. "...I didn't mean to shout." He muttered, distracting himself by shuffling forward to run his gloved fingers along the bottoms of the baseboard.

"Oh..." His gaze flickered over to the blonde before dropping back down to the floor. He had assumed that everyone just sort of knew about what had happened. Hell, the Agent that had been in charge of him made it seems that way. "I had been given the task of cleaning bathrooms and I loathe cleaning bathrooms," As he had come to find out. "I had figured that there was an easier and more efficient way to clean while ensuring that it stayed clean longer so I created a cleaning solution to do just that." He didn't much like working with chemicals but it was something to keep him occupied and it was useful from time to time. "Well, I hadn't taken in previous cleaner backup and the chemicals reacted poorly causing in a noxious fume to be released into the air. Luckily I had been wearing a gas mask...but the Agent in charge of overseeing me while Jerome was away did not seem to appreciate what I had been trying to do."  

[TawnyAngel]

When Zacharie raised his voice, Frost stopped mopping and raised an eyebrow with military precision. It stayed up when the bathroom incident was explained. Cleaner 'backup'? It sounded like a weak excuse to a man who knew cleaning inside out, there shouldn't be any backup... but then again was he not here mopping because he didn't trust other people to clean properly? It was quite plausible that some cretin had failed to wash down whatever was being cleaned as one ought to, so perhaps the benefit of the doubt was in order here.

"I recommend you contain your experiments during work hours to your own department, and that any you do in your personal time are carried out where you don't pose a risk to other rockets," Frost replied blandly, eyebrow finally dropping back into its normal position. "As to your feelings on ethics; you are preaching, as they say, to the converted... however medicines are always tested on humans before they are rolled out to the general public so I am not sure I follow the rest of your, mmh, comments. It's not the initial phase of course by any means - and I do believe that it is often delayed for too long - but it is a vital step in the development of all products that will be used on humans. It is practised by all pharmaceutical companies around the world, without that stage new drugs cannot be licensed. Oh, and the shouting is excused," he concluded with a small incline of his head.  

[insidiousEnigma]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he'd heard that at least 4 times before. He would be sure to conduct his experiments in a clean environment where people wouldn't bother him. "Yes, of course." He intoned, frowning down at the baseboard when it failed to produce anything of interest. "I assure you it won't be happening again." ...Until he could actually get a hold of some chemicals of interest, his experimenting was put on hold. These stupid injuries weren't helping anything either.

While the first half of the blonde's lecture fell on deaf ears, the second part peaked his interest. "...If they test the products on humans anyway, why did they care that I..." He trailed off, his expression falling into one of perplexed sadness. For a moment he was lost in his own little world, but a gentle nudge from Virus brought him from his darkening thoughts. "...Yes...well...some people are just hypocrites then." He muttered, more to himself than to Frost. With that, he let the subject drop and continued to shuffle along the baseboard in search of more Evening Primrose. "So, you are interested in vehicles?" He threw the question out there, trying to maintain the conversation.  

[TawnyAngel]

Frost failed to interpret the expression properly though he guessed it was some form of displeasure or disappointment. The words however he did pick up on, most acutely in fact. "That was quite an ellipsis," he observed mildly. "I can assure you that you have nothing to hide here. Mmh, not from me at any rate. There are some Rockets who still get terribly sentimental about things, they've gone into the wrong industry in my opinion." There was no room for a soft heart in an organization such as theirs, cutting to the quick of science and wielding the razor edge of progress. Some people were bound to bleed a little in such circumstances.

Frost was rather proud of putting together that simile even if it had remained in the privacy of his own mind.

"And you are correct," he nodded, "all aspects of mechanical engineering in fact but vehicles are... a favourite I suppose you could say. I appreciate their power, practicality, and the precision needed to make them work perfectly as well as the opportunity to improve them."  

[insidiousEnigma]

Frost had a point...but it wasn't a subject that he particularly wanted to bring up. Ever. "...It's not something that I'd like to discuss." He said simply, pausing in his search for mold. "I appreciate your offer in 'lending an ear', as it were." He said politely. The only person who knew about it was Jerome and he would like to keep it that way. It was part of the past and he would like to leave it there. He had read that that was a healthy coping mechanism for bad past events.

He hoped Frost would leave it at that. The blonde didn't seem like someone who would pry into other people's lives.

"Mechanical engineering...do you work with Faleen by chance?" He asked curiously, though he winced when his fingers sunk into something mildly warm and squishy. It was at that moment that he realized that he had failed to pull a new jar from his bag. Cursing under his breath, he struggled to shift his bag around so he could grab one. "She is very smart." He huffed, jar dangling from his fingers. "I admire the work that goes into such complicated machinery." He withdrew his fingers, pulling a gooey blob of yellow free. "Oh you are absolutely disgusting." He practically crooned to the mold as he dropped it into the jar with a little 'splat'. "The amount of mold and flora growing here is equal parts disgusting and fascinating." He grimaced.  

[TawnyAngel]

"Mmh?" Frost gave an almost imperceptible shrug. "Very well." He had been mildly curious but only very mildly; the personal details of a trainee's life were not going to keep him on tenterhooks.

"I do indeed," he continued, moving on to a far more interesting subject. "She is a very competent woman in all aspects of her work. A pleasure to work with...." When the young man started cooing over some mold Frost trailed off and watched with his lips pressed into a thin line. Internally he recoiled, skin crawling. How could anyone do that? "I cannot say I have much interest in molds," Frost replied. "Some have practical applications, most simply need to be eradicated." He missed the old base. He really missed the old base. He hadn't quite appreciated what a good life it was. There had been no animal droppings, and no mold, and he'd had his own private suite of rooms with shower room - well technically he and Xander had each had a room but he had converted Xander's into an office. Same difference in the end.  

[insidiousEnigma]

"They are disgusting in many ways." Zacharie agreed, staring down at the sample he'd collected with a thoughtful look. "But their molecular structures and the many uses of their spores are endlessly fascinating." That is...until he got a big lungful of the smell rising from the jar. "Mostly disgusting though." He wheezed, coughing and narrowing his gaze on the jar as he screwed the lid on. "I wonder if I'll be able to make a poison out of this..." He muttered to himself as he set the jar down and reached back into the small crack to search for more. "The state of this building is disgusting; and that is a bit of an understatement." He grimaced but withdrew empty handed. He wondered if perhaps the small crack had once been the home of some small mammal that the mold had eaten. Again, the equal parts interesting and terrifying. "Returning to our previous topic, I have yet to have an opportunity to work with Faleen but I'm sure it would be mentally stimulating." As he spoke he carefully, oh so carefully, slid his hand free of the glove. He took care to turn it inside out, he certainly didn't want to touch the germs that were all over the outside now. "Perhaps one day." He reached into his bag and withdrew a small bottle of hand sanitizer.