What the Hell? [OTA]
WHO: Jeannie Miller, OTA
WHAT: Working on a program
WHEN: Midnight
WHERE: A lab
Jeannie sat back into the computer chair with a small sigh. Her eyes remained fixed on the glowing screen infront of her as she sat back and took a moment to pause. On the screen was a series of algorithms which contained a wide range of numbers, letters, and symbols that, to an average person, looked like a complicated mess of gibberish. Jeannie, however, was looking at it as if she were reading an essay and there were spelling mistakes in it. After another moment of silence, Jeannie ran her hands through her curly blonde hair and glanced at her watch. “Midnight already?” Her voice expressed incredulousness as she exhaled and stood from the computer chair. She was beginning to understand why her brother always looked so tired.
She made her way to a table containing some coffee that a scientist had brought in for her a few hours ago. Bringing the cup to her lips, the now cool liquid caused the cup to be retracted and a sour-faced expression to form on Jeannie’s face. “Ick.” She looked down at the putrid liquid and placed the cup back on the table. So much for that idea. Her eyes slowly returned back to the computer screen from across and suddenly a small sign of hope crossed her face. Jeannie b-lined it to the computer, sat down, and began to type again.
Tales from the Lost City Found 
Rodney came into the lab with two steaming cups of coffee. “Hey … I, ah, was just getting a cup for myself, and I thought you could use one.” He set the cup down near her. “How goes it?”
When Jeannie had first arrived, Rodney had considered trying to limit her schedule — she didn’t want her getting burnt out the way he and many of the other scientists so frequently did. But he soon discovered that they were more alike than he’d ever realised: she would work whenever inspiration swould strike, forgetting food and sleep. The best he could do was ask underlings to bring her food or coffee now and then. And, well, he had to do it himself sometimes, lest someone accuse him of nepotism or something.
No way he would admit that it was just a nice excuse to spend time with his sister. There was not some part of him that was actually really glad to have family around. Nosiree. Uh-uh. Not a chance.
Jeannie hadn’t noticed her brother until he opened his mouth and spoke. “What?” Her head was still on the laptop for another moment before she turned and looked at him. Her eyes fell on the coffee, “Oh” She offered Rodney a smile and took the hot beverage into her hands, “Thanks. The one someone else brought me got cold before I could drink it.” Her nose crinkled slightly.
After taking a sip and feeling a little refreshed, she turned fully to her brother while remaining on the chair, “I’ve been trying to figure out how to re-power those shield thingies.” She gestured to her body, “Like the one you used and drained.” She shrugged and explained “Doctor Weir let me read some of the mission reports.”
Rodney scowled, restraining the urge to take the coffee gift back. “It was near the end of it’s charge when I put it on!” he insisted. “And really? There’s something else I would rather you worked on, although it’s in the same vein. Harkness brought us a device that can create different kinds of force fields. They can form a bubble around the user or a target, create a wall, or shape the field into a point to use as a weapon. Not that it wouldn’t be nice to get the Ancient’s personal shields working — especially if we can adapt them to use this new tech — but we need to break that new tech down first, before awe can duplicate it, much less bastardise it. You game?”
“Cool,” She perked up with a smile, “Do you know how they work yet? Like what powers them? Or are we basically talking about figuring out how they work first and then reverse engineering them?” Either way, she liked a challenge and as much as she would never admit it to Rodney, she liked bouncing her ideas off him… even if most of the time he shot them down and/or tried to take credit for them himself. “Either way, I’m in. Sounds fun.”
“Nope, don’t know a thing — it’s not Ancient, Asgard, Go’auld, or even Tollan technology, so you get to star from scratch. I’d, ah, work on it myself, but I’m kinda swamped, and so is Radek. There’s not really anyone else I’d trust with this than my own flesh and blood — that’s hw important this is,” he added her quietly, hoping she would see it for the olive branch that it was. He still wasn’t too happy she was there, but he was determined to make the most of it.
So this was some sort of new technology that they had never encountered before. Cool. It was also cool to see this generous side of Rodney. “Wow” Okay, so she was admittedly a little stunned that her brother trusted her with something that sounded really important. Then she recovered, “Well I promise to figure out then.” She smiled and bit her tongue. She was going to add ‘and not blow up a solar system in the process,’ but Jeannie was feeling a little generous today.
Instead, she decided to ask a question that had been on her mind since they had had lunch together. “So,” Her face held the classic ‘I’m going to ask you an uncomfortable question’ grin, “You going to ask that Andra girl out or what?” She placed her hands on her lap and leaned forward waiting expectantly.
“What? Why would I do that?” he asked, staring at her incredulously. Never mind that he was attracted to Andra and had recently entertained the posibillity of spending an evening with her and Captain Jack Harkness that might have led to some interesting things — he was no longer in that situation, and Andra wasn’t around to turn his breain to mush or encourage him to use … well, a different part of his anatomy to think with. No, he was in total use of his mental faculties at the moment, thanks very much! So he just gave his ister his patentednm You’re a crazy person and I’m afraid your insanity will rub off on me glare.