Survival Of The Fittest

It was all for extra credit, what the two of them were doing, and this was something that Ivan often didn't usually bother with. Then again, he also didn't do partnership projects if he could help it, which he couldn't this time. If they were doing one thing odd, why not do another thing? It was all just a matter of 'why the hell not?' at this point. Even having completely shoved himself into this mindset, Ivan couldn't help but feel foolish as he took a book and did exactly as instructed.

Halfway through the procedure that Peter was explaining to him, there was a twinge of something that overcame him. Well, not a twinge, something more like... a 'wave' best represented what Ivan had felt. It wasn't exactly a warm, buttery, 'everything is okay' feeling, but it wasn't bad. Something about this experiment was a little fun. Not really wanting to write it off as the 'joy of working together', Ivan turned his focus to the experiment itself.

Turns out... he was curious about what was going on just like Peter was. Now he wanted to find out as a genuine interest, not because a piece of schoolwork told him to. For the first time all day, Ivan relaxed most of his muscles and enjoyed himself, even smiling a bit.

Peter continued to point out 'evidence' as to why he thought his hypothesis was correct. As much as he wanted to restrain himself earlier for Ivan's sake, hell, that was so far gone by now. He had gotten excited, he was about to figure something out. He was about to learn without the bounds of teaching. To him, that was greater than any high he could ever hope to achieve by any other means.

He flipped to an open page of his notebook, and dragged out a black and a green sharpie. With that, he drew out his plan, just to make 100% sure that Ivan had it down. It had taken him a bit to figure out himself how to set this up. He drew a pentagon on the left side of the page, and labeled it "transmitter". An arrow over to a line, labeled "book 1". And from there, an arrow over to a similar line, "book 2". The arrow then made it's way back to the transmitter, essentially making an isocilees triangle. He explained. "With one point of refraction, the line creates this type of a pattern." He motioned to the second to last problem. "Distance and angle affect it, but it's still in essence the same pattern. Now, keeping in mind that when light bounces off an object, it reflects, like in a mirror..." He trailed off, drawing two asteriks at the 'point of impact' near the books. "This should invert the wave yet again with just two points of impact." He smiled up at Ivan, almost waiting for some kind of approval.



The plan laid out, Peter quickly attempted to set up the experiment. He put one book on the table, and angled a second book to redirect the "beam" back towards the given device. Granted, the set up would be a lot easier if the two had a separate sending and receiving unit, but that was the hallmark of a good scientist. Make due with what you have. He motioned to Ivan to prop one book on the table at as close to a 45 degree angle as he could. Once that was done, Peter reached over to a nearby shelf, grabbing a second book. "I'll work on angling the book. Let me know when you get the feed."

He handed Ivan the transmitter, and made his way down to the other end of the table. Of course I'd be too short to make a proper angle... he thought to himself. Looking around, he dragged a chair out from under the table, and stood on it, chuckling a little. "If only science could do this for me without the help of a chair." With that, he motioned to Ivan. "Go ahead, turn it on." He angled the second book in a way that he thought would direct the sonar back to the receiver.

Ivan suppressed the groan that was still building up from all of this over-eagerness. Yes, so Peter was now amusing him with his genuine interest, and Ivan was somewhat liking the assignment, but it seemed that they were now going about things in some retardedly roundabout way. Ivan liked physics, but not THAT much... he'd rather just engage in any of the things that he loved to do, whether it be the sport that he practically breathed or the hobbies he shared with his brother.

Heh... Louis. He's probably watching that MTV shit again or slacking off. Screw it... I'll get this out of the way, then rub it into his face that his big brother is kicking his ass in classes, as well as everything else.

After a little bit of thought, he had come to the conclusion that he could handle this for now, no matter how ridiculous it all seemed. He took the receiver without much question, and only watched with the same smirk on his face as Peter balanced atop the chair. The two of them were the same height, so Ivan knew to sympathize with Peter on this issue; being short sucked. He held still, waiting for this overly-complicated solution to run its course. You'd think that he'd just bounce the sound waves off like normal, and I could twist the receiver and give the graph it's shape. That would be much...

Ivan blinked for a moment, though the tinted glasses would hardly give that away.

... That wouldn't work. ... Damn it... he might actually be on to something here.

As round about as this plan was, it would work. They probably could have gotten away with using the wall as one of their points... Or maybe a bookshelf... Anything but a book floating approximately midway to nowhere. But it was going to work.

Trying to balance himself on the chair, he angled the book down towards the transmitter. "Give it a shot Ivan." He heard the click come from the device, and after a second, he began to re-angle the book. He felt the chair shake a little under him... And he lost his footing. He slipped, his foot flying forward, landing right on his rear, gasping in pain as it hit the uncomfortable wooden chair.

"D...Did you get the reading?" He asked, hopefully. He really didn't want to have to stand up again for at least a while. The boy craned his neck a little bit, trying to get a glimpse at the paper.

The hardcover book looked to be a really tempting item that Ivan could beat into his own face to get rid of what he just saw. What an idiot... He mentally groaned, but following a short pause, went to go help Peter up regardless. "Yeah... I got it..." He said flatly. He left the calculator on the table en route to helping up the clutz, though, so he didn't have any time to actually look at it. "It should be good, though I wouldn't be surprised if it trails off at the end."

Without much further fuss, Ivan walked back to the table to mull over the paper, then the calculator to see how well they reproduced it. Turns out, as needlessly complicated as their method was, it actually worked and followed the graph they needed to replicate for the most part. There was some lack of correlation and steadiness near the end, but it was practically a blip for what they needed.

"... Alright, then."

The boy pushed himself off the ground, adjusting his glasses quickly. Looking over the paper, he saw something quite similar. As much as he wanted to do a second trial to see how much closer they could get it, Ivan was quite visibly annoyed after that beautiful display. Hell, even Peter could tell, and that was probably not a good thing. He mumbled a quick apology, before wandering back over to the other side of the table with his book. "Right, er..." He awkwardly packed up his notebook and textbook, before looking back up at Ivan, then the clock. '4:45'. "Hey, that didn't take too long, especially for getting them all." He scooped his pencil case off the table as well, sliding it in the mesh cup holder on the side of his backpack.

He was debating asking if Ivan wanted to hang out for a little. He knew Ivan was annoyed, but he seemed to be enjoying himself earlier... Aw fuck it. He hoisted his backpack onto his back, adjusting the heavy satchek awkwardly. Peter was a tiny 16 year old. That backpack almost weighed a third of his weight.

"I guess it's about time I head back and check on my Biology experiment..." He tried to make a decent reason to take off, without sounding awkward or anything. Granted, that was about the nerdiest thing he could eject from his mouth at the moment. What he was doing wasn't all that interesting, but it still fascinated him. He was just doing a transplantation experiment with a couple of different species of flowers. As much as he wanted to ramble on about it, he decided better. "So, I guess I'll see you tomorrow then?"

Ivan stood up and began packing as well, avoiding any sort of eye contact with Peter for the time being. The kid was a piece of work alright, what with his tripping and falling over pretty much anything given the opportunity. His enthusiasm, though... as much of a cynisist as Ivan was trying to be, and as much as this younger kid (how the hell was he a senior anyway!?) could bug him, that enthusiasm of his was remarkable. Intensely annoying. Remarkable all the same.

"Yeah... I guess I'll see you tomorrow", Ivan said, getting his stuff completely together. It didn't matter which one of them passed it in just so long as it was passed in, and he was pretty sure Peter had gotten it, what with his studious nature and stuff like that. Not that he himself was a slouch, it was just that Ivan had greater ambitions to worry about; school just didn't interest him for the sake of school as much as it apparently did to Peter. Regardless, their assignment was done and ready to be passed in. The two didn't have to work together again, they were just randomly assigned together for this one case, but maybe...

"Maybe next project we'll find each other." It came out before Ivan really knew what he was saying, but without expanding on the sentence at all, he slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed for the door. "Good luck on the experiment or something like that, see you tomorrow."

((Ivan Kuznetsov, continued elsewhere))

Peter had been feeling extremely awkward and shy for a little while already. Hell, he had just fallen flat on his ass. What could he be thinking other than 'what a dumb shit'? He had never understood why he cared so much what other people thought of him, but he had. Ivan's hurry to pack and leave didn't make his mind any more at ease than it already wasn't either. He was about to open his mouth to say something, apologize for being an idiot, anything to break the silence. He took a second and thought better of it though. What if he's just in a rush? Yeah, that's it... No, there's no way, he has to hate me."

That in and of itself had always been a major conflict in Peter's mind. He was so paranoid that he always assumed the worst case... But at the same time, he was so intelligent that he always recognized the best case. And he couldn't tell at all what the right 'case' was. Even for all his scientific understanding, he just couldn't tell if he was being paranoid or not, or which 'version' of his paranoia to even begin to believe. What if it was the worst case, and he was just being overly optimistic? What if it was the best case, and he was just beating himself emotionally into the ground?

All it ever took was one or two words to put his mind at ease. Ivan managed just that, right after he had made his decision.

Yeah... I guess I'll see you tomorrow. Maybe next project we'll find each other. Good luck on the experiment or something like that, see you tomorrow.

That must have meant that Ivan at least found the afternoon bearable... "What was I thinking? I'm nowhere near as bad as some of the other kids in this High School."

"Yeah, that sounds like a plan!" Peter yelled after the tennis star with a renewed eagerness in his voice. "See you tomorrow!" As socially awkward as the 16 year old was, he still wasn't dumb enough to think he had instantly made a best friend. He would have to work his ass off, he knew that much, but... Hey, maybe he could find someone else besides Ridley to hang out with on Weekends. Peter slowly packed his backpack up, and wandered out of the door a few minutes later, with a grin on his face, and something to look forward to the next day, for once in his life.

((Peter McCue continued on the Island.))