Current timeline
<Walt> Walt wandered through the garage of the school taking in everything, studying the tools at the workbenches and occasionally running his hands over the flank of a polished car or piece of machinery. The set-up was impressive really. If he didn't know better he would have said this was a professional garage.
<Walt> He came to a gutted car on a jack in the far corner of the garage. The wheels removed and the hood popped. Curious, he leaned over and looked inside. Huh...looked like someone was trying to modify it so that it ran on water as opposed to gas. Very interesting...they'd done a good job too so far.
<Shaw> Sebastian had been fairly impressed with the garage setup as well. It seemed slightly more up to date than the lab in the mansion, which he supposed was due to the efforts of that SHIELD agent who himself seemed half machine. What he hadn't expected was that there would be a student here already. "Making yourself at home, mister Langkowski?"
<Walt> Walt stood up to look at who was addressing him and (fairly predictably) banged his head off the top of the hood. "Ow! Damn it!" he shouted, rubbing his head as he emerged. "Erm...hi professor. I was just looking at converted fuel tank...I didn't touch anything, I swear."
<Shaw> He didn't bother to suppress his smirk at the young man's misfortune. "Tinker all you like - it's not mine."
<Walt> Walt backed away from the car a little. "Oh...erm...maybe I better not. There's only a few people here that are interested in this sort of thing...if it's Hope's and I touch it she may kill me."
<Shaw> "It isn't - not that I'm aware of, at any rate. One never knows exactly, however, when dealing with Starks." He smoothly moved in to give the engine the once-over for the student's benefit.
<Walt> Walt stood aside and watched his professor have a look at the engine. "Her dad used to be an engineer right? Before he decided to run for president I mean."
<Shaw> He gave the boy a dismissive glance before turning his attention back to the engine. "Tony Stark is still an engineer."
<Walt> Walt was going to point out that while that was technically true if he did indeed have a P.Eng after a certain amount of time not being connected to the work or the profession would mean he wasn't technically one anymore...but decided this would probably not go over well.
<Walt> "You know him then?" Walt said, wondering when Shaw had become an authority on Stark. Who knew? Maybe they used to work together or something.
<Shaw> "Yes." Since he seemed he wouldn't be leaving or cease talking anytime soon, Sebastian took off his suit jacket and dropped it onto the vee of the open hood. "I suspect this was one of Kent's pet projects."
<Walt> "That's the professor that was part machine right?" Walt shuddered a little involuntarily. What an awful mutation. "Everyone says he left to work for the government. I wish I knew him. He sounded like an interesting person." That poor guy.
<Shaw> "He does work for the government. He leads their field team, in fact." Sebastian noticed the curious shiver and tilted his head slightly. "He's a techno-organic lifeform. It's fascinating, really."
<Walt> "You sound like my roommate's girlfriend... maybe it is, objectively speaking," Walt admitted. "But I don't really think it's fascinating so much as it's..." He searched for a word that was not too harsh. "...unfortunate."
<Shaw> "Unfortunate?" His eyes narrowed as the studied the young man more closely.
<Walt> Walt felt very nervous all of a sudden. "It just...sometimes mutations seem like a cruel joke. Look at that guy who withers away organic compounds or that professor who can't touch anyone or me even. Mutation is...alright sometimes, I suppose. But a lot of the time it just seems redundant or a burden than a gift."
<Shaw> "Mistakes will always be made in the evolution of a species. It's the way of natural selection." Recalling Langkowski's file, he sucked his teeth and pulled over a rolling stool to inspect the engine. "Just as theories for this hydrolysis engine change over time as some are proven dead-ends, so will the x-gene change over time."
<Walt> "Those 'mistakes' are people though... and each one of them has to live with that and suffer in varying degrees," Walt said. "Nature is a lot of things, but cruelty is it's most defining feature...erm, or so my mother used to say."
<Shaw> "Your mother is correct." Sebastian's eyes flicked up to Langkowski once more, then back to the engine. "Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable."
<Walt> "So basically you're saying we don't move on as a race without trying to," Walt said, watching him work. "Are you big on mutant rights then?"
<Shaw> "Though it isn't publicly known, I, of course, am also a mutant," he said without looking up. "Do you know who said that?"
<Walt> Walt shook his head. "No, I feel like I should though when you say it like that."
<Shaw> Sebastian looked up. "Martin Luther King Junior. What we face today is a different kind of civil rights movement, but it is one just the same."
<Walt> Walt bristled slightly. "Do you think I don't know what it's like to be hated? I'm registered, no-one's ever let me forget I'm sub-human. If I ever forgot I had my ID to remind me and if I didn't have that I had more than enough fists in my face to pound the message home."
<Shaw> The last comment earned him a disdainful sniff. "Sub-human? There are those who would argue we're superior to baseline humans."
<Walt> "Those people are no better than Nazis or the Klu Klux Klan or any hate group that's out there," Walt said, frowning. "Any cause that declares itself superior above another living being isn't a cause I believe in or a cause that's right. Mutant supremacist groups are no different than anti-mutant human groups in my mind."
<Shaw> Oh, struck a nerve, did he? "So, we agree we're not superior, but I would argue neither are we inferior." He finally looked back up at the boy.
<Walt> "I never said we were inferior," Walt said, picking up a wrench and fiddling with it. "I just don't think we're anything special. Patting yourself on the back for being a mutant is like congratulating someone for having blonde hair and blue eyes. It's completely out of their control."
<Walt> "I don't especially like being a mutant. That I'll admit...but why would I? What have my powers done for me?" Not a lot, he thought. They'd pretty much destroyed his life.
<Shaw> "You called yourself sub-human. While I'm certainly no psychologist, I would argue that simply by adopting the label of those who would subjugate you, you're implicit with their ignorant or blatantly malevolent cause." With that, he took the wrench from Langkowski's hands and put it to use on the engine.
<Walt> "Then I used the wrong word," Walt said, frowning even more as the wrench was taken from him. "It happens, I'm better with numbers than speeches."
<Walt> He leaned against work bench a little. "I don't see why it should matter to anyone if I like being a mutant or not. It's just my opinion. Everyone else is free to feel however they want about their own mutations."
<Shaw> He shrugged. "You make a valid point. Carry on."
<Walt> "Well thank you," Walt said a bit of smart-aleckness seeping into his tone, wandering over to another workspace. "So I suppose now wouldn't be the time to ask for hints on the next quiz, eh?"
<Shaw> "Your class earned the last quiz because someone irritated me." He looked up and noted another rolling stool. "Pull that up and have a seat, Langkowski."
<Walt> Walt did what he was told. He always did what he was told. "I don't mind so much. It's just another opportunity for me to gain more marks," he said. "I didn't think engineering was going to be a walk in the park."
<Shaw> "No, it isn't, and as this is just an introductory and overview course, we won't even scratch the surface of some areas." He handed the wrench over to the younger man. "See what you think."
<Walt> "I don't care so much about environmental engineering or stuff like that," Walt said taking the wrench and beginning to yank at the car. This felt...odd. Like a father and son thing, except Walt's father was a dentist and he'd never taken any interest in this sort of thing...though he was a cad like Shaw. Okay..this line of thought was freaking him out a little. "So long as I learn mechanical engineering I'll be happy."
<Shaw> "Since that is one of my specialties, you seem to be in luck." He watched the progress with some interest. "To what end do you wish to learn?"
<Walt> Walt shrugged. "I don't know...I thought for awhile I wouldn't be able to go to university..." He thought for awhile. "I think I'd like to work in aerodynamics. I was always interested in planes."
<Shaw> "Well, I daresay you could probably get a start on it here at the very least, considering the highly illegal and deniable jet they keep on premises," he chuckled.
<Walt> "That's a weird plane," Walt said. "It's like an SR-71 Blackbird and a stealth plane mixed together."
<Shaw> "Because that's exactly what it is," he said with a smirk, then leaned onto his forearms to see what the boy was doing. "So, what do you think? Will this ever run?"
<Walt> "Of course not," Walt said, almost amused. "It's pure fantasy. 'Water Powered Cars' generally work like this: energy stored in a battery or generated by an on-board gasoline powered generator, splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. The two are then recombined, either in an internal combustion engine or in a fuel cell. Energy from the fuel cell or the engine then drives the car."
<Walt> "More simply: a car like this is breaking water into hydrogen and oxygen and then burning hydrogen and oxygen to create water. This is possible, but you can't get more energy out of the system than you put in. Otherwise, it's a perpetual motion machine."
<Walt> "If it worked, it would break the laws of physics...am I right?" Walt said, pretty sure he'd got it when they talked about this last week.
<Shaw> "Yes, the first and likely the second laws of thermodynamics." He looked up at Langkowski. "However, we break several of the known laws of nature with our mutations, so it's difficult to say if it's entirely impossible. For now, however."
<Walt> "Most mutations are explainable," Walt said. "I have...three official classes with Cecilia and she's my roommate girlfriend. From all the lectures I've had to listen to it's not so much breaking as bending. The same goes for the car. There's probably a way to do it by mixing other components in the water that'd give the same result. It's just not pure water."
<Shaw> "Indeed." He straightened up. "So then, why don't you see how far you get in bending the laws of the universe, mister Langkowski. Consider it a special assignment."
<Walt> Walt turned his face away. "No, never." He thought of his father's arm...how it had looked just hanging from the socket. That wasn't him, he didn't want those things, he didn't want to kill people.
<Shaw> Sebastian's eyebrow rose. "No?"
<Walt> "It's not possible," Walt said. He gestured to the engine. "It's like this thing...it's a good idea in theory...but it just doesn't work in real life. Everything about me disappears when I transform. I'm not that thing and don't ever want to be....sorry."
<Shaw> He just stared at him as if he had transformed as he spoke. "It's this thing that I'm talking about," he said, pointing down to the engine.
<Walt> "Oh..." Walt said, embarrassed. "Yeah, machines I can do." After this I'll just go and die under a rock. "Sorry...I've been pressured about that a lot since coming here."
<Shaw> "You made it clear that what you don't enjoy your mutation and had no desire to discuss your apparent inferiority complex over said mutation." A cold smile slid onto his face and he leaned a bit closer to the younger man. "So we'll stick with what you can do, yes?"
<Walt> Walt tensed slightly as the other man moved in his space and averted his eyes, looking uncannily like a submissive dog. "Fair enough, sir."
<Shaw> His head tilted slightly at the body language and he sized up the shorter man. Interesting. "Very good then."
<Walt> "How long do I have?" Walt asked, wanting to be sure what exactly he could and could not do. "Do I have any limits?"
<Shaw> "Let's see what you can do in a month, shall we? I'll pencil you in for an update, here." He tapped the car's frame and relaxed, backing off a little. "The only limitations are those you set for yourself."
<Walt> "I'll try," Walt said, "and I won't even ask you sign anything." He'd seen what Hope had done the other day.
<Shaw> Sebastian snorted softly. "I didn't sign anything for her, either." Moving to the other side of the car, he picked up his jacket. "If you manage to make this work, I'll even let you patent it," he said with a wink.
<Walt> "If I manage to make this work I'm probably the messiah," Walt said, lips twitching slightly. "I like building things though so it's not wasted time."
<Shaw> "Don't tell Hope then, as I believe she fancies that title for herself." The boy was strange, Sebastian would give him that. "No, no time spent learning is wasted, especially when tinkering." He gave the car a pat.
<Walt> "I'll tell everyone else you said that when I get in trouble for taking apart the television," Walt said, a little spark creeping into him.
<Shaw> He gave an evil grin. "Please do."