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>"You can find out how things are built like that? That sounds kinda cool,"

"Mmmm, I guess it is. Though i have to be very careful not to try to "learn" about something too big or complex. There are rather painful consequences."

When Richard "learned how something worked" it was far more than that. It helped the other part of his power, which was molecular manipulation. So when he "learned" imagine the coordinates and attributes for every single molecule of an object suddenly thrust into your brain. Try to absorb too much and..... Richard was just thankful that his brain had a safety switch. If he tried to learn too much his brain would either erase all knowledge and shutdown and leave him with a debilitating migraine for days, or try to process it in chunks wherein he would essentially become comatose until his brain had jolly well finished thank you very much.

>"...Y-you want to... let's just get this over with."

A brave one. It suddenly occurred to Richard that this was the equivalent of doing surgery on a patient. The eye was close to the brain, no matter how you looked at it. The realization was startling. All in all he would have to be very very careful not to short anything out. Thankfully the infirmary had some nifty x-ray machines that worked with pretty much any material so once Glitch had gotten herself comfortable he put on his electricians gloves and set to work. He had no idea what voltage or current he would be dealing with so this was as much for his protection as hers.

So according to the X-rays, the eyes was accessible once the facial cover had been removed... This was... was.. Richard did not even know how to describe the feeling. Should he make conversation? Ask if she could go into standby? Did she feel pain? How do you talk to someone who you are literally removing the face of?

"Umm, I have not done anything like this before either. Let me know if you feel any pain."

A few moments later and Richard gently lifted the... well front cover? of Glitches face. He made a note to take care when putting it back so as not to damage the watertight seal. Right now onto the eye....

Ok so some more information was forthcoming. Richard scratched his chin through for a minute then started typing.

< For fluid based cooling that works below freezing, a poor man's trick is to simply add vodka to water, get the ratios right and you have liquid that does not freeze but can still pull away heat. One thought would be to use the circulating water Vodka mix to draw away heat and run it through a heat exchanger that is cooled by the ISOBAR cooler. I would add a few sensors, one to turn the pump onto low if the incoming water temp falls below a set point, that way you conserve power but the fluid will not freeze even at low flow rates. A simple Arduino could serve, the code would be simple. Once then incoming fluid temp is above the min cooling set-point ramp up pump speed in delayed increments till both outgoing temp and return temp are within limits.
 
 As for durability, the cheap option would be to wear a Kevlar vest over it, but a longer term solution would be to make the tube lined vest out of Kevlar in the first place, and perhaps add some shock absorbing padding into the mix as well just make sure that the tubes are as close to your skin as possible. Would that work?>
 
 Send.

When Richard returned home, he set to work. He was going to cook 白斬雞, otherwise known as white cut chicken. Essentially this involves boiling a whole chicken for about an hour to an hour and a half with large chunks of ginger and some salt. This creates a clear yet rich bone broth as almost all of the flavor and nutrients from the chicken have been leached out into the broth. The chicken is then lightly coated with toasted sesame oil cut into small pieces and served with a dipping sauce.

Richard set the chicken on to boil and set the rice cooker going. At the back of his mind he was wagering there was a 80/20 chance she would not show up for a second lunch, and a 50/50 chance she would not show up at all, period. He liked encouraging people and helping where he could. He already had a few ideas about a camper, how to build one inexpensively that would last, but that could come later. Richard was the type of person who could very well wear a sign that read "Will work for interesting problems", he enjoyed challenges like these.

As he made the bed in the spare room, he idly wondered to himself what was Martha's story? It seemed like there was a lot of family stuff going on. Was it like in Chinese culture, where the children are expected to take care of the parents, or in some cases the parents taught the children that they were indebted to them for life? Chinese culture was heavy on relationships, it was what held them together, but there were also plenty of unhealthy ones. Now the dipping sauce. Richard whistled as he diced garlic, green onions, cilantro and ginger, mixed in a little salt and poured a little boiling oil over it to flash fry the ingredients. The flavor it unlocked was amazing. Finally as accompaniment Napa cabbage fried with garlic, oyster sauce and a little chicken broth. There it was done. Now to set the table and wait.

And wait. After about an hour and a half of waiting he figured she was not coming. Still she might come for dinner and Richard had already eaten lunch, so he left the table set and went about sketching out his plans to build a camper.

It was about 4-5 hours later that he heard a knock. The sky had gone dark. Richard was about ready for dinner. The soup had been brought back to a simmer and the smell filled the house. He went to open the door and there stood Martha. Wait was she crying.

"Martha, come in." He said ushering her into his house and closing the door.
"Are you ok?" Did she need a hug? Tissues? Food? Richard was not quite sure what to do next.

 Richard sat back and listened patiently to the outburst. As she turned away and stomped out of the diner, Richard actually started smiling. He had seen her heart, he had looked past the words and caught a glimpse of what lied beneath. A porcupine with quills raised yes, but a rather lovable porcupine none the less. Richard paid for both of them and left a generous tip behind. He walked exited the diner and started strolling the streets, not quite sure what he was looking for but he knew that he would know it when he saw it.
 
 He found Martha's car less than a block away. One car that looked like it had some miles on it and could use some TLC, check. One car that looked like someone was living out of it and sleeping on the back seat and had been so for a while, check. One car that had a fuming lady in the back, check. It would probably not do any good to inform said madam that she looked rather adorable when she was mad. No definitely not the right time.
 
 Richard knocked on the window and patiently waited until it screeched down. He smiled at Martha, it was a warm smile that started from the eyes and radiated to the rest of his face, a genuine smile.
 
 "Listen Martha, I really don't want or expect anything from you. All I wanted to say was that I am heading home now to cook a meal for three, I figured you are hungry enough to eat for two. Dinner should be ready in about an hour. Here is my address." He gently placed a napkin on the seat next to her. It had his phone number and the address of his apartment block and his apartment number.
 
 "There is guest parking for free there by the way."
 
 And with that he walked away. He had a meal to cook and a spare bed to make.

Richard had just finished dinner and was browsing forums. He was a regular on a number of innovator/engineering forums. There were HORROR stories much like r/OSHA or R/JUSTROLLEDINTOTHESHOP, there were genuine suggested innovations, the usual rather quickly banned trolls, all in all a mixed bag but if one searched patiently one would invariably find delightful gems.

Take this new thread for example, a relatively new user, joined a while ago only just posting so exiting the lurking phase, and with a seemingly intriguing challenge. Richard being a mutant himself always liked helping other mutants solve challenges, particularly mutation related ones.

Richard scanned the thread titled "Heat-Intolerant and Fed Up" posted by snowcookies.

Richard hit the reply button.

<Welcome to the site snowcookie. I assume you have looked at things like Veskimo are things of that nature out of your price range? Any chance you could be more specific about your requirements? Temperature, duration, an idea of the environment you would be working in so that you can estimate energy consumption and hazards. All of that would help.

There are also alternatives like using something like ISOBAR to power as suite. Let us know more. Fellow mutant and engineer here, would love to help>

He hit send and waited to see what would happen.

> "Uhhh, I think that we should be okay. She shouldn't deliberately hurt us, see?"

Richard looked relieved. At least hanging out with Derek and his newfound adoptive mother would be less inducive to concussions. And yes Richard had begun to mentally peg the Meese as Derek's adoptive mother. One did not argue with a telekenetic Moose. Speaking of which, "Derek, does your adoptive mother have a preferred name?"

>"Drinks sound good. Along with some onion rings or fries. Maybe fries. Or wings. As for Madam Meese, I think --, oh, she says that she'll just come back here and 'chill'. She has other meese friends she hangs out with." Though, it is nice knowin' that I have an alley. An animal alley."

Richard laughed. "Well come on then, there is a pub just around the corner." And It would not do to have some worried park ranger come barrelling along convinced that two young men were causing trouble. Richard happily waved farewell to Derek's mother and the two men set off towards sustenance both solid and liquid.

Once they were happily ensconced around a table with a beer in one hand, a side of rings for Derek and a side of cheesy chips for Richard, he turned to Derek. "Does this sort of thing happen often? May I ask when/ how it all began?"

Richard suspected it would be a very interesting story.

>"Uh, we could go stop traffic."

Wait, What? The idea sounded ludicrous at first, well at first. To Richards still fuzzy mind it sounded rather amusing. It had been a long day, work then show new tenant around, then walk then get fired into a tree.

"Well, why not." Said Richard partly in jest.

Derek reached out his hand.

>"You can ride along, too. It'll be like some crazy animal movie or somethin."

Derek did have a point, Richard expected that all too soon out would come the smart phones then invariably a worried park ranger or two would come by asking what was going on and if they were mistreating animals etc. The funny thing was that if the Meese well "attacked" they would have trouble convincing people that the telekinetic blast did not come from either of them. Speaking of which if the Meese "fired off a round" would Derek and Richard also achieve liftoff? He should check.

"Um, Derek, if Madam Meese..." It was always good to be polite to a animal who could both trample you to death and pick you up and fling you into a tree, with its mind. "..fires off another telekinetic blast, will we... be affected?"

>Do you have anythin' in mind? I'm up for literally anythin'"

Richard laughed. "Derek it has been quite I day, I would not mind a drink, but how about Madam Meese here? What does she want? Also is she coming home with you?"

That was something to think about. The apartment was tolerant towards mutants, but Meese? Not much was known about them.