I Didn't Realize

Chapter 9

  "What are we doing at your nerd school?" Hiro yelled as Tadashi pulled up to the San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. "Bot Fight's that way!" Hiro pointed in the opposite direction we were going. Tadashi climbed off his moped, then Hiro, who helped me off. We walked up to the doors, and a cool blast of air conditioning slapped me in the face as Tadashi opened the door. We stepped into the sleek, grey and white building.

"I just need to pick something up," Tadashi assured his brother. "I'll only be a moment. Besides, you two have never seen my lab." Tadashi held the door open and we entered a new room.
"Oh great. I get to see your nerd lab," Hiro sighed sarcastically.
Just as we stepped in, a yellow blur whizzed past us. We both jumped back in self defense.
"Watch out!" The person cried as they zoomed past. They stopped and hung up their bright yellow and purple bike, then walked away. My gaze averted to the left, and I was soon marveling at what I saw. In a word: science. Students were experimenting will all sorts of things, trying to perfect their projects. There were robots, cats with rocket boots, and people taking notes. Hiro and I walked as we took in all of this, eventually ending up where the person had hung up their bike. We side stepped and looked at the bike, which had wheels that, to my surprise, weren't attached to the bike. Hiro ran his hand through the gap and looked at me, amazed. We both broke into wide grins, but they faded when we heard a stern voice.
"Hey!"
Hiro and I turned to see the bike rider glaring at us, helmet still on.
"Who are you two?"
Hiro began to awkwardly back away when Tadashi stepped up. I noticed Hiro was holding that derpy robot he had built.
"Gogo, this is my brother, Hiro, and this is Mae, our friend."
The rider removed their helmet to reveal a girl, probably around nineteen years old, with short, black and purple hair and steely brown eyes. She blew a pink bubble with her gum and then popped it.
"Welcome to the nerd lab," she greeted flatly. Hiro chuckled nervously and then spoke.
"I-I've never seen ElectroMag suspension on a bike before."
She twirled the pedal once, and the back wheel spun.
"Zero resistance, faster bike." She took the wheel off. "But not fast enough." She tossed away the wheel, nearly hitting my face. It landed in a bin full of other rejected wheels. "Yet."
Tadashi moved on, and we followed. Hiro and I were so engrossed with looking around that we didn't notice an experiment until a muscular, dark skinned man stopped us.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Behind the line, please." He pointed down to a yellow and black striped line, prompting Hiro and I to step back. Tadashi came up behind us and put a hand on my shoulder.
"Hey, Wasabi," he greeted. "This is my brother, Hiro, and our friend, Mae."
Wasabi lifted up the goggles he was wearing for a brief moment and smirked.
"Hello Hiro, Mae. Prepare to be amazed." He stepped behind his device and held out his hand, revealing an apple. "Catch." He tossed the apple and both Hiro and I reached out to catch it, but the apple never came. Instead, it was cut into paper thin slices. Hiro caught one and held it in his hand. I looked at it in awe.
"Whoa," I whispered. Wasabi turned a knob and thin green and blue lasers appeared between two beams. Wasabi walked over to a red tool table.
"Laser induced plasma," Hiro marveled.
"Oh yeah. With a little magnetic confinement for ultra precision."
Hiro and I looked at the table, which had outlines for every tool he owned. I picked up a magnifying glass and looked at it.
"Wow. How do you find anything in this mess?" I joked.
"Ah, ah, ah." Wasabi took the magnifying glass from my hand and put it back in its place. "I have a system: there's a place for everything, and everything's in its place."
Just then, Gogo rushed in and hastily snatched a tool off Wasabi's table, scattering everything.
"Need this!" She cried, racing off.
"You can't do that!" Wasabi yelled, chasing after her. "This is anarchy! Society has rules."
I was about to move on when I heard an odd rumbling, and was almost barreled over by a tall blonde girl rolling a large black ball.
"Excuse me! Coming through!"
We followed her into a perfect chemistry area. She leaned over the sphere and smiled at us.
"Tadashi!" She cried. She then noticed Hiro and I and climbed down. "Oh my gosh, you must be Hiro." She got close to his face, "I've heard so much about you!" She yelled. She removed her earbuds and looked at me. "And whose this?"
"This is Mae. She's an old friend of our's. How she got here... I'll tell you later."
She grabbed Hiro and I by the shoulders and led us to the large black ball. As she secured it in place, Hiro and I got a closer look at it, and determined what it was.
"That's a whole lot of Tungsten Carbide," I smiled.
"Four hundred pounds of it!" The girl squealed. "Oh, come here, come here! You're gonna love this." She grabbed Hiro and I by our wrists and dragged us to her white table, filled with different materials meant for mixing chemicals. "A dash of Perchloric Acid." She turned a knob and some green liquid traveled through a spiral tube. "A smidge of Cobalt." Another knob released a single drop of dark blue liquid. "A hint of Hydrogen Peroxide." A final knob released yellow liquid into an odd sphere, obviously meant for spraying things. "Super heated to five hundred Kelvin." Hiro and I jumped back as she used a blowtorch to heat the sphere. "And..." She picked up the sphere with an airbrush attachment and began spraying a pink mist onto the Carbide. It surrounded the sphere like a cloud until the girl slipped a switch and the cloud fused to the sphere.
"It's so... pink," Hiro sighed.
"Here's the best part!" The girl poked the sphere with her finger and the sphere exploded in a cloud of pink. She turned around and was coated in bright pink powder.
"Whoa," Hiro and I both smiled.
"I know, right?" She chuckled as she removed her glasses and brushed off the powder. "Chemical-metal embrittlement."
"Not bad, Honey Lemon," Tadashi smiled as he walked over.
"Honey Lemon?" I asked. "Gogo? Wasabi?"
"I spill Wasabi on my shirt one time, people!" Wasabi raged as he passed behind us. "One time!"
Hiro and I giggled at Wasabi's little fit.
"Fred's the one who comes up with the nicknames," Tadashi informed us.
"Whose Fred?"
"This guy!" A muffled voice called.
Hiro and I turned around and cried out. There was an odd monster like thing standing there, right in out faces.
"Uh uh, don't be alarmed. This is not my actual face and body. This is just a suit." A tall boy stuck his hand and head out of the mouth.
"The name's Fred." He stuck his arm out, and Hiro and I shook his hand, mine more cautious than Hiro's. He put his arm back in the sleeve. "School mascot by day, but by night..." He did some fancy sign tricks and the hood fell off. "...I am also the school mascot." I rolled my eyes and Hiro and I followed him to a big, plushy, red chair, where he sat down.
"So, what's your major?" I asked.
"Oh, no. I'm not a student. But I am a major science enthusiast. I've been trying to get Honey to develop a formula that can turn me into a fire-breathing lizard at will. But she says that's 'not science.'"
"It's really not," Honey Lemon sighed as she made her way over to us.
"Yeah. And I guess the shrink ray I asked Wasabi for isn't science either."
"Nope." Wasabi and Gogo had come over now.
"Okay, how about an invisible sandwich?"
"Hiro, Mae."
Hiro and I turned around to see Tadashi gesture for us to follow him. We did so, leaving the group behind.