For Science!

Dr. Gabriel Barroughs sat in a chair in the center of a small metal room, his shirt unbuttoned, a number of sensors attached to his chest. The sensors were not uncomfortable; the calculating gaze of Dr. Taliesin Ellison was another matter. Ellison was known to the worlds as Blackout, thanks to an incident with a Dyson sphere in their youth, the first of many steps towards his current status as "an enemy of the peoples." The name suited him, Barroughs thought, with his black eyes, black wardrobe, and black hair – now peppered with gray, Barroughs saw. Their youths spent, would they now spend their middle and waning years still locked in conflict?

Ellison continued his slow pacing circuit around Barroughs. "I saw the vid, of course," Ellison was saying. "Absolutely magnificent. Beautiful. I had no idea you were capable of such destruction."

"I wasn’t," Barroughs grumbled. "Until the nanotech." He cast his eyes anywhere but at Ellison. The room they were in was cramped, as a secret lair on an asteroid would have to be, , all metal and concrete. Three other people watched computer monitors, studying Barroughs’ vital signs, analyzing reports, and probably surreptitiously enjoying listening to what would almost certainly turn into a classic Blackout monologue. The only sound other than their conversation, and the occasional squeak of a chair moving, was the steady rhythm of Barroughs’ own heartbeat, thudding out of tinny computer speakers. The monitors showed his pulse, blood pressure, breathing rate and neural activity...