"A what space hole?" Jacques asked.

"A portal, Jacques," Glen groaned. "Sorry, zhis guy's an idiot." He smiled at the mention of a game of cards.
"Oh, vhat game did you haff in mind, Rémi?" The grin grew, toothier and toothier in appearance. "Is zhe idiot over here going to join in?"

Jacques pursed his lips at that comment. "I'm not the card player in the family," he said simply. "Besides, I want to watch this gun get made."

"If this thing works," he started putting emphasis on the 'if', "this gun will be able to create quantum space hole.  This means we'd be able to travel large distances with just a single step, and with some sharp shooting, keep our enemy at a comfortable distance."  He adjusted his goggles.  The gun was made up of hundreds of tiny parts - each filed and carefully fitted into place.  In the centre there was a perfect cube of Australium. 

He was a genius, no denying that, but a lot of the procedure was guess-work.  Aperture had two decades and a team of skilled scientists to perfect the device.  This was his very first attempt.  At best, it would be inelegant.  At worst, the quantum particles would overheat and burn at the temperature of the sun, but that was unlikely. 

Rémi felt awkward just standing around watching the Engineer work.  "How about we go play some cards or something?"

Dale, being the only American in the group had heard of Aperture Science.  Well, that was probably a little too much credit.  He couldn't tell you a thing about the actual work they did, but he knew of the charismatic owner, and of the company's scandals.  "Isn't that the place where all those astronauts died?" He said with a laugh.

"I thought they went bankrupt." Rémi added.

"Not yet," the Engineer said, looking up from his work for just a second.  "You all read Machines 'n' Things?" A beat.  "No, of course not.  Anyway, they reckon Aperture will close shop before year's end.  The company is selling off all their assets cheap.  I'm just fiddlin' around with one of their designs."

"I'm going home eventually." Ai said softly. "No matter what happens, it'll end there. Somehow." Whether she fought her way into the council, or she and her sister finally killed each other. "I just want to make sure I have as little opposition as possible, and enough skill under my belt to justify stealing the seat from Ismene."

Maybe she could go to Altaire. There was probably a lot to learn there, as there had been everywhere else. "I'm going to wish you a preemptive luck in whatever you and Lie do."

"Claine's character?" West asked.  Other than the three of them at the table there were no other characters belonging to Claine.  Sure, there were some years ago but her list of active characters got shorter and shorter until only the three of them remained.  Occasionally another one would pop up for a short attempt at RP, but they too would never last.  If it wasn't himself, and wasn't Tsane, there was only one more possibility.  West's gaze turned to Nero.

Nero raised his hands in defence.  "It's not me."

"Of course, not," West agreed with a flat voice.  "How unlike you to do any work."  And in something to do with holocaust survivors? That was not a suitable RP for Nero.

"Actually, I've heard of a new character," Tsane said.

"Oh please, he won't last." West used 'he' with confidence.  If there was another standard among Claine's characters, that was it.  "And why haven't we met him?"

"I hear his RP is doing very well," Tsane replied.  "Why we haven't met him, I don't know."  He recalled Ai's comment.  "Maybe he's 'screwed up.'  It could be good that we haven't met him."

"Please, I don't think anything written by Claine is capable of scaring me."

"Anyway," Tsane said changing the topic.  "Your character sounds pretty good Ai.  Red hair is fine.  How about yours, Ismene?"