The dark-haired girl relaxed when she saw him, illuminating with a gentle glow wholly absent before. In a corporate institute that often felt very strange to her, Doctor Michele Chauncey was her one constant support. While frequently absent-minded, he seemed to be fascinated with the odd crystals that had enabled her to survive the accident that had ended her family's lives and the powers they seemed to have granted her. Still he was mindful of her needs and rarely refused her more reasonable requests without an explanation. Iris - Elaine - knew that he [i]saw[/i] her, and for that reason rarely drew him up short when he grew so rapt in his work that he called her by her project name. In truth, she rarely thought of herself as Elaine these days. It was easier to be Iris, here.

Riding into the test chamber on a wave of Dr Chauncey's impassioned rambling, Iris smiled and nodded at the appropriate moments and sat on her usual seat. There she ran her fingers through her hair, parting it at the centre and exposing the ebon crystal where it protruded from the crown of her head. Given the choice she always swept up her air to conceal it from view and the Doctor had helped her with a thin electrum cap that helped to keep her powers from surging uncontrollably outside of a safe environment. At his nod, she removed it and set it aside and felt at once the dark energies seeping into the crystal network running through her body. 

"Alright my dear, we're going to start our experiments today with what we looked at on Friday," he began. Chauncey was always very careful to explain to her well in advance what he planned to do, linking it carefully to what they had done before so that she could make the appropriate connections. She noticed with a small mental sigh that he had the cameras set up to record again. That meant this was a demonstration for Doctor Chauncey's bosses. She had to be on her best behaviour today to help him justify continuing to help her, he had explained, which meant that this would likely be a full session of testing and that she wouldn't have a chance to ask about the strange tablet in her breakfast. Maybe she could convince him to stay and talk once the testing was done? Wait, what was that? Oh yes, he was finally getting to this session's new business so the girl listened intently

"So today we will begin with this apple," he pointed. "Open a portal, as thin as you can, reach through and take it in your hand. Hold it there while I perform some measurements, but be sure to tell me if it begins to hurt. Do you understand, Iris?"

"Yes Doctor," she nodded and her grey eyes unfocused. Doctor Chauncey had a theory about darkspace, that it grew progressively more dangerous the deeper through it the portal's pathway went. To that end he had been trying to help her visualise a pathway limited to the theoretically safer higher frequencies and it was this that she did now; clutching at the dark energies as they flowed from her chakra to the faceted chips embedded in her fingertips. Then she [i]reached[/i] into the stitches that underpinned the lab - sending his instruments screaming - and tore open a gossamer-edged ring of nothing as well as its twin above the good Doctor's fruit bowl. 

Stretching out an arm, she reached through the black before her and watched as her hand reappeared ten feet away to grab the firm green apple between the pears without hesitation. She patiently watched as the Doctor measured the lengths of her arm, poked some kind of syringe into the void and waved a glowing scanning device all around her and the fruit. It didn't feel like much of her was exposed to darkspace. That thin band of skin was bitterly cold, but it was going numb. Not sore. That was okay, right?