More survivalists, police and military training materials (some of these note that calling someone a mad scientist can be undesirably escalatory, though it is ironic how they then set out to prove it true), forum threads full of unworkable and/or joke ideas, coverage of some legal cases…

Okay, she's not sure what she expected there. Like, it could have been worse, but still not overly helpful.

Hmm. Specific questions get more specific answers. "Magical mineral safety precautions"?  (ie, now that Mineral Guy and his collection is gone, does she still have to worry? )

Advice on what kind of minerals are bad for you and you should definitely handle them with care or not at all, regardless of purported healing and spiritual properties! Some are skeptical concerned geologists, some are pastel clouds and sparkles.

An article about a superhero that got her powers from a ritual involving the precise arrangement of stone cylinders in a diagram, which came to her in a dream. Attempts to replicate the ritual have failed spectacularly.

Yeah, that super was probably just latent (and self justifying.)

"Safety for non-mad scientists dealing with mad science"?

There is, of course, lots of instruction to immediately call your local emergency services and let the first responders deal with it. Some of the further information makes it pretty clear that the leftover dust should have been cleaned out of the affected apartments, per health and safety standards such-and-such, and she should probably call the following office and they will arrange cleanup and further evaluation.

A few pages try to lay out guidelines about actually (not) touching the stuff, and provide classifications and evaluation heuristics, but they all caution that any given situation or artifact may be completely unpredictable. One of the more well-organized sites also mentions the authors will take inquiries.

There are some articles about what it's like to be employed by a mad scientist, either memoirs of those who did and survived or cautions aimed at the desperate jobseeker. (It's often insisted that “mad scientist” is a misleading misnomer, but nobody can agree on what term, euphemism, or finer classification should be used instead.)

Ah. Okay. So cleaning should have happened. And didn't. (Her estimation of the Landlord That Actually Does Things has gone way down.)

AAAAAARRGGHHH.

Okay, she'll call the number for remediation. Let them sort it out. (And restrain herself from panic-vacuuming, because that will probably make things worse.)

“Office of Metamatters; may I have your name, please?”

"Louie Manfredi. There's been an issue with some-- unusual mineral dust that's not been remediated."

They take the address and confirm that this is not an emergency, then ask for more details.

"Stimulant effects. Also, humming, but that might be a different rock."

Keyboard noises. “All right, and where are you seeing the dust?”

"It's not really visible as such, but it's definitely around." She gestures around the room, and then remembers she's on the phone and the other peson can't see that. "Near the vents. The effects are pretty hard to miss."

"This is an apartment building, I see — you are a tenant?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

“All right, we'll send someone to check it out — will you be available to get access to the apartment in the next hour?”

Like she's going to leave and delay this getting dealt with. Hahaha no. "Yep, I'll be here."

“Please do leave the area if you notice any effects at all —” She is interrupted by a faintly audible notification bleep.

“— more than you said, but you won't have to wait long because it looks like we'll be sending over Flashlight, from the Aetherians, right away to take a look, all right?”

"No worries, thank you so much for your help." Hooray, help is on the way! Presumably competent help! (She's not an expert, but this seems like something close to Flashlight's wheelhouse? And she'll take 'close to' today, thank you very much.)

“It's what we're here for. Now in the meantime can you tell us…” a bunch of questions about how she knows it's mineral dust and what happened before and so on.

Brief recap of the situation! ...where she focuses less on the 'things got weird and I googled it', and much more on the 'and the Landlord looked at the situation, and lo, there were freaky rocks.'

They don't seem to care for ‘brief’ and have more questions.

Shortly after the conversation actually ends, there's a knock on her door. (Apparently they didn't have to call her from the lobby to enter the building.)

Guess Flashlight has an.. all access pass. Or lock picking abilities. Or something.

She answers the door. "Hello, are you here about the dust?"

The chipper superhero on the other side of the door says, “Yep! You're Louie Manfredi?”

Up close, his costume's pattern of cartoon flashlight-beam cones overlapping to form a variety of colors is a lot more rainbow than it ever looks at a distance or on TV. Perhaps it's a well-engineered compromise between striking looks and camouflage.

Yep, that's very rainbow. It's almost like a dazzle pattern-- which probably isn't too bad of an idea.

Anyway, fake-chipper interacting with people smile on! No need to make this more awkward, or look grumpy or suspicious or whatever. "That's me." She opens the door further and waves him.

He steps into the apartment in a professionally confident manner and glances around while pulling a few gadgets, some even flashlight-shaped, from his utility belt.

“Could you point out where you saw a lot of it?”

"The area near the vents got the worst of it." And she leads him to the nearest vent.

Flashlight examines the area near the vents, moving gently and precisely to avoid disturbing the dust, then turns on one of his more conventional-flashlight-shaped gadgets (or that's what his manner suggests he did, but it isn't emitting any visible light) and points it at the dust.

Nothing happens.

He adjusts some controls on the side and eventually the device does show some manner of beam, which makes everything it's aimed at light up with an intense violet glow. He fiddles some more and eventually, after going through a few rainbows, the dust is bright violet and the floor and wall are moderately orange. Stepping back, he pushes a button on the pseudo-flashlight and pulls out another device with a handle like brass knuckles but a lens on the business end.

He fits it onto his hand, points it at some of the dust, twitches a finger on some control, and slowly pulls back. The dust moves with his hand, frozen midair in the shape it was lying on the floor and wall, and the other device shows only orange where it was. Faintly relaxing, he puts the dust back down and says, presumably to some communication device, “Got the dust identified; uploaded the signature. Subtle, but no tricks.”

He pulls a bag with a fitting on one end out of another belt compartment, puts it sideways onto the telekinetic knuckle gadget, and does something to pull the dust down the cone of the beam and neatly into the bag. He uses it to clean the area around and under his feet, then asks her, “With your permission, I'll clean the rest of your apartment?”

...Let's hope that 'bright orange' is the colour carpet is meant to be under... whatever light that was. Presumably it is?

It is kinda weird watching someone Science(!) her living space, and the fact that he seemed slight worried at first is a little alarming, but hey, at least the dust is going away.

"Please, do so. I don't want this hanging around if can be avoided."

(The orange glow is only where he's pointing his gadget. The carpet and wall return to their more familiar beige-or-whatever and off-white when the beam moves on.)

He proceeds through her apartment carefully and thoroughly, moving things aside just enough to collect any dust that might have been under them, and checking with her before actually opening her closet and dresser and such possibly private spaces.

Through the walls she can faintly hear an unfamiliar tone of voice in the neighbor's apartment, and the sound of many footsteps past her door — perhaps everyone else is getting visits too.

She follows him at a polite distance, and gives him permission to rummage as needed.

It's probably for the best her neighbours are getting checked. They might not thank her now, but she can bask in the self righteous glow of helping stop them from breathing eldritch dust.

In half an hour he's finished, double-checked, and tied off the collection bag.

“All done! Thank you for the report and your patience!”

"No worries, and thanks so much for your help."

And gently shuffling him out the door.

Shortly after the door is shut she can overhear what is probably his voice talking to the occupant next door. Besides that, there is still an unusually high background of people-doing-things-or-talking noise.

But she, at least, can put this behind her. What will she do now?

Back to the google. She was thinking about looking up more proactive means of protection, how to stop this from happening again so she didn't have to bring these guys into her apartment again--

But keywords are hard.

And Flashlight used some terms she didn't recognise, that might be useful to know? She searches for "subtle science meaning".

These terms do not appear to have a specialized meaning together beyond the ordinary English ones. A few authors use it in a poetic-language sort of way, and they don't particularly agree with each other.

Huh. Guess it might just be some specialised jargon that hasn't floated out onto the internet then.

She taps her fingers against her cheek.

You know what? She's going to check out the police training manuals (or what non-redacted bits of them exist online.) They seem the least wicky-wacky, and might come in handy in case of future neighborly mad science.

Police training manuals vary a lot! From context, it appears to be mainly due to what kinds of things the local [insert approved euphemism here] get up to and what the particular police force's relationship to available local experts is. When authors have attempted to generalize these, the results are unhelpfully legalistic or wishy-washy.

There is a general tendency to recommend not touching anything (but if you have touched anything, not to panic), and to avoid making assumptions about what some object is or what someone's goal actually is (but understanding borne of repeated practical experience, should you be so unlucky, can be valuable).

Okay, yeah, she probably should've expected any general advice to be less than useful. Not that "don't touch anything, make no assumptions" isn't useful, it's just not a thing she needed to be told.

...what safety advice do mad scientists give other mad scientists (and can she google this without getting on a watchlist)? They're mad scientists, so their safety advice has a good chance of being nonsensical, but if anyone would know the specifics--