DAY 92: The Scream in the Stratosphere

When Ashley didn't answer the phone, the phone answered itself.  "Hello?  Are you there?"
Ashley dropped the phone, blurting out an epithet.  The phone responded, "Good, you are there.  I need help from the person who got this phone to work.  Could you contact him for me?"
"Her," she said into the phone.  "I'm the one who did it."
"Thank you.  I need your help.  Please come to this address."

Professor Sunderland buzzed her into the lab.  He was a towering man with haunted eyes.  "Do it again," he said, handing her a phone.
Ashley began accessing the settings.  "Did they name my dorm after you?"
"My family.  My grandfather's work helped to develop the atomic bomb; my father's work shaped smartphones such as the one in your hand.  I am that third generation that suffers in comparison.  How long did it take you to figure out  how to fix your phone?"
"About two days.  I didn't know everybody else was having problems, I just wanted to be able to reach home."
"And where is home?"
"Mexico."  Ashley handed back the phone.  "There.  You'll be able to use it for about an hour, then wait five, then so on.  That's the best I can do until that solar storm passes."
"It's not a solar storm," Dr Sunderland said.  "It's a man-made mess that you're going to help me fix."

The professor showed Ashley his progress at the mapping workstation.  "The work is much further along than I have been comfortable sharing.  My collaborations have been very focused - myopic, I've been accused of.  But I don't know everyone's motivations, what they're capable of.  Do you know who Emerson Hu is?"
"I've heard of him, on the news.  He's been missing..."
"No, you're not in danger," Sunderland interrupted.
"You say that, and now I think I'm in danger!"
"You're going to help me find him.  Just figure out the sequence for this frequency oscillation so we can retrive it."
Ashley offered a confused look.  "Retrieve?"
"Yes.  The interference in all the satellites the past few weeks - everybody's phones and TV signals - came from this lab.  I expect to go to prison, because of it - but I'd like to clean it up first.  Help me, please."

The lab was humming.  At his workstation, Sunderland began to coordinate the power extraction for his experiment:  the attempt would extract an hour's worth of city power, even with the batteries in the lab to assist.
Ashley continued searching for the lab frequency.  "Why me?"
"Your phone works; you're halfway to solving the problem."  Sunderland walked to the generators.  "Comcast, AT&T, the research departments of a dozen nations have not figured a way around the electric clutter - but you did.  They're telling the public it's solar flaring, leaving excess particles in the Van Allen belts - because the truth would turn too great a microscope upon human activity in the ionosphere, facing unconsidered consequences.  They're not ready for that.  No one's going to fix this but us."
Ashley hit the enter key in triumph.  "Got it!"
"Are you sure?  It has to be in sequence, I can't leave anything behind!"
"Yes, I'm sure!... as sure as I can be."
Sunderland nodded, and pointed to an empty chamber, barely larger than a bathroom stall.  "Watch that room-"  He hit the switch.  The room flashed, then went dark.

"Check the room!" the professor shouted.  Ashley opened the door to the converted closet, but Sunderland is the one who burst in, and brought out the body of Emerson Hsu.  "Is your phone working, Ashley?"
Ashley checked her phone; the signal was clear.
"You may call the police now, Ashley."

Almost two hours later, the police arrived.  Ashley met them outside the lab.  Sunderland was waiting in the teleportation chamber, staring at the body of his departed friend.  He waited until the police entered, before he pushed a button and vanished.




inspired by Discover Magazine article, "Third Radiation Belt Discovered Around Earth"

DAY 74: Fantasticium

Adam was flustered to be in the swarm of superheroes and zombies, waiting forever in line.  By the time he reached Mr Blanco's table, Adam had to wipe the sweat off before he could accept a handshake.
Blanco picked up his sketchpad.  "Well, Dr Adam Hartnett, hat would you like me to draw?"
"um, Mr. Fantastic, please."
The artist chuckled.  "I haven't drawn him in a while."
"Well, I'm a chemistry professor.  He's a big deal to me."

Blanco nodded, tapping at his notepad as he pondered his first line. Adam brought out his briefcase, and produced an issue of Tales to Astonish #105.  On the cover, the Hulk growled skyward, as the rubbery arms of Reed Richards coiled around him in an atomic shape.  Blanco tilted his head, studying Reed's face, and started to draw.
Adam flipped through the pages, until he found a panel featuring the very human Dr Bruce Banner consulting Dr Richards in front of a chalkboard, cluttered by calculations.  Adam pointed to the chalkboard.  "Where did this equation come from?"
Dr Blanco looked up from his drawing.  "I don't quite remember.  I had a sister-in-law who studied chemistry; whenever I needed reference materials, I'd borrow one of her textbooks and pick something that looked important and interesting."
"Really?"
"Pretty much. I might add a couple of letters and characters, to balance out the appearance of it, make it look like it was something.  It just ended up on the page."
An abrupt laugh escaped Adam's mouth.  It stopped Blanco's pencil, and alarmed his companion.
"I'm sorry," Adam said.  "I mean no offense.  This really did look like something to me.  I studied chemistry in college, so I could figure out what this equation was."
"Oh!  I'm sorry!  I can't even bring myself to charge you for this drawing now.  When did you find out it was all mish-mash?"
Adam spoke between guffaws.  "Actually, it's not.  It's a formula for stabilizing isotopes of certain higher atomic elements.  Well, that's what it became.  It's the reason I got tenure."
He pulled out a plain metal ring.  "This metal just got added on the periodic table.  Two years ago, you couldn't find enough of it on the planet Earth to make this ring.  Now, I can give this to you as a gift - a thank you.  Oh, and I will pay the $30 for the sketch."
"Thank you, Adam," Blanco said, tearing the picture from his sketchpad.  "Did you want to get a picture?"
Adam kept his eyes on the ground as he left, while Blanco greeted his next fan.  After he found a quiet piece of hallway, Adam looked at the drawing of Mr Fantastic stretching out from the page.  Behind the superhero, Blanco had drawn a chalkboard that held the first half of the same formula out of Tales to Astonish; a comic-book version of Adam had been drawn with chalk in hand, starting the second.  Underneath, Blanco had written above his signature:  "...just ended up on the page."



inspired by Discover Magazine article, "Meet the New Element: Ununpentium"

DAY 61: The Lightsaber Contest

Dugan emptied his beer bottle and banged it on the table, calling the room to order. "Gentlemen, present arms!"

Nathan stepped forward first. He had a jerry-rigged hairdryer casing,  plugged into his battery bandolier. On the open end, a long, narrow metal loop protruded; it got jostled as he stepped forward, and he had to push it back in.  The giggling continued as he flipped the switch, but applause joined in as the metal began to glow.
"Forward!"  Wayne was next. His 'blade' rested on his shoulder as he gave a taunting stare to the judges.  He had a customized glove grip, dwarfed by the battery case below his hand. When he turned his sword on, several short electric arcs streamed within the loop, generating more excitement in the room.
It was Zoe's turn.  Hers looked the most like a sword, albeit with two epee blades in place of a single flat blade.  After doing a few flourishes, she activated her weapon; an LED center column shimmered a rainbow stream along its length.  Oohs and ahs began.

Dugan's boss, Professor Kozak, was watching a live stream from back in his office.  He typed to Dugan, "Is she one of our students?"
Dugan typed back, "I think she's a theater major, actually. But she hangs out with the engineers a lot.  I'm assured she made that herself."
"I would think so. Rather distant from your intent, isnt it?"
"It's no harm. The crowd likes her."
"Well, imagine what they'll do when they see the real deal." A moment later, he sent back "Don't mind me. If I had a sense for show biz, I'd be engineering instead of teaching."
Dugan shook his head, but sent no response.  He looked over at the judges table, where the last of the Erlymeier flasks were being spray painted.  They had awards ready for economy, design, and power. But the final category - functionality - remained unclaimed, after all these years. Dugan wasn't even a TA when he started this contest; now, it seems more likely he'd get tenure before he saw the ideal realized.

A hooded kid emerged from the crowd, holding his creation. It looked like a cybernetic cellist's bow, without string.  The stranger adjusted his grip, and a wispy green laser extended from tip to tip. From his pocket, he produced a tennis ball and began to bounce it. On the third bounce, both halves landed, with slightly singed edges.
The crowd cheered. Dugan turned to type the news to Kozak, but the professor had already typed, "CLAP CLAP CLAP."


inspired by Discover Magazine article, "Tractor Beam: Activated!"

DAY 30: Caught in the Light

August Rathbone loved June Millner as soon as he heard her name; the sight of her sealed the deal. Lucky for him, she felt the same.
For six years, they had been in love.  She didn't make it easy for him; jewelry, flowers, and chocolates were placeholders for true expressions of affection, in her opinion.  Each year, August found himself on the hunt for a precise present, something that could only be hers, never regifted or slighted.
This year's prize was to be a special pair of sunglasses: John Lennon frames, olive green lenses - the color was a common motif in June's wardrobe, so it was a safe enough bet.  When he presented them to her at their apartment, she rewarded his diligence very sweetly and very thoroughly.

One Saturday, they reached her least favorite part of a Saturday afternoon: the twenty-minute interval where the sun is low enough to pierce directly into their living room, until the orb sinks below the urban horizon.  On this particular Saturday, she decided to look at the world through peridot-colored glasses, and slipped them on.  June froze where she stood, until the sun dipped behind the skyscrapers.
That night, she didn't speak, and certainly not about what she saw.  Whenever August tried to get a word out of her, she just babblingly giggled until she embraced him into silence.
The next morning, she was relatively composed.  And when August asked about the prior day, she shrugged and said, "I don't know."  And her Sunday was like any other, until that moment of the afternoon where she returned again to the window- this time, pressing up against it, scanning as much of the city as she could, until the light faded.

On Monday, she made arrangements at work to move her lunch hour, so she could return home at the moment of alignment.  On Tuesday, she brought home a farmer's almanac, and sketchpads.
On Thursday, it rained, and rained.  By Friday, the clouds persisted, and June was getting anxious.  When August went to bed that night, he left her at the couch to flip between weather reports among the stations.

On Saturday, they were both home from work.  The rain had returned, decreeing a day in.  August was satisfied with a day in pajamas; June was inconsolable.  After some prodding, she produced her sketchbooks and offered her confession.  "I've been selfish.  If I've been reading the almanac right, today will be my last chance for the season, and then it'll just be stupid sunlight again."
August looked up from a sketch with disbelief.  "Why wouldn't you tell me?"
"If I told you, I'd have to show you... but I didn't want to give up a second of it.  I'm sorry."
There was a break in the clouds;  June jumped out of her chair, and urged him to follow.  August was three steps behind, papers in hand, when he stepped into the piercing sunlight.  He covered his eyebrows, to give his eyes shade.  He didn't see the carriages and zeppelins that June had drawn on her landscapes.  August looked at June, waiting for her explanation.  She smirked and passed him the glasses.


inspired by Discover Magazine article, "Trapping the Light Fantastic"