[Plot Thread 3.3] Divine Right "The Nature of Things"

[Nina]

Spoiler

The Following Story Thread begins following "Stars int he Water"

 

The wind rustled through the corn stalks and the hot sun above beat down on Deezy’s shoulders and uncovered head, sweat dripped from her brow and made her glasses slip down her nose. It was hot and dusty, and she was thirsty. 

What?  

Deezy stopped. What was she doing in a corn field? She turned around and around then stopped again, this wasn’t a corn field silly, these were soybeans.

“Hey Deezy! Come over here I need you to look at this engine, It ain’t right.”

The voice startled her, she spun again and the field was gone she was at her dads repair shop but it wasn’t her dad calling her it was Uncle Kevin. There he was in blue jeans, cowboy boots, and a denim shirt hair tousled but still stylish a bit of stubble on his cheeks and chin that the girls, the ones half his age that he preferred, seemed to find oh so sexy. 

Ewww!

He was head and shoulders under the hood of a 1957 Ford F100 pickup truck that was red, black , and gray. It looked brand new.

Deezy walked up and climbed up beside her uncle who glanced at her with his crazy grin, “Now what do you make of that?”

She looked at the engine and tilted her head puzzled. It was her engine the one she had designed and had won her admission to MIT. She tilted her head the other way like a puppy that was confused. It was her engine, and it wasn’t. Things were the wrong size or seemed to be attached backwards but still it looked right. But it looked wrong. It looked both at the same time.

“Dorothy Zane! Get away from there before you get your dress all ruined!”

The shock of hearing her mothers voice, strong and powerful startled her awake.

Deezy sat up in bed she was drenched in sweat the dream vivid in her mind. She glanced at the softly glowing clock face built flush into the bed frame extension by her head. 

4:18 AM

She did not  even remember going to bed or falling asleep. But then last seventy-two hours had been taxing to say the least.

 

48Hrs ago…

Deezy walked rapidly through the shining hallways, passing Novastorm associates and interns she barely acknowledged. Her mind was, like always, going a mile a minute, in her head she had already mapped out at least three ways to id Dominic, then she briefly wondered about the essence of the Hallways, what made them hallways and not corridors?

She stopped at the door to her research lab and swiped her card as she blew toward the Breath Analyzer sensor. For really secure areas on Campus, they had Breath Identity Analyzers which were much more difficult to spoof than the more mundane retinal scanners that were once the pinnacle of security. The door recognized her and whooshed open sounding just like a door on the starship enterprise. That brought a smile to her face.

The lab was  a huge multi story affair housing just about every scientific apparatus that money could lease or buy. What hadn’t been available on the market Deezy built herself with what some termed her stormer magic.

She paused just inside the door, breathed, and took it all in. The perfect chaotic bustle of machines and computer. And People. 

 

There was half a dozen handpicked assistants, scientists, and engineers, working on various projects throughout the lab. All of them were older than Deezy, all of them had multiple degrees, Deezy still had none. And each and everyone of them could call the title of doctor or professor, theirs. All except Deezy. But none of them were as smart as she was, none of them could do what she could do. None of them had been changed by the Storm

 

Doctor Barry Bryant, thirty-eight, balding with glasses, stood a little over five and a half feet tall and looked like the epitome of geekdom. He even had a pocket protector and half dozen color coded pens in it. In any other lab in the US maybe the world, Barry would have been the smartest person. But not here. And that bugged him not one bit. In the parlance of today, Barry had a major crush on his boss.

Barry grabbed a data tablet off the counter he was standing by when he saw Deezy come into the lab and made a beeline straight toward her.

“Hey Deezy,” he said giving her a wave with the tablet, “With all the hush hush, I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”

 

[SalmonMax]

"Yeah that was not the plan," Deezy admitted with a sigh. "It was a real comedy of errors down there...but not totally pointless! The environment suit design held up really well, and we have a small HEAP of stuff for the cultural historical team to start chewing on...once we staff the cultural historical team. Also, related note...we need a cultural historical team."

 

She eyed the tablet quizzically, then asked, "What did I miss back home while I was paddling around overseas?"

Edited January 31, 2021 by SalmonMax

[Nina]

Barry grinned at his boss, "Just the usual, except," he grabbed up another pad and handed it to her, " exactly eleven hours ago, those three experiments*, stopped." Deezy traded pads, "Stopped," she asked, as she opened them and scrolled through the data?

 

"Yes, ceased to function. Froze. Stopped receiving commands or data and didn't create or send any data. Then three and half hours ago they started up again. Exactly as if they hadn't stopped. just a gap in the data to show the anomaly."

 

*

Spoiler

All are in various testing phases with automatic testing underway on certain components and stuff. but all have physical testing that was ongoing.

Project 1: A device that can detect 'nova radiation'...probably looks like a waist-sized, arm-thick loop of metal housing. Part of the housing is missing, revealing tightly packed coils underneath. It's basically a tiny, tiny particle accelerator that's attempting to detect nova radiation by its effect on other, more easily detectable radiation fields.

Project 2: An 'exploded' model of an advanced rocket engine that she's designing to allow payloads to be sent into orbit. A hybrid ramjet/rocket that uses air for reaction mass until it gets too thin, then switches to a more conventional fuel mix for the final burn to orbit.

Project 3: A radially symmetric six-legged, six-armed robot built with a sort of hexagonal body plan, quite squat in profile, with grippers on the feet and manipulative 'fingers' on each arm. The model in her office is about as big as a manhole cover at its base, and narrows in thickness towards the top.

 

Spoiler

The times work out to the groups loss of consciousness at the blast in the caves and the period when you woke up.

 

[SalmonMax]

Deezy's eyes narrowed a little as her concentration narrowed. The timing was obvious, what wasn't obvious was...why? Clearly it corresponded to the period of time she'd been either unconscious or in captivity of the 'utopians.' The experiments also all had a unifying factor - She'd used her powers to create at least parts of each one of the prototypes currently under testing. That shouldn't matter though...the material she created was stable. Wasn't it?

 

She tapped the pad thoughtfully, then said, "Do we have anyone qualified to give me a sedative in right now? I want to check something."

 

Barry's face got that 'concerned' look it sometimes got, like it did anytime 'minimum safe distances' came up in casual conversations. "Uh...maybe. Why?"

 

"I wanna see if we can replicate the conditions that caused the stoppage," Deezy explained patiently. "Also, we may need to try multiple different ones, because I have no idea what they gave me! Also...we may need to experiment with other possibilities. Power nullification...some kind of shielding that can block the particles maybe..."

 

She started walking as she talked, heading to her lab to collect the nova-radiation detector...one of the smaller prototypes, and therefore more portable. Barry had to hurry to keep up.

 

"Also, need to find out if they stopped working because the pieces disappeared, or if some material property changed, or what," Deezy went on, then looked at Barry and grinned. "Feel like doing surgery on a particle accelerator today?"

[Nina]

Deezy ran tests, had tests run on her, and even invented some new tests to run. All with varying results and none pertaining to the mystery at hand.

Deezy was baffled. 

 

None of the machinery involved was broken and none of the parts she had created were missing. And all of them were doing what they were supposed to be doing as if nothing had interrupted them.

 

Interrupted  them. Nothing had interrupted them.

 

There was the flash, the shocked look on everyone’s face as Cassie blew open the blockage, none of them had a chance to say a word before the back-blast hit them. The concussion had been amplified by the fact that they were underwater, and most of them could not withstand such pressure. But Emily could and did and she acted creating a hardened bubble of water to protect her friends from the blast and the following collapse of the tunnel. Then the world went white.

 

The memory was plain as day, the blast hadn't knocked them out something after had...

 

Spoiler

now ye can make a roll this will be intellect + enigmas

 

 

 

 

[SalmonMax]

Once the data was collected and she was sure, Deezy sat back, thinking.

 

"Well," she said at last. "I suppose that means I should be a little bit careful relying too much on stuff I create. It must still be at least partially entangled with me. I wonder if that changes over time. I'll have to do some tests."

 

Then her eyes focused on Barry. "Something under the ocean in Egypt actively interfered with my powers. Some kind of...energy pulse, I think. This is kind of a big deal. It wasn't just me losing consciousness...which is good news. But it does mean there may be an anti-Stormer weapon out there, and those Utopia nutcases are probably the first ones that'll get a crack at it...and THAT is bad."

 

She stood up, already racing ahead mentally. "We need to replicate the effect. Develop countermeasures. Also develop the tech...devices that can nullify Stormer powers temporarily could help bring rogue elements under control. We can start with the Stormer detection tech... Barry, we're going to need...two, maybe three labs. And a vending machine! And the eighties montage music playlist!"