7714S groaned and covered his ears with his pillow, trying to stifle out the berating sounds of the saw piercing his eardrums and refusing to give him sleep. The technicians in the lab next door were in the process of cutting away the metal and glass preventing them from gaining full access to the girl in the stasis tube. The squeal of metal against metal was jarring, so when the reprieve of silence filled the air 7714S would try to force his brain to shut down, only to be woken up again a few minutes later to the high-pitched screaming of the saw.
He gave up on getting some shut-eye when he looked at his clock and saw that he only had an hour before his shift started, dreading the damage he would have to clean up when he started. His first week had passed in a blur and the Head hadn’t asked him to complete any tasks not relating to cleaning solutions so he hoped her words of scientific inquiries weren’t a lie meant to lure him into a secluded life of cleaning. He didn’t miss going into town, but he was starting to get a little stir-crazy not being able to look up and see an open space rather than the pasty grey ceilings decorating the lab and his living quarters. To distract him from letting claustrophobia overtake him, he started a journal documenting observations and hypothesis regarding the girl in the tube.
The observations didn’t change much from day to day, but he’d drawn pictures of the girl since he couldn’t physically measure how much of her he could see. Looking back to his first drawing, he noticed that there was a subtle change--he could see a few more millimeters of her face. He made a note of that in his journal and concluded that it was either an error on his part or the black crystal was retracting at a very slow pace. In a week’s time, he’d be able to draw a more solid deduction.
He shoveled some food in his face and got his supplies ready, relieved when the sound of buzzing died down and the air was still. At least they had the courtesy of leaving the room and not continuing their work while he cleaned up after them. Steeling himself for the amount of work that awaited him, he opened the door.
What caught him by surprise was the lack of utter destruction he assumed had occurred by the hours of sawing he’d heard. In fact, besides the pile of scrap metal near the tube, there was very little to scour down. Approaching the pile, he realized that the majority of it was warped blades from the saw. Examining one, he saw that the teeth were completely worn down and the blade itself had been bent near the edges, making it unusable. There were easily fifteen blades in that pile, all deformed in some way or another.
The stasis tube looked no better. All the metal and glass that wasn’t covered by the black crystals was torn away crudely, leaving sharp bits of metal poking out in all directions, a future injury waiting to happen. But the girl’s face was now exposed to open air and 7714S could see her without that pane of glass in the way. He quickly got out his journal and sketched out an image, then shuffled through some drawers until he found a measuring stick and awkwardly took the exact units of her face that were uncovered by the rock. Now that there were actual measurements involved he would know for sure if the crystals were retreating or if it was him grasping at imaginary straws. A set of knuckles rapped on a table behind him and he shoved his journal in his pocket and whipped around.
“Didn’t want to startle you again but I see I failed. You’ve become absolutely smitten with our specimen.” The Head said with a coy smile. “I think you may a little too old for her. Should I be concerned?”
7714S cracked a smile and relaxed when the Head hadn’t seen his journal.
“I take it this isn’t a social visit?” he responded.
“Afraid not. I do believe I have a task for you, aside from cleaning up after the teams. I am aware that these walls aren’t the thickest and by the bags under your eyes, the excursion the teams had today have kept you from sleeping. I would like you to undertake the task of discovering how to get rid of the crystals.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to get one of the teams to take care of it? I don’t think I’ll be much help on that aspect. Plus I’m only one person, a team would find a solution faster than I would.” he countered. He wanted to punch himself as soon as the words escaped his mouth--he was getting offered a portion of this scientific undertaking and he was letting his logical brain take over. Why didn’t he just say yes?
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“You see, two teams have tried to get rid of the crystals with brute force and have gotten incredibly frustrated with the project. Keep in mind these teams have always gotten immediate results in whatever they do, so this has thrown them off their game, and when they’re discovering something groundbreaking I don’t want them to be broken. Bringing in another team will increase the chances of this leaking, and that’s not something I’m willing to take yet. This will also allow you to sleep in silence as you’ll be the one making the noise. You will be granted full access to the lab, of course, and have an extra hour to do what you need to.”
“What will the teams do while I figure this out? Don’t they need to take samples or something?”
“Relax, you are not racing against time. They will be taking tissue and blood samples from what they can currently access, but with more area, they can take more samples and discover just what is so special about this girl that caused so many deaths. Please submit a report by the end of the week regarding your findings. If you need more equipment or time, please contact me and I will make it happen. If you do need a team of people, that will be more difficult to do.” The Head took a breath and looked into 7714S' eyes. “I am still waiting on your answer.”
“Yes, of course, yes,” 7714S stated, glad he hadn’t destroyed his chances for jumping on the project with his concerns.
“Great, you start immediately.”
With that, the Head strolled out of the room, leaving 7714S alone. When he was sure she was out of earshot he jumped up and down and fist-pumped the air, whisper-screaming from joy. Finally! He was finally going to play around with state-of-the-art equipment and do something more productive than play with the chemicals in his janitorial kit. He gingerly carried the scrap metal to the incinerator in the back and loaded it all in and waited until everything had melted and cooled into cubes, then carried that to the shelf with metal used to make quick casts of equipment. Once he’d given everything a quick wipe down he packed away his supplies and stood in front of the remains of the stasis tube, wondering where to start.
Brute force was going to do nothing but agitate him, so that was already off his list of possible solutions. He placed his hand on a flat area of the crystal and felt the cool exterior. It looked like obsidian but had the jagged surface texture of quartz clusters and was completely opaque. Even though he had no idea what the material was actually made of, 7714S reasoned that the portable laser cutter meant for slicing apart Wurtzite Boron Nitride, the hardest known material, then it would be able to cut through these odd crystals. If that was the case, then had the other scientists already tried it and failed? 7714S wished he’d asked more questions so he wouldn’t be grinding his gears like the others before him.
Shrugging his shoulders he found the laser cutter and brought it over, sweating a bit from carrying the large mechanism. He adjusted the temperature accordingly, positioned it above a certain crystal that was jutting out more than the others, and started the process. Normally it would take about two hours to cut a square inch of the strongest material in the world, so he guessed it would probably take at least ten minutes to at least show some progress in cutting the odd mineral. If he was lucky his first attempt would go swimmingly and, although it would be an incredibly laborious project getting rid of the entire body of the crystal, he would prove his worth to the Head and maybe get a promotion to a team. But when he waited twenty minutes and there wasn’t even the slightest indication of the strange rock wearing down he gave up.
Finding a heat gun he noted that the temperature of the rock at the laser’s point of impact, which was surprisingly no different from the temperature of the rest of mass, a constant 294ºK at every point he measured. So from his experiment, he managed to conclude that this odd rock was now in first place for the strongest material discovered and that it remained the same temperature even when exposed to temperatures of over 2273ºK of concentrated light. What exactly had he agreed to?
With the easiest solution not being the functional one, he wandered around the stasis tube, feeling around for any cracks or weakness in the crystal, forgetting about the sharp pieces of metal that surrounded the edges of the tube until he accidentally opened up a considerably large wound on his hand. Cursing at himself for the stupid mistake he rushed to the first aid station before he made a huge mess. He still had an hour left so he didn’t have to worry about scientists entering and finding a huge pool of blood. He carefully wrapped his wounded hand and turned back to the tube to figure out what his next step was. The first aid kits dropped to the floor and its contents were scattered in all directions. 7714S didn’t care, in fact, the mess he’d created was the farthest thing from his mind.
The girl’s exposed eye had fluttered open and was staring at him.