Tim and Steve so utterly fixated on their project that neither noticed when Ellie and Hemlock entered the lab. Each of their arms leadened with wooden boxes stuffed to bursting with dormant nexiis from the FPA’s general armory.
Only when Hemlock relieved herself of her burden with a tremendous THUMP did Tim nearly chuck his soldering iron at them like a non-aerodynamic kunai.
Though his higher order cortices caught that ingrained reflex in time to avert a friendly fire calamity, they weren’t quite fast or adroit enough to save the nearby book pillars from his startled tail swipe.
“Sorry,” Ellie said reflexively.
“Thanks,” Tim answered, reassembling the pile right there on the floor then turning back to his instruments.
“So what've you got for us?” Ellie asked, wiping the sweat from her brow with one hand while rubbing her aching shoulder with the other.
With a prodding nudge from Steve, Tim stood and offered her his stool. She dropped onto it gratefully without any hesitation.
“I’ll show you,” he said.
Talented and intellectual though Tim may have been, his one failing, well known to all, was his propensity and eagerness to play his own horn at any and every opportunity.
Under Steve’s expert supervision he explained how he had carefully isolated Tom's unique spectral energy signature to relay it to a special device he had built called an “ana-spectrometer”.
Ellie gave her best contemplative effort trying to decipher its strange combination of elements and shapes. The technical extent of her ogling was to observe how the genius composition of brass, copper and crystal looked like a gallows tree engaged in some extremely scandalous activity with a diving bell.
Sensing a chance to exposit, the Marsupial wasted no time diving straight into a complex scientific lecture. One which Steve tried and failed to foil by driving his ridged cap into Tim’s dense trapezius cluster.
“Basically,” the bulky engineer said, seemingly oblivious, “once this baby’s dialed in we can isolate the animating wavelengths in this vessel and reflect them off the Abyss.”
Tim twitched his nose at his disembodied partner, who made an inarticulate sound that was his airless equivalent to a sigh then added, “in theory. There are just a few more minor variables we need to account for.”
Tim bent over his tools again but kept up a consistent recital stream.
“There is a kind of three-dimensional grid that encompasses all of existence. The energy within the grid bundles itself into tiny packets of matter we call particles. Every particle is a tiny wrinkle in this cosmic fabric. Each has its own unique signature and properties.”
“Like folds in cloth,” Hemlock said while massaging her temples. Not unlike an exacerbated parent culminating dialogue with a prodding child.
Tim turned and regarded her with a mixture of surprise and deflated irritation.
“More like a stack of crinkled parchment. But, in essence, you’re correct,” he said in like monotone. He continued to tinker as he talked. “Some ‘scholars’ refer to this pervasive natural structure as ‘Aura’ or ‘Wild Magick’.”
An irreverent snort punctuated the term.
“It’s a kind of microcosmic orchestra if you like. Precisely how or where it originated is unknown. What is clear is that conscious manipulation of its folds, though evidently possible, requires a thorough knowledge of the precise order and frequency of its chaotic tendencies. Striking them as lyre strings. Breaking their exponential bubble and quenching it into a single line of reality. Transforming the merely possible into the probable and then into the actual through pure will.”
Somehow, as though by an effort of cosmic local narrative trying to reassert itself, the question of what any of this had to do with their current object floated through their abstract reaches.
Tim paused, collected himself, then he jabbed a finger at the stack of abused tomes.
“Needless to say, having the knowledge and skill to conduct such an ensemble would be to have the proverbial White Wand buried in your somatic neural layers.”
Where he’d been meaning to go with this was lost. The moment of clarity again was shrouded by intellectual stimuli.
Though her Pyratical bent prejudiced her the opposite way, having met, and to her undying shame bedded, a few Macropods in her time, Hemlock saw why Tim was made a pariah.
Put simply, if Tim’s mind were a razor, his species’ average would be a down pillow. His notion of surprise involved systematically restructuring the classroom order of theoretical mathematics. Theirs was punching with the left fist instead of the right.
His body and voice trailed off. His hands fell to his lap. Steve having to take and replace the soldering iron with his teeth. His mouth kept putting out words, but they were directed out the window at the pre-dawn cloud cover. Moreover, they carried on their air a wistful, almost pining, pattern commonly associated with the likes of some young poet in plight for his extra-relegate sweetheart.
Not that Tim would ever stoop to such primitive constraints, obviously.
“To see the cosmic tapestry laid bare,” he sighed. “To see and then to strike a single fulcrum in the matrix of Life with exactly the right percussion to achieve a chosen result. The sheer amount of study and discipline required would melt the mind of all but one in about ten or twenty billion.”
Ellie and Hemlock each sat in vegetative fog of their own. They didn’t need to look at the other to know they were thinking that Tim was just stringing made up words together at this point. Of course they knew that probably wasn’t the case. Which was why they kept their opinions private.
“Like a book of sheet music,” Steve broke in. “Only a million million times more complicated.”
‘What the saard ISN”T with you?’ Hemlock thought through the seismic pressure headache she always got whenever Tim got onto talking about anything science related in her presence.
If she’d thought she would be saved from further monologuing when Crow suddenly popped in she was sorely mistaken. He took a silent seat opposite Ellie and settled in for the oncoming storm.
And come it did.
Though he was too smart and well-traveled not to believe in practical arcana, Tim had never accepted the concept of “magick”.
“Pathetic pseudointellectual garbage,” he called it. “A childish excuse for feeble mindedness invented by fools who want to sound smart and indulged by parasites in order to fatten their purses at the complete expense of actual learning and progress. Relegating to the ‘supernatural’ whatever their prenatal minds can’t encompass, as though theirs were the be all end all of comprehension. Anything that can be observed by natural means always has a natural explanation. Any beast who says otherwise is either a fool or a lawyer. But I repeat myself.”
What he put all his stock in was natural law. Like all laws he knew they had loopholes that could be exploited. It was just a matter of where to look.
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“Large artificial reservoirs of energy disturb this cosmic tapestry. The ripples they create emanate outward in unnatural ways. Like rocks impacting the surface of an otherwise tranquil lake.”
“Or some idget banging on live Magnolsis drums instead of bongos,” Steve addended.
Tim indicated his device and said, “by broadcasting our own signals at a known frequency and reflecting them back through the ana-spectrometer’s sensor suites, we can detect anomalies in Aevon’s surface resonance fields—provided I know what spectrums to scan for.”
Indicating an even more alien block of components linked to the device by a dense wire and flex tubing bundle, he continued, “using this, and with the moons acting as our reflectors, we can scan the entire Crust for anomalies in a matter of hours.”
Crow steepled his fingers and closed his eyes. Meditation was the gateway to calm, which was the gateway to understanding. Or so his first master had taught.
They were making progress. That was good. But the other front still remained uncontested. What to do about the bloody ghosts?
As if fighting something that had no physical body to speak of wasn’t already a herculean task, how in the scientifically proven hell were they supposed to kill a fold in the very fabric of spacetime itself?
Tim concurred—though his explanation for why differed slightly. “A ghost is nothing more or less the corporeal imprint of a micro singularity. The result of the collapse of a dead beast’s signature aura,” he explained, more to himself than to the group.
“Think of the funnel in the draining sand in an hourglass. We can’t see the energy vortex, but the initial surge leaves an imprint on the volatile fabric of the cosmos. One which can sometimes be perceived by the naked senses, but always inevitably breaks down and fades due to basic entropy. A learned and powerful enough sorcerer may, in theory, duplicate its general shape and properties. Although, as much as I’m loathed to admit it, the precise mechanics of that and the exact decay rate of spiritual essence are, as yet, unknown to me.”
Equal and opposite tones of incuriosity and confusion reverberated through the scholamandraic tower. Stilling each other until all that remained was a still, glassy silence that sliced bare thought to the bone.
Snagging on a thought, he paused and frowned down at his thumbs. “Also, what force could be responsible for animating it is also a mystery,” he admitted.
“But no matter. Whatever its cause, the singularity circulates power in a convectional loop. Under normal circumstances this would be nothing more than a hot ball, analogous to a star or one of those high end iridium glow-lamps. But the fact that we can see it at all tells us that the containment is not perfect. Further, the greatest probability for my money is that what or whoever is giving it life is also managing its dissipation.”
Slowly, as though learning to skate on molten sand, Ellie offered up an analogy. “Like … a cork … ?”
To which Tim blinked and Steve responded for him. “More like a slow release valve. But good try all the same.”
This Crow liked. Many bodies weren’t as much of a problem if there was only one mind to go between them.
Then Tim, for a second time, leapt to his feet shouting, “eureka!”
All three of the other Pyrates smiled knowingly at each other. Albeit each for slightly different reasons.
Hemlock for that he had finally stopped blabbering.
Ellie for that they could finally get on with needful things.
Crow for his definite certainty that Tim had just come by, in his own fashion, the same conclusion as he had.
Through the chaotic stirring of his “idea soup”, as Bon Bon had so cleverly deemed it, Tim had inadvertently stumbled across what just might be the answer to their greater dilemma.
His one flaw being his hyperactive prefrontal cortex. Fathomlessly brilliant, a genius by any sense, he could often as easily fall into his own mental looking glass. Sometimes not emerging for days or weeks. Hence his paradoxically abysmal classroom scores.
In fact, it was only by the interceding grace of the Headmaster that he had been spared expulsion thus far.
Luckily for him, most of the time all he needed was a gentle outside nudge to get his cortical cart righted and rolling again. That said, they had learned it was typically wiser, and more valuable, to let his proverbial map route trace itself out before jamming him back into his head. Thus was the rationale behind their respectful silence.
And once again their patience had paid off.
If the ghosts were, in fact, simply metaphorical corked bottles, then the answer was obviously to create an even more metaphorical corkscrew.
The nexels they had just brought, provided Tim with the perfect solution. “All we need to do is cause enough of a counter force to disrupt whatever cork is binding the specter, and that should release all of its stored energy …”
“In a massive explosion,” Hemlock finished with a barely perceptible grimace.
Tim and Ellie stared.
It was often easily forgotten due to her blunt and stoic tendencies, but Hemlock was named for a virulent poison, not a cudgel. Her wits were as sharp as her aim, her mind as fleet and agile as her step.
“Well,” Tim said defensively, pointing to the stacks of boxes behind them. “that's what those are for.”
He walked over and pried the lid off the top-most nexel crate. He plucked out one of the gold-streaked indigo crystals, held it up to the light and studied it intently for several seconds.
“My working theory is that a form of negative energy is what keeps the spectral bubble from collapsing.”
He loped back over to his desk and placed the chosen pellet on one of the few uncovered areas.
“If that’s the case, then all we need do is introduce an equal and opposite positive energy dose to cancel it out.”
Hemlock hacked a verbose snort. “I smell a lot of if’s coming off this plan.”
In an uncharacteristic show of humility, Tim responded to this brazen jibe with a sheepish shrug and a rather halfhearted mutter, “it's the best I can do.”
It was this moment Drake chose to announce his presence.
Or perhaps announce wasn’t quite accurate, as it implies a conscious effort to be noticed. This was more a sudden lack of conscious effort to remain hidden.
He rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. After a silence that stretched out like drum-top leather he asked in the stressed monotone of a beast who wanted nothing more than to be in bed, “how soon can we be ready?”
Tim answered instantly. “Give me an hour or so to test my hypothesis—maybe another four to make the nexels.”
“You have thirty minutes,” Drake snapped before spinning around, donning his cloak’s dark emerald hood and abandoning the tower like an arrow flown from a besieged castle.
Tim blinked.
Ellie gaped.
Crow cocked an eyebrow.
A tensile quirk in one of Hemlock’s jaw muscles was as close to a gasp .
Steve was the only one to respond verbally. Albeit in an extremely loose manner of speaking. In so far as a burst of raucous laughter at Tim’s expense counted as speech.
The moment, and with it the shock, came and went. Then Tim’s face and manner hardened as his species would recognize as nonverbal pronouncements of a thrown gauntlet taken up.
Contrary to his ancestry’s belief, though he played the part of studious intellectual well, Tim was no gentle giant. He was a Pyrate. This was not the first time his technical innovativeness had been pitted against the clock.
Still the serrated edges of Drake’s words carved deep stress lines into his features. Even Hemlock was noticeably unsettled. Though none who knew her any less well than those present could have divined it.
Not one of Drake’s herd could reconcile this hard crack of the whip with the stern but understanding Captain they’d all come through their own ways to respect and admire.
Especially Ellie, who sometimes seemed to know Drake better than he himself did. She could count on one hand the number of times she had seen him lash out ignobly.
Each and every one of those other incidents had been either in the sparring ring or in some seedy cantina or back alley. And none had ever been directed at a close friend, never mind a herd-mate.
There was something about this tonal shift. It was disturbing to see in a beast known for his unmatched charisma. It was distinctly and directly piratical.
Falling with near primal ease into the role of the folkloric Sparrow Queen chasing after the deadly Black Arrow as it sailed towards the noble Knight Garand, she got up and pursued her noble paramour. Pausing just long enough at the door to say, “take as long as you need Tim,” before shutting it meaningfully in her wake.
A cold tendril of dread snaked its way down her spine and coiled into a constricting knot around her heart as she leapt to make up the distance. Its grip tightened with every crack of boot leather against stone until it was all she could do to take another breath.
Catching Drake up not ten paced from the dock door, she seized him by the arm and in a deep growl meant as much to lend her words gravitational force as to keep her voice from trembling, “we need to talk.”
This was not a suggestion. Nor was it explicitly a threat. Normally Drake would have had more sense than to test that particular wire, but this was not most nights.
“No,” he said flatly. “I don't. What I need to do is find the Blunder Twins.”
Ellie’s jaw clenched so tightly her teeth creaked.
The dread serpent clenching her heart metamorphized into a strangulating band of electric fire. But, in the grandest testament to her Pyratical discipline, for as much as it ate and tore away at her she held back its wicked venom.
Meanwhile, back at the lab Tim and Hemlock both shrugged. Steve bobbed once as a shrug. Then all three went about their standing task of prepping the arsenal as if the past five or so minutes hadn’t happened.
Pyrates’ Third Rule: observe all, but subtract everything that does not add.
To no beast’s surprise, Tim’s Bipolar Energy Matrix (BEM) theory would very quickly start to bear its first fruit.
Their work would consist of creating what he would christen his “Spectral Field Nullifiers”. But that Steve would later rebrand “Nulls”. A move which he personally considered quite clever. And though Tim would never admit it aloud, at least not in so few words, reason forced him to concede that the term had a better market ring about it.
Hemlock quietly resigned herself to being Tim’s assistant for lack of any better alternative.
She consoled herself with the certain knowledge that no matter how dismal or tedious the next few hours’ work got, Drake would likely have given all he owned to be in her boots right then instead of his own.