Frank Flanagan walked into his lab in New York. He had converted a space

underneath a factory he owned part of for this place under the city. He put the cares

of the business world away while tinkering with things that drew his interest.

He doffed his overcoat and hung it on a coat rack next to the door. He looked around.

Everything looked ready to help him with the mysteries of the universe.

Flanagan went to the shelf with his log books on it. He wrote down everything about

an experiment as he did it. It saved him a lot of trouble of redoing something he had

already done.

He had two projects he was working on. He planned to create the next generation in

bullet resistant cloth. The other project was trying to find a chemical mix that he

could use to boost his physical and mental abilities.

He admitted that both were failures at this point.

The formulas he had tried on his rats killed them. Some became very violent and tried

to eat their way through their cage bars. Some curled up and died. He performed

autopsies on all of his subjects and most had their brains explode inside their skulls.

The cloth burned up under the treatments he tried. He could not get the fiber to react

the way he thought it should.

He sat down at his work desk. He went over the experiments one by one. He frowned

at the results noted in his changing script. He saw something that might be doable. He

needed to mix the necessary things together.

If this worked, he might be able to at least get his brain chemical to do more than

cause gray matter to explode in their bony enclosures. If it didn’t, he would give it up

so he didn’t have to cut up another mouse again.

He got the bottles of chemicals from their shelves and placed them on his work table.

He consulted the log book. He mixed together lower portions of each ingredient and

put it in a stand over a Bunsen burner. He turned the flame up and watched as the

chemicals started to simmer.

The phone rang. He turned from the burner to go get it. Who would be calling him

now?

“Flanagan,” he said into the receiver.

“This is Arnold Courtland, Mr. Flanagan,” said the caller. “I am calling to see if you

thought about our offer.”

“I thought we talked about this,” said Flanagan. “I don’t want to sell. I have

something I’m working on. I’ll call you back when I’m done.”

“Wait, Mr. Flanagan,” said Courtland. “I can double our offer.”

The chemicals reached a steady boil in their container. Smoke gathered under the lid.

The bottom of the glass turned black.

“I have something cooking,” said Flanagan. “I will call you back, or you can call my

office tomorrow. Good night.”

Flanagan hung up the phone and went back to his heating set-up. He frowned at the

bubbles roaring against the top of the flask he was using. He reached for the control

knob on the burner. The flask shattered and covered him with the chemical mixture

and broken glass.

He fell to the floor. He tried to get out of his shirt and tie. Fumes put him to sleep

while he struggled with the soggy mess.

Flanagan woke up hours later. He didn’t know where he lay at first. He looked around

and saw the small amount of damage to his equipment. He should not have answered

the phone.

He examined the log book. He had put down every chemical he had planned to use

on the last page. He realized he had heated the mixture longer than he had intended

because of his talk with Courtland.

He had no way to know how many minutes the formula had boiled before it cracked

the beaker. He figured at least two minutes, but he wasn’t sure.

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He wondered when his brain would explode and kill him. He sat down at his desk.

How much time did he have? What could he do with it?

The rats had died within minutes of their injections. So he should be dead in a few

hours. He didn’t like the thought, but he could fall over at any moment.

How did he want to spend his time? He couldn’t do a lot in the time he expected to

die. Maybe he could figure out what was wrong with the fiber while waiting. He

could give the formula to his partner to create suits for the army.

He went back to the log book. He looked at the section that he had set up for the fiber.

He read everything in a second. He frowned as he thought about the different

chemicals moving in harmony to do what he wanted.

He wrote down the formula he felt would create a breed of toughened fiber. He just

needed to create some to make sure his formula worked.

Flanagan took off his stained shirt and tie. He threw them in the metal trash can he

used for failed experiments and went to his spare living quarters to clean up and get

a new shirt. He went back to his office and unplugged the phone when he had his new

shirt on.

Why did Courtland want his company so much? It didn’t make sense. His operation

was small and specialized in chemical engineering to make things. Some of his

patents had been applied to aircraft, but that was just enough to keep the business

going.

He supposed the patents were valuable enough if added to something else. He

considered the implications for a few moments while gathering up some string from

a small pulley and vat he had built. He didn’t have enough information.

He wondered how much Courtland would lie to him if he asked him what was going

on.

He expected something was going that he didn’t know about yet. He should go over

his books again. Then he should go over all the contracts his company was involved

in. He had feeling the answer was in one of those two places.

He had talked informally with Courtland several times about his company. The man

refused to take no for an answer. Maybe he should ask his staff to dig into the man.

Maybe they could find an answer for him.

He worked on the fiber for hours. The hard part was making sure that his creation

didn’t break apart, rot away, or become so immobile that no one could wear it. It took

him several tries, but he thought he had it.

He tried to cut, burn, and bend the strands. They slightly reacted, but not anything

like they should.

He poured more of the chemical into a mold. He went to his bedroom and got another

shirt. He pressed that down in the mold with the mix. He closed the top on the thing.

Sleeves and tail stuck out of the lid, but that wouldn’t affect the chest area.

Flanagan waited for an hour before he opened the lid. He smiled. The shirt seemed

to be stiff as a board and hard as rock.

He tried to set fire to it, cut it, or tear it. He couldn’t do any of that. He got his chair

and took it to the end of his lab. He placed the altered shirt in it. He got his thirty

eight from his desk. He fired into the shirt. He whistled. The material stopped the

slugs cold.

Flanagan laughed at his partial success. He needed a way to turn this into something

someone could wear. How did he do that?

He threw the empty brass and the crushed slugs in the failed experiment trash can. He

put the gun back in his desk. He walked back to consider the shirt and its

bulletproofing.

He inspected where the bullets had struck. He found indentations in the front surface.

He pulled the thing away from the back of the chair. Nothing penetrated to the back.

The chair was untouched.

Flanagan considered the evidence. He could make more of the stuff to stop heavier

caliber bullets, and knives. The weak points were going to be whatever he used to

join the two molds together.

He realized that if he wanted to make the stuff into something usable, he might need

to know how drilling worked on it. He could use that to put screws in to hold two

halves together around the wearer.

Did he have a drill in his lab? He looked around. He frowned when he didn’t see the

required equipment.

There should be one upstairs. He could take the bulletproof ex-shirt upstairs to work

on it. The night crew knew him well enough to let him work on his business without

bothering him.

Once he was sure that the screws would work, or not, he could think of other ways

to make a shirt out of his mix.

He paused to consider that he probably was going to die before he figured out the

problem. He checked his watch and smiled that he had already outlived the first rat

he had tested on.

He wondered how much more time he had before he keeled over.

He carried his burden through the factory floor until he found a drill press. He asked

the man using it to let him have five minutes. The guy stepped back from the

machine.

Flanagan put on safety glasses and put his vest under the drill. He spun the machine’s

engine up and then lowered the bit against the hardened shirt. He checked it after five

minutes. A hole was there, but it had taken longer than what he would have thought.

He thanked his worker and took the shirt off the drill stage. He had something really

tough compared to normal protective suits. A knight clad in one of these could take

as many arrows as he wanted.

He had to get his formula really tested before he tried to patent it, and put it on the

market. He had a game changer in his possession.

Something crashed through a skylight. He watched it fall to the factory floor. He

realized the object had a lit fuse. He screamed at his people to get back as he ran

forward with the vest in front of him. He fell on the object, covering it with his new

invention.

The explosion sent him flying.