Brandon tapped on the steering wheel to the beat of the music. It was a short drive from the Laboratory to Ridgemire High School, which allowed him to beat most of the rush hour traffic. Even so, there was a bit of a traffic jam at the main high school road. He rolled his eyes. Had the engineers who designed this road system never considered traffic was like fluid dynamics? It was almost as if they were trying to bottleneck the traffic in and out of this area. Or they were just too damn lazy to put in a traffic circle.
He scanned the sidewalk filled with students waiting for their parents to pick them up. He smirked as most of them gazed in awe at his car as it passed. It was a rare sight to see on the roads, red with silver highlight streaks and a spoiler on the back to give it a racecar look. He had even installed special tire plates that glowed redder the more the engine revved. It was only one of the many benefits of being a top scientist in the country.
As the line of cars crawled forward, he spotted Evan sitting on a bench at the end of the sidewalk. His brown hair ruffled in the wind as he pulled up the collar on his jacket. He barely looked up when Brandon stopped his car in front of him.
Brandon smiled at Evan as he got in the passenger seat and closed the door. “How’s my rock star doing?”
Evan hunched his shoulders and sighed. “Alright.”
Brandon raised an eyebrow as he pulled into the middle lane and drove away. “Doesn’t sound ‘alright’ to me, what’s going on?”
“Nothing, it’s fine,” he said, gazing out the passenger side window.
“No, don’t avoid it. Tell me what’s up.”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.”
Brandon shrugged. “Well, if you don't tell me and whatever it is gets worse, then later on you will have to tell me and it will be far more unpleasant.”
Evan scoffed and hugged his backpack tighter. After a few seconds, he spoke. “I don’t think anyone likes me.”
Brandon furrowed his eyebrows. “Really? What makes you say that? I’ve seen you plenty of times walking around with kids after school.”
“I do know a lot of students,” Evan admitted, “but nobody ever seems to want to hang out with just me. It’s always with one of their friends as well, and then they mostly talk to each other. Sometimes it’s like I’m not even there.”
Brandon glanced at his son with concern. “Surely they include you in their conversations.”
“Mostly for answers to homework questions. They don’t do much else with me.”
“And you still stick around with them? Have you tried to find other friends?”
“Yeah, but then when they discover how much I read, they just drift away. They stop calling me Evan and start calling me Norallis again.”
“Ah,” Brandon said, nodding his head. “I see what’s happening.”
“What?”
“You’re too smart for all of them, and the other kids your age don’t like feeling stupid. All they want is to feel ‘cool’.”
“I’m not sure that’s it. I never try to make them feel stupid. Besides, math is cool. Science is cool. Aether crystals are cool.” He looked at Brandon, his eyes glossy with tears. “I don’t understand.”
Brandon put a hand on his son’s shoulder and looked at him, while making sure to keep the car from drifting out of the lane. “Hey, don’t worry, bud. You’ll find your group eventually. The world just isn’t ready for someone like you yet. Maybe when you get to college you’ll find some people willing to nerd out with you. But until then, you’re going to have to grow a thick skin to how people treat you.”
Evan stared off into the distance in contemplation.
Brandon was taking him to his after-school job at the local crystal refinery. From a young age, Evan had been inspired to create technology and gadgets using Aether crystals. Brandon and his wife both supported his passion, but they told him that if he wanted to create things on his own, he would need to earn the money to buy all the parts and crystals. Initially, Evan complained that they had more than enough money to buy the things he needed, but they convinced him that he would value his work much more if all the work he did was actually his. That meant making the money in order to make the gadgets, and so Evan had chosen to work at the crystal refinery. Brandon knew the CEO of the mining company that owned the refinery, so it was the least he could do to help his son.
He dropped Evan off at the front gate. “See you tonight, bud.”
“Yep,” Evan said, leaving his backpack in the car. He had already put on his work boots and hat. He fist-pumped the guard that held the gate open for him.
“Try not to steal so many crystals this time!” Brandon yelled, winking at the guard who smiled and nodded back.
He drove to the University where he taught his night class. He had a couple hours to spare before it started, so he used that time to scan through his emails. The first one that caught his eye was a personal email from the Dean. All it said was “When convenient, meet me in my office”. It didn’t even have her usual signature. He raised his eyebrows. She rarely communicated so bluntly with him.
The walk across campus to her office was filled with anticipation. He knocked quietly on her door and heard the quiet response. “Come in.”
Dean Eleanor Warvick’s office was wide with bookshelves bordering the windows. A giant clock hung on the wall behind her, and her wide desk was orderly. She was examining some paperwork as Brandon opened the door. Her gray hair was tied in a bun and her earrings both had tiny Aether crystals implanted in them, giving her face a soft red glow from both sides. Only her eyes moved to look at him above her reading glasses and that was the moment his heart sank.
His mind flashed back to when Marvain had showed him the stack of complaints from his students. This wasn’t going to be pleasant.
He managed a casual tone of voice. “You wanted to see me, Eleanor?”
“Yes, please take a seat,” she said, motioning softly to one of the chairs in front of her desk. Brandon sat and bent a leg up, putting his ankle on his other knee. He wanted to start a casual conversation, but the way she set the papers aside and straightened her posture gave him pause.
“I assume you have seen the letters I have forwarded to you from your own students,” she started, using her tone as though talking to a naughty toddler. “I hope I do not have to explain what this meeting is about.”
“Well…” Brandon pursed his lips, looking away. “I did see the outside of the unopened letters, but I have not had a chance to look at them yet.”
“Then, just in case you haven’t caught on yet, let me enlighten you. Your students hate the way you teach.” She looked at him stoically, waiting for his reaction.
Brandon shrugged. “You can’t really please everyone. In all honesty, I do the best I can, and I’m passionate about what I teach.”
“I understand,” Eleanor said, nodding. “But let me repeat myself. Your students hate the way you teach. Not just a vocal minority, nearly all of them. And I don’t need to get letters from them to tell. I can hear the gossip in the hallways, I can see it on their faces, and even in some forums online. Yes, Aetheric Mechanics might be on the forefront of science, and yes, you might be the one leading it, but this type of class shouldn’t be leaving students discouraged and deflated when they leave the room. I never thought I’d say this, but Brandon you must realize that not everyone is as smart as you, so stop expecting them to be.”
“Ma’am,” he said in a more forceful tone. “You are aware that this is the most difficult course we offer—”
“There is a huge difference between a difficult subject and a difficult teacher,” she asserted, her gaze boring into his. “The more difficult the subject, the more compassionate and understanding the teacher needs to be. Have you ever wondered why, in your first four years of teaching here, that by the end of the semester the size of your class is nearly half of what it was at the beginning?”
“From what I recall, most of those were due to failing grades.”
“You may be technically correct, but it might benefit you to ask yourself why, at such a prestigious college, so many students are struggling. Has it occurred to you that the way you present the information might just as important, or even more important, than the information itself? That maybe something as simple as your tone of voice could affect the learning ability of your students?”
“Are you suggesting I be as condescending as you are right now?”
“I am doing that to illustrate my point. Doesn’t feel too great, now does it?” She tilted her head in mock wondering. Then, she took a deep breath and her expression softened. “My point is, your job as a teacher is to not only teach the students the information, but to get them to want to learn the information as well.”
She opened her palm up and pointed it towards the ceiling. “You want them to open up. The more open they are, the more information they will naturally absorb and understand, without increasing the number of study hours on their part. But when students become afraid of being hurt emotionally from the way you deliver the information…” She slowly closed her hand until her fingertips touched her thumb. “They close down and absorb way less of it. The passion that they do have lessens, and some lose their passion altogether.”
Brandon had his chin resting in the palm of his hand. “I don’t know, I always thought some of my passion always rubbed off on them.”
“I have listened to a few of your lectures over the years,” Eleanor said, “and there has always been one constant: your apparent frustration as soon as someone shows that they don’t immediately grasp what you are saying. You said Aetheric Mechanics is the most difficult course we offer, and that is my point. I’m not asking you to curve your exams even more than you already do, but you are going to have to get used to repeating yourself multiple times each class. Work on your tone, be more understanding, maybe just smile more often. Just change something, Brandon, because if you stay this way, we will be forced to find someone else to take your position. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, nodding. The smile he gave almost physically hurt. “Smile more often, got it.”
She smiled back gently. “That’s a good start. Let it be the foundation for the other two.”
He sighed, his gaze wandering around the room. He drummed his fingers on his kneecap. “Yep.”
“Fantastic.” Eleanor gathered the papers she was reading earlier and tapped them on the desk to straighten them out. “Your torture session has concluded. You are free to leave. Enjoy your evening, Brandon.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
He shot up from the chair. “You too, ma’am.”
He speed-walked back to his office, hoping that his face wasn’t so red that other people noticed.
Back in his office, he slumped into his chair. He blinked for a few seconds, wondering if what he had experienced had actually happened. He shook his head and decided combing through his emails would help him get his mind off things.
The latest email was from just a few minutes ago. It was from a cryptic-looking email address made up of random letters. How had it not been flagged by the spam filter? The title was “The Crystals”. Curious, he opened it up. He wasn’t too afraid of a potential virus, and he knew not to click on suspicious links anyway. The entire body of the email was just one line.
“Where are the crystals?” Brandon read aloud. He scratched his chin. Did the sender mean the crystals he had just reported on? As far as he knew, they were being kept in a safe at the Lab until further notice, but that was highly classified information.
Smirking, he typed a single line in response: “Up your ass.”
He clicked send.
The next hour was spent surfing the news websites. Most of it was bad news of course. A good portion of it was political drama and a smaller portion was sports drama. He read some mildly interesting stories, then he came upon an article about a recent police report from the other side of Ridgemire. The investigation concerned the sudden disappearance of a local scientist, Mike Ginger, who was also doing research on Aether crystals. The investigation had gone on for the last year, and the only piece of evidence they had was mysterious intersection camera footage. One camera showed his car making a right-hand turn, while another camera that looked at the same corner from a different angle showed no cars present at the intersection. The footages were compared dozens of times using different times throughout the day, and they all showed exactly the same events except that one.
The conclusion of the article that the local police department was probably going to declare the case cold soon, as they have not found any new leads since after the first month of investigation.
Well, that is going to change soon. He thought. If the Aether crystal his lab had examined had something to do with this missing scientist, the police were probably on their way to making that connection. It could be a coincidence, of course.
He shook the thought from his head. In no way would he want to get any more involved with the police than he already was. All he wanted was to do science and teach science. Any more than that, no thanks.
Today’s class started at sunset and would last the usual two hours.
“Good evening, everybody,” he began, scanning the room with a wry smile. The room was three-quarters filled, with those attending looking reasonably alert. Several had wristpad screen projections active, ready to take notes. He spied a few that looked closer to nodding off. He hoped his lecture would change that. “I hope you had a good weekend, ‘cause we’re getting into the nitty-gritty for the next few weeks. Now, last week we covered the what, the basic applications of Aetheric energies and how they relate to everyday life. Today, we begin the why and how of the magical phenomenon we call the Aether. What’s really going on everytime we see those blazing red currents? How does it work? So glad you asked!”
He spotted a handful of smirks pass through the crowd, and he couldn’t help but grin along with them. He started a slow cadence of pacing across the front of the classroom. “In order to paint a clear picture of the current science of the Aether, we need to take a step back and look at the history of our Aetheric knowledge. The first real scientifically valid experiments began as far back as the early thirtieth century, shortly after the invention of electricity and the lightbulb, freeing millions of people from that abominable red nighttime glow we all know and love.
“Many of you may recognize the name Adrig Kaaler. Officially, he was no scientist, he was an engineer with a knack for precision. His first contribution was actually the construction of the world’s then-most powerful microscope, the electron microscope. Before then, the scientific consensus was that the Aether that manifested from Aetherite was made up of some sort of heavy atom on the higher end of the periodic table that decayed relatively quickly.” Brandon triggered the classroom’s Aetheric projectors to form a projection of the current atomic model. Protons bundled together with neutrons. A symmetrical, fog-like formation surrounded the nucleus. “There was no real reason for this belief, except for the fact that everything else we looked at seemed to be made of the same fundamental particles. It was more of a hypothesis, and it was abundantly clear after Kaaler applied his electron microscope to an Aetheric blade that the Aether was not made of atoms as we knew them. He did not propose an alternative model, as he was not well-versed in the scientific method at the time, but he did document his findings.
“It was Kaaler’s paper, On the Nature of Aether, published in 2927, that sparked a tidal wave of scientific curiosity around the Aether, pun intended. It was no longer considered merely magical, immune to explanation or understanding. Kaaler demonstrated there was a there there, and it did not take long for scientists to formulate alternative models. He was the one who coined the term “Aetheric corpuscle” to encourage everyone else to stop thinking of the Aether as being composed of atoms. And from now on, despite it being my least favorite word to pronounce in the beautiful travesty we call the Ered language, I will use it to refer to the Aetheric object of scientific inquiry.
“Soon after the publication of Kaaler’s paper, one of his colleagues, Dr. Destin Sprig, tried to prove that Aether was still an atomic phenomenon, but without the nucleus.” He tapped his wristpad, and the nucleus of the projection disappeared. A handful of students gave him confused looks. “It sounds silly to us now, but remember that back then, we had not yet discovered quarks. He had observed that corpuscles interacted with electromagnetic fields quite strongly, so he set up an experiment comparing the behavior of the corpuscles in a strong magnetic field to the behavior of electrons in the same magnetic field. What did he find? While the Aether interacts with electrons, it does not behave in precisely the same way in the same magnetic field. Specifically, when the corpuscles flow, no field is created. It is, however, still affected by electromagnetic fields. If it weren’t, not only would we be unable to create Aetheric technology, we wouldn’t be able to utilize it organically, as we have for the past hundred thousand years.
“And so, after Sprig’s discovery of what the Aether is not, science hit a dry spell for the next three and a half decades until Dr. Trianna Dolvir came along in 2964. She was the first scientist to take seriously the idea that we could be dealing with a fifth fundamental force… but she only took that stance after disproving her own hypothesis that the Aether was a quirk of gravity. I mean, you removed the nucleus, you removed the electrons, what else could it possibly be? Nobody had thought of it before, because we all know that Aetherite does not lose mass when it discharges. How did she rule out gravity? The answer: neutrons.” He switched to the next projection, which was an animation he would go on to describe.
“Dr. Dolvir and her team knew the electromagnetic interactions would be a substantial obstacle, so they did something rather unintuitive. They fired neutrons one-by-one, straight down, into a highly-charged positive corpuscle. At this point in time, they still needed a human to channel the Aether from a crystal, but they were able to funnel the desired corpuscles using magnetic traps to the desired location. They fired a second stream of neutrons in exactly the same direction at exactly the same time, both neutron streams in a vacuum, of course. What did they find?
He paused for dramatic effect. His arms shot out. “The neutrons were completely unaffected! The travel time differential between the two beams was far below the threshold of statistical significance. What does this mean? Anyone?”
“Corpuscles don’t produce gravity?” someone suggested.
“Correct, Werven,” Brandon said. “To put it scientifically, corpuscles do not have gravitational mass, none that we can detect, anyway. This blew everyone’s minds when it was released, but that wasn’t the only discovery the experiment yielded. They had also used ultra high-speed electron sensors to determine the exact location of the corpuscles, and they noticed that they had to continually adjust the field to keep the corpuscle at the correct height. Can anyone deduce what this means?”
“They are affected by gravity,” someone stated.
“Yes!” Brandon affirmed. “Again, in scientific language, it has inertial mass. It pushes things around and gets pushed around. Now, I know those of you who paid attention in your physics class are scratching your heads. Aren’t inertial mass and gravitational mass the same thing? Well, yes, for ordinary matter, but not for the Aether. This was a highly controversial conclusion, but after rigorous examinations and dozens of reproductions of the same experiment, as well as every variation under the sun, everyone reluctantly came to a consensus: The Aether makes no goddamn sense whatsoever.”
A couple students laughed. He continued. “So Aetheric science hit a crisis point, thanks to Dolvir’s research, which made scientists simultaneously frustrated and excited. The first one to contribute to our current working model was Dr. Rivien Astelda. In 3102, she conducted a variation of Dr. Dolvir’s experiment using an electron microscope. And finally, after nearly two centuries of scientifically bumbling around in the dark, we came in contact with our first truly predictive model. I present: the Layered Corpuscular Model.”
He switched the projection for a final time. The image hovering before the class was a series of five concentric spheres. The surface of each sphere was blurred with the boundary of the sphere immediately outside and inside it. Each sphere contained arrows pointing either outward or inward.
“Aetheric corpuscles appear to be made of perfectly spherical shells. A shell can either be positive, meaning expanding, or negative, contracting. Positive shells push electrons outward, negative shells pull electrons inward, toward the center. Protons behave in exactly the opposite behavior, while neutrons don’t give a damn. Here, the arrows represent the polarity of the electromagnetic field. The Aether itself creates a distortion of the electromagnetic field. It’s the very existence of the corpuscle that warps the field, creating a push or pull force, depending on the polarity of a given shell. It’s pretty much how mass creates gravity by simply existing. Electrons need to be in motion in order to create a field, while corpuscles create fields by existing. That explains why a current of corpuscles has no effect on pre-existing fields.
“But!” He raised a finger. “That’s not all. Shells don’t just have a polarity, they have a charge, which is a measure of the strength of that polarity. The charge will always be ordered from strongest for the innermost shell, to the weakest for the outermost. And even that’s not all, because the charge can fluctuate, and even flip! The inertial mass of the corpuscle is directly proportional to the sum of the absolute value of the charge of each shell.
“But it goes further! A corpuscle can have any number of shells. The highest recorded is fifty-seven, although that result is somewhat disputed. Like atoms, the bigger they are, the quicker they are to decay. Single-shell corpuscles are the most stable, which means they are most useful for applications such as this.” He gestured to the projection itself. “This projection here is a lattice consisting of trillions, quadrillions even, of single-shell Aetheric corpuscles, both positive and negative. The only reason why all the projections you will ever see are tinted red is because once the shell’s charge reduces to a certain point, it decays into a set of photons, and the average wavelength of that set happens to land in the visible spectrum, red.”
He put both hands on the desk at the front of the room. “And there you have it, a general overview of what an Aetheric corpuscle looks like and what it does. We will be delving even deeper into the specifics of everything I mentioned, but in a basic sense, you are caught up with the frontier of Aetheric science.
“Here we have some sort of particle that is affected by both gravitational and electromagnetic fields, but only affects the latter. It pushes other atoms and corpuscles around, yet has no weight when concealed within Aetherite. It simultaneously does and does not have mass. All you hoverboard users can be grateful for that. I’ve even heard some scientists revert to calling the Aether magic again, now that we know something about its nature. I am still of the opinion that we will someday have a non-paradoxical model of the Aether, but until then, we will need to get comfortable with the proverbial shoulder shrug.
“Which means we have dozens of unanswered questions, such as: What makes a shell shift polarity? Why don’t shells of opposing polarity cancel out? What causes a shell to form or decay? When charge increases, decreases, or flips, where is the energy exchanged from? The answer to each: No clue. But with all that said, I’m sure your brains are still exploding with questions, so I yield the room to discussion and inquiry.”
Brandon spent the next half-hour answering a barrage of confused student questions. During the second half of the class, he announced their first project of the semester. It was to be an Aetherite-powered simple motor with adjustable speed.
When he asked if there were any questions, a student near the back of the room raised his hand and Brandon called on him. “Yes, Jase?”
“Can we work with a partner?”
Brandon leaned his hip against the desk. “Well, I did just say it was an individual project. However, you are allowed to give each other tips and pointers if you get stuck. Don’t be afraid to ask your peers for help. Just for clarification, each one of you will be turning in your own motor that you created.” Just then, he remembered his earlier lecture from Eleanor. He hadn’t done anything she said yet.
“And if you’re still stuck, you can always ask me,” he added, trying to not make his smile too awkward.
His wristpad beeped its normal ringtone. He glanced down and saw Evan was calling him. Putting a finger up to the rest of the class, he transferred the call to his earpiece so the conversation was more private.
“Hey, bud. What’s going on? You know I’m still teaching class, right?”
There was panicked breathing coming from the other side. Evan’s voice was weak. “Dad… I’m gonna die…”
“What!” Brandon shouted, making several of his students jump in surprise. “Evan, what happened? Are you still at the refinery?”
Evan took a few hyperventilated breaths. “S-Someone just s-stabbed me. Hurts so m-much.”
“Shit!” Brandon’s mind raced as adrenaline coursed through his body. Why was this happening, and why now? “Okay, I’m coming Evan. Just stay with me, I’m calling the paramedics.”
His legs had automatically taken him toward the classroom exit. At the last moment, he glanced back at the class. “We’re done early today. You’re free to go!”
He sprinted down the hallway.