As it was lowered, it began to pull towards the walls and actually rolled down one of them for a short distance. When it touched the ground, the whole structure made weird, unsettling noises. Everyone looked at Fred. He smiled and told everyone to calm down; it wasn’t finished yet. They removed the rope and added the ceiling. Fred then climbed on, using straps and assistance to connect the last wires. As he pulled on the final wire, the structure began to balance. Almost immediately, the whole room started shifting on its wires. Fred had created a room designed around a scale: if you pulled on one tile shaped like an octagon on one side of the room, the opposite tile would balance out, making the room tilt in the other direction. Everything worked perfectly, displacing gravity equally across all parts of the room.
The moment the meteorite reached its equilibrium, it floated in midair, and they had their prize. During this period, many tests were conducted but yielded little progress until the 1980s, when a critical error occurred. After years of stalled experimentation, the Butlers authorized the team to try cutting into the meteorite with a new laser technology. They set up the laser, aimed it at the meteorite, and activated it. For five hours, they struggled to penetrate more than 3 mm deep due to the meteorite's dense metal. The following week was spent drilling a hole about 108 mm deep. When they finally breached it, they discovered a minuscule, light green substance from the old days, no larger than a hair. The laser had scorched the edges of this substance, and the minimal light that penetrated triggered sensors within the meteorite, making it sensitive.
From that point, every light vein cut by the laser channeled energy into a startup protocol, sending out tiny, new veins along the drilling path. Two weeks later, when the laser connected with one of these newly formed veins, the core received a sudden influx of power. This jolt of energy was like adrenaline to a junkie, transforming the solid core into a liquid that could not be cut. In its panic, the core activated a cleaning protocol that converted all excess gravity into a light, micro-dense matter. The transformation took days, and after four days, it had absorbed as much power as possible.
During this time, the scientists were frustrated and angry as they found themselves unable to see or access the core. Anything that approached the core was pulled into it, remaining out of their reach. It wasn’t until the meteorite fell to the ground on the fourth day, creating a hole through which they could only glimpse the core’s liquid state, that the gravity finally shut off. The core, now in a liquid form, vanished into the darkness between the tiles, leaving no trace of its presence.
The scientists, now with their experiments rendered useless and the facility becoming obsolete, were left in disarray. They continued to dismantle the meteorite and used it for other experiments, but their anger and frustration persisted.
About two years later, after the team had removed everything of value, they called Fred in to help dismantle the gravity chamber safely. After assisting with the disconnection of cables and the chamber's disassembly, Fred earned his pay. As he removed the last floor panels, he noticed a small hole in the floor. Initially, he paid it little mind but saw that the hole had grown slightly larger. Curious, Fred took a closer look and discovered something intriguing down there.
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Fred had a pencil with him and stuck it into the hole. Later, he described it as if the pencil had vanished as soon as it touched the hungry liquid. He covered the hole, found a glass tube, and discovered that it did not dissolve. Using an old Boy Scout trek container, he slowly pulled straw after straw out until he had about as much as a softball’s worth and none was left in the hole. He wrapped his jacket around it, put it in his toolbox, and left, never revealing what he had found. Being a smart man but also knowing he could never fully understand the mystery, Fred kept his secret. He had a one-year-old baby and knew it would take a lifetime to solve the mystery, so for the next 20 years, Fred kept his secret and hinted to his son Jeb about a great secret he would pass on one day.
On Fred’s deathbed, he told Jeb he loved him and considered him his greatest accomplishment. However, he wanted Jeb to address his greatest regret: he wished he knew what he had found. Leaving a cryptic deathbed message and a cryptic note in his will, Jeb was directed to a safe hidden in his own house. Inside was a piece of cardboard with the words “Do not shine light on this; it’s alive; it eats light.” Behind the cardboard was a glass container, corked with a glass stopper painted black. Jeb then spent the next seven years trying to understand what it was.
Jeb’s story then leads to the true story: the story of Snake, the first child of the Surbris 5.
The story of Jeremy McDonald begins in a small town in Canada. Despite the small-town beginnings, Jeremy moved to a big city and found that school wasn’t for him. He worked various jobs for many years until he was offered a different kind of job. One night, during a drinking session, one of Jeremy’s friends made a bet with him, challenging him to invent an impenetrable vault. Jeremy accepted the challenge, and after about two weeks, he walked into a bar where his friend Dustin was sitting, drinking a beer and waiting for him.
Dustin asked, “What’s this all about?”
Jeremy explained that he had won the bet and was owed a payment. Dustin looked at him, puzzled, and asked for an explanation. Jeremy detailed a vault design that utilized cryogenics and electronics to create a human-controlled, 100% unbreakable vault. Dustin, skeptical, noted that cryogenics didn’t work that way yet and refused to pay. Jeremy then found a small piece of paper in his notes and showed it to Dustin. After reading it, Dustin swore under his breath and handed over the $20, though he was clearly annoyed.
That night, Dustin had already devised his revenge. He wrote a paper detailing all the design specs Jeremy had come up with and posted it on an engineering website he knew would rip it to shreds. Dustin kept an eye on it, but after 24 hours, there were 24 views but no replies. After 48 hours and 36 views, Dustin posted a message asking for help to find flaws in the project. What happened next was unexpected: the post was removed and replaced with a message stating that due to conflicts of interest, the material had been copied and sent to the lawyers, with law enforcement agencies now involved.
Dustin, frightened, contacted his lawyer, who promised to call him back by the end of the day. Dustin informed Jeremy of what had happened. Jeremy, unperturbed, explained that he had come up with the idea himself and had only used the Internet to verify that certain parts existed. Jeremy gave Dustin his lawyer’s contact information, and by the end of the day, Jeremy’s lawyer contacted him, revealing that Google was interested in hiring him due to his innovative ideas. The job offer was lucrative, with a salary exceeding $200,000 per year, involving traveling to companies and collecting parts to make his ideas a reality.
Jeremy couldn’t believe his luck and was overwhelmed with emotion. He cried tears of joy, knowing he had achieved his dream job as a technician on a global scale. Jeremy’s lawyer, Pat, was puzzled by the emotional reaction but congratulated him on the opportunity.