Season 1, Episode 4 - The Microwave XXV - "Audrey vs The New York Minute"
----------------------------------------
Based on the screams and general golem-ish sounds, Audrey realized the Minute had made its way toward Kenji Station. She knew there were a lot of people there, and that big crowds plus rampaging microwave golem equaled something not good. That made her sprint faster after it. She could worry about Esther later; right now, she had to clean up her own mess for once, before anyone got hurt.
She caught up to the Minute at Curley Park, about halfway to Kenji Station. Fortunately, very fortunately, Audrey hadn’t seen any casualties caused by the Minute on the way over. Come to think of it, she actually hadn’t seen anybody at all on the way over. Maybe people nowadays could sprint away from danger really fast. Or maybe somebody was out there helping her.
But Audrey had a microwave to stop. The Minute stomped its way across the park, sending out beams of Rddhi to destroy the swing sets and slides. More beams slammed into the grassy field surrounding the playground, kicking up storms of dirt and flowers, leaving large gashes in the ground.
As the Microwave's beam cut a basketball hoop in two, Audrey narrowed her eyes.
She arrived on the flat, gravel path that cut through the Park, with the Microwave at the other end of it. Now that Audrey could give it a closer look, she saw that it was actually sort of slow, giving her enough time ready a seed in her palm. The seed exploded and a green vine shot out of it, expanding in length until it reached the Minute. Using the Rddhi to control the vine, Audrey sent it towards the Minute’s legs. Since the legs looked like they were made out of Rddhi, Audrey wasn’t sure if the vine would connect with them or just simply phase through, but if the legs could contact the ground, it was certainly worth a shot.
She looked at the playground and thought about the hot burrito to the face she received back in the apartment. "You've pissed off the wrong woman!" she declared. "No microwave fails to deliver Audrey her burrito and lives to tell the tale!"
The vine circled around the golem’s legs and tightened. And it made contact! Audrey constricted the vines, which now wrapped around both legs. The golem stumbled, and Audrey hoped it would fall over completely, but the golem caught itself. It looked – well, the microwave part of the body that formed the body's torso and head bent forward, as if it to look – downward at its trapped legs.
The microwave torso then spun around so it could gaze at its assailant. Audrey, holding onto the vines tightly, gulped and felt her legs shaking.
The microwave made several beeping noises, and Audrey saw its dials turning and spinning. The internal light came on and Audrey could hear the rather menacing noise of it doing, well, normal microwave stuff. Finally, there was a simple “Ding”, and Audrey’s vine exploded and disintegrated.
Audrey fired off another vine, but when the vine reached the golem’s legs, something odd happened. As it got closer, the vine’s speed slowed down, and slowed down, and slowed down, until finally, just when it looked like it was about to reach the legs, it stopped entirely.
Audrey gritted her teeth. She could pull the vine back, no problem, but when she swung it forward again at the legs, the same thing happened – it slowed down until it stopped before it reached the legs. Audrey then swung the vine at an arm, but no dice there either.
Thoroughly stumped, Audrey sighed in relief when she heard the sounds of approaching footsteps. When she saw who they belonged to, though, she turned a little red.
“Esther?”
Esther, having ran all the way over, slowed down as she reached her sister. Her breath came out in measured intervals, and she wiped some sweat off her forehead, not really used to such physical exertion.
But she still smiled. “I’m glad you’re alright, Sis.”
Audrey stepped in front of Esther when the Minute turned its gaze back on her. “Go back, Esther,” Audrey commanded. “It’s dangerous here. Let me take care of this one myself.”
Esther shook her head. “No, because I was wrong. Um...I’m not good with words or speaking, so I’m not sure if I’ll do a good job of saying this, but...I’m sorry for what I said earlier. Don’t think you ever have to do something alone, especially something like this. Um...I’ll be here for you, always.”
Audrey smiled. “Ah, thanks, Esther. I’m sorry for making you help me with another screw-up.”
“You’re not making me, Sis. It’s something I want to do.”
The two girls looked at each other fondly.
“Hey, I’m here to help, too!”
Isaac arrived, exhaling as he finished his sprint. “You should join the track team, Esther, you’re faster than all of us. And don’t worry, we got Reed here, too-
They looked around; Reed was nowhere in sight. “Are you serious?” Isaac groaned. “She probably went back for another chili dog!”
After a few moments, they heard the distant sounds of heavy footsteps, and they finally saw her half-jogging, half-shambling her way to them. As Reed arrived, she placed her hands on her knees, panting heavily.
“Jesus...Jesus Christ...I’m so out of shape...I think I’m gonna throw up...”
As they left Reed to her business, Audrey pointed in the general direction of the microwave of mass destruction. “You guys! The golem’s about to leave the park!”
And the golem was indeed about to leave, having reached the exit on the other side.
Audrey got the group up to speed as they chased after the golem, concluding with, “My vines can’t connect with it anymore!”
“Let me try!” Isaac exclaimed. He reached into the air and shot out a line of Rddhi, which coalesced into a clone directly above the golem. The clone’s fist roared with golden energy, because Isaac knew that in situations like these, something you learned recently will likely provide the solution to the problem, so he focused his energy on increasing the punch’s mass and acceleration. The result? More force!
Except, as Isaac ramped up the acceleration all the way, and the punch reached its crescendo as the clone closed in on the golem, the clone slowed down. And kept going slower. Until he finally stopped in mid-air right above the golem. The microwave dinged and a beam of solid Rddhi shot upwards, disintegrating the clone.
Isaac grunted in temporary defeat, but then Reed stepped up. After wiping her mouth, she gripped her sword with both hands like a bat and swung as hard as she could, sending a drooping sound wave that made the other three cover their ears. The sound wave shook the park, sent the merry-go-round spinning, but when it reached the golem...the sound turned into something sounding elongated, slowed, with maybe a little bit of reverb mixed in too. The golem seemed undisturbed by the blast and continued onward.
Reed simmered. "Guess sending magnetic waves at it won't do much good, either."
The terrible trio put their collective brainpower to good use.
“My vines got slow, Isaac’s punch got slow, and Reed’s sound wave got slow-sounding,” Audrey observed. “So I guess the microwave is good at slowing things down.”
“Think!” Isaac explained, wracking his brain. “What slows things down?”
“Cold,” Reed realized. “Cold slows things down. But microwaves don’t make cold. They make hot.”
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
“Make hot?” Isaac questioned.
“Make heat,” Reed said, waving him away. “Same thing.”
“Proper grammar is important,” Isaac reminded her. “But anyway, what part of the microwave could be producing the cold?”
“No, no, no,” Reed interjected. “I’m still on the fact you’re trying to correct my grammar in the middle of a battle-”
“You guys!” Audrey interrupted. “If the microwave makes cold, we need something that makes hot! Do we have any flame powers?”
“If sound waves can generate shadows, then I bet they can make heat too,” Reed supposed. “And hey, how come you’re not correcting her grammar?”
“Um, everyone...” The three looked over at Esther. “I...I have a theory I’d like to test, because microwaves don’t have the ability to make something cold. Sis, could you send another vine at it?”
Audrey nodded and did as instructed. The vine rocketed toward the golem, but as it got closer, it slowed down to a gradual halt once again.
Esther did the mental math in her head. “I see...if you calculate the vine’s velocity, it steadily decreases by half each time as it gets closer, so by the time it’s about to reach the microwave, it’s actually almost zero...but it’s not quite zero, but since it’s by half every time...there’s a correlation in distance covered, as well...in theory, it can never reach...”
Esther understood. She lightly tapped her fist against her palm. “Zeno’s Race Course paradox.”
The other three looked at her blankly.
Esther shifted uncomfortably at the attention. “Um, Zeno was a contemporary of Aristotle who proposed a number of physical paradoxes...one of them was the Race Course paradox...if you’re trying to reach a certain point, you’ll have to get halfway there first...but even after that, before you reach your destination, you’ll have to get to the halfway point of the remaining portion, and then to the halfway point of the portion after that, and so on...since you always have to get halfway there first, in theory, you can never actually arrive at your destination...I believe this makes sense because the microwave can also reduce a burrito cooking time in half, so halving things seems to be part of its power set...”
Audrey raised her hand. “What’s a contemporary?”
“...um, it means he lived at the same time...well, Zeno was actually a pre-Socratic philosopher, so technically they were only contemporaries in a wider ancient Greek sort of sense...”
Audrey crossed her arms and nodded. “I understand now! So what you’re saying is...” She thought about it some more. “We can’t touch it!”
Reed stepped up. “That’s according to theory, and I say nuts to theories. If we can’t hit him, what if we just hit him hard enough that we ignore the halfway limit and hit him anyway?”
Isaac agreed, charging energy in his fist. “I like that idea! Let’s just overwhelm him!”
“Um, you guys...” Esther interrupted. “I think...there’s a better way. Since hitting harder is the natural response to an issue like this, I’d have to assume that the creators of the golem would account for that. So my hypothesis is that...that means educated guess, Sis...is that if we hit the golem below a certain limit, its halfway powers might not activate, or at least they won’t work as effectively.”
Reed grunted, holding her sword tightly, then relented. “Alright, we’ll test your theory.”
Esther sighed in relief.
Isaac stepped up. He always knew that in situations like this, something he learned recently would come in handy.
He looked over at Reed. “Hit them below a certain point, huh...so hit ‘em softly and gently. Just like a woman, right?”
Reed realized and nodded with a smirk. “Finesse. Just the finger. Women don’t always want the whole fist.”
Audrey and Esther looked at each other.
----------------------------------------
Thirty seconds later, just as the golem shot out a beam to destroy the arch at the back exit of the park, the four activated their plan.
“Remember guys,” Isaac told everyone. “Don’t pray for easier lives. Pray to be stronger men. And women. And Reed.”
Reed rolled her eyes, then readied her sword. “When this is over, I’m gonna make you eat those words. And a whole lot of dirt, too. And depending on how generous I'm feeling, maybe I'll make you a knuckle sandwich while we’re at it.”
“What?”
“I mean-
“You guys!” Audrey interrupted. “We have a killer microwave to stop!”
The three assumed a battle formation. Audrey readied herself in front of Reed.
“You sure about this?” Reed asked her.
Audrey nodded and gave her a thumbs up. “You can do this!”
Reed let out a sigh to indicate she didn’t think she could do this, but Audrey thought she could, and maybe that would be enough. She gave her sword a focused swing, sending a magnetic wave through Audrey. Now repelled from the ground, Audrey giggled and kicked her legs as she floated into the air.
“Audrey has conquered flight!” she proclaimed, spinning in circles as the magnetic force propelled her upwards. She shook her head. “No, Audrey has to conquer focusing!”
She made a swimming motion, which didn’t really do much; Reed sent a gentle sound wave at her back, but gentle for Reed meant getting hit with the force of bicycle pedaled by a large child. Audrey went back to spinning, but she continued higher into the air. More importantly, the sound wave pushed her forward until she finally arrived over the target: the lumbering golem.
Audrey grinned as she reached into her jacket and produced a seed in between each of her fingers. She flung her arms out wide as she dropped her payload; several whirlybird seeds, scientifically known as samara, Audrey-and-New-England-child known as those seeds with a tail fin that spirals through the air. The seeds floated down towards the golem, spinning all the while.
Audrey then enacted phase two. A vine rocketed out of her hands and snaked its way toward the seeds. Audrey possessed control over the vine and its cell-growth acceleration, but since the whirlybirds were out of her hands, she couldn’t control their growth at the moment. The vine provided the solution; it coiled itself around a whirlybird seed, Audrey sent Rddhi down the vine into the seed, and then-
A huge elm tree appeared where the seed once was. It plunged directly down towards the golem, but as with the others, it came to a gradual halt just above the actual microwave. Audrey repeated the process, sending trees both at the microwave and perhaps more importantly, right down in its path.
Specifically grown to be as sharp as stakes, the elms implanted themselves in front of the golem in an arc, blocking its way out of the park. The microwave beeped and machinery inside of it whirred as it calculated the new situation, but it found itself under the assault of never-ending waves of elm trees. Half a dozen elm trees were slowed to a halt above it, with many more on the way.
Esther did the math out. “That’s it...if we keep up the pressure by forcing it to use its halving powers on too many things, Isaac should be able to sneak through and destroy it.”
Isaac looked at his fist. “Do you really think we can make it through its paradox defenses or whatever’s going on?”
Esther nodded and smiled. “Do you know how Diogenes solved the Race Course paradox? He simply stood up and walked until he reached his destination.”
“...who?”
Esther let out a long sigh.
“Isaac, you’re up,” Reed called out. She was flinging sound waves over and over at the New York Minute in combination with Audrey’s elms; they could hear the microwave beeping louder now, the gears and tubes inside of it groaning from exertion.
While Reed and Audrey continued their attacks, Isaac sprinted down the gravel path towards the golem. The golem spun around, noticing his presence, and with a loud ding, sent out a beam of pure Rddhi. Isaac sidestepped the first one, but another beam was on him; this one was knocked away by a sound wave.
The microwave beeped louder. Extra pools of Rddhi coursed through the golem’s arms, which elongated themselves and reached out for Isaac. Isaac breathed calmly and two beams of light came out of his right fist, each coalescing into two clones. Both clones took on a golem arm to defend the original Isaac, striking with all their might. Their blows were ultimately slowed to a halt, and the arms grasped each clone and crushed them until they disappeared into a puff of smoke and light. Fortunately, Isaac used the temporary distraction to sprint past the outstretched arms, arriving closer to the golem.
Isaac’s next step seemed to arrive in double the time a normal step would take. The step after that took twice as long as that. Isaac looked around, but time seemed to slow down as well; the falling trees above him fell for far longer than they should have, and Reed’s sound waves echoed with a distorted, elongated twist.
I’m in its event horizon, Isaac supposed, surprised something he learned while half-asleep in physics class finally came into use. Wait, physics?
Isaac went to look at his fist, groaning with impatience the whole time until his fist finally arrived in sight. If I’m being slowed down by half...then I just have to double my velocity...and velocity increases acceleration!
“Isaac Newton, as a fellow Isaac, this one’s for you!” Isaac exclaimed. Using everything he learned this weekend, Rddhi surged up Isaac’s arm until-
“I’ve got it!”
Despite the slowness in the rest of his body, Isaac’s fist went at normal speed, Zeno be damned. Isaac couldn’t resist the urge to end things faster by increasing the velocity beyond normal, but the excess speed just slowed him down once again.
Focus, focus...it’s about finesse.
Staying steady and true, Isaac kept his fist at normal speed. The microwave beeped and dinged with a ready-made beam of Rddhi prepared just for Isaac; he gritted his teeth to brace for the impact-
The golem frantically diverted its attention upward and shot out the huge beam at the entire redwood tree Audrey threw at it. The beam split the redwood in two, but both parts continued to plunge toward the microwave until they were caught in its event horizon as well.
But that was just the opening Isaac needed. His fist was half the distance from the microwave, then a quarter, just an eight, merely a sixteenth-
There’s the source! Through the Rddhi, Isaac could make out some sort of a small object inside the microwave, the epicenter of the golem's Rddhi. Isaac directed his fist there, but with only a sixteenth to go, the microwave's halving power was even stronger, slowing him faster than Isaac could make the corresponding increase in velocity.
Isaac gritted his teeth. Losing to Reed is one thing, but losing to a microwave? Never!
He remembered Domino's words. When math fails, call upon willpower!
Gritting his teeth, aiming just right, Isaac reached forward through the paradox and flicked his finger.
That Diogenes guy would be proud.
His finger touched the microwave.