| abstract
| - Andi Lassiter checks the charge on all of her devices (phone, scanner, etc) before talking to seemingly no one. She knows Perceptor can hear her, though likely can't reply. "Okay, here we go." She leaves her house and takes the city's public transportation to the current location of the EDC's R&D group. Perceptor has received the transmission at his lab on the Ark, feeling slightly anxious. Granted, he was doing this without authorization and in direct insubordination to the order that had been given previously, despite warnings from Ultra Magnus, but he was much more concerned about Andi getting caught than himself. He'd never forgive himself, that was for certain. Given Cross' attitude toward even his own kind, Primus knew what he'd do to her... At any rate, he's found a way to send encrypted text transmission to her external comm device (aka cell phone), and he does so now, confirming receipt of her communication. <> Thankfully, frequent 'texting' or so the humans called text-only comms, was quite a common thing on Earth. It wouldn't look suspicious to others. At least, he certainly hoped so. She checks her phone as a text arrives and smiles at the words on the little screen. "Cool." Then, upon arriving at the R&D area, Andi walks unhurriedly to her desk, greeting people as always does and taking a moment to prepare a cup of hot tea, again a common part of her daily routine. Finally, she reaches her desk and sets her phone and scanner on the desk before setting her shoulderbag into the bottom drawer. There on the desk is the delivery from Cross she'd been expecting. "Hm. I honestly thought the guy was just blowing hot air to get me to back off. Let's see if he was being honest." She pulls a pair of scissors from her desk and carefully opens the package, setting the documentation aside to remove the canister holding the crystal from the packaging. "Well, hello there." The EDC has currently set up a lab under California Army National. Security is fairly good, here, but it really steps up when you try to enter the deceptively small building housing the lab in its basement. Here, everyone going in and out of the building must submit to a full body scan that leaves little in the way of secrets. Fortunately, there's a female staffer on hand to watch the scanner if any female personnel come through, so there's little concern for modesty. Since they're looking more for explosives than for carefully concealed spying devices, there's little cause for concern. At any right, visual inspection shows that the crystal appears to be of the same type Cross showed Andi earlier. The Autobot scientist busies himself checking the status of the nanotech prototypes he'd sent with the woman from afar, ensuring that they were on standby, waiting to activate. They were so small and simple, needed to be, since it was really the only way to avoid detection. So they'd need to network with each other, forming a sort of collective artificial intelligence in order to be effective. The more programs that were communicating with each other within the AI network, the more effective the tiny spies would be. Perceptor continues to wait eagerly or any updates or data coming over the encrypted frequency. "Okay, chalk one up for Cross, this is the real deal all right." Maybe Andi's also in the habit of talking to herself? Let's hope so. She sets the canister down and opens the paper folder to look over the documentation. "Wow. Light reading." She settles into the chair at her desk, taking a moment to add a spoonful of sugar to her tea and stirring it. She picks up her phone and checks for emails, incidentally holding it where the built-in camera (yes, she's old school and this thing is somewhat like a Samsung Galaxy 3) has a view of the open folder of documentation. Satisfied that no new emails have arrived, she sets the phone down again and starts reading through the folder's top page. The documentation is a dizzying read but being good at quantum physics helps. There's complicated theories and equations everywhere but it's clear that Cross's scientists don't fully understand how this thing behaves as it does. There's something odd, too, like a general sense of this material being too mundane for the properties that it has. Like they're missing something. Andi Lassiter starts murmuring, reading half-aloud as she studies the data in the documentation and frowning with increasing frequency. "The heck? Who wrote this stuff? Ben Stein?" Her tea forgotten, she pulls a pencil (yes, a graphite pencil) from her desk and starts scribbling notes on the document, where she thinks the equations are...questionable. As Andi holds up her phone, about a thousand images of the documents are captured. There are watermarks on them, but those are child's play to Perceptor. The main problem is the image quality. Those....phones, as they called them, were rather primitive. Well, it would have to do. So far, so good--among the grains of sugar are the nanites, and as the hot water evaporates, hundreds of them are lifted into the air with the H2O molecules, drifting randomly throughout the facility toward wherever they might happen to come to rest. Perceptor begins booting up the AI network, while gleaning what information he can from the images. He too frowns, thinking that something didn't quite add up. The crystal's physical properties didn't appear to extraordinary, which he'd thought for certain it would have been, given the powerful discharges of the weapon. There was something else...but what? There's another odd thing about the crystals. One scientist had the theory that the crystals weigh slightly more than they ought to. However, most of the other scientists concluded that the discrepancy is minor and can be accounted for by inaccuracies in weighing devices. Andi Lassiter reads another section of the document and frowns again. "Wait, what?" She stands and goes to get a scale as well as a calibration kit for the scale. Again with the old school. She picks up her tea, makes a face when she realizes she let it go cold, and sets it on the far corner of her desk to make room for the scale. "What the heck kind of scientists DISMISS anything when studying something this unusual?" She very carefully removes the crystal from its canister and settles it on one side of the scale before starting to carefully add the brass weights to the other, stopping when she's matched the weight of the crystal precisely and comparing it to what the paper documents say. Perceptor grumbles over the fact that they're on paper. One thing that could never understand was why people voluntarily continued to use primitive technology when much more effecient and effective methods were readily available. And now Andi was using a balance scale. A balance scale...of all types of scales... Perceptor sighs, shaking his head to himself. But now was not the time to discuss these things. Another text transmission. <> Using traditional scales, there doesn't seem to be anything unusual at all. The weight discrepency, in fact, if it is there, was supposed to be VERY small, like barely perceptible except by very sensitive weighing devices. A traditional set of scales might not be accurate enough to detect the discrepency. One of the scientists remarks that his peer, who believed the discrepency was there in the first place, simply got dust on his digital scale (again). Andi Lassiter hms, then looks at her phone and picks it up to read the text. She hastily composes a reply on the ltitle screen. << I smell fish. And they're NOT fresh. >> "All right, bug," Andi says to the crystal. "You ready to get poked and prodded?" Perceptor is puzzled by Andi's comment. <> What relevance did dead marine life have to this particular situation? Was she indicating that they were currently present? He shakes his head then, and waits eagerly for more data on the crystal. The more he's learned about it, the more he's become fascinated by it. So it wasn't just that he was suspicious of Cross. Of course, he -was- suspicious of his intentions, but now there was also a significant element of pure scientific curiosity... The crystal, being an inanimate object, does not respond to Andi's challenge, but rather, politely sits there like it's supposed to. But if it did talk, oh the things it would say! Andi Lassiter picks up her scanner and activates it, then uses it to get a preliminary scan of the crystal while it sits on the scale's platter. Then, just in case, she does the same for the weights on the other side of the scale. Perceptor almost jumps a little when the data starts coming in. Not that he's startled, but just a bit overeager. He immediately begins running his analyses on the incoming data, anxious for more information to work with. Mineral composition is as Cross described earlier. The materials are, indeed, mundane. Silicon, oxygen, carbon, iron, bit of copper. Lots of trace elements. Nothing out of the ordinary. There are, however, the tiniest little gaps inside the crystal, undetectable by the naked eye. There's nothing wrong with the weights. They're perfectly normal weights. One thing the document mentioned was not to use too high powered of a scanning device on the crystals, as there's some concern that they may "react" even to the radiation from a scan. Andi's little scanner, however, shouldn't set it off. Probably. "Hmmm..." Perceptor says to himself as he processes everything. So had the documentation been misleading? Perhaps, but why? He is not thinking about the radiation warning. Possibly because the images he had didn't quite catch it. Possibly. Andi Lassiter is as careful as she can be with her scanner, not getting it too close to the crystal and watching the frequencies the small device emits. "It seems so ... normal. Except for those little gaps in the crystalline structure." She finishes the scan and sets the device on her desk again, allowing it to crunch the data it collected (far more slowly than Perceptor can) and tasking it to also map the voids in the crystalline structure. "Now, where in here did it list the frequencies already tested?" She starts leafing through the documents again. There are dozens of frequencies listed. Many are labeled as having "no discernible effect" and an advisement against using the crystal on those frequencies, because who knows what it's really doing? Other frequencies list things like various types of radiation emitted (gamma, radio, ultraviolet). But other times, there is the odd mention of "Unknown emission" as well as some bizarre effect listed next to it. For instance, a small, cubic centimeter of iron swelled to over a meter in size as a porous structure of roughly the same weight and material. Or it would target some specific kind of molecule and split it apart, like a cue ball scattering a group of billiard balls. The effects are usually incredibly destructive to whatever is made from the stuff, and the strongest advisements possible are listed against using these frequencies." Perceptor is analyzing the maps that Andi has obtained now, finding the small, frequently-occurring voids within the crystalline structure to be just about the only really strange thing about it. About a million theories are running through his mind. <> Quickly, Andi types a reply on the phone. << Red herring possible, but not edible. >> Setting the phone back down, she briefly hopes that Perceptor gets her fish references then reaches for her scanner to see if it's done mapping the voids in the crystal. The scan is complete, showing that the gaps occur at pretty regular intervals, like they're simply a part of its structure. Well, maybe it's like a beehive? Honeycombed on the inside? Or something like that? Perceptor definitely doesn't get it, but this time he decides to do some research on the humans' data networks. It's a quick one, and it doesn't take long for him to comprehend the meaning of the cliche she'd used. <> He transmits back as he files away the information from the scans into the lab's archives. Perhaps the porous structure is the very property that allows the production of such powerful electrical discharges, he speculates to himself. <> As it happens, there is the occasional mention of microscopic gaps in the crystals in the documents, but no one seemed to think much of it. Andi Lassiter hms as she studies the data. "So, bug, you ready to dance a bit?" She steps over to a piece of equipment nearby and changes a few settings on it, then (for show) huffs and returns to check her phone again. Checking the phone, she lets its camera scan another page of the data (with her notes pencilled in) while she types a response. << Not much mention of the honeycombs. Odd. >> << I suspect they are being deliberately ignored in the records.>> Perceptor responds. He scrolls through more data from the documents, particularly the experiments performed at various frequencies. He is fascinated yet disturbed by these bizarre findings. Pertaining to the mass of iron, perhaps it caused gases within the metal structure to expand. Other frequencies appeared to have a very specific spectrum of molecular targets. But, without being allowed to examine the prototype itself in person, as well as the documentation, he couldn't really come to a definitive conclusion about any of it. Overall, though, all this data was leading him to conclude that this superweapon was far too unpredictable and dangerous for the EDC to be handling, or anyone for that matter. Clearly they didn't have a clue as to what they were actually dealing with. Cross just liked the power that it granted him, no doubt. Ooh, here's an interesting bit. The scientist who theorized that the crystals weigh more than they should pipes up again, this time going on about how the mysterious gaps in the crystals don't make sense, but his peers, in their notes, dismiss the notion. This is an alien material, right? Andi Lassiter nods seemingly to herself at the text message, then carefully lifts the crystal and puts it inside the machine she just prepped. "Okay, bug, let's see how you react to a little gentle electricity." She setrs the machine to subject the crystal to a low-level electrical field at the frequency that the documentation says will create UV radiation (as they're the least likely to cause rapid damage), and double checks the numbers in the documentation before carrying her scanner and phone over to watch the machine's readouts. "All right. Here we go." She starts the machine. Perceptor watches anxiously to see if the documentation would check out. He suspects that Cross had pressured these scientists into quickly producing a working prototype, despite its dangers. He shakes his head in disgust at Cross' lack of concern for his own people. Hopefully Andi's wearing some UV goggles or something like that, because her scanner does indeed show that the crystal is emitting UV radiation. Andi Lassiter quickly turns away from the crystal when the scanner registers UV radiation, and then the machine's automatic timer stops the electrical field. "Okay, how impressive was that, now? Most of the energy put into the crystal was converted into UV rays, though of course the laws of thermodynamics won't allow quite all of the energy to be converted into another form of energy. <> And by that he meant he wanted to see the results of some of these 'unknown emissions' for himself. So long as it didn't endanger Andi too much, of course. Right now though what he really, -really- wants is to get his servos on that crystal, or at least part of it. Perceptor is trying to come up with a way for Andi to do this without raising any suspicion... Andi Lassiter glances at her phone, but instead of typing a reply, she gently moves the crystal back to her desk. "Do I dare try any other frequencies on you, Bug?" If I do, I'm definitely going to have to request a better-shielded work area." At this moment, two scientists walk by Andi's desk, chattering to themselves. "You hear about Dr. Kafflin?" one says. "Guy wouldn't shut up about the crystals. Kept going on about how it's a 'thing out of time! A thing out of time!' and all that." "Yeah, I heard about that," the other scientist says. "He's had some crazy theories, but I never thought he'd GO crazy. Yeah, damn shame... they might take him off the project!" Perceptor hms. She was right...it was too dangerous, unless she were willing to request a shielded work area, which might raise suspicions. But then again, attempting to remove the specimen from the premises would also most certainly raise suspicions if she were discovered. He decides to leave it up to her. <> Another idea has been forming in his mind. A way to stall the EDC's efforts in equipping this dangerous weapon, though probably not make it entirely impossible. Andi Lassiter blinks after the two scientists, the looks at the crystal again. "Are you actually a stink-bug?" She looks at her phone, then types on it briefly. << I'd have to ask. >> "I wonder if I can at least test the turning iron into marshmallow one." The materials provided do include some basic elements and compounds. You know, in case you were feeling adventurous. <> Perceptor replies. <> Yes, he'd overheard the other two scientists talking nearby. Andi Lassiter looks through the documents again. "Hm. I have some raw zinc. That should be interesting." One of the frequencies listed will cause zinc to instantly oxidize and turn to a fine powder! Perceptor waits to see what Andi will do. Andi Lassiter says, "Okay, Stink-bug, back in the box for you." She carries it over to the machine again, setting it inside next to a petri dish of raw zinc and setting the machine to the appropriate frequency for a ten second electrical field. Then she carries over her phone and scanner again and keys the machine to start. "3...2...1..." Nothing happens at first. But, much like what happened to Motormaster's body, eventually there's a change. The zinc block turns white, and little bits of powder form across its surface. Eventually the powder falls away piling up around the zinc. The process continues until nothing is left but white powder. Just as promised! Say, was that Dr. Kafflin walking by just now? Seems to be mumbling to himself. Perceptor watches this process, intrigued. He takes note of intensity of the electrical field, and the time it took for the entire mass to be reduced to a fine powder. The reaction had to be extremely energy-efficient, as in nearly all of the energy absorbed from the field had been pumped into the electromagnetic emission. Thermodynamics dictated that it couldn't be -completely- efficient, but it had to be pretty close to that, which was quite fascinating. <> He reminds her. Andi Lassiter wows faintly to herself, then looks at the person walking by and blinks in surprise. "Dr. Kafflin? Dr. Kafflin!" She tries to chase him down, scanner and phone in hand. Dr. Kafflin freezes, his head snapping towards Andi with this wide-eyed stare, like she's going to attack him. "What!?" he says. Dr. Kaffling is in his sixties. His hair is frizzy and completely white, and he looks unshaven. He also looks like he hasn't slept in a while. Perceptor again waits to see how the conversation will play out, while he is running his own analyses on the experiment she'd just performed. Andi Lassiter smiles at the man in as friendly a manner as possible, unable to keep from thinking she could well have ended up like him if she'd not met the Autobots. "Um, hi. I'm Dr. Lassiter, from Alameda? I'd heard that you've been doing a lot of research on those crystals." It was, indeed, startlingly efficient. At least on that frequency. Other frequencies, in the documents, are described as requiring a good deal of energy just to start up. Like the 'Cybercide' radiation, as it's called now. "The crystals!?" Dr. Kafflin says, then looks around suspiciously, then grabs Andi by the shoulders. "Dr. Lassiter. You have to listen to me. Those crystals, they...." He struggles for the right words. "They are not... in line... with... with us! They're in two spaces at once! Don't you see! That's why they're so strange, why they don't act like anything from our world!" Perceptor is listening intently to the conversation when Kafflin makes his outburst. Suddenly it dawns on him, despite Kafflin's extremely emotional manner. In two spaces at once...of course! He remembered the report from Mars, a portal had been opened. The crystals somehow managed to simultaneously exist in this dimension and the other while still carrying with it at least some measure of its properties originating from the parallel yet foreign dimension. Andi Lassiter goes wide-eyed as the man grabs her by the shoulders, but doesn't freak out or struggle. She does, however, take a page out of her sci-fi knowledge. "Are you saying they're partly out of phase with our dimension?" She wasn't on Mars for that, so can't put the puzzle pieces together. Dr. Kafflin nods enthusiastically. "Yes, yes, like that! Part of them is... somewhere we can't even conceive of! And yet, despite not being in this world, its presence is still felt here... like... like a shadow! A shadow out of time! And space." He looks at his hands, realizes what he's doing, and releases her. "We... don't understand the crystals! We never will!" Andi Lassiter nods as the man lets her go. "Dr. Kafflin, would you happen to know where some of the prototype weapons are being stored?" Dr. Kafflin puts a finger to his lips, shushing her, again looking around suspiciously. "Yes... they're making more!" he whispers. "Making them... bigger! More powerful! They've got a really big one, a bomb, in the works at Muskrat Falls! I don't know what they plan to do with it, but the blast radius would envelop a city! An entire city! Now, the radiation supposedly can't harm us humans, but..." He looks at her pointedly. Andi Lassiter nods quickly. "Thank you, Doctor." She hopes that whatever she and Perceptor figure out it'll be able to help him return to normal... whatever that might be for him. Dr. Kafflin leans in a bit closer to her ear. "Warn the Autobots!" he whispers before awkwardly shuffling away. Muskrat Falls. Perceptor quickly makes note of this. < Dr. Kafflin shuffles back over, looking quizzically at Andi, like maybe she wanted something? Andi Lassiter smiles at Dr. Kafflin a bit confusedly and nods. "Thank you, Doctor." She then turns go back to the crystal she's been studying. Dr. Kafflin shrugs and shuffles away. Andi should have his phone number anyway. <> Perceptor finally transmits, before deactivating the comm.
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