Mind Over Matter (IC)

[Supercape]

November 22nd 2010

Supercape was inspecting one of his lattices of quantum matter. the Lab was not yet fully complete, and had many teething problems, but it was operational. He really had to get down to the particle smasher in the sub levels and take a look at that...

Glancing at his waistcoat watch (A nice new addition he had treated himself to, that tucked in nicely to his morphic costume), he noticed it was time to meet the public - in this case, some student had been assigned to him.

He could have teleported down, but he decided to take advantage of one of the three elevators. May as well utlize the facility in full he thought.

Ping. Going Down! Ground Floor! chimed the Lift.

[Electra]

Erin parked her truck in the parking lot outside the shiny new building that comprised Hanover's newest giant laboratory. It was an impressive-looking place, and she was sure Alex would get a heck of a kick out of it, but it didn't seem like any place she ought to be going into. But if she wanted to pass her final science class, she needed to assist a super scientist and write a report on it. She was lucky to have gotten set up with someone local and who worked in physical scientists, nothing that might make her feel too uneasy. She'd make the best of it and try not to make a fool out of herself.

Climbing out of the truck, she headed for the main entrance to the lab. With her auburn hair drawn back in a simple ponytail and in a pale green blouse and khaki slacks, she looked like any high school intern, and certainly not like much of a superhero. Her bat was tucked into her pocket because she didn't travel without it, but it didn't seem likely to come in handy today. Walking into the lobby, she took a look around, marveling a little at the size of the place, then concentrated on finding her scientist.

[Supercape]

Supercape made sure his adapted costume was neat and tidy. The blue and white motif was there, alongside a mask, but the cape had flowed seamlessly into a white lab coat - albeit one that was amazingly clean and almost sparkled.

He stepped out of the lift on the ground floor. The huge hall was meant to, ultimately, be an expo hall, and it was more than halfway there. Small test crowds had already been allowed to peek at the demonstrations and shows, to general acclaim. However, today it had shut for the final stages of construction.

He spotted his ward for the day in the reception area. He glanced at his PDA. White, Keeley E well, she seemed lively enough.

He strode towards her. "Good afternoon, Ms. White. My name is..err..Professor Cape" he started, offering his hand.

[Electra]

Erin stepped forward and shook the scientist's hand, her grip unusually firm for a girl her age, but not aggressive or painful. From her dossier, Supercape knew that she was a physical powerhouse, amazingly strong and impossibly tough. Her academic record, however, was decidedly unsuper. She was only taking Chemistry this year, rather than any advanced or college placement courses, which suggested she was an average student at best.

"Hello, Professor," Erin said politely. "Thank you for agreeing to work with me on my project. I'm sure it will be very interesting, and I hope I can be of some help." She'd worked that little greeting out on the way over, and was pleased with how it sounded.

[Supercape]

"Pleasure to meet you my dear" he said, giving her a polite little bow (peppered with a superfluous hand wave).

He gestured towards lift chute 1, the north side of the Lab. "Up we go then" he commented, and handed her a high tech electronic pass key "good for 4 hours" he commented "and attuned to your biometric signature. Which from all accounts is pretty unique!"

"So, for today's project" he said, when they reached the lift "we are testing the physical and electromagnetic resilience of quantum matter" he explained. And we have some extremely heavy crates that could do with lifting he commented to himself.

"How's your physics?" he asked politely.

[Electra]

"Um, pretty good," Erin replied diffidently, aware that her definition of pretty good and his were probably different. "It's my best science, anyway, because I use it a lot when I jump and lift and stuff. I guess that makes it easier." She looked around the lift as it ascended, shifting from foot to foot before admitting her ignorance. "So how do you test the, um, resilience of quantum matter?" she asked. "Do you want me to punch it for you?"

[Supercape]

Supercape sighed. Scratch subtle he realised.

"Well, that would be very nice dear. Perhaps we can do that. " he coughed and looked away "however, that might not be very precise would it. Scientific method and all that" he tried to be as gentle as possible, without being downright patronising.

Its all good P.R. for the Lab he told himself. Besides which, he actually quite liked teaching. His ward was no Einstein, but neither was she stupid.

Ding! Floor 19! intoned the pleasant artificial voice of the lift.

"Aha! here we are" he announced as they entered the floor. A network of corridors partitioned the Lab at this point, each corridor leading to a large laboratory. Everything was spacious, and light, with natural sunlight permeating most areas.

The floor was not entirely spick and span, as the Lab (whilst fully functional) was still in the process of setting up its particulars. Heavy crates full of machines and instruments were strewn around, ready to be unpacked, and here and there were signs of fine tuning going on to the building. A few power tools lay around, as did some paint and plastic sheets.

[Electra]

Erin shrugged at his suggestion that her punches were too imprecise. "I dunno, they've got my strength calibrated pretty well over at the school, Mr. Archer tests me with impervium blocks once a month or so to see how many I can punch through. If you know how strong impervium is, you should be able to get a measurement from that, right? It might be easier than finding a machine that punches as hard as I can, if you need something punched really hard."

She looked around as they entered the lab, pursing her lips for a moment. "Or I could move boxes for you?" she suggested, falling back on diffidence again.

[Supercape]

"Yes, we could do with some of those boxes being lifted over..." he mumbled off "...never mind all that, we have to get you that science certificate thingy don't we!" he beamed enthusiastically.

He opened the door to Laboratory 19.3, a physics room, one of the larger ones, full of computers and power cables, and dominated by a central scanner, thrice the size of any electron microscope or MRI, and capable of both functions and more. Besides the scanner were some heavy duty robotic arms that could be operated from the computer console. Sensors and cameras littered the room, all pointing to the central device.

"What we are aiming for, however, its extreme precision. To the precise number of pounds force per square inch. Varying both parameters. Testing for deformation and plasticity. And of course, we will then need to proceed to various other mediums - light, sound, heat, all sorts of electromagnetic radiation. "

He pointed towards a think lead lined shield "for which we will need to use that. Please be careful!"

[Electra]

Under Professor Cape's direction, Erin pulled the lead-lined plywood shield over to block the observation area from the test chamber. It was pretty easy, it moved in segments of only a few tons each, so she could lift and move them without undue effort. In just a couple of minutes, the shield was in place, and Erin had satisfied herself that it was stable and wasn't going to tip over and squash anybody. "So what exactly is the material you're testing made of?" she asked as she finished up.

[Supercape]

Supercape opened up his hand and the slightly blue-purple crystalline substance he had termed quantum matter formed, in the shape of a sphere, in it.

"Quantum matter" he said, and let his hand go. The bauble remained, glaring in the light. He gave it a prod, and it wafted over to Warder.

"Go on, have a play!" he smiled as it floated towards her. He started adjusting some dials "I need to find out its physical properties. Not that it technically has any, but still. Best not to think about that too much..." he said aloud, more to himself than his audience.

[Electra]

Erin cautiously caught the bubble of matter, holding it in her cupped hands, then giving it a gentle bat so that it rose like a balloon and floated back down again. "It's cool," she said, "but it doesn't seem that strong. Why doesn't it have any physical properties?" she asked, bouncing it into the air again with the flat of her hand. "Aren't those things like color and texture and mass and stuff? I thought everything had at least some of those." Erin caught the ball in her hands and held onto it, lest she start looking too silly playing with it.

[Supercape]

"Very good!" said Supercape "yes indeed it has those properties. Err...ish. Don't look at it too hard. By which I mean, don't examine its nth dimensional wavestring entanglement, or its false vacuum state may collapse. "

"Ahem. Anyway. "

He gestured to the heavy lead screening. "Would you mind bringing that over here. Radiation brings me out in a rash. "

With another gesture, he formed a sheet of quantum matter in the centre of the lab. With a little knob turning, he manipulated the two robotic arms to take a good grip on it.

"First of all - tensile strength!"

[Electra]

Erin blinked as she looked at the ball, but she brought it over anyway. "Um, I'm not immune to radiation either, as far as I know," she told the scientist. She was pretty sturdy, but the idea of having her insides microwaved still wasn't a reassuring one. She set the ball in place and backed quickly out of the way, looking down at herself as though she'd be able to see her hands glowing in the dark or something like that. Despite her misgivings, she kept her mouth shut and watched the test, pulling a little notebook from her pocket to take notes for her report.

[Supercape]

"Its made of... ummm.... quantum stuff" he replied vaguely "look, in many ways it doesn't technically exist. Its sort of pretending" this stuff was hard to explain without going into complex maths.

"Its a false vacuum. It could potentially collapse at any moment. Although according to the many worlds anthropological interpretation of quantum events, if your life depended on it, it won't. Because in the worlds where it did collapse, you wouldn't be around to observe the collapse."

Did that make sense? It did to him.

"Most of the time it exists. Some of the super geniuses floating around Freedom City will make it collapse if they look at to hard. Or if you study it too hard. That's why I have to be careful not to think about it too..."

He looked up. "Damn. There it goes. "

Indeed, after his lecture, combined with all the readings, the quantum matter had vanished, and one robot arm was spinning helplessly.

He groaned. "Right, lets try again. Without too much explanation about what it is... which it definitely is. I must remember it does exist. Which it does. Unquestionably. "

He formed another sheet and reset the robot arms. This time they took up the strain and started to exert themselves on the sheet, electric motors whirring as they ramped up the pressure.

[Electra]

Erin thought about that while the motors whirred and Professor Cape took his readings, her brain doggedly chewing over the information. "So it doesn't really exist, but because we believe it exists, it's there anyway, like magic?" she asked tentatively. "And if you made a plane out of that stuff, it would fly people to where the wanted to go on Prime, because a crash would be spun off to some other Earth?"

[Supercape]

"Depends on whose perspective you are taking, my dear" he answered.

The quantum material snapped soundlessly in twain. Supercape examined the readouts "here, see. It was the absolute tensile strength similar to solid steel - but up until the point it breaks, there is zero deformity. As I suspected. So bullets won't move it a molecule. Not that it has any, but if it had, they wouldn't. "

"Next up, radiation! and for this, we need those lead lined shields you kindly brought over. Nice work by the way, they weigh a ton. I would have done my back in!" he winked.

He fiddle a few knobs on the lab equipment "multi phase harmonic laser" he motioned at a robotic arm that slowly wheeled its way to the centre of the room "powerful, takes a while to warm up, fires in all spectrum's... altered by this dial" he continued, giving her an elementary explanation.

The laser fired up and started giving out short pulses of radiation, whilst Supercape examined the readouts, nodding at the results.

[Electra]

With her only theory on quantum matter discarded, Erin simply nodded along to the explanation, watching as the remote-controlled gun shot blasts that did nothing to dent or disrupt the weird material. She doodled a radiation symbol in her notebook, then a raygun. "What else do they do here?" she asked Professor Cape when he didn't seem too absorbed in fiddling with buttons and dials.

[Supercape]

"Well, the Lab is still new. But potentially, we can do almost any research. Biological, chemical, physical. Even psychological and sociological. Most of the building is closed to the public, although we do have guest facilities. "

He paused, and examined a flashing light on a computer terminal "that's odd..." he mumbled "lift shaft B... its registered as activated" he punched a few keys on the computer "but nobody else with that access clearance has registered at the ground level..."

[Electra]

Erin immediately perked up. Suboptimal intelligence or not, she knew what that meant. "Intruders?" she asked almost hopefully. "In the elevator?" Her hand went to her bat, still inside her pocket, as she looked over towards the elevator they'd come up through. "There's lots of valuable stuff here, but it would be awfully brazen to try and take any of it out in the middle of the day with so many people around. Maybe somebody got lost," she concluded, deflating slightly.

[Supercape]

"MAybe" replied Supercape, scratching his chin. "Maybe not. Lift camera is down. Some of the security protocols have been breached. I suspect a thief. How the hell did they get through the security door?"

He paused, looking at the controls. "They are coming this way. Up. I can lock the lift at this level and we can see exactly what's happening..."

[Electra]

Erin pulled her bat from her pocket, looking at the lift, then at the lab around them. She's already given it a once-over for exists and defensible positions, just as a habit, but now she looked more closely. "Do you want me to take them out?" she asked the professor with understated confidence. She wasn't going to brag, but it was obvious that she was completely sure of her own ability to handle whatever came through that elevator door. Just to be on the safe side, she twirled her bat, opening it to its full five-hoot length.

[Supercape]

"Ummm, careful with that, dear" murmured Supercape, as he encased himself in a charged lattice of molecules that served as a force field.

"Lot of fragile equipment around" he continued distractedly.

Meanwhile, he concentrated, forming a quantum hole, the energy packets of information between his current location and the elevator becoming entangled. He closed his eyes, sensing the ebb and flow of data.

"Two solid humanoids, one large. One high energy man shaped thing - insubstantial. Probably heat, given its IR spectrum. "

He blinked as the hole collapsed. "In other words, unlikely to be your regular crooks. "

[Electra]

"Got it," Wander murmured, eyes focused on the door. "I'll go for the big one. I can't do anything against insubstantial, so if you've got something up your sleeve, go for it." The instant the door began to open, she was in motion, taking in the situation as she went. The big one was right in front, which made things much easier. From the side of the door, she went low, tumbling in and not straightening until she was directly in front of his face. She grabbed her bat by the center and began raining blows down on him, almost faster than the eye could see. Maybe she wasn't good at science, but this was something she knew how to do!

[Supercape]

GM

Granite practically walked into Wander's furious assault. Electing to meet her fist with a skilled chin-block, he promptly sank to his knees and keeled over, his eyes glazed over.

The rest of the factor 4 were clearly shocked but not without wit.

"Out of our way!" proclaimed Fathom "this facility is ripe for the taking, and we won't be stopped!" he punctuated his declaration with a blast of water that streamed over Wanders head and lubricated the corridor behind her.

The airy form of Slyph flew around Wander but could not match the speed of her target. "Stay still!" she moaned, as she tried to cut of the air supply to the heroines head.