anemoi | Bouncing back.

[Action]

[On the first floor lounge of Ermis Suites, a pair of books on crystal formation lie on a table with several small anemoi crystals scattered around it. On top of those lie books on crystal chemical structure. In turn on top of those lie ones on silicon doping, molecular bonding, electron orbitals, basic physics, intermediate physics, quantum mechanics, particle physics, chromodynamics, field theory... A familiar bearded young man is haphazardly sprawled in one of the overstuffed lounge chairs, rolling one of the gems across his knuckles while he stares wide-eyed into a book on applied n-dimensional supersymmetry...]

[Video]

[The feed shows Gordon, looking happy and strangely excited about something. One of the apartments, ostensibly his own, make up the background.]

You were right, Ran. I WAS a scientist! No, nowait I AM a scientist! Just because I'm here now doesn't change anything! I, uh, I'm not sure exactly what kind of scientist yet, but that's not even all that important now. Look at this.

[He holds up a pale green sphere the size of a baseball. It's auspiciously the same shade of green as the slime covering everything outside.] A little chemical tinkering with that bouncy slime stuff overnight, and I came up with this. A cohesive quasisolid with insane mechanical potential energy! It's some kind of rotational spring action in the molecular bonding lattice that--oh hell, just look.

[He sets the camera down on a table youtube-vid style and steps back, throwing it at an angle at the floor. It bounces to the wall, then to the ceiling, then to the wall, then to the floor, in a rapidly-accelerating diamond-formation of doom. The ball seems to inflate for a split-second each time it hits, to the size of a bowling ball.] Is that awesome? Yeah, it's awesome. Imagine what would happen if you tossed one of these bad boys in a closed room with some monsters in it! Hahah, there'd be nothing left! Order yours today! Oh hey, maybe I really should sell these things...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"... That's... really something," Shen answers drily. "D'you have any idea--" he breaks off, coughing. "Any idea how to get that stuff out of feathers?"

[He makes a motion like he's going to step forward, but with the whirling dervish in front of him he quickly changes his mind and peers through it at Shen's condition instead.]

Wow, what'd you do, roll in it? Alright alright, the stuff's protein based but its formation is dependent on heat. Why d'you think it fell from a cloud? Give it some heat and steam, and the stuff should denature and evaporate. I... wouldn't breathe the gas, though. Just a warning.

"... It did fall from a cloud. Rather a lot of them. Haven't you heard? Around here, apparently it rains bizarre chemicals. Now, how am I to steam this stuff without breathing the fumes, pray tell?"

I dunno, find an outdoor hot tub or something! Go have your tailfeathers pressed at the dry cleaner! I'm sure you can figure something out.

"In this weather?" Shen blinks. "Is there even such thing?" He finds a map of the Ermis. "There is? Hm."

Okay that is sweet and I want one.

Soon as I make up another batch of the stuff, one's yours. For one chimerical toothbrush? I think that's more than fair.

Awesome.

[As a matter of fact, he's there within a half an hour to drop off the prototype for uh... safekeeping. This has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he just accidentally smashed up his and Booster's apartment with it. No sir.]

[The glob of flubber is captchalogued in Dave's sylladex, where it is safely contained.

Look. This probably isn't the kind of thing you want to think about too hard, okay?]

Gordon, tell me you're not tossing that around in our room!

Oh come on, Booster! Look, it's completely under my control!

[Then... he tries to catch it. Instead of smacking into his hands with the force he expects, it spins him around and launches itself sideways.] Oh CRAP-- [He hits the ground and is out of sight of the camera while the uncontrolled superball of death careens chaotically around the apartment, breaking lamps, knocking off posters, taking a large concussive bite out of the couch and then sailing into the kitchen to create one hell of a racket.]

Shitshitshit hang on! I got this! This isn't as bad as it looks!

[LOOK OF EXTREME HORROR.]

If you break my coffee maker, I am going to kill you!

[CLANGbangbangBONGG! Gordon scrambles after it and there's some more muffled crashing and the occasional shout of c'mere you little and jeezus christ that thing has some velocity and OW dammit that's gonna leave a welt--]

WaitWAIT, I got this! Angular rotation will expend the energy it's built up! All I have to do is catch it in--WHOA! [He lurches into the living room again, literally dragged by the superball from hell as it's caught inside an improvised sling made from... what looks like a pair of boxer shorts. Thankfully he stays upright and the weight slows and droops like a pendulum.]

[Booster doesn't answer. He's already on his way back to the Suites so he can examine the damage in person.

Gordon may not want to be home when he gets there.]

[He won't be. Gordon's not a coward, but he DOES believe in choosing his battles. And this is one he chooses not to have, especially since he's still unsure if Booster's the kind of sueprhero with a no-kill policy or not. Better safe than sorry.

[The damage is actually pretty slight... if you look past the pock-marked upholstery, cracked bathroom mirror, dented kitchen appliances, smashed knickknacks, Booster figurine missing a head, and every poster knocked to the ground. But hey... at least he managed to save the coffee pot?]

Oh, that's wonderful! I'm so happy you've rediscovered such an important part of yourself! Ah... you DO have a way of halting that substance's progress though, right?

...Well, uh... actually no, I didn't have a definite method yet.

[In other words, he was so elated at what he remembered that he didn't think that far ahead.]

Don't worry, it's, uh... stable, for now. I'll figure something out.

Oh. Well, do be careful. No sense in DYING for science, after all.

[His former employer would probably beg to differ there. In fact it was really the only way they achieved a reasonable employee turnover rate. When you quit Black Mesa, you did it in more ways than one. Gordon rounds a column and bypasses the vortex of kinetic energy he's set in motion.]

It'll take more than high-velocity slime to do me in! Huh, come to think of it, I wonder if the Lab is looking for help. They'd have better equipment; certainly better safety measures... Plus I'd be able to get in and figure out what the hell is really up with that anemoi, which is going to be my next trick.

I generally prefer to think of it as a form of magic myself, but I do realize humans need more concrete answers for such things. Good luck with that, at least.

Thanks. You're right, that's just... not enough! There's got to be a scientific reason behind it too.

["Too?" Wow. Looks like the past few weeks in Sirocco have pried his mind open a little.]

Bouncing back.

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[video]

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