anemoi | They've Actually Done This With Frogs [Video/Action]

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They've Actually Done This With Frogs [Video/Action]

[Action]

No, it's about fourty old television cathode-ray tubes stripped, HEAVILY modified, hooked together and set into the ground in a tight grid. Gordon is there at the edge of the glass bubble-grid, somewhat dirt-smudged, sleeves rolled up and coat completely abandoned, talking into a pocket voice recorder with a near-empty bottle of water in the other hand.]

Okaaaaay, first test of hydrophobic electromagnet field... [He tips the bottle over the cathode tubes, and instead of the predictable catastrophic clash of water and electronics, the drops... just sort of hang there in midair. Gordon breaks into a wide grin and turns away with an excited fist-pump before going back to the recording.] Test successful! Magnetic dipole action is causing the water to be completely repelled by the field! My calculations predict that at this power range the field will effectively suspend anything that's more than 60% water by weight! Huh... In fact...

[He looks at the water droplets, the generator tubes, the water bottle in his hand, and then quickly finishes the last swig in the bottle and jumps on top of the tubes... and kind of slides above them, wobbling in midair.] AHAHAH ALL RIGHT! Field can actually suspend a human--whoaOOF! [Can suspend one until they slide off the opposite edge that is.]

[tl;dr there's now a magnetic anti-grav field in the courtyard lawn that'll only work on water and living creatures. Who WOULDN'T want to investigate?]

[Video]

[Gordon is still dirt-stained but back in the apartment, pacing with phone in hand. The magnetofield is clearly visible outside the window whenever he passes it.]

So. Here I thought I remembered everything about my work before, but I gave up a few more anemoi shards to the boys at the lab and suddenly I... I get this huge second wave, sort of. Suddenly BOOM, everything you ever wanted to know about electromagnetism but were afraid to ask, is back. Anyone else have this kind of thing happen to them? Some huge body of knowledge in pieces? I wonder how many more of these I'm going to get...

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[Hey check it out, it's Booster, exiting the Suites and looking kind of miffed about something. WONDER WHAT IT COULD POSSIBLY BE....]

Gordon. Gordon, stop whatever stupid thing you're doing, I have an important question for you.

[Ohhhhh crap. Gordon quietly grumbles before he straightens his posture and turns to face the other man.]

Yes, Booster, what is it? I'm in the middle of some serious research here! [Oh god, how can he say that and keep a straight face?]

Serious research? What, that thing? Are you going to look into the practical applications of potato batteries next?

Ssphj--potato batteries?!

[Alright, THAT'S IT. All pretense of professionalism lost. He steps up to Booster, snarling.] Look blondie, I don't know what the hell you've got up in that tower of yours, but two months ago I didn't even know Newton's third law let alone the divergence laplacian for Maxwell's equations in a conditional system! I have no idea how much is in my head but more just keeps showing up! Give me another couple of months and you won't even be able to fucking IDENTIFY what I build!

Why, because it'll be only three hundred years out of date instead of four? Great! Awesome! Some truly revolutionary advances for humanity you're taking our damn TV apart to build here! I know I'm not home a lot, but you don't actually live alone, Gordon! I have just as much of a right to our appliances as you do, and dammit, I want them to work! You don't get to take that away from me just because you remember some new theory you just have to test out!

If your tech is so damned advanced than what were you doing with the howdy-doody glass-tube TV in the first place? I'll replace it as soon as I've got the money, alright? You'll be back to watching Supermarket Sweep in your underwear in no time.

[That's a false statement for the sake of facetiousness. He knows he really doesn't do that. Or at least, as far as he's aware of.]

This isn't about the damn TV! This is about how you think you can just take apart our stuff whenever you want without even asking me first!

Look, the only reason I even took it was that I was ONE short and I'd already scoured every boneyard in the city! Trust me, after the thing with the toaster I know better than to wantonly use stuff for parts, OR use the apartment for experiments!

...And before we get into THAT, lemme reiterate that that gamma flash was a billion-to-one chance and was probably not that dangerous! Plus it ionized the smell of burnt toast out of the air.

Whoooooa! What's THAT?

[He gets to his feet, grinning like a madman.]

Oh, just a little something I dreampt up late last night after the anemoi took hold, or whatever the hell they do. It works on the principle of molecular magnetic dipole alignment that--uh...

[Plain English. Right.]

It's a really strong, specially-designed magnetic field that pushes water away because of the way the molecules are constructed.

Oh wow! Is it just fer research purposes, or can you use it for practical stuff? I bet if you could make something like that portable, you could get into all sortsa neat places in the ruins, right?

Yeaaaaaaah, portable anti-grav packs! I cannot think of a single situation where those WOULDN'T be appropriate. Not one. It'd be a far goal, but this can easily be fixed onto a vehicle for going over water in the meantime...

[You know... he owes her one for coaxing him out with that bouncy slime all over. Something clicked in his head back there, that he's sure would have taken months otherwise. He smiles and gestures to the repulsor field.] Hey. You want to try it out? I'll be right here, so nothing'll happen to you; Just watch your feet when you land on the other side.

WOULD I? Wow! That sounds like a lot of fun! Sure, I'll gives it a shot! Okay, here I go!

*Slip-sliding across zero-G! Yeah, Tsuruya's giggling like, well, Tsuruya as she does this.*

[Gordon continues to prod the electronics, checking connections and occasionally sputtering into a chuckle at Tsuruya's giggling abandon or sidestepping out of the way to avoid being used for a landing pad.

[...of course, distracted as he is he may not think to dodge her every time.]

*Clearly such inattention to one's surroundings should be punished with a full body thwapping.*

*THWAP*

*Ow.*

[OOF! Just as he's fiddling with a wire he's knocked to the ground in an unceremonious sprawl ~~and docked two health points~~ by a hundred-and-eight pounds of Tsuruya at speed.

[He sits up, shaking his head with a hand to his temple.] Ungh... you alright Tsuruya?

*Despite lacking such an icon, she does indeed have the swirl eye, yes. Or something equivalent if we're going by a more naturalistic portrayal.*

nYorOo~n...

[He'll take that as a "yes."]

I'm going to need to line the edges with a rope fence. Or stack mattresses around it. Come to think of it, rope would be cheaper and not as cartoony--

[As he talks, his hair stands on end. Now, humans have no actual ability to move their hair under their own power, so this understandably puzzles the man. Immediately he looks at the magnetofield and the sparking wire that he'd pulled loose with the backwards jerk of impact, and he bristles in a completely different way.]

OHSHITthat'llunstabilizethefield! [SCRAMBLING TO FIX NOW.]

Well, Gordon found Shen in the yard, so it's only fair that Shen finds Gordon in the courtyard with the... thingee. Man, the grass around this place is gonna be shite this year....

The bird stops, staring. That is... a thingee, all right. No doubt about that. It's the thingee-est thingee that ever thingee-ed. Carefully, Shen approaches. He's got wraps on his feet to-day instead of the metal claws (really, tearing up the floor whenever you decide to go somewhere is just a bit uncouth), so his progress is a lot quieter.

"It's... ah... hm. It's... astounding." A beat. "What is it?"

Hm? [Gordon turns, taken by surprise by Shen's unintentional stalk. With the claws he was like a cat with a bell around its neck; and furthermore kung-fu training gives a creature a light step in the first place. The surprise abates quickly however.] Hey Shen. This? Is something I came up with late last night. Still working on a name, though I get the feeling it won't be necessary because this technology's been one-upped somewhere.

[He squints hatefully through his glasses at the apartment he and Booster share, then shrug away from it and regards Shen fully now.]

It's a magnetic hydrorepulsion field. Suspends anything with water in it about five feet above the surface... including people.

The technicalese nearly loses him. But he brushes that thought aside in favour of pondering the second statement. He is a practical bird, though, so his first question just has to be:

"... to what end?" He leans to the side to gaze at the thing. It's... well. He has literally no experience with homemade electronic thingees, so he's still pretty lost.

Hey, humans have always wanted to fly too, you know?

Peafowl, as a rule, don't fly much, but they do like to roost in high places, so he can understand why the flightless might want to fly. He tilts his head and blinks. "Hmmm, there is that."

He then smiles the pointiest smile Gordon has ever seen. Then again, that's what happens when you try smiling when half your face is a very sharp beak. It ends up pointy. "So, how's it work?"

Nah, he's not going to be amused by the result. Neeeeeeeee-var.

Well, uh... okay...

[He eyes the field, then Shen. He knows what you're trying to do, birdie. Then, with a rather pointy smirk of his own he grabs Shen, depositing--okay, kind of throwing--him onto the repulsion field!]

Hah, check it out for yourself! You're the one with the feathers!

He's caught off-guard by the sudden grab-and-throw, and before he can right himself, he finds he's sliding across the energy field. He gets to his feet ... for a whole three seconds before he tumbles off the other side with a suitably startled "WARK!" There's a graceless thud and one bird-foot in the air for a few beats before he rights himself. Oh, the glare.

Then, with a quick flap of his wings, he's up on the field again, this time sliding right back in the other direction, on pretty much an exact collision course. No, that isn't an evil snicker you hear. Not at all.

GAH--

[Gordon ducks, or tries to he may have some reflexes but he ain't that fast.]

With Gordon doing that, this post could quickly become a nest of godawful bird puns, but that will be stopped right now, as he's barrelled into, well and truly befeathered, and somehow flipped in the opposite direction so that now it's him sliding across the repulsion field instead of Shen.

One could go into the kinetics of such kung foolishness, but it'd really kind of ruin the scene.

Wondering will be done later. All he manages at the moment is a surprised yelp as he sails over the force bed and lands on the far side with a meaty thump and a grunt of impact.

A pause, and the disheveled human hauls himself back to his feet. "How... how the hell did you do that?"

"That?" Shen blinks. "Oh, that's just a simple inverted pivot-throw." He then realises how that sounds. "This, er, this stuff is still coming back to me in fits and starts, it seems." A beat. "You aren't... hurt, are you?"

And right there, he finds that concern, though perfectly reasonable, is a bit foreign to him.

He rolls his neck and fixes his glasses. "Yeah, sure, I'm fine."

He gives the field a look again, and just to prove that losing a health point or two isn't about to intimidate him, he hops and slides back... almost landing on his feet.

"So, that's how it works! No friction, you just slide until you fall off. I'm going to work on that later... hmhm, and I'll think twice about throwing you in to test it again."

[Rex arrives on the scene just in time to see Gordon wobble in mid-air and then fall over. He stands at the edge of the field, arms crossed, looking amused.]

Having some trouble there, varón volando?

[Wouldn't it just figure that he'd gain an audience at the very moment he starts assing around? He gets to his feet and hastily dusts himself off.]

No, just uh... testing the full capabilities of the field, Rex.

Doesn't look very capable to me!

What kind of field is it, anyway?

[He moves next to Rex, fidgeting with his grass-smudged glasses but not bothering to clean them.]

Technically it's a magnetic hydrorepulsion field. It, uh, also repulsed ME due to the fact that the human body is about seventy percent water.

Uh...right.

[Rex understands the mechanics, the way things fit together to work. He doesn't fully understand the theory, and he certainly doesn't know the terminology.]

So that's why you were just floating around in mid-air like that? And then you fell because...the field ended?

Exactly! See, no ground contact means no friction--well, negligible friction, anyway, and no friction means you just keep going in a straight line until something stops you. [He scratches the back of his head.] I, uh, slid off the side before I realized it and suddenly it was gravitational business as usual.

So...can't you fix that? Just build up wind resistance so that it's harder for you to go sailing along in the air.

[Right? That's how it works. Right???]

You're on the right track, but I'd have to be going really freaking fast for that to work. It's called "terminal velocity," and that name'll have more than one meaning if I tried to apply it here...

Yeah? Why's that?

[Words and terms that Rex doesn't understand! Mmmmm.]

[Why does he feel like he's teaching a science class? And why does that BOTHER him so much? Oh god... he's not actually a high school science teacher, is he?! Christ, if that's the case then he's better off an amnesiac!]

Because I'd liquify if I hit anything at over two hundred feet per second... Now, I GUESS I could put a ring of repulsors facing inward to make it more stable, but that won't work for bodies at any amount of speed, and it's not going to help at all I plan on making a portable version.

...

I have no idea what you just said.

'Yeah, I get that a lot. All I said was that adding something to keep a person centered isn't going to work, because I'm planning on turning this into a personal hover device, or at least something to augment a jump... though I get the feeling the guys' up at Justice League HQ already beat me to the punch.

Oh.

Uh, I guess... [Yeeeaaaaah Rex's capabilities have been exhausted here. He has no idea what he's saying or how any of this works. He'd have to see the inner workings to actually get anywhere close to understanding it.]

Well, uh...why would those Justice League guys build something like this anyway? They can all fly on their own already, right?

If Booster's to be believed they've got tech that's literally hundreds of years ahead of my time. [And he's not afraid of reminding him of that fact. Bastard.]

I don't know the whole roster, but some of them may not be able to fly under their own power. Others might be using tech instead. I should probably look it up at some point... Hey, what about you, kid? You can't fly, can you?

[Never thought he'd be asking a question like THAT so casually...]

Really? Hundreds of years ahead of that? [He points to the machine.]

And uh...actually? [Rex steps back a bit to let this grow out of his back. He jumps up and allows himself to hover a few inches off the ground.] Yeah. I can.

Hundreds of years, or so he says. What I want to know is, if Jay-ell has such advanced stuff then why the hell are they keeping it propriet--

[His train of thought is derailed spectacularly when Rex steps back and grows a turbine-powered jet pack. Holy crap.]

--I don't mean to go off on a tangent, but just how many of those nanite forms do you have?

I dunno. They're all superheroes, right? Maybe they're trying to keep it away from any supervillains that show up. If there even are any.

[He un-builds (look there isn't a much better word for it okay) the jet pack and lands on the ground.]

Well, let's see... [He mentally counts them off on his fingers one by one...] Far as I can remember right now, six. But I can change most of them to do even more stuff.

Six builds with a couple of variants a piece? That's pretty versatile.

[He makes a mental note of it all. Mostly for cuirosity's sake.]

Yeah. I don't think I can do more than one at a time, though.

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They've Actually Done This With Frogs [Video/Action]

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