Patchwork Universe

Miss Mercury · Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2004 10:02 am Post subject:

Miss Mercury straightened up, adjusted her satchel, and said "Here goes, then." She stood looking at the mist for a few seconds, laughed at herself, and then walked forward.

On the other side, she stood and looked for a few seconds. No matter that she had been forewarned, it was still bizarre and frightening that her world just stopped at the mist wall. Straight-faced, she walked back through the mist.

Laughing with relief, she looked over at Miss Latimer. "It's a different place, certainly. Are you going to have a look?"

Miss Latimer walked into the mists. There was a pause, and then she walked back. "I don't understand. It looked just the same to me."

"Let's try all together" suggested Miss Mercury. "Shall we count-march it?"she asked, giggling.

Dr Kirby looked bemused, and even more so when each lady took one of his arms and they lined up facing the mists.

"READY? AND!"

"One, two, three, four,
This is what we're marching for,
Five, six, seven, eight,
Keep on marching, getting late,
Eight, seven, six, five,
Keep on moving, feel alive,
Four, three, two, one,
Keep on marching, having fun."

And marching in time with the chant, they strode laughing into the mist wall.

This time it worked. There and back.

Miss Mercury · Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2004 10:45 am Post subject:

"Back to the school, then, Meredith? I think we probably need to go on a tour, don't we?"

Miss Latimer nodded. "I agree. But we should prepare."

"Of course. Dr Kirby, if you were willing, I would be very grateful if you could share with me any information you have on the sorts of places we may find ourselves in, places to avoid, supplies we might benefit from taking with us, that kind of thing. In any case, you are welcome to have some food, and spend the night in the visitors' wing, or just to browse in our library. I guess there may be other differences in that Encyclopaedia that would interest you! I understand, however, if you have a pressing need to move on before we are ready to leave."

Dr James Kirby · Good Joined: 02 Jul 2004 Posts: 214 Location: Empire City

"Absolutely" said Dr Kirby "I think it's probably a good idea for me to study your library and get some idea of where your world and mine differ."

Dr Kirby took his leave of Miss Mercury, albeit with some reluctance. She was a very interesting woman...

Later that evening, Dr Kirby had borrowed some laboratory space, and was going about routine maintainence of his suit. What he found surprised him beyond words.

Despite appearences, this wasn't his suit. It looked very similar, and it even performed identically, such that he hadn't noticed the difference. however, the difference 'under the hood' was massive. Intricate circuitry was embedded throughout the suit, apparently sending information from hundreds of tiny sensors throughout the suit, to a dense silicon array embedded in the chestpiece. Kirby consulted the library, and was soon able to surmise that the suit was controlled by what appeared to be a miniature computer system which responded to the movements of his body. Why not simply tap the biomorphic field directly, and read motion from there? He consulted the library some more, and could find no such phenomenon as the biomorphic field in the textbooks. Perhaps there were no such effect here?

Kirby investigated further. It seemed that the impellers of the Macro-Leap system were utterly redesigned too. They seemed to employ a system of fans and jets completely unlike the repulsor system he had designed. The jets were cunningly concealed throughout the suit, and had he not been looking for them, he doubted he'd have noticed them. These too were controlled by the computer system.

Finally, Kirby investigated the power source. It was, again, utterly unlike the atomic pile that he had designed. Instead, it appeared to be running on water collected from the air. Fusion? Cold fusion? Consulting the library again, it seemed to be the most likely explaination, though this world seemed itself to be many years away from break-even cold fusion.

Kirby did not sleep that night. Reading with almost inhuman speed, he started with elementary highschool science, and continued to read until he reached postgraduate level. Much was identical, he saw immediately, and most of the texts warranted only a cursory glance. What was more important he thought, was what was missing. The toolkit of the modern engineer - gravitational field manipulation, biomorphic field, safe controlled fission, they were just missing from this world's science. And someone had quietly redesigned his suit to make up for the lack. And in a way which he felt he might well have designed it, had he been faced with these challenges.

The rest of the night, until dawn, Kirby pondered why? His mind kept returning to these Gods. They'd stitched these domains together, and they were determined to make them work together. Kirby resolved to keep an eye on his equipment as he moved from domain to domain - and not to rely upon it. What if he went somewhere where such things were impossible?

Miss Mercury · Posted: Mon Aug 16, 2004 9:52 am Post subject:

[OOC: I'm not ignoring this thread, by the way, I'm just waiting for a response from Yarrow to advise me on how my actions will work or not. More as soon as I know.]