1 : Advertising an Adventure
Gene Shields stared at the medical report in front of him. His barrel was hitching, and he was barely holding back tears.
The doctor with him frowned in sympathy. "I'm very sorry, Mr. Shields. But the results show..."
Gene crushed the papers between his hooves. "I'm going to die. I'm going to die in less than a year. I'm going to... die..." He dissolved into tears.
"I'm so sorry."
Gene clutched the crushed papers to his chest. "I thought I could... I thought I could figure out a way to... to stop this... I don't have enough time... Not enough time left..."
"Again, I'm very sorry, Mr. Shields, we have a capable end of life services office just down the hall..." The doctor nodded his head in the direction of the aforementioned office.
Tears in his eyes, Gene looked up and yelled, "No... NO! I... I've been fighting this damned disease for all my life! I WILL find a cure!"
There was no cure. None to be found in any of the arcane medical texts, none in any of the mundane medical texts, none in any of the alchemical texts, none in the research he had spent the last ten years of his life buried deep within, nothing. His genetic condition would be the life of him, just like it was with his parents. Only much faster.
He cursed his fate, to die as a protein in his cells just failed to copy themselves properly, the same fate that forced him to bury his mother, and then his father. He cursed with some guilt the love that brought them together, and brought him into this world, and the cruel twist that led to him and his broken genome.
He muffled a cry remembering the story he had been told, how he had been named "Gene" in the hope that he could Shield them from their fate. They had known, five months into her pregnancy, and still, they brought him into the world. What had motivated them; was it love, insanity, hope? Considering how he was groomed for medical research from his foalhood, he knew it was at least a part the latter.
Now he was alone. With a death sentence over his head. Slightly weakened as his body rebelled against itself. And with no way to change it.
Halfway through getting his affairs in order, made easier by having gone through this when either of his parents had died, he began to drink heavily.
The next morning, he awoke to a poorly written note and a few choice books and newspaper articles.
Perhaps this is what they had felt, those years ago, knowing death was close, for them and their son not yet born. That maybe, just maybe there was a solution. Maybe there was still hope.
It was crazy, damnable so, but the options were before him - very literally, there was a game-theory diagram in the notes detailing it in drunken mathematics. Maybe there was a chance. And he had literally nothing left to lose.
Radiant Flux wasn't happy to see Gene anymore. Sure, seeing him was nice. Gene had always had such interesting ideas. This was certainly interesting. Radiant would be more than happy to grant that point. Was it a happy idea?
"Wow. Just... Wow. Gene... This is... I am having difficulty communicating how I feel about this."
"I'm going to..."
Radiant Flux nodded. "Yes, you're going to die in a few months. But this would make you die even faster."
Gene nodded somberly. Then smirked in a sad way. "Yeah, I'll be dead soon. Which is why I've thought this up.` And I want to fight it."
Radiant's head tilted. "This is arguable the strangest cure I've ever heard of. And, while not the most expensive, it'll be pretty costly."
Gene looked deeply at Radiant. "I don't need the newest or best equipment. I have enough EE under my saddle to fix up old stuff, if I can buy some. And I'm burning through the lasts of my bits for the newest kinksprings. I won't need them anyway, soon enough. I can do this."
Radiant Flux's head dropped. A helpful hoof worked it's way around Gene's neck. A nuzzle and a kind word followed. "Gene, I'll help you. I care about you - Tarturan chimes, the whole staff cares about you. I just... Well, this idea is pretty far out there. This idea is really far out there. And if you screw up, you're dead. Like, prematurely dead. Celest, that's a morbid thing to say."
"So you'll help me?"
"I'm a radiation tech. And I care about you. You got some electric eng under your saddle, but I'm way better than you. You tell me what you want, and how you want it, and I'll find a way to make it work."
"You a wonder, Radiant Flux."
Radiant's head tilted. With a closed-eye and a smile, Radiant spoke, "I try. And with what you're planning, I'll be even more wondrous." Hooves waved through the air. "My name in the paper! The background pony who helped make a hero, or.... or somepony involved in a very convoluted assisted suicide. Oh, wow. We're going to need safety circuits coming out the wing-wang to make sure you don't electrocute yourself."
Gene nodded solemnly. "Yeah... While I aim for the stars, I've gotta keep myself grounded."
Radiant chuckled. "That was a terrible pun. Damn, this better work, I don't wanna miss you."
Gene nodded. "I'm way ahead of you."
The two hoofbumped, and got to work.
Six - SIX! - Six Dr. Clocks Mark Five Kink-Spring Energy Storage Devices. Rated at two hundred and fifty megajoules of stored energy each, so much that a permit was needed to purchase them. If they failed catastrophically, the tightly wound metal would slash through the surroundings like a scythe. Many buildings weren't rated to hold up to the damage one would inflict. Their casing was a solid titanium alloy. Their manufacture was complicated. And Gene had enough funds to purchase six of them. His life savings. His life saver, or so he hoped.
He was there with Radiant Flux, going over the calculations. All of them. There were so many bits of math to go over for this project: Power consumption, power lost from corona effects, estimates on the repulsion he could expect, estimates on the forces he'd feel from repulsion, charts for all of these and more... The idea was insane, but Radiant was always the sort to help friends with crazy ideas. Thinking about that always brought Radiant's mind back to college years - ah, the policies administration had to put in place after one of the stunts they got into. Good times...
This machine they were building would've fit right in. The theory was, you can have a completely non-magical shield, if you do one thing. Have an actual shield. Metal, wood, some kind of plastic - Celest, you could do it with water or air in some cases. This idea, well, was similar, in that in any of those cases where you physically interpose matter in the way of something you do not wish to pass, what is actually preventing the passing is the electron shell around the atoms repelling the object with all the strength of the material.
What Gene Shields was suggesting was to get rid of the middling atoms. Specifically, with up to two gigavolts of potential energy across his body. A freakin' meteor could be smashing at him at kilometers per second, and it'd bounce right off. Granted, he'd bounce backwards as well, but it'd be distributed across his whole mass.
It was the kind of crazy idea that a pony like Radiant Flux could get behind. And Radiant Flux was a kind of pony like Radiant Flux.
The only concern raised was about X-Ray generation. If an electron strikes metal - or almost anything, really - with that much potential, a core electron can be displaced. This cause it to wiggle a very tiny amount - no, a very short distance. The wiggle itself causes - can cause, 10% chance - a photon to be emitted of the X-Ray variety. Blinding and/or death are likely side effects.
It was here that Gene raised his hooves for Radiant to inspect. Gene had switched out the standard metal horseshoes for some kind of ceramic/plastic composite. Clever pony. Might still be some X-Ray problems. More mathematics.
So, they were building a machine that would stop anything from hitting him, and with the serious electric potential probable cause any spell targeting him to be thrown into disarray. It could be compensated for, sure, but that takes the time and skill to work out that the ponies who'd work on such a fix probably wouldn't have taken to criminal activity.
Well, barring that one mystery mare. But she was also, from eyewitness reports, an earth pony. So she didn't use magic to carry out those crimes, so Gene would probable be just as safe there. That girl never seemed to permanently hurt anyone either, so Gene would be fine even if she figured out the secret of his neigh invulnerability. There weren't any other highly technical thieves out there that she knew of.
Of more concern, there was also the issue of oppositely charged objects that'd practically seek him out. Gene said he was working on that. At the very least, he'd also have some kind of armor on him, probable one of those piercing resistant plastics or something.
Gene was going to become a hero. Someone who does the impossible, or at least highly improbable. And he was doing it to save his life. He needed to change a very fundamental part of his biology, and he was unable to find a way through normal magic or science. So he decided to start an adventure to become an alicorn. Crazy. Absolutely far out there. But Celest, this plan might work. Radiant Flux liked this idea. Maybe, with Radiant serving as a campaign manager, Gene Shields could get his alicorn-hood. Well, that actually sounded like a lot of work. Campaign helper? Campaign champion? Was there a word for that? Probable. Eh. The language of mathematics and power tools was a far more interesting thing to think with right now.
Though the thought of how to advertise a hero remained at the back of Radiant's mind.
A classified entry found in any paper across Equestria:
"Hero for hire. Reasonable rates. The more impossible the better. Trying to become an alicorn. Please contact Shield Generator, 555 Quint Way, Canterlot."
Author's Note
We have a character. We have a goal. We have a device. Now, he's up for hire.
I'm going to borrow a book from the library tomorrow to recall properly how such a thing works.
So, would you hire Shield Generator, and what for?
2 : But Then You Have To Build It.
Radiant Flux was looking at the pile of parts. There were unrecognized bits mixed in with the more common wires and circuitry. The kinksprings were off to the side, winding up slowly off of the house's mains. There was something particularly ominous about two longish cylinders in the mess. Looking a little closer at the writing on their side...
"Celest's sweet ass, Gene, where the hell did you capacitors this big?!"
Gene looked over the top of the table he was stitching wires into the kevlar body suit he'd be wearing. "Oh, those? I asked around at the Surplus Store. That was the highest voltage ones they had. I think they were used in a power plant."
"For the love of..." Something alarming caught Radiant's eye. Backing away slowly, in the calm evenly tempered voice of one who is absolutely not calm at all, Radiant stated, "The... the terminals aren't shorted... Why aren't the terminals shorted, Gene."
He waved a hoof about with the nonchalance he seemed to be displaying too much of lately. "I'm going to wire them up in a few minutes. I figured I had to remove that at some point during the installation, so when I unpacked them I took them off."
Radiant's tone remained flat. "How long ago was that, Gene."
Gene cocked his head to the side and squinted. "Yesterday morning. What's got you so on edge?"
"Gene. These kinds of capacitors can pick up a small amount of charge just from the air. Gene, we played with these kinds of capacitors in college. Not these ones, explicitly, but the same sorts of voltages. Do you know what one of these will do to an apple? Or a hoof?"
"Give it a sharp jolt?"
"We made instant applesauce with them, Gene."
"Oh. Ooh. Crap." His eyes widened with the realization that he may have almost ended his life far to early. He laid his suit down on the table gentle and slowly walked away to stand next to Radiant Flux. "Um, what do we do?"
"We're going to get a very large resistor and short it. Preferable on the end of a wooden stick or something. I have some back at my apartment, but I could rig up a salt-water resistor if you've got a few pounds of it and a bucket."
Gene shook his head. "I'm not one of those salt-lick junkies. We've both seen what that much sodium does to a pony. Can't we just use the wire it came with?"
"I've seen capacitors like that weld a stack of copper sheets together."
"Oh. Well, I guess your idea is better."
Radiant nodded. "I'm going to go pick up the resistors then. You can keep working on your suit, but well away from there. I'll be back in half an hour. I can wait for you to get your tools outside of the danger-zone, incase you need CPR or something."
Gene gave a tentative nod, and cautiously approached the table they had been working at. He gathered the suit components that weren't next to possible death, and took them out of his kitchen to his living room.
When they had both exited, Radiant's head dropped with a sigh. "I know we came up with general equations so parts could be swapped in or out as we found them, but damn, Gene. Those things are kinda overkill, don't you think?"
Gene shrugged. "I can only get so much energy from the kinksprings. And to rapidly make the field, I'm gonna need big capacitors. So, I kinda went all out. Two birds, one stone, kinda thing."
"Alarmingly apt metaphor. One of those could kill both of us."
"Wow, you're a bit of a downer. I'm sorry."
Radiant sighed again. "It's ok, we can work with this. I just need to get a bit more safety equipment. Celest, I'm glad you picked me to help you. I work with similar enough stuff on a daily basis, while you were slaving over test tubes and chromatographs. If you picked, say, Velma over in rheumatology, and she naively shorted it, you'd be having a very awkward conversation with the guard over what that loud 'squawk-bang' your neighbors heard was and could you please explain the griffon feathers all over your body."
Gene tapped his chin in thought. "Those talons would be helpful with all this stitching."
"Well, we can ask later if you're not done tonight. I'm going to be off now, don't do anything stupid near those things till I'm back. If we're going to do something stupid, we're going to do it together." Radiant smiled and exited Gene's apartment. He returned to stitching the cables into the garment. After fifteen minutes had passed, he heard a knock on the door. He got up to answer it.
"Radiant, that was fast, did you run the whole way?" There was an unfamiliar stallion at the door, tan of coat and dark of mane. "Oh, wait, hello. I don't believe we have met."
The stallion nodded. "That is correct. Though I believe you have something of mine, ahem, 'Shield Generator'."
Gene cocked his head. "Um, I don't imagine so, I purchased everything in here. I'm not liking your implication, sir."
The stallion smiled and waved a forehoof. "Oh ho ho, not in that sense. Allow me to introduce myself." He bowed his head and closed his eyes. "I am Dr. Clocks, and I take some interest in anyone who purchases a large number of my devices."
Rising up, Dr. Clocks spoke again, "Technology fascinates me, and I wish to encourage it's development. Perhaps offer some advice. And most importantly, make sure ponies who make large first time purchases don't end up killing themselves. May I come inside?"
Gene was staggered. This was Dr. Clocks, noted engineer and entrepreneur of some renown. He was standing at his front door. And he was offering to help?! "Yes, please, do come inside. Just stay out of the kitchen, there are some possibly charged high voltage capacitors in there."
Dr. Clocks sighed. "It appears I wasn't a moment too soon. Please, tell me about your plans, Generator."
"See, the field doesn't kick up to full power until something is detected by this circuit here, because..."
"Coronal discharge into the atmosphere will break down the field in moments. I understand, I'm not just a mechanical engineer."
Radiant didn't knock and burst into the house unannounced. "Hey, Gene! I brought some hundred megaohm resistors! And a wooden broom handle! Where's your duct tape aaaaand hello there." Radiant just noted the unfamiliar guest Gene was pointing out parts of his suit's circuit diagram to.
Dr. Clocks bowed. "Hello. I am Dr. Clocks, and I..."
Radiant Flux's mouth had dropped open at the sight, but swiftly closed with the drop of that name. Before Dr. Clocks could speak again, Radiant blurted out, "You're the inventor of the kinkspring. You've saved so many lives."
Gene was taken aback by that. "What?"
Radiant looked at Gene. "The kinkspring. High density easily moved energy storage. Oh, dang, that's right. You worked genetics. Your machines almost never leave the bench. For folks like us in radiology, some of us work outside, and you need a lot of power, and batteries just... don't cut it, when you're in the field."
Dr. Clocks nodded. "I'm very pleased to make you acquaintance... I'm sorry, I don't have your name.
"I'm Radiant Flux. I work at the same hospital Gene does. Did. We're still not certain if he should keep his day job. I, uh, well, it's an honor to meet you, but there's a pair of big capacitors in the kitchen I need to take care of. Gene, where's your duct tape?"
Gene held up a roll of the wondrous material. Radiant dashed over and began to strap the resistor to the broom handle with it. "OK, once I discharge the capacitors, I'm going to wrap some wire to the terminals. That wire will remain in place until we're ready to build the circuit that holds them. You both know CPR, right?"
Gene and Clocks both responded with a firm "Yes" before Radiant trotted into the kitchen with the taped together discharge device. With a faint pop as the capacitors made contact with the resistor, the built up charge was safely removed from each. Wire was connected to each terminal, at which point Radiant mentioned, "Well, it seems it wasn't as dangerous as I made it out to be. But damnit, Gene, this is basic safety! We're going to have to go through so many textbooks before you go out."
It was then that the door to Gene's house received another knock.
A somewhat tall mare was on the threshold of his apartment's landing, looking forlorn. "Excuse me, but is this the residence of 'Shield Generator'? I'm in need of a hero's service."
Author's Note
I had a chat with a physicist the other day. I learned a bit about the difficulty maintaining a charge like that in the atmosphere.
I also had a chat with a doctor who regularly works with MRI's. Seems like a few teslas of field strength have difficulty even deflecting a copper jacketed bullet.
Same event, really. Nerd parties bring out the best of us.
So I'm going to try and keep this as scientifically accurate as possible. But the idea is just to appealing to let it get in the way all of the time.
Also, any ideas for potential jobs are welcome! I've got a few, and boy howdy are they silly.
