story Chapter 1

[matt_s]

Tristan was wearing a workman like outfit, with denim pants, a thick and stained laboratory smock, and robust leather boots even in the seasonal heat. A bit of sweating was generally a fair price to pay in order to protect oneself from the nastier reagents found in any self-respecting lab. The space had an atmosphere of barely controlled chaos, but the Professor seemed wholly at home.

 

As his fellow investigators announced their presence with a polite knock on the door, he greets them,

 

I am glad you were able to find your way to our little alcove here. I have been most hard at work, yes I have, and I have begun to uncover the secrets of this specimen through all the tools at my disposal. Strangeness, yes, but trust in rationality and the scientific matter will take the scholarly mind quite far indeed. How does this day find you all? Come now, I have some findings to show you... and once that is through, we can discuss if there is anything more to learn here or if we should take ourselves elsewhere.

 

He turns away and retrieves a thick bound journal of meticulous notes and sketches, and begins to review what has been found in a voice well honed from years declaiming before young students in lecture halls.

[DogTheGoblin]

10am. Quite the perfect time to hold meetings and gatherings. Not too early to be half asleep nor too late to be absentminded with hunger. 

 

The sight of the professor took Martin aback as he looked the man up and down, it was if someone had cobbled together an outfit of the stereotypical attire of a mad scientist. Surely the type to entrust any and every scientific venture to. "Quite the lab you got here, professor." He eyed the shelves as he walked in, glossing over the samples and labels with a glance, perhaps lingering too long on the odd particular one.

 

"It's been a bit slow." Martin responded, placing himself before a window. These old buildings tended to laud their age over those who entered, a feeling Martin wasn't quite fond of. "Admittingly, I've been eager to hear what you discovered about the rock. Is there anything to tell us?" He pulled out a notepad and pencil, ready to take notes.

[Sir Lazeabout]

Malcolm shows up wearing the rather more workmanlike clothes he uses for fiddling with stage props and constructing his illusionary devices. He might not know much about geology labs, it having never been a discipline he thought to explore, but he has a general idea that they're probably dusty and not kind to suits - and his finances aren't of a kind that will allow him to ruin suits on a regular basis.

 

"Capital!" he says. "I am all ears!"

[thenucleus]

Kent, having very little in his schedule to clear, decided to spend Monday evening carousing at several of the town's more exclusive clubs. Being a Monday, most were dead, but were happy to accept Kent's patronage and it was closer to dawn than dusk when he stumbled into bed.

 

This morning, the sunlight streaming in through his window hurt his eyes and he reluctantly changed out of last night's clothes into a new set before hastily mixing and glugging down a concoction of milk, raw egg and tomato juice.

 

He arrives at the lab rather weary and dry-throated, but the throb in his head is fading and the excitement of the investigation has helped to blow a few cobwebs away. "Well isn't this wonderful!" he marvels at the sight of the lab, eyeing some of the jars. "Lay it on us professor!"

Edited August 8, 2022 by thenucleus (see edit history)

[Caystodd]

Livingston and Maria showed up last. Livingston looked like she'd been hurrying and was out of breath. She was dressed much like she had dressed for the memorial service—long skirt, boots, smart jacket—only with slightly brighter colors.

 

"Forgive out tardiness," she said, "It was my fault. I had an appointment that ran late."

[LaChupa]

Maria was dressed in a long, colorful dress with no sleeves. She wore her black hair up and held a purse under one arm and the appointment book in her hand. She looked neither hurried nor out of breath.

 

"Hello," she said to everyone in greeting and gave a customary little wave with her free hand. She paid far more attention to Livingston's heavy breathing than she did to the interesting items in the geology lab.

 

 

[Butchern]

With the group of investigators assembled, Professor Coupard explained what he had found so far:

 

Quote

Coupard found that the rock sample was made up of several different minerals. The large chunk was mostly graphite, but he found bits of other minerals in the crumbles that were sent with the sample. The sample was probably dug from a layer metamorphic rock. Sorting out those minerals and documenting them took most of his time, but it yielded little useful information. What he did not find was any cause for the luminous bits that he was sure he had seen when he first unwrapped the sample in the Rabbi's office. The glowing was now gone, and Coupard had not seen any hint of it since.

 

The graphite that made up most of the sample, was, by all accounts, ordinary. It tested a "1 to 2" on the Mohs Hardness Scale, and Coupard administered the normal battery of tests looking for something out of the ordinary, something to explain both the glowing and why this mineral sample would be left to them with a cryptic warning of "tell no one." He found nothing.

 

Coupard had also scheduled some time with the cloud chamber this morning to test the sample for radioactivity, the only other thing that Coupard could think of that might explain the glowing. He found no observable evidence that any of the minerals in the sample were radioactive by nature, but he was running out of options. The cloud chamber would settle it once and for all.

It was very short notice, but one of his colleagues in the Physics Department had agreed to set up the cloud chamber in the Geology Lab, and while the group greeted one another and Coupard explained his less-that-stellar findings to the other investigators, several burly men worked in the back of the lab, rolling in some very science-y looking equipment on carts. A man in a lab coat appeared in short order and began setting it all up.

"Five minutes," the young man in the lab coat called across the lab. "This won't take long."

The young man's name was Bart Thompson. He was tall and fair and was a newly hired lecturer in Physics at the college. He had been tasked with taking the cloud chamber out of the storage room where it was kept and setting it up in the lab. He looked happy to do his job. In fact, he looked like the kind of person who was insufferably happy all the time.

"What are we testing this morning, Professor?" he asked casually as he set up the equipment. "And who are your guests?"

[matt_s]

Coupard smiles broadly as everyone gathers in the laboratory and hurriedly makes space for the cloud chamber. He greets his fellow academic, saying

Professor Thompson, I am pleased to see you today indeed. Take your time, there is no rush and I understand the need for meticulous care when it comes to bleeding-edge experiment apparatus. I have seen enough broken glassware and cursed over too many dropped samples to demand unreasonable expeditiousness.

 

I, or rather we, have a curious rock sample donated to me by a sadly departed colleague. There is a hypothesis that it could be radioactively active given my geological insights regarding the sample. Of course, I doubt the radioactivity is particularly harmful provided the usual precautions are taken. You know, gloves, handwashing, the like. Even uranium ore itself is not particularly pernicious provided you don't go breathing in the dust. And don't go about eating it. First of all, anyone in the university without tenure in the Geology Department caught eating rocks is subject to SEVERE sanctions by our Department Head, oh yes.

 

Coupard pauses to laugh at what the observers might very charitably call a "joke".

 

But in short, these companions of mine are just that, people with either personal or professional interest in my work. I do take care to proselytize in the name of science on occasion, and when someone donates a specimen to our collection, it is only the proper thing to let the interested parties see some of what happens behind the curtain. Now to see what this delightful apparatus of yours is capable of!

 

And to his fellow investigators, Coupard asks, Do you have any questions of me or Professor Thompson as we begin?

 

 

[thenucleus]

Kent has been totally bamboozled by a great deal of the jargon espoused by the academics here at the lab, and finds himself itching to see the device in action.

 

"So what do we expect to see here?" he asks. "What are we looking for exactly? Is it dangerous?"

[DogTheGoblin]

"Doubt Professor Coupard would have us here if we were in danger." Martin answered, watching the professor make some considerable space only for some men bigger than him to come in carrying equipment. "Like he said himself. It shouldn't be particularly harmful." His attention shifted over to the other person outside of the gathering. Professor Thompson. 

 

"Good morning, Professor." Martin held out a hand to Bart. "Hope you don't mind us being here. We share a similar interest in what this cloud chamber of yours can show us." He echoed what Coupard said to drive in the fact that it was the truth. And for all tense and purpose, it was. Martin looked between the two men before focusing on Coupard. "Any idea what the glow might've been? Some reaction to the air or something?"

[Caystodd]

Livingston was pleased with Coupard's decorum. He answered the young man's question in a way that put him at ease but was still very much in the spirt of "tell no one."

Livingston doubted that there was any danger from the sample. Broder had possessed it for at least longer than they had, and Broder's death was not out of the ordinary. And Broder wouldn't have passed it on to his Rabbi if he knew it was dangerous.

"Was there any indication that the sample was taken locally? Can you tell from such a small rock if it is from around here?"

Edited August 11, 2022 by Caystodd (see edit history)

[LaChupa]

Maria quickly stowed the appointment book and produced a fold of blank paper and a pencil from her purse. She prepared to make notes for this endeavor just as she made medical notes for Livingston.

[matt_s]

Coupard shrugged at the suggestion of danger.

Again, to go about eating this sample or inhaling the dust would be unwise as a matter of general principle, but beyond that, I am confident this is completely safe. And as to what we expect to see, well my dear friend, this is SCIENCE! To discard one's expectations and go with whatever is revealed through experiment and analysis is the adventure of it after all.

 

Glowing, or phosphorescence, can have several origins. Radioactivity generally speaking is not capable of engendering such an effect visible to the naked eye in daylight, at least for naturally occurring samples, as the requisite energy would be long spent before the rock was dug from the ground by prying hands.

 

A chemical reaction - remember, radioactivity is atomic, not chemical in origin - could be a culprit as well. If the sample was exposed to the atmosphere recently, a reaction with the oxygen or other chemical in the air could have such an effect as well.

 

And another possibility is bio-luminescence of some sort. Bio-luminescence is a very common phenomenon in the ocean for instance, as one only needs to disturb the water near the beach at night to see the glow of micro-organisms suspended in the water. In fact, during the recent war with Germany, the glow of those same micro-organisms would on occasion illuminate u-boats to the relief of anxious merchantmen and their naval escorts!

 

But as for our sample here... let me think on the specifics for awhile and I will inform you of my conclusions.

 

Coupard then turned to Livingston and addressed her inquiry regarding the origin

That question is a matter of probability, not certainty. Near the coast, the sediment is dominated by alluvial deposits - soil or rocks left behind fairly recently by rivers and tidal action. This in fact continues as far inland as Columbia, with the age of the strata increasing with distance from the ocean. Further inland than that, the geology is dominated by a variety of rocks of far older origin, be they igneous deposits circa the Cambrian - before the dinosaurs - or various metamorphic deposits. This rock is new to me, so it is obscure no matter its origin, but odder things have happened than a strange sample showing up in our very backyard. Again, let me ponder the question, and I will have a clearer answer for you in a short time.

Edited August 11, 2022 by matt_s
posting fluff, will wait for actual answers if I know specifics for our favorite rock (see edit history)

[Butchern]

With the investigators reassured that there was no danger from the rock if it was radioactive in some way, Coupard detailed for them more of what he knew so far and answered the few additional questions that came up.

 

There was nothing in the sample that looked even remotely like anything radioactive, hence his bafflement (and lack of worry). Also, the rock was, indeed, mostly graphite, but the other trace minerals found in the sample were of the kind typically found in the swampy lowlands like the Lowcountry in South Carolina. Of course, determining where a sample was not from was much easier than determining where it was from. There were many other places in the state and on the continent that the rock could have come from, but nothing about the sample said it could not be from around here.

 

"Professor Coupard," Bart Thompson said, "I think we're rea—" There was a pause and then "What is that?"

Bart Thompson was looking around, patting down his pockets, and stepping back from the cloud chamber all at once.

A very distinct but irregular pattern was tracing itself across the cloud chamber. This was usually the indication that some sort of particles (like radiation) were passing through the cloud and being detected. It vanished and then pulsed again in exactly the same track. And pulsed again, about once every second.

"Where is the sample?" Thompson asked, thinking perhaps it might be somewhere close. It was not. The sample was across the room on a table, far to far away to have any registration on the cloud chamber. Thompson shrugged. "It's not me." He had now moved far enough away from the chamber so that if his lab coat had picked up any residual radioactive material it wouldn't be detected in the cloud chamber.

 

The rock sample was glowing in short, one-second pulses, keeping in time with the tracks on the cloud chamber.

[Sir Lazeabout]

"Extraordinary!" Malcolm breathes. "What could be causing this? We've ruled out radiation - perhaps some other manner of waves, then? Should we perhaps see what happens if we place an obstacle between the object and the chamber?"