Immortal Tales #Wattys2020

Chapter Twenty Six - Part Two

The bag opened, revealing an intrigated set of wires and cables. She took it out carefully as she would a bomb and put herself to good use.

Finding the mist people was one thing, killing them would have been a whole different problem. They had figured a while ago that iron was the key to their defeat. As beings made of pure magic, an anti-magic device would be enough to end their existence. Hopefully.

But the problem with capturing a creature made of mist was that ... well, it was made of mist. A simple pair of handcuffs wouldn't do the job, a cage would be pointless. They could try and shoot iron bullets through the fog or swing and iron sword and hope for the best, but Emily wasn't positive that it would do the trick.

A few weeks back, an explosion in a weapon factory in North Canada had release in the atmosphere several tons of heavy metals, pulverised so thinly they could be breathed by the population. Hundreds of people had been admitted urgently to the hospital, and the natural landscape ruined for the following centuries. A tragedy. But it gave her an idea.

She didn't know if the people of the mist needed to breath or if their manifestation in the world had anything to do with actual water condensation, but they did have some sort of physical presence. By transforming a heavy metal into a gas, she should be able to shoot them right where it hurt the most.

She clicked the vacuum pump into place and soldered it by heating it with her own hands.

This was not a technology that mortals had developed before, but the concept was pretty straightforward. In much like the same way water would freeze if subjected by enough pressure, she figured it could be unfrozen by applying a negative force over the particles. And if that could work for ice, maybe it could be applied to iron.

Her proof of concept with water had worked just fine, but she couldn't quite create enough negative pressure to compensate for the disorder of the iron particles. Plus, everytime she accidentally touched the metal her intestines swirled in disagreement.

-What are you doing? - Mat enquired, spying over her shoulders. Her hands were now as greasy as his. -I think I can help ... am waiting for the "Magic Finder 2000" to finish setting up on its own... -

Any other member of their group would have been satisfied with a simple "Mist people killing thing", but she knew from Mat's eyes that he was asking her what kind of technology she was developing. He was truly curious. She figured it wasn't that surprising that he liked to draw that much, since art and engineering weren't that different in the end. You had to be curious about the world and picture it in a way no one else did.

So she explained it to him in excruciating long detail. Hours must have passed since she came back home, since Andre had come to the room at a point to check if they were still alive. It was probably the middle of the night, the summer warmth not as violent as during the day.

Somewhere in the middle of the speech, Emily had moved to the desk, sketching the three-phase diagram she knew for iron, adding an extra dimention for negative pressure.

-So hypothetically - she concluded. - If one was able to cross over the phase separation boundary, this could make iron a gas. -

Mat frowned at the diagram for a long time. -This migh have been the hottest thing a girl has ever said to me. - he blinked. -But yeah it could work. It's pretty genius actually. -

The girl blushed at his compliment. She never really talked about her passions openly, too afraid to fall far away from her masks. Even Guglielmo, who had appreciated her love for art, would have not liked to see his pretty bride sweaty getting her hands dirty. He had liked an idea of her.

-So the third corner represents temperature, correct? - he asked, still focusing on the calculations.

She nodded.

-So what if you increase it? - his eyes shined with an idea. He grabbed a pencil and started to draw, the lines so perfect it could have easily been a painting. - By adding entropy to the system you should be able to allow the particles to separate more easily but ... not sure by how much to compensate the negative pressure... -

The solution fired brightly in front of her eyes. -We could add a fifth dimention! - she blurted out. Her pencil went over the diagram, miming a line coming out of the plane, connecting the last two corners that had been left untouched. -The tie line should be able to tell us the exact temperature! -

Mat gasped, excitement burning wildly from his heart. Emily had barely any time to turn that he grabbed her face in his hands and kissed her. Her pulse quickened as he released her almost instantly.

-Uh sorry - he said, though he didn't look very sorry. Emily turned again as if she didn't still feel the salty flavour of his lips on hers. The luminous thread connecting them flaming wildly.

She suddenly felt the need to run outside, away from the room.

The girl was blinded by the sudden light switched on by Jane at the entrance, back from her night shift.

-For Nature's sake, what are you two building in here? It smells like death. - she said twitching her nose. -No scratch that. It smells like death had been dead for a hundred years and they only now found its corpse. -

Mat took a step away from her, for once embarrassed. The girl avoided his clever green eyes, leading her own towards something safer, like his arms.

She had almost forgot about the tattoo she had glimpsed before, but now it was clear like the sun in a cloudless day.

The ink covered a small portion of his bicep, still wide enough so she could read it.

15/08/1940

24/07/1992

The dates he would never forget.

-Luz? - Mat asked. His voice seemed far away. -You look like you have seen a ghost. Is everything all right? -

And just like that, the world dissolved under her feet.