04-25-2016, 03:45 PM
Marcus stared at the stainless steel ball on his desk. Night had long since fallen, long dark shadows that reached and spread out until they bathed the room. There was still enough ambient illumination from the lights outside- the twinkling stars and nebulae and suns of the universe that was Moscow under the leadership of the Ascendancy.
And yet Marcus could only see the cold metal sphere, so very ordinary- a large stainless steel ball bearing- and yet so much more. He basked in the pride that he couldn't help but feel at what he had done. He seized the Force and gently on flows of air lifted the piece again, let it turn suspended in mid-air, its silvery surface a warped reflection of his apartment and the lights from outside.
With a flow of spirit and earth he once again pierced into the great lattice, past atoms, electrons and nuclei, deeper and deeper, beyond quarks and nutrinos and muons until finally he could see the faint rings of energy that were at the heart of all matter, the discrete shapes that were the finest pixel resolution of this vast super-computer the universe existed in. And they resonated at his touch, vibrating now with their own power, in response to his own.
He smiled. So simple a thing, useless in a way. And yet...the promise it held. Already ideas were beginning to form, new avenues of research to pursue. The promise of power seemed to pulse in time with the ball that floated before him.
Marcus had message the woman from that charnel house- the hunter who had become the prey- and left the sword hidden in a safe location with instructions where to find it. He would contact her again. She owed him. And he had questions, questions that had been stoked by his visit to the Almaz. It had been a productive visit. He had made an 'ally' of sorts with Cavelli. The man thought to use him but that was acceptable. If he was careful, he would never learn who was doing the manipulating. And he had the beginnings of a new mystery. Cavelli would eventually give him the information he wanted there too.
But Almaz itself...he felt a slither of excitement deep within at the memory of the place, the smells of smoke and blood and sweat causing his nostrils to flair. Malik wanted to go there again. He wanted to fight. Though of course that could not be. Not in public, anyway. But a hunt was in his future, though. A purging. Malik seemed to calm at the promise. It would hold him. For now.
But the sword had eventually yielded up its secrets. The Force resonance he had discovered in its lattice work of atoms had been a mystery. How had they been 'activated' or entangled with the Force? It had taken him days and reams of paper, reworking his Tau algebra, manipulating his eigenvectors in every possible combination, until he saw the simple truth, the relation to his discovery of the mutability of spirit's vibration eigenvalue in Vellas' weaves at the Christmas party. It was a matter of using threads of spirit in a carefully worked out pattern so that their vibration matched that of the metal.
On paper it was perfect. But it had taken him nearly a week of concentrated calculation and dozens of failures before he'd worked out the accurate mechanics of it. Each iteration, however, each pass, had helped, had allowed him to refine the equations and gave him a better understanding of what was going on in each eigenvalue in the vector.
Finally, it was done. The stainless steel ball now resonated with the Force, seemed to draw on it. He had tried to compress the ball with earth and fire and air and it only seemed to strengthen, as if the very act of compression caused it to draw on the Force. Idly, he considered taking it somewhere outside where he could well and truly use all the Force against it and see how it held up. But the equations wouldn't lie. He could see the thing was indestructible.
Mostly useless, in and of itself. Oh sure, he could think of a host of engineering applications for such a thing. Machinery that didn't break down? Parts that didn't wear out? And as a weapon, of course. But he had no interest in sitting in a factory and manufacturing Force-enhanced objects- which would be necessary for such an enterprise. He had come here to rule. No. But the fact that the thing was now Force-enhanced hinted at more possibilities, most only vague and nebulous. But given enough time...he would find a more advantageous use for this.
And he would contact the woman again. He wanted to know more about the sword and who made it. The thing seemed to convey a sense of great age, a weight of millenia. And yet...was there someone else out there able to manufacturing these things?
After another hour of mediation, he rose. His legs were sore. He'd been inactive too long. He slipped the ball into his pocket and put on a heavy black wool coat. It may be the beginnings of spring but it was late and the wind would be a knife. He let the door latch behind him and walked down to the exit, passing the guards at the doors who nodded at him respectfully.
The park lay before him. A walk would be good.
And yet Marcus could only see the cold metal sphere, so very ordinary- a large stainless steel ball bearing- and yet so much more. He basked in the pride that he couldn't help but feel at what he had done. He seized the Force and gently on flows of air lifted the piece again, let it turn suspended in mid-air, its silvery surface a warped reflection of his apartment and the lights from outside.
With a flow of spirit and earth he once again pierced into the great lattice, past atoms, electrons and nuclei, deeper and deeper, beyond quarks and nutrinos and muons until finally he could see the faint rings of energy that were at the heart of all matter, the discrete shapes that were the finest pixel resolution of this vast super-computer the universe existed in. And they resonated at his touch, vibrating now with their own power, in response to his own.
He smiled. So simple a thing, useless in a way. And yet...the promise it held. Already ideas were beginning to form, new avenues of research to pursue. The promise of power seemed to pulse in time with the ball that floated before him.
Marcus had message the woman from that charnel house- the hunter who had become the prey- and left the sword hidden in a safe location with instructions where to find it. He would contact her again. She owed him. And he had questions, questions that had been stoked by his visit to the Almaz. It had been a productive visit. He had made an 'ally' of sorts with Cavelli. The man thought to use him but that was acceptable. If he was careful, he would never learn who was doing the manipulating. And he had the beginnings of a new mystery. Cavelli would eventually give him the information he wanted there too.
But Almaz itself...he felt a slither of excitement deep within at the memory of the place, the smells of smoke and blood and sweat causing his nostrils to flair. Malik wanted to go there again. He wanted to fight. Though of course that could not be. Not in public, anyway. But a hunt was in his future, though. A purging. Malik seemed to calm at the promise. It would hold him. For now.
But the sword had eventually yielded up its secrets. The Force resonance he had discovered in its lattice work of atoms had been a mystery. How had they been 'activated' or entangled with the Force? It had taken him days and reams of paper, reworking his Tau algebra, manipulating his eigenvectors in every possible combination, until he saw the simple truth, the relation to his discovery of the mutability of spirit's vibration eigenvalue in Vellas' weaves at the Christmas party. It was a matter of using threads of spirit in a carefully worked out pattern so that their vibration matched that of the metal.
On paper it was perfect. But it had taken him nearly a week of concentrated calculation and dozens of failures before he'd worked out the accurate mechanics of it. Each iteration, however, each pass, had helped, had allowed him to refine the equations and gave him a better understanding of what was going on in each eigenvalue in the vector.
Finally, it was done. The stainless steel ball now resonated with the Force, seemed to draw on it. He had tried to compress the ball with earth and fire and air and it only seemed to strengthen, as if the very act of compression caused it to draw on the Force. Idly, he considered taking it somewhere outside where he could well and truly use all the Force against it and see how it held up. But the equations wouldn't lie. He could see the thing was indestructible.
Mostly useless, in and of itself. Oh sure, he could think of a host of engineering applications for such a thing. Machinery that didn't break down? Parts that didn't wear out? And as a weapon, of course. But he had no interest in sitting in a factory and manufacturing Force-enhanced objects- which would be necessary for such an enterprise. He had come here to rule. No. But the fact that the thing was now Force-enhanced hinted at more possibilities, most only vague and nebulous. But given enough time...he would find a more advantageous use for this.
And he would contact the woman again. He wanted to know more about the sword and who made it. The thing seemed to convey a sense of great age, a weight of millenia. And yet...was there someone else out there able to manufacturing these things?
After another hour of mediation, he rose. His legs were sore. He'd been inactive too long. He slipped the ball into his pocket and put on a heavy black wool coat. It may be the beginnings of spring but it was late and the wind would be a knife. He let the door latch behind him and walked down to the exit, passing the guards at the doors who nodded at him respectfully.
The park lay before him. A walk would be good.