Millitimed to sometime after the thing with k_in_black.

[gone_byebye]

Ray comes in from New York City, rubbing at his face tiredly with one hand. He's got a sheaf of papers in one hand, and he looks as if he could use a drink; what the Bar gives him, however, is his usual green stuff and a plate of dinner. He nods and touches the bar briefly with his Visa card.

"Thank you, Bar, I appreciate it."

That having been done, he scoops up his receipt and goes looking for a place to sit.

Comments

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

"No - I'm the only one I know of. And the questions are fine." She drops the green man back into his glassy home and produces the second-best grin once more. "I tend to ask lots of them too, so I understand. Speaking of which, do I remember you pointing some sort of gadget at me...? What was that?"

[gone_byebye]

Ray takes the meter back off his belt and slides it over towards Matilda. "Psychokinetic energy meter- we usually just call it a PKE meter. I use it to detect and analyze supernatural or paranormal activity in a given area. Mostly that means I use it when I'm hunting down ghosts, since that's what I do for a living, but it's a really good research tool if you can just get a genuine psychic phenomenon or something similar in front of you. I'm a parapsychologist, you see."

Maybe she'll know the word, maybe she won't. Who knows?

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

It's in the dictionary; of course she knows it.

"Oh. That's very interesting." Matilda is one of the few people who can say that phrase with total sincerity. "How's it work? And what do the various numbers mean?" She examines the meter, looking for everything from method of construction to labels on the display.
The very best grin has sidled onto her face and made itself at home, for there is New Knowledge afoot.

[gone_byebye]

"Well," says Ray, "whenever a paranormal entity such as, for example, a ghost or spirit manifests on the physical plane- even if it's only to manipulate an object, rather than show itself- the energy expended to cross the planar barrier results in local-area ionization and characteristic disruption of the local quantum valences. It's like watching the foam kicked up in a boat's wake, only on a subatomic scale. The meter's sensitive to those disturbances, even when they're caused by the energetic action of something that isn't a spirit- psychokinetic energy expenditure causes that kind of disruption regardless of whether the living or the dead are the source. See, these readings over here would be the valence levels, and this is the proximity in meters- I might be an American, but my stuff's in metric. That readout over there's only useful if there's a spirit entity invovled, though."

It simply does not occur to him that someone who shows an actual interest in the PKE meter might not be able to follow along with the words.

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

Lucky for him, this is Matilda, and she has no problem with it.

"Hmm. So what kind of numbers do you get on my dancing green man, then? Is the instrument precise enough to measure what's going on inside an object being lifted specifically, or does it just look more generally for disturbances of the correct sort?"

[gone_byebye]

"At this range, if I tune it properly, I get a general fluctuation of energy from the use of your lifting power- see, here-" He adjusts a few dials to go back through the last few sets of numbers. "That's what I'm seeing when you're lifting. It's not really capable of being that precise- I'd have to build something with probes for that."

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

"Interesting." The Academic Appreciation Grin has by this time settled down and begun raising children.
Three guesses what she's about to ask, and the first two don't count:
"Are there any books on this sort of thing?"

[gone_byebye]

"Yes, and my colleague Dr. Spengler and I wrote them," Ray says with an answering grin. "The books on the meter and most of the rest of our equipment, anyway. There's loads of other parapsychology books and studies out there, but this little beauty-" He taps the meter. "That's ours. I could bring you some of the monographs from our library, next time I go home, if you want."

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

"Oh, that'd be brilliant. Could you?" She bounces up and down in excitement. "And if you made this, can you teach me how?"

[gone_byebye]

Ray bites his lip. "I dunno, Matilda. It runs on deuterium power cells. Are you qualified to work with radioactive materials yet? You're what, seven?"

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

"Almost six, actually. And I'm probably not qualified yet, but what does it take? It can't be too difficult."

[gone_byebye]

"It's not so much that it's difficult as that if you mess up, you could contaminate yourself and the area. Radioactivity's nasty stuff to work with." Ray thinks for a bit. "Tell you what. I have a type of power cell that involves a lot of chemical engineering, but isn't radioactive. I patented the design a while ago, so I know exactly what's involved in making them. If I can work out a way to use the K-14 in the PKE meter instead, I'll get you some of those power cells and then we can talk about teaching you to make the meter. Okay?"

Pause.

"Six years old? That's in Terran years, not Darkovan, right?"

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

"Okay - that sounds great. But where do you think I can find books on working with radioactive materials? I still want to learn how even if I can't actually do it yet, or it would be inadvisable."

"Yes. What's Darkovan the adjective to? Another planet?"

[gone_byebye]

"Oh, gosh. Um-" Ray thinks for a second. "Well, you can start with Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials: Principles and Practices. It's a good introduction to the precautions, although it's not working on the stuff directly. Otherwise I'd suggest starting with books from any university library on high energy physics. I mean, that's assuming you have access to them. If you don't I can grab you one of Egon's freshman year textbooks, since he's still got them."

Ray nods. "Yeah. It's a so-called lost colony world orbiting a red star- the planet's official name is Cottman IV, but the colonists named it Darkover. Their year's a little off from the standard Terran year. A Darkovan fifteen-year-old human is about equivalent to a Terran eighteen-year-old. I figured maybe you were using a slightly longer year, since when I was your age I was still just working with trying to make a laser out of my flashlight so that I could eventually build a lightsaber, and Egon was building internal combustion engines."

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

"The Milliways library probably has a section on it. I'll check. I went through the place once already, but not very thoroughly."

"That's interesting. But so far as I know my England and your New York use years of the same length. What's a lightsaber?"

[gone_byebye]

"... you've never seen Star Wars?" Ray asks, staring at the child with a look of mingled pity and horror.

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

Blink. "Seen? As in on the telly? I never paid much attention to the television, so maybe. If so, I don't recall. What's a lightsaber?"

[gone_byebye]

"Well, it was a movie, more than anything on the TV," Ray says. "It's a type of energy weapon used by Jedi Knights as part of their efforts at upholding peace and justice throughout their galaxy. I thought it was just about the coolest thing ever when I was a little kid, so I tried to build one. I sort of accidentally set the cat on fire when I tested it, though."

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

"Is it possible to build a working one, then? Or did you give up? Upholding peace and justice sounds nice."

[gone_byebye]

"Oh, it's possible to build one," Ray says. "But I asked permission first, because I finally met real Jedi here. If you're going to have one, you're supposed to be making a major commitment to the Jedi order's ideals and practices. That kind of thing lasts a whole lifetime, you know?"

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

"I guess. But peace and justice just make sense to uphold." She grins in a vaguely mysterious way. "And I suppose I've got a headstart on that sort of thing..."

[gone_byebye]

Ray eyes the girl thoughtfully.

"Superhero?" he guesses.

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

"It would be a stretch of the definition. I don't wear any silly costumes or go gallivanting about looking for evil to thwart, but I've done my share of thwarting nonetheless. There was a very nasty lady, and I made her run off."

[gone_byebye]

"Hey, it's a start," Ray says. "I mostly just deal with the restless dead, myself, but every so often it turns out there's a living person behind the trouble they're causing, and then we've got extra duty to do."

[precocioustilda.livejournal.com]

"Well, in my case it was the Headmistress of my school, who liked picking her students up by the hair and sometimes throwing them. Which probably isn't nearly as exciting as the restless dead, but as you say, a start." The Grin is cheerful at him.