milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Agatha's back in the bar today, at the tables she set up before. The sign and items are all still there. Draping it in a blanket helped keep everything safe.

Well, that and the security system she added.

She's not keeping an eye out for customers at the moment. There's something more importaint on her mind.

In front of her is a slightly used camera, disassembled. Notes and schematics are spread out on the table around it, and there is much tinkering. She's humming an odd tune.

Fear.

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Ray grins. "Twenty-four pictures a second, yeah," he says. "At least, that's how fast I remember it being. I don't know much about film technology myself. Funky stuff, isn't it?"

"I doubt I could do anything to improve the film, at least at this stage. . . but I do have a few ideas. This is going to be a fun job."

She rubs a crink out of her neck and smiles at one of her clanks.

"And my clanks have been helping out more than ever. They're very effective lab assistants. Oh -- how is your daughter, by the way?"

"Pretty good, actually," says Ray. "I've rigged up a few devices to get her to the point where she can play games with my nephews, and I got her a dog- I don't know if I told you about that. My friend John is from a world where they were able to build robotic dogs for hunting down fugitives. One of the dogs went bad and tried to kill him. He disabled it and brought it to me, so I took out the dangerous parts and had it reprogrammed. It's behaving like a normal dog now, so I renamed it Francis and gave it to my daughter so she'd have a pet that could keep up with her."

"Oh, that's so sweet! Clanks do prefer it when they have friends around. It's good for her to have a companion."

For Agatha? This is just normal day-to-day conversation.

And as far as Ray's concerned, this is perfectly normal. Or, rather, the possibility that it isn't, isn't worth considering.

"I figured it would be a good idea for her to have someone to keep her company. Especially since we're working on teaching her to drive herself. Francis thinks it's just about the greatest thing ever, having someone to play with at high speed."

"She's had experience being driven, so there shouldn't be much problem -- some clanks don't catch on to the traffic rules when in the city, I've seen. Is there somewhere they can play safely, without needing to worry about staying out of the way of other traffic?"

To her embarrassment. Still not a bad job, considering she was asleep at the time.

"Yeah. I've been taking them out to Floyd Bennett Field. It used to be an airfield with lots of planes taking off and landing, but it hasn't been used for that in years. There's enough room for her to get up to a hundred miles an hour or more, if she exerts herself that much- the dog can just about keep up. We just have to make sure we're not there at a time when someone's using the field for archery or for toy planes."

"That sounds ideal. My father had a machine shop, and we'd see examples all the time -- people who didn't utilize all the functions of their clanks, and would find switches rusted over or joints that stuck, when they were needed. It's good to let them have a proper run once in a while."

Ray nods happily. "Ecto's a working girl- she's still hauling our equipment on just about every bust- but once in a while it's good to let her have her head," he says. "And like I said, she can sort of play with my nephews now. She's got these devices I've hooked up for her that let her control small machines or the radio, stuff like that- do you know what radio is, by the way?"

Agatha grins. Were cameras more common in her world and if she carried a wallet, it would be filled with pictures of her clanks. She's proud of them, and is always happy to speak with someone who knows the feeling.

"No, I don't. There's still so many things I need to catch up on. Some days I feel like my world is behind everyone else, but others I speak with people who are amazed that clanks and constructs even exist, much less be common there."

"Oh, everywhere varies. Technology's not exactly an across-the-board thing, you know," says Ray. "Radio's great, though. It's a means of long-distance communication where you turn someone's spoken words or other sounds into a form of electromagnetic energy that propagates a whole lot further than ordinary sound or light. People can't see it, because the human eye isn't built to pick up that frequency, but if they have a radio receiver it can pick up on the signal and turn it back into audible sound. There are radio towers in New York City, where I live, that put out signals you can pick up on a good hundred miles away."

There is gleeing. Much, much gleeing.

"That would revolutionize the world . . . Mail clanks would need to find new duties, explorers would be able to at least determine how close one can possibly get to the Americas . . . "

"Oh, well- we still have mail. I mean, some things have to be conveyed privately, you know? And stuff has to be done officially so that there's a permanent record- even with sound recording you don't really have something as permanent as a piece of paper. But it's great for stuff like coordinating fleet movement at a distance. Heck- modern airports can bring in a guy in an airplane without him being able to see what he's doing, using the right kind of radio signals so that he can tell where the runway is. It's amazing stuff."

Agatha blinks.

"Oh, yes, I suppose -- if everyone had recievers and there would clearly be problems securing something an electromagnetic signal . . . but it's still a safe and reasonably certain way of transmitting data and casual corrispondance across even the Wastelands, and almost instantly -- we have nothing like that. Planes aren't very common, but certainly even the dirigible docking stations could benifit from it . . ."

Ray nods. "The most famous radio antenna still standing in New York City was originally built to be a dirigible mooring mast," he says. "That turned out to be a mistake- the winds got out of control- but it's still the most important proadcasting tower in the city. I can show you the theoretical basics of the process, if you like."

There is manic grinning. And squeeing. And general geeking out.

"Yes. I certainly would like."

"Okay," says Ray, getting a piece of paper and a pencil out. "Here's the basics- let's just start with the electromagnetic spectrum-"

He draws something that looks very much like this.

"You do use metric, right? Please tell me you use metric.... anyway, see how visible light is really just a part of the same sort of energy as radio and all these other kinds of waves? To create a simple radio transmitter, what you want to do is create a rapidly changing electric current in a wire. You can do that by rapidly connecting and disconnecting a battery, but that's not going to get you much more than the sound of dots and dashes- long on periods versus short on periods. That's how our radio transmissions began, anyway."

"Yes, of course I use metric. It's standard in most labs, except when some spark decides to set up their own system. . ."

Her brain is focusing on absorbing the new information. The mouth is left to fend for itself.

"Oooooh!"

"Okay, good. My mother used to use the old Imperial system and it drove me nuts every time she measured the speed of light in miles per hour instead of meters per second." He looks back down at the paper. "You get a better radio signal if you create a continuously varying current in that wire- preferably a nice smooth sine wave. You can do that easy as pie with a capacitor and an inductor, and once you've plugged in a couple of-" He stops. "Okay. You guys are using vacuum tube technology, I'm guessing? You're going to need to amplify the signal in the wire before sending the signal to your antenna and transmitting it out into the air."

Agatha grabs a pencil and fresh sheet of notepaper and nods.

"Yes, vacuum tubes, though some - hm."

There is furious scribbling.

"I see . . . tricky, but with a bit of coordination with each area we want to add in, ensuring all the materials are available . . .Boosting the power of the equipment could produce very interesting results. . ."

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, the survival instincts of an eggplant.

"I might mention, by the way, that this portion of the spectrum-" He places a finger on 'microwaves', which lie just south of 'radio'- "when properly focused and energized, are commonly used in my world to boil water and cook food. And a send-and-receive apparatus that sends out packets of radio waves in this part of the spectrum is used to determine the approach of enemy vehicles, like ships or air vessels- we call it radar. Stands for Radio Detection and Ranging. You have to get the broadcast working first, of course, but it's amazingly useful."

This needs the grin icon so much that the mun changed the icons.

It will be very, very interesting to see the results once she applies them to one of her creations

"Amazingly useful, indeed."

Preferably from a distance.

"-- and if you could adjust the spectrum properly, cook the detected vehicles?"

Having been observed to examine a lightning device more closely while repeatedly clicking the trigger, Agatha has earned her own spot in the eggplant club.

"Not so much the vehicles as the occupants," Ray says. "It excites the water molecules and there's not a whole lot of that in metal. On the other hand, say bye-bye to Mr. Engine, nine times out of ten."

Ah, the sweet, sweet smell of incipient total protonic reversal.

A nod. Still, not bad.

"Like cooking a pot, then. The pot isn't damaged, but the contents --"

A very wide grin.

"An original variant on standard death rays, and more options than any of them . . ."

Ray nods. "Plus, turn it down in terms of energy output and mount it on the bows of ships, and you have an energy weapon capable of melting the ice in front of the Arctic fleet."

Ray thinks through the implications of his work! He just thinks through the wrong implications!