The Writers' Circle

Boys and their toys - revised

I've polished up my begining abit.

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Mother nature tonight is in a foul mood, clouds black as midnight are releasing biblical amounts of rain, the blackness broken only by lightning as it arcs its way down to earth and what ever else it can find. In the basement of a house two gaming enthusiasts are about to power up a device that in their opinion "Will change the face of gaming for ever!" but events occur that my change their lives and many more besides.

"OK Jasper, we are green across the board, you're good to cycle up the unit" Rummaging through his desk, Thomas searches in vain to locate his headset.

Around Jasper lies what appears to be at first a jumble of cables and switches "Beginning power up" 

Tom and Jasper have converted their basement into EightFolds research area. The stairs enter in from the western wall halfway along it, the room is rectangular and is divided almost in half by the stair case. On the left from the bottom of the stairs there are four benches,  three of them have been configured into semi circle and the forth a long bench against the north wall, on the half circle of benches an array of game consoles, console peripherals and PC's have been set up. This is Thomas's control centre as he likes to call it. On the other lie the remnants of former systems with their cases open and hardware dangling over the sides giving the appearance of an autopsy table. At one end of the austopy table is Jasper and the power control centre for their device.

"Where is that stupid headset?" Sitting in front of his computer, Thomas desperately pushes away CD's, game consoles and other various devices scattered across his desk.

Jasper looks on top of Toms head "Tom?" 

"Where are they?!" Irritated now Tom bends down to look under his desk.

"Tom!"

From halfway under his desk Toms muffled voice speaks out."YES Ted? I'm sorta busy here!"

"Try looking on top of that over paid pea brain of yours" Jasper says with a smile and a shake of his head.

"Well now, I think that is quite uncalled for Mr Harod! you know as well as I do that my brain is the size of a small planet!, and as for being over paid? The last time I looked neither of us are getting paid at all!" Thomas crawls out from under his desk and sits down with mock indignation.

"Right, this is Thomas Bay team leader of the R&D division of EightFold and we are up to," Thomas pauses while searching around his desk again looking for a piece of paper "Ahhh yes Vlog 23, we are in day eight of testing our Extreme Magnetic Density Unit or EMDU..."

"The fluxinator!" Jasper adds doing his best terminator impression.

With a hooded stare and deadpan face Thomas carries on "...for short, today we will bring the device to full power to check stability"

"You know we're just two gaming geeks trying to crack the big time, you make us sound like we should have a website or something." Jasper comments as he is checking over the power connections.

With practised ease Tom's fingers quickly fly over his keyboard as he checks through the interface of his control software "EMDU is at 70% now and cycling up nicely. So far tests up to 70% have proven successful. Our test subject Jumpy, Jasper's pet frog..."

"Poor Jumpy" Jasper interrupts.

"...became completely weightless from about 3 meters from the unit." Thomas carries on as if Jasper said nothing. Thomas walks over to Jasper's power board to quickly check over the power guages. He steps over cables with the grace of a cat knowing that a wrong foot could see him flying across the room, without the aid of the their device. "At full power we are hoping to achieve weightlessness for a human subject." Satisfied Thomas turns around and heads over to check the EMDU.

The other half of the basement is empty except for the EMDU and its power couplings. The EMDU stands one meter tall and about half a meter wide, there are three coils of copper wire sitting ontop of each other. Each coil has many thousands of winds, from Jasper's control panel two thick power cables trail out and eventualy connect up with the EMDU. Jasper has contructed a protection wall with a viewing window, just incase something decides to fly off or it just may explode.

Looking through the viewing window Tom says in a hushed voice more to himself that for the Vlog "If we are able to achieve our goals here, it will revolutionise the whole gaming arena."

Tom quickly heads back to his terminal "Excellent the unit is now at full power! Now we just hold here for a bit to check for any fluctuations" 

Meanwhile outside mother nature has built up quite a lot of charge and has found a large amount of steal in the shape of the local power relay station to let lose a few giga volts of electricity. 

As Jasper is checking over his power connections Thomas notices his readings change"Umm Jasper have you increased the power to the unit? cause its now at 125%"

"No I haven't adjusted anything since it reached full power."

Thomas quickly enters a few commands from his keyboard "Its not responding to my commands, what the!! Jeez the unit just jumped up to 300%!"

"I'm cutting all the power before we burn out everything!" Reaching the emergency shut off switch Jasper grabs it with both hands and shuts down the power. "All power is off now, how are the readings Tom?" 

"I think we have a problem, the unit is now at 280% and still rising!" Thomas stands to head over to where Jasper is.

"Tom this is impossible there's no power to the unit! where is it getting power from?!"

As he reaches Jaspers power console something cathes Thomas's eye "What the! umm is it me or is the unit fading in and out?"

Jasper starts to turn around in his seat to have a look but as he does he and Thomas suddenly lift off the floor. "Whoa! hey it works! a little higher on the power consumption that we hoped for but HEY" Toms feet are pointing to the ceiling now, while Jasper is now slowly rotating away from the power board. "How cool is this!" Jasper rotation lets him see through the viewing window "Yeah the Fluxinator is definately fading in and out Tom. Are you still able to read any power levels at all?"

Gripping the edge of the benches Thomas makes his way back to his control centre."My software only had a tolerance of 500% above normal and its past that!"

"Lets get outa here, call the fire department or something!" Jasper is desperately flailing his arms trying to move to the door.

Thomas positions himself so he can push off his bench while looking at Jasper rotating just above the stair case but out of reach of it. "I'm going to push of from here and try to grab you on the way past stop flapping your arms around or you're going to hit me as I come past!" Jasper complies, with arms folded he just sits there and rotates.

Thomas pushes off from his bench with a bit more force that he wanted to, with the speed of a bullet he was on a collision course with Jasper when gravity decided to take control again. As Jasper plumits to the stair case rolling back down to the floor Thomas's speed sent him crashing to the floor past Jasper towards the EMDU.

"OW! check the readings, check the readings!" Jasper shouted as he headed to the power board, as he did he noticed Tom just standing at the observation window. "Tom? you listening?"
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This is straight from my notes, so it's pretty rough at the moment

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"Ok Jasper, we are green across the board, you're good to cycle up the unit" Rummaging through his desk, Thomas searches in vain to locate his headset.
Around Jasper lies what appears to be at first a jumble of cables and switches "Begining power up" 
 "Where is that stupid headset?" Sitting in front of his computer, Thomas desperately pushes away CD's, game consoles and other various devices scattered across his desk.
Jasper is looking on top of Toms head "Tom?" 
 "Where are they?!" Irritated now Tom bends down to look under his desk.
 "Tom!"
 Tom's voice is muffled as he is now halfway under his desk."YES Ted? I'm sorta busy here!"
 "Try looking on top of that over paid pea brain of yours" Jasper says with a smile and a shake of his head.
"Well now, I think that is quite uncalled for Mr Harod! you know as well as I do that my brain is the size of a small planet!, and as for being over paid? The last time I looked neither of us are getting paid at all!" Thomas crawls out from under his desk and sits down with mock indignation.
 "Right, this is Thomas Bay team leader of the R&D division of EightFold and we are up too," Thomas pauses while he searches around his desk again looking for a piece of paper "Ahhh yes Vlog 23, we are in day eight of testing the new Ultra High Magnetic Flux density Unit. Today we will bring the unit to full power to check stability"
"You make it sound like we're some sort of gaming corperation, instead of just two gaming geeks trying to crack the big time!"
Tom quickly scans through his readings "The unit is at 70% now and cycling up nicely"
 "So far tests up to 70% have proven successful. Our test subject Jumpy, Jasper's pet frog","Poor Jumpy" Jasper interrupts, "Became completely weightless from about 3 meters from the unit". Tom carries on as if Jasper said nothing.
"Unit is almost at full power." Thomas walks over to Jasper's power board to quickly check over the readings. He steps over cables with the grace of a cat knowing that a wrong foot could see him flying accross the room.
 "At full power we are hoping to achieve weightlessness for a human subject."
 The unit is setup inside a round shielded room with a single observation window to view it, Tom makes his way over to the window to get a visual on it. 
"If we are able to achieve our goals here, it will revolutionise the whole gaming arena." Tom says in a hushed voice more to himself that for the Vlog.
Tom quickly heads back to his terminal "Excellent the unit is now at full power! Now we just hold here for abit to check for any fluctuations" 
As Jasper is checking over his power connections Thomas notices his readings change"Umm Jasper have you increased the power to the unit? cause its now at 125%"
"No I haven't adjusted anything since it reached full power."
Tom's fingers fly across the keyboard with ease "Its not responding to my commands, what the!! Geez the unit just jumped up to 210%!", 
"I'm cutting all the power before we burn out everything!" Reaching the emergency shut off switch Jasper grabs it with both hands and shuts down the power. "All power is off now, how are the readings Tom?" 
Tom quickly checks "I think we have a problem, the unit is now at 280% and still rising!" Tom stands and runs over to where Jasper is. "Tom this is impossible there's no power to the unit! where is it getting power from?!"
Something catches Toms eye as he is heading over to Jasper, "What the! umm is it me or is the unit fading in and out?"
Before Jasper is able to respond he and Tom suddenly lift off the floor. "Whoa! hey it works! a little higher on the power consumption that we hoped for but HEY" Toms feet are poiting to the ceiling now, while Jasper is now slowly rotating away from the power board.