A lot has changed since my first version, theres still alot to do but I thought i'd better get something up here as its been a few weeks since I last posted anything.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Mother Nature is in a foul mood tonight. Biblical amounts of rain are falling from blackened skies, the blackness broken only by lightning as it strikes the Earth. Remaining unaware of all her fury, two gaming enthusiasts in the basement of their house have begun preparations to power up a device that in their opinion "Will change the face of gaming forever!"
"OK Jasper," Thomas says after quickly checking the system status, "we're green across the board; you're good to start powering up." There are several keyboards, mice and monitors surrounding Thomas in a half circle of benches.
Thomas and Jasper have converted their basement into EightFolds research area. The rectangular room is divided in half by the stair case entering in half way along the western wall. On the left from the bottom of the stairs there are four benches, three of which have been configured into a semi circle. 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 last bench against the north wall laid the remnants of; old computers, their cases open and hardware were dangling over the sides; old electric motors lying in pieces - copper wire having been stripped clean from them. All this gave the bench the appearance of an autopsy table. Amongst the scavenged systems Jasper sat with the power control board.
Jasper slapped his hands together rubbing them briskly "Alright, beginning power up."
Sitting in front of his computer, Thomas pushed aside CD's, game consoles and other various devices scattered across his desk, searching once again for his stray headset and microphone "Where's that stupid headset?"
Jasper looked over in Tom's direction, on top of Tom's head lay the missing headset and mic "Tom." he said with a monotone voice.
"Where is it?!" Irritated, Thomas pushed his chair back so he could look under his desk.
"Tom!"
From halfway under his desk Toms muffled voice could be heard "YES? I'm sort of busy here!"
"Try looking on top of that over paid pea brain of yours" Jasper shook his head.
Thomas crawled out from under his desk and sat down with mock indignation "Well now, I think that's quite uncalled for. 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!" He began his recording "Right, this is Thomas Bay team leader of the R&D division of EightFold and we are up to..." Thomas paused 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 interrupted doing his best terminator impression.
From a deadpan face Thomas gave him a hooded stare, then carried on "...EMDU...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 commented as he checked over the power connections.
With practised ease Tom's fingers quickly flew over his keyboard as he checked through the interface of his control software. Satisfied he continued with the recording.
"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 interrupted again.
"...became completely weightless from about 3 meters from the unit." Thomas carried on as if Jasper said nothing.
Thomas pushed away from his desk and walked over to Jasper's power board. He stepped over each of the cables with slow deliberate movements, knowing that when he didn't pay attention any loose cables would wrap themselves around his feet. Steady now, careful. Thomas thought to himself. Getting tangled up around here could see him flying across the room, without the aid of their device.
Jasper watched Tom with a raised eyebrow; he rested his chin on his hand "You know why you always get caught in cables?"
Here we go again. Thomas thought "No, but I'm certain you have all the answers Oh Great One."
Jasper sagely nodded, then continued "It's because every time you get near a loose cable you do your best not to get tangled up in it."
Thomas almost lost his concentration. "I think my IQ just dropped a few points." He continued with his Vlog, "At full power we are hoping to achieve weightlessness for a human subject." Satisfied with the power board, he headed over to check the EMDU.
The other half of the basement was empty except for the EMDU and the power cables leading back to Jasper's desk. The EMDU stood one meter tall and about half a meter wide. There were three coils of copper wire sitting on top of each other. Each coil had many thousands of winds. From Jasper's control panel two thick power cables trailed out and eventually connected up with the EMDU. Between them and the EMDU Jasper had constructed a protection screen with a viewing window, just in case something decided to fly off or explode.
Reaching the screen Thomas looked through the viewing window and in a hushed voice said, more to himself than for the Vlog, "If we are able to achieve our goals here, it will revolutionise the whole gaming arena." Tom quickly headed back to his terminal "Excellent it's now at full power! Now we just hold here for a bit to check for any fluctuations."
Outside Mother Nature had built up quite a lot of charge and had found a large amount of steel in the shape of the local power relay station to let loose a few Giga Volts of electricity.
Jasper was checking over the power connections when the basement lights suddenly dimmed for a few seconds. "That's not good." He said as he pulled back slightly from his power board.
Thomas noticed his readings change, "Umm Jasper have you increased the power? It's now at 125%."
"No, I haven't adjusted anything since it reached full power." He pushed his chair a little further away.
Thomas quickly entered a few commands from his keyboard "It's not responding to my commands, what the!! Jeez the unit just jumped up to 250%!...400%!...its past the tolerance levels!"
The smell of very hot plastic had made its way to Jasper's nose, followed by wisps of white smoke from behind the power board "The circuits are burning out! I'm cutting power!" Jasper reached for the emergency shut off switch but as his hands griped the switch his reflexes pulled them off. He stood bouncing around on the spot blowing on his hands "Ouch, my hands! I burnt my hands on it! The shut off switch is red hot - I can't touch it!"
"Use some pliers or something, what about a hammer?" Getting up from his chair Thomas headed over to Jasper. "We have to shut the power off!"
"I know, I know! Let me think for a sec!" Jaspers hands felt three times bigger than they should be and they started throbbing painfully.
Please, please, please don't burn out on us, Thomas repeated in his head as he headed over to Jasper. Unfortunately his attentions were not on where he stepped, he looked down in time to see a cable loop around his foot "Whoa!" Thomas yelled as he started falling forward, instinctively he raised his hands to protect himself at the same time thinking, not again.
Jasper had been blowing on his throbbing hands thinking about what he could use on the switch when he heard Thomas's shout. He looked up "Not again!" he moaned and leaped forward trying to reach Thomas, as he started forward the basement seemed too lurched.
Thomas landed with a thud and then to his surprise, proceeded to fall up heading to the ceiling. A large grin spread across his face "It works! It's a little higher on the power consumption than we hoped for but HEY!" He looked up with a shine in his eyes, in time to see Jasper flying overhead with his eyes shut.
Jasper had shut his eyes when the room lurched, he couldn't tell which way was up or down. I'm going to chuck, he thought "Yeah great Tom just grea....".Jasper was cut short as his stomach tried to bring his lunch back up, Jasper curled up into a ball.
Thomas gently arrived at the ceiling where he was able to twist himself around to look over at Jasper "We have to get to the main power meter and shut off the power. I'm going to push off from here and head over to you and try to grab you OK?" he asked with a little concern in his voice, as Jasper hadn't opened his eyes since they had become weightless. "Did you hear me Jasper?" he looks white as a ghost, he thought while trying to get a good angle to push off from.
Yeah I hear you, but I aint opening my eyes or my mouth at the mo Jasper thought while trying not think about food or the bile rising in the throat. Just shut the power off already!
Thomas felt he was in the best position now to push off; he pulled his legs in and pushed. With the speed of a bullet he flew towards Jasper "Watch out!" Thomas yelled hurtling towards Jasper like a harpoon.
What's he shouting at? Jasper thought as he opened his eyes, he blinked then blinked again. He could see Tom's surprised big round face looking at; no make that hurtling towards him "What the..."
Gravity, that weak but universal planetary glue suddenly returned as Jasper plummeted 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? Are you listening?"
Slowly Thomas dragged his hands and pushed himself up off the floor; shakily he brushed himself down. What's that noise sounds like heavy traffic? Thomas looked up and through the observation saw the EMDU. He stopped brushing the dirt off "Forget about the readings Jasper, come here." There was a little panic in his voice.
*
Foreign objected detected during non standard hours initialising counter measure protocols.
*
"What do you mean forget about the readings? And where's that noise coming from?" Jasper headed over to Tom.