[Plot] Like a Melody Stuck in My Head

[Will Stanton]

Will had commandeered one of the workstations in the Point. Was he a scientician? No, of course not. But some sciencing needed to be done, and if no one else was going to science it, Will would. He'd science the shit out of it.


Step one: Observation. And that required materials what with to observe. And so, having commandeered a wheelbarrow from the maintenance crew, Will wheeled several hundred pounds of clay into the Point, clay that had been there for months and also no time at all, thanks to the annoyances of time loops. He also brought with him the spoke of the Titan. He'd have to resort to data gathered on the other two Titans, which was probably more scientific but less hands-ondsy. But as long as he had part of one, and some witnesses, he could investigate just precisely what had happened here.

((open))

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Is this what I think it is?" Ashlie asks as she steps into the room. She'd been informed about the Titan attack and while initially dubious, the damaged Cerebra chamber and the inexplicable pile of corpses were plenty of evidence.

[Will Stanton]

"Hrm? Oh, no; this is some of the debris from the Titan encounter," Will explained. "As well as a piece of the...shell? Body? Carapace? From the Titan itself."

He gestured to the workbench. "This is the third time we've encountered one of these things, and I'd prefer not to be caught off guard by a fourth. But unlike the other three times, we have some remains of the thing, and we have some witnesses. Victor Freud can't remember what happened, due to all the time reversions, but he wasn't the only one in that room."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"I'm inclined to agree. This one even managed to stay mostly undetected. Theoretically we don't even have a way of knowing if we're trapped in a time-loop at any given moment. But the philosophical terror aside, this means we have no idea what else they might be capable of or what shape they might take." She walks past the Titan fragments and glances at them so casually it's obvious she's trying not to seem too curious. Probably because she's being polite about the literal pile of dead Wills in the room, which is what she stops in front of.

"I assume you consider these the 'witnesses'?"

[Will Stanton]

"Possibly," Will said, with a tilt of his head. "If, as we're assuming, I was down here multiple times during the time loops, and encountered the Titan multiple times, that could be literal days of information we don't have. And it's possible that at some point, I got access to the core itself. If so, I want to know everything."

"That is, if there's anything left of...well, anything in the clay," he admitted. "This may be a wild goose chase."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Could there be? Brains don't exactly retain memories upon death but I do have to admit that your physiology doesn't exactly follow normal rules."

[Will Stanton]

"It's possible," Will said. "I survived eons in space, when any normal thing should have been destroyed. My memory was ribbons and tatters after that, but it still survived, in a certain form. That was something of a conscious decision on my part, however; one that I doubt I would have had when attacked by the Titan, but you never know; I've certainly surprised people before."

He sighed for a moment. "But even if that's not a possibility, there still may be something here. Perhaps something I can access myself -- like getting any data off of a destroyed hard disk. There may be some kind of resonance remaining -- maybe not even words or images, but senses and sensations that I could somehow draw out.

And, failing all of that, there's the mass spectrometer. Chronotons are funky things; we might be able to at least piece together something from that."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"A year ago I would have scoffed at the idea and if I'm perfectly honest, I still have my doubts if anything you might... feel out wouldn't just be a product of your imagination. But I'm acutely aware of just how much there is beyond the edges of my understanding. As long as you're careful in dealing with your... remains. The last thing we need is setting off a conserved pocket of chronotons."

[Will Stanton]

"Well, I have an alarm set for 10 minutes. If it never goes off, we know we're in trouble," Will joked.

"And I have no idea if I'll be able to do anything here either. Heck, I still don't really get how the mirror works. But I figured it was worth a go, you know?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"I would offer to help but I wouldn't even know where to begin. It seems borderline esoteric."

[Will Stanton]

"Oh, it certainly is, but that doesn't mean I can't follow the proper scientific methods and procedures to explore that esotericness.

And, of course, you might know what more to do with those Titan fragments. My first thoughts are not...perhaps the most scientific possible."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Which would be why you dumped hundreds of pounds of clay into my workshop where we print circuitry and custom CPU wafers rather than, say, an arcane circle in the woods." she says though there's a hint of amusement behind the criticism. "And as long as your ideas don't compromise those extremely rare specimens of unknown matter I'm willing to at least entertain your approach."

[Will Stanton]

"Well, unless you're going to ban me from the labs, there's very little I can do to prevent hundreds of pounds of clay from entering your workshop. And the last time I tried a more arcane method of connecting with these things, I ended up in Muir going insane, so we'll skip that plan for this particular set of experiments," Will deadpanned.

He picked up the shaft. "It might make sense to analyze this first. I've been pierced by a lot of things in my time, but this is...it was different. There was a set of sensations like..." he trailed off, trying to find words. "There was a sort of, as you would put it, arcane connection. It reacted with me; I was...hesitant to have it removed," he said, dancing around the issue a little bit. "Maybe that's just from the fact that it was attached to one of those sparks, but maybe it's somehow present in the material itself -- or there's some residual connection there.

My ultimate plan is to jab the clay with it to see if I can trigger any of it to wake up, but first, let's try analyzing it molecularly and vibrationally. The thing kept making me talk about gateways and pathways, down at the quantum level. Maybe we can detect some sort of dimensional resonance, and track the thing."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Well, some of those words make sense. You certainly seem to have an affinity for these things in some capacity that could be rooted in it's physical properties." she says and picks up one of the Titan pieces. "Curious. It doesn't feel cool to the touch like metal would. Let's see here..." she says and places it in the roughly microwave-oven-sized chamber on one of the workbenches. Slowly the holographic projection screen begins to show a growing list of attributes that Ashlie reads off.

"Higher density than I would have expected given it's weight. Not entirely solid throughout which explains part of it. More of a lattice, almost crystalline structure. More closed off on the surface but still porous on a microscopic level. Might give it more of a 'sticky' feel for someone like you. Semi-viscous biomass catching on rigid, microscopic structures perhaps. But then the sensation would probably not be that much different than you'd get from, say, a piece of wood. Ah, here we go. Spectrometric analysis shows... Predominantly 63 molecular weight and... no charge?" She briefly glances at the machines controls to double-check it's parameters and settings. "Yeah, that's... matter made up entirely of Neutrons. No electrons. How does it maintain cohesion? This makes no sense..."

[Will Stanton]

"Different universes bring with them different physical constants. More in Heaven and Earth than dreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio. And I've been stabbed with wood before, and it's not the same.

So it's reading as copper, but with only neutrons -- that's Neutronium, isn't it?" Will scrunched his face, trying to remember. "That's an....interdimensional power booster, right? I seem to remember something about Tony Stark encountering some of that..."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Same atomic weight as Copper but yes, the lack of any Protons or Electrons would make it Neutronium which is technically possible in terms of matter states but also this much of it would weigh billions of tons and so violently unstable it would blow Europe off the face of the planet. Since that clearly hasn't happened we must be dealing with something else. Adjacent maybe but not Neutronium in the way we understand it."

[Will Stanton]

"But perhaps neutronium as it's understood elsewhere. Neutronium in our universe is, as you suggest, massive and unstable. But what if, under different circumstances, it connected differently?" Will said, struggling to find the right science terms. "Maybe, there, it's like -- maybe neutrons don't need bonds with the laws of physics it's working with. If we imagine there's a world where neutrons don't need to bond with protons, maybe this is what you get."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"You're not wrong. I mean, you are. On many specifics of how atomic structures work. But the notion itself is feasible. It still shouldn't be stable in our universe but in a way that lends credence to the idea. The bulk of the other two Titans disintegrated and it's possible these pieces didn't because they're still in a temporal lock. But that also means that the very act of existing in our reality is a force they're actively exerting. Like a three-dimensional shadow being cast from a higher dimensional strata perhaps?"

[Will Stanton]

"It also was actively stabbed into me when the thing disintegrated. Maybe that attached it to our dimension, somehow?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"That's quite the load-bearing 'somehow' but currently I do not have much of an explanation to the contrary. If I had more information on how they manifest in our reality to begin with maybe. For something that is made up of matter so strange to our reality they certainly seem to follow a very broad-strokes version of how humans interpret the world. A stone golem made up of hands. A water controller fashioned after aquatic creatures. A time manipulator made of fake bronze and clock parts. That's not alien enough for how utterly impossible this material is." she says, drumming her fingers on the workbench as she's thinking.

"Something doesn't add up there."

[Will Stanton]

Will shook his head. "No clue there; I don't even have enough information to posit anything other than a guess -- some sort of dark mirror dimension, where things are almost, but not quite, the same as here."

"Whenever Tosh talks about me, he talks about how my molecules have a different vibrational frequency than everyone else's; part of coming from another dimension. Can we check the shard to see if we're talking about the same thing, here?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Of course. The Quantum analysis should have some preliminary data coming in soon." she says and turns her attention to the holo-screen again to pull up the data they have on Will's dimensional frequency.

"If I ever find out that your quantum signature is different only because you think it should be I'm going to be very cross." she adds while data is compiling.

[Will Stanton]

"What can I say; I have a style all my own," Will deadpanned.

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Well, if you were able to control your quantum configuration I might be inclined to agree that there's some similarity between you and the Titans, because according to these readings these Neutrons have a stable dipole moment. Which explains why they're not flying apart but raises further questions. It's almost like the Physics equivalent to your Biology. Mimicking a higher layer of matter by employing physics-defying mechanisms on a deeper level."

[Will Stanton]

"I have no idea what a dipole moment is. I hope it's not important, because all I'm getting is "these don't Physics right', which seems fairly obvious at this point.

Anything else we can gather from the scans, or is it time for more hands on testing?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"It means the spin of the individual Neutrons is... On a quantum level they are perfectly split between a positive and negative charge, a theoretical state that CERN has been trying to prove experimentally for years. So yes, they don't Physics right similar to how you don't Biology right. This also means they're perfectly neutral on dimensional resonance because their quantum state is in a perfect equilibrium. No vibrations to measure. So yes, I think it's time for more direct experimental applications."

[Will Stanton]

"The risky thing would be to jab myself with it again and see what happens. But that can wait," Will said, as he went back to the wheelbarrow full of clay.

He reached in and took a handful out, working it in his hands to restore it to a degree of pliability. "Trying to separate these out by incarnation would be...difficult. Carbon dating isn't exactly designed to work on something both three months old and less than an hour old, simultaneously. So we're just going to have to mix and match, and see if we can't make anything out of the jumble."

Will tossed a ball of the clay from hand to hand, squeezing it and re-rolling it over and over in his hands until it was warm and pliable. Placing it down on the table, he pinched and stretched it into a small manikin, not worrying too much about the small details.

"Well, let's see if we can get any reaction from the dearly departed," Will said, taking the shard of Titan, and swiftly thrusting it through the mannikin's chest.

[Ashlie Minamida]

At first, nothing happens. Or rather, nothing that either of them notice because it first starts happening inside the pile of clay. Holes are appearing in different parts of the pile that mirror the exact hole left by the Titan's shard and before too long, the same hole appears in Will's chest. Painlessly but accompanied by an odd feeling. Like an involuntary muscle twitch or a reflexive movement his body shifts and parts as if an invisible stake had been shoved through him.

"What?" Ashlie blinks before frowning at the unexplained phenomenon.

[Will Stanton]

Will gasped, his face flushing, and he gripped the edge of the workbench to keep from falling over. "Jesus...I wasn't expecting a voodoo doll," he panted, as he slowly removed the stake from the manikin.

[Ashlie Minamida]

While the hole in Will's chest might close up again (if he choses to do so) the hole in the manikin and the perforations in the pile of clay remain.

"It must be some kind of quantum entanglement, catalyzed by the Neutronium. The question is whether that's unique to you, matter replicated by the time-loop or... well we can't test if it applies to anything else."

[Will Stanton]

"Well, no, the next question is whether the neutronium caused this, or if it was just a trigger for this."

Will looked around for a Scientific Poking Stick. Lacking such a mechanism, he grabbed a burette and tried to jab another hole in the manikin.

[Narrator]

It stabs cleanly through, resulting in no further holes in either Will of the pile of clay.

[Will Stanton]

"Right, so, magic stick causes magic holes," Will nodded. "It didn't do that while the Titan was alive, so perhaps it was controlling the effect, somehow?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Which would imply that it had, at least to a certain extent, control over it's matter, since there's no discernable mechanism, mechanical or otherwise. Which would also explain how this matter is possible. It was formed by the power behind it and upon it's 'death' some of it settled into a stable configuration. Perhaps due to being in contact with you at the time?"

"Looks like your suspicion that there might be a unique interaction between you and the Titan might be correct."

[Will Stanton]

"It would explain why I seem to be drawn to them. Perhaps they're drawn to me, in the same fashion?"

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Hard to tell without establishing a proper conversation. You said it communicated through you?"

[Will Stanton]

"Yes. For lack of a better word, it slid me forward and backward along my personal timeline, to say certain phrases, words, and even sounds. Remixing my conversations so it could attempt to communicate."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"Which means it cannot talk itself, which is fairly obvious, but I wonder if it's more complicated than that. Accepting Samantha's claim that they stem from Sparks it seems likely they function in similarly abstract ideas. It might not have just used your words but the very concept of communicating things via the manipulation of air pressure, perhaps even the meaning of your words themselves."

[Will Stanton]

"That would make conversing with one seem extraordinarily difficult," Will mused. "If they're not even quite grokking the idea of conversation itself."

[Ashlie Minamida]

"I'm not convinced they're even intelligent in the traditional sense. If Powers stem from the crystallization of the Sparks' power around... context and abstract concepts, and these Titans originate from the same source then it stands to reason that they aren't 'alive' so much as they are... personifications of existing ontological structures. You said it talked about quantum gateways. It's possible it was simply expressing what defined it's existence through a medium humans are receptive to. In a way, the same thing could be said about the 'Voodoo Doll' effect it has on you. It's expressing a causal effect - perforation - through the medium it is presented with - you."