It's All About the Benjamins

[Cam Beckett]

A palette and a half of money, shrinkwrapped and bundled in huge bricks, sat on the floor of the workshop in the point. Probably more physical money than anyone in the room had seen in person before that day, at least in terms of numbers of bills -- they were only five-pound notes, after all.

As for what they actually were, well...there was some debate. According to Tosh's scanner, these bills definitley contained material from extradimensional origins -- presumably, the bits of rendered Will that had been mixed in to the paper making process. Telepaths would not pick anything out of the ordinary coming from said bills, however, so if Will was in there...


"Alright, I have a crazy suggestion, but hear me out," Cam said, after a momentary lull in the conversation. "We mourn your friend and then go out on a binge shopping spree. In his honor."

((Open))

[Natalie Denisov]

"I did not nearly short circuit my brain for a shopping spree," Natalie says, only a little lost in the signals floating around the point.

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Nor are we risking prison even more than we already are by being idiots," Tosh added.

[Cam Beckett]

"No risk, no reward," Cam said, dismissively, and moved to sit down in a nearby chair. "So. What are we going to do?"

[Natalie Denisov]

"Well, I'm no materials scientist, but perhaps if we shred the bills to break up the material, basically reduce them to pulp, then maybe the parts of Will will be able to pull back together again?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"I suppose it's possible, but we should go ahead and come up with something to help him along."

He thought a moment before looking to Cam with unconscious reluctance. "Could you and your power build something to separate Will's extradimensional matter from the... well... liquidated assets?"

[Nailah Weaver]

Nailah is standing nearby and listening to everybody else talk about stuff she has no clue about, nodding occasionally just to seem like she's following along.

"Mushing him all together into one piece sounds right..." she says for the sake of adding something to the conversation.

[Cam Beckett]

"I suppose it's possible, but we should go ahead and come up with something to help him along."

He thought a moment before looking to Cam with unconscious reluctance. "Could you and your power build something to separate Will's extradimensional matter from the... well... liquidated assets?"

"Well, obviously. What sort of data do we have on his normal makeup and construction?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Not as much as I'd like, but Miss Minamida did a workup on him we can use."

[Cam Beckett]

"Well, you should have been more prepared for just this sort of situation.

Ah well, ah well, no sense crying over burnt bridges. Let's see what we've got -- and you have the data on the," and here he did finger quotes "magic stuff that got mixed in as well, right? Perhaps we can create some kind of filtration system. You have any experience with differential spectrometers?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Herbal mixture. Granted, some are only supposed to exist in mythology, but I'd hardly call it literal magic."

"And we're not gasifying any of Will for spectroscopy unless it's absolutely necessary."

[Cam Beckett]

"Alright, alright, how would you go about doing it, then, baitbreath?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Certainly not any way that reduces his chances of survivability."

[Cam Beckett]

"Look, from the way I see it, there's a few possibilities. Either he's already dead, in which case it doesn't matter what we do. Or, he survived all this, which means there's very little we could do that could kill him, right?"

[Natalie Denisov]

"He has a point, Tosh," Natalie interjects, staring at the stacks of money.

[Toshiro Narumi]

Tosh sighed deeply, deflating. "Point taken. Just... use as little as possible okay?"

[Cam Beckett]

"No no no no. You're not seeing my plan at all."

Cam took a pen out of Tosh's shirt pocket and started scribbling on his own hand. "See, once we've melted everything down into...the most expensive slurry ever made, right? Then we heat it all up. The entire lot. And we vaporize it. Poof! A big ol' bag of gas.

We can then measure the different density of the gas, and use the differential spectrometer to filter out things we know can't be the test subject, right? Like ink, or some of that excess carbon and whatnot. Siphon that all off, so when we recondense it..."

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Shiiit. I don't know what I hate more; that that's a good idea despite being a total Hail Mary or that Sam's going to turn my brain to pudding for even considering risking it."

[Cam Beckett]

"Whoever this Sam is, don't worry. I'll protect you from him," Cam nodded. "He gets in the way of science, I'm sure we can hit him with some sort of Ray."

[Toshiro Narumi]

"She is a powerful telepathic shapeshifter who's close to Will and will be quite cross if she hears about this terrible idea."

[Cam Beckett]

"Well, if she's a shapeshifter, maybe she'd enjoy being turned into a gas, too. I don't judge!

And, anyway, if you have a better idea...?" he said, with a half-smirk.

[Nailah Weaver]

"He's waxy-fatty stuff, right? Can't we just... warm it up and wring him out? Make some kinda oil press?"

[Natalie Denisov]

"The problem would be separating the noise, i.e. the contaminants, from the signal, i.e. Will," Natalie says, "It's going to require some sort of filter no matter how we get him out of the money."

[Toshiro Narumi]

"It's too bad Will isn't magnetic," Tosh said before looking thoughtful. "Perhaps if we use a modified version of my temporal flux stabilizer... Yes! We could rig up a system that attracts extradimensional matter and suck Will right out of the sludge."

"Theoretically."

[Cam Beckett]

"I mean, that could work too," Cam shrugged. "Just need a way to keep them separate, or you're going to have the subject dragging a bunch of stuff with it."

[Nailah Weaver]

"Could do it in several steps too, right? First get the goop out of the money and then try to get whatever chemicals got dumped into him out."

[Toshiro Narumi]

"That's pretty much the idea. The trick is how to filter it effectively."

"Forcefield passthrough? No, that would fry Will even more than the spectrometer would. Unless..." he thought aloud, the next part not quite forming in his mind.

[Cam Beckett]

"You're talking about pushing matter through a highly charged electopoloron field. It's gonna fry things. I mean, you could do this an old-fashioned way, with literal sieves and filters, but that might literally take forever."

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Right... but even your solution doesn't provide a method of separation."

Maybe we can attract him with a pun array.
Damn it Bruce.

"Wait..."

He suddenly rushed to a lab computer to check Will's file.

"Electric stimulation! Yes! Will's cells react strongly enough that a relatively harmless current could conceivably break themselves free!"

[Cam Beckett]

"So, hook up a large charge, and use an electromagnet to pull out any thing reacting? It's worth a shot, at least. I mean, what's the worst that could happen?"

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Lucky for us we have a precog." Tosh gave Nailah an expectant look.

[Nailah Weaver]

Nailah just gives them a slight shrug and, without looking, reaches over to grab a pair of safety goggles from a workbench, putting them on.

[Cam Beckett]

"Well, sharkboy, this is your idea. Lead on. Let's get started."

[Toshiro Narumi]

"Well then, time to make money soup," he said.

Science montage initiated. Lab coats donned. Devices assembled. Lunches ingested. Assets liquidized.

"Okay," Tosh said, exhaling nervously, "Cross your fingers and pray this isn't what kills him."

Goop electrified.

[Narrator]

It was....probably for the best, after all, that they had already eaten lunch.


Tosh flipped the large switch (because there has to be a large switch, Cam insisted, or they weren't doing any real science), sending the electrical force that the Point was capable of producing through a series of transformers. Not the full force, mind you, because Tosh had insisted on not hitting Will with everything the SuperScience facility could bring to bear to start out with, but quite a bit anyway.

The wires connected to a large metal vat, in which rested pulped and liquefied money. Nailah had made several "money laundering" jokes, and Cam had stared at her blankly, but they had eventually gotten it all done, forming a mushy, pulpy mix that smelled wonderful, let me tell you. They'd probably be trying to get the stench out for days. But liquefied and mulched it was, and ready to receive the electric shock.

And a shock it was! The vat almost immediately started churning, brewing and bubbling violently, as the electricity worked it's way through what was left of Will in the tank. Bubbles formed and popped rapidly, filled with steam that condensed and fell back into the brew. Chunks solidified, twisted in upon themselves, and splashed back down into a liquid. One particularly big splash sent a wave of the pulpy mixture right towards our intrepid scienticians with a sticky, moist *splat*

[Natalie Denisov]

Natalie flicked her hands in moderate disgust as the mixture dripped off of her, "At least it seems to be working."

[Nailah Weaver]

Nailah is looking smug (or as smug as you can when you got splashed with goop) but at least it didn't get into her eyes.

[Toshiro Narumi]

Tosh wiped his face and flicked the goop off of his fingers. "I told you that was still too much voltage," he sighed to Cam in annoyance.

[Cam Beckett]

Tosh wiped his face and flicked the goop off of his fingers. "I told you that was still too much voltage," he sighed to Cam in annoyance.

"Nah. The question is, is it enough voltage? Are you able to separate them now? If not, we'll need to crank it up."

[Natalie Denisov]

Data was passing through Natalie as the various devices in the room chattered to each other. She scoots back a bit, walking around the metal vat to watch it from a different angle. Running electricity through a vat like that creates a signal all its own and she listens to that song for a moment. It certainly wasn't anything she could manipulate, but... "Try pulsing the electricity. Like a heartbeat."