Crossing his arms as he sat on his desk, Ian whispered to the six loudly, “This was the first time we almost died.”
“Yeah,” Lance nodded. “Ian did his chemistry and found the goo, which we call ‘stinker nut juice’,” he said and Percy burst out laughing. “Ian found it had a pH of 3.4. Respectable, but we’ve played with worse.”
Hearing that, both moms looked at them sharply.
“Oh, they’ve played with much more volatile acids,” Lilly chimed in, and the mothers turned to her. “Thing is, they make the shit I’ve only read about.”
Scoffing, “Ian can, I can’t,” Lance replied with no shame. Wanting to ask questions about that alone, Sandy didn’t let herself as she listened in wonder as Lance and Ian explained how they repeated the process until they had ‘stinker nut juice’.
When Lance finished, Ian threw up a hand. “But,” Ian sighed, “when I put that shit in a battery for an electrolyte, that was the second time we almost died.” The screen behind Ian came on and they saw it was a video recording.
“What the fuck did we do?!” they all heard Lance shout on the video and they knew he was the one holding the camera.
“Butt munch, we didn’t do anything!” Ian cried out on the video as the camera eased up on a crater left behind from an explosion. Only when they saw Ian move in front of the camera near the crater did they get an idea of the size, and Sandy thought it was bigger than the hot tub at the cabin.
The screen paused and they all turned to see Lance holding up a small twelve-volt battery that was commonly found in riding lawnmowers. “We put ten ounces of the stinker nut juice in with the hydrochloric acid and you can see for yourself the results. I won’t go over how long that took, since you have to keep the stinker nut juice in a sealed environment,” Lance told them.
“So, is this stinker nut juice the most powerful explosive ever?” Heath asked.
Shaking his head, “Not the way you’re thinking,” Ian replied. “This shit leans more toward nuclear reaction detonations.” Hearing that, everyone including Percy nearly stood up to leave.
Putting the small battery down, Lance turned back to the group. “Before the damn thing blew up, we were getting output readings of 1000 volts. That was the limit of the meter we had hooked up, but it spiked in four minutes, eight seconds. Thankfully, both of us were behind the explosive wall,” he explained. “The explosion was nine minutes, forty-three seconds after start.”
Grabbing a remote, Lance paused the video and then moved through the images slowly until the image locked on what was left of the battery buried in the bottom of the crater. “As you can see from what’s left, it was a bit volatile, but since then we’ve learned a lot and we were very lucky. Thankfully, the battery case failed to hold the pressure of the hydrogen sulfide. Otherwise, it would’ve been bigger,” Lance told them, and now everyone really wanted to leave but nobody was walking down that hill without one of them.
“So it was the gas that caused the explosion?” Percy asked.
Shaking his head, “No, it caused the failure of the plastic case, thereby causing the explosion,” Ian corrected. “Stinker nut juice produces electricity on a scale no one could believe. Or I should say, it can create electricity on a scale no one could believe, but it must have the numbers and…” he paused with a grin, “fuel.”
Cocking his head to the side, “Why in the hell would something make an organism produce power like that?!” Heath cried out.
Giving a long groan as he walked over to Heath, “Oh, I don’t know,” Lance huffed stopping beside Heath. Reaching out fast, Lance slapped the shit out of the side of Heath’s head. “How about powering a dead fucking body to walk around, numb nuts!” Lance screamed.
Bouncing in her chair, “I figured that out and nobody had to tell me,” Jennifer cheered.
“Holy mother,” Rhonda gasped as the implications of what Lance had said sunk in. “So billions of years ago, something didn’t want to face hostile life and developed this…” she paused, “black glass bacteria-like thing to wipe out intelligent life?”
Ian, Lance, Lilly, and Jennifer all nodded. “Yes,” Ian answered. “If this was ‘life’,” Ian quoted in the air, “it wouldn’t be limited in its evolution, but it is. It has been programed to do a specific job and whatever programed it was millions, if not billions of years more advanced than we are now.”
“How does it make electricity?” Dwain asked.
Whipping his eyes to Dwain, “Do I look millions or billions of years old?!” Ian cried out. “For all we know, it uses a very tiny wand from Harry Potter!”
Shaking his head, “So, it just makes power?” Dwain asked with wide eyes.
With a slight nod, “Okay, that’s a better question,” Ian stated. “No. It has to have organic material to generate controllable power. We’re still experimenting on inorganic and found some things can be used, but we’re going really slow. The only exception is water, but more than one scientist classifies water as organic. With water, only think of it like the parasite is barely getting enough energy to survive. It can make power from water but it has to be in proper portions, and under no circumstances do you use heavy water. That was our third mishap, but we were prepared for that one.”
“I still shit my pants,” Lance scoffed.
Throwing up his hands, “I told you, Lance! You were right and I was wrong!” Ian cried out. “If we got that electricity from water, the next logical conclusion was you’d get more with heavy water!”
“Hold up,” Dwain said getting to his feet. “Where in the hell did you get heavy water? They use that in nuclear reactors.”
Lilly and Jennifer were impressed that Dwain had known that. Ian turned to Dwain, rolling his eyes like Dwain was stupid. “I made it,” Ian snapped. “Granted, with what I have here I couldn’t make much but shit, I had more than Urey back in 1931 and he made it too.”
Leaning over to Percy, “Who is that?” Rhonda asked in a whisper.
“I think he discovered deuterium, what you need to make heavy water,” Percy answered, and Ian nodded.
Lance stepped over to Ian. “Brah, I didn’t mean to sound like an ass. I just said I shit my pants. I thought your theory was sound and I agreed, did I not?”
Rolling his eyes again, “Yes, but we should’ve just gone ahead with your theory first,” Ian sighed. “I’m so glad you didn’t agree with the sulfur infusion.”
“They make hydrogen sulfide. I would’ve suggested sulfur,” Percy stated.
“We did that two weeks ago,” Lilly replied, and everyone turned to her. “Anyone remember a really loud explosion?” she asked, and saw everyone’s eyes get wide. “That was the experiment to use sulfur as the infusion nutrient. It was one ounce of stinker nut juice with ten grains of sulfur injected slowly.”
Remembering that explosion because it had been the first to shake the ground, Heath got to his feet. “I would like to leave,” Heath declared.
“Sit your ass down!” Ian snapped, and Heath dropped in his chair. Looking around at the others, “As many know, Lance and I have toyed with explosives in the past, and put the blast equivalent to three pounds of C4.”
Raising her hand and swallowing to try and wet her throat, “Baby?” Sandy said meekly. “I’m grasping the concept, but what you two have discovered is very dangerous, just from what you’ve told us. I’m not saying we don’t need to explore it, but maybe we need to slow down the experiments, just a tad?” she suggested.
With dead eyes, Lilly turned to Sandy. “If you were still on that pedestal, Lance would be more open to a change for the Prime Directive,” Lilly told her. Finally realizing just what she’d lost in Lance’s eyes, Sandy slumped in her chair. “Ms. Sandy, they are being much more careful and you want to know the reason?” Lilly asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “It’s because Jennifer and I are coming up here with them. Oh, when we first learned what they’d found, neither of us wanted to stay in the state of Kentucky.”
“I
wanted to find a boat and sail to an island,” Jennifer huffed as both moms shivered just from hearing ‘boat’.
“It was the third day when Jennifer noticed that our men were being much more careful and moving forward much slower with us here,” Lilly continued. “I’m sorry, I didn’t notice it. I was beyond shocked, coming to terms with what they had discovered and trying to wrap my brain around it. But Jennifer was compiling the work they’d asked us to help on and she read the notes and came to me, pointing out Ian and Lance were moving much slower on their experiments with us here than compared to before we started coming.” Glancing around the office and out the windows, “Don’t get me wrong, this place terrifies me and amazes me, but I asked Lance to never come up here without me if they do any work and Jennifer asked Ian the same and they both agreed. I would be just as happy to never come here but it keeps them safer, and this will give us an advantage none can compete with.”
Everyone clearly heard Lilly stressing that they had ‘asked’. She was explaining that no one should ‘tell’ the boys not to do shit.
“Thank you,” Sandy sighed and turned to Mary to find her still in a state of shock. About to ask Mary if she was okay, Sandy decided not to and would just let Mary come out of it on her own.
Getting back to the meeting, Lance then started talking about how they’d turned the shipping container into a collection vat by lining it with glass. After putting a drain on it, they’d rigged up more collection vats lined with glass. Next, they’d packed the container with stinkers they’d gone out and shot, sealed it up, and pulled a vacuum on it. Now, they had over seven hundred gallons of stinker nut juice.
“Excuse me,” Percy called out as his hand never stopped writing the squiggly lines. “How much stinker nut juice do you get out of a stinker?”
“For every kilogram a stinker weighs, we get a quarter of a liter,” Ian answered. “Lilly has figured out the count of organisms per cubic centimeter, it’s in the handout. I’m not committing the number to memory.”
Percy nodded as Ian continued. “Now with our first jaunt into this new field, we found if we mixed one liter of nut juice to three liters of water, we got electricity,” he told them and headed for the door. “Follow, please,” he called over his shoulder.
Getting to his feet, Dwain looked over at Heath who looked like he was about to pass out. “You realize something,” Dwain stated, and Heath turned to him. “Long ago a race created this shit to rule the universe, but two boys wanting to figure out how to go for a ride cracked their super weapon.”
Still feeling lightheaded, Heath thought about that and gave a grin as he relaxed. “Damn,” he smirked, getting up and following the others out. They found Lance standing next to a foot tall, two feet wide, and four feet long steel box that had posts like a battery. All along the battery were protrusions and wires leading to a computer.
“This was our first functioning ‘special battery’,” Lance told them. “It’s under a vacuum because without a vacuum, the parasite dies. Before anyone says anything, in a stinker the organism is in a sealed environment. That’s why you see that funky scab material on stinkers. The organism is keeping its environment. Now, Lilly found what’s left of the brain in stinkers, the lower brain stem, there are more parasites than the rest of the body.”
Still making scribbles on his pad, Percy let out a gasp. “The parasites form a primitive brain using ours like a scaffolding!”
Moving up beside Lance, “Okay, figuring that out so fast? He’s making me feel stupid,” Ian admitted.
Agreeing with Ian, “Yes, fifty percent of all the organisms are in the brain stem and branch out,” Lance said, then gave a rundown on how the organism spanned the body for movement and centralized on the optic and auditory nerves centers. Then Ian chimed in, giving the findings of how stinkers’ eyesight, from testing, seemed as good as human sight. Stinkers did have a hard time seeing into shadows, day or night. And when stinkers walked into shadows, it took their eyes minutes to become accustomed, even at night. At night, just walking from a field to tree cover took minutes before sight returned to baseline.
When Lance went to start, Rhonda raised her hand and Lance nodded at her. “Yeah, that’s cool and I wanted to know, but what about that?” she asked pointing at the battery.
Patting the battery with his hand, “Like I said, this was our first full-size success,” Lance stated with pride. “It’s under a vacuum and stays that way, like all our ‘special batteries’,” he said grinning and Heath felt lightheaded, now realizing what the ‘special battery’ really was. “This battery is producing eight thousand, two hundred watts, and as you can imagine, it’s heavy as hell.”
“After the explosions we’d had I wanted to use one-inch steel, but Lance talked me out of it and we used half-inch to make the housing,” Ian told everyone.
Looking around the group, “This battery is water and stinker nut juice only. Distilled water and nut juice only,” Lance corrected. “We tested using just unfiltered water but we both suspected it was going to be unpredictable, and we were right. There are contaminates in unfiltered water the organism can use for fuel.”
Looking at the huge battery, “There’s just water and stinker nut juice?” Dwain asked for clarification, and Lance nodded. “How in the hell is it making electricity?!” he cried out.
Dropping the smile, “We don’t fucking know!” Lance shouted. “We have theories, but I’m sure they aren’t even close! Shit, for all we know, the parasite is stripping electrons off atoms or using a magic wand! We only know what we’ve found out,” Lance said, lowering his volume at the end. “What we do know is when you feed organic material in controlled doses under the correct conditions, you get power.”
As one, the six turned to Ian. “We don’t know how it makes power, only that it does,” Ian told them. “Hell, my theory is the parasite uses quantum tunneling, splitting neutrons.”
Giving a low whistle, “Yeah, that would give you power out the ass at that scale,” Percy agreed.
Seeing Ian taking a breath to explore that line of thought, Jennifer stepped in front of him. “Not now,” she told him flatly.
Just groaning, Ian turned away as Lance moved along the battery. “The battery still gives off gas, hydrogen sulfide, but it also gives off hydrogen,” Lance told them, but looked at Dwain. “We don’t know why so don’t ask, but all our batteries give that off. The others just give off more since they’re upgrades,” he said, then tapped the protrusions at the top. “These are pressure release valves. If the vacuum pump fails, they go off. It only needs one, but all of our batteries have four. Our thinking was if all four failed at the same time, God wanted us dead.”
They all nodded at that as Lance moved around the table. “Our first battery has twenty gallons of stinker nut juice in it,” he told them and they all stepped back. “The organism is using the water somehow. On the computer screen you can see the level,” he said and they all turned to look at the readings on the monitor. “Water has to be injected into the battery to keep it at a three parts water to one part stinker nut juice.”
“Couldn’t you name it something else?” Sandy moaned, but was reading the monitor.
“We discovered it, and puked more than any ten people in the history of mankind until we got a real sample. We can call it whatever we want,” Lance snapped. “We called it ‘stinker nut juice’ for a reason.”
Standing on the other side of the table, Lance patted another steel box, but this one was two feet square cubed. The first thing they noticed was the housing wasn’t nearly as thick. “This was our second full-scale success,” he beamed with pride. “This special battery puts out twelve thousand, one hundred watts.”
As one, they all turned from the one on the table to the massive one beside the table. “The one on the table weighs fifty-eight pounds,” Ian smirked, then nodded at the one beside the table. “We don’t know how much that one weighs, but it takes a forklift to move it.”
Turning to
the smaller special battery, everyone now understood just how important this discovery was. “What did you do?” Percy panted out.
Patting the small battery, “We call the juice inside, ‘super stinker nut juice’,” Lance laughed. “We pulled a nitrogen vacuum with distilled water and noticed a spike in power. This battery is getting sucrose injected at a controlled rate.”
Cocking her head to the side, “Sugar?” Rhonda clarified.
“Yeah,” Lance said. “In Dad’s notes, he said he thought at times he could smell ketones from stinkers. I was about to look it up until my buddy reminded me my girl is a veterinarian.”
They all turned to Lilly who just shrugged. “Jennifer and I weren’t coming up here yet. Lance just had me explain diabetic acidosis,” she told them.
When they turned back to Lance, they saw he was holding what looked like a hundred cubic centimeter glass syringe in his right hand. “I won’t bore you with the mixture ratio this one has, but this one syringe will run this special battery for eighteen days.”
“Whoa,” Percy gasped and the others wobbled on their feet. “Have you tried protein?”
The smile dropped off Lance’s face almost immediately. “Yeah, that was the explosion you heard five days ago,” he answered, and that got everyone’s lightheadedness to go away. “We have theories as to why, but all of us think we just can’t control the mixture because proteins are much more complex than simple sugar. One thing I will say, the damn energy readings were off the charts and we were only testing a sample the size of a D cell battery.”
“Percy?” Lilly sang out and he turned to face her. “Any of you try that again without talking to everyone, Tony won’t be the only one claimed by the killing field,” she warned him. “Let Lance continue.”
They followed Lance over to another table that had another two feet cube. “This is our latest creation. This one, we decreased the vacuum to -.25 Millibars and adjusted the nitrogen saturation. Using the same amount of sucrose, this battery puts out sixteen thousand watts for eighteen days. We’re happy with this and don’t feel the need to go for more power until we understand it just a bit better.”
Forsaken World | Book 6 | Redemption Page 15
