Entry 6

Mavis Island — Instrument Station 030

Late afternoon, 1715.

Writing from a remote instrument monitoring station on the southeast side of the island. I realize it’s been a few days since I wrote about my experiences and there are certain topics I’ll need to come back and revisit, but this note will be mostly about getting my latest scientific observations down on proverbial paper.

After recovering from the Halloween incident, Professor Lopez and I planned my next major data collection outing. It’s already been almost two months since I arrived, and other than small observations here and there, my only major scientific mission was during the filbospheric churn the day I got here.

For the University’s general purposes, any and all filbospheric phenomena are worth measuring. And the larger the aggregate data collection, the greater the outcome for the University’s mission. The Mavis Island filbospheric churn of September 2009, as it’s already being referred to, was almost literally a gold mine for the University, given the alchemic properties of the belonnium particle when put in a pressure situation of 0.75gt or higher malopites. And we were pushing probably 0.85 if not 0.87, that’s for damn sure. I lost sight of the dapris module at a certain point, though, so the exact numbers aren’t written down.

For my research, I need to collect stimulus exopilis for a number of purposes, the first among which is to artificially induce its defabricative elements and disaggregate the stimuli frederico from the exodontary pilisates, and then extract the byproduct, which is commonly known as farollysanthemum protilidictate, or “fapro.” Once we have the fapro, and what will become my dissertation eventually, is a method for biologically superheating the anti-energy contained in the individual malopitic excrements.

Now, two problems remain for me to solve: first, how can we biologically superheat the anti-energy as outlined above. Second, what manner of filament may be affixed to the module I’m designing that vibrates at the exact correct frequency, when the compound is superheated, to power the half-stilted phorometer (patent pending).

Anyone with half a brain knows that, in answer to the second question, a single fur from the boltus falliver has the requisite elastic properties to conduct inverted malopitic combustion, and at a frequency within the range detectable by the kind of motor found in an instrument such as a half-stilted phorometer. What my research has found, however, is that the while the wave lengths are nearly perfectly aligned, the amplitude is off by a measure of .003gt. I don’t have to tell you how catastrophic it would be to turn on any kind of phorometer overpowered by that many Garret talcs, much less a half-stilted model. Imagine putting all that, raw, in a half-stilted phorometer.

As for the first question, I believe we already have the technology to store the heat produced when we disaggregate the stimuli frederico from the exodontary pilisates, but it’s a matter of doing enough trials to confirm my theory. Put simply: think of a box of cereal, an unopened bag inside, and a box that’s still sealed. If you place a fully induced fapro module on top without the heat retention needed to trigger a Schneider converter, you would open the box and find absolutely nothing in there. If you place a heated fapro module on the cereal box, and in both instances of course it would have to be completely level, you would open the box and find the bag of cereal actually opened but all of it left in there. Of course, this is a silly hypothetical, and the real process is much more complex, but it’s simple enough to explain so that most non-experts understand at least the overall process and the problem the underlying chemical conversion is trying to solve.

For now, therefore, I’m focusing on collecting as much stimulus exopilis as I can so I don’t need to return to an even numbered Instrument Station every time I melt a fapro in testing.

I arrived this morning at 0900 after a two hour trek around the island perimeter in one of the smaller field vehicles. We’re calling a pause on excursions into the island interior for another fortnight for safety reasons. What should have been a one-hour-and-45-minute trip, therefore, turned into a two-hour journey. But I did get close enough to Dagano Bay to see that all remnants of my overnight stay there over a week ago have been washed away by the tides. I think I should be in the clear.

Instrument Station 030 is on a relatively low-lying bluff near the abandoned old Jesuit Lagoon at coordinates 045.612.BX9er-SE. There’s a small hut with a cot and an oil lamp because of the Station’s remote location and exposure to squalls spinning off the South Dalton Sea when Mavis Island is experiencing a relatively low-barometric pressure system. Orders dictate the oil lamp is kept full, but a field researcher sent to a station like this carries two spare lamp oil canisters nonetheless. If they have to use any, they leave behind a full canister.

I didn’t need reminding, but someone should have reminded me anyway: the drop in barometric pressure and temporary destabilization of the lower filbosphere should have been a warning sign. I know what you’re thinking, and Bart Kelvin’s experience was and is, in no way, a concern for me. Yes, he was a Baryllisman like me, but he was using a double-plated delnometer rather than a carbonalturer, as a Baryllisman is best trained to use. There is some precedent for a Baryllisman being dual-activated when the filbospheric conditions don’t support full telerod extension, but at any rate I don’t even have a single-plated delnometer with much, much less a double.

Disaster didn’t ensue for me. But what the weather conditions have meant is that I have to spend a night in a 10’ x 5’ hut with nothing but my pack and an oil lamp.

When I arrived at the Station, there was just a gentle breeze flowing in a northwesterly direction from the Pole. The sky was mostly sunny, except for a smallish cluster of dipulognorfic clouds at low altitude roughly 7 klicks offshore, due south. I unloaded my gear and my pack and checked the logbook in the hut. It said exactly what the book at the Main Camp had said for Instrument Station 030: last data extraction June 30. That meant the primers on the dervick would like need some juice to get moving again.

Station 030 is a typical baryllic exhaust fan, plugged into a fully retractable geoboraster. We have over 200 of these little stations peppered all over the camp. When just one or a handful of them are showing spiking filbo levels, it means that either we have a mechanical malfunction or that location (or those locations) are experiencing a filbospheric downdraft.

The baryllic exhaust fan stations were originally established simply to do that: output potentially toxic anti-energy being produced in the subterranean geoborasters in the center of the island. It’s a minimally polluting vapor and the technique is becoming more eco-friendly with advances in baryllic processor units, but being honest I’m not very supportive of it in current form.

The first geoborasters and original baryllic exhaust fans were established back in the ‘50s by the University team led by the legendary Professor Lars Blåberg. The original theory they were trying to prove was groundbreaking, but seems so rudimentary now: if we engage the island’s subterranean malopitic deposits with enough silver black-liner cable, and route that energy into a local filbospheric mirror, the amplitude of the malopy curves should be compressed enough to transmit the converted energy into a Marr’s conical receptor. I don’t have to tell you the outcome: the trial was an overwhelming success and shaped the field. And today we can’t pick up a spoon or use a toothpick that wasn’t manufactured using some legacy of the patents that came out of Professor Blåberg’s work.

Now, in my specific field of microbarrylistry, we can also study the sediment that collects on the fan for potential defabricative properties. This is where it gets interesting: if I could prove that the malopitic sediment collected from baryllic exhaust fans consistently defabricates the poles of stimulus exopilis excrement when accelerated during a filbospheric downdraft event in a high barometric system, like is common on Mavis Island, and that polar defabrication is reduced when bleeped by a high-polarity carbonalturer, we would no longer to limit the operating time of a half-stilted phorometer five days or fewer. That’s how important flattening the malopy curve is to the whole game.

The exhaust fan itself is shaped more like an inverted traffic cone than a fan as we might ordinarily picture one. It sits on top of a copper wire frame drawn between four 20-foot-tall wooden posts over a simple delvid aperture. There is silver black-liner cable (in bunches of five) extending from the delvid aperture straight up into the fan.

After unloading and pre-juicing the primers on the dervick, I got a harness and rope from the hut and climbed up one of the poles. Then, using copper carabiners, I rocked myself over the copper wires to the fan. There was plenty of violet malopitic sediment left, as the fan hadn’t been scraped since June. I collected five roughly tuna can-sized canisters. That’s generally all we have time to process before the malopy curve actually inverts and the whole sample then has to be transported to the mainland for safe disposal.

After I climbed back down and put away the harness I immediately took the canisters of malopitic setiment to the site’s built-in anti-energy demicalibration apparatus. Located just beneath the doorframe of the hut, the stainless steel interface is cranked upward and then into the proper 35-degree angle. The whole cranking process takes an hour.

It’s best not to stray too far at this point in the extraction process. The hut is grounded, including the anti-energy demicalibration apparatus, so any sudden extreme filbospheric downdraft would be spread out across the island’s entire subterranean silver black-liner web.

While I was waiting for the first canister to complete its dehoromil cycle I noticed on my watch I had lost track of time and it was already 1130. I looked up to see that the minimal dipulognorfic cloud cover was gone, and not far offshore were a row of much denser steriocalulous super cells, overlapping and covering most of the horizon. I knew it would be a very violent storm, and while not the worst the Mavisians had seen on their island, still about ten times as bad as the worst storm you’d see on the mainland. A stiff and consistent onshore breeze augured the arrival of the deep plum storm clouds, so I did what I could to excite the barolectric rods and speed up the process.

I had four canisters through the dehoromil cycle and primed for the polar defabrication module I designed, built, and installed on my personal high-polarity carbonalturer. (The polar defabrication module allows me to reverse the polarity, at whatever percentage I choose, rather than only having the option of performing a basic Woolsey carbonetic defabricism.)

The fifth canister would have to be put through its dehoromil cycle inside the hut, in the portable dehoromizer, because I had to crank the anti-energy demicalibration apparatus back to its vertical position and slide it down into the protective case in front of the hut door before the storm hit. The entire instrument would be lost, costing the University tens of thousands of dollars, and likely my job, if I didn’t button it up and verify that all 135 of the safety sensors were beeping in unity.

With five minutes to spare, I put the four dehoromilized canisters in the custom pelican case I brought for the lot, and returned outside to get the reserve oil lamp canisters and lock down the field vehicle. The smaller Mitsubishi four wheel drives have their turtle button below the dash, next to the Douglas flares and above the Desolomer’s friend.

I pressed the button, and jumped out of the vehicle as the ten-second timer beeped. Air hissed as the hydraulic system allowed the vehicle frame to flatten against the dirt road. Then I heard the jacks thud on the ground below the vehicle, and the stainless louvered shield clicked into position. Just then the wind intensified and it started to rain, one, two, three drops, that seemed as big as water balloons.

I got inside the hut and checked my watch, noting that cranking the site’s anti-energy demicalibration apparatus had taken ten minutes longer than it should have. Something to note in the log and send over to maintenance. It was going to be a long afternoon.

The worst of the storm took two hours to hit, though the rain alone was frightening enough. When the lightning and hail started, I fully understood the safety measures the University had taken to protect its researchers and equipment. The hut had its own auto-turtling system, which was already halfway deployed by the time I buttoned up the field vehicle. The triple-plated stainless walls were now reinforced by cross beams inside the hut extending in six directions like a hexagon. There would be less room to sleep, but it would have to do.

I’m writing as the tempest is at its worst. Storm cells pass nearly daily on the island, and violent storms come at least once a week, depending on which side you’re on. And I’ve been in a storm during a general filbospheric churn, as already told. But this was the first time I was in a storm that intense while onsite at a filbospheric downdraft.

Not only are there occasional Volkswagen-sized chunks of hail ricocheting off the hut or field vehicle at full velocity, I also have to sit through the near deafening whooms that reverberate whenever a filbospheric ray and bolt of lightning shoot within 50 yards of one another. I brought my custom ear plugs, but I can still hear the whooms at a somewhat uncomfortable volume.

It’s neither exactly humid nor dry inside a filbospheric downdraft during a storm. The air is more the opacity of amber, it feels silken on the skin, and makes all my spare silver black-liner cables audibly buzz. It has the scent of freshly-grated nutmeg and honey, repeatedly making my mouth water as I crave gertis gertis tea and the warmth of the Base Camp mess hall. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get to sleep.

The toughbook battery is dying. I could plug it in but I want to eat my field provisions and then try to get some shut-eye. Once again, here I am singing Weezer to no one. Signing off, it’s 1845.

All glory to the University.

Pierre Delgado

In the garage, I feel safe
No one cares about my ways
In the garage where I belong
No one hears me sing this song
In the garage
In the garage