“Striking Sparks” — Page Nine
Police report: “Suspect’s blood refused to cooperate with our investigation.”
More below the jump!
Bobservations
SPOOKY
When Max and I get together on Sundays, one of the things we invariably discuss is how weirdly prescient our readers can be sometimes. From the very beginning, we had intended that “whatever the Strike Gate sends, it retrieves upon extraction, no matter how scattered it has become in the meantime. And anything it didn’t send it leaves behind.” Partly this was our way of preventing easy solutions, like our hero being able to show up with medical supplies, or being able to grab hold of something and teleport away with it. We also figured it would make it so our hero left nothing behind, not even fingerprints (although he’s wearing gloves anyway, so moot point.) Visual records, property damage, dead bodies, footprints in other people’s blood — sure, there would be plenty of evidence he’d been there, but none that he brought with him.
Thing is, although we planned this, I have gone back over everything previous and I swear we never actually said that anywhere. But somehow, a few readers appear to have already grasped it via some sort of clairvoyant connection. Amazing. Big ups to them, and a solid high-five from Max and myself!
Nonetheless, here we have started to actually establish this in canon (as it were) to the astonishment of our azure-eyed detective. Stay tuned!
— Bob out
Elmininates all Evidence after returning? Nice side effect.
You’d think he could in fact leave a fingerprint if he didn’t have the gloves. I mean… maybe. :1
Fingerprints are usually left because of skin oils being left on solid objects. Those would disappear too. Now, if he got his hands dirty, say with somebody else’s blood, for instance…
Wait…pause…enhance…enhance…*there*, those 4 pixels!
To be fair, unlike most occurrences of the cliche of that in crime shows, they actually have a body and wound trajectory that they are looking at on camera to suggest location of blood splatter. Notice she says wait, zoom in, after commenting that he got shot.
He may not leave fingerprints behind in the form of his own skin oils, but he could still leave them as impressions on a soft or dirty surface. Or, if his hands picked up dirt or oil after he ported and then he touched something, those substances would remain behind as prints, so it’s good that he’s wearing gloves.
If the chamber will only bring back matter that it has sent, that suggests that it could not be used to initially teleport something to the chamber. It sounds like all trips need to start going out from the chamber, not coming in. Of course, a strong spark like Madison could always improve the technology in the future.
Whoa – a thought just hit me! Since the chamber can teleport back any matter that it has sent out, even though that matter has been moved around and scattered… You could teleport a whole pile of cash from the chamber to someplace else, even just across the lab. Take that cash to pay bills and buy expensive toys. Wait some days or months, after the bills have been deposited in a bank (and no longer related to your transaction), then teleport them back into the chamber. Rinse and repeat.
That does it. I need to start building one for myself.
that might work if you didn’t have to pay the power bill for keeping the chamber operating the entire time you’re waiting for the cash to circulate.
Pay the power bill? I have my re-circulating cash to do that. Bwahaha!
You’ve got a criminal mind, Paul.
I guess this means that if Max gets shot during a trip, no messy surgery to remove the bullet. Same goes if Max takes a gun and shoots someone.
well, if Max takes a gun, it would have to be non-metallic. Metal does not go thru the transfer. Now a Glock-19 would work as long as it didn’t need gunpowder.
Unfortunately, saltpeter is a necessary ingredient of gunpowder and it has metallic components. without it and the oxidizing effect it adds to gunpowder, you wouldn’t get a fourth the bang you do with it.
Gunpowder hasn’t been used in bullets in decades. The current propellant is Nitro-Cellulose I think. Less fowling, smoke and not as corrosive as gunpowder.
Now now. The Glock 19 has quite a few metal components. There really hasn’t been a successful non-metallic gun made yet. Even the 3-D printer versions in the news recently (aside from blowing themselves apart after a shot or two) required a steel firing pin. They’d pass a metal detector, but not the Strike Gate. Besides, the bullets they use are made of lead.
Including the ever-important barrel… Kind of hard to shoot a pistol where the barrel is missing. Why do people think Glocks are made entirely of plastics?
Might be time to revive the repeater crossbow.
I learn more from these comments than I do from the scripts!
I’m thinking only largish hunks of metal are a problem for the strike gate – say two or more atoms bonded to each other or another metal.
I don’t think atomic metal bonded to other compounds can be a problem, or poor Max would lose function with his hemoglobin as soon as he transferred.
Other trace metals are necessary for proper body function, too.
So saltpeter, and gunpowder, might transfer too. The problem of the firing pin remains. Not to mention casings and bullets.
I wonder if a bullet could be made of granite, or wood? I forget if stone had a problem going through the gate. Probably too high a concentration of metal. But there are a few woods that are quite dense…
What about diamonds? All sorts of carbon in bodies, so they might transfer. Shooting gems at someone sounds expensive, but all ammo would be retrieved…
I think someone could develop a plastic casing that evaporates in the chamber, though that would probably cause a loss of power to the bullet, plus a huge increase in fowling. So not much of a market for it. But maybe useful for short range and short engagements – say, three minutes, max…
I’m not in a medical profession, but just keep in mind that Max is actually dead and soulless when he teleports, so I’m not sure bodily functions would matter as much. Then again, when he ports he leaves metal, such as his fillings in an early page, so any metal in his body would be left behind. That would be tragic, considering the importance of iron in blood.
You know what, I’m just going to continue my archive diving and suspension of disbelief with it.