When it's not enough to do the math. [Open]

[vaudevil]

Date & Time: Tuesday during the day
Location: On top of the Initiative hold building.
Characters: Lee Chaolan and YOU!!
Summary: Building a vortex concussion cannon Phase 1: There is a lot of math involved in building a kite that is needed to calculate distance.
Warnings: Probably some weirdness.

Lee spent a better part of the day in his room cutting and stitching material to a collapsible frame that he constructed. The kite appeared nothing more than just a kite but the light aluminum frame suggested something that this wasn't just some ordinary recreational gadget.

With his notes started on the build and how high it could go, the math alone was astounding. His legs were crossed on the bed as he continued his work.

----

An hour had passed and after a good meal to keep up his strength and a harness to keep himself from going off the edge of the roof, the kite was airborne. It took a great deal of strength in his arms to keep the kite from being torn out of his hands the higher he sent it up. "Okay, you're getting a little heavy now." He grunted through the pull.

He wrapped his arm around the heavy cable of nylon rope that had knots to determine distance. "Shit, this is massive." Despite the cool weather, he was beginning to sweat. Thankfully, he had the foresight to wear gloves otherwise he would have lost his grip and the whole project would have to start all over again.

He counted the knots as the kite took more tether. Since it required both arms to keep it in the air, Lee knew what he was getting into.

Comments

[ghostling]

Ghost was doing her usual wandering around thing. Her connection to the Nether allowed her to know when anyone was close by and typically she would go the opposite direction but this was the roof so curiosity got the best of her. The sight of Lee and his kite made her pause.

"What...are you doing?" She was wearing her uniform and mask, big surprise.

[vaudevil]

"Flying a kite." Lee winced from the pressure caused by the line. He recognized that voice but turning around now would break his concentration. The harness that held him was tight. With his feet planted firm, his body was almost at a complete lay-back position with his torso at an angle.

"It's a lot harder than it looks." Another twist to give the kite more line, "That's two thousand feet and it's still not in. This could take a while."

[ghostling]

"I see that." She took a few steps toward him, gaze turning up toward the kite. "Would you like assistance?"

[vaudevil]

"Yeah, this is really starting to hurt. Could you cut the lines when I say to? It's going to be about another-WHOA!" He suddenly felt the line slacken and the kite shifted in direction. He wasn't expecting that and there was no way to stop it.

"No, no, no!! It's getting away!" The only chance he had to save it was to bring in the lines and fast. "Help me bring in the lines!" His hands desperately worked the lines. This wasn't going according to plan.

[ghostling]

Ghost had been about to respond when his kite shifted on him. She quickly moved forward and took hold of the lines. She began pulling them in as easily as one would pull in regular sized kite. Although it was an effort that was causing quite a bit of strain on her. Hopefully she'd be able to make it through before she completely lost her grip on her arms.

[vaudevil]

The fall the kite would suffer would be catastrophic. He was caught on the harness and there was no way of running to get it lest he wants to take a flying lesson that he obviously studied gravity for it to work. Like Ghost, he was desperate to keep it airborne. The wind caught it again and this time it jerked in his hand with enough force to nearly rip the palm of his gloves.

"Whew, that was close. Thanks." The color coded knots told him they were right back in the five hundred feet range which made him sigh. His arms were already hurting from the constant pressure and he winced again.

"What brings you up to the roof? There isn't much to see, you know." He managed to stabilize the kite once again.

[ghostling]

She waited until she was sure he had the kite back under control before releasing her grip on it. Just in time too, her arms flickered and nearly vanished but she somehow managed to keep her hold.

"Can't leave any stone unturned. Figured I might as well see all there is to see." It was close enough to the truth. She was actually looking for good places where she could just be alone and relax if she wanted. So far she wasn't finding that many.

"So, you're doing more than just flying kite. What is it exactly?"

[vaudevil]

The welts on his arms from the line was starting to burn again but he needed to keep that hold. Again, he wrapped his arms in the lines the same way he had before. They proved effective in steady flight for stunt flying when he used to do this at the beach back home. He never attempted to fly one this high before and it had to be large. The kite was nearly the size of a small car.

"Measuring cloud distance. Once the kite vanishes, it's better to cut it loose. I won't be able to recover it from that distance. Anyway," he grunted from the pain, "I'm in the process of building a vortex concussion cannon and in order to do that, I have to check for distance. Otherwise, it would be a useless and noisy thing."

[ghostling]

"Vortex concussion cannon..." Beneath her mask Ghost raised a brow and frowned a bit. She had no idea what that was. While the words were obvious to her sometimes you could never be sure what exactly something would do, no matter what name it was given. Of course, that was something she learned from a technopath that liked to give her creations the most ridiculous names.

"I see." The young woman paced back and forth as she watched him. She remained close enough that she could cut the lines when he told her to. "So what exactly does this cannon do?"

[vaudevil]

The kite was stabilizing on its own now and that meant giving it more line to keep it going. He must have hit a freak pocket which happened from time to time. "Farmers used something similar called a hail cannon back in the eighteen hundreds in Europe and America to protect their crops from hail damage. There isn't a lot of research supporting that it works but they used to swear by them back in the day."

The knots on the line changed color again that suggested one thousand feet to Lee. "Some environmentalists said that it wasn't good for the weather so the controversy that surrounded them was pretty massive. We're not really seeing a lot of rain to raise any environmental alarms yet but we sure need the sun. Each cannon, if it works, will provide about two hundred acres of reduced cloud cover or none at all. Since there's no hail, all it will do is push the clouds away."

He hoped that it would work just long enough to provide some much needed natural light that should improve the mood some.

[ghostling]

Ghost made what sounded to be a thoughtful noise. "Interesting." She wasn't a big fan of the sun so she was fine without it. But if it helped everyone else who was she to protest?

[vaudevil]

"Isn't it?" Lee was surprised that no one else thought to use them any sooner. Building just one would take a lot of time, effort and strength. Nothing about it was light at all. "I have to warn you, they are pretty loud. I was thinking of starting with one to see how it works then build seven more around the city. I'll need a fuel source, a lot of metal and a lot of pressure."

More line was released as he kept his eyes to the sky.

[ghostling]

"Loud noises. That'll go over well." She stopped pacing and fiddled with the latches on her mask. As far as she could tell there was no one else around and likely no one would come up to roof while she was there.

"What kind of fuel?" The last bit came out in her normal voice as she removed her helmet and set it aside for the time being.

[vaudevil]

He turned his head briefly to regard the new change in her voice. He couldn't spend too much attention on her and his eyes fixed right back on the kite. "Just a gas really. Preferably acetylene if it's obtainable. Since it's timed, it needs a relay to keep the pulse going until the clouds clear. They have to be exact to prevent retraction which isn't something I want. Once the clouds clear, the cannons can stop so it's not an all day thing...I hope."

Lee wasn't sure how thick the clouds were and it would be a while before he could have a good range of thickness. Sadly, there was no full proof method other than building a hand glider or a plane to test it.

[ghostling]

"I see," she said as she settled back on what appeared to be an invisible chair. Guess who could fly without aid. She was grinning as she sat there and watched him.

[vaudevil]

He glanced back, then a double take before he got an idea. He grinned and kept a hand on the lines. "Ah ha, so you can fly. How far and for how long?"

If he had known that sooner, he would have just had her take the line up instead of risking the pain of using the kite.

[ghostling]

"I can do a lotta things I don' tell people 'bout." She scrunched up her face in thought, giving a hum. "M'not sure. I've ne'er tried to see how far or long. Ne'er had a reason to."

[vaudevil]

"Care to put it to the test?" Lee was all about testing limits and he was certainly doing that to himself as well. If he could, he would have done it himself but he obeyed the laws of gravity a bit too closely.

[ghostling]

"Y'wantin' me to fly up there an' see how far it goes?" She settled her feet back on the ground before picking her helmet back up.

[vaudevil]

"Could you, please? I would be in your debt." Lee would have put on the innocent act but his hands were busy controlling the kite. Everything was for a better purpose and not just for himself. If she could lend a hand, he would definitely honor that debt.

[ghostling]

Ghost thought for a moment before shrugging and putting her helmet back on. "How am I going to gauge the distance?"

[vaudevil]

"That's the trick. I don't know how fast you can go at a normal rate so I'll have to time it from a mile away and then calculate by the distance from where we are to the bottom of the clouds before I can gauge the thickness as you go through it. I'm not even sure if those clouds are toxic without a sample."

Which was another thing he would need. The atmosphere below would be very different than above. If there was a way to harness a new energy source from the clouds themselves should the prove a source of fuel, he would have killed two birds with one stone right there.

[ghostling]

"Okay. That's simple enough. But the toxicity could be an issue. My mask is made to protect from certain gasses and allow for easier breathing in low oxygen... I have no way to know if it'll keep anything out here. And I'd much rather avoid dying." Dying wasn't any fun at all.

[vaudevil]

Lee paused for a moment in thought. He didn't want to take that kind of risk either and with her suffocating at that height would mean a very messy death indeed.

"I think collecting the sample would be better first. I'll work on the density issue another time."

With a little ingenuity and some chemical knowledge, he could probably figure out the density without risking her life.

[ghostling]

A very messy death. One that would take her a week to recover from, assuming that part of her powers ever worked here. She really wasn't sure if this world had any different kind of "rules" for her abilities.

"Do you have what you need to collect a sample?" Her head tilted slightly to the right before she looked up at the clouds.