Aberrant: Mutant High - Interesting Discoveries

[Stargaizer]

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This takes place after the fight in Nerves

Josh arrived back at the physics lab much as he had left; under a small cloud. He preferred the activities here to those elsewhere, especially the dorms and cafeteria, so he didn't like to leave. But, until he learned how to go without food, sleep or bathroom breaks, he had to leave... besides, he doubted that Prof. Jensen would trust even him to stay in the lab overnight.

Most of the extra-curricular experiments that he and Prof. Jensen did dealt with his power. Primarily, they dealt with how his power affected moving objects, how that interacted with known laws of physics, and, the most interesting part, if the effect could be duplicated.

Over the Christmas break, it was this last that they had been working on, specifically with his control over momentum. They had looked, or were going to look into different things such as anti-gravity, inertial dampeners, mass shadows, and all sorts of crazy things.

She even helped him with learning to control his powers. They both hoped that, one day, he'd be able to control his ability enough that he could impart equal and opposite momentum and acceleration on to two single atoms of hydrogen. That would allow them to build a particle collider that would fit inside their science lab, as they'd only need to build something that had enough magnetic force to contain the hydrogen nuclei as his imparted acceleration moved them, eventually, to within fractions of the speed of light.

But all that was a ways away... or at least it seemed like it to Josh right now. So he wheeled himself over to the computer and started arranging the data from their last experiment so that they could analyze it.

[Dave ST]

The door to the lab opened and Josh's ears perked to the tell-tale rapping of the heels Prof. Jensen's boots on the waxed tiles. As he looked up she walked past him and straight to the large counter-top along the far wall the sometimes serves as a small desk.

Her long, garnet hair was pulled back into a tight pony tail and seemed darkened by dampness. Tight, faded blue jeans hugged every perfect curve of her hips while her low cut burgundy sweater made the monitor Josh was in front of begin looking in credibly boring. It was no surprise that when it came to the instructor who was most likely to have a student with a crush on them, it was Prof. Jensen.

The Jai Kudo frames of her glasses only added that certain spark the her fire of 'sexy but smart' air about her. "I'm so sorry Josh," Her thick British accent tickled his young, teen aged ears. "Ugh, you would not believe the morning I've had. First a fight in the cafeteria, then I drenched because someone set off a fire alarm." She fumed with frustration as she set down her hand bag, stacks of files and books.

"Pardon my disheveled appearance, I had to change." She grunted in frustration. "I was soaked. Anyways, I-I'm sorry I'm just still a little stressed. Where did we leave off, Josh?"

[Stargaizer]

If it had been any other student, Prof. Jensen's appearance would've been extremely distracting. However, this was Josh. He was paralyzed, had little to no feeling, and absolutely no conscious control of anything below his waist. To compound this, that paralyzation had occurred at the very very beginning of puberty, thus stunting parts of his maturing. That being said, Josh was not very easily sexually aroused... especially compared to some of the other boys at this school.

So, Prof. Jensen's appearance went from being extremely distracting to mildly curious. Yet another reason that the 'instructor who was most likely to have a student with a crush on them' picked Josh as their mentee.

"I've already started analyzing the data from our last experiment. We've been trying to see if I change the measurable mass of a moving object when I change the direction of it's momentum.

Now, I've got this processing, but maybe we might be able to see something if we look at it in phase space... what do you think?"

[Dave ST]

"Josh," Her accent hinted to some doubt. "The mass of the object does not change because you're not affecting the object itself; you're just generating kinetic energy around the object to apply force. Same principal with gravity. The mass remains the same, despite the object having no weight. Which how people can be crushed by heavy objects in zero gravity. But, you knew that."

She leaned against the table and folded her arms. "You've barely learned to control your powers, Josh. You realize that all the speculation in the world isn't going to do us an ounce of good unless you leave the lab once in awhile and actually practice your abilities."

[Stargaizer]

Josh looked like he was going to say something in regards to her first statement, but stopped and turned absolutely sheepish after he second.

"I did leave the lab, and I was going to use my abilities this afternoon... I just wasn't fast enough..."

He dropped his head momentarily. Apparently something had happened that he wasn't thrilled at and didn't particularly want to talk about. But after a short moment, his demeanor brightened up a little bit. He raised his head, looked at the computer screen, then turned his power chair to completely face Prof. Jensen. "But, Ms. Jensen, we've already established that the use of my powers causes instantaneous change in momentum... The 'kinetic field' theory that you came up with, and that we've been working under, is good, but it requires my ability to simultaneously and instantaneously stop an object traveling one direction and impart that much energy back into the object in another direction.

Most of what we've been studying have been deflections less than ninety degrees, which simply require a slight reduction of one component of motion and the addition of a second component of motion. The 'kinetic field' theory works good for these, but does it always hold true? I've been thinking, for deflections equal to or greater than ninety degrees, it requires a complete mix up of the velocity components.

If it's an external field, it should measurably deform or at least stress the outside of the object, right? That is, unless my ability messes with the inertia, which is a fundamental property of matter, as far as we know... right? Am I wrong? Is this something we could test?"

Josh looked Prof. Jensen in the eyes, excited about his analysis and eagerly expectant of her answer. He'd been thinking this over for a long time, and as far as he could tell, it all made sense... which is the only reason he was able to actually tell her about it. Josh definitely wasn't one to spout off without thinking... especially to someone as far above him as Prof. Jensen is.

"And I can practice my abilities while we do the experiment. I'll need to change the direction of the object for us to get the data, right? That'll be practice... and the more we learn about how my ability works, the easier it'll be for me to control it..." Josh put on his best little impish grin.

When it came to leaving the lab to work on his abilities, he was just like any other student with their homework... if they put half as much effort into actually doing it as they did figuring out ways to avoid it, they'd get some pretty good results.

[Dave ST]

"Alright then," Professor Jensen said with an approving smile. "You've seemed to have worked yourself up quite a hypothesis there, now put it into practice and review the data. We'll see what we can come up with, hmm?"

She walked to her things and collected some work she'd brought to go over while Josh compiled data. She worked closely with the boy for some time and often would bring papers to grade once she realized he was off in his own world.

"Josh, is something bothering you?" She suddenly asked without warning and with a heavy measure of concern.

[Stargaizer]

When Prof. Jensen told Josh to get to work with his experiment, he did so, with wholehearted abandon. He split his time about evenly, analyzing the data from their last experiment as well as designing their next experiment. For the most part he worked on his own, only 'disturbing' his mentor to ask if they had a piece of equipment that met certain characteristics (which most of the time they actually did, or at least something that would work), or to check one of his equations.

Once he'd found his 'groove', and was working well, off in his own world, he started to forget about the events in the cafeteria earlier this morning, and the chiding he'd gotten from his mentor not long afterwords.

Then she had to go and be all mentor-ish and stick her nose in his business. Her question took him completely off guard. He stopped everything he was doing, and turned his chair to face her. Now, Josh was usually quick on his... quick to respond, but he had to purge his mind of everything that he had been doing, so that he could process this new input. And so, for a few moments, all he could say was "Uhh... umm..."

But then he got his bearings back, and started in. "Well, you see Ms. Jensen, I was down at the cafeteria earlier today as well; when the sprinklers went off. Actually I got there just a little before the fight broke out. I would've said that I got there just in time to stop it, but I was too slow. That one kicked a table at the other; the one that made the food explode. I was going to change the momentum of the table, so that it would go straight up in the air. That could've stopped the fight before it even started; but I was too slow.

And then, once they started fighting, and getting all over each other, I was going to separate them... physically... by kinetically making one go to one side of the lunch room and the other to the other side. But before I got a chance, someone pulled the sprinklers.

I make it back up here, and I get started back to work, at something that I love and actually enjoy, and you act like you don't want me up here anymore." Josh paused just long enough to let out a sigh. "I just don't get it. I thought we were making progress..." Josh shrugged. "I thought it was fun, and neat. You know, plumbing the depths of unknown physics, trying to quantize mutant powers... The real frontier of science..."

Josh dropped his head. Sometimes, especially when he was on a role, it was easy to forget that he was only 16. But times like this, it was hard to think of him as anything other than a needy, emotional, vulnerable, high-school, teenage boy. It wasn't usual for Josh to just put everything out there like this, but it wasn't the first time that it had happened. Of course, it hadn't happened in a while, and every time before it had been in relation to his parents or siblings. Apparently he was really bothered by what was going on... deep down.

[Dave ST]

Prof. Jensen smiled at the teen. "Josh, that's not it at all. You know you're welcome here in the lab anytime, and I do enjoy the work we're doing. But," she rose her index finger to accent her next point. "You're still a teenager Josh, I, as your instructor, am worried you spend a bit too much time hiding in your science and not enough time making friends. I am allowed to be concerned, aren't I?" Her caring smile could have melted the coldest heart.

"As for the fight, well, I don't think you could have helped much Josh." Folding her arms she leaned against the workstation across from him. "They would have found a way to fight. Children like Kazuo and Revenant are warriors, all they know is fighting. Not that I can blame them, if we'd have lived the life they've had to, we'd probably be rather violent ourselves. In the future, try not to get involved, the last thing you need to make yourself a target when people like that are settling their hormonal differences. Promise me?"

[Stargaizer]

Prof. Jensen's caring smile could've melted the coldest heart, but it could also frustrate teenage boys; or at least it frustrated Josh. "No professor. I can't promise you that. I can promise you that I will get involved. If, when I get the opportunity to use my abilities for the greater good, to preserve life, to prevent injury, to help... If I don't use that opportunity, then I'm no better than... well, I'll just be a bad person. All that evil needs to flourish is that good men do nothing. If that makes me a target, then so be it." He seemed fairly resolute in his stance.

Then, he continued, a little less firm in his attitude. "And, I don't think of our research as my hiding. I mean, if we... once we figure out how it is that I do what I do, maybe we can figure out a way to duplicate it. Think of it, all the different places that being able to control momentum could help the world. Car accidents could be a thing of the past... cheap spaceflight... all sorts of things and breakthroughs that we can't even think of now. The world may not like us right now, but if we can show them that we're on their side, give them access to some of the abilities that come naturally to us... they'll come around. They're just scared... we just need to earn their trust again..." Josh finished staring off into the distance, looking through Prof. Jensen. Someone who didn't know him as well as she did might figure that he was just envisioning some future utopia. She knew, or at least figured, differently. The 'world' that he was speaking of consisted of 4 specific people... if her intuition was correct.