Chapter 7: Research

Gravity is a habit that’s hard to shake off. Terry Pratchet

Waking up good and early, with a quick breakfast I step outside, a cool breeze, swaying trees, and a glitter on the pavement from the sun. Taking a 180 I return inside, chill watch tv and think about my day and plan. I check for tails thankfully there are no tails, glancing from window to window checking for cars, people, irregularities.

With that out of the way, I start my hike to the lead mine, taking many rounds about routes, secret switches and even changing my clothes in between. I tried very hard to remain secretive. If I’m caught with more of this stuff without backing, legal or otherwise I won’t see the light of day. Finally reaching the mine, I start excavating very small samples. Don’t want my bag floating away, with a pickaxe nearby I break up a chunk. Upon finding what I set out to gather, I head home, taking a different way home. With the new route, it took me an hour to get home, would be so much simpler if I could use the iron suit, but I digress can’t be caught at this second.

When I get home, I stash my supply under the floor in my kitchen while I prepare the house, closing windows, curtains, having a sweeper check my house for bugs. Turning up without bugs I’m hoping the military has let their guard down. One can only hope.

I find a small Tungsten container in which I place my samples inside before burying it under the floor in the lab. Leaving a single piece out. I will take them out 1 by one as and when I need them. Unlikely to need any large amount of them for the experiments I have planned.

I’m going to check melting point, buoyance, Purity, with a microscope, a very good one. Analyze a sample see if I can check any of the materials it’s made up of. I will do a few other tests as well.

First, I put it in a kiln and slowly heat it up in increments of 100, checking to see if it’s starting to break down into a liquid or gas. I found that it melted at 3300 C so I gathered a second stone and went up by increments of 1 to find it has a melting point of 3231 C. Got to love high tech foundries and kilns.

I create a vat of water larger than the radius of the stone; the vat is attached to the floor with strong magnets. I found aside from floating water the rocks sink relatively slowly.

I check the melted material after it solidified to see if it retains any effect of antigravity, it does but its only about half as effective as beforehand. Good to know, at least it can be shaped with a small cost.

Using a hammer, I break up the material into very tiny amounts both an un-melted and melted rock so see its composition. After looking closely it’s an unknown material in a crystal lattice, the melted component has almost destroyed the lattice, which tells me either the lattice amplifies the effects of the heat damaged the effect and the lattice does not correspond. I’m going to assume the former.

I cannot look at the atomic structure but as far as I can tell it’s made mostly out of a not currently identified stable crystal-like material. Contaminated with silicone and other common materials. I assume that we could potentially produce a refining process to purify it. The stones come in veins on normal meteorites so I assume they naturally have around 30% of every meteorite, with irregularities. Further contaminated moderately but very little.

After analyzing some other samples, I noticed one of them contained a very small amount of a second unidentified material, a black crystal structure, isolating it with some crystal I identified it reduces the radius of the gravitational effect. Very valuable information. It seems we are dealing with more than 1 material here, who knew. After searching all samples, I only found the material in 2 of the materials, seeming separate meteorites have a chance of containing it. I would estimate an average ¼ to 1/6 meteorites contain it. If we could isolate it we could very well produce something that could knock birds out the sky, so to speak.

As far as other tests they are mostly inconclusive, aside from conductivity which is like water, non-existent when pure but good when contaminated. I doubt this would be of great value if working with pure material, but if contaminated material was used it might create wiring issues.

As it seems to act like semi-radiation it seems tungsten, lead and any insulating material against it stops it from functioning at any meaningful capacity.

After a long day of work, I look outside to find it’s getting dark, stashing my samples away, and evidence of my experiments. I eat some good, I’ve been working nearly 6 hours without food it's not good for the body. I then go outside, inviting some friends and my brother for a drink. We go to a local pub. I ordered a rhubarb gin then a few cocktails. Something relaxing never really enjoyed hard liquor too much but I can enjoy it here and there. I, my brother and 2 friends Jess and Paul all enjoy a drink together. I find jess as an engineer got promoted recently on 60,000 a year a very nice yearly salary. Paul is an artist selling art online for covers making enough to get by. We talk about our lives, our childhoods, general conversation before we fall upon, the fall. That wonderful yet terrible day.

Paul lost his Dad in the fall, it was unfortunate it seems he was struck in the head, quick and painless, it was a touchy subject but he didn’t lash out simply said he was sad but it's over with. It hit me people died in this environment. Real people died from the fall. I didn’t connect it to lives just numbers before. He's telling the story broke my heart. When I get into better money, I will fund his small art business I make a mental note.

Jess was not anywhere near any of the falling rocks, she is grateful for but is also aware she missed out on collecting a rare material, saddened but very little due to the dull ache left by Paul's story. I will leave them both a small amount of the stone on each of there doorsteps. Pauls encased in a tungsten, alloy locket. So, it’s not too damn heavy or toxic. Il leaves space for his dads’ photo so hopefully, he will be able to get out of a pickle if needs be. Il sends jess a small sample in a box insulated with lead. A small letter. Il also offers to supply her with money for engineering expertise it might come in handy. We go clubbing that evening, thankfully Paul is not being dragged too much. You can still see it but it’s more like an aching shoulder ignorable. I hope he’s okay. We have a very good evening I get a little drunk.

Wobbling home I call a taxi, getting home I find everything where I left it, I make my self a small bit of food before going bed. Moonlight shining through my windows its very peaceful. A very good day today. Sometimes it’s nice to socialize. I wonder what will happen in the future I might keep my hair out of things to see how the world plays around with this new reality. I can't wait too long otherwise il lose my opportunity. A balance.