F³ Experiment

             “Um, I don’t think this is what I signed up for.” Half a dozen science-y gizmos were strapped to me, and another dozen pointed at me in a threatening manner.

            “For once I am in complete agreement with Reilly,” Jack said, facing his own gizmos.

            “We must determine the level of energy from the photons to verify the presence of positron interaction.” Dr. Keller’s voice came over the intercom, behind a sheet of impressively thick glass.

            “Listen to the Doc,” Nat said. “And next time maybe don’t go doing whatever it is you did to do this thing.”

            “Yeah, that’s helpful,” I muttered.

            “I really want Hulk powers out of this,” Jack said.

            “I’m afraid gamma rays do not cause that kind of mutation of—”

            “No offense, Doc,” Jack interrupted, “but a few hours ago you would’ve said what we could do is impossible, so come on Hulk powers!”

            “Ja, this is true. Well, I cannot promise such. Now, please remain calm. When I ask you to, produce your positron stream as we discussed.”

            “The what?” I asked.

            “Your freaky lightning,” Nat clarified.

            “Oh. You know, I passed on being a science experiment in college. Back then they were at least paying.”

            “Quit your bitching, guinea pig,” Kate said.

F³ A Really Smart Person

            “From what Anna Maria has explained to me,” Dr. Ursula Keller began with only a touch of a German accent. “You people all possess the ability to directly influence the weather in some manner. She even demonstrated some of her abilities to me, which I find rather extraordinary.” She stood next to a whiteboard and had written down a list of what storm riders could do. Apparently, she had taken a lot of time to question Anna Maria.

            “She said you needed someone who knew about antimatter. But why is this?”

            “Reilly,” Nat said.

            I stretched my thumb and forefinger, then let loose with the crazy backwards lightning. Sure enough, the fuzzy arc of miniature explosions materialized again.

            For good measure, Jack did the same thing, though he made it more spectacular by stretching it between palms about six inches apart. Firecracker explosions went off repeatedly along the arc, making it chaotic.

            “Madre de Dios,” Anna Maria breathed. “You didn’t tell me that something was wrong with you, too,” she said to Jack.

            “It’s his fault,” Jack nodded his head at me.

            “I did shoot him,” I admitted. “Because he asked me to.”

            “Joaquim!”

            Jack shrugged.

            “Fascinating,” said Dr. Keller. “That really is not lightning as you showed me, earlier. And you suspect that this is positronic lightning, annihilating with air molecules to produce photons and gamma bursts?”

            “Um, yeah, we totally suspected all of that,” I said.

            “We really need more smart people that we can talk to,” Kate said.

            “Definitely.”

 

F³ Pre-emptive Strike

             Switzerland, land of skiing and chocolate, or so I believed. At one point in time coming here would have been a lifelong goal, but being able to ride lightning I had been to most places around the planet, at least in passing.

            But what if that’s done? What if I can never ride lightning again?

            “I think this is it,” Nat said.

            She stopped us at a small house, the kind with the sharply pointed roof. From the snow on the peaks, I could understand why they made roofs like that.

            “You’re not sure?” Jack asked.

            “I don’t read German so well.”

            “Well, you should—”

            Jack cut off as Kate smacked him upside the head.

            “What was that for? I didn’t say anything.”

            “You were about to.”

            “Absolutely,” I said.

            “Yep,” Nat added.

            “I think I’m going to start just preemptively smacking you upside the head because you’re going to say something offensive on a regular basis.”

            “Absolutely,” I said.

            “Yep,” Nat added.

            “There’s Anna Maria. She’ll side with me.”

            “Nope,” I said.

            “Doubt it,” Nat added.

            Kate cracked the knuckles on one hand menacingly. “Sure.”

           

F³ The Next Move

             “Really? Watch fucking Star Trek reruns?” Jack said. “That’s his advice?”

            “It is pretty weak,” Nat said.

            “Like any of you geniuses have anything better to add. He’s a paranormal detective, not a rocket scientist,” Kate said.

            “Particle physics,” I said.

            Kate pointed at me, “That!”

            “So do we go find one of them?” Nat asked.

            We all looked at one another with a variety of shrugs and frowns.

            “Sounds good to me,” I ventured.

            “How do we even find one, just start cold-calling universities?” Kate asked.

            Jack suddenly chuckled, his smile becoming wicked. He pulled out his phone and dialed.

            “Who’s he calling?” Kate asked. “Jack, who’re you calling?”

            “Hey gorgeous,” Jack said into the phone. “Where are you? Well, finish up your schnitzel, We need you.”

            “Anna Maria?” I whispered to Nat.

            She nodded.

“Yeah, Reilly fucked things up again.”

Yeah, I think Kate needs to hit him again.

“No, not out here. Need you to go to Switzerland. No, not for chocolate. We need you to talk to a scientist. I don’t know, one of the physicists, someone who knows something about anti-matter. Yeah, we’ll come out to you, but it might take a while. Riding lightning is kind of FUBAR, right now, for Reilly.”

“And you, you jackass!” Kate yelled.

“Nothing. I’ll explain later. Just get a head start softening this guy up for us. Yeah, he’s going to need to know what we can really do. Yeah, see ya.” Jack hung up.

“What’s in Switzerland?” Kate asked.

“CERN, and that superconducting thing.”

“Supercollider,” I corrected.

“Nerd,” Nat said, smiling.

 

F³ Detective by Phone

             I gave my temples a quick, ten-second massage before taking the phone off hold.

            “This is Matt,” I said.

            “About fucking time!” said a male voice that could only be Jack Dailey.

            “Kate?” I asked.

            “Yeah, I’m here. Shut up, Jack!”

            “What’s going on?”

            Please don’t be another worldwide emergency.

            “How much do you know about antimatter?”

            “Antimatter? Like on Star Trek?”

            “Nerd!” Jack shouted.

            I pulled my ear away from the receiver and hit the button for the speakerphone.

            “Kate, shut him up or I’m hanging up.”

            I heard a loud slap, and another shout, but it sounded farther away.

            “Yes, like on Star Trek.”

            “I don’t know. It makes the ship go. Matter and antimatter annihilate each other to make energy. What else is there to know?”

            “Apparently a lot. Reilly is shooting positronic lightning.”

            “And you’re calling me because?”

            “We’re out of science officers on the Enterprise. Why do you think? We need ideas.”

            I held up my hands in surrender, then felt silly because she couldn’t see that. “All right, I’m sorry. Okay, so let’s run through the obvious supernatural stuff. Been in contact with any kind of supernatural entities?”

            “No,” Reilly said.

            “No,” Kate relayed.

            “I can hear him. How about wizards or other practitioners?”

            “Not that I know of.”

            “Mystical artifacts, possibly cursed.”

            “Again, no.”

            “Made any bargains with the fae?”

            “Who’s Faye?”

            “The fae, F-A-E. The fairy folk.”

            “Um, I’ve never met a fairy, so I guess not.”

            “Well, unless you get more info that one of those has taken place, I’m out of ideas.”

            “Is there a way to get rid of it without knowing what caused it?”

            “Beats me. You should probably talk to a scientist or watch a bunch of Trek reruns to see how they solve these things. But I’m pretty sure reversing polarity doesn’t work.”

           

F³ End of A Quiet Morning

             It was a typical morning in the office, by which I meant I had no clients. This was fine by me because I had a rare rush of them just last week, as if some kind of magic bomb had gone off in Belport making everything just a little screwy. If I was lucky, it wouldn’t be the start of something bigger. I was just finishing up case notes about a lucky quarter. It had reminded me a little of Don Iverson and his strange luck.

            The phone ringing shook me out of the reverie, but I let Jessie answer it while I finished off the last two sentences. I closed the folder, and walked it out to her for filing.

            Jessie kept pulling her ear away from the phone’s receiver as more than one voice shouted on the other end of the line.

            “Please hold,” she said, and clicked the button.

            “Someone named Kate says she needs to talk to you, Boss.”

            “Did you say Kate?” I asked.

            She nodded.

            “And there was shouting, other voices? A man?”

            “Yeah, and they kept swearing the whole time. Who are they?”

            I sighed. “Storm Riders. Go get us a lunch, and stop by the drugstore to get me something for the migraine I’m about to have.”

            Jessie opened her mouth, but I just held up a hand as I headed back into my office.

 

F³ Consultation

            “Okay, let’s say I buy into your science fiction mumbo-jumbo about antimatter lightning,” Jack said. “How do we fix it?”

            “I look like Spock to you?” Kate said. “I may know about the stuff, but I’m not a physicist.”

            “So, we need a physicist?” I asked.

            “Sure, why not? Or a doctor? Or a wizard, for all I know.”

            “What about that detective guy?” Nat asked.

            “Mark,” Jack said.

            “Mike,” I said.

            “It’s Matt, you morons,” Kate said.

            “Matt and Kate, sitting in a tree,” Jack sang.

            Kate scowled. “You want to get slapped again.” It wasn’t a question. “I’m sure you can lose more fillings,” Kate flexed her hand and took a couple of practice swings.

            “Sheesh, can’t take a joke.”

            “Can we get back on topic? Should we go talk to Matt?” Nat said.

            “You know, we don’t need to actually visit someone to talk to them,” Kate pulled out her phone.

            “K-I-S-S-I-N-G,” Jack whispered out of Kate’s hearing.

 

F³ Logical Deduction

             “What the hell explodes lightning?” Jack asked.

            “Not lightning,” Nat said. “It just kind of looks like lightning.”

            “Fine, it looks like lightning, and is the opposite cuz it goes around backwards. What the fuck does that even mean.”

            “Anti-lightning?” I suggested.

            “Anti-matter,” Kate said.

            We all turned to look at her.

            “The fuck is that?” Jack asked.

            “What it says, the opposite of matter.”

            Jack looked at me and Nat. “Someone make her make sense, please.”

            “I kinda would like to know more about this, too, Kate.”

            Kate sighed, and it sounded like she said ‘morons’ under her breath, but I couldn’t be sure. “Okay, matter is like protons and electrons to make up atoms. Lightning is electrons because it’s electricity. That’s why it seeks out a positive charge in the ground.”

            “So Reilly is shooting protons?” Nat asked.

            “No, Kate explained. “Protons and electrons have an opposite electric charge, but they’re otherwise not the same. Turns out there are exact mirror images of particles in every way. For protons they’re called anti-protons and for electrons they’re—"

            “Anti-electrons,” Jack said standing tall like he actually knew something.

            “Positrons,” Kate clarified, scowling and shaking her head at Jack.

            “How do you know this?” I asked.

            “I watch Star Trek.”

            “Nerd,” Jack said.

            “Hey, if she’s right, then I’m going to star watching it, too,” I said. “Best explanation we’ve had, so far.”

            Kate held up her hand in a weird salute with thumb outstretched and fingers parted in the center.

            She is a nerd.