The Escapement Mechanism, Part 5
Notes and Introduction
I had everything written to post last week. I just didn't. My brain was melting. Melted. Turned to Jello. I needed a week for it to solidify again. Hopefully all of the chopped fruit and hamburger pieces are in the right spot. In a time travel story I could go back and fix last week. If I do, I won't update this intro, and then you can wonder what I was on about.
At the lab, Wemly took one of the older mice, who probably only had one or two more chances to be used in an experiment before it left the lab for good. And they didn't get donated to pet stores. She shaved a small patch of fur and was a little surprised to see the device bind so efficiently, though she knew it was silly to think that whatever the mechanism of the stone, that it would somehow be able to distinguish human from some other warm skin.
But still, to see it fused so perfectly to the neck of the mouse held her transfixed. Being able to observe it while attached was something she wouldn't take for granted. At home she had used her phone to record a video and examine how the stone had bonded to her neck. But nothing could beat the live examination of experimental science.
Everything was recorded as a matter of course, and some—most, if she was being honest—of the interesting results came from slowing down the recording and examining the subject a few frames at a time. But Wemly had never gotten over the thrill of seeing a hypothesis validated in real time. Or disproved, where as it happened the most important results usually stemmed from.
Wemly grabbed some monitors and recorders, normally used for mice, and set up a crude experimental area where her actions and vitals were recorded. She was a little nervous with her shirt off in the lab, as Utsab had a habit of staying or coming in late, and she didn't have a good explanation cooked up for why she was in her underwear with probes on her chest and temples. The wires were also barely long enough to plug into the equipment and allow her to use the computer; she made a bad mouse.
Wemly ran all sorts of diagnostics, but as far as she could tell, she was a normal human, albeit with a slightly elevated heart rate. She tapped the device on her neck, but couldn't get it to do anything that registered a change in her vitals, or any EMR or background fields. Eventually she held her fingers over what she at assumed was the slowly blinking light, and tried to confirm what she was feeling on the monitors. She might have been imagining it, but Wemly felt the intake and exhale of every breath as a slight variation in temperature under her finger—warmer on the exhale, and then a beep which she had heard before and tried to place, but a wave of nausea washed over her
... and she caught her reflection in the mirror. She was tired. Maybe she would experiment on some of the mice in the lab tomorrow. Although it would be better to be in the lab when no one else was around. She could experiment on herself without drawing the confused interest of Utsab, or the angry dismissal of Warner, but she was too tired to go anywhere after the exhausting day. Surreptitious experiments with the mice tomorrow would have to suffice.
