Difference between revisions of "The Old Man"
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''All things for a reason.'' Had he made it into echo mirage and had he survived the program as his friend had he would have likely burned out all of his latent magical talent which he didn't discover until he was nearly thirty years old. And oh how his talents had served him over the years. Few in Seattle were his match, though even fewer in Seattle even knew of his existence. | ''All things for a reason.'' Had he made it into echo mirage and had he survived the program as his friend had he would have likely burned out all of his latent magical talent which he didn't discover until he was nearly thirty years old. And oh how his talents had served him over the years. Few in Seattle were his match, though even fewer in Seattle even knew of his existence. | ||
| − | He stood before the projection of the mana surge racing up the ley line which began deep in the roots of the Amazon. The line itself projected up the pacific continental shelf, right up through the Yuccatan where it swelled massively from the impact site. From there it hit the San Andreas where it accelerated and by the time it hit the Puget it was all but a meteor of magical potential. The magical "scholars" from Harvard and MIT&T loved to advertise that magic moved 'at the speed of thought'. ''Sharlatans. Chicanery''. The data from his sensors moved at closer to the speed of light which as it turns out was several orders of magnitude faster than this magical ''speed of thought''. The scholars of magic knew nothing about real research, real magic. Here, displayed in three dimensions | + | He stood before the projection of the mana surge racing up the ley line which began deep in the roots of the Amazon. The line itself projected up the pacific continental shelf, right up through the Yuccatan where it swelled massively from the impact site. From there it hit the San Andreas where it accelerated and by the time it hit the Puget it was all but a meteor of magical potential. The magical "scholars" from Harvard and MIT&T loved to advertise that magic moved 'at the speed of thought'. ''Sharlatans. Chicanery''. The data from his sensors moved at closer to the speed of light which as it turns out was several orders of magnitude faster than this magical ''speed of thought''. The scholars of magic knew nothing about real research, real magic. Here, displayed in three dimensions before him, he could see the mana surge racing up the north american continent. This one would be a big one, the biggest this year, the biggest in many years, but the really big one still lied dormant. It would be coming soon, a year, maybe two at the most. The comet was coming and he and his colleagues figured its pull would coerce old mother earth to finally let go of the giant surge it had been holding onto since the beginning of the 6th world. In less than a decade they will be calling it the 7th world. |
"ETA?" Dietrich asked out loud to his assistant sitting in the corner in front of the console. The man he had called 'assistant' for almost three years now stared at the screen, eyes wrinkling in concentration. He was a brilliant student, possibly every bit as brilliant as himself, though he feared for Joshua's self control. Ambition was not the concern but arrogance was. | "ETA?" Dietrich asked out loud to his assistant sitting in the corner in front of the console. The man he had called 'assistant' for almost three years now stared at the screen, eyes wrinkling in concentration. He was a brilliant student, possibly every bit as brilliant as himself, though he feared for Joshua's self control. Ambition was not the concern but arrogance was. | ||
Revision as of 14:20, 7 July 2008
Conrad Raimund Dietrich had watched the world evolve in front of him. Some of the oldest memories he had were of the day care workers crying as they watched CNN's detailed coverage of the first UGE "victims" being mobbed by scared crowds. He remembered that fateful christmas eve when his parents canceled Christmas because some magical Native American medicine man overthrew the American government and marched his people to freedom. He remembered the last day the world had the Internet and remembered the first day the world met the Matrix. He had wanted to badly to be a member of echo mirage, in fact he had been a highly successful console cowboy in his youth, as were most gifted children of his generation. Unfortunately Conrad's strong german heritage had prevented his ultimate acceptance into the program though one of his good college friends had made the cut and eventually started a fairly successful shadow BBS after finally putting out the fires in '31. There wasn't a day that went by that Dietrich didn't resent how successful Jim had become in the intervening years. There Jim was in the limelight, his name in Dunkelzahn's will even and here he was in his cavern underneath the Redmond barrens.
All things for a reason. Had he made it into echo mirage and had he survived the program as his friend had he would have likely burned out all of his latent magical talent which he didn't discover until he was nearly thirty years old. And oh how his talents had served him over the years. Few in Seattle were his match, though even fewer in Seattle even knew of his existence.
He stood before the projection of the mana surge racing up the ley line which began deep in the roots of the Amazon. The line itself projected up the pacific continental shelf, right up through the Yuccatan where it swelled massively from the impact site. From there it hit the San Andreas where it accelerated and by the time it hit the Puget it was all but a meteor of magical potential. The magical "scholars" from Harvard and MIT&T loved to advertise that magic moved 'at the speed of thought'. Sharlatans. Chicanery. The data from his sensors moved at closer to the speed of light which as it turns out was several orders of magnitude faster than this magical speed of thought. The scholars of magic knew nothing about real research, real magic. Here, displayed in three dimensions before him, he could see the mana surge racing up the north american continent. This one would be a big one, the biggest this year, the biggest in many years, but the really big one still lied dormant. It would be coming soon, a year, maybe two at the most. The comet was coming and he and his colleagues figured its pull would coerce old mother earth to finally let go of the giant surge it had been holding onto since the beginning of the 6th world. In less than a decade they will be calling it the 7th world.
"ETA?" Dietrich asked out loud to his assistant sitting in the corner in front of the console. The man he had called 'assistant' for almost three years now stared at the screen, eyes wrinkling in concentration. He was a brilliant student, possibly every bit as brilliant as himself, though he feared for Joshua's self control. Ambition was not the concern but arrogance was.
"It's accelerating. Last reported velocity just shy of three thousand meters per second and that was Shasta. That was up three and a half percent since Sacramento. Since Hood is down we won't know it until it hits us."
Dietrich frowned. "How long?"
Joshua punched a final couple keys, kicking off the interpolation program that would make a best guess at the speed of the surge. "Its not clear. Two and a half, three minutes maybe. It really depends on how much energy it gains in the ring."
A lot. It will be a lot. It will be huge. Those mountains were just waiting to really blow big and swallow this entire shelf. "You better up the correction factor to three-oh."
"That's huge?! I don't think it could pos..."
"Just punch it in." Dietrich's eyes narrowed as the surge entered the Tir and he heard Joshua punching in the final correction value.
"Ok. Two minutes four seconds, I'm putting the timer up on the display." And sure enough, accurate to the millisecond, the decrementing counter floated to the top of the three dimensional projection.
"And what's the projected magnitude?"
Joshua's fingers flew over the keys for a moment. "uh ... 6.7 ... 6.8. That's just because of the correction factor though. If we use the same correction factor as the last one it's only a 5.9, which is still huge, but it seems more ration ..."
"It will be 6.8." The finality in Dietrich's voice ended Joshua's argument.
"But that'd be the biggest one since 2021, since Golbinization, that's off."
Dietrich turned to look at Joshua who's incredulity played out across his face. "Bigger. 2021 was a 6.6. This will be the biggest one recorded, although 2011 has been calculated to be about a 7.0. But enough theory, 77 seconds until projected impact. Where are our shadowrunner friends ... hmm??"
Joshua frowned for a second before he looked back at his console for a second. With a short sigh of frustration he reported. "They appear to be in the middle of some kind of incident in Tacoma. There's a lot of elementals and watchers. There's a few mages, one of which is projected, seems to be on a different team than them. I'm not sure who's on who's side."
"In a few seconds it won't really matter, now will it? Is Smiley projecting?"
Joshua let a short laugh slip. "Nah, he's pretty much terrified of his own shadow much less the realm where the real shadows lurk. He won't be looking to project as long as he knows that initiate is out there. Looks like the elementals are on the move, an altercation of some kind if flaring up ... lots of effects being tossed around now. Oh the sorcerer adept is there and the elementals are beating on that initiate ..."
Dietrich watched the timer roll down to ten seconds. Nine seconds. Eight Seconds. The twins are going to have a field day with you now, my friends. I can do no more. God speed.
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