A Study in Curiosity
Chapter 5
"Right, so the first thing you need to understand is that the matter that makes up everything in the world and the energy that gives those objects motion are in fact one and the same. Different expressions of the same fundamental quantity." Shai was once again in Aubrey's hood, and the harsh greys of a cloudy morning met her face as she gazed at the colossal houses passing the two by.
"Oh, we actually did discover that already, we call it 'Mass-Energy Equivalence.'" Aubrey replied as she walked. The two were on and expedition for breakfast, and then subsequently towards a spot where Shai could safely perform a demonstration.
With a truly Herculean effort, Shai resisted asking the myriad follow-up questions that came with a bombshell like that. Yesterday she had wasted no small amount of Aubrey's time with questions, and today it would be her turn to explain magic to the human.
"That's good to know. So then, what magic functionally does is allow for perfect transfer between the two mediums."
Aubrey stumbled mid-stride, causing Shai to launch slightly from her seat in the hood, before falling back into the hammock-like position.
"Oh, sorry, just, wow. That seems like it could be thermodynamically devastating."
Shai nodded, though she knew the gesture wouldn't reach the human. "It most certainly could be. Early experiments in magic were unparalleled cataclysms, and even now, the type of magic that uses pure mass is reserved strictly for lab work by trained professionals."
Aubrey tilted her head to one side in what Shai was quickly coming to understand as an inquisitive gesture. "Okay I want to ask what you mean by 'pure mass', but please don't answer until we've got where we're going and I can get a pencil out. Would you like anything from the bakery?"
Looking up at the building they had stopped in front of, Shai saw that it was fronted by massive windows, providing a view inwards to a patisserial wonderland of insane proportions.
"Oh, roots, yes please. Do they have any celestines?" Shai realized that her mouth was watering.
Aubrey replied, speaking softly, "I'm not sure what those are."
Her heart fell slightly, but Shai was too excited about the prospect of giant baked goods to be sad for long. "Doesn't matter, just get me what you usually get."
~~~
A few minutes later and two Cruellers richer, Aubrey found herself relaxed cozily at the roots of her favorite reading tree. It was in a grove in the middle of a local cemetery, which meant that it was a short walk from her house, but well shaded and far enough from the road that any passerby would need a telescope to make out the tiny woman that now sat perched on her bent knee.
Trying her damndest not to move or jostle the little lady, Aubrey retrieved one of the Cruellers from its bag, tore off a bite-sized (to her) piece, and handed it to Shai, before fishing out a small notepad and pencil from her pocket and opened to a blank page.
“Alright, so you had mentioned ‘pure mass’ before. What did you mean by that? Is there impure mass?”
Shai held up one miniscule finger, holding Aubrey’s attention as she chewed and, eventually, swallowed. “Yes and no. See, magic allows for change between mass and energy, but it also allows for change between different types of energy, quickly and losslessly. As you may already know, mass tends to be quantized, meaning it comes in pre-packaged bundles that can’t be split up. When you transform one of those bundles into energy, you don’t just get the energy of that bit of mass, you also get the energy stored in any bonds that mass was under the influence of.”
Aubrey let out a low whistle. “Okay, so if you try and use just a little bit of mass, you’ll end up with a hydrogen bomb’s worth of energy knocking down your door, got it. Most uses of magic end up drawing on another source of energy, then?”
She glanced up to see Shai with a faraway look on her face for just a moment, before the fae shook herself out of it, smiling up at her. “Yes, exactly! It doesn’t work in quite the same way, but there is a third form that mass and energy can take. Most people will refer to it as information, but I like to think of it as intricacy. Through incredibly careful use of energy, you can actually create intricate macroscopic structures that aren’t any more massive than what you started with.”
“That… okay, wait, what? I mean, that. Okay. Hang on a moment.”
~~~
Shai giggled lightly and pulled her feet in under herself as the human’s face contorted into a strange mixture of scowling and smiling. Her eyebrows came down and furrowed in thought, while her cheeks pulled up in a grin. The whole display would have been scary coming from the giant, if it hadn’t looked so silly.
Aubrey, for her part, scratched behind her ear, pulling loose a thread of hair from its place and twirling it around her massive finger absent-mindedly, her other hand writing frantically all the while.
After a moment, Shai glanced down at the paper, then glanced again when she saw that the page was nearly full. “Did I really say that much?”
Aubrey grunted, not looking up from her writing. “No, I just wanted to write all my questions down here before I forget.”
Shai just kept looking at the notebook as Aubrey filled up the entirety of one page and moved onto the next. “Well, we’ll certainly be here a while then.”
Aubrey broke into her own grin at that, looking up to lock eyes with Shai. “Well, we do have all day.”
~~~
Unsurprisingly, they did need all day, as their talking lasted until it was too dark to work outside. At this point, the two realized that nearly twelve hours had passed and they had eaten nothing but donuts, so Aubrey carried Shai to a local restaurant with closed booths, where they now sat together, eating a bowl of stew.
“You know, somehow the logistical issues of eating had never occurred to me,” Shai spoke up, sitting on the table and using a spoon propped up on a napkin as a makeshift bowl.
Aubrey cocked her head, pulling another bewildered smile. “Really? It feels like that would be one of my first concerns when planning a trip to giant-land.”
Shai chuckled, and took a moment to swallow before replying. “Well in hindsight, of course, but mostly I was concerned with who I would meet and how we would communicate. For some reason I never really considered that literally everything in your world would be scaled for you.”
“I suppose that’s fair, it seems like there would be a lot to account for,” Aubrey said, nodding.
A moment of silence passed as the two women enjoyed their food.
Aubrey was the first to speak again. “So, one thing that’s been bugging me, when you’re creating any of those structures from energy, how specific do you have to be? It seems like you would need to impart just the right amount of energy to just the right particle, but how could you possibly keep track of enough atoms to form a large scale structure?”
Shai replied, with a confused look. “That’s typically handled by the Interface.”
Aubrey blinked slowly, displaying a lack of comprehension typically only found in bacteria, or certain types of household cat. “Interface?”
Shai’s confusion only grew, looking up in bafflement. “The Interface? The entity that exists between mass and energy and mediates its interactions?”
Aubrey’s head flopped down, hitting the table with enough force to toss Shai a good foot off the surface. “Christ on a pogo, that’s a bombshell and a half! You’re gonna have so many questions to answer the day after tomorrow.”
Go back to the first chapter here, or read the next chapter of the story whenever I get around to writing it!