Divine Field Theory
Chapter 2
The rest of the night passed in a very slow, bleary-eyed blink, and at some point the next afternoon, Robin paused while reaching up to rearrange a recently-opened space in a shelf of single-use plates (Sedgley had scoffed at the idea, but no one could argue with the convenience) and realized that they had no idea what they had been doing for the last sixteen hours. They knew, logically, that they had stayed up until around five in the morning, only to wake up at six and man the shop. They remembered every moment of their unfortunately long bout of consciousness, but as they looked back on it, it hadn’t felt as if they themselves were doing any of it. It was as though they had fallen asleep at some point, and their body had just kept on running through the motions. Realizing this, they sighed, and put up their break sign as they ran upstairs, suddenly desperate for a cup of coffee.
But such late nights and bleary-eyed days were a common occurrence for Robin, and they found the rest of the week blending together, day after day, until finally they found themselves once again in Sedgley’s workshop, making the final preparations for the wave to arrive. The wizard and apprentice had fallen into a sort of comfortable routine for such events, mutually bustling around, double-checking equations and measuring and re-measuring metal sheets that had been cut to their specifications days ago. Much of this wave would be spent inducing various pre-made contraptions for general sale, but Robin’s painstaking write up had convinced Sedgley to allow them to also create six flat, iron discs, two of which were twelve inches in diameter, the remaining four of which were six. This was exactly enough for Robin to carry out their tests.
Now all that was left was to wait.
See, predicting when a wave would arrive was not an exact thing. Through intense observation of the celestial bodies and no small amount of calculation, a decent wizard might predict the occurrence to within a period of around twelve hours, but beyond that, the unpredictable nature of the gods’ exact movements made pinning down a specific time infeasible. For a god, that must seem a fine time frame, but on the human end of things, it meant spending a fine Friday sitting, waiting, and worrying over every possible detail of the event to come. The vacuum chamber had to be combed over religiously, as it needed to withstand multiple depressurizations, and the smallest flaw, if left unchecked, could lead to not being able to induce new objects for months as they worked on repairs.
The chamber was relatively small, in the shape of a cube with two foot sides, and Robin was sure they had checked every inch of it several times in the test runs yesterday, there was certainly no flaw, but every few minutes or so the thought crossed their head that maybe there was some corner, some minute detail in the latch or the pumping mechanism that they might not have checked, so they got up from their seat and went to look it over one more time.
Somehow, the fact that they never noticed anything failed to assuage their anxiety, as the hours flowed on.
At one point, the wizard sent his apprentice out for food, and they spent the entire wait bouncing their leg, nervous that the ball would drop and the wave would hit without them.
Later on, Minnow dropped by the shop, but after seeing the ‘closed for restocking’ sign on the door, she left without a word and got back to her usual route. She knew not to interfere with business when a wave was close.
Finally, at around two hours past noon, the scales sat on Sedgley’s desk tipped in one direction. Said scale was an invention of Sedgley’s, created some twenty years prior so that one of its weights would gain mass when in an excess of celestial energy. He was fond of telling the story to Robin whenever he got the chance. Because of the nature of induction, it had to be created at the rare intersection of two waves from two separate gods, and one where the second wave originated from a god whose waves bestowed mass-altering properties. To the wizard’s knowledge, it was the only one of its kind in existence, and he was loath to pass up an opportunity to brag about that fact.
When the scales did finally tip, Robin and their mentor burst into action immediately, guided by caffeine, adrenaline, and years of experience.
First, Sedgley would get into position with his hands directly above the vacuum chamber, as Robin placed the corresponding skeletal copper hands into place and affixed the pins to each finger. These specific pins were made as one of Robin and Sedgley’s first joint projects, designed so that when each of the small iron plates was touched by copper, they were locked into whatever spatial relationship to the wizard’s hand they were in at the time. With one plate for each palm, and three smaller plates corresponding to the phalanges on each finger, they allowed Sedgley to make much more minute manipulations to objects while they were being induced.
Once that process was finished, the real work began. Robin would place one of the listed objects into the vacuum chamber, then they would depressurize it. Sedgley would then do to the object whatever they wanted to be the trigger for their special effect. In the case of Robin’s test plates, he turned them ninety degrees to the right, ensured that they were affixed in place satisfactorily, then turned ninety degrees back to the left. Each of these inductions was accompanied by a shock of static electricity, waving through the room and bringing with it a slight scent of ozone.
Robin would then repressurize the chamber, remove the now-induced object, and repeat the process.
Then, they would repeat it again.
Then again.
So it went, round after round, item after item, inducing each as quickly and precisely as they could, until the wave ended, just over ninety minutes later.
At this point, the apprentice and their wizard decoupled the metal gloves, put all the for-sale items into a pile to be dealt with later, and promptly collapsed onto the floor.
~~~
Robin was, understandably, exhausted by having to concentrate on a task without pause for a long period of time under substantial time pressure, so for a good fifteen minutes they sat, sprawled on the floor, staring at nothing in particular, which in this instance took the form of a knot of wood in the ceiling’s main support beam.
However, Robin also found it quite hard to stop thinking entirely, even when exhausted.
And they did have an experiment they were itching to run.
So, with a half-mumbled warning from their mentor, who would be comatose for at least another hour, they strapped their newly enchanted iron sheets into place; the smaller ones onto their hands and feet, and the larger two across their back, over a thick leather jacket. With everything in place, Robin stepped up to the third-floor balcony, and got to work testing their creation.
They lifted their right foot into the air, twisted it ninety degrees, then put their weight on it.
The plate didn’t budge.
Now standing on one foot eight inches above the floor, they tested their deactivation method, shuffling their foot ninety degrees in the opposite direction.
Predictably, this sent them clattering to the floor.
Robin laughed despite the bruises they would most likely have tomorrow. The gratification of having something they’d worked so hard on turning out exactly as they had expected was overwhelming, and they reveled in it, for just a moment, before continuing with the experiment.
Logically, the next step of testing this theory would be to test their utility in climbing. And naturally, having no other direction to climb, Robin checked one more time that each of their plates was affixed, and stepped up and off the balcony.
Half an hour after this momentous occasion, Robin had managed to climb exactly nine feet up.
As it turns out, the process of climbing was much more tedious than they had imagined. They had to keep three of their platforms solidly anchored to avoid falling, and twisting just one of their feet to the left proved a more arduous task than expected. And on top of that, each step only gained them a few inches, so as to make sure that the new placement was close enough to provide a stable support. Having overcome even these setbacks, Robin was rewarded with just another discovery.
They happened to be terrified of heights.
The prospect had seemed fine when they were looking down from a secure vantage point, but being in open air, they found themselves having to try very pointedly not to think about the drop below them as they took each step upwards with care, double and triple checking that each handhold was secure before they moved up.
So it was that when Robin, still very tired and already doing their best to avoid thinking, heard the doorbell of the shop ring, some four stories below them, they followed their instinct and turned to see who was ringing it.
Turned, it should be noted, about ninety degrees to the left.
The moment that Robin realized their mistake, their hands were already reaching to touch their cufflinks to their jacket. They had made a habit of activating and deactivating the jacket’s enchantments repeatedly when in search of something to do with their hands, and that habit saved them now, as instinct and muscle memory touched the gold pins to their jacket’s sleeves, accomplishing two effects. The first was to render the jacket immune to gravity, using the same method as the ball that had distracted Minnow the other day. The second effect was to increase the jacket’s mass about two hundredfold.
Now, this may seem counterintuitive, but these effects coupled together were designed by Sedgley to help people survive long falls. See, now, Robin’s relatively small force of gravity was weighing down an object several times their own mass, making their descent much slower overall. Of course, they were still falling, and it seemed that their path would have them landing directly in front of the shop, where the unknown doorbell ringer still stood, but given the alternative, Robin was willing to accept any repercussions for what they were about to do.
So, as they fell towards this complete stranger, Robin stretched their foot down and – ever so gently – kicked them in the side of the head.
This had the expected effect of scaring the pants off the newcomer, but it also achieved Robin’s goal of getting them out from underfoot in quite a literal sense. As soon as they had a clear landing, they removed the cufflinks from their coat, letting themselves flop to the ground in at least a somewhat controlled manner.
Robin groaned from their position on the sidewalk. They had, through an improbable set of twists and turns, managed to land with their weight on both their elbow and their face, both of which began to make themselves known as they rearranged their body, first processing the pain, then the slight cut in their forehead that they would have to disinfect, then finally the strange woman leaning over her.
“Well, there! That was quite an entrance! Was that your standard greeting, or is there some special occasion?”
Said woman looked to be around Minnow’s age, and she was massive. Not quite as tall as Robin but much wider, with an amount of muscle that Robin had rarely seen. Her button-up shirt had the sleeves rolled up, exposing a pair of tanned, hairy, and immensely beefy arms. Her face was equally tanned, and framed by no small amount of frizzy, rust-colored, brown hair.
Robin blinked more than a few times, trying very hard not to get lost in the newcomer’s eyes (there was a moment where they swore they could see a woodgrain pattern in the brown iris, but the effect was gone just as quickly) before the question sunk in.
“No, it’s not standard. In fact, it’s not even a greeting. The shop is closed today.” Robin stood and dusted themselves off, trying to regain some sense of professionalism.
The woman’s face scrunched up, and she looked back and forth between Robin and the hours listed on the sign directly behind them. “Well, now I’m confused. Isn’t it just about three o’clock?”
“It is, yes, but we’re also-“they tapped the sign hung above the door- “busy restocking. You’ll need to come back after the weekend.”
The unknown potential customer slumped a bit, tapping her fingers together in a manner that completely clashed with her imposing stature.
“Ah, well, how busy is busy? See, our former stove sorta went kaput and I’d really not like to be eating cold food for the next couple days…”
Robin closed their eyes, searching deep within themselves, gauging how much energy they had left after ninety minutes of uninterrupted focus and a subsequent fall of a building and a half. A hotplate was one of the more troublesome items to sell, but they did have quite a few at the moment, and it was quite a lot easier than installing another traditional stove…
“Fine, alright, let’s just make it quick.” They turned and unlocked the door, much to the relief of the newcomer. She looked around the shop with confusion, likely trying to gauge the uses of many of the items while Robin made a beeline for the counter and retrieved a clipboard from the cupboard underneath. They turned to the unknown woman and held out the board and pen. “I’ll just need your name and address.”
The woman’s face showed a flash of concern, just for a moment, but she covered it up quickly and expertly, as she took both from Robin’s hands. “Is this for shopkeeping records, or more of a public safety thing?”
Robin shrugged as they headed towards the back to retrieve some of the heating tools. “A bit of both; one of the conditions of our Senate sponsorship was that we keep a record of anyone we sell potentially dangerous items to, but it’s completely confidential, even the city guard can’t look at it unless they get a warrant.” While they talked, they singled out a few individual sized hotplates, and one tray-like slab. They carried these out and spread across one of the room’s display tables, before retrieving the form from the newcomer. They raised an eyebrow slightly at the listed name, but decided that being named after wildlife was an arena they might not want to be throwing stones in. “Alrighty, um, Rhubarb Banks. My name is Robin, what kind of a stove are you looking for?”
The following series of events happened in quick succession, and Robin would spend many late nights afterwards trying to work out what exactly happened, and in what order. After nearly two weeks, they had managed to work out the following sequence.
First, Rhubarb reached out and grabbed the smallest plate, which was on top of the stack. This immediately prompted a sharp and decidedly wrong feeling of static electricity, along with a signature ozone smell.
Second, Robin reached up on instinct to grab the plate from Rhubarb’s hand, trying to get it as far as possible away from anything dangerous.
Third, at the same instant that Robin’s hand touched the plate, Sedgley burst out of the door from upstairs, shouting out a warning to his apprentice just a moment too late.
Fourth, Robin’s fingers sank into the malfunctioning hotplate, and a wave of… something, crept up their arm. Even retroactively, they had no words to describe the feeling other than an overwhelming sense of… warping. It was as though their arm were becoming less of a discrete entity.
Fifth, Robin promptly passed out, slipping into a peaceful oblivion.
~~~
They were awake again a moment later, though that off feeling persisted. The first thing they noticed was that their tongue felt smaller in their mouth. Then, as though in response to that thought, it seemed to thicken up. Robin decided that they very much didn’t want to focus on that feeling anymore, so they opted to run a checklist of their other senses. could still feel the hardwood floor of the shop under them, though it likewise felt off, seeming to alternately grow and shrink below them. The feeling felt somewhat like placing a hand on someone else’s chest while they took deep breaths.
Sound seemed to be working fine, and as Robin focused, they realized they could hear a conversation happening in the room.
“…can’t believe Gideon wouldn’t warn you of the danger!” Sedgley’s voice.
“He told me there would be some side effects, but nothing like this! I don’t think he even knew whatever this is was possible!” This voice sounded a lot like Rhubarb. It carried the same intonations and lilts as the strange woman, but the deep, husky voice sounded noticeably higher-pitched than the woman they were just talking to.
“Yes, well, I’ll admit that no one knows exactly what can happen in such a situation, which is exactly why your father should have warned you not to—”
“He is not my father.” The voice seemed to deepen slightly as Robin listened.
“Oh! Well, yes, er, I had just assumed because of, well…”
Listening to Sedgley flub and stutter, Robin judged this an appropriately awkward time to make their presence known. They sat up, opened their eyes, and regretted their decision. That sense of wrongness immediately reared its head, as their center of balance felt off. Even as they sat completely still, their body seemed to shift in ways they hadn’t known it could. Propping themselves against the table, still near where they had fallen, they took in the other two people in the room.
Sedgley was looking at them with equal parts confusion and consternation, as though he lacked the terms to define what he was looking at; a thought they had rarely seen cross the wizard’s face. Electing to ignore the implications of that for a moment, Robin focused on the other person in the room.
Rhubarb was panicked, a fact that was not just evident in the expression of her face, but in the way it was constantly changing. Skin tone, jawline, eyebrows, all were in a state of flux, looking different from one moment to the next, to the next, in a way that gave Robin an unsettling sense of familiarity.
Robin knew, as soon as they saw her, that their own face was in the same state of flux, the same state of constant change. They also knew that they did not want to deal with the implications of what that meant, so they decided to go instead with perhaps one of the dumbest things they could have possibly said.
“You… you’re an Alias?”
…Or at least, that’s what they would have said, had their vocal chords been functioning the way they were just a moment ago. Thankfully for Robin, their literal inability to speak had saved them from their social ineptitude, and their sentence had come out a garbled, unintelligible, half-croak.
Rhubarb drew back at the sound, seeming to grow shorter, just for a moment, before she stopped. Closing her eyes, she took in one deep breath, then another, then another. With each inhale and exhale, her face became better defined. Her eyebrows settled into one shape and position, her skin took on a constant tan hue, and her hair fell into the frizzy mass that she had worn into the shop minutes ago. Then, she opened her eyes, flashed a surprisingly calming smile at Robin, and said in the exact same deep voice, “Yes, well, I’d love to answer your questions, but it seems we may have a bit of trouble communicating.”
Go back to the first chapter here, or read the next chapter of the story here!