Chapter 5: The Loom Spins

Once again I pushed a button on the console and moved another slider, down this time, and everything except the console moved, either folding into the floor, collapsing against the walls or flattening into the ceiling. Another button push and four panels dropped down out of the ceiling along with a smooth reflective dome 3 feet wide,

I walked over to the panel closes to the console and pushed one side of it and it pivoted in the middle like a revolving door to reveal the interior of the just create enclosure. “This is where things might get a little uncomfortable for you,” I told Nat as we walked in. “You remember those security screening things they installed at airports for a while after 9/11? The one’s that showed an outline of the person’s body under their clothes. Very detailed outlines?

“Yea...” Nat said hesitantly.

“This thing does sort of the same thing. Except there is no display. There won’t be anything visual for me to be looking at it and no visual data is captured or stored. The big difference between this and those airport scanners is that what it does capture is very detailed, so you actually have to be naked while it is working, and it takes about 3 minutes to capture everything it needs.”

There was a long pause as the lovely young recently graduated high school Senior decided whether I was a teenage perv, or a gadgeteer practice his craft.

“Okay so you won’t be looking at me or even an airport thing while I have my clothes off? And no recordings?”

“No,” I reassured her, “There aren’t even any cameras in here. The image that is generated is made up of interferometer readings of the electrical currents on the surface of your skin.”

“Okay, so once I leave the cubicle, you’re going to close that door. You’ll see latches on both sides that keep it from swinging open while latched. Once you’ve done that, go ahead and undress completely. There are hooks and hangers for you to use. Once you are ready, there is a second door to the left of the one you came in through. There is a sign above the door that says ‘Ready’, when it lights up, stand on the small yellow circle that will be lit up on the floor. Stand on it, legs shoulder width apart and arms slightly apart, enough that they’re not touching the rest of you anywhere. Hold that pose for a minute. After 60 seconds of a good pose, a beep will sound and from then on you can move around the room as much as you want, sit on the floor, do jumping jacks, run in place, or just stand there singing ‘hundred bottles of beer on the wall.” Doesn’t matter what you’re doing those last two minutes. But please, no zipping or phasing!” I added that last bit, semi-panicked as I almost forgot to mention it.

Three minutes later it was all done and in a few minutes, Nat pivoted the door open and stepped out with her coat over one arm and a slight blush on her face.

“See? Nothing to it,” I reassured her.

When we got back to the control room we found Mike and Val talking about tourist attractions in Boston. The big monitor was displaying Google Maps and it was zoomed in on the Chestnut Hill area where Boston College was located.

“All done?” Val asked.

“We’re done testing and measuring for now,” I said. “I told Nat that there are hours and hours of testing I’d like to do, because her powers are definitely inherited from her grandfather, but enough different that her power set almost seems unique.”

“Nate says that I may be able to learn to slow down so that I can travel at ‘normal’ super speeds,” she used the air quotes to highlight normal and laughed after she’d said it.

“Her zipping is definitely super speed, not teleportation or anything like that, but it’s just so fast its impossible for the human eye and brain to perceive.”

“So, are we ready to make Nat a super suit?” Mike asked.

“Almost, but not quite. The measurements are done, but I’m going to have to go back to the The gadget cave and study the results of the testing to determine the final configuration of the suit material. Since Nat’s powers really are related to what The Blue Blur had, it will probably just take a few hours of reconfiguration, rather than inventing something from scratch, so in theory it could be done by tomorrow or the next day, depending on if I can get it to the printer tonight or not,” I explained. “Speaking of which, your suit should be done, right Mike?”

“Should be,” he confirmed. “The countdown only had five minutes to go when we left.”

Okay, let’s drop the ladies off wherever they need to go and you can go make sure it came out okay and I can get to work on this data.

“No problem, he said still grinning. “I can’t wait to get it out and really open it up!”

“Another day perhaps? I’ve still got two or three hours of work analyzing the data from Nat’s testing and then modifying the suit circuitry to match. Before we do that though, a little brainstorming with Nat about what she’s going to want, okay?”

“Sure,” Val agreed. “Can we sit in?” she asked Nat.

“Sure,” she said.

“Okay, first question,” I looked at Nat once we were all comfortable in the back of the van. I had the heroes database open to a new entry. “Do you want to keep the name The Blue Blur, or change it?”

“Well...” she hesitated.

“Your powers appear different enough that it wouldn’t necessarily make sense to keep it,” I said.

“That’s right,” Val agreed. “Your main power would be the phase shifting, not super speed.”

“The Blue Blur was a Baltimore hero,” Mike said. “Do you have any love for Baltimore?”

“Only been there a few times,” Nat grumbled. “Being a woman, I wasn’t invited to the will reading.”

“Okay, that sounds like The Blue Blur is only a memory. So to get away from the signature color, what’s your favorite color?”

“Green,” she blushed, looking at Mike. “but not leaf green like The Dragonfly. Emerald Green.”

“Ooh, I like!” Val chimed in. “You would look very sexy in emerald green.”

Nat looked at me and blushed. “I can’t disagree,” I smiled.

“So, Mike said once the blushes died. “With your phasing powers, what would you go for if you’re trying to be descriptive? Ghost? Phantom? Spectre?”

“Wraith?” Val added.

“Shadow?” I threw in.

“Emerald Ghost. Emerald Phantom. Emerald Spectre. Emerald Wraith. Emerald Shadow.” Nat tried them all.

“Can I have emerald in my costume, but not be called emerald anything? They all sound kind of hokey to me.”

“Sure,” I responded. “Were you thinking of something specific?”

“I kind of like the sound of ‘The Wraith’. It sounds mysterious and cool.”

“I like it, let me check the database.” I did a quick search of The Gadgeteer’s hero database.

“Nobody current,” I said after a moment. “Gadgeteer had notes on some Russian called ‘The Wraith’, but that was a cold war era spy. No known super powers.”

“Okay, so The Wraith it is.” Nat said smiling. Now where is the green going to go? I feel like the name would imply white, gray or black. I hate black though.”

“Okay, white or gray or maybe a combination of both?” I suggested.

“Whatever looks coolest,” she said. “I have no plans on being a full time hero until I’m out of college, if then.”

“Okay, I’ve got work to do and while waiting for processes to run I can play around with looks in the modeler.”

“I’m here!” I heard Mike’s voice come through the overhead paging system.

“I’m in the Modeler Room,” I answered back. The room had a full wall display which was showing my current design for the Wraith suit. I was rather proud of it, to be honest.

“Wow,” Were the first words out of his mouth.

“You look happy. I gather you had a good time at dinner with the girls last night?”