Last edited by 97cweb at 2025-07-13 11:12:29.601123
“It works?!” Silvra exclaims. “Let me try!”
I plug the phone back in and step away from the generator, inviting her to turn the crank.
Thallion has stopped paying attention and continues to write vehemently. I can almost see smoke rising from the paper.
Silvra grabs the crank, it only comes up to her stomach when for me it was close to my neck. She starts spinning it, faster and faster, the generator begins to whine, the table starts to shake.
Silvra begins to pant from exertion but pushes onwards.
“Aaaarrrgh!” She lets out, a cry of what I can only see as frustration, anger and hope, and finally, finally as she is about to collapse, I hear the ‘zzt zzt’ of it recognizing enough power.
Silvra releases the handle, steps back, and falls into a sitting position, panting like crazy, but not sweating.
“Everything all right?” I state, rushing to help her up. “Lena, can you get a glass of water?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Silvra shouts, standing back up, a little shaky.
“That’s how much power it takes to charge the brick?” She exclaims.
“It should not take that much effort, but hey, it is working!” I reply, a little miffed at her comment, and the realization that something is not right.
Thallion stops writing, and turns his attention back to us. “Now’s not the time to start fighting. It works, but needs improvement, so let’s see what can be improved.”
“Silvra, can you sketch out what the circuit looks like? Maybe it will shed some light on this system and we can see what is wrong.”
Silvra lights up, and grabbing Thallions pencil and paper, quickly draws out the circuit with the symbols I showed her a while ago with a grace and quality that most pre computer architects would kill for.
She finishes with a quick flair, and steps back. “There, finished, and I’d say it is good the way it turned out”
Looking at it, she has shown the whisker valve in parallel to the phone charger across the generator, exactly as it is on the table. The lines are perfectly straight and parallel, with no smudging.
“This looks good Silvra, where did you become such a good sketcher?”
Silvra looks at me, eyes bulging slightly and looks down, at her feet, mumbling “took a course on it a long time ago.”
“You went to school? What specialization?” I ask, a little surprised that the digikey salesperson in this small town actually had higher education.
“Not important right now, I did not finish it.”
“It was a full program, not just a class?”
She clams up, and stops talking completely. I wonder why she stopped?
“Sorry, just curious is all” I reply, hoping that I did not scare her off again.
Turning back to the sketch, I wrack my brain for whatever this system could need. It’s a dc source, connected to a DC device, and the voltage does not get too high, so nothing exploded.
I quickly reach out and touch the whisker valve, it is a little warm, but nowhere near hot enough to account for all of the lost energy.
Lena returns with the water in a glass. She sees Silvra sitting up and looking over the drawing with me, so she places it beside her.
I continue to ponder over the drawing, and gesture for the others to come around as well, to see if they can help find anything. After several minutes of staring, I sigh.
“Unless we can see the power output, I don’t think we can easily guess where the lost power is going,” Thallion thinks out loud.
“Aye, if we only ha’ a thin’ tha’ coul’ show tha powa withou’ consumin’ i’ all”
Pondering for a few more seconds, I stare off into the middle distance and my eyes wander across the table, the generator, bolted to the surface, way out of proportion to the size of my phone. I then see the cables, still not touching each other, and the solder joints solid even with all of the wobbling.
I then see the water glass. Ah, electrolysis. Bubbles mean current. That may work.
“Anyone have some <salt>?”
“Some what?” Thallion replies.
“<Salt>”
Thallion shakes his head, and turns to Eldrin.
“I donnae know tha’ wor’. Jus’ ‘cause I speak ‘wo languages, does no’ mean I know them all”
“You know, <salt>, makes food taste better, acts as a preservative, is a rock.”
“Ah, ya mean preservation stone. Thought tha’ was for rubbin’ mea’, no’ eatin’ straigh’…” Eldrin states, slightly surprised.
“Yes, I have to watch how much I eat of it, but that is how my body moves. Salt charges”
“In’eres’in’...” Eldrin states, grabbing the paper from the table and writing on it as well.
“I’ve go’ some on th’ shelf, jus’ give me a momen’...there.”
Eldrin turns around, and opening a cupboard, pulls out a large rock.
“Guess i’ go’ a bi’ damp”
“That’s fine, I plan to put it in the water anyway.” I break off a small piece, and place it in the water, dissolving it. I dip my finger into it, and taste it, scrunching my face from the sudden influx of salinity, and then reach to break off a few more pieces.
Lena swats it out of my hand.
“Don’t eat that! That will mess you up more than the electricity!”
I sigh. “Look, Lena, I was just checking to see if it was salt, and if the water is salty enough. For me, salt is life, literally. My people have fought wars over access to this rock, not just for preservation, but as a spice, it is a fundamental part of our diet, and we will die with not enough of it. Where you have wires running through your body, I do not. I have salt.”
“You did taste slightly of salt when I kissed you…”
I turn beat red again as she mentions this, and the others laugh heartily.
“Mon, you are so easy ta flusta, how are ya even gonna stay togetha if tha’ is your response ta a kiss”
“Don’t worry Eldrin, they’ve done more than that already, I believe all the kids heard it as well.” Thallion adds, chuckling.
I bury my face in my hands, trying to hide my embarrassment.
Lena leans in, “It’s ok, I find it endearing, and knowing that I can melt the world walker by just <mwah>.” She leans in, kissing my forehead tenderly.
“Bleah. You’re not kidding. You taste like an unwashed ham. Smell <inhales> great though. I’ll be back in a moment, need some water after that.”
Lena heads back inside, and I suddenly realize how hot it is in this room, and that I am sweating quite badly from turning the generator.
With ears burning, I add the salt chunks into the water, and stir it with my finger, dissolving it. I unplug my phone and have Silvra desolder the wires going to my charge cable, and stick them into the glass.
“Silvra, can you turn the crank, but slowly, I want to see the current through this.”
“Ok, but…be careful. Saltwater and electricity, they are a bad mix.” She apprehensively sputters.
Slowly she turns the generator, slow enough that I can see many bubbles form on the left lead, and fewer on the right, and then stop. Then more form, and then stop.
“Good, it’s working. Silvra, can you plot how many bubbles form on the right lead as I turn the handle? It is definitely not steady.”
We switch positions, and I slowly turn the generator crank. The bubbles form, and silvra makes a basic line graph as I turn it. How she does it so fast, I do not know.
After a few revolutions of the crank, I stop, and look at what Silvra drew. It is not a straight line, and definitely more of a sad square wave. Looking closer, it has 2 cycles per rotation of the generator.
“Eldrin, can you unbolt the generator, and take off the cover that allows me to see the brushes?”
He quickly dismantles the section, and looking in, I see the 2 brushes, and the 2 magnets and 1 coil.
“So that is why they have so many coils…” I realize.
“Wha’?” Eldrin asks, “Di’ I ma’e i’ wrong?”
“No, I just forgot to not make the textbook image, and actually make the real one. Real DC motors have several coils to smooth the pulses. Enough of these pulses overlaid as shown on this graph, form a dc output. I messed up.”
“So…it’s useless?” Thallion asks.
“Not useless, but…needing a new rotor, or at least a <capacitor>”
“A what now?”
“A capacitor, stores charge”
“We can talk to a butcher for one of those, but why would you want one of them?” Silvra asks.
“If we take the charge and smooth it, it does not have to work as hard to make the voltage high enough to trip the phone into charge mode”
“I mean, we can try, but, why do you want an organ for that?”
“You don’t sell them?”
“No, why would I sell junk inedible meat?”
“Meat?”
“Yes”
Lena returns, with a glass of water and a plate with something on it.
“I heard you wanted a capacitor, I found one in Eldrin’s ice shelf as part of the chicken he is butchering.”
“Thanks, I guess?”
“No problem, happy to help,” she states, swishing water around her mouth, and spitting it out, still trying to get rid of the salt.
I carefully pick up the ‘capacitor’ and flip it over. Sure enough, there is a metal rod sticking out of it, about the size of a pencil lead. I carefully poke it.
“‘Tis discharged, firs’ rule o’ bu’erin’, isola’e and discharge th’ capacita”
Nodding, and slightly grossed out, I attach one of the wires to the metal rod, and the other to the surface, hoping that is enough.
I start to turn the generator, and it squirms a bit.
Trying not to throw up, I turn it a bit faster.
The capacitor blew up, and covered us in chicken pieces. I run off out the door and throw up, Lena hot on my heels.
After that is done, and I said goodbye to my lunch, I come back in, and ask for a glass of water for myself.
Eldrin returns, looking a little more green himself, and passes me the water.
“Neva though’ I see tha’ from th’ ou’si’e before.”
“What?!” I exclaim, wondering what in this world could do that normally.
“Common mage battle tactic, dump charge into opponent, and blow up their internal capacitor, kills them instantly” Silvra replies, perking up, while picking chicken guts out of her hair.
“Oh…”
“Yep, takes a bit of effort, what with voltage reversal and overcharge required, but when it works, pop!” Silvra adds, revelling in my squeamishness.
“So, I guess no one wants to try to touch the cables to their palm node thing?”
“Ha ha ha ha, no problem for us, chickens are small, no capacity, no resilience. Babies could kill ‘em” Thallion states, finally cracking from the absurdity of it all.
“Oh…ok”.
“Here, I’ll show you” Thallion reaches for the cables with shaky hands and puts the wire to his palm and skin.
I slowly turn the crank, and nothing happens.
“See, no problem, need a lot more voltage than that to hurt”
I turn it a bit faster, and suddenly he throws the wires down.
“Wow, that stings! On second thought, no I am not touching those live.”
Lena rushes over, and pokes his arm.
“Lena, I’m fine, see?” He gestures, turning over his lower arm.
He picks up the pencil and starts writing again.
After a few moments, he turns to Lena.
“Can you take a look at this?”
He turns the page he was writing on to her, and she gasps. “Hold out your arm, now!”
He does, placing the paper on the table. I jump up and see that his writing has improved significantly.
Lena, checking over his arm again, “How…how is this possible, you’re not shaking!”
Thallion turns towards me. “I thought so. My writing’s also improved, and my arm is less shaky. Let’s try this again.”