Ray came into the classroom looking his usual self. That is to say, his hair was messed up, his shirt unbuttoned, and a cup of coffee was essentially glued to his hand. He looked around the room for a minute, waiting for people to quiet down. Gradually the murmur of voices subsited to a shifting of papers.
“Hello, hope your weekends went well, and um, all that other stuff,” he said waiving his hands dismissively.
“As anyone who did the ready knows, we’re going over Nelson fields today.”
He paused, looking around.
“You all did do the readings, correct?”
There was a bit of nervous laughter.
“Well, in any event, today is also a lab day, so we’ll have time to demonstrate a few … ‘principles’ of Nelson fields.”
Ray fired up the projector and brought up the first slide of the lesson.
“First of all, who can tell me who discovered Nelson fields?”
Ray looked around the room. Nobody raised their hands.
“How about you Katie?” he said, turning to a blond girl in the front row.
“Um… Nelson?” said Katie.
Ray sighed.
“Can you be a bit more specific?”
“Professor Nelson?” said Katie.
“I think we have our first volunteer of the day!” said Ray, grinning.
Katie laughed a bit, standing up.
“Right this way,” said Ray, gesturing over to a large steel box at the front of the room. He helped Katie inside the box, and removed a panel on the top, allowing her head to stick out.
“The answer we were looking for, by the way,” said Ray, as he fitted a copper collar around Katie’s neck, “Is Dr. Melissa Nelson, a researcher at the Brooklyn Institute of Speculative Physics. Katie, perhaps you can elaborate on what makes a Nelson field distinct?”
“It’s… a type of Kryser portal,” said Katie.
“That… this…” Ray pressed both hands into his face. “The title of this course is ‘Variants of Kryser Portals,’ Katie. But okay. I’ll show you.”
He switched on a black box sitting on the floor, and unspooled a cable from the box to the collar around Katie’s neck. He then fitted two more panels to the sides of the collar, effectively locking her head in place.
“Now,” said Ray. “A Nelson field is a type of Kryser portal, however, it is much more flexible and ‘squishy’. An ordinary Kryser portal has how many states?”
“Four,” said Katie.
“Correct! Yes, there’s open, collapsed on side A, collapsed on side B, and both A & B collapsed.”
Ray pushed a button on the black box with his foot. There was a whirring noise, that built up and up, louder and louder until a crackle was heard and finally the noise stopped.
“That was the noise of a Nelson field being established. Upon first inspection, it is very much like a Kryser portal. For instance, we can collapse either side. Let’s start with Side A.”
Ray picked up a remote control from the top of the black box and pushed a button. In an instant, Katie’s head vanished into the portal.
Around the room, several people giggled.
“Don’t worry, you’ll all get your turn,” said Ray, grinning a bit. “Now, unfortunately Katie won’t get the benefit of hearing this part, so the rest of you will have to fill her in. But a Nelson field is ‘squishy’ in the sense that once established and collapsed, it can be remapped and reestablished in other patterns.
“A Nelson field is also a continual field, meaning that it can be mapped onto new objects, which can take on the same qualities of the collapsed side. So while a Kryser portal has only 4 configurations, a Nelson field can be configured in a practically infinite number of ways.
“For instance, we can map Katie’s head onto an entirely different object.”
Ray reached into his bag, and brought out a pineapple. He held it up for everyone to see. Laughter spread around the room, and Ray’s smile twisted in a mischievous grin.
“There is a fun part to playing mad scientist,” he said offhandedly, placing the pineapple where Katie’s head had just vanished.
“So when you re-establish the portal,” said a brunette in the second row, “it will replace her head?”
“Yes, Sarah, how nice of you to volunteer next,” said Ray, winking at her. “Oh, and to answer your question, yes, being that the Nelson field operates as a spectrum, we can position it to allow the ‘function’ of a head with the ‘form’ of a pineapple. So she will indeed be able to see, speak, and hear. Eating… I’m not as sure about, but we’ll see how she fairs.”
“We have a couple variables to set first,” said Ray, changing the slide. “The first is the position of the field. In this case, since we’re just replacing her head, we can leave the position alone. The second one is the strength of the field. In your own labs, you’ll have to figure this out through trial and error - each object will respond differently to the fields, so to get the results you desire, you’ll have to experiment a bit. But I happen to know that for a pineapple, we need a strength of 58%. So we’ll set that…”
Ray dialed in the numbers he spoke about, which displayed in green and red LEDs on the front of the black box.
“And we’re all set!” he said, clicking the remote again.
There was a quiet buzzing noise.
“Katie?”
“Uh… yea?” said the pineapple.
Everyone in the class applauded and laughed.
“What?” said Katie. “Hey why does everything smell like pineapple.”
“Why don’t we get you out of there, the demonstration is finished.”
“Uh, all right.”
Ray helped Katie out of the machine while the class continued to giggle. Finally Katie’s hands found her ‘face’ and explored her ‘head’ a bit more.
“Oh my god,” she said, “You… I… How can I even see and talk like this? And where’s my brain?”
“All of those are valid questions, unfortunately we have to move along. Maybe one of your classmates can fill you in on what you missed.”
Katie went to sit down. A pineapple had never looked so confused before.
“Now, moving onwards, I’d like to illustrate how the position variable on the Nelson field works. Sarah, if you would?”
Sarah, the brunette who had spoken up earlier, reluctantly stood up and came to the front of the class. Ray helped her into the same machine that Katie had just exited.
“Are you going to turn my head into fruit as well?”
“Afraid that’s all that I brought, but you’re welcome to experiment with that in your own time.”
“Because I’m allergic to bananas, just saying.”
“Well, I will remember that. Or actually, I probably won’t. But anyway. As before, we start with establishing the field.
Ray engaged the machine, as before there was a whirring noise, followed by a crackle.
“Great. Now the thing to remember is this is a ‘field’ not merely a portal. It’s three dimensional. And so, in Katie’s case, there is a ‘field’ representing her collapsed head, that is mapped onto a pineapple and— yes Katie?”
Ray turned to Katie who had her hand raised.
“What would happen if someone ate my head?”
“I bet it they would be quite delicious.”
“But what would happen to me? What would I experience?”
“I don’t really know. Maybe you can try it and get back to us. But not here, because there’s no food allowed in this classroom.”
Ray paused for a second.
“Anyway, yes. A field. So in that field, we can create ‘sub’ portals, and the wonderful thing about Nelson fields is they can be any shape or position we desire.”
Ray went to the computer controlling the slide show, and toggled it to an application called NelsonII.
“So we have here the layout of the whole field. Here is the outline of Sarah. We will start by collapsing Side A, so that it can be modified.”
“Bye!” said Sarah, just before her head vanished into the portal.
On the screen, an image of Sarah’s head appeared in the ‘editable’ space.
“You have all these tools to create paths, shapes, and whatnot. I don’t really have the patience for this, so we’ll just bisect with a few planes.”
Ray created two flat planes and centered them in the editable image.
“Now, we simply restore and—“
Sarah’s head re-emerged where it just had been previously.
“That was fast,” she said. “So what’d you do?”
In reply, Ray gave her head a push. Her head toppled into pieces.
“Ahmmph,” was all Sarah could say. Ray arranged the different pieces on the box so everyone could see. There was one division down the center of her face, another just under her nose cutting through to the back of her head, and another separating the front of her head from the back. It split her into eight roughly equal pieces.
“Ay cahn taah,” said Sarah.
“Well, given that your mouth, and also your tongue and both split in half, I hardly find that surprising,” said Ray. “Now, if you’ll please return to your seat, we’ll continue with one more demonstration.”
“Uah ahkheh,” replied Sarah.
Ray helped her out of the machine, and Sarah gathered up the different pieces of her head and returned to her desk.
“Great,” said Ray. “So are there any questions so far? Yes, Rachel.”
“Are you going to demonstrate a partial collapse?”
“Why what a great idea. Why don’t you join me up here and we’ll do that?”
“But… I did the reading!”
Ray just raised his eyebrow and looked around the room. A murmur of “C’mons,” and “Do it,” spread around, until Rachel succumbed to the pressure and stood up.
“What Rachel is referring to is the ability of a Nelson field to collapse only part of itself. You can in fact, set multiple strengths and positions in different areas.”
Ray once again helped install Rachel in the machine, and fired up the field generator again.
“Now once again, we need to start with a complete collapse.”
“Wh—“ was all Rachel got out before her head was sucked into the portal.
“So a partial collapse is one of the more interesting options available with these fields. Ordinarily a field is either ‘on’ or ‘off’, but Nelson fields are ‘fuzzy’. So in this case, we’re going to re-establish Rachel’s head, but with two new parameters. We’ll set the energy level to 45% and give it a stress-response-quotient of 7. Everyone remembers what an SRQ does right?”
Nobody’s hand’s shot up.
“We literally covered this last week.”
“Id thah— ahm —“ Sarah paused to push the assembled pieces of her mouth back together. “Okay, there. Is that the thing that like, if you pull at a certain strength it responds by activating the field?”
“Correct. Everyone recalls our demonstration on Katherine, right?”
“Yea, you squished her head into her body with a hammer.”
“Right. So the portal in that case was responding to the stress placed on her head by the hammer. So instead of smashing her head apart, the portal activated, and collapsed her head. Quite useful if set up properly. So anyway, we can also use the same principle on a Nelson field, however since we have a field and not a flat portal, it can adjust in many different ways. So.”
Ray pushed the button and there was a buzzing noise as Rachel’s head re-appeared. Ray helped her out of the machine.
“But… my head isn’t different,” said Rachel, patting herself down. “Is it?”
Ray responded by grabbing on to Rachel’s nose, and pulling. It stretched out six inches away from her face.
“A little bit,” said Ray. “So the field is partly collapsed all the time, meaning that Rachel’s head is only semi-solid. And thanks to the SRQ, her head can adjust to forces as if it were much more malleable and flexible.”
Ray let go of her nose, which snapped back into place.
“In fact, it means her head can re-form from almost any position.”
“Cool,” said Rachel, stretching one of her ears out.
“Wanna see something cooler,” said Ray. Rachel looked around for a moment, and then nodded.
Taking hold Rachel’s head in one hand, Ray shoved his finger into Rachel’s ear, easily stretching burying his hand inside her head, before poking it out the other side.
“Whaaaat,” said Rachel, trying to process what had happened. “This feels very strange.”
“Perhaps you can let us know how you like it. In the meantime, I think that will do it for today! For your own labs, you’ll be put into groups of four, and you will have to find an interesting or novel use for Nelson fields, demonstrating on one of your group members. You can reserve times to use the equipment by going to the class website.”
While everyone else began to pack their things, Rachel spent a minute experimenting with her modified head, pulling her jaw out a couple feet, before letting it snap back into place.
“This is going to be awesome,” said Rachel.
Sarah meanwhile scooped the bits of her head into her backpack, saving the two chunks of her eyes, which she held in her hands as she left the room. And Katie picked up her head and approached Ray, who was almost out the door himself.
“Um… Ray?”
“Yes Katie?”
“Are you really going to leave my head as a pineapple?”
“Well Katie, it’s quite simple to change it back yourself you know.”
“I’m not sure—“
“Which you would know if you’d done the reading. Which of course you did. So it would be quite simple to reserve a time in the lab and go in and make a quick switch… Wouldn’t it?”
“Um… yes, certainly.”
“And of course, if it happens you did not do the reading, for what I’m sure were very good reasons, you could take this as a queue to catch up on that so you won’t fall behind in the class. Call it a little extra incentive.”
“I … yes, thanks Ray.”
With that, Ray speedwalked his way out of the classroom.