Chapter 11: Meeting the Explorer from Vega

Ava took Eddy to the far end of the lab and let go of his hand to investigate the situation.

The electron microscope appeared to be connected to a dedicated computer terminal for control. Rummaging through the nearest cabinet, Ava produced a hefty folder marked 'SEM equipment User Manual'. Skipping over a discussion on the advantages of electron diffraction compared to X-ray crystallography, Ava decided that trial and error was the way to go. Accidentally killing the plaintiff through incompetence might come in as a bonus…

Ava pushed the power button.

Nothing.

Eddy erupted from under the desk holding a power cord. 'Shall I plug this one into the wall outlet?' he asked, disappearing again.

Ava pushed the power button again.

A big screen came to life, asking for a password. Hmmmm…

Ava typed -admin-.

'Nope' Said a low female voice so smooth it dripped honey, that came out of the 5.1 surround speaker set.

-Welcome01-

'Doesn’t work either, but nice try.' Oozed the computer with a slight giggle.

-SEM equipment-

'Not even close. Please note that you have only one attempt remaining, John…'

Looking at the cover sleeve of the user manual critically once again, Ava found her father’s initials scribbled in the lower left corner, next to an organic smudge, possibly chocolate. After some thought, considering the thought processes of her dad, Ava typed -Av@Eddy2025!-

'Welcome, John William Harold Walker Pearez!', the computer positively shrieked in sheer excitement.

A familiar but hated photo showing Ava, after Eddy pushed her off the swing and into the eternal muddy patch close to it, stared her full in the face. At the time, Dad had solemnly promised her he would delete that picture! So much for integrity.

Scanning the icons on the desktop, she selected the one depicting a big black labelled bottle, marked 'Cheers!', that was positioned slap-bang in the middle of the screen. Dad was so predictable. As a software package started to load, the lights in the lab dimmed and the large steel tubular contraption bolted onto the big black marble slab in the corner of the lab started humming and ticking loudly and irregularly. Red, yellow and green LED lights flickered on and off, possibly indicating that some sort of initialisation process was underway. Leaning back in the comfy revolving office chair, Ava waited for the worst noises to subside. A crackling noise had Eddy bolting from under the desk, his hair standing out from his head like a dandelion, static discharges playing tag at the ends. 'Oopsy!' He said with a wide grin.

The lights on the ceiling returned to normal strength and an image resembling of a grid of metallic blue balls appeared on the screen.

The judicial voice-over kicked in again: 'Maybe you should decrease the zoom factor!'

Looking at the screen, Ava changed an extremely large number to a merely very large number and pressed enter. After some crunching noises from the microscope, a new image appeared:

'Nice Shiny Bug!' Eddy exclaimed. His enthusiasm was tempered when the image started moving like a video with a very low framerate. The mouth section appeared to be moving but no sound came.

'Please unmute,' the voice-over hinted.

Ava moved the mouse pointer to the crossed out microphone on the bottom right corner of the screen and clicked it.

'…tickles, can you please reduce the gain to a somewhat lower value?' The speakers said. 'It’s the rotary dial on the left side of the second condenser aperture. Three clicks will do, weeheeheee!!...'.

Eddy climbed the marble slab and had to fully extend to reach the dial. He got the direction right at the second try, after even more high pitched howling laughter indicated that his first try was incorrect and more than the requested three clicks.

'Right,' said Baer, 'Let us commence, Humans!'

Caiman Raptor Elk