AN: It appears I forgot to upload my chapter here last week. I'm so sorry. As a result, you get a double chapter this week! Don't forget to go check out chapter 122!
"This. Is. So. Cool!" Hogarth hung upside down from the ceiling by his hands, knees, and toes.
Beside him, Varian couldn't help but grin. "I've been studying the manner in which spiders climb on walls. It turns out that they actually have tiny little hairs on the tips of all their digits, which are covered in even more hairs, and that's enough to grip things and keep them attached to the wall."
"Like velcro?" Hogarth asked.
"I have no idea what that is, but if you get me some, I would love to study it!" Varian responded brightly.
"It's this new material that they invented, and the one side is covered in hair. I can write to my mother to see if she'll send me some," Hogarth offered eagerly. "The astronauts used it in space, so you know it's gotta be good!"
"Wait," Varian froze. "You're telling me people from your planet went to space?"
Mellow paused. For the most part, he had been ignoring the human's chatter. He didn't know quite what was so cool about the ability to walk on the ceiling, but that was humans for you. They were fascinated by everything. "Hey, Varian?"
"Huh?" Varian glanced over at him.
"You've been to space."
Hogarth started laughing.
Varian rolled his eyes affectionately. "Alright, alright, let's ignore the fact I get excited about new developments and focus on the actual meaning of my question. It's one thing to be taken into space, it's another thing to be there while your people develop the ability to go to space."
"That's fair," Hogarth agreed. "I can remember watching Sputnik pass over our skies for the first time and the…the sheer awe of it. And when they announced the success of Alan Sheppard's mission…even Yuri Gagarin! I know he's Russian, but, could you imagine what he felt like!?" He paused, then added softly, "It was so sad what happened. I wish I could have met him. There's something not right about that crash."
Varian, sensing the shift in his friend's mood, attempted to navigate the conversation back towards happier subjects. "So do you want to know how my arachnastraps work?"
Hogarth's face lit back up. "Do I ever!"
Varian restarted his journey forward. Mellow and Hogarth crawled across the ceiling beside him as he started to explain. "Well, as I said, each spider's foot is covered in little hairs. Each hair is then covered in even more hairs. These little tiny hairs create a sort of energy between them. From my research, it's similar to the sort of force that makes your hair stand up when you rub it on things."
"Static electricity?"
"Is that what it's called?" Varian asked curiously. "I've been trying to get books about electricity, but it's really hard to find the specifics of what I need back home. I have been reading about some of the forces that you can create through friction, magnets, amber."
The young alchemist paused, his voice dipping quietly. "I have read a lot about amber."
Shaking himself off, Varian immediately snapped back into his upbeat voice. There was something a bit off about his tone, but neither of his companions could quite place exactly what it was. "Most of the sources I have been translating refer to the force as simply "Amber" or "Of Amber." I haven't heard the addition of standing, though. Standing Amber, interesting. Maybe that could have helped me earlier, it'll be something to keep in mind should anything similar ever come up again."
Hogarth glanced at Mellow to see if he'd followed Varian's latest tangent.
"So did you use Amber for this?" Mellow offered hesitantly.
"Absolutely not!"
Hogarth was blown back by the intensity of the answer. Before he could comment, however, Varian was right back to the task at hand.
"I tried several different methods, however. The hairs were very difficult to recreate myself, but I did finally manage to find a method in which to do so. A few preliminary experiments, which largely involved sticking various objects to my ceiling-
"That's what that was about," Hogarth interrupted without meaning to. "That makes so much more sense."
"More sense than what?" Varian asked in confusion.
"Oh, uh, my theory was that you'd found a way to reverse gravity in localized areas, but couldn't work out how to turn it back to normal, and your possessions were a casualty to your experiments."
For just a moment Varian's eyes went blank as he mentally started calculating how he might be able to achieve Hogarth's suggestion.
"But you got everything back, right?" Hogarth prompted.
"Almost everything," Varian shook himself from his other thoughts. "So as I was saying, to the best of my calculations, I only needed 24 million of the hair bundles to touch the surface in order to hold one kilogram of weight. To be safe, and because it was easy to scale up, I designed this system of straps to be able to hold one hundred kilograms of weight, or approximately sixteen kilograms per connection point. This means that I have a total of two billion four hundred million total hair bundles, or four hundred million on each piece of the system."
The explanation had taken them almost the entire way to the first year's section of the dormitories. Mellow scuttled ahead of them now, leading the way to his room. He swung down from the ceiling and onto the ground so he could scan his badge to let them in.
Hogarth and Varian were more cautious about climbing down the wall in order to reach the ground. They were much less used to changing the orientation in which they were facing. Hogarth stumbled slightly as his feet finally touched the ground again.
Varian caught his friend's shoulder to help steady him. "You alright?"
Hogarth put a hand to his head. "Yes. Just a bit of a blood rush is all."
Varian nodded. "Oh, yes. The change in pressure disoriented me the first couple of tests as well."
Mellow's room was quite tidy. His bed was low to the ground and on the opposite side of his room from his desk and dresser. He had no other furniture, apparently having opted not to acquire additional pieces. The only personal possession that was left out was a single pen in a stand on his desk. Everything else was put away and out of sight.
Mellow opened one of the drawers in his desk and rifled through it for a moment before he pulled out several sheets of paper. "Oh good, I do have them. Here. These are the preliminary notes for the report we were writing. Sy did a majority of the writing, since his penmanship is better, and the paper came from one of his notebooks. Will this do?"
Varian nodded. "I believe that it should."
"I also have these," Mellow offered. From another drawer he produced two homemade model rockets. "We're going to use them with our report. We worked on them together. There's a third one, but I guess Sy must have it, as I can't find it in here."
Hogarth took the rockets from Mellow. "Thank you. Varian and I can each carry one of these, if you're able to hold onto the papers."
Mellow nodded. "I can do that. Thank you."
Hogarth tucked his rocket into the front of his jacket, so it would rest against his chest without falling off while he hung upside down. Varian had brought a small bag, so he put his into there.
Mellow opened his door and popped his head out to check that it was empty. When the coast was clear, all three of them stepped out. Varian shut the door behind them before the three young men took to the ceiling once more so they could begin their return journey.
