"Glass isn't a solid, it's a very viscous liquid." You've probably been told this at least once in your life, and the person telling you probably then pointed to very old windows in churches with glass thicker at the bottom than at the top. Unfortunately, while very illustrative and simple to understand, this seems of late to be more an urban myth than anything else, as experts in cathedral construction have pointed out that early glassmaking techniques rarely resulted in perfectly even sheets of glass. And the fitters, being no fools, put the heavier end of a pane down to improve stability. Thus, it may not be so much a case of the glass flowing downward as starting out like that. But glass still isn't a solid in the scientific sense, in that there isn't a defined phase transition between the hot, goopy type and the cold, brittle type. "Phase transition?" you ask, if you're not one of the more scientifically-educated Readers. Basically, a phase transition is where something will stay the same temperature as you add or remove heat, only changing temperature again once it has melted, frozen, evaporated or what have you. That's why ice keeps drinks cold...it stays at the freezing point until it finishes melting, absorbing heat from the drink. But glass has no such transition point, just getting progressively colder and stiffer as heat is removed. A "true" solid phase of silica is possible if you're really careful, but usually you just get glass. Since glass is still very much like liquid in many ways, it *does* flow downward very slowly, but much more slowly than the scale of a hundred years or so. If you pushed firmly against a piece of glass for a very long time, it would slowly flow out of your way. Of course, none of this was going through Jack's mind as he pushed VERY firmly and VERY quickly on the glass of his apartment's window on the way out at about thirty miles per hour.... Coherent Comics UnInc. Presents: ___ __ __ ___ _ _ ___ _ _ _ _ CRAZY GUY #20 / '/ | / | / \/ / ' / / \/ "Erlang Syne" / /--' /--| / / / __ / / / copyright 1997 Dave Van Domelen `___ / | / |/__ _/ `__/ \__/ _/ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Picture if you will, Jack flailing his arms madly as he plummets towards the ground, bits of not-liquid-enough glass trailing along his arc. This is not a totally unfamiliar position for Jack to be in, and most Readers of this story should have a pretty good idea of how he got there. Still, it might be a good idea to step back in time a little bit and see it anyway. [T-minus 30 minutes] "Oooh, that's gotta hurt, padded costume or not," Louie commented as he and Jack watched Hans physically kicking a squid-masked man out of his office. "Ahhhhh...y'think this might not be th' best a times ta bug ol' potato-head?" "I think you're right. Owwww, that'll leave a mark," Jack winced before turning to leave. "Let's stop off at my place, maybe I can give Slow Moe Shen a call, see if he knows any good places to look for the rest of the statues I'm supposed to get." "Sure," Louie paused. "Any more exposition before we fade to the next scene?" "I don't think so." "Okay. Let's go." [T-minus 2 minutes] "You better get off here, Louie," Jack said as he reached the door to his apartment building. "The landlady's very strict about pets." Louie jabbed his paw into Jack's cheek, pushing down to emphasize each word, "I...am...not..a...pet!" "Sorry, sorry! Anyway, she's probably try to kill you with her broom if she saw you, so just climb up the drainpipe and I'll let you in the window." "You got AC in there? The heat's killin' me," Louie fanned himself with a paw. "Central air, but it doesn't work all of the time...hey, wasn't it late winter a few days ago?" "Ehhhh, it's one a them 'tropical references' things." "You mean topical references?" "Hey, when it's dis hot, it's a tropical reference. Barumpbump." Jack rolled his eyes. "See you inside." [T-minus 1 minute] "Hey, Jack, you got a visitor," called out the security guy at the desk. "Oh? Who?" "Said he was your uncle, and since, like, he had these subtitles floating around translating what he said, I figured he had to be related to you, y'know? Blind guy, if that helps." "I don't have any blind uncles," Jack replied with a touch of confusion. "Oh. Maybe I shouldn't have let him in. Could you, like, not tell anyone about this? I need this gig..." he trailed off, but Jack was already sprinting up the stairs, ready for trouble. [T-minus 10 seconds] Jack opened the door, then rolled into the room and sprung to a standing position facing the figure he'd spotted out of the corner of his eye while rolling. "All right, who are you and what do you want?" he demanded. The man smiled, took off his hat to reveal the third eye on his forehead, and then said, <> the words appearing in subtitles floating in front of his body. Then the lightning bolt sprang from "Eric Lang"'s third eye and smashed into Jack's chest. [Houston, we have defenestration] "Holeee...!" Louie exclaimed as Jack burst out the window right above him and started to follow the path prescribed by Newtonian physics towards the ground. He poked his head up over the windowsill to see who had just launched Jack, then started skittering down the wall as fast as his paws could take him, muttering, "This is bad, this is really really bad...." * * * * Gwen scowled her way down the street, scratching uncomfortably at the poor excuse for a hide she was stuck with now. Not only did trying to pass in human society force her to cover up parts of herself with cloth, but now any part she *didn't* cover was turning red and sore from the sun. How these humans survived so long without so much as a decent coat of fur was beyond her. Not that one particular human would be surviving much longer if she had anything to say about it. Somehow, the one known as Jack had no only set back her people's cause by years, he'd also managed to transform her into...ugh...a human. She couldn't even speak her native tongue properly now, it had taken considerable effort to convince the others she was who she said she was. And while they'd been kind enough to provide her with some clothing and money, she couldn't bring herself to stay with them until she found a way to return to her rightful squirrel body. So she hunted. And she'd have the secret of her restoration from this Jack before she killed him. He might be a mighty warrior, but Gwen had gained a small gift of power in exchange for the cruel warping of her form. She grinned as she turned a toothpick into gleaming steel and then back to wood. A useful power to have, she mused. * * * * Meanwhile, back at the pavement.... WHUD! "Owwwww..." Jack moaned, as he felt his bones already knitting and his ruptured organs being restored. The worse the injury, the faster he healed, so the tracery of cuts on his back from hitting the window would probably still be sore in the morning, but the broken back was already healed. If there *was* a morning to wake up to. The Celestial Bureaucracy from back home had found him. Specifically, the hunter Erlang had found him, and there was no way to shake Erlang from your trail once he'd found you. Still, he could try. Jack jumped astride a convenient motorcycle and gunned the engine, just as Louie reached the ground. "Hey, wait fer me!" Louie cried out as he jumped onto Jack's back, sinking in claws to keep his grip. "Yipe!" Jack yiped as he peeled out. Several stories above, Erlang peered out the window and smiled. With a wave of his hand, the trenchcoat and nondescript clothing he wore was replaced by elaborate robes of Indo-Chinese origin, his cane became a halberd and a cloud materialized outside the window. He also paused and turned off the subtitles, now that he was in original format. "Come," he said to his hound, and both stepped out onto the cloud, which then flew away in pursuit. * * * * "Uh, Jack, I may not be a weatherman, but should clouds be doin' right angle turns 'n followin' us?" Louie asked, now clinging tightly to Jack's hair while sitting on his shoulder. "Erlang's given up the sneaky approach, looks like...YOW!" he suddenly cried out as a lightning bolt struck near the motorcycle, forcing him to veer left. Another bolt turned that veer into a full-fledged left turn down a cross street. "I don't like the feelin' of this..." Louie muttered. "Me neither...he's herding us, I think. If he wanted a fight here, he'd have dropped those bolts in front of us." "Please let it be somewhere outta da way...you've blown up enough a dis city already," Louie sighed. "Wait, how did you know tha...YIPE!" Jack was cut off as another bolt herded him onto an offramp. "Ya think we might start attractin' cops sometimes soon? Or at least local TV choppers?" "Only if the Author wants to stretch this into two episodes," Jack answered. "I hope not, this breeze is just blowin' my tail ta pieces," Louie muttered darkly. * * * * Several minutes and no cops later (Wu Tang Clan was in town, and all the cops had gone to do crowd control...five square blocks were still burned to the ground, though), a lightning bolt found the engine of the motorcycle and brought the chase to a stop in the middle of Griffith Park. Yes, the one with the observatory used in many movies, both good (Rebel Without A Cause) and bad (War of the Colossal Beast), but we won't be using the observatory this time, no budget for trashing it, eh? For a change, everyone in the area had been smart enough to run away when they saw a small lightning-throwing cloud zipping around overhead blasting the ground near a motorcycle driven by a crazy guy and a squirrel. If this were New York City, the cloud would have been ignored and the cycle stripped for parts while still in motion. As Jack stood up and brushed off bits of trees and motorcycle, the cloud descended to the ground and dissipated, revealing Erlang in his full regalia and pride. Jack fell into a defensive posture and shook his staff out to regular length. Erlang smiled. "Ah, the monkey's stick, I remember taking it from him when I captured him the first time." "If I recall correctly, you had help from Lao Zi then," Jack taunted, bracing himself to dodge more lightning bolts. Erlang smirked. "True. But the monkey was a Taoist wizard, master of the 72 transformations and a true immortal. You merely heal very quickly and have his trick staff. I've only let you run this long because I needed the...diversion a mock hunt would provide after so many days in that mortal form. I think I'll let my hound have first go at you," he gestured and the dog started racing at Jack. "I don't think so," Louie snarled, leaping from Jack's shoulder and suddenly growing to thirty feet tall. "I may not know all 72, but I got a few transformations up my sleeve too!" he shouted as he punted the hound over the horizon. "Yipeyipeyipeipeipe...." yiped the dog as it sailed through the air and out of sight. [Don't worry, kids, it's an immortal dog. - Ed.] "What is this?" Erlang exclaimed, striking his forehead so that his third eye would send forth a beam of illuminating light that broke all illusions. Suddenly, Louie was no longer a thirty-foot-tall squirrel. In fact, he wasn't a squirrel at all. He was a monkey. "So, the rascal sent one of his subjects ahead to protect his nephew, eh?" Erlang declared. "Right theory, wrong universe, buddy," Louie spat back, returning to squirrel form. "I work for the Righteous Fighting Buddha a' dis world, I'm hangin' out wit' Jack as part a' my cover job." "So, could you boot Erlang over the horizon too?" Jack whispered down to Louie. "Nah, I wore out the batteries, can't do it again until tomorrow, which might be five more episodes the way this Author writes. But th' odds're even, kid. Take 'im," Louie whispered back. "Okay..." Jack said, stepping up to Erlang and whirling his staff in one hand. "This will provide some amusement, I suppose, although I *am* curious as to how that damned monkey ever became a Buddha. Come, little 'immortal,' I'll make your defeat honorable so we can get on with bringing you back home to have the elixir drawn from your body." Jack stepped back and forth, whirling his staff in a glittering pattern. "I may not know the 72 mystic transformations or be able to summon a cloud to ride on or any of those things, but there's something about me you do not know." "What is that?" "I'm not really left-handed." "Huh?" WHAP! Erlang reeled back both from the non-sequitur and from the blow to his head. A small trickle of blood made its way down the side of his face. "You...!" he fumed, bringing up his halberd. "And now I know something else...you're not invincible in this world, I can hurt you," Jack taunted. "Not as much as I can hurt YOU!" Erlang snarled, lashing out with his bladed weapon. Jack bent backwards and the strike whizzed over him by millimeters. Then he continued to fall back, wrapping his legs around Erlang's waist and tossing him towards a tree. Erlang whipped about in midair as if he were on wires, landing solidly on both feet. Lightning shot out from his third eye and danced all around Jack, who then had a brief flashback to his childhood training. * * * * "Now, son, as you have finished wrapping yourself in the honey-coated strips of cloth, you are ready for the test," Jack's father said, carefully cracking open a dried seedpod to reveal the fluff inside. "If you can cross the room without a single seed sticking to you, you may have dinner." He blew the seeds from his hand, and they drifted lazily through the air. "But, father, why am I doing this?" "Because I say so, because it will improve your skills, and because we can milk it for a montage later in the story." "Oh, okay," Jack replied as he started to dodge his way across the room. * * * * Sometimes leaping, sometimes just sidling slowly, other times dancing about like a boy with a colony of ants in his trousers seeking the honey which had gotten into them, Jack avoided the strike of the lightning and got ever closer to the godling he fought. Then, when he seemed to just be out of range, he reached out with his staff and extended it right into Erlang's third eye. "Heh, it's only fun when somebody puts an eye out," Louie observed from the sidelines. Lightning arced along the staff, knocking Jack back into a pond, while Erlang reeled in pain and clutched his forehead with his free hand. "Argh...I seem to have underestimated you, Jack..." he growled. "The Great Sage Equalling Heaven was a mage who fought, Erlang. I'm a fighter who fights," Jack said as he pulled himself out of the pond. "And with your magic eye out of the way, do you think you can still beat me?" "Yes!" Erlang shouted as he started to leap towards Jack. "Er, excuse me," came a new voice from the edge of the clearing. Both combatants and Louie turned to see who it was. "Mr. Erlang of 973HONGKONGFILMS?" the man asked. "Yes...?" "I represent this man's," he gestured towards Jack, "employer, Hell(TM) Incorporated. He is currently on an assignment, and is not at liberty to take any extended vacations in his home reality, whether voluntary or involuntary. Hence, you are hereby served with a restraining order to discontinue your current actions until such time as our employee is at liberty to accompany you to 973HONGKONGFILMS." Erlang narrowed his two remaining eyes and looked darkly at the business-suited man, who didn't so much as blink. "Very well. I'll have to consult with our legal team about this, mind you. And I'll need a copy of the order itself, as well as a copy of his contract at soonest possible date." "Here's your copy of the restraining order, and the other information will be FAXed to your Altiverse by the end of business tomorrow. Will that be satisfactory?" the man asked. Erlang nodded and summoned his cloud, taking the paperwork before flying off to retrieve his hound. "Now, Mister...ah, Jack...you had best get back to your assignment, and keep in mind that while a certain amount of freelance activity will be tolerated, please keep it to a reasonable level." With that, he stepped out of the clearing and vanished. "Weird," Jack commented. "Good thing the Celestial Bureaucracy is so...bureaucratic," Louie added. "So, are you a squirrel or a monkey or what?" Jack asked as he headed uphill to the bus stop. IS LOUIE A SQUIRREL OR A MONKEY OR WHAT? WILL ERLANG'S LAWYERS FIND A LOOPHOLE? DOES GWEN'S VENDETTA FALL UNDER THE CATEGORY OF "REASONABLE" FREELANCING FOR JACK? IS VELVEETA A SOLID OR A LIQUID? OR NONE OF THE ABOVE? Answers to some of these, and less, on the next....SUPERGUY! ============================================================================ Author's Notes: In the original Journey To The West, Erlang was instrumental in capturing the Monkey King (the Great Sage Equalling Heaven) the second-last time that such an action was necessary (Buddha did it the next time and made it stick), and was portrayed as something of a hunter god. In the timeline of 973HONGKONGFILMS, though, Buddha has yet to trap that Altiverse's Monkey King, so Erlang's understandably edgy about his former prey being loose. Wu Tang Clan is a dance/rap performance group which makes cops very nervous. They trashed a hotel floor in Rochester, NY the other weekend (setting off several fire alarms during the night, much to the annoyance of the Transformers convention attendees at the same hotel), and the cops were out in force for their shows near where I live last week.