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sga_flashficTitle: Joule of Denial
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
inkscribe
Characters: Beckett, McKay (no pairings)
Rating: G
Words: ~690
Spoilers: none
Challenge: F**cking Freezing!
Summary: The final thoughts of the smartest man in two galaxies. (Note: not a death fic.)
Author's Note: Excessive abuse of physics. Relied heavily on Wiki, starting with hypothermia and making interesting discoveries from there. More than a few phrases are borrowed verbatim from Wiki because, erm ... well, (ahem) ... non-science graduate. No electrons were deliberately harmed in the making of this story, but undoubtedly the science itself is more than a little bruised. Thank you tomjlee for frictionless speed-beta.
Joule of Denial
Homeostasis, Rodney thought, the ability of a gay male to remain apparently unaged. Usually the result of excessive use of Oil of Delay or the judicious application of Ancient technology.
His teeth chattered, the tat-tat-tat vibration interfering with what he’d meant to think: that the human body, like that of other warm-blooded creatures, maintains a near-constant core temperature through biologic homeostasis.
Yes yes yes, Rodney thought, the words swirling through his mind like creamer in cold coffee, white and sluggish. That’s what I meant. He knew he’d get it right, if he just kept working at it.
Work. Yes. Work – the relationship between mechanical work, electricity, and heat. Just what Rodney needed. He tried to snap his fingers to punctuate the accuracy of his thoughts, but they were too sluggish, and besides, they were busy clinging to this railing. Insufficient friction. He needed friction, needed to use his energy to produce heat. Joules. The amount of energy a quiet person produces every hundredth of a second.
Quiet? Rodney thought, attempting to snort. I’m the antithesis of quiet! I must be producing a hundred-hundredths times the joules of a quiet person!
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he suspected his math made absolutely no sense.
He willed himself to take another step, failing to slip and fall into the icy sea below. Good, good, good, he chanted silently. Good vibrations. A few bars of the classic surfing song floated through his mind, along with the image of a snowsuit-clad man riding the waves. Vibrations. Mechanical work. Energy transferred by a force. Measured in joules.
He was moving slowly. Far too slowly. Potential energy remained, simmering as intermolecular forces, yet merely rest mass energy, unactualised, unremarkable. No kinetic energy, no extra energy resulting from his motion. Molecular translation, rotation, and vibration hardly detectable.
A harsh croak escaped his chest as he connected the dots, the laughter unstoppable despite the searing pain of the freezing air. Temperature minus two hundred and seventy three point one five degrees Celsius. Not that cold yet – no, not yet – but plunging, drawing him down its absolute embrace. Minimum energy – where particles neither emit nor absorb energy. Zero-point energy.
What Rodney really needed right now was either a portable heater connected to a fully charged ZedPM or a Planck he could walk and get it all over with. Or better yet, a Toynbee Convector, a quick jump back a half-hour-ish so he could avoid doing the damnably stupid and end up stuck out here, alone.
Unobserved, Rodney was no longer certain he existed.
Inside, a tiny voice mocked, “Denial, denial, denial!”
Angry, Rodney snorted back. Of course I’ll deny it! I’ll go to to my death never accepting it for a moment, proving to himself without equivocation that it was possible to skip over both bargaining and depression and just embrace acceptance, despite all protestations to the contrary.
One tiny slip and it would all be over. He clung to the icy railing, slivers of airborne ice flaying his skin.
His radio was useless: turn on, tune in, and drop out. Static warred with the crash of spray against the pier below, and he heard nothing. The last joules gone, latent potentials untapped – his last sensory memory was his frozen fingers losing the ability to grasp, then falling, falling. I am so, so fucked.
Silence.
Beep. Blip. Beep. Blip. Beep. Blip.
Rodney blinked his eyes open, surrounded by warmth, light, and sound. A heart monitor kept steady time that matched his own. People spoke. People spoke to him.
“Hey, Rodney,” soothed Carson’s voice, words carried on a gentle smile. “Welcome back.”
Rodney decided he really couldn’t hear Schroedinger calling, “Here, kitty kitty kitty” after all.
end, Joule of Denial
Author:
inkscribeCharacters: Beckett, McKay (no pairings)
Rating: G
Words: ~690
Spoilers: none
Challenge: F**cking Freezing!
Summary: The final thoughts of the smartest man in two galaxies. (Note: not a death fic.)
Author's Note: Excessive abuse of physics. Relied heavily on Wiki, starting with hypothermia and making interesting discoveries from there. More than a few phrases are borrowed verbatim from Wiki because, erm ... well, (ahem) ... non-science graduate. No electrons were deliberately harmed in the making of this story, but undoubtedly the science itself is more than a little bruised. Thank you to
mjlee for frictionless speed-beta.Joule of Denial
Homeostasis, Rodney thought, the ability of a gay male to remain apparently unaged. Usually the result of excessive use of Oil of Delay or the judicious application of Ancient technology.
His teeth chattered, the tat-tat-tat vibration interfering with what he’d meant to think: that the human body, like that of other warm-blooded creatures, maintains a near-constant core temperature through biologic homeostasis.
Yes yes yes, Rodney thought, the words swirling through his mind like creamer in cold coffee, white and sluggish. That’s what I meant. He knew he’d get it right, if he just kept working at it.
Work. Yes. Work – the relationship between mechanical work, electricity, and heat. Just what Rodney needed. He tried to snap his fingers to punctuate the accuracy of his thoughts, but they were too sluggish, and besides, they were busy clinging to this railing. Insufficient friction. He needed friction, needed to use his energy to produce heat. Joules. The amount of energy a quiet person produces every hundredth of a second.
Quiet? Rodney thought, attempting to snort. I’m the antithesis of quiet! I must be producing a hundred-hundredths times the joules of a quiet person!
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he suspected his math made absolutely no sense.
He willed himself to take another step, failing to slip and fall into the icy sea below. Good, good, good, he chanted silently. Good vibrations. A few bars of the classic surfing song floated through his mind, along with the image of a snowsuit-clad man riding the waves. Vibrations. Mechanical work. Energy transferred by a force. Measured in joules.
He was moving slowly. Far too slowly. Potential energy remained, simmering as intermolecular forces, yet merely rest mass energy, unactualised, unremarkable. No kinetic energy, no extra energy resulting from his motion. Molecular translation, rotation, and vibration hardly detectable.
A harsh croak escaped his chest as he connected the dots, the laughter unstoppable despite the searing pain of the freezing air. Temperature minus two hundred and seventy three point one five degrees Celsius. Not that cold yet – no, not yet – but plunging, drawing him down its absolute embrace. Minimum energy – where particles neither emit nor absorb energy. Zero-point energy.
What Rodney really needed right now was either a portable heater connected to a fully charged ZedPM or a Planck he could walk and get it all over with. Or better yet, a Toynbee Convector, a quick jump back a half-hour-ish so he could avoid doing the damnably stupid and end up stuck out here, alone.
Unobserved, Rodney was no longer certain he existed.
Inside, a tiny voice mocked, “Denial, denial, denial!”
Angry, Rodney snorted back. Of course I’ll deny it! I’ll go to to my death never accepting it for a moment, proving to himself without equivocation that it was possible to skip over both bargaining and depression and just embrace acceptance, despite all protestations to the contrary.
One tiny slip and it would all be over. He clung to the icy railing, slivers of airborne ice flaying his skin.
His radio was useless: turn on, tune in, and drop out. Static warred with the crash of spray against the pier below, and he heard nothing. The last joules gone, latent potentials untapped – his last sensory memory was his frozen fingers losing the ability to grasp, then falling, falling. I am so, so fucked.
Silence.
Beep. Blip. Beep. Blip. Beep. Blip.
Rodney blinked his eyes open, surrounded by warmth, light, and sound. A heart monitor kept steady time that matched his own. People spoke. People spoke to him.
“Hey, Rodney,” soothed Carson’s voice, words carried on a gentle smile. “Welcome back.”
Rodney decided he really couldn’t hear Schroedinger calling, “Here, kitty kitty kitty” after all.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-30 07:07 pm (UTC)I love it when words all come together just the right way. This was one of those moments where a stupid title popped into my head and I had to research it to its inevitable conclusion. ;-)