Quest of Nemesis

The Lost Metal - Part I

The students kept their distance from the door, but closer to it than any of them was a sassy man. His checkered long-sleeve, craftily woven in 70s fashion, garmented his medium stature. The vintage impression of his mop-top hair paired profoundly with his dirty white, slender slacks. He was the irritable Professor Henry Martin – the chemistry teacher pissed off by Nemesis' intuitiveness.

'Pardon me for asking professor, but, how did the lab turn into that?' Grace inquired earnestly while keeping her glance at the smothering purple gas.

'Students, please calm down,' Professor Martin exclaimed, 'I brought a bunch of students to assist me sort lab equipment about an hour ago, one of them messed up and -'

'And what?' Nemesis zealously asked. 'One of them accidentally broke the propane container into a flaming beaker of naphthalene balls,' Professor Martin answered.

'It wouldn't have made such smoke if not for an explosion,' a girl asserted. She stood in the middle of the awed crowd. She was Thalia, handsome, lean, flushed, and from her scalp waved down a gracefully jagged blonde hair.

'Exactly, the explosion triggered the rest of the flammable solutions inside. Gosh! I'm a complete idiot,' Martin sighed.

Professor Blubberine approached him, 'W – where are the students now?' she exclaimed.

'All of them are being cared at the clinic. Lucky of them to escape just before the explosion.'

'Oh, thank god.'

Thalia persisted regarding her volition to fix the messed-up chemistry.

'Well, sir if you would let me, I can reduce the smoke by discontinuing the reaction. I bet the domino effect could still be reversed.'

Professor Martin denied her petition for quite a couple of times, until he eventually concurred to her insistence. Meanwhile, Nemesis was hesitantly allowed to be Thalia's assistant. The three of them, including Martin, suited up protective gears prior to entering the pungent atmosphere inside the confinement of the laboratory. Tarrying outside were Charmel, Grace, Professor Blubberine and the crowd of scholars maundering in consternation.

Inside the laboratory, the three life riskers could barely catch apparent vision around. Martin spotted the source of smoke and directed Thalia and Nemesis to the infamous beaker. The combustion was extensive; every expenditure of energy pulsated into indulgent fumes of radiant, yet detrimental gas. The two chemicals annihilated each other. Thalia, with sleight of mind and of hands, wistfully grabbed a nearby cylinder of a different liquid.

'This will serve to slow down the forces between molecules, more like a catalyst but working in reverse.' She poured it cautiously into the beaker while Martin and Nemesis stared ominously.

Alas! Thalia's scheme seemed to wallow in failure, and it appeared to rather increase the turmoil. Thalia was petrified, so did Martin, but Nemesis paused for a while and meditated deep into his broad intellect. In his mind, he pictured out the anatomy of what laid in front of them. He thought of swirling gases, minute particles and those things they called in scientific parlance as intermolecular forces (flashing in his mind like racing cars). The pictures animated themselves, and eventually inspired Nemesis to hold a lighter and tong. He also began ripping the pouch of cotton balls beside the beaker. He burned the cotton a few inches away from the intrepid reaction and later on incorporated the flame into the smoking liquids, all in flawless manner. After a while, the brewing squabble of chemicals submitted to cessation.

'Flame to kill the flame,' Nemesis uttered proudly.

'Attaboy! Nemesis, your ninety seven percent score in my test has just been justified.' Martin said faintly.

That was one of the few times when Martin demonstratively adorned one of his students. Thalia stood stagnantly while holding a slight grimace. Deep inside, she was in a shrill of objurgation, abashment and slight admiration for Nemesis.

The three heroes exited the room gloriously as all the other scholars cheerfully applauded. Grace and Charmel approached Nemesis admiringly. They walked abreast each other through the hallway as Nemesis recapitulated his triumphant experience.

'I woke up today cursing my phone not knowing I would fix some mess back to order. What a productive day,' he addressed Charmel and Grace with so much mirth in his face.

'Surely it is,' Charmel said. 'Naughty naphthalene.'

'Don't blame the chemicals, blame the professor,' Grace jested. 'Kidding, he might hear us, hurry!'

Doctor Bellatrix Marley, the head of Lexmicore's administrative hierarchy, summoned Professor Martin for further investigation of the incident. She was strong woman, as objective as any other rational being, careful in judgment and very benign towards the one she was addressing to regardless of title and academic degree. Martin did not receive unjust condemnation to compensate for his act of irresponsibility (which was reasonably viewed as easily atonable). The accident was resolved; Martin's mentally shocked assistants were vouchsafed generous comfort under the care of the clinic's nurses.

The next day dawned just like any other morning – Nemesis' dreamful doze disturbed by his mother's rooster-like persuasion. Everything seemed to him like an endless cycle, devoid of vivacity. Even the television's pervasive stories would not provoke his inner apt. Nemesis did not bother much of the seemingly endless flash of shootouts, robberies, hostages and accidents. The media was much of a brewing mess than relief from the gruesome and hectic academic piles outside the doorsteps. Typical was it for him to withstand the nefariousness of the society encircling his evolving mind. It couldn't be an ordinary frame suiting a seventeen-year-old, yet he became so used to that status quo. Not until he appeared stumbling to an agitated pause after a distinctive scene projected by the television screen – some ambient news conveying a series of invitation to the populace. It was the prefiguring of the Founding of the Lost Metal. Almost two decades flew past and then, at that moment, The World Union's President Proteus Melendez flashed his inviting look to the viewers, uncovering an ecstatic guise.

'My dear constituents of The World Union, for decades, we had lived and had breathed the seemingly immortal air of false assumptions. One of which is the mystical story of a metal, purported to have been already discovered in the 19th century only to be kept a secret and bound to decay. But now, that story would be relived again, not as a mundane myth, but a drop of history. In behalf of the International Institute of Science, I am overjoyed to announce the unearthing of the Lost Metal,' he acclaimed with esteem. Ladies and gentlemen, in about an hour you shall witness with your own naked eyes the first discovered piece of Typhonium.'

The representatives from the world's nations applauded. As members of The World Union, it was their responsibility to take a stand, concerning all international affairs. But the condition which governed their constitution had them abandoning personal ideals. The World Union was much of a democratic congregation. "The people shall prevail", as the undulating flag wavered their motto. The screen recurringly flashed the face of the president.

'Intriguing metal, but wasn't he giving up his throne? Or was that another one of his political pranks?' Nemesis whispered to himself.

He criticized how President Melendez had been in the highest position for about twenty years and how he had been fooling gullible people of his resignation. Nemesis seemed to be more fastidious towards the President's re-election than the onset of Typhonium.

Right before the promising scientists from the IIS were about to unfold the virgin dazzle of the lost metal, Nemesis sprang out of the door with his backpack. He trotted to catch the passing bus. As usual, her mother sat idly in the dining room, blowing her stick of leisure. Instantly, after boarding out of the bus, he jogged straight to the campus, (greeted once more by his ever so auspicious friends). At times he would think to himself, 'Ugh, how long will I stay in this routine?'

Nemesis yearned for new things, experiences afresh, and if possible, a phenomenon that would change the course of his life. But then again, all he could do was dream profoundly.