An Absolutely Remarkable Fanfic

Assignment

I walked into the library and saw a large group of mechanical engineering students in their natural habitat. They had pushed two tables together to accommodate their large group. Laptops and textbooks were scattered across the table. It's pretty common to see students studying in this manner the night before an exam, especially engineers, but it's syllabus week. What kind of monster would assign something so rigorous this early? Two students were starting dejected at a white board. On it, was a bunch of calculations along with a list of random words:

"Immovable"
"Solid"
"Warm to the touch"
Metal
Heavy

On of the MEs at the table was a junior named Sydney.

"What are you guys studying for?" I asked Sydney.

"Gottschalk," Sydney answered dejectedly.

"Ew," I cringed. I recognized the name of the infamous Materials Science teacher immediately. The girls talk about him at SWE. He's universally known as an arrogant hardass, but he's an even bigger asshole towards the girls. Fortunately, I'd never have to take any of his classes.

"He's making us write a report about what the Carl's are made of," Sydney explained.

"That's not so bad?" It was a statement, but I asked it like a question because I knew the ME's wouldn't study in a pack unless it was bad. One of the boys scoffed.

"It doesn't make any sense!" exclaimed Sydney. "The Carls are impossible. Period. There's no material on this planet that could have these qualities. We've calculated the volume. And we're working to approximate the mass." She gestured towards an additional whiteboard. Three other students had drawn a free body diagram and were working to solve a dynamics equation based on a video of a truck attempting to pull over the Carl. The calculations were pretty hardcore. I have no idea how they were able to approximate the force required to tear a Ford F 150 in half, but at a glance, their numbers looked believable. I'd never seen the original truck video, but it had gotten memed because of it's similarity to the Stan Lee cameo in the first Thor movie.

"How many points is the assignment worth?" I asked.

"It's 20% of our grade," answered one of the guys, "Brad and John are driving to the Chicago Carl."

Chicago is a 3 hour drive.

"Damn." I turned to Sydney. She was engrossed in her own calculations and it was clear that she was in no mood to chat. "Good luck."

"We need it," she sighed.

I walked away and sat at a table on the opposite side of the library.