The Oscillator by Neve JK

Author:Neve, JK
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-12-28T00:00:00+00:00

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Theo sat on his bedroom floor, hunched over the circuit, his hands like that of a surgeon, in and out quietly and with precision as his soldering iron did important work. His face glistened with sweat, bathed in a sickly yellow glow from the nearest candle and his brow furrowed in concentration, Theo worked at placing different combinations of resistance and capacitance into the circuit. As much as that part was experimentation, the flow of electricity was not. Power flowed in an ordered manner, it went where he directed it, obeyed him and obeyed the laws of logic. It just made sense, and that made him content like nothing else could. Pretty much everything outside of his bedroom tried to break into his mind, make him unsure, break the flow. But not in here.

This was his happy place.

He had used Lakan’s schematic and made a small loudspeaker that could emit the sine wave produced by the circuit. Perfect for the presentation, except that the small sine wave that reached his ears was rather disappointing. Theo knew he could do better. Had to do better. If he could make the oscillator work, he was convinced the frequencies produced would be insane. It would shock and amaze, perplex and mystify. He could picture their faces. They would know who he was. They would know the real Theo Osborne. Not the guy who stammered, but the guy who created something no-one had ever heard. There was no doubt, this could make or break him.

Problem was, he couldn’t get it to work. He’d tried everything—not messing around with the capacitors or anything else on the PCB—he’d tried within himself. His power was the key to unlocking the thing, or the oscillator was the key to unlocking his power… he wasn’t sure anymore.

Frustrated, Theo put the soldering iron back in its cradle, slumping against the side of his bed. Lisa had called him a hero. What a joke. It seemed he was just about able to help others, but not himself. His power had worked when he had wanted to help her, Theo realized. So maybe he needed to visualize the opposite of anger. Maybe then he could summon his power at will?

Theo sat as upright as he could and closed his eyes like he had earlier that day. He focussed his mind on the circuit, visualized the little electrons sparking their way through from one component to another before arriving at the endless loop of the oscillator. He shifted focus to an image of Lisa, looking at him, hopeful.

Nothing. Theo opened his eyes again. He was the one being hopeful.

He tried again. This time, he tried to empty his mind, but an image of Mel popped into his thoughts. He felt his cheeks flush as he let his eyes wander over her vision. Her face, her hair… her leg she flashed on that first day. His hands started their burn, and he brought them over the oscillator, then reverently touched the unit.

The faint sine wave jumped a good number of decibels and Theo snatched his hands away in fright.

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