#also i think i just got proposed to. umm. i will elaborate later

[kfdirector]

Student Awareness of Nonstandard Danger Society

The afternoon finally came.  Niewitzski watched as the students were clearly taking initiative; Craig and Tracey were setting up laptops with audio-visual equipment, Joe and Mario were sitting at the back of the classroom, smiling with satisfaction, and Stella was, of course, supervising.  Niewitzski kept his directive simple: “I want to know what we know!”

Stella saluted.  “Sir, at my direction Freshmen Reubens and Washington built a timeline of the data feeds from all sensors and collated all information!  Freshmen Reubens and Washington have valuable results to report, sir!”

“Neat.  Who found out...whatever it was?”

The two freshmen in glasses looked at each other and didn’t volunteer.

“Sir, science is a team effort!  Now then, Freshmen Reubens and Washington will make the report, sir!”

Craig turned on a projector and pulled down the screen at the front of the room.  Tracey stood by the screen, and gulped.

“Relax, Miss Washington.  This isn’t for a grade.”

“Well, yes.  Umm.  This is the monster from the 27th.”

Niewitzski looked at the slide, and could not disagree: it was the monster from September 27th.

“I mean, uh, this is the monster when examined under wavelengths visible to the human eye.  This is what you saw. Next slide, Craig.”  A very similar monster appeared, only in shades of red.  “This is the monster when examined under a segment of the infrared portion of the light spectrum.”

Niewitzski frowned.  “O-okay....”

“Freshman Washington!  The faculty advisor of SANDS is missing the significance of this data!  Please elaborate!”

“Oh, right, okay.  Um, overlay, Craig.”

The visible-spectrum slide was now overlaid on the infrared slide, showing two monsters, side by side.  Niewitzski still didn’t - oh.  Oh? The monsters were side by side, but the backgrounds were in sync!

“Um, as you can see, I hope, in infrared, the monster leaves a perfect after-image of its previous location.  With this particular infrared filter, we can see where the monster was about twenty-two seconds in the past.”

“That is - that is not how infrared works.  That’s insane.”

“Sir, it gets much more insane!  Prepare to have your mind blown, sir!”

“Um, let’s just skip ahead and overlay the ultraviolet filter, Craig.”  Several slides were bypassed with quick clicks. “This is the monster in a ultraviolet portion of the spectrum, at the same time stamp.  As you can see, with this particular filter, the monster can be clearly seen at a different location. If you fast-forward ahead in the video - yes, like that, this is the location that the monster appears at in the visible spectrum about twenty-two seconds later.”

“We’re past insane and into impossible.  Ultraviolet light does not see through time.  That’s not how anything works, not even a little - ”

“Science has only begun to be slapped around for its lunch money, sir!”

Tracey gave a small cough.  “Um, I need to point out, Mister Niewitzski, that under the infrared and ultraviolet filters, light was only emitted from the monster’s past and future locations, not from its present one, while every other object behaved normally.  Also, the readings we got on Friday night were largely consistent, although the time separation was only nineteen seconds.  Okay, Craig, next section, please.”

The screen changed from false-color images of monsters to something that looked like an oscilloscope or an EEG - that is, there were a lot of waves being charted on the screen, and Niewitzski had no idea what any of them meant.

“While the creatures were active, Mister Niewitzski, signals were being broadcast on several little-used radio bands that sort of resemble brain waves.  When the creature from the 27th was shot by Officer Gale, and when the creature from Friday was struck by your car, the signals became erratic.  At the moment they vanished, the signals went completely flat.”

Niewitzski stroked his beard.  “That sounds really unlikely, although not seeing-through-time unlikely, but potentially very useful.  About how far away could these waves be detected?”

“Um, there were really strong signals.  Probably throughout the metro area.  So, using a radio direction finder tuned to the frequencies I’ve noted on - next slide, Craig - we could track these monsters.  Both monsters used the same frequencies.  Also, these are almost completely unused by normal radio traffic.  So, any signal on them at all above the standard atmospheric noise could function as a good early warning system.”

The teacher grinned.  “That frees us from the police scanners.  But...why and how are the monsters broadcasting their thoughts on the electromagnetic spectrum?”

“Sir!  With Freshman Reubens’ input, I have arrived at a hypothesis, sir!”

“With Craig’s input?  Uh oh.”

“Sir, these beings are clearly in flagrant violation of many laws of science as we know them in this universe!”

“Right.”

“Therefore, sir, I propose that they are not native to this universe!  The monsters have found themselves here, and they possess a set of characteristics that are, in their native universe, perfectly reasonable and internally consistent characteristics for monsters to have!  However, in this universe, some of these characteristics are perhaps measured in different ways, or along different axes, than they are in their home.  Therefore, sir, while in this universe, they are walking incarnations of dividing by zero!  I am aware that it is possible in higher math to approximate division by zero, but in normal math it results in two equalling one, so please bear with the metaphor, sir!  With every step, they are throwing up read-errors in the very nature of reality, and those manifest as these violations of science!”

“...you came up with this theory on Craig’s help, yes?”

“Freshman Reubens’ input was invaluable in the formation of this hypothesis, sir!”

“I bet it was.  I’m with you one hundred percent up through, maybe, the first sentence, that they’re not from around here.  Everything after that is...it, ah, needs more data.”

Stella shrugged, as if she hadn’t just spent a minute vehemently shouting this theory and so wasn’t that invested in it.

“Question.”

Tracey called on Joe, at the back of room 203.  “Yes?”

“So, if we wear glasses with ultraviolet filters or whatever, we can see where that thing’s going to be twenty-two seconds before it gets there?  So Mario and I can see where it’s going to swing and we can then be, y’know, not there when it does swing?”

Mario muttered.  “Twenty-two seconds is a longass time in a fight.  Give me just two, please.”

Niewitzski slammed his fist on his desk for dramatic emphasis; Craig jumped.  “Okay, yeah, that’s the problem with this part! This all violates causality in a big way, I mean, straight up time paradox here!  How could we see where that thing’s going to attack next, when the very fact that we’d just make sure not to be there would cause it to not bother attacking there in the first place?”

Tracey sighed.  “I don’t know, Mister Niewitzski.  All we have our observations on the cameras with the filters.  We should test this further in our next battle by equipping the four of you with headsets that apply the ultraviolet filter in real time, and see what happens.”

“Even if it causes a time paradox and breaks the universe?  And what do you mean, four?”

“Sir, if you think I’m going to keep staying in the van, you’re some kind of shithead, sir!”

“Um, well, and we won’t know if a time paradox breaks the universe until we try, sir.”

According to legend, Niewitzski had heard, right before the atomic bomb test at Trinity the scientists had done calculations to determine whether the atmosphere itself might catch fire.  It was the only comparable situation that came to mind, and yet it had both lower stakes and more qualified scientists working on it.  “So, last question, then: why are they here?”

Craig spoke up.  “They’re being summoned, Mister Niewitzski, that’s still my guess.”

Niewitzski waved that off.  “These are apparently things from another dimension.  Magic conjuring circles aren’t going to do the trick.  Do you really think Tony Hayes - assuming he even was responsible - was really the first one to muck around with magic and see if it could work?”

“Maybe he was the first one to find something that worked!  Magic is all about the experimentation, Mister Niewitzski, that’s why they even have Books of Shadows.”

He did not find that plausible.  “Humans have been screwing around with magic for probably longer than we’ve been hitting rocks with other rocks, and Tony is the first guy who finds something that works?  I’m doubting that.”

“Hey, Coach,” Mario cut in.  “Summoned doesn’t just mean ‘by magic’, does it?  Maybe there’s some government or university lab that’s playing with weird science.”

“That’s possible, I guess, but ‘Coach’ is really more Joe’s thing.  Okay, that’s...well, I can’t think how they would stumble on this, but apparently the natural laws I’ve been leaning on all my life aren’t as ironclad as I’ve been hoping.  Hmm.”  He scratched his beard.  “Can these things be summoned remotely, or are they being sent from a central point?  All of the attacks that we know about are in this county, which is suggestive, but we’ve been relying on police reports until now.”

The students nodded.  “So, we need to use the radio frequencies Miss Washington listed to prepare for the next attack.  Even more important than destroying the monster will be tracking its initial appearance, and the time it is in existence before being spotted, as well as its location.  With a few more data points, I think we can apply some principles of geographic profiling to narrow down the origin of these monsters, and thereby stem the problem at its source.”

And, hopefully, that source would not be, say, anyone he knew personally.

“SANDS, are you with me?”

Of course, they were.  All the way.

Even to the point of Craig volunteering to shimmy up a radio tower and install an antenna to aid in their new monitoring plan; Tracey using her careful handwriting to forge backdated paperwork protecting the SANDS’ right to operate as a school club; Mario helping Niewitzski repair his car; and - well, the less he knew about what Joe and Stella might be doing to arm or finance their operation, the better he felt.

But yes, they were with him, all the way.