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True to form, Sean had begun our phone conversation that day with an unusual and dramatic announcement: "What would you say if I told you that you could alter the laws of physics?" he asked me. "I'd want to know how much the knowledge would cost me. Then I'd call you a damn liar and hang up." Sean's end had lingered in stunned silence for a moment before he continued. "Okay, so it sounds a lot stupider than I thought." He clicked his tongue thoughtfully. "The fact of the matter is, I'm working on a new theory out here and I need some first hand input from you." "Just as long as you promise you won't try to sell me anything again." "You won't let me live that down will you? Fine, no merchandise, strictly business, you have my word on it." ooo As I recall, it has now been two years since I last spoke with Sean Dayton and visited him in the balmy town of Quilbrook. We still write, naturally, but it has become less frequent as of late. In fact, it is under the most peculiar circumstances that we have remained in contact at all. Sean's recent work has kept him endlessly busy and afforded him little time to do any writing on the side. The responsibility then has fallen upon me to compose this brief account of what happened that weekend and to explain what has kept us in separate towns for the past two years. ooo Sean was a retired physics professor turned meteorologist. He had spent the last ten years as the weatherman for a local television station but always seemed to be dabbling in fields other than meteorology whenever I talked to him. He wasn't so much a weatherman as he was a professional hobbyist. Each month it would be a new theory or a new idea. One day it would be radios and the next it would be time travel. Inventive gizmos had been his latest passion. The last time I'd visited him he managed to sell me a fuel-cell-powered espresso machine that ultimately torched half my kitchen. Not to discount his genius, but Sean had an unsettling way of viewing everything from a detached textbook perspective. Even though the fire damage had cost me a month's salary, Sean had merely found the incident "intriguing" and "quite unexpected." Lately he had kept his projects to himself. The weather in Quilbrook was pleasant enough when my bus arrived. The sun was glowing warmly through the haze and only a hint of gathering storm clouds loomed in the distance. When I showed up at his home office, Sean was leaning back in his chair with a notepad on his lap. As usual, his desk was a mess of papers and measuring tools while the rest of his house was kept meticulously neat under a thin film of dust. "Have a seat, I'll be right there," said Sean without looking up from his notepad. As I made myself comfortable in Sean's armchair I noticed that he wasn't exactly going about work as usual. He didn't have a pencil in his hand and he didn't appear to be studying yesterday's notes either. On the contrary, he was busily folding back the wings of a rather unorthodox paper airplane. "Your new theory?" I inquired, pointing to the notepad. "Part of it," Sean answered, still focused his work. "There's a bit more involved than this little project here." He made a final crease and gazed fondly upon his creation. "And now for the test." He motioned me closer and picked up a lead paperweight from his desk. Holding his airplane out at level with the weight, he took a deep breath and let them go at the same time. Normally, a lead weight would have crashed to the floor while a paper airplane would float down gently. To my astonishment, both the weight and the airplane fell straight down and hit the floor simultaneously with a thud. "I have to admit, this pretty much spoiled my lunch break the first time I tried it," said Sean, looking sadly at the paper airplane. "It's not much use trying to test aerodynamic theories when fundamental principles like lift no longer exist." He absent-mindedly swept a pile of paper onto the floor, sat on the edge of his desk and sighed heavily. "This has nothing to do with an aerodynamics test, does it?" I asked, doubtfully. It looked to me like he was just playing with paper airplanes. Sean sat motionless for a few seconds. "No, aerodynamics is a big part of it. Remember when I told you it was possible to alter the laws of physics?" I said nothing. "Well, I lied," he looked up at me and wrinkled his nose. "It would be like wishing away gravity, it can't be done." "What just happened then?" "A loophole." Sean gestured to one of the papers that had fallen on the ground. "If I can't just get rid of gravity, then I can try canceling it out." With that, he handed me one of the pages and pointed to a line. The paper was strewn with algebraic Greek and contained a surprising number of triangles. Much of it had been crossed out violently. "It's a little complicated, I'll admit," offered Sean, "but it explains why the paper airplane and the lead weight dropped at the same velocity, er, rate." He paused briefly to see if I would venture a guess. "I've cancelled local air resistance! It's gone, negated; the town of Quilbrook won't have to worry about windstorms and tornados ever again!" As he said this, his professorial demeanor broke into a wide grin. To emphasize his point, he picked up the airplane again and threw it to the other end of the room. Sideways. It tumbled through the air like a brick. I turned my attention back to the paper he'd given me and tried hard not to think of him as a mad scientist. Indeed, it seemed that by canceling out a set of terms on his page, he had somehow neutralized the effects of air resistance in the real world. He later informed me that it involved something like hacking into the computer of natural laws and rearranging the code, although he never clarified exactly what he meant by it. In the mean time, Sean began dancing circles around his desk. "With your permission, Sean," I said, "I think I'm going to go have a drink." "I was thinking the same thing!" he beamed. "Such an unprecedented accomplishment deserves a good, hearty celebration!" "A celebration," I said, flatly. ooo Sean's office was only a few blocks away from a local cellar tavern and microbrewery so we walked. Sean carried on most of the conversation talking about the wonderful possibilities now open to a town without air resistance. A couple of times he broke into a sprint and laughed at how the wind didn't blow through his hair. His work had driven him giddy. We passed a small park on the way. Four children were lounging aimlessly on a bench. One of them was angrily winding the string of a kite that had apparently been dragged through the dirt for a while. Its tail was tangled with twigs and thistles. Shortly afterward, we crossed the main street and descended the stairs to the tavern. The atmosphere inside was thick with moisture and the owner stood with his back to us banging furiously on the air conditioner. "Damn fan busted again," seethed the bartender. "Hotter than hell down here." Noticing his new customers, he wiped a spot off the bar and put on a half smile. "What will it be for you two today?" The drinks at least were cold and we sat down at a table under one of the small windows. Sean talked cheerily about the awards and recognition an important person like himself might receive. I was even starting to feel a little better thanks to the local brew and joined my friend's speculation. We were shortly interrupted by a sound like gunfire on the street outside. The window above us cracked and blew out, raining glass on our table. Sean and I hit the floor and scrambled to the corner. The bartender bellowed out a stream of curses and dove for his shotgun behind the counter. Outside, the sound of the shots intensified until it seemed we were under attack by the entire Quilbrook police force. After a minute, my curiosity prevailed. I stood up to see what was happening outside the tavern. To my surprise, the streets were empty. There were no gunmen hiding behind cars or in the buildings across the street. It looked like the bullets were striking indiscriminately. I squinted into the daylight and made another discovery. The attack was coming from the air above Quilbrook. It was rain. Sean rose shakily from the corner and peered through the window as well. He set his jaw and narrowed his eyes and suddenly smacked his forehead. "Terminal velocity," he said. "How did I forget about that?" I shot Sean a worried glance. "With no air resistance, there's nothing up there to slow these falling rain drops." As he said this, a shopper emerged from a hat shop across the street with a hatbox under one arm and an umbrella under the other. She stood under the entrance, watching the rain for a minute or two, then shrugging, opened the umbrella and set out toward us. Her umbrella was shredded instantly in the downpour leaving her flat on her face in the middle of Main Street. Sean stood tensely beside me as the raindrops ricocheted outside. His fingers were locked around a micro brew and his eyes fixed on the road. Some of the drops were already coming through the wrecked door and chipping bits of concrete off the stairs. "So, what's your plan when this drizzle lets up?" I asked, as we sat back down at a table away from the window. "Pray there's no hail," grimaced Sean. "We can't just --" an ear-splitting explosion shook the walls of the tavern. Sean's bottle splintered and fell to the tabletop through his clutching fingers. A man at the other end of the bar bolted up and made a dash for the door the same moment. However, just as the man reached the stairs he slipped on something and hit the floor hard. His body exploded into a fine powder in the same manner a sand castle scatters when kicked. "I suppose I had something to do with that too," said Sean. "You'll have to agree though, that was a rather spectacular fall." He pushed back on his chair and slid across the floor like a hockey puck. "What in the world is going on?!" I yelled. Sean's eyes went wide as he took in the new situation "It seems that I've succeeded in canceling out friction all together!" he exclaimed as he glided over the floor. "This is incredible! No more kinetic friction, no molecular friction..." He slammed his hand down on a table as he slid past it and gazed in wonder as the wood immediately vaporized. It didn't take long for me to realize just how precarious my situation was. Sean was sliding to the far end of the bar and I found that I could no longer walk; my shoes couldn't grip the floorboards. The bartender stood stiffly behind the counter with his shotgun, not daring to move. I struggled to my feet until, at last, I was able to push off the wall and slide over to the bar where the fire extinguisher was kept. Gently lifting it from its shelf, I pulled the pin and carefully pressed the trigger. It worked surprisingly well. I eventually propelled myself to the stairs and made my way to the door while Sean occupied himself with impromptu momentum experiments. He waved cheerfully as I fled the tavern. Fortunately, the rain had stopped by the time I reached the street. The remains of a passenger jet that had fallen out of the sky were scattered around an obliterated parking garage on the corner. Smoke was rising from the crater in a perfectly vertical column and the ground was pitted and smashed as far as I could see. Hastily, I swiveled my back toward the end of the road and rocketed myself away from Quilbrook as fast as the fire extinguisher would allow. As soon as my shoes caught the pavement, I dropped the canister and ran for it. ooo I got my first letter from Sean about a week after. Apparently, most of his neighbors had disappeared, some less pleasantly than others. Life was going on in its own fashion. There were a lot of new possibilities to explore in Quilbrook, not the least of which was a commission by the highway department to develop new methods of transportation for the remaining population. He claims to be enjoying the challenges (perks, he calls them) of a zero-friction environment and has tried inviting me back on several occasions. Naturally, I'd sooner jump to the moon than tempt fate in Quilbrook again. The idea of tripping on a curb and bursting into a cloud of confetti never really appealed to me. Nevertheless, I can't help getting a strange satisfaction knowing that, despite the freakish side effects, Sean still managed his goal. He concludes every letter with a triumphant weather report: "no tornados today!"