Darker Than Dark

"Well I had invented the darn sword, but then nobody could touch it. It was either too darn hot or cold. So I put in a device that temporarily sealed the other functions. But now with them there gloves, holdin' it will be easier than wrangling a costerfish!"

Still not fully recovering from the shock and amazement, I duly nodded to McGucket. But my gaze was still fully drawn to the sword. It's one thing to be able to cut something really well. But if you could also cook it at the same time. Imagine how awesome that would be. Not that I'd be eating most of the things I cut with my sword. But it's nice to have the option.

Sensing that I wouldn't be recovering for a while, Great Uncle Ford placed his hand on my shoulder.

"Now Dipper. Isn't there something you should say to Fiddleford?"

I looked up in excitement.

"Got anything else!?"

And a fist came crashing down on my head.

"Not that."

Rubbing my head, I realized what I had forgotten.

"Thank You."

McGucket didn't seem offended by my lack of manners. And I guess that wasn't much of a surprise considering who he was. McGucket isn't exactly known for his formality and mannerisms. In fact, you could say he's known for the exact opposite.

After brushing off my thanks, McGucket handed me a few more tools he and Great Uncle Ford thought would be essential to my survival.

"This here is an umbrella."

He presented me with a fairly large umbrella. Opening it I found that it could easily cover my body while I was crouching. It was sky blue with a cloud pattern. The design was so lifelike it seemed as if he plucked a section out of the sky and placed it on the umbrella. It was truly magnificent. I couldn't help but wonder if McGucket was a genius in the visual arts as well. All of his inventions had an aesthetic beauty that could easily be the centerpiece of a famous art gallery.

"Not only does it cover you from the rain, it also has a high temperature tolerance. It could probably survive drifting in a volcano and won't freeze even in a blizzard. It can withstand a much greater deal of force than that field ya got covering your body. It's design allows it to double as a parachute. And it's water resistance allows you to use it as a floating device if the need may be."

Leave it to McGucket to turn something as simple as an umbrella into something that should be in every great adventurer's arsenal of tools. It goes without saying the value his work would be to the world. Imagine surviving a car crash thanks to having your umbrella that day. Wouldn't that be great.

But McGucket didn't focus on that side of the effects his inventions would have. He considered the dark side to the technologies that he builds. If some of what he's created gets into government hands, then you can say goodbye to democracy and world peace. Or at least the little bit of it that we do have.

Not that I'm any afraid of the government or the lack thereof. After you've broken into 5 government facilities and have stolen top secret files without them noticing that you stepped a foot onto the perimeter, it kinda loses that intimidating effect that it used to have. And that was only a stealth midterm exam.

But it would be bad for the government to suddenly go berserk and power crazy since my parents and the people I care about still live in this country. So I agree with McGucket's lack of enthusiasm when dealing with the rest of the world.

"Next is something for your training."

He handed me a pair of highly polished dumbbells. They were silver in color and reflected the light that hit them. On one end of each dumbbell was a knob with a series of numbers. From 0% to 100% with intervals of 20 being marked. However other than that they seemed perfectly normal, but knowing McGucket they probably weren't.

Seeing as I was waiting for an explanation, McGucket decided to satisfy my desire for an introduction.

"These here dumbbells are designed to increase and decrease in weight. It took me many months of working to finally create these. During that time I focused on nothing but completing them. As you know the first thing that you'd think of to increase the weight of an object would be to increase its mass. However I can't simply change the mass of an object at will. That'd be the same as creating matter. Which cannot be done. So I had to turn away from using gravity to increase the weight of the objects.

"I turned towards magnetic fields. The Earth has a natural magnetic field due to the fact that it's core is made of iron which is ferromagnetic. So I put a magnetic field generator into the dumbells to allow them to create magnetic fields of their own. Then I implanted a chip that made it focus on the core of the earth. If you increase the strength of the field generated by the weights, which can be easily done, you'd essentially increase the "weight" of the dumbbells. Although this weight would be more of a resistive force than actual "weight". But it'd have the same effects."

Up to here McGucket gave a pause in his speech to catch his breath, seeing the opportunity I asked a question.

"So these work on the concept of magnetism?"

"No."

Confused, I couldn't help but stare at McGucket for an explanation.

"Although the use of magnetic fields would work. And it did. It only works assuming that the planet that you're on has a core or interior made of a ferromagnetic metal or simply something that generates a magnetic field. But if you're somewhere that doesn't have a interior like that then they'd be worthless. And I wanted them to be effective everywhere. So I turned to something else..."

I nodded. It made perfect sense. But then what could he have used to make the dumbbells work. At this I focused back on McGucket who seemed at this moment bursting with pride. His normally bent legs were straight, which seemed unnatural, and his back was perfectly vertical. His pushed his chest forward and held his chin up as he continued.

"Dark Matter!"

"WHAT!?"

It was Great Uncle Ford who spoke before I had the chance to. He seemed as rattled as I did from the fact that McGucket used dark matter theory to make his dumbbells function. Although we hadn't seen them work or heard the explanation, given the look on his face we knew that he had accomplished something big.

Dark matter was a subject that even we were still currently in the midst of researching and theorizing about. We had a few prototypes for inventions using dark matter, but none of them functioned how they were meant to. It always seemed that we were missing something. To find out that McGucket completed an invention premised on dark matter was simply mind boggling.

"Tell me, Fiddleford! Exactly how you used dark matter to make the dumbbells work!!?"

Hearing the intensity in Great Uncle Ford's voice, McGucket realized he'd done something seriously big.