Interlude: Discoveries
~Loud House~
Wednesday Night
After wrapping up the meeting with her sisters about their brother, whom she suspected was dealing with the typical stress that came with the whirlwind of physical and emotional changes in adolescence, but Lisa couldn't help but feel that something deeper was at play with her oldest male sibling. Still, her brother's behavior wasn't the only thing occupying her mind...
'It's only natural for Lincoln to be experiencing these changes," she thought. 'If possible, I wouldn't mind arranging a therapy session, something to help him process this stress. But that can wait... as callous as it may sound, I have other, more pressing concerns to address first...'
Lisa headed down to the basement to retrieve the flask of green goo she had previously collected. She had placed the airtight flask in a small compartment in the basement, not wanting her robots to mistakenly misplace it or throw it away during their cleanup efforts. With the flask now in hand, she powered down the bots, their work finally complete after the accident. The robots had managed to completely remove any sign of an explosion happening and restored the broken household appliances. Then, without wasting time, she made her way back upstairs and to the main lab in her room.
"Thank Einstein, I have two labs..." He muttered to herself. The one she had in the basement was completely gone, now a pile of scrap near the trash bins outside. She had been extra careful to avoid her parents and siblings from seeing her move all the junk from the basement.
Going into her room, Lisa placed the flask on her lab table.
'Now, let's figure out what you are...' She thought to herself.
Lisa adjusted her safety goggles and leaned over the microscope, the soft glow of the lab equipment casting a pale light across her focused expression. With practiced precision, she prepared a sample from the mysterious flask, for analysis.
'This could be a groundbreaking discovery,' she thought, excitement bubbling beneath her calm exterior. 'Or a complete dud... but that's the nature of science'
With steady hands, she placed a single drop of the glowing substance onto a glass slide and slid it beneath the microscope. Leaning in, she adjusted the focus. The moment her eyes met the view through the lens, they widened in surprise something inside the sample was pulsing.
"Incredible," she muttered, noting the unusual molecular structure. She quickly opened her laptop and began scanning through her database for whatever this could be, her fingers flying over the keyboard as she ran comparison after comparison.
'Nothing...absolutely nothing! This doesn't match anything in my database!' She thought.
She quickly jotted down notes, her pen scratching furiously across the page as her thoughts scrambled to keep pace with the data flooding in. She moved with efficiency, yet her mind was anything but calm. One by one, she ran a series of tests, spectrometry to analyze the composition, chromatography to separate the components, and even a few experimental procedures she'd developed herself, far beyond the scope of standard scientific methods.
Each result came back stranger than the last. Nothing behaved the way it should. Every answer just raised more questions.
The substance didn't conform to any known elemental pattern. Its energy signature was unstable, shifting with every measurement as though it were reacting to being observed. During one test, it seemed to phase partially through the containment glass, then settle again, perfectly still.
Lisa's brows furrowed in frustration and fascination. 'That shouldn't be even be possible...!!'
She quickly flipped through her research logs, cross-referencing the results with her database. Chemical structure? No match. Energy readings? Nothing similar. Behavior? Incomparable.
"This substance defies conventional chemistry," Lisa whispered to herself, scanning the latest readout as her mind raced with possibilities. "None of this adds up... There's nothing, even remotely-matching in my database. Not even close."
The deeper she dug, the more questions surfaced. She couldn't stop now. Not when she felt that she was on the verge of something entirely new and unknown.
Later that night
The clock on the wall ticked past midnight, its steady rhythm drowned beneath the rapid tapping of keys. Yet Lisa showed no signs of slowing down. Her workspace was a controlled chaos with stacks of notes, scattered beakers, and glowing vials surrounded her like a fortress of obsession. Her eyes, sharp with focus, remained locked on the computer screen as she cross-referenced her findings with every credible scientific source she had access to.
Her roommate/little sister, Lily had turned in long ago, to avoid disturbing her while she slept, Lisa had activated the noise-canceling walls embedded in the floor an implementation to their shared room she had installed when the family was renovating the house. With the press of a button, they rose silently, creating a room within a room. It allowed her to continue her research without the risk of waking anyone or drawing unwanted attention.
Though she doubted anyone in the family would find her research particularly interesting, unless of course, it resulted in an explosion. The noise-canceling walls offered more than just silence. They were also reinforced to contain any unexpected...reactions, preventing her work from becoming a concern to others in the house at this time of night.
"What are you?" she murmured, tapping her chin in thought. "Extraterrestrial origin? Or could this be an undiscovered element altogether?"
She paused for a moment to take a sip of her coffee, the warmth grounding her as her eyes flickered with sharp determination. Bit by bit, she began piecing together her observations, connecting patterns only she could see. The hypothesis forming in her mind was as thrilling as it was terrifying, a possibility that could rewrite everything she thought she understood.
"If this substance isn't of terrestrial origin, it could mean there's more out there," Lisa mused aloud. "Then again...it might be a man-made compound, one with properties we've never documented before."
Her mind buzzed with excitement as she considered the implications of her discovery. This could be her chance to make a significant contribution to science, something that would be written down in the history books.
She dove back into her testing, each step bringing new data, new questions. The minutes blurred into hours, but Lisa remained locked in focus...
Thursday Morning
The first rays of sunlight began to creep through the edges of the window, casting a pale glow over the room. Lisa was still awake.
She hadn't moved from her workspace all night, completely absorbed in her mission to identify the mysterious green substance. Books and research papers lay scattered around her like the wreckage of a long academic storm. She was buried in it, ancient texts, obscure scientific journals, declassified reports, and online databases, each one scoured from front and back for even the slightest clue.
Her eyes were heavy, but her mind refused to rest. The answer had to be in there somewhere. It had to be.
On her desk was another research book about chemical compounds, she flipped through the pages, the sound of rustling paper filling the room as her ink-stained fingers moved at rapid pace.
"There's got to be something," she muttered, her voice tight with growing frustration. Each unanswered question chipped away at her patience, but she pressed on, unwilling to give up the chase.
She needed answers, something, anything, to explain the substance. The thought that she might have stumbled upon a genuine scientific breakthrough had her buzzing with ecstasy. However, amid the thrill, the logical part of her mind refused to let go of the glaring anomalies. She had to make sense of it.
The way the substance behaved defied everything she knew. It would momentarily phase out of the microscope slide as she was doing her tests, as if slipping between realities, only to snap back into place an instant later, unchanged, and unphased. It was as if it were teasing the very concept of physical law. And while she kept trying to define it as "normal," deep down she knew that nothing about what she held was normal in the slightest.
However everyone has their limits...
Lisa slumped back in her chair, rubbing her temples as a wave of fatigue washed over her. The mountain of research she had buried herself under had yielded nothing useful, no breakthroughs, no leads, just dead ends and contradictory data. She was at her wit's end. Her third cup of coffee sat half-empty beside her, cold now, bitter and ineffective. Her eyes burned from staring at the screen for too long, and she could feel her body begging for sleep.
'Maybe this was all a waste of time,' she thought bitterly. 'Maybe there's nothing to find at all.'
Just as she hovered her mouse over the shut down icon, something on her screen caught her eye, a link buried at the bottom of a search result page. The source was far from reputable. In fact, it came from a site she would normally scoff at, it was one of those fringe "kook science" hubs filled with conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and clickbait nonsense.
[Paranormal phenomena and supernatural substance cataloguing...] the headline read.
Lisa *sighed*, her instinct to dismiss it kicking in immediately. On any other day, she would've rolled her eyes, muttered something about intellectual laziness, and moved on. But tonight, after hours of nothing, after the growing gnaw of obsession and exhaustion, she was willing to entertain even the absurd.
'It's either this...or I drink some of that again, and look through the datebooks all over again...probably going to not even sleep today...' she thought grimly, her mind flicking to the stimulant she'd sworn off after it started giving her nosebleeds. She really didn't want to go down that road again.
With no other source to find,
She clicked the link.
The article was credited to a self-proclaimed "paranormal scientist" by the name of Jack Fenton. The layout was crude, filled with wild terminology and unverified claims, but something about it caught her attention. There, buried between the rambling tangents and blurry photos, was a description of a glowing green substance, unstable, energy-reactive, and frequently associated with [ghostly manifestations].
Lisa's eyes widened as she read the article, her scientific skepticism clashing with a strange sense of recognition with in her mind...
'No...it couldn't be...ectoplasm?!'
She leaned closer, rereading the passage again and again. Her logical mind bristled at the idea. But the composition, the reactions, it aligned disturbingly well with her own findings. She felt a cold, creeping sensation in her chest. For the first time all night, she wasn't frustrated. She was intrigued... and just a little unnerved.
Lisa leaned back in her chair again, her arms crossed tightly as the words on the screen continued to blur before her tired eyes. A small, unexpected pang of disappointment crept in beneath her curiosity.
'So it's not something new after all...' she thought. 'Someone's already written about it, even if that someone is a self-proclaimed "paranormal scientist" on a glorified blog full of comic sans and grainy photos.'
She frowned, not just because the discovery might not be hers, but because it meant she couldn't claim to be the first to uncover something extraordinary. As much as she valued truth above ego, the idea that this groundbreaking substance, this scientific enigma, had already been noticed by a man named Jack Fenton of all people, stung more than she expected.
'Even if he's a complete kook, she sighed. I won't rob someone of a genuine discovery, even if the rest of their work reads like a rejected comic book script.' She thought, 'Then again...I should have expected to find that someone had already had discovered the substance if I was looking for a way to explain it...what an oversight...'
But the feeling lingered. That small, hollow ache of not being the first. And yet, a part of her couldn't help but wonder; if Jack Fenton was right about this... what else had he been right about?
A While Later
The sun had finally risen, its light creeping through the blinds and casting golden lines across the cluttered lab. Lisa glanced at the digital clock on her desk and saw that it was-8:55 am. She had been awake all night. Her bloodshot eyes, veined with exhaustion, betrayed her fatigue, though the flicker of determination in them remained.
Leaning back in her chair, Lisa rubbed her eyes, attempting to quiet the mental static of a mind, and the slight pain in her eyes that highlighted that she was overworked and overstimulated. On the screen before her, the crude webpage authored by Jack Fenton still glared back at her. The old paranormal article lingered in her thoughts like an itch she couldn't quite reach.
"It just doesn't make sense," she muttered under her breath. "Science dictates that everything must have a rational explanation."
Her eyes drifted again to the molecular sketch she'd hastily drawn, it was a swirling diagram of anomalies and erratic data. No known element, no documented compound matched its properties. It wasn't just unique; it was impossible.
And yet, there it was.
Her logic pushed back against the growing suspicion in her mind. She didn't want to consider the possibility of the supernatural, but her findings, and the eerie similarity with Jack Fenton's article, demanded that there was something.
Lisa stood and began pacing her room, the crunch of loose papers beneath her feet adding to the noise in her mind.
"Sometimes," she murmured, more to herself than to the room, "the things we can't explain are the ones that demand the most attention. Maybe science just... hasn't caught up yet."
Just as she reached her fourth lap around the lab, a gentle knock echoed from the noise-canceling walls she'd raised earlier. She had made it so that noise from outside the walls would be allowed in, incase there was an emergency she was unaware of.
She blinked, remembering the time. With a sigh, she walked over and pressed a button on her keyboard. The panels retracted soundlessly into the floor.
"Hewlo Wisa!" Lily chirped.
"Hello, youngest sibling," Lisa replied, adjusting her goggles. "How may I assist you?"
"Can you help me tie my shoes? Lincoln usually helps... but I don't want to bother him, since everyone is saying big brothar is feeling weird"
Lisa paused, then nodded. "That should be an easy request. I'll even employ one of my helper-bots to aid you in learning the process."
"Weally?!" Lily's eyes sparkled.
"Of course," Lisa replied, her usual lisp faint but present.
Moments later, Help-Bot, a compact creation resembling a fusion of Therm-O-Bot and FriendBot, rolled forward, cheerfully demonstrating how to loop, pull, and tie shoelaces. Lily giggled, watching with rapt attention as the bot guided her tiny hands.
As Lisa prepared to return to her workstation, another presence approached: Lucy.
"Morning Lisa...Lily" She said in her usual monotone, her face partially veiled by her bangs
With her sudden appearance out of thin air, both girls jumped up and screamed.
"EEEEK!"
"Sorry..." Lucy replied back
"I-It's quite alright...and Good Morning to you as well" Lisa responded back.
"Yeah big sis! It's okay! Good Mormming to you too!" Lily replied, before putting her attention back to the robot showing her how to do the bunny ears method when tying her shoes.
Lucy looked back to Lisa, "Lisa... do you still have that fake ectoplasm I put in the basement? The one I got from that spooky shop at the mall? I went to get it earlier, but I couldn't find it..."
Lisa's eyes widened slightly, her posture stiffening. She had completely forgotten the jar had originally belonged to Lucy.
"I was wondering if you could test it... see if it was infused with anything...paranormal," Lucy added, not noticing the nervous twitch in Lisa's demeanor.
Lisa stiffened momentarily but kept her voice even. "Ah, yes. About that...Unfortunately, one of my robots mishandled the sample. The jar shattered. Out of...pure curiosity, I conducted a brief analysis."
Lucy tilted her head. "And?"
"It turned out to be a mixture of borax, green dye, glue, and water. Nothing unusual. Since the container was compromised and filled with glass shards, I had to dispose of it. Apologies for not informing you sooner. I will, of course, reimburse you."
Lucy was quiet for a moment. "I guess that makes sense... It's just rare for you to forget to mention something like that."
Lisa offered a subtle nod, her eyes not quite meeting Lucy's. "It slipped my mind amid the current workload I am facing..."
Lucy sighed, slightly disappointed. "Alright. Just pay me back later. I was hoping it might be something interesting."
'...I get the feeling she's not telling me the full truth...' Lucy thought to herself, her eyes lingering on Lisa. 'Lisa's smart, almost too smart to just "forget" something like that... especially with something that belonged to me.'
She folded her arms, gaze distant. 'Then again...maybe whatever she's working on really is taking up all her time and focus. She was locked up in her basement lab more than usual lately...but suddenly it was gone, along with my jar of what what she tells me is just slime...it was there one second, then when I go downstairs this morning it's gone...'
Lucy wasn't sure what Lisa was hiding, but she had a feeling it wasn't something trivial.
"Affirmative. I will make sure to reimburse you." Lisa replied, breaking Lucy out of her thoughts,
"Okay...just give me $15 in cash when you have a chance...I'm going to head to my room to grab my poems..." Turning around she walked back down the hall to her room.
As Lucy walked off and Lily continued giggling with Help-Bot, Lisa's thoughts returned to her research. The lie she told Lucy lingered uncomfortably in her mind. She didn't want to deceive her, but under the circumstances, it felt necessary. The substance was unstable-dangerous, even. She didn't know exactly what kind of risk it posed if someone were to come into contact with it, and that uncertainty was enough to keep it under wraps.
She had conducted plenty of experiments on her family before-questionable ones, at times, but there had always been an element of control with each one, there was always a safety net she could rely on. This time, though, she was completely out of her depth. Whatever this substance was, it wasn't something she could predict or contain so easily. And if there was even a small chance it could endanger her family, she had no intention of taking that risk.
She returned her focus back to the robot helping Lily.
Lisa didn't know it at the time, but the very key to all her questions, the mystery that had consumed her whole night, had just woken up... and was now standing just outside his bedroom door.
End Chapter