108. All Blowed Up
Amy had taken a couple of chemistry courses to fulfill general ed requirements, and had done reasonably well in them (reasonably well, that is, compared to how she did in other science classes).
“Chemistry,” Amy says definitively.
“Excellent, excellent, I could use someone who knows her way around volatile chemicals.”
“V-volatile?” Amy now remembers that her labs hadn’t always gone spectacularly. She recalls one that Shannon still refers to as The Towering Inferno. Amy’s eyebrows took a month to grow back afterward.
“Yes, yes, but don’t worry. You’ll be working behind this blast shield so you needn’t be concerned about hurting me or disrupting my other experiments.”
Amy gulps as Doctor Carluzzo leads her back behind a metal wall.
“Now, I’ll need some primary explosives to act as a triggering mechanism for some of my larger explosives, so why don’t you start off by making me up some fulminate of mercury? Mix up as much as you can. Mercury’s in the back, there’s a beaker of nitric acid on the table, and you’ll find a jug of ethanol on the floor over there. Let me know when you’re done.”
Amy walks over to the table. Fulminate of mercury, fulminate of mercury… She isn’t sure if they went over that in her class. Well, the doctor said mercury and nitric acid and ethanol. Surely it was just a matter of combining the three? She grabs an Erlenmeyer flask and some mercury. “Careful with this,” she thought to herself, “Mercury is pretty toxic and can make you go insane. Plus, it can get into your system just by touching it. That’s where the expression ‘mad as a hatter’ comes from; back in the Victorian era they used mercury in the manufacture of hats, and hatters, because they were exposed to mercury fumes, had a high incidence of mental illness.” Amy smiles to herself for remembering this fact. “See!” she thinks, “I’m smart! I’ll figure this out!”
After pouring all the mercury into the flask she adds in the nitric acid, then adds in a generous helping of ethanol, “Which,” she reminds herself, “is just alcohol!” She smiles, quite satisfied with herself. She grabs a glass stirring rod and carefully mixes the ingredients together. No fumes that she can see, no explosions. Eventually the mixture solidifies into a crystalline powder. Amy grabs the flask and turns it over to pour out the fulminate of mercury, but it remains stuck to the bottom of the flask.
Thump! Amy pounds the bottom of the glass. No change.
Thump! Thump! Amy gives it another couple of hits. That seemed to move it a bit! Just a little more…
Thump! Thump! Th-BOOOOOOOOOM!
The fulminate of mercury, being highly volatile and sensitive to shocks, explodes. Amy’s front half is entirely blackened by the explosion. Her clothes are tattered and, in some places, on fire. Amy remains perfectly still for a few moments. The back half of her shirt, no longer attached to the ashen front half, flutters to the floor, followed shortly by the back of her pink bra. The back of her jeans flap down, no longer held up by the now-nonexistent front half, but still moored to her body by her largely-unscathed pant legs. A small fire burns on the scorch-marked front of her heart-print panties.
Amy opens her mouth and with a breathy “Pah!” lets out a puff of smoke. Her eyes roll back in her head and she falls forward, landing with her face on the ground and her smoldering butt in the air. Looks like Amy went out with a bang!
Amy is in no state to continue her adventure or her life.