Chapter Twenty-Six
Iona
Rafe takes command of my hand once again while we walk down the corridor, heading for wherever he stores his Tesla coil. I vaguely know what one of those is. But I've never seen one in person, only on TV programs about Nicola Tesla. Maeve, Rowan, and I used to watch documentaries together. I've missed sharing those experiences with them, and it isn't as enjoyable to watch television by myself. Rafe would love to watch documentaries with me. I'm dead sure of that. He is a scientist, after all.
Rafe halts at the end of the corridor, where two other hallways branch off at either side. Double doors directly ahead of us remain closed. But Rafe pulls out of his trouser pocket what looks like a key card for the door in front of us. He thrusts the key card into a slot, and the door lock chunks.
He must have unlocked the door.
"Is that where your Tesla coil is?" Toby asks.
"Yes, it is." Rafe spreads one arm in a wide gesture. "Come inside my laboratory, the lair of the mad scientist."
Rafe reclaims my hand as we stroll into the large, high-ceilinged room with a railing that separates his contraption from the people wanting to see it. Rafe gives tours of the building, and I'm sure the Tesla coil is the highlight. I tip my head back and realize this chamber has more than a high ceiling. It's enormous. I had noticed, when we were still outside, that one portion of the building stood taller than the rest of the structure. The Tesla coil must be the reason for that.
Once everyone has filed into the chamber, Rafe shuts the doors. "What you see before you is a Tesla coil I designed and built myself before I acquired enough funding to create this research facility. The coil is dormant at the moment. But I am going to demonstrate it for you."
I tip my head back further, trying to grasp the enormity of this room. "Which parts are the coils? Is it the ring near the bottom?"
"Yes, that's part of it. You're very clever, pet. That's the primary coil."
"I'm sure everyone realized what that was."
Our group says "no" at the same time, shaking their heads.
Rafe claims my hand. "You see, Iona, you are the cleverest one in this room."
"Aside from you."
He kisses the top of my head, then proceeds to explain the components of the Tesla coil. I can't focus on every word he says, though, because I'm too busy gazing at him. He sounds quite commanding and sexy when he discusses the spark gap, which involves electrodes or something, and then the transformer. Honestly, the technical aspects of the device fly straight over my head. I pay attention mostly because Rafe is such a dynamic speaker when he's in his natural element---science.
Rafe winks at me, then moves on to other parts of the device.
I must have been mooning at him. I feel as if I were doing that, but I cannae help it.
"And this is the primary coil," he announces while placing one hand on the rim of the whatsit, which reminds me of the heating elements on a cooking stove. "Above that, you'll see the secondary coil. It resembles a round tower."
"Aren't there capacitors?" Eric asks.
"Oh, yes, you are correct." Rafe seems rather sheepish. "I forgot about that. But it isn't my fault. Iona's expression of rapt wonder distracted me from my speech."
I might be blushing. No, I'm too old to behave like a teenage lassie.
"Getting back to the capacitors," Rafe says, "there are two. One is near the bottom. The other is on top of the device, and it's called the top load. If there are no more questions, it's time to demonstrate the Tesla coil."
He flips a switch, and lightning erupts.
Well, it looks like lightning. But I doubt it's the real thing. Despite the arcing bolts of electrical energy that seem just like lightning, Rafe appears relaxed and even a touch smug. He's earned the right to feel a wee bit conceited. The man just created lightning, for heaven's sake.
"Is it safe for us to stand so close?" Courtney asks.
"Yes, pet, it is," Rafe assures her. "But you shouldn't touch the bolts of electricity. The voltage is too high. If this were a smaller coil, it would be safe to briefly touch the bolts." He gestures toward the large device. "What you're seeing is plasma given off by the coil."
Maeve raises her hand.
"Yes, pet? You had a question?"
"Aye. Why have a device like this if you don't do anything with it?"
"I built this coil five years ago as a proof of concept, but also as a therapeutic lesson." Rafe pauses, compressing his lips, then takes a big breath and lets it out. "I was struck by lightning seven years ago and almost died. The bolt that hit me stopped my heart for nearly three minutes, then I revived without any medical intervention. I was hospitalized for several days, however, and I required physical therapy."
He shared his secret at last. Rafe seems much more relaxed now that he's told all of us.
"Building the Tesla coil became another type of therapy for me," he confesses. "I would, and still do, visit this chamber to watch plasma arcs. They approximate lightning."
"What a brave and strong man you are," Rowan says. "No wonder Mam likes you so much. She's just as brave and strong."
Rafe once again seems a wee bit uncomfortable. But when he looks at me, all the discomfort vanishes, and he smiles at me with affection. Then he turns to his audience again. "Shall we move on to the next laboratory?"
Everyone agrees that we should, and we're all quite excited about learning more.
Rafe leads us down one of the side corridors toward a room that's labeled "Precipitation Remote Sensing." I remember he mentioned that at the beginning of the tour. But now he takes us inside the lab to talk about how various types of precipitation can influence a budding storm. I know what remote sensing is, but I had no idea it could be used in this manner.
"My team employs two techniques," Rafe tells us, "to estimate, detect, and measure precipitation. For rain, we use pulses of electromagnetic radiation which bounces off raindrops. But for hail, we rely on satellite microwaves."
When I glance around at our group, not one person seems the least bit bored. On the contrary, their expressions prove they're fascinated by Rafe's work. I am not simply fascinated, though. I adore watching and listening to Rafe. Seeing him like this makes me feel...proud. He went through a harrowing experience and never let it stop him. That lightning strike seems to have made him even more determined to continue his research rather than chasing him away.
Now it's on to the next lab.
In this room, his team analyzes the results of controlled lightning experiments, a technique they've only begun to experiment with recently. For the time being, their experiments are nothing more than computer models. But a successful attempt by a team in Switzerland not long ago proved it can work in the real world. I have no doubts Rafe will do even more with controlled lightning than anyone else might.
Aye, I'm quite biased on the topic of Rafe's brilliant mind.
He takes us to a few more labs where his team does all sorts of things, such as spectral analysis and lightning mapping. But the last stop on our tour might become my personal favorite---transient luminous events.
At first, it doesn't sound terribly exciting. When we walk into the room, I see banks of computers where experts are doing who knows what. Something to do with lightning, I assume. A large screen occupies one wall, but that screen is dormant right now.
Rafe leads us toward the big screen, then turns around to face us. "I believe we have enough chairs over there, stacked up in the corner, for everyone to take a seat. You lot must be tired of standing."
Eric, Toby, and Phillip rush to find the chairs and set them down for the rest of us. Once we're all seated, Rafe begins his lecture.
"Raise your hand if you know what transient luminous events are."
No hands are raised.
"Sorry, Dad," Toby says. "Even I don't know what that rubbish is."
Rafe smirks. "You won't call it 'rubbish' anymore once you've seen this presentation."
"Go on, Rafe," Eric says. "Impress the hell out of us."
The man I desperately want to drag into a closet and shag turns halfway toward the large screen. He picks up a remote- control device, and the screen lights up with his introductory slide---"The Beauty and Mysteries of Transient Luminous Events or TLEs, Presented by Rafe Knight, PhD."
He has a PhD? Why hadn't he mentioned that to me?
I forget about that question once he begins his presentation. He is dead sexy when he's in his element. Well, he's dead sexy all the time, but especially when he gives a lecture on unusual whatsits.
Rafe picks up an old-school pointer stick made of wood, using it to enhance his presentation. "Transient Luminous Events are also known as upper atmospheric lightning or ionospheric lightning. They're called that because they exist primarily in the ionosphere which is another term for the upper atmosphere. But I won't bore you with every little detail. I've brought you to this room to show you what those terms refer to, rather than talking about them."
Eric raises a hand. "I hope you aren't going to show us cartoons to illustrate what you're talking about. My old geology professor loved to do that, but it's really lame."
"I agree, and I never employ cartoons." Rafe waves a hand toward the left side of the room, where a young man sits in front of a computer fiddling about with it. "Everyone, meet our top man on the ionospheric phenomena team. Eddie, please give a quick hello to the group."
"Hey, guys, I'm Eddie Barstow from Lancashire, and I've been working at this laboratory for three years. You're going to love Rafe's presentation. It's wild in the best way."
"Would you start the show, please, Eddie? We didn't need your life story." Rafe turns toward our group, raising his pointer once again. "Now, watch this video and see if you can catch what's going on."
The video plays, but I'm not sure what I'm seeing. It can't be what it seems. That's impossible. But if there's one thing I've learned from Rafe, it's that I shouldn't take anything at face value without investigating. That doesn't apply to my family or close friends. But my journalist instincts often kick in when I'm unable to sort out something I see or hear.
Rafe taps his pointer on the screen. "Did any of you catch that?"
"Catch what?" Toby says. "All I saw was clouds. Looked like a thunderstorm with a few flashes of lightning."
"That's all you gleaned from the video."
"Yeah. Was I meant to see Santa Claus?"
Rafe shakes his head and sighs. "No, Toby, this isn't a Christmas show on the telly. Does anyone else have an idea what we just witnessed?"
No one responds.
So, I raise my hand.
Rafe smiles at me sweetly. "Yes, love, what did you see?"
"Well, um, it looked like blue flashes. Higher up, I thought I saw quick tendrils of red coming down from above the clouds. And..." I hesitate, because what I think I noticed couldn't be. It's too bizarre.
"You saw something else, didn't you? Go on, pet, I haven't known you to be shy."
"I'm not. But it sounds mad because I swear I saw a green ring, briefly, surrounding the red tendrils."
"That is precisely what you saw, Iona." Rafe speaks to the entire group now. "Those transient luminous events are also known as blue jets, elves, and sprites. They exist so briefly that the human eye can rarely spot them. Sprites also have sub-variations known as jellyfish, column, and carrots. You might be able to see a sprite now and then."
Maeve bumps her arm into my shoulder. "Mam is the smartest person in Scotland, if not the world."
I roll my eyes. "Dinnae be ridiculous. I'm hardly a genius. Rafe is far more knowledgeable than I am."
The man in question shakes his head at me. "Don't underestimate yourself, love. Maeve is right. You are the smartest person I've ever met. No offense, Toby."
"None taken, Dad. Iona is awesome. When can I officially become her stepson?"
Rafe ignores Toby's question. "Most of these events are born from positive lightning that shoots upward from the top of a thundercloud. These phenomena are rare and, as the name implies, highly transient. It's unusual for these events to be seen by the naked eye."
He continues with his presentation, telling us about all sorts of unusual and interesting phenomena related to weather. But I have trouble focusing. Aye, every word he says is fascinating. The problem is that I can't stop thinking about what Toby said. He wants to become my stepson. I don't know everything about Rafe's relationship with his ex-wife, though it's clear from what he has told me that she denigrated him every chance she could.
Did she treat Toby that way? At least he has his father, who loves him and would do anything for him. The same goes for Rafe. He knows Toby adores him and would protect him at any cost.
I would do anything for Rafe too.