Chapter 125: A Hammer Falling from the Sky
My name is Jane Foster. I'm an astrophysicist.
Over the past several weeks, I identified seventeen distinct atmospheric disturbances embedded in my data, each one following a regular pattern.
None of them fit any existing meteorological model. To investigate what was causing them, I decided to come to New Mexico and run the research in person.
On the way here, I ran into a man named Matthew Lawrence, who described himself as an amateur astronomy enthusiast.
It didn't take long to figure out that the self-described amateur was actually a very wealthy person who preferred not to advertise the fact.
He had since provided our team with a full set of updated research equipment and a new vehicle, which had substantially elevated his importance to the operation.
Research needs resources above everything else. And sometimes a well-disposed backer matters more than an extra pair of hands in the lab.
Not that I'm complaining.
Night.
New Mexico.
Inside a large, heavily modified RV.
Jane Foster sat in the passenger seat with her eyes fixed on the instruments in front of her. Behind her sat her mentor, Dr. Erik Selvig, and a newly arrived intern, Darcy Lewis.
Erik was standing in the spacious cabin, holding a steaming cup of coffee. He had been in this vehicle for several days now. A recreational vehicle of this caliber was still a novelty to him.
He took a careful sip and spoke in a measured tone. "Jane. There's no point sitting here like this."
"Those seventeen atmospheric disturbances you've identified could easily be coincidence. They don't prove anything on their own."
Beside him, Darcy was sprawled against her seat playing the portable gaming console Matthew had given her, chiming in without looking up. "He's right."
"Mr. Lawrence went and got us all this equipment. What have we actually detected today? Nothing."
Jane turned from the instruments. "I've been able to time each of those seventeen disturbances to the second. Every single one of them. Doesn't that tell you something?"
"Jane. You're an astrophysicist. Not a storm chaser."
"I've been telling you, the atmospheric disturbances are directly connected to my research." She said it with the patience of someone repeating a point for the fifth time. "And Erik, honestly: if there was really nothing here, do you think I would have had you fly all this way?"
She glanced toward the front of the vehicle. "Besides. Mr. Lawrence has put significant money into funding this. I can hardly let all of it go to waste."
Hearing his name, Matthew spread his hands in the driver's seat without turning around. "Don't worry about the money. It's nothing, as far as I'm concerned. Think of it as a vacation."
A brief pause.
"Though I'll admit, I'm genuinely interested in what you're working on."
And as they were talking.
The sky above them, which had been pressing down dark and heavy with cloud cover, suddenly broke open into color. Seven-colored light spread across the cloud layer in every direction, a wash that looked like something between an aurora and a special effect.
The conversation stopped. Everyone looked toward the distant sky.
"What is that?"
Jane turned sharply to the readout on her computer. She stared at the numbers for two seconds, then pushed the door open and stepped out, binoculars already in hand.
The others followed, one by one, binoculars up.
"Is that... the aurora?" Darcy lowered her binoculars and looked at Jane.
Erik was standing outside the vehicle watching the light, which was growing more prominent by the second. The corners of his mouth had developed an involuntary twitch. "Jane. Didn't you say it would be a faint aurora?"
"Why does it keep getting larger?"
Jane dropped her binoculars, didn't answer, and went straight back to the vehicle. "Everyone get in. We need to go check this out."
That was when it clicked for the rest of them.
Matthew was back in the driver's seat in a single motion. Once everyone was inside, he put his foot down.
The vehicle launched forward.
There was something unmistakably excited in Matthew's eyes.
Jane sat in the passenger seat tracking the readout and telling Matthew to get closer. And as the aurora continued spreading across the sky, a storm assembled beneath it with a speed that had no business being called weather: one moment there was nothing, the next moment a towering wall of wind and debris filled the landscape from the ground to the horizon.
Jane looked through the windshield at what had materialized in the span of a single blink, and called to Matthew: "Mr. Lawrence, if you can, I need you closer. We'll be able to observe much more clearly up close."
"Not a problem."
Matthew gave her a thumbs-up. "Absolutely wild!"
"Wild?"
"That's right. Wild!"
And then he drove directly into the storm.
In the back seat, Darcy watched Matthew's expression with the look of someone who had significantly miscalculated what she'd agreed to. She put the gaming console down, found her seatbelt, and began making the sign of the cross with considerable speed and repetition.
"Hey. Jane. Is it too late to get out of the car?"
"Get out? Why?" Jane looked at her in genuine puzzlement.
Darcy's voice had acquired a slight tremor. "I kind of thought this was going to be a normal, boring observation run. At this point I'm starting to think those six credits you promised are going to have to be earned with my actual life."
"I came because I heard there were credits," she added quietly.
Outside the windows, the storm had picked up large amounts of sand and gravel. It hit the glass with a sustained crackling sound that sat somewhere between rain and rifle fire.
"Are we sure we want to be this close?"
"I feel like if we get any closer we're going to get swept right off the ground." Darcy made one more attempt to reason with Matthew, who showed no signs of slowing down.
"Don't worry. This vehicle has excellent build quality."
"So it won't get swept off the ground?"
"No. Meaning even if it does, it won't fall apart on the way down."
Mid-sentence.
A dull impact landed on the roof of the vehicle, and Matthew's foot came off the accelerator and found the brake in the same instant.
The vehicle stopped hard. A figure launched off the roof and rolled several meters across the ground.
"Is that..." Jane stared at the shape in the distance, not quite sure what she was looking at. "Is that a person?"
"Should we get out and have a look?" Darcy ventured, carefully.
"Good idea," Erik said.
The storm had come quickly and was already going. Sand and dust settled back toward the ground, and within moments the air had cleared enough to see by.
They climbed out. Everyone stood and looked at the motionless figure on the ground.
Matthew was the last one out, and he wasn't looking at Thor, who lay there without a trace of his former power. He was looking at the clouds.
At the meteor that had taken its time arriving.
With Matthew's eyesight, he could see it clearly.
It wasn't a meteorite.
It was a hammer.
Mjolnir. Thor's hammer. Affectionately known in certain circles as "meow meow."
Odin had apparently placed an enchantment on it: only someone deemed worthy by the hammer itself could lift it.
He had to wonder whether someone with his particular profile, an upstanding young man and committed philanthropist devoted to impoverished children, struggling students, and the many people sleeping rough throughout New York, might be found worthy in the hammer's assessment.
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