Six teaching plates

Each plate is the folklore, then the mechanism that would produce it. The copperplate atlas is the rest of the cabinet. These six are the door.

1. They live on blood.

   Fig. VI · HHDRV

   Plate XV · teaching

   Bio-voltaic drive

   the iron cascade

   A pint ≈ 450 kcal. That cannot run this body.

   Blood carries the charge. Fat already in the body is what burns. Iron is only the match.

   • Electrolyte

     blood

     The wet wiring. It carries the current. It is not lunch.

   • Catalyst

     iron shuttle

     Fe²⁺ donates the electron and becomes Fe³⁺. That is why they must feed again.

   • Fuel

     host reserves

     Fat, sugar, spare protein banked after feeding. The pint does not pay this bill.

   Stomach: metalloproteases and haem oxygenases. Not a pH 2–3 acid vat.

   Filed banner reads Fe³⁺ → e⁻ donation and “bio-voltaic metabolism.” Withdrawn. Fe²⁺ donates. The public name is drive.

   Yield

   ~95%

   Interval

   3–4 days

   Heat

   runs cold

   Unlocked

   4,200–4,500 kcal

   Blood is the spark, not the fuel.

   Open the plate

2. The pale, sweet-sick skin.

   Fig. VII · HHDRV

   Plate XIV · teaching

   Waste sinks

   porphyric oil and the bone sink

   Oil and bone. Mass is conserved.

   What goes in has to go somewhere. It leaves as a film on the skin and as plate in the bone.

   • Oil

     dermis

     Porphyrin fragments esterified into a cutaneous film. Pallor. The sweet-sick smell.

   • Bone

     mineral sink

     Residue packed into the thoracic armour. The organism wears its waste.

   Urea

   almost none

   CO₂

   ~10–20%

   Porphyrin

   industrial

   Mass is conserved. Oil and bone.

   Open the plate

3. Silver kills them.

   Fig. XIX · HHDRV

   Plate XXIII · teaching

   Silver at 1.24 volts

   galvanic short

   1.24 V. Contact must reach circulation.

   HHDRV route — not the Lycian COX route.

   Silver and the iron this body runs on sit too far apart on a battery. Touch blood, and the battery dumps.

   1. 1 · Silver

      +0.80 V. The blessed metal is a position on the series.

   2. 2 · Iron-sulphur

      The drive’s [4Fe-4S] cluster sits near −0.44 V.

   3. 3 · Electrolyte

      Blood and tissue close the cell. Intact skin does not.

   4. 4 · Short

      1.24 V across the bio-voltaic chain. The fuel cell dumps.

   Ag

   +0.80 V

   Fe-S

   −0.44 V

   Cell

   1.24 V

   1.24 volts. Contact must reach circulation.

   Open the plate

4. The man becomes a wolf.

   Fig. V · LCAN

   Plate XI · teaching

   Hydraulic engine

   a human skeleton under load

   Mass conserved. Crouched biped, not a wolf.

   Nothing new is grown. Blood is pumped into muscle. The coat is hair for one night.

   • MASS CONSERVED
   • NOT A QUADRUPED

   1. 1 · Redistribution

      Blood leaves viscera and fills the muscle bed. Apparent mass is fluid.

   2. 2 · Contraction

      Tonic load on a human skeleton. Crouched biped, not a canid.

   3. 3 · Coat

      Keratin shafts for the night. Shed by dawn. Not new tissue.

   4. 4 · Skull

      Zygomatic arches splayed. Human face used as a pressure vessel.

   Filed label “ZYGOMATIC ARCHES SPLATED” is SPLAYED. The beast is not redrawn.

   Mass

   none created

   Flush

   4 seconds

   Programme

   4–6 hours

   Mass conserved. Crouched biped, not a wolf.

   Open the plate

5. The full moon.

   Fig. II · LCAN

   Plate III · teaching

   Ignition key

   full-moon geometry

   Not any bright night.

   Geometry plus spectrum. Not brightness.

   A lamp at the same brightness does nothing. It has to be that moon, in that line, that colour, at night.

   1. 1 · Geometry

      The sun, you, and the moon in a straight line. That alignment, not a calendar.

   2. 2 · Colour

      Extra light at one blue-violet band, about 410–415 nm. Not ‘bright’.

   3. 3 · Night only

      The eye is primed for dark. Noon sun has more of that colour and still does not fire it.

   4. 4 · Not a lamp

      Streetlight at the same brightness does nothing. It drowns the key.

   Opposition

   ~40%

   Band

   410–415 nm

   Window

   night only

   Not any bright night.

   Open the plate

6. Silver kills both.

   Fig. IX · OVERLORD

   Plate IX · teaching

   Silver convergence

   two kills, one metal

   One metal. Two chemistries.

   Coincidence has too much work to do.

   The same silver kills two unrelated organisms for two different chemical reasons. That is the tell that both files belong on one desk.

   1. 1 · Vampire route

      Silver shorts the iron battery. 1.24 volts. Blood has to wet the metal.

   2. 2 · Werewolf route

      Silver jams a different enzyme. Same metal. Different lock.

   3. 3 · 1947

      One recovered body carried both signatures. After that date it is a management problem.

   4. 4 · Not a hybrid

      When the two biologies meet they tear the host. Pathology, not a new creature.

   Contact

   1947

   Vampire cell

   1.24 V

   Werewolf lock

   second enzyme

   The file

   numbers lie

   One metal. Two chemistries.

   Open the plate

After you know which book you are in, the cabinet is there.