“Chirp! Cheep! Chirp!”
The class stared at the chirpy foal, placed in a large clear apparatus. While some looked at the foal itself, most were more interested in the pressure gauges, complex valve systems, and heavily reinforced airtight fittings of the machine. The foal, having been placed in the container hours ago, was desperately seeking its mummah, hunger having set in some time ago, but there was nowhere it could go.
“I really am disappointed in this class,” the professor’s tone was a mixture of sadness and a noticeable tinge of frustration. "Out of all of you, only three students showed each step of their work, and most of you didn’t even double-check your work. This makes me more sad than you can know.
“Now, I’m sure you all didn’t intentionally slack off doing your work so I’d do this demonstration again,” this drew chuckles from throughout the room, which in turn drew a scowl from the professor. "Although I’m sure if I read any of the professor-rating sites it’d be the only reason people recommend my class. It probably isn’t my winning personality, sadly.
"Regardless, I am genuinely disappointed, even if I do understand your reasons. This subject matter isn’t a joke. This is serious stuff. I’m sure a lot of you hear fluid dynamics and fall asleep halfway through. How many of you took this class because you just wanted to work on deep-sea-mining tech? Don’t answer that.
"Listen, I’m being 100% serious here. This is NOT a joke. If you get a job as a tech on these mining rigs and you screw up, people will die. I know reading about friction of gas flowing through a pipe isn’t glamorous, but it is important. If you screw up the math and something ruptures, well, that’s not something I want on my conscience.
"I know I’m a harsh grader. I know I’m not the most charismatic of professors. But believe me when I say this: I want what’s best for you and for the people who’ll be relying on your work. A good oceanic mining tech makes the big bucks because we can’t afford bad ones.
"But none of you give a damn about what I’m saying now, do you? You just want to satisfy your curiosity. Reading about the various incidents, it’s probably got you wondering what the event is really like. Now, earlier in my career we’d use something like a balloon full of red dye to get the point across, but these days we have more…accurate human analogues.
“Since the last assignment was on decompression chambers, that’s what type of failure I’ll be demonstrating here. You all know what’s going to happen, so let’s just cut the chatter and get to it, shall we?”
The professor walked to the control panel and messed with a few controls. The foal was completely oblivious to this, as it was to the massive pressure differential that’d been building up over the last few hours. Not that either piece of information would have meant anything to a fluffy anyway, let alone a chirpy foal.
With a sudden “WHUMP!” noise, a carefully calibrated failure point did what it was designed to do. Suddenly, the foal was exposed to an extreme pressure gradient, gasses rushing to escape the chamber it was in through a tiny hole. And as with all things, the gas pushed the foal along.
With a surprised “CHEE-” the foal was yanked towards the door by the change in pressure. Most of the pressure had normalized by the time the comparatively dense foal reached the hole, but more than enough remained. The foal didn’t even have time to chirp or cry out as its internal organs were ripped through the hole, the more rigid skeleton resisting the decreased pressure and keeping the head, limbs, and ribs on the proper side of the hole.
Whether or not the foal expired instantly was irrelevant. The massive instantaneous trauma from having its lungs, stomach, intestines, and other vital organs violently ripped out caused it to pass out, and in the best case it would have survived only a few more seconds anyway, not long enough to regain consciousness. While horribly gory, its demise had been quick and almost painless, a much kinder fate than many other foals purchased by the university experienced.
A few voices cheered, but were cut off as the professor screamed into the microphone in sudden rage. His words were incoherent, but after a moment he seemed to calm, and his anger turned to sadness and disappointment.
“Whoever cheered, get the fuck out of my class and don’t you dare pursue a job in this industry. You think this is fucking funny? It might only be a fluffy now, but it could easily have been a co-worker, a friend, maybe even family. This isn’t a show, a piece of entertainment, this is a warning. This kind of thing can happen, does happen, to people.”
He looked at the remains of the foal, sprayed across the interior of the larger chamber, and sighed. He’d always hated doing this, but it was a better fate than the foal would have gotten if it’d ended up in the chemistry or biology classes. Chlorine poisoning and vivisection weren’t good ways to go.
In the shocked silence of the classroom, he heard a few people retching, and the sound of vomit hitting the floor, and smiled. Good. He was getting through to a few of them. Maybe he could stop there being another incident like the one with Michael. Maybe they would take this lesson to heart and be careful.
After all, what’s the value of a fluffy compared to potential human lives?
Always good to find value in the worthless
The professor isnt wrong, its true lives are at stake on the actual job they are pursuing and thats just a sampled simulation.
Reminds me of my 1st year college in Painting, Nude. Before we start on our first actual nude drawing session we get the same serious warning like the professor in the story.
“If you gonna giggle, snicker, oggle at the model I suggest you leave my class and NEVER come back! You are here as an artist not some cheap ass hobos!”
So I know how it feels.
This is a nice bit of writing and feels very real.
Explain this bit, please?
The story is marvellous though, as someone with some sense, I understand the professor. Maybe he should show this experiment and then let them see the human body photos? As ‘this is what it looks like, and this is the aftermath’
I began reading and when reaching the part of what might happen I know what to expect… and it triggered a memory of a news article I read regarding an accident involving deep sea welders. The professor was spot on about the need to know the consequences. Tip my hat to the professor and his creator. You write well, @MuffinMantis
It implies that there’s a bit more of a reason why the professor cares so much. It ties to the part when he specifically says “a co-worker, friend, maybe even family” since he’s lost someone he cares about to a similar engineering failure.
Yeah, pressure differences don’t play nice with human tissue. There have been cases of people being pulled through a hatch, but only half of them, or cases where a sudden pressure loss causes lungs to rupture. It’s pretty gnarly stuff.
Aw ;-;
Scary stuff and definitely something that people need to be aware of if they are to work in those kind of enviornments.
Yep, the Byford Dolphin incident.