#kerching

The panel of vague intent was chatting quietly. A break between speakers.

“Who do we have next?” Asked one member of the panel, turning to the member beside them who adjusted their spectacles and looked at the list for that day.

“Mildred Avarice. To talk about money. Apparently,” they said, wrinkling their nose.

“Ah. Interesting,” said the first panel member. They were lying. This wasn’t interesting.

“It IS! Interesting!” Said Mildred, entering dynamically on a wheeled trolley which carried on its way even after she’d dismounted. The trolley banged into a wall some distance away but Mildred had stopped caring about it by that point. She had a presentation to give and had switched modes appropriately, standing before the panel as only an expert could.

“As you may or may not know gentlepersons I am a cashologist - I am involved in the study of money, of cash! Its properties, its effects. I study them all. All of it. I study it,” she said, trailing off into redundancy. She had not received the correct training to avoid this. She was an academic, not a redundancy avoider. These things were completely separate. Mutually exclusive, as far as she was concerned.

“We are aware of this, yes. It is why you were booked,” said the most senior member of the panel.

Everyone was giving her a look which suggested they’d seen weirder things in their time. Which was about right, because they had. It took more than an academic entering at speed on a trolley to rattle this panel.

Mildred cleared her throat. She wasn’t used to such a muted reaction. Normally at least someone cheered. This time not a one. It was quite disconcerting.

“Well then. Let’s get started,” she said, clapping her hands and summoning the wheeled trolley back over to her. It leapt at the command and wheezed to a halt by her feet, as it had been trained. Mildred wasn’t going to let something like a lack of cheering upset her momentum.

Giving the trolley a sharp kick she popped open the top, which turned out to have been a lid. From within the trolley she pulled all of her presentation apparatus. It was astounding just how much she’d managed to pack into the thing but then again she’d had the practise. In short order there was a screen, a projector, a small box of indeterminate purpose and a high grade pointing stick, which she unfolded to its full length.

Then she remembered that she actually needed to turn the projector on first, and that unfolding one’s pointing stick before the presentation was started properly was a massive breach of etiquette. A cascade of monocles fell from a nearby cabinet but this appeared to be unrelated. Mildred got the projector going and got started. She had wasted enough time.

“Gentlepersons. Collected humans. Plainly demonstrated on this graph you may see that money naturally percolates upwards, away from the less fortunate and towards the more fortunate - widening the gap between the two in the process. Long suspected to be figuratively true we finally took to studying it and found solid, tangible proof of this phenomenons actual, tangible, physical existence. This is simply nature.”

A good opener, she could see they were hooked already. Or at least she assumed they were - the darkness the panel was sitting in combined with the brightness of the projector she was squinting against made it impossible to tell, but everyone was hooked by this point so it just stood to reason that the panel was, too.

“Our efforts at harnessing this effect were initially unsuccessful,” she said, demonstrating the lack of success with another, fancier graph. It had columns and dots and a wiggly line and everything. Very impressive. Some members of the panel cooed in appreciation. They fucking loved a good graph.

“Further refinement and experimentation discovered that - with the proper combination of spare change, notes and bank statements - a person can use the tangible force of wealth to affect actual, upward momentum.”

Mildred let this hang. From the sound of things (there had been a murmur or two of understanding) a few on the panel got it, but most clearly hadn’t. This was intended, because Mildred enjoyed the next bit.

“Flight! Wealth allows them to fly! Money always aims to move higher! Higher and higher! At first this was thought to be figurative, but money is simple and easily tricked!”

This the panel was simply skeptical about. To be sure, they had encountered and had demonstrated for them many outlandish concepts and devices in their time, but fresh and healthy skepticism was simply a habit one did not grow out of. They regarded Mildred levelly.

“And presumably you have an example of this for us?” Asked a member of the panel. Mildred beamed.

“I am glad you asked! The answer is yes, of course I do. And I even have a volunteer to demonstrate!”

With a clap she brought in her volunteer, a perky young soul who looked happy to be included. They had been strapped into a wealth-aviation device prior to this moment and clanked and rattled with every step, the various fins and rudders stuck about their person waggling.

The device itself bears some mention. From the outside it did not look like much. From the outside, in fact, it looked rather like an old-fashioned vacuum cleaner that had been hollowed-out, sealed up, fitted with straps and then secured to a smiling young person. This was because it was a vacuum cleaner that had been hollowed-out, sealed up, fitted with straps and then secured to a smiling young person.

It was, after all, only a prototype.

The insides were the important parts, the parts that would make the whole thing do what it was meant to do. They were also the parts that were clanking and jingling.

“Behold! The device!” Mildred said, taking the volunteer and turning them around on the spot so that the important part was the part facing the panel. The panel, from a distance, scrutinised the device. They knew from experience that it wasn’t worth the trouble or the risk getting too close to one of these things, not at such an early stage in its development. A safe distance was preferable.

This was fine and standard practise. Mildred continued with her demonstration and explanation combo.

“A carefully calibrated blend of coins and other collected currency is stored at pressure within the device. It yearns to soar! To ascend! The only thing keeping it and the lovely volunteer wearing it grounded is a specially designed series of valves, as seen here.”

Mildred used her pointing stick for its natural purpose, and pointed with it. The series of valves was obvious, and impressive. There was light applause. Mildred bowed.

“With the merest of adjustments we can see the ascension process in action. If you observe…”

She lent in to fiddle and adjust. The volunteer smiled blissfully at the wall they were facing, just happy to be included. They’d been promised a biscuits as a reward for their participation, but this was merely a cherry on top of the whole thing. They would gladly have done it without the offer. They were just like that.

“There!” Mildred said. A quiet hissing filled the room, growing louder by the moment as she hurried back and away from the volunteer. On their back, the prototype started to shake and buck.

With a lurch and a sudden rush of air the prototype took off skywards, yanking a yelping volunteer with it. There was a crash as they disappeared through the ceiling and another, quieter series of further crashes as they carried on through every other ceiling on their way up until finally blasting clear through the roof and out into the sky beyond.

The device was robust, and would likely survive when it finally came back down to earth and was recovered. The volunteer was replaceable, and would likely wipe clean from the device with minimal staining and residue. Overall things could have gone worse.

A lump of building fell from the hole in the roof. Mildred turned to the panel and clapped, grinning and turning off the projector.

“It is still in the prototype stage,” she said.

“Even so, your work shows promise! We would be happy to support this! At a Tentativity rating of level two!” Said a member of the panel amidst nods and smiles of agreement.

This was a pretty good rating, by most standards. Mildred was thrilled. Such success! She turned her face to the side, the rather odd lighting in the room combining with the harsher light of the projecting and throwing her features into sharp relief.

“They laughed at me, called me mad!”

“You are aware you’re still standing in front of us, giving a presentation? And that we can hear you?” One of the panel asked, mildly taken aback by this odd turn of events. Beaming once more, she faced the panel head-on again.

“Of course, my apologies. I was simply caught up in the moment,” Mildred said before looking away again and clenching a resolute fist.

“I’ll show them, I’ll show them all!”

“Please Mildred, can you swear your oaths of vengeance on your own time. We’re busy people.”

They’d heard it all before, anyway.

“Sorry,” said Mildred, somewhat sheepishly.

The prototype was later recovered after having collided with (and downing) a small passenger plane with only minimal loss of limb.

What could be scraped up of the volunteer was buried with their biscuit.

Progress continued.