Mark Iplier and the Accident of a Thousand Degrees
Head Engineer Mark Iplier was famous across the galaxy for two things: building impossible machines and refusing to leave well enough alone. His greatest achievement was the Invincible 2, a massive exploration spaceship capable of traveling farther than any vessel before it. The ship contained advanced laboratories, artificial gravity systems, and engines powerful enough to cross entire star systems in days. But even after completing the ship, Mark couldn't stop inventing. Every week he worked on a new experiment in Laboratory Deck Seven. Most were harmless. Some were strange. A few were dangerous. One evening, while the Invincible 2 drifted near a newly discovered star, Mark began testing his latest invention: the Thermal Resonance Chamber. His goal was simple—create a device that could absorb heat from one location and transfer it somewhere else. If successful, it could protect ships from stars, volcanoes, and engine meltdowns. Unfortunately, the machine had one tiny flaw. Mark forgot to account for a rare crystal that powered the chamber. As he activated the device, alarms immediately sounded.
"Warning," the ship's computer announced. "Thermal instability detected."
"That's probably fine," Mark said.
It was not fine.
The crystal overloaded. Blue energy erupted from the chamber. Temperatures shot from freezing cold to hotter than a star's surface in seconds. The laboratory shook violently.
Mark rushed toward the emergency shutdown switch. He almost made it.
The chamber exploded in a burst of white light.
For a moment, the entire room froze solid. The next moment, it became an inferno. Then everything went dark. When Mark woke up in the medical bay, the ship's doctor looked shocked.
"Mark," she said, "you should be dead."
"I get that a lot."
"No, really. You were exposed to temperatures that should have vaporized you."
Mark sat up. "But I'm okay."
"Exactly."
Tests revealed something impossible had happened. The energy blast had altered his body's cells. Somehow, they now adapted instantly to extreme temperatures.
To prove it, the doctor handed him a block of ice colder than deep space. Mark picked it up with his bare hand. Nothing happened. The cold didn't hurt him. Next, they heated a metal rod until it glowed orange. Mark grabbed it. Still nothing. The heat didn't hurt him. His skin color changed and looked like some oilspill right where the cold and the heat touched his skin.
His body had become resistant to temperature itself.
News spread quickly across the Invincible 2.
The crew called him "The Thousand-Degree Engineer." Mark hated the nickname.
A month later, his strange new ability became useful. While exploring a volcanic moon, the Invincible 2 suffered an engine malfunction. One of the cooling systems failed, causing the reactor chamber to reach catastrophic temperatures. No crew member could enter.
The heat would melt protective suits instantly.
Mark volunteered.
"You sure?" asked the captain.
"I caused this sort of problem once," Mark replied. "Might as well fix it."
He entered the reactor chamber alone.
Rivers of molten metal flowed beneath the walkways. Warning lights flashed everywhere.
To anyone else, the chamber would have been a furnace. To Mark, it felt like a warm summer day.
He climbed through the reactor systems, replaced damaged components, and restored the cooling network. Within minutes, the temperatures returned to normal.
The crew cheered as he returned safely.
From then on, Mark used his unusual condition to protect the ship. He repaired frozen systems on icy worlds, worked beside active volcanoes, and rescued crew members trapped in dangerous environments.
Still, whenever people asked how he gained his powers, he always gave the same answer:
"By making a mistake so spectacular that physics gave up trying to stop me."
And despite nearly destroying Laboratory Deck Seven, Mark continued performing experiments.
The captain eventually installed a giant sign above the laboratory door:
MARK IPLIER'S EXPERIMENTS
PROCEED WITH EXTREME CAUTION
The sign turned out to be a very good idea.
{A BIG THANK YOU FOR GIVING ME THIS IDEA: @avathemultiverseexplorer }
[ @ask-the-captaininspace ]
