This year, a dark threat looms over MIT. In the early 90s, there was an associate professor at MIT named Lawrence Winters. His field: insulation technology. He was brilliant. His work in insulation was groundbreaking, and let to great advances in electrical engineering. Although he was a genius in his field, he lacked discipline as a scientist. In 1996, an MIT freshmen inadvertently plagiarized Winters' work by not citing his sources in proper MLA format. Winters was furious. The student's body was found on top of the dome days later--he had been suffocated by insulation. Winters was up for tenure that year, and although nothing was ever proven, the tenure board felt that although he was well qualified, in light of the recent events, they should deny him tenure and wait a few years until everyone had forgotten about the incident. In a rage, Winters left MIT and took a teaching position at Harvard. He rose to the top of the engineering department, teaching all 4 of harvard's engineering students in years he spent there. In 2001, he ran for president of harvard and lost. Furious and hurt, he abandoned the academic life and retreated to Somerville, where he was silent...until now. Recently, strange events have been happening on the MIT campus. In various labs, graduate students have noticed that wires seem thicker than normal, as if they've been heavily insulated. The MIT nanosoldier, a micron-size sentient soldier based on 1-atom thick silicon dioxide insulation technology suddenly grew to the size of a man, and went on a shooting rampage in the infinite corridor. Late night hackers at MIT have reported seeing an unknown caped man running on the roofs at night. When hailed by the traditional hacker call of "IHTFP," the man only replied with "I am the insulator," and disappeared into the night. The MIT campus has over 10,000 miles of wiring. Recently, all of the wiring has grown thicker and better insulated. Walls are bulging outwards from the pressure of the growing wires within them. Cable racks have collapsed under the increased weight. Recently, Rodney Brooks, the head of CSAIL met with MIT president Susan Hockfield. He's had his graduate students working night and day modeling this phenomenon, and he projects that if the rate of insulation growth remains constant, MIT will be smothered with insulation within two weeks. However, the rate of growth isn't constant. It's been accelerating. The latest graduate student model has shown that if current trends continue, MIT only has 48 hours before the institvte has filled with insulation. Brooks is powerless to stop the spred of insulation, and it looks like MIT is doomed. A senior in the sloan school of management, working late one night, is crushed to death when his power strip swells to the size of a polar bear. The MIT community worried that someone of value to the world might be next. As growth continues, panic begins to spread throughout the halls of the 140 year old institute. Alone in her office, President Hockfield paces back and forth. Her carpet has worn thin underneath her feet. The university, which it is her duty to protect, has fallen under attack. She has no choice, time is running out. She removes a picture of MIT's founder William Rogers from her wall and opens the safe hidden behind it. She removes a small black box with a single red button on it from the safe. A label on its side reads SparkSummoner Placing it on her desk, she presses the button. The box begins a steady beeping, sending out a signal intended for one man... Half a mile away, in lecture hall 32-123, mild-mannered MIT sophomore Philip Tekel is in the middle of 6.004 lecture. His cell phone begins beeping insistently. He knows that sound--it can mean only one thing. Quietly walking out of the back of the lecture hall, he stands in the stata center lobby. The walls seem bulbous, twisted, and barely structural. Surely there's not a moment to lose. Breaking into a run, he rips off his shirt revealing... His other shirt underneath. Cursing, he pulls it over his head. He tried to take off his pants, but they get stuck around his shoes. Cursing, he falls on his side. Untying his shoes, he rips off his pants and remaining shirt, and leaps to his feet as THE SPARK defender of the institute punisher of electronic misdeeds Without a second to spare, he sprints into the night outside. Minutes later, standing on top of the great dome, he surveys his beloved institute. On the surface, everything seems normal, but he knows that within the grey cement walls, insulation is steadily growing, threatening to choke the school. Heading downstairs, he walks into lobby 10 in the infinite corridor, when suddenly he feels something wrap around his throat. A wire!!! Struggling, he grunts questions to the caped man strangling him. "Who do you think you are?" "Foolish boy! I am this Insulator." "So you're the one behind this!" " Years ago, I was slighted by the institute, and now I shall have my vengeance" With a burst of strength, the Spark flips the Insulator over his head, freeing himself from the strangling wire. "You've made one mistake, Insulator!" "What's that, boy?" "You used 30 gauge wire!" The Spark whips out two alligator clips connected to lead-acid batteries on his belt and clips them to the Insulator's garrot. In a flash, current zips through them, vaporizing the wire. The Insulator climbs to his feet. "You may have won this time boy, but you're no closer to saving your university" Throwing down a smoke bomb, he runs off. Walking back to his lair in the basement of Stata, the Spark begins to hatch a plan. "If there's anything the Insulator can't stand, it's a bare wire. Hmmmm..." Later, the Insulator is standing in lobby 10, when two bare wires lower above his head. "What's this?? Bare wires? AAAARGHGHHH. I can't stand such poor electrical engineering practices!" He reaches up to coat the wires with insulation, but then thinks better of it. "This might be The Spark, trying to trick me into shocking myself. I'd better check the voltage on these wires." Whipping out a multimeter, he touches it to the wires. It reads 5.00V "A paltry 5V! Hah! You'll have to do better than that, Sparky, if you want to put the requisite 100mA of current through me to fibrillate my heart!" Reaching out, he grabs both wires, preparing to coat them with his special insulation guns, when a voice rings out from three floors above. "Your years at Harvard must have dulled you, Insulator! Obviously you've never heard of a high-voltage multiplexer! (digikey part number ND-25437) "WHAT" The Spark flips a huge switch from 'five volts' to 'Gigavolts', and the floor begins the shake. The Insulator begins to twitch violently as he screams "I'm being fibrillated. nooooooooooo" Suddenly, he explodes in a brilliant burst of sparks. Students slowly walk out of the side halls, marvelling at the sight. One of them holds a wire in his hands. "The insulation! It's stopped growing!" President Hockfield walks out and shakes the Spark's hand. Well done, Spark. Thanks to you, the school is safe once again." She pauses, looking around at the insulation littering the ground. "I wonder what we're going to do with all this insulation" from across the lobby, a students yells out excitedly "The insulation--it's made of candy!!!!" Hundreds of students rush in with wire clippers, cutting off bits of insulation and putting them in their mouths. The Spark walks up to president hockfield. "Well, Susan, I'm glad to know that the school is safe, but now, I have other laws to uphold. Namely, Ohms' and Kirchoffs. Here, take this resistor. If you ever need me, just use it as a pulldown in the SparkSummoner. Otherwise, the inhibit pin tends to float, making it function erratically." Reaching to his belt, the Spark completes a circuit, and speeds away in a blaze of light. Behind him, in the lobby, hundreds of students cheer and throw insulation at one another in celebration as the shot fades to black. THE END