Fandom High School

Class was in the Danger Shop again, and the room looked like a city street under the stark light of the moon. It was lined with identical low-rise tan office buildings, set on lots surrounded by high chain-link fences. Tyler waited outside one such building, arms folded around himself as he waited for the students to assemble.

"First things," he began without preamble. "If you know me at all, you know I don't like to apologize. But I will say last week's class was a mistake. I should've done a straight session on fertilizer bombs, not gotten into ... the rest of it. Anyhow, if you have something to say to me about it, I'll be around after class and my office hours are still Mondays."

"Though it does kind of lead into what we're doing this class. Because this week, for our final, you can bring a building down." He paused, watching the students for any reaction. When it was quiet once more, he went on.

"Right, so this is the deal. Each of these buildings represents the HQ for the most evil scum you can imagine. They eat babies, they pollute, they support Barry Manilow's recording career, whatever. And your job is to take them out. You have two choices: Big boom or sneak attack."

"If you go for a big boom, you get into the lot and detonate a fertilizer bomb or nitroglycerin around the building. It goes up, you run, the evildoers can't recover. Done. You just need to hope your evacuation order went through, 'cause if anyone was in there, they aren't coming out."

"But that's not the only choice. You can also go for sneak attack. If you go that way, you use small bombs like C4 and Molotov cocktails to break into the property, steal a folder of crucial information in the main conference room, and sneak out, blowing up however much you want to on the way. Problem is, a, there's no proof anybody will believe what's in the folder, and b, you could get caught before you do anything. But do this right and there's no chance of collateral damage. Then once the building's down -- or not-down, however you're doing it -- you get to tell me what you did and why."

"You're paired for this, and there's one group of three. I know the idea of a lone wolf is all romantic, but in the real world, you'd probably have to work with other people to get anything done. Or not sleep." Which was Tyler's favored approach. "Anyhow, the bomb-making supplies are in that workshop area. Questions? Ask me or Miss Hammond."

"And you have all been a fantastic class. Thank you."

Someone had a headache today, and was wishing he'd found something to teach that involved fewer loud noises.

Maybe he could teach very, very quiet explosions next term.

"Hey," he greeted the class. "This is the week we study C-4." He held up an illustrative block of the stuff. "It's a bit more complex than most of what we make, but may as well do it while we have the set-up. Neat thing about it is, a little goes a very long way." As he spoke, he broke off a wad of C-4 about the size of a gumball. "This is about all you need to blow up a car. The whole block would take down a skyscraper."

"C-4 is military; it's made of made up of explosive, plastic binder, plasticizer and, if it's commercial, marker or taggant chemicals such as 2,3-dimethyl-2,3-dinitrobutane to help detect the explosive and identify its source. That's where making your own comes in handy -- no marker. If it's too much for you, at least have the brains to buy from a big wholesaler who doesn't track orders."

"To make it, we're combining RDX with water to get a slurry, then mixing it with a binding solution. You need to let it sit so the water evaporates -- in the shop we have a doodad that does that for you so it's finished during this session -- and then you take the powder and add a plasticizer. The most common ones are lignosulfonates."

"When you're done it will look and feel like modeling clay. It's stable unless you get it hot or light it on fire. And it is much more powerful than TNT."

He waved a hand at the lab tables. "Wear safety equipment, work in pairs, and please try not to blow anything up too loudly this week. I'll be around."

There were ice baths set up at each Danger Shop lab station today, and Tyler tossed goggles and gloves at each student as they came in. He folded his arms and waited for the class to settle before beginning.

Then he reached onto his desk and held up a container of clear, thick stuff. "So this," he said, "is the extra glycerin from the soap we made the first week. And now it's time to get to the fun part and make it nitroglycerin."

He pointed out two vials on his desk. "This is nitric acid. The big one is sulfuric acid. What you're going to do is add the nitric to to three times the amount of sulfuric in the ice batch, then start adding the glycern with an eyedropper."

"This is a delicate reaction, so please, work in pairs if you can stand it. One person watches the vat, other one drops in the glycerin. You'll know you're done when it gels up."

"Once you see that happen, you can scoop it out and mix it with sawdust to get a plastic explosive. You can roll it together and light it on fire. We don't have to do that this week, but if you have time, we have a lovely fake fast food restaurant for you to test it in." He gestured to the back wall of the shop and hit a button on the control panel, transforming it into an (unstaffed) Mooby's counter.

"Go to work. I'll be around."

The first class met in a dead standard laboratory classroom, with Bunsen burners before each student and running water at each of the long tables. The teacher leaned against his desk, face unreadable as his eyes evaluated each student.

After the students were assembled, Tyler began to talk.

"So this is Chemistry for Anarchists, where you guys will learn 15 ways to blow up a 7-Eleven using only what's in the store. I'm not going to tell you to blow up a 7-Eleven; I'm also not here to shake my finger at you and tell you not to. This class is for your information.

"My name is Tyler Durden. Call me Tyler, call me Mr. Durden, whatever works. Looks like about five of you would know me from when I was here as a student." And here he glanced at Jamie first, then at Dean, Katara, Rikku, Sokka assuming they're all there and I didn't forget anyone. "That's fine, it's great to be back. Just remember I'm not one this time.

"Your mission this week is making soap. It's a basic project -- rendered fat, lye, cold water and that's it. You can add scents or color if you want to. Supplies and directions are at the workstations. Lye's nothing to screw around with." He held up one hand, showed a mottled roundish scar on the back. "This is what happens if you get lye on your wet skin.

"And the reason we start with soap? Because one of the byproducts of soap-making is glycerin." He held up a container of the clear, slippery stuff. "You can mix it back in. Makes nicer soap, makes your skin soft. Or you can add nitric acid and get nitroglycerin. That is the kind of fact we love in this class.

"But before we start on the soap, we have to do that introductions thing. Name, age, why you took the class, and" -- he smiled for the first time -- "who you would fight out of anyone, living or dead. Fictional figures included."

He left unspoken his need for a TA. He figured the introductions would let him know who he wanted.