Case No. 28 · have you seen this molecule?

2-Acetyl-1-pyrroline

the smell of popcorn and fresh bread

File sealed

The detectives are still writing this one up. The poster and the facts are below; the film and the interrogation room open soon.

Booking photographs

2-Acetyl-1-pyrroline, front view, against a height chart in nanometers — FRONT

2-Acetyl-1-pyrroline, side view — SIDE · CID 522834

The suspect, from its real atomic coordinates. Drag to turn it. Height chart in nanometers, ruled every 0.05 nm. Stood beside a DNA double helix (2 nm across), it would come about a third of the way up.

Rap sheet

Answers to: 2-AP, for short.
Height: 0.62 nm, standing on end.
Weight: 0.18 zeptograms
Build: One small ring with a nitrogen in it, and a short arm.
Smell: Popcorn. Noses catch it at 50 parts per trillion in water.
Associates: Aromatic rice, bread crust, and the bearcat, whose pee smells of popcorn.
Weakness: Doesn’t keep. A week in the bag and two thirds of it are gone.
Last seen: A 5 mL tube marked POPCORN in the fridge at HQ.

1,000,000,000,000,000

of them in a cup of fresh air-popped popcorn, give or take.
You’ve never seen one. You’ve smelled plenty.

The poster on the street

The wanted poster for 2-Acetyl-1-pyrroline

This is the photocopied wanted poster for 2-Acetyl-1-pyrroline, No. 28. They were made for noticeboards around Boston, Cambridge and the rest of the east coast.

Found one? Scan its QR code with your phone. If you're a signed-in player, the sighting goes on your record with +1 XP.

Not a player yet? Join the Epic Quest: the real role-playing game of Molecular Reality, a nanopore lab, with the CEO as gamemaster.