Propanethial S-oxide
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
The suspect, from its real atomic coordinates. Drag to turn it. Height chart in nanometers, ruled every 0.02 nm. An onion is about a hundred million times wider.
Rap sheet
- Answers to
- “The lachrymatory factor.” Means tear-maker.
- Height
- 0.59 nm, standing up.
- Weight
- 0.15 zeptograms
- Build
- Three carbons, then a sulfur holding an oxygen.
- Hours
- Doesn’t exist until the knife goes in.
- Habits
- Floats up from the cutting board and makes your eyes water.
- Associates
- Two onion enzymes, set off when the cells break.
- Known for
- Breeders made a tearless onion by zapping seeds with neon ions.
- Last seen
- A 5 mL tube marked ONION in the fridge at HQ.
of them in a teaspoon of fresh onion juice, give or take a lot.
You’ve never seen one. You’ve cried plenty.
The poster on the street
This is the photocopied wanted poster for Propanethial S-oxide, No. 24. 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.