—Emerson Spengler was leaning across the kitchen table, an eggroll in each hand, his face a mask of intense concentration. “Imagine, if you will, that this eggroll is equivalent to the total amount of extrasensory energy available to the average man. We will call it one . . . one . . .” “ER,” Stantz suggested. “ER?” “Eggroll. E-R. ER.” Spengler lifted one eyebrow. “We can’t call it ER. An eggroll is a thing, therefore a conceptual entity, but it is not a unit of measurement. Eggroll length? Eggroll width? Eggroll what?” “Call it ERM. Eggroll mass. One ERM.” Spengler was satisfied with that. “Okay, one ERM is the equivalent measurement for the amount of ESP available to the average man. Now,” he said, bringing the eggrolls together, “I believe that if you double the amount, to, say, two ERMs, you’d have enough energy to blow the lid off a city the size of New York.”
