Wanted

by Laurence E. Dahners

  ***

  Ell threw a leg over the saddle of the waldo controller. She slipped on its large HUD and felt for the controller gloves. Looking around she mused on the unreality of the situation. The first few times she’d used a waldo, she’d retained her sense of a person directing the waldo. Now, upon putting on the gear and looking out of the waldo’s eyes, she immediately felt as if she were there, walking around in the waldo’s environment as if she were the waldo itself.

  She took a step, but then expressed a mental “oops” to herself. Pausing the waldo before she took another step, she had Allan check his sensor records to be sure that no one had been in the main tunnel outside the hidden side tunnel this waldo lived in.

  There hadn’t been any vibrations out in the main tunnel for months indicating it should be safe to proceed. Ell walked the waldo over to the circuit fab and picked up the first of the circuits she’d had it make. Upon inspection it looked fine. She walked the circuit over to the work station and made the solder bridges, taking great care not to excessively heat the magnesium frame. Then she went over to a rack of electronic equipment and popped out the circuit currently controlling her left index finger’s one way port. She put the new one in its place. As long as she was there she quickly inspected the thermite charges that were distributed throughout the rack of electronics. The thermite would allow Ell to destroy all the electronics if someone came across them but especially the circuits for the one way ports. She worried that her homemade thermite might corrode or otherwise break down, destroying her equipment when she needed it, or failing to work if she did want to destroy the circuits. All the charges looked fine though.

  Ell had Allan run diagnostics on the new circuit. Once it cleared, she dismounted from the waldo controller and looked down at her finger. She had a moment of panic, what’s wrong with me today? If that circuit does something unexpected and bad, I don’t want to be testing it using the port that’s inside my finger! Hair prickling momentarily, she wondered if the pregnancy hormones were disturbing her thought processes. She’d read about other pregnant women feeling that way. Taking a deep breath, she asked Allan to switch the circuit to one of the hand held one ended ports instead of the one in her finger. Then she had him use the waldo to pass the hand held single port through a double ended port she had on her desk. The handheld port was 5 centimeters in diameter and was mounted on a handle shaped like a thick pencil which would give Ell better control of its direction.

  Pointing the handle away from herself she had Allan turn on the port at a distance of two feet. As expected, with a spark of light, a two inch black disk representing the back side of the port appeared in space about two feet away. After a few seconds the port disappeared and immediately sparked back into existence a half inch further away. She set the handle of the port down on a table and walked around to look at the other side of the area where the port was appearing and disappearing. Sure enough, from that angle the port looked like a hole in space when it appeared, slightly dark because the lights were dim in the tunnel the port was connecting to. Moving back behind it, Ell had Allan adjust the bias in the circuit while she watched the port hanging there in space. As she’d hoped, the next time it appeared, it had rotated a little. It no longer faced directly away from the handle. It still appeared directly in front of the handle, but had rotated to face about twenty degrees to the side. Ell had Allan increase the bias and it rotated even more, until at Ell’s predicted fifty three volts it faced ninety degrees to the side.

  With a sigh, she increased the frequency of port openings and closings up to five hundred per second. With that the disk she saw blurred into a glowing smear that spread out over a distance of about an inch and a quarter. That smear represented the inaccuracy of the port opening distance which she had improved to five percent with this new controller circuit.

  Hands shaking, Ell set down the handle for the one ended port and stared at it a moment. This technology is so dangerous. Should I even be using it myself? Taking the chance that somehow that will let others gain control of it? Or is having this tool to protect myself an important means for keeping these single ports out of the hands of those whose intent is not benign?

  Eventually, she shook her head and got back on the waldo controller. She completed the other three circuits, tested them and inserted them into the electronics rack. Looking down she had Allan open her umbilical port three inches from her stomach and biased to face the opening directly upwards. She then ran the umbilical port through its paces, making sure she could rotate it all different directions and run it at five hundred Hertz.

  She ran the ports in her fingers through the same protocols. Finally, Ell picked up a pencil in her left hand and snapping on the port in her right index finger at 500 Hz and three inches at ninety degrees. She gently waved the glowing smear of light from the rapidly opening and closing port through the pencil.

  Goose bumps appeared on her arms as she watched the eraser end of the pencil fall to the floor…

  Chapter Four

  Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming —A forest fire in the park became the first wildlands fire to be brought under control using helicopters carrying ports. Only two helicopters, each carrying twenty fire hose nozzles supplied by two inch ports delivered water from large pumps in Yellowstone lake. Initially the helicopters simply circled the fire, wetting the surrounding forest with wide sprays of water from a spread alignment of the nozzles. Then they vectored in on the fire itself delivering three thousand gallons per minute...

  “This represents a paradigm shift in how we will be fighting forest fires in the future,” said Abraham Minout, director of the National Park Service. “Rather than huge helicopters delivering the limited amounts of water they can lift, with this technology we are able to deliver large amounts of water from small helicopters for as long as the pilot’s duty hours allow. When the fire nozzles are active, their downward discharge actually provides additional lift to the helicopter.”

  Several city fire departments have already been using port supplied nozzles which allow fire fighters tremendous freedom of mobility. Several departments have ordered helicopters with such nozzles intending to use them for fires in tall buildings but after this demonstration of the technology at Yellowstone one must wonder whether helicopters won’t provide a tremendous advantage in fighting almost every type of fire…

  Allan said, “You have a call from Gary.”

  “I’ll take it… Hey Gary, have you already finished coating my stuff with graphene?”

  “Well, we’re done with the little test plates. We haven’t tried your shirt and pants because we thought you wanted to see which sized perforations worked best?”

  “Yeah, let me drop by and look at the test plates. You did all of them?”

  “We did all the test plates, but nothing else really. Maybe you’ll have some ideas on coating your little beads? We really don’t want to coat however many thousands of beads you’ve got in that bag one bead at a time!”

  “Oh, ‘cause, if you do them in a big pile, the graphene sticks them together?”

  “Yep. And with graphene, they’re stuck so you could never get them apart.”

  “Hmm, can you fly a batch up to the habitat and do them there? In microgravity, their like static charge should repel them from one another, making them float apart. Then you’d be able to coat them fully. If you charge the walls of the container they’re in, they shouldn’t even stick to the box.”

  Gary snorted, “Dammit! I should have been able to think of that for myself! I’ve gotta ask though, what do you want graphene coated beads for anyway?”

  Ell said, “If it works, I’ll show you, OK? I should be over this afternoon to look at the test plates.”

  Gary said, “Oops, I forgot, the other reason I called is that Manuel finished your graphend hoverbike. He left it here with me since he didn’t know ‘how to get it to Ell Donsaii.’ He asked if I could store it for you ‘until you got out of trouble.’”

&nbs
p; “You think he figures that you’re in contact with me somehow?”

  “Well, if he knows that Raquel and Ell are the same person, he’s keeping that under his hat.”

  Ell said, “He does know I use disguised aliases but he knows about a different one, not about Raquel. But I’ll bet he figures that some people in the company are in contact with me, even if he doesn’t know that I’m actually nearby. After all, he must realize I can contact pretty much anyone I like via PGR chips without the government knowing about it.”

  “You’re probably right. In any case, this graphend hoverbike is pretty cool. I’m excited to show it to you.”

  Once Gary disconnected, Ell went to the setup she’d created to pump acetone through the ports in Styrofoam objects. Selecting the ports for the Styrofoam plates she’d dropped off with Gary, she turned on the pump and began dissolving the polystyrene out of them.

  ***

  Senate Majority Leader Harold Arkon and House Majority Leader Mary Hoyt were ushered into the Oval Office. Stockton came around her desk smiling, “Harold, Mary,” she said, shaking their hands, “Sit, sit.” Stockton waved a hand at the comfortable chairs. After a few more pleasantries, she smiled and said, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Arkon and Hoyt glanced at one another, uncertain about how to broach the subject. Even when she’d been a Senator, Stockton had been difficult to talk to when the subject conflicted with her worldview. Arkon cleared his throat, “Well, Edith, we wanted to talk to you about Donsaii…” He paused as he saw Stockton’s smile congeal, then fade.

  Stockton waved him on, “Go on Harold.”

  Trying not to grit his teeth, Arkon plowed ahead, “There’s no doubt that resentment did exist regarding the effects her technology has had on the jobs market. In fact, that is to a large degree responsible for your win in the election.”

  One corner of Stockton’s lip lifted momentarily, almost in a sneer, “Don’t dance around Arkon, just say what you’re gonna say.”

  Hoyt, lifted her hands placatingly, “Hear us out Edith. The party leadership is worried. Analysis says that the public didn’t actually resent Donsaii; they only worried about the effect of her tech on the job market. They still love her as a person. Our attacks on her are costing us big time in the polls. The fact that she escaped so easily and we have no idea where she is, that’s making us a laughing stock.”

  Stockton had leaned back in her chair, now she angrily crossed her arms, looking at the leaders of her party like they were something disgusting she’d found on the bottom of her shoe. “Is that all you think this is? Some kind of popularity contest? Have you forgotten we were elected to do what is best for this country? The country I love? The country for which I, as President, must sometimes make unpopular decisions? A parent who does whatever his children wants will soon spoil them. I may not have children of my own, but I understand that principle.” Stockton leaned forward and eyed Arkon and Hoyt in turn, “It doesn’t matter how popular Donsaii may be, she’s a threat to this nation and I, at least, recognize her as such.”

  Arkon resisted the impulse to roll his eyes at Stockton’s pompous little speech. Trying to keep the anger out of his voice, he said, “Edith, you need to consider the likelihood that other nations will offer her asylum. I have it on good authority that the possibility has already been discussed at the highest levels of both the Canadian and German governments.” She raised her eyebrows, “They’re our allies Edith, there’s no telling what our enemies are thinking.”

  “They’d be buyin’ a pig in a poke then. That little one trick wonder has shot her wad. They’d gain our enmity for little or no benefit.”

  Eyes wide in disbelief, Arkon said, “One trick wonder?”

  “Yes, you heard me. The PRG chips and the ports are essentially the same trick. I guarantee that little bimbo isn’t gonna get that lucky again.”

  “My God, Edith, the woman’s a genius!”

  “No she’s not,” Stockton snorted, “‘She just plays one on TV.’”

  Hoyt said, “I’d like permission to negotiate with her. Offer her amnesty if she’ll meet us halfway on the ETs and the means to reach the stars.”

  Stockton leaned up out her chair taking a breath to bark out her opinion, then suddenly relaxed with a smile. “Sure now, you just do that. I know I can be a little confrontational some times, maybe we just need someone with a mellower tone to talk to her.”

  Having negotiated some kind of compromise, the little meeting broke up.

  As they left Arkon said, “I told you we should have talked to her about H.R. 3903 before we brought up Donsaii and derailed the whole conversation.”

  Hoyt sighed, “Yeah, you know her best.”

  Back in her office Stockton said, “Mason, Mary Hoyt’s going to try to arrange a meet with Donsaii.” She snorted, “She thinks she’s going to ‘negotiate’ some kind of deal with the little bitch. You figure out where they’re having this meet and snatch the girl.”

  “You didn’t promise them to keep our hands off?”

  “They might think I did ‘cause I wished them well… but I didn’t.”

  “We can’t spy on a member of Congress without evidence of criminal intent.”

  “Well, she is planning to meet with a criminal, but I’ve got a better idea.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Just offer to provide the security for the meet.”

  “That’d be pretty low.”

  “Whatever works Mason, whatever works.”

  ***

  Gary looked up at the approaching footsteps. Seeing Ell dressed as Raquel took him back to when he’d met her in Nevada. A wave of nostalgia came over him momentarily. He’d really… had a thing for her back then. He wondered, was it love, or just infatuation? He tilted his head. Is she gaining weight? She looks a little thicker around the middle than she used to be. Then she said, “Hey Gar’,” in her Raquel accent and he stood to greet her.

  Gary said, “Hey yourself, Raquel” giving her a hug and carefully using the name he’d known her by for so long. “Let me take you to where we’ve got your stuff.” As they walked down the hall to the room where he’d put her project, he eyed her and asked quietly, “You holding up OK?”

  Ell flashed him a smile, “Yeah, some things are great, some are absolute crap, but that’s life.”

  He grinned back, “Sorry. Things are pretty much all great for me right now, so I hope they clean up the mess they’ve made out of your life pretty quick.”

  “Me too.” She sighed, “I surely hope none of my crap splatters on you.”

  Gary opened the room and stepped inside, “What the hell!” he said, staring at the where the Styrofoam test plates had been lying on a table. The last time he had seen them, they had looked almost exactly like the Styrofoam plates Ell had given him to coat. Only a filmy gray appearance on their surfaces had given away the graphene coating. Now, all he saw were filmy gray smudges laying on the table.

  Ell said, “What’s the matter?”

  “Your test plates. Something’s happened to the Styrofoam.”

  “Oh, yeah. I already pumped some acetone through them to dissolve it.”

  Gary closed his eyes a moment, feeling dumb. “Of course you did. Sorry. Then you hooked them up to vacuum to dry them out and deflate them, right?”

  Ell said, “Yes,” as she picked one of the plates—now just sheets of graphene—up. The barely visible film draped loosely over her hand, feeling quite silky except for little lumps scattered through it. Gary said, “The little lumps are the ports you ran the acetone through?

  Ell nodded, “Oops,” she said, “the acetone dissolved the ink that told us how big the perforations were.”

  “Just a second,” Gary said, “I laid them out here on the table this morning. Let me get my AI to call up the AV record and we’ll be able to tell which one is which if you don’t move them around.” He spoke to his AI a moment, then said, “Here, I’ve sent you the image. They were arranged from
smallest to largest, so the one you’ve got in your hand had the smallest perforations.”

  “Let me inflate it.” Ell snickered, “Uh, I could have told which one was which by which one blew up when I told my AI to inflate the one with the smallest perforations.” To Allan she said, “Go ahead and inflate sample ‘A’ to two atmospheres.”

  The specimen, which had been loosely draped over Ell’s hand suddenly snapped out flat, to a lumpy approximation of the shape of the Styrofoam it had been molded over. Then with a popping, ripping sound it changed to a nearly spherical shape.

  Ell laughed, “I would guess that graphene bridges don’t form very well in the smallest diameter perforations.” She glanced at Gary who also looked amused. Crossing her fingers she said, “Let’s try the next one, hopefully one of them will hold.”

  When the second one snapped out straight, it also had lumps in it, but only in scattered locations and they were significantly smaller. After a moment though, they heard the ripping sound again and several of the lumps coalesced into bigger ones, then into a really big one down at one end.

  Ell blinked ruefully at it, then said, “OK, let’s try number three.” She lifted it off the table and said, “Inflate.”

  This third plate maintained its shape except for one small lump near a corner. The filled plate had a barely palpable nubbly feel where the graphene bumped out between the perforations. The fourth and fifth plates looked perfect. The sixth and seventh plates had bigger nubbly bumps and visibly shrank a little in their other dimensions when they inflated because the bulging nubs pulled the graphene shorter.

  Gary looked at the last two plates and asked, “I’m guessing the bigger bumps on those two are because the perforations are farther apart due to their increased size?”