Zero-Point

by T J Trapp

  “I’m sure you are in here somewhere,” Ms. Pearson chirped. “Are you affiliated with the Institute?”

  Alec thought for a second. Actually, I used to be affiliated with the Institute through my dark energy lab work. “Yes, I am – or I was,” Alec said.

  “You can check that through your cell, to get your old ID number, even if it isn’t current,” the lady said helpfully.

  Celeste chipped in, “Their cells got lost with all their other stuff.”

  Erin sensed the lines around the lady and tried to twist them in a helpful way. In response, Ms. Pearson clasped her hands together in understanding.

  “Oh certainly. Our students – and some of our faculty – lose their cells all the time, so we have spares. Usually we don’t make it this easy before we give them out. But for you I’ll make an exception. Let me get some information.” She opened a drawer and pulled out a thin piece of plastic about the size of a playing card. “Here, hold this up to your face.”

  Alec took the card. A three-dimensional image of Alec’s face appeared in front of the card. Nothing happened for a few seconds, and then the image blinked and a voice intoned, “Dr. Alec Holden, Adjunct Professor, Dark Energy Laboratory, North Atlantic Institute.”

  Ms. Pearson, looked a little perplexed. “I am sorry, Dr. Holden, Professor Smidt must have entered your information incorrectly. We haven’t had anyone associated with NAI’s Dark Energy Lab in decades. In fact, it doesn’t exist anymore.”

  Erin took the woman’s arm and twisted the lines slightly. “Can you fix that?” she cooed.

  “Of course, it will just take a second. Let see if there is an account associated with that name.” She watched the display on other screen churn for few seconds. “There is the account. It is inactive, but it is an Institute account, so I can restart it.” She pecked at her screen a few more times, then shoved her chair back, looking very puzzled.

  “Hmmmm,” she said.

  “What is it?” Celeste asked.

  “Well, according to this, Dr. Holden, our system says that you’re dead.”

  Alec and Erin stared at each other.

  “Well, that’s silly!” Celeste said. “He’s not dead, obviously. He’s standing right here!”

  Erin twisted the lines some more.

  “Is it possible that there was someone else here in the past, who had the same name? ‘Holden’ is a fairly common name – I hear it around here all the time.”

  “Well, yes, I guess it’s possible.”

  “Didn’t you say you were related to the famous Dr. Holden, who died here in that big accident when I was little?” Celeste asked helpfully.

  “Yes, I am very closely related to him,” Alec said.

  “Well, the facial recon system matches you to his hologram,” Ms. Pearson said. “That’s unusual.”

  “How do I … does he … have a hologram in the system?” asked Alec.

  “Well, for people who pre-date the system, although its been around for a while, the techs built holograms from old photos.” Ms. Pearson thought for a few moments. “Were you closely related? Maybe you look like him,” she said. “And closely enough that the recon system accepts the old image. Sometimes when they’re built from old photos they’re a little off.”

  “Well, yes, I look very much like him. We had the same parents.”

  “Oh, Dr. Holden, I’m so sorry! So it was your brother who died here? You look so much alike. Were you twins?”

  “Well, some might say that…”

  “No, he must have been a lot older than you,” Celeste said. “The famous Dr. Holden worked with my parents,” she told Ms. Pearson.

  Erin twisted the lines some more.

  “Well, since you are working with Dr. Smidt, as a guest professor from a foreign institution, we can issue you an ID.” She tapped rapidly on her screen. Then she leaned forward and peered closely at it.

  “Well, Dr. Holden, the computer is spitting out all kinds of information. Your brother’s family was awarded a substantial damages settlement by the state, and another by the Institute, as well as insurance, regarding his untimely death. But no one has ever claimed it.”

  “Really?”

  “No, it’s still sitting there. And it’s a substantial sum, if I do say so myself. But …”

  “What?”

  “It’s been so long that the time limitation for making a claim is due to expire very soon.” She looked at the big calendar on her wall. “In fact, it’s due to expire this week!”

  We could use that money to help us get home, Alec though to Erin.

  “Can you help him get it?” Erin said sweetly, and twisted the lines. Ms. Pearson winced.

  “You know, I might be able to help you get the settlement money,” Ms. Pearson said. “I know the Institute’s claims adjustor. I will tell him – today – that I have located the next-of-kin for the deceased Dr. Holder, and you should get the settlement very soon.”

  “That would be nice,” Alec said.

  “Great!” Celeste said. “It’s probably a lot of money. That’s what Uncle Al has been using for me – the settlement from when my parents died.”

  “And now we need to enter Mrs. …”

  “Thelander,” Celeste said.

  Ms. Pearson handed Erin the card. A three-dimensional image of Erin appeared. After a few seconds, a voice intoned: “No match in system.”

  “You aren’t in the system,” Ms. Pearson said, looking at Erin over her half-glasses. “That’s not a good thing. Lately the authorities have been taking away undocumented people – and then it seems that no one ever hears of them again.”

  “Can you help me?” Erin asked pleadingly, and took Ms. Pearson’s arm.

  “Is she … what relationship is she to you?” Ms. Pearson asked Alec.

  “She’s my consort … my wife,” Alec said.

  “But she uses a different last name?” Ms. Pearson asked, tapping away at the screen.

  “Yes,” Celeste said.

  “Do you have any proof of marriage? Marriage certificate? Or whatever you use in your home country?”

  “What is that?” Erin asked.

  Never mind, Alec thought to her. “We do not have any of our belongings,” Alec reminded Ms. Pearson.

  Erin smiled and smoothed the lines to Ms. Pearson in a pleasant way.

  “I can issue you a temporary authorization ID since your husband is associated with the school. It will allow you to be here in the country but not go to school or work here. Will that be all right?”

  “Certainly,” Alec said.

  Ms. Pearson poked her screen a few times. “There. Now, look at the cell.”

  The cell lit up and a three-dimensional image of Erin appeared in the air in front of the card. The cell intoned: “Erin Princess Thelander.”

  Ms. Pearson turned to Celeste. “Tell the good Professor Smidt that I have taken care of his screwup. Next time it would be easier if he would cell the information to me in advance.” She reached in a lower drawer of her desk. “And here’s a temporary cell,” she said, handing it to Alec. “You can use it for a week, then you need to turn it back in to me. It also connects to your Institute line of credit.”

  “Thanks,” said Celeste, and led them out of the office.

  27 – Shopping

  “What do you want to do next?” Celeste asked, after she escorted Alec and Erin from the Staffing Resources Building.

  “Clothes,” said Erin, shivering slightly.

  “I need to learn how to operate this cell,” said Alec, staring at the unfamiliar piece of plastic in his hand.

  “We can do both. There is a shopping mall not far from here. We need to get a ride to it, but that is easy enough.”

  Erin was warm in Celeste’s coat, but Alec could feel the wind as they walked across the campus.

  Erin heard a low growling sound and immediately tensed. Neither Celeste nor Alec seemed to be aware of the danger. “Beware! There is an angry growling beast ahead of us,” she
said, reverting to Thelandish.

  Alec looked where she was pointing. “That is just a car,” he said, rather impatiently. “It’s like a wagon.”

  “But there is no drung,” Erin said.

  “No, no drung …”

  “But how does it move?” Erin was still holding her arms tensed, ready to ward off an attack.

  “Well, it … it has an engine … it has a thing, sort of like a drung, but not alive, made of metal, in the front that makes it go. It’s big, stupid, dirty, smelly, but fast and convenient to go from one place to another.”

  It is big and noisy, thought Erin. She watched suspiciously as the car-beast approached. She did not see any drungs, either alive or made of metal.

  “Is something the matter?” asked Celeste.

  “It – that car-beast wagon – it goes much faster than anything I have seen. Where are the animals that pull? And where is the driver?”

  “Animals – oh. You must mean ‘horsepower.’ I don’t know exactly – a hundred, I suppose; maybe more. And of course there’s no driver – it’s self-driving.”

  ‘Horse,’ Erin thought. Yes, the Great Wizard told me that people on this world ride an animal called a ‘horse’ that would be like a small drung. So there must be one hundred of them inside that cabinet in front of the wagon. Maybe more. How do they all fit? They must be very small.

  “How do they see to drive?”

  “How do you see to drive? Well, you don’t need to. You use your cell.”

  Erin took Alec’s hand.

  They walked along the edge of a straight trail that the car-beasts were using. The trail was covered with some type of hard paving stones, fitted together so tightly that Erin could see very few joints. A few of the snarling car-beast wagons were going in one direction and a few were going in the other direction. Stopped car-beast wagons lined both sides of the path. Erin stopped timidly as a car-beast whizzed by, but Alec pulled her along.

  “Come on – those won’t hurt you,” he muttered under his breath.

  “We can catch a driverless right up ahead,” Celeste said, pointing to a big placard on a tall post about a hundred paces up the path. “Or we can walk a little further and catch the bus, if you want to save some spare change.”

  “I would like to change, but I have no other clothing,” Erin said. “Nothing to spare.”

  Celeste shot a sidelong glance at her.

  “Let’s catch the one that’s closest,” Alec said to Celeste.

  Do we have a snare? If we catch it, where will we put it? Erin thought to him. He didn’t answer her back.

  Soon they came to a place where two of the car-beast paths crossed. Erin stopped, wide-eyed. The other path had dozens of car-beasts, hurtling along in some sort of order, two abreast on each side, some going one way, some the other. The wide path looked like a river of car-beasts, flowing in two ways at once.

  “How will we get across?” she asked fearfully.

  “Oh, the light will change pretty soon,” Celeste said, “and then we can cross.” She pointed to a post with an illuminated stone that had a large red rune. The rune blinked slowly. A big light globe hanging above the car-beast path turned colors, and the car-beasts all stopped. The illuminated stone changed, and the rune turned into a flashing white symbol that looked sort of like a sideways person.

  “Ok, now go,” Celeste said, pointing to the white rune. “Walk.”

  Oh – the rune shows a person walking, Erin thought.

  “Come on,” Alec said to Erin. She stepped cautiously in front of the first car-beast, then decided it might be safer to walk behind the next one. “No, no,” Alec said. “Stay in the marked crosswalk.” He steered her onto large white shapes painted on the pavers. Erin stared at the car-beasts and took Alec’s arm. She could smell them – an unpleasant metallic smell – and could sense that they were very hot.

  They should give the horse drungs some water soon, she thought, or they will cease to pull.

  Somewhere near-by she could hear a beeping tone, and then Alec made her walk a little faster until they reached the other side of the broad painted path. Then, with a jolt, some of the car-beasts leaped forward and surged across the path of the other wagons, forcing the ones on the other path to wait.

  “Okay, here we are,” Celeste said, and they stood under the big placard that had a rune that looked somewhat like a car-beast. “I’ve called the driverless; it should be pulling up any second now.”

  Erin stood staring, entranced by the car-beasts. They seem very fast, but very stupid, she thought to Alec. And I sense that they do not have a soul. They do not take any initiative. They just follow along, one after another. They would get wherever they are going more easily if they went as a herd instead of a line.

  Just then one of the car-beast wagons pulled to one side. “Watch out!” Erin cried. “It is heading right towards us!” She jumped to one side and tried to sense the beasts’ intentions but could not ascertain anything about it. Instinctively her arms tensed into a defensive position in front of her face.

  Celeste looked at her. “Well, yes, that’s our driverless.” She took Erin’s arm. “You have ridden in one of these before, haven’t you?” Erin did not answer. “Don’t they have these where you are from?”

  “No,” Erin said. “No, they do not.”

  The beast stopped docilely by the side of the path and Erin watch in amazement as Celeste moved towards it and then opened a flap in the side of the wagon.

  Now what? She thought to Alec.

  We get in, he answered back.

  Erin hung back, away from the beast.

  “Here, you can get in first,” said Celeste politely. Erin did not move. “Oh well, I’ll get in first,” Celeste said, and smoothly entered the hole behind the flap. Erin could see that Celeste was sitting on a padded bench.

  “Get in,” said Alec, and half pushed her into the car-beast’s belly. Her heart racing, she sat on the padded bench beside Celeste, and Alec piled in on the other side of her. It was dryer than she expected it to be inside of a beast, and not smelly. Celeste pulled out a long strap and handed it to her. A strap-line? Inside the beast’s belly? Erin wondered.

  “Here’s your seat belt – just click it on the other side,” Celeste said.

  ‘Click’ – that means to make a noise. I don’t know what noise to make. “I don’t know how to ‘click,’” Erin said. Alec took the end of the strap from Celeste and snapped it into a metal slot, and then snapped a similar strap around himself.

  Celeste poked at her little box that Alec called a ‘cell,’ and the metal doors shut and closed with a dull snap. Are we locked in? thought Erin. I don’t have a weapon. How will we escape?

  But then, with a slight jerk, the car-beast moved forward and pulled out to join its herd. The other car-beasts seem to slide apart and let this one take its place in the ordered procession down the path. Then she heard the blare of a battle-horn, very close by, and many answering blasts. She realized that the noise was coming from the car-beasts next to her, and the sound reverberated up and down the line as the beasts jostled for position.

  “Ow!” said Alec, and Erin realized she had a death-grip on his arm.

  My Great Wizard, if I had my sword, I could protect us from these horrible things, she thought. When do they let the horse-drungs loose, and will we be left on the battlefield?

  What are you talking about? Alec thought back to her. We are in a car. It is taking us to the shopping mall. We will get some decent clothes. We are not in a battle. We do not need to be protected.

  She sensed that Alec was somewhat irritated by her fears, so she remained silent, watching through the smoky glass panes as the car-beasts jostled to and fro, gathering in bunches where two paths crossed, and stopping then lurching forward in some unknown cadence. She could not determine the priority or see how the car-beasts acquiesced to a leader. Occasionally the car-beast that she was in would pass a wagon – some open with goods and equipment flapping in the
breezes, some huge ones closed with large runes embroidered on the sides.

  As they went farther from the campus area of the Institute, she noticed that there were fewer and fewer trees; everything seemed to be covered in the same light-gray pavement stones with occasional small patches of grasses or plants that reminded her of the ornamental flower plots outside the elf residences. She saw many buildings, but no village cottages and no stables for the little metal horse-drungs. Where do they eat? she wondered, then remembered to keep her thoughts to herself.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the car-beast they were in swerved off to one side of the pack and into a huge open field, again covered with the paving stones. Rows and rows of the car-beasts were stopped in an orderly pattern. Were they feeding, or merely resting?

  “Here we are,” Celeste said brightly. She jabbed at her little cell. Erin peeked at the 3-D image but could not decipher it. “See?” Celeste said. “That’s us. Those three little blue dots. And here’s the mall.” Erin was not sure what a ‘mall’ was but figured it was best not to ask.

  Their car-beast wagon stopped, and the side flaps popped open. Alec pressed a button and his strap snapped back into a slot; he reached over and did the same for her strap and she realized that she was now free to leave. Alec clambered out and she followed quickly, almost falling to the ground as she stepped from the beast onto an uneven surface. “Watch the curb,” Celeste said pleasantly, grabbing her elbow, and then the car-beast swerved away and the three of them were standing in a broad courtyard, facing the largest set of glass doors that Erin had even seen.

  ✽✽✽

  They stood before a vast stone wall, punctuated by giant panes of glass and the occasional huge colored rune. Celeste waked up to one of the glass panels; Alec took Erin’s arm and followed directly behind. The glass panel magically slid to one side, and the three of them entered.

  If Alec had not been guiding her by the arm, Erin would have stopped and stared. The room was larger and grander than anything she had ever seen in her life, many times bigger than the biggest ballroom in Gott City. Celeste and Alec made their way through a throng of people, and then they were in an even larger space, towering many levels up to the sky. The ceiling was covered with more glass, and the sun shone through in long beams, making patterns on the colored tile floor.