Aidan turned on the unit’s power supply, watching for any sparks or smoke.
After a few moments, he asked, “How’s it look?”
“Nothing out of the ordinary. The hottest spot is about 110ºF and holding steady. I want to let it sit like this for at least ten minutes before we power the laser array,” Valerie said, closely watching the sensor readouts on screen.
“Something to drink?” Aidan offered.
“Some tea would be great, something leaded.”
“Got it,” said Aidan, heading off to the kitchen to boil water. When he returned a few minutes later, he was carrying a tray with two teacups and a plate of sliced fruit.
“This is perfect,” said Valerie, sipping from her cup. “Thanks.”
“Any hot spots cropping up?”
“Nothing so far, and the voltage is rock steady! You do some great work, Aidan!” she exclaimed.
“Just followed your directions. How long has it been?”
“Long enough. I’m ready to power the laser array into standby mode.”
Aidan reached over and toggled the power to the laser array. A few moments later, he asked, “How’s it looking?”
“Power’s steady, no real increase in ambient temperature on or around the unit,” she reported.
“Lasers in standby mode. All channels are in the green, power wise.”
“Still no hot spots. I’m going to plug in the video interface cord. If the unit passes all the tests, I want to project some simple video on the wall over there,” said Valerie as she refreshed the readings on her workstation, then attached a video cable to the device’s interface.
“How long do you want to wait until we send signal to the unit?” asked Aidan.
Valerie frowned, “Here’s what I’m thinking. With you here, if something goes wrong, we can most likely fix it in a jiffy. With that in mind, let’s give it a rip!”
Aidan took the unit out of standby mode. Across the room the lasers were projecting a solid blue image on the wall.
“So far, so good,” Aidan closely examined the unit, looking for any signs of trouble.
“Okay, I’m going to send an image,” warned Valerie.
Seconds later the unit was projecting a scene of a city street. After a moment, Aidan recognized it as the scene across the street from Valerie’s house.
“How’s the power and heat readings?” asked Aidan.
“They’re fine! The unit’s performing exactly like we thought!” she crowed. “Let’s try some video.”
The point of view rotated, looking down the road, then started to move smoothly down the street. They watched as the image continued scrolling through the neighborhood.
“Hit the lights, will you?” Valerie asked.
When the room’s lights went off, Aidan exclaimed, “Whoa! That’s as good as a high-def monitor! Look at the color! And the brightness! This is completely bad-ass!”
Valerie grinned from ear to ear, keeping her attention on the thermal and power readings her computer was recording.
“Okay, I’m going full-screen,” she announced, and a moment later the display expanded to cover the entire wall. The image was as clear and bright as if they were looking out a window.
“That is, hands down, the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen!” Aidan exclaimed.
Valerie got up and gave Aidan a rib-cracking hug. “I couldn’t have done it without you!” she said, giving Aidan a kiss on the cheek.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it may have taken you a little while longer, but you nailed the design right out of the box,” he said, giving her a squeeze before letting go. “Four of these will make a 360º virtual reality environment look exactly like reality.”
“To be honest, I have all the walls painted with glass bead-impregnated paint so it’s a bit brighter than regularly painted walls. But honestly, I’m a little surprised it’s as good as it is. I knew we were close, but this definitely exceeds my expectations.”
“So when do we build the other three?” Aidan laughed.
“How long can you stay?”
“I’ve got plenty of time. There’s nothing in my email and no one’s burning up my phone. I can stay as long as you need me. Maybe we can build four more that I can ship home. I’ll have Constance wire the money for the parts tomorrow,” Aidan offered. “But first we build your other three, maybe even a spare.”
“I didn’t even think about a spare! Great idea. Put together a parts list for nine more units.”
“Nine—oh, I get you. Four for you and five for me to ship home, right?”
Valerie grinned, “No flies on you! Yes, we should get everything we need to do all the projectors at once. See if you can find a case that we could fit around all the components. And I’m thinking we could have Bob Nakamura from Electronics Playground to help if he’s available. He’s been a good fit when I need someone to help me with prototypes.”
“Hey, the more the merrier! Let me look at the CAD diagram of the projector, I’m sure we can get it a bit smaller now that we have a confirmed working design. What do you want me to work on now?”
“Whatever you’d like. I think I’m going to just play around with the display; change modes, resolution, refresh rate, whatever. You could get us ready for full production mode. It’s going to be busy around here for a while. I’m just so grateful you shared your time with me and it gave us the opportunity to get to know each other better. This project has been good—no, great—on so many levels, I don’t know how to thank you,” Valerie said seriously.
“Quit it! You’re making me all weepy,” Aidan replied, then laughed.
Valerie laughed until tears fell from her eyes, the fatigue of the previous week falling away. “Thank you! I really needed that,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes. “You go ahead and see if you can make my design a little more elegant. I can get the parts orders together. Don’t worry about Constance sending money in a hurry, we can settle up later.”
“Great! Let me get to work on the case design so we can crank these things out.”
* * *
Lola, Sydney and Lucius were having lunch together, something they tried to do at least once a week to discuss various issues their department dealt with in assembling and maintaining the chronicles of the colony. They also periodically revisited the issue of recruitment of new members for the community from the ranks of American blacks left behind on Earth.
“All I can say is that I’m very reluctant to ever return to Earth, at least never revisit the U.S. in light of the treatment I was subjected to my last visit,” Lucius chuckled. “Imagine treating an innocent old man like a common criminal for nothing more than a fender bender,” he said, with the others laughing right along with him.
When the laughter died down, Lola said, “There’s got to be a way for us to use the station in orbit to assist in both contact and retrieval of new recruits. Plus, with one of TJ’s Genesis clones at the station, and probably in dozens of computer systems on Earth, I’m thinking we can use the A.I. to get us some great background information on possible recruits. I want to have Genesis take the lead in making initial contact, but not having the A.I. clone spill the beans on its true nature. The initial contact can be done by email, then the A.I. can manage a monitored voice contact, with someone in orbit listening. That way there would be no communications lag to give away where the call is originating from.”
“That’s brilliant, Lola. Do you have an idea about the next step: direct contact with one of us?” asked Sydney.
“No. That’s why I want to talk to you two about how you screened everyone here, especially what moved you to decide to recruit or pass on a candidate. Somewhere in that process I think I can develop a workable strategy,” Lola replied. “Lucius, can I begin with you?”
“Sure. Where do you want to start?”
“From the beginning. I’m guessing you refined the process, but I want to know how you started out,” Lola repl
ied.
“Sure. I had known Christopher since he was about ten, so I had the background on him long before they decided to create this colony. Actual recruitment started with my finding Chris’ wife Patricia. She was our first recruit. Back then, it was the original four, that included Riley Sykes. Did you know about him?” asked Lucius.
“I’ve heard. I’ve read about him in your chronicle about the early days. But how did you find Pat? Did she approach you, or did you approach her?” Lola asked.
“Pat was working at a bio research firm for a few years. In nearly every case, the credit for her breakthroughs were attributed to other research scientists, even in print. Every one of those other scientists were white men. So when I said I represented a startup where not only would she be in complete control of her work with no white oversight, but she could chart her own course of research, she was intrigued. Admittedly, I didn’t tell her the complete story, I let Christopher do that once she visited his headquarters. When they explained exactly what they were up to, she couldn’t wait to join, even though she was the only woman in the group at the time.
“If I had to try to quantify my approach in the beginning, it would be finding extraordinary people who were very unhappy with their current circumstances and then providing them with a situation that gave them hope, gave them a future without the usual trickle-down racism, along with the caveat of living with just black folks for the rest of their lives. There were some other considerations. When I was recruiting TJ, I had to determine how important money was to him. We paid off his college loans the day he decided to join Christopher’s growing think tank, and we told TJ that whatever money he wanted, he could have. That blew his mind. Of course, he didn’t believe Chris when he made the offer, I mean no one ever made that kind of offer, not seriously. But when the guys and Pat insisted that they were serious, TJ decided to join. Then, when he found out the entire story you couldn’t have pried him away from the group for any amount of money.
“It was a pretty personal process back then. I doubt you can put together a checklist of the questions, or the personal background that leads to that magic moment when a recruit decided to take a chance. The process varied and I couldn’t trust a recruitment process that didn’t involve some serious face time with the candidate. The last thing we needed was to bring even one person here with an agenda to expose or destroy everything Chris, Chuck, Peanut and Riley created,” Lucius concluded soberly.
“I get it,” Lola agreed. “Was it essentially the same with you?” she asked Sydney.
“Absolutely. I passed on candidates for the smallest reasons, but those reasons were still important. I probably passed on several candidates who would have fit in very well, made great contributions here, but I couldn’t take a chance. I didn’t even know Lucius’ identity until I arrived here. The confidentiality was necessary, we were in possession of the greatest secret in the history of man. Like nearly everyone here, I experienced the bitter taste of the pain of leaving someone I loved behind.”
“But you have Joy as a reminder,” Lola reminded.
“True, and I got to find some measure of closure when GST sent her father along on the Jove Mission. But no one else here had that opportunity with their family or friends, I count myself extremely lucky. In any case, I was on the verge of discovery when I left Earth. The FBI was on the trail of nearly the entire population on the moon, NASA even had photos of our efforts to siphon water from that ice asteroid Chris and his team landed on the backside, and come to find out, some scientist in Utah created a detector that could plot the location of any ship using Chris’ G-wave devices. As they say, the jig was up. But up until then, it was the one-on-one contact we had with the candidates for inclusion into our community that turned them into recruits.”
“I tend to agree with Lucius, I think we still need that face-to-face contact to make sure. And with the U.S, military able to detect our jumpers, getting on and off Earth is going to be an insurmountable difficulty, especially landing anywhere in the United States. Obviously we will have to pick up anyone we decide to bring here, but we’ve done that kind of razzle-dazzle before, so maybe if we only do it at very infrequent intervals, we might be able to pull it off.”
“What if we do drop someone off to do the actual face-to-face contact? Someone who can build a solid background with the help of Genesis. I can think of a number of ways to pull it off. First of all, we could pull a man who never was scam, where we have someone, me even, the administrative assistant for a very powerful corporate recruiter who is never seen, played by Genesis altering its voice to sound older and male,” suggested Lola.
“You can’t be serious, dear,” Sydney whispered, while Lucius looked horrified.
“Why not? We need quite a few new people here, what with the new hab due to be completed soon and to increase the genetic diversity of the community. I’ve seen the projections, even though most of us are waiting decades later in life to have children, thanks to Patricia’s retrovirus, our population is still going to grow. And, if I’m going to be completely honest, I don’t mind rubbing white folks’ noses in the dirt over the fact that only blacks are living in space!” Lola said.
“Maybe so, but one mistake and you’ll be picked up like Lucius and Julius, and this time I’m sure they’re going to squeeze everything you know about this community out of you, then probably dissect you on top of everything else,” said Sydney, laying a comforting hand on Lola’s arm.
“Wouldn’t Chris send someone to rescue me? And would U.S. law enforcement seriously want to take a chance holding me after what Chris did when they snatched you all, Lucius?”
“Knowing Chris, America would suffer much worse than before. But do you want a war started over you?” he asked.
Lola looked down at the floor. “No” she whispered. “With the station’s A.I. monitoring what goes on around me, I should have a head start on anyone coming for me. And really, what are the odds someone would discover who I am? And even if they did discover me, what would they really do to me given the warning Chris gave the President?”
“That’s the question isn’t it?” Lucius intoned.
* * *
“Thank you for coming by for dinner, Ben. We’ve missed you around here, Son,” said Christopher, hugging him. “And right on time, too!”
“I’m not going to miss a home cooked meal, especially if Mom is doing the cooking!” he said, giving Patricia a hug.
Ben helped bring the food to the table. As they sat, Patricia asked, “To what do we owe this surprise visit? Don’t get me wrong, we’re both very happy you’re here.”
“Oh, nothing much,” he said far too casually.
Christopher and Patricia glanced at each other, knowing from long experience that Benjamin was concealing something. Something was up, but they also knew that whatever it was would come out when he was ready and not before.
Over the meal they talked about projects, as well as some of the funniest gossip being passed around their small community. Then, during a break in conversation, Benjamin said, “By the way, I wanted to run something by you to get your opinion.”
His parents glanced at each other as if to say, here it comes. “Yes?” Patricia replied.
“Well, it’s like this,” he began. “A few of us heard about the mission taking the new habitat to Saturn’s rings to fill it with the water needed to operate and for reserves. We put together a mission to explore the rings and Titan while the hab is out there. If we can be equipped well enough, maybe even check out Saturn proper if we can bring Uncle Chuck’s Jupiter jumpers along now that they’re back from the Earth station. We drafted a mission plan, just like Ops does. We have equipment lists, mission waypoints, scientific research and tests to run, and of course we’re going to keep detailed logs on everything we find,” he finished in a rush.
Christopher was silent and glanced over at Patricia. When she gave an all but imperceptible nod, he took a deep breath. “It sounds
like a good idea,” he said.
“What?” Benjamin blurted out.
“Let me ask you this, who are the members of your mission team?”
Joy, Sam, Virginia, Lois and Piper. We’ve been working nights planning this mission,” Benjamin replied.
“How did you get Piper involved?” asked Patricia.
“She and Lois have worked together before; they even had some class projects together. And I thought we should have someone from Ops in on the planning. When we pitched the idea, she decided that she wanted to come along,” said Benjamin.
“Okay, give me the highlights,” said Christopher.
“First off, two jumpers for redundancy and to split the mission team for safety. Once we set off from the hab, we carry stores and air for twice the scheduled duration of the mission, even with the air recyclers. Food for the mission with 50% reserves, we can always ration. At least one water purifier. Everyone brings their EVA suit and common suit spares. We have provisions built in for bringing a Genesis clone and tying it directly into a jumper’s sensors, if not we stream telemetry to the hab in real time. First aid kits, patches for our suits, and a whole lot more. Here, let me give you the entire mission plan to look over. We would feel a lot better if you checked to see if there’s anything we overlooked,” he said, pulling out his datapad from its harness.
“Sure, son. Just send it to my inbox, your mom and I will go over it tonight,” Christopher promised.
“What do you think, generally speaking, I mean?” Benjamin asked, searching his father’s face for any clues.
“I like your team. Every single one of them is extraordinarily skilled. They’re all sharp, and you and Piper are a couple of the best pilots in the community. There’s nothing to suggest that you were careless in planning and none of you are the type to take unnecessary chances. By the way here’s a little surprise for you, I’ve been talking to your Uncle Chuck about tagging along on the mission myself.”
“What!” Benjamin and Patricia exclaimed at the same time.
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