“I couldn’t believe it,” he continued. “His skinny, limp, little legs started filling out, right there in front of me. And when he stood up on them the next morning—¡hijola!—that’s when I fell to my knees and committed my life to Jesus. How could I not? After what I witnessed with my own eyes, in my own living room.” He swiped at his tears and met Allie’s eyes. “If it hadn’t been for your mother’s faith, who knows what would’ve become of me. She gave me a second chance—God did, through her.”
There was a brief silence.
Her mind wandered back to this afternoon’s unexpected encounter at the beach with Calder Sinclair.
He seems lonely.
Needy.
I wonder if he believes in God.
“I wouldn’t mind a second chance,” Allie murmured. “I wish I could have what you and Mom—”
Her mother bolted up in bed and screamed at them. “Qué pasa? Qué pasa?”
Allie jumped off the bed.
“Quién son? Por qué estan aquí? Por favor déjenme en paz! Déjenme en paz!”
The nurse came rushing in with a syringe in hand. “She’s scared is all. It’s part of the disease—makes ’em overly nervous. This’ll calm her down.”
Allie hurried to the side of the bed opposite the nurse. “Ma, it’s me, Alejandra. I came to see you.”
Her mom stared at her wide-eyed, then with a terrified face turned away and thrashed around. “Ay dios, no! Déjenme en paz!”
Her father came alongside Allie and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “She doesn’t recognize you, mija. I sit here all day hoping she’ll see me, know me. If I’m lucky, she comes out of her fog for a few minutes and it’s like old times.”
Allie watched helplessly as the utter bleakness and permanency of her mom’s illness sank in. The guilt of not spending enough time with her mom in recent years made her stomach turn. She wanted to throw up.
Oh, Mamá! I’m so sorry!
Allie trembled violently; her eyes cascaded tears that quickly dampened the bed between her hands.
Oh, Mom, please come back!
Please recognize me!
Please, God, please!
Allie twisted about and embraced her elderly father hard, like a drowning child clutching a lifesaver.
“Oh, Papá,” she sobbed, “Please forgive me. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
CHAPTER 12
HIGH-SEAS COWBOY
TUESDAY, APRIL 25 (6:05 A.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME)
NAVAL BASE POINT LOMA; SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
Already in his Nomex flight suit, Calder stood on the pier gazing expectantly at the eastern horizon. Darkness was beginning its inevitable capitulation to dawn. It’d be light soon.
This time don’t . . .
He slapped his cheek.
Stop it. This time we won’t fail.
We can’t fail.
He’d spent most of the previous three days overhauling the collision avoidance system. By a stroke of good fortune a recently released microprocessor, called Quantum I, was just what he needed. Its incredible processing power and speed instantly enabled him to upgrade all of Hero’s ops, not just the collision avoidance system.
Still staring at the brightening horizon, he found its coloring a bit strange. But before he could decide for sure, a black sedan quickly pulled up and disgorged Allie and her producer, who looked pretty frazzled.
The camera crew already had been there for hours, setting up. These two were bringing up the rear, cutting it close.
He called out to Allie, “Thought you might’ve changed your mind.”
“Why?” she called back. “Didn’t think I’d be crazy enough to give you a second chance to kill me?”
He smiled broadly, shaking his head.
I like this woman! A breath of fresh air.
“I’ll see if I can do better this time.”
They both laughed.
He and Allie walked briskly toward the pier area, which in its present state of high activity gave the appearance of a street festival. It glowed under the huge work lights mounted on small wheeled vehicles parked all over the beach. Scores of people, mostly in uniform, scurried about the central object of attention: Hero, floating majestically in the bay’s calm waters.
“She’s beautiful,” Allie remarked.
He swelled with pride at the sight of Hero’s sleek profile and polished red skin, which gleamed under the spotlights. “Thanks for doing this, Allie. You won’t be disappointed. We won’t let you down.”
Allie gave him a stern look.
He stared back.
Lord, she’s beautiful!
“You better not,” she said. “I’m sticking my neck way out for this. My people in New York think I’ve gone crazy. But I sold them on it and they’re expecting huge ratings.”
“Chop-chop, everybody!” Allie’s producer shouted. “We’re live in forty-five minutes! Forty-five minutes!”
At exactly seven a.m., he and Allie—ravishing in her flight suit—stood at their assigned places on the pier alongside Hero. The main engine was going through final prep. It was the part of the pre-launch process that never ceased to amaze him: creating the mysterious, all-important nothingness—the quantum vacuum—from which Hero derived her power.
“Go!”
Eva’s voice bellowing at Allie through her earpiece was so loud he overheard it.
Immediately, Allie turned to him, her intelligent eyes radiating an inner excitement.
AA: “Dr. Sinclair, please tell us what’s going on here.”
CS: “Sure.”
He raised a fist to his mouth and quickly cleared his throat.
CS: “Inside Hero is a stainless-steel vacuum chamber roughly the size of a tin can.”
AA: “Her gas tank.”
He bobbed his head and chuckled.
CS: “Okay, sure—her gas tank. It needs to be emptied completely.”
AA: “Emptied of the air inside, right?”
CS: “Not just air—everything, every atom that’s inside. We do that with a series of different vacuum pumps, each one more powerful than the last: roughing pumps, high-speed turbo-molecular pumps, ion pumps, titanium sublimation pumps. In the end, any atoms still bouncing around inside are nabbed by sticky chemicals coating the chamber’s inside walls. They’re special alloys we call ‘getters.’”
AA: “Wow, that’s a lot of work.”
CS: “It is. Usually it takes days, although I’m working on speeding up the process. For this mission we’ve been prepping Hero since her last run this past weekend.”
AA: “So is she ready?”
CS: “Let’s see.”
He leaned in to inspect the vacuum gauge.
CS: “Yupper. We’re down to fewer than 0.001 atoms per cubic centimeter. Perfect.”
AA: “Her tank’s pretty empty, in other words.”
He straightened back up and smiled.
CS: “Emptier than deep space.”
AA: “So we’re ready to go?”
CS: “Not necessarily. The chamber has to be absolutely cold as well. Otherwise you don’t have a quantum vacuum.”
AA: “And how do you do that?”
He realized Allie knew full well how to get something super-cold. She was just doing her job, playing the dummy, so he could explain it to people.
Must be hard for her.
CS: “We use what’s called a dilution refrigerator. It involves bathing Hero’s vacuum chamber in liquid helium. That’s what’s causing the sputtering and hissing sounds you hear—and those bright white plumes of steam too.”
AA: “The liquid helium—it’s evaporating.”
CS: “Yes, that’s right. There are other steps to the process, but—here, let me see.”
He leaned in to look at the digital thermometer.
CS: “Okay. The gauge reads 0.000000000001 degrees Kelvin. That’s one-trillionth of one degree above absolute zero. Nearly 460 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.”
He quickly straightened up.
CS: “So now that means we are go for launch!”
TUESDAY, APRIL 25 (7:39 A.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME)
“Hold on,” she said when the interview was over. “Can you please give me a minute? I forgot something.”
He frowned. “Really? Allie, we’ve gotta go.”
But she dashed off, saying, “It’ll just be a minute, I promise.”
“Please hurry!” he called after her. “And make sure you hit the bathroom. We won’t be stopping until we get to Hawaii.”
Moments later she found Eva outside the production truck, which was parked on the sand a short distance from the pier, fishing around for a piece of equipment.
Eva turned to look at her. “Allie!” What the—? You need to be—”
“I know, I know.” She took her producer gently by the hands. They’d stayed up all night working out logistics: five locations (four of them foreign) in three days, with most of the travel happening on open water in the middle of nowhere. It was easily the most complicated assignment of their careers.
The good news, which they’d discovered by consulting with Calder, was Hero came equipped with a lightning-fast broadband communications system. It used ultrahigh-bandwidth dual Ku antennas linked constantly with civilian communications satellites. It meant they’d be able to broadcast live reports throughout the rescue mission—except perhaps in the extreme polar regions, where satellite coverage was unreliable and even nonexistent.
“Look, chica,” Allie said, “I know we don’t see eye to eye on this one. But I can’t get into that tin can without our being totally okay.”
Eva scoffed, “Oh please, babe. Don’t get all smarmy on me now. We’re cool. Pitsy and I’ll do as much shooting on the special as we can—even the Tang interview—while you’re out joyriding with this demented cowboy.”
Allie swiped at her playfully. “Eva! Ay, qué mala chica!”
Eva pushed her away with a tight-lipped grin. “Go on, get outta here. Bag us a big one so I don’t have to say, ‘I told you so.’”
The two hugged and Allie rushed away wondering if she’d lost her marbles. But she had a premonition about Calder, that she could trust him. That their encounter, not just the Hero story, was meant to be.
Or is it just my imagination?
Or wishful thinking?
TUESDAY, APRIL 25 (8:05 A.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME)
He and Allie were strapped into their seats. It was the final minutes of the countdown and once again the same small crowd of Navy brass from last weekend’s test run was gathered on the beach.
“Calder, we’re in a commercial break right now, but they’re coming back to us very soon. Before they do, I have a question.”
He was intent on finishing the pre-flight checklist. “Already?” he muttered.
“Get used to it. It’s what we reporters do—ask questions. Your job, dear sir, is to answer them.”
He was taken aback by her directness but let it slide because of her good humor. “Okay, fair enough. Shoot.”
“You told me in our interview Hero is not intended to be a military vehicle.”
He groaned inwardly.
Still harping on the military.
“Right, she isn’t.”
“Then why are all these military guys here? Why is your lab located on the Navy base?”
He paused, his shoulders dropping.
Good grief!
“It’s a long story.”
“We’re going on a long journey.”
“Once we’re out of here, okay?”
Eva’s voice played loudly over the cabin speaker, “You’re back in ten, babycakes!”
He chortled. “I know she’s not talking to me.”
“Careful what you say from here on out, sailor. The world’s about to hear your every word.”
The thought of that gave him pause, but only briefly. He trusted Allie, believed she was the only person who could intelligently communicate to the public the importance of his achievement. Besides, he was keen on getting to know her better. She attracted him on many levels—certainly more than any woman he’d met since Nell died.
“We’re back live from inside Hero’s cabin,” Allie said in her reporter’s voice, “minutes away from launch . . .”
His eyes were systematically scrutinizing the control panel. Moments later he saw what he was waiting for: an idiot light indicating the digitized itinerary was fully ingested by Hero’s navigation system.
Immediately, he thrust his arm up through the cockpit opening so people could see they were go for launch. The horde of spectators cheered as he lowered the large bubble-shaped windshield into place and locked it.
“Seat belts, kids.”
Allie continued her reporting. “When we are near any coastline, like now, Dr. Sinclair will keep Hero’s main engine—her so-called Q-thruster—in low gear . . .”
After the mooring ropes were untied Calder pushed the round green button, initiating a rapid, automated sequence that ignited Hero’s engine.
Allie didn’t miss a beat. “The whining sound you’re now hearing comes from Hero’s fancy starting mechanism. Inside her vacuum chamber a super-high-intensity, titanium-sapphire laser beam—brighter than the sun—is colliding with an electron beam. The head-on collision of those two beams—”
There was an audible boom. Hero lurched forward.
“There it is!” Allie said.
Her enthusiasm made him smile.
“The collision of the two beams produces a tiny explosion so unbelievably powerful that right now it’s literally ripping apart the quantum vacuum, unleashing a torrent of latent energy. That’s what’s propelling Hero. Unbelievable!”
Still smiling, he steered Hero slowly and carefully away from the pier.
He thought back to the origins of her ignition mechanism, inspired by theoretical work published in 2010 by Igor Sokolov and others at the University of Michigan. After doing some calculations, the researchers foresaw the possibility of using the head-on collision of a powerful laser and an electron beam to trigger a massive chain reaction inside a quantum vacuum. It was the quantum mechanical equivalent of the chain reactions used to ignite nuclear power plants.
Allie stayed on it. “It’s like a spark in a roomful of dynamite. Except that Hero’s tank is empty, so it’s like getting something from nothing. But nothing is not really nothing; it’s really something.”
He shook his head.
Man, she’s good.
Really good.
“That’s quantum mechanics for you, folks. For all of you hard-core geeks out there who want to know more, check out my Web s—”
“Rescue One, this is Point Loma. Please confirm your parrot is on. Over.”
“Parrot?” Allie asked, interrupting her running commentary.
“Hero’s transponder. It lets the base keep track of our position.”
He said to Scotty, “Confirmed. Over.”
“Pinging you now,” Scotty replied. “Stand by.”
Several moments later Scotty came back on the radio. “Rescue One, this is Point Loma. We have you in our sights. Over.”
“Excellent. Thanks for having my back, Scotty. Speak to you in two mikes. Over.”
“Copy that. And everyone here sends their best. Make us proud. Over.”
“Mikes?” Allie asked.
“Military slang for minutes.”
“Ah, yes, the military,” she tittered.
He rolled his eyes, concentrating on steering Hero southward away from Point Loma. To the left, a spring fog veiled Coronado Island and the city of San Diego, making their skylines appear ghostlike. He glanced up at the news copters circling overhead like vultures, noticing only one was marked Fast News. He’d given Allie exclusive rights to his story but it was impossible to stop others from horning in.
“Allie, I saw your report on the whales yesterday,” he said, playing to her TV audience. “Good job.”
“Thanks, I l
ove being a reporter—even when a story isn’t particularly lovable.”
“What category does this assignment fall into?”
“Too early to tell. We’ll see.”
“Well, hang on. You’re about to find out.”
TUESDAY, APRIL 25 (8:15 A.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME)
They left Mission Beach behind and were now reaching open water. Allie was still on the air.
“Here we go!” she heard Calder call out.
Abruptly, Hero sprang forward then turned sharply to the right. Allie’s torso pressed hard against her six-point harness, leaving her breathless. She struggled to maintain her composure.
AA: “Yikes! You can’t feel it at home, folks, but we’re off and running. Dr. Sinclair, what’s the plan, exactly?”
CS: “I’m going to use Hero to run interference between the shoreline and any large animal I see making toward it. With Hero’s speed and agility, we should be able to head them off.”
AA: “Can you explain to viewers: Why are you doing this? What does this mission mean to you personally?”
Calder didn’t answer right away.
AA: “Dr. Sinclair? Can you hear me?”
CS: “Yes, Allie, yes. I was just concentrating on what I’m doing. This is tricky business. What was your question?”
AA: “Why are you doing this? What do you hope to accomplish?”
CS: “Wow. Well, first of all I want to show everybody what Hero can do. She’s not just a scientific curiosity; she’s the future of long-distance travel in my opinion—and much more. Hold on.
Hero skipped over a swell and came down with a thud.
CS: “Besides that, the technology I’ve invented to tap into the quantum vacuum has huge implications for our planet’s future. We won’t have to drill into the earth or tear her apart anymore looking for energy. Think of what that means to the environment, to every living creature on the planet.”
Hero was executing a series of hairpin turns that made it hard for her to speak. “This is how I imagine a cow punch must feel who’s trying to corral a bunch of wild mustangs,” she managed to get out breathlessly.
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