Waiting for him on the other side of security stood a particularly awkward young man. His hair looked like he just rolled out of bed, and not in the stylized way people liked to do it these days. His white shirt and sinfully ugly brown tie had coffee smears on them, which was in addition to the green stains creeping out from under the kid’s armpits. To round off the package was a breast pocket full of pens and the mother of all calculators nestled inside.
The kid’s eyes shifted side to side and never looked higher than Mark’s neck as he approached. Mark came to a stop three feet away from his greeter and stood staring at the kid’s forehead, waiting patiently for eye contact to be made. The young man visibly struggled against his natural instinct to look away and slowly lifted his head.
“Hello, hi.” The kid squeaked rapidly. “Dr. Kranz asked me to escort you to the conference room.” With the words spoken the young man let out a sigh of relief and lowered his head once more.
“Hi yourself,” Mark exclaimed sarcastically matching the high pitched tone of the salutation. He held the tone for his question, “Who is escorting me today?”
“It’s not nice to make fun of people,” the kid said as his head came up again and his eyes once again darted from side to side only accidentally making full eye contact. “I’m Jeremy, the payload specialist for the deep space communication probe program.”
“Wow. I’ll bet you can’t say that five times fast without pulling a muscle,” Mark teased. “Listen, you look like a nice kid Jeremy but tell me why the hell I’m standing here talking to a pissant payload specialist and not Alfred Kranz himself?”
Jeremy looked like he was about to run away screaming, but to his credit he stayed put. “I’m here because Dr. Kranz called me into his office six minutes ago and said to bring that nosey, pain in the ass National Security Agent to the conference room since the two minutes he would waste doing it himself was more than you deserve.”
The words leaving Jeremy’s mouth must have reached comprehension in the young man’s mind because the kid instantly snapped his head up with panic in his eyes.
“Well you’re a chatty one aren’t you?” Mark said through a half grin. The lips may have smiled, but the rest of him was plotting the kid’s demise. “Why don’t we forget talking anymore and you just take me to Alfred?”
True to the request, Jeremy escorted Mark, in silence, into a tiny conference room where flight director, Alfred Kranz, stood with his back to the door. His hands were held behind his back as he looked out the exterior window. With his escort task complete, Jeremy slinked off into the sea of cubicles to do whatever payload specialists do at NASA.
“Thank you for providing an honor guard escort for me, Alfred. Your boy Jeremy is quite the charmer.”
The flight director turned away from the window and gestured towards a side table where an already opened and half finished bottle of water sat. “Can I offer you something to drink?”
“No thanks. This nosey, pain in the ass NSA agent had a drink on the way over. Thanks for the offer though. You really pull out all the stops to make a guest feel welcome.”
“Cut the crap. I have better things to do than play a game of verbal masturbation with the likes of you. Why are you here? Why does my deep space communication probe mission warrant a visit from the NSA?”
“You’ve always been my favorite here, Alfred. You get right to the point and I like that,” Mark praised.
“I take it we’ve met before then,” Alfred interrupted. “It must have been far more meaningful for you because to me you look like any other NSA stooge. I hate when you people are around. Your proximity and the probability of things going wrong appear to have a direct correlation.”
“Are you implying I’m some sort of bad luck charm?” Mark asked.
“I don’t think luck has anything to do with it,” Alfred shot back.
“Like I said, you get right to the point, so let me reciprocate in kind,” Mark said with a frosty edge on his words. “You’ve spent ten billion dollars on this little passion project of yours. That money would have been better spent in thousands of other places. An aircraft carrier complete with a full fighter wing certainly comes to mind. The president wants to make sure he’s getting his money’s worth.”
“The president is well aware that every dollar invested in NASA eventually adds ten dollars to the nation’s economy,” the NASA flight director stated. “I thought you were going to get to the point.”
“I’d still prefer having an aircraft carrier at the end of the day, but what do I know. The real concern is the safety of the reactor that powers your probe. Its design has a rather questionable track record, wouldn’t you say? It’s the sort of thing that keeps people like me tossing and turning all night, and it certainly falls under the umbrella of national security.”
Alfred’s face grew red as his anger level rose. “The first fusion reactor was built on the cheap by the military according to a politician’s time table. All the best minds this country has to offer were kept on the sidelines. The accident that came as a result was not a question of if, but rather when it would happen.”
“An accident,” Mark repeated with surprise. “You certainly have the knack for understating things a bit. A quarter million people died in that ‘accident.’ With that as a frame of reference, I’m scared to ask what might pass as an earth-shattering catastrophe in your book.”
“You’re right of course,” Alfred conceded. “I suppose I downplay the fallout in my mind as a coping mechanism, but that situation was vastly different than this project.”
“How’s that?” Mark asked. “You’re constructing a fusion reactor with the same design. Some define insanity as doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. This begs the question Alfred, are you insane?”
The flight director pulled out a chair and took a seat. He gestured for Mark to do the same. Mark chose instead to stand and lean against the table directly over Alfred Kranz. The subtle play to gain a dominant posture didn’t go unnoticed by either man. The flight director politely sat in his chair with a smug look on his face that made Mark want to throw Alfred right out the window. Doing that would certainly end the probe mission’s threat.
“All this was detailed in the original project plan I submitted and got approved five years ago,” Alfred began. “Your line of questioning implies you’re either too lazy to read the documents for yourself or too stupid to understand them without an interpreter. Allow me to give you the Cliff Notes version, and I’ll use small words so I don’t lose you.”
Now Mark’s face began turning flush as he struggled to contain his anger.
“The military chose to construct their reactor on the ocean floor off the coast of Indonesia for two reasons. It was done first and foremost to maintain secrecy. If knowledge about a functional fusion reactor got out the world would be thrown into instant chaos.”
“Well, now you’re overstating things. Are you bipolar by any chance?” Mark asked rhetorically. “Working in the NSA requires me to be a perpetual cynic of human nature, and even I don’t buy what you’re saying. Why would a reactor capable of generating almost unlimited amounts of energy with virtually no environmental impact cause such trouble?”
“Trillions of dollars are dedicated around the globe to the exploration and refinement of energy,” Alfred instructed. “How would the financial markets react if all those investments were suddenly worth nothing? How would a middle eastern country floating atop a sea of oil react if the market price of that oil suddenly dropped to five cents a barrel versus the hundred dollars a barrel we see today?”
“When you put it that way, it would certainly make a tempting terrorist target,” Mark added.
“Look at you standing there using your brain,” Alfred mocked. “I’ll bet someone on my team could build a machine to harness those brain waves to toast my bagel in the morning - very lightly of course.”
“Now who’s not getting to the point fast enough?” M
ark asked through gritted teeth.
Mark of course knew every detail of what the director just said from the proposal documents and internal NSA papers. Mark was willing to play the fool to gain an edge on this mission, but it didn’t make absorbing the insults and sarcasm any easier. Alfred was skating on very thin ice.
“The second reason the military chose to construct the fusion reactor under water was to contain the impact of any catastrophic accidents,” Alfred continued with a smirk lighting the corners of his mouth. “The fusion reactor basically creates a miniature sun generating incredible amounts of heat. It was assumed the sheer mass of the ocean’s volume would dissipate the heat and absorb any shockwave.”
“Well the heat from the explosion wasn’t an issue, though the following couple years were unusually hot around the globe, but the shockwave from the blast was another matter,” Mark said. “It resulted in a 9.3 earthquake that lasted almost ten minutes and the tsunami enveloped the entire coastline of the Indian Ocean. I think none of us would be here had that explosion gone off on dry land.”
“Indeed,” Alfred agreed. “That’s why our reactor was constructed in space this time. In addition, the reactor won’t be brought on line until it’s at least a quarter million miles away from Earth. It’ll pose no threat at all. It’s the ideal way to test the technology.”
“So what went wrong with the first reactor causing it to blow?” Mark asked. He knew the answer already but he was curious to hear the director’s interpretation of events.
“The magnetic field containing the fusion reaction broke down,” Alfred replied with sorrow creeping into his voice. “There was a defective watertight seal on one of the electro magnets. It broke down and allowed a miniscule amount of water to seep in. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to disrupt the flow of electricity to the magnets. The field collapsed and the fusion reaction hit the outside elements causing an unparalleled explosion.”
Mark was glad to hear there was no suspicion of foul play from the director. The truth of the matter was the seal was not defective at all. It performed its function flawlessly, though the extent of the explosion was light years beyond what anyone at the NSA expected. Dirty business most definitely went on underground back in Maryland, Mark thought.
“Thank you for the education,” Mark said while reaching out to shake his hand. “It was most enlightening.”
Alfred didn’t move a muscle.
“The bottom line is I’m going to be here for the probe launch as well as hookup with the reactor section and startup,” Mark said. “My NSA clearance pretty much gives me a free run of this place, but not to worry. I’ll be a good boy and stay out of the way so your people can do their jobs. I’m just here as an observer.”
“Grand,” Alfred sighed as he sprang to his feet and walked toward the door. On the way out he said without looking back, “Your clearance doesn’t need me to show you around then. Careful you don’t wander into a closet and lock yourself in. That would just be tragic.”
**********
Away from Mark and Alfred’s conversation at NASA Headquarters, crawler-transporter #2, better known as Franz to the workers, was half way to launch complex 39. There was only two miles left to traverse before reaching the launch facility, but at the blazing speed of one mile per hour there was still another two hours left of the journey.
Resting atop Franz was a three stage Delta II rocket standing thirteen stories tall. Most Delta rockets only contained two stages, which was sufficient to place an object into earth orbit. The third stage was used to carry a projectile beyond earth’s orbit. Inside the nose cone of the rocket was the communications probe that would eventually merge with the fusion reactor stage already in orbit.
Franz’s laser guided leveling system detected a minute shift in the rocket’s angle on the platform and engaged its hydraulic system to compensate and keep the towering rocket perfectly level. Anything less than perfection by the leveling system and the thirteen story rocket would tip over and demolish everything in its path.
The rocket also needed to be flawless in its construction. A thousand moving parts all needed to work in perfect concert together at the exact times at the exact angles to ignite the fuel and direct the thrust to place the probe into space. The Delta II rocket was the perfect choice for the job as it was the most reliable launch vehicle in the United State’s arsenal. In 150 launches, only once had a lift failed.
Attached to one of the flawlessly constructed fuel lines on the third stage of the rocket was a tiny container no larger than a watch battery. Diligently following its preset timing, the container opened its lid and released a trace amount of liquid. The substance immediately began eating away at the coating of the fuel line.
Meanwhile Franz continued on her merry way carrying the rocket to the launch pad.
Chapter 20: The Neo Scale
In ancient Egypt, Tomal did not rejoin his companions in the slave quarters after his run in with the labor overseer. The next morning, a new work group was formed. Five hundred men were handed stone cutting saws, then led onto flat river barges, and sailed to the other side to begin chopping down the forest.
The day after saw the laying of over 1,000 logs in a row stretching from the quarry to the pyramid site. As if on a conveyor belt, the immense stones rolled across the timbers as a small crew was dedicated to ferrying logs from one end of the road to the other to replace the movement. Tomal’s idea was working to perfection. Now it only took 50 workers to pull a stone instead of 500. In the following days, four more log roads were constructed and set into production.
Prior to using the logs, a good day saw as many as 100 stones set into position. After the log roads were implemented, moving 5,000 stones into position was not uncommon for a day’s work. Soon the limitation was no longer how fast the stones could get moved, but how quickly they could be cut. To solve this problem, Tomal implemented his pulley and gearing system so only fifteen men were needed to guide a stone into position. This freed more workers to cut the stones out of the quarry.
The overseer took credit for the ideas of course, but Tomal was not allowed to leave the man’s side. He was a part of the inner circle, and the information soon began to flow.
A week later, Tomal asked Hastelloy and the others to join him for dinner in his new private tent to hear what he learned as a valued member of the engineering crew.
“Nofru is really starting to open up and trust me now,” Tomal said with pride. “It turns out his older brother Neferhotep is the leader of these people. Legend has it that the gods visited Neferhotep and bestowed an abundance of food upon him.
“Not only that, they gave him knowledge to cultivate the land and produce even more food on a perpetual basis. His tribe then used the riches gained from the excess food stores to increase their power and influence in the region. Starving people from all around flocked to join their community.”
“I am not sure I buy the gods part of the story, but their tribe’s rise to power certainly makes sense. Food is power in this stage of Neo scale development, and they definitely have enough food to go around,” Tonwen observed.
“The questions still remain: why is so much time and effort being put into constructing this stone structure, and why are they employing slave traders to scavenge the land for more workers?” Hastelloy asked.
“According to Nofru, his brother is erecting a monument to the gods, one that’s worthy of the great gifts they bestowed upon him. The problem is even though many voluntarily came and submitted to Neferhotep’s rule, it wasn’t nearly enough for his plans. In order to make such a grand structure more draconian steps were taken. Neferhotep’s armies fanned out across the land in all directions and conscripted those who didn’t come willingly into service.” Tomal answered.
“Ah, this whole thing makes sense to me now,” Tonwen exclaimed. “Gentlemen, right now we are privileged to witness vintage Neo scale development at work right before our very eyes.”
“Would you care
to elaborate on that?” a very confused Valnor asked. “My aching muscles aren’t feeling all that privileged right now.”
“Well said,” Gallono added while rubbing the triceps muscle on his right arm.
“The monument is just a tool used to accomplish a greater goal,” Tonwen began. “The way I see it, this project serves four objectives. First, it gives everyone something to come together as a community to accomplish. It makes them feel they are a part of something bigger than themselves.
“Second, the crops have already been planted for this season, so the populace needs something to do. Idle hands usually lead to idle minds, which usually leads to bad outcomes for a ruler.
“Third, the slaves will eventually be assimilated into the tribe’s population.”
“Hold up, you lost me there,” Gallono interrupted. “If the soldiers weren’t here, these slaves would be gone in a heart beat, wouldn’t they?”
“I do not think so,” Tonwen replied. “We are all well cared for, as far as slave labor is concerned. In case you did not notice, food, and shelter are pretty hard to come by in this region. Once the labor is done and the whips are put down, I would expect most of these people to stay and form a working class for this tribe.
“The fourth reason for this construction project is when the pyramid is complete word of the achievement will spread. Then more will come to see the impressive sight and many may choose to stay. So the true goal of the pyramid project is to increase the tribe’s population because in the next step of Neo Scale development, population will equal power, not food.” Tonwen shook his head in amazement. “This king Neferhotep really knows what he is doing.
“If what you say is true, then this civilization will have skipped several stages in the Neo scale,” Hastelloy noted with concern. “From space you thought these people were in the Stone Age, but now they’re using basic metal tools, so clearly they are well into the Bronze Age. By Tomal’s account, they recently jumped to the Agricultural Age. This population equals power attribute you just described doesn’t come into play until the Imperial Age.”
Origins Page 14