Away Saga

by Norman Oro

  To do it, he’d applied numerous combinations of forces to quantum particles he hoped to re-cohere. After a few years, he’d finally found a composite of forces that he felt could work. He referred to it in his journals as an Allen field, using the name of a local street. His next step would be to use a particle accelerator to test whether his Allen field could indeed, metaphorically speaking, un-ring the quantum bell. Though he was known as being somewhat of a maverick, the respect and esteem of his colleagues mattered to him. As a consequence, he always conducted his research alone because he personally viewed the chances of it succeeding as being far from certain.

  It took another year and a half of preparatory work until Professor Rys felt confident enough to begin lab experiments in earnest. During that time, he’d built a prototype Allen field generator and had sharpened his thinking concerning how to obtain empirical results. On that front, his timing was fortuitous. When he returned from Los Alamos, Caltech wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination a hotbed for particle physics; however, since he’d begun studying quantum re-coherence years earlier, the tide had turned and high-energy physics had since become a priority for the institute. In fact, a brand-new and very powerful particle accelerator, the Caltech electron synchrotron, had just gone online. As a result, when the day finally arrived to begin testing his theories in the lab, Dr. Rys had the state of the art at his disposal.

  He’d never forget that first experiment in 1951 because on top of being the day after the 4th of July, it was also when Dr. William Shockley announced his invention of the junction transistor. Dr. Rys wasn’t particularly superstitious, but being an electronics enthusiast for many years, he hoped that augured well for his own research. It being summer vacation, Caltech was practically empty that day and he therefore had his run of the facilities. If he were a cynic, he would’ve said there could’ve been no better time to completely fail. However, Professor Rys was no cynic. Excited to begin the first series of Allen field experiments, he arrived at his space in the parking lot early that morning, pulled the prototype field generator out of the family station wagon, a 1949 Buick Roadmaster, and wheeled it towards the optical shop where the Caltech synchrotron was housed.

  Once he got there, he couldn’t help but pause for a moment. The school’s new electron accelerator was a wonder to behold. Superficially it resembled an immense metal ring that measured about thirty feet in diameter, was around fifteen feet tall and weighed well over five hundred tons. The synchrotron and related equipment took up most of the lab. In contrast, the Allen field generator he’d constructed was about the size of a large suitcase. It stood just three feet tall, was five feet long and about two feet wide. The prototype resembled a bunch of oversized tuning forks that had been welded together back to back to form one thick, continuous fork standing upright on a pedestal. If it worked as designed, the Allen field would be generated between the tuning fork’s U-shaped arms. The base of the “U” would cradle the medium through which the electrons from the synchrotron would travel as they re-cohered. In this case, that medium would be a jug of water. The cradle itself was built with arms that partially folded down, so the water jug was enclosed on four sides. To accommodate different particle accelerator configurations, it could be adjusted up to a height of six and a half feet if necessary. As a practical consideration, Professor Rys had designed the generator to require little energy, running on electricity available from an everyday wall outlet.

  For the prototype’s trial run, he placed a particle detector directly in the line of fire of the synchrotron. He then placed the field generator just past the detector, adjusting the height of the cradle so the jug of water was also in the particle accelerator’s line of fire. Finally, he lined up a second particle detector just past the field generator. When he was ready, he took a deep breath and activated the prototype. It ran silently, generating no observable energetic phenomena. In fact, there was no way to tell it was on at all except for a couple of lights that Dr. Rys had installed for that purpose at the base of the device and on its side. Once he saw the lights were on, he walked to the synchrotron control room, took another deep breath, activated the particle accelerator and observed. He noted the characteristic light-blue ionized air that formed around where the energized electrons were escaping from the synchrotron’s magnetic field, and verified that the first detector was registering them. However, there didn’t appear to be any activity registering at the second detector.

  Puzzled, he powered down the synchrotron, the particle detectors and then the field generator. He spent hours systematically trouble-shooting the second particle detector. The tests he ran showed nothing wrong with the photo-multipliers within the detector. Furthermore, there was nothing wrong with the medium that the particles were to travel through. He ran the experiment again, this time without the Allen field. The second detector then obligingly lit up like a Christmas tree and began displaying telemetry corresponding to the energized stream of electrons from the synchrotron. There was nothing wrong with either particle detector. The field generator was doing something peculiar.

  Dr. Rys then wondered at what point the electrons became undetectable. He spent the next five days integrating a makeshift particle detector into the generator’s cradle. Once he was satisfied that it worked, he went back to the optical shop and ran his experiment again. This time he only activated the detectors and left the Allen field switched off. When he turned on the synchrotron, he saw all three of them register the particles emitted by the accelerator. This was precisely as he’d expected. However, when he redid this with the Allen field switched on, both the detector within the generator and the one after it went silent. Whatever was disrupting his experiment started at the field. He wondered whether perhaps the prototype was causing the detectors to malfunction. However, that should have affected all three detectors: before, at and after the field generator. Only two were affected. The first detector seemed to be working fine.

  Still puzzled, he finally decided to jerry-rig mirrors around the detectors and field generator that would let him see what was happening from the lab’s control room. Just as he was about to start, he looked at his watch and saw it was almost ten in the evening. He’d spent the entire day in the lab. It was only then when he realized that he’d been working almost nonstop for seven days; and had hardly spoken to his wife and sons for what seemed like weeks. Exercising considerable willpower, he stood up, disconnected the field generator, rolled it back to his car and went home to get some much needed rest. He spent the following day with his wife strolling through Lake Avenue, and going to the movies with her and their sons.

  Early the next day, he went back to the lab and began work on the mirrors. It was more complicated than he’d anticipated, but he finished well before noon. Standing in the control room, he noted with some satisfaction that he could now clearly see what was happening all around the field generator. The irony wasn’t lost on him that his labors had taken place within the optical shop. He then stepped out to grab a sandwich and some soda just in case it turned out to be another long day. After lunch, he carefully removed the particle detector he’d built from the cradle of the Allen field generator and replaced it with a jug of water. He got a flashlight from his toolbox, activated the field generator and turned off the lights in the lab to help him better see the accelerator’s electron beam. He then walked back to the control room and powered up the synchrotron.

  What he saw when he looked up at the mirrors shouldn’t have been possible. The characteristic stream of light-blue ionized air coming from the synchrotron was there, but just as it reached the Allen field, it seemed to vanish. Somewhat fatigued, his first thought was, “Is this a prank?” Had someone come in and tampered with the mirrors he was using? No, that broke an unwritten rule at Caltech. Had he hit a wall? Was this exhaustion? Despite some time off, he had to admit that was plausible. He sat there with his notepad and pencil for over three hours trying to formulate some viable hypothesis to explain what he was seeing. He
couldn’t. It shouldn’t be there. And yet, there it was. He then powered down the synchrotron, stepped out of the optical shop into the warm summer air and kept walking for a few miles until he got home. He spent the rest of the day with his wife and sons trying not to think about what he’d just seen.

  The following day, he woke up just before dawn, got dressed, had breakfast, grabbed his umbrella and headed out. It was cool and drizzling outside when he began walking back to Caltech. By the time he got to campus, the drizzle had stopped, leaving only a light fog. He felt refreshed and was anxious to try to piece together what exactly had happened with the prototype the day before. Once he got into the lab and turned on the lights, he saw that he’d accidentally left the field generator on. Shaking his head at his absent-mindedness, he walked towards it, put his umbrella down and flicked the switch to turn it off. Even years after the fact, Dr. Rys still had difficulty describing what then happened. In essence, as soon as he flipped the switch, he saw a brilliant flash of sky-blue light that blinded him. Along with that flash of light, he heard a loud boom. For an instant, he then felt as though he were being lifted into the air.

  The next set of coherent sensations he had were of coming to, feeling the hard lab room floor pressing against the back of his head and realizing that he’d been launched over five feet from where he originally stood. He also noticed that, aside from the ringing in his ears, he couldn’t hear anything. Instinctively, he sat up and began yawning to try to get his hearing back. It didn’t work. He then began slapping hard at the floor and clapping his hands. For what seemed like an eternity, he heard nothing. Then slowly, to his profound relief, he began to vaguely make out the sound of his hands hitting the floor. It sounded sweeter than any song he’d ever heard. He began yawning and hitting the floor harder. He sat there for almost a half hour yawning and slapping at the floor until he regained most of his hearing. He then took a breath, stood up, got a Geiger counter from the control room and ran it over himself. Despite the trajectory of the day’s events, at least he hadn’t been irradiated. Running the Geiger counter through the lab, he got the same result.

  Professor Rys then began looking around the room. He turned in the direction of the field generator first and saw that it had exploded, taking most of the mirrors he’d set up for observation along with it. Pieces of the generator were scattered everywhere along with bits of glass. All that remained of the particle detector he’d placed just after the field generator was some melted plastic and charred metal. Just beyond it, the reinforced concrete backstop to the synchrotron seemed slightly discolored. Upon closer inspection, he saw that there was now an indentation in the backstop, as though someone had taken a chunk out of the reinforced concrete wall. Fortunately, most of the equipment in the room was fairly durable and bolted down. Aside from the particle detector and the backstop, there was no serious damage to the lab from what he could tell. Somehow his umbrella had escaped unscathed. He then spent about an hour going through the synchrotron room, cleaning it of debris.

  After he finished, Dr. Rys salvaged what he could of the Allen field generator and threw the rest away. He laid the pieces out on the floor and studied them. The prototype’s steel casing had been warped almost beyond recognition and the arms forming its cradle had been blown off. It was as though dynamite had been placed between the generator’s arms and detonated. To be more accurate, he would say it was as though a bolt of lightning had been hand-delivered right into the prototype’s cradle. And that’s when the truth hit him. Lightning. The disappearing stream of electrons from the day before. He must have stared at it for at least three hours. At least three hours. Teleportation.

  He quickly went to the control room to get his pad and pencil. Going through the week’s events, he did some rudimentary calculations. Based on his results, what he observed was in fact consistent with the Allen field generator shunting away the high-energy electrons that had been streaming into it for over three hours the day before and then shunting them all back. However, it didn’t bring them back over the course of three hours; it brought them all back at once. The sudden influx of energized particles caused the air to ionize within the cradle, creating a superheated field of plasma. Lightning. The suddenly heated air around the plasma then violently expanded, causing the explosion he heard before he was knocked unconscious. Thunder. The highly concentrated electron beam must have then vaporized most of the particle detector before finally taking a divot out of the synchrotron’s reinforced concrete backstop. It made perfect sense. If you were willing to suspend your belief in the laws of physics, it made perfect sense.

  The Bunny

  Despite his new insights into the Allen field, Professor Rys spent an uneasy month afterwards trying to deal with the experiment’s immediate consequences. When he told the facilities personnel that there’d been an accident, he offered to pay for the damage to the lab, but the school wouldn’t hear of it. Considering a spontaneously generated beam of ionized air would probably make the news, he then began scanning the papers each day to see if there were any articles that indicated where the synchrotron’s electron beam had been shunted to. After a month of not having heard or read anything about it, he relaxed. Outside of the optical shop, there’d apparently been no injuries or damage resulting from the accident.

  With at least some peace of mind, he then turned his attention back to his research. It took him the better part of 1950 and about half of 1951 to build the first generator. Fortunately, he’d made detailed notes during its construction, so building a new one probably would take much less time. In fact, the most difficult part of designing the original prototype had been determining the combination of forces needed to generate an Allen field. Building the device itself had been fairly straightforward. As a result, rather than immediately constructing a new generator, he decided to instead focus most of his energies on bettering his understanding of the field’s underlying properties.

  Dr. Rys spent the rest of 1951 developing a rudimentary quantitative model of teleportation. However, the conservative academic in him cringed at using the word “teleport” to describe the process even in his private journals. He’d leave that to the science fiction writers and movie producers. Instead he took to using the words “sending” and “shunting”. As for his theoretical framework, he would’ve been the first to admit that it was mostly guesswork. Many important questions, including where exactly the Allen field shunted to, remained unanswered. Nevertheless, his educated guesswork represented a vast improvement over the state of ignorance that he’d begun with. His improved understanding informed the new prototype, which he began referring to in his notes simply as the “bunny” because it vaguely resembled a pair of rabbit-ear antennas.

  Seeking to maintain a low profile, he did most of his theoretical work at home in his private study. Going over the project with his wife initially left her bewildered. Abigail was one of the most intelligent people he’d ever met, but even she took a few minutes to absorb what he was working on. Since the project was so unconventional, and given how quickly word traveled, he asked her to keep it just between the two of them. Until he had a better grasp of the Allen field, it was probably better to err on the side of caution. She agreed and they spoke little of it from then on. As for his sons, Pedro and Juan were used to their father hauling in exotic-looking devices and components from campus, so there was little need for explanation there. However, to be on the safe side, he began taking extra care to make certain the door to his study was locked while he was away.

  Professor Rys built the new field generator in six months. Based on his theoretical model, it could send matter as well as energy. In fact, he concluded that it was only through pure chance that the original bunny shunted just the electron beam from the synchrotron and nothing else. Under slightly different circumstances, it could just as easily have sent part of the water jug also. When he heard himself think in those terms, about making objects disappear, shunting matter and energy to who knows where, he realized ju
st how surreal his research had become. His work had progressed so gradually that he often took it for granted that it was a part of everyday life, that it was normal. However, what to him was now routine would be considered by most everyone else to be the product of an overworked imagination. This reinforced his feeling that it was probably better to keep his work to himself, at least for the time being.