Away Saga

by Norman Oro

  After another fitful night of sleep, Dr. Marshall saw e-mail alerts at his home computer early the next morning reporting simultaneous 0.7 events in London and High Wycombe. They occurred the evening before at a quarter past eight. Finishing off his coffee, he hurriedly got dressed then headed to the lab to see what Vela had detected. The events were very similar to the ones between those same points almost two years earlier. With a possible new instance of teleportation to investigate and only a couple of days remaining until Vela 1B’s liftoff, Dr. Marshall had to decide whether or not to continue researching field activity generated by people.

  Although he still had no explanation for Dr. Minon’s absence from the field detector telemetry, he reluctantly opted to leave it unresolved. It was an exercise in discipline preparing the detector for launch rather than squeezing a few more hours of telemetry out of it. However, he kept to his priorities and immediately began the meticulous process of integrating the detector into its satellite housing. Despite a few uncharacteristic bumps along the way, Vela 1B launched on schedule. Once it was in orbit, Dr. Marshall confirmed that the satellite could indeed identify field sources to within 100 yards and detect activity down to 0.045 on the Maytag Index, slightly beating his own pre-launch estimates. As expected, however, Allen field activity generated by human beings proved too faint to be detected.

  After each liftoff, Dr. Gidsen, Guy Pool and Dr. Marshall held a conference call to review progress on the detector network and address any outstanding issues, usually concerning Highway 1. Once he finished his usual summary of satellite capabilities and launch results, Professor Marshall went over his latest findings regarding naturally occurring field activity. Because of the months that often passed without having the time or opportunity to speak with one another, reviewing his lab results had lately taken on an abruptness that despite his best efforts, Dr. Marshall couldn’t entirely mitigate. Guy Pool and Dr. Gidsen hadn’t been in the Field Technologies lab alongside him as he painstakingly gathered and analyzed the data used to gradually arrive at the findings he presented to them. As a consequence, it must have seemed that once every several months, Professor Marshall would chime in on a conference call to nonchalantly unload some mind-boggling discovery regarding Allen field activity. Unfortunately, the January 9th, 2010 conference call only reinforced any such impression. Dr. Marshall counted off the seconds of silence after he walked them through his latest findings. He could only imagine what Guy Pool, having once been a student of world religions, made of the fact that human beings generated Allen fields. Instinctively, he cautioned against drawing too many conclusions, emphasizing that his findings were very preliminary and based only on several days of research and data collection. Though he wanted to keep everyone informed, he also wanted the discussion to stay focused on developing Highway 1 technology; and to a large extent he succeeded.

  By the end of the call, Dr. Marshall knew that he’d have to try bringing Professor Minon into the project. It was already 2010. He and his friends had spent decades trying to right what had happened to Dr. Rys and his son. Each new finding regarding Allen fields was reason for optimism, but time wasn’t on their side. The obvious question was how exactly to bring her in. As her former mentor and her friend, Dr. Marshall sought to protect her. He still vividly remembered how it felt to learn that his apartment had been bugged and that the project he’d worked on had somehow been thoroughly compromised, its promise transformed into something horrible. He, Guy Pool and Congressman Gidsen were committed to preventing that from occurring again and had the resources to ensure that it didn’t. Dr. Marshall even had assistance from the FBI, whose agents had been safeguarding his privacy for the past fifty years. Kate Minon might not have such resources. He promised himself then to give her those means if it ever came to that. He’d take personal responsibility for whatever consequences came from bringing her in.

  As with many things associated with US-395, Professor Minon’s involvement ultimately seemed to arise of its own accord. She’d enjoyed her lunch with Dr. Marshall a great deal, but was somewhat disappointed to see that her story about the fireflies seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. At the very least, it didn’t seem that Professor Marshall completely understood. On the other hand, perhaps he was just shy about having a firefly collection. They were so beautiful, though, that she had difficulty accepting that explanation. Still, maybe it was true. The story he haltingly delivered in the office about them being part of a physics project he’d been working on was so endearing. Somehow she had to make him understand that it was okay, that she thought his collection was beautiful. She spent part of the annual family get-together in London trying to think of some way to put Dr. Marshall at ease, so she could learn how those fireflies got there. She had to find out how it could be, how one of her fondest memories could’ve traveled through almost ten years and over five thousand miles to materialize in that little office in Carpinteria.

  Despite her slight preoccupation, Professor Minon had a good time at the family gathering that year. She was especially pleased to hear that her uncle’s beloved record collection had inexplicably turned up in his son’s attic a few days beforehand. They were vinyl rock n’ roll records that he’d purchased over forty years earlier when he himself was in a rock band. Though he never spoke of it, it was clear those records meant a lot to him. They’d gone missing for two years and he’d almost completely written off ever seeing them again. His elation at unexpectedly discovering them was infectious and made an already memorable gathering even better. Fortunately, she and her boyfriend met no difficulties getting to and from London despite the travel disruptions at Heathrow caused by all the snow. His white 1974 Karmann Ghia convertible got them to and from LAX without incident, though she continued needling him about getting a new car. She couldn’t count how many times he’d been late to see her because of car trouble. Also she noticed with more than a little surprise that she was suddenly able to hear the British accent. She’d lived long enough in the United States that she could at last hear the accent she’d received so many compliments on through the years. At the risk of sounding smug, she had to say that she liked the British accent.

  After giving it a few days’ more thought upon returning to Santa Barbara, Dr. Minon was convinced that she had to learn about the jar she found in Professor Marshall’s office. It’d already been over a year since she saw it; and despite her hints and gentle nudges, she was no closer than she was a year earlier to knowing how such an apparent coincidence could’ve come to pass. She decided that she’d have to broach the topic carefully. Although she wanted to know how it got there, Professor Marshall had been her mentor and her friend for years; and she wouldn’t ever do anything that would hurt or embarrass him. However, her story unfortunately didn’t seem to do the trick. Conversely, it didn’t seem to trigger any defensiveness either. She wondered whether perhaps there was something else. They’d scheduled a lunch together at the Faculty Club. Professor Minon decided that she’d take the opportunity then to try to unravel what had been puzzling her for so long.

  It was a crisp and sunny winter morning in Goleta when they met for lunch. Since it was Thursday, they wouldn’t have to hurry their meal too much. Outside of weekends, Thursdays were the least hectic days in their respective schedules. Although he was slated to completely retire that year, Professor Marshall wasn’t taking it too easy. In addition to his work at his company, he was teaching two seminars that term.

  They sat at a table next to a window with Dr. Marshall ordering his usual hamburger with french fries and Professor Minon getting her usual salad. Dr. Marshall then asked about her work and learned that things were going well. She’d followed his suggestions regarding her research from a few weeks earlier, which yielded significant improvements in a model she was developing to describe quantum phenomena sometimes observed in micro-electronics. As their lunch progressed, Dr. Minon noticed that Professor Marshall was a bit nervous, which in her experience was an exceedingly rare thing. It was so
subtle that she wondered whether it was her imagination. Nonetheless, she could swear it was there. She then wondered whether Dr. Marshall was picking it up from her. It was yet another reason to approach her designated task that lunch carefully. Rather than letting the conversation go where it would, organically as she always did, Dr. Minon tried to guide it. She made passing references to the beauty she found in nature, and told him a story about her boarding school in England, Wycombe Abbey, where she’d seen the fireflies she told him about.

  It was at that point when Dr. Marshall went eerily quiet, as though he’d seen a ghost. It was such an unexpectedly strong response to what was intended to be an innocuous anecdote that it threw Professor Minon off. Seeing her reaction, he quickly apologized, explaining that her story reminded him of something he’d run across while doing some research at his company. Seizing the opening in the conversation, Professor Minon mentioned the curious jar she’d seen in his company’s office the year before, and told him how much it reminded her of the fireflies from her story. For an instant, she saw the same quiet look in Dr. Marshall’s eyes that she witnessed just moments earlier. However, this time it quickly melted into a look of understanding and, if she was reading it right, serenity. He cryptically mentioned that the work he was doing may have been tied to what she saw that evening on her jog near her school; and suggested meeting that Saturday at his lab in Carpinteria, where he could tell her about his research. Somewhat surprised at the ease with which everything came to pass, Professor Minon agreed; and they scheduled a meeting for early that Saturday morning.

  Leaving the Faculty Club, Dr. Marshall couldn’t believe his luck. It was as though a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Instead of having to somehow gauge whether Professor Minon would be willing to join Highway 1 without revealing too much about the project, she’d essentially almost volunteered. He could only shake his head at his own inability to pick up on her hints. That was what her story was really about. It was about the field detector prototype she’d seen in his office a year earlier. Remarkably, during the entire time, Dr. Minon had thought it was a jar filled with lightning-bugs, that he was a nature enthusiast who shared an interest of hers. It wasn’t that wild a guess considering what the field detector looked like from a distance, and his well-known love of the outdoors. Professor Minon thought he collected lightning-bugs. She thought he collected lightning-bugs and spent the year trying to get him to understand that she liked lightning-bugs, too.

  They met at Field Technologies at half past seven that Saturday. Given Dr. Minon’s lack of familiarity with his company’s work, Professor Marshall explained it gradually at first. He also prefaced his explanation with the caveat that his research was confidential and that none of it was to leave the laboratory. Kate Minon was one of the most trustworthy people he’d ever met, so once she agreed, he began his overview without hesitation. He avoided any mention of US-395 because he felt it wasn’t yet necessary, saying only that he was building on work done years earlier for a government project out in the California desert. As he proceeded, Dr. Marshall was pleased to see that she picked up Allen field theory very quickly and was able to extrapolate most of its underlying principles on her own. By early afternoon, she’d already acquired a solid general understanding of his work on Highway 1 and it was time for a break.

  Just before heading out for lunch, Professor Marshall took her to the office she’d seen the year before. He wanted to show her what it really was that she saw that day, so she’d understand. The field detector prototype in the room was plugged in and alight with its usual activity. However, before he could begin explaining, it seemed once again to go into another gear. As Professor Minon entered the office and walked towards it, the micro-machines within the globe started whirling with a brilliance even greater than what Dr. Marshall had witnessed a year earlier. Though the light grew to an almost blinding intensity that left only the vaguest impression of an hour-glass-shaped silhouette in Professor Marshall’s mind, Dr. Minon never seemed to take her gaze off the detector. It ended almost as suddenly as it began. Before Dr. Marshall knew it, Kate Minon was standing very still over the globe, which again took on its characteristic glow, a glow he once considered strikingly radiant until he’d witnessed it in her presence. Just then he heard his mobile phone and checked his e-mail to find Vela system reports of simultaneous events in Carpinteria and High Wycombe measuring 1.1 on the Maytag Index. Looking up from his phone at Kate Minon, Dr. Marshall suggested skipping lunch and continuing with the overview instead. Professor Minon agreed.

  In light of what had just happened, he made sure to take things slowly regarding her potential connection to the Allen field telemetry he’d been observing. As he revealed details concerning what Vela had detected over the years, his caution seemed to be justified. He noticed her squirm uncomfortably in her seat at least a couple of times, especially when he mentioned the two High Wycombe-London events. Fortunately, she took it all in stride otherwise, even pitching in information about her boarding school and her annual family gatherings, a few of which had been held around where the London events had been detected. It was early evening when he completed going over most of the findings possibly connected with her. One topic he didn’t cover that day was field activity generated by human beings, deciding instead to save it for later. They agreed to meet again the next morning to finish the overview.

  After seeing her off in the parking lot, Dr. Marshall returned to the lab, sat down and went over the day’s telemetry. Looking at a world map of Allen field activity, he saw the two 1.1 events Vela had detected with over five thousand miles separating them. They shone brighter than anything the system had registered to date, briefly eclipsing even the half-century-old field in Pueblo. He was in the lab early the next morning scanning the results of an online news search for any hint as to what might’ve been sent. Not finding anything, he then resumed work on a presentation he’d prepared for Dr. Minon the night before. Just as he was finishing the deck, he got a phone call from her. Something had happened and she was running a few minutes late for their meeting. She said that she’d explain when she arrived. Dr. Marshall acknowledged then hung up. A half hour later, there was a knock at the door and Dr. Marshall greeted a slightly shaken Professor Minon. Apparently her boyfriend’s car, a nearly fully restored Karmann Ghia, had been stolen. He loved that car and was more than a bit apprehensive about finding it. Professor Marshall immediately offered his assistance and suggested postponing their overview to another time. She thanked him, but said that it wasn’t necessary. A police report had been filed an hour earlier and the insurance company would take care of the rest. With a nod, he walked with her back to the lab and continued from where he’d left off the day before.

  When it came time to explain the Allen fields he’d detected in people, Dr. Marshall made certain to qualify his work as being exceedingly preliminary, something that he’d been researching for less than a month. It was also work that he felt hesitant sharing because he couldn’t find within her that spark of field activity that everyone else seemed to have. He could only hope that like him, she held an intrinsically objective view of the world. Once Professor Marshall finished going over the telemetry from their lunch together, he was a bit astonished to find her completely untroubled by her absence from the detector readings. To the contrary, she seemed to revel in it. In fact, she seemed to view her status as an anomaly with the same sense of exceptionalism that comes from being the only student in a grammar school class with blue eyes. On that unexpectedly sanguine note, Dr. Marshall concluded his overview and invited Professor Minon to join his company, saying that she could be the key to one day unlocking how naturally occurring Allen field activity could be harnessed to effect teleportation. She responded by asking when she could begin. Several days later, Dr. Minon joined Field Technologies as a research advisor.

  It certainly didn’t hurt having another person on the project, especially when that person was Kate Minon. With her help, Professor Marshal
l was able to build a few extra field detectors as a contingency, his most advanced yet. Given its prominence in the detector telemetry, he then advocated and swiftly received approval for a Field Technologies office in High Wycombe. More a house than an office, it was situated as close as possible to the estimated location of the field events Vela had detected there. As a sign of the times, he’d never actually been to the house by the time its purchase had closed, conducting most of the transaction by phone and through the Internet. In addition to research facilities comparable to those in Carpinteria, the new office would also house a field detector. In late March, he oversaw the logistics associated with transporting one to England; and personally took the ten hour flight in mid-April with Professor Minon to install it.