Away Saga

by Norman Oro

  “Did you see that?”

  “Yeah. Damn it.”

  A few minutes later, the image dims again. Suspecting the same thing, they both immediately head towards the auditorium’s freight elevator. Dr. Marshall’s fingers become a blur as he spins a ten-number sequence into the combination lock, causing the heavy elevator door to open. They step inside and begin descending towards the Maytag room. Once the elevator stops, they dust off a pair of heavy coats hanging from the wall and put them on. Dr. Marshall then spins another ten-number sequence into the elevator wall, opening the door to reveal the warehouse-sized machine that is the Maytag.

  On his first step out from the freight elevator he hears a splash just above the din of the field generator’s cooling system. He then turns on the lights to reveal a layer of water on the floor stretching as far out through the machine’s corridors as he can see. Grasping what the water means, he and Guy Pool start running towards the heart of the field generator. They arrive after a few seconds and begin wiping dust away from a wall of gauges there, gradually uncovering row after row of needles swaying around erratically. Dr. Marshall walks to a nearby keyboard terminal and his fingers become a blur once again as he punches in a series of commands. Moments later, a strip of paper prints out from the terminal. He reads the diagnostic report over and over again. The results never change. After over fifty years of nonstop operation, the Maytag is dying.

  Though the field generator’s impending collapse is certain, there’s no telling whether it’s a matter of weeks, days or even hours. However, there’s little doubt that the damage is severe. Inspecting the machine they once helped to maintain, Guy Pool and Dr. Marshall spot drops of water falling from tiny leaks in the cooling system that probably found their way into the generator’s circuitry. They look at their watches and see that it’s already past two in the morning. Concluding that there aren’t any immediate fixes they can perform, they board the freight elevator and ascend back up to the auditorium.

  Exiting the elevator, Guy Pool finds Professor Minon seated at the table outside of the tent and explains to her what they’ve just found. In the meantime Dr. Marshall walks to the suitcase he left on the Maytag control desk and opens it. Taking the amplifier in hand and putting on his mobile detector, he walks to the chamber entrance and spins a ten-number combination into it. He wonders for a second whether he got it right and then hears the heavy door hiss open. Working his way through each of the chamber’s rooms, he finally reaches the operating room where he plugs the field amplifier’s wireless power transmitter into one of the wall sockets. He walks back out and goes through another chamber door, stopping just short of the sending room. There he unrolls the field amplifier and activates it. Reaching for his sleeve to unlatch his mobile detector, he sees that despite its coating, the device is now glowing clear through the fabric of his shirt. Unfastening it, he leaves his wristband beside the amplifier. Shortly after leaving the chamber, he sees Professor Minon and Guy Pool seated outside of the tent waiting for him.

  They begin discussing their options. Knowing that they have a meeting within a few hours, they eventually decide to return to the air base. They stop beforehand at the Field Technologies office where Dr. Marshall logs into the Vela system, keys in a few commands and downloads all of the data that’s available for Pueblo, plotting the field generator’s output since January 2007. He transfers the graph and data to his laptop then runs a search on the company intranet for the Maytag’s circuit diagrams, which he scanned in from Dr. Rys’s journals. Transferring them into his laptop as well, he then quickly logs off and heads back out to the car rental. He spends the two hour drive back to Edwards Air Force Base immersed, poring over every inch of the field generator’s schematics, trying to think of some way to repair the damage without powering down the Maytag. He can’t.

  They wake up a few hours later and walk into the air base conference room to find Dr. Perez and Secretary Davies already there. Thankfully there’s a pot of fresh coffee on the table. After helping himself to a cup, Dr. Marshall speaks with Dr. Perez about what they’ve learned. He then looks at his mobile phone to find three e-mail alerts from the Vela system. The first two e-mails are for simultaneous events in Pueblo and Carpinteria measuring an astounding 1.2 on the Maytag Index. The third event was also in Pueblo and measured 0.9. He filtered out the field generated by the Maytag from the alert system, so the readings can only mean one thing. Before he even has a chance to appreciate the moment, however, the virtual conference screens light up.

  Once everyone’s seated, the president begins going over his questions about operational aspects of the contingency plan. Guy Pool volunteers to address the president’s concerns, but notes that the timing needs to change because of damage they discovered to the field generator. He then hands the topic off to Dr. Marshall, who starts by explaining that the Maytag was originally designed for missions lasting only a few days at most. Even after Dr. Kerberos’s upgrades no one ever foresaw that its first mission with human passengers would last over fifty years. Considering that, it’s so well designed with so many fail-safes that its longevity isn’t very surprising. Nevertheless, it’s on its last legs. The generator can be repaired easily; however, neither he, Guy Pool nor Professor Minon can think of any way to do it without disrupting the field surrounding Dr. Rys, his son and the weapon. When asked how much time they have before the field collapses, Dr. Marshall replies that he doesn’t precisely know. Based on diagnostics he ran and graphs of the generator’s field-strength over the past six years, the power fluctuations are worsening. Consequently, they have anywhere from a few hours to perhaps several weeks before the field collapses entirely. All he can advise is that the contingency plan be executed as soon as possible.

  After about an hour of discussion concerning the plan’s logistics, the president agrees to proceed. Aside from operational issues, the question arises over what to tell the public. Though it’s a town of just under 9,000 people, evacuating Pueblo isn’t a trivial matter. The president and Sam Emerson have been working on an announcement to break US-395’s existence to the press; however, an evacuation immediately afterwards would complicate things significantly. To reveal the project like that would probably bring publicity that could ultimately endanger their ability to retrieve Dr. Rys and his son. On the other hand, to order an evacuation under false pretenses and to reveal its true nature to the public just days later would be just as bad. Eventually the president decides to call for a precautionary evacuation due to a potential radiological emergency, which will be elaborated upon within the next few days. He then begins speaking with his advisors and Guy Pool regarding each of the contingency plan’s specifics.

  A few hours later, Dr. Marshall, Professor Minon and Dr. Perez excuse themselves from the virtual conference to look into the morning’s alerts from the Vela system and further evaluate the damage to the field generator. On the way to Pueblo, Dr. Marshall continues examining the Maytag circuit diagrams trying to find a solution to the problem confronting them. After entering the auditorium, he immediately makes his way through the chamber to where he left the field amplifier and his mobile detector. Connecting the wristband to his laptop, he boots up the telemetry software. After filtering out the activity generated by the Maytag, he finds that it registered the 1.2 event earlier in the morning. It’s the highest reading he’s ever seen. However, it wasn’t from the amplifier. In its wake, it left a 0.9 event that lasted for over ten minutes before fading away. That was from the amplifier. Remarkably the 1.2 event was so intense that the device’s field-strength limiter kicked in. Based on the telemetry, both fields materialized just inches from one another, which means Dr. Minon landed a 1.2 level event almost directly on top of the sending room. Wondering what two immensely powerful fields in the same place would do to each other, Dr. Marshall begins to question whether bringing Dr. Minon into the US-395 facility was such a good idea.

  He exits the chamber to find Dr. Perez and Professor Minon at the Maytag desk c
ompletely absorbed by what they see on its closed-circuit monitor. Gently clearing his throat to get their attention, he invites them on a quick tour and walks them through the chamber. He then takes them down to the Maytag to show them what they spotted the night before. After going into detail regarding the probable nature of the damage and showing them the diagnostic report, they talk for a couple of hours about possible fixes, but ultimately conclude that none of the repairs can be made while maintaining the field in the sending room. Having confirmed that executing the contingency plan as soon as possible is essentially their only option, they then ascend back up to the auditorium and leave.

  Before returning to the air base, Dr. Marshall requests that they stop by the Field Technologies office. Once there, he logs into the detector network and accesses its archived data. Filtering the telemetry, he finds the 1.2 event in Pueblo from earlier in the morning. He also finds its equally powerful counterpart, this one occurring in Carpinteria less than a yard away from his lab bench. Was anything sent? Visualizing what he remembers of the chamber’s contents, it doesn’t appear so. He then returns to the car and tells Dr. Perez that he’ll need to return to Carpinteria to set up an amplifier there, as well. In light of the Maytag’s condition, he suggests the sooner, the better.

  They arrive at Edwards Air Force Base early in the evening just as the virtual conference with the president and his staff ends. Dr. Marshall sees Guy Pool, who tells him that the evacuation is set to begin the next morning on Friday. Understanding the import of what his friend just told him, Dr. Marshall soon boards a government plane, arriving in Santa Barbara about a half hour later. He takes a taxi home then tells his wife that the project he joined back when she was still an undergraduate at UCSB has come back to life and that he’ll be working over the next few days to wind it down. He kisses her, says goodbye to his grandchildren and heads out to his Ford F1. A few minutes later, he arrives at Field Technologies. He enters the lab, takes an amplifier off his work bench, lays it on the floor a few feet away from where the 1.2 event was detected then activates it. After getting a web-cam from the storage room, he connects it to the lab’s desktop computer, and points it so the field amplifier and the wall just beyond it are visible onscreen. He logs on to the Field Technologies intranet and makes the image-stream from the web-cam accessible to all of the company’s offices. After verifying that the connection is working, he exits the office, gets a burger at the fast food restaurant downstairs then begins driving to Pueblo.

  It’s just past one in the morning when he reaches town and parks his truck beside the old post office building. He gets his flashlight, finishes off a cup of coffee he purchased back in Lancaster and goes into the auditorium. Walking into the admin room, he gets the slide-rule he wanted to retrieve over fifty years earlier, but couldn’t because they walled off the door. Heading to the area around the gun rack, he dusts off his old hazardous materials suit and gets a revolver. Just in case. After donning his hazmat suit, he begins spinning combinations to unlock the chamber’s doors, eventually making his way to where he placed the amplifier, just in front of the sending room’s entrance. Setting the pistol and slide-rule down, he logs on to his laptop and checks the telemetry from the wristband he left beside it. Aside from the field generated by the Maytag, there’s been no activity around the mobile detector for the past several hours. After setting a Geiger counter down next to the amplifier, he ties some wire from a nearby lab station to the slide-rule. He then places a chair in front of the amplifier, closes the chamber doors, sits down and waits. It’s 1:50am.

  At 2:51am the amplifier’s timer comes to life and begins beeping, counting down from two minutes and thirty seconds. Roused to attention, Dr. Marshall sees the device change from its normal metallic-brown color into a nearly incandescent silver. He then looks up to see his lab in Carpinteria directly in front of him. Quickly grabbing the slide-rule, he places it on the amplifier’s edge and slides it through the Allen field. With only a minute left on the timer, the beeping grows louder and he pulls on the wire he’d attached to the slide-rule, bringing it back into the chamber. At 30 seconds, the beeping becomes a loud monotone. As the timer hits 0 seconds, the monotone ends, and the image of his lab suddenly bends into itself then disappears. The Geiger counter needle didn’t move the entire time. Dr. Marshall gets up, takes the slide-rule to the operating room lab and runs a battery of tests that the US-395 medical team taught them years earlier. After over two hours of chemical assays and running practically every square inch of the slide-rule under the lab’s microscope, he confirms there are no pathogens. The teleportation process is clean. Changing back into his regular clothes, he gets his laptop, leaves the auditorium and drives to the Field Technologies office in Pueblo. Glancing at his watch, he sees it’s half past five in the morning.

  Once inside the office, he logs on to the company intranet, and finds the stream from the web-cam he placed on the floor in the Carpinteria lab. Going back three hours, he sees an image of the lab wall with the fringe of the field amplifier visible at the bottom of the picture. About nine minutes into the video stream, he sees the lab wall suddenly replaced by an image of a man sitting in a room wearing a silver hazmat suit. He then watches the seated figure lean over to send a slide-rule hurtling along the floor through the Allen field towards the web-cam, stopping just short of it. About a minute later, he sees the slide-rule just as quickly speed away. Less than a minute after that, the image of the man in the room bends into itself and vanishes, replaced once again by the lab wall.

  Fatigued after a long day, Dr. Marshall doesn’t have quite the energy or inclination to reflect on the historical significance of what he’s just accomplished. Nevertheless, a few elemental thoughts do bubble to the surface:

  It works. The dang thing works.

  He then thinks to himself that he owes Professor Minon lunch. Fighting back the urge to sleep, he exports the clip recorded by the web-cam to his laptop and leaves the office to get breakfast at the diner. It’s just past six o’ clock when he walks outside into the desert’s first hints of daylight.

  He forgoes his usual table next to the window at Art’s and sits at the counter instead. Ordering a pancake breakfast with some coffee, he aimlessly watches the television mounted up near the corner of one of the walls. It’s just before seven when he sees a news report on Pueblo’s impending evacuation. The cashier turns up the volume and slowly the din in the restaurant fades until you can hear a proverbial pin drop. The report switches to a spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security who instructs residents to calmly evacuate the town due to a potential radiological emergency that the White House is still investigating. He goes on to say that the government will try to minimize the amount of time residents will have to stay out of Pueblo, but states that they won’t be able to return until Saturday morning at the earliest. The spokesperson then advises listening to the radio for updates, and a list of stations appears along with a phone number to call for information. Below that, there’s also a web-address where people can stay apprised of the situation and subscribe to e-mail alerts or text messages regarding it. Moments later Dr. Marshall receives a call from Secretary Davies, who tells him that they’ve begun the evacuation and have scheduled a meeting at Edwards Air Force Base for ten o’ clock. She asks whether he can join them. He acknowledges and tells her he’ll see them there.

  Feeling his second wind kick in, he finishes off his coffee and heads out to his truck. On the road in a few minutes, he just beats the wave of traffic evacuating out of Pueblo by about a half hour. He arrives at the conference room at 9:42am and sees everyone already there. After greeting them, he pulls Dr. Minon aside and talks about the trial run’s results, as well as what he intends to present during the meeting. After a few moments, she smiles and nods in assent. He then takes a seat and quietly awaits the start of the virtual conference. At 10am sharp, the screens light up and everyone rises. The president greets them all, requests that they be seated and begins the meeti
ng with a summary of the steps they’ve just initiated to evacuate Pueblo. White House analysts estimate that the town should be completely empty by late afternoon with roadblocks set up on routes leading to it. The discussion then moves to the technology piece of the contingency plan with all eyes turning to Dr. Marshall.

  After greeting the president and his chief of staff, Dr. Marshall requests that everyone log into the White House virtual conferencing site to view his presentation. He walks them through the night’s events, quickly cutting to the chase and showing them the clip he downloaded of his slide-rule instantaneously being sent almost two hundred miles across California. Allowing himself the slightly guilty pleasure of soaking in the ensuing moments of stunned silence, he continues by noting that the key variable now is whether another field event can be amplified in the next few days. Though he’s confident it’s possible, there are no guarantees. However, of the prior thirty days, twenty had events between Pueblo and Carpinteria that could’ve been harnessed for teleportation. As for the trial run, the initial event registered only 0.37 on the Maytag Index and lasted just a tenth of a second, yet the amplifier was able to hold a 0.78 level field for over two minutes. He’d prefer to be methodical and conduct another test run sending a person. However, the benefit from that is overshadowed by the Maytag’s impending failure. Consequently, he suggests attempting to retrieve Dr. Rys and his son early the next morning. A few moments later, he answers some questions regarding the trial run. Moments after that, the president authorizes the retrieval attempt.