The Savants

by Patrick Kendrick

  “That’s another soap opera question,” said Cooper, embarrassing the reporter. “But, I’ll answer, because I want the world to know who these people are. I have been working with scientists from all over the world, including Japan’s Dr. Hisamoto and Austria’s Dr. Heimel, as well as many of their colleagues. But, I have also requested the help of my friend and former advisor on national disaster planning, Dr. Stephen Pevnick. Dr. Pevnick introduced me to a special group of extraordinary people. Your choice of the word ‘retarded’ is as offensive as the ‘N-word.’ Please don’t use it again to refer to these people instrumental in saving our lives. They don’t think like us, it’s true, and thank God for that! I, we, needed someone who could think outside the box and these people are doing it. If they have any ‘challenges,’ as you stated, they’re the same ones Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison had.”

  As the embarrassed reporter sank into the crowd, his face red, another stepped up and asked, “Would it be possible to meet these people, sir?”

  Cooper pondered the question for a moment and looked over to Pevnick, his eyebrows arched.

  Pevnick shrugged his shoulders and nodded. He held up one finger indicating one minute and went inside to gather the savants. He emerged a few seconds later with the group tailing behind him. Etta tried to hide behind everyone, keeping her eyes to the ground. Jeremy looked around as if blinded by the attention, wearing pajama bottoms, a leather jacket and flip flops. Harvey smiled and waved as if he were running for President, himself, one shirttail tucked in, the other hanging out. James glanced at the crowd, but tried not to focus on anything, especially the grass in the lawn, as he feared he would count the blades. He squinted and looked up to avoid the crowd, already anticipating their questions and his answers, his shirt buttons mismatched to their holes and his zipper down.

  Cooper waved them over. “This is Dr. Stephen Pevnick. Stephen?”

  Pevnick approached the stand of microphones like a basket of snakes, looking hesitant, but assured. The group followed him, like baby ducklings behind their mother.

  “Hu…Hello,” said Pevnick. “Thank you, Mr. President. Uh, I’d like to introduce you to my…colleagues. But, first, I’d like to say this country could not have a better man to lead them, especially facing this crisis. President Cooper has worked around the clock for days without rest, and has made the best decisions possible based on the information available. You should trust him; you can trust him.”

  The crowd of reporters mumbled, generally, but there seemed a sense of acceptance, overall.

  Cooper looked to Pevnick and nodded in appreciation.

  “Now,” Pevnick continued, “let me introduce to you my associates. Immediately to my left is Etta Kim, an engineer, specializing in oceanography. Next to her is Jeremy Clemens, a mechanical engineer and expert on time concepts…”

  Etta kept her eyes on the ground, but gave an almost imperceptible nod. Jeremy grinned broadly and took a bow. Harvey shook his head while James tried to keep his eyes averted.

  “Next to Jeremy is Harvey Peet, a…brilliant researcher and historian.”

  Harvey winked at the crowd.

  “And last, but not least, is James Tramwell, who many of you already know, I believe. He is our mathematical theorist and language expert. Would you like to say a few words, James?”

  Surprised, James opened his eyes and glanced out over the heads of the sea of reporters. There were so many of them. Try as he might, he could not avoid counting; he counted their eyes, the buttons on their coats, the number who wore laced shoes versus those who did not. His eyes flashed around, back and forth, faster and faster, until his head began to swim and his vision blurred. Sweat poured down his face. He took a step and wobbled.

  “James,” said Pevnick. “Are you all right?” Then, he realized what was happening. He went to James’s side, and whispered, “Close your eyes.”

  But it was too late. James had tried to count too many things and his brain had overloaded. His eyelids fluttered, and he fell to the ground, going into a full-blown seizure. Upset watching James suffer, Etta began to cry, her arms flailing around as she began stimming. Harvey and Jeremy just looked confused.

  “’S’okay…s’okay…s’okay,” repeated Jeremy, as if to assure himself.

  “Damn, damn, sh…cuss, cuss, cuss,” said Harvey, fighting the nervous tic that made him begin his cursing.

  The crowd of reporters rushed forward. As Pevnick tried to help James, all tried to capture the scene on camera. Secret Service personnel pushed forward, as well, concerned the President might be at risk.

  Cooper again leaned into the microphones. “This press conference is over,” he stated. “Mr. Tramwell is obviously having a medical problem. We will keep you informed. Now, please take your exit.”

  Another reporter interjected, “But, Mr. President. These are the people you’ve trusted with the nation’s security?”

  One of the Secret Service agents pushed forward and shoved the reporter back. “The President of the United States has just issued an order. Now, move!”

  Before the crowd could dissipate, James began to come to. He was talking, but incoherent. The reporter who was shoved away turned to his cameraman, and ordered, “Get this! Zoom in!”

  James’s eyelids flickered, and his eyes went wide, as if he were seeing something in front of his face no one else could see. “…it’s not going…to work…the plan…not going to work. We need to….” The seizures started again, and he fell unconscious.

  More Secret Service agents came from everywhere and managed to push back the eager reporters.

  The savants helped Pevnick pick up James and carry him into the house. The moment that should have been a triumph, both for them and the President, faded into a gloomy melancholia for all of them.

  ***

  In their hidden bunker in the otherwise quiet forest in Pennsylvania, Vice President Proger and General Haufman watched the telecast of the press conference. They glanced at each other, relieved, and smiled.

  “That went better than I thought it would,” said Haufman.

  “I was worried for a little while,” Proger admitted. “God, the man knows how to speak. But when he introduced those retards, well, the American people don’t want to see something like that in times of a crisis. They want strength, not some lame effort led by a bunch of social rejects.”

  Proger stood up and shuffled to the lavatory to splash cold water on his face. Staring at his reflection in the mirror, he spoke to the general, “The public needs me. Let’s proceed with the plan. Move in the militias…and the tanks. Start herding in motorists broken down along the roads, and show them we’re here to help before the President can mobilize the regular Army. At best, it’ll appear he reacted late. At worst, people will view him as weak…and impeachable; not fit to run this country.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Haufman, standing erect and donning his new general’s hat.

  “One change, though, General.”

  “Sir?”

  “Make that research center one of the first missions. I think we need to corral Cooper before he makes any more press statements.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  James awoke with a groan, holding his aching head. He was surrounded by Dr. Pevnick, Mrs. Brown, the nurse, Magritte, and the rest of the savants. The President was still there, too.

  “Looks like he’s coming around,” said Cooper. He glanced at the faces of the group. “What do you think he meant when he said, ‘the plan wouldn’t work?’ Was he just delirious?”

  “I’m…not sure, sir,” said Pevnick. “He did have something else he wanted to discuss with you.”

  “Oh? Why didn’t he?”

  “I…I’m sorry, sir,” said James, sitting up, rubbing his face. “You were in a hurry, but I have been going over my calculations and I’m not sure we’ll be able to stop the fault line from getting worse.”

  “What? I just told the American people we were handling this. I gave them hope, son.
Please don’t tell me I have to take that back.”

  “I’ve gone over my figures and Etta has been helping me. She…I…we think that, even if we reduce the dimensions of the shelf, the fault line will still fail. Reports from the sub fleet state they have reduced the size of the shelf, but the fault line is still widening. We will have reduced the size of the resultant tidal wave, but there will still be a catastrophic failure, perhaps worse than we imagined.”

  Cooper shook his head. “It’s too late for me to change our course of direction now…”

  “I’m not asking you to. I…have another plan. It’s risky, and we should still evacuate the coast in those areas we discussed previously, but I think, in the end, my plan could significantly deter the threat the fault line represents.”

  James turned to Etta. She smiled and took his hand. “Show him the model, Etta.”

  Etta picked up James’s laptop, turned it on, and twirled the screen toward Cooper just as James began to explain.

  “There is a field of frozen methane,” he said, pointing with his index finger, “just to the west of the fault line area. If that field could be melted, or simply heated, the methane would thaw and erupt as a gigantic gas bubble.”

  “Like a big fart,” said Harvey, grinning like a kid.

  James frowned at him, then continued, “Many scientists believe this happens naturally and somewhat frequently in small amounts. But even small amounts are huge, and what many believe to be the cause of ships that disappear in the Bermuda Triangle.”

  Cooper’s face went dead. It was as if all his faith, his belief that these people might be able to help, drained out of him like hope in a hurricane. “You mean the Devil’s Triangle?” he said, glumly.

  “Some call it that,” said James. “Anyway, if we could time it right, if we had enough power to melt the field, whether instantly or near instantly, I think it could stop any wave action, perhaps even reset the fault line, if you will, back to a normal or near normal state.”

  Mechanically, Cooper said, “How could a field that large of any frozen matter be…thawed?”

  James looked at the faces of his colleagues, as his own lit up with excitement. “With a laser.”

  Cooper took a deep breath, trying to remain calm and compassionate. In his heart, he knew this had been a hair-brained idea, but he’d been so desperate he had been willing to listen to anything, anybody who offered a solution. Now, he just felt empty.

  “Well,” he said. “I don’t know about all the technology that’s out there, but I know this from the old Star Wars defense program: there’s not a laser in existence powerful enough to do what you’re suggesting.”

  James nodded. “You’re right.” He stood up and approached President Cooper. “But, we’re building one that should enable us to tap into an existing laser and intensify its effect. If we can direct the beam back through our atmosphere, then scatter the beam over a wide area, it could work. Harvey’s read everything there is to know about it, theoretically. Etta’s designed it, and Jeremy is building it. Almost finished; right, Jeremy?”

  “Oui. Feen-ished, right. Oui,” said Jeremy, calmly, talking like he had just finished replacing a flat tire on a car.

  “You’re telling me,” said Cooper, “the four of you have built this device here in the backyard, while doing all the research on evacuation demographics, fault line restructuring, and uncovering a conspiracy against the nation, all in the past couple of days? How could you possibly have done that?” His tone was not merely one of a non-believer, but one who harbored more than a little anger.

  “We…had help,” said James.

  “From who?” Cooper demanded.

  The group all looked at each other, but said nothing.

  Finally, Pevnick spoke up. “My son, sir. Douglas. He helped them.”

  Cooper looked confused. “Your son, Stephen? I thought your son was dead.”

  Pevnick nodded. “That’s what I’ve told people for years. He was hurt…his brain damaged beyond any hope of recovery. But James has found a way of communicating with him, and…”

  James interrupted, “Or, he’s found a way to communicate with us. He’s using a system I thought I had created. A language, if you will, I thought was derived from symbols I see in my head that I’ve recorded. Now, I find it came from actual patterns…from nature. And they are telling us everything we need to know. Douglas has been writing in this language—we’re not sure how he knows it—but it is as clear to me as English is to you. His writings have assured me we must take a different tactic.”

  Cooper shook his head in disbelief, his tolerance and faith in the group all but diminished.

  “I…can’t believe this. I’m disappointed you weren’t more candid with me, Stephen. This sounds so, well, I don’t want to insult any of you, but it sounds like the plot to some silly sci-fi movie. Super-powered lasers, the Devil’s Triangle; I can’t go along with this. They’d lock me up and throw away the key. What we have been doing is unconventional enough, and I’ve trusted you knew what you were doing. But, this is too much. I can’t believe in this, in you, anymore. I put the lives of millions of innocent people at risk. I’m sorry. This stops here.”

  Cooper began to leave, but James shot up and darted in front of him.

  “Please, sir,” he begged. “Listen. We don’t want millions of people to die, either. That’s why we are suggesting this plan.”

  “I’m sorry, James,” said Cooper. “But, try to see it from my point of view. It’s fantastical, unbelievable to begin with, then you tell me you learned this from a brain-damaged patient my friend and advisor has been telling me was dead for years? I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  “Wait, sir. Please,” James pleaded on. “Answer one question: Do you believe in God?”

  Cooper hesitated before answering. “Yes, son. I do. More than anything. My faith has kept me going so many times… It’s the one thing I’ve always been able to believe in.”

  “Then believe in Him one more time, Mr. President. Because God is telling us what to do, how to save ourselves; we’re just not listening. Let me show you. Dr. Pevnick, do you have that notepad, the one Douglas was writing on?”

  “Yes,” said Pevnick. Reluctantly, he handed it to James.

  James took the pad to the window. “Mr. President, would you please come look at this?”

  Cooper complied, slowly approaching the window, wondering what he was going to see. There was a flock of birds moving in a pattern. The wind blew, and the long grass shifted in swirling patterns.

  “Do you see those patterns, sir?” he pointed. “That one, there, with the birds? Now, look at this page. Do you see the similarity? And there, see the grass moving, changing, but coming back to the same pattern?”

  “Yes. I suppose I do.” Cooper began to think of the past few days, recalling his own observation of nature and its patterns. Could it be? He wondered skeptically. When he’d run for the office he now held, he asked people to believe in him. People who were diametrically opposed to some of his views. Now, he wondered, could he do the same?

  “Good,” said James, excited. “Finally, look at these other patterns Douglas has written down. These patterns are what I’ve used in making my language, something I’ve been calling Manti. Each one says something, or I should say it means something or elicits a certain knowledge—a readable knowledge, if you can interpret the symbols. For instance,” he pointed, “this one means sea or ocean. This one means sky or space. This one is conflict, war or fight. This one, power or strength. This is heal or mend. This is ice. This is star. There are hundreds of these symbols. They are repeatable as necessary with any language. But, they are also present in nature. And if you can believe this is a language, you have to believe that someone, or something, is trying to give us a message.” He paused, waiting for the President to comment. When he didn’t, James added, “You know I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  “So, you’re saying…”

  “Yes, I’m saying
God is telling us how to save ourselves. He has been all along. We just haven’t been listening.”

  “And what is He telling you, or us?”

  “Do you remember when I asked you about the Starfire Project?”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, the Starfire Project uses a laser system, and a newer science called ‘adaptive optics’ to magnify images of the light a star produces in order to give us a better picture of the star, itself. We are able to see farther and more clearly into space than ever before. Follow?”

  “Go on.”

  “A laser consists of a gain medium inside an optical cavity. If we can energize that medium, the power of the laser would be strengthened exponentially. It’s called pumping the laser. If we can reverse the Starfire system to target earth, combine it with our power source, which will be a combination of a solid state and concentrated free electron laser, then direct that super-powered laser into the ocean where the methane field is, it should melt the field, like an enormous microwave, and cause a giant burp, if you will. Which will, hopefully, realign the fault.”

  By the time he stopped talking, James was vibrating with energy and passion.

  “What about the ocean?” Cooper asked. “Won’t the heat kill all the marine life, or warm the ocean and cause another catastrophe even more harmful down the road?”

  “No,” James answered confidently. “The laser will only affect that solid on which it lands. It should pass through the sea as though the sea wasn’t even there. The methane eruptions might kill some sea life, but it won’t permanently harm the ocean. Right, Etta?”

  Etta nodded vigorously. President Cooper fell silent, trying to digest the new information and weigh it with his own religious beliefs.

  “You know,” he said, finally, “even if you could convince me, there is no way I could tell the American people this.”

  Pevnick stood up. “Who says you have to? Sir, until last night, I thought my son was a brain dead vegetable, to be perfectly frank. Today, I’m beginning to believe in something. If not God, then at least something more powerful than all of what we know. Working with this group the past few days has opened my eyes, made me believe that science and cold facts are not the only things that represent truth. Somewhere along the line that is our lives, there is another part of the equation we can’t explain. Call it faith, God, Allah, or, like James said, the Great Spirit, if you will. Whatever it’s called, it is inexplicable and wonderful at the same time. You and I both know, even if we can begin this evacuation, there will be mass chaos, looting, panic—all worse than things are now. We still won’t really know if we’ve evacuated everyone as far inland as we should. The Vice President seems to be mounting an offensive created to spread civil unrest. The sooner we can intervene with some…I don’t know…” Pevnick drifted off, searching for the right words. “We need a miracle,” he finally said, “and I’ve never been one to believe in them. But these people, James, Etta, Harvey, Jeremy…they’ve ignited something in me. I…I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore…I’m sorry.”