“That was interesting,” she said. She looked at Patrick. “You saw my naked butt?”
“Yeah, sorry. Won’t happen again.”
“I hope not,” she said and sensed a rise in her heart rate. She turned away.
“Sit down,” Thomas said. “We need to get your vitals. You look flushed.”
She sat and extended her arm to except the blood pressure cuff from Bradshaw. Her grandfather swiveled in his chair to face her.
“Any odd senses?”
“No,” she said and stuck the thermometer in her mouth.
“Nothing worth noting?”
She shook her head and then removed the thermometer. “Other than the dreams.”
“Dreams?”
“Visions. Hallucinations. Mental apparitions. I can’t give you any more of a description. They faded fast. Weird.” She put the thermometer back into her mouth.
The air bled out of the blood pressure cuff and then Bradshaw said, “125 over 80, pulse 96.”
Annie looked at the thermometer and handed it to him. “Now what?”
“In the following series, twenty-one, thirty-three, forty-five, fifty-seven, what . . .?”
“Sixty-nine,” Annie said before he could finish. “Give me something a little tougher than that.”
“Is 104,287 a prime number?”
“Yes.”
“If your father’s only son is William, who’s his sister?”
“Who’s sister? My father’s or my brother William’s?”
Bradshaw smiled. “How many prime numbers between 900 and 1000?”
“Fourteen. Is this all you could think of? Maybe I should recite the Periodic Table of Elements?”
“That would be too easy. How about you include all the isotopes?”
“Where would you like me to start?”
“Cadmium.”
“The forty-eighth element. Of its fifty isotopes, eight are naturally occurring. Half-lives range from a few hundred nano-seconds to well beyond a petaannum.”
“What’s a petaannum?” Patrick asked.
“Ten to the fifteenth power anna.”
“Anna?”
“Years.”
“Years?” Patrick held up his hand and started counting on his fingers. “Thousand, million, billion, trillion . . . petaannum?”
“No. Quadrillion. A petaannum is ten to the fifteenth power. Quadrillion is one followed by fifteen zeros.”
“I thought quadrillion was a made-up word. What’s eighteen zeros?”
“Quintillion.”
“Twenty-one zeros?”
“Sextillion.”
“Twenty-four?”
“Septillion.”
“Twenty . . .”
“Octillion, nonillion, decillion, undecillion, duodecillion, tredecillion, quattuordecillion. Shall I go on?”
“Sure. Where are we?”
“Forty-five zeros.”
Robert put up his hand. “I think the point has been made that there are few brain cells damaged.”
“Thank you, Grandfather.”
“We should still do a more comprehensive test, though.”
“What are you going to compare it against?”
“She’s got a point,” Professor Grae said over the intercom. “We didn’t perform a battery of tests before she went so we don’t have a standard. The best we can do now is something like what she just did; demonstrate her mental agility. Only she can tell if she’s slipping somewhere.”
“And slipping, I am not,” Annie said. “I feel as sharp as ever; maybe even better.”
“We’ll be shut down to the point we can get out of this sardine can in another ten minutes,” said Grae. “Let’s meet in the courtyard in fifteen.”
“I started a fresh brew of coffee in the penthouse just before we stepped in here,” Charles said. “Pour us a round.”
“What? I did my job and now I’m relegated down to secretary; fetch everyone’s coffee?”
“Wasn’t talking to you, Annie,” Charles’ voice said over the intercom. “I was talking to Patrick.”
Chapter 55
June 15, 2007
As they stepped out of the trailer Patrick pointed. “I get it. That’s the penthouse,” indicating the RV. “And that’s the courtyard,” he said, nodding to the circle of chairs. He pointed to the tent. “What’s that?”
“Probably the executive suite,” Annie said. “Even MIT brains have a sense of humor.”
“And I’m the executive secretary.”
“You’re probably the entire secretarial pool.”
“Hope it pays well.”
Annie opened her mouth as the words only with kisses popped into her head, followed by a memory of her and Tony standing together, backpacks hanging from their shoulders.
“I need your help on a paper?” Tony’d asked. “It’s right up your field.”
“Does it pay well?” she’d said.
“Only with kisses,” he’d replied. “But with all the kisses you want.”
“Annie.”
Annie looked to see Patrick’s hand on her arm.
“Are you all right?”
She took a deep breath in an attempt to force the memories down. Guilt rose in her and she stepped away from Patrick’s touch. On weak knees she walked over and sat in her pink chair. Patrick followed.
“Actually I think I’m just the coffee gopher,” Patrick said. “I should be honored that they’d trust me handling their coffee mugs.” When he didn’t get a response Patrick added, “After I’ve gotten the coffee I think I’ll go hang upside down from yonder tree with a pinecone in my left ear and an in service sign affixed to my forehead.” For a half-minute Patrick watched Annie before concluding that it might not be so wise to break into her thoughts. He turned away and went in search of the coffee.
Like the night before, they sat in a circle, this time with coffee mugs in their hands, though for those who still had coffee, it was cold. Patrick had dragged a log out of the trees, draping the towel from his truck over the wet bark before sitting down. The discussion had continued from the night before, tossing back and forth the ramifications of trying to stop the terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001.
“So, what have we concluded from the last thirteen hours?” Robert asked of the group.
“Other than the fact that stopping the attack may not work and even if it did the fallout on Annie is not acceptable?” Professor Grae said.
“Yeah, other than that. What was the load on the plant?”
“Eighty percent.”
“Eighty-one percent to be exact,” Charles corrected.
“Our estimation, then, of sixty kilograms at full load is accurate.”
“Plus or minus a percent,” Grae said.
“What would you say would be a safe overload?”
“Maybe another five percent. Certainly wouldn’t want to go there to find out.”
“What are you thinking, Robert?” Bradshaw said.
“Nothing in particular. Every good ship’s captain knows the maximum he can get out of his plant at full power. Helps him plan his best cruising configuration.”
“This isn’t a damned cruiser, Robert,” Grae said. “We know what the load will be and I don’t think Annie’s going to gain another 21 pounds over night. It would take that to put us to 100%.”
“What if we decide she needs to be carrying something?”
“Like what? A suitcase? She may have to spend the night but I think there will be bigger issues to worry about besides a change of clothes.”
“Just trying to explore possible scenarios. The best plans take into consideration what can go wrong.”
“Understood. I’d say under no circumstances would we want to go beyond 95% of load. Even a ship’s captain knows that.”
Annie held up her hands. “Okay, guys! I think we’ve concluded, at least for now, that 9/11 is not doable; even though I’m sure my weight is stable and I can go without a change of clothes
. In my grandfather’s defense, though, I had thought about my backpack with my computer.”
Charles said, “Not worth hauling it. Your Wi-Fi would be worthless in 2001. It was still in early stages of development.”
“It was two years old.”
“Still, a lot has changed, including the number of hotspots. Not many back then.”
Annie nodded. “True.”
Except for several distant calls of birds, silence suddenly prevailed. After a time Annie said, “Before we scrap it completely, we should do at least one more test.”
They all looked at her.
“A longer time period than twelve hours, but not six years.” She paused; they waited. She swallowed and cleared her throat, then summoned the courage to continue. “Maybe something like . . . five months . . . or so.”
More silence until Grae finally broke it. “Where and why?”
“Jacksonville, North Carolina.”
They all looked at each other, except for Robert. He stared at his granddaughter, waiting for the why, though he thought he already knew what it was. When she wasn’t forthcoming he said, “That’s where Camp Lejeune is. You want to see Tony.”
Annie looked down at her mug. “Yes.”
“Okay.”
Bradshaw jumped up. “Wait! The argument against 9/11 fits with this as well. If you stop Tony from going, you wouldn’t be here now to go back and stop him from going.”
“I agree with him,” Charles said.
Grae nodded his head.
Annie looked up at Professor Bradshaw. “I don’t want to stop him.” She bit her lip and gulped something back. “I can’t stop him. I need to go for another reason.”
“What?”
“I’m not saying.”
“Whatever you plan to do five months back would most likely affect all of us. I think we have a right to know and be part of the go, no-go decision.”
“It doesn’t affect anyone here except me. Take my word for it. I just need to talk to Tony.” She looked at Professor Grae. “That’s what you said to get me to go to your meeting, remember?”
“I didn’t think I was serious,” Grae said.
Bradshaw said, “You’d be putting your life on the line just to talk to Tony. I don’t see the point.”
“First of all we’ve already proven it can be done so I don’t see any risk, other than the lab burning down while I’m gone. Second, talking to Tony is really important to me, and I’m not willing to share why.”
“I still don’t like it,” Bradshaw said. “The twelve hours here was under our tight control, both ends of it. North Carolina five months ago is way out of our control for a test. What if something goes wrong there, like you get hit by a car and can’t get to the pickup point?”
“I’m not going to get hit by a car.”
“That’s not the point. Something could go wrong and we wouldn’t be able to find you.”
“Yes, we could.”
Everyone looked at Robert.
“I’ve been working on something just for that scenario.”
“The seeker?” Grae said. “You’ve got it figured out?”
Robert nodded. “It still has to be tested, but yes, I think it will work perfectly.”
“Seeker?” Annie looked between Professor Grae and her grandfather.
“It’s about the size of a pager,” Grae said. “You’d wear it and when it is time to bring you back we’d lock on to its location instead of a predetermined location where you’d otherwise have to be.”
“You can do that; track me across time and miles?”
Robert nodded. “Yes.”
Annie leaned back. “Wow!” She thought for a minute. “What if I was in trouble and needed to be beamed back immediately? Is there some way I could signal you?”
Robert looked up at the sky for a few seconds and then over at Professor Bradshaw, who’d sat back down. “Yes, I believe that could be added. What do you think, Thomas?”
“I didn’t even know you had this perfected. Why haven’t you kept us up-to-speed on this?”
Robert shrugged his shoulders. “Didn’t figure it was important unless we actually moved forward with the 9/11 thing. We’ve had a lot of other things going on.”
Bradshaw shook his head. “I still don’t know if I like this, but yes, something could be added, like a node on which she would have to take an action to interrupt; push a button, shake it violently, whatever. It’d have to ride on the seeker signal.”
“That’d mean being online and ready 24/7,” Charles said, “continuously seeking and listening.”
“Certainly,” Robert said. “We’d have to be ready to respond in a matter of seconds. Could we monitor and respond from hot idle?”
“We could monitor, but we’d need at least ten minutes to get back up to the 80% we’d require to bring her home.”
“Ten minutes is better than being stuck some place I’d rather not be,” Annie injected. “Let’s test it.”
Chapter 56
June 15, 2007
It was after noon before Robert had the seeker ready and the application installed and profiled for a local test. The pair of hamsters was back in their transport cage, staring through the wire bars from inside the chamber. Clipped to the cage was the seeker. Outside Annie and Patrick stood twenty feet from the circle, listening for professor Bradshaw’s signal that the event was starting.
“What time are you planning on going to work?” Annie asked.
“Are you kidding? Who in their right mind could go to work with this going on? When you were with your grandfather working on the seeker, I borrowed your satphone and called in that I was too sick.”
“It must be interesting.”
“What?”
“Working. I’ve never worked.”
Patrick looked at her.
“I’ve always been a student. I can’t imagine ever working.”
“You’re working on your masters. That’s work.”
“I like being a student, so is it really work?”
“It would be to me.”
“It’s referential then. It’s work to you but not to me.”
They stared at the circle for a while. Finally Annie said, “I’m going to ask you a question and I want you to tell me the first thing that comes to your mind.”
“O…kay,” Patrick said.
“You’ve won the thirty-million-dollar lottery. You’d quit Wal-Mart and do what?”
“I’d make sure my parents and Leslie are taken care of.”
“Of course. Probably goes without saying. But what’s the first thing that comes to your mind career-wise? What would it take to fulfill your life’s ambition? What would be your idea of non-work work?”
“I’d open my own business.”
“Really! Why?”
“It’s the great American dream.”
“Heading your way,” came Bradshaw’s voice out the trailer door, followed by the high-pitched whine.
Patrick and Annie slipped on their goggles and ear protection, even though the glare and sound were not nearly as bad as in the trailer. When the cage of animals had settled and the glare gone, Annie picked it up and carried it to the other side of the clearing. Patrick watched her from the front of the RV.
“Okay!” she called to him.
“Okay!” he yelled to the trailer.
Patrick waited until Annie joined him where, together, they listened for the whine and watched for the cage to disappear. When it did they rushed to the trailer in time to watch the hamsters appear in the chamber.
“Works great in real time,” Charles said over the intercom after the animals had been checked out. “You planning on testing across time, say like we did last night?”
Robert looked at the atomic clock hanging above the chamber. “It’s 12:35. At 1:00 let’s send them back fifteen minutes to the circle. That means they’ll appear ten minutes from now. Our young team here will then relocate them somewhere into the woods from where we’ll pi
ck them up at their signal from the seeker.”
When no dissention to the idea came forth, Annie and Patrick went back outside to wait by the circle, taking the hamsters with them.
“This is still weird,” Patrick said. “We’re waiting for something to happen in six minutes that doesn’t become initiated for twenty-one minutes.”
“Bizarre for sure. I suppose it was like that when Armstrong walked on the moon.”
Patrick laughed. “I have a coworker who believes that never really happened, that it took place in a warehouse somewhere, a plot by the government.”
“Really?”
“Yep. He says the entire space program is just a government-produced movie.”
“And this person is allowed to mix in society? I suppose he thinks Elvis is still alive, too.”
“He’s not?”
Annie punched him in the arm.
“They’re here!” Annie called when the hamsters sitting on the ground by their feet disappeared and then showed up right on time in the middle of the circle.
“We’re right behind you,” her grandfather said. She turned to find him and Bradshaw leaning on the rail of the platform, watching. “Take them out about 100 yards or so. We’ll be listening for the signal. The button I installed is kind of crude but it’ll work just fine.” He looked at them for a few more seconds. “What are you waiting for? Get going.”
Patrick jumped forward and picked up the transport cage. “Let’s go!” He took off and Annie dashed after him.
Robert and Thomas watched them until they disappeared from view. “To be that young again,” Robert said.
“I don’t know if I’d want to be that young again, but I’d sure like to have that energy.” Thomas straightened up. “What’s next after this? We going to let Annie go off on her trip to see Tony?”
Robert felt a cough coming on, took several controlled breaths to keep it at bay and then said, “I don’t know.”
“Second thoughts?”
“I guess. What if we lose track of her? What if we lose her?”
“We’d already know it if that happened. The first thing she would do is get herself back to Boston and track us down to tell us something went wrong. Since I don’t recall anything like that happening five months ago, then all must go okay.”
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