The Far Side

by Wylie, Gina Marie

  “I broke a shit pot of hearts in the gaming world this morning,” Andie told Kris as they sat down outside for lunch again, once again well removed from anyone. “I did a bunch of Internet research this morning instead of any of my games.

  “Kit is a nice guy, but it’s going to help if we could use your old man as a shill,” Andie told Kris.

  “A shill?”

  “Yeah, he’s got all sorts of creds in this town. If he rents an old building, no one is going to ask any of the questions of him they would of me or you. Kit might be able to do it, but it would be a push. And my old man...”

  They both nodded. Homer Simpson was smarter than Otto Schulz.

  “I can ask, but we would have to tell him the truth. Andie, there’s no way he’ll let me explore. None. We both know this is going to be insanely dangerous. It would be his price for him helping us.”

  Andie grimaced. “I never thought about that. I guess I’m going to need to think about it, ‘cause while my old man won’t give a shit about most things, but if he’s loaned me money, he isn’t going to want to see me take any risks until he gets paid back.”

  Andie looked at Kris. “You gotta know this is something I’ve dreamed of my entire life -- being an intrepid explorer. I never thought I had a chance. Sure, space and all that shit, but really, what do astronauts do these days? They go up to low earth orbit and twirl around in circles for a few days. That’s not my idea of ‘intrepid exploration.’ I want to see the headwaters of the Nile! I want to probe the depths of the Great Pyramid. God, I’ve watched Star Gate SG-1, the whole series, four times!”

  Kris giggled and Andie looked at her, her face red with anger. Kris reached out and touched her friend’s hand.

  “Andie! We’re talking secret fantasies here, right? Who would have thought we shared the same one? That deep, deep down, where it counts -- we want to be out there?”

  “I thought you were laughing at me.”

  “No! Not only no, but hell no! I was the one with the ‘go big’ idea, Andie. Why do you suppose I want that? So I can go out there on the far side of the sky! Andie, if we do this, there’s no chance I’ll die in bed. You either. No matter what you think about why I do things, the fact is I’ve never wanted to die wasted on some gimmick or stupid stunt.”

  Andie searched Kris’ face. “I wondered why you didn’t give me more shit about sticking my head through the door.”

  “It’s insane. You’re insane. It’s crazy dangerous... And I wish to God, I’d have been at your side so I could have argued for my chance to go first.”

  Andie giggled. “All those years of DARE and other anti-drug programs and what happens? We go and get addicted to the worst drug of them all! It’s true! You only have to use a drug once to get hooked!”

  “Speaking of the original idea -- what did Mr. Marshall want with you today after physics?”

  “He wanted to know how my project is going. I told him I’d gotten side-tracked and I wasn’t going to bother. The son-of-bitch is going to make me take the final.”

  “Andie! That’s crap! You have a higher average than I do!”

  “I think the geezer gets some sort of bonus or something if I win a prize. He’s taking out his frustration on me. I don’t care. What, me worry about a physics test?” She laughed nastily.

  “Tomorrow, I’ll tell him that if you have to take it, so do I,” Kris told her friend. “I bet he backs down.”

  Andie laughed. “Yeah, he probably would.”

  Andie gestured in the direction of where they lived. “I guess we’re going to have to go with Kit. I sure hope he’s as trustworthy as he is smart.”

  Kris considered things for a moment. “Buy him,” she told her.

  “Say what?”

  “Offer him a salary, a couple three thousand a month. Offer him a great whacking bonus at the end of a year of good behavior. My dad calls it ‘Golden handcuffs.’ He’s got a couple of key people he feels he absolutely needs, and he pays them way more than they could make anywhere else.”

  “Hmm,” Andie said, “that’ll be expensive.”

  “Yeah, but on the other hand, for a year or so, he’ll be in your hip pocket, with an option on other years. You should be able to get something published in a year.”

  Andie grimaced. “Yeah, I’m never going be able to enforce a patent. This is just too damn simple. But unless there is some easy way to go back and forth to the same place, a lot of people stealing the concept are going to vanish.”

  “Maybe you should just punt then,” Kris told her friend. “Do what research you can over the next couple of months, we put the tape up on a web site, along with the plans and a big fat warning ahead of everything: ‘Do not try this yourself at home.’”

  Andie frowned. “Everyone would ignore the warning. I sure as fuck would.”

  “You said people would be stealing your idea. If you put it out into the public domain or maybe under something like the Creative Commons license -- it won’t be so much yours as everyone’s. And even if people get killed, it’s going to make it a little bit harder to sue you... God knows, my dad gets sued a dozen times a year.”

  “There are times I think that if someone like Edison or Ford were alive today, they’d throw up their hands in despair and go get drunk instead of inventing things,” Andie said sourly.

  “Probably. Even Sir Isaac Newton had trouble getting the credit for calculus. There were a lot of people working on things very close to it. Once the word got out, a couple of people tried to claim the ideas for themselves.”

  “What should we do today?” Andie asked.

  “Let me start up the machine, with you just watching. If I can get it working right, you and Kit go through with the HD cam attached to the light bar. We’re going to need at least a couple more of those hundred foot extension cords. You two go to where we left extension cord end.

  “And I know you want to explore -- so do I. But we were so excited by the chamber and fire ring, we didn’t do any mapping. We really need to do that even if we don’t do much other exploring.”

  Andie nodded. “Yeah, I’ve only run the machine for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time once. More of the fucking tests we need to do. Yeah, we’ll extend the time to fifteen minutes and do the mapping first for a few minutes, just some rough sketches. Then a couple minutes more of new exploration.”

  Kris nodded. They grinned at each other when the period ended and headed off to their afternoon classes.

  On the way home that night they stopped at a Staples and got a couple more extension cords and some spare bulbs for the light bar. They got home a few minutes late, and Kit was already there, waiting for them.

  He smiled at the two girls as Andie let them into the house. Andie had known it already and Kris was pretty sure, but Andie’s father was home. Fortunately he was about ready to go out and proved once again he was impervious to normal concerns. He was not worried at all that his daughter and her friends went into her bedroom and closed the door behind them.

  They were just putting their things down when Kris could hear Andie’s father leaving. There was a growl of exhaust from a large car engine.

  Andie laughed. “You don’t know what he spent to get that ‘throaty growl’ from his Maserati at a decibel level that wouldn’t end up with him getting a ticket every time he drives down the street.”

  Andie showed Kit their purchases and he, in turn, lofted a gym bag. “I can get access to all sorts of things at the studio.” He pulled out some walkie-talkies. “These are good up to a mile.” He waved at the closet. “We should find out how they’ll do in there.”

  “Good idea,” Andie told him. Andie explained their plan and Kit nodded that he agreed.

  “We’re going to go just for short periods at first?”

  “Yeah, maybe in an hour we can try it again, after I have time to check things over.”

  “Safety is Job One!” Kit quipped.

  They all nodded and then, with a bit of nervo
usness, Kris went into the closet and started the fusor going, paying frequent attention to the checklist she’d made the day before. Andie didn’t say anything and Kit also just stood watching without comment.

  It took a while, and as Andie had long since pointed out, it would have taken a lot longer if she hadn’t kept the vacuum pump running continuously. Finally the blue rectangle shimmered into view and solidified. Without a word, Kris took a flashlight, poked her head through and came right back.

  “I didn’t put the flashlight through the blue at first. The blue thing seems to block it, so I have a feeling the walkie-talkies aren’t going to work. But the happy face is on the other side of the tunnel.”

  Andie and Kit had geared up and they nodded. Andie was carrying the rifle this time, while Kit had the camera. Andie had the laser range finder in her pack, along with another of the extension cords.

  They both went through the doorway and sure enough, the radios didn’t work through it. It sure would have been nice, Kris thought, as the others moved farther away, to know what they were doing.

  She had never appreciated before how difficult it must have been for Andie two days before. Time seemed to drag at rate that made her want to scream -- even if her watch showed that barely ten minutes had passed. She decided that she’d set the alarm on her watch for eight more minutes and not look at it again.

  She’d barely set it when she heard an odd sound coming from the fusor. She couldn’t be sure what was making it, but after another minute it was louder and there was vibration.

  She didn’t hesitate. She jumped to the blue door and stuck her head through into the blackness beyond and yelled as loud as she could. “Andie! Kit! Get your asses back here, right now! Run!”

  There was something that might have been an acknowledgement and Kris repeated, “Run!”

  She could hear approaching sounds, and with that she pulled back. The sound the machine was making was worse. The next minute was the longest in her life. The entire apparatus was vibrating and she still had no idea what was causing it.

  Andie came through, asking, “What’s up...” her words died as she heard the machine. Kit came through and Andie started shutting things down. Abruptly, the rubber matting that Andie used to collect charge for the van de Graaff parted, flapping all over, breaking all sorts of things.

  They stood looking at the mess for a second. Andie was the first one to speak. “Holy shit!”

  Kris felt sick to her stomach. Sure, she knew how to turn it on, but fixing it? She had no idea. None! Kit was green and trying, Kris thought, not to be sick himself.

  Andie went over to the machine and hauled on the long piece of rubber, trying carefully not to break anything else. She held the two ends up. “It parted at the join. I’ll never buy that brand of super glue again!”

  “You didn’t heat treat it?” Kit said, sounding aghast.

  “Not a clue how to do that,” Andie admitted.

  “Easiest would be to heat up a regular iron as hot as it could go, put a towel over the belt, and run the iron over both sides a few times.”

  “It took me a minute or so, before I started worrying,” Kris allowed. “God, Andie! I’m so sorry!”

  “Yeah. Well, I... we... have some work to do over the next few days. The fusor chamber is okay, but the vacuum system is toast except for that. Some of the electronics for the magnetic field are busted up too. Call it a couple of days to fix.”

  She turned to Kris. “I know you think you should have yelled sooner -- but I trust you, Kris. You didn’t hesitate once you were concerned. We just need to develop a better system is all.”

  Andie smiled. “And I hope my old man doesn’t go looking for his elephant gun very soon or that your dad doesn’t want the camera back in the next couple of days, because all of that is on the far side. We were just finished up the mapping we were going to do and when you called, we dropped everything. We didn’t do anything but run like scaredy cats.”

  She looked at Kit whose green had faded to pasty white. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I was so excited. I got to go twice, you two once each. I was so excited, so pleased! God! This is like the space shuttle -- Russian roulette!”

  “Yeah,” Andie exclaimed. “Are you glad that I took notes the first time? I’ve even transcribed them onto my computer. In theory, someone could have put it back together.”

  Andie drew herself up. “I’m going to be mean and run you both out of here now. I want to get started on a list of stuff I’m going to need to fix things. A new brand of glue and an iron are going to head the list!”

  “I’ve got a clothes iron at home,” Kris told her.

  “Whatever. Bye all, take care! See you tomorrow.”

  She really did hustle them out. Outside, Kit took a deep breath, speaking to Kris. “I can do something about the radios. Electromagnetic waves don’t go through the interface, but it’s obvious a hard connection does -- which is why the light bar works. I’ll gen up a repeater -- a device that repeats whatever it hears on one end, a hard wire to a transmitter to go on the other end and a transmitter to pass it on. Piece of cake!

  “You did good, Kris, and I owe you a deep debt of gratitude. Except the only word of yours we could make out clearly was ‘Run.’ So we dropped everything and ran.”

  Kris felt faint again. For a second he put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “You did good! You understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We all know this is dangerous. Maybe I’d have noticed, maybe not. You did and we’re safe. Bottom line, Kris, is that we’re all safe.”

  He dropped his hands away from her as if suddenly aware he was touching her. He smiled wanly at her, climbed into his car and drove away. Kris went home and curled up in bed, trying not to think about it.

  Chapter 3 :: Other Explorations

  Christopher Richards knocked on Oliver Boyle’s office door, and the director looked up and gestured him forward. “Kit,” the director said.

  “Sir,” Kit stopped, still debating what his duty was in this. This was his future he was playing with, and the stakes had suddenly become enormously greater than even he had imagined could be possible. It was like walking through a minefield, where the least misstep would be fatal. Of course the rewards were greater than anything he’d ever imagined as well.

  “You get my daughter taken care of?” Oliver asked. Both men realized that hadn’t been an artful way to ask the question.

  “Partly,” Kit admitted.

  “Partly?” Oliver asked, thinking one thing, since he’d so competently misdirected himself.

  “Sir, you told me once that if I had a problem with someone on the staff, and if I couldn’t work it out myself, to bring it to you.”

  “I said that, yes. Do you have a problem with Kris?”

  The minefield metaphor grew stronger in Kit’s mind. He’d never had to balance risk and reward like this before. “Sir, what I’d like to do is explain something to you. Please, listen to what I have to say, suspend disbelief and wait to ask questions until the end.”

  “Now I’m -- mildly -- intrigued. What happened between you and Kris? Go ahead.”

  “Between her, her friend Andie and me, sir.” Kit went on then to sum things up. He hadn’t expected Oliver Boyle would sit there silently, but he did. “That’s how I left it, last night, sir.”

  “You understand that if someone presented this to me as a script pitch, I’d laugh them out the door? High school girls discovering fusion, gates to other dimensions? Really?” Kit started to speak, but Oliver Boyle shook his head. “You spoke without interruption, now it’s my turn. It’s how pitches work, by the way.

  “My first instinct is to think that you’ve lost your mind. But, I’m fairly confident of my ability to deal with you in that case. That leaves the possibility that what you are telling me is, in some degree, true. In that case, my next instinct is to grab up a baseball bat and beat your head in.”

  “Sir, I can gi
ve you the keywords for a Google search. I can give you the names of a dozen of my fellow students at Caltech who were working on this. I don’t know how well you know Andrea Schulz, but she is one smart cookie.”

  “Okay, let’s suppose it’s true. Why shouldn’t I send Kris off to Europe for the summer -- right after your funeral?”

  “Because, sir, if you did that, you might as well as kill her too. Sir, this has been my dream my entire life. Andie said it as well, and I’m sure Kris believes the same thing. This is our holy grail, sir. We want to go out there. Like Heinlein said, the Earth is too small a basket to hold all our eggs. I don’t even know if you could succeed, sir, but even if you did, you would have effectively killed her.”

  Oliver Boyle looked at the young man steadily.

  “Then, sir, there are the other implications. And there, sir, the risk is every bit as great.”

  “What other implications?”

  “Sir, with this technology, in a couple of years you could go down to Home Depot or Wal-Mart and buy a fusion generator for a few thousand dollars that would power this studio for decades for a few dollars of fuel. This will disrupt every power market in the world. You’re talking probably trillions of dollars of investments that will go up in smoke in a decade. Sir, people kill each other over scraps of bread. For this kind of money? Kris and Andie would be worth huge amounts of money to a lot of people if they were dead.

  “We’re talking about putting hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people out of work, eliminating not only their jobs, but their entire livelihood. They would be like the carriage and buggy whip makers were in 1900. Bleak prospects, sir. Very bleak.

  “The national security implications of this are immense as well, and again, that’s just from the power aspect of this.”

  “What about radioactive byproducts, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases?” Oliver asked, trying to temporize.

  “There are no radioactive byproducts to speak of. The process produces alpha particles, which are technically radiation, but a sheet of paper will stop an alpha particle. Moreover, these alpha particles have an electric charge. It’s a trivial thing to capture that charge. The fuel is boron and simple hydrogen. Boron isn’t the most common element, but it’s common enough, and creating boron ions is another trivial exercise. Sir, Andie got her boron by rinsing borax soap and filtering out the grit, then grinding it in a mortar and pestle and then zapping it with an electric charge.