“Good. I told you I wasn’t going to interfere and I won’t. But one thing you personally will want to pay attention to: people who lose loved ones don’t necessarily make wise decisions right afterwards. Someone about to become an orphan may or may not be prone to mess up. I’m not saying Andie is going to lose it -- instead, I’m saying that you should pay attention and ask questions where you think it’s appropriate.”
“Yes, sir,” Kris told him, wishing he’d shut up.
Kris called Andie at eleven and found her friend was awake and alert. “I’ve ordered a shit pot of stuff, headed to Crenshaw, attention me, in care of ‘Project Otto.’ That’s the name I want.”
“No problem, Andie,” Kris replied.
“For right now, I want everything to go into building two. That’s the one in the middle.”
“We’ll just explain the designations to David Solomon and he’ll see to it,” Kris explained.
“Fine. Now I’m going to order a pallet of MREs. I’ve got a pallet load of two and half gallon water jugs coming. It’s a good idea, but I hope we’re not still humping all this shit into the cave when the machine fails again.”
“Me too,” Kris agreed.
“Fine. Give me an hour and then get your ass over here. I want to be ready for the Caltech nerds.”
* * *
Kit stood in Andie’s living room, with four people roughly his age standing behind him. “Taking it from the right,” Kit told them, “first we have Linda Walsh. She’s a mathematician, specializing in multi-dimensional geometries. Next is Shorty Carver, the tall fellow. He’s a condensed matter physicist, due to go to CERN in a year or so to work on ITER. Lin Xi is a Chinaman from Honolulu, as were his parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. It’s like eight generations they go back. He’s a super-conducting magnet expert. Last, Art Foster of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base’s Advanced Study Group, working at JPL. A dog’s body, jack-of-all trades.
“Lady and gentlemen, your hostess, Andrea, Andie, Schulz and her faithful sidekick, Kris Boyle. For those of you who haunt the fusor bulletin boards, Andie is Andy90.”
“The bit who got the vacuum pump backwards?” Art laughed.
“Fuck you twice,” Andie said. “If you’re not interested, don’t let the door hit you in the ass when you leave. Do it now. Otherwise shut the fuck up,” Andie told him coldly.
Kris could see the young man reacted badly. Andie didn’t care and pressed on.
“Yeah, I’m seventeen. I don’t want to hear crap from you about my age, my gender, and I sure as fuck don’t want to hear about ‘ad hoc,’ ‘empiric,’ ‘serendipitous’ or ‘lucky guess work.’
“I built this and had it working in a day and a half. If you want to think it was an accident, you go right ahead. It wasn’t an accident and I actually knew, mostly, what I was doing. I’m here to tell you right now that my largest oversight would have surprised you, and would, as it has done to myself and Kit here, confounded you as well.
“Now, a show of your fuckin’ hands: who here has a curiosity larger than their fuckin’ ego?”
Four hands went up.
“Good. Now, hold your questions and comments until there is the very slightest chance you might have one worth making.”
She led the way into her bedroom and opened her closet door. “A design I call the ‘Otto Schulz’ fusor, based on original work by Bussard and others,” she told them.
“You hit break even yet?” Art said, contempt dripping from his voice.
Andie glared at him. “You’re either a fucking moron or a fucking idiot. Do you think you’re here because I couldn’t get the fucking vacuum pump to work?”
She didn’t wait for him to speak. “I have a question for you, asshole. You ever work on a fusor?”
“Yeah, a buddy and I built one. We never got close to break even.”
“Yeah, you stupid fuck, I’m sure you didn’t. Tell me, dipshit, how long did you work at it?”
“Couple of months,” Art replied. He looked like he was realizing maybe he’d screwed up, Kris thought.
“Yeah, well I hit break even in thirty-six hours. Two and a half of those hours I spent up the transformer pole in front of my house rewiring it and yeah, an hour figuring how to make the vacuum pump work. Rewiring that pole has been the biggest waste of my time to date.” She turned to Kris. “I saw a DWP truck down the block, it’s been sitting there with three guys in it. Where’s Ezra?”
“Outside. He saw them too.”
“Good, I don’t want any fuckin’ bean counters interrupting my demonstration.”
Andie waved at the apparatus. “I’ve got three separate neutron counters; all of them work different ways. None of them has chirped. I use boron and hydrogen for fuel. I do a couple of other things, proprietary things, to speed up the fusion reaction. Right now, all things being equal, I produce 240 volts with 200 amps of current. That’s 48 kilowatts. I’ve checked the inputs and it is about 2.5 kilowatts to operate the machine. Sounds like break even to me.”
“Subject to verification,” Art interjected.
“I’d be happy to run that current through you to ground,” Andie said sarcastically. “Everyone else would get the message, even if you wouldn’t.”
“Art,” Kit said, speaking for the first time, “shut the fuck up or use the door. This is the one and only warning you’ll get from me.”
“Oh, I’ll be a good boy, because I’m going to take a great deal of pleasure ripping the little bitch to shreds.”
Andie started the fusor running without another word. Art saw the Van de Graaff generator start up and laughed. “Oh my God! A B-science fiction movie!”
“I’d short that fucker to ground with you,” Andie said with a laugh, “except all it would do would be making your hair stand on end. I’m going to settle for making you eat your own shit.”
Kris saw her setting the controls to create the door. The blue shape appeared, fluttering in the breeze.
“Any comments, eh, asshole?”
“Excited nitrogen molecules.”
“And what, in your experience creates a delimited sheet of excited nitrogen molecules in the free atmosphere?”
“I’d need to do some research.”
“Yeah, right!” Andie said sarcastically. The rectangle stabilized. She grabbed a flashlight and handed it to Art. “Here, come look.” She walked forward and leaned through the door and held the position. After ten or fifteen seconds, she pulled back. “Cat got your tongue? Chicken got your guts?”
Kit spoke up. “I’ve walked through it, Art. If you don’t have the balls for this, turn around and go now.”
Art walked forward, turned on the flashlight and put his head into the blue sheet. A second later he’d pulled it back and he looked around, before putting his head back through again.
Linda Walsh spoke. “What’s there, Art?”
“He can’t hear you,” Andie told her. “You can physically move from here to there, but vibrations stop. An extension cord works there, but radio waves don’t go through. Sound doesn’t go through.”
Art pulled back. “What did you see, Art?” Linda Walsh asked again.
“A dark tunnel, pitch black. There’s a happy face scrawled on the wall across from the viewpoint. I have no idea where it is.”
“Hey,” Andie said brightly, “we agree on something! I don’t know where it is either. You think we needed rocket scientists to hold our hands over there?”
Linda Walsh walked up to Art, took the flashlight and poked her head through. After a second she went all the way just as Otto had the night before. Andie nodded and Kris went after her. Linda was flashing her light at the tunnel that led into the larger room. Kris went up to her as the other was about to start through the narrow passage.
“Before you do that,” Kris told her. “Turn around and look behind us.”
Linda laughed. “I see the gate.”
“Now imagine it with the machine off.”
Lind
a Walsh wasn’t at all dense. “Ouch!”
“Thursday night the machine failed. It tore itself up when the belt on the Van de Graaff separated. Andie and Kit got out with maybe a minute to spare.”
Linda smiled at her. “Well, when you put it like that, I can see I’m on the wrong side of the door to anywhere.”
“We call it ‘The Far Side,’” Kris volunteered.
“As good of a name as any. And I’m being offered a position working on this?”
“Yes.”
“Lead on! I want to sign on the dotted line! You want my soul? No problem! Cheap at the price!”
“We don’t ask that -- just that you don’t tell anyone about it.”
“You’re on!” Linda stepped back through and Kris followed her.
“What is it?” Shorty asked. He was odd, Kris thought, because he was tall, but didn’t seem to be.
“Like Art said, a pitch blank tunnel. There’s a happy face on the wall opposite of the entrance. It’s cool, dusty and there’s no indication of where it’s at. The rock contains coquina -- massive quantities of fossil mollusks, and there’s a small crawlway that leads further along. I think there’s a larger room beyond there, but I couldn’t see for sure,” Linda explained.
“Can I go too?” Shorty asked and Andie waved Kris forward. This time three of them went, making the tunnel a bit crowded.
Xi looked around and chuckled. “And here, I was all set to demolish the obviously fake special effects!”
“Right now we haven’t done too much exploration,” Kris told him. “We’ve gotten into a larger chamber a little further along and that’s it.”
“What about ‘To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before?’” Shorty asked.
“They had a ship in orbit and at least the hope of transporting away. If that door closes, then anyone here had better pray that it’s an easy problem to fix,” Kris told him. “For what it’s worth, the machine has failed once already and it’s taken a few days to fix back up. We are in the same place, so it’s likely that Andie could get it running again. But who knows?”
The Chinese said something Kris didn’t catch. “What was that?”
He looked at her, his face illuminated by the light from the flashlights. “I am of Chinese descent, you understand. Are you going to keep this secret? An American monopoly?”
“Well, I think Andie intends to keep it a ‘Schulz monopoly.’ Trust me; her plan is to sell the technology to any interested buyer. And if the power companies or the government comes after her, she’s going to dump it on the Internet. As you can tell, this isn’t exactly a complicated set up.”
The blue sheet shimmered once, and then resumed its steady position.
Kris let the others crowd through ahead of her, and came out last. “Did you see that, Andie?” Kris asked.
“No. See what?”
“The other side shimmered. We got out of there quick!”
Andie frowned. “I didn’t see anything on this side. Did anyone else?”
No one else with Andie said they’d seen anything either.
“Well, we just have to acknowledge that we don’t know everything about the gate yet,” Andie admitted. She started shutting things down. “I’ll go over everything and see what I can find.”
“And you are offering us a chance to work on this?” Shorty asked.
“Yes,” Andie told him. “I will talk with each of you separately and we’ll come to an agreement on salary. You can start whenever you’re free.”
“And if I decide to pick up my marbles and go my own way?” Art asked.
It was Kit who spoke up. “Art, earlier you weren’t funny. You signed an NDA. Aside from the rather draconian penalties in monetary terms, there’s not a lab in the country that would hire someone who broke an NDA. You would end your career forever. And Andie would get a cut of every penny you earn flipping burgers, cleaning toilets or raking leaves for the rest of your life.”
“Chill! I’m not stupid, I was just checking to see if you are. What specifically would I be doing?” he asked Andie.
“I want to build three more fusors. One like this one and two more just designed to generate power. I want to come to consensus designs and see what can be improved. It sure would be nice to know what’s making the door.”
Kit spoke up. “I took a cut at the math. I haven’t got any ideas. Linda?”
Linda turned to Andie. “IP rights? If I develop the math, where do I stand?”
“First on any patent leading from the math, half the revenues, if it’s from the top of your own head. Otherwise, we’ll have to figure out who contributed what. That’ll be a bitch, I expect.”
“I expect it will be, too.” She waved at the closet. “Let me put this as objectively as I know how. There are all sorts of hints in quantum theory and cosmological theory about alternate universes or strange geometries. Theory is utterly silent on anything that might bring about such an interface. There are million experiments I can think of just now about ways to probe what’s happening. But explain it? At the moment, I don’t have a clue!”
“It would seem to me,” Kit said, “and as you mentioned before, Andie, that the way to approach this is to have people assigned to build three machines. Since there are four, and since Linda is more of a theoretical type anyway, she can work on this one, until the second one like this is up and running.”
“I’ll think about it. Today’s Sunday. Tomorrow, starting at 9 AM, show up at Crenshaw studios, an hour apart. I don’t care about lunch. I’ll talk to each of you individually and work something out with you as to pay and work assignment.”
Kit and the others left a short while later, all five talking among themselves.
Ezra came up as they were getting into Kit’s car and spoke quietly to Andie. “Across the street, a guy’s standing there, watching the house. A while ago they came over and started up the walk. I stopped them and they told me they wanted to talk the homeowner. I told him your father wasn’t here, and then they demanded to inspect the house and premises. I asked to see their warrant.
“Andie, they didn’t say anything. Two of them got in their truck and left, and one remained behind. At a guess, they’ll be back. I...” He sighed. “I didn’t want to interrupt you, Andie, and you can jump all over me, but I called Mr. Boyle and told him my worst case scenario. He said the lawyer will be here in a short while, and not to let anyone in until the lawyer was here.”
“And your ‘worst case scenario?’” Andie asked.
“Andie, you said you’re putting power into the grid. It’s benign, we know that. Those bureaucrats get their jollies by intimidating people. These days, use the word ‘terrorism’ and you can get an awesome response. Terrorism is anything their little brains don’t understand. I mean, they busted an MIT student wearing a circuit board with blinking lights on her t-shirt at Boston Logan. It was a full SWAT call-out with machine guns.”
Andie looked at him and pursed her lips. “I am so screwed, Ezra. If I give you a pass for this, I have to give Kit a pass for what he did.”
“Andie,” Kris told her, “you already gave Kit a pass.”
“Yeah. And I have to think that a horde of FBI agents and the LAPD SWAT team in their full regalia tromping through the house wouldn’t do my father much good. He’s just liable to mouth off to someone and end up in the slammer.”
A car pulled up and an older man in an expensive suit got out, followed by a younger man in another expensive suit. They walked up to the front of the house. “Miss Boyle, I’m Jack Schaeffer, and this is Tony Morello,” the older of the pair said, introducing himself. “Oliver Boyle said you might have a problem.”
“Yes, sir,” Andie said. “There is a man across the street watching the house. Earlier, he was here with some DWP people who believe I’m doing something illegal. Ezra here refused to let them search without a warrant and they meekly acquiesced and left. Ezra thinks it is possible that not only may they return not only with subpoena, but in overwh
elming force.”
“And why would they think you are doing something illegal?”
“I don’t know. They talked to my father yesterday, I understand, and he threw them out. I assure you, sir, I am doing nothing that would endanger their equipment, operations, or harm anyone. There is nothing that I know of that is illegal about my activities, although I am working with some significant voltages.”
Kris spoke up. “We’re working on a movie, Mr. Schaeffer, and Andie is working on some special effects.”
A SUV cruised past, loaded with five men.
Jack Schaeffer watched it go by. “Well, I guess it’s nearly show time. Mr. Lawson, it is my understanding that you are armed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you would, please place your weapon, slide open, on the ground a few feet in front of you and stand back, your hands palm forward, held away from your body. The rest of us will do the same thing. Whatever is said, don’t react, that’s my job. No matter what happens, don’t react and above all, say nothing.”
“Yes, sir,” Kris said, a little daunted.
Ezra placed his pistol on the ground, pulled the slide back and stepped away, holding his hands away from his body.
Andie turned to Jack Schaeffer. “I can use my cell phone to call my father here or have him stay away. He’s a bull in a china shop at the best of times... he also has terminal cancer and hasn’t long to live. My personal preference is to spare him any extra strain.”
“Are you eighteen?”
“Not yet, in a week.”
“Close enough for government work at this juncture, Miss Schulz. I think, for now, that your father should remain in blissful ignorance. Please, if you have questions, tug on my coat tail and ask for a conference. Don’t speak where they can hear you except to ask for a conference. The same for you, Miss Boyle and you, Mr. Lawson.”
“No problem.”
The black SUV drove past, this time on their side of the street. It parked behind the lawyer’s car and four men got out, leaving one behind.
Two of the men went to either side, while the third came forward to talk to them. He eyed the pistol on the ground and pulled out a black leather folder and held it up, showing a badge. “Tobin Dunphy, FBI Special Agent. Mr. Otto Schulz?”
The Far Side Page 12