by Rick Boling
“Sounds like you’ve got all the bases covered,” she said. “Heyoka and I are going to be looking in as well. If we can manage it.”
“What do you mean, if you can manage it?” I asked.
“Well, I haven’t wanted to burden you with any additional worries, but I guess it’s time you knew that things are getting pretty critical for us. We’re okay for now, although we’ve had to move into the lab on a more or less permanent basis because of the atmospheric toxicity and roaming gangs of survivalists and religious fanatics.”
“I thought you guys had come up with some ideas to stabilize things,” I said.
“We had, but there comes a point at which so many interdependent systems are failing—social, economic, technological, agricultural—the underlying structure of society itself begins to crumble. If Ellie’s calculations are correct, that point is rapidly approaching, and the slope has become too slippery to hope for a reversal. There for a while we thought we were making some progress, but in order to institute widespread change we had to have the cooperation of governments and corporate entities, most of which have now either lost their authority or have simply collapsed.”
“What are you going to do, then?” I said. “I mean, there has to be something, some kind of plan. What about the space program? Can’t you somehow get off the planet?”
“We might have been able to a few years ago, when there was still something that vaguely resembled a space program. But Virgin, SpaceX, and the other private carriers have fallen apart along with the remnants of NASA, which long ago turned into an ineffective, bureaucratic coordinating entity. Once space exploration was turned over to private industry, cooperation became secondary to competition and profit generation, and the whole thing went the way of all the other privatized public services, which was essentially straight to hell. About all that’s left are a dozen or so isolated settlements scattered throughout the solar system, with little or no connection to Earth other than the occasional audiovisual broadcast.”
“But … but you have to do something,” I said. “You can’t just go down with the ship like loyal sea captains. For one thing, we need you to help us avoid the same fate. For another, I don’t want to lose—”
“We’re working on it, Rix. The foundation will play a major role, and Heyoka has already made contact with his counterpart—his younger self—in your dimension, so he’ll have a head start on some of our research. The problem there is that technology has to advance enough to facilitate things. Materials science, organic chemistry, computers, nanotechnology, and a dozen other disciplines have to mature before what we’ve been doing can be accomplished here. And that maturation can’t be instant, it can only be accelerated somewhat by the introduction of new ideas. It’s the same kind of limitation you’ve had to deal with in the recording field. You know, the lack of computer sophistication that kept you working in analog rather than digital. Sam has done wonders, but because of the slow pace of full-scale technological systems development, he’s only been able to advance things by a few years.”
I really wasn’t that worried about us. Whatever happened, it would be decades before our world reached the critical stage theirs was going through. What I was worried about was Aurie disappearing on me forever. Even though I might never be able to have her here in the flesh, the thought of losing her—of not being able to talk to her, see her, hear her voice—was tearing me up inside. My brain had started to take on that old cement-mixer feeling when I suddenly had an idea.
“Have you contacted your counterpart here?” I asked. “Couldn’t you transfer your mind into her? I know you said it would be like murder, but in this case, it wouldn’t. No more than my reincarnation was.”
She chuckled. “I know what you’re thinking. That then you and I could hook up for real. But you’re forgetting a couple of things.”
“Oh? And what might those be?”
“For one,” she said with a reprimanding scowl, “you’re married, and I would never do anything to interfere with your relationship. Doris is a friend, Rix, a close friend. And so is Ellie. Then there’s the minor fact that, in your world, I’m less than a year old, which means you’d have to wait at least another fifteen years or so. And even if you did, in addition to committing adultery, you’d have to become a pedophile as well.”
“Great,” I said. “Just what I needed to hear. Isn’t there anything else? You said if this experiment worked out, you might be looking into other possibilities for the technology. And it sure looks like it’s working out, doesn’t it?”
“It does, and we were planning an expansion of the program. But we had to go into survival mode some time ago, so other than the foundation and working with Ellie on forecasting, we’ve put most of that on hold. We are working on one thing that may turn out to be important, though.”
“Yes?” I said, when she didn’t elaborate.
“Uh … hold on a sec.” She seemed to have mentally gone somewhere else, then she blinked a couple of times and came back. “I explained a little of this before, that day back at the villa when you were asking about our progress in developing quantum teleportation. It has to do with a highly advanced version of 3D printing. You know what that is?”
I’d read some things about 3D printers in my first life, so I had an idea of the basic concept. “Sort of,” I said. “They take instructions from a program that tells them how to build things from layers of fast-hardening liquid plastics. Right?”
“Right. That’s where the technology stood before you left. It’s come a long way since then, and we’ve been on the cutting edge. We now have machines that can print almost anything in any combination of materials we choose, with an accuracy down to the atomic level.”
“That sounds … interesting,” I said, “but what does it have to do with—”
“If you’ll please let me finish?” she said, suddenly seeming impatient with my questions. “We’ve … wait a minute.” She looked distracted again, but after a few seconds she sighed and continued. “We’ve been talking with Sam about building a state-of-the-art 3D printer here. There are many hurdles to overcome, but Sam is an incredibly bright and resourceful fellow, so we may be able to jump over some of those hurdles quicker than we’d originally hoped.”
I started to ask another question, but she held up a finger to silence me.
“If we’re successful, it should allow us to reconstruct material objects from our dimension by sending instructions to a printer in yours. We can’t transfer the actual objects, but we can send information in the form of binary data, which is all I am here in this dimension, a holographic image scanned and converted to a bunch of ones and zeros, then sent here much like a television transmission. And, of course, computer programs and files already are binary data, so we can send the instructions for building any object we scan and convert here. If we have a 3D printer on your end and can duplicate the necessary elemental materials, we should be able to print exact copies of almost any object that exists in our dimension.”
It took a moment for this to sink in, and once it did I began to wonder about the possibilities. I was trying to formulate some questions that wouldn’t sound too stupid, when she shook her head in exasperation. “Dammit,” she said, “the alarm’s going off again. I’ve got to run.”
“Alarm?” I said, as her image began to waver. “Wait … Please.” But before I could get another word out she dissolved into a billion translucent pixels and disappeared with an almost audible pop.
Collateral Damage
Coined in early 1961 by economist T. C. Schelling, the term “collateral damage” would soon become the military’s favorite euphemism for the killing of innocent men, women, and children. Since then, it has been used (and misused) to describe a wide range of indiscriminate, reckless killings, one example of which appeared in a particularly gruesome newspaper article published on Pearl-Harbor Day in 1980. In this report, the term was misused to describe the deaths of five teenagers, two preteens, and four
adults at the hands of a lunatic by the name of Mark David Chapman. I say misused, because in order for there to have been “collateral” damage, a successful attack on an intended target would have to have occurred. In this case, however, that intended target, one John Ono Lennon, escaped unharmed. The “damage,” therefore, should have been described, not as collateral, but as the deliberate, senseless murder of eleven innocent persons.
To say the pre-concert scene on the eve of Pearl Harbor Day was chaotic would be a vast understatement. Much like the frantic confusion preceding a formal wedding, the combination of last-minute adjustments, petty arguments, late arrivals, and technical problems created an atmosphere of frenzied pandemonium that only the calm, guiding hands of my wife and daughter could have steered to a successful conclusion. I, on the other hand, found myself drowning in a quagmire of near-paralytic confusion as I attempted to coordinate the several dozen members of our security team.
As if dealing with a standing-room-only crowd of over 70,000 unruly fans wasn’t enough, a dozen major broadcast and cable networks showed up, each with its own trucks and wires and pea-brained spokesmodels, all jockeying for position with a swarm of radio crews, print journalists, and freelance photographers.
We had awarded the primary contract for live coverage and documentary filming to CBS. And, in addition to a worldwide satellite broadcast of the concert, David Geffen had put together a concept that would later become the format for the syndicated TV show Entertainment Tonight. The first syndicated program ever to be distributed via satellite, this bit of overenthusiastic theater would eventually become the most watched entertainment show in the world. But on the night of December sixth, 1980 it served only as one more irritating distraction.
We had picked up Chapman’s trail again when he used the alias David Caulfield to buy a plane ticket from LA to New York. By then we were sure he was aware of being followed, because he had made several attempts to elude the tails we put on him. In New York, the PIs observed him loitering near the entrance to John and Yoko’s apartment building, and at first we thought the doubles were fooling him. Then, three days before the concert, he stopped showing up, and that afternoon they lost track of him. We had tried to get the FBI involved, but even though the antipathy toward Lennon bred in the Nixon-J. Edgar Hoover era had mellowed somewhat, a latent residue of hostility remained, and they refused to offer us any help.
Chapman had checked out of the shabby hotel where he’d been staying, leaving on foot and employing several switchbacks and dangerous maneuvers in heavy traffic in an attempt to evade our surveillance team. They managed to keep him in their sights until he entered Central Park, where they finally lost him. After a mad scramble, during which they checked airports, bus terminals, train stations, and even car-rental agencies, we were forced to assume he had somehow managed to leave the city undetected and was on his way south, perhaps in a vehicle he’d paid cash for at a used-car lot.
This was long before law enforcement had a nationwide computer network for tracking the movement of criminals and suspects, so we were going to have to rely solely on our security plan for the stadium and the access routes we’d determined to be the safest. By the afternoon of the sixth I was in state of sheer panic, though I tried to project calm confidence as I went about coordinating the dozens of armed agents, unarmed spotters, and off-duty cops we’d stationed in and around the enormous stadium complex.
The doubles charade appeared to be working when crowds began to gather outside the Floridian Hotel in downtown Tampa, where the two impersonators had been delivered by stretch limo a day before the concert. We checked them into the same suite Elvis had occupied during a concert tour in 1955, then strategically “leaked” their location to the press. Meanwhile, John and Yoko were safely ensconced in one of the upstairs bedrooms at our house in St. Pete. And since there was no unusual increase in traffic around the house, we assumed we’d managed to fool the public. However, the fact that Chapman had abandoned his surveillance of the New York apartment three days earlier suggested to me that he’d caught on to our attempted diversion. And when he was not seen following the limo to the stadium, or spotted among the crowds surrounding the entrance where the actors were dropped off, I felt sure he’d caught on to our ruse.
The concert was scheduled to begin at 8:00, and by 6:00 the stadium was nearly full, with only a few dozen nosebleed seats and standing room remaining. I had begun to think Chapman was planning to attempt the assassination somewhere other than at the event, when one of our agents reported seeing someone who looked suspicious. I made my way to the ticket booth where the agent was stationed, calling half a dozen other security staff members to meet me. And when I arrived, sure enough, there he was, standing about twenty spots back in the line. His disguise was amateurish: fake mustache and beard, with a Bogart fedora pulled low across his face and a heavy overcoat inappropriate for the mild Florida weather. The bulk of the coat suggested he was carrying a weapon, perhaps a shotgun or some kind of semiautomatic military rifle.
We had no authority to detain him or even to legally refuse him entry; That ended to soon however, since it seemed clear he was hiding something, I walked over to one of the off-duty policemen we’d hired and told him of my suspicions. By the time Chapman made it through the turnstile, six cops had joined with eight security guards to form a loose semicircular barricade inside the gate. At my signal, the cop I’d spoken to approached him and politely asked if he would mind opening his coat. His mouth dropped open, and for a couple of seconds he seemed bewildered. But then the bewildered look changed to one of outrage, and he proceeded to go ballistic.
It would be another twenty-plus years before the events of 9/11 would lead to a change in the accepted behavior of law enforcement, and on that night there was much more tolerance displayed than there probably would have been in the 21st century. Despite the fact that Chapman was yelling at the top of his lungs, everyone kept their distance while he screamed about his rights and the constitution and police harassment. He did not, however, make any specific threats or aggressive physical moves, so there was little the cop could do other than try to reason with him. And he did an admirable job, remaining calm and apologizing, while pleading for cooperation so they could resolve things before the concert began. He even made up a story about someone reporting that Chapman was carrying a gun, saying that stadium security rules would not allow him to be seated until he proved he was unarmed.
The confrontation went on for five minutes or so, while the cops and security guards slowly closed ranks. And just when it looked like Chapman was about to give up, a loud series of sharp explosions rang out, freezing everyone in place. We would later determine that the machinegun-like clatter had come from a string of firecrackers some kid had thrown from a passing car, but at the time it incited panic among the officers, many of whom fell to their knees with weapons drawn.
A look of terror spread across Chapman’s face as he backed toward the ticket booth with hands raised. “Alright, alright,” he yelled. Then, before anyone could move, he turned and vaulted the iron railing, flailing his arms as he approached the confused patrons outside the gate. The ensuing chase was hindered by the milling crowd, into which Chapman had vanished like the ghostly baseball players in Kevin Costner’s Field of Dreams. After a half-hour of futile searching, I realized we had left a large portion of the stadium unguarded, and reluctantly called everyone back to their posts. It took a while, but once the crowd calmed down and some semblance of order was restored, everything went so smoothly I began to worry that we were all being lulled to sleep by the lack of action.
The concert itself went off without a hitch, and judging by the crowds lined up at the sales booths, the merchandise must have been flying off the shelves. At around two in the morning, the remaining patrons gathered at the side exit, waiting patiently for the stars to appear. We had announced several times that security concerns would not allow any of the performers to sign autographs, but that hadn’t deterred the
two hundred or so loyal fans.
A perimeter of security guards stood behind a line of low concrete barriers, and the anxious fans were pressing against their outstretched arms when Springsteen and his band members emerged from the tunnel. They waved to the crowd as they climbed into a line of station wagons, and before the screams died down, Stevie Wonder and his group appeared, piling into three vans and waving from the windows as they drove away. Next came Jackson Browne, Miss Sarah Love, Patsy Cline, and James Taylor, followed by Danny Kortchmar, Leland Sklar, Russ Kunkel, David Lindley, and the rest of the all-star house band Ellie and Jackson had assembled for the concert.
A determined group of fans still lingered, as our John and Yoko doubles strolled out wearing dark shades and ducking quickly into a stretch limo. The Lennons were staying with us, and we were determined to wait as long as possible before leaving. Finally, when only about fifty fans remained, the five of us, all dressed in scruffy cutoffs and t-shirts in order to look like straggling roadies, shuffled slowly from the tunnel.
On the far side of the stadium, the real roadies were loading semi-trucks, and an occasional screech or thud from equipment being moved echoed in the empty parking lot, along with yells from the load-out crews as they tried to make themselves heard over the rumble of diesel engines. It was this reverberating commotion that momentarily disguised the squeal of tires and the crunch of bodies being hit when Chapman drove the rusty ’56 Chevy he’d bought through the remaining crowd and into the concrete barrier. Unfortunately, instead of impeding the car’s forward progress, the knee-high barrier leaned inward, becoming a nearly perfect launching ramp.