by Paul Reaver
“Well, there are some major variables to consider,” said John, “and you and I have discussed them before. Large ships for interstellar travel will only be required if we don’t develop some form of suspended animation technology. With the ability to put people in stasis, a ship wouldn’t have to be so big. You only need a bigger ship if you have a large crew that is going to be making a very long voyage using the “generational” model where the children or grandchildren or generations beyond are the ones that arrive at the destination due to the long travel time involved. Of course, there’s an exception to that, and it’s the availability of warp drive or gravity drive. With either of those, the voyage is not lengthy, it is relatively short; depending, of course, on how far you go. But one of the variables is whether or not the spaceship is going to carry a lander. With teleportation, that may become a moot point. We would have to consider all aspects of a space mission to ensure that teleportation could completely replace a lander. Could it do everything a lander can do? What if the teleportation device fails? Do you need a lander as a backup? Depending on how mature the technology is, teleportation might be all you need. The flip side is that if you have mission members on a planet’s surface and the teleporter fails, you’d have the lander as a backup.”
“That’s something that we’ll have to keep in mind,” said Jose. “As you said, it depends on how mature the teleportation technology is at the time of the mission launch. But I think you should always have a lander as a backup. ‘Lander’ is a bit dated; I’m sure what these spaceships will have are sophisticated shuttles; time will tell.”
“Yes, we’ll have to revisit this subject when teleportation gets closer to being used to send people from an orbiting ship to a planet’s surface and vice versa,” John said. “In the meantime, great work, thanks for the feedback, and let me know if you need anything.”
“Will do. Thanks, John,” said Jose.
Chapter 6
John had followed a career path similar to his father Stanford, except that his father had a different position with a different covert government agency. Stan (his preferred name and how his friends called him) was not involved in work as diversified in his projects, as was John. His focus was strictly on computers, though he did work on different aspects of that career genre. His wife Olivia also worked in a senior position in another covert agency. Between Stan and his wife and John and his wife (before the accident), they formed a foursome that was quite unusual. All four were of sufficient stature in their security levels for their positions to allow them to discuss the details of projects on which they worked; most married men and women who worked for covert government agencies were not at liberty to discuss their actual work activities with their respective spouses or anyone else. Their spouses often knew they worked for the government, but they thought that their husbands or wives worked at mundane positions like accountants. So, for the most part, the details of their “real” work had to remain classified. This was SOP; the same was true with “known” agencies such as the FBI and the CIA – those who were part of the agencies could not discuss their work details outside their work environment. The agencies that Stanford, Olivia, Angela, and John worked for considered their interactions to be consulting roles between them. The opinion of the people they worked for was that this consultation would advance the work of each person in their projects. This was true. Before Angela’s accident, when the four of them would get together, they would invariably discuss their work. This happened almost every weekend, and often, these “bull sessions” led to advances where one of the four would come up with a very valuable idea or suggestion that would help another person in the group or even themselves, sometimes providing a significant leap in progress on a project. They all enjoyed these times together immensely because it allowed them to talk about their work with each other and enjoy each other’s company.
His father and mother lived close to a town nearby, but not too close; they preferred, like John, to live out in the country and with no neighbors within miles of their house. They did this partly for the same reason John did; they wanted to keep their secrets secret. But it just so happened that they preferred seclusion and would have chosen such a location regardless of Stan’s or Olivia’s vocations. John did not visit as often since Angela’s accident, but he kept in touch with his parents by phone on a regular basis. Similarly, he kept in touch with Angela’s parents, though it was rare because any contact with them simply brought back the painful memories that he struggled to forget. But inside, he felt that he would never forget; he did his best to minimize the pain.
Stanford was in charge of developing computers that would make them more powerful and easier to use. He also had a project for artificial intelligence. One of the more mainstream developments his team was working on was air displays; computer displays that were projected in the air to replace computer monitors. Though this had been achieved to some extent already in mainstream computer development, the products were woefully lacking in their status as a mature technology. Some required a “fog” of water in the air to have something with which the projector could react; this fog produced images that lacked clarity in no small degree. However, the initial products allowed human interaction with the images. A person could take their hand and sweep across the image to cause it to turn; other hand movements would cause the image to rotate, move, expand, and the like.
Stanford’s team was in the process of developing similar products that were much more sophisticated. They were probably ten years in advance of civilian products. They did not require fog to produce an image – ordinary air would do. Also, the clarity of the images was of high definition. They could be used to project a movie that could be watched with ease and exceeded the HD televisions currently being produced. Indeed, their renderings were even more clear.
In an instance that was rare, Stanford was allowed to share this computer technology with John and his team, and they were currently using it. Coincidentally, Stanford and John were working on brain wave projects that were quite similar and were being developed in almost the identical environment to produce the same result. What was rare was that each knew about the other’s projects. As was usually the case, typically such government agencies to which each of them belonged were so compartmentalized that one would have no knowledge of the other.
Stanford and John’s consultations had allowed their brain wave projects to progress at a relatively brisk pace; otherwise, such progress was typically slow because the projects were so complex.
Chapter 7
Stanford and Olivia had taken a unique parenting approach to raise John. While he was allowed - even encouraged - to enjoy the usual childhood pleasures, and also to interact with his friends so he would develop socially, he was also “enrolled” in homeschooling that proceeded at a rapid pace. John’s maternal grandmother, Theresa, administered his education, which started somewhat unofficially when he was only one year old. Theresa had also worked for the government for many years in a similar capacity as Stanford and Olivia did now, but had retired soon after John was born. Her husband had passed away several years earlier, and Theresa, who loved John dearly, decided she would devote her life to help him make his future successful and fulfilling. Each day John would progress in the various subjects he was taught by his grandmother, subjects that consisted of very advanced teaching for his age, especially once he had reached age four. She also discovered at this time that John had a photographic memory! As he grew older, he was years ahead of his counterparts that attended public schools, especially in subjects such as math and science, but this was also true of English, history, and the like. She did not treat John so much as a student as she did an intellectual equal who just did not yet have the knowledge that she possessed, and that she was simply teaching him that knowledge. Of course, she had to treat him as an equal based on their age differences but did so without making him feel as such. She made John think that there was never a doubt that he could learn what she wanted to teach;
she made it merely seem as though it was a matter of time before he would learn. To John, learning was a delight, like a game to enjoy, and he soaked up knowledge like the veritable sponge.
John’s parents also treated him as an adult from an early age, rather than as a child, and he responded very positively to that. He learned to talk very early. He learned to read at an unusually young age. This fed right into his advanced early education when it began and supported it. When John would meet adults such as his parent’s friends, they marveled at his ability to interact with them on a much higher level of mental and emotional sophistication than other children his age. Also, his personality came across as that of an adult, both in words and actions. He was still able to relate to his friends that were his age by modifying his behavior to match theirs. When he was ten years old, and he was with his friends that were ten years old, he behaved like a ten-year-old. When he was with adults, he acted like an adult.
By age eight, he was well on his way to understanding all the various sciences and mathematics. By learning it all so young, he could easily see how they all fit together. He was fortunate that he had a grandmother who had the knowledge to teach him, but she and his parents knew that by starting John early in the sciences and mathematics, he would learn much more and go much farther in his career.
Years later, he would understand this concept and, as if he did not already love and admire his grandmother and parents all along, once he realized what they had done, it increased his love and respect for them even more.
This had a profound effect on the way John learned. His father also made John feel that there was never a doubt that he could learn what his father wanted to teach; he made it merely seem as though it would just take a little time. By age twelve, he had a firm grasp on all the various sciences and mathematics he had already been learning: physics, chemistry, quantum theory, further complex mathematics, logic, computer science, and much more.
Every day when Stanford and Olivia got home, they would engage in some fun and games that night with John and never let him forget that he was loved. At some point in the evening, they asked John what he had learned that day and asked him if he had any questions. Both of his parents would expand on areas that John did not seem to comprehend until he fully gained the understanding he lacked.
John was also very intuitive, and even from an early age, he understood what his parents and grandmother were trying to do with all of his activities. Since he enjoyed learning so much, he looked forward to each day’s educational session with his grandmother. The more he learned, the more he wanted to learn. He couldn’t seem to get enough. However, his intuition told him that he needed to learn in “chunks” as he was doing rather than trying to learn too much at one time. Learning in sessions allowed him to absorb and fully understand the information Theresa was teaching him as he went along. Trying to learn more quickly would have circumvented this absorption process; and while he might have moved forward at a faster pace, his comprehension would have suffered, and comprehension meant everything with his advanced subjects. He had to understand completely as he went along so that his learning sessions became a knowledge store upon which he could build as a firm foundation.
John also understood the reason he needed to interact with friends and play games with them and such. He knew the benefit was the ability to make friends and, as he grew older, it would give him the skill of creating not only friendships, but also forging relationships with others in a work environment. He was aware of the importance of being able to do this, because the adage was true that two heads (or more) were better than one. Fortunately, John was easy-going and fun to be around. Though he was learning subject matter that was far above what his friends were learning, he was still a boy and still enjoyed having fun with his friends. His outgoing and upbeat personality made people want to be friends with him. This skill would develop for him and give him opportunities later in life that he otherwise would not have enjoyed. So life was fun for John from an early age and remained enjoyable into adulthood.
With John’s education, Theresa had been evaluating his progress regularly. For one thing, when he had reached the age of eight, she determined that his IQ was 175 – considered to be well into the genius range. But beyond that, she gave him evaluation tests regularly. These tests were unique in that they did not just determine what his current level was; they also identified what he was capable of achieving beyond what he had already learned. These parts of the tests required him to make assumptions about what the answers would be. However, using the word assumptions was a bit misleading. He was building on what he already knew to conclude what the answers would be to these unique questions. And she did not expect perfection, or even necessarily the indication of future advancement. She thought of it as a good intellectual exercise for him and if he did, in fact, show indication of future development, it became the icing on the cake. It also guided her on how to proceed with his studies. If there were promising areas, she would pursue them. If not, she already had his study plan mapped out – with the knowledge that it might need updating at any time, depending on his progress.
John’s education under Theresa’s tutelage had reached the point where she had done as much as she could. This was a predetermined goal that signaled that it was time for him to attend college. She and John’s parents had agreed on this years ago. Even though Stanford maintained a fully equipped lab in his basement for chemistry, physics, and other scientific pursuits that were provided by the government entity that he worked for, the lab fell short once John reached a certain level of knowledge. For one thing, there were specific apparatus that were too large, too expensive, or too focused on a particular area of science to maintain in a home laboratory, no matter how well equipped it might be. It just wasn’t practical to obtain and maintain such specific equipment.
Therefore, John submitted his application to the same college that his grandmother had attended, a well-known, well-respected scientific university – and was accepted! Considering only 10% of applications to this school were approved, this was phenomenal, especially considering that John was only fourteen years old.
So off to college John went, a place that had everything required for almost any scientific endeavor. It was there that John would continue his education. Since John was only fourteen, and he and his family lived in Arkansas (an ideal location for the clandestine work that Stanford and Olivia pursued with their covert organizations), arrangements needed to be made for John’s support while attending school. The answer to this was to move John to an apartment in a small town that was close to the college, with Theresa also living there to provide him with personal support for his living arrangements and his education. Theresa was happy with this arrangement since she had obtained her degrees from the same school and was already familiar with the area. The area was one that she liked, and she had close friends that still lived there. It also brought back fond memories of her time spent at the college. She was looking forward to going back and happy to be there for John and watch him progress through his academic journey.
A beautiful apartment was acquired close to the campus for them to live in; close enough for John to walk if desired, but Theresa could always provide transportation if necessary.
With the college, the time it took for the students to obtain their degrees was not dependent on time. It was dependent on the student completing the requisite coursework and how they had applied. The school allowed for a double major with multiple minors, typically at least seven, which was exactly what John wanted. He wanted to obtain bachelor's degrees in various scientific disciplines, and two Doctor of Science degrees as his double majors. There were several options for pursuing degrees, and he found just the combination he needed. In his case, if he ran into obstacles in this area, he had a source of significant help to achieve his goal: his parents. Having been in high-level and clandestine government agencies throughout their careers, they had developed liaisons with some influential people in government.
Some communications with some of the appropriate people would provide the influence if needed to arrange John’s academic career in the way they wanted. However, John was able to obtain the academic path he desired, and the bottom line was that he had solidified his educational goals and timeline. This was a feat that few other people would be able to accomplish because it required above-average intelligence and commitment. His choices of subjects for his undergraduate degrees were as follows:
Aerospace Engineering
Chemistry-Biology Engineering
Computational Science and Engineering
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Mathematics
Mechanical Engineering
Nuclear Science and Engineering
Physics
Quantum Physics
Nanotechnology
His Doctor of Science degrees would be in Nuclear Science and Physics. The Doctor of Science degrees also required Masters degrees in the same subject; the Master’s degrees were prerequisites.
Theresa did all she could to prepare John for his classes.
“Don’t forget that the reason you are there is to learn – don’t let anything distract you,” she told him.
For a while, this was easier said than done. John experienced a variety of interactions with his fellow students. Since they were all, for the most part, at least four years older than he was, there was a communication disconnect so to speak with some of them due to the age difference. And some, being the college students that they were, liked to joke around and pull pranks on him. He would discuss this behavior with Theresa when he would get home at night. She told him to politely ignore these students and concentrate on his studies. But it was hard sometimes because the jokes and pranks could be emotionally hurtful, some of the students were persistent with them, and John didn’t know how to react. Some of the students were downright mean to him, and this was very hard for him to deal with. Between his experience over time with learning to handle this behavior and Theresa’s advice, he learned to overcome these roadblocks. This situation had an upside: John became more mature with having to deal with such situations. Also, and on the positive side, there was a high percentage of his classmates that acted just the opposite of the pranksters from the start of his academic career. They took on the role of big brothers and big sisters, often coming to his rescue when the misbehaving students would bother him. They also gave him advice on how to handle the jokes and pranks, as well as how to handle his studies and life in general in the college environment.