by Saxon Andrew
“Will the government steal this technology?” Tom asked.
“They can’t steal what they don’t know exists, Mr. Heller.”
“Call me Tom, Summer. How are you going to keep it from them?”
“All of our experiments and work during graduate school is considered to belong to the school. Our work is not going to have any results that cause eyebrows to be raised. We’ll work on our projects inside the school’s labs but we’ll do the real work on the weekends when no one is present. We’ll move to the facility when it’s ready and continue our developments.”
Jimmy nodded, “We’re going to be moving on two fronts. You and Tom are going to be leading our construction efforts in the valley along with purchasing the supplies and materials we’re going to need when we move in. Summer and I will be working hard to develop new technologies that we’re also going to need to survive.”
“You need to find some more engineers and scientists to assist your efforts,” Tom suggested.
“A group of us are going on a trip to Cal-Poly in January. I’m hoping we can find some there at that time.”
Candice smiled, “I think we talked enough business. I want to get to know more about you, Summer. I understand you were valedictorian.”
“How did you know that?”
“I get all the magazines from MIT and saw your picture. You must be proud of that?”
“Jimmy should have been given the title.”
Candice waved her hand, “Oh please. Jimmy wouldn’t know how to appreciate it. Recognition is not something he pays attention to.”
• • •
The next day on the ride back to Boston, Summer looked at Jimmy, “You have an interesting family.”
“I’m sorry if they made you uncomfortable.”
“Quite to the contrary, they made me feel accepted and very comfortable. Your mother saw us together before either of us did.” Jimmy smiled and nodded. Summer stared at him and said, “Jimmy, do you see it?”
Jimmy’s eyes narrowed and he glanced at her. He passed a large truck and asked, “I’m not sure what you mean?”
“Both of us are ruled by logic and examination of facts like any good scientist, would you agree to that?”
“I suppose.”
“I worked out in my mind that we should be together and it was the most logical thing in the world for us to come together.”
Summer grew silent and Jimmy said, “But?”
“I don’t want a logical relationship, Jimmy. I want to be passionately loved almost to the point of worship. I want to feel love in my heart all the way down to my toes from a man that feels the same way about me. Jimmy, do you love me or have you just accepted your dream and are going through the motions?”
Jimmy glanced at her again and then pulled into a rest area. He parked the car and turned and stared at her. “Summer, I look at you and something inside me makes me feel like an imposter. I disappeared the first day I saw you because I felt so inadequate around you. I’ve seen you believe that we belong together but every time I look at you I can’t force myself to believe that I could be this incredibly lucky. Every male student in school had dreams about being with you and truth be told, I was one of them. I don’t think it has broken through that you’ve actually chosen me.”
Summer leaned in and looked into his eyes, “Jimmy, I haven’t chosen you.”
“You haven’t?”
“No, I love you. And watching you with your family tonight has made me…passionate about it. I need you to love me as well.”
Jimmy stared at her and looked deeply into her eyes. He started shaking his head, “You’re being serious.”
“I am.”
Jimmy’s smile started slowly but grew quickly. “I saw you in a dream with our baby, Summer. What I felt was incredible but even seeing that did not overcome my doubt that you could truly, truly love me.” He pulled her close and whispered in her ear, “But now I can see it in your eyes, I can feel it in your touch, I can hear it in your voice, and I can feel it in my heart. I do love you, Summer and you will never have to worry about seeing it from this moment on.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her deeply.
They were an hour late getting back to Boston.
Chapter Nine
Jimmy looked at Nicky Irozo and nodded, “Yes, I’m absolutely certain I saw the asteroid come directly overhead and disappear over the horizon to the east. Why do you keep asking me if I’m sure?”
It was clear the young astronomy scientist was not happy with the answer, “Because the only way for that to happen is that it came directly toward Earth from open space.”
“What would you normally expect to happen?” Jimmy asked.
“The probabilities of a direct impact from open space are much lower than one that goes around the sun and hits earth on its outward-bound orbit.”
“Nicky, three asteroids hit!”
“I know, you’ve said that. Astronomically speaking, the probabilities of that are…”
“More than a trillion to one,” Jimmy interrupted.
Nicky shrugged, “If they came directly from space on a direct impact, the odds are more like two trillion to one.” Nicky looked up from the solar system map on the table in front of them, “You are right that it is not an accident. This had to be deliberately done and the technology to move asteroids the size you say you saw is so far ahead of us, we’re not even in the same game or playing field.”
“Nicky, are you doubting what I saw?”
Kicky shook his head, “No, but I really want to find some way to explain how it might not happen. You’ve proven to me that you can see things before they happen. What do you want me to do?”
“I was hoping that if I showed you where the three asteroids hit, you could possibly determine the direction they’re coming from and start using the high array telescopes to look for them. I need to know when the impacts are going to happen.”
“Do you know what time of year they hit.”
Jimmy’s eyes narrowed and he thought for a moment. Well, I believe it was during early winter. That’s when I made the trip from Rome to Cairo.”
Nicky nodded and shrugged, “That at least tells me where Earth will be in its orbit. I’ll start keeping track of that portion of the sky and if I see anything, I’ll let you know.”
“Nicky, I’m not completely sure my dreams happen at the same time as I have them.”
“I’ll be looking at all the sky images my colleagues take and see if anything shows up but I’m going to use my scope-time looking at the northern hemisphere sky.” Nicky rolled up the map and said, “That vision you had of that building at MIT, did the visions match when you finally saw it?”
Jimmy focused on the two and started nodding, “Yes, they did. As I think about it, they would have to match.”
“Why is that?”
“If they took place at different times, Summer would have been wearing something different,” Jimmy answered.
“Good point. I’ll focus on the winter sky.”
Nicky left and Jimmy walked out of his apartment right behind him and headed toward MIT’s labs. He was stopped in traffic when he felt the ear-link start vibrating on his waist. He reached into a small leather case on his belt, pulled out a round tubular device and inserted it into his ear, “Jimmy?”
“Yes, Tom.”
“The owner of the construction company has figured out what we’re building and has approached me about including him into our plans.”
“How much did he deduct from the plans?”
“He saw the latest plans showing the four tunnels being dug deep underground across the valley and determined that we’re building a retreat of some kind. He met me in private and wants his family included in whatever we’re planning.”
“Can he be trusted, Tom?”
“He’s said that he will stop charging us prices where he makes a profit and only make us pay for materials and labor. He promises not to reveal what’s going on and
says none of his workers will reveal anything as well. He says that those he permanently assigns to the project will also have to be part of it as well.”
Jimmy thought in silence for a long moment and sighed, “We are probably going to need some good construction crews if something goes wrong.”
“That’s what he says. I think what made him suspicious was when we installed the eight Magnetic Field Generators in the flow of the waterfall. He knows the power we’re planning to use is far above that needed for a small scientific community. Seeing the four tunnels we plan to dig under the valley floor confirmed it.”
“How many does he want included, Tom.”
“He says two-hundred skilled workers, which includes his family.”
“Is there room to build extra living quarters to house them?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure he will keep his mouth shut about this?”
“I’m pretty certain I can make that happen, Jimmy. I’ll threaten to reveal his secret financial accounts if he doesn’t swear his silence and keep his promise. I told him I will also reveal them if any of his crews say anything to anyone outside of our organization.”
“Alright, let him in on it and I’ll plan to come and meet with him as quickly as I can get some free time from the lab. By the way, how are the funds holding up?”
“Apple and Amazon stocks are going like gangbusters and coupled with our construction costs going down, we’re in good shape.”
“How far along are the labs?”
“They’ll be done in six months.”
“Have the Swiss come to inspect what we’re doing?”
Tom Chuckled, “Actually, your mother has been hounding the Swiss Bundesrat to approve building a new telescopic array on a mountain not far from our valley and they refused to approve it.”
“Why?”
“Too close to a ski-resort. But she contacts the inspector several times a week who comes to check out what’s going on here. She argues with him for hours and won’t let him get off the phone. On a visit here, she kept him more than three hours bending his ear about how unreasonable they are being and insisting on him taking her to meet with his superiors personally.”
“What happened?”
Tom laughed, “I think the Inspector told his superiors that in the future they could come and inspect our work. One of them did and they’ve not been back since. Your mother still calls him weekly and I think they’ve decided that we won’t be looked at until the construction is completed.”
Jimmy laughed, “Mom can be persistent.”
“If there was ever an understatement, you’ve just told the biggest. We’ve told them that building the isolated frame work of the sensors is going to take almost twenty years and that it can be disturbed by a helicopter landing close by. I think we’ll be fine for quite a while.”
“Tell Mom I miss her and let me know if anything else happens.”
“I will, Jimmy.”
The connection ended and Jimmy took the small device out of his ear and put it back in the leather pouch behind his cell-phone.
A year earlier, he and Summer had taken part in developing the optical systems for three new weather satellites and oversaw their construction. A small magnetic wave transmitter was placed in the satellites’ cameras, which allowed the members working on the project to communicate with each other in Europe and the United States. The magnetic wave communicator used an embedded frequency hidden in the satellite’s feed. They also managed to get several of the communicators in six military satellites that were launched over Europe, the Middle East, and Russia. Those transmitters weren’t activated and would remain hidden until absolutely necessary.
Jimmy arrived in the faculty’s garage and parked on the first floor. He had finished his first Doctorate in 2003 in magnetic wave mechanics and exotic power systems. A year later he was given another doctorate in Computer Sciences.
He was working on a fourth doctorate in esoteric nuclear reactions. It was the current doctorate that was going to make a huge difference in the survival of the community. So far, the University had not made a connection between his discoveries in magnetism and nuclear power delivery. It was his work on nuclear reactions that gave him access to radioactive material which was nearly impossible to get.
Radioactive materials were the most closely guarded products on the planet. Keeping it out of the hands of terrorists was job one of every country’s security departments. Jimmy convinced the CEO of one of the major suppliers of nuclear rods to join his organization. Once he saw what was coming, he was all in.
Jimmy learned from subsequent events that if a supplier wanted to sell radioactive materials to terrorists, they could do it quite easily and tracking it would be next to impossible. There was a cave cut out in the mountain where enough rods were collected to power the new reactor Summer developed for centuries.
The supplier had also agreed to manufacture some very small balls with pure uranium inside them. They were about the size of a marble and coated with a substance Summer’s team had made that prevented any leaks of radioactivity which could be detected. That’s why he was going to the lab on today, Summer had called and told him to meet her in the lab.
He used his ID cards to open the doors to the high security lab and saw Summer, “Hey, Honey. What’s up?”
Summer came rushing across the floor and wrapped him up in a hug, “I think we’ve done it?”
“Done what?” Jimmy asked.
“Come over here, and we’ll show you.”
Jimmy walked over to the lab’s sealed testing chamber and said, “Hi, Patrick.”
Patrick smiled, “I guess she told you.”
Jimmy glanced at Summer, who was beaming, and said, “She said you have done it. I’m curious, exactly what have you done?”
Patrick completed turning the wheel to the door and it swung open. They walked in side and Jimmy saw a three-foot long tube on a tri-pod, with a rectangular box on one end of it. At the other end of the room was a thick piece of metal with an X in the center that connected all four corners. Summer released Jimmy and went to the box on the tube and pushed a switch on it. Jimmy didn’t hear or see anything happen. He looked at her and she smiled as she sighted down the tube. She lifted the tube on its tri-pod and pointed it at the “X”. Jimmy looked at the metal at the other end of the room and suddenly saw a bright light burn through the center of the X.
His eyes widened and he said, “How thick is that metal?”
“Half inch.”
“What power did you use to fire that laser?”
“We used one of the dense-battery packs you developed.”
Jimmy was shaking his head, “There’s no way you could generate that much power from one battery pack!”
Summer hugged him tightly, “It was Patrick’s idea to combine the magnetic recharger to the battery pack and have it constantly recharging when the beam is fired. The primary coil takes the charge and boosts it up a hundred-thousand times the input and when it reaches critical, the laser fires.”
Jimmy looked at the two of them with huge smiles on their faces and Jimmy said, “You’ve done it.” Summer and Patrick high-fived each other and Jimmy asked, “How long does it take for the system to recharge before you can fire again?”
Patrick laughed, “When we say we’ve done, we’ve done it all, Jimmy. This portable laser design can fire continuously with only a tenth of a second between each beam.”
“What about overheating the tube?” Jimmy asked.
“The laser doesn’t touch the barrel. Your magnetic field emitters keep it away from the barrel’s surface.”
“You can’t just fire indefinitely; something has to give.”
Summer nodded, “Yes, but we’ve combined the magnetic field power-pack to the battery pack to recharge it. The system will work until the power supply to the magnetic field pack gives out.” Jimmy stared at them thinking about what she said and Patrick smiled, “One magnetic pack should be goo
d for two hundred shots. At that point, snatch out the pack and insert a new one. It’s just like putting a new clip in a rifle. We can design the final model to allow quick reload of the magnetic packs.”
“How much will the final model weigh?” Jimmy asked while staring at the hole burned through the metal plate.”
Patrick looked around and went out of the lab and put a chair under the door handle. He went to a locked cabinet and took out a leather case. Jimmy looked at Summer and saw her smiling as Patrick came back in the room and pulled out a weapon that was made of some form of polymer. He handed it to Jimmy and his eyes flew open, “This doesn’t weigh five pounds.”
Patrick nodded, “Three point nine pounds. Take a shot.”
“What?”
“Take a shot at the X. Just aim away from the center.”
Jimmy stood behind the table and lifted the weapon to his shoulder. He saw an electronic scope on top and he saw the X looked huge in the eyepiece. He sighed directly under the middle of the X and pulled the trigger. Instantly, a bright light appeared two inches below where he was aiming. He raised his head and said, “The scope is a little off.”
Summer shook her head, “No, it’s not.” Jimmy looked at her and Patrick said, “The scope is two inches above the laser tube. With light beams, unlike bullets, there is no drop.”
“Couldn’t you adjust the scope’s sights to compensate for the difference?”
“We could but if you’re aiming at something five hundred yards away, the sights wouldn’t be dead on; all you have to remember to do is aim two inches above what you want to hit.”
Jimmy looked at the high-tech weapon and said, “You’ve done it. Congratulations to both of you!”
Patrick nodded, “We still have some developmental issues.”
“Such as?” Jimmy asked.
“We’re using your first-generation battery pack and the range of the laser is about four to five hundred yards before the beam attenuates and loses its heat. Your new battery pack is slightly larger and should extend the range out to about a thousand yards. Our problem now is that we can’t continue to work here and develop the case to house the electronics and do a thorough testing.”