by J. J. Harkin
“Dr. Apostas, I believe.” To their surprise it had been Victoria who finished the sentence. Quicker than sight she scuttled down the stairs, and was already mid-handshake with the man, adding: “It’s me, Drake – it’s Victoria Ulrik.”
The newcomer was shocked, but said nothing yet, showing excellent self-control. Drones were hurrying back into the room, laden with towels, to dry the poor man off thoroughly.
“You two know one another?” asked David, as Den hopped down the stairs to join the group.
“We have corresponded,” said Dr. Apostas confusedly, still looking across at the gorgeous android, “though I must admit I wasn’t expecting my pen pal to be so… shiny, in the end.”
“Well, every end of Grandma is shiny now,” laughed Den, “but I thought you were my pen pal.” The two men shook hands. “How did all this come about?”
“Lunchtime!” Henrietta’s voice had squawked the announcement all the way from the kitchen, but they heard it loud and clear.
“Don’t worry,” Victoria assured them, placing her hand on Den’s shoulder, “there is plenty of time to explain everything. We’ll get there…”
Soon the ever-expanding group had seated themselves in the second dining room off the kitchen, eagerly attended to by Henrietta and Victoria’s new drone-bots. The table there was long, and filled to overflowing with gorgeous food. As everyone found their seats, Victoria shoved the wooden chair at the head of the table aside, better positioning herself to watch the group as they ate.
“So let me see if I’ve got this straight…” began Henrietta, as finally she sat down to her own plate. “Victoria, here, was your girl in high school.” She pointed toward the spider grandmother as she addressed Dr. Apostas. “And when you moved away, the two of you stayed in touch as pen pals.”
“Yes – off and on during all the years of my marriage,” confirmed Victoria.
“But that was all?” asked Den with a raised eyebrow, feigning suspicion.
“That was all, though we did correspond a little more after the death of your grandfather.”
“Yes, yes,” confirmed Dr. Apostas, through a mouthful of Henrietta’s best lasagna. “I always looked forward to Victoria’s letters as I travelled the world. Truth be told, I’ve always been rather married to my work, so to speak.”
“And so I married your grandfather,” explained Victoria.
“But you really corresponded for all that time?” Henrietta asked.
“Until months ago when the letters stopped, and I heard Victoria had died,” Apostas continued, glancing toward Victoria at the head of the table. “I thought I might have missed my chance.” To the group it seemed a rather tender comment, and they smiled.
“Well, you didn’t,” finished Harriet helpfully, turning from the man to address the table at large. “Could someone please pass the parmesan cheese?”
“It’s a good thing some rare chances continue to repeat themselves until we finally have the wisdom to include them in our plans,” said Victoria, smiling at Dr. Apostas as she did so.
Henrietta was rushing ahead with the tale, however. “And that’s when Den, here, started pulling money out of his arse, to invite every rogue genius from north, south, east, and west to stay here?”
“Yes, something like that,” confirmed Rachel. “So David and I spent our time putting together this robot with Hayao.” She gestured toward Victoria.
“And we only just finished it this morning,” added David, “when…”
“Arf!” The smell of food had just awakened Dogie from his extended nap in the nook at the base of Victoria’s back. From the far end of the table the guests could see the dog’s tiny head peeking out intermittently at the left and right of Victoria’s waist, as he tried to decide if it was safe for him to jump down to the floor. But Victoria reached behind to pick the dog up, cradling the fragile animal carefully in her powerful arms.
“Better hand me a plate,” she said to Henrietta, and soon Dogie was being fed lovely spoonfuls of lasagna by his immense, new robot friend.
“So you were planning to come back to us from inside a cyborg all this time?” asked Dr. Apostas.
“Goodness, no,” Victoria laughed. “I just know how to take good advice when I’m given it. Joseph told me exactly what to do and when; so I did, and here we are.”
“But who is this Joseph person?” asked Dr. Apostas, taking the liberty of asking the question on all of their minds.
Here Den broke in helpfully. “Don’t bother,” he said, hoping he might save Victoria the time of explaining as much to the rest of the group. “You won’t get anything out of her on that subject. I’ve already tried.”
“So it’s mum’s-the-word on the Joseph front, is it?” asked Henrietta quizzically.
“For now,” admitted the cyber-granny. “But let me assure you it’s all a moot point anyway, as he’s already said he’ll be coming to visit personally. You can just ask him when he gets here.”
“But this Joseph is a real person, right?” asked David, feeling he ought to make sure. “He’s not just a figment of the Ulrik imagination or something, is he?”
“Of course he’s real!” insisted Den, though he knew David better than to take the comment too seriously.
“Joseph is as real as I am,” finished Victoria, with a twinkle in her eye.
“I did get her to admit one thing, though:” reported Denny tantalizingly. “Remember the letter Joseph picked up on her last day in the home? It was the same one we found here when we arrived on the island. So we’re not completely in the dark.”
“But what about the combination for the vault?” broke in Rachel earnestly.
“Yeah,” agreed David, “and how did your letter get all the way out here? Certainly this place must be beyond the reach of the postal service, mustn’t it?”
“Oh, alright, alright,” laughed Victoria. “Do calm down, both of you. Obviously my letter arrived here only just before you did. Joseph handed it off to another courier who flew out that very day to deliver it. As far as the combination to the vault, that was all Joseph’s doing. He never told me the number in an effort to stop me obsessing over which day I might be dying on, or I might have just put it in my note. But he was here when the builders originally programmed the vault’s combination, and on every occasion afterward when funds arrived for storage.” Victoria sighed as they wondered at all this. “But pass me a cupcake. Dogie’s ready for dessert.”
“I still don’t get it,” Henrietta insisted, her mouth full of noodles. “I mean, if you weren’t expecting to come back, like you said, then how could you know to invite me or Harriet, or even Dr. Apostas?”
“Well, naturally I knew how messy Denny and his creative friends can be, so I gave Harriet enough money to chum the both of you out to sea with us. She was miserable in that place anyway, so I aimed to hit two birds with one stone. Whether I benefitted from the exchange or not was an afterthought.”
“It’s true,” agreed Harriet. “Thanks, Vick! I’ve felt worlds better since I got off all the morphine.” They all stared at one another upon hearing this surprising revelation, for no one knew what to say.
“Good, Harriet. Glad to hear it!” said Victoria, smiling as she came to the rescue.
Yet Henrietta had not finished with her questions. “But you invited Dr. Apostas, right? How did you know to do that?”
“She didn’t,” said Apostas, speaking again. “It was Denny who contacted me.” He addressed Den. “So you tell me you need a chemist, do you?”
Den nodded, and turned to the others to explain. “Dr. Apostas is renowned for his experimentations with gaseous interactions, so he was one of the first men I contacted when it became clear I had sufficient financial backing to proceed with the hydrogen engine.”
“And we begin today!” stated Victoria resolutely.
“Honestly,” put in Dr. Apostas, “when I got your email I didn’t dare hope you might be somehow connected to Victoria” – he smiled up the t
able – “but I’m glad it turns out you are.”
So it happened that day that the final pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Afterward most of the group accompanied Victoria to meet with the full design team for the first time, hoping a cohesive work unit might result. The massive warehouse which had been installed for construction of the new generators did not take long to reach, for it was just a short distance past the robotics workshop. The meeting was initially tense with expectation, but Den’s retelling of his first meeting with Joseph aroused great interest, especially for those newly hired members of the crew whom had not yet heard much about what they were going to be working on. Next Dr. Apostas impressed them all by explaining that separating hydrogen would prove neither difficult nor expensive.
“It’s completely simple,” he said. “To make a little hydrogen all you’ve gotta do is stick two wires in a glass of water and connect the other ends to a nine volt battery. Both wires in the water will have bubbles coming off of them: one hydrogen and one oxygen. The bubbles that burn when you put flame near the surface of the water are hydrogen. To greatly increase the amount of gas released, all you have to do is replace the wires with graphite electrodes. The more electricity you add, the more hydrogen you’ll get. Putting salt in the water increases the yield even more. Capture and store that hydrogen, and you’re done.”
Rachel was surprised at how easy this had turned out to be. “So that’s it?” she asked. “Making hydrogen is that easy?”
“Yes that’s it and yes it’s that easy,” said Dr. Apostas confidently.
Then a man stepped forward, small yet attractive. “Yes, Mr. Collins?” asked Den in acknowledgement.
“Hello,” said the beautiful little man simply, addressing the group at large. “It’s like Den said: the name’s Collins. He’s asked me to be here to influence how we utilize the hydrogen once it’s stored. That’s what I do. I work for… let’s say… a major auto manufacturer. What you all need to understand is that the hydrogen combustion engine is already a fact of modern science. The working prototypes are already out there. The only reason we’re not driving hydrogen cars today is because the only hydrogen cars they’ll make are the kind that have to fill up at a gas station carrying hydrogen – the oil industry has lobbied this into reality.”
“And seeing as the gas stations are strictly controlled by oil manufacturers,” interrupted Den smoothly, “they certainly have no inclination of offering new products which might make their existing ones obsolete.”
“So, since that’s obviously never going to happen,” continued Collins, “the hydrogen car prototypes have hitherto been doomed to car shows or the scrap yard. What Den’s friend Joseph is suggesting is that we scrap the gas stations themselves, and have the engine simply pull the hydrogen directly from the air somehow – or perhaps from water, as Dr. Apostas has indicated.” Collins’ face was lined with conviction as he spoke. “The point is that I think we can do this. Hydrogen just might change the world.”
“Maybe yes and maybe no,” said a voluptuous woman as she stepped forward. “I am Imahan Arete, another friend of Den’s.” She was tall, especially when viewed next to Collins. Her skin was black as midnight, shining with a fragrant oil of some sort. “I am the efficiency expert,” she said, fixing them with luscious violet eyes which simply could not be natural. “I am here to see that our energy principles add up.” Imahan paced thoughtfully as she spoke. “Yes, to make the hydrogen all we need is a little electricity, but we must answer a critical question: Once that hydrogen has been burned to create electricity, is it likely that we will have any more energy than we originally invested? The truth is that this all sounds as hopeless as the concept of perpetual motion to me.”
This statement saddened Den, for Imahan’s logic was as flawless as everything else about her. Yet a sudden curiosity distracted him. “Victoria,” he asked. “I hadn’t thought to ask this yet, but how do we get our electricity here on the island?”
“Yes, Victoria, how is that done?” David chimed in, looking curious.
The granny-bot was happy to help. “Hydroelectric power,” she said simply. “The waves spin turbines in the man-made waterways beneath the island to create an excess of energy.”
“Is that where all the locked doors in the basement lead?” asked Rachel.
“Yep,” Victoria nodded. “The key ought to be around here somewhere…”
Den was not distracted, and turned to David. “What if we used all of our extra energy to derive, store, and compress hydrogen?”
“Sounds fine, but it’s like Imahan said, I’m not sure we’ll have gained any energetic capital in the end,” replied David.
“No,” broke in Imahan, with a worried look, “you misunderstand me. I didn’t mean to discourage you so. I was merely expressing my exasperation with alternative energy. Yes, there is the law of conservation of energy, but remember that there is so much more. I think Denny’s instinct in this is good. He was beginning to lay out an energy policy for the island. We should see where that goes.”
“What do you mean?” Den asked.
“I mean that I still think storing hydrogen is likely to be a good policy,” explained Imahan adroitly. “As it now stands I would be surprised to hear we have any significant way of storing energy on the island. Am I right?”
“You are absolutely right,” replied the granny-bot. “At this point we either use the energy generated right away or it is lost. That’s why we had to install so many turbines over so large an area: because it takes quite a few of them to be able to supply a place of this size with ample energy at any given moment.”
Imahan smiled. “Then, as your efficiency expert, I must tell you that storing the excess energy as hydrogen is a good idea.”
Already David was agreeing excitedly. “Yes, it’s just like Dr. Apostas said. If you’ve got electricity, then all you need to make hydrogen is salted water!” He glanced around expectantly. “Don’t you see?! We’re surrounded by nothing but saltwater! I mean, it’s the ocean for goodness sake!”
A murmur of ascent circled the room as Imahan nodded in agreement. “So, you see, we have still made progress, despite the fact that deriving hydrogen through electrolysis sacrifices a certain amount of the energetic capital.”
“Good, good,” Den agreed, now encouraged. “Alright. If we do all that then we’ll be slowly building a massive supply of hydrogen here on the island, which, if Collins is right, we can convert back into electricity anytime we need more. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to relegate to storing energy in massive batteries or something, as that’s never been cost effective or environmentally friendly. So, Collins, you’re sure it won’t be a problem using the hydrogen to power an engine or generator?”
“No problem at all,” Collins replied. “Believe it or not, several of the current engines actually run by pulling hydrogen from enriched petroleum – something I’m sure the oil companies are responsible for – but don’t let the marketing fool you, it can all be done with simple hydrogen gleaned from saltwater.”
“But we must get back to our original idea,” put in Dr. Apostas. “I thought we were here to design something new.”
Den turned to him. “Actually, this is all seeming to come down to storage, in my opinion.”
“What do you mean?” asked David.
“Well, that’s just what the problem has been until now, hasn’t it?” asked Den rhetorically. “We have plenty of alternative energy forms: solar, wind, geothermal, even hydroelectric. The complaint about every one of these energy sources has always been the fact that they only produce minimal energy at any given time, right? But what if they could store that energy for future use without the expense or chemical waste of batteries? It sounds like conversion to hydrogen might be the perfect storage medium for energy – and all we need is saltwater.”
“Yes,” broke in David. “What if we made – I don’t know – maybe a portable windmill which could sit on anyone’s front lawn. It could produce elec
tricity which would be channeled into a nearby vat of saltwater to yield hydrogen, which could then be stored. Then all you’ve gotta do when your car runs out of hydrogen is swap out the empty container in the car for the full one next to the windmill.”
“I actually think that might work,” put in Imahan, “but there is one more problem which must be addressed. The only way to store hydrogen is within a heavy metal tube. Wouldn’t that create too much added drag in most vehicles?”
“Nonetheless it seems our direction is clear,” said Dr. Apostas. “What we must do is create a line of home generators – or perhaps we might better term them energy collectors – for consumer use. Certainly a windmill is a good idea, but we might also want to make something hydroelectric for those who live near water. Either way the machines will utilize saltwater to derive and store energy as hydrogen for future use. Though just one of these units might only be of limited value, who knows how effective several of them might be working together.”
“If this works, the energy industry might not be too happy with us…” offered Hayao.
“True as true…” agreed Rachel.
“But Imahan’s right,” said Den. “We’ll need to find a lightweight method of storing the hydrogen, so long as we don’t make it so light the tanks start to float away. It’s a happy medium we’re looking for. We’ll start by making a line of energy collectors for domestic sale, coupled with a generator for the conversion of their hydrogen back into electricity – Collins can do that part. I still want to know if there’s some way we can retrieve the gas directly from the air, though, as this would still be the best way to power a flying vehicle, in my opinion.”
“What you’re talking about there is called an MCM, Denny,” put in Dr. Apostas, clearly determined to prove himself as well-informed as his reputation suggested. “Stands for Molecular Ceramic Membrane. Last I heard they were makin’ ’em out of Zeolite.”
“Never heard of it,” said David, with an uncharacteristic flare-up of cynicism.