Luthor waded through the last of the suburban refugees; he wanted to see Eli. He had not seen him in five years. Fermilab and CERN had exchanged professors for a semester in ‘42 as a publicity stunt. Eli had come to Chicago and had stayed with him for the duration of the exchange. They had become fast and enduring friends. Both had served in the war for the Coalition and afterward had both fled their dark memories for the intellectual safety of academia.
As they rounded the cinderblock edge of the station they saw Eli’s car. It was cherry red, and resembled a 9 mm bullet with solar panels covering the top.
Eli waved and rushed toward them. A meek Arab with graying hair, Eli wore a pale blue shirt under a 30-year-old sweater-vest with khaki pants and sandals. “Greetings my friends!” he said, hugging Luthor. “My dear Tanya, you look ravishing.” He grabbed her hand and kissed it.
“Easy buddy,” cautioned Luthor. “You know she has a weakness for your French charms.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it. She is far too beautiful to ever fall for an old man such as myself.” Tanya smiled and a hint of a blush touched her cheeks. “And you must be Michael.” Michael received a warm handshake instead of a kiss. “Welcome friends. It is a pleasure. Please allow me to take your bags.”
The idea of the small man carrying all their luggage was comical, but the genuine sincerity in his request kept anyone from laughing.
Not that there was any place to put it. Eli’s car was larger than most, but even with 2 PhD’s and Four Master’s degrees between them, it would be impossible to cram all four of them inside with their luggage. “My friends, I am afraid that this is going to be a bit cramped,” Eli said.
#
Geneva, European Union
Michael was happy to be out of the clown car. Eli’s house itself was composed of a series of intersecting domes designed to minimize building material use and heating costs while maximizing living space. The domes themselves were covered in solar panels that powered most of the house. A bulky battery pack abutted one dome to keep the lights on after the sun went down.
Rubbing his hands together, Eli stood in his small, round study replete with only a sturdy metal desk and a folding chair. The walls were covered in typical academic paraphernalia, framed degrees and awards everywhere. A single LED bulb in the ceiling provided illumination.
“Show me this device of yours. I have been holding my breath for two weeks waiting to see it,” he said, shutting the door behind them. Tanya seemed content staying in the kitchen, not seeing the demonstration for the 100th time.
Michael watched as Luthor methodically took out the components for his demonstration generator. Eli stood completely transfixed, watching, staring at the monotonous construction of the device without saying a word. It was honestly pretty pathetic; he treated it like it was a holy relic of some forgotten god. But there was nothing to watch except Luthor bending over some black boxes.
The machine itself was deceptively simple, the only complexity lay in synthesizing Element 126. They had been doing that every day for the last year to accumulate enough to run the generator in Luthor’s apartment and this one.
They had talked about putting a generator in Michael’s apartment as well. But Michael lived with three other students, and Luthor thought the risk of someone discovering the 126 was too great. At the time, Michael had been pissed; it just didn’t seem fair to have Luthor get all the financial benefit even if he had discovered the damn thing. But Luthor promised to split any profits with him down the middle. Michael had seen enough of the world to know that such a claim had a 99% chance to be total bullshit. But Luthor remained true to his word and had paid all the expenses for Michael’s trip here, which probably cost more than he would have saved by having the generator power his apartment. And though he would never tell Luthor so, the act had earned Michael’s respect and loyalty, something he had never given easily. Growing up on the streets during the Culling, Michael had learned the hard way that trust got you taken advantage of, if you were lucky.
Luthor grunted as he struggled to secure a small tank of water to the top of the device. The hard part was making sure it sealed properly so it didn’t leak water where it connected to the rest of the generator via a circular channel. The channel fed into an empty tank at the bottom before arcing back up to rejoin a matching tank at the top. Small turbines intersected the circular tubing throughout the prototype. Wires ran from the turbines to a center console that displayed the electricity output. Those wires had a tendency to get upset when water dripped on them.
Finished with the water conduit, Luthor opened and tinkered inside bland black boxes that were affixed throughout the exterior.
“May I surmise that those boxes hold the element?” Eli asked.
“Yes they do. Care for a peek?”
Eli stepped forward, and Luthor pulled out a claw-like device. Michael always thought it resembled the arcade machine claws where you used a joystick to try to grab a prize, Luthor’s just had more prongs. Ironically, as simple as they were, they were what allowed the machine to simulate perpetual motion. Eli beheld the strange machine with a quizzical look on his face.
Element 126 had the interesting property that the gravity effect increased significantly the closer the atoms were together. The more 126, the greater the effect. The claws allowed them to capitalize on that property. Inside each box, the claw held the 126 at the tips of its prongs. When the claw clenched its tips together—thereby concentrating the 126—the gravity increased around the box. When it opened, the 126 spread apart, and the enhanced gravity dissipated. The ability to turn the gravity on and off allowed the water to be circulated through the turbines and thus generate electricity.
Eli retuned the claw to Luthor who placed it back in the box. After a moment, Luthor stood up, hands on his back, looking like an 80-year-old man working out the kinks. “It’s all hooked up,” he said.
Eli walked up tentatively, “may I?”
“Of course. It isn’t made of glass.”
Eli flipped a switch on the top tank and water flowed down through the turbines, and lights flickered on around the machine. The black boxes clicked mechanically. Eli gasped. The water began flowing up the other side and back into the original tank. The little LEDs grew brighter and did not flicker any more as the water gained momentum and generated a more consistent electrical current.
“This is amazing. Genius.”
“I wouldn’t call it that.”
Luthor and his damn humility. Michael thought, this device is genius! And I am a part of that, thank you very much. That makes me a genius too.
“Seriously Luthor. Most people would have tried to create something too fantastic to be practical. You know, a flying car or something.” Eli paused dramatically. “You? You used it to solve the world’s biggest problem. And instead of making something too high tech to be accessible, you made a cheap, simple device accomplishing the same thing. Simplicity, not complexity, it is said, is the hallmark of genius.”
“Eli, will you do me a favor?” Luthor said. “Will you write that down, and read it at my funeral? That was beautiful.”
Michael laughed unabashedly, but it didn’t seem to deter Eli, he bent close to the black boxes. He traced the wires lacing up and down with a finger, “I love how you used the electricity you already generated to manipulate the 126. It’s a perfect closed system.”
“Well that’s the real trick, isn’t it?” Michael said. “It wouldn’t do us much good if it didn’t. That’s how we can simulate perpetual motion. Good thing those claws don’t take much juice.”
Luthor nodded. “They only have to move 10 centimeters, so it doesn’t consume much of the power we generate. The remainder is available for use elsewhere.”
“You are going to be the talk of the world in a few days, my friend.”
“I certainly hope so. Were you able to get me a presentation time?”
“Thursday night. I know it isn’t one of the headliner spots, but it was th
e earliest time available. I figured it would be best to demonstrate this as early as possible so everyone has time to see it, and more importantly—”
“To talk about it.” Luthor said. He turned back to Michael. “If we do these next few days right, you and are I going to be flying around giving lectures and demonstrations for the most powerful people in the world.”
“Flying?” Michael questioned. For Luthor to say something as absurd as flying, he must have misspoken. Flying would be unbelievably awesome. Luthor was the only man Michael knew under 60 who remembered being in an airplane.
“Flying.” Luthor said with certainty. “People are going to want this technology implemented immediately, they aren’t going to wait weeks for us to get there by seabus.”
“Hell yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!”
“It isn’t all its cracked up to be.” Luthor said cryptically.
“Whatever, boss. You can tell me all you want about how flying at 10,000 meters traveling a thousand kilometers an hour is boring, but I am not going to buy it. Because its bullshit. Flying sounds like the most smoggingly awesome thing I will have ever done.”
“Try flying at 20,000 meters. Then jumping out.” Luthor closed his eyes. Luthor never talked much about his time as a paratrooper, but every time he did he got that same terrible expression. Whatever happened after jumping out of those planes was not a happy memory for him.
Must be something wrong with you if you don’t think skydiving is fun, Michael thought. At least the war ended before I got out of Boot Camp and I didn’t have to find out.
Eli’s watch beeped an alarm. “It appears that dinner’s ready,” he said. “I do hope you like pheasant.”
“Love it,” Michael said, though he had never tasted it. He was at least reasonably sure it was a bird. The majority of the meat he had consumed in his life had been sewer rats he hunted during the Culling to survive. Any normal meat these days was a delicacy.
Eli opened the door for the two of them in a hospitable way, the delicious floral aroma of home cooking wafted in. “After you, gentlemen.”
#
They walked back out into the small dining area. Eli was busy bringing the food to the table. He placed the small pheasant as the centerpiece. It was golden brown on the outside and looked like the most delicious thing Michael had eaten in weeks. Luthor hadn’t told him that Eli was a chef as well as a professor.
Eli showed them their seats. “My apologies. I forgot to tell you we have one other person joining us for dinner. She is my secretary and long-time family friend. This is Vika.”
Michael looked toward the door of the kitchen as Vika walked in. He felt his jaw open involuntarily, but simply didn’t have the will to retract it. Vika was the single most beautiful woman Michael had ever seen.
She stood, tall and lean, her straight black hair framing a face that could have been carved by Michelangelo. Piercing green eyes stared out at him. She was boldly beautiful, painfully attractive. It was not a soft pretty that seemed to beg for love and affection, but a hard, sharp-edged gorgeous. She was a dangerous beauty of the type that constantly dared men to make a move so she could enjoy the sport of shooting them down.
He snapped back to awareness at the sound of derisive laughter. Both Tanya and Vika were laughing. At him.
“Your friend is drooling.” Vika had an accent he couldn’t place, but it made her even more mysterious and alluring. Nonetheless, the sheer quantity of embarrassment he was accruing forced his mouth shut and helped him regain control of his higher motor functions.
Well, you’ve really breathed in the smog this time Michael, he thought. Nothing to do about it now but roll with the punches.
Michael cleared his throat casually, “I suppose you have heard all about me by now. My name’s Michael Laramy.”
“Vika.” She said curtly. She took his offered hand with the firmest grip of any woman he had ever shaken hands with. It was like she had nothing but coiled, knotted muscles under her long coat. Enough smogging superlatives with this one. Jesus! He thought. He made a conscious effort to not rub his hand.
“You’ll have to forgive my reaction. I just wasn’t expecting such a stunning woman to appear.” He hoped the sweet talking would do some good. Maybe he could make up for being so pathetic. Who knows? Maybe this could turn into—No. I promised Luthor no girl-drama this trip. Better to keep this professional… but damn! Michael made another conscious effort not to drool.
“Since we just met, I will forgive you once. But, Laramy,” Vika raised an eyebrow at him, “I have one rule. Learn it.” As the pause lingered, Michael wondered if she was flirting or not. “If you hit on me, I hit you.” By her expression he had no doubt that if he ever tried flirting again she would in fact, punch him, and it would in fact, hurt.
Luthor chuckled from the other side of the table. Tanya smiled and slowly shook her head.
“I thought you were still living alone,” Luthor said.
“After my wife took the kids and left, I was alone.” Eli said. “But Vika is an old friend of my children who came on hard times. She needed a job and a place to live. I needed the company. She stays in the spare bedroom.”
“And works for you now.”
“Yes, but let us eat while the bird is hot.” Eli said jovially. “My lovely and talented secretary can finish introducing herself while we eat.”
#
“Your invention sounds remarkable,” Vika said during a lull in the conversation.
“Remarkable hardly does it justice, my dear.” Eli said. “Earthshattering would be a more appropriate adjective.”
“And your goal is to release the technology for free to everyone. Noble of you; it would be worth a lot if you sold it.”
“I don’t know how noble it is.” Luthor said. “We just went through one war over energy, I’m not really interested in causing another one for the sake of my own profit.”
“You still think war would be inevitable, Luthor?” Eli asked. It was a topic they had discussed at length on several occasions.
“Positively certain of it.”
Tanya squeezed Luthor’s hand affectionately. “It is far too dangerous to sell. And we certainly aren’t in a position to try and defend ourselves if anyone powerful tried to take it from us. So it’s a safe bet that if we advertised we were selling 126, the research would simply be stolen.”
“And then they would kill you,” Vika said.
Luthor felt the blood drain from his face at the cold declaration.
Vika continued. “It would be worth less if you were alive to sell it to others. They would want a monopoly.”
“Exactly,” Tanya said, ignoring the arctic chill from Vika. “There are really only two possibilities if only one major player has 126.” Tanya began to enumerate the potentialities. “One, the country with the technology could simply use it to further their own economic goals.”
“Is it so bad for a country to want a thriving economy?” Eli interjected. “We are talking about finally having enough energy to grow enough food again. Would it be so terrible to knock starvation off Europe’s top killer list?”
“That is a wonderful goal. But what happens when one country has unlimited energy when the rest of the world is still ravenous for it?” She paused as if the conclusion were obvious. “That country dominates in every area, not just food production. Military, manufacturing, data processing, transportation: it would create a massive power imbalance. Every time there is a power imbalance in global politics, it inevitably leads to war. The other countries are either forced militarily into subservience where they continually rebel, or are pushed to a preemptive war to try to equalize the power.”
Eli nodded, conceding the point. “What is the second possibility?”
“They could simply use their heavy advantage to strike first and gain total domination. The world powers have already shown they won’t use nukes even in all-out war, there would be almost no risk to attacking first. The country with th
e most energy would win.”
Eli crossed his arms. “So, in both your scenarios, war is the only possible outcome.”
Tanya nodded. “That’s the way I see it. There must be equality or there will be war. Imagine what would have happened if the soviets were the only ones who’d discovered atomic weapons, or the Nazis.” She let the idea linger, it was not painting a pretty picture in Luthor’s mind. “Even in World War III, parity was important. Both the Coalition and Chinese Block had nukes, so no one dared use them. We both had the capability to saturate each other’s missile defense systems; the small percent that got through would have still destroyed the earth. So as bad as the war was, it would have been much worse if the powers hadn’t been roughly equal.”
Michael frowned. “It’s hard to believe that anything could be worse than 2 and half billion people dead.”
“How about 8 and half billion people dead?” Tanya said. “We would have nuked China to glass if they hadn’t been able to do the same thing to us. Regardless of what might have happened, there needs to be equality with Luthor’s invention, or it will lead to yet another war.”
“Those arguments are irrelevant. Spies would likely steal the technology,” Vika said. “It is impossible to hide something this important.”
“And having spies steal your most valuable technology has always led to peace,” Tanya replied sarcastically. “The Soviets stole much of the Manhattan project. That led to 50 years of tension and an arms race between the two powers. Vietnam and Korea both stemmed from that conflict.
“Regardless, all of those risks can be avoided if Luthor simply gives it all away in the first place. Then everyone will have the technology from the get-go. There will be no imbalance of power, and everyone receives the benefits without the chance of war. Imagine knocking starvation off the world’s top killer list. Not just Europe’s.”
“And I honestly don’t care about having a few extra credits,” Luthor added. “Simply being the man who discovered this will be more than enough,” Luthor grinned at Eli. “What was it you were saying a few weeks ago about Nobel Prize money?”
Scarcity Page 4