Alec's Dream

by Dave Birchbauer

  5 AM Tuesday morning, Alec found himself standing on the far side of the pond in GraviTych’s back yard. It was cold, too cold even for the crickets. Icy dew soaked his shoes. The moon was long gone and the Eastern sky was giving signs of the approaching dawn, and with it, some much needed warmth. Alec had been chosen to preside over the morning preparations for their Anti-Gravity Expo since Clay, Olivia and Cleveland had spent Monday taking care of their VIP guests. Now as they slept in, Alec was up before dawn yearning for a hot cup of coffee.

  He looked down the road as the growl of a truck engine broke the predawn silence. Wincing from its high beams as it turned in his direction, he watched the caterer’s truck crawl up the access drive to the loading docks. With hopes of coffee and maybe a doughnut, he blew in his hands and began walking around the pond to meet them.

  “Hey Alec, need a ride?” Stan’s voice came from out of nowhere. A startled Alec turned to see him descending in one of their new transport platforms. The flying discs were a joint creation of Stan and Eugene. Stan provided the anti-gravity controls and Eugene built the exotic looking platforms… typical Eugene creations of ornately carved heavy wooden platforms whose thick railings were covered with gargoyle like creatures. They were beautifully elegant but Alec couldn’t help but wonder... why not butterflies or bunnies.

  “Thanks Stan” It felt good stepping off the wet grass. “Let’s see what the caterers brought.”

  Stan smoothly flew the platform over the pond and through the open loading dock doors. They set down to find the caterers already busy unloading. A grateful Alec headed straight for a table where a large urn of fresh coffee was already set up. By the time he finished his first sip, a group of engineers had crowded around him talking excitedly as they filled their Styrofoam cups.

  “We won’t need all the chairs today. It looks like our guest list has thinned out a bit.” Alec mentioned to Larry who just stepped off a smaller flying platform meant to be used mainly inside the building. “Clay left me a text last night. About a third of the invites showed up, we only need seating for about 50.” That was only 10 out of the 30 companies that had originally RSVP’ed. Not good… but not that bad either. Ten companies were better than none. Alec watched a handful of his engineers jump onto the back of Larry’s floating platform where he deftly piloted it back into the corridors.

  The old gym outside of Jessie’s and Sofie’s lab was ready for their presentations by the time the guests began arriving. It was freshly painted and lit by dozens of Eugene’s floating bug lights. Rows of padded chairs were facing a newly built stage containing a podium flanked by large video monitors displaying slowly spinning GraviTych logos; modeled after Alec’s and Jessie’s original floating box… which happened to be hovering behind it.

  Tables covered with their experiments and modified toys lined one side of the gym. Stan’s flotilla of flying prototypes hovered along the other. At the back, more tables covered with white linen table cloths were packed with trays of breakfast food and drink. Caterers, dressed in white stood at their sides.

  Alec, now wearing his best suit, stood at the entrance of the gym greeting their guests as they arrived on flying platforms piloted by Stan and Larry. It wasn’t long before Clay, Olivia and Cleveland took over the greeting duty leaving him gratefully on his own. He stood to the side watching crowds form around their anti-gravity exhibits. Clay, taking advantage of the opportunity, worked himself into the groups and was soon into his sales speech about the incredible business advantages of anti-gravity.

  Feeling the Expo was starting on a good note, Alec wandered to the back tables to grab another cup of coffee. The lights flickered making him look around.

  “Did you notice that?” Alec asked one of the caterers standing at the side of the table.

  “Notice what?”

  “The lights, they flickered.” The bug lights made out of anti-gravity blankets should not flicker; and not all at once.

  The attendant shook his head. Alec surveyed the room. It was windowless, so nothing from outside could have caused the phenomena. He looked down at his coffee. “I better lay off this stuff, it’s making me hallucinate.”

  He noticed a short oriental man with a long hanging mustache staring at him from the entrance doors. Thinking he must be the chef from the caterer, he smiled and raised his coffee in a salute. The chef smiled. The lights flickered again making the white chef’s outfit momentarily appear like glowing white robes. Alec shook his head… then dumped out his coffee before settling in the back row of chairs as Clay gathered up the guests for the start of the presentations.

  Clay, Olivia and Cleveland all took turns at the podium talking business, markets, money, and how the world would be changed with anti-gravity. Most of the presentations bored Alec to tears, and also seemed to bore most of their guests… all part of the plan. After a break, it was Alec’s turn at the podium, and like a true engineer, he filled his coffee cup before taking his spot on stage to a smattering of polite applause.

  Carefully setting down his cup, he started. “My theory of gravity is simple; it is based on the assumption that space is ‘something’ as opposed to ‘nothing’. So, if space is ‘something’, then by using a little bit of ingenuity, we should be able to figure out how to manipulate it, which is what we did.” He looked around at a handful of somewhat curious faces that had just been on the brink of total boredom. Turning to the floating box behind him, he pulled it over so it hovered next to him.

  “So what is causing gravity?” Alec mused. “The accepted theory is that something in matter attracts matter. But in my mind, I could never accept that theory… how can things ‘pull’ each other together unless they somehow ‘grab’ each other? And if you really think about it, force can only ‘push’, not pull. So any theory of attraction just doesn’t make sense... at least to me. Now my theory, or should I say, my reasoning, is that matter itself contains holes in our space-time continuum allowing space to leak out into some other universe, or continuum. And when you put a lot of matter together, like a planet for instance, the accumulation of those holes attract a torrent of space pouring into and through them. The resulting current or flow pushes whatever is in its path along with it. Hence we feel the force of gravity.”

  Most of the faces in the audience had blank looks. A few walked to the back tables to grab something to eat. About to continue, Alec was momentarily distracted by that oriental chef again, standing by the edge of the food tables watching him. This time it was the chef who saluted.

  Recovering his focus, Alec continued. “So imagine, standing under a waterfall trying to swim up it. That was the problem that I, or my daughter and I, had to solve.” He gave a nod to Jessie as she walked into the back of the room with Sofie and their moms, Jodi and Dolores. “But, the knowledge that fish can swim up waterfalls, and that sailing ships can tack into the wind, gave us hope. We developed many theories, speculations and experiments until we amazingly invented this.” Alec reached over and gave the floating box a gentle push, causing it to slowly spin… imitating the spinning logos on the monitors. “Our main obstacle was finding a way to touch space. For planes to fly, wings need to react with air. For fish to swim, their fins must react with water and for us to swim through gravity… well… we needed to find something that can react with space.” Seeing a couple of yawns and some concerned looks from Olivia and Cleveland, Alec worried he was losing them, especially with the most boring part of his presentation yet to come. “So, taking a step back in our thinking process, we realized that wings do not really react to air, or fish react to water, it is in fact, matter reacting to matter. So our obvious conclusion was that we wanted space to react to space… but how? That is where one of the biggest mysteries of science came to our salvation; magnets and magnetic fields. Our leap of technical faith was that magnetic fields, or magnetic field lines, are made up of spinning strings of space. So all we needed to do was generate a set of dynamically shaped and moving magnetic fields acting like
propellers do in air or water, or like a fishes fins, or… well I think you can come up with your own analogies.”

  “We spent months trying every arrangement and configuration of magnetic field lines we could think of, with no luck. Until Jessie came up with the pattern, which is now our trade secret… that finally made this box fly. By the way, this is our original invention.” Alec felt the audience’s attention return, just a bit.

  With a small sigh of relief he continued. “So, what do we do with this box? Our team of engineers, the best engineers in the world in my opinion, tried more combinations, patterns and technologies, but to no avail. It was almost as if our original magnetic field pattern was the only one, or at least, one of a very few combinations that worked. We seemed to be stuck with a floating box as our only product.” Unbelievably, the audience actually started looking interested. Even the people by the food tables turned and seemed to listen with interest. “You see, this box is fun to look at, but what can we do with it? We could hang things from it or maybe use it to help buoy planes to save fuel. Nothing earth shattering until my daughter came to our rescue. If I remember correctly, her comment was something like… ‘Why can’t we just make a bunch of smaller boxes and tie them together?’… That was the inspiration we needed. We ran with that concept, and not only did we make a bunch of smaller boxes, we made thousands... no millions of smaller ones and tied them together.” Alec was happy to see their confused looks. Smiling, he reached down behind the podium and pulled out a sheet of anti-gravity blanket; a thin, shimmery silver fabric with a small plastic box attached to its corner. The audience’s reaction was perfect, silence with a hint of anticipation.

  “This is what we call the gravity or anti-gravity blanket; it consists of thousands of miniaturized boxes bonded and wired together. When this blanket is applied to a flat surface and energized, it not only creates an anti-gravity affect, but can actually create a directional gravity thrust.” Alec saw confused looks again. “You see, this box doesn’t repel gravity, it pushes the flowing space around it and past it, sort of like a jet, a gravity jet. The reason the box seems to float is because of its size and mass.” Alec pointed to the box still hovering next to him. “Once the boxes were miniaturized and tied together, we found their micro properties transformed into what we call the blankets macro properties; properties we’re still discovering.” This pushed the audience over the brink of non understanding. Alec decided to deviate from the script and try some audience involvement. “I see some confused looks out there, does anyone have any questions?” He said enjoying the look of panic on Olivia’s and Cleveland’s faces.

  “Yes?” He nodded to a casually dressed woman in the front who had her hand raised. She stood. “What about using the blanket for people to fly?”

  Alec smiled, ‘not a bad question’ he thought. “We found out that unless the blanket is attached to a hard flat surface, it becomes unstable, like so.” He set the blanket on the floor and turned a dial on its control box then quickly stepped back. The blanket flopped and flipped around like a sheet of paper in a whirlwind, much to the audience’s entertainment. After a moment he reached down to shut it off. It turned out to be more difficult than he anticipated and soon found himself on the floor wrestling with it until finally getting hold of its controls. “Looks like I had the power set a little too high.” He looked up sheepishly and returned to the podium to the audiences’ applause. Olivia and Cleveland were now pointing at their watches.

  Shoving the blanket back behind the podium, he finished. “With that, I’d like us to adjourn to our back yard for a demonstration.” He pointed to a set of double gym doors leading outside. At his signal, Eugene and Larry slid them open.

  It was a beautiful afternoon. The grass was now dry. More food tables were set up under a tent near the parking lot. The smell of cooking on the grills drifted in as their guests drifted out. Clay was standing with Stan on one of the flying platforms hovering near the edge of the pond.

  “This, ladies and gentlemen…” Clay’s intro reminded Alec of a circus ringmaster. “…is our pride and joy” He was referring to what was in the center of the pond. Hovering a few feet above the water was another of the flying platforms. This was their largest, and on it rested the sparkling red 1959 Plymouth station wagon.

  Their guests spread out around the pond while Stan dropped Clay off on the oversized platform holding the Plymouth.

  “Not to worry folks. Clay is a licensed pilot and is fully qualified to fly this car.” Alec yelled as the car rose. For the next 10 minutes, they watched Clay put on a one man air show, and for the rest of the afternoon Clay gave rides while Olivia worked the crowd. Alec, no longer being needed, let the delicious smells draw him to the food tent. As he neared it, he spied Jessie and Sofie grazing the tables. His wife Jodi was talking with a dark haired man in a black business suit. Feeling something amiss, he went to see what was up.

  “Can I help?” Alec asked without introducing himself.

  “Yes, I was just asking these ladies if I could speak with Alec McCoughe.”

  Alec didn’t like his look; his build was smaller than average… and he looked like an accountant. “That would be me. What can I do for you?”

  Before the man could answer, Jodi interrupted. “Alec, we need to get going, the girls have a school project due tomorrow and we really need to get them home.” She gave him a kiss while Clay’s wife Dolores collected the girls.

  “I would like to introduce myself. My name is Joshua Wells. I represent a substantial private organization.” The man stuck out his hand out for Alec to shake.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t recognize your name. What company are you with?” He couldn’t recall a ‘Joshua Wells’ on their guest list.

  “I’m sorry I was unaware of this event.”

  “Excuse me but this is a very important function we are having right now and I don’t believe that this is the time or place for what you want to talk about.” Alec said feeling uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation.

  “I don’t want to be an inconvenience, but this is very important to the safety of our planet.” Joshua began.

  A conspiracy nut, Alec rolled his eyes.

  “Please don’t write me off that quickly, there are many powerful people within my organization who feel as I do. At first I was of your opinion but don’t judge us too harshly until you know all the facts.” Joshua said calmly, clearly looking uncomfortable with this conversation.

  “Look, I really don’t know what it is I can do for you.” This Expo needed to be a success and nuts like him could cause problems.

  “We have resources capable of fighting this threat, but without you and your technology, I believe we will not be able to be successful.” Joshua waited for an answer.

  “Why don’t you just give us a contract?” Alec asked.

  “I’m afraid there might be some legal issues. What we really need is you and what you are capable of doing for us.” His stare made Alec uneasy. Was he hinting that he knew about his other ideas?

  “Look, I am really not interested in your offer. Maybe if you can come back some other time I’d have time to listen. But right now, as you can see…” Alec gestured to the group hanging around the Plymouth.

  “I just need you to come with me. It would be better to show you.” Joshua continued.

  “Hold it. Can’t you understand that I don’t want anything to do with you? Will you please just leave me alone?” He bluffed a signal to one of the security guards they had hired… more for looks to make their guests feel safe.

  Joshua stood firmly then after a few moments his shoulders sagged a bit in resignation. “I am sorry, but I would like to talk again. Maybe you would reconsider.”

  “I’m afraid not. You need to leave. If I see you again, or if any of my family sees you, I will call the police.” Alec struggled to keep his voice low. Joshua stared calmly at him as though thinking to respond… then thought better of it. He turned and w
alked stiffly back to the parking lot where a black Lincoln was parked.

  In an attempt to calm down, Alec grabbed a bottle of water from the food table before returning to the gym to take a seat in the empty back row.

  Olivia was at the podium answering questions for a small group of guests in the first few rows. Most were business, marketing and legal related. Alec tried listening in on their discussions, but the early start and the stress of the day caught up with him. His head bobbed. He looked guiltily about, worried his small snooze might have been noticed. To his relief, Olivia’s question and answer session was still going strong. Reluctantly he decided it might be a good idea for yet another coffee. Making a move to get up, he was startled to see the oriental chef standing at the end of his row. This time he knew for a fact he wasn’t there just a second ago and before he could take another step, the world fell away.

  He grabbed at his chair but it faded from his grip as it dissolved into the floor. He turned searching for anything to hold on to and was stunned to see the room and all its contents sink like melting snow into the floor to be replaced by a slowly swirling cloudy whiteness. Looking down, he could see the inside of the gym, the guests, the chairs, food and tables were ‘painted’ on the floor, like a 3D sidewalk painting. It was odd that he could see slight movements, like watching an old-time 3D movie through colored cardboard glasses.

  “What?” He sputtered.

  “Hello Alec.” The oriental chef and his odd looking Fu Manchu mustache appeared in front of him, standing with his hands folded behind his back; no longer looking much like a cook. He had an accent like an English butler.

  “Am I dreaming?” Alec couldn’t tell if he was awake, still asleep or had fallen back to sleep. It was curious since normally one doesn’t realize they’re in a dream while asleep, unless of course the dream is about being asleep. Perhaps the stress from the past few weeks was catching up to him. ‘Oh well, I may as well make the best of it’ he thought. “Ah, hello, and who are you?” Of course, his mind must have retained that little oriental caterer and is using him in this dream.

  “I’m sorry… but I don’t have a name, or at least a way of identifying myself that you would be familiar with.” The chef sounded truly sorry. He ran his fingers over his long silky mustache… waiting for Alec to do… well Alec wasn’t sure what the chef was waiting for.

  “Well, just how do people usually address you?”

  The chef just shrugged and shook his head.

  What a strange dream he was having… ‘Alec, through the looking glass’ he thought. “Well then, can I give you a name?” he considered a second. “Would you mind if I called you Shaun?”

  The chef nodded. “Yes, Shaun, that will do.” The chef, or Shaun, smiled. He seemed happy at getting a name.

  “Well Shaun, just where are we?” Alec slowly turned examining the white nothingness.

  “You are in, ah…, what you would think of as the 4th dimension.” Shaun stared and tilted his head a little; again, as though waiting for Alec to say something inspirational.

  “It looks like Flatland.” Alec remembered a middle school book about the 2 dimensional world of Flatland; a world where a 3 dimensional sphere attempts to explain to some 2 dimensional figures about the 3rd dimension.

  Looking a little confused, Shaun replied. “What you are seeing is your minds translation of your senses. You’re mind is not familiar with this dimension of space-time. It converts what you see and feel into something you can comprehend. Your mind is converting 4 dimensional characteristics into 3 dimensional characteristics and 3 dimensional characteristics into 2 dimensional characteristics. Hence, that is why you are seeing a 2 dimensional view below you … a truly remarkable trait of humans.”

  “Humans? Are you implying that you are not human? You look human enough to me. Or is my mind translating your appearance too?” This dream was fascinating. He wondered how it was going to end.

  “No, I have changed my appearance to a form that I expect you would find pleasing.” Shaun looked down at himself. “A most humble appearance.” He said stroking his long mustache.

  “So just who or what are you?” Alec asked. Shaun didn’t answer… and just as Alec was about to ask another question, the painted scene below twisted into a blur. Feeling a sense of vertigo, he looked around for something to steady himself and found nothing but Shaun floating just out of reach.

  The blur below solidified into a picture of the Earth, with its striking blue oceans, swirling clouds, and brown and green continents. It began shrinking and in a matter of seconds, it was nothing more than a bright bluish dot. The Sun, glowing white hot, with its boiling surface and shooting flares, now filled the space below. Like the Earth before, it also dwindled away until it was only one of many points of twinkling lights spread out across the floor with blue and red stars sprinkled among them. Comets, asteroids and clouds of multi-colored stardust permeated the void. He now ‘felt’ himself accelerating, moving farther away. The picturesque scene transformed into a spinning galaxy, full of color and sparkling lights. More and more galaxies joined the Milky Way as they continued on. All the galaxies with their own special beauty made Alec feel he was looking at the universes most incredible Christmas decorations. Curiously, he watched as the galaxies drew closer together until forming one large glittering, brightly colored ornament.

  “My existence in this dimension allows me to travel through space as well as time. As you look around, you can see that we are now near the beginning of creation as you know it.” Shaun turned away looking at the boiling creamy white soup flowing around them. Alec followed his gaze. He could have sworn he was seeing noodles or strings churning within the maelstrom.

  “Are you God?” Alec didn’t believe it but asked anyway.

  Shaun looked puzzled. “God? If you are referring to the Creator of this universe, the one who lives outside of space and time? It is not me. I am like you, one of His creations.”

  “Do you know Him?” Alec asked, struck by his statement.

  “I do not know him.” Shaun said as the universe started moving again.

  “Why show me this, what’s this all about?” Alec said as they returned to the gym. He was filled with questions.

  “I have been compelled to show you this.” Shaun told him and after a moment or two added. “As you may know, every decision and action a person makes creates a different future for that person, which may, and usually does affect the future of others. These futures or timelines coalesce into larger and larger collective timelines. Through the span of time, many smaller timelines wither away with no affect on the collective timelines. Very rarely, some timelines, even some of the smaller, individual timelines have major influences on all the collective ones. Some can even be so powerful that it can make all other timelines meaningless at certain critical points.”

  “So what does this have to do with me?” Alec knew about the butterfly effect but instead of an answer, he felt himself settling back into his chair. Sitting upright with a start, he half expected to see the chef. Instead, he found himself staring into the face of Clay who was standing directly in front of him. A tall, black haired man with a healthy beak of a nose stood next to him.

  “Alec, are you OK? We didn’t mean to wake you.” Clay held back a laugh. “I’d like to introduce you to Mr. Sheldon Moon, the owner of an aerospace company called Big Sky…”

  Chapter 7 ~ The Practical Joke