Away Saga

by Norman Oro

  By mid-December, 0.5 level field events within the chamber began appearing. It was erratic, happening perhaps once every other evening, but it was there. Interestingly, the counterpart location began to vary. Most of the time, it was still High Wycombe; however, more recently, Carpinteria began showing up, as well. Considering they’d only begun in January of that year, their progress had been astonishing. When asked about it, Professor Minon explained that by seeing where activity had occurred the night before and observing how close or how far it’d been from the chamber, she was somehow intuitively learning how to influence event locations. As things stood, they were already very close to being able to execute their fallback plan. Dr. Marshall estimated that the amplifiers could keep fields that would otherwise collapse in tenths of a second active for close to three minutes. Furthermore, they could magnify any field within a fifty-foot radius from as low as 0.35 on the Maytag Index to past the 0.7 threshold needed to effect teleportation. If the amplifiers worked as designed, it’d take less than a second to traverse the 160 mile distance between the chamber in Pueblo and his lab in Carpinteria.

  Just before Christmas, Dr. Marshall called Guy Pool to tell him that the technology for the contingency plan was ready. Anticipating his call, Guy Pool reported that he’d already taken the liberty of scheduling a meeting regarding Highway 1 for Friday, January 11th with Dr. Gidsen’s former colleagues. They made arrangements to meet at Dr. Marshall’s on January 9th to finalize their presentation and to fly together with Kate Minon out of Santa Barbara Municipal Airport to Washington, DC. Before hanging up, Dr. Marshall told Guy Pool that a powerful northwest groundswell was due to arrive in Carpinteria around that time; and invited him to surf Rincon early that morning with him and his crew, a group of UCSB professors and graduate students. Having always heard about how good the break could get with the right swell, Guy Pool accepted.

  Signal

  They drafted an overview of Highway 1 during the next few weeks. Though it remained an open question whether anyone in the government knew enough about US-395 to annul the ban on constructing an Allen field generator, there was information about the original project in the presentation, as well. Dr. Marshall would give most of the overview with Guy Pool addressing financial and operational issues. Dr. Minon would be there primarily to stay in the loop regarding the project, but also volunteered to make herself available to answer questions. To account for its importance as a transit point, she also took a day out from that year’s family reunion to place a field amplifier in the High Wycombe office.

  As their Wednesday, January 9th meeting drew near, Guy Pool drove to Santa Barbara with Piper Finesine as they’d done several years earlier, staying at a local bed & breakfast. He paddled out at Rincon early Wednesday morning to find Dr. Marshall already sitting in the line-up. Perfect head-high to double overhead walls of surf were inundating the coast that day. It was so spread out and consistent that no one had to wait long for waves. In fact, Guy Pool saw a couple of instances where someone actually pulled out from paddling into a wave that would’ve had perhaps two or three people jockeying for it on any other day, just so someone else could surf it. There was plenty for everyone. Even after Dr. Marshall’s crew joined them, no one suffered for lack of surf. It wasn’t quite as good as that morning in Jalama decades earlier, but it was close. Before Guy Pool knew it, it was already half past eleven and time to paddle in.

  They all went to Dr. Marshall’s house afterwards where his wife, Victoria, had laid out a table full of tortillas, grilled vegetables, grilled steak, rice, fried plantains and beans in the patio. Given the surf session they just had and the food that greeted them, everyone was in good spirits. People were slowly making their way out of the patio into the living room when Victoria Marshall gently pulled her husband aside to tell him that an alarm had been ringing for hours somewhere in his study. Puzzled, Dr. Marshall walked downstairs and heard the nearly deafening noise that his wife was talking about. It was probably an alarm clock, but it wasn’t beeping. The clanging sound of metal striking metal reminded him of the alarm clocks from the fifties and the sixties when he and his wife were still dating. At that, he stopped breathing for a moment. He then opened the door to his study and went inside. Guy Pool, having just checked his e-mails on his phone, rushed downstairs to join them. Ignoring the din from the alarm, Dr. Marshall made a beeline for his desktop computer, logged into his Field Technologies e-mail account and saw a message from the 395 Array consisting of two words: Signal detected.

  Without saying a word, he got up, found the alarm clock in his bureau and turned it off. It read one o’ clock, indicating that stations in the western part of North America detected the beacon first. He then logged onto the 395 Array and replayed the signal. For some reason, it was incredibly faint, barely registering on equipment that had been the state of the art just several years earlier. Nonetheless, it was definitely the beacon. The frequency was dead-on, sitting in a region of the short-wave band set aside for government use, as was the signal, “U-S-3-9-5” repeated over and over again in the project’s encrypted version of Morse Code. His wife then asked him if everything was alright. Dr. Marshall only wished he could’ve shared what he’d just learned. Soon. He was certain that soon he’d be able to tell her about US-395, about Pueblo, about the Maytag, about Dr. Rys, about everything. Instead he smiled, kissed her then told her that everything was okay and that he’d join everyone upstairs shortly. He then went back to his desktop and checked the results from an automated news search he’d been running for decades. It sought any news concerning the unexpected appearance of nuclear technology, nuclear material or missing persons. There wasn’t anything to indicate they’d been found yet. Where were they? Even with that, he knew it was simply a matter of time.

  He had two bags packed for their trip to Washington, DC with one suitcase containing a field amplifier prototype. Their flight was scheduled to leave that evening. He mentioned to Guy Pool that he hadn’t told Kate Minon yet about the day Dr. Rys was sent. Guy Pool said that she should know, especially in light of them finally receiving the signal. Dr. Marshall agreed and opened the large suitcase containing the field amplifier. There were some elements of the technology that impacted operational aspects of the contingency plan; and he wanted to give Guy Pool a high-level overview of the device before going over their presentation.

  Like the field detector, the field amplifier wasn’t quite what Guy Pool had expected. After Dr. Marshall had reached into his suitcase, he half-expected him to produce a large metal box with flashing lights, gauges, dials and switches on it. Instead, at first blush, it looked like it could’ve been one of his or Dr. Finesine’s yoga mats. Once Dr. Marshall unrolled it onto the floor, Guy Pool saw that the field amplifier actually resembled a large, metallic-brown rug. Immediately shrugging off what he considered childish disappointment at his friend’s accomplishment, he asked Dr. Marshall how it worked. Apparently, the device could pull in any organically generated field source within a fifty-foot radius measuring as low as 0.35 on the Maytag Index and amplify it to reach the 0.7 level needed to effect teleportation. It also had a built-in limiter to prevent overload in case the field it was amplifying grew too intense. Based on Dr. Marshall’s estimates, it could keep an amplified field active for around three minutes. Though it’d never been tested, he designed it to serve as a threshold to the field event’s counterpart location. From what Guy Pool could tell, stepping onto the amplifier in one place resulted in stepping off someplace else, dozens or perhaps even thousands of miles away. On top of that, it ran primarily on the field it was amplifying and therefore required only an everyday power outlet to work. It was quite a device; and Guy Pool couldn’t help but share his friend’s enthusiasm for his latest invention. After the overview, he helped Dr. Marshall bring the suitcases upstairs. There, they found Professor Minon in the living room and invited her to meet with them at the kitchen table.

  Once everyone was seated, they huddled behind Dr. Marshall’s l
aptop to go over Friday’s presentation. For Dr. Minon’s benefit, they started by reviewing the history of US-395. Just as they were approaching the events that led to the project abruptly ending, they heard the doorbell ring. Since the people in the living room probably couldn’t hear it above the crowd noise, Professor Minon volunteered to answer it. A few minutes later, she returned to the table accompanied by the head of the White House Science & Technology Council.

  His name was Enrique Perez. Dr. Marshall knew him from his impressive work in particle physics. To his surprise, Guy Pool also seemed to know him. It was almost like a high school or grammar school teacher recognizing a star pupil from many years earlier. Dr. Perez didn’t reciprocate, but for whatever reason it didn’t seem to bother Guy Pool. With Dr. Perez’s appearance, it became clear they weren’t the only ones who’d detected the US-395 beacon. It took over fifty years, but their faith in the federal government stood vindicated. Someone in Washington had indeed been listening for the signal along with them all those years. Someone had been listening and the machinery of the White House was once again in motion to resolve US-395. Dr. Perez asked Dr. Marshall and Guy Pool to join that effort; and they agreed. However, before leaving, Dr. Marshall requested that Professor Minon accompany them, as well. She was a quantum physicist also, and was one of the most trustworthy people he’d ever known. Dr. Perez then asked if she knew why he was there. After explaining that they’d begun going over it with her, Dr. Perez agreed. A few minutes later, they took their luggage and headed out to his car.

  On the way to the airport, Dr. Marshall finished telling Professor Minon how US-395 ended. Possibly getting accustomed to just how uncommon the project was, she was much less shaken by the events surrounding Dr. Rys’s disappearance than he’d anticipated. Nevertheless, it was about a half-minute before she responded to Dr. Marshall asking if she was okay. She was. After answering her questions, he began updating the laptop presentation that he intended to give within a few hours to the president and his team. Upon hearing they were headed to Edwards Air Force Base instead of Andrews, Dr. Marshall and Guy Pool amiably traded a few barbs about the weapons training they’d received there years ago. On a team of inherently pacific souls, Guy Pool held the distinction of being the best shot. Within a couple of hours, they found themselves in one of the base’s conference rooms. Dominated by a large table in its center, it looked just like any other meeting room; however, there was a bank of what seemed to be large television screens on one side of the table where there would normally have been chairs. Seeing Dr. Marshall’s reaction, Dr. Perez told him they were virtual conferencing screens. He then gave him a link to a White House website where he could upload his presentation, so the president and his staff could view it. There was food on the table and they were eating sandwiches when the Transportation Secretary, Sheila Davies, joined them.

  Just before 8pm, the monitors came to life with an incredibly sharp image of the Oval Office. When the president and his chief of staff entered the room moments later, everyone rose to their feet. The president asked them to be seated and they all took their chairs opposite the screens. Dr. Perez led off by reviewing what was known about US-395. Although it was pieced together mostly from project logs, Guy Pool couldn’t help but comment to Dr. Marshall on how accurate it was. Dr. Marshall responded that they took good notes back then. Once Dr. Perez was done, the president requested additional detail from the original project team members. At that, Dr. Marshall directed everyone to the White House virtual conferencing site; and began his overview of the project and their contingency plan.

  Maytag

  An hour later, Dr. Marshall finishes his presentation. He then begins answering questions, mostly concerning Dr. Rys and his son. Specifically, Sam Emerson asks him about the underlying assumption that they should bring them back after over fifty years. Dr. Marshall replies by saying that, yes, it’s been over fifty years. Perhaps where they are is a far better place and they don’t want anyone bringing them back. Conversely, maybe it isn’t so wonderful and it’s been over fifty years of unremitting misery. Perhaps they’ve even passed away. Dr. Rys would be in his 90s and his son, Pedro, would be in his 70s. He honestly can’t say. Dr. Marshall simply notes that the beacon is still going. If he himself didn’t want to be rescued, he’d turn it off. Finally he adds that if they were to apply a maxi-min criterion, that is to pick the option with the best worst outcome, they should bring them back. Being returned home from a sort of paradise is a far better outcome than possibly being stuck in a world of endless misery. It’s a crude way to look at the situation, but given their lack of information, that’s his recommendation.

  They spend another hour discussing the contingency plan with Dr. Marshall addressing concerns about a disarmed atomic weapon returning rearmed. In his opinion, it’s exceedingly unlikely. Based on their research years earlier, the Allen field doesn’t reverse information-related changes in objects it sends; and to his thinking, the weapon going from an armed to a disarmed state almost certainly constitutes a change related to information. However, in light of the lives in Pueblo that might be lost, he believes an evacuation is still the most prudent course of action. A temporary inconvenience is a small price to pay to safeguard the townspeople. The president agrees and confirms that since US-395 was a government project, Washington will handle the evacuation.

  By then it’s just past one in the morning on the East Coast. It’s been a long day even by White House standards. As the meeting winds down, Sam Emerson notifies them that a team was dispatched earlier from Edwards Air Force Base to tear down the concrete wall covering the entrance to the US-395 auditorium. The project site is now accessible and he tells them where on the air base they can find its keys. The president then asks Dr. Marshall to conduct whatever research he believes is necessary to resolve the project, ending his decades-old agreement with the government to never build a field generator. After scheduling another meeting for 9am Pacific Standard Time, the conference adjourns.

  Guy Pool, Professor Minon and Dr. Marshall stay in the meeting room for a few minutes afterwards discussing the contingency plan. With something obviously on his mind, Dr. Marshall wonders whether it isn’t too late to visit the auditorium. Guy Pool speaks with Dr. Perez, who offers to let them use his car rental. Once they’ve retrieved the keys for the facility, the three of them begin driving to Pueblo.

  A couple of hours later they pull into what used to be the post office parking lot. Dr. Marshall takes his laptop, one of his suitcases and a flashlight he found in the glove compartment. Going down the stairs, they see the door to the auditorium. It’s one thing to hear that the wall has been taken down, it’s another thing to actually see it. The entrance is exactly as Dr. Marshall and Guy Pool remember it. Being sealed up by almost a foot of concrete did wonders preserving it. Ironically, it’s now as though the wall never existed. There doesn’t seem to be even a speck of debris on the floor. Guy Pool takes the keys to the facility out of his pocket and opens the door. They’re immediately greeted by a rush of cool air. He instinctively reaches for the light switch with his left hand and finds it precisely where he remembers it being. The fluorescent lamps hanging from the ceiling obligingly come to life. Aside from a layer of dust now covering most of its interior, the auditorium is unchanged. After hearing the stories, learning its history and immersing herself in a computerized simulacrum of it, Dr. Minon just stands beside the table outside the tent taking it all in. Dr. Marshall makes certain she’ll be alright. She nods that she will be. He and Guy Pool then quickly walk into the tent towards the Maytag desk. After placing his suitcase and laptop on the desk, Dr. Marshall wipes a thick layer of dust off the monitor next to the control box. Peering into the screen, he sees the same eerily shaped void in the sending room’s thermal image that he last saw over fifty years earlier. It corresponds precisely to the outlines of Dr. Rys, his son, the weapon and the beacon just as they were when they were sent, a three-dimensional silhouette frozen in time. The mission
counter at the bottom of the screen reads 468,901 hours and 51 minutes.

  Dr. Marshall then connects his wristband to one of the laptop’s USB ports. Although telemetry from Pueblo’s land-based detector isn’t accessible remotely, the wristband should serve as a reasonable substitute to look into something that’s been troubling him for days. He boots up the imaging software he used with Professor Minon to view the auditorium’s interior remotely while it was walled off. Using particle telemetry from the mobile detector, the program generates a ghostly likeness of the wristband’s surroundings on his laptop’s screen. He watches for a few minutes along with Guy Pool until he sees it, a barely perceptible dimming of the image.