“What’s there to continue on with?” Jared asks. “We have this minute quantity of stuff that defies gravity. What can we do with that?”
“And how would we explain where it came from? It is stolen material after all,” Jen says.
“And stolen from the corporate industrialists to boot,” adds Gramps. “As to the quantity…”
“We made more,” interrupts an excited Willie. Everybody looks at him.
“Now that’s news,” Jared smiles, looking at him. “Tell us how Willie.”
Willie enjoys the next ten minutes as he tells the story with all the pertinent details. I think Jared’s opinion of his distant cousin rises a few points.
“So we can produce a large quantity of this stuff?” Jared asks at the conclusion.
“As much as we have discarded hy-gen plates to harvest the nanotubes from,” I answer confidently.
“And your dad will never miss them?” Kylie wonders.
“Probably not too soon,” I assure her. “The plates don’t look that much different without the nanotubes. We’ll just put the ones we’ve used at the bottom of the pile.”
“And there’s no need to start converting them soon,” Gramps adds. “You don’t know what to do with them anyway.”
“Yeah. What would we do with them?” Kylie asks, looking at me.
That answer has been forming in my mind since yesterday. “Build my flying saucer!” I say to the group.
They immediately laugh and quickly ridicule the idea. I’m crushed. It’s Gramps who asks, “Anybody got a better idea?” He pauses. There are no suggestions. “Maybe we should at least listen to his plan. Tyler? The floor is yours.”
“Well, I don’t have all the details worked out yet because this is all so new, but it seems to me we have the perfect cover - the launch facility! Jared, your dad is looking for demonstration exhibits and Kylie, you have the gyroscope program. Maybe the two of you could convince him to join those two thoughts in a flying saucer exhibit? Think about how cool that would be! Piloting a flying saucer!”
“It would certainly be a challenge adapting my software,” Kylie says excitedly. “I would need some help.”
“I’d help you,” I offer. “There’s still an awful lot about the stuff we don’t know. Maybe it won’t even work. But I think we have to try.”
“I suppose we can always quit and return the stuff later,” Willie says, “if it doesn’t work out.”
“Let me offer this thought on that,” Gramps says. “If you don’t return anything to Stiles, he still won’t know you actually have it so they’ll probably keep snooping around. If you return the gray bits to him, he’ll know you know but probably won’t care because he wouldn’t be willing to believe you’d be able to do anything with it. He might back off, though my guess is he’d still keep an eye on some of you.”
“Sounds like we can’t win either way,” Jennifer comments, sounding defeated.
“That may be true,” Gramps agrees.
“So we might as well do what we can,” Jared declares, “and win ourselves a place in history in the process, if we succeed. I’m willing to chance it.”
“Whatever you do, it would be best to be unanimous in the decision. Does anybody have any other concerns about the issue of continuing on?” Gramps is now in control again.
“You keep saying ‘you’ as if you’re not part of the decision. I think we need you to be part of this,” Jen says to Gramps.
“Oh, I’m part of it alright,” he answers. “But my future is pretty short at this point. You all are just starting out. This could ruin your lives, or it could set you on a path that would be very rewarding and personally satisfying. You have the choice to have an ordinary life by not accepting this challenge or an extraordinary life by seeing it to its conclusion.”
“The only conclusion I see right now is behind bars somewhere,” Jennifer answers.
“Life is full of risk,” Gramps counters. “Let me pose another scenario. If you, collectively, decide to turn away from this task, and the technology doesn’t make its way into the general public’s use for another thirty years, how will you feel knowing what you know today?”
“They wouldn’t do that. It’s too big a discovery.”
“You would hope not, wouldn’t you,” Gramps responds, “but they have before and they will again. They don’t allow things to affect the general public until they’re sure all of their buddies are lined up to get rich off it. That’s the way it’s been for more than two centuries.”
Nothing is said for a couple of minutes as we mull over our choices while munching on the remaining chips that had been part of lunch. Willie gets up first and walks to the edge of the porch, looking out to the horizon. “I think this is probably the only chance I will ever get to have an impact on what happens on this planet. A chance to really do some good.” He turns to face the group. “Maybe if the rest of you saw what Tyler and I saw yesterday. Maybe that would help you decide.”
“That’s probably a good idea Willie. Why don’t you and Tyler take them up to the loft and review what you did yesterday.” Gramps gets up and gathers the nearby dishes. “I’ll just clean up a little and then come join you.”
I get up. “This is really going to blow you guys away.”
Jared, Willie, and I walk briskly towards the shed. The girls are lagging behind. As I open the door, I notice they are walking slowly and talking with some animation. Jen has a screwed up look on her face, like she’s worried. I hold the door for Willie. “It’s show time!” I joke.
We get set up quickly. I’m glad that we kept the cage for the bits assembled. “Do you think we should remove one of the bits before we do this?” I ask Willie.
“Might be a good idea. Should we keep the ones we convert in a separate envelope?”
“That’s probably a good idea, too.” I get an envelope out of the desk. “Why don’t you show Jared how we’ve been working with these things.”
“Let’s wait for them,” Jared suggests. He nods over towards the steps where Jennifer and Kylie are just getting to the top of the stairs. He knows we need to have them on our side, though I think Kylie already is.
“Okay. I hope you all brought your shades along,” I start once everyone is ready, “because you’re going to need them. Willie has an unconverted bit prepared. Jared why don’t you have the first look.”
“I think Kylie should go first,” he suggests.
It’s a good idea. Other than Jared, she’s the only one who hasn’t seen the bits up close. “Kylie, why don’t you put your dark glasses on and take a look into the microscope.”
She cautiously steps over to the desk and carefully looks into the eyepiece. “I don’t see anything,” she says and looks up at me.
“Here let me get the bit in focus for you.” She stands aside while I look through the eyepiece and share some additional information. “Willie came up with this cage idea yesterday. It allows us to observe a bit in a free-floating way, and also to bring other bits into the view. There it is.” I let Kylie resume looking through the microscope. “What we wanted to do yesterday was observe two nanotubes together; a floating one and one from the hy-gen panel, side by side, to see what the differences were. What we saw was this.” I begin inserting a black bit from the hy-gen plate into the cage. “Kylie? Let me know when you see the second bit coming into view.” I push it slowly with the needle.
“Boy. Those little guys are pretty big in this view,” she comments. Then a couple of seconds later, “I can see the one you’re pushing in now Ty.” She widens her stance to steady herself. “Just a little more... Whoa!” she suddenly exclaims as her head jerks up from the microscope. She looks around, a smile of amazement on her face.
“What?” asks Jared as Willie and I grin.
“That’s so cool,” Kylie continues. She takes her sunglasses off and bends over for another look. “Wow,” she continues quietly. “They look like they’re alive. I wonder how they do that?” She stands up
and turns around.
“I want to see!” Jared declares, starting for the table.
“Me first!” Jennifer cuts in. “I haven’t seen this yet either.” They stare at each other for a minute before Jared waves his arm inviting her to look first.
“Shades,” I caution, as Jennifer gets into place.
I repeat the process with Jennifer and finally with Jared, too. Now everybody has seen a conversion. Everyone is equally impressed and their reactions are much the same; excited.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Gramps is just getting to the top of the stairs, but he can easily tell we’ve all had an opportunity to watch a ‘black bit’ turn into a ‘gray bit’. Jen is just finishing up a second look.
“I wonder how it does that?” she whispers. Her scientific interest seems to have conquered the earlier apprehension.
“I hope you’ll allow yourself to find out,” Gramps says. She quickly looks up at him. There’s a big smile on her face.
“That sounds like a good idea,” she agrees and looks again into the eyepiece. “I can see five of them now. They’re all pulsing together, slowly, probably not more than once a second. And they seem to want to arrange themselves at equal distances, like they’re attracting and repelling each other at the same time.”
“We’re going to have to figure out how or even if we can control them,” I say to the group. I look at Jennifer who finally steps away from the microscope. “Any ideas?”
“Maybe…” she responds, looking around the room. “I read once where... in transformers, magnetic flux is reduced to zero. Some guy named Faraday wrote a ‘Law of Induction’ about induced electromotive force and magnetic flux... I’m not sure. I’ll have to look it up again.” We are all looking at her. “What?”
“You’re probably onto something there, Jennifer,” Gramps answers.
“And you say we can do this with all of those plates your dad brings home?” Kylie wants to confirm.
“You’ve just seen it for yourself,” I reply. “It would take a lot of time, and we’d have to come up with a better way of doing it, but yeah, we can probably mass produce them. Then Jen just has to figure out a way to control them.”
“I think we all need to think about that,” Jennifer corrects me. “I can’t do it alone.”
“Does anybody have any other thoughts?” Gramps asks. He looks around at all of us. “Then it sounds to me like we’re ready for a vote. What do you say? Are you going to do this?”
“I say yes,” I quickly respond.
“I’m in too!” Jen quickly adds.
“You bet!” Willie agrees. “I haven’t had this much fun in quite a while.”
Jared looks at Kylie. “Little sister?”
“I guess,” she replies playfully.
“Don’t guess, young lady,” Gramps chides her gently. “You must be absolutely sure.” She looks at him with surprise. “This is serious!”
“I know it is,” she says defensively, “but can’t a girl have a little fun along the way, too? Geez!”
“She’s sure,” Jared confirms. “And I’m sure too.”
“Good then.” Gramps clasps his hands together, rubbing them vigorously. “On to the next piece of business. What’s next?” He looks around at each of us before prodding a little more. “What’s your objective?”
“I think we have to figure out how to display what we have to the world,” I say.
“And you want to build your flying saucer. We know,” says Jared. “And then what? We just fly it into town?”
“Why not? That would turn some heads,” I muse.
“Because not enough people would see it,” answers Gramps. “Somebody might move in quickly, seize the craft, and fabricate some type of cover up. No you need a big public event.”
“Like a parade?” Kylie suggests.
“That would be a big public event, yes,” Gramps agrees.
“Not out here,” Willie laughs. “We can’t get enough traffic for a two-car backup.” Everyone enjoys his joke.
“But Truth has parades,” Jen says. “They do the 4th; then Labor Day, that’s a small one though. And then there’s the Homecoming Parade at the high school, before that band contest, the night before the game. A few of the bigger stores in town always sponsor floats and so do the clubs in school.”
“A flying saucer float!” I exclaim. “We could get the F.A.C.E. club to sponsor a flying saucer float. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Your all nuts. Do you know how hard it would be to pull that off in, what, four and a half months?” Jared is justifiably cynical.
“What’s the harm in trying?” Gramps asks him. “If you don’t make it by then there’s always another parade, and you’d be that much closer to the goal.”
“But each month it’ll get harder and harder to keep our little secret. Because that little secret will be getting bigger and bigger all the time!”
“But we might have a good cover Jared,” Kylie suggests to her brother. “Hopefully I can convince Dad that we should morph the gyroscope demo into the saucer format. I can say it would be more fun for the kids that will visit. Then we just add a few things to it to make it flight worthy.”
“And it’s not like we’re going to the moon or anything,” Willie adds to plead the case. “We could probably scavenge parts from those old wrecks in the plane graveyard.” Willie is engineering out loud already.
Jared senses he is losing his argument. “Okay then. What about propulsion and guidance?”
“I think I can come up with something,” Jennifer answers confidently, adding, “with Tyler’s help.”
“I’ll bet you can,” says Gramps with a big smile. His eyes are bright with excitement. “You all seem to have declared what roles you’re going to play in this project. That’s good! I’ve always felt that everybody has unique gifts and talents. You all seem to complement each other with your abilities.”
“Jared’s got nothing to do yet,” Kylie observes.
“I still think it’s a little nuts.”
“Does that mean you want to stop the project?” Gramps asks, looking over at him.
“Heck no!” he quickly replies. “This all sounds like a great thing and I’m all for it but…” He stops short.
“But what, son?” Gramps asks quietly.
“I don’t know much about physics, and I haven’t done any programming in years. And I would have no idea on how to design something like this.” Jared seems suddenly insecure.
“That why it’s a team effort,” Gramps assures him. “Maybe you’d be best as facilitator and communications.”
“Meaning?”
“You should be the point man. Keep everybody informed about the progress of the various stages. Help them out when they need help and be there to discuss solutions when a problem needs to be solved.”
“That’s perfect for him!” Kylie exclaims. “He’s always nosing around and telling me what to do.”
Everybody laughs. Even Jared, and that relaxes him a little. We are quickly coming together as a team, and I’m happy to be a part of it. It will definitely be an interesting summer one way or the other.
“So where do we start?” Willie asks.
“I’ll start in on Dad about the saucer exhibit,” Kylie says.
“You can look over my saucer plans Willie. Start to figure out how to assemble it,” I suggest.
“I think I’d like to look at those bits again and start drawing some sort of containment field,” Jennifer adds pensively.
“Sounds like an old movie script,” Jared observes.
“It is,” confirms Gramps. “I forget what it was called but I’m sure they sat around coming up with impractical concepts for solving unrealistic problems. I’ve also heard that some of the most innovative ideas started out as science fiction.”
“So what should I do?” Jared asks.
“Why don’t you go get us something to drink!” Kylie jokes.
“I guess that’s my job now, isn’
t it?” he responds humorously. “What’s your pleasure, miss?” he bows to her.
“There’s one more thing I think we need to do today,” Gramps interjects seriously. We stop joking around and look at him. “Given that one attempt has already been made to retrieve the, uh, gray bits, as you call them, I think you need to prepare at least as many converts as you can right now, and then hide them.”
We all agree. The idea that somebody is probably watching us, and waiting for a moment to come in and disrupt our project, is motivating. Then Gramps excuses himself, heading down the stairs to his shop saying only that, “there’s something I have to figure out now.”
“Your grandfather is so cool,” Jennifer comments as we get busy with our various tasks.
“Odd if you ask me,” Jared adds. “How many old people would want to help out a bunch of teenagers with a weird science project?”
“Yeah. Most retirees travel around having fun,” Jen adds.
“I think he believes something big is happening here and I agree with him. He sees the future. Maybe not his future, but he still cares enough to want it to be better.” They accept my point.
We work our tasks and have them completed in another hour. We don’t convert too many more bits, but we know we have enough to continue in the future. It’s time to stop for the day.
Gramps is still busy in his shop when we get downstairs. There are a couple of stainless steel canisters and many feet of plastic hose on his workbench.
“What are you building?” Willie asks.
“Best you not know,” Gramps responds vaguely.
Long after everybody has gone home, Gramps finally comes in. He has a smile on his face, like he has just enjoyed a good joke. All through dinner I wonder what he has prepared for anyone who might visit the loft in the next couple of nights. Mom and Dad don’t notice, being preoccupied discussing the details of their visit with Uncle Earl. Evening fades into night in the usual way.
“Tyler,” I hear a hushed voice. Somebody is gently shaking my shoulder. “Tyler. Wake up.” Gramps is standing over me. “We’ve got another guest.”
I know immediately what he is talking about. I look at my clock, not surprised that it is only half past midnight. I quickly dress and find him out on the porch, waiting and watching.
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