by Paul Edwards
Chapter Six
"How did it go?" Janet asked, "I got your voicemail last night, you didn't say much?"
It was morning and I was sitting in front of Janet's desk in the headquarters building.
"Well, I think he's hiding something, I just don't know what. His factory is state of the art and has airtight security. I think he might have even stopped production to make sure I didn't see anything."
"Hmm... what next?"
"I want to check some things, do some research on his second hand store."
"Ok, make sure you check in on Jack and Frank too."
I returned to my own office, I sat down at my desk and logged into my workstation, I wanted to do some research alright but not on Peter's second hand store.
I opened the STRUDEL search engine page and typed Jim Sampson into the keyword search box, a list of WebPages appeared. I clicked on a link which appeared to be an online encyclopedia.
I quickly skimmed the article, he was a university graduate, had two siblings and he inherited a large sum of money when his parents died, a noted philanthropist and generally fine upstanding person.
I could see nothing unusual about him, I noticed his father's name was highlighted as a link to another article, I clicked it.
Tom Sampson was a millionaire industrialist who started out life as a photographer, he had made his fortune buying small unprofitable companies and turning them around.
The article was a long boring description of what appeared to be a highly intelligent and resourceful businessman, there was nothing revealing until the last paragraph.
Noted for being a member of the ill fated Scott Desmanille expedition,
I clicked on the highlighted Scott Desmanille expedition link.
The article began with a black and white photograph of a man standing in front of a large strange looking automobile, I read the pictures caption, Lord Desmanille in front of his Bugatti in nineteen twenty four.
I enlarged the picture and studied the man's face, I saw a fiftyish looking person with a thick head of gray hair, he also had a thick gray moustache the ends of which curled up, a monocle was clenched in one eye.
The man had an expression of confusion on his face mixed with arrogance, he wore a heavy tweed suit even though the picture appeared to have been taken in a desert, it looked like the Sahara.
The first part of the article began with a description of Lord Desmanille, last of a long line of European nobility, his mother was the daughter of an British Earl, his father a French Duke. He was bilingual but somehow had managed to acquire a bad accent in both languages.
Lord Desmanille upon obtaining his inheritance invested the bulk of it into a heavier than air Zeppelin manufacturer.
I saw a picture of a bizarre looking aircraft, the company had gone bankrupt when the CEO had run off with the companies bankroll, it turned out he had been a notorious confidence man.
Lord Desmanille in a desperate effort to reacquire the immense fortune he had squandered organized an archeological expedition to find the lost treasures of Aladdin's cave.
It appeared he had been inspired by the amateur archeologist Heinrich Schliemann's discovery of Troy.
Using a map he had obtained in a bazaar in Cairo he led a caravan of camels loaded with supplies deep into the Sahara desert, he had used his Bugatti sports car to lead it, his one passenger had been the expedition's photographer Tom Sampson.
The expedition failed in its second day when an impatient Desmanille had roared ahead of the caravan in his car, he had told the other members to follow his tracks, unfortunately the tracks were lost within an hour, causing the caravan to turn back to Cairo.
The fate of the Bugatti's occupants was not known until two months later when an exhausted and emancipated Sampson had staggered back to civilization.
Desmanille had driven at breakneck speed for almost six hours before getting the vehicle irreversibly stuck in the desert sand. Confident in the ability of the caravan to catch up he had instructed Tom to set to his shade umbrella, folding chair, and table, and to brew him a cup of tea.
"He was the stupidest man I ever knew, the sad thing was he thought he was brilliant," Sampson was quoted as saying.
I read another quote.
"I argued with him for an hour, he had no idea the mess we were in, I just gave up and left, I can still see him sitting there, oblivious to his fate, sipping his tea."
They found Lord Desmanille a year later, I saw a picture of a mummified man in a tweed suit sitting beside a car, the sand had buried them both knee deep.
The mummy was in remarkable shape, the shade umbrella must have hidden him from the vultures. I looked closely at the mummies face, the expression of confusion and arrogance was still there.
I read the entire article twice, I noticed that Sampson had been remarkably vague in explaining how he had survived in the desert for two months without water.
The area the Bugatti had gotten stuck in had no known oasis's or wells, even now. He had only had a small canteen of water which would have lasted a day at most.
I hit my web browser's back button until I was on Sampson's bio page again, I clicked on the highlighted link of the first company he had turned around, it was a manufacturer of light bulbs. Sampson had managed to increase the company's production, cut costs and produce a much higher quality bulb then his competitors.
He sold the company a year later for a substantial profit, the new owners had been the largest light bulb manufacturer in the United States, they simply closed the plant. Sampson for some reason had given all the former employees stock options, making them all a tidy sum of money.
I researched all the companies he had bought and sold, it was always the same story, he would make it profitable then sell it to his major competitor who would promptly shut it down, the former employees getting a huge reward from stock options.
It seemed odd to me that he didn't appear to be responsible for any innovations, there were no patents or new processes invented by him.
I thought for a minute, it would be so simple to do what he did with sorcery, and it would have been almost undetectable. Test thousand's of light bulbs until you find one that for whatever random reason is better than the others, then just use a copy spell to reproduce it.
The copy spell could be easily hidden somewhere in the production line, it could be a simple open ended box, one line of light bulbs goes in a different line comes out. I thought some more, if he had been a man of conscience he probably would have felt bad knowing all the employee's would be let go on the sale of the company.
The stock options would have soothed his conscience, I suspected most employee's would be quite happy to exchange a crappy job for large sum of money.
I thought for a moment, I went back to the STRUDEL home page and out of curiosity typed the name Jon Newfellow in the search box. The computer's screen was soon filled with links, I clicked on one to an online encyclopedia.
The article about him was huge, all I could tell from it was that he was incredibly skilled in numerous disciplines, and that he had discovered and invented many incomprehensible, to me that is, equation's and theories.
There was very little said about his private life, an affair with a young married woman, an interest in the Arabian night's stories, as Frank had said he did have a photographic memory, as well his story about him being guarded on his deathbed was also true.
I looked at a photograph of him at the bottom of the article, he looked very young and quite handsome.
I logged out of my workstation and then stood up, it was time to check up on Frank and Jack.
I walked into the laboratory to see Frank and Jack sitting across from one another at a lab bench, they had a pad of paper between them covered in writing.
"How's it going?" I asked.
"We were just going over our preliminary notes, trying to come up with a theory," Jack said.
"And?"
"We think it may be a kind of bug i
n nature, a flaw in the laws of physics, like when you play a video game and sometimes the character's go through walls they're not supposed to."
"Are you going to write a paper?"
"Paper? No... not yet," Frank said.
"Well that's up to you, you physic's guy's trust each other, you're lucky you're not in archeology, I've had stuff I discovered show up in other peoples papers a week later."
Frank and Jack looked at each other, I could see a hint of panic in their expressions.
"Well maybe it wouldn't hurt to get a preliminary one out there, you know so others could reproduce our results," Frank said.
"Did you learn anything else?" I asked.
"Just that every measurement we've taken seems to be exactly the same, the weight of the gold, the amount of water and the energy of the light," Jack said.
"So there's no variability?"
"None... which is what you would expect from a natural phenomenon I guess, a quanta."
"Well, you guys have done a great job, tell me when you've finished your paper, I'd like to read it."
"Do you want your name on it?" Frank asked.
"Oh god no, it ain't gonna do anything for my career."
They both looked a bit relieved, I wondered what was going through their minds, they must know that this discovery would change their lives forever. I hoped they would hurry, the longer I was here the better the chance I would be found out.
I walked to Janet's office and told her about the progress Frank and Jack had made, I deliberately left out the fact that they were writing a preliminary research paper.
Janet handed me a manila envelope.
"There's a rocket launch at Vandenberg three days from now, they're using the Frambulator, I put all the info in this envelope, I want you to go over there and examine it, they know you're coming."
"Ok, I'll leave this afternoon."
"Call me when you get there."
I didn't have a car and I didn't want to take one of the large transport vehicles common in this era, so I decided to wait until it was dark and then fly to the Vandenberg launch site.
I had made a hotel reservation at the small city next to the Vandenberg military base where the launch site was situated. I had not checked out of my current hotel room, I wanted to keep it so I would not need to carry all my things with me. I was only going to bring a small knapsack with my toiletry and extra clothing.
It was after nine o'clock when I stood on my hotel rooms small balcony. I had slung my backpack over my shoulders and was now adjusting my flying goggles. I activated a direction spell with my bracelet, a small red glowing arrow appeared, hovering over my wrist. The arrow would always point to my destination.
I put my arms over my head and then used my feet to hop a few inches off the ground, I swept my arms down as I took off into the air.
I flew straight up until I was around two thousand feet high, I then manoeuvred around until the arrow on my wrist until was pointed in the same direction as my flight. I accelerated until the wind was whistling in my ears. I had carefully examined my route in the afternoon to make sure that I was aware of all the hazards.
I had to fly a lengthy distance and did not want to be in the air for a long time, so I was flying much faster than my normal fifty miles per hour. I had also enchanted my goggles so that it overlaid a faint thermal image of my surroundings, this enabled me to see aircraft, metal towers and power lines.
The first part of my journey took me over a dark hilly wilderness, I saw only a few small towns and roads. The second part took me down the coast of the ocean, I flew over a long stretch of brightly lit cityscape. The last part took me over more dark hilly wilderness until I saw the bright lights of the small city that sat next to the rocket base.
I circled over the city until I found a secluded alleyway near a large taxi stand, I then surreptitiously landed in the darkened alley. I unslung my knapsack and reached in, I took out a long sleeved hoodie and a pair of jogging pants, I quickly put them on over my flying suit. I packed my goggles away and put on my fake prescription glasses.
I slung my knapsack back over my shoulders and then walked out of the alleyway and towards the taxi stand. I felt vaguely like a character I had seen in an old television show, he had been a secret hero who would change into a colorful costume to battle evil, he would always find a clever hiding place to put it on.
I flagged down a taxi and jumped in, It was only a half hour later before I was comfortably snoozing on a bed in my newly rented hotel room.
The next morning after breakfast I took a taxi to the military base where the rocket launch facilities where. As Janet had said they were aware of my arrival and after getting through the security checkpoint I had a an escort of two young foot soldiers to take me to the launch pad.
I was soon on an elevator going up the gantry beside a tall fearsome looking rocket. The foot soldiers had handed me over to two older looking gentlemen in grey suits.
"It's a commercial satellite, gonna broadcast TV shows," one of them said.
"Ya, it's a geo... thanks to the Frambulator we don't need all the solid fuel boosters, saves us a fortune."
The elevator stopped about half way up and the door opened onto a long catwalk that ended a few inches from the side of the large rocket. I saw a bulge on the exterior of the fuselage, it was about two feet square.
"Weighs only three pounds... they've made it pretty aerodynamic, doesn't affect the flight at all."
"Ya... too bad it always burns up with the booster... so we wouldn't need to keep buying them."
I walked over to the small bulge and examined it closely, it was featureless. I took a small digital camera out of my pocket and took some pictures of it.
"We x-rayed one once... they left it alone for a minute... put it though a luggage scanner, just an incredible mass of incomprehensible crap," one of the men said.
"Do you have the x-rays?" I asked.
"It was an old scanner, didn't store the images," one of them replied.
"Has one ever broken or not worked?"
"Nope... had a booster blow up at fifty thousand feet, it actually accelerated the debris before it was destroyed. They put an explosive charge in it, in case of a failed launch."
"Who installs it?"
"The company, they watch it like a hawk, there's a guy looking at us right now, we screw around with it we get a massive penalty," one of the men pointed to a man on the ground wearing a dark blue jacket and pants, he was also wearing a cap with what looked like a company logo on it.
"No ideas on how it works?" I asked.
"No clue, could be some kind of gravity interference, but that's just a guess."
"It doesn't need power?"
"There was what looked like a battery in the x-ray."
"Hmm... pretty inscrutable," I murmured to myself.
"Are you gonna stay for the launch?" One of the men asked.
"Oh ya," I said, Janet had sent me a text this morning telling me to stay.
The three of us headed back towards the elevator.
