A northerly wind began to gust and John whispered after it, “Old man winter isn’t your time.”
By now he had reached the opposite end of the long dividing hall. His brief stroll was at an end. He turned to look back. K through three were lined up on his left; four through six, his right. At the far end, waited his nearly deserted office. At the near end, the music room, less piano, students and teacher. The piano, purchased in ‘57, had served thirty consecutive years. It had been there for the school band, summer singing lessons, little Bobby Ferillo who had earned a fellowship, and even the church choir auxiliary after the fire of ‘72.
Memories of music and a soft, raised voice carried his eyes to the empty playground. The merry-go-round was turning in the sharp wind and every now and again he could hear its shrill squeak. “Beverlie Smithe bought it for $15.00 at the auction, Angelica. I nearly wept, yet I just couldn’t let myself buy it. Really though, I had no place to put it... I remember the first time I heard your voice; it was the first time we met: September 5th, 1957. As if it were yesterday, I remember. Teaching English to the fourth grade class right next door, I was. The singing and playing, soft at first, raised me to a start because there hadn’t been a piano the previous year, and of course there hadn’t been a music teacher the previous year either.
“The voice was sweet don’t get me wrong but I was trying to teach a class of unruly nine and ten year olds English and it just couldn’t be done with music and singing drowning me out. Oh yes, I’m sure you remember. How could you forget?”
Leaves, brown, gold and red, were chasing round the merry-go-round in a great flurry—up, up, up, carried on a stout tuft, then left to swirl lazily down and finally settle around the still moaning merry-go-round. The first rain drops spattered the glass of the padlocked red doors as John looked on.
“In ‘57 didn’t need padlocks or chains,” muttered John as the PA tweaked and then hissed.
“Mr. An-der-son?” called out an unsure voice, “Mr. Anderson? I gotta lock up now.”
John crooned, “Few more minutes!” Then turned back to rain spattering the now muddied glass and wind kicking up Autumn leaves.
“Remember little Tommy Ferillo, Bobby’s brother? You always said he’d never amount to much and never cast a shadow in his brother’s footsteps. Well, he didn’t, but there he is turning me to the street just the same... Our visits keep growing shorter and shorter, don’t they?”
John turned back to face K through three on his left and four through six on his right. The street beyond the flagpole seemed suddenly close. He took the first and most important step back down the long, empty hall lined with worn metal lockers. Again he listened to the echoes of his footsteps—step, drag, step drag, old age. He’d sworn he’d never use a cane and he hadn’t, even when Autumn rains made his rheumatoid arthritis flare and walking became God’s only chore.
He stopped at the door to the fourth grade. The door’s glass, covered in the dust of years, was dark and solemn. John twisted the knob. The door was locked. But never mind that old lock had never worked even on the day it had been installed by Henry Green the town’s one and only locksmith forty odd years ago. Jimmying the lock required only a few sharp twists. 1,2,3, click!
“The desks are all gone. Over to the new school I’d reckon. But never you mind, I won’t be going there. ‘Retirement,’ they said. I said, ‘You’d have to close the school first.’ Well, you know they did. I never expected it. Never did. ‘Progress,’ they called it. Well, if that is progress, I don’t want any part of it.”
Footsteps outside the door broke the reverie. John turned. “Mr. Anderson, you in there? I gotta close up now. Cindy and the kids are waiting for me to take them to the new Mc Donald’s, just opened you know. If it’s jam packed with gawkers and lunch crowd by the time we get there, I’ll never hear the end of it. And that storm’s really coming in off the lake!”
“How’s Bob, Tom, you see him much these days?”
“The Nam took ‘im in ‘71, Mr. Anderson. Are you all right? You don’t look well. Your face is much paler than it was this morning.” John took a step toward the door, then dragged his right foot. “Mr. Anderson, did you hear what I said, that storm’s...”
“I can feel it clear to my bones, going to be a mighty powerful storm. Better tell Cindy and the kids that Mac Donald’s can wait.”
John pushed away the extended hand, took another step. “Come back every Autumn don’t you, Mr. Anderson?” asked Tom.
“Got to see if they tore her down, just got to know. Then I can endure winter snow, spring flowers, and summer sun—all the things she loved so.” John stopped, turned on his left heel. Tom jumped to support his right side as he teetered. “See there, the fifth grade. Only six desks there in ‘51. One more the next year, two less the year after.”
The two turned, ambled down the entry corridor; Tom continuing to lurk at John’s right waiting to catch the other if he fell. Shadows from the two great oaks, their leaves mostly fallen revealing bare boughs extending to the darkened heavens, lay about the entryway. Between the trunks, John glimpsed School Circle, the flagpole and the street beyond.
Chased on by strong gusts, rain fell in a thick and ceaseless torrent. Wet leaves pressed against the glass of the entryway. A flash of lightning and a rumbling clap of thunder made dark skies seem much more ominous. The lights flickered twice, then the sound of wind-chased raindrops returned.
“Wait, I have an umbrella around here someplace—Cindy made me take it with this morning,” said Tom, “Say would you like to come over for lunch? She’ll be less sore, the kids less disappointed, if I bring over a guest. They were sure looking forward to Mc Donald’s. They’ve been watching those commercials on TV. You know the ones for the Big Mac. Ever had one?”
“Don’t have a TV, never had the need. Never had a Big Mac either.”
Tom turned back around. “Hey what’d you know, I found it. You’ll be coming over then, yes?” Tom opened the door and unfolded the umbrella. The outside air was full of dampness and chill.
“Tell Cindy and the kids: Hello. I got a long drive around the lake ahead. She loved to drive in rain storms. I never quite understood why.”
Tom folded the umbrella and stepped back inside. “She, your wife you mean? It was terrible. They finally cut down that oak tree on the corner of Main and Center when it took Mr. Miller and his wife during the blizzard last year. Did you know, we, mom, Cindy and I, visited the hospital in July on her birthday. She still dotes on what you and her did for Bob. She always says if the Nam wouldn’t of took him, he’d have been a world-class pianist... World-class... The rains not going to stop you know.”
“I know. I just needed a bit of a rest is all. Will you walk me to my car?”
“I can’t twist your arm to come over?”
“No, I’ll be all right. You just walk me to my car. I have a long drive around the lake ahead. I like to listen to the rain slap at the windshield. It helps me forget. But you can bet I’ll be back next autumn and I might just take that offer if it still stands.”
“You can count on it, Mr. Anderson. You’re always welcome, always...”
ABSOLUTES
CHAPTERONE:
CRYOTERRAFORM
The light pulsated, its amber glow intermittently bathing the lab. The hum of the elevator as it descended, a faint whir growing closer, had everyone’s attention. I kissed Kendyll on the cheek and whispered in her ear, “It’s been a wonderful 17 years. If we follow the plan, we can make it through this. Trust me.”
She burst into tears and ran from the lab. I watched her go, my legs going numb as I sought to chase after her. I glanced at my watch as the elevator came within sight. It was 23:45. Fifteen minutes to midnight. Fifteen minutes until doom, January 15, 2365.
The team had worked through the night for days. We were one step away from everlasting breakthrough and now Project IV decided to send out their goons and the brilliant goon who was going to save the day. One of my c
olleagues kidded me once that what we were doing was akin to exposing lime Jello to the vacuum of space, supercooling it, then condensing it in order to figure out why it’s the color green it is.
I hoped goons liked lime Jello.
The elevator stopped. Everything stopped. I swung my eyes around the lab, from the monitor that showed security waiting on the surface to the elevator doors as they slowly opened. I could hear the pulleys winding, the levers moving, the doors slowly retracting.
I waited, my heart pounding in my ears, my eyes leveled on the spot where I imagined the face of the brilliant goon —Project IV’s hope — should be, but instead of seeing a face, I saw a mop of rusty brown hair.
As I panned down, I saw blue eyes and a galaxy of freckles. Still lower, a T-shirt that proudly announced “I found It,” then genuine Bermuda shorts as florescent a green as the green in lime Jello, and finally a pair of dirty yellow sneakers.
I found myself gritting my teeth as I stepped forward, hand extended. Eighty-two days into this latest attempt, I was confronted with a kid from Moonbase III. Worse still, I knew his name, would never forget that name: Krzysztof Steelbridge.
Eighteen hours into the current workday, I suddenly found the humor of the Jello statement. Yet I wasn’t laughing, I was near tears. I didn’t need this kid anymore. We were on the verge of our own breakthrough and his arrival was just an untimely interruption. I needed him two months ago, not now.
My hand jolted back to my side, I don’t know what came over me, but suddenly I felt bold. I screamed, “Get off the pad you idiot!”
“That’s pronounced Krzysz-tof,” he said. “But you can call me Krys, everyone else does. Wow, some ride, I tell you!”
My jaw dropped. I remembered him as wet behind the ears from my classes and loud as a choir rat. “The journey’s going to end real quick if you don’t get off that pad,” I found myself saying.
He upturned apprehensive blue eyes. “Why?”
“Stormrise,” I said. “Where’s your protective gear?”
“Stormrise? You need to shut everything down.”
Genius? I smiled now, having stumped genius boy. The pain receded from my gut as I tossed him a protective suit. Kendyll came back into the central dome of the lab from the living cubicles. The mascara around her eyes was newly penciled in. The pale rose lipstick gone. Her beautiful high-boned cheeks were now dry.
For a moment, I caught her eye. She smiled seeing what I knew was renewed confidence mirrored in my eyes. I glanced to the monitors that showed there were more arrivals on the surface, then to my watch.
Midnight.
Kendyll began directing the efforts of the team. I turned my attention back to the common array and made sure everything was exactly focused on the single dwindling mass in the cryo-chamber’s heart. A minor resonance problem captured my attention for a time, but soon I noticed the press of Krys standing behind me.
Krys tapped me on the shoulder. I turned.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, the tone of his voice pointed, as if to say he was in control. “You have to shut everything down!”
Cryoterraform. How the hell was I supposed to explain all this to some punk kid and not ruin my day? I said, hoping to say nothing that would interest him, “The array is quite simple. Focus a thin stream of photons with a micro-precise amount of energy that reacts with the center mass of atoms. The focused stream of photons bombards the larger atoms, like meteorites striking the face of old-Earth with the precise purpose of ending its rotation and bringing it to a dead stop. The slower, the colder, until the atoms are on the verge of the absolute: standing still. Others may have reached it, but no one knows its full potential—”
I bit my tongue to stop my lips from moving and wished for a bowl of lime Jello to fill my mouth before I said something that I knew I’d regret.
Krys stared up at me. The glazed-over look in his eyes, I hoped was a good sign. Then he said. “Is cesium still the atom of choice because of the way it reacts to light?”
I laughed. Yes, cesium possessed a whole integer spin, but cesium was the atom of choice no more. “Its mass is simply too large.”
“What about hydrogen? It has a whole integer spin, a boson, right?”
Yes, hydrogen was small, the smallest, and it was capable of clumping together in unlimited numbers. But its mass was simply too small. I said proudly, “Too small.”
A moment later I found myself filling the silence with, “How old are you anyway, kid?”
He glared at me as if I was speaking a foreign language.
“It’s English, kid… And don’t answer, I don’t want to know any more. My colleagues hit an invisible wall with cesium and hydrogen: They couldn’t get the atoms cold enough or dense enough to form one of the most spectacular states of matter: Bose-Einstein condensation. The point where matter condenses into a single entity. An entity few have seen and no one truly understands. Cryoterraform, kid. No one has ever seen; no one has ever done it. And it all starts with an entity perhaps akin to the incredibly dense white dwarf — and that’s what I am after, a miniature white dwarf, a manmade white dwarf, a miniature and super-dense, bright white star of my own design and then—”
I bit my tongue again. I’d reached the absolute, but it was the final absolute I was after. I was sure this kid who’d been here all of five minutes would get credit for it somehow. I knew it, I just knew it.
Krys smiled. I shrank back.
He said, “I can see now why the community labeled you mad, but also why your team never had a lack of financial backers—”
“Yes, Project IV was always there but only because while the other guys were at a virtual standstill, I defied the laws of nature and won for the very reason quantum mechanics confounds conventional thinkers. Label me mad if you will, but at precisely 00:15, we’ll have finally reached critical density.” With or without genius boy.
Call me Krys, call me Krys, label me stupid. How was I supposed to explain a lifetime to genius boy in fifteen minutes?
I turned to the technicians and Kendyll. “Stormrise in ten minutes. I’ve got to revert power from the field, I need it for boosting.”
“Boosting?” Krys asked. “You’re not supposed to—”
“Yes, boosting,” I cut in. “Fasten the zippers on the suit, kid.Where’d you get your degree from?” A diversion. I knew the answer already; he’d been in five of my classes.
“I got my—”
“No, talk while you zip.”
“I did my post-doctorate work on Moonbase III. I found Top-Omega.”
“How old are you, kid?”
“Twenty-three.”
I knew I didn’t want to know. “Well son, I’m fifty-seven, don’t forget it,” I spoke fast, “I don’t care if you found Top Omega or Charm-Delta. Grab those goggles there, you’re going to need them eventually.”
He pointed to a pair of goggles hanging from a support next to a line of protective suits. “This?”
“Yes. Do you see any other?”
“No.”
“Put them on. Come back over here. Yes, over here…” I paused, and then asked, “What do you think? They said it’d never work, but there it is, developing before your very eyes with the cameras to record it. At Stormrise, I’ll have reached the final absolute: the cessation of motion born out of the coldest cold — 460 degrees below zero Fahrenheit — and soon afterward, the birth of our very own super dense—”
“What’s causing that vibration there?”
“What vibration, kid—” My eyes went wide. I shouted. “Kendyll, get over here! Kendyll, where are you?
She appeared at my side.
“Switch the exterior image recorder on now and boost the levels.”
She did. I watched the instrument panel, my eyes darting to the cryo-chamber.
I said, “There, that’s it… Yes, that’s it.”
Krys exclaimed, “It’s still shrinking and the glow is spectacular.”
As I turned t
o look at him, I lost track of Kendyll. “What’s happening? Kid, where’d Kendyll go?”
Krys said, “The vibration resonance is drowning out everything else, but it looks to me like she’s busy with the technicians.”
“Save the commentary, kid. Adjust those levels: point zero zero zero one. Kendyll?” I’m going to kill her; I’m going to kill her. Where is she? I need her.
“Point zero zero one.”
“Give me that, point zero zero zero one.” I turned and shouted, “Kendyll?”
Krys said, “I would’ve gotten it you know. Yes, I am twenty-three, but I’ve—”
“Save the commentary, kid. Here, keep adjusting the levels down, point zero zero zero one every fifteen seconds.” The vibrations intensified, shifted. “Cryoterraform, we’re almost there. Can you believe it?”
I craned my neck and peered around the lab, but couldn’t see clear to the other side of the chamber. “Where’s Kendyll, where’s Kendyll?”
“Here, I’m here,” she said, “you stubborn, old goat. You don’t need to carry on so. They were having problems maintaining reversion. I’ve got most of the team on it. The others are — I can’t hear anything over that noise. Where’s it coming from?”
I pointed.
Her eyes went wide. “No?”
“Yes.” I smiled.
Her eyes became great saucers. “It isn’t?”
The particle cloud was completely gone now, replaced by a phenomenal glowing point of light of microscopic proportions: the source of the teeth-rattling vibrations. “It is.”
She said, “It’s never done that before. What’s causing it?”
“I don’t know. Get Gwen and Tabbith on it pronto.”
The kid said, “It’s feedback, feedback from the reversion processing. It’s got to be.”
Absolutes & Other Stories Page 2
