Counting Up To Infinity

by Allen Fleishman

  Training in flying the single rocket/home that was tethered to this ‘New Athens Academy’ was done by a formerly retired Grumman pilot, Whitey Jones. Nifty was surprised to learn that the man had suffered a burn over 90% of his entire body, including destroying much of his face. He was told that Whitey’s legs and arms had been stubs after many operations. The man had the dubious distinction of having the longest Panacea ‘death’ at four and a half weeks. Jones at one time quipped that his name was once Whitey, then Blacky, now Whitey Jones. His wife was the only person who was of normal health prior to Panacea treatment. She had agreed to ‘die’ from Panacea, to be with her husband. Through talking to her, Nifty learned that Blacky Jones, even though blind and having nothing but elbows and knees had been on a 24 hour seven day a week suicide watch. Looking at Whitey/Blacky/Whitey now, with his bright eyes and short curly brown hair, Nifty could not even estimate the agony the man had known prior to his Panacea treatment.

  The most unusual tool they received was called the ‘light saber’.

  The students were all in the spherical classroom. The room was circular and about 40 feet wide. They were all standing surrounding Whitey on a two-foot high stage. Whitey loudly said, “Its form resembles the Jedi-master weapon. However if two were ever turned on within 30 feet of one another, they would instantly be repelled. Therefore, fencing is impossible. There’s also a dead-man’s switch, so if you drop the sword, it will immediately turn off when it was jerked away. It is also linked to your InLife computer, so only we could use it. Or, I should say, only those of us who receive a passing grade can use it.”

  Whitey called his wife up, he turned his on with an obviously tight, two-handed Jedi-style grip, then she turned her’s on. As soon as the second beam appeared, both sabers flew from their hands flying off in opposite directions. The only reason they didn’t slice the wall was the lanyard holding the sabers to their arms and the dead-man’s switch.

  “So make sure that no other light saber is ever near you. However, like its namesake, when you turn it on, the saber will cut everything and anything in its path. I once saw a demonstration of how it sliced a hole in a two foot square diamond.”

  Someone in the class said, “A two-foot diamond?”

  Whitey continued, “Don’t ask, I can’t tell. But it can slice through a three foot slab of aircraft steel as fast as you can wave it. You’ll feel no resistance, nothing. It’s controlled only by an InLife computer and you can direct its cut’s width and depth from 50 microns to a quarter of a meter. Its length goes from 50 microns to 9 meters, that’s about 30 feet for us Americans. Its power drain is impressive, so expect to take a dozen or so batteries on any job. Contrary to its namesake, it doesn’t work on lasers or light, but on hyper-concentrated electrons. If fact, a shield can form around any of our ships, in essence creating a force field protecting us from meteorites. Needless to say, you can’t operate the light saber then.”

  “Now who would like to practice turning it on and then drilling a 3 cm square by 6 cm deep hole into this box? That’s about a one inch square and two inches deep rectangle.”

  The ‘incident’ occurred when a 15-year-old boy first turned the saber on facing upwards. A number of people noticed that the setting for length was 16 inches. A mental tug of war ensued, changing both the length, and width of the beam. A second tug of war was over the trigger and the direction of the beam. The square mercury colored rod three meters long and 5 centimeters wide sliced into the roof. Whitey saw naked space above his head. The arc in the room was a four-foot gash in the ceiling with a slight twist at the far end. A few papers were pulled into the vacuum of space. Due to the rapid change in pressure, the water vapor in the air initially formed into a fog, which was also pulled out into space.

  ***

  Three minutes later, the first signal was received on Earth.

  Martin: Can you tell how bad it is?

  David: Horrific. Everyone was in the lecture room and no one was below. Ninety percent of the air was sucked out into space in thirty seconds. Power was cut aboard the ship. Dad, could they have survived?

  Corey: David, I’m sorry. Once air is out, it would percolate out of their blood, their blood would boil, and they would lose consciousness in seconds. All their cavities with air, like their lungs, would try to empty into space too. It wouldn’t be pretty.

  David: Oh, my god, oh, my god.

  Phyllis: David, I’m on my way from the office, meet me in the lobby.

  Josh: Everyone? Malcolm too?

  Sidney: Yes, Josh. We’re on the way to Martin’s house. Josh, meet us there.

  ***

  Rod and Virginia was already at Martin and Corey’s house. Everyone was quiet. Virginia’s arm was wrapped around her chest and she was sobbing.

  Roderick said, “What the hell happened?”

  Martin’s old monitor came to life showing the training session. He saw the two light sabers being pulled apart. Then he saw the first two students drilling the holes. Finally, he saw and heard the battle to control the sliders on the saber and the battle for the dead man’s switch and the direction of the beam. The roof was slashed. The air was pulled out. Then the transmission ended.

  Roderick asked, “Are there other angles?”

  The transmission showed different angles of the hole. The scene was replayed in slow motion, showing the hole growing with a legend of its size, finally stopping at 0.14 m2. The oxygen level was also presented going to zero. The picture then disappeared.

  Rod asked, “Computer, why did you stop?”

  “All images stopped at 10:57 AM ship time.”

  “Computer, show me my boy, Malcolm.”

  An image of Malcolm appeared on the monitor, with a smaller image of the person wielding the lethal light saber as an inset. Malcolm was seen watching patiently, then looked surprised. After the slashing of the outer hull, Malcolm wretched. He threw up and the globules flew upward and out. His abdomen noticeably tightened. His mouth wordlessly started moving. He turned around and punched his wife in her solar plexus. He wheeled, like a karate master, and hit four more people in their stomachs. The monitor then turned off at 10:57.

  David appeared behind Roderick, “I think it’s from the oxygen starvation. We know he’s not a violent person. He loves Brenda.”

  Rod ignored him. “Computer, replay that again. Get a close up of Mal’s face and Brenda’s and everyone that Mal punched.”

  At the critical moment, Rod saw the terror in Brenda’s eyes, her gulp at the rapidly dwindling air, her pain and the shock at being punched by Mal.

  Behind him, Virginia said, “Rod let it go. There’s no need to torture yourself.”

  “Hush up.” To the computer he said, “Show me a close-up of their eyes, as much as you can in slow motion immediately before and after the accident.”

  The image reformed of only Mal’s relaxed eyes. It was replaced by a look of horror, a grimaced squeezing of his eyes shut. Globules of vomit rose past his face. Malcolm’s eyes opened and then he looked around.

  “Computer stop. Do a spectral analysis of Mal’s eyes before and after he shut them. Two side-by-side bars appeared. The second one had more blue in it.

  “Computer, is the change in color, an artifact of the change in atmosphere?”

  “Negative.”

  David again put his hand on Rod’s shoulder. Rod shrugged it off. Rod continued, “Computer, intelligence 100%. What is the cause of the blue shift?”

  Ten seconds later the computer said, “92% likelihood of the deployment of the third eyelid.”

  “Computer, what words did Malcolm sub-vocalize?”

  Six seconds later it said, “31% likelihood that he said ‘bench’ and ‘where’. The remainder can not be determined.”

  Rod had a sly smile as he turned around to face the group. He sat down on a couch and held Virginia’s hand. “They’re alive. They’re alive.”

/>   Everyone looked at Roderick in stunned silence.

  Roderick slowly said, “Malcolm was telling everyone to belch, not bench. He was getting those people who were too frightened to exhale, to equalize the pressure. Brenda was in pain from probably a burst eardrum, or an eardrum about to burst. My boy kept his head. He forced those people to exhale. They all can survive without air for hours. That’s the primary effect of the vacuum. They won’t get cold very fast. There’s no air to pull the heat off. Vacuum is a perfect temperature insulator. The third eyelid is to protect the eye. Wait a second. Joshua, could you ask the chief geneticist at Organic Biotechnology if Panacea patients are adapted to survive in outer space, a complete vacuum?”

  “But” groaned Joshua.

  A number of adults started sub-vocalizing.

  “OK, OK, OK, I’ll ask him.”

  David said, “I just checked. No moisture came off their eyes. If their eyes were still wet, it would have started to freeze then boil away. The eyelid would protect their eye.”

  Martin broke in, “I just did some simulations, although their blood pressure is lower than average, their blood is so much thicker, it shouldn’t boil.”

  David added, “I was just about ready to say the same thing dad. Also, there would be much less nitrogen too, so they wouldn’t get the bends or rapture of the deep.”

  Corey asked, “Joshua, how are the Mod One patient’s skin different from homo sapien’s skin?”

  Joshua eventually said, “They have fewer pores and a tighter, tougher skin.”

  Corey prompted, “Are they less susceptible to sunburn?”

  Joshua nodded ten seconds later.

  Corey said, “I think we have our answer. They are natural astronauts.”

  ***

  Three hours later, they got a transmission. They recognized Nifty Corrigan’s voice. “Sorry for the loss of transmission. We had an unscheduled safety exercise. The entire class passed with flying colors.”

  Roderick spoke to Malcolm, “Son, you gave us a real scare back there. But I’m very proud of you. You kept your head and helped those around you. You were a hero. But I’m curious what happened?”

  After the transmission delay Malcolm said, “I was scared, really scared. I thought I was going to die. Finally, I heard the Teacher tell me to calm down and exhale. I felt a bit better. I also realized my chest was hurting. I knew I had to get rid of my lunch and any air in my throat, so I chucked that out. I then transmitted to everyone to belch and let out any air. I looked around then helped some people, who were too scared to think. I then helped them let go, including Nifty. Well, we all relaxed a few seconds. Someone reassured us that we could do without air for at least 15 hours. Then Nifty organized us into getting patching material to fix the hole. We had plenty of time. We used a blowtorch to make the repair then we re-pressurized. That was it. It felt good to breath again.”

  Year 24.6 With Great Power, Comes Great Responsibility

  First Assistant Director to the head of the FBI, Richard Fuscillo, entered into the C H Electricity building in Atlanta. He thought, ‘No real security, only the rent-a-cop at the doorway of the building, plus his dog. A whole lot of good it would do for even a single gunman.’ The guard just waved him through. ‘No badges, to prevent visitors from wandering’. He did notice the ‘click’ of the revolving door being released and was impressed by the thickness of the clear plastic partition between the guard’s area and the atrium. The partition was twice as thick as that used at banks. He left the atrium and approached the elevator. ‘Someone must have played with the buttons’ as the elevator door opened as he approached. He was about to press the second floor when the ‘2’ light came on in the elevator. ‘Must be cheap help’, he thought.

  As the elevator door opened, a woman in her late 20s greeted him. “First Assistant Director Fuscillo, this way please. David will see you, in a few minutes.” ‘Well, at least the rent-a-cop did his job’, Fuscillo thought.

  He was lead into a barren office; there was a chair where a young man currently sat, a second empty chair for visitors, a monitor sitting on an empty table and a bare room. It was completely barren, there were no pens, no paperclips, no paper, no stapler, no cabinets, no pictures of the wife, nothing. ‘Ha, it’s a temporary office.’ The monitor faced Fuscillo, not the young man leaning back in the chair facing the ceiling. He had seen the name David Klein on the door, as he entered. It was the only writing. ‘David Klein. David Klein, yes that was the name that Secret Service agent Robert Dixon used for that retarded son of Martin Klein.’ He remembered that report, ‘Dixon had thought it was an act.’ He stared at the young man. The boy, he could not have been more than his mid-twenties – barely out of college, this David was frowning. The young man had a sweat shirt saying ‘Hit Escape to Replay’. He had short dark hair, a somewhat large Jewish nose and was wearing jeans. His feet were perched on the glass table in front of him. As this David was looking off in space, he absent-mindedly pointed to the monitor. On the monitor, it said, ‘David is doing business, be back in about 2 minutes. Sorry for the delay.’ ‘The sheer audacity of this kid! He was just sitting there. Well, should I leave, or play along? I’ll wait him out. I could flash my badge, but my boss told me to treat these people like royalty.’ The monitor’s 2 minutes become 1 minute then clicked down to zero. The monitor then said, ‘The Acting Overlord of Earth is in.’ Fuscillo would never smile at such childishness.

  David stood. “Sorry for the delay, it was some business I had to take care of.”

  He had enough of this kid’s games. “It didn’t look like you were doing business, but just staring off into space.”

  “Actually there was a conversation of C H and a Guatemalan bandito. It will have far reaching consequences.”

  “Oh really?” Fuscillo let his voice have a sharp tinge of irony. ‘Would this retarded kid understand irony? Nah.’

  David stared at Fuscillo for a few seconds. Then he said, “Let me show you a brief history of a colorful person in San Cristobal della Maria in Guatemala, a well-known businessman by the name of Cesar Guadalupe. A video of Cesar pulling the trigger of a gun appeared. He blew the back of a man’s head off. Fuscillo had no time to prepare for this real violence. ‘This was no actor. Shit! This is real.’ A second film clip showed him cutting the throat of a man begging for his life. The blood sprayed from the sliced jugular. A third clip showed a woman crying as she was being raped, her wailing three-year old son looking on, a red welt across the child’s face where that Cesar guy had hit him. Finally, the monitor broke into two images. It showed Charlie Haines on one screen and Cesar on the other. The images were frozen. The brutality of these very real acts left Fuscillo weak in his knees.

  David said, “There were other acts I taped. I won’t bore you with them although they are just as, shall I say, colorful. They are just variations on the same theme. Suffice it to say, Mr. Guadalupe is not an ‘enlightened gentleman’. He has just demanded a 60% cut of the money scheduled for a local pastor’s charity to go for Cesar’s ‘security protection service’. I’m presenting an English translation to you. That’s the reason the mouths don’t synch with the talking.”

  Charlie: I’m sorry, we don’t finance thieves, nor do we accept threats. You can leave now or expect punishment. Your choice.

  Cesar: You are a long way off American. I am here. I will make an example of this black collar. I will take all of the money, unless you pay me monthly, hehe, my insurance money. Right boys?

  A number of men laughed in the background, out of the camera’s view.

  Charlie: One last chance, leave or expect retribution.

  Cesar: From a lazy American who is so far away? I am tired. I will make an example of this miserable excuse of a padre.

  An older man’s voice prayed rapidly to God in the background. The image showed Cesar turning to the old priest, pulling out a pisto
l.

  A silver ball flashed into existence, once by Cesar’s head and twice at the bottom of the screen. Fuscillo heard a few metallic clanks and the sound of something hitting the floor, like a water balloon. Cesar grunted. His eyes opened in shock staring at nothing. His mouth was agape. The camera panned out. His groin was awash in blood. Internal organs were visible. Cesar dropped his pistol, reached down, and picked up a bundle of flesh. Fuscillo noticed that the pistol was now four inches shorter. The barrel cut in half. So was the rifle strapped across his Cesar’s back. Fuscillo thought the flesh looked familiar. It was the remains of the man’s groin. Fuscillo turned white as Cesar started screaming.

  The camera angle changed and five men, Cesar’s band, were standing there, equally in shock. Their rifle barrels were also cut in two. So were their pistols. The men turned, as one, and fled the room, leaving their leader shrieking.

  The last part of the scene was the old priest calling for help from his people. Help for Cesar.

  David looked at Fuscillo, “Yes I was busy. How can I help you?” David had a sly half scowl.

  Taking a moment to regain his composure, “I come with a personal invitation from the President, Mark Ogden, to meet with Doctor Haines. I was asked to speak to you, hoping to arrange a meeting.”

  David did not take his eyes off Fuscillo, “When and where?”

  “Uh, tomorrow after dinner, if that’s possible, at Camp David.”

  “Charlie and guests will meet with the President.” David said simply.

  “I was to personally ask Doctor Haines,” said Fuscillo.

  “Haines doesn’t do personal appearances. But tomorrow will be an exception. 7 PM then. Haines will be arriving by flying car. Tell your security detail to expect him. He gets pissed if anyone fires at him. No matter who.”