Seven just nodded, but he bit his tongue until it bled through a forced and rigid smile.
2
The next morning , Aaron Seven awoke in a small, white walled bedroom with no windows, outfitted with plain and inconspicuous furnishings. There were no pictures on the walls and it was so clean that it appeared by both its new-room look and scent that he might well have been its first occupant. There was an adjoining bathroom with the shower that he had used the night before just prior to crawling, dead tired, into the single sized bed where he had passed totally out, completely exhausted. He had left the bathroom light on and its door open. He looked at the bedside digital clock, which read: 5:01 AM.
“Oh no!” he said, sitting upright. Quickly he leapt out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom to find a fresh, starched set of military, olive drab coveralls on a hanger with a note pinned on them which read, ‘THE BEST WE COULD DO – WILL HELP YOU FIND MORE LATER – SEREA.’ His pile of muddy, wet clothes that he had left in front of the shower was gone.
Seven moved as fast as he could, washing his face with cold water and splashing water on his head with his fingers, running them through his fine, blond hair. He pulled on the crisply starched coveralls, which fit tightly. There was a sewn patch on one sleeve depicting a simple logo - two intersecting globes – one red and the other blue. Beneath them was the acronym: QSRT.
With haste he slipped on the socks and a pair of very shiny black boots that sat beneath the coveralls. As he passed a full-length mirror heading out of the bathroom, he caught sight of himself, stopped and returned. He surveyed his appearance in the starched coveralls and black boots.
“Not bad, fly-boy,” he mused to himself as he strapped on his watch and headed toward the door. The Commander and Serea were standing at the door as he stepped out.
“I see things fit you very well,” she said approvingly with a closed smile.
Again, inevitably, her beauty stunned him. She looked as fresh and beautiful this morning as she had last evening. He desperately wanted to say something witty or meaningful, but instead he found himself uncharacteristically at a loss for words. He stared back at her as Serea’s gentle perfume encircled him with its light, magic scent.
“Dr. Desmond’s waiting,” the Commander stated bluntly, still wearing the black sailor’s hat and sunglasses.
Seven looked to Serea. “I’m very sorry. I’m NEVER late. I usually wake up very early. I really don’t know what happened,” he stammered truthfully.
Serea smiled gently. “Please, Mr. Seven, we knew you were exhausted after last night’s ordeal, so we allowed you to sleep in at Dr. Desmond’s insistence,” she said, again with the maddening, wicked half smile that no human mortal could ever fault or, for that matter, even understand. Everything she said, he mused, like the crack about sleeping in or the inane ordeal with his car, seemed laced and fitted with suggestion, but in such a delicate way that he could only stand there and laugh while being invisibly pummeled. It was as though he were dueling with a supernatural being of intelligence far superior to his own. The only thing that troubled him at this precise moment was that he had always figured that being did not exist.
“He feels somewhat responsible for the accident, Mr. Seven,” Serea added, purposefully raking his eyes with her own.
“Please feel free to call me Aaron,” he answered, blinking, unable to take his eyes off of hers as he felt like he was being deliberately probed.
“Fine; Aaron it is,” she replied with her arms folded and a slight, exasperating smile that he could not read.
“Time to go now, Mr. Seven,” the Commander interrupted, apparently not involving himself in the unfolding, tender moment. Leaving Serea, he led Seven down a long, sloping corridor through another long, even more steeply sloping corridor to a brilliantly sunlit tunnel, which they crossed to a stairwell.
As he walked along the tunnel, Seven saw that they were deep in an Appalachian forest surrounded by huge, ancient trees. The structures he could see outside the tunnel were all of ultra-modern, high tech architecture, but framed in deep redwood and surrounded by glass. It appeared to be a complex of some sort with at least four or five buildings linked by these glass and redwood tunnels. The whole assembly was built on the side of a steep hill, which only added to its stunning, functional beauty.
Rounding the stairwell, they walked down two flights into a structure of astonishing beauty. It was a building that, again, was mostly glass framed in native wood. Its ceiling rose some 20 feet off the floor and its walls lined with towering book shelves, computers and a huge fireplace. Outside, the trees’ majestic branches seemed to embrace the arrangement. The room looked like it was suspended in the forest, for indeed it was. And below, a gushing stream flowed just outside. It was the single most beautiful architecture that Seven had ever seen, set with absolute perfection in its environment. At that moment, as his eyes swept around the room, he heard a voice behind him.
“Ah yes, Aaron; so good to see you again! Welcome to my Stonebrooke!”
Seven turned to see his professor approaching him with an outstretched hand. He forced an uncomfortable smile and accepted the firm handshake.
“Good to see you, as well, Dr. Desmond,” Seven said, unsure of his own sincerity. “I do apologize for being late, twice. I’m not normally late, as you know,” he said in his defense.
Dr. Raylond Livingstone Desmond was a man in his mid sixties, of average build with a full head of close cut, light brown hair speckled with an impressionistic layering of silver. His ingenuous, wide brown eyes stared back through gold framed glasses, his confident, intelligent smile flashing, then receding behind closed, full lips and a furrowed brow with mostly grey eyebrows that signaled the deepest thoughts of one of the world’s greatest minds. Although he had been a professor of Astrophysics at Princeton University , several times nominated for the Nobel Prize in physics, he seemed to project the intense personality of a military officer or an explorer. He was always gracious and typically friendly, but was an intense, consummate thought machine at every turn.
Desmond had been one of Seven’s boyhood guardians, discovering him at a Florida Science Fair. The Professor took a special interest in Seven from high school on and became his mentor, insisting on the very best educational opportunities for him, most of which he had personally provided.
“Of course,” Desmond replied, “…of course. I remember your reputation for punctuality, and so I knew the circumstances must have been extraordinary. And I am very sorry to hear of the loss of your car on our mountain.”
Seven shook his head with a smile. “It happens,” he said with resignation and a very slight shrug. "This place," Seven added, looking about him at its incredible beauty. "It's… well, it’s just fantastic!"
"Yes, Stonebrooke is my home and my focus of personal achievement," Desmond replied proudly. "I designed it for living, for life and human processes most call work, but I call the fruit of the tree of life."
Desmond gazed back at Seven. “I sent a team down the mountain this morning," he said, "to recover your personal effects from your car. Unfortunately they tell me it is completely buried under an enormous pile of debris. They did bring this back, however,” he said, handing him a chunk of his plastic bumper. On it was a sticker he had personally made which read, ‘WILL BUILD THERMONUCLEAR DEVICES FOR FOOD’. “I see your sense of humor remains as it was,” Desmond said with a tight smile. He then looked at the Commander. “Joseph, leave us,” he requested.
The Commander nodded, looked back to Seven with a long pause that everyone understood, then turned and left.
“Coffee?” Desmond asked.
“Yes! Yes, please!” Seven responded eagerly.
“I’ll get it for you, Aaron,” said Serea who had entered the room without his notice. “How do you take it?” she asked with no trace of verbal emotion but her eyes clearly telling a different story.
Seven looked at her for a long moment considering the way he would really like
to answer that specific question, then settled for merely stating, “Black, thanks.”
“Let’s talk,” Desmond said, leading him to the side of the office nearest the creek. There he sat on a large, cushioned sofa with the stream flowing just a few feet away on the other side of the glass. He pointed to a smaller loveseat and Seven sat down, still awed by Stonebrooke and the forest. “I’m very glad you decided to come, Aaron,” Desmond said with sincerity.
Desmond studied Seven who looked almost boyish for his 31 years. His blond hair fell across his forehead, his tanned face bore a row of light freckles that sprinkled across his nose, and his aqua blue eyes peered back at Dr. Desmond with fire and intensity. Seven’s body filled the coveralls perfectly, his average yet muscular build with a strong upper body came from regular workouts and an attention to personal health. In the years Desmond had known him, it seemed Seven could not and would not shake the youthful impishness that illuminated his personality at every turn.
Seven reflected back on their last meeting together. He was in the middle of the defense of his Ph.D. in Astrophysics at Princeton when a rather heated disagreement began between himself and several faculty members. Desmond was present as the Chair of his faculty committee, but in the conflict did nothing, from Seven’s perspective, to help him in the fray. So, in frustration, Seven gave them all the middle finger salute and left the room. Just remembering that fateful day caused his blood pressure to spike and his face flushed in anger.
As if he read his thoughts, Desmond said, “Aaron, please understand, I warned you even before we went into your doctoral defense not to try and inject your rather unique theories into your otherwise well thought out thesis. When you insisted, just as I had warned you, it was bound to end in disaster. While I was frantically trying to figure out a way to come to your defense, you rather abruptly ended the meeting. Yet, even after that, I did manage to reschedule your thesis defense and soothe the ruffled feathers, but you had already left Princeton for Miami before I could get back with you. Since you did not return any of my calls, I thought it was best to leave you alone.”
Seven had not known this, so he just stared back at Desmond with nothing to say. While this moment passed in silence, Serea appeared beside him holding a steaming cup of coffee. He glanced up at her angelic face and immediately felt embarrassed and defensive as he realized she must have heard the conversation.
As she turned to leave, Desmond recognized his discomfort and held his hand up. Quietly, reassuringly, he mouthed, “She’s okay!”
“I understand that you went on to the University of Miami and took up a Ph.D. program in Marine Biology. I have more than a few friends down there, so I kept close tabs on your career. The reason I was keeping track of you, Aaron, is simple. I wanted to be sure that you knew you could come back to Princeton and give it another try if you decided Marine Biology was not your forte after all. But I was told that your work at Miami was brilliant and cutting edge just like your work on your first doctorate. Then I heard that you tossed your Department Chair through a closed, second story window in the middle of your thesis defense. From there…”
“Yes, I know very well,” Seven interrupted. “From there I went to the county lockup and spent 90 days for felony assault. He was sleeping with my fiancée, for God’s sake! And he told me five minutes before my thesis defense began that if I wanted to graduate I would have to give her up!” His face was flushed with righteous anger as he glared back at Desmond.
“Well, it was fortunate for you that the insufferable cad landed in some bushes and suffered only minor cuts and injuries,” Desmond replied smiling. “I asked you here today in part because I believe you actually did the right thing on both counts. In the end, he married your fiancée – his fourth student-wife in a long and pathetic list of campus soirées that continues to this day with, I believe it is now, number six. But, in particular, I rather thought that tossing your Department Chair out of the window during your second thesis defense was not only justified, but it fulfilled the dreams of millions of students throughout the ages that have gone on before you.
“I also wanted to make the Miami and Princeton debacles up to you personally. If we could re-run the sands of time, we would do things differently, all of us. And if I could have had just a few more moments to speak up in your defense, as I should have - if we could just do it all over - the outcome would have been totally different, as you are to find out today.”
“What do you mean?” Seven quizzed, sitting back in his seat.
“As we had discussed in several interminable conversations at Princeton, I thought your thesis on stellar atmospheric dynamics was absolutely brilliant – completely frontier work – and I still do. And if you had left it at that, you would have sailed though and been teaching at the university of your choice today instead of cleaning whale and dolphin detritus off the bottom of the tanks at Ocean Universe of Florida.
“I instructed you to drop what I then considered to be the whole preposterous notion of quantum stellar storms from your thesis, and you chose not to, against my advice. Aaron, your thesis was brilliant without it! But because you insisted on leaving it in, that is what led to the uproar at your defense. The theory was outrageous and short on evidence, and no one but you accepted it. And that’s why the committee attacked you. If you had only given me one single minute to help you out of the pit I warned you about and kept your long middle finger in your pocket, we could have managed it differently.
“However,” Desmond continued, “things have actually worked out very well. Your joint disasters have synergized to lead us here today, believe it or not!”
Seven just nodded, still confused.
“First things first,” Desmond said, reaching into a nearby desk and pulling two large envelopes out from a drawer. “I wanted to be the one to personally present you with your two well earned Doctorates in Astrophysics and Marine Biology from Princeton and the University of Miami,” he said as he stepped over to Seven and handed him the papers.
Seven reached out and accepted them without rising. He just looked at the envelopes and did not open them, as though they were not real.
“Both University Presidents have invited you to attend their graduation ceremonies, if you are so inclined, Dr. Seven,” Desmond added. “But I took the liberty of informing them on your behalf that you would be busy.”
“I don’t get it,” Seven confessed.
“Well, let’s put it this way. When the President of the United States ’ Chief of Staff and I personally met with them in their offices, they had no prevailing or convincing arguments against awarding the doctorates you had properly earned.”
“Let me get this straight, Dr. Desmond,” Seven replied incredulously. “While I’m out, as you put it, sucking whale and dolphin crap off the bottom of tanks in Florida, you and the President’s man are scheduling meetings about me in Washington, Princeton and Miami ?”
“Yes. That is accurate.”
“I’m sorry, but you got a whole second deck of cards rammed up your sleeve that I’m afraid I still don’t know anything about.”
“Yes, of course I do. And with them, a whole new game, new rules, new players and an intriguing new definition of winning, as well. I believe you coined the expression first that will soon become famous.”
The Professor paused, dropped his polite smile and said, “Let’s talk about quantum storms.”
Desmond looked at Seven with a long pause. Just as Seven was bracing for the story, Desmond asked unexpectedly, “Do you like spelunking?”
Seven stared back at his mentor who looked at him with an excited bemusement.
“Ah, well, I’ve never actually been in a real cave except as a tourist,” he confessed.
“Serea, can we outfit Dr. Seven with a set of expeditionary fatigues for a walk to R29?” Desmond asked.
“They’re on his bed already,” she replied from another part of the room, obviously attuned to every spoken word.
“Good,�
�� Desmond responded, rising out of his seat. “Let us meet back here in 10 minutes, then we’ll go for a stimulating walk up that hill,” he stated as he pointed to a very steep, densely wooded embankment that rose from the stream in front of the windows.
In eight minutes, Seven was back in the study, dressed in a pair of tan, tightly fitting coveralls he found on his neatly made bed with thick pads on the knees and elbows. His name was neatly embroidered in a strip over the front left pocket. The patch on the right arm was the same as the patch before – two intersecting globes and the acronym QSRT. Two minutes later, Desmond entered the room dressed in an identical outfit, but Serea had vanished.
“No disrespect, Dr. Desmond, but I feel like I’m being played here,” Seven said wryly tapping on his neatly embroidered name patch. “I take it this walk we’re about to enjoy isn’t exactly for our health.”
“QSRT – is an acronym, of course,” Desmond replied. “And, as far as our health is concerned, I think you will feel very differently in but a few minutes. Come…”
Seven followed his mentor out a side door and across an expansive deck that abutted the briskly flowing stream. He could smell the refreshing scent of forest and brook conjoined with the sound of flowing water cascading over innumerable stones. Desmond began to speak as if he were lecturing as they stepped off the platform onto the spongy ground of the forest, following a barely discernable trail alongside the embankment. The sun was just beginning to rise over the high ridge, but the forest itself still remained muted and elusively dark in the gathering morning mists.
“The geographical feature on which Stonebrooke is located is called Waldin’s Ridge. It is the largest such geographical feature in the world and one of only two true ridges of its kind. It is the line on the continent that separates the true end of the Appalachians and the beginning of the Cumberland Plateau. Its biology is mostly Appalachian temperate forest but curiously unique in many ways. It is not distinctly Appalachian nor distinctly Cumberland .”
Quantum Storms - Aaron Seven Page 2
