by Thomas Babak
Bubble Tech
Bubble Tech, Book 1
Thomas Babak
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
Sneak Peek: Safe Haven
About the Author
Afterword
Dedicated to my favorite Charity
Prologue
He sat there, stunned. What have I just created? The thought echoed repeatedly within his mind.
He quickly popped his video-filled memory card out of his laptop and put it back into the digital camera with shaking hands. Deep breaths, he thought, taking several of them and forcing himself to calm down and so that his hands would stop shaking.
The words “External power” from the television news story he had watched last night had launched a train of thought that led to today’s results. External power led to wondering about internal power which led to the question: Could he use the digital camera to figure out what was going on with his failed experiment? Was it failing because he was using an external power source instead of an internal one? Indeed, the camera provided the answer by confirming his suspicion that something was happening externally to his experiment when electrical power was applied. The thought Why else would flipping the power switch sever the fishing line holding his experiment in the air? The same thing happened to the extension cord plugged into the wall that externally powered his experiment. Turning on the power switch severed the cord and fishing line in the exact spot, about an inch outside of where they were hooked up to the cardboard sphere he’d made to test his experiment with. Severed it every time he turned on power.
Just what have I created, though?
Someone, somewhere, must have done this before, he thought. Seems like everything has been invented already. The videos showed the extension cord being cut by a pale liquid light… field… or whatever it was. The light had spread from the devices he had attached to the cardboard surface of the sphere he had made. When he watched in slow motion, the light looked almost like flowing water. Pale, shimmering, flowing blue water. Only it was electricity or energy or…something else. When the pale shimmering light reached the extension cord and the fishing line, it immediately cut through both. The pale, blue liquid fields immediately disappeared.
What would happen if I use a battery power source inside the sphere? The thought coming intuitively to him. Internal power to whatever those fields were instead of external power.
He looked around the workshop, hoping to see something that would give him ideas. He’d have to build something to provide power inside the sphere and a way to turn it on, knowing that his fingers or hand could be cut off if he tried reaching in himself. The video of the quickly forming blue fields severing the extension cord had shown him that.
After a few minutes of labor, he attached a simple switch to a battery hastily taped within a hole he’d cut into the sphere. A pull of a string attached to the power switch would turn it on.
He reset the video camera and carefully unwound the kite string as he walked back, slowly trailing the string along behind him. He hesitated for a second or two before taking a firm hold on the kite string. This should work, he thought. I hope…
He took up the slack in the sting until he saw the sphere move just a fraction, not quite swaying from where it sat suspended from the now retied fishing line. He jerked the kite string. He heard a brief but audible pop, saw a pale liquid blue light that spread almost too fast for the eye to see, and then there was nothing.
Nothing.
The cardboard sphere was gone!
One
What the hell is he getting now, the old man thought to himself, watching the delivery van as it drove away. He looked down at the cardboard box that he held in his wrinkled brown hands. The shipping label provided no clue to what was inside. He grumbled to himself for a few seconds longer, and then decided that he would go see what the boy was up to for himself. He’d deliver this one personally, for a change, rather than leave it on the counter for the boy to pick up like the others that had come before.
He walked around the scarred counter that covered three-fourths the width of the front office. Though the counter was clean, the stains from fifty plus years of greasy auto parts, spilled coffee and who know what else had permanently left their mark. The boy was pretty good about keeping everything clean the old man thought, but old and hard-used had its own ideas of what looked clean. Old and hard-used described the old man as well, an apt description for his clean but faded baseball hat, short-sleeve button-up shirt, and scruffy jeans and boots and unkempt, kinky black and grey hair with a two day stubble on his face.
Walking down the short hallway, he passed the restroom, then stopped and listened for a second. No drip, drip, drip of water. Good, he thought to himself. The boy fixed the leaky shower handle. He had shown the boy how to do basic plumbing a while back. Every time he taught the boy how to do something, the boy then inherited any future task related to it. It was the unwritten, unstated rule of the Salvage Yard or “Yard” for short. The boy did almost everything around the Yard now. He passed his own office and entered the Day Room as the old man called it. It had a pool table, TV and battered furniture that reminded of the Day Rooms of every barracks he’d ever lived back when he served in the Marines.
The old man walked through the Day Room to the windows and door that faced the open bay area. Because A-1 Salvage Yard of Maple Lake, Minnesota was built into a hillside, though the front offices were only a single story where it faced the road, the bay was two stories high and built quite large. Looking down, the old man’s eyes scanned the rows of shelving which comprised the bay area to see if the boy was among them, either getting or storing auto parts. The rows of shelving and parts were the boy’s handiwork. Six months of his hard work setting up shelving, stocking them with parts and who knows what else, the old man thought, had gotten the Yard to the point of turning a profit. Looking at the shelves, the old man mused, If it weren’t for the boy this place would most likely be gone now. Out of business and closed up. The old man really hadn’t had the heart to run it anymore until the boy showed up a couple years back.
He’s not here, he thought. Maybe he’s down in his workshop. He opened the door and went out onto the small platform, turned right and then carefully walked down the stairs, his gnarled, old hand grasping the metal railing firmly. He’d been feeling tired and weak these past couple of months. He needed to be careful going up and down the stairs and lately, especially during this past cold and snowy winter. He had stayed completely out of the Yard while it had been covered in snow.
Once he got to the bottom of the stairs, he walked a few feet forward to the workshop door on the right. He turned the handle and tried to open it. It was locked. He
knocked a couple times, listening for a few seconds but it remained silent. The boy wasn’t here either. It was odd that it was locked, since the workshop was inside the building and didn't need to be. Had the boy ever locked it before? Was this just another one of the things the old man was becoming too old to notice?
Continuing towards the large closed sliding bay doors, he made his way to the side door and went out into the Yard. The dirt and gravel parking area held a tow truck, plow truck and the boy’s pickup truck. Usually, the boy parked his truck in the front upper gravel lot, so the Yard would look like it was open from the county road that led to Highway 55. The boy had told him not too long ago that having a car parked out front would attract customers. Even with the boy’s pickup and his own Chevy Impala that he rarely drove anymore, it hadn’t helped much. Didn’t matter much now anyway. Most of the business they did now was online. E-commerce, the boy had called it. The boy had set that up too.
Glancing across the Yard, his brief glance took in the acres of junked cars and trucks. Nothing had changed. It was still full of rusting junk and other people’s broken dreams. The old man had plenty of his own broken dreams and he made himself break his eyes away from the view. He walked slowly across the small parking lot to the small building across the way. It was a simple barn-like structure that usually held the tow and plow truck, now sitting outside, as well as various other equipment used around the yard. The boy had moved everything out of it and into the lot when he first brought his latest project in. It was the boy’s long since dead grandfather’s camper van. He’d brought it from his house last autumn telling the old man that he was going to repair it and use it or maybe sell it. The boy said he needed the smaller and easier to heat barn rather than the large bay of the Yard office building. Winters in Minnesota can be brutal so it had made sense to the old man. Seemed like the boy had spent almost all his spare time in there since bringing the camper in.
The old man came to the side door and turned the handle to go in. It was locked. Confusion trickled across the old man’s face for a moment. He knew the boy was pretty good about shutting off lights, turning things off and locking everything up when they called it a day. To be honest with himself, when the boy called it a day since he spent much more time at the Yard than the old man did. Even more so recently he thought as the boy spent more and more time here. The boy was here hours before school and stayed late evenings and weekends now too since he brought in his Grampa’s RV. Wasn’t natural. The old man remembered when he was a teen. It had all been about girls for him. Until he had found Lucy. Then had lost her. He killed that line of thinking. It was too painful still even after all these years.
Why would he lock the door? he thought. The old man’s hearing wasn’t what it used to be but he could hear the radio playing some music from inside.
Reaching down, he pulled the ring of his keys forward on its retractable lanyard that was attached to his belt. Sorting carefully through the keys he found the one he needed and inserted it into the lock. Curiosity driving him he unlocked the door and, in a move unusual for the old man, he opened it and stepped inside quickly.
The barn was brightly lit. The boy had added more fluorescent lights; the old man assumed that is was to make it easier for the boy to see his work. The old man stood there in shock. Not at the additional light, but at the sight of the van.
The camper van was hovering three feet in the air off of some sort of platform the boy had built in the center of the barn. The old man's eyes darted all around the van. Nothing was supporting it and nothing was suspending it. The van floated in the air.
The old man could see the boy clearly. He was sitting in the driver’s seat, looking down at the dashboard. The boy hadn’t noticed him. The old man could see the boy's arm moving slightly. The camper van rolled first to one side, and then the other. Impossible, thought the old man. Impossible. A brief thought about going mad flashed through the old man’s mind. He wasn't usually prone to "seeing things," even when he’d been drinking a lot. The van continued rolling from side to side and then stopped, leveling out.
Then the camper van tilted back, the old man could see the underside and that the engine, transmission and driveshaft were gone. There were… things… there that he didn’t recognize.
The camper van then tilted forward and the boy looked up and saw the old man. A startled expression broke out on his face and the van jerked slightly in mid-air. The startled look turning to a look of fear and anxiety. The old man stood there frozen, his eyes locked onto to the boy's eyes.
After a few seconds, the boy’s eyes broke from his. He looked down and did something so that the van leveled out, lowered down, and landed on the platform.
The entire time the camper van had been doing its gyrations, the only sound had been the radio sitting on a side bench playing some classic rock from the station in St. Cloud. Whatever the boy had been doing and however he had been doing it, there had been no sound. Though the song on the radio was one of the old man’s favorites, it played on, unheard.
The boy opened the driver’s side door slowly and got out slowly, almost reluctantly, glancing at the old man. He walked down a few steps from the platform and slowly walked towards him, his eyes glancing from the old man to the floor and back.
The boy stopped about five feet away and his eyes locked onto to him and then back downwards when the old man blurted out, “Sandy! What the hell?”
“Mr. Bullock… I… uh… sort of invented something… ” Sandy stammered out, before trailing off and looking back up at the old man to see his reaction.
Two
Mr. Bullock didn’t look good to Sandy. His greying, shaggy and unkempt hair looked as it usually did but he was pale and his eyes looked funny. Bigger and scarier. His face peered back at Sandy with shock rather than the usual pseudo-grumpy visage it normally held.
Sandy hadn’t known how Mr. Bullock would react. By nature Sandy hated to lie or keep secrets. He’d been keeping two huge secrets from Mr. Bullock. He would keep one secret still but would explain the “Bubble Van” to him.
“It started with this Stator” Sandy said, as he held out an odd object to Mr. Bullock.
It was a few minutes later and they both now sat inside the camper van. The van was actually a 1971 Dodge Xplorer, which as a recreational vehicle stood somewhere between a large van and a small motorhome. Sandy sat in the plush driver’s seat and Mr. Bullock sat on the passenger side.
The old man had been shocked and needed to sit down. The only place to sit had been the Bubble Van, as Sandy called it, so he led the old man there carefully and helped him up the platform steps.
The old man took it the Stator in his own hands, turning it over and examining it from all sides. It didn’t look like much. A peculiarly shaped board about 4 inches wide, wrapped with copper wiring in a complex pattern. Two ends of wire sticking out from the back where they could be attached to other components, he imagined.
Mr. Bullock looked over at Sandy. He was still speechless but the shock was beginning to wear off. He gave Sandy a look that Sandy interpreted as permission to continue the explanation. He held the Stator tightly in both of his hands on his lap.
“It all started with Physics class,” Sandy began. “We were learning about magnetism and electromagnetism.”
At this Mr. Bullock tilted his head slightly causing Sandy to believe that he needed to explain this in a little more detail.
“Everything is influenced by magnetism. Even things like aluminum and plastic that are considered non-magnetic are influenced by magnetism… just not as much. Some stuff like the magnets on your fridge are influenced all the time because…” Sandy saw Mr. Bullock's expression, which grew increasingly impatient. Sandy changed course.
“Sorry…let me try again.”
“After class I started reading about electromagnetic arcs online.” At Mr. Bullock's same continued confused expression. Sandy elaborated, “It’s like arc welding or how a spark plug works.” Mr. Bullock
nodded his head in understanding.
“I found an interesting article on how a defense contractor was looking to build a plasma arc to defend against an explosion from “enemy” activity. This was pretty exciting and I found other stuff like Railguns, which use electromagnetic forces to propel a projectile. The defense contractor idea involved sensors, lasers and tons and tons of energy in the form of electricity to create plasma against explosions.” Sandy began to get more animated as he continued. Without saying anything, Mr. Bullock reached out and grasped Sandy’s arm lightly.
“Oh yeah…” Sandy caught himself, as he realized that he was beginning to go off on a science rant tangent. Mr. Bullock hated science rants, as he had been the victim of several of them in the past.
“So, a plasma arc wasn’t something I could try to build and experiment with in the workshop. I could build some other stuff though, so I could see how it works.”
Mr. Bullock nodded his head at this. Sandy did his work around the Yard to an exceptional degree, but also tried to experiment with stuff he was learning at school on his own. The old man recognized Sandy’s thirsty curiosity and his passion for learning. His philosophy on any passion was that so few people had a passion for anything so when you see passion in others for something, you should help it along by providing support when you can. He tried to support Sandy’s passion even though there had been a few small fires and minor explosions over the years.
“I had created a simple homopolar motor which spun a screw using a magnet on the head of the screw, the tip of the screw on the positive end of the battery and a wire running from the negative end to the magnet. The screw spun. Not very exciting,” Sandy said.
“Next, I created a Linear motor. The “train,” as I called it, since most linear motors were used for trains, went slowly down the rail I’d built. That wasn’t very exciting, either. It was time to try something different.” Sandy looked over at Mr. Bullock to see if he was still following. Mr. Bullock decided that Sandy would get to what he’d just seen the van doing in his own way and in his own time. It had taken Sandy a couple weeks of corrections from Mr. Bullock to stop calling his place a junkyard and call it a Salvage Yard. It sometimes took time, but Sandy would eventually get there. Only with some things though, Mr. Bullock thought. Otherwise the kid was sharp as a tack. He simply nodded his head for Sandy to continue. He wouldn’t interrupt, even if he didn’t understand.
