The Shadow Constant

by AJ Scudiere

  Kayla must have noticed. “It takes setting motion to the bar, then a crazy hard wrench to the flywheel here. But you have to do both, and you have to do the bar first, with a small spin, then the wheel with a serious push. Like starting a gas engine with a pull cord.” She pointed to the largest gear that she had spent the day setting magnets into. “But once you achieve that, it goes. It’s been running for three hours and forty two minutes.” She didn’t look at her watch.

  Reenie clutched his hand tighter, eyeing the machine like it was a strange animal that had wandered into her house.

  Evan asked what he was wanting to. “Kay? Is there a power source?”

  “That’s just it, Ev. I have no idea what force I input. I can’t even guess a Newton conversion number, but I can’t believe I put in energy anywhere near necessary for what the output is. I want to see how long it goes.” She kept her gaze on the machine; only her hand came up and clasped Ivy’s arm where it hugged around her neck, otherwise everything was ignored. She spoke to him, but didn’t look; only touched Ivy, leaving Reenie a non-entity in Kayla’s attention window.

  He leaned down to her. “I don’t think you can. I don’t think it’s safe to leave it here, especially not running, and I need you to come in tonight and get some sleep.”

  “No, Evan. It needs to run. If it truly is over-efficient then it will keep going. I need to time it.”

  Reenie spoke for the first time. “Over efficient?”

  Though she didn’t look up, Kayla smiled. “Perpetual motion, over one hundred percent efficiency. It outputs without input.”

  Eyebrows up, Reenie was the only one who reacted. She shook her head as though she could shake out the thoughts. “I never even thought of that. Do you think that’s why we’re being watched?”

  Urgency hit Evan with a slap. “Then it’s even more important that we shut this down. We can’t leave it here tonight—”

  “I’ll stay with it.” It wasn’t an argument, but he had to argue back.

  “I don’t think it’s safe, Kay.” He took a deep breath. “We have to shut it down and keep it safe.”

  When she looked up, concern finally settled in her gaze. “Do you really think people are going to come after it?”

  “I think they already have.”

  She nodded. The logic of his argument was irrefutable. She was the one who said the man in the suit had lied to them. She’d been in the car when Ivy insisted they’d been followed. And she knew what the ramifications might be if someone was looking for this. “We can’t move the whole thing. It was assembled here and I don’t know why anyone would look here. Well, that’s stupid.” She recanted her own thought almost before she’d finished saying it. “If anyone is watching us and saw all of us come here together . . . Satellite images could even show the lights on here and pinpoint the smithy’s if anyone is that advanced. Shit.”

  Evan agreed. It was all bad. “What can we do if we can’t move it? Covering it with a sheet won’t be enough and there’s not one here.” He looked around; there wasn’t even a tarp, only a half-eaten lunch that lay lonely and dried out on the bench in the corner. Evan would lay better than even odds that Ivy had brought it to her.

  Ivy stood and looked the machine over. After a moment, Evan joined her exasperation. It couldn’t stay here. He wouldn’t be surprised at all if they came back in the morning and it looked as though the device had never existed.

  At least Ivy gave up and turned to other tasks. She went through Kayla’s backpack, then she focused on the food, gathering up the sandwich remnants and throwing a few chewed-on pieces out the doorway to the tall grass behind the building.

  It was Reenie who asked, “Can you dismantle it?”

  “No!” Immediately Kayla reacted. “It took so long to set it up, it’s covered in oil.”

  That much was true. But Reenie didn’t let Kayla’s outburst stop her. “Okay, but maybe part of it? If it really works, it will work when you put it back together tomorrow.”

  This time there was no immediate negative response, only the murmur, “Like a bicycle. Like taking the front wheel. But what to take . . .”

  “Exactly.” Reenie smiled. “Which pieces are small enough that we can carry them?”

  It was the strangest conversation Evan had ever witnessed. Reenie had just solved Kayla’s problem. And Kayla had let her. Kayla was making eye contact with his sister, there were no raised voices and both women were smiling.

  “It’s not a matter of size but of access and value.”

  Reenie nodded back. “The question is: what’s the front wheel here? What’s easy to carry, easy to put back and makes the whole thing impossible to use if anyone finds the remaining parts? Could the wheel be the wheel?”

  Kayla grinned suddenly. “Yes, I think you’re right. We just have to stop it.” She sighed, her heart clearly breaking at the prospect of shutting down her beloved machine.

  Reenie put a hand on his sister’s shoulder, and for a moment Evan thought that maybe the miracle here tonight wasn’t the possibility of a real free energy machine, but that Reenie and Kayla were patching things up.

  Kayla sat in the dirt as she looked the machine over and Reenie now crouched down into her line of sight. “I know you don’t want to stop it. Neither do I; it’s crazy cool. But getting it stolen is worse. And when you start it tomorrow, you’ll know that today wasn’t a fluke.”

  “Today wasn’t a fluke.”

  His muscles clenched in automatic reaction, and Evan noticed that Ivy’s did, too. In her short time here, she’d absorbed the dynamic. Then the tension suddenly dispersed when Kayla recanted.

  “Well, running it again tomorrow will prove that it’s not a fluke. Now I think we can stop it if we can get the bar . . .” The word trailed off as she tipped her head and watched the octagonal piece as it rotated with less than smooth motion. She reached out as though she could grab it but stopping it was going to be no easy feat. Even just getting a grip on it would be problematic as most of the machine was operating under a fine sweat of a mixture of oils, and getting a solid grasp might just peel a layer of skin.

  Evan reached out to stop Kayla from her usual focused daze even as Reenie said, “Honey, no. There has to be a safer way. Could we use that old towel?”

  Kayla nodded without looking up, her hand still snaking out as though she just reach for a wheel or a cog.

  Snapping up the rag and stepping in front of his sister, Evan reached over and took hold of the turning bar. He lasted through three tries before he gave up.

  Kayla just watched passively. Or so it seemed until she spoke. “Try grabbing the bar and the wheel at the same time. They seem to work in conjunction so it stands to reason that it might take both of them to get it to stop.”

  He tried again with Kay talking him through in her long, run-on sentences.

  “Grab it at the end and apply pressure, just to slow it. Now see if you can put just enough kinetic friction on the big gear to slow it, too. Good . . . now release. See? It’s running slower, so do it again, just that same way.”

  And so it went until the machine stood still. Kayla marked the hour with a sad sigh as though it were a time of death. “Run time: three hours and fifty-eight minutes.”

  Then she sat down and undid a bolt, then another, and a third, until she had the top wheel where she could lift it free and wrap it into the filthy, oily towel Evan held out. He hoped no one would think there was ever anything of value in such a horrible-looking rag.

  Kayla still looked at the machine as though it might bite her, but then she said, “I think we should take the bar, too. The two work in tandem. Someone might see that.”

  Before he could stop her this time, she reached out and grabbed it. Unlike the great gear, it pulled easily from its slot, not attached to anything.

  Without a word, the foursome wrapped the second piece in with the first and gathered Kayla’s things. Ivy looked around as though there was more that should be done, but there was no
way to hide anything. The remaining part stood sentry with a few long, pointed iron bars, left leaning in the corner and rusted with a century of air.

  Shrugging, as if to say, “anyone who comes in here will already know what they are looking for” Evan turned away. Ivy seemed to understand. The two of them had a good non-verbal shorthand going. Maybe it came from being in the middle so often. Maybe they were in the middle because of who they were, and that was why they understood each other. But now he turned away, one arm cradling the bundle, the other around Reenie’s shoulders.

  It was a silent procession back to the house, the group splitting as Kayla led Ivy along the shorter path through the trees, and he and Reenie took the more foot-solid route around and over the bridge. The women waited for them at the back door where Kayla took the bundle from him, wanting to keep it to herself overnight, and he wondered what she’d gained from taking the “short” path.

  But he didn’t mention it.

  They all met for a re-heated and relatively quiet dinner before everyone dispersed. Even Reenie seemed willing to let the dishes slide, her eyes tight with concern she hadn’t shared. She held it to herself through the rhythmic slush of toothbrushing and the choreographed change into her pajamas. But she slid into bed beside him, turned off the light and started talking in a rushed whisper.

  Fear poured fourth just as the words did. “Evan, I’d heard a rumor . . . maybe an urban legend about Eli Whitney inventing a free energy machine. I didn’t even connect it until tonight. The story was that he invented it and then was killed for it.”

  Waiting for his chance, Evan tried to jump in, but was railroaded.

  “I always thought it was like that story about the hook, or the guy in the back of the car at the gas station. But I’m beginning to wonder. If I heard a story like that, couldn’t others?”

  “Well, sure, but—” He was run over again.

  “Then someone could be watching the area—could have been watching and waiting for a while. There aren’t many books on Whitney, and most of it is for kids, but he lived in this area, he worked at several plantations here, tutoring the children before he teamed up with Phineas Miller and invented the cotton gin—”

  “I don’t get where this is going, Reenie.” Having not found an opportunity, he’d made one. “Whitney was rich and famous, how could he have been killed? And with no one knowing about the machine?”

  “That’s just it. He wasn’t rich and famous. The cotton gin was so easy to make he couldn’t protect the patent. He went bankrupt defending the rights in court. He also invented some interchangeable parts for guns and managed to support himself, but it’s widely believed that he stole or at least borrowed that idea and wasn’t the true inventor. But he traveled these plantations a lot, and it stands to reason that if he did invent something else of real use, he would guard it with his life the second time around. I’m just saying—”

  “Wait.” He held up a hand, palm out, motioning her to stop. Even in the dark she could see it, and she did. “Can I tell you something? You sound just like Kayla. You aren’t even punctuating your thoughts.”

  She took it better than he thought she would. “Does that mean that I’m limited to three sentences at a time?”

  “Maybe.” He smiled into the dark. Hope welled in him at the thought of Reenie and Kayla maybe finally beginning to understand each other.

  “Okay.” She breathed in. “One: there are only a few plantations left around here; they’d be easy to monitor. Two: there’s only the one good specialty shop around here for protecting historical finds. It would be easy to monitor, too.”

  He didn’t correct her, didn’t tell her that she was under-counting her sentences. She was right about the rest.

  “Evan, we’d be easy to find. I’m not really sure why it’s valuable, but the fact that someone seems to be following us around says that it is. I’m worried.”

  He knew why it was valuable. But he didn’t say it. The fact was, he was worried, too.

      

  Kayla sat on the floor and unwrapped her parcel as though it were candy.

  To her it was. This grimy, oily wheel was as wonderful as any Halloween treat she’d ever been given, more fascinating than any present. She touched it reverently. The oil had gotten gritty as hands had touched and brought small flecks of dirt into the mix, but still . . . it worked.

  She ran her hand around the edge of the magnets, testing each one for fastness. They held. They should; she’d worked very meticulously to be sure that each was carved perfectly into place.

  In the room, Ivy went about her bedtime routine. The day hung on her, the weight borne in her slim shoulders, shown in the haphazard way she kicked off her shoes and let them flip under the bed, unguarded. With a sigh, she disappeared through the door and into the bathroom.

  When she returned, Kayla glanced up, only to see a scrubbed face, brushed hair and changed clothes. It seemed that Ivy had just stepped from the room half a moment ago. Kayla blinked, but held up the wheel. “I need to fix it. Do you have a chisel?”

  Ivy blinked at her blandly. “No. I don’t keep chisels under my pillow.”

  “Oh. Of course not. Maybe a flathead screwdriver?”

  “It’s my bedroom, Kay.” Ivy’s body language was ignoring her, crawling into bed, and turning up the covers. But her mouth was in the game. “Why do you need it?”

  “I need to pry out the magnets.”

  “What!?”

  Kayla took a deep breath and admitted what she didn’t want to. “It worked for today, but these magnets aren’t good enough. The machine will run better with stronger pieces. I can find some roughly the same size, but I’ll need to pry these out and fit the others into the spots. Also, I’ll need to re-machine the gear itself soon.” She ran her hand around the edge, leaving yet another oil streak on her palm, the mark of a day well spent. “The wood is already showing signs of stress. Heavier magnets will add to that. The electronics store didn’t have anything but dinky ones.”

  Ivy’s head was already on the pillow, but her voice was clear. “Is ‘dinky’ the scientific term for that?”

  Kayla smiled.

  “Really, Kay, it took us all day to find those dinky ones. Where are we going to find better magnets?”

  “In my storage unit in Cleveland. I had a good set. I was also thinking my friend might have some and he could machine a great gear for me. Maybe even weld some hollow pieces that will create a gear only slightly heavier than the iron itself. I think that machine would sing.”

  This time, she saw that Ivy had propped her head up on her hand and was trying to make eye contact. “When are we going to go to Cleveland? I thought we were re-starting it tomorrow with the gear as is.”

  “Well, tomorrow we could go to Cleveland instead.” Kayla turned the gear and held the bar up until she could feel the attraction between the two. She didn’t dare let them get close enough to clack together.

  There was a sigh from the vicinity of the fluffy white bed. “We can’t get to Cleveland and back in one day.”

  “Yes, we can.” Why were people always saying that? “I’ll drive. It’s only an issue of whether or not Charles can machine the piece we need that fast. I don’t want it in the mail.”

  “No, we don’t want that.” A small puff of noise hit her as Ivy flopped back onto the pillow. “We can’t go tomorrow. But we should pose the idea to Evan and Reenie in the morning when we start up again. You should come to bed.”

  “Yes.” She should. Kayla didn’t move. “If this really works. If I can measure the input and show the efficiency, then I can radically alter fuel consumption. I want to work on it. I don’t really care if someone else puts their name on it. No one needs to try to steal it. We can name it after them. I just want to make it work.”

  “That’s not the issue, Kay.”

  “Then what is?” She wasn’t willing to hand the mechanics over to someone else to adjust and refine. She wanted to tinker. She want
ed to know, to see it work. To be part of the process.

  “Kayla. If that’s a free energy machine, if it really is even just slightly over-efficient, then no one wants to steal your invention, your discovery. Do you have any idea how much of the economy is tied up in fuel?”

  Oh. Kayla didn’t say it, but at the single syllable in her head, every cell in her body stopped.

  “They want to shut it down. They’ll want to silence you. And it.”

  10

  Cleveland, Ohio

  Ivy held the new gear loosely on her lap as she slept soundly if not completely peacefully in the passenger seat of Kayla’s little car. The Cleveland trip had been successful if long. Her friend Charles had been happy to help, too. But it had taken more time to weld the gear than Ivy had allotted for. Kayla didn’t mind. When he explained that the metal he had in shop wasn’t the best quality for that kind of heavy-use application she had in mind, he suggested they go out and get the right kind. Kayla had agreed instantly. Ivy had not.

  Thus it was now long past midnight when Kayla had texted Evan in code that they were on their way back.

  So her brother knew they would be getting in late, and her companion was out cold, leaving Kayla to concentrate only on the driving. The freeway lights passed by her in a rhythm that she drove to, almost like a visual music. The fifth one in front of her was out, a missing beat.

  She didn’t really think that their phones had been tapped—in fact, there was logic to the contrary. Wouldn’t it be easier to hack email than a cell? All four of them had online accounts that they used regularly. Reenie was constantly placing orders and shipping materials. And all the accounts were on free systems. A good keyword search could have brought the seekers right to them.

  If someone was watching for important historical items to pilfer, then the system was near perfect. Idiots like them would bring in important historical items and anyone with any reasonable knowledge could fake a second one and keep the original. Which was what Kayla thought had happened to them . . . almost.