by Randal Sloan
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Zeke had finally thought he was making a real connection with Miranda. And then Caitlyn had to show up and mess it all up. He knew it was his own fault, too. He should have told Caitlyn that she would have to wait to leave. As usual, he merely attempted to avoid conflict and went along with her. He was going to have to do something about that, but not today. He looked over at Emily and saw that she had that look she got when she was scheming something. He wondered what she was up to now. When he dropped Caitlyn off in front of the building that housed the soccer team coaches, he wasn't surprised when Emily moved up to the front to ride with him.
"What are you up to, my favorite sister?" he asked her. He figured he would get the first word in, since it would probably be his last for a while. He knew he was in trouble when Emily ignored the setup. Her usual answer was, "But I'm you're only sister..."
"I was just thinking about Miranda. I haven't seen anyone there visiting her, and I don't think she has any close family here. I bet she could use some help from some of the local kids about her age. If you are willing to help out, chauffeuring us when needed, I want to call the hospital to see about helping out in any way that I can."
Zeke was caught completely by surprise. "Close your mouth, brother. You look like a fish." Emily was back to her usual teasing self. "I noticed how much attention you were paying her, and I really do think she could use some help. Do you know the name of the doctor on her case?"
"No, but I saw the name badge on the patient rep who was with her the other day. It was Andrea James, and if we contact her, I bet she will get us in touch with the doctor."
"Ok brother. You just relax. I will take care of this. I believe you will owe me one, though."
"Not after the Caitlyn thing. That one was points off if I say so myself."
"Ok, we are even on this one. Of course, I'm so far ahead, it doesn't matter."
Zeke had to agree, so he wisely kept his mouth shut. Besides, he was getting what he wanted. He had been trying to figure out a way to be able to see Miranda again. And as usual, his sister was way ahead of him.
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Caitlyn now knew for sure that something was going on with Zeke. She thought it had something to do with that girl at the hospital. Zeke had sure been paying her a lot of attention. Even Emily was warming up to her. She couldn't understand why they would be interested in her. She probably hadn't ever even touched a soccer ball. She figured the girl was using some kind of poor me routine on Zeke to get his attention. Well, she would show them. The therapist had finally agreed she could get back to practice with the team if the coach allowed it, so she was going to get back out there and show everyone what she could do. At least no longer having to go to the hospital would get Zeke away from that other girl.
Caitlyn was also thinking about reminding Zeke of the date he had agreed to go with her on. She had great plans for that. She already had her outfit picked out at the mall, and it didn't matter what it cost. She had her dad's platinum account, so she was going to splurge. She knew just where they needed to go, that new high-end Italian restaurant where no one was able to get reservations. She knew her dad would get her in if she asked him. And, she would go in her BMW that her dad had bought her. Before she was done, Zeke wouldn't be thinking about that other girl!
CHAPTER FOUR
Plans and Theories
A new scientific team has announced that they are making a new attempt at discovering the particle that could be the source of dark matter. So far, none of the attempts made to date have been able to identify such a particle. Some scientists are suggesting that maybe something else is the source of the effects of dark matter, although no one has yet to come up with a theory to explain the effects.
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Doctor Ted had given Miranda a number of tests to determine her mental agility, her short-term memory, and finally a full IQ test. When she asked how she was doing on her tests, he would only say, "Good. Good." Because of her memory loss, she had no idea how good she was really doing.
Besides her boredom with being trapped in a hospital room most of the day, Miranda was struggling a lot with her lost memory. She looked at the pictures of her mother, and she still felt nothing. She was really bothered by that. Yet she was able to play a VR game that was popular two years ago, and she remembered all of the details about it. The thing about it, she was able to progress through the game at a high level, and it seemed ridiculously easy to her.
And that was another thing that Miranda was confused about. She was absolutely certain that she was able to do stuff better than she should be able to do. She didn't have a frame of reference to know how much better she had become. She guessed that it had to be because of the nanites that she had been treated with, and she wondered if it was a temporary or permanent result. She had debated whether she should share it with Doctor Ted, but she was too uncertain about the whole thing to bring it up with him.
To relieve her boredom and because she was really interested in learning new things, Miranda had discovered a number of online university level courses, and she had been madly dashing through them. Truthfully, she had been devouring anything available in the VR system, and she was beginning to wonder what she would do when she ran out of courses to study.
She had also been researching the new program at the nearby university called by everyone the "Space Academy". She really liked their combination of hard science and practical technologies. She even felt that it was good they had a military training aspect, and that cadets were considered military officers while in training. She wasn't sure about having to serve a military obligation, but then she saw that students on academic scholarship were treated as reserve officers instead of having to serve for a service term. It was only those students that were attending on a military scholarship that had to serve a term. Even if she had wanted to do that, she suspected that with her physical condition she would not have been accepted to serve. But there was no way she could afford to attend without a scholarship of some type. She didn't have any idea how to go about applying for an academic scholarship. It would probably take months, even if she could get one, and what would she do during that time?
Some of the other local schools had good programs too, but nothing like the Space Academy. They just could not get her interest. Not that she had a clue what she could do about any of it.
Miranda knew that modern education had drastically improved for her generation. School years were more compressed than they used to be. They still got breaks, but not the extended summer-long breaks they used to get. By the age of 16, most kids would be graduating from high school. Secondly, they had compressed university level course work into six terms instead of eight. Most university's classes went right through the summer, too. So an average student could graduate in two years. Miranda had checked on her high school, and she had seen that she had just completed her high school work right before her accident. Based on her work she had completed in the hospital VR system, she believed that she could test out for her beginning classes. That meant that she could probably complete her work in a single calendar year, three terms.
She had discovered that she had an interest in Astrophysics. Scientists had really changed their view of the universe in the last half-century or so. First, it had been determined that not enough ordinary matter could be detected to explain the gravitational effects within the galaxies. Physicists had invented the concept of dark matter to handle this missing gravitational effect. However, after considering the amount of ordinary matter and dark matter, the calculated effects of those gravitational effects should be decreasing the rate of expansion of the universe, but instead the latest measurements seemed to indicate the rate of expansion of the universe was increasing. Scientists invented the concept of dark energy to explain this effect.
Neither dark matter nor dark energy had ever been detected by scientists despite considerable efforts directed toward finding them. Miranda had an idea that maybe both of these could be explained by the str
ucture of the universe instead of undetected particles and some strange form of energy. Miranda's idea was that dark matter was the effect from an accumulation of the fabric of the universe, what Miranda named the subspace fabric. This effect would somehow be related to the amount of mass in the area of space. The dark energy relationship appeared to be the opposite effect when the lack of gravity in the large areas of empty space between galaxies allowed the subspace fabric to become thinner. The thinner it became as space expanded, the stronger the force became.
Miranda wondered if a properly manipulated superconductive electromagnetic field such as that used by Space Tech for their fusion reactor could be used on a much smaller scale to produce a tiny change in the subspace fabric that could be detected as a corresponding tiny increased gravitational effect. This would allow her to demonstrate the properties of the subspace fabric.
The other big question mark in the understanding of the universe was related to antimatter. When the universe was first created, it should have contained both matter and antimatter. Under normal physical conditions, the two would have completely annihilated each other, leaving the universe without either one. For some reason, instead the universe was left with matter and no antimatter. What if the subspace fabric was in fact produced from the special conditions during that tiny fraction of a second when the universe first came into existence, and the matter and antimatter had in fact "spun" to opposite sides of the interface? Then the areas where the interface was "thickest" were the areas where the matter would accumulate more, and the areas where it was thinnest would attract the matter less so. And the antimatter on the other side would also behave similarly, not that the two would remain exactly symmetrical to each other due to the quantum nature of the universe. Not a parallel anti-universe, but nevertheless a complexity of a huge magnitude.
All of this could have resulted in the network of mass concentrations that would become the supermassive black holes that eventually became the centers of the galaxies, and all arranged in a network of filaments, hubs and voids that with the billions of years of expansion now defined the universe. Scientists had been able to determine that the supermassive black holes, and hence their galaxies, aligned themselves within their filaments, even though they were separated by huge distances. So they had to already be aligned when they came into existence. It was all so huge that to picture it boggled the mind, and even on the smaller scale of the galaxies, the structure could be seen and mapped out. Beautiful structures in many cases. Miranda's theory fit this network very well, since the structure in place in the fabric of subspace at the point of expansion would have led to the structure currently seen. To her it was the fingerprint of God.
Miranda had an idea how her theory could be tested, but to do it would take a major lab such as the one at Space Tech Research or maybe the smaller version of their lab at the Space Academy. She believed that it could be done with existing components and detection equipment. However, it would take a heck of a control system to manage it safely, something she had no idea how she would go about writing. A computer guru she wasn't. Maybe she could get someone to work with her on it. She bet Zeke could have done it. It was really too bad that she didn't expect to see him again.
Miranda enjoyed her research time, but she continued to be held back by her headaches. One was so bad that Doctor Ted had taken her VR access away. Somehow he was able to determine her level of exertion from looking at the monitoring equipment. Only after she was completely stable had he given her access back, and he made her promise that she wouldn't let them get so bad again. After that, any time she felt she was close to starting a headache, she would stop what she was doing and concentrate on slowing her brain down. And listen to Julie's music, the music she had fallen in love with, that really seemed to help her. She knew the doctor could see what was happening from his monitoring devices, but she also knew he saw how hard she was trying. Gradually the episodes got further and further apart.
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At the end of the week, the therapist conducted Miranda's therapy follow-up review. He had her meet him in his small office, sitting down to talk with her, and pulling her chart up on his VR. Smiling, he told her, "Miss Summerlin, you have done very well, and I believe you are ready for your 'graduation' from therapy. I have been truly impressed with your level of progress." He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, then went on, "I believe that you have made the most progress of anyone I have ever seen in such a short amount of time."
He looked over her chart one more time. Finally he stood, "You may still have a bit of a limp, but I am proclaiming you crutch free, although I do want you to take it easy for the next couple of weeks, and you need to keep doing your exercises." Smiling, Miranda handed him her crutches. She didn't mention that several times she had found herself walking around her hospital room without them.
"Thank you for all your help," she told him as she reached the door.
"That's why we are here," he said. "But I'm glad we could help you."
Miranda still had to be returned to her room in a wheelchair, but she felt a little bit of happiness. The therapy had been hard, but now it was paying off. If she only had something to do with her newfound freedom.
Andrea came by a little later. She had obviously heard the results from her physical therapy and she was all smiles. "So you have 'graduated' from your therapy. That's awesome! That means we have to celebrate, but first we will have to start working on the next steps for you. I have asked Doctor Ted to come down here so we can talk about what you can do next."
Miranda looked up quickly. "Thank you. I am really tired of being stuck here. Besides not have my past memories, not having any idea about even the very near future is very frustrating. I don't have a clue what I am going to do when I leave here and how I am going to make it on my own."
"Well, we're going to help with that," Doctor Ted said as he came in the door. "Assuming you are physically and emotionally up to it, we have thought about setting you up to attend one of the local universities. I know you don't remember, but based on your past scores you should do well. A school with a somewhat controlled environment might be the best way to transition you from the hospital to the outside world."
Andrea chimed in. "If we can get you in a local school, I will be able to visit you too. If you would be interested in that, I would like to do it.
Miranda immediately responded. "Yes and yes. I have already been thinking about the local schools. I have been thinking about a couple of them, but I don't see how I could be able to afford it. Even with the trust fund, there is no way I could cover tuition, room and board."
"I am going to see about getting you a scholarship," Doctor Ted said. "You will first have to take the college entrance exams. I know all the members of the local scholarship boards, and if you do as well as I think you will based on all your test results to date, they will be fighting over you! And because I can get you past all the red tape, it won't take months like most applications would."
Miranda didn't know what to think about everything they were telling her, but she nodded and said, "Set me up for the exam. I'm not sure about the rest of that, but I will do my best. And thank you, both of you, for taking such good care of me."
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For her celebration, Andrea showed up with a wheelchair, pushing her down to the food court in the public area of the hospital. She bought her pizza slices from the little Italian restaurant there. It was hot and to Miranda, it was great; much better than the hospital food she had been getting before that. "Wow!" she said. "This is awesome. Thanks again for all that you have done for me."
Andrea just smiled. "I am glad to do it. You are a very special person, and you just need a little help right now. I believe that in the last couple of weeks we have become good friends, and this is the kind of thing that friends do for each other. I know if the positions were reversed, you would do the same for me."
Miranda had been wanting to ask Andrea about something. She thought that she had reco
gnized her from the pictures she had found of Julie Randolph's family. She did not want to pry, but she had to ask. "I want to ask you a question. I know it is a rather personal question. Are you the Andrea that worked for the family of Doctor Randolph from Space Tech? I know it's not fair to ask you that question, but I just have to know. It's something in here," pointing to her head, "that I can't get out of my mind."
Andrea stared at her for a minute. Finally, she reached a decision. "Yes. I don't talk about it much. I even changed my hairstyle and color. I can't believe that you recognized me. That was a very sad time for me."
"Ok, I can understand how you would feel that way. I wanted to know if you know Julie, and what kind of person she was before her injury. I don't know how to explain it, but I feel strong feelings when I look at her pictures. And to think she is still in a coma like I was only a few days ago."
"Yes, I knew Julie. We were rather close friends like you and I have become. She is a very special person, very much like you. She is very pretty, smart and she always seemed to know exactly what she wanted to do. And she takes every obstacle as a challenge to be overcome.
"Doctor Sam Randolph had been setting up the Space Academy at least partly for Julie. She had planned to go there with the opening of the program. She was going to take advanced classes, and I know that she would have excelled at that just as she did at everything else she attempted."
"Tell me a story about her. Something she did that you remember."
Andrea thought for a minute and then she began. "I know you had to have read about Julie playing the violin. Her solo performance right before the attack went ultra-viral over VR." Miranda nodded. She really loved that music.
Andrea smiled. "What I bet you didn't know, was that she took gymnastics and was quite good at it, although she never competed. Her father, Doctor Sam Randolph, has a doctorate in hard science, unlike his brother, who has a medical degree. So one time he was studying the varying effects of simulated gravity by using the spin of the Space Tech Station. He had set up experiments along the length of a maintenance shaft that went from the center of the station to the edge. The distance from the center of the station determined the amount of simulated gravity. He had to travel the length of the shaft with an electronic reader to collect the data from all of the test stations. He had to be within two feet of the station for the reader to register. He complained about the time it took to read them.
