by A. L. Knorr
"Would you like to speak for yourselves?" Miss Marks asked Targa, Georjie, Petra, and me, while ignoring Akiko.
"She's right," Targa said, nodding. "Your project looks incredible and in spite of having a million questions about it, I like the idea in theory. But you're asking a lot. We have lives we would have to walk away from. You can't expect us to make a decision right now, or even in the next couple of days."
Hiroki gave a hearty laugh. "And we don't. Please don't feel pressured. I would very much like the opportunity to answer those questions, and if there are some I haven't got answers to yet, then all the better. I have incredible AI here at the labs which is capable of doing millions of calculations, analyzing millions of outcomes in a moment. If there is something you ask that I haven't yet answered, then I would love the opportunity to do just that." He clapped his hands together once. "I think we've had enough for the moment. Why don't we take a break? Use the facilities, have a snack or a coffee or whatever your hearts' desire. I'd like to begin the second part in an hour. If you're amenable, of course."
"What's the second part of the day?" Petra asked as we got up from our seats.
Hiroki flicked a switch on the dashboard and the hologram vanished. "Making the prototype!"
Saxony
We entered the boardroom where we'd eaten breakfast. My friends looked dazed, amazed, and doubtful. What my friends were doubtful about, I couldn't say, but I was doubtful both about the viability of the project and the sanity of its creators.
I barely noticed that a new spread of fragrant food and tasty looking drinks had been laid out on the table. We took our former seats. Hiroki and Miss Marks had followed us into the boardroom, but they didn't sit down. I was hoping they'd leave us alone for a bit.
As though she could read my mind, Miss Marks said, "You'll be in need of some time to absorb this initial presentation, as well as some privacy to talk. Hiroki and I will leave you and be back in a little less than an hour." They turned to go, but she paused at the door and said, "We may be back sooner if Mr. Nakesh shows up, as I know he'll want to meet you without delay."
They left and shut the doors.
"Do you think they've got recording devices in here?" Akiko was scanning the corners and eyeballing the screen at the front of the room dubiously.
"I can almost guarantee it," Petra replied.
"Isn't that illegal? To record someone without their permission?" Georjie reached for a jug of water and began to fill glasses for everyone.
"It is, but you only need consent from one of the people in the conversation and they've already got mine." Petra took a glass from Georjie with a nod of thanks. "Just so you know. I looked it up when I first signed on with TNC. When I signed my contract, I agreed to let them record all of my activities at FS11."
"FS11?" I asked, taking my glass from Georjie.
"Field Station Eleven."
"Oh, right."
"So, what do you guys think?" Petra reached for an apple from the bowl overflowing with fruit. Seemed she wasn't having the same difficulties with her appetite as I was. Food was the last thing I was interested in.
"The whole thing sounds a bit nuts," I said, my palms out. "Do they really think it can work?"
"Why not?" Petra looked at me with surprise. "I mean, it’s ambitious for sure, but a little over a hundred years ago, people thought horseless carriages were an impossibility, same with flying and sending people into space. Those things are all the norm now."
"It's got its challenges," added Georjie, also not touching the food. "But it's intriguing. I mean, I love the idea of making uninhabitable land viable. That is an awesome objective, don't you think?"
I nodded. "Yeah, for comic book characters." I turned to Akiko. "What do you think of these loony-tunes?"
Akiko's mouth was a flat line. "I instinctively don't trust corporations, no matter how prettily they paint their intentions. The idea is amazing, but it’s fraught with potential problems."
"What potential problems would those be?" said a jovial voice. "Pour them on me!"
We turned to see a man's face poking in the door.
"Can I come in?" He grinned and came in without waiting for an invitation.
This had to be Mr. Nakesh.
He was not obviously an extremely rich and successful man, dressed the way he was. Yet, if I had spotted him walking down the street I would have said there was something in his movements and expression that oozed confidence and importance. He wore faded blue jeans and white sneakers combined with a white t-shirt and a violently purple twill blazer overtop. His hair was so blond it was almost white. His features were fine and sharp and his hair cropped short. From beneath a wide brow blazed intelligent eyes of bright blue. They were not ethereal or vibrant the way Targa's and her mother's were, but they were arresting in their own way.
"I'm so sorry I missed the presentation." He began to shake hands with each of us. "I'm Mr. Nakesh and I am beyond happy to meet you guys.”
He leaned back a little, bent at the knees, to emphasize just how happy he was.
He continued, “I've read all your files—"
I saw Akiko and Targa share a cocked eyebrow at the idea that we had files. This didn't surprise me so much after meeting Basil.
"-And what an honor, just an absolute honor it is to have supernaturals of your caliber even considering working with us." He gave a laugh that might be better described as a giggle. "Of course, we are the best, so why wouldn't you, but still…"
There was a frenetic and slightly desperate energy about Mr. Nakesh. He spun out a chair and sat in it backwards, facing us eagerly. He tapped out a rhythm on the wooden back of the seat.
I got the sense that he was either high on some drug or he was the type of person I labeled a chihuahua–-high-strung, hyperactive, and incapable of sitting still. I knew the type well. There was one in every class. I observed him observing us, feeling faintly amused.
"It's an honor to meet you, too," Georjie said, very politely.
"So, what did you guys think of the presentation?" He didn't wait for us to answer and began to speak rapidly. "I've seen it so many times I know it by heart. I helped build it, in my own way, you know with feedback and stuff." He waved a hand. "But I'm sorry I didn't get to see your faces when you first caught wind of our idea. What do you think? What do you think?"
He enunciated all of his consonants, which gave him a robotic air.
We glanced at one another, not sure what to say. I wondered what Miss Marks might think of her boss’s tactic of mining for a reaction before we were ready to give one.
Finally, Akiko responded. "It's…ambitious, to say the least."
Mr. Nakesh nodded vigorously. "Of course, we don't do anything if it isn't ambitious, otherwise what's the point? Who wants to do things that are boring? We have the means to rock the world with this project. So, you have questions? Well, come on, let’s get into it."
The door opened and Miss Marks burst into the room with Hiroki on her heels.
"You're here!" A spot of color had appeared on each cheekbone. "Thank goodness. But I was hoping to give you a proper introduction." She smiled at us apologetically and took a deep breath. “Let’s do this properly.”
There was a lot of body language going on while she spoke. Miss Marks seemed both frazzled and embarrassed, but exerting enormous will to hide both. Hiroki's movements were both wooden and animated. He had taken off his glasses, put them back on again, removed a clipboard that had been tucked up under his arm, transferred it to under his other arm, shuffled backward to the wall, decided not to stand there and shuffled forward again. The whole effect was comical and made me feel like I'd been thrust into a slapstick play.
"…He's, uh, founded a dozen tech firms worldwide…" Miss Marks was going on about Mr. Nakesh's accomplishments when Hiroki finally settled on taking the empty seat between Georjie and Mr. Nakesh.
"It's all right, Jody. They don't need my entire resume." Mr. Nakesh laughed and waved
her off, mid-sentence. "Let's get to the good stuff. Project Expansion."
I tried not to look at my friends—I was afraid their expressions would set me to giggling.
He spun the chair and put his back to Miss Marks, facing us once again. He slapped Hiroki's back. "Nice to see you, my man." He pointed a finger-gun in Hiroki's direction. "Picked this dude up from MIT and right out from under NASA's nose. No one more brilliant in astrophysics has ever been born."
Hiroki shifted uncomfortably under this. His entire face flushed cherry red. "Well, I…"
I noticed Petra stared at the two of them, bemused. I wondered what she was thinking.
"Whatever your questions are, don't leave any out. Hiroki here is writing a project pitch, thousands of pages long. He and his team are preparing a document answering in detail all of the questions you can think of as well as many you'll never think of. No one embarks upon a project of this magnitude and expense with a doubt factor of more than one percent. We have sales to make and they don't happen without a thorough F-A-Q sheet… in this case, maybe an F-A-Q tome." Mr. Nakesh chuckled at his own joke.
"Sales?" Targa came to life at this statement. "What are you selling?"
"Property inside the domes, of course," Mr. Nakesh replied, with another hand-tapping rhythm on the back of his chair.
"You're already selling property?" Confusion clouded her face. "But the domes don't even exist yet."
"It's all conditional," Mr. Nakesh said with another floppy wave of his hand. "If the project fails then the sales don't go through, naturally. We're investing billions in this project, we have to make our money back or we'll go under. This is the way things work in business. One of our competitors has already sold property on another planet…"
"How do you sell something that doesn't belong to you?" Akiko narrowed her eyes at the billionaire.
"It belongs to whoever can reach it first, then viably explore and develop it. This is how it has always been. But let's not get off track—”
“Who are you selling the properties inside the domes to?” Targa asked.
“Just like any developer with a large tract of land, we've plotted maps and zoned them for residential, commercial, agricultural, and recreational. But before you get the idea that this project is strictly for profit, we also intend to offer a heavily-subsidized portion for middle-income families—to be won by impartial lottery—and we've also set aside a percentage for charity."
Georjie leaned forward in her chair and asked, “Just how large are these domes supposed to be?”
“Huge,” Mr. Nakesh said. “Big as countries, some of them.”
Georjie blinked a couple of times and stared at him, as though calculating the amount of work that would be required.
"How will people get in and out of the domes? What about oxygen and weather and crops?" I asked. "I'm more concerned about this than how you'll divvy up the property. How can it possibly be sustainable?"
"All great questions," Mr. Nakesh said smoothly. "Hiroki is working with Petra on how to create a doorway in the force-fields. While it's something we haven't figured out yet, I am fully confident we will. We just need more time with her kind of technology."
"What about jobs and businesses?" Georjie asked.
"This is simple," Mr. Nakesh spread his hands and shrugged. "Economy is fueled by supply and demand, and it would be no different inside the domes. We've already documented and laid out solutions for these very questions. The things that we are not yet able to solve require the prototype to be built first, as we need to work from a living model. Everything moves in stages. We risk getting lost in the weeds if we focus on these later details. Do you all understand the general thrust of the project?" Mr. Nakesh tucked his chin down and gazed at each of us in turn.
"Yes, I get it," Georjie said. "There is a lot I don't understand, and so many things that seem like they might not work, but I get what you're trying to do."
"Yes, I understand," I added. "In principle."
Akiko just nodded and said, "I get your objectives."
Petra and Targa also said they understood.
"Good." Mr. Nakesh looked at his watch and then stood. "Continue to ask Hiroki questions. He may not have a satisfactory answer yet, he may not have an answer at all, but one thing you can know for certain is that we understand that you will not sign any contracts until you're satisfied.”
Hiroki nodded and added, “We get that.”
"I would do no different,” Mr. Nakesh went on, “and it is the least I would expect from intelligent young people such as yourselves. This is a huge project, the terms of which we can work out together when the time is right. But trust me please when I say that making this prototype is not just for our benefit, but also for yours. I'm confident that when you put your skills to this use, you will need no further inspiration from us.”
Miss Marks stepped in again. “You'll be chomping at the bit to make it a reality.”
Mr. Nakesh glanced at Miss Marks as though he’d forgotten for a moment that she was in the room, then went on. “Building a small prototype is on the schedule for today, but only if you agree. So," he gave us a glittering grin, "can we proceed with this next step?"
Targa spoke up first. "I'm game to try."
I looked at her with surprise. Of all of us, I had thought Targa would be the first to walk away. After all, she had Antoni waiting for her in Poland, and she’d inherited a huge company she had to figure out what to do with. This project could keep her busy for years if she agreed to it.
"Really? I'm surprised, Targa." Georjie evidently shared my feelings.
"Why?" Targa shrugged. "I'm curious to see if it might actually work. Like Mr. Nakesh said, we're not committing to anything other than this next step." Her bright blue eyes caught mine and held them, issuing a good-natured challenge. "You can't tell me you're not itching to unleash your powers on this?"
"I…" I swallowed. She wasn't wrong, but…Arcturus…
"I'm in," Georjie said when I didn't finish my answer. "I was in as soon as I understood what this could mean for humanity."
Mr. Nakesh and Hiroki exchanged an enthusiastic look. Even Miss Marks was now beaming with joy.
Georjie held up her hands. "Don't get too excited. I'm not saying I'm signing the contract or anything. I'm just saying, if my friends are game to build this prototype with me, then I'm up for it." She turned to me. "So? What do you say, Saxony?"
Georjie and Targa's enthusiasm gave me the little push I needed. I kept reminding myself that I hadn't signed anything yet, and there was no pressure. Yet. This was a chance to put our powers together to create something bigger than ourselves. I blinked at this realization and gazed at my friends. Between us, we held the powers of creation—this was why TNC wanted to work with us. I finally allowed the possibility that this crazy plan might actually work to seep in.
I smiled. "If you guys are in, then I'm in."
"Yeah!" Hiroki gave a fist-pump that looked so hilarious on the scientist that the room burst out laughing. The energy and feeling of camaraderie was building among our little group.
"And what do you think, Akiko?" Mr. Nakesh surprised me by asking for her opinion directly. "I know you're important to these ladies," he said, giving her a tiny bow of the head, "and whoever is important to them is important to me."
Akiko looked as surprised as the rest of us were. "I guess I'm taking the fifth," she finally said. "After all, TNC isn't looking for anything from me. But since you've all decided to build this prototype, you can bet I want a front row seat."
"That's it then," Georjie said, turning to Mr. Nakesh and standing up. "Bring it on."
Saxony
"The diameter of the earth is 12,742 kilometers," Hiroki said as we walked from the all-purpose vehicles which had carried us through the woods toward the land they'd earmarked for the prototype. He was carrying a bag of tools over his shoulder and I eyeballed it, wondering what kind of equipment a scientist would need for a project like thi
s. "We’ve plotted out 2.7 kilometers of land, the borders of which just reach the shores of the Atlantic." He gave Targa a smile. "That was done with you in mind."
The sound of waves and seabirds could be heard in the distance. Mr. Nakesh and Miss Marks trailed behind us. We walked with Hiroki while he gave us further instruction. Ahead of us, the land which had been clear-cut was occupied by a single crane. Dangling from the crane was a platform with a railing. The platform looked large enough to hold half a dozen people. I squinted at the crane's cockpit and saw there was a man sitting inside studying something in his hand like a book or a map. He looked up as we approached.
"In terms of the visual acuity of the human eye," Hiroki said, "the curvature of the earth drops at 7.85 centimeters per kilometer. We aren't able to mimic the visual effect of the sun disappearing below the horizon at the size of our prototype, so you'll just have to trust me that once scaled up, we will be able to mimic the optics of a real sunrise, sunset, and the moon's orbit. You won't even know the difference."
"Are you following all this?" I muttered to Akiko, falling back a little. "I don't get it."
She nodded. "A healthy human eye can see as far as fifty kilometers. At just under three clicks across, the prototype is too small to enable the sun to appear like the real sun because it can't disappear below the horizon. But in a dome that is thousands of kilometers across, a small sun should, in theory, disappear in the distance due to perspective. Provided the land inside the dome is actually flat and doesn't follow the curve of the earth." She shrugged. "If it does, then the sun and moon would simply disappear below the horizon as normal."
My face must have looked blank because Akiko stopped talking. She had an amused tilt at the corner of her mouth. She jerked her chin toward Hiroki. "Just pay attention."
Hiroki and Petra were walking together with Georjie and Targa on either side, listening. Hiroki talked with his hands. Akiko and I caught up.
