Alec's Dream

by Dave Birchbauer

  Two months later.

  Jessie sat on a stool hunched over an old wooden workbench. A thin line of smoke snaked up from her soldering. She was oblivious to the world around her. Oblivious to the construction crews working on the third floor, oblivious to the slight movements of the floating light above her and especially oblivious to Sofie who was about to storm in, toss her backpack in the corner and throw herself into an old office chair.

  “He said to use the gravity blanket!” Sofie’s smooth oriental features hardly reflected her frustration. She glared at Jessie’s back; the lanky 14 year olds shoulder length reddish brown hair hung down around her face and over her work. Years of friendship told Sofie that a response wouldn’t be coming until Jessie finished.

  Sofie sat in silence. The room was cool even though it was a hot fall day. The thick stone walls helped keep it that way. The only light came from a glowing box hovering near the ceiling. On the far wall was the outline of a window; a window bricked up ages ago when they converted the grain mill to a schoolhouse.

  After a few minutes of impatiently fidgeting in her chair, Sofie found herself leaning over Jessie’s shoulder. “I don’t see any colors.” she said half to herself.

  “What colors?”

  Sofie’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “I heard someone say you see colors in the circuit boards.”

  “That’s not true. It’s just that... well... if I concentrate I can imagine how the electricity flows. Why, who did you hear it from?” Jessie dabbed the soldering iron on a sponge before putting it in its holder.

  “I overheard you’re dad tell mine that you can see electricity in colors.”

  “You did? When was that?” Jessie looked up.

  “The other day when you guys were over for that cookout.” Sofie replied with a slight shrug. “I never really thought much about it, until now... so can you can really see it?”

  “Well… kind of. I don’t really see the electricity flowing. See, there’s no power on this board.” Jessie held it up. “But I can see how electricity would flow through it.” She turned to face her friend.

  “How?”

  “I can’t really explain.” Jessie hesitated. The only person she ever told was her dad. She wasn’t upset he told somebody else... she never told him not to. She just thought it would be... well, awkward trying to explain it to people... to admit she really wasn’t that smart. She just considered it as a weird talent, like being able to touch your elbow with your tongue; which by the way, was another one of her talents.

  Concentrating on the board, she said. “When I look at this, I can see how the electricity would flow. It’s white when everything is right. If I make it wrong... say like removing this capacitor here.” She pointed to a small round component. “Then by just thinking about it, I can see the flow would change colors. It’s blue here, red here and yellow over there.” she said as she pointed to various areas of the board.

  Sofie shook her head. “I thought the circuit boards were really complicated, built in layers… with lots of electronics stuff inside.” She didn’t know much about electronics and circuit boards, but having been hanging around with a building full of engineers, she had picked up a little.

  “I’ve seen the drawings.” Jessie turned away setting the board back down on the workbench.

  “You memorized them? You’ve never been able to memorize anything!”

  “No... Yes... I’m not sure. If you asked me to draw a schematic of this board, I couldn’t. Somehow my mind remembers... I can’t explain.” Jessie pushed the board aside hoping to avoid explaining any more. “My dad tried teaching me circuits... inductance, resistance... V equals I R…. none of it makes any sense to me.”

  “So, all this time… that’s how you’ve been able to do all this?”

  Jessie watched Sofie’s expression go from angry, to confused to... well, happy.

  “So, you’re not a genius after all.” Sofie whispered.

  “I’m afraid you’re still the smart one.” Jessie correctly interpreted.

  “So what should we do about the gravity inductor?” Sofie returned to their pending problem.

  Jessie’s green eye’s flashed. “He said to use the blanket? Aw the helicopter can already fly. We need that gravity inductor.”

  “My dad wouldn’t budge. I tried everything… I even cried.” Sofie kicked her foot dejectedly then stepped to the workbench to pick up their latest project; a toy helicopter. Its blades had already been replaced with small shimmery silver disks of the gravity blanket material. She then looked curiously at Jessie. “Jess? Exactly… what do we need the gravity inductor for?”

  “It won’t be any fun without it.” Jessie turned her mouth into a pout and leaned back in her stool, crossing her arms over her blue lab coat.

  “I don’t understand... what’s so important about that gravity inductor… what are you going to do with it?”

  “Well… I don’t know… at least not yet.” Jessie frowned. “I…”

  “You don’t know? But you’re almost done with your… circuit thingy.” Sofie leaned against her workbench. “How can you know what to do with one when you don’t even know what they are? Or did your dad tell you?”

  “No… he didn’t say...” Jessie looked down at her feet.

  Sofie crossed her arms and glared.

  Jessie fidgeted feeling Sofie’s eyes burning holes through the top of her head. “There was a message on my computer… it said I should add the gravity inductor to the copter.” Jessie mumbled.

  “From who?” Sofie knew Jessie didn’t have many friends, especially ones who knew about Jessie and anti-gravity.

  “It was from me.”

  “You? You sent yourself a message about something you don’t know about?”

  “I guess.” Jessie grimaced. “Someone must have hacked me… I’m guessing my dad… he can hack any computer.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. If it was him… then why wouldn’t he just give us one instead of keeping them from us?” Sofie stared at Jessie. “I don’t think it was your dad.”

  “Well I’m not writing myself messages… unless I’m going crazy.” Jessie frowned.

  “Heyee kids, what’s with dee long faces” Eugene poked his head in the door. He held a large carved object twice the size of a football under his arm.

  Jessie gave him a suspicious look. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him... there was just something about him she didn’t like. Sofie, on the other hand, thought he was cute, with his mop top hair and crooked smile... if it wasn’t for his teeth…

  Jessie gave him a sullen look. “Nothing really... er, what’s with the bug?”

  “Bug?” Eugene said puzzled. “Oh, dis ting. I guess eet does look like a bug.” He held up his carving. “You dads… dey want more of dees lights.” He pointed his chin at the floating light panel above them. It was a 3 by 2 foot rectangular box made of a wood frame supporting a glowing panel made of the gravity blanket material. “Dees are too… ah, plain… I make dem better.”

  “How many do you need?” Sofie asked.

  “Lots... you dads said dey having a big party to show off yer new flying car.”

  “That’s next week. That doesn’t leave you much time.” Jessie said.

  “Ya… dey want evryting ready by Monday.”

  “So what do you need from us?”

  “I just wonder if you keeds could add dee gravity blanket part.” He set his carving on Jessie’s bench.

  Jessie examined the wooden bug. It was oddly beautiful, like all of Eugene’s work in a weird sort of way. It was elegant, but reminded her of something you would see hanging outside a haunted mansion. A bug shaped gargoyle. It was oval, about 2 feet long with a flat head and wings covering its rounded back. The intricate detailing made it look incredibly realistic, as though it was ready to crawl off her workbench. She gave an inward shudder and reached below her bench to pull out a small roll of the gravity cloth.

  “I don
’t get how you make dat blanket glow.” Eugene watched over Jessie’s shoulder as she sized the material over the rounded belly of his bug.

  “My dad explained it to me, something about macro-properties… but I don’t quite understand it myself.” Jessie said drawing a line around the blanket material. “…there.” She grabbed a scissors satisfied with her tracing.

  “I can’t believe that doesn’t damage it.” Sofie cringed at the rough cut left by Jessie’s struggles with the scissors.

  Jessie just shrugged. “I guess not, it’s just a mesh of wires.”

  “Why such an ugly bug?” Sofie asked Eugene.

  “Uglee?” Eugene looked puzzled.

  “Well, it is.” Jessie confirmed holding up the carved bug for them to see.

  Ignoring Sofie’s question he asked. “So how do eet work? How do it light up?” He gave the square floating light above them a small push making it bounce off the far wall.

  “I’m not really sure. I was messing around with the blanket a couple of weeks ago and accidentally inverted the power and the blanket started glowing.” Jessie reached under her bench again for some glue and a small black box.

  “So you goofed up… and invented a floating light.” Sofie giggled then looked at Eugene. “Just like what you did when you smooshed that table.” Jessie and Sofie both laughed.

  Eugene blushed. “I…I stiil have to make a new one.” He picked up the small black box. “Is dees a battery? Do dey need replacing.”

  “No, that’s just the control box. The blankets won’t work without one.” Jessie answered as she finished brushing glue on the bug’s belly.

  Eugene examined it. “So you just need one of dees to make dee blanket work?”

  “Well not one of these. This is just for making the blanket work like a light. We have other control boxes for doing other stuff. There’s tons of em... Sofie’s dad said it’s cheaper to make them by the thousands.” Jessie answered as she put the cover back on the glue bottle before spreading the blanket over the bug.

  “So what powers the blanket?” Sofie asked. “I never thought about that… how are they powered?”

  Jessie looked up. “Didn’t you know? My dad found that the blankets can make their own electricity... just a little, enough to power their own control box. He said it has something to do with how space or gravity flows through em.” She finished smoothing the blanket and looked at it approvingly. “He thinks there’s lots more stuff this blanket can do… I do to.”

  As Jessie bent over the bug to do the delicate work of connecting the blankets micro fibers to the control box, Sofie and Eugene stood in awkward silence. “So how’s the building renovation going.” Sofie looked at Eugene.

  “Oh… de building OK for now. I guess der’s a lot more to do after dee show next week.” Eugene said hesitantly. “I not sure what so important about next week. You dads seem really nervous.”

  “I think it has something to do with that Mr. McDonald.”

  “You mean dat chubby guy… da one wit dose mean guards?”

  “Yea… that big guy… Big Mac.” Sofie giggled then gave Jessie a curious look as snort came from her direction. Eugene just looked confused. “I think he wants to take over the company. I overheard our parents talking. I don’t think Big Mac is a very nice man.”

  “I agree.” Eugene said solemnly. “So you guys seeem a leetle sad. Is dere anyting I can do?” Another thing Sofie liked about Eugene was his accent. Jessie said he sounded like a bad actor from a bad sitcom. Sofie thought he sounded European.

  “We were just wondering where they were keeping those gravity inductors.” Sofie tried sounding coy.

  Eugene raised an eyebrow. “You mean dose blue doodads dat look like spiders? I saw Mr. Mac Coff carry a box of dem into dat storage area on dee second floor yesterday. Why, what’s up wit dem?”

  “Nothing really, we were just wondering…” Sofie began hesitantly.

  “There you go.” Jessie interrupted as the carved bug floated to a rest near the ceiling; its belly glowing.

  “That is creepy…” Sofie said.

  “Thankee Jessie.” Eugene grinned as he reached up to give it a nudge. It wobbled a little but remained lit side down. The rounded belly brightened the room much better than the square box. He kept pushing, pulling tapping and yanking until he was satisfied that it was stable. “It work perfect. Does you think you teach me how to add dee blanket myself?”

  Jessie gave a sour look but nodded anyway. “You mean you’re going to make all of them like this?”

  “Not exactly, I was worried dat dee size and shape would balance wrong. Well, now dat I know it OK, I know how to make dem even better.” He ran out the door in his excitement with the glowing bug stowed under his arm.

  “Jess, he said he saw your dad put a box of gravity inductors in that empty lab on the second floor.” Sofie whispered after closing the door behind him.

  “I heard.”

  Sofie gave her a long look... Jessie finally gave in. “I don’t know. It’s just that lately I’ve been getting better at doing things... I don’t seem to need to concentrate as hard anymore.” She actually never realized she shut out the world when she worked... until recently. Now she was aware of everything, even more so... as though there were two separate parts of her mind.

  “I think we need a plan.” Jessie changed the subject. She really didn’t like talking about herself.

  “For what?”

  “To get an inductor out of that storeroom.”

  “Well, why don’t we just go to the storeroom and take one?” Sofie said.

  “Is that the plan? Just take one?”

  “Well, the door might be locked.” Sofie picked up her backpack, then paused and put it back down before heading out the door.

  Jessie popped open a hidden panel on the side of her workbench and pulled out some odd looking devices. “OK, I’m ready.” She said to the empty doorway as she shoved the last gadget in her backpack.

  The short corridor outside their lab ended in an open area to their left that was once the heart of the old mill. Faded lines on the floor hinted at its history as a school gym that was later used as a warehouse. Turning to their right they entered the red brick school section. The corridor was lined with old wooden doors hiding unused and unexplored rooms. Open double doors at its far end led to the buildings newest addition. It wasn’t much different from the other sections, as it still looked and felt old, except it wasn’t made with stone or brick, but with large wooden beams and thick pine planking. It always felt warm to Jessie, much warmer than their stone lab.

  “Hi kids.” Stan Jansen, one of the companies’ engineers waved as he floated past in a chair suspended from a grid-work of PVC tubing and floating panels. A laptop and a mass of electronics sat on a table suspended in front of him.

  “Hi Stan” They responded watching curiously as his ‘vehicle’ slowed to a stop a short way past them.

  “Mind giving me a push?” He asked over his shoulder. “There seems to be something wrong with the drive control application.” He mumbled to himself while bending over his laptop.

  Jessie and Sofie looked at each other then walked down the hall to help.

  “Program crashed.” They heard Stan mutter. “Ahhh, single equal sign in an ‘if’ statement… it always gets me…. there… just need to rebuild.”

  The girls gave him a push. His contraption glided forward again. Then, as his application restarted, the chair jerked to a stop. After a few seconds it sputtered forward, leaving Stan and his table swaying like a porch swing. He scratched his full head of gray hair while staring at his laptop expectantly. “Just finishing its initialization…”

  Without warning, the chair, Stan and his table shot down the hall, bouncing back and forth off the walls. Stan, forgetting his laptop, held on to his chair while screaming like a little girl. The hallway stretched the length of the addition and Stan was halfway down it when his floating experiment started
spinning wildly. His scream pitched a bit higher.

  Before the girls could move, Eugene sprinted by seemingly from out of nowhere. He was running fast and it looked like he would easily catch Stan before he ran out of hallway. Unfortunately, that wasn’t needed as Stan’s flying workstation decided to change direction and head back in their direction. Sofie yelled a warning at Eugene. Jessie knew it was too late and squeamishly covered her face. Seconds went by. Not hearing a crash, she was about to peek through her fingers when she felt herself being tackled. Looking up, she saw Stan’s flying office pass by just inches above her face as she landed gently on the floor with her head cradled by Eugene’s hand. Before she could say thanks, he was back on his feet running after Stan again. This time Stan did run out of hallway and crashed against the brick wall before Eugene could reach him.

  Sofie was halfway there by the time Jessie regained her feet. Eugene was already untangling Stan from the mess of cables and broken equipment.

  “Are you OK?” Sofie asked as Eugene placed a rag to a cut on Stan’s head.

  “It looks like my drive control was a little unstable. Fixing that programming error exposed a problem…” Stan said mostly to himself as he pulled his still working laptop out of the tangle of electronics.

  “Do you need any help?” Jessie reached out to pull at some of the mess.

  “Don’t worree girls. I clean tings up.” Eugene replied. Being the buildings super also meant he was the janitor, handyman and part time paramedic.

  Jessie eyed Eugene. “Say… where did you come from anyway? I thought you went back to your workshop to make more of those bugs.”

  “Huh? Well… ah, I was jeest heading to catch up with you. I… ah, was ah, I find your school ID in my workshop. It must fall out of your backpack. I was jeest trying to return it.” Eugene fumbled in his shirt pocket and pulled out a plastic card.

  “Oh!?” Jessie exclaimed slipping off her backpack. “It should be right here!” she unzipped a small compartment on its side and stuck her hand in it. Confused, she pulled out a folded sheet of paper and as she curiously read it, her face turned red. Then grabbing her card from Eugene, she shoved it, and the paper, back in the pocket and zipped it up tight. “Um, thanks Eugene.”

  “You are welcome.” He replied. “You guys go do what you do, I help here.” He turned back to Stan.

  Jessie didn’t move. She wanted to ask more questions when Sofie grabbed her arm to pull her through the stairwell door.

  “C’mon, we don’t have a lot of time. All that commotion will have created a distraction.” Sofie urged after the door closed behind them.

  “I was just wondering how Eugene got my school ID.” Jessie followed Sofie up the stairs. “I know I used it at the school library today... and I wasn’t in his workshop.”

  “Oh, maybe he found it in the hallway. You know how he gets things confused.” Sofie brushed off Jessie’s concern as she opened the door to the second floor. After taking a quick look she said. “It’s all clear.”

  Entering the corridor, Jessie spied a maintenance closet. “Wait a sec.” she said and slipped through its door. A few moments later she returned to Sofie’s questioning look. “We’re good.” She pointed at the security cameras hanging from the hallway walls and ceiling. Sofie shrugged then led her down the hall by the front of her backpack strap.

  Doors, evenly spaced, lined the left wall. On the right, midway down the hall, only one door could be seen… the door to the storage room. Sofie tried it and found it locked as expected. “OK Jess, you’re turn.” She stepped aside. Like most of the doors in the building leading to ‘secure’ areas, this one also had a small black rectangular card reader next to it.

  Jessie fumbled in her backpack and pulled out one of the devices she took from her desk. In a few seconds she had had placed a small wire cage over the reader while holding a plastic box melded with an MP3 player connected by a small wire harness.

  “Who should we use?” She asked thumbing through the player’s screen.

  “We shouldn’t use our dads anymore. I think they’re getting on to us.” Sofie replied. “What about Olivia? She has access everywhere.”

  “Aw, I don’t want to get her into trouble. She’s so nice to us... and I like her” Jessie said already thumbing up her name on the screen. A second later, the door lock clicked letting them slip in... obviously not feeling too guilty about using her name.

  Surprisingly, this was one of the few rooms they were never in and it wasn’t what they expected. It was an old large stone and red brick room stretching the length of the school addition. Aisles of wooden shelves stretched away on both sides lit only by a smattering of light bulbs hanging from the ceiling. A large metal door hung on a stone wall on the far side of the room.

  “Wow, look at all this old junk.” Sofie wrinkled her nose at the musty smell.

  “Where do we look?” Jessie ran down one of the poorly lit aisles. The shelves were full of old cartons, wooden boxes, bins, tools and... old stuff.

  “Not here. Everything’s covered in dust. Nobody’s been in these aisles for ages.” Sofie observed.

  “Oh…” Jessie ran her finger over a dust covered box feeling stupid she didn’t see that herself, half wishing her ability with electronics was ‘real’ so she could be smarter than Sofie... or at least as smart.

  Silently they walked the length of the room to the large metal door. It was big… bigger than they thought. It hung from a metal track bolted to the ceiling. Sofie gave its oversized latch a pull. “Locked. No card scanner here.” She stated the obvious. The ancient door still had its original key lock. “OK Houdini, do you have anything in that bag of tricks of yours to unlock this thing?”

  Jessie gave a confused look. “Houdini? What’s a Houdini?”

  “Never mind... do you have any ideas?”

  Jessie grabbed another device out of her backpack. This one was larger, made up of a box with a view screen and a video game controller attached at its bottom. She reached in her pack again to pull out a long cable ending in tassels made out of the shiny silvery strips of the anti-gravity blanket.

  Handing the tasseled end to Sofie, she connected the cable and activated the device. Immediately, the tassels sprang to life, sticking straight outward, quivering. To Jessie’s instructions, Sofie gently slipped them into the keyhole. She then held them in place while Jessie, intently chewing on her tongue, worked the controller as she concentrated on the view screen.

  After some minutes of struggling with the controls… and Sofie fighting with the wriggling cable end, Sofie grumbled. “Here, give it to me. We don’t have all day.”

  Jessie stubbornly held on trying to ignore Sofie’s glare. A few moments later she reluctantly handed it over and took hold of the tasseled end. Before Jessie could complain about not being given enough time, the door lock gave a loud click.

  With a self-satisfied smile Sofie handed the device back. Jessie was more than a little peeved. She had worked it so easily! Without ever seeing it before! She stuffed the device back in her pack while Sofie leaned into the door handle pushing the heavy door open.

  The room behind the door was dark. If Jessie would have thought about it, she would have wondered why the light from the bulb hanging above their heads didn’t penetrate the darkness. Instead, she flipped her backpack over her shoulder and stepped in.

  Blackness swallowed her as the floor gave out, like stepping into a dark pit. Her yell for help caught in her throat as her feet pulled outward while she slowly twisted. Looking up she no longer saw the room she came from. Fear filled her along with a strange sense of dread. Her panic eased a bit as she noticed her backpack had hooked on something and was keeping her from being pulled further in.

  “Jessie! Where are you?” Sofie’s voice came out of the darkness above. It temporarily pushed back the feeling of dread as if the sound of her voice scared it away.

  “Don’t come in!... Help!” Jessie yelled back. She tried reach
ing behind for the strap of her backpack with no luck.

  “What’s going on?” Sofie sounded frantic.

  Before Jessie could respond she felt the sense of dread creep back, stronger this time. It felt like there was substance to it as it pulled at her legs.

  “Pull me out! Grab my backpack! Hurry!” Jessie yelled hoping Sofie could hear.

  “I got it!” Sofie’s voice was muffled as if being covered up. The dread did have substance and filled the space around her. It seemed to make the darkness even darker. She felt a tugging on her backpack and reached behind with as much force as she could, this time grabbing its strap and pulling with all her strength.

  The dread increased its resistance as it seemed to sense her efforts. Blind fear filled her as a deep voice come out of the darkness, calling her name... calling for her to let go.

  “PULL!” she heard herself yell, more to herself than to Sofie. Without warning, the darkness released its grip and she found herself flying up and out, tumbling to the floor with Sofie.

  “Heyee kids! What ees dees?” Eugene ran up from the room’s far side.

  “That room, it’s empty... full of darkness.” Jessie gasped looking up at him, pointing at the darkened room. “No don’t go in there.” She yelled seeing him step into it.

  “What’s going on?” Olivia Conrad, the companies VP of marketing came running.

  Jessie ignored her as she untangled herself from Sofie. “Eugene! He’s lost in there. We need to get him out!” she scrambled to her feet. But before she could take a step, Olivia put herself between her and the door grabbing hold of her shoulders.

  “Are you OK?” She asked avoiding Jessie’s pleading.

  “I’ve got to get to Eugene! He’ll be swallowed up!” Jessie tried shaking loose but Olivia’s grip was too strong. Looking around Olivia’s plump frame she was surprised to see the room was no longer a black hole. It was now lit by a bare light bulb. Eugene was bending over picking something up. Standing, he spotted her staring at him where he smiled and slipped a small black obelisk underneath his shirt. “Ah, I do no see nothing wrong heere.” He said stepping out of the room. “Are you girls OK?” He asked helping Sofie to her feet as she smiled at him. Jessie could have sworn she was blushing.

  “Eugene. I’ll take care of things here. You go back and finish helping Stan.” Olivia barked over Jessie’s shoulder.

  Jessie felt herself begin to shake. “It was horrible... darkness... hate... evil all around me... pulling at me. It was calling my name.” she recalled between deep breaths as the memory of what happened returned.

  Olivia wrapped Jessie in a hug, stroking her hair. “It’s OK Jessie. Perhaps you just bumped your head.” After a few moments Jessie gently pulled out of Olivia’s hold. “I’m OK. Maybe you’re right. I could have bumped my head. Maybe I was dreaming.” she sniffled. She didn’t believe a bit of what she told Olivia. It was real! And she knew it. She also knew Olivia wouldn’t believe her and there would be no convincing her. It was something she would need to figure out on her own.

  “If you girls are OK, I need to get back to my meeting. I’ll have Eugene straighten things up here once he’s done with Stan. Now get.” Olivia ended with a friendly slap to Jessie’s backside.