Alec's Dream

by Dave Birchbauer

  *****

  “Do you have any solution?” Clay asked the next morning as Alec walked into his office. “Any dreams?”

  “Nothing. Last night was one of the first nights I didn’t have any dreams at all.” Alec sat in one of Clay’s visitor chairs. Clay’s office was a mirror image of his own. “Our only hope is that Stan will figure something out.”

  “Have you talked with him?” Clay asked.

  “No, he wasn’t in yet.”

  “You know we still have hope… the car flies…. we have other items to show.” Clay stated. “I’m sure we’ll get interest.”

  “50 million bucks of interest? I still don’t understand we why we can’t just get the money from some other investor… or bank.” Alec said in despair. Clay didn’t respond as they both knew the answer as they’ve already tried. McDonald had a much longer reach than they imagined.

  “Our guest list is pretty impressive… we still have a good chance.” Clay said.

  “We can only hope…”

  “Am I interrupting?” Stan poked his head in the door.

  “What’s up?” Clay looked up eagerly.

  Stan stumbled in as he cradled an open laptop. “I’ve modified my drive control simulation program.” He set the laptop on Clay’s desk facing Alec.

  Clay walked around his desk to stand behind them. “So what are we looking at?”

  “It now simulates the flow of gravity.”

  “So you mean that swirling red stuff is gravity?” Alec asked staring at the screen. It occurred to him that simulating gravity flow would have made inventing their anti-gravity box much easier. “Is this accurate?”

  “It’s the flow of gravity through our blanket at 20 miles an hour.” Stan typed into the laptop. “There, now it’s stationary.” The mess of colors on the screen settled to a calm green.

  “So…?” Clay asked hopefully. “Does this mean you can fix this?”

  “Sure.” Stan typed some more. “This is how a modified blanket would react at 100 miles an hour.” The pattern of colors remained green but moved in a smooth swirling motion.

  “Just what kinds of modifications are needed?” Alec asked.

  “Well, you’re not going to believe this, but it’s as simple as how the grid is laid out.” Stan said.

  “The blanket is made of thousands of miniaturized anti-gravity boxes wired together with micro fibers resulting in a microscopic grid pattern.” Alec said for Clay’s benefit.

  “I ran a bunch of alternate grid patterns and all of them worked. What’s strange about it is that the pattern we chose is the only one that wouldn’t work… kind of funny.”

  Clay stood and smiled. “Great! How long is it going to take to repair the blankets?”

  Stan looked wide-eyed at Clay. “They can’t be repaired. We need to replace one of their layers… a new design. I can have it done by the end of the week, we’ll then need to make some prototypes… then retool manufacturing. I’d say we could have new blankets in less than a month.”

  Clay sat on the edge of his desk and lowered his head.

  “What’s the big deal? Just postpone the Expo a month.”

  Alec and Clay looked at each other and shook their heads. “It’s in our contract.” Alec replied.

  “So, what do you want me to do?” Stan looked at them in confusion.

  “I’d say build that new blanket.” Clay said. “We’ll need it to supply all our new customers we get from the Expo.” He stood and slapped Stan on the back. “You’re the best.”

  After Stan left Alec looked to Clay. “So you think there’s hope?”

  “C’mon, you’ve done the impossible and invented anti-gravity, now you’re worried about not being able to sell it?”

  Chapter 4 ~ On the Bubble