Null Infinity Excerpt

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CHAPTER 1

This wasn't the first time Harry Stimson had looked through the curriculum catalog. He had gone through it many times since his fifteenth birthday. But this would be the first time that he would be choosing to take some of the classes.

“I've had a copy of this catalog for two years. I've dreamed of signing up for all these classes over and over,” he said.

“You're a real nerd Harry,” said Billy Williams, who was taller and heavier than Harry.

Their dorm room at Georgia Polytechnic, besides the two beds, had built-in desks, a few shelves and a separate bathroom. A small fridge was in the corner.

“Isn't that funny Billy? If I was holding some kind of swimsuit models calendar, I'd be normal. But because learning is exciting to me, I'm weird.”

“Yeah, that's right, I don't make the rules,” said Billy.

Harry knew that, but it didn't change the fact that society judged him, and not kindly. He thought to himself:

The “rules” may have to do with fun or maybe even procreation of the species but that ain't working out so great, is it?

Indeed, it was obvious to Harry and anyone who cared to notice, that the population bomb was a dud. Societies all around the globe were losing populations, even those African countries that were late to the game of globalization and whose populations continued to reproduce after other societies had stopped, all were depopulating.

Harry knew what was happening, it made more sense to him than the news stories that proclaimed everything was fine, just what the current political party in power wanted them to say. Globalization was out, regionalization was in, global trade was down, and prices were up. Economic regions didn't quite have the economies of scale to match a global economy. But regions had one thing that people would pay for, security. No longer would a small band of terrorists' half-way around the world upset the supply chain of a local pharmacy or grocery.

People saw it with their own eyes; the government was having a harder and harder time sweeping reality under the rug. Harry didn't even know why they were trying; except they were scared about what came next in a shrinking economy. And that was, no one knew what came next, all economics was based on managing an expanding economy, new ideas were needed, and government wasn't a fount of new ideas.

Except for a few activists on campus, Harry could put world conditions to one side during the semester. And he intended to focus on nothing but his studies, there would be time for the other things afterward, but he wouldn't get the chance to learn again, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Most of the others liked Harry, but no one, not even Billy, understood his determination to learn everything he could in the next four years. They wanted to do well, but they also wanted to have fun. That meant that sometimes short shrift to schoolwork might be necessary in order not to miss out on something, it didn't mean they were less interested in their studies than Harry, it just meant they had other interests that were important too. Harry didn't fit in, even at a school for nerds.

Harry was in his first day of classes. Unlike most freshmen he would start an advanced math class, calculus, along with his first physics, a class in Newtonian mechanics. He also was taking a first class in electrical engineering, Harry expected to get a dual degree. The rest of his classes didn't really interest him, being in English, history, and social studies. But Harry was determined to do as well in them as in his math and physics classes.

After class he was talking to Billy in their room as they ate the pizza they had ordered. Harry was carrying on about the calculus and mechanics textbooks.

“Harry, I know you are crazy about these subjects but to me they are just requirements for my degree.”

“You know Billy, I understand people can have no interest in these subjects, but I think that by now, in this society, people would be happy that there are some like me that do. You can't run a high-tech society on magic.”

“I guess that many people don't care for a high-tech society Harry. They are more interested in other people than in calculus.”

“They might not care about high tech,” said Harry, “but if it disappears they will. This society would devolve rather quickly without the nerds that keep the technology going and make the scientific discoveries.”

“That's true Harry but who cares. Most people figure that someone will be interested in doing the job at some price.”

“And yet, they resent that person's success, especially if it results in a windfall. It happens every time. Some guy works his tail off developing a technology, succeeds and is rewarded monetarily, and then is vilified for becoming rich.”

“Jealousy, Harry. It's as old as humanity.”

“May be Billy, but these primal traits aren't attuned to a modern society in which one man can bring wealth to many. As a matter of fact, a modern society is attuned to just such circumstance. Without these individuals, who in pursuing their own interests provide a bounty that others share, we would see a terrible crash.”

“You think without these successful millionaires and billionaires, society as it is configured would cease?”

“It's like a rock tumbling down a mountainside,” said Harry, “it shakes loose more and more until a great momentum of, in this case, wealth is created. Without that landslide nothing's created.”

“Or that landslide could destroy anything it hits,” said Billy.

“Except that's not the way it works Billy, that's not the way it has ever worked. Just look at the billionaires who opened up space.”

“Well, yeah it's cool that people are on the Moon and that we've been to Mars but so far as I can tell it's not had much impact here on Earth,” said Billy.

“That's like saying the voyages to the New World had no effect on world history. There hasn't been enough time Billy, they're building the infrastructure and at some point, the effects will be more than apparent.”

“Well, when they're apparent, I guess people will be more supportive. Once it affects their day to day.”

Harry ended that year with a four-zero grade point average, Billy finished with a two-eight, but Billy did see all the home and away football games. Harry continued to pull ahead of Billy in classes completed until the first semester of their third year, Harry found himself with just three classes left for his degree, Billy faced another full two years. They no longer roomed together and rarely saw each other.

With just a few classes that semester, Harry had enough time to take on another project. He found a position in one of the physics labs. The head of the lab, Maxwell Zee was studying spacetime bubbles. Harry didn't understand exactly what that meant until he had an opportunity to read some of Dr. Zee's papers.

According to the papers, a bubble in spacetime was one of a number of topological entities allowed by general relativity. In this case it was like a void around which spacetime would swirl. In spacetime, the bubble's movement could be influenced by the way in which it warped. In effect, the warped bubble would setup a tension with spacetime and to relieve that tension, it would “squirt” away like an air bubble in water.

If Zee's hypothesis was correct, then anything inside the bubble would be carried along with the bubble's motion, with the object experiencing no inertial effects since it was still with respect to the spacetime void. It was an interesting conjecture and as far as Harry could tell, the math supported the conclusion, but the proof of spacetime bubbles would have to come experimentally. And that was going to be difficult.

After discussing the work with Dr. Zee, Harry found himself assigned the task of detecting the bubble and its motion. Dr. Zee would be responsible for causing the bubble to form and move. He offered Harry a few ideas on how to detect the bubble but the details of implementing those ideas would be left up to Harry. Harry was a bit daunted, he had little support, no help, and not enough training, but he also had nothing to lose, so he would try.

Harry spent most of his afternoons that semester in the lab which was equipped with state-of-the-art electronics. He spent a good deal of time learning to operate that equipment. He spent the evenings in the old room he used to share with Billy thinking about spacetime bubbles and how they would affect their surroundings.

He knew that Dr. Zee expected these first bubbles to be extremely small. The size of the bubble scaled as the energy used to create it and Zee didn't want to use too much energy in a building on campus close to others. But the small size would make detecting the bubble harder.

The only hint that Zee had given him was that the bubble should leave a “wake” of displaced spacetime spreading out around it as it accelerated through curved spacetime, such as did Earth's gravitational field. Zee was a gifted theorist and experimentalist, but his explanations were somewhat lacking. He expected the math to do his talking.

Although Dr. Zee had tried to explain his theory to Harry, mostly using math of course, Harry couldn't completely follow the professor's arguments since he hadn't had the math or physics necessary, that wouldn't come until graduate school. But Dr. Zee had explained that his method was to change the Hubble constant locally.

Harry knew that the Hubble constant was related to the expansion of space itself. And he had found that at its present global value, one meter of space would expand to two meters of space if someone were to wait sixty-five billion years, a very slow warp drive.

Zee had also explained that to locally expand space at the speed of light, the Hubble factor (he had almost stopped calling it a constant) would need to be increased by a factor of ten to the twenty-six, a huge number. Not only that, but Zee's idea of how to increase the Hubble factor was based on the as yet unproven theories of extra dimensions.

According to these theories the gravity fields (actually graviton fields in the theories) of the extra dimensions could contribute to the energy associated with the Hubble constant. Meaning that the compactified or rolled-up spatial dimensions could affect the expansion rate of noncompact space. Indeed, general relativity itself showed that by changing the radius of the rolled-up dimensions, expansion of normal space should follow. Further calculations done by Dr. Zee showed that the radius of the compactified dimension would need to be changed by a factor of ten to the thirteenth to cause space to expand at the speed of light.

Dr. Zee wouldn't try to have the tiny bubble he hoped to create reach anywhere near that speed during the early experiments. He would settle for subluminal speeds.

To affect the rolled-up dimension he would shine a laser on a black box target in an effort to focus enough energy in a small enough space to hopefully change the radius of the rolled-up dimensions. He expected three of the dimensions to be affected because of three-dimensional space, but more dimensions could follow, creating a hyper-void. It didn't seem to matter which compacted dimensions were affected, just that the energy provided by the laser could change the radius of those dimensions.

The lack of a deep understanding of Zee's math was a problem for Harry, but he found a solution in an unlikely place. First, because Zee expected the gravity waves during the acceleration and deceleration phase of the bubble, Harry would focus on detecting those emissions. Second, because the usual detection of gravity waves was done by interferometric means and this meant a large and expensive detector, he had to come up with something else. He found a possibility in an old but discredited gravity wave detection scheme, a Weber bar antenna.

Weber, also an engineer and physicist, had used solid metal bars to try to detect gravity waves. Weber's original “bar” was a large aluminum cylinder two meters long and half a meter in diameter. A gravity wave traveling perpendicular to the cylinder's axis would produce tidal forces that stretched and contracted the cylinder's length. If the gravity wave frequency was close to the resonant frequency of the bar, the change in length would be detectable. Weber used piezoelectric crystals attached to the bar to detect this change and generate an electrical signal.

Some of the Weber bars were as unwieldy as a giant interferometer since they weighed up to five tons. And no Weber bar had conclusively found a gravitational wave, as had a lightwave interferometer. But Harry had an idea for increasing the sensitivity of such a detector while decreasing its size.

A chamber of superfluid helium-4 would respond at acoustic frequencies to the passage of gravity waves. To get the information out of the chamber Harry could couple the acoustic waves to a resonant microwave circuit. Even though the coupling between the motion of the helium and the microwave field would be relatively weak, Harry thought he could dig it out with some properly designed electronics and maybe some data processing.

Such a system could be small and still have a better sensitivity than existing interferometers or Weber bars. As he worked through the calculations, he realized the excellent sensitivity could only be obtained around the narrow band of the detector's acoustic resonance. In other words, the detector could only detect a narrow range of frequencies. But Harry could eventually tune the frequencies the detector was sensitive to by pressurizing and therefore modifying the speed of sound in the helium.

He worked up a presentation and gave it to Dr. Zee. Dr. Zee looked it over without comment and scheduled Harry to give his presentation at the monthly physics colloquium that the department held. Harry was nervous but agreed.

CHAPTER 2

The lecture would be in one of the larger classrooms. Like an amphitheater, the rows of desks rose from the front to the back. Harry had given talks before in several of his classes but not in such a large room where many of the listeners towered over him. The size itself felt overwhelming. The room was only about a quarter full but that didn't help his nervousness.

It didn't go well. Harry's nerves were almost too much but it was the question-and-answer period that followed the presentation that made him want to quit. The audience of physics professors and students was very skeptical that he could make his proposal work. Almost everyone felt that a Weber bar antenna, in whatever form it might be realized, would never work. The huge versions had never made the discoveries that light interferometers had made, and no one saw any reason why such a small version as Harry proposed would be any different. He was crushed.

He hurried from the lecture hall as soon as possible and went straight to his room. He lay in bed watching the light of day disappear. He wondered if he would continue in the lab, he wondered if he would continue at school. Maybe he would transfer somewhere else to finish his degree, maybe he would just quit and get a job. It was almost midnight before he got up and ate something and went to bed, falling asleep only after more hours of worry.

It was the following day that Dr. Zee sought out Harry.

“Harry, I missed you yesterday after your talk. I thought it didn't go too bad,” said Dr. Zee.

“What do you mean professor? They practically booed me out of the room,” said Harry.

“Ah well, if you hadn't disappeared so fast you would have found that not everyone reacted in that way. Besides, you have to get use to that kind of criticism when you present such a bold new idea. People, including physicists, don't really appreciate their world models being overthrown,” said Dr. Zee.

“So, are you saying I should pursue my idea?”

“I think it is a long shot, but if you can get it to work it wouldn't only prove our experiment, it would be a real advancement in portable gravity wave detectors,” said Dr. Zee.

Harry couldn't think of anything to say. He eventually said, “Well then, I'll try.”

Harry called the cylinder a superconducting cavity resonator, a SCR. It was made from niobium because of the metal's mechanical properties at the super low temperatures, below fifty milli-Kelvins, required for helium to be a superfluid. The cylinder had a radius of eleven centimeters and a length of fifty centimeters. When filled with helium-4 the superfluid would acoustically resonate most strongly around six kilohertz. This was the center frequency of the gravity waves that Dr. Zee expected from the bubble when accelerating or decelerating.

Essentially, the superfluid would vibrate like a tuning fork as the gravity waves of the bubble passed. Microwaves would be coupled in and out of the SCR through loops recessed in the top of the cylinder. Acoustic waves in the superfluid would affect the resonance of the microwave circuit and that would be detected, recorded, processed, and displayed. Harry was expecting to see a ring up and ring down effect, that is, an oscillating but rising signal and then an oscillating but falling signal, from the acceleration and deceleration of the bubble.

The day of the experiment arrived. Harry hadn't been able to test his detector completely except in limited tests that did seem to detect a correspondence with the gravity waves that the gravity wave laboratories had detected that week. So, he was hopeful that it would work.

The “lab” was a large hangar like area on campus, usually used for indoor sports. The ceiling was high, but it was the unobstructed distance from corner to corner that Dr. Zee found useful. The bubble once created would accelerate away causing gravity waves and then shed its energy as more gravity waves until it dissipated quickly. Zee calculated that it would all occur in one-hundred feet, there was more than enough room in the structure.

Zee powered the laser up; the sound was like a loud buzzing sound from lower to higher frequencies. The target was on a stand about twenty feet away. He expected the bubble to accelerate at right angles to the laser beam, but wasn't sure, so everyone was well out of a hundred-foot radius around the target, he was operating the laser remotely.

“Okay, here we go,” said Zee in a loud voice.

The laser light hit the target. Everyone had their protective goggles on as the light was in the visible range and very bright. In a few moments a rumble of sound was heard, Zee cut the laser. The rumble shifted to a higher frequency and then stopped. Zee took off his glasses and ran over to where Harry was monitoring his detector.

“Did you see it?” Zee asked.

Harry held his hand up as a way of saying, wait a minute. Then he looked up at Dr. Zee with a smile.

“We got something. It looks like a trail of gravity waves, and it has the ring up, ring down waveform we were expecting.” said Harry.

The taller Dr. Zee put his arm around the boy.

“Harry,” he said, “I think we just made history.”

They ran the experiment several more times looking for errors and misinterpretations, but after several runs with very similar results, Dr. Zee decided they had something, and he eventually published the results.

Even in preprint the paper caused a storm of publicity with too many headlines shouting that faster than light travel was now possible even though the bubble never traveled faster than the speed of light in the test. Harry's contribution was mostly overlooked except by a few other scientists. He got several inquiries about his experimental setup; some were interested in reproducing his design. Harry answered the inquiries as best he could.

He was also busy improving the performance of his detector. He followed up on his idea of pressurizing the helium so as to change the resonant acoustic frequency. This would make the detector tunable, thereby making it more sensitive to the center frequency of the expected gravitational waves. The detector would be very sensitive to the bubble now.

So far, all the experiments had been at subluminal speeds, but Dr. Zee felt he had enough experience with the bubble to push it to superluminal velocities. The next test would take more room than the current building provided because Dr. Zee expected it would take longer for the bubble to accelerate up to superluminal speeds and then decelerate, so he was taking the experiment outside. The university football stadium would work since it wasn't football season, and the necessary power and network hookup were available.

Dr. Zee got a use permit and with the help of several graduate students soon had the equipment set up. Harry set up his detector without help. The day was clear and sunny and was getting warm by the time they were ready to start. As usual Dr. Zee brought up the laser, which was more powerful than the one he had used before.

Harry could hear the whumpf of the power supply even though he was across the field in one corner while the laser was in the other corner. The path of the bubble should cut diagonally across the field to maximize the distance.

The laser light hit the black box target. In a moment, Harry saw a huge spike on the screen, he moved as quickly as he could to attenuate the sensitivity of the SCR. But it was too late, the liquid helium boiled, Harry ducked, and the niobium encasement ruptured with a loud bang. Almost simultaneously, at the far end of the field, a louder noise was heard and a brilliant light flashed. The goalposts at that end of the field were bathed in the light and when it finally dimmed enough to look, they were bent over like flowers needing water and a roiling cloud was rising above the stadium.

Luckily, no one was hurt.

Later inspection revealed that the whole end zone was scorched, and the nine-foot-high reinforced concrete wall was brittle, as if baked at temperatures exceeding a thousand degrees. The damage would cost tens of thousands of dollars to repair. The issuer of Dr. Zee's use permit was soon unemployed. Dr. Zee himself was told that no more experiments would be allowed anywhere near the campus.

Zee began to investigate what could have happened. Eventually, it became clear. He discussed his findings with the group and what they would do next.

“Okay, I realize now that a superluminal bubble catches up to forward traveling light rays in its path. As it does the light is captured asymptotically at the bubble's front horizon and highly blue-shifted. As you probably know, this greatly increases the energy of the light rays. There is also a rear horizon for the bubble and these horizons only exist for superluminal velocities. When the bubble velocity falls into the subluminal regime, all the forward traveling light that was captured by the front horizon is released at once.

“The effects of that released highly blue-shifted, high-energy light is what caused the damage in the stadium. So, we are going to have to find a place that is deserted enough so that when the bubble comes out of superluminal, we don't repeat the damage.”

“How much room will it take?” someone asked.

“We will need something like a desert situation,” said Zee.

“The university doesn't have anything like that, do they?” asked another.

“No, the university can't help us, but the military can. They have several places that are wide open enough to do such research,” said Zee.

Some in the group murmured.

“But then they will get the science of what we're doing. Would they apply it for military purposes?” asked a person.

“We will have to sign an understanding with them, yes,” said Dr. Zee. “And they will be providing some of the logistics of the experiment in return for a look at the science. But I see nothing wrong in allowing them an early look. After all, we will be publishing the results openly. Anyone, including the military, will be able to take those results and do whatever they wish. I don't see a problem in accepting their support.”

Even though it was true that the results would not be a secret, a couple in the group quit when the Army was brought in, Harry was one of them.

“I didn't quit because it's military,” said Harry. “I quit because you will never be allowed to freely publish Dr. Zee, once the military is involved, and I want to continue publishing freely.”

“Come on Harry,” said Zee, “this is the twenty-first century, not nineteen-forty-five.”

It was almost their last conversation before Zee left for the military base. Harry didn't refuse Zee's request to use his detector, he even helped another in the group to become proficient at using it, but he did go his own way, which was to graduate school. Harry lost touch with Zee's group, he only knew they were going to some air force base in New Mexico, but he never saw another publication from them.

CHAPTER 3

Harry started graduate school technically ahead of many of his fellow students because of his experience with his compact gravity wave detector. But in other ways he was behind, especially in his mathematics. He would have to catch up.

As with his undergraduate degree he didn't have much time for any activities outside his studies. It was because of this single-mindedness that he met Lauren.

Lauren Cauley was slightly shorter than Harry with light-colored hair and sparkling eyes. She too had no time for anything but her studies and that is why they soon became good friends.

“Harry, did you get the answer to problem five in Mechanics class?”

“I got an answer Lauren, but I don't know if it's correct. You want to check me?”

“Sure,” she said.

They both went back to work. They were in one of the library's study rooms, where they often met to go over their homework. Harry liked that it was a corner room with abundant windows in both walls. He could sit and look out over the campus from one window or the city from the other window whenever he needed to rest or think. He could sit back and listen to the rush of air from the HVAC or the random noise of others outside the room.

The library no longer had physical books on its upper floors, only on the first. The other floors had been converted to small work rooms or larger meeting rooms. There was talk of turning the top floors into classrooms, Harry hoped not, he liked the little study room on the sixth floor with the view, and with Lauren.

“You just made a slight mistake, here Harry,” she said, holding up her Emmie, her AI-assisted tablet, to show him. “I think the answer is correct now.”

Harry looked from Lauren's Emmie to his, where Lauren's corrections now appeared in his solution.

“Thanks, Lauren, I always make a little mistake somewhere. I'm lucky you are so meticulous and can find them for me.”

Lauren noticed Harry staring at her again. At first, she was uncomfortable with his attention, but she didn't mind it so much now.

“You're welcome, Harry,” she said. “That's it for mechanics, should we go over emag?”

She always called the electromagnetics class, emag.

“I think I need a break, it's almost two and I haven't eaten anything,” he said.

“Pizza?” she said.

The pizza place was small, dim, and not well ventilated but the pizza was delicious. Tasty crust, tangy sauce, pepperoni, peppers, onions, and thick cheeses. Sometimes, someone would start the music, and the chatter would leap in volume. Harry and Lauren always sat in the corner up front. They had been there so much that the waitress only asked if they wanted the usual.

After the drinks, two sweet teas, but before the pizza arrived Lauren asked Harry, “What about your gravity detector Harry? What are you going to do with it?”

“Well, I've just been assigned a thesis adviser so that I can continue developing it here at the university.”

“Didn't you have some inquiries from companies?”

“Yeah, I did. But I don't know, I feel like if I go with a company, I'll have to give up some control of how the detector is developed.”

“You're probably right,” said Lauren.

The pizza arrived.

“How about Dr. Zee, have you heard anything from him since he joined the army?”

“That's one way to put it,” said Harry, “but no I haven't. But I have heard some rumors.”

“Like what?” said Lauren.

“Well, I've heard that the military is interfering with the experiment. They want a battlefield version as soon as possible and want Dr. Zee to help but he is resisting.”

“Really? How will they use it?” asked Lauren.

“My guess is that they want to use the effect that accidentally damaged the stadium. You know about that?”

“Yeah, I heard about it,” said Lauren.

“Well, that damage was done with a minuscule warp bubble with a relatively small amount of input energy. Imagine the results with a larger, more powerful laser, say several gigawatts, creating a warp bubble with a correspondingly faster superluminal speed.”

“You're talking about a major energy weapon Harry.”

“Yes, and that energy could be delivered at several times the speed of light,” he said.

“So, the faster it goes, the greater the radiation at the target,” said Lauren.

“With a large enough laser, the energy delivered could destroy any target I can think of,” said Harry.

“You were right not to continue with the project Harry. The country isn't at war, there's no need to develop such a weapon.”

“Well, I can understand why people do it, but I've always thought I wouldn't,” he said.

“Me neither, I'd quit first,” she said.

Harry finished his first piece of pizza and started his second, Lauren wasn't far behind.

A few weeks later Harry and Lauren were busy preparing their classes when Lauren brought a news report to his attention. They were in one of the school's cafeterias having a morning coffee when she joined him.

“Look at this,” she said, showing him her Emmie before she left to get her cup of coffee.

Harry looked at the article, it was a report on a New Mexico website describing a strange occurrence that had happened near a small town called Magdan. A rock formation called The Old Man on the Mountain had disappeared. At the same time, locals had reported a tremendous lightning storm in the direction of the formation, it was in the general direction of a distant military base. A military spokesman denied any connection.

“What do you think, Harry?” said Lauren, sitting down.

“You think this has something to do with Dr. Zee's bubble weapon?” he asked.

“Obviously, Harry. It makes sense, doesn't it? Lightning storm? Rock formation totally destroyed? Military base? What more do you want?”

“You might be right, but I don't know what I can do about it,” he said.

“Nothing, I guess. But I'm so glad you didn't go, it sounds terrible.”

“I'm glad too. I wonder how Dr. Zee and the others feel now?” he asked.

“I think like some of the physicists that worked on the atom bomb, it was just a physics problem until it worked. So, I would guess they are just now waking up to the fact of how powerful a weapon they've created,” she said.

“I guess I think the saddest thing is that it's kind of sidetracked the original purpose of his research which was a revolutionary new space travel technology,” he said.

After a pause Lauren said, “Maybe we could get it back on track.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Why don't we start the experiments again?”

“Well, I have my detector to work on and anyway, there are groups at other universities doing the experiments by now, I'm sure,” he said.

“But they don't have your intimate experience with it, and you are just making tweaks to the detector, right?”

“Yeah, the detector is pretty far advanced and I'm just making improvements at the margins,” he said. “I'd have to think about it and talk to my thesis adviser, Dr. Nabors. He's more an experimentalist, I think if we do it, we'll need to have a theorist on board.”

“You sound like you'll try it,” she said.

“Maybe, let's go talk to Dr. Nabors,” he said.

Dr. Nabors agreed that it was an important experiment that should be continued, he even recommended a theorist in the department to help. But there was a problem, Dr. Zee was still on the faculty, and it was still his experiment. He would have to agree to any new investigation. Harry would have to contact him and explain what he wanted to do.

“We should go Harry,” said Lauren.

The pair were in the pizza parlor for dinner after meeting with Dr. Nabors.

“How?” said Harry. “It's a military installation, they won't let us in. We can't just show up.”

“I bet he doesn't stay on the military base all the time and when he leaves you know where he would go?” she said.

Harry was confused by her reasoning, he shook his head no.

“A pizza joint. I bet there's a nearby town and if there is a pizza place, I bet, from what you've told me, that Dr. Zee shows up there at least on Saturdays, if not other days.”

“I don't know,” said Harry. “I mean, he loves pizza and beer, but if you think we could just show up at the pizza place and run into him, that's kind of crazy.”

“Well, let's see where the military base is and see if there is a nearby town, and see if there is a pizza place in that town, then we can decide what to do,” she said.

Harry looked on his Emmie and found a military base, Bracken Air Force Base, which was near a town called Magdan, New Mexico, and he also found a pizza parlor there, Rozella's Pizza.

“Okay, we've found the place but it's still a crazy idea to go all that way and depend on chance to see him,” he said.

“It's the only way. We can't call him or email, and sending a letter is taking as big a chance as going out there. We can ask the people at the pizza shop if they've ever seen him and when, then we'll be there when he shows up. I think we have a good chance to catch him,” she said.

“Okay, except I'm going to send a letter anyway, and tell him when we'll be in Magdan and where. It couldn't hurt,” he said.

“Okay, let's do it,” she said, holding up a piece of pizza as a salute.

The pair were able to get a student discount for a flight to Albuquerque and then a small rental car which they drove to Socorro and then west for an hour over a narrow county road to Magdan. They took rooms at Magdan Motel and after unloading their suitcases left for the pizza place.

“There it is,” said Lauren to Harry who was driving.

The pizza place shared a small building with a coffee shop next door. The adobe building was painted white with a sign above the pizza parlor in a southwest theme. Inside, the theme was the same. Harry and Lauren took a booth near one of the windows and waited as a waitress finally showed up with menus. She was not dressed in western clothes but looked and acted like young people pretty much anywhere, casual and uninterested.

“Can I get you some drinks?” she said, handing them menus without introducing herself.

“I'll have a soda,” said Lauren.

“And I'll have the same,” said Harry.

The girl left without saying anything else.

“Not very talkative,” said Harry.

“No, but that doesn't mean she won't know something,” said Lauren.

When the girl returned, she took their order and before she left Lauren asked her, “Do you ever see anyone from the military base in here?”

“Military base?” said the girl.

“Yeah, Bracken Air Force Base,” said Harry.

“Never heard of it,” said the girl who turned and left.

“That was weird,” said Lauren. “I thought the base was close by.”

“I did too,” said Harry.

“Didn't you look it up?” asked Lauren.

“Yeah, that's how I found Magdan, it's supposed to be the closest town to the base,” he said.

“How about a satellite image?” she asked.

“No, but I wouldn't expect a secret air base to show up on a satellite image,” he said.

“I hope we're not on the wrong track,” said Lauren.

Harry was feeling uneasy.

CHAPTER 4

Harry and Lauren were quiet when a man at the next table spoke up.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I heard you two asking the waitress about a military base?”

“Yeah, Bracken Air Force Base,” said Harry.

“Bracken's about forty miles northwest of here,” said the man.

“That far?” said Lauren.

“Yeah, but Magdan is the closest town,” he said.

“Do you ever see any one from the base in here?” asked Harry.

“About once a week, usually on a Saturday,” said the man. “And I'm in here several times a week.”

“Do you ever see a civilian about my size with several young people around?” asked Harry.

“Yeah, I've seen a bunch like that, but they don't come in as often as the soldiers,” said the man.

The waitress brought the pizza, and Harry thanked the man for the information.

“Well, we've come to the right place I guess,” said Lauren. “But it sounds like we may have to wait for some time.”

“Yeah, I guess this may not have been such a good idea. We can't stay here for weeks just to catch Dr. Zee,” said Harry.

“Tomorrow's Saturday, so let's hope we get lucky,” she said.

They finished their pizza and left for the motel. They were both tired, and turned in before eleven.

It was after midnight when Harry woke. Something had awakened him, he listened. He heard a sound from the short entrance way which connected his single room to the motel's hall. He turned in that direction to see two black shapes sprint toward him. Before he could pivot and exit the other side of the bed, hands were on him and his mouth and nose were covered, he smelled something before passing out.

Harry woke up on the floor of what he thought was a van, his hands and feet bound. In the dim light he could see a body lying next to him, it had Lauren's light hair from the back. He could move a bit even though his hands were tied from behind.

He rolled closer to the other person and whispered, “Lauren.”

The person didn't answer but Harry was sure it was Lauren; he could smell her body lotion. The van got underway.

Harry didn't know how long they had been traveling but he did know that the road was full of curves and bumps. Then the van stopped, he heard some people talking and the van began moving again only to come to another stop. The side door slid open.

He heard someone ask, “Are you awake yet?”

“I am but I don't think Lauren is,” said Harry.

“Okay I'm going to remove your feet restraints, and you can walk. We'll get some help carrying her unless she wakes up,” said the voice.

As Harry was helped from the van, he could see the soldiers that had kidnapped him. He couldn't see any other lights or sounds though. He heard Lauren.

He turned and asked, “You okay Lauren?”

“Yeah Harry, just a little groggy.”

“Okay,” said one of the soldiers, “if you will just follow us, we'll take you to your quarters.”

They were taken to a long narrow building. Inside Lauren was shown one room and Harry was placed just across the hall. They were searched before they went into the rooms. The soldier told them they should rest until the morning when they would meet the commander. Then their luggage was brought in and the doors to the rooms closed with a guard stationed outside. Later, Harry noticed his luggage had been searched too.

Harry sat on the side of the bed and looked around. A small counter with microwave, sink, and short fridge was in one corner. Through an open-door Harry could see a bathroom. There was a desk with nothing on it and a window that had bars. Apparently, this room had been used before in such a capacity. Harry laid on top of the uncomfortable bed and after going over what had happened several times, fell asleep.

He was awakened when he heard the doorknob being turned. He sat up.

“Breakfast,” said a soldier who entered and put a tray down on the kitchenette counter.

“They'll be calling for you in an hour sir,” he said before turning quickly to leave.

Harry ate the sparse plate of eggs and bacon and toast while looking around his room. In the daylight it looked even worse than it had the night before. Bland green wall paint, concrete, unpainted floor, and a commercial roof of discolored, pale, acoustic tiles. He certainly didn't want to stay any longer than necessary.

He finished his breakfast and went to the sink to clean up a bit. The towels were clean but stiff, obviously washed without softener. Finishing, he sat down in the only chair in the room, a roughly hewn wooden spindle model. Harry was beginning to wonder where all the military budget, the largest in the world, had been spent.

After sitting in the chair for a time, he realized he was still sleepy and was almost ready to lay back down on the bed when the door opened again.

A soldier entered and said, “If you will come with me sir.”

Harry rose and walked past the soldier and out the door to find more soldiers and Lauren.

“Lauren, are you okay?”

“I guess so, a bit sleepy,” she said.

One of the soldiers interrupted and said, “If you will follow me, please.”

Lauren followed the soldier, followed by Harry and two more soldiers. Harry noticed they were wearing guns in the holsters on their belts.

After a short walk they entered a brick building that seemed in better shape than the one they had just left. Inside the floors were polished and the white paint on the walls was clean. There were no discolored ceiling tiles. At the end of the hall, they entered an office through some doors with multi sash windows and then halted at a desk.

The lead soldier said, “Here to see the Colonel.”

The officer behind the desk called over his Emmie and then looked up and said, “Go through.”

The soldier opened the solid, wood door and held it for Harry and Lauren, just the three of them went through. The soldier saluted and introduced Harry and Lauren. The colonel saluted back, and the soldier turned smartly and left. The office was large with a wall of windows behind the colonel's desk looking across the desert to some distant mountains.

The colonel spoke, “I'm Colonel Bricknell, I'm the commander here at Bracken, won't you be seated.”

He motioned to the two chairs in front of his large, dark wood desk.

Harry nodded at Lauren as if to say, we're in the right place.

“I suspect you know why we brought you here, but I'll just state the obvious so that we are all on the same page,” said the colonel.

“You have been asking in Magdan about Professor Zee. He is working on a project which the government wishes to keep secret. We have to take such inquiries as yours as a threat to the project, notwithstanding your intent. So, you have been brought here to find out what it is you want. You will be interviewed together and separately and then we will make a decision about your disposition.

“I will see you again after your interviews, probably about this time tomorrow. That is all.”

The colonel then buzzed the outer office, and the soldiers entered the room.

“Take them for their interviews,” the colonel said.

Harry felt a hand on his shoulder; he looked up to see the soldier that had led them to the colonel's office. The soldier motioned his head for them to go. Harry got up and put his hand on Lauren's shoulder, they hugged until the soldiers guided them apart.

The interviewer introduced himself as Lieutenant Levi. He began immediately asking Harry personal questions. He then asked about his schoolwork, he asked about Lauren, then he asked why they had shown up in Magdan.

The questioning went on for an hour with Harry trying to answer the questions as truthfully as he could. Finally, the lieutenant stopped and asked Harry to remain seated while he left the room.

Harry took a deep breath and realized that he had been tense during the whole ordeal. He turned his head, trying to loosen his tight neck muscles. One wall of the room had shelves full of notebooks. To Harry they looked like organizers, he wondered what was in them, and why an Air Force base would have paper records instead of electronic.

Shortly the lieutenant returned and said, “If you will follow me Mr. Stimson.”

Outside the room, Harry was joined by Lauren and her interviewer and they all walked down the hall to another room. Harry realized that the place reminded him of a school, without the students. Inside the room there was only a couple of school-like desks and tall stools. The soldiers motioned for Harry and Lauren to sit in the desks while one of them stood in front and the other took a seat on a stool.

Lieutenant Levi, standing, asked “Where did you two meet?”

Harry hesitated but Lauren spoke up, “It's none of your business but we met at school, we're in the same program, which you probably already knew.”

“There is no need to be sarcastic Ms. Cauley, we simply have a job to do and the sooner we get done the sooner you will be able to leave,” said Levi.

“Well, I'm glad to hear we'll be leaving,” said Lauren.

The lieutenant ignored her. Harry was surprised but a bit proud of her.

The lieutenant continued, “It was at this school that you met Dr. Zee?”

Harry understood why Lauren was getting irritated, surely, they knew before they asked.

Regardless, he answered, “I worked with Dr. Zee on his spacetime bubble experiments. I developed the gravity wave detector.”

“And how are you involved Ms. Cauley?”

“I'm not,” was all she said.

“But you are here with Mr. Stimson to try to contact Dr. Zee?” said the lieutenant.

“I suggested to Harry that since Dr. Zee had left to work with the military that his original purpose, which was to develop a space transport system, had been interrupted and that we could restart that effort.”

“How do you know that Dr. Zee's efforts have been interrupted?” asked the lieutenant.

“I don't, but I figured if he got involved with the military, he would soon be pressured to develop a weapon instead of a transport,” she said.

“So, you came all the way out here on a hunch that Dr. Zee would not be working on his experiment. May I ask what he told you before he left Mr. Stimson?”

“He said he was going to work on a military base because they would have the space he needed to continue his experiment,” said Harry.

He was getting annoyed that the lieutenant was being so intrusive.

“That sounds as if he planned to continue developing the project in the same manner as at school, not design a weapon,” said Levi.

After a moment Lieutenant Levi turned to the other officer and said, “Anything else?”

The man shook his head no.

“Very well, you will be returned to your rooms, the Colonel will call you when he is ready.”

With that, Levi moved to the door and called the soldiers, they entered and took the pair back to their rooms.

Harry thought that they would be called shortly to the colonel's office to resolve the matter. He didn't think that he or Lauren had said anything that would cause the military to find it necessary to keep them. When the door opened, he expected to see the soldier that had escorted him, instead it was another soldier with his dinner.

“Excuse me,” said Harry. “I thought the Colonel would be seeing us by now?”

“I don't know anything about that sir,” said the soldier, turning and leaving.

Harry moved the tray of food to the bed and sat down. A piece of hamburger, mashed potatoes, bread, and green beans, with a small bottle of steak sauce. Harry picked at the hamburger which was hard and tasted old. The mashed potatoes were the only thing he could stomach; he ate what he could and put the tray back on the counter. Within a few minutes the same soldier showed up and took the tray.

It was getting dark in the room. The bars over the frosted window made Harry uncomfortable, he laid down, watching as the light dimmed more and more. The dimming of the light was like the way he felt, like hope running out. He was soon asleep.

He woke early; it was still black beyond the frosted window and bars. Harry felt his way to the wall switch and turned on the overhead light which was too glaring for that time of morning. He turned on the lamp by the desk and switched off the overhead. At least the lamp light was the color of warmth.

Harry had fallen asleep again when a rapid knock at the door woke him, it opened. A soldier that Harry didn't recognize, entered.

“Mr. Stimson, I'm Sergeant Denver, I'll see to your disposition.”

“What do you mean?” asked Harry.

“We are moving you and your friend to more comfortable quarters,” said Sergeant Denver.

“Why?” asked Harry.

“Sorry sir, I do not have that information. If you will just gather your things.”