There Must Be a Mistake Ch. 08

To the delight of everyone at the table, Gordon asked if anyone wanted him to recite the pertinent portions of the act so they knew exactly how much trouble they would be in. I was not the one that laughed the loudest; Shelby was. He had the booklet in his pocket to read from, while a four-year-old boy had it memorized.

Shelby asked me, "What the hell is going on in your household?"

I said, "My daughter was raised by my sister in Maine. My son was raised by his mother here in Colorado and in Alaska. I could not talk to females until a month ago. If you can find a pattern within those circumstances you are a much better person than I am."

Some of the scientists at the table said finding a pattern out of those three circumstances would be like finding the 'Higgs Boson', or as it is known, "THE GOD PARTICLE."

Gordon joked, "Are we going to MASS now?"

For the scientists assembled it was a funny, old joke, but Shelby was out in the cold, as was Jennifer.

She said, "Honey were not going to church now."

Gordon put his hand over his mouth to laugh, as the remaining scientists and I applauded and laughed openly.

Shelby said, "I hate being shown up by a four-year-old. What did I miss, and don't let that little imp tell me."

"Dr. Shah would you like to do the honors?"

She stood up and began to explain THE GOD PARTICLE/THE HIGGS BOSUN.

For five minutes she explained about electromagnetic fields, electrons, protons, photons, muions, and 'thick syrup' which was the only way to find the HIGGS.

When she sat down, to everyone's applause for making a marvelously understandable dissertation about a very complex issue, I looked at Shelby and laughed. If you remember the old saying, "The light is on, but no one is at home," that was Shelby. He had no idea what Dr. Shah had spoken about. It could have been a recipe for chocolate cake, and he would not have known to crack the eggs first before putting them into the flour mixture.

I yelled, "Shelby are you in there?"

His response was one for the ages. "You people really understood what she said?"

"Shelby, Dr. Shah gave you the kindergarten version of the God Particle. You should hear her when she's talking to her graduate students about it. You won't walk out of her classroom with a headache; you won't walk out of her classroom at all. They will have to carry you out, that's how complex it is. There is nothing possible in this universe without the Higgs. NOTHING."

"I'm going to tell my father on you."

"Who are you going to tell in a few months?"

"My mother."

"Ladies, gentlemen, I know it's only 6:30 PM, but I would like to help my wife clear the table and get the kitchen in order. So if you will retire the living room for a little while, we will go into the basement a little early, sign your NDA's and start the briefing."

36. WELL WORTH WAITING FOR

As we entered the basement I said to my guests, "Welcome to my humble abode." Most of them laughed, because their facilities were much smaller and less beneficently appointed than mine. Dr. Oyster walked over to Sequoia, knelt down before it, and to the chuckles of many he said, "Please come home with me."

Everything else in my huge space was top of the line, and each piece had served me well. Half of the 20,000 ft.² space was still awaiting future tools of my trade, and with what was to come, I was sure it would fill up quickly.

I asked my scientist friends to join me at my desk. I told them to look up at the ceiling around the area we were standing and explained that everything was being recorded for this evening's presentation. There was no notary available, but it would be incontrovertible evidence in a court of law. Each person would take home a copy of the NDA signed by the scientist, Shelby Meil, and myself.

None of my colleagues bothered to read the NDA's, because they had no intention of breaking the rules. This process took less than 10 minutes to complete.

Shelby asked, "A moment of your time before we start Even."

He took me away from our group and said, "There are no cameras or microphones up there Even."

"I know."

"Very sneaky Even."

"Take your position at station one Gordon, station two Delicious. At station three is Dr. Grayson Thyme, my daughter's fiancé."

"Dad."

"Well, is he or isn't he?"

"Dad you are a pain in my..."

I shook my head. "There is something wrong with me today. I was sure I get another $10 out of her."

Gray moved from his seat, took two steps to station two, and kissed the lovely young woman sitting there.

"Well done sweetheart; if you keep it up he will think he's losing his touch."

Delicious glowed because of his words and his kiss.

I said to my colleagues, "I know you all want to get to my daughter's presentation, but my son has a gift for Dr. Oyster, and we would like to present it to him now. Go ahead Gordon."

"Dr. Oyster, my dad, and I decided that handing you the discs showing you where all the problems with the Milli-Newton thrusters resided was not the best idea. With your computers telling you that your figures are correct, when they are not, and people are going to die before they pass the moon on their way to Mars, we couldn't stand by and allow that to happen. We spent six hours of our time with Sequoia and rewrote the program for you. The thrusters will work perfectly if you use our numbers, and make the appropriate adjustments in the firing sequences on the thrusters themselves. It will also allow your life-support systems to last longer by 73%."

"That's not possible. You couldn't have rewritten our entire program in six hours. It took us eight years to come up with that program. There's no way you can make our life-support systems last 73% longer. It's just not possible. It's can't happen."

I said to my colleague, "We didn't rewrite your entire program we went through it and made it better. What you started with eight years ago you never updated, because you thought it was perfect. We did, and when we saw places to save energy we saved it. When we found a problem we fixed it. You had two life-support systems running simultaneously throughout most of the flight profile. Your program never picked it up. I did, as did Sequoia, and Gordon. Your thrusters are now programmed correctly, Dr. Oyster, and they are ready to go. Do you want to run them through a simulation?"

"Who is going to run it?"

"You are, of course. Gordon your with me."

I lowered the overhead viewing screen. As soon as Dr. Oyster started the program the thruster came into view in living color. He rotated it 360° moved it inboard and closed the hatch to secure it inside Orion's hull. He tried to fire it, while it was secured inside the spacecraft. It would not. After he put the thruster through a series of programed moves designed to cause it to fault, he brought the thruster outside the capsule and prepared to fire it. It fired right on cue. He was able to maneuver the spacecraft using only one thruster to keep it on course. There are eight of these onboard. He looked like a kid in a candy store with an unlimited supply of money, and a clean bill of health from his dentist. After 40 minutes of trying to destroy this thruster, he maneuvered it back into Orion's hull and shut down the program.

He didn't look at me so much as he looked at Gordon. He picked him up and kissed him over and over again.

"Big guy do you know how many people you have made happy tonight? Do you know how many people's lives you saved? Do you know how many jobs you saved? To me personally the six lives you saved are the most important. Those men and women we are going to send to Mars are friends of mine. I thank you for saving them. I will make sure they know it was you that save them not me. Thank you Gordon thank you very much."

"It wasn't that hard Dr. Oyster. I had a better computer then you did."

I whispered to my son, "Don't forget to tell Dr. Oyster about the numbers and the flowers."

"Thanks dad. When I looked at your program and I saw the errors it was easy to fix because the numbers in my head Jumping around, and if they wanted me to skip a step or two to solve the problem they would just put flowers in front of me so I would have to jump over them. That's what made your numbers wrong, and our numbers right."

Oyster looked at me and asked, "Do you believe him?"

"I have to, every answer he came up with was correct. Ask Grayson, I laughed at his answer."

"What was your answer Dr. Thyme?"

"I believe it was 'I want my mommy."

Everyone laughed.

"Gordon, I don't care if you danced over a field of flowers to save my friends. I will always remember that you did me and then a great service. Thank you."

"You're welcome. If you need any more help my dad and I are always here, for a while anyway."

"Thank you Gordon."

Delicious yelled, "Hey Gordon, what about me?"

Gordon dropped his head, kicked his shoe against the floor, and said, "Oh heck." He ran over to Delicious and kissed her. Everyone in the room erupted in laughter. She spanked him on his rump and sent him running back to me.

"Now for the presentation you have been waiting for. How do we get people into space without using hydrogen and oxygen to blast them from here to there. For that, I give you my daughter, Delicious Luck.

After a polite applause my daughter started out by insulting me.

"First, I'm sorry my father didn't spend enough money to get eight lounge chairs. Instead he only purchased the four you see here, so four of you will be sitting on uncomfortable stools. That's my dad, he always does things in half measures, except when it comes to science.

He will build you a marvelous looking vehicle to get you into space but no propulsion system to get you up there. That's why I popped up into the picture. I was the family's missing link. I am the rocketeer, and I have known it all my life. My mother did not understand what I was doing with the books she ordered from the library from me. She was brave enough to get them for me, even as my stepfather threatened to kill her and my grandparents. I studied by myself and told my mother what I learned. She was my sounding board, and when it sounded right coming back from her, I knew I had it correct.

I want to give credit where credit is due, because I did not find this formula out by myself. Another group of scientists in our country had it, and dismissed it. They believed that gravity was not reversible. I can hear the grumbling going on in your heads at this moment. "Oh no, she's one of those. We may as well leave now. We have wasted our time. Dr. Oyster did we waste your time?"

"No Delicious, you did not."

"I need you to do me a favor. Pick any one of your four colleagues who are seated in the lounge chairs. Then kneel down and pick up the cloth that is covering the distance between the bottom of the chair and the floor. Tell me what is holding the chair up please? Is it metal, wood, ceramics, leather, tell me what you see."

Dr. Oyster went to the chair occupied by the physicist Dr. Maes. He lifted up the skirt, looked under the chair, picked his head up, and nearly hit it against the floor as he realized what he was looking at.

"How are you keeping it stable?"

Dr. Maes jumped out of his chair and looked under it.

"This is not possible. It goes against all scientific principles I know."

Delicious walked between the two men. "If you guys aren't going to use this, I will. She pulled the arms of the chair and carried it to where she was standing. She returned the chair to its normal upright position, jumped and landed in the center of the seat. The seat stabilized instantly, and the scientists were in awe of what she had accomplished."

Shelby said to me, "Even this is 100 years ahead of everything we are even dreaming about. You can't keep this secret. The President and the Congress will order you to provide this information to the military. We will become invulnerable again."

"I will not speak for anyone else in this room, but I did not see a thing. If anyone attempts to steal the secrets my daughter has in her head they will have to deal with me, and more Freolyte than they ever dreamed of. If you want to talk about a terrorism, have someone touch a member of my family without their permission. A building won't fall, a city will. I will give the government 72 hours to evacuate that city or return my child to me unharmed. If that does not happen, remember what God did to Lots' wife. The city will look as she did within seconds."

"Even don't even joke around like that. You could get yourself in serious trouble."

Dr. Maes said, "I have known Dr. Luck for a very long time. If I were you I would keep what you have seen very close to your chest, because my friend is not joking with you. He also has allies in this room that would assist him in his cause."

"Shelby do you want to sit out the rest of this lecture, for your own safety, or do you want to continue to be shocked by the future of science?"

"How much worse can it be then floating armchairs?"

Delicious said, "If you think you have a headache now, the fun is just about to begin. Gordon come here and sit on my lap."

He did and no one realized what had occurred.

"Dad I know you're married but would you sit on Dr. Orkneys' lap please."

I looked at my wife and said, "Remember dear this is for scientific purposes only."

"Even, remember that scientific probe between your legs belongs to me, or it goes into a specimen jar."

My friends got a good laugh at my expense.

I sat on Dr. Orkneys lap and nothing happened. Everyone looked at Delicious wondering what she was attempting to explain to them.

Finally she muttered, "Dunces, you're all a bunch of dunces."

Come with me Gordon. Delicious walked over to me and jumped into my lap. She then pulled Gordon up into hers. My scientist friends were still trying to figure out what she was trying to prove. Gray took pity on them.

"Dr. Oyster do you want to raise the skirt on this chair or do you want another one of our colleagues to do it?"

He had not heard an outburst like this from a member of the scientific community ever, and it relaxed him to know that they were all human on the inside.

"It is not fucking possible. I would have to be smoking dope to believe what you're trying to tell me. A 17-year-old cunt has found a way to neutralize gravity on a continuing basis. Why don't we just bring Stockholm here. You're full of shit Even. Where are the goddamn mirrors. Someone wake me the fuck up, because I'm not seeing what I'm seeing."

I pushed my son and daughter off my body and went to my friend in an attempt to calm him down.

"Tim let me take you upstairs, get you some water. Let me lie you down for a little while. You're taking this too hard. What would have happened if you discovered the principle of reversing gravity?"

"I don't believe I would have told anyone. They all would have thought I was crazy. Now a 17-year-old girl does it, and I go crazy. I need a drink, and I don't mean water."

"The only thing I have in the house stronger than water is the wine we had with dinner."

"Can I have a bottle?"

"No Tim, there is much more fun to come."

"How can you live with so much excitement going on around you all the time?"

"It is quite an adjustment from the boring life I lead before my sister passed away. I think I'm beginning to like it. I'm beginning to like it very much."

"Even, you are poor liar. You love this. Your have a beautiful wife, and your children have given you renewed energy. You look like you just got out of MIT again, and are getting ready to change the world."

"What do you think we are doing down there Tim. If you don't stay for the final act, you'll never know what we plan to do. If you want a change in your life, you're welcome to join us."

"Will they put us in adjoining rooms in the loony bin?"

"As my daughter told me yesterday, Edison was the idiot; Tesla was the dreamer."

"You never did play fair, so why would you change now. Let's go downstairs and give me electro shock treatment."

Delicious was in the middle of explaining how she could neutralize gravity by using two methods: "Super-cooled Helium or Hydrogen kept at 4.2 degrees Kelvin along with negative magnetism, achieved through ultra-high powered electrical current passing through 2% non-enriched uranium, keeps Earth's gravity at Negative .02"

"Our expected gross liftoff weight is expected to be in excess of six million pounds. We are going to try to keep it under that if possible, but we are not going to skimp on anything. When you are moving at .999 the speed of light, you don't want to have a flat tire.

This is where our dear friend Dr. Einstein and his theorem E=Mc2 comes into play. It doesn't matter how quickly we get off the ground as long as we keep moving in the direction against the Earth's rotation. We will have eight ion drives producing 996 MW of power to our uranium core and super-cooled helium to drive our negative magnetic grid. At lift off we will be moving at less than 100 mph. By the time we pass 150,000 feet we will be moving at 16,000 mph and increasing rapidly.

As we pass through the exosphere we will be moving at 22,500 mph. Then we will be deploying our second phase magnetic drives. There will be three of them. They will be smaller than the first, and their job is the opposite for the time being. We will point them first and the moon, and then towards Mars to increase our speed exponentially.

Our second phase magnetic drives will be like front-wheel-drive cars, letting the gravitational pull of our moon, then Mars build up our speed. We will correct course and let Jupiter build up our speed even further. We will pass abeam Mars on the 34^th day, Jupiter 87 days later. We may be able to get a very close look at Ganymede as we go by at three-quarter light speed.

We will have to be satisfied with our current speed because all the dense gravitational planets are behind us, and we don't want to deploy be ion wave device, until we are out of our solar system. I can't test it here, and it's only a theory running around my head. It will be a decision made by us when we leave our solar system.

Maybe one day, if we are awake and not in hibernation, we will see Voyager traveling around in unknown space. The little spacecraft that is carrying an eight-track stereo and run by computers that have less power than an iPhone, is older than my father, Gordon, and me. If we are that lucky, Gordon will pick us a place to land quite like earth a few hundred years from now. Isn't that right Gordon?"

"I am not going to be throwing darts at a map. I am going to be looking at star charts to pick us a new home."

"I swear if he wasn't four years old I would dump Gray and marry him. He is just too cute."

"Ouch, I didn't say you weren't cute Gray. He is just too cute."

"Are you finished Miss?"

She stood on her tiptoes, kissed her fiancé, and said, "Yes dear, I'm finished."

I looked at my friends and colleagues and asked if there were any questions

Dr. Anup said, "Even are you kidding? Questions, we each have tons of them. We are trying to sort out what to ask and not step over each other's questions. Could we have a few weeks, or months to think about this. Everything we have seen and heard today, has been beyond anything we have dreamed about in our laboratories by light years. I can't speak for my fellows, but I am stunned. I want to go to bed, stick my head under a pillow, and think."

I did not take her request lightly. She was one of the brightest minds in this room. "Ann you know the restrictions you are under. You can't talk to anyone over the phone. You can't email anyone or use any electronic device. If you want to reassemble at another facility, I am amenable to that. My daughter stays here. If the word gets out about her plans for the future of space travel, countries will try to kidnap her. She will never go anyplace again unguarded. I feel sorry for her, she has had a terrible life so far, and I hoped to give her better. It turns out in order to do it I don't have to get her out of town I have to get her out of this world."