There Must Be a Mistake Ch. 09

Patti backed into a corner to stay away from her husband. She was no match for his size and strength. She went to smack him, but he grabbed her hand and threw her over his shoulder as he promised. As he walked towards the door, she acquiesced.

"I'll walk, I promise I'll walk. When we get home I'm going to poison you."

"It's not like you haven't tried before."

"I have never tried to poison you."

"You could not prove that by me. Some of the food you make kills my stomach."

"That's because you always were a wimp."

"Start walking or get back up on my shoulder; the choice is yours."

"I said I would walk."

*******

They walked into the conference room. Callalily was seated with her two children, Christian, and Catherine, and Harold was standing behind them.

Robert, Anna, and Laura were seated at the far end of the table.

Harold said authoritatively, "Sit here, and listen to me. First, I just spent $10 billion of our dollars to buy 20% of Even Luck's patent. Philip Castronova purchased 20%, and Payne Schneider purchased 20%. Even was going to keep 30%, but he made a deal to keep 21% of his shares and sell 19% to Boeing. No one is allowed to own more than 20%. Even will always keep a controlling interest in his patent. If you're not happy with my decision, I will keep it for myself, and you can go to hell.

Second, what the fuck is wrong with you. You've been acting like an asshole for the past year. It's getting to the point where I don't want to be your partner anymore. If you want to break it up say so, because I'm tired of your whining. Laura is right. I've watched how you treat your kids. I'm sure Stephano has also, but he is afraid to call you on it. You are not giving them a chance to grow. Have you even asked Laura what she was asked to do with this job offer of hers? I have, and I think it's the most exciting thing I have ever heard of. I was skeptical at first, but I'm thinking of joining in on their project. It's an exciting opportunity for her, and for me. I think Robert should get involved with it also. I'm not sure if Anna would be interested, but I think she should sit in and listen to what they plan to do. Even Luck is a genius. His daughter Delicious is a chip off his block. She has found a way to neutralize gravity, and has proved it to eight great scientists. They are mulling it over now.

Delicious Luck spoke with Laura about trying to find a way to put people into stasis. That's why Laura is so excited about getting involved. Instead of encouraging her to do something as innovative as you used to do with your mother, you step on her like a roach and hold her back. Where is the Patti I used to know? Where the hell did she go? I want Christian to sit in with me tomorrow night, and as far as I'm concerned Laura, Anna, and Robert can come to live with me, and grow up into the adult you used to be."

Patti replied, "That is exactly what I'm afraid of Harold. They are approaching the age where my mother and I developed the programs that wound up killing her and nearly cost me my life more than once. I don't want them to have a young life like mine. I want them to be free of people coming after them because of what they can do, or because of what they know. I don't want the mob coming after them. I don't want the CIA coming after them. I want them happy. I don't want people shooting at them. I don't want them running for their lives. I don't want them to have to run away from their husbands, because of their family ties. It's no way to live, and it's a good way to die."

"You're killing them anyway Patti. You are killing their minds. If you don't let them grow they will stagnate. Where would Anna be without her math? Where would Laura and Robert be without access to computers? Where would you have been without access to computers? Come on Patti think about it? You've been a pain in the ass to everyone, especially your children. When has Laura ever talked back to you the way she did today in public? She may have talked to you that way at home when she was angry with you, but never in public.

I know Robert has had it out with you, because I've seen it.

God bless Anna, she must have the patience of a saint. She has taken as much crap from you as the other two. She has turned and walked away from you.

Heaven knows I have walked away from you too. What is it going to be Patti? Do you want to break up our partnership, and our friendship? Do you want us to go our separate ways? We have been friends for nearly 17 years, do you want to throw that out the window, or do you want to wise up, get your head out of your ass, and start treating people the way you used to treat them?"

"I don't think you've said that many words in succession in all the years I've known you Harold. Did you remember to breathe?"

"This is not funny Patricia. I don't find it funny at all. I am serious. I think you need help."

"Stephano has made an appointment for me with a doctor in New York tomorrow. She will know if there is anything medically wrong with me. If not, then I will get my head house of my ass, like my friend told me to do.

Children, I am sorry. I was thinking more about my childhood and my problems growing up than yours. I was protecting you from the things that haunted me.

Where will you be staying if you leave us Laura?"

"I will be staying with Dr. Luck and his family."

"If I asked you to stay at home with us, and let me work with you on this project for stasis would you think about it?"

"It would depend on two things. Your attitude towards us and your promise to get help."

"You can all sit in with me when I see Dr. Nall tomorrow. Whatever she recommends you will hear for yourselves. I will hide nothing from you. If she wants me to see a psychiatrist I will. If she wants me to do as Harold has suggested the three of you can help me pull my head out of my behind."

After a discussion between Laura, Anna, and Robert, it was decided to make a decision after their mother saw Dr. Nall.

Patricia accepted their proposal.

Callalily said, "Why don't we leave the children with the men. I still owe you one mean hangover."

"I gave up drinking for Lent."

"Lent, this is September."

"Yes, when you Lent me out to those three men in less than half a dress."

"That dress almost covered you."

"The operative word is ALMOST. It also ALMOST caused a riot in that bar."

"Aunt Cally, I think I hear a story coming on."

"Oh no you don't little girl. This one is for 18 years old and older. If I tell you that story, your mother will kill me."

"Mom?"

"Your aunt is wrong. This story is for 25-year-olds and older."

"Uncle Harold do you know the story?"

"Yes I do, but if I tell it, I will not have sex for the rest of my married life."

Stephano said preemptively, "Yes I do, and I won't. I like living too much to say anything about that night of bawdy behavior. Your Aunt Callie forced your mother to wear a dress that almost didn't cover her bare necessities. Your Aunt Callie left your mother with three strange men, while she was inebriated. They had to hold her close all night, to keep her covered, and they danced until the wee hours of the morning. I will not tell you that your aunt left the bar with another man, and had unbridled sex with him for the next five months. Remember, you did not hear any of that from me."

Harold laughed as Callie hit him with her pocketbook.

"How could you do that to me, Steph; my children are here."

"Do you think your children believed you were a virgin at 27 years old? Should I tell them how many times you tried to kill an undercover FBI agent?"

"I never tried to kill Robbins. I just try to maim him for life."

Catherine said, "Mom you must have been hot in your day."

"What do you mean in my day? I'm still hot, ask your father; if he says I'm not, he's dead."

"Children, your mother is on fire."

"See, I told you so."

"Mom, even I know, under penalty of death, a man will say anything to a woman."

"You're only 13, how would you know that young lady?"

"Mom, I'm a 32B. I take after you, and every boy notices me, and not the flat-chested girls in my class. I get asked to go under the bleaches with more boys than you can count."

"Do you go with them?"

"According to my civics class, "I refuse to answer on the grounds it may tend to incriminate me."

"Young woman you and I are going to the doctor. You are going on the pill immediately."

"You're too late mom. Dad took me there six months ago."

"You are a dead man to Harold."

"Rather safe than sorry dear. I didn't think you wanted to be a grandmother this early in life."

"Good thinking Harold, I forgive you."

Patricia said, "Stephano do I have to ask you?"

"Please don't dear; I can only get in more trouble than I am already in."

"That room in our house is going to be very busy."

Anna said, "Why mom, if dad is buying condoms for Robert, why shouldn't we be on the pill?"

"You are buying condoms for our son?"

"Thank you Anna, I would like a solid wood coffin with a cherry finish."

Harold laughed. "Didn't this meeting turn out to be fun?"

"You are sure that test was not rigged."

"Dr. Luck didn't bother to ask where the new site was. He told us when we got there it was too easy for the test. The mountains were lower than his original site, and they were not as wide. He said he wanted the test to be as hard as possible to prove his invention worked."

"You realize we are going to make a ton of money off this."

"The military is already chomping at the bit to get it to their ground forces. The faster we can get it to them the happier they will be. If we coordinate our resources with Schneider, and Castronova, we can beat Boeing to the market by months if not a year. Just remember the military loves Boeing, but they also love speed. I am hungry; does anyone want to go to dinner?"

"Stephano cancel Dr. Nall for tomorrow, and move it to the following day. We will go to the meeting tomorrow with Harold and the children to see what he has in mind."

Laura said, "Thank you mom."

***********

39. Backers

Good afternoon again, and welcome to my magic workshop. This is my wife Jennifer, and probably the brightest person in this room, my son Gordon. I am not making light of this, because this four-year-old boy has put several scientists from the California Polytechnic Institute on their asses in the last few weeks. Anna I understand you are a math whiz, I would like you to meet your equal, and possibly your better. Gordon is the finest mathematician I have ever met, and I am a graduate of MIT. You can talk with him after we finished this afternoon. You can play on Sequoia with him.

I'm going to turn the first part of this meeting over to my daughter, Delicious, so she can amaze and delight you with her part of our program. Remember this is not a magic act; this is pure unadulterated science.

Delicious said, "Antonia would you stand by me please. Mr. and Mrs. Valentino pick any one of the four cushioned chairs and sit down on them. Mr. and Mrs. Chase pick one chair and sit together. Mrs. Schneider, sit in the remaining chair please."

"Mr. Schneider, you seem to be the 'Doubting Thomas' that is why I have not asked you to sit down. Pick any of the chairs and lift the hem of the fabric. Please tell me what is holding up the chair."

As Dycke looked, he said, "There's nothing there, the chair is floating above the ground. How are you doing that Delicious?"

"Would you look at the other chairs before I answer that question?"

"They are all floating above the ground. It's not possible. You cannot defy gravity."

"How do you explain what you're looking at?"

"I don't know, I cannot explain it."

"Would you please sit on your wife's lap?"

"We normally do it the other way, but it will be my pleasure."

"Would you look under the Schneider's chair and see if it has moved towards the ground please Antonia."

Antonia looked under the chair and said, "No, the fabric barely touches the ground, and the chair is still stable and floating above it."

"Ladies and gentlemen this is how it works. It is not a Las Vegas show trick, this is science. By super cooling helium to 4.2° Kelvin, and using negative magnetic plates, which is achieved by passing ultra-high powered electrical current through 2% pure non-enriched uranium, it keeps the Earth's gravity at negative 2%. If the size of the negative plates and the volume of the electrical current are increased, you can decrease the Earth's gravitational pull even lower and push the object, or spacecraft further away from it. It's like a basketball hitting the back of the rim. The ball can rebound as far as half court without any additional force being applied. Our spacecraft is going to have three forms of propulsion. We are only going to use one to get out of our atmosphere and push us towards Mars and then Jupiter. The other two are nuclear, and an Ion/H2 drive. The Ion/H2 drive is my own invention, and my own design. It will help us reach between .9 and .999 the speed of light.

Our expected gross takeoff weight is approximately 6,000,000 pounds. If we can keep it under that fine, but we are not going to skimp on anything. There would be no sense having a flat tire in space, and not having a lug wrench to take it off, and replace it.

Now we come to our dear friend Albert Einstein and E=Mc2. It does not matter how quickly we get off the ground as long as we keep moving against the earth's rotation. At lift-off, we will have eight ion drives producing 996 MW of power to our uranium core and super-cooled helium going to our negative magnetic grid. Shortly after liftoff we will be moving as slowly as 100 mph. As soon as we stabilize the spacecraft, and check all our flight systems, we will increase our speed rapidly to 16,000 mph.

As we pass through the exosphere, we will be traveling at more than 23,000 miles per hour. We will engage our second phase magnetic drives and use them to start pulling us towards the moon, and continue to move ourselves away from planet Earth. As we pass the moon we will zero in on Mars, and use its gravitational force to continue building up speed. It's like using a four-wheel drive vehicle. You push with your rear wheels, while you pull with your front wheels.

2 minutes and 15 seconds after we pass the moon, we will be passing through point one light speed, and increasing rapidly. We will pass Mars 58 minutes later at one-quarter (.25) the speed of light and increasing. At that time, we will extend and engage our nuclear engine. It will push us forward towards eighty percent (.80) of the speed of light.

As we close in on that speed, we will deploy the Ion/H2 engine which will accelerate us to our maximum speed of .999 the speed of light, hopefully. The minimum speed we hope to obtain is ninety percent (.90) of the speed of light.

I know this is going to sound ridiculous, because we asked this same question to eight prominent men and women of science. They did not know what to say, or where to start. Are there any questions?"

Celeste asked, "When do you plan to leave?"

I said, "In 10 years."

"Where are you going to get permission to build this thing?"

"I have a lot of friends in the scientific community that owe me a lot of favors. I was hoping, if the four of you come on board, you would use your influence, combined with theirs, to get the government to allow us to build it on a restricted military site in the desert. Building the craft would not begin for five or six years. All the science comes first. Mr. Schneider, Mr. Castronova, your businesses would be instrumental in keeping secrecy to the maximum.

Mr. Chase, Mrs. Valentino we are going to need thousands of miles of carbon fiber. We are not going to put one piece of metal into this craft. Not one nut or bolt will be metal. It would defeat the purpose of the magnets.

The exterior of the craft will be made of a tinted polycarbonate material, like the windows on the space shuttle. We are taking thousands of plants with us to help us purify the air and make oxygen and water.

In the next five years you can expect a minimum of 500 patents to evolve from our work. I will not be here to benefit from them. They will all be in your names, with a few exceptions. Some I am going to give to a few friends, and others I am going to give to Universities around the country. We can discuss which ones at the time; however, my decisions will be final.

The patent for the Anti-Gravitation Engines will be going to the University of Chicago at my daughter's request. They had the answer to the anti-gravity question in their hands. However, like 99% of the people on this planet they believed it could not be done. As you have seen here today, it can and has been done.

I don't expect your answer today, because you have a lot of thinking to do, and this will cost each of you billions of dollars. As I told Celeste, every penny I have is going into this project. There is no sense keeping any of my money, because wherever I'm going, I have no idea what the exchange rate is. I would appreciate an answer within one month. My daughter has already told me that Laura Valentino is interested in joining us. I welcome her with open arms, and hope that her family will give her permission to do so. We need expertise in every area of science. Stasis is one of our most important areas of concern. It is not possible for us to carry enough food for a journey of 200 light years.

I am finished. Refreshments are waiting upstairs, and if you have any preliminary questions we can discuss them there."

40. Decisions II

Since Patti had a doctors' appointment Friday morning, it was decided they would meet there to discuss their options on my proposal to them. They would be spending billions of their dollars on my project, and it was not to be taken lightly. However, if they looked at the long-term view, as I suggested, their return on investment would be enormous. The amount of money they would make on the patents alone would cover the cost of their investments over the 10-year period. As far as I was concerned, it was a slam-dunk; but that was me, and this would be my family's baby.

As soon as Patti checked in at Sloan-Kettering, she was taken to radiology for her x-rays, CT scan, and MRI. She was not happy about any of these tests, but her children were a few steps behind her, watching her every move. She dared not complain.

When she was finished she was directed to Dr. Nall's office, which was loaded with patients. Patti had no patience at all. She checked in at the window, and she was told to come right in.

She was taken directly to Dr. Nall's private office, where she, her son, and her daughters made themselves comfortable. Dr. Nall walked in five minutes later.

She walked over to Patti and hugged her. "My worst nightmare has returned. Stephano called me, what the fuck is wrong with you now."

"Watch your language, Joyce; my children are here."

"The only reason you are here is because of your children. What's up Patti, your scans are clear."

"It's not back; you're sure?"

"Am I a certified twin-engine aircraft pilot?"

"You are, really, you did it?"

"It took me a year to get into a glider, but once I did it, I was hooked. Do you know you're not allowed to fly a glider unless you can fly an airplane?

I had to learn to fly a single engine airplane to learn how to fly a glider. I found single engine airplane's too easy and too slow to fly. I am now the proud owner of a twin engine Beechcraft King Air 350. I got such a deal you wouldn't believe it."

"What did you do save the guys life?"