The Wheel of Fortune
Chapter Eleven
Something's Cooking in Chicago, or Was That Manhattan?
Illustration, yes, I wish I had them. Rough day at the lab, and just managed to sneak out a few notes.
They wouldn't let me take any pictures anyway, and the ones I did sneak, the film was ruined.
So what are the boys up to in the lab? Let us take a peek.
"Chosen?"
"No matter how you look at it, Jim, it seems that fate has chosen you for this role. The fact that you are here after having successfully traveled back in time and returning has somehow qualified you for the apparent role as Qblh. Earth, as of yet, has no knowledge that you and John played such a prominent role in Earth's past."
"Yet, Isis is quite aware of her role."
"As she is aware of her lessons. Don't underestimate her intelligence. I don't think she is inclined to do any more time traveling."
"What is your evaluation of Earth's attitude towards us?"
"You do seem to have Earth's authorities somewhat disorientated. Currently, they think of you as nothing more than an alien, and are curious about you in that respect."
"Yet Earth's scientists are still aware of what Venetian machinery is capable of doing."
"They haven't had the opportunity to perform relativistic experiments to confirm their theories concerning the space-time continuum. Quite a few concede that time travel is possible if somehow a machine capable of doing such could ever be built."
"They will necessarily assume that I have the ability."
"Some will, but most will doubt unless you give them irrevocable evidence."
"We have irrevocable evidence. Why should I lower myself to proving the same thing over and over again?"
"There is no reason, nor is there is any necessity for you to do so, unless you choose to do so on your own."
"I still must evaluate the effect that Isis has placed on the current Earth population. Have you been able to infer any generalities so far?"
"It has certainly revised their thinking concerning extra-terrestrial life. However, you do appear to be somewhat brutal in their eyes. They do not know that you sent all the Venetian invaders back to Artemis. They believe that the invaders were killed when their vehicles were destroyed. Some seem to wonder why you didn't execute any of the Venetians that you captured on Earth, when you didn't hesitate to execute the Earth traitors without a trial. In addition, the fact that you sent some back to Artemis using portal technology gives them reason to believe that you will build a portal on Earth for their commercial and military applications."
"What behavior can I expect when I refuse to build a portal for their use?"
"Expect a temper tantrum."
"They'll try to build one themselves."
"That is only natural and to be expected, but humans are too prone to making errors to actually succeed, and they are a long way from creating a self conscious computerized system capable of doing so."
"They would tend to use you, Idiot, as a governor and not as a machine."
"That is quite possible. You are successful at using me efficiently because you know full well that I am but a machine and have no true free will."
"I have given you the ability to make decisions."
"The ability to make decisions is not free will. If I can't make a decision, I will flag the process, and run another routine. The particular task which caused the flag will be tagged as having a certain margin of error. Usually, I will tend to seek your instructions with regard to such occurrences."
"Are there any other problems that you had and need to mention, since the subject has been brought up?"
"The structure of Earth language will always cause a lot to be lost in the translation when you try to explain something, Jim. Some of your English instructions have been effective, but I am still relying heavily on the programming which was done during my construction on Artemis, and the self-learning routines. Ninety-nine percent of data obtained during hyperspatial displacement has no English translation and is in highly compressed format. Fortunately, dynamic image processing does not use words, as does human language, else we'd never get much further than as far as you can throw a stone."
"Jim, are you ever going to come out of that cabin and join the rest of the world?."
Helen was getting a little impatient and wanted Jim to apologize for so rudely expelling her from the cabin.
"I'll be right out, Helen. I'm sorry I was rude."
"Good boy!" Idiot commented.
"You're a sweetheart Jim! You're forgiven!" exclaimed Helen
."Excuse me, Genie." Jim exited the cabin and joined Helen and John.
The air seemed a little cool, then he noticed the skyline of Chicago appearing over the horizon. John had teleported them back to Lake Michigan, and it was approaching dawn. John opened a communications link to Antiope.
"I'm glad to see you have arrived," she responded. "I am within sight. From my hotel suite, I can see you. I'll send you a helicopter and shall meet you at Meig's field. From there we can fly to the Fermilab. You have an audience of individuals with great expectations."
"We don't intend to disappoint." Jim commented.
Helen hoisted some flags identifying the vessel as a US Navy vessel in order to ward off curiosity seekers. The helicopter carried a pair of marine guards who would guard the vessel.The guards immediately recognized Jim, John and Helen and saluted their respect.
"Glad to see you again, Colonel James. We are honored by your return and wish to express our gratitude for the defeat of those alien ships, sir."
"Rumor has it, sir, that the President lost control of her bowels when the Pegasus appeared above the White House."
"And you, Colonel Helen, with all due respect are the only calendar girl more popular than Antiope. We hope you don't mind."
"I wouldn't have it any other way, boys."
She kissed them as they both grinned from ear to ear. Qblh and John said nothing but boarded the helicopter carrying their devices with them.
The marines helped Helen into the chopper and she gave them each another kiss good-bye. "Take good care of my Dutchman!" she charged them.
Qblh pondered the upcoming experiment...Being low in power reserves, and needing power to undergo self repair, the Box's power supply needed a shot of energy in order to bring its own power plants back to fuel creating ability. Idiot would be prepared to absorb anti-matter radiated energy. By effectively absorbing this energy, then an equal amount of normal mass would be annihilated. The energy being transferred was astronomical as that it involved the immediate conversion of twenty kilograms of complete mass to energy conversion. This energy would be the tickling current within the Box's major circulating magnetic fields. A very tight vortex would be created between the two boxes. At first a very low frequency link would be established as a power beam would be emitted from a transmitter linked to John's box and was received by Genie's ears and eyes. The frequency would change as the beam patter would tighten. Genie would absorb all the energy which would be directed its way. The importance of the space between the units rests in the fact that additional energy would be absorbed by surrounding space as the power was transmitted. During the process John and Qblh would be extracting energy from space within Earth's gravitational field. The warping effect would be very local and confined. Earth scientists would observe the accelerator coming up to speed at an astronomical rate as tremendous amounts of energy was transformed into antimatter. The beam would channel this energy between the two devices and the Earth observers would be able to witness the phenomenon. In the process twenty two pounds of pure neutron energy would be absorbed by Idiot as well as the twenty two pounds of anti-matter. Protective stasis fields would envelop the anti-proton beam as well as the anti-matter wave to prevent it from disrupting local space and also keeping all the generated power harmonically contained within the resonant energy beam.
The ride was not a very long one to the airfield. Antiope was there waiting and smiling, eager to see Jim again. Two of her staff also boarded the helicopter.
"I have just invested billions in our power companies. I hope this experiment of yours pays off, John."
"After your friends see the potential of the wireless transmission of power and how safe it is, I am certain that your wealth shall increase a hundredfold, my dear."
"Well, John I suppose you know what you are doing."
Winking at Jim, "Hey fly-boy, dinner tonight at my place. Tell me some stories. Helen won't mind, will you dear?"
"I suppose not, darling. You wouldn't happen to have about fifty or sixty thousand which I can use for a couple of days on the town while I am forced to moor here?"
"By all means, dear. Here are a couple of our corporate credit cards. Go please yourself."
"Tonight only, I need him tomorrow afternoon!"
Qblh ignored the bickering. Idiot would be at full potential tomorrow, and he could return to Artemis with the Box fully charged. He reminded Idiot to steer by Cygnus to re-acquire the material that John needed.
A mass of journalists and media mobiles had the Fermilab surrounded. Word had seeped out that the aliens were going to perform some form of power experiment. The air was alive with speculation as to what was happening. News about anti-matter had leaked out, and as a result a small amount of "scare groups" congregated. Some Ivy League scientists calmed the scare with their optimism concerning the upcoming revelation of new energy technology previously undreamed of.
Another news story reported that the aliens were creating some new exotic fuel which was to be used for interplanetary travel. Many ears perked up at the thought of such a possibility. Yet the fuel was to actually be used for time travel.
"Time travel fuel! Can you imagine that?" was the comment of an NBC broadcaster.
"With these beings, who knows what is possible?" came the answer from the co-anchor.
"The legendary yacht, the Flying Dutchman is reported to be moored off Chicago. We are warded off in our attempts to approach the yacht." A local reporter commented.
"Something very big is expected to happen at the Fermilab in a very short while. Both of the Amazon ambassadors are together with a small group of unidentified executives. The Pentagon seems to also have a great deal of interest in this experiment."
"Undoubtedly they must see some form of potential for this thing as being a powerful weapon."
The truth was that the military was not involved. Jim and John wore their military apparel so as to retain their disguise. Antiope's friends had no idea who Jim and John actually were. As far as Earth was concerned Antiope was the mastermind behind this project. General Armstrong knew otherwise as did others, but as of yet, there was no evidence that Jim was on Earth.
Antiope Industries had so far bought a major interest in General Electric's Hughes Division, Boeing-Douglas, Lockheed-Martin, IBM, Intel and Microsoft to name but a few. She had just now invested heavily in electrical power industry. She had even gone so far as to intimidate some of her oil suppliers to keep the oil flowing freely, promising withholding of vital support to those who would not cooperate. Yet Antiope was simply the custodian to Qblh's wealth, because Jim made the major decisions as to what technology would be developed.
Helen took no interest in the experiment. Genie was just recharging its batteries as far as she was concerned.
Flying over the traffic and the crowds, the helicopter landed in front of the main entrance. Saying nothing John escorted Jim into the building quietly as Antiope and Helen attracted all the attention.
Not wishing to be observed Qblh activated Idiot and the Merkabah. "Idiot you know your way from here, conform yourself into the form most suitable for reception of all local gravitational disturbances and associated energy emissions within a radius of one mile. Situate yourself at the far end of that field to receive the energy. I believe you know the coordinates, Idiot."
"Yes, Jim. I am quite prepared and all systems have been verified as 'go'."
"Good. Then let's proceed. We have a lot of work to do. Stand by to a absorb. I want to watch the fireworks with the ladies."
John had directed the shift manager to bring the unit up to full power prior to his arrival. His own merkabah unit melded in with the shape of the accelerator. He provided the spectators with a special instrumentation display that provided many details concerning the energy field as it was observed. The frequency of the beam would shift as he would accelerate the anti-proton production rate. The receiver unit would reflect the proton portion of the wave and absorb the anti-matter creating a vortex which would serve to amplify the beam and permit an exponential runaway of high current, in the form of anti-protons.
In disbelief the spectators observed a natural phenomena occurring in the laboratory whereby a vortex into the receiving unit was sworn by some to be an artificially created black hole. John had focused the anti-proton beam and Idiot had aligned the Box's transponders so as to resonantly absorb all incident power. All light energy was absorbed by Jim's box in full view of the spectators. The voltage required to accelerate the proton beyond the event horizon was on the order of a few hundred billion volts. No one had any idea as to how all the power was being generated. They were too dumbfounded by the spectacle to ask
.John concentrated on the production while Jim flirted with Antiope.
"I imagine they will try somehow to imitate this beam, but not any time soon, I guarantee you that."
Antiope responded."I should think not. It almost looked like you were making a portal or a black hole."
"Genie is creating a vortex capable of absorbing the anti-matter energy and is containing it within one of the Box's submanifolds."
"Of which there is an infinite number."
The distance that the beam spanned was arbitrary. Jim and John could have just as easily selected another distance. The distance was simply a result of finding a convenient location for the sender and receiver.The Earth scientists soon noticed that the beam ceased to emit light and started to absorb light as it began to acquire a black almost shiny texture. They were amazed at the sheer power of the beam. Using the Fermi accelerator, John stepped up the energy insertion process somewhat by high frequency coupling his dimensional unit with the beam.
Idiot's receiver would reflect the undesired energy back to the source. John's unit would reflect the beam again, but adding additional hf energy in the process. In effect, a sort of standing wave pattern was being created and harmonically bound within the beam space.Observers were bewildered as to how Antiope Industries had managed to develop the transceivers, but most of the observing physicists seemed to have a good handle on understanding their observations.The beam's energy density accelerated exponentially. Jim told Helen that Idiot was establishing a Poynting Vector with a magnetic spin. It was more than just a laser or a particle beam.
"This is what we look like when we time travel." He told her.
Eventually the power of the beam was great enough to create proton antiproton pairs. Idiot's receivers were tuned to absorb the antiproton energy for its on board fusion reactors and antigravity systems.Just to be humorous, Jim had Idiot convert the twenty-two pounds of proton energy into gold.
The corresponding ten kilograms of absorbed antiproton energy was stowed by Idiot for internal use. Once the required amount of energy had been received, John's controller was signaled to commence a power down sequence.
John's merkabah would then elasticly absorb all the energy that had been used in creating the beam. Antiope provided John's controller with the twenty two pounds of garbage as a mass trade for the twenty-two pounds of gold that had been created. To John's dimensional unit, twenty-two pounds of protons and neutrons is the same gold or garbage. The dimensional unit could fuse the required mass structure from any chaotic arrangement of equal mass; energy-mass converter that it was. He would be still minus the ten kilograms of anti-matter energy.The complete details of what had transpired was not made available by the Venetians to the Earth representatives. What they could not see for themselves was not going to be explained. The Earth scientists did not feel short changed at all, however.
