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  “My beeper went off about twenty minutes ago. Here put this on.” He hands me what I recognize to be a gas mask. He has shown them to me once before saying he had acquired them just after the turn of the century when everybody was scared there might be a chemical attack by some terrorist group. After a quick detour to get the wheelbarrow, I follow him out to the shop.

  “If you start to feel faint, head outside as fast as you can for fresh air,” he instructs me. Then he puts his mask on, and I follow him into the shop.

  In the dim light, it is easy to spot the crumpled body slouched on the stairs. Unlike the other time, this fellow looks like he has simply decided to take a nap. Then I notice the bandaged hand; it’s the same guy. Gramps and I carry him out, dumping him gently into the wheelbarrow, sound asleep. I can see the reason for my grandfather’s humorous countenance during dinner. Back outside, he pulls off his mask, so I do too.

  “Just a little something to help him dream,” he says with a grin as we start off down the driveway.

  We find the same black car parked in about the same spot. “These guys have no imagination,” Gramps comments as we deposit our guest behind the steering wheel again. We turn to head home.

  I don’t ask any questions on the way, but as I fall back to sleep I wonder how my grandfather would come to have anything to knock a guy out like that. And I still don’t know where that Taser had come from.

  Power Problem

  The first week working for Jared’s dad, passes quickly. We clean a lot the first couple of days, sweeping floors and washing walls in the hangars. I’ve gotten a good idea of what Uncle Earl does when he’s around.

  Tuesday I had asked if Earl would ever be back. Jared’s dad said maybe in a couple of weeks, but that he would only work limited hours, and away from the shiff. We aren’t allowed in that hangar either, which is okay with me because that’s where Stiles spends most of his time. The less we are around that man, the better off we will be. At least that’s the way I feel about it. It’s enough to know they are in there decommissioning the space plane by removing all of its reusable parts.

  Jared is okay to work with except that he always wants to play boss when his dad isn’t around. Kylie is rarely around, but we have been eating lunch at the house and she usually joins us. Yesterday she showed me her gyroscope program. It’s pretty cool, but I had a hard time keeping the pitch and attitude gauges level. I imagined myself sitting in the cockpit of the saucer and two things came to mind; we need a way to control the lift, and where would we get a working gyroscope? I figured we could ask Willie what he might be able to do.

  One of the great advantages of working with Jared is the amount of time we have to think things through. If we are in the same area, we quietly talk about different ideas and try to anticipate problems that might occur. We are careful to make sure nobody else is around, which is usually the case since we’re working in the big empty buildings. Kylie has talked to her dad about the gyroscope demonstration, hinting that it could take the shape of a flying saucer. She said he hadn’t seemed too enthusiastic, but that he’d think about it and let her know sometime next week.

  During lunch on Thursday we talked about scavenging parts for building the saucer and decided to take a trip out to the plane graveyard on Saturday. Even though we have been out there many times in the past, playing at being pilots flying the old heaps, we had never thought about what might actually be useful. We will need to look for structural parts of course, but we will also have to look for instrumentation. That got me thinking about how the saucer will actually fly. How am I going to turn it or know how high I am? And how can I get it to face a new direction after a turn? There are always more questions than answers.

  On Friday, Jared and I decide to head over to Jimmy’s for lunch. Kylie says she can’t go, which is fine with Jared, so the two of us hop in the hybrid for the trip over to the lonely diner. We don’t say much on the way having talked most of the morning.

  We get to the diner and find a table. Jen waves to us from her server’s station and soon comes over with menus. We look them over until she comes back to take our order. She seems to be pretty busy.

  I look around the restaurant thinking about how the list of things to do has grown. It’s beyond what I can keep in my head. “So do you think we’ve taken on more than we can handle?” I ask Jared.

  He looks at me. “You just need to take one step at a time Ty. And try and let the rest of us help you out. You’re not the only one working on this thing, you know. And there’s always a logical sequence. ‘Set your priorities,’ is what my dad would say.”

  I’m a little annoyed by his simplification. “Any ideas about priorities?” I sound irritable, even to myself.

  “That’s not nice,” Jen scolds me. She has walked up to serve our sandwiches and notices the sarcasm in my voice. “He’s just trying to help.”

  She’s right. “Sorry, Jared,” I say sheepishly.

  “Your priority right now is to figure out if we can control these things,” Jen continues. “I have some ideas. Maybe I could stop by after work, or later this evening, and show them to you.”

  “That would be nice,” I answer.

  “But we’re going to need more bits to experiment with. Can you do that?”

  “Sure,” I tell her. Maybe a menial task would help me focus. “What time?”

  “I get off at 2:00.”

  “I don’t get off until 4:30,” I inform her.

  “How about 7:30 then?” she counters.

  “I’ll be waiting.”

  “Great! I’ve got to get back to work.” And off she goes.

  We sit quietly and eat. I think about how to make more gray bits out of black bits. I pick up an old glass ketchup bottle, which Jen says Jimmy keeps on the tables for ambiance, to pour a little more on my plate for dipping my fries in. “Got any ideas for converting bits?” I ask, setting the bottle back on the table.

  Jared smiles suddenly. “What’s the problem?” he asks, amused by my perplexity.

  “The problem is,” I snap under my breath, “that the gray bits float and the black bits fall. How can I get them together without having to push each one individually?”

  Jared looks straight at me. “The solution is right in front of you,” he says a second later.

  “Where,” I ask, becoming more annoyed with his attitude.

  “There!” he patiently encourages me. “The ketchup bottle.”

  I look at it. “And just how would that work?”

  He picks up the eight-sided bottle and holds it horizontally in front of me. “First,” he says, “empty the ketchup out of it.”

  “Ha, ha, ha,” I scoff.

  “Second, and make sure it’s totally dry on the inside, put the black bits in. When you tilt the bottle so the neck is pointing slightly down, the black bits will slide down to the neck, but they’ll stop there. At this point, you can add your gray bits and they will float to the top of the bottle.”

  “And then what? Shake them up?” I ask, a little surprised by his creativity.

  “That might work but it would be easier to just roll the bottle.” He lays the bottle on its side and uses his palm to roll it towards me, the flat sides clacking like a flat tire. “The centrifugal force will keep the bits against their respective surfaces until the bottle has made half a rotation. Then the gray bits will want to float and the black bits will want to fall. Some will have to collide, resulting in conversion. Repeat until the majority of bits are changed.”

  I look at him, then roll the ketchup bottle under my palm. It just might work. “I’ll give it a try when I get home. Thanks man.” I’m relieved to have some direction.

  “Hey. That’s what I’m here for.” He grins.

  We finish our lunch. Jen brings our bill and we say goodbye.

  Back at Elf City, we finish our cleaning for the day. Jared’s dad comes in to check on our progress about 4:00. He looks around at where we have swept and mopped.

 
“Looks good, boys. We’ll start painting the floors next week,” he informs us. “Then we’ll be able to start building some of the displays.”

  “What’s going to be on display?” Jared asks for both of us.

  “Well, it’s starting to look like we’ll be able to have some of the artifacts from the early days of space flight. The original museums are clearing some things out to make room for newer items, and instead of just archiving the stuff, they’ve asked if we’d like to have some of it.”

  “That’s cool,” Jared says. “How’d you swing that?”

  “Stiles set it up somehow,” comes the answer. “I was hoping by having him involved that he’d have access to some of those people. He’s got a lot of inside contacts, and he seems willing to use them to help us out.”

  “That’s great!” I comment, though my enthusiasm is forced. I don’t like Stiles or his politics. It leaves too many possibilities for outside meddling in the business of the launch facility. I guess my grandfather’s attitude about government has rubbed off on me a little.

  “I’ve been wanting to ask you guys something,” Jared’s dad continues as he looks around the building. “What do you think of Kylie’s idea for the gyro-scope/flying saucer exhibit? She seems to think she could incorporate her program into it somehow and make it a real attraction.”

  “I think she’s nuts,” Jared states, without a seconds hesitation. He looks at me and winks.

  “It would take a lot of work,” I offer.

  “She seems to think you two would be willing and able to build it for her and, the truth is, I don’t know how much I can keep you busy until the actual artifacts we are to exhibit are declared. I figure you’ll probably have some time on your hands if you want to give it a try. Off the clock, of course.”

  “She mentioned it to me a week ago or so,” Jared says. “We think we could scavenge enough parts off the wrecks in the graveyard to make it work.”

  “You’re probably right about that. And I’ve been wondering what to do with all that junk anyway,” Jared’s dad says blankly. “Do you remember what I taught you about welding aluminum last summer?”

  “Sure do, Dad,” Jared responds. “And what I don’t know, maybe Cousin Willie would be willing to help me with.”

  “Well, we’ll have to see about that.” Jared’s dad shakes his head as he looks down and kicks at a spot on the concrete floor. “Willie’s never been interested in the space program. He’s into cars and other earthbound mechanical stuff.”

  “Yeah, but he does like to put things together,” I suggest. “We might be able to get him interested in just the construction part of it.”

  “Well, maybe. See what you can do. I think I’ll tell Kylie that she can give it a shot,” Mr. Charles concludes. “But your work for me comes first,” he adds quickly. “And don’t let Kylie start telling you two what to do. She likes doing that around the house but I’m still the boss out here.”

  “Sure Dad,” Jared agrees. “Don’t worry about that.”

  “Okay then. You boys look like you’re done here. Go clock out for the day and have some fun. I’ve got paperwork to catch up on. See you Monday Tyler. Thanks for your help.”

  “You bet,” I answer as he turns and walks towards the doors.

  As soon as his dad has left the building, Jared turns to me. “All systems go. You see? Just take one step at a time and it’ll work out okay.”

  “I guess you’re right,” I agree as we start for the door.

  Jen shows up at precisely 7:30. “Hey there!” I shout from the loft window. She waves as she opens the scooter’s trunk and takes out a small box. I’m immediately curious to see what she has brought along.

  “Hey Ty,” she says as she reaches the top of the stairs. “How’s it going?” She seems a little breathless from carrying the box of parts up the stairs and glad to hand them over when I offer help. I’m surprised at how heavy it is.

  “What’s in here?” I ask, indicating the twelve by twelve, wood-slatted case I’m setting on the table.

  “I did some windings thinking we could try some different transformer configurations to see what might work. Here, look at these diagrams.” She removes the lid and pulls a couple of sheets of paper from the box, flattening them out on the table. “This is what I came up with. It could all change if these ideas don’t work but at least it’s a place to start.”

  I look at the squiggles and lines on the paper. “You’re going to have to explain this to me,” I say after a minute of trying to understand the drawings.

  She takes a deep breath to organize her thoughts. “Okay.” Pointing at two clusters of concave lines, each looking somewhat like two cereal bowls joined at the base and set on their sides, she begins. “This is an electro-magnetic field. What we want to do is create a zone where the gray bits can be held but still attract additional gravitational particles. The first thing I want to try is holding the bits in place by attracting the end of them that’s pointing down. I’m assuming the bits have some electro-magnetic force themselves. Since gravitons have no mass, I’m hoping the gray bits will still do what they’re doing inside the EM field. Then, if that works, the second thing will be to see if more gravitons can be attracted.” Pointing to the bottom set of lines, “See? This one will keep the nanotubes in place and,” now pointing to the upper set, “these, hopefully will attract more gravity. The result is more gravitons out the bottom, causing a void of sorts on top, allowing the structure to rise to fill the void. Put enough of them together and you could probably lift just about anything with very little energy.”

  She’s been talking too fast for me to follow. “Ohhh-kay,” I say, trying not to sound too bewildered. “What’s to keep the nanotubes in place again?”

  “Well, that will be the other interesting thing. See, the top magnetic field will also have its positive side toward the nanotubes. Since like charges repel, I’m hoping that the tubes will be additionally held in place that way, too.”

  I peer down into the box. There is a transformer, and numerous coils of wires on frames similar to the shapes in her drawings. “So where’s the outer tube?”

  “I didn’t think we would need that until we proved my hypothesis,” she explains. “How many gray bits do we have to work with?”

  “Hopefully a lot. And if Jared’s idea works, we’ll have them pretty quickly now.”

  “What was Jared’s idea?” She sounds surprised that Jared could come up with any ideas.

  I quickly explain the rolling bottle idea. She looks at my pile of bits. “Better not do all of them at once,” she suggests. “Remember how they popped when they touched?”

  “Yeah. Good idea. We’ll start out slow.”

  “So where do you plan on keeping the converts as they are created?”

  I point to a second, larger jar. “In there. But I’m not sure how many it will hold before it won’t be heavy enough to keep from floating away.”

  “Let’s find out!”

  Using an empty envelope, I scoop some of the black bits into the bottle from the tray I had used when I harvested them from the hy-gen plate. “Hand me that other envelope please, Jen.” Taking the envelope which contains last weekend’s new bits, I invert the bottle and let them float out of the envelope to travel up its long neck. Jen picks up the magnifying glass so we can watch their progress.

  I cap the bottle and set it horizontally on the desk. I begin by rolling it slowly away from me. “You’re going to have to go a little faster than that,” Jen comments, impatience creeping into her voice.

  “Just taking it slow at first.” I reverse the direction of the bottle, rolling it back towards me. Still too slow.

  “Let me try!” she chirps eagerly.

  “Give me a minute!” I roll the bottle away again, faster under my palm, one full turn, and think I hear a muffled pop. I look at Jen and smile.

  “Again!” she urges.

  “Wait! I want to try something a little different.” I pick up the bo
ttle and place it in the palm of my left hand, then quickly spin it a half turn. This time we can even see the faint blue sparks as large bunches from the two groups of nanotubes collide.

  “Sounds like someone’s making popcorn in the next room,” Jen observes, hearing the muffled pops.

  I give the bottle another twist with the same results and can tell we are making progress now. The darker pile of black bits is getting smaller on the downside of the bottle while the glow is quickly getting more obvious on the topside.

  After a few more turns, we probably have well over one hundred gray bits. “Let’s empty some out.”

  Jen holds the larger jar as I tilt the bottle upwards to partially empty the converts. “This is so weird,” I whisper softly. As I pour up, the unconverted black bits drop to the bottom of the bottle. “Pouring up is really strange.” I peer through the magnifying glass so I can make sure I keep a few gray bits in the bottle.

  “You want to do some?” She enthusiastically nods her head. “Here, use this envelope to funnel some black bits in from the tray there. And be sure you don’t tilt the bottle too far up.”

  “I know, I know,” she assures me. “It’s a delicate balancing act.”

  She scoops some black bits and carefully pours them into the bottle, keeping the angle of the bottle neck perfect.

  “Here goes,” she says, and starts rotating the bottle first one way and then another, several times in succession. In less than a minute she is ready to empty the bottle of some of its contents and do some more.

  For the next twenty minutes we load, spin, and unload the bottle. The receiving jar quickly comes to have an eerie blue glow but it doesn’t give the faintest indication of going anywhere on its own even though we can tell it’s getting lighter.

  “We should have weighed the jar without the bits and then with the bits. That way we could have gotten an idea of how many we need per ounce. We will need to have some sort of standard to get an idea of how many of them it takes to cancel out an ounce of weight.”