Discovery: Proton Field #1 Page 22

  Foster studied her for a moment, wondering who she was protecting, then said, “Okay. I’ll talk to you in a few days then?”

  “Sure,” Myr turned and trotted to catch up with her family and Vinn.

  Once they had Connor in his hospital bed and the nurses had finished bustling around, her mother turned to Myr and said, “That was one of the FBI guys?”

  Myr nodded.

  “What did he want?”

  Myr studied her mother, trying to decide what to say. Her mother had narrowed her eyes before Myr finally said, “He wanted to know what had happened to that… that killer woman.”

  Carol frowned, “Why would he think you’d know that?”

  Myr tried to hold her face expressionless, but after a moment she could feel her expression crumpling and tears starting to run down her cheek. Myr’s mother stepped over and put her arms around her. Patting her on the back, she said, “It’s okay. You didn’t kill her.”

  Snuffling into her mother’s hair, Myr said almost in a sob, “Yes… actually I did.”

  “How?! I know you reached toward her, but you never even touched her before she went down!”

  “With… our new technology,” Myr rasped past the frog in her throat.

  “Oh, come on Myr,” Carol said, pushing Myr away a little and looking into her eyes. “You didn’t even touch her! You’ve got to stop having these fantasies about your electrostatics, especially if they’re making you think you’re to blame for something like this.” She pulled Myr back into a hug, one hand going back to rubbing Myr’s shoulder.

  “Myr, what’s the matter?” Connor said from over in his hospital bed.

  Vinn responded for her, saying, “She’s upset about killing that woman.”

  Connor said, “Oh, was that one of your field generators?” at the same time as Myr’s mother straightened and said in an appalled tone, “Myr didn’t kill anyone! She didn’t even touch anybody!”

  There was silence as all of them stared at one another; Vinn giving Myr an embarrassed look. He’d obviously thought Carol already knew what’d happened, so now he felt badly about spilling the beans. After a tiny shrug, Myr broke the silence by saying, “It’s okay guys. I’ll get over it.”

  Vinn gave Myr a look that he obviously intended to be meaningful, then tapped his coat pocket. It puzzled her for a second; but then she realized that he meant she could show her mother the field projector she had in her coat pocket. She gave him a little shake of her head. She’d rather not spoil her mother’s innocence.

  ***֎֎֍֍***

  Myr and her mother were sitting in the surgical waiting room while Connor had his surgery. Myr was reading, but when she looked up at her mother, she saw her mother’s eyes were red. Myr put a hand on her arm, “Mom, I’m sure he’s going to be fine.”

  Carol wiped at an eye, “Yeah, me too. It’s just that… I’ve been trying to save and the hospital bills…”

  “Wait, won’t your insurance cover most of this?”

  Carol nodded, “Most of, yeah. But that can still leave quite a bit after the deductible and co-pays. I—I can afford it, but…” She turned to look at Myr, “Did you know the Levinson lab has a dystrophin gene vector that’s been successful in animal trials?”

  “Dystrophin gene vector?”

  “Yeah, a gene vector’s something that can deliver a gene to cells even inside an animal. Typically it’s a virus that’s been repurposed to deliver the gene instead of spreading its own genome like it did before. In this case, it delivers the gene for the dystrophin molecule. That’s what’s missing in patients with muscular dystrophy.”

  Myr’s eyes widened, “There might be a cure?”

  “Well,” Carol said cautiously, “there’ve been vectors before. They’ve been able to deliver the gene, but since patients with muscular dystrophy don’t have any dystrophin, once the patient starts to form the protein, often their immune system rejects it as a foreign molecule. If that happens, your immune system destroys the muscle as fast as the gene resurrects it.”

  “Oh,” Myr said thoughtfully, “so what’s the big deal that they have a new one?”

  “Levinson’s managed to modify the dystrophin gene so that it’s much smaller and she’s altered the sections of it that the immune system usually recognizes. She’s swapped in parts of the similar utrophin molecule which DMD sufferers still express. Levinson’s modified molecule still works to restore muscle strength.” Carol got a hopeful look on her face and her voice reduced to a whisper, “They think they might be able to start some human trials in just a few more years.”

  “That’s great!” Myr said. “But, then I don’t understand. What’s got you upset?”

  Carol shook her head, “Connor’s coming up on the age when a patient with Duchenne’s will be getting lots of medical complications from the weakness—even without this damned broken arm. And if we do get him in Levinson’s trial and it works, he’ll need so much therapy. And a new start in life. Sure, insurance will pay for the medical part, but there are huge chunks of bringing him back from the brink of death that insurance won’t cover. And if he gets really sick…” Carol’s voice choked up, “I wanted to have more saved up to be able to pay for really high-end care if he gets some complication that tries to kill him before he can get the gene therapy.” She shook her head, “I thought we were going to get through this year without a big expense. We haven’t even gone through the deductible. But now, here it is almost the end of the year and we have a huge expense right before the deductible resets for next year.”

  Myr said, “Mom, I know you’ve told me over and over you don’t want to hear about the proton field, but we really have had some breakthroughs recently.”

  “Proton field? Oh, yeah, that’s the new name for your electrostatics, right?” Carol nodded to herself, and patted Myr on the arm. “Of course dear. And if it ever does pay off, I’ll be delighted if you can help out a little.” She looked away and said resolutely, “But let’s not count our chickens before they hatch.”

  ***֎֎֍֍***

  The night after Connor’s surgery, Myr stayed in his room with him. Her mom had stayed with him the night before surgery and Myr wanted Carol to sleep in her own bed. The hospital had a chair that folded out into a bed for family members who stayed overnight, but it wasn’t very comfortable. Of course, the only way to get Carol to go home, was for Myr to substitute for her and stay with Connor herself. Now Myr was struggling to get to sleep.

  Myr floated up into the air, turning and moving off across the room as if she were swimming through the air. She didn’t actually have to move her arms or legs like she would to swim, all she had to do was think about where she wanted to go. Wondering why she hadn’t been doing this her whole life, she did a slow backflip. Immersed in the joy of being able to fly, she suddenly wished she could teach Connor how to do it. If he could—like her—make himself light enough to float, or even to nearly float, even his atrophied muscles would let him move around without a wheelchair…

  A bump brought Myr up out of the dream. She looked blearily up at the nurse who’d accidentally bumped into the chair Myr was sleeping in. The young woman apologized but turned back to continue helping Connor.

  Goosebumps suddenly spread over Myr, running up onto her scalp. The young nurse apologized again as she left the room, but Myr didn’t hear her. Her mind had started racing.

  ***֎֎֍֍***

  Agent Foster was glad that Myr Sevii had come in to answer his questions without his having to go track her down. To his puzzlement, she was carrying a plastic grocery bag which looked like it had several objects in it. Taking his eyes and his curiosity away from the bag, he said, “So, you’re ready to tell us what actually happened to Kelley Simpson?”

  Sevii nodded. Then, looking almost sick. “I… I killed her with some of our new technology.”

  Oh, Foster thought, suddenly understanding why she’d been reluctant to talk about it when he’d first asked her. He shook his head, “Don�
�t worry about it. No one’s after you—that woman needed to die.”

  “Yeah,” Sevii gusted the word like a sigh. “Intellectually, I agree. Emotionally though…” She looked down at her feet, “I’d always thought that I’d never take a human life. But I didn’t hesitate, not even a second, when I thought she was going to kill Vinn…” Though her head stayed down she turned her eyes up and gave an embarrassed little grin, “And Agent Newhouse too, of course.”

  Foster suppressed his own grin. The young woman obviously cared a lot about Vinn Saigler. Smoothing his face, Foster said, “Of course. Can you tell me how you did it? How this… technology works so we’ll recognize it if someone does it again in the future.”

  “Yes, but I’d ask you to keep it to yourself for a couple of weeks? We’re presenting it to investors in a few more days and would rather word didn’t get out before that presentation.”

  Foster nodded, wondering whether this technology could be so dangerous that it shouldn’t be released to the public.

  Sevii reached into her plastic bag and pulled out a glass beaker like he’d used back in high school chemistry. She also pulled out a ring with three legs he thought he remembered being called a ring-stand. She set the beaker on top of it. Finally, she reached in and pulled out a little ball of meat. It looked like a tiny chicken. Holding it up, she said, “Cornish game hen.” She dropped it into the beaker. Reaching in her pocket, she pulled out something that looked like a medium-size flashlight, though it didn’t have a lens at the end. She twisted the knob at the back, then gripped it. She pushed a slider forward with her thumb; after that it looked like she pushed some buttons with a couple of her fingers while pointing it just to the right of the beaker. She held it there for a second, then let a finger off one of the buttons.

  A tiny puff of vapor appeared next to the beaker.

  Saying, “Okay, here we go,” she pointed the flashlight-looking device directly at the beaker and pushed the button again. To Foster’s astonishment, the Cornish game hen rattled inside the beaker, crumpled and disappeared. As it did so, it banged up against the side of the beaker hard enough that the beaker started to fall off the ring stand. Sevii, amazingly quick, reached out and grabbed the beaker, catching it before it could hit the table and break.

  Foster noticed that Sevii pointed the flashlight up into the air when she reached out to catch the glass beaker. She set the beaker back on the ring stand. To his amazement, Foster noticed that the game hen was so completely gone the glass didn’t even have a smudge on it. Nonetheless he wondered, Some kind of sleight of hand? Before he could say anything, she pointed the flashlight back at the beaker, lifted her index finger back off its button, and with a “foomp” sound, the game hen reappeared back inside the glass vessel. As he stared, he saw it wasn’t really a game hen anymore. It looked like about the same amount of meat, but like it’d been puréed or something.

  “So that’s what happened,” she said.

  Foster blinked “What happened?!”

  “I pointed this thing at her head and turned it on. It squished some of her brain down to a point like what just happened to the game hen. A point so small you can’t even see it. Then when I turned it off, that chunk of her brain resumed its original size. But, as you can see,” she said waving at the beaker full of puréed game hen, “once it’s been squished down to point size, when it resumes its original size it’s lost all of its organization.” She shook her head, “And, when that happens, a brain doesn’t work anymore.”

  “Holy shit!” Foster said, trying to come to grips with what this meant for his world of law enforcement. “Are these easy to make? How far away can you demolish someone’s brain?”

  “About five feet,” she said. “They’re pretty hard to make, but they can be pretty useful for a lot of things. So, companies will probably start making a lot of them. They’ll be about as dangerous as a really sharp sword, but obviously a lot easier to carry around. For a lot of the things they can be used for, we’ll be able to build them so they aren’t actually dangerous. But you know mankind, some people will modify them and use them for ill anyway.”

  “Oh geez,” Foster said, trying to figure out all the problems this was going to cause for law enforcement. “I don’t suppose I can talk you into stuffing this genie back in its bottle, can I?”

  She slowly shook her head, “This may be evil, but these things are going to be able to do tremendous good as well. The human race isn’t going to want to give them up…”

  ***֎֎֍֍***

  Frank Meriwether settled himself into a seat in the second row of the auditorium at Miller Tech. General Motors had sent him as their representative to this demonstration of a new technology that Miller Tech said it was making available for licensing. Irritatingly enough, Miller had refused to divulge the type of technology they were going to be licensing so GM had no idea whether it might be useful to the company. Larry Wilson, Merriweather’s boss and the chief of the technology section, had decided not to invest his time coming to check out the mystery tech himself since they had no idea whether it might apply to any of GM’s product lines. However, Miller Tech had enough of a reputation for developing significant technological improvements that Wilson had wanted someone to be here.

  Just in case the technology turned out to be something GM could use and he needed to make a presentation to Larry, Frank set up a better camera than the body cam he wore all the time. Besides, having this one on a small tripod on the desk in front of him would provide a steadier picture.

  There were reps from all kinds of different companies present at the meeting, nearly filling the auditorium. Frank saw people he knew from companies as disparate as AT&T, GE, Ford, Duke Energy, Space X, and Boeing. There were a lot of other reps Frank didn’t recognize, though each rep had a little sign on the table in front of him denoting his name and company. Miller had certainly cast a wide net and Frank couldn’t help but wonder what kind of technology Miller thought might be able to hold the interest of such disparate companies.

  He turned his attention back to the front of the room where Miller Tech had what appeared to be two large glass or acrylic barrels set up, one on each side of the room. The one on Frank’s left was about the size of a fifty-gallon barrel and appeared to be filled with a clear liquid, maybe water. The one on his right was much bigger but it looked empty.

  The buzz of conversation faded as Miller walked in and thanked everyone for coming. “I think you’ll be glad you did,” he said enigmatically.

  A young man and two young women had come in with Miller. He introduced them as well, though Frank paid little attention except to note with some surprise that the older of the two women was apparently a nuclear physicist and that Miller described the younger one as the actual discoverer of the technology to be presented. Miller said, “We’re going to start things out by having Ms. Sevii demonstrate some of the astonishing things the new technology can do.”

  Frank focused on the young woman as she picked up what looked like a baseball bat on a heavy power cord and moved toward the tank full of water. She was pretty and she moved easily, as if she were athletic. Frank found himself wondering what she looked like underneath the shapeless, if immaculately pressed, white coat she was wearing for the demonstration.

  “This,” she said, holding up the baseball bat, “is a proton field generator.” She paused and smiled broadly at the audience in the auditorium, remaining silent long enough that a buzz of conversation started to rise. When she continued, she said, “I think I hear some of you saying, ‘proton field?’ As if you don’t know what a proton field is. Don’t worry; no one else does either.” She gestured at the big screen at the front of the auditorium and an image appeared there. It was one of the horn-shaped wire frame diagrams often used to describe the distortion of space-time by gravity. She continued, “We seem to have discovered a field which distorts space in a similar fashion to the way gravity distorts space time… But only for protons, and only for protons that don’t
have neutrons with them in their atomic nucleus.” She paused again and looked at her audience with an eyebrow lifted. A susurrus of conversation rose in the room as people tried to comprehend what she’d just said.

  The young woman waited for a crescendo in the buzz of conversation, then said, “Let me repeat that.” Once she’d done so, she continued, “Essentially, what I’m saying, is that hydrogen atoms are attracted to this field, though not deuterium. Importantly, the field also suppresses the electrostatic forces present at the atomic level. What this means is that hydrogen atoms, and molecules containing hydrogen atoms, are pulled toward the focal point of this field and are able to accumulate there at much higher densities than one would expect… because the electrostatic repulsion which normally keeps them apart is suppressed.” With a broad grin, she turned her baseball bat and pointed it at the glass tank full of clear liquid. She turned a couple of switches and then depressed several buttons. Immediately, some kind of vortex appeared in the center of the tank of water. She said “So, I’ve opened a proton field here in the middle of this big glass tank full of water. Each H2O molecule contains a couple of hydrogen atoms which are strongly attracted to the focus of the proton field. Not only that, but as they try to approach the focus of the field, the electrostatic suppression effect allows them to come closer and closer to one another without repulsion. As you’ll notice from the way the water level is dropping, the water in this tank is rapidly being scrunched together at the focal point.”

  Frank stared at the tank in astonishment. The water level was dropping, and fast. Following his first instinct, Frank looked for a hidden outflow conduit, even while he was thinking that Miller Tech would be the laughing stock of the industrial world if they’d gotten everyone together to watch some sleight-of-hand and then claim it was some kind of new technology. This can’t be, can it? he thought.