Lifter: Proton Field #2 Read online

  Vinn frowned, putting a hand on his chest, “Greasy smear! My soul’s crushed, but I’m going to ignore your rude attempt to impugn my physical makeup and address your issues instead. For the first one, maybe the focal point lifter should always come as a pair? That way if one shuts down, the other one could take over? Even if one by itself wasn’t strong enough to hold you up, it could at least be strong enough to slow your descent.”

  Myr shrugged, “That’d work, as long as the failure point wasn’t the fuel cell. Seems like you’d need to have two fuel cells and two focal point hydrogen storage setups also.”

  Grinning, Ellen looked back and forth from Vinn to Myr. She said, “That’d probably be a good idea. I don’t think the big danger of focal point storage is the release of hydrogen near a spark. I mean, sure it’s dangerous, but not Hindenburg dangerous. Because hydrogen’s so light, when it’s released from containment it goes straight up. If it catches on fire, it tends to make a vertical torch which only burns things above it. If you were out flying around beneath your focal point lifter and the hydrogen containment focus in your backpack leaked, the fire would be up above you.”

  Myr gave her a less than pleased look, “What if it’s my brother, using his lifter to walk around inside the house?”

  Ellen shrugged, “Well, that would be bad…” She paused for a second at Myr’s snort, but then continued, “All I’m saying is that it wouldn’t be as bad as if the focal point was full of something like gasoline which would flood the floor beneath him, with the flames rising up from the puddle. A hydrogen fire would be above him with the flames rising from there.” She put up a hand to get Myr to hold on her objections while she continued. “Another thing for you to consider is that if the focal point hydrogen containment dumped a huge quantity of hydrogen in his apartment, even if it didn’t catch fire, it’d push out the oxygen-containing air and he’d asphyxiate. In fact, depending on the amount of hydrogen released, if the apartment were then mostly full of hydrogen without an oxidizer, a fire would be a low risk, but anoxia kills in minutes.”

  Myr shook her head, “I just can’t agree that hydrogen isn’t a huge flammability problem. I’ve seen film of the Hindenburg going up!”

  “There’s little doubt that the hydrogen started the Hindenburg fire, but a lot of the flames you see in the film come from the diesel tankage for the engines. If you watch the film, you’ll see flames from the hydrogen going straight up from the balloon, but you’ll also see huge clouds of billowing dark smoke rising from the diesel fuel below. Also, the skin of the zeppelin was doped cellulose which was pretty flammable. It had an aluminum powder coating which also could have contributed to the fire.”

  Vinn turned to stare at Ellen, “Aluminum? Aluminum doesn’t burn, does it?”

  Ellen shrugged, “Thermite’s aluminum powder mixed with iron oxide— essentially rust—powdered aluminum’s plenty flammable. In thermite, the aluminum actually steals its oxygen from the iron!” She waved her hands, “I’m not saying that the Hindenburg’s hydrogen didn’t burn, I’m just saying that it burned while going straight up and probably didn’t kill as many people as the diesel did.” She looked around at them, and said, “To get back to the issues at hand, releasing hydrogen in your brother’s apartment would be a big problem even if it didn’t burn. My suggestion would be, if we have redundant systems, that the two hydrogen storage focal points should be next to one another. That way, if one went down, the other one would suck up most of the hydrogen from the one that failed. Especially if both focal points were enclosed in the same space.”

  “Oooohh, great idea!” Myr said. “So, two hydrogen storage points, two fuel cells, two lifter foci… redundancy all around. Let’s build a couple… we’re gonna fly!”

  Chapter 2

  Wendy felt uncomfortable. Roberto, the Mayor of Lopana, had invited the mission team to a celebration that evening. A group of local musicians played under a thatched but un-walled nipa hut that the town used for such gatherings. A pig was being turned over a fire in the clearing in front of the hut.

  As always, it was too hot. Wendy found it hard to believe that the three guys in charge of cooking the pig were hanging around the fire. They glistened with the sweat that’d soaked through their lightweight sleeveless T-shirts.

  A couple of the local girls had invited Mark and Greg to dance with them and the boys were gyrating clumsily on the packed dirt in front of the band. Wendy thought the girls were probably dismayed by the guys’ lack of rhythm, but nonetheless they were exhibiting the kind of broad cheerfulness one expected at such events.

  Wendy wasn’t sure why she felt so uncomfortable. She didn’t like the way Roberto looked at her, but tonight was no different than any other encounter she’d had with him. Roberto ogled the beautiful Nina a lot more than he stared at Wendy or, for that matter, any of the other women, but that fact didn’t make her any more comfortable.

  Roberto chose that moment to make a beeline for Nina, extending his hand and evidently asking her to dance. Steve got up and went to ask Roberto’s wife to dance with him. In the interests of cultural exchange, I should ask one of the Filipino men to dance, Wendy thought. For a moment she tried to visualize herself doing so, a common exercise she engaged in when trying to reduce her anxiety. It didn’t work, so she settled back. To herself, she resolved that if anyone asked her, she would accept.

  Roberto at least appeared to have decent rhythm. Of course, Wendy thought to herself, Nina makes dancing into a graceful art form. Wendy told herself she wasn’t jealous of Nina, but the mere fact she had to tell herself that suggested otherwise.

  A couple of minutes later one of the young men from the town came and asked Wendy to dance. She brutally suppressed her immediate impulse to say no. Instead, she rose to her feet, took his hand and followed him out onto the packed earth. Wendy stood five eight, which made her quite a bit taller than her dance partner. Uncertain as to whether this would put him off, she kicked off her shoes and danced much of the dance with her knees slightly bent. The young man smiled and enthusiastically tried to guide Wendy through a few turns, though he soon gave it up as an evidently hopeless endeavor.

  When the song finished, Wendy thanked her partner, grabbed her shoes and headed back for her seat next to Abby. A couple of minutes later, Mark plopped down next to her and handed her a cold beer. She started to protest that she didn’t drink, but then decided she liked holding the cold bottle in the heat. She rubbed it against her neck, then took a small sip.

  Mark said, “How are you holding up?”

  Wendy shrugged, “I assume you’re worrying about whether Nervous Nelly’s about to go off the rails.” She turned and gave him a little grin, “You’ll be happy to know I haven’t had a panic attack for nearly a day now.”

  He smiled back, “That’s good; that’s good. I think the people here are pretty friendly. I know the history of this area has been kind of bad, but how can we hope to change things without friendly mingling like this, huh?”

  “That’s what I told myself when I signed up. That’s what I tell myself every day when I talk to all the nice Filipinos I’ve been meeting.” She shook her head ruefully, “I just wish I could tell myself that in the middle of one of my freaking nightmares.”

  “Yeah, haven’t been sleeping so well myself,” Mark said, giving her a freckled, dimpled grin and running his hand through his curly red hair. “Though it’s mostly ‘cause I can’t sleep when it’s so freaking hot.”

  Wendy smiled in return, “We all have our own freaking problems, huh? Where’d you grow up?”

  “Freaking Wichita. My mom and dad still live there.”

  Wendy snorted, “Have any freaking siblings?”

  “One sister, Ellen. She’s a freaking nuclear physicist. Works for that company in Kansas City that says it’s bringing fusion to the masses.”

  “Fusion? Like nuclear fusion?”

  Mark gave her a doubtful look, as if he couldn’t believe anyone wouldn’t be up to date
on developments in nuclear fusion.

  Wendy didn’t like people who looked down their noses at her for being uninterested in science, but decided she should cut him some slack. Talking to him was taking her mind off of her worries. Besides, he was cute.

  He finally said, “Yeah, nuclear fusion. That’s why they needed a freaking nuclear physicist.” He leaned closer and stage whispered, “Sell your oil stocks. They’re gonna tank when fusion hits the market.”

  Wendy gave him a wide-eyed look, “Let me call my broker… Oh, crap, I forgot I’m too poor to own any stock.”

  Mark barked a little laugh and stood, holding out his hand, “Well then, perhaps we two poor sad sacks should dance the freaking night away?”

  Wendy stood, “Sure, but I think I need to explain that music has an actual beat that you’re supposed to follow.”

  “That’s what all the girls try to tell me…”

  Now that the pig was done, Roberto started organizing everyone to eat. The fact that he was in charge of the organization let him step into the line right behind the beautiful Filipino-American girl. However, before he could start talking to her, his wife tapped him on the shoulder. “Introduce me to your new friend Roberto?”

  Damn! he thought. But he smiled and touched Nina’s elbow. With a smile, he said, “Nina, let me introduce you to my wife, Teresa.”

  In a couple of moments, the two women were chattering together like they were old friends.

  Not exactly what Roberto had been hoping for.

  ******

  “I don’t want to go,” Trevor said petulantly.

  Nancy sighed, “You’re an adult. I can’t make you go, but I think you should for a lot of reasons. First of all, you should get out of the house. Second, you need a…”

  Trevor interrupted, “I need a social life. Yes, I know. You tell me that all the time. But I’d rather have my social life on-line. On-line, people don’t treat me like I’m some kind of freak.”

  Nancy didn’t want to say anything about how Carol Sevii had suggested that they had some kind of tech that might help Trevor out. She felt almost certain it’d turn out to be something disappointing or a complete pipe dream. She didn’t want Trevor being disheartened. So, instead, she pasted on a smile and parroted his words back at him. “Yeah, ‘you tell me that all the time.’ But having actual interaction with real people has to be better for you than geeking out on-line. Besides, the Seviis won’t treat you like some kind of freak, Connor has muscular dystrophy too.”

  Trevor rolled his eyes, “Seeing other guys with Duchenne’s just reminds me how screwed up I am. To say nothing of the fact that seeing how sick they are reminds me that I don’t have that much longer to live.”

  Despite the fact this conversation was breaking her heart, Nancy tried to keep up a bold front. “Our lab’s getting close to a cure Trevor, we really are. And these people have donated a huge amount of money to the project. Now I’ll be able to spend all my time on dystrophin gene products and vectors because this kind of money’ll mean I don’t have to spend time applying for grants.”

  Trevor shook his head angrily, “Mom, even if you do slip me a dystrophin molecule that works, I’ll still be all twisted up like a pretzel from all my contractures. My muscles might work, but my life’ll still be shit!” He looked away and spoke quietly, “I’ve decided I don’t want to keep on living this way, so I’d rather this damned disease just goes ahead and does me in.”

  Nancy was glad he was looking the other way so he couldn’t see the agonized emotions twisting her face. She waited a moment until she thought she could speak without a rasp, then said, “I understand. I know your life’s rough… So bad I can’t really grasp it.” She took a deep breath, “I’d really like to go visit the Sevii’s, but I thought you were going with me so I didn’t arrange for anyone to stay with you. Hold on and I’ll see if your dad can stay with you before I cancel on them.”

  She spoke to her AI, asking it to connect her with Trevor’s dad, but before the connection went through, Trevor said in a long-suffering tone, “Oh hell. Don’t bother Dad, I’ll go.”

  Nancy canceled the call to Trevor’s dad. As they went out to their handicapped van, Nancy hoped that this visit with Carol Sevii wouldn’t be as much of a waste of time as she feared. And if it was, that Trevor wouldn’t act like a jerk. Why Sevii thought she might have found some technology for helping people with Duchenne’s that Nancy—one of the world’s premier researchers on the disease—hadn’t heard of, Nancy couldn’t fathom. But, after Sevii’s large donation, Nancy owed it to the woman to at least appear enthusiastic about the possibility.

  Nancy watched as Trevor, having unloaded out of the van, guided his power-chair up the long ramp to the Sevii’s place. As his chair got near the top of the ramp, the door opened spontaneously with a steady swing that gave away the fact it was a power door. Trevor paused and turned his wheelchair briefly back to Nancy saying admiringly, “Nice door.” He rotated his wheelchair back forward and drove onto the little porch in front of the door where he stopped.

  At first Nancy thought how nice it’d be to have a door like that for Trevor, but then began worrying that the door was the technological device Carol Sevii had thought she and Trevor should come over to see. Trevor’ll be so disappointed, she thought. Well, maybe not, but I’ll be disappointed.

  Nancy had just had time to think, In view of the comment he made, maybe he’ll be happy even if a power door is all we’ve come to see, when another young man in a wheelchair appeared in the entrance. “Hi, I’m Connor. You must be Trevor and,” his eyes shifted to Nancy, “Dr. Levinson. Come on in.”

  Nancy’s heart lurched. Even though Connor was a couple years older than Trevor, he didn’t look as weakened or contracted as her son. It was probably just a variation in the gene defect, but she couldn’t help but worry that perhaps Carol Sevii’s nursing skills had allowed her to provide better care for her son than Nancy had. Trevor said, “That’s us,” and started driving forward into the Sevii’s condominium.

  Connor pulled back out of Trevor’s way.

  Nancy had paused, now she stepped forward, saying, “Hi Connor. Please call me Nancy.” As she entered the condo, she saw Carol nervously standing on the other side of the room. Looks like I’m not the only one who’s worried about whether they’ll get along, Nancy thought. She looked around for something to complement Carol on. Her eye caught on an array of electrical looking devices forming a grid on the ceiling. They certainly didn’t do anything for the look of the place. Nancy could see across the room and into part of the kitchen where she couldn’t help but notice the doors were off the cabinets. Unable to think of any compliments she could make about the decor that’d sound sincere, Nancy settled for, “Hi Carol. We’d like to thank you and Connor for inviting us over. It’s a joy just to get out of the house sometimes.” She realized she might have hurt Trevor’s feelings by what she’d just said, implying that he never left home. Even worse, she’d been about to say something about how it’d be good to be around someone else with Duchenne’s—another subject that’d piss Trevor off.

  Carol smiled, “It’s fun for us to have you over as well. We’re just hoping Trevor will like some of the tech things Connor’s sister installed. If he does, maybe we can talk her into installing some over at your place.”

  As Carol started taking requests for refreshments and moved off into the kitchen to get them, Nancy began to worry that the mess of junk all over the ceiling might be one of the “tech things” Carol had been talking about. Crap! she thought with dismay, wondering if there was anything that could be done to make the stuff look better in the event that Trevor actually wanted something like them.

  Carol bustled back into the room carrying a tray with coffee for herself and Nancy. There were Diet Cokes with bendy straws in them for the two boys. Young men, Nancy corrected herself. No matter how wrong she rationally knew it was, she had a hard time not thinking of Trevor and Connor as children because they were
so dependent.

  Connor asked Trevor how he entertained himself and when Trevor named a few video games, the two of them were instantly off, excitedly talking about the merits of different virtual realities and game universes. Nancy was torn between her dislike of games she saw as a waste of time and her joy that Trevor had found a kindred spirit.

  Carol cleared her throat, and when Nancy looked around, she gave a little jerk of her head toward Trevor and Connor. “Looks like they’ve got something in common, eh?”

  Nancy sighed and replied quietly, “Yeah, and I’m glad of it, even though I wish Trevor had some better outlet than those damned games.”

  Carol got a sad look on her face. “Half the time I agree with you completely.” She blinked rapidly a couple of times; then touched the corner of a glistening eye with a finger. “The rest of the time I tell myself to accept with great joy the fact that they represent something fun for Connor to actually do, instead of just sitting around passively watching vids.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Nancy sighed. “I tell myself the same thing, but just can’t help wishing there was something better.”

  Nancy turned to look at her son just in time to see him glance up at the ceiling and ask Connor, “What’s the wreckage on your ceiling?”

  Nancy felt horrified, even though she’d been thinking something along the same lines. Connor just glanced up at it and said, “Just about the coolest thing ever! You ready for a little demo?”

  Trevor said, “Sure,” giving a little shrug that Nancy knew meant he was ready to appear completely unimpressed. It was a common social ploy for Trevor, but she hoped he wouldn’t be completely dismissive of whatever they were about to show him. She was starting to see Carol as a kindred spirit. Nancy spent most of her life at work and all the rest of her time with Trevor. She hardly had any friends away from work. She’d just begun to think about how nice it’d be to have Carol as a friend who wasn’t researching Duchenne’s.