Project J (27 page)

Chapter 46:
 
A Vase is not Good Enough

“Welcome to Project Dry Wells,” said Dr. Stryker, trying to force on a smile as he did.
 
Stockman was about the last person he wanted to welcome to his project.

“Glad to be here,” said the Congressman as he got out of the car.
 
An aide exited from the other side and hurried around to stand behind Stockman.
 
Looking around, Stockman gave the impression that he was not exactly overwhelmed by the facilities. “So, what have you got to show me?
 
I’ve always wanted to see a time machine.”

“Right this way.”
 
Looking to his second in command, he added, “Dr. Crane, let’s get right to the heart of the matter.”
 
Then he took off, striding along the sidewalk in the hot sunlight, never looking back to confirm that Stockman was following.

They arrived at building Two, an otherwise plain looking two story building with windows only on the second story.
 
Inside, Stryker turned to the guests and handed them badges.
 
“Put these on, please.
 
This is a security installation, after all.”

They passed the guard station, down a short corridor and through a door marked “Danger High Voltage.”
 
Someone had written under that with a marker, “Danger – Time Displacement!”

There was, indeed, both high voltages and the most advanced piece of technology man had ever created.
 
Yet it looked rather unimpressive.
 
Mostly it was a large console with numerous dials and screens, a few keyboards, and assorted technical stuff.
 
Beyond the console there was the heart of the Machine, the assembly chamber, a large partial cylinder made of highly polished metal with a golden tint.
 
Through the open slot they could see the platform where objects were created out of nothing, using a blueprint from the past.
 
Numerous thick cables snaked across the concrete floor to the chamber, attached to it both high and low.
 
The platform, which appeared to be made of mirrors, so reflective was the metal, was empty.

The Machine operator, a middle aged man in a gray jumpsuit bearing the Chronodyne logo, looked up as they came in.
 
He nodded to Stryker to indicate that the machine was ready.

“Congressman, are you familiar with quantum entanglement?” Stryker asked abruptly.

“Something to do with physics, isn’t it?”

“Something.
 
Very well, I’ll skip the technical part of the lecture.
 
Basically what we do here is to reach back in time to an object.
 
Then we force the matter of that object to become entangled with matter in the present.
 
As that entanglement goes on, we begin building up that object in the chamber you see there.
 
What we make here is an exact copy of the object in the past.
 
And I do mean exact.
 
Down to the sub-atomic level.
 
Even down to the quarks that make up all matter.”

“How do you find an object you cannot see and that exists only in the past?” Stockman asked.

“It took a long time, but we have found ways to focus a beam of entangled radiation backwards in time.
 
We use that beam to visualize objects.
 
Our main computer, codenamed Lightning, handles all the processing and focusing of the beam.
 
No human could possibly do the task.
 
Far too many variables.

“What the beam is focused on is visible on this screen.”
 
Stryker nodded to the operator, who in turn pressed a button.
 
The screen that Stryker had pointed to flashed on and presented a blurry picture to them.
 
A slight adjustment and the picture sharpened into high definition, showing them a vase sitting on a table.
 
Afternoon sunlight slanted in to illuminate the vase’s rich red and black colors.
 
On the side was the image of naked runners dashing around the vase.
 
They were black with white borders on a reddish background.
 
A border above and below the scene was made from a single red line forming small squares.

“That small vase is sitting in the house of a wealthy Greek, one Peisistratos by name.
 
The year is 510 BCE, the place is Athens.
 
Hodges will now define the object in time and space.”
 
A red frame appeared on the screen and was adjusted until it just fit around the vase.
 
Then the scene rotated ninety degrees and another frame defined it again.
 
A further rotation, this time looking directly down at the vase, and a third frame was locked in place.

“Now we begin the copying process.”

Before them, the cylinder rotated so that the open slot disappeared.

“A lot of energy is being used to force the matter here to conform to the matter in the past,” Stryker explained.
 
“Too much to look at.”

Nothing was happening on the screen.
 
The vase sat peacefully in the sunlight, unaware it was being copied, atom for atom, twenty-five hundred years in its future.
 
On a second screen next to it, an image was being created on a black background, a three dimensional image of a vase.
 
It took almost ten minutes before the image was complete, but when it was, the operator shut down the Machine.
 
The cylinder rotated again, displaying on the platform a perfect copy of the vase.
 
Stryker went over to it and picked it up.
 
Carrying it back to Stockman, he handed it to the Congressman, saying, “Here, a present from Chronodyne.”

Stockman turned it round and over in his hands, looking at all parts of it, even inside.
 
Then he set it on the console top, saying as he did, “How do I know you really copied this from back in time?
 
I didn’t see it being made.
 
Besides, I don’t take bribes.”

Stryker was turning red in the face.
 
But he managed to control his anger.
 
“Very well,” he said.
 
“Suppose I show you something that could not possibly be copied in our time?
 
Something that there is no way I could make here, no matter how I tried?
 
Or how hard you tried?”

Stockman exercised his practiced sneer.
 
“And what would that be?
 
I can’t think of anything in the past that we could not recreate today with our superior technology.”

“Come with me.”

Leaving that building, they crossed a grassy area to another of the buildings, this one marked with a “12” on the side.
 
It was larger than most of the other buildings, but still of the same gray color and with an almost military aspect to it.
 
Inside, Stryker walked up to another man and said, “Dr. Brown, is it ready?”

Brown, smiling like a small kid with a lollipop, nodded.

“Then let’s go.”

The two of them took Stockman and his aide to a double door and then through it.
 
Inside the room, as the lights came on, they found a dozen seats, all facing a wall that was oddly made of thick steel bars, about twelve inches apart and going from floor to ceiling.
 
Behind the bars was a curtain that did not allow any view of what lay beyond.

“A movie?
 
And why the bars?
 
What are you up to, Stryker?”

“Please have a seat.
 
The show will begin in a moment.”

Brown went to a panel on the wall behind them and pressed a button.
 
The curtain began sliding to one side, revealing a bare room behind it, but one with walls made of steel plates riveted together.
 
When the curtain had disappeared totally, another button was pressed and part of the steel plated wall slid aside.
 
What came through that opening almost made the Congressman soil his pants.

There was no mistaking the most famous dinosaur of all: Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Tyrant Lizard King.

The huge beast, half again as tall as a man, cautiously entered the enclosed area, his big head turning from side to side, his nostrils flaring as he smelled the air.
 
As soon as the last of his long tail entered the area, his head turned towards the humans on the other side of the bars.
 
With surprising intelligence, it tilted its head to one side as it eyed the creatures before it, as if examining them carefully.
 
Those dark eyes stared right into the human’s, sending shivers of primeval fear racing down their spines.

The big head tilted back and the jaws opened to reveal a mouthful of huge, razor sharp teeth.
 
It roared, a sound both loud and fearful.
 
It was both the roar of a predator and the roar of an animal denied what it sought.
 
Stomping up to the bars, it tried to push its snout between two of them but could not.
 
Its head was simply too big to fit.

The bars were only five or six feet from the first row of seats.
 
When the T-Rex came to the barrier, Stockman leaped from this seat and edged his way backwards.
 
His aide had already dashed for the door.

“Don’t worry.
 
He cannot get through the bars,” Stryker said, the gloating heavy in his voice.

Dr. Brown walked down until he could almost touch the bars and stood there, his head only a couple feet from those teeth.
 
The T-Rex clenched and unclenched its tiny hands as if wishing it could reach through the bars and drag this insolent human inside. “Of course, that’s what they said about King Kong, and, as you know, he broke free and made off with Fay Wray.”

Stryker, coming down to stand beside Brown, added, “You will note that this one is only a juvenile.
 
Fully grown, it will stand another six or eight feet tall and weight around eight tons.
 
This was the biggest we could get in the chamber.
 
And he almost destroyed it.”

“We plan to give it to the San Diego Zoo,” added Brown.
 
“Just as soon as we go public with this project.
 
I’m sure he will be a star attraction.”

Apparently, the T-Rex knew he could not get through the bars to these tasty-looking morsels, because he ceased trying to push his snout through and had to content himself with sniffing them and breathing a foul breath over them.

“You said you would believe something that I could not create without our Machine.
 
Well, here it is.
 
If you think you can create a live T-Rex, please tell me how.”

Stockman, who had almost reached the door in his backpedaling, wiped the sweat off his brow with a handkerchief.
 
“All right, I’ll believe you,” he said.
 
He could not take his eyes off the beast, and the T-Rex returned the favor by eyeing the Congressman as a potential dinner.

Chapter 47:
 
Big Canyon

Cruising at 40,000 feet, Tamara was disappointed that she could not see the curve of the earth.
 
She had hoped to, so she could give Jesus some idea of the size of the world.
 
The Beechjet 400 was surprisingly quiet inside once it reached cruising speed and altitude.
 
Jesus could not take his face away from the window, and neither could Tamara.
 
The world from that high up is an incredible sight.
 
They could see the Rocky Mountains to the north and down into Mexico to the south.
 
They were fortunate in picking a clear day with unlimited visibility.

“Who, exactly, is paying for this little jaunt?” asked Myers.

“Well, it’s coming out of the Project J budget,” Juliette answered.
 
“Research expense.
 
You know.
 
Determining the effect of modern flight on a first century Jewish peasant.”

Myers shook his head but was smiling, “Well, like you two predicted, he does like it.”

Jesus leaned over to Myers and said something.

“He wants to know if you can see Rome from here.
 
I told him no, it was on the other side of the world.
 
You know, I’m not sure if he really understands that the world is round.
 
I know that Greek philosophers before his time knew the world was round, some even measured the size fairly accurately.
 
But the common person probably never thought of it.”
 
He touched Jesus on the sleeve and asked something.
 
“He says that he’s willing to believe the world is round – if we say so.”

At that point, the pilot came back to ask if everything was going well.

“Tell me, how much higher do we have to go before you can see the curve of the earth?” Tamara asked him.

“Well, I’ve been told you could see it from the Concord at 60,000 feet.
 
But truth is you can see it from this altitude.
 
Take a straight edge and hold it up to the window.
 
Match the horizon with the bottom of the straight edge.
 
You’ll see a slight curvature.”

“Thanks,” Tamara said, reaching for her purse and the rental contract she had from their office.
 
She held it up to the window and carefully aligned it.
 
Was that really a curve there?
 
Maybe.

“The Grand Canyon is coming up below us,” he told them, and then went back to his seat.

By leaning, Tamara was just able to make out the Grand Canyon’s eastern end coming up.
 
From that altitude, the Colorado River was a dirty brown band surrounded by light colored cliffs. The river twisted and snaked back and forth as it worked its way south.
 
Then the plane banked and they could see the river turning west in a big bend.
 
Here and there, they could see white were the river bounced over rocks to form rapids.

At five hundred miles per hour, they reached the western end of the canyon fairly fast, seeing the thin band of brown turn into a darker blue of Lake Mead.
 
The Beechjet then banked and began heading back towards Albuquerque.

“Is that a sea down there?” Jesus asked.
 
“Like the Sea of Galilee?”

“Just a big lake,” Myers told him.

“Someday I’ll take you to see the Pacific,” Tamara told him.
 
Then, in a moment of reflection, she added, “And maybe someday you’ll show me the Sea of Galilee.”

They flew back by a southern route so Jesus could see Phoenix sprawled out across the desert.
 
By the time they landed at Albuquerque Airport, Jesus was silent.
 
Too much to take in, thought Tamara.
 
Poor man.