The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 1): First Time (2 page)

After a long silence, in which she thought of a million questions she wanted to ask but not a single one she could word the way she wanted to, she finally asked, "So, what are you working on?"

He shrugged and pointed to the monitor of his computer, "What happened to me. I've been going through all the journals that survived the meltdown and I'm trying to construct a narrative of it all."

"Who will you show it to?"

He shrugged, "Nobody, probably. I just kind of have an idea that, if I put it all down on paper, I can sort it out in my mind. The problem is, I'm not much of a story teller."

She leaned closer, to get a better look at the screen, and asked, "Mind if I look at it? I was always good at taking briefs and legal documents and translating them so that they made sense to the client."

He looked at her, as if in a new light, and smiled, "That's right. You are good at that, aren't you?"

Garison's Journal

Sometimes late at night, I stare out my window and remember how things used to be. I'm not saying that things used to be better, or that they used to be worse; but they certainly were different. I guess what I think about most is to wonder if what I did were the right thing. (But who hasn't worried about such a thing?) At the time, there was no question, but looking at an event after the fact . . .

In a way it is funny when I think about what we used to worry about. We used to worry that, somehow, someway, a madman would destroy our world. Some nefarious villain would create a diabolical plot to overtake the world and would succeed. The keys were right there at our finger tips, but we were confident that they would never be turned. In a way, we were right. Our world wasn't destroyed with malice.

It's a strange feeling to know that you destroyed your world. You personally, I mean. By your own hand you destroyed your world. I know what that sensation feels like. I destroyed my world. What's really funny about the whole thing is that I destroyed my world by doing something nice.

Maybe that's why no one was prepared for it. Everyone always expected the world to be destroyed through meanness or anger. But all the wars in the history of the world weren't able to do through malice what I did in one moment of kindness.

What was it I did that was so kind, friendly, and yet terrible? I kept an eleven year old boy from being run over by a horse-drawn wagon.

As I tell this, I wish now I had listened better back during those history lectures at the academy. But what young boy can listen as a doddering old man rambles on about events from before even he was born? I was a model student—the kind teachers pointed to and humiliated in front of my peers, saying I was perfect—but even I couldn't pay attention in history. I was concerned with making things happen, not with learning about things that had already taken place. I wrote what I thought they wanted to read on my exams and said what I knew they wanted to hear when I spoke out loud, but the information evaporated from my brain after its use like dew disappears from a petal on a sunny day.

Math was different. I didn't just study math, I excelled at math. In math I saw a potential for making things happen! It was because of my abilities in math that I didn't have to take more history than I did. An academician had spotted my knack for numbers the day I stepped into his class and I shall forever thank him because it was his recommendation that got me into the classes I really desired.

By the age of nine, I was postulating ideas in quantum mechanics that made my teachers realize they were becoming the learners. Certainly, my theories were occasionally wrong, but no one else was even thinking along the lines I thought. I was—

I have gotten ahead of myself. Which, in a way, is the whole source of this story. Stories have never been my strong point. I can neither tell them orally nor write them down on paper, but I shall attempt, anyway, for it's a story which bears repeating. Fortunately, I have been in the habit of keeping a journal for several years now and I will insert entries from it that may enlighten you as to what I was thinking at the time of the event.

My main regret, however, is that I know so little of history. So, if you find my dates to be in errancy—or my narratives incongruent with what you have learned—please excuse the flaws and attribute them to a young boy who once stood up and asked his professor, "Why deal with the past if you can't do anything about it?"

Despite the fact that this question was asked at a université, this particular little boy spent the next hour with his nose in a corner.

She set down the hard copy of Garison's writings and thought for a moment before saying, "Garison, you have here all the elements, but they're so disjointed I can't make them out even though I think I know the whole story."

He nodded, "I know. The more I look at it all, the more confused I become. Is it hopeless?"

She shook her head, "Not hopeless. I wouldn't call it 'hopeful', yet, but not hopeless." She stood up and said, "Tell you what: stand up."

"Huh?"

"You are going to keep working on this until you drive yourself insane—and make the narrative a whole lot worse. So why don't you just go find some wood and start building me a rocking chair or something? You know how wood-working always calms you down."

"What are you going to do?"

She sat down and said, "The first thing I'm going to do is gather together everything we have so far, then try to put it in order. After that, we'll work on filling in the blanks."

"But—"

"No buts, Garison. You need to stop thinking about it and I need something to do for the next seven months."

"You think it'll take that long?"

"It will if you don't get out of here."

Excerpt from
A Fitch Family History,
by Maureen Fitch Carnes

Published 1957, South Platte College Publishing, Julesburg, Colorado

According to an account in an Alexandria, Virginia, newspaper, Darius Fitch's departure from Mount Vernon was quite a celebration. Carrying a hand-written commission from General George Washington himself, Darius headed west amidst much fanfare.

The main street of Mount Vernon was decorated festively, with bunting hanging from the lampposts and many front porches (as depicted in many woodcuttings from the era). The people of Mount Vernon, and even a few from Alexandria, gathered along the street and cheered as General Washington shook hands with Darius and wished him God-speed. Following a prayer of benediction and travel mercies from the Right Reverend Applebee, Darius set out down the main street, his face turned resolutely to the west.

Notes in General Washington's personal diary indicate that Darius was against such festivity and would have preferred to just slip quietly out of town early in the morning, if for no other reason than to get an early start on his long journey. The idea of the festivities, however, was Washington's, who was having a rough time championing the cause of exploring the western lands and felt that the venture needed a little pomp and circumstance to generate public excitement. Preceding notes refer to the well-documented troubles George was facing trying to get the Continental Congress to come to agreement on a constitution and some have suggested that his commission to Darius was as much to give people a happy distraction as it was to learn about the frontier. There is support for this hypothesis on the grounds that General Washington had spent much time on the frontier and his desire for westward colonization was no secret.

One of the most prominent figures to attend Darius's "send-off" was his grandmother, Sarah Fitch. Though well into her sixties at this time, Sarah is said to have still been a very beautiful woman and much sought-after by the sectegenarian gentlemen of the town (and a few younger than that if the stories are true!).

Sarah was given a place of honor on the makeshift dais (really just a short extension added onto the hotel porch) next to General Washington himself. General Washington was known to have always kept close ties with Sarah and her children. It was rumored that George had been a great friend of Sarah's husband, but this seems unlikely as he would have been barely into adolescence at the time of her husband's passing.

Why George Washington was always such a friend to the Fitch family has never been clear. In fact, Sarah's grandson Hiram Fitch—who had quite a career in local politics himself—was once asked about the relationship. Hiram replied that he wasn't sure but thought it had something to do with his grandfather.

Years later, President George Washington rode all night through the rain from Philadelphia to serve as a pall bearer at Sarah Fitch's funeral. Hiram claimed in later years that Washington had told him nothing but a lead ball could have prevented him from coming to Sarah's funeral.

Chapter Two

The air was so crisp and clear in La Plata Canyon it felt as if it might actually be touchable on that morning back in '05 when Garison set out to change the world. Rocky Mountain air almost always had a life-like quality to it, but on days such as that one, Garison thought of the air as being just as much a part of the total experience of the canyon as the rocks, the trees, the animals and the snow he crunched beneath his feet. While Garison thought animism to be an unscientific faith born out of ignorance, he could guess how easily it might have evolved among primitive man when he looked at the beauty around the place he called home.

Still forcing himself to be deliberate and methodical in all his moves, Garison carefully put all of his groceries in their "assigned" spot before preparing to head to the laboratory. His kitchen, like almost all his life, was carefully compartmentalized and sadly antiseptic. He packed a knapsack for the interdimensional journey since he had no idea what he might encounter. Realizing every item he brought might be hideously useless, he also told himself that every item he brought could be phenomenally crucial. Such thinking also made him wonder what important items he was not considering, but he realized such thinking was fruitless for one can't imagine what one can't imagine.

In the canvas bag, Garison packed a couple flasks of water, some jerked beef, a couple tins of meat, a hunting knife, a compass, two boxes of water-proof matches and a still-shot camera. He already had a first aid kit stored beneath the pilot's seat of his machine and more water was there as well. He admitted to himself that he might encounter a situation where none of the items he brought would in any way aid him, but again, he felt it best to err on the side of caution.

Putting on his new leather jacket he had recently purchased in Cherry Creek and slinging the knapsack over his shoulder, he stepped out the door and quickly crossed the yard to get to his laboratory. A light snow had started to fall just since he had gotten out of the car but he barely noticed it as his mind was on the experiment. Setting the knapsack just inside the door to the lab, he went out to the car to get the Box.

The Box was a device of Garison's own invention. Originally designed to just serve as the casing for the miniature nuclear power plant he had invented, the Box had been the one item that had made him a fortune—as opposed to scientific fame. No more ostentatious than its name suggested, the Box was merely a container for carrying radioactive items—such as the uranium it now held. It was so much lighter and so much more efficient and safe than the lead-lined boxes that had previously been used, Garison had been able to lease the licensing rights to a large manufacturer in Cherry Creek and was receiving a healthy monthly check from them, an odd bit of capitalism in a socialistic world. It was constructed of a synthetic material Garison had developed for containing radioactive isotopes and had proven both strong enough and rigid enough to be fashioned into containers of sizes varying from quite large to no bigger than a coffee cup.

The nuclear power plant Garison had invented was the first successful use of cold fusion known to man and, contained as it was in a Box constructed specifically for that use, Garison had come to refer in his mind to the power plant as, simply, "The Fitch-Plant”. But while it was rumored that Garison Fitch had invented a safe and compact fusion reactor—capable of being carried by only two men—most people thought the rumor false. Garison contributed to the doubts whenever he could.

Garison actually had two such devices—one powered the experiment and the other powered his house and lab—but he had never released his plans even to the government. Neither had he ever admitted to having them—or even hinted. Garison just didn't trust society with a "home-use nuclear plant" and had hesitated about even releasing his storage Box for public consumption for fear people would become too casual about their use of radioactive materials. Garison knew his own government had disposed of nuclear submarines—some still with hot rods—by just scuttling them.

As the main and on-board computers performed one more system diagnostic, Garison carefully took a uranium rod, in its container, and placed it in his nuclear generator. The system automatically sealed itself and moved the rod from the container into the reaction chamber as Garison placed the second rod in a stand-by chamber. The case the rod had come in (perfectly safe and, of course, invented by Garison) was then re-sealed and ejected, to be stored in another Box and returned to the uranium plant for reuse. One rod would have provided enough power to illuminate Durango for well over a year, but Garison's experience with losing battery power so fast on the previous experimental attempt of his machine had made him think the once superfluous second chamber might actually be quite helpful. Interdimensional travel apparently took more power than he had originally estimated, which made him wonder what other new discoveries were out there just waiting for him. Such wonder didn't make him nervous, however, when hindsight would later show that it probably should have.