TIME

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

TIME

AN UNEXPLORED UNIVERSE

By R. Peterson

          John Masters, a seasoned reporter for Time Magazine, did a near perfect armstand two somersaults, half-twist from the high dive at Circus Circus in Las Vegas and then vanished right before he should have splashed into the glistening blue water. Several people clustered in and around the pool gaped and then rubbed their eyes … temperatures above one hundred ten degrees Fahrenheit will sometimes cause hallucinations in humans.

            Seemingly with no lapse in time, Masters splashed into an even larger pool inside Graviton City, the world’s most restrictive and secretive metropolitan center, floating almost one mile above the remote Nevada desert. “Welcome Mr. Masters!” A smiling girl apparently without any aging genes and impossible to sort into any age group held out a towel as John swam to the edge of the pool. “Mr. Sullinger is expecting you.”

            John rubbed the lilac-scented towel across his body, felt a momentary rush of extreme euphoria and was instantly dry. He didn’t want to let go of the cloth but he did. “Thank you! I believe that was better than sex,” he smiled and meant it.

John Herbert Masters, born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1966 and a 1990 graduate of Stanford University with a master’s degree in journalism was about to conduct an exclusive interview with Alvin Sullinger the most famous and elusive person on Earth. “Thank you … thank you so very much!”

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After being given fresh clothes just like his favorite ones at home John Masters was led across an enclosed pavilion, his bare feet padding across white marble polished to a mirror-like finish. Exotic flora from all corners of the world erupted from the floor space in natural looking settings. “How did Alvin Sullinger know I liked to walk barefoot?”

“Alvin is in the tower.” The girl smiled. “This will take you to him.”

John walked onto a circular glass platform with a transparent railing around it that might have been made of some type of acrylic. “An elevator?” he asked.

“In a way,” the girl said. “Only much much faster.”

The platform began to spin and John was momentarily taken back to his childhood where his first time on a carousel had made him slightly nauseous and a little dizzy. The effect didn’t last long. He found himself standing in the middle of a quarter acre of white carpet surrounded by glass. Alvin Sullinger appeared before him. John’s first impression was of a Hollywood alien: an enormous head attached to a match-stick body.

Alvin stuck out his hand. “Thank you for coming!”

            “I feel like I’ve won the lottery,” John said. “How could I resist?”

Alvin led a gaping John toward a cluster of overstuffed couches and chairs arranged around a waterfall pouring from a tiny cloud into a glass pond. “Amazing!” John touched the falling water with his fingers and then brushed the softly swirling mist from which it came with his hand.

            “One of my natural science engineers created this for my birthday,” Alvin said. “It’s the world’s most unusual coffee table!” As if to illustrate the concept, Alvin took a stack of papers from his inside jacket pocket and dropped them. The surface of the water in the pond instantly froze into ice and the papers settled easily. The waterfall became large flakes of snow drifting slowly down.

“This is an example of weather conforming to the needs of man without the wild hysterics of climate change,” Alvin told him. “There are dozens of other configurations including a magma-heated stone surface for cooking or warming food.”

            “I’m sure he gets paid well.”

Alvin laughed. “No one who works at Graviton City does it for the money,” he said. “We strive to make every day here an exhilarating journey through all stages of technological development and an amazing and breathtaking adventure in all aspects of science.”

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After showing John through several levels where strange and fascinating discoveries were taking place. The pair found themselves in an outdoor garden atop one of the tallest structures.  The sun was shining brightly but John felt only a pleasant coolness on his skin. “The atmosphere above this garden is filtered to eliminate the harmful effects of solar radiation and preserve the benefits,” Alvin said.

            “Like invisible sunglasses!”

            “At a fraction of the cost!” Alvin laughed.

            “No wonder the United States Government wants to keep you under lock and key.”

            “People, especially politicians, always fear what they can’t control,” Alvin said. “There are many Dark Matter Elements capable of creating the most powerful and horrific weapons that the universe has ever seen. The negative side of gravitation, as you can see by this floating city you are relaxing in, has fantastic and almost unlimited possibilities!”

            “So far the attempts by the US government to keep you isolated from the world have failed miserably. All they have been able to do is create a fifty-mile heavily guarded perimeter in the desert around your city and keep ordinary people from getting too close. You apparently have the skills and technology to come and go as you please and to import anything and anyone you desire … at will.”

            “At one time we had F18 fighter jets flying right outside our windows,” Alvin said. “It was annoying and many here though it was counter-productive to the atmosphere of tranquility that we were seeking. Several of my engineers created a Dark Matter force field that pushed all unwanted intruders back fifty miles.”

            “I understand the military has tried everything short of full nuclear detonation to break down your shields without success,” John said. “Does that make you feel like an enemy to the government?”

            “No. The largest share of scientists who work here do so undetected,” Alvin said, “and they come here from all nations of the world. If the powers that be consider my knowledge and that of others to be a danger to society then I wish them well. Our hope is that when these scientists return to the outside world the advances they’ve made here in medicine, engineering and science will be put to use for the benefit of all mankind.”

            “Then you have no weapons development going on here?’

Alvin laughed. “Of course we do. The radon-plasma shield that keeps the military eating their lunch fifty miles from our doorstep is probably the best defensive weapon ever devised by mankind. It could also be generated by satellites in the reverse to quarantine a group of missile silos or an entire fleet of warships anywhere in the world effectively rendering them null and void.”

            “With such awesome power do you feel like the Earth’s peacekeeper?”

            “Graviton City is officially neutral in regard to politics,” Alvin said. “We want to be left alone so we leave others alone. The governments of the world are beginning to realize this and the offers to join various world alliances have finally begun to diminish.”

            “You are not tempted by what I presume are offers of hundreds of billions of dollars for your unique knowledge of science?”

            “I trust no one,” Alvin said. “You have to realize that for some time my scientists have been able to easily create pure gold or any variety of platinum or uranium out of water and ordinary desert sand so the offer of billions of dollars to become someone’s puppet doesn’t project the allure it is designed to.”

            “Doesn’t that take all the fun out of being an outlaw?”

            “We still pay taxes,” Alvin said. “And as far as my lawyers are concerned our metropolis is totally legal. There was no law against building a city in the sky when we created this one and  Ex post facto laws are expressly forbidden by the United States Constitution in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 3”

            “What about the force field?”

            “That’s a little trickier, but I can assure you we have some of the best law firms in New York City working on it.”

            “Obviously wealth has no power over you,” John said. “What does turn on your lights?”

            “Finding what is beyond the unknown,” Alvin said. Alvin stared into space for a moment then he smiled. “Would you like to journey to the T.E.L. level and see the most amazing thing we’ve ever worked on?”

John didn’t have any idea what T.E.L. was and he was speechless as he followed Alvin to a circular platform like the one he had transported up on.

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            The feeling of vertigo that John had experienced before was not as pronounced this time. The vast room they found themselves in appeared dark as a moonless night. Tiny specks of light flashed like moving stars in the distance.

            “A large portion of our research here is with micro robotics,” Alvin said. “It, and the reverse effects of gravity, has allowed us to put hundreds of thousands of undetectable micro satellites into orbit above the Earth. Each satellite has advanced infrared, and its Dark Energy counterpart, shadow-red, technology that allows them to isolate and give continuous and exact GPS readout of all life forms in a selected area as well as a vast amount of other information.”

            “By all life forms are we talking mammals?”

            “Currently all non-plant life forms,” Alvin said.

            “Impossible,” John gasped.  “Location data for the microscopic life forms in just a teaspoon of pond water would crash all the computers on Earth.”

Alvin laughed. “You can make a computer out of anything,” he said. “It’s simply a collection of on and off switches. An ancient abacus uses beads strung on string. In a pinch, anyone can crunch binary numbers with coins turned heads or tails. We’re scientists, so we use hydrogen atoms. Each atom is given a temporary positive or negative charge to represent ones and zeros … so as you can see, our computing power is almost infinite.”

John was starting to feel strange as he stared out into the darkness. “Where are we?’

            “I think the question is … when are we?” Alvin said.

            “Are we traveling in time?”

            “Everyone travels in time,” Alvin said. “We are in a place where time is just moving very slowly.”

            “How slow?’

Alvin looked at the enormous watch attached to his tiny wrist. “We’ve been in the Time Elongating Level for almost three trillionths of a second,” he said.

            “Why would you ever need to measure time in such precise detail?”

            “In addition to collecting location data on all life forms we also collect other data like the exact time to one-hundred billion trillionths of a second that the life form came into being and the exact time it ceases to exist.”

            “It’s impressive,” John said, “but what good is that knowledge.”

            “I’m not the only person here who doesn’t believe that death does not exist,” Alvin said. “I believe the beginning and the end are the same thing. “I’m pretty certain that the exact time of so called death in a living organism and the exact creation time of a new life form will prove to be the exact same location in time. All we have to do is find two numbers that match and we know where the dead went and where life came from.”

            “Then what you’re working on is …” John gasped unable to finish.

            “The world’s oldest and greatest mystery,” Alvin said. “Not in theory but in exact proven science … where do we go when we die?”

TO BE CONTINUED …