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.
AN
UNEXPLORED UNIVERSE
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!”
-------2-------
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.”
-------3-------
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.
-------4-------
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 …
