A New World
Copyright© 2026 by Edward Douglass Patterson
Chapter 3: Secrets Revealed
Alice and Jess Maclaren’s home
Balerno, Scotland
May 17, 1999
Jess turned to Mary. “You will have to take updates on the window generators to TDI and MME so that they can duplicate this setup and be able to access the worlds. The information needs to be presented to the technical teams. We may hold off on exploring until all three governments are on board, but we need the equipment ready as soon as possible. John and his father will brief Prime Minister Blake tomorrow afternoon. The three governments will want to keep the adjacent worlds secret, but there’s no reason that we shouldn’t have the equipment ready. It’ll take some time to co-ordinate exploration.”
Mary looked overwhelmed.
Jess’s smile was only a slight upturn, far from his usual smile. “You helped me set the first one up and have done most of the testing. Jamie is going to go crazy when he finds out that the project was a little more than advanced uses of the AJPG power controller.”
“Yes, Professor Lawson was wondering why I hadn’t submitted a report. He thought that you were adding features to the controller and was eager to find out what your toy would do. He’s going to be very surprised.” Mary relaxed as she considered the reaction that a report on the use of the controller for generating a window would have on her advisor.
“Alyca, I want you to develop the damping circuit for the variation in the window size. Also, you need to provide S-I with the requirements for a guard ring that will keep anyone and anything from being cut by the variation.” Jess said to his niece.
“I will need to operate a window to get both of those right. The basic design will be similar to the ATV controller, but the feedback will be faster. I’ll have to wait for the government scientists to set up, and then I will have to get their OK.” Alyca replied.
“We can revisit the first two worlds this afternoon. The third world is out until we can set up some safety features. The fourth new world is a complete unknown. We will leave that world to the government scientists. The two worlds will give you and Mary some operating experience. You’ll be the equipment expert for the scientists, but refer all mathematics questions to Marie.”
“Can do. Electric and mechanical only.”
“Leslie, contact your pilot and set up an early departure tomorrow.” Jess paused. He looked at the ground. With a visible effort, he spoke. “I want to see my new granddaughter as early as possible. Will, contact TDI and let them know that you will be stopping by to discuss revised designs. Marie, we need to have five copies of the four pairs of settings. Copies for the PM, S-I, TDI, MME, and myself. You will keep the original information and your mother’s notes.”
Marie understood what was driving her father. He had to complete his wife’s life work. She also felt the need to do this for her. And for him. She looked to the twins and Alyca. “We need to get moving. I’ll get the paperwork together. Alyca and Mary check out the equipment and start on the repairs. Brenda, get the samples cut from the fish in the refrigerator. Wrap them for transport and freeze them. Then do a preliminary investigation of the fish and write up a report. There is a Polaroid camera in Mom’s office. Take two sets of pictures. Use a separate load of film for each so that they can’t tell that there were two sets of photos. After you are done, join us in the workshop.”
Brenda sighed. “I was wondering if there was something that a pre-med graduate could do.”
The young women went off to their tasks.
Will asked, “How many of these worlds do you want to explore right off? I was planning for two teams with one in reserve for emergencies.”
“We expect most of the world to be like Earth. Say two-thirds water. You will be doing well if you have land at two worlds at your initial site. Start at a location that is above sea level, but have the ability to move up and down depending on what the land level is in your location. We expect that sea level is close across the worlds, but that is close on a planetary scale. I will modify the program and the hardware so that the window flashes open for a tenth of a second to a couple of seconds, and the computer will have a sync signal for a camera. You will be able to open a window real fast and check what is there. I suggest a remote operation. You could hit a volcano’s molten rock. The pressure and temperature will be extreme, so even a fast window may let some lava in. I guess we will have to open windows outside until we figure out some safer way to do it. Starting at a high level and looking around may be a good idea.” Jess explained.
“Yes, I see the problem. We should start at the highest altitude we have and figure out how things lie. Mount Stuart is right behind MME. It is 600 meters high.” Will said.
Robert added, “We could go down on one of the other worlds and open up a window back into one of the ore veins that Uncle Donald always complains are too deep to mine.”
Leslie has a more practical problem in mind. “You could open a window and pump the water out of the deep mine instead of pumping it to the surface.”
Jess commented, “We know you have to be careful with water through a window, but there is no reason that a window can’t be waterproof. I would suggest a small window set horizontal at a lower level and just let the water pour out. This idea brainstorming is nice, but we need to get things square here before I can leave tomorrow.”
“S-I has been designing an RCV aircraft with an electric motor powered by an AJPG. It was designed to fit through the largest window that we are building. It has a camera that transmits back to the operator, and it can be set to circle and record if the control signal is lost.” John commented.
Jess laughed. “I was talking to Alice about having to design one of those to send through the windows. Can you have your dad send someone up with a set of plans this afternoon? I would like to see if there is anything that I can add to the design. We can include that in the package for TDI and MME.”
Marie yelled, “Company” before she led Inspector Paul Hayes and Sgt. Jim Macpherson into the room. Will and Paul hugged. Paul had served with Will in the SAS. John nodded before heading into another room.
Jess asked them to sit down and offered sandwiches and drinks. Will passed the plate of sandwiches while Leslie got the drinks.
After he had taken a bite of his sandwich, the Inspector looked Jess in the eye. “OK, Jess, what are you hiding? I know it’s an accident, but you are hiding up here, and I feel that Jim and Ned weren’t telling me everything.”
Jim looked worried.
Paul smiled. “Jim, I trust all of you. Even the politician, who ran into the backroom.”
John laughed as he reentered the room. “Thanks, I think.”
Jess shook his head. “I planned to tell you after you made your report. I need to keep what we were doing out of the papers. If it got out too soon, we might have a lot of other deaths.”
John joined in. “Also, I think the government will want to put a lid on this. I have a meeting tomorrow afternoon with the PM where I’m going to fill him in on things. You should see a lot of action around here tomorrow evening.”
Jess sighed and looked at the Inspector. “I would like to ask a favor. Can you post a couple of men around so as to discourage anyone from looking into what happened?”
“I could do it, but that might just encourage them.” Paul replied.
“I think that with the station across the street and Constable Ewing’s house behind us, you can monitor the house with little notice. I’ll pay for the extra time.” Jess offered.
“I shouldn’t have to worry about the cost if the PM has people in here tomorrow night.” Paul paused for a second as he thought about what would be needed. He would send Ewing home early with instructions to keep an eye on the house all night. Tomorrow, he and Jim could take turns coming across to visit. “Let me have a key. Jim and I will come over and check things out during the day.” John handed him his key to the house. “So what happened?”
Jess relaxed. He could go and see Kim without worrying about the house. “Do you remember when Alice was in the papers for days with her adjacent world theory?”
Paul’s face turned angry. “I remember a lot of insults to Dame Alice.”
<The Scotsman, July 22, 1997 – Douglas Richards>
Local reaction to the negative reception that Dame Professor Alice Maclaren’s presentation of her paper on Adjacent World Theory has been uniformly hostile. “Dame Alice has been named the best mathematician since Einstein. How can they talk about her like they have?” Mary McDougal asked me when she served me lunch at a local pub yesterday. I asked her if she had read Dame Alice’s paper. She laughed. “I read your reports so I can understand anything scientific. Dame Alice has been so successful and she is always so helpful. How can anyone treat her like they did?”
I agree. The reaction that Dame Alice’s presentation evoked among the attendees at the conference is something that I have never heard of before, especially someone with a record like Dame Alice...
Jess remembered the local outcry at the way that Alice had been treated. “We planned it so that she wouldn’t be believed but hadn’t expected how nasty it would get. We wanted to get the equations out to the world at large so no one could monopolize them.”
Paul realized that they had planned for the disbelief to hide the truth. “Do you mean her death has something to do with another world?” He’s stunned by this turn of events.
“Yes, we opened a window to another world, but it was at the bottom of a lake. The water spilling in electrocuted Alice.” The event of Alice’s death was brought back to Jess. He looks down and inhales deeply. Marie took her father’s hand.
“I see why you don’t want to have it connected with her death.” Paul expected a revival of the attacks on Alice.
Jess shook his head. “No, we are afraid of others setting up windows to the other world and letting something worse in.”
“Plague! Invasion!” Paul’s words echoed the plot of most science fiction invasion stories.
Jess shook his head again and looked at Paul. The memory had receded. He needed to continue what Alice, Will, and he had started. “No, Alice’s theory has a part that reduces the worry about virus and other biological problems. That is one of the reasons that I need to go see Kim right away. She has a video that may confirm that. As for invasions of larger life forms, if they had a way to get here they would have already come. But we need to be cautious there also in terms of our invading them.”
As he got into his explanation, the shadow of the event lost its hold on him. “The two problems I see right now are water and lava. Imagine what lava under pressure might have done to the neighborhood. Neither Alice nor I thought about opening a window at the bottom of a lake. There may be other things to worry about. I think that we need to be more cautious. That is a typical function of government so I guess they should take over. But they won’t have a monopoly on it for long. I expect in two to five years that we will have windows to this other world opening up all over. In garages, basements, universities. A simple set up is all that is needed.”
John broke in. “What is this that Kim came up with? I will need to tell the PM about it too or he will have our heads.”
Will was initially surprised at John’s question, and then he realized that John’s question would make Paul think that Jess hasn’t discussed it all with them. It was a smart move by John.
Jess explained. “Simply that Kim saw a virus pop into view on her microscope when she was making an observation. She has it all on tape. She played it over and over again but couldn’t make heads or tails of it. So, she called her mother. Alice didn’t have any idea about it at the time, but she found that her equations would allow for spontaneous micro-windows between worlds. That could mean that we would be getting repeated mixing of virus and bacteria between worlds.”
Marie smiled. “Yes, they would. This moves things closer to my specialty.” The discussion had awoken some ideas that Marie had been having. She saw possibilities for a bunch of other ideas. Mom may be right. I may get a chance to match her. “I think Mom may have had other clear visions.”
Jess and Marie looked at each other and smiled. The others were baffled by their smiles.
John looked to his wife. “Anything to tell?”
Marie smiled at him, “No. Like Mom, I like to have all the equations neatly down so I can show off to my husband.”
Jess and John laughed, and the others joined in.
“Paul, can you cover things here until the PM can have men down to take over?” Jess asked.
Paul realized that something big was going on here and that it would be a while until he learned more. “Yes. What are you going to be doing?”
Jess smiled. “I’m going to the States to see my newest granddaughter and to tell Kim about her mother’s death.”
John stood up. “Inspector, sergeant, let us go down and talk to the reporters and leave the grieving husband and daughter to hatch their plans. I think there is more that government officials shouldn’t hear.”
The police officers and John went down to the street where a pair of constables were keeping five reporters back from the house. The story hadn’t yet caught the attention of any of the television news services or the news wires. John knew that wouldn’t be the story tomorrow unless he could buy some more time.
John smiled. He was used to dealing with the press. “Gentlemen and ladies, I’ve come down to answer some of your questions.”
“Which ones would those be, MP Lawrence?” asked one of the reporters.
OK, John thought. Let us give them ninety-nine percent of it. “Ones dealing with the untimely death of my mother-in-law, Dame Alice Farwell Maclaren. Let me outline the matter, as I understand it. Dame Alice was helping her husband Jessie Maclaren with one of his new gadgets. A flood of water washed over her when she was working at a computer, causing her to be electrocuted. Her husband turned off the power. He found that she wasn’t breathing and set off the house alarm. He then started CPR. When Sergeant Jim McPherson (he nodded to Jim) arrived, Jim called for an ambulance. He then helped Jess in trying to revive Dame Alice. The medics’ attempts to use a defibrillator to revive Dame Alice were also unsuccessful. My wife was called about her mother’s death and I brought her here.
“Where did the water come from?” the female reporter asked.
“There is a fire sprinkler above the computer.” John replied.
“What was the gadget that Jess was working on?” Doug Richards, a senior reporter with The Scotsman, asked. John had met him a number of times here at the house. Jess and he had been friends for years.
With a smile on his face, John replied. “Something secret that would allow Jess to abandon all the hard work he puts in at the shop.” John saw that Doug realized that there was more of a story. Doug nodded to him. Good, he would give us time. Doug will be the one that will break the story for us.
There was laughter from the reporters and then the four police officers. They all knew of Jess’s many patents that had made the family fortune. Also, the fact that Jess was always available to help the neighbors or develop devices to assist the handicapped for which he took no money. They knew that he did a lot of odd gadgets that caught his fancy. As to secrets, the reporters knew that when they needed to have something to fill some space in their papers, they could drop in and Jesse would describe something that he had done that would interest the readers. He never went to them with his gadgets, but he would talk their ear off if they came over.
“When will we be able to talk to Jess?” the female reporter asked.
“Dame Alice’s death has been a blow to him and Marie. They aren’t ready to face the press. I would expect that one of them would be able to answer questions tomorrow or the next day, but that just would be background information for the weeklies. I am sure that you would rather have more information about my latest initiatives in Parliament.” John thought now to divert their attention.
“Thanks, MP Lawrence, but save it for the political reporters.” Doug Richards said. He realized John was trying to cut the interview off.
John continued, “I plan to bring the matter of hazardous conditions of mixing water and electricity to the PM’s attention. He should send some scientist down to investigate. That would give you a big story.”
“Thanks, but we don’t need you making a big story out of this for our sake and your voter rating.” The female reporter said as she turned away.
“John, I think we will do you a favor and wrap this up today.” Doug Richards turned to the reporter next to him and started talking about another story.
The reporters left.
Paul smiled as the reporters drove away. “You got rid of them nicely, but don’t you think that was laying it on a little heavy? It could cost you some votes.”
“No, by the time this comes out, my polls will be the least thing that we will worry about.” John was thinking of what would be needed to coordinate the exploration now that the governments would be involved. “I told them the truth, and they left of their own accord. If some scientists are seen here tomorrow, they will write it off as politics.”
Jim said. “They would have wondered if we tried to close them out, but since they did it themselves, they left much faster.”
“Keep me informed.” Paul said before he led his men across the street to the station.
“I will.” John entered the workshop.
While the press interview was going on outside, everyone but Brenda was in the workshop. Marie read her mother’s notebook. Jess and Alyca fixed the equipment. He kept an eye on Mary while she explained the setup to her parents and brother. Teaching was the best way to learn in a hurry, and Mary would have to be ready to explain window generation in both Texas and Australia.
“Won’t there be other people there?” Leslie asked her daughter.
“No reason why not. We got what looks like a fish that Brenda is dissecting upstairs.” Robert commented.
Mary shook her head. “We talked about that while we were working on the equipment. Our conclusion was that we would have to have common ancestors for man to be on the other worlds. Jess and I thought these worlds would be strange to us, but Aunt Alice said that they would be ready for us to move in.”
Jess interjected. “Alice had dreams about the other worlds. All of us living there and putting down roots. She said that we would have a house across several worlds. She saw herself there with us. I have lived with her visions for over forty years, and never has she been wrong in the main details. Several times, they had her with us, but she admitted it was strange because she saw herself as a young girl.”
“So she has moved on!” A voice from the door said.
Two women had entered the shop while the discussion was going on. John had been a step or two behind them. Only Will and Robert had seen them enter. Robert had looked to his father for what to do, but when he saw the smile on his father’s face, he relaxed.
“Grandmother!” cried Marie. She jumped up and hugged the woman who had just spoken.
Jess looked at his mother-in-law and said, “What do you mean, Edna?”
Edna turned towards Jess, “My grandmother Alice passed on the day my daughter Alice was born. Has Kim given birth?”
“Yes,” said a shocked Jess.
“So Alice to Alice does the soul go again in the family,” said Edna as she collapsed into a chair. Her daughter Marge looked concerned. She checked her mother’s pulse. Brenda had entered the room.
Edna shook her hand free. She turned to Marge. “You felt her go just as I am sure that Marie and Kim did. Well, Kim probably got the double hit just as I did when my Alice was born. Feeling one die but the spirit reborn within your child is something you do not forget.”
Marie had a confused look on her face. “But I knew the feel of my children before they were born.”
“Aye, I did too with your mother, your aunt, your uncle, and the one I lost. It is not the same feel as later when they have grown to control their body. Before she was born, your mother had a feel like my grandmother. Then after the birth, it was more so. As she grew with the body, she changed but was very much the same.”
“So Alice is my new granddaughter?” John held Jess as the impact of what was said broke the steadiness that he had shown since the death of his wife. Now, I understand why I still felt her but that she was far away.
“Yes, as much as the soul is the person.” Edna answered. “I have given it much thought while reading and seeking advice all these years. At first, I thought I was mistaken, but with the rest of my children, there wasn’t that clarity that Alice had from birth. I don’t know why this one soul stays with our family, but I have never doubted the goodness that I found in her. She and I taught each other as she grew up.”
“That is a lot to absorb.” Will said as he looked at his wife and children.
Now is not the time to tell them what we saw in those two. Edna thought as she looked from Jess to Will.
“Jess, I came here to ask you if I could go with you in Alice’s place. I need to talk to Kim about this.” Edna asked.
Jess looked at Will. Who glanced at Leslie. They reached an agreement without words as they often did. Leslie turned to Edna. “We would be glad to have you with us. Jess is flying over with us on the company plane. We have room for you and one or two others.” She looked at Marie and Marge but they shook their heads no.
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