Chapter 27: Device progression

Christmas this year we stayed at home visiting Cat’s two families, one adoptive and one biological. Moria was in the Alps skiing for two weeks. She needed the vacation after spending two hours on the phone being badgered by my current student who tenaciously refused to drop a certain subject until my former student agreed.

After spending the rest of December ‘fixing’ the Extruder from its ‘God Awful’ performance, Cat made her first coil. Frankly, the projections worried me.

EPI was closed for the ten-day holiday session and we had two constant visitors. Both Rachel and Clarissa were underfoot every day with the latter’s blood finally starting to settle down after months of turmoil. Leonard still had not surfaced yet, even though I knew he had knowledge of what exactly happened that night and who had done it. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know what he planned.

“Call this number and ask to use ‘Playground A’ at his earliest convenience. There will be a price to pay, and don’t forget to get the rules, restrictions and regulations of the range. And don’t forget about your week at the Cyclotron.”

Curious, Cat ran off to my den to place the call, leaving Rachel alone at the dinner table with me. “You could have waited a couple days until after I returned to work.” My student’s lover complained. “She is going to be useless now.”

I smiled and returned to my meal. Clarissa was out shopping, leaving our home quieter without her amusing antics.

“Can I give him a different Device besides the Gauss gun?” Cat walked out of the den and returned to her meal with an excited yet worried expression.

“Any Device will do. You are asking for a favor, remember.”

She picked at her meal considering the implications and her choices, ignoring the rest of world just as her girlfriend had thought she would. Rachel had slowly, incrementally adapted to her girlfriend’s behaviors with the increased time spent together so she let her be. For now.

“Come on Rache. I have an idea and you can help.” Suddenly perking up, the younger of the pair dragged the slightly older girlfriend out to the shed.

...

On December 31^st Clarissa booked a table for four at the Trinity Tower in Central City, bringing along a friend from the Hero community while I rested in a Cigar bar with a few other solitary older gents from the local area. Chess, bourbon, and cigars. Cat mocked me on my taste for excitement. I had stopped counting the years long ago.

...

Tuesday, Cat plopped down on my guest chair in my den with a disgusted look. “Helmut wants to give me one of BMW’s new C3 EV electric supercars.”

After my firm repeated denial, “You suck. That car rocks. I asked him to give it to Gretchen instead.”

“Shuttle2 flies.” I helpfully pointed out.

“Not the same.” Was the petulant retort, from the too young teen.

“Unless, you want to completely rebuild his gift so that it could withstand a dedicated assassination attempt. Then, I would have no problem with you driving that car.”

“Not the same. Still sucks. Tomorrow we need to go to Playground A. wherever that is.”

“Two and a half hours southwest in northern New Mexico.”

“We have to leave at seven to get there early.”

“And...”

“It’s my job to load the car.” She finished my sentence.

...

“Hello General Mayhew. This is my student, Catherine Larkin.”

“Hello, Sir.” Shaking his hand, Cat greeted the lanky older officer, still smarting from the meeting with his grandson and holding a grudge, which wouldn’t be a first for her. Or a second.

“If you would come this way, I have your clearance papers for you to sign before we can commence with your tests. Your clearance level will be Q as issued by the Department of Energy. (yes, this is a real clearance level equivalent to Top Secret, And was not named after the Bond gimmick maker.) Make sure that you have read all of the pertinent material before signing.”

“Sir. I have the revised form that I can sign with permission of my lawyer, there have been nineteen changes. All but one are minute.” She pulled out the corrected forms and handed them over to the General. “Except for my name, these are identical to the ones Master signed and updated two years ago. The changes are noted and initialed.”

It took twenty minutes of reading before he passed off the forms to a junior officer to check over. General Mayhew led the both of us to the bomb range with the ‘targets’ already erected and reinforced. “Will this be suitable, Miss Larkin?”

“The plates are four inches thick?” After the aide’s confirmation, “That will work. Thanks.” The four sets of three-by-three plates were all layered with a two-inch gap between the tri layered targets. I hoped that it would be enough.

With the aid of Cat’s new helper, GopherBot4, the second of her reconfigured bots taken from Soyuz, my student set up the table with her new Device, a cross between a shotgun and a Turkish WW II fluted machine gun barrel except with the nozzle centered. Weighing in at ten pounds without the five hundred round drum, I considered it fairly light for a twenty-nine-inch weapon.

Unfortunately, Cat was in for a disappointment.

“Smith, why did you reserve ‘A’, she only has a hand-held weapon. What are you expecting?” My liaison could no longer restrain his curiosity, since Catherine was on the other side of the barrier and could not hear him.

“For the same reason that she is setting up the temperature and velocity recorders outside of the blast radius.”

“You expect a fail or a blast?”

“If either one happens, it won’t be small.” Mayhew gave a command to his aide to evacuate unnecessary personnel.

Only GopherBot4 was left outside along with the weapon while we hid in the blast room, using the monitors to view the outside. “I still think you are going overboard.” Cat complained, opening her laptop and reconfiguring her test programs to match the distance and temperature along with the other atmospheric conditions.

“Ready, Master.”

“Begin.”

“3... 2... 1...” BOOM! Dust flew up everywhere on the monitors obscuring our vision, while Cat recorded the readings.

Sigh... “Quit laughing, it’s not funny. How was I supposed to know that a quarter inch steel bearing would turn into plasma at 8700 miles per hour?” She mock complained at my behavior while the General stood mute and his aide looked like he thought she was lying about the whole thing.

She was, just not in the way he thought. “What is the penetration like?”

“Hold on. GopherBot4 is checking. That is such a dumb name. He’s too cute to call Igor. George. No that sucks too. I’ll ask Rache. I hope she can think of a better name ... Penetrated the first plate, second plate is dented by a half a centimeter with scorch marks. Recalling GB4 for a three-round refill.”

“3... 2... 1...” BOOM, BOOM, BOOM! Almost a continuous blast but we could all hear the individual semi auto rounds obliterate the sound barrier at Mach 11 or so.

“Same result. The Gauss gun remains at a cool 30C internally and 10C on the barrel, one degree warmer than the local temperature.”

That test was repeated twenty more times with identical results.

“Permission to do a full auto twenty-five round burst?”

“Go ahead.” 3... 2... 1 ... BOOM! A brief bright red streak flew out of the barrel. All twenty-five rounds were shot in less than a half a second since its maximum was initially calibrated to be sixty rounds a second.

“No vibrations, the rounds punctured both plates with a one-point-six-centimeter hole in the first narrowing to a point-six-centimeter one in the second, the third was dented with what looks like two of the rounds welded in place.

“Huh, it must be from turbulence, I see a speed differential of three percent with the last six rounds ... Permission to repeat?...” I gave it. She conducted the three round test burst, ten more times with similar results. “Permission to fire sixty rounds, Master. I need to check this out.” She asked while furiously typing into her program.

“General?” I asked. Knowing he was all for it.

“Is it safe?”

“I will not risk her.”

“Go ahead.”

“You heard the man. Continue when ready.”

“Sixty rounds at full auto. A one second burst.” ~BOOM~ a long drawn-out series of sound barrier explosions and collisions followed as the gun spit out a stream of plasma balls towards its target, punching its way through all three layers of four inch hardened steel plates.

“Bah. That sucked. I lost ten percent after the thirtieth, which increased to seventeen percent for the fifty seventh, plateauing for the last three rounds.”

“It was still almost ten times the speed of sound. The loss of energy can be blamed in part on the short barrel.” I advised.

“I know. I didn’t expect it to be so large though. My calculations only expected a nine percent loss over the sixty. Let me do one more trial before I toss this piece of junk away.” She disgustedly replied, not noticing my smirk, nor the military officers stunned reactions at the lethality of a personal weapon created by a seventeen-year-old. One who was so unsatisfied with the results, that she called it ‘Junk’.

The five hundred round magazine tore through all three plates in less than nine seconds leaving a fist-sized hole in all three of them. The stainless-steel quarter-inch bbs turning into plasma was well within our expectations.

“Weapon temperatures?”

“Thirty-one on the magnet and ten still on the barrel. Seventy-two percent of the battery life left. That’s not bad at least... Sigh. You were right. Jerk.” ‘you are allowed to be wrong sometimes too, you know’. “Let’s go home and rip this stupid thing apart and find out what went wrong.”

“After pizza.” I gloated. She lost the bet, so she had to pay this time.

“Jerk.” ‘don’t push it.’

“And don’t forget to give the nice General his new toy.”

I received the LooK, before getting up and packing the Device that all the officers watching on were drooling over.

“Smith...”

“Not a chance Mayhew. Besides, it’s a Device. You would only have one. And that is a prototype. Who knows what could fail at a critical moment or what the effects of particulates in the chamber would do to a weapon that can make plasma out of bbs. There would not be anything left of your sniper if it jammed, nor his spotter. Or the trees he was next to. Or the hill he was on.”

“GB4, this is your new owner. Go with him and help him out, okay?” She knelt in front of everyone and gave the robot that she programmed with my assistance to the General. “Here are his keys, he has a learning AI that you can use for anything from disarming bombs to making coffee. It all depends on how you train him.”

Wistfully, Catherine watched her newest friend go away. To distract my student, I coaxed her to the car and helped her load the testing equipment in the trunk beside the Gauss gun.

“Ya know, at first I thought they were drooling over me. Then I saw your Jerky smirk at them. They wanted my Device. No way in hell would I give that away.” Cat remarked on the way out of New Mexico.

“Did you have fun shocking the big boys?”

A huge grin lit her face. “That was awesome. Did you see the face of the Captain when I announced the first shot penetrating the plate on one hit?” She danced in her seat with glee. “I want Pizza ‘til I barf.” My student flopped back in the seat bonelessly.

“There was a brief spike on the four hundredth and seventh shot. I think something is about to fail. It happened on the second from last one too. But still, it was a good test. I just hated to give those Jerks a bot.” she reported while staring at the clouds through the glass roof.

“It was a necessary introduction for you.” I reminded her.

“I know. Now hush, I need to make a couple of calls...”

...

“What were the issues?”

“The stupid board cracked from the repeated shock of the magnetic pressures. That was what caused the feedback in the tests. Easy enough to fix, just expensive.”

“Well Captain Collingsworth?” General Jackson asked later that afternoon once his head of Device research returned from New Mexico.

“Miss Larkin’s reactions were genuine. The test results were legitimate. The test itself was either a red herring or Miss Larkin is working on something that I don’t understand. Could be both, sir.”

“And her ‘Gauss Gun’?”

“Grossly overpowered for a light machine gun sir. From the way she carried the weapon, it had to be in the ten-to-twelve-pound range. The velocity of the ‘¼ inch bbs’ capping out at an even 8700 mph was definitely intentionally limited. That the ammunition converted into plasma was completely unexpected. Thinking back on it, that might have been the intent of the test to begin with, converting small bearings into plasma with low energy expenditure,” reconsidered the DSI analyst.

“Captain, what do lasers, her EMP arrow, capacitors and plasma have in common?”

“Differing uses for high energy, Sir. I still believe that Miss Larkin is experimenting to get a feel for whatever she plans on achieving.”

“What does your team make of her volatile stress levels?”

“Contrary to her stress analysis, I don’t think she is in a hurry. There is just too much to learn and she is too intelligent not to have realized this.”

“Most of us agree with Sergeant Tige. She pushes herself too hard. Smith and Miss Kresge do what they can to calm her down and relieve her stress until she builds it back up again. A normal person would have blown a gasket by now.” Carefully, the captain asked. “Sir, you have met her. What do you think?”

“A bright cheerful girl. I didn’t spend much time speaking with her, but I didn’t feel or see anything out of place.”

“Sir, she acts nice, but from the test, I observed a skilled individual. My sister is intelligent, but even at three years older, she would never have been as composed or fluent in so many subjects to be able handle all the aspects of the test the way Catherine Larkin did today.”

“Josephine is attending the Air Force Academy, correct?”

“Yes, sir, she is in her second year, With a 4.0 on academics. Sir, I have witnessed experienced Drone demonstrators and they still were not as in charge of everything as Miss Larkin was on this single test. The operators still take instruction from the leads. Smith stood back and watched, only asking questions on the basic results. For show, I believe.”

“And Miss Larkin’s stress levels today?”

“Normal, I thought.”

“Rachel just called. She won’t be here this weekend. She is flying to Berlin. It seems Mercedes, Porsche, McClaren and Fiat all want to meet with her. She will probably be there for a couple of weeks,” my student complained. “And Gretchen is taking a visiting professorship at Central U, which we agreed upon before hiring her.”

“All good at EPI then?” I asked spooning my minestrone.

“Yeah. This is probably the last week that BMW gets most of the production. Once the other orders start, their share will be cut.”

“They still have a good sized lead.”

“Yeah, it’s good testing for us. I didn’t expect to get the working hours that they achieved. 350 miles at 300 miles per hour for a single charge exceeded my calculations. Their power plant must be very efficient. Unlike some people’s...”

That again ... she was as bad as Moria in some ways.

“Are your plans set for next week?”

“Yes. Tavalab doesn’t do what I need. It’s too rigid. I’ve invited Professor Ek and one of his students, his choice, to come with me. I don’t plan on running any experiments. I will just spend my time figuring out how the monstrosity works.”

“You have the blueprints.”

“Not the same. They help though, and really all it is, is a huge mechanism to gather and store energy for burst release, followed by using high end sensors to see what happens when the particles collide. I’m not interested in the God Particle or a black hole generation, which is the direction that they had been traveling for the last twenty-one months. For what I need, they would have to do too much reconfiguring, wasting both their and my time. What we are doing now is still better for me.”

“What is next for you now that you have your Coilgun working?”

“I want to slow down the projectile and alter its properties. I have an idea how to make it work...”

...

January 10^th 2020.

“Ugh, it’s so wasteful...” Cat fell crosswise across the bed after returning to our room at the hotel, unsatisfied after a long day of walking and talking to the Mechanics maintaining the equipment. “I guess their conversion is not too bad for the acceleration process, but the generation and storage side sucks. Charging that stupid thing must cost a fortune. The specs and caps in the prints lie. The actual useable numbers are almost twenty percent lower.”

“Those are the published numbers though. The researchers aren’t lying.” I pointed out unhelpfully.

“I know, I read them. I don’t see why...”

“You know why. Get dressed, Professor Ek only has two days and wants to take you out to dinner as a thank you.”

... “She is not conducting any experiments, just spending her time with the machinery?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any idea why, Captain?”

“Different fields. They are not going in the direction she wants or needs and asking them to change would be too expensive in time and money, even if they would consider accommodating her wishes, which they won’t. It makes sense, if looked from her viewpoint, why she chose to study the machines and not their methods, sir.”

Friday January 14^th.

Cat and I were studying the cryogenic quad magnetic couplings at intersection Bravo when she gently placed her hand on the casing, completely losing focus and track of the senior engineer’s lecture.

Sigh ... Wrong place, wrong time.

“Dr. Ly is there a private room nearby that we can borrow for a while?”

Pausing in mid discourse, “Is there something wrong with your student?” From a certain perspective, it could look like she was supporting herself by leaning against the six-meter-tall coupling.

“She needs somewhere quiet to rest. Can you lead the way?” I scooped up Cat who barely recognized my presence and followed, the now worried engineer, to an office a hundred fifty meters clockwise. The room came equipped with a phone, a desk and a chalkboard. I sat Cat in the chair and thanked the custodian before shooing him off. Standing with my back to the door, I blocked the small square porthole, watching Cat pull out her tablet and start scribbling.

Seeing people head my way, I stepped outside and protected her privacy, fending off all comers including security and medical personnel.

“Catherine is fine. She has entered into a state of Epiphany. Can someone bring us some water and sandwiches?” I refused to leave the spot, except for the times I entered to deliver the food and water.

Three hours later I ordered more water and food, making sure she ate and drank, becoming more and more irritated at the constant interruptions of the ‘inquisitive scientists’. At one point I even activated my shield, keeping them at a distance of ten feet for an hour.

A little after the fifth hour, I snuck in for a peek to see how my student was doing, only to find her eating a slightly stale ham and cheese on wheat. The grin on her face spoke of the breakthrough that she believed she had made.

“Not a word. This place is not secure.” I admonished, before she could swallow the meal and start expounding on her thoughts.

“Sorry.” She didn’t look sorry, or sound sorry. She knew why I was aggravated and didn’t seem to care.

“We are leaving. Shut down your tablet and let’s go.” Taking a hold of her hand, I escorted the irresponsible girl to our cart and drove the two miles along the outer rim to the south entrance where we were parked. After passing through the security checkpoint exiting the installation, we requested clearance for an early take off and returned home after a thirty-minute FAA wait. Both of us silent the entire flight.

“Catherine. What you did today was reckless and dangerous. Shutting down when I am not around could be fatal or worse. Your forcefield has limits.” I brought up the subject of my worry once inside our home.

“But you were there,” my student outright objected.

“My worry about the difference between home and in-public ‘Meditation’ is repetition. Getting used to shutting down your awareness outside of home means that it will happen more and more often. You trust Rachel, right? Would you Meditate, with just her around outside?”

“Maybe,” she admitted.

“Yet Rachel has no defenses or methods of fending off attackers that you do not possess. If they are prepared for you, adding her to the equation will just give your attackers another point of pressure against you when they capture her too.”

“But you were there. I don’t see the big deal.”

“At home you have defenses. Can you imagine Moria shutting down in a lab somewhere away from home even with security around her?”

“No. But it’s different.”

“It IS different. You are currently less capable and more vulnerable than she is. Something that Moria shies away from should scare you even further away. Something such as shutting down externally like you did today, in a lab you were unfamiliar with, around people you were unfamiliar with, even if I were beside you, Should NEVER EVER happen again!”

I could tell she wanted to be angry at me, but her logic circuits were contradicting her behavior.

“ ... but I don’t even know if I would be able to hold on to that thought if I was disturbed. What do I do then?” Giving in, but still seeking a way out is what I hoped for.

“If you are with me and only me when you are in public, then signal me, and I can find us a place for you to Meditate in peace. Trusting anyone else in that state of yours is foolishness. Also, what would happen if some of your extreme ideas become public? Or worse, what if someone like Soyuz got ahold of your prints for your Gauss Gun?”