Chapter 4

January 1993

Since 1990, we’d had ‘visits’ from other physicists: mostly from the California universities, from other major universities across the U.S., and, on occasion, from international researchers – even Fred from CBS got to peek at Chas’s lab. The only ‘visitors’ we blackballed were from the government agencies that wanted to ‘investigate’ us. Chas had brief meetings with the physicists, and had even given some of his small fusion bottles away. He’d experimented on them and decided that they were almost indestructible – unless you spritzed them with water, of course. We didn’t tell anyone about the water.

All the visitors got to see the lab / cave. We used the destruction and construction at NavEl to keep them away from the real work: the creation of the fusion reactions that would appear, as if by magic, inside the bottles.

Shortly after the place was weather-tight, in the latter half of 1992, Chas installed the first, full-sized fusion reaction in the first jumbo bottle. It lit up the plant, too bright for us to look at. Chas, Rock, Bear, and I were watching from the TV room. We were just watching the mini-sun, just sitting there, beaming blindingly away. “Chas,” I wondered, “if the light ... uh, what is it? – the light photons can get out, why not the electricity? Why isn’t electricity going everywhere? Shorting out everything within ... uh ... range. Does electricity have a range?”

“I think it has to do with the EM field,” he explained. “The photons aren’t affected by magnetism or electricity, but the electrons are. So far, I haven’t found any kinds of other emissions getting through the bottle. Like gamma rays or anything. I suppose we should get some serious testing by experts in here.”

“Yah, you think?” I mumbled. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t done that.

Chas just kept explaining. “So the electrons are trapped inside the bottle, sort of. When I make the right kind of adjustments, the electricity can leak out toward the big copper ‘catcher,’ I call it. The electric engineers would have a technical name, I’m sure. What it does is catch the electricity that escapes the bottle, and kinda ‘funnels’ it into a wire – cable – whatever, and sends the electricity out to the world. To make bulbs light up and TVs work.”

“So, except for the other emissions, it works by magic,” I summed up, grinning. “How fast can we get something in here to test for the other emissions?”

“Oh. Well, I’ve already done that, but we need to have it done by an expert. Or else nobody will believe it.” He smiled at me. “I’m just a boy genius ... who knows what trouble I can get into?” He laughed.

I gave him my most, terrible-ist glower. “Chas, after the escaping ultra-rays turn you into chicken-fried-Chas, I’m gonna feed you to the coyotes.”

“Nanta’s got a great recipe for chicken-fried-chicken.” He was still laughing. “You know, one thing I always wondered: chicken-fried-chicken is really just chicken that’s cooked like fried chicken. Does that make sense? I mean, chicken-fried-steak, or chicken-fried-pork, or even chicken-fried-zucchini, I could understand. They are other stuff, cooked like fried chicken. But chicken-fried-chicken?”

“Some things, boy genius, are not meant to be understood. It’s all magic.” I ruffled the hair on his head.

Bear, I could tell, was still working through the fried chicken conundrum. He wanted THE answer. Rock, didn’t care, as long as it came with white gravy.

Me and the boyz walked out of the generation building and went over to the big heat exchanger that was going to be sending in cold air. There was a pipe going into the ground and another coming out. “Hi!” I said to the heat-exchanger guy. “Is this beast about ready? We got a reaction going on inside. We’re gonna need it soon.”

“I just gotta throw a switch, and she’ll blast the heat outta that building. Hope your thermostat works,” he said.

“Haven’t you checked that?” I goggled at him.

“Sure I checked it. And it works,” he said. “By the way, this isn’t a beast. She’s top of the line, model xxxx-yyyy. And she’ll produce...”

“I don’t need the details. I’m sure she’s a top-of-the-line beautiful beast. We’re gonna need a couple others just like her,” I said placatingly. Who knew that he was sensitive about a big refrigerator, hooked up to an underground pipe? “Check with Mr. Furuya about getting it running.”

“Right. Don’t worry, we’re on top of it.” I could tell he was ready for us to move along.

I waved at him, “Sorry, I’m just anxious.”

He adjusted the cowboy hat on his head. “Don’t be anxious. Anxiety is bad for ya. Be eager, instead.” He smiled and waved back. Wisdom from just another Navajo philosopher.

...

Since we were getting close to turning the fusion generator on and making electricity, I thought I’d better check with McSorley’s terrorists. The good General was in the air, flying toward D.C. It seems he has a high-level meeting with his OPGA principals. There were going to be two guys from each of the top three oil companies, most of them were also gas producers. The coal interests were represented by three people and, not surprisingly, by the leader of the UCMU – the United Coal Mineworkers Union.

He was planning on showing them a plan to be implemented in the spring of 1994, for a 2,000 man invasion of the Navajo reservation and taking over the site we called Navajo Electric. Blowing it up, finding and ‘disappearing’ the boy genius and me. And a simultaneous attack on the Shoshone kiln site. The northern branch was to be manned by 1,000 coal miners from the coal mines of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Montana. The southern force was to be manned by a mercenary force hired by OPGA.