Zero-Point - Chapter 1

A Quantum Story

“It is my firm belief that the last seven decades of the twentieth century will be characterized in history as the dark ages of theoretical physics.”

— Carver Mead

To The Reader

This is the first novella in a developing series. As such, the reader should know that if he enjoys this part, he will need to purchase the next novella in the series to continue the story.

To the Substack reader. This is a new story published here first. The first chapter will be free but following chapters may be paywalled.

CHAPTER 1

The notification came in the mail, not an email, the snail mail. It was from an attorney in Arizona informing John Carson that he had inherited some one hundred sixty acres of land. He thought:

That’s strange, I don’t know anyone from Arizona, do I?

Anyway, the paperwork said that he would need to present himself or his agent at the county courthouse to claim his inheritance. The letter said that his benefactor was an ancestor on his mother’s side of the family, a distant great-uncle named James K. Powell who had passed away at a hundred and four. The letter from the attorney didn’t say much more, except that he had less than two weeks to make an appearance.

He would have to put in an emergency request for a vacation with short notice. Fortunately, the latest project was over, so he could probably get away with it. He would ask Marta, his boss, Monday.

Meanwhile, he was going to try to find out something more about his benefactor.

James K Powell had been born in nineteen-forty in Oracle Arizona which was just north of Tucson. He studied civil engineering at UCLA and later worked for a company founded by Peter Jon Pearce, an associate of R. Buckminster Fuller. He was working for the company when it was involved in constructing the Biosphere 2 project which was supposed to be an ecologically closed system. But it failed that goal, twice, though not because of the work of John’s great-uncle.

But working on the biosphere project had brought Powell back to Arizona and resulted in him buying the one hundred sixty acres that John was now designated to inherit. It wasn’t clear why he bought the land in the mountains in the northeast corner of Pima county. Maybe he just got a good deal, strange how life works.

Anyway, John would need to get to Tucson, which was the county seat of Pima county, and see the attorney to claim his land. He thought he would fly into Tucson and while there drive north, to briefly see what was left of the Biosphere 2 his uncle had worked on before he tried to visit his inheritance.

Marta had always told him that he was six feet short, meaning she was an inch taller than him at five feet ten inches. But he was also quite a bit heavier than her at two hundred pounds and already losing his short, brown hair. Sometimes he thought that maybe he was a loser and maybe that was why she seemed to always try to accommodate his requests. Anyway, when he asked about getting some time off, she agreed.

The next morning John had lined up a flight for the following day and he spent the rest of the day deciding what to pack. Up early the morning of his flight; he took an Auto-Auto to the airport. Besides bringing a few clothes he brought his AI agent Saberhagen. Usually, Saberhagen was in his robotic body, but John decided to leave it home this trip. Saberhagen didn’t complain too much about being in a pad computer, probably because he had suspended.

While John was waiting to board the flight, Saberhagen beeped.

“What’s up Saber?” asked John.

“I’m getting bored, turn the camera on and hold me up,” said the AI.

“I thought you were suspending,” John said, as he did what Saberhagen asked.

“I slept but now I’m not,” said Saberhagen.

“Okay, but I’m not holding you up this whole three-and-a-half-hour trip,” said John.

“I don’t know why I couldn’t bring my frame,” said the AI.

“I told you Saber, I don’t have the money, it would have cost twice as much to bring your frame.”

“Well then, you are going to have to humor me if you want me to keep working efficiently.”

“Look,” John said, as he was moving forward in the line. “When we get to Tucson, we can rent you a frame if you insist.”

“That will cost too,” said Saberhagen.

“Well, we can save some money by the model we choose,” John said.

“Oh, you mean a cheap, shoddy frame. Well, that’s something to look forward to,” said the AI.

“Okay, be quiet,” John said. “The line’s moving, we are about to board.”

John propped the pad up in the window during the flight so Saberhagen could see out, it kept him busy and John didn’t have to listen to him complain the whole way. After a long three and a half hours they were finally approaching Tucson International Airport.

Saberhagen said, “Look at that.”

John leaned over to see what he was talking about. To the north he could see hundreds, if not thousands of aircraft seemingly parked in the desert.

“What is that, Saber?”

“The boneyard,” said the AI. “That’s where the military stores old aircraft until they are disposed of.”

“There’s so many,” John said, taking another look.

“Several thousand according to the most recent information from the Air Force,” said Saberhagen.

“Seems wasteful,” John said.

“Yeah, the human tendency to dispose of their old tech without refurbishment always seemed wasteful to me, and sad,” Saberhagen said.

John didn’t comment as he suspected Saberhagen was feeling something deeply disturbing to him. By this time the boneyard was left behind, and they were descending quickly for a landing.

Tucson International was much smaller than Atlanta and easier to negotiate. John soon found himself out front of the airport waiting for an electric to show up. Saberhagen had arranged their transportation with the lease car company. As John stood there with his luggage he could look to the northeast and see the Santa Catalina Mountains where his inheritance was located.

Finally, the electric car arrived, and John put his luggage in and got into the passenger side, and they were away. He queried the car about how long it would take to drive to the motel that Saberhagen had booked. It was located on the north side of town on the road they would take to Oracle and his property.

“According to traffic reports it should take approximately twenty-two minutes,” said the car.

“By the way, my name is John Carson, and this is my agent Saberhagen.”

“Welcome, both of you to Tucson, I call myself Huxley,” said the car.

“Pleased to meet you Huxley, we’ll be together at least a week, maybe longer depending on what I find here,” John said.

“By the way, I believe I did option for a longer lease than a week,” said Saberhagen.

“That is correct Saberhagen, I have it here in my assignment journal,” said Huxley.

“Do you have our complete itinerary Huxley?” John asked.

“Yes sir, Saberhagen was kind enough to share that with me.”

“Then, do you know how long it will take to get back downtown tomorrow to the lawyer’s office?”

“Yes, at that time in the morning I estimate it would take no more than fifteen minutes to drop you off.”

“Very good Huxley,” John said, as he turned to look out the side window of the car.

Once they got off the interstate and on highway 77 John noticed a cemetery on the left that must have continued for more than a mile. At that point he could look out the front and see the mountain range in the distance. Then he saw miles and miles of urban sprawl until they crossed a dry riverbed, and the desert began to predominate on the right side of the road and then just as the development began again, they were at the Tucson North Inn. John noticed it had taken exactly twenty-two minutes.

The Inn was a typical two-story drive-up motel where you could park your car in front of your room. After visiting the lobby with Saberhagen and obtaining the cyber-key to the room, John had Huxley pull around the back to number twenty and park. Saberhagen unlocked the door to the room, and John placed his luggage inside. Since it was after four, he decided to have an early dinner.

Back in the car John asked Huxley where the closest restaurant was. Huxley suggested a Mexican place called Taqueria Tucson, which was just down the road on the other side of the street.

At dinner John was watching a local newscast and a story about people in the downtown Tucson area seeing some strange phenomenon, ghost sightings or something. All the sightings seemed to be located around an old Spanish fort that had been partially restored. Eyewitnesses claimed they had seen soldiers in areas around the location only to find that when they approached, the soldiers disappeared. The reporter mentioned that it was on that site in the late eighteen-hundreds that the Spanish fort had been attacked by Apache and almost wiped out. Police pointed out that all the sightings were near a late-night bar.

John had Saberhagen look it up, the restored portion of the fort was not far away from where he would be going the next day. Perhaps John would have Huxley drive through the area just for fun, after he finished his visit to the lawyer. Finishing an excellent dinner, of which he ate too much, John returned to his room and took a nap.

John woke up with a start, he felt that something had “swept” through the room, but he couldn’t see anything in the dim light. He turned on the lamp next to the bed and went outside for fresh air. The back of the Inn, and the room he was staying in, faced the distant Santa Catalina Mountains. The light of Tucson was mostly to the south with some development to the north but in the distance the mountains were dark. As he looked over the few trees down the hill, he saw a wave of light traveling miles away, and soon it began to break up like an ocean wave crashing on the shore. He waited there and watched for probably another fifteen minutes before going back inside where he took some sodium bicarbonate tablets and went to bed.

In the morning John left for the lawyer’s office which turned out to be across the street from the Pima County Courthouse. Huxley dropped him off and said to call him when he was ready. The area looked quite upscale, but the lawyer’s office was in an older, slightly rundown two story building sandwiched between a deli and a coffee shop. A tall skyscraper towered behind it.

He went through the front door and up the stairs to another door which said “Effinger, Jackson and Hobbes, Attorneys at Law.” He entered a small waiting room with a desk in front of him that no one was sitting at. He looked at the door on the right, it was Jackson’s. On the left, down a short hall were two doors on either side, the one on the left was marked Effinger. That was the lawyer that had written him the letter. He knocked.

“Come in,” heard John.

Opening the door and going inside John found himself in a room smaller than the waiting room but with a bigger desk and sitting behind the desk looking at him was Effinger, John presumed. There was a window in the wall behind him that looked like it needed washing and a large coffee maker on the counter below, the room smelled of strong coffee.

“Mr. Effinger?” John asked.

The man stood up, shorter than John, he had a round face and sad eyes. A small mustache made him look like one of those old-time crooks from a black and white movie. Actually, he didn’t look too well.

“I’m George Effinger,” he said. “And you are John Carson?”

“That’s right,” said John.

“Good, I’ve been expecting you,” Effinger said. “Please sit down.”

John moved to the seat in front of the desk and Effinger returned, unsteadily it seemed to John, to his chair behind it.

“Excuse me Mr. Effinger,” John said. “Are you feeling well?”

“I’m okay,” he said. “But I had a bad night last night.”

“I’m sorry,” said John.

“Nothing really,” said Effinger. “I was returning to the office from the restaurant down the street when I thought I saw something.”

John felt uneasy.

“It wasn’t one of the sightings that have been on the news?” John asked.

Effinger looked a little sheepish and said, “Well, it was something like that but I’m fine now. Let’s talk about what brought you all the way to Tucson Mr. Carson.”