NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: This thread is closed, and top secret IC.

IC:

Somewhere in Nova Louisiana, Earth SSR

The proposal was interesting enough. Diabolical genius. A weapon to shake the ages, a weapon that made even the fabled Genesis Device look like a child's top by comparison. It was utterly comprised of some of the most maniacal planning ever thought of by the People's Navy. And it was proposed by someone who really read a lot of Douglas Adams.

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Earth SSR

The phone call came to the desk of one Dr. Edelmira Tennenbaum-Orrozco, who was at the moment busy prodding what looked like some anomalous substance and a pool of water inside a glass chamber. Standing in her custom made exoskeleton, she stood in front of a lab section of fifty amused students who got to see the Doctor really live it up.

"So...gentlemen. Ladies. This is sodium....and this is a tub of water. We now do the classic experiment which shows how the two do not agree. A little trick, to perhaps liven up the class considering the drudgery I assign you."

She then dropped a cube of sodium into the water and then said, "Stand back." The result was a fizzing, a popping, then an explosion as the now fiery cube bounced all around the chamber. The cube then exploded against one of the walls, sending glass that missed Antonio, the old janitor, and Javier her assistant. The old janitor was unhurt, but he had reason to begin cussing as he moved to begin cleanup with Javier. Fortunately, Tennenbaum was tenured, and it was expected she'd do something like this.

"And that is why sodium must never mix with water, kids. Now, be free! And finish those readings!"

A man in a suit then stayed behind, and said, "Doctor Tennenbaum?"

Stepping out of her exosuit and onto her segway with Javier's help, she then scooted to the man and said, "Yes? How can I help you good fellow? Make it quick, for I have a physics class in ten minutes. So many freshman sections. It is as if I became the Physical Sciences Department's babysitte-"

The man said, "It's of some importance. Freshmen can wait."

Tennenbaum lit up at that, and smiled wearily. With a chuckle, she said, "Ah. I see you're from someone important then. The Government, I assume?"

"How could you tell?" the man in the suit said, astonished and looking about.

Leaning in and smiling, she then laid it bare in her staccato "rapid delivery" tone, "I've done plenty of government work. They always rouse me the same way. A nice young man in a suit. Or a nice young woman in a suit and pleated kneelength skirt. That's how it is...."

At that, the G-Man said, "Right. Then you know this is the part where I ask you to get your assistant and your materials, and follow me," with a laugh.

"Indeed. I'll see you out back." Tennenbaum said, turning around and clapping to rouse Javier. About fifteen minutes later, and with plenty of angry phone calls to spare to the Physical Sciences Department and the Fine Arts Department, she then boarded a shuttle to God-knows-where.....

The laboratory Tennenbaum was sent to was in some faraway spot. Informed of the need to keep it and the project secret at all times, Tennenbaum merely nodded and assented to whatever the government would assign her. She was used to these preambles--ambigious oaths pledging respect for privacy. Still, the good Doctor took them in stride.

The facility itself was located in the midst of an asteroid belt. Landing on one of the isolated asteroids, she was dismayed but not surprised at it all. Made barely livable with the addition of a shield generator, crude landing facilities and what was sure to be a labyrinthine complex designed by some Marxist bureaucrat from God-knows-where, Tennenbaum's shuttle got a good view of the nasty place. She said nothing.

The shuttle was allowed through the shields and through a pressurized blast door into the facility below. It reminded her of that time on Delmaav. Only this was different. Tennenbaum got out with Javier and met the person in charge. She instantly recognized the man, and said with no small amount of sarcasm, "General Graves. I thought I recognized a troglydite when I saw one."

"Very funny, Doctor Tennenbaum." The old general sighed. "This trog is the reason you get Mother Dornalia's projects. Come. We got a lot of business to discuss, and a short time to do it in."

"As you wish." The Doctor and Javier followed into a spartan briefing room. There, Graves said to Tennenbaum, "Doctor, you're about to be recruited to chair a project so secret, so vital to national security that I can't even say what it is out loud."

Tennenbaum stared at Graves, confused.

"It's true. I know its not what you're used to, but Los Angeles has deemed this really, really top secret," Graves said with a sigh. Passing her a manila envelope, he then said, "This document's info doesn't leave the facility. In fact, I gotta get it back once you read it."

Tennenbaum smiled and said, "So I see after all these years, Mother Dornalia still keeps some secrets. I suppose women don't always talk, then." Taking the envelope, she opened it up and read the paper. Her eyes widened dramatically. Her hands quivered. And, she blurted out, quoting an old video game, "'Not only does God play dice, but the dice are loaded.'"

Graves, unfazed, said, "Well?"

Tennenbaum then said, startled, "It's....the words fail me."

"Words fail the great Doctor Tennenbaum?" Graves chuckled.

Tennenbaum shot him a nasty glare, and slapped the paper. "This proposal is asks me to do something that may be potentially beyond the mortal ken. This proposal is utterly powerful in its scope. This proposal is also highly ludicrous."

Graves then replied, "That's what they said about FTL travel, Doctor. That's what they said about practical energy weapons and practical fusion and such. That's what they said about teleportation and replication."

"Making a bowl of soup in an energy to matter conversion is hardly the same as what this proposes to do," Tennenbaum said skeptically.

"Still, Doctor...."

"No. There are some things even I won't do." Tennenbaum said firmly.

As she began to leave, Graves stopped her and said, "Listen to me. Doctor, you are New Dornalia's best scientist. Ever. You have done things men have only dreamed about. You've made miracles occur. You've done things with pen and paper and math that most would take years of computer simulations to do. You are our only hope to make this project succeed."

He tapped the paper and said, "Now it seems like an impossible task. But I guarantee it, the precedents exist. If you looked further--" Graves flipped two pages--"I appended them. Now stop worrying, and answer the call of Mother Dornalia. Please."

Tennenbaum looked at the Appendices in some detail, and then sketched some scribbles on a paper. She then handed it to Graves.

"Very well then, General. If you wish for me to commence with Project Quixote, I will ask for you to requistion these items for me, including the fellow Quantum Physicist I request on that paper. He's one of the best I know besides me. I also need all of those things in order to build the appropriate apparati and do the models. I need access to reference materials. Anything you got. And, I need your full cooperation. Failure to provide this means I leave. Got it?"

General Graves nodded and smiled, saying, "But of course, Doc." He took the paper and manifest, and left.

Several days later, Doctor Tennenbaum recieved her materials. From her office came volumes of articles, texts, binders of lab reports, monographs and all sorts of academic materials. Also, she requested her complete library of works by Dickens, Shakespeare, Borges and Cervantes, which came in large cardboard boxes to Graves' dismay. Javier was busy marshaling the various People's Navy seamen--an odd term for spaceborne servicemen, but one that stuck with the PN--and Marines shoving the boxes onto forklifts and portable teleporter pads for transport.

But more came too. All sorts of fuels, scientific instruments, reactors, and what looked like parts for a FTL-4 Bosun Jump drive. Also, out stepped a scientist. A tall Indian fellow who looked understandably confused when he saw the works of Borges. He picked up one of the volumes and examined it.

"'Every novel is an ideal plane inserted into the realm of reality,'" Tennenbaum said, as she scooted over to the Indian with her Segway. "Like Borges?" she said with a smile.

The Indian wagged the book and said, "'All the great utterances of man have to be judged not by the letter but by the spirit — the spirit which unfolds itself with the growth of life in history.' I prefer Rabinadrath Tagore myself." He then put down the volume and extended his hand. "Dr. Vijay Roy, Ph.D. I understand you needed some assistance?"

Tennenbaum shook his hand skeptically, her face turning into an odd shape after expressing his preference for Tagore. "I see. Yes, I do. This project requires someone with knowledge of Quantum Physics, and a rather extensive one at that. Your's is rather extensive. Hence, why I called."

"Well, thank you, Doctor Tennenbaum," said Dr. Roy as he shook Tennenbaum's hand. He sensed her hand tighten up, and her unease at his choice of lit. "Well, shall we get started?" he asked.

"Yes. We shall." She then led him to the large room where the staff was placing the equipment. It was a warehouse of sorts, and one could easily fit a reactor and the FTL-4 drive in there.

"This is our main experimental area. I intend to set up our main experimental apparatus in here. Did you read the project documentation yet?" Tennenbaum curtly asked, as she marshaled some parts to one side.

"Um, yes," was Dr. Roy's reply.

At that, Tennenbaum said, "Good. Then I hope you know what we intend to accomplish here."

"Yes," Dr. Roy said. "And I may say it is an honor to be working with you, Doctor Tennenbaum. I've heard much about you, and read your reports. They're rather innovative."

Tennenbaum, her arms moving like a conductor's now, said not focusing her attention on him, "I appreciate the flattery, I've read your reports and they're also quite good. However, what we intend to do here is no less than accomplish a miracle. We need focus and drive. Can you bring that?"

"Well, yes! I didn't get to the Indian Institutes of Technology by watching the telly all day," Dr. Roy said with a chuckle. "I worked hard like most in our profession do. It's fairly obvious I imagine."

"It is. To most. I just wanted to make sure you were one of the 'most,'" Tennenbaum finished with. Turning to him, she smiled and said, "Well then. Welcome aboard."

Roy got a sense that this woman appreciated his skills, but probably didn't think much else of him. That was fine; Tennenbaum was legendary for her haughty manners. Perhaps showing some of his talent on the job would work in his favor.

By now, Tennenbaum had set up the reactor and other goodies, and the warehouse room was transformed into a physics lab to match any other. Tennenbaum could be seen busily scrawling equations on a notebook, in order to make the experiment work.

"Let's see....put this here....manipulate these bosons.....energies here...."

Roy then looked over Tennenbaum's shoulder, whereupon she said curtly, "If you have a question, ask."

Roy held back and said, "My apologies. I merely wished to state that you may have to account for Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and Einstein and all of his relativity work."

Tennenbaum stopped, looked over her notes, and said, not even looking at him, "How obvious. I have done so. Thank you for reminding me. Now, what else did you need?"

Roy's response was to cough and reply with, "Well, Doctor, I was also thinking the whole thing is rather inefficent." This caused Tennenbaum to look at Roy finally, and she raised an eyebrow.

"Oh?"

Roy motioned for the notes, and Tennenbaum let him see them, if only reluctantly. Roy then pulled out another sheet of paper and promptly copied them, before saying as he began writing on the back of his new sheet, "Now, Doctor. I notice you have these equations here and here, and have calculated for the transmission of energies here. A good process, but what results is a relatively slow and inefficent one."

He then handed his revised equations to Tennenbaum, saying, "Doctor, I propose these simplifications. They will help better utilize the energies you propose to channel more efficently and with a faster, exponential curve of production. I also eliminated several unnecessary workarounds."

Tennenbaum glanced at the notes, and her expression grew shocked. She then replied with forced enthusiasm, "Thank you, Mr. Roy," furiously scribbling in her own notebook ways to simplify his simplifications even more and outdo him. Roy wondered what the fuss was all about, and shrugged, saying, "Not a problem," before leaving.

Javier witnessed all of that, and said, "You're jealous, aren't you? Someone actually--"

Tennenbaum glared at Javier and promptly said, almost hissing at the assistant, "Put that mouth to better use. NOW!" She then turned to her notes, furious. For Javier was right. Someone had actually attempted to outdo her in her own field of study. Not unprecedented, as one had a title to defend. But Dr. Vijay Roy, Ph.D's attempt had gone where others failed. It had actually succeeded. Not by much, but it had certainly succeeded in simplifying and refining a process she was proposing.

Furious, she set about ensuring from that moment on she'd not be so outdone again.

And that's the way it was for the next several weeks.

The main problem that developed in those weeks was to figure out how to manipulate time, dimensions and all those fun things just so. The project procedures called for something enormous that would affect dimensions. So far, most of their calculations and experiments, in the tradition of scientific trial and error, had failed. The reactor ran too hot, or the energies sustained didn't last for more than microseconds.

Now, in this week of experimentation, Tennenbaum was sitting with a cup of yerba maté, a copy of The Collected Poems of Jorge Luis Borges, a tattered notebook with scribbles in it, and a sore look on her face. This whole affair was causing her to lose sleep, and it showed. Bags under her eyes, red eyes, frizzy hair (even frizzier than usual) and a faint body odor were a sign she was working way too long.

"I don't get it. I've managed to compensate for the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle so far. I've worked out all the possibilities. I've got the computations for the FTL-4's jump computer arranged just so. I've got the FTL-4 drive itself arranged just so. I've got the singularity reactors done right. What's the problem?" She tapped her pencil on the notebook, sighing.

Roy walked into the room, saying, "Still at work, Doctor Tennenbaum?"

"No, I'm playing with my dreidels," she snapped. Turning to Roy, she angrily said, "Of course I'm working, you miserable twit! I've been working for the past seventy-two hours straight."

Roy then stepped back, and then said with a frown, "I see."

Tennenbaum then smiled and leaned her head on her hands, saying, "My apologies, dear Doctor. I've become rather irritable. Usually, these things tend to sort themselves out, but this puzzle is proving quite difficult. It is as if I have been given the Voyhern Manuscript. A code, with no cypher, and only guesswork to lead me through."

Roy then sat down and said, "Well, I think it's time I helped you out again. Let's backtrack and put our books aside." He then shoved the books aside, to Tennenbaum's consternation.

"'What is going on in that little boy's mind of yours?!'" the Doctor screamed. In her state, any percieved threat was going to be unacceptable, and this looked like a big one.

Roy sighed and said, "It's called taking a step back. Something I think you need to do. Please." Tennenbaum fumed, and Roy said, "You're like a little kid sometimes."

She then looked at Roy with her eyes full of venom. Tennenbaum then slapped the Indian--or was about to, when he stayed her hand. He then said, "Now, listen to me. You've been real cross with me. I don't know why. I've never gotten this much abuse before. What is wrong with you!?"

Tennenbaum let her hand down, and said, "That day."

Roy then went on, waving his hands and saying, "Go on. I'm not a bloody mindreader."

Tennenbaum sighed and sat down. At that point, she began speaking, almost tearing up in parts, "Th-that day, when we first began work on the experiment, you showed me up. I ha-had done something marvelous. Something earth-shaking as usual." She then glared at Roy and said, "And you fucked it up. You had to make it simpler. You had to make it harder, better, faster and stronger--like the song. And you had to do it so casually. You're not running the damn project!"

Roy then let out a laugh. A big, knee slapping belly laugh.

"What is it now?!" Tennenbaum said, furious.

Roy then coughed, and calmed down. He then said, rather sensibly, "Well, it seems we're being rather jealous here. Like a new baby's been born, and you're the big sister who's suddenly not getting any attention because there's a new kid in the house. Only, there's not even a new kid to fret over. There's not even a parent to shunt affections. Unless its name is Insecurity."

Tennenbaum then nodded, saying, "Go on."

Roy then began trying to assuage Tennenbaum's insecure and bruised ego.

"Now, I don't know what you've been thinking--wait, I do. But I know what I've been thinking. I've been thinking that I've been honored to work on this important project, and with an important scientist like you. Hell, I know kids in my lectures who want to be like you and who are inspired by you to take my classes."

Tennenbaum nodded, aware of that.

"You're seen as crazy, yes. But you're also seen as a visionary."

Tennenbaum nodded, aware of that too.

"And I don't know where you're getting this idea that I'm trying to outdo you. It's not a bloody contest! The only contest here is against the people who want to hurt the Workers State. And the only thing I see here is someone who's been drinking too deep from the well of pride in the last few weeks, evidently.

My favorite author once said, 'I thought that my invincible power would hold the world captive, leaving me in a freedom undisturbed. Thus night and day I worked at the chain with huge fires and cruel hard strokes. When at last the work was done and the links were complete and unbreakable, I found that it held me in its grip.' Doctor Tennenbaum, you have to realize that you can be the best. But you cannot be a goddess. That is asking yourself too much. We all make mistakes, right?"

Tennenbaum nodded, musing over these words.

Roy then finished with, "Good. Now let's put these silly things aside, and get back to work. Or better yet, get some sleep. I think some rest would do us all a world of good."

As he left, Tennenbaum uttered, "'Mir Bahadur Ali is, as we have seen, incapable of evading the most vulgar of art's temptations: that of being a genius.' Or should we say, Doctor Edelmira Tennenbaum Orrozco." Roy stopped upon hearing that. Finishing the last of her yerba, she then said, "Right. I'm going to bed, Dr. Roy. When I wake up, I will be a more refreshed person. Not totally altered into a well-behaved woman, but merely refreshed and somewhat more sensible. How does that sound?"

Roy then nodded, saying, "That's all we need."

The next day saw a breakthrough of sorts. Tennenbaum was refreshed, awake, and began working immediately with Dr. Roy and Javier on the project at hand. The large reactor booted up once more, this time using newly refined procedures and equations, plus with a change of parts. That was the usual case.

As Tennenbaum motioned for Javier to activate the reactor, she said, with a proud smile, "I can feel it now. 'I have known uncertainty: a state unknown to the Greeks.'"

Roy then uttered, "Eh?"

Javier motioned to him and said, "I'd let it go, Doctor Roy. She's in her own little world right now."

Roy shrugged and said, "Okay. Now then, are we ready?"

Tennenbaum motioned to Javier, who then replied, "FTL-4 Drive is at 99%. Singularity Drive is at 95%. All systems are go."

"If Javier says it is so, it is so," Tennenbaum looked at Roy with a smile. She then screamed, "'ONCE MORE, INTO THE BREACH!'"

With that, the assistant activated the jerry-rigged setup, pushing it in the revised sequence. Sparks flew, hummings of all sorts arose, and unearthly energies flowed into the experimental chamber built to house them. Swirling about and occasionally sparking and thundering, Javier began giving out reports.

"Reaction stable...energies flowing as expected...ready for trigger."

Tennenbaum smiled and said, "Push the trigger."

At that, Javier flipped a switch and a lightning bolt coursed through the chamber, resulting in a massive flash of light, followed by a rumbling that shook the facility to the core. Javier activated the shield to keep the thing together, as it buckled and rocked. Then, after what seemed an eternity, a stable, flowing light emerged.

And nothing happened.

"That's it?" Roy said. "I thought--"

"I know," Tennenbaum said. She looked at the thing she had made with a look of puzzlement. Javier reported it was self-sustaining, this shimmering light they had produced. Sensors indicated it was drawing upon multiple sources from various dimensions. And yet all it did was look good.

"How do we make something happen?" Tennenbaum said. She stroked her chin, confused.

Javier said, "We are dealing with time. What if we checked our watches?"

"WATCH CHECK!" the Argentine scientist then screamed. Everyone checked their watches, and sure enough, they all seemed very much off. One man had five minutes, another had an hour.

"I see. Time is not doing anybody much good here. Contact General Graves, ask what time he has." Roy responded to Tennenbaum's command by calling for the General, and asked for the time. He gave something quite different altogether.

"Hmm....so we can establish time is, for a lack of a better word, messed up. That returns us to Square One," Tennenbaum said as she paced about in her segway.

Roy interjected at this point with his own thoughts. Witnessing the sight in front of him, he then looked at his diagnostics and then noticed his graphing calculator was behaving oddly.

"Doctor Tennenbaum? Javier? Look at your calculators and instruments."

Tennenbaum and Javier did as ordered, and to their shock, things were very, very wrong. Tennenbaum asked, stunned by what she saw, "Is my calculator supposed to be giving me garbage?" She then tried exiting out, doing equations, and getting all sorts of odd results.

"I'm getting problems here, Doctor," Javier said.

"As am I, Javier," Tennenbaum declared. She then, in the midst of working everything out, stumbled upon the trigger necessary to make Project Quixote work. For, amongst the operations she tried, the good Doctor took the step of doing something proven to be impossible by modern mathematics.

Doctor Edelmira Tennenbaum Orrozco divided by zero.

The result was that the long-sought after reaction sprang to life. With a roar the light in the chamber exploded, the chamber barely containing the torment inside. For a moment all were blinded.

Then, they looked around. And, in the strangest of occurrences, there stood a tall, bald German man in a 1940's Luftwaffe uniform. He had a monocle in his left eye, a confused expression, and a sense of smugness that seemed tempered by bureaucratic defeatism. (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v630/Senor_Nb3/colonel_klink.jpg)

The man looked about for a bit. Then, he simply screamed:

"HOOGAAANNNNN!!"

At that same time, General Graves was enjoying a coffee and a donut. He was glad that Tennenbaum and her ilk hadn't done anything too crazy. That woman gave him nothing but headaches.

Then, the rumblings. And, a call from security that said, "Sir, you better get over here."

Graves got up, realizing his daydream was over. He walked over to Tennenbaum's lab, whereupon he pointed to the German and said, "You folks mind telling me who this fellow is?"

The German then clicked his heels and said, standing ramrod straight, "Wilhelm Klink! Kommandant of Stalag Thirteen und esteemed Kolonel een ze Reichsluftwaffe!" Graves looked at him funny, and Tennenbaum recoiled in sheer disgust at the man. She immediately raised her Walther PPK and screamed, "Die, devil!" Graves then held his hand out and said, "That'll be all, Doctor."

Klink then recoiled in fear, scampering behind Graves and shouting, looking around all over the place, "Vere iz Schultz when you need him!? Get zat scary voman avay from meeee! Schulllltz!" Graves then grabbed Klink by the scruff of his collar and said, rather irritated at all of this, "There's no need for that, Colonel--Just Relax!"

"That man serves the Third Reich, General. He is a Nazi! He's the reason why my ancestors fled to Argentina! You have every right to be afraid of me, you miserable pile of pond scum!" Tennenbaum screamed.

"P-please! I am but a pilot vithout a plane. I haven't flown a Heinkel in a while, und I am so terribly afraid of flying--but I wish to fly one again! Ja!" Klink was almost comically pathetic and bumbling as he pleaded for mercy.

Graves wasn't amused, and naturally said, "Okay, okay, I've had enough." He snatched Tennenbaum's PPK away from her, and then pocketed it. "This guy isn't a monster. He couldn't kill a damn fly. Look at him! And FYI, he's not even a real person."

"That's what that Ges-" Klink said.

"Shut up!" Graves then said to Klink, "Come with me, Herr Kolonel. I think we got some explaining to do." Turning to Tennenbaum, he then said, "As for you, I want you to have a report on my desk by 0800 hours tomorrow morning--MY time. Fix your damn clocks and watches, and get your asses to work. Enough shit."

He then walked off. Tennenbaum said, smiling at her machine, "'Do you want to see what human eyes have never seen? Look at the moon. Do you want to hear what ears have never heard? Listen to the bird's cry. Do you want to touch what hands have never touched? Touch the earth. Verily I say that God is about to create the world.'"

The report filed, Tennenbaum now focused on getting to work. As General Graves interrogated the "Colonel Klink" that landed as a result of the experiment the techs were calling the Infinite Improbability Event, Tennenbaum was busy readying the results for another test. It was a bear trying to recreate the conditions of the Event, but once the materials and equations were there, Tennenbaum had it done.

This time, General Graves was there with "Klink" and the other techs. On a count of "Three...two...one...zero!" the machine was activated, the process done all over again.

This time, things were a little bit more troublesome than having a Sixties TV show character come on the set. In fact, a lot worse. For out of nowhere, the power shut down. Then, it woke up. To their horror, Doctor Tennenbaum and the rest of the staff found their world a lot taller. A lot taller.

"What's going on!?" screamed General Graves. "Doctor, I demand an explanation." "Klink" then said, "Ja! As do I!"

Tennenbaum then said, noticing the supersized environments and lab equipment, said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe we have shrunk." Roy then said, astonished, "Well. This is new. How long do you think this will last?"

Tennenbaum then said, "Well, let's see." Running the scanners on her minaturized segway, she then said, "Well, it seems judging by the dissipation of chronoton particles and the bioscans, we should be back to normal within an estimated ten hours."

"Ten hours!?" Graves was about to throw a temper tantrum and said, "Damnit, Doctor! Mother Dornalia is not paying you to reenact old Disney movies! It's paying you to make something special! Now get us back to normal!!!!"

Tennenbaum began plotting an appropriate solution. "Okay...anybody hold a projection device of some kind when they were micronized?" One People's Navy man held up a video projector.

"Ah. I see. Okay. I'm going to jerry rig something. If it works, it should accelerate the enlarging process to within three hours." Taking the video projector, Tennenbaum and Javier gutted it, and began working appropriately.

With Roy's help, and "Klink" as hard labor, they were able to build a machine to hopefully reverse the growth. It wasn't easy trying to replicate a tiny power converter though, and that required an awkward and time consuming human ladder. The machine activated, she commanded everyone to sit around it, campfire style.

"Now then. Anybody have stories to tell?"

"Klink" raised his hand, saying, "I have some."

Tennenbaum then asked, "Anyone ELSE have stories to share?"

Graves then said, "Belay that order, Herr Kolonel. You may speak."

Thus, "Klink" began regaling them with stories....

"Well, that was a long three hours."

Tennenbaum got up, the gradual unshrinking having fully taken effect. Graves, none too pleased, then wiped his hands and said, "Right. I want these experiments halted for the time being. No sense in any more oddities." Klink nodded and said, "Agreed. I vor one du not vish to endure such a thing again!" He then let out a harumph, leaving all to wonder just how tightly wound up he was.

Tennenbaum shook her head; she hadn't been quite done with the tests yet and was only beginning to extract and analyze the data from the last one. The confused and dissapointed scientist raised her hand and said, "No, no. General these things cannot be rushed. Science isn't something you can just do twice and leave!"

Graves then walked up to Tennenbaum and wagged his finger in her face. Disgusted, he said, "Listen, you. I don't think there's been a scientist in the annals of history who's made as much hell for anyone else right now as you! You know how much shit you put me through!? It's not just this experiment. It's all of them. Especially when I have to clean up after you! You remember that time in Tunguska? With the Teal Goo!? That Goo took months to clean up and millions of taxpayer dollars! I could have been fired!"

He then finished his sentence with, "Now, I'm usually very paitent. But when I get shrunk, that's the last straw! No more experiments for the time being! GOT IT?! OR SO GOD HELP ME, YOU'RE GOING INTO THE NUTHOUSE IN WHICH YOU BELONG!" As he screamed, the General leaned in uncomfortably close.

Tennenbaum was about to resist, but Javier then said, "Doctor, he's right. The experimental apparatus is showing severe stresses on the containment chamber and all equipment. If we do another one, it will blow."

She then gulped and said, "Very well" in a sheepish, despondent manner.

So, it was with that shameful end to experimentation for now that a dejected Doctor Edelmira Tennenbaum Orrozco sighed and sat in her room for the time being. Analyzing the data was all she could do for now, until she could get back to work on the machine. Who knew when that would be, considering Graves's anger and the machine's condition. With a mug of yerba and two windows on her screen--one the data, the other a word processor--she went to work making sense of things. How could she do it? How did she do it?

The conditions were simple. A pocket of space, void of any mathematical, statistical, or even temporal constant was opened by harnessing energies from several different dimensions focused onto a single point and fed in a mobius loop.

This pocket seemed to have a very wide margin attached to it; reportedly, the experiment's power levels and devices had done enough to make the field encompass the room and the surrounding hallways. There seemed to be an Inner Zone and an Outer Zone attached. The Inner Zone was a definite anomaly--time, space, logic had no sense there. The Outer Zone was something else. Something that troubled the Doctor as she tried to make sense of it rationally.

Then, as she read Borges and her collection of short stories from Latin American magical realists again during her break, something came together. As she flipped through the works, the disjointed, whimsical, and just plain strange worlds these authors created seemed to resonate with her recently. And then it became apparent what the Outer Zone was.

It was a place where the laws of reality and realism as we knew them became grossly distorted by the sheer mania of the forces in the Inner Zone. The reason the statistics, timekeeping and math made no sense was because perhaps the rules had been altered by some quantum coup d'etat and a new, more unstable government had been installed in place of the laws discovered by the 20th Century European Physicists without our knowledge.

With that simple assessment, the trigger was simple to understand as well. Dividing by zero in the midst of this Outer Zone evidently still violated some law in this mysterious "Shadow Government" that ruled the Outer Zone and its ways and means on the quantum scale and smaller. But unlike our world, where it was impossible to divide by zero and most calculators would fail and most computers would crash, this world reacted to the division by zero violently.

And here was the factor of instability. Tennenbaum thought of the vagaries of the Italian Parliament and how it often changed governments every nine months when a crisis with a solution no one could agree upon occurred. Perhaps this zone behaved similarily when placed under such pressure? Perhaps the instability of the rules of the Outer Zone attempted to reform a new "government" every time she divided by zero to accomidate the event, dissipating energies in the process and causing events to occur? She couldn't tell unless she did more experiements--and Graves wouldn't have any of it.

Either way this absurdity worked, the act of dividing by zero caused the Outer Zone to readjust itself--for some reason, somehow--to make sense of this oddity. And that was how--she shuddered at the thought--events such as that horrid Nazi came to be. A cartoon caricature of a Nazi played by a Jewish German actor who insisted it be done so the Nazi always lost yes, but still the form shocked her.

Tennenbaum smiled; this is why it was good to have her parents' artistic background. Graves called her crazy, Antonio called her "that old Jew witch" and her students laughed, but she knew that part of the reason behind her success was her ability to apply the world of art to the worlds of physics. Incongrous? Possibly. Then again, in a world where even looking at a particle causes it to change shape or quality, it paid to be an artist. Logic was out the window.

She then promptly wrote this on paper. Now came the challenge to make it make sense to that man, Graves. He was a bureaucrat through and through. Used to rules, regulations, and sensible things. To even make this sound sensible was a crime to her, but it would be a crime she would have to commit. Otherwise, she'd lose her government funding.

Typing down her unorthodox conclusions and finishing up her report, she then forwarded copies to Roy and Javier. The two men of science read the thing, and came to different conclusions about it. Javier was used to the Doctor's writing and thinking style, so he let her unorthodox methodology go. Roy was somewhat more skeptical.

"I get what you're saying. So there's two zones?"

Tennenbaum then said, nodding, "Yes."

Roy then said, "Are they scalable? If we put more power, can they grow? If you're saying what you imply, then we'll need to find a better power generator to continue testing."

Tennenbaum nodded and said, "I understand."

"Right. Well, it looks good. Sensible enough so a man like Graves can get it."

Tennenbaum submitted the report, and a manifest for requested parts. Both were accepted.

With the appropriate materials set up, Drs. Tennenbaum and Roy immediately began figuring out a way to make the thing they had wrought fit into a more compact package. As it was, the small singularity reactor, FTL-4 fighter sized model FTL drive, People's Hammer torpedo casing and the other elements were, by themselves, lacking the necessary energies to produce the fantastic effects that had rocked the facility not but several days before.

"Hmm..."

Tennenbaum looked over the reactor she was given. About the size of a car engine, it was a miracle of Dornalian engineering innovation of a foreign product. Well, sort of. To her:

"It's useless. Unless we can boost the power output of this reactor somehow, I may as well have purchased a ham sandwich at the height of my lunch hour." Glaring at the machine as she examined it from her segway, she shook her head. "How to boost the power...."

Roy thought for a moment too, and said, "Perhaps the singularity is not the problem. The FTL drive might be, for it seems underpowered in terms of focusing the desired rays."

Tennenbaum nodded. "True. But our calculations called for a rise in power simeltaneous to that of the rise in particles being manipulated. Power must scale with the forces used to keep the reaction up. Hence, we feed extra power and increase the power on the FTL drive."

Javier then popped in and said, "Why not just put a transformer on the power feeds from the reactor to the FTL drive? You'd only have to do a little fiddling with the reactor itself then."

Having been stopped, Tennenbaum smiled at Javier, and exclaimed, "'Fortune always leaves some door open to come with a remedy;' thank you for your insight, Javier! Now, to make it work...."

As Tennenbaum began fiddling with the parts, Roy asked Javier, "Was that more Borges?"

To that, Javier said, "That's Cervantes. She quotes him too."

"Ah. That's an author I do know about. Then again....." Roy chuckled a little and shook his head. This woman was strange indeed, though the task at hand made her more focused than people said she was. And Javier noticed it too. He didn't have to do much in terms of making her stop doing things!

The drives and the FTL-4 components assembled into a feasible mechanism to promote the creation of the Zones, Tennenbaum easily co-opted the People's Hammer system of utilizing easily collapsed fields to contain the inevitable effects of the chaos generated, and any number of sensors and pressure switches to make it go on impact.

The item now finished, there was the matter of testing it. Graves, upon being invited to see the jerry rigged torpedo, remarked upon its size and eerie look with a mere, "Great. We've just given a knife to the universe's craziest lunatic." Tennenbaum looked at him with a glare, before Graves replied, "I'm still pissed about that shrinking incident, you know."

Tennenbaum smiled and said, "I am well aware of that, General. But that has no bearing on the item in front of you now. It will be tested in a manner that is safe and will bring no harm to the facility whatsoever. I hope you don't think I'm just going to crash this like a bored child into the asteroid we are on, rendering it uninhabitable by some inevitable horror?" Crossing her arms, she kept up the look, which pretty much said her point.

"Well, you'll need a ship to test it on," Graves said.

Javier then interjected with, "I'm going to suggest requisitioning an old cruise liner and tow it to near here for the bed." Roy nodded and said, "As will I."

Graves' reply was, "Very well. You'll get your target. And something to launch it with."

He then left.....