A Stone's Throw Away, one

The fun begins here

One

"...feverishly," the professor said, with a dramatic change in his voice inflection, "On a scale that was never before achieved." No longer was he lecturing. "Today, it stands as a tribute to man's undying commitment to survive. I never said it didn't help."

Brian caught the strong emphasis of every word, which brought him out of his reverie.

That he half listened, drifting back and forth between his own thoughts and what the professor presented was something that happened more often than Brian admitted. As the morning progressed, the less he listened. Earlier, although the professor did not stand in the sun, the reflection off the floor kept catching his white shirt, leaving Brian little choice but to gaze out the windows on the south side of the room. The view was green, rich, and earthy. It kept vying for his attention.

Brian was prone to wait on what others said and did before he was comfortable participating, and would rather observe than contribute. When given center stage, he became very nervous.

The professor was analogizing, during his dissertation. Brian had caught something about a group of people known as Polynesians. Brian missed the first half of the analogy. He caught that they were island hoppers. Once they discovered a new island, they would get the rest of the clan, set up shop so to speak, and then consume what they needed to survive before moving on. At least it went something along those lines.

As Brian gazed out the windows, he heard Danny say, "So what you're saying is we need to go planet hopping to maintain a steady supply of new resources?"

Danny was more or less the class leader or clown, depending on whether it was the teacher's point of view or that of a peer. It was not because he was a dominant figure; it just gravitated to him. He was willing to take the initiative. Danny always cracked the first joke or brought something unusual to the attention of the others during class. Unlike Brian, he did not mind being in the spotlight.

A slight, almost noiseless giggle escaped the small group.

"Obviously, we won't be doing any planet hopping," the professor confirmed, acknowledging the groups' understanding of man's ability to apply the science necessary to make it so. "But once we were committed to doing just that. Survival was the motivating factor while the earth's resources were being depleted."

"So you're saying...?" Pete drew out.

Between Brian and Danny, Pete was sort of middle of the road. He was not an instigator by any means, but more than willing to participate in anything Danny suggested. It always seemed to fall to Brian to steer them clear of anything too outrageous.

"Simply this," the professor droned. "We ended up in the same position as this one particular tribe of Polynesians that had found an island which provided abundantly for them. Over the course of one-hundred years their numbers grew to over ten-thousand strong."

It was a phenomenal number. Brian tried to picture that many people standing outside the window.

With his unvaried steady drone, the professor explained something to the effect that they didn't foresee the collapse of their civilization until it had begun, but by then, it was too late. There weren't enough trees left on the island to make canoes. Without canoes, those left behind eventually starved. Unfortunately, most were left behind.

Brian gave up trying to picture that many people outside the window. He couldn't do it. "That's us in a nut shell. The Earth is just an island in space. We've consumed everything we understood how to make use of, and now this is where we're staying."

Brian decided that was the professor's analogy, the Earth was an island in space.

"So we got left behind," Pete asked, "because we went island hopping through space and didn't recognize it was time to move on?"

"That's a good question," The professor observed, "the answer is no." He then paused, more to draw everyone's attention to make a point rather than any reservation on what he was about to say. "Nothing in our history suggests our ancestors traveled here. It does show a steady progression of gaining knowledge as we learned the sciences and then a continual improvement upon that knowledge as it was applied. I believe it all started here gentleman, but so you know, there is no proof one way or the other. If we traveled here, then all knowledge of how it was done has vanished completely."

"Didn't you tell us a while ago that there were manned flights into space generated from this planet?" Danny brought up, trying to connect the dots. "Were any of them looking for a new place to stay?"

"No," the professor said again, "those flights never ventured beyond Mars. It's an age old problem: Space. The space between us and where we need to go is far too great. The time commitment for any one individual is too long. We wouldn't live to make even part of the trip there, let alone there and back."

"We wasted resources," Pete questioned, "on something that didn't help?"

Brian expected the professor to say no again and wished the class were over so he could go enjoy what he saw through the windows. It continued to beckon to him and finally gained a foothold completely when he saw the plane pass by.

He began to wonder what it would be like to fly, to be up there himself, free to fly over the fence.

Brian was drawn to the outdoors, but exactly why was elusive. There was no place to go and nothing to do except chores within the fence. Brian had lived inside of it all his life. He had walked, worked and seen just about every square inch of accessible space within its confines.

The fence represented protection. Actually, more than represented, it physically provided it. The thought of truly going beyond it enticed him, but at the same time scared him to death. It was something he couldn't do. The danger was all too real.

In the plane, he could fly above the reach of any danger and be outside its confines. He would be safe.

Over time, from within the safety of the fence, he had witnessed encounters between wild animals that terrified him. Predators, which seemed numerous, were vicious. He recalled one instance that happened close to him when he was doing chores along side the fence. It was intense when it happened and just the thought brought on an adrenaline rush.

It was then, instead of "no," that Brian heard "feverishly" inflected across the room and he quickly blocked the need to respond. The rush was only slight; he was back with the teacher and safe.

"Those efforts produced unmanned flights that are traveling to other planets right now. Think about it, spaceships headed to other planets within our galaxy."

For the first time, the professor had everybody's attention. Brian moved to the edge of his seat and leaned forward. What he heard was impossible, especially compared to their finite existence they had within the fence.

"What's the point," Danny asked, "if there's no one on board?" He said this as he looked around at the rest of the class. He had stated the apparent and wanted to know why anyone had bothered.

"Personally, it won't do us any good," the professor explained. "Those ships have a long way to go before they reach their destinations and can be used." He then bestowed upon them some incredible knowledge. "We have the capability to man those flights any time we wish."

A deep silence took place within Brian's mind as he abandoned the senses of hearing and sight to digest this information.

The whole class was there, the professor took them there, as he had others. Brian caught the professor as he watched and intuitively knew he had waited on them with bemusement. Good old Ed had seen their faces as they came to the realization, and appreciation, of man's ability to accomplish the impossible. The professor must have seen their expressions change again, to wonder at the science behind it.

"How?" Brian spoke up first.

"The science that makes this possible is the Dupe. It's what gives us hope," the professor stated, starting to smile. Everyone smiled then. It lightened the atmosphere; he was making a joke. "The time we get on is totally discretionary. We choose when." The professor still smiled, though his tone never strayed from serious.

"We're depending on a food processor to zip us through space to these ships that are hundreds of years old?" Pete yelled out, and the room erupted in laughter.

"Hey, sounds like we're toast," Danny joined in. He wanted in on the act. It worked too, as the professor waited until they were all silent.

"It's more than just a food processor," the professor told them. "The first ships won't arrive at their destinations for a long time. They'll be a lot older when they get there and none of you will be getting on."

"No joke?" Brian asked.

"No joke."

"Well," Brian prompted, "are you going to tell us how it works or not?"

"Sure, Dupe is slang for duplicator. You already know that, fine. Zero plus zero equals zero. You know that too, fine. This translates into: You can't make something from nothing." The professor paused. "Okay, that must have sunk in. When you go to the cafeteria, after you select what you want to eat, the platform with the food on it glides down behind the dispensing doors like an elevator. It has just left a chamber that contains a cloud of every known element on the earth. It assembled your food from that cloud."

"That basic, huh," Danny, feigning boredom. They ate at the cafeteria three times a day and had to use the Dupe to get their food. It was pretty familiar stuff.

"The men that maintain the Dupe go to great lengths to ensure they keep enough of every molecule suspended in that cloud to duplicate more than just food. That's all you guys ever use it for. A bearing goes out on a motor, as long as the monitor has a selection, presto, it comes out from behind the same doors."

"A solar panel?" Danny asked.

"It's a selection."

"A computer terminal?" Pete, with something just as complicated but larger.

"It's in there," The professor answered. "Look, so you guys don't keep me here all day trying to outdo each other with things that can or cannot be duped, let me say this. When someone here dies─we dupe them. Every one of you came out from behind those doors."

And for the second time in one day, the room went totally silent, this time, for much longer.

***

"Food's good," Danny commented to no one in particular. Brian and Pete were seated with him around a small table. Danny was just making conversation; no one ever commented on the food.

As they ate, they now understood fully what the Dupe could do. They stared at the dispensing doors, while the doors opened and closed as others used it. This room for them was the cafeteria, hard to fathom that they were spit out of it.

They all had chosen the same lunch of gourmet fish. It was spiced to perfection, fall-apart tender, and complimented with an array of different dips and garnishes.

For them, the cafeteria had transformed into something much more than a place to eat.

"I'll never be able to look at that thing the same way," Brian said, with his mouth full. "What it is--is amazing. If we had access to more than the food menu, anything we want is ours. It's a wish come true."

"The genie is out of the bottle, alright," Danny grinned, "go ahead, wish for something."

"Something," Pete took it a step further, "this is way better than a genie. We just call it dad and it'll give us anything we want. That's a whole lot better than three wishes."

"It's too bad it didn't work like it was intended," Brian stated.

"Yeah, but who cares?" Pete said. "It was an accident. Look at what we get instead."

"You heard the teacher," Brian defended. "It wasn't an accident. It's an invention being used for something other than what it was intended. It will send you to any one of those ships."

"It was an accident," Danny told him. "Yeah, they didn't make it to produce food or anything else. They wanted a transporter. But it'll dupe you instead and you'll still be here with us and you'll be on the ship too, but soon dead, as you starve. In case you weren't listening, there is no one on board to take care of you."

***

In the afternoon session, the professor continued with the same subject. He wasn't teaching this, he was adamant about it. He told them that Doctor Stan Swanson was the Dupe's inventor. His problems really began when he succeeded in transporting a live monkey from point A to point B.

The monkey died within minutes of being transported.

Stan was elated. Clearly, the monkey was alive upon arriving at point B.

It worked!

Another monkey was selected for transporting. Stan's team put it in at point A. There, it was digitalized, vaporized, and transmitted to point B, where it was reassembled within the chamber now called the Dupe.

Autopsies showed both monkeys suffered the same fate, heart failure.

Three days later, after recalibrating and testing the equipment, the third monkey lay on the descending platform, dying, like its predecessors. A team member, back from vacation that day, ran out of the room and into the hall. He grabbed a portable defibrillator, which he un-packaged as he ran back to the monkey. He zapped the darned little thing with it and when he did, it jerked horrifically in response.

Its heart began to beat.

It lived.

Soon, the champagne was flowing.

Cameras recorded history.

Later, someone noticed the monkey. The poor thing was still lying on the platform. After the pictures, the Doctor must have set him down. Obviously, it was enduring the after effects of transporting. They gently picked it up and put it back in its cage. It needed to rest.

This moved the party to an exclusive club.

By the next morning, newspapers around the world prepared exclusive front-page stories with pictures, taken at the lab, of the doctor, who loved to smile for the camera, with the history-making monkey. The next day the celebration continued. No one bothered going to work. They basked in the attention, and would do so for as long as they could. Only those who cleaned cages and fed monkeys let themselves in that day.

The following morning, Stan was first to arrive at the lab. He went directly to see the monkey, who was now famous, and certainly had Stan destined for the history books. It was lying in its own excrement; its food and water were left untouched.

A day later, it too died.

The doctor who performed the autopsy said the cause of death was the result of dehydration.

Stan personally visited those responsible for maintaining the suspended element cloud in the chamber. He wanted to know if sufficient oxygen and hydrogen levels were maintained. He was assured they were, and as well for the previous two monkeys.

A few days later, Stan and his team were ready. Another history-making monkey was vaporized. Its heart was restarted after transporting. IVs were inserted. This time, there was a medical staff. They would provide around the clock care. Stan brought in several primatologists, experts in monkey behavior. They were at his beck and call. They would observe and record everything.

He vowed to the press, this monkey would not die.

He was correct.

Ten days later, the medical staff left. There was nothing for them to do. There never really was, except for day one. They told Stan that the monkey was doing fine. They assured him it was as fit, physically, as it was before being transported.

The primatologists didn't draw the same conclusion. Physically fit, yes. They told Stan it was as if the monkey was learning everything anew. Monkeys learn quickly so it was hard for the experts to say for sure how the experience affected it. To them it acted like a newborn.

This analysis led Stan to believe that the transporter project was a failure. If it transported you without your memory intact, it was useless. From the beginning, they knew this might be a possibility. The prevailing theory said it wouldn't be a problem. If the equipment worked as it was designed, and it did, it read and reassembled every atom to its correct position. The memory was there.

The primatologists insinuated they could be interpreting recuperation, as learning. They really didn't know and that darned monkey had no way to communicate what it had just gone through.

The next morning, Stan's staff found him lying on the platform. He had rigged a timer to the defibrillator and had an empty IV bag above him. He had donned those before going in. Stan's eyes didn't quite focus on them, when they talked, although it was as if he tried. His pants were wet and the platform still dripped urine to the floor.

His brain functioned as a blank slate.

From birth, until two years of age, the brain develops to eighty percent of its adult weight. During this time, millions of neurons are generated, and they make thousand of new connections while motor and language skills develop. Unfortunately, at his age, Stan's brain was fully developed. He would be capable of learning, but neurons would not make near as many new connections; therefore, it would take him a lot longer.

***

"Can you believe what the Doc did to himself," Pete stated. "He just invented a gold mine. Why didn't he realize he didn't have to vaporize himself to be duped."

"He was thinking transporter all the way," Brian reminded him.

(Repost 8-17-08)

© C. Lee

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