NaNo Session 1

Chapter One

“Mom. It’s not too late to turn back.” Evan said, staring forlornly at the passing countryside.  “You sure I can’t come with you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Evan. It’s only for a few days. I know your father can be a…difficult man, but you’ve managed okay, before haven’t you?”

“Barely,” Evan said gloomily, as the car turned into the winding half-mile long driveway. Almost immediately, the oddness was apparent. A battered old mailbox sat on the end of the driveway - that was normal. What was not was the bizarre apparatus attached to it - all wires and blinking lights. His mom stared at it for a long minute then turned and looked at Evan.

“What in heaven’s name is that?”

“Mail teleporter,” Evan said. “He was working on that last summer. He got tired of stopping what he was doing and collecting the mail.”

“Well, that’s fun,” his mom said, in a cheerful unconvincing voice. “This is lucky for you. All that fun science stuff to play with!”

He rolled his eyes. “You mean that same fun science stuff that caused you guys to split up in the first place?”

“No,” she said, suddenly sounding more severe. “It’s more complicated than that. Here we are.”
She stopped the car and they got out.

“Looks just like how we left it last summer,” she said. The house was an architectural nightmare - a clash between a high tech submarine and a starship, all sleek round windows and curved edges that gave it a futuristic feel, painted a royal blue. Satellite dishes poked out of the roof, turning to and fro. A greenhouse, full of bizarre plant species that shouldn’t exist, sat off to one side. That, Evan knew, had been his grandfather’s thing.

He’d been more of a biologist as opposed to his father who seemed to specialize in…everything. Beyond the house stood the labs proper, sitting on the site where a barn used to be. It was an enormous concrete structure, built more like a bunker than anything else. He knew it extended deep underground but had never actually been inside. Mostly because his father wouldn’t let him in.

“Get your suitcase,” his mom said. “Let’s see…”

“He’ll have changed the code,” Evan called. “He changes it every six months. Just hit the button and see if you can get Alice’s attention.”

“That’s that crazy computer he has to run the house, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

He didn’t mention that his father had, at one point, decided to not tell him the code and let him figure it out himself - sort of an intellectual challenge that he thought should have been a complete snap. He’d left a laptop on the porch, apparently thinking that it would only take an afternoon. He’d relented after he learned that his only son didn’t know anything about advanced computing algorithms, multi-computational matrices or hacking or, for that matter, any sort of computer programming at all.

That had resulted in him installing the button that would summon Alice - the house AI - who would determine if whoever was knocking was someone who could be ignored or someone whose presence required acknowledgment. It was a sign of defeat, that his son wasn’t who he hoped he would be.
Lugging his suitcase up to the front door, he found his mother standing there waiting, as the door hissed open.

“Welcome back, Valerie Seghill. Welcome back, Evan.” A soft female voice intoned from a speaker mounted on the automatic door.

“Yeah, great,” Evan muttered, dragging his suitcase over the threshold. His mom was right behind him, looking around.

“Alice,” she said. “Where is Frank?”

“He is currently engaged in an important project that couldn’t be disrupted. I have notified him of your arrival.”

“Typical,” she muttered. “Can’t pull himself away from his research for ten minutes. What’s so important, anyway?”

“Subject: Classified,” Alice said. “Suffice it to say, he can’t afford to stop what he’s doing, or important data would be lost. The experiment is at a critical stage.”

“Typical,” his mom muttered. “Can’t pull himself away for ten minutes to talk to his own family.”

“Um, Alice? Can I put my suitcase anyway?”

“Affirmative. Retinal and fingerprint scans have been re-authorized. You have access to the house once more.”

“Great. I’ll be right back, Mom.”

“Go ahead,” his mom waved her hand. “I’ll see if I can get Alice to page Frank again, until we can actually talk to him.”

The entrance hall door hissed open, leading into the living room. It looked roughly as Evan remembered it from last year’s visit - a comfortable room that had been hit with a whirlwind of papers - most of them with hastily written scribbles on him - numbers, equations, the start of some idea he’d began jotting down and then abandoned, pictures of his family on the wall, along with a skull of a Triceratops, scaled down to a quarter of its actual size, and a screen - actually built into the wall - that displayed the status of the house, its various functions, and some of the projects that he was a bit more upfront with.

“He never did get around with that digitization project, did he?”

“That is somewhat low on his list of priorities,” Alice replied, a female face appearing on the screen. “I believe he considers looking back at past work dull and would prefer to keep moving forward.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Evan said. “Still gets his best ideas on paper, right?”
“That is what he says.”

His mom entered the living room, a scowl on her face. “Well, I actually got him to respond this time. He says he’s about done.”

“That’s great,” Evan said. “Be right back…”

He stepped out of the front room and into the corridor, following it until he found his room, locked of course. A scanner descended from the ceiling, he put his eye up to it and, moments later, the door hissed open.

Much like the front room, it looked pretty much like how he remembered - all sleek chrome and white, clean with a bed, a dresser and a desk with a holographic keyboard and screen built into the wall. A window provided a look into sprawling yellow-green grassland, and a long winding dirt trail. Grass rustled in the breeze, while he could see an enormous wind turbine slowly moving in the breeze.

This, he knew, wasn’t the actual view of the window - it was some sort of high tech visual technology his father had been working on - a serene video landscape of a place that didn’t actually exist, not even as a set piece.

He set down the suitcase and returned to the living room, where he found his mother had seated herself on the sofa and was flicking through the new listing of inventions.

“Holographic aquarium,” she read. “Full three-dimensional. Alice…what exactly is this?”

“It’s a new room he recently constructed for the house,” Alice replied. “I believe he decided there were times when he wanted to be underwater, theorizing that it would help him think. He, thus, decided to improve the visual field array technology he employed on a window to create a fully three dimensional effect.”

“…What?” she said. “You’re saying that he spent god only knows how much money on a…a pretend aquarium.”

“It wasn’t that much,” a deep voice said. “Most of the tech was in place - it was just some expanding on the same visual technology I employed on the windows. Plus, you know, I’m quite well off…”

Evan spun around, to see his dad standing there, hands thrust deep into his lab coat, a vaguely reproachful look on his face. “Hi, dad.”

“Yes. Hello, Evan. Been another year, has it?”

“Yes, well,” his mom cleared her throat. “You’re going to get him for a bit longer this time.I told you I was going to Berlin-”

“You did,” he said. “But I forgot. Alice didn’t, though! That’s why I invented her - keep up with things I’m too busy to track.” He thrust his hands in his labcoat, fiddling with something.

“I would like to show you the aquarium. I’m quite proud of it, myself.”

“Well - I…” his mom paused, obviously harried. “I think I can spare a few minutes.”

“It’s just down this way. Follow me. Alice, if you would monitor the Kerator Construct. Let me know if it looks like its about to explode.”

“W-what?!” his mom said. “You can’t be serious.” She didn’t even ask what a ‘Kerator Construct’ was.

“It’s fine. It’s mostly stable. The explosion should be reasonably well contained. That’s why I have Alice - she can cover that small percent chance where it would kill us all.” He reached the end of the corridor, which opened up into a new, circular room. This, Evan saw, was completely new from last summer. His dad, evidently, had already been busy.

“Activate,” he called. Immediately, the grayed out panes vanished, replaced by flickering blue light. They were standing underwater, in a clear dome. Fish flickered in multi colored darts, in and out of bright reefs. A shark cruised silently overhead.

“That’s, um, impressive,” his mom said.

“It keeps me busy. I have dozens of projects that I’m quite happy with, all in all. He gestured and a bench rose silently out of the ground. He sat down.

“I like to come here to think,” he said. “Best place in the house.”

“You developed whole new technology and spent I don’t even what to know how much money…on a room so you could sit down and think.”

“Yep. Pretty much,” he said. “It is good seeing you again, Valerie. I think about you a lot.” She smiled, a strained, slightly bitter sort of grin.

“I don’t doubt it,” she said. She turned to Evan.

“You going to be okay, sweetheart?”

“I’ll be fine. I got this under control,” Evan said dutifully. “I managed last summer, didn’t I?"
“We had a great time last summer,” his dad said, looking at the reef and the rays of sunlight lancing through the windows. “This will be even better.”

“Yes, well, I’ll be back as soon as I can. I have to go. Berlin’s waiting. I love you…” she turned to his dad, face suddenly stern.

“Don’t lock yourself in the lab, got it?” she said. “He’s your son, he comes first.”

“Oh, absolutely,” his dad nodded gravely. “I’ll take good care of him, don’t you worry. Go to your conference. Enjoy Berlin. Bring me back a bratwurst. And a beer.”

“I’ll see if I can remember,” she said with an obvious forced smile. “Okay. I’m leaving. Take care and I’ll see you as soon as I’m able. I’ll call you as soon as I land, okay?”

“Okay, mom.”

“Okay. Bye.” She left the room, leaving him alone with his father.