NaNo Session 2

 (This by the way is not the whole of Ch. 2. That will probably be finished tomorrow.).

Chapter Two

“Well, that’s out of the way,” his father said. “Thank goodness. I love your mother, but she’s never really understood the important work I do.”

“Um,” Evan said, as they left the aquarium room, and headed back towards the front room. “What kind of projects are you doing now?”

“I could tell you, but then I would have to invent a device to erase your memory,” his father said with a broad wink. Evan opened his mouth and closed, knowing full well that his dad was probably perfectly capable of doing just that if he put his mind to it.

“Kidding!” his father said. “I wouldn’t do that to you. Though an amnesia gun wouldn’t be a bad idea…Alice, where did I put my paper?”

“It’s in the kitchen, next to the printer, along with your pens.”

“Fantastic, fantastic,” he muttered, walking away. “Amnesia gun. I think I even know how to get properly started. If we apply a burst of energized Bell particles… Yes…I like where this is heading…”

And he left Evan standing in the middle of the front room.

“That was - what - a minute better than last year?” Evan said.

“Thirty-seven seconds,” Alice replied. “Current analysis suggests that he will be writing for fifteen minutes.”

“Oh boy,” Evan said, just as his father emerged from the front room, paper, pen and calculator in hand.

“The idea needs some time to ferment,” he said, folding a clean piece of paper already half covered in equations. “It’s not bad per se - but there’s something missing. My assistant should be over shortly -”

“You hired an assistant? I thought you didn’t want the help.”

“Even someone such as me finally needs to outsource,” his father said. “He’s quite good. Local, intelligent and anxious to prove himself. I only get him for the summer before he’s off to college - so I best make the most of it.”

“Ah,” Evan said.

“This is something we do every few days,” his father said. “He works at home and shows up to give me a progress report. You just happened to arrive on one of those days is all.”

“You didn’t tell Mom?”

“Why would I? She would get mad at me for not putting every single thing I do on hold,” he said, waving a hand around. “That’s a large portion of genius, Evan - multitasking. Plus, the project I have him working on is very exciting. It’s an external quantum fabricator.”

“A - what now?”

“It taps into pockets of energy in universes beyond our own and creates matter from it! Something from nothing! Finally! Of course, its still largely in the preliminary phases - mostly theoretical right now, but I have a few notes for a working prototype.”

“He’s a senior in high school and you have him working on…on some sort of reality-bending machine.”

“Just the math and theory.” His dad said. “He’s a bright kid. But I haven’t forgotten about our family time! I’ve also taken the liberty of ordering a pizza!”

“Okay, that’s more promising,” Evan said. “I haven’t had pizza all year.”

“I never did understand your mother’s culinary tastes,” his father said, shaking his head. “It’s customary for a normal growing boy to have pizza.”

“I’m totally down with that.”

“Well, in any case - the pizza is ordered. Derek should be showing up it soon. Now - is school going alright? You did take plenty of science classes, didn’t you?”

“Well, I mean…” Evan trailed off. “I’m not as big into it as you are. I mean…um, Chemistry? I just finished a year of that.”

“Oh. Chemistry,” his father repeated, a faint air of disappointment in his voice. “That’s not a terrible choice, I suppose. I thought that maybe after last summer, I might have piqued your interest in computer science, hacking, cryptography, you know…”

“Actually, you scared me away,” Evan said. “I mean - that was some pretty intimdating stuff you threw at me…”

“And I am sorry about that. I should have known. Your mother has different priorities, which unfortunately, do not include the secrets of the universe or improving the lives of all mankind. I just attended a really excellent lecture just a couple of weeks ago- this is funny-” he went on talking about the lecture, until Evan felt like he was drowning in jargon and had absolutely no idea what his father was talking about.

“…And that’s why I said that I thought computational matrices in the spinform vertices were actually a full sixteen-twentieth! I told the woman that after the lecture was finished - good conversation, good dinner afterward…”

“…I, uh, absolutely agree,” Evan said, finally trying to put himself in the conversation. “Sixteen-twentieth. Also, you went on a date…?”

His father paused. “You’re humoring me, aren’t you? It wasn’t a date, really. Were you not listening to anything I was saying?”

“Well, I mean…” Evan shifted in his seat. “Yeah.”

“I thought so,” he said, nodding thoughtfully. “You did have a bit of a glazed look in your eyes. Did you get my birthday present last April?”

“Yeah - that cool history book about all that crazy stuff that happened with MagnaCorp and all those people with those abilities?”

“That was Derek’s idea,” his father said. “Credit where credit is due. I wanted to send you my old Calculus textbook - he seemed to think that wasn’t such a good gift. Wouldn’t have been my first thought - I generally try not to think about all that nonsense that happened…” he winced, slightly, barely enough to be noticed.

“It’s a solid enough read,” his father said. “Does its job. Some inaccuracies, though. I’ll fill you in when you’re older.” Evan knew, vaguely, that his dad had somehow been involved in some high level stuff all those years ago - though he never was sure what. His dad generally didn’t talk about it - this was as close he’d ever come to mentioning it.

“Derek is arriving,” Alice announced.

“That was fast,” Evan said.

“Well, I had him go pick up the pizza and bring it over here,” his dad explained, obviously relieved to get away from the subject of MagnaCorp. “I ordered it before you arrived and told him to bring it over. It’s our usual meeting…”

“You eat pizza and talk science every week?” Evan said.

“Well, yes,” his father replied. “He shows me what sort of work he’s done, I critique it and there’s excellent discussion. You could pick up a thing or two!”

At that moment, the door slid open, a guy walked in, carrying a pizza box, along with a notebook and a laptop. He was about seventeen or eighteen, African American, dressed plainly in an old flannel shirt unbuttoned over a T-shirt with a faded softball logo, jeans and a pair of sneakers.

“Mushroom, sauerkraut, pepperoni, pineapple and half green pepper - mostly for me,” he sat the pizza down on the table, pausing. “Oh, you’re his son, right? I think I heard Alice mention you were supposed to be show up soon.”

“Uh - yeah,” Evan said, shifting his shoulders uncomfortably. “You’re Derek, I guess?”

“Yep,” he said. “And you’re Evan. Good to meet you. You liked that book, right?”

“Yeah, it was great,” Evan said. “Thanks.” He opened the box of pizza and helped himself.
“His mother’s off to Berlin for a few days,” his father said. “Plus, you know - summer time! Favorite time of year.”

“You guys probably have lots to catch up on,” Derek said.

“There’s time, there’s time. I was telling Evan a little bit about the research - but its always good to get the details!” he smiled, taking a bite of pizza.

“Another part of genius, Evan. It’s all in the details. Here, Derek, why don’t you pull up your research!  Impress us.”

“I…don’t really think I’m going to be able to follow-” Evan said.

“Yeah, this is pretty tough math,” Derek agreed. “Half the time, I’m not sure I know what I’m doing! He told you the idea, right? Sucking energy out of other universes to form into matter in ours, right?”
“Something like that…”

“Well, to do that you have to generate a localized wormhole able to pull the energy through - just a small tear able to collect pockets of energy from pocket universes. It’s a specialized rift - it can only accept energy and only types of energy that we specify. What I was working on was figuring out the math beyond the rift and how it would actually function.”

“As I recall, you had suggested stabilized Holme’s particles,” his father said. “An interesting, if unorthodox notion-”

“I expanded on that actually,” he said. “I was assuming that there needed to be a constant, but if you account for the minute fluctuations of the tempero-spatial environment in the subspace layer separating us from one of pocket dimensions - that is the easier option to siphon the necessary energy from…”

“Uh - yeah, I’m out,” Evan said. “I’ll just, um, be in my room I guess? I’m going to unpack…”


He quietly slipped away, heading back to his bedroom. The door slid silently open, and he slid silently on the floor, breath coming out in a slow hiss, memories coming back. His dad’s house was over-the-top-cool but as far as his father went…they had settled right back into that sort of uncomfortable relationship he’d had for years - his dad loved him, but didn’t seem to quite know what to do with him - they didn’t quite click like they should have….

“So, Alice,” he said, tossing clothes from the suitcase into the drawer. “What big thing has been working on? Apart from the whole lets tear holes in the fabric of reality thing, I mean.”

“The aquarium was a side project,” Alice said. “And the mail teleporter now works mostly. He successfully upgraded me to sort the important things from the junk.”

“Useful,” Evan said, sitting down and pulling up the directory of projects.