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Benny set up a secure, untraceable, voice-over-internet conference for all four researchers together later that night, which was early the next morning in Venice. For the first time, they could speak to each other at the same time.
Dalton, Sal, and Shirley sat around Sal’s dining room table. Sal’s husband, kids, and dachshund had not yet woken up.
Once everyone was logged on, Benny spoke in a tinny, slow, synthesized voice.
“Hello all. This is Benny. I’m speaking via a synthesizer. I don’t normally talk with my voice. That part of my brain isn’t wired very well, so I get confused easily. Instead I’m typing and you are hearing my voice synthesizer. I have many voices to choose from. My favorite is Morgan Freeman. But ... I digress.
“Bodin LaBranche asked me to set up this conference call so we could chat together and maybe coordinate our plans, if we have any. So I’m going to turn this over to Bodin now. Go ahead, Bodin.”
Professor LaBranche spoke, “Thanks very much, Benny. This is an excellent link. I can hear everybody clearly. I think we should begin with each person summarizing their present status. If you’re in hiding, you don’t need to give us details. In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t. I’ll go first.
“I’m comfortable in my apartment in New Orleans. At my request, and with the support of the local police, I’m being guarded by some extremely professional soldiers. Though they don’t want me to tell you who they are, or what country they represent. They’ve helped save my life once already. So I’m glad they’re here, and I hope they can stay for as long as necessary. Unfortunately, none of us have any idea what they are guarding me from, nor how long that will continue.
“Who wants to go next?”
“Hi all,” said Professor Anderson. “This is Dorothy. I’m in a situation similar to Bodin’s. Though I’m not in my home. I’m not allowed to tell you where I am, but I am in a beautiful, comfortable home. And I’m being guarded by a small army. A rather eclectic, multinational and non-national army. I suppose I am technically their prisoner. But I have little to complain about, other than missing my townhouse a bit. They let me continue my work. In fact, they encourage it. They think it might enhance my value if they ransom me. By the way, they are listening closely to this conversation for the same reason. This is really like an enforced vacation. A vacation at gunpoint, perhaps, but still a vacation. And I suppose I’m a goose being fattened up for sale. But they’ve assured me no harm will come to me. And I believe them. So that’s my status. Next?”
“Hi, this is Dalton,” said Dalton, tired but cheerful. “I’m in Italy. I’m in hiding at a safe house with a member of Anonymous.” He turned and looked at Sal and Shirley. “And I can’t thank them enough for saving my life a few dozen times yesterday. And thank you, too, Benny, for linking me to them. I plan on just sitting tight here for a while. I can’t even poke my head out the door because not everyone got the word that the bounty on my head has been withdrawn. And last I heard there were some Saudis still trying to kill me. So far they appear to have failed. And I plan to keep it that way. So what’s your status, Benny?”
The synthesized voice said, “My mother and I were being guarded in our home in San Francisco by the FBI and the police. The FBI left earlier today. And the police were going to leave, but I asked them to keep a couple of officers here just in case. They are pleasant and unobtrusive. And they stay upstairs out of my way. So I’m free to work here in the basement.
“By the way, Dalton, I have some good news for you. I got this from the FBI and from the Italian military police. The Italians say the Saudis left Italy earlier today in one hell of a hurry. And according to the FBI you seem to have a friend at the highest levels of our government. They quoted the Secretary of State calling the Saudi ambassador and asking him to please make sure that the House of Saud was not involved in any way with any ongoing threat to you. Because anyone involved in harming an American citizen would have to outrun a cruise missile. It’s pretty clear that something’s going on at the highest levels that we know nothing about.”
“Thanks, Benny,” said Dalton. “That is great news! What a relief!”
LaBranche spoke, “I wish we knew what was going on at those top levels. We’re at the center of a shit storm, but all Benny’s found are rumors about some silly-assed antigravity. That’s got to be a cover story, some kind of diversion, because we all know that can’t be true.”
“Agreed,” said Dorothy and Dalton in unison.
“I agree, too,” said Benny’s synthetic voice. “But I can’t find anything else. Anonymous just feeds me nonsense on top of nonsense. And the FBI appears to be part of the cover story. There’s only a couple of emails about us at the FBI’s Director level, and they seem to believe the antigravity crap.”
“What did they say?” asked Dorothy.
“Well,” said Benny, “One said they were planning a demonstration in a couple of weeks. And the other said he was looking forward to watching it in 3D.”
“What?” said Dorothy. “They’re making a 3D movie? Maybe that’s part of the cover up?”
“Just a second,” said Benny. “I’ve got the message somewhere. Here it is. It says, and I quote, ‘I’m looking forward to watching the 3D demo.’”
“Nonsensical crap,” said Dorothy.
Dalton said, “3D movie? That doesn’t make any sense at all. Unless he’s talking about ... Oh. My. God.”
“WHAT?” said everyone else.
Dalton’s voice started to shake. “He’s not talking about a 3D movie. He’s talking about a 3D phased array.”
Silence slammed down like a ten-ton feather for a few heartbeats.
Bodin said, “Oh. My. God.”
More silence.
Dorothy said, “Oh. My. God.”
More silence.
Benny’s mechanical voice said, “What the hell are you three talking about?”
Dalton said, “It’s an array performance factor of ten to the fifth. Maybe more.”
Bodin said, with reverential wonderment, “It’s that simple? We invented antigravity? Son of a bitch.”
Dorothy said, in the same reverential tone, “We invented antigravity.”
Dalton’s eyes went wide, and he said, “No, no, no.” Then, in an even more reverential tone, “We patented antigravity.”
More silence.
“That’s why they’re after us,” said Bodin. “To control the most valuable patent in history.”
“Or to kill us,” said Dalton, “and all our heirs. So the patent goes to the state.”
“The US would inherit?”
“Possibly. I don’t know the details of the law. But don’t count on the government being our friend.”
Benny’s tone was not reverential. “Would someone please explain to me what the hell you’re talking about?”
Dalton said, “I’ll give it a shot.”
Tony Stark, help me out here.
“The phased array we made. It was 100,000 by 100,000 shakers, right?”
“Right.”
“And we showed that you can not make the array any wider than about a meter, right? If it’s any bigger, the shakers are too far away from the center to have any effect. That was obvious, so we thought useful antigravity was impossible.
“But our array was flat. Two dimensional, or 2D. We never thought of building a 3D array. Just stack layer upon layer of 2D arrays on top of one another, like a deck of cards. It’s obvious now. But no one had ever done that before. It never crossed our minds. We were totally focused on the 2D phasing problem. Especially Dorothy and Benny. That’s a real bitch of a math problem and programming problem. And meanwhile Bodin was busy tossing grenades into our work. The physics is incredibly complex, because you’ve got vibrations everywhere in that little device. Those spurious vibrations ruin everything if you don’t treat them real nice. That just consumed us.
“So we missed the obvious: We can obviously stack the 2D arrays one on top of the other to make a 3D array. That’s one hundred per millimeter, as tight as the rest of the array. That’s one hundred thousand times as many shakers, so one hundred thousand times as much gain from focusing. And now there’s one hundred thousand times as much raw mass to work with. That’s a hundred thousand times a hundred thousand, or ten billion times as much lifting power as what we built. And ten billion times one grain of sand is ... oh ... about two tons.
“So ... looks like we invented antigravity. I hope you took notes because there will be a short quiz at the end of the period.”
Dalton looked at Sal and Shirley. Their mouths were wide open. “Was I going too fast? Did you fall asleep? Do you want food? Hello? Is there any leftover spaghetti?”
Sal nodded, then wrinkled her nose. “Spaghetti for breakfast?”
Dalton stood up and went into the kitchen.
Benny’s tinny voice said, “We’re going to be rich.”
Dalton shouted from the kitchen, “No. Not just rich. We’re going to be the richest people on the planet. The richest people in all of history.”
They were all quiet for a moment. Then Shirley said aside to Sal, “Is it my imagination, or did Dalton just get cuter?” Sal nodded and grinned.
Dorothy said, “By the looks on their faces, I think my captors just got what they were hoping for.”
Dalton returned to the dining room table, carrying a full plate and chewing a mouthful of spaghetti. “I doubt anyone will be able to outbid you for ranshoming your own freedom, Doroshy.”
“That’s nice,” said Dorothy, “But will they take a check? I left my billions in my other purse.”
“If your credit isn’t good, no one’s is. But tell them they better spend it quick,” said Dalton. “Because we’ve also just destroyed the entire global economy. We may all be dead next week.”
“What? What do you mean?”
Dalton spoke around his next bite of spaghetti. “I mean we’ve jusht deshtroyed the two largesht industriesh in the world: Transhportation and oil.”
“How so?”
Dalton swallowed. “Isn’t it obvious? Antigravity directly destroys the transportation industry. Wheels are obsolete when you can float on antigravity. Everything invested in cars, railroads, ships, airplanes, and all the factories and tooling and engines and spare parts and distribution systems and car dealerships and gas stations and repair shops ... they’re all worthless now. My mind’s having a hard time grappling with that. Wheels are as obsolete as stone axes. And wings are just as obsolete. Even ships are obsolete. They can all be replaced by things anyone can print with a MEMS-printer the size of a shoebox, cheap enough for anyone to own.”
“Well ... that’s great in a real sucky way. What about oil?”
“Transportation and oil depend on each other. Destroy one, you destroy the other. Together they’re about one tenth of the global economy. Their stocks will drop to zero overnight. With no stock value for collateral, they won’t be able to get credit to run their companies. All companies run on credit for their operating cash flow. With no cash they’ll have to shut down. They employ one tenth of the global workforce, probably twenty million people in the US alone. They’ll all be jobless within a couple of days. One tenth of the global workforce will be out of work within a week.”
“Looks like we’ll have a global economic depression.”
“Depression? No. It’s going to be a lot worse than depression. Wiping out ten percent of the global economy is only the start. The real problem is the banks. Banks don’t keep their money in safes at the bank. All that money, your money and my money, is invested by banks in stocks, bonds, and derivatives. Derivatives are side bets on stocks, so they rise and fall with the stocks. Except that the derivatives are leveraged to ten times what the stocks are worth. So when stocks lose 10% of their value, banks lose 100% of their investment in derivatives. When stocks drop 100%, banks lose ten times their investment. That’s enough to bankrupt any bank. So when the economy loses 10% of its industries, banks lose most of their money, which is your money and my money. This is why many people object to banks investing in derivatives.
“So when the transportation and oil industries go belly up, they’ll take the banking industry with them. And when banking goes, everything goes. Everyone in the world will be broke. The banks will have lost everyone’s money gambling on derivatives. No one will have any money to buy anything. If people can’t buy anything, that means companies can’t sell anything. So every company in the world goes out of business. The entire global economy collapses. And then the riots and wars begin.”
After a pause, Bodin asked, “How do you know all this?”
“When I was a kid I played a lot of different civilization games. Sometimes you save the world. Sometimes not. Great games.” He shoveled in another mouthful of spaghetti. “You guysh really need to try Shal’s peshto shaush. It’sh amazhing.”