The assembling of Vasquez’s and his device into one unit went far easier than Simon expected. The machines were almost identical. Not quite, because the two men had been working at a distance and communicating mostly by e-mail. They mirrored one another’s work, to a point. Until, that is, Vasquez had come up with his new idea.
The professor had clearly waited to discuss his alterations once he had evidence that they worked. This was not unusual. He and Simon both tried a number of different directions and up to now none had succeeded. So they developed a sort of scientific shorthand. As in, I have a new maybe. That’s what they had called them. New maybes. The name worked as well as anything.
What had been different this final time was the excitement. Vasquez had sounded electric the last couple of times they spoke. And the pages in the professor’s globe had offered substantial hints. By midday, Simon had combined the working components of two machines into one functioning device.
He organized a dozen kids into a solar-lantern assembly line and appointed Juan their manager. The kids worked and chattered and laughed through the process. Juan proved to be a born dictator.
By late afternoon, the lanterns were finished and tested and boxed. Pedro joined them in loading the assembled lanterns into the orphanage’s dilapidated van. They completed their work just as the chapel bell rang.
Simon joined the kids by the outside faucet, loving the sound of their young laughter and easy delight at having this gringo wash his face and hands with them. Chapel revived him, and dinner with the children was a time of rare joy. He sat with Pedro and Harold and Juan and Sofia, speaking little, savoring the simple delight of belonging.
Afterward Harold insisted Juan join him in the office for another voice lesson. Pedro and Sofia and Simon ambled through the long shadows and entered the classroom. Brother and sister settled by the entrance as Simon gave the assembled device one last check.
Sofia recalled, “Vasquez talked about retrieving lost energy.”
“Okay, first of all, energy is never lost.” Simon did not look up from his work. “The amount of energy in the universe is unchanging. It is a constant. Vasquez’s dream was to retrieve energy that was wasted.”
“He said it was your dream too.”
Perhaps someday he would hear these words and not feel the bloom of guilt. “Vasquez had an idea. I helped make it happen. But it was his vision.”
“So how does your device work?”
“Scientists have struggled with retrieving wasted energy for over a century. A physicist named Tesla claimed to have actually done it. And maybe he did. But it’s been hard to replicate his device because his notes were both illegible and incomplete. But the cost of Tesla’s equipment was staggering. He spent millions of dollars to collect about a nickel’s worth of usable power.”
“What makes your device so different?” Sofia asked.
“Quantum field theory.”
“What is this, exactly?”
“That’s the problem. There is no exactly in the quantum universe.” Simon snapped the exterior cover into place, polished off the dust with a bit of old rag, and took a step back. There were two long scratches in the fuselage, probably from where he had shoved it down the culvert pipe. And a big dent in the top, which had cracked the motherboard now replaced from Vasquez’s unit. All in all, it looked like a vacuum cleaner that had seen a lot of hard use. But the excitement in his gut said otherwise.
Simon turned and realized the pair was still waiting for him to complete his thought. “At the subatomic level, energy reveals the attributes of being both a wave and a particle. But at the level of Newtonian physics, that’s impossible. Either it’s one or the other. In the quantum world, both can exist at the same time. Not only that, the attributes they show depend upon the observer. If I set up an experiment looking for waves of energy, I find waves. If I look for particles, I find particles. Vasquez and I focused on the wave attributes of energy.”
“That was your idea,” Sofia recalled softly. “Vasquez called it brilliant. A game changer.”
He could not go there, not and focus on the night and the work ahead. “Most wave attributes can’t be proven. Because we’re dealing with subatomic particles that can’t be seen or measured with standard instrumentation, a lot of quantum mechanics remains stuck at the level of field theories. A field theory signifies a concept that has not yet been physically measured. But this doesn’t mean the wave attributes of energy can’t be utilized. Storm patterns are all the result of unproven wave calculations.” He patted the cover and felt the latent potential surge through him. “Vasquez’s latest results indicate we may have finally found our way to stardom.”
Sofia asked, “What happens now?”
“We need to check this gizmo out. To do that, I need a very particular kind of setting.” Simon described what he had in mind.
When he was done, Pedro glanced at his sister, who snapped, “Don’t even think about leaving me behind.”
“This is exactly what you were against all along,” Pedro said. “Recklessness, risk, possibly danger.”
“And sitting here worrying about you out there will somehow make it better? I don’t think so.”
“Enrique won’t like you being with us.”
“Then we had better not tell him.”
“Or Harold.”
“Of course not Harold.” She jangled her keys. “Let’s take my van. The seat in your pickup hurts my back.”
Simon felt the same surge of electric tension he always knew when working on the fringes of proven science. It captivated him. It called to him. And yet it terrified him. Sitting in the van’s broad seat, riding along a dusty sunset road, the realization struck him with the force of a blow to his heart. A scientist could not be a cynic. And cynicism had been his shield against all the pain and loss he had known. To take up his role, to live up to the potential Vasquez had seen, Simon had to set down his shield. And that simple act terrified him. It stripped him bare. It laid his pain and suffering and past and all the wrong acts out in the open.
He couldn’t do it.
It was that simple. He did not have the strength to change. As long as he insisted on doing so alone.
The thought pushed him back in his seat. The hot dusty wind through the open windows punched at him. He felt robbed of air. Because that was the other side of his cynical nature. He was always alone.
The only time he permitted others entry was when he worked in the lab. There he was surrounded by kindred spirits. People who discounted whatever personality traits he might have, shrugged them off, because they communicated at the level beyond the personality. They were bonded by the realm of the unseen.
Which was happening here. Now. With these people. Outside the lab.
The same, yet different.
Simon realized they were both watching him. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” Sofia said.
“I was thinking . . .”
“We know,” Pedro said. “It was like sitting next to a pressure cooker.”
“A power generator.” Sofia nodded from behind the wheel. “Just like Vasquez.”
Simon thought of how they had both offered to pray with him. As though they were bound by invisible bonds to a source he could not even name, much less fathom. He knew if he said the words, they would do it with him. Now. This very instant.
He tried. He opened his mouth and tasted the dusty heat. But he could not fashion the words.
The transformer substation was situated on a grimy hilltop overlooking a pair of massive factories. The city of Ojinaga sprawled in the valley beyond. The factories to their right manufactured cement and paving materials. The air was clogged with the odors of hot asphalt and chemicals. Smokestacks threw out great plumes. Machines bellowed and ground and churned. Simon thought it was a perfect setting for his attempt to change the world.
They drove through the workers’ lot and climbed the gravel track to the substation. Pedro assured them that as assistant town manager, his visits to such locations were perfectly acceptable. As they parked, Pedro had a quiet word with a lone guard, who offered a languid salute and strolled on.
Simon set the apparatus just outside the transformer’s protective fencing and made his final adjustments. “There’s this huge battle going on between Newtonian physicists and the quantum guys,” he told them. The excitement made him garrulous, as though talking helped draw them closer together. “The struggle gets pretty ferocious at times. There may not be blood on the streets, but wrecked professional careers litter the halls of most universities. Vasquez called that a complete waste of time.”
“Actually, what he said was, it’s a complete squandering of human potential,” Sofia said. “All burned to ashes on the pyre of ego.”
Simon looked up from where he squatted on the ground. “Yeah. He did.”
Pedro asked, “So what was his answer?”
“Basically, that both were right,” Sofia recalled. “He said the arguments were a perfect example of man trying to fit creation into a comfortable box. The two directions are not exclusive. Both live in harmony. Or they would, if man let them.”
Simon stared up at her. The sunset was directly behind her and cast her in glowing silhouette. “He never told me that.”
Pedro walked in a circle, following Simon’s direction, planting lightbulbs in the earth. “Remind me why I am doing this.”
“Vasquez used unconnected bulbs to prove he could harness and channel wasted energy. I’m trying to replicate his results.”
Sofia asked, “So what did Armando tell you was his answer?”
“He focused on the science.” Simon bent back over his device, reflecting on how Vasquez had probably responded as he had because that was all Simon had been willing to hear. “Newtonian physics states that there are certain laws governing waves. One is called refraction, which means waves change direction when they meet a new medium, or substance, at an angle. And the amount of change is determined by the quality of the substance, which is called a boundary, and the angle of the wave.”
Pedro straightened and looked at his sister. “Does that make sense to you?”
“Perhaps. Yes. I think so. Go on, Simon.”
Simon pointed at the substation to their right. “For our experiment tonight, we’re going to treat this place as a boundary. In order to transport electricity, substations raise the voltage and lower the amperage. But because they are so inefficient, a lot of power is wasted. It’s what makes the air tingle, this energy passing through our bodies.”
“And Vasquez . . . ?”
“He applied quantum principles to a Newtonian problem. If I’m right, he said, forget identifying a specific vibratory pattern. There isn’t one. Instead, look for harmonics. Look for a probability of patterns coming together in a combination.”
He tested the hookups one final time. “Maybe now is a good time to back up.”