Aden, U.C.

Perfect World story (The NOW)

[Editor's Note: This story is the next chapter in the tale of Dave 'Dubious' Dubois. We were first introduced to him in 'Dave Learns The Truth', posted in April 2009.]

Dave Dubois stood in a large noisy cavern 500 feet below Los Angeles, accessible only by elevators found in the FutureTech Corporation Headquarters above it. Jake Reston, CEO, stood beside him and nodded in approval at his large construction project.

Dave had been given a number of hints as to what this might actually be; he was pretty sure about his guess. It looked like a subway station; and even though there didn't seem to be any tracks, there was a platform. It abutted a large metal cylinder which ran the length of the cavern and disappeared into the darkness of a large polished hole in the cavern wall.

"It's finished, Dave," Jake said. "We're just prettying up the station now."

Dave thought he had all the facts now, and chanced a guess. "Well, it's obvious we're in a train station. But why would there be a polished airtight steel tube running the length of the platform where tracks should be, unless it was separating something significant? And you mentioned an unbelievable speed of 18,000 miles an hour, so it can't be on wheels or travel through air-- friction would melt it. We went way down in the elevator to get here, so I guess for safety the tube runs continuously, underground, from one end to the other. So my guess is it's an airless mag-lev train tube."

"Bingo son, flawless reasoning! And guess what?"

"What?"

"We're taking a ride in it, right now!"

Dave stared uneasily at the welders blanketing the metal tube, sparks showering like glowing rain. "Is it safe? It looks like they've still got important things to do."

"Cosmetics only, son. It's ready to go right now, and we're all going!"

Jake was referring to those in the Overview room with them: Dave's college roommate Joe Hobart, who had arranged Dave's job interview with Jake; and the train's designer, Rick Payne. There were also two stunning young women Dave didn't recognize wearing white lab coats and hardhats, flanking Jake left and right. He tucked his hands around their small waists and led the procession into the din.

Dave was impressed by the organization of construction duties in the cavern. Dozens of workers were productively engaged, side by side, producing smooth, tiled-patterned walls from the rough hewn rock using diamond-studded power tools, in an even tide. Dozens more were polishing the platform's crystallized carbon nanocrete surface, a new blended polymer that was not only impervious to any known solvent but also produced significant power from the pressure of footsteps, piezoelectrically. Many more were polishing every metal surface to a mirror finish. The design was opulent and favorably mixed Ultramodern features with classic Art Deco architecture. Dave marveled at Reston's fearlessness at blending designs; how the station's intricately hand-hewn stone dome soared to dizzying heights and how every aspect of the cutting-edge construction reflected a desire to build a structure with a multiple-century life span.

The group crossed the platform and Rick placed his hand on a terminal screen on the metal tube, which had to have been at least nine or ten feet in diameter by Dave's reckoning. Seamlessly, a curved rectangular door receded slightly into the tube and slid upward, revealing a luxurious train car inside. In neat rows were dozens of thickly padded seats, each flaunting a competent yet fear-inducing safety harness. Each seat was supported by a thick bar which protruded from the top and bottom reminiscent of a carousel horse, attaching to the train's roof and floor.

"Take a seat, don't be shy," Jake boomed (he always boomed, Dave noticed), and chose three together. Once again the beautiful girls flanked him, only now the lab coats and hardhats came off. In their place were mounds of thick blonde hair, and scant bikinis. Unabashedly Jake announced, "These are the VeeGirls, who will be helping me promote this mode of transportation to the general public. They are also my secretaries-- and my bodyguards." They sat down simultaneously. "Latch yourselves in, kids... you're in for a helluva ride!" Dave, Joe and Rick took the row behind Jake and his 'VeeGirls'.

The PA spoke. Dave noticed that, in stark contrast to the shrill and monotone messages heard in regular subway cars, this message was crisp and resonant and easily understandable. A rich male voice said, "All harnesses engaged. Departure in 30 seconds. Destination: Aden."

Aden? Dave thought. Aloud he said, "Aden?"

"It's my town, son. I'm building a big new kind of city. In Nebraska." Jake smiled with the pride of fatherfood.

Until today, Dave only knew of this man from business news where his name was mentioned daily and was aware of his great wealth, but a city? No one man could pay for an entire city! "You mean a development, don't you?" he clarified.

"I said city and I meant it, Dave," he replied, his smile growing even wider than Dave thought possible. "I found a remote valley in Nebraska and negotiated with the President himself to design this special place."

"The President of the United States?"

"The very one-- two administrations back. I came to him with this idea a friend of mine originated, and he agreed to give up this Federal land for a special experiment."

"What makes it so special, Jake? Modern transportation like the VeeStreak?"

"Tip of the iceberg, son, tip of the iceberg. Here. I brought some reading material for the trip." He handed Dave a folder from his attaché; it was only a few pages long and he began reading. The introduction was written as a prospectus for investors... sort of:

Have you ever seen a billboard while crawling down a packed freeway at rush hour which proclaimed 'If You Lived Here You'd Be Home Now!' and wondered how people could be tempted by such obvious bullshit?

Dave was surprised at the word 'bullshit' right in the heading of a sales brochure, but read on:

Well, welcome to a city for which the comment makes an entirely new kind of sense. You could work anywhere in the United States-- from New York to Chicago to Dallas to Los Angeles-- and be home in time for supper, right here in quiet and tranquil Aden, Nebraska!

Dave turned the page to find a brilliant, full color rendering of a gorgeous, spacious city ringed with mountains. He read on:

Designed to be a city for the twenty-first century, every structure is only two years old or newer, and is a city unlike anyplace on Earth. Ultramodern materials and the latest technological breakthroughs are present everywhere in Aden. Carbon nanocrete has found its way into wide use here which allows for the construction of buildings 200 stories tall, with a rooftop airstrip that can land a 747! These 'mesascrapers' are so large that they resemble flat-topped mountains, hence the nickname. Still, with all of those advantages, they weigh just ten percent of traditional steel structures... but are fifty times as strong!

Dave stopped reading when the PA announced, "Commencing travel." He felt the car shudder lightly as it engaged magnetic repulsion; it lifted imperceptibly and rapidly floated forward. The sensation was odd, because even as his body was being driven deeply into his seat's padding he could hear no sound and feel no other inertia. He thought with relief that the acceleration felt mild.

Dave's thought came too soon. "Here it comes, kids!" Jake yelled, although it wasn't necessary to yell; it was quiet in the train car. Then from the PA: "Engaging hyperspeed."

Dave could suddenly not move his body. It was if a die-cast chair had somehow crushed down onto him, squeezing him into a Dave-shaped mold... and stayed there. It rendered him deathly immobile. He could not breath, nor talk, nor swivel his eyeballs to look at Jake. He was sure he would be screaming-- if only he could take a breath.

Fortunately it stopped quickly; he was released from his crushing prison after a few seconds. He had a hundred questions but was feeling claustrophobic so asked first, "Can I take the harness off now, Jake?"

"When we get there, son. You don't want to end up as goo on the back wall, now do you? It would be a mess, and of course very sad."

He considered briefly. "Okay. I think I'll wait."

"But the seats will now swivel." Jake pressed a button on his chair and shoved with his feet; it spun around. The V-Girls did as well and now the group faced each other.

Dave asked, "You say we're going to Nebraska? How long will that take?"

"You should just wait and see for yourself... you won't believe me if I tell you now. Or you could read the answer in the prospectus I gave you, if it weren't flat against the back wall." He gestured. Dave turned his head to see that sure enough, the folder was crushed against the wall, pages skewed and ironed in place. He did not remember letting go of it. Still, his curiosity was piqued.

"Carbon nanocrete?"

"Yes, sirree! I predict it will retire steel."

"What proportion of concrete is mixed in with the carbon nano-- tubes, I'm guessing?"

"Yes, long strings of carbon nanotubes in a thermochemical polymer base. There's actually no concrete in it at all. But it flows and sets up in forms at room temperature like concrete."

"Intense! You create identical I-beams for use in construction?"

"One difference, though; a fifty foot I-beam of the stuff weighs just eighty pounds, whereas the same size steel beam weighs three thousand." Jake stressed the difference proudly. "Plus, it's ridiculously tough. If the World Trade Center had been made of this material, those planes would have been crushed against the sides like launched eggs. This train is made of it, and so is the entire twelve hundred mile underground tube to Aden."

Dave was impressed by the material comparisons but stunned by that last fact. "You dug a 1200 mile underground tunnel?"

Joe chimed in. "We're up to eight."

"Eight 1200 mile underground tunnels?" If he had been standing Dave's knees would have buckled.

Joe grinned proudly and corrected, "Roughly. VeeStreak goes to four cities, two tunnels for each city. The Chicago and Dallas tunnels are roughly 500 miles long, the LA and New York ones are about 1200. I designed the TriMight sonic diamond/pulsed laser drill head to cut fifty miles a day through any ground conditions."

Impressive, Hobo!" Dave said, using his pet nickname for the younger man. Joe scowled good-naturedly as Dave continued. "Did you also dig occasional access tunnels along the way?"

"Every 50 miles we placed an elevator shaft to an airlock near the tunnels for servicing and emergencies. But the elevator lobby entrances are all buried."

"Tell me...what did you do with all the debris?"

"That's the best part! We cored through many valuable mineral fields along the way and mapped them for future beneath-ground mining. Valuable ore we captured was processed while still in the tunnel using a continuous ore separator rolling behind the drill heads, and was sold to pay for materials and machinery produced outside of FutureTech.

But yes, all of it eventually left the tunnel. We accumulated enough earth to raise the entire city of New Orleans by thirty feet and offered it up free, but our suggestion was ridiculed and further efforts were dashed by political red tape."

"Who would thwart such a sensible plan?"

"The last administration."

"Of course. I'm afraid to ask-- what was their reasoning?" Dave was curious about that much the way a death row inmate wonders how his lethal injection works.

Jake stepped in. "Humph! They said the city was doomed in fifty years anyway, when global warming raises the ocean levels. Idiots!" There was a general murmur of agreement.

Rick spoke up. "And we have a plan to combat global warming, too, by farming the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to make carbon nanocrete."

"Is that even possible?" Dave seemed dubious.

"Sure, using siphon osmosis to crack the carbon dioxide and return the oxygen to Earth."

"Return it to Earth? From where?"

"Orbiting factories. Well, not in the classic sense of the word factories-- more like a machine that can fit in the Space Shuttle's belly. It would be set into a geosynchronous orbit, and then would drop a nanotube chute into the atmosphere, at the CO2 layer. Carbon dioxide would be siphoned upwards, cracked using the unfiltered sun and formed into carbon nanocrete--"

Dave had an idea. "Can we call it Carbonite?"

Jake laughed. "It's been used in the movies-- but I like it! Good ear, son!" He turned to his VeeGirls. "Make it official, ladies!"

Dave feared the bikini twins would 'make it official' by giving everyone a lap dance but thankfully they just entered data into a terminal in the armrest. Rick continued. "Okay... formed into Carbonite I-beams, loaded into a payload delivery sled and floated to the surface. Meanwhile, O2 is dropped back down through the chute and into the atmosphere. Multiply that machine by a thousand, and global warming reverses slowly over the next twenty years. We'll have our planet back! The carbon locked in those I-beam structures won't find its way back into the atmosphere for thousands of years, if at all."

The PA interrupted. "Prepare for deceleration." At that moment, all the chairs turned to face the train's back wall and Dave was again crushed into his chair for an incredibly long 30 seconds. He blacked out

Dave opened his eyes in what felt like only moments later, to the sight of those pretty VeeGirls hunched over him. They were gently slapping his cheeks with looks of pouty concern on their lovely faces. Now he was hoping for a lap dance, but he was out of luck. They just unharnessed and helped him to his feet; as they hoisted him out of the train he noticed their surprising strength. "Wait..." he said woozily, "We're here? In Oklahoma?"

"Nebraska," the VeeGirl on his left corrected, speaking for the first time. She had a 'V' stitched onto her left bra cup.

"Oh, right. In Odin, Jack Weston's city."

"Umm, Aden, in Jake Reston's city," said the other one, the one with a 'G' on her right bra cup.

"Thas's what I said, isn' it?" he slurred, still blurry.

They sat him down at a bench outside of a very similar polished metal tube on a very similar Carbonite platform which also generated electricity piezoelectrically as you walked on it, in a very similar underground dome. Dave looked confused and asked, "We haven't even left yet? What were we doing in there? Was it a trick... or a carnival ride? I see horsies," and laid down on the bench, mumbling.

The VeeGirls walked over to Jake. "He's gonna need a minute, I think," V said. "It's always tough the first time."

"Poor fella... it's been a day for him, hasn't it? Well, get him a cold drink or something... we need his expertise. I didn't bring him out here to warm the bench."

G shuddered. "I hate cold benches!"

Dave opened his eyes and for a moment thought he had been blinded-- inky blackness was all he could see. Then he noticed a small, glowing red dot. "Hello?"

The dot blinked. "Hello."

He asked, "Are you a good red dot?"

"No, I'm the malevolent red dot of death. Say your prayers, Dubious."

Dave cleared the cobwebs-- that voice sounded familiar. He asked, "Joe-- is that you?"

Suddenly, blinding light was everywhere. Dave could make out a dark blob in front of him. As his sight cleared the blob became Joe, standing in front of a wall-sized window, holding the curtain control cord. "Joe, where in the hell am I?"

"See for yourself," Joe said, and pointed out the window.

Dave stood up, a little unsteadily. He crossed the room to the window, looked out... and jumped backwards frantically, clawing the floor for resistance. "Hey! We're a freakin' mile in the air! Joe, you bastard! Where the hell are we-- in an airplane?"

Joe said, "Welcome to Aden U.C., Dave. Aden Under Construction. You're on the top floor of Mesascraper One, the tallest building in the world that nobody knows about. You passed out in the VeeStreak so Jake gave you time to wake up in his office on the 200th floor."

Inching away from the window and back onto the couch, Dave spoke slowly, seething. "You know I'm not a big fan of heights, Joe."

"What can I do? Aden's just getting built... there weren't a lot of options. Jake's office is the only unit that's finished right now."

"Oh. Hey, the VeeStreak-- how long was the trip? I sorta passed out."

"You passed out right before we stopped. That was the whole trip... about twenty minutes, LA to Aden. Works out to about 3500 miles an hour. The train went 18,000 for a short while but had to expend a lot of track getting up to speed and slowing down, to stop in a way that doesn't liquefy people."

Dave whistled, low. "I am absolutely blown away by this train! Now if I can only keep from passing out..."

"You'll get used to it."

"I guess so. So what's with the red dot?"

"What red dot?" Joe looked around. "Oh, the coffeemaker is on. Want a cup?"

"God yes. Irish, strong."

There was an odd beeping coming from Joe's pocket; it was a phone or a walkie talkie. "Hello? Okay, I'll tell him. BRT." He hung up. "That was Jake. He's a little impatient for your input."

Dave said, "BRT?"

"Verbal shorthand. Be Right There. Get your shoes on, he's waiting." Joe gave him the coffee and Dave sipped it, and whistled. "Smooth," he rasped, and gulped it down. "What input does Jake want from me?"

Joe cut across to the door and said, "Remember that project in college that got you a 'D' because you couldn't prove it?"

Dave spat out, "Wide spectrum, high yield solar power. What about it?"

"We just discovered a process which might make it work."

"Well, let's go then!" Dave stepped up to the door Joe held open-- and jumped backwards in a panic, clawing the floor for resistance. "There's no freakin' outer walls!"

Joe screamed laughing. "I told you it was under construction! The Carbonite girders are all in place, and there's an elevator to the top, going to this completed office unit. Everything else in this building is still open to the world!"

Staring firmly upwards, Dave hugged the wall and shuffled to the elevator; somehow he reached ground level without dying. He looked up at the gigantic structure, the footprint of which would cover eight city blocks in lower Manhattan, then punched Joe in the shoulder. "It's so tall I can't even see the top! Why would you do that to me?"

"Because he's a consummate prankster, Dave," Jake responded from behind them. "I thought you would have remembered that fact from your time in school, when you woke up in a mountain climber's hanging sleeping bag dangling from the top of Royce Hall." He was driving a cool concept electric car. His blonde and beautiful bodyguards sat in the back silently, the beautifully painted, emotionless Robert Palmer girls. They boarded and sped away.

"That sucked, all right. But did he tell you what I did to him in response?" Dave asked coyly.

"Pray tell, son!" Jake, with an eyebrow raised, was all ears. Joe seemed on edge.

Dave saw Joe's discomfort and smiled. "You started it, Joey. Well Jake, it seems my roommate had a dread fear of tight, enclosed places. One night I pennied the door shut, and rented a tree surgeon's rig to blow sawdust in through the window."

"You didn't!"

"I did. I didn't stop until he..."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please stop!" Joe was begging now.

Dave continued, "Until he apologized and washed my car every week for the rest of the semester."

"Ooh, darn you!" Joe growled, relieved.

Jake said sadly, "That story didn't have the kick I thought it would. Oh, well. Onto new business. Dave Dubois, meet your next great challenge."

They rounded a hill near the mesascraper project and Dave gasped. A huge low building the size of a hundred WalMarts covered the acreage like a blanket. The road headed straight into the building, and so did they. Beneath the eighty foot ceiling was a complex manufacturing plant, but of what Dave couldn't tell.

"We are poised to convert the entire United States to solar power... if we can squeeze more electricity out of each joule of sunlight, because right now solar panel test results are anemic at best. I want to see a single two foot by four foot panel light up a home like a Christmas tree. I know you have the brains to make this happen, and this 300 million square foot lab and manufacturing plant is now yours to do just that. Whaddaya say, son? The money Aden makes selling this product to America will pay for Aden and dozens more like it in every country, and the product itself can power the entire world!"

Dave was not expecting an offer of such magnitude, and he actually began to well up. "I would -- would be honored to help change the world with you, Jake."

"I was hoping you would say that, Dave. If you make this happen, the chain of events will be monumental! For one thing, no more ties to Middle Eastern oil wells, which means pollution will drop radically. And best of all, America will be on top of the world again! Just don't forget to build a little planned obsolescence into each exported unit, heh, heh, heh. No point in giving them free power forever!"

"You sound like a capitalist, Jake."

"Fight fire with fire, son. I'll be happy when I no longer have to." He turned to the VeeGirls. "Ladies, help him in whatever way he desires! Joe, come with me. I have an idea for a Pleasure Drome that'll blow your doors off..." and the two of them rode out of earshot.

Dave snickered internally at Joe's vexation during his retelling of the college incident and wondered what would have happened had he let it slip that on 'sawdust' day Joe had not simply apologized but had instead screamed like a girl and crapped his pants before Dave would let him out. Dave smiled internally. He'd keep that one under his hat, to be used as ammunition for when he needed a big favor from Joe.

He turned his attention instead to his new 'assistants'. He looked at the two VeeGirls squeezed into their tight white tube dresses and could think of many ways they could help him physically, but none involving solar cell design. V slid past him in that syrupy way of walking she had and opened one half of a large blank wall cabinet. G also slipped past him and got the other door. Those girls were orchestrated in everything they did! Dave got a look inside and gasped, dropping jaw and pencil simultaneously.

"Pull up a chair, doc daddy," G said and patted one for him to sit in. The embroidered 'G' was on her right hip this time. He did, and was looking at the most advanced EM Spectrum Analyzer available, one he had only seen in action on sales reels.

"Wow. Do you what this machine can do, ladies?"

V said, "Sure. It performs high-yield spectroscopy and field decay entropy analysis for wide-band electromagnetic pulse variables."

"How did you know that?" I barely knew that!" For the second time in as many minutes Dave's pencil dropped. G picked it up and said, "I'll grind a new point on this." She giggled. "Careful, doctor Dave, you don't want your pencil to get too short."

He was staring at V, amazed at her knowledge, but right behind her was G, operating a wall mounted pencil sharpener, wriggling in a most alluring way.

"It was my doctoral thesis at MIT," V responded. "Mine was on quarks," G called out. He looked more closely at them, peering around all the piled up blonde hair and alluring curves, looking for signs of the typical science geek chick he shared classes with at Purdue. He narrowed his eyelids to slits. Nope, still hot. He sighed. How was he gonna work with these gorgeous distractions? He closed his eyes and recited from memory.

"The problem with today's solar cells," he began, "is that they only try to convert visible light into electricity. However, the electromagnetic spectrum is vast. If the entire EM spectrum were a VeeStreak ride from New York to Los Angeles, the visible spectrum would only be a few inches long of the whole 2500 mile trip. Visible light has a lot of energy, but other waves have much more, like x-rays and gamma rays. Harness those, and Man's quest for power is over."

"Well, then what are we waiting for?" G said, returning with his pencil. "Aden has a lot of power requirements, and harnessing the power from people walking on Carbonite sidewalks ain't gonna cut it."

"Do you ladies have names? I've been calling you 'V' and 'G' in my head."

"I'm Vickie, and she's Gina," G said.

Dave blinked. "Wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me get this straight. You with the letter 'G' embroidered onto your clothing... you're 'Vickie'?"

"Uh-huh."

"And you, 'V' girl, your name is 'Gina'?"

"Yes, doctor Dave."

"Well, why not switch them? It seems confusing."

"Oh, it isn't."

"Why isn't it confusing?"

"Well... they are the first initials of our last names, Davy," Vickie said. "She's Gina Verone, and I'm Vickie Gibraltar."

"O-kay. No less confusing, but let's shelve that for a moment. Ladies, let's start big. I want to build a gamma ray generator."

"A machine which generates gamma rays?" Vickie asked.

"No, an electric generator which runs off of gamma rays."

"You know gamma rays pass through most matter, right? They poke holes in everything they touch, including us. Thankfully they are incredibly small, smaller than an atom, plus not many gamma rays rain down on the planet to begin with."

"Yes, yes I do. But I think we might have some luck with superconducting magnetic plasma, to influence the direction of gamma ray travel. If we can move one gamma photon into a rotational orbit within the generator, it can be powered for months or even years with no harmful by-products. And that's with only one photon." He smiled at them confidently. They weren't smiling back. Their expression could best be described as-- hungry.

"Ladies...?"

"Dave Dubois, you really know how to talk a nerd girl's clothing off," said Gina Verone, 'VeeGirl' extraordinaire, wriggling out of her tube dress.

"Intelligence is so hot," Vickie 'G Girl' Gibraltar chimed in, pulling his shirt off in one swift motion. "I've been wanting to do this since the train," and straddled him, pressing her endowments to his chest.

Dave remembered that nothing like this ever happened to him at Purdue. But thankfully, these girls were from MIT.

Copyright 2009 Bruce Ian Friedman