The Rift Generator

The Advertisement

“Hon, come here, you’ve got to see this.”

“You’re reading that pseudo-science magazine again aren’t you?” Lisa sauntered into the living room with an unmistakable air of superiority, her black ponytail bobbing along with her step. She glared at me. “Just as I thought. You know that damn magazine is nothing more than paid consumer advertising.”

“And you’re just jealous that your doctorate in Applied Physics hasn’t landed you on the cover.”

Her face contorted and I backtracked. “Sorry honey, I didn’t mean…”

She snatched the magazine from my lap and looked at the advertisement I had circled. Her lips moved as she read it, a habit I found charming for someone with an advanced degree.

“Come on, Billy, get real. Plans for an inter-dimensional rift generator? For twenty-five bucks I can buy the plans and send my trash to another dimension? It’s just another snake-oil salesman preying on Star-Trek groupies.”

I smiled and said, “Maybe, but look at the address.”

She did, and her eyes went wide. “Oh, my god. Isn’t that Jason Brenan’s box?”

“Yeah, it’s got to be. He always used that post office box for his various scams to earn tuition money.”

Lisa slumped heavily into the other chair. “I hope to hell he didn’t build one.”

I looked sharply at her. “Build one? What do you mean? As I recall he was just a harmless graduate student, and a dropout at that.”

“Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I never told you everything. He didn’t just quit the program; his doctoral thesis was rejected.”

“Rejected? That’s unusual isn’t it? If his faculty advisor was doing his job it should never have gotten that far.”

She grimaced. “The paper was fine; brilliant even. I proof –read it for him. That wasn’t the reason it was rejected.”

I remembered the small intense man quite well. When we had all been graduate students he had been a sometime friend and occasional visitor to our flat. “What other reason was there?”

“He had to be discredited. The story I heard was that the faculty felt it was the only way to put a permanent lid on his research.”

“Huh, that sounds serious. What was his research in?”

“Inter-dimensional rifts, what else?”

“What’s an inter-dimensional rift?”

She dropped her chin to her chest and muttered, “It’s either the best trash disposal system ever invented, or Armageddon.”

Plans

We ordered the plans. What else could we do? Nothing he was doing was against the law, at least none presently on the books. They arrived two weeks after we mailed an anonymous cashier’s check to the post office box. We did not want to alert Brenan to our interest until we had a better idea of what was going on.

Lisa sat at our dining room table, the plans spread out in front of her. She’d been at it for five hours straight, and her hair was a tangled mess. The yellow legal pad at her side was almost completely filled with her handwritten notes. I cleared my throat, and she looked up.

“What’s the prognosis?”

She leaned back in her chair and said, “I’m not sure. All I can tell you is that it does follow what I remember of his thesis. Of course the plans don’t give the theory behind it, but I remember some of the diagrams from his paper, and this is a good fit.”

“Okay, so he’s selling plans for his device. That doesn’t mean anyone can or will build it. It’s got to be complex as hell, right?”

She waved an arm at the plans. “Besides the fact that it could be very dangerous, two other things about these plans scare me. The first is this.” She pointed to the drawing’s title block. I looked where she was pointing, and read aloud, “License number 317. Big deal. So three-hundred six-teen lunatics bought the plans. Notice I’m not counting us among them. So what? It still doesn’t mean it can be built.”

She sighed. “Billy, all the components can be bought at Home Depot and Radio Shack.”

I glanced over her shoulder at the plans. With my master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, reading design plans is second nature to me. But these plans were more like IKEA instructions for assembling a piece of furniture, with just a few words and lots of sequential assembly pictures. The only significant text on the drawing was a disclaimer at the end of the assembly sequence, which read, “Use of this device is at the risk of the builder. Under no circumstances shall the designer be held liable for any damages that may arise from its use or misuse. Current demand may exceed local power utility supply capability.”

Construction

What would you have done next? Build it of course, and that’s what we did. You’d think two intelligent people with advanced degrees would know better, but hindsight is twenty-twenty. Despite all our fears, we were both curious and somewhat skeptical that a copper cage with a few electronic do-dads would do more than hum at sixty hertz and draw a lot of current. We bought copper plumbing tubing and hardware from Home Depot, and power transformers from Radio Shack. Lisa wasn’t right that we could buy everything from them, because we had to order some less usual electronic components from on-line sources, but even so we didn’t spend more than a hundred dollars on materials. The assembly was relatively straight forward, and the result was something that looked like an oversized birdcage made of copper tubing. It was about three feet tall, and had a small open area in one side for inserting the disposal items.

We stood back from the work table, admiring our handiwork. I said, “Not bad for two people with advanced degrees and five thumbs.”

“Yeah, you want to do the honors?” She handed me the end of a big 240 volt power chord.

I won’t record here my colorfully expressed response, but suffice it to say that I emphatically declined.

“Wuss.”

It was a good thing that the only 240 outlet was buried behind the dryer, because I have no doubt that Lisa would have plugged the damned thing in right then.

Jason Brenan

The doorbell rang at six-thirty the following evening. I had called Jason Brenan after we finished assembly the night before, and invited him over drinks.

I opened the door, and Jason stood there with a shy smile on his face. Short in stature with a greasy tangle of brown hair, he looked just as disheveled as I remembered.

“Jason, good to see you. Come in, come in. It’s been ages.”

“Hey Billy. Good to see you too. Lisa here?”

“Yep, she’s downstairs in the workshop. What have you got in the bag?”

He pulled a six pack of amber ale out of a paper bag. “Want one?”

“Definitely, but not quite yet. We have something we’d like to show you first. Drop the brew in the kitchen and follow me.”

“Lead on.”

I led him down the stairs to our workshop, where Lisa stood blocking the doorway. She said, “Hi Jason. You haven’t changed a bit. You’re looking good.”

“Lisa, good to see you too. But I have changed though. I’m an entrepreneur now.”

I exchanged glances with Lisa, and said, “We know.”

“You know?”

Lisa backed into the room, where the copper cage sat gleaming on the work table. “What do you think?”

Jason’s jaw dropped. “Wait, that’s my--- How did you---“

I said, “Jason, Lisa and I are license number three seven-teen. We built your machine.”

He stared at it speechless for several beats, then asked in a small voice, “You haven’t plugged it in, have you?”

Lisa said, “Macho man here is too much of a wuss to do it. He insisted we get you down here first.”

He walked around the table, staring at the machine. “I never got up the nerve to build one myself. After all the crap with the doctoral committee, even I was too scared to take it any further. As far as I know, you’re the only licensee to actually build it so far.”

I glanced at Lisa, and said, “But you’re selling plans for it on the open market. You knew that someone would do it eventually.”

He pursed his lips. “Yeah, I know. I was just hoping someone else would prove the theory for me. The doctoral debacle killed my credibility. And now you two, one of you a respected physicist no less, are the ones who have built it. Bloody amazing.”

I said, “A Masters degree in engineering is nothing to sneeze at, you know.” I let an edge of annoyance creep into my voice.

“Sorry Billy, but your name won’t help me.”

Lisa’s cut in. “So, if I understand you correctly, you never actually tested your theory?”

“Ah, no. How did you put it? Like Billy here I’m too much of a wuss. Plus being good with the science doesn’t mean I can build worth a damn.”

I swallowed hard. “Jason, do we dare plug it in? What will happen?”

“Depends on who you believe. My theory shows that it will create a temporary inter-dimensional rift in space-time within the copper cage. An inter-dimensional bubble if you will. It should be unstable, meaning that it’ll expand rapidly in nanoseconds until it reaches the inside wall of the cage, then it should collapse in on itself. Anything inside the cage will be gone.”

“And the other theory?”

“The doctoral committee thought that the rift could escape the cage. String theory definitely shows that it should collapse.”

Lisa said, “Wait, string theory is just that, a theory. Nothing’s been proved. You can’t know it will collapse.”

“And so you see my conundrum. Am I still a wuss?”

Lisa handed the plug to Jason. “Probably.”

The Test

Jason spent the better part of an hour going over the device, double checking it against his plans. Meanwhile I wrestled the dryer away from the adjacent wall to expose the 240 volt outlet. Then I went to the electrical panel and examined the dryer circuit breaker. “Jason, we have a thirty amp dryer circuit. Is that enough?”

He frowned in concentration and said, “Ah, probably not. The current demand increases exponentially with bubble size. The breaker might trip before the bubble is completely formed. That’s not necessarily bad for a first test though. It’ll provide a measure of protection in case something goes wrong. I think it’s ready.”

Lisa handed Jason the end of the plug, and he walked over to the outlet. Lisa came and stood in front of me, and interlaced her fingers with mine. She said softly, “We don’t have to do this you know. I’m just as scared as you.”

I looked over at Jason, who stood expectantly at the outlet. The power cord that snaked from his right hand jittered like something alive. He clenched his jaw, and shoved the plug at the outlet.

I yelled, “Wait, Jaso—“, but I was too late. A dazzling electric blue bubble expanded out of the device, disintegrating the copper cage and sending shards flying through the air in slow motion. A wave of nausea washed through me as the bubble caught us, and my vision went black.

Slow Time

I regained consciousness sometime later. Lisa lay on the floor next to me, blood seeping from her nose and onto the floor. My shirt was damp, and looking down I realized that my nose was bloody as well. The workshop looked the same as always, except--- Except there were shards of copper tubing seemingly suspended in mid-air all around us. I bent down and stroked Lisa’s forehead. She moaned. “Lisa, wake up sweetie. I need you to wake up.”

Her eyes fluttered open and she groaned. “Where---? What---? What happened?

“Jason plugged it in.” I looked over toward the outlet. Through a bluish haze I could just make out Jason standing rigidly by the outlet, his hand still pushing the plug in.”

“Can you stand?”

“I think so.”

I reached down and pulled her to her feet. The air felt heavy, and just moving made my skin hot. She wobbled for a moment before collecting her balance. She glanced at Jason, then up at the wall clock. “Oh shit.”

I followed her gaze, and saw what she saw. The second hand on the clock was stuck at seventeen seconds past the minute. “That’s not a very scientific term hon. Care to elaborate?”

“Um, I think Jason drew the wrong conclusion. There were two possible answers from sting theory, kind of like there being two possible answers to a quadratic equation. Both are equally right. Using Occam's razor, he deduced that the inter-dimensional rift was the most likely result.”

“Occam’s razor? You mean the principle that, when faced with multiple hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions is the most likely?”

“That’s the one.”

“And what was the other hypothesis?”

“One of the dimensions is time. Instead of creating a rift to another dimension, it looks like it created a time bubble.”

“Great. Wonderful.” I drew a deep breath, and my throat burned like drinking brandy. “Your lungs hurt?” I inquired.

“Yeah. The air molecules are moving too slow for us. We have to get out of here fast, Billy, or we’ll pass out. We can’t absorb enough oxygen. If that happens we’re dead.”

Dizziness forced me to my knees, and I grabbed the edge of the worktable to steady myself. Lisa sank heavily to lay the floor, and her eyes rolled back in her head.

I shook my head to clear it, and floating directly in front of my eyes was a motionless piece of copper tubing about two inches long. I reached out and pushed it down toward the floor. It felt like I was pushing it through tapioca pudding. I watched in fascination as it slowly descended, and in genuine puzzlement when it hit the floor. It slowly mashed flat and bounced, and the linoleum flooring under it pulverized into a slow cloud of powder.

I looked up at the clock. The second hand seemed to jitter at the seventeen second tick, then it oozed slowly forward to rest on the eighteen second mark. So time was still moving forward, I thought, just very slowly. That gave me an idea.

Another copper shard hung a few feet away, and I dragged myself over to it. My head was spinning, and a black tunnel was forming around the edges of my vision. Lining up behind the shard, I pushed it in the direction of the plug. I watched its slow trajectory, then touched it here and there to ensure it was on course. My vision narrowed further, and I knew my brain wasn’t getting enough oxygen to stay conscious much longer. I sank to the floor, but kept my eyes glued to the shard. It was halfway to the plug and glowing a bright orange, but it appeared to be on course. The clock made another excruciatingly long tick to the nineteen second mark. My vision narrowed further to the size of baseball. The shard reached the plug, and a slow motion ballet of disintegration ensued. A bright blue arc of electricity careened through the air as the copper shard touched a conductor. I felt a blast of heat across my face, and the blue haze exploded in splinters of bright white light.

Aftermath

“Billy, wake up buddy.” Someone was shaking me and shouting from a million miles away. I cracked my eyes open, and a bright lance of pain made me clamp them shut again. I moaned.

“You okay, Billy?”

“Who? What happened?”

“I don’t know, man. The plug exploded and damn near tore my thumb off. The cage seems to have shattered.”

I opened my eyes carefully, and Jason stood over me with his hand wrapped in a towel. Red blood dripped from it, making a small puddle on the floor.

“Lisa?”

“Still unconscious, but she’s breathing. I called nine-one-one and opened the front door. They should be here in a few minutes.”

“You were wrong Billy. Lisa figured it out. We were stuck in a stopped time bubble, and nearly passed out from oxygen deprivation. I threw a copper cage shard at the plug at what must have been supersonic speed in real time. Sorry about your thumb, but we’d both be dead if I hadn’t.”

I rolled over onto my knees and glanced around. Lisa was sprawled next to me, her eyes closed. I put my hand to her throat and felt a strong pulse. “Lisa sweetie, wake up.”

Her eyes fluttered, and she began to cough raggedly. I helped her sit up, and rubbed her back. “We’re okay, honey. We’re back in the real world.

Feet tromped on the floor above us, and Jason yelled, “We’re downstairs.”

In a moment two uniformed men came into the room carrying aid kits. One of them knelt in front of Jason, and unwrapped the bloody towel. The other came toward us and asked, “You two okay? How did you both get bloody noses?”

He pulled out a small light and flicked it into Lisa’s eyes and then mine. I said, “A bloody experiment gone horribly wrong. It’s over though. I’m feeling much better now.” He listened to our hearts with a stethoscope while staring at his watch.

“Well, you both seem fine to me other than fast pulses, but that should pass. Just sit there for a few minutes before you get up.” With that he went over to help the other emergency worker with Jason.

Something felt wrong though, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I turned to Lisa, and saw that she had gone pale. “What is it? Are you okay?”

She whispered, “Look at the aid workers’ hands. Both of them.”

I turned and stared at the two men. “Yeah so they---.” I stopped in mid-sentence as I realized what she was seeing. My heart skipped a beat, and I swallowed hard. I whispered back, “We had best keep our hands out of sight.”

Lisa said, “I guess Jason and I were both right and both wrong. It must have opened a rift in both space and time, not just one.

I stared in fascination at the aid workers. Both of them had only four fingers and a thumb on each hand. This wasn’t our universe.