Chapter 9: Secret Heart Cupboards
The development of the Gravity Generator Suppressor (GGS) changed everything. Massive superconducting disks were cooled to just above absolute zero, supported in magnetic fields, and set to spinning at high speed. Any object placed below the spinning superconducting platters would gradually decrease in weight. Gravity’s effect on the object was lessened. The opposite would also be true if an object were placed above the spinning disks while the disks were travelling in opposite directions. Gravity’s effect on the object would be increased.
The GGS design went through a number of changes. The enormous mass of the disks, and the power required to spin them so they would maintain their magnetic suspension fields, made their practical application difficult, almost impossible. In the next design iteration, a heli-blade-shaped rod of ultra-cooled superconducting material replaced the massive disks. It was spun on a center point in a vacuum, while the pitch of the blade was controlled separately on either side of the center point. An array of these devices, with controlled speed of spin and pitch, could manipulate the force of gravity over a much larger area and to a much greater value. It was as if the device could create dips and bumps in the gravity well created by the planet’s mass.
One of the first applications of this technology was the spavator (space elevator). The spavator idea was conceived in the 1950s, but was found to be impractical and unsafe, given the strength of Earth’s gravity in relation to the strength-to-density ratio of known materials. However, when carbon nanotube interlaced graphene ribbons were developed, in conjunction with GGS platforms, the tech became commonplace.
Jayne’s Day Two was what everyone else experienced on Day One. She stood with a group of apprentices in front of the journeyman in charge of their training. She assured him she could catch up on the safety protocols that had been introduced on the first day and, if she was unsure of anything, she would ask for clarification. Today would be spent learning to perform basic maintenance at the base of the spavator.
Despite the fact that Joseph was in the same group as Jayne, he never spoke to her or even looked her way. This irritated Jayne a great deal and she decided to give him a dose of his own medicine. She would pretend he didn’t exist. Even so, a part of her wished she could talk to him about the luck testing and connectome scan she endured and see what he thought about it all.
“You will work in pairs to complete specific tasks that will be sent to your VID. Collect your tool pack from stores and report to the spavator undercarriage. Once there, the VID will provide further instructions,” said the journeyman fixer. “If you remember what you were taught, this will be a breeze.”
He started to call out the names and numbers of those that were partnered together. Jayne stopped listening, thinking instead of Joseph trying to fit his big feet on the PUT pad and that thought led to the memory of the day he followed her and waited for her in the hallway. She smiled.
She heard ‘Kane 37’ being called, followed by ‘Riley 23’, and glanced up as Joseph and Riley headed to the stores to collect their tool packs. He wouldn’t be working with her today. She felt a twinge of disappointment and wondered again why he was required to follow her around on that first day.
Finally, the instructor said, “Wu 13,” followed by nothing. “Well, I guess you get to work with me,” he said.
Jayne nodded. The instructor looked at her more closely, seeming puzzled by her appearance, finally motioning her toward the stores and saying, “Get your tool pack, 13, and meet me back here in five.”
A heartbeat after Jayne turned to walk away she heard the instructor mutter, “Boy, she’s a young one.”
Jayne headed to the stores. She waved her VID in front of the scanlock, hearing an answering click as a small door opened in the drop bin. She reached in and grabbed her tool pack. Slipping it over her shoulders and heading back to the marshaling area, she discovered that everyone else was gone. She waited for 10 minutes for her instructor to show up, growing more and more annoyed. She was about to take off the heavy pack and sit down, when he finally arrived.
“Sorry. I got delayed. Some strange problem with the ID scanner at the spavator intake port. One minute it wouldn’t let anything through and the next it let in everything,” he said, shaking his head. “Follow me.”
They headed toward the hall, but stopped before exiting the room. “Well, where are we going?” he asked, looking pointedly at Jayne.
Jayne looked at him, puzzled, as he looked back querulously. “Oh!” Jayne said, finally realizing that she was responsible for the assignment. She looked at her VID and said, “This way.”
There was no green arrow to direct her, but the VID screen displayed a map with a simple ‘You Are Here’ flashing red dot on the screen. With Jayne leading the way, they soon found themselves in a narrow hallway with a curved wall of test contact points.
Thinking back to her training, she surmised that she would need to check each pair for degradation. Each strand of spavator cable led up to the geosynchronous tether point 100,000 km straight up. There were a series of seven colored diode lights at the base of each set of test points. These series indicated which tests she should perform. Jayne recognized the codes and quickly opened her tool pack, applied the lockout tie, removed the test core and connected it to the contact point. The diode’s colors changed.
“This one has three months left before failure. It will need to be replaced in two,” she said. “I will record this and order retesting in one month.” She removed the lockout tie.
She turned to look at the instructor, waiting for his approval. Before he could say anything, his VID beeped and flashed red. “What now?” he exclaimed. He looked down at the terminal, frowning. “I have to go. I’m sure you can handle this task. As you can see, there is lots of work to be done here.” He gestured toward the blocks of shining colored diodes disappearing down the long room that curved slowly to the right. “If you need me, don’t.”
“Don’t what?” she asked naively.
“Need me. Or call me. Get done what you can and report to staging at 16:00. By the looks of this,” he gestured toward his VID, “I will be busy. Have a good day.” He left the way they came.
Jayne shrugged. She was used to being alone; it didn’t bother her. She went back to work.
After a few hours Jayne paused briefly for a food and water break. Not having anything else to do she returned to work. Stepping up to the next panel, she paused as she realized that the long room in which she was working curved in a circle, but never seemed to bring her back to the beginning. She assumed that she would end up back where she started, but the small marks that she put on the wall next to each panel never reappeared.
“It must be a spiral,” she whispered, and smiled. “I must be travelling in a spiral.” And she noted a gradual incline in the floor that she had not noticed before.
Trying to visualize the diagrams she studied of the base of the standard spavator, she realized that all of the connections between the carbon and silicon nanotubes spiraled up to a main cable. There was a great deal of redundancy in the design to prevent catastrophic failure of the spavator.
She looked down at her VID. She still had 10 minutes of personal time left before she was required to get back to work. Noticing that her legs were starting to cramp from the continuous standing and crouching, Jayne decided that she could use some exercise.
She started to run up the spiral. The size of the circles decreased and the slope of the floor increased the further she ran. As she climbed, the LEDs on her left blurred. Suddenly the hall ended in a circular room five metres across. She’d arrived in what she assumed was the core room. She noticed the core cable sitting in front of her, encased in clear plastic that morphed down into what she assumed was a GS (Gravity Suppressor) device. She’d learned that the GS would be found in this kind of super-cooled casing. Across the room, she noticed a door with a small window. There was a scanlock beside the door. Keeping her back to the
wall, she circled the room. Halfway around, she stopped at the door. She turned to face the door just as her VID beeped. There were three minutes of personal time remaining. She would have to hurry if she were to start work on time. It wouldn’t look good on her record if she started late.
Curious about where this oddly-placed door might lead, she placed her hand on the scanlock. Nothing happened. She jumped up to see through the small window, but could see nothing in the darkness that blanketed the other side of the door.
She jumped up again, trying to peer through the window. She felt the silver star pendant bounce out from beneath her jumpsuit and flash in front of the scanlock. As her feet touched the ground, she heard a definite click. She did not make any connection between the click of the lock and the silver star around her neck. Her eyes widened as the door slid open.
“Beep! Beep!” went her VID. Two minutes left.
Deciding that she could explore for just one more minute, Jayne stepped inside. A light came on as soon as she crossed the threshold. She looked around. She found herself inside a small storage room whose only feature was six recessed niches in the wall, each covered by a glass door. Most of them were empty, but she was intrigued when she saw that one contained a white plastic box. Feeling like she was moving in slow motion, Jayne reached up and opened the lone occupied cupboard. A cloud of cool water vapor rolled out in a white wave as Jayne removed the box. She set it down to examine it.
It didn’t seem to have a lock or latch of any kind, so she proceeded to lift the lid. The back of the lid featured a stylized image of a human heart. Another box was nestled inside the first. It was securely sealed with a strap that read ‘Human Organs—Open For Immediate Transplant Only.’
“Beep! Beep! Beep!” went her VID. Jayne’s heart pounded in her chest. She was out of time, but she was still struggling to make sense of what she found. Why would a human organ be stored here, at the base of a spavator?
With no time left to spend on this mystery, Jayne quickly closed the white box, placed it back in the cupboard and closed the door. She stepped out of the small room, hearing the door close behind her and moved as quickly as possible back to her work.
Her mind, however, continued to stray from the task at hand. The image of the heart wouldn’t be banished from her mind.
As she worked, she realized she was re-approaching the room containing the human organ. “Maybe the box was empty,” she thought. “Maybe that’s where they store empty boxes.”
After all, she hadn’t seen an actual heart inside the box. All she saw was another box inside the organ container. It was probably empty. But she could still see the seal, vividly, as if it were in front of her, and it was unbroken.
At the sound of approaching footsteps, Jayne turned to see her instructor. He watched her work for a few moments before speaking. “Wow! You’re quite the worker.” He glanced down at her tool pack. “You’re nearly out of lockout ties. We’re really close to a satellite supply room. Come, let me show you.”
He began to walk up the spiral toward the core room, continuing to talk once he saw that she was following. “You look like you could use a break. The core is only a few loops of hallway ahead.”
They walked into the core room. The instructor moved assuredly to the door on the far side and stood waiting. Jayne came slowly behind, not knowing what to expect. There were only refrigeration cupboards in that room, one of which contained an organ box with a heart inside. She shivered.
“It will open if you place your hand on the scanner. I entered your palm into the system just before I returned,” he said, gesturing to the scanlock, “but I really didn’t think you would work fast enough to need more lockout ties.”
Jayne hesitantly placed her palm on the scanlock. She heard a click and the door opened. She looked up and was shocked to find a small room with a wall lined with small containers fitted with thumb locks. The refrigeration cupboards were gone. Confused, she looked blankly at the instructor.
He smiled, not noticing her bewilderment, and pointed to the lockout ties in one container.
“Put your thumb on the thumb lock,” he said.
Jayne pressed her thumb to the pad, her mind still whirling with questions about the changes in the room, and barely noticed as the container opened. Numbly, she removed a package of ties and stared up at her instructor for a moment before she allowed her eyes to search the room in an effort to determine how it could have changed. She wondered if her instructor knew about the true nature of the room. He didn’t act as if he had any idea about what Jayne had previously seen. She was even beginning to doubt the existence of the first room herself.
“These storage rooms usually have all the supplies you’ll need,” he said, as they walked back toward her tool pack, still sitting at the base of the wall where she’d left it. “I’ll help you finish this fiber analysis. Tomorrow we’ll add to your education.”
They started to work together on the testing. After an hour, they were nearing completion when a worker approached from below. He was carrying an empty backpack and his work helmet was tipped down, concealing most of his face. He signaled with his hand and mumbled, “Need some supplies,” as he passed. Jayne noticed a chain on his left wrist with a dangling star—a silver star just like the one around Jayne’s neck. He seemed to be missing the pinky finger from his left hand, but he was moving so quickly that she couldn’t be certain.
“That’s odd,” muttered Jayne’s instructor. “I thought this area was restricted.”
A few minutes later, the man reappeared. He said nothing as he passed them and, curious to see if she could spot the star bracelet again, Jayne turned to look at him. His pack was fuller than before, and a square object pressed against the fabric. She could clearly see the outline of the carrying case. The corner was sticking out from under the flap. It was white, just like the case she saw in the refrigeration unit—the case she suspected held a human heart.
She sucked in her breath, in wide-eyed shock as she watched the man disappear down the hallway.