With her father debated into absentia, Cassiopia garnered her confidence and phoned Ann Rogers. Rogers was quick to take the call.
“It’s good news, I hope.”
“There’s been no change, so it’s no news, really.”
“Mmm, I don’t like that. How are you?”
“Fully recovered. I’ve come back to Orlando for a few days.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
Cassiopia swallowed and tried to hide her apprehension. “It’s why I called. I need your help.”
“Well name it. We Scott Markman women need to stick together.”
“Could you come to Florida?”
A long silence ensued. “What do you have in mind, Cassiopia?”
“There is a way we might help Scott. I would need you here with me. It would be about two weeks.”
“I don’t understand. Is this some kind of new therapy or something?”
“Not exactly. I cannot discuss it on the phone. I have to explain it to you face to face. It’s the only way.”
“You know my case loads are not light, right? And I’m working one right now that’s a doozie. You really want me to take an unscheduled two-week absence, immediately?”
“Yes.”
“It’s that important?”
“Yes.”
“You’re asking an awful lot, but I’ll start reassigning work right now. I’ll see if I can get a late flight out tonight. Maybe come in sometime tomorrow.”
“Text me your flight number, and I’ll be waiting at the airport.”
“I have no doubt that whatever this is about, it will be good.”
“We’ll be waiting.”
Cassiopia spent the remainder of the day organizing and planning. A text came in saying Rogers flight was 883, due in 8:45 A.M. She tried to sleep but spent most of the night visualizing what she wanted to happen. When the alarm went off, conviction had turned to doubt. Suddenly she worried that things were getting out of control.
Rogers came out the level three gateway, with a single carry-on. Her wrinkled brown suit was unbuttoned and disheveled. Her hair was tied back but partially undone. Her makeup was slightly faded and uneven. It looked as though she had left directly from the office. In the car, she suggested breakfast. They stopped at a small diner, seldom speaking until there was nothing left but coffee.
Cassiopia sat nervously. “Did you get any sleep?”
“Are you kidding? Slept like a lamb. I’ve had to do it on so many flights to so many places, it’s second nature. I would miss connections if they didn’t wake me. It’s all part of law enforcement training; how to be wide awake at 04:30, and how to sleep on a moving camel.”
Cassiopia laughed hard enough that she had to spit some coffee back into the cup.
Rogers smiled. “How about you? Get any last night?”
“You mean sleep of course.”
“It’s a Fed joke. It’s supposed to mean we value good sleep more than sex.”
Cassiopia smirked. “I didn’t get much. Kept thinking all night.”
“You do that, don’t you? I know all about your IQ thing. Tested twice, both times at the genius level. You must’ve been a nightmare kid to raise. I’m surprised your father survived it.”
“That’s unsettling. I mean how much you know about someone.”
“Yeah, it’s a scary part of the future. We’ve got to do it, but we don’t have to like it.”
“What else do you know?”
“Well let’s see, I know about your arrest record. Shocking your college teacher on the ass by hooking the spark plug wires in her car up to the seat.”
“Oh dear.”
“So what’s the deal? Has there been no improvement in him at all?”
“It’s the brain activity that’s missing. It comes and goes. Sometimes it appears he is waking up, but then it fades away. It’s happened so many times, I don’t get my hope up anymore. It’s too disappointing.”
“What is your secret plan? I’m dying to know.”
“Not here. My father is waiting for us. I need him there, or you’ll have trouble believing me. You’ll have trouble even then. He’s only half with me on this. There is some danger involved.”
Rogers leaned back in her seat and dropped her napkin on the table. “Well, any guesses I had about this just went out the window. I’m a clean slate. Let’s go.”
At the Professor’s, they dropped Rogers’ bag in the spare room and went to the study where Professor Cassell stood from behind his desk to greet the guest of honor. After the brief formalities had been completed, Rogers turned to admire the shiny robot standing quietly in the corner.
“Wow! The famous Dragon Master TEL robot. I must admit, I am in awe. Is it on?”
Cassiopia went to the Tel. She motioned Rogers to come forward. “Tel, this is Ann Rogers. Please open a permanent level four access for her.”
“Good morning, Ann Rogers. Please state your name for voice pattern recognition coding.”
“Ann Rogers.”
“Voice code complete, standby for optical pattern matching.” The robot’s visored head moved slowly up and down. “Optical pattern matching complete. File open and resident.”
Cassiopia turned to Rogers. “He will obey your commands and will provide any information you ask for from this point on. I don’t need to tell you, be careful what you wish for.”
Rogers gave a short laugh. “Amazing.”
Professor Cassell grumbled, “Even we do not understand it completely, now that its programming has been advanced by someone in this room. I won’t mention any names.”
Cassiopia ignored his remark and motioned Rogers to sit.
Rogers leaned back, crossed her legs, and folded her hands in her lap. “Okay, you two homemade clandestine types. Hit me with your best shot. The suspense is killing me.”
Cassiopia looked nervously at her father. He gestured with one hand. “The ball is in your court, dear daughter. This is your insanity, not mine.”
“Ann, before we get into this. There’s a tough spot we have to get through. You know how sometimes law enforcement agents are required to keep information classified for the protection of the public?”
Rogers tapped one finger on her leg. “Uh-oh.”
“What we need to discuss with you can never be revealed to anyone outside this room.”
Rogers raised an eyebrow and shook her head, “Because?”
“Because what we have must never be allowed to get into the hands of any government or outside group. It could be catastrophic.”
“Gee, you guys are scaring me a little, mainly because you have a registered IQ at the genius level, and he’s your father. Otherwise I would think this was a joke. It’s not, is it?”
“Will you do it? Will you promise never to reveal anything about what we are going to tell you, ever?”
“Is any of this illegal?”
“No.”
“I have heard the word danger mentioned. If I agree, I will still have the option of backing out, right?”
“Of course, but you still must never tell anyone anything.”
Rogers took a deep breath. “Will this conflict with my job as a law enforcement officer?”
“No.”
Rogers looked at the Professor, who sat mesmerized at the prospect that someone else might learn about his invention. She turned back to Cassiopia. “I guess I have no choice but to agree. This is about Scott, after all. How bad can it be?”
Cassiopia nodded. “So you agree?”
“Yes. I agree.”
The Professor piped in, “Ms. Rogers, how much of a math-science background do you have?”
“My degrees are in law enforcement, but the forensic classes cover computers, medical, and optics. So I may have some of what you science types might be hoping for.”
Cassiopia began. “All the time I was growing up, my father had this pet theory called the ‘nothing is something’ theory. He speculated that if you could creat
e a perfect vacuum in a box, you would still have something in the box, that is; the vacuum itself. He theorized that if you could then remove the vacuum, you would have something completely new, like an opening to another dimension.”
Rogers wrinkled her brow. “Oh brother….”
“My father began working secretly on this theory, secret even from me.” Cassiopia paused to cast a scolding glance at him. “Eventually, he somehow managed to do it. He opened a door into another world or another dimension. It’s called the SCIP System. Spatial Corruption Interface Project. It actually works.”
Professor Cassell began cleaning his pipe. “She’s doing quite well, Ann. Please continue Cassiopia. I’ve never heard it described like this before.”
Rogers looked at them both as though she were waiting for the punch line.
“We have a doorway in a secret lab downstairs, that lets us go into the world of dreams. You step through the door, and whatever is most dominant in your subconscious at that moment, forms the environment in this alternate dimension. For example, if you secretly are wishing to be on a beach somewhere, when you step through the door, you will find yourself on a beach.”
Rogers pushed up and leaned forward. “I need to interject here that of course I am no longer believing any of this. I don’t know what the two of you are up to, but I still trust you because I know you. Under the circumstances, this can’t be some kind of practical joke, but if this is some kind of psychic experiment or reality show thing or something, I don’t usually do well with that stuff, and you should not have interrupted my work and brought me all the way down here for it.”
Cassiopia held up one hand. “Please, Ann. I’m sorry. We are going to prove everything I’ve said to you as soon as we leave this room.”
“Okay, now you are scaring me. This is ridiculous.”
“Just let me go over everything, and we’ll show you the door. If you want to back out, we’ll understand. Just bear with me for a few more minutes.”
“I’m not going to put up with this nonsense much longer, but okay continue.”
“Scott and I made several trips through the door searching for my father who had become lost in there.” Cassiopia cast a second scolding look at him. “We learned that if you travel far enough in Dreamland, you can find yourself in someone else’s dream. For example, on one trip we came across a college friend of mine, having a party in a mansion. When we returned, we called her and found out she had been dreaming she was at a party. So, we know we can enter other people’s dreams through the SCIP doorway. I want to go through the SCIP doorway and find Scott, and see if I can help him escape the coma. That’s what this is all about.”
Rogers looked annoyed. “I’m disappointed in you two; I thought I knew you. You don’t really expect me to believe any of this, do you? It sounds childish. And, now, after talking like pathological maniacs, I suppose you’re going to ask me to go down into the basement with you, right?” Rogers stood. “I’ll bet I can end your practical joke right now.” She pointed to the robot. “How do I address him?”
Cassiopia looked hopeful. “He responds to the name Tel.”
Rogers turned to the robot. “Tel, is everything they’ve told me the truth?”
The robot’s visor glowed more brightly and he answered immediately, “Yes Ann.”
Rogers looked at Cassiopia. “How about just you and I go down, and I’ll follow you.”
The hallway door to the basement was open. They descended the stairs, where Rogers stopped to gawk at the mess of experiments and supplies scattered everywhere. Cassiopia left her and went to the center closet door. She opened it, stepped inside, and waited for Rogers.
Rogers stared inquisitively.
“Come on. Going down.”
Rogers approached with a look of disbelief. “Oh my god. Get Smart.” She stepped in and together they descended to the secret laboratory. There the huge SCIP door stood looming and inert, the consoles and electronics around it, dark and silent. Rogers wandered around, inspecting everything, looking behind consoles, impressed at the site of the huge stacks of the Drack mainframe computer. When she had seen enough, she returned to Cassiopia. “Let’s go back up.”
Rogers led the way up the basement stairs, and as she stepped into the hall, almost collided with the Tel speeding by. It carried a dog dish filled with food and went gliding along the hall to the back door, where it met a small beagle. Carefully placing the dish on the floor, the dog accepted it readily. After a brief period of admiration, the robot turned and disappeared back into the den.
Rogers shook her head. These people are trying to sell me on a doorway to a new dimension, and a robot just passed me in the hall carrying a dish of dog food. I‘d better keep my wits about me around these people, she thought.
In the den, they sat in silence. The Professor began loading his pipe, waiting for the adventure to resume. Cassiopia remained silent, afraid that saying anything further might open the door for Rogers to dismiss them and leave.
Rogers rubbed her hands together in thought. “Well, there is something down there. I know it’s not a façade. There are two many wires running around for it to be a prop of some sort.”
The Professor stopped attempting to light his pipe and interrupted. “Seven thousand, six hundred, and eighty, just to the frame of the door alone,” he said proudly and then sucked the fire into the pipe bowl.
“You built that all yourself?”
“A devoted undertaking,” he replied.
“How could one person make all those connections?”
“Electric wire wrap gun, mostly.”
Rogers squinted and shook her head. “Okay, you’ve earned another five minutes. Let’s have the rest of it. The dangers.”
Cassiopia perked up. “We’ve made more than a half a dozen trips in there, but yes, there are several problems. To begin with, when you step through the door, there’s a gap of sorts. My father calls it a buffer zone.”
Professor Cassell spoke. “A differential quantum membrane. One of my colleagues, a specialist in string theory, has already predicted it mathematically. I, unfortunately, cannot demonstrate to him how wonderfully correct his formula is.” The Professor gestured in frustration as though he deserved sympathy. The two women looked on in annoyance.
Cassiopia continued. “So when you go through the door, you must step across the gap to an inner door. You must be careful not to slip or misstep.” Cassiopia paused. “Ann, can I get you a drink or something?”
“Are you kidding? Interrupt this wild tale? Please continue.”
“Okay, the next problem is the environmental dynamics. Where ever you find yourself in Dreamland is not necessarily a permanent thing. It can change suddenly, without warning. Once with Scott, we were at a carnival and all at once it changed to a desert. When that happens, you have to hunt around to find the doorway back. But, my father thinks he has improved that, so it may be easier.”
Rogers kept a blank stare. Cassiopia could not tell if she believed any of it, or had been lost completely again.
“The last problem is the time distortion. You can be in Dreamland for ten minutes, and when you return you’ve been gone for two hours, or vise-versa.”
Rogers sighed and shook her head. “So can you be harmed in this imaginary place?”
“We don’t think so. But, the effects can seem incredibly real, just like in a dream. Markman was shot once, and it seemed like he had a wound, but when he came back through the door, there was nothing.”
Rogers sat up straight. “Well, is that all? There’s no space aliens or monsters in this story?”
The Professor shook his head. “I wish you hadn’t asked that.”
Rogers looked at Cassiopia with raised eyebrows.
“Well, we did seem to encounter someone from another race in there once, but that was under special circumstances.”
Rogers sat back in her chair and laughed. She looked at them both and smiled a disbelieving smile. “Well, obviously th
ere’s only one thing left to do. Prove it.”
Chapter 13