Chapter 2

  They all waited a few seconds for the sound of Tilly's quick footsteps to fade. Kelton waved his hand dismissively at the door and then turned to look at the framework on the table. “What have we got here? What do we think we know?”

  “We got ourselves a primo monkey hand trap,” chirped Alex.

  “Say what?” challenged Chaz. At six foot three, Chaz towered over Alex and Beta, who were both around five feet eight inches tall. His features were ethnically ambiguous, but his skin was cocoa-colored. His lab coat strained against the muscles in his arms and chest. Chaz's belt was cinched tight around his waist. His belt told the story of a recent weight loss. The tongue of his cracked belt dangled about 12 inches from the buckle. Wear marks at each belt notch and the obvious new holes Chaz had worn into the belt with office scissors testified that Chaz was no slave to fashion. His teeth looked like he hadn't bothered to brush in a day or two. He smelled of axe body spray, and the slightly musty smell of jeans that had been pulled out of the dirty clothes hamper for one more day’s wear. He leaned toward Alex. “Who you calling a monkey?”

  The blood drained from Alex's face. “I didn’t mean, you know…, In Indonesia, they trap monkeys by the hand. You know, with a hole in a box,” he stammered. “I didn’t mean… They do the same in the south with racoons…” Realizing what he had just said, his eyes got wide, his jaw opened and shut like a fish out of water.

  “Raccoon? You really going there?“

  “But I didn’t, …. I didn’t mean…!”

  Chaz grinned. “You’re just too easy… I’m just messing with you.” To the rest of the group, he added. “Nothing gets in or out of the box, nothing happens inside the box.” He glanced at his watch. It was still eleven minutes slow. “Look here, at the very least we know momentum is conserved. My mechanical watch is still ticking, does time stop inside the box?”

  Kelton pushed ahead. ”We are all excited here. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s focus on what we know.”

  “Chaz brilliantly proved that you can't get your hand in or out of the box after it's engaged, “ grinned Alex.

  Beta jumped in, ”Chaz’s hand was not hurt.”

  “Not that we know of,” chimed in Alex.

  “It's still feeling fine. We know the watch stopped while it was in the box. How do we test why it stopped?”

  “What do the instruments say?” asked Kelton.

  “All of the gauges outside of the box went to 0 immediately when the box was engaged.”

  “What about the reactor? What does it tell us?” said Alex.

  Chaz pulled readings from the onboard monitors of the reactor. “The reactor was engaged at 9:20 AM. It had a baseline temperature of 72°F. At 9:35 the temperature was 99°. That's when we engage the box. Between 9:35 and 9:46 we are seeing an open circuit. At 9:46 the reactor is still at 99°. The temperature should have raised at least another 48° in those 11 minutes. The reactor’s monitors lost connection to the Wi-Fi at 9:35 also. And it has not reconnected yet. Whoa… hold it, the internal clock is off by 11 minutes! WIFI routers don’t like that.“

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “So...” said Kelton,” We know electrical signals don't get in or out of the box when it's engaged. Atomic and electrical activity appears to stop.”

  The team discussed and argued about their observations for the next two hours. One suggestion after another about how they were going to measure what was happening inside the box was considered and discarded.

  Chaz's eyes lit up. “I got it,” he said. He pulled a box of sparklers from his backpack.

  “You carry sparklers around with you?” asked Beta.

  “They are for a birthday cake,” Chaz seemed evasive.

  “Who's birthday?” asked Beta.

  “You missed the headline, Beta; where is the cake?” asked Alex. Alex’s black eyes sparkled with wit. He wore a plaid shirt with a slight three-corner tear at the sleeve protruding from his lab coat. The tear drew attention to a WWJD wristband. Not many who worked or studied in the Milton Cohen building would admit to a belief in God, let alone advertise it.

  Beta was wiry and androgynous and insisted on the pronouns they/them. Under their lab coat, they wore a vintage AC/DC T-shirt and jeans over their slim frame. Their spikey, straight black hair sported a white patch at the temple, creating a striking ‘look.’ An almost invisible nose ring and a hint of mascara completed the ensemble.

  Beta caught a glimpse inside Chaz’s backpack. “That's a lot of sparklers you got in there.”

  Chazz ignored Beta. “Let's light a few sparklers, stand them up in the box, and engage the box. For control, we will light a sparkler outside the box as well.”

  “I like it,” Kelton jumped in. “It's simple. We have what we need, and I think if we don't try something right now, there is no way I’ll be sleeping tonight.”

  In just minutes, the team assembled the test. The reactor was moved from the frame and replaced with three pop cans. A fourth pop can sat on the table outside the frame. Alex stood ready to engage the box. Beta had their phone in hand, recording the entire event. Chaz lit the sparklers, stood one in each pop can, and jumped backward about 3 feet, standing well clear of the box. The sparklers had burned down about 1 inch when Kelton commanded, “Engage the field.”

  SNAP

  The black box was back. Just outside the box, a sparkler hissed and sputtered as it burned, but no light from the sparkler reflected on the side of the box. Forty seconds elapsed, and the sparkler outside the box gave one last hiss and went out.

  “OK disengage the box. “The soft whine of the charging capacitor stopped. The team walked slowly around the box, trying to observe any change.

  “Any observations?” queried Kelton.

  There was no reply from the team. Inside the room was silent. They heard footsteps and muffled conversations coming from the hallway. 11 minutes seemed like hours.

  SNAP

  Inside the frame, there were three sparklers still burning.

  “The sparklers were lit 11 minutes and 25 seconds ago,” Kelton said to the camera as he consulted his watch. The team watched the sparklers burn for another 40 seconds until they went out. “At the time the field disengaged the sparklers continued to burn for approximately 40 seconds. Similar in duration to the control sparkler.”

  The team cheered and Alex danced and pumped his fists. Chaz’s rapt attention was on the sparklers’ glowing wires as they cooled.

  “We have a lot to think about,” said Kelton. “Let's all come back tomorrow morning with some ideas for further experiments. It's way too early to celebrate. Right now, we have no idea what's going on in that box.” He looked fondly at the team. Each of them occupied their own special spot on the autism spectrum. Central casting couldn't have done any better in assembling the prototypical band of nerds one would expect in a laboratory. “Let’s call it a day,” he said.