Broken Dreams (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 5) (24 page)

“The carpet is magnetized somehow? Are there metallic fibers woven into it or something?”

Ping lowered the rug to the ground with the metal pieces still attached. “No, no. The material itself, the yarn used to make the carpet, was given magnetic properties.”

He bent down and pulled the ring of measuring spoons from the rug. They rattled and reached for the rug as he straightened. Letting them go, they shot to the ground, as if yanked by a string.

“Okay,” Mara said. “I’m assuming this isn’t the result she wanted or there would be nothing for me to do. What are we to accomplish with this experiment?”

“She wants to make a steam that allows one object to stick to another using magnetism. Any kind of object, not just metallic ones. Follow?”

“Can you give me a practical example?” she asked.

“Say you wanted to hang a picture without using nails or you needed two pieces of cloth to hold together without stitching. Something along those lines.”

“What’s wrong with glue or Velcro?” Mara asked.

“Nothing if we were shopping at Walmart. We’re conducting experiments to develop new technologies unique to our world. Part of the thrill is the discovery,” he said. “What is it you do in this realm of yours? What do you get excited about?”

“I fix broken gadgets. You know, stuff like toasters and typewriters and stereos.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t sound so impressed.”

“I assumed it was something related to what we do here. During your first visit to the lab, you seemed curious about our work.”

“What I do is not so different. It’s problem solving, figuring out how things work, what approach gets you the result you need,” she said. “Where should I begin?”

He pointed to the Chronicle, now back in its stand, looking like a bejeweled microscope. “I took the liberty of retrieving it from your room when you expressed interest in working in the lab today. You’ll find two magnets in the drawer under the counter. Remember the broken glass exercise we did? Same process. But this time try not to magnetize yourself—or me for that matter. Think through the properties of the magnet, how it works and how you want to apply those to the steam. Then use the Chronicle to create test samples. When you are ready, show me your results.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.” He walked to the doors, waited with his hand on the knob. “I’ve got a few things to do around the house. I’ll check back with you in an hour or so, in case you have questions. Please be careful.”

“You trust me in here alone, after all that happened last time?”

He looked down at her midsection. “I trust you wouldn’t do anything to endanger the child you’re carrying.” Then he left.

She took a deep breath and glanced around the room, big enough to hold her childhood home.

The steam compressor
clunk
ed and spewed again, but this time she didn’t jump. She stared into some of the giant cylinders, wondered what the steam inside each did. What a massive undertaking building this place must have been. Given that her counterpart was responsible for the entire realm’s existence, a mansion—even one with a large laboratory and its own factory—wasn’t that big a deal compared to making a whole world. Again she felt unaccomplished when compared to the exploits of this realm’s Mara.

Best way to get over that is to accomplish something.

She went to the counter and reached underneath to pull open the drawer. There, under a roll of gauze, a pair of scissors and a rubber mallet, she found a magnet, which the scissors insisted on clinging to. Not the usual U-shape, this one was a solid, heavy bar the size and shape of a ruler but thicker and heavier. Its ends were painted. The left tip was blue, labeled with a bold white
N
, and the right tip was red, labeled with an
S
. North and south poles, like any magnet has.

After she lifted the magnet and pulled off the scissors, she realized a second magnet was attached to the back of the first. Turning it over, she saw the other bar, the one with
N
to the right and
S
to the left but upside down. Opposites attract. That’s how magnets work. She wedged them apart and separated them on the counter far enough away so they did not pull at each other.

She needed to think this through. After staring at the magnets for a few minutes, she decided the best course of action was to have something specific in mind. She needed two things, nonmetallic, that she wanted to attract each other.
Plenty of beakers around here, and they are made of glass. So beakers it is
.

Examining several options, she chose two plain cylindrical containers without a lip or pour spout, essentially two wide-mouth glasses. She placed them on their sides on the counter next to the two bar magnets.
Now, how do you get two glass beakers to be attracted to each other?

Giving steam the same magnetic properties as the magnet wouldn’t work. Like the carpet, they would attract only metallic objects.
But magnets attract other magnets as well
.

Picking up one of the bars, she ran over to the throw rug Ping had left on the floor. The metal pieces remained stuck to it. Bending down, Mara waved the magnet closer to the rug. The ring of measuring spoons jingled as she waved the bar nearby, but the rug didn’t react to the magnet. It only attracted metal.

Straightening, she stared at the magnet—
N
and
S
.
That’s it.

* * *

Almost two hours later, Ping walked into laboratory as a flash of light erupted from the end of the Chronicle of Cosms. The brilliance receded, and Mara stood over the device, looking into it. Straightening, she turned to him and smiled.

“How is your little project going? Do you have any questions?” he asked as he approached.

“No, no questions. I think I just finished,” she said.

“What do you mean, you’re finished?”

She reached to the turntable that held the samples below the Chronicle and picked up the one at which it was aimed. Lifting it to eye level, she examined it. The tiny sphere was filled with a roiling magenta-colored steam. She presented it to Ping. “I mean, I’ve created steam that will allow any two materials to be magnetically attracted to each other, just like you requested,” she said.

He gave her a doubtful look but took the round sample container from her and eyed it himself. “You created a steam that will do all that in less than two hours?”

“Oh, I almost forgot. We need this one as well,” she said. Plucking another sample container from the turntable, she gave it a quick look and held it out for him. This one featured light-blue steam. “Actually I made two steams—one red, one blue.”

He took the second sample and held both up to eye level. “They definitely look like differentiated steams, but I have a hard time imagining you produced something workable in such a short time. Have you tested them?”

“I just got back. But I’m certain they will work. I’ve got a test ready to go,” she said, pointing to the beakers lying on their sides on the counter. They were three feet from each other. “I want you to spritz one beaker with red steam and then the other with blue,” she said.

He looked unconvinced, but he walked over to the counter and held up his left hand, placed his thumb on the release button of the sample container and sprayed a small puff of blue steam onto the first beaker. He did the same with his right hand, releasing red steam onto the other beaker. Before he could step back, the beakers rocked back and forth on the counter, as if they were picking up momentum. And then they rolled across the counter, stopping when they collided with a sharp
clink
. They clung to each other.

Mara clapped. “So cool.”

“Excellent,” Ping said. “But why two steams?”

“North and south poles, just like a magnet. North attracts south and vice versa.”

He held up the little spheres and looked at them again. “Does it work with dissimilar materials? The beakers are identical.”

“I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. Hold on,” Mara said. She ran over to the carpet and removed the metal pieces stuck to it. She returned to Ping and handed him the blue-steam-filled container and pointed him toward the rug. “Grab the rug like you did before. When I tell you, spray it with your steam. Got it?”

He nodded and picked up the rug, struggling to lift it while keeping a grip on the sample container.

Meanwhile, Mara grabbed another beaker from the counter and moved it to the empty spot on the count where she’d placed the metal pieces earlier. “Okay, spray the rug.”

Ping shook his head and said, “I don’t think I can hold the rug and spray at the same time. You need to spray it.”

Mara jogged over and took his sample container and sprayed the rug, waving her arm in a circle before it, but making sure she didn’t get any on Ping. Returning to the beaker on the counter, she sprayed it with red steam. The beaker leapt into the air and flew to the rug, sticking to it just like the metal had done earlier.

“See?” Mara said. “It works like a charm.”

Ping stared at the beaker, still clinging to the front of the rug, his eyes wide.

Ping walked several paces ahead of them as they made their way across the damp lawn toward the odd roller-coaster-shaped landing tube and the net where the copter rested on the ground. Sam had smudges of something on his cheek from working in the fabrication shop but didn’t take the time to wash up before leaving.

“You look like you crawled from beneath a car in a garage. We would have waited for a few minutes for you to clean up,” Mara said.

“We’re going up in the air. No one will see me or care how dirty I am,” he said. “I’d be more worried that the Aphotis is floating around up there. Are you sure it’s a good idea for us to be doing this? Seems like it might be safer to look for the swarm from the ground.”

“We’ll never find it riding around in a wagon and certainly couldn’t keep up with it if we did. In this thing, we can cover a lot more ground in a lot less time.”

“Suppose we do find it. What do you intend to do about it?” he asked.

“I don’t know. We’ll decide that if it happens.”

“I’m getting a sinking feeling already, and we haven’t even lifted off.”

“If you want to stay here, feel free. Ping and I are still going.”

“No, I’ll go. Someone in this family has to prove you haven’t cornered the market on stupid.”

When they reached the copter, the side door was open, and Ping sat in the left-hand chair. He pointed a thumb over his shoulder and said to Sam, “There are only two chairs, so you must stand behind us. Hold on to the handles on the seatbacks. Just make sure you don’t fall off the platform. It only extends about four feet behind the chairs.”

Sam gave him a disappointed look but walked around the back and stood centered behind the seats.

Ping glanced as Mara as he pressed a floor pedal with his right foot. Something hissed below their seats. “What’s he upset about?”

“He was hoping for a chance to pilot the copter, and being back there puts him out of reach of the controls,” she said. “What is that hissing sound?”

“There’s a cylinder of gravisteam stored below the seats. It’s filling the frame of the copter so we can take off. Just takes a minute, then we’ll be on our way.” Over his shoulder, he said to Sam, “Don’t worry. I think we can give you a go at the controls after we get underway.”

“All right. I’m psyched,” Sam said.

Ping looked at Mara. “Psyched is good?”

She nodded. “Better than bummed.”

The copter bobbed into the air less than a foot off the ground. After playing around with some knobs on his left armrest, Ping gripped the lever on the side of his chair. “You ready to go?” he asked them.

“Yeah, blast off,” Sam said.

The propellers inside the gated globe spun faster, and the copter rose slowly, angling into the air above the lawn. As they gained altitude, Ping swiveled his wrist, rotating the top of the lever, sending them arcing over the large tent at the back of the house. There, the vehicle shot straight up to clear the gabled roofline of the manor.

Nodding downward, Mara said, “You never told me what was going on in that tent. Based on the wing-shaped mold we filled during Bruce’s demonstration in the fabrication shop, it must be some kind of airplane.” She thought about it for a moment. “Maybe it was a fin of some kind. For a marine vehicle?”

Ping shook his head. “Mara wanted it kept secret until it was finished. You might call it a technological flight of fantasy. One of the more bizarre and imaginative things she has invented. Even her father doesn’t know what it is.”

“But you and Bruce know,” she said.

“She needed us to help design and build it.”

Mara touched her stomach and said, “I’m carrying her child. I don’t think she would get too bent out of shape if you gave me a hint about what she’s working on.”

“All right. A hint, but no specifics about its design. Agreed?”

She nodded.

“You’re correct that it flies, but it’s not an airplane. It’s much more revolutionary than that—designed to go much farther, much faster. Remember, we have the copter to fly with, and it suits our needs.”

“Much farther, much faster. Than an airplane.” Mara mulled it over. “What could it be?”

“A spaceship,” Sam said. “She’s running frickin’ NASA in that tent.” He laughed at his own joke.

Mara glanced over at Ping. He smiled and said, “Not a bad guess.” There was irony in his eyes.

Mara was about to ask another question to drag more information from him when Sam interrupted. “Can’t this thing go any faster? I feel like I’m on a kiddie ride.”

“Oh, we can go faster, but do you have a direction or destination in mind?” Ping asked.

“Can we fly over the mill? I want to see what the explosion did to the place,” Sam said.

Ping gave Mara a queried glance, and she nodded.

Saved me the trouble of asking.

Ping pulled the lever to his right, and the copter swung in that direction as if it were a billiard ball ricocheting after a bank shot. They accelerated toward a line of trees, pitched upward in time to miss them and leveled out over the green carpet below. Sam let out a loud
whoop
and laughed. Mara imagined he was swinging an arm above his head, clinging to the back of her chair with only one hand.