Unlimited (18 page)

He couldn't do it.

It was that simple. He did not have the strength to change. As long as he insisted on doing so alone.

The thought pushed him back in his seat. The hot dusty wind through the open windows punched at him. He felt robbed of air. Because that was the other side of his cynical nature. He was always alone.

The only time he permitted others entry was when he worked in the lab. There he was surrounded by kindred spirits. People who discounted whatever personality traits he might have, shrugged them off, because they communicated at the level
beyond
the personality. They were bonded by the realm of the unseen.

Which was happening here. Now. With these people. Outside the lab.

The same, yet different.

Simon realized they were both watching him. “Sorry.”

“Don't apologize,” Sofia said.

“I was thinking . . .”

“We know,” Pedro said. “It was like sitting next to a pressure cooker.”

“A power generator.” Sofia nodded from behind the wheel. “Just like Vasquez.”

Simon thought of how they had both offered to pray with him. As though they were bound by invisible bonds to a source he could not even name, much less fathom. He knew if he said the words, they would do it with him. Now. This very instant.

He tried. He opened his mouth and tasted the dusty heat. But he could not fashion the words.

The transformer substation was situated on a grimy hilltop overlooking a pair of massive factories. The city of Ojinaga sprawled in the valley beyond. The factories to their right manufactured cement and paving materials. The air was clogged with the odors of hot asphalt and chemicals. Smokestacks threw out great plumes. Machines bellowed and ground and churned. Simon thought it was a perfect setting for his attempt to change the world.

They drove through the workers' lot and climbed the gravel track to the substation. Pedro assured them that as assistant town manager, his visits to such locations were perfectly acceptable. As they parked, Pedro had a quiet word with a lone guard, who offered a languid salute and strolled on.

Simon set the apparatus just outside the transformer's protective fencing and made his final adjustments. “There's this huge battle going on between Newtonian physicists and the quantum guys,” he told them. The excitement made him garrulous, as though talking helped draw them closer together. “The struggle gets pretty ferocious at times. There may not be blood on the streets, but wrecked professional careers litter the halls of most universities. Vasquez called that a complete waste of time.”

“Actually, what he said was, it's a complete squandering of human potential,” Sofia said. “All burned to ashes on the pyre of ego.”

Simon looked up from where he squatted on the ground. “Yeah. He did.”

Pedro asked, “So what was his answer?”

“Basically, that both were right,” Sofia recalled. “He said the arguments were a perfect example of man trying to fit creation into a comfortable box. The two directions are not exclusive. Both live in harmony. Or they would, if man let them.”

Simon stared up at her. The sunset was directly behind her and cast her in glowing silhouette. “He never told me that.”

Pedro walked in a circle, following Simon's direction, planting lightbulbs in the earth. “Remind me why I am doing this.”

“Vasquez used unconnected bulbs to prove he could harness and channel wasted energy. I'm trying to replicate his results.”

Sofia asked, “So what did Armando tell you was his answer?”

“He focused on the science.” Simon bent back over his device, reflecting on how Vasquez had probably responded as he had because that was all Simon had been willing to hear. “Newtonian physics states that there are certain laws governing waves. One is called refraction, which means waves change direction when they meet a new medium, or substance, at an angle. And the amount of change is determined by the quality of the substance, which is called a boundary, and the angle of the wave.”

Pedro straightened and looked at his sister. “Does that make sense to you?”

“Perhaps. Yes. I think so. Go on, Simon.”

Simon pointed at the substation to their right. “For our experiment tonight, we're going to treat this place as a boundary. In order to transport electricity, substations raise the voltage and lower the amperage. But because they are so inefficient, a lot of power is wasted. It's what makes the air tingle, this energy passing through our bodies.”

“And Vasquez . . . ?”

“He applied quantum principles to a Newtonian problem. If I'm right, he said, forget identifying a
specific
vibratory pattern. There isn't one. Instead, look for harmonics. Look for a probability
of patterns coming together in a combination.”

He tested the hookups one final time. “Maybe now is a good time to back up.”

The device made promising noises, but nothing more. There were a hundred different reasons why it did not work. A thousand. Fragile components and connectors might have been damaged beyond repair. But Simon did not think so. He had checked each module in turn and then linked them together and tested them again. In truth, he did not mind the delay, not even when he had to call Pedro and Sofia back over so they could hold flashlights to illuminate his hands. He figured if they really got bored, they would let him know, and he'd return to the orphanage, and sleep, and get up, and try again.

But they did not indicate any desire to leave. Instead they talked in quiet tones, an intimate conversation. Simon spoke no Spanish, and yet he had the distinct impression that their topic was very deep, very profound. Their voices carried the musical lilt of caring concern and love. There was none of the combative edge that marked most of the conversations he had heard between them.

Pedro asked another question. This time, Sofia turned and looked out over the city and did not respond. Pedro continued to wait with a patience that was distinctly Mexican. As though he could best express his love for this fine woman in respectful silence.

Simon fitted the cover back into place. His joints had stiffened in the night's rising chill. He rose in stages. “If this doesn't work, we'll call it a day.” He ushered them back to where the pickup was parked. And hesitated.

Finally Pedro asked, “Why do we wait?”

Simon pointed down the hillside to the vast parking area that linked the two factories. A thin stream of weary workers filed from the plants. They were coated with dried sweat and a grayish powder fine as milled flour. “We've waited this long. Let's give it a few more minutes.”

The workers drove away in ancient pickups or they climbed into ancient busses. Pedro opened the driver's door and fished behind his seat. He came up with a metal thermos. “In that case, I'll go get us some coffee.”

When Pedro was out of hearing range, Simon said, “Your discussion with Pedro got pretty intense there for a while.”

Sofia stared out over the city. “We were talking about Enrique.”

“The mayor.”

“And soon to be governor of Chihuahua. Pedro doesn't understand why I don't agree to marry him.”

The last of the busses pulled away. As the parking area went silent, Simon could hear Pedro speaking with someone inside the stall. There was no reason he should be disappointed. Simon knew, under the current circumstances, he didn't have much to offer a woman like Sofia. “Enrique seems like a great guy.”

She was silent for so long, he assumed she was not going to respond. Then, “Enrique has no interest in changing. Not anything. Not ever. He wants me to adapt to his vision of what a proper Mexican wife should be. He looks at what I do for the orphanage and my medical-supply business as hobbies.”

This close he could sense her incredible energy, as potent in its own way as the force emanating from the substation. Even when she was motionless and her voice quiet, Sofia radiated a barely contained force.

“Enrique sees himself as a hero. He wants me to stop trying to figure him out. He wants me to take him at face value. Accept who he is, and where he is going. And sign on for the ride.”

“You would be great at it,” Simon said.

“Yes. I would.”

“The wife of the governor of Chihuahua. The First Lady of Mexico.”

“The face of modern Mexico,” she added. “The lovely young orphan girl who defied the staid culture of Mexico and became a self-made professional woman.”

“I can see that in headlines,” Simon said.

“And on billboards. And television. Enrique's public relations team go berserk every time we meet.”

The lights over the factory entrances were strong and harsh as arc-lamps. The illumination cast the surroundings in stark etchings of black and white. Simon saw the truth and could find no reason not to say it. “You see yourself as a hero too.”

Her dark eyes tightened. “How do you do that? You don't even know me.”

“A good scientist is a professional observer. It's not something I can control.”

“Enrique has never . . .” She turned away and faced the transformers and the hilltop. “I have had to be strong all my life. I've never let anyone be strong for me. Enrique wants to be that person. He's the easiest man I've ever known at being strong.”

“Just like you.”

“But he shows no weakness. Not ever. And I feel so frail around him.”

“Maybe he's just trained himself not to let it show.”

“Yes. Perhaps you are right. But why does he not show this to me? Why does he only show me the face he wants the rest of the world to see?” She sighed and shook her head. “When I am with him, it is so easy to ignore all the questions I do not have answers for. When I am alone . . .”

Simon continued to study her openly. He had never seen a more beautiful face, even now, sliced by the harsh lights into one side dark and the other light. “Do you pray about this?”

She lowered her head, and the hair spilled across her shoulder and cascaded about her face. “All the time.”

“What does God say?”

“Nothing. God says nothing.”

Simon suddenly felt ashamed of his false motives. He wasn't asking to help her. He was asking because he was attracted to her. Her answers revealed a woman's heart, open and yearning.

Sofia went on, “I fear that God does not speak because He has already given me the answer. Enrique is the man He has chosen for me, a perfect partner to help me do God's will. And I do not act because . . .”

Simon murmured to the ground by his own feet, “Because you are afraid.”

“Because I don't
know
. Because I cannot . . .” She twisted her hands together in a knot of limbs and tension. “Because I cannot hear my own heart. Because I have fought so long and so hard, I am afraid to let someone else fight for me.”

Simon heard footsteps climbing the hillside and turned to see Pedro walking toward them. In one hand he carried a steaming length of spicy sausage wrapped in wax paper. In the other sloshed the full thermos.

Simon felt the words push out almost of their own accord, forced through his normal cynicism by a need that turned his throat raw. “You are a good person, Sofia. I see why you and Vasquez were friends. Why he trusted you. Because you have what he had. A kind heart and a will to do what's right.”

She slowly lifted her gaze. Only this time Simon could not meet her eyes. “Thank you, Simon. So much.”

Pedro halted in front of them and looked from one face to the other. “What did I miss?”

This time, as soon as he hit the switch, Simon knew the device was going to work.

There was a very soft resonance. He would have ignored it, put it down as part of the background hum from the generators, but he had heard it before. Once. On the laptop's video image in Harold's office. The machine had given off this precise sound after Vasquez hit the switch. Simon recognized the sound immediately. It held a peculiar timbre, which he now understood. The resonance came from different units vibrating in harmony. Very soft. Yet utterly clear.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Pedro starting forward. Simon called out, “Stay where you are!”

“But nothing is happening!”

“Keep back.” He could feel the resonance strengthening. Most of the vibrations were very low, almost out of audible range. But Simon could sense the power gathering. He felt it in his bones. His entire body resonated to the gathering force.

The lightbulbs began to flicker.

Sofia cried aloud, a soft intake of breath, echoed by her brother who whuffed in surprise. She said, “You've done it!”

Simon held up his hand. He dared not turn around. His observations of the next few instances were crucial. He had to determine a means to keep the device working. How to stabilize the effect. How to maintain the current. How to—

The lights stopped flickering. The illumination grew slowly, like the bulbs were sulkily waking up.