A Business Meeting (Closed to Ceann and Cosmos)

"Mr. Lindon, please have a seat." Seth Khan invited. They were all assembled in an ordinary room in New York City, a crappy place to live. People didn't even kid themselves anymore after looking in the paper. The only thing that Nightkill thought kept the population going was the thought that no matter how bad New York got, New Jersey would always, always be worse. The weather was also rainy, and threatened to break out into a storm. Nightkill wasn't too worried. A storm wouldn't take him down.

When the other businessman sat, Nightkill/Seth Khan smiled and began explaining, with a helpful powerpoint on the wall. "Your business, Mr. Lindon, is space technology. You've dominated the space agency for quite a while now. I've generally had my fingers in all sorts of business. We're both extremely, extremely rich. Now, here is my proposal."

"We both contribute money, knowledge and workers for a project. A project that will take space technology to the next level. Now, you may laugh. You may say I've read too many sci-fi novels. But I have an idea, a dream that we can create faster than light space travel."

He raised his hands. "Now, now, Mr. Lindon. It may sound utterly impossible, but my people have designed something that might work. Combined with your money and business power, we can allow humans to achieve their true potential."

Bullshit, Nightkill reflected to himself. Sure, space technology like faster than light would be useful for humans, but Nightkill planned on using it as well. He came to this world from the stars, and he wanted to understand himself. And a space-faring empire wouldn't hurt. Humanity clearly would never stop fighting unless united, and Nightkill had the will to unite humanity, and the power to do it. Faster than light spacecraft would help in this. At some level, Nightkill needed to get to space.

"Well, Mr. Lindon? Will you do it?"

(Bad opener, I was tired and didn't know how to. Next posts will be better.)

"Well, Mr. Khan," Lindon began after a long silence in thought. "I'll admit, the idea of faster than light travel has astounded me. And I have searched for the answers as well." This wasn't entirely true, but true enough. Markus had, since his company went international, been stealing the work of various scientists around the world to forge his own FTL drive. He's copied the work from professors, loony hermits, even some governments that had to-loose lipped employees. This isn't to say that he hasn't attempted to improve these ideas, but it would be wrong to state that he made them up himself. "I've tested the Alcubierre drive, the String Theory drive, the tachyon drive, the dark matter drive... The last of which I believe is being developed into weaponry now by Norway, but that's beside the point."

Lindon crossed his legs holding onto it tightly so it didn't fall flimsily back to the ground. He did this not for a sense of stability, but more for show; he liked, when in company, to play up the role of a fragile man, who was sheltered his entire life, despite his rather good physique. It helped, if anything, to make him more trustworthy; what harm would a weak, genius man be to anyone?

He continued, declaring, "I have tried so many methods, I couldn't count them if I tried. Well, I probably could," he corrected himself, "but we'd be here a while. This is not to say I am not interested, however. I wish to set up, for example, a base on the moon within the next decade--fiscal limitations allowing--for scientific and military research." Utter bullshit, if one had the mind and resources to explore his personal files. He wished to make the base for research and development, yes, but also wished to fund the transport of nuclear weapons to the base for leverage. He had no illusions that the later part of the plan would take far longer than expected, if he even got the weaponry at all, but he liked to dream big. "And FTL--if you would allow the acronym--travel would certainly assist in this and more more loftier goal of capitalizing space. Who knows what untapped riches exist on the other planets in our solar system or, possibly, near the next star?"

Another moment of silence filled the room before Lindon spoke again. "Exactly what technology of theory have your 'people'," Lindon air quoted for emphasis, "designed? I doubt you can tell me all the details, of course--where would we be today if we didn't keep things secret from possible competitors? But, if you can give be the basics, perhaps I can judge if it would be a worthwhile expense. After all, one can't expect a mob to form every time a boy cries wolf, can you?" Lindon smiled at the story reference, quite proud that he remembered the tale still.

"I had contacted a third organization named Clement Industries, I must admit. I had thought of a way, but we needed their assistance in making sure it was possible. Basically, wormholes. We will rip open the fabric of space and tunnel through hyperspace. I admit this sounds like bad sci-fi, but it is utterly possible. Borrowing a term from Animorphs, I personally call this hyperspace Z-space, a hypothetical non-space where ships can travel through. Have you read a Wrinkle in Time, and do you understand the tessarct theory? Difficult to explain, but simple to understand."

"I had it looked over by Clement Industries, and they considered it possible. In fact, they have a representative here now."

(Basically, Cosmos wanted to join, and I said yes.)

Clement Industries, unsurprisingly, had a very impressive security system. Entire servers were simply set up for firewalls and anti-hacking software, and the mainframe was spread over three separate locations in the United States. Everyday thousands of messages were exchanged on the inside while even more were sent out on secure lines to other facilities on the planet, and to umbrella corporations set up. To slip into the system unnoticed was simply a matter of being inside of the mainframe in the first place. Ignatius had been able to build himself a neat secure hatch hidden into the security algorithms, and even format it so that it would only let him slip inside. It was during one of the long, sleepless nights that he intercepted a message from someone called Seth Kahn. The gentlemen was sending an invitation, talking about something called Z-Space, a form of space where mass and acceleration did not matter.

Cosmos removed the message and all trace from the mainframe and instead spent the next fifteen hours looking over the math and attempting to create at least a working diagram. The technology and mathematics were very familiar. He used some of the algorithms to open space so he could travel between universes, but what Khan was suggesting was using the device to travel from point to point in the universe itself. He struggled briefly with that for a while, but eventually found a way around it. Quite simply, any ship which used the drive would have to be skimming along the surface of the universe while also submerged in the mass free place. However, that meant objects in the universe itself would have to be skirted... More problems would surface, he was sure, but he could make a working model if given the time and the money.

There was a small thrill as he worked on the device, the numbers spinning around in his mind as he made small tiny descriptive diagrams of a possible. It felt nice to actually work on a mathematic design for once.

Within a day, he had replied to Mr Khan and attached a selection of his intellectual property, showing some devices that could possibly be used to enter such a place as Z-Space. Within another, he had been asked to come and show some more of his work to a possible investor, who remained nameless. Busy with the election campaign under the guise of Adam Jones, he forced his calendar around the day and prepared a disguise; a simple pair of glasses, different coloured contacts and a white haired wig. He also bought a dark blue suit and shaved his face, although that was mostly for the campaign and not the meeting.

He arrived a half an hour before the meeting and signed in at the front desk, before settling down to wait to be called. As he waited he played around with one of the new computers he had jury-rigged and half built. It was interesting enough to kill time before finally be called from the offices upstairs. With a nod, he asked for the directions, and made his way up in the elevator, to meet Mr Khan and his mysterious investor. He reached the conference room, and with a knock, he pushed open the door.

"Here he is now." Mr. Khan said with a smile, walking over to shake the Representative's hand. "Good to see you Mr. (Last Name)."

"This is Markus Lindon of Aerospace. Mr. Lindon, this is (First Name, Last Name) of Clement Industries." he introduced them all. Mr. Khan walked back to his desk. Despite his efforts, he did need to make deals with Clement Industries as well. This would be a difficult, expensive project requiring the minds of many. And the money of many.

"Mr. (Last Name), as you probably know, Aerospace has powered space technology of the past two decades, and supplies NASA itself with all the materials it needs. Mr. Lindon's aid will be essential in breaking the space barrier and sending mankind to the stars. Can you explain to us a method you have made to create FTL travel?" he asked.

"That does seem most interesting, I must admit. I had never considered the idea of wormholes beyond the manipulation of space and time via the Alcubierre drive. But, given the right details, I could be convinced of its feasibility." He turned his attention to the new arrival, and though he would most likely be another key investor in this project, he didn't consider him important enough to stand for. Instead, he simply crossed his arms, waiting for his host to introduce him.

When Khan did, Lindon gave a respectful nod in his direction before saying, "Yes, sir, I'd love to know where I may randomly throw money next. Hell, this time I may even know what's going on before the first launch!" A quite odd statement, as he was most often the de facto head scientist on most of his projects. "Any information you could provide would be vastly appreciated."

(Cosmos needs to post now...)

As Clement opened the door, a man whom he assumed was Mr Khan or at least a representative of him stepped forward. Clement reached out and gave the man’s hand a firm shake as the man said in a polite tone, “Good to see you, Mr Clark.” Clement nodded and murmured a thank you to the man as he turned away to the other occupant of the room. "This is Markus Lindon of Aerospace. Mr. Lindon, this is Lucas Clark of Clement Industries." Clement nodded his head, a hand rising to nervously touch the side of his glasses. Kahn went on to cue Clement to begin his little presentation. Before he could open his mouth, pretending to be slightly flustered and nervous about the whole thing however, Mr Lindon voiced his own doubts about the idea of the drive at all. Clement glanced over at him and smiled nervously, sitting down in one of the available chairs.

“It does seem quite farfetched...” He began, shifting his tie and touching the broach on his lapel, each movement seemingly choreographed to appear natural while at the same time show a level of discomfort Mr Clark was feeling. “When you brought the idea, many of the guys in the think tank joked about designing a Time Machine in our lunch breaks.” Here, he nervously laughed, glancing from Khan to Lindon and back again. The laughter quickly died though as he remembered where he was. He readjusted his tie and made a small sound in the back of his throat. “Well, there was a little controversy over where we going to take the original ideas Mr Khan had sent us. While they were revolutionary, we just didn’t have the technology or a workable power source.” He shrugged, looking down at his pointed black shoes, before smiling.

“And then one of the guy’s in the Archive thought about something Mr Ignatius Clement himself designed. Back in the late fifties he built a Dimensional Doorway, a machine that could cross from one universe to another. Unfortunately, the man destroyed most of his work in the weeks leading up to his departure, claiming that the technology shouldn’t be left in the hands of the American government.” Clark looked momentarily troubled, as if he had forgotten something at home. However, he shook his head and went on with the short story. “While most of the, er, mathematics and schematics to build our own versions of such machines were destroyed, I’m sure at the moment you’re thinking, ‘Why didn’t you just use the gate after Mr Clement stepped through?’ Well, he was smart enough to make most of the materials one use only. For the past seventy years we’ve been retrofitting the whole gate and probably are only halfway done.”

He glanced up almost immediately, stuttering out, “That doesn’t mean we’re incompetent, it’s just the technology is still thirty years ahead no matter what we do.” He shrugged, frowning slightly again. But now he sat forward, crossing his legs at the ankles and looking bright eyed beneath his glasses. “However, we have worked out a way to... Well, the boy’s call it ‘Cracking the universe.’ We open a doorway in Space and Time into a seemingly empty and unreadable expanse beyond. The physics department call it Anti-space when they think no one is listening.” Clark rolled his eyes.

“The technology is basically some kind of Engine that was once built into the walls of the Dimensional Doorway. The engine forces not only matter but time to split and move away from it, leaving a vacuum like space in reality. We’ve done tests and we’ve found that using a simply electrical force field, you can slip objects into this reality. There is no friction, no way for mass to be added or subtracted. I honestly believe that if you built a ship and littered the hull of it with these engines; you could travel much faster than light.” He beamed at the two of them. Clement neglected to tell them outright about the various problems with it, but he was sure that one of these intelligent Business men would immediately ask about that.

Nightkill was impressed. Clement Industries had truly sent out an intelligent member. "Very interesting." he said. Note to self: Buy stock in Clement Industries. he thought to himself. "Very interesting indeed, I see you've put a lot of thought into this matter and were able to adapt the plans I sent you. However, I must ask if there are any major issues or problems we should be concerned about? You must understand my suspicion, this is quite the new revolutionary invention, so there are bound to be problems or potential problems. Tell us both, so we can either fix them, or nip them in the bud."

Clement shifted uncomfortably, flicking his tie again and looking between the faces of the two very wealthy men. Inside his head, he was already detailing the designs needed to correct most of the problems, but of course, he couldn’t share them. He was simply, at least simply pretending to be, a low down geek with glasses and a rather ruffled suit. ”Well, there’s quite a few problems with the design so far. The utmost of them is the power source of course.” He shifted in his seat, reaching into his pocket and taking out a small folded up sheet of yellowed paper. Unfolding it, he adjusted his clear glass spectacles and looked up and down over the complex math problems, gently clucking his tongue. ”From what I can see, we’ll need an exponential power source to make sure the emitters don’t simply shut down mid flight. We’re okay on propulsion I believe. You could simply accelerate with any old system and go faster than light, but the downside is without good workmanship, the emitters can degrade quite quickly and simply shut down, which might be catastrophic if you moving at high enough speeds.”

He frowned though, looking up and folding the sheet, slipping it back into his pocket. ”The problem is, you’d have no idea where you were going, unless you have some form of navigation system inside the universe. There have been a couple of discussions on it and we’ve come up with two choices. One, you basically pick a point in the universe, sink down into the empty one and accelerate there, before popping back out again and picking another spot. This will make travel a little longer, and I the Emitters do have a brief cool down period of time before they can be fired again.” He touched his tie again, pretending that it had been slightly too firm as he took a gulp.

”But, well... Deceleration. I believe that without proper deceleration, the ship will just tear itself apart when being ejected back into this universe. If you cut the engines, you’d simply keep moving at the speed you are currently at, so there’d have to be two engines, one on either side, or maybe four even, in each direction. Then you’ll somehow have to work out how to dead stop, because even gentle movements could prove disastrous when superimposed on this reality.” He shrugged his shoulders, looking over the faces of the gentlemen again as he pressed his hands into his lap.

”Not to mention this thing will cost... Well, an astronomical amount.” He shrugged and laughed softly, a little nervously, before asking gently, ”Er, may I have a glass of water?”

"I'm certain that mister Khan can provide you with some refreshments, mister Clark, but about your list of problems..." He lowered his hands to his knees, gripping them firmly with a grimace on his face, if misplaced. "The problem of energy can be easily rectified. I'm sure we can attempt some tests with nuclear fission, or dark matter, or something of the sort, but it will be done, through collective intellect or mass use of funding. It will be a non issue before you know it.

"Now, you mentioned that there were two systems that could be employed for navigation? I'd like to hear the second before passing judgement, but from what I am picking up, this would be the tortoise option against the other, being the hare. In which case, I'd suggest taking the slower, steadier option."

Clearing his throat and asking to be excused of it, he continued, bent on analyzing what Clement had said. "I like the idea of the four engine system; If anything, it'll allow for stopping in sub-light travel, to equalize the movement and halt the ship in space. Something, as I recall, which is hard to do with one engine. This could also allow for increased mobility and agility of any ship we produce.

"Cost, my friend," Lindon smirked, leaning back deeply into his chair, "Is not an issue. I'm sure between the funding of myself and mister Khan here, we could fund any such project a bakers dozen times over before becoming middle class."

A man rushed and brought Clement a glass of ice water, and Mr. Khan nodded. "Mr. Lindon is correct in his statements. We can easily find a power source. I am already experimenting with nuclear fission, and I feel that that technology has potential to work. I had not thought of using and manipulating dark matter as an energy source, but I thank Mr. Lindon for the suggestion. In any case, a solution will be found as Mr. Lindon stated."

"And even if travel takes a bit longer than we expected, it's worth it. We still save massive amounts of time. If we can get to Alpha Centuri in a month (we will move faster than light, after all.) rather than thousands of years, it's worth it. And potentially in the next few years, we can bypass this issue as well. Science marches on, after all. In twenty years, this may become a complete non-issue. After all, a mere seventeen years ago, the very concept we're discussing would be marked as something a few sci-fi nerds made up when they created an rp topic."

"And as Mr. Lindon has stated, we have no problem with cost at all. Our respective industries can pool together and easily raise the money needed without any damage done."

Clement feigned surprise as someone rushed forward with a glass of water. He took it around the base and looked at Mr Lindon as the man talked, lifting it to his lips and taking a drink. However, without his attention fully on the glass in his hands, the lip of the glass bounced against his and water dropped onto his chest, causing him to shift up and wince in embarrassment. From a pocket he pulled a handkerchief, patting down his wet tie and glancing apologetically at the two men as they slightly deconstructed his worries. The power problem was removed first, but he held his tongue on fears that the emitters would need a number of nuclear fission engines, possibly as few as five to one. That would be something to be worked out later. Mr Lindon showed interest in the slower mode of transport, which made Clement momentarily respect the man; He was more concerned with perhaps his investment as well as safety, rather than someone who would build a home from cheap timbre to simply cut down on short term costs.

Clement shifted when the man mentioned their combined wealth, wondering momentarily to himself how much of the tech industry major competitors were sat in this room alone. Between the three of them, they would have enough to buy every square inch of land in the whole of the United States and turn the country into a privatised business instead, or build some kind of space elevator. They were only limited by imagination and science, it seemed, although even science could be bent to fit needs.

Mr Khan reiterated the points, money and the power would be simply excusable. Something else he said rather interested Clement, or rather Lucas Clark. He shifted forward, excitedly speaking after the man had finished. ”Why travel outside of our solar system? There’s enough minerals in our system to support ten quadrillion humans alone. Helium can be refined into batteries outside of the atmosphere, from the gas giants which will be only moments away. Metals mined from the asteroid fields, even fresh water taken from the moons of Jupiter. In less than four to five decades, there could be industry of solar mining and refinement.” He adjusted his still slightly damp tie, glancing from the two men. ”Overpopulation could be solved by simply moving the excess people into space, freeing up more land for reforestation and food production. The drive we build here today could solve almost all modern problems that face the world today.”

He paused though, leaning back and smiling sheepishly at Mr Lindon, taking a second sip from the glass and doing less damage this time. ”But, you want information on the second drive. I’m sorry, I get very over excited.” He placed the glass down and moved back. ”The analogy of a Tortoise and Hare is rather a good one, but I suppose it would be better to compare it to a shark on the ocean bed and a dolphin on the surface, with its fin cutting the waves. The shark must go on, to avoid drowning, but does so ignorant of an island on the distance. The Dolphin is both partially in the water and out, and is able to surface fully more easily.”

Clement hoped that the metaphor was confusing as he intended, because he slightly winced again and shrugged his shoulders. ”To put it simply, a part of the vessel would remain in this universe. It would act like a spoiler, but you could probably attach sensors to it and be fully aware of what ever direction you were travelling.”

(Since Ceann abandoned this, let's just say that we all came to an agreement.)