There was a secondary level of steam tunnels, where the twins had a room locked by one of those five-button switches. Ellis had to hum a certain tone, too, to get it open. I’d learned my lesson about barging in ahead. Ellen turned on the light.
As I expected, there was one of the GDR TV sets, powered on. Ellis produced the tuner, and set it in front of Ellen. And, something that looked refreshingly normal: one of those long, skinny yellow, red, and white cables hanging down from the ceiling.
Ellis plugged in the yellow cable and motioned for me to sit.
“What about the red and white ones?” I asked.
“No sound yet,” Ellen said. “Our camera’s mic gain isn’t good enough.”
I nodded. Video only. That was just fine for me. I was going to see Lincoln.
The TV screen lit up and – viola. An aerial shot of Carnaval Midway. They had their camera pointed at the game where you tossed beanbags into a wooden bin. The Cornholer. Same name the park had given to the old defunct Merryland roller coaster that was still standing but didn’t work. Hard to believe even Carnaval Midway management would be that clueless.
The picture vanished. Ellen swore and kept moving her fingers along the top surface, like the brick was some kinda keyboard. The images reappeared for a moment but then disappeared again.
“Damn,” Ellis said quietly. Strong words from him.
“Wait,” Ellen said. Me and Ellis were frozen in our chairs. “Ah – there.”
The Cornholer sign was different. Now it said Try your luck, only Five Cents for Nine Tries! Ellen fiddled with a dial and the camera zoomed out for a bigger view.
Oh, my God…it really was different. The people were different. All of them. The booth was different, all old-timey. People moved slowly, thoughtfully. Taking their time.
Ellis pointed. Abraham Lincoln was approaching the Cornhole game. A young Abraham Lincoln, no beard and looking like he could wrestle an alligator and eat it for dinner. He towered above everyone. People gave him some respectful space. We had no sound, but you could easily see that he was talking to people. Politely and reassuringly. Lincoln wasn’t wearing a hat, but if he had been he would have taken it off to the small crowd of ladies that was beginning to gather.
Whoever said Lincoln was ugly had to be stoned up their ass. No offense to the pretty types like Ellis Foster, but Abraham Lincoln was the definition of rugged, powerful confidence. This totally amazing thing Ellen had come up with put Lincoln in his early thirties. I’d say. He was about as homely as I was beautiful.
“I, I really can’t believe this, Ellen,” I said. After that, I just didn’t have anything to say. Watching it was better without sound.
You could just tell the girls were competing for Lincoln’s attention. Somehow you could tell, he was making a little speech about how he couldn’t possibly choose among them. And the the girls: they were swooning. I loved that word.
So Lincoln just slapped down a little row of nickels. The clean-shaven guy running the Cornhole game smiled: here was a sucker, he figured. It was just mesmerizing.
He’ll step back just to show off. I wondered if Ellis had taken notes.
We watched for what had to be twenty minutes. One by one, Lincoln tossed in the beanbags and one by one, the girls got these little wooden dolls as prizes. I bet they would be worth a mint if you could find one. And the thing was, the crowd didn’t even start scattering. All the girls stayed, clutching their prizes. Even the guy that ran the game…well, he wasn’t exactly happy, but he wasn’t totally unhappy.
When the game was over, Ellen tapped the tuner. The picture vanished.
I let out a breath. There weren’t any words, I suppose, but I had a few that surprised me.
“I think I understand basically what you told me,” I said. “You discovered that all this, uh, all these files, were stored in the magnetic field.”
“No,” Ellen said. “They’re stored in the core. Probably the liquid core. The solid core is intensely energized K-40 – ”
“Okay, got it,” I said. “You found all this stuff through the magnetic field, and you learned it was a lot more than you thought.”
Ellis nodded gravely. Ellen waited to see if he was going to say something, then she spoke up.
“Yes, a lot, lot more. I don’t even call memories files, that’s not the right term. I mean, a TV show is just a few ones and zeros. Even a simple human memory is in the septillion range. A whole lifetime?”
“Okay, so then you learned about this ‘electron space’ thing?”
“I always knew about electron space. Everyone knows there’s physical space between the nucleus and the electron fields, and most people even have a tiny inkling into quantum spaces. But…” She stopped and smiled.
“Uh, what’s funny?”
“It’s just so simple. The theoreticians, they go on and on about it. But it’s no more complicated than – moving from Chicago to L.A. You just need a big enough truck and the right fuel.” That didn’t sound so simple to me.
“But L.A. and Chicago are two different places,” I said.
“I know, and both cities are in ourelectron space. But with a big enough tuner and you could make a copy.”
“Like you did here,” I said. “And it’s right here?”
“Yes. It’s just in a different part of electron space.”
When talking with Ellen about this stuff there was always a point where words failed her. I mean, she could talk about all the technical stuff you wanted to hear. She knew everything about what all the major guys said – Heisenberg, Einstein, even this guy named Heidegger, who wasn’t even a scientist but Ellen thought “got it” better than anyone. But she had no interest in theory. She was totally about action.
And this “tuner” of hers was just a layering of pure metals. Certain metals in a certain order that she knewwould pull up these files or patterns and put them together in electron space.
“So the reason I can only use the ambient matter here is I don’t have enough tuner,” she said. “The nucleus of an atom doesn’t want to move, so I need more energy to pull in a different configuration.”
“That means she can’t build the Great Wall of China here, because the material here isn’t right,” Ellis added. I nodded. At this level it was easy to understand. But, actually, it was a bit too easy.
“Okay, I get it,” I said. “But…how does Lincoln’s body appear just like it was?”
“The DNA code is electrochemical in nature,” Ellen said. “So it can be assembled with ambient matter. As long as there are human beings where I’m creating a different space, I have the material to make a different body.”
Sure.
“What about the clothes?” I asked. “And, like, buildings, and landscapes, and all that. Are they patterns, too?”
“Um, no,” Ellen said. “The core only stores electronic files.”
“But aren’t all those things electronic?”
“No,” Ellen said carefully. “I mean, not like a dynamic system. Like a living creature. A mountain is just a mountain.”
“I see,” I said. I wasn’t doubting her but both of them seemed a bit uneasy. “So, how does it all get assembled here?” I pointed to the screen. “I mean, that looked like an old-time carnival. How did that all get done?”
“Um, there’s a difference of opinion on that,” Ellen said. Ellis shook his head.
“This isn’t the time for an argument,” he said. “But I think it’s obvious. Ellen takes an electron space construction as far as a human being can go. What she does is just short of a miracle. But it isn’t one. Only the Lord can perform miracles. And He fills in the blanks. It’s like a …reward for her hard work in His service.”
Ah.
“So, why isn’t that good enough?” I asked. But I knew now. This was at the fundamental point of denial. They weren’t getting it because it came too close, way too close to their intense fear. Their refusal to consider what they were.
“I say it’s just a part of the process I don’t know yet,” Ellen said. “I’m sixteen. I have a long time to figure all this out.”
“But you figured it out a long time ago,” I countered. “You’re not a theoretician. You could be, but does your instinct tell you that there’s some undiscovered theory here?”
Ellen looked annoyed.
“Wait,” I said. “I think you’re both wrong. I mean, yeah, God is everywhere. But most of the time it’s what people are doing, right? Think about what we’ve learned today.”
“What do you mean?” Ellen asked.
The unseen hand. Why was I struggling with just coming out and saying something? We all understood that there was someone out there doing something, keeping a close eye on us. So why not just spit it out? This was just so personal for them. So tied to whatever, whatever happened to them.
“Today we’ve learned that we’re being watched,” I said. “But it’s more than that. Whoever’s doing this, your Grandpa Schultz or whatever, they’re…manipulating. Going to a lot of trouble to make things happen.”
The twins still looked a little confused. What I was saying wasn’t complicated, of course. It was just kinda hard for them to believe that anything Ellen created could be out of her control. It was their culture, you could say. Like thinking Ellis couldn’t do hopscotch.
“Listen, we know someone else was fiddling with the tuner,” I said. “But how was it The Munsters was on right when you came back?” No answer. “And…this Lincoln thing. It’s just a small part of a world, but it’s real, right?”
“Of course,” they said.
“Right.” I was on the verge of it now. “So where does Lincoln and all the others…where do they go when you’re not here? Why is he ready to have a good time at the fair when you just happen to be here?”
“I don’t know,” Ellen said.
“Be honest: there are a lot of things you don’t know about the tuner.” Oops.
“That’s not fair,” Ellen said, and Ellis was right behind her. “I haven’t had time to figure everything out.” But that sounded weak and they knew it. Ellen was weakening. I just shut up.
“Okay,” she said. “Maybe someone out there has copied my tuner. Maybe theirs is bigger.”
“Size matters,” Ellis said knowingly. He got a little red and it was a light moment in spite of everything.
“It does,” Ellen said miserably. “They understand it better than I do. They must.”
“No!” Ellis said. “No one does. They just stole the idea and their – resources, I guess, that’s giving them an advantage.”
“Yeah,” I said. Time to go on the offensive. “They probably have a secret lab somewhere. They don’t have to hide in a garage. They’ve had all the time you haven’t.”
“It took me months to buy the metals, purify and fabricate,” Ellen said quietly. “They could’ve done all that in a week.”
Ellis looked at his sister.
“I was wrong. Everything that you’ve been able to do here, it wasn’t just God filling in the gaps. It was all you. Someone just stole your work.”
Ellen smiled a little and nodded. Like siblings do when they’re really appreciative but for some stupid reason don’t want to show it. Ellis had more to say, though.”
“One thing I know for sure, and I’ll never take this back. Ronnie…she is no accident. I mean, she came just when we needed help the most.” He beamed at me. I caught Ellen’s eye. She just shook her head a little, saying, Don’t tell him. I was sent, all right. No question there. But not by God. The unseen hand…God, the resources they had!
“Thanks, sport,” I said. “You bet: I’m here for a reason. And we’re going to, uh…”
“Fight back,” Ellis said without hesitation.
“Yeah,” I said. “We will. For sure.”
So after all that, we swore an oath in blood, that it would be one for all, all for one. Kidding. We were exhausted. Didn’t have a serious bone left in our bodies. All we wanted to do was run up the concrete stairs, emerge into the park, and go have some fun.
And that made the little scene with the Thugs all the more strange. The unseen hand didn’t just randomly set something up, they got this witless Fat Guy involved. Everything they did had layers, probably for them to deny anything that might come back to them.
But why? What was the point? I mean, Ellen already knew Ellis could win that fight. I suspected it. It was a lot of trouble to go to for little return.
It was almost one when we trudged away from the “fight.” And my time limit ran out.
“Hey,” I said. “Someone’s gotta get me! I’m going to crash.”
“What?” Ellis said. He was already moving towards me.
“She has some kind of narcolepsy,” Ellen said. “Catch her, quick!”
My last flash of insight was that the Grandpa Schultz-people wanted me to know something about Ellis. Not that he could fight, not even how he would fight, but something more important. I had only one clue I could think of.
What did those girls see?