PART IV CINDY BREAKS THE CODE
The year was March of 2002. In a large room seven flights deep in the Area 51 Nevada desert US military facility, there were two large tracks that lead to a ten mile tunnel. At the end of one of the tracks sat a vehicle that resembled a futuristic looking train. In the center were large computer mainframes and control switches that looked like something out of a 1960s science fiction movie. Penny Cest, Cindy Taylor and a man with a white lab coat, Dr. Betler, were at the controls.
Dr. Betler was involved with the time travel project which began in the late fifties.
"There have been alot of rumors about this facility over the years, ladies." Dr. Betler said.
"This equipment looks very archaic, Doctor", Cindy observed
"It was state of the art in it's time, Miss Taylor, courtesy of Empire Computers".
Cindy looked down and shook her head in disgust. Dr. Betler seemed puzzled by the response.
"Cindy has no love for Empire Computers' founder", Penny interceded.
"Oh, you mean Sidney Bekon", Dr. Betler responded. "He was a weird young lad. Few people understood him, but he had a brain like no other."
Cindy walked around and started examining the computer.
"Is the system still factional?" Cindy asked.
"Absolutely", the doctor responded.
"Was there a diary that Bekon may of kept?" Penny asked.
"If we only had the missing link, the experiment would have been a complete success." Dr. Betler said as he looked depressed. "I was head of a project from 1957 to 1975."
Cindy walked around the transport vehicle and began to try to think back to 1986. She remembered that Bekon had given her a strange calculation to write code that didn't make sense. After she wrote the algorithm, he came back to her in his usual fit of rage that it failed. Cindy had no idea at the time what it was. But was this one of his attempts to solve the missing time equation?
"Miss Taylor", Dr. Betler asked. "Are you all right?"
"Quite all right, Doctor", Cindy replied as she continued to think about the algorithm.
Penny walked over to to Cindy.
"You're on to something, aren't you?" Penny whispered.
"Let's go talk to Marcy", Cindy answered.
A Visit to a police yard
In a warehouse on the other side of town, the Santa Clara Police Department stored confiscated items from drug dealers and dangerous criminals. When Sidney Bekon was arrested in June of 1986, assets from his company, Bekon Microdevices, were confiscated and stored. Most of the company's belongings, such as computers and office furniture, were long sold off in an auction - except for Marcy.
Marcy was a prototype "Bekon Cyberbot 85". Sidney Bekon developed a small robot, equipped with a camera and wheels that could maneuver through obstacles. It was able to understand thousands of words, and through a technology Bekon had personally invented, the robot could even learn on its own. Giving it a woman's voice and a name, Marcy soon began to engulf Bekon's life during the mid-eighties. This twisted little man even called the two feet high hunk of metal and circuit boards his girlfriend.
Bekon was so much in fear that Marcy's technology would be copied, he never even submitted a patent for it. Other Silicon Valley companies found out about it through the grapevine and would have given their eye teeth at a glimpse of this cutting edge technology. However, the device had been in police custody for the last 16 years. And for reasons unknown, it was never available for auction.
Penny spent the next several days wound up in local government bureaucracy to get access to the robot. Finally, she went to Mayor Getzbe, who was able to flex his political muscle.
Penny and Cindy stood at the metal door as the burly officer unlocked the padlock. As the door opened into the dark dusty room, a small lump sat in the corner.
"Oh my", Cindy declared, "she looks abandoned."
"Is that it?" Penny asked, pointing to the lump.
"I'm afraid so, love", Cindy answered, "This was the girl of my ex-boss's dreams." She looked at the heavily dusty object and inspected its integrity.
"What do you think, Cindy?"
"It ran out of juice years ago", Cindy replied, "Let's get it back to my place and I'll boys do their magic."
Back at KMOG
Cindy Taylor and Penny Cest rode the elevator down to "the crater", commonly known as the basement of KMOG. This was a weird place with eccentric geek types whose jobs were to maintain the network and server for the popular radio station. The room was cluttered with wires and hardware. Three obese young men were at a table in the corner playing poker.
"Hi all", Cindy said as she entered the room. "Any luck on our prize patient?
"As a matter of fact...", a young man replied as he got up from the table.
Out from the shadows, the small robot squeaked as it rolled out from underneath the table.
"Greetings", a tinny female voice came from the contraption, "My name is Marcy. I am a 'Bekon Cyberbot 85, Release 1.1'. What is your name?"
"My name is Penny", Penny said as she spoke into it.
"Remember me, Marcy?" Cindy asked the device, "I used to work for your boyfriend - Sidney. "
The robot rolled toward Cindy and began to flash some lights as its camera zoomed in on her.
"Facial recognision completed. Cindy Taylor, lead programmer", Marcy began to spit out. "Born November 1966, Date of employment, December 1985. Note: plays computer games and makes personal telephone calls while on company time. Make note for next performance review."
"Shame on you!" Penny jokingly reprimanded as she shook her finger at Cindy.
Penny and Cindy both laughed.
"Well I guess my radio show still still puts me too much time on the phone", Cindy replied.
Cindy Drills Marcy
During the next week, Cindy tried to get any information from the robot that could solve the missing link. Apparently, during the time Sidney Bekon was running Bekon Microdevices, he was also pursuing the answer to this problem and discussing it with the robot.
Hot-wiring the device into her computer, Marcy began to spit out properties of a material. After an intense web search, Cindy was able to contact professor Keith Bellos, a prominent physicists in the academic community and an expert in exotic materials. She mailed a CD to the professor containing the 500MB text file from Marcy's data.
"Who gave you this, Miss Taylor?" asked professor Bellos during a phone conversation.
"I'm sorry, professor", Cindy answered, "That is classified at this time."
"I ran this data into our super computer here at the university", the professor continued. "The material you described exists no where on this planet. We'll call it 1260XB. Moreover, if such a material could be found, our computer analysis predicts that if it came in contact with 1260XB, it would have the potential to change the laws of gravity and dimension within its confines."
"Hello!" Cindy replied.
"Excuse me, Miss?" the confused professor replied.
Cindy's upscale townhouse
The next morning, Commissioner Cest and Mayor Getzbe pulled into a gated community in the Avenues section of San Francisco. Consisting of luxury town houses, these upscale dwellings catered to the rich and famous of the city by the bay.
"Are you sure this is the right neighborhood, Cest?" asked Getzbe.
"Quite, sure, Mr. Mayor", Penny replied as she pulled her Nissan into the driveway.
After Penny rang the bell at the large front door, Cindy Taylor answered.
The split-level dwelling was well furnished with modern decor. Four large bedrooms were located upstairs with a den off to the side. The massive all electric kitchen was custom built for Cindy's private cook. Against the far wall, a large home theater system sat with an high definition 80" screen. In front of the couch, a computerized console controlled the device. It was also loaded with high speed Internet that displayed on the theater screen. The system also contained a state of the art chip set and 3D accelerator card.
"Oow", the mayor growled in his best James Brown impersonation. "This is what I call a pad mama!."
"What don't you have in this ... palace, Cindy?" the mayor asked. He walked around inspecting some of the high priced gagetry.
"A good man to snuggle up to", Cindy responded depressed, "but we'll get into that another time."
"How do you do, Miss Taylor", Mayor Gezbe said as he extended his hand.
"Likewise, Mr. Mayor", Cindy replied as she shook his hand. "But I have a confession to make, I do not vote Democrat."
The mayor looked a little confused.
"You have to excuse my friend, Mayor Gezbe", Penny intervened, "But Cindy is a member of the 'vast right wing conspiracy'."
"Oh I've heard about your computer show", the Mayor said with a laugh. "You were all over my friend Bill during the Lewinsky scandal."
"Bill Clinton was a disgrace to the office", Cindy replied as she looked up.
The mayor was impressed of how Cindy candidly expressed her opinion in an assertive manor. Getzbe was a stanch Democrat and supported Bill Clinton throughout the impeachment process. But even though their politics did not agree, there seemed to be a mutual respect between Cindy Taylor and Mayor Getzbe..
Cindy walked over to the console and brought up a video clip of a piece of rotating rock.
"What is that?" Getzbe asked as he watched the large screen.
"It's our key to the puzzle." Cindy answered. "It is called 1260XB. In the right scenario, it will change the laws of gravity and dimension."
"What's the catch?" Penny asked.
"It doesn't exist on this planet - at least as far as we know."
"I might know someone who does", Penny answered.
Penny visits an old friend
About a half hour later, Penny and Cindy entered a small dry cleaning shop on Geary Street she frequented many years ago. A young Japanese woman stood behind the counter.
"What happened to Li Li?" Penny asked, referring to an elderly woman who was once there.
"Li Li has passed", the young woman sadly replied in broken English.
"I'm sorry to here that", Penny said. "I came to see ShanHo".
The woman opened a small door letting them in.
Entering an adjacent room, Penny lead Cindy into an old caged elevator. She pulled a lever and the elevator began to drop. After decending three flites, the car stopped. Penny reached over and opened the wire cage into a dark hall, lit only by candlelight. As they walked toward a door at the end of the hall, Cindy noticed some accent looking Buddhist statues. As Penny opened the door, an old Japanese man, ShanHo, sat on the floor dressed in a robe. As he slowly looked up, he lowered his head.
"Welcome, Penny Cest", the old man whispered.
"It's been a long time, Master." Penny said with a bow.
As it was, ShanHo was an old Zen master Penny met in the early 70s. During that period, he helped maintain the Japanese Friendship Garden at Golden Gate Park during the day. Over the years, he has practiced his religion in the deep basement of the old building. Some say ShanHo has unimaginable powers. When Penny's friend, San Francisco Police Lieutenant, Tony Berneti, fell victim to the bottle after a divorce, ShanHo used his great wisdom to change Berneti's life around.
"You want information about rare material, Penny", ShanHo stated.
Cindy looked at Penny in bewilderment.
"How does he...?" Cindy asked with her mouth open.
"I can't explain it, Cindy. He just does."
"Several moons ago, I was visited by a strange man", ShanHo continued.
Cindy and Penny looked at each other. Penny pulled a picture out of of Sidney Bekon out of her purse and handed it to ShanHo.
"Was this your strange visitor?" Penny asked.
"That is he", Shanghai replied. He slowly got up and walked over to a corner of the room and pulled out a piece of rock. "He asked for a piece of this."
ShanHo had found this material deep in the mountains of the Himalayans in his younger days. According to legend, the gods came down from the heavens and blessed an accent tribe with the magical rock 100BC. Apparently, the material was a fragment from a small meteorite as it crashed into the earth.
NEXT: PART V CEST AND CINDY TRAVEL BACK