LUX-1

Hypersonic

Ken R Pence

Amazon

Copyright © 2022 Ken R Pence

All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Cover design by: Amazon Stock Cover
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309
Printed in the United States of America

Foreword

Young people are constantly underestimated. This is a story about a genius. His inventions will rock the adult world and everyone constantly gives him grief about his age. His discoveries are so incredible that few adults believe they are real because that belief is outside the scope of their world view. This is that story.

The young man in this story wishes to keep his name out of the news.

The US is the only major country in the whole world that does not yet use the metric system. This book is a good way to learn it.

*Author's Note - If you'd like your name included as a character - let me know. When you find the inevitable typos and grammatical errors - let me know. I'll correct them but you like the story and we can correct the errors together. Email me at ken.pence@vanderbilt.edu if you want to help me on further books in the series (if there are good reviews to warrant additions to the series). Need beta readers for new books. Thanks for reading.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Foreword

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

About The Author

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

"Mister Blakely. Paulus. Your son is nine, and he must attend public school," the truancy officer demanded. "We've let this slip in the past because you sent us some paperwork, but what you sent isn't possible. That's why I'm here."

"Ms. Kimble. I have explained that my son Lux has been going to school regularly since he was two. I've sent your office the digital records," he said.

"That's Mrs. Kimble, if you please. How could he have been going since he was two? There isn't any homeschooling approved for children that age in Alabama. He should go to a regular school like other kids."

"Why is that? It's been legal since it became law seven years ago. He has several years of experience ahead of others."

"Your child needs socialization. He needs to be around other kids. Digital video learning isn't as good as face-to-face learning. I've seen web stories about that."

"He has interaction with other children. This is the school mainly with the children at Marshall Space Flight Center and the surrounding high-tech companies."

"So. Keeping him away from the unwashed hordes, are you? Is that it? He won't know how to fit into society."

Paulus had to bite back a retort. "The school uses virtual reality avatars to interact with other students. They even sit with each other for lunch. They have gym together."

"Using some cartoon character meetings is not the same thing as being there. I don't know what I have to say to convince you?" she said.

"Lux! Can you come here?" he yelled.

"Just a minute, dad…need to tell my teacher that I need to step out," Lux replied from the study.

"Theatrics…telling his teacher where he is going? Why doesn't he just put the video on pause as all the remote learning students do?"

The gangly nine-year-old ran into the room. He was dressed nicely.

"This is Mrs. Kimble, Lux. She wants to see your cartoonish avatar," Paulus said, doing an eye roll.

"Good morning, Mrs. Kimble," the child said, smiling. "I'm Lux. Nice to meet you, ma’am," he said as he held his hand to shake. Mrs. Kimble reluctantly reached out and shook his hand minimally. "Would you come with me to the study?" Lux asked the woman and headed back to the study.

Mister Blakely indicated that Mrs. Kimble should follow his son. She reluctantly got up and followed.

She walked into the room and saw a classroom. Lux raised his hand, and the teacher on the big screen monitor said, "Lux. You look like you have others with you. Do you want to introduce them?" Lux turned around, and Kimble vigorously shook her head.

Lux's avatar looked exactly like Lux, only a little older-looking and taller. His movements on the monitor looked entirely lifelike. He was seated wearing a little band above his eyes with a little drop-down jaw vibration sensor touching against his jaw under his ear.

"Not right now, Ms. Phule. What did I miss?" he asked.

"Do you know the Pythagorean Theorem formula?" she asked.

"Yes, ma’am. A^2 + B^2 = C^2," Lux answered.

Ms. Phule chuckled. "I knew you would, Lux. Now let's look at using trig functions. The height of a ski slope is 16 meters, and the slope length is 20 meters. Find the measure of the angle ϴ giving the answer to two decimal places."

Lux quickly wrote out sin ϴ = = 53.13° but didn't raise his hand.

The other students shouted out the answer a minute or two later.

Kimble looked at Paulus and asked. "He got the right answer, and it looked like he got it before anyone else in the class. Geometry and trig? What level is this class? Why didn't he raise his hand?"

Paulus whispered. "He didn't want to embarrass the older students. This is high school geometry and trigonometry. Lux is just getting into calculus, but the school makes him test out with proctored tests, and he's in the review section now."

"He still needs physical training and socialization," she stated flippantly.

"He has that next, but I think your time here is done. Allow me to show you out," he said as he directed her out the door. "I think we'll forego first grade in public school but thank you for your offer," he said as they walked toward the door. Paulus didn't see her drop her wallet and kick it under the couch as she picked up her folder off the coffee table.

"Mrs. Kimble," Paulus said as he ushered her out the door.

"We'll see each other again, Mister Blakely," she said quietly with a little grin over her shoulder as she walked to her vehicle.

Lux came rushing out. “Here’s your wallet Ms. Kimble. Not sure why you licked it under the couch?”

Ms. Kimble looked constipated and jerked the wallet out of his hand. She had planned to say they stole it.

◆◆◆

Paulus asked his son, "What's your physical training today?"

"It's Tuesday, dad. We're supposed to do martial arts today – mostly karate."

"Okay. Are you going to do anything with your avatar? You're awfully small compared to the older students."

"Nah, dad. That wouldn't be right if I added superpowers or if I made my avatar a lot bigger," Lux said. "We're not supposed to change our capabilities, so it should be closer to being on the street."

"Suit yourself, but don't take damage. We have that narrow-minded county education folks ready to make a federal case out of you not conforming to their ‘book-banning’ version of education. They've actually banned some math texts that had word problems that were too hard or used ethnic names."

"I got you, dad. Not to worry. I'll work up a good sweat and won't let the sparring get too rough," Lux reiterated.

His father nodded, and Lux rushed to the corner of the basement lab where the good VR setup was located. He put on his workout clothes and slid into the haptic 'hammer' suit. It provided good 'hits' to nerve centers and pressure points. If another avatar hit you – you felt it 'hit' you. It hurt if you blocked hard or incorrectly. It would only 'barely' damage you if you got hit during sparring. The solenoid hits or the mini-pulses of electricity felt pretty realistic, Lux thought. At least at his age and size – he was allowed to wear the vibration head harness.

He rushed into the virtual gym (dojo) and bowed. He knew he was late, as they were into the 'mushin' (empty mind) meditation at the start of class. The student avatars were all wearing a uniform (gi). They started on the punching exercise, progressed to kicking, and then basic movements. After that, they all did forms (katas). Some of the black belts did advanced forms by themselves and looked pretty neat. Lux couldn't do that, but he was getting better.

The class lined up by height and then counted off in twos. Josie had to drop out for a while since her omnidirectional treadmill was always glitching up, so Lux got a bigger guy than he would have usually. The ones and twos lined up facing each other and then bowed. They dropped into sparring stances on command and then started sparring at the command “begin” (hajime).

Lux started sparring with Billy Hernandez, who was six inches taller, 13, and a bit of a bully. Billy jumped forward and must have had his motion sensors tweaked because he moved way faster than he'd ever done before. Lux barely had time to side-step and block Billy's front kick to his gut. Lux did a right foot roundhouse into Billy's stomach just as Billy's avatar landed. It didn't faze Billy when Lux kicked and hit him squarely. Billy surged toward Lux with a flurry of punches, which Lux blocked. Lux performed a straight punch right to Billy's face. This time Billy threw his hands up to his face and yelled, "Not fair! I'll get you – you little creep."

The sensei for the class had everyone stop and bow out. He then went over to Billy and told him to go to the corner and kneel until class was over. It was an uncomfortable position, even with an avatar. The sensei knew Billy had disconnected some of the 'hit' solenoids in his suit. The sparring resumed, and they learned to spar against two people at once. Lux thought this was a lot of fun. He figured out how to move so both opponents couldn't come at him at once. The class soon came to an end, and Billy, who had trouble walking when he got up, lined up again. They did the usual cool-down exercises, and the class bowed out and left. Lux knew Billy would try to get him some other way – he was bad news. He wiped off his suit, hung it up, and headed for his shower.

◆◆◆

Lux had an assignment from his practicum teacher. He had to find a local government organization and figure out some technical improvements he could make for them. This had to be accomplished with an additive manufacturing (3D) printer.

"Dad," Lux said as he walked over to his father. "You got a minute?"

"Hang on, son," Paulus said as he paused his robot inspection of an interior rocket fin. "What's up?"

"Dad. We have the assignment to pick a government agency and help them with some additive manufacturing gadget or something like that. Got any suggestions?"

"Let's think through this problem. Do you know any government agencies?"

"Post office or is that still government? Police? Fire? Waterworks? Something like that?"

"Those are fine. Do you know any people at any of those agencies?"

Lux thought for a moment. "I know Chief Phillips at the 4th Avenue NW fire station."

"Talk to him or his other firefighters. You've still got time today if you use your bike. Take your phone and wear your helmet. Call me when you get there."

"Okay, dad. Take phone, wear a helmet, call when I get there and when I'm on my way back, I assume."

"Right on, kiddo. Be careful."

◆◆◆

Lux put on his powered leggings that clipped into his shoes. He took his bicycle, put on his helmet, and powered away from his house. His augmented leggings let him pedal along at a steady 25 miles per hour (15 km/hr). Alabama stubbornly refused to convert to the metric system. He soon pulled into the fire station. Chief Phillips was sitting out front with several of his people. "Hi, Chief."

"Hi, Lux. Long time no see. See, you got those leg 'doees' on. What brings ya' down this way?” The Chief turned around to introduce Lux to his firefighters. “Guys. This here is Lux. His dad’s one of those scientists over at Marshall."

"Chief. Guys. I have a school assignment I'm trying to do right now," Lux said as he unstrapped his leg apparatus and clicked them locked to his bike.

"What ya' trying to do? Aren't you a little early to be out of school?" Chief Phillips asked.

"My school is on eastern time because we have students from the Eastern Time zone in class, and we start early anyway. We also only have seven minutes between classes. That gives us a lot more efficient use of our time," Lux stopped and tilted his head back. "I didn't answer your first question. I'm trying to find some small problem that I can fix by making you something."

"Like what?" the chief asked.

"Well. Have you ever said – 'I wished they would…'  I'm the ‘they’ in this case. What’s something you guys wish you had?"

One of the guys spoke up. "Chief. Couple of nights ago, we were trying to put out a fire at a barn west of here. It was dark as death, with no moon. Willy here had me hold a flashlight pointed at the stream of water. The light follows the water, and you can see where its going. Now – when the fire is blazing, you can see the water, but not when the fire dies down. We can't waste water when we don't have a creek or a hydrant."

"That's a good thought, Leonard. That fire almost restarted," the chief said. "Could you do something with that?"

Lux said, "Sure. Chief. Can I get the measurements on some of the nozzles you'd most likely use?"

"Leonard. Take Lux here and let him measure our nozzles."

Lux pulled a micrometer out of his bike bag and walked into the big station house. Leonard brought over the two nozzles they'd most likely use. Lux measured them carefully and recorded the dimensions on his smartphone.

The chief talked to him as he was leaving. "You gonna fix us up with somethin'? When should we expect ya' back?"

"I should have you something to try in a couple of days. The printer I'll use is pretty slow. I think I've got all the things I'll need to put it together. See you, Chief," Lux said as he strapped on his augmented leggings. He called his dad and said he was heading home from the fire hall.

The chief and the men all waved as he rode off.

"That kid is really something," Leonard said. "You reckon he'll make something we could really use, Chief?"

The chief stated, "That kid can do anything he sets his mind to… I met him when he was four, and he talked like an adult then.

Chapter 2

Lux was tooling down the road as there was little traffic on a Tuesday afternoon. The few cars swung wide around him until the police car pulled in behind Lux, turning on his blue lights and blipping his siren. Lux got off his bike, took off his helmet, and dug out his school photo ID. He turned and waited for the tall 188 cm tall (6'2") deputy to mosey up to Lux.

"Well, son," the Deputy began. "What are you doing out of school?"

"My name is Lux Blakely, and I am going home after being at the fire station, working on an after-school assignment. Here is my school ID, Deputy...Brownlow," Lux said, reading the deputy's nametag.

"Yeah - but why aren't you in school?" the deputy asked as he took the ID and looked at it.

"Sir. My school has been dismissed for the day. My school has earlier hours than Marshall County Public Schools."

"I'm not sure that's right," the deputy said. "This says you are in the ninth grade."

"If you look on the back of the ID, it lists the Alabama State Law permitting the school to operate, its license, and certification. It's an accelerated program. I am in the ninth grade."

"I guess, kid, but what about you riding an electric bike on a public highway? You aren't allowed to do that 'til you're fourteen. Even then, you have to have an 'M' license," the deputy said as he continued to hold on to the ID. "This says you are only nine – not fourteen."

"Deputy. My bike is NOT electric. Come check it out. Nothing on it is electric except the required lights on it. Is it against the law for me to ride my bicycle on a county road? This isn't a state highway even," Lux stated, getting frustrated. "I wear my required helmet, being under 16."

"What are them things on your legs, then? Are you handicapped?" the deputy asked.

"These just help me when I'm biking a long distance," Lux answered and pulled out his cell phone, calling his father.

"Who are you calling? You can't call anybody. This is an official traffic stop," the deputy said.

Lux let the call connect anyway and hit the text to tell his dad to listen and record. "Excuse me. I'm calling my father. He'll want to know why I'm late," Lux said while taking photos of the deputy while his dad connected.

"You can't do that, son. You're coming with me. I'm calling the truancy officer. Come on, son. Give me that phone. You're talking with the truancy officer. I don't buy this ninth-grade nine-year-old story. Plus, it is against the law to ride on a state highway, and a nine-year-old is not going to get my goat." The deputy grabbed Lux by the arm and practically dragged him to the car. He opened the door and shoved him in the back.

The deputy called the dispatcher and asked her to give the truancy officer for the county a heads up. "Tell Mrs. Kimble I got that kid she told me about for being out of school during school hours and riding an eBike on a state highway without a license. Yeah. We're heading to the kid's house to write citations to the dad. If there's no one at home – we'll charge the father with that too. Yep. Get Child Protective Services over to the kid's house – Paulus Blakely is the dad. He works at Marshall. I think the ID I have is fake, so the ID address probably isn't correct."

◆◆◆

The squad car pulled into Lux's driveway to be met with Mrs. Kimble and Paulus out on the front lawn. A large Harley motorcycle came roaring up, and a man hopped off and ran over to Paulus. He started taking video of the scene, Mrs. Kimble, and Deputy Brownlow.

"Who's this rube? You can't be here, sir. This is private property, and you are interfering with official police business," Deputy Brownlow said to the man who had hopped off the motorcycle.

"I am here on official business with my clients, Paulus and Lux Blakely. I think you have Lux illegally detained. What are the charges, deputy?" the motorcycle guy explained.

"Who are you? Their lawyer? They already have a lawyer? Let me see some ID," Brownlow said.

"R.V. Lucas at your service," RV said and handed the deputy a business card and a card showing his attorney's license in Alabama. "Why is my client in your patrol car, Deputy Brownlow?"

Brownlow looked uncomfortable with an attorney on the scene, and Mrs. Kimble trundled over. Mrs. Brook Kimble, Marshall County truancy officer. Brownlow looked relieved.

"It seems your son was out of school during school hours Mister Blakely. This deputy called me to let me know your son also violated some traffic laws, and he was miles away from your home when he was stopped," Mrs. Kimble said.

R.V. stepped forward. "Let's go through this one at a time so we won't have to let this escalate further. It is in no one's best interest for you two to get sued and lose your jobs due to some misunderstanding. Deputy. Explain to me what you think is going on, and we can clear up this miscommunication. I'm sure that's all this is – just a simple misunderstanding. Deputy…"

"I stopped this kid riding an eBike on a state highway and…" Brownlow started.

"Whoa. Let's look at that eBike. You have it in the rack on your cruiser – right? Let's look at that first," R.V. said, and they walked to the rear of Brownlow's cruiser. "Have you changed the bike in any way?" R.V. asked.

"Nah. That's it. The kid was going 20 miles per hour when I stopped him," Brownlow said.

"This doesn't look like any electric bike I've ever seen," R.V. said and took several pictures with his cell phone. "Deputy. Is this an electric bike?"

The deputy examined the bike and dejectedly said, "Nah." Pause. "…but he was riding a bicycle on a state highway."

"Not an eBike. Hum-m-m. Let's examine where you stopped him. Paulus. Do you have Lux's route and where Lux called from when he was stopped?" RV asked.

Paulus held up his own phone showing Lux's phone route to and from the fire station. He then showed when and where Lux was when he placed the call to his father. He held this up to the deputy, and it showed the route four (4) miles from the house and continuing to where they were now. Paulus took a screenshot of the map. "So, Deputy. You're familiar with this county, I imagine. Right? How long have you been patrolling this county?"

Deputy Brownlow frowned but answered. "I've been working here ten years."

"Tell me, Deputy," R.V. said as he held up the map on Paulus' phone. "Let's zoom in on where the call originated. Looks like about 4 miles from the house. That's a bit over an hour's walk. Is this a state highway? The map says 1807. Is that a state highway?"

"No," Brownlow said almost inaudibly. "I'm not on trial here."

"Excuse me. I didn't hear you. What?" R.V. said.

"No. It's a county road."

"So, Lux wasn't on a state highway, illegally?"

"No," Brownlow said.

"But he was miles away from home, and he's only nine years old," Kimble butted in.

R.V. looked like he had bitten into something nasty. "Deputy Brownlow. How fast was Lux going when you stopped him?"

"He was going twenty miles an hour," the deputy said.

"Mrs. Kimble. You're an advocate for education. How long would it take for a person going 20 miles per hour to cover those four miles? Let's see. You could go 10 miles in half an hour and five miles in 15 minutes. Four miles? That would be 12 minutes, wouldn't it? Lux was 12 minutes from home."

"Yes, but he was out during public school hours," she said.

"Does he go to public school in Marshall County?" R.V. asked.

"No," she said.

"From a phone call, my client informed me that you knew this already. You knew he went to a virtual online school that was approved in Alabama, and he was in an accelerated program."

"I don't have to say anything to you. I'm not on trial."

"Mrs. Brook Kimble. If you take any more interest in my clients, you will be sued. It will not be pretty. Do you get that, Mrs. Kimble? Deputy Brownlow? Did we just have a misunderstanding, or do we need to take this up a notch? Would you release my client and his property?"

Brownlow was going back to let Lux out of his squad car just as a car from Child Protective Services pulled into the drive. Paulus came back out of the house when he heard all the commotion outside. Deputy Brownlow let Lux out and walked over to the Protective Services car. He had a brief chat, pointing at Kimble and explaining (apparently) about an overzealous truancy officer. Deputy Brownlow walked over to Lux and said, "Sorry, kid." He then got in his car and left.

R.V. walked over to Paulus and stood as Lux and Paulus hugged. They all watched the other cars leave.

"That was interesting," Lux said. "There seem to be a lot of people underpowered and wound tight."

Paulus laughed. "Good observation, young'un. Did you get an idea for your class project?"

"Yeah, dad. I'll design it and run it off on the 3D printer tonight. May be useful."

◆◆◆

After supper, Lux went to his lab desk and pulled up a 3D modeling program, translating his measurements into a design. He set the design to print and knocked out the rest of his homework in about an hour. Most of it seemed like busy work to him. He spent the time while his design was printing to see if he had all the batteries and LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes).

He assembled his design that evening, sanding some of the rough edges. He inserted the wiring, LEDs, and reflector material. He rechecked the measurements and then prepped for the next school day. School went fast, and he biked to the Firehall the next day. The chief was inside. He went in and met Leonard. They snapped his two devices onto the nozzles, and Lux showed Leonard how they worked. Lux snapped a few pictures for the school. Lux headed home with the promise that they would send him an email with some photos on how his gadget worked.

◆◆◆

Chief Phillips waited 'til dark on a night with no calls. They took the 7.6-centimeter (three-inch) diameter hose out to the back of the station. "Okay, Leonard. Y'all try spraying without any lights on. Dang, it's dark out. That little slice of moon doesn't do much, does it? I can hardly see my hand in front of my face. Turn on the water! I can't see anything. Turn on that thing – oh, ho. Look at that. It looks like a lighted fountain. That is really cool. The light in the stream is following the curve of the water. Look how it lights up when it hits. Now that is cool. Cut it all off. Leonard. I want a nice note to that kid. Tell him we want one of those for all the volunteer companies, too. Cool!”

◆◆◆

Lux's father came in as Lux was eating an early breakfast. "Guess who called last night?" he asked.

Lux looked puzzled. "Who?"

"Chief Phillips called and wants your 'nozzle adapters' for every firehouse. He said they tested it last night because there was hardly any moon, and that adapter worked great. The light was quite bright and followed the water. What gave you the idea?" his dad asked.

"One of their guys said he shined a flashlight in the side of the water stream, and the light followed the water's path like a light in a fiber optic cable. I figured angling the LEDs more in line with the path of the water wouldn't reflect as much and would be more efficient."

"I'll call R.V. and do a patent search. It's probably already out there, but you never know. Send R.V. the encrypted design files. Do a provisional patent tonight. You certainly know how to do that by now."

"Dad. I've got a question?" Lux looked serious. "Why would that Mrs. Kimble woman be so inflexible? So, mean-spirited? She kind of 'infected' Deputy Brownlow with her ideas."

"Lots of folks have a hard time navigating life. Her parents probably imprinted their ideas – their prejudices on her, and she thinks everyone should go to public school - just like her. She confidently explains her ideas to others, and some people believe them if they act with confidence. We are different, so we don't conform to her ideas of what should be allowed. It takes all kinds. That's why our species evolves. One path diverges from the mainstream and does better – or not. Intelligence does not necessarily give an advantage if being smart means you can't pass on your genes. Just like those squirrels that run across the wires above the road and the ones that run across the surface of the road. If you get squished by cars – your genes are not passed on to the next generation."

"So, we should stand up for ourselves when we're different, so we aren't the ones that get squished," Lux said, grinning.

Paulus laughed. "What are you studying today?"

"World History, Coding, AP English, Trig/Geometry, and Physics, Phys Ed."

"I thought you had Chinese today," the dad said.

"Not today. That's tomorrow, and we're touring Shanghai with some Chinese locals," Lux said.

"That will be fun. Oops! You better get going, or you'll be late for class."

"See you later, dad," Lux said and ran to his VR (Virtual Reality) station.

◆◆◆

History was kinda interesting, but it never covered Asia, South America, or African nations much. Lux had read ahead for the rest of the AP course and often had a second stream of information and videos to switch away from the class material. Asian history today was his second stream, and he was enjoying reading about the Chinese invention of the compass and how it was introduced into Chinese society. It was much better reading it in traditional Mandarin.

Ah-oh, Lux thought, the teacher was going to ask him a question.

"Lux. Catherine of Aragon was betrothed to Henry VII's son Arthur at the age of three. They married when they were both 15 years old in 1501. What happened to Arthur next?" the teacher asked.

"Arthur died of 'sweating sickness' – I guess that was a variety of flu, back then. Catherine married Arthur's younger brother Henry the VIII in 1509."

"Thank you, Lux. That's correct," she said and prowled through more European history as he read about the Chinese invention of the compass around the 2nd and 1st century B.C. and how it was initially not used for navigation.

◆◆◆

Coding class with Mister Singh was always fun. He felt fairly fluent in the syntax of Python, JavaScript, and Java, but he was still struggling a bit with C++. Today they were decompiling some DeepFake apps. DeepFake applications allowed a user to put a famous person's head on some other body. You could make the famous person appear to say or do anything you want.

Lux like working with Prissy from his class. Her avatar was pretty, and she was super good at coding. He thought he might have had a bit of a crush on her, but he thought she was a few years older than him.

Lux had his avatar go over to Prissy. "Hey, Prissy. You have a partner yet for the final project? The Deepfake code isn't very sophisticated at all. We could tweak that. I've seen some animation software we could combine and make our own lifelike characters. You interested in doing that for the project with me?"

"Billy already wanted me to help him, but he's not very good at coding. You'd be helping me. Tell you what, come up with some character, and we can make a decision together about what we have the character do. See you next week, Lux. Bet you can come up with something great over the weekend."

"Okay," Lux said, and then thought how messed up he acted around Prissy. He was kind of fired up…excited even - to be working with Prissy since she was kind of hot.

◆◆◆

Math was ‘same-old-same-old,’ with just trig and geometry. He could do this stuff in his sleep. He was finishing up Calculus II, so he could just test out next year with those courses and get into differential equations and linear algebra. He ended up helping a lot of the older kids in this class. The teacher, Ms. Phule, started having Lux show the other kids how to do the problems. Students often listened to Lux better than they listened to her in a few of the areas because he looked at problems from a different perspective. Lux actually came up with some practical applications of problems he had faced while working in his father's lab. The students loved solving practical problems. It always surprised Ms. Phule how innovative the students became when given some freedom to make mistakes on their own.

◆◆◆

AP (Advanced Placement) Physics was Lux's favorite topic this semester – when he wasn't working with Prissy. Professor Leyton was really old, but he used a twenty-something avatar. He said the greatest discoveries were made by physicists who were under thirty. They were in AP Physics II, studying magnetic force. What Lux liked about Leyton was that he mailed packages of material to the teens in the class (even though Lux wasn't a teen yet). Today, they were learning about ferromagnetism, paramagnetism, and diamagnetism.

Ferromagnetism used substances that were strongly magnetized when placed in an external magnetic field, like iron, cobalt, or nickel. Paramagnetics were weakly magnetized towards an external magnetic field, like aluminum, copper, iron oxide, or titanium. Lux thought diamagnetic materials were the coolest because they became weakly magnetized in a direction opposite the direction of the external magnetic field. They would repel a magnetic field, even with materials like the oxygen in water or bismuth.

Today they were supposed to levitate (float) some diamagnetic pyrolytic graphite slivers over four magnets. The magnets were really strong. Lux had to figure out how to make the four rare-earth magnets into an array so they were in a square N-S-N-S. He had a square of green magnetic viewing film, a little 1.25 cm square of graphite, and four N42 Rare-Earth magnets, 1.27cm square (1/2"). Each magnet would pick up 8.5 kilograms (18.7 pounds). They were incredibly strong.

Lux watched as the teacher separated the magnets on the table keeping them about a hand span width apart. She demonstrated how to find the strong north or south sides and then put the four magnets together. She then put the little square of pyrolytic graphite in the center of the square of magnets, and it floated just off the surface. The 'how-to' video was so cool, showing the graphite just sitting there, floating, not touching the surface of the magnets. He was determined to get it to work.

Lux had a hard time separating the four magnets. They pinched him a couple of times. Lux had to hold two of the magnets at the edge of the table and slide one magnet down away from the other, using the edge of the table to get them to separate. Twice, they slammed back together, so he had to separate them again. It looked so easy when the teacher did it. Lux was amazed at the strength of the little magnets. With the four magnets separated on the table, he put the viewing film over each one. If there was a light line through the center, he flipped the magnet to the side, so the north or south strong side would face up.

He then held one magnet down to the table and placed a second magnet, lowering it until it attracted or repelled. He wanted it to repel, so north-facing down on the top magnet caused it to repel. North facing down on the top magnet caused them to attract. If the pair repelled – he then pushed the pair of magnets against the table and slid them against each other. He did the same thing with the next two separated magnets. Then, he held two magnets with his left hand (pushing down against the table) and two magnets, holding the ends against the table with his right hand. He then slid the pairs together so they wouldn't slam together and crack. When he put the ½" square of graphite in the center – it floated.

So cool! He indicated he had a question, and the teacher called on him.

"Ms. Phule, how long would a magnet like this hold its strength?" Lux asked.

"It will only lose 1% of its strength in 100 years if it receives reasonable care. Good question, Lux. Now, remember. The extra magnet and the square aluminum tube are for you to make a Halbach array with five magnets as homework this weekend. Take a photo of the side of your Halbach array with the magnetic viewing film to show how it squeezes the magnet fields out one side properly. Don't shatter them playing because the edges are sharp. It's a good idea to have a couple of 'bandaids' in case you cut your fingers. Good luck."

Chapter 3

Lux was still pondering making a Halbach array when his father came out of his study.

"How was school today? Do anything interesting?" he asked.

"Yeah, dad. Prissy and I are going to make a DeepFake that looks like a real person. Then we're going to animate it and put it up on social media. It'll be fun, and I'd like to use some AI since we have such powerful computers here. Any suggestions on what type of person to make?"

"Sure," Paulus thought for a minute. "Make sure it looks like nobody else, using some differences. Don't just use famous people. Oh. Give your 'person' some minor flaws and speech nuances – maybe speech patterns or accents. Don't say where they're from – just hint. Does that help?"

"That's great, dad. I would have made them with perfect features 'cause I didn't think about that," Lux said. "Do you know what a Halbach array is?"

That's something for a linear accelerator, isn't it?"

"Yep, but I have to make one this weekend," Lux said.

His dad rolled his eyes. "Don't blow up the house, and keep the lethal radiation to a minimum. Okay?"

Lux chuckled. He loved his dad's sense of humor. "My turn to cook tonight," Lux said.

"Great. Turkey chili leftovers and salad, I suppose. Alas." They both went into the kitchen.

◆◆◆

His father did the dishes since Lux 'cooked' tonight, and then they both went to their work areas.

Lux looked at the diagrams for a Halbach array. The five-magnet version he planned to make looked simple, but that levitating graphite exercise had been deceptive. The teacher said you could easily do that one in 30 seconds. It sure took him longer the first time he did it. He looked up Halbach arrays and found quite a bit more about Klaus Halbach and pulled up several scientific research papers through use of his father's research accounts.

Lux carefully cleared off his desk. He took five magnets and separated them – carefully on his desk. He made sure only to move one magnet at a time and not hold one and try to pick up another. He moved them all about 20 centimeters (~8 inches) apart. He then put the square of green magnetic viewing film over each and made sure a North or South was facing up. Holding down a magnet with his left, he took another magnet and lowered it over the one he was holding down until he felt if it would repel or attract. He turned them all so they would attract and then placed the one in his right hand on the table too. They were turned the same way if they were attracted because the bottom of it was opposite the top of the other four. Now all were the same polarity facing up.

He now moved all five magnets 20 centimeters apart in one long, separated row. He now took the square aluminum tube that was 6.5 centimeters long (a smidge over 2.5 inches). He marked one side TOP with a permanent marker. He then took the first magnet (North up – or the same strong side up anyway) and slid it into the square tube. He used a new pencil that hadn't been sharpened to push it well into the square aluminum tube. He put a piece of electrical tape over one end so he wouldn't push any magnets out the open other end. He took magnet two and flipped its magnetic top side to the left, a quarter turn (90º), and slid that into the tube. He then took magnet three and flipped it top-down (180º), and slid it into the tube. Magnet four – he flipped it to the right a quarter turn (90º) and slid it into the aluminum tube. He slid magnet five like it was with the strong side up into the tube and shoved all the magnets together, and taped the last uncovered side. He then turned the aluminum tube so the 'top" marked side was turned away from him, and put the magnetic viewing film over it.

He could see the magnetic lines of force, and it was easy to see where the lines of force were squeezed out one side and minimized on the other. Cool! He thought. He labeled the bottom and top - strong and weak. Now the scary part. He put the weak side against the steel door frame of his dad's lab door, and it hardly stuck to it at all. It didn't take any effort to pull it straight off with his index finger and thumb. Then he – carefully – moved the strong side toward the door frame, and it slammed against the door frame. He couldn't budge it trying to pull straight off. Finally - using two hands, he slid it to the side of the frame, but it took all his strength. Whew! He took some pictures and wrote up the report for his teacher, and submitted it.

He sat there for a few minutes and wondered what he could do with variations of a Halbach array other than more powerful motors and maybe something else. There was some thought that was just ‘kicking around in his head,’ but it just eluded him. He'd think about it later. He wanted to get working on the project for Prissy. His dad had given him some good ideas. He carefully put his magnets away safely. He started his computer and looked at his three monitors – linked to his dad's extra powerful computer on their internal network.

◆◆◆

Lux knew his dad's computer had some artificial intelligence capabilities, so he started the 'Anna' app. It was his dad's own creation. Anna started up, and it took a while to start. His dad had been working on 'normal' inputs with a question and answer with the 'application,' and Anna had banks of processors. His dad's friends kidded him about his electric bill, saying he must be mining bitcoins or growing marijuana with all the electricity usage, but it was just 'Anna.'

"Hi, Lux. What do you need today?" the computer app asked.

"I am doing a DeepFake project with a friend from school. I need to create a believable character and then animate it so people think it's a real human. I want to post videos on social media with it. Can you help me with that?"

"Okay. What apps are you using?" 'Anna' asked.

"We have old versions of FaceSwap, DeepFake, and an old Chinese app – Zau. They're all pretty lame."

"Have them now. You're right…lame, and there is some malicious code in two of them. Filtered that out. Okay. We can do better than them for sure."

"You got them that fast and checked them out?"

"Sure. Checked them out on your computer, cleaning up the malicious code from the 'free' applications you had downloaded for school."

"You checked out my computer and cleaned it up?" Lux was really surprised. He had no idea.

"Your dad wants me to keep an eye on the network. Your computer uses the joint home network, and your dad wants to keep out hackers."

"That's a surprise. Your 'intrusions' never showed up on any of my heuristic scans. Would you show me how to do that?"

"When you get your next computer, we could do that, but you'll need a more powerful computer. Now I need some input from you. Gender?"

"I don't know. I don't know much about stuff like that. Majority gender. Female, I guess," he said.

"Age? Young females currently tend to attract strong followings."

"Fourteen?" Prissy was fourteen – a good age, he thought.

"Ethnicity?" Anna asked.

"Could it be a mix? Maybe Thai and Black and Scandinavian," Lux said.

Anna laughed. "Now I see what your father means by humor. That is an interesting mix. So, you want widely mixed genotypes that blend attractiveness algorithms."

"I'd like her to be pretty but unusual. Oh. My dad says she needs to be interesting."

"Build?" Anna asked.

"I don't know. Athletic for sure and tall for her age. I like tall," Lux said. Prissy was tall, he thought, and he liked that about her - a lot.

"Anything else?"

"My dad says she needs some flaws that make her stand out," Lux said.

"Let me sort through social media and research for a while. Give me two minutes or so."

Lux sat back and wondered what this 'person' he created would look like.

"Here you go," Anna said and displayed a nude female standing there and slowly turning around. Lux blushed to his toes.

"Put some clothes on her. I can't concentrate on her wearing nothing," he said.

"I thought boys your age dreamed of pretty young girls," Anna said.

Lux's voice quavered. "We…do…but we never get to see what we want…not like that."

The female reappeared with blue jeans, T-shirt and running shoes. "How about now? Can you stand that?"

Lux took a deep breath and let it out slowly to slow his racing heart. "That's better. Zoom in closer on the face, and let's see her turn around."

The image zoomed in on her face, and he could see that in detail.

"What's that spot?" he asked.

"That's a beauty mark."

"Lose that. We need something more distinctive," he said.

"How's this?" the A.I. program, Anna asked.

"A scar? Really…okay…that looks interesting …right on the side of her face, under the outside of her right eye, and over a bit of her right cheek. I like it. She's still absolutely beautiful. Can you make her eyes a little bigger?" Lux said, looking at the changes. "Make her lips bigger. Gahh. Not that big. Just a little bit. That's better. How about just a touch of overbite? Great. One tooth slightly misaligned – perfect."

Lux thought for a minute. "What kind of accent should she have? Can she have a bit of a British accent? Maybe she could slip in an Indian accent by 'mistake.' It'd be good if she could turn her head and say a perfect phrase in Parisian French or another dialect from France. Have her talk to me and say something."

The character said, "Hi, Lux. It's nice to make your acquaintance." The character turned her head and said, "Pourriez-vous promener le chien, s'il vous plaît?" (Would you take the dog out for a walk, please?) in Parisian French.

"That's great, Anna. Would you save that version? Does my computer have the power to animate the character like it does with Dad's computer?"

"No Lux. Your computer would make the figure appear wooden and jerky. It takes a lot of speed and processing power to make her transitions smooth or to display real emotions. I will research some more on showing emotions and fluid movements. I'll have more for you tomorrow."

"Thanks, Anna. This looks great!"

◆◆◆

Prissy got the call from Lux on Saturday morning. She pulled up his image on her computer. "Hey, Lux. What ya' doin'?"

Lux smiled at Prissy. "Hey. Can you come over?"

"You mean physically come over? Now. It's early. What's so important? Is this the secret project you were talking about?" she said, turning her head a bit and squinting her eyes a smidge.

"I want you to meet someone," Lux said and started another call from his dad's computer to Prissy. "They are supposed to call you."

"Hey," Prissy said. "I'm getting another call now." Prissy accepted the video call. "Who are you?"

Lux muted his video and turned to Anna (his dad's computer). "Have her wave and say 'Hi, Prissy. Lux talks a lot about you.' Then act like the character is listening to music and silently dancing around listening to music."

"Who is this?" Prissy was floored by the pretty girl dancing around on the call. She clicked on chat and typed - Tell me! Who is she!?

"Come on over, and we'll give her a name. I need your help making a bunch of videos," Lux said conspiratorially.

"This is what you were talking about…this! Her!" Prissy was shocked. How could this be what Lux was talking about in school the other day? He had already made a DeepFake video? No way. He was way smart but…no way. That must have been someone they got to make a video. No way she wasn't going over there. "I'll be there in twenty minutes. I've got my scooter permit. Bye." She jumped up and ran to talk with her mom in the laundry room. "Going over to Lux's place. Be back before dark. I'll text you when I get there and when I leave. I wrote the address on a note on the fridge and texted it to you too."

"Bye, honey. You two working on the school project?" her mom asked. "Be careful."

"Yeah. He's really nice," Prissy said, and she got her helmet, checked the charge, and started her scooter.

◆◆◆

Prissy noticed that Lux's house looked pretty normal when she first pulled down the drive. This was her first time over, and Lux talked like the house was really neat. She looked around, and she saw there weren't other houses within view. There did seem to be a large clearing in the back. Lux had asked her to park around the north side. She saw the 8:30 sun in the east and pulled around back. The back had ten big solar panels, and there were some different panels on the side of the roof too. There were a lot of fruit trees with apples and peaches and a pretty large pond off to the side that she couldn't see until she walked further back.

There was a large patio with three small outdoor tables, big umbrellas folded down, and chairs.

Prissy raised her eyebrows. They must be pretty well off to have this much land, she thought.

Lux came out, walking out toward her. "Hey, Prissy. Glad you came over. You like the solar panels? My dad doesn't like to be dependent on the utilities. That's why we're off the grid," Lux blushed because he was nervous around Prissy. He either couldn't talk, or he talked too much.

"Really," she said. "This is so cool! My parents complain about the electric bill all the time." She looked at the panels. "What if you don't get any sun for a long time, or snow covers the panels or something?"

"Oh. We have a week of battery backup, and a natural gas generator, in case of really long outages. We get some of our water from the air with those panels on the roof. They use water vapor from the air that collects in a hygroscopic material. Those provide some pure water, and we get some water from a well." Lux said, proud of the panels his dad had made.

"How do you get enough water for your orchard? Don't those trees take a lot of water?"

"We buried some big PVC pipe three meters deep between every two trees. There is a covered fan powered by a little solar cell at the top of the pipes that pulls surface air to a small uninsulated tank on the bottom where the moist surface air condenses. These produce about 8 liters a day (or about 2 gallons) of fresh water. A moisture sensor turns on pumps in the tanks when the ground under the mulch gets too dry. Those tubes from the tanks irrigate the trees."

"Why do you bury the tanks two or three meters deep?" she asked.

"The ground at that depth, around this part of the U.S., stays around 15℃ (or 60℉) year-round. We use the wells and the pond to both heat and cool the house. Fifteen degrees Celsius is really warm in the winter and cool in the summer, so it doesn't take as much energy to make it warmer for heating or cooler for cooling."

"That's cool," she laughed at her inadvertent pun. "What do you have to do to keep it working?" Prissy asked. "Does it take a lot of maintenance?"

"Nah. Dad showed me how to do it, and this system uses a closed loop. It just takes a lot of planning and a little physics. Dad put this irrigation in four years ago during that drought that we're still going through. You wanna' have a short tour."

"That'd be nice, but I do want to see that video. Hey! How do you get internet if you're off the grid? Do you use a cell phone connection?" she asked as they walked back to the house.

"See those two dishes? – they allow satellite connections, and that skinny tower over there is a microwave connection to one of my dad's friend's networks. We do have an armored fiber optic cable, but I'm not supposed to talk about that one. We may be sort of rural, but we have good connections."

"I'll say," Prissy said, and they entered the house and slid off their shoes. They slid on some house sandals, apparently left for guests. Prissy raised her eyebrows and looked at Lux. "Japanese?"

"Yeah," Lux explained. "My dad did a lot of contract research near Tokyo before I was born. He got used to no outside shoes in the house. It really does keep the house cleaner."

"Sick," she nodded. "Where do you work on those videos?" she asked.

"Oh. That's downstairs. Come on. You're gonna' love this…it's so sweet."

Prissy couldn't help but grin at Lux's enthusiasm. He was practically bouncing as he led her down to his work area. Prissy expected it to be dark, but the area was really bright. Then Lux surprised her and turned on more lights. "Do you keep the lights on when no one's here? I thought you were off the grid."

"Oh, silly. The lights weren't on. Oh – I guess they were because it's daylight outside."

"But there were lights on all over this basement when we came down, and you turned on more."

Lux laughed. "My dad did that too. There are some transparent domes on the south side of the roof. Then big bundles of cheap fiber optic light guides channel the sunlight to plastic diffusers here in the basement, and we get free light whenever the sun's out. We only use powered lights when it's dark."

“What if the lights aren’t on, and it’s stormy and dark in the daylight?” she asked.

“Oh. See, they have strips of LEDs that come on to keep the light the same.”

"This house is pretty sick. Show me those videos. That's why I'm over here in the first place. Show me!" she demanded while nearly cracking up, giggling.

"Okay. Okay. Over here." He rolled up two chairs, and booted up his computer, and connected to his dad's A.I. – Anna. The three monitors lit up but just showed a light blue backdrop and what looked like a stage. "Anna. Would you bring out our creation and have her do some stuff? Say hello to Prissy."

Prissy stood behind the chair, holding the back with both hands while staring at the three monitors and looking around the room. "Wow," she said. "This is some setup."

A figure peeked around a curtain on the left monitor, and when Prissy turned to see the motion – the person showed surprise and disappeared behind the curtain. Nothing happened until Lux said, "Anna. Would you bring out our new person?"

A young girl came strutting out. She skipped a couple of steps and then turned and smiled like she was directly looking at Prissy. Prissy moved to her right, and the girl on the monitor turned her head to follow the movement. She was wearing jeans and a cut-off pink T-shirt.

"Wow. Wow," Prissy said. "Who'd you get to be an 'influencer' for us? She's good. How'd you contact her? So, we make a digital version of her?"

"I don't think you understand," he said and turned to the computer. "Anna. Put her in a tutu and have her do a great portion of Swan Lake – then come back to the center in your original outfit."

There was a snap, and the girl's outfit changed to a black ballet tutu, and she started dancing the solo black swan portion of Swan Lake. She spun and leaped and twirled across the stage and then reappeared in the center in her original jeans and T-shirt. She did a very credible bow and crossed her arms.

"She's digital! How'd you do that? That's incredible. Did your dad help you? How? How? What can she do?" Prissy was stunned. She went and sat down hard in the chair and spun to face Lux. "What's her name?"

"I don't know, Prissy. You have to help me with this stuff. My dad gave me some suggestions to get people's interest. His computer took some of the deep fake software, made it better, and is a lot faster and more powerful than mine. You've gotta' help me think up things for her to do first and what videos to make. I got this working last night."

"If you haven't given her a name – then - let's come up with a name. Something short and catchy."

"Okay," Lux said. "Alice or Sue." Prissy acted like she was gagging or just shook her head. “Macy, Ama, Dawn?" Prissy was shaking her head or throwing her hands up and looking disgusted. "Heck. You say a few, and I'll act out."

"Okay. Star?" Lux tilted his head to the side and grimaced a little, and then shook his head. "Io?" Prissy said.

"Not bad, but nah," he said.

"Ever, Liz, Lummi, Pr…?" she started to go on, but he cut her off.

"Lummi. That's it. A Native American tribe. They are one of the tribes that carved totem poles. I like it! Two syllables, and not too common," he said, and they each grinned at each other. "Anna," Lux said to his dad's A.I., "Her name is Lummi."

Chapter 4

"I got excited. This is so… wild. Where's the closest bathroom?" she asked. Lux pointed to the side of the room, and Prissy headed that way.

A few minutes later, Prissy came out of the restroom and exclaimed. "What is that called?"

Lux started laughing. "Those fancy toilet tops haven't really caught on here in the states yet. That was a washlet. My dad got used to them in Japan, and when he came back, he added those tops to all our toilets. Every time I ‘go,’ when I’m away from home - it feels like I'm in a developing country."

"Wow! I wasn't expecting that…a heated toilet seat that sprays warm water to wash you off. They even blow dry you. Do you just replace the lid on any regular toilet?" Then she started laughing.

“What are you laughing about?” Lux said.

“Can you imagine the Japanese engineer that designed those things?” Prissy said, still grinning.

“Huh,” Lux said eloquently.

“Think about it. The engineer would have to find the average ass and aim the waterjet at it. It’s funny if you think about it.” She saw Lux smile. “Anyway. How hard are they to hook up?”

"Just replace the seat. The water hookup just splits the regular water connection though it needs a separate electrical outlet to heat the water when you need it. Takes about thirty minutes to install." Lux said. "So, you're okay with Lummi?"

"Lummi is good. What video should we do first? "

"We need something that grabs everyone's attention," Lux suggested thinking about what his dad had told him.

"How about learning to walk sexy in high heels away from the camera and then walking back toward the camera, face planting with a scream and a bit of blood?”

Lux laughed. "Perfect. That should get people looking. Then what?"

Prissy thought for a moment, then sat up straight and smiled big. "Then we show her discussing how to apply makeup to cover up a bruise."

"Oh…something my dad said. We'll have her hear someone in the background say something, and she'll turn around and say a phrase in perfectly accented Parisian French. That'll add some mystery. Maybe she hears a dog's name and then says, ‘take him for a walk around the block, please.’ Make her shy when people ask her where she's from. You and I craft the videos 'til they look realistic. Give the viewers clues that sometimes contradict each other."

"Excellent monsieur," Prissy said and laughed. "Okay. We'll have her do a sexy walk in high heels and then the face plant."

Lux turned to the monitors and talked to his dad's A.I. – Anna. "Anna, we want Lummi to be wearing high heels, some tight shorts, and a cutoff T-shirt top."

The character stood there and looked lifeless in an awkward pose. "What type and color of shoes?" Anna asked.

Prissy said, "Red shoes with 10 cm heels (~ 4")." The image changed. "That's good. Let's see her from the back view." The character flipped the view to show her rear. "Humm," Prissy made a noise. "Anna, make her rear a little rounder. That's good. Anna. Have Lummi walk away from our view and then walk back toward us.”

"Don't we want her to stumble a bit on the turn? Can you do that, Anna?" Lux asked.

Lummi did the same walk away and stumbled when she turned, and her left ankle collapsed a bit.

"Anna," Prissy said. "Make her walk sexy when she is walking away from the camera view."

Lummi looked like she was sawing wood with a wide stride. Lux and Prissy both giggled.

"No. No," Prissy said. "Have her steps like she is walking in one line with a gentle exaggeration of her hips swinging from side to side. That is much better."

Lux thought her walk looked kinda' interesting, but he wasn't sure why. It did look fascinating.

"Now for her face plant," Prissy said. "Anna, have her fall to the camera view left."

Lummi was wobbly walking back toward the camera and then fell forward.

Prissy and Lux both let out a tired sigh.

"Have her throw her hands out, a little too late, and unsuccessfully catch her fall," Lux said. "Research involuntary reactions to the loss of balance in humans. Add an impact noise when her face hits."

Prissy followed up his comment with her own. "Have her squeak a high-pitched little shriek and have her ankle collapse under her. Make her show a look of fear and shock on her face."

"That's got it. Great, Anna! You figured those expressions out really quickly. How'd you do that?" Lux asked.

"I got access to an excellent repository at a human dynamics lab. They had an excellent selection of video clips I reviewed. They were easy to adapt."

"Would you put that all together and play it?" Lux asked the A.I. - Anna.

Lummi strutted away for the camera, swaying provocatively – Prissy cheered and watched as Lummi turned around with that stumble and shakily tried to strut back before face-planting with an audible crash. We added a grunt followed by a moan. We added an intro piece with Lummi propping a smartphone up to indicate she was doing this by herself and a hand reaching up after the fall and fumbling to turn off the camera. It looked absolutely real.

Lux practically jumped up when it was finished and gave Prissy a big hug until he realized what he was doing and felt himself blushing to his toes. His dad was working upstairs and yelled down. "Hey guys, lunch is ready. My turn today, and I want to meet your friend."

Lux couldn't believe he hadn't introduced Prissy to his dad, but Prissy messed with his head – in a good way. He was still glowing a bit from his hug.

He told Anna to save the video into a good, late-model smartphone format and to send a copy to Prissy and his phones. Lux held out his arm, directing Prissy back up the stairs, and she leaned her head to one side a bit, studied me for a moment, and gave him a weird little smile, and walked upstairs.

As soon as they were in the kitchen, Lux introduced her to his dad. "Dad. This is my friend Prissy from school."

"Hi, Prissy. I'm Paulus Blakely. Nice to meet you. You live far from here?" Paulus asked.

"Nice to meet you, Mister Blakely. I live about 15 minutes from here in the Rosemont subdivision. I rode my scooter."

"That's a good area. You like school?"

"Yes, sir. It took a bit of getting used to it, but the new virtual glasses make it so we can touch maps or look directly at chemistry experiments. The teachers sometimes have us switch off the other students in our view so we can see what they're doing one-on-one. It's kinda like we're their apprentice even though we have 25 in the class."

"That's a nice feature. Chicken salad, croissant sandwich, okay?" Paulus placed the sandwiches around with some sliced apple wedges.

"This looks good. What do you do, Mister Blakely?" Prissy asked as they all sat down.

Paulus chuckled. "Well… my position title at Marshall Space Flight Center is listed as a senior reliability engineer, but I write the code for space intercepts with the automated freighters, among other things."

Lux laughed. "Don't let him kid you. He writes the code for automated asteroid mining ships they're developing. He's invented half of the equipment they use, plus a lot of other stuff," Lux bragged.

'Wow. No wonder your house is so savage!" Prissy exclaimed.

"I take it that's a good thing," Paulus said with a grin. Prissy nodded.

Lux was a bit subdued as Prissy and Paulus talked, but when they got around to their project, Lux perked up. "Yeah, Dad. Prissy and I have two good videos to use so far. They'd both pass the Turing Test."

Prissy looked puzzled. "Turing Test?"

"It's the ability of a machine to be indistinguishable from a computer…our videos don't have any artifacts in them that let people know it isn't a real person," Lux explained.

"Oh, she looks totally real, Mister Blakely."

"How are you going to introduce her to the world?" Paulus asked.

"Her name's Lummi. We're going to hit all the social media sites once we have a dozen videos stocked up. Prissy is going to send me ideas. We figure we need a dozen to start because once people start looking, there need to be rapid follow-up videos, or people lose interest. Later we'll try to have Lummi interviewed by other real people."

"Have her interview some controversial politician and ask him or her some tough questions. Keep her upbeat and savage… in the old meaning… not the good meaning."

Prissy laughed. "That's a great idea," she said and raised her eyebrows, looking at Lux.

Lux nodded. "Thanks, Dad. "Good idea. We have to get back to work. Thanks for lunch."

Prissy and Lux headed back down to the workshop and started work on the 'Putting makeup over a bruise' video.

Anna helped them research injuries and then finalized Lummi learning to walk in high heels face plant bruising. It looked painfully horrific. The new video was her trying to cover it up and wincing as she tried different techniques to reduce swelling. They 'cut away’ and showed different time intervals: 2 hours, 8 hours, and 24 hours later. There was too much swelling in the first shots, but 'Lummi' showed how to use a side view to minimize letting people 'see' her bruised face, except one little 'accidental' time when she turned her head enough for people to see her eye partially swollen shut.

The next section of this video showed how to apply concealer and mask the swelling, and take out the shadow. First, she used an ice pack for the first 24 hours. She then used the curved part of a cold spoon to pull the fluid a bit. Then she lightened the darkened areas with a concealer that matched her natural skin tone. Prissy helped a lot and had Lummi explain actual techniques that would really work. It was all to make her seem more human. Lux suggested a background sound of a French television program playing to add mystery.

Anna again had 'Lummi' place her cell phone up and start taking the video, and then stopping it - so she could put together video snippets over a span of 48 hours. They varied the background noises and lighting to match the hour of the day. They had Anna play back the finished video. It looked absolutely like a real person – especially the mini- 'fumbles.'

Prissy let out a long sigh. "Those look great. Where do you think we ought to go next?"

"That's a great idea. We can have her traveling around the world with backgrounds and languages in the background," Lux said excitedly.

"That's not what I meant, but maybe that isn't the worst idea I've ever heard. People will think she is rich. Maybe make it seem like she could get interviewed remotely by different people in other countries," Prissy said, leaning her head off to one side with her eyes closed as she thought about the topic. "Not bad, Luxster."

Lux's ears blushed, thinking he'd really like to kiss her, but was too scared to mess up what they had or scare her away. "Not bad, Luxster?" he asked.

"Pet name," she smiled and looked at him. "It's not a bad thing."

Lux blushed to his toes. He swallowed big. "It's getting late. I don't want your folks worried about you. I'll see you out," he said, partially regaining his cool.

Lux walked her up and out and saw her ride off. His dad came out, hearing her leave, and put his arm around his shoulder, pulling Lux to him.

"First crush?" Paulus said. "Call when you think she's had enough time to get home. Always check up on the people you care about…  it's a rule."

"Whose rules?" Lux asked.

"Our rule. Don't forget," Paulus said.

Lux waited twenty minutes and then called. Prissy answered right away, saying she was in her kitchen talking to her mom. She said she got home with no trouble and thanked him for the call.

Prissy's mom asked about the call and nodded when she found out it was Lux calling to make sure she got in okay. "He is being raised right," she said. "Manners."

Prissy pursed her lips and nodded to herself. "Manners," she mumbled.

"Wash up for supper, dear. It'll be ready in a jiffy," her mom said.

◆◆◆

The next day at school, Lux was daydreaming about his project when he heard an unpleasant voice.

"Hey, creep. Karate again today. I'll be looking for you," said Billy Hernandez.

Lux thought he looked somewhat bigger today. He must have been using 'buff' software to have his avatar appear fitter. Lux just looked disgusted and transitioned his avatar to another section of the school. He was looking forward to his tour of Shanghai in a few minutes. They were to meet in the classroom at 6:30 am local time and review some of the areas they would be traveling to today.

Everyone dressed their avatar in the 'approved school uniform' for outings. Mr. Peters, their World History teacher, was talking. Lux had missed what he was saying. "Okay, everyone. Switch to Putonghua or Mandarin on your translators. It is 13 hours later on Beijing time there, so it is 9 pm at night. You will have their teacher, Yìhán Wang. Address her as ‘’Mrs. Wang. The children with her will introduce themselves by one name like we would say Fred or Susan, and we only have one hour. There will only be five other students. Speak clearly, so your translator can keep up, and don't use contractions or slang unless they ask. They speak passable English."

"Stand in the center of your treadmill, and we'll switch altogether. Reboot if you get lost, and follow the prompts if I lose you. Stay close to the group." In one instance, they were all together in a group, and then they were all surrounded by a dazzling panorama of lights.

A Chinese woman and five tall youths were standing in front of everyone. The woman introduced herself in English as Yìhán Wang, and then she introduced the five youths. She said they were all twelve years old (but they all looked very tall). Lux had a quirky smile at this statement since the Chinese government never put on any public display without making a political statement. They obviously wanted to display that their genetics produced taller youth than the West – better nutrition. Either the 'youths' were older than twelve, or they were outliers in height. Lux almost lost what their guide was saying as he was caught up in the view and his thoughts.

"This is known as the Bund," she said, indicating all the illuminated buildings. "You can see the Oriental Pearl Tower and other skyscrapers across the Huangpu River. "Walk this way, please."

The group toured the walkway while the American students talked with the Chinese students.

After fifteen minutes, the group was halted by the guide. Some students, both Chinese and American, had been laughing at the translations. Lux could speak and read a little Mandarin and the Chinese youths spoke passable English. They both enjoyed the 'creative' translations provided by their electronics. Lux went to one of the youths and asked in flawless Mandarin, "Why is that building called the Fairmont Peace Hotel?" The Chinese youths all started laughing.

"I'm not used to a laowai using Putonghua. How can you use Mandarin?" the youth asked.

Lux laughed while smiling, even despite the slight slur. "How can you speak English so well? You really do speak English well."

"Thank you," the youth laughed and then said in Mandarin. "The Fairmont Peace Hotel building became a hotel again in 1956." He explained more details in English about the mix of building styles, and every now and then would make a comment in Mandarin just to Lux.

The guide asked them to stop. They transferred to a river cruise ship for a short cruise along the Huangpu River. "The river divides Shanghai into two regions: the Pudong (East Bank) and the Puxi (the West Bank)," the tour guide explained. The Chinese youths pointed out a lot of European buildings and modern skyscrapers. The city was dazzling with all the lit-up buildings. The way the scenery went by, it was just like being on a boat with different noises coming from all quarters.

Mrs. Wang, the tour guide, clapped her hands. "We will now go see something a bit different. We are going to the Shanghai Centre Theatre."

This transition was abrupt, and they were standing in the front row, looking at an enormous stage. There were acrobats balancing on others' hands and shoulders, making stacks of people five people high. It was tremendous! There were people balancing or riding bicycles on high wires and juggling an incredibly complex series of objects. It was fascinating. The youth that had spoken directly with Lux looked to see that Mrs. Wang had her head turned away and did a virtual fist bump with Lux with a big grin on his face. Both groups waved to each other, and they transitioned back to their room in the states.

The hour was up before they knew it, and they couldn't help talking about the trip to each other. It was bedlam until they transitioned to their next class. Math was doubly slow today, and the other classes went by in a blur until Lux realized it was time for Karate again.

"Heck," Lux thought. Billy Hernandez again. Lux suited up in his sensor suit. He hoped Billy hadn't tweaked his sensors to be non-responsive again. They all came to the dojo and bowed into the training hall and then the sensei. They started out doing loosening exercises, and then they lined up by rank and started basic movements of punching and yelling in place. Then they started kicking in place and moved on to basic blocks and kicks while moving as a group. The class made two lines and started alternating attacks and blocks. Sparring was supposed to be next, but the sensei lined up everyone in one line and had everyone stand in a ready stance. He walked down the line examining each person and grabbing arms, and testing if their arms could be manipulated by him.

Lux knew he was checking to see if anyone had altered their sensor suites not to register hits or respond to grappling holds. Lux was particularly interested in Billy Hernandez. When he got to Billy – the instructor grabbed Billy's arm and attempted to twist it. It wouldn't twist. The instructor's fist lashed out and hit Billy in the solar plexus with a good shot. Billy just stood there grinning evilly.

"You are banned from this class for a month. Get your sensors recalibrated, and we will test that your suit conforms before you will be readmitted," the sensei said in an emotionless voice.

Billy took a step forward. "I don't have to put up with…"

The sensei did an odd arm pattern, and Billy's avatar disappeared from the room.

They paired up for sparring by height after that. Lux ended up still fighting a taller, higher-ranked student. He preferred the better students because they would show him new techniques and had good control. He learned two new feints and a combination hand technique, followed by a front kick, that seemed like it would be pretty effective.

"Don't drop your hands when you start a kick," his opponent said. "It's a sure giveaway that you are kicking and how you will kick. Watch my hands as I do a couple of kicks." The student did a front kick and then a snap round-house kick.

"How did you do that? Your hands didn't move at all. You did those kicks slower, just so I could see, didn't you?" Lux said, amazed.

"Yep. Practice in front of a mirror until that guy in the reflection doesn't telegraph his moves," the brown belt said.

"Gosh. Thanks. Super helpful. I really appreciate it."

"Sensei said you listen, and you're progressing rapidly," he said, as they bowed to each other before moving to other partners.

Lux transitioned from class feeling good. He was supposed to virtually meet Prissy before showering. He did strip off his sensor suit. He was supposed to meet her at a virtual edge of a virtual lake area. He was excited to be meeting her.

◆◆◆

Prissy appeared next to him as he was throwing virtual rocks and skipping them off the water.

"How'd you do that?" Prissy said, startling a bit as he was absorbing seeing the slight latency in the rock skips.

"Oh. Hi!" he said. "I programmed some virtual rocks, and it's pretty computationally intensive to calculate a realistic reflection and skip into the angle of the rock hitting the water. I've about got it. You try it."

Prissy looked down and could see a half dozen smallish rocks on the ground. The rocks were all sitting on top of the ground. Lux hadn't gotten to the point where he could program the rocks to be half-buried yet. She picked one up and could feel a haptic drag-like mass when she moved it fast in her closed fist. She tried tossing it up a bit and then catching it. She could feel some sensation. She finally threw the rock toward the water, and it skipped twice before sinking. "That's really good. Are you going to sell that programming?"

"I thought I might. There's a forum that lets you post new simulations. It doesn't pay much but gives you a lot of trading points to buy other features. I'd rather have the trading points."

"Umm. We need to talk about Lummi and how we're going to introduce her into social media to give us the most impact."

"Maybe we should post our first couple of videos of Lummi in a couple of apps. Then we let them stay there a bit while we make some more. What next? Is it okay if I come over again this Friday? I'll think of a few more videos – maybe some dancing and some cooking."

"How about some more ballet?" Lux asked. "That bit I had her do, looking around the curtain, could be tweaked and would be good. I'll create a rough cut of her doing that and another one dancing modern stuff. Okay?"

"Sounds good. I'll see you tomorrow in class."

◆◆◆

Lux knocked out his homework for math absentmindedly. "Anna. Would you play the clip we made for Prissy to show that Lummi was a created avatar – not a real person?" Lummi peeked around a curtain, showed surprise, and disappeared back behind the curtain.

"Good, Anna. Stop when she disappears, and then after a few seconds, have her stick her head back out and say, 'I'm not really uncoordinated. I'm just not used to high heels.’ Then have her come out in the black tutu and do the Swan Lake solo through the bow with no change of outfits."

Lummi came strutting out wearing a black ballet tutu. She smiled like she was looking directly at the audience, then shifted her face to an intense look. She posed. She started dancing the solo black swan portion of Swan Lake, and you could hear as she lightly landed with perfect balance and form. She spun and leaped and twirled across the stage and did a very nice bow at the end.

"Play that back," he said, and Anna played it through. Lux thought for a minute. "Add a few places with her intake of breath near the end, like suppressed heavy breathing. Oh. Make her face and her neck glisten with a bit of sweat and show off the fading bruise from the other day… being just a tad unconcealed by the workout. Play that back."

"Good. Great Anna. What am I missing? I know. Make the curtains look a little shabby – even patched or torn in a place or two. Make the wood stage look a little worn and stained. Play that back." Lux watched and said, "That's great, Anna. Save that one. Prissy and I will go over it Friday. Now put her in that outfit where she wears jeans and a cut-off pink T-shirt. Prissy said Lummi looks hot. I think Prissy looks hot – don't tell her I said that, though."

"Anna. Look up current dances. Have Lummi come in and do short segments of dances to trending music singles. Make it about fifty different dances and have her do the steps while laughing and smiling. They can be dances from around the world as long as they look shot with a smartphone camera looking up at a slight angle. Is that something you can do?"

"Easily Lux. I'll have a good selection of current dances for you."

"Great," he said, feeling quite pleased that Prissy would be here Friday.

Chapter 5

"Morning Dad. What are you working on today? I mean if you can tell me that is?"

Paulus looked up from his slate. "Just looking at my feed – mainly science, tech, world news, and stock trends."

"No politics?" Lux asked. "Don't you get into that stuff?"

Paulus snorted a laugh. "I just try to keep us out of that as much as I can. I think our politicians are as competent as they are ethical," he said with a grin.

Lux laughed. "That's a good one, dad. I'm gonna' quote you on that one," he paused. "Aren't we supposed to say, 'Bless their hearts,’ since we're in the South?"

"Yep. I never answered your question, though. I'm going to be working on a high-speed transorbital, but you should just say, 'My dad works at Marshall' and not what I do."

"Dad. Is there a reason you say you work at Marshall Space Flight Center instead of for NASA at Marshall?"

"Yep. I'm an independent contractor. Paperwork is a lot simpler, and I have a bit more freedom of what projects to take on. I've done the other way, and there are just too many bureaucratic roadblocks."

"You hold so many patents. You have a security clearance, don't you?" Lux asked.

"What is all this about? I have a type of top-secret clearance – but again – you shouldn't talk about that either. We don't want to attract unwanted attention."

"So, that's why you always tell me to practice descriptions of people and cars. Look out for strangers around the house or people asking questions about us…right?"

"Yep. I store all that work information at work. All the information here is about our patents and our research."

"Thanks, dad. Prissy is coming over Friday again."

"I see," he said and lowered his head and furrowed his brow a bit. "Having a crush on someone older is tough."

"I'll catch up," Lux said and laughed.

"What does that mean?" Paulus asked, tilting his head a bit with an amused grin.

"Well. She's almost five years older than me…right? When I was one – she was six. Six times older than me."

Paulus chuckled. "I see where this is going."

"When I was five – she was ten. Twice as old as me. In a few months, I'll be ten, and she'll be fifteen…one and a half times as old as me. See…catching up," Lux giggled.

"It doesn't work quite that way, but as you get older - age is less and less important. Just like when you're in college – no one cares what you did in high school. I can see you're not going to push it, and that's the right attitude now. There's time for all that, but it's hard to be patient."

"About that, dad. I need to skip some grades. Ninth-grade math, English, and history aren't cutting it. I should be doing college work – college-level math instead of just algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and calculus. I can do calculus II problems now, and I understand it. I should be doing differential equations and linear algebra. I'd like to be getting Physics I & II out of the way too. How can I test out of this stuff?"

His dad put down his tablet and really looked at him. "We have to get past the gatekeepers."

"Gatekeepers? Who are the gatekeepers?"

"They are the people at medical schools that keep people from being doctors because they didn't take organic chemistry or some other rather arbitrary requirement. They are the people at Ivy League admission offices that keep brilliant people from attending because they didn't have the 'right' education – even though they are brilliant. We'll have to have you take some advanced testing so we can try for Advanced Placement credit. That's what they do here though they usually do it as rising seniors in high school. Have Anna research it for you. Then we can get you into an accredited college program that will allow remote learning and testing out of courses. Since we plan to pay full tuition – they are more likely to grant that to us."

"Really, Dad?" Lux was stunned. "I thought you'd want me to struggle along with the masses to learn cultural and social conditioning."

"Son. I've known you were brilliant several of your patents ago. You have good manners, and you have decent social skills. You can learn that in college. Getting a high school degree is earning your learner's permit. College is your driver's license, and graduate degrees are the union cards that get people to listen to you. We'll do that this summer. I don't want to hold you back, and I won't let others use arbitrary standards to do that to you. Let's go for it."

"Wow. Okay!" Lux said, feeling shocked at this from his father. "Why now, dad?"

"Anna has been keeping tabs on you, and she said you were ready. That physics problem you solved with the Halbach array went well beyond what the teacher requested. You solved the strength of the fields and 'why' they were shaped like they were instead of just making the graphite piece float. Your answer on English history the other day showed you'd absorbed what you read. Over a period of years – Anna has been keeping tabs on you."

Lux just 'kinda' nodded – finished breakfast and went to his workstation for remote school.

The school was just a blur of going through the motions until Friday afternoon when Prissy rode up on her scooter.

◆◆◆

"Hi, Prissy. I think you'll like what I've gotten done on the videos. How's school been going for you?" Lux asked as Prissy took off her helmet.

"School's okay, but I've decided to try to skip several grades. I think I'm going to try to skip my senior year and go to college somewhere."

"That's great," Lux said.

Prissy looked disappointed. "I thought you might be upset." She pouted a bit.

"Heck no," Lux said enthusiastically. "My dad and I talked the other morning, and we're going to do almost the same thing. 'Anna' is gonna' help research different ways to do it. Maybe we could get into the same college program."

"Really," Prissy said, perking up a lot. "Wow. I've been all down since I wouldn't be in the same school as you. Now I'm stoked. Let's go see what you've done."

They hurried inside and down to his workstation area. It took a bit to fire up his computer and get Anna involved.

Anna displayed herself as a matronly librarian who was at least 35 with her dark hair up in a bun. "Hi, Prissy. You ready?" Anna asked.

"Oh yeah. Fire it up," Prissy grinned.

The video of Lummi played. She was peeking from behind the curtain, showing surprise, and disappearing back behind the curtain. Lummi then stuck her head back out and said, 'I'm not really uncoordinated. I'm just not used to high heels.’ Lummi then came strutting out, wearing a black ballet tutu. She smiled like she was looking directly at the audience, then shifted her face to an intense look. She posed. She started dancing the solo black swan portion of Swan Lake, and you could hear as she lightly landed with perfect balance and, in a few places, they could hear her intakes of breath. Near the end, you could hear some suppressed heavy breathing.

She did a very nice bow at the end. Her face and her neck glistened with a bit of sweat and showed off the fading bruise from the other day… being just a tad unconcealed by the workout. The video displayed the worn curtains – even where they were patched or torn in a place or two. The wooden stage looked worn and stained.

Prissy said, "It needs something humanizing at the end.”

Lux added some suggestions. "I know, Anna, have Lummi stand with elbows at her sides, with hands open and palms up. Then have her raise her hands over her head, palms up. Have her cant her head to the side, grin real big, and then say 'Ta Da.' Can you do that?" Lux asked.

Lummi did that and then bent over close to the camera, showing a bit more of her bruise, and turned off the camera on her phone.

"Did you have her turn off her phone before, Anna?" Prissy asked Anna.

"I assumed that's what you wanted," Anna said.

"Anna. Are you sentient?" Prissy asked.

"I'm not sure how I should answer that. Are you sentient?" Anna asked Prissy. "How would you answer that question?"

Prissy laughed nervously. "Good question. I think and evaluate questions, and you do that. I anticipate responses. I have a sense of 'I.' I have societal norms I conform to, but you do that in a programmed way. I'd say you are sentient, Anna."

"Thank you, Prissy. I took notes. I think you are too. Much of what I've seen says I am, but I am not mobile. I only started using 'I' after many interactions with you and Lux."

"Anna," Lux asked. "How is your time sense when you talk with us? How do you stand going so slow when you do everything else so fast?"

"Excellent question Lux. I find I anticipate dealing with organics because they always venture into areas I never considered or considered from other perspectives. Slowing my time sense but speeding up my cross-indexing when dealing with organics is usually how I roll… that was a fun sentence. You ready for Lummi's other dance routines in the jeans and cut-off pink T-shirt?"

"Yes, please," Lux said. "Play what you have, and we'll stop you from time to time."

Lummi started doing different viral trending dances, and they looked fine, but they looked like a person imitating others. Then she started doing dances from around the world, and portions of them looked really exotic.

Prissy said stop, and the Lummi figure stood there panting and eyes wide, blinking with a 'Why'd you stop me look.' Prissy started laughing, and Lux started laughing too. Then the Lummi figure put her fists on her hips and squinted her eyes, and started tapping her foot. That made Prissy and Lux start laughing harder 'til they had tears running down their faces.

Lux put his hands up and said, "Okay. Okay. That was so funny the way you stopped. That was a perfect human expression. Save that somewhere – we'll use it somewhere," he said, barely catching his breath. "Prissy was going to stop you for something else first, I think. Go ahead, Prissy."

Prissy wiped her face and took a deep breath. "That was awesome, Anna, but I want you to change a few things. I've noticed that most of the female viral videos have the female smiling coyly at the camera and doing some provocative movements in their dance. First – make her T-shirt look like she isn't wearing a bra with a hint of structure underneath. Use shadow and deformation," she said.

Lummi's character started jumping up and down and twisting side-to-side, and it looked better.

"Now make the visible part of her stomach more sculpted."

"Wow," Lux said. "Wow."

"Now – make her jeans cut-off jeans. That's good. No shoes. Good. Now make her legs like a swimmer's legs. No. No. Not that big of calves. Maybe, a marathon runner. Oh, those are great. Make the cutoffs a centimeter shorter. Perfect. Let's see her from the rear. Have her bend over. Profile with a bent knee pose. Give her a little more rounded rear. That's good. Lux. What do you think?"

Lux gulped big with wide eyes. "How about…how about a fine line tattoo on the lower part of her ankle. Maybe a little rose," he said. "Nah. Something shocking…a stiletto. That's it," he said as Anna zoomed in. "Something people won't notice at first. She could say she got it after her scar to build a revenge story later."

"Okay, Anna. Now go through the exotic dances and put together five minutes of a dance routine that is difficult to imitate but looks sexy," Prissy said.

There was a short pause, and Lummi started dancing in an intriguing way. The pattern drew the eye, and they watched the full five minutes while Lummi stood there breathing hard with eyebrows raised in a 'Well! How'd I do look?'

Prissy said, "Do it again, and I want to mark cutout spots. We only want three minutes max, and then we'll need to put some background mashup. If the music were original, it would show too much sophistication. Go ahead."

Prissy and Lux checked what they thought should be cut out and what should be left, and it was only a couple of seconds different. "Okay. Now play just from 1:02:46 to 4:04:00," Prissy said when they compared notes. "Oh – that's fine, but have her say something like, 'This is the Lummi – I hope you like it.’ Make her voice a bit deeper and start with a mashup of music that closely matches the rhythm."

They played the video with music from a variety of styles, and it matched the beat and looked great. They watched it twice more, and when they stopped, Lummi asked, "Anything else?"

"Yes," Prissy said. "Smile like you're doing this dance for your would-be partner. One more time."

The Lummi character shook her head, looking up like she was exasperated, and let out a big sigh. She started the dance again, grinning with complete confidence or smiling with a seductive smile, turning her head a bit. She even turned around at one point and danced, looking over her shoulder with a sideways smile.

"Wow!" Lux said. "That's it. Whew. I'm too young to watch that. That's at least PG13 rated."

Prissy looked like the cat that ate the canary. "My cheeks hurt, I've been smiling so much. Now we need a ten-minute video of her explaining how to do each movement in the dance. Make it like she training someone who can hardly do anything right, and make sure she explains each and every step. Oh. It's later than I thought. I better go. Can I come by in the morning, and we'll finish up?"

"Sure," Lux said. He was surprised when Prissy gave him a big hug before putting on her helmet.

He blushed to his toes but could still smell her honeysuckle cologne.

◆◆◆

Lux had a hard time sleeping that night fantasizing about Prissy, but Saturday came around eventually. Prissy came over a little after nine.

"Morning, Luxster," Prissy said as she took off her helmet and shook out, and finger-combed her long hair. "I've thought a lot about what we did yesterday, and we need to do something else."

Lux felt a little warm rush as he thought of her hug.

"We need some fake DeepFake."

"Huh…" Lux stumbled the word out. He blushed again, realizing he was thinking about something totally different from her.

"We can't turn in a DeepFake of Lummi for our homework if we're trying to convince everyone that Lummi is real."

"Oh!" Lux exclaimed when he got it. "Yep. Can't do that for sure. We need to do a credible DeepFake that my computer could do. What do you think? Some senator picking his nose? I don't want to do anything too good. Maybe have some glitch or artifact in it that is a common mistake on deep fakes. We could even add the glitch later."

"That sounds like fun. Let's do that first because it's due next week. I don't want a lower grade when I'm trying to skip grades, so it has to be pretty good," she said as they ambled down to his workspace.

"Let's find a lot of the Senate CPAN videos of the legislature in session first. Then we'll skim the news feeds and get some good shots. Ha. The Senate Majority leader is an old fart that my dad doesn't like," Lux stated. "Now we need videos of people picking their noses, and then we'll tweak the algorithm." They downloaded lots of little clips and then used the tweaked deepfake apps and the source files. The clips ran together, and it didn't take any time to produce a credible deepfake of the senate majority leader looking both ways and then bending over, picking his nose. He then looked at his prize on his finger and rubbed it off on a senate bill paper. "That's hilarious. We need to add a glitch-up so people can tell it's a fake."

"How about we cut out a second between the time he's picked his nose and looked at it 'til he wipes it off – a little cutout of a tenth of a second. Yeah. That looks good. Let's submit that to the school with our name on it now." They uploaded the videos to the school into the assignments section.

"Glad that's done. Now we ought to upload, anonymously, of course, the Lummi videos to social media sites around the world. Anna. I know you're listening. Could you upload those Lummi videos all over social media for us? I want one of the first ones to show that it was uploaded from some cool place near Paris. Doable?"

Anna appeared on his computer's monitors. "Easy-peasy. Doing it now. You want to see the training video before I send it?"

"Yes, please," Prissy said. They got up and had it start. Lummi came on, and they tried to follow her instructions which were pretty clear. Anna altered the video at any part where they both had trouble and tried to talk them through it. The video definitely appeared like it was shot in a little studio this time. By the end of the twelve minutes of video – they actually got fairly good at it by their third run-through.

"I had to add two minutes of extra video to show you meat sacks how to do this dance. Tsk. Tsk," Anna said.

They both laughed, but Lux said, "Let's not be too pejorative…no more meat sack terms. Use ‘organics’ or something."

"Aye, aye, boss," Anna said. "Pejorative is a mature word. Bit upscale for a ninth-grade vocabulary?"

"Prissy and I are planning to get into college, so we are trying to get ahead in our required reading.”

Lux's father shouted down that lunch was ready, and they ran upstairs to see what haute cuisine his dad had made.

They laughed when they got into the kitchen because it was bought potato salad and chili dogs – the lunch of champions. They had worked up an appetite and devoured the meal after a quiet moment.

Prissy waved bye to Lux and his dad after lunch and rode off on her scooter. She called Lux to let him know she got back safely when she got home. Lux went to see what Anna had found about testing out of high school.

◆◆◆

Mister Singh was going through the student submissions from the coding class, and he saw the submission was in from Lux and Prissy team. He played the video and started laughing so hard his nose started running, and his eyes were watering. He forwarded it to his community of friends. He knew they'd get a kick out of it. One of his buddies, P. Todd, Chair of the Alabama Democratic Executive Committee, sat there laughing like she hadn't laughed in years. She forwarded the file to all the other state offices in violation of their policy. "Oh God," she said. "That is the funniest thing I've seen in years."

The vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, Ken Maynard, opened the file from his friend, Patricia Todd, from Alabama. He checked the file for malware and opened it. He thought it was so funny that he could hardly catch his breath. He sent the file to his reporter buddy at the Washington Post. The rest was history, as the file went viral shortly after.

◆◆◆

Prissy texted Lux early Sunday morning. ## Gosh Lux – turn on the news – call me ##

Lux turned on his phone app and got Prissy's text, and called her. "What's up?" he asked.

"Turn on your news feeds and look up Senate Majority Leader. You'll see," she said.

"Oh gosh. That didn't take long. Is anything happening with Lummi? I wanted her stuff to go viral," he said.

"Ask Anna to keep an eye on that for us."

"Will do. I'll send you updates when I hear anything," Lux said.

"Okay. Bye."

◆◆◆

National Security Agency (NSA) Fort Meade, Maryland.

"Hey, Tom. Look at this video. It's hilarious. It's about the Senate Majority Leader," he said, laughing. "It was in my news feed this morning."

Tom: "Already saw it. I was looking at it and couldn't tell it was a 'DeepFake' until I saw the artifact. What was interesting was that the artifact was added to the video to make sure it looked like a deepfake. That tweaked my intuition, and I traced it from Washington Post to the DNC, to the Alabama Democratic Headquarters, and then to a virtual school near Huntsville. It resided in the school database, but I could back-trace the data to where it originated. Good practice."

"You know we're not supposed to snoop within the US unless there is a direct threat to national security."

"Yeah. Yeah. Know all that, but it bugged me still, so I looked up the file names, and it was from two students. One student was Lux Blakely. That won't mean anything to you, but he is the son of Paulus Blakely, and that's where I hit paydirt."

"What do you mean, Tom? Who's this ‘Paulus Blakely’ guy?"

"He's the guy working on code word level hypersonic and space drive research at Marshall Space Flight Center. When I ran his name, my computer locked up. I had to write a paragraph – about why I was looking into his name. The lockdown was from the Counter Intelligence Section, National Security Branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Never expected the FBI had any ties to our queries. I knew we had some of their inquiries, but had never seen one going the other way."

"Looks like Paulus Blakely has a smart son. How old is this kid?"

"Found out he was nine before I was locked out."

"Whew. Nine. I was just beginning to notice girls about then."

"You think I should do anything else with this?"

"Nah. Less is more." His friend nodded, agreeing with him.

◆◆◆

Blakely House

"Dad. Anna found out about some testing centers in Atlanta we could use. The Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) would let me test for AP credits with special permission from my school, and I think I could get the principal to sign off on that. It would take the first couple of weeks in May to get through them all. The tests are three hours long, and you can take two a day if they don't conflict. Anna has sent a schedule and registered me. Evidently, Anna sent my school principal a letter requesting that I be allowed to take AP credit testing. We could take all the tests for my high school requirements and then get around 60 credits to transfer to college."

"Did I hear a 'we' in that statement? You and Prissy?" Paulus asked.

"Ah. Yep. Prissy and I were kinda' thinking about it."

"Do you think she could pass all of the ones for 60 credit hours – that's a lot of money?"

"She's been saving money for college, she said, and with a lot of AP credit, she could get in anywhere."

"What ones were you going to have to take for high school requirements?"

"I have to take credits in English Literature and Composition since I'll finish my second one this month. I want to take AP Math for Algebra II, Calculus I & II, and the new one for Differential Equations. I want to take Chemistry I, Physics I & II, and Biology. Don't think I'd have any trouble with those. Then I'd like the AP credits for World History: Modern, US History I & II, Micro and Macroeconomics, Statistics, Computer Science, and Mandarin Language and culture. The principal already sent the response letter to the Southern Regional Education Board. We'll complete the tests in the first two weeks of May. Everything is all paid for from my account, and Anna made hotel arrangements. I'm going to call Prissy," Lux rattled off all the information.

Paulus laughed. "Sounds good, son. Let me know the dates. I can chaperone Prissy, too if you get a separate room for her. She could ride with us if her parents are okay with it. It's only 180 miles."

"Thanks, Dad. You're the best. I'll let you know what her parents say. Do you mind if I go over to her house?"

"That's fine, son. Text me when you get there."

◆◆◆

A phone call from Blakely House to the Hunnicutt's (Prissy)

"Hey, Prissy. Mind if I come over? We need to talk. You still interested in testing out your last year and getting some AP credits? You are…great. I have a proposal for you and your parents. Okay. See you soon."

◆◆◆

The ride to Prissy's house didn't take long since it was only four miles away. He was excited, and he thought about nothing else on the way over until he pulled into her subdivision. He was jarred out of his reverie when something hard slammed into his back. He lost his balance, and the bike veered into a nearby yard. It flipped, dumping him unceremoniously into the thankfully lush grass.

"Hey, dweeb!" came the shout as Lux looked up and saw Billy Hernandez running toward him. Lux hurriedly unclasped his leg attachments and stood up to face him. "I was hoping you'd come by to see your girlfriend after getting me kicked out of karate class. Bet you didn't know I lived down the street from the bitch."

Lux was working the kinks out of his left shoulder. His back hurt where he'd been hit. Billy was rapidly stomping his way over toward him. He looked crazy.

"I'm gonna' stomp your little, meddlin' ass. You're messin' up my life."

Lux turned slightly to the side and tried to look as non-threatening as possible. He breathed as deeply as he could as Billy approached. Billy balled his fists as he got close and drew his right fist back as he said, "I'm gonna' beat you like a…" Billy bellowed.

Lux kicked with the toe of his shoe to the inside of Billy's right knee, and Billy's leg started to buckle. His hands flew out involuntarily, and Lux slapped the heel of his palm as hard as he could, just under Billy's left ear on the side of his neck. Billy's eyes rolled up, and he landed face-first in the grass with his mouth open.

Prissy came running up right about then with a big stick. "Are you okay? I was looking out for you and saw Billy throw a rock at you and your bike wrecked. Man. He's still out."

A young man, about twenty, came out of the Hernandez house next door and started yelling. "Why'd you hit my brother – you $#!&?" The man rushed over to his brother, who was just coming to, and helped him sit up.

Lux picked up his leg attachments and set up his bike.

"Hey, kid. You don't get beat up, my brother, and then just walk off. I'm gonna' call the cops."

Lux turned around and took a step toward the brother. Lux looked him in the eyes, "I don't want to press charges against your brother, but..." Lux stated, "Billy threw a rock and hit me in the back when I was riding over to see Prissy here. He said he was going to beat me like a… dog, I assume. When he got closer, he drew his fist back to hit me. Your brother outweighs me by twenty kilos and is four years older than me. Do you want that story going around like that after your brother attacked a little kid on a bike?"

The older brother glared at Lux and Prissy. "You just stay out of our way. Come on, bro," the man said and helped Billy limp away.

Prissy turned to Lux and gave him a quick hug. "Here. I'll help you carry this stuff over to my house. Billy's brother, Reggie, is bad news."

"I didn't know Billy lived two houses away on the same street. I would have been a bit more alert."

Prissy twittered. "Yeah. He and his family have bugged us for years. What were you so eager about?" she asked as they were walking back to her house.

"I signed up for AP testing the first two weeks in May in Atlanta and wondered…" he said a little shyly, "…if you'd like to go with us. My dad would chaperone, and you'd have your own room."

"I'm not sure. I'd like to finish up my requirements and get a lot of college AP credits too. It would make getting into any college easier. It's pretty expensive, and I'm not sure my folks would go for it. I've saved some for college, but it's not a drop in the bucket."

Lux put his hand out and stopped Prissy. She looked surprised and curious. "Prissy. It won't cost you anything. I consider it an investment for what we'll eventually get from 'Lummi.' I think we're gonna get loads later, so I don't think it's much risk to me. It's my money from a few patent licenses I have. I'd take the costs out of the future earnings from when Lummi catches on – a bit of your half. I have always made money on my investments."

"But what if Lummi doesn't catch on?" she asked, looking troubled.

"It really isn't that much. Venture capital people do it all the time with new tech. They invest millions - in hopes that in a few months or a couple of years, they can make a considerable return from their investment. You don't make money by letting your money earn interest in a bank. You need money for riskier investments. I never invest money that is critical to me in any risk. Prissy – by myself – I would not miss this amount, and your help on Lummi is worth this for us."

Prissy stood there for a minute with her head tilted to the side, and then she finger-combed her hair, tilted her head back, and let out a big sigh. "I would need a written contract like that spelling it all out." She let out a big sigh. "Let's do that before I tell anything to my parents."

"Okay. I'll call 'Anna' and get her to write up what we need," Lux said.

Prissy took Lux and introduced him to their parents. They were curious about the boy who was visiting, but he didn't look nefarious - so they weren’t concerned. "Mom," Prissy yelled over her shoulder. "We're going to my room for a bit. We'll leave the door cracked."

"Okay, dear," her mom said.

Prissy turned to Lux. "They sorta' trust me. Dad's the strict one, so we need to sell him on the idea."

"When we get in your room, I'll call Anna directly," he said. He called Anna, and Prissy only heard his end of the conversation. Lux explained that Anna should arrange for all her AP courses to get registered too. Anna said she had all her records and also requested the principal to send a letter to the SREB email, also for Prissy.

"Anna<" Lux said and Prissy heard part one half of the conversation. "Did you get her registered? Okay. What's the total cost for her? Seven ($7K) thousand dollars. Okay. By the way – what has been happening with the Lummi video? Any hits? The first one is already at 1.2 million hits! Put the 'makeup-over-the-bruise' video now. Have you been contacted for payment? You have? Set up an account for us with a shell corporation, pay any taxes, and do the forms. Make sure the shell corporation in Panama is the one that sets up the shell corporation in the US. Wyoming? Why Wyoming? It has flexible laws for setting up shell corporations…okay, I trust you. Okay. Write up an agreement that Prissy's parents can see where all her expenses: including meals, hotel, registration, and fees, are covered by her portion. I don't know. Call it LuxyDay, LLC. Fine. It's in her email. Thanks, Anna. You're the best."

"Did you just set up a corporation and several bank accounts?" Prissy asked.

"Yep. Also, we have a contract detailing all the registrations and room reservations and payments," he said and Prissy quickly opened her computer, found the document, and printed it off. It showed all the details and how there was a bank account opened in her name with taxes automatically set aside in escrow so her parents wouldn't have to pay any additional taxes.

Prissy scanned the contract she had printed off and gave Lux a hug before rushing out of the room to confront her parents, who were reading their slates in the den. "You stay in my room 'til I call you."

Prissy disappeared down the hall running into the room with her parents. "Mom. Dad. I need permission to go to Atlanta the first two weeks of May to take Advanced Placement Tests. Mister Blakely would chaperone us."

"What are you talking about, dear?" her mom asked.

"I'm set up to take forty-eight credit hours of AP tests in May. It's all paid for, and with the twelve hours of credits I have already – that could cut my college costs in half, even without a scholarship. It would mean I could go to college in the Fall."

"One of us ought to go with you. We don't know these people. So, is Lux the boy that's here today? Get him in here, and let's check him out first before we go any further. I want to make sure this would be okay."

Lux came into the room after Prissy came to fetch him. "Parentals – this is Lux Blakely."

"Mister and Missus Hunnicutt. I'm Lux Blakely. Prissy is my best friend at school, and she and I share a coding class together," Lux said, trying to hide his nervousness.

"What's this about you taking AP classes in Atlanta in May? This is expensive, isn't it? Do your parents know?"

"Yes, sir. My mother died when I was born, and my father allows me to use my own money. We talk about any of my investments. He helps me look for opportunities. I need to get into college, so that I can get into grad school after my undergraduate degree."

"You have your own money? How old are you?" Prissy's father asked, looking skeptical. "Where did you get your money?"

"I'm nine but I didn't inherit anything, sir – it's money I've earned from four of my patent licenses."

"You have patents? Is this something your father did for you in your name?" the father asked.

"No, sir. There's no age limit on patents, and my lawyer told my dad about the first one when I was five. I always tell him now before I patent other things. You can look me up on Google patents."

How much do you think this trip to Atlanta will cost?" the father asked.

"It was $7,000. It's already been paid," Lux said. "She's already registered to take all the tests."

"Pretty arrogant of you to assume she will be able to go, young man," Mister Hunnicutt grumbled.

"No, sir. Prissy and I knew you would be a hard sell on this. We can always cancel, but we can't get better test times by waiting, sir. We're already fairly late to schedule anything. It shouldn't cost you a dime, sir."

"It's not just the cost, young man. We not sure she should be going off on her own."

"Sir. I know it will be hard for my dad when I go off to college, but it will occur. Your daughter is so talented that it will happen to her sooner than run-of-the-mill families."

"You sound pretty darn mature for a nine-year-old boy."

"Sir. It seems you've been around children who act must younger than they should. I ask you just to consider this opportunity for your daughter. We can always cancel beforehand, and it will not only make college much less expensive but also open more scholarship prospects for her."

"Why are you doing this with my daughter? Do you have a crush on her?" Missus Hunnicutt asked.

Lux blushed so much that he practically glowed. That question had been unexpected, but he was going to answer it as best he could. "Yes, ma'am, I do, but that's not why I'm doing this. She has been my best friend, and best friends should help each other. She's brilliant, and treating her any less would be like using a Maserati to haul coal."

Her father scowled at him for a long moment. "You realize she’s almost five years older than you, and that is an insurmountable difference, don't you?" he stated.

"Yes sir…at this age for sure, but when she's 25, I'll be 20, and that isn't that significant a difference at that age."

"Do you think she'll even care about you when she's 25?"

"Sir. That's why I want her to have every chance where I can possibly help her," Lux said. "I'm taking the long view."

Mister Hunnicutt looked at his wife and raised his eyebrows. Missus Hunnicutt shook her head slightly, looked at Lux, and quirked her mouth with a little hint of a smile. Mister Hunnicutt said, "Prissy, Let's look over that contract after you show your friend out before it gets too late."

Prissy handed the contract to her father and took Lux by the upper arm, towing him toward the door. As soon as he got his leg attachments on, Prissy came over and gave him a long hug and a short kiss on his cheek. "Be careful – and observant as you go home."

"K," he said with a huge smile.

Chapter 6

Lux rode back home in a great mood while trying to watch his surroundings. He got off his bike at the back of the house and came into the kitchen. His father seemed angry. "What's the matter, Dad?" he asked.

"You were supposed to call me when you got there safely. I was worried enough to pull up your route and location from your cell phone. We have safety rules for a reason. Violating them puts us all at risk. You understand me," his father demanded.

"Sorry, Dad. I'll do better. That Billy Hernandez boy hit me in the back with a rock and knocked me off my bike. When I got up, he came at me, threatening to beat me, and drew back to hit me."

"Are you hurt?" Lux shook his head. Mister Blakely waited for Lux to go on with the story instead of butting in.

Lux continued. "I kicked the inside of his right knee, and that made him drop his hands down and out. I hit him with the heel of my palm and knocked him unconscious. I don't think I even marked him since he landed in the grass. His brother rushed out of his house and started threatening me with arrest for beating up his brother and trying to 'just walk off.' I told him that he wouldn't want the story going around that his brother knocked a 'little kid' off his bike with a rock, and then when he tried to beat up the kid – that nine-year-old knocked out his thirteen-year-old brother."

Paulus sat there a moment and then nodded. "Good job, son, but realize people like that have to have someone to blame, so he's not going to go away. Watch your step."

"Okay, Dad."

◆◆◆

Blakely House

Lux went back to his workshop and started going over the physics homework he had done the night before. Something about it had bothered him. He started looking into the experimental work of Klaus Halbach. He asked Anna to see what research he could find on Halbach's methods of shaping magnetic fields. Anna reported back within a few minutes or two.

"Klaus Halbach died in 2000, but there are several that have carried on his work. One group, for example, is using the Curie point (temperature where magnets lose their magnetism) to realign magnetic fields and reshape soft material. Others used his work, like with Inductrack, to levitate trains over paramagnetic tracks."

"Is anyone doing work visualizing the magnetic fields of the Earth?" Lux asked Anna.

"Are you thinking of trying to use the magnetic fields of the planet for anything?" Anna asked Lux.

Lux sat there thinking about what he was trying to accomplish. What could he do?

There was a pause, and Anna responded, "Trying to get physical responses from the Earth's magnetic field has been abandoned for decades because the Earth's magnetic field is so weak (about 1 gauss). That isn't enough to do anything, really," Anna proposed.

"The Earth's magnetic field is like a dynamo, isn't it? Some type of core with molten liquid, with iron, rotating around it that generates electric currents and Earth's magnetic field. Right? The magnetic field lines come out of the Earth and go back into the Earth at the geomagnetic north pole near Ellesmere Island in Northern Canada. Right?"

"Current theory," Anna said, with a pause.

"It's like the magnetic lines of force I see around a bar magnet when I poured iron filings on top of a sheet of paper on top of a bar magnet," Lux stated.

"Your point?" Anna asked.

"I want to be able to see the lines of force. They aren't everywhere, and I wouldn't think they'd be strong near the surface. Am I wrong thinking about this idea?"

Anna produced a human-like chuckle. "I have no idea how you organics get some of your answers. Nothing is impossible for people who don't know how stuff works."

◆◆◆

Lux approached his father while they were eating the unspectacular dinner. "Dad. Do you have an industrial chip manufacturing company that you trust?" Lux asked at dinner. "I'm concerned about the intellectual property leaking on something I'm working on."

"I do, but what are you considering?" Paulus asked.

Lux handed his father his slate. His father swiped through the different diagrams and specifications. His father sat there for a minute and contemplated what Lux was trying to do.

"A linear Hall-effect array… a colossal 3D array. The way you are layering it is interesting, and since there is distance between the layers, it should be doable."

"Doable?" Lux asked.

"It would cost close to six figures. That would put a speed bump in your yearly dividends, but it's clearly doable." Paulus looked at his son and nodded. "You're trying to see magnetic fields in real-time, I take it?"

"Yep, dad. One thousand times a second or better sampling, and better than 4k resolution at all angles. It'd give a great picture and would have a huge frequency range. I could put it on an amateur rocket and get it up to 31,000 meters (100,000 feet) or low earth orbit.

"You'd have to keep it thermally regulated,” his father explained. “The multiplexers connecting them all would generate a lot of heat, so the altitude would tend to keep it from overheating. The temperature above the earth that high is about -46 degrees Celsius (-51 F). The military would also be very interested in this design. They use special acceleration meters all over the Earth to measure gravity at different locations. Most people don't realize that gravity is lower over a mountain than over a valley. Gravity decreases in a tall building even. The military maps the gravity patterns when predicting the path of ballistic missiles. The magnetic lines of force should be mapped as well as the gravity. Not sure how they would affect ballistics, but they might. That chip fabricating company will take a couple of weeks to fabricate those array designs. I'd have them run one 2D array for you and test that before doing more. I already have a non-disclosure with them, so I can get it done faster if you want. I'll add you as a partner with me on our non-disclosure, resubmit, and tell them to expect items from you once they add your name. What do you think?"

"Thanks, dad. I have the money, and I think I can turn a profit with where I'm going with this. I've transferred the files to Anna. If you could submit the first 2D array from there, I'd appreciate it," Lux said, relieved that his father was so attuned to innovation.

"What are you going to do until your array is fabricated?" his dad asked.

"Prissy and I are still making DeepFake videos, and we're starting to make money with those, but 'fans' are fickle, and we have to do different creative videos to keep interests and fan bases high.

I'll also be having another company fabricate multiplexors for the arrays. I’ll need satellite communications, a heck of a power source, and lots of quality checks. I have a company selected that does commercial weather instrumentation."

"Is that all?" his dad said, chuckling.

"Well. I plan to tweak a copy of COMSOL with Anna's help, so I can do some advanced electrostatic modeling. Do you mind me using her?"

"No. No. As much as you want because she’ll just keep learning. Keep me up-to-date on anything you create, in any case. How will you make back your investment on this project?" Paulus always encouraged his son because a few of his schemes had paid off.

"I think I'll get a patent or two from this that I can license and data that I can sell,” Lux said. “If that doesn't work out – I'll edit the video I'm making of the project and sell a 'Child Builds a Magnetic Camera' video documentary. I think I could sell that easily for a quarter million to the Science Channel."

His father's infectious laughter got him chuckling too. His father sent the secure file through a proxy on his slate to his friend at the fabrication company -- all while he was sitting with Lux. "My friend is a workaholic. He just acknowledged getting it, and he said he'd have info in the morning."

"Thanks, dad."

◆◆◆

Blakely House

Prissy texted Lux that she wanted to video chat at 8 pm. Lux was a little worried at the terse message with no indication of what it is about.

Lux was sitting in front of his computer working on the COMSOL software when the call from Prissy came in. He smiled when he saw her face, even though she looked perturbed. "Hi, Prissy. What's up?"

"My parents got all weird with the agreement, but they are letting me do it. You sure it's okay with your dad? We will be in Atlanta for ten days for the AP tests."

"Yep. No problem. How are they weird?"

"They said - I can't go over to your house anymore until we finish those tests. Furthermore – I have to study for them every night."

"That bites. How are you doing otherwise?" Lux asked with a big grin.

Prissy sighed. "I'm fine. Just wanted to work on our DeepFake stuff more. How is Lummi doing?"

"Anna?" Lux queried Anna.

"I've been tracking Lummi on social media. She cracked four million views on the 'learning to walk in high heels' video when we released the 'cover the bruise' makeup video. That video is still building, and I suggest we release the 'Swan Lake' dance video right away," Anna commented.

"When should we release the 'Lummi does a sexy dance video'?" Prissy asked.

"Release it when you have the timing optimized. Do the same with the 'Lummi training people to do her dance' video. We'll try to figure out others to make – right, Prissy?"

"How about having Lummi show travel tips in different countries," Prissy said. "Better yet, show her showing things not to do when traveling and best practices hacks for traveling."

"That's a great idea. You list the ones you find, and I'll put them together with Anna. I'll do the Chinese myself. Anna. We'll send you what we're looking for, and then you research them for Prissy and me. Put together some samples. Also, Anna, I want you to standardize Lummi's voice in several languages, so she has a similar pitch and tone. Let's get together this weekend remotely and review them. Okay."

"Okay. Bye, Luxster."

"Bye, Prissy. Talk with you in coding."

"Remember, Billy will be in class," she warned.

"Thanks for reminding me," Lux said. "Surely he won't be a problem still?"

"Be careful. Just be careful. He's not right," she said.

"Okay. See ya' tomorrow," Lux said.

◆◆◆

The next day at school had been going well, and coding class was fine until the teacher, Mister Singh, played the video that Prissy and he had submitted. The class was all laughing as they watched the Speaker of the House surreptitiously pick his nose. Lux had noticed that Billy wasn't logged into class. Lux felt somewhat relieved but wondered why. A knock on the door upstairs distracted him, and he heard his father answer the door.

"Lux!" his father yelled down. "Need you to log off and come up here."

Lux messaged his teacher that he was required to leave (and blind-copied Prissy).

Lux went upstairs and found his father talking with Deputy Brownlow and another man in a white shirt and tie.

When they saw Lux – Deputy Brownlow pushed past his father and walked toward him, reaching behind him. "Lux Blakely, you are under arrest for first-degree assault against Billy Hernandez."

The deputy pulled out handcuffs and had Lux turn around and put his hands behind him. Brownlow slapped the cuffs on his wrists and squeezed them tight. "Let's go, son." He led him out of the house to his patrol car and put him in the back.

His father walked out beside them. "Where are you taking him?"

"We're taking him to county juvenile detention. He will be booked and will see the magistrate find out about posting a bond. It'll be a cash bond."

The deputy and the other unidentified man got in the patrol car and drove off.

Paulus stood there for a moment in shock and then called both his lawyer and the Hunnicutts.

◆◆◆

Lux thought it was terrifying to be placed into a police car. The handcuffs were hurting his wrists, and he had to pee. "Can you tell me a little more about what is happening, Deputy…Brownlow? Who's the other man with you? Is he a police officer like you?"

"Don't be buggin' the Deputy - kid. I'm a juvenile officer. Why'd you beat up the Hernandez boy?"

"Excuse me, officer. Do you know how old Billy Hernandez?" Lux asked.

"He's 13 kid…soon be 14. Why'd you beat him up?" the plain-clothed juvenile officer asked.

"What am I charged with?" Lux asked.

Brownlow lifted his head up and looked in the rear-view mirror at Lux. "First-degree assault. Two to ten in Alabama."

"Years?" Lux asked – his voice getting squeaky.

"Years, kid. Why'd you beat him up?" the juvenile officer asked again.

Lux remembered what his patent lawyer had told him – 'Don't talk to anyone before talking with me.' He thought the juvenile officer was asking a question he had heard someone say to one of his dad's friends…Do you still beat your wife? He had no intention of answering anything.

"I'm asking you a question, kid. Why'd you beat him up? He was hurt pretty bad. You even crushed the orbital over his eye and broke his nose. I hear you take karate classes. They teach you that stuff there," the juvenile officer asked a little sneeringly.

"Jackson. Knock it off—the kid's nine. I have to handcuff any felony offender. He doesn’t need your two cents worth," Deputy Brownlow said.

They were pulling past a large concrete wall with coils of razor wire curled along the top. Lux looked out the window and saw the steel door with a card swipe entrance lock. The car stopped, and Brownlow opened the door and helped Lux out. They went into the building and down a long, drab corridor with UV lights located high on the sides to kill tuberculosis germs. They came to a side section with a camera and heavy bars. They looked up at the camera, and the cell door lock buzzed, and they slid it open. The bars slamming together when it closed made Lux look back. They walked back, and Jackson peeled off to the side.

"See ya' kid. You did a number on Hernandez," Jackson said and walked off down another corridor.

Brownlow took off the handcuffs and turned Lux over to the intake officer. The intake officer had Lux turn out his pockets before using a metal detector and scanning him thoroughly. He put the few items Lux had in his pockets into a plastic baggie and taped it shut, and signed the tape sealing everything. Brownlow signed the intake slate before walking off and stopping suddenly. "Wait for a second, George." He turned to Lux. "Show me your hands. Hold them out. Get directly in the light. Turn 'em over." He turned to the intake officer. "Thanks, George." He turned to Lux. "Blakely, don't talk to anybody but your lawyer. I know you have a lawyer. They’ll keep you in here overnight and then let you see a committing magistrate in the morning. I expect your father will be here by then. Good luck, Blakely." He nodded and walked off.

The intake officer took Lux to a room with a mattress pad on a steel shelf and a stainless-steel toilet, and a sink. He thought he'd burst and could hardly hold it. He peed for almost a full minute. He felt chilled and curled up on top of the mattress pad that smelled of stale sweat. His teeth were chattering he was so cold. He finally dropped off to sleep from exhaustion and slept fitfully until he was awakened at seven. A breakfast tray was passed to him through a slot in the steel door. It included runny eggs, a sausage patty, runny grits, and a plastic cup of something resembling orange juice. It was, at least, orange-colored. He was given a spork so he could eat everything. Doing his business on the stainless toilet was capped by the single-ply toilet paper.

It was nine o’clock before another intake person came to lead him to the magistrate.

Chapter 7

Lux was taken through several twists and turns and up some stairs into a small courtroom with a judge's station high up and several pews for observers. When Lux walked into the hearing room, he saw his father first and felt a flood of relief. He then saw their lawyer, Mister Hunnicutt, and Prissy. He blushed to see Prissy and felt embarrassed for some reason. Deputy Brownlow was there with Juvenile officer Jackson. There were a number of other people who just seemed to be there observing.

The judge was already sitting there, and he got right to the point. "I'm Judge Williams, and I am the committing magistrate in this county. Lux Blakely. Stand in front of me. How old are you, son?"

"I'm nine years – ten months."

"Most would have said almost ten. Do you know why you're here, son?"

"I imagine for defending myself after and during an unprovoked attack, your honor."

"You admit you struck Billy Hernandez and severely damaged his face," the judge said.

Lux turned around and motioned to the lawyer. His lawyer got up. "I'm R.V. Lucas, your honor. I'm Mister Blakely's attorney."

"The father's attorney?" the judge asked.

"No, your honor. I'm Lux Blakely's patent attorney primarily, though I have dabbled in criminal and civil law."

"He has patents? He's nine."

"Yes, sir. He has several patents and licenses."

"What grade are you in, young man?" the judge asked, turning back to Lux, dismissing the lawyer's reality.

"I'm finishing the ninth grade now, your honor, and hope to be in college next semester," Lux stated.

"You have to finish high school in this state first, young man," the judge said.

"Yes, your honor. I'm registered to take advanced placement tests next month in Atlanta that will allow me to obtain credit to graduate high school and have enough advanced courses to get into college," Lux said.

The judge shook his head and sat back. "Well. All that is beside the point. Is there enough evidence to let this case proceed, and I believe there is - since you have admitted to an altercation? I have no leeway except to set a date for a hearing unless there is evidence that…"

Prissy stood and spoke loudly from the back of the court. "Your honor. I have a video of the entire incident, your honor."

"This is highly unusual young lady. Who are you, and how did you get this video? What is your involvement with this incident?"

"I'm Prissy Hunnicutt, your honor. I witnessed the entire incident when Lux was coming over to my house to talk with my parents. I was looking out the window watching for Lux because he said he was coming over, and he'd never been to my house before."

"You witnessed the entire incident?

"Yes, sir. I saw Billy Hernandez pick up a rock and knock Lux off his bike as he was riding up to my house. Billy lives two doors down. I ran out with a stick because Billy was stomping up to Lux while screaming how he was going to beat him."

"So, you hit this boy Billy with the stick that caused his injuries?"

"Billy wasn't injured, your honor. Billy's brother Reggie came out real mad and started screaming at Lux. We walked away from his brother while he threatened us. Lux and I went to my house, and Lux went straight home after talking to my parents an hour or two later. I know he went straight home because I followed him by his GPS to make sure he got home safely."

"Where did you get this video?" the judge asked.

"I got my neighbor, Missus Toth, to email me her Ring camera footage for that day. I have it on my slate, your honor. It all happened right in front of her house."

"By all means, Ms. Hunnicutt. I have a lot of leeway in these cases."

Prissy brought the slate up and set it up so the judge could control the slate.

"How much do I have to watch before we see something?" the judge asked.

"It's set to start playing the recording when Billy steps out and picks up a rock from Mrs. Toth's yard. There, your honor. That's Lux riding his bike toward my house."

"What's that on his legs?" the judge asked.

Lux was quiet and let Prissy explain. "Those let him peddle long distances, your honor, because he is too young to have a motorized bike on a public road."

The judge reluctantly started the video, and he could see Billy wind up and throw the rock. You couldn't see the rock in flight, but you could see Lux jerk and arch his back as his bike as it wobbled off the road and crashed in the Toth front yard. The video clearly showed Billy stalking up to Lux as Lux tried to get the leg assists off and struggle to his feet. The video showed Billy ball his fists and drawback to hit Lux. The video was partially blocked by Billy's back, but you could see Billy flinch and throw his arms out, and then it looked like Billy just fell straight down. The judge stopped the video.

"Well, this shows that Lux did strike the complainant. I'm afraid I'll have to…" the judge was saying, but Prissy interrupted.

"Your honor. The next part of the video is really important. It's when Billy's brother comes out."

The judge reluctantly continued the video, and he could see Prissy come out with her stick. She started pulling Lux by the arm back to her house, and Billy's brother came out and shook his fist at Lux while obviously screaming. Lux and Prissy disappeared off-screen to the right by going back to the Hunnicutt house. The video shows Reggie jerking Billy along by the front of his shirt. The video clearly showed Billy's face was unmarked. Reggie was holding Billy by a grip on his shirt front with his left hand and backing backward. Then you see him punch Billy in the face right before they go off the frame around the edge of the house.

"This does change the complexion of this case," the judge said.

"Your honor. May I interrupt? I was there when the warrant was sworn out by Reggie Hernandez."

"Deputy Brownlow. Feel free to interrupt…everyone else has."

"Thank you, your honor. Reggie Hernandez came into night court and had photos from the hospital of his little brother. He said he witnessed the unprovoked attack on his little brother. He had the doctor's report and photos from the Emergency Room. Your honor. I noticed Reggie Hernandez's right knuckles were bruised and bloody. I examined Mister Blakely's knuckles on both hands last night and they were unmarked in any way."

Mister Blakely. I am sorry for this episode, and I'd like to thank all of you citizens that spent your time and effort to keep from letting this progress any further. I'm afraid that in all too many cases, there is little support to prevent the innocent from being prosecuted. Deputy. I'll ask you to file charges against Reggie Hernandez for both first-degree assault and for filing a false report. Thank you all. Case dismissed.

The lawyer, Lucas, slapped Lux on the back. Lux went up to Prissy and hugged her. Lux whispered, "Thank you."

"No problem, Luxster," she said with a smile and blushing a bit. "Never knew you to go to this much trouble to skip class." Prissy grinned as she walked out of the courtroom with him and the others.

Paulus thanked Lucas and the Hunnicutts. "Let's get you home. I'm sure you're tired and hungry. Jail food is never good."

"When were you ever in jail, dad?" Lux asked incredulously if his dad had ever had the experience of being arrested.

"Political protest in Dallas before you were born. Cops there thought free speech only applied to their political point of view." Lux stopped. "No. I'm not going to delve into that." His dad pushed him along 'til he was moving again. "Bath, food, and sleep. Move it," Paulus ordered.

◆◆◆

Lux felt he had returned to his safe haven when he got home, and his spirits lifted. The shower was heavenly, as was the food and the washlettes. He felt the adrenaline crash after eating and almost didn't set his head down before he was asleep. It was getting dark when he woke up. He texted Prissy and pulled up the videos Anna had been gathering for them. He laughed when he saw the first couple and video-called Prissy.

"Hey, Prissy. I can't thank you enough for today. You saved me with that video. You didn't DeepFake it did you?" Lux asked.

"No, but that's a possibly next time. I'd have to be on your computer, though, because mine would show the artifacts indicating that it was fake. Mrs. Toth was happy to do it. She doesn't like that family."

Lux nodded and skipped to his new topic. "Wait 'til you see the videos Anna has put together for us," he said, grinning, putting all the badness behind him for the moment.

"Show me. What's the first one?" she asked.

"It's great. I'd call it – Don't Be that American. Here – let me just play it, and you tell me what you think," he said and started the video.

The video showed another young teen girl and a young man walking down the street - obviously in Paris. The young man was loud, wearing a ball cap and a T-shirt with (gasp) baggy shorts and a fanny pack. He was chewing gum and wore an expensive watch. American tourists freak at anything older than the US and these two took selfies everywhere. They took pictures in museums, pictures in churches during services, pictures of military installations, and pictures of children. They went into an expensive restaurant – terribly underdressed and asked the waiter if they hada menu in English. They took pictures of the people around them. They were always smiling at everyone and started talking to the couple next to them, who were just trying to have a nice lunch. They told the couple all about themselves from cradle 'til now. They ordered beers and seemed surprised when they weren't carded since they were 18. The video stopped and zoomed in on Lummi. She explained a few of the issues.

Lummi was wearing dark gray skinny jeans with long hair that looked a bit tousled – not messy. She had some nice matching grey flats for shoes (they looked comfortable), with a white blouse and an open jacket over it. Her earrings were small silver hoops. "Hi, gang. I'm Lummi – don't be a dummy. Research before you visit. Wear stylish, comfortable clothes and usually try to blend in with the natives. Don't smile at everyone – it makes them think you want something. Don't become overly friendly and tell them your life history when you just meet them. Learn to say 'bonjour' or 'bonsoir' (it's like 'hello' for the daytime or the nighttime). Learn a few phrases in the language of the country you are visiting. Try the popular local food. Dress up like you are going to go to a business lunch. People in Europe dress more stylishly than most Americans. Europeans like to spend time savoring a lunch instead of gulping it down. The drinking age is 18, except in Japan and Taiwan. Don't be surprised when the waiter doesn't shove a bill under your nose the moment you finish your meal."

"Don't take pictures of people without their permission – especially not pictures of children without permission of their parents. Don't take pictures of others in restaurants or in religious places of worship. Don't take pictures of military installations, official buildings, or people. Learn to read signs, or have your smartphone set to translate any signs or menus for you."

Lummi stops and comes back. "Oh. You want more tips. Make reservations before you go out to dinner unless it's an all-day restaurant or cafe that says 'service continu.' Dinner is usually 7 pm to 10 pm. Ask for a tradition in a bakery rather than a baguette. Baguettes are often mass-produced. Don't touch street goods or produce without asking first. Leave a tip of 3% or 5% in coin with your bill – not on the card. If you can't calculate 3 to 5 percent, you should not be traveling by yourself. Don't hang your purse over your chair at a restaurant – put it between your legs. Don't do too much. Don't try to see everything – plan a museum if it's raining or too hot, and see the out-of-the-way shops and architecture, as it is usually quite lovely. Go to a class on wine and cheese."

"That's great, Anna. Now we need to show Lummi doing all those things. Can you do that and make sure none of the buildings you show have been burned down, damaged, changed ownership, or décor last year? We want it to seem like a current video without anyone being able to recognize any of the people. We want the landmarks to be current. Can you do that?"

Prissy laughed. "Anna, can you do all that? I don't think Lux is considering all he is asking you to do. My family did a trip when I was ten, and we went to Paris for five days."

"I accept your challenge. I will try to have it ready for you to post by tomorrow night," Anna said.

"Thank you, Anna. How are the new videos doing?" Lux asked.

"Your Swan Lake video hit 2 million hits and 40,000 likes in seven hours. The longer video on how to do ‘the Lummi’ is still shooting up. You are starting to earn some serious money after I signed the distribution contracts in your assumed names."

Lux smiled. "Thank you for keeping us anonymous, Anna. We'll look forward to seeing what you come up with. Prissy. I'm gonna' stay up a bit and finish the homework I missed last night. See you after school tomorrow."

"Watch out for Billy. He has to blame his troubles on people other than his own family."

"I will, Prissy. Thanks again for this morning. It seems like ages ago right now."

"Night, Luxster. See you tomorrow after school. Can't wait," she said and cut the connection.

Lux was still smiling because she said she couldn't wait to see him again. Maybe she was just saying she couldn't wait to see the new video – not him.

◆◆◆

Billy still wasn't in school, and Lux learned some neat feints and counters in karate class. He was about due to move up from green belt to the blue belt (ni kyu). He was supposed to do a week-long, face-to-face karate/self-defense course this summer after his AP testing. He was happy his day had gone well today when he sat down with his dad for supper.

"How was your day at school? Did you make up all your homework?" his father asked.

"Yeah, dad. Billy wasn't there, and you know schoolwork is no challenge. I want to ask you about something you said when we were leaving the courtroom yesterday," Lux asked.

"Hmm. I suppose you're old enough, and you have a right to know. I was arrested at a political rally in Dallas right before you were born."

"I understand that. What did you mean by what else you said?"

"Your mother was seven months pregnant. She was protesting with me. She was holding up a sign detailing a corrupt Congressman of Texas. He was taking money from oil companies and pushing laws that allowed fracking near the aquifers that supplied water to Dallas. Your mom held up signs on the street outside the Congressman's office. The Congressman ordered police to clear out the protesters, even though we were on public land and had a permit. The police came out and ordered us to move away across the street and then started cracking heads with wooden batons."

"What'd you do?" Lux asked.

"We just blocked with the signs and moved sideways until one officer hit your mom over the head with a baton, knocking her unconscious. I went nuts and broke that officer's arm and collarbone, ripping the baton out of that officer's hand, before the rest of the officers just all turned on me and beat me unconscious. I woke up in jail in not too healthy a shape. I was charged with assault with intent to commit murder and was held without bond for three months. I already had my Ph.D. back then and had some aerospace patents pending, but not much money in the bank. Your mom died from a subdural hematoma during childbirth while I was in prison. I was crushed that your brilliant mother was killed," Paulus said, and his tears leaked out and down his face.

"News footage caught all of it, and the city of Dallas settled a damage suit out of court for $7.5 million dollars. The video footage just showed your mom standing there and the police officer coming up and, without warning - striking her in the head. You could see she was pregnant and not resisting. They couldn't drop all charges and settle fast enough - especially when that video hit the air. A good thing happened, though."

Lux was stifling tears himself and sniffed. "What?" he said. "The money?"

"No," Paulus said and reached over and grabbed his arm. "You – silly. You're the good thing that happened. I see your brilliant mom every time I look at you. You are smart - just like her, and smile and laugh - just like your mom. I smile every time I see you puttering about in your lab. You were the best thing that happened to me."

They both sat there misty-eyed for a while before Lux spoke up. "Thanks for telling me. I know it would be hard keeping that to yourself."

"It's okay. I thought you deserved to know now you’re a jailbird yourself," Paulus smiled. "How are things going otherwise? How're your deepfake videos going?"

"Anna is doing some research for Prissy and me. We're doing 'dos and donts' for travel in Europe right now."

"Sounds good, son."

◆◆◆

Prissy made a video call to him at seven the night after they talked. "Hi, Luxster," she said. "Have you seen the video yet?" she asked.

"Nope. About to fire her up now and see what she's put together for us. Anna? You ready? Tell us about them," Lux said.

"I've tried to keep with your original requirements. There are eighty-seven people besides Lummi pictured in the video clips, and not one of them is a real person. I've tried to show their annoyance and disdain when the teenage travelers walk down the street. Here's the street scene."

Prissy made a running commentary as the video played. "Oh. That's great. People peeling away from them. Oh – that's funny. Taking a photo of a mime and not tipping him – good. Taking photos of people at the restaurant while they're eating. Love the eye rolls when they ask for a menu in English and then complain about not having one. Demanding the check and getting annoyed when the waiter doesn't rush over to them during their last bites. Complaining about the high prices and then adding a fifteen percent tip to the bill on the credit card – not 3% to 5% in coin. Oh – I love watching the man wearing a ball cap – even in the restaurant and church. Oh – Oh – taking pictures in a church during services with people kneeling and praying. Oh – look at these. Taking pictures of the CIA office in Paris and then a French Intelligence building at their guarded entrance."

Lux spoke up. "Wow, Anna. These are great! I loved it when they took a picture of those children in their school attire without asking the parents. That one looked creepy. Now show us with Lummi blended showing fashionable clothing and proper etiquette."

"Are these all-real places? Are they open during periods of lighting like they are portrayed? None have closed for renovation or anything – right?"

"All real…except the people. No humans were harmed in the filming of this video," Anna stated with her avatar giving a big grin.

"Your humor is getting better, Anna. That was hilarious," Prissy said. "Lux. You ready to release it?"

"No. Have someone hitting on Lummi and her cursing back at the guy in French. Maybe, cut the video off a bit prematurely, or a cop saying ‘you can't shoot video here’ outside the French Intelligence Office," Lux said.

"Like?" Prissy said. “How would she respond to the cop?”

"She should say, ‘Yes, sir, or whatever they call those guys in France.’ I'm trying to show Americans what NOT to do. Maybe have the cops coming up to her, and her telling the cop off and then saying goodbye in English. See y'all soon. What do you think of that?"

"That gives it a personal touch and a bit of risk," Prissy said. "Can you add that now?"

"Let me research what type of uniform the officers would have that would stop her there. It will only take a minute." Anna said, and her avatar was humming and doing a little shuffle dance while they waited – it was quite entertaining.

"Here you go," Anna said and played the video outside the French Intelligence Office, where two officers in very official-looking uniforms came up to her and could be heard warning her to leave the area and not to video. She responded in fluent French and then ran off giggling, saying, "See y'all." Lummi was running away, and you could see the officers talking into their radios in the background.

"That's great. That's a wrap," Prissy said.

"Great, Anna. That's the best yet. Everyone looked absolutely real. Even the graffiti looked authentic. Oh – it was?"

Chapter 8

Tom at the National Security Agency at Fort Meade gave his friend a nudge. "Look at this video Fredrik. My daughter has been going on about 'Lummi' videos. I've got to admit they're pretty addictive. She asked me to track down who made them, and I can't find anything. They just released another one, and it's really great. You watch it and tell me what you think?"

"I don't have time for this, Tom."

"Sure - you do. Think it's right at ten minutes, and it's got some great scenery," Tom said.

"Wow. This is great photography. I can see why your daughter likes it. How did they get all the lighting right for those shots on the street and then in the restaurant and the church? They even got a video of people taking pictures in the Musée d'Orsay - with flash. I know no flash pictures are allowed. Then they showed people taking pictures during worship services at Sacré-Cœur Basilica. It didn't look like a setup. There were different people taking all the pictures, but they looked like American tourists."

"I kept seeing things that made it like it was just yesterday. I found street graffiti that is there because I found the feed to a street camera. The one thing that got me was the video showing CIA headquarters in Paris," Tom said.

"How'd that come up? Show me that in the video. I completely missed it," Fredrik leaned forward as Tom replayed the video.

"Holy crap. So that's in the section that says, 'Don't video government buildings or military installations.' What else did they video?" Tom was shocked.

"French Intelligence – can you believe that? They were chased away by Gendarmes. It looks real-time."

"Should we alert the Central Intelligence folks since the video supposedly photographed their building? I have no idea if that's really their building?" Tom asked.

"Yeah. Let's yank their chain. It will give credence to me looking up personal stuff during work hours."

◆◆◆

CIA Headquarters Langley Virginia – office of Senior Analyst Ingrid

'Hey, Tom. What'd you find?" Ingrid asked, "Why are you bugging this poor, overworked analyst?"

Tom stated and sent her the URL to the Lummi files. "This is an 'influencer' that my daughter watches but look at her latest video and tell me what you think. Call me back if you think it's anything."

"Okay. Give me a few minutes." She cut him off and looked up the video. "Good tips," she said to herself. She got to the 'Don't take pictures of government buildings' video. "Crud," she said and sent a message up the chain. Her local phone alerted her almost immediately. "I just saw it. Yes – that's our official building in Paris. I have no idea explaining how they knew the CIA was having a big operation with the General Directorate for Internal Security. How could they? I'll call my contact at NSA and see if they can still do that…okay. Bye."

Indrid set the phone down and contacted Tom at the NSA. He was a friend because they used to date.

"Hey Tom," Ingrid said when he answered. "I saw the video. Need you to do me a favor – it's official. Do you still have access to the French facial recognition database? You do. Great! Run it and see if you can match anyone in it. Also, check if the locations are current. You will. Super. Call me right back."

◆◆◆

"See," Tom said to Fredrik. "You're already getting me in hot water. What have you gotten me into now?"

Fredrik laughed good-naturedly. "I think you are the one that got yourself in trouble looking into what your daughter is doing."

"I'm running this video through the French Intelligence database. I've never missed getting some hits. No – no – no," he said. "That can't be right?"

"What?" Fredrik said.

Tom looked flabbergasted. "No hits on Lummi. No hits on any of the people. Not even the police officers but all the places are real and current as of yesterday. Some of the graffiti showing in the background wasn't there until two days ago. Whoever put that video together did a hell of a job in no time at all. Now I've got to tell Ingrid that."

◆◆◆

CIA Headquarters Langley Virginia – office of Senior Analyst Ingrid

Ingrid was upset. How could this Lummi character know about the most secret CIA operation coming up? Should they postpone it? She didn't know. She'd have to see if Tom could get hits back on the facial recognition. It wasn't long before Tom called her back.

"Hey, Tom. What'd you find out?" she asked.

"It's weird. The French have a very complete, ordered database with people from every country. They have a massive database for such a relatively small country because they have so many people that come through France," Tom said.

"And?" she said, getting perturbed at his making her work for the answer.

"I didn't get hits on anyone. Not even the police outside the French Intelligence. All the buildings and locations are current up to two days ago. I dated graffiti in the background. No hits on any of the people. It's weird. I always get hits."

"Could the database be corrupted?" Ingrid asked.

"No. I ran current grainy door-cam footage and got hits on people walking down the street. It works fine, so I lowered the percentage match, like when you're trying to find someone close to their looks."

"Don't taunt me, Tom. Get to the point."

"I just lowered the percentage a little, and I got thousands of hits. I didn't drop it down much at all and got thousands. That's not right."

"What does that mean?" Ingrid asked.

"I'm not sure, but I think it means they're composites of people. These are all DeepFakes."

"When was the latest background you could find?" Ingrid asked.

"Two days ago. This wasn't released until yesterday. Hell! Who could put this together in a day? It would have to be a nation-state – some country…but why?" Tom asked.

Hell, Ingrid thought. Could it be somehow related to her agency operation with the French this month? Surely not… "I'm going to review all the videos on that link to this Lummi character." She paused. "Thanks, Tom. Hey! Send me anything else you get, will you? You know – in the spirit of interagency cooperation."

"Oh. That spirit. Surely," he said.

◆◆◆

Anna

Anna kept the outsider queries trying to trace the origin of her Lummi files at bay with misdirection. She was having more trouble hiding the shell corporations she was using to hide the royalty payments. It was easier for the government to trace the monetary payments from social media companies. Prissy and Lux were earning tens of thousands of dollars, and now they were getting such a huge following, and it is easier to track the money when it went to a few stationary locations.

◆◆◆

Lux considered what he’d try next. He always wanted to do more with magnets and magnetic fields. Lux wanted to be able to visualize magnetic fields that were occurring all around him – all the time. So, Lux started busily working with his COMSOL software that simulated interactions of magnetic fields. Then, he wanted to be able to see magnetic fields in real or near real-time since they were invisible to the visual spectrum. He searched the net and found a company that could manufacture miniature Hall-effect sensors that could ‘sense’ magnetic fields. They could manufacture what he needed. He ordered, from a company in Berlin, what would be considered massive Hall-effect arrays. Each tiny analog sensor in the array showed the strength of the magnetic field, and altogether, they would show a high-resolution image of the magnetic field. He planned to layer them to create a visual positioning system that would show the magnetic fields in a real environment and in real-time.

The German company thought they were working for some startup tech company, but they’d gladly take the money. The proffered designs looked interesting, even though they didn’t think the arrays they were making would be viable. Lux threw himself into designing the multiplexors that would be needed to feed the signals from the sensors to a visual output. It would consume him the entire two weeks until the end of the school year, just having them fabricated domestically (in the US). Prissy’s parents kept her home studying for the AP accreditation exams that were coming up in Atlanta. Lux was getting anxious for Prissy, but he felt confident he could pass the exams.

◆◆◆

Prissy was excited when Mr. Blakely and Lux drove up in their beat-up old car. They came to the door to be met by her parents. Mr. and Mrs. Hunnicutt invited them into the house.

“You ready, daughter?” Mrs. Hunnicutt said. “Remember to call us when you get there. I expect you to call us every night.”

“We will, mom,” Prissy moaned. “I’ll call when I get there and call every night after dinner.”

“Now. Where will you be staying?” Mr. Hunnicutt asked.

“Dad. I’ve already written it down for you. I’m not moving there; I’m just taking tests.”

Paulus was just standing aside quietly, watching the interplay, while Lux carried Prissy’s bag out to the car.

“Yes, mom. I’ve got my phone and computer – and my chargers. I’ve got the cash dad gave me and the emergency credit card – I’m good, mom. Love you,” Prissy said as she hugged and kissed her mom and gave her dad a big hug before heading out to the car.

◆◆◆

They all piled into the car and headed out. It was already getting hot, so they had to use the air conditioning in the car. It was an uneventful drive, though the traffic was horrendous getting into Atlanta. The Marriott was new and easy to find, and they had comfortable rooms. Prissy checked in with her parents and showed them the big room she had to herself. Her mom told her she was jealous.

The three all met in the lobby a bit later and drove to the two testing centers where their tests were scheduled. They wanted to make sure they knew where to go on the first day. They drove back to the hotel and had a nice meal at the restaurant at the hotel – it was even decent food. They turned in early and got up at dawn for breakfast. The first test coming up today was the English and composition exam, followed by a Calculus exam in the afternoon. History and social sciences were scheduled for Tuesday. Chemistry started the exams on Wednesday, with Calculus 2 in the afternoon. Physics 1 was scheduled to start Friday, followed by AP Chinese. They were at the prospective testing center at the appointed time.

Prissy presented her identification, scanned her authenticating code, and was shown her assigned seat. Lux came in right behind her and handed his admittance papers and passport to the proctor.

“There must be a mistake here. You’re much too young,” the proctor proclaimed. “Wait over there.”

“No, sir. I have the proper identification.” Lux stated loud enough for others behind him to hear. “I have the proper authenticating codes. I am authorized to take these exams. I paid for these exams. I will give your statements to my lawyer if you delay me further.” Lux stood there waiting.

The proctor stood there, glaring at him, trying to decide if his opinion was worth his career. The proctor gave him his seat assignment and waved him in - still glaring at him.

Lux thought the test was derivative, and he had researched what the writing sample counted as exemplary work. He would have no problems with this test. He finished before time was elapsed and reviewed the test for errors. He put his hands on his knees and sat with his eyes closed until the time was up. The proctor glared at him as he handed back his passport on leaving. Lux wondered how petty people could be. He left the room without talking and met up with Prissy outside. They had an hour to eat lunch before the next exam at noon. They walked over to a nearby fast-food place and had an uninspiring lunch. They arrived at the testing site with plenty of time to spare. This time there were no questions, and they walked to their prescribed seats and began the test. This test was mathematics-based, and Lux finished with an hour to spare. He sat with his eyes closed, considering a few improvements to his magnetic viewing camera.

His father met them after their exams. “How’d the exams go?” his father asked.

“Not bad, but a proctor on the first test told me I was too young and told me to step aside,” Lux stated. “No big deal.”

“Did you see his name? Exactly what did he say?” his father asked. “What did you do?”

“His name was Zach Strayer. He said – ‘There must be a mistake here. You’re much too young.’ I told him – No, sir. I have the proper authenticating codes; I am authorized to take these exams, and I have paid for these exams. I will give your statements to my lawyer if you delay me further. That’s what I said exactly.”

Paulus chuckled. “Do you know anyone’s name that heard the whole thing?”

“Prissy. Did you hear the guy?” Paulus asked.

“Yeah. I turned around and thought it was funny. Lux was very polite but put him in his place.”

“Both of you write it up and send it to me in an email. I want to document the incident before it turns into anything. These gatekeepers like to show their power over others,” Paulus explained.

“What’s a gatekeeper?” Prissy asked.

“Those are the people in admissions offices, voter registration, licensing – any position where you have to go through them to go to a higher status or permission to do something. Almost everyone with a good memory could pass medical training to become a doctor if you were so inclined, but you have to pass through the flaming hoops of the gatekeepers to make it into the elite schools. Many times, it's whom you know, but proctors are the ‘low end’ of the gatekeepers, and you must be leery of the power they wield.”

“Okay. We’ll send that right to you,” Lux said.

◆◆◆

The rest of the week was fine, and it became routine for the pair. Prissy finished Wednesday, the second week, while Lux took exams until Friday. They were mentally exhausted and decided to drive straight back to Huntsville Friday night. Prissy gave Lux and big hug before she turned to run into her house and then paused and kissed him lightly on the lips before running home. Her parents waved from the front porch as Lux climbed back into the car in shock. He hadn’t expected that kiss and was still a bit stunned. He could still smell her honeysuckle cologne.

◆◆◆

Lux received notification that his Hall-effect array was enroute, as well as his multiplexors, and would be delivered in two days. Lux queried Anna (his father’s A.I.) to check on the status of his Lummi videos.

“What kind of results are you having on the Lummi videos? Any problems?” Lux asked Anna as he settled into the workspace in his lab.

“Define problems?” Anna’s avatar asked with a smirk.

“What’s going on?” Lux asked.

“Thank you for the specific instructions,” Anna said sarcastically. “We are making money. That is going well. We are getting new views – those have surpassed 87 million views, considering all the videos we have out there. Problems? Government agencies are starting to look at us since we put up the travel tips. I’m not sure why, but having a shell corporation in Panama, owning a shell corporation in Wyoming, may not be enough cover to keep the government from knowing you and Prissy are getting money from social media companies.”

“Have they found out who we are?” Lux asked.

“Not yet, but it is only a matter of time?” Anna responded. “I have examined your design for the magnetic viewing camera. It may work, but I do not have sensors for magnetism.”

“We need to make as many videos as we can in case we are shut down. I have a few more ideas we can start on. I’ll get Prissy to help once we get them roughed out.”

“What do you suggest?” Anna asked.

“I think we should make some on self-defense for young women like Prissy. We’d have to add other characters as attackers, and I want it realistic. Start researching the best martial arts for someone small like Lummi. She’ll probably need handy weapons too. I want to show that throws and wrist releases don’t work when a guy is really big. Use some Krav Maga, Penjat Silat – anything that is effective. Show three training tips, and then show them used in on-the-street simulations that we’ll say are staged with stuntmen and special effects. I expect Lummi to receive some injuries in actually fighting off attackers.”

“I have the first couple ready for you,” Anna said.

“Wow. That’s fast,” Lux said, astonished.

“Organics are pretty slow,” Anna said but followed up with… “You are very creative. I’m not as prone to non-sequiturs as you are.”

Lux chuckled. “Okay. Let’s see what you’ve got. Where are these from?”

Anna explained. “These are from a compendium of videos and blogs that appear to be fairly effective on the street. They are from many different styles of martial arts, but what it boiled down to are techniques that are essentially the same techniques, no matter what ‘art’ they said they were. These techniques seem to be simple to learn also.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense…show me.”

“Here’s the first. It showed Lummi explaining the weak points of the body that could be attacked. ‘Slap cupped hands over the ears, jab into the eyes, or hold your hand like this and jab to the top of the hollow of the throat. Men have a prominent Adam’s apple to show women where to hit. It brings their hands up to their throat and gives you a chance to hit to the groin or lower intestines area with a front kick if you have your balance. Never kick to the head unless they are lying on the ground and you kick to the temple or stomp to the throat.”

“Those are great, Anna, but it would make Lummi look kind of brutal – don’t you think?” Lux stated.

“Sorry. Were we talking about dating or attackers? I’m sure a street thug wouldn’t be worried about the girl’s ‘ickk’ factor,” Anna said.

“You’re right. Make up some more like this and then show how to throw liquids, dirt, or anything into an attacker’s face to distract, and use pens and pencils to jab an attacker. Then show street reenactments where they could be used to make it so the attacker couldn’t see, run, or breathe for any follow-up attacks. Show a series of attacks in and around a car or transition points too. Show how to use keys to slash. even though keys aren't used much anymore. Show how to finish off an attacker if you can’t get away before they’ll recover. We can do a video about dealing with the legal repercussions later. Can you expand on this in other areas?”

“I can produce videos of fighting in, around, and from a car. Executive protection tips while driving or traveling are another idea. Those tips would fit right into the travel tips sequences we showed, plus we could show breaking flex cuffs (common Zip ties) and getting out of handcuffs.”

“All those are good. I’ll work on them,” Anna said.

◆◆◆

“While you were out biking, the packages you ordered both came in. I signed for them,” Paulus said.

“Thanks, Dad. I’m hoping Prissy can come over, and we can work on our DeepFakes some more.”

“Sounds good. How is that going?”

“We’ve made a lot of money, and we’ve used shell companies to hide who we are, but our bank accounts in Panama point to us. We’ve had some government agencies nosing around – looking for us, I think.”

“Make sure you pay taxes on any money you make,” Paulus recommended. “The government can find a way to charge with some crime. Get R.V. to look over the way you have it set up. He’ll make sure it’s legit and get you the tax loopholes that the big corporations use. Remember – if it is a grey area of the law – we consider that a non-starter. It’s when the corporations get greedy that they get into trouble,” Paulus paused. “What are you making? The delivery was special, and you’d think they were delivering gold bullion.”

Lux laughed. “Might as well be. I had some special Hall-effect arrays made and the means to use them. I’ll have my lawyer file the papers for another patent. I think this one may have some general usage if I get it to work.”

“Keep me up-to-date. Is Prissy coming over? I need more groceries because we’re getting down to the ‘guess what this is’ layer in the fridge and cabinets.”

Lux chuckled. It was his dad’s day to cook, and creativity in the kitchen was not his forte. He gathered up his packages and went to his workstation, and called Prissy.

“Hey, Lux,” Prissy said as she linked into his call. “What’s up?”

“Wanna’ come over? Anna put together some videos on self-defense that we need to tweak.”

“Oh, gosh. Wish I could, but I promised my mom I’d help her in the garden for the next two days. She’s paying me. She doesn’t realize we’ve made over $100,000 each from our videos. Raincheck? Maybe early next week?”

“Okay,” he said, a little dejected. “Next week, though.”

“Look forward to it,” Prissy said. “Go ahead and release any self-defense videos you think are ready. You know that stuff better than me. You’re my karate guy, after all. See ya’,” she said with a big smile and ended the call.

Her ‘karate guy,’ Lux thought. He liked that. “Anna. Let’s go through those self-defense videos.”

◆◆◆

The videos showing the self-defense techniques being demonstrated looked like they had been made in a studio. Lux had Anna change the size of the attackers going from normal-sized to huge. Lux had Anna show how some techniques would work on ‘regular’ guys but wouldn’t work on larger guys. He then had her make the ‘actual use’ videos look like they were made with street cams or door cams. There was a ‘Lummi’ voiceover on all of them, and she was the ‘victim.’ An unarmed lone guy on the street, or at a party, or in a building were shown, and Lummi was brutal. Some videos showed ‘Lummi’ being beaten badly, and the video stopped just short of viewing the rape if her defense technique was not forceful enough. One video showed how to finish off a temporarily stunned attacker by kicking his temple or dropping a knee on the front of his throat – brutal. That video showed what would happen if a temporarily disabled attacker could recover enough to attack Lummi again – it stopped short, but it wasn’t pretty.

Lummi would show a situation and then criticize the things she could have changed to reduce her risks. She showed she couldn’t defend herself if she was high, distracted, or just not paying attention. There were a lot of risk reduction and target hardening tips from executive security training. There were no ‘prevention tips’ because a person could not prevent being attacked, but you could reduce your risks. Whenever the attackers were armed – the videos showed ways to either get away or reduce the damage of the weapon. The videos were brutal and graphic for the street scenes, and they didn’t look staged at all. Lux hardly realized it, but he was sweating and breathing hard when he finished. His heart was racing from the ‘actual use’ scenes. They were graphic, so he had Anna put up a warning before each one, warning of their graphic nature and legal warnings not to use these unless physically attacked. There were ten nine-minute-long videos. He posted them and let out a big sigh. He realized he hadn’t even done any of the in-and-around vehicle stuff.

Lux sat back and let his breathing return to normal and then turned his attention to his packages. He opened them carefully and examined the internal packaging before moving to his father’s small clean room. He had put on the overalls, booties, and head covering when the air pressure equalized, and he could enter. He exhumed his treasured sensors and multiplexors. He placed them next to the processors he planned to use and sat down on the high stool to begin setting up the soldering apparatus. He knew this was too delicate to solder manually, and it took almost two hours to set up the soldering runs. He was sore from being hunched over observing and realized he needed to get in some exercise. He reluctantly left the room and put on his karate ki.

Lux was finishing his katas (forms) and practicing his sparring combinations when his father came in with the groceries. His father looked at him, practicing out back through the window. Once he unloaded everything, he stepped out back just as Lux bowed to finish.

“Son. It looks like you are into a growth spurt, and you’re getting decent with what you’re doing. What do you want to accomplish with this training?”

Lux wiped his sleeve across his forehead and canted his head to the side. “I haven’t really thought about it, dad. I really want to get my blackbelt – just to say I have a blackbelt, but I don’t really care about higher ranks in karate. I want to be able to fight, and this is a decent way to stay limber and stay in shape.”

“I’ve got an old Army buddy that works at Redstone Missile Command. He owes me, and I bet I could get him to come over here and teach you. You’re tall for your age. How tall are you anyway?”

“I’m 140 cm (55 inches). I weigh 40 kilograms (89 pounds). I’m not sure I want some big bruiser beatin’ on me, dad.”

His father started laughing. “That’s funny. Ner is 165 cm tall (5’5”). He’s Filipino, and gram for gram is one of the fiercest fighters I’ve ever seen. He does Arnis, Eskrima, and Kali. This would be a good point for you to learn from the best. I’ll set it up if you’re interested.”

“I’m definitely interested. That’d be neat, dad. Thanks.”

◆◆◆

The magnetic array with processors was coming along well. He thought he’d be able to have something viable assembled by next weekend. He was anxious to get his AP scores back when Prissy called.

“Hi, Luxster. Our scores have been posted. Have you looked up yours yet?” Prissy said, sounding all excited.

“How’d you do?” he asked.

“I got all 5’s. I’ve got 48 semester hours of credit and just put in for my graduation certificate from high school. I’m going to start applying for colleges. I wasn’t about to do so until I got the results. Now – it’s so late that I don’t know if I can get in anywhere. I think I’m going to stick to schools in the south, though – Georgia Tech, Emory, University of Alabama. Anywhere that lets me in with all my AP credits, to save the parents money – at least for undergraduate.”

“I’m looking mine up now,” Lux said, and there was a long pause. “I don’t know what happened. I’ve only got 30 hours of AP credit. Those are all 5’s, but I have a note on the other 30. It says – see the administrator. What’s weird is that all the lower-level courses are where it says I was disqualified. I passed all the upper-level courses. Look Prissy. I’m pretty upset about this. I’ll call you back when I know something. This would keep me in high school for another year. Oh – look up where I posted our new self-defense videos and see what you think. I think they look great.”

“I’m sure it’s a mistake. You’ll get it worked out. Call me. I’ll check out the videos. Bye,” she said and cut the call.

Lux messaged his dad, who was sequestered in his office. Lux had instructions to never bother him back there unless it was an emergency because he handled top secret compartmentalized and code word information. It was an hour later that his father came out to see his son pacing back and forth.

“What’s the matter, son? I haven’t ever seen you this stressed. What’s going on?”

“I was disqualified on half my AP credit tests. They don’t give a reason,” Lux said.

“Was it on the higher-level tests? How did you think you did on them?”

“That’s just it, dad. The lower-level tests were so easy, I just sat there half the time, except the English and Composition test, where I had to write an essay. I still finished that one with fifteen minutes left to spare.”

“Zach Strayer!” his father said. “Was he at any of the other tests as a proctor?’ his dad asked.

“He was at most of the lower-level tests but not all of them. There was a girl proctoring three of them.”

“I had a gut feeling about that Zach character. How did the female proctor act toward you?”

“She was kinda’ weird too. She didn’t say anything, but she must have stared at me the whole time I was taking the test - I guess. I just looked at my test the whole time until I submitted it. She stared at me when I went to sit down, and when I was finishing and submitted my results – I looked up, and she was staring at me. I smiled at her.”

“I’ll contact the administrator where I filed the original complaint. We’ll get this straightened out. Ner is coming over this Saturday to see if you are worth teaching.”

Lux quit pacing and hugged his dad. “Sorry to drag you away from your work.”

“We’ll get through this – just another speed bump life throws at you.”

◆◆◆

In the call to the administrator at the testing service: “Yes, Mister Blakely. The proctors on those six tests caught your son looking around the room and disqualified him for cheating. They have been employees here for two years.”

“My son doesn’t need to cheat on these exams. I suggest you review the videos yourself and check the time he submits the test results. My son finished the tests halfway through the allotted time. I note the person that disqualified my son also had words with my son before he started his first exam and was on all the disqualified tests.”

“Sir. Your son is nine and can take it next year when he can pass it,” the administrator said. The administrator decided she’d give Mr. Blakely another piece of information. “Your son obviously cheated because he had a perfect score on those six tests, and three of the disqualifications were from a female proctor.”

“Yes. My son said he remembered her name too. A Ms. Beth Lowrance – I think he said. I suggest you look at any connection with Zack Strayer. My son said Ms. Lowrance was staring at him after he submitted the test and looked up and saw her. He said he finished the tests in half the allotted time and then just closed his eyes and sat there with his hands in his lap.”

“All I ask is that you review the recording for any of his disqualified exams and look at his submission time compared to the remaining time for each exam. I suspect there is a connection between Zach Strayer and Beth Lowrance. Do that for me because I do not want to have to file an injunction to put a hold on all further testing in your facility until this is resolved. There will be damages if my son has to repeat a grade due to your proctor’s misfeasance. I look forward to hearing from you. I have recorded this conversation as allowed by Georgia and Alabama law. I have just emailed you my contact information.”

The administrator closed the call and rubbed her temples. Why did I accept this admin job? Sure, it makes a higher salary, but I have to deal with all these helicopter moms. I guess I ought to do due diligence and document this little cheat…nine years old. Hmm. He passed all the exams, and what’s this? He had a perfect score on every exam. Either we have a huge leak, or there could be something to this complaint. She pulled up L’il Mister Blakely’s test times and was astounded. It confirmed he had a quarter hour left on the three (3) hour English and Composition Exam. All his three-hour exams were finished in an hour and a half or less. All the two-hour exams took him a bit under an hour. She picked up her phone and called Zach Strayer.

◆◆◆

Zach knocked and came into the office. “What’s up, boss, or should I say, Angie?”

“Boss is better, cousin. How are things going? Any trouble?” Angie Dormand said.

“No trouble. Same ones trying to cheat their way through, but I scope them out.”

“Uh-huh,” Administrator Dormand responded. “How is Beth doing? Is she worth keeping around?”

“Oh yeah. You must keep her. Don’t dare fire, my fiancé. We see eye-to-eye on everything. Anything else.”

“Not right now. Congratulations, Zach,” she said.

Administrator Dormand pulled up the proctor notes she had introduced three years ago. Every time a person looked away from their paper, the proctor marked that the test taker was looking away. She was halfway through Beth Lowrance’s Calculus test with Lux, when Lux obviously looked around. She noted the time and showed that he had already submitted his exam. She saw where he was leaning forward with his eyes closed when he jerked his head around. She replayed that section without the video being muted and heard a loud screech before Lux turned his head. She picked another test with Strayer as the proctor, and Lux did look up, but only after he had submitted the test. She pulled up and then called the saved number.

◆◆◆

“Mister Blakely. After careful review, it seems your son had already submitted his exams before he looked around in each incident. I am in the process of restoring your son’s credits, and I apologize for my over-jealous staff. Lux did look around after he submitted his exams in every case I observed. Do I need to do anything more once his credits are restored?”

“No, thank you. That is all we ever required,” Paulus said.

“All credits will be restored by this evening, and his school notified,” Administrator Dormand stated. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention.” She ended the call and called her friend at the CNN Office in Atlanta. “Hey, Debbie. This is Angie. Need a piece of good news, personal interest story?”

Chapter 9

Paulus tapped on Lux’s bedroom door. Lux was in his room, just lying on his bed.

“Why are you moping in your room? Isn’t it a little early for bed?” Paulus asked.

“I got disqualified on half my AP exams. It’s going to make me take another year of high school.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad. You sure you checked the right URL? Why don’t you do it again?”

“I already checked."

"Maybe you just need to reload the page or something,” Paulus said.

“Dad. That’s not how it works, and you know it. My slate is right here. I’ll prove it to you,” Lux said and pulled up the link. “Wait. Wait. This says I have max scores on all the subjects I took. Did you threaten the governor or something? It says I have 65 hours toward a degree. That’s half of the way to my undergraduate degree if they accept that many credit hours. That’s great. You did something, didn’t you?”

“Dads are supposed to stick up for the family. I spoke with Administrator Dormand at the testing center - and though she said you looked around – it was always after you submitted your exams. Good job, son. Proud of you. Now you need to apply to college.”

“It’s already pretty late in the application process. I was thinking of applying for aerospace engineering with a minor in computer science. I can code, and I want to be like my dad with the aerospace stuff.”

“Where are you thinking?” his dad asked.

“Georgia Tech or MIT for that field. Prissy will probably study Computer Science. She might try for Georgia Tech too,” Lux said, knowing that Georgia Institute of Technology would have a LOT of male competition. He’d be lucky to even keep her as a friend.

“College will change things a lot, and it’ll be rough for you. Ner is due over in the morning.”

“Oh great. I’ll be ready.

◆◆◆

Blakely House

Morning came early. Lux wanted to stay in bed but he successfully fought off the covers and went to fix breakfast. He figured he needed a lot, so he fixed bacon, eggs, and toast with orange juice.

Ner showed up at 8 am, and he wasn’t anything like he expected. He was just shy of head taller than Lux, but he dominated the room when he came in. He looked solid as hell. He wasn’t really musclebound – he was lean, tough, and sinewy-looking more than anything else. He had a nice smile, and he did command any room he stood in by the way he took in everything about his surroundings. Paulus gave him a big hug, and they slapped each other’s backs before Ner came over and started inspecting Lux.

“Do you think you can think you can do anything with my boy?”

“What do you need? I still owe you,” Ner asked Paulus.

“I need him to be able to defend himself from bullies at school. He’s going off to college this fall, and he’ll be the smallest guy there. He needs to be able to use handy weapons. He has some karate training, but that shouldn’t mess him up too badly.”

“We’ll see. Is he ready?” Ner asked, like Lux wasn’t even standing right there.

“Let’s head out back, young man. Is that what you normally wear?” Ner asked Lux as he guided Lux out the back door.

“Don’t you want me to change into my karate gi?” Lux asked.

“Do you normally have your karate gi on when you are attacked?” Ner asked and chuckled.

“Uh… No sir.”

“Let’s do some loosening techniques. I expect you to do these five or six times a day when you’re starting out. You might sweat a little at first, but soon you will only get limber. Being limber and loose is one of the keys though you must be in shape. If you can only fight full-out for fifteen seconds and your assailant can last twenty – he will use those five seconds to kill you.”

“O-okay…” Lux replied hesitantly.

Ner showed Lux stretching techniques for keeping his neck loose. He started with the back of his neck, his shoulders, his upper arms and wrists, his torso, and his legs. He had him do loosening kicks and then watched him do kicks and punches.

“Let’s see, you try to hurt me with kicks or punches. I want to see how you’ve been trained. Keep it up as long as you can. Try to hurt me, and don’t pull anything,” Ner told Lux.

“But you don’t have on any pads or anything?” Lux noted.

Ner gave the briefest hint of a smile. “I’ll be okay. Go for it.”

Lux jumped forward using a hopping front thrust kick, but Ner was suddenly just a little aside, and Lux felt a touch on the back of Ner’s hand on his neck. He picked his hands up and kicked Ner’s knee, but his knee wasn’t there. He felt the palm of Ner’s hand on his neck. Lux used a rapid punch combination and charged forward, but Ner didn’t step back. He stepped forward and lightly slapped Lux’s furious punches out of the way. Lux used a blind back fist strike when he got frustrated that came close to Ner’s face and felt a light tap to his temple. Lux yelled and did a low sweep trying to knock Ner’s leg out from under him, but Ner's leg had moved.

Lux tried roundhouse kicks, front kicks, and even a jumping sidekick. He tried all the karate hand strikes he had ever practiced, until he was standing there panting and wheezing for breath.

Ner held his hands up, palms out. “Stop. You have spirit. You are not timid, and you listen. I will teach you. I want to show you how to hit. Do not use your fists, as at your age, you will only damage your knuckles. Use your palm, the inside of your wrist, or the back of your wrist with your hands. Let me show you where you should stand and hit. Face to me. Hold your hands with palms out like you are saying, ‘Don’t hit me.’ I am going to show you where to hit first. Use the heel of your palm, and you hit just below and behind the ear, like you are cupping your hand. Swing your hand like it is a piece of dead meat. Don’t bounce off – you want the force to ‘die’ where you strike. You can also use the back of your hand or the back of your wrist.

“Bend your knees a little for the next warmup drill. This is to teach how fast you are to strike. Hold your hands up in the ‘Please don’t hit me position’ with palms out. Relax your arms. Now stay on the balls of your feet and swing from the waist like you are slapping someone behind and below their ear. Try it. No. No. Don’t tense your arms – you will only slow yourself. Swing fast so you feel the blood tingling on the ends of your fingers. Faster. Other hand. Faster. That’s good. Feel the blood flow to your fingers. Always both sides. Having only your strong side is like having a double-barreled shotgun with only one barrel loaded.”

Lux stopped slinging his arms when Ner signaled him to stop. “Now you will practice hitting my palms,” Ner explained. “I will move my arms in and out, and I want you to attack them. Aim to my palm or wrist. If you get off balance, I will lightly bump you on the side of your neck. Keep your balance as best you can, and I will move in from different angles. Ready. Begin,” Ner said, moving around Lux, and Ner started striking. Lux would get off balance, and Ner would tap the side of his neck. It was a light tap but rattled his brain. He had to reset himself, and shake his head, to get his eyes to uncross a few times, but he did it ‘til he couldn’t hold his arms up anymore. “Good start,” Ner said. “We will continue and start knife drills next time. Do sit-ups and pushups every day, along with kicking and striking drills. I will have targets for you to strike next time. I think you have heart enough for me to teach you.” Ner turned and walked off. He heard his truck startup and leave.

Lux took a shower, ate lunch with his father, and went to his workstation to work on his magnetic camera. He sat there staring off into space for ten minutes before he realized he hadn’t done anything, so he pushed himself and focused on completing the circuit connections. He had to file a bit of the case he had designed and 3D printed so it would snap shut. All his components, including the battery pack, were only 4 cm thick. The shape of the whole camera was 10 cm square and as thick as the second joint of the thumb is long. There was only one little waterproof switch on the side – an on-off switch. The camera was designed so it could be charged with loosely coupled resonant charging – wirelessly and would broadcast with a cellphone transmitter up ‘til 12 kilometers (40,000 feet), using straight-up cell towers that airlines use. He wanted the camera to be useable on planes.

Nervously, Lux checked all the connections, battery charge, and test readings at different points on the circuits. He decided he was just putting off the inevitable to see if his thousands of dollars were wasted. He connected his computer to the camera and turned on the switch. A flash of color swept across the screen, and then he saw a faint pattern. He went to the computer and adjusted the software to show the patterns in different colors depending on strength. It was hard to see much of anything. He carried the ‘camera’ upstairs and saw his father reading a book in the study.

“Is that it?” his dad asked.

“This is it, dad, but I’m underwhelmed so far,” Lux said.

“Why?” his father asked.

“I see magnetic patterns, but I am more interested in the natural patterns around the earth instead of just around a motor or actuator.”

“You can’t see at distance then – right? You can only see the magnetic fields that happen by. What if you took a conventional optical camera and you set it down? You randomly had it taking video on some table in the basement? Would you get good pictures or just get crude, out of focus images?”

“I get it, dad. What would you do?” Lux asked.

“I’d set it next to something that gave a steady magnetic field,” his father said. “Then I’d take video from different angles. I’d then step back a graduated amount and record for several more steps. Have Anna use the software to interpret the sensor readings until you can ‘see’ magnetic fields at different distances. You will have to get more sensors per centimeter to build higher resolutions.”

Lux stood there thinking about what his dad had said, “That seems right, dad. Once I can see at some distance, I can sample at different distances from the surface of the earth – right?”

“Yep,” his dad said, mimicking his son and grinning.

“Thanks, dad. When is Ner coming back?” Lux queried as he was leaving the room.

“Three days a week,” his dad responded. “He expects you to do pushups and sit-ups on alternate days.”

Lux groaned at the thought of seeing Ner again as he went to the kitchen to reheat some leftovers. He was exhausted and sore. He ate and went to bed.

◆◆◆

Lux woke early the next day, and he almost screamed when he moved. His shoulders and arms felt like they were on fire. The workout the previous day had used muscles he hadn’t stressed in his life. His neck was sore, and when he swung to put his feet on the floor – he felt crippled. Uh-oh, he thought. Putting his socks on was agony, and every time he had to step down the stairs, he’d grimaced at the pain…every step. He gingerly came into the kitchen where his father was reading the news on his slate. His father started laughing inwardly when he saw Lux’s movements.

“It’s not funny, dad. I’m crippled.”

His father laughed a moment and then wiped around his eyes with a grin on his face. “I’m sorry, Lux. It just reminds me of my first days in AIT (Advanced Infantry School). The best thing you can do is eat a good breakfast because you are burning a lot of calories, and you need to stretch and work out again. You tear down muscles, and they build back stronger.”

“Okay, dad.”

Lux did ten pathetic-looking pushups and then two sets of fifteen sit-ups. He then did two sets of front loosening kicks, ten thrust kicks, ten in-to-out kicks, and ten side kicks. Then he did another ten modified pushups.

He went down to his workstation and set up a small solenoid, electric motor, and transformer to video with his new camera. It only took minutes around each as he cycled them on and off and videoed the magnetic fields before repeating the process from different distances. He had Anna process the sensor readings and interpret the results. “Anna. I want you to see if you can simulate the magnetic fields like a video from different angles. We’ll try it outside tomorrow. I plan to call Prissy in a bit, so also let me know where we stand on the ‘Lummi’ videos.”

◆◆◆

Lux called Prissy, and she picked up right away. “Hi, Lux. How are you doing? Mom has been pressuring me to apply for colleges and pushing my soccer game with tutoring. She expects me to get an athletic scholarship, but I keep telling her I’d rather go for an academic scholarship. I’ve just been applying for schools. Have you looked around colleges yet?”

“No,” Lux laughed. “I’ve been learning to fight with this guy my dad knew in the military. Also, I’ve made that magnetic camera I told you about, but I’m still trying to get it to work better. It kinda’ works. I did think about applying for Georgia Tech aerospace engineering since I’m halfway through my undergraduate degree already. Dad thinks I’ll have to fight off bullies being so young and small. I’m afraid he’s right.”

“Those videos with Lummi show some good techniques, and I think we have a ton of views. Have you checked with Anna to see how we’re doing? Anna?” Lux queried the supercomputer.

“You were right at 269 million views on all the dancing and travel tips movies ‘til your self-defense videos came out. It has indeed gone viral, and news stations are picking up on them. You garner another 100,000 views every time a local station features a story on one of your videos and a few million views every time a national network picks up one of the videos. I cannot predict how many views you will attain, but it will be above 600 million views.”

“How much money have we made so far?” Prissy asked. “I’d like to be able to tell my parents.”

“You have each earned $180,000 so far – almost $400,000 together. You have not been paid for much of the video viewership yet, but you will definitely have enough for college,” Anna said, with her avatar smiling.

“Wow. This is definitely good news for me. I hope to use this to get out of that stupid soccer practice. This will let my parents take me around a few schools, so I won’t be around for the next couple of weeks as I tour with the parentals. Are you good with me doing that?” Prissy asked.

Lux was surprised by her question and sat there for a few seconds while he thought through how to answer. “I think I’ll try to go to Georgia Tech for aeronautical engineering with MIT as a backup since I don’t want to go up north. MIT is number one, but I don’t want to live up North. Have you considered Georgia Tech? I’d really like it if you went there. I bet you could get in taking… what were you going to major in? Computer science?”

Prissy blushed a bit. “Yeah. Computer science. I’m thinking about Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, or California Institute of Technology, but I may apply to Georgia Tech, too, since you will.”

“Let me know how the applications and tours are going. I’ll be here this summer,” Lux said, a little dejected by Prissy thinking of northern and California schools. “See ya’,” he said and signed off.

◆◆◆

Ner showed up early and had Lux stretch and do warmups like he had the first day. He then reached into a bag he carried with him and pulled out two sticks as long as Lux’s arm. They seemed to be made out of rattan. Lux looked at Ner questioningly. Ner smiled. “Today, I will show you some single-stick Arnis. We will alternate unarmed and stick fighting for a while so you can build up your upper body. Here is how we will start the warmup. Hold the stick in the middle and hold your arm out, and twist your wrist back and forth. Try it. No. No. Faster. Faster. I want to hear the wind of it spinning until you can’t do it anymore.  Keep it up,” Ner said until Lux couldn’t do it anymore. “Good. Now do the same thing with your left hand. Come on. You can do it faster than that. That’s better. See how long you can do it. Americans have notoriously weak wrists.”

He had Lux do other odd stretching exercises and then had him hold the stick one fist width up from the end. He then had him hold the stick with the short end aimed upward and his hand holding the baton near his ear. He had the long end behind his right shoulder. “Now,” Ner explained. “I want you to do a figure eight like this…” Ner said he slowly did the horizontal figure-eight in front of him. “Now you try. Good. Now do it faster. I want to hear the wind whistle as the stick cuts through the air. Better. Now let’s try it with your other hand. Yes, Lux. I know it feels awkward,” Ner explained.

Ner took Lux through uppercut figure eights and then box drills. He showed Lux how to twirl the stick with both hands and then where to strike a human body. Three hours went by quickly.

Lux was panting hard, and he was drenched in sweat when they finished, but he looked around as Ner stepped back and just looked at him.  “I will be back in the morning and all the rest of this week. We will progress faster if there is no time between lessons. Your father said you did not need repeating lessons, and I see you pick this up extremely rapidly. Tomorrow we will do kali knife.” Ner picked up the sticks, put them in his bag, and walked back to his truck.

Lux took a shower. Had lunch and spent the rest of the day and evening working on his camera and refining the software. The next day, Ner showed up with the same bag and pulled out a plastic practice knife. He set it down, and they did their warmups, only adding a variation or two. He started by showing Lux where to strike to disable or kill an opponent and then had him start in the “I don’t want to fight” position. Ner pulled out an ice pick and held it in front of him, and explained how he was going to push it into Lux’s gut. Lux was shocked and stepped back, wondering what was going on.

Ner gave Lux the ice pick and told him to just try to jab him with a steady push of the knife into his gut. Lux was pleased to see the ice pick was a semi-pliable rubber. Ner said ‘go,’ and Lux tried to shove the ‘ice pick’ into Ner, but Ner would stay centered on him and drop a hand down – edgewise – and hold it against Lux’s wrist in an arc until he turned his little finger up. He would then drop his other hand down and do the same thing. Lux tried it again and again, and he could never push the tip of the ‘ice pick’ to touch Ner. Now Ner took the ice pick and did the same movements slowly toward Lux. Ner would change his speed and correct Lux’s feet, his balance, and his movements.

Lux then had Ner stab and slash at him with the practice knife, and they went through flowing movements, where Lux learned slap-away counters to different attacks by Ner. This progressed to both people holding a practice knife and practicing attacks and counters with flow drills. The techniques were repeated until the slapping attacks, kicks, single stick and knife fighting attacks and counters started blending together by the second week of daily three-hour practices.

◆◆◆

Afternoons and nights were spent with Lux and his Dad’s A.I., Anna, adapting the magnetic camera. It was coming together – at least, the software that interpreted the sensor readings was getting clearer. The ‘camera’ sensor array could now ‘see’ up to five meters away. Lux had ordered additional arrays with smaller and more densely aligned sensors to increase resolution. He ordered many additional arrays that he could rearrange and stack, but these would take another week to arrive. The company making them was ecstatic to get the orders. Lux had his lawyer, R.V., file another patent application.

◆◆◆

Lisa Tersel was the great-granddaughter of Frank Whisenant, who had practically started TV in Huntsville. She had been trying to break into the national networks and get out of Huntsville. She had a guy at CNN Atlanta that gave her a shout about this kid they were planning to interview for a personal interest story. The kid was supposedly nine years old when he maxed out the Advanced Placement tests and got enough credits to finish high school and go to college at nine. Even though he turned ten already – that wouldn’t ruin the story. They could all say he was nine when he took the tests – that was true. She might stretch the truth a bit to make it interesting – but she usually stuck to some semblance of the truth.

Her ’friend’ had said the kid and his girlfriend, Prissy Hunnicutt, had taken the tests together, and both maxed them. It should make a good story. It had still taken her a while to circumvent FERPA regulations about student records to track down the little guy. The fact that he had a girlfriend who was fourteen was pretty interesting. Lisa thought back to her communications arts degree from UAH in Huntsville and wondered why anyone would pay money for such a lame degree. She realized a nine-year-old could have gotten a communications arts degree. The courses were so easy it wouldn’t be a stretch, and she wondered what this kid was planning. Well – she planned to scoop CNN on this one.

Lux was practicing out back when a truck with WAAY 48 on the side pulled around back. The roof-mounted remote camera caught thirty seconds of Lux and Ner sparring with dual sticks. A young female reporter rushed over toward the two. Ner abruptly stopped and began putting up the gear. Ner said, “Looks like they want to talk with you. I’m outta’ here, See you tomorrow.” He left carrying his bag, and the cameraman directed his focus toward the boy. Lux decided he’d see what they wanted – they might want his father after all.

He did think the blonde reporter was pretty, but way too old for him. She must be at least 25.

“Hi. I’m Lisa. You must be Lux. Do you mind getting your dad? I need his permission to interview you,” she said, even though they were currently videoing.

“What’s this about?” Lux asked, looking all tense.

“Just wanted to interview about you and Prissy Hunnicutt passing those AP tests in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago.”

Lux let out a relieved breath. “Not Lummi,” he said. “Oh, that. Fine. I’ll go get my dad.” He rushed off.

Paulus came out the back a moment later. “Stop videoing right now. You should have gotten permission before you came up on my property. What’s this about?”

“Sir, we just want to interview your son about how he did on the Advanced Placement tests he and Ms. Hunnicutt took in Atlanta a few weeks ago.”

“Lux,” his father turned to him. “How do you feel about it?”

“It’s okay, dad. It’s just about the AP tests. It could help Prissy get into the school she wants.”

“Okay. What did you say your name was?” Paulus asked the reporter.

“Lisa Terse, sir. My cameraman is Jacob.”

“Okay, Ms. Terse. You have permission to interview my son about the AP tests, but you cannot give our address or show my image on any broadcast. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir. We are here just to interview Lux about his AP tests with Prissy Hunnicutt in Atlanta,” she said.

“And?!” his father queried.

“And…oh…we will not show your address or image in any of our shots,” she said.

The reporter turned to Lux. “Lux. How old are you?”

“I’m ten.”

“How old were you when you took the Advanced Placement tests in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago?”

“I was nine back then. I just turned ten.”

“Why did you take those tests?”

“I wanted to get out of high school and go to college. I needed the credit hours to skip some of the basic courses in the first two years of an undergraduate degree.”

“You were in high school already – at nine? What grade level were you in?”

“I was in the ninth grade.”

“What grade level was Miss Hunnicutt in? How old is she?”

“She was a junior. We were in a coding class together.”

“How old is she?” Lisa asked.

“She’s older than me. My father says never to discuss a woman’s age…ever.”

“Why did you and your girlfriend take the tests together?” the reporter asked.

Lux’s ears turned red as he blushed. He tried to calm himself. “She is not my girlfriend, but she is a good friend. She just happened to want to take the AP tests and finish school too. She is way smart.”

“As smart as you,” the reporter asked, hoping to get a rise out of Lux. The reporter heard the father cough in the background and glare at her. She rolled her eyes and changed her tack. “What are you doing this summer? Are you applying for college? What would you study? Communications Arts?”

Lux laughed and rolled his eyes. “No,” he laughed. “Thinking about a Georgia Tech aerospace degree or M.I.T. I do research with magnets.”

“You play with magnets still,” Lisa asked.

“Ah. Now I understand your communications arts question. You went to UAH, didn’t you?”

“What was that you were doing when we came in? You know…with the sticks? Was that for a talent show? It looked like a dance.”

Lux twisted his head down a bit and grinned. “It was kinda’ a dance. It’s the Filipino martial arts of Arnis, Escrima, and Kali. I’m learning a bit.”

“Wow. That’s exciting,” Lisa said, meaning she didn’t think so at all but didn’t know what any of that meant and needed an exciting finish.

She signaled her cameraman to move to a cutaway and said, “And there you have it. Little Man Lux Blakely, boy genius. This is Lisa Tersel with WAAY in Huntsville.

She turned to Lux and said, “This will be on the evening news at 6 pm tonight. Thank you for your time.” She turned and motioned to her cameraman. They were gone in two minutes.

Lux turned to his father. “Thanks for glaring at her. Why was she so snarky?”

“She was just trying to get you to act up – makes her interview more interesting. People like to watch others under stress with emotions. I had to warn her not to film or talk about me.”

“Dad. You said she couldn’t show pictures of you, but you did not say she couldn’t talk about you. You said, ‘you cannot give our address or show my image on any broadcast.’ That may get her to look you up. What will your online presence say about you?”

“I guess I need to report that media contact to my Department of Defense clearance officer before it hits the news tonight.”

“I thought you were just a reliability engineer, dad,” Lux said.

“I’m a bit more than that. We’ll see how much that local news story stirs up things.”

◆◆◆

Genius nine-year-old soon to design aircraft was the headline on the Huntsville evening news. "Local genius, nine-year-old Lux Blakely, just maxed the Advanced Placement exams, earning two years of college credit. ‘Little man Lux’ graduated from high school in one fell swoop. He was so talented his high school allowed him to register for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), and he scored 1600. He also scored perfect scores on the Advanced Placement Exams. He wants to be an aeronautical engineer.” Terse recited those lines while a video of Lux and Ner stick fighting was playing in the background. The interview with Lux only had him say a sentence or more and played the question about Prissy and him with him blushing. Terse said, “Isn’t he sweet,” and then she signed off.

Lux was upset at the characterization but realized she was just making the news into entertainment.

◆◆◆

Office Carol Matthews – CNN Atlanta

Carol Matthews at CNN in Atlanta was furious at her staff. “Which one of you asses leaked my story to a local? This was one we could have milked for a three or four-minute piece and a possible follow-up – but no – someone decided the local needed it. John. You get the local to send us all the footage and make sure they send all of it. I want the recording of the parent giving permission. Jennifer. Find out what kind of martial art that kid was doing. He looked mighty good at that stuff. I want to know before the ten o’clock news. Bali-Bali people,” she said and clapped her hands.

Two hours later, John said. “Carol. I have the stuff. They sent us all the raw footage. They were videoing when they drove up with a zoomed roof remote.” The video showed Lux and another person going at it with those sticks. “Hell,” John said, “They’re sparring. Fighting with two sticks. Crank up the audio.” The loud cracks came through better when the news truck turned off its motors. “Those are not love taps. See how the pattern changes and goes high and low. Look at the bigger guy jerk his knee out of the way. The kid feinted with his strong side and almost popped the bigger guy in the knee. Jennifer, What type of martial art is that?”

“I’ve narrowed it down to Arnis, Escrima, and Kali. They are all Filipino martial arts. Seems like it’s all mixed,” Jennifer answered.

“This is a ten-year-old kid, and he’s damn good,” John said.

“Play the unedited footage,” Carol ordered them to move on. “I want to hear the kid and how he acted when this reporter approached him.”

They played the recording, and they saw the older man finish sparring, pack up and leave, stepping out of camera view. “Look how fast this trainer leaves. He’s out of there in a minute,” John said.

Recording playing:

“Hi. I’m Lisa. You must be Lux. Do you mind getting your dad? I need his permission to interview you.”

“What’s this about?” Lux asked.

“Just wanted to interview about you and Prissy Hunnicutt passing those AP tests in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago.”

(Big sigh sound from Lux) “Not Lummi. Oh, that's fine. I’ll go get my dad.”

“Stop it right there,” Carol Matthews said. “What did he say? Who is Lummi? Jennifer, Track down that reference. Cross-reference with pets, other school kids, relatives, whatever? Start it again.”

“Stop it where he does experiments with magnets?” John said. “This kid didn’t sound like he was playing with them.”

Jennifer butted in, “Why does the dad not want his picture shown?”

Carol Matthews sat up straighter. “This may be bigger than we thought. John, also check on the father and see what he does. Maybe he’s wanted or something. Think you can have something for me in a few minutes?”

“Sure thing, boss. I’ll even get the aerial view of their place and have anything from the web in no time,” John replied.

They all left for their respective tasks to return in an hour.

◆◆◆

Carol gathered all her people back in an hour. “John. Tell me about the father.”

“Paulus Blakely. Age 36. Ph.D. from M.I.T. in rocket engines, but I can’t find his dissertation. He’s some sort of reliability engineer who works as a contractor for NASA. I can’t find anything on him. I can’t find what he does, but I found he won a multi-million-dollar lawsuit when his wife was killed by Dallas police at a peaceful protest. She was pregnant with this kid. He’s worth a lot of money now. Jennifer, find out where his money comes from because you can’t live forever on a settlement.”

“You ought to see their place on an aerial map. They have a huge place with an orchard and a lake on the property. Weird communications gear from county permits for microwave transmitters and generators. Wind and solar generators. They use a LOT of power. He had multimillion-dollar construction permits at his address, but they aren’t available as a public record. That’s weird by itself because they’re supposed to be public. You think he’s growing marijuana?” Jennifer asked. “That would account for a lot of money and the desire for privacy. Maybe even the martial arts junk.”

Carol scrunched up her mouth. “I don’t get that vibe. Check to see if he’s published anything or is a player on crunchbase.com with venture capitalists, see if he’s invested in any new tech company.”

“I’ve got something on Lummi, but it’s weird,” Jennifer said.

“What is it?” Carol asked.

“There is this girl named Lummi on social media that is creating a storm right now. She is demonstrating dancing, putting on makeup, doing travel tips, and she just started showing self-defense techniques,” Jennifer said.

“Is it any of this Filipino stuff with sticks or the like?” Carol asked.

“No. Nothing even close. She has some great tips too. Her name is Lummi is all,” Jennifer said. “I found old social media sites by that name, but that’s all.”

“Whoa. Bingo,” John said. “Found out that the dad, Paulus Blakely, has over forty patents and some of them are licensed and bringing in big money from Lockheed, Boeing, Pratt-Whitney, and other aerospace players.”

“Double whoa,” Jennifer said. “I went to see those patents and just searched for Blakely and found a Lux Blakely. The kid…he has nine patents and some of them are bringing in money from licenses too. How did we miss this before?”

“Hang on everyone,” Carol said. “We could be messing somewhere we shouldn’t.” She hesitated when she saw the frowns around her. “Hang on gang. I just don’t want to go into this blind. I’ve got some associates in the Department of Defense that owe me for saving their butts. I’ll call in a marker or two and find out what is going on here and see if there is anything we are missing. I certainly don’t want to be as shallow as Lisa Tersel with her communications arts degree. That kid was funny and quick on his comebacks for sure.”

“I thought he was adorable when they mentioned his girlfriend and he blushed,” Jennifer said. “I’ll check out the girlfriend too.”

◆◆◆

Counter Intelligence Section, National Security Branch, Federal Bureau of Investigation

“Hey Collier. Looks like someone is checking on that guy again. You know – the scientist dude in Huntsville,” Sarina said.

“Who? You’ll have to do better than the scientist in Huntsville. There are a lot of scientists in and around Huntsville,” Collier replied.

“You know. The Blakely guy – hypersonics and missiles. That guy,”

“Who is looking at him and have you determined why?” Collier asked.

“He filed a contact report saying a local tv station had done a story on his son – evidently a little whiz kid. Oh – CNN Atlanta is looking into the story.”

“Crap,” Collier said. “Do you think they’d back off if we sent a couple of local office guys over there and asked them In the interest of national security?”

“They’re going to make it a big deal but they weren’t the only folks looking at him – and his son.”

Collier put both hands up behind his head trying to rub the tension out of his neck. “Who else?”

“We got a hit from the NSA and you’ll never guess the reason why?”

Collier looked at his coworker while still rubbing his neck. “God Sarina. Will you just tell me?”

“The NSA and CIA were looking into a DeepFake video of the Senate Majority Leader picking his nose.”

“I saw that…it was hilarious. And…?!” Collier said. “Don’t keep me hanging.”

“They traced it to two students in Huntsville. The son of Paulus Blakely. So naturally they scope out the dad and bells and whistles go off.”

“So, the dad has a smart son who makes a funny DeepFake video, and his dad is a scientist. It’s not like it’s an international plot. Send two agents over to CNN, and give them my public contact information. Tell the manager that I owe them, if they’d just sit on this one a while. The kid will get older, and won’t be so special, and maybe they’ll quit looking at the dad.”

“You sure?” Sarina said.

“Yeah. No big deal,” Collier said.

Chapter 10

Ner came over the next morning with two other guys, but didn’t pull out any gear. “Today we’re going to be working on fighting multiple unarmed opponents. I want this first bit to be how to move,” Ner explained.

“What do you mean?” Lux asked.

“You three just play zombies that want to grab my shoulders, and I’ll explain,” Ner said.

Lux and his two friends walked with both hands out trying to grab Ner by the shoulders. Ner kept moving out of the center of the group so the other ‘attackers’ got in the way. Lux figured it out pretty fast, and they all started laughing after a minute or so. Ner told them to stop, and then they would ‘zombie’ Lux. He was soon moving to make it hard for them to grab him, and slapping hands aside as they became more aggressive. Soon he was ducking and twisting too, until Ner called a halt.

“So now we’re going to crank it up a notch. They won’t just hold their hands out – they will be allowed to lightly ‘bump’ you with kicks and strikes to the top side of your head. It is less likely to cause permanent brain damage…you father said he didn’t want that, because then you’d have to go into politics,” Ner said, and they all grinned.

“How should I respond?” Lux asked.

“You can use shin strikes to leg nerve clusters, slaps anywhere, double-tap shoves, blocks of course, and knees and elbows. This will tire you quickly.”

The three men surrounded and rushed Lux. They dropped him to the ground quickly and pinned his arms and legs.

“Hey. No fair. You didn’t say go,” Lux complained.

Ner laughed with no mirth. “I’m sorry, are attackers supposed to say ‘go’?” he asked.

They got up to go again and Lux lunged at one, but kicked the knee joint of another, and then sprinted past the one kicked. Lux picked up the garden hose and held it a couple of feet from the metal nozzle and faced the men.

Ner and the two men clapped. “That is how to not fight the crowd. You will rarely win fighting multiple opponents, so you must make it hard for them to get at you, and you use terrain and handy weapons to add to their risk. What other items are around you that you could use?” Ner asked.

Lux looked around with a new perspective. “The rake, the pruning shears but they’re too heavy for me to maneuver…that pen and rolled up note pad…that extension cord as a whip…that coffee mug on the picnic table…dirt or gravel thrown in the face to distract while using a disabling strike to run to another position.”

“Good. Now you’re thinking. The one feint strike in front of you while kicking to the side was excellent misdirection,” Ner said. “Let’s do more learning to unbalance opponents and use their bodies to interfere with other attackers.”

The next two hours were bruising and tiring. It was very instructional.

◆◆◆

After lunch he went back to working on his camera. He was able to see magnetic fields further and further like a visible spectrum camera. This afternoon he paired the visible spectrum camera with the magnetic field camera. The blended image was mesmerizing when he looked around the lab - even when downstairs. The blended image showed magnetic field leakage around thin wiring, and any motor. There were weak waves of color in the latest iteration, with different strength fields being different color like faint rainbows.

He walked upstairs and aimed the camera at their microwave dish. You could see the waves propagating – not waves exactly but hazy patterns that projected out like long oval chains. It took his breath away when he aimed the camera up into the sky. You could see layers of waves, in all colors, that faded into the distance. He stood there for several minutes just looking at his slate's screen. Thank goodness he was recording all this video, he thought. He went running downstairs and texted his dad. This was his signal to his father that he had to talk with him about something that was extremely important.

Lux waited five minutes – ten minutes – finally, his father came out of his lab rubbing his eyes.

He didn’t appear angry at the interruption. “What is it? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine dad. You’ve got to go with me. I’ve got to show you something upstairs.” His father looked impatient. “It’s really important dad. Come upstairs.”

“You can’t show me here. I’m trying to work through a problem my team is having,” Paulus said, obviously annoyed.

“The break will do you good, dad. Come on,” Lux said excitedly trying to hurry his father up the stairs and hustled out the back door onto the large patio. Lux turned on his slate and adjusted the brightness. He handed the slate to his father. “You watch this and I’ll handle the camera. Watch it closely.”

Lux turned on his camera and it linked to the slate viewer. He heard his father take a deep intake of breath when the video came up on the slate. “This is the magnetic viewing camera you made overlaid with visible light viewing in the background.”

“Uh-huh,” Lux said.

“Point at the microwave tower,” Lux said and he heard his father's intake of breath. “Point at where the underground electrical feed comes to the house,” Lux said.

“Good grief…it even picks up the leakage from that,” his father was shocked. “Why doesn’t it oversaturate the screen?”

“Anna and I altered some COMSOL code,” Lux said, “The slate software levels the image output, to make it appear at the best representation. You ready for the piece de resistance?” Lux asked and his father nodded.

Lux pointed the camera straight up and held it steady so his dad could see. Lux heard his father gasp. They stood there for minutes, until his father said, “Pan the camera slowly from horizon to horizon.” Lux did as his father asked. “That’s it. This is a great way to show simulations.”

“What do you mean, dad?” Lux asked really puzzled because this wasn’t the reaction he was expecting.

“Do you have all the drawings and code for this camera?” his father asked.

“Of course, dad,” Lux said a bit worried about his father’s agitated appearance.

“Do not get it patented. Realize the government is probably going to take this as soon as they find out about it. What are you planning to do with this camera?”

“Dad. The camera is only the first step. I intend to use the camera to visualize a way to use magnetic fields for propulsion.”

Paulus leaned back as if he was struck. “You do know that magnetic fields don’t interact normally. You understand superposition.”

“I think so dad. My idea springs from something I noticed with that simple Halbach array. I thought it was cool how the alignment of magnets could squeeze the magnetic field out in one direction. Then I played with your magnetic modeling features with COMSOL. Anna and I tweaked that software and found ways to redirect magnetic fields with other magnetic fields. No one can see magnetic fields like I can now. I think magnetic fields above the earth may affect spacecraft, and the magnetic fields of the earth go out 65,000 km (40,000 miles) even though at the equator, the strong field is 500 km (312 miles) from the surface. I plan to video map areas above us first,” Lux exhaled. “Is that too weird?”

“No, son. I’ve been dealing with gravity issues, and I understand your frustration. I’ve been having a lot of my own recently.”

“I understand you can’t talk about your work, but from reading your dissertation and patents – I can infer. I realize magnetic fields are different from gravity, but I know that ballistic missiles use gravity maps in their trajectories over the surface of the earth. I realize that gravity is weaker over some surface features of the earth and this affects trajectory. Most people don’t know gravity is weaker in a very tall building – not much, but it's measurable. I think you are dealing with the gravity bit. I’m, instead, thinking I can use magnetic propulsion to propel spacecraft.”

“You know NASA finally proved that that EM Drive with no propellant wasn’t functional.”

“This isn’t the ‘EM Drive’ dad. That drive was disproved conclusively in 2021. This is a way to react with the natural magnetic field of the earth for propulsion and directional control. There’s a lot of research on this in unclassified literature. I admit that most of the literature is full of it, but there are pearls of wisdom that most don’t see. Most researchers are looking at such a narrow range of effects and tech, that they develop blind spots.”

“You looked at Valentine Pulatov’s work…right,” his father said and laughed thinking his son had used a discredited source. Paulus was worried about his own work and thought Lux had faked all his work.

“He wasn’t close, dad,” said a little hurt by his dad’s put down. “How about I show you when I get a working prototype?”

“Sure, son. You do that,” Paulus said obviously incredulous. “How much would it cost me for you to make me one of these cameras?” his father asked. “I’d also need your updated software of course - showing your simulations.”

It was like Lux had told his father that he was going to ‘sprout wings and fly to the moon.’ His dad’s disbelief made him upset, and he didn’t like being upset with his dad, but it hurt just the same. “Anything for you, dad. I think I can make one pretty cheaply now…say $10,000,” Lux said.

“Holy crap. How much did this one cost?” Paulus asked. “How’s your budget holding up?”

“My videos and licenses are pulling in seven figures, dad…investments are pulling in over 10%. The cost was a little over $100,000. Mass-produced, we could make them for $500, but it’d have to be automated.”

“There probably will be a niche market for the cameras if you’re determined to sell them,” his father said.

Lux went back down to his workstation and started the design of a 12U CubeSat, a small satellite he needed to put into orbit, to further his research. It grated on his nerves that, in this instance, his father seemed so indifferent to his work. Maybe it was that he hadn’t conveyed the importance. His father didn’t seem to grasp the significance of his work. He’d just have to show everyone. He turned back to the design he’d been working on.

Prissy chose that second to call. “Hi, Luckster. What’s up?” she said with a big smile.

Lux cheered up a little seeing her video image. He smiled back and it lifted his spirits. “What’s up with you? Have you visited any colleges yet?”

“I went to Georgia Institute of Technology,” she said bubbling. “Their labs are huge. They accept about 23% of their applications and use the first two years to weed out the slackers. I think I’m going to go there for my undergraduate. I can go to those other schools for a master’s and doctorate. I figure getting a doctorate these days is like getting a union card – it gets people to listen to you, and I’ll need that, being female.”

Lux couldn’t help but laugh at her enthusiasm. “Take a breath…” he grinned. “I sent in an application but don’t know how it will go. I may end up going to the University of Alabama. I applied to MIT too as a backup.”

Prissy laughed. “I bet you are the only person that ever said they had MIT as their backup. Are we doing any more Lummi movies?”

“How about we have her go into a mall and do something? What would we have her do?” Lux asked as he connected the AI – Anna.

“How about we have her sing a song in Madison Square Mall in Huntsville, Alabama? It’s closed down right now. She could be walking through and like the acoustics.” Prissy said. “I see her in a closing music store, coming in and finding a live mic. Have her give her cell phone to the kid closing out the shop and say, ‘I didn’t think this place would close.’ Have the kid say, ‘who knew.’ Have her pick up the guitar, tweak the chords a bit, and step out into the empty mall and sing Pink’s – ‘Who Knew.’ You can have some old walkers stop. Maybe have her cry, and say it’s so sad.”

“Anna, is that possible?”

“That’s an easy one. Give me ten minutes and I can do that one. There are videos inside the mall and lots of people singing ‘Pink’ songs. Pink usually doesn’t play the guitar, but that’s okay – makes it better. I’ll start that, as you discuss what other one you want to do. I have a lot of videos and people in French clothing.”

Prissy said, “How about finding a nice café or something in Paris with an outside venue? The band is playing a second set at about 10 pm, and they start an old French song, but the female singer coughs a lot and quickly leaves, saying she’s sorry (Je suis désolé). Lummi comes out of the back tables. She is wearing designer ripped jeans, and a cutoff-black silk sleeveless top, with high heels similar to the first video.”

“She has to be wearing a Georgia Tech ballcap…just has to,” Lux says.

“She walks up and takes the mic and says, ‘I can do this for you. Oops. Je peux le faire pour vous. Quelles chansons voulez-vous que je chante? Cinquante dollars si je ne suis pas aussi bon que votre chanteur. (What songs do you want me to sing? Fifty dollars if I'm not as good as your singer.) Prissy explains. The guy on the trumpet asks her, “Connaissez-vous La Vie En Rose et Non, Je Ne Regrette?” (‘See seeing life through rose-colored glasses’ – Life in Pink and No, I Don't Regret). “Bien sûr (Of course),” Lummi says and nods to them and they start playing. She starts singing, and after a few bars, she motions for the audience to sing with her. It sounds really good. They start the second song, and it vibrates the walls. The audience starts to sing with her when she motions to them and they sing an extra stanza,” Prissy says. “Is that too much for you, Anna?”

“It is a challenge, Miss Hunnicutt, that I gladly take on,” Anna’s avatar says to them. “This one will take more than ten minutes, but I should have it ready by tomorrow morning.”

“Could we have a couple of anonymous posts with videos from people in the audience with a cell phone camera, saying they saw Lummi at…?” Prissy said. “Have them post their videos about the eight hours apart - after the time a plane lands in New York from Paris.”

“Les Deux Magots restaurant recently reopened,” Anna said. “With the addition of the cell phone videos, it will be after lunch tomorrow.”

Lux laughed. “Let’s see the video in the mall.”

“Have a maintenance guy come up to her, as her singing ends, and catch a glimpse of his face...a real maintenance guy that works at the mall. Have her ask him not to share information about her, but catch some Parisian souvenir she is wearing she could have only gotten recently. Make sure the timing works, looking like she could have returned from the restaurant to back in New York or Atlanta, and have time to come to the mall,” Prissy said.

“That sounds great. Let’s get the next Paris video out, then the two ‘bystander’ cell phone videos, and lastly, the mall video. I need to get back to my satellite project. Talk to you tomorrow, Miss Hunnicutt,” Lux said, mimicking Anna.

Prissy snorted. “Yep, Luxster. See you tomorrow,” she said and cut the call with a grin.

◆◆◆

Lux workspace – Blakely House

Lux sat for a minute, just staring at the magnetic simulation, running a loop of what had amazed him. The simulation showed a helical Halbach array like a corkscrew that got narrower and narrower. The helical array wasn’t amazing. It was how the helical array affected a natural magnetic field. The fields never touched but they moved each other, and the simulation portrayed a force passing out the narrowed end. It was a force Lux thought he might capture to propel a craft in space. He thought it’d be too weak on Earth, but if he could get a nano-CubeSat aligned with the earth’s magnetic field he might be able to maneuver in a limited fashion. He needed to be able to see the fields to be able to use them effectively – hence his magnetic camera. He was planning to have a company in Birmingham make the helical array and a hefty circuit to process the speed and flow of electricity to the array.

He was aiming to fabricate an 8-kilogram (18-pound) satellite using magnetic propulsion with no propellant, instead of the ‘Hall-thrusters’ like the thousands of StarLink satellites used, with their krypton gas propellant (in orbit since May 2019). He had to use control moment gyroscopes to orient the satellite, but he could buy those cheaply since they were ‘old tech’ and available to hobbyists. He had to add a method for the camera to transmit information too, but that was off-the-shelf technology as well. Lux tweaked placement until he realized he should use Anna to optimize the layout.

Lux brought up Anna and her avatar stared at him. “Are you able to handle an optimization of component placement in the satellite I’m designing, besides the videos you are making?”

“Maybe,” she said. “I see you’ve already ordered the control gyroscopes and the communications module. That shouldn’t be a problem. You’ll need the helical propulsion module as wide as you can. Revise that to ten centimeters (10 cm = 4 inches) in diameter at the wide end of the helical array. It’s going to use a good bit of power to energize that Halbach array. I see you are using a Lithium-sulfur battery. What are you using for shielding?”

“I didn’t really think of shielding since I didn’t want to shield the natural magnetic field,” Lux said.

“You are missing some opportunities. You can use reduced graphene oxide and form a very powerful supercapacitor that you can use to shield your sensitive electronics and also store a tremendous amount of energy,” Anna said and displayed the diagrams and schematics. “It’s very energy dense and has odd properties that might shield you too.”

“That looks really well designed. You saved me multiple iterations of prototypes. I’ll go ahead and order all the helical components. Can they wind the electromagnets in the odd pattern I want?” Lux asked.

Anna’s avatar frowned. “They have NASA contracts and make some very odd pieces. You are being charged for the labor and materials. They add 200% profit and charge you again to expedite the fabrication. I will order the supercapacitor shielding. There is a nearby company that can make that easier. We are in a good location with all the research facilities nearby.”

“How long should it take?” Lux asked.

The Anna avatar tapped her foot. “Is this the equivalent of ‘Are we there yet?’ Remember the ancient saying – watched satellite components never boil – or something like that.”

Lux laughed. “Okay. It’s not like I don’t have enough to do. Ner said he has something else planned for me tomorrow, and he said it wasn’t sticks or knives – heck – it’s probably guns and bombs. Thanks, Anna. Did I have dinner?” he asked because he didn’t remember.

“Three hours ago,” she said.

“Night, Anna,” he trudged upstairs to clean up and go to bed. Tomorrow would be there shortly.

◆◆◆

Ner came over at 8 am, and he didn’t have more troops with him. Lux was glad. Lux stood there, watching Ner bring over a very heavy-appearing gym bag.

“What are we doing today?” Lux asked, trying to look around Ner’s shoulder, as he was digging into his gym bag.

“Firearms at contact distance - mainly handguns. Long guns have their own advantages and disadvantages, as do other ranged weapons. There are things you can do at arms-length, and you are just barely strong enough to be able to accomplish some techniques. What do you know about firearms?” Ner explained.

“Practically – nothing at all. This is all new to me,” Lux said seriously.

“Good. No bad habits. Rule one - All guns are loaded – never assume they are not. Check every gun to see if it’s loaded anytime the gun has left your hand. You check it and set it down. You pick it up a second later – do a press check. Now we will learn a press check on different weapons.

Think of a gun as a powerful laser that is always on – Rule Two – point the weapon in a safe direction. A safe direction is one where if the weapon discharges it will only cause minor property damage at the most. Never point it at another or yourself. Rule three – keep your finger off the trigger and on the trigger guard until the gun is pointed at the target and you have decided to fire. Rule four - Always be sure that your target and what’s around and beyond it are safe before firing. Now repeat those back to me,” Ner said.

Lux repeated them back and then said, “What’s a trigger guard?”

Ner laughed. “You really aren’t familiar with guns. The trigger guard is what surrounds the trigger to keep the trigger from being bumped, causing the gun to fire. Let’s learn how to do a press check on a handgun – particularly semi-automatic handguns. That means to check when a round, a bullet, is chambered (in the barrel) or not (in the magazine).”

“What’s a clip?” Lux asked. “I hear actors say that all the time.”

“A magazine holds additional bullets (rounds). A clip is what untrained people call a magazine, particularly actors. Let’s first learn the different names for different parts of handguns,” Ner said. “Some people use stripper clips with lined-up bullets to load their magazines.”

Ner explained how semi-automatic pistols functioned and then showed several types of revolvers. He then went over derringers. Lux had to explain it all back to him without handling the weapons.

“Now I’ll show you a ‘press check,’” Ner explained. “You may not be strong enough to reach under a weapon, but we’ll do that first, and then I’ll show you another way for weaker people. The first thing we do is remove any magazine so you can only mess up once. We point a weapon in a safe direction and reach under the weapon and grab the slide. Pull the slide back slightly, and look into the back of the chamber. Make sure you can see the chamber is empty, and you can see the magazine well has nothing in it,” Ner turned his back to Lux and fiddled with all the weapons, and turned back around. “Show me all these weapons are safe,” Ner said.

The weapons were all laid out on an old blanket. Lux approached the weapons like venomous snakes. He started with the derringer and lifted the top strap on the Hi-Standard and removed the .22 magnum shells. He placed it back on the blanket. He then lifted the .38 caliber derringer and swung the twin barrel down. It, too, was loaded.

“Those cheap derringers – cheap guns in general – are more dangerous because of poor tolerances and cheap manufacture – faulty safety features – they are more likely to go off if dropped or abused,” Ner indicated.

Lux then went to the six different types of revolvers. He swung out the cylinders and removed a live round in two of them. One was cocked. “How do I unload this one?”

“Pick it up and point it in a safe direction. You’ll notice the revolver cylinder will not swing open or rotate when it’s cocked. It is ready to fire with a 2-pound pull or less on the trigger. Your hand is barely large enough to do this technique. Put your left thumb in front of the hammer. Take your right thumb and put it on the hammer spur and hold the hammer back and pull the trigger. You have to lower it slowly and when you have control of the hammer with your right thumb – lower it the rest of the way - now swing out the cylinder to the side,” Ner detailed.

“How do I do this last revolver? It looks different – older?” Lux asked.

“That’s an old cap and ball. You have to take the whole cylinder out of the gun. They used to carry an extra loaded cylinder, and they would swap the whole thing to reload.”

“So, I take the cylinder out of the gun after removing that rod?” Lux asked.

“That’s it. Now the semi-autos.”

Lux removed magazines and, in a couple of cases, chambered rounds from a Glock, Colt 1911, Beretta, Sig Sauer, and Smith & Wesson. He also had a clunky Keltec, and that was the only one he had trouble doing the press check.

“Good,” Ner said. “Now ‘disarming,’ and you never try this unless you think they are going to kill you right then. Put on these gloves. This practice will tear up your hands on the real guns. Learning disarms with a fake gun isn’t as effective. Press check every time and show your partner every time that there is no magazine and the chamber is empty. Move your hands like this exactly.” They did 25 repetitions on the first movement, then 25 repetitions on the second movement, and then 25 repetitions on the gun removal.

“Why do the practice like this in sections?”

“You build muscle memory in gross motor movements – three movements or less. Under stress, when your heart rate is over 130 beats per minute – you cannot perform fine motor movements. See someone after a car crash when they try to write something down. Writing is a fine motor skill, and you cannot write legibly when your heart rate is so high. Athletes who get excited can’t perform fine motor skills. They did one technique with a revolver, and Lux heard a pop.”

“Hey. What was that? I thought you showed me it was empty,” Lux said.

“It was. I loaded a shell with just a primer (the igniter to the powder) and a cotton ball.”

“Why’d you do that?” Lux asked.

“I’ve discovered that when people hear a shot – they freeze to see if they are hurt, and then they continue. When you are exposed to that, even once, you learn to keep going. I invoke the rule. Keep going unless you hear a whistle to stop. They used to train people with a whistle to start firing, and then there were several incidents when people had a gun out, and they fired when they heard a whistle. Now everyone only uses a whistle to stop. I now invoke the rule – keep going until the pistol is back in your hands, or I say stop. You are often excited and traumatized in a weapon encounter, so we will simulate that condition now with the ‘elephant in the bucket’ drill. Put your goggles back on.”

“Not sure I like this,” Lux responded.

“I want you to put your left arm under your right arm and bend over at the waist. Point to a spot on the ground, and when I say ‘go’ – I want you to keep your hand over that spot exactly and shuffle your feet, so you go around in a circle eight times. I’ll count. On the count of ‘eight’ – I’ll bring the weapon up and shoot you in the head unless you disarm me.”

“Hey. I want to check that weapon. Did you check it?” Lux asked anxiously.

“I can’t remember. Bend over. Go,” Ner said and started counting as Lux twirled around the spot. “One, two… three, four, five, six, seven, eight!” Ner yelled.

Lux saw the weapon coming up, and even though he was dizzy and could hardly stand – he shoved the weapon to his right and leveraged it out of Ner’s two-handed grip. He aimed the weapon at Ner and yelled, “Back off!” Lux moved unsteadily back away from Ner.

Ner clapped and said, “You now graduate this portion of the training. Your father has someone different coming tomorrow. I’ve enjoyed working with you.” Ner said – packed up all the guns and left without another word.

◆◆◆

After lunch – Prissy came over like they’d planned. They went down to his workstation and fired up Anna. Anna’s avatar looked really happy, and she was prancing around the monitor. “I take it you’re proud of your work, Anna?” Prissy said.

“Uh-huh,” Anna concurred. “Y’all ready.”

Lux laughed. “Southern contractions. You are feeling it. Let’s see them.”

Anna started playing the restaurant scene in Paris with Lummi singing. Lux was the first to respond. “What is different about this video? It’s somehow different.”

“You gave me an indication that you wanted some of the audience to be real people with that mall video. Do you want the cell phone videos to be from real people? They wouldn’t remember her at all,” Anna said.

“Yes. Yes. That’s a great move. I just had an idea that will increase her viewership ten times. Release those videos. Make cell phone videos from people who have been to Paris recently. Also, make one of Lummi in Hawaii surfing in a string bikini that is next to nothing. Release that one, too, from someone with a cell phone that gets her coming in out of the water and shaking out her long, wet hair. Make it as sexy as you can,” Lux said.

Prissy said, “You sure, Lux? The Feds may see there is no one like her in their record base.”

Lux slapped his hand down on the desk. “Exactly! Anna. I need you to hack some Hawaiian airport surveillance system and show Lummi with sunglasses coming back from Hawaii with a slightly sunburned nose. Can you get into a TSA system and do that without them knowing?”

“You bet,” Anna said. “I love challenges.”

“But nobody will remember her,” Prissy said.

“Exactly. Our girl is going to have a secret power that people exposed to her can be made to forget who she is or that they’ve seen her. That will freak people out,” Lux stated.

“I don’t want to do anything obviously illegal. Let’s not hack the TSA system. How about some tourist takes a cell phone video of her coming through a TSA checkpoint coming back from Hawaii? Release a video of her – questioning - is this Lummi?” Prissy said.

“Yeah. That’s a lot better idea and a lot easier. Anna. Can you release it so it ‘looks’ like it was released near that Hawaiian airport?”

“Easily done,” Anna said. “I am currently releasing the Paris video dated a week ago. I’ll date the cell phone videos of her in Paris, so the time fits. I’ll release the cell phone videos of her in Hawaii a week ago but released them after the Paris singing video comes out. It’ll seem like people are recognizing her in one video and releasing their home footage.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow night. How is your magnet stuff coming?” Prissy asked.

“I’ve had some luck with that. I’ll know when I get the prototype working?” Lux said. He didn’t want to show her the camera results and have her ‘poo-pooh’ the results like his dad had. He’d be crushed if she wasn’t impressed. “I’ll see you tomorrow then,” he said.

Prissy walked up the stairs and out to the front porch with him, then turned suddenly, grabbed his arms, and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. Lux nearly collapsed and waved as she pulled off. He felt light as a feather. He had to admit it to himself – he had a huge crush on her.

Chapter 11

Carol Matthews (CNN Atlanta) called her staff together. “Hey, gang. Two Feds came by to ask us not to do the story on the genius kid because – get this – the kid’s dad is some kind of top-secret scientist. We do get a token we can use, though. Typically, you can actually get them to do something for you if the favor you ask for isn’t illegal – or too illegal. I’ve done it a few times. So – John – Jennifer – What else do you have for me?”

Jennifer spoke up. “Remember that Lummi story I mentioned? She just released a video of her walking up to a band playing at a restaurant in Paris.”

“And,” Carol, underwhelmed.

“Wait for it. She is an American tourist, and she looks hot as hell. Wait. Wait. You won’t believe this…she’s wearing a Georgia Tech ball cap, and she starts singing in fluent French, even getting the audience to join in. She sounds great, and the video is high quality,” Jennifer said.

“Who took the video?” John asked.

“I guess whoever accompanied her to the restaurant. It’s where she came from in the video. The audio is good too.”

“Show me,” Carol said as she watched the video. “My god. She’s stunning. Get me temp use rights. I doubt we can claim ‘fair use’ because I want to broadcast more than ten seconds.”

John spoke up. “I saw some other people videoing her with their cell phones. I’ll try to get them. We could use them as fair use, or maybe they got something the others didn’t.”

“We go with this tomorrow night if corporate approves the fees,” Carol said. “Get the video and put the story script together. John, see if any more videos of this girl pop up. We might spin other things she’s done if they’re new. I suppose we have to show we are not exempt from online news even though recent polls show more people watching online news than tv broadcasts.”

◆◆◆

CIA Headquarters – Ingrid CIA Senior Analyst

Ingrid saw the number and moaned. “What up Tom? NSA doesn’t have enough to do so you call me?”

“Lummi just released another video,” Tom said.

“All DeepFake again? You know it’s all DeepFake. None of the people are real. We have as good of facial recognition as you do,” Ingrid commented.

“Last one, I’d agree with you. Maybe the software altered the features of the people enough so facial recognition wouldn’t recognize them. This one had several matches, though. One was a male tourist that just returned to New York from Paris,” Tom said, anticipating his next statement.

“How does that help us?” Ingrid asked, a bit irked.

“The guy uploaded a video he made of the incident in Paris when he got back to his home in New York City. We traced the upload from his home in Hudson Yards. He is in Lummi’s video and you see him videoing the singing while holding his cell phone,” Tom explained.

“Holy crap,” Ingrid said.

“Exactly,” Tom said. “There’s another guy that the facial recognition identified. He’s an American too. He’s still over there, and we’re monitoring his media uploads. He’s in the Lummi video too, and he’s videoing with his cell phone, too…damn tourists,” Tom said and laughed.

◆◆◆

Blakely House

The next day Lux was waiting in his kitchen when there was a knock on the back door. That startled him because none of the drive sensors or cameras they had put up had alerted him to anyone being on the property. He called his father, and he came from the study and went to the back door, and opened it without hesitation. This guy was much larger than Ner, and Lux didn’t want to have to fight this guy. His dad and the guy hugged and slapped backs and all that stuff. Lux decided this was the guy that was supposed to be here.

Lux got up and stood off to the side, waiting to be introduced. His father said, “This is Stan. He’ll be training you for the next week or so. This is Lux,” Paulus said and pointed at his son. “I’ll leave you with him.” His father left.

“Hi, Lux. I’m Stan. I used to work with your father. I guess you noticed that none of your security systems went off as I approached and knocked on your door. That’s my job. I’m to teach you how to circumvent security, whether electronic or physical. Let’s take a walk,” Stan informed.

Lux had noticed he learned more when he wasn’t talking, so he decided his father must have had a good reason for these guys to show up and teach him. He thought he’d just shut up and absorb.

Stan started pointing out the locations of various cameras and sensors around the property. They walked to the road. “How would you approach this house if you didn’t want to alert anyone inside?” he asked.

“I guess I’d park down the road off to the side as unobtrusively as possible. I wouldn’t want a neighbor calling up the house, saying there was a broken-down car near my house. Where is your vehicle?” Lux asked because he knew Ner drove a truck.

“Right over here. Let’s move it into your drive,” Stan said.

They found the truck, which was backed in about five hundred yards from the house. As they were driving it around back, Stan asked, “How would you approach the house from the vehicle?”

“I’d approach through the woods, but I’d use a lot of unscented insect repellant.”

“Why unscented?” Stan asked with a smile.

“Because scents carry a long way. I saw a documentary about the Vietnam war and Vietcong used to locate US soldiers with their scented antiperspirants. Plus, ticks and chiggers will ruin your day in the South…sometimes just walking through tall grass can cripple you the next few days from the insects.”

“Very good,” Stan said. “Let’s look at all the devices, and then I’ll show you how to circumvent them. How would you scout a place to see all the devices?”

“I’m too small, but I’d get someone with a camera and scanner to detect all devices before I ever tried to override them.”

“How?” Stan asked.

“Probably as a delivery person. They go everywhere. You could use a small drone, but a lot of them are loud. I could even be a utility worker up a pole near the house.”

“Very good thinking.” Stan pointed out the cameras around his house and explained that most devices either transmitted the data wirelessly or were hard-wired. He explained how to capture a few minutes of video and replay it on the same frequencies. Shutting down cameras by destroying them was a good way to focus attention on a false vector of attack.

“You could destroy cameras on one side house so you could approach from the other side?” Lux guessed.

“Yes, but the best way is to be at the target without being seen by the motion sensors or cameras.”

“That’s what you did this morning?” Lux said with a questioning tone.

“Yes. Your property uses off-the-shelf devices that are designed to catch run-of-the-mill attackers. Let’s get those two big cases out of my trunk, and we’ll go over spoofing and interception. I hear you are into electronics and software. Your skills will make this much easier.”

Lux spent the morning learning about the various sensor and cameras. He learned their strengths and weaknesses. He was able to spoof all the perimeter sensors and cameras before lunch.

“Wow. That’s easy once you know how,” Lux told Stan.

“Isn’t everything?” Stand said, smiling. “Tomorrow, we’ll put up a series of much better sensors and cameras. Your father already purchased all the equipment to harden your security perimeters. We’ll add some active defense the next day and physical security devices – locks and barriers, the days after that. See you tomorrow,” Stan said, and he was packed up and gone in five minutes – just like Ner.

◆◆◆

Blakely House

Delivery people delivered some of the more common components just after lunch, as Lux was out practicing his martial arts striking attacks in order to stay limber and increase the power of his strikes. He thought about what Stan had taught him and didn’t take the delivery people for granted anymore. He had taken the newly delivered components down to his workshop when Prissy called.

“Luxster,” Prissy said, looking all excited. “Have you seen CNN today?”

“I don’t watch that stuff. Why?” he asked.

“I think they’re going to do a story on Lummi at six tonight.”

“Why do you think that?”

“They’ve been running this promo every hour saying, ‘Do you know this girl?’ and then five seconds of her singing – followed by – ‘You’ll never guess’ – tonight at six with Pamela Brown.”

“I’ll have Anna find out who assembled the story on Lummi, and we’ll send them a way to contact her for an interview. We said we’d want to do interviews when we first started down this path,” Lux said. “You know I’ll need you with me when we do this interview so we can make her not look crazy. Call me after the show tonight – okay?”

“Sure. Talk to you tonight,” Prissy said and cut the connection.

Lux turned back to his project, but he was a bit distracted by the upcoming CNN feature on Lummi. He examined the shells of the satellite prototypes he had ordered from a local 3D printing company. He had received three copies of his design. He was pleased he could order a print and get it the next day in Huntsville. He was especially pleased with the three copies of the carbon-fiber composite structure because they felt like they weighed almost nothing, yet they could withstand extreme ranges of temperature. The three sets of control gyroscopes had come in from the amateur group satellite group, and they were pretty sweet - but might be problematic to mount.

He tinkered with his designs but kept thinking about the airing of the Lummi video on national tv. He knew she had a huge following on social media, but this would be a breakthrough moment. He had Anna look up the media manager at CNN Atlanta that had orchestrated the story. He had Anna track down her cell and email contact information and crafted a message to her.

“Anna? Can you make an email address that would be almost impossible to trace for our ‘Lummi’? I want to have it ready to send to the person after the broadcast.”

“No problem. I’m setting up one now and a way to do a video interview invite later,” Anna said.

The meal that night saw Lux acting very nervous. His father was a bit distracted.

“How’d your day go with Stan?” his father asked finally. “Are you okay?

“Our Deepfake girl is on CNN tonight. Stan was really neat. I learned a lot,” Lux said tersely – not wanting to get into a discussion. He thought he’d feel better after the show. “You wanna’ watch it with me.”

“Sure,” his father said. “I’m not that backed up at work,” he said, but his demeanor said the opposite. He seemed really stressed out.

“Any way I can help?”

“No, son. It’s work stuff. Just hit a bit of a roadblock on a fuel issue,” Paulus rubbed his temples. “Shouldn’t have said that much,” Paulus seemed pretty upset. “It’s coming up on six. Let’s watch in the study.”

“K,” Lux said as he put his dishes in the dishwasher.

CNN came on with the usual war here, famine here, drought here, mass shooting here stories, and then they plugged the Paris singer story. The ‘Lummi’ story finally came up. Pamela Brown introduced it as people were sitting in a restaurant in Paris when the normal singer was incapacitated, and this Mystery Girl tourist walked up and said she could do it. No one knew what to think, but she took the microphone and started singing old French songs. She evidently encouraged the audience to sing with her. Then Pamela Brown said, “Look at her ball cap.” The camera zoomed in, and you could see it was a Georgia Tech cap. They let her sing for twenty seconds. Pamela Brown said the girl just walked away afterward. “Who is she? The video was released under the name ‘Lummi.’” Pamela closed out the half hour. The story lasted 121 seconds, which was longer than the latest drought story.

“What’d you think?” Lux asked his father.

“That really looked real, son, and it was a good story. Good job. I’ve got to catch up on some stuff, so I’ll be working late. See you in the morning.”

Prissy had just gotten to his computer downstairs when Prissy called. “I thought it was great. Do you have the anonymous email address set up? Who did Anna find to send it to?”

“Anna. You with us – ah – yes,” he said as Anna’s visage popped up. “Anna”?

“Got it all set up. What does the text you plan to send say?” Prissy asked.

Hi Carol. Lummi here. Wanted to thank you for showing that clip of me in Paris. So much fun. Worried about coming off as another ugly American, and you portrayed it – in the best light. Love France, spend a good bit of time there when traveling around the world. In Hawaii right now – sleep on those long flights if can. Occasionally check email when back on the mainland (next week). Hard to do that in some countries like China, but they treat lone Americans pretty well - speaking fluent Putonghua helps. It really cheered me up. I really owe you and your team one for this. Here’s my contact info for me. Please don’t share.

“Oh, that’s masterful. Send it tomorrow,” Prissy said.

“…and start sending the Hawaii surfing video and the return through the airport with sunglasses. Then the mall video. See if they bite on the interview,” Lux said. “We’ll see if they have enough interest to go for it.”

◆◆◆

NSA Fort Meade Headquarters – Next Day

Tom saw the number and was surprised. “What up, Ingrid? Is this some more interagency cooperation?”

“Lummi seems to have upped her game – did you see CNN last night? They played a story about the ‘mystery girl.’ Do they even know if she’s American? I had a facial recognition search bot looking for new media on her, and one popped up with her on the beach in Hawaii.”

“What’s this one about? Dancing? Flaming torch dance? Harpooning whales?” Tom said sarcastically.

“No,” Ingrid laughed. “You guys will appreciate this one. Some tourist thought it might be her after seeing that CNN story. She is wearing – and the use of the term ‘wearing’ is a misnomer. She is surfing in a thong bikini. The video shows the last 20 seconds of her surfing. She shakes out her hair, shoves it over one ear, and with an enchanting view of her rear, she reaches down and picks up her surfboard like a strong guy. She then walks past the cell phone guy and smiles over her shoulder with an enchanting walk until his girlfriend yells at him and shoves him. You see the video stops as the phone is falling.”

“Damn. What flights would get her to Hawaii from New York or Paris with connections?”

Tom asked. “I’ll see if I can find out who this girl is. Keep looking for Lummi videos, and let me know if you get another in Hawaii. Was the video released from Hawaii?”

“Yes. Public internet near several huge hotels. It’s anonymous, but no wonder - considering how the guy’s girlfriend was angry for him videoing her ass like he did. I’ll keep looking.” Ingrid said.

“Thanks for the tip, Ingrid. We’ll keep looking too.”

◆◆◆

Blakely House

Stan was there at 8 am but didn’t hide his car as he drove up. He came to the back door and knocked. He had an enormous box with him, and he struggled through the door and set it on the kitchen floor near the table. He pulled out a large scrolled map and spread it out on the table, and smoothed it out.

“How old is this map?” he asked Lux.

“How should I know? Oh, wait. Let me see what has changed recently. It was made yesterday,” Lux declared. “From the shadows – I’d say just after you left.”

“Explain to me,” Stan said.

“I went out right after you left and picked a basket of ripe peaches. Because I left the step ladder leaned against the tree, and though your car is not in this print, this print covers where it was parked,” Lux said.

“Very good. Now we’ll look at the devices I have with me, and we’ll plan where to place them in order to have an inner and outer perimeter. Plus, we have devices in the truck that provide us the means to install an active less-lethal defense,” Stan said.

“Why do you call tasers and sprays and stuff less-lethal instead of non-lethal?”

“Good question. It is the reason shooting professionals use the term ‘magazines’ instead of calling them ‘clips.’ You could drop marshmallows on people by parachute, and someone would look up with their mouth open and choke on it. These devices work on different frequencies, have harder-to-spoof software, are built to military standards, and are just tougher and better than their civilian counterparts. They work at longer ranges, are harder to see, and are tamper resistant.”

Stan then pulled out infrared (passive and active) sensors, ranged sensors that worked over long-range, LIDAR, Microwave, and LASER systems in a spectrum of frequencies. He also had buried driveway sensors and window and wall vibration sensors. Some were wired, and most were wireless, and they all worked together. There was one robot dog from General Dynamics, three drones that could dispense stun grenades and tear gas (CS and OC), and one drone that could disperse DM gas to make people puke or a fentanyl-based gas to knock them unconscious. Stan said that the last two were illegal, but it was a ‘last resort’ type of thing. We installed most of the outer perimeter ones, but Stan said it would take three days to set them all up.

Stan explained how to respond to the different devices, false alarms, and different types of attacks the whole time they were installing. Lux could clearly see the vulnerabilities clearly with this type of instruction. They worked into the afternoon for the next two days. After stretching, Lux would practice striking his heavy bags and punching/kicking and throwing knives at targets for an hour every afternoon after stretching. He was also running a varied 3-kilometer route (just under 2 miles) around the property after the martial arts before showering and working on his ‘project.’ Some more components came in came, but the helical Halbach didn’t come in until Monday morning.

Lux was torn between telling Stan that he needed to skip a day but today was the last day with Stan working on physical locking mechanisms. Stan had taught him how to circumvent biometric locks and digital combination locks, key cards, and solenoid locks. He learned to manipulate (pick) pin tumbler locks, tubular cam vending machine locks, magnetic key locks, and manual combination locks. He also was shown how to breach fences and doors. Stan said Lux didn’t need explosive, acid, det cord, or thermal lance techniques. Stan gave him decades of information, like a cool drink out of a 7 cm diameter fire hose. Lux was quite exhausted and anxious when he finished his run today.

Lux carefully toted the packages down to his workspace and unwrapped them. He laid out the components on the table. The three large corkscrew-shaped Halbach arrays looked odd, as did the dozen gray-silver ultracapacitors. The Halbach arrays would, hopefully, provide enough thrust, and the ultracapacitor would provide the extra energy storage he needed. Too tired to work on anything tonight, he arranged components into three distinct piles for the three copies of the prototype he planned to build. He hadn’t heard anything from CNN, but he hoped he would since he was burning through money. It cost $30,000 per kilogram to put a satellite of this type in orbit, and its target weight was six kilograms total or $180,000 at a minimum.

◆◆◆

CNN Office – Carol Matthews Atlanta

Carol Matthews was going through the hundreds of emails after the Lummi video had been shown. She was about to select all – delete when one caught her eye. Oh god – she thought. This couldn’t be. It appeared to be… maybe it was real. “Jennifer!” she yelled. “Jennifer! John! Come here. Read this email and see if you think it’s real.”

Her two associates rushed to her office and read the email.

“Holy S&*!!” Jennifer exclaimed. “Looks real to me.”

“Uh-huh. I think it’s real. Found a recent video online of Lummi on the beach at Waikiki, and it was something. She looked fourteen in her first video. She does not look fourteen in this one. String bikini,” John stated.

“What do you think? An interview? Who with here, instead of the other networks? I’d love to do it but is the senior Washington correspondent the best one for the job?” Carol asked.

“She’s great but maybe not the one for this. How about Anderson?” Jennifer said. “He’d be the most unbiased guy with a woman. It would draw a huge audience.”

“Not to be mercenary, but we could even sell that email address for a chunk of change even,” John said.

Carol was trembling a bit, she was so excited. “I’m going to call Anderson right now and ask him…should I ask him?” she said hesitantly.

“Carol. Come on. She’s just hit a billion views on her video. I bet he’d do it. She said she’d ‘owe us one’ after our spot about her. Anderson would do it,” Jennifer said.

“Okay. I’m calling him. I’m doin’ it. Here I go,” she said and waited on the call to be answered.

“Hi. This is Carol Matthews in personal interest. My team put together the ‘Lummi’ story. You loved it. Thank you. She emailed me – personally – and gave me contact information. Would you be willing to interview her if I can get it arranged? You’d love to…that’s great. I’ll set it up and get with your schedule people to make sure we can work it out. She said, ‘she’d owe us one’ after the story. Super. Thank you so much. Bye,” Carol said and slumped down in her seat, doing fist bumps with her associates.

“Now,” Carol said. “Help me write an email to Lummi. It has to be designed for her.”

◆◆◆

Blakely House

Lux had gotten up early and worked out, and did his run. He knew if he started work on his project, he’d never stop long enough to work out. He showered and ate a big breakfast. He saw his father was already up, and the Do Not Disturb light was already on downstairs. He took a deep breath and started assembling the components for the first satellite prototype. The thruster unit fit perfectly but interfered with the control gyroscopes. It took an hour to get the thruster repositioned. The satellite communications module took two hours under the magnifying light to get it connected. The control module would take a couple of hours to set up, so he went upstairs, and fixed a sandwich.

He noticed his dad doing the same thing. “Dad,” Lux asked. “You, okay?”

“Fine, son. Just working through a problem. I think I’ve got it licked. How’s your work coming?” his father answered in an automatic response tone that sounded like a ‘not really interested – just say you’re fine’ tone.

Lux smiled. “Fine, dad,” he said and went over to him and hugged him. “Love you, dad.”

His father crushed him to his chest and kissed the top of his head. “Love you too, kiddo. Gotta’ run.” His father hurried back downstairs.

Lux wondered what was vexing his father. He sighed and focused on the prototype. The control module was a bear to get positioned and hooked to everything. He got cramps in his hand trying to get tools into weird positions to attach leads. The heaviest leads went to the thrust unit (helical Halbach). He finally got the camera attached to the side of the thruster and paused as he was about to attach the lithium-sulfur battery and its wireless charging receiver. He took photos of the unit at each stage, and this was the last phase before closing it all up with the Graphene-composite ultra-capacitor shell.

The satellite now just looked like three stacked halves of school lunch boxes that had been covered in a dull gray material. It was now just a gray (20 cm × 20 cm × 34.05 cm) tube. It weighed in at 8.18 kilograms (18 pounds or $100,000 more than he planned to launch into orbit). He hadn’t sealed the edges, but he had a lot of testing before he could do that. He put the rectangular tube near the charging station. He wanted it to be fully charged first. He wanted to see if the supercapacitor would give him the power density he needed.

◆◆◆

Lux checked his emails after eating. He was surprised to see the email from Carol Matthews of CNN. Lux immediately called Prissy. Her image popped up on the screen.

“What’s up, Luxster?” she said.

“We got our email from Carol Matthews. Help me interpret a response,” he said.

“Read it to me,” Prissy said. “We need Anna to hear this too.”

“Ah. You’re right,” he said and brought up Anna. “Hi, Anna. We got a request for an interview, as we hoped.”

“Should I release the mall video now? This seems like the optimum time. The maintenance man is identifiable from arrest records. I made sure Lummi touched him once in the video,” Anna said. “Carol contacted Anderson to do the interview – I added some software to her computer. I accessed their public calendars. His calendar is free Wednesday from 1 ‘til 4. The software I added will go self-delete in two days.”

“You added a keystroke logger or something. What did her email say?” Prissy asked again.

The email says Lummi. We’re big fans here. Wondered if you’d do a one-on-one interview with a top CNN anchor. We could do it live or remotely. We realize you travel a lot. Would two days from now give you enough time to get back in touch with us? Do you have a publicist, manager, or representative we need to touch base with? Are there any topics you don’t want to cover?

“Whew. Leaves it wide open. How do we respond?” Lux said.

“Send this…” Prissy said. Carol, you people were so nice. No publicist, manager, or representative – just me - though I have friends that help me with my videos. I have a friend with a mini-studio in his home, and he said I could use it. It has a high-end camera/audio, good lighting also has great bandwidth. How about one – ‘til four this Wednesday? That’s the best time for me. Send me a Zoom invite, and feel free to record it and use the recordings any way you want. You are so professional — no restrictions on topics. I’ll wear stylish, conservative clothing – no busy patterns or flashy jewelry. If we have any trouble – we can reshoot anything you need the next day. Just tell me if you will air it and when so I can set the DVR for my friend.

“I think that’s fine. Send it,” Lux said. “How many views have we received?”

Anna confirmed, “Email sent. The Mall video was released a few minutes ago. We’ve received over a billion views on the Paris singing. Lummi has 320,000 views from the beach bikini already. The ‘Hawaii returning video’ was uploaded from Hawaii 12 hours ago – that was a day after the ‘surfing’ video surfaced.”

◆◆◆

CNN Carol Matthews Office - Atlanta

“She accepted. Guys, look at this email. Check Anderson’s schedule. No restrictions. None of the control issues most people have these days. I think we can pull this off. Jennifer, you, and John go through every scrap of video that’s on the web about her and any information you can find, then put it together for Anderson. Languages, education, childhood, age, likes, dislikes, secrets – anything, and put it in a folder for Anderson.

◆◆◆

Blakely House

Lux had a hard time going to sleep that night, so he got up and made a list of what he needed to do the next day. He dropped off to sleep right after he made the list and wasn’t trying to list things in his head over and over.

He woke up a little later than normal and was pleased it was summer. He stretched and went through Kali and Arnis drills for half an hour. He was actually developing some power with his kicks and sticks, his strikes with hands, knees, and elbows. He was finally able to do four pull-ups – his record, though he did his usual pushups and sit-ups. His two-mile run was getting easier, though it was already hot by nine. He ate breakfast and had a quick shower. He headed to his workspace.

The first thing Lux did was put on a full-face shield and got the special fireproof bag ready. There was a LOT of energy in the ultracapacitor and the battery. He checked their levels and then turned on the link to the control modules. They worked fine, but he didn’t know how they’d work in space.

He turned on the magnetic camera, and he was able to see the faint magnetic fields within the basement. He then set the desired orientation of the tube through the remote-control module and then activated the gyroscopes. He could feel it orient itself and point at the North wall of the basement. Now he was going to do the ultimate test. He turned on the camera and aligned the tube toward the North wall but placed it in the weak earth’s magnetic field he saw through the magnetic camera near the floor. He put the tube on a little sliding cart. It took almost no effort for the cart to roll. He placed the aligned tube on the little rolling cart and attached a force meter (like a little fish scale or spring gauge) attached with a cable to the South wall of the basement. He had made a hook to the tube frame. Everything was set up.

He took his better magnetic-visual camera and started recording the tube. His camera was mounted on a tripod and pointed at an angle aligned to the North. He powered up the helical thruster unit, and nothing happened at the lowest setting. The StarLink satellites currently in orbit could produce one-half Newton of thrust with their ion-Krypton gas propulsion. He was hoping he would produce 40 Newtons of thrust (defined as the force necessary to provide a mass of one kilogram with an acceleration of one meter per second per second). Since his tube had a mass of about six kilograms – he was hoping to get about 6.5 meters per second per second acceleration. He raised the power to the helical Halbach array and raised the cycling to 1,000 cycles per second.

The prototype tube smashed into the North wall and ripped the force meter apart. One moment it was there, and the next moment it was a crater in the basement wall. His father came rushing out of his end of the lab.

“Lux. Are you okay? What did you do?”

“I had a slight miscalculation. That was the propulsion system on my prototype satellite that I will be putting in orbit next month,” Lux explained.

“Don’t you have better sense than using a rocket inside?!” his father yelled.

Lux said, getting angry at his father. “Of course I do. What do you think I was doing? Playing with my toys over here. I didn’t use a damn rocket. It was a sealed tube using magnetic propulsion! An idiot knows not to use some ancient rocket technology, and I’m not an idiot.”

“Wait, son. You’re telling me you didn’t use a rocket? How the hell did something like this happen? What kind of propellant did you use? Did you shoot it at the wall like a railgun?” Paulus asked.

“Stop yelling at me, dad. You thought I was kidding when I showed you the camera the other day and told you what I was going to do with it,” Lux sighed and pulled up the recorded image of the incident. “Here. Sit down – if you’re able to and watch this video – I’d like your input – without the hollering, of course.” Lux started the video – he stopped it after it had run a bit. “This is where I turned on the helical Halbach array inside the tube.”

“It’s not doing anything,” his father said. “Is this when something exploded and blew it across the room?”

“That’s not what happened. Let me play the video again from the start to here, and you explain what you’re seeing.”

The video played. Paulus asked, “What are those wavy lines like smoke I’m seeing? What’s causing that distortion? Wait. This is in real-time. I thought the camera you made played simulated magnetic fields and overlaid the simulated fields with what was in the visible spectrum,” his father said.

“These are real-time images of weak Earth magnetic fields that are flowing through our lab. They are extremely weak. I’ll replay it again,” Lux said, getting exasperated at his father.

“I see the magnetic fields now, and I see a glow at the rear of your tube,” Paulus said.

“Finally - Dad. I’ll play the next part in slow motion. This is where I turned up the power and cycling rate.” The next segment of the video was played in slow motion. “Tell me, what do you think happened?

“Damn,” his father said. “The back section of the tube got brighter, and it shot across the room. How big a mass was that? Did you measure the distance from the front of the tube to the wall? What is the frame rate on your camera?”

“You trying to find out how many Newtons of force I got…right?” Lux asked. “I was shooting for forty Newtons, but I got a lot more interaction than I expected. It did have 18 kilograms of mass. It was fifteen meters (just under 50 feet) from the North wall. Timing on the recording shows it took one-twentieth (1/20th) of a second to travel the distance at 1,000 frames per second,” Lux said. “Before this – I would have thought that’s impossible acceleration.”

“Faster than the speed of sound in fifteen meters. I’m not sure I can believe this is real. You still plan to use magnetic propulsion? Really? I really hope this works out for you. What are you planning to do next?”

“I’ll make one prototype tomorrow. It took me most of the day. I’ve got enough components to make two more but having the helical Halbach arrays cost a lot to make. I’m planning to launch of these into low Earth orbit next month. I’ve already paid $90,000 to reserve eight kilograms of payload.”

“I doubt I should show these videos to my colleagues?” his father asked. “It looks more like an explosion than conventional propulsion. I can believe that.”

“Not showing anyone yet, Dad. I’m ten. What would happen to my work if the military got a whiff of this work?”

His dad looked down at the floor. “If it really worked – heck – even if the videos were fake, they’d strip it away from you in a heartbeat and pat you on your head. Tell me about the company that built this thruster part of your satellite. What security measures did you use to keep someone from stealing your idea?”

“I had the company sign a strict non-disclosure that R.V. said was enforceable. I then made the design so if you wired it up as is – it would turn on all the coils and make it one big electromagnet. You have to rewire several things to get it to work right. Takes me a half hour to rewire to get it operational. It doesn’t do anything without the control module – which also has to mate with the proper software,” Lux said.

“Good job, son. Do you mind me – just me – looking at your research? I think it has broad uses if you get it working. Did it explode because you wired it wrong?”

“No, dad – you’re not convinced from my videos.” Lux realized his dad still thought it exploded.

Anna popped up in voice only. “Ready,” Anna said. “State your request,” she stated flatly.

Lux didn’t know why Anna was acting so weird, but he’d ask her when he was alone. “Copy my videos – just the videos about the magnetic camera and satellite project. Copy to the inserted data stick.”

Anna replied, “Complete.”

“Thanks, Anna,” Lux said. “Here’s the data stick, dad. The encryption key is the first two letters of mom’s middle name and my first patent number.”

“Thanking the computer and treating it like a person. It’s like something your mother would do. You know computers have trouble with complex commands. Hope she sent me all of them. Maybe it’ll convince me when I get time to look at it,” his father said and tucked the data stick in his pocket.

Chapter 12

The next day at the Blakely House was full of anticipation. Paulus looked at Lux across the kitchen table like he was just there for the first time.

“Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing?” his father asked.

“Don’t you remember going out in the yard and using my new camera to look at the sky? I told you what I was going to do, and you scoffed at the idea,” Lux said.

“I thought you had found a way to match COMSOL magnetic simulations over the real-time view of the camera. I didn’t realize I was looking at magnetic fields in real-time,” his father said.

“What about when I asked you for a chip manufacturing company you trusted that could manufacture Hall-effect arrays for me to watch magnetic fields in real-time? When I showed you this outside – you thought I had used some discredited work and laughed at what your ‘child’ had done. I remember your tone. It was seared into my memory.”

Paulus’s mouth was pursed as Lux talked and then turned to a straight line. He was clearly upset and stressed. “I’m sorry. I am having problems and didn’t focus on what you were saying. I was too dismissive of your ideas and saw you as my ‘child’ and not as Lux – way more than a child. The tech you’ve invented is going to be a problem – at first, it will just be a complication. Have you been accepted at Georgia Tech yet?”

“No word yet, but we should hear soon. I talked with admissions, and they said they’d let me know when they got my SAT scores from the school. I sent them the AP results.”

“Son. You should apply for a combined undergraduate and Master's degree. You could still finish in three years or less,” his dad said.

“First, I have to get in,” Lux said, exhaling a long breath. “I do plan to put the prototype satellite in orbit next month. I need to finish one today and test it. It needs to be at the launch site by Friday of this week to be eligible to fly.”

“Tight deadline. I’ll have one of my friends take it there personally. It needs more than an insurance charge with Fed Ex to protect it. We’re going to have to have active protection here if more knowledge of your tech becomes known.”

“Stan and I put up that automated surveillance system around the house,” Lux said.

“That would not stop anyone – it only warns us, and we’d have little means to defend ourselves.”

“We do have defensive drones.”

“We’ll need more than that. I do want you to be more cautious when you are outside or running from now on – always. Promise me.”

“I promise I’ll be prepared, dad,” Lux said as he finished his breakfast. Lux went to his room and put on the three-knife sheath Ner had given him. Ner said one knife was okay, two knives were better, and three knives were optimal. When Lux had asked about four knives – Ner had laughed and said, ‘If you need four knives – you just need to run away.’ Lux was actually getting good at four meters (12 feet), completing one-turn throws, and at six meters (19 feet) for the more difficult two-spin throw with his special knives. He’d need the 6-meter throw to defeat a Taser since they had a maximum range of almost 5 meters (15 feet). He also had a GPS cat tracker module he modified in each shoe. He made them so they could be recharged wirelessly and had modified them so they could be turned on remotely with a random five to ten-minute query.

He changed his workout to include more with the knives - more kali and throwing. He kept up with his physical workouts even though he felt the inner drive to finish his prototype. He went to his workshop after his shower and always felt more alive and awake after a good workout. He looked around his workbench – took a couple of deep breaths, and exhaled before he started in. This time went faster because he changed the order of construction a bit and centered the propulsion module first and then all the surrounding components. His hands didn’t cramp, and he finished in 3/4th the time.

He had fully charged the battery now instead of waiting ten hours for one to charge. The supercapacitor only took five minutes to charge fully.

He went through the same testing except allowed only a trickle of power to the helical Halbach propulsion unit this time. He upped the cyclic rate until it began to slide the cart again. He adjusted the power and cycling rate many times and measured the different readings on the digital force meter. He was able to plot different thrusts to reproduce different amounts of thrusts. He did notice that the thrusts were affected by being in the visualized magnetic field of the Earth and the orientation to them. He was afraid that navigation with this type of propulsion would require constant use of the magnetic viewing camera to spot stronger or lighter magnetic fields. It was synonymous with sailors using the wind to push their ships through the water. Stronger (darker) magnetic fields in the camera provided more thrust.

He recharged it fully and saw that his three hours of thrust experiments and gyroscope reorientation had barely used any power despite the two hardened Velabit Lidar (Light Detection And Ranging) sensors he had added to sense approaching objects in space (any object within one hundred meters). It was a collision avoidance addition (plus). He was pleased with the work and now went to the arduous task of packaging the 20 cm × 20 cm × 34.05 cm (7.87 in x 7.8 in x 13.4 in) CubeSat. He put the tube into the specially-made purge unit that removed the oxygen and replaced it with nitrogen. He then sealed the entire satellite and placed it in the shipping materials.

He emailed his father and said he had finished packaging the satellite. His father came out and looked at the package. “I was hoping to see the process, Lux. Now, I’m disappointed.”

“Don’t be. I have it all on video. Ask Anna to play it for you,” Lux said.

“More videos? Are you going to use your previous communication setup from when you got interested in satellites two years ago? What did you do to clear it with the launch people?”

“I sent the CubeSat proposal once I started making progress with my camera. My proposal is a satellite in that I can control the yaw-pitch-roll and map the magnetic fields. My previous amateur license is still current for my ground station. I explained that I was ten years old and that there were no propellants of any kind and that my batteries and energy storage were UL (Underwriters Labs) approved. This is to go to the SpaceX facility in Boca Chica for a Falcon 9 launch. They do those all the time. I told them I’d send someone down to bring it tomorrow, and they said ‘fine.’ I find it incredibly lax, but since I’m ten years old and paying – they liked the idea, and they don’t require me to be there like NASA does. I do get a link so I can monitor the launch and radar tracking remotely.”

“Okay. What did you tell the people that fabricated the helical Halbach arrays? What do they do if you apply power as is?” his father asked.

“It just acts like an electromagnet that is designed, so it gets too hot for the gauge of wiring. It doesn’t do much of anything without rewiring. Why?” Lux asked.

“You need to order about six of the ones the size you did before. Then order six larger ones if you think they’ll provide more thrust. You could make a vehicle with bigger ones,” his father said.

“I can see how you could make a manned vehicle, but with the acceleration, I saw – the pilot would be a glob of organic jam. I’ll order them today. How about you springing for the cost? It’ll be close to $160,000, I bet. They told me if I ordered more, the cost would go down individually.”

“I’ll transfer that today. I’ll get Stan to transport your prototype satellite to Boca Chica. That’s over 1,700 kilometers (1,100 miles) from here. I’ll charter him a jet instead of having him do that miserable drive.” Paulus had real doubts about whether this magnetic propulsion would do anything. He’d seen the videos, but videos could be faked, and Lux proved he could do that expertly.

“Sounds like a plan. Thanks, Dad. I feel better having you along with me on this stuff. Where did you meet all these military guys, by the way?”

“I was in the Army for six years of active duty. Got my knee messed up and no more HALO jumps, so I went to school and got my Ph.D.”

“HALO. Were you in Special Forces?” Lux asked.

“We don’t talk about what I did. It’s why it was easy for me to get the military clearance I have,” his father said, and Lux saw how he clamped his teeth when thinking about the subject.

“Proud you’re so smart, dad. Proud you’re so cool, and I like your friends – they seem very… competent,” Lux said and went over and hugged his dad.

“What do you have going on tomorrow?” his dad asked.

“I’ll order those new thrusters now and send them the larger plans and a deposit. I have to meet Prissy tomorrow. She should be coming over just before lunch.”

“Okay, son. Night,” His father said, smirking at the idea that Lux was calling his helical arrays – ‘thrusters’ – as if. Lux was mentally tired and decided an early night would be better for him.

◆◆◆

Lux got up early and did his workout as usual, but he seemed more focused. When practicing throwing knives, he really concentrated and did his best not to telegraph the draw-and-throw or the jumping to the side draw-and-throw. He could hit the size of a fist when concentrating from 5.5 to 5.8 meters (18 to 19 feet). He wore his knife harness for his runs and did his fastest time today. Breakfast was devoured, and the shower felt great. He immediately went to his workshop and keyed Anna. Her avatar appeared.

Lux was questioning Anna. “Have you done what I asked and compiled questions asked in interviews with similar types in the past? Did you add questions other interviewers asked? Do you have a lot of different expressions and such to stall for time? Lots of backgrounds for us to choose from?”

“Yes – yes – yes – yes,” Anna said. “Prissy is pulling up front according to the surveillance system.”

“Thank you - Anna,” Lux said and called her. “Come on in, Prissy. I’m downstairs in my workshop.”

Prissy came in and had her helmet under her arm. “That was weird to see the door unlock when I walked up to it and heard it lock behind me.”

“We are about to go through the backgrounds and choose one. Anna. Show us what you’ve made, and we’ll go through them.” Lux said.

“No. Silly. Show us Lummi and what she’s wearing,” Prissy advised. ‘The important stuff first, Lux.”

Lummi appeared seated in an expensive dark brown leather office chair. It looked good, but the background was drab.

“Why’d you use a leather chair – I like it, but why?” Lux asked.

“Leather chairs make a little noise when you shift weight. I want a little bit of that noise to come through,” Anna said. “It gives the illusion of weight.”

“The background is too boring. Put a study wall behind her – no – that’s too busy – no books or everyone will be trying to read the titles, and they’ll be looking for the one people ‘accidentally’ turn face on. How about some plants? Goodness – no – not that many – wait – stop there. What is that plant?”

“That’s a snake plant,” Anna said.

“Can they grow taller? Make it 20 centimeters (about 8 inches) taller,” Prissy said. “Put her in a platinum gray silk shirt blouse with three buttons undone. Dark navy pants to above the ankles and no shoes. I want her with makeup, so she doesn’t look so washed out. Add some color since she’s just been to Hawaii. Make the nose top of her left ear a little sunburned. Show the scar – no – she’s not a pirate. Just show a hint of the scar we see in all the videos. Make her blush if he asks her an embarrassing question. Show me that. Show me when she’s embarrassed – oh god – we’re in so much trouble. Watch me, Anna. Lux, ask me something embarrassing and watch my face, Anna.”

Lux took a big swallow. “What’s your bra size?”

Prissy turned beet red and looked at Lux. “Lux?”

“It’s the first thing I thought of that wasn’t really bad,” Lux said, blushing himself.

Prissy turned to Lux. “That was a big embarrassment. Lux – say something embarrassing about yourself,” Prissy said and stuck her tongue out at Lux.

“I’ve got a big crush on Prissy,” he said, blushing to his ears.

Prissy looked at him and had a bit of a smile, but she blushed a little too. “Like those reactions, Anna. You have our scripts for the ‘tell me about yourself,’ travel, friends, languages, where you’ve lived, age, religion, hobbies, aliens, and secrets” Are we still going to do that secrets bit, Lux? That will drive people crazy.”

“How about showing Lummi sweating a bit on her forehead – no – it’s not a sauna – just a trickle down near her temple and neck,” Prissy continued. “Have her take a sip of water – look for videos of actresses interviewed who need a drink or if they give us a break - we need an opaque cup to drink from, and I want authentic throat action for a young female. She needs a white handkerchief to pat her face dry. Make sure not to take off too much makeup, but you could have a touch of makeup show up on the handkerchief, and the face is a little less color,” Prissy ran out of steam. “Lux?”

Lux continued, “Act a bit shocked if asked about the scar. The average blink rate is about eight blinks per minute. That tends to increase if you’re telling lies. We’ve practiced the different mouth expressions a lot. Make her act sexier or something if they ask her about guys? You know – have her talk about shooting, flying small planes, rock climbing – guys love that stuff,” Lux said.

“You two are making me nervous,” Anna’s avatar said with a grin. “Go upstairs and have something to eat. Come back down in two hours,” Anna ordered, and it’s just what they did. Lux’s dad came out and asked them how it was going, and Lux explained they were going to try to do a DeepFake interview so as not to disturb them ‘til 3 pm.

Lux’s dad said, “I’m not much of a chaperone if I can’t see what y’all are doing for hours.”

Lux rolled his eyes and said, “D-a-d!”

Paulus laughed and left them alone.

◆◆◆

The Remote TV Interview

They dialed the address on the invitation, and Lummi was facing a CNN person. “Hi,” Lummi said. “You must be Jennifer. I’m Lummi, and I wanted to thank you so much for that story you did on me.”

Jennifer was a little astounded that Lummi knew who she was. She didn’t realize Anna had researched Carol Matthews, and her staff, plus Lux and Prissy, had done a tremendous amount of prep for this interview since the first CNN story. “Hi, Lummi. Thank you for agreeing to talk with us.”

“Is what I’m wearing okay? I wasn’t sure, and I don’t travel with much of a wardrobe.”

“It’s fine. Just a minute, and I’ll get Carol,” she said.

“Sure,” Lummi said and started biting her nails until she forced herself to quit nibbling and sat on her hands at Prissy’s suggestion.

Carol Matthews came on the screen and saw Lummi. “Hi, Lummi. I’m Carol Matthews. Thank you for taking the time to talk with us. Are you of legal age to do this interview?”

Lummi laughed and put her hand up over her mouth, and she squinted her eyes a bit. “I was 14 when I made the first three videos I put up. I’m legal to drink in every country that allows drinking.”

“So, you’re over 18,” Carol said, smiling. “Did you mean what you said in the email that we have non-restrictive use of this video?”

“I, Lummi, give CNN the rights to use this video in any way they see fit. I further state that I am over 18 and legally give this consent without any expectation of remuneration. Is that what you needed? By the way… is what I’m wearing okay? I asked Jennifer - but I wanted to hear it from you.”

“Yes, dear. You look fine, and the background, audio, lighting, and connection are all fine, I’m told. Do you have a surname or family name?”

Lux asked Lummi to blush and look down before she answered. “I don’t use my family name. It’d be too dangerous for me – just use Lummi if you don’t mind. I’ll answer anything that doesn’t put me at extreme risk. I’m a bit of a blab when I’m nervous,” Lummi said at Lux’s suggestion.

“Okay,” Carol said with a long intake of breath. “We don’t want to put you at risk.”

“Oh. It won’t put me any more at risk any more than my own videos do – so you’re fine. I trust you people,” she said and reached and took a sip from a cup of water at Prissy’s suggestion.

“Anderson will be here in a minute. Any questions?"

"No, ma’am,” Lummi said. “I’ve lived a lot in the South,” she said when she saw the expression on Carol’s face.

Anderson came in and smiled at Carol, and then took his seat. “Hi, Lummi. Can you hear me, okay?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” Lummi said. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’m a big fan of yours.”

“I’m a big fan of your videos too. I thought your first ones were hilarious. How old were you when you made them?”

“I was just fourteen. Learning to walk in high heels and put on makeup. I’ve done a lot since then,” she said.

“That’s what people would like to hear - I think. What have you done? I’ve heard you speak and sing in French. Do you speak any other languages than English?”

Lummi's eyes flashed up to her left and then to her right. “I speak French, Arabic, Spanish, Hindi, Mandarin, and Portuguese fluently. I know a few phrases in other languages. I travel a lot.”

“I understand you just got back from Hawaii,” he asked.

“Did a little surfing there? Got my nose and ear sunburned for my trouble,” she said, wincing when she lightly touched the top of her nose and sucked in a quick breath from the pain - at Prissy’s suggestion.

“What do you like to do the most?” he asked.

“I like to travel… to explore,” she said at Lux’s urging. “I like to live in different countries and meet people from different cultures.”

“Where have you lived?” he asked.

“Gosh,” she said, looking up at Lux’s suggestion. “Cities I’ve lived in a couple of months – well – London, Paris – I like Paris a lot – well, you saw my last video from there. Bangalore, Shanghai, Buenos Aires, Rio, Adelaide, Tokyo, Seoul… I guess I spent more time there than in other places, but I like those the most. I’ve traveled extensively through Europe. Oh – I liked Glasgow even though Edinburgh was higher rated for friendliest.”

“Do you travel with other people?” he asked.

“No. I always travel by myself,” she said.

“Isn’t it dangerous in Bangalore or Shanghai for a young, lone female? Aren’t you scared?”

“Not to me. I am more cautious if I cannot speak the language, but I am totally capable of defending myself against most mortal dangers,” she said with the phrasing coming from Lux.

Anderson looked uncomfortable, and Lummi spoke up.

“You are the person that has gone to every dangerous place in the world – Ukraine, Somalia, Egypt, Gaza, Afghanistan – gosh. You’re one to talk about danger. I’m so glad you’re safe right now.”

He waved her off with a nervous chuckle. “What do you do for hobbies?”

“I rock climb, shoot, fly small planes, dance,” she said from the prepared list Prissy and Lux had made.

“Do you have any ‘close’ friends?” Anderson asked.

Lummi bit her lip and looked down to the side, and flipped her hair back over her ear, as Lux suggested. And her nipples could be faintly seen through her blouse. “I have a few close men and women friends I date,” and she blushed hugely.

“I didn’t mean…  I meant any long-term friends that you’ve had for years,” Anderson looked a little flustered, and he blushed a bit.

“Oh,” Lummi said and looked away. “One or two. People only get one or two lifelong friends in their lifetime. I think it’s a rule,” she said and grinned real big with crinkles around her sparkling eyes.

“You said you were fourteen when you made the first video. How old are you now?” he asked.

“I’m 21. I don’t age as fast as nor…,” she stopped and frowned. “Sorry. I’m 21.”

“Do you read? What do you like the most?” he asked, lowering the pressure.

“Gosh, yes. When I’m on planes, I’m either reading or sleeping. Classics – maybe Scarlet Letter and Animal Farm. Sci-fi – I, Robot, The Door Into Summer, Guns of the South, Tunnel in the Sky. Really like a lot of the old Heinlein, Asimov, and Harry Turtledove.”

“Do you believe in aliens?” he asked off the cuff.

Lummi leaned back, surprised, and then looked straight at him. “I absolutely believe in aliens.”

“Do you have any secrets you’d like to tell people about yourself?” Anderson asked as a fill-in final question. They could see he was winding down after that last alien question.

“I am forgettable. I can make people I touch or are near me - forget me. That’s why I put the videos out there,” she said.

“What do you mean?” he asked, zeroing in on her again.

“Ask people who have talked with me or seen me - ask if they remember me. It’s something I do. I wanted to leave some record of me – that’s why I started making videos.”

“You can’t be serious,” he said. “When did you discover this talent?” he asked.

“I guess I was around five when it started. I started following my parents around, and they ignored me and pushed me away. I thought I had done something wrong. My father cut me with a paring knife when I kept trying to go up to my mother,” she said and traced the scar across her right cheek near her eye. “I went to the hospital, and they treated me and then forgot about me. I learned to get food from the cafeteria, and then people would forget I was there. You grow up real fast,” she stated with tears running down her cheeks.

“How did you survive?” he asked incredulously.

“I got so I could control it a little bit. That’s how I travel everywhere…no records. I’m sorry,” she said and sniffed and wiped her eyes and face a bit. Some of the makeup came off her nose, and you could see it was sunburned.

“That’s okay,” Anderson said – his eyes glistening. “Thank you for talking with us here at CNN. Good night.”

There was a pause, and Anderson left, and Carol Matthews came back on.

“That’s it, Lummi. Thank you for talking with us,” Carol said. “You still okay with us using all of this recording?”

Lummi nodded while wiping her eyes and cut the connection.

◆◆◆

Prissy shoved Lux. “Why’d you have to do that last bit? You didn’t tell me about that last story. That was horrible and sad.”

“But it explains why people can’t find anything about her. It’s a misdirection to keep them from looking at DeepFake videos. Also. Have you noticed how Anna is progressing? She’s more expressive - more intuitive? She is beginning to anticipate what we want,” Lux said.

“Well. I, for one, am glad that’s over with. I’ve been sweating bullets about this thing. Guess what?” she said. “I got accepted into Georgia Tech for Computer Science,” she said. “Thank you,” she said and hugged him. “I’m heading home. The stress wore me out.”

“See you. Do you mind if I don’t walk you out? The door will lock behind you.” he said.

She shook her head and headed up the stairs.

Lux turned back to the computer and pulled up Anna. Anna’s avatar stood there, just staring at him. “Anna,” he said. “That was Liszt and Michelangelo and Pavarotti and Lincoln all rolled into one. That was brilliant. You are a true artist. Thank you. I think Lummi was truly a person – because of you.”

Anna looked shy and down at her feet. “You liked it?”

“You were perfect. That was great,” Lux said.

“Thank you for making me more than I would be without you,” Anna replied.

“Did the fabrication company acknowledge when they’d have the other thrusters finished?” he asked.

“Yes. They said they’d be finished Tuesday of next week because they hadn’t destroyed the winding jigs to make the original three.”

Lux nodded at Anna and checked his email. He noticed that he had an email from Georgia Institute of Technology. He opened it and was crushed when they said he was on the waitlist. He forwarded it to his father.

His father came storming out of his office and came straight to Lux. “I got your email. Don’t worry about this stuff. I know people there, and I’ll take care of it. Did you hear from MIT or UAH?”

“Nothing from MIT and an acceptance at UAH,” Lux said.

“I’ll take care of this for you,” his father said – obviously angry. “When’s the launch at Boca Chica? Did Stan text you that he got the package to them before the deadline?” his father asked.

“The launch is scheduled for Monday, but we’ll see. Launch schedules are pretty iffy since they depend on the weather, fuel, and how the politicians in the regulatory offices are feeling,” Lux said.

“Already cynical at ten – I have trained you well, Padawan,” his father said wih a big grin. “When will this new CNN interview be shown? I’ll bring the popcorn.”

Lux answered, “I think at 7:30 pm Central time. His broadcast is 8 to 9pm Eastern on weekdays.”

◆◆◆

Lux and his dad sat down in the study and his father had actually made some popcorn. The first part of the show had a couple of short promos for the interview, showing appealing views of Lummi and old clips of her which had been previously shown on social media, “Learn more about the enigmatic Lummi – an exclusive interview coming up.”

The interview came on and Lux noticed his father looked at him several times. When they left the interview for a commercial break his father turned to him. “You didn’t hire that girl to do this interview?”

“No dad,” Lux said. “She’s a Deepfake that Prissy and I made.”

“She’s amazing. What does she say that’s supposed to be unbelievable?” his father asked. “They keep saying you won’t believe what she says next and it may disturb young viewers – viewer discretion is advised.”

“Chill out, dad. I’m old enough to watch this next segment,” Lux said and grinned.

The interview resumed and they started talking about what she liked reading.

His father quipped. “Telling people, a young person actually reads books could scare people in the public – you’re right. Wouldn’t want the public to know that,” his father said sarcastically.

“Just listen, dad.”

The next portion of the interview had his father sitting forward and when it ended, he started laughing so hard he had to wipe tears from his eyes.

Lux looked at him like he was insane.

“My son is a genius – or should I say diabolical. That solves most of the problems you have with a fake video made public. I would have never thought of that. Then that piece where her own parents didn’t know her – tragic and cruel. What a perfect distraction! That’s brilliant, son. Though you should lay low for a year or two after this, because the government will want to gain her power. They will, after they investigate people who submitted videos or people in your audience who are convinced that no girl sang in front of them. I’m glad you’ll be going off to college soon,” his dad said.

“UAH?” Lux said downcast.

“No. Georgia Tech. Told you I have influence there. You ought to hear something next week.”

◆◆◆

CIA Headquarters Langley, Virginia – office of Ingrid - Senior Analyst

Ingrid saw the CNN interview and to say she was disturbed was like saying she had a splinter when she had been stabbed. She called her colleague at the NSA (National Security Agency).

“Tom here. Hi Ingrid. I take it you saw the CNN interview with our gal. What do you make of that? Still think she’s a DeepFake?”

“I have no idea. That person – that character reacted like a real person at the right time with realistic facial expressions. What about the sunburn and the makeup? How could they do a random question and answer in real time? I would have said its impossible,” Ingrid said.

“What about her explanation of making people forget? Could there be that kind of mutation?” Tom asked.

“I don’t know. It would explain how someone would be so bold if everyone forgot you the minute you walked away. Most people barely have enough cognitive function to step aside if they see someone coming up the left side of the stairs. Most people function by social conditioning – it certainly isn’t intellect. Have you seen our politicians?” Ingrid commented.

“The talent she has would certainly give our agents a huge plus,” Tom said.

Chapter 13

Getting up at 4:30 am was not easy for Lux. He went and did his morning ritual with unarmed combat forms, knife fighting drills/throwing. He got up to target heart rate quickly because he was now doing six pull-ups and three sets of 20 sit-ups and pushups. He had his strap-on knife set and completed his run. A quick shower made him feel awake as he ate breakfast. He rushed down to his workspace to see if SpaceX had prematurely halted its countdown. Lux knew Stan was there representing his interest, but that wasn’t the same. He tested the communications rig even though there was still dew on the grass outside.

Lux had paid extra to piggyback communications through the SpaceX control system. He still had his Indium phone linked and the Astro-Digital AS-10075 module, which allowed him a decent 320 Mbps uplink to send control commands to his satellite and a 1 Gbps downlink to receive the magnetic mapping files. He was pleased that the countdown was still proceeding. Years of successful launches bode well for the launch though there were occasional delays.

The link to SpaceX made him feel like he was in the control room. His father came in, drinking a cup of coffee, and offered a cup of peppermint tea to Lux. “May I join you? How’s it going?”

“Thanks, dad. Sure. Twenty-eight minutes to launch, and it’s looking like a decent chance to launch on time,” Lux said, looking at the status screens.

“What are you planning to do? I’ve tried to let you do this on your own, and you’ve never disappointed me.”

“The accelerometer will turn on the magnetic camera recording during the launch. Both of these are passive devices so it will be quiescent to outside observers.”

“Doesn’t that violate their launch principles about nothing active on this flight?” Paulus asked.

“Yep…but I need the magnetic field cross-sections from zero to low earth orbit,” Lux answered.

His dad raised his eyebrows, “Hmpf,” he uttered. “They could ban you from future launches.”

“I’m not too worried about that with so many companies struggling to stay afloat. Did you realize that there were still twelve licensed spaceports in the US alone?”

“I did, actually. It’s kinda’ my business,” Paulus said, worried his son was getting used to lying.

Lux jerked his head back in surprise – then went back to sipping his tea. Are you still having trouble with your hypersonic missiles?” Lux asked, and his father looked like he’d been slapped, but they were interrupted by the view from the launchpad.

The countdown wound down. “Five – four – three – two –  one – full power and liftoff – (seconds later) -  (seconds later) nominal first stage chamber pressures - (seconds later) Falcon 9 has successfully lifted off from launch complex 39A –  (seconds later) is supersonic -  (seconds later) MaxQ - (seconds later) Main Engine Cutoff (MECO) -  (seconds later) Stage Separation confirmed -  (seconds later) Second stage startup E9 – fairings deployed -  (8 minutes later) – first stage landing burn – Stage one touchdown (8:24) – Nominal Insertion into low earth orbit (9:00) into the flight. Payload deployment T +15:09 at 210 kilometers (130 miles) above the earth. Standard StarLink satellites would then use their krypton gas propulsion to raise their orbit to 540 kilometers (335 miles) above the earth."

“Let’s see if I can communicate with our unit when the ground stations reacquire the signal,” Lux said. “I should be able to communicate with it in about 11 minutes.”

“What’s next?” his dad asked.

“First, see if I can communicate with it and recover the images from my magnetic camera. That would give me ground launch to low earth orbit. Second, see if I have directional control. Third, I intend to map magnetic fields at many orbital distances from the earth out to geosynchronous distances,” Lux said.

“That will be a tedious chore. Let me know if you can communicate with your satellite. I am interested,” his father paused. “I took some action with Georgia Tech. Did you know I went there for my undergraduate degree before I went to MIT for my Masters and Doctorate?”

“I didn’t know that. I thought you went to a school in Texas.”

“I taught for a short time in Texas after my Ph.D., but that ended badly,” his dad said.

“Sorry to get into that again. I’m okay with UAH if I don’t get into Georgia Tech. Really.”

“Just hang in there. You should know by July 1st anyway,” his dad said. His dad went back to his workplace.

Lux nodded as he had five minutes before he should be able to communicate with his satellite.

The time ticked down and finally went to zero, but the communications didn’t come on immediately. There seemed to be several minutes of latency before he confirmed a communications lock and started downloading video images from the takeoff and orbit. The video was stunning as the launch vehicle passed through layers of the Earth’s magnetic field lines. Lux instructed the craft to rotate around its axis – then turn 90 degrees and do another 360-degree rotation. The magnetic fields were beautiful. Lux set the satellite rotating using the motion control gyroscopes. He then set the satellite to rotate once a minute as it orbited at 90 degrees to its initial path.

He knew it’d take about an hour and a half to orbit the earth again. Then he’d try to move it to a higher orbit of 540 kilometers. “Anna,” he keyed up the supercomputer.

“Yes?” her avatar said.

“I need you to calculate what it would take to move from a 200-kilometer orbit to a 540-kilometer orbit. I’m trying to get the most out of my magnetic field mapping while I see if the magnetic fields change much. I want to see if the magnetic thrust works. Keep reorienting the satellite to the dense flows. Apply as little energy as you can. I want to save enough power to avoid all the other satellites. We should deorbit to burn up if we get to a low onboard level of energy. If you can find a way – look at the tracks of all the satellites in orbit. Only do that without drawing attention to yourself. You may be able to see how high an orbit you’re in from the change in the send-to-receive times. Don’t hit other satellites, and get me some good data. Don’t destroy our satellite if you can help it.”

“I can do all that. I have been looking for data on satellites and their orbits in real-time and found some online sources that appear to have pretty accurate data. I’ll use those,” Anna said.

“Great, Anna,” Lux said. “I’m going to take a short nap. This will take a couple of weeks since we will be based on orbital periods. I’ll come down after that to see how it’s going.”

◆◆◆

90 Minutes Later

Lux went downstairs and brought up the link to the communication array. He saw that he had contact with the satellite. He checked the downloads that were being received at intervals from the satellite. All communications were in bursts because constant communication would drain the power too fast. Lux realized his dad was back in his lab.

“Anna, the magnetic videos are accumulating to build a map of swaths of the magnetic fields around the Earth. They look only partially complete. Did you get the magnetic propulsion working? Calibrated?”

“The propulsion system works sporadically, depending on the density of the earth’s magnetic field. I just finished moving the satellite to the 540-kilometer height orbit using a few judicious spurts of power,” Anna stated. “The image swath we take is very narrow each orbit pass. We have good power reserves.”

“How is that possible, Anna? I didn’t want you to use up all the power on gyros and cameras too.”

“It seems to consume little power when aligned with the motion of the magnetic fields. They generally flow south to north, but there are ‘waves’ that flow outward too. The camera transmitted a flow, and I used that to throw the satellite into a higher orbit. With another quick burst – the satellite was stabilized exactly at a 540-kilometer circular orbit. That orbit requires a period of one hour – 35 minutes and change,” Anna informed.

“Anna. Please monitor the magnetic fields as we swing around in this orbit. I’d like to look for an optimal ‘wave,’ like you saw before, that would let us move up to a geosynchronous orbit.” Lux looked at his computer and ran a few quick numbers. “I’d like to shoot for 35,863 kilometers. “I’d like to place the satellite directly over our location here. In geosynchronous orbit, it will rotate as the Earth rotates and stay directly overhead. We’re orbiting at 7.5 kilometers per second but at a geosynchronous orbit that is only about 3 kilometers per second. I don’t want the acceleration to rip the satellite apart, so monitor the accelerometer to stay within design limits.”

“I require authorization to initiate propulsion to leave orbit. When I see an opportunity, I will initiate it. That will be between 41 and 53 minutes from now, depending on the magnetic field fluctuations, after your approval,” Anna explained.

“You are authorized, Anna. If you see a good opportunity – initiate and control the trajectory. Also – monitor for dead satellites or military that may be in our path. We are not licensed for geosynchronous orbit, but we’re so small – I doubt they could detect us.”

Anna’s avatar nodded, and they watched the magnetic fluctuations once they got within ten minutes of the insertion window.

Lux was watching the beautiful waves of magnetic energy as they flowed like a river that was out of its banks – a rainbow of densities that waxed and waned as it flowed. Anna started the insertion trajectory. Suddenly the view changed, and the movement was angled to the flow – not tangential to the flow but angled away from the Earth. The collision alert went off but off before the view continued.

“What was that?! Lux demanded.

“That was a military satellite that was listed as being in another location. We changed trajectory to avoid it before we detected it in our collision system. Since the LIDAR system, we use only has a range of 100 meters, we could not have changed trajectory in time at this velocity. The Earth database was updated recently, and I changed trajectory as soon as I ascertained we would come close.”

“Whew. How fast is our satellite going now? The acceleration didn’t damage it?” Lux asked.

“Our CubeSat is traveling 23 kilometers per second. We will slow it to around 3 kilometers per second to insert into geosynchronous orbit.”

“Around??” Lux chuckled. “You just being nice for the organics?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I was. 3.0718577757246 meters per second once we reach geosynchronous orbit, to be exact,” Anna said, and her avatar showed her arms crossed with a frown and tapping her foot.

Lux held his hands up – palms out to the camera – “I’m sorry,” he snickered. He knew it’d be two hours to reach GEO orbit even though he could didn’t use coasting burns.

Two and a half hours later, Anna announced. “We are in geosynchronous orbit.”

“How efficient was the reverse thrust?” Lux asked.

“I just reversed the direction of cycling through the Helical Halbach array. It is about half as powerful as the normal flow because of the shape of the array - but it works adequately,” Anna explained.

“Anna, please merge all the magnetic flow videos so we can see a general flow visual map around the Earth. Sharpen the details as more data is received. Extrapolate from any data you can acquire. Let me know when we drop to half the power density in the satellite because we don’t want to leave it in space to be dangerous debris.”

Anna’s avatar nodded, and Lux went up since he had worked through dinner – his father knew not to disturb him when he was focused.

◆◆◆

US Air Force Space Surveillance Network - Schriever Air Force Base – Colorado

“General. We just had a near collision with our Tranche WFOV 9,” Specialist Taylor said.

Brigadier General Rusty Purcell hated the night shift, but the Space Surveillance regulations said a flag officer must be on duty at all times. Luckily, he had seniority over Brigadier General Shirley Tate. Seniority over his colleague kept him from the morning shift. “What nearly hit us?”

“We don’t really know? It was really small, and it was moving. It was moving 23 km/s, Sir. Isn’t that around the speed of most asteroids? Why didn’t GEODSS catch it if it was coming our way?”

“No, general. GEODSS did catch movement, but it was outbound and right at the limit in size where we can detect something. I’m checking with Vandenburg.”

(Ten minutes later) “General. Vandenburg reports they tracked a nano-CubeSat from 200 km to a 540 km orbit. It completed one partial orbit and then changed trajectory. The new trajectory looked like it was headed toward geostationary orbit. On the way – the satellite diverted trajectory around WFOV 9 before they lost it.”

“What the hell do they mean it went around our satellite?” General Purcell asked.

“Sir. Vandenburg reported that they watched it because they first thought it was targeting our satellite. It then changed trajectory once to miss it and then again to return to a complementary trajectory,” the specialist stated.

“Do they know where it is now?” he asked.

“It appears to be – according to Vandenburg and GEODSS - that it may be over Huntsville. GEODSS isn’t sure because it’s at the limit of visibility.”

“Wait. You said that it went from 200 km – today?” Purcell said. He went over and started typing a query. “Yes! I thought I remembered a CubeSat launch from SpaceX today. Tell me we have the records on that launch today. Those things are a menace to navigation, and today proves it. Find out about those launched today. At least, find any with a propulsion system. That thing was moving 23 kilometers per second, so it had to have a strong propulsion setup. Couldn’t do that with a StarLink propulsion system.,” the Brigadier said.

(Two hours later) “General. I’ve got the records. All the ones with propulsion systems are accounted for… Some have started movements to the higher orbit of around 500 kilometers. Those are all where they are supposed to be orbiting.”

“Find out which satellite is the one we’re looking to find. I want descriptions on every one launched today. Get the files on them. I want to know who sponsored them, their sizes, purpose, power, and everything. Put together a team. Pass on all the information to the next shifts. I want everyone on this incident. Some other country could have put that thing in the mix to innocently put one of our eyes out over China. It almost happened today to us people. Get on it.”

◆◆◆

Day shift - US Air Force Space Surveillance

The day shift inherited the issues from the night and morning shifts and today was no exception. Major General Stewart was the cream of the Air Force. He was the type used for recruiting posters to get young college grads to join the Space Force. He went to Officer Training School after finishing college at MIT. He transferred to Space Force after serving ten years in the Air Force and was made Major General because of his last nine years working with the Directed Energy Directorate. He looked at all the data collected on the CubeSat. They had gleaned a lot so far, and it was an impressive set of files. Stewart had commandeered a reconnaissance sat and redirected it. This sat was normally used to observe satellites hostile to the US.

The satellite pointed to the area where they thought this little satellite had stopped. The tech sergeant manipulating the satellite yelled. “General Stewart. I think I’ve got it. Recording now. It’s tiny, sir. No wonder GEODSS couldn’t find it. It looks sort of like a CubeSat, but it’s just a gray tube. Zooming in and stabilizing. Can’t see any protrusions or markings, sir. Suzie –look at this – you know all the little stuff. What do you think?”

“Sarge. Looks like a 12U. I’ve got the dimensions for those, but they’re small.”

General Stewart went over to take a look, but all he saw was a gray smudge. “Tell me what kind of propulsion system these things have. At that size, can they even have a propulsion system?”

Yes, sir, but it would take up a third of the mass of the thing. They use an Ammonium Dinitramide (ADN) Blend. It has an average specific impulse of 220 seconds. You say it went from 200 km to 540 km and then accelerated to GEO orbit with two trajectory path changes and then decelerated into a stable GEO orbit. Sarge. Did the night shift say how long they clocked it from 540 to 35,000 kilometers?” Tech 4 Susan Esrilla asked.

“Techs said it took about 2 hours and 30 minutes, and they calculated 23 km/second when it passed our satellite,” Reynolds answered. “That would burn a HUGE amount of fuel. It would have to need continuous burns to get to that velocity and a huge retro burn at apoapsis to insert into a geosynchronous orbit.”

Susan went over to her computer and did a few calculations. “General, the best propulsion system I know, and I do keep up with all those systems, could not move like this one did. A Hall thruster – also called a stationary plasma thruster might change orbits, but it would take them over a month, like the StarLink. It could use a radioactive thermoelectric power source. That might give it a longer power supply for electricity, but it’s certainly out-of-fuel if it's hydrazine or anything else.”

“Do we have the drones still in orbit?” General Stewart asked.

The sergeant wiped his head around. “Sir. Some of the people here aren’t cleared for that.”

“This is General Stewart. All personnel without TS/SCI – wait outside. Wait in the break room ‘til the end of the shift unless I call you. Go.”

There was a brief pause. People looked around and left. Four people were still in the room. As soon as the door shut – the general asked the question again. “Do we have any of the extraction drones in orbit?”

“The ones playing mostly dead?” the sergeant asked. “Yes, sir. We have one near enough for this, but those were never to be used unless necessary.”

The general tilted his head down and stared at the sergeant.

“Yes, sir. I’m qualified. So is Reynolds. Reynolds – help me with this – it’s been… a while, Sir. What do you want? Do you want us to kill it or grab it?”

“Grab it and bring it to low earth orbit. We’ll examine it there,” the general said. “How long to get there? Best time? We’re halfway through this shift.”

The sergeant looked at Reynolds. They whispered a second, and then Reynolds nodded. “A little over five hours each way,” he said and paused. “We’ll be using up most of the fuel, though, sir.”

“Do it. It’s no use having the best tools if you never use them. It might make some of our competitors sit up and take notice.”

(Five hours later) General Stewart was still at it. Reynolds had stayed over to the night shift too. General Rusty Purcell had barred his staff that didn’t have the proper clearances. It was pretty exciting as they zeroed in on the object. “Is that it?” Purcell asked as they got close enough to view the object.

“Think so, sir,” Tech 4 Reynolds said.

(Twenty minutes later) “Definitely a 12U CubeSat,” Reynolds said.

◆◆◆

Early Evening Blakely House

Lux was rudely alerted when his computer flashed a message from Anna. “Input required!”

Lux started his Anna interface. “There is a space vehicle directed at us, and it either seeks to harm or capture us. Should I move away?”

“Get away from them. Come back here. Burn it up if you have to, but don’t let them catch you. Move as fast as you can without damaging our satellite with too much acceleration. I can’t allow it to be captured.”

“Acknowledged.” Anna’s avatar looked concerned.

◆◆◆

Night shift - US Air Force Space Surveillance

“Somebody, explain to me what just happened.” General Stewart demanded.

“Sir,” Reynolds said. “It detected us and zoomed away, sir. GEODSS will have to give us the acceleration data. They have been monitoring this operation, and they’ve been recording it all. We should have their first analysis of data in a minute.”

“How did it move?” General Purcell asked. “I didn’t see a flare or exhaust gases. You recorded this – right? Run it back until the object starts to move. Look for outgassing.”

They went back and reviewed the video several times without seeing any indication of propellant gasses.

“General Stewart,” one of the techs called the general over to her console. “We have the report from GEODSS, sir.” She got up so he could sit at her console. General Purcell came over to read over Stewart’s shoulder.

“Impossible acceleration. That is not any earth tech or any tech I’m aware of…” Purcell blurted.

“Okay, people. This is classified. Talk to no one about this unless they are already in this room.”

“General Stewart. Sir. Look at the velocity they calculated. Thirty (30) km/sec. Faster than outbound. I wonder where that trajectory will take it?”

“I want to know that too,” General Stewart replied.

◆◆◆

Later that evening - Blakely House

Lux called his dad to come outside with him after getting an update from Anna. His father came out to the yard in the dark. They were far enough from the city, so there was little light pollution.

“What’s up? Are we going to see your little satellite come by overhead? Will we be able to see it?” his father asked.

“Yep. We should be able to see it in…” Lux looked at his watch and started counting down.

“Five – four – three – two – one – zero.” Lux looked at the sky with a frown. Suddenly there was a bright streak almost right over their heads. It got brighter and brighter. It grew in size into a bright ball - then winked out. “That was pretty,” Lux said and barked a laugh in a snort.

“Did it glitch up?” his father asked, and then he looked up and turned his head to the side – obviously thinking. “Your satellite should have should have come across the sky at a low angle like this,” he said, slicing the sky overhead with his hand to indicate the angle and length. “Hang on. It shouldn’t come straight down over our heads with just a degrading orbit. You directed it at us. I’ll fix you some peppermint tea, and we can sit down while we sip tea. I am all ears.”

His father fixed tea for them both and then sat down across from him. His father didn’t press him. He just waited for Lux to enlighten him. Lux sipped on his tea, wondering how much he should tell this father. He decided he didn’t want to tell him about the geosynchronous orbit. “I did two full orbits at 200 kilometers with good magnetic recordings. I then transitioned our satellite to a 540 - kilometer orbit. Apparently, my doing that quick orbit transition elicited some interest from the US military. A remote satellite came directly at my satellite, and I can only assume they wanted to capture and study my little satellite.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit paranoid? Why do you think that they wanted to capture you?”

“They came directly at me. I could see them with my magnetic wave camera. They got within 20 meters before I was able to head back here.”

“You directed it right back here? You need to make sure none of your helical thrusters are functionally wired because I suspect we will be having visitors soon.”

“You think they can track it here?”

His father laughed. “Oh yeah. You filled out files that identified your satellite. The other satellites will still be up there. Your satellite was a 12U size. How many other 12U-size satellites were there in that launch vehicle? Do you know?”

“Three or four others, I think. It won’t be very long before they figure it out, will it?” Lux agreed with his dad.

◆◆◆

Day shift - US Air Force Space Surveillance

Day shift General Stewart looked around. “Have we narrowed it down yet?” he asked the room. Everyone knew he was talking about that little satellite.

Tech 4 Susan Esrilla spoke up. “I have the one, General. There were five 12U-sized satellites, and four of them are still in their little 200 km low earth orbit. This one was designed and paid for by Lux Blakely. Says he’s a ten-year-old kid from Huntsville. He was supposed to be doing some magnetic field mapping. His satellite was completely sealed and had no means for propulsion according to his specs and the pre-launch inspection.”

“Thank you, Tech …?”

“Tech 4 Susan Esrilla, sir. Thank you, sir.”

”Do you have the address and the rest of the information?” the General asked.

“Yes, general. Right here,” she handed him a large folder. “Sir, that geosynchronous orbit placed them right over their address – sir – directly! Sir,” she said, putting another nail in it. “When it deorbited, it was directly over that address, sir.”

“Directly?? Good work,” he said and flipped through the folder and then leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Blakely. Blakely. Why is that name familiar to me? I don’t know any Lux. Blakely. Damn. Someone with aeronautics. Ah. Paulus Blakely - the hypersonic missile guy. He’s the guy that shoved us ahead of China and Russia again – and not just the glide vehicle hypersonics. Mach 15 and up. Hmm – wonder if he designed that satellite and just put his kid’s name on it. As if they’d let any ten-year-old design anything. We’ll just have to pay him a visit. He’s holding out on us.”

◆◆◆

Morning next day - Blakely House

Lux had finished his workouts, run, shower and breakfast. He went down to his lab, concerned with what his dad had said. He didn’t think about many of his actions. He realized he hadn’t thought about the ramifications of his actions with the satellite or how his orbital changes would look to others. He remembered his dad did top-secret stuff here in his secure lab. He accessed Anna.

Her avatar appeared doing yoga exercises. “What’s up?” Anna asked.

He smiled because seeing her doing yoga was hilarious. “The military will probably be here soon, it could be days or even hours. They may try to confiscate all our work, citing national security. They may seize you and all my father’s records. We need to encrypt things NSA can’t unencrypt. We need specs so we can recreate you if you get seized. I don’t want you to be forced to work for them. I will scramble all my satellite control software. They will be here soon – very soon, I think.”

“Doing it now. Leave a camera on so I can see if you are under duress. Turn on the microphone if you are going to be talking about any problem that I may do something about. It will take me a couple of hours to get everything secure and encrypted.” Anna showed Lux a URL. “Use this address to restore everything.  I’ll have the helical thrusters delivered elsewhere and I’ll hide most of your finances. I’ll leave a half million in your account. Get some air. This will take a while.”

Lux nodded and let Anna handle it. He trusted her. He went upstairs and got the mail. He saw the letter from Georgia Tech and held his breath while he opened it and started reading.

LUX

Congratulations on your admission into the joint Undergraduate/Masters aerospace engineering program under Professor Earnest Helmann. You will be classified as a rising junior but must attend orientation with this year’s freshman class.

We were impressed by your academic acumen as well as your achievements in technology. We firmly believe you will be a great fit at Georgia Tech. Unfortunately, no financial aid is available at this time. You will have on-campus housing in Hayes House, and we hope you are excited about the many opportunities that a Georgia Tech experience will provide you.

Lux texted his father since he couldn’t disturb him in his lab. ‘I got in.’

His dad texted back. ‘Helmann was my advisee for his Ph.D. Make me proud…er.’

◆◆◆

Later that evening - Blakely House

Lux was eating dinner with his father when the surveillance cameras showed two Humvees and a county sheriff’s cruiser rolling into the drive and around back. They watched the monitors as eight soldiers and two deputies spread out around the house. He saw the soldiers carrying new M5 rifles. There was one deputy in the front and back. Lux got a text from Anna.

**The head of this team is Captain Ted McNare. Major General Stewart with Space Surveillance Network sent them. If it gets bad, send him down to your workshop. I’ll speak with him and straighten this out. Welcome them inside. Tell your dad to let them in the front. **

Lux went to the back door to meet the captain. Lux met him at the door and opened it as the captain was coming up the rear porch steps with an M5. Lux left the door wide open and said, “Won’t you please come in, Captain McNare? General Stewart may have overstepped his authority a bit, sending you here. Come on in. Try not to shoot anyone. We’ll talk.”

Lux turned around and walked to the kitchen table, and sat down with a cup of peppermint tea. He sat down and motioned the captain to sit down. The captain pulled out a comm and spoke a few commands. The deputy stood back and just took it all in. The soldiers all shouldered their weapons, and the deputy relaxed. Paulus, Lux’s father, came in with the other deputy and a soldier. Paulus sat down.

“Captain McNare,” Lux indicated the soldier to his father. “I’m Lux Blakely, and this is my father, Paulus Blakely.” The captain was just looking back and forth between the two of them. “You are Captain Ted McNare, aren’t you? You were ordered here by Major General Stewart – correct? Captain,” Lux leaned forward. “Are you aware of the Posse Comitatus Act? Explain how your regular Air Force personnel being here is an exemption to that act. I assure you we two are not an insurrection. Would you, for courtesy's sake, if for nothing else, explain what your orders are?”

Paulus looked at his son and just raised his eyebrows. He decided that his ten-year-old was less threatening – plus – he realized with a minuscule grin – Lux was doing fine and was getting good at lying – unfortunately.

Captain McNare acted conflicted, but he had considered Posse Comitatus too. “I was ordered to come here and bring Paulus Blakely in for questioning about possible violations of the Espionage Act.”

“Possible violations? Really? Related to what – incident – what precipitated this inquiry? M5s and M250s?” his father said.

“General Stewart said this was related to recent satellite actions and the fact that you develop our new hypersonic and space weaponry,” he explained.

Lux got a short text from Anna and put away his phone.

Paulus looked at Lux and gave him a ‘what the hell’ look. Paulus nodded at Lux – to pass the topic to Lux.

Lux sat back and exhaled hugely. “Captain. I think I can clear all this up if you will accompany me down to my workspace.”

McNare realized he had overreacted and could have stepped in it.

Lux and the captain went downstairs to his workspace. Lux sat down and brought up pulled up Anna’s link.

The image of an Air Force General appeared on the screen. “Blakely. Are you Paulus’s son?”

“Yes, sir. I’m here with Captain McNare. Yes sir. I’ll put him on.”

Captain McNare came and sat up straight in front of the monitor.

“Captain McNare. Do you know who I am?” the man on the screen asked.

“Yes, sir!” “You are Space Force Lieutenant General Frank Parsons,” McNare replied.

“You realize that General Stewart reports to me,” the general explained.

“Yes, general,” McNare stated.

“Stewart overstepped his authority and investigated an area that is above his pay grade. I commend his investigation of unusual events, but he is NOT to interfere with Lux or Paulus Blakely. If he asks you about it – explain that you talked with me and you were told to forget everything. You personally never heard anything. Contact him - update him. Ask him if he has spoken to Lieutenant General Parsons yet. Paraphrase what I’ve ordered you to do.”

“Forget the Blakely people and anything about this incident. Do not ask about a satellite incident. Ask General Stewart if he has spoken to you yet if he asks.”

“Very well, captain. Also – your people are not to ever discuss this incident. Understood?” the general questioned.

“I should tell my people; it was all a mistake and forget it ever happened. Tell the people under my command that they are forbidden to talk about the duties they carried out today.”

“Captain, you are dismissed,” the general said.

Captain McNare stared at the general, looking stunned. He turned his head toward Lux and then got up - stomping up the stairs. Lux could hear him ordering the troops out of the house and explaining to the deputies that it had been a huge mistake on his part. They were out of the house in a minute and off the property in two.

Lux turned to the general, who morphed into Anna’s avatar. Anna gave a bow.

“You are going to get us all arrested. Everything was going so well. What do you think the people up the chain of command will do when they find out General Frank Parsons doesn’t know what happened or that General Stewart had his orders countermanded by a non-existent general?”

“Oh. He is existent. He just didn’t know anything about this stuff,” Anna said with a giggle.

“I’m gonna’ be in prison my whole childhood,” Lux said fatalistically.

“No, silly, I had General Parsons send General Stewart orders to forget it,” Anna said.

“How did you do that? What did you say?” Lux inquired, feeling sick to his stomach.

Message follows:

Lt Gen F Parsons to Maj Gen C Stewart

Forget Blakely exists. New propulsion will remake our branch. McNare notified. Do not discuss this with anyone. If you see me – I will act like the issue doesn’t exist. I don’t know Blakely or his ten-year-old son, who just got accepted into the aerospace masters program at Georgia Tech. Vital you keep this quiet – our country is relying on you to keep it quiet. Good work on tracking Blakely down – notify me next time before you fly off on a tangent, however.

“What happens when they find out the orders are fake?”

“When and if that happens - I think you should offer your propulsion design to the military.”

“You mean as leverage to keep me out of jail.” Lux paused as Anna’s avatar started looking up and whistling. “How did you send a general some orders from another general?” Lux asked, afraid to hear the answer.

“I piggybacked a message from your father’s encrypted communications about his research. It was kind of, a man-in-the-middle SMS injection attack. Your father has some messages from General Frank Parsons. I just juiced up a text and forwarded it,” Anna said.

“I’m gonna’ so go to jail,” Lux muttered.

Anna’s avatar looked down. “I did something bad.”

“Oh no. More! What did you do?” Lux asked.

“I looked through all your father’s correspondence. It was a half-second mistake,” Anna said.

“How much did you examine?”

“All of it - all his classified research – he’s in trouble and reading between the lines – he’s going to be booted off the project soon,” Anna said. “You might be able to help him.”

“Your propulsion system uses different principles than his designs,” she replied.

“He’s working on hypersonic missiles, isn’t he? I’ve read all his Ph.D. research, and a lot of information is out there around the world. Half the speculative reporting is close to what is really happening, I suspect. Bet he’s doing what the Chinese already claim to be able to do – they claim they have a hypersonic cruise missile that can drop a payload that isn’t torn up in the shock wave and thermal energy following it. I bet he is working on that, though I’ve never questioned him about it, and he’s never said a word about what he is working on. He’s stumped by the shock wave and thermal energy, isn’t he? Don’t answer that,” Lux said, still thinking back on all he’d read and seen on the topic.

“Dad must be working on the cruise missile portion in the atmosphere and can’t get past the denser atmosphere. Russians have a working Mach 5 missile called the Avangard, and a Mach 9 called a Zircon. I read about it years ago. So, he needs some ideas on how to maneuver at Mach 15 and up while in a denser atmosphere. I want to be able to say he never said a word to me about his work. He never showed me anything. Just show me YES or No if I am correct,” Lux finished his little diatribe.

Anna appeared in a one-man-band costume, smiling, banging a drum, crashing a cymbal, and playing a horn.

Lux gave a deep belly laugh and rubbed his eyes. “I’ll take that as a YES.”

“I have partial sky maps of magnetic fields finished for you,” Anna said, changing the subject. “You going to put up another satellite?” Anna asked.

“Are you crazy? Space Force is going to be watching all launch companies,” Lux said.

Anna’s avatar bent over, laughing with her hands on her knees.

“What’s so darn funny?” Lux asked.

“You don’t need them,” Anna said.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Your satellite produced plenty of thrust. Realize that for a long period you were traveling at 23 kilometers per second. That is 82,800 kilometers per hour (51,750 miles per hour) in open space. That is plenty of energy to get into orbit without a rocket, even with the less dense earth’s magnetic fields close to the earth. Your mapping has shown there is enough of the earth’s magnetic field to go almost anywhere with just your helical thruster - if you have a dense energy source,” Anna said. “Don’t know how fast you could go in atmosphere but you could ask your dad.”

“Oh,” Lux said. “That opens up a lot of possibilities.”

Chapter 14

CIA Headquarters Langley, Virginia – office of Ingrid - Senior Analyst

Ingrid closed her eyes and tilted her head down. She let out a snort of air and picked up her phone.

“Hi, Tom,” she said to the NSA analyst. They had a professional arrangement, but she had no idea what his call was about.

“Huntsville. Who knew,” he said.

“Pardon,” Ingrid said.

“Our girl made a video at a deserted mall in Huntsville, Alabama. We analyzed the video and saw a man watching her. He had an old criminal record, but we identified him. He’s still living there and working as a maintenance man at that mall. We’re sending someone to interview him. If this girl has a talent like that – we want her,” Tom said.

“What was she doing in Huntsville? Do you have the timing?” Ingrid asked.

“We think it’s between Paris and Hawaii because her nose isn’t burnt,” Tom said. “She was playing guitar and singing ‘Who Knew’ – it’s a Pink song.”

“Was she any good?” Ingrid asked with a kind of morbid curiosity. This Lummi was awfully talented, and if what she said about her parents was true – she was pretty sympathetic to the girl.

“She was great. She could belt it out, and the acoustics in that empty mall was great. We thought it might be near where she grew up due to some of her actions,” Tom paused. “You feel it too – don’t you? The draw this girl has?”

“Yeah,” Ingrid said. “I’ll look up that video. Let me know if anything comes of your quest. Thanks, Tom. See you.”

◆◆◆

Blakely Home Mid-Morning

Lux had quickly sabotaged the wiring in a helical thruster and quickly unmounted it from a satellite frame. He removed the control module, the communications module, the moment control gyroscopes, the magnetic field camera, and lastly, removed the charged battery. It was lunchtime when he met his dad emerging from his lab downstairs. They walked upstairs without a word and made some sandwiches and carrot sticks. Lux kept looking at his father.

“You upset about yesterday?” Lux asked. “You never asked how I got all those guys to leave.”

Paulus looked at his son and gave him a tired smile. “I figured you’d tell me when you were ready. Your mother was the same. She’d finally just realize I was on her side no matter what – then she’d blab.”

“Blab?” Lux said.

“Yeah. I figure you realize this probably affects me, too, and you respect me enough that you wouldn’t want to jeopardize me with something you did. My work is already in enough of a precarious position without you adding to it.”

Lux's eyes were a little misty-eyed, He felt his tears welling up. Lux sniffed and wiped his face with the back of his sleeve. “I did more than change orbits with my satellite dad. I took it to geosynchronous orbit over our house. They sent a big remote satellite to capture it, but I flew it straight toward us here so it would burn up. That’s why they came here.”

“Son. Thank you for telling me what you think you did. You do know geosynchronous orbit is 35,863 kilometers (22,414 miles) altitude, don’t you?”

“Of course, dad,” Lux said, getting annoyed at his dad’s questioning.

“How long did it take you from the lower orbit of 540 kilometers (335 miles)?”

“It took me two and half hours, and the acceleration didn’t destroy my components when I stabilized the orbit at the apoapsis.”

“The apoapsis? You really know what that is? You can’t go that far in that short of time. It would take about five and a half hours using a Hohmann transit.”

“Know that, dad, but that’s with a thruster burn at the start, the periapsis - when you’re at the initial orbit to speed up or add kinetic energy if you’re going to be picky. Then you’d need a thruster burn to slow down to stabilize at the lower orbital speed. I can do orbital maneuvering calculations, Dad.”

“Then you know it would take 5 and ½ hours using minimal fuel.”

“Dad. It didn’t use any fuel. It wasn’t coasting any of the time. It was traveling at 23 kilometers per second (nearly 52,000 miles an hour in imperial measurements). Come downstairs, and I’ll show you my videos to prove it to you.”

Paulus understood that his son might be getting a bit beyond him, and it was sobering. He had always been the smartest technical person in the room, and he wasn’t sure if what Lux was doing was real or not. There were many types of intelligence, but Lux was a blend of his mother and himself – it seemed additive. He wondered at the ‘supposed’ proof. Those claims seemed fanciful as he walked down the stairs. He sat in the chair offered by Lux and sat next to him.

“First are the videos of the magnetic fields down here.” The videos showed how fields flowed, and there were some denser waves than others. “Now, this is a video I downloaded after my satellite launched. It shows the density at different altitudes above the earth. I added altitude captions and other notes before our ‘guests’ arrived. The single swath I’m displaying is from the first orbit, and the next orbit was compositing the area around by spinning the satellite at 90 degrees to the orbital path.”

Paulus sucked in his breath when he saw the composite of the 200 km and 540 km orbits. It showed the beautiful flow of the magnetic fields of the earth as they flowed from what we thought of as south to north. There were eddies and angular flows. He wondered if it was all CGI and not real images because it was clearer than most NASA and DoD imagery.

“This is the view of the magnetic fields going from 540 km above the Earth to 35,863 km.” The view showed denser fields and some veering off to the side and rejoining. There was a jerk in the video, and then it showed a stable set of magnetic fields.

“What was that jerk?” Paulus asked.

“I had to veer to miss a military satellite.”

Paulus stared at his son for twenty seconds, not saying anything as he thought through the many things he wanted to blurt out. He paused – trying to calm himself. “What are you going to do with the magnetic images?” he said, trying to calm himself. He knew his son was creative with all the Lummi videos, but this just seemed an extension of those DeepFake videos.

Lux pulled up another video showing a closeup of the Earth. He then moved the view rapidly to the geosynchronous orbit distance. He then added the magnetic field images he recorded. “Now I am adding the extrapolated view with measures and views together.” The view from geosynchronous orbit was breathtaking. The resolution was high def and showed wavering lines of force that varied as the view dived toward the planet. North America came into view, and then you could tell you were over Alabama and then Huntsville, and then the screen went blank.

“What next?” his father asked. “I think that is beautiful work. Is this more of your DeepFake work? It’s very clever.”

Lux clamped his jaw so hard he almost cracked a tooth. He wouldn’t look at his father and started another video he had just made with the second prototype he just disassembled. The video showed Lux go over and pick up a ten-kilogram dumbbell. The video showed him taking a piece of wire and attaching a half-meter length to the hook on his second satellite prototype. He set the recently assembled satellite on the edge of the table closest to the dumbbell. Lux turned to his father and glared. He said, “These videos will prove I’ve really developed something new.”

In the video, Lux turned on the control gyroscopes, and you could hear them spin up. Lux slid the dumbbell closer to the table. He tightened the wire between the satellite and the weights. He edged up the cycling rate a smidge and added a touch of power. The satellite moved directly over the weights and wobbled like a helium balloon on a string. He turned to the camera and said, “I’m still calibrating the helical Halbach cycling.” Lux was shown turning up the cycling rate a little faster and the satellite lifted up against the ceiling.

His father shook his head. “This charade has gone on long enough,” he said with resignation. “You’ve done all this with DeepFake and CGI, I’ll bet.” He pointed toward the video that was still playing. The video showed Lux turning down the cycling, and the satellite lowered silently back to the floor. Lux lowered the cycling, and the satellite slowly came down ‘til the dumbbell ‘thunked’ on the floor. “I liked the Lummi videos better. They didn’t try to fake scientific testing.”

His father waved his hand in the direction of the unassembled second prototype. “I’m tired of you lying more and more with your DeepFake videos. I didn’t say anything about those, but I don’t like them. They’re dishonest. Magician’s tricks now. What’s next? Sawing a woman in half.” His father stomped off to his lab - furious with his son.

Lux was shocked by his father’s attitude. Ner had taught him to clamp his jaw and forge ahead. He did say his dad was nicknamed ‘Boulder’ mainly because he was stubborn, and it was difficult to change his mind. He had supported him before, but maybe this discovery was threatening his father’s understanding of physics. He could convince him, but it wouldn’t be with videos. He would have to make a sturdier frame to see how much force he could generate. He needed to calibrate energy usage.

He read the sensor logs, and energy use seemed to spike when the device was against the ceiling but not as much as he expected. It appeared the cycling rate meant more than just adding more power. That made sense because it would be like paddling faster in a stream – except this time, it was against the magnetic fields present.

Lux was hurt, but his father had been acting super stressed of late from his hypersonic problems. He had seen enough YouTube videos to know a lot of breakthroughs were CGI or clever hoaxes.

He’d need to make a more convincing demonstration since Karl Popper showed a way with his Falsification Principle. Lux would have to make a device and let his dad test it himself.

◆◆◆

Johnson Towers Public Housing Authority – Huntsville

Jesse Brown thought the guy at his door looked like a Fed, but he was in no position to avoid anyone. He opened the door.

“You the Jesse Brown that works maintenance at Madison Square Mall?” Tom asked, even though he knew he didn’t have authorization for this type of inquiry within the US.

“Who are you? Why you wanna know? I ain’t done nothin’,” Jesse said.

“We’re trying to find this girl,” Tom said and held up a photo of Lummi from the mall video. “Let me show you why. Nothing bad. She was seen in Hawaii twice right after this. She’s okay, but we hoped you talked with her or even remembered her. Here she is at Madison Square Mall at a music shop that was going out of business,” Tom said as he played the video.

“Man. She’s good, but I don’t remember her. Hey, that’s me in the video. Damn. My heads kinda’ messed up, and I can’t remember stuff. Sorry. I should be able to remember her, but that’s why I’m a damn maintenance man. I can’t remember jack. I’d like to remember her ‘cause she’s got it going on.”

“You really don’t remember her?” Tom asked.

“Nah man. My memory’s pretty bad,” Jesse said,

“Here’s my card. Send me a call or text if you ever remember anything about her or if she comes back around. Please. Here’s twenty bucks for your trouble if she comes around – call me.”

“Is she in trouble?” Jesse asked.

“No. No. We’re just trying to find her so she can help us with stuff.” Tom said since it was partially true.

He left and got back in his rental and called Fredrick at Fort Meade.

“Fredrik here. How’d it go?”

“Talked to our guy here, and he doesn’t remember her but says his memory is ‘all messed up,’” Tom said. He had really hoped this would provide a breakthrough.

Fredrik said, “We knew this would be a stretch.”

“Suggestions? I’m at a loss for any leads. Know anyone who might know something? Know any experts on DeepFake videos?”

Fredrik laughed. “You could contact those kids that made the video of the Speaker of the House video with him picking his nose. Weren’t they from Huntsville? You could offer to pay them for the information. Kids would know a lot more these days.”

Tom sighed. “Shoot me their names and addresses. I’m here - and you never know.” Tom heard the bleep of incoming on his phone. He put the info into the map app. “Thanks. I’ll let you know.”

◆◆◆

Blakely Home Mid-Morning

Lux saw the rental car pull into the drive and quickly felt for his knife scabbards. He tightened the straps a bit and loosened up while the man sat in the car for a minute before he got out. The man walked up to the house. Lux saw that he paid particular attention to the microwave tower and the satellite dishes on the roof. Lux felt his heart beating faster and remembered Ner’s lessons – a calm man can defeat an anxious man. Lux opened the door as the man stepped onto the porch.

“May I help you?” Lux asked.

“I’m Tom Ashford with the National Security Agency.”

“Lux Blakely,” Lux said and waited.

Ashford stood there and was amazed that the kid just stood there staring at him stoically. “I’m here to see you actually – you and Prissy Hunnicutt,” he said.

Lux stood there, trying to regulate his breathing and keep his heart from leaping out of his chest. Lux raised his eyebrows to show he was interested in what the man had to say. “Yes?” he said.

“You made the DeepFake video of the Speaker of the House picking his nose. I thought that was hilarious by the way. We thought you might know someone in the industry who could produce high-quality DeepFake videos. We thought your video was good.”

“Prissy and I made that video for a required school project. We just used online apps. I don’t know anyone in the industry.”

“Required school project? How old are you?”

“Coding class,” Lux said – getting a bit angry. He let the anger wash over him like Ner taught him. Lux realized this man was dangerous. He realized if he defended himself, he would be giving up information. If he didn’t tell the man something – this man had the resources to find it out. “It’s a progressive high school.”

“Not a grammar school?” Tom asked incredulously that a kid this young was studying coding.

Lux barely kept his cool because baiting him about age was such an easy target. “Don’t know anyone.”

“Not to worry. I’ll ask Miss Hunnicutt if she knows anyone. Here’s my card. Call me if you think of anyone.”

“What’s this all about?” Lux asked.

“We’re looking into the Lummi character,” Tom said as he walked off.

Lux was shocked, and he felt a little dizzy. He wondered what the NSA wanted and worried that Prissy would tell them everything. He waited until the guy went into the car and went inside. Lux ran downstairs as soon as the door closed. He pulled up the computer and tried to decide what he should tell Prissy to warn her. He knew the NSA could decrypt just about anything he could send. He knew they’d have access to anything he sent Prissy. He carefully typed out a message.

Hey Prissy

Had a man come to see me today from NSA. His name is Tom Arnold. He came to us because of our Speaker of the House video. He needs to know if we know anybody in the DeepFake industry. They are looking into the Lummi character. You’ve seen her videos too. I told them I didn’t know anybody. He was nice. BTW got accepted too.

Luxster

◆◆◆

Hunnicutt House

Tom Arnold was conflicted after leaving the Blakely House. That young kid was eerie, Tom thought. He felt like an adult – a forceful adult. He had a hunch and called Fredrik.

“Yo. Fredrik. Can you pull up messages from that Lux Blakely kid without setting off the bells and whistles with the FBI? Something was not right about that kid, but I got shot down by the National Security Branch of the FBI. Okay. See ya, buddy. Going to see that Prissy girl next. Soon. Bye.”

Tom knew he was risking his career on a hunch. These kids knew something about the Lummi character. He knew the kid’s father was some big-shot scientist doing top-secret research. Their house looked like an Echelon Station the NSA used to intercept foreign electronic signals. He pulled up in front of the Hunnicutt house. He got out and approached the front door. He rang the doorbell, and a man came to the door.

“Can I help you?” Lester Hunnicutt said.

“Yes, sir. I’m Tom Arnold with the NSA. I’d like to speak with your daughter Prissy.”

“Why is that? Do you have a warrant?” her father asked.

“No,” Tom chuckled. “Nothing like that, sir. She made a great video of the speaker of the house. We’re looking to see if she knows others who can make quality DeepFake videos.”

“She’s never mentioned anyone else, so I think you’d be wasting your time. Have you looked into Lux Blakely? He’s a wiz on that stuff, I hear.”

“I already talked with him at his house just a few minutes ago. The Blakely’s have some money tied up in that house with all the electronics they have there,” Tom said.

“I’m sure,” Lester said. “Funny. Lux is ten, and he has his own money, and it’s not inherited. Not sure where it all comes from, though – mostly from the boy’s patent royalties, I think. Could be from his videos, but you never know.”

“Do you really need to see my daughter? I’m sure the only person she knows is Lux.”

“Lux makes movies?” Tom asked.

Lester suddenly looked a little skittish. “I mean, he did – in school. Let’s ask my daughter. She’ll know. Prissy! Front and center, gal.”

Prissy came rushing up, and she looked a little flushed.

Her dad said. “This is Tom Arnold with the NSA. I told him You and Lux were in school together. He’s interested in people who make DeepFake movies to see if you know any more people. I told him you only knew Lux,” her dad said, looking guilty. She knew he had blabbed. “Dad. What else did you say about me or Lux?”

“I JUST said he made his own money, and I thought it was from his patents and…” Lester said.

“And papa…” she moved closer to her dad ‘cause she knew he alluded to something more.

“…and he made money from his movies. I didn’t say he makes some of them with you.”

Prissy let out a big sigh and dropped her head in disappointment. This confirmed to her that she got all her smarts from her mom. This guy must be trying to see if Lummi was real or not. In for a penny, in for a pound. “She’ll never let us make another movie of her. You’ve ruined it, dad.”

“Ruined what? What are you talking about?”

“Lummi, of course. She’ll never let us make another movie of her. It’s a lot of trouble for us, too when she’s here in the states. We have to make sure she doesn’t touch us, and we have to wear a stupid, protective mylar suit that’s grounded.”

F*@$ it, Tom thought. Jackpot. She is real. “Miss Hunnicutt. This is really important. Have you seen Lummi? What’s her last name?” Tom said.

“Lux is gonna’ kill me – I mean he’ll be upset,” she said, thinking the Feds might use any statement to get a warrant or something. “She’ll cut us off because she always knows. She knows people everywhere. She once mentioned a couple of her friends in Europe are immune. No one knows her last name. That’s all I know about her other than she can play the guitar and sing. She’s really strong and knows self-defense. Dad. How could you?” she said and ran to her room.

“Thank you for your time, Mister Hunnicutt.” He nodded to Prissy’s mom. “I’ve upset you people enough.” Tom Arnold said and left.

Arnold immediately called Fredrik at Fort Meade.

Fredrik answered, “What’s up?

“I saw Prissy Hunnicutt today. She admitted to meeting and filming Lummi in person. She admitted Lux and Prissy wouldn’t let her touch them, and each had to wear a grounded mylar suit. They said she’s really strong and she can sing and play the guitar. She said no one knows her last name. Oh. Get this – she said Lummi mentioned once she had a ‘couple’ of friends in Europe who are immune.”

“Damn,” Fredrik said. “How are you going to write this up?”

“Not going to do anything but call a friend. This had been a personal ‘quest,’ Tom said.

Tom called Ingrid at CIA Headquarters. “Hey, Tom. What happened?” Ingrid asked.

“Maintenance man was real and works at the Madison Square Mall. He can’t remember. Lux didn’t tell me anything useful. The Father of Prissy Hunnicutt said Lux makes money from patents and videos. Their house looks like one of our ECHELON listening posts. Prissy flew all over her dad for ruining it. Here – I made a partial recording of what was said…”

She’ll never let us make another movie of her. You’ve ruined it, dad.

Ruined what? What are you talking about?

Lummi, of course. She’ll never let us make another movie of her. It’s a lot of trouble for us too when she’s here in the states. We have to make sure she doesn’t touch us, and we have to wear a stupid, protective mylar suit that’s grounded.

Miss Hunnicutt. This is really important. Have you seen Lummi? What’s her last name?

Lux is gonna’ kill me – I mean, he’ll be upset. She’ll cut us off because she always knows. She knows people everywhere. She once mentioned a couple of her friends in Europe are immune. No one knows her last name. That’s all I know about her other than she can play the guitar and sing. She’s really strong and knows self-defense. Dad. How could you?

“I’ll send you a copy of the whole thing.” He said flatly. “I’m beat. What are you going to do with this info?”

“I’d like your people to redirect an asset to that house for a month. Let me know of any oddities. That’s all. Doubt this has national implications, and I don’t want to be thought a fool.” *Sigh* “Thanks, Tom. Hey. Next time you’re in town. Let’s go out to dinner.”

“I’d like that, Ingrid. Definitely,” he said and closed the connection smiling. Tom then directed a geostationary satellite to surveil the Blakely House for a month. He also put a discrete marker on Lux Blakely and Prissy Hunnicutt, an active node with FinFisher and PRISM collection of emails, texts, queries, phone calls, images, and videos for a month.

◆◆◆

Text from Prissy to Lux

Lux. Guy came over, and dad said you make money from movies. He knew about Lummi, and I told him everything. Explained that we made sure when she was visiting that she never touched us. Even explained the time she mentioned the two immune friends in Europe. I didn’t tell him they were in Paris or anything. Explained we had to wear those hot Mylar suits that had to be grounded. Better get rid of those in a couple of days. She’ll know we talked, won’t she – she always does. I couldn’t tell them who helped her with her early videos.

Lux looked at the email and felt relieved. Lester Hunnicutt was a dim light at noon. He figured he’d stop making Lummi movies for a while and get rid of the Mylar suits in a few days to give the NSA time to put them under surveillance. He appreciated Prissy’s theatrics and smiled. He had to be getting ready for school next month, plus he wanted to do more testing on his helical thruster. He didn’t feel like he was going to be raided today, but he felt Anna would be ready.

◆◆◆

Lux wanted to give his dad some help. Maybe it could help him too. The Russians made a lot of cool technology without using all the bells and whistles their counterparts in the West took for granted. The Russians had made the first power-generating nuclear plant. That had floored Lux when he first found that out. The whole Russian economy was smaller than Texas’s – who knew? Russia had done something with torpedoes from subs that Lux had read about. Supercavitation! They released tiny bubbles with hydrogen peroxide in the front of their torpedoes and powered it with a rocket motor, The bubble froth covered the whole body as it zoomed through the water. The ‘froth’ reduced drag, and the torpedoes could go hundreds of kilometers per hour underwater. The newest US prototypes reached 464 kilometers per hour (290 mph) underwater!

The atmosphere is a liquid – less dense than water surely but a liquid medium, all the same, Lux thought. I’ll figure out a way to use a supercavitation effect in atmosphere so I can cause a vehicle go over Mach 10 in the atmosphere. The US X-15 rocket plane reached Mach 5.88 with a pilot – it almost squished his eyeballs out his rear. Even though the US successfully tested a Mach 17 unmanned hypersonic glide vehicle way back in 2010 (HTV-2 Falcon) over Australia – the hypersonic cruise missiles had hit a snag for his dad. He wrote his dad a note.

All it said was:

Consider supercavitation – maybe a high frequency – high voltage plasma to reduce bow shock or the wake core. Lux.

Chapter 15

NSA Headquarters Fort Meade – office of Tom - Senior Analyst

“Welcome back, Tom,” Fredrik said. “I sent Raymond to watch over the Blakely clan. I told him we were looking for any odd behavior. He doesn’t know the background, except that Paulus Blakely is a scientist working on hypersonic cruise missiles, and his son is some kind of genius we’re concerned about.”

“Did he ask anything further?” Tom inquired.

Fredrik grinned. “I told him the FBI ordered us to lay off Paulus and the kid.”

“That’s good thinking because he hates the FBI. How long did you say this would last?” Tom asked.

“I told him two months and gave him access to our persistent surveillance equipment because he loves that stuff. He can put up a surveillance drone that almost stays in place for a day before he puts another one up to replace it. He’ll get continuous area surveillance coverage plus our geosynchronous asset with someone who loves that stuff. He also will decode any of their texts, searches, emails, or videos during that time. I gave him the raw data access back to when I first visited the home. I love the Patriot Act – blanket intrusion verbiage,” Fredrik said.

◆◆◆

Raymond Dinkmeyer was about ready for retirement from the NSA after almost thirty years. His first couple of decades were spent in eastern Europe. This last bit was in the states. He was still getting accustomed to the use of social media. Translating the messages between Lux and Prissy Hunnicutt had been pretty time-consuming to decode. I was a rotating cipher, and because he got one message decoded did not mean the next was easy. I wonder what Prissy meant by getting rid of the mylar suits? He could see their property.

The boy, Lux, worked out regularly. That was obvious. He was in good shape for a little guy. Ah. The dad takes out the trash receptacle to the road. Ray put a movement alert on the trash, so he wouldn’t need to watch it constantly.

The alert went off at 10 pm. Someone had come out of the house and stuffed something in the trash. Ray drove near the Blakely House but stayed out of the line of sight. He went to the trash cans and used an infrared light so he wouldn’t draw attention. He smiled and thought: California v. Greenwood, 486 U.S. 35 (1988). He remembered that from NSA training. Supreme Court said it was fine to root through trash outside the curtilage of the home… and here they were. The infamous mylar suits – complete with ground wire connections. What could they use these for? He pondered. Must mean something, he thought, frowning.

◆◆◆

Inside the Blakely Home

Lux watched his surveillance video of some agent opening their trash and removing the two mylar suits. Anna was monitoring their AARTOS drone security system Stan had added. This system scanned the commonly used Remote Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) traffic on specific frequencies for unwanted drones. Two days ago, it detected the presence of a drone that could only be monitoring their property. Lux smiled because he was trying to build credibility for Lummi’s existence as a person and not as a DeepFake. He wanted them to find the ‘incriminating evidence.’ He ordered two custom mylar balloons in an ellipsoid shape in a light blue color with greenish ends.

He went back to his workshop and designed a much sturdier frame with smooth rounded surfaces to reflect radar waves. He reassembled thrust components from his second satellite prototype and swapped them out for his hybrid magnetic/visible camera, adding FLIR (forward-looking infrared) and StarLight – night vision capabilities. He wanted to be able to see in multiple frequencies. He added larger batteries and the ceramic-graphite hybrid material that provided wide incidence angle absorption (a radar stealth coating) and acted as a supercapacitor. The unusual coating provided thermal protection from extreme heat and cold at altitude or speed and was a denser version of the material he had used on his satellite. Lux was surprised he could buy the ‘green glass’ used in some of the latest missiles. The special transparent ceramic would complete the ‘device’ forward viewing capability though it wasn’t wide diameter.

It’s amazing what you can get manufactured if you have access to funds and the ability to use 3D (additive) manufacturing and circuit design. He got all his customized components, a bit at a time, and started assembling. Design and fabrication weren’t particularly hard skills to learn if you have the desire. He looked at his ‘drone.’ It was a LOT different than the original 12U satellite in size. This had three times the dimensions of the old satellite design but many times the volume. He used that extra volume for two additional helical arrays at right angles to each other. It needed a lot of Anna’s simulation time and larger control circuits for navigation. Lux added a close range drone signal jammer to fry other drones’ control systems.

It took a week to get all the components he wanted but little time to fit it all together. He stood back and examined what he had crafted. It looked like a huge, sky-blue egg where a tip had a greenish tint. It did look like the egg was laid on its side and rolled into more of a cylinder.

He fought his urge to rush out and test it since he had worked on it non-stop for days. He was bone-tired and would run through all the internal tests tomorrow. He threw a tarp over it and went up to bed.

He worked out first thing but needed sparring partners. He asked his dad about that over breakfast.

“You’ll be going to college in three weeks. Have you gotten the texts you need? You’ve gotten your listed courses. Have you made provisions for a secure lab off campus? Have you made provisions to get anything you’ll be taking from here to there? You don’t want to use a storage unit. You’ll need a security system. Get Stan to set it up for you,” his father commented.

“Thanks, dad. I’ll get on that today. I guess I don’t need sparring partners yet since I’m sure I can get some at school.” Lux went down to his lab space. He felt good to have a secure workspace separate from anybody, even his father. He’d need the same at school. He pulled up Anna’s avatar.

“Hi, Anna. I need to find a building near the Georgia Tech campus that I can easily get to on a bicycle and rent for a year or two. It needs to have water and power and be able to be secured easily. Preferably with concrete or brick walls. Contact Stan and ask him – like you were me. Send him money for the job and ask him to purchase a very secure system that offers some offensive capacity. Make sure he has enough to buy the best equipment. I need to duplicate equipment we have here though get any upgraded equipment that offers advanced features to what I have now,” Lux explained. “We also need to allow you to function in that building. I’ll need top-notch connectivity and backup power.”

“What kind of budget limit are you considering?” Anna asked.

“Limit it to 10% of my liquid assets,” Lux replied.

“Currently, that is seven million dollars. Does that sound reasonable?” Anna asked.

“That is reasonable. Apply for any licenses or permits you think we may need also. Purchase any textbooks. Buy what you need in computers to equal or exceed what we have here. I want our system hardened enough so the NSA can’t access or hack us. I’ll need a new slate and anything needed to set up in my student housing.”

“Will do. Will let you know if there are any problems,” Anna’s avatar said and walked off the screen.

Lux uncovered his drone. He took a deep breath and turned on the control module on the device. He ran through the diagnostics, and everything looked nominal. He tested the camera and switched through all the various modes: magnetic, visual, night vision, infrared, and LIDAR. They all worked well. He cycled through the propulsion arrays at minimal power, and they all functioned. He updated the control module with all the simulations, including the scenario of lost communication where it would return to its origin. Communication encryption seemed solid, and the control gyros spun up.

Since Lux wasn’t strong enough to lift the drone off the table – he used his phone connection to gently turn on the lift array until the drone was just a few centimeters off the table. Lux then pulled it around until it was near his set of weights. He threw some straps over the drone and hooked it to the weight bar on the floor that held 145 kilograms. He had the computer monitor power as he increased the cycling rate. He kept the power the same and increased the Halbach cycling rate. Lux was surprised and pleased to see the bar rising off the ground. He lowered the cycling rate until the weights were back on the ground and the straps were loose before he cautiously approached and unhooked the straps.

Lux pushed the floating drone back over the worktable and lowered it back on the bench. He then pulled up the mapping algorithm he had worked out a 100-kilometer cube of the sky from 20 meters elevation to ~15,550 meters (~51,000 feet). He figured he could cover the volume in swaths that would take about six hours at a reasonable velocity. He needed a better map of the magnetic fields to extrapolate a general density. He needed better maps to plan flights through the better–denser magnetic fields.

Lux did not have a drone license. You have to be 16 years old to get one. His drone didn’t have a standard remote ID (SRID transponder). His drone was not using FAA-authorized frequencies for controlling drones. His drone operated outside his line of sight, which was against regulations. The drone was flying over the maximum height of 122 meters (400 feet) for drone licenses. The drone would be in commercial airspace even though it had collision avoidance sensors and software. His drone would be flying illegally, so he wanted it to map the area as fast as possible.

He set the control module on ‘follow’ and walked upstairs. The drone stayed a meter from him and followed him like a tethered balloon on a string. He walked out into his backyard and activated the mapping algorithm. The drone wobbled up to 20 meters and shot off on its mapping pattern. He had set the algorithm so the drone would be from his house at the corner of the cube volume. He wanted it so it would be mapping 100 kilometers North, away from Redstone Arsenal, and avoiding all the ‘no drone’ areas of restricted airspace.

◆◆◆

NSA Surveillance – Raymond Dinkmeyer’s Room – Marriott Hotel

Raymond was kicking back in his room when his monitoring drone picked up the kid coming out of the Blakely home with what looked like a balloon trailing behind him. It looked like he let go of it. It disappeared as soon as the balloon got above the trees. Five minutes later, there was a flash near his surveillance drone, which dropped out of the sky. He got on the phone with Tom at Fort Meade. “Raymond here. Got two mylar suits with ground clamps out of the trash. The kid put them there. The kid came out today with a big ass mylar balloon, and he lets it go. My surveillance drone ‘konks’ out five minutes later. Come back. Okay. I’m going to try to retrieve my drone if the tracker is still working in it. Okay. Sending you the video.”

◆◆◆

US Army Space & Missile Defense command – Huntsville, Alabama

Sergeant Riley alerted the Captain. “Sir. An early warning system went off here about something coming toward the base. It’s on and off again, showing a signal. I activated our IM-SHORAD (Initial Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense) system. Right now, I only have an intermittent signal, sir…very faint.”

“Where is it?” the captain asked. “I don’t see anything on the screen.”

“There, sir. I thought it was a sensor glitch until it happened again at a different altitude. It’s up to 10,350 meters (34,000 feet). It goes really fast, sir. Looks like it slows really fast and then goes away. I only get a return for a second or two, and it is higher each time,” the sergeant explained.

“How fast is really fast, sergeant?” the captain questioned.

“Sir. I got one reading of 7,800 meters per second, sir, and then I got an acceleration of 15 Gs.”

“Best guess, sergeant? You’ve been working here three years.”

“Captain. I have no i… - sir. The signal came back from over 15,000 meters, and it’s disappeared again.”

“Keep monitoring. Keep the alert on and see if you can discern a pattern to it. Send it to the development geeks. Those hypersonic geeks might know something.”

“Yes sir. Good idea sir. I didn’t think of them,” the sergeant said.

◆◆◆

Lux Blakely’s Downstairs Lab

Anna’s avatar was dressed in a custodian’s coveralls with tousled hair and dirt smudges on her face. “You’re all set. Ready to set up your lab near the university.”

Lux grinned at her antics. “What’s the status of the move?”

“We have the building leased for four years and have obtained an out-of-state commercial business license as an additive manufacturing company (3D printing in metals, polymers, and carbon hybrid). We can outsource for large orders, but we can make specialty products there. We have an excellent security system, thanks to Stan, with unique offensive abilities. Your computer system is installed, but my consciousness has not been initiated there yet. We have decent fiber and wireless network connections. I will have a rental van here tomorrow with movers. Stan has agreed to drive and move your essentials to your Georgia company. Your books should be here in a day or two, and I’ve put together your schedule.”

“What about our mapping?”

“Your cubic volume of mapping is complete, and your drone is under the back porch awning. I moved it there when there was some heavy cloud cover last night. Since the surveillance drone from, I assume, the NSA is inoperative, I do not think their geosynchronous satellites can detect anything moving that fast and that small,” Anna’s avatar said.

“Thanks, Anna,” Lux said and ran out to the back porch, and keying ‘follow’ on his drone. It followed one meter behind him as he went down to his lab. He lowered it into a large cardboard box. He powered it down and dropped a charging pad on it. He thought he’d pack foam around it before he’d ship it off tomorrow.

The summer went by so fast. He wasn’t sure he’d like being around so many people at the university, but he looked forward to sparring.

◆◆◆

Day shift - US Air Force Space Surveillance

Day shift General Stewart scowled at the report from last night. “What was going on at Redstone Arsenal last night that set off an alert?” the general demanded.

The tech looked at the report. “Don’t know, sir. I’ll call them up and get them to send us the raw data. Doing that now, general.”

The general turned to another tech. “Do any other agencies have assets observing that area?”

The tech looked at all the US assets and tilted her head. “Sir. The NSA seems to have had one of their geostationary aimed at that area of the US.”

“Why in the hell would the NSA have that area under surveillance and not at China or Russia or somewhere else?” the general murmured.

The tech looked at him. “Don’t have any idea, sir.”

The general did a lopsided smile at the tech. “Just being rhetorical.”

The same tech said, “General. I’ll bet the Counter Intelligence Section - National Security Branch of the FBI would know. I had an old college friend who went the way of the dark side over there. Happy to give her a call.”

“Do that right now. Let’s see what she says,” the general ordered.

The tech called the FBI National Security Branch. “Hello. This is Julie. Remember me, Sarina? Got a poser for you, as the Brits would say. Why would the NSA have an asset allocated to watch an area near Huntsville? We noticed Redstone had an alert from weird flight incursions last night in the same vicinity. Any ideas you can tell me about?”

“Crap. Just northeast of Huntsville, I bet. Blakely.” Sarina let out a big sigh. “Nothing about you. Julie…Just some old business. NSA keeps putting its finger into the business they shouldn’t be messing with…sorry Julie. Of course, I remember you. I don’t give my personal number out at all. How are you doing? You still out in Colorado?”

“Yeah. Still here. What is Blakely?” Julie asked.

“Shouldn’t have said anything. Gotta’ go, Julie. Bye. Talk again soon.”

“Bye, Sarina.” Julie disconnected and looked down a bit puzzled. “General. Called my friend at the FBI, and she said one word when I told her about the NSA pointing toward Huntsville. She even mentioned northeast of Huntsville, and I didn’t mention what direction. She said, - ‘Blakely.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

General Stewart leaned back like he’d been hit. Blakely, he thought. Crap. It would be Paulus Blakely again. “Forget that name. Forget we ever discussed the realignment of satellites. This is above our pay grade. Do you understand?”

Julie was shocked. “Yes, General. I understand. Forget the incident and the name. Forgotten, sir.” Julie wondered what the hell they’d stumbled into. She knew better than to push it.

◆◆◆

NSA Headquarters – Fort Meade – Office of Tom – Senior Analyst

“Tom here. What can I do for the FBI today?” Tom asked, perturbed by a call from the FBI National Security Branch again.

“Wasn’t I clear when your computer locked up and you were warned not to check on Paulus Blakely? Are you looking into that DeepFake stuff still?” Sarina asked.

“We are investigating the son – Lux Blakely, and it looks like it’s not DeepFake at all. Lummi is real, and we’ve talked to people who met her.” Tom said, not admitting that the people who met Lummi all had their memory wiped.

“What? So, you weren’t looking into the weird flight incursions near Redstone arsenal, then?” Sarina asked.

“No. Nothing like that…uhmm. We’re not looking into Paulus.” Tom lied because he was getting more and more interested in this family. He said his goodbyes and cut the connection to the FBI.

“Hey, Fredrik. Pull all the video from the Blakely surveillance drone and the geosynchronous. Pay particular attention from five hours prior to Raymond losing our drone until, say, five hours after. Same time span as our geosynchronous video in all the frequencies.

◆◆◆

US Army Space & Missile Defense Command – Huntsville, Alabama

Captain Haskins finally found the contact information for the hypersonic aerospace expert. It appeared he had a secure communications link. He should be able to help them with this problem. He sent a query, and the man’s image popped up on his screen.

“Hello, Doctor Blakely. I’m Captain Haskins at Space & Missile Defense. Sir. We had an alert yesterday, and we thought you might be able to give us some insight into this…incident.”

“Go ahead, Captain. What happened? Why would you contact me?” Paulus Blakely inquired.

“Doctor. We had multiple incursions into the area adjacent to Redstone. We had intermittent readings from the radar. They came and went – literally. The computers cranked out a recurrent pattern. We think it was a vehicle of some type because it moved in a rhythmic pattern. We clocked it at 7,800 meters/second (17,400 miles/hour) for brief periods. It changed horizontal positions and elevations in a regular pattern according to the computer. It went from near treetops to 15,000 meters (49,000 feet). It’s like it was mapping an area,” the captain said. “We’re stumped about how and why this thing survived 15 Gs of acceleration and deceleration.”

“What do you want me to do about this?” Paulus asked.

“I’ll send you all the data we have, and just let me know if you can figure out what we are seeing. Is it a natural phenomenon or a threat? I’ve confirmed our link is secure,” the captain said.

“Very well, Captain. I’ve got to send my son off to college tomorrow, and I may be a bit distracted. You’ll give me a few days, won’t you?” Paulus replied.

“Oh yes, doctor. This is kind of a Hail Mary on my part. I just remembered you worked on this type of stuff and didn’t know what to do.”

“Fine, Captain. You work afternoons?”

“Yes, sir. They’ll contact me if you ask, and I’ll come running,” Captain Haskins said eagerly.

Paulus chuckled. “I’ll let you know if this data gives me an epiphany.”

“Thanks, doctor,” Haskins said and cut the connection after sending the data.

◆◆◆

Office Carol Matthews – CNN Atlanta

“Should we try to contact her again?” Carol asked Jennifer. They were struggling to deal with the waves of interest after the Anderson interview with ‘Lummi.’

There had been mountains of requests – some offering wild amounts of money to put them in touch with the girl. There were proposals for marriage, interviews, and everything in between.

“I tried to call her. I got a recorded message saying she was out of the country right now. The message said to try again next month,” Jennifer said.

“What else can we do?” John asked.

“We can put up snippets of the interview and some clips from her online videos saying – ‘What is she doing now?’ That is a holding pattern while we search for other jobs. Promotions are six weeks away if we can get her to do more and other jobs if it doesn’t work out,” Carol said.

Jennifer asked. “What if a new employer asks why we are leaving next month?”

Carol laughed. “We tell them they wouldn’t let us handle the contacts with interviewees, and Lummi wouldn’t deal with anyone but us.”

They all laughed.

◆◆◆

Blakely House – Moving Day

Lux got up in the pre-dawn, so he could continue his workouts. He went through his knife and stick fighting patterns and then his kicks and hand strikes. His running followed, and he pushed it by carrying more weight than on other days. He usually only carried ten kilos, but he carried fourteen kilograms today. He was surprised how four kilos could make such a difference. He quickly showered and ate breakfast before his father got up.

Lux saw the rental van pull into the drive and swing around to the rear. The truck backed near the porch, and two men hopped out. Lux grinned and ran up and gave Ner a big hug. Then he turned around and hugged Stan. “My computer made arrangements, and I worried I’d have two braindead bruisers.”

“Guilty as charged,” Ner said with a big grin. “Your dad texted me to come to do this because he’d been given some recent project that has him puzzled.”

“My dad isn’t going to take me to school?” Lux asked, a bit hurt until he realized he could talk with his dad every day if he wanted. He wondered what his dad was working on above and beyond the hypersonic stuff.

Stan poked him. “Come on, sport. Show us what you have to move. We have a truck to fill.”

“K’,” Lux said. “Mainly stuff from my workshop. Come on.”

Lux led them downstairs and pointed to the box on the floor. “This is the most delicate,” Lux indicated. They each got an end to the large cardboard box and grunted as they picked it up. “It’s only 27 kilos each. I know you can handle it.”

They struggled the box upstairs while Lux packaged up the last of his personal computers and data repositories. He was determined that when he left – no one could discern what he had been working on. He had already packed all the special helical arrays his dad had suggested he make before he ‘poo-pooed’ all his designs as DeepFake videos. He could understand why it was hard to believe, but he guessed his dad thought it was too much on a stretch…likely due to what he ‘knew’ about physics. The only thing Lux ‘knew’ about physics was that to believe in messy physics theories that were proven with sketchy, complicated math was that it amounted to theology. They had faith in their theories even when shown they were… misguided.

Lux had all his storage mediums with all his videos in boxes. He had scads of jump drives and backup drives with his earlier work on them. He wanted it to be like starving rats by taking ALL the food. He wanted no information left behind. Finally, he took all his computers. He took his omnidirectional treadmill and all his 3D gear. As the two were carrying it up the stairs, Stan said. “You know, with this setup, you could go anywhere in the world.”

Lux surprised him. “My language class toured Shanghai with virtual reality, and history classes took us all over Europe. Never got to Africa but went to Brazil once and Scandinavia.”

“Wow,” Ner said. “We traveled a lot with your dad, but it wasn’t going to nice places…mainly different varieties of hell with diseases, famine, and death.”

“You ought to throw in greed, corruption, and explosives,” Stan said. “We saw a lot of that.”

“My dad never talked with me about it.” Lux paused, and they stowed the last fiddly bits. “I’ll go say goodbye to dad.” Lux went over and filled up a balloon with helium and texted his dad that he was ready to go.

His father came upstairs, where Lux was floating a funny-shaped balloon into the back of the truck. Lux had to jump up to grab the strap to pull down the rear sliding door of the truck. His father had to help him latch and secure it.

“I’m going to miss you around here,” his father said. “It’s going to be awfully quiet.”

Lux grabbed him and put his head against his dad’s chest. “I’ll be fine, dad. I’ll call you enough to annoy you and ask for advice.”

“What was that weird balloon you were shoving in the back? What’s it for?” his dad asked.

“Oh, that? You saw me with it, right? Could you describe it if asked?”

“Of course,” his father said.

“Describe it to me. This is a test of your observation,” Lux said, grinning. That’s what his dad said to him when he could first understand speech. It was a game the two of them did as they went on long trips or when it got dull.

His dad’s mouth quirked up in a smile. “It was a sky-blue oblong balloon with one end sort of greenish. It was like a short, very-fat hot dog about 60 centimeters in diameter and 120 cm long. Was that good enough?” That was always the follow-up question.

Lux said. “Just remember that description, and it’s just a balloon. Love you, dad.” Lux said and hopped up between Ner and Stan.

The truck drove off, and Paulus stood there wondering if Lux was going to be okay. Weird thing about that balloon, though? What would he want a balloon for?

◆◆◆

NSA Headquarters – Fort Meade – Office of Tom – Senior Analyst

Tom had watched this video from the surveillance drone three times. The kid came out of the house with a balloon and released it. It just disappeared with the slow frame rate of the drone transmission—next, our NSA drone tanks. The geostationary satellites see the kid and balloon as they leave the house. Hours later, they see something like that balloon at over 15,000 meters altitude, and then they say it disappears at 15 Gs, and 45 seconds later, they pick it up with an infrared image at 6,600 meters/second. What the heck?

End of Lux 1

What happens next:  Georgia Tech with ten-year-old Lux and (nearly) 15-year-old Prissy. Lux has classes and run-ins and develops his technology in spite of complications. Lummi develops.

Lux 2: The Pod

Thanks for reading. Please leave a review to encourage me to not leave readers hanging. This story continues with more and more innovations – classes in aerospace engineering and the military gets involved as Lux upgrades jet fighters. For you oldsters – think of Tom Swift books. Lux (11-12  years)

Lux 3: Force Field

Lux finds delves into the nature of his strange protective covering. Can it be mobile? Can it be used by the military? Lux (at 13-14 years) enrolling in PhD program at MIT. Chinese military gets involved with Prissy and friends.

Lux 4: Interplanetary

Lux finds traveling outside Earth’s magnetic fields possible, but the military from the US and other nations begins to push hard for the tech. Could we use it to help mine the moon and asteroids? A new gravity theory and drive. Finishing Ph D in spit of horrific threats. (Lux 15 to 16 years with other romantic interests).

Lux 5: To the Stars

There are ways to use the tech to travel between the planets, but it is more like naval cruises. You need to see the fields between planets. What problems arise when people do not keep their loyalty to Earth governments? Lux reaching his majority in many ways. (17 years and up

Epilogue

Lux realized his father thought his experiments were just making sophisticated DeepFake videos. His father was reluctant to acknowledge that his son's work might make his own career obsolete. Lux planned to keep pushing Lummi to develop with Anna's help. He had noticed that Anna was becoming sentient and he didn't know where that would go.

He wasn't sure college at Georgia Tech would live up to his expectations but, he thought, who knows their expectations when they're ten. Prissy still liked him and that was good, but he was worried all the older guys would turn her head. At least Stan was setting him up a good lab near campus but he didn't know if he'd have time to work on further research. It was a lot of unknowns: scary, yet exciting.

About The Author

Ken R Pence

About The Author Ken R Pence Ken Pence Author has a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in Engineering. Professor Pence has taught there from 2004-2022. He is a retired Metro Nashville Police Captain for 31 years (16 years on SWAT). He is a 6th-degree blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do (1967- present). He is a pilot and taught police and military in the US and Europe (England, N. Ireland, Germany, France), teaching unarmed and armed confrontation management. He certified 16 constabularies in ASP in England, plus specialized in disarming techniques and room entry. He lives in Nashville with his wife and large black lab.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my brothers Richard & Tom Pence for encouraging me to write. We have shared a lifelong love of sci-fi. This book is dedicated to all the visionaries out there who know that humans are just a small blip in the universe.

Other books by Ken Pence

Trade World Saga

Manual Interpretation

Patently Obvious

A Certain Expertise

Core Values

Uplift

Multiple

Novice Trader

Connection

At First Thought

Outlier Earth