Alien Blues

By JR Peer

Alien Blues

This story is about a university professor Josh with unique views about physics and a reputation for refuting any possibility of the existence of alien life. Yet he has an alien encounter where he is given energy technology meant as a gift for the planet. The technology eventually confirms many of his controversial thoughts about physics.

But Josh is unable to reconcile his beliefs with what has happened, attributing it to mushrooms and dream sequences. Eventually, he decides to keep their existence a secret and claims the technology came to him in his dreamssince no one would believe it came from aliens anyway.

He has an exceptional girlfriend Sarah who helps him and his business grow, but the secret he is keeping from her (the aliens) threatens to break them apart. But despite this, they travel all over the world in style, selling the manufacturing rights to corporations, presidents, and kings and having the time of their lives. However, she is a practical woman and has had her own share of trauma, so when she finally finds out about the aliens, she has no trouble accepting them or accepting Joshs reasons for keeping their existence a secret from her and from the world. In fact, she is enraptured by the aliens as she learns from them the secrets of the universe!

There are complications such as Nu, who sees exposing the aliens as a way to become famous, and Jonathan, whom the aliens gave the technology to while having difficulty with Josh, and Dayton, the reporter whose sanity is questioned by conflicting information regarding Josh.

Woven through this is another story about converting gasoline vehicles to hydrogen; the second business started by Josh and is the real reason I, the author, wrote this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524572129

JR Peer

I am Joseph Peer. I was born near Montreal, Canada, in 1952 and became a permanent resident of the States at age four. I have been an American my entire life. I was honorably discharged from the air force in 1975 and spent two years at Austin Community College with a 4.0 GPA and promptly flunked out my first semester at the University of Texas at Austin. I have since learned that, for me, a college environment is not conducive to learning. But I am excited by online learning, for not only can you learn almost anything from the millions of courses offered but also you can replay any instructional videos repeatedly until you fully understand them! Have you ever tried to get a university professor to repeat himself even once? I have worked with computers, from Burroughs mainframes to Texas instruments, minicomputers, and once had a business about buying and selling all manner of computer and electronic test equipment. I have worked with IBM-cloned personal computers since they first came out in the 1980s. I always wanted to be a newspaper columnist, but I didn’t pursue that career path until reporters and columnists were roaming the streets, unemployed by the thousands. My solution to that was to follow the crowd and create a blog, ThePeerBlog.com, which is still in development. I have always been interested in alternative energy but have not been able to pursue that passion with much consistency until recently. With interests in science, energy, physics, and nearly everything else, I finally concluded that the best option was to combine those interests and become an author. It’s one of the few professions where being a jack of all trades but a master of one is an asset! Alien Blues will be my first book but hopefully the first of many!

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by JR Peer.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016921172

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-5245-7214-3

Softcover   978-1-5245-7213-6

eBook   978-1-5245-7212-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 12/30/2016

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

752584

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 Encounter

Chapter 2 The Aliens

Chapter 3 Sarah

Chapter 4 Nu

Chapter 5 Business

Chapter 6 Jonathan and Nu

Chapter 7 Sarah Finds Out

Chapter 8 Phase Two

Chapter 9 The Reporter

Chapter 10 Darth Vader

Chapter 11 Acceptance

Chapter 12 Blue Eyes

CHAPTER 1

Encounter

Sunday, October 4, 2015

Acres and acres of blue gave the impression of infinity and endlessness and were not at all like the hallucinations he normally expected from the mushrooms. He thought he had become an expert at determining which were food and which were poison or psychoactive, but clearly, he had made a mistake. Yet this felt more like a dream, and he struggled with his own mind to resolve whether this was a lucid dream. If he could think about whether he was dreaming, wouldn’t that mean he was awake?

As he struggled with this paradox, a human shape moved in front of him, more gingerbread than man, and offered its hand, only to dissolve when he tried to touch him. He tried to stand but was already standing; he tried to walk but floated instead. They were putting thoughts in his head without words, and those thoughts were making him believe he needed to put his hand on a communication device so they could talk to him.

Two more gingerbreads appeared, and one was motioning its hand toward a solid level surface in front of him, neither table or bench and with no visible support. The thoughts in his head were encouraging him to place his hand on top of the surface, at a specific spot, and he did. Suddenly, he saw a strange, nearly irresistible object resting under his hand, and he realized in an instant that it was the communication device. As he picked it up, he was surprised it was solid, and he clutched the object desperately for it was physical. It was real, and it was warm, despite looking like a stainless steel bar of soap.

What would be a thrilling adventure for many people was becoming a terror for Josh, for he didn’t believe what he was seeing and could not accept what was happening. He struggled desperately to convince himself that this was but a dream. This was unfolding remarkably like an alien encounter, but he had made a considerable reputation around the world by his ability to refute anyone’s claims they had encountered or seen aliens or that any form of life could exist that was not on this planet. He had a local radio show, syndicated worldwide, where people called from all over the globe, and he was able to come up with reasoning that showed every caller to be wrong. Belief in aliens had become a religion, and people had faith that aliens existed, even without solid proof. What he did believe was God created everything, and he created everything for humankind; so if there was life anywhere but on earth, that would mean God simply did not exist.

This whole thing was like a break, like his own mind had turned against him and was playing a cosmic joke on him, something the mushrooms must have done. He used to revel in the effects of magic mushrooms, for they opened his mind, allowing him to see and appreciate things he used to ignore. In fact, each experience left him feeling smarter, more aware, but not smart enough to give them up. It expanded his existence and helped make the world make sense—from the mushroom’s viewpoint—but he eventually learned the effects can last up to a year, and he didn’t like how he was changing. Then one time, he became violent, and that incident nearly ruined his reputation at the university, and it finally gave him a reason to quit for good.

He still liked to eat wild mushrooms, and thus, he had been back on that dirty road. He had no choice except to let this run its course, but the effects seemed like they were going on and on. He wondered if mushrooms really could turn his fears, his nightmares against him, for this was the ultimate nightmare for a nonbeliever—to have aliens trying to negotiate with him.

Now there was a presence in his mind, an intruder, and he knew one gingerbread was trying to talk to him. He knew the object in his hand was responsible for this, and he understood this device was a gift from the visitors, for now there were three gingerbread creatures, and they wanted to be friendly, yet their idea of friendly seemed odd.

Barely he heard a sputtering, a noise, like a radio struggling to find the right frequency—minus the static—then a voice, barely intelligible and hesitant, broke through, now putting words in his head, not just thoughts yet without speaking. Will you help us?

He knew which ginger was trying to speak to him, even though he had no mouth for speaking. He formed the response in his mind. What do you want from me?

Clearer now, more distinct, the voice said, We have a gift for the people of this planet, but we need your help to build and test it and present it to your people.

They were stumbling, fighting to find words, to communicate. They were clearly unaccustomed to communicating with words, with language, but they were quick learners.

Josh knew they were not talking about the communicating device. I do not know how I could present it to ‘the people,’ but I am willing to help you. But you must want something in return. He didn’t know what made him want to help, but he was sure it was his decision.

All we need is some of the hydrogen and oxygen you can produce with one of these units; it seems like a very reasonable request considering how badly your planet needs this technology. But first, we need you to build and test this device for us and then present it to your leaders.

We have a lot of leaders.

We know about your planet, and we know everyone is connected in some way. Here.

As he thought about what the device could be, the information came to the forefront of his mind, and he knew it was a device to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen—and he understood it would be far superior to human technology. This information was somehow just planted into his brain; they said nothing about the device using words. It became clear they could plant information in his mind but could not communicate two ways without the communicator. So it seemed they could not read his mind, but he wondered cautiously if they could plant false information or propaganda into his head.

Of course I will help, if I can. Promises made in dreams are not valid. This was all so incredible, and he marveled at the brilliant imagination of his own mind. Perhaps this came from all those strange questions he was asked and the incredible imagination of the thousands who called into his radio program with their visions.

We will provide you with what you need. In an instant, he was tossed out of the vessel, seemingly from a great height, although the impact was the same as if he had just tripped over a rock. The smell of dew on the flowers and the smell of mushrooms and looming clouds, filled his nostrils as he sat bolt upright in bed. Bewildered, he opened his eyes and as the presence of the forest gradually abated he wondered If this was indeed a dream, then what is that object on the dresser?

A loud knock at the door startled him. Josh, are you there? Wake up, sleepy head, or do I have to break in to crawl into your bed?

Sarah had done that before until he finally told her not to do that again, unless she announced herself first. He tried to speak, but nothing came out, and he heard a downstairs window opening. He leapt out of bed, grabbed the object that didn’t exist, and ducked into the bathroom where he threw up.

In no time, she was outside the bathroom door. Are you okay? Do you want me to come in? Can I get you anything?

No, sit tight. I’ll be right out.

I took the day off and thought I would surprise you.

Quickly, he had to hide the object because he knew she would come in if he was not out in seconds, and the door had no lock. So where would she not look, even accidently? The device looked seamless and waterproof, so he placed the object in the toilet tank, barely noticing it did not create a ripple on the surface, as he was careful to not make a sound with the lid.

Ready or not, here I come.

He stepped out the door into a floating set of hot, luscious lips, and she dragged him to the bed as if he were prey. He loved this about her when they first met, but sometimes he wasn’t ready for her. She practically devoured him as soon as they rolled into bed, and he wondered how he ever found this stunning beauty; what could he have done to deserve this sexual creature, this wonderful soul?

Okay, what is it that is more interesting than me?

What?

The only other time you weren’t focused on me in bed was when you were distracted with your last invention. So what is it this time, free energy? She was closer than she could know.

It’s nothing. I just found a way to only allow the dog in the doggy door but not another skunk.

He always brought up unpleasant subjects when he didn’t want to talk. Bullshit, you don’t even have a dog anymore. This is something more important, but if you don’t want to tell me, then don’t.

He fought with his distracted mind to focus exclusively on Sarah and despaired that even she could not make him forget the turmoil in his brain. But what he was dealing with was even more overwhelming than Sarah, and he was so unsure of his own mind he dared not mention any of this to her. Instead, he tried even harder to focus.

I’m sorry. How’s this?

Mmm, much better.

Her whole body shook them as they finished, but he was already drifting away. When he looked at her, he thought he had just made love to one of the gingerbreads, even as her face broke through the ginger. Now he clung to her as they both floated in a sea of blue, but she pushed him away; and when she spoke, her voice strangely came from outside his head.

Okay, fine. I’ll leave, but if it is another woman, you should at least have the decency to tell me.

A slamming door woke him out of his revere, and he realized Sarah had left and actually felt relieved he did not have to face her, but she also left him alone with his thoughts. If this was all true, and he still could not accept that it was, this was a real dilemma for him. He dared not go back to sleep, for that same dream kept recurring all night, but he could not organize his mind enough to be able to get out of bed and do anything. Besides, nothing mattered anymore—his job, his life, Sarah, the planet, and the universe. Did God still exist? Maybe he still existed, but still, God had nothing to say. How was he supposed to move on from this mental quagmire?

Could they have chosen him, thinking if they could make him believe, anyone else would be convinced? Or was it pure chance he was the first human to stumble near their vessel? Was he even their first victim? Or was he actually a victim of his own imagination?

As his mind rolled aimlessly around in his brain, he drifted off to sleep but this time woke up in an hour. Greatly relieved he had not relived that dream, that nightmare, he rushed into the shower, determined to wake up. He let the water run cold, and it chilled his very soul, but he was grateful he could feel it. He left the shower when he began shivering uncontrollably, and as he threw warm water on his face, the mirror told him his hazel eyes had turned blue. Did the mirror say that to him, or was he just talking to himself? What did that mean? Were they inside of him, controlling him? Can he trust his own thoughts?

He wondered if he could awaken from a dream and still be sleeping, but his mind was beginning to clear, enough so curiosity entered through the fog. He stubbornly still would not accept he had encountered aliens, but the device he just pulled from the toilet tank felt real enough, and he wondered what if the plans in his head could yield the device he dreamt of? He needed a diversion, something to do, even if the diversion was the result of what he wanted to forget. He squeezed the device and, without thinking, brought it with him as he headed to his shop in the garage. Perhaps it was the source of the precious information!

As he walked into his shop, he was assaulted by the stale odor of old garage, the kind of odor you would expect from one of those car garages that had a dirt floor, yet his was concrete. He even saw cobwebs in the corner and heard the creaking of an outside door, and it was apparent this encounter had heightened his senses. Or was it the mushrooms again?

As he turned his focus back to the task at hand and began thinking about the device they wanted him to build, detailed information filled his brain about how to build it, including what materials and equipment he would need and how it operated. It was almost like virtual reality in his brain!

He used the tricks he had learned to enter the university’s database and forced clarity as he anonymously hacked in to learn the current administrator’s password. The database had access to nearly every material known to man, and he was able to locate everything he needed but couldn’t verify availability, or there would be a record of his search. Fortunately, everything he needed could be found with a few states’ reach, so he packed up a pile of cash and headed out.

It did not go smoothly, for he thought he was done with those knowing looks he was on something. He had left that behind him, he thought, but he knew he wasn’t himself and even struggled to remember who he was and what he was supposed to be like. He remembered an old friend describing his trip into a nervous breakdown and how he had lost his personality, and that made him realize how much trouble he was in. Except for this stray memory, he could only remember the immediate past which loomed large; and therefore, there was no past to act as a reference. But he fought to remember past what had happened, and gradually, some of it returned—the urgency to build a device and the scramble to buy parts. As he recalled his thoughts, they reconnected him with the past and reminded him of who he was.

Rap, Rap, Rap. The noise startled him; he must have fallen asleep or passed out, yet the officer merely wanted to know that he was okay. After that, he started winning the fight, remembering about the technology he had acquired, a strange encounter, Sarah, and he was back. His friend took years to get back and never was the same—so perhaps he had saved himself from that abyss! He shook off questioning looks, and his stubbornness was returning. He had little trouble buying the materials he needed, even though he was paying cash, for most businesses would sell to the tooth fairy if it had the cash!

At the end of the first day on the road, he would not sleep, not willingly, so he tried to spend the night at a truck stop. Maybe he could bag a waitress and forget about himself for a while, but he was acting so strangely the waitress called the police. They determined he was on drugs, although he denied it but promised the cops he would sleep it off in his truck.

Now he was afraid they might search his truck and find out how much cash he was carrying, and according to current drug laws, they could just take it from him. But he was so pathetic they let him go, partly because they received another call but especially because the waitress took pity on him and insisted she had no problem with him after all.

After they let him go, he found her to be fascinating, and she him; and he had a pleasant talk with her, willingly accepting a free piece of pie. It wasn’t just her personality that amused him, as he imagined her sometimes fading away and then filling his face, naked. She would sometimes take the shape of a ginger, and he didn’t understand half of what she said but was grateful she kept him awake and reasonably safe from his thoughts. But then he began thinking about Sarah and actually felt a real emotion—shame—for his thoughts were betraying her.

So he finally decided it was time to leave, and when he left the waitress did not get a tip for, after all, she had called the police on him. After fifteen minutes, he couldn’t stand himself and went back in the café and gave the waitress a nice tip, but a tip is not what she wanted.

I knew you were a nice guy. You were just pretending to be a jerk. Wisely refraining from saying something, he left and spent the rest of the night driving around, alternatively thinking about what he would do with this invention if it was real and trying to escape the aliens grasp. They seemed to be around every corner. Maybe it was lack of sleep, the residue of mushrooms, but he felt vulnerable driving around aimlessly, and he realized having no destination made him suspicious to the police, and he was getting very paranoid. The door to his next stop advertised they would open at 9:00 a.m., so he set out on the highway and drove for three hours and then turned around and arrived at the store at precisely 9:00 a.m.

This time, he barely interacted with the merchants he dealt with, even less than before, because he did not want them to know who he was, and they seemed to think he was not all there anyway, and perhaps they were right. Again, he was paranoid about all the cash he was spending, for some of these items were very expensive, and he was paying cash for everything so as not to leave a trail. It would only take one merchant to be suspicious and call Homeland Security, but none of the things he was purchasing were obvious terrorist tools.

As he finished his acquisitions and was heading home, he was thinking that many of the greatest inventions happened by accident, and sometimes great ideas just came to scientists and inventors. As he thought about the implications and possibilities of this device, he decided it didn’t matter how he gained this information; the important thing was to act before it was gone and stop focusing on the unlikely way he came upon it.

*   *

Back at the shop, Josh was amazed, as the information he needed continued to come to him as fast as he asked questions to himself. Even mistakes he made in fabrication were resolved seamlessly with a fix or work-around. Many of the components were organic, and he was amazed at how he was growing much of the technology and was shocked at how quickly they grew and even seemed programmed to grow to a certain shape or at least into the shape of their surroundings. He learned more and more about the device as he built it and was quietly awestruck by the realization he was learning about the technology as he worked, that this polymath was not learned knowledge but more like a database. He wondered if it was a database that could disappear once his memory faded, so from then on, he began speaking out loud, as information was revealed by the poly, and he had two recorders to log everything he said, even his personal notes. He would continually ask questions that were way ahead of what he needed at the time, and the polymath dutifully gave him most of the answers he sought.

The aliens contacted him a few times, despite Josh’s determined attempts to ignore them; and one time, to get his attention, they placed him at the edge of an icy cliff. His feet were slipping; the cold wind was cutting through his thin shirt, and he had no feeling in his fingers. Just as quickly, he was back in his shop and began the warming up process, even though he had never been cold. If the dream he had been in before was terrifying, this one was surely tops, and he stood shivering in the warmth of his shop.

What the hell was that? What is going on?

You seem determined to deny we exist, despite the technology we gave you. We were just trying to show you we are real.

You again! By putting me in another dream that was not real, you reinforced my doubts about you being real.

So you are doing this to yourself? Then who are we?

A figment of my imagination, my alter ego, perhaps my nemesis.

So you just dreamed up this technology all by yourself, in your own mind?

It seems like it. When a man is able to understand things he never understood before, there is likely to be a lot that comes with it he doesn’t understand. So I am just going to focus on what I know is in my brain, before I wake up, and it disappears.

Just like we would disappear?

Yes.

We could disappear right now, if you wish.

Okay.

But we would take our technology with us.

Ooooh no! This technology is worth putting up with anything, even you. Let me work on it and leave my mind alone, please.

You are afraid, Josh, but not of us. Why can you not accept us as real?

You just can’t be real—that is all. Not any more than the devil.

So you do not believe in your God?

Yes, I do believe in God, but Satan is just a personification of evil—to fight something it is helpful, to have some concept or idea of what you are fighting, some physical thing to focus on.

So you are fighting?

I just need to understand how this is happening and get my mind back to the real world.

And if this is the real world?

Why must you go on about this?

How about accepting, just for now, that we are real? What would you do?

What if I don’t? Are you going to dangle me off the edge of a cliff again?

We will agree not to do anything like that again, as long as you accept we are for real, and it was us who gave you this technology.

That will take time.

Do you believe you put yourself in mortal danger?

The human mind is very powerful.

That is how we were able to put that suggestion in your mind.

Just as you put the suggestion I was on your ship, or that you are aliens?

Actually, he was right about that. The aliens acknowledged to themselves. He had never been in their ship. Who else could do that or would do that? Even your imagination is not that powerful. Perhaps we are indeed your Satan.

Difficult things take time to accept. The impossible takes a little longer. Promise me to never do that to me or any human again. It is terrifying, and you could damage someone’s mind that way.

It did not damage yours.

My mind is already damaged, perhaps beyond repair. I am trying to salvage what I can to prevent further damage and repair myself.

Okay, we have no wish to harm anybody. Do what you must, but don’t forget that we have a deal. It is very important to us. Goodbye, Josh.

They had never addressed him as Josh before; he didn’t remember ever telling them his name. One of the merchants did recognize him and called him by name, however! Were they following him?

Josh was in a strange netherworld, with one foot in a fantasyland and the other foot still planted on terra firma. He was sure his mind was still playing tricks on him, and he didn’t know what to expect next. Perhaps this is the process by which geniuses come up with mind-bending ideas and invention, by allowing your mind to go wherever it wants to go, to ponder the impossible, to reach beyond science, to explore, to . . .

Who was he kidding? He was fighting it, trying to go back to himself, to familiar territory. Maybe this was just the price of genius, but then why had this never happened to him before? Had he never sufficiently stressed his mind enough to change his thinking? Maybe it was the mushrooms that did this, but even mushrooms had never before caused him to imagine aliens!

Then perhaps this was the devil; his mind was constructing this as punishment for the evil things he had done. He no longer expected he would ever be held accountable for the things he did, at least not by man. Now the guilt of that had come back to make him weak and susceptible—and landed him in Toonland. He remembered Toonland as a child, a place of no rules, no boundaries where even aliens could exist. So he decided that when you find yourself in Toonland, you learn how Toonland works!

He still needed one foot planted in the real world for the sake of his sanity, but he had a curiosity about this ethereal world and was excited about where the technology was taking him. So if he needed he would play this game, he was not likely to fall any further down the rabbit hole, and there was so much to learn from this!

So he had a few more conversations with the aliens, mostly about the technology, and they were quite willing to help him with technical questions, although he was sure they withheld much more than they told him. When he cautiously asked nontechnical questions, they were silent, just like when he made any insinuations they did not exist!

But now he had practically acknowledged they were real or could be real, and it did make some sense. He had been in mortal danger in dreams before, for example, but he could not just put himself there and back in an instant. He was also one of these people for whom dreams were quite real while he was in them, for he could not tell when he was in a dream, i.e., he might still be dreaming.

Denial can only take you so far, and Josh had reached the limit of his delusional thinking, so now it was time to consider the situation and how he would proceed if this was for real. He didn’t need a polymath to conclude, in his own mind, that if he disclosed this experience to the world and how he obtained the technology, only Kooks and the federal government would take him seriously. And because of the press, his life would never again be his own. It was partly greed but also fear of destroying his reputation and his credibility that made him decide to withhold the greatest event to date in human history and keep to himself the technology that could save the planet.

He could see himself spending the rest of his life trying to convince the world that aliens existed, after spending all his life refuting the possibility, and there was still a part of him that considered his own mind could be doing this to him. After all, when people go insane, they begin believing impossible things. Instead, he would turn the tables on this and get rich on technology he would jokingly say came from aliens. This would be code for I am not going to tell you anything. With that kind of thinking, he could even pass a polygraph if things ever came to that. He stopped himself when he realized he was laughing out loud at the prospect. He needed to reestablish control over himself, to restrain such impulses, and to know when his behavior might seem strange. But if he acted strange in Toonland, would anyone notice?

Anything can happen in Toonland, just as in dreams. There are no rules; even the laws of physics are optional. So in Toonland, aliens can exist. He could have a computer planted in his brain, and he could conceive of technology that did not exist. In fact, did this technology only exist in Toonland, in his dreams? Problem with dreams is they don’t come back with much clarity when you awake, and so the tapes he was recording might be as temporary as everything else. If only there was a way to communicate with the real world, to record his dreams outside of Toonland! He remembered how many times he had a revelation in his dreams and was able to write it down as soon as he awoke. In fact, his last two inventions were inspired in his dreams, but if he awoke now, there is no way he could jot all this down before he forgot it, so he wanted to learn as much as he could before he awoke. He just had to hope the more involved he got into the technology, the more of it he would remember.

The first task was how to come up with a feasible explanation for how he acquired technology that came to him from aliens in his dreams. His mind was bouncing around like a crazy metronome, going here and there and back, and it didn’t help that he was tired. But he wasn’t keen on sleeping, for that might be the trigger that awakes him, and he also was terrified what might be behind a dream he dreamt in his slept. It was coming back to him now, and he vaguely remembered a fellow user once telling him about something called hallucinogen persisting perception disorder—strange how he remembered exactly what it was called—and it meant a user can continue to experience hallucinations long after taking psychoactive mushrooms.

Things were beginning to make less sense again, and he had to focus on something. The thesis he did for his PhD would actually be a big help, for it would support the idea he had been working on this for a long time. Then he quickly let go of that thought and dove back into the refuge of work.

*   *

His prize possession was a 3-D printer he purchased a year ago. He sprung for an expensive model, for he needed a larger printer for a project he was working on. Unfortunately, that project never panned out, and he regretted investing so much money into something he would never use again. But suddenly, it became the most important piece of equipment in the shop. Some of the parts of this device were grown, and a few could be fabricated in the usual way in his shop; but making the rest of them, including the inner container and the interfaces for the device, would have been very difficult without the printer. With the printer, the finished product would look more professional, not like it was built in a garage—and not like alien technology!

With a start, he realized the ideas for shaping the device and creating a container, for it came from him, not the polymath. In fact, what was even more amazing was the fact that this truly alien technology was made only using materials available on earth! What he was building fit exactly with what materials and fabrication equipment he had available, including the 3-D printer, and his own capabilities! So how did the aliens know what earthly materials would work for the technology they were directing him to build? Were they able to tap into his knowledge of earthly materials? He decided that was unlikely, for he had never heard or seen most of the materials he was buying, so they must have figured that out independently beforehand. Could it be possible the earth contained all the elements that were available anywhere else?

He didn’t know why he instinctively switched on his stereo, but he was instantly lost in a world he had long forgotten about—music. He remembered music, the balm of the soul, and it was like he was discovering music for the first time! It brought him back, reenergized him; and as he cranked the volume, In a-Godda Da Vida flooded his shop as well as the immediate neighborhood.

Like magic, the music focused him beautifully; and at some point, the technology became clearer. As he began to realize what powered the device, he quickly forgot his psychosis, his fear of discovery, and the dire quandary he was in. The membrane-sponge the poly showed him how to grow fitted into the inside top of the device and stopped growing. He sprayed a strange organic concoction onto the bottom of the sponge that hardened into a plate and created a seal, and the drips that were protruding underneath turned into small nipples. He realized the sponge absorbed light and heat, and according to the poly, it was a type of energy new to the planet that was to be utilized by the rest of the device. This was truly incredible!

He connected clear, hollow small tubes (which he also grew, like giant nanotubes) to a few of these nipples, and the nipples seemed to open to welcome the tubes as he attached them. He could see nothing inside the tubes, but when he placed his hand opposite the opening, he saw light shining on his hand and felt moderate heat as well. The light and heat absorbed from the sun and converted to this new energy returned to light and heat at the other end of the hollow tube, apparently, if it was not used! Was this truly a new form of energy? How would he determine that?

Next, he learned how to grow special membranes shaped like large, long pills. A tube from a nipple at the top of the device was connected to one end of the membrane-pill that was immersed in water. Another tube was placed on the other end of the pill, and gas came out of that end (but no light and no heat); and that gas, he eventually determined, was hydrogen or oxygen. These special pills used that new form of energy to pull hydrogen or oxygen gas out of the liquid water, and the pills were grown specifically to draw specific gases from the water. The aliens later explained the other pills he was instructed to grow would draw hydrogen isotopes from the water.

He didn’t want to build the isotope pills but realized if he didn’t, the water in the reservoir would gradually build up a concentration of isotopic gases, which would not be a good idea, as it might begin to register radioactivity. But they wanted him to connect them to separate outputs that would provide tritium and deuterium gases, saying something about needing these gases to power what sounded like fusion devices. But the last thing he needed was to be building a device that could produce radioactive by-products.

Instead, he placed the isotope pills (deuterium and tritium) in parallel with the hydrogen pill, so all forms of hydrogen would be removed from the water to the hydrogen gas storage tank. He began to wonder what would happen if he only inserted hydrogen pills and not oxygen! Would the oxygen left behind just melt into the surrounding air? He finally decided it would turn the water to dihydrogen trioxide or perhaps ozone, and this might make the water more difficult to separate, so he decided not to experiment. He could make as many of these configurations as he wanted, adding more or fewer pills, depending on the amount of gas he wanted to produce or the volume he needed, and the new energy output seemed to exactly match what was needed to produce the gas.

The more he learned about this device, especially the new type of energy it produced and used, the more excited he got. During his entire journey toward his PhD in physics, he disparaged modern science and particularly physics, for everything seemed to function with brute force—much as modern passenger jets can only fly because of the brute force applied. To cool the air in a room, for example, required the expenditure of tremendous amounts of energy through a device called an air conditioner—which itself produces even more additional heat as it struggles to remove heat from one area to another. But instead of consuming energy and forcefully moving heat from one place to another, the heat in that room or building or vessel represents energy; and to remove that energy, it should be a matter of consuming or using that energy or converting it some more useful form.

Stated another way, cooler air should be the by-product of energy consumption—not heat. The current laws of physics were like using a jackhammer to dig a small hole to plant a flower. Of course, in the world Josh lived in the most powerful cars would also be the most efficient and would use the least amount of fuel—displacement would not be much of a factor!

Naturally, the other professors humored him, just as they did with his forgotten idea to explain physics without math, but a few cautiously gave him genuine support. One of those was his mentor, and in fact, he had written his PhD thesis around this idea of extracting energy from heat, and now the solution had pretty much been dropped in his lap. This device literally pulled light and heat from the air and turned it into a new form of energy, the nature of which perplexed him. He impulsively placed his hand on the top of the device where it absorbed the heat and light, and it was—cool!

He wanted to yell and jump up and down; he had never experienced this level of excitement about anything, even Sarah, and he wanted to tell the other scientists—and the whole world—of this validation.

But he quickly came to his senses, for before this revelation, he had already decided there was no way he could reveal any of this to the world, and he was immensely relieved the aliens could not access him at will, despite that trick with the cold. The very fact the poly did not object to his thoughts was his first clue the aliens were not active in his mind, for he certainly had freedom of thought and action.

The polymath was clearly just a database that had been planted in his head—or in his mind. In fact, the final proof of this was when he was able to recall the aliens could not communicate or converse with him via the polymath, even when he was in their ship; they needed that soft stainless steel device to interact.

The polymath would not tell him everything he wanted to know, and he never trusted information that was only in his head; only information he obtained through his hands was fully understood and ingrained. After he made the first successful copy of the device, he realized he would learn more each time he built another.

He decided the next step would be to create a bread board on a larger scale; perhaps he could learn more about how the membranes worked if they were large enough to examine more closely. This breadboard helped him solve a technical problem the polymath was clueless about. The difficulty was contamination of the water, for the aliens apparently assumed the water would be relatively pure before entering the reservoir. The small filter they instructed him to grow worked fine for the finer particles of pollution in the water, like minerals, but would clog up from the larger junk. He devised a large self-cleaning filter to fit outside the tank to provide the first level of filtering, and after that, the alien’s filter no longer got clogged up, but he still didn’t understand how it stayed clean.

But he was determined he would get the answers he wanted, polymath or not. Since he was able to build much larger membranes that worked—and that he could cut into smaller pieces that still worked—he was able to conclude that mass production was indeed feasible.

The aliens may have chosen him strategically, but they also inadvertently choose one of the few people on the planet who could actually understand what the device did, and it very clearly did much more than the poly had in its database.

CHAPTER 2

The Aliens

The blue orb was the jewel of the heavens and poison to every race that visited it. Very simply, three-fourths of the orb consisted of the most valuable substance in existence, and its lure