5

She’s cradled the trashbag all the way back downhill, bits of dirt spilling off here and there, some eight kilos solid brick inside–and it’s cold. Set it down and tore open two layers–a contraption. There’s no other way to describe this thing, some kind of blasted steampunk contraption, big ol’ round porthole-like screen on it, massive copper handles on top—no time to figure it out out here. She puts on her backpack, grabs the device by its handles, and carries it carefully back upstairs and into the Lindons’ living room.

A 30 x 30 x 6 cm rectangle–estimating with her thumbs–screen taking up most of the front face. Mirror-buffed stainless steel plate riveted through, wrapping around the body of the thing. Clearly handmade in a shop; this is no product. And the handles–about as thick as rebar–polished in places, deep orange with green and black tones elsewhere. The outline of someone’s hands, marked in copper oxide, carbonate, acetate. She wraps her fingers in the form of her predecessor and feels the intense cold.

The bars are capped by brass sleeves where they meet the unit’s face, and at the top, like a book title, a stamped brass plate reads:

SOLA #03

A column of toggle switches are left of the screen, unlabeled save for the first, marked with tape–not Dr. Lindon’s handwriting–

                link 03

On the right, small elevator buttons, labeled in tape and by the same hand–

                power

                fire

                eject

                play

                stop

                →

                ←

The sides are perfectly smooth, save for some air vents (?) cut out of the front. And underneath, the stainless steel ends and knobbly, black, barely recessed plastic begins–a little bit of give at the corners. Centered on this plastic–Amelia is holding the unit precariously above her head, straining, just in case it doesn’t want to be set upside down for some reason–is the single most intimidating printed message Amelia has ever seen:

PROPERTY OF U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY – IF FOUND, PACK DEVICE CAREFULLY, BRING TO NEAREST POST OFFICE, AND REQUEST TO BE CONNECTED WITH FEDERAL PROTECTIVE FORCES IN EXCHANGE FOR $500,000 REWARD. FAILURE TO RETURN THIS DEVICE CONSTITUTES TREASON UNDER 18, U.S.C., §2381 AND IS PUNISHABLE BY DEATH.

“Okay, so it is secret physics police.”

Amelia sets the SOLA back into the carpet and looks down at it like it’s a misbehaving teacup poodle, pondering. In case you couldn’t tell, she’s been pretty fucking Zen’d out–er, samatha’d–since that hike, and besides, insane circumstances aren’t what sets Amelia off; it’s not having a logical path forward through them, having to, for instance, wing it by means of home invasion. Now, she has something to work with, to understand.

Well, first thing to do is press power. Not like anyone is going to know that I unburied it.

She does, and the faint blue screen silently comes to life with six bright little pinpricks, shining like class B stars. The dots are aligned in some kind of a three-dimensional shape… They’re faces. Centerpoints of the six faces of a cube. This implied cube is rotating slowly, as the screen flashes at not quite 20 Hz.

I don’t know if I want to press “fire” quite yet… Let’s see about “eject”. Which she does, and—wait, there is a CD slot on the edge closest to her. And so of course, a CD comes out of it, a blank white one, on which the same person has scrawled “link 03”.

What could be linking?

Well never mind that, where’s the power on this thing?–picking it up again and looking for a DC hole or battery compartment. Then she gets a genius idea.

“You better not eat my fuckin’ disk, SOLA, or it’s 500,018 dollars, alright?” Like an addict prepping some drug of choice, she shimmies a little dance in virasana, grinning to herself, lifts the treasured Ace of Base disc from its Sony player, and slides it into this extremely valuable government one.

No headphone jack? Okaay, well—

She presses “play”, and, now it’s spinning up… Oh! It turns out those slots on the front are speakers. No volume control but it’s decently loud. Who cares what powers it; I’ve got my music baaaaaack.

Amelia gets up and stretches, triumphant.

“You know what?”–yelling a bit over “All That She Wants”, twirling around slowly–“That photo with my Dad, this fuckin’ thing, I have decided–”

Coming to stop on one foot, deadeyeing camera one, head cocked a little bit.

“–That I am going to take all of this as a Sign.”

“—Um”, starting to crack up, looking over at the director. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself.”

Bucking over in laughter. Quiet giggling comes in huffs from everyone shoved in here. The camera operator can’t even hold steady.

“Ah, okay, CUT. Amelia, we have got to talk about the puns, I’m begging you…”

She’s sat back in that pseudo-rocking chair; makeup is tiptoeing behind her, between the chair and the outer wall, lightly brushing her hair in several places. 2nd AD goes to pause the music.

“Let’s take fifteen, everyone.”

~

The album is halfway done playing on this mystery free-energy device, and Amelia is halfway done showering in, yes, the tiny plastic corner-type shower which legally and spiritually belongs to the professor she’s in lo—

“Excuse me, I can hear you! I just took a hike, man.”

Was that shot today? I thought they did the hike scene last week.

“No, no; we’re back in the reality where you’re narrating a book, right?” Leans her head out sideways, shampoo slopping onto the tile.

Oh, yes. Terribly sorry.

…

Well, the titular hairdo of this book is now in its only non-3D state; that is to say, quite wet. And Amelia is cosy as ever in that carpet–it’s more comfortable when you just accept the decades of skin cells–examining the SOLA. She flicks “link 03”, and one of the rotating dots on the screen begins to pulse. Cautiously, she fingers over “fire”, leans back a bit, presses–but nothing happens.

Oh, of course. I still have music in here.

She tries again, with the original disc, and this time, “fire” kicks off a powerful little hum in the belly of the machine. The screen doesn’t change from its rotating and flashing.

Nothing else to do but–she flexes her fingertips, ready for a bitch of an electric shock—

Amelia grabs the copper handles.