UNDERCOVER - Dark Fire Data (Book 3)

Part 4 - Not Time Travel

It took less than fifteen minutes to get to Dr Zhang's office in Silverwood School but Denny Vernier was already waiting for us. Denny was an elderly engineer with a handlebar mustache who had been born and educated in Britain but, despite having lived in Canada for most of his life, he retained some curious British adjectives. The students at our school, where he taught, all called him Blooming Vernier. Dr Zhang was known as Dr Ah-um.

The school was closed for the Christmas vacation but Dr Zhang owned the building and he was not taking a holiday. He had donated most of the ground floor to Silverwood School. The school was private but the fees were very modest and Dr Zhang paid most of the students' fees.

Dr Zhang's office was too small for five people but Denny and Dr Zhang occupied the two chairs and Licia and Miguel perched uncomfortably on the end of Dr Zhang's table, leaving only the upturned wastepaper bin for me.

While Dr Zhang handed out fortune cookies and poured himself tea from a vacuum flask, Licia asked me, 'Do you think the Bunglers were trying to kidnap you?'

  'Negativo,' Miguel exclaimed. 'How would they know Ziff was going to be on Parliament Hill? Dr Zhang was lured with a fake message. Those guys were after Dr Zhang not Ziff.'

'Well, they weren't tourists,' I agreed.

Dr Zhang looked puzzled. 'Ah-um, why would they want to kidnap me?'

'Well you do have a quantum computer,' Licia suggested, 'and you do know something about time travel.'

Dr Zhang sighed. 'Please Licia, it's virtual reality; an elaborate computer game.'

'I think we should inform the police,' Miguel said. 

 'No!' Dr Zhang said quickly, 'Ah-um, I mean, I absolutely do not want any publicity. Not when I am within months of a Nobel prize for Physics.'

'You mean Oppy is up for a Nobel prize for time travel?' I laughed.

Dr Zhang might have chosen a more impressive name for his optical or quantum super computer. Maybe Newton, or Einstein, but it was too late to change it now, everyone had gotten used to Oppy. 

 Dr Zhang glared at us. 'It is not time travel.'

There was an awkward silence until Miguel said innocently, 'Then, what exactly are you working on?'

Dr Zhang smiled ruefully. 'Ah-um. As a board certified genius I am embarrassed to admit that I don't have a simple answer. Einstein discovered that mass and energy could be interchanged, hence nuclear reactors and bombs.   And he also discovered that time is a variable and it depends on gravity and velocity. Ever since, physicists have been trying to find the Theory of Everything.   Ah-um, one such attempt is called String Theory which predicts the existence of eleven dimensions, seven more than the three space dimensions plus the dimension of time.'

Dr Zhang twisted one end of his long beard around a finger. 'What Oppy does is to exchange information across time, the rest of it is virtual. Ah-um, it's rather like sending a television signal across the ocean, so we can see what's happening in the past. It's like being inside a video game.' 

 'Does that explain why Ziff can fly?' Miguel asked innocently. Miguel had seen me lifting my parents up the side of a mountain when we had attempted to rescue them from a brutal character called Murga. This unusual skill was the reason Murga had kidnapped my parents and had almost succeeded in abducting me.

'No,' Dr Zhang said doubtfully. 'I can't explain that. At least not yet. Ah-um, perhaps Ziff could give us a demonstration.'

'I can't,' I confessed. 'I have no idea how it works but it's got something to do with negative mass or negative gravity near time phase links, whatever they are. So, if Murga wants to learn the secret, he won't get anything out of me . . . unless he plans dissection.' 

 I hadn't thought about that since Kozak, Murga's reluctant sidekick, had mentioned it. I shuddered. Maybe Kozak was right.

Denny Vernier had been listening to us in unaccustomed silence but now he smoothed his luxuriant handlebar mustache. 'This is all blooming interesting but I really need to talk to Lee Zhang about the engineering glitches. We have a problem with the blinking magnetron. So, I suggest we continue the discussion after the vacation. May I wish you all a very good night and a very Merry Christmas?'