Tomorrowland: Frank and Athena

Chapter 14 - Challenges of Many Kinds

The first day of school arrived too quickly as the next few days passed in a whirlwind for Frank. He was a mix of very curious and very nervous about what his classes would be. Mrs. Kowalski had been very impressed with his math abilities, more mildly impressed with his reading and language skills, and made no comment about the rest, making Frank feel stressed by the omissions.

One thing was unquestionably exciting beyond his wildest dreams, and that was visiting the lab he'd been given access to. The funny thing was that he'd been so intimidated by Nix that he'd forgotten to ask where it was. Fortunately Athena knew where it likely was, and took him to a squat building down a tree-lined street between his apartment and the school, with a number of separate labs that were shared among researchers who lived in the area. By Tomorrowland standards, it was a rather plain building but he wasn't complaining in the slightest.

When he approached the building wearing his pin, the door announced, "Welcome, engineer, to your lab. You have been given special access by Dr. David Nix, with no expiration date. Your faceprint has been memorized, so you have no further need for the pin. Please state your name." After giving his name, the door told him he could access Lab #3, and directly off the lab, Workroom #16. The main lab with various equipment and large power tools was shared, the workroom was his privately where he could store his projects and do actual construction.

The lab was all he imagined. In fact, it was far more than he imagined because it contained various equipment labeled with things he'd never heard of, and things he'd only heard of in science fiction magazines. There was even a holographic video recorder that he couldn't wait to try out and see how it worked. Of course, the lab also had a full assortment of normal hand tools and power tools. He practically salivated at the idea of having a real machine shop he could use for his jetpack.

What was even more stunning than all of this was the supply catalog. They'd given him a budget he could draw upon to order engineering supplies, including different metals and plastics, and there was a whole automated manufacturing arm that could shape parts for him (though he hadn't learned how to use the drafting function of the T-Net terminal). And craziest of all, there was a whole section in the catalog with electronic and computer components that blew his mind with some of the descriptions. Tomorrowland was so far ahead of 1964 Earth technology that he almost felt guilty.

But it wasn't even enough that he could order all this stuff. The cherry on the sundae was that it was all delivered via TomorrowPost right to his lab, sometimes in ten minutes if the part was a standard stock part. This was so magical that Frank ordered some simple nuts and bolts at random times, just to watch them pop up in his delivery box.

Athena helped him move his jetpack stuff over to the lab (some of it he was able to send over via T-Post, but some of it was too big) and he'd already spent some time disassembling it and analyzing exactly what the repair robot did. Unfortunately, the modifications it made were subtle and there was no quick way to truly understand it. It was going to take math and physics, but at least he now had the resources to understand it. His T-Net terminal gave him access to an amazing array of engineering materials and knowledge.

Not all of Tomorrowland's knowledge was available on T-Net, unfortunately. But Athena showed him how to access the Tomorrowland Main Library, which was completely amazing. Apparently the founders of Plus Ultra believed in having a well-stocked public library, because it held an enormous variety of books. He didn't even have to go the main building, which was fairly small. Instead of shelves of books, they were stored in the vast underground automated warehouses. When a book was requested, it was sent to the requestor via T-Post, popping into their mail box (either home or the lab) in about ten minutes. When done, you popped it back into any convenient T-Post box. If a book was checked out, it would even ask the holder if they were done with it or if they would loan it to you temporarily; Frank thought the social aspect of this was interesting.