Tom Swift Jr #35, Chapter 9: Energize!

It was a warm day in March. Tom Swift Sr. and Irene Goddard were walking down a freshly-laid sidewalk at the Institute in southern Arizona. The sun had risen only an hour earlier but there were already indications the day would be unusually hot. All around them workers were busy putting the last, finishing touches on the new facility. Painters were applying a final coat of white paint to the pristine buildings. Other people were putting up road signs, or unloading furniture from trucks, or simply directing the streams of activity.

The Swift family had decided to take up residence at the Institute a week before the plant opened so that they could be on-hand to supervise the laboratory setup. Tom’s mother had established housekeeping for the family in a spacious apartment located on the grounds. Irene had accompanied the Swift family and was living in her own place, not far from the Swifts.

That morning she had joined them for breakfast, only to find to her great surprise that Tom had arisen an hour earlier. After breakfast she accompanied Tom’s father as the two walked toward one of the guard towers.

“I can’t believe it’s almost April!” Irene remarked excitedly.

Tom Sr. nodded. “The construction crew has truly done an outstanding job. We will be able to open this facility next week, right on schedule.”

“What’s even more amazing is that Tom went to work before sunrise,” Irene joked. “Its not like him!”

“I think you’re turning him into an early riser,” Tom Sr. commented. “He’s shown a remarkable amount of enthusiasm on this new alarm system of his. I’m looking forward to seeing it demonstrated!”

“I hope he has all the bugs worked out,” Irene replied. “I mean, I’m sure he does. But some of our earlier tests were, um, not entirely successful.”

“The same could be said for nearly all my inventions,” Tom Sr. said. “It’s all part of the process.”

After a few minutes’ walk they arrived at one of the four guard towers that were located on the Institute’s grounds. Each of these massive six-story spires were located at strategic positions and built out of reinforced concrete. It was their job to keep watch over the secured facility and raise alarm should any unauthorized personnel approach, either from the ground or from the air.

The door to the tower was being guarded by two officers that stood on either side of the front entrance. Tom Sr. removed his badge from his shirt pocket and showed it to them. The guard on the right nodded in acknowledgement and opened the door. Tom and Irene then stepped inside and walked up a spiraling metal staircase to the top floor.

On the highest level of the tower was the control center. The glass-walled room had a commanding view of its corner of the plant, and was filled with the most up-to-date monitoring equipment. Normally the room was manned by several highly-trained technicians, but at the moment it was empty save for Tom Swift Jr. The young inventor was lying on his back underneath a large metal box, performing a bit of last-minute soldering.

“Be with you in a minute,” he grunted. “Just need to make a few last-minute fixes to the patrolscope. It got a bit jostled during shipping.”

“Maybe next time you shouldn’t send it by carrier pigeon,” Irene called out.

“Very funny,” Tom muttered.

Irene sat down at one of the consoles and examined it admiringly. “This room looks like it means business! I like what you’ve done to the place.”

“The security here is extremely tight,” Tom’s father agreed. “We have armed guards patrolling the fence, the boundaries of the property, and key installations within the grounds. The government has even stationed fighter jets in hangars in order to force down any unauthorized aircraft.”

“But isn’t this just a non-military research facility? That kind of seems like massive overkill. Ned has to be really unhappy at the expense.”

“The government doesn’t want to take any chances,” Tom Sr. explained. “They’re afraid that hostile countries might try to steal our nuclear expertise and put the nation in a bad position. Personally I find it difficult to believe that an army of Brungarians is going to invade a facility located in southern Arizona, but that’s the government for you.”

“I’m more worried about the protesters,” Irene said teasingly. “Did you see the pictures in the morning paper? They’re already demonstrating even though the plant isn’t open yet!”

Tom Sr. sighed. “It’s sad to see people who don’t understand the value of what we’re doing here. Our goal is to provide clean, inexpensive energy to a world that desperately needs it. If our research pays off we can increase the standard of living not just here in America but abroad as well. This facility represents progress, not the apocalypse.”

Irene nodded. “At least they can’t demonstrate right outside the gate. It was nice of the government to restrict all of the land for miles around. Nobody can even get close.”

Tom Jr. slid out from underneath the patrolscope’s wiring cabinet. He stood up and stretched. “That ought to do it. Sorry about that!”

“Not at all,” his father replied. “I take it this is the security system I’ve heard so much about?”

Tom nodded eagerly. “This is it! Now keep in mind this is just the first version. At some point I want to replace the secure door locks with amulets so all you need to carry with you is your wristwatch. That badge we’ve got to carry is so aggravating. But I’m getting ahead of myself.”

“Where’s the plant’s chief of security?” Tom’s father asked, looking around the room. “Doesn’t he need to see this?”

“Once we get it all set up, but not right now,” Tom explained. “I’d like to make sure it’s completely installed and operational before explaining it to someone else.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Tom’s father replied. He glanced at the machine that his son had just been working on. The main body of the patrolscope was housed in a large, refrigerator-sized box, with thick cables running out of it that plugged into sockets in the wall. Another cable was connected to an adjacent machine that appeared to house a radar display. “Should I turn it on?” Tom Sr. asked.

“First let me explain to you how it works,” his son replied. “You need to understand what you’re going to be seeing.”

“Let me do the explaining!” Irene begged. “I can handle it.”

“Be my guest!” Tom Jr. replied grandly.

Irene smiled. “Thank you, Tom. The alarm system – or patrolscope, as we prefer to call it – works by means of a sophisticated radar beam. Mounted on top of this tower is a radar dish that constantly sweeps the area. The frequency is tuned to penetrate walls and only pick up on people.”

“How is that possible?” Tom Sr. asked. “I wasn’t aware of a people-specific frequency.”

“It’s actually detecting the water within people,” Tom explained. “Humans are mostly water, after all.”

“But lots of other things have water too,” Tom Sr. pointed out. “Like the giant tanks of water that are all over this plant.”

“Or my morning cup of coffee,” Irene added. “We know. It took a bit of work to solve that problem. The system is designed to ignore very small quantities of water, and it will filter out the truly giant ones. If there are any people-sized bodies of water that we don’t want to pick up then we can just attach an amulet to it and we’ll be set.”

“We’re still a little iffy about rainstorms,” Tom admitted. “But there aren’t many of them out here in the desert. Hopefully by the time it does rain we’ll have a solution for that too.”

Tom Sr. nodded. “I’m glad you have thought that through. But what about the shielded areas? There are numerous places within this facility that cannot be penetrated by radar. My laboratory, for instance, is shielded, as is Tom’s.”

“But to get to them you have to cross the property,” Irene pointed out. “Miles of it, in fact. The system is designed to spot you long before you get to a sensitive area.”

“That’s true,” Tom Sr. conceded. “Good point. Now, how do we tell apart the employees from the intruders?”

“With this,” Tom Jr. said proudly. He took off his watch and handed it to his dad.

Tom Sr. looked at it, puzzled. “With a watch?”

Irene laughed. “That was Tom’s idea. Everyone carries a watch, so it’s a great place to hide the amulet! Those who are unfamiliar with the system will never think of looking there. They’ll be looking for a badge or something.”

“Exactly!” Tom Jr. said. “To get back to your question, the purpose of the amulet is to shield the employee from radar so that they don’t show up. Ergo, anyone not wearing a Swift watch will appear on the scope and stand out like a sore thumb.”

Tom Sr. looked at his son in amazement. “There’s not very much room in a watch, Son. How on earth could you possibly have fit a radar-shielding device inside it? Or provided the energy to run it, for that matter?”

“Magic!” Irene said, her eyes twinkling. “Your magic, to be precise.”

“Tomasite?” he asked uncertainly.

“Tomasite,” his son affirmed. “We’ve tweaked the formula a little bit. Normally Tomasite just absorbs radar, and while that’s nice it doesn’t really help us. The modified version reflects it, but it creates a distortion field that wrecks havoc with the signal.”

“It’s like a fun-house mirror,” Irene explained. “A signal does get reflected, but the distortion field degrades it. The machine picks up on the degraded signal and filters it out so it doesn’t appear on the scope.”

“Amazing,” Tom Sr. said. “Truly amazing. And you can scan the entire base from this one guard tower?”

His son shook his head. “Oh no, definitely not. We’re going to put one of these units in each tower.”

“Are you going to tie the systems together?” his father asked.

“At some point,” Tom said. “Probably not today. As I said, there’s still some work to be done.”

“Load testing is what worries me,” Irene confessed. “We’ve seen it work with a couple amulets, but I don’t know what will happen when there are hundreds of them out there. And I don’t know how the system will react when multiple scanners overlap. Or, for that matter, whether other things around the plant will create dead zones where people won’t be picked up.”

“But we’ll overcome those problems,” Tom Jr. said confidently.

“I’m sure you will,” his father agreed. “So is it time for a demonstration?”

“You bet!” Irene said. “Care to do the honors?”

“It would be my pleasure,” Tom Sr. replied. He reached over and pressed the button to activate the patrolscope. Instantly the machine hummed to life! A series of red and yellow lights began blinking on the outside of the box.

“That’s good,” Tom Jr. said quietly. “Power-up was successful and the system diagnostic found no problems. Now to tie in the radar signal.” He flipped a switch on the radar unit, bringing it to life. A green line appeared on the display and began rotating clockwise, indicating the part of the screen that was currently being updated. The rest of the screen was completely blank.

“Should I be seeing something?” his dad asked.

“Just a second,” Tom replied. “The calibration may be off.” He walked over to a table, grabbed a sheaf of papers, and began flipping through them. “I know I’ve got the numbers here somewhere.”

Irene shook her head, kneeled onto the ground, and picked a yellow pad off the floor. “Here you go, skipper! I think you might have left this behind”

Tom glanced at the pad. “Oh, right – I was just using that. Thanks!” He took the pad from her and compared the numbers to the settings on the machine.

“Hmmm,” he said thoughtfully. “Let me try adjusting a few tolerances.” He slowly turned a small knobs on the exterior of the patrolscope.

Almost instantly the radar screen was covered in a sold mass of green! Irene giggled. “Keep going,” she said.

Tom frowned. “I don’t get it. What am I missing?”

“I think you’re having trouble with the signal quality,” Irene pointed out. “The working range was really narrow, remember?”

Tom nodded. “I remember. It took us forever to find a combination of frequencies that would work.” He flipped to a different page on the yellow pad, took out a screwdriver, and removed the case from the radar unit. “Let me adjust this to put out a little tighter beam.”

As he worked the screen suddenly changed. Little green dots began to appear!

Irene cheered. “Much better!”

“Where are we?” Tom Sr. said, as he examined the screen.

“We’re not on there,” Tom said, as he closed the machine and put his screwdriver away. “Because of where the radar dish is located it’s not going to pick up on people inside the guard tower. However, there is a way to test it. I have with me one normal wristwatch and one with an amulet inside. Irene and I will both put on watches and then go outside and walk around the plant. If this machine works you should be able to see one of us but not the other.”

Tom’s father nodded. “That makes sense. But how does this screen correspond to the plant layout?”

“I told you we needed an overlay map,” Irene told Tom. “I’ll try to put one together this afternoon.” She then pointed to various positions on the screen and explained how they corresponded to the various buildings around the Institute.

When she was done Tom put on one watch and gave Irene the other. “I’ve got the one with the amulet,” Irene said proudly.

“Ready?” Tom asked his father.

“Ready,” Tom’s father replied.

The two teenagers walked downstairs and out of the building. When they left the building Tom’s father saw one dot appear. He was able to track his son as he walked down the sidewalk, but he could not see Irene at all.

“Amazing!” he breathed.

Over the next three days Tom and Irene calibrated the new alarm system and installed it in the other three guard towers. Tom had given Hank Sterling all the information he needed to mass-produce the amulets, and the day before the Institute opened Hank flew down enough amulet-bearing watches for all the employees. When the watches arrived Tom taught the security personnel how to operate the new system.

The following morning when the facility opened the watches were distributed to all employees. Tom spent the day babysitting the new system, but to his tremendous relief they had no major problems.

At the end of the day he had dinner with Irene in the mess hall. “So how’d it go?” Irene asked, as she ate a chicken sandwich.

“Beautifully,” Tom said. “Better than I had hoped. There are a few minor issues, but nothing I can’t solve. Most of the dead zones should be fixed by the end of the week. I’d also like to tweak the design of the amulet a little bit before we implement this at Swift Enterprises – there are times when it doesn’t capture the signal as well as I’d like. But for a first release I think it’s pretty good.”

“So when can you join me in the lab?” Irene asked.

“Tomorrow morning, bright and early,” Tom said, smiling. “There are other people here who can handle making the final tweaks to the patrolscope. It’s time to bring the nuclear age to the skies!”

“There is one other thing we need to address,” Irene said, as she finished her sweet tea.

“What’s that?” Tom asked.

“The food, of course,” Irene remarked. “We need to bring in Chow pronto. He wasn’t kidding – this stuff really is terrible!”

Tom laughed. “We’re just spoiled is all. But I agree, it would be great to have Chow back. Somehow it doesn’t seem right to be in Nitro without him. I’ll give him a call tomorrow and see if we can work something out.”

True to his word, the following day Tom gave Chow a call and persuaded the happy-go-lucky cook to come and work at the Institute for the summer. Chow was pleased to hear from him and quickly agreed. That afternoon he arrived and settled into his galley. The cook instantly became a plant favorite and started preparing the meals for all the scientists who worked in Tom’s building, but he always took special care of Tom and Irene.

One day several weeks later Chow rolled a cart piled high with food into Tom’s lab. As he was about to announce that lunch was ready a giant machine in the center of the lab caught his attention. “Well brand my turnips, but what in tarnation is that?”

Tom grinned. “This is the prototype for the Sampson 9000, Chow! What you’re seeing here is the latest in modern technology.”

“Or it will be once it’s finished,” Irene explained.

“Ya don’t say,” Chow said dubiously. He parked his cart and walked around the invention. The machine was a maze of wires, tubes, and metal. Underneath the metal he could see Tomasite shielding, and the machine itself was enclosed entirely behind a protective Tomasite barrier. “I’ve never seen so much plumbing in all my life. What’s it supposed to do?”

“We named it after good old Eradicate “Rad” Sampson,” Tom explained. “He was such a good friend of the family that it only seemed fitting.”

“We were going to call it the Rad 9000 but we decided against it,” Irene added. “What with rad being the term for a unit of absorbed radiation and all.”

“The marketing department would have gone into fits,” Tom agreed. “Besides, the name Sampson carries with it an idea of strength, and that’s exactly the meaning we want to convey.”

“I still don’t get it,” Chow said.

“It’s basically an engine,” Tom explained. “We’re going to use it to drive a new type of airplane. What it will do is take in air, superheat it, and send it out of the rear of a compressor. This will provide thrust. The heat will be provided by a nuclear reaction.”

“That don’t look much like an engine to me,” Chow remarked. “Where’s the plane?”

Tom laughed. “There is no plane, Chow – not yet, anyway. This is just a test unit. All we’re trying to do is build a Tomasite-shielded reactor and test some techniques for superheating air. We’re not nearly ready to put this on a plane yet.”

“In fact, we were just about ready to test it again,” Irene said brightly. “Would you like to stay and watch?”

“It is safe?” Chow asked.

“So far we’ve had trouble getting it to run at all,” Tom said sourly. “You’d be better off using a campfire. The reaction is too low, and what little heat we’re getting isn’t being transferred to the air.”

Chow pulled up a chair and sat down in front of the machine. “I’m ready, boss,” he said. “It ain’t every day you get to see somethin’ like this. What do I need to be watchin’ fer?”

Tom sat down in front of a console and pointed to some gauges. “Irene is going to start the reaction. When she does you should see the core temperature start rising. This other gauge measures the temperature of the air that we’re trying to heat. If it works you should see the air temperature rise and pressure start to build. Are you ready, Irene?”

The girl shook her head. “Don’t forget the radiation suits, Tom. I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Are you sure it’s necessary?” Tom asked. “After all, the reactor is behind some pretty thick Tomasite shielding. It’ll provide plenty of protection.”

“It is absolutely necessary,” Irene replied firmly. “Radiation isn’t something you can take chances with, kid. If something goes wrong and that shielding fails you are going to be hurting in a big way. Radiation plays for keeps.”

“Ok,” Tom conceded. “You have a good point.” Tom walked over to the closet and got out the radiation suits. He put one on himself and handed one each to Irene and Chow. After they were all suited up Tom nodded to Irene, who initiated the reaction.

Chow watched, wide-eyed, as the core temperature began building. After a few minutes it leveled off. “Is that good, boss?”

Tom shrugged. “It’s in line with what we’ve seen before. Irene, let’s turn it up a bit higher. The work we’ve done the past few days should dramatically increase the heat throughput.”

Irene nodded and turned it up. The quantity of heat produced by the reactor started climbing again! Over the next few minutes the readings on the gauges steadily increased.

“This is looking pretty good,” Tom said, pleased. “The heat is finally being transferred to the air. We’re getting some good pressure!”

Irene studied the board and frowned. “We’re getting way too much pressure. I don’t like this. How strong are those welds, anyway?”

A moment later they were jarred by a sudden, loud bang. The reactor started making a hissing noise!

Irene’s gasped as she saw superheated steam begin pouring out of the test unit. She immediately reached over and pressed the kill switch.

“The air temperature’s still climbing,” Tom said curtly.

“But the reactor core temperature is dropping!” Irene shouted over the noise of the machine. “The reaction is shutting down. How can the temperature possibly be climbing?”

“I don’t know,” Tom said, with fear in his voice. “The explosion may have damaged the cooling system. Look!”

Irene looked at the reactor and gasped. Through the protective barriers she saw that the reactor’s Tomasite shielding was starting to melt!

“We’re losing shielding,” Irene gasped. “Tom! That plumbing was never meant to – ”

The girl was interrupted by a thunderous explosion!