Fortunately for me, despite his joke about the game studios being my private problems, Michael was, while not happy, still willing to take them on. He told me that he called the studio heads and their lead programmers for a meeting at the still provisional Enki headquarters in three weeks.

That of course meant that I too would have to appear there on the morning of Friday, October 5th.

Whatever made Michael start the meeting at 8:00 I did not know, but the joke was on him. My usual time to get up was around 5:00.

Meanwhile, I had another two weeks of figuring out the math of the grav-coils. I first thought to have cracked it on the 17th, but… that could simply not be right. According to the math, grav-coils were just not possible.

But obviously, they existed, so the math had to be wrong. I have to confess that it irked me so much that I actually used my compression to go over my equations again, but I could not find the mistake.

The problem was, that not only the palladium silver alloy that the grav-coils were made out of should be at best only produce a minuscule, nearly negligible effect, no, much more frustrating was that no three-dimensional construct should be able to create the gravity-warping field of the grav-coils.

I realized that last little fact only after the third time going through all my work. Then I had an epiphany. What if the alloy of the grav-coils naturally produced a four-dimensional structure?

That of course led me to a tangent in the Seeberger equation. Could essentially three-dimensional materials actually make a four-dimensional structure? The answer was a yes. In reality, all materials could make one-dimensional up to eight-dimensional structures, according to the math. Beyond that only energy could exist.

I then took some time and tried to find out how an alloy of 88.3% palladium and 11.2% of silver, with some .5% of fluorine, could manage a four-dimensional structure while being built in a three-dimensional space.

That took me another three virtual months before I realized that I was still in high compression. But at least I had the answer to that riddle.

It was a weird artifact of the crystal structure being disrupted by the fluorine. And it had to be 0.5% ±0.0025% to achieve this strange effect.

Now I had the fun activity of figuring out to make four-dimensional structures purposefully. Yay me. Heck, who am I kidding, I was loving it. A real riddle.

I dove into the Seeberger equation again, trying to decipher the parameters that would hopefully let me create a fourth-dimensional construct in my limited three-dimensional world.

Fortunately for me, I had already done quite a bit of the hard work when I worked to understand grav-coils in the first place. I just did not understand it then and there. It still took me eight days to get to the point where I could begin experimenting on it.

If I was right, then a, let’s say headache inducing complicated quantum field would bend the 4th dimension into the lower three. Yes, I know, that sounds like nonsense. It is just… without giving you enough math to sink the Bismark this is the closest approximation to reality our language can give us.

Now it was just a matter of figuring out how to create this quantum field. And I ran head-first into a wall. I needed four-dimensional constructs to create that quantum field, to be able to make four-dimensional constructs. A classical catch-22 scenario.

I am a bit embarrassed that it took me that long, but it took me another day to remember that all that started because a funny alloy was making four-dimensional constructs.

That was, of course, nice to know, and I knew it would be the final solution to the next step, but I needed a rather specific four-dimensional shape to get the field.

I delegated that task to Warden and her various supercomputers. I have to confess I am not sure that I would have been able to calculate the three-dimensional form that I would have to form the Kobashigawa alloy into without a supercomputer. At least not in a normal human lifetime.

Another limiting factor was that the widget had to be cast. Only if the alloy was solidifying in the desired form would it create the crystal structure that projected it into four-dimensional space.

That would normally not be such a problem, but the small crucible setup that I had in the material science lab was, frankly, a tad undersized. Only by an order or magnitude or two, but still, not enough.

That meant I had another call to Thurgood. Fortunately, I had long since gotten Andrew's direct number, and he was more or less permanently assigned as the customer rep for Enki and me personally.

He answered the call quickly with his ever-present:

“Good morning Ms. DuClare. What can Thurgood do for you this fine Tuesday?”

I had obviously informed him about my name when I gave up the Veronica Sinclair identity, but what did he say about Tuesday? A quick lookup of the date, and the time shocked me a bit. I had spent the whole afternoon, night, and part of the morning in cyberspace fiddling with this little problem. Frack, Ben would kill me. But for now, I had to finish the work on the 4d structures, for which I needed a big smelter.

“Ah yes, good morning Andrew. I am in need of a big electrical smelter or crucible.”

“Yes, that is something we can certainly help with. What are the parameters for it?”

I looked at my notes.

“It needs to be able to smelt a bit over five liters of Kobashigawa alloy. While I am thinking about it, make it better at seven liters. I am sure there will be a bit of loss, and the ingots won’t fully fill the crucible.”

“So, you want to experiment with grav coils? I’ll look forward to it. Now, let me see… we have the General Electric HIS-7-3373, either a, b, or c variants, the difference is purely cosmetic here. Or I could offer you a Wilton Liquidator WL-889. That is a bit weaker and slower than the GE one but costs only 83%, and of course, I can give you the usual Burgmeister.

Hmm, I see that there is a backlog for their 7.2l model. So, from them, we can either give you the 6.8l Vulcan 38-68, or the 8.2l Vulcan 38-82. As usual, the Burgmeister ones are the most powerful, and power-hungry ones. And the most expensive.

The GE will cost you $62,299.99. The Wilton will set you back $51,699.99. No clue why they always insist on the 99 cents but whatever. The Burgmeister will be $65,711 for the 6.8 and $72,872 for the 8.2.”

Ok, those were pretty affordable prices, but I needed more information.

“That sounds all quite well, but what are the differences between the various smelters?”

“Let me look it up right quick. Here we are. According to the documentation, it will take the Wilton around four hours to fully melt the five 56kg of the alloy. The GE will take three hours, as does the 6.8l Burgmeister. The 8.2l will need 2.5 hours for the same.”

Considering that we were talking about what for me was essentially petty cash, either of them, and time was more important than anything else, I posed the most obvious question.

“Which of them is the fastest to deliver and install?”

“Let’s see… we have a Wilton that is ready and prepped. It could be installed in… hey, it could be installed today. This afternoon around 3 pm. You would have to wait for the others a week, or two in the case of the 6.8l Vulcan.”

“Then I take the Wilton. I will pay you 5% extra if you get it up and running today.”

I set up an escrow with Springwell again, over the promised $54,284.99, and prepared the message.

“I would need the order number then please.”

“It is ‘493609’. I assume you will send me… and there it is. It’s always a pleasure doing business with you, Ms. DuClare.”

“You have my thanks. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, and have fun with your liquidator.”

I would love to say that I was using the time until Michael came for the weekly meeting constructively and worked on the 4d structure. But seriously, that was way beyond me. I don’t think any human would be able to do that.

Instead, I used the time to look a bit deeper into what the grav-coils were doing. At the first glance, they produced a whole gaggle of quantum fields. With only one of them, the gravity-bending one was easy to recognize.

I honestly had no clue what any of the other fields were doing. And considering that each of the hitherto unknown number of fields would require another deep dive into Seeberger’s equation, I gave it a hard pass for the moment.

Yes, each workup would be easier than the one before. But easier did not mean easy, and I had quite enough for some time of the nightmare that masqueraded as an equation, thank you.

That of course left me in a lurch about what to do. I knew that as soon as I left my mindscape, I would get hit with exhaustion, but I still wanted the new parts created. That meant that I placed an express order of 300kg of Kobashigawa alloy, and instructed Warden to create the molds as soon as she had created the needed forms.

The next thing I did was to call Ben. I had done my best to keep to our time together, but this once, my fixation on knowing how things worked got the better of me. And I had to apologize to him.

Fortunately, he appeared quickly in cyberspace.

“Hey, look who’s there. Hey Kitten.”

I steeled my nerves.

“Ben… I am sorry. I…” I did not know what to say.

“Sorry for what?”

“I… we… our evening yesterday… that I missed it. I… it was just…”

He looked at me sharply, for a moment, before his face softened and he smiled.

“I understand full well. I know how you are. Frankly, I am surprised that this was the first time that you forgot everything around you since we’ve come together.”

He did? That was good. I could not really understand my feelings in the matter. I felt relieved, sure, but there were some other emotions in there that I simply could not place. The only thing I could say about them was that they were not negative.

“You think so? But… I should have at least notified you. Even if the thing I was working on was so…”

He placed a finger on my mouth.

“Stop right there, Kitten. I know you. If you are alert enough to even notice that time was moving forward, you will come to our evenings. And if it is so captivating that you do not even notice the time, you are so invested that you won’t think about calling me. And to ease your mind, Warden informed me.”

“Warden did what?”

“Warden called me and told me that you were fully immersed in some scientific work.”

Well, I was, but if Warden was smart enough to think about that…

“If she called you, why did she not remind me of the time?”

The ever-present VI naturally used that moment to enter the discussion.

“I did. You were so absorbed in the problem that you did not notice it. You apparently did not even realize that you spent nearly six virtual months without talking to anything, including me. You completely ignored my attempts to communicate.”

Wait, what? I did what? But… ok the problem was irksome, and I really wanted to know the answer but… when was the last time I went into a problem so deep?

Ben seemed to read my confusion quite well.

“Kitten, think about it. This was not just a nice problem to spend your time solving. It was something that you actually wanted to know. It was something you needed to figure out for your peace of mind. I bet the last time that happened was when you figured out the Seeberger equation in the first place.”

“No, not really. I managed to solve the Seeberger equation in around three months, and I was fully aware of how long it took.”

Ben just shrugged.

“Then maybe it was something that connected to you. What exactly were you figuring out?”

“Well, you know how I was studying gravitics for the last few months? Did you know that nobody actually knows how the grav coils work? I mean, absolutely nobody has any clue why the grav coils bend gravity.”

He frowned.

“That can’t be right. We’ve been using those things for 150 years. There are thousands of them. Surely somebody knows how they work.”

I sighed.

“Yes, and no. No, until yesterday, nobody knew how they work. Yes, now I know how they work.

And that was the frustrating part. They shouldn’t. No three-dimensional structure can bend gravity.”

His eyes widened, and he took a deep breath. Suddenly, two overstuffed chairs appeared, one behind each of us and he sat down.

“You are serious, are you?”

I sat down as well and nodded.

“Are you sure you did not make a mistake? Don’t get me wrong, I believe you and I believe in you, but the fact is, the grav coils exist, and they work.”

I snorted mirthlessly.

“And now you see my problem. That was the point where I moved into full compression. I repeated the complete work on the Equation two times. And always came to the same conclusion. No three-dimensional structure can bend gravity. It is simply not possible.”

He shook his head.

“But the grav coils exist, and they work.”

“Yes, I know. That was the point where I decided to look at the problem from another perspective and looked at how the grav-coils could bend gravity anyway. And the result is disturbing.

First, the alloy the grav-coils are made from naturally distorts into the fourth dimension. In that regard, the grav-coils are no three-dimensional structures.

Second, the grav-coils we have are hideously ineffective. Yes, they generate the quantum field that bends gravity. But they also generate around two dozen other quantum fields.”

“Wait a moment, go back a bit. The alloy creates four-dimensional things? How the fuck is that possible?”

“It is… you know, let’s leave it by it’s complicated, take my word for it. You don’t want to know.”

His eyes widened again.

“That complicated? Fuck! But ok, so you found out that the alloy makes 4D structures, and then what?”

I blew out some air.

“Then I looked into how to make 4D structures. On purpose, not by accident. And the answer is even more complicated than how the alloy makes them.”

“But you figured it out. And now?”

“Yup figured it out. I just need some complicated, four-dimensional construct to generate the specific quantum field. Easy peasy.”

“So, you need 4D stuff to make 4D stuff? That is… unfortunate. So, all that work for nothing then?”

I had to smile.

“Not quite. Remember, there is another way to make 4D stuff. The Kobashigawa alloy does it. Not perfectly, and it will most likely be horrendously inefficient, but it will be enough to let me bootstrap the whole operation.”

He leaned back in his seat.

“You mean you are nearly at the point where you will do to the grav coils what you have done to communication? With the Q-links?”

I shrugged.

“I think so. I mean, the alloy is… not the best suited for gravity manipulation, and somewhere around 99.99% of the energy is wasted in other quantum fields. Maybe more. So yes, if I can get it to work, it will be quite a bit stronger than what current grav-coils can do.”

“And the dangers?”

He leaned forward while he said that. I on the other hand recoiled a bit.

“Dangers? What dangers are you talking about?”

He smiled mildly.

“And that, my dear Vivian, is why I mentioned that point right now. You have not thought a second about dangers, have you? So, tell me, what are the potential dangers if this new invention gets out into the wild? And how can you mitigate them?”

I had to frown. “How should I know what the dangers are? I have not even made the invention yet.”

He sighed.

“Kitten, you are the inventor. It is your job to think about what can go wrong. Or how your invention can be abused. Sure, nobody really expects you to have all the answers. But you should at least think about the more obvious dangers.

Tell me, did you approach the security of the jacks the same way? Or did you put in the effort and make them safe?”

“Of course they are safe. At least as safe as I can make them. You know that. You have one of the more secure versions, and I told you how and why.”

He nodded and smiled.

“Exactly, but on the other hand, you did not even consider how the Q-links would endanger all of us. Or the replicators. That has to change. You have to start thinking about those things even in projects where the dangers are not so apparent to you as they are in cybersecurity.”

He spread his arms to his sides.

“So please, do me the favor and think about the dangers before you throw it out in the world this time.

So, now, if you manage to get grav-coils that are 10 times stronger, or 100 times, what can go wrong? And how can those coils be used to harm?”

I sat there for a moment, thinking about what he had said.

“Ok, what can go wrong? Essentially that the controls are not fine enough, not granular enough. It makes a difference if you increase Earth’s gravity by 100% or by 500%. Or even 1000%. Most people would be seriously injured by six g, while 11 g will kill most of us.

Intentionally harming, well, there is of course using the coils to accelerate something. But that is nothing new. Every grav ship today can reach low relativistic speeds if the navigator is somewhat skilled. The new coils would just make that a bit easier. It is on the manufacturers of the control systems to prevent that.

Otherwise… I think the worst possibility is that it can make a gravity pulse weapon that is 100 times stronger. That translates to 100 times the radius. Or one million times the volume. Considering that today’s GPWs have a radius of around 200m, that would be 20,000m instead. Or 20km. Roughly comparable with a 75Mt nuke.

I see no other way to abuse it. At least nothing that people could do today without it already.”

“I see. So the only new danger is that it would make gravity weapons as dangerous as other WMDs. That is… well acceptable I think. One more way to kill us all does not make that much of a difference. You know of course that you will have to be careful about the control systems though.”

“Yes, of course.” I managed, barely, to avoid rolling my eyes at his last sentence.

“Warden, I count on you to actually make her do it.”

This time I did roll my eyes, while Warden answered.

“Of course, Mr. Walker. It will protect her.”

“Thank you. Now, you best log out and go to bed.”

“Can’t do. I have the meeting with Michael soon.”

Ben’s smile became a bit nasty.

“I will take care of that. Enki will survive one week without this meeting. And you, young lady, are exhausted. Yes, I know you don’t feel anything of it, but trust me, it is visible, even here in cyberspace. You need to recharge your grey matter. So say good night and then go to sleep.”

I sighed.

“Ok, fine. But if Michael is angry it’s on your head.”

“Leave my son to me. I know him a bit longer than you do.”

He stood up, pulled me up as well, and gave me a scorching kiss.

“Now, sleep well. We will see us tomorrow.”

And he vanished.